They had spent this time in Booty Bay, waiting for the owls to arrive. They had also investigated the pirates and confirmed that there were three gathering points, with roughly eight medium-sized galleons permanently stationed between them. Three were normally stationed at the Eastern Beach of Booty Bay and another three at the Southern Great Island. Two more were stationed at the Western Beach.
These were all ships belonging to the Bloodsail Buccaneers, who made their living primarily by robbing goblin ships from Booty Bay. As a result, they were bitter enemies of the Blackwater Raiders in Booty Bay, and the two sides frequently fought. The ship transporting the owls had also been robbed. All its cargo and money had been taken, but the pirates had not even glanced at the owls.
As it turned out, the goblins had not caught the owls directly. When word reached Winterspring, it happened to be the owls' mating and egg-laying season, so they had simply collected eggs.
The owls in Winterspring were concentrated in a small area, so gathering over a thousand eggs had not been particularly difficult. Once they had the eggs, they sent them to the docks in Ratchet, where a ship carried them back to Booty Bay. If some had not failed to hatch along the way, there would have been even more young owls.
After several months of feeding, the owls had grown considerably and could already fly. When the pirates raided the ship, they had seen nothing but tiny birds and ignored them completely. Yu Lin Bloodhawk felt immensely relieved when he heard this. These young owls were not cheap, costing over twenty silver coins each. Fourteen said he had already paid for them and returned the remaining money to Yu Lin Bloodhawk.
Yu Lin Bloodhawk counted it.