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

[DragonParadox]

Missing a Stitch ​

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

By the next day most of the crew and all of the soldiers of the Fellowship had noticed the lack of birds as well as Ripper's newfound perch, so there isn't much sense in trying to hide what Inge is looking for. Perhaps on another ship at some other time they would have taken the threat of a many-shaped horror hunting them poorly, but those who sail abroad the Marcella instead take it... you are not sure if in 'good spirits' is quite the right way to put it, but it's in some kind of spirits.

"If you offer to patch the sails Giano I'll know something's eaten your bones and wearing your face," you hear one fellow say, only for the other to reply: "Might also mean you fucked it up more than usual more's the pity and the sin in the eyes of Sant'Omobono..." The patron saint of tailors according to Antonio, though in spite of his own insouciant manner you cannot help but notice that he has been waking later and later these past three days.

Knowing the captain for a man who knows his drinks and holds them well in both the gullet and the barrel you prod at the edges of things. No man likes to be told that he is crawling into a bottle at the sight of too much blood and battle, much less from one many years younger, but the last thing any of you need is for the captain to be more than the usual amount of bleary-eyed

"Not drinking, that'd be too normal for me these days..." he trails off. "Dreaming."

Leaning a little closer, for you had the good sense to have the conversation out of earshot of any of the others you prompt: "Dreaming of what?"

"Shapes without shape and colors without hue. I think the old girl is trying to tell me something, but she doesn't have the words. Can't rightly say I can tell what it is this way either, but I wake up needing to puke in the middle of the night like I'm some seasick bilge brat and not a captain twenty years and more at sea."

"Have you tried directing the dreams?" you ask, recalling your own ethereal sojourn into the lands of the south.

"Easier for a blind man on a treadwheel to mark where the stones aught to go, but I thank you for the advice and for not calling me mad in the bargain..."

"Mad?" you laugh "Did you or did you not speak in my thoughts not a few days ago? Beside that skill what is a dream that shows more than it aught? They'd call you a wizard if we ever made it home..."

For a long moment neither of you speak, as you contemplate the word that had just lipped past your lips, the fact that you would never make it 'home' at all. There had developed something of an unspoken rule among the Fellowship, be they warriors or sailors not to speak of what had been lost that day more than a year ago now.

"You know Marcella might know something of the way back, we picked her up... well not her body, but the mind and the soul in Between the Worlds. "

"Why are you..." you pause as though unsure of your next words, in truth you let the matter hang so Antonio can 'misunderstand' if he does not want to talk about it.

"Thinking about it?" your friend shakes his head, then shakes it come more than an unwelcome bit of hair flies into his eyes. There aren't many barbers at sea, or in a war. "Demons, spirits, great hulking beasts as big as the ship, they all have to come out of some hole. I was just wandering what if the way back is down one of them?"

"Would you want to go to hell for the chance to come out in England?" The smile comes easier than you expected. "As a Norman of good breeding I would not recommend the bargain."

***​

In the end the only mark of your unwanted follower over these last few days and been missing gulls, cut fishing lines and torn nets, certainly not friendly, but not that you would call a blood feud either. With the island again in sight you join the young king at the prow of the ship and hope to see him to his throne if not the hall he had first greeted you in long ago...

"Ah it will be good to see my people again and take the seat that is rightfully mine." He stretches after a long and restful sleep, his smile bright to greet the day.

The one thing you did not expect is the touch of Swift Pebble's mind on yours and 'hear' without voice. "Inge says she's found the shapeshifter.'

"Where...?"

"Standing right next to you," comes the chilling answer

What do you do?

[] Confront the shapeshifter
-[] Write in how

[] Play along while the others search for the real Ansefu, see if you can learn its goals

[] Write in

OOC: Inge was looking down from the crow's nest with all her magic active and she saw something odd about how 'Ansefu' moved so she turned on her detect magic, low and behold polymorph magic on the person beside you.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mercurial Menace ​

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

Forcing a smile on salt chafed lips you smile, a wordless lie, and then at last you ask what he plans to do about rebuilding the city after the fires, which of the nobles he plans to bring into his confidence, questions you would not have asked of the true Ansefu for it is none of your affair how a foreign king manages his land but to which now you bend a careful ear.

