Pirates? Why you know of any hiring?

As a privateer, I was always on the lookout for free loot. Let’s be honest: free loot versus fighting and killing someone for loot is much better. Why? Well, if God’s stories talk about a pearl of significant cost being found in a field. Why can I not find a treasure of great worth?

And thus I found myself often in the bookstalls about where of ole England reading books, journals, and diaries of old pirates, ship captains, and adventurers. That is until 29 when I found a diary describing a treasure worth a dukedom of France.

The diary was from a courtier who was going to the galantine and trying to make a bribery attempt to the court. Saying he knew where his master had hidden a sizable sum of money, specifically 5000 coins of the 1200th century era.

He went into great detail of how some great uncle or what not of the duke was a knight’s Templar and entrusted with said fortune for a day when they needed it. The diary went into great detail. I thought it was a fine story of fiction. Then I felt the binding. And within it was a coin. It was a smaller coin, but as I looked; I realized they had shaved it down to fit it into the diary. It was a French gold florin. They had scratched the date, thus I couldst not tell how old it was.

Now let’s be honest. My French is horrible. Women of Persian looked down their noses at me and I just liked it that for the right smile I could go a mile with them and dance for a while.

So I had to purchase the book and get its translation text to understand more about the diary. His handwritten notes and a map were sort of weird looking and to be honest, I was not sure it said 5000 or 50,000 or 500,000.

The diary was purchased for one pound one penny. I made a profit right off the bat. For I took the Florin to a coin shop right around the corner and sold it for a very nice fortune.

Enough so I could fund my brief investigation into someone called the Duke of Johannes Marcus Larmenius. Some Palestine French born noble man whose position was to keep the secrets and treasure of some organization.

That I was in England when I purchased the diary meant a trip. But the map and dairy were a bit more vague than I would have liked. However, I had a small fortune. Let’s be honest, I made 8,000 pounds of the old gold florin. And I will take some time to think about where and what to do. Looking at the map, not wanting to use it as a clue, I went and redrew it the best I could and went to several cartographers in London, England, to see if they could identify the location.

Since they were busy, I offered them cakes and something to drink if they had time to look at my map and if they had drawn anything similar or close to it over the years. I went through eight of them with not a soul saying, ah I have seen anything like it. But on the ninth visit an old cartographer named Richard however called Bob, who for whatever purposes. Whose name plate that sat on his desk read Robert. Smiled and said yes. He had drawn something like that a long time ago for a book called the Lost Treasures of the Tempers.

Interested, I asked where I could purchase such a book and if he had any clue as to the location.

Bob smiled again and pointed to a stack of books. There was an unedited book titled the Lost Treasures of the Templar. And a copy of the diary I had purchased at the bookstore. The author had written several of them in his attempt to get out of being beheaded.

Bob gave me additional information. I asked what price he wanted. He just smiled and said after 50 years of looking, if I found it, to remember him.

I had to ask if he had a gold florin too? He smiled and pulled out a black bag. Within were six gold florins, all similarly shaved down with the dates scratched out. He smiled after I asked how close he was to the treasure. I have looked at over 15980 maps, comparing them together with the seven diaries I have.

I looked and only saw six coins. I asked if one of them was missing a coin? His reply was yes. One dairy did not have any coin in its binding. I then asked where he had come upon the collection and his reply, looking here and there since he was 14. He said that was when he found his first diary and became a map maker.

The wildest dreams. I told him the value of the six coins. He just smiled and said he knew. And asked if it was 5000 or 50,000 or 500,000 coins. He smiled again and said the duke’s treasure according to the church in the area recorded the taxes in the land brought in 15,000 coins yearly and that the duke’s cost of living was less than 4340 and the church wondered where the rest of the money went. Bob pointing to a huge old French bible recorder. I went over and looked to see names and birth dates of at least 1539 people. Assuming 50 people per page, there were 28 pages front and back. But along the sides, the French clergy wrote about who owned what from 1193 to 1401.

