This is an experimental Creative Write/Free write. I wrote this in the Hive.Pizza DiscordPizza Guild Discord while sharing my screen and asking for input/direction/whatever from the community. I think it will be an interesting way to construct a post and have no idea how this will turn out!
Art work was drawn live by the amazing @anikekirsten as we were writing! Thank you as always Anike, it wouldn't be the same without the sketches to help bring these tales to life!
Rules!
They are few:
Anyone else in the voice channel's input overrides mine- I will type and incorporate ideas and input as I do- ANYONE in voice can make me edit or whatever!
Pizza Tips for participants throughout the event.
Other than that this is a standard free writing format! So lets GOOOOOOO!
Captain Dirk Dirigible gazed out through the dreemport of his cabin at the misty interior of a cloud. He was daydreaming as he contemplated the harrowing events of his most recent brush with the law. Far below him on the deck of his schooner, his sister Portia was sailing to meet him. They had a rendezvous on the hitherto lost island of Calm.
It was a desolate place known only to buckaneers of both sea and sky (and of course the little blue monsters with red eyes that hid in the shadows and made the pirates especially wary as they conducted their illicit shenanigans upon the wind swept shore).
There were harrowing tales told by old sea dogs and aeronauts alike. Many a fine seaman had lost their mind simply by falling asleep while upon the sand. It was said that the monsters staring out from the shadows could invade a mans dreams and consume them as they slept. The victims were often found collapsed upon the sand playing single string banjos that they had apparently constructed from driftwood and seaweed or assorted flotsam and jetsam in the short time between wandering off and being discovered. No longer able to effectively communicate with their former crew, these poor souls were inevitably abandoned by their shipmates and left to console themselves with their music.
None could explain how these poor men and women had become so afflicted, no attack was ever witnessed and the monsters that lived on the island never appeared to leave the shadows.
Until the day that Captain Dirk Dirigible and Portia landed upon the sands to exchange news and supplies for their continued voyages across the Ecen Sea.
The Mustachiod Crabs scuttled away as the siblings stomped towards each other angrily and immediately began shouting.
"What were ye thinking ye poncey sky rat! Ye nearly got us caught!" Portia screamed as soon as they were within earshot of each other.
"ME! It was you and your freestyle breakdancing moves that drew the attention of the portmaster! We were lucky to be out of range before they rolled out their cannons!"
"I wouldn't have needed to break dance if you hadn't been flirtin' with the bar keep for a free pint"
"If you hadn't stolen the recipe that was mine by RIGHT I'd be cooking for the king right now! You sold our family recipe book, and look what it got you. A filthy dirigible that ye can barely fly!"
"Well at least I'm free in the clouds, and not stuck on the heaving ocean like you in that tub! If ye knew what else that book contained! Pineapple Spells! For Pineapple Pizza and things! It had the power to change the world for the worse!"
"Yes, and it also would have shown us how to save these poor souls on Calm! You know that the recipe's contained a map to the king of the Juju. We could have our old comrades back! All that's needed is 4 strands of his hair and we could save them all."
The two glared at each other as their respective crews mingled. They did not hate each other as the siblings did and despite the obvious rivalry between them there was a sort of begrudging camaraderie. The two crews had run many a successful heist together, and even angered the sea god Sitka, the goddess of the waves and survived to tell the tale. Of course for months after that fateful mission the gruff baritone of Captain Dirk had become the nasal whine of a British Fleet Admiral who had never before set foot on a ship each time he argued with Portia. Portia had been cursed much the same as he and each time she argued with her brother her voice took on the simpering tones of a court maiden. Thankfully the curse had worn off and the two were back to sounding like what they were. Squabbling pirate captains.
With the initial greetings and disputes over the two siblings shook hands. Both knew that they were better than the other and that they would never have survived the missions without them. Their superiority over each other was stifling. Both knew THEY would be the captain that would go down in history as having saved the lost souls of Calm Island. Of course, saving them was how it would look to everyone else, both Portia and Dirk knew it could hardly be considered saving them. Time aboard a black Galunty ship was hardly time at all. It was not the people that truly mattered anyway... it was the Dreem's.
The crews did not know it but they had come here specifically for information. Information that could only be found in the dreems of certain individuals that had been lost on the island. Specifically the dreems of Captain Silver F. Insomnia Esquire themself. They had ruled over both the wind and the waves a century earlier and had amassed such a fortune that nations bordering the Ecen Sea turned to them in times of hardship for loans. Her ships and wealth had never been found. At least no one knew that it had been discovered... yet. Both Dirk and Portia knew full well that Captain Insomnias ship had been scuttled off the coast of Calm Island, and upon their last visit they had found a lost soul that wore Captain Insomnias insignia on its underpants. It was unmistakeable. A Pizza, quartered with Chopsticks in the beak of a flying crow above a woman sleeping with her head tucked in a pair of underpants. No other pirates insignia could come close to such absurdity.
Unbeknownst to the crew they had planned the whole dreemheist in order to retrieve Captain Insomnias dreems without anyone else knowing. They fully intended to split the wealth between themselves.
Quickly a hunt was arranged to locate and capture the king of the juu juu bee's whose banjo strings would serve to awaken those whose dreems had been stolen. Hundreds of the monsters in the shadows were quickly rounded up and inspected for blueness. Those that were particularly vibrant were held separately to be compared to others of exceeding brightness. The bluest would of course be the Juu Juu Bee King.
Surprisingly not a single crew member was lost on the hunt. A fact that somewhat dismayed both Dirk and Portia, who had secretly hoped to thin their numbers in order to have less fierce competition for the wealth of Captain Insomnia once they had acquired it. With so many crewmen hunting, it took no time at all to locate the king himself. 4 hairs were plucked from his head for each of the crewman and they were instructed to each find a lost soul, string the driftwood banjo they would inevitably be clutching, and strum it in order to release them from their curse. Under no circumstances were they to release any individual that was dressed as a pirate or wearing pirate insignia. The captains would release them personally. All others were to be loaded onto the dirigible in order to be transported to the Galunty.
With trepidation the brother and sister set out in search of Captain Insomnia once more, freeing pirate after pirate as they did. They were accompanied by First Mate Quinton McSparrow, who quickly gathered the freed pirates, invited them to join the crew and instructed them to round up any other lost souls. The newly awakened staggered and tottered across the beach, and guided the unknowing victims to their fate. It seemed that Captain Insomnia was not on the beach, so the hunting party proceeded into the dense jungle and continued the search.
Dirk Dirigible hurried up what appeared to be a trail between the trees, and almost immediately stumbled upon the largest Mustachiod Crab he had ever seen. It was over 20 feet tall, and beneath its hulking carapace sat the lost soul of Captain Silver F. Insomnia. The thwang of their banjo could barely be heard over the sickening crunch and click of the crabs claws as it plucked shimmering dreem pie from the Captains head and stuffed it into its chelicera.
