The fog surrounding the Skellige Isles did not dampen the sound of the Tarantian wooden paddle-steamers. The rhythmic thump-hiss of their coal-fed engines echoed off the jagged cliffs of Kaer Trolde like the heartbeat of a mechanical beast.
On the deck of the UKS Prosperity, a wooden merchant vessel reinforced with Tarantian iron-banding, Captain Halloway adjusted his brass spectacles. "A primitive lot," he muttered, watching the horizon. "No smoke on the skyline. No telegraph poles. Just rock and pine."
He didn't have to wait long for a welcome.
Out of the mist, three Skellige drakkars emerged, their dragon-headed prows cutting the choppy grey water with terrifying speed. To the Tarantian crew, these looked like museum pieces—relics of a pre-steam era. To the Skelligers, the Prosperity was a fat, smoke-belching monster ripe for the plundering.
The raiders gave no warning. With a roar that drowned out the sea, they pulled alongside, throwing grappling hooks that bit deep into the Prosperity's wooden hull. Axes gleamed in the dim light as the Northmen prepared to board, screaming oaths to Hemdall.
"Pirates," Halloway sighed, as if bored by the inconvenience. "Master Gunner, if you please. Show them the cost of interfering with the Unified Kingdom's commerce."
The massacre was instantaneous and one-sided.
The Prosperity was not a warship, but it was a product of the Industrial Age. Four Tarantian deck cannons, fueled by refined black powder and rifled for precision, roared in unison. At such close range, the iron grapeshot didn't just kill the raiders; it turned the drakkars into splinters and red mist. The Skelligers, used to the clash of steel and the slow arc of arrows, had no defense against the supersonic velocity of lead and iron.
Within minutes, the sea was littered with the wreckage of the dragon-ships. The few raiders left in the water stared in shell-shocked silence at the smoking wooden giant that had erased their kin without a single man-to-man exchange.
"Log it as a pirate skirmish," Halloway ordered, not even looking over the railing. "Inform the fleet. The locals are hostile but technologically negligible. Continue to the main harbor. We have business to attend to."
As the Prosperity steamed onward, it was soon joined by the rest of the Arcanum vanguard. To the North, the Vendigrothian ironclads moved like silent silver sharks, their engines humming with a frequency that made the local gulls scream in confusion. To the South, the Arlandic galleons and the Cumbrian warships caught a magical wind that seemed to defy the natural currents of the Isles.
By the time the sun began to set, the four nations of Arcanum had reached the shores of the Isles. As the anchors dropped into the cold Skellige mud, the people of the Isles gathered on the cliffs of Ard Skellig. They watched in a mixture of terror and awe as the "Smoke-Kings" arrived—not as conquerors, but as businessmen, scientists, and knights, all looking toward the East with a hunger the Continent had never seen before.
******
The anchors of Arcanum dropped into the icy waters of the Skellige Isles with a heavy, final thud. Beneath the towering cliffs of Kaer Trolde, the harbor became a chaotic forest of masts and smoke. The wooden hulls of the Tarantian, Arlandic, and Cumbrian ships bumped against the stone piers, while the silver, sleek Vendigrothian ironclads hovered further out in the bay, their engines humming with a vibration that made the water ripple in perfect, unsettling geometric patterns.
As the gangplanks lowered, a colorful, clashing delegation descended upon the mud and stone. To the Skelligers watching from the heights, it was as if several different worlds had arrived at once, each speaking a different language of power.
The Tarantian delegation, led by agents of the Industrial Council, stepped off their wooden steamers with iron-bound chests and brass-rimmed ledgers. They did not see a sacred land of ancestors; they saw a virgin market. They moved with a frantic, cold energy, already eyeing the local timber and deep-vein iron deposits with the hunger of a nation built on coal and credit. For them, the goal was simple: profit. Every Skelliger was a potential customer for a Tarantian flintlock, and every island was a warehouse waiting to be built.
Following them were the fleets of Arland and Cumbria, arriving with the heraldry of old kingdoms. The scholars of Caladon and the knights of Dernholm sought to strengthen ties with this mysterious East. They carried gifts of enchanted glass and intricate clockwork, their diplomats eager to weave Arcanum into the fabric of this new Continent. To them, these Isles were the bridge to a grand alliance, a way to ensure that the peace of the last fifty years would not be drowned by the chaos of a new world.
But it was the Vendigrothian representatives who cast the longest shadow. Dressed in sterile grey coats and carrying clicking Flow Spectrometers, they moved through the docks like ghosts in a graveyard. They were not there for gold or friendship. Their mission was a cold, calculated crusade: to restore the balance. To the Republic, the raw magic of this new world was an infection—a wild, unpredictable force that defied the sanity of natural law. They viewed the "Chaos" of the Continent not as a gift, but as a volatile threat that needed to be measured, contained, and countered. They were here to build a wall of logic against a sea of madness.
In the Great Hall of Kaer Trolde, Crach an Craite sat upon his throne, his hand white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword. Before him stood the strangers: a Tarantian merchant in a soot-stained top hat, a Cumbrian knight in shining plate, and a Vendigrothian scientist with eyes like cold flint.
"You speak of trade and balance," Crach boomed, his voice echoing off the stone rafters. "But your 'smoke-beasts' have turned my kin to red mist on the waves. You bring magic that smells of sulfur and science that tastes of copper. Tell me, outlanders—why should I not feed you all to the sirens?"
The Vendigrothian stepped forward, his voice as mechanical as his gear. "Because, Jarl, your world is sick with a force you cannot control. We have spent centuries perfecting the countermeasures for the wild energy that infests your blood and your soil. If you wish to survive the coming shift, you will need the stability that only our iron can provide."