“So how did you…”
“It’s the day of the week,” he said proudly. He was actually proud of that. He’d figured out other game codes before but this one had been tough. Until he figured out the cipher key. “I kept wondering why the date on the log entry was always unencoded. And once I looked through more and more entries, I noticed that on each one, he always put the day of the week first. I converted the day of the week to a number and volia! Each entry has a different cipher based on the day of the week: 1 for Sunday, 2 for Monday, etc..”
“Very clever.” She smiled at him. “So you know what it says?”
“I do.” He smiled. “And it’s actually very interesting. It seems Captain Burchard was raiding up all over the Sea of Daggers. He accumulated all sorts of treasure.”
“Treasure?” Mika’s eyes lit up. “Pirate treasure?”
“Yes.” He grinned. “Literally. In fact, he was extremely paranoid that his crew would eventually mutiny and he’d be killed for the treasure.”
“Killed by pirates is good,” Mika interjected.
Jace just looked at her. He’d heard that line somewhere but couldn’t place it. She looked down shyly. “Or so I heard.”
He tried in vain to remember where he’d heard the line but gave up and continued. “What the paranoid captain decided to do was to accumulate treasure for several months. Then, he’d pay his crew, send them ashore and take on a brand new crew. The first thing he’d do is tell them the story of how he had to kill his treacherous first mate and they’d stop off on some island and bury his ‘remains.’”
“It was his treasure!” Mika said excitedly. Her excitement disturbed Luna and the cat hopped out of her lap, kneaded a place on the far end of the bed and curled up.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “And apparently, he’d been doing that for years until he went up river to lay low after a particularly big heist.”
“Up river?” she asked.
“Yes. He went up the White Run River to a town called Crossroads,” he told her. “It’s particularly deep from the ocean to a little past the town.”
“Crossroads?” Mika asked.
“Crossroads is a medium sized town about a week from Whitecliff,” Jace said but then remembered it had been destroyed. He thought back to his first run in with Drakkar back in Crossroads and catching the caravan with Charlena.
Jace shook his head to regain his train of thought. “At least, it was. The dragon destroyed Crossroads before turning towards Whitecliff. Anyway, according to the log, the captain decided to lie low and make repairs after stealing the princess’ tiara from a heavily armed merchant ship.”
“So Captain Burchard was the one who stole the tiara?”
“Yes. And he was about to get a major payday from the thieves guild when he made the mistake of taking aboard a couple of hands at Crossroads.”
“Drakkar?” Mika hissed.
“Yes,” Jace nodded. “Drakkar was one of them. Apparently, Burchard had a bad feeling about him but they were short-handed after the fight with the merchant ship. Against his better judgement, he brought him onboard.”
Jace finished up the last bite of his waffles. “The next entries are unencoded and written by Drakkar.”
“Drakkar killed him,” Mika said.
“From Drakkar’s scribblings,” Jace confirmed. “He challenged the captain to a duel - he probably got that from me - and killed him by poisoning his blade and using his Backstab ability along with his Vanish skill. He killed him the day after we left with the caravan.”
“He is sneaky,” Mika said.
“Very true.” Jace smiled. “I can’t exactly begrudge him using his skills to defeat the man but at this level, depending on what poison he had, that could really turn the tides. And speaking of which, now that I’m level 10 and get the death penalty when I die, I should probably go buy some antitoxin and a few health potions. Not that we’ll be doing any fighting until we get to Nynymmost.”
“So now we know how Drakkar became captain,” she said. “Did you learn anything else?”
Jace gave her the biggest grin he could. “If by ‘anything else’ you mean the locations of all of Captain Burchard’s buried treasure, then yes. I found something.”
Mika’s eyes went wide. “You know where all of his treasure is?!”
“Shhh!” Jace put his fingers to his lips. “Considering what happened to Burchard, we should keep this to ourselves for now.”
Mika looked around conspiratorially. “Yes, it will be our secret! Ours and Diana’s!”
