A Curse of Some Sort [NSFW]

Most of the time, Vyse had some of the best luck in the world. More or less literally. After all, one doesn't accomplish everything he has on just skill alone.

And then sometimes, Vyse had the worst luck in the world. Especially with the bounty list. It's one thing when a pirate becomes infamous for being ruthless or destructive, it's another when they're being a pain in the ass or just plain weird. Like the Larso clan or the old Yafutoman guy who used to hang around the Lands of Ice (and gave the Delphinus' crew a good run of the 'emergency evacuation' joke).

It's yet another thing when the bounties are just crazy. Crazy and potentially dangerous--she'd sent Black Spots to more pirates than anyone could count, mostly male--calling herself the Pirate Witch. She held the highest monetary reward for her capture, but curiously, the longer she stayed on the bounty list, the less people seemed to want to go after her. Whispers of a monster posing as a human woman and a human with otherworldly magic traveling from port to port were the likely cause.

Vyse eventually found her. And discovered why so many had failed to do anything about her. If she wasn't defeated in battle, the loser was killed. If she was defeated, the victor was spared, but was cursed if there was something the Witch disliked about them. Much like many of the other bounties, she took a liking to Vyse, but not to his female companions, who he wasn't about to part with for any reason. Vyse's team won, but the Witch fled before she could be captured.

"If I'm not allowed to have him, no other female should either!" Vyse had collapsed immediately after she left.

A day passed, and it seemed like the rumors of odd magic were true. While Aika and Fina had expected illness, or loss of body parts (Aika helpfully suggested that), Vyse seemed completely fine.

Except he had become 'she' overnight. Or mostly, at least, as Vyse wasn't about to admit that he looked female up top and mostly male below the belt.

"Hey, it could be worse. You could be bedridden, or dying!"

"Yeah, but it's still weird. Why didn't she do anything to you and Fina?"

"I dunno. Maybe she thought you'd snap and kill us. Don't ask me!"

Fast forward a week. After several days of research and talking to some of the people spreading the Witch rumors, mention of the existence of a plot point magic-nullifying plant came up. Of course, it was extremely rare and possibly extinct, but some claimed to have seen it recently, on a tiny island near the Dark Rift.

Fast forward again to the present. Vyse huffed and lowered the map he'd been studying for the past minute. He was sure he was in the right place--they were at the coordinates he'd been given, and the landmarks nearby matched. The island was too small to dock even his small sailboat, so he'd taken a lifeboat to it instead. It had a small, flat, rocky area that led into a cave--from the outside, the whole island looked a bit like a shell. He'd told Aika and Fina to stay on the ship, in case anyone attacked it.

Like the giant squid. Vyse wasn't too happy about having to poke around in the squid's territory. Even if he'd only seen one in his life, that didn't mean there weren't more hiding somewhere.

Into the cave he went.

(Ooc: I apologize, this turned into a Terrible Fanfic Plot about halfway through.)