The Lore of Amelia Leola Ortez

The extended lore of Amelia Leola Ortez.

### **Raised by Pirates**

As far as she can remember, Amelia was always surrounded by a rowdy crowd of sea-loving misfits lead by a captain named Richard Goldskull. A former wealthy merchant from Great Britain, the pirate was known for his crazy strategies, happy-go-lucky attitude, and his godly luck that exceeded Captain Jack Sparrow. He also somehow won every single card game he was challenged to. After finding Amelia in a basket washed across the shores of Isla Esqueleto, the pirate adopted her as his daughter and brought her into the crew.

Each time Amelia became able to do something new, Goldskull pushed her further. When Amelia became capable of running on the deck, he taught Amelia how to climb the rigging. When she became able to adequately read and write, he taught her how to count and calculate using his deck of cards. Goldskull always told Amelia that it was a necessity to learn the skills to survive the current and future situations as soon as possible. After all, being one of the only female crew members on the ship required Amelia to excel the other pirates in aspects they were never able to. He went as far as to teaching every single trick up his sleeve when it came to cards, telling her that at least, this will help her outsmart every pirate aboard the ship.

By the time she reached the age of 8, Amelia was assigned to be the book-keeper of the ship, along with the crew’s entertainer, learning how to dance and play the fiddle from the captain.

The crew, while being skeptical at first when the captain took Amelia in his wing, eventually treated her as if she was their youngest sibling, helping her with food and necessities, even sometimes entertaining her with music and games. By the time she was assigned the book keeping role, the crew saw Amelia as an equal; a short, but smart equal. By this time, the crew taught her how to use myriad of different weapons, helping her train each day so she can be able to defend herself when time comes.

Despite the Captain and his crew encountering numerous enemies such as the navy, EITC, and other pirates, they felt it was best for Amelia to not watch these battles, as to not scar her with the many deaths and corpses. Thus, since she was little, Amelia was assigned to guard the Captain’s quarters during battles, locking herself inside while the battle was ensuing. She was given a flintlock pistol to fend off anyone who tries to raid the quarters just in case. Amelia would wonder with awe of how the battle looked outside the locked door, as she heard the battle cries of her fellow pirates hacking and slashing the enemy. After all, every time the pirates allowed her to open the door, she would see the crew joyously dancing and singing after their successful victory.

However, it was not long until she experienced first-hand on what was happening. It was after a few months since she was assigned the role of book keeping, when the pirates fought against a Navy war galleon. One of the cadets saw Amelia sitting in the captain’s quarters through the quarter window, and boarded on the back of the ship. The cadet shattered the window of the quarter with his rifle stock, and climbed into the quarter. Frightened by the noise, Amelia grabbed the pistol on the table and pointed it towards the direction where she heard the noise. There she saw the cadet pointing the gun at her, aiming through the sights.

*“I can’t believe my fellow men were being outdone by a little girl. This mockery of the British Navy ends now.”*The cadet pouted with his cheeks on the stock of his rifle.

Amelia felt her heart race each second. She knows the horrors of death from seeing fellow crew mates come and go, but this was different. Her own life was the one that was on the line, while the young cadet’s life was on her. She wondered what it would feel like for her to kill him… what he would feel killing her. She wondered what it would feel to die… what he would feel when dying. Tears started rolling down her eyes as she clenched onto the pistol.

As the roar of the pirates hurled through the air, Goldskull went towards his quarter door with a victorious grin, after successfully fending off the naval forces. He gives the usual knocking on the door signaling to Amelia that the battle was over, but no reply. A second knocking…. no reply. His grin fades away as he starts knocking on the door repeatedly, saying Amelia’s name loud and clear. The knocking turned to banging as he started shouting. Fellow crew members came by to the door, one of them bringing the key to the quarter. The captain fidgeted with the keys as he slammed the door wide open. What he and his crew saw, was a girl crying beside the corpse of a navy cadet.

Goldskull hugged Amelia from the back with relief; a father’s relief. Amelia turned around and clutched on Goldskull’s long, embroided, soft coat. As Amelia continued to cry in the captain’s arms, Goldskull gently spoke to Amelia.

*“Listen Amelia, we live in this world with something called reality. Sure, reality can sometimes be fun, happy, and entertaining… like the times we laugh and dance around the deck after a successful trading or plundering. But at times, reality can look at you with a cold stare, and once you know it, you have to face something that you don’t want to, or do something that you don’t like, like… killing that chap that just tried to raid the room and.. by the looks of his loaded gun, possibly kill you. Reality can be cruel Amelia… but you have to accept it to move on. What you did tonight ended up with a death of a cadet, but at the same time, saved you, and possibly many others.”*

Amelia’s cries slowly turned into sobs as the captain’s words soothed her.

