With the map in hand, the next task was obvious—find the way to the Fountain of Youth.
It was daytime. The sun hung high, lighting the deck of the Black Pearl as the four of them sat around the strange map laid flat between them—Daniel, Jack, Evelyn, and Elizabeth.
The sea was calm, the ship steady, the carved wooden discs of the map glinting under the light.
Evelyn leaned closer, fingers carefully rotating one of the circular sections. "This isn't a normal chart," she said. "It's like a zigzag puzzle. These discs rotate and reveal different maps depending on how you align them."
She turned another layer and the coastlines shifted.
Jack nodded. "Of course it does. It doesn't just lead to one place. It shows paths to many locations—World's End, hidden routes, all sorts of inconvenient destinations."
"I don't need the way to the end of the world," Daniel said flatly, still not even looking at it. "I need the way to the Fountain of Youth."
Elizabeth adjusted one of the inner rings. Symbols overlapped, currents redirected, markings realigned. "It's layered navigation," she said. "Not just direction—conditions. It changes based on alignment."
Daniel lay back slightly, hands behind his head. Maps, puzzles, rotating discs—none of that was his domain. "You three handle the thinking," he muttered. "Wake me up when it points to the fountain."
After some time, the shifting discs finally aligned. What looked chaotic at first began to form a clear route—currents, symbols, stars, all falling into place with surprising simplicity.
It hadn't been as difficult as expected.
Between Evelyn's sharp eye for patterns and Jack's familiarity with the map's peculiar logic, they found the path sooner than Daniel had anticipated. Evelyn adjusted the final ring, and a narrow route carved itself through the layered markings.
Daniel pushed himself upright. "So our journey begins."
They weren't seeking immortality, so there was no need for the elaborate rituals whispered about in pirate lore—no mermaid tears, no ceremonial chalices, no dramatic sacrifices.
Daniel had no interest in playing by the Fountain's traditional rules. He only needed what waited there.
But to reach it, they would have to pass through Whitecap Bay.
The name alone carried weight.
Whitecap Bay was infamous among sailors—beautiful, quiet, and deadly. Calm waters by day, treacherous by night. Ships vanished there without wreckage.
Men went missing without screams. Stories spoke of sirens beneath the surface, creatures that lured sailors with haunting voices before dragging them into the depths.
Jack folded his arms, staring at the marked route. "Whitecap Bay," he repeated. "Home to charming scenery, unfortunate disappearances, and mermaids with unpleasant table manners."
Elizabeth asked. "So the legends are true?"
Jack gave a thin smile. "In my experience, when pirates call something a legend, it usually means someone died verifying it."
"Whitecap Bay?" Gibbs' voice cut in sharply as he hurried across the deck."You aren't seriously plotting a course there, are you, Captain?"
Jack didn't answer immediately, which was answer enough.
Pintel and Ragetti, who had been loitering within convenient eavesdropping distance, stiffened.
"Whitecap Bay?" Pintel echoed, eyes widening. "That's the place with the mermaids, ain't it?"
"Aye," Ragetti added, nodding with misplaced enthusiasm. "Heard they're beautiful. Like angels of the sea. Lure sailors with their singing."
Gibbs turned on them with open disbelief. "You pair of barnacled idiots. They don't lure sailors for romance. They lure 'em for supper."
The two exchanged a look.
"Still," Pintel ventured cautiously, "they are beautiful, though… right?"
"Beautiful enough to make you forget your own name," Ragetti agreed. "Wouldn't mind a look. From a safe distance. Very safe."
Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose. "You won't be admiring anything while they're dragging you under. They'll smile at you, sing sweet as a church hymn, and the next thing you know you're at the bottom of the ocean, bones picked clean."
Ragetti frowned thoughtfully. "But the singing's nice first, yeah?"
Jack clapped a hand on Gibbs' shoulder, eyes gleaming with mischief. "See? Optimism. Vital quality in a crew."
Gibbs groaned. "Captain, with respect, Whitecap Bay ain't a place one sails into lightly."
Jack's smile didn't fade. "Fortunately, we never do anything lightly."
"Have you all forgotten," Jack said, spreading his hands as though addressing particularly slow children, "that we possess the single most powerful protection sailing these waters?"
He jerked his thumb casually toward Daniel.
"If any mermaid so much as hums in our direction, we simply let him deal with it."
"And Gibbs," Jack added, lowering his voice just enough to make it sound personal, "don't you want to set foot on a place sailors only whisper about? To stand in Whitecap Bay and later say, with appropriate gravitas, that you were there?"
The reason Jack insisted on going there had nothing to do with legends.
He knew about the Santiago—the Spanish ship sent to claim the Fountain of Youth. It reached the island, according to rumor, and was never seen again. No wreckage returned. No survivors spoke. It simply vanished.
And it has gold and many valuable things it collected during the journey.
That was what interested Jack.
Not the Fountain.
The treasure.
And so the journey to Whitecap Bay began.
***
Night fell heavy over the sea as the Black Pearl cut through dark waters. The wind was steady, the deck restless but calm—until a cannonball tore through the silence.
It slammed into the Pearl's side, splintering wood and shuddering through the hull hard enough to wake the dead.
Unfortunately for whoever fired it, they had decided—brilliantly—to irritate the most dangerous thing on the ship.
Daniel stepped out of his cabin in loose sleepwear, hair messy, eyes glowing a dangerous red. He looked exactly like a man dragged from deep sleep—and very much not pleased about it.
"Who the fuck," he asked, his voice low and cold, "decided to attack at night?"
*****
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