1 Final Voyage

"Half sails! Port side! Xed and Krys, prepare for a broadside and board! One last pass and they're done for!" A man yelled, his frantic turning of the wheel towards the left made the wood creak and the ropes stress from the turn.

"I'm boarding, I'm boarding!" Xed screamed, getting himself inside the cannon and launching his body with the force of a cannonball toward the enemy ship, a brigantine but noticeably with the main mast and foremast tilted and broken.

Chain shot after chain shot from the front a while ago led it to its current state, the three-man crew on the other side hauling the fallen masts with desperation and one trying to shoot back. They couldn't get the distance right... for now, Karma mused.

"Larc! Their ship is in a death spiral, defend the ladders and watch out for the counter boards, I'll get to the cannons and punch more holes in! Xed, what's their status?" Karma yelled.

Xed replied, his sword dashing through the air and knocking one of them out of the deck and killing two others. "Killed two! The other's out! I'm anchoring them and camping their spawn! They're halfway towards sinking!"

"Found him, ouch!" Larc grabbed the captain's attention as he found his way to his inventory and got out a pineapple. "There's one in the water, I got hit once with a sniper. He might be boarding, all of you just keep shooting the ship, I can handle it."

"Already am!" Krys yelled, her female voice ringing from the comms as the other three groaned. "I'm getting more cannonballs!"

Karma was the first to voice his obvious annoyance. "Krys! Your mic is on in the game, can you please just set it to push to talk instead of toggle?!"

"Piss off!" She yelled back, accidentally saying it to the entire crew on the other team. "It's better this way because I don't like to hold down the button!"

"We've been playing Sea of Thieves for 2 years, how the heck have you not yet realized you've been accidentally fat-fingering your damn key and that it's annoying as hell?!"

"They're sunk!" Xed interrupted, holes filling the hull of the brigantine as the 4 man galleon gave their focus back from real-life back to the game. Their celebration would have to wait, they were not safe yet.

"Shh..." Larc said, focusing on his headphones as the sound of a sinking ship and flowing waves of the blue-green ocean kept the ambience healthy with noise. "He's on the starboard side!"

Whipping out his blunderbuss he reached for the right side of the ship, just as one of the crews from the brigantine made his way up and eventually onto the ship itself but his life would be taken when he only took one step.

"Got him!" Larc announced but was soon interrupted by the sweet sound... of salt.

"You fucking sweats are the reason why I am refunding this dead game! Your mother was a whore and your father left you because you were some bitch with no job slapping your dick on your fucking keyboard-"

The player who died cut off from his mic as the four-man galleon laughed at the amount of beta-male energy that man was exuding from a simple death.

"Even when we're not even veterans of the game, there's still a load of salt in the high seas. Their loot is floating to the surface, you think we have enough to get that last cosmetic?" Karma asked Larc.

"I think so... the Reapers are different since we can sell most of this loot with the bonus from our grade 5 Emissary flag, we can reach it... maybe barely."

Karma manoeuvred the ship around for the harpoons on the front to face the gains they had taken from the enemy Gold Hoarder Emissary, an emissary based on finding treasure chests, which were now all going to be taken by the PvP Trading Company.

Xed climbed up the ladder on the side of the galleon, his character thoroughly wet and covered in wounds from the previous battle, also he had half a piece of meat in his hands for whatever reason.

"Thank God we're done, it's getting harder to find active players. Why'd we have to join when it was announced they were going to pull the plug 2 years from now, literally the exact moment we started?"

"You know how it goes, Xed," Karma replied, his harpoon repeatedly clicking in place after he takes another treasure chest and throws it on the ground for Krys to take it and arrange the variety of loot. "We true Reapers limit ourselves to PvP and it got hard to reach level 5 Emissary but we might be good enough for now."

The day took a long hour and most of the time it was mostly looting that kept them speeding through the clock. Eventually, for such a quiet server in the last of times, they had reached the Reaper's Hideout, an island where they could meet the Servant of the Flame to sell their gains, the only place in the Sea of Thieves to accept PvP gotten goods with a bonus to every type.

Karma chuckled as the rowboat with a harpoon on it was being dragged across the sand, the others walking around and playing their instruments to the tune of 'Bosun Bill' while they wait for him.

