The Spark Mill

Anywhere in the sky

UncommonThe CogholdsAct IIAct IIIAct IV

Found after a fight

Possible rewards: Grounding Mast Bottled Storm Kite Ward

5 scenes. Choices with a requirement only appear when you meet it.

A Spike in the Deck

Right away1

When the smoke of the wreck clears, a heavy copper lightning spike stands embedded in your deck planking with a hundred feet of braided copper wire trailing overboard. The humming spike bears a brass plate: PROPERTY OF Y. GLINT, SPARK MILL. REWARD FOR RETURN.

Coil up the copper wire and bring the spike to the Spark Mill for the reward.
Two deckhands spend an hour coiling the humming wire, and you plot the Spark Mill's storm-swept rock on your chart.
→ A Hundred Feet of Humming Wire
Sell the copper spike and wire to a passing scrap barge for 35 silver.
A passing tinker barge gladly buys the hundred feet of heavy copper wire for thirty-five silver.
+35 silver
The questline ends here.

A Hundred Feet of Humming Wire

Right away2

Coiled on your deck, the copper wire hums with static electricity, drawing tiny blue sparks from every nearby nail head. Your gunners refuse to have it near the powder magazine, and the riggers don't want it near the sails.

Wrap the coil in wet canvas and stow it in the cargo hold.
Wrapped in wet canvas, the wire rides safely in the hold—and your cook discovers the ozone around it preserves meat, saving two crates of rations from spoiling.
+2 provisions
→ The Spark Mill
Mount the copper spike atop your mainmast where it belongs.
Pulling on heavy leather gloves, your riggers lash the spike to the masthead and run the copper ground wire down to the gun deck. The static hum stops immediately.
→ A Bolt from the Blue
[Stone mage] Have crewmate channel the static charge through the keel into your crystal bins.
Crew: Stone caster · Mage
crewmate grounds the humming coil through the keel timbers, steadily draining the static electricity to recharge four crystals in your fuel bins along the voyage.
+4 crystal+1 Casting skill XP
→ The Spark Mill

The Spark Mill

Sail to The Spark Mill (2–4 passages away)3

Return the copper lightning spike to the Spark Mill.

The Spark Mill clings to a bare rock spire beneath an unnaturally stationary thundercloud. From a shuttered window, gnome inventor Yarrow Glint shouts a warning: "Watch out for my lightning-kites! I launched them to harvest the storm, and now they dive-bomb anything with a mast!"

Fight off the haywire lightning-kites in the thunderstorm.
Crackling brass kites fold their wings and dive out of the thundercloud straight at your ship.
Battle: Clockwork sentry · Close range, ThunderstormIf you win:Fitting: Grounding Mast
→ After the Storm
[Avian] Send crewmate aloft between lightning bolts to sever the kite cables.
Crew: Avian
[Construct Bay] Use your bay's recall frequency to call the rogue kites down safely.
Room: Construct Bay
Your Construct Bay's recall hum brings the brass kites gliding down like trained hawks. Yarrow lets you keep one lightning-kite for your bay and mounts the copper grounding spike on your masthead.
Construct: Kite WardFitting: Grounding Mast
The questline ends here.
Send the copper spike across on a rope line and collect your 50 silver reward.
Without opening her shutters, she hauls the spike in and sends back a basket holding fifty silver.
+50 silver
The questline ends here.
Leave it for now.
You turn away from the storm rock as the copper spike hums on your deck.

A Bolt from the Blue

Right away4

On the second day, a freak bolt of lightning cracks out of a clear sky and strikes the masthead spike dead-on. Instead of splintering the mast, the copper wire channels the entire surge down into your battery deck, supercharging your crystal reserves. Your crew eye the spike with newfound respect.

Deliver the spike to the Spark Mill and report how well it worked.
The lightning strike leaves your fuel bins richer by three crystals, and your head gunner writes up a full performance log for the spike's inventor.
+3 crystal
→ The Spark Mill
Keep the lightning spike permanently mounted on your mast.
Your riggers wire the copper grounding mast permanently into your hull and paint over Yarrow Glint's ownership plate, though Compact artificers hear about the theft.
Fitting: Grounding Mast−1 The Compact standing
The questline ends here.

After the Storm

Right away5

With the brass kites grounded, Yarrow climbs out onto her roof in a singed leather hood. Untethered, her captive thundercloud is already drifting away downwind. "Well, there goes my storm," she sighs. "All I have left is a yard full of wrecked brass kites and one last bottle of bottled lightning on my shelf."

Help her salvage the wrecked kites for 40 silver and 5 bolts.
Your crew spend the afternoon gathering the fallen kites. She pays you the forty-silver reward and gives your gunners five crates of salvageable springs and bolts.
+40 silver+5 bolts
The questline ends here.
Buy her last bottled storm. (30 silver)
Costs 30 silver
Bruise-purple storm clouds swirl inside the heavy glass bottle. "Don't uncork that indoors," she warns.
Device: Bottled Storm
The questline ends here.
Give her your gunner's log of how the spike channeled a direct lightning strike.
Thrilled to get field data from a moving ship struck under a clear sky, she copies your gunner's figures three times and insists on giving you both her last storm bottle and twenty silver.
Device: Bottled Storm+20 silver
The questline ends here.

Data from Magehold Fairwinds v1.9.26. Spotted something out of date? Discord