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

[DragonParadox]

Into the Dusk ​

Day Ten, Year Unknown

"We do not know the man's customs..." you begin, to the grumbles from your men. "And we are none of us ordained by the Church to speak prayers over the dead," you finish sharply. "Let us not presume to mark the passage of his soul and instead see his body interred away from the beasts and birds." A grim task, but common enough for soldiers, no one raises any objections over it. The ground is too rocky here to dig with any swiftness, but there are stones aplenty to make a simple cairn.

Briefly you consider the other thing a soldier might do in this instance. The bronze gleams brightly, valuable in its own right, but in the end you think the better of it. The war has not impoverished you as much as it had some that you must strip the dead, and as for any use it might have to your men-at-arms in this instance, none of them are used to armor so heavy. If you should come across his countrymen you shall be able to say that you buried him taking nothing.

As the last stone is laid you say to the doctor. "If we come across his countrymen later they can collect the body and do their own rights, whatever they might be."

"Assuming we can even speak to them," he grumbles into his beard, but you can see in his eyes that he appreciates the heeding of his counsel.

You nod, then turn to the others. "In the meantime we should be on our guard for whoever might have killed him."

"Can't think of any folk that would leave a corpse like that," someone grumbles from the back. "Even robbers would've stripped him."

For the next few hundred feet the trail seems to give lie to your fears, there are no more dead and no more signs of old battle. Here and there along the path you start to see signs of travelers passing by, old camp sites and even the tracks of wagons, though nothing fresher than a few weeks. Yet as you descend towards the eastern side of the island the chill of the mountain seems to linger like a cloak deeper than evening's shadows, and in the failing light you spy arrows of bronze glinting under oak and heather. Likely as not you would find more bodies if you should look, but you have the living to see to before the dead, your own folk before strangers.

"We aught to camp here for the night and press on in the morning," you say to the doctor, softly enough that he should disagree he can do so without seeming to undermine you to your men.

"There is a saying in my land that you aught not bed down among the dead after moonrise, Sir Knight," he replies darkly. "I think we should press on."

Is it true worry, or simply the desire to see the journey to its end, you wonder and so think to test him. "For a man so quick to dismiss sorcery you worry much of the unquiet dead."

"Whether some ill will of the spirit or poisoned air that rises from rotting corpses, it is still an ill thing to keep company with them." As he speaks he shivers from the unaccustomed cold.

What do you do you do?

[] Make camp

[] Press on following the stone

[] Write in

OOC: I actually did not expect to make this vote, but then I looked at how big I had made this island and I realized there was no way you would make it to where you were going before nightfall.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Rising ​

Day Ten, Year Unknown

The nine of you make camp upon a small ridge, the fire low lest you draw unwelcome company. Guards are set at once and kept up through the night in hopes of continuing eastwards by earliest light. Your own rest when you finally manage to find it is uneasy, plagued by the cries of gulls overhead like mournful wailing, for all your eyes still feel heavy and your head full of wool you welcome the hand that wakes you. "What time it is?"

"Third of the way though the night like you asked, milord," the man replies, then in lower tones he adds. "That leech didn't sleep a wink, strange fellow..." words heavier than 'strange' hang in the air unspoken.

You nod and rise to your feet and stretching out your stiff back, all too aware that you are going to feel that in the morning. You nod noncommittally and wave the man to find what sleep he can before taking your watch. Zaia is where you half left him, looking towards the eastern horizon as though trying to will the sun to rise swifter so that he might be about his search.

"Cold, you?" you ask, for lack of anything else to fill the silence. There are things you wish to say of course, questions you wish to ask, but all of them too deep to blurt out to a man you barely know.

"It will get colder," he replies. "This is spring in these lands, a late spring by the habits of bird and beast, and yet it is cold enough that I regret that I cannot wrap myself twice as tightly as I am now. How then might winter be?"

"Not so much colder than my home in Verley I should reckon, and there the skies are cheerful even in winter and the western winds keep us warm," you reply, making an attempt at cheer for form's sake.

"Cold western seas..." he muses more to himself than to you, though that he does so in a tongue you can understand makes it clear he is about to say something and indeed he opens his mouth, then closes it with a snap and says instead. "The gulls have stopped."

Indeed they had you realize, not fading into the distance, but gone at once, as though cut with a knife. Before you can reply you see something beyond the ridge moving, too large to be one of the goats which were the biggest animals you had so far seen on this island. Straining your eyes to peer into the moonlit darkness you think you see the outline of a person and call out to the man beside you.

"My eyes are too old and too used to looking at tight letters by candlelight to be of much use there I fear," he replies with a small shrug. "Still, I would counsel caution. If there are men out there then they will have seen the smoke fire far better than we can hope to see them. Better I think to greet them in the light of day."