"One clan chief is much the same as the other, are they not?" the false king waves vaguely towards shore, then snaps his fingers so fast they almost seem to blur in the air. "I know perhaps I can allow Ohun to retire to the lonely shores that call him and instead seek out learned men like you have gathered in your company, they were more skilled in dealing with the Anjo-Oru were they not?"

"I would not be too hasty in seeking strangers for such company, for they would all too easily be foes..."

He peers at you with wide eyes that almost seem to gleam in the pale sunlight that passes under clouds. "But you were a stranger and well did meeting you serve the folk of Lirman. Why, not only did you deal with the Anjo-Oru, but you made bargains with the spirits of lonely places and you banished those who had taken the place of the lord of the Iranea. It just seems to be a matter of choosing the right stranger does it not?"

"And picking mushrooms in the woods is 'just' a matter of knowing to avoid the poisonous ones," you snort. "I still wouldn't want to eat nothing but mushrooms from the woods the summer though."

"You would starve even if you were not poisoned..."

Not the answer you had been expecting, though some of your distraction might be from seeing Zaia climb on deck, armed and ready for battle under the dusty grey cloak he had taken to wearing to keep out the rain.

Seeing your confusion the false king explains: "Mushrooms are less solid than they seem, just a bit of fluff and an aroma under the nose, you would be more lucky trying to eat Goldheart like a rabbit."

"I do not know the word..." you start, but Zaia breaks in.

"It is the flower chamomile which the Greeks called Earth Apple and the Goths call the Water of Life... of which pardon lord, but I have seen none in the islands, east or west."

A flash of annoyance passes over the spirit's stolen features, then one of amusement. "Well that will teach me not to try to make interesting conversation before the main event." He shakes his head in mock sadness. "The 'king' is fine save for his pride. I tied him up in his cabin and took his clothes. Wanted to see if you could take a bit of a jest..."

"I see no jest here," you reply sharply, though you feel relieved to hear that nothing worse had been done to him. "He is a guest on this ship and you have laid violent hands on him."

"Oh... then were the blows of club and slash of sword and conjuring of ice all the caresses of friendship?" he laughs again, all the more unnerving for the fact that you hear no mockery to it, just honest mirth. "Strange is thine courtesy."

"Such was our path from the bowels of the beast," you reply, carefully measuring your words. "I make no claim to virtue in the matter and if it is pardons you seek then I offer them freely."

"Well of course you do, they cost you nothing," comes the cheerful reply. "But that if you could bear the weight...?"

"Enough!" Esha's voice rings out proud and commanding as you have never heard her speak. "One game into another leading, one link to another binding and we will have forged our own chain for your amusement. Neither justice nor honor interests me in the least, only this: what will it take for you to leave this place without making more trouble than we would otherwise get into?"

"Do I seem like a seer to you fair lady?" the false Ansefu leers, though in such a blatant manner it would not look out of place on the village green at festival. "How should I know what you otherwise might get into?"

"She means the trouble of destroying the form you now wear and banishing you whence you came," you reply reaching for your sword, even as you keep your tone neutral, almost bored.

He changes manner quick as an eel between your fingers, though not as you had expected. Instead of charging one of you the false Ansefu shrugs and says. "Fine then I need a warm dry place for five of my get to live as men, they are man-like in the main, though they can at least slip off a face or two and they would go mad with boredom without the company of their near fellows, some place near the shore."

You look to Esha, but she shrugs. 'I don't have to know about every strange thing', her expression seems to say.

"Youngest is eighty five turns of the moon, oldest is a hundred and twenty," the odd thing replies now all business. How had you gone from potential foes to fostering? you wonder bewildered even as you work out the numbers in your head. Youngest is seven and a bit, oldest is ten... and all of them can change their faces and God alone knows how they have been raised. Yet in the balance... it is a way to avoid making a foe with a long memory.

"You almost took my life so it's only fair that you put your backs to helping grow my kin-blood," the spirit adds sounding very definitive about the matter.