*“Reality can be cruel Amelia… but at the same time, there’s a perk to it. Remember how I keep telling you to look for advantages, positive things in the poker games, and use it to your advantage?”*

Amelia nods as she wipes her tears off while trying to calm her breathing.

*“Well, you can do the same thing with reality. Look for the advantages, the positive sides that came out of the events, and use it to your best… to aid you, to soothe you, to keep you going. How I see it, you survived an attack, you managed to defend for yourself, you helped save us all from mourning your loss, and you have saved me… you have saved me… and I can’t thank you hard enough….”*

Amelia looked at Goldskull’s face, confused, still trying to calm her breath. She saw a tear rolling down from his face.

*“It is always hard to face reality Amelia… I’m still an amateur myself. After all these years facing pain, anger and sorrow in many ways, I still can’t get over the death of a family… Heh, I guess you are feeling the same with this gentleman here. You know what Amelia, let us give him a proper sailor’s funeral. Let us pay respects to the man who you have fought, at least to show him our dignity.”*

Amelia nodded, as she stood up with the captain, carrying the departed man with the captain.

### **A Loss of a Father**

It was not too long until Amelia started joining the captain and the crew on battles at sea. At first, she was tasked to sneak into the captain’s quarters of other ships to steal valuable goods and intelligence. Despite revitalizing her memory of her first enemy encounter every time she shattered the window, Amelia kept biting the bullet until she overcame the experience. Soon enough, she was fighting alongside her fellow crew during the battles, always standing alongside the captain.

Each battle allowed Amelia to improve her combat abilities. She studied each move she took, each move the enemies took, and each move her own crew took, looking for the best moves to take in certain combat situations. She started experimenting new ways she can use different weapons to their greatest efficiency, finding best ways to take down the enemy from hand to hand combats to ship to ship drive-bys. While the crew much appreciated of her efforts, nobody was more enthusiastic of Amelia’s experiments than the captain himself.

Whenever Amelia was stuck with ideas, Goldskull would give her suggestions. Whenever she needed someone to test new sword moves, Goldskull would be next to her with two wooden sticks, eagerly wanting to test them out. It became a frequent scene on the deck to see the two pirates flourishing their sticks at each other, each of them having a childish grin on their face. The crew cheered on to this, eventually turning the whole ship into a rowdy Tortuga tavern.

Nobody in the crew imagined this scene transforming into a fragment of a joyous memory. It was a stormy afternoon in the fall of 1747. The Goldskull pirates were going against a British Navy war galleon. The scent of burnt gunpowder, as well as the roars of the men and the clashing of their swords filled the air between the two ships. Amelia held onto the edge of the crow’s nest as she waited for the captain to climb beside her to prepare to lunge to the enemy ship. Goldskull panted as he climbed beside Amelia on the crow’s nest.

*“What do you know; the captain is getting too old for this!”*

*“It’s just the grogginess from the rum last night. However, I wouldn’t be laughing at others about getting older if I were you. Look at yourself growing at a crazy rate.”*

*“Hey, cut it with the growing business, all right? Besides, it’s already a nightmare to find clothes that fit me for a week. Even to the point where I’m having to wear your stuff while I look for new clothes that fit!”*

*“Sounds like someone is overextending our garb budget! I’m joking Amelia. Say, once this is done, let us go get you a nice long coat for the winter at one of the peddlers in Tortuga.”*

*“Ooh! Can we also go to the poker table at the tavern?”*

*“Only if you promise not to beat the mates each round like last time. That drunk almost killed us last time when you beat him 20 rounds in a row!”*

As Amelia nodded, the two pulled out their swords, and lunged towards the mast of the enemy ship. Once landing on the mast, the two struck their swords onto the mast, and tore the mast as they descended down to the deck. The two then stood side by side and rallied their way through the hoard of navy cadets and veterans standing in their way. With each move they took, a soldier either screamed or wailed as they fell to the ground in pain. By the time the captain of the Navy ship was notified of the two rogues slaughtering their crew, it was too late to exclaim any order, as two sharp sabers laid gently beside his shoulders. The captain of the galleon issued surrender and ordered his troops to fall back.

