29 years after the vault.

The free steam-ship Hereford departs for the New World. After stopovers among the great cities of the Jailed Sea to fill its holds, the ship leaves the quiet water for a 1 month voyage across the great ocean. The passengers are an eclectic mix; artists pinching pennies mingle with rising political officers hoping holding office among the colonies will help their rise to power. In deeper holds ex-soldiers and mercenaries roll dice and down cheap spirits to pass their days.

On the 17th day after exiting easy waters the aeronaut lookouts spot a storm ripping along the north west horizon. Scant hours later thunder is heard above decks and the livestock and animals abord begin to seek further shelter in their small pens. Passengers are ordered below decks and the shiphands make preparations for the hard hours ahead.

⁂

Thousands of miles away a very different ship has just crossed into the same storm. Roger Rosewood lowers a strangely bent and ugly spyglass and calls to his crew to stand firm. Their ship rides a puissant and ever-shifting cloud of lightning, and flies effortlessly across the charred and ruined landscape. 2 miles ago they crossed the waystone, a great pillar of unusual rock as high as a mountain. As the ship broke some invisible line linking the stone to its brothers a great storm erupted, seemingly from the air itself. It built among the stones with hundred mile arcs of energy lashing out towards the horizons. As the angelic warship moved on the lightning broke outward in a great wave, spreading towards the far shores.

⁂

The storm reaches the ship with a speed never seen by its crew. Preparations are only half finished, riggings not fully taken in. An aeronaut spotter, left up to gauge the weather’s progress, is drawn too far out and is taken as the lighting grounds through his balloon, body, harness, and then the ocean. Dusk becomes to an eery twilight, lit always by some strike of lighting in a new direction.

Great waves wash across the steamer’s deck and run down poorly closed hatches and into the ship. Panicked crew try to rush pack animals and crucial cargo from the lowest holds to drier rooms above. 4 sailors are mauled to death when a stampede breaks out. Many animals are lost to the rising water. The passenger holds bear the least damage. The water tight doors do their job and besides sea sickness and minor bruises from shifting furniture no one is injured.

The storm breaks deep into the night. Confused and tired passengers make their way above decks, where their comfort at making it through the weather quickly fades. In the night sky above, 3 moons hang high and bright on the horizon. Beyond them, no stars can be seen. Strange bioluminescent fish rise from the depths and gently probe the barnacles and wood of the ship. There is no wind, and no tide. The ship’s engine lies quiet, and the few hatches and doors leading to crew quarters and engineering are all locked from the inside.

Dawn should have been 3 hours ago.