I shot up in bed with a huge smile on my face. My hand went straight for the cheek where I had felt the precious impact. Actually, it had hurt a little but it was worth it. That's when I got smacked on my other cheek.

"Ow," I said still smiling.

"The first one was to wake you up and the second one was to say never send me away again," said Mae as she hovered in front of me. "I'm surprised you haven't gotten yourself killed again already."

"It be good t' see ye again, Mae. I be sorry fer what I dun," I said in pirate speak.

"Why are you talking like an idiot, Theodore?" Asked Mae.

"I was hoping that it would relieve the tension and make me feel better," I said.

"Did it?" She asked.

"No," I said bowing my head slightly. "I am sorry though. It isn't like you knew that I was going to scare that poor, traveling animal merchant to death. Right?"

"Of course not, Teddy. I don't know the future. I just want you to have one," she said flittering over and hugging my arm. It felt like there was a lot of emotion behind the hug that I didn't quite understand.

"Why is it that you care about me so much? If some random person sent me away I don't think I would've come back to them." I looked into the little fairy's face as I finished speaking and noticed that her eyes were welling up and she looked conflicted.

"You aren't some random person, Teddy." She paused for a moment before speaking again. "I am, or was, your grandmother."

"What?" I asked. It was the simplest of the twenty questions forming in my mind.

"On your father's side," she added. "He was such a special man."

"Grandma Cohen passed away when I was a baby. I hardly knew anything about her," I said still frantically trying to process this new information.

"I was there at the hospital when you were born, Teddy. After your parents, I was the first person to hold you. Also, you were hardly a baby when I died. You were a chunky little toddler," she said growing a little louder. I wasn't sure if she was more worked up at remembering me as a kid or if she was thinking about her death.

"I'm just supposed to believe all of this?" I asked feeling a little overwhelmed.

"I didn't tell you to upset you, Teddy. I'm trying to help you. The man in white told me I should wait to tell you until the time was right. I guess I picked the wrong time. I've wanted to tell you this whole time, but I didn't want to make you upset or confuse you," she said trying to calm me down.

"So he's just manipulating everything and everyone around me to get me to come to a certain conclusion or something?" I asked fuming at this point. "I'm trapped in a game that I don't understand almost at all, my dead grandma is selectively telling me information at the whim of some distant puppet master, and I'm having to fight all these enemies that are a construct of some sort but aren't real."

"This is all very real, Teddy. You have to take it seriously. It is for your own good," she said. I could tell she was upset, but it was a weird mixture of sadness and a bunch of other emotions that I was too angry to dissect. I was about to continue my tirade when the ship jolted with a terrible noise. I managed to keep my feet but as my eyes swept the room I realized that Mae was gone.

I ran out onto the main deck and saw a ship alongside us. It had already fired a volley and I assumed it was reloading its cannons for another. I pulled an arrow into my hand from my inventory and started imbuing. I saw Barry running up the steps to take the wheel and shouted at him trying to get a plan together, but with all the yelling of the crew on deck, he couldn't hear me.

I was so angry and so overwhelmed with the situation that I just snapped. I was seeing red. I equipped a bow and nocked the arrow in my hand. As I drew back I focused on the closest gun port on the enemy ship and released.

I saw the arrow enter the port and a moment later fire exploded out of the port. The fireball spell had filled the room and set off all of the cannons that had just been loaded. Fortunately, none of them had been aimed properly after the reload and the shots landed harmlessly in the water. Barry had turned our ship to get us closer as he knew my normal plan was to jump over and try to get the enemy captain to talk. My plan was slightly different this time, but it did require me to jump over to the other ship. As soon as we were close enough I lept over to the enemy vessel.

As I landed on their foredeck I was met by three pirates with cutlasses drawn. I screamed and focused all of my contempt for my current circumstances onto the attackers. I had a junky cutlass in my hand and I chucked it at the first man as hard as I possibly could. I must've rolled a critical success on this particular attack because the blade went tip first into the surprised sailor and he stumbled backward onto the main deck.

The remaining two both followed the man down with their eyes which left me with an opportunity. I popped two more junky cutlasses into my hands and started slashing wildly. One of the men was a little better at swordplay than the other and soon he was the only opponent who stood before me. He smiled knowing he was better with a sword than I was, I smiled knowing one of us could control fire. I had brought all the fire aboard the ship from my previous spell up to swirl around him with pyrokinesis. He stopped smiling as the fire engulfed him and ran screaming over the side of the ship and into the freezing waters below.