I asked why Bob was giving me the books. He smiled and said that last doctor’s visit they had given him 14 weeks to live. And that he wanted someone to find the treasure. Him not having a family being obsessed with treasure hunting all his life.

And thus I spent the next eight weeks talking with Bob about his speculation and ideas on the treasure. He passed away on a Tuesday the year 1929. Bob left me with everything: coins, books, diaries, and his personal journal. Titled the Portal of Truth and the key that lies within.

It was a curious title. And I did not understand it at all until I read it while plotting my next course of action. The treasure of coins was not all that Bob was after. Some key and if his speculative writings were of anything to a portal to. Here he wrote time, and at other points he wrote realities, and at other points heaven and at other points key of God multiverse. Now remember, this was 1929 and multiverse and Schrödinger theory was not even talked about. Let alone you are talking about a map maker from 1880 to 1929 writing about or translating a French diary from a man trying to save his life by sending out diaries with 1200 century gold florins in them.

After the funeral, which was attended by two map makers, a local vicar, and a third cousin that was in town. They dumped me with 125 books, some 50 journals, and six boxes of maps. I got a room at a local pub upstairs and reread everything put into them. The maps, like Bob had said, were all labeled 1 to 15000 plus. Each one detailed to a page in one or another journal. The location spread from the coast of England to Turkey down to Egypt. There was one or two of the US coast with x marking per the journal entries findings of Templar artifacts in the new world from old papers in the 1800s.

Now, along with all this, Bob had also provided me with the six coins. So I was free from work and all I had to do was reread 50 years of journals and diaries about what he meant and what the French translation of hand-written notes in 1774 meant. To find a treasure put in place in. That is funny. Friday the 13th 1307. Who knows why that date rang a memory, but I was reading journals, books, and looking at maps.

I decided after a time that I better matrix out the ideas and hit the top 5 places Bob felt were most likely to hide said treasure. Some hotels in Istanbul, a church turned into a mosque in Egypt, and a home somewhere in Argentina. The other two locations I picked because the map looks similar enough to me and my eyesight was rough. I figured I could afford to hit each of them if I traded my coins correctly.

The first place was off the Scottish coast. An island which had an inland lake with similar features. I knew it was unlikely because Bobś notes stated this was a fairy tale and not an authentic story about something strange happening there.

Now strange in 1929 is stranger than what you could guise. The hauntings of the island were fae or fairy folks hiding their gold. It is why I picked that island to search for a week in 1930. I felt why not? It would get me out of the room I was in for the past two months and the fresh air from London could help my breathing.

I got a lift from London to Scotland via steamer. I was a tramp. So I got to do work along the way and could keep a chest and slept on it during the voyage of three days. In which we stopped at four places, dropping off and loading cargo. Nice furniture unloading and sheep wool, along with other items to replace the unloaded cargo for a return voyage.

That I only took 3 books, and a stack of maps, along with a few personal items, made me an ideal tramp. Meaning I could pick up and go without so much as asking for your leave. We got to the coast line I wanted to depart from.

The captain was not sore about me leaving. Just laughing, saying that all the fairy gold in the world would not make him want to go to the island I was being dropped off on. Now here is an afterthought about how I was to get back. Was on my own. But I cared little. I wanted adventure and freedom from reading books and looking at maps doing nothing.

Thus, with little of a hope of finding anything, I got off and went inland of the island. I spent six days searching. I came upon some silver coins in a vase that broke when I dug it out. Taking them along with me. I found an old fisherman’s boat that was abandoned or broken, whichever you like. And fixed it enough to get back to mainland.

Upon reaching a pub. I dropped one of the silver coins down. A local whistled and said, where did I get the Twynholm coin? I told him. I was not likely to be going back to that location. Years later, I heard that several of the locals in the area found another hoard of the coins. But I was after gold, not silver.

Anyway, having not found what I was looking for, I went back to London and caught a ship across the channel to the coast of France. There I took the train to the southern coast and spent six weeks searching along a section of the southern coast. I came across several old items. None of which made me think I was on the right path.

