Writing Exercise: Rory's Story Cubes Voyages

For my last visit to my writing group in Britain, we used Rory's Story Cubes Voyages pack. My regular cubes were already on the boat going back to America but one of the other writers had bought the Voyages set. We rolled and I wrote the following.

The Worst Sight-Seeing Excursion Ever!

Once upon a time a band of unhappy pirates thought up yet another get rich quick scheme. For a small sack of coins, they'd take landlubbers out to sea to fish for the big fish. Surely shore folk who pay extravagant prices for sea food would love to catch their own to take home. That was the idea, anyway.

Their first dawn excursion had a few couples from the mountains on it. The pirates weren't surprised that folk who live so far from the sea didn't have proper equipment for deep sea fishing. All they brought were little boxes with holes in the front. The landlubbers said they'd be able to shoot the fish with the queer little boxes. The pirates had much better harpoon guns and blunderbusses if it came to shooting.

They all sailed off into the morning mist in search of the living treasure of the sea. The mist soon turned to rain, which was unfortunate for all involved. The pirates went from unhappy to grumpy, and the mountain folk worried about how well their boxes would do in the rain.

The other problem with the bad weather was the good fish would go elsewhere. When they got to the fishing ground, the pirates offered their customers bait and tackle. The mountain folk were a bit shocked. "We don't want to catch them, just shoot them...with our cameras!"

An argument would have broken out except one of the wives was grabbed by a tentacle reaching on board. "Aiyeaaah!" she cried. Everyone rushed to the edge of the boat in time to see the sea squid making off with yet another customer.

"We're ready for you this time, Tentacles!" A pirate had already run to the starboard harpoon gun and was ready to let him have it. "Watch out for the wench! But don't miss!!" shouted the captain.

The gunner let fly and hit the sea monster in the head. Finally done in, thought the captain to himself. The squid went limp and one or two lusty pirates jumped in to give the little lady a hand or two.

The blood from the squid attracted more trouble. A cry from the crow's nest caught everyone's attention. "Sea serpent coming in from the aft!"

Rubbish, thought the captain, mostly because he didn't want to believe it, but also because the aft harpoon gun wouldn't be installed til next week. The serpent sped through, encircling the lady and two sailors (who were certainly tastier than the squid). The pirates struggled to reload in time. They didn't. The serpent got away and the pirates had a new foul weather monster to deal with. Also, when word got out that customers were being eaten, business would go bust. They'd just stay grumpy from now on.

Sorry I don't have a picture of the dice, but the images included a guy with a kerchief on his head (the pirates), a small sack (coins for excursion), a sun coming up over a dark half oval (dawn), a mountain range (home for the customers), a box with a hole in the middle and a little square on its top left side (the camera), a grimacing face (worry), a cloud with rain coming down (rain), and a snake (the sea serpent). I don't remember what the ninth die was but I didn't use it.