We left the tavern shortly after Billy walked out. The moon is still basically full which made the trip up the winding path simple. It’s just the tension in the air was stifling. Zijde seemed angry yet… excited? And Bheki was attempting his typical stoic stare, but signs of worry slipped through the cracks. Most of it was directed at me. Just... it was more like he was worried about what I was going to see than me fucking up.

As we get to the top of the hill Zijde turns to us, “Alright, Bheki go around the back to catch him if he runs. He won’t be able to see you as easily. Utah, you come with me. Don’t worry about hurting him, but do not kill him. This bastard deserves worse than a quick death.”

Ok, so that sounded bad enough, but the look of worry on Bheki’s face is very off putting. Bheki simply nods as he makes his way around back. Zijde looks at me with a reassuring smile.

“Well, we get to take another sick bastard doing us wrong out of this world. Are you ready?”

I simply nod my head. He leads the way as we sneak into the cemetery. The gravestones here were a mixture of fairly new, to as old as the city itself. Although, for every marked grave there were five unmarked ones. The cemetery is probably the size of a square football field and about halfway across it we start to hear the scraping of a shovel. We are moving at a snail’s pace to not scare our target, and this makes the entire thing much more nerve wracking.

The we see a lantern illuminating the surrounding headstones at the back corner. Once we get about twenty feet away I see the same creepy man shoveling what looks to be freshly overturned dirt. About that time Zijde stands up, strolling confidently towards the man.

“Hello there, fancy meeting someone else enjoying a midnight stroll! In a graveyard no less! The same graveyard our dear friend Duncan is to be buried in, tomorrow.”

The man spins around with flintlock pistol and fires at Zijde. The shot goes wide to his right. Zijde doesn’t flinch in the slightest as the ball slams into a headstone sending rocks everywhere. Then the guy chunks his pistol at Zijde and starts to flee. Zijde steps to the side dodging the pistol, and we both chase after him. Until I see Bheki stepping out of the darkness and clotheslining him hard. He lands on his head like a kid that didn’t follow through with a backflip, and the popping of his spine isn’t a great sign for him.

We get up to him and check if he’s alive. He is, but he is quite unconscious. Zijde tells me to pick him up, and we make our way to the other side of the church. Once we get there we both look to Zijde on how to proceed.

“Alright, Bheki shave his head, and Utah remove his teeth.”

I’m thinking, ‘Ok yeah, toothless and a really bad haircut, that’ll be a good message for this guy.’ But one thing though…

“Shouldn’t he be awake for this Captain?”

Zijde gives me a very dark grin, “No, this part is negligible in the grand scheme of his punishment.”

Fuck…

Zijde walks off and I turn to Bheki. He still has a worried look on his face he pulls his knife out. He grabs him by the head and roughly starts shaving his head. So roughly in fact he seems to be getting as much scalp as hair…

“So, I’ve never pulled anyone’s teeth. Any tips?”

He doesn’t even bother to look up, “Just knock them out. Doesn’t really matter, just make sure none of them are whole and he doesn’t swallow any. Beside for that it doesn’t matter.”

Bheki is exuding an air of defeat around him. It feels like he has a huge weight that is crushing the unbearably self assured man I first met.

“Oh, well… ok. You done?”

“Yea, you go ahead. There are tools in that shed. Also, take this. I can tell you haven't done this. You’ll need it.” he fishes out a fairly large flask out of his pocket and hands it to me. I take a swig without hesitation. I immediately can tell it’s strong rum with how it burns going down. I hand him it back as I make my way to the shed.

The shed was a small lean to with a fenced in area connected to it. As I walk inside I see a wall with about a dozen tools. There are a couple hammers, rudimentary pliers, and saws… but the castration tongs and winches give me pause. Unless you have some kind of animal these don’t serve much of a purpose. The dark red rust on them doesn’t reassure me at all.

I decide the smallest hammer and the pliers would probably work the best. I turn to leave, but as I make my way back I hear some rustling and several deep grunts coming from the shed. Oh thank god, he just has pigs. That’s what the tongs were for. Barrows, or castrated hogs, taste much better and are way easier to handle than a big, aggressive boar.

I walk up on Bheki hogtying the sick fuck that was going to take Duncan’s body and do God knows what to it. I give him a questioning look as he finishes.

“He’s going to wake up at some point. You’ll appreciate him not being able to run from you. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll go see how the Captain is doing.”

He turns and walks off leaving me my task. I flip him over and open his mouth.

“Well, this shouldn’t be too hard. Most of these it’d be a stretch to call teeth.”

The majority of his front teeth were missing, and his molars were mostly rotten. I start by rolling him on his side and putting a stick in the back of his mouth. I take the smallest hammer and I strike the first intact incisor I see. It felt like pulling your tooth out as a kid with floss and a doors knob… besides for the surprising amount of blood followed it. I tried to just shake his head to get the tooth out, but the lack of hair and blood from the haphazard close-cut makes it impossible. His head just keeps slipping out of my hands. I reach my fingers into his mouth to fish the tooth out. I am thankful for the stick in the back of his mouth so I’m not risking him biting my finger with his nasty ass teeth.

