@DragonParadox, editing:
Fourteenth Day of Ashinu-hamba (Ashinu Descendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
It is harder to find Inge than you had thought it would be, and when you slip your head into her cabin you notice her bed is not slept in, either that or she is a far neater child than you were at her age. That would hardly be the most uncommon thing about her, you think, bemused. In the end you find the girl down in the hold, not keeping company with Silver as she had done over a few past mornings when the sky was clear enough to spare her from the deck but beside the corpse of the great beast, the dragon, looking down into its great unseeing eyes... not all that far down. Looking at her like this you notice with a start that the the skull of the thing alone is about half as long as she is tall. And you had asked her to fight that thing...
"How are you doing?" you ask a little awkwardly, unsure of how you would even start that conversation. If she were another knight, a man at arms in your service you would at least have some notion of what to say, but how does one ask a child sworn to death not to risk her own life? Can you even do so when that very courage had saved others from doom under the cold sea not even two days past? "Do you..." You cut yourself off, and willfully plaster a smile on your face. "I do not suppose it has been talkative."
"No, not it, but I remembered something of dragons, I dreamed it last night and I thought I might notice something that I had missed," Inge replies, sounding faint and far away.
"And did you?" you ask intrigued in spite of yourself. The scant moments of seeing the beast alive and fighting, filled with terror of your own life and the life of those around you had been filled with wonder just the same, easy enough to see why she would dream of it without any visitation.
"The Dragons were gods once, or as gods, when the world was young and green, but not with the touch of Ashinu, when the waters churned from the sky, but not by the will of Elnu," her voice grows more urgent as she speaks as though she is answering not you but some hidden compulsion, some deeper need. "They ruled in the Days before Days, before the ice of Ikomi came over them. I saw the world when there were no mortal eyes to see it in my dream... but if there are no mortal eyes who am I?"
At the last Inge sounds unlike herself, words echoing strangely off the walls of the hull and the talisman of mind ward bristles like the beast waking from slumber.
When you shake her she shivers head to toe as one pulled from freezing waters, blinks up at you first in shock and fear, then with dawning recognition and relief. "Thank you... I er know how to butcher a dragon to get the choice bits out, the blood and the stomach, the gall and the musk, to flay the skin with knives of ice. I've got to... I've got to tell Zaia so he can write it down."
She sounds more like herself now, but still almost feverish. You do not let her go...
"I have to tell him now or I might forget and then we will have to trust the rashda from Orinilu to carve it up and they don't know anything."
"Wait here," you say carefully.
"There is something strange happening..." you say to Esha as soon as you are through the door, barely waiting for a reply before recounting what you had seen and heard down in the hold. Another time you might have been embarrassed that you are barging in over her in the middle of her work, but not when it comes to Inge's safety.
"That is not as odd as you might think," she sighs. "As priests become closer to their gods they grow stranger, like a vine climbing the branches of a great tree, only they can never make it to the top lest they burn in light beyond moral understanding. She will get used to it... although it might be better to keep her from acting out on whatever she saw for a bit, just to be on the safe side and not reinforce incompatible insight."
"What's a rashda?" you ask, that had been the only word you had not understood of all the ones Inge had used.
"I have never heard it in my life," she replies. After a moment's silence, eyes closed and brow furrowing in thought she adds. "Say that again."
"Rashda," you say with mounting unease.
"The word tastes... old not like any word that is spoken by living men under the sun, literally it is candle-lighter, but the light 'da' isn't anything physical, it is magic and the fact that you are using it to light a candle and not a blaze, it would be something like 'dabbler in the arcane', Inge or whatever she spoke called the wizards of Orinilu petty and powerless, which one supposes they would be to anyone who has even seen a glimpse of the days when dragons ruled."
No doubt all of this is fascinating, but your thoughts are still on one thing. "What about Inge?"
"Well it depends if she thinks she can take dictating a guide to dragon butchery at once, or if she wants to rest first," the sorceress replies.
Unsurprisingly Inge does not want to rest, she wants to help Zaia expand his knowledge base so that you can carve the dragon's corpse up when you are back on shore.
What do you do?
[] Let Inge recount her dream lore at once (Zaia writes a book that when consulted allows and alchimist to act as though they possesses Dragoncrafting at the cost of taking twice as long as with the feat ???)
[] Advise Inge to rest (40% chance the lore will be lost by the time she has recovered fully; should this happen Inge will still have a better idea that most how to tell if any mage you find in Orinilu actually knows what to do with a dragon corpse)
OOC: Well on the one hand she rolled a nat 20 on the re-roll for arcana to tell you more about the dragon, on the other hand it was her re-roll and delving into old perilous things so it comes with a risk and a choice. Inge will listen to Roland without the need for a roll if you tell her to take it easy so do not worry about that.
