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# Waverider Expedition - Estoria

The Waverider leaving port for the first time

Harun stepped onto the docks of Estorio Ventura and stopped to stare. The air was thick with tar, sweat, and the sharp tang of salt. Crates clattered, gulls screamed, merchants shouted over one another. He had heard of this port all his life, the beating heart of the sea, but no tale had prepared him for its noise or its hunger.

And above it all towered the ship.

The Waverider rose from the harbor like a wall of oak and iron, her hull black with pitch, her masts lost in the sky. She had no gold leaf, no carved saints, no painted figurehead. She didn’t need them. She was a ship built to endure, not to please. Her blue sails hung heavy in the still air, stitched with the mark of a single white wave.

He felt a pull deep in his chest, the same pull that draws men to gamble their lives on storms. Around the ship, the crew moved with hard purpose, scarred, sunburned, voices hoarse from years of shouting against the wind. There was no music, no ceremony, yet something about them made him believe this voyage mattered.

Harun imagined the storms ahead, the lands no map had named, the dangers waiting beyond the edge of the known world. Every instinct told him to stay on the dock. Instead, he tightened his grip on his pack and stepped forward.

The ship groaned softly, as if sensing him. Harun smiled.

He knew he was about to join the greatest journey ever.

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