The Weather Keeper

A roaring wall of wind blocks the mountain pass. Behind it, in a pocket of calm air, stand a dozen village huts and an exhausted woman sitting on a wooden stool: Maren Oake, a wild storm-caller whose magic is slowly burning through her own body.

"For nine years I've held this gale to keep the Crown's mage-hunters out," she says. "My strength is spent—I cannot hold it through another winter."

As Maren rises from her stool, the nine-year gale falters and drops. The villagers gather at your gangway, and an elder holds out a leather pouch of small coins—nine years of savings from a dozen poor households. "For her passage, Captain. We know what it costs to run a ship."

The Undertow recruiter hastily covers a blueprint of the Cistern as you approach her tavern table. She listens eagerly to your account of Maren Oake. "We won't try dragging a storm-caller in by force—instead, we'll capture the storm she left over the Sill so she has to come to us. What do you want for helping our bottlers harvest her tempest?"

Maren's old storm still rages over the Sill ridge, glowing emerald-green at its core. Circling its outer edge is an armed Crown weather cutter with brass measuring booms rigged out. Spotting your approach, the cutter's captain hails you: "We've waited months for the storm-caller to come back for this tempest! Hand her over alive and collect the Crown's bounty!"

At the Sill, the two Undertow specialists extend long poles tipped with leadglass bottles into the green heart of the storm. Suddenly, a patrolling Crown weather cutter rounds the cloud bank and hails you: "This tempest is under royal survey! Haul those poles in immediately!"

Inside the emerald eye of the storm, the air hums with raw power. "Hold the ship dead still while I draw the tempest back into myself," Maren calls out. Walnut-sized hailstones—each formed around a shard of pure crystal—hammer your deck as fierce crosswinds try to shove your hull out of the eye.

Two Crown marines escort Maren below decks in irons. Pleased with the capture, the cutter's captain turns to you. "The Crown pays well for rogue storm-callers. Take a hundred and ten silver, or take forty silver and my spare masthead weathervane."

Twelve glowing leadglass bottles stand racked on your deck, and the sky over the Sill is now completely bare. "Maren will feel her storm vanish from fifty miles away," the senior bottler remarks. "She'll have no choice but to come work for the Cistern to get it back." He holds out your final silver payout.

Standing at your bow rail with arms outstretched, Maren unravels the entire thunderstorm and draws its power back into herself. The sky clears to open blue, and nine years of exhaustion vanish from her face. "My strength is whole again, Captain. Choose how I repay my passage."