A crimson moon hung in the sky, and the sea had calmed.
Dozens of wooden tables were set up on the deck of the Bai Ke Li. Some of the more exquisitely patterned dining tables had been temporarily borrowed from the Kenzan Frolov and were now laden with beer kegs and all sorts of meat.
The coarse pirates had their arms slung over each other's shoulders, drinking and feasting. A few refined-looking bards played harps, elegantly singing a vulgar pirate shanty: "Pillage one merchant ship, pillage two merchant ships, the gold and the girls are all mine."
The sound traveled far on the sea breeze, occasionally provoking several deep-sea aberrations to leap from the calm, roiling waters.
Their blood-red eyes breached the surface, staring fixedly at the people on the ship, bloodthirsty and crazed as they waited for an opening. The barbs and tiny scales on their bodies scraped against the ship's iron plating, making a SSSKKRRR sound, as if to remind the people on board not to ignore them.
