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

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

"What... what are..." The words died in the captain's lips, as though hr was drowning on the still air of the hold. Had he born witness to what had just passed beneath his eyes these past few moments but a few months ago Antonio was quite certain he would have run utterly mad, braying like a beast or screeching like a bird and capable of no more wit than either. But this day was not that and he had seen much that he would once have thought beyond telling, he had seen a girl child converse with birds and a horse speak with the tongue of man, he had seen the dead walk and he had seen demons garbed in the flesh of man more dreadful under the eye than any sermon could tell. He was not who he had been those many days ago... so then why should his ship be so?

It was with that realization, with that understanding of kinship, even if it existed only in his own mind, that the captain of the good ship Marcella regained in full his voice, and the skill by which, as much as a shrewd eye and a steady hand on the wheel , he had made his fortunes across the southern seas. "That would me me unless you mean some other sailor, I warn you though they have neither my wit nor my charm." Somehow he even managed a smile.

"Why move-know-see-feed?" The question was more a constant burbling of syllables like the sound of water roiling in the bilges.

Perhaps another man might have struggled to break one word from the other, much less to know the meaning hidden inside, but Antonio Giustiniani had traveled to many a foreign shore and in that time bartered without local tongue, matching wits with cheating interpreters greedy officials and all manner of folk who would deny him his due and so he guessed and spoke aright: "We sail for profit, so that we may obtain more of what is our desire, be that things precious, or the air of a new land that we have not breathed before, we travel for there are those who do not do so, but would pay well for things from far away? Why do we know...?"

The strange mouth smacked its... well it did not actually have lips, but it managed a sort of grinding sound that was.... hopefully not the prelude to chewing. "Why you know-learn?"

"Because it makes us more able to deal with the changing world," the captain replies. "Some men thing the world is like the dirt outside their house, they sink long deep roots, thinking that it will never change, but sometimes change comes to them, like a storm out of far places and then they weep and then they break, like old trees cracking... but we know the world is like the sea and the face of it is always changing. Storm or shine you should always keep an eye on the horizon and an ear listening for trouble."

"Why-what get-feed?" A coil of rope that had been set on a peg not far from where the knight and the girl were currently seeing to the wizard suddenly came to life as though in the guise of a snake.

Antonio froze, hand moving to his dagger, though how he was meant to fight a ship he did not know.

Then, much to his surprise and relief also the rope his not reach for him nor for any of the others, but instead twisted and twisted again, knotting all the while, until there lay there before him a familiar thing though wrought by strange and fearful means... a net.

"You want to fish, to eat?" He guessed... things like the rat.

"Rat..." The strange spirit seemd to be tasting the word. "It want eat me... make many rats, I ate it... ate its hunger."

"It must have learned what hunger was from the rat when it snatched it," the knight offered.

"Then why in Satan's black asshole would it have eaten the thing to begin with if it didn't know what hunger was?" Antonio shot back sharply. His hand was trembling, he wished he could say that was a surprise. Not in all his days had he ever felt more helpless than in that hour as he pondered fleeing his own ship into a foreign port, driven out not by foes, but by the ship itself.

"Defense, a reflex, like swatting a tick because it's bite stings," the wizard Esha offered. "All that lives must have at the very least that. Ask it what it likes to feed on blood or thoughts or the essence of life... something else maybe?"

The strange thing did not seem to have any trouble understanding her. "Blood, blood of rat good," At these words the net sort of shivered as though caught in a strange wind. "Catch more rats?"

"The eyes are too big to catch rats," Antonio offered faintly, already pondering how he would explain bleeding goats into its maw.

"Captain-good-captain," the thing, the ship replied with satisfaction. "Us ssail faster."

With that the mouth closed leaving not even a seam and the witch ligh that had been affixed to the wall faded as though swallowed up.

How do you feed the Marcella?

[] Involve the cook, see if it can open a mouth in the galley

[] Leave it up to the companions, goat bleeding is far from the strangest thing you have done while on the ship

[] Write in

OOC: Well that went about as good as it could... and yes he did need the re-roll there at the start. Not yet edited.