The Perils of Insight
Fourteenth Day of Ashinu-hamba (Ashinu Descendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
It is harder to find Inge than you had thought it would be, and when you slip your head into her cabin you notice her bed is not slept in, either that or she is a far neater child than you were at her age. That would hardly be the most uncommon thing about her, you think, bemused. In the end you find the girl down in the hold, not keeping company with Silver as she had done over a few past mornings when the sky was clear enough to spare her from the deck but beside the corpse of the great beast, the dragon, looking down into its great unseeing eyes... not all that far down. Looking at her like this you notice with a start that the the skull of the thing alone is about half as long as she is tall. And you had asked her to fight that thing...
"How are you doing?" you ask a little awkwardly, unsure of how you would even start that conversation. If she were another knight, a man at arms in your service you would at least have some notion of what to say, but how does one ask a child sworn to death not to risk her own life? Can you even do so when that very courage had saved others from doom under the cold sea not even two days past? "Do you..." You cut yourself off, and willfully plaster a smile on your face. "I do not suppose it has been talkative."
"No, not it, but I remembered something of dragons, I dreamed it last night and I thought I might notice something that I had missed," Inge replies, sounding faint and far away.
"And did you?" you ask intrigued in spite of yourself. The scant moments of seeing the beast alive and fighting, filled with terror of your own life and the life of those around you had been filled with wonder just the same, easy enough to see why she would dream of it without any visitation.
"The Dragons were gods once, or as gods, when the world was young and green, but not with the touch of Ashinu, when the waters churned from the sky, but not by the will of Elnu," her voice grows more urgent as she speaks as though she is answering not you but some hidden compulsion, some deeper need. "They ruled in the Days before Days, before the ice of Ikomi came over them. I saw the world when there were no mortal eyes to see it in my dream... but if there are no mortal eyes who am I?"
At the last Inge sounds unlike herself, words echoing strangely off the walls of the hull and the talisman of mind ward bristles like the beast waking from slumber.
When you shake her she shivers head to toe as one pulled from freezing waters, blinks up at you first in shock and fear, then with dawning recognition and relief. "Thank you... I er know how to butcher a dragon to get the choice bits out, the blood and the stomach, the gall and the musk, to flay the skin with knives of ice. I've got to... I've got to tell Zaia so he can write it down."
She sounds more like herself now, but still almost feverish. You do not let her go...
"I have to tell him now or I might forget and then we will have to trust the rashda from Orinilu to carve it up and they don't know anything."
"Wait here," you say carefully.
***
"There is something strange happening..." you say to Esha as soon as you are through the door, barely waiting for a reply before recounting what you had seen and heard down in the hold. Another time you might have been embarrassed that you are barging in over her in the middle of her work, but not when it comes to Inge's safety.
"That is not as odd as you might think," she sighs. "As priests become closer to their gods they grow stranger, like a vine climbing the branches of a great tree, only they can never make it to the top lest they burn in light beyond moral understanding. She will get used to it... although it might be better to keep her from acting out on whatever she saw for a bit, just to be on the safe side and not reinforce incompatible insight."
"What's a rashda?" you ask, that had been the only word you had not understood of all the ones Inge had used.
"I have never heard it in my life," she replies. After a moment's silence, eyes closed and brow furrowing in thought she adds. "Say that again."
"Rashda," you say with mounting unease.
"The word tastes... old not like any word that is spoken by living men under the sun, literally it is candle-lighter, but the light 'da' isn't anything physical, it is magic and the fact that you are using it to light a candle and not a blaze, it would be something like 'dabbler in the arcane', Inge or whatever she spoke called the wizards of Orinilu petty and powerless, which one supposes they would be to anyone who has even seen a glimpse of the days when dragons ruled."
No doubt all of this is fascinating, but your thoughts are still on one thing. "What about Inge?"
"Well it depends if she thinks she can take dictating a guide to dragon butchery at once, or if she wants to rest first," the sorceress replies.
Unsurprisingly Inge does not want to rest, she wants to help Zaia expand his knowledge base so that you can carve the dragon's corpse up when you are back on shore.
What do you do?
[] Let Inge recount her dream lore at once (Zaia writes a book that when consulted allows and alchimist to act as though they possesses Dragoncrafting at the cost of taking twice as long as with the feat ???)
[] Advise Inge to rest (40% chance the lore will be lost by the time she has recovered fully; should this happen Inge will still have a better idea that most how to tell if any mage you find in Orinilu actually knows what to do with a dragon corpse)
OOC: Well on the one hand she rolled a nat 20 on the re-roll for arcana to tell you more about the dragon, on the other hand it was her re-roll and delving into old perilous things so it comes with a risk and a choice. Inge will listen to Roland without the need for a roll if you tell her to take it easy so do not worry about that.
