Ratline Boots

Soft-soled boots of black leather with a band of rope tread stitched across the ball of each foot, worn paper-thin at the arch.

The wearer climbs rope, netting, rigging, and chain as fast as they walk, with both hands free, and crosses any line, ledge, spar, or beam no wider than a thumb at a walking pace without a roll, in darkness and in wind alike. Heights hold nothing for them, and no wind or motion of the thing beneath them can shake them off it.