Westward Bound
The Thirty Ninth of Elnu-hamba [Elnu Descendent] Year 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
The rain beat down upon the ship in a quick, unsteady rhythm like a thousand thousand scuttling feet over the deck as you and Tom slowly circled each other, looking for an opening. It is almost surprising how easy it had been to fall into your own rhythm, sparring in the morning then after lunch, from the offerings of the new locally hired cook, you would spend the afternoon trying to devise shipboard tactics that would take advantage of the main things you and your men brought to the table, heavy shirts of mail and shields without exposing your main weakness on the high seas... heavy suits of armor and shields. There is a part of you that rather envies the Anwa warriors their armored coats, but for now you will have to work with what you have and strive to not... to... fall in the water.
Your breath comes in quick labored gasps, twisting and turning this way and that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Tom's endurance for all his form could use more work. Ordinarily he would not be expected to do more than hold a spear line, mayhap hold a breach and rally the others, but all of you as far from ordinary circumstances as it is possible to go. More likely then not there will be more battles in the dark chaotic and uncertain future and for them all of you need to know more than how to swing a spear about.
He's getting better for all the road is yet long ahead.
Tom Retraining 1/10 done
Thankfully the weather stays fair through your travels among the islands and the route itself proves easier on the ship than Antonio had feared, not that you would know those fears from the way he talks about ship and crew alike. Antonio Giustiniani you soon realize is the sort of man who complains in port and has nothing but praise once set out and the men love him for it... even the ones who are not technically men. At first you had been surprised to hear that the Anwa consider women on ships to be uncommon but not extraordinary and even more so when two female sailors, one young and one of middling years, took the captain's silver. Yet after some thinking you reason that the superstition about women aboard ships doesn't make sense when one prays to a
goddess of the sea.
And now you are back to contemplating thoughts that leave you on unsteady footing like the first few hours of seasickness. You have with your own eyes seen what Inge calls the blessing of Ikomi and you have no reason to distrust her judgement or her honesty in such things, yet to grant that she is divine would be a transgression against your own faith for which you could not claim a layman's ignorance.
The talisman around your neck grows a little heavier as it had done before the dream reached for you. In its wordless hum you feel an echo of your own disquiet. It wonders perhaps if something preys upon your mind. Alas that it is naught but your own doubt.
Before you can stew much more in your own thoughts Antonio comes to stand beside you. "We made good time this time, with neither storm nor pirate nor uncanny beast to dog our steps." He glances at the waves breaking before the prow of the ship where Ripper had submerged not long ago in search of his own dinner. "None that we haven't brought with us in any case."
"And no pirates seeking to get rich off the strangers without the protection of any lord."
"I think we might be a touch too strange to bite on just yet, but give it time. Greed will move mountains as long as it thinks there is gold under the roots of it." He trails off for a moment and then with false cheer adds. "So how do you want go telling the local bishop that you think she has not been doing her job right and deliver a challenge from her fellow in Lirman?"
"That's not..." You trail off, his point only growing clearer as you try to argue against it in your head. "And she is related to the local king besides," you sigh.
"Put the girl front and center, use her as a wedge to get a foot in the door," the merchant replies, sly as ever, but you recall the vow that Inge had made upon leaving the island. It is unlikely she will meet a fisherman of middling means on the way to the king's halls yet still she had given her word not to return to the island until she is wealthy and mighty, of which she is neither now.
How do you approach your arrival in Korman?
[] Ask Inge to be your local guide and access point to the Stone Keepers (Diplomacy DC 18)
[] Go without her message in hand
[] Write in
OOC: For once the dice landed on 'no encounter', I have that because if literally every journey had a random encounter, they would not really feel that random or for that matter surprising. Hopefully the calm passage with a bit of cultural background and a bit of introspection from Roland was not too slow. 
