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

[DragonParadox]

That Perilous Line ​

Day Two, Year Unknown

When you turn it is with the full intention of telling Antonio to leave the damn beast well enough alone. Between the storm, the broken mast and half the sailors thinking that it is a devil the last thing anyone on the Marcella needs to deal with is having it aboard, in a net or out of it. For all you know it has a taste for man-flesh.

Not that it looks like it, the part of you that had coaxed a baby fox back to health to the bemusement of your father and the annoyance of your mother notes. You had thought you lost that boy somewhere in the blood filled gutters of Damietta, if not before that, marching with a foreign king who was anointed by the King of England as well as Duke of Normandy, tyrant though he may have been.

You look down at the cat, now seeming to leap and dance among the waves with all the grace of its land-bound kin and all the joy of one who knew he ruled all that he surveyed. Perhaps you could...

"I do not think we have any net that could hold that beast, Captain," the quartermaster practically wines at his captain while you think.

"Don't we already have enough trouble without buying more of it with interest?" you ask wearily, and perhaps not with as much force as might be needed. "A collar means a master and a master would be offended to see his beast killed for a few coppers."

"More than a few," Zaia interjects, speaking slowly, to your surprise. He understands more than he lets on you mark. More than he had let on, for he had given up the secret and not you think without thought.

Again he speaks in swift Greek to Antonio who recounts. "He says he knows many scholars, many Emirs who would pay for its weight in silver if it is dead and its weight in gold alive." He speaks the word with a sort of giddy wonder that almost draws a smile from you. Before you can reply the Genoese merchant adds waving at the creature below, as large as a hunting hound and twice as deadly by your measure. "The sea is wide and ships are small things. Beasts such as these are even smaller, easily lost. But come now, their loss shall be our gain."

At first you open your mouth to note that you do not know how wide or narrow this sea might be for by his own words even the skies had changed, but then, on second thought, perhaps not wiser but to yourself more true, you reply instead: "Give me a rope and some fish and I'll coax the beast up here. Perhaps it can lead us to land which we need to find sooner rather than later..." you tilt your hand towards the new mast, improvization making it only about half as tall as the one you had left Alexandria with and you doubt even half a sturdy. "And besides, any man who would own such a thing is likely to pay handsomely for its safe return and they are likely closer at hand than the Emirs of the east."

"You are going to try to bait that thing like it is a fish on a line..." the look the captain gives you speaks volumes, volumes that would not be very flattering to you at that.

Well then you shall just have to prove him wrong...

The sea cat will cheerfully scarfs down the scraps you throw down, stock for fish stew, but when he sees the whole fish you are holding now, a blue-fin the sailors call it, its eyes seem to light up with greed. Cautiously you throw the weighted line down, not quite touching the surface of the water, and tie it off to the side of the ship. Then you cut off the head and throw it at the cat, tossing the body behind you on the deck.

Three thoughts come almost simultaneously into your mind next, almost crashing into each other. First that you have never seen a cat move that fast, second that it makes sense that it is fast since a larger beast would have a larger stride and third that those grooves in the side of the ship are damn deep.

He does not need to use the rope.

In one last leap the sea cat is on the deck and scarfing down the tuna, then it turns his head back to you with its eyes speaking in that universal tongue shared by every creature that has ever been fed by man. More.

As the doctor looks on fascinated and the sailors throw dark glares shared evenly between you and the strange beast you proceed to feed him and feed him... and feed him some more, before content he flops onto the deck in the sun in that other great feline tradition, sleeping the day away.

Seeing that you have done something you have not done in a long, long while, you laugh long and hard and untainted by bitterness. "Even putting a cat in the sea won't make it any less a cat, will it?"

What do you do over the next day?

[] Help Doctor Zaia study you new friend and write some observations, in the meanwhile you can study the scholar more and get his measure

[] Try to get a hold of the odd collar, the cat is very protective of it but there seems to be something caught in it

[] Talk to your men, they are loyal to lord and land and more steady than the sailors, but even the most deeply rooted tree can be shaken by the storm

[] Write in

OOC: The roll was a bit touch and go, but you made it. Now let's see what you make of this.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Weight of Oaths ​

Day Two, Year Unknown

Though you are not precisely enthused to be leaving the six foot long flesh-eating beast on the deck with nothing but the strange doctor to keep it from the sailors, and the sailors from him, you do have other duties to see to also. The cat may be sleeping the slumber of the properly satiated, but you cannot say the same of your men. They had followed you into the Holy Land, they had fought and they died for what you thought would be the absolution of all your sins, and then they had followed you into whatever this is.

Can't set things on Tom's shoulders alone, for all he'd never complain.

***​

Tom Woodsworth is the sort of man you would trust to lead your prize horse through a raging river and come out with him on the other side, like as not dry because old Tom had carried it across on his back. Stern with the rest of the company, but not cruel with it and willing to take on all the hardships right along with the rest, to which the stitches on his quilted shirt and the dents in his helm tell more than words ever could. Just about the only piece of kit on him that looks new is his shield, and that is because it is, carved out of cedar wood and painted in your colors with bright eastern dyes after the had lost the last one in battle.

