At Thomas's command, The Venture erupted in noise. The ship's bells clanged wildly, the crew hammered on empty barrels with all their might, creating a raw and brutal symphony of destruction. The sound tore through the air, shredding the beautiful song of the Sirens, turning it into a discordant shriek of confusion and pain.
Amidst the Sirens' confusion, Riggs grinned. "Time to pay the fare, you whores!"
"FIRE!"
The Venture's starboard side roared with fire and fury. A deadly rain of grapeshot hit the wrecks, turning the clusters of Sirens perched there into a spray of blood and scales. Their shrieks of pain now replaced their alluring song.
However, the surprise didn't last long. The hundreds of remaining Sirens let out a simultaneous shriek of rage and dived into the gray water. The sea around The Venture boiled with their movement. They were coming, a tidal wave of beautiful nightmares.
"PREPARE THE NETS! HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!" Thomas yelled.
The creatures climbed the ship's hull from every direction. Their claws scraped the wood, but the tar-coated rails made their grip slippery and difficult. Thomas's crew, now fighting a visible enemy, slashed and stabbed every Siren that managed to reach the deck. Nets were thrown, entangling some of the struggling creatures before they were pierced with pikes.
The battle was pure chaos. The deck became slick with blood and water. A sailor was momentarily distracted, captivated by a Siren's beautiful face, before the creature's claws tore his throat. Several crewmen were dragged into the sea.
Thomas fought with brutal power. He moved along the deck, his sword a deadly flash of silver, his pistol firing at critical moments. He saw his crew starting to get overwhelmed by the endless number of Sirens. They could hold on, but they couldn't win a battle of attrition like this.
Then, he saw it. Perched atop the highest Spanish Galleon wreck at the center of the lair was a Siren larger than the others. Her hair was as white as sea foam, and on her head was a crown made of sharp black coral. Her shriek wasn't a random cry; it was a command. She was the queen, the matriarch.
Cut off the head, and the body will die, Thomas thought.
"Riggs!" he yelled. "Give me a covering fire on that Galleon! Arthur, with me! We're making a royal visit!"
With some of his best crew, Thomas hooked a rope to the towering Galleon's mast. While Riggs rained fire on the area around the matriarch to keep her busy, Thomas and his team swung across the gap of chaos.
They landed on the Galleon's rotting deck, immediately surrounded by the elite guards of the Siren queen. The fight here was much more ferocious. These Sirens were bigger and stronger.
Thomas wasted no time. He charged straight at the matriarch. The creature let out a shriek so powerful it made Thomas's ears ring and his vision blur for a moment. Her obsidian-hard claws slashed at him. Thomas ducked, feeling the wind from the attack that nearly decapitated him.
The matriarch was nimble and strong, but Thomas was smarter. He used the shattered environment around him to his advantage, leaping over holes in the deck, using a broken mast as a shield.
In a desperate move, the matriarch lunged at him. Thomas deliberately allowed the creature's claws to sink into his left shoulder. A burning pain shot through his arm, but he got what he wanted: an opening. With the Siren now in close range, Thomas plunged his sword straight into the creature's heart.
The matriarch let out one final shriek that shook the entire wreck, a note of pure despair, before her body went limp.
Below them, the battle instantly ceased. All the remaining Sirens stared at their dead queen. They let out a single, heart-wrenching collective wail, and then one by one, they let go of The Venture and disappeared into the murky depths of the sea.
Silence finally returned to the Shattered Sea, leaving only the sound of the gasping breaths of the surviving crew.
As Thomas pulled out his sword, something strange happened. The heart of the Siren matriarch, instead of bleeding, began to glow with a pale blue light. Before his eyes, the organ hardened and crystallized, turning into a pearl the size of his fist, pulsating with arcane energy.
The fog around them, for the first time, seemed to thin slightly, as if the queen's death had broken a small part of the place's curse, revealing a way out of the rocky labyrinth.
They returned to The Venture, bringing their strange treasure with them. They had lost eight men, but they had done the impossible.
Thomas stood on the deck of his battered ship, staring at the glowing Siren pearl in his hand.
"Arthur, count our losses. Give the dead a proper ceremony," he said, his voice heavy with loss. Then, he looked at the horizon, which was now a little clearer. Determination returned to his eyes. "Helmsman, steer us out of this hell."
