Chapter Summaries

Renato and Selina arrived at the Drowned Man bar to meet Pye and found the Ironhook Gang surrounding it. Renato learned that Ferreira, the Third Mate of the Blood Drowning, had attacked inside, and sensed the killer’s bloodlust behind the doors.

• Renato brought Selina along to the Drowned Man bar and warned her not to attack anyone without his permission.
• Selina detected blood and said that a powerful predator was hunting inside the bar.
• Renato found more than thirty Ironhook Gang members gathered outside the Drowned Man, too frightened to enter.
• Massimo told Renato that Myles had come to negotiate with Pye, but Ferreira had attacked and cut Myles’s tendons in two strikes.
• Renato sensed killing intent coming from inside the bar and learned that Ferreira was the attacker.

Renato entered the Drowned Man and found that Ferreira had already defeated boatswain Myles and taken control of the situation. Ferreira introduced himself, taunted Renato, and proposed a game, leaving their confrontation about to begin.

• Renato stepped into the wrecked tavern with Selina and found Myles wounded and unconscious.
• Renato recognized Pye behind the bar and saw Ferreira drinking while two Blood Drowning sailors approached.
• Ferreira ordered the sailors to stand down and introduced himself as the Blood Drowning’s third mate.
• Ferreira described his habit of torturing captured naval men and nobles, then challenged Renato to play a game.

Renato killed Myles and ignored Ferreira’s threats while asking Pye about claiming a bounty for a wanted pirate. When Ferreira tried to attack, Renato seized him and smashed his face into the bar.

• Renato killed the crippled Myles, declaring that he had completed the agreed job.
• Renato searched the wanted posters while Pye and Ferreira reacted to Myles’s death.
• Renato asked Pye whether he could collect Kingdom bounties through the gang.
• Ferreira threatened Renato and began drawing his enchanted bone sword.
• Renato grabbed Ferreira by the head and slammed his face into the bar.

Renato killed Ferreira and completed the bounties for him and Myles while Selina dispatched two Bhaal worshippers. After ordering Pye to deliver the payment and clean the tavern, Renato said he would need the Ironhook Gang’s help the next morning.

• Renato smashed Ferreira’s head against the bar counter, killing him and earning the bounty quest reward.
• Selina cut down the two worshippers of Bhaal as Massimo and the Ironhook Gang thugs entered the tavern.
• Renato praised Selina and promised to treat her to another feast.
• Renato told Pye to deliver the payment for Myles and Ferreira’s bounty to Suite 003 at High Tide and clean the Drowned Man tavern.
• Renato told Pye that he would need the Ironhook Gang’s help the next morning.

The Ironhook Gang’s leaders argued over the deaths of Myles and Ferreira and feared retaliation from Aldrick, but Pye rallied them to stand by the gang’s rules. He planned to address the deaths with Governor De Sousa and ordered the gang to gather two hundred gold coins for Renato before morning.

• The Ironhook Gang’s leaders gathered after Ferreira’s death and debated whether Aldrick would retaliate against them.
• Scarface and One-Eye clashed over the gang’s responsibility, and Pye restored order by invoking the Ironhook Gang’s blood oath and rules.
• Pye argued that the gang had to avenge Myles and resist surrendering its territory, winning the leaders’ support.
• Pye said he would take the bodies to Governor De Sousa and rely on Marispan’s authority to deter the Flaying Grand Duke.
• Pye ordered the leaders to contribute money and manpower and gather two hundred gold coins for Renato before morning.

Renato spent the afternoon testing De Leon’s wheellock pistol and learned why sailors valued firearms despite their poor accuracy and slow loading. An attendant then told him that Andrei had come to invite him to dinner, explaining that Marian noblewomen often pursued eligible noblemen.

• Renato cleaned his armor, ate lunch, and decided to hire the Ironhook Gang to search for Selina’s fellow sea elves in White Harbor.
• Renato left Selina resting in Suite 003 and went to High Tide’s courtyard to practice with his wheellock pistol.
• Renato fired at a straw dummy and hit its center despite aiming at its head, then questioned the pistol’s accuracy.
• An older mercenary explained the advantages and drawbacks of firearms and crossbows aboard ships.
• The attendant told Renato that Andrei had arrived to invite him to dinner and described Marian courtship customs.

Andreia invited Renato to Captain De Leon’s homecoming feast aboard the Hispaniola after an awkward attempt to approach him in elaborate makeup and naval dress. Renato accepted and planned to attend at dusk, partly to build ties with the captain and try the feast’s roast Plesiosaur.

• Andreia, dressed as a man and heavily made up, recited poetry to Renato outside the inn before inviting him to talk as they walked.
• Renato asked Andreia to speak plainly, and she explained that Captain De Leon wanted to invite him to the Hispaniola’s homecoming feast that night.
• Renato considered the seafarers’ custom of thanking Umberlee for safe passage, despite finding the goddess’s fickle nature difficult to understand.
• Renato accepted the invitation and agreed to go to the Hispaniola’s berth at dusk, hoping to build a good relationship with Captain De Leon and taste roast Plesiosaur.

