North of Mintarn in the Trackless Sea 600 Years Ago

"May Lloth take your soul into her evil embrace, woman, as penance for killing us all!"

Her beautiful elven face drenched by the torrents pouring from the unbridled sea around them, Gyynyth Skyreach turned to face the speaker. Dark moonlight spearing through the black clouds overhead sparked fire from her pale green eyes. "On the contrary, Captain Rinnah, I ordered us into the only chance we had. If we'd tried to sail around the storm front, we'd have been caught by the pirates that pursue us."

The captain held on to the ship's rigging as his body swayed instinctively with the rolling pitch and yaw of his vessel. "Putting a dagger blade across the throat of every person on this ship would have been a cleaner death than the one you've ordained," Rinnah roared back at her over the crash of thunder and the horrendous splash of twenty-foot waves falling across the ship's deck.

"You should be directing your crew," Skyreach yelled.

"Those men hardly need any direction going to their deaths as they are!" Rinnah staggered as the ship wallowed between waves, tossed like a child's toy. Gallons of brine splashed across the deck, gathering into a force that swept men from their feet, broken only by the railing and the masts. A harsh, ragged yell started up somewhere behind the captain, then echoed down the side of the ship before it ended abruptly.

Skyreach steeled herself, pushing away the fear that threatened to consume her. The devotion to the quest she'd been given by her great-grandfather would see her clear. She wore her copper colored hair tied up and was dressed in a warrior's leathers. The metal breast plate she'd ordered readied before the sea drank down the sun hours ago banged against the side of the ship, held by the braided leather thong she'd used to tie it into place.