The quartermaster proposes blue dye for oars, again
Dispatches gathered at the Harbor Board: one recurring warning about missing patrol boats, a week of raid chits with the name line left tidy and blank, and a proposal to solve both by marking things blue.
The Second Count, Now a Habit
The week opened and closed with the same weary instruction: count your ships this morning, then count them again. Three patrol boats did not come home in the latest notice, and the quartermaster has filed it under “Again” with the satisfaction of a man proven right by the sea. He would like to issue blue dye for oars, as we did for the bears. I have noted this without comment.
Blank Lines Make a Long Wake
Across the same days, an unknown force continued a wide raid run and remained unwilling to attach a name to it, striking coasts as far-flung as The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, The Cayman Islands, The Azores, Strait of Hormuz, and Sri Lanka, and nearer work such as PowderZinger Haven, BilgeParrot Cove, and MoonShell Cove. The handwriting is consistent, the margins are neat, and the signature remains absent. The quartermaster has asked whether a carefully ruled blank line counts as a banner. It does not.
Black Tide Shores, Cleared Without Ceremony
More than one governor has spent the broader run of days treating Black Tide holdings as something that could be swept clean and put back into circulation. In the most recent chits, Flowkap struck Medium Island and Large Island against the Tide and returned with both listed as freed, which is the kind of clarity the Harbor Board has started to miss. Earlier ledger entries also record other Tide shores freed in the usual plain language, and not every liberator troubled to leave a name. The Black Tide made no statement, and none was required.
Matte1cat, Measured by Force
By the week’s end, the pressure shifted from silent shores to a very loud set of familiar ones. roxx drove repeated heavy attacks from SplashFish Nook into Matte1cat’s holdings, including MoonShell Cove, JollyWhale Roost, SnorkelShrimp Spire, and others, returning with full holds and only a thin margin of casualties for the number of bodies put to sea. Miko Misan joined the arithmetic from several named home islands, striking many of the same targets in smaller, persistent waves. Darren also tried his hand against Miko Misan at SaltedBanana Nook, and the returning count was thin enough to be plain in the figures. The record reflects this.
Scales, Pouches, and Other Failing Measures
Vexed Flamingo arrived at OctoBanana Rock and immediately found diplomacy and commerce in need of firm hands, including a Market Weight Scandal resolved by confiscation and auction, on the theory that the coffers are comforted by a crowd. At RattleHook Port, Miko Misan’s own paperwork suffered when Jenkins handled a diplomatic pouch poorly enough to warrant a formal apology to Stonevale, which is a reminder that even a sealed cord can be a strategic weakness. Jenkins has declined to explain.
Filed from the Harbor Board, Founders World.