A quick dram of rum goes down and he again continues barely taking a breath." Another higlight has to be fighting our old mentors SHM, Lodswe and Black Sparrow in the Vudu vs Helm War.
William one Eye to Iron Helm – I wrote this great letter even if I do say so myself ".. He nudges Argo with his elbow .. and almost whispers - "a fine night be had with the mighty Tom Lowe, twas 'im what inspired me.."
"Mess with the cannonballs, get the short fuse ... "
"We the guild VUDU, view the aggressive coordinated attack on the leader of our guild by no less than 18 members of the guild HELM who cast a combined total of 319 voodoo cards on a single player, as an attack on our sovereignty. We refuse to yield the principals that are the foundation of our guild, to threats of terror or the fruition of those threats.
While we recognize the grievances of the Iron Helm and their right to retaliation. We shall not bend to these actions and announce our full intention to reciprocate. On this day, 1662, We, The Brethren hereby declare a state of war with The Iron Helm. May we fight with honor, may we fight with dignity, may our mighty cannons shake the resolve of those who would seek to change us. May this be a war of honor, not a war of ambition. We salute you our most respected adversary."
Argo is astonished he remembers it word for word and can just prattle it off at any old time .. but at the same time she is not surprised. The being sitting opposite her is everything rolled into one . an enigma indeed.
He tosses his head back, "I lost quite a few nice ships but it was worth it, for the fun of the fight" dropping his spork he guffaws heartily at the memory. Loosening his belt a little more he continues ...laughing so hard at the following words his face turning a bright red causing Argo momentary concern! ..
Hahahaha. Shortly after we found ourselves in another conflict with Helm. We were fighting these young, newly arrived, arrogant and relentless pests that had joined up and were making a name for themselves, poaching ships from our raids, and talking a big game. " Barely able to hold himself together .. "These pirates were named xPro and Dmanwuzhere.
Had so much fun fighting these guys we eventually invited them to join the VUDU."
Another tankard gone. Argo notices Wills single good eye twitch towards the window. She follows its gaze. Will abruptly stops talking, eating and guzzling ale. He stands up and smashes the empty stool at the next table over. He picks up a stool leg and walks
briskly out of the Hair o the Frog and into the street.
He approaches a gigantic muscle bound man standing akimbo in front of the pub. He looks hardened and sun-beat. But He has not the look of a sailor, he’s more likely a dock worker and a giant nonetheless. Upon seeing Wills approach the man immediately pulls a large knife and positions himself in a fighting stance. Before he is able to make any further move, Will strikes the man in the face with the furniture leg. Grabbing the man’s knife from him, Will stabs him in the abdomen. Stabbed by his very own knife.!
The man falls almost like tree getting felled. Will rips open the mans shirt and takes a necklace off of him then quickly turns and returns to the pub leaving the motionless giant bleeding in the street.
He resumes his seat next to Argo nonplussed and places the necklace on himself. Then resumes eating drinking and talking as if nothing at all had happened.Argo recognizes the necklace, its a simple hemp cording with an arrangement of bones and a big tooth at the front. She has seen Will wearing it often and forever. She wondered did he lose it gambling, was it lifted or did someone simply claim it as a prize from an unconscious body they found in an alley? She fears the latter.. the other options are much less likely.
Argo grins and marvels at William One Eye's ability to pop back in his seat so nonchalantly and carry on as if nothing has happened .. He just continues drinking ale and rambling, "...Seriously though.... VUDU vs MERC - maybe the highlight of all conflicts. We were ruthlessly beating on each other for what seemed like and might have been months.
It might not have looked like much to an outsider, but a lot of action was going on constantly and heavy between the two guilds.
On the seas and in the taverns the fierce fighting generally remained above the belt. It was a blast, I was somewhat sad when it ended but it was nice to finally get some sleep."
Argo looks out the tavern window. The man is still lying on the ground bleeding out. No one has offered help or even checked to see if he’s alive. She thinks briefly, "What kind of neighborhood is this?".
Somewhat wide-eyed she scribbles these events on her parchment pad hurriedly making a note to herself to contact the Governor of Tzogos, damnthetorpedoes for an interview regarding the lawlessness and strange goings on in his port!
On Will prattles, something Argo has yet work out if Meliva caused Wills prattling or the other way around -- " Prattlers both " she giggles....Will voice interrupts her thoughts .. "I also recall the The Saint kitts Gifting of Ports.
We took a break from Isle of man and shut it down, A few of us merged with Egypt who was also shutting down. When we merged the nation had far to many ports so we went all Oprah and just started handing them out like candy. Grenada, Montenegro, and Kiribati all got to raise up flags on the map for a while.