He put the pearl into a leather pouch. "We're sailing to St. Martin. I hear the Dutch traders pay a fortune for strange trinkets."
The journey out of the Shattered Sea felt like waking from a long nightmare. The suffocating fog slowly thinned, replaced by a pale sunlight, which was met with a cheer of relief from the crew. The sea was blue again, and for the first time in days, they could see the horizon.
However, their victory felt hollow. Eight empty seats in the crew mess hall were a painful reminder of the price they had paid.
In the calm waters just outside the cursed border, Thomas ordered the sails lowered. The entire surviving crew gathered on the main deck. Eight bodies, wrapped neatly in old sailcloth, were laid in a row. There was no priest, no holy book. Just a captain and his crew.
"No words can lighten the burden of loss," Thomas said, his voice heavy yet clear amidst the silence. "These men were our brothers. They didn't die as victims in the fog. They died as warriors who sailed into the heart of hell and fought monsters. The sea has taken them, and to the sea we return them. We will remember their names, and we will live with the courage that is their legacy."
One by one, the bodies were respectfully pushed into the sea, returning to the silent depths. It was a short, rough, and sincere ceremony—a fitting funeral for sailors.
The journey of several days to St. Martin was a time of healing. The tense atmosphere on the ship slowly thawed. Riggs, in his gruff way, trained the gun crew even harder, turning their grief into discipline. Arthur made sure everyone got a double ration of rum every night. Thomas himself spent a lot of time in his cabin, studying their strange spoils.
The Siren pearl was extraordinary. It was the size of his fist, its surface smooth and glowing with a blue light from within. When held, it felt warm and pulsed with a faint energy. The Siren scales they collected were also as hard as steel but as light as paper.
When they finally sighted St. Martin, the difference from Port Royal was striking. The island was divided in two, with French and Dutch flags flying on different sides. Its harbor was clean, orderly, and filled with merchant ships from all over the world. This was a center of trade, not a military base. The air smelled of profit, not gunpowder.
News of the battered The Venture's arrival, sailing from the direction of the Shattered Sea, spread quickly among the shrewd traders. They saw a sign that this ship might be carrying something rare and valuable.
After asking around in a neat Dutch tavern called De Gouden Handel, Thomas learned that the man to see was Factor Hendrik Janssen, the head of the Dutch West India Company trading post. It was said that there was no item in the Caribbean he couldn't put a price on.
Janssen was a practical middle-aged man, with eyes that evaluated everything in terms of profit and loss. His office in the main warehouse (Pakhuismeester) was filled with commodity samples from all over the world.
Thomas started cautiously. He brought out a pouch containing the Siren scales. "I found some strange trinkets on my journey. I hear you're interested in rare items."
Janssen's eyes widened slightly when he saw the scales. He examined them with a magnifying glass, then weighed them. "Good quality. Highly sought after by alchemists in Amsterdam. I'll give you two hundred Gold Coins for all of this."
A fair price. Thomas nodded. He saw that Janssen was a professional. Time to show his ace. He slowly took the Siren Pearl out of a larger leather pouch.
As the pearl was placed on the table, emitting its soft blue light, Janssen's professional calm finally cracked. His breath hitched, and for a moment, pure greed showed in his eyes before he managed to hide it again.
"The heart of a Siren Matriarch," he whispered, more to himself. "I thought it was just a myth."
"Myths don't leave scars like this," Thomas said, pointing to his bandaged shoulder.
The negotiation began. It was a duel of wits. Janssen offered a very high price. Thomas rejected it. "This isn't just merchandise, Mr. Janssen. This is a legend. Its price isn't measured in gold alone," Thomas said. "I want your best offer. And as a bonus, I need information."
Janssen raised an eyebrow. "Information?"
"You have an extensive network," Thomas said. "I want to know about an artifact. A silver compass that points to sorrow."
The mention of the compass made Janssen go quiet. He stared at Thomas for a moment. This confirmed Thomas's suspicion; Janssen was more than just a trader. He was connected to a network of smugglers and secret information, The Weavers.
After a long silence, Janssen nodded. "Seven thousand Gold Coins. And the information you seek."
A deal was struck.
A few hours later, Thomas returned to The Venture. The chests in his hold were now full of Gold Coins from the Dutch West India Company's safe. His crew, who were once poor, were now rich.
