The Ghost Ship, belowdecks.
The heavy wooden door to the Skeleton Rest Stop, with its bronze cross hanging from it, stood half open.
The ghost wood coffins had been moved aside to clear a space, and Lucas hung in its center. The black cloth that had covered his eyes while he was unconscious had already been removed. A bucket of seawater had woken him half an hour earlier.
The wound on his chest was hideous. Blood trickled down his belly and fish tail, dripping onto the floor.
Before him, the skeletons formed a long line.
One skeleton held a whip, dipped its tip into the wooden bucket of salt water beside him, then lashed out.
Crack! The whip struck Lucas hard.
"This lash is for Old George!"
After cursing him, the skeleton passed the whip back. The next one took it and dipped it into the salt water again.
"This lash is for me, Joseph!"
Almost all the surviving old sailors from the Wine Barrel were there. The men Lucas had drugged, bound, and dragged away one by one to be buried alive now stood in line, each taking a turn with the whip before handing it to the next, settling their accounts more than a year overdue.
Before long, the gray-blue scales covering Lucas's body had been whipped to pieces, leaving exposed skin crisscrossed with bloody welts.
At first, his body had tensed instinctively with the pain. Later, even his struggles grew weaker.
A skeleton stood nearby specifically to watch him. Whenever he seemed close to death, the skeleton forced his jaw open and poured a Life Potion down his throat.
Lucas choked and coughed a few times, his health points climbing again.
"All right, keep going!"
Titch had come in with Ling Chu. When the cursing skeletons saw