Windrunner descended toward the port town of Baenil as the sun reached its zenith, the bay spreading below them in a vast expanse of blue-green water dotted with small islands that rose from the waves like scattered stones.

The town itself hugged the coastline in a crescent shape, its docks extending into the bay with wooden piers that should have been crowded with merchant vessels and fishing boats but were instead mostly empty, a handful of ships tied up at berth with the dejected air of vessels going nowhere.

Captain Maureen Nailer brought the ship down with ease, the magical propulsion enchantments easing it into a controlled descent that ended with Windrunner settling onto a designated landing platform near the port’s edge.

The platform was designed specifically for flying vessels, raised above the conventional docks and equipped with anchoring systems that could handle ships that weren’t meant to float on water.

Maureen was a Class I Swordswoman, which Jake had learned during the flight after watching her run the crew through combat drills that demonstrated exactly why she commanded respect from the six adventurers who worked as her permanent party.

She moved with the efficient authority of someone who had been doing dangerous work for decades and had survived by being better at it than most people who tried.

Her crew secured the ship while Maureen and Jake descended to the port proper, making their way through streets that were quieter than any functioning port town should be.

The businesses they passed showed signs of recent activity but current abandonment—shops with shutters closed despite the afternoon hour, taverns with empty chairs sitting outside and a fish market where the stalls held yesterday’s catch going bad in the heat because there was no one to buy it.

They found the harbormaster’s office near the main docks, a squat stone building that looked like it had been there longer than the town around it. The harbormaster himself was a weathered man in his sixties with the deep tan of someone who had spent his entire life near water, and when Maureen explained they were here about the pirate suppression mission, his face went through several expressions before settling on something between relief and skepticism.

"Pirate Queen Elizabeth," he said, the name coming out with the particular venom of someone who had been personally affected by the subject.

"She’s destroyed this port’s livelihood in three months. No ships cross the bay anymore except local fishing boats that stay close to shore, and even those are taking losses. She intercepts everything—cargo vessels, passenger ships, private traders—it doesn’t matter the size or the cargo; if it enters her territory, she takes it."

"What’s she doing with the ships?" Maureen asked, her voice carrying the professional tone of someone gathering tactical information.

"Looting them, mostly. Taking the valuable cargo, scuttling the vessels, leaving the crews stranded on the islands if they’re lucky or taking them somewhere if they’re not."

The harbormaster’s face darkened. "She’s also been raiding the port directly. Took six people two weeks ago—merchants, sailors, and one of them was the deputy harbormaster’s daughter. We haven’t seen any of them since."

Jake watched Maureen’s expression tighten at this information, her jaw setting in a way that suggested personal anger rather than professional concern, and he filed that observation away for later examination.

"What do you know about her capabilities?" Jake asked.

"The contract mentioned unknown abilities."

The harbormaster looked at Jake properly for the first time, taking in his age and the guild identification hanging from his belt, and something skeptical moved across his face before he answered.

"She’s got magic," he said.

"Not like a proper mage, but something else. Water manipulation, some people say. Others claim she controls sea creatures. The few survivors who’ve encountered her crew directly say she moves too fast to be normal and hits too hard for someone her size."

He paused. "And she’s got several other special skills."

Maureen’s attention sharpened. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"That’s what the survivors report. Could be trained sea creatures, for all I know, but the descriptions are consistent enough that I believe something unusual is operating with her fleet."

"Lot of adventurers had come before you and none of them were able to kill her or stop her from looting our ships."

He looked dejected, and he looked at them with kind of an expression that said they would be the same as others.

They spent another twenty minutes gathering information—last known locations, patterns of attack, descriptions of Elizabeth’s ship and crew size—before Maureen thanked the harbormaster and led Jake back toward where Windrunner was docked.

Her face carried an intensity that hadn’t been there during the flight, and her movements were sharp and purposeful. Jake could see that she was more worried after hearing that man and she was controlling her anger too. Jake frowned, seeing her reactions. It was quite different to a normal person.

"This is worse than the contract indicated," she said as they walked.

"The guild posting made it sound like standard piracy—theft and harassment. But kidnapping civilians and using sea creatures suggests she’s operating with resources and support that go beyond normal criminal enterprises."

"You’re angry," Jake observed.

Maureen looked at him sideways.

"I don’t like pirates who target innocent people," she said.

"Cargo theft is business. Taking a harbormaster’s daughter is cruelty."

The explanation was reasonable, but Jake heard something underneath it that suggested the anger was more personal than professional concern for innocent victims.

He considered pressing further and decided against it—whatever Maureen’s relationship with this situation was, it hadn’t interfered with her tactical judgment yet.

They returned to Windrunner and found the crew ready to depart, having gathered their own information from the port’s taverns and merchant houses while Maureen and Jake spoke with the harbormaster.

The consensus from all sources was consistent—Pirate Queen Elizabeth was last seen operating near the Skun Islands, a cluster of rocky formations in the bay’s center that provided natural cover for ships and made tracking difficult.