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

[DragonParadox]

Weighting Peril ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"So far we have all been lucky, but luck without caution is like a wild bull with no yoke," Zaia presses. "Let us not walk into the dark when there is no need..."

It is that which persuaded you when Antonio's arguments had not ironically enough, for you well recalled that not all of you had been lucky, of the sailors who died as much from fear of the Passage as of the malice in their hearts, of those who fell against pirates and fell sorcery and of a simple cairn of stone where the grass grows long and fragrant by the sea where lies Tam of Oakbridge under foreign earth and strange sky. What lesson did you take from that day? That you should have been more cautious, that you should have never been on that path in the dark facing spirits and warriors of far off lands?

"If we don't know what did this and why then it may come upon us again in ambush striking in its own time and not in ours."

Some who had been looking on with greed suddenly seem less interested in the strange stone and others whose eyes had been dark with worry give grim nods. All of you had seen enough ambushes on land and sea to know what might come of it. Thus you make ready with lanterns spun of pale light and pebbles from the shore, with sturdy rope and hooks to catch the soft and chalky stone handed to you by an only somewhat grumbling Mog.

"If you break a leg down there I ain't coming in after you..." he giggles, gaze sliding on Durendal. "Her I'll come after though."

"Tell the little creature it will take more than longing words," the voice of the blade emerges with subtle threat, though for the life of you you cannot help but smile a little.

"What?" Antonio asks bemused as he checks the knots with practiced fingers.

"It sounded a little like my sword expects to be courted by Mog if he wants her..." you answer, keeping your voice low, at least until a feeling of vague agreement comes over you from the warming hilt. This time you can't help but laugh outright.

"And you said the ship was strange," the captain snorted. "I'll have to come with you just to be sure you don't break your neck and leave me with that."

"Would it be the strangest thing you've seen?" you ask as you tighten your belt and make sure that you have those healing philters to hand. If you need them down there you will damn well need them quick.

"I wonder if we can tow all this back to harbor?" Esha asks suddenly. "It floats and does not seem that much larger than the ship. Let the Anwa peer into its secrets and take the risk of gathering its treasures then split them with it. You heard the princess, she could not give you gold for she had none, but if she did she would pay for our aid. Blood she has and those willing to spend it in her name."

No sooner had she spoken the word the stone starts to roll from side to side, bringing the cleft perilously close to the waves as though some unseen hand were threatening to drown it. This was meant for you, you realize, one way or the other.

Who goes down into the strange stone?

[] Write in (people have to be lowered one at a time on ropes but there is no upper limit on how many you can send.)

OOC: This was a bit awkward because I had to slide some information in here that I missed yesterday, but my initial plan of making it a dream sequence did not work with you guys actually going exploring and not to bed.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Hidden Way ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"The underside is strange..." Swift Pebble sends, "It is smooth as though it had been worn down by silt and silt swirls all around it still, a current that comes from nowhere and goes, just to that rock. Like magic?" the last she says more as a question than an answer for even after all this time she is not sure what is and is not magic, especially around Zaia and his works.

"Well then I hope the insides answer more questions than the outsides," Antonio says, passing with a clasp of the hand the odd ethereal sense of his own thoughts and of something far deeper, like a shadow just out of sight. "I've found it is usually so with things that come out of the sea."

"I'll see if I can gut a rock then..." you say, more glibly then you mean as with rope and lantern you dive down the long dark of the crevice.

It would perhaps have made better sense to send Swift Pebble down here once more, but it is an uneasy thing and rightly so to lead without leading to not take the chance of the unknown yourself.

The walls are wet and reek of brine and rotting seaweed, still draped like ragged curtains across the shaft, but as soon as your eyes adapt to the light you can see the solid surface underneath, a pale stone contrasting with the darker pumice. Thus you soon land with a surprisingly soft thump in a pocket of air between the two layers of stone followed a moment later by Swift Pebble and then Wanderer and Esha last of all.

The only reason the sorceress isn't holding her nose is that she had to hold on to the rope, passing some of the slime off her hands, though at least she doesn't have to stoop through the narrow way most of the time at least. Thankfully the floor curves downward at a steeper angle than the roof, making it more easy as you move along.

