"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! How the hell did it all come to this!" Ravager cursed frustratedly as he trudged through the damp dark tunnel under the light of a small torch held by the guard leading the way.
His neck was aching fiercely from having to lower his head so much, as whoever made this secret tunnel didn't seem to have a man his size in mind.
After seeing no hope for his pirate crew to win the battle, Ravager didn't waste any time and left immediately.
He picked up two of his most loyal guards, and after ordering his lackeys to hold the enemy for as long as they could, he disappeared into the underground passage hidden inside his treasury that even his most loyal subordinate didn't know about.
Of course, he had to make sacrifices in his haste and had to leave all the treasures in the treasury, that he had spent so long to accumulate, for his enemies to take advantage of.
But while he felt regretful about it... he didn't hesitate for a second because he knew that he had to be very quick if he wanted to survive, and if those superficial things bought him even a little bit of time, then it was worth it.
Ravager was the most vulnerable that he had been since he made his own pirate crew after stabbing his previous captain in the back more than a decade ago.
Nothing mattered more to him at the moment than his own safety...
He didn't care how much money he had to sacrifice or how many of his men died for him to survive because, at this moment, he couldn't trust anyone other than himself.
In fact, he wouldn't have even brought his two guards with him if he didn't know that they wouldn't be able to betray him no matter what...
'After all, the Unsullied are one of the most expensive slaves in the world for a reason...'
About thirty minutes after they had climbed down that fifty-meter-long ladder into the ground and walked along the winding secret cave, they finally reached the end of the tunnel where laid another ladder going up.
Sighing at the long climb ahead, Ravager turned to the unsullied guards standing behind him silently, "White Worm, give him your luggage and climb up to the top to see if there are any enemies out there,"
The unsullied on his right nodded his head with a frozen expression on his face as he gave the sack on his back to his fellow guard and after tying his spear on his back he slowly began climbing the ladder... uncaring if death was waiting for him up there.
'Ugh! How did it all come to this...' Ravager thought frustrately, for the thousandth time since he had seen the army at his gates.
It had been going so well...
He had gone up against the mighty warships of Braavos and won one of the biggest victories of his life.
He had looted a big haul from those merchant ships and made enough money from it that he could have bought himself a small slave army and even then he wouldn't have to worry about money for years.
And it wasn't like he had been arrogant and reckless after that...
No, he knew that it was going to be dangerous after offending Braavos like that so his vigilance had been the highest and he had been keeping a close eye on Braavos to watch their every single move.
He had even made plans to go to the Slaver's Bay and stay low for a few years to be on the safe side.
But then... in a single night, it had all been destroyed.
'But this is not the end of Ravager...'
Thankfully, he had always been a prudent man who believed in never having all his eggs in a single basket.
So while most people, including his own pirates, assumed that most of his wealth lay in that vault inside the castle... that was just for the show as his real funds lay inside a secret stash that only he and two of his personal guards knew about.
He had deposited a massive amount of wealth in there and as long as that cache was available to him, then it wouldn't be too long before he was able to make a resurgence once again.
'I will definitely come back... and make all of them pay in blood,' he swore to himself with gritted teeth, 'Especially that damn Advisor and whoever was behind him,'
At that moment, a circle of bright light appeared above his head and Ravager looked through the shade of his hand to see that the Unsullied guard had opened the cover to the exit and was now climbing out.
There was a tense silence for a few minutes before the guard came back and looked down into the hole.
"It is safe, no one is here," The guard replied in a heavily accented voice, instantly putting Ravager's worst fears to rest.
"Good," Ravager replied with a sigh of relief as he immediately put his legs on the ladder and began climbing up, "Follow after me," he ordered the other guard who was carrying the small sack that contained their ration and water for the next few days.
As long as he managed to reach one of the nearby pirate-friendly islands, Ravager could jump on one of their transfer ships and easily sail to the mainland with just a few gold coins.
