A pirate doesn’t have to be a villain. They just have to be able to make a name for themselves that makes others tremble. Creating a legend is one part guts and five parts rumor. A legendary pirate just has to appear, and their opponent will hand over their goods without even fighting back.

~Manannan, God of the Sea & Weather

“We have eliminated all those who have failed to reach this point,” that mysterious voice said once more.

Everyone looked toward the barrier, and Crow felt himself involuntarily step back. Inside the town, those ancient beings stepped forth and slaughtered the contenders. It was a massacre unlike anything he’d ever witnessed before. Some tried to flee. Others were crushing their tokens. Still, it left him with a cold sweat, and he wasn’t the only one that glanced around nervously.

“Those that remain… your next trial is the Mystery of the Islands. This will test your intelligence and wisdom, so choose your actions wisely. Besides DarkVision, you now have a Mermaid’s Kiss. The kiss allows you to breathe underwater. However, protect your boat. You’ll never make it if you have to swim…” The mysterious voice faded away ominously.

Crow and the others were about to rush toward the boats, but Mara stopped them. The mass exodus flowed past them, and some were already at least a kilometer beyond the entrance. Their sails weren’t all that effective, but those with enough strength rowed furiously and gained a lot of speed.

“We wait,” Mara told her group. “This is not a speed trial, and rushing with the masses is a recipe for slaughter. Look over at the end of that pier. Every time a boat leaves, another appears, so we don’t have to worry about not getting a boat.”

Otto stretched his massive arms and yawned while Song Xue sat down to meditate. It was at least an hour before the crowd finally thinned. There wasn’t an inordinate number of people, but the channel to leave the cave was small, so there was a jam on the water. The boats packed in so tightly that Crow felt he could have jumped across them to exit the cave faster. A few people that knew Mara and saw what she was doing also waited. It was unknown if they did so because of the strategy or because they preferred to follow the path Mara forged.

Another thirty minutes went by…

“Alright, we can go now,” Mara walked toward the end of the pier, and the others followed. As soon as they settled into the boat, Mara looked over at Otto. “Paddle, I want you to overtake that boat out there.”

Otto turned toward and smiled before grabbing the massive oars. Typically, the boats needed two people to row, but Otto could do it all independently with his size and muscle mass. Crow nearly lost his seat when they started moving, and the little sailboat cut through the water like a blade through flesh.

“What are you doing?” Crow asked, curious why they were going near other contestants. Mara just smiled as if it was a stupid question. He remembered what they discussed previously and suddenly felt apprehensive.

“Hello, the boat!” Mara called out.

“Scram,” a brown-haired boy with a crooked nose shouted back.

“I’m…” Mara stopped and turned her crew and whispered, “What’s my pirate name?”

“P-pirate? What?” Crow asked. Is this what she meant by taking all their goods?

She snapped her fingers at him. “Focus, I need a name that strikes fear in people.”

“How about Mara?” Crow growled.

“This mommy is going to toy with you until you die if you don’t give me a name.”

Crow swallowed hard, wondering what this crazy woman was up to now.

“Pirate Mommy,” Song Xue said.

“…” Crow silently looked at Otto, who just shrugged with a big smile.

Mara grinned and turned back to the other boat. “I’m Pirate Mommy, now give us all your stuff, or we’ll sink your boat.”

“Hmph, you don’t scare us. He’s a cripple, the big one is a dummy, and that little foreigner shouldn’t have joined this competition. And you… you are just an overbearing beauty with amazing legs—no, I mean… oh gods!” The moment he said legs, the four other people in the boat with him saw Mara’s grin freeze and her eyes go cold.

“Wait-wait, take our stuff,” they all shouted and started tossing their gear and packs at Crow and crew.

They were frantic now, and Crow couldn’t stop himself from looking at Mara’s legs. “Make one comment, and you’ll be swimming too,” she said so softly out of the corner of her mouth that Crow quickly looked up, but his eyes reached her rear end, and he had to turn away and look out over the water. He could hear Song Xue chuckling softly near him.

“Good, you know what is right!” Mara said.

“Wait!” Song Xue complained, and Mara turned to look at her. “Why are they still wearing clothes? Send those over too!”

“…” Mara was speechless.

“…” Crow was speechless.

“…” The other boat couldn’t utter a word.

“Bahahaha!” Otto started laughing, and Mara wrapped an arm around Song Xue’s shoulders. “Do as Pirate Sis says, toss over your clothes. Uh… you can keep your undergarments.”

