Part 1: No One Just Loses Jandar
The Welcoming Hand was too quiet for comfort.
Normally, the inn—co-owned, operated, and occasionally repaired by the famed adventurers known as the Hand of the Storm—hummed with life. It was the kind of place where bards begged to play, mercenaries came to lose coin, and legends had their drinks interrupted by newer legends in the making.
But tonight, the air hung still. The fire in the hearth crackled softly, respectful of the tension in the room. Tankards sat half-full. The usual laughter was absent. So was the most impossible man they knew.
Jandar the Adequate was missing.
The pirate-turned-hero—known for his impossible escapes, magnetic charm, and dramatic flair—had been gone three days. Not the drunk-in-a-cell kind of gone, or even the I-just-married-a-demon-princess-on-a-bet kind. No, this was silence. Real silence. No note. No story. No exit line. Just… gone.
And his hat—black-brimmed, feathered, and singed at the edges—still hung on the wall by the bar.
That hat never stayed behind.
Deacon Bruce stared at it from the corner table. A grizzled veteran of a thousand fights, Deacon looked like the kind of man you didn’t want to meet in a dark alley—unless he was walking with you. Heavy coat. Scarred hands. Twin hand crossbows slung low on his belt. He sat like he was trying not to break the chair beneath him.
Across the table, Zook flipped a dagger end over end without looking at it. The red-haired gnome didn’t need to. His reflexes were still sharp, despite a recent attempt at peaceful retirement. A shield leaned against his stool, and he hadn’t even bothered to wipe the mud from his boots. Retirement was canceled.
“We sure he’s not just off charming the wrong noble’s daughter again?” Zook asked.
Deacon didn’t answer. He just kept staring.
“He left the hat,” came a voice from the hearth.
Vegon Shadowseer stood with arms crossed, his tall frame draped in emerald robes that shifted like mist. The elven wizard rarely spoke unless the words meant something. And this time, they did. “That hat stayed on through a hurricane, three duels, and a tumble down the stairs with a banshee. If it’s here, and he’s not…”
“He’s in trouble,” Xil finished, stepping in from the shadows. The drow cleric’s armor whispered faintly as he moved, silver-white hair catching the firelight. He was a quiet presence, but final—like the silence after a bell tolls.
“He said he was going to check out a lead,” Deacon said at last. “Wouldn’t say what. Just muttered something about ‘a ship that shouldn’t exist.’”
Zook’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t think to ask more?”
“I did,” Deacon replied. “He grinned. Said, ‘Better if it’s a surprise.’ Then walked out.”
Vegon stepped closer to the center of the room. “There was a flare in the Weave two nights ago. Faint. Fading. Like a tether snapping. I didn’t follow it… I should have.”
“Then we follow it now,” Deacon said. He stood, pulling both crossbows free with a quiet clack. “We’ve chased dragons, gods, and worse. I’m not letting him vanish without a fight.”
Zook flipped his dagger once more, then caught it and stood. “I swear, if he’s off playing pirate king again…”
Xil reached for his weapon. “He isn’t.”
Deacon nodded. “Then let’s go find him.”
No one looked back at the hat.
They didn’t need to. It would be there when they returned.
It always was.
The Missing Hat Part 2: Into the Sorrowswell
The road to the coast was uneventful.
Which, for the Hand of the Storm, was immediately suspicious.
No screaming wyverns. No cursed farmers begging for help. Not even a single roadside cult. Just misty skies, stiff wind, and the steady clip of hooves as their rented wagon rolled along the cliffs toward the sea.
“Too quiet,” Zook muttered from the driver’s bench. He adjusted the harness on his shield, eyes scanning the road ahead. “Last time we had a peaceful trip like this, we got swallowed by a hill.”
“That hill was possessed,” Deacon said flatly, seated just behind him with his crossbows laid across his knees. “Not the same.”
Vegon stood at the back of the cart, emerald cloak snapping in the wind. He peered toward the ocean, eyes unfocused. “The sailor at the Hand said the name like it burned his tongue. Sorrowswell. Said Jandar bought him three rounds just to hear it. Then disappeared the next day.”
