Everhaze by J Scherrer, Connor Zielinski, Darcy Hayes, Christen Niedzielski, Tommy Bozzelli
Logline: Cass lives a simple life in the city of Casterial, working at his adoptive father’s shipyard to construct aircrafts. Most people in Casterial will never journey beyond the city, into the dense, dangerous Everhaze which covers most of the rest of the world, but Cass longs to venture into that majestic unknown. When an opportunity to see that world falls into his lap, Cass sets forth to discover why the Everhaze is so feared and the beauty of the world beyond the home he’s known all his life – a choice that brings him face to face with the dread pirates and other entities hidden in the Everhaze.
Tagline: “In the Haze they rise.”
Genre: Pirate and Steampunk
Synopsis: Cass Morgan lives a busy but ultimately boring and unfulfilling life in Casterial, working in his adoptive father’s shipyard. That is, until one day, an important merchant comes to the yard to buy a ship, as they are organizing an Everhaze expedition. The merchant expresses an interest in Cass’s technical abilities, and offers him a place on the crew, but his father Finnigan Morgan shuts them down. Cass sneaks away to join the expedition at the last minute, with the pestering help of his childhood friend Elias Haukrey, who also manages to squeeze a spot on the airship.
On board the ship, Cass meets several other crewmates, including the Pirate Veteran Anders Magnus, and finds the Navigator Celeste Alinac stranded in the Everhaze. The crew narrowly escapes several encounters with pirates and retrieves Celeste’s flying mount, but their brush with the pirates alerts Pirate Lord Cyrus Windreave, Cass’s true father, of his child’s journey. Vetica Holiday, Pirate Lord of a separate independent faction, uses her past connection with Anders to appeal to his lingering loyalty and sway him to her cause, allowing her to capture Cass as a bargaining chip with Pirate Lord Windreave. All at once, the expedition crew comes to rescue him and Cyrus arrives, who kills Vetica, her crew, and Anders, though he claims it was a political act for the sake of maintaining power, not done for the sake of saving his child. Cass confronts his father, confident that he can take him down in a 1v1 duel. He fails, his friends get caught, and Cyrus makes them all ‘walk the plank’, kidnaps their mounts, and leaves them hopelessly abandoned right in front of the Storm.
The crew narrowly survives entry into the Storm, and discovers the lost city within it. Using teamwork, the materials in the lost city, and Cass’s expertise, they manage to build a new airship to escape the Storm with the help of the ancient leviathan they tamed inside it. The expedition team rushes back to Casterial, convinces the government to send in the airforce, and chases down Cyrus to take him down and get their mounts back. In the battle, Cass must choose between saving his friends and one clear chance to take down his father – and he chooses to save his friends. Cyrus pursues and corners the Craftsman in one final confrontation hidden in the Everhaze, a one on one duel to determine if Cass passes Cyrus’s philosophy that only the strong and capable survive. Cass, however, has overcome his desire to prove himself, and uses his one shot to signal his friends for help instead of fighting alone. The cavalry arrives and together they manage to take down Cyrus, causing the pirate factions to collapse to infighting and chaos. Cass and friends return home with all they’ve found, changed for the better, and still with plenty of hazy horizons to explore.