Alas that the man, if man it had been and not a trick of the light, slowly walks past the edge of sight, taking out of your hands the decision on whether you should go out to meet them.

***​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

The next morning you wake to find all the grasses east of the ridge, which had been green with spring growth, slain as though by a untimely frost. When you catch the doctor's eye, hoping for some explanation, he simply shakes his head and thus you leave the matter be, not wanting to worry the men who do not seem to notice the odd blight.

On you stride under darkening skies until at least you can hear the sound of waves in the distance. A narrow gulf ringed by black stones like the teeth of some titanic beast open into the sea and among them, built of the same substance, are squat round towers linked by causeways surrounded by a wall perhaps twice a man's height, a keep perhaps to guard the anchorage.

"Well now..." you smile, "finally some good luck." The path you are on leads right to the towers. Yet as your pace quickens you realize that there is no trace of men about... living men that is. All you can see are corpses sprawling forgotten in death. Some of them are armored like the man you had buried, some of them not, white feathers gleam among the muck.

The doctor's eyes dart from one body to the other, counting in his own tongue, though the numbers doubtless look just as grim in any tongue, thirteen. He steps off the path and to the nearest corpse, reaching to turn it over... and then to your disbelieving horror the bloated corpse reaches out with fingers half-bone half rotting-flesh to grasp his hand and pull him down.

Feeling almost a stranger in your own body, driven by instinct and not thought, you draw your sword and in one smooth motion cut off the corpse's arm above the elbow. It's still moving, still moaning in some dreadful parody of speech...

Zaia stumbles back, his hand reaching for the dagger at his belt, but you do not have much attention to spare for him. All around you your men shout in horror and surprise as the dead are rising to their feet, faces peeling, sloughing flesh looking up at you through empty sockets.

What do you do?

[] Stand your ground here back to back as best you can

[] Make for the towers you can hold them off better here and it is only sixty feet away

[] Write in

OOC: Showtime. I hope the build up did not drag out too much, like I said the camp was not planned and I am kind of concerned it broke the flow.

 

[DragonParadox]

Walls of Iron ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

"Rally, rally Normands!" you shout and you are proud to see them do so. In the face of horror, in the face of death walking and grasping them they do, rushing each to the defense of their fellows as best they can to face the foe shoulder to shoulder. Not one man flees to the dubious safety of the towers. A few even manage to lunge at the stumbling horrors, wild stabs driven by desperation as much as skill but they find their mark just the same, the enemy seemingly unconcerned with guarding their own foul existence, needing only to kill.

You hear the strangled cry of one man slammed into the muddy ground by a frenzied corpse, his spear knocked from his hands as the thing flails about like some grotesque puppet.

One Man-at-Arms Unconscious (-7 HP)

Two Men-at-Arms Wounded (8 and 10 HP)

"Blades out!" you cry as you pull Zaia behind you. Spears would be no use out of formation even if you could trust that those already dead would die from being pierced rather than hacked apart until foul sorcery could no longer drive them forth

As you trim the head from the corpse you had just unarmed, ignoring its scrambling against your armor, two of your men manage to sink their own blades into the monster that had overwhelmed their comrade and half-stab half-throw it away. Elsewhere blows that were meant to fight living men were light as a feather against those who knew neither pain nor fear. Worse, Nico had found himself away from the protection of his fellows and the things had enough wit and malice to single him out.

Eleven

For a moment you are caught between protecting Zaia and rushing to his defense, before the doctor takes matters out of your hands. He steps out from behind you and draws from one of the many pouches at his belt a delicate glass vial and tosses it onto the mob of corpses. What is in it you cannot say but it burns like the devil's own spit, flesh and bone bone sizzling with the scent of foul vapors.

With the madness of battle on him Nico charges, the name of Verley in his lips, and hacks the weakened flesh of the most burned corpse shoulder to groin, and though he does not escape the claws of the others unscathed his armor takes the brunt of it.

Ten

Another man is pulled from the makeshift line, pummeled and clawed at with filthy fingers, and as you run to his defense a second horror lunges at you from behind and tears off your helm, sending you reeling. You kill one more of the ones Zaia had burned with his devil water, your armor keeping you safe from the blows of the other. Looking around wildly you see two of your men had managed to cut the legs out from another one of them.

One Man-at-Arms Unconscious (-6 HP)

You take 5 Damage

Eight

The doctor rushes again towards the thickest fighting, ducking behind the armored forms of your men when he can but emerging again with another of his strange vials. Again dead flesh smokes and bubbles, again your men managed to kill another pair, just as young Henri has his arm broken in a sickening twist, almost sending him to his knees.

One Men-at-Arms Wounded (1 HP)

Six

One more falls as you send its jaw flying then drive your sword into its brain. You had killed more than half of them, and if these were normal , living men they would have broken long since, but they are not. You face the dead and damned and only in victory might you find absolution. A mad laugh leaves your lips at the thought, still more at the fact that you believe it.