The last day I was there. I stumbled upon a castle the locals called the Templars’ hold. It was in an alcove and the path to get to it was hard pressed walking up and down. I found the castle more like a turret buried with rocks and sand from years of disuse.

Digging a little, I found some old armor and, to my amazement, some old weapons, but much newer. I took them back with me. On the trail back. I lost my footing and fell. When I awoke. I had everything with me I had carried, but I was in some sort of trap. There were more weapons and looking at them, discovered bodies of people long dead. Some are from a variety of ages. Meaning there were weapons, from guns to swords to spears. The most interesting thing I found was the bag. And in the bag, what would I discover was a gold florin? No book or diary, a gold florin and part of what looked like a key. But I always wonder if that florin belonged to the seventh diary Bob had? I took both to a nearby port. And caught a steamer to Turkey.

Onboard the steamer, I met a lady who had been from Istanbul and asked her about the lake I was going to observe. She took an interest in my venture. Upon reaching Istanbul, we meant we searched together. Lies is another grand adventure story.

An Adventure

Transporting myself to Turkey in 1929 on the Sidi Aissa. I met the love of my life for a time. We met over a table conversation with me trying to translate a French book about the Knightś Temples and a lake that once upon a time existed in 1200 century Constantinople, now Istanbul. She was lovely as all can get out dressed for a party on a ship. And I? A tramp who had bribed the waiter to allow me to be seated with those purchasing full fare. Meaning I was a bum and, like most bums, I traveled lit. Three books, a bag of maps for. Well, for my adventure. I was attempting to find a treasure from an old French courtier whose head they lopped off in 1789. I had eight of the diaries. Evidence of his attempted bribery to escape his fate. Along with the diaries, the seven coins. I had to sell one coin to finance my adventure of looking for the lost Temples’ fortune. According to the diaries, along with part of a key for the portal of time. She helped translate a passage for me in the diary that I was stuck on. She fell in love with the story I told her. Because this one meeting led to dancing, drinking, and well. This is this and that is that. I was the bad boy here for a seven-day trip. Stopping along the way at the port of Crete. We spent seven hours looking at a location which looked similar to the map I had derived from several sources. What we found was bronze and a few small gems. I kept six and gave the rest to her. Years later, I sold one for a fortune. When we reached port, the adventure began.

My journal entries for 1929. I had just debarked from Sidi Aissa in Istanbul with a lovely lady. She was to stay at Pera Palas Hotel. I, however, am a bum. Planned on working in the hotel. Why? The map I had been working on showed that one of the many passages was too. Shall we say, a treasure and some legendary portal of truth might be under the hotel? Constantinople had a complete water system that stretched out for miles under the city itself. And according to a map that I had derived from several other maps, some 15,000 to be exact. One location for a rather large Temper treasure was there.

How did I get my job in 1929? Ah, I am a craftsman and storyteller. I can cook. And if I cook right, most women fall in love with me. Sad to say. I only have to escape them afterward, but that is another tale. The diaries that I had put together seemed to show a doorway to. Well, that is the funny part. Some would say heaven, other diaries seem to show duplicated worlds. And still others a passage to other times. I was not into those ideas. I was into the idea of some gold that had come along with the diaries. Let’s be honest.

Time is fickle. God has his stories and plans. Other times have different ideas and taxes. But GOLD? I could spend that in a lifetime. Anyway, I hitched a ride with the lady to the hotel. And like I had assumed, there was a hobo signal at the corner explaining what to do. The sign at the corner in charcoal read a cat, a circle and a circle with an X in the middle of it. Translated for a non hobo, a kind old lady, a good road to follow along with a great place for handouts. I said thanks to my lady, and she smiled. Saying she would see me around. I hoped I would find the gold and be gone long before that. But life is what an adventure it is. I hoped to work finding the old lady in charge of the kitchen. And lickety-split. I made some donuts and chicken. I had brought the ingredients with me from the ship. And Wola, they hired me on the spot to serve as a night cook.

The other cook was ill with the flu. Thus cooking from 6 PM to 2 AM. I found they watched me like a hawk for a few days before being given keys to the basement and elsewhere to help with my prep work and kitchen preparations.