Xil, quiet as ever, nodded. “I confirmed it with the mapkeeper. Jandar marked a slip of paper and left it under the bar. Same harbor. Same handwriting.”
“He knew we’d come,” Deacon said. His jaw tightened. “He just didn’t want us following too fast.”
They arrived at the Sorrowswell by dusk.
Not that the sky noticed. The sun had vanished behind thick gray clouds that didn’t move. Wind came from no direction at all. The harbor itself was a half-forgotten dockyard carved into a cliff, barely clinging to relevance. Half the mooring posts were gone. Barnacle-covered hulls leaned sideways in the water. A lone lighthouse loomed at the edge, its glass long shattered and rebuilt with scavenged crystal.
The name hadn’t been painted anywhere. But everyone knew it.
No charts marked it. No ship had launched from it in decades. Sailors spoke of it only in whispers and curses. And still, they had found it.
The Sorrowswell.
Zook hopped down and squinted toward the water. “I hate it.”
“You haven’t even gotten splashed yet,” Deacon said.
“I still hate it.”
They made their way toward the pier, boots crunching over wet stone. Something about the tide was wrong—it rose and fell in silence, unnaturally even, as if it were breathing in its sleep. No birds. No gulls. Just the sigh of the sea.
A hunched dockworker sat at the end of the pier, carving something into the planks with a rusted nail. He didn’t look up as they approached.
“Evening,” Vegon offered carefully.
The man didn’t respond. He kept scratching symbols into the wood—spirals, curves, and eyes. Lots of eyes.
Deacon stepped forward. “We’re looking for a man. Black coat. Silly cape, Probably charming in the most irritating way possible.”
Still no response.
Zook squinted at the carvings. “He’s writing names.”
Xil stepped beside him. “No… not names. Regrets maybe.”
Suddenly, the dockworker looked up. His eyes were wide. Hollow.
“The Shipwright builds from memory,” he said in a whisper that didn’t belong to his throat. “He sails the tide of sorrow and loss. A hull for every hurt. A sail for every sigh. He’s building another one now…”
Deacon crouched down. “Another what?”
The man smiled.
“A storm.”
Then, with a calmness that turned their stomachs, he pressed the nail to his temple—and carved a spiral.
Deacon moved fast, knocking the man out cold before he could go deeper.
“Who the hell is this Shipwright?” Zook asked, suddenly grim.
“Someone who knows Jandar,” Vegon said. “Or someone who wants to.”
Xil touched two fingers to the wood. Divine light flared, faint and blue.
“He’s out there. Trapped, but alive.”
Deacon stood, crossbows already back in his hands. “Then let’s follow the wake.”
Vegon reached into his cloak and withdrew a prism of warped glass—a salvaged fragment from the lighthouse’s ruined lens.
He held it to the sky. For a moment, the clouds parted, and a shimmer of light broke through. But what it lit was not the sea they saw with their eyes.
In the prism’s reflection: a massive ship, pale and skeletal, sailing across a sea of mist.
Its sails were stitched with shadows.
Its name burned on its side in drifting smoke: GRIEFMADE
Vegon lowered the lens. “We’re going to need a ship.”
Deacon nodded. “And a damn good plan.”
The Missing Hat Part 3: The Ship With No Wake
They didn’t find a ship.
They built one.
Three days later, hidden beneath a weather-blasted sailcloth on the cliffs above Sorrowswell, Deacon crouched over a nearly finished frame. Planks infused with spell-scribed runes. Ribs bent from salvaged hulls Vegon had pulled from memory and tide. A rudder shaped by Zook’s tools, despite his complaints. And sails woven from midnight-blue canvas that didn’t so much catch the wind as listen to it.
“Still feels like cheating,” Zook muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’re making a ship out of whispers, prayers, and garbage.”
Vegon didn’t look up. “That’s how all good ships begin.”
Xil stood at the prow, hands pressed together in prayer—not to a god, but to the sea itself. The light at his fingertips shimmered with divine energy, mending lines and sealing joints not with nails, but grace. “If we’re sailing into a dream,” he said quietly, “we’ll need more than wood to hold us together.”
Deacon strapped the last coil of rope to the side rail and stood. “Then we’re done.”
