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

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

You find Wanderer by the stern of the ship looking out into the waves at sunset, tossing out pieces of stale travel bread to the gulls. Sailors run rat races to remember land and soldiers feed gulls to be less lonely at sea, you had found, but you do not think something as mundane as the boredom of the high seas. For one you had not been at sea long and you would not call the last few days monotonous by any measure.

"Well met Wanderer, how fare you this evening?" you ask with little preamble, having found that the young Knikut has no great interest in courtesy for its own sake. If anything he seems to have found even the small formalities of the Anwari Kings odd and off putting. Like men would walk in the shoes of spirits he had called it then his tone leaving little doubt what he thought of such presumption.

"Fed, watered, good as a man can be on the dead water," he replies and again you see in him that distance that you had not known a mere week ago. Perhaps had you been less keen on the mood and manner of the Fellowship you might have missed it, but over the last year you have done nothing if not keep a wary eye on those under your banner. All the weapons to arm a host and all the gold to gather one are worth nothing without the men to stand firm in the face of battle.

"Fed, watered..." you count on your fingers adding: "A man is not a horse and I would know my horse talks." The jest earns an amused tip of the head, but no smile. "What troubles you?"

"Much, heavy like a sack of rye on my back. Like rye if you toss it on the wind it floats."

Now it's your turn to start, not having expected poetry... though perhaps you were doing the young man a disservice in doing so. You had heard tell that poetry is not the virtue of the educated mind, but of the generous heart, as much at home from a shepherd's lips as a learned bard.

"You are not a shaman, the little one is, so is Zaia of the Healing Draught, so is the Cold One, but they listen to you even when it is shaman business, spirit things."

"Sometimes...." you try to temporize. Yes it comes down to your choice more often than not, mostly because you seem to have a gift for talking people off ledges and 'people' is the right term for many called spirits of fey, strange and arcane kindred.

"No, not sometimes," Wanderer shakes hid head, the sudden movement scaring off the nearby gull... briefly at least until its greed can overcome its caution again. "All the time. You make choice like shaman, but you are not shaman, cannot see with the True Sight, cannot speak their tongues, do not know what spirit folk are like. "

"So you are... concerned about my leadership?" Maybe you are not quite as thick-skinned as you thought you were, the implication stings, all the more so because it is not unfounded.

"Guess all the times..." the warrior shakes his head. "Guess good so far, maybe some day not guess as good. Spear not much good if you guess wrong when facing water witch in water, can't stab sea."

What do you reply?

[] Pledge to learn more about the dangers of spirits

[] Pledge to listen more to those skilled in magic as a chieftain of the Knikut would do

[] He had no business doubting you

[] Write in

OOC: Way too late for this and I am too distracted, but I will be damned if I cannot get at least one update in a day.