In the end, you accept Zahira's offer. You don't have any better alternatives in front of you at the moment, and there's something about her that makes her, if not quite likable, someone that you're fairly sure is dealing straight with you. The rest of the day is mostly killing time; Zahira takes care of the arrangements, as she has the purse at the moment, courtesy of rifling through dead men's personal belongings. The Emprise turns out to be sailing with the afternoon tide, and after you're introduced to it and its captain, a woman named Banu who's definitely had her gray hair for a while, you don't have much to do until embarking.
It's not like you have a lot of goods to carry with you, after all.
Luckily, it's also not going to be too long of a trip; three days should get you there, with the expected winds. As a paying passenger, all that's really expected of you is to mostly stay out of the way during the operation of the vessel. This leaves you at loose ends. Zahira embarks early and spends a lot of time watching the crew, though she doesn't share why. Samir immediately finds some locals playing a game of chance and very enthusiastically spends a lot of time and effort gaining and losing a grand total of almost nothing. He eventually ropes you into this, with no change in actual fortunes. Dawn and Kalju withdraw. They spend a lot of time talking quietly to each other. Dawn seems to still not quite be over the fact that she's not getting sacrificed to the gods, and quiet Kalju is just the sort of listener she needs.
- -
The Emprise is a schooner-rigged two-masted vessel, exactly the sort best designed to ply the waves without having either magical assistance to bend wind and wave or else the sheer, back-breaking effort of a galley. Of course, the endurance needed to row a galley from island to island had a lot to do with why those vessels were usually just limited to navies. For a general-purpose merchant who might be moving anything from textiles to passengers to perishable fruit, something like this is a good design. You mentally add up generally expected expenses and possible profit margins. Emprise could, indeed, do well for itself.
The trip itself is, mostly, uneventful. Samir turns out to know more about handling such ships than you realize, and he spends quite some time explaining rigging and different types of sails and jibs and how it all helps sail relatively close to the wind and a thousand things more until you lose track of what he told you about first.
The break in that is when a lookout, sweeping the horizon from as high as possible, allowing himself the best possible visibility as far as distance goes, suddenly announces he's seen a tentacle on the horizon. That produces a murmur and general stir. The great krakens are the apex predators of the Shallow Ocean, and for all that they rarely bother ships, they certainly can bring down all but the very largest vessels, which the Emprise emphatically is not. Most krakens have learned one or both of the facts that attacking ships isn't generally that profitable (they're mostly wood and other indigestibles) and that doing so attracts the attention of some brilliant hero who can slay them for attacking human vessels.
Captain Banu calls back up to the lookout. The two of them have a technical conversation about what they're seeing. Samir translates it into "not-seaman" for you and, basically, they try to track the kraken's course and movements and find that it's not moving, not even waving the tentacle curling up into the air, leading to a suspicion it might be dead. This is a relief. The crew loosens up now that a potential threat is transformed into a known non-threat.
Personally, you're not much happier knowing that there's an unknown something out there that can strike down such a leviathan of a sea creature, but you keep this to yourself. Worse, it seems to inspire a dark dream that night: during the night, you feel like, somehow, you're being watched.
Turning away from the usual nonsense murmur of an ongoing dream, you see a vaguely human figure in the corner of your dreamworld, covered completely in a ragged gray cloak that completely shrouds their appearance. "Who are you?" appears in your head without requiring you to hear its voice. "You're not that angel. Oh, blast--" It wavers and fades away, and the 'normal' part of your dream, which features your boots trying to eat your toes, reasserts itself.
When you awake, carnivorous boots fade like a normal dream, but the figure doesn't.
- -
The capital is one of the three largest islands in the Shallow Ocean, and is still almost entirely covered in city. From the palace where the emperor rules in the name of his mother, the Goddess of Rulership and Authority, through the temples dedicated to the other gods who walk with mortal humanity, down to the busy docks that see a constant influx of food and an outpouring of centralized planning, it's all dedicated to being the central location of civilization, and it's so universally recognized that there's very few who call it anything save "the capital".
Of course, as you eventually come into port on the morning of the third day, it seems oddly quiet. When you were being raised by the temple of Tal-Roshath, you didn't get a lot of time to watch the docks, but surely it was busier than this! In no time at all, a small launch rows out, and a harbor pilot guides the Emprise to one of the piers that extends out far enough to allow for her draft. The pilot outright refuses to talk about anything but his job, which doesn't make anyone, crew or passenger, any happier.
You discover why when you get down the plank. One of the imperial bureaucrats is here, taking notes by tying precise knots in a string, backed up by a couple of silent guards bearing maces and the city's symbol on their shields. Captain Banu is the first off, of course, but Zahira and the four of you, as paying passengers, are right behind her. "Captain of the Emprise," he greets Banu. "Name and point of origin? Seen any unusual deaths in the last few days?"
That catches Banu off-guard. "Captain Banu, sailing from the island of Millow. Deaths? Millow saw a few deaths before we left. I didn't catch who. We also may have seen a dead kraken. Why do you ask?"
The bureaucrat gives her a small smile completely devoid of any possibility of warmth. "Why, we're considering just how widespread it is. I guess you missed the news, what with sailing when you did. The gods are dead, so is the imperial family, so are the heroes who mastered enlightened martial traditions... hell, even most of the spirits and mages we've found, everyone who works more magic than your typical village elder casting some pain management skills." He says it in an incredibly matter-of-fact manner that tells you he's had this conversation several times and no longer cares much for the shock and worry it might engender, especially . "Everyone who comes in and we check in with seems to have had the same story, so it seems to have happened everywhere. The seer network is too patchy for us to see all over, so we're verifying this way. No, we don't know how this happened or why. So now you're up to speed, and my job is still the same as long as someone supplies my salary. Sign here." The note-string is put away in favor of a scroll for Banu to sign.
The next hour or so is a blur. The five of you, including Zahira, rush to the temple of Tal-Roshath as soon as you can get past the necessary rigmarole. The temple is boarded up completely, with even the little hole in the back wall that Samir used to wiggle through to get out and go gambling blocked off. There's a sign on the door that says "Closed temporarily by the order of Lady Adara until the current unpleasantness is resolved." Next to it, in a completely different style and by a different hand, is a sign that says "Sealed by the Regency Council. Trespassing not allowed."
You look over your companions, as you try to decide what to do next. Samir is the one who looks the most sanguine about this, probably because day-to-day life still seems to be operating fine most of a week after... whatever it was. Dawn is looking uncertain, but Kalju's at her shoulder, comfortingly. Zahira, on the other hand, looks more angry and frustrated than down.
It's clear you're going to need some direction. You need information, and you need it as soon as possible. Given that, your first place to turn is...
[] Investigate who this "Lady Adara" is. You feel like you've heard the name, but don't know anything about her.
[] Investigate this "Regency Council". You know you've never heard of a Regency Council, but if they're trying to give orders, you should know who's giving orders.
[] Break into the Temple. Some of your things may still be in there, and it's still home if anywhere else.
[] Find some of the capital's magical item experts. You need to know what you have with your pendant and cracked crown.
- -
Sorry that this took so long to get out. The last two weeks in May and first two weeks in June are the busiest of the year for me, and I couldn't carve out the time.