Jace looked down at his timepiece and swore. “Darnit! We were supposed to meet Diana.” He started to get up but Mika held up a hand.
“No!” she ordered. “You stay here. No more assassins! I will go.”
Jace relaxed back into the chair. “Thanks. I guess it’s safer for all of us if I stay here for now.”
As Mika turned to go, Jace called after her. “Do me a favor. While you’re out, see if you can find a cartographer and buy some maps of the Dagger Coast.”
“Maps?” she asked.
“Try to find ones with the coordinates on them,” he told her. “I want to see if I can see where some of these treasures are located. I mean, if there’s one on the way, maybe I could talk the good captain into stopping.”
Her eyes lit up. “A treasure hunt! Okay! I will find you a map!”
She opened the door and started to leave but then stopped. Mika turned around and gave Jace a kiss, then, grinning, skipped out the door and down the hall.
He listened to her bound up the steps and then heard her footsteps disappear. Getting up, he closed the door and sat back down in the chair. He still had log entries to read. And some more treasure to discover.
Chapter 5
According to Jace’s gnomish timepiece, it was 3:45pm when the girls knocked on his door. Over the past hour, the ship had been a flurry of activity. Even though he remained in his cabin, he heard the sailors getting the ship ready to be on its way. He also heard the passengers as they clamoured back on board and shut themselves away in their own cabins.
A half hour ago, Fimipp and his other servants had appeared at his door and bid their farewells, well as thanking him for paying for their trip home. The halfling butler stressed that the manor would be immaculate when he returned.
He wished them all a safe journey and then went back into his cabin. He hadn’t really talked to any of the other passengers since they mostly kept to themselves. Other than the occasional trip to the mess hall and a walk around the upper deck, they stayed in their cabins.
Considering that the guildmaster of the thieves guild, Webley the Snake, had arranged for this ship, Jace guessed the other passengers were members of the Whitecliff underworld. Or at least, associates of it. He doubted they wanted any more attention than Jace and the girls wanted.
The door opened and Mika peeked in. She looked at Luna, asleep on the bed. “See, I didn’t throw open the door this time!”
“Luna and my heart thank you.” Jace smiled.
“We brought you fish and chips and some mead from the tavern,” Diana told him. “They’re a bit cold, but still better than the salted version. Oh, I brought some vinegar too.”
“Hey…” Jace smiled. “Vinegar is like the English version of ketchup.”
“I got you something too,” Mika said and held out several vials. Jace recognized them instantly. They were potions. “Three healing, one mana potion and one anti-toxin. All level 10.”
Taking the vials from her he gave her a genuine smile. “Thank you! I’m sure these will come in handy given our situation.”
“I thought so,” Mika grinned. “I also have the maps.”
Diana was smirking at them, but then closed the door, making Jace realize exactly how small the cabin was with three people inside. He was also very conscious that the other two were very attractive women.
The older woman leaned against the door and folded her arms over her large chest. “Mi
ka told me you found something interesting in the logs. And they were encrypted?”
Jace nodded as he slipped the vials into his inventory. Once his hands were empty, Mika produced several maps and handed them to him. He took them and set them on his small table. “I did. And I think it might be a small - possibly a large - fortune. I’m not sure why the captain wasn’t a raid level boss or something with this much treasure.”
“Oh, dear one,” Diana tsked. “You realize that all the treasure is probably guarded by monsters and traps.”
Jace raised an eyebrow. “Writer’s intuition?”
Diana gave him a wry smile. “I don’t just write books, I read books too. And I used to watch things called movies. What you youngsters call vidstreams. There’s always something guarding the treasure. Giant boulders ready to roll over you. Giant Anacondas. Dinosaurs. Zombies. There’s always something.”
Jace chuckled. “I’ve watched a good number of the retro vidstreams, sorry, movies. And you’re probably right. Nothing in this game is just given away.”
