DRAMATIS PERSONAE
GARU PUDDLECAP – Gau Dredger, Captain of the Terrapin
MR NAVIGATOR – Gau Navigator
FLUVIS – Gau Char
JEIN QUICKFOOT – Ardent Corsair
CAM ROKKO – Ketra Slinger

SCENE 01 – Mr Navigator signals to Garu Puddlecap, manning the helm: land spotted! Garu sets course for the unknown reach. His ship, the Terrapin, has been at sea longer than intended and quiet desperation to find an open port has steadily raised in intensity among the crew as the days drag on. Every port they set course for ended with the same result: the distinctive red-and-black buoy that signal do not proceed, danger ahead. Only the most reckless, or foolhardy, Wildsailors would venture past those markers.

SCENE 02 – Cutting through the Thrash with ease, the Terrapin gets closer the island and they can begin to make out details: the island is large, jutting out of the Wildsea. One part of the island is protected by high cliffs, glittering in the sunlight. There is a pall of smoke over the reach, a rarity as fire is strictly regulated (if not outright banned) in most places.

The structures all appear to be made of stone and are dull black in color. White paint dots the buildings indicating their functions. The port is huge but appears to be completely full, every slip taken by a ship. Three massive warehouses line the dockyard, each with different signage. The crew is able to read two of the signs clearly: Pitch-Shifters and Blackwell Exports. The third warehouse is marked in the distinctive stratch-and-dot language of the Ektus, a cactus-like race.

SCENE 03 – Garu orders for the flags to be run up the signal mask: Docking Requested. The Harbormaster’s office replies with its own signal flags: Port Full – Proceed East. As the Terrapin makes it way to the next port, they see that many crews are still on board their ships, setting up camps on the main decks. This is also very unusual,most crews take liberty leave very seriously and jump at the chance to be ashore. Jein wonders aloud if there is no room left in the town due to the overcrowding.

SCENE 04 – Arriving at the next port, Newfield, there is a single slip available, wedged between a long pier and a ship bearing the name Rapacious Demon. The crew of the Rapacious Demon lounges on the main deck, watching the Terrapin‘s captain attempt to squeeze the ship into the tight space.

Garu is not the best helmsman on the Wildsea by a long stretch, and he nervously brings the Terrapin to port. A miscalculation leads to Garu bumping the Terrapin into the Rapacious Demon. Normally, this would barely produce a scratch, Wildsea ships are made to withstand extremes, and the Rapacious Demon is a large ship with a fine-looking hull.

However, as the Terrapin scrapes along the Rapacious Demon, it opens her hull like wet paper, ripping a tear into the outer hull. The crew of the Rapacious Demon shouts at the crew of the Terrapin, and a harbor worker, a tall, red Ektus with a clipboard, runs up to the Terrapin, jumping up and down and telling them they will have to pay for the damages.

SCENE 05 – After docking, Garu walks down the gang plank to talk to the harbor worker. Unfortunately, Garu is barely better at diplomacy than he is at driving the ship and he inadvertently insults the Ektus, doubling their repair bill in the process.

SCENE 06 – Jein tells Ito (Ardent chief of the ship’s marauders for hire) that he and his men have liberty until nightfall. They spring off the ship and are lost among the crowded port’s populace in the blink of an eye.

The crew decides to split up and see what they can discover about the reason behind the buoy markers and the island’s overcrowding. They learn that the reach is called the Blackfields and owes its name to the main export of the island: pitch, which is manufactured from the tar pits on the island’s interior. A strange phenomena known as the Brittling has been spreading throughout the Wildsea. It appears to be a corrosive disease carried through the Thrash which not only eats through a ship’s hull, making it extremely brittle, it also turns the Thrash into a glass-like texture, invisible to the eye. A ship will start to experience performative issues as the hull starts to buckle and if the crew are not quick, will soon find themselves crashing through the glassy leaves into the terrible depths below. The only warning that’s been reported by those that have survived is a sound akin to thin ice cracking just before the ship starts to sink rapidly into the Tangle, or worse.

SCENE 07 – Mr Navigator and Fluvis pair off and push their way through the crowded port into the town situated above. In the distance they can make out large stone houses which glitter in the sunlight. There is a general murmur on the streets about the people living in the “shiny houses” hoarding the diminishing food supply. They meet a street vendor who is selling a rare delicacy they have never seen before: acorns from actual oak trees.

The wizened Ardent evndor tells them that as far as he knows, Blackfields has the only oak trees in the entire Wildsea. Located a couple days’ journey from Newfield Port is a pass that traverses the Crystalline Crags, the cliffs they saw from the Terrapin, in a dense forest. In the middle of this forest is a clearing and in the middle of that clearing stands an ancient, pre-Verdant manor house made from wood. The manor house is pierced by mighty oak trees and from the clearing you can look into the now-empty windows and see furnishings within. It is rumored that vast treasures exist within the manor house, but few have survived venturing inside. In the autumn, the clearing is filled with thousands of acorns for those that are willing to risk fighting the denizens of the forest (and perhaps the manor house) for them.

The pair trades some of Mr Navigator’s hallucinogenic spores for all of the acorns he has. The vendor is happy for the trade and heads directly to the Black Lotus, a drug den, to trade the spores.

SCENE 08 – Garu and Rokko head to the Cumulous Club, a nightclub/casino so Rokko can play cards and gather rumors. Rokko loses his prized luminous bone to Dobasu, the gruff first mate of the Rapacious Demon. Here the talk about food running out is much more pointed than on the streets and the rumor is that a raid is being planned on the Chiquita Banana, a large shipping vessel, which is said to be stocked with food. The raid is planned for the next night during the town hall, where the Town Council will appoint a crew to investigate looking for a cure to the Brittling.

SCENE 09 – Jein heads off on his own and makes his way directly to the Black Lotus club. He turns down the spores offered by the old man outside the club, instantly recognizing them as belonging to Mr Navigator.

Once inside the club, Jein strikes up a conversation with the club’s proprietor, an Ardent woman named Rebek. Rebek is smart and has an aristocratic air about her that Jein cannot quite place. Certainly her speech sounds like she has an extensive education. Jein tells Rebek that he would like to have the crew of the Terrapin selected for this mission from the Town Council. Beside the fact that the Terrapin is the only ship not affected by the Brittling, he also wants the reward that comes with the commission.

Rebek says that she can set up a meeting for the following morning with one of the more influential members of the Council. This will guarantee that Jein’s crew gets the job. However, Rebek wants something in return: her supplier is on the next closest island and doesn’t dare set sail due to the Brittling. She wants Jein to find safe passage to the island and give the chart to her supplier. In exchange for the chart, she will make sure the Terrrapin gets the job. When Jein asks is that all she wants, Rebek laughs and says, yes — that chart will greatly outstrip the value of any reward offered by finding a cure for the Brittling, though it will only last as long as the catastrophe does. Jein, a hardened corsair himself, is taken aback and Rebek’s willingness to exploit the natural disaster for her own proft; he is also duly impressed …

SCENE 10 – Returning to the Terrapin, the crew discusses their next move. They have five options:

Proceed with the deal with Rebek

Participate in the raid on the Chiquita Banana

Inform the authorities about the raid on the Chiquita Banana

Inform the shiny houses of the raid on the Chiquita Banana

Convince the local authorities to share what food remains equally with the local population

Whilst the crew of the Terrapin talks late into the night, Rokko glances at their dock mates, the crew of the Rapacious Demon. Dobasu catches his eye, smiles, and flashes the luminous bone, which glints in the darkness. Rokko thinks things are about to get messy …