With the help of my newfound shrimp ally I successfully and stealthily managed to board the ship of the slaver’s, but I presumed that was the easier part of the attempted rescue of my companions. From what I had seen during the confrontation on the beach it was obvious that they had been trapped inside those strange orbs and then brought aboard, however I didn’t know what happened to them afterwards. Were they released from the orbs and then imprisoned in the brig, or were they still inside. These were my ponderings as I was hiding in one of the fortunately almost empty fish barrels on the main deck, contemplating my next move. There was a small hole inside of this barrel, and every now and then I tried to peek outside to see what was going on. From what I could see there were about a dozen of sailors on the deck, who were of the same crustacean race as the captain. The captain was nowhere to been seen through my little hole, but I could hear her voice shouting orders so I assumed she was on the deck as well. My options at the moment were…scarce to be concrete. It was a miracle I even managed to hide in this barrel without garnering attention, however getting out of without being seen was nothing short of impossible…without the proper tools. Luckily for me I still had one such tool at the ready, one that had started this whole ordeal and one that I had been keeping since the very beginning; a shrinking perfume. It wouldn’t last long but it would give me the necessary chance to turn this damned situation around. I sprayed myself with the pink concoction and immediately grabbed unto the peeking hole with my fingers, as otherwise I would be stuck on the bottom of the barrel with no way out. Soon I started feeling the familiar feeling of having one’s size reduced, and before I knew it I was holding upon the hole with all my strength with my feet dangling in the air. I pulled myself up and I finally got a good view of the situation. True to my observation, there were indeed about a dozen sailors on the deck, and the captain was at one of the strange metal poles on the front of the ship to which the shrimp chains were tied, and she was handling a strange electrical contraption. I knew I didn’t have much time, but I was curious as to what that contraption was and I tried to observe how it worked. Then it dawned on me, it was the helm of the ship and it was obviously meant to steer the ship in a desired direction. However this wasn’t a sailing ship and was moved by beasts instead. But I didn’t have time to ponder upon these findings of mine, there was a far more important piece of information in that general direction, and that was that the captain didn’t have her belt upon which both her cutlass and the orbs of imprisonment hanged. Now this would mean that my companions were either released and held somewhere in the bowels of the ship, which was unlikely since a beholder, puny and annoying as he may be, is a dangerous creature to let roam free in a prison cell. Or they were still in those orbs and probably still hanging on that belt, which would probably be in the captain’s quarters. Now I had no prior knowledge of these slavers, the design of their ships or anything about their culture, and it may seem that deducting where the captain’s cabin would be located could prove itself to be a hard task, but fortunately pride and pompousness are universal among all cultures and I suspected that the large gilded cabin right on the main deck would probably be the place I was looking for. I jumped from the barrel upon the deck floor and started running towards this cabin, I made sure that no one was near enough to see me and I arrived there without any problems. However the large wooden door was closed and I had no way of reaching the handle. I examined the door further to see whether there any structural weakness that could be exploited and I discovered that the wood at the base of them was partly rotten, probably due to the ever present wetness. I am highly ashamed of what I had to do next, as it made me feel like an animal, but if releasing the base animal instincts of my rat race would allow me to save my friend, a little embarrassment was an insignificant sacrifice. So I chewed my way across the rotten wood and found myself in the cabin. I could feel the effects of the shrinking perfume wearing off and so now I only had to believe that I had made the right decision. I did. It took just a moment to see the captain’s belt hanging on a peg, orbs and cutlass hanging from it. I took one of the orbs and saw a tiny little green ball with seven eyes inside. I humoured the thought of not releasing the Maestro for a while, but I realized that I didn’t know how to get them out and I was not sure whether destroying these orbs would see the trapped creature unharmed, so he would be my guinea-pig. I took his orb and threw it onto the ground with all my strength, and from the broken shards an unscathed Maestro emerged. Seeing this I took the other orb and did the same and soon the trio of us was reunited once again. “What took you so long?” said my friend. She said it in a jest, but I could see that even while she was trying to hide it, she looked quite traumatized. I am no psychologist by any means, but she was not the master of hiding emotions. I, feeling like a hero from one of the children stories heroically answered: “We shall talk later, now we have to teach those slavers a lesson” and I took the cutlass hanging from the belt. I realized it was magical and after a few seconds I got the gist of what its powers were. “Stay behind me and when I say now, grab hold of something and don’t let go.” and without waiting for an answer I kicked the door of the cabin open and I stepped onto the deck. Some sailors noticed me and they started unsheathing their weapons, but the captain and most of the deckhands were still unaware of my presence, so I decided to announce my presence. “Excuse my language, but I’ve come here to save my friends and kick slaver ass, and I’m all outta friends to save!” This garnered the attention of everyone on the deck. The captain turned towards me, seeming shocked and afraid for a second, but as she saw me she began laughing instead. She probably wanted to say something mocking, but I was already raising the cutlass and winds started circling around it. Fear began filling her eyes and she instinctively reached for her orbs to stop me, only to realize they were not by her side. But it would be too late anyways. Soon, the winds around the sword started getting stronger, faster and wider until a literal hurricane was wreaking havoc on the deck, and I was in its eye. I couldn’t see much past the wind, but occasionally I caught a glimpse of crustacean flying past me and I heard about a dozen of splashes of strong splashes as something fell into the sea. I looked behind me to see my human friend still in the captain’s cabin and holding to a door frame with all her strength, Maestro was unfazed by this and it seemed the winds didn’t have much effect on him as his telekinetic eye was keeping him steadily afloat. He was saying something, probably some poem of sorts, but it was luckily drowned in the ruckus of the hurricane. After a moment, the gale stopped as abruptly as it began and we were standing on the deck of the ship with no slaver in sight. I turned towards my human friend and said with my best tough-guy impression, “We even?” She dramatically hesitated for a few seconds as if evaluating the question before saying: “Not as cool as my stunts were, but yeah we even.” I don’t know how her confrontation with the Gardener or the Don went, so I can’t say whether what she said was true or not. But one thing was for certain, I was glad that we were reunited once again.