Young Writers Society

Long ago, in the ages before words were written and lines were drawn, the world's main authority was the tight grip of the unknown, where chaos reigned. But, life settled into forms of forms, order underneath the sinking pandemonium. Above all the natural laws were the Primal Three: The Song of the Sky, The Pearl of the Sea, and the Jewel of the Mountain. These three primordial forces, settled in pockets both within and beyond this realm, offer the ability to descend back into the chaos of the World Before and manipulate the very fabric of nature itself.

The Song serenades the sky into its will. The Jewel echoes through all the land, crushing all earth underneath its beautiful might. And The Pearl gleams through to even the deepest depths of the dark ocean, commanding the seas and everything within to its waves.

Residing within the nature itself, these three objects have created a delicate rhythm over the millennia, but there's a secret hidden within these three. Thre is one last aspect of chaos incarnate that still reside within the earth, within all those who feel and think and love and hope, but most importantly... those who fear. And those who fear can become those who control. Control over the three primordial forces hasn't happened since the dawn of the orderly world... until now.



Society has flourished under the watchful eye of the several governments that have formed form the remnants of the old world. From the valleys of Atrea to the peaks of Oskon, from the mountains of Craenga to the swamps of Eirmoor, life has progressed further than it has ever before. People harvest the lands for resources and stability so they can build cities that reach the sky and vessels that can fly through them. People darken and dirty the skys so they can spread their nets across the oceans. People plunge into the darkest depths and plunder the seas so they can reconstruct the land in their image.

Steam clouds the skies, oils pollute the water, fissures anger the earth. All under the watchful eye of humanity's leaders. But, all that this earth has given, these beings of chaos cannot be satiated. They demand more from the world than its natural order can give.



You are a scallywag of some sort, under the rule of one of the Five Pirate Lords, those who are beneath the supreme reign of the Pirate Queen. You were there, as were most of the pirates who reside in The Cragged Teeth, to observe and celebrate the decennial Pirate Creed, the ceremonious occasion where the Pirate Monarch recruits a new Keeper of the Creed, whilst the old one allows themselves to succumb to the sea, to return to the waters of life.

There, you meet Captain Saratoga, who hires you to help crew his smuggling ship—its not as glamorous as your usual piracy, but its easy money with considerably less risk to life and limb.

You are with him, and the rest of the crew, when you find yourself at the wrong place at the wrong time. In the middle of the Pirate Creed, the Pirate Queen is murdered, and all the while you were underneath the place where it happened.

You now find yourself on the run from the very folks you once called family, stuck with a group of strangers who all could be suspect for the murder you were framed for.

All the while, the Pirate Lords call for your execution and capture, and squabble over who deserves the right to lead, as, with no new Keeper, there is no one who knows the location of the Pirate Creed. Leaders from the land and the sky of the peaks come crashing down upon The Cragged Teeth because they want the Creed for themselves.

Perhaps, the only way to freedom is to join the hunt. Are you up for the bounty, pirate?

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OOC thread

Captain Argathon Saratoga
The Pirate islands, scattered (and battered) in the sea, were as the name suggests, a dangerous place on the brightest of days. Scoundrels, murderers, and worse found their homes here when they weren’t off looting someone else’s, and good luck to the honest soul who thinks they can wander unhindered through the dusty streets.

Fortunately for one Captain Argathon Saratoga, he was no honest soul, and yet better, he had an agreement with the Pirate Lord Bluetooth Harvar, allowing him to opperate more or less unhindered in the south seas, and command enough respect to not be jostled in the Cragged Teeth. Unfortunately, all of that was going to Davy Jones’ locker. He was there, finding a crew for his ship from the many eager persons looking for work with a general lack of ethics. Finding a few competent souls they’d been going over their plans when it happened. Argathon wasn’t sure what had happened exactly, but he got the particulars: The Pirate Queen was dead; and they were blamed.

Therefore, Saratoga was running. Running quickly, pelting down the old streets, across the creaking bridges, leaping along a few ships that some good chance of fate had put across the water for him to cross. He was running fast, faster than he’d run in a long while; and as a smuggler, he’d spent the past ten years running. He’d run from disgruntled pirates, navies, and his past. Now he had better outrun the Pirate Lords after him.