On the fifth day there, the lady found me. Someone had dressed her to the hilt. She wanted to dance. I had fallen into a routine of creating as much prep work at once so I could sneak a couple of hours in the basement that night. She was a guest. She had power, because the manager insisted I dance with her. Which is an oddity because kitchen staff dressed me as a formal cook. And she dressed to the hilt. We waltzed and hit the floor, doing a jig of sorts. That was around midnight. I left her at her door to her room around 1 AM and she said see me. Giving me a key. I ran to the kitchen to finish up the night’s work. Then. I went to the basement. I got there with a lantern to see. Well, to see a lady open a passage in the basement that contains several boxes. Had hidden. How she knew it was there. I don’t have a clue. I followed her in. When I lit my lantern, she screamed. She thought she was alone. Her scream led to the next events in such rapid sequence I am not sure what happened. The passage shut behind us. A ghoulish hand reached out from another doorway and grabbed the lady. She fainted at that. I tried to get her away from the hand with little success, dropping the lantern, which kept on burning. The hand swatted me away like I was a doll. And carried the lady away. She dropped her handbag. I got there and tried to figure out which way they went. I tucked the handbag into my apron and started running towards what I assumed was the lady. I was wrong. There is a water system in Istanbul. In the dead of night. Worse yet, I had not counted my turns or how long I had been running towards the swishing sound I had assumed was a person being drugged along the passageway. lost. I sat down. I wondered who the guest was that got lost. The card fell out when I opened the handbag. Some lady named Agatha Christie. Great, I wondered what I would say if I ever got out of the water system. Everything seemed to stretch upwards of forty or more feet, and I was not interested in climbing to figure out how to get out from the underground. Since I was where I wanted to be. Had no clue where the guest was at. I figured why not look around? I ended up in a passageway where there were tons of old iron and wood doors, all of them locked or rusted shut. I shined the lantern up to see if I could see any opening, to only see a ceiling stoned or rocked in the water system. That is when I heard the cackling of a human, or humans, to be more precise. It seemed over one of them. I went towards the laughter, hoping to find a way out and report the missing guest. I stumbled upon a group of naked women, all dancing around a bonfire in the middle of the night in a sewer system. If that was not strange enough, I recognized two of them from the hotel. So all of this is happening and I see the ghoulish hand - it was not small enough to be a man. Maybe a giant would be more of a way to describe him or it. And it rushed at me. As I was bumping into naked women, dancing, which was wild because they seemed not to even care I was there. Now the events again happened in some order of which or what sequence is beyond me. Thus in my life, I yelled WITCHES. Pushed my way out of the dancing women just as the giant about got me. And I fell. Right into. What I would guess later is a trap or a pit. Now how long I feel I am not sure. But it was a long way because the women were still laughing for a time and then I could not hear their laughter. And the lantern went out because of the rush of air upward, which was hot. For a time I was flying like those planes, I suppose, or gliding like a bird because I had no engine. And then I started hitting the edges of the pit. And hit my head and when I awoke, I was in pitch darkness. Lucky for me. I carried tender stones and used some of the paper from the ladies’ bag to light a piece to see where I was at. There in the pitch darkness surrounding me, I saw what looked like the lettering I was looking for from one diary. That I had not brought them with me because I was not planning on this adventure made the discovery complete by accident. I walked towards the passageway and out of nowhere a ghoulish arm grabbed me and next thing I knew I awoke in the cook’s quarters back in the hotel. The only proof I had of the adventure was a nasty bump on my head, a card from the guest. And scratches from hitting the edges of the pit.

That I awoke with a vague memory of last night. They covered me in layers of blankets. The bump on my head hurt like someone had pulled a piece of my skull off. It turned out there was a hole in my head.

The police were there. I had a name card of a person who was missing at the time they asked what happened to me. My memories of the event were in a brain fog. The police were very insistent because I was a foreigner and the lady missing was a foreigner, too.

