It was my first time on a long merchant run, the kind that makes you miss home before they are ever even halfway done. I was finally allowed to be a crewman on one of my uncle's ships. The captain of the ship was a large man named Ungral. He always wore a large hammer on his back and had enough scars for three men, the kind of person to be afraid of if you didn't know what he was going to do. This particular trip, we were to deliver our cargo of foodstuffs to the docks of Riverhaven. It was to be a wondrous voyage, and I got to see many new things along the way, including some dolphins leaping alongside the prow of the ship as we tossed nets off the deck to catch schools of fish for our meals.

Partway through the voyage, the crew spied an island on the horizon. Our course took us close enough to make out the shore of the island. Through a looking glass I saw unfamiliar animals and trees, both lovely and malicious in appearance. As we sailed away from the island there was a ship coming around the other side and the cry of "Pirates!" was raised by the lookout in the crow's nest. Now Captain Ungral was a big man, almost as big as a Kaldar, and he never ran away from a fight. He turned the ship about and ordered the oars out, heading directly toward the attacking ship with the greatest speed we could muster. We so quickly closed the gap between our ship and theirs with no sign of altering course that I feared the captain's strategy was ramming into the ship straight on. Just then he yelled for the oars to be pulled back in and barked at the crew to brace themselves. He turned the helm sharply and the prow of our ship bounced off the prow of theirs with only a small amount of wood cracking and splintering.

Before I could even think of recovering, both ships threw boarding ropes, and chaos erupted. The only weapon I found fast enough to be useful was a small spear meant for fishing, so I grabbed it and followed another crewman into the fray. We'd caught the pirates by surprise and things started off in our favor. In the distance I could see Captain Ungral swinging his hammer, his opponents strewn around him in a cluster of broken bodies.

Things were going well for me in this whole ordeal until the man I had followed fell to a sword through his lung. I managed to slide my spear in between a couple of the killer's ribs, but the barbs caught fast in him and I stumbled as he fell with my spear. Some other pirates saw this and decided I was easy prey, so I quickly abandoned my spear and snatched up the dagasse the crewman had been carrying. As I brought the weapon to bear, almost not fast enough to block the first slice from a pirate, the second pirate reached us and it was all I could do to stay alive. Reaching back to my training, I managed to defend myself against the flurry of attacks pressed upon me by the two pirates. I never felt pain from the first blow that struck me, only saw my arm jerk from the impact and saw the spray of blood that came from my left forearm. After that everything was red and the pirates loomed ominously in my vision. I became invincible; nothing could touch me as I attacked the pirates, taking down the first with a chop that bit down into his neck. The other pirate took a slice to the leg to bring him down; he blocked the killing blow to the chest, though it did him little good as the momentum of my dagasse carried it into his flesh despite of his effort. After that I collapsed.