Right into the first month of fiful winter, a ship washed ashore in the lower, Tenebren region of Eldran. No one knew where it came from and how it got there. When I was sent to investigate it, a giant structure was at the dock of the small fishing village of Orrinshire.

It was the hull of a ship, yet it was unlike anything we had ever seen before. Our ships are compact and mostly powered on magical energy, using artifacts as a base to propel it forward and was never bigger than something that can hold at best three person on it comfortably with some cargo, but this ship was built differently.

It had sails, but instead of our convenient methods, it lacked any sign of the use of artifacts and the people on it simply rowed, judging by the massive paddles sticking out from its side. While our ships were small, this one was enormous with large sails that we hardly use. It was clearly something not meant for just a simple cruise. Seeing it the first time was quite baffling that someone would even build something like this, knowing full well how useless it is.

The ship had no crew on it and the deck showed signs of fights and worse. It’s a miracle it didn’t sunk before getting here. But what was even more surprising is that the ship was here.

As location goes, Orrinshire is one of the lowest points of Eldran, right beside the sea. If you want to approach it by sea, you would go by the shores, from the upper Amberlen region. That is the only safe route here, but that would have been seen by others as it passed by, namely from Akatta, another fishing village up there, so it clearly didn’t came from there. Which left two options open.

The first was that it sailed from the other side of the continent. You can sail by there as well, except you run into some problems. If we assume this would be a Tutral built ship that wanted to go somewhere, it had to pass by the elven forest and even if it was just passing by, there is no guarantee they would like it. But the elves are the smaller problem.

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In recent times, there were reports that the mermaid population exploded and with their underwater city being too small, they started expanding towards the shores, taking up a considerable coastline, part of it being the elvens (which they didn’t taken in goodwill, but can’t really do anything against it either) and the dry uninhabited deserts, not touching the borders of Tutral yet.

Now, if Tutral wanted to send a ship on its way, that would have to go through that mermaid populated water which would answer the missing crew and the battle scars. But there was one clear missing cog in this theory. If mermaids attacked the ship, the ship wouldn’t be here now. They would sunk it and pillage whatever they can from it as long as it’s useful in a way for them.

With both coast sides being dead ends, that left us with one assumption where the ship could came from. Just as it arrived by the waves, it must have came from straight from the deeper parts of the sea. There was no other answer to it.

I reported my findings in Orrinshire to King Doberden and the ministers, with some noble family heads being present out of curiosity or because their land was interested in this incident, like the noble head of the Nuncio and Treton family, governing over the territory around Orrinshire.

Just as expected, they found my idea of the ship coming directly from the sea ridiculous, some even laughed out as if I told a joke. It was really no surprise to me. I was part of some units back in my greener days that tried to make access points in war across the waters, just to come back with half the crew because of merman attacks or somehow drifting too deep and getting attacked by sea monsters. You could hear many tales of old where fools who thought themselves brave ventured out to the deeper parts of the sea, just to come back on a plank with broken spirit and traumatized. If they even come back, that is. These weren't just baseless tales, I can tell you that.

While the King refrained from laughing, he didn't really shown any concrete emotion either towards my findings. I was in no position to question their „answer” and with some swift words, I excused myself from the throne room. With no command from my knight captain to follow, I made sure to go through some papers that piled up in my room.