"I only have so many vials!" the doctor shouts with the affronted tones of a shop-keep thinking of his coin pouch and not a man in the midst of deadly battle. Burning water runs together with the blood of the living and the foul fluids of the dead, but it is the latter that flows thickest. Alas that he had mistimed his throw and there is no one to distract this gathering of corpses from him. The dead stumble forward, but you are on your guard. You lash at one as it stumbles forward and end it, slaying the second on the backhand.

Four

By now your men had learned that they are swifter and far cleverer than their foe, able to use strategies against them that would never work against a living man, drawing them apart then turning to hack at them. The last four die, as much as something of that ilk can be said to, and in the end your sword is dripping with ichor.

None

Of the seven men you had brought with you only five are still standing, one of them barely, cradling a shattered arm, and in that moment the gate to the outer wall of the keep slams open... but nothing passes through, there is no sound more.

What do you do?

[] Enter the fortress, you cannot leave more of this foulness behind you (your men must pass a morale check to accompany you)

[] Order a withdraw, you need time to plan, to think about what just happened (risk of being taken by surprise while you regroup)

[] Write in

OOC: The zombies either rolled like shit or they got nat 20s, there didn't seem to be much middle ground.

 

[DragonParadox]

Death's Heralds ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

Shock hangs over the stretch of sand and gravel, all eyes fixed upon the horrors you had just fought wondering what hell you had stumbled into and how you might escape by the Grace of God. "What the Devil was that?" a ragged voice calls from your left, Henri Glaser, cradling his arm and gritting his teeth against the pain. His eyes dart towards the cover of the woods, then towards the men on the ground.

"Do not let the zait alzaaj touch you," the doctor says, even his voice shakes slightly as he turns Henri over, pushing the mangled rotted corpse next to him aside. "The substance in the glass," he adds hurriedly. "We must get these men under the cover of a roof and swiftly. The path back to the ship will be the death of them like as not."

It is as though a fog raises from your gaze with these words. It does not matter what the foe was or through what devilry the dead were made to move, all that matters is that you do not see more of your men die without need. Before you stands a man skilled in leechcraft and he has said you need to find them shelter, so shelter you shall find them.

"We cannot leave them and the road back to the ships will be to their grave," you say plainly. "We must seek shelter in the keep against the dangers of the wilds."

The men shift uneasily, none willing to be the first to speak until young Henri does. "I can't, my lord. I can't go in there..." he is shaking from fear as much as pain. "Please my lord, please... that's where the witch stone was pointing. There's more of those things in there, maybe worse that. I can't..." and with that the floodgates open, each of those still fit to walk and to speak arguing against continuing into the keep, for the sake of their lives and their immortal souls.

Though you try long to sway them neither oath nor love of lord can sway them for fear of sorcery and walking corpses hangs too heavy upon them. It is not just death they fear, but being made into one of those things cursed to walk the earth in horrid mockery of all that is good and holy.

"I will go with you if you will have me, my lord," Doctor Zaia says softly, after he had laid the fallen down flat and comfortable as he could make them on what bedding you had brought with you. "Let them stay here awaiting our return, and if it does not come before midday let them make their way to the ship on the path that we have taken. Those who can still walk on their own two feet should heal in their own time... and of the others there is no hope with me or without me as long as they are not out from under the open sky."

These words you give to a shamed company under the boughs of oak and ash before turning towards the keep. Would that Tom were here, he would have followed you, or perhaps even found the words to sway the others when you had not.

***​

As you pass the outer gate you see no sorcery to it, though you quail a moment under the gaze of the figure carved above it, a woman with serpents growing from her head, her lips turned in an beckoning smile. Beyond you see not the keep you had expected, but a sort of village. The houses, if houses they be, are not square, but round at the bottom and coming to a point with smoke holes at the top. Gutters to carry rain water run between them and you suspect into some sort of central reservoir. There is no sight of man or beast living or dead.

Briefly you consider using one of the houses as shelter, but dismiss the notion just as swiftly. Not until you have seen what is in the towers, not until you have assured yourself there are no more foes. Even as you make your way swiftly down the path you cannot help but note what is carved in most of the walls. "Snakes, snakes everywhere, truly this is the Devil's island..."

"Eels, not snakes," the doctor replies. "The shape of the head gives it away."

"As you say," admiring the odd sort of courage that drives this man to ponder the carvings on the wall after what you had seen. As you pass towards the keep the smell of death grows thicker and again you see corpses strewn on the ground, all of them missing their hands and piled against the entrance. Splintered bows and scattered weapons lie beside them.

"There was a battle here, a final defense before the gates..." you muse even as you raise your sword and shield against any further devilry. "I wonder why the defenders did not just stay behind their walls."

