A very reliable trade wind blew from Thule to Sham-I-Bala each year in the summer, and back again in the fall. This made for a very lucrative and, consequently, dangerous trade route. Years of piracy and opportunism had given the trade winds a bloody reputation and a name to match: the Red Winds.

It was in exactly these sort of dog eat dog conditions where House Totenkopf thrived, the fattest of the carrion crows. The Red Winds is where the Totenkopfs plundered the treasure necessary to buy their way into high society, and they continued to throttle every last pfenning from the route.

It was reckless to ply such a trade route in as vulnerable a position as House Oberon found itself, but recklessness was the last option open to the disgraced merchant house. Now legally pirates in their home country, with the pirate who ruined them taking their place in the seats of power, the Oberons would need to be daring to have any chance at reclaiming their rightful place among the Great Houses.

Daring, but not suicidal. The flotilla of Oberon Merchantmen was protected by the pride of the Oberon Navy, the symbol of the wealth and power of House Oberon, the legendary Princess Fairy.

The Princess Fairy was 180 feet long and boasted 47 heavy cannons and 151 light cannons. 60 gunners and more than 300 sailors from the most loyal and competent Oberon vassal families manned the vessel. Her coral-colored sails and butterfly-woman masthead represented terror to the foes of House Oberon for more than a generation.

With the protection of the Princess Fairy, the Oberon Council of Directors were willing to risk the Red Winds.

* * *

The crew of the Princess Fairy ran back and forth across the deck, pulling hard on lines as salty water crashed around them, struggling desperately against the wind to bring the ship around.

A pack of three Totenkopf privateers had formed a line with their broadsides aimed at the Princess Fairy's bow. The Fairy could easily destroy the smaller ships, if she could just aim her cannons at them.

Another volley of cannonballs tore through several decks of the Princess Fairy, splintering the floorboards and causing several rigging lines to snap. One of the sails spun around and the spar knocked a sailor overboard. Almost no one noticed.

The sailor's name was Bartram Digsby.

* * *

Bartram woke up vomiting sea water on a beach. He coughed and sputtered before stumbling to his feet.

His clothes were soaked through, frayed, and the side he had been lying on covered with a thin layer of sand. Bartram tried unsuccessfully to brush some of this off.

He seemed to have washed up on an island.

It took Bartram a moment to gather his wits, but he soon began to form a plan. He would need to build a fire as quickly as possible to attract the attention of any passing ship, with any luck the Fairy herself.

A little ways from the beach was a wooded area, and Bartram didn't have any trouble finding dry wood. With some grass and leaves for kindling Bartram was able to light a spark by rubbing two sticks together for what seemed like eternity. It didn't take long before he had a nice smokey bonfire going.

With this immediate concern taken care of Bartram was now left to deal with the practicalities of his situation. He would need to find temporary shelter and, Great Patriarch willing, a source of food. He decided to take a lap of the island.

Walking along the beach Bartram spotted the mouth of a cave at the top of a hill, from which he would still be able to see his fire. This seemed like a likely shelter and so he climbed up to investigate.

The cave was a jagged, yawning void that stretched far deeper into the rock than the sunlight would touch. It filled Bartram with unease just standing outside. He decided it would serve well enough as a shelter and climbed back down to go look for food without going inside.

Foraging proved to be no problem. In addition to a nest of fat-looking birds, which he made a mental note to make an attempt at hunting later, Bartram found a bounty of fruits, berries, and edible roots. Most of them seemed to be wild varieties of foods he was familiar with. Bartram would have no problem surviving on this island for many, many years.

That thought sucked all the fun out of Bartram's harvest.

The sun was beginning to threaten twilight. Bartram lit a branch from his fire. Using the branch as a primitive torch he set off towards the cave once more. This time he had a full belly, and was all the braver for it, .

The cave was just as unfriendly as he remembered it, but Bartram was losing patience with his own childish fear. He swallowed it down and stepped inside.

The makeshift torch illuminated the cave walls, the light broken up by flickering shadows. Bartram noticed for the first time that they were covered in bizarre cave paintings. The images were indistinct, almost abstract, but imbued with an alien horror that seized Bartram by his heart valves. Overcome with a visceral fear of the unknown, the unknowable, Bartram dropped his torch and fled from the cave with desperate recklessness.

Bartram ended up sleeping beside his fire, exposed to the elements.

* * *

Bartram was shocked awake by the sound of a bestial, primordial scream. He had the wherewithal to roll to his feet moments before wicked claws snatched at the place he had just been. The screaming monster flapped back into the air, beyond the range of the dwindling fire's light, on great bat-like wings.

Bartram could hear the thing flapping around and making inhuman sounds in the darkness just beyond his sight. It dove back into the light, a bat-like shadow, and Bartram threw himself violently to the ground to avoid its claws.

Bartram landed by the fire. The creature was already in the air again, invisible in the darkness. He grabbed a lit branch from the fire and wielded it in front of him like a weapon.

Again the monster dove and Bartram waved the flaming branch as soon as it came in range. It fled into the darkness, but circled around for another attack. This time Bartram trust the fiery branch directly into the creature, searing its flesh and provoking screams of pain.

The monster retreated back to the darkness. The beating of it's wings grew distant, and then ceased entirely.

Bartram was unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Instead he tended the fire and maintained a terrified vigil.

* * *

Bartram returned to the cave that morning. After the events of the night before he realized he needed to swallow his fear and shelter in the cave.

Again he couldn't summon the will to enter. Bartram knew the paintings were inside. He felt he could still see them through the darkness of the cave.

The threat of the monster scared him, but the cave filled Bartram with existential terror. His mind desperately sought a rationalization.

The monster wasn't real, Bartram had decided. There are no gods but the King in Hell, and all the monsters are dead. That's what the priestesses always said. It had all been a dream. His fear of the monster was as irrational as his fear of the cave.

Bartram walked back down the hill and went to go forage for food. He slept by the fire that night.

* * *

Two more days and nights passed without incident, although Bartram suffered nightmares of the creature. This further cemented his belief that the first encounter had also been a dream.

On the third it began to drizzle rain, and Bartram had to stay up and fight to keep the fire going. The rain eventually picked up and the fight became hopeless. The fire died.

That's when the monster came.

Bartram could hear it screaming and flapping, but without the fire couldn't see a thing. He had no weapon and no ability to sense his opponent. His only hope was to run and hide. His only hope was the cave.

Bartram ran the way only someone in fear for their life can run. He stumbled and tripped more than once in the darkness, but he found an energy inside himself that he never knew and pushed on. Bartram could hear the beating of the monster's wings and this spurred him further.

He made it to the cave and turned around to face the entrance, rasping for breath. He was almost too exhausted to stand.

Bartram couldn't hear the monster anymore, and he certainly couldn't see it. What he could see, however, were the cave paintings. He could see them as clearly as if it were daylight.

Only they weren't paintings, Bartram realized at last. They were words. The walls of the cave were a book.

It was a book full of the most sublime secrets. It was the answer to the riddle of existence, the punchline to the joke of life. It explained the perfect ways of the things in the Outer Darkness, the beings from beyond to whom the Gods were mere playthings. Everything Bartram had known up until this point had been an illusion, merely shadows cast by beings working in higher levels of reality imperceptible to humans.

He read the paintings on the wall, the charts of ruinous stars and the abstract patterns of quintessence, and became enlightened.

Bartram stepped out of the cave and called out to the monster, who answered it's new master.