What Captain Said #2

Part of the Catalog

Ship’s Log
The Racing Marlin

Entry # 2
2nd February, 1916

South Hookstone Port, Hatri-Aegis

Cloudy, Heavy Malstrum Breaking, Medium Wind

“I haven’t a clue why I bother updating this log, my ship is still a month away from sailing again. Even my crew have left mostly, most of the yellow ones anyway. But it’s not just because of our bad luck, oh if It were I’d hang them myself the little rogues, but it’s not just bad luck that’s scaring every able sailor across these ports. I even find myself wondering about the dispositions of my job, the waters not feeling as safe as they used to.

What it is, it’s that they don’t feel like open waters anymore. I tell you, that passenger jumping overboard a week ago was a sign. She knew something was coming, and I had been too foolish to pack up sooner and sail out west. She knew, somehow, about those terrible warships sailing all up and down the Mire, firing at anything that doesn’t waive a gold and red flag back at them. What’s got them so on edge, I fear I shouldn’t know of.

The beastly ships themselves are far from anything I’d ever seen in my long years. I’ve seen metal boats, there’s no dishonesty in that, but those things are hardly even ships, metal giants is what they are. Ten times bigger than my poor old Marlin, twenty times as heavy. How they possibly stay afloat is a mystery to me. Easy as they are to spot from the horizon, the putrid stench is what beacons their position, always. A horrible, awful cacophony of smog that follows them eternally… A terrible rank of tar or a salty forest fire. They’ve been picking up the name “Smokers” at the ports… black smog erupting from their ten-fathoms-tall stacks… painting the sky black behind them, there’s no tarnished name that doesn’t fit them better.

Dead fish float in their wake, swallowing a piece of whatever confounded mechanism powers the behemoths. Many have begun paddling to these trails, having a better chance of grabbing dinner from them than from anglers. Anglers with thin pockets, now that the fish are gone.

Oh but they don’t care about the fish one bit, said a little rodent-of-a-man to me, bottle in his hand. Coming from up the sea, Luhas’ port is the place he named. They spent a decade constructing them, then placed them under authority of some presumptuous Admiral from the north. An Admiral so terrible, some say, that he throws his own crew overboard if they even peep out of line. The rat man was drunkenly sobbing by now.

After an hour of his ramblings, I nearly regretted turning to this brackish gossiper, and half considered throwing him through the window into the sea myself. Curiosity took hold, however and I asked him one burning question which I had pondered for the whole night. Why? No enemies have sailed these waters since the early years of the war, why start this blockade…? What’s more is that while they are blocking ports, some sailors are darn sure they had seen them with a kind of spotlight, waiving it over the water while they cruise up and down the coasts.

He said he didn’t know. The Admiral kept a tight lip about it, just bellowing to be on the lookout for anything that floats that doesn’t come from the sea. If there’s a petite wooden spoon bobbing on the waves he wanted to know about it, said the Admiral. I shortly after ended my conversation with the man, I had heard enough. Whatever they’re looking for, it surely doesn’t concern my crew. I plan to leave in a month's time, and if those coats block my voyage, then I’ll speak to the Admiral myself.”

Captain J. Hedret

12:00 Am: Still at port, wouldn’t concern yourself looking much further.
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