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

First Day of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

There is a part of you that wishes to avenge your friend against this beast... and truth be told which is not unmoved by promises of riches and fine scales, but it is only a small voice at the back of your mind and easily silenced. "Have we not enough wealth to bring to port, richer now than when we left the Sunset Islands?" you motion to the Fortuna clearly marked by the lantern at her prow. "Do we not have enough tales to entertain every tavern and winesink in all Orinilu?"

That even Antonio cannot argue against and the man is not without prudence even in the face of profit, though you would not have liked to meet him ten years ago you suspect. He nods. "Well said let us be on our way and leave the sea snakes to the waves... double watch for three days just in case they are not minded to extend us the same courtesy."

None abroad disagree, though at your prompting as much as the counsel of her own worries Inge counsels Ripper to stay close to the ship as the Marcella turns north, her sails like the wings of a trapped seabird as they flutter this way and that for the first time having to tack more across the wind than with it, but Antonio is a skillful sailor and his crew, motley though it be are all men of the sea. With Inge to point the way north at any hour of the day and night and even gulls to call out the nearness of shore when they are called to do so you make better time than any ship upon the world you had come from could have made from... well you are not sure what the Sunset Islands would have been called in that other world, but you assume that is all other lands are the same which Zaia knows than they too must have their won lost sisters across the veil.

"What city would have stood in the place of Orinilu whence we are headed?" you ask the scholar in a quiet moment the next day, though for once he has few answers. 'Valentia Edetanorum' he claims it would have been called in the days of Rome if he had read the map aright. Antonio to your surprise knows more. The Moors of Murcia call it 'Medina at-Tarab' which in their tongue means City of Joy, and it is apparently a joy of which the Republic o Genoa wanted its own taste, having founded a trading post in the city, but a few brief decades ago... in another world.

You shake off the melancholy as best you can and continue to train with Tom in the time you have aboard ship, finding his progress slow, but steady, hampered not by any lack of skill or talent but by all that he has to unlearn, he is not used to fighting alone for it was never expected of him, but in this world peril might lie around every bend in the road, little have you seen of guarded walls and peaceful fields. You will not lose another as you did Tam not if you can help it.

Tom's progress to becoming a fighter 3/10+3 = 6/10


Seventh Day of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

So it is six days after Ripper had returned to the Marcella, with thankfully nary a int of sea serpent, golden or otherwise on the horizon that you first catch sight of Orinilu the Fair. As the blue waters of the bay race under the keel of the Marcella you see from afar the same cyclopean walls you had born witness to in the Spear Islands, though on a scale far grander, fit to circle a city and not simply a small village. The city is set not upon any hill or crest for there are none to behold as far as the eye can see to the north nor to the south along the coast where you had come. Rather it is all built upon a island in the river Kime, which you are told by Esha means chime or sigh in reference to some local legend. Not quite a bow's shot from the walls to the far bank, even of the smaller local bows, you note, cataloguing the city's defenses almost without needing to think.

The water that flows into the bay is slow and meandering, turned dark with the rich silt of the fields that surround itself, themselves an island of sorts in the otherwise forbidding wall of trees that rises to meet the sea all along the coast. Yet you have little doubt the folk of the city find as much profit as peril in those woods, many keels waiting to be carved and set to sea.

As you approach two smaller galleys make for the Marcella, guard ships serving a stint for the guild of captains you are told, sent to challange any strangers and you are strange indeed. Still you know the tongue and know to name a port that the locals would recognize. Antonio names his cargo, fish and mead and oil, hardwood and even tin that ha had bought at great expense off those coming down from the north and he locals seem very happy to hear him say so... perhaps a little too happy.

"Unless I am mush mistaken there is war in these waters and they are glad indeed to see two more ships, one of them so large that their council may try to hire or press into service," Esha whispers urgently in your ear.

You bite your tongue against swearing in the presence of a lady

What do you do upon first arriving in Orinilu?

[] Gather rumors of the Blue Sea, what war are they fighting and against who?

[] Together with Zaia try to find a seer that might be able to tell you more of what has befallen the Marcella

[] Accompany Esha as she seeks to make some money off her sorcery

[] Go to the market to see to your own arms and armaments, you would much wish for a weapon that could slay sorcerous foes without relying on Zaia's arts

[] Accompany Inge to the local temple of Ikomi as she seeks to aquire a cauldron in which to brew potions and pilthers of her own

[] Write in

OOC: Antonio rolled really poorly for his diplomacy with the guard ships, though thankfully for him it was an opposed roll... and the other guy rolled a nat 1. Not yet edited.