Just as you finally manage to straighten your head you hear out of the dark a sing-song voice speaking a riddle in the tongue of the Anwa:

Dark on the bottom white on top
That's the sea, but if you swap?
What's white at bottom dark on top
Answer now thwap, thwap ​

The last do not sound words at all, but like a sort of wet thumping sound that makes you wonder uneasily what else besides worms has died down here.

Something glitters ahead in the pale light of Inge's conjuring. "Is that a knife?" Esha asks. She gets it close, but not quite right, it is a spear tip, though instead of the five inches that were common to the weapons of the Anwa this one was almost ten. Even more strangely it's point is jagged, it's edges serrated meant to pierce flesh and stay lodged in, a cruel thing.

What do you do?

[] Keep walking though the hollow

[] Try to answer the riddle
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Sorry this was so late guys, I had an inconvenient power outage.

 

[DragonParadox]

Leviathan ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Whales," you answer, recalling as you do that it is a trial of great strength among the Anwa to hunt such a beast with just such a weapon as you have found. "Sharks also..." Something shifts underfoot by some unseen current as Wanderer snaps his head back whence you had come, but even as you come near to biting your tongue you say, "And other creatures of the sea besides of which there are many."

The shaking stops as abruptly as it had started, the last swaying of the light casting strange shadows on the dark stone of the walls. Wait, the walls... You look down to see black boots on a pale surface covered in a patina that is more than water. As you open your mouth to speak again the same odd voice echoes from the far reaches of the chamber.

"Many creatures of the sea... one is much like the other then?" a thrumming pause hangs there and then a question poisonously soft. "So if I were to slay the creature you call Ripper that even now swims close, then he would be to you much as any other. Curious that he should dare to come so close when you value him so little."

"It's alive... it's all alive," you had never heard that tone in Swift Pebble's manner, as a drowning soul gasping out a desperate call.

That is when you see it... above there is stone arching in a rough-hewn dome, to your left, to your right there is stone, but below the shifting pale floor, too smooth like the underside Ripper had claimed to have seen in the silt that was alive, the body of some titanic beast in armor of pumice.

"You asked a riddle and I made my guess," you answer, your voice more steady than you had expected it to be, perhaps more steady than it aught to have been given where you stand. "If you wish to take it for an insult then I cannot stop you, save to say that I did not mean it so. If you would make threats against one who had lead faithfully and fought with honor then beware, be ye creature of flesh or spirit or dragon of the depths."

A strange gurgling sound echoes under the vault of stone... It takes you a moment to recognize it as mirth. "Three tasks I was asked to put to you: one of mind, one of might and one of will. You failed one, but should you pass through the others then you shall have that twice stolen..."

"What the hell is going on?" Antonio's voice cuts through the strange offer. "All the otter-kin are running around like their tails are on fire..."

"It's not a stone, but a beast with a shell of stone on its back." You get the dubious honor of learning five new curses in the span of an instant. "It's man-clever at least, it wants us to play a game."

The moment of frozen shock spreads like ice over a fountain pool, stilling the chatter of your company, then Esha clears her throat and primly proclaims. "Is it not thought ill done among your kind to make a riddle that only you can be the answer for?"

Again the laughter comes and then a single word: "Choose."

"Should we barge in and make bloody sheets of the fog?" Antonio asks and to be honest you are more then a little tempted and yet you recall well the other words, the talk of rewarding you in something precious is not without its own temptation.

What do you do?

[] Call out to Antonio that he needs to fight it from without as you did from within

[] Try to take the trial, as much for the curiosity as the promise of reward

OOC: You guys were surprisingly close with your guesses.

 

[DragonParadox]

What Gnaws at Greatness ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

As you follow the swaying thread that still leads out of the shell, out of the grasp of the beast you realize that it is the only way out, and the only way those left aboard the Marcella can aid you. It seems a long way indeed and so resolved, if not at ease you call out: "A bargain then, we shall go through your tests."

"Oh... good, you play the game you win the prize, the stolen thief might yet be yours," the words pass not through air, but through the floor, through the body of the creature. Don't think about it. It's only when Esha gives you a worried look that you realize you must have said or at least murmured it aloud.