Now the other boat was cursing up a storm, but soon the four boys and one girl stripped down to their underclothes and tossed them over. Crow scratched his head and laughed. No, he was doing more than that. He was thanking his lucky stars that he was on the side of these crazy women.

Otto was thoroughly enjoying himself. Even started rowing harder to catch up to other boats. Dozens of boats became victims, and now they were exploring the islands in their undergarments.

Everything they looted went to Crow to put in his Vortex Pin. Most of it turned to mist when he tried to add it, but a few items did transfer. At a quick glance, he assumed those were items those contenders found in this trial.

It didn’t take long for word to spread of their dastardly deeds. Song Xue had taken the time to stitch a skull onto their sail using their victim’s clothes so everyone could recognize them. Which actually created more mayhem than them just rowing up on other boats. Once the other boat saw the pirate skull, they all paled.

“Paddle faster! It’s Pirate Mommy!” Half the people on the boat dove overboard and scattered below the surface, not daring to come up. The other half rowed so furiously that Otto was forced to row faster to match their speed.

“Come back, Pirate Mommy has something she wants to say!” Mara yelled after the fleeing ship.

“Damn your mother! You just want to steal our loot. Damn your words, and damn you,” the crooked nose boy shouted back.

“Why are you slandering me? How dare you accuse Pirate Mommy of being a pirate!” Mara shouted back shamelessly, and the other party nearly puked blood in anger.

Crow couldn’t stop laughing, and Mara looked back at him, and her stern face cracked into a grin. Song Xue laid at the bottom of the boat laughing so hard she had to hold her sides and shut her eyes as the tears rolled out.

“See? This is much more fun. Let’s keep going.”

“You are ruthless,” Crow said, but he had to admit he was having fun.

“How about it? Did we get any good stuff yet?”

“I’m not sure. A few dozen items entered the dimensional space, but the rest just turned to smoke. I won’t know for sure until we leave, but I think anything found in this realm can be taken.”

“Then let’s scour these islands for loot,” Mara’s eyes twinkled with mischief, and Crow knew that the mayhem caused inside here was probably on a fraction of what those watching were experiencing.

The four reached the shore, and before Mara could beach the boat and hide it, Crow pulled it into his storage.

“It can even fit that?” Mara looked shocked for the first time since he’d met her.

“I didn’t put it in the Vortex Pin, just the ring. I didn’t want to risk it turning to mist and leaving us without a boat. Should we take the path?”

All of them stood before a wide path through the tropical forest. It was so straight that there was no way it formed naturally. As they stood there, another contender came running out of the woods in his underpants and immediately stopped when he saw Mara raising an eyebrow at him. The kid started shaking and stepped backward toward the the trees.

“Brain boy, did we rob him?” Mara asked.

“Yes, the third boat we looted, and please don’t call me that,” Crow sighed.

“This mommy has all the respect, see, this is how you should act,” Mara grinned while staring at Crow and pointing at the cowering boy.

Crow rolled his eyes at her antics but had to admit her style was pretty unique. Instead of commenting, he started up the trail and pulled out his bow. It had been some time since he’d hunted, and he rather enjoyed this humid climate. Too bad after traveling for a few kilometers, he didn’t even spot a single creature. A few contenders hid in the trees to avoid them, and Crow left them alone because they didn’t have any clothes on.

A short time later, the trees thinned, and a temple appeared, rising toward the sky. At a glance, Crow already calculated that there were precisely 999 steps. Crow led his people around the temple because something about the layout caught his eye. The seemingly random buildings that encircled the temple didn’t seem all that random the more he looked around. After circling the temple, he looked toward the pagoda at the top of the temple. Few a few minutes, he stood there in deep thought. Truthfully, he was trying to use his Sage’s Mind to picture the layout.

“What are you thinking?” Song Xue asked. Crow’s stance seemed calm, but she’d been around him long enough to know he was agitated.

“That we aren’t dragons.”

“Pfft,” Mara snorted.

“What mean?” Otto asked.

“Dragons are big, right? Much taller than us, and most likely would fly over to this place rather than ride those tiny boats. I think most of these people are missing the purpose of this location. If I’m not mistaken, this entire area is laid out in a circular shape. It is hard to see due to lack of maintenance, but I think we are standing on a rune. It could be a formation, but I sense nothing from it.”

“How can we tell?” Mara asked.