From there he could start anew, and he was sure that with all his experience, it wouldn't be too long before he managed to reach his previous height... and perhaps he may even surpass that.
Ravager's daydream halted when he finally reached the top of the ladder after an exhausting climb, and the moment he rose out of the hole, he was hit with the full force of the sun... which after the lengthy walk in the dark, seemed particularly glaring.
"Ugh!" He groaned as he shielded his eyes, "Help me up, you idiot," he barked at the guard who was just standing there with a dumb look on his face.
"Yes," the unsullied nodded as he put down his spear and knelt down to pull his master out of the hole.
The opening of the secret passage had led them out into a small clearing filled with swaying grass.
In front of them, a mile away was the forest of tall trees that led one towards the centre of the island where his castle was, and behind him laid a tall slanting cliff that ended on a hundred meters drop into the ocean.
They were at the northernmost part of the island at the moment, and with both the ports located simultaneously on the east and west side, and with the ocean nearby being incredibly treacherous, there was very little chance that any ship could reach here.
But still, on the off chance that they managed to somehow find the secret path in the Treasury, and then reach all the way here in time, Ravager decided to take some precautions...
"Close the hole and place that rock on it!" Ravager ordered his two guards while pointing towards a massive rock almost half his height.
It took them about five minutes of back-breaking labour but the guards eventually managed to roll the rock over the exit and completely cover it.
"Good. Now, come," Ravager grunted and then without giving them any time to rest, he took off along the side of the cliff towards the east.
The three of them ambled for at least fifteen minutes on rocky ground before they came across a small naturally formed cave burrowed into the side of the cliff.
The cave was unnaturally dark and slanting downwards.
Its entrance was barely enough for an adult man to crawl through and if one wasn't specifically looking for it, it would be almost impossible for someone to notice it.
"Go, get the chest. Hurry!" Ravager ordered Whiteworm while jerking his head towards the cave.
The guard nodded and, after placing down everything he was carrying including his spear, he laid down on the ground and then without any hesitation began crawling into the dark smelly cave.
The unsullied could not even see his own hands a few seconds after entering the cave, and he could feel all kinds of worms and critters crawling all over his arms and his face.
Any normal man would have screamed and bolted by now, but the Unsullied guard never even flinched and continued going down.
It was only after he was almost two meters deep that the guard finally reached the end of the cave, and the only reason he even knew that was because his hands were touching a cold metal box at the moment.
After fumbling around for a few moments, the unsullied finally managed to catch a latch with his right hand, and from there began the gruelling process of slowly crawling backwards while dragging the very heavy metal chest with his hand.
It took him almost thrice the time to crawl out than it had taken him to crawl in, but eventually, his legs felt the air and from there his fellow guard was quick to pull him out of the cave.
"At last," Ravager sighed with a hint of impatience in his voice as he finally saw his precious dark metal chest being pulled out of the cave.
He wasted no moment snatching the chest from his guards and then kneeled down beside it.
"Go! Keep a lookout." he barked at the unsullied while hastily wiping any soil and dirt that had accumulated over the surface of the chest as well as inside the small keyhole.
It had only been a few weeks since his last visit to this place when he came to add another piece of treasure to this small chest, so he knew that everything in it was definitely safe, but he still wanted to check one more time for his own mental peace...
He took off a thin thread necklace wrapped around his neck, which had a small key attached to the end of it.
He slowly inserted the iron key into the keyhole and then turned it clockwise two times before he heard a loud click signifying that the chest was unlocked.
Without waiting for a single second, Ravager immediately raised the lid of the chest, exposing the contents of the treasure chest.
Placed inside the chest were less than ten items, but each object was so distinctive and famous that any one of them could lead to a small war, and each had the capability of single-handedly raising a dirt-poor family into a rich noble one.
The simplest thing inside was a big intricate key laying on a small piece of paper written on which was a unique 12-digit number.
This key and paper were the entry pass to a security vault in the Bravoosi bank, which had a deposit of almost 300,000 gold dragons according to the last count.
