"Well I don't know about you all but I'm pretty disappointed by this seedy pirate bar." Rainbow Dash complained. "I thought there'd be like, knife fights, and dart games, and bottles being thrown at walls. There's just a bunch of dirty ponies passed out at their tables. It's like an old pony's home."
The girls picked a seat at one of the many empty tables in the bar.
"Well, I wouldn't say I'm disappointed," Fluttershy answered. "But it is pretty strange that it's so quiet. Everything I've heard about these places made it sound much scarier than this. How are we supposed to find a captain to help us here?"
"This isn't exactly what we expected, but we can't give up here. Pinkie, you look around and see if you can find somepony who's awake. I'll talk to the bartender and see if he knows anything that can help us."
"You got it Twilight!" Pinkie replied while bouncing away.
Twilight approached the grey bartender pony who was lazily scrubbing glasses and whistling a shanty tune. He cut it short when he saw her approaching.
"Well what a milestone this is. My first customer who didn't come in the door already drunk. What can I get you miss?"
She explained their mission to hire a captain to the bartender. "We were told by one of the locals that we might be able to find somepony here."
The bartender burst into laughter. "Are you kidding? Look around you! The only 'captains' here are the ones that are either too incompetent to rally a crew or too lazy to even try. Take my advice, you'd be much better off going back to Canterlot and admitting failure than you would be throwing your lot in with one of these scoundrels."
"You're telling me there isn't one well qualified captain here?"
"I'm afraid not. Any captain worth their salt is working for the Dragons, and good luck hiring any of them. The way they get paid moving treasure, you'd have to pay your weight in bits to get them to do anything else."
"Is there anypony at all you could point me to? They don't have to be any good, they just have to have a ship that can hold six of us plus cargo.
"If you really must hire someone from here, I suppose I could help you out. I know a captain, not much of a pirate. More of a scavenger really. He sails a Cog, medium sized vessel more suited for cargo than fighting. He follows the raiding parties and loots from them when they get destroyed, then comes back and sells it here. He just got back from his last voyage a couple weeks ago, he's probably looking for another job about now."
"That sounds like it'll work. Where can I find him?"
"That's him right over there." He gestured to the far corner of the bar.
Twilight looked over and saw that Pinkie was talking to the mystery stallion, blocking her view of him. She walked over to see if she was having any luck with him.
“Hey Twilight! You’re just in time, our problems are solved, thanks to Pinkie! This is Captain Monorail.”
Monorail was a brown earth pony with a purple mane and tail. He was a classic pirate, wearing a golden hoop earring in his right ear along with two eyepatches and three peglegs.
“Actually,” he spoke up with a deep gravelly voice that told of a great many nights surrounded by canonfire. “the name’s mono-”
“Yeah I heard, it’s Monorail. Can you captain a ship that can take us to Dragon territory?”
"As I was telling your cotton candy colored friend here, I can. Probably. But the six of you will have to work as me crew. My last crew complained to Pony Resources, something about…” he mumbled something “...harrassment. Anyway. You help run the ship, 500 bits a head, plus 250 for the cart and you got yourself a deal.”
“You expect me to pay over 3000 bits for a blind captain who probably can’t even walk?”
“Well now, you don’t have to hire me. There’s the door.” He said, pointing at the bartender.
“Alright, bye then.”
“Wait wait wait.” Monorail nearly shouted, his voice going up several octaves and losing its gravelly quality. He tried to run after her, falling out of his chair flat onto his face. “Alright you got me, I really need this job to cover the likely upcoming court fees. Please don’t leave. I’ll only charge 1000 bits. No, 500! Please hire me for this. If I had most of my knees I’d be on them right now.”
“Alright, geez, fine. Please stop crying.”
“Oh thank you, thank you so much you won’t regret this.”
The three of them walked, bounced, and hobbled back to the table where the rest of them were waiting.
“Alright girls I’ve found us a captain. This is Monocycle, he’s gonna take us on as his crew for the voyage.”
“Uhh, is nobody gonna bring up that he’s blind and severely crippled?”
“Great observation, Applejack. He is indeed extremely physically handicapped. He also probably molested someone on his previous crew.
“Allegedly molested, and my names mono-” Monocycle coughed.
“Yeah yeah yeah, Monocycle, I heard you the first time. Right, so anyway, this is the best that money could buy here, and I mean that in the worst way possible.” Twilight sighed. “Look everypony, I know this isn’t exactly what we were expecting when we set out, but it’s the only way forward. I’m not willing to go back to Canterlot and say we failed. Not when we had a chance to continue.”
The rest of them nodded in agreement, including Monocycle. “Alright lads,” He said in a pretty terrible pirate accent. “We set sail at dawn.”