The Wyrm's Tooth

You deliver the crate to a dockside net loft where a one-handed old harpooner named Hedda Brine pries open the lid and lifts out a hooked yellow wyrm's tooth as long as her arm. "I hunted the sky-wyrm that grew this for twenty years," she says. "My ship lies wrecked upriver with the custom ballista frame built to fire it. Salvage that frame for me, and the completed Wyrmtooth Ballista is yours to mount."

Hedda's wrecked ship lies broken-backed on a river mudbank with reeds growing up through her split deck. The ballista frame is down in the forward hold—where something heavy is slithering across the wet timbers.

The Excise armorer weighs the giant hooked tooth on a cargo scale and whistles low. "Prime wyrm ivory—the Admiralty uses this to tip armor-piercing siege bolts. I can pay you a hundred and twenty silver to split with Hedda, or trade you a military Scorpion ballista straight off the rack."

Your crew hauls the heavy iron-strapped black oak frame up in three pieces. Its firing cord has rotted away, but a cord-twister's mark from a town beyond the Low Lanes is branded into the stock. Nearby, a patched corsair sloop has been watching your salvage work.

After locking the wyrm tooth in a felt-lined drawer, the armorer leans across his counter. "A tooth that size was fired from a custom siege frame, captain. The Admiralty will pay forty-five silver to know where old Hedda Brine's ship lies wrecked so our salvage crews can strip the hull."

The cord-twister works in a long open ropewalk, twisting braided wyrm-gut over her shoulder. She inspects the black oak frame and the hooked tooth. "I strung this rig the first time for Hedda Brine. It punches straight through ship armor, though the recoil is fierce. For thirty silver, I'll braid a new wyrm-gut cord and mount the weapon on your deck."

The sloop's captain, Joss Harl, runs his hand along the black oak frame. "I sailed as Hedda's mate for eleven years before she marooned me for wanting to sell this rig," he says, nodding toward your hold. "An unstrung frame is firewood without the wyrm tooth, and the tooth is useless without the frame. Sell me the tooth too—or buy the frame back from me and I'll tell you who can string it."

Waiting for you at the harbor master's office is a flat brass box delivered by river courier, with a note from Hedda Brine: "My roof is mended. Word reached me that the Admiralty was asking after my wrecked ship. If you sold them her location, sell this box unopened and think of me when you spend the silver. If you kept my secret, open it—what's inside is yours."

The Excise armorer weighs the giant hooked tooth on a cargo scale and whistles low. "Prime wyrm ivory—the Admiralty uses this to tip armor-piercing siege bolts. I can pay you a hundred and twenty silver to split with Hedda, or trade you a military Scorpion ballista straight off the rack."