Mika nodded grimly. “So we must fight monsters to get this treasure?”
“Probably,” he admitted. “Or very nasty traps. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Do we even need the treasure?” Diana asked. “Isn’t WorldCog going to fix us up now? Aren’t they supposed to fix us up and give us back our assets?”
Mika and Diana were both looking at him expectantly and Jace sighed. “That’s the plan. At least, I hope that’s the plan. But we don’t know how long that will take.” He leaned back in the chair and sighed. “Plus, if they don’t delete me, I’m going to need some money.”
“Oh, dear boy,” Diana said. “Once I get my assets back, I think I can help you out. You certainly have done more for me that anyone else in the last few years. Except for maybe my publicist.”
Mika nodded. “Yes, you have helped us. Once I get my money, I can help you too.”
Jace frowned and shook his head. “I’m not going to be a charity case. I can take care of myself.”
Diana rolled her eyes. “Dear one, I know the feeling. I haven’t taken a man’s money for about sixty years. Quite the opposite. And I wouldn’t have taken a dime, or gold, from you if I didn’t have the intention of paying you back once I had my money.”
“Yes,” Mika agreed. “I will pay you back too!”
“Yes, but…” Jace started to object but Diana held up a hand.
“No buts,” Diana said, putting her hands on her hips. “You’ve been helping us, paying for us and leading us. You’re the one who told us how to get out the monster bodies. You’re the one who got us together in Whitecliff. You’re the one who found a way to contact the help thingy…”
“Help Desk,” Mika supplied.
“...Help Desk,” Diana continued, “so that we can also get put straight again. I will pay you back. End of discussion.”
Mika nodded firmly. “Yes, I feel the same way.”
“Besides,” Diana said, giving him a sly grin and a wink. “We’re married. You’re entitled to certain marital… assets.”
Jace was about to reply when the ship lurched as it began moving. The girls, who had been standing, staggered as they reached for the cabin walls to steady themselves. Luna, who had been sleeping on his bunk, opened her eyes wide for a second, looked around, and then promptly closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
Up on the deck, Jace could hear movement and shouting as the ship began to move away from the dock. Glancing at his timepiece, he saw that it was 4:05pm. Captain Yehmee hadn’t been joking.
Looking back to the girls, Jace opened his mouth to speak but seeing the glares from both women, he shut his mouth. He realized there was no point in arguing with them at the moment.
Still, he didn’t feel right taking money from them. Or anyone for that matter. He wasn’t used to needing or asking for help from anyone. He wasn’t about to start now. At least, not in a financial way.
“We can talk about this later,” Jace told them. “Right now, I want to see if I can actually see if the coordinates I took from the logs actually correspond to real places.”
“Can I help?” Mika asked, beaming at him.
Jace smiled at her enthusiasm over such a mundane task. “Sure. That would actually work out well. One of us can look at the map while the other goes over the coordinates.”
Diana made a dismissive gesture and turned towards the door. “In this case, three’s a crowd. I think I’ll go up top and get some fresh salty air.”
Once Diana had left, Jace and Mika laid out the maps on the bunk and on the floor, careful not to disturb the sleeping cat. Then, the two of them took turns going through Jace’s notes and marking what they thought were the locations on the map.
Although he had been worried that there would be a different cipher on the actual coordinates, apparently neither the devs nor Captain Burchard thought to encrypt them. Jace was thankful for that at least.
It was harder than Jace thought since the coordinates were in nautical coordinates and not just gps style coordinates he was used to. Luckily, after a short conversation with Captain Yehmee and her navigator, they were able to figure out how to reach the coordinate system.
By the time night had fallen, they had plotted out all eighteen of the treasure hoards the late Captain Burchard had documented.
Jace turned to Mika. “Good job! We know where to look for the treasure.”
“We have a treasure map!” she said excitedly. “We are treasure hunters!”