"How do you steal a thief, why would you steal them?" Swift Pebble asks, her mind open to all.

Much to your surprise it is Wanderer who replies, tapping his club on the ground suspiciously. "You take them war bond against their kin behaving right. Hope this thing doesn't try to cage us."

"Oh how clever, but you must know there is more than one pair of hands in the taking, more than one ladle in the kitchen."

You steal a thief from someone else, you take a prisoner from another's hands. What prisoner could this beast have that you would be interested in. The Marcella had lost some sailors overboard, but you cannot imagine... "Ansefu, they have Ansefu king of Lirman," you send to Swift Pebble and she sends it on.

Before any others can speak, in silence or with voice the creature you seem to be... on speaks again. "For the trial of might know that there are parasites that burrow in my flesh and trouble my dreams, rid me of them and their pestiferous breath."

"Breath?" Esha's voice is like soft honey and it too burrows in the ear. "Your pardon great one, but we do not know what troubles you and so we cannot aid you."

"A pair of beast-masked ones that feast on my blood and delight in daring each other to ever more brazen acts of mischief that they might to their elders say 'behold that we have moved the old worm to snap its jaws and slash its tail.'" The great body shudders now with annoyance and not with mirth.

"We do not swim as well as you do through the dark sea," Esha is quick to reply. As the creature starts to grumble and grouse about leeches and may they choke on their heavy breath the sorceress recounts what you are likely to be dealing with, Formless ones who chose to wear the guise of beasts, not quite fish and not quite land beast, not a frog either for they have power over the air. Her account of how you would normally fight such creatures is frank... you would not, but according to your host when it pushes them out of its body you will have a few moments of confusion when it is they who will not know where they are and then you may ambush them.

"I'll bring them up under my shell then... get ready."

How do you prepare for the fight?

[] Write in

OOC: You get a surprise round before the Naunets can act; they will be pushed out of the flesh of the Great Worm right next to you under the shell.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Knot of Serpents ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Drums on stone echo, the voice of blood in your ears, the voice of breath drawn too fast, the call of bronze striking flesh, and on your arm the shield grows not heavy but light as a feather with the call of its master. The horn echoes... and war is summoned forth in the spark of red flame and the flash of bright bronze. Strange is the 'hall' and stranger its master, but you know sure at the sight of hulking flesh and twisted metal in this place, you fight and you bleed, you win or you die.

The 'beast' roars and its voice is still that of a man, not as the raiders you have slain, as hands clasped before him Wanderer calls out to the ghosts of his grandsires and Tom speaks a prayer to Saint Michael for victory, as Zaia drinks deep of some flesh-shaping concoction and to your right Esha stands in a darkness of her own weaving, as hard as steel mail.

Light gleams off the edge of poisoned blade, not red and not the white of the mage lanterns, but all the colors flowing off the patina of arcane oils.

"For what we are about to do forgive us if we act in ignorance..." you add your own prayer, softly spoken. With only the word of the Worm that these are foes worth slaying you can but hope that you will find forgiveness if you were ill counseled.

"Now..."

The word is lost in the wet slurp as the flesh of the beast under you opens and a pair of beasts not like any mortal creatures is birthed from the depths. Scaled they are like fishes and the scales part before Tom's spear as he pierces them, horned they are like rams and one of them flies under the blade of Durendal, beaked they are like birds upon the head that grows from their backs and it snaps under Wanderer's blow. Still somehow the first of them does not die until Zaia hurls a vial of flame into its gaping maw, then in a flash of impossible flame and cacking laughing-crying-screaming... it is not.

It is not dead, something inside you proclaims, sure as sunrise, something of that sort cannot die, only be banished for a while even as arrows of light fly from Esha's fingers and glance off the hide of the other.

Spoiler: Formless

"All things pass into the depths, all are judged," Inge chants in the tongue of her people and the ice does fall, battering across its scaly hide, but the ice does not bite any deeper. The bear charges it and with claws of steel rips into its guts even as the monster is hurled back from the rest of your company wounded but far from bested.

