The ship cut through the black waters at a crawl, its sails groaning against the still air. Mist clung to the waves like breath on glass all around them, refusing to lift even as the morning light tried to claw through. No gulls cried overhead. No fish broke the surface. Only the hush. The kind that pressed into the ears and made a man question whether he’d gone deaf.

They said no man who strayed into Deadwater Reach returned quite the same.

If they return at all.

There were stories about these waters. The kind told not around campfires, but remembered in silence, muttered only when the horizon bled red or the sea spat back its dead.

Long ago, a pirate crew,ruthless, feared, and drunk on their fortune, vanished here. Led by a captain whose greed gnawed deeper than the ocean floor, they were said to have chased a ghost map to treasure cursed by the very gods they’d mocked. Gold for their souls, the whispers said. They found it. And it found them back.

The helmsman shifted uneasily, hands slick on the wheel though the air had grown cold enough to frost the brass. One by one, the crew noticed their breaths each exhale curling visibly into the air. The lanterns flickered not from wind, but from something unseen brushing too close.

Then came the laughter.

It didn’t echo from the throat but from the mist itself. Drunken and hollow. Laughter that made the spine curl and the stomach twist. A second voice followed, a scream for help, distant and wet, like it had clawed its way from beneath the waves.

A sailor dropped his lantern, the glass shattering like a warning shot. All eyes turned to the starboard.

And then, as if summoned by that shared fear, it appeared.

Out of the fog came a silhouette. Massive. Wrong. The sails were tattered but full, though no wind stirred. Lanterns swayed, their flames a sickly green. The wood of the hull glistened black, soaked as if freshly risen from a watery grave. No sound came from it, not even the splash of water it displaced, until it drew close enough for the crew to see the figures standing aboard. It was glowing faint green with rot and cursed fire. The ghost ship didn’t cut through the waves. It glided.

Torches lit without flame. Chains rattled without touch. Faces pale and twisted leered from the misty deck.

And then he stepped forward.

Captain Mordred 'Gravewake' Grain.

Smiling like he never stopped, even in death. Hair streaked silver as a stormcloud. Bearded, his eyes glowing with the same cursed light as the sea hands that once dragged him under. He stood proud at the helm, head tilted, like a host welcoming guests.

He raised one hand, blackened rings still clinging to skeletal fingers.

"Ahoy there," he called, voice like silk soaked in seawater, "You poor lost souls… why drift alone when there's a place for you here?"

A ripple passed over the ghost ship’s deck. The twisted, hollow-eyed specters of his crew began to stir from the shadows, limbs jerking unnaturally, faces split into ragged grins.

Mordred took a step forward, arms spread wide as if to embrace them all.

"Come now," he drawled, grin widening, "Room aboard The Black Harrow for a few brave souls more. Join us. The sea’s been far too quiet.”