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

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

'Tis easier by far to brush the sand off the thresholds then it is to wipe the lingering worry of what your unwelcome guest may have taken or learned from the mind. Nothing precious, nothing easily noted, on that much everyone was agreed, but fear hangs heavy on Esha's heart, and once she has reluctantly explained so it is upon yours. "There is a reason warrior why I have never taken a servant for my chambers even in such times when I could afford the cost, that which was once a part of us remains a part of us, be it a drop of blood, a lock of hair or even a slumbering breath trapped in a bottle and sealed with wax. Such traces of our passage through the world can be used to track, to influence and to curse. All if us had best be wary, alas that we do not yet know what to be wary of..."

"We do not know what it was that climbed that rope and slipped into that hole, but there are things yet we can learn," you cut her off before the meeting can grow any more dispirited. "My lady, Inge, good doctor..."

"Call me Zaia sir knight, I doubt you are about to ask for my services as a healer," the man himself interrupts.

"Zaia," you nod in agreement and in thanks for the offer. "You can teach the men what is and is not sorcery and how they might be best on guard against it, I do not expect you to make scholars of them all, but at least enough for them to know when to yell 'fire' as it were even if they cannot heft the metaphorical buckets could be of great use."

"Truly you have the tongue of a poet my friend," Antonio laughs, but adds that it seems a wise idea and he would see to it that the crew had a chance to take part in the lessons, if that is the teachers are willing to attend.

Inge agrees readily and Zaia a moment later to help give the girl's words weight and translate where such might be needed, but you can see that the elder sorceress is torn at the thought of revealing anything of her power to so many. Secrets as much as spells are her weapons, you realize and though asks for but a little knowledge, perhaps she fears this is but the first step down a long path, perhaps she does not wish to show the limitations of her own power to those who still look upon her with suspicion and fear. In the end she agrees, though on the condition that those she teaches 'at least try to hold their tongues and not spread tales around every alehouse they visit.'

With the crew itself being large enough to sail the ship comfortably and your own men taking turns at the oars there are thankfully plenty of hours in the day to learn about the dangers and the limitations of sorcery. While no one is precisely happy to have their time for drinking dicing and telling tales taken up by listening to Esha and Inge's often dire warnings, they are not so displeased so to give Henri, Mark and Pete more than a few dark looks. They are just glad to have seen the back of present peril.

Even the skies are it seems more fit for light and cheer as you sail north, the clouds that had dogged your progress these last few days finally clearing utterly, though the wind remains strong, filling the sails and making light work of the rowing you had assigned for punishment, though so that Tom ask if perhaps you should set another in its place, but you see no point to it, the fault here was sorrow and folly in dealing with it and you can hardly claim to be lacking in either.


Thirty Third of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

So the days pass golden and the nights pleasantly cool, untroubled by monsters of the sea or lurking perils upon the ship until one morn just as you are turning straight the lookout spots sails on the horizon, not one but many. Wary of pirates Antonio asks Inge to send one of the many gulls which had been drawn to the ship to fly and have a look .

Gulls may not be the most clever beings, nor all that able to tell one sort of ship from the other, but it does not take Antonio long to guess the rough shape of the matter. "One great ship of Orinilu being chased down by two Anwari longships, they likely thought they were safe from the Tin League once they made it this far west and they let their guard down before the Sunset Islanders. If they are fighting at all that means they are a roughly even match..."

"How do you know that?" you ask, confused by his tone, not like one making a guess at all.

"Well that is how piracy works most of the time isn't it? You don't really want to pay the butcher's bill if you don't have to, so you earn as fearsome a reputation as your guts and blades can earn you and then you call for merchants to give up their cargo, if they do the pirate sails away fat and happy, if they don't they do as much mischief to the crew as they can manage so the next ship will know better. On the other side sailors aren't really knights fighting for honor ain't they? If a captain tries to order them into a losing fight he might well find himself not the captain anymore, so for anyone to fight pirates at all it has to be a close fight. Given that I'm a member of the League of Captains and all I think it would behoove us to tip the scales..."

"We would earn more foes among the Anwari, whence we are heading, we to not even know what island they hail from," Zaia notes.

"They are pirates aren't they?" Antonio shrugs, a smile sharp as steel growing on his features. "If their kin didn't want them dead they shouldn't have let them be thieving scum." He knows as well as you do his crew is larger and thanks to you and your men more battle hardened than most, but men could still die in battle not to mention the possibility of earning new foes. Is it worth it?

[] Yes, agree with Antonio's plan and sail to interfere on the side of the Orinilu Galley

[] No, you should steer clear of more battle (DC 23 Diplomacy roll, can be lowered by arguments)
-[] Write in arguments (optional)

OOC: Well for once you did not roll sea monsters on the table.