I for some reason really like this story. Maybe I've been playing too much Total War Warhammer 3…

Discords:

Shiro's Gaming Omniverse: discord .gg/wd3tUYWVCd

The Administratum (My Server): discord. gg/9ah46GFzbn

If either of the links don't work, DM me (the_commissar13), I'll reply as soon as I see it.

Welcome to the Crew

Winslow was still a shit hole. Though that could partly be because I was in here when no one else was. It was the middle of the night after all. I had told the hospital staff that I had already contacted my parents (I hadn't) and got the fuck out of dodge. They had insisted on giving me a medical eye patch to cover up my eye socket, but I had discarded it three blocks out. It didn't feel right. Creeping silently through the halls, I finally made it to my destination, the drama room/auditorium. I grabbed the door handle and ripped it off the door, letting me walk in unimpeded. After seeing Panacea, I came to a realization. I needed a costume. In fact, my entire group probably did. I quickly went to the back and started sifting through costumes and props. Fantasy knights? They didn't really fit what my power seemed to like. Farmers and farm animals? Definitely not. The third box I opened stopped me in my tracks. A simple tricorn hat with a skull and crossbones sat at the top of the box. This, this was what I was here for. It made so much sense in hindsight that my power was basically undead pirates. I had focused far too much into how the PRT classified powers, not realizing that the being that resurrected me said that he gave me powers.

I put the hat back into its box and kept searching, finding more boxes of pirate themed clothing, probably from the Peter Pan play that had happened years ago. It totaled into three boxes of pirate costumes, which might or might not be enough, but I would need more later anyways once my gro-crew grew in size. I stacked the boxes atop each other and picked them up from the bottom, my sight was blocked, but I stumbled through the halls based on memory. I had made it about halfway out when I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a smell. It smelled of rot and decay- of death. I placed the boxes down, slowly tracking down the delicious smell of a corpse, tracking it into a locker. I ripped the door off of its hinges, finding, to a small bit of disappointment, not a corpse, but a girl. She was barely hanging on to life, her breathing shallow, and labored. A pang of something echoed from inside my chest and I reached into the locker and pulled her out. The rot within not really bothering my undead sensibilities. Her broken and lacerated limbs leaked a weak flow of blood, maggots and other insects falling out of wounds that were opened due to the movement.

The girl, who I felt I should know yet didn't, slowly opened her eyes. She seemed confused, and understandably scared. She tried to speak, but much like me when I had just come back from the dead, seemed unable to do anything other than wheeze and grunt. I tried to form a smile, but it probably looked like a grimace considering the state of my body.

"Yo-" I coughed, I still had a lot of sea water in my lungs. "You'll be fine. Just gotta get ya to the hospital."

The girl weakly nodded, slowly closing her eyes, her breathing stopping completely.

"Shit, looks like she died." I lowered her corpse to the ground before starting the resurrection process. It would at the very least be easier to carry the boxes with an extra set of hands. As I prepared the purple energy to raise her corpse, I frowned. It was taking much more energy and a much longer time than usual to raise her. Longer than when I raised all of the ABB thugs in the brothel. Pushing more energy, I watched as her eyes snapped open, red eyes staring back at my one red eye. Her bones popped as they snapped back together, a silent scream erupting from her mouth.

The resurrection ended, and I slumped forward, tired. The girl slowly sat up, looking around slowly. Her eyes met mine and she froze, "Captain?"

I sighed, apparently everyone I raised would do that. "Let's get these boxes out of here," I said, slowly standing back up, "We have work to do."

She hadn't expected to wake back up. She had gotten powers, but they did nothing to help her. Bug control was useless when you were trapped in a locker, dying of disease and blood loss. Her Captain had come around to help her, looking how she felt. Injured, dead, and uncaring, for what she didn't know. He had tried to help, which was more than she could have said for her father, who didn't realize she was missing, or her friends, who had stuck her in the locker in the first place. She had accepted she was going to die, and she had, but Her Captain, who took her out of the locker woke her once again, this time from death. She would help Her Captain, as her debt to him demanded. A life for a life.

She heard the captain sigh, a decidedly human sound from an inhuman source. She frowned, hoping the sigh wasn't about her, she really didn't want to displease the captain. She quickly went to pick up the loot that the captain had brought earlier, not daring to peek no matter how tempted she was.

"Follow me, we need to reach the docks to enter the sea."

"Yes captain."

The two of them snuck through the halls, making it out and back into the streets without any issue. They only ran into one person on the streets, but he was so high, he probably thought he was seeing things. Making it into the water, Taylor watched as her captain stopped, before leaving the boxes and hopping into the water. She looked over the edge of the docks, making sure to keep an eye on the loot so no one would try to take any from her captain. Taylor almost yelped as her captain's hand reached out and grabbed the edge of the dock, several others also climbing out of the water. All in all, 46 crew members and a beast made their way out of the water.

