5 Chapter 4: Obtaining information
A young barmaid of only about 21 years old was quietly scrubbing the Bar counter when suddenly, someone approached the counter, ready to order a drink.
"What'll it be for you guys?" the barmaid asked, without looking up from the place she was cleaning.
"Some rum for me, lassie," the man asked.
The bartender looked at the pirate standing in front of her.
He looked to be about her age.
He was thin and tanned, with dark brown eyes and long, dark brown hair, worn in braids and dreadlocks.
He wore several beads hanging from his hair, a mysterious coin resting on his forehead on top of the scarf he wears on his head, a silver chain, and a bone needle in his hair.
On the right side of the jaw, there is an open wound and on the right cheekbone, there is an X-shaped cut.
'Souvenir of some friction' surmised the young bartender.
The man was dressed in a white shirt and is wearing a blue vest in front and gray in back.
He was also wearing dark gray bloomers, which he wore tucked into his leather boots.
He had a sash and two belts around his waist in which there was a black compass tied to the belt, a small animal skin, a hen's foot, a tiny spine, and a small red sculpture of a mermaid.
Something that caught the young bartender's attention.
He also wears a brown leather hat, and a dark grayish-blue frock coat.
Four rings adorned his hands, on the right index finger appeared to be a skull with an emerald, and on the left ring finger was some kind of black flower that the bartender did not recognize.
On the left index finger, he had a ring with an opal inlaid, while on the left thumb he has a ring with a silver oriental dragon.
He also had a mark with a capital P on his right-hand wrist.
'Pirate' concluded the bartender.
"Bottle or jar?" the young barmaid asked quietly despite watching Jack closely.
"A bottle, if you like," said Jack, his cheerful smile revealing multiple gold and silver teeth.
The young bartender leaned behind the counter and reappeared with a bottle of rum.
She slid the bottle across the counter and picked up the coins the pirate had left behind.
'Silver coins, what a strange pirate' thought the barmaid as she saw him paying with silver coins.
Jack had already been consulting the value of the silver coins he had so he could tell how much each thing cost approximately, well, from the rum at least.
Jack's brown, kohl-lined eyes lit up as he uncorked the bottle and took a swig.
Jack licked his lips and began to drink quickly.
"Blimey, seems like ages since I last savored the rum!" Jack commented.
"You don't look like the type that hasn't been drinking in a long time," replied the young barmaid.
"Oh, you can't imagine how long it's been," Jack said with a mysterious smile.
The barmaid rolled her eyes.
"And so, what was it that made you stop drinking?"
"Well, sailing always carries a risk" was all Jack replied.
"Right, I hear you're planning to close" Jack changed the subject.
"Yes, that's true, my father owns it and he's very sick, I'm just working here to replace him until we close."
Jack gave her a sympathetic look, "Well, that certainly explains why I've been hearing so much about it when I first got here. When do you plan to close?"
The young barmaid sighed "We're waiting for someone to take over the Bar first, but by the end of this year we'll probably be closed, the most important thing right now for my family is my father."
"Oh, it will certainly get better honey," Jack said confidently, taking a big gulp of rum.
The bartender rolled her eyes, "So, what brought you to this city, repairing your ship, recruiting, or just passing through?"
"Well, I've had a pretty eventful couple of years, I'd say," Jack replied as he took a shot of rum and then continued.
"I almost died several times, one of those times was successful in fact..."
"And now I don't have a crew either, but at least this time I have my ship and can rest before setting sail again" Jack took another drink of rum and set the half-empty bottle down in front of the bartender signaling her to give him another.
She didn't exactly understand what the strange pirate in front of her meant when he said that he almost died several times and actually did die one of those times, but she'd heard clients saying crazier things than that so she just ignored it.
"And where do you plan to head once you leave Water 7, you should know by now that sailing the Great Line is very dangerous without a good crew," asked the barmaid as she slid another bottle of rum to the pirate.
"After all I've seen and done, I think I can deal with that," Jack said confidently before grabbing the new bottle of rum and starting to drink.
Jack continued to drink and chat for a while at the Bar.
After a few hours, he placed the seventh empty bottle of rum on the counter.
"Aye, oh well, no quarters, looks like I should be going now lessie," said a drunken Jack as he saw he had no more silver coins.
"Well, I wish you luck at Water 7," said the young barmaid with a smile that showed she was already used to drunk customers.
The barmaid reached under the counter once more and came back up with another bottle of rum, then slid the rum across the counter to Jack, causing him to look at her in confusion.
"Have one for the road," said the young barmaid, drawing a smile from Jack who took the bottle and tucked it into his coat.