Spoiler: Tom Woodsworth

On seeing you he bows his head with a respectful "Milord," before adding in a painfully neutral tone. "Saw that there was a new critter on deck..." and I am worried you are going to get your face torn off, hung unsaid between you. Judging from the whispering and the rustling all about from the rest of your men it is not an uncommon concern.

"Damnedest thing it is, a cat with a fish's tail," you reply with what you hope is a reassuring smile. "Now we can all say we've seen a mermaid, even if it wasn't the kind they make tavern songs about."

That gets a few laughs from the back, James Tanner and young Luc were the only ones doing it wholeheartedly, but you see a lot of smiles flashing in the dark, smiles pondering over what they will say to amaze the village boys over a coffer of wine or a tankard of ale. Assuming you ever get back, a dark voice whispers in the back of your mind.

As though he had somehow heard the words, or in truth maybe seen something in your face, Luc speaks up, his voice cracking a little, sending an embarrassed flush over his pale cheeks like wildfire. "Begging your pardon milord, but we heard some of the sailors talking..."

"Should have spent less time listening to all the jabber," Tom growls, but the boy is not deterred for once.

"And they were saying the Captain was spending an awful long time locked in his cabin with that strange bearded fellow, one of them was even saying he had caught something and needed a leech, but another one... T'was that Marco who said that we were cursed by God and... well he was saying that we had lost our way in the storm and that was why the Captain was so keen on looking at the maps. We aren't though milord, lost I mean?" His tone is painfully earnest, the answer he is hoping for writ clear upon his face and not just his. The others may have more caution about speaking up than a boy barely six and ten, but they want to know they are safe on the way home just as well.

Alas that giving them that answer would be a lie, and the truth would be a frightful thing to swallow. You can barely wrap your head around it, so how can you tell them? Yet on the other side of the scales how can you not? They have followed you into the maw of war and death and here you are contemplating offering lies and false comfort.

What do you reply?

[] The truth, if not the frightful whole of it. We are lost, but the Captain is doing all he can to get us back on a proper heading

[] Lie, between the storm and the broken mast it will take us longer to make port in Sicily, but we are on the right path for it

[] Write in

OOC: I will be accepting suggestions for the sheets of the men-at-arms if anyone is interested.

 

[DragonParadox]

In the Dark of the Night ​

Day Two, Year Unknown

Would that you could lie, you think looking down the long row of men, some standing, some having sat back down on their hammocks after greeting you, for a simple lack of room in the corner of the hold they had been set into. Fifeen in all returning from war of the thirty four who has set out. It should have been over, but for the dangers of the sea and now you have to tell them. "I fear that we are lost, the storm did more than turn day to night. But we are not cursed..." Or at least they are not, a unwelcome voice hisses in the back of your mind. "If the Almighty should have some trial in mind for us than we shall meet it boldly and we shall endure."

Though the words feel hollow on your lips they are clearly not so in the ears of your men. Shock gives way to looks of determination which you had seen before on the eve of battle, if not for themselves than for the sight of their fellows.

"But... but we will find land right, the captain is looking?" Luc asks, voice quivering in spite of his best efforts.

"The captain is a skilled sailor and he will see us through this as well as any man on God's Green earth could," you reply firmly. It is not as if you have much choice but to believe it. You would not know a tiller from a pig's troth and given how the sailors had reacted at the storm you are glad the captain is here to keep them in check

"Right, you heard Ser Verley, we will see land when we see it," Tom said, a dark look in his eye. "And in the meantime it would do you lot good not to listen to fools shoot their mouths..."

"But he was right wasn't he? This Marco I mean?" sandy haired James Tanner asked, always the bolder among the younger men at arms.

"He guessed right about what his captain was doing and then he spread that guess like Sunday gossip, save this isn't a church it's a bloody boat in the middle of the sea," Tom growled. You do not think all of the men had caught his meaning, but you understand why he does not make it clearer. Some things are best not spoken of openly lest one ends up giving bad ideas instead of quashing them.

You spend the rest of the day speaking to the men and talking about home.. well it is mostly them talking and you listening. It is not a lord's place to unburden himself to his sworn men. By evening you learn more than you ever hand before about their kin, their sweethearts and their hopes for home then after dinner you say the Lord's Prayer, not knowing any prayers fit for such an hour as this, if such had ever been made. You can but hope it gave them more comfort than it did you.

By the time you come up on deck again you find the sea cat still sleeping, though it must have woken at least once to judge by the fact that the good doctor is cradling a bandaged hand. Far from fear his gaze is still fixed upon the cat bright with curiosity. As she notices you approach he shakes his head and manages manages in broken Sicilian. "Easier to study the dead ones eh?" Noticing your less than pleased reaction he smiles and adds. "Less to learn though, No worry for beast."

That night you decide to sleep on deck as you had done a few times before when the weather was good so you can be closer to the beast should it decide to have a taste of more than fish. Alas he was not the beast you had to worry over.

***​

Day Three, Year Unknown

You wake to the sound of growls, curses and a man screaming in pain, you reach for your sword just as something flashes and clinks beside your head. Though it takes a moment for your eyes to adapt to the starlit night, your mind is swifter in understanding what had just been about to happen... murder and the cat has saved you from the wound if not from death.

You hear raised voices. "The pig of a Norman is up, go, go, now or we are all damned."

