The Feed-Fitter

The port warehouse you were hired to deliver to is boarded shut, with two Guild debt enforcers leaning against the doorframe waiting for you. You keep the crate aboard instead—and that night, the lid pops open from the inside and a gnome engineer climbs out clutching a roll of blueprints. "I designed the crystal feed-valves for every refinery on the Shard Coast," she says. "Now the Guild claims they own my blueprints—and me with them."

Before the morning tide turns, the two Guild debt enforcers march up your boarding ramp waving a search warrant. "One crate of refinery valves consigned to a shuttered warehouse—we're here to inspect it." Down in your hold, the opened crate is surrounded by packing straw while the gnome engineer hides behind a bulkhead.

That night, the gnome unrolls her master blueprints across your galley table—every refinery valve on the Shard Coast, signed with her initials. "The independent shipyard in the next region will pay handsomely for these, though it's a long flight with a Guild bounty on my head," she says. "Or you can drop me off much closer at Slagside—the underground mechanics who keep the workers' boilers running there will hide me and upgrade your ship on the spot."

An armed Guild cutter surges out of the harbor behind you with the two soaked enforcers pointing from her bow. She's faster than your ship in open air, and a rain squall is blowing in off the sea—but the gnome engineer leans over your rail and grins. "She's running one of my mark-three crystal feeds! It chokes if you push it hard into a headwind. Tack straight into the wind and her engine will stall out!"

The independent shipyard consists of three building slips and a heavy crane—but an armed bounty hunter cutter is moored across the harbor entrance with the gnome engineer's wanted poster nailed to her mainmast. The bounty captain hails you with an easy smile: "We know who's aboard your ship, captain. Hand the gnome over and nobody's hull gets punctured."

The Slagside workshop is a hidden lean-to built right against the warm brick wall of a massive refinery. Eleven burn-scarred mechanics stand up cheering when the gnome engineer walks in with her blueprints, handing her a grease-stained boiler suit to disguise her from Guild bounty hunters.

Safe inside the independent shipyard, the gnome engineer pries up your deck plates within the hour. "Your keel-drive guzzles crystal like a drunken sailor, and your gun-charging clocks are out of sync," she announces. "I have time for one major overhaul before the yard master needs this slipway back—what's your pleasure?"