The Wayfarer and the Sewn Roads

The WayfarerCopy Anchor Link

The Ringwrights’ own ship and the largest ship of the mod: an ivory spindle threaded through three rings — a gate of starlight at the bow, a gate of forge heat at the stern and a great dark ring that turns around the core. The great ring is wider than the ship itself — about 8 blocks across with its rays — and inside it a tilted gimbal hoop turns the other way. The ship glows from within: at night and in space it is seen from afar, like a lantern. Its drawing is in the last tablet: once you have read it, a shipyard shows a new list, “Ship of the Ringwrights”.

What it is built from. The nodes of an exotic ship: 3 × Hull Section, 2 × Main Drive, a Ship Cockpit and a Ship Core. And the hearts of the masters of the four ends, one each:

• Threshold Key — the Gatekeeper, the Ring at the Edge;
• The Spindle — the Spinner, the Loom;
• Last Ember — the Last Giant, the Crucible;
• Swallowed Star — the Starless, the Heart of the Focus.

Hearts already spent on the drive, the keel and the jacket have to be won again: the masters can be called back.

What it can do.

• All three roads. From the sky of a world it leaves for the Solar System, from the sky of the End — for the Interrift, and by diving into the lava of the Nether — for the Depths; it lands on the worlds of all three roads (where you have already been).
• The drive, the keel and the jacket are built in — at tier III and without taking slots: the interstellar places, the Underweave and the Underdeep are open to it with no modules and straight from the shipyard — it does not need the class A that the far roads ask of other ships. Records, the charge and the price of a jump are as usual.
• It burns light. One tank, and it takes a bucket or a canister of the fuel of any road: helium-3, liquid pearl, coolant. But the lenses lose a third: a bucket gives two thirds of a bucket of light. That is the price of a ship for every road.
• Its class is raised like a starship’s (stardust), and its hull is mended with the metal of any road. The processor also takes the raw stuff of any road — and, as with fuel, two thirds reach the tank.

In the cockpit three small lenses hang on threads (one for each road), and the bow gate stands ahead of the canopy: you look at the world through a ring. It leaves rings of light astern and a triple spiral of threads — one for each road — and in a jump it flies down a corridor of gates toward the light at its end.

The sewn roadsCopy Anchor Link

With the Starless fallen the roads are sewn: from the Focus a ship of any road reaches any of the three spaces.

1. Walk to the console of a berth whose gates are open and press it: the “Sewn Roads” window opens with the three cosmoses — the Solar System, the Interrift, the Depths. Each card says where the ship comes out, how to get back and what the seam costs for your ship at the berths; whatever is lacking is shown in red. Press a card to lay the course; “Clear the course” clears it. You can lay a course before you can pay: the seam will wait. The course is remembered: leave the game and come back — it stays laid until you take the seam or clear it at the console.

2. Board your ship, lift off and leave the berths. The seam opens by itself: the price is taken, then comes the crossing and the exit in the chosen cosmos (near Earth, before the fold of the Loom or above the well of the Crucible).

Who flies	Price of the seam
a ship to the cosmos of its own road	free — this is its usual way home
a ship to a foreign cosmos	2 buckets of its own fuel and 16 of the supply of the road the seam leads to: Stardust, Void Shard or Deep Ember
the Wayfarer	2 buckets of light only

What a foreign ship can do in a foreign cosmos. Fly, scan, mine with the beam, dock at stations, fight. But it cannot enter the worlds of that road: rifts and vents still let through only a ship of their own road — and the Wayfarer.

Back — as usual.

• From the Interrift and the Depths — through the fold of the Loom and the well of the Crucible: they now let any ship pass, with no keel or jacket needed.
• From the Solar System — by a jump to Sagittarius A* from the Interstellar map. A void ship or a depth ship needs no drive for it: the seam itself carries it, and the course back is laid as soon as the ship comes out — the mark of Sagittarius A* is already in the sky: turn the nose to it and hold the jump key. But only to the Focus — the other places stay with a starship’s drive. The price is that of a jump with Drive III.