Argo cannot shake the lingering thoughts of the body in the street, and continues her slightly distracted gaze out the window at said body, a couple more ravens show up. Patrons of the neighborhood seemingly walk
by without a hint of concern.But Will just carries on with his tales," Now.. there was Smoke and Mirrors - the standoff " He chortles some more stuffing in another mouthful of the unknown from his plate.
"These two aggressive privateers named Banger and Feniks had joined up with VUDU as did some of the players from Grenada who I've already mentioned. I was slowly recruiting these players into joining Isle of Man.
We were out in the ports, trying to recruit more and more players. At this point we were hoping to get some players from outside the guild. But that was hard based upon our reputation. Baramas was an Egyptian port that was part of the St kitts merge and the port was Gifted to Grenada
When Grenada disbanded most if its players joined up with UK or Isle of Man. Uk under Vane I believe gifted Baramas to the Nation of Kiribati. For a while they flourished, however as time passed and sailors retired the Nation of Kiribati started to go inactive we reached out and tried to recruit the remaining members. We had our eyes on a couple of players, They were pretty good and spread out over 2 guilds that were based on the Kiribati nation. Things seemed to be going pretty good. We had made an offer to the king of Kiribati and he was joining Isle of man, it was his and his followers choice to bring baramas over or not Everyone was welcomed to join Isle and we were not requiring anyone to join VUDU. Everything was going pretty smoothly
" Until one of the players went missing..... a young sailor named El Draque, who I believe was governor at the time, suddenly disappeared." Suddenly a man in an apron comes out of the kitchen, Walks out to the street, shoes away the birds, grabs the body and drags it into the pub and then back into the kitchen. For the first time Will pauses.
Will gets a very serious look on his face...He leans in close to Argo and whispers in a low slur, "I would not order the beef for dinner here tonight." Just as quickly he sits back upright and resumes eating, drinking and babbling. Argo has no words. She grabs her tankard and guzzles it in one motion ! He sits back on his chair and stretches. He begins to loosen his belt some more as he attempts to stifle another belch.
"We delayed the merger waiting on his return, after a couple of weeks we started to move on without him. During this time, someone decided to raid him. After several hours of watching him losing ships my urges got the better of me and I joined in.Well slap me with a sea mullet cause a few days later as the merge is moving forward, this sailor appears out of nowhere, and he is more than a bit irate about the loss of his ships and rightfully angry that he lost some to people he was in a deal with. Suddenly all sorts of people are rallying behind him, TK joins in and decides they want the port cause the had given Kiribati aid. Players from UK and and Grenada where angry cause they had given the port to Kiribati and felt TK should not get it.
The king of Kiribati had moved to Isle and also had intentions of keeping the port. Pretty much everyone that disliked Isle got behind TK in support. Isle was never one to pass on a fight so we declared war on everyone. We would probably have been crushed but Tk did the honorable thing and refused to accept the help of the mob, making it just Isle vs Tk."
"Two groups of stubborn strong willed and to with many players who felt they had economic interests in the port, made it a very long stand off in
which negotiations continuously failed. It went on a pretty long time for a port war between 2 nations neither of which had a legitimate claim on the port. It was both fun and infuriating at the same time.
Pulpop was negotiating on behalf of TK, We had no idea if he was presenting offers to the other memembers of TK or just taking an hard line and rejecting every deal that was not 150% in their favor. I was presenting his offers to Shadowood, Feniks and Dman who all wanted the deal to favor us in an unreasonable way.
No one from either side would budge on concessions for terms of peace, and we just kept making worse offers to each other.
The fight had stayed relatively above the belt, but we were on the edge of things turning nasty. I believe eventually I sat down with Sir Henry Morgan and him and myself made a quite deal together and then just expected our respective nations to comply to the terms we set out.
if a war goes on long enough at a certain point people start casting damaging voodoo out of spite, then their victims cast back in retaliation. When it gets to this point it the casting no longer has bearing on the outcome of war. Its just people mad cause they did not get their way. If war reaches this point, it stops being fun, people lose friendships, guildmates, and many sailors quit. Happy we made terms before thing reached this point."
As we continued on for a while in the second run of Isle of man.
Players slowly started joining, we started to grow, a few players joined and we gained ports, then more ports, until suddnly we were huge. When you have 1/3 of the map things again start to get boring. Intentionally or not we found ourselves at war. Im not real aware of the wars that happened before I was here but the Isle of Man vs Spain war was epic.
