Welcome to the Sea of Thieves, a Pirate’s Life, season 3 update. This is THE guide to the first tall tale of the series, A Pirate’s Life, if you don’t want any spoilers you best minimize this page now or forever hold your grog.

Commendations & Secrets

Commendations and Secrets to "A Pirate's Life" Tall Tale

Now if you want to know where to find all the lore books and secrets to this Tall Tale then THIS is where you wanna be looking.

A Pirate's Life Tall Tale Guide

Beginning The Tale

Tall Tale

Once you vote for the first Tall Tale, A Pirate’s Life, in this new 5 Tale series then you get to enjoy a bit of Dialog from our new favorite resident of the outposts, The Castaway. Once she finishes filling you in all what you need to know it’s time to hop on board to your ship and sail away towards that ominous set of rocks with the glowing green portal. Dont worry, there is a way into the portal at every outpost so it doesn’t matter which one you start at you will always have a portal close by.

A Pirate's Life - Part 1

Once you enter the portal you will be transported into the Sea of the Damned, which will take you on a magical loading screen across the Sea and towards your personal Tall Tale server.

Lucky for you on this first Tall Tale your ship is an optional piece of the puzzle, as this entire Tale is completed off of your beautiful vessel so feel free to park it just about anywhere.

Once you’ve found your feet placed firmly on the isle you want to make your way inland. Walk past the reaper statue and you’ll find yourself camping with some of the less chatty inhabitants of the island. Simply ask them to borrow a bit of their flame and you’ll be set to begin the ride.

Now begins the puzzle adventure, some of these are pretty self  explanatory… find any lamp that’s sitting out and about and give it a piece of your lantern. For the first door there are two skeletons sitting on either side of the door, light up their worlds and they will allow you to pass.

Next puzzle gets a little trickier, you have to light THREE lanterns. 

First Skeleton is up the hill on the right, run up and share the flame with em.

Second Skeleton is to the left of the door, move their arm and fire em up!

The Last lantern is to the left of the previous, follow the long hallway down and you’ll find a rowboat with the final lantern on the back.

Now that you’ve lit those three torches the next puzzle allows you to put away your lantern and play a little “find the missing lever”.

Once you enter the room, and finish watching the ghostly pirates party, you need to make your way behind the NOT very obvious waterfall.

On the other end of the waterfall you’ll make your way around the bend and find a broken oar placed gently inside this skeleton’s chest. Take it with no remorse. 

With oar in hand go out of the waterfall and up the stone path to the door where your broken oar becomes a fixed door lever. 

Now that you’ve cleared that door it’s time to use those Minecraft Parkour skills and make your way across the gaps to the other side of the fog filled canyon. Don’t worry if you fall, you can always walk back to the beginning at a snails pace to rethink where you went wrong on that last jump.

Once you’ve cleared the the first fog filled chamber you’ll follow the path around the bend towards the next puzzle. Its very important to note, THIS cliff here, IT IS NOT A SHORTCUT, nor is there any lore or secrets down there. If you go down the cliff here you will have to go back through several of the areas you just completed.

Now that you’ve successfully dodged the “Oops Cliff” its time to shine and use some of those pirate wits of yours. 

Light the Lantern with your flame of the souls to get the ghostly captain and his crew to start making their way along the river. 

Once lit head up the hill to the Capstan and force your friend (if you have one) to start cranking. This will lower the bridge for you allowing you to pass to the next area.

Next you’ll need to use the pulley and raise the platform to allow you to parkour across the river and onto the docks.

Now you’ll need to light the lantern at the end of the docks which will summon that ghostly crew whose captain will open the passage way for you to advance.

Once you’ve picked your jaw up off the ground and realized that you can’t take ANY of the shiny bits laying about, it’s time to move on and get back to some more parkour. Use the path to the right and head up the ledge above the glittering pile of untouchable gold. 

Once there you’ll need to make a few well timed jumps across the platforms. Be careful here, falling will cause some damage and if you fall to many times it will lead to an early visit to the Ferryman. 

Once across you’ll now be faced with an impossible gap to jump across. To make it past this you’ll want to climb up the ladder on the right.

Up here there will be a suspicious rope that is starting to fray and appears to be barely able to keep it together.  Cut the rope (not the cheese) and it will lower a platform to allow you cross.

On the other side of this platform there will be a pulley that you can use to lean the crows nest towards you and with a bit of patience it will take you to the other side. 

Follow the path around and you’ll find the final rope you’ll need to cut. Cross the platform that was released and hop right into the water slide to complete Part 1 of this Tall Tale.