His next three front teeth come out in much the same fashion… other than the gratuitous amount of blood that comes with it. The same blood that starts the all to fucking familiar euphoria associated with it. I fucking hate it, I am sitting here knocking out rotten ass teeth from the sick fuck that was going to rape a fifteen year olds dead body… the very same death I hastened by pulling out a piece of metal from a fucking mast. I mean… who the fuck is unlucky enough to die from some bullshit like that. Especially when I sit here alive after breaking over half my body to pieces from a fucking motorcycle wreck. I try to comfort myself with the knowledge he was an NPC from a game, but that just makes me feel that much worse...

Stop Utah, fucking stop. You have a job to do. A job that you need to finish. I use the light from the lantern to see which teeth I have left. I see three molars and and a couple pre-molars left. I grab the pliers and start gripping the healthiest teeth tightly as I jerk sideways pulling them out surprisingly easy.

Actually, the whole thing is much easier than I expected it to be. Movies portray this to be pretty difficult. Like teeth are firmly cemented into the mouth… well I guess they might be if said person wasn’t riddled with gum disease.

Before I could get over my disgust of this mans dental/life choices he jerks awakes.

He starts freaking out about what is going on. He starts asking questions with a crazy lisp without most of his teeth, “What? What the fuck?”

I come down hard with my elbow. I feel his nose shatter beneath my blow. He starts really freaking out, rolling around and trying to spit the stick out of his mouth.

Know that he's awake I decide to vent a little frustration, “So, you like dead bodies huh? You like dead little boys? I just want you to know that everything that happens to you is your doing. You chose this for yourself you sick fuck.”

He finally spits the stick out, but it doesn't help his speech much, “What? I don’t know what you are talking about?”

I come down with my elbow against his solar plexus this time. He starts rolling around trying to catch his breath between me knocking the air out of him and him choking on his on blood.

“So, you’re gonna keep trying to weasel your way out of this huh? You and I both know you don’t deserve to live, but hey I want you to struggle. It’s no fun extinguishing evil if it doesn’t have a spark of life to it.”

I guess that changed his approach, “I didn’t even touch him. He’s still in the fucking ground!”

I lean down to whisper in his ear, “Hahaha, he’s not in the ground. You’re gonna die tonight for digging in an empty grave bitch.”

He starts to say something but I shove a stick back in his mouth. I’m pretty sure we aren’t gonna kill him, but I’m now more sure he doesn’t know that now. I use the light from the lantern to pull the last two things that could be called teeth and gather them up. All the while he is grunting and trying to spit the stick out of his mouth. I slam my fist into his already broken nose to shut him up. After that I just hear some whimpers and moans as I walk towards Zijde and Bheki.

“Hey Cap’n, I finished.”

He turns to me with a reassuring smile, “Good deal my boy, thank you. How’s our guest doing?”

“Well, he doesn’t have anything that resembles a tooth in his head… although he didn’t have many to begin with.”

“Good, I suppose it’s time to bring tonight to the end. Hand me the teeth dear boy.”

He pockets the teeth, and we head back to our ‘guest’. He’s struggling furiously against his bindings but freezes as he notices us walking up.

Zijde squats down besides him and whispers something to him. He starts struggling with everything he has against his bindings but guess what? Pirates are really good with knots. Zijde turns to us, “Alright men, grab him up and carry him over.”

Bheki gets his feet and grab him around his waist and we carry him on our shoulders to the fenced in area beside the pen… of pigs.

I guess he is going to die after all.

As he’s pleading for his life Zijde motions for us to stop, “Hold him there boys.” I hear Zijde pull out a knife. He cuts the binding for his feet and the i hear what sounds like a knife through flesh, “Alright, throw him in.”

He lands in the mud and not a second later I hear the pigs make their way to him. I assumed Zijde cut an artery to kill him. Killing him might be a little overboard, but hey, he was gonna dig up a 15 year old… Anyways, after about 30 seconds I realize not only had he cut the rope… but after I see him get to his feet only to fall on his face I realize his achilles tendons had been severed.

At first the pigs are slightly cautious, but then he spits the stick out and screams. This sends the pigs into a frenzy. It’s kinda like this isn’t their first rodeo. I see him feebly try to fight off the first couple hogs, but there are at least twenty of them. He starts to scream louder as I hear the hog’s jaws start to snap and tear through his flesh and bones. Then the screams give way to human and hog grunts. Then I hear him just moaning… then him gurgling and the squelching of hog hooves in mud… then all I hear is hogs devouring a human. I turn around to see Bheki looking away, and to my horror, a faint smile on Zijde’s face.

Notification Skill Level Rank Mental Fortitude 25-->26 1