Somewhere above and to your left a stone clinks... as you whirl your head about you see a pallid starving thing that might once have been a man clinging to the stones like some diseased spider, its mouth opened unnaturally wide to reveal a whipping tongue.

A gull cries above, high and shrill.

Spoiler: Ghoul

You meet the thing's leap sword and shield in hand, your armor shedding the blows of grasping claws and gnashing teeth, though the blow you deal in return does not cut much deeper than the thing's leathery hide. There is a bestial cunning in the eye of this one that the others had lacked, a purpose to its movements and gurgling in its throat are words, though not in any tongue you had ever heard. Moaning and shuffling comes as the dead at the door begin rise, though not before the doctor throws another of his strange vials into the pile.

Corpses begin to smoke and burn, but not swiftly enough, not strongly enough. There are nine of them in all and only two of you. They will surround you and they will kill you. All you can do is make sure to take as many of the damned as you can before then.

Then out of the surf you hear a familiar flopping gait and you see a flash of blue-grey scales. Riper had found you in your hour of need once more. He tears at the legs of the corpses, sending two of them sprawling, but the others close in, bashing and kicking at him with unnatural strength. Again the beast before you lashes with grasping claws and gnashing teeth and in a red rage you call out.

"Die beast!" your sword the heavier and swifter in your hand for it. Your blade cuts deep into its neck, leaving the head lolling to the side, tongue still lashing from it.

"Last one!" the doctor calls as he throws another vial of his strange substance to burn the dead that gather about Ripper. Two more of them collapse, the rotted flesh of their forms burning away.

Ripper coughs and yowls in pain under the battering of the dead, but he does not relent. Victory might yet be won, you realize and that knowledge kindles a fire in your stomach. You turn the claws of the beast with your shield and then cut its head from its body, the hungry light fading from its eyes.

"Who defiles the halls of Ikomi?" the words are not spoken, but felt, as though carved into your mind with a bloody knife. You turn to see a thing not rotted but withered step from the keep, over the bodies that had not risen to kill. In its hand it seems to hold a ball of living shadow. Then more distantly, as though its foul will was not upon you but another, it adds, "Did you call them?"

Spoiler: Foul One

What do you do?

[] Reply
-[] Write in how

[] Charge the unholy thing

[] Write in

OOC: The write in did help with the diplo check, but the base roll was just too low to make it. On the plus side that ghoul had the worst luck with its attack rolls, which is good because its bite paralyzes.

 

[DragonParadox]

Blasphemies and Blandishments ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

Does he mean Ripper? you wonder, glancing at the sea cat, though he gives no sign, simply drawing back from the remaining trio of lesser dead now that they are not attacking him and growling low in this throat. Though your soul rebels against conversing with this thing and your mind flinches from its foul touch you are all too aware of the aching at the back of your skull, the doctor is out of burning water and your men might as well be back in Normandy for all they can help you.

"We followed the draw of a stone to this place." At your nod Doctor Zaia reluctantly reveals the seeking stone.

Greed gleams in dead eyes and again a voice, black and distant as the pits of Hell, speaks within. "So, that is what she has used the key for, to draw others here in the hopes that they would kill me..." There is a pause then as it weights you in some unknowable counsel.

"We meant no disrespect to you or your halls, I swear on that. We are lost travelers, come with only the hope of seeking aid," you continue, heavy though such words are upon your tongue, then recalling the message dropped by the seagull you add. "I fear the letter dropped upon us by the bird has done little good, for the tongue was unknown to us."

"Message..." the word is like a whisper of a dream in fitful slumber. "Yes, it all comes together now, give me the stone and I shall tell you how you may find your way to Ibanora or one of the cities of the Tin League, even to Orinilu if you are desperate and lacking in supplies. Upon Ikomi of the Devouring Sea I swear it."

Somehow hearing an oath made in the name of a pagan god is still shocking despite the strangeness and the horror of the company.

Meanwhile the doctor, who must have been 'hearing' the same thing, had half closed his fingers over the stone instinctively in what you first think is greed, but then you follow his gaze, which intersects with Ripper's. Out of the corner of your eyes you see a dark haired girl half hidden in one of the doorways. She is dressed in a manner that must once have been fine if strange, with beads set in strange whirling patterns, now ragged and dirty. Though she barely seems to dare to poke her head out to where you can see her, to where the dead man might see her, she shakes her head in a wordless plea not to offer up the stone.

What do you do?

[] Offer the stone to the dead one, you do not think he is lying and you cannot afford another fight as you are

[] Attack, you will trust a frightened child over a walking corpse

[] Write in

OOC: And thus your first clues about the local geography, though Roland is understandably rather focused on other things to take note of the strange names.

 

[DragonParadox]

Convergence ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

Strange is the land and stranger the hour, yet it has never been easier to choose right from wrong than it is here and now. You to not answer the monster, but instead call to your companions, human and not: "With me! For Verley!"