Swift as an eel in murky waters the thing slips the tearing claws even with Tom shouting a warning. For a moment it almost seems like the thing is tearing itself apart, flesh ripping off bones even as they shift and crackle, but the flaps of skin become wings like a bat yet colored as the tail of a peacock even as the two heads merge into a single one, bone beak long and sharp like a sword. It takes to the air right towards the same opening you had climbed down into.

Spoiler: Winged form

It is only then that you notice it is not taking wing quite alone. Swift Pebble had somehow jumped onto its back mid-change, cutting the shifting tendons in a shower of ichor-becoming-blood.

What do you do?

[] Write in plan

OOC: For anyone wondering Swift Pebble also contributed to the death of the first Protean but Roland can only look in so many places at once and she is by far the smallest combatant, plus it just looked cooler to have her jumping on the back of a magic pteranodon to be her interaction. She was the only one who rolled initiative before the enemy and so I had her hold it fluff wise until it was distracted, hard to get more distracted than growing wings.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mercurial Middle ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Watch for flying bat-lizard," the last is less a word and more a portrait of the wounded, but still very lively foe. You hope Antonio can understand, but in the midst of battle it's all you can do.

Ice crackles from Inge's hands, grazing the creature's left wing illuminated from behind by the pale moonlight of Esha's conjuring, prayer and sorcery doing together what each alone could not and sending the thing off balance. Its blood is red now, but its words ring with inhuman power: "Thinkest thou that you are wise mortal? You who raised a tower of sand upon the sands standing? Do you not see the tide, do you not see the One it brings? More kinship have you to me and mine than to the one who summoned you with trickery and baited you with the Stolen King..."

The strange spirit is more nimble in the air than its long bat wings might show, passing just over the heavy blow of Wanderer's club and taking but a pinprick from Tom's spear in passing jab. In his defense he is not used to fighting things that fly.

So it is that you are upon the creature just as it reaches the base of the rope and still it speaks even as the bear of Olweje tries to drag it down on the pale-stone body: "Why make a deal with one who would treat you as a tool, who would of the Fateless make thrall for its own ends, for its own amusement?" Though its face can show no emotion you can hear the smile in the spirit's voice. "I have no riddles, only answers to give if you would listen to them, perhaps the tide will not sweep you in if you heed me..."

"A task you have been given, a task you have accepted." Words ring out from the very floor at your feet, from the flesh of the Great Worm, if such it is to be called.

"See, see, he's using you, not a true follower of Father Chaos in the least. It's me you should be making deals with."

Even the thought of betrayal chaffs, but you cannot deny that it is a point well made. Why would the Worm give you more than crumbs and maybe whatever is left of Ansefu? This creature though is skilled in battle and strong in the powers of the soul and might be less inclined to pull the wool over your eyes.

And on the other hand... or is it back to the first one, if you were to take the side of the fleeing spirit how are you meant to get out from under the Worm's shell?

What do you reply?

[] Take this new deal, you have no time for riddles and you have sworn no oaths

[] Your word is your bond even when it is not formally made

[] Write in

OOC: This one is a short one because the creatures of chaos are more than capable of initiating negotiations when it suites them.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Slip of the Noose ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

You hear the words, but heed them not, for you know well the voice of the liar and the tempter. You charge and fire is in your hand and bright bronze and a will forged in the deep places of the earth far from here. The blow lands, but the wing is as old leather under the edge and turns wholly on iron-hard bone.

"Fool, fool!" the thing caws and hisses in not one voice but many, changing and twisting like the coils of a snake through the air. "Accursed thy..." A hiss of pain is all that escapes it as Swift Pebble continues her grizzly work upon its back. Alas that she slips on the very blood that she has spilled and tumbles down the shaft even as the spirit rises.

Too damn slow...

The bundle of blood-stained that is Swift Pebble tumbles onto the slick floor of the cave, though not with the bone-jarring blow you had feared she might take.

If anything from the timbre of her mind she is more angry than scared. "Muck-sucking, way-shitter!"

As the thing makes its way up and out of the shell of the Great Worm you hear another in your mind and he is no more well disposed than her. "Christ's limb and the Saint Marco's oar, damn thing vanished as soon as it came out of the rock, bolts in it and all!"

