By sea, winds willing and with the right lunar wash, a one-way journey from the docks of Sablearne to the Vatheian Archipelago aboard a Guild carrack encompassed roughly one flight (that is, thirty-six days). Very few vessels at that time made the trip out to the fledgling Expedition, and all of those were reserved in whole or in part for Imperial business. While it was largely a consensus among Expedition oversight that the Archipelago represented a vast untapped source of wealth and discovery, the Expedition itself seemed wholly incapable of tapping or discovering anything much more than new depths to the Triumvirate's freshly-established exploration fund throughout some six years since its establishment. All of this is to say that, in all Sablearne's long reach, no better a backwater might one find toward which to funnel any unfortunate soul one wishes to elegantly and guiltlessly dispatch of. Though appointment to the ranks of the foundering Expedition was lauded as a commendable service, the truth of the matter is that to a certain calibre of Noble, the Grand Expedition had become little more than a gilded oubliette.

Thus it was that I found myself aboard that brutal hulk of a boat. She was grotesque and almost organic, a stiff, creaking creature of bulging curves and slick boards, each of her four groaning masts standing proud from the deck like a stake thrust through it - or perhaps a quivering antenna, tasting the salty air. The deck itself was littered with various items of nautical detritus which I could not name, and swept up through twin curved stairs to a wide helmsman's perch, immediately below which resided the captain and quartermaster. Toward the bow, she tapered steadily, until her two sides suddenly ducked together and were held fast by a brass figurehead in the likeness of a corpulent seal: her namesake, for she was dubbed Selkie.

Below the sloping deck were housed four cramped and labyrinthine levels: the lowest two filled with bulk provisions, the next accommodation for the passengers, and the highest reserved for the crew. Thus, several feet isolated from the outside world on every side, I shuttered myself into a candlelit cabin upon embarkment and remained within for several days. As we sailed out away from the shore and through the Near Sea, I reviewed the small body of literature I had been able to find on the Isles that were our destination. To say that information was lacking would be an understatement; it seemed any particulars about Vatheia were wrapped in layers of myth and rumour, but nonetheless I occupied myself by scraping these tomes of their knowledge. However, this was not to last, as ten days into the voyage we reached the Storm Wall.

A permanent squall line which squats on the border of the Near and Far Seas, the Storm Wall is a roiling charcoal mass of hurricane winds and skittering sulphurous lightning, an awe-inspiring edifice a hundred furlongs tall which appears to contain all the ocean gods' boundless fury manifested into a spectacularly immense block of pure meteorological hatred. For hundreds of years, this insurmountable barrier had isolated the people of the Second Continent from the Far Seas to the south, and to circumvent it in order to reach Vatheia would have meant a journey as long as fifteen flights aboard a twin-masted brigantine. Such a ship would have barely been able to carry enough provisions for the one-way trip, which made returning at all from the rich lands rumoured to lie past the churning black waves an almost hopeless endeavour. It was only in the two decades or so prior to my own transit that the Shipmaster's Guild had emerged from a coalition of Sablearnean merchants and produced the first towering carrack, a beast capable of piercing straight through the Storm Wall with a turbulent cocktail of sheer brute force and unwavering skill from her crew.

Naturally, the first I became aware of this formidable obstacle was immediately preceding contact between it and our lumbering vessel.

"Lash everything down! Buckles and straps! We're about to hit the Wall!" came a cry from somewhere along the hall.

A member of the crew thrust his head through the doorway of my cabin.

"You'll need that stack o' tomes stashed away if you don't mean to be squished by 'em, little master," he informed me cheerfully.

Before I could marshal any inquiry beyond a brief stammer, he was gone. Deciding that "hitting the wall" was liable to be rather violent, I heeded his advice and began to hastily pile the contents of my cluttered desk into my steamer trunk, stowed beneath the cabin's bed. Sheaves, pamphlets, quill, inkwell, spectacles, stray piece of paper, crudely-drawn map, oil lamp, tin cups, candle, paperweight: into the trunk they went, joined of course by the several leather-bound crushing hazards which the passing sailor had so thoughtfully highlighted to me. I snapped shut its clasps and, flagging slightly from the burst of effort, took my bearings... nothing had changed. It seemed my urgency was for nought, and I began to set myself warily back down at my desk-

I was suddenly jerked upwards like a puppet on a string. For the briefest of moments I was airborne, floating lazily in the centre of the cabin- before plummeting back down, strings cut, as though it was the ship's design to nail me into her floorboards. Dazed and bruised, I felt myself begin to slide backwards toward the starboard wall. Thinking quickly with intent to get the better of this invisible puppetmaster, I managed to scrabble my way under the desk, a leg of which I clung to for dear life. In (I must confess) sheer terror, I peered out as the entire ship continued to roll to starboard until it was almost perpendicular, and the wall behind me became a floor below me. The Selkie, however, stubbornly refused to capsize. With gut-wrenching ferocity, she slammed herself back level and then some, at such a speed that I was nearly flung across the cabin.

