By the time Olivier Levasseur rose to power, the Pirate Round was entering its twilight. The great names had burned bright and burned out. But La Buse — the Buzzard— arrived like a shadow cutting across the dying light.

He began as a privateer, a man with a commission and a cause. But when the War of the Spanish Succession ended and the letters of marque dried up, Levasseur did what so many hardened sailors did: he turned his sharp eyes toward the outlaw’s path. And once he stepped onto it, he never looked back.

His most famous prize came in 1721, when he and his allies captured the Nossa Senhora do Cabo, a Portuguese treasure ship heavy with gold, jewels, religious relics, and the wealth of a colony. It was a haul so rich it seemed impossible — the kind of plunder that could buy kingdoms or doom men to legend.

From that moment, La Buse became a ghost-story in motion.

He terrorized the Mascarenes, slipping between islands, raiding with uncanny timing, and vanishing before the colonial powers could pin him down. His knowledge of the currents and reefs made him untouchable. His crew followed him with fierce loyalty, drawn to his cunning and his refusal to waste lives.

But the world was changing.

The Round was collapsing. The noose was tightening.

Captured at last on Madagascar, Levasseur was taken to Réunion to face the gallows. But if the world expected him to go quietly, they had forgotten who he was.

The legend goes that as he stood on the scaffold, rope around his neck, La Buse reached into his coat and pulled out a parchment — a cipher, dense with symbols and riddles. He threw it into the crowd and shouted:

“Find my treasure, the one who can!”

Then the trapdoor fell.

The cipher fluttered away like a final wingbeat.

To this day, treasure hunters chase that riddle — a whisper of gold hidden somewhere in the Indian Ocean, a last laugh from a man who refused to let the world have the final word.

Sidenote: The cipher is most likely NOT La Buse’s, but it IS a cipher, aye? Bootstrap Ginny recognizes what is called a Knights Templar cipher in there along with maybe some Pigpen cipher. If you like puzzles and ciphers, this is for you!

La Buse did not leave behind a kingdom or a peaceful retirement. He left something far more enduring: a mystery.

More Pirate Round coming!

Til next time, Fair Winds!

To the ghosts that guide us, the storms that test us, and the gold that waits for those who dare — may our ink never run dry and our courage never fade. Raise your tankards, mates… for the sea still remembers our names.