Fabian slammed into the hard rocky ground and found his face buried deep into a pirate's crotch. Another pirate landed on his head, pinning him into his awkward position. It took them a few minutes to disentangle themselves and Fabian's face was rubbing intimately up against far too many pirate body parts that he wanted nothing to do with, but eventually everyone was separated and nobody appeared to be badly injured.

"Whichever one of these clumsy oafs caused that fall deserves to get flogged," Fabian said. "A real pirate captain would know that and take care of the situation immediately. I think it was this lump of whale droppings." He pointed at the pirate who had been speaking out against him earlier.

"Nobody's getting flogged," Brandon said. "We need to figure out a plan of action here."

Fabian took a moment to look around. They were in a small chamber that was empty except for the staircase leading upwards. There were tunnels heading off in four different directions, each of them well lit with torches.

"Well, it's obvious we're going to have to split up, as any leader worth his salt could plainly see. Why don't each of the pirates take a tunnel and Scrote and I will take the fourth one."

"Arr, captain, I don't like leaving you alone with this scurvy land dog," the pirate said.

"Listen buddy, you've got a real attitude problem. This is like the third time you've spoken out of turn and I, for one, won't have it. Whichever tunnel looks like the most monsters are lurking in is the one we should send this guy down."

"Permission to kill the idiot, captain?" the pirate snarled.

"Permission denied," Brandon said. "Don't worry, Leroy. It'll be fine."

"Leroy?" Fabian laughed. "Your name's Leroy? That's hilarious. Run along now and if you're lucky maybe a goblin will bite your nose off. It might improve that ugly mug you call a face."

"He's right," Brandon said. "We do need to split up. We'll definitely cover more ground that way. I'm not sure where the rest of the crew is, but hopefully one of them has already located Oogums. In the meantime I think we ought to do our own search and plan on meeting back here in about two hours to check in. I agree each of the pirates should take a tunnel. You men can obviously handle yourselves."

"Aye aye captain," the pirates said as they saluted and took off down their respective tunnels.

"What was that comment about at the end there?" Fabian asked. "You weren't implying that I can't handle myself, were you? No, obviously you meant you can't handle yourself and you need me to protect you. Clearly that's true. You're lucky I'm here, Scrote."

"No offense, sir, but I'm not sure if you can be trusted to be by yourself. If you find Oogums, you might just take off and leave us down here without telling us."

"Well, that's just rude. I can't believe you think I would do such a thing. When have I ever done anything that would suggest I'd just abandon you guys down here? You must have a guilty conscience or something. That was probably your plan to ditch everyone and you're just projecting it on me to make yourself feel better. Well, I've got my eyes on you, Scrote. You won't be pulling any fast ones on anyone on my watch."

"Perish the thought, sir," Brandon said. "Don't you think we ought to be getting down our tunnel now?"

"Yes, let's do that. Lead the way, Scrote! If there are any booby traps in there I'd much prefer if you were the one to set them off."

"That's very kind of you, sir. Might I remind you some of the pirate crew has already been down this tunnel ahead of us. I'm sure they've already cleared out any booby traps that might have been in place."

"Yeah, they probably have. Suckers."

As if to drive this point home, as soon as they rounded the first bend in the tunnel they encountered a dead pirate impaled on a sharp wooden pole that had evidently sprung out of the wall.

"Oh no," Brandon said as he covered his mouth with his hand. "Poor Redbeard. He had a wife and two kids at home. He was only being a pirate so he could save up enough money to send his kids to a good boarding school."

"Yeah, that's really tragic," Fabian said as he rifled through the dead pirate's pockets and retrieved a few gold shillings. "Still, better him than us. Am I right?"

"We should really bury the poor man," Brandon said.

"Where at? In case you haven't noticed the ground beneath us is solid rock. I'm sure as hell not dragging a body back up to the surface. This guy looks like he enjoyed a few smorgasbords in his day. Besides, digging sucks. Even his pirate buddies left him here and they're actually friends with the guy, presumably."

"I suppose you're right," Brandon said. "Still, I feel like we should say a few words or something."

"You want a few words? Here you go. This prick didn't watch where he was going and he got what was coming to him. Amen. Now let's keep moving."

Brandon hesitated for a moment and then nodded in submission.

"You know, there's definite pluses and minuses to having a bunch of stupid pirates heading down a tunnel ahead of you," Fabian said. "On the one hand they can take care of the booby traps, like that idiot back there. On the other hand, if there's any treasure to be found they're likely to lay their dirty pirate hands all over it and keep it for themselves. Keep your eyes peeled for possible hidden passageways. A lot of the really good loot is stored in those and the pirates are probably too stupid to look for them."

The tunnel opened up ahead into a larger chamber. Brandon stopped short as he crossed the threshold. "Oh no!"

"What is it?" Fabian asked. "Another dead pirate? I want to see. Get out of the way." He entered the chamber only to see a gruesome scene. Blood splattered the walls and entrails covered the floor along with other various body parts. "Oh, that's a lot of dead pirates. Uh, something tells me this wasn't a booby trap. I think a battle took place and our pirate buddies didn't fare so well."

"I feel responsible for this," Brandon said. "I'm their captain. I sent them in here to die."

"There will be time to feel sorry for yourself later. In the meantime I don't think we want to encounter whatever the hell just slaughtered these guys."

"What do we do?" Brandon asked. "Do we keep going forward or do we turn around and go back?"

"Obviously we keep going forward," Fabian said. "There must be something good down here if they've got booby traps and murderous creatures protecting it. And now that all the pirates are dead we'll be able to claim the treasure all for ourselves. You're definitely staying in front, by the way."

"Might I remind you we're not here to find treasure, sir. We're supposed to be rescuing Oogums. Remember?"

"Yeah, but why not kill two birds with one stone? I mean we're here. The treasure's here. It would be a real shame not to at least see how much booty we're talking about here. Plus, a whole bunch of pirates gave their lives for us to have this opportunity. Do you want their sacrifice to be for nothing?"

"I don't suppose I'd want that," Brandon conceded.

"On top of that, we still haven't seen any sign of the cat. It could still be ahead of us. We'll never know unless we keep going."

"Okay, but what do we do if we run into whatever killed my crew?"

"You've still got your cutlass, right? Good. You can hold the monsters off. I'll run like hell."

Brandon considered this for a moment. "The rest of the crew should be down the other tunnels. You could gather them up as reinforcements."

"Yeah, sure. That's what I'll do. Now let's keep going. There's gold nearby. I can smell it."