As cheers roared through the decks of the pirates’ vessel, Goldskull wielded his sword high up in the air; a typical pose by the captain after a typical battle. What was not typical was the action taken by a young navy officer nearby with a dagger wielded in his hand. The next thing Amelia knew, she saw the officer leaning onto Goldskull with the dagger firmly pierced into captain’s chest. As Goldskull fell to the ground, Amelia’s eyes widened open, as she loaded six shots of hot lead rounds into the back of the officer with no hesitation.

The air turned into chaos, as the navy started to shoot back at the pirates. Amelia piggybacked the injured captain onto her shoulder, and lunged herself back to the pirate ship with all her strength. The pirates responded with their pistols and cannons shooting at the galleon, as they quickly fled the scene as fast as they can.

Amelia slowly laid the injured captain on the deck, while the crew fetched supplies ordered by the crew’s physician, Doc Flint. As the many footsteps of the crew stormed the deck of the ship, Amelia leaned towards Goldskull.

*“Stay with me, father. It’s not that bad of a wound, just hold it tight! Doc Flint will get you patched up in no time.”*

*“Ohh, I think not even the doc would be able to save me from this…” uttered Goldskull, as he coughed a small amount of blood.*

As Amelia showed a confused look to Goldskull, Doc Flint sat next to bleeding captain and examined the wound.

*“It’s too big of a wound to heal with your condition, captain. However, we must try our best to prevent as much blood from flowing out.”*

*“What condition are you taking about, doc? Can’t you fix him like you fixed me when I got injured from the sword fight the other day?”*

*“Amelia, do you remember the last time the captain got injured in any shape or form? Well, the captain has a rare disease that makes it harder for his wounds to heal; something common among the aristocracy. One time he had a small cut on his finger, which took weeks for it to stop bleeding. With this large of a gash, it would be hard enough just to keep the blood from flowing out, let alone healing it. It’s a miracle he never got heavily injured all this time considering what he did in a daily basis!”*

Amelia’s confused face turned pale. It was true. She never saw Goldskull get injured in her entire life. All the time she thought he was just invincible. The captain always came out unharmed from situations that would have definitely killed a normal individual.

Goldskull let out a burst of laughter.

*“How ironic it is to consider that I would have been alive have my mother hooked up with a poor simpleton instead of a rich relative!”*

*“Don’t you joke on me father! Why??! Why did you sail the seas as a pirate all this time knowing this condition??! Why did you always go into the middle of the battle, knowing that you would die with a single bruise? Why did you not tell of this to me?”*

*“Guess I wanted to test my luck… moreover, I think I wanted to find out to what extent I could survive…. I just have this belief that I would live a better life trying to do something I want to rather than sitting in a room looking at arbitrary numbers…”*

*“But why did you not tell me of this??!”* Amelia’s anger was starting to mix with sorrow, as she tried to hold back her tears.

*“Telling you wouldn’t have made it better, for I know that you would have stopped me from doing what I have been doing. I would’ve stopped being your captain, and become your dead-weight. That is not the captain who I wanted to be, who I wanted you to see…”*

As Goldskull touched Amelia’s cheek with his trembling fingers, Amelia let out her sorrow with a stream of tears. She couldn’t hold onto them any longer. Every second passed meant a second taken away from the pirate’s dying life, and all she could do was to look into the pirate’s eyes and ingrain the image of his smug face deep into her head.

*“Hey Amelia, remember the coat we talked about earlier? Seems like I might not be able to see you in it, but take this with you and get yourself the best coat those peddlers in Tortuga can offer.”*

The pirate placed a finely crafted gold bracelet in Amelia’s palm, along with a black key for the captain’s quarters of the ship.

*“The other one is for yours to keep. Now go, your crew will not be waiting for you for long.”*

There were no words of farewell from the captain, but Amelia knew this was how he wanted to leave the world; leave it as if he had never left. As she stood up with the bracelet and the key gripped firmly in her hand, she noticed the crew surrounding the departed captain and her, with some form of sorrow in each one of their faces. Amelia faced the mourning crew, took a deep breath, and made a single order to the crew.

*“Men, we shall sail to Tortuga, Captain’s orders.”*

### **The Eris of the Sea**

A year has passed since the death of Richard Goldskull. Many of Goldskull’s enemies were not attached too much to this issue though, as to them, he was just another pirate; another pirate that will no longer interfere with their activities.

