The sound of boots on ship-deck preceded the question: “What’s the entrails say, Cal?”

The norn curled his lip and spread out the guts and gristle of the shark across the deck, closing his eyes as he brought himself a bit of focus. Between the cawing of the hungry gulls and the none-too-gentle motion of the sea, it took a while, but finally...

“I’ll be damned there, Hoyt. It’s a grave omen. Doom upon ye family. All that.”

“Upon who’s family?” asked Hoyt, running a blood-crusted hand through his greying beard. The Norn just shrugged.

“Someone’s. Maybe yers. Maybe mine. Maybe Captain’s.”

“Hogwash,” said Hoyt, “isn’t any doom t’ be had on MY family that hasn’t already swooped down. Must be Carver’s.”

“But Carver ain’t got a family.”

“No, but he did spend a whole month in a brothel, Cal.”

“Aye. That he did.” Cal looked up, his sun-baked features scrunching to read the horizon. “Y’think the wreck’s around here?”

Retson lazily racked his rifle, “--that I give a fuck?”

His assailant spat in his face, and in response, he turned the wounded man’s head into a reddish-gray slurry. Three shots.

He wouldn’t normally be so wasteful, but the guy had put a hole in his flask of cider.

Threats of retaliation and vengeance didn’t phase him, as the three ventilated corpses in the mud could attest. Neither did the promises that the ‘guards’-- really, a bunch of pirates from the pirate haven’s crew-- would get called down on him. Let them come. He’d put them down too. His charter on the ship back to Lion’s Arch was already paid for, and all he had to do was grab his treasure chest.

Retson whistled himself a merry shanty tune as he lowered the lifeboat down into the calm, clear water. Laden down as it was with a chest of gold and gems, it wasn’t terribly hard to do, and, given the clear skies and cooperative seas, he had plenty of time.

He wasn’t keen on lollygagging, keeping in mind how the ship full of dead pirates he was leaving behind would quickly start to bloat and rot in the tropical sun.

So, the instant his lifeboat hit water, he cut himself off and began rowing, lazily, away towards the distant shore. He had, of course, the sense to check over his shoulder in case anyone had happened to fritter themselves away in a barrel or chest mid-rampage.

And as it turned out, someone, one of the ship’s Sylvari crewmen, had done just that.

Retson reached into his coat and pulled out a thin, blinking cylinder, wiggling it as the Sylvari brought up his sniper rifle.

Before the plant could fire, Retson’s thumb fell upon the little blue light, and the ship was torn asunder with an almighty roar and a cataclysmic burst of flame and smoke and wood. The pirate sniper was consumed by the explosion, and fell, screaming, burning, headfirst into the water.