He looked up at their creation: sleek, lean, dark as dusk. Not large—barely more than a skiff—but shaped like it wanted to cut through nightmares. A half-spirit vessel. One part magic, one part memory, and just enough steel to kill something unkillable.
They christened it Hollow Mercy—after Jandar’s first ship, the one he never talked about.
The Hollow Mercy slipped into the Sorrowswell without a sound.
No splash. No wake. Just a quiet sigh as the tide took her.
They passed into fog so thick it felt solid, like cloth brushing against the skin. The world narrowed to the edge of their deck. No stars above. No sea below. Only the sensation of movement—forward, always forward—into something that wasn’t quite water.
Hours passed. Or maybe none. Time twisted here.
Deacon kept watch from the bow, crossbows loaded, every muscle ready. Xil stood unmoving, eyes closed, lips murmuring warding prayers in a tongue only gods remembered. Zook adjusted the rigging by feel alone, whistling nervously into the gray. Vegon, pale and focused, whispered spell after spell into the hull, reinforcing their tether to the real world.
Then the fog broke.
Ahead, in the distance, something emerged.
Not a ship. Not quite.
It loomed—massive and silent, gliding across the sea as if the water refused to touch it. The hull was bleached bone and blackwood. Its sails hung limp yet billowed with unseen force. Lanterns lined its sides, each holding a flame shaped like a face.
The name across the stern shifted as they read it, letters forming from smoke and memory:
GRIEFMADE
Even Deacon hesitated. “That’s not a ship. That’s a wound.”
“Do you feel that?” Zook asked, eyes narrowing.
They did.
Not fear. Not awe. Something deeper.
Regret.
Personal. Intimate. Like someone had reached inside and scraped loose something you’d buried long ago.
Vegon swallowed. “We’re getting close to the source.”
The Hollow Mercy shuddered.
The water around them rippled—then went still. No wind. No pull.
“It's resisting,” Xil said. “It knows we’re here.”
The Griefmade turned slightly, almost lazily.
Something moved on its deck. Figures—thin, too tall, faceless. Drifting toward the edge with long, swaying steps.
“Company,” Deacon said, raising a crossbow.
One of the figures held something high.
A shape. A familiar silhouette.
A hat.
Black-brimmed. Feathered. Ridiculous.
Then, with slow, deliberate motion…
…it was dropped into the sea.
And the Griefmade began to vanish again into the fog.
Deacon didn’t even think. “After it.”
Zook yanked the sail. Vegon whispered a burst of wind. Xil slammed a palm to the hull and lit it with divine propulsion.
The Hollow Mercy surged forward.
Chasing grief.
Chasing memory.
Chasing Jandar.
The Missing Hat Part 4: The Shipwright of Sorrows
The Griefmade did not flee.
It lured.
Fog swallowed the Hollow Mercy as it closed the gap, the only sound a low hum—like wind howling through a grave that had forgotten its own name. The crew of the Hand stood still as statues, each gripping steel or spell, each feeling a different kind of chill crawl up their spine.
Then, without warning, the fog parted.
And they were alongside her.
The Griefmade drifted motionless, as if the sea itself had stopped to listen. Up close, it looked even less like a ship and more like something pretending to be one. The hull was etched with names—hundreds, thousands—some scratched into bone, others burned into the wood. Faces wept silently from the lanterns that lined the rail. The sails didn’t catch wind—they breathed.
Zook muttered, “This was a terrible idea.”
Deacon scanned the deck above. “No sign of a crew.”
“There is one,” Xil said, eyes narrowed. “We’re being watched.”
A soft thump landed on the deck of the Hollow Mercy.
It was Jandar’s hat.
Perfectly dry. Perfectly clean.
Deacon didn’t move to touch it. “Bait.”
The ship groaned. Not from waves—there were none—but from within. Boards flexed. Chains rattled. A voice rose from the Griefmade’s hull like a whisper through hollow bone.
“You came for the thief. How brave. How foolish. He offered me what you never could. His truth.**”
The voice was wrong. Too soft, too close, like it spoke directly into their thoughts. It shifted—male, female, old, young—never quite choosing.
