Hell Hath No Fury - Book One

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Everything that could have gone wrong that morning did go wrong. Xyra was sick, the meat stick from the night before did not sit well with her. With no one to hold Theo accountable in the morning, she was late to meet her first contact for leads. She recruited Cooker to join her on pirate business and Theo was surprised that Cooker agreed. Cooker hated that part of the job which is why she opted to not go for first mate. The first contact, the one she was late for, was not fond of Theo and Cooker and refused to deal with them if Xyra wasn't around. Her second contact had no good leads.

"If we go back with nothing, Xyra is going to throw us into the sea," Cooker pointed out.

"I am the captain. I do not fear Xyra," Theo said and they both laughed. "I fear Xyra just a little."

"She'll slash us so we bleed before she pushes us off the plank," Cooker described as they walked, "so the sea creatures can come and eat at our flesh as we slowly bleed out."

"She wouldn't do that. I feel as if she would torture us first. Pull out our teeth and make herself a crown before leaving us to die, toothless in the ocean," Theo responded.

They went back and forth, coming up with hypotheticals of how they would die if they returned empty-handed. They theorized that Xyra would make a side deal with the gods to forever curse them, skinning was mentioned, they also toyed with the idea of being burned alive. They were not serious, Xyra wasn't violent like that. She preferred emotional punishment like freezing them out.

Bavar, the next lead they were seeing, was sitting on a chair outside of his shop, smoking a pipe. When he saw them, he slowly got up. His large belly made it hard for him to maneuver up and down easily, "The Captain! In the flesh. My dear, this morning I received something perfect for you. Aren't you lucky."

"Jokuz has certainly blessed me," Theo said, referring to the Islander god of fortune and luck.

They followed the man inside and he handed Theo a paper. Theo handed it to Cooker, "What do you think?"

Cooker skimmed through the paper, reading some of it aloud, "45 crates, 30 barrels... Cargo is valued at 120 thousand gold... Final destination Gossem... The preferred route would be through the coastal passage... Harsh penalty if not delivered within three cycles... Total payment of 15 thousand gold upon delivery.''

"Gossem is on the way to Corinspe, perfect. What is the cargo?" Theo asked.

"Doesn't say," Cooker flipped the page over and examined it, "nothing there either. Bavar?"

"It's just a few different types of ugali," Bavar shrugged.

Theo shook her head, "We're not taking it."

"Theo, it's 15 thousand gold," Cooker looked stressed at Theo suggesting they pass up the opportunity.

"I don't transport ugali," Theo said firmly. It was a type of drug that was highly addictive. Theo had seen whole towns and families brought down because of it. The drug came in a few different forms that all had the same effect, a heavy sedative. It could be drunk, eaten, or inhaled.

"This client is very important. If you do this, they might have other jobs for you in the future. Things are tightening up with the reclassification coming around and these jobs are going to be harder to find. Better get yourself an in with those with influence," Bavar tried convincing Theo.

He had a point. Ports were closing, illegal activity was coming to a halt, and merchants were increasing precautions towards pirates to lose the least amount of money before the classifiers evaluated their worth. Leads and jobs were going to start getting harder to find. The merchants they raided to fill in whatever hole they had when no leads were also going to get harder and riskier to raid. It was her conscience versus what was best for the crew. 15 thousand could go a long way, which would put each woman's share at around 300 gold coins. If they took this job they would have made the same amount of money in two cycles as they did in ten cycles the length before.