Renato left Selina at the inn and headed to the Hispaniola for dinner, carrying Ferreira’s Bone Sword as bait for Bhaal’s followers. He resolved to pursue pirate bounty quests and arrived at the ship, where Andreia welcomed him to freshly roasted plesiosaur meat.

• Selina declined Renato’s invitation to dinner, so he left her food at the inn and locked the suite from the outside.
• Renato examined Ferreira’s Bone Sword and stored it in Klauthsura’s Ring, intending to let Bhaal’s followers track him through it.
• Renato decided that hunting pirates on land was a safer way to earn experience than confronting more powerful foes, and he dismissed the danger of angering the Flaying Grand Duke.
• Renato reached the Hispaniola at sunset, where Andreia waved him aboard and told him the roast plesiosaur meat was ready.

Renato shared a meal aboard the Hispaniola with Captain De Leon, Lectus, and Andreia, then asked about the ship’s repairs and its next destination. De Leon said he had gathered a crucial clue for finding the legendary Fountain of Youth and began telling Renato the Storm Sea’s ancient legend.

• Renato ate grilled Plesiosaur meat and drank wine from De Leon’s private collection.
• Andreia drank too much wine, and Renato carried her to the cabin and put her in a hammock.
• De Leon said the Hispaniola’s repairs were going smoothly because the shipyard workers had received their gold.
• Lectus cautioned De Leon against criticizing White Harbor island and Governor De Sousa where others might overhear.
• Renato asked where the Hispaniola would sail after repairs and whether De Leon had a plan to find the Fountain of Youth.
• De Leon announced that he had gathered a crucial clue and began recounting the Storm Sea’s ancient legend.

De Leon told Renato the legend of the Fountain of Youth and argued that the real spring was likely hidden in a demiplane in the Storm Sea. He revealed that ancient Elven records called a place there “Parinesia,” meaning the Isle of Rebirth and Renewal.

• Lectus finished his meal, nodded to Renato and De Leon, and returned to his cabin to rest.
• De Leon recounted how the shipwrecked captain Elijah supposedly found healing spring water, returned home, and later vanished after people fought over the Fountain of Youth.
• Renato said the Fountain of Youth likely had some truth behind it but considered Elijah’s tale an embellished legend.
• De Leon agreed that the story was false and proposed that the Fountain of Youth lay in a demiplane whose entrance was in the Storm Sea.
• De Leon connected the Fountain of Youth to the ancient High Elves’ longevity and revealed that their records named a place in the Storm Sea “Parinesia,” the Isle of Rebirth and Renewal.

De Leon invited Renato to fund and join an expedition to find the Fountain of Youth, offering to take him across the Storm Sea afterward. Renato decided the voyage and the spring held little value for him and tactfully declined, returning to his room at High Tide.

• De Leon explained his research into the Fountain of Youth and invited Renato to join his fleet's expedition to Parinesia.
• De Leon promised to share the expedition's rewards and eventually guide Renato across the Storm Sea to the New Continent.
• Renato recognized that De Leon wanted investment and valued his combat skills, but Renato had little interest in the Fountain of Youth or returning to the continent.
• Renato reflected on Perly and why he had chosen not to seek her out, then declined De Leon's invitation for the time being and returned to his room at High Tide.

Renato weighed his plans for finding sea elves and charging the Polyhedron artifact while the Ironhook Gang’s rumors made him notorious across White Harbor. The chapter ended when Crooked Mouth Barnaby arrived at High Tide and greeted him.

• Renato received two hundred gold coins from Pye for Myles’s remaining payment and Ferreira’s bounty, then paid Pye to search for sea elves.
• Renato concluded that buying enchanted equipment to charge the Polyhedron would be too costly and decided to focus on improving his fighting strength.
• Renato learned that the Ironhook Gang’s stories had made him feared throughout the Dock District and considered warning Pye to rein in his people.
• Renato heard Barnaby arguing with High Tide’s mercenaries, opened the inn door, and recognized him.
• Barnaby pushed past the mercenaries, bowed to Renato, and greeted him cheerfully.

After receiving his payment, Renato learned that Barnaby had quickly escaped prison and offered him a private commission to hunt pirates. Barnaby said concerned citizens who had worked with White Harbor were funding the work, but he had not yet named them.

• Barnaby paid Renato fifty silver coins for completing the commission.
• Renato wondered how Barnaby had escaped prison so quickly and reconsidered how much authority King Severino held over the islands.
• Barnaby thanked Renato for saving him, and Renato told him to explain his promised way to make money.
• Barnaby asked whether Renato had killed Ferreira for the bounty, then proposed that Renato hunt pirates.
• Barnaby claimed that concerned citizens, rather than Governor De Sousa, were privately hiring people to deal with pirates who broke the rules.

Renato learned that the Black Wave Duke and Governor De Sousa wanted the Pickle Barrel’s captain killed because the ship secretly supported the Saltbone Marquis’s pirate fleet. He accepted the quest and gave Barnaby three days to obtain detailed information about the captain.