Do you take the deal?

[] Yes, at least it will spare you a foe, how bad can children be no matter how strange

[] No, you will not take on something of such import as fostering or apprenticing children from what seems a whim

OOC: If this seems strange and surreal... it is supposed to. Proteans do have a kind of logic, but it is very much their own and it can at times be rather dreamlike.

 

[DragonParadox]

Ship Shape ​

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

How long until the spirit grows weary of mischief and moves on to something darker? Already the loss of the birds had made it so you could not send word ahead and the breaking of the lines might have been perilous if it had been done at the end of a long journey and not its start. Ever careful of the coffers Antonio had added up how much more expensive that would make provisions... A poor reason to consider fostering any children perhaps, but would it be any worse than the company of a being that would hand its children off to strangers in a thrice?

A spike of pain races across your temples and you wish that you could blame the glare of the sun on the waves. "A bargain then, we will care for your children as best we are able... or see them cared for. Speaking of that...."

By the time the last word was out of your mouth 'Ansefu' is already gone, diving over the side of the ship with the grace of an uncoiling serpent. "I'll send them by dusk."

***​

As the sun begins to sink behind the dark shoulder of the island ahead you do not know what to expect, perhaps the spirit children would simply swim up from some deep place or maybe ride on the back of some uncanny sea beast, though you would rather avoid that since Ripper has only gotten in the water again and he's being a touch snappish about the patch of sea just around the Marcella, at least according to Inge. Truth be told after a day of trying to talk to Ansefu after you had found his neatly hogtied in his bed you would take whatever chaos the Formless brood might bring...

"Like trying to talk to a stone," you grouse at Esha, for what must unfortunately be the tenth time or so. You do not feel at ease speaking ill of a king and a man so ill treated by fate to most and so Esha it is for unburdening yourself.

"Well you offered, nothing said you had to get him presentable, we could throw him in the water and watch him swim to shore," she smiles with deliberate slowness at the no doubt shocked look on your face. Over the months you have come to suspect that at least a part of her callousness is a mask she dons for convenience's sake, though you still do not understand why she would want to do that. Still being able to complain without feeling heartless yourself because she had taken on the mantle for the conversation is a relief.

"I hold no rancor to the man..." you start.

"You want to hold no rancor to him," she interjects. "But you were annoyed when he made you swear an oath not to do something that had not even crossed your mind, you are frustrated at having to sail back and deliver him like a lost child of his people and even more you worry that Ansefu will be more trouble than he is worth."

"I don't..." you sigh. "We all have unworthy thoughts."

"You can feel sorry about someone and by annoyed with them as well, there is room enough in our heads for more than one feeling for every person," she replies, leaning a little closer. You can feel her breath on your neck when she whispers. "It's alright I won't tell."

You really should move away... but you don't "I'm trying to do what's right, but it's so tangled sometimes and I wonder if instead I don't complicate things for everyone else. Anotnio will have no love of young children on his deck."

"They are not so young and if they survived whatever their father thinks was appropriate..."

"We don't know if it was the father," you break in. "Remember you were the one to tell me the Formless are male and female as their whims take them."

She laughs, it is really quite a nice sound. "Wouldn't work that way, it's not like they would all turn into eggs the first time the spirit took on the guise of a bird, a lizard or some other egg layer. Can you imagine that great flapping lizard thing heavy with child..."

Thus you join in the mirth, but only for a moment, as something dark occurs to you. "You don't think it would steal the children from their mothers do you."

Esha looks up at you a long moment, tapping tonelessly on the side of the ship: "I think that given enough time one of the protean blood would do just about everything at least once. We will just have to see what the day brings..."

What the day brings, what the tide brings once you are close to shore is not what you had been expecting, instead of boat you spy a raft on the horizon, of reddish wood with the leaves still green on it, but still seeming to all the world not as something made by humankind but rather the flotsam of some distant storm. Clinging to the branches and sitting on the logs or running right along them without seeming to sway are children all garbed in odd green smocks, their hair in tangles and their hands and feet stained with... fish guts. The remains of their last meal can be seen impaled here and there like effigies of the hunt, fish great and small, wide staring eyes looking out bewildered out of singed countenances.