They were more focused on the pressing issue that has recently surfaced: multiples of slave ships were going missing at sea across the whole Caribbean, with no traces of their whereabouts. Some say it was just the rough weather increasing the number of sinking ships, while others begged to differ, as the stolen ships were all of navy origin, with the captain’s hat always being delivered to the Naval office from an anonymous sender. Despite the many theories made by sailors and townspeople, nobody would expect this to be the doing of an organized pirate armada, controlled by an unexpected captain.

It was a warm summer’s day of 1748. A large EITC fleet was assigned to transport a large sum of slaves to the Caribbean, under the orders of Lord Cutler Beckett. The fleet consisted of several naval warships of different types, all close together to protect the captives onboard; a countermeasure to the recent disappearance of the naval vessels. As the fleet sailed through the vast ocean, a sailor on the crow’s nest spotted a vessel to the east signaling for help. Since the ship was raising the flag of the EITC, the commodore of the fleet ordered his men to turn the ships towards the vessel in order to aid the ship.

*“No ship of commercial origin or country governed is safe these days. Besides, there is a possibility we can find the culprit of this mischievous events.”*

The distressed ship was a large Man O’ War class vessel, with sails missing from their masts. When the captain on the Man O’ War informs the commodore that they were raided by pirates, the commodore instructed his crew to encircle the ship, as to combat external attacks in case the pirates were still around.

Night came by as the crew of the EITC fleet repaired the sails of the Man O’ War. The sailors soon started singing dancing, and playing games with the crew of the Man O’ War in order to relieve the stress during the day. Everyone cheered as the men from the Man O’ War brought in rum for all the sailors to drink around. However, nobody realized the number of missing personnel on-board the ships increasing one by one.

As the last drunk sailor of the fleet was placed in the holding cell of the Man O’ War, footsteps echoed through the decks of the ship, as men dressed in EITC outfits stood in two rows, forming a path to escort a tall figure into the holding cells of the ships of the fleet. The tall figure stopped in front of a cell, where many slaves slept on the floor, some of them weeping. Suddenly, the figure pulled out an embellished pistol, and fired a single shot at the locks of the holding cell. As the figure blew the smoke coming out of the pistol, a feminine voice echoed from the figure.

*“Jabari, inform them of my words please, as usual.”*

An equally tall, dark figure emerged beside the first one. The second dark figure lit a lantern, which revealed the slaves, a face of one of their own, and a face of a young woman.

*“Here is the part where a messiah would say that he or she has come to save you and bring you all back home. However, I’m not a messiah. I’m a dirty pirate. I don’t know any of you, nor know where you are from. But something that is obvious is that you will not find your loved ones back where you came from. They are probably on a different ship, or possibly dead.*

*With all that said, here’s what I can do for you.*

*There is an inhabited island known only to smugglers and pirates which I can take you to. There, you’ll work under my wing, and have to make it up on your own to survive, but I will assure you that it is far better off working there than working under the guys that captured you. Plus, the people there can help you out to a certain extent.*

*There is also a crew in desperate need of numbers which you can join. Sure you’ll have to learn my language, raid ships, and risk your life in it, but you get to help guys that are in similar situations as you when we encounter them. Now, if I were you, I would choose the latter over the first, but either way would lead you all to freedom of some kind. What do you say?”*

As Jabari finished translating to the captives, the men, woman, and children stood up one by one. One of the captives uttered something to Jabari.

*“Captain Goldskull, they wish to join us.”*

*“Jabari, how do you always get the captives to just, join us without hesitation? You got a super-secret method to just tug people’s heart or something?”*

*“Pft, It’s not that complicated captain. I just talk to people on a personal level! I tell them of what I feel, ask them of what they feel, and try to get an understanding of each other.”*

*“And I just chug a bottle of rum, start making funny stories and guys my age just flee as if they’ve seen a crazy whore. Is it my height? My jokes? What do you think?”*

*“I think they are just not as ambitious as you, captain Goldskull. Honestly I was surprised when I first met you too.”*

*“Well, crazy ambitions need crazy people, and apparently I fit the role. Tell the people to help themselves out with the attire we got from the EITC. And Jabari, what did I tell you? Call me Amelia. Get it through your thick, formality-loving skull that you are not just one of my crewmen.”*

*“At least once more, captain Goldskull, as always.”*

*“And now you’re starting to sound like a formality-philic cute-guy. C’mon now, we gotta get these vessels running.”*

As the pale moonlight shined upon the wide ocean, a fleet of ships sailed towards an island, leaving nothing but a single Man O’ War with many unclothed EITC sailors behind.