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

If there can be said to be one truth which comfort to the powerless and a balm to the meek it is that in a time short or long all shall fall to dust, kings and paupers, high priests laying down beside the common folk yet such things did not seem to touch Unke the Red, King of Korman and master of the Islands. He was as hale at three score years as he had been at two and if it could be said that he had slower in his partaking of mead and merriment it was only because he had grown fond of the strange liquors of the east. No heir had he and it was said in those sate years that so he wished it, for then no man in all his court would be counted assured to profit from his death.

It was sung later among the minstrels of Lirman that the king was like the hog who could not reach the sweet blackberries and would say 'bah they are rotten on the bough'. King's Rot they called that manner of pride and delusion in his 'honor' though none dared say it to the face of the king while he yet lived... and lived and lived.

The noble folk of this land live longer lives than those with which I am accustomed, for they do not as lighly perish by the bade when there is a sorcerer to aid them, or even some trinket or potion for the task. Moreover they do not as lightly die to the wound rot and fever than has sapped the strength of so many warriors in flower, but the years flow as the years must and but for those touched by the blood of fey or darker kindred they are still expected to die as the Redman did not There came to his court then rumors like a flock of crows ill fated. Some said Unke devoured his children one by one to have more years of life and others claimed that it was the curse that kept him alive so long as he was yet in the flower of his glory, for the gods wished him to die humble.

Here is where we meet many a comical characters in the plays of the Anwari for that last point is usually made by a jester with a crown of bells who then muses: "With such a blessing what has a man need of blessings?"

Alas for the wisdom of fools. It is written that in the forty first year of the reign of Unke as king of Korman great floods came to the land of the King and the River which even now flows though the capital rose and drowned many of those who lived there in their beds. After the water came the rats, drawn it was said to the sweet smell of black mold that spread though the grain. If accounts are to be believed which I do not wholly, than these were the first rats on the islands and they came 'as if from the earth itself, a plague of Ashinu'. Being as I heave not heard of any land that was wholly free of rats it seems more likely that this was nothing more than a poor year, the which all realms have, be their lords even so blessed, their stewards even to prudent, but as the Redman had grown even more strange and apart from his land and there was not one but many with a dagger meant to his neck there was gathered then a rebellion of those clans he has subdued of those kings who were kings no more and they marched on him at once.

Wily was he as in his youth and it seems a a warrior even more mighty, but the very bonds he had forged between clan and clan now worked against him. Rather than facing each fleet under its own banners they came upon him all at once and he had not the hosts of loyal men that he had possessed before. Even the petty lords of Surman who among the company of their fellows were least in wealth and might dared to come against him.

And the lords slept ever with guards at their bedside and never in the dark for their feared the Shadow might come... but none came. Came they at last to the Thousand Caves and there they overcame the last of those who served Unke. It was said they were all foreigners and not of the Anwa, though much do I doubt that...

Three ends the tale has, one that they found a withered corpse on the throne as though all the years had fallen on him at once, bu they knew him by the rings in his beard and he marks on his face, the second that the shadow appeared to them one last time and threw the head of his once master at their feet and said 'he could not afford me', third and last that the boy which he had spared all those years ago, the son of the king's cousin and of his second wife, now grown to manhood slew him in a fair duel, but since their kinship was counted distant enough the man was then made King Kron the First.

No matter which of the above is true it is a matter inscribed in the rolls of kings which the lady Aina learned as a girl that King Kron came after Unke so in the end he died alone and accursed, the dying words of the beast he has slain in his youth made true.

OOC: I rolled for how well Zaia would get this story since it could be plot relevant, he rolled only middling hence all the contradictions.

Fourth Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Treasure of battle is a thing that many warriors prize yet few you have found have any love of claiming, to pick over the bodies of the dead like ravens come to feast, to walk onto the decks of longships whose crew yet lies rotting at the bottom like some foul stew of rotting humanity waiting for Hell itself to sup on it.

Gain 1,080 gp

You do not envy Antonio the task, but neither does he envy yours. With Esha at one side, looking a good bit less posed than is her wont and Swift Pebble on the other, holding up a skinning knife she had picked up from somewhere tight in her paws like a sword you find at last the wounded on the last battle... in their own noisome hole.

Fearful that the servants of Obari and of 'Unke' might yet harbor some fel power or hand of the Anjo Oru they had been all been lowered into a root cellar built long ago into the stone ground. The hall was gone, the village it must have been apart of as well and all you can now smell among the moist earth is the sickly sweet odor of blood and rot.Like an open grave, though the bastards have not stopped moving yet...

"Slit the sons of bitches throats when you are done," one man of Apatagiga said and you had thought him bloody-minded. Now you wonder if he had asked you to give mercy.

Regardless the prisoners would not be able to speak if they are not healed and you certainly are not going to drag Inge down here to see this. Instead you pour a few gulps of life-giving potion into the mouth of one of the prisoners so they can actually speak of what they served ad how they came to be in the company of the damned.