• Barnaby revealed that Cornelis, the Black Wave Duke, was the client seeking a killer for the Pickle Barrel’s captain.
• Renato read the quest details and learned that the ship supplied the Saltbone Marquis’s fleet, whose pirates worshipped Myrkul.
• Barnaby explained that Governor De Sousa was secretly backing the operation and that island governors maintained a profitable relationship with pirates.
• Barnaby said he had survived through his old connections and his past contributions to White Harbor.
• Renato accepted the quest and ordered Barnaby to provide the captain’s appearance, habits, and associates within three days.

Renato realized the Governor's Mansion had used Barnaby to test his abilities and attitude by offering him a commission involving the Saltbone Marquis. While studying White Harbor's monster guide, he learned how dangerous the Sahuagin could be and that their fully transformed warriors were classified as fiends.

• Renato watched Barnaby hurry away and concluded that the Governor's Mansion had arranged the commission to assess him through an intermediary.
• Renato recalled killing Ferreira and recognized how the incident had made Black Blade's name spread through White Harbor.
• Renato read a local monster guide and reconsidered how luck had helped him defeat the Sahuagin hunting party.
• Renato learned that Sahuagin could become towering, four-armed warriors through rituals involving fiendish blood, and that mages classified these ascended warriors as fiends.

Renato found that the inn’s training equipment was useless for his enhanced strength and sparred with Selina instead. After Selina struggled with a human-sized club, she asked Renato for a powerful greatsword suited to her.

• Renato learned that Pye was searching White Harbor for sea elves while Barnaby waited for instructions about the Pickle Barrel.
• Renato demonstrated his strength by lifting a carriage and found that ordinary training equipment could not challenge him.
• Renato brought Selina to the inn’s backyard to practice combat, but her blunt, forceful attacks fell short of his expectations.
• Selina kept rising to fight despite her exhaustion and the club breaking apart.
• Selina told Renato that human weapons were too small and light for her and asked for a greatsword strong enough to cleave the waves.

Renato took Selina to a weapons shop to buy her a greatsword, where her skill revealed an unfamiliar swordsmanship tradition from her deep-sea people. He bought her an enormous decorative flamberge and left eager to learn more about her techniques.

• Renato brought Selina into a weapons shop and watched as she rejected a light sword as too weak.
• Selina expertly swung a 1.5-meter greatsword, then complained that it was still too short and light.
• Selina chose a nearly 1.8-meter flamberge greatsword, and Renato reconsidered its usefulness after seeing how naturally she carried it.
• Renato recognized that Selina practiced a swordsmanship school unlike any he had encountered and decided to buy the sword.
• Renato paid the proprietor twenty gold coins and left the shop with Selina.

Renato sparred with Selina and studied the momentum-driven principles of her Hunting Technique. After she committed to a powerful strike, he used her momentum to topple and throw her, leaving her stunned but apparently unharmed.

• Renato parried Selina's full-strength greatsword attacks and noticed that her sword's momentum powered an increasingly rapid sequence of strikes.
• After twenty-one strikes, Renato stopped holding back and changed his footwork to evade Selina's next slash.
• Renato slipped inside Selina's reach, caught her arm, and redirected her momentum, sending her into the archery targets and scattering them.
• Renato helped Selina to her feet and explained that her own momentum had caused her to fall.

Renato and Selina found that the supposed Sea Elf in the Dock District was only an elderly fisherman, then discussed how Renato blended different swordsmanship styles. As they reached the Governor's Special District, Barnaby arrived with a new development on the commission and asked Renato to discuss the 150-gold job somewhere private.

• Renato and Selina followed Ironhook Gang enforcers to a Dock District fisherman mistakenly reported as a Sea Elf, then let him go when they learned he had no meaningful elven ancestry.
• Selina asked how Renato had learned to counter her Undersea Sword Technique and combine different sword styles, and Renato urged her to adapt techniques by keeping their strengths and discarding their weaknesses.
• Renato reflected on developing his own swordsmanship by combining the approaches of different races and schools, with the Deep-Sea Sword Art inspiring a new direction.
• Barnaby called out to Renato near the entrance to the Governor's Special District and revealed that he had an update on the commission.
• Barnaby made disparaging remarks about Selina, and Renato warned him to stop before asking the Governor's Mansion to replace him as intermediary.
• Barnaby said the new job was worth 150 gold coins and asked Renato to find a quieter place to discuss it.

Renato learned that the Pickle Barrel’s captain, Jans, used a false identity, but the Governor’s Mansion had little information about his real name or abilities. Barnaby revealed that Jans might attend a White Harbor storage auction the next day, giving Renato a chance to learn more before acting.

• Barnaby told Renato that the Pickle Barrel’s captain, Jans, was using a fabricated identity, though the Governor’s Mansion knew little about his real identity or fighting abilities.
• Barnaby explained that White Harbor auctioned cargo from ships impounded over unpaid ship management fees.
• Barnaby said he had heard Jans might appear at the next day’s storage auction, where Renato could observe him and gather information.
• Renato warned Barnaby not to mistake his role as intermediary for authority over Renato’s actions.
• Renato told Barnaby to meet him outside the Governor’s Mansion at noon the following day.