25 A Sack of Organs

Tilda chuckled.

"I will be telling on them…well, it is a positive thing, isn't it? I have personally noticed Sharona and Victoria to have been talking about you, Cap'n…in a carnal sense. Some of the things they have said make my ears get all red."

"Really?" Bastian asked, amused. "Perhaps I will invite both of them for dinner. After we deal with that merchant, of course. I will assist Amanda and Sammy with the coordination of the rigging department now."

"Thank you, Captain," Tilda said with a curtsey and a smile. She disappeared up into the rigging, with only a cloud of smoke informing Bastian of her whereabouts.

Even the weakest of the women of this world were worth a dozen men from the normal Earth. They had no problems climbing the rigging like agile monkeys, it was only the strength and the experience that they lacked severely enough that all the ladies aboard the Maiden's Mercy were pretty much busy around the clock.

But good heavens, it made Bastian way too nauseous to watch any of them climbing up there. Maybe he was being a bit stupid. They were all highly competent women who knew about toiling and labor, but he felt so bad about even the slightest possibility of any of them falling and being injured that he had to turn his head away.

Perhaps it was just a positive character trait to have. He was no Roy Gorgo, after all. Something had to be done about this inconvenient amount of softness, though, for a pirate's personality was supposed to be different from a landlubber womanizer. Not like the people from the past lives of these ladies had treated them well, of course.

They approached the merchant, but they still lacked a clear plan of action. Someone suggested to Bastian (so many women, he did not remember which one of them had said so after a minute had passed) that they should now pretend to be doing a ritual sacrifice with a woman as the victim, and Bastian thought that this was a good idea in itself…but it lacked something. Indeed, he started to wish that he would have picked up a woman with a background in theater or literature.

"I love you with all my heart, husband, but the blood on your clothes is nowhere near fresh enough," Amanda complained. "Wish we had someone useless aboard, a prisoner, a sack full of organs and stuff that looks good when sprayed all over the deck!"

"Sometimes I am more afraid of Amanda than I am of Captain Gorgo," Sammy said, but she softened the blow of her words with a loud cackle. She looked so fresh in the light of the afternoon sun that Bastian nearly wanted to take both first mates right then and there, common courtesy be damned.

"A sack of organs…" Captain Bastian snapped his fingers. He had an idea for something so macabre that Amanda would carry the moon to him out of the sheer morbid delight she would deliver from his trick.

"Do you have a spare set of clothes you can destroy after this?" he asked his wife.

She squinted at him, probably thinking that he was up to something licentious.

"I am thinking about blood and a sack of organs and I recently butchered a whole lot of goats," he explained. "Someone should bring me those bodies of the animals that we did not immediately throw overboard."

The ladies obeyed, although he got a few funny looks.

"Amanda, can you pretend to be dead or even better, dying?" he asked his wife once she got back.

"I can try," she said cautiously. "What exactly are you planning to do, husband?"

"I hope you won't mind…it'll smell pretty awful. But I promise that the second we lay anchor, you are going to get a nice, hot bath."

She seemed content with this, and Bastian explained the rest of his devious plan.

They were going to face the merchant with the same weapons they had used before. Bastian didn't want to take any risks, as they did not have many fighters on board - just a few who could hold their own with a sword, and that was absolutely nothing against 60-80 able-bodied men.

Though they did not have the advantage they would have had at nighttime, Bastian was sure that his trick would work better than just trying to use brute force.

They gave some women the task of sewing together a sack that was to be filled with blood and internal organs from the butchered goats. Amanda would wear a constrictive bra-like corset that was supposed to make her flat-chested once the bag of blood was punctured.

Shortly, they had decided to make it look like they performed a ritual sacrifice, using Amanda's fake blood-filled breasts as victims. It was kind of a weird idea, causing a giggle in many of the crewmates. But it was weird enough that it would work. Maybe. They had to capitalize on their cult-like reputation.

The merchant drew closer. With the wind blowing so strongly from the west, Bastian had trouble getting enough womanpower into the rigging without risking anyone's life. He had to make do with less sails than he would have wanted to put in full functionality. Still, they were heading towards a battle and everyone, especially Captain Black, had to remain focused.

Bastian decided to stand in the bow with his sword on Amanda's throat so that the merchant crew could see it - he wasn't afraid of the sacredness of female individuals. And he had his own, ripped, blood-stained shirt on. The scene was dramatic to watch.

"You are an exciting man, Captain Black," Amanda whispered. "Do I start screaming now?"

"I would rather wait until they are closer." Bastian chuckled. "Do the blood bags feel bad on your chest?"

"Extremely," she groaned. "I feel like my upper body is pregnant with smelly blood and guts."

"That is something I never want to think about again."

"It was your idea, my dear husband. I think one of them is pulling out a spyglass. We should start our show."

Bastian put on his most insane expression. It was not as much a grin as it was something entirely unnamed, a horrible grimace of someone tortured half dead by delusions and hallucinations.