“Wait here. I’ll climb to the top and look around. It shouldn’t take me but a few seconds to memorize the layout. Otto, stay with the Pirate Sisters, kill anyone that messes with you.”

“Otto do.”

“Make it fast,” Mara said. “I don’t think the island is as empty as we think. I’m not sure why but we need to be off this island before nighttime.”

“Huh? Why is that?” Crow asked.

“Look at the murals,” Song Xue said, backing up what Mara said. “They all depict monsters appearing when the moon reaches its peak.”

Crow easily remembered all of them, and they weren’t wrong. He had put little thought into them because he was focused on the pattern. After reviewing the murals in his mind, Crow decisively ran for the stairs without looking back. He might lack a powerful Source, but his physical body and stamina were far beyond most kids his age. He never stopped his martial training since he was four years old. At the top, he jumped to grab the edge of the pagoda and pulled himself onto the roof. Once he stood at the highest height he could reach, he looked around and spun in a circle so he could scan the entire island.

Everyone else that came up didn’t look around the tropical forest. Instead, the contenders’ eyes instantly gravitated toward the next island. Crow only looked in that direction after memorizing the rune. The other island also had a temple peaking out of the forest. Still, something about their design caused him to focus on the aesthetics of the temples. Hopping down from the pagoda, he walked around it to see if he could spot any other clues he missed.

“Temple of Midnight…” Crow muttered, realizing the patterns across the archways were actually ancient text, but not from the Draoidh. He wasn’t even sure how he could read it but left that alone for the moment. “Six temples?” He suddenly said, but his thoughts were so random, he wasn’t sure why he thought that. Six felt right, but he had no concrete proof to back that up. An idea was forming at the tip of his mind, but it just wouldn’t dislodge itself, so Crow could only ignore it for now. But the more he saw, the more he was convinced they needed to be far away from this island before dark and raced back down the stairs.

Reaching the bottom, he saw a pile of goods around his three friends, and Song Xue was lounging on top of the small hill. So savage.

As soon as he reached them, he pulled all the goods into his Vortex Pin. At least the stuff that would transfer. Then they all jogged through the trees in the direction of the next island. Once they reached the shore, he tossed the boat into the water, and they all boarded. While Otto rowed and Mara pirated, Crow pulled out a scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal.

Soon he had multiple sketches drawn out until he found what he was sure was the correct rune. No matter how he turned it, he couldn’t recognize it, but he was positive it wasn’t wrong.

“What is that?” Mara asked.

Crow shrugged.

“That is a symbol for fire,” Song Xue said and turned it, so it was right side up according to her. “This symbol is like my people’s language, only different. It’s hard to explain all the quirks and variances, but that is definitely a symbol for fire.”

Crow was about to consult with Nin, but Song Xue managed to answer before the lazy dragon could. Thinking about Nin and how Mara and Xue’er seemed to be hitting it off, he couldn’t only groan internally. It felt like another calamity was hanging over his head.

***

“Elder? Why are there so many of these children running around naked?” A visitor asked. He found it a little funny but couldn’t figure out what was happening.

“I… this I don’t know.” The Duncan clan elder scanned the crowd of participants and noticed one of them waking up. “You! Boy, what is happening in there? Why is everyone running around without clothes?”

The boy in question was the hook-nosed kid that was Mara’s first victim. He stood up and faced the elder with an angry look on his face. “It’s that damned Mara Teonet and her friends. She claimed to be Pirate Mommy and is raiding everyone of their goods. Her Pirate Sis didn’t even let us keep the clothes on our backs. Because of them, I died to a sea creature, not even able to defend myself.”

Silence entered the arena. Everyone had started listening as soon as the elder asked the question. Once Mara was brought up, the entire crowd stopped murmuring to hear the whole story. What they heard left them stunned, and several eyes glanced at the screens. It wasn’t a few dozen—there were hundreds of kids running around without clothes.

“Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha!” The visitor who initially asked the question started to laugh and then tried to stop himself. In the end, he couldn’t help it. His laughter echoed through the entire arena, and many people joined him.

Some of the Druid clan elders looked indignant, but many of those from the Maddox clan couldn’t help but smirk. They knew that if Mara was involved, so were Crow and Otto. Those two boys created chaos just by existing. Now that they had something fascinating to watch, more and more people paid attention to the screens.

The hook-nosed kid sat down, all but forgotten.

“Damn that Pirate Mommy!” He growled under his breath.