<em>Slowly you manage to raise yourselves from the deck of the ship. The merciless sun beats down overhead, blindingly bright and dazzling everyone. The ship is silent but for the humming of the rigging and occasional billow of the sails. <br/><br/>Groans drift into the air as the remainder of the crew drag themselves to their feet, clutching at pounding heads and aching stomachs. You feel like the morning after an all weekend carouse, but without the fun that would have come first.<br/><br/>Getting shipwrecked was bad enough. That would be quite enough ill luck for at least a year. Maybe longer.<br/><br/>At least you managed to wash ashore on what turned out to be a small island somewhere off the Ahar Coast. The Castillian nobleman who found you was a charming host, if a somewhat eccentric one.<br/><br/>Of course, you could hardly know that he was accused of heresy and being hunted by the Inquisition. No one expected that. Not until the Inquisition stormed ashore and sought to take everyone there into custody, after which they would all be tried, found guilty and burned at the stake.<br/><br/>The Inquisitors apparently were expected an old man and a few servants, not such a spirited resistance as they met, and while the house burned down around you, you fled for a hidden dock and a ship be promised would take you to safety.<br/><br/>A very odd looking ship.<br/><br/>He also apparently forgot to mention that this escape would involve the use of an alchemical compass and escape into the 7th Sea itself. <br/><br/>Ah, the Inquisition would not so easily give up, and against all reason their ship pursued, cannons blazing.<br/><br/>A sea is a dangerous place at the best of times. The 7th Sea takes that danger to entirely new levels, and the running battle attracted some eldritch gaze. A waterspout formed, bearing down first on the Inquisition ship, and reducing it to flinders, before twisting around to pursue your own ship.<br/><br/>Don Fernández screamed for everyone to hold on, and the ship rose slowly from the surface of the sea as the waterspout reached for it. Strange sails unfurled from the sides of the hull and lightning seemed to dance across the hull and lines, running up and down the mast, making the sails look like stormclouds.<br/><br/>There was a roar and a flash.<br/><br/>Then silence.<br/><br/>Darkness.<br/><br/>...<br/><br/>It's all coming back to you now.</em><br/><br/>The ship is drifting on what little wind there is. Looking around shows a barren wasteland around you, red sand and scrubby plants, and massive red buttes climbing hundreds of feet into the air, shimmering in the distance and heat.<br/><br/>With a hum a shadow passes across the deck, drawing eyes skyward. What looks like a small ship, with sails like dragonflies wings passes over you at speed. Something else screeches past and a plume of red dirt fountains into the air two or three score yards away. Another ship, larger than the one that just passed is approaching out of the sun. From its deck comes a flash of light, another screech, and the desert fountains again, short this time, but close enough that the dirt patters down on your deck.<br/><br/>Faint voices carry on the wind. No words are discernable, but they do not sound happy to see you.<br/>