This was not just murder, it was mutiny., you realize with a sinking stomach as you draw your sword. The man who had tried to stab you is clutching the ruin of his face rolling on the deck, but his fellows are abroad and loose. Just then a crossbow bolt comes screaming down from somewhere in the rigging, thankfully missing you by a foot.

Tactical situation:

• There are about five sailors trying to break down the door of Antonio's cabin at the back of the ship
• There is at least one armed with a crossbow in the rigging
• You cannot see the hatch leading to the area of the hold where your men sleep from here, but there does not seem to be any commotion there yet.

What do you do?

[] Try get to your men so you can lead them as a group to try to quell the mutiny

[] Try to get to Antonio, without him no one knows how to sail the ship

[] Write in

OOC: And we are off to our first combat. The tactical situation bullet point is my poor attempt to make up for the fact that I am really bad with maps. If you have questions do not hesitate to ask. Not yet edited.

 

[DragonParadox]

Bonds of Blood ​

Day Three, Year Unknown

"Ware the ship! Foes! Treason! Death!" you call out and your voice mingles with the ringing of cold steel as you charge into the back of the sailors assaulting Antonio's door, and for one brief moment they quail and you wonder if perhaps they might quit their murderous scheme and throw themselves upon the mercy of the man they had betrayed.

Alas your feet betray you, unsteady on the unfamiliar tilting of the deck your first blow swings so wide that you almost fall, and the mad foes rally to the call of their leader. "You die Norman! I'm gonna piss in your skull!" he roars as he slashes at you with his boarding axe swift and hard. This one had seen battle you know for certain... but not against a knight in armor. The blade slides harmlessly across your shield as you bat it aside.

As the other sailors begin to turn you hear another bolt flying somewhere... though you are unconcerned. They had chosen their fate and now they would meet it. Again you swing in a wide arc, hoping to cut into the ring leader's neck or shoulder, unguarded save for a thin tunic, but he is quick on his feet and wary of the blade, ducking aside as his fellows start to encircle you.

He is not quite fast enough as the sea cat bounds forward and latches on to his leg with both claws and pulls, stripping flesh from bone in a dreadful rending sound that is lost in the furious yowl of the beast. It is young still for whatever it is, you realize with sudden misplaced insight.

"See how the devil beast guards him?! Kill him! If you value your souls kill him!"

The next crossbow bolt passes perilously close to your head for one shot by starlight and as though taking heart from it in the face of a knight and a beast they had deemed a devil the others close in to try to kill you, armed with clubs and knives. Two do not even hit you in their mad flailing and a third, more skilled or simply more lucky is defeated by the chain that guards your neck, but the fourth manages to graze a knife across your cheek.

You take 2 Damage

"I've had worse than that shaving!" you jeer as Marco sees, or thinks he sees, a moment of distraction and lashes out with his axe only for the sea cat to take the moment to claw at his other leg and once he is on the bloody deck tear out his throat.

Were these another sort of men, not traitors and curs, you might have asked for their surrender then with their leader dead and them in disarray. Instead you press the attack, taking the hand of the man with the club clean at the wrist as he attempts a feeble parry. Another bolt fails to find its mark as the remaining enemies lash out with the fury that only one cornered onto death can match. Again the fellow with the dagger already wet with your blood finds his mark, popping chain at your neck to nick the flesh beneath. Or maybe a tad more than a nick... a small voice notes at the back of your mind as you feel the warm blood flow down.

You take 3 Damage

Two things happen at once then, the sea cat jumps onto the chest of the man whose hand you had removed, flaying his chest with his claws before again tearing open his throat and the door to the captain's cabin bursts open to reveal Antonio with a crossbow far too cumbersome to be held in just one hand. With a heavy twang the bolt flies right into the eye of the man with the knife... and passing on through the back of his skull.

Though you do not know what the words in his native Genoese mean, you catch their meaning from tone alone.

Seeing the execution of another of their fellows the two surviving mutineers try to turn tail and run, where to you cannot begin to guess, but you can at least put a swifter end to their cowardly lives. You stab one man deep in the side, leaving him howling in agony on the deck... but he was still the lucky one. The sea cat is not done with them and it is no less savage in pursuit. The club wielder dies with his head pressed into the deck by razor sharp claws.

Antonio pays the bloody spectacle no mind while winding his crossbow. Then, his gaze sharper than yours yours or perhaps simply with a better eye for the rigging, he spots the mutineer crossbowman just as he is about to shoot and strikes him. You could not say how but the man falls to the deck, his screams cut off by the sound of cracking bone.

Their plan failed, several more of the mutineers fling themselves into the sea to certain death. You had heard somewhere that sailors do not learn how to swim lest they prolong the end in the face of inevitable death. Whether this is the case here you cannot say, but they drown just the same.

"Thank you..." you begin, turning to Antonio, but the man shakes his head.

"Yes, yes, I was very brave shooting a crossbow at a man who barely knew I was there, you can drink to my glory some other time, yes?" Taking your silence as affirmation he continues. "Now tell me, would your men object to doing sailor's work, for I fear we are going to need it."

