Long have been the stories of a mythical ghost ship which sails the seas at night. Reports of lifeboats being rowed by skeletons and a phantom ship with waves washing over it as ghost figures held on to the ship's rigging.
And from the shores of Island World one could see a burning apparition at sea, like a ghost light, appearing as a flaming three-mast galley sailing under an unknown dragon flag. The Burning Ship it was called and it was said by sailors long ago to reappear, fully aflame, on cold and windy nights to foretell of impending disaster.
But the lore doesn’t end that way. It is merely the beginning of it…
There was a man who lived like a hermit in a lighthouse, overlooking the sea. No one could tell if he was blind or not. It was said his pupilless eyes had once seen the kraken. That the kraken had taken him but he escaped. That he himself had cut off his ears to trick the sirens. That his leg was bitten off during a shark attack. That… Let’s say there were many a tall tales but no one really knew him.
The day he died they found a text carved out in the walls of the lighthouse. It said:
“Somewhere in space there’s a hole that was once black but now gives off a bright glow.
The ones who are courageous enough to enter this place that was once filled with dangerous force will be given a powerful ally on the field of battle.”
In the months that followed after his death, the documents scattered all over the lighthouse were searched for clues. When none were found, they sold his belongings. Silver bought a crystal ball among some other stuff. It did nothing but breaking the light and reflecting it in rainbow colors.
But when he looked at it at night, like he was drawn to it, he saw things. Like fragments of a story.
The crystal ball belonged to The Burning Ship. Its Captain was Fyre Drake who could spit fire like a dragon and was feared by villains everywhere. Ghost fire doesn’t burn, so neither did the ship. It wasn’t a galley at all but a Flagship that sailed under the name of The Grand Commander.
The ship, the Captain and his crew were still out there, trapped in the wrinkles of time and defying the laws of nature. The riddle leads to that legendary flagship hidden among the stars. And to obtain its powers you have to beat it in battle, it and its Captain. Throughout the time many had tried to do so. As a result the damage incurred was significant to the masts and deck of the ship; however, it did not sink. Several attempts were made to either destroy or tow it to shore, but all failed. Because the ship itself is indestructible, and its Captain never beaten.
Silver realized that just as the crystal ball gave light only in darkness, one can only find The Great Commander when the night is at its darkest and before the break of dawn. He also realized it being a flagship chances were much higher finding it in the air than on the water. But he was puzzled by the riddle an took it to the Great Council of Elders.
There they decided to consult The Secret Archives of Island World. In them they found the logbook of The Grand Commander, or at least a part of it. At first the logbook didn’t make them any wiser, it was too fragmented for that. But it contained detailed maps of what seemed to be the stars in the galaxy.
With this knowledge they looked at the riddle anew. Could it be that The Great Commander was that powerful a machine that it could travel in space?
Silver spent months in the Archives, consulting rare and forgotten texts by obscure astrologists. He grew convinced that the riddle talked about a special kind of star, a nova star. A nova is when a star dramatically increases in brightness over a relatively short period of time, due to a thermonuclear chain reaction. With most recurrent novae, the explosions occur with an interval of a few decades. Meaning that if he could locate the nova star occurring at the time of The Great Commander’s disappearance, he could possibly find the missing Flagship.
But before he could do so, Silver himself vanished and became The Guardian at the Crossroads.
It is said however that in time of great need, The Great Commander will be found and under command of Captain Fyre Drake will sail again in battle against all Evil.