This was one of those secret vaults that anyone could make without having to give any name or identity which also meant that anyone with this key and the number could get access to all the gold inside no matter whether it was theirs or not.
This meant that it was quite a risky endeavour, but as a pirate, this was one of the best ways he could store his gold.
But this key was just a part of his wealth and was not even the most expensive item in there.
On the leftmost side of the chest were two daggers the size of an adult's forearm placed inside intricate sheaths adorned with small gems.
But these were not just normal daggers, as their blade was made from one of the rarest and most expensive materials in this world— Valyrian steel.
You could take these daggers to any noble in Essos or Westeros and easily sell them for thousands of gold dragons, without any problem.
Other than the daggers, there was a specially treated oil cloth, filled with at least ten pieces of paper, each of which corresponded to a piece of property such as a shop, house, or even an inn.
Some of them were in Pentos, some in Lys, and even a few in Tyrosh, but the one thing common among them was that each was situated in a prime location with their prices exceeding at least a thousand dragons each and these prices were only increasing every single year.
Alongside these property papers were identity papers belonging to a made-up name under whose name these properties were.
There was one other such oilcloth placed on the right side, and this one was filled with an old leather-bound diary.
This was the most simplistic-looking thing in this chest, but it still cost Ravager a very hefty sum. Not many people knew about it and there were only three such copies in the whole world, the other two belonging to his fellow pirate kings.
There were a few other expensive trinkets like a bag filled with emerald jewellery, a Valyrian glass candle that the citadel would sell half of their acolytes to buy, and even a magical ruby choker that Ravager had been told belonged to a red priest of R'hllor, though he had never been able to verify that.
Converted into gold, any of these items could buy one an army of slaves, the most beautiful prostitute of Lys, and even a rank of nobility in Westeros... one would be set for a lifetime with these.
But even among these precious items, there was one item that was in a league of its own...
Lying in the very centre on a plush cushion made of silk, was an oval-shaped rock the size of a child's head. Its surface was covered in hardened black iridescent scales that shimmered like polished gemstones with each scale overlapping slightly, creating a natural armour.
It was an object that was wanted everywhere in this world, from Shadowbinders of Asshai to the Red priests of Rhollor', from Old Blood of Volantis to Nobles of Westeros, but there was no more supply.
It was a legacy belonging to history's most powerful kingdom, it was fire and magic... it was a Dragon Egg.
This chest contained the essence of all the wealth Ravager had managed to accumulate over his decade-long life as a pirate, it contained all the blood and sweat he had spilt of countless men, women and children across Essos.
And he had gotten none of these items by luck, each of them had been carefully searched for and then bought from both willing and unwilling Nobles, Merchants, and Warriors from all across the world.
Whenever he felt that he had accumulated enough gold, Ravager would turn it all into the smallest but most expensive piece of item that he could find, and he did all for this day... so that he could carry this small chest and make an escape at any time.
And now his prudence was coming through for him in his dark dark times...
After being satisfied with checking the state of his treasure, Ravager closed the chest and locked it once again.
"Whiteworm! Do you remember where that backup boat is stowed away? Good, I want you to row it here and remember to be on the lookout for—"
Thuck!*
Ravager's words abruptly halted in his throat as he heard a dying cry that immediately made his heart drop to the bottom of his stomach.
His head turned slowly and mechanically, only for his eyes to bulge out as he saw the scene he dreaded the most.
His loyal unsullied slave, the one who had served him for a decade, the man who would follow any of his orders even if it meant death... now had a sharp arrow sticking out of his chest, gurgling and failing with a stunned look on his face.
With his face deadly pale and his eyes trembling, Ravager followed the direction the arrow came from and what he saw there left him in complete despair.
There, standing at the very edge of the forest, were four men who had come for his head...
Three of them were warriors, each carrying a different weapon, one had a spear, one a long sword and the third one was a young man with a bow in his hand which he had used to shoot the arrow.
The last one, standing behind the three, was the man Ravager hated the most in this world—the accursed Advisor.