"Hah! Imagine if we went with Xed's idea of going for a Gold Hoarder voyage, you might as well grind your last days with a Merchant Alliance commodity run if you want to waste your time without any... real fun, or hell... the Order of Souls... bleugh!"

"I didn't expect people to be still on! I'll have you know that Gold Hoarder voyages are full of exploring the places within the Sea of Thieves."

"If you wanted to explore then we should've done a Tall Tale. You keep trying to justify yourself, you know you're wrong. Right guys?" Karma turned to the other two, with Larc answering first and Krys happily throwing bombs around the area while they walked alongside the dragging rowboat.

"Yeah, you're an idiot, Xed. Why do boring commodities run instead of looting other people and having fun with the challenge?" Larc joked.

"True, true! Maybe it's cuz you suck at sailing anywhere!" Krys added.

"Oi, I killed those last two dudes by myself and singlehandedly prevented them from repairing."

Karma had a sly grin. "They were a brigantine with white sails, that's like booting a 6-month-old infant towards the roof of your house and telling yourself that you won a sparring match with another person."

"...If I kicked a pregnant woman would that mean I won 2v1?"

Karma lost his smile when Xed had a weird change in topic. "Dude, keep your sick shit to yourself. It's like those times you sent Larc those gifs that you have of memes that we do not understand the humour of."

"..."

A moment passed as Xed's character suddenly went still and Larc on his mic sighed out loud. "Oh for God's sake! He sent another one just as you said that, Karma!"

"What did he send?"

"...Astolfo with his cock out and CJ from San Andreas saying 'Aw shit here we go again' this is like the fourth image of Astolfo, where the hell do you even find these?!"

A cackle of madness, joy and unadulterated trollage came from Xed. "I found it on another discord server."

"Hey, enough about this... hobby... of sending us mentally crunching images that even medusa would shut her eyes with." Karma got out of the rowboat and began throwing bombs towards it, destroying the small vessel and leaving fully stacked loot on the ground only meters away from where the Servant of the Flame stood.

With each piece of treasure being transferred by the four, the money piled in. The clinks of coins and the clatter of chests being transferred went on for 10 minutes, enough for the notification to be delayed.

"Welp, that's that. I'm so glad we didn't have to move to an outpost ever since the devs did that last update to add a cosmetics store in Reaper's Hideout. I'm gonna buy the new cosmetic, what about you guys?"

"Hmm..." Larc hummed in thought. "Xed, Krys, wanna start firebombing and sinking the ship? It's the last day after all. We're going to college after this so we might not be able to get enough time anymore."

"Yeah, that sounds good!"

"Yea!"

As the trio headed for the ship to send it to a Viking-styled funeral, Karma walked to the small tents propped up for cosmetics to be sold. 'Let's see... I can't believe this costs almost a billion. Good thing we already farmed our stash up from two years of constantly playing.'

Entering the UI, Karma started scrolling and filtered the results, what was shown was a ritual-themed body, marks of red trails circling the entire torso, lines and symbols he didn't know about dotted across the skin and the eyes were supposed to be whitened.

He bought it and immediately wanted to try it out. "Huh, not bad but for 999 Million, it's kind of lacklustre since I can't see it beneath my clothes… Oh! It glows!" Karma muttered at the mic and started dancing to see his character in 3rd person.

That had seemed to catch everyone else attention. "Does it really glow? Hold on, I'll buy it too." Larc said, followed by more voices of agreement from Krys and Xed.

Each of them wore the exact same skin cosmetic, the glowing hues of dark red that transitioned to lighter as they went to the head. They had bought everything they could free to play. It was satisfying.

"So, you guys already sinking her?" Karma asked as they proceeded to the shores, a cannon emplacement nearby ready to before on their ship as it floated slowly away with the entire top deck on fire.

Larc sat on the cannons one moment later and replied. "Nope, we need to put in a few shots in the bottom hull. …What's the name of the ship again?"

"...Eviction Notice."

"Who named it?"

"Xed."

