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

The Sixteenth Day of Elnu-eza (Elnu Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

As the Marcella rows forward through the near windless night into the Mouth of the World you find that it was not one tower but many, half a dozen fires like red eyes opening on the hillside. From the heights the horns go out, one after another, echoing each other in a hunting call. One doesn't need to be listening to Antonio's cursing to know things are going ill. The men rush to their posts, spear raised and bow strung as Tom none too gentle admonitions have at least the comfort of familiarity. Looking around for the sailors, high and low, you see that few of them are ready for battle, prepared as they are to either row the ship to open water or tease what speed one may out of the fickle wind.

Alas, tis not enough.

According to the otter-kin, whose eyes see further by star and moon, there are men moving on the south shore, the wooded slopes alive with the tread of many soldiers, and the worst news is yet to be had as Inge's gulls swoop down with news. Two galleys bar your path, and they can only be more of the fleet of the Tin League trying to keep Orinilu from getting supplied up the wide Sunset Sea by the Anwa.

"We are not flying the banner of their foes, perhaps they won't know us," Zaia says from beside you, but there isn't much hope to it. He knows as well as you that trying to run the straights at night is a sign of guilt if ever there was one and these are not raider ships that have to clamber over the high gunwales of another ship, but proper galleys... proper galleys meant for war you soon find out. Bronze prows glint in the moonlight and the front of the ships are all adorned in the guise of shark's teeth, ships of proud and bloody history from Ibanora itself.

The horns rind out again, from ship to shore an answer of quarry being found, and then from the lead ship a call in the Egur tongue: "Ye who trespass upon the might of the City of Smiths quail! Lay down your arms and set still your oars and you shall be treated well, resist and you will be broken!" At first you think the sheer loudness of the call when the ships were yet more than five hundred feet distant was some sorcery, but then you see a man with a grey feathered helm holding a bronze funnel to his mouth. Clever, some small part of you notes, but you are more worried about the soldiers you see at his back, all armed and armored in bronze breastplates, greaves and arm-guards. Not for nothing had you bought one of them for Tom and these look as though the complement of a single ships would outnumber all of the Fellowship, eighteen on each enemy galley counting the captain at their head. At least they do not seem to have any archers, if you can just keep them off the Marcella...

"They are using boarding ramps that will spill out more men at once than rope and hook, but they are also easier to break or burn," Antonio says with a glance towards Zaia. "At least they don't seem to have any archers..."

"There are big bows behind the ship," Runs in Rain cuts in, sounding worried.

"Balistas," Zaia calls them. "The bolt is heavy but there is only one of them and it aught to be slow firing... unless they set it alight, which they might."

"Do you think it's worth trying to talk to the bastards?" Antonio asks. "It'll give them time to get close without being shot at, but it's only two against one and between the strange make of the ship and the men in steel we might be able to talk our way through."

"How much of that magic fire do you have?" Inge asks suddenly.

"Enough," Zaia replies, eyes still on the ships ahead. "Why?"

"Well I have like six gulls listening to me right now and they are all close at hand. I could have all of them take a vial and drop them on the guard ships from on high. They won't know to shoot the gulls and then they'll be too busy putting out fires t' try to shoot us or try to steer t'wards us, won't they? We'll outrun them on the open sea easy."

What do you do?

[] Talk, perhaps you can persuade the Ibanorans that they do not want to fight the like of you and yours
-[] Write in

[] Prepare to fight
-[] Write in battle plan

[] Fire from the sky, use Inge's plan, it's not likely to work more than once... but for right now once is enough

[] Write in

OOC: Antonio rolled well on his profession sailing roll to get through, but the Ibanora also rolled well to notice you. The element of chance favored them.