"What do ya think yer staring at swab?!"
The cook's helper that was cleaning the officer's table was taken aback by the captain's harsh tone.
"N-nuttin' sir, jest goin about me d-duties, as it were." he stammered, "only trying to be handy...."
Oh no, he thought....
"Handy?... Hand-y?.... So that's what be on yer feeble mind is it?!" The Captain stood as his face grew red, "it's this isn't it! Ya lookin' down on the 'poor ol' cap'n' aren't ya lad! Well I'll have ya know that I can still toss a bilge rat like ye to the sharks if'n I be of a mind to!"
With a mighty thump a shiny hook sinks deep into the oak table and sends the dishes crashing to the floor. The crewman ducked his head in time to miss a flying tankard lobbed haphazardly in his direction and began gathering up the shambles of broken dinnerware on the cabin's floor. He quietly slunk away while the Captain hung his head and dislodged his hook from the table.
The Captain had been in a rather foul mood these last few weeks, learning how to use a hook in place of a hand is no easy task and any weakness seen by a crew of scallywag pyrates is an opportunity to seize control. The crew however were perplexed about the whole ordeal as none of them actually remember when, how or even IF the Captain had lost his hand. They were more or less humoring him and for Bob's sake trying to avoid saying anything remotely close to being hand related until this blows over.
His hook made an ear splitting scratching sound as he drug it along the handrails while he morosely walked toward his personal cabin.
"Someone better polish that out of my beloved Kraken before dawn" he thought to himself as he walked across the deck toward his cabin door. Eyeing the rigging mates as they went about their work with their nimble fingers. As he came up to his door he reached out and with a loud *CLANK* rattled his hook against the brass handle. Snapping his head around he gazed at a deck packed full of cutthroats who suddenly developed a passion for whistling.
Inside his cabin he strode over to his desk and sunk down into his chair. He looked over the charts. He had no adventures for them to embark on. No treasure to take, no port to seige or governor's daughter to ransom. He racked his brain trying to think of something to busy his people with before they munitied and threw him overboard.
It was about this time that he saw the small unassuming bottle at the window. Latching his door he retrieved it and opened it gentling under the lamp light. Out poured a shimmering liquid onto a piece of blank paper and was quickly absorbed. Lifting the paper to the light he read the hidden lines and with a grin he burnt the note. He swiftly grabbed his hat and unbolting the door he barged out on deck and exclaimed, "Make ready the sails! Take in the anchor me hearties we set sail tonight!"
"Where we off to sir?", asked the helmsman.
"Set us a course for the Never Land, bucko!"
"The what Captain?"
"Neverwinter ye idgit! The Kingdom of Neverwinter. Someone has called for aid. There may be opportunity in it for meself... I mean us."
"Aye, aye!" the helmsman said as he went about charting the course.
"I hope we don't run into another one of those blasted flying boys again. Bloody nuisance."
The ship nearly capsized from all the eyes that rolled at the Captain and his "fairy stories". Bloody Hook has gone mad, they all thought. They, much to their own ignorance, we're completely unaware of the story they were about to be apart of. The Captain though, he was blissfully aware of what he was about to get them into... at least he though so anyway.