Isle of Dreams

unfinished story

Isle of Dreams

unfinished story by crystalwizard and DeepSeek

Plot outline:

The ship is a merchant ship just barely scraping by.
They leave port, late and in the middle of the night. They hit a storm that they weren't expecting. They lose a couple hands over the side and run from a ghost ship. They are driven into a safe harbor of a mysterious island not on any of the sea charts. They disembark to find supplies. They discover a mysterious lost civilization full of beautiful people. They discover that the people are soul eaters. They escape from the island, but almost don't and run into another storm. They barely survive that storm and are driven into a safe harbor in the port they were originally making for...a day earlier than they left the first port. They deliver their cargo and get a bonus for early delivery but wonder about the island, decide not to say anything and go on with being a merchant ship.






The darkness was filled with fog and accompanied by a sickening swaying. The throbbing in my head made a nice counterpoint which I completely failed to appreciate. In response to the percussion resonating within my body, my stomach curled into an exceptional abstract,then voided its contents.

Unfortunately, my brain was sluggish and unpleasant liquid made its escape through both nostrils. I gagged, repeated the performance through a more acceptable opening and sneezed several times.

The swaying, accompanied by various familiar creaking sounds, intensified as I regained consciousness.

"Ooooo..." My groan echoed in my ears. I attempted to roll onto my side and immediately regretted the action which triggered a myriad of soundless explosions behind my eyelids.

"'Ad too much ta drink again, didn't 'cha Capin'?"

"Hush!" I commanded in what sounded like a death-rattle.

"Heh," came the unsympathetic response. "Tol' 'cha ta stay on board I did. Tol' 'cha ta stayoutta ta pub. Tol' 'cha."

"Yeah I know," I groaned. "Shuddup about it already!"

"It's half way through the afternoon," my current nemesis taunted. "Ya been sleepin' 'most the day. We's still in port too and should'a been gone hours ago."

"So why didn't you get us outta port?" I attempted to pry one eye open and was rewarded with piercing light lancing off the optic nerves. I squeezed both eyes shut and plastered my arm over them.

"'Cause half the crew's in the pokey. Y'all busted up the port perty good. I only 'ad enough ta get you outta hock."

"Marvelous," I muttered. "Get me something to drink."

"'Ain't you 'ad enough?"

"Water", I clarified with rising urgency. "Now. Before I spew again!"

Scuffling sounds reached my ears a few seconds later and a rough hand pulled my arm away from my face.

"'Ere, sit up 'n drink."

I forced myself to a less prone position and reached out hand. "Where's the water?"

"Open yer eyes Cap, it's right 'n front 'a ye."

I let out a string of curses, flailed unsuccessfully in the air with one hand and heaved my guts over the side of the bunk. A chuckle from the first mate rewarded my efforts which didn't help my temper. Tepid water cascading over the back of my head a moment later made it worse.

"Hey!" I sat bolt upright and gasped as skyrockets exploded in my brain. I clamped both hands over my eyes, dropped backwards onto the bunk and attempted to pass out. The first mate cackled with glee and upended a bucket of salt water over my face. I growled, forced myself to sit back up and glared at him.

"Git up!" He smacked my bunk with his open hand and snickered.

I growled at him, swung my legs over the side of the bunk and aimed a kick at the bucket. I missed. He chortled at me and hobbled out of the cabin. I glared at his retreating back, climbed from the bunk and stepped in the mess I'd previously made. My stomach reacted by twisting into a knot and attempting a repeat performance. Nothing came out, which hurt. The mate hadn't come back so I stumbled out onto desk and sought the first water barrel I could find and tried not to fall into it.

It took me almost an hour to recover and clean up but I managed somehow and wound up standing on the docks as the sun dipped toward the horizon. I needed a full crew and I had to have them before high tide. I debated bailing out the men who were in jail but funds were low so I rejected that idea and started scanning the boardwalk for sailors who might be in need of a job.

I found a few. Not what I really wanted but they all had hands, some of them had brains and they all had experience on the open sea. I hired six of them and got us underway.

-+-
The wind bit cold as we cleared the harbor, but the salt air was a brutal kind of mercy. It scoured the insides of my lungs and stripped some of the fog from my brain. Behind me, the six new hands moved with the cautious uncertainty of men who’d signed on with a captain who still stank of vomit and poor decisions.

Bran—my first mate and current bane of my existence—limped up beside me, his chuckling finally spent. “Two of ‘em can tie a knot. One might know a sheet from a shroud. The others… well, they’re warm bodies.”

“They’ll learn,” I grunted, my eyes on the horizon where the sky was beginning to bruise with coming night. “Or they’ll swim.”

The Sea Serpent was a stubborn old bitch of a brig, but she answered the helm willingly enough as we caught the offshore breeze. It was the one thing in my life that still made sense—the pull of the wheel, the creak of the timbers, the way a ship comes alive under your hands when she’s free of the land.

“We’re short on stores,” Bran mentioned, as if reading the darker currents of my thoughts. “And the coin’s lighter than a gull’s wishbone.”

I knew. I could still feel the ghost-weight of the purse I’d spent last night—on what, exactly, was still a blur of ale-soaked shouting and the satisfying crunch of a well-landed punch.

“We’ll make for the Leeward Cays,” I decided. “There’s clean water there, and we can trap crab and net fish if we have to.”

Bran grunted, which was as close as he got to approval. “Aye. And maybe we’ll find a merchantman fat with silk and spice, limping along without an escort.”

I shot him a look. He knew better than to voice that particular temptation aloud, especially with green ears all around us. My head might still be pounding, but I was still captain. And while I’d been known to liberate the occasional unguarded cargo from those who could afford the loss, I was no pirate. Not by title. Not yet.

The first of the new hands—a lanky, quiet man named Kael—approached cautiously. “Captain? The… the previous crew. They left their gear in the forecastle. Some of it’s in lockers.”

I nodded. “Distribute what’s usable. Burn the rest.”

He hesitated. “There’s a chest. Carved. Locked.”

A cold knot tightened in my gut, one that had nothing to do with the hangover. I hadn’t seen Joric—my former boatswain and a man I’d called friend—among the drunken faces in the port jail. He’d been with me at the pub. He’d been the one egging me on.

And he’d had a carved chest he was never without.

“Leave it,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “I’ll deal with it.”

As Kael moved off, Bran leaned closer, his voice a low rasp. “That’s Joric’s. If he ain’t in jail… where is he?”

The same question was curdling in my mind, a splinter of dread working its way deep. The fight at the pub hadn’t just been a brawl. It had started when a stranger in a too-fine cloak had slid into our booth and whispered a name—a name I hadn’t heard in years. A name that belonged to a woman I’d left buried in a port far from here.

Joric had gone pale. I’d thrown the first punch.

And now Joric was gone, and his chest was on my ship.

The Sea Serpent cut through the waves, carrying me away from one mess and straight toward another. The hangover was the least of my problems.