Yet the foe was no Saracen, no enemy knight. Whether it had seen your intent in your mind or merely in your actions you do not know, but even as you begin to charge the lesser dead lash out at Ripper again and a dark voice sinks into your mind like a shard of poisoned ice. "Kill the Shard Bearer!"

In that moment as you raise your sword you do not see beside you a man who would step boldly into danger where others had balked, you do not see the scholar who had given wise counsel, nor the doctor who had healed your ailing body. You see only a faceless foe to kill. But something else rises within you, a damn against the tide of hate, of mindless fury. You will not be this thing's tool. Not again, never again.

Zaia has a knife in hand for all the good it does him, for it is clear it is not his weapon of choice and his aged hands cannot hope to drive it past the withered hide of the living corpse, tanned like old leather. Alas, as you look to your left you see Ripper still fighting the lesser dead, tearing apart one but held from the true battle by its fellows.

Before you can do more than curse and ready another attack the monster opens its jaw impossibly, grotesquely wide and from its mouth comes the sound of crashing waves, and crash those waves do upon you, rising from the surf and tossing you aside like a puppet with its strings come loose as the enemy is borne aloft and down the street.

He does not go far before he turns once more turns those dead eyes upon you and Zaia, both cast into the muck. Even as you rush him you know the blow will not land before he can work his next foul sorcery. A withered hand at once turns dark red, the color of old blood, and it grasps for you...

"Die!"

"Not to you wretch!" you shout, darting aside.

The girl is standing right beside you now, standing openly in the doorway. You move to guard her, you open your mouth to tell her to step aside, she does not listen, eyes on some distant vista, lips mouthing incomprehensible incantations, for just a moment she seems to float above the ground outlined in cold blue light. Then then light becomes ice and with a blast like thunder strikes the monster in the chest, tearing skin and splintering bone.

You do not question what you had just seen, you do not wonder at the power nor hesitate in the blow you strike, a stab right into the ruin of the dead man's chest, not stopping until you sever his spine.

He falls dead to clattering shards of bone even as Ripper tears apart the last of the lesser dead before he half-leaps half-flops between you and catches the girl, the witch, as she collapses over his neck in seeming exhaustion, clinging for dear life. She says something in a slow rising swift falling tongue that sounds to your ear fair but unlike anything you have ever heard before.

What do you do?

[] Try to mime something at the girl
-[] Write in

[] Leave this place of witches and dark magic

[] Write in

OOC: Obviously Roland is no expert of magic, but since I know you guys will ask, that spell did a hell of a lot more damage that a normal sword swing could, more than a two-handed axe could even, but it seems to have taken a lot out of her.

 

[DragonParadox]

Trading Words and Treasures ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

All the aches and pains that had been lost in the heat of battle come rushing back all at once and as you look at the small girl breathing heavily as she clings to the wounded Ripper your stomach tightens with fear you did not have the luxury of feeling before. What is she, what does she want? There is you know an easy answer, she is a witch and wants nothing more than to bring ruin to the world. But the counsel of fear does not match with what she actually did, save your life from an actual monster, one who had tried to hold you in thrall and then to slay you, one she too had feared.

"Thank you," you say, speaking slowly in your tongue, pointing first to yourself than to the broken foe and last to her, but she merely blinks up at you confused and grows only more so when you motion to the towers and then the bodies questioning.

"You are well, yes?" Doctor Zaia asks, coming beside you. At your nod he turns to the girl and then points to his face and enunciates. "Zaia" Then he points to your face and says: "Roland" and last he points to the girl's face and stops.

"Inge," the child says softly, her eyes lighting up in understanding.

"Well we have a name at least, unless I miss by guess," the doctor sighs. "Getting any sort of understanding is not going to be easy."

"We need to know if there are more dangers in the towers," you point out, glancing uneasily behind you.

"Well she is not running back into whatever hiding place she had so she is obviously not that concerned about there being one. I fear we shall have to have to trust her judgement on this. I need to get your men under a roof and treated sooner rather than later. A small roof will do as well as a large one for that."

"We aught to try at least." Taking your cue from what he had done you point first to yourself. 'Roland', then to her 'Inge', then to the body of the monster and pause.

"Ilfa," she sounds miserable when she says it, not afraid but sorrowful. It is almost impossible to reconcile the tone and manner with the harsh cold words that seemed to split the world asunder to her will.

You push the memory aside and motion to the other bodies which had been filled with cursed life. "Ilfa?"

The girl, Inge, blinks at you thoughtfully, seeming to regain more of her breath and vigor more by the moment finally she shakes her head and says, "Okoro."

You nod to show you understand. You hope to God you actually do understand. "Okoro?" you point at the towers.