Unfortunately, the fire was what was stopping the three men up top from having reinforcements. Now that I had removed all the fire the enemy pirates started rushing the main deck to stop me. I was in quite a sticky situation. Until I used my spell of adhesion to cover the stairs up to me with magical glue. Then, I covered the paths up from below decks and waited for the reinforcement's reinforcements to get stuck as well.

Swordplay has a lot to do with footwork and if you can't move your feet, you are probably not going to win any sword fights. I was able to dispatch of all of the remaining pirates easily since they didn't know magic and only had close-quarters weapons. I turned towards the door to the captain's quarters and saw the man standing in the doorway like a ghost. He was pale, had dropped his sword, and was frozen in fear.

When he realized that I was looking at him, he turned to run into the room but I had already used a spell of pulling to slam the door shut. The magic was stronger than him and flung him from the doorway and onto his face in front of me. As he rolled over my ogre club with its sleepytime sleeve attachment slammed down onto him.

I slapped the man awake and he tried to move in a panic. He couldn't move as his hands and feet were now adhered to the deck of his ship with a magical adhesive that I could easily reapply as needed. He looked up at me and snarled. His fear was finally overpowered by hate and he came to his wits.

"Wha' do ye wants?" He asked still struggling against the adhesive.

"Where be Sharkfin Island?" I asked.

He smirked before answering. "If I tell ye we'll both be dead scallywags. The pirate lords will scuttle us both."

"So, you do know where it be though?" I said smiling.

"And I'll take it to me grave," he responded.

"We'll see," I said pulling out one of my daggers of obdormition. "The poison in this dagger may change your mind." I stabbed the dagger into his leg and waited to see what he would say.

"That's nah so bad," he said. "It kind o' tickles."

I yanked the dagger out and waited for the numbness that the poison caused to wear off. He noticed the pain and the slight drop in his health and looked more concerned.

"The poison causes numbness, but it is also ticking away at your health. It may be a good time to give me the location of that island," I said moving the dagger toward his other leg.

"No, they'll kill me if they find out," he said moving more into panic mode again.

"I'll make it so they can't kill you," I said. "Just tell me where the island is." The dagger just barely touched his skin and he must've felt the poison starting to numb his leg because he squirmed noticeably.

"Avast. 'tis due west o' here. It shows on most maps as a triangle pointin' North," he said full of dread. "How will ye make it so that the pirate lords won't scuttle me?"

"Easy. They won't get the opportunity," I said pulling two cutlasses from inventory and into the captain. He screamed at me impotently as he died. I looted his body and stood up. Turning back to my ship I saw it had been pulled closely alongside the enemy ship and the whole crew had seen what just took place.

Barry's jaw was on the floor and he looked equal parts shocked and disappointed. Before he could speak I gave orders for everyone to get back to work.

"We need to make ready these two ships to sail. We have a new heading, but first, we need to drop off a skull," I said to Barry. He looked resigned to just let this one go or maybe I'd be hearing about it later. I guess it was a little intense.

I ran around collecting loot. I left the supplies this ship would need for an attack, but took everything else.

After a while, Barry approached me and looked like he didn't want to say what he needed to say.

"Cap'n, the remaining sailors want to take the other ship back to port to ready for the big attack. Could you tell them where the island is and allow them to leave?" Asked Barry timidly.

"We just need enough sailors to stay to keep this ship functioning, but otherwise that is fine," I said.

I saw Barry tell a nearby sailor who relayed the message to the rest of the men. They started playing a dice game of some sort but not in a fun way. The ones who appeared to lose looked devasted. Soon the same sailor that relayed the message came back to give Barry an update.

"We have our crew," said Barry.

"Why did they all want to go to the other ship so badly?" I asked.

"They are afraid," he said not making eye contact.

"Of me?" I asked incredulously.

"Of your temper," he responded finally making eye contact. "It seems to have gotten worse."

We stood there in silence for a few moments until it was broken by a familiar and boisterous voice.

"Pish posh," said Hugh. "I think you have amazing control over your temper, Captain Theodore. You directed it very forcefully onto those once-living pirates. Never have I seen a more pinpoint application of blind rage."

"Thanks," I said confusedly.

"I even volunteered to stay aboard and help crew your vessel, captain," he said excitedly.

"Yay," I responded indifferently.

"Yes, I'm also excited about the opportunity to have many more incriminating adventures," he said. Then he thought about it for a second and added, "I meant invigorating adventures." Then he laughed affably.