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

Seventeenth Day of Ashinu-ezna (Ashinu Ascendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

Fir, oak ash and maple march almost to the shore, the green guardians of a primeval stillness unbowed for all their crowns already growing gold and crimson with the touch of autumn. The horses are glad to be back on solid ground still toss their heads and slow their steps as they are pressed under the living arches, but they seem to find Silver's presence comforting in a way even the hands of their riders upon the reigns are not. Him they follow gladly as courtiers attending a grand prince. Aware of the fact that your own men make up much of the strength of the fleet you only take six men with you, split three and three, bearing bows and spears. Also in your company is Tender alongside two of her warrior kin keeping easy pace with the horses among the gnarled roots and thorny underbrush. Thankfully the wisdom of the Knikut is proven again true, there is less of it than you would have thought would grow under such mighty boughs. Such woods as you could hunt kings of boars in...

You shake off the boyish fancy almost as soon as it had come. You are looking for meat it is true, but of a far less ill tempered sort than any boar, much less the greatest of them. Every second ballad seems to feature some character inconvenient to the singer skewered by a boar and not without cause.

As you ride east away from the sea songs of familiar birds are in the air, bright and cheerful and uncaring of the trials of tribulations of humankind, and uncaring of your bargains proves to be the gull Inge bribed with fish back on the Marcella the promise of one more fish upon return unable to sway it against the danger of the strange land.

"Stream ahead, will have many beasts come to drink the good water," Tender points, the bone talismans upon her wrist clank and jangle.

Yet you hear neither the stamp of hooves not the enraged oinking of a boar, but something stranger, a sort of urgent yipping. The first beasts you meet upon this new-old lands are otters playing in the waters of a rain fed coastal brook. They aren't quite like the beasts you know, being about half again as large and with a broader face and heavier jaw, but their glossy paint is enough to drive Nico to raise his bow.

"Stop, we aren't here for furs," you command, though truth be told the words have more to do with the way Inge's expression had fallen seeing him put arrow to bow. A child of the Sunset Islands where they dwelt not she had likely never seen any of the playful creatures. it would be a pity to have the meeting marred with killing.

"Move out along the stream and keep the horses quiet..." you glance at the sun. "Unless luck should truly shine on us odds are we will have to camp here and hunt for a few days before we fill the larder back up."

"We should keep together," Silver speaks up softly, or at least as softly as he an manage. "Even along the stream the ground is broken up and it would be hard for us to gather against sudden foes."

Thus you do, moving roughly northeast along the stream in search of some vantage point where you could keep much of the stream under your eye and from whence you could hunt. It does not take you long to find it, a green hill rising not fifty feet from the thread of the creak upon whose summit by some happenstance no tree had grown, but no sooner had you turned you eyes towards it that Tender raises a cautioning hand. "Old place, spirit place, not for camping..."

The sound of approaching hooves drowns out your questions. "Guard up, weapons down!" you call, a reminder to be cautious but courteous for these are not your lands, but what emerges from the trees is not a rider upon some mighty deer, but instead a curious herd, halfway between a shaggy goat and the broad body of a cow a herd of a score animals descends upon the stream, seemingly not the least troubled by the sight of man or horse. All of them make right for the sunlit hill to feast upon its rich grasses.


First along them is a white beast with horns pale as finest marble, eyes red as drops of blood on a field of snow that gives you an imperious look, as though daring you to draw a weapon on it.... a challenge Nico decides to take it up on. With an appreciative whistle he sets an arrow to his very much not lowered bow.

"Stop!" you shout, a shadow of foreboding falling on you. A hallowed place for hallowed beasts this is likely to be.

"But... but they're goats. Aren't we looking for food?" the boy asks confused.

"Wise man rides a wise beast," a voice echoes in your mind coming from within but also somehow... from behind you. Turning you see one of the otters from before look you right in the eye and give a yipping little giggle. "Old Stone Horn would eat up your flying sticks the way he eats grass he would..."

"You come from over the big water, know big water stories. Come then to our hall and tell stories and we give feast yes..." None of the otters are moving their lips to speak, of course they aren't, they are bloody otters, but still you get the sense that this one had been the smaller reddish otter.

Tender speaks to them in her own tongue then and for for the first time you regret that Esha is not with you, her gift of tongues would be of use.

"The people of the Sighing Brook invite us into their caves to feast, tell tales and throw shadows of our deeds," she says at last. "I do not know of their kin-band as apart from others, but they seem of kindly sorts."

What do you do?

[] Accept the hospitality of the otter spirits
-[] For all your company
-[] Only for some while the rest continue to hunt

[] Politely decline

OOC: Having good initiative is often an underutilized skill outside of combat, but in quests talking is not a free action and speaking before the arrows fly can be of great use. Also for some reason you keep rolling archaic goats for your animal encounters, not sure what is up with that.