It was midnight, July 1789, aboard the pirate ship The Insight. A warm Caribbean breeze swept across the quarterdeck, carrying whispers of salt and secrets.

Captain Taine - pirate, natural philosopher, and chronic tinkerer - stood hunched over an unusual contraption fashioned from brass rods, copper coils, and mysterious fragments of obsidian. He had discovered a strange notebook months earlier in a dusty, forgotten shop in Port Royal, filled with cryptic diagrams, foreign symbols, and tantalizing hints of manipulating forces unseen.

Earlier that evening, the crew had set sail from Port Royal under serene skies and calm seas, their journey beginning as uneventfully as a leisurely evening stroll. Captain Taine had watched the town’s flickering lanterns fade slowly into the distance, his mind consumed by the night's planned experiment. The mood aboard was jovial, filled with hearty laughter and confident chatter, unaware of the impending change ahead.

But tonight, curiosity had finally bested caution.

Now, far from the safe harbor, the skies above had grown deceptively calm, stars brilliant against the velvet darkness. Taine adjusted a coil with careful precision, his calloused fingers steady despite the building anticipation in his chest. Beside him, his parrot cocked its head skeptically, feathers ruffled.

“Careful now, Cap’n,” the first mate called warily from behind. “These seas whisper ill omens tonight.”

Taine glanced upward. “Nonsense,” he replied, forcing confidence into his voice. “’Tis merely an experiment.”

Yet even as the words left his lips, clouds gathered with unnatural speed, blotting out the starlight. Thunder growled in the distance. The crew murmured uneasily, exchanging worried glances. Taine hesitated only a moment, drawn irresistibly forward by the riddle before him. One final adjustment...

Suddenly, a brilliant flash lit the deck, illuminating startled faces as lightning arced from sky to contraption. Energy surged, wild and unchecked. Time slowed. The air thickened, crackling with power. The ship groaned as if caught in the grasp of some unseen leviathan.

“Taine!” shouted the first mate, voice lost in the growing roar. “Step away!”

But Captain Taine could not move. Could not breathe. The device pulsed violently, resonating in his very bones. A surge of blue-white brilliance enveloped him, obliterating everything but the overwhelming certainty that he'd made a grave miscalculation.

Then darkness.

When the glare finally faded, the storm vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind calm seas and a stunned, frightened crew staring at an empty space where their captain had stood mere seconds ago.

Somewhere, far away, Captain Taine opened his eyes to a world unrecognizable - where lightning danced behind glass, voices emerged from invisible mouths, and oceans of information flowed at the speed of thought.

To be continued in Episode 2: The Landing