It is easy enough to get the basics from them, they are from Owkuta and they serve under their lord, who had as far as they had seen not perished in the battle and they had been called on to march two days ago to repel invaders from the sea and rebels from Orinyiya, the massage had come from the king, though it had been borne by a strange cloaked man, looking old and wizened, though none had seen his face. Swift Pebble was able to get enough of a look at the memory of him to tell that it was one of the Pale Men you had burned outside, and there was no way those things were able to hide their nature from any closer eye so their lords at least must have known what they were dealing with...

Yet even as the man you had healed first of his gut wound proclaimed his innocence in the matter of the daemons one of his companions fallen with a let broken above the knee cuts in: "You ken as well as I do Ohni Blackbeard that we weren't coming to the help of any King Obari not with the dreams the Old Mother had, it was the Redman's Day."

"The Redman's Day...?" You hand the man his own healing, so that he might speak without gasps of pain, and so that he would have cause to speak honestly.

"They didn't find the Redman there at the end did they? Just some withered corpse what they said was him after the 'foul magic' he used to stay young. T'weren't him and all they got were the rings on his beard, he hid ye hear with the deep folk of the sea, because he lay with the daughter of their king and he had a son with her but he was yet a boy ad his father dared not bring him to court but then the traitors found came and drove him out. Old Mother dreamed he slept under the sea and the hands of giants were the plinths of his hall. He'd come to rescue us from the evil, only we had to drive out the kin of the traitors come again..." The man sighs bitterly. "The more fools us common fishers for believing in dreams and portents, like we would be the heroes out of song. All that's left to us is a trip down below to the Halls." Glancing down at his leg with a grim smile he adds. "At least now I'll get to walk there with a whole leg."

The second man goes on to explain that he thinks that the levies of all the villages had been raised at the same time as his though he cannot say for certain. What he does know was that there are many hundreds in the host which he had been a part of, not all of them from his Owkuta, but from Noromo as well and that they had been commanded to move in haste and watch for the fog. He thinks the fog was a gift of Unke... though a glance at Esha sees her shale her head. "Few of those who walk on two legs can claim mastery of the sky and of those none who would make themselves servants to a man who would be king, no matter the year of his birth. Still there might be something to the talk of mermaids. Those who well in the depths have little love of daemons and their ilk and they are not above wearing the faces of the living as much as the dead."

"Do they raise corpses to their service?" you ask not keeping one iota of the revulsion you feel out of your tone.

"No, that feels more like the work of daemons and their ilk, it is no easy task to raise the dead either, much less to raise them to fight with the skills of life and the vigor of the grave."

It is clear as day even in that dark pit that the prisoners do not have any more answers for you and so far they had given you more in the way of questions. How had this 'Unke' if he truly was the man of legend managed the weather-weaving of the Formless or other masters of the sea and yet to raise the dead as daemon-kin would... not to mention the company of those who were already possessed.

A thought comes to you, strange and it is unpleasant. "Could the Neverborn betray their purpose and serve a living man, if Unke was indeed one such?"

To that Esha can only shrug. "Those the men of these islands call Anjo Oru should not even be able to find such order among themselves as we have seen. If they would serve a man I do not know as I can only guess what they served from the start. If you had asked me half a decade ago to judge what a realm under the power of the Neverborn might seem like I would say 'leave a herd of goats in the keeping of a wolf and all you shall find is butchery'. Yet here we are, there has been death and suffering aplenty, but not just that. They still hold loyalty with the 'king' Obari and now another king rises with portent and with mighty power and he calls on them to rise up... I think it is safe to say that not all the stones are of the same color and we are a new player in the game."

A groan from deeper in the dark beyond the light of Durendal's flames draws your attention to the fact that you still have to decide what to do with the... nine prisoners you had gained as surely as if you had bought galley slaves at auction. though the Anwa are thankfully not practitioners of that institution. These are free men who must either be killed before you leave the camp, taken on with pledge under you or let loose with pledge not to make war against the hosts of Lirman, and branded to mark them as such should they break their word.

What do you do about the prisoners?

[] Take them on, they might be useful to fill the ranks of the Marcalle's crew and they do not seem bad sorts, more dupes than servants of evil

[] Let them loose with an pledge and a brand as is the custom of the Anwa in brighter times, Ohun night think you foolish to do so when the fie is still abroad and loose and might learn more of you from them, but it is your right

[] Kill them, they know too much

[] Write in

OOC: Well this took a while, though at the very least it is a hefty one.

Fourth Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

The prisoners are let loose, the hale and the lame, a sorry sight, but one you can ill afford to take on while battle is yet so near. Thus into the evening hours you march while the fleet sails alongside, never out of sight, or out of reach of the birds that carry messages from ship to shore under the command of Inge and Ohun. Thankfully you find the path on to Igigoolu easier and the skies clear of mist and evil cloud. There is naught but bats out in the evening air, and though Aubert and a few others of your men cross themselves at the sight the locals seem to count them a lucky sight. Supposedly Pooka the Guardian of the Grain and helper of Ashinu takes on the guise of a bat as he battles all manner of stinging scuttling things.

