The splash of seafoam cut through the sailors aboard the Chickadee on that cold, black night. She was traveling southward to the Spire - the diviners from the Aecha Ostai had neglected to warn about the tempest in their path that had brewed in the Windwatcher’s Passage. They were carrying some dry goods and, more importantly, collecting a shipment of artifacts rumoured to retain a trace of woven magic untouched by the Sundering, but of course that was hearsay and the beginning of a thousand false stories. Kaladri spit a mouthful of the stuff from her mouth, then rallied the crew.

“Hard starboard! We’re going to ride this one out!” she shouted. The ship’s pilot leaned hard into the wheel, going right as the orcish Captain braced herself, digging hard into the soaked planks of her deck.

“Ren! Brace yourself and tell me what you see!” she shouted upwards at the sailor still stationed in the Crow’s nest. The fool, she should have come down when I told her! Why doesn’t she listen? Kaladri watched above as a blurred figure lurched violently onto the mast as it dipped down. A strong voice pierced through the night in return,

“Not much here. Lots of black and not much else!” That meant the storm wasn’t about to clear any time soon. Kaladri considered briefly the nature of this thing that they were in - why weren’t they warned about this? Sure, there were troubles with forecasting after the Sundering, but she paid top dollar to ensure that the tower wizards got off their lazy asses and peered into the future. It was going to be their cargo, after all.

“Tell me when you see anything!” she commanded to Ren. “Kangar! Don’t let the mainline snarl! Hold!” The other new member of the crew stopped wiping the water from his brow and scrambled to his line, struggling to manage the job. Kaladri assessed the risk and summoned a corpuscle of light to illuminate the young seaman’s task. He fumbled with the line around, but with an exaggerated shout wrapped the line around a massive peg embossed with the Wyvern of the Rilador. Idiot boy, she thought, his father should have seen that he was not ready for duty here. Better off sniffing girls at the Moon and the Meteor.

“Blue thing, ho!” Ren shouted suddenly, pointing starboard bound. Kaladri stumbled as she looked up, then traced her crew’s  through the maelstrom and - no, it was impossible! A piercing shriek wailed from the shapeless form, chilling the grizzled Captain to her core in that cold, black night.

--

I woke up in my bed - first time in a while for that. Sweat and moonlight on my brow. The dream was the same as always, coming in hard and leaving just as so. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.

More pressing concerns on the plate though. Jeremiah saw our house get ransacked by a brute. Maybe a half-ogre with the Tong. Maybe someone with Lucien. I wonder if that’s what made me dream? We collect ourselves and talk strategy - not good to have an open-door policy like that. We need to protect ourselves when we aren’t around.

We go to town to see about protection. I do as I’m told. I think about who lives here and who might be able to help. Don’t know so much about that kind of thing, but someone pops into my mind.

We were ransacked and nothing was stolen! I tell Danger as he helps a lady tend to her produce. The turnips are as big as he is, but he lifts them all the same. I do that too and nudge Ildan along to follow suit. There are hundreds of turnips to pile onto the cart - how should she have gotten them here in the first place?

The Paladin tells me that it is a little outside his bounds. The manor is outside of the city. I understand - it’s another crew. You watch the ones closest to yourself first and they’ll watch you right back. It seems like my pile hasn’t shrunk but Danger’s is finished. He finishes mine with ease. He tells me to stay out of trouble. The Law is the one that causes it.

Narcel’Uss was doing her own digging and guess what? She found her ring! Vani smacked some sense into her but put a big gash into her! Was she capable of that? No, no, not from Vani. The ring’s keeper beat up on Narcel’Uss, then escaped. How close was the ring? I asked as Narcel’Uss turned to a street’s path. I ran down the path to catch it!

We made our way to an apartment. Shanty and decrepit, it reminded me of home, both my home now and my homes way back then. I charged upstairs and looked for the ring. Couldn’t find it - just found Vani and some empty rooms. Not an easy thing to find a ring in the city. Vani told me to head back because the town watch had been called. I didn’t really care about that but I care about Vani, so I listened and jumped out of the window balcony. The street below was hard.