LazyWizard
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Ch 70 Phase 2 Part 1
🕑 Added 2024-09-01 14:11:35 +0000 UTC"W-What?! What's all this ruckus about?!!" asked the disoriented pirate Rake as he woke up with a start and blearily looked around at the sudden commotion around him originating from all the pirates who were lying around him and sleeping just a few seconds but were now looking at something in the distance.
"I asked what the fuck is happening?!" he barked irritatedly at a nearby pirate when he didn't hear any answers while his hands automatically began searching for his Cutlass that he seemed to remember tossing somewhere nearby during last night's revelry.
'Ugh! Damn! This headache!'
Last night had been the hardest Rake had ever partied in his whole life. The Advisor, an aide of the pirate king, had decided to be generous, he had opened up the coffers and distributed liquor freely amongst all the pirates. For what reasons, they didn't know...
Some said that he did it because the alcohol was about to go bad(which he didn't think was possible,) while others said that he wanted them to have one last party to raise their morale before they left the sea surrounding the free cities for a few years to hunt in the waters surrounding the Slaver's bay to hide from Braavos's eyes for a while.
But in the end, no matter the reason, all he and the other pirates cared about was that there was more liquor to go around than any of them had ever seen in their lives and every single pirate took advantage of it by drinking to their absolute limit and some... had gone beyond that, they had puked their guts out and then started anew... so, all in all, it was a very fun party, but now... his head was aching so much and his surrounding were looking so wobbly that he almost began regretting his decision.
"A-A pirate from a nearby campsite came running into the camp shouting at the top of his lungs that some sort of invaders have attacked their camp..." replied the pirate as he finally answered Rake's question while looking towards a gathering near the campfire in the middle.
"What?! H-How? Who? Who is attacking us?!" he asked as he finally got hold of his weapon and began to try and look in the surroundings to see if he could catch anything but in this darkness of the night, only faintly lit by the moon above and a few of the small fires that were still burning, he couldn't see very far "Is it the Braavos?" he asked trying to keep the fear from his voice.
"I-I don't know..." the pirate replied with a shrug making Rake unconsciously grit his teeth.
"Where is that pirate, then?"
"There!" the man immediately pointed at the place fifteen meters away in the middle of the camp where more than a few dozen pirates had gathered in a circle to surround the pirate who had been the cause of the commotion.
Rake nodded and after taking a few moments to get his bearings he immediately made his way towards the gathering, "Let me through, Fuckers!!" he growled while pushing anyone in the way and about 50 steps later he reached the centre of the crowd of pirates where a panicked looking man, with eyes wide in horror, was trying to explain something to a bunch of confused, half-drunk, irritated pirates.
"You! What did you see of the attackers? Who were they? How many were there? Did they look Braavosi?"
"N-No! Not the Braavosi, I think... but it was too dark to be sure," The man replied while shaking his head, he was sweating from head to toe showing that he had run all the way from his camp without a single stop, "And while I can't be sure how many they were but they shouldn't be more than 30 men..."
Rake had a frown on his face as he digested the information. He frankly didn't know what to do with it as he had never been much of a thinker, that had been his captain's job but he was out there in the castle along with the others. This meant that he, as a close friend of the captain, had to be the one to give orders to the pirates here to solve this situation.
"Rake, I think they are probably just a few of the idiots from the nearby islands once again," said a 30-something-year-old man who was well-known amongst the pirates as being a kiss-ass, "They must have heard about how our captain looted that Braavosi fleet and they probably got greedy and decided to hit one of our camps to see if they get lucky. I am sure that they are already running away by now after hitting the camp... so we need to move now if we want to catch them all..."
"But what if they are the Braavosi?" nervously asked one of the newer pirates who had only joined them a few months ago, "He did say that he wasn't sure..."
"No, that can't be right. If it was Braavos who was attacking, they wouldn't have done it in the middle of the night, no, they would have wanted an audience to send a message and besides if their warships left Braavos for some reason, our captain would have gotten the news long ago. So no, I don't think it is Braavos..."
'Hmm, he must be right about that,' Rake thought while nodding to himself before he turned to the man, "Very well, Lark. I want you to gather fifty men and go find those fuckers wherever they are and kill them. If you do a good job, I'll be sure to speak to the captain and get you a good reward for it."
"Aye, I'll see to it right away," Lark replied excitedly and then immediately began gathering the pirates from among those who were awake, most of them were reluctant, not wanting to do a job in the middle of the night if the captain wasn't the one ordering, but Lark was a smart man and knew how these pirates think so he easily managed to entice them with some simple promises.
So before long, a group of fifty men left the camp with exuberant smiles on their faces, eager to get to those ambushers and kill some easy prey to make a name for themselves.
"Um, Rake, shouldn't we alert the castle about the attack," said the nervous cowardly pirate once again, "Because I don't think they would have heard the commotion all the way from here..."
"Nah! Don't bother," Rake waved the pirate's concern away, "They probably had some party of their own last night and I don't want to be the one to ruin the captain's sleep and take on his anger."
"But—"
"Argh! Forget about it. I'll tell them in the morning." he interrupted before turning and shouting towards other pirates, "And somebody lights up those bloody fires!! I can't see shit out here..."
It was a human instinct to run away from the darkness of the night and seek out the light, so seeing that more than half the pirates were still waking up from their drunken sleep, the pirate's thought of wanting them to light a fire, so as to not let any of the idiots fall on their own sword and die, was not a bad one...
But sadly for him, this idea would be the undoing of all the pirates surrounding him... because in this place on this night, he wasn't the only one who would find it easier to see with some light.
The moment one of the pirates lit up the massive campfires in the middle of the settlement, the surroundings abruptly brightened and at that exact moment, the predators hiding in the dark struck at the bumbling pirates with unerring accuracy.
The first casualty of the battle in this chaotic gathering of about 700 pirates (now 650) turned out to be a pirate who died soundlessly in his sleep with a single arrow in his throat, stunning the few pirates who were near him but before they could do more than blink the next arrow took out another pirate.
The pirates finally woke up from their stupor and screamed noisily as they began scrambling around to hide or find where the arrows were coming from.
"A-Attack!! We're being attacked!!" some hollered while running around like headless chickens.
"Where the fuck did that arrow come from?!!" others cried angrily swinging the weapons in their hands, their eyes furiously scanning the surroundings.
"Find cover! Hide!!"
"No! Find the bloody attacker! and Kill him!!"
"I-I am running away!!"
The pirates responded to the attack in the absolute worst possible way... by panicking.
