Treasure Map

Once upon a time, there lived a pirate captain named Ezekial. Ezekial and his crew of forty five men sailed the seas, raiding islands, other ships, and making piles of gold every day. One day, Ezekial opened his treasure hold and sighed. There was gold, silver, golden gob-lets and jeweled flagons, sure. But to him, being used to the sight of gold and jewels, de-cided he wanted more. Pirates always want more. He ordered his men to gather on deck. "Alright, sailors!" He bellowed. "We need to work extra hard to bring in more gold this month and if I see any slacking off, 25 lashes for you!" All forty five men shivered, a mes-sage definitely passed across.

So for the next few weeks, they worked hard to bring in a load of gold. It pleased Ezekial that his ship weighed at least a few tonnes more. However, while raiding, Ezekial's right hand man, Will 'Popeye' Shellden, discovered a map hidden in a chest of a home of some peasant. He knew he had to show it to Ezekial. He rushed back to the ship and presented the map to Ezekial. He carefully studied the map and discovered that the start of the map, the very island they were at. Then the red dashes hovered over the Lair of the Giant Squid, and through the cragged seas. It then lead onward to the X. The X was marked with the fossilized head of a dinosaur. So Ezekial decided to follow the map (and loot a good deal of ships on the way, of course.) and find out what exactly it meant.

They eventually reached the Giant Squid's Lair. Then, rather obviously, a giant squid rose from the abyss. Ezekial ordered a broadside to put that giant squid back in the ocean. Guess what? The cannonballs bounced right off. Ezekial had no choice but to sail away. However, the ship weighed so much from all the gold that he couldn't get away. The squid was gaining. Then Ezekial had an idea. "Get down to the cargo hold and toss out as much gold as possible!" He ordered. His men looked frankly shocked. But they did as ordered, and began tossing out the gold. Ezekial, in all honesty, felt like crying. He blinked back his tears and realised. his life was more important than gold. His life only. Not the crew. The useless sods could be fed to crabs for all he cared. He got away from the squid, which was attracted by the gold, and continued to sail through the Cragged Seas.

The Cragged Seas were dangerous, as the waters were shallow and almost could not sup-port a ship. But Ezekial knew the only way was through there. He kept sailing, and in-evitably, they start taking on water in the cargo hold. His men started pumping pitch onto the holes. But eventually the holes broke again, and water rose. "Abandon ship!" barked Ezekial. They could not go back to retrieve the gold, there was simply too much water! So they plonked down 9 rowboats and sailed the rest of the way to the island. "This treasure better be worth it" thought Ezekial. They reached the island, and were amazed when Ezekial tripped over what looked like... the skeletal head of some extinct giant lizard. A di-nosaur! "Tread with care, men. There could be more, and alive." whispered Ezekial.

They crept along, and eventually found the digging site. "Dig." ordered Ezekial simply. He wasn't even sure what they were going to find. They stopped digging. They lifted a chest up from the ground. Ezekial licked his lips. He placed his hands on the chest. He lifted the lid... He tried so hard to lift the lid, but the chest was locked.

After all this trouble, losing all their wealth, respect and their ship, they found the chest... And it was locked! Ezekial started kicking the chest furiously. The crewed moaned. A di-nosaur appeared. Ezekial was... Wait, a dinosaur? Oh snap. With all the racket they made, they had attracted a gigantic, man eating Tyrannosaurus Rex. And it wanted to eat them. Oh snap indeed. "RUN!!" wailed Ezekial, and they did. They ran and ran. "Back to the

ship!" Ezekial ordered. "What ship?" asked Tom, a midshipman. "You told us to abandon the ship. And you threw away all our hard earned gold. Now you trapped us on this island with its locals and its locals are dinosaurs." Ezekial gulped. "I... Uh... " Ezekial was well and truly doomed. "GET HIM!" yelled the crew at once. And so, with Ezekial fed to a T-rex, the were crew rescued by a merchant ship passing through the area, and the treasure never discovered, everything returned to normal. You are probably wondering, just what the heck was in that chest? Diamonds. It could have been Ezekials if he had gone to the gym more often. Thats right, the chest wasn't locked. Ohh snap.