Endrok Port bustles as people of various races hurry to work. There are fishmongers selling their wares, as well as chandlers' apprentices and journeymen running chores for their masters. Beggars hold out hands to passerby, sometimes hurling playful abuse at the stingier ones. Children, mostly human and half-elf, run between people's legs. But most people are stealing looks at the new ship in the harbor.

The Morningdark had once been the pride of the bay, until it was dismantled, and sent, piece-by-piece, up into the mountains, and then sent back down. It's been painstakingly reassembled, and it's finally ready to be unveiled. The best of Endrok society is there, along with representatives of far-off countries, to see the success or failure of this mission. Even the Hierarch of Tranmitz and the Clanmother of Thunderaxe had travelled down from Mt. Sharnech to watch.

The ship is a galley, a hundred feet long, with three masts. Unusually, there were two mainmasts side-by-side in the back, just forward of the quarterdeck, with a much shorter mainmast about sixty feet forward, with a long spar over the foc's'le. The sails are strange. There are two of them, triangular. One corner of each is strong to the top of a mainmast, to a crossbeam on the mainmasts, and forward to the end of the spar on the foremast. The sails are a light-absorbing black, with rainbow colors shimmering where they're moved by the breeze. There's a crow's nest on each of the mainmasts. Rigging leads all three masts. The timber is a dark red, with designs and sigils carved into the wood. Sailors move all along it like ants, getting it ready to sail.

And the last of the ship's crew are now boarding. They are the scouts, given the dangerous, but potentially profitable job of finding natives and resources wherever the ship landed. They are allowed through to the private pier where the Morningdark is docked. Sailors watch them as they come up, some warily, but most of them seem friendly enough.

"Ahoy," a somewhat scruffy gnome says, smiling from under a battered tricorne hat. "Cap'n says he's waitin' for you. Why don't ye leave yer things with me, an' I'll make sure they're safely stowed."