For her part Esha does not curse, she does not have to, the grim mien that settles over her features is more than enough to give warning: "It could be anywhere under the sea and in the sky now, they can skip on the veil of the world as a child skips stones on clear water. I had hoped it did not have that power."

"Not while it was within me," the deep voice of the Worm echoes through the mass of pale... flesh you suppose at your feet. "Regardless the second task is done."

"We scared it off then?" Wanderer scoffs. "Fawn-hearted thing."

There is no answer from your host, but in the silence that follows Esha speaks again. "I fear we have given the thing new purpose in the slaying of its companion."

"It's not dead though...." you trail off. You had been sure of that when you had seen it melt into light and flame bewildering to the eye, but now you have to admit that it had been merely a guess, a feeling.

"Oh it still exists after a fashion, but it is as likely to rejoin its companion as two grains of sand blown on the wind are likely to meet across the wide sea. The Formless are easily distracted, they take on the shape of beasts and birds, of fish and serpents, even of men of every manner that they might learn of them. Some I have heard even take on stranger shapes, a tree standing tall rooted deep, a river flowing swift, a worm of false flesh in shell of stone..."

The creature speaks and it is sharp and harsh, not with the voice of magic commanding the world, but simply the tongue of a people you have not heard before... though Esha surely has. She reels almost as if struck then, and with an uneven smile adds, "A touch, a palpable touch... but you are still what I said you are and you will not long linger here, you claimed your prize and rid yourself of your unwanted guests, so let us then have Ansefu King and be done with this charade."

"Ah so you do not think much of games do you? Then I shall make this as simple as can be, sacrifice one thing that was made of that other world of which much is whispered but little is known, of the Desert of Meaning and the Tyranny of Form. It does not have to be of great use to you, weapon or armor or keepsake, just one thing of that realm that you know you shall never see again."

For a moment silence lies black and heavy on all the company, then Tom shrugs. "It can have my old sword if it wants. Bronze cuts well enough when proper forged."

You look to Esha and to Zaia for counsel, but none of them can see anything amiss, though both are suspicious that the last trial should be the easiest.

What of your old world do you give the Great Serpent in exchange for King Ansefu?

[] Tom's old sword as he offered

[] Write in

OOC: Sorry this took so long, between the headache and being busy today it was not a good writing day.

 

[DragonParadox]

Royal Rebirth ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

You almost nod without thinking then draw instead your own sword, forged among the hills of Normandy just as he had and by the same craft, just as lacking in ornament, and you had made sure kept oiled and well cared for should something happen to Durendal. "Let them try..." The words ring in your ear as much as bronze might growl.

Tom mistakes your smile. "My lord you don't have to..."

"I wish it just the same," you cut him off, glad indeed that he is not one to argue. It would hardly be polite to imply that the one you are about to hand the sword to might have some nefarious purpose which you would rather fall on you and not him. Actually given how Tom would react to the notion that you want to take risks in his place it is doubly good that he does not think to question you as you carefully place the blade on the 'ground' that is the creature's flesh.

"Did you do something?" Antonio's mind voice has a strain to it like and unlike the stillness before battle. "Tell me you did something..."

"Yes..."

***​

It is hard to blame the man given what you find once you are out of the 'rock'. The fog is already growing tattered and the spray of white that marks the passage of the great beast veils the deck for a few moments, but once it clears you are greeted with the sight of a man curled in on himself knees to his chest inside a yellowish bladder shot through with deep red veins. Apparently it 'popped right out of the sea like a sausage in a barrel'. This is no doubt the first time Zuan speaking of sausages is not well received by the crew. Still Zaia is nothing if not a curious soul and soon enough sharpened bronze taken from the lair of the mad mage Ipsit parts the skin of the... container to reveal a sputtering, shivering and naked, but still very much alive King Ansefu.

"Witch! Witch! Liar! Witch!" The first few words are not what you might have hoped, but he calms down at the sight of Inge at least enough that you can get him a cloak and usher him into a cabin.

"Hopefully his precious accommodations didn't sour him on his sister, it would be rather wasteful to return to Apuku only to start a war again," you hear Esha murmur as soon as the door is closed.