"Ah, that would make sense…" Larc started blowing holes through their own ship, it was the classic Reaper set with the Reaper's Bones inaugural master sails. It wasn't their most expensive set but it had a value to it. The set was the first cosmetic they had used, I know edgy, right? and it was fitting for their start to be their end.

"It's sailing away now boys. One last tune for her as we see her bow dip below the waves." Karma mentions, pulling out his hurdy-gurdy and setting the tune to 'Who Shall Not Be Returning'.

The Eviction Notice set itself to the horizon, its sails a quarter open as the four saw their ship sail into the great beyond, the last of their adventures alight and now sent off to be offered to the deeps of the sea.

The flames blended with the setting sun, the skies full of colour as they saw the ship slowly lower beyond where the deck was, the ship's fires roared as the ship started to creak to the waves with the others continuing to play their quartet of a song.

"Thanks for serving us well."

"Yeah…" the rest said, the thought of continuing their stressful lives threatened to be brought to even greater heights.

Despite what many may think of as dramatic, these were the lives of modern man. Sacrificing youth in schools to get a sure boring job, wasting away to pay the bills, and leaving less time for games and adventure.

It was the experience and all those hours toiled that set every gamer to enjoy what they liked - indulge in those moments as if you were in them, love the characters you played, hated the ones you fought and respected them both, much like any other human.

"Well… I guess it's time to lower our flag before it sinks." Karma ushered the others to the table in front of the Servant of Flame, the daggers they held would mark the end of their servitude to the Reaper's Bones.

"Why isn't it lowering? I thought we only needed a majority, aren't three daggers already on the table?" Xed asked, the others looking on with curiosity.

"Guys?" Krys calls out, the men still flabbergasted. "You might want to check out the Servant of Flame, I don't think a voyage is supposed to be here."

Karma scoffed. "A voyage? Krys, it's not possible for the Reapers to have voyages- and there's a voyage."

Where there shouldn't be anything related to a voyage, there was one now. Right in the centre too, which made it equally odd. Not only that, it was only one choice, not three like any other voyages offered by the Trading Companies.

"Treasure like none other lay beyond the Sea of Thieves?" Karma read aloud, making Xed try searching it up on his browser.

"I'm looking it up… there's nothing! Impossible! Perhaps the archives are incomplete…"

"I accepted it," Krys stated bluntly, making the others look at her in-game with disappointment.

"Why… okay fine… we might as well try to do one last voyage. We already tried sinking our ship… wait a minute it should be sinking right now. Krys, vote for the flag to lower."

"Sure," Krys said, pulling out her own dagger and stabbing it on the table, indicating her vote to lower the flag. Yet, nothing else came. "…I'll look at the voyage."

"How is this possible? Is Rare screwing around with us again?" Karma sighed. "What's the voyage, Krys? I'll try saving our ship. Let's move while you read-"

"Uh!" Xed yelled. "Why do I hear boss music?!"

""What?!"" They all yelled.

"Guys! The voyage is glitching around! It's not showing up on my map and my screen is flickering! Please don't crash…" Krys pleaded, the others soon experiencing the same thing.

Xed started yelling incoherently in a panic. "My screen is dying, hold on I gotta restart-" The discord disconnect sound played soon after.

"Xed? I'll spam him in the chat-" Larc got cut off as well. Another disconnect occurred, the character in-game disappeared too which meant it was not just discord acting up. Karma reached the outside and gaped at what was there.

"Uh… Krys?" Krys disconnected similarly as Karma tried calling out to her. Krys' character getting removed as Karma was left alone. "What the hell is going on?! The ship is not sinking anymore! It's sailing here!"

Their ship, their beloved vessel that they thought was halfway under the water was... sailing, flames spreading across its hull, not affected by the sea. The wood was further blackened by the flames, which Karma knew wasn't a feature.

His screen flickered on and off, and before his screen died, one message ominously showed. "Pirates For All Eternity."

"What-" A thud followed, Karma's real body slamming into the desk and further falling to the floor. A peal of laughter followed, one deep and bellowing as Karma's body was slowly sinking to the floor.

No one would ever see these four ever again, but as life ended in one…

Another began anew…

"Show those fools what true piracy means! As free as the sea, as fierce as the flame!" the voice echoed.