The tale of two Villainous Skulls

Chapter One: Making Friends

While cruising the seas on my own I happened upon a marooned pirate guarding some booty on Crook’s Hollow. From a distance I could see the glow from a villainous skull which he’d tried to hide behind a couple of chests and a gun power barrel … wait a gun powder barrel!

I lined up a shot and was ready to pull the trigger; this was going to be easy, too easy. I took my finger of the trigger and decided to engage. Turned out his crew had lost their ship and were on their way back to collect their loot. I was about to tell him his mistake and the position he’d put himself in with the gun powder barrel but some skellies showed up and sent him to the ferry.

I did a quick scout of the horizon spotting two galleons and a sloop. Not knowing which galleon was his and a sloop closing in on the island I decided to hide his villainous skull. If I’d had the time I would’ve moved it all but with the sloop arriving at the island and a galleon fast approaching I jumped on my ship and took off.

I hid the skull on a nearby island and returned to Crook’s Hollow. The marooned pirate had returned with his crew and understandably were a bit hostile, their villainous skull was missing. After a short volley a cannonballs I managed to make contact and a member of the crew boarded my sloop. Now I was thinking, if these guys are jerks then I’ll just return to the skull and cash it in myself.

Thankfully jerks they were not. So I sailed over to Barnacle Cay where I’d hid the skull for them to retrieve. On arriving at the island we noticed the sloop had followed us over. I slipped the skull onto their ship without the other sloop noticing. We had a few drinks, played music and partook in some shenanigans while I explained what I did. If I hadn’t moved the skull surely the other sloop would have taken it as it was visible from afar due to the glow and it being at night.

In the far distance a skull appeared in the sky and as this crew had yet to tackle a skellie fort we agreed to team up to take it down. On route we cleared out a shipwreck and cashed in all our booty at Sanctuary Outpost.

We worked as one to clear the waves and vanquished the skeleton captain. I let them have the privilege of unlocking the door and we agreed to just grab whatever we could instead of wasting time divvying up the loot. Like all first timers they were distracted by the skeleton chest while I swooped on the fortress skull. It was clear they didn’t know the value of the items. After I’d grabbed a few high value items I decided to let them have a couple too.

We sailed back to Sanctuary Outpost to cash in our haul and celebrate with a few tankards of Grog. It was now I decided to tell them my jerk move, swiping the skull along with the other high value items. They didn’t care and were just happy to have completed the raid learning some tips along the way. After a few more grogs and much laughter they welcomed me to their crew before heading off on their next voyage.

Chapter Two: Payback

Still buzzing from our Skellie Fort victory I helped my new crew resupply their, our ship before heading out on our next voyage. We accepted a contract from the Gold Hoarders and made our way to our first destination, Sunken Grove. As we loaded our 2 Marauders chests on board a sloop pulled up alongside our galleon. They seemed friendly enough and Capt. Fluffmuffin (can’t remember his name but sounded like this) boarded our ship and joined us in a drink & some dancing. Little did we know, his crewmate had snuck aboard and pinched one of our chests. By the time we realised their sloop was well gone and nothing we could do about it.

We didn’t dwell on our loss for long and set off to our next destination. Our voyage was full of shenanigans, laughter and lots of treasure. The (in game) days past rather quickly and our gold grew just as fast. We soon found ourselves heading towards a familiar island, Crook’s Hollow. As we approached the island we reminisced on how we first met, not knowing this stop would once again give us another memorable moment.

As we searched the island for our next dig spot we came across a sloop docked on the far side of the island. We made contact and the crew were happy for use to join them for a drink aboard their ship. While two of use downed some grog with the sloop crew the other two located our treasure and returned it to our ship.

We let them know we’d finished collecting our booty from the island and were heading off to our next destination. As my crewmate ran back to our ship I advised I’d take the longer route along the beach in case there was something washed up along the shore. The sloop crew also headed off into the island in search of their treasure.

About half way down the beach I doubled back to the sloop. During my drunken state I’d stumbled to their lower deck and noticed I nice glow hidden in the corner. I’d directed my crew to sail along the south of the island as they set sail away from Crook’s Hollow. As they brought the ship around I boarded the sloop, grabbed the Villainous Skull and swam out to meet my ship. As it sailed past I grabbed the ladder and placed the skull in the captain’s cabin.

One of my crew seen me run into the cabin and asked what I had. I asked if any of my crew recognised the names of the sloop crew, but they didn’t jog anyone’s memory. “Well lucky for you guys I recognised one, Capt. Fluffmuffin.” Yes it was the same crew who relieved us of a Marauders Chest way back at the start of our voyage. I decided to return the favour by relieving them of something far more valuable.

As we sailed to Plunder Outpost to end our voyage and cash in our haul the sea turned black. Oh great, the Kraken! But by now we were a well-oiled machined and dealt with the kraken with ease. Soon we were celebrating in the Drowned Rat Tavern and looking back at how this epic voyage begun and how it could so easily not have happened.

From a chance meeting at Crook’s Hollow we went on an amazing adventure; we lined our pockets with loads of gold, defeated a Skellie Captain at a Fort, got revenge on a sneaky sloop, took down the kraken and shared lots of laughter along the way.