"How did it go, Captain?" Arthur asked, his eyes gleaming at the chests.
Thomas took a handful of gold coins and let them flow through his fingers. "How did it go? We're rich now, Arthur. Rich enough to buy a new ship if we wanted, or drink the finest rum until we die."
He paused, then pulled out a small piece of parchment that Janssen had given him.
"And I know exactly," he continued, his eyes gleaming with new adventure, "what we're going to do next."
Wealth came like a storm. Overnight, The Venture's crew—rough sailors used to counting copper coins—now had heavy pouches of gold. St. Martin, as a neutral trading hub, was happy to help them spend it.
The tavern De Gouden Handel became their unofficial palace. Riggs, with a booming laugh, bought drinks for every sailor in the harbor, telling the story of their battle against the Sirens with increasingly heroic embellishments in each retelling. Arthur, in vain, tried to persuade the crew to save, but his advice was drowned in a sea of rum and beer. Thomas let them enjoy the euphoria. They had earned it with their blood.
However, in the midst of the celebration, Thomas remained focused. He gathered Arthur and Riggs in a quiet private room. On the table between them, he laid the parchment given by Janssen.
"This is the information I got as part of the deal," Thomas said. He read the note in a low voice.
"The compass you hold is known as El Puntero del Duelo—The Compass of Sorrow. It was forged specifically for a fanatic Inquisitor of the Ordo de la Luz Verdadera named Lorenzo. He didn't hunt pirates; he hunted monsters. He used the compass to track the trail of death and tragedy left by supernatural creatures. However, a curse is attached to it. The longer the compass is owned, the more ghosts and restless spirits it will attract to the owner, like moths to a flame. The only way to break the curse—or perhaps, control it—is to find Lorenzo's Absolutoria, his lost private monastery. There he stored all his knowledge on how to fight the darkness, including holy weapons and books on the weaknesses of supernatural beings."
Riggs let out a low whistle. "So we traded a Siren's lair for a ghost's lair. A good progression."
"Where is this monastery located?" Arthur asked.
"Janssen doesn't know exactly," Thomas replied. "The Order's records only mention its location somewhere on the remote northern coast of Hispaniola. A deserted monastery shunned by the locals."
The next morning, Thomas gathered his entire crew on The Venture's deck. The sound of hammers from the nearby shipyard served as background music as he spoke.
"Listen up!" he shouted. "Every single one of you is now a rich man. Rich enough to buy an inn, marry the bartender girl of your dreams, and never smell the sea again for the rest of your lives. I won't hold anyone back. The exit is over there, and I will bless your journey with your fair share."
Not a single man moved.
"Good," Thomas said with a smile. "Because for those of you whose souls are still hungry for something more than just gold, I have a new hunt. A legendary hunt. We're going to look for the lost sanctuary of a monster hunter. We're going to uncover his secrets and seize his power. This will be more dangerous than the Sirens, and our enemies this time might be something we can't touch with a sword."
He held up the silver compass. "But the reward is not gold, but immortality. The story of The Venture's crew will be told in every tavern from here to the end of the world. Who's with me?"
Riggs was the first to laugh. "I wouldn't let you have all the fun alone, Captain!"
The cheers of the others followed, a roar of unbreakable loyalty.
With unlimited funds, the rebirth of The Venture began. Thomas rebuilt The Venture. The hull was reinforced with the finest teak. Twelve new, gleaming 12-pounder cannons were installed under Riggs's supervision, each placed on a refined platform. On deck, two small swivel guns were mounted, perfect for sweeping away enemies who tried to board the ship. At Thomas's request, a local blacksmith also forged a few dozen pike heads and musket balls from pure silver. They would no longer face the supernatural unprepared.
A week later, a new ship left the harbor of St. Martin. The Venture was now a perfect blend of a Brigantine's speed and the strength of a floating fortress. Sleek, dark, and deadly.
Thomas stood at the helm, the Compass of Sorrow lying calmly in front of him. Its needle was now pointing steadily west, towards the wild and mysterious island of Hispaniola.
"Weigh anchor!" he commanded, his voice cutting through the crisp morning air. "Hoise our new sails."
As their English flag fluttered in the sky, Thomas stared at the horizon.
"Set a course for Hispaniola. Time for us to go to church."