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

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

Strange is the hour and unbidden the company, but one thing you know for certain, a cloak of lies does not honor royal shoulders and you will not be party to it, false 'hero' hailed from trickery. Perhaps your words are harsher than they aught to be, but so you answer true. "I would not bar you from returning to Lirrman, but such discovery begs to be discovered as smoke marks flame."

"So then you will not aid me to take my rightful place, is it because my foes do not bleed black, is it because they are wise enough to put on lying mask of grace?" All at once Lina's manner changes from pleading almost to rage. "Do you know what my mother meant for the babe she left behind on storm-tossed beach?"

Still you will not be swayed "I cannot surrender my responsibilities not only to the truth, but also to the company of those with whom I vowed fair friendship in battle. Whatever quarrel you might have with..."

The princess stomps her foot on the ground and what might have been only a fit of pique in any other place here rings like thunder, like sundering stone. "Is that what you think of me, that I am quarreling with the sea and those who master it, with the Court of the Tides which can in an instant make storm of clear skies and of storm a hurricane? Know ye that to be immortal is not to be deathless, that those whose forms are inviolate to time are not in mind invincible. To my mother's kin I am Little Flame, a living vessel of that mirth and merriment, sorrow and loss that makes mortals so fascinating to them. I would have been a way for them to see and experience mortality without actually going out and fucking a mortal man, Do you know what happens to a branch aflame when you keep it bunting just for yourself down in the black depths? It burns out."

"I am sorry..." you do not know what to say, what you can say and yet you see no path by which you might aid her and be true to yourself and your companions.

"It doesn't have to be that way," Lina all but begs now. "The union of land and sea, it does not have to be a thing of furtive couplings and doomed babes. I can as queen upon the throne of the Beastslayer command the attention and the respect of those above and below. I am not without my own allies here, not without my own means to build something greater and weather the darkness that is to come of which what you faced in Korman is only the shadow's shadow."

"I heard another say words like those and he was mad and in the service of foul things, what have you do say for claiming the aid of those who sole the face of a man and cast his corpse to the side like so much offal," you snap, heart hardening at the memory of Onogu's fate. The old man deserved better. "I am willing to speak to Ohun in your name if you cannot contact him, but no more than that, No lies shall I speak to raise up myself, nor you."

The young woman before you seems almost to shrink, though not by any sorcery, her shoulders slump, her gaze falls and then unheard she sighs. "So there is nothing I can say to change your mind?"

Instead of speaking you shake your head.

"Woe is me to have met an honorable man in such times as these..." The words follow you up as something seems to grasp you by the shoulders and suddenly yank you up until you are again in your own bed, the blankets having ling since been cast into a corner in your thrashing.

Who do you reveal the dream to?

[] Just the others in the Fellowship

[] Ohun also, you have questions about what you had heard about the Court of the Tide

[] Write in

OOC: I know you guys are still waiting on the trade profits, but I could not think of where to fit them.

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

The first sign that something might be off about the whole thing was when Ohun bid you to be silent as soon as you mentioned waking dreams, the second was when he remained silent himself and stone still throughout the whole account of speaking to Lina. No anger do you read upon his wizened face at the betrayal you had been worried he might have seen this as, no relief at knowing that she was well and the line of kings had not been broken. Then he looks around at you one by one, the scholar, the sorceress, the knight and the young priestess of his own order. "Ah... such cruel tricks does fate play and all for naught in the end."

"Do you think that was indeed her?" Zaia asks, adding quickly. "How might the princess have gained that power?"

"The blood runs strong... and the blood runs wild." Ohun runs his fingers through his beard in frustration. "Her mother did not as Lina implied bear her only for the sake of sensation, the theft of mortality, though I can well imagine why those whose company she keeps now would think of. Love between Stone and Sea as it is called in the ballads is common enough that you can find a take of it in every fisherman's hut and half of them are even true," The priest chuckles, lightening at least a little before continuing.

"Each is fascinated by what the other has, grace and beauty, the fire of living life one day at a time and it is not rare not rare at all for a child to result from the union... what is uncommon is for the fey parent to be a daughter of the sea and not a sun, to bear a child and then to give it up to mortal life."

"It makes them stronger of soul and sorcery," Inge speaks up softly, though her words do not sound like a mere guess.

"Yes," Ohun nods. "As clay is hardened more from an hour in the kiln than it would be from tossing a torch upon it so the power is brighter by far, enough so that had she joined the Court of the Tides Lina likely would have left her mortality behind as the both leaves behind the shell of the worm that was. She saw this as 'using up her humanity' and so did... her brother which is why he was to reluctant to return her to the sea and yet in the end she did, but in the company of those who are foes of her own kin. Oh how they must have laughed."

"I don't think they are planning to keep her," Esha cuts in. "It would not make much point, not when the Faceless delight in meddling in the fates of men and spirits. They are giving your princess the tools, the understanding to be more than she was, more than even her sea-begotten kin might be. She spoke of standing against some great evil... why then one must in turn be great."

