Fishing happens on expeditions. A ship leaves Thais harbour twice a night for a private island of fishing ponds, you work the ponds until it sails home, and what you pull out are pearls. It is the one profession that takes you somewhere: there is nothing to fish for on the mainland.

Every cast trains your Fishing skill, and Fishing is what opens the deeper ponds. The shallow ones ask nothing of you, so you can start the moment you can afford a rod.

Getting on the boat

• Buy a fishing rod and keep it in your bag. Most general-goods shops stock one — Gorn in Thais does, and Lee'Delle on Rookgaard. You will not be let aboard without a rod, staff included.
• Premium is required to board. It is checked only as you step on — if your premium runs out while you are at sea or on the island, nothing is taken away from you.
• Talk to Salty Bertram on the Thais jetty: hi → sail → yes, and he sets you down on the deck.
• The ship leaves at 18:00 and 21:00, Polish time, every day. The whole trip lasts 45 minutes, and you are warned as the end approaches.
• Five sails a week, and the count is shared by your whole account — not per character. It resets on Friday at 03:00.
• Type !fishing any time. Ashore it tells you when the next ship leaves and how many sails your account has left this week; at sea it adds how long is left, whether your line is ready, and what you have taken so far.

Getting home again: find Ferryman Coll on the island and ask him for passage. He is the only way back. (!leaveship is not it — that command only steps you off the town ship while it is tied up in Thais harbour, and does nothing at sea.)

Working the ponds

• Use your rod on a pond. Look at a pond first and it tells you which tier it is, and what Fishing it wants.
• You must wait between casts — somewhere around 30 to 45 seconds, and it varies. Casting early costs you nothing; you are simply told to wait.
• Each pond gives up one catch per trip. Fish it once and it is spent until your next expedition, so an island is walked, not camped. A cast at a spent pond is free — you lose no time for trying.
• A cast can wake whatever lives in that pond, and the deep water holds things that will kill you. Know what is down there before you cast (see the table).
• A better rod pays better, and each one asks for more Fishing before you can fish with it at all.

The five depths

Every island lays out the same five tiers. The Fishing column is the skill the pond asks for; a pond pays according to your own skill, but a shallow pond can only reward you so far — to be paid like a master you have to fish where masters fish.

Creatures listed are those of the Fisher's Rest, the island the ship sails to today. A tier's depth and its pearls are the same wherever you fish; what lives in the water belongs to the island.

The rods

If you die out there

Dying on an expedition is gentler than dying anywhere else: you keep everything you are carrying, and neither your amulet of loss nor your blessing is spent. You still lose experience and skill as you normally would, and the sail is still counted against your five — so drowning yourself is not a way to start over.

Pearls are worth carrying home and selling — see Items for what each one is worth, or list them yourself on the Market.