When Hugo pushed back through the swinging doors of the Mermaid's Rest, the revelry inside had reached a fever pitch. The air was a thick, visible haze of tobacco smoke and steam, vibrating with the stomping of boots on the hollow wooden floor.
At the center of the storm sat Barbossa. He was draped across a large, scarred table, a plump tavern girl on one arm and a half-empty tankard of grog in the other. His face was flushed a deep, alarming crimson, and his voice boomed over the cacophony of the tavern as he recounted their escape.
"...and I tell you, the walls of water in the Triangle were taller than a first-rate's fighting top!" Barbossa roared, gesturing wildly with his mug. "The crew was white as ghosts, resigned to the locker, but I stood my ground! I looked the abyss in the eye and told it to move!"
He was halfway through a particularly creative embellishment of his own bravery when he spotted Hugo weaving through the crowd. Barbossa immediately went quiet, his predatory eyes narrowing with interest. He shoved the girl aside with a casual, dismissive pat and waved Hugo over.
"Master Hugo! Where did you slip off to?" Barbossa shouted, his grin returning but not quite reaching his eyes. "The night is young and the rum is flowing! Come, take a seat and tell these doubters about the rogue wave!"
The surrounding pirates moved with a sudden, respectful haste to make room for Hugo. He didn't sit. He picked up a discarded, clean tankard, filled it from a nearby pitcher, and looked Barbossa directly in the eye.
"Captain," Hugo said, his voice cutting through the noise with a cold, professional edge. "A word. In private."
Barbossa saw the mask of the 'pauper' had vanished entirely, replaced by the same terrifyingly focused expression Hugo had worn during the storm. The Captain realized this wasn't a social call. He stood up, adjusted his shredded coat, and led Hugo toward a darkened booth in the far corner of the tavern, where the shadows were deep enough to swallow a secret.
"What's on your mind, lad?" Barbossa asked, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial rumble once they were seated. "Did someone in the streets try to pinch your gold? Or have you seen a bad omen in the stars?"
"I want to buy a ship," Hugo said.
Barbossa froze, his tankard halfway to his lips. He stared at Hugo for a long, silent beat before he burst into a fit of dry, hacking laughter that sounded like gravel in a tin bucket.
"Buy a ship? You?" Barbossa wiped a tear of mirth from his eye. "Master Hugo, I know you've got a heavy pouch for the first time in your life, but twenty doubloons wouldn't buy you a decent anchor, let alone a hull. You're drunk on the air of Tortuga, lad."
"I've been to the Port Authority," Hugo countered, his gaze never wavering. "Berth Three. There's a derelict merchant sloop called the Sea Fairy. Her port side is shot through and her mast is a stump, but her keel is heart-oak and it's straight as a die. They're asking fifty doubloons for the scrap."
The laughter died in Barbossa's throat. He leaned forward, the scent of stale rum and tobacco smoke rolling off him. "Fifty doubloons for a pile of rotting wood? Hugo, you're a genius behind the wheel, but you're a fool at the docks. That ship is a carcass. The repair costs alone would buy you a fresh frigate."
"I don't need a shipyard," Hugo said, his voice dropping to an intense, quiet whisper. "I have a way to fix her. A way you wouldn't understand."
Barbossa scrutinized Hugo, searching for any sign of a joke or a fever. He saw only the same absolute, unnerving confidence that had seen them through the Devil's Triangle. He remembered the way Hugo had "felt" the currents and "predicted" the upwelling. If this boy said he could raise a dead ship, Barbossa was beginning to believe he might actually do it.
And if Hugo could repair a condemned hull... his value was no longer just in navigation. He was a master shipwright, a man who could turn trash into gold. Barbossa's mind, always hungry for the next score, began to whirl with the possibilities.
A glint of shrewd, calculated greed flickered in the Captain's eyes. He stroked his braided beard, his fingers tracing the silver beads as he thought.
"How much do you have on you?" Barbossa asked finally.
"Nineteen," Hugo admitted. "I paid a viewing fee to the vultures at the Authority."
"So you're thirty-one short," Barbossa said, tapping his fingers on the table in a rhythmic, predatory beat. "I could lend it to you. In fact, I could give you fifty doubloons right now, so you can keep your own gold for supplies and a skeleton crew."
Hugo felt the snare tightening. "And the price, Captain?"
"A loan between brothers isn't free, Hugo," Barbossa smiled, though it looked more like a snarl. "I provide the capital. I provide the protection while you toil on that wreck. In exchange, you sail with me one more time. One last run on the Sea Serpent."
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a hiss. "We go after a real prize. A score that makes this last run look like a child's game. When the gold is counted, I take seventy percent as the Owner. The remaining thirty percent goes to the crew, including you. And your debt to me comes out of your share before you see a single copper."
Hugo's pupils contracted. It was an extortionate deal. In the pirate code, the Captain and Owner usually took a larger share, but seventy percent was a robbery. It would leave Hugo and the men who bled for the prize with scraps, and Hugo's "scraps" would go straight back into Barbossa's pocket to pay for a ship he was repairing with his own labor.
Barbossa was an old fox. He was letting Hugo buy his "toy" while ensuring Hugo remained his slave for the foreseeable future.
"Seventy percent is a high price for a few coins, Hector," Hugo said, using the Captain's name for the first time.
"It is the price of an empire, Hugo," Barbossa countered. "Without me, you're just a boy with nineteen coins and a dream of a dead ship. With me, you have a hull in the water tomorrow. I bear the risk of the investment; I take the lion's share of the profit. That is the law of the sea."
Hugo fell silent. He looked at his hands, still stained with the salt of the Atlantic. He knew he was being manipulated. But he also knew something Barbossa didn't. He had the System.
Once the Sea Fairy was officially his, the "Classical Shipbuilding" tree would activate. He wouldn't just be repairing a ship; he would be birthing a legend. Once he had his own deck beneath his feet and the technology of the ancients in his blood, Barbossa's "seventy percent" would be a debt he could settle on his own terms.
Temporary submission was the price of absolute power.
Hugo looked up, the gloom vanishing from his face. He even managed a cold, knowing smile. "You're the Captain, Hector. You set the terms."
Barbossa seemed momentarily taken aback by how quickly Hugo folded. He had expected more of a fight, more haggling. He laughed, a short, sharp bark of triumph. "Good! I knew you were a man of vision!"
"One condition," Hugo added, his voice like iron.
Barbossa raised an eyebrow. "Oh? The pauper finds his tongue?"
"I choose the target for this 'final run,'" Hugo said. "And I choose the route. If I'm to be your navigator for seventy percent of the gold, I'll ensure the gold is worth the blood. I guarantee a full hold, Captain. But only if we sail where I say."
He emphasized the word 'guarantee' with a weight that made Barbossa blink. The Captain stared at him for several seconds, weighing the risk. Then, he slammed his hand onto the table.
"Done!"
Barbossa reached into his coat and pulled out a second, heavier pouch of doubloons. He tossed it onto the table, where it landed with a satisfying, metallic thud. "Fifty doubloons. Buy your ghost tomorrow, Hugo. Then come back here and tell me... where are we going to find our fortune?"
Hugo gripped the pouch, the weight of it a physical promise of the future. He looked at Barbossa's smug, triumphant face and felt a flicker of dark amusement.
You want a fortune, Hector? Hugo thought. I'll give you one. I'll give you so much gold you'll drown in it. And then, I'll take my ship and leave you in the wake.
"I'll have a name for you by morning, Captain," Hugo said aloud. He stood up, the bag of gold clutched tightly in his hand, and walked out of the shadows and back into the roaring light of Tortuga.