Attention: Novel Content This article or section contains information original to the novel Fable: Reaver, which is a licensed Fable work, but does not necessarily conform to Lionhead's Fable canon. |
Fable: Reaver is the first of three digital e-book short stories from bestselling author Peter David based on the Fable series of games. It was released on 2 May 2012 on all major e-reading platforms.
Synopsis[]
Captain Dread has made a deal with the port cities; they pay him for protection, and he doesn't raid them. It's a neat and tidy arrangement, all agree, except for one man, Reaver, the daring outlaw blessed with eternal youth, who refuses to cede his hometown of Bloodstone.
After Reaver sends back one too many heads in a duffel bag, Dread decides to take matters into his own hands. To his surprise, Reaver surrenders willingly.
But Dread's new prisoner is no coward. It's all part of Reaver's unbelievably bold - and bloody - plan, which ultimately pits pirate against pirate in an explosive showdown that will live forever in the legendary world of Fable.
Plot[]
The book consists of two chapters; both narrated in third person, but the first focused in Captain Dread’s point of view and the second focus in Reaver himself.
Chapter I: Captain Dread[]
Captain Dread and his crew celebrate inside of the Inn of the Five Fingers on the coast of Albion. They party, groping the twin barmaids while drinking and shouting, commemorating the arrival of the Tithing Day, the semi-yearly day when all the cities under Captain Dread’s control pay their tithes in order to keep Captain Dread's protection from other pirates or outsiders who dare to defy Dread’s power, as well as any trader ship which would be only allowed to navigate in Dread’s domains if paid so.
Capt. Dread celebrates his achievements and self-proclaimed title as “Pirate King”, even though Dread’s appearance clearly didn’t match such title, as he himself acknowledges that his blonde hair and thin mustache isn’t paired with the power his name carried.
The party is soon interrupted by the sound of someone else’s steps approaching the inn, the pirates, expecting it to be one of their own are suddenly confused as a complete stranger enters holding a sack claiming only to be a messenger.
The pirates, expecting it to be the proper money from one of the towns get shocked when the content of the sack turns out to be the severed head of Murphy Squire, the pirate Dread sent to collect the fee of Bloodstone. Dread, furious notice a letter R carved in the head’s forehead and a paper note inside its mouth. As Dread’s lack of reading habits, he struggles to read it and shoots them messenger who asks if he could read the note instead.
The note turns out to be from a man named Reaver, who urges Dread to stay out of his territory and calling him too pretty for a pirate king. Enraged, Dread demands to know who is Reaver, and one of his men, Smiling Jake, claims to have heard of a man named Reaver, a raider who attacked Hook Coast but then disappeared.
Dread then decides to have Reaver killed as an act of revenge for Murphy and for defying his figure, but for the moment they would stay in the inn waiting for the other towns to properly pay their fees.
However this wouldn’t happen, as while the hours passed, more messengers arrived at the inn bringing more and more severed heads of Dread’s men who were all sent to the towns. As no messenger were able to provide any information on Reaver, Dread shot them all dead.
This wouldn’t happen, though, with the messenger who came from Brightwood, who was shaking so violently with fear that almost couldn’t stand. Dread notices that this man had encountered with Reaver as the man claims to be sent by foot instead of on horse by Reaver himself, who hated him.
Dread sees an opportunity to finally extract some information and has the man drinking rum in order to calm down, then asks about Reaver. The man tells that Reaver appeared to be no more than a common thief trying to build a reputation, but somehow was said to have gained the power of immortality in a deal with dark entities. Dread questions if this mean that Reaver couldn’t die by no means, for which the man responded that Reaver could indeed be killed but wouldn’t as he was said to be the best marksman to ever be, armed with a enchanted gun, the Dragonstomper .48, which he had enchanted in order to have it never ran out of bullets.
Dread then sets the man free and orders him to deliver a message to Reaver, this being that he, Captain Dread, would hunt him down and be the one to put an end to his life. As the man parts, Dread sends one of his men, Will o’ the Wisp, his stealthier pirate to follow the messenger and get information on Reaver when they eventually met.