"I couldn't thank you more, luv" then Jack stood up, thanked her, and saluted her by slightly lowering his hat.
Then he turned and left the Bar.
The next few days at Water 7 passed in relative peace, well what Jack would consider peace.
He questioned as many people as he could to get information about the place he had ended up in.
Although most of his time was spent in the bar drinking rum and hanging out with the occasional lady.
But he managed to get a lot of information from the drunken people he shared drinks with from time to time in the bar.
And above all he got a lot of information from the ladies he went out with, they always tend to talk the most, giving the best information.
Jack wasn't going to deny that he had drink too much on more than one occasion in his very serious search for information in the bar, even sleeping with the beautiful young barmaid and a few other women who were part of a pirate gang.
Well... Jack maybe also took the opportunity to get some treasures from these pirate gangs.
Yeah, maybe it wasn't the best idea to mess with other pirates as soon as he got here.
But it was a sacrifice Captain Jack Sparrow was willing to make.
What Jack discovered these days on Water 7 is that he was apparently in a completely different world, as crazy as that sounds.
That's right, he ended up in some kind of parallel version of his world, or so Jack came to think of this world at least.
It was a very interesting place, to say the least.
There were no French, Spanish, or even English, even though the english was spoken everywhere.
And best of all for Jack, there was no Davy Jones, so he no longer had to worry about him claiming his soul.
Jack had some conclusions about how he came to this strange world, but nothing concrete, what he knew was that everything in this world was fascinating.
He had seen all sorts of people using strange powers, mostly marines or pirates, but even carpenters seemed to have their own unique abilities.
And what caught Jack's attention the most were the Akuma no Mi, the Devil's Fruits, very incredible fruit-shaped treasures.
These fruits apparently contained some sort of curse like the Aztec treasure, only each Devil Fruit was different and gave the person who ate it a different ability.
But like the curse of the Aztec gold that granted immortality to those affected by the curse, it had the consequence that they all became decaying skeletons in the moonlight, and were unable to feel any human emotion or sense.
Jack has heard that devil fruits are incarnations of the Sea Devil. If you eat one you will gain a special ability, but you will be unable to swim.
So the devil fruits also had their own consequences when consumed, and those were that all Akuma No Mi users have a weakness which is stagnant water and Kairōseki.
Jack now understands that apparently, the fruit he found and ate on his boat was one of these Akuma No Mi that must have found its way into his boat along with the high tide water when he was sailing.
Although he still doesn't understand the reason for one of these valuable fruits being in the water.
The descriptions given by the people at the Bar about these fruits were rather vague.
The few who managed to really explain to him in a little more detail about the Devil Fruits were mostly the pirate ladies he was with or on a few occasions he also extracted information from the random drunk Marine and Pirate, who were easy to get information out of.
Jack was surprised to discover that he didn't seem to have any weakness in water like the other users.
But he learned that sometimes a Devil Fruit's powers involve water in a particular state of aggregation, such as the power to create water bubbles, the power to create ice, be a fish-man, or his power to turn his body into water.
In these cases it seems that consumers will not be weak to water in the state in which it is in their power, however, they will be weak to water in a different state.
Another thing that struck Jack about this world was that although there are different kingdoms ruled by their own kings or rulers.
In this world, they were all ruled by the same government which consisted of the Navy and the World Government, although Jack had also heard that the Tenryuubito were the real kings of this world.
During these conversations with the various pirates and drunken marines he also learned that all these nobles were scum of the worst kind, even worse than anyone Jack had ever met, which was a serious matter.
They all kept repeating the same thing "Stay away from them".
Well, changing the subject, the devil fruit users were not the only fascinating thing he heard about.
Jack also learned of an intelligent race completely different from humans but still very similar, these were called Fishman.
They had very strange characteristics, as they resembled crosses between humans and different forms of marine life.
Jack concluded that they were humans who lived in the water, something like Davy Jones' crew, only it wasn't because of a curse and it was because they were actually born that way.
And Jack couldn't wait to go to this city where the Fishmen lived that he had heard so much about.
Another incredible thing he heard about was the so-called Haki.
Apparently, it was another strange power like the devil's fruits, but this one didn't come from a curse or whatever the fruits had.
From what he had heard, Haki could be used without consuming anything, anyone with experience and effort could use Haki on their limbs and even in weapons to strengthen them and harm others, it even damages devil fruit users who are supposedly invulnerable.
'Yay, and here I was thinking that with my water body I was already immortal' Jack complained when he found that out.
Although it frustrated him to discover that, it also made Jack like this world more and more.
