Of Tides Past
8th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
Truth be told, the guards are a good bit more talkative than you had expected them to be, or perhaps Prince Cozut wasn't quite as sheltered compared to the rest of his people as you had first assumed if what are clearly warriors and hunters, marked with scars and trials, are
this open to speaking of their people's relationship with... your own. It is still strange to think that there is an entire city of the People somewhere among the vaults of Nar Voth, alike onto Augustana or the other Burnlander cities you saw on the maps of the Inner Sea.
Not that your companions on the road can confirm just how large the dwelling of Queen Frilogarma's vassals is, since none of the azarketi have ever been there, for the road is harsh and dry, upon the Old Road and the New.
"The New Road's the road you took, the one the land dwellers built," the leader explains. "But the Old Road comes up under the sea through the Seke... not sure how you say it, it means the 'Land of Serpents', a cruel and wicked folk always seeking more slaves and sacrifices to their gods. The way I heard, things back before the kings, when priests alone lead the people and we still followed the Whalesong down from the North and back again, like our kin the Usena still do, there came a great sickness among the people called the Oilskin Death for the way the skin and then the flesh would flow off the bones of the sick."
Mina looks queasy at the words, but far too polite to interrupt. Hesitantly you put a hand on her shoulder to offer comfort and a reminder that this is all history lost-to-all-but-song.
The tale flows on: "The Tidesworn prayed to
Gozreh and he was silent, but for the dance of the waters, the Wingseers raised their heads above the waves and tried to discern the wisdom of
Ylimancha, but all they saw was her sorrow and the doom of the people, lo even the Stalwart Ones who give praise to
Odisso could not endure forever and they gave themselves over to despair. Alone among the people, a wanderer-priest sworn to the Nameless One, descended into the labyrinth below cracks and crevices filled with vicious hungry things that would devour more than flesh, but in that place they left a rune entreating aid upon a stone that was wrapped in water for half the day and half the day open to the air of the under-lands. Another there was who had been sent that way by vision and prophecy, the Dancer Poimen. He knew of the sickness and its cure, the dust of certain mushrooms mixed with whale blubber..."
"They have whales down in caves?" Cob asks bemused. "I hear whales are really big."
The azarketi pause, as though it had never occurred to them to question that, but you think you have the answer. "Whale oil, they were using whale
oil."
The captain nods along. "Anyway, the Dancer gifted the cure to the people and the sick were made well, enough of them at least that the House of Izenti would live on..."
"Gifted my ass," you hear one of the others mutter darkly, but you know better than to confront him when there's more to the learned from the tale at hand.
"Lo that they were weakened and few did not dare cross the narrow neck of sea into the great ocean then up to the perilous northern waters, so the people lingered near the shore and learned the hunting of smaller beasts, enough to fill hungry bellies through the winter and trade with along the Old Road flourished, for they had much need of the bounty of the waters and we of the bounty of the of the caverns. So it is that our people became traders and though some returned to the life of following the whales they did not do so for long. Three long generations after the opening of the Old Road the druid Hemero discovered and tamed Sourkelp, which did much to fill the bellies of the people, and two generations after that Imerstor First King lead us to victory against the Blodtooth, the children of the shark who would pray on us for our bounty. So it was that when the landwalkers came again to the shore of the sea in their scores and hundreds. We knew the ways of trade that would leave both content with the bargains..."
"And yet the Usena call us weak, harnessed and broken to the whims landwalkers," one of the younger riders says, tossing her kelp-green hair away from her face to scare off a small silverfish that had slipped behind her ear.
"Not so weak that they won't marry their Chief's daughter to our King's son," the captain counters, though there's an edge of resentment in that tone as well.
"What do they think of
my people then?" you ask, not a little worried.
"To be honest, I don't think they have much of an opinion of your people," comes the answer after a moment's thought. "Trade flows between us still, but it is a smaller measure of our wealth than in the days before the rise of the shore folk of Andoran for we have spread far and wide, beyond that first settlement. Atop that, it is not as though the Usena spend too much of their time listening to our histories."
Ahead you see an encampment of perhaps a hundred dwellings wrought of pale limestone piled in rough cones with an entrance on top all festooned with banners of kelp in green, red, and most remarkable of all, golden-yellow that catches the sun as it streams through the water. Fish of hues and shapes as hard to to name as the birds in the sky dart about, unnoticed by the azarketi who swim among and above them.
The town seems to be perhaps three times the size of Cauldron, vast by the measure you had grown up with yet still dwarfed by Augustana perched upon the shore, and it is bursting at the seams with visitors. Dressed in dark leather kilts and sporting more weapons of stone and bone than trade-steel Usena still seem like fearsome warriors, their pale eyes turned to the sight of a squad mounted warriors leading four strange figures into the city.
"I don't think they like us," Mina whispers.
"They aren't liable to stab us though," you offer, having long learned the difference.
What do you do next?
[] You still have some gold, go to the market to see if there is anything interesting to buy or someone interested in Cob's reek armor in possession of something that catches his eye. One can only hope.
[] Find the prince, he is the only one you know is friendly around here
[] Listen for rumors and tales
OOC: One of the nice things about Pathfinder having a god under every rock is that one has plenty of room to make original pantheons for the societies that do not get a lot of attention. You won't be seeing a lot of 'these are boggards, they worship the God of Boggards TM' from this quest. 
).