Farther from the water, starting back where the Queen’s body lay, a hoard waas growing. Smoke started to boil skywards, from angry gunshots, or rioting, a steady cacophony of shouting was building—
“Saratoga! The smugglers! All for Lord Circes! Get the smugglers! No! Damn Lord—”
—came the confused shouts, as anger and violence overtook the collective mood; these were pirates and this was what they did best: Chaos. Murderous chaos, thought the Captain, shuddering.

As he rounded a narrow way, he slipped several coins from his hanging sleeves. At the next corner, he shed a bottle that shattered on the ground, spilling whisky in a brown puddle that dogs swiftly descended upon. And finally, as he turned onto the main street, and a vagabond sitting drunkenly against a house peered at him, eyes growing wide and mouth opening to shout, he threw a heavy pouch at the fellow that shut him up. Now his coat was much lighter, and he sprang down to the docks just coming in sight, where his ship lay in wait.

First Mate Percy Jarsson
On the opposite side of the island, Percy Jarsson sprung off of a rooftop, and crouched panting, in the momentary sanctuary that the shadowed hovel between another house, and behind a shed, provided. He was lean, but his arms quite strong, and he could just as well pull himself up the rigging of a ship one handed today, as he had climbed trees on his father’s estate years ago. And from his dark brown hair, down his loose shirt to his expensive boots, he maintained the same energy that had propelled him then. From underneath a pile of garbage, he found his sea chest, grasped it securely under his arm, and, adjusting his cutlass in his belt, he dawned his bright smile and sauntered around the shed.

Running into a group of older pirates first, partially drunk and with swords and pistols out and ready to wave, he grabbed their attention with a shout.
“Wha? Who’re— wait.” One began, perhaps thinking of the conflicting descriptions of the smugglers floating around already.
But Percy got a word in first.
“Those darn smugglers—they got my mate too; they’re on a rampage!”
One of the men shook his head.
“Too bad kid! Where’d they go?”
Percy waved behind him.
“Just that way, heading to the east docks! A tall man with a cap, and two fellows in orange shirts.”
“The traitors! Think they’re one of us do they!?”
The men muttered, running off the wrong way, with the wrong descriptions.

Percy didn’t wait to see how far they’d go, but disappeared in the streets, heading for the docks. But, keeping an ever roaming eye out for someone he recognised; he hoped the rest of the crew were getting through the commotion and back to the ship as well.

714 words.

Ilidan Viceta-void, chief navigator of Pirate Lord Circes, First of His Name, and many other titles that he could not think of at the current time, was currently on the run for his life as many, several angry pirates chased him for something he obviously did not do, and he was about to become an outlaw from those who he called friends basically the night before.

Funnily enough, this wasn't the first time this had happened to Ilidan. If he were to swap out the angry mob, this wasn't even the third time this had happened to him. As he ran, he had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. If it wasn't the kind of scenario that was life and death and also a sad situation just in general, Ilidan would have a hearty laugh about it. Ilidan was gonna be laughing about this very thing hopefully in the near future. That said, if he didn't get caught and strung up for murdering the Pirate Queen.

Oh yeah, The Pirate Queen was dead. Crazy how that happened. And even crazier how Ilidan was right next to the spot her body floated up at. While it was obviously all a nasty coincidence, it was natural that all eyes went to Ilidan in the first few moments of the aftermath. He was just that sexy, afterall. Ilidan wished he could say that being so disgustingly attractive didn't involve some kind of death threats or death... well, death actions, but this was also not his first time he was ran out of a place because of his dashing good looks. Well, maybe more because of his various... actions with some of the men of the villages. Marriages were just a suggestion in port towns, it seemed like.

But, that was a story for another day! For now, Ilidan should really focus on the matter at hand. The series of events that had led up to this point were pretty unfortunate, to say the least. One moment Ilidan was accepting a bid on a certain Captain Saratoga's ship, The Vanishing Gull for a simple smuggling run, and the next a big explosion happened, knocked everyone back, and suddenly The Pirate Queen was murdered. Crazy stuff.

The port turned pirate capitol of Staggerfell was not a large place (as that tended to happened when one tried to build a city on an island) but it was a deceptive type of city. You see, pirates are kind of a sneaky bunch, so if, let's say, a pirate were to be tasked to build a city, there would no doubt be a bunch of secret entrances, exits, tunnels, alleyways, doors, walkways, and basically secret everything you could think of in a city. It also wasn't really properly well built, all things considered. Pirates weren't one to skimp on a good ship, but they were absolutely ones to skimp on a good city. And since no one singular pirate ruled for long (the life span of the average Pirate Lord was about as good as a pirate with scurvy on a good day), Staggerfell had no rhyme or rhythm to its city. If Ilidan was more of a city builder (and less of a dashing, ultra handsome and superbly modest master of the sails and seas) he would probably be peeved about the city.

