Surety Bound

I have been a Pirate all my life, and until now I had never regretted that choice. But now, as I stood in the rigging of my beloved Dragon Wynd I was plotting something even more dangerous than the act of hanging bones itself, and perhaps even more dangerous than laying blood against the boards in an act of mutiny. I was plotting ways to die.

Suicide was not an approved past time for either Freehold or Pirate, and both the Deep Laws and the Unwritten Code frowned on it. I could go to the Far-Remembered lands without a name if I did this, and still it tempted me.

This very morning the Empire had served me with papers that called in all the credit I currently owed, including the payment against my boards. The total was about 90 Talon of Gold Scale, and as a shallows-bound captain I would be lucky to make a half-talon a year. I did the math and even without interest, and assuming they gave me an extension, I would have to live almost another two hundred talon to pay out.

What was more, in light of that, the Empire had tried to buy out my boards, taking command of the ship and damning me to land forever. With my blood-sworn boards bought out from under me, as long as the Wynd sailed, I would be forbidden from binding myself to other boards, and because of that I would not be able to serve on any other boards, ever, because they would be sure my boat survived just to keep me in line. That was a life I would not wish on any shallows-bound.