Denver to new orleans flights

A westerly wind blankets the lengths of San Juan harbour on the northern side of the Puerto Rican coast. The spray of the waves beats against the branching docks and platforms. Ships list to and fro calmly on the water, peppered with the sounds of sailors and merchants going about their business. By the edge of the perimeter sits a sturdy pavilion, filled sufficiently with crates and barrels by the coming and going workmen of the port. Inside the pavilion stands an equally sturdy man, taking stock of the labours being performed about the coast. In his care is a young boy, fascinated by the vessels sprawling across the horizon. The man is the chief overseer of the movement of cargo to and from the vessels, and lives comfortably for it. His son, however, is compelled to greater ambitions.
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The boy grows with a window to the life of the sailors that roam the harbour, observing their trades and practices. After a while, the boy becomes a young man, tasked with aiding his father’s business on the shore. He deals with the seamen that come to offload their goods and learns more about the sea with each passing patron of his father’s storehouse. In his leisure, he records what he has learned about the way of the mariner. Every so often he’ll catch a story from a ship’s mate, detailing the highlights of their voyage. The young man’s favourite tales he’d catch, though, were those of adventure. Adventurers and pioneers roamed the Caribbean in pursuit of discovery, fame, and fortune. To the young man who’d grown up seeing them walk the streets and hearing of their exploits across the waves, this experience was everything. He longed to cross the threshold to the sea and wander as they did, to finally taste the fruits of the thriving world. One name stood out from these voyagers, though. Every so often whispers of a man by the name of Arthur Pendragon would reach San Juan, from the trade routes and channels of the Atlantic, and these tellings seemed to captivate the young man most of all. Mysterious and noble, Pendragon’s endeavours were equally elusive and engaging to the young man on the dock, filling with every piece of information he was given. As the young man continued to grow, so did his curiosity.
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The years would tarry on as the lad watched the horizon longingly, dreaming of exploration. Eventually, the day would come that fewer and fewer ships would return from their travels, lost to time and to the lands from which they had hailed. The young man had begun to stand in for his father, the man’s father having grown weary from his duties. The fellow, keen in his youth and trade, was very much aware that the books were simply running thin and with no explanation as to why. How was it that ships would disappear from their journeys, and that merchants would never return to earn their profit? The young man sat and stared at the sparse docks, until something on the waves caught his eye. Against the setting sun, sails stretched into the sky and scraped the heavens as they carried the hulking barge beneath them. Slowly, her features drifted into the young man’s view, grand and immaculate in design. This vessel was a Spanish ship of line, a kind not regularly known to grace the goings on of the port.
The young fellow’s mind began to wander, reaching for a reason as to why this vessel crept towards this particular place. San Juan was a Spanish domain to be sure, but this port specifically was a trade hub for the common worker, not to be any kind of naval yard or locker. Soon enough, the vessel listed in the harbour, the name “El Coqui” etched onto her broadsides. Night had fallen, cloaking the ship in shadow as she tossed just out of reach of the shallows. It was clear, whatever the craft had come here for would not be certain until the sun rose hours from now. It was late, with few stragglers still awake and present on the coast to see the sight of the warship, although those who did see were perhaps just as perplexed. Regardless, answers were yet to come.
The young fellow slept restlessly, plagued by the worries of his father’s business, his thoughts of the sea, and the man o’ war that waited off shore for some unknown intention. When he awoke, a gilded sun cast a truer sight over the port and showed the best features of the scenery in full. The vessel born of the Spanish armada sat off the coast still now, but notably lacking her launches that had rested upon her deck. The wind quelled the heat of the Caribbean sun, laden with droplets of water carried from the foam of the tides. In the distance, the man could hear a commanding voice, proclaiming to a crowd on a platform to the west of the harbour.
The youthful man turned to look at the display, scanning for the speaker. In the middle of the crowd was an officer of the Spanish fleet, framed by a handful of others like sailors and soldiers, fresh off the longboats docked at the end of the nearby jetty. The man wandered from his father’s establishment towards the gathering, listening as he went. “His grace, the king of Spain, has seen the failure of trade in this port” the officer announced. “Be assured; this is no specific occasion. Across the lands of the Spanish empire in the new world, ships found trading in the Caribbean have gone missing, found wrecked, or entirely unreported. It is his majesty’s greater sense that these events may be traced back to one channel, that being the space just south of Anegada.” The naval mate spoke succinctly, with clear definition and determination. It was clear the officer had been well educated, surely of some wealthy background.
The speaker continued, “By royal mandate, El Coqui and her crew have been tasked with investigation of the area. As such, the fleet has commanded that volunteers familiar with the area are to be brought aboard in the interest of reviving the trade route from whatever force has claimed it.” The young man who’d seen the ship first arrive reached the collection of onlookers just as the speaker finished his statement. As the people began to chatter anxiously, the man recounted the details of what he’d just heard, hope growing in him as he considered the situation. In a matter of minutes, the young fellow knew what he had to do.
The lad’s father had grown farther from the business of the port, but despite this was well enough aware of the situation at hand. The young man made his case thoroughly, leaving his father with no excuse nor energy to deny the opportunity. With any luck, the man who had so long pursued the sea was finally given the chance to live his fantasies whilst aiding his home at the call of the Spanish armada. The man wasted no time in collecting his belongings and saying his goodbyes before heading toward the boats waiting on shore. His heart beat with excitement as the soldiers rowed the recruits steadily back to their ship. The waves beat against the walls of the boat rhythmically, almost seeming to cheer for the young man as he finally greeted the voyage he had been waiting for. The man boarded the warship as he gazed back at his home, staring back at the sturdy pavilion from which he’d watched the world go by.
Despite all his ambitions, though, fate had other plans. The young fellow on that warship, known later only by the initials “G.B.” would never return to San Juan harbour. Had he been granted the truth of his destination, he would have known that El Coqui was bound for the pirate enclave known colloquially as the Sea of Thieves. In crossing into what appeared to be a fog bank, the ship was soon engulfed in the Shroud before being torn to pieces by its power. Carried ashore on nothing but his sack of belongings, G.B. awoke in an unfamiliar land that had claimed so many others that had wandered astray in a similar fashion. After discovering a weathered longboat, he managed to reach civilization. There he learned about the world he’d become a part of and the nature of its inhabitants. On this, a somewhat ramshackle outpost, he discovered that few knew how to enter the Shroud safely. Many inhabitants of this realm were simply lost wanderers, taking to their new lives and uncharted opportunities. G.B. knew that to find the way back home, he’d need to first find someone who had thread the needle getting in, in order to plot the course back out.
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Fortunately, he’d already familiarised himself with one of the most notorious of these wayfinders, this being the infamous Sir Arthur Pendragon. Surely if G.B. had managed to survive, so could one of the best explorers that had ever navigated the Caribbean. To uncover Pendragon’s fate, though, he’d need resources. With no real ship, G.B. would need to sign on to a crew. Luckily enough, that day he stumbled upon the United States Navy of the Sea of Thieves. From this moment forward, G.B. devoted himself to bringing aid to the travellers that washed through the Shroud while seeking out his own mission, the true fate of Arthur Pendragon and the way through the Devil’s Shroud.
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