A Pirate's Life - Part 2

Welcome to Pirate Town, or whatever they’re calling it these days. You’ve succeeded in traversing the dangerous path through the mountain and now get to explore the amazing town of greedy pirates. This is the part of the tall tale where you can unlock the majority of the commendations so for all the info on the secretes that this town holds make sure to check out the Guide to A Pirate’s Life Commendations and Secrets.

We’ll start by heading down the path to the right until you come to a locked gate. To open the gate you’ll need to head up the stairs to the left.

At the top of the stairs you’ll find a Brazier that needs a bit of flame. Raise your lantern and light it up to unlock the gate.

Now make your way straight down towards the wrecked ships where you’ll be greeted by your new best chattering friend, the Cursed Captain.

He’ll politely demand you set him free from his hanging cage, so you’ll want to head up the stairs on the side of the ship to get him down. 

Once at atop the ship you’ll need to cross over the mast all the way to the upside down ship and hop down inside its hull.

After a quick swim you’ll find yourself facing the apex of pirate technology, The Elevator. Grab ahold of the pulley and start your ascension. 

On the second floor you will see another series of pulleys and obstacles. Use the first pulley to lift the strapped cargo up and hop across.

Next pulley you’ll use to move the platform to about the center so you can hop your way across the gap.

Once across you’ll make your way up the mast and gently cut the caged captain down with a swift swing of your blade. 

Now that he’s no longer suspended from the mast, you can get a good look at this Cursed Captains Face before realizing that that is all this one has left. 

Now’s the time for our first prison break! Head to the left into the Tavern to locate the Cursed Captain’s crew and the key to his freedom (cage).

Make your way up the ramp and use the pulley to lower the “chandelier” where you’ll find the cage key. 

With Key in hand return to the Cursed Captain and release him from his imprisonment and pick him up to continue.


Now the captain will offer to give you a tour of the island, for now we’re just interested in the lighthouse. Make your way there and wait for the captain to command his crew to raise the bridge.

Once you’ve waddled your way up the windy walkway you’ll come to the top of the lighthouse, after blabber mouth bill finishes his long speech he’ll ask you to place his head on the headless skeleton sitting by the rail.

Once placed, he’ll feel the need to ramble on some more about how to light and summon the Ferryman using the lighthouse. Head up the ladder and use your lantern to set the brazier ablaze.

Now this is easiest done with two pirates, but can be done solo, as each wheel on the sides of the brazier offers different controls. The left controls your horizontal (left to right) and the right is your vertical (up and down). Regardless of what wheel you are using they both only use your up and down inputs to move them. You’ll want to maneuver the light to the three braziers atop the rocks out to sea and let the light hit them for a few seconds for them to start burning.

Once all three are lit, the Cursed Captain will announce that the Ferryman’s Ship is coming, then will reveals his secretly stashed key hidden safely in a hollowed out book where no true pirate would even think of looking.

After he has the key in hand, or rather in mouth, you’ll be able to snatch his head off the lazy pile of bones and take him to his ship, the one with the big red sails where you’ll need to place his head onto another headless body.

After a small chatter he’ll open the door and you can once again behead him and take him up to the top of the deck where his true body lies. Place his head on top of body and he’ll reward you with a long, long story and of course his key.

Take the key and open the door, here you’ll find piles of gold and treasure that you can AGAIN not take a single coin from. Instead you are here to commandeer the good captains rowboat, and use it to sneak aboard the Ferryman’s Ship. 

Dock the rowboat on the back of this Galleon and that will conclude the second part of this Tall Tale.

Tall Tale

A Pirate's Life - Part 3

Welcome aboard the Ferryman Ship, now I’m sure we’ve all been here before, except usually due to an unfortunate situation. You can listen to the Ferryman give his speech to the pirates on deck about how they’ve learned their lesson and can now rejoin the land of the living, or just speed run this next bit to get to everyone’s favorite pirate.

Tall Tale

You want to begin this part of the quest by doing the opposite of what the Ferryman tells you. Light the Well of Souls flame with your Flame of Souls to really upset the Ferryman.

Once the well explodes and reveals the stairs go below deck lighting every torch and lantern you see. 

Make sure you move the lid to this sarcophagus to reach the torch hidden behind it.

Make your way to the brig where you’ll need to swipe the cell keys from the most loyal guard dog and open Jack’s cage.

From here it’s pretty straight forward. Head up to the ships deck and find out that the Ferryman is really mad now… then the Flying Dutchman will appear and an epic fight will ensue. Grab food and cannons from the never ending supply below deck and shoot the Dutchman and any boarded enemies until you reach the end of the Tall Tale. 

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