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

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

Though the thought of reneging on a bargain once made does not sit well with you there is no denying the ring of truth to Esha's words. The seer could reveal much that would bring suspicion, perhaps even harm to the Marcella... or perhaps it is better to say Marcellla and her crew. You wonder at the foresight of the shipwright to have given the ship a name which a woman might bear, and then you wonder at calling the hungering being in the depths of the hold 'she' as though born a woman. Perhaps the ship will choose one day what manner it wishes to be addressed in, or mayhap even another name though that...

"You are smiling, might I know why?" the words startle you, and only then do you realize you had fallen into a sort of reverie, perhaps not so strange seeing as how the waking world has come to resemble a dream these past few days, but still there is a sudden heat upon your cheek.

"I was thinking on what Antonio's reaction might be if the ship asked to be called by another name than the one it has been given."

"Oh," she laughs, the sound soft and quick like the fall of silver coins down a deep chasm, fading in the depths. "And Eririan, what do you think aught to be done with him?"

"We take his measure when he wakes and unless both are satisfied that he does not have loose lips we keep him here comfortably until the ship is fit to sail and..." you hesitate a moment, not liking the notion of using coin to salve a heat heavy with guilt, but at the same time it seems most meet if he does have debts. "We pay him for the trouble if it comes to that."

"When you say both..." she trails off a question delicately asked.

"Myself and Antonio." This time you manage not to blush like a callow boy. Perhaps it shows a lack of trust, but trust is to be earned and she has not gotten the full measure of it. What would she even swear a vow if it came to it?

At this Esha nods and offers a smile, to show that that she did not take your words ill perhaps, the she is away, leaving you to seek out your newest guest.

Find him you do, in Zaia's cabin, swathed in heavy furs though against no chill of the air but of the flesh. He seems wracked by shivers as a man who was just pulled from waters cold and deep, skin sallow and eyes tightly closed as though he fears to open them, or as though opening them pains him. "There is nothing wrong with his body that I can see," Zaia proclaims in a tone that does not speak of hopeful outcomes, Inge gives a helpless little shrug, this being as far beyond her power as it is the doctor's.

Then, with no hint of a warning the man starts thrashing an screaming, as loud as a man with a gut wound in the grip of death's own talons. As you hold him down you can smell the food and drink you had shared less than an hour past... and you can smell blood. "He bit his tongue I think can you..."

Inge's healing touch is upon the man and then at last his eyes open, only the two and they are weary. "Isa Oku Ameri..." he gasps out in a tongue that is not the common speech of Orinilu, but something else that almost recalls the dream you had of the southern realms, though you cannot put a name to it. After a moment he recalls himself. "What, where am I?"

"You are..." you hesitate 'Inside the same being that almost broke you' does not quite seem like a thing to say at the moment. "Aboard ship."

Judging from the look of terror that flutters across his face like the shadow of a dark bird he well recalls what ship that must be. "You are in peril, you must leave this ship at once..."

"No more peril than we were on before," you counter, soft but certain, more certain than you thought you would be before the words passed your lips if truth be told. "If the spirit had meant us harm it would have long since done it, instead it sought to speak with us as one man might to another and we have reached an understanding."

The more you speak the more surprised the man in the bed looks, eyes widening and even his mouth hanging a little open in what might have been almost a comical manner if it were not for the marks of his ordeal still seen upon his face. Silently you pray to Saint Gabriel for wisdom, and if you had judged wrongly for the mercy of the Blessed Virgin.

Finally he croaks out: "Fair be it from me to tell another what company they may and may not keep, it seems you have your answers and..." he glances towards Inge who nods, though with lingering worry in her eyes over his state.


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

Over the next three days you and Antonio carefully question Eririan not so much of what he had seen, but of the city and its environs, of the works of magic and the fears and hopes that come with it, ordinary enough things for strangers to ask upon coming to a new port and you learn things of great use.

The magic of lesser spirits is not trusted for its association with the barbarians of the deep woods and alchemy and transmutation are looked down upon here by reason of ancient failings among those who practice the craft. Once the city was the site of a old and learned order concerned with the transmutation of base metals into gold, promising wealth almost beyond telling, even as they flooded the markets with the lesser labor of their hands, salves and potions, oils and powders. When the High Warden of the Halls of Change announced that they had succeeded in their ages old quest only for it to be later discovered that they had but crafted the most masterful illusion in the history of the city all that good will and prestige had burned like so much tinder to the flames of the populace's wrath.

The Inner Circle had fled taking with them much of the wealth they had gatherer and much which they had schemed from the priest king and they had left their apprentices to suffer the fury of the mob. Perhaps in turn that had helped lead to the fall of the last priest king, though that is little matter now.

What does concern Zaia and greatly so is the tale of old and tattered books of formulae sometimes still surfacing in the bazaar, the fruit of long ago pilfering of the hall or of some last old embittered once-apprentice selling their old times for a few more coppers.

All the while you and Antonio probe and prod as subtly as you can to discover if you can trust the seer out and about in the city once Inge had finished with his book... and from what both of you have been able to tell the man is about as trustworthy as could be hoped for a hireling with no particular reason to care to keep them. He is obviously not interested in making enemies of armed men and he has the god sense not to try Antonio drink for drink when the man offers, thus making him unlikely to spill his revelations in his cups.

Perhaps you should have been more attentve of what was going on ashore...

"Zuan is missing," Antonio whispers to you urgently. "He did not come back from shoreleave, when he aught and that is not like him."

"Who?" you ask confused.

"John," he says using the English pronunciation. It is as though the air in the room was suddenly gripped by winter. "The cook."

"Fuck."

Places of interest:

• The Waterside Taverns and meadhalls
• The Brothels and Houses of ill repute
• The shops and markets

Who do you take with you to look for the cook and where do you search?

[] Write in

OOC: Yes that is a medieval Italian spelling of John, names like that were common throughout western Europe at the time so rather than go with wierd and maybe ahistoric names expect more local variation in the names of our time lost sailors just like with the armsmen. Not yet edited.