"She cannot return, the heads of the Houses would never accept her rule," Ohun proclaims firmly.

"You of all people aught to know There are more kinds of power then are begotten of who has the largest chair. Lina Osane will return for her heritage, early or late and she will come with allies of the deep blue sea. Best to have words now than words later, heavier than stones."

With that warning the meeting ends, stiff thanks for speaking and for listening on all sides, though you do not have long to wait for a sign. That evening the sky is dark with storm clouds though no rain falls and lightning arcs across he sky in dreadful arcs until at last the sun though you could swear that by the last rays of the fading sun you can see lithe figures calling out to a bird that is not a bird. Ohun is seeking counsel. If only you had wings to listen in...

What do you do next?

[] Speak to one of your companions
-[] Write in who

[] Learn more about the world from Zaia or Antonio
-[] Write in subject

[] Write in

OOC: I am kind of hesitant to hand out open ended votes like this since I know they can lead to choice paralyses, but there are things happening in the background that need time and at the same time it makes sense for Roland to take some down time while he can.

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

It is a long way to Willowbrook out here on the sunlit deck of the Marcella as Swift Pebble nimbly holds a line and you spend a few lazy hours just enjoying the still flighty spring sun. So it is that the question slips past your lips almost unbidden among the dozen minor matters that come with leaving port and heading back towards the eastern islands and thence to Orinilu. "How have you found your journeys with us, has the wide world been all you had hoped for?"

"How could we hope for what which I did not know?" the thought comes slowly as though she is chewing on the matter beneath her whiskers. "How could be fear it?" After a moment's contemplation she adds. "I had heard that in the spirit-tales of your people it is said that you once dwelt in a garden where there was no want and suffering, where the lion lay down with the lamb. Some of your men think we must have come from there, the last of blessed beasts of a time far off, but to me the tale spoke of something else: We did not know of the great cities over the bitter water nor of the great not-hunts that men call 'war' of the way in which you strive one with another over what seems to our eyes to be a bounty beyond counting. Perhaps we used to live in your Garden and you live in ours, each unaware of what we had until we met those who did not have it."

"You think of the world we live in as Paradise?" Once the thought might have seemed blasphemy, but you have seen much that was strange since then and have learned to at least try to look though other eyes since then.

"Do you not? The beasts of the woods and the fields do not hunt you near as fiercely and it is common for you to hunt them in turn, you have plenty that is taken from fields made green by your hands and from the sea you pull out a great bounty in knotted nets. I even heard, though I am not sure if it is true, that some among the people of the islands hunt the Singers of the Sea for their meat and fat and so that they may prove themselves." She shudders faintly. "An evil I would count that, but it is an evil that you can afford to fall into because there are so many of you and you are so strong."

"I cannot tell if you like men or simply fear us," it is simpler to think the question that you might have been weary of speaking aloud.

"Men there are as many as grains of sand on the shore," she shakes her head and sniffs, a startlingly human gesture. "I like your kind of human and the old healer's kind of human, though he is too fond of trying new things to try-taste and shadow-mind Esha's kind as well, though it was hard to guess at her at first. Less fond am I of the sorts of men who see us as pets running tame... even if if does make it all the more easy for us to learn things they would have wished unsaid."

You are struck that she was so keenly able to tell that Zaia was 'of another sort' than you which kings and lords, priests and wizards had not, but more than that you catch the implication that she and hers could skulk and watch and listen. Antonio had bid the river-kin to night watch for all the boons they bring with them, but it occurs to you than the same gifts could be used to skulk and watch themselves. Part of you wants to call that dishonorable... but it is a small part beside the realization of just how much peril you could have avoided by learning certain secrets sooner rather than late.

"And for that you have our thanks," you send, almost wholehearted, hoping she understands.

The line twitches, a fish is deftly caught, its silvery blue scales flashing on the deck as it gasps its last only for Swift pebble to jump atop it and bite it below the head. "No sense letting it suffer," she says, perhaps feeling your eyes on her.

You nod slowly just as a shadow passes over you, a cloud moving swiftly in the clear blue sky... swiftly and against the wind. You barely have the time to open your mouth to call a warning when half a dozen whirling clouds descent on the fleet, howling like the voices of the damned. Though their fury seems for now aimed at the longships all about you, trying to tip them over sailors rush on the deck of the Marcella summoned by her otter-kin guards and among them is Inge.

"Spirits of the Storm! Someone must have angered them!"

More of them are still coming down, six becomes eight becomes ten, everywhere you look the fleet is in peril and men who had just fought a victorious battle against the anjo oru and their servants now seem in desperate straights... yet for some reason the creatures seem to be ignoring the Marcella.

What do you do?

[] Shoot them from the safety of the deck and be ready to repel any than fly close

[] Try to swim to the nearest longship to face the foe sword in hand, between your own skills and Ripper you are sure you will make it

[] Write in

OOC: So remember those background rolls...? They did not go well.