Vegon stepped forward, voice firm. “Return him. Now.”
“Return?” the Shipwright murmured. “He is mine now. Part of a masterpiece. His regrets sing like polished brass. His lies make for a beautiful keel. His charm... coats the deck like varnish. He asked to be made into something greater. He knew what he was. And what he wasn’t.”
Zook drew his sword. “He’s an idiot. But he’s our idiot.”
Xil’s eyes flashed silver. “Where is he?”
There was a pause. Then…
“Below. Bound to the heart. You may see him. But know this: To touch the hull is to offer a piece of yourself. To walk these planks is to be remembered… …wrong. Come aboard, little heroes. Come see what you left behind.”
A long gangplank extended from the Griefmade with a slow, creaking groan, bridging the two ships. It didn’t land. It reached, gently tapping the deck of the Hollow Mercy like a finger brushing a shoulder.
Deacon looked to the others. “This is a trap.”
“Obviously,” said Vegon.
“We going in?” asked Zook.
Deacon loaded both crossbows. “We always do.”
One by one, the Hand of the Storm crossed the plank onto the Griefmade.
As soon as the last boot touched the deck, the gangplank pulled away and vanished into the fog.
Behind them: silence.
Ahead of them: a door, half-open, leading below decks.
And beside it, nailed into the mast with a single rusted spike… ...a handwritten note.
Scrawled in Jandar’s unmistakable hand:
“I told you not to follow. But I’m glad you did. —J_”
The Missing Hat Part 5: Storming the Griefmade
The door creaked open with a breath of cold air and something older than dust. The wood of the Griefmade didn’t groan—it exhaled, like it had been holding in a sigh for years.
The Hand of the Storm stepped into the belly of the ship, weapons drawn, spells ready.
There was no corridor. Just a vast, circular chamber, dark and echoing, lined with six sealed doors of bone and iron. At the center: a stone pedestal, and atop it, the only light—a single, flickering candle inside a lantern made from driftwood and black glass.
As they approached, the candle flared.
And a voice—his voice—whispered out of the flame.
“If you’re here, I’m probably stuck. I told you not to follow me. …But I knew you would.”
Jandar.
“The Shipwright thinks I’m raw material. Says I’m made of ‘false joy.’ That I laugh too much. He’s building something, and he thinks I’m the nail. …I think he’s afraid of what happens if I make it out.”
“If you want me back… you’ll have to go through the ones who nearly kept me. Good luck. I barely survived ’em the first time.”
The candle died.
The first door opened.
Room One: The Pale Howl
The jungle was hot, humid, and wrong. Trees leaned like they were afraid. The temple stones wept sap. And the moment they stepped forward—
The six-armed, white-haired ape demon exploded from the canopy with a scream that shook the world.
“Here we go,” Deacon muttered, crossbows up.
They spread out, fighting in formation—but something about the way it moved, the angle it took toward them, was off.
“Why is it charging me?” Zook shouted, dodging a blade.
“Not just you,” Vegon grunted. “It’s swinging at all of us—in a pattern.”
Xil blocked a strike, then froze.
“This thing’s reenacting… the way it fought Jandar.”
The realization hit hard. The demon wasn’t mindless. It was tracking their positions—and moving to intercept exactly as Jandar once did, interposing itself again and again.
“Damn fool stood in front of all of us,” Deacon growled. “He was the least suited for it.”
And still, he did it.
They changed tactics—not protecting each other, but rushing forward, filling the gaps Jandar had once held alone. That opened the monster’s guard—and let them bring it down.
Deacon looked at the cracked stone.
“He didn’t do it because he could win. He did it because we could.”
Room Two: The Pit of the Lost Roar
The T-Rex was already charging when the door opened.
Its massive head broke through bone and stone like paper, jaws wide, roar so loud it broke the air itself.
Zook dove for cover. Vegon vanished behind a wall of arcane force. Xil took a step forward—
And got flattened.
Crack. Thud. Silence.
Zook blinked. “Is he—?”
“He’s fine,” Deacon said without checking. “Jandar handled this one.”
The memory played out like legend.
Because it was legend.
