A poor, adorable pirate-and-ninja crew have misplaced their pirate booty somewhere in the five boroughs of New York City, and if you can find it, you might walk away with a chest filled with 10,000 gold-colored dollar coins. We Lost Our Gold is an eight-part web series that will contain clues to the location of the loot. To prevent complete chaos in the city, the organizers have asked that people not dig randomly, and instead watch the videos for clues because the spot will be marked. The We Lost Our Gold website itself will be the “treasure map” as the hunt begins in earnest on August 1.

Who has 10,000 dollars to drop somewhere in New York? The creators of We Lost Our Gold are keeping this kind of out-of-game information very close to the chest, and very little can be found about them despite mainstream coverage of the project on the Huffington Post. The pirates themselves have issued what might very well be the best press release ever written.

We Lost Our Gold will be a true, modern-day treasure hunt: according to the creators, “We’ve always wanted to experience the excitement of searching for pirate treasure, so we decided to give that feeling to everyone else.” That the pirates (and ninja) have made an appearance on a Times Square billboard suggests some serious resources, and at least one social media blogger has suggested that We Lost Our Gold might be a promotion for New York City tourism.

Although We Lost Our Gold doesn’t start until next month, two trailers have been released, with another trailer scheduled for July 18. The three pirates and ninja can be reached over email, and two of them, the Captain and first mate Mulligan, have active Twitter accounts. The Captain is sharing his piratical wisdom in a series of useful “pirate tips,” and Mulligan has learned to navigate the city by subway. We Lost Our Gold also has a Facebook fan page for updates, and there’s some speculating over at the Unfiction forums.

While waiting for the madness to begin, I decided to email the Captain a few innocent questions. The Captain wasn’t too thrilled about it, but still I got quite the response, edited below as an interview for ease of reading.

Jane Doh: I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions for an article?

The Captain: WHAT THE BLAZES DA YE MEAN YER WRITIN AN ARRTIMILCE??? That means more swabs’ll be after me gold. Bloody hell.

JD: Where did a bunch of pirates and a ninja get all those Sacajawea coins anyway? Did you hold up a US Mint?

Capt: Where did get? We stole, arrrr. I thought journalisks were smarter than that. HAR HAR HAR!

JD: Why did you bury it in New York? I understand it’s an island, but isn’t it standard pirate operating procedure to find an island that doesn’t have 9 million people on it?

Capt: It be tha biggest city in tha country. If’n ye wants ta hide somethin’, and keep it hid, ye don’t bury it in Iowa.

JD: Don’t you want the gold back? This isn’t some kind of ambush, is it? Or . . . worse . . . are you trying to sell us something?

Capt: O course I wants me gold back!!! An sell ye what? If yer askin’ if we be gettin’ kickbacks from uncle Wall-Mart or Granpappy Pepsi, we ain’t. This were done by just us four.

JD: Are you in any way affiliated with the residents of Sesame Street or the Muppet Show? Perhaps distant relatives?

Capt: I hates that bugger Elmos, and would run him through after I shot his arms off. But I loves Grover. But he ain’t related to me. I just enjoys his work.

JD: How is it that you have a ninja on your crew?

Capt: What the sodding hell be a Ninja?

JD: What’s the name of your bird? Is it available for comment?

Capt: I hope that parrot burns in hell. We call it parrot. He be available fer comment. I hates him.

Charming, ain’t he? Makes me want to steal all his gold. Finders keepers, right?