"We kill Anjo-Oru like Pooka kills flies," you hear Darun say more than once to hearten his men. Would that it be that easy, you think, though it is less a prayer and more denial. Wars are never so easy when facing men who fight for lord and land and it seems to you that at least some of the enemy mean it.

"You rest heavy on my back friend Roland," Silver offers, sounding worried and trying to hide it.

"The day weighs on me," you admit. "What will we find when we get to Igigoolu or on beyond that do Owkuta? How much blood can we spill and claim that our war is just and not just more of looting and killing? We came to this place to make war on Obari for his kinslaying and to make Aina queen, now she faces another out of the legends and tales of her folk and she is..."

"A woman?" Silver offers. "Pardon if I do not understand a point but it seems to me that human folk judge too readily rooted in that. Have you not the same wit and the same will?"

"I do not question her for that," you reply, a touch surprised to find that is true. Somewhere between seeing Inge face the dead without flinching and trusting Esha in matters of magic and of diplomacy great and small you had come to a broader conclusion all unfelt. "I question her because she does not believe that it is Unke. I worry what will happen when that changes, or when she is confronted by those who do think that he aught to be king as he was of old... She feels brittle and Ohun too much driven by his own anger, Darum by shame and Pokun... truth be told I do not know what to think of the man save that he seems too dry eyed at the death of Ansefu."

"So then if you do not trust anyone here wholly would you lead?" Comes the questions you had not expected.

"A stranger in a strange land am I, a sellsword, though one known for valor," you laugh and it is not as bitter as it might once have been. "What warrior of the Anwa will follow me?"

"You have shown valor not once but twice now in battle against those who are more than mortal. I think more would be minded to follow you than you know. Of the warrior who remain only Ziku is your peer and he has no interest in war and still peaks with a foreigner's tongue where you do not."

Before you can reply you hear a call from up ahead, the village is in sight, the walls black bow against the darkening sky as your path had turned more east than south... yet all the calls made to open the gates, or even for the inhabitants to show themselves are met with silence. There are shouts now up and down the host as those in front try to push against the horses of the Fellowship at the fore and others call for a halt. Finally Ohun shows himself and with his face turned up towards the reddening sky he takes on winged shape to pass over the village...

When he returns his face is ashen. "There is nothing," he says. "There is no one."

All at once every dark fate that the folk of the village could have met flashes before your mind's eye. Would they be infected with the power of the enemy, made into pale husks that fight with blades of dread and wind of death? Had they instead been slain in some foul ritual that would see them come upon you in the night out of the stony ground.

"There has to be some sign of where they went, a village worth of people who not just vanish into the air, alive or dead they left a trail," you say with perhaps more in the way of confidence than you feel.

Yet you are proven right, there is a trail that leads from the village on the shore up though a bone dry gully and into the mountains. Scouting that way you find the mark of many feet and one does not have to be a great tracker spot that the marks of smaller feet are at the center and not lagging behind... a village that had fled into the hills and not one that we forced to leave. Thus you find them at least in a guarded hollow, under the a bows of such archers as they could gather.

Truth be told you do not even begrudge the arrows shot at you for once you had assured them that you meant no harm to them or their loved ones and found some of their neighbors to assure them of it the story comes out:

"We saw the Beast against the moon and our dreams were filled with foul omens so when the Great One, the giant did not return we knew that we must flee into the hills," one man, aged but still straight-backed as he leans on his spear recounts, still eyeing your horses warily though oddly enough he seems to become more at ease when he hears Silver speak, asking if they have food and water out here.

"We have what we need to last us though the dark times, but we have no spears to march to war with while the evil times last," the headman explains.

Some of the younger men looks restless, as though they would like to speak against him but have not quite the courage for it.

"So would we all wish to do in time of war," you reply simply. "Yet the enemy will come to us if we do not go to him and this foe most of all who would feast on the souls of men. I do not ask you warriors of Igigoolu to fight in another's war. I ask you that you fight your won war away from the hearths and hollows where kith and kin shelter."

It is not without a twinge of guilt that you watch a little more than two dozen men and women come forth to march with the army, carrying such meager supplies as they could pry from the hands of a disapproving elder. They might have made a difference in protecting the village, but then they might also make a difference in the battle for Noromo.

Gain 26 Warriors

What do you do on the march of Owkuta?

[] Speak to Ohun, to see what he thinks of the beasts and horrors you have met so far

[] See how Aina had taken the appearance of the Redman, perhaps prepare her for the possibility this man is not an impostor

[] Try to gather those warriors of the southern villages as well as Negus's band together for the battles ahead, without a clear leader you fear they might break in battle

[] Write in

OOC: Good diplo and survival rolls in this one.