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

Thirty Fourth Day of Elnu-eza (Elnu Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Latin, the giant had been speaking Latin, you had not heard the tongue since last you has partaken of Mass... a year and more ago now, it's speech had been halting, where had he heard it from who? You listen to half an ear to Zaia replying in that same tongue. Something that might be a greeting as your own eyes fall on Inge, she looks worried so you explain: "It is a tongue from my world, a tongue of my... a tongue that is used by priests."

She nods gravely. "A magic tongue?"

Once you might have said flatly no, the Mass anything but magic, it is a mystery and a gift of God, or at least so it aught to be if those who speak it are worthy of their vestments. But you have learned that when Inge says 'magic' she means faith and communion also and so you nod silently waiting breathless for what Zaia would say back from the strange being who speaks a most familiar tongue

"He says his name is Ninku and he is the Master of Verse, I think that would translate to something like scholar..." Zaia trails off and then asks the giant himself another question. "Ninku says he is more like a keeper on the lore of his people and a repository of their works, they are..." It is clear the scholar is struggling himself with the tongue he had learned from books and not living speech at all. "I think he said they live in the caves, not just here on land but in the sea also for they can breathe air and water just as readily, and they have... heard of us in the water and the air, I am quite certain he means some manner of prophecy or farsight."

"No," Inge cuts him off. "Ask him if they sea cats told them."

Zaia does and much to his confusion the reply is yes. "How would the beasts know anything? Why would they care?"

This time it is you who interject. "Ripper could see there was something odd about the ship, from the first day, from the time he found us, before the rat, before even the first time we want through the straights, if it has happened before then perhaps his kin are drawn to those who travel from..." you almost say home, you want to say home. "Far away," you do not say it lest hope be denied again.

The giant speaks again and as he does so you are almost mesmerized by his odd face, more bestial than man, but so expressive, so alive with nuance that one could never mistake it for holding anything less than a keen mine, though the signs of it might be hard to read.

Finally Zaia gets across whatever he was saying and he starts to translate. "Ninku says his kin have met others like us many years..." Then he hesitates again, much to your chagrin. "I cannot be getting the numbers right, surely..." The giant speaks again and then a troubled Zaia says. "Before the long fathers of the long fathers of the south men came to the island, twelve centuries ago, there were men who did not come out of the south nor our of the north, the east or the west, they were cast here by some great power and they tried for a long while to find a place that none knew of, aye perhaps they might have ruled here in the Mariner's place if they did not give their lives in his wars and now only we live who remember. They died fulfilling a great purpose, and breaking the wheel of fate upon their spears ere the end. That you have come is a sign, the wheel turns, the wheel grinds, the wheel will be broken."

You almost flinch from the rumble of the last word before it is translated.

What do you ask of the giant?

[] Write in

OOC: OK, new personal rule, no more reading the news in the evening no matter what I see. I hate that I was only able to get a single update and this one short, but hopefully we can get back to something like normal tomorrow.

Thirty Fourth Day of Elnu-eza (Elnu Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

You listen to a tale at once fantastical and yet painfully slow, as the giant and Zaia trade off words in a tongue it seems neither of them speak that well. Soon others alike to Ninku come with great woven baskets, wide enough for a man to lay down in, filled with coarse bread and dried meats.

"The wheel turns, the weaver's shuttle flies and all Those With Voices are bound to it by their own threads, but all things call to their opposite, day follows night, winter follows summer and creation falls to destruction. So it was with our kin who are not of the woods, they built upon the islands east shore great towers of stone and cities burrowed under the peaks, so they dwelt free in the sea, herding the Singers who the Anwa now only hunt with their spears. Ours was a lordship and domination that stretchered far under the sea and the land was to us as the parched deserts are to you, some there were to walked there to show then they could and others in search of treasure or adventure or to trade with the woods-dwellers, the fey and the guardians of the woods. The those you can cats of the sea were our companions, they were the faithful guards of our flocks and the companions of our cities, as the hound is to you..."

Somehow in all of that the notion that someone could treat a cat as one might a dog was the most dubious, but perhaps there is some kinship there that the sea cats might recognize, you think looking into bright golden eyes.

"Alas that in that long age of plenty there were some in the pale spires of Onigu who thought to master more than our share, to extend our lives down through the ages rather than to trust the Mother who Made us All."

Inge starts then, as though she had heard something from far away, but when you look at her she shakes her head and bids you listen on. "I'll tell you later."

"For their transgression they were destroyed by the Powers besides which all their learning and all their might were as dust and only those few who had been far off and scattered endured..."

"Because you were faithful and did not stray?" Zaia asks, the thought had occurred to you as well, uneasy as the comparison might be.

At that the giant shakes his head sadly. "The wrath of the gods once unleashed cannot be put back, no more than a scythe can cut only the weeds and leave the grain untouched. We survived because all things require balance, even the hand of fate, even the wrath of the gods, the coming of those Neverborn. It was our fate to perish long ago, but then the Fateless came and we were saved."

"You are saying that the coming of the daemons is the doing of gods, that they were unleashed upon the land as a plague to punish the wicked?" You recall at once the words of the ancient seeress Luaza, the last she spoke ere here death: 'The opposite of cutting threads is not more cutting, but tangling them.'

"I do not know why they have come, I do not speak their foul tongue, nor am I so foolish as to put myself in their company and ask for the answer to such a question would come at a price far beyond anything I am willing to pay," Ninku replied. "I know why they came in the long past and I know that when they came so did the Fateless, in balance, in restitution. I know also that they died in the doing of their task and there are some among our kin...," here he glances at the other giants and sighs. It takes Zaia longer to translate this part, with more questions. "There are some who think that the Fateless must die to make an end to the Neverborn, who think that you are as anathema to the Pale and all within it as they are. I do not so believe, for I have heard from afar the memories of those who came before you and they were not monsters, nor were they weapons to balance the cosmic scale, they were men who wept for their land and sorrowed at the fall of a great leader whom they had left behind. They wished to till the land and when they heard that there were other men still in the south of the world some thought to go there and seek wives among them. Alas, there was war and ruin and all that was left of them was memory, but perhaps from that memory you might gain some understanding."

You are not sure when you had sat down on the rock behind you, probably about the time when Zaia's voice had grown strained and raw. You feel...

[] Stunned, you do not know what to make of this, of the notion that there might have been others before you, you do not know if you aught to trust this odd messenger or what it might mean

[] Relieved, at least you know there is some meaning to your coming some purpose

[] Resolved, twice now you have faced the plots of the Neverborn and twice you have snatched some prize from their claws, you will do so again

[] Write in

OOC: And now I can finally reveal what the encounter was that gave you the sea cats and the message, it was a 90, though I cannot link it because it gives me an odd error. I cannot just screenshot it because it would reveal some other stuff that would be spoilers.