"Can hardly keep him around to scrub the deck," Antonio chuckles before shaking his head and turning to the helm to adjust the heading.

Hopefully the journey back will be enough for him to get his footing again at least enough to be presented to his people. The king is as much effigy as he is man, that much does not change no matter the world. In the meantime your thoughts turn to the battles of recent days and of all the time you had avoided battle. Between a conspiracy of dragons seeking to buy a stolen spear and a spirit of the Formless kindred now stalking the ship you have no doubt that you will need those skills again soon... and you would not turn your nose up at some luck either.

---

Arc Fourteen Complete​

Triumphs
+Entered the Dreamlands to converse with Lina
+Survived the Storm Spirits' rage
++Rescued Ohun from the grasp of the Sea Spinner
+Made Pledge of Study [Must take at least one esoteric knowledge skill or spellcraft at the first opportunity]
++Helped preserve the city of Lirman from traitors and opportunist fey
+Prevented Ohun from abandoning his calling for the wild and the company of birds and beasts
+Rescued Ro the Fey Smith and struck a bargain with him
++Entered the realm of the fey and returned better than you had gone
+Rescued Megin 'the half-again horse'
+Defeated the thief and the dragon spawn
+Gained the name and the friendship of Mynid the Wayguard
++Rescued the lost king Ansefu of Lirman from... the Formless

Total XP gained: 4,000 XP

What have been the lessons of this war for you and yours?

[] More skills in peace and war
Cost: 0 XP

[] Wanderer has learned and grown in the battles unlike any that he has faced before (Wanderer Level Up)
-[] Write in level up (Applicable as template to all future veteran Barbarian recruits)
Cost: 1,000 XP

[] You have battled beasts and spirits, you have walked the realms of the tinker fey and faces formless spirits upon the back of their great kin, though you are no wizard you are more than a knight (Lose Martial Training feat in exchange for retraining two level of Cavalier as Warder)
Cost: 2,500 XP

[] Zaia has studied the tomes of the assasin you slew and found them filled with accounts of powers and decoctions that he might know use for his own (Level Up)
Cost: 500 XP

[] Swift Pebble's daring has been rewarded by skill in subterfuge and stealth (Level Up)
Cost: 1,000 XP

OOC: You can take as many as you want, plan voting.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Lost Days ​

Seventh Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Life aboard the Marcella returns to a semblance of calm over the next few days, punctuated only by Mog's grumbling the clank and clatter of swords from the men 'so as to keep them out of mischief' according to Tom... and the screams of a king. You do not know what had been done to young king Ansefu and truth be told you are not sure you wish to know, but his nightmares hound him like the very beasts of Hell, every night once the sun is down he falls into a sort of stupor from which it is hard to rouse him even as much as to eat and all though the night he wakes screaming.

At first it seems that not even Zaia's most potent philters would help but the good doctor is nothing if not persistent in his ministrations and by the third night all of you are starting to see some improvement if humors are to be believed though the administering of some of Megin's sweat mingled with the last of the spirits he had aqua vitae and dried blood from some quarter you do not wish to speculate on overmuch. As he grows more able to speak he shows himself interested in the path of the campaign to Korman and though you make no attempt to inflate your own part in it he comes to the conclusion that you had been instrumental in both holding the host to its task and defeating the Redman.

"Ah, would that I had been there sir knight, then perhaps men might have called me a king and not some wretch who was chained beneath the sea and then let free by the machinations of monsters..." He looks down at the table, tracing the grain of the wood with his hand. "You do not know what it is like to be trapped in a prison not of stone or bronze, but of your own flesh, locked by the weakness of..." A shudder runs down his spine and he says nothing more for a long while. "Let us speak of brighter things while the sun is in the sky, what are your plans, your hopes for the future?"

"A return to Orinilu as I have pledged, after that who is to say? I made a pledge to some of the marcher lords that they would have horses bred from the Fellowship's herd and we have an alliance with yet another house such that we would train their soldiers..." In your mind you pass over the Purples and their less savory nature, not that you are certain they would fall afoul of Anwa mores, but you would rather not chance it and sour what would be a fair royal patronage indeed. "After that who is to know? We have a ship and she is swift as she is fair to travel where we will north and south, east and west, in search of profits and in search of answers..."

