-1The Journey Continues:

Voyages of the Dread Pirate Roberts

"The waves crashed against the bow as my crew sat in dismay. We hadn't eaten in a few days and they were starting to get restless. After the storm, that felt like an eternity ago, left us completely off track a mere three weeks before our food supply has quickly evaporated and the crew has lost their lust for sailing.

Although I have been a formidable captain, the crew has been planning behind my back. I know the only reason they have not tried anything yet has everything to do with my rather large first mate. Fezzik was my one true ally amongst a ship full of traitors.

As the ship slowly tossed from side to side, I sat and looked out over the water, watching it undulate under each slow drop of rain. These men were getting hungry and I truly needed a drink.

The waves kept up, as did the rain, well into the morning hours. I had not slept, keeping watch for any sign of land, or some deckhand that might decide to get brave. It wasn't until the sun was nearly overhead that I had the pleasure of shouting, "Land ho!"

The men were frenzied. Movement crowded the boat as the entire crew tried to get a look at the potential savior of us all, the tiny speck of land that was barely visible from so far off. The men were singing and swaying with the boat. As we slowly crept closer to what we hoping would be a safe haven, I noticed the rocks. They would not have alarmed me had it not been for the odd way they were set together. This was clearly not natural. I hushed the crew. Someone else had found this island first, whether that was disastrous or not was yet to be determined.

Fezzik help the emaciated figure that I was currently inhabiting, seeing as I stopped eating much of anything long ago so the crew would have more rations for themselves, as I began my decent onto the land that we knew so little about.

The first thing I noticed was the enticing smell of something cooking. I thought, even if the island was inhabited, at least they could cook. I slowly instructed the crew to follow as we walked along the beach, searching for something I was not sure I wanted to find. I tried to follow the smell, hoping I did not pass out right there in front of the crew, and kept my eyes open for some movement.

Just when I thought we had almost been around the whole island, I saw a figure in the distance. At first I panicked, thinking our ship had somehow crashed up on the shore, but getting a closer look revealed that this ship was not ours. Sending half of the crew to search through the wreckage for survivors and half to gather as much fruit as possible without going too far into the forest, they were losing their enthusiasm for the new island.

No survivors were found but there was plenty of fruit to go around. The crew sat, devouring every morsel of the ripe pineapples and every last coconut on the trees near us. These fruits were so perfectly preserved, they almost looked taken care of, I kind of felt guilty for taking them, but that feeling was surely surpassed by my famine.

When the crew had finally finished with their feast I came to the realization that the survivors of this shipwreck could be responsible for the smell. Coming to this conclusion made it easier for me to call my crew to follow me under all the towering trees and through all of the unidentifiable plants, trying to find out who we were sharing this island with.

The smell got stronger as we neared what we thought was the middle of the small jungle that took up most of the tiny speck of an island. Thinking they were going to find a good meal and some new friends in these shipwrecked sailors, the crew was not hesitant. Fezzik and I knew there was something wrong. Something didn't seem quite accurate.

"Fezzik," I whispered, knowing the others were in earshot," I don't think this is a good idea." Fezzik always sided with me, even when he didn't think I was right, this time he knew that I was.

We called the men back and told them we were all going back to the beach near where we had left the ship. They were all very hesitant, yearning for the delicious smell of something being prepared. None of us had eaten like that in months. Even though they were slightly resistant, they came.

Back on the beach, me and Fezzik decided to tell them how we were feeling about this island. "I'm not sure exactly what it is, but something is out of order here and we can not stay to find out who these survivors are. We don't even know that there are survivors. We will gather some more fruit and then we will leave." The men didn't take this very well. A few of them shouted, some even threatened not to come with us. That didn't bother me one bit, I knew it was just the heat and hunger getting to them.

We split into three groups, one group would gather all the pineapple they could find, one group would gather all the coconuts, and one would stay on the ship and prepare it for the long journey ahead. Fezzik never left my side and we were in the group on the ship.

After some time, the pineapple gathering crowd came back. We sat and waited for the others. They didn't come. It was then we decided to split the remaining men into three groups again. Two would be search parties and again, one would stay on the ship. This was the biggest mistake I could have made.

They explored the entire island, from side to side and from front to back, but when the first search team returned, they had found no sign of life. The men and myself waited for the second group to come back, but again, they didn't.

I was not going to be as careless this time, so I took all of the men together and we set off to find our missing crewmembers. As soon as I set foot on the beach, Fezzik looked at me, knowing that we were thinking the same thing. The once enticing smell was stronger than it had been before, so strong that it was almost a little revolting. My gut did a topsy-turvy twist and I couldn't figure out whether the smell or the realization of what the smell might be had caused it.

As the different teams had before, we investigated the island. Just when we all were getting very tired, the sun was going down, and I was about to apologize to the men saying that we had to go and leave the others behind, I saw the rocks. Just then it was obvious. They were the first things I had noticed, how unnaturally they were positioned, but with all the excitement, I had forgotten about them. They were in a circle, I had never known large, tall rocks to be in such a perfect formation.

I pointed the way and we were off, the smell getting thicker and thicker in the air as we went. Reaching the rocks, the smell was overpowering. I found my way through a rather small space in between two of the oversized rocks and instructed the crew to follow.

There was a large boulder in the center. As we circled around it, we found a hole too small for Fezzik, but entirely too big for any type of normal creature to have made. The smell nearly choked us all. If the smell wouldn't do it, there was more. Out of nowhere, there were men in large masks surrounding us shouting in some kind of language unfamiliar to me. My suspicions about the smells were confirmed. It was the burning of human flesh, these people were cannibals.

There was no reasoning with them, so my men attacked, but we realized that we were entirely too exhausted to really win this battle so those of us that could get away fled as quickly as possible back to the safe haven that was our ship.

Everything was kind of a blur as we hastily set sail and the next thing I remember we were far out in the ocean. With about a third of my crew left and only pineapples to survive on for who knew how long, me and Fezzik decided it was time to train a new captain and return back to our friends, back where we belong.

So that's how we ended up here, you see, I am no longer the Dread Pirate Roberts, but simply Inigo Montoya."

With that story being told, the four of them, Fezzik, Indigo, Buttercup, and Westley, sat down to a nice dinner in the comfort of friends.