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

Thirty-Fourth Day of Ikomi-eza (Ikomi Ascendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

Looking the dark haired girl-child up and down you imagine her in pale robes that leach the color from her skin, like onto a phantom come to earth. It does not fit her, not at all. A tunic perhaps, green or blue, and maybe you can find someone who knows how to braid her hair in something other than the simple plait meant to keep it out of her eyes. Thankfully children are children and just as back home they are not expected to put on some of the more complex nods to fashion.

Children are children... the words linger in the mind even as you offer your opinions, a shy smile growing over Inge's face at the prospect of fine and colorful clothing. She deserves someone to help her with things like this without having to be asked, without the nervousness you had seen in those eyes moments ago.

The words come far easier to your lips than you had thought they might between talk of hair nets and bracelets. "You helped me and mine and many other people greatly, without you we and they would be dead."

Inge looks at you wide eyed, startled more than anything, and from their looks so are Zaia and Antonio, though from her expression Esha has realized where this is going.

"Remember when you made the oath to help me make a new home, to go where I go? You are already fulfilling it. I don't know if I will ever accept the journey as my home, or will settle for good, but you I will gladly name part of my home. If you'll have me as your brother, I'll name you my sister, this I swear to the Lord God on my blood. What do you say?"

"Uhm...." Maybe you had overdone the formality a bit, you start to think... and then so fast you almost do not have time to react the girl jumps from her chair, runs up to you and hugs you around the shoulders so fiercely she is almost hanging from your neck. "'Course I will."

Things get a bit more awkward when she has to let go, but everyone politely hides their smiles and so it is decided. Inge of Korman shall be the ward of Roland de Verley rather than 'just' a companion on the road and the skilled healer of the Fellowship of Saint Nicholas.

For their part the men react to the news with a marked lack of surprised good cheer, having long since gotten over their suspicions of Inge herself. They might not love Ikomi, but for she who has seen them through storm and fire and bloodshed they have only words of kindness, and by now they all know of the fate of her kin. All the more reason why she would need a wardship.


Thirty-Sixth Day of Ikomi-eza (Ikomi Ascendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

Over the next two days Antonio completes the deals with the great men of the city. The rough disks of northern tin which had been borne so far and at such peril are carried off to the smithies of the city under guard. There by flame and by craftsman's skill they shall harden copper into bronze to fight the war against Ibanora. In recompense for offering tin to a city much in need of it Antonio is paid in silver and gold, and also such provisioning as the ship will need to last through the winter in port. Thanks to being a Captain of the League, if a new made one, and having connections with one of the elder houses of the city, for all its recent run of ill fortune, he gets even more gold for the cargo than his most hopeful estimate and so that wealth flows down like wine and honey into the pockets of the soldiers of the Fellowship.

Tin Sold: +21,903 gp

Soldiers paid: -3,504 gp (219 gp each; 438 gp for Tom)

Ship Maintenance and Sailor Pay: -3,040 gp

On the day the pay is handed out it is clear that thoughts are not at all on honey, somewhat on wine, and mostly on company of a sort it would be best not to ask too many questions of. You do however make a point to remind them not to go out alone by day or by night no matter what sort of merriment they might be seeking. The city is not quite as strange to you as it had been on your first coming, but you have not forgotten what happened to Zuan. You make damn sure neither do any of them.

That evening Antonio approaches you with an odd conundrum. "The only thing I can sell the damn longships for is the wood, rope and sail. It comes out to about two hundred to three hundred Icari, little more than what one of your men got to spend on mead and merriment. Now I'm thinking if its worth keeping the damn things and trying to sail them to Apuku in the spring, but to do that I have to pay a decent crew for all of them and you won't find many men in this port willing to sail on those damn things... shows they have more sense than those that built the damn things. Either way it might pay out to more than we would get for stripping the longships if we can get them back to the Isles, might not, but it's more of a risk to sail with a larger fleet that pirates can more readily notice. Seeing as you have a stake in the ships, same as me in the company, I think it is only good sense to ask your thoughts."

"What did Zaia say?" you ask, gathering your thoughts.

"Said he does not know enough about the matter to judge so he would rather look wise by keeping quiet." Antonio chuckles under his breath. "The man's got more laughs in him than you would think to meet him."

What do you reply?