A smaller form darted in the shadows—Jandar—grabbing a spear, leaping onto the beast's back, yelling insults the whole time, and jamming it into the eye.
“You absolute overconfident maniac,” Vegon whispered, half laughing.
The party couldn’t top it. So they didn’t try.
Instead, they helped finish what Jandar had started. Precision magic, flanking strikes, focused fire. Teamwork—his style.
The beast collapsed.
And behind them, Xil stirred from the dust.
“…Did I win?”
Room Three: The Throne of Ash
The throne was twisted metal. The figure atop it: Orozon—taller, colder than memory.
He said nothing.
Instead, the walls shimmered—and the Hand was shown four moments. Four battles. Four times Jandar stepped in front of them, without plan or power, just instinct.
And in every one, he got wrecked.
Not killed. But close. Bruised. Broken. Burned.
He smiled through it all.
“This wasn’t about bravery,” Xil murmured.
“No,” Deacon agreed. “It was instinct. Stupid. Loyal. Insufferably him.”
Orozon rose. Not to argue. But to test.
He summoned constructs shaped from those old fights—and this time, they stood in front.
Each blow they took echoed with meaning. Each strike felt like it finished a chapter Jandar had started with his body.
They won—not through strength.
Through witness.
Room Four: The Chain Path
No roar. No scenery.
Just darkness.
Then the Udaak, titanic and crawling, dragging its own storm behind it.
The Hand moved as one. But the Udaak didn’t strike first—it laid its eyes on Deacon. On Xil. On Zook. On Vegon.
Each one of them heard the same words:
“You weren’t supposed to see him fall.”
This was the thing Jandar couldn’t outrun. Couldn’t beat. But he’d still stood between it and them.
Here and now, they couldn’t overpower it.
So they outmaneuvered it.
They moved as a unit. Built barriers of magic and grit. Lured it. Confused it. Tangled it in the chains it once dragged behind.
Vegon lit the final chain with radiant fire, and Xil sealed the snare.
The Udaak fell. Slowly. And when it did, the air lightened—for just a moment.
Final Room: The Frozen Heart
There was no sound.
No movement.
Just Jandar, hanging in a frozen arc of ice, breath halted.
And beneath him: the Ancient White Dragon.
It turned its head slowly. Blinked once.
And breathed.
Everything went white.
Deacon fired through the storm, but the bolts bounced off. Xil tried to move—his legs froze. Zook shouted, but it was a whisper in the wind.
They couldn’t win this head-on.
So they focused on Jandar.
Not to wake him—but to honor him.
They stepped forward, each one placing something on the ground: a bolt, a coin, a cup, a folded note.
Moments. Memories.
And as the final item hit the floor, Jandar’s hand twitched.
He opened his eyes.
Smiled.
The ice cracked.
The dragon turned to see Deacon standing, point-blank, with both crossbows drawn.
“This one’s for everything after.”
The bolts struck true.
And the dragon fell.
Jandar collapsed into Zook and coughed.
“Did I die again?”
“Just a little,” Xil said.
“Tell me someone saved the hat.”
“You owe me a drink,” Deacon said. “And probably a new lung.”
The deck beneath them groaned.
They weren’t safe yet.
Not until they faced the thing that wanted Jandar’s joy ground into hull and sail.
The Missing Hat Part 6: The Laugh That Wouldn’t Sink
The Griefmade groaned beneath them, no longer a whispering relic but a living thing—angry, awakened, and afraid.
Jandar stood at the edge of the shattered ice, barefoot, pale, and leaning heavily on Deacon’s shoulder. The color hadn’t quite returned to his face, but the grin was already there.
“So,” he rasped, “did you bring my hat?”
“No,” Zook said. “We brought hell.”
The final door opened.
It didn’t creak or grind—it peeled, like paper from flesh.
Inside was nothing.
Then something.
A ship’s hold impossibly wide. Starless. Floor made of sorrow-colored water. Lanterns bobbing in the dark like fish made of flame. And at the far end, rising from the water like the figurehead of some divine ark, stood the Shipwright of Sorrows.
He wasn’t monstrous.
That would’ve been easier.
