Of Ruin and Writ
10th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
The crew prove a lot more willing to drink water of your own conjuring than you'd have given them credit for, though that might have something to do with the way the ship's barrels quickly started turning stale, though not as much as the jokes about them 'catching frogs' from Warty. Eventually Captain Mel's cabin boy decided to try 'witch water' and after the lad had shown himself to be suitably not poisoned some of the others followed suit, though they did still mix it with their 'grog ration', an idea so bewildering you thought they had to be making it up.
"You haven't drunk that much, have you lad?" Captain Mel asks, not unkindly. "You get used to it after a while. No one's falling out of the crow's nest or into the drink from a mite of drink, but it can warm the bones on a long cold watch, sure that it can..." As though to help make her point, a wave sends spray over the side and onto your new enchanted cloak.
"I'd rather be cold and wet than unsure on my feet..." Of course that is when you slip and have to hang on to to the 'mizzenmast' as the second of the
Fruitful Endeavor's masts was called. "Unsur-
er."
Does the word work like that?
"Ah, but you don't live all your life in the cold and wet, do you lad?" The captain asks. She looks out over the water, her expression unreadable. "They say that sailors are a superstitious lot, it's not wrong no sir, but it's like complaining that mountain climbers have the funny habit of tying ropes round themselves."
"Sailors tie ropes around themselves too, during a storm at least," you point out, having learned that much from sailing with Captain Caulker.
"That's because we are a harder lot than than any mountain man born," she laughs and takes a swing of the smoky green bottle in her other hand. "Takes a hard head to still love the sea, bitch that she is, see?"
You nod politely, though not, you imagine, convincing anyone.
"So, how'd you meet up with the scaled folk? You don't usually find them far from water, fresh or salt, but these ones act like they've not seen any wider than a creek and deeper than a wash tub."
"You've met iruxi before?"
"Oh aye, didn't even need spears thrown my way to be polite. South of Botosani, the coast towards the Sodden Lands is mostly empty, both from the eye and those who ride its winds, but there's some tribes who make their home among the inlets and the rubble reefs."
"Rubble Reefs?" Mina had come up to stand behind you, curious to hear more stories of the wider world, almost as strange to her as it is to you.
"When the Eye of Abendago opened and drowned Lirgen and Yamasa to make the Sodden Lands, wind and wave tore at the stones their cities, scattering them like a child with a bag of marbles, or so it seemed at first. But the Eye ain't no natural storm. Over the years folks noticed that there was more and more flotsam piling up in places, even some that really shouldn't have been floating, stones and bones of the drowned kingdoms. Men keep away from those, not that there are many men wandering the sands anyway, so the iruxi, coming up from the shackles, use the reefs to guard the skiffs they use for fishing and for war. They aren't a friendly bunch, but they aren't the man eating savages you'll hear some call 'em."
"Have you been
down south often?" Mina asks with a hesitation you do not understand.
"If you're gonna ask me if I'm a pirate lass, ask it plain. No need to praise me over the cord grass," the captain grumbles.
"Well?" you ask after a moment. If it's important enough for Mina to ask you figure it's important enough for you to press.
"None of your business, but I'll say it plainly so as not to waste your time," the old woman counters and so you're left at an impasse.
Mina Diplomacy (DC 10): 1d20+1 = 9 (Failure)
For the sake of not leaving things on such a sour note you offer to read the fate of the
Fruitful Endeavor over the next week.
At first the captain seems startled at the offer, or maybe at your ability to do so, since all she'd seen of your power had gone into the rain barrel, but she agrees to it, as long as you do it in private so as not to scare the crew. On the balance a wise choice indeed.
The Hydra's heads reach snapping bone
Reap now thou what you have sown
The words trail off into a drawing of an unfamiliar ship, its decks bristling with strange engines that recall the war machines of the duergar... or they were made by a hand less skilled than the dark dwarfs. The lines fade as you go up from the decks, the three triangular sails more guessed at than seen, though something might have torn them.
Automatic Writing (DC 10): 1d100 = 77 (Success) -> Encounter: 1d100 = 14
Quickly cleaning up the desk you take the parchment to Mel, who takes it to study, her expression growing darker and darker the longer she follows the lines. "That's a Chelish frigate, an old one, if your magic writing's to be believed, but still a Lady-Damned
Chelish frigate. What in the Nine Hells did the damn agent do to piss off Her Infernal Bitch's Navy?"
Captain Mel Knowledge (Shipbuilding) Take Twenty: 20+7 = 27 (Success)
It's cool in the cabin, cold really, but you can feel sweat beat at the back of your neck just the same. You know that ship, you've
seen that ship, foremost in the vision of war that would have come to be between Andoran and Cheliax.
What do you do?
[] Explain that you have seen that ship before and your visions might have impacted the fate of its crew
[] Stay Silent (Opposed Bluff Check)
[] Write-in
OOC: If you would like to inform someone else, besides your companions of course, that would be a write-in here. 