Cowering under that desk, I endured what felt like an eternity of heaving and swaying as we traversed the tumultuous waves, accompanied by a steadily-building nausea which spread slowly out from the pit of my stomach. While in the process of considering every damnable decision that had led me to this groaning wooden hell, I noticed movement once again outside the doorway.

"Hello?" I ventured feebly.

A voice like boulders falling down a scree slope replied: "A-ha! They told me there was a fellow exile down here!"

It was unmistakably a troll. Shapers of stone and fearsome warriors, their fathers came down from the mountains long ago and taught the farming folk the ways of rock-craft, in exchange for fine food and seats at the burgomasters' tables.

"Yes, I suppose that's me, um..."

I thought for a moment.

"Say, you don't have any inkling when this might stop, do you?"

Silence in response.

"Only, well, I-"

An enormous bronze-clad boot appeared in front of me with a thud, shortly followed by its twin, then a knee, and finally the rest of the troll as he sat down on the floor and peered into my hiding spot. His rough-hewn rust-red face was set with dimly-glowing amber eyes and framed by a bristling lignite beard, two blunt tusks protruding from his mouth towards a brow furrowed in thought.

"What are you doing under there?" he asked.

Mustering all my dignity (and considerable acuity with words), I offered, "Holding on?"

"Aye," the troll nodded sagely, "It's a violent storm to be caught in for such a small fennec. I suppose you've been fairly tossed about."

"Well, yes, first I was picked up and dropped, and then she began turning over, but I managed to find purchase under here, you see, and so here - I have remained."

He smiled. "I'm Murin. It sounds like you've been having quite the time of it."

After a brief pause, he said, "If you don't mind my staying here, I think we could both use some company."

I nodded in affirmation. Any diversion from this dreadful tossing casket was entirely welcome.

"My name is Peripatus, fourth degree scholar and honourable scribe of- well, nowhere any more, I'm afraid. I am honoured to make your acquaintance, although you haven't caught me at my best. I must confess I'm rather-" a fresh wave of nausea passed over me, "...queasy."

Murin placed a leather-gloved hand on my shoulder in support.

"Then we meet on equal footing. These walls all around, with no space to move and no sight of the sun," he shivered, "I feel like they could close in and crush me any moment."

The troll sighed and sat back.

"To tell the truth, I'd much rather be up on deck taking hailstones to the face," he cracked a wan smile, "but the crew were adamant they have no distractions."

I said, "I'm quite happy down here, really. I did a very brief stint up on the deck on the first day, but all that open sea and sky with nothing around... it made me feel very, very small indeed. Much better to stay in my cabin and enjoy some literature."

"We make a good pair then," chuckled Murin.

I smiled tentatively in response. As he had so eloquently put it, we were almost entirely unalike, and yet, the troll's warm demeanour was certainly making me feel more at home than I had so far in the bowels of this ship. I wondered, then, if we truly were opposites, what that might say about me- a line of reasoning rapidly deferred for another time. Being stranded so far from home and set to progress yet further, I resolved that having a friend would be valuable indeed.

"So, um, where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?" I inquired.

"I was raised in Hallobrook, on the Wyne, but my thrice-grandparents came down from far up north in the Drake's Fangs. We were a family of six, me, my parents, and my three big sisters, living in a loft above my uncle's smithworks. The eldest two joined the militia- well, one of 'em's captain of the whole Basin legion now."

He stared past me, lost in thought for a moment.

"Anyway, she put in a good word did ol' Edda, and got me joined up as a smith. I've got a pretty good knack for fighting, and I took to the training well, so they made me a lieutenant eventually. It was all going quite well," he sighed, "but this cobwebby old magistrate and his entourage came to stay in the fort on an inspection tour, and, well..."

At this juncture, Murin leaned in close and recounted to me in hushed tones a series of deeds which for his sake I shall, for the time being, refrain from divulging. Needless to say, I was quite shocked.

"You..." I stammered, "I mean, you- his son- but... really, a goose?"

He gave a grave nod.

"It seemed a good idea at the time."

The cabin was silent save for the creaking of boards and the dull roar of wind and waves outside. Eventually, I collected myself.

"Of course, I'm glad you're alive, but frankly I'm surprised they didn't hang you. That magistrate didn't sound the forgiving sort."

"Edda again. Thanks to her I'm in this dark hole and not a much worse one."

I decided it would be best for all parties to segue into another subject, lest another story to match the first should be brewing.

"Do you know anything of our destination, on that matter? I've been trying terribly to get a sense of it, but I'm afraid the only reliable thing I seem to be able to prise from these books are myths."

Murin shook his head. "I know about the Expedition, of course, but the crew never set foot outside their landing. Nobody on board has seen the Isles proper that I can tell, so if you've got any good stories about them, I'd like to hear one. You owe me a tale after all."

"Very well", I said, summoning my storytelling demeanour, "Let me tell you how folk first came to the Isles of Vatheia."