About this story
Williams, your watch-mate, treats her ill name as fact, not rumor, and on the first night out your locked chest is opened, its contents shifted by something that leaves a track too long and too light for a rat. At midnight a shape climbs the deck where no boat could have brought it and vanishes without a splash, though every man musters present.
How it opens
The Mortzestus rode low in harbor, her black sides streaked with neglected rust.
Men at the shipping office had stopped joking when you named your new berth.
Jessop, you signed on after hearing she lost half a crew last voyage?
They call her unlucky only where the officers cannot hear.
Choose
Unlucky ships still pay wages.
What happened to the missing crew?
I trust timber more than dockside talk.