In the next moment, Ravger's eye caught the young man reaching for another arrow and, almost immediately it jolted him out of his stupor.
'Run! Run! RUN!' his mind screamed at his body as he stumbled up to dash up the hill while holding the chest in his arms.
"Cover me with your body!" he roared at his other guard who was just standing there dumbly with his spear raised as if that was supposed to somehow deter the attackers.
'How the fuck did they even find me!'
...
"How did you even know they would be here?" Gared asked in a vexed tone as he saw Jon placing his second arrow through his bow and like clockwork, this one too was right on the dot and pierced straight through the back of the second guard who was trying to save the Pirate King, Ravager.
After they discovered the hidden exit inside the treasury, all four of them debated on whether to immediately climb down the ladder to follow after the pirate captain to catch him.
But both, Oberyn and Gared, had shaken their head and said that it was too dangerous...
Not only could there be traps and ambushes in there, but there was also a very high possibility that by the time they reached the end, the pirates would have had plenty of time to completely block the exit, turning their journey into a complete waste of time and giving their target plenty of chance to run.
But then Jon had once again come through for them and said that he had some idea about where the secret tunnel could be leading.
And then without telling them anything further, he had taken them out of the castle, and then through the forest filled with tall trees, until they finally reached the end and caught sight of their targets... just like he had said that they would.
"It's just simple logic," Jon replied with a shrug, as he lowered his bow and put it back around his shoulder, "They would either head towards the Northern or the Southern part of the island because both the East and West sides have ports and are too risky for escaping. So I just took a gamble that had half the chance of victory... and it seems to have paid off."
While both Gared and Oberyn wore sceptical and suspicious looks on their faces at this explanation, considering how easy it had all been... they couldn't exactly find any fault in Jon's argument so they could only let go.
But the newest member of their group was different as he had a little more information than the others.
He knew of the powers that his new captain commanded, and he knew that it was a simple thing for a man like him to find a single person on their small island, no matter where he was hiding.
"Shouldn't we catch him? He is getting away..." Oberyen asked with a raised eyebrow, pointing his finger towards their target who was at the moment frantically running up the hill, "Why not shoot him too?" he asked when he saw the carefree look on Jon's face as he put away his bow as if he was in no apparent rush to chase their target.
"That would be too comfortable of a death for a man like him," Jon replied while leading the way towards the small hill where the last remnant of this massive pirate fleet was bound to die.
It took them almost five minutes of leisurely hike before they reached the place where the second guard had died.
A few seconds after that they were finally able to see the face of the man known as the pirate king, and to be honest, both Oberyn and Gared were a bit disappointed...
The man had a scowl on his face, his shifty eyes kept looking all over the place as if looking for a way to escape.
In his right hand, the man tightly held a small chest of metal, while his other hand, holding the sword, was shaking fiercely as if he hadn't had a fight in years...
It was just pathetic.
His tall and burly build told them that he could have been a formidable warrior in his prime... but now he was just a fat coward who couldn't let go of his life. It just goes to show what can happen to a man once you get too comfortable and let go...
Ravager had gone through a lot of options in the few minutes leading up to his enemies walking up the hill.
He had contemplated fighting to death making his last stand right here...
He had considered darting straight towards them while looking for a chance to break through and make an escape but with the bow in that young man's hands... the chances of survival were too slim.
For a few seconds, he had even deliberated jumping into the icy waters of the narrow sea behind him, but when he turned around and actually looked at the deadly drop with enormous waves dangerously crashing into the cliff with the force of a thousand hammers... he just couldn't do it.
Whether it was the ocean behind him or the attackers in front of him, he knew in his heart that both of them would surely lead to his death, and he just wasn't ready to die yet.
With just a single chest in his hand, he was one of the richest men in this world and could easily live the life of a king...and it was too much for him to lose it all like that.
So in the end, he was too much of a hesitating coward and ended up doing nothing but agonize over his choices until...
