As part of:

Lisa Ventura never liked the night. Tonight was a great example of why. Instructed by her mistress to deliver a letter to her secret lover although the whole town knew her mistress visited the butcher for more than just meat. Now Lisa was stuck in a ditch with a soaked dress and no way to see.

Night had fallen and she’d been there since before the sun had set.

Taking the shortcut through the woods was also not a good idea. Who knew what kind of cretins lived here. Her mistress was so adamant about getting it to him as soon as possible before he left his shop. Now he will never receive the letter. Lisa had dropped the letter when she fell in the ditch and she could not see where it had gone.

A light appears, flickering between the trees. It was a torch heading Lisa’s way. She was to be saved!

“Help kind sir!” Lisa jumps up and down waving her hand in the air trying to go above the ditch.

The man holds the torch high and looks down into a ditch and finds a maid waving up at him and under her feet was a chest half covered with earth.

“I’ll help you if you finish digging out that chest you stand on.” The man says getting comfortable by sitting on the edge with his legs dangling in.

“You would like me to dig? Can’t you help a damsel in distress instead?”

“No.”

Lisa begins grumbling under her breath as she takes a look at what the man asked of her. She notices the chest for the first time and sees the intricate carving under all the dirt.

Through her slow digging the man had dozed off leaving the torch inserted halfway into the ground near the edge.

Lisa finally digs out the chest and opens it quietly. Inside it is full of gold bars all neatly stacked. At the inner sides of the chest three daggers are lined side by side embedded into the chest walls.

She slams the chest loudly waking the man.

“You weren’t supposed to open that, Beauty.”

“I want a bar, for my services.”

The man laughs, “For your services ay? What kind of services do yah provide?”

“For digging a chest full of gold for a large man like yourself, I charge extra. Especially when you could have done it yourself.”

The man jumps into the ditch and barrels towards his eyes slithering into slits of lust and licking his lips hungrily.

“Come here Beauty! I’ll show you how big a man I can be.”

He was three times her size, her head just barely reaching his chest but as he rages towards her growing ominously larger, Lisa held in her scream.

She shook in fear, but she fought herself to remain steadfast.

Lisa raises a dagger with both hands and with the help of the man’s weight and speed she stabs it straight into his chest.

The man topples on top of Lisa. The woods remained quiet and dark. The light of the torch flickering in the ditch and there’s no movement in sight but the rustling of the trees.

Lisa gives one big shove, and the man barely moves off her but just enough for a breath of air.

Crawling out from under the man was no worse than her mistresses’ endless dresses piling on top of her in the morning. Her mistress could never make up her mind. It was no worse when her mistress had grown tired shopping and had demanded her to become a human stool. It was no different when she had set her dogs on her just for the fun of it.

Lisa growls taking one last pull out from under the man. Covered in blood and

on all fours, she laughs like a mad woman crawling towards the chest.

“All mine!”

Quickly she rolls the man towards the edge under the torch and drags the chest over.

Standing on the man gave her the way to her freedom.

One bar at a time she carries the gold up leaving the chest and the dead man behind.

A few trees away she begins digging the earth under a tree’s root. Lisa rips her dress and covers up the hole lining the gold inside except for one and tying the dress into a knot and covering the hole back with dirt and foliage.

Lisa heads to the beach where she catches sight of the pirate ship docked in the shadows of the cliff. She undresses naked under the moon and jumps into the water.

Lisa swims towards the ship and slips in hiding in the shadows, past snoring men and stealing some pants and shirts in the quarters below.

With the dagger, she had stabbed the man with she slices her hair off.

“You boy! Start mopping up on deck. Captain’s got a visitor.”

“Aye!”

Lisa heads up with the mop she could find and bumps into the captain and his visitor.

It’s her mistress.

Lisa apologizes keeping her head down and quickly staggers away, her mistress overlooking her.

She heads straight for the captain’s quarters where Lisa finds more chests like the one she had found with the similar intricate carvings.

“You are not a part of my crew boy.”

The door behind Lisa slams shut.

She turns to face the captain who begins to undress.

“I am, you’ve forgotten.” Lisa stumbles backwards against the chest.

“I never forget a crew member.”

It was then Lisa noticed that the Captain was no man but a woman.

“If you wish to join my crew you must prove yourself.” Unsheathing a dagger from the side of her ankle.

Lisa reveals her dagger.

“Does killing a man three times my size proof enough?” Lisa stammers.

“Where’d you get that dagger? You killed Blake, the Giant?”

“Aye, I had fallen into a ditch, and he found me. He asked me to dig the chest out then after, thought to ask for further services. It was in defense.”

The captain returns the dagger into its sheath chuckling.

“Ah, good riddance. The Gold?” She asks fixing herself a glass of a strong smelling alcohol.

“Gone.”

The captain sneers, “Sure. Welcome aboard.”

Lisa couldn’t be sure of the captain’s words. “What’s the lady you were with worth to you?”

The captain quirks an eyebrow sitting at her table surrounded by different variations of maps and odd items scattered on top.

“Nothing, just a spoilt lady persistent in bringing her and another passenger away. A waste of time, she did not have the map her grandfather stolen from my father.” Brushing a sheet away grumpily.

Lisa’s heart skips a beat. There was a map framed inside the library that the mistress never ventured too.

“I think I know where it is.”

“You know her?”

“She was my mistress.”

“Ah, will I see you again or will you go use the map yourself?”

“I’ll be back.”

“Go, finish your business. With the map at your return, you and I will talk. If not, I will hunt you down.”

Lisa smiles, “Aye aye Captain.”