But, right now, it was helping him escape his assailants as he bobbed and weaved his way to The Vanishing Gull. A ship wouldn't be that hard to locate in the port of a pirate capitol, right?

597 words

"The Queen is dead, the Queen is dead."

The whispers followed him through the streets, turning cherry tarts as bitter as poison. Ferryl continued to eat it anyways, stalking after a group of ragtag street ruffians, their eyes sweeping suspiciously at everyone around them. He blended in almost perfectly, minus the gold necklace he'd swiped off a passing lady in the chaos and the glittering hint of silver tucked away in his boot, too nice to belong to a gutter rat.

He stuffed the rest of the sweet-- now not so tasty-- tart in his mouth, cheeks puffing out as he struggled to get it to all fit. One of the teenagers he was following suddenly spun around and pointed a dull dagger at him, face contorting into a scowl. Ferryl scrambled back, swallowing hastily. "Aye, no need for violence man, just lookin' for some magic beans and sweet treats, y'know?"

"We ain't got none o' that here, ya hear me?" The girl said, shaking her head violently and sending the pirates nearby an uneasy glance. The pirates payed them no mind, instead searching the faces of the nearby adults with scrutiny.

"Surely you've got a mouse sized morsel you could spare?" The other kids had noticed something was awry and had slunk back, casting baleful glares at Ferryl, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, passing various weapons back and forth between each other.

"Depends on the size o' the mouse." She sent a quick, darting look towards the gold necklace looped around his wrist.

"Pretty small mouse, I'd say." He unwrapped it and quickly tossed it to her. She snagged it out of the air and pocketed it swiftly, almost too quick to be noticeable.

" ' reckon we could spare a crumb or two. What kind is the mouse lookin' 'or?"

"Anything with royal icing." Ferryl folded his arms across his chest, eyeing the pirates briefly to gauge how close they were before returning his gaze to group in front of him.

" 'mm, word is that the queen is dead at the hands of some smugglers. Found her body floatin' and they don't know how they did it. That's all we've got though, so you better git before they come lookin'."

Ferryl held back his disappointment before nodding curtly and scurrying away, towards the docks to hunt down Captain Saratoga and whateveryoucallit ship. The information was nothing new to him, but the pirates rounding the corner directly in front of him were. He yelped as they caught sight of him, eyes widening in recognition.

The boy weaseled out of one of their grasps as they managed to grab him, hitting the ground with a soft 'oof' and sprinting away, unable to help himself from grabbing a handful of tarts as he passed the abandoned and upturned vendor. Hey, nobody was watching them which meant it was up for grabs!

Shouting echoed from behind him as he crammed a tart in his mouth, cherry gel oozing as he swallowed frantically and began to make his way towards the docks, ducking and weaving easily between bustling skirts and men carrying too heavy crates. Ferryl soon lost the pursuing pirates, stopping in front of the gray and white ship he was ninety percent sure was the one he was supposed to be on.



Fabian wasn't quite sure why there was a horde of angry, screaming pirates chasing him through the winding streets, but the lack of knowledge and his own curiosity sure as hell wasn't going to keep him from running.

He had caught sight of Ferryl at some point but the boy had just crammed a cherry sweet tart in his mouth and laughed at his misery, smirking wickedly. Fabian had scowled and flipped him off before ducking into the nearest alleyway and nearly running face first into a stone wall and breaking his nose. They stopped just in time though, skidding to a stop and hiding behind a waste bin as the pirates went running past, brash voices fading into the distance.

He took the opportunity of a break in order to begin to alter his appearance so he was no longer as recognizable. First went the cleanliness of his face, smearing soots and ashes and pushing it into his skin in hopes of making it look more natural. Dark blackberry juice from his satchel was next, rubbing it under his eyes so he looked like every other tired, overworked person in this city. Fabian looked at his relfection in a dirty puddle, wincing. Oh Pearl, he looked like a racoon. If-- no, when-- Ferryl saw him, they would never hear the end of it.

