Your first few months aboard the Securis have been uneventful but exhausting.  The first thing you learned about the ship was that it didn’t sail the sea in a traditional sense.  You learned this while experiencing the ship “leaving port” from one of the observation decks – watching once-familiar terrain as one might view a landscape painting, from thousands of feet in the air, and watching as that familiar terrain slowly shrinks into infinitesimal smallness and ultimately vanishes into a wash of green and brown circumscribed by deep blue-green oceans.  Then everything is obscured by the clouds as the clouds once obscured the sun for you, and the ship is surrounded by the midnight black and eerie gossamer silver of realms beyond your world.<br/><br/>The second thing you learned about the Securis was that it is massive.  Fully a kilometer long, the ship resembles a huge, four-bladed axe, from the ‘butt’ of its 800-meter adamantine cargo boom to the 20 decks protected by the layers of mithril plate comprising the ‘head.’ It sails through the void haft-first, with its largest ‘blade’ upright, with two blades at the sides like stunted wings and one below like a distended, razor-sharp keel.  The ship has neither sails nor oars, and is instead propelled through the Astral Sea by a great gout of blood-red flame – itself the size of a fortress – that emerges from the top of the ‘axe.’<br/><br/>The sense of wonder (and maybe a little fear) soon passed, however, as it quickly became clear that the Securis was still a merchant vessel, despite its massive size and unusual trade route.  The ship’s crew is the size of the population of a good-sized town, and every position is still understaffed.  Your impromptu meeting with the admiral was the last time you saw him, as you were assigned a small but private cabin as well as the rank of Ensign, and mustered into your new job aboard ship.<br/><br/>Finnegan is assigned to the ship’s library, an absolute disaster area of a warehouse.  It is filled with stacks upon stacks of dusty, mouldering books and scrolls, and requests for texts begin coming in from the rest of the ship almost immediately upon her being deposited in the vast, echoing chamber.  Her initial disgust at the laziness and incompetence of her predecessor fades quickly as she realizes that no one mortal could ever keep up with both the administrative and maintenance work necessary to keep the library running smoothly.<br/><br/>Her commanding officer is a harried half-elf by the name of Commander Belemin Aeglsy, who acts as both Chief Engineer and Ship’s Mage.  He bustles through the library about once a week to offer ineffectual admonishment for Finn’s falling behind and weak encouragement for any perceived improvement before disappearing again into the ship’s bowels, presumably to attend to the more important tasks that keep the Securis moving forward through the void.<br/><br/>After her hands are repaired flawlessly by the ship’s doctor, a strange, smiling fellow with a slight glow to him who introduces himself as Dr. Halerei, Red is assigned joint duty between the kitchens at mealtimes and ship security at all other times.  Between the two tasks, Red is run ragged directing the reheating of food cooked in the main kitchens at one of the many sub-kitchens throughout the shipand the busing of tables in the mess halls.<br/><br/>When not being overseen by Lieutenant Maroof Forsythe, the jovial but strict hippopotamus-like Ship’s Cook, she is assisting the Chief of Security, Commander Omrin Ghavron, with daily archery drills.  Commander Ghavron is an inexplicable and monstrous cross of dragon and centaur, and his demeanor is as intimidating as his appearance.  Red ends every day more exhausted than the previous, her only respite the occasional day off.<br/><br/>Rothgar, at least, finds a kindred spirit in his commanding officer, Commander Dargoth Ship-Cracker, acting Gunnery Chief, Quartermaster, and Ship’s Chaplain; also a dwarf and also an engineering enthusiast, particularly when explosions are involved.  Unfortunately, this familiarity leads Commander Ship-Cracker – or Vukhad (dwarven for ‘Father’), as he prefers to be known – to lean on Rothgar more heavily than he might another Ensign, and soon Rothgar finds himself inspecting the majority of the ordnance facilities in Vukhad’s stead, leaving little time for his own research.<br/><br/>The ordnance facilities are a nightmare waiting to happen – understaffing at all levels has resulted in corners being cut and safety being disregarded for the sake of the ship’s defense.  It does not appear that there has been a truly serious accident in the facilities that anyone currently working there can remember, but conditions are ripe for a disaster, and Rothgar finds himself working overtime in an attempt to stave off the inevitable.<br/><br/>This state of affairs goes on for months before there is a break in the routine.  Finally, one day, your commanding officer comes to you with sealed orders, instructing you to open them in your quarters.  The orders direct you to a conference room on one of the upper decks, where you are to have a meeting with the admiral.<br/><br/>You arrive punctually, to find two other young officers in the room, also waiting.  There is a carafe of water and four empty glasses on the broad maple table, and a large window permits a sweeping view of the limitless expanse of the Astral Sea.  The opposite wall is decorated with an ancient-looking, faded tapestry, depicting the Securis in combat against a myriad of void-borne foes that must themselves be the size of galleons or even larger.  Lances of light and sheets of fire are shown radiating from the Securis’ cargo boom, incinerating the smaller vessels.<br/><br/>The admiral is nowhere to be seen.<br/>