It's a somber atmosphere that settles over Omrazir on the day after the Windskipper was due to come in from the Sala'ah -- and instead was smashed into a thousand pieces by the sea serpents in their terrible violence and fury. Once again, within very sight of the shore, a vessel is brutally sent to the bottom of the bay, cargo and crew drowned and scattered. After several months without such a serious incident there had been hopes that ship traffic to and from the city might eventually return to something like normal, but those hopes are now as shattered as the Windskipper itself.
Beyond the loss of the ship, there is of course the loss of the cargo, which is already said to have sent the Sayyida al-Murayd, de facto if not official head of the family, into a vicious rage. The al-Murayds are, of course, one of the few mercantile clans of the city that could weather such a disaster without being shaken down to their foundations, but it must still be a blow. There is some gossip, perhaps put about by one of the family slaves, of the sayyida swearing that if the captain managed somehow not to go down with her ship, she'll soon be made to wish she had. This threat is said to extend to the family's mercantile factor as well -- though what exactly that poor man could have done to prevent this catastrophe is anyone's guess.
The reports of survivors are not in truth cheerful, though possibly not as bleak as they could have been. No one seems to be vouching for the whereabouts of either captain or factor, but a half dozen sailors and a pair of passengers were saved in a brave rescue attempt by the city's fisherfolk, assisted in their efforts by word passed along by some people who had been watching the ship come in from atop the Maysa Gate. A few others from the wreck made it to the beach below the al-Sakhna Road, at least one helped to shore by compassionate onlookers, and the last one discovered in the dim hour of dawn. But of the thirty-odd people who crewed and sailed aboard the ship, nearly two-thirds remain missing... and reluctantly assumed dead, though the search for survivors continues.
And then, on top of all this, there is... the oddity. No one really knows what to call it, so the oddity it is for now. At some point in all this mess and disaster, a number of people across the city inexplicably came down with resounding headaches, seemingly out of the blue. The Poets' Guild seems to have been particularly afflicted, to the point where the guild hall stands virtually abandoned today, or at the very least near silent -- not a usual state of affairs for it by any means.
All in all, it is a subdued and sorrowful day for Omrazir, following one of such bright and buoyant hopes.