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

Twenty Seventh Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Hail the ship!" the sailor shouts over the crash of waves and the patter of the rain that almost seemed to have been stirred into a greater fury by your approach. He had been chosen not just for the strength of his lungs, but for being a man of the Anwa, taken on in Apuku, should any upon the longboat take fright at a strange ship in these waters "Salt friends we be!" According to Inge that was the short form of a longer oath: 'May salt wither my tongue if I don't speak true', which the folk of the Sunset Islands take in deadly earnest, no matter how many words there are or how few, for there are tales abroad in every tavern of a sailor who swore it false and then died of Black Tongue by the wrath of Ikomi.

Yet this time there is no answer long or short, but for the hiss of the wind and the crashing waves as cold rain keeps falling down in ropes and sheets. Not one to wait for grass to grow between his toes when opportunity knocks Antonio slaps his hand against the side of the Marcella. "Salvage it is, hook her in boys!"

The boarding hooks are iron and not bronze, you note with some surprise. It looks like the good captain had been prepared for unlooked for luck on the high seas before he had even left Alexandria, though it has yet to been seen if the luck is good or bad.

Though you jump over the gunwale shield in one hand and sword in the other you spy nothing out of the ordinary within, barrels of what is probably salt meat or hardtack are lashed together aft and stern to keep the balance, a large bronze pot already starting to turn green with the touch of wind and rain creaks mournfully against the side of the ship. Wet and tattered sails fly in the grey air as the ship groans beneath your feet with a sound which to the uneasy ear seems akin to a man in pain.

Then in that sound you hear a voice, faint and weak: "Is someone there! Help! Please come down!"

"That sounds like a woman's voice!" Antonio says, surprised. "Look there!" he points towards the back of the ship where several dark shapes are huddled together, what you had first taken to be sacks, until one of them moves.

"Careful," Inge calls out,, though she too joins you aboard the strange ship, lighter on her feet from the lack of armor and weapons. "Little good is to be found in empty ships and stripped bones," she adds in a softer voice and it has the ring of a saying, though not one you have heard before. A small hand reaches out to hold your arm, holding you back, then the girl calls towards the back of the ship. "Be ye of the living pale or the cold dark depths!"

"The sea has not claimed me though I fear it soon shall ," comes the answer, again muffled, weaker. "Help... please."

Unable to hold yourself back from helping any longer you quickly walk down the length of the boat sending oars skew thins way and that where they had been pulled too far over the beeches.

You had not as it happens guessed entirely wrong about the sack, at the end of the deck you find a dark haired young woman sown into a sack such that you can only see her face. Though thin and haggard it cannot disguise uncommon beauty. Eyes like jade in moonlight shining look feverishly into yours and the dark hair plastered to her head by the rain is somehow still glossy as ebony. "Cut me loose... please. I won't... won't last long..." Her words have a strange ring to them for all they are understandably Anwari, the touch of some far off land. "Please...."

Before you can do more than take in the strange sight and stranger request Inge is once more at your side, and she does not look best pleased. "Those are warding marks upon the sack she is in, meant to keep something strong in."

"Strong... strong... me..." a hollow laugh rings out echoing strangely in the belly of the ship. "It breaks into a cough. I am dying girl and soon all yu shall have is the company of my corpse. They have taken, they have taken everything from me." And with these words she falls silent, head lolling to the side.

Zaia, more cautious than the rest of you, arrives soon after and puts a piece of polished brass to the woman's lips. "Her breath is slow and shallow, I do not know if she is dying, but I would stake my word and skills she is unwell."

What do you do?

[] Give the strange woman one of your potions

[] Ask Inge to heal her

[] Cut her out of the sack as she asked

[] Write in

OOC: Well not the best roll for Inge to recognize the signs, much less the woman, but she was not really all that likely to given the DC. Not yet edited.