"They shan't object to anything that gets them home sooner, or even just to dry land," you reply. "I would man the oars myself at need," you add and you are surprised to find that the words are only half in jest. Somewhere along the line you had come to trust the odd merchant.

What do you do over the next day?

[] Heal and recover from your wounds under the care of Doctor Zaia

[] Spend more time with the sea cat and try to learn more of the odd beast

[] Try to get a hold of whatever is caught in the cat's collar

[] Smooth over the transition of some of your men to sailor roles alongside the remaining loyal crew

[] Write in

OOC: Here's a funny bit of trivia, the very first attack roll I ever did for Roland was a nat 1, and his bad luck sort of held for a bit there, but it got better as the fight went on. All the damage rolls that actually connected were max damage for instance. Also on a more strategic level I can confirm that if you had not gone to talk to your men (or if you had really botched it) there was a chance some of them would join the mutineers.

 

[DragonParadox]

Restful Contemplation ​

Day Three, Year Unknown

Between the prospect of your menbeing set to sailor's tasks and the strange sea cat which has already torn the life out of three men there is no lack of work for you to do, but with the fire of battle no longer in your veins you are all the more conscious of the fact that your face and neck are injured, the memory of strong men dying in a stew of their own filth and bile after taking wounds no worse than you have today is all too clear in your mind.

So as Tom leads your men onto the deck, his face a mix of concern for you and guilt at not having gotten here in time, you shake your head at him and say, "Just make sure no one curses the Captain to his face in any language he can understand, which from what I have seen is most of them. Oh, and keep the youngsters from trying to show off their climbing," you motion at the corpse of the sailor who had fallen from the rigging. "Show them that if you must. Climbing apple trees at home is not like working the rigging."

The look he gives you is something like 'teach me how to do my job why don't you, my lord,' not that he would ever say it in so many words. You tilt your head slightly in apology, but before you can add anything more you are approached by Doctor Zaia. "You will be resting, yes?"

"Yes, until my wounds are healed," you reply quickly. Either the man is good at hiding that he could speak Sicilian from the first, or he is frightfully good at picking it up.

"Good, good, I shall come treat soon," he says with a gleam of eagerness in his eye. You suppose it is good for a man to be passionate about his craft whether potter or leech, though you cannot quite keep a shiver from your spine at being the clay in this instance.

***​

The poultice Zaia applies to your face smells unlike anything you have ever encountered, the closest one you can come to describing it is 'as though someone had spilled Antonio's spirit flask in church in the middle of mass.' When you try to explain the concept the doctor laughs and says. "Yes, spirits of wine, water of life, good for mixing herbs. Now sit, one of your warriors will bring you food, yes." He pauses a moment. "Would offer book to read, but I only have Latin Greek and Arabic, nothing in the Frankish tongue."

For which I am most thankful, you think to yourself, trying to hold back a flush of embarrassment. Though your mother had insisted that you learn your letters and something of the Classics you had not been particularly good about keeping up the skills these last few years.

Just then there is a scratching at the door and then a faintly panicked call from Luc on the other side. "Sir Roland, the... mermaid cat wants in looks like, should I let it?" The poor boy sounds like he is already imagining having to sell his life dearly against the beast.

You glance at the doctor, who seems to have understood, or guessed from the scratching. He nods. "I shall see to it that food for it is brought in as well."

The creature... you really should give it a name, slinks in with a flat look at the doctor and a faintly bemused one for you as if to say 'you needed to lie down from that scratch?'

"Not all of us grow our own coat of scales," you reply amused.

You recover 5 Damage

***​

Day Five, Year Unknown

Over the next two days you are bored witless and start to deeply regret not applying yourself more to your lessons as a boy. Some strange tome of medicine would be a blessing to distract you from your own thoughts. Still, you can at least be distracted by the strange practitioner of medicine who seems to take his newest task as a chance to learn 'Frankish' tongues, something he manages to do with skill as well as seeming gusto. You almost never have to tell him a word twice before he can repeat it and he grasps their meanings almost as swiftly. You suppose that is what it means for a man to dedicate himself to sharpening the mind and not the body.

The sea cat meanwhile seems entirely content to be fed from the bucket of fish that is delivered twice daily and otherwise to sleep the days away under your bed while going out only at night back into the sea. Each night you worry that it shall not return, but return it does, the last time with a two foot long sail fish in its jaws.

Spoiler: Sail Fish

Does it think you are a kitten? Seeing as he has seemingly adopted you you aught to return the favor you guess.

What do you name the cat?

[] Ripper

[] Fang

[] Write in

What do you do next?

[] Spend more time with the sea cat and try to learn more of the odd beast

[] Try to get a hold of whatever is caught in the cat's collar

[] Start learning a new language from Doctor Zaia
-[] Latin (partial knowledge)
-[] Greek
-[] Arabic

[] Speak to Captain Antonio more about where you might be and get a finer measure of the man

[] Write in

OOC: For anyone wondering smoothing over is no longer available because it has already been two days and things have settled for better or for worse. Antonio gets a small malus to navigating now because he is running with a crew that is half landlubber, many of whom do not share a language with the sailors. Also yes, you could have lost the cat, there was a DC 90 roll on a d100 to see if it would stick close to you and you made it.