[] Sell the longships for what you can get (Gain 200-300 gp)

[] Keep them, you did promise to go to Apuku in the spring anyway

OOC: Commerce rolls were very swing-y as you can see.

Thirty-Fourth Day of Ikomi-eza (Ikomi Ascendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

The light of hundreds of candles fills the great hall, extravagant in its radiance. Amid the rustling fine linens, the clink of gold and silver, you see the great and good of Orinilu... or at the very least the good. Never too far from Esha's side, and not just for the sake of gallantry, you get the chance to hear the gossip that has drawn so many to this hall. A failing House, a fortune all but spent and creditors like wolves in winter circling, and then out of the west and north you came bearing one of the most precious of treasures to a war-torn land.

"I heard it was taken from the Tin League, did you see the longships in harbor?" one rotund man was expounding to his, evidently, much younger wife. "It was that pot-banger Ukuju Wurako, mark my words. He was the one who took the strangers into the League..."

"Over a sort of ship never before seen in these waters?" The words are sweetly spoken and to all ears that hear it a question, yet still the sting of them is so great you wince in sympathy. Antonio by contrast does little to hide his mirth... though perhaps with a purpose. He is standing a little away from the man by one of the mead barrels that had been wheeled in and then used as a make-shift table in honor of Yonla, Lord of the Drink. The fellow he is conversing with seems to rather dislike the well-fed lord.

Toki, you think the fellow's name is, Toki Ahoni and this House has a fortune in marble and granite which they had then invested in trade. Landholders, but not ones who derive most of their wealth from the land then. It does give them a solid foundation... You smile a little to yourself and share the turn of phrase with Esha who nods and adds that she thinks he might be someone to look to if you mean to build a compound in the city, probably in Farshore. "He is easily flattered if nothing else," she adds.

"You think that is why he wed her?" you ask amused, but much to your surprise she shakes her head.

"It is Elini who was the heir to the old lord and she holds the command of the House ever since, but it is the law of the city that no woman who had not wed, that is married or a widow, may hold power."

"Then why..." you are not sure how to put it in any genteel manner, thankfully you do not have to struggle long.

She answers not in whispers, but in the mind: "He is of the old blood of the Great Lands and not among the lesser kindreds either, his great uncle was a sorcerer of great and skillful art it is said. Of course no one wants to admit they seek something so perilous as to breed mages into their line, that reeks of the old order, but as ever bonds of blood are counted the strongest."

Then aloud she answers for the ears of those who might be trying to overhear and know the Anwari tongue. "Toki's kin are silver smiths I heard, and they had the wealth to hand out great loans..." But your mind has already flown far off, back to the candles in fact.

Only now does it occur to you why the scene had an odd air from the start, over the long weeks of the last journey you had grown used to the steady light of mage lanterns, never more than a whisper away for Inge and oft used. Perhaps it is in more than tin that you have shown yourself rich, coming into this hall garbed in magic as much as in steel. You do your best not to reach for the sword that is not even there, for this is a civilized home and not the mead halls of the Sunset Islands, but the space betwixt your shoulders itches as though someone had aimed an arrow there.

Yet for all that there is nothing but well wishes and curiosity about you and your company at the feast. Sometimes there might even be said to be a little too much of it. "Ho! Lord of steel, well met, well met indeed!" A cheerful voice calls out from behind you. You are greeted with the sight of a man of middling years, hair once straw gold, relatively uncommon in these lands, turning to silver. He introduces himself as 'Bargai, blower of flutes and banger of cymbals', which draws a few more laughs than is met for a minstrel and he asks for a story 'if you would care to speak it'.

It seems your men had been spreading more than newly earned silver in the city, also talk of dragons and their slaying. That tale you tell as you had done before the king in Lirman and then the tale of the otter-kin you leave to them, for many in the city are fascinated by your diminutive but dignified friends.

They had chosen to eschew clothes but not jewelry in the fashion of Orinilu, simply borrowing it from that which Antonio had bought in addition to gold Icari. A torc made for a man might be a belt of silver and a ring might instead a fine bracelet make. Yet when their tale too is done the eyes of the room are again upon you... and upon Esha beside you.

Bragai, still cheerful as ever, asks how the two of you had come to cross paths.

What do you reply?

[] Politely decline to recount that tale

[] Try to tell an edited tale
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Puns had a lot more of a good reputation before the modern age, hence why Roland is not wincing but sharing his little mental treasure.