Roulette “Ace” Diaz’s relationship with the cops is a little complicated. She’s arrested frequently enough that she is known to many of the officers of the peace in the port town of Titan’s Gate which she calls home. Because of the familiarity, however, she’s sometimes asked for information about local happenings, and has earned the trust of many of the guard.
Most recently—about a month ago—the authorities asked the young Ace to investigate the disappearance of the Koikonnen Diamond, a well-known pale blue diamond most recently in the posession of the Baron Drake Jacobs’ family. It was reported stolen from the home by Baron Jacobs’ wife, the Baroness Chimène (shi-MEN) Jacobs. But little news has turned up on the streets of the town, and the guard are losing hope in light of the high turnaround of seedy sailors that come in on the busy dock day and night.
However, Ace recently overheard a discussion among some of those same seedy sailors in the tavern at the docks, The Nag’s Head. The conversation revolved mostly around a recent windfall for some new pirates in the area, sailing under the flag and name of one Captain Needleteeth. Our young heroin set off right away for the nearby guardhouse to report the information. Unfortunately, though she is confident the lead is a good one, the guards she spoke with were less confident. She was told that the vague notion of “a windfall” for some rumored new band of pirates overheard by a 12-year-old in a shady tavern from a passing conversation among a couple shady sailors was not enough evidence to launch a seafaring investigation.
Unimpressed with this dismissal, and unwavering in her confidence in the intelligence she’d collected, Ace resolved to follow the lead on her own. Well, not entirely on her own; she’s enlisted the help of her great new friend, the half-orc Mason “Mayo” Hashbrowns. Together they now begin their quest to track down this Captain Needleteeth’s treasure and recover the Koikonnen Diamond.
We join this unlikely duo now as they take a moment to assess what they know and what they don’t know. Deciding that they need to discover more about this “Captain Needleteeth”, they return to The Nag’s Head. After Mayo provides a bit of coin to grease the gears of the barkeep’s memory, the pair are told that the pirate they seek is new to these waters, and that he’s likely to have set up shop on Dangler’s Isle, an island surrounded by jagged reefs that lies just beyond the bay’s mouth—the Titan’s Gate itself.
Ducking out of the bar just as a brawl breaks out inside, the duo head to the docks, hoping to find some passage to this “Dangler’s Isle”, or some other means of tracking down the seafaring bandits. Mayo, having been a sailor in the past, talks shop with the dock master and inquires about any ships that may be available for a journey (exercising discretion about the details, of course) and is directed to a small ship called The Mirador that’s currently waiting between contracts.
Mayo leads the way to the ship and the pair walk aboard and find the captain. Providence is smiling, it seems, for The Mirador‘s captain is a man named Pete Geivoda (guy-VOH-dah), who happens to be an old shipmate and friend of Mayo’s. A kind and unassuming man, Captain Pete seems simply to enjoy sailing, and his crew, for their part, seem to have the skill required to keep the ship profitable. Our intrepid investigators explain their purpose, and the friendly captain—apparently anxious to be back on the water—agrees to take the pair the short trip to Dangler’s Isle.
His cat Whiskers on his shoulder, the captain calls to his first mate, a 7-foot tall black-and-bronze-scaled dragonborn named Cécile Épée, to ready the crew and ship for an adventurous journey, and the ship seems to spring to life in preparation for setting off in a few hours.
Will luck hold out for our fresh-faced friends? Or will the stolen Koikonnen diamond evade their grasp? And will this mysterious Captain Needleteeth prove as fearsome as the rumors suggest?