“At some point we will be,” he said. “But in the meantime, we need to protect our knowledge of the treasure. I want to divide up the information between the three of us. Let’s go to find Diana.”
The two of them left his room as Luan hopped off the bed to follow them, apparently unwilling to be left alone. Her cabin was empty so they checked on deck. It was dark, but they found her on the stern of the ship with the captain and several other crewmen. All of them were looking out to the ocean. Jace followed their gaze to a point of light on the dark horizon.
“What is it?” Jace asked, startling some of the crewmen.
The captain turned around, a grim look on her face. “Ship on the horizon. It’s been there for an hour or two.”
“Is that unusual?” Jace asked, unsure what that meant for them.
“Not necessarily,” she told him, the racoon-kin’s striped tail twitching. “But I’ve altered course three times. Each time they match us on an intercept course.”
Jace wasn’t a seaman by any stretch of the imagination, but even he knew what that meant. Given that they were in what was possibly a stolen ship, it was possible it was the authorities. He glanced back at the spot of light and then to Yehmee. “Navy?”
The racoon-kin’s ears went back a little but she shook her head. “No, there’d be at least two of them. Those navy types don’t like a fair fight.”
Unfortunately, in his limited experience, that could mean only one thing. “Pirates?”
The crew members all turned to regard the captain, worried expressions on their faces. Yehmee glared briefly at Jace. He guessed she would have preferred if Jace hadn’t asked that question in front of the crew. She glanced at the crew and then back to Jace.
“Aye, Baronet,” she told him. “My guess is, it be pirates.”
Jace suddenly got a really bad feeling about it. He happened to know a pirate. A pirate he’d bested twice and the last time had set his cabin on fire - with him in it. Captain Drakkar. But how would Drakkar have found him? Or was it coincidence?
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He didn’t even know if it was Drakkar. It could be any pirate ship or it may not even be a pirate ship.
“Can we outrun them?” Mika asked the captain.
“This is a merchant ship. Not even a particular new or fast merchant ship,” the captain shook her head. “We’re built for hauling cargo. We can barely outrun our own wake.”
“So what do
we do, captain?” asked one of the crew members. He was a skinny, tanned man with a shaved head and tattooed arms.
“We pray I’m wrong,” the captain said. She locked eyes with Jace. “And if I’m not, we pray we can repel them.”
Chapter 6
As the sun rose on the eastern horizon, Jace and the girls watched as it illuminated the ship following them. It was much closer now. The ship had been far enough away earlier in the night that they had tracked it mostly by its lights. But the pursuing ship had gained on them. Now in the daylight, it was easy to see.
“How long before they’re on us?” Jace asked the captain, who was staring off at them with a leather bound spyglass.
The racoon-kin didn’t look away from the spyglass. She muttered something to herself, maybe numbers or speeds and then looked at Jace. “They’ll be on us by nightfall.”
Jace frowned. “What about heading into shore?”
Captain Yehmee looked at him like he was out of his mind. “Run the ship ashore? Are you mad? Besides, what makes you think that would make you any safer?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“We’re not carrying any goods, except maybe some personal goods from the passengers,” the racoon-kin said, her tail twitching from side to side. “It seems much more likely they are after someone on the ship.”
Mika looked at him, but Jace kept quiet.
The captain chuckled mirthlessly. “I heard about the assassin attack. You managed to survive but the shop owner was not so lucky.”
Jace’s hand unconsciously fell to his saber and the action did not go unnoticed by the captain. He noticed that Mika and Diana had come to stand beside him. Both of them seemed to sense his sudden tension.
She smirked. “Don’t worry, if I put you off the ship, Webley would have my head. I was hired to deliver you bunch safely to the gnomish homeland and that’s what I will do.”
He and the girls relaxed at Captain Yehmee’s words and Jace heard the truth in them. Webley ran the most powerful thieves guild in the good faction. He had a long reach for anyone who crossed him.
Veil Online - Book 3: An Epic LitRPG Adventure Page 4