Captain Fletcher sat alone in his cabin aboard his ship, the Emerald Lady. He had refurbished the ship from the previous owner and in doing so he had cut a sliver of the storage hold into his private study. Odds and ends from various conquests littered the shelves and floor around him, maps, gold, scraps of flags, even a strange jar filled to the brim with seemingly ordinary soil.
Yet his focus was on the documents before him. He had the numbers from the elderly scribe before him, several digits smaller than the Crown demanded. Time was short and even with surprisingly large donations from the Tavern Keeper, along with his personal savings added to the mix, all he could picture were the impending royal flags over DaVinci port that would come with the less than satisfactory bribe. He had briefly considered setting sail into the unexplored West. But his love for the town he had worked so hard to protect held him back. In frustration he shot a glare around the room. It landed on a small journal. It’d been the first thing he’d brought to his study, pilfered from the town’s treasury the first time he was in port on a dare from a crewmate. At the time he’d barely been able to read and with a jolt he realized that in all the years he’d had it he hadn’t even cracked the cover. Curiosity chasing his current problems from his mind, he plucked the journal from its dusty perch and flipped to the first page.
“The last journal of Gomez Rotan, scribe for the great inventor DaVinci himself….”
Fletcher’s heart jumped as he recalled the tales told around the tavern’s fires by white haired sailors, tales of times past when a great ship with a sphere for a sail, descending from the skies onto the island. “Great man DaVinci was, wearin’ strange goggles nestled in his whispy hair and a chain bearing a spiked wheel ‘round his neck. Stepped off that ship like it was a regular thing for him.” The younger pirates laughed at their stories and turned back to their rum, but the teenage Fletcher had clung to their every word. “Folks say the town welcomed him an’ his crew with gapin’ jaws, treatin’ him like Davy Jones in the flesh. Course once they saw the treasure onboard he’d got from selling his crazy contraptions, they realized he was just another rich folk waitin’ to be robbed. Took the treasure of the ship right over his cold body and, after taken’ a bit for their troubles, they buried it like any sensible pirate would.” “And then?” Little Fletcher had asked, perched on the edge of his chair, “Well then, fight broke out as to who was supposed to keep the map to the booty. Ended up all dead from what I heard, only folk who might know where that trove is, is the crewmembers who surrendered. Course they long dead I reckon. Treasure could still be out there, If stories to be believed that is…”
But right here, in his hands, was a journal from a man who claimed to know the great DaVinci. Eagerly he scanned the rest of the page,
“After the Vault Massacre, I was more thankful than ever my sweet Mary fancied me. I hid my journals all over the island to protect myself but more than that to protect her. No one can know I saw that map to the treasure. It was only fortune that I was not caught in the crossfire of that horrid night. I left notes bound to the journals bearing clues to the vault. I pray that when this journal finds its way out of my possession, this scoundrel of a town will have learned some humanity. Read on carefully reader, greed changes a man….”
Fletcher froze as he turned the page, realizing he was looking at the inventory of the vault. It would more than satisfy those privileged royals. At the bottom of the page though was an item that was more valuable in his eyes than the entirety of the buried loot. Any of the townsfolk would’ve dismissed it as useless next to the mouthwatering list above it, but Fletcher couldn’t stop re-reading the final words.
Schematics from the construction of DaVinci’s flying machine.
Jorrok — See you in blissfully good weather on Saturday! Stick around for chili and a movie after the event.