Well, he wouldn't mind the teasing that much. It was from his brother after all. The thought alone of being able to call the semi-feral child that made him beam. He remembered the first time Ferryl had called him brother, drowsy from lack of sleep and jittery from too much sugar. He's tucked up along Fabian's side, mumbled a soft "goodnight brother." Fabian wasn't ashamed to admit he cried that night. Cried a lot. (And yes, he still got teary-eyed thinking about it sometimes.)

He pushed himself to his feet, shoving all his cosmetics and junk into his satchel, slinging it over his shoulder. He gave himself one more quick glance over, grimacing as he purposefully rubbed his hands clean onto his jacket, internally mourning the loss of the expensive fabric, a gift from Pirate Lord Kiira. The gold, tarnished from use and constant sprays of seawater, buttons had been dulled enough that he figured he shouldnt have to ruin those too.

Fabian shoved his way past a crowd clustering outside a post board, pausing briefly to try and see what they were all peering at. His own face stared back, nose a little too crooked and mouth too wide. He frowned, scanning the contents for the reason this unflattering image was being plastered all over.

Wanted for Murder of the Queen

Pfft, as if he would go through the trouble of murdering somebody. They really thought highly of a small group of smugglers. He scoffed and several people shot him glares before turning back to the posters. He shot them an apologetic smile before hightailing it out of there, clutching his satchel to his chest and making their way back to The Vanishing Gull. (509 words)

Total Wordcount: 1059

William leaned against the stacked crates in the shipyard, fiddling wit the toothpick wedged in his teeth. The shipyard was certainly chaotic this fine morning. Perfect for sailing, of course, the winds were strong, but the sun was bright.

Will plucked the toothpick and stuck it in a crate. He navigated chaos with ease. Slipping here and there. The shipyard where generally busy to some extent. Crates being carried around, crews docking fast, or others casting off just as organized.

Shouts mingled with the sound of lines and seagulls crying.

There was something more, tense and violent in the chaos today. A newspaper fluttered to the ground in front of him, the shouts of new boys not far off. Will swiped it up quickly. Why should he pay for a few silly little pieces of paper?

He smoothed out the wrinkles and skimmed the wrong page. Thankfully a background in acting meant you learned how to read pretty fast.

His grey eyes snagged on two words, printed in bold.

Dead Queen

The headline bled ink, like it'd hardly had time to dry before it'd been torn off the press and into the arms of the newsboy.

Dead Queen? There was only one Queen The Cragged Teeth would have enough respect for to print. Or care about for that matter.

The Pirate Queen.

Will squinted and re-skimmed the front page article, just to be sure. Allegedly nobody knew how she died, just that her body had floated up on shore. And there was a group of smugglers suspected to be the ones who did it.

The Admiral would love to hear about this! Prime time for power to shift. Maybe he could move up in the Admiral graces too!

He folded the newspaper as small as he could, then took off, jumping and hopping around the crates and buildings. It was far faster to travel above the crowds. Plus the views were far better. He briefly eyed the ships in port, just incase they ended up being noteworthy later.


The Admirals Office was located in a neatly kept building. Perched on a bluff overlooking the mostly empty docks where the fleet was kept. It was rare for all the ships to be in or out at once. They were cycled through for general maintenance and hauled out for annual hull checks and repaints. The Lord of the North may be a pirate, but Admiral Becket ran her fleet with efficiency and pride.

Will trundled up the storm steps that zigzagged up the side of the bluff, from the docks to the small array of blue and gold buildings. The Lord of the North's flag hung proudly at the top. He burst through the double doors of her office, rattling the small ship models on the desk.
"I have a message for the Admiral!" He proudly declared to the small man who sat at a desk adjacent to the Admirals. A desk filled with papers and a large box, resembling a radio machine, but with far more exposed gears than a regular radio would have.

The man started, his headset half falling off his head in his surprise, "OH! Oh, it's you, William." A sigh dragged itself out of the man's throat," what's the message?"

Willian strode up to the desk and planted his hands on it," Perry, The Pirates Queen-" he started dramatically.

"Is dead." The man bluntly interrupted him, "yes we just received the news from the Lord. I've already Dispatched a message over to the Admiral. She'd have gotten it by now."

William blinked, "Oh"

The radio fizzled and Perry quickly adjusted his headset back on, "Oh hello!" He paused, and William leaned in, trying to listen. Perry glanced at him. "Oh, alright then." The short conversation stopped and Perry slipped own ear of the headset off, "she said to await further instructions."


647 words