The four bastards came over the hill and reached his position, leaving him with just one choice...
"Who are you?" Ravager asked the young man who seemed to be the leader of the group, a question that he was dying to know, his voice barely able to hide his hate and loathing, "Why the fuck did you attack my pirate group? What did I ever do to you?"
"I am Jon Snow," Jon answered simply, and almost immediately a hint of recognition lit up in the eyes of Ravager as he realised where the enmity between them had spawned from, "You sent your men to hunt for me, and when they couldn't find me, they went after my man and tortured him... something they should never have done,"
"T-That's it?!" Ravagers in a disbelieving tone, "Just for that?! Just for you one man, you killed my men! You destroyed my whole fleet! Just for a single boy who didn't even die!" he screamed as if he was on the verge of going crazy, "Are you fucking insane?"
'Considering who his ancestors were... I wouldn't be too surprised if he was some kind of insane,' Oberyn thought snarkily.
"Maybe I am, maybe I am not... Who knows?" Jon said as a dark look appeared on his face as he remembered the look of pain in that young boy's face as well as the condition and sufferings of the girls he had encountered inside the castle, "But that doesn't change anything about your situation, does it? So tell me, Pirate King, Ravager... how would you like to die? Because I promised my man that you would die at his hands... so it would really help me if just quietly surrender."
Ravager gritted his teeth at the casual way the young brat was speaking to him...
If it had been him from a few days ago, he would have already had his arms and legs cut off for this transgression and made him suffer for at least a year before giving him the mercy of death... but alas, he was not in the position to able to do that anymore, so he took a deep breath, buried his anger, and said, "I have a proposition for you..."
"Hmm?"
"The chest in my hand contains more wealth than any of you have ever seen before," Ravager calmly said while slowly raising the tightly held metal chest in his hands, "I am willing to share half of this with you if you are able to get me on a boat and let me leave this island safely," he said looking into the eyes of Jon, Oberyn and Gared while ignoring the Advisor, "Otherwise, I'll just throw this down and it will sink to the bottom of the ocean... useful to no one. So what do you say, will you—"
He was hoping that the allure of money could somewhat affect their cohesion and if he could get one of them to hesitate and betray the others and try to kill them to keep silent about it, then he could take advantage of it. But the result...
"No. I would rather not," Jon said simply with a shrug while Oberyn and Gared remained silent, not even entertaining his question with a response...
"What?!" Ravager exclaimed in a flustered manner, "I-I don't think you understand how much money I am talking about here... the price of items in this chest exceeds more than half a million gold dragons," he said enunciating each of his words clearly while forcefully patting the chest in his hands, "It is enough money for a city in your Westeros to survive for years, the wealth in the treasury you saw before in the castle is nothing compared to what is in it. So you need to think carefully—"
"As I said tempting, but still no."
"Y-You!" Ravager gritted his teeth with an incensed look on his face, but he knew that his efforts were fruitless as he wasn't able to see a single hint of greed in the faces of any man in front of him.
"You all will regret this! You Filth!" he let out an enraged scream as he finally lost his patience, "This won't be the end of me! I will come back and I will definitely kill each one of you! I am going to destroy everyone you hold dear! I swear this!"
After sending out his last words as if they were a curse, Ravager decisively jumped backwards without taking his hateful gaze off of the four people who had cornered him so much.
He knew that his chances of surviving were slim, that even if he somehow survived he had little chance of escaping... but even in death, he at least wanted to take away his enemy's chances to seize his life's treasure.
"Well... that was a letdown," Oberyn murmured with a disappointed look on his face. He had hoped for a good fight from the so-called King of Pirates, but it seemed that man's crew and his reputation was the only thing going for him.
"Ah! I so wanted to see what was in that treasure box," Gared let out in a regretful tone, lamenting the lost chance to get his hands on a Pirate King's treasure, "Do you think he was telling the truth about that small treasure box having so much wealth..."