My brain did not help. The staff at the hotel where I awoke informed me I was their cook and had worked there just nine days ago. Five days of work and then I had disappeared for three days and then found in the basement with blood on my head.

The layers of mystery kept on being added. That I did not remember my name. Or being a cook. Seemed not to bother me as much as some missing lady I did not know.

In the room I was in, I found three books, a couple of journals, and several maps that were pieced together from other maps. How did I know this? I am not sure. But looking at the maps, I could tell that the maps were a combination of a lot more maps because of the different legends.

The layers grew even more when I read the journals. The staff assured me the journals and all were mine. So I read them. The newest one stating I was a cook at the Pera Palas Hotel. And that the year 1929 I had looked for a treasure of a knight Templar. The diary references other diaries which, according to a note at the front of the diary, I had left with a cousin along with 15000 maps and several other books. Seems rather ridiculous if you ask me. But here I was, bump on my head. Memory fog who I was or am. Reading about where I was and, to be honest, what year it was.

The dairy referenced several other adventures trying to find some treasure. Did I believe in the diary? No, not really. I did, however, believe the little black bag that hid in the bag I had. It contained, as in the diary, referenced seven golf Florins. Six of which I had inherited from Bob. Who had provided the maps and books? And one I had found in my search for the treasure. Along with that, they referenced a coin dealer in Ole London, England, where I had sold one of gold Florins for 800 pounds, like four months prior to the date I had awoken in the hotel.

The layers of confusion seem to be great. The diary references a lady on a steamship Sidi Aissa, who was staying in the hotel at least nine days ago. I made inquiries and found that she had left for her home in the countryside. What was even more wild is I was in Istanbul, Turkey, and the staff that had been taking care of me up to that point were speaking to me in English.

Gaining my feet, I started back to the kitchen. Why? I figured if I got to cooking, I would remember maybe a bit of what was going on.

Thank the Lord, my memories and recipes of dishes made for. The funny part is that layers of memories did not seem real or even contain an idea of how I knew to add salt to one dish, a pinch of pepper to another. To exchange a lot of sugar for starch and honey. I seemed to cook. The lovely serving ladies seemed to enjoy my cakes. The management even upped my wages five days later when the guest of the hotel mysteriously appeared in her room. She, too, did not know what had happened.

I bumped into her. She was a writer. And I asked if she recognized me or saw me or anything along with her ordeal. She said other than screaming once and seeing vague shadows with a lantern, the entire ordeal was lost in her mind.

I said thanks and gave her a cake. Her name, Agatha Christie, was memorable. I wished her well on her writings.

Then I went back to work from 7 PM to 3 AM. I would read my journals and diaries. The layers of the diaries made it seem that I was here to find a lake. An underground lake that the hotel might have built upon.

One night, a new face appeared in the kitchen. The weirdest part. I could swear I had seen her naked and that on her tush was a tattoo of a moon. I think I ogled her too much, for she demanded what I was looking at. I gave her a cake and smiled. Her demand was not in English or Turkish. It was, to my ears, Russian. Which made no sense how or why I would understand her statement.

Layers of what I was to do here. Who had hit me on the head? What had happened to the lady missing for fourteen days? Seemed to grow on me.

Then one night as I did prep work, I was in the basement. And a memory of a door behind some boxes came to me. I pushed back an enormous pile of flour and corn meal. There was a doorway locked. I wondered what adventure lay within.

I got off work at 3 AM and instead of going to bed. There was a variety of entertainment at the cafe that I went to. Let’s be honest, it was a whore house. The funny part of layers I could remember is that a lot of the women of ill repute had the ability and craft skills of well picking locks.

The layers grew in my mind. Why or how I knew this which came not from the diaries and or any memories to trigger the idea made me wonder who or what I did in my life prior to my bump on the head.

Anyway, there I saw a lot of ladies with moons tattooed on their tush. After a brief conversation, I found a lady who had what I wanted. My mind not wanting to share the details, I purchased a small kit to pick a lock.

When I say small. Remember, locks back in 1929 are a bit more made of iron and the system or detail within some rather ingenious people sometimes craft them to keep thieves out.

