The rising sun cracked over the horizon like the blade of a god, gliding the endless waves of the Etrean Sea in molten gold. It was this light—not a voice, not a bell—that stirred Leonardo Schmarof from uneasy dreams. He awoke to the gentle groan of timber beneath him, the rhythmic crash of water against hull, and the sharp tang of brine in the air.
He blinked the haze from his pale green eyes, the soft light casting long shadows across the cramped ship cabin. His thoughts clung to fragments of the dream—ghosts of a city swallowed by the sea, the shimmer of towers long submerged in the Void.
The Celtor City…
Once a jewel of civilization, now nothing more than whispered legend and waterlogged bones. Leonardo's blood ran with the cold legacy of that fallen place. A Celtor by birth, he came from a family of power and privilege—landowners, merchants, politicians. Yet he had always been… different. While his kin wore dark brown skin and the emerald gaze of the old nobility, Leo was pale like seafoam, with only a faint green hue in his eyes and hair like sun-bleached copper. His mother shared his strange look, and though she bore her own mysteries, she offered no answers—only disdain and distance.
Where his family hoarded wealth, Leonardo hoarded questions. Where they clung to titles and tradition, he sought sails and salt. The truth of Celtor's fall haunted him more than any ancestral duty.
He had left it all behind with a sword, a name, and a dream.
Now, aboard a ship not his own, a stranger among pirates, he stepped into the world beyond home. What he hadn't expected was to be plucked from near death by none other than Captain Orlandeau, a living myth whispered about in taverns and dockside gossip. The Felinor privateer had pulled Leonardo from the surf like flotsam and, against all odds, offered him a place aboard the Windswept Wailer.
Leo sat up, still wrapped in his thin white shirt from the day before. No sooner had he swung his legs off the cot than a voice thundered through the ship's lower deck.
"Ohoho, look who's up late! Feel the waves take hold o' your dreams this morning, eh? The rest of the crew's been up since the second bell! What have you got to say for yourself, boy?"
Leonardo jumped to his feet, grabbing his sheathed sword from the table. He hurried topside, emerging into the blinding sunlight. There stood Captain Orlandeau—tall, feline, and fierce. His Flame Worshipper Armor shimmered with radiant heat, his Vagabond's Bicorn casting a long shadow across his face. He radiated both command and chaos, like a tempest in human form.
"I—" Leo hesitated. "I had a dream… until you interrupted it."
The crew paused their work to glance over, and for a moment Leonardo feared he had overstepped. But instead of anger, Orlandeau's grin softened. He placed a gauntleted hand to his chin, thoughtfully.
"Dreams, aye? I've had a few o' those myself. Riches? Revenge? A life worth the breath in your lungs? What kind of dream was it?"
Leo looked down at the deck, then out over the horizon. "I saw the past slipping away… strange, but freeing."
The Captain squinted, then let out a short laugh.
"Ah, I get it. Ominous nonsense! Sounds like the makings of a cursed future. That means you're right where you belong—with us. Now! No more idle dreaming. The sea waits for no man!"
What followed was no glorious adventure, but grueling training. Parrying, blocking, swinging until his arms ached and his lungs burned. Orlandeau was faster than his age or heavy armor suggested, a whirlwind of claws and calculated strikes. Hours passed beneath the relentless sun as Leo learned, through pain, how to survive.
He met the crew between drills:
Flabbernaster Filigree, the Gremor first mate, sharp-eyed and sharper-tongued.
Frank F'alzone, a quiet Celtor cartographer who also scrubbed decks.
Pete, a hulking Vesperian in duelist's garb with a grin like a cracked mask.
Mr. Quarters, the Adret halfmaster clad in thick blackened plate.
Serendi, a short-tempered Etrean trader, barely five feet tall but fierce enough to bark orders from atop stacked crates.
Each tested him in their own way—combat, charts, equipment, theory. Leo failed them all.
No strength. No cunning. No charm. No attunement.
Just a sword and a stubborn will.
Yet when he returned to Orlandeau, sore and ashamed, the Captain didn't scoff. He simply nodded, lighting a pipe as he leaned against the mast.
"It's not 'bout what cards you start with, lad. It's how you build your deck. You'll get stronger. You'll learn. The path ahead's yours to shape."
It sounded like comfort, but Leo couldn't shake the feeling of being adrift—unmoored from everything he'd known.
Suddenly, Serendi's voice tore through the calm.
"CANNONS! GET DOWN!"
The world became fire.
The sky split open as flaming shells rained down from the heavens. The Authority—those tyrants of the sea—had found them. A second volley struck the ship's hull with a thunderous crack. Leonardo's ears rang as he tumbled across the deck. Screams echoed. The mast splintered. The air was thick with smoke and heat.
Another blast. This one closer.
Pain. Heat. Weightlessness.
Then cold.
The sea swallowed him, dragging him into its blackened depths. As consciousness slipped away, Leonardo caught one final glimpse of the burning sky above, framed by waves—
And then… darkness.