"Most Probably..." The Advisor replied with a hint of a smile on his face. He was quite happy with the outcome. While it was a loss about the treasure, he was relieved as long as his hated enemy and kidnapper Ravager was dead.
"Don't worry so much. I am sure the treasure will turn up sooner or later," Jon said with a smile as they turned around to go back towards the castle.
"How? Do you have some kind of plan?" Gared asked with a lit-up expression on his face.
"Just an intuition," Jon said with his typical mysterious smile that frustrated Oberyn and Gared to no end.
...
As Ravager fell into the stormy sea with rapid waves crashing thunderously onto the cliff, the only thing in his mind was hatred and a fierce determination to live.
He struggled with all his might against the current, continually throwing his hands and legs along the waves to slowly move away from the cliff.
Ravager still held onto the chest tightly in one of his hands, and while it was making it hard for him to swim, he wasn't ready to let it go.
Thankfully, the chest was quite light, so he was able to make do as he was quite a good swimmer... which was an essential skill in the profession of piracy.
Just as the waves began slowing, and a faint hope began to rise in his chest that he may just survive this...
It all came crashing down when something suddenly grabbed his legs and abruptly yanked him down into the deep ocean.
At first, Ravager assumed that it was a reed or something, and so he fiercely struggled against it.
His breaths began to come in ragged gasps, each one filling his mouth with seawater and his muscles burned as he struggled but no matter how he thrashed his hands and legs, the rope holding his legs just wouldn't let go... it felt like fighting against the pull of a mountain.
But just as he was flailing left and right, the water in his surroundings abruptly cleared for some reason, and his eyes were finally able to see what the thing holding his leg was...
A shadow rose from the depths, an enormity that completely blotted out the light filtering through the water's surface.
His body, his mind and his heart all simultaneously halted as a deep-seated terror filled every inch of being...
It was an instinct buried deep inside of his body and it knew that the moment he moved even an inch, the predator in front of him would kill him ruthlessly.
'No, no, no! This can't be right, I must be fucking hallucinating! Because they can't be real! They just can't!' he screamed internally but the being in front of him never faded away, no matter how much he tried to deny it.
It was... The Kraken.
Its body was vast... a writhing nightmare of coiling tentacles that seemed to stretch endlessly, each limb undulating with a malevolent life of its own.
The Kraken's eyes loomed like twin abysses, massive and unblinking, reflecting no emotion. They glowed faintly, a sickly yellow-green that seemed to pierce through the water, locking onto him as if it could see straight into his soul.
In the next moment, a second tentacle emerged in front of him and latched onto his other leg, and then they went for his hands.
In just a matter of seconds, Ravager trudged up by all of his limbs in four different directions like a helpless starfish, unable to even exert a small bit of force.
He felt utterly powerless, a mere insect caught in the grip of a god.
In the next moment, those tentacles applied just a small bit of their crushing force... and as if he was just a small toy in the child, he was completely crushed. The flesh and bone in his hand and legs were twisted and mashed into a paste.
A scream tore from his throat, muted by the water, its vibrations swallowed by the vast silence of the abyss.
All his thoughts left him, leaving him with only the sheer agony of having his limbs ripped completely and that was not the end of his suffering as the Kraken began to pull its tentacles and his limbs were torn from his body... excruciatingly slowly.
The pain was just too much, Ravager wanted to die, die so bad... but, unfortunately for him, his death didn't arrive immediately.
It was only when his body had been broken and his mind completely shattered from the pain, that he finally breathed his last.
In the last few seconds of life, Ravager experienced more pain than most people had suffered in their entire life, it was a cruel end that most from Earth would not even wish upon their hated enemies.
But Jon was no longer a man from Earth, he was now of Planetos, and he had realised that some men deserve to suffer the most brutal form of torture before they were given the mercy of death...
So he had given his friend, Inky full freedom to dishing out the punishment as she wished... and she had come through for him.
And so died the mighty Pirate King who had terrorised these seas for more than a decade... at the hands of an actual Sea King.
/