Two nights after that, I had my first night off by working two shifts back to back. I went down to the basement and for an hour picked the lock open. I had brought two lanterns and went into the dark. Placing a torch used by the hotel for the basement at the entrance.

Going down the passageway, I came upon a spot where some blood spot showed up. I wondered if it was mine? The blood smear went off in one direction. However, I could hear voices or, more specifically, laughter coming down another passage.

I went with laughter. I came upon a wide open space. The ceiling was high enough that the lantern did not show a top. However, with laughter, I could see seven women dancing. To be honest, it was not just that they were dancing; they were naked and dancing.

Then something moved. When I mean something, it was big enough to be larger than a horse. It was moving towards me. I ran back the way I came.

The layers of the mystery. At least I now knew why I knew the lady had a moon on her tush. And one of the staff members was two of the seven ladies dancing around a bonfire in the middle of the night.

I got back to my room. I decided time to read the other books. Meaning after being chased by. I am not sure what. Seeing dancing naked women doing what? Having my memory dislocated for a time because of what? Working full time since awaking with no memories and wondering about life. I decided it was time to reread all diaries, journals, and books. After all, the past notes might jog my memory of what had happened and what’s more what I should do? I hoped my diaries, or at least that is what the hotel’s staff said they were, would provide me with something to go on. Opening one called Portal of time. I read. Seems that the diary was a summarization of other works because there was a legend and index to other books and journals and articles from 1929? The diary begins with a scientist named John von Neumann. Working with the US government on? A collider in Bavaria. What is weird, the start of the story is he is in Germany. However, the Bavaria they described where the collider was being built in Chicago? The details went into warped time or reality. Where time not being linear at certain points in reality could wrap like a paper and pushed together so that one sentence from a page could lead to another sentence on the page but not the same reality or context. The example given linear five paragraphs the first, second, third and so forth example. Then doubling the paper, the first sentence matched the fourth sentence and one could read the complete story just as the events were different. The Portal of time meant’d this happened in the bible and in reality at certain when people came across these folds in time in well the real world was my speculation of the dairy. The other realities existed per John Von Neumann and could influence and change the story’s meaning in other realities by unbound less reality. Or specifically speaking that events not dependent on each have an influence on each other just because their mirror or their existence happened. Meaning some realities time line their story went paragraph 1 to 4 while others realities the events 1 to 2 while still others went 2 to 1. The pages of math made my head hurt just by reading the number of events and probabilities. As a whole, I had not a clue what I was reading other than great science fiction. However, one portal of Truth or time referenced the hotel I was staying in. Evidence from some scientist showed how entering one passage way in the hotel seemed to create a distinct reality to the viewer for a time. And at that time? Seemed to make the passage of what should have happened next a variable meaning a person who sees linear 1 to 2 to 3. Seeing their outcome star 3 to 1 to 2 gave that person another option to take. What made it wild and weird? But did not help me understand anything that I should be doing. Then the diary referenced the other diary. I opened that one up to discover that the Knight Templar treasure being sought by myself prior to losing my mind. Had potentially been pushed or placed into one of the alternative realities and to get to it. Well, one had to go through the hall of truth or and hear the dairy referenced several religious books. Heaven or the gates of heaven? What did not make sense is why or how? The piece of paper in the diary fell out. On it, I knew my handwriting, and this was not mine. That only the true of hearts could find the treasure within. What is funny, the note stated after that speculatively that the key of truth might have been with one of the other diaries. That I had found a key on my trip to a Templarś tower on the coast of France made me look for the key. I found it. The key had writing on it. My ignorance of the language made me wonder. Going back to reading the diary, I noticed other references to John Von Neumann and some context about splitting realities into many. This was 1929. At this time, reality did not speak about multiverse realities. However, I had a memory of reading fairy tales and, as a child, loved the idea of fairy worlds. And? Then my memory came to me of drinking with? And dancing with? It was different time and place, that was for sure. The wine was really good. And the person I was drinking with? His face. Angelic? - 10 pages double spaced