The girl shakes her head and says about twelve words, of which you only recognize 'Ilfa,' 'Okoro' and the name you had never heard before spoken but only in your mind 'Ikomi', the name of the corpse-lord's goddess. An odd thought occurs to you and you cannot keep back a laugh. At Zaia's curious look you explain. "I briefly wondered if we could have captured that, and used it as an interpreter."

"He did not seem very amenable to the task," the doctor replies in a dust-dry tone.

"Ukota," the girl interjects, pointing at the seeking stone still in his hand, then another phrase, including her name as she reaches out for it.

Seeing the scholar obviously loath to give it to her you note. "We would be dead without her... aid. The stone feels like a fair price to me."

"Perhaps, but it seems to me foolish to trade a thing so precious when you do not know enough of the other's tongue to bargain with them," comes the swift reply, wholly untroubled it seems by the fixed look Ripper is giving him.

"It is likely hers to begin with if she was the one who sent Ripper," you try, though without much success from the looks of things. "If you give it to her she might eventually explain more of what it is when we can speak her tongue better..." You cut yourself off, realizing you had committed yourself to not just keeping company with a witch child, but had suggested to the scholar that he learn more about magic. One might expect Zaia to look affronted. Is is better or worse that he looks intrigued?

Still, he does reluctantly hand Inge the stone.

She takes it in one small hand with what you assume is a word of thanks then heads towards the towers.

What do you do?

[] Follow, you would see where this mystery leads you

[] Lead your men into the shelter of the village to be tended

[] Try to delay her until things are more settled

[] Write in

OOC: Welcome to the joys of 'no common language'. Still, at least Zaia has a linguistics skill and a feat that helps with that. You will be getting his sheet soon as you have seen a lot of what he can do.

 

[DragonParadox]

Upon a High and Bloodied Perch ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

The breath of the wind is upon my hair and the heat of the sun upon my lips, Zaia thought, as he looked upon the field of ruin, the bodies of the dead already corrupted by time broken again upon the blade of the Frankish knight and the claws of the sea beast. For almost three decades he had traveled the world seeking its secrets and that of the flesh, an exile made by a brash youthful vow which had ripened into the joys of maturity. Yet in all those days he had met no sorcerer whose works could not be counted trickery or explained by some natural law. Many there were who claimed to have power by word over nature for there was much to gain thereby in the fear of the high and the low, but none had he met in darkened alley or emir's palace who could match the claim with deed.

All that had changed in in instant, like a bolt of lightning from the blue, and now as ever he was left to ponder why and how.

The girl, Inge, set herself unsteadily to her feet, patting the bloody hide of her beast before holding the stone she had called 'ukota' and striding confidently towards the three towers. She did not look particularly strange; dark hair, almost black cut just below her shoulders and left to flow loose, framing a heart-shaped face and a complexion that would not be uncommon to see from Constantinople to Cairo. True the color of her eyes when she met one's gaze was odd, blue-green like the roiling seas, but he had seen stranger. Once he had learned herb-craft from an old Tatar who had one eye blue and one black, and made more coin off pretending to see the future than he did making poultices and tinctures.

As he passed through the row of houses beside the girl he noted again how strange it was to see such fine stonework all unmortared, each block placed with uncanny skill to make up for the lack. It reminded him more than a bit of the pagan temples baking among the sands. The fact that their witting was of the same sort led his mind on strange paths. Zaia shook his head. Now is not the time to ponder and to muse, but to observe that you may have more to build upon when the time comes...

It was clear as soon as he passed through the arch of the door into the cool interior of the tower that this was not a structure meant for defense. The door might hold off a few men, provided none of them had an axe at least, but against a determined assault it would fail swiftly. What he saw within only strengthened that impression. The furnishings were light, wrought of bleached reed and driftwood, fastened with bone and shell. Vivid frescoes covered the walls in what at first seemed to Zaia to have the abstraction of Islamic art, though at a closer look held more concrete meaning, shells and spirals and fish upon the waves.

Spoiler: Frescoes

Delicate blues and bright greens, reds vivid as blood... He could not be sure at a glance of what those paints were made, but he would stake his beard that such a variety did not originate on this small island. The names of cities put in his mind by a monster taunted him with their obscurity. It was as though the Marcella had fallen wholly off the edge of the map. Of course it was clear that no matter where they had fallen it was not so unlike the lands and seas Zaia knew. The stench of death hung over the tower and corpses marred its fine floors. He could make up two sorts, one lightly armed and unarmored, though far more numerous, and another garbed in scales of bronze. There had been a battle here, a battle of the living.

The deeper they walked into the tower, the higher they climbed on the narrow steps, the more they found other bodies, of those who had never been warriors; women wearing linen kilts and tunics fringed with yellow tassels and a men in now blood drenched veils woven with the patterns of nets.