Answers to what? A part of you wonders. Those who had come before, the reason you had been called, the shadows growing dark, the dragons. When you lay your head on the pillow at night it is that as much as the fading screams that keeps you awake and looking into the shifting shadows of the ceiling for patterns that are not there.

"Ah, would that I had the freedom of the open sea to wash away my sins," the young king says and young indeed he seems to you, swathed in too large borrowed clothes, for the months of his captivity seem to have eaten away some of this flesh and left him as a man two winters starved. It is the first time you had heard one of the Anwa say the word 'sin' and you can well imagine to what god he thinks that sin had been committed, Olweje for which the season was named.

His glory had been stolen, his honor tarnished and his realm set ablaze, saved only by the hand of strangers and lesser lords. Aye it is not hard to guess that Ansefu King is no longer sure he is worth the honor. You wonder at what words might lead him from his dark thoughts, thinking back to your own days of trial when you had been a traitor lord, forgiven more for the narrowness of your lands than by any virtue. You had thought God had been calling you to raise the standard of the cross against the Saracens, the more fool you. Perhaps you can find the words to turn the boy away from a similarly foolish deed.

How do you address Ansefu's doubts?

[] Write in

OOC: This is going to be a diplo roll regardless, but a hard enough one that a bonus from a good write-in would be really helpful.

 

[DragonParadox]

Broken Wings, Silent Waves ​

Seventh Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"I shall say that I agreed with every choice you took when preparing for battle nor after setting off for that would be a lie, but it is not false flattery to say that from the day I reached the city to that of the storm I had no complaints about your choices..." your conscience twinges slightly as you recall the oath the young king asked of you that you would not seek lordship. Had you been a man quicker to anger that could have gone ill, but not is not the time to split the stone until 'tis ground to sand. "It is only the whims of spirits that undid you and that could be said of every man."

"Not every man," the words are heavy and his hand as it waves towards Zaia standing near at hand listless. "You have found the service of those who know the spirits and how to vanquish them with fire and with death."

"I had good counsel that much is true," you reply, thinking of how you might explain your own failings in another time, another place. And thus perhaps you miss the thread that you aught to have pulled.

"And I did not you say?" the young king asks darkly. He grips the edge of the table to tightly his knuckles strain with it. "I was a poor king for the ones I chose to stand at the right of the throne." When you open your mouth to speak he waves you off. "I know you did not mean it nor to give offense, but truth often lies in the word that is not polished and so it was here."

"You were in haste and of haste there was need," you try to point out just the same. "I was one of those who spoke for a campaign in spring and from what I saw in the Thousand Caves it might almost have been too late."

"I had seasons to prepare and I could do... no more than what I did and the fate dealt to me for that folly was..." he sighs, weary before his time. "No more than I deserved under the gaze of Elnu and by the weft and warp of Nikure."

Though you try to prod the young king from his dark thoughts after than hour he would not speak of them anymore, perhaps ashamed even of the 'weakness' of barring his doubts before you.

Mayhap when he reaches home his sister can shake him from his gloom, that is your hope at least. Though speaking of making port with Ansefu among your passengers you reason that it would be best not to surprise a city for whom all the surprises of late have been ill. Yet you find Inge also sunk in dark thoughts and all about her silence save for Ripper purring deep in his throat and the drip of water across his scales. "Gulls are gone, can't see any as far as the eye can see, even with Her sharpening them," she admits

"Is that normal?" you ask, knowing that it is not. If anything you sometimes wish there would be fewer, squaking and quarreling and shitting across the deck.

"No..." the girl lowers her voice. "I think something's hunting them, the Formless, that's why I asked Ripper to stay with us for a bit, he's strong, but not as strong as that thing."

What do you do?

[] You managed without bird messengers before you will manage it now, sail on back into port to deliver Ansefu

[] Try to lay a trap for the Formless stalking you
-[] Write in how

[] Try to parlay with the Formless stalking you
-[] Write in how

[] Write-in

OOC: You guys did not make the diplo roll, like I said it was a hard DC, still you can't win them all.