He was tall. Thin. Robes stitched from sails. Face shrouded in parchment skin and ink. His fingers were long, carved like tools, and his eyes… his eyes were missing, replaced by portholes filled with weeping tides.
And when he spoke, it came from inside the bones of the ship.
“You broke the cycle. You retrieved the lost. But you cannot unmake what was born in pain.”
“He was perfect. A creature of reckless mirth. A flawed gem polished by near-death. He could have been my masterpiece.”
Jandar coughed. “Sorry. I’m already someone else’s problem.”
“Then let us make a trade.”
He raised his hand—and the Griefmade responded.
The walls melted, reforming into rising tides, taking on familiar shapes:
A woman made of stormclouds: Aria, the one Jandar left behind.
A sea captain burning with betrayal.
The Dream Stealer, Jandar’s old ship, reborn in twisted wood and black flame.
“You may leave… if you give me your joy. Your fire. Your story.”
“You may all walk away. Just forget what he meant to you.”
Silence.
Then Deacon stepped forward. “No.”
Zook twirled his dagger. “We like his story.”
Xil’s hand pulsed with silver flame. “And I will write its end myself.”
Vegon raised his staff, and lightning arced into his eyes. “Joy has teeth.”
The Shipwright screamed.
The Final Battle Begins
The chamber shattered into fragments of sea and sky, dream and memory.
The Griefmade rose around them like a god trying to remember how to drown.
The Shipwright moved like tide and rope and regret. Every blow he struck twisted reality—trying to rewrite the Hand’s bonds. Trying to unthread their loyalty.
He targeted their laughter. Their shared memories. Every time they acted with joy, he grew weaker.
When Zook sang an off-key sea shanty while stabbing a phantom oarsman—he flinched.
When Vegon recited Jandar’s worst flirtation lines mid-spell—he staggered.
When Xil healed Deacon and whispered, “We’ll keep him,” the Shipwright screamed.
Deacon tackled him through a rising wave of grief and roared, “You don’t get to decide what survives!”
And through it all, Jandar fought beside them.
Not to lead. Not to finish it.
But just enough to show he’d never stop standing between his friends and harm.
The Heart of the Ship
At last, they reached it—the heart of the Griefmade.
It wasn’t an engine.
It was a book.
Open. Incomplete. Thousands of Names, the last being: Jandar.
He reached for it.
The Shipwright surged.
But Jandar just chuckled.
“Sorry. Story’s still being written.”
He closed the book.
And it burned.
The End of the Griefmade
The ship cracked.
The tide rolled back.
The Griefmade sank into its own sorrow, folding in on itself like a broken verse.
The Hand of the Storm stood in the wreckage, chest-deep in ghost-tide.
Jandar coughed. “So… are we done?”
“Mostly,” Deacon said.
Vegon lifted a finger. “Still need a drink.”
Zook pointed to the flaming ruin behind them. “You owe me three dinners and a new pair of boots.”
Xil simply raised a brow. “I told you not to go alone.”
Jandar smiled. “You’re all terrible at goodbyes.”
Epilogue: The Welcoming Hand
The fire roared.
The mugs were full.
And the laughter—gods, the laughter—bounced off the walls like it never left.
Jandar leaned back in his chair, bandages freshly wrapped, a drink in one hand and his hat—somehow red-feathered again—back on his head.
“You know,” he said casually, “I was thinking of joining a monastery.”
“Shut up,” Deacon said, not looking up from his mug.
Vegon rolled his eyes. Zook nearly choked on his drink. Xil raised one slow brow.
Then Vegon paused.
“…Wait,” he said. “Jandar… where did you get that?”
Jandar grinned.
On the wall behind him, nailed above the hearth, was the Griefmade’s final lantern. Glass black as ink. The flame inside flickering with silent laughter.
“You stole from the Shipwright,” Xil said flatly.
“I borrowed,” Jandar corrected. “To remember him by.”
“It’s still glowing,” Zook pointed out. “That thing’s definitely cursed.”
“Then it’ll feel right at home here.”
No one argued.
Everyone raised a glass.
And outside, in the night wind curling around the door of the Welcoming Hand, the lantern flickered once—then settled into a steady, content glow.
The laugh that wouldn’t sink.