His young guide did not seem surprised at the sight of the carnage, recoiling at the sight and smell certainly while doing her best to avoid the rooms with the worst of the reek, but there was nothing of the sorrow she had show in with regards to 'Ilfa', if that was indeed a proper name. There was a part of Zaia that desperately wanted to linger and to study the bodies of the dead and the accoutrements of the tower. There was so very much to learn here, but the stone still in the sorceress' hand drew him as surely as it was itself drawn to some hidden source.

As they crossed the causeway rain began to beat upon the stone loud and fast, thunder again called in the distance. When they reached the top of the eastern tower Zaia cursed under his breath, though in awe and not dismay. They were standing in an oratory, like onto the one of the Pharos in Alexandria, though not even a third as tall. In the place of mirror or flame was a single shard of the strange crystal about eight feet tall and four feet wide at the base, though tapering to a sharp point, and in its side a hole of a familiar shape.

The girl started to press it in then hesitated, and for the first time turned to him to ask a question.

Zaia shrugged and added in his native tongue. "You did not get any easier to understand."

She sighed and pointed out the western part of the tower, not towards the village at its base as he had first suspected, but something else. "Otinilu," she made a beckoning sign with her hand.

Time for that long accustomed habit of any interpreter, blind guesswork, Zaia thought with an edge of self-deprecation. "Men, Orinilu, will come here if you place the stone." He mimed men rowing across the sea. "And you do not know for certain if that is good or safe? For us or for you?"

Another frustrated shrug was his only reply.

How does one mime wait for later until we can speak? Zaia wondered looking around the room. He craved a crude sun dial into the floor and using a stick of incense for the main post. Pointed at where the shadow was now then shook his head then turned his finger around and around and tried to get across maybe with yes, then no, then yes.

They might or might not be talking gibberish at each other, but the girl did not move to put the stone back into the larger piece.

What do you do while the wounded attempt to heal in the tower?

[] Clear out the bodies
-[] Bury them
-[] Try to ask Inge how to deal with them

[] Talk to the strange girl, you are no scholar, but you are no fool just the same

[] Search the towers for anything of interest

[] Search the towers for anything of interest or value and loot them

[] Send an expedition to the southern shore of the island to see if there are people there

[] Write in

OOC: And here we are, some clues, but plenty of questions still.

 

[DragonParadox]

Life's Shores ​

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

The girl is talking to the seagulls, there is no denying the fact. She is calling them down with cries that do not quite fit in any human throat, and down they come to heed her and to lead her. The men are making signs against the evil eye and murmuring prayers under their breath more fervently than ever they had done in Egypt. What would they say... what would they do if they should witness a more blatant act of sorcery? The question coils in your stomach like a snake. If you had to choose between the life of a child and doing to your own men as you had done to the mutineers, what would you choose?

You turn your eyes away from the window and into the dormitory you had commandeered for the use of the wounded. Like the rest of the structure it is at once strange and familiar. Instead of beds made of reeds and driftwood, as much of the furnishings in public rooms are, there are instead stone slabs that bring to mind uneasy comparisons of crypts for all the bedding upon them makes their purpose clear. Only one of those who had fallen against the dead had so far opened their eyes, able to prop himself up to eat and even sleep a little. Hugh the elder on the other hand had fallen into a deep slumber which had set a dark expression upon the face of the healer. The wounds about his face and neck had already begun to swell and sour...

"I will not lie to you, Sir Knight, his wounds are grave. If they heal at all they shall be long in the doing," Zaia confesses after changing the bandages.

"Do all you can doctor and leave the rest to the Lord," you reply. The words are more habit then faith as a thousand unanswered questions churn in your mind "It is the best any of us can do."

Henri meanwhile had been forbidden to hold not just a sword but anything in his right hand until it is set straight, leaving the boy caught between anger and shame. He would have been swiftest to reach the ship if he were hale, or so at least he thinks. For your part caution is preferable to haste in making it back to the ship given that you had seen at least one body on the way here.

With a sigh you roll up the parchment which you had been been holding completed in hand for a while now and set out to find the most hale pair to carry it back to the ship. You would be left with the wounded, walking and not... at least they would be easier to manage.

As you leave the tower however you are greeted by the doctor with Inge in his shadow. She says something which you are almost certain is a greeting so you return in kind.

"She does not want to burn the bodies, nor bury them Sir Knight, though she seems more opposed to the former than the latter..." the doctor begins.

"A pity then that we do not have so many strong arms to dig," you reply, not harshly but leaving little room for contradiction. You had thirty two bodies in all to dispose of and dispose of them you as swiftly as you are able, lest some cursed power reach out to them again.

"Eku Ikomi ime anu," the girl interjects, pulling on the doctor's sleeve.

"You saw her talking to the gulls...?" He shakes his head. "It sounds mad to say it, but so it is." At your sympathetic nod he continues. "I think she sent them searching, she lead me to a stockpile of wood here in the village. I think she wants us to build a raft and send the bodies out to sea."

