Lore:Cap'n Dugal's Journal, Part 2
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After the cap'n were hung, I got around Hammerfell a lot. Fell in with a few crews here an' there, an' after a time got myself hired on as midshipman on Cap'n Kaladas's rig. A' course, Kaladas was a drunkard and the damn fool ran his own ship a'ground in Anvil a'fore we could any real piratin' done. So embarrassed were he that he drank hisself to death in one of the pisshole taverns in this flat little seawater town.
So there I were, in a backwater port when the war against the Usurper broke out. I were out on hire with a rickety tub and her worthless rot of a cap'n when The Imperial Navy stole ev'ry private ship in port to go an' fight their war. We was comin' back in to dock when we heard about it. Now, only a fool doesn't bite when he smells blood in the water and that cap'n o' ours was gonna hand his rudder over to the Navy. The rest of us, well, we didn't so much like that.
We cut his throat and tossed his worthless carcass to the depths for Herm'us Mora to feast on. The rest of us put keel to this mudhole and broke for the nearest cove to lay low for a while.
Now, the thing that I learned about war is that it's profit'ble for just about everyone except for the poor bastards that actually have to go an' fight it. While the Navy were busy puttin' down the rev'lution, they were too busy to worry about a bunch o' pirates runnin' up and down the Gold Coast. And even better for us, the Navy was needin' a stream of supplies up in High Rock to fight and dinna have the ships to escort 'em..
In case you don't be knowin', cargo vessels without escort is a pirate's best friend.
In just a couple of years, I had ev'ry buccaneer from here to Valenwood flyin' under me flag. We had dozens of ships and crew and more men joined on e'ry day. Soldiers and sailors, castoffs from the war, escaped prisoners -- they were the best cutthroats and sons o' whores that a pirate cap'n could ever wish for. It brings a tear to me eye to think of 'em all.
But even better than the men were the ships: Captured navy cutters. Refitted priv'teer Galleons. Even had a few of them bosmer ships with the funny living sails in my fleet. The finest ship I saved for meself. "The Black Flag". Ye'll find her rotting hull around here. She don't look like much now, but I can tell ye that in her day, there weren't no vessel she couldn't out run.
All these men and ships, we called ourselves the Red Sabre. The merchant ships called us death on the seas.
We gots to be so feared that most crews jus' abandoned ship when they seen our flag on the horizon. With no Navy to stop us, Captain Torradan ap Dugal and the Red Sabre was known all over the east.
Now, I ain't one to brag, but the empire had a bounty on me of forty thousand coins. Now that's somthin' to be proud of. A' course, the poor bastards couldn't never collect on it. Anvil being the wretched den that it is - an mos' sailors there worked for me anyhow -- the Legion couldn't never get no one to give me up.
I wish those days coulda lasted fore'er, but you know how it is, friend. Ain't nothing good can ever last.
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