 

[DragonParadox]

With Odd Guidance ​

Day Five, Year Unknown

Ripper... you turn the word around in your head. It is probably not going to help with the fear of the sailors, or your own men-at-arms for that matter, but then you do not think any name could even were you to name it 'Lamb', so you might as well go with one that fits. "So let's see what you are about big fellow..."

You know enough about cats from back home in Verley to have no expectation that it will listen to you in any but the broadest of terms, some only coming when there is food to be had. Just the thought of what one of the mousers from back home would do if they got this large was enough to make your blood run cold. They would think you are the mice like as not. Maybe mixing in fish made it less hot-blooded, or maybe you are 'flapping your mouth to cool your gums' as the saying goes, but if there is one thing you do know... your hand reaches out carefully towards the back Ripper's head over the smooth warm scales... it's that cats love to be scratched behind the ears. He does not purr, more a kind of low growl that that you can practically feel running up your shoulder.

Over the remainder of the day you discover the many places your new friend likes to be petted and some it does not like, though thankfully no transgression is great enough to elicit more than a few discontent slaps of the heavy muscular tail. Antonio even makes a toy for him, a few old dented tin bracelets tied together with a bit of rope.

As evening comes you briefly consider trying to swim with him for a bit, but in the end caution prevails. Ripper might see things in the water or that come from the water as food and things on land as not so. After all, according to Tom who had been there to see the disposal of the bodies, Ripper had not tried to eat any of the dead mutineers while they were on deck, but he had looked rather agitated to seem them all weighted to the bottom with pieces of stone ballast. Finally you try reaching for the collar. Unlike Zaia you do not draw back a bloody hand, but instead a strip of white leather crudely fastened... and a pouch wrapped in the same material which had been fitted snugly behind Ripper's frill.

Something hard clinks on the deck, a crystal flashing grey-green in the light of fading evening, and then under your amazed eyes it turns as though some unseen hands are upon it to point the longer thinner part of itself points aft. Gingerly you pick it up and still it turns in your hand to point in the same direction.

Sorcery, you are holding sorcery in your hand plain as daylight and you feel... you should be feeling horror, or fear maybe at the work of the Devil, but you cannot quite muster either emotion. You have seen devil's work in Damietta and in Dover done with the hands of good Christian men for tools, besides that what is a strange stone?

It is in that state, pondering what you are feeling and what you aught to feel, that Zaia finds you. The doctor does not look shocked, interested yes, but not shocked. "Magnitis!" he exclaims, to your utter bewilderment. Then he collects himself. "Best put that away, the... er. low-small folk will think it is magic."

You are not about to admit that you thought that as well. "Well what is it then?"

He considers the answer for a moment then shakes his head. "I get Antonio, many words to tell, complicated."

***​

Antonio himself is no less amazed by the crystal, though he does look like he is weighting it up for a sale rather than considering the state of his soul. He does turn to the doctor when the man produces another polished stone, this one glistening black, and a piece of iron that he moves around the table, causing the stone moves as though by an unseen force following his hand.

"He says it is not magic, just a stone you dig out of the ground like this," the Captain recalls. "He says Greeks have always known about it." He shrugs. "Wouldn't surprise me really, they can be proud as sin, still calling themselves the heirs of Rome and all, but not wholly without cause."

"The green stone is not pointing at the iron," you note quietly. "It is not the same."

"Not the same, but like brothers, yes, alike..." the doctor says excitedly. He changes again to Greek and Antoio finishes for him.

"He says he does not have a second stone like his with him, but they are drawn to each other even more than to iron. If it is the same with this green stuff than there must be a very big chunk of it out there and..." he picks up the strange stone and drops it in his wine cup with a soft splash. "It sinks, so that piece has to be on dry land, wherever it is."

Sorcery or not you have to admit he does have a point, if nothing else the fact that the stone points always in one direction means he can hold a straight course and not get turned around, but still you have not settled in your mind how you feel about the stone floating innocently in the captain's glass.

[] It is sorcery, tread warily lest if cost you more than any mortal battle could

[] It is just as the doctor says, an odd mineral

[] Write in

OOC: I thought about having a vote on if you should counsel following the stone, but let's face it, that would be the landslide to end all landslides, so instead here is a vote on what Roland thinks of the stone.

 

[DragonParadox]

On Stranger Shores ​

Day Five, Year Unknown

That night you turn the doctor's words over in your mind and find them good. One stone seemed much like the other and you had no reason to distrust the man. Your neck and face barely twinge thanks to his ministrations, the skin only a little red under the bandages from what you can see in the polished bronze of your mirror. There is always that niggling fear in the back of every knight's mind that they should die not in battle but in the sickbed burning from the inside, too weak to even open your eyes or raise your head, but you were hale and had gotten good care and so you would live to face the morrow whatever it may bring.

***​

Day Six, Year Unknown

As it happened the morrow did not bring any news good or ill, only swift cold rain of the sort that put one of a mind to winter, though it had bee summer when you set off from Alexandria. The remaining crew crumble, but they do so softly, the fate of their mutinous kin still very much on their minds. Antonio peers up at the sky day and night, trying to take such measurements as eye and instrument can, and as for Doctor Zaia the man seems to find the strange stone more fascinating study than Ripper. Not that you can really blame him for it, the stone after all hadn't ripped into his hand. Still, you find yourself very much at odds ends. One might almost regret that dignity and blood do not allow a knight to take up the oar of a common sailor. Not that there it takes much rowing to follow the path of the stone. A strong wind from the northwest bearing rain also pushes the Marcella along on its chosen course.