"Let's crack these boxes open and get geared up," her captain said, several crew members muttering aye captains under their breath as they eagerly opened the boxes. Inside was proper sea clothing. Tricorns, vests, loose dueling shirts, eye patches (she would never say it outloud, but her captain really needed one), pantaloons, boots, and some bandanas. "Get what you need and move aside, we will need to get more some other way."

Her captain quickly withdrew what clothing he would use (a vest, boots, an eye patch and a tricorn) and stepped aside. Despite being the newest to the crew, she got priority due to being made better than the rest of them. She quickly picked out a cocked tricorn, a loose shirt to replace her shredded one, a vest, and boots. After leaving the box, the rest of the crew swarmed the boxes, picking out clothing they would use or need and changing right there. Gang colors were changed out for true sailing clothes. The strange, yet ultimately useless weapons were switched out for weapons of the sea, polearms, rifles, cutlasses, and handguns being distributed amongst the crewmen.

She frowned, seeing a lack of artillery, or monstros constructs that she knew the captain could raise. The constructs I could see have some unpleasant and complicated rituals to make. But the artillery should have been raised as one of the first groups. Even one crew would be useful. Ultimately, she would not question her captain, his decisions likely made with some greater plan in mind.

Very quickly, the boxes were empty, leaving only 4 zombies without proper sea wear. Her captain kicked one of the cardboard boxes into the water, letting it sink while two other zombies dumped the other 2 boxes in as well.

"We need to lie low for now." Her captain said, kneeling by the edge of the docks. He then jumped into the water, leaving her with the rest of the crew.

"You heard the captain. Down we go." She then jumped into the water, letting the sea embrace her for the first time.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks, into months, and still, the little guy would do nothing. True, he did make a great Luthor Harkon impersonation, just letting corpses come to him, but unlike Luthor Harkon, he did not have centuries to build an army. He had less than two years.

"Fuck it, guess I have to get involved, personally"

Appearing at the bottom of the bay, the thing turned its glowing red eyes into the eyes of the vampire admiral that his little experiment had raised. The thing walked past the admiral, ignoring the sword that got stabbed into its back. Making it to where the experiment was, the thing smiled.

"Well, well, well. Look at you, you boring little vampire." The vampire froze looking straight into his/hers/its eyes. Not all of them granted, but the ones on the outside at least.

"You have done nothing but sit in the bottom of the ocean and be a bore. I helped you give me drama! Action! To stir the pot a bit and bring about a different ending to this stage! Not to," The thing shivered, "Play it safe!" The thing spat the words out like they were a curse.

"Hell, you've barely even explored the powers I gave you! I give the combined knowledge of three of the universe's best vampire necromancer pirates, and you spend most of the time just sitting here and sulking." The thing huffed, crossing its arms over its chest. "Here is what is going to happen, you are either going to go and do something in the next week, or I am going to do something incredibly mean and petty."

The thing then disappeared itself out of the reality, sighing and peering back into the world. It frowned slightly.

"Consider a drop into still water, a ring, ever expanding. Every interaction, an unforeseen change. Consider then, a multitude of drops, interacting with each other. A froth. A seeth. An effervescence. Consider, then, Fortuna," The thing turned to the only other person in the white room with it. "What would happen to the world, should my entertainment be destroyed."

Fortuna, Contessa, The Boogiewoman herself, stood frozen before the thing. Eyes vacant, form shivering from fear.

"Absolute annihilation." The thing said, pacing back and forth in front of Fortuna. "Already, every moment I stay here, fixing things you set in motion, is ripping this universal cluster at the seams. Your path, can't see it yet, but this reality will collide with its neighbors should I spend too much time here. You don't want that. I don't want that either. So you are going to be a good girl, and stay away from my little bit of entertainment." The thing smiled at her, too wide, too many teeth. "That was your plan anyway for the terminus experiment, right?"

Fortuna shakily nodded.

"Good, now I just need to get Conflict Platform #3 to agree with me."

"N-number three?"

The thing smiled even wider. "That's a secret," it said before ripping a hole in reality and leaving. Fortuna fell forward onto her knees, freed from the invisible pressure the thing had.

[Path to Victory]

[Path to Kill The Thing]

[Error: No Path Found]

{Well that's interesting, guess I'll just…}

Fortuna screamed, her head feeling like it was splitting open.

{I expected this of the doctor, not you. Oh well, guess I'll just have to clean more messes.}

Fortunas eyes opened, no longer the same that had closed in pain earlier. They were now red, and bloodshot, blood leaking from the edges. She panted, trying desperately to regain her breath. Desperately, Fortuna reached for a path.

[Path t-]

[Error]

"No."

"Yes," The thing was back, a syringe filled with blood in one hand, her arm in the other. The needle was stuck into her arm, the blood injected, and Fortuna fell unconscious.