The hours pass and Dread notices the concerned mood that was rising withing his men, who were starting to see Reaver as a possible threat to Dread’s power. Suddenly Smiling Jake screams that there’s something outside of the inn, which turns out to be Will o’ the Wisp’s corpse hanging from a tree, arms nailed to the branches and eyes poked out with a note. Reading it, Dread realizes that the scared man who came in name of Brightwood, who were served rum and provided information on Reaver was actually Reaver himself, disguised. Dread, furious that Reaver had such audacity to mock him and escape his grasp, places a bounty of 500 gold on Reaver’s head.
Such action backfired, as Reaver himself spread the bounty on his head, completely covering Albion with poster, claiming that he was not afraid of Dread in the least, but Dread however, was indeed scared of him as he apparently needed Reaver killed by anyone else but Dread himself.
“ | Have you seen me? If so, how lucky you are!" - Below the picture, in smaller letters - "Captain Dread has put out a bounty of 500 gold pieces. Cheap bastard. I’d put out a bounty on him if I were afraid of him. But I’m not. So do your worst, my friends. And I’ll do mine. — Reaver's own posters about Dread's bounty on his head |
” |
Dread sees his reputation being ruined by Reavers words and receives many false allegations of many bounty-hunters who claimed to have had located Reaver, one in particular caught his attention; a sell-sword named Valerian claimed that Reaver was being held hostage by him in Bower Lake, but when Dread and his men arrived they only found Valerian’s butchered remains scattered around the region with another mocking note from Reaver.
Dread, furious once again, proceeds to bribe the whole continent into being his eyes and ears in order to locate Reaver and places a reward of 1000 gold on whoever provides him with useful info on where Reaver is hiding or what his plans were. Even with countless reports of ordinary people claiming to have seen Reaver or to have captured him, Dread is able to get intel from some of his old retired crew and is able to locate Reaver’s main ship, also named “Reaver” in the bay of Bargate Prison. Dread is able to conclude that Reaver, feeling more and more cornered, intended to escape from there to Hook Coast in order to hide.
Captain Dread gets all his available men board his ship, the Marianne and departs from its hiding place, the Sinkhole, a cave near Bloodstone, destined to intercept Reaver’s ship.
The Marienne is indeed able to reach Reaver’s ship, but instead of having a vicious battle between the two vessels, Reaver’s crew waves white flags surrendering themselves, as noticed by Taggert (Dread’s navigator who happened to have the sharpest eyes of the crew), and proceeds to hand a tied up Reaver to Dread in a small boat lowered and released on the water. Dread recognized the crew’s actions of being no more than a clear pirate behavior: betraying its own to save themselves, and allows Reaver’s ship to depart with instruction for it never to be seen in his waters again, as its crew cheer him up and parts they leave Reaver behind, within Dread’s grasp.
Dread has two of his men, one of them named Longshanks inspect the tied and gaged Reaver, and as he appears to hold no weapons whatsoever, Dread has him ungagged, which prompts Reaver to start mocking Dread right away, and pompously announces that he is soon to kill all of Dread’s men and sink the Marienne for good, ending the captain undeserved title of Pirate King. Reaver’s flamboyant and talkative persona deeply annoys Dread who has Reaver taken to his own captain cabin, an act that arouses Reaver as he mocks Dread believing he had sexual intentions towards him. Once inside the cabin, Dread proceeds to interrogates Reaver.
Alone with the tied up Reaver, Dread confesses to be quite impressed with Reaver’s own actions, as no one had ever posed such a threat for him while being able to so effortlessly making him doubt his own abilities as a pirate and leader. Reaver responds to Dread once again mocking his abilities as anything and saying that for a pirate he clearly had no taste in enjoy the carnal opportunities such position granted. Dread then tells Reaver the story of his life.
Dread was, in his firsts days, a violent and enraged man, who only calmed down and became a doctor thanks to the love of the woman he loved, named Marienned, whom became his wife. However, one day, his hometown were raided by pirates leaded by one captain, named Captain Dread, who proceeded to rape and kill the woman. The doctor then ultimately retaken by his old vicious nature, swore revenge on Captain Dread, which he eventually hunted down and killed, taking both the name and title of pirate king for himself.
As Reaver sarcastically comments, Dread’s reign as the pirate king would soon be over, as he planned to take the title after killing Dread and taking his most valuable town, Bloodstone, for himself. Dread responds that all the Albion pirates were afraid of him and that they had even come as far as naming their own ships in honor of Dread’s own vessel, the Marianne. Reaver then claims that if it would make Dread fell any better, he would be the last one in his crew who Reaver would kill.