You spend time sparring, keeping your men from making trouble and once you even try to write a letter to your mother, more to set your thoughts in order about these strange happenings then because you have any hope of her receiving it. You crumple the parchment in your fist long before you reach any mention of the strange storm, unable to say what you mean about the disaster in Egypt, unwilling to scribble down pious nothings.

If it were not for Ripper's company you might have fallen wholly into some black mood, thoughts and memories coiling around themselves like serpents, but between the healthy respect for a beast that, however friendly he might be, could tear a man's throat out, and genuine enjoyment at seeing him at play in some fresh game you do not have much time to brood.

***​

Day Nine, Year Unknown

So it is that on the ninth day since the bale-fire storm you start hearing first the calls of seabirds in the distance, white winged gulls on the horizon, then you hear the lookout upon the newly repaired mainmast call out loudly: "Dark wing, dark wing!"

At first it seems to you a strange call indeed, but seeing your confusion the old quartermaster explains. "He's seen a land bird, my lord, an eagle or a hawk or something else that does not fly so far in search of fish as the gulls do."

And indeed his words prove prophetic for by afternoon the lookout calls that he sees land on the horizon and with the wind in your favor soon that land can be seen with the naked eye. Yet the relief at seeing anything but more water on the horizon comes with a shiver down one's spine, for this is not the sort of shore you had expected to witness, not the spare rocky coast of some Greek island and certainly not Sicily where sparse thorny underbrush stretches under the sun save for tended groves of olives or ceder. The shore before you is tall and jagged, a mountain draped in a mantle of dark woods. The trees you see are rather more familiar to Norman and Englishman than to the sons of Genoa or Greece. You spy oak and ash, rowan bearing berries bright as blood and just as much a mark of death, and wytch elm towering over an underbrush of dogswood, heather, and ivy.

Everywhere you look the land seems empty of the hand of man, the only sounds the cries of seabirds, which had before seemed so welcome, now foreign and hostile.

"Well, we are going to need wood to fix the mast sooner rather than later and a bit of meat would go a long way to stilling the complaints of my stomach," Antonio proclaims cheerfully. "What say you, how many of your men aught we to set ashore for that?"

Hidden behind the smile is the other question: 'How many do you think we should leave on the ship for protection from outside threat or further mutiny?'

What do you reply?

[] Lead your men ashore
-[] Write in how many

[] Send your men ashore
-[] Write in how many

[] Write in

OOC: Well you made it to land, with some days to spare in supplies yet, now the question is who goes ashore and for what.

 

[DragonParadox]

By the Horns ​

Day Nine, Year Unknown

Perhaps it is duty that compels you to be the first one upon the strange shore, to take what risks your men shall alongside them, perhaps it is the selfish desire to walk on solid ground, or even a little of both. Thus you leave eight of the men on the ship and Tom to ride herd on them and make your way ashore, longbow strung and set upon your back. Still, this is not a hunting trip back home in Verley. You wear your armor and take sword and shield besides. True it might make a bit of a comical sight for any other knight who might see you, but from what the watchers have said there is neither hide nor hair of any other man on the shore, never mind knights to mock your attire.

As fires are lit on the shore not twenty steps from the eves of the woods you and your men walk boldly under them with shouted promises that you would bring back meat to make the evening a merry one. Soon the lights behind you vanish and the voices of the others are swallowed in the long stillness of the woods.

At first you have no luck to speak of, birds are quick to take flight at your passing, squirrels and shrews and scurrying things rustling about high and low, but patience and hunger serve you well and in the end you manage to find a narrow game trail in the rocky soil. After following it along for a while, doing your best not to clink and clank all the while, you hear something from up ahead... the bleating of goats.

Shit, you curse inwardly. You are here to hunt, not meet the locals. Odds are you do not even speak their tongue, and the one most likely to speak it is Antonio and he is needed on the ship. Worst comes to worst you can try to pay them off, silver being the tongue that all men share.

As the goats come into view you do not see shepherds though, only a wild herd making their way along the meandering trail past where it leaves the tangled woods and unto more open ground up the first slopes of the central mountain. You raise a hand for the others to pause. The beasts look small, maybe ten stones for the big one up front and seven or so for the other eight adult nanny goats in the herd. Three of them are suckling young...

"Mother of God!" James Tanner exclaims in strangled tones, earning a glare from you as the lead goat suddenly raises her head in alarm. As she does so you understand why the boy had spoken up. The eyes of the goats are not on the sides of their heads but on the front of their faces, like a beast of prey's or a man's, and their front teeth are long, covering their lower lips like a rat's.

What do you do?

[] Hunt the goats, you are not going to shy away from odd looking goats after dealing with a sea cat

[] Leave them be and look for something less uncanny

OOC: No stand alone write in here because there are really only two options, but you guys can make additions if you like.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Eggs and Entanglements ​

Day Nine, Year Unknown

A shiver of unease goes down your spine the more you look at the creatures. Here you are a stranger in a strange land and this time without any to explain it beyond your own judgement, and if you guess wrong it will not only be you that suffers. Best you think to err on the side of caution. "Hold," you call to the men behind you. "Let them pass."

