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The network of narrow tunnels that constricts around the engine room welcomes you back – small chambers, used for storage, and designed following the mad plans of Barenhaven’s finest shipwright. You walk from room to room, head lowered and **** from time to time to squeeze through the tightest passages.

There is an open barrel close to the cold engine. Fragmented gristle floats on the surface of the fetid tar, the bone fragments pale and bright in the light of your lantern. {if Crew = 4} You put on gloves and move the nozzle. The turning of the crank floods the disperser and secondary tank. You pull the levers and press the primer. The core of the engine roars alive, and come morning the heat will have awakened the cold boiler. You make sure that the pistons are set to idle and leave the engine room. {endif}

The victuals are kept most everywhere else. Smoked hams and Leviathan jerky hang from the rafters, garlic too. You check the casks filled with hard tack, salted fish and pickled Pagan Berries for vermin. They are unspoilt, but a few grubbers already wriggle in the traps. You stomp them to **** and reset the latches. The freshwater reserves are undisturbed, and the test cup still tastes crisp and clean. You inspect the **** stockpile on the way out. It is locked up tight, and you make sure that no one has tempered with the mechanism. The gear chests remain arrayed along the bulkhead – ropes and lanterns, small arms and tools. You are satisfied after a spot check.

{if Crew < 4} It is a shame that there is no one to crew her. Whoever will succeed you will not have to work hard, for you have played your part well. Just not well enough. {else} The ship is quiet, safe for the wooden stairs creaking underfoot, but all around you the City is waking from its fitful slumber. Bakery smells mix with salty tang and the returning fishers loudly offer their catch to innkeepers and household servants. A few drunks walk past, ruddy and pale from another ill-spent night, and their lewd songs remind you of the rabble that now forms your Crew. {endif}