Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

The Twenty First of Elnu-hamba [Elnu Descendent], Year Unknown

There is land on the horizon, a smudge of black fading slowly into green as the oars of the galley strain against the shifting winds that supposedly give the place its name, Lirman, Hardharbor. Tired cheers ring out over the deck. Finally land and the promise of civilization. Most of those aboard had become so inured to the strangeness of your journey that even an unknown port filled with heathens was better than the expanse of the sea.

Only you recall most keenly that it is not strange for all. For one odd girl it is a homecoming and not a welcome one from what she had told you before. You find Inge perched on the aft side of the ship, her feet dangling precariously over the edge.

"Yes?" she asks, to your surprise in French and not Sicilian. Is it a desire to be able to speak your tongue for its own sake that drove her to start learning, or to avoid being deceived as you and Antonio had done when speaking with the Stout Folk?

"I was curious..." you say in her tongue, forming the syllables carefully, the graceful tones and sudden stops still perched uneasily upon your tongue. "What can we expect for a greeting when we make port? And..." It almost feels like too personal a question, but you feel responsible for the girl. "What about you?"

"Lirman not home yet, home is on Korman, on Great Harbor," she explains, then rather than falling silent as you fear she might do, the girl continues almost as if a dam had been broken or a confession needed to be spoken. "They maybe not like me here if they know what I am, I don't have to tell them though." There is something painfully like guilt in her eyes.

Rather than press with another question you are silent, listening for when she finds the words.

"My magic, my Ikomi-blessing, is strange. I know that for you far-folk all magic strange, but mine is so even among my own kin because I too brave, too quick forward, too...

"Willful, I think we would say," you provide, though with a smile on its tail. "For my part I am very glad for your will else I would not be alive and speaking to you now. Willful just means you do not let grass grow between your toes, eh?"

Something about that strikes her as indefinably amusing and it takes her the span of three long breaths to stop laughing. Alas, the tale she tells in its wake trying to explain who she is and maybe even most painfully why she is no lighthearted manner.

Inge you learn had been born to a family of herdsmen. Ten children born to her mother and of them eight still live. She had been born ninth and on top of that came into the world into the teeth of the winter storms such that if her kin had been only a little less thrifty or a little less lucky she might not have had the chance to see the spring. Yet as she had grown she was oft in the company of seabirds and ever drawn to the sea, a blessing that while not unknown among her folk was uncommon indeed in the cottage of a goatherd. So it was that she had been 'apprenticed' with a distant cousin who was a fisherman by trade. From the way she describes it the deal was less apprenticeship and more outright sale, for twelve jugs of fish oil and ten coils of rope.

Inge bore no love for her distant kin and so when the Wave Speakers passed through the village looking for those with the touch of Ikomi she did not hide as many did, for the rumor was that the trials were hard and few priests returned to their home villages, but instead stepped forth. When her master had heard of this he had cursed her for an ungrateful brat, but she was unmoved. Then he had said that in leaving she voided her father's contract and he would seek damages by Law of Silver and Law of Blood, reparations and a duel, you deduce....

"I didn't want to go back, I didn't even know if he was telling the truth about father." Her voice is so low you can barely catch it now. "The priestess was leaving and would not come back for three seasons. I couldn't- I just couldn't..."

"Children should honor their parents, but it is not for one as young as you to bear your father's burdens," you reply firmly. Then in a less certain tone. "If you felt you were being called to serve... Ikomi, then..." you are honestly not even sure how to finish the sentence.

Thankfully she saves you from trying. "I made a vow to the stupid kin-not-kin. Said I would grow to be great storm-weaver, make lighting my spear and the wind my shield. And then when I came back in glory I would pay nine times nine whatever contract he made with father. Wasn't expecting to come home so fast. Ilfa said we would be years in the sunrise lands."

And now she thinks you made a coward and a liar of her by dealing falsely with the Stout Folk. You sigh. "I am sorry Inge, for what took place at the straight, no matter the justification we offered as leaders of men you showed nothing but courage and honesty. And I am sorry for not asking more about your people and what awaited you on these islands sooner..."

"How ask?" she interrupts a little wistfully. "You not have words, I not have words. You do not need to bear my burdens," she echoes what you had said before. Then with a smile that tries but fails to reach her eyes. "This just Lirman, not Korman, not really going back home-home."

What do you reply?

[] Thank her for her honesty once again and leave

[] Promise to help Inge fulfill her vow

[] Write in

OOC: You guys did not quite roll high enough to get the whole story, that would have taken a near crit for diplomacy, but you did pretty well.