Some of the men look surprised, and perhaps a touch mournful at seeing so much meat on the hoof vanish from sight. James looks relieved that he will not be chastised for his misstep, but none of them argue the point further beyond a mumbling of 'strange damn beasts'. Likely they do not want to say it too loudly least you take offense at it given the company you kept over the last few days.

Skirting the highest peaks of the mountain you keep mostly to the woods, though you find them filled only with the chatter of birds and no beasts worth hunting. Though you shoot two black-red bellied birds that look to have more meat on their bones than most of their kin they would make for a poor meal for the whole complement of the Marcella, so you venture once more beyond the eves of the woods and onto the stony ground. There you spot more of the birds and, as evening turns to dusk, some of their nests on the ridges.

"Eh, likely there are naught but fledglings in the nest this late in the season if there is anything at all," old George grumbles.

"We know little of this land or the ways of its fowl," you counter, silently adding: And I would not trust the seasons to be the same as when we entered that storm. The cold rain could have just been another bit of strange weather, or it could be the mark of something else wrong with the skies.

You are not sure if you should be pleased or further disquieted to find your guess is right when James, by far the nimblest among you, makes it up to one of the nests and exclaims. "You were right, Ser Roland! Eggs for all! Oh how I have missed some nice egg on that damn tub." Then he turns his head and looks westwards. "I think I see... that's the sun on the sea. I think we are on an island Sir, and not that big of a one. Back in the tub we go I guess," he does not sound overly displeased, with the prospect of egg and meat in mind.

For your part you have other concerns in mind. "Do you see any smoke from up there? Any sign of other people?"

"There is something to the south, but I cannot say if it is smoke or haze," the boy replies uncertainly.

Something you might want to look into on the morrow then, you think as the boy clambers down from his perch. On the way back you see neither the strange goats nor any other larger creature, though you do manage to kill three more birds worth the arrow in them, enough to make some stew and for everyone to get a taste of if not the feast you had promised this morning.

When you reach camp it is clear Tom had not been idle. Sentries challenge your approach in the dark, so as not to ruin their night sight, and beyond them the light of a bonfire on the shore makes this seem as something more than a gathering of strangers thrown together like flotsam on the tides of fate, more like a proper camp and a cheerful celebration at your landing.

Alas, not all the news you get is good news for it seems Ripper has broken with his custom and vanished into the sea not two hours after you left this morning and he had not returned. Was this island his home to which he leads strangers out of some strange charity known only to his kind, you wonder. Would you ever see him again? Loss gnaws as you silently, all the more so for the fact that most others seem relieved at Ripper's absence.

***​

Day Ten, Year Unknown

Midnight brings strange tidings from an even stranger messenger, not Ripper returned from the waves, but a seabird passing overhead, one of scores you have seen on this island. This one has more to drop upon the deck than the usual offerings of its kind, a piece of beech bark, and carved on the inside that is undeniably a message of sorts.

"It is not in any tongue I read, nor does it even look alike to it," Zaia admits, frustration in his voice as he motions towards the strange sighs. "I do not even think it is a alphabet such as most witting is done in from Samarkand to Spain, rather it is..."

"So we are not going to talk about the part where a bloody seagull dropped a letter on my deck? That to me seems stranger than just some scribbles in bark..."

"If you can use pigeons to carry messages, as the Caliph is said to do in Baghdad, I see no reason why you suspect that sea birds would be any less adept at it," the doctor waves the question away. "Now, as I was saying, there are too many distinct symbols on this message to make an alphabet even the most derived. If it reminds me of anything it is of the marks on the pagan temples of the old ones where they would paint a dog to mean dog and a house to mean house, and each word you would have to learn in its own right, though that tongue is now lost to the ages. "

"So you can't read it," you conclude, cutting to the heart of the matter.

"No, I cannot even begin to guess what it might say without some basis for comparison. Whoever sent it to us shall have to wait or send a better message next time. I think we should not be distracted and keep following the path of the stone to the larger piece. From how swiftly it tilts now I think what we seek is close, that it is on this island."

What do you do?

[] Offer to lead your men to accompany Doctor Zaia in his search for the stone he posits
-[] Write in how many

[] Suggest that you try to make for the place where James had seen haze in the distance
-[] Write in how many

[] Wait on the ship in the hopes that Ripper will return

[] Write in

OOC: I know that hieroglyphs were not that simple, but before they were deciphered in the 19th century this was the general view of them among scholars going back to late antiquity.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mournful Crossroads ​

Day Ten, Year Unknown

Truth be told you do not know what to expect from Zaia when you offer to accompany him. Though the way yesterday had not been particularly hard, his path leads straight east over the shoulder of the mountain where the going is likely to be harder for the scholar to follow. Yet when he shows himself it is not in his usual flowing robes but simple linen tunic and pants with a small dagger at his belt in addition to a set of odd pouches. In his hand is a cedar walking staff of the sort any man counting more than two score years might bear, though this one comes to a wicked sharp steel point at the bottom. He follows your gaze, and though you cannot see the smile on his bearded face you can hear it in his words.

