Bohemia Village Voice

Buckle My Swash

Read the sign on the new shopfront. ‘Hmm’, I thought, ‘a designer shoe shop? Haven’t had one of those in Bohemia Road before’.
The windows were blacked out but a large ‘Open’ sign hung on the freshly-painted, bright yellow door. Hopeful I may find a bargain for my shoe-loving Missus, I pushed open the door and stepped inside. As my foot touched the floor of the interior, I realised it was quite dark inside, candle-lit in fact. This seemed wrong for a shoe shop and as I looked around I saw dust sheets covering strangely-shaped objects on tables around the edge of the room; large paintings of what appeared to be naval battles flickered and moved in the candle-light.
“Greetings adventurer!” came a cracked and gravelly voice from out of the gloom. Something in that voice was wrong and the hairs on the back of my neck stood instantly to attention. A shape unfolded itself from behind a high wooden counter in the corner of the shop, a very large man in a patchwork tunic and ragged trousers with a bushy beard that writhed in the weak candle glow. His head was brushing the ceiling – he was that big – and my jaw sagged open in surprise.
“Closer you must come, so see you I may, yes?” boomed the giant and though I was thinking ‘no way’ and ‘I’m off’, instead of stepping backwards across the threshold and nipping off down the road, I trotted obediently across the floor to stand in front of the counter and the huge oddball. The door swung shut behind me, seemingly closing off the world.
“Of the right stuff you are made, yes?” He screeched, squinting critically down at me. I mumbled something about shoes.
“Close enough!” he roared, pulling me to a round door in the back wall that swung open as he thrust me through.
My senses reeled as I found myself in bright sunshine, the wooden floor beneath my feet pitching, the strong smell of brine in the air. Realisation that I was on an enormous old-fashioned galleon at sea hit me at the same moment as an assortment of decidedly odd-looking characters turned and regarded me.
“Welcome aboard The Golden Nut matey!” said a grinning man with coloured beads woven into his hair, a hat four sizes bigger than his head with a skull and crossbones on it.
“Captain P-nut at yer service!” he leant close to a beautiful buxom woman on his right dressed all in black and whispered to her. Fixing me with a penetrating glare, she traced a glowing blue symbol in the air! saying “He has courage and compassion.”
The Captain winked, “Very well, me brave catfish, a month’s trial for ye, an’ if ye pass muster we’ll take ye full time!”
A man dressed in samurai armour and two sparkling swords across his back grunted and shrugged, turning back to watch the crew raising sail.
“Never mind Mister Rug laddie,” said the Captain “report to the boatswain for yer duties – step lively now!”
Exactly a month later, I stood outside the shop. Apart from learning how to crew the 1,000 gun ship (learnt mostly from a Golem sailor), we had assaulted World Government strongholds, assisted by Giants in their massive stoneships.
The sign on the door now read ‘Shore Leave’, so, wondering whether the Co-op would accept Dubloons in payment for milk and a paper, I strolled along, whistling a sea shanty I had learnt from an Elf.