The Weaver in the Boat

After the battle clears, your lookout spots a small lifeboat drifting nearby. Inside sits a woman with bound wrists—one of them fractured. She is Oda Kessel, a master ward-weaver. "Pirates kidnapped me off a courier boat a month ago, and I've been sold twice since," she says. "I jumped overboard when the cannon fire started. My brother owns a shipyard in the next region—he'll pay handsomely if you get me home."

On the second day out, Oda Kessel stands before your ship's Ward Loom with her splinted arm in a sling, running her good hand an inch above the humming threads. "Whoever strung your loom was paid by the yard, not by quality," she remarks. "I can't weave one-handed, but I can coach your ward-tenders—or you can ask me who paid those pirates to kidnap me."

That night, Oda Kessel confronts you at the chart table after reading your heading. "A Guild hall pays a flat finder's fee to whoever claims a missing person—and they don't check who's putting up the money," she warns you. "I've been sold twice this month, captain, and my crooked cousin will have a bounty posted at that hall to grab me a third time. Take me straight to my brother's shipyard instead!"

Her brother's shipyard is a long waterside shed strung with humming ward-threads—but an armed household cutter is moored across its water-gate, and a steward in gray livery blocks the pier. "Lady Oda's cousin has bought up her brother's debts and foreclosed on this yard," the steward announces. "She is not welcome here. Turn your ship around."

At the Guild hall desk, the clerk pulls out two competing notices for Oda Kessel. Oda reads them upside-down. "The first notice is in my brother's handwriting, offering seventy silver for my safe return by Guild packet. The second notice offers nearly double—a hundred and thirty silver, unsigned—from whoever wants me silenced."

Oda's brother rushes out of the loom-shed with ward-thread still wound around his fingers, too choked up to speak. Oda speaks for both of them: "You brought me home through pirates and hired thugs, captain. In return, I can weave a permanent extra ward layer into your Ward Loom—or my brother can pay you the hundred and fifty silver he saved for my ransom, or upgrade your loom frame."

The Guild courier boat is moored two piers down with a single Guild marine guarding the gangway. Before you leave the dock, you spot a man in a tailored coat walk up to the marine and press a coin purse into his palm. The marine suddenly strolls away to the far side of the pier, and the stranger slips aboard the courier boat.

When you return to your ship with the hundred and thirty silver, your entire crew is standing around the chart table in stony silence. Someone has laid Oda Kessel's empty arm-sling neatly across the Ward Loom. Through the stern window, you can see a noble household cutter still taking on water at the far pier, with the man in the tailored coat standing on her deck.