"For climbing mountains, yes. To drive into stone." Somehow you suspect that staff has been driven into more than stone in its day, but you make no comment but to motion to the road.

On first seeing the strange stone your men recoil and many of them make the sign of the cross, but before they can accuse the doctor of witchcraft you explain what you had seen and what it is. You get the sense that they accept your judgement more than the fact itself, but so it goes and so you go, into the woods, this time following no easy game trail but a path straight as an arrow, through thick and thorny underbrush that you at times have to cut through.

Disrespecting good steel, you can practically hear you father in your head, but for once you do not pay much heed to the words. A sword is a piece of steel and can feel no dishonor, and a whetstone will see it sharpened again soon enough. Still, it would not be a bad idea of keep a shorter heavier blade on hand for the task like the ones your men-at-arms use when the fighting is too close for swords. You start out of your thoughts suddenly, realizing that you are planning not for a day, or even a week or a month, but for the long haul. How long do I expect to be lost in strange waters and stranger lands?

To that you have no answer and you are almost glad for the swarm of mosquitoes that descends upon your party around midday to distract you... almost. The farther east you go the less underbrush you see, more dead wood crackling underfoot in faint echoes of the first distant rumbles of thunder from above. There's a storm coming soon.

The doctor does not pay much mind to the sky, his eyes on the forest around you, seeming to grow more worried or perhaps more bemused with every step he takes, with every leaf he plucks. Catching your eye he explains. "Good drainage and decent rainfall, but not the sort you would expect to see around the Mare Nostrum."

"I had guessed that much already," you quip back before you can bite your tongue. It is a strange feeling to be jealous of someone's learning, as you might be of a fair horse or skill with the lance, but you suppose one fitting to the place you find yourself in. One cannot run a mystery through with a lance and it seems that is what your whole life has become.

The scholar does not seem to take offense. "Better to know than to guess," he says softly.

Before you can reply the forest opens ahead of you into a... well, there is no mistaking the beaten ground or the straight path, this is no game path meandering to and fro. "It looks like your stone might already be owned, Doctor," you note for indeed the path is running almost directly in the direction he is going after making a turn from the south.

***​

The nine of you advance along the path more cautiously, worried that its makers may not take kindly to strangers in their lands, but still the going is faster even as it starts to snake its way up the flank of the mountain. Once or twice you see a flash of white in the distance, but no goats come near and the birds are a distant sight in the darkening sky as the thunder rolls ever closer.

"Ware, snake!" Nico shouts, suddenly pointing up the road, but the creature seems to be as startled of you as you are of it and it quickly slithers off the path. You consider sending an arrow after it, but decide against it. Ill omen though it may be it did not trouble you and you shall not trouble it. Like in the stories your nurse used to tell you as a boy, the ones where every beast and tree might have the speech to curse or to bless... You shake off the idle fancy and quicken your pace.

Around the next turn you spy two pillars of smoothed stone carved with geometric patterns that faintly recall the lines of Saracen art, but more rounded somehow, spirals and whirls and patterns. As your eyes slide along them you see the figure slumped at its base... a man. No, a body, you realize a moment later, all too familiar with the ways the body will lie in death. He had died with his back to the stone, holding off many foes alone...

The doctor walks up quickly, first sniffing the air then pushing the corpse to get a better look at it in the fading light. "Two, maybe three weeks dead, enough for it to stop bloating and start to shrink again, he was killed by arrows... and his enemies lived at least long enough to recover the arrows." He pauses a long moment deep in thought. "What I find stranger is his garb...."

Though it feels almost ghoulish to do so you look more closely at the body, not at the face which had already started to laugh off in the fel grin of death, but at its accoutrements and indeed you find them off: a sort of woolen kilt dyed sky blue and for the upper body a coat of plates, bronze plates and not iron, that do not cover the arms, only the chest. "They took more than his weapons," you note darkly, pointing at the man's left hand, or rather the stump where it should have been. It might have been cut off in the fight and then carried off by some wild beast, but you do not think so, the cut looks too clean. You had heard rumors, whispers of men taking trophies from the bodies of the dead in every war you have been a part of and most of them likely slander, but the slander would not have been so common if there weren't some men depraved enough to do it, to carve up their dead foes as though they were common beasts.

"Should we bury him, my lord," Nico asks, giving the doctor an dark look as though concerned he might steal the corpse away.

"And say what over his grave?" Doctor Zaia scoffs. "Do you know the man for a Christian, and if so what sort? A Saracen or a Moor, and if so of can you guess the substance of that faith?"

Nico looks at the doctor as though he had grown a second head, shocked at the notion that anyone would want to be buried in any way save with Christ, the right and proper way of the church, but on the other hand you know from Antonio that Zaia's folk do now worship quite as the Pope in Rome does, closer to the Greek rite, and looking at it through his eyes you can see why he might not want to say the wrong prayer over a body.

What do you do?

[] Bury the body
-[] With such prayer as you know to say
-[] Without prayer to at least keep the beasts off it

[] Leave the body be and continue up the path

[] Write in

OOC: For anyone interested, no I do not actually write at the speed of light I just started writing when I realized there was a general consensus on going with Zaia.