About this story
You play Lao Can, a travelling physician who rows out with a compass and finds the breach — old rot under fresh paint, repaired only where crowds could see it. Some aboard want foreign rescue, some would rather sink, and someone fires at your boat. The captain tells you no medicine treats a nation at sea.
Who you’ll meet
Wen Zhangbo, the travelling companion who holds a tested compass up at a ship that will not look at it, with De Huisheng beside him in the boat and the ship's captain refusing them both from the rail above.
How it opens
You stood with companions upon a coast where calm light made the distant sea appear harmless.
An eight-masted ship crowded with passengers moved strangely beyond the reef without sound canvas.
De HuishengLao Can, that vessel is too large to wander so near broken water.
De HuishengThey have sails, engines, and men, yet no one agrees which danger matters.
Ship CaptainPassengers remain calm; the crew has managed worse weather than this.
Choose
Confidence cannot replace a chart of the reef.
Send a boat ashore before the breach widens.