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

Seventh Day of Ikomi-hamba (Ikomi Descendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Long and difficult is your task, thankless also..." you begin, then at Anisi's sharp look cut yourself off. Had you misspoken again? It seems you have found a special kind of hell to speak a language well enough to be understood, but not so well that you can be sure you had not made some absurd misstep.

"Spit it out, no need to dip me in oil and powder me with spice," the hunter says, not taking her eye off the bedraggled minstrel.

"I offer payment, in gold or in potions, for whichever of your spoils you are minded to sell," you answer, doing your best to keep back an exasperated sigh. Hard enough to recall a whole new set of manners, always cut bread with the knife in your left hand, never leave bones in your plate, pour out wine before drinking or cover the cup to show one's god does not desire the sacrifice... without having to deal with people who ignore those customs altogether and set you once more adrift in the sea of uncertainty. Perhaps it makes her a good interrogator, certainly you are not particularly comfortable beneath the huntress' suddenly sharpened gaze.

"For her?" she tips her head in Esha's direction.

"Partly, though I do not imagine one would be able to keep Zaia off any oddity for long, not even if a curtain of fire might stand between them," you try to add back in a touch of levity.

"Very well," she says after a briefer pause than you had thought. "I'll send someone with the spoils, as you say." By way of parting she adds: "Keep an eye on her, I certainly shall."

"I would rather keep an eye on others far more troubling, for words can be exchanged more readily than gold and to the good of all," you reply somberly. "I do not make any claim that the Fellowship is driven by charity towards the city alone, but we have seen enough of evil black as pitch that we would forearm ourselves as much as we can before it finds us again."

At that Anisi's expression softens a touch at least and she nods. A moment later she is gone, following the minstrel as he picks up his drums and his meager coin.

"Charming," Esha sniffs once Anisi's cloaked figure, not dark this time but white to better blend against the snow, is well out of sight. Glancing up at her you see that her smile is a good bit less bitter than you might have expected. "Oh, I mean that. For one of her calling she truly was charming today. The drummer must have truly earned the dagger between the ribs."

"You don't know she'll..." you start to say, but she cuts you off.

"I know a hunter going for the throat when I see one."

To that you have no argument, only a shiver down your spine.

Unlocked Action: Trading with the Hunters


Alas that is not the only mark of death you come upon that day. As you approach the dark stone halls of the temple of Ikomi later that same evening by light of swaying lantern you find unwelcome news. The priestess who had been here in the summer had passed away into the care of her goddess. At once your mind goes to foul deeds, some plot or treachery, but the new high priestess, shrouded just as the other had been, though this one at least you can guess the age of at least by the voice, assures you that her predecessor had passed peacefully and in her own time during the autumn when you had been far away in the north.

"Can you read the bones as she had done?" you ask, but the veiled figure shakes her head, her vestments rustling in the echoing hall.

"That, I cannot. I have not yet the favor and the skill for it, to call the memories of the dead to light from cold bone."

"There's got to be another way!" Inge bursts out in Anwari. "I'm not strong enough either, but we have t' know what they're up to!"

As the priestess turns to her, perhaps to chastise the girl, a cold wind blows through the high windows, flakes of snow swirling in and falling all about her like flakes of silver.

"There is another way," she stutters a bit. "I would not reveal it to any common travelers, but perhaps this is a sign to have come twice from the sea and twice with dark tidings." She goes on to explain that three days sailing along the coast to the north there is a cave that spills into the sea and in that cave the records of the temple claim is a holy place of Ikomi, though not one men are meant to walk in lightly.

"Dead stone grows as living flesh in the briny waters and feasts upon the minds of the dying. Cut ye from that place a piece of the dead man's brain, but touch it not with living flesh, and bring it back here that it may be used to harvest the thoughts you would hear."

Action Unlocked: Picking a Dead Man's Brains

Though you leave the temple ill at ease at being unable to unravel the mysteries of your now dead foes and finding no respite for the curses that afflict your company you do not have long to linger on such thoughts, for even as the foundations are leveled for the motte yet to rise the men of House Koire had arrived to be trained so that they might serve their lord with greater skill... and by this opportunity you might teach your own men new skills and weapons.

What training actions do you do with your men over the winter?

Applies to a type of troop; Wanderer counts as a type with a single warrior. One troop type cannot be trained more than once. Choose three.

[] Train them in a weapon
-[] Write in

[] Train them in a form of armor
-[] Write in

[] Exchange one feat for another feat which either Roland or Tom have or could reasonably engender though training
-[] Write in

OOC: Yes, the Dead Man's Brain is an actual form of monster in Pathfinder. You will get more details on them if you choose the quest cause this did not feels like a good place to exposition dump monsters you likely would not be facing for seasons.