What do you do?

[] Try to build the raft and set the bodies adrift (will take two days)

[] Burn the bodies over Inge's objections

[] Write in

OOC: One of your men crit failed against infection in spite of Zaia rolling very well for treatment quality.

 

[DragonParadox]

By Pallid Flames ​

Day Twelve, Year Unknown

The night is dark, the stars are distant, framed in ragged clouds flying in from the west and your armor once more lives down to the complaints of every man who ever had to wear it on watch, it will boil you alive in the heat and let the chill sink right in. Normally this might be the time for banter and tall tales, even a skin of wine shared between friends, but neither company nor circumstance allow for the indulgence. Nico leans against the wall of the house, spear firmly in hand, trying with all his might not to think of what lies behind the door.

When you had commanded that the dead not be burned at once but set off to sea as the girl, Inge, suggested you had expected argument, even going to far as to marshal theological argument about the evils of the pyre, but they had seemingly been too weary and numb to all the horror and strangeness they had witnessed to even argue. If you wanted a raft than they would try to make a raft, quietly working through the reminder of the day to make one after laying out all the bodies in the house you now guard.

Something creaks behind you and for a moment you imagine the sound of dead fingers scratching at the door, but no, it is naught but soft soled shoes on gravel. Inge steps out from the shadows with a greeting in her own strange tongue then she motions to the wall beside you.

"All is well," you say, in French, speaking slowly and loudly, for all you know that does as much as a torch does to a blind man.

She says something again that sounds questioning, then turns her back to the wall and mimics your position. She wants to help.

"What's the brat doing here?" Nico grouses, throwing her a dark look.

Helping, you think but do not say, for you cannot find the words to explain. "Mayhap she cannot sleep and wishes for company," you reply instead and move over a little as sign of understanding and welcome.

As Nico's look passes from her to you it is filled with confusion and lingering suspicion, but the night passes more swiftly after that.

***​

Day Thirteen, Year Unknown

By the time the noonday sun shines down on the small cove the raft has been crudely lashed together, and another far grander craft has made its way into it. For all the times you have cursed being constrained to her deck and cabins the Marcella is a welcome sight indeed. Even Ripper swimming lazily in the cool waters seems happy to see the ship and the girl Inge bows her head, palms steeped in a triangle, the most formal gesture you have seen of her yet.

Soon enough all thought of the strange gesture is wiped from your mind as Antonio makes for the shore wearing the widest smile you have seen in days. "I asks you to find people or food and you find towers of treasures ripe for the taking. Your luck is chasing you and not being chased, yes?"

Leaving aside the dubious prospect of you being lucky you are glad to see the captain so exuberant, truth be told you are glad to see him at all. Part of you had wondered if upon reading the tale of the dead walking he would choose to debark the rest of your men and sail off. "We stripped the dead, yes, they have no need of arms and armor where they are going..." And you would rather not risk them making use of them in this world, you think but do not say aloud least it darken the light of day. "Let us decide what to do with the contents of the towers once their former owners have been returned to the sea after the manner of their own folk.

"After the manner of a girl who has not seen nine winters yet if I am to guess," the captain laughs. "I have a nephew that age back home and I would not trust him to see me into the the keeping of the angels."

"But you would trust him more than strangers who do not even speak your tongue I would wager," you retort.

He shrugs. "Aye, but this lot are heathens and as you say touched by some witchcraft besides, the sea isn't going to put out the hellfire, is it?"

"I am no priest, much less a missionary to worry about their souls. I would rather Inge not think ill of us for not respecting the customs of her folk," you reply uneasy not just about the words, but about the thoughts they stir about how very far from home you must be to have met such different folk.

"Happy or not she'll talk to us. Who else is going to feed her?"

"Ripper," you reply, and to that he has no rejoinder.

***​

The tide, ever reliable, rises to float the crude barge heavy with the bodies of the dead and sweep it out to sea as Inge speaks a low soft prayer and you, the doctor and the captain as well as a few of your men watch from a distance, not wanting to be caught up in a pagan ritual, but at the same time wishing to see that the bodies vanish from shore never to trouble you again.

With Ripper's help the girl wades into the water and climbs onto the raft and there she touches her hand to the brow of each and every one of them, and where pale blue fire kindles bright as a torch which does not consume but merely illuminate the faces of the dead until the raft is a mass of lights sailing off into the distance.

Beside you Antonio curses and once the shock of it had worn off the men are shouting about witchraft and devil's rites.

What do you do?

[] Try to calm the others A
-[] Write in how

[] Wait for Inge to return before dealing with this

[] Write in

OOC: Since I know you guy are going to ask, that is the light cantrip and she cast it a lot of times so that would indicate spontaneous casting, because they get at will cantrips. I could try to obfuscate that, but it is pretty obvious to anyone who knows how PF casting works.