The conversation is then interrupted by Longshanks who storms into the cabin claiming his knife is missing to what Reaver promptly shows that he had stole the knife during the inspection and had just cut the ropes tying him up.
Reaver quickly knocks the cabin desk upon Dread and runs to the door, slitting Longshanls throat with his own knife, killing him.
Reaver was now armed and on the loose within the ship
Chapter II: Reaver[]
Having just freed himself, Reaver proceeded to dodge the pirates who all turned to chase him and ran to the deck which held the Marienne canons. Convinced to have Reaver cornered in such place, the pirates, Taggert among them, entered the canon’s room only to be ultimately killed by Reaver who had just moved the canons to point to the insides of the Marienne, shooting through the doors leading to the corridors where the pirates were.
Reaver then aimed the canon upwards and shoot through the ceiling in the direction where he deduced the mainmast were. This shot indeed hit its aim and the mainmast was knocked over the upper deck, killing the men who happened to be below it and pinning many others below its sail.
Reaver picked up Taggert’s gun from his corpse and make his way to the upper deck, where he noticed he hadn’t killed as many men as he had thought and such men quickly surrounded him. Reaver quickly reacted by leaping on the foremast of the Marienne and proceeded to get on top of it, where he cut the ropes biding the canvas of the sail, which fell upon the pirates below it, knocking them down. He then grabbed one of the ropes and launched himself downwards, swinging side to side and cutting any throat or stomach of any men who was caught standing in his path.
After releasing himself from his swinging, Reaver started to stab any men who were still pinned under the sail in the deck, until he was caught off-guard and struck from behind and knocked over the floor by Smiling Jake, who were able to avoid all of Reaver’s advances in killing the crew until then.
Reaver engaged physical combat with Smiling Jack and was able to knock him over the ledge and into the ocean where he apparently hit his head against the Marienne and died. Once again caught off-guard and realizes that Captain Dread is now between him and the gun he acquired from Taggert’s corpse, which happened to have been knocked out of Reaver’s hands during the fight with Smiling Jake.
Reaver’s realizes he is finally really cornered and struggles to dodge Dread’s sword, the Wreckager, which Reaver notices to be no ordinary pirate weapon. As he gets mocked my Dread and the few survivors, Reaver jumps inside the boat that had brought him over to Dread.
Dread mocks Reaver believing the latter plans on escaping on the boat, to what Reaver promptly reveals that he was only reaching his own gun, the Dragonstomper .48, which happened to be hidden under the small boat’s seat.
Dread watches in shock while Reaver, without even looking, fires his gun five times using only his memory of where the men stood to aim, killing all the remaining member of the crew who didn’t even have time to react.
Dread however is able to shot on Reaver before the latter had a chance to proper aim at him, and hit him in the arm. In pain, Reaver shot, but Dread was able to dodge by just tilting his head. However, Dread had little to no time to mock Reaver as his head was suddenly set ablaze.
Turns out that Reaver never aimed for Dread himself, but instead, decided to make a little more challenging by aiming on the oil lantern who was hanging next to Dread’s head. Once struck, the oil in the lantern ignited and spilled all over Dread’s head, which started to burn.
Dread didn’t last long and while his skin melded and brain cooked, he swung his sword aimless as if to finally hit and kill Reaver. Reaver had the time to mock Dread one last time before the flames spread burning the whole ship, and insulted the now deceased Dread with a poem.
“ | Captain Dread very much liked to boast He deserved to be pirate king most, |
” |
Reaver then dashed to the side of the ablaze Marienne and lowered his own boat in which he planned to escape. Once safe floating in his boat next to the sinking Marienne, Reaver noticed that one have survived the carnage: Smiling Jake who struggled to keep his head above the sea water.
Smiling Joe hopelessly asks Reaver to let him aboard his escape boat, to which he surprisingly allows, saying that he had sworn to have Dread as the last one he would kill within the Marienne’s crew. The two watches as Reave’s own vessel, “Reaver” appears on the horizon heading to their location in order to retrieve Reaver, as this had been his plan all along, to pretend to have been betrayed only to destroy Captain Dread and then get rescued using the Marienne’s flames and smoke to announce his location.
Reaver contemplates his newest victory, having sunk his greatest enemy whop happened to be just too pretty to be called Captain Dread.