M/SFORTUNE

Written by Earp Feastwood

A ship floats into view, emerging from the early morning fog that coats and blankets Whetstone River. For a moment it looks like shreds of mist are clinging to the sides of the ship, like tendrils of some unknown entity, or like forlorn ghosts are soon evaporated by the rays of pale morning sun. Dew glistens on the ship’s pearly white hull, as if the ship was further decorated by myriad number of actual pearls. The ship comes into full view, powered by a sputtering engine hidden somewhere within – it is a river cruiser, three-storied and with a center cockpit on the very top.
Upon closer inspection the ship isn’t as gloriously white as it appeared just a moment before. The pearl-white paint is chipped and flaky, and many of the windows of the three stories are cracked or entirely smashed to pieces. The interior of the ship and those few deck chairs that remain here and there are hideously red in colour. Gentle breeze of wind that blows in and out the broken windows rustles shredded remains of opaque curtains – pitch-black or garish red. Close to the stern of the cruiser, a name is etched in crooked letters: M/SFORTUNE. Or perhaps it is MISFORTUNE, the letters are too cramped together to tell for sure.
M/SFORTUNE pushes too close to the banks of Whetstone River for a moment. Silence is briefly bothered by a loud grinding sound as the metal of M/SFORTUNE’s hull and the rocky banks Whetstone River is known for collide. Half-naked creatures lope around the deck of the ship and gangrenous figures can be seen loitering on the garishly red deck chairs. Then, the cruiser is steered back out to the river proper, a fresh scar on its hull grinning in a dark and metallic way toward the shoreline.
It is said by those who know and understand this type of things that M/SFORTUNE once belonged to the mighty Hyperborealis Company (the one and same company that also owns the locomotive business Hyperborealis Express) but was stolen and repurposed by one crafty and crooked individual: a man called Farnaka who had been one of the sea captains of the Company he ended up stealing from. It is also said that M/SFORTUNE isn’t the only ship Farnaka has stolen from the Hyperborealis Company, but it is the first one. Now, it is further said, the river cruiser is personally steered by Farnaka whenever he wants to celebrate after a successful and bloody raid into the townships of the more civilized folk. One’s MISFORTUNE is another’s FORTUNE, as Dread Captain Farnaka and his crew of cannibals can attest to.