"We're here, we're hear," one of the girls calls and as you watch her previously pale hair darkens, her stature grows a bit and you realize with a start that she is now a dark haired and dark eyed boy as she gets off her perch. Being a little bigger seems quite helpful getting off that perch.

You are not alone by the gunwale, all the crew and most of the soldiers are here to watch the spectacle, but also all the otter-kin, sending out greetings to these new young humans. For some of them this may be the first time seeing a human child who is not Inge, you realize with a start. Maybe they will think that we are all magicians or shapeshifters when we are young.

"All aboard, all aboard the good ship Marcella..." Antonio starts to say, but then another voice filled with wrath and command... and with fear breaks in.

"What are you doing! Don't you see they are face thieves!"

The girl or boy... or whatever they are at the moment was about to come across when they look wide eyed at the man who spoken, though whether at the words or just the tone you are not certain.

"We made..." The word 'pledge' dies on your tongue as you realize you would have to explain that you made a deal to one who added to his humiliation, who left him again as a prisoner, this time as little more than a jest.

What do you say?

[] Tell the truth as diplomatically as you are able, you will not be made a liar in this

[] A lie is the lesser evil
-[] Write in

[] Let Esha handle it

OOC: Welp, here you go, a raft full of rambunctious shapeshifters.

 

[DragonParadox]

Without a Paddle ​

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

Ooloa didn't like the sea, didn't trust it, though mother said her father came from the sea, 'handsome he was like a wave crowned with foam and generous as a prince with a fist full of pearls', the had heard the story too many times to count and the more she heard it the more hr heart hardened against it. Pearls hadn't kept the other fishers from driving them away and if the nets were always heavy with cod, pollock and hake that just meant she had to carry more of them and gut them and cook them. Mother never did the slimy stuff once she had sown Ooloa how, she was too busy getting her feathers and braids every festival looking for 'father' to come back from the sea, even though the festivals meant different things and belonged to different gods. The girl had learned that down in the village once she learned to change her face to be more like theirs...

Then last summer they had caught her and they had beaten her with yew rods to drive out the spirits, or maybe to drive her off since they thought she was a spirit. Ooloa thought they were wrong since if she was a spirit her back wouldn't hurt so bad and she would have spirit magic to curse them or show them the evil eye or something. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't make a big red eye to curse people with... but she had learned how to be a boy and she found that the villagers were less suspicious of boys wandering about with nothing to hand, scuffs about the head she could take.

That is when she saw the singers with drums and horns and the fine things and the precious things that were the works of craftsman's hands and she wondered if a prince would have such music in his court and such shining things on his table, but Ooloa knew that she would never be able to have even one of those things. they would look for her and they would find her... and they would give her more than a beating.

When she had gone back to the hut this morning, having slept out under the open sky with naught but the leaves for shadows the sea had called to her for the first time and there on the shore she had seen a raft of broken things and on the raft children who changed like her and they had said they were her siblings of other mothers. They had called her brother and only then did she recall she was wearing the boy face... but it did not sound as strange to be called that was she though t it might. It was so great meeting folks who were like her that she did not really care.

It had been scary on the raft at first, until she saw the big fish that was dragging it along, her father must have send that... their father must had sent that. By noon she had remembered her mother and thought about how lonely she would be with no one there. Ooloa did not think it was nice that she would have to gut her own fish. She had cried a bit until one of her younger siblings taught her how to turn into someone who was not sad. It sounded a bit little at first she was still her under the skin, but it worked... kinda... maybe worked for today.

When they had come to the big ship and the men on the ship had waved at them she had thought that maybe it was the ship of the pearl prince and he would get to meet her father... and there was a prince there, at least the folk around called him that, but he did not want Ooloa or her sibs.

But then another man who looked even more like a prince, dressed all in shinny stuff said that taking them in was part of the price to free the not-nice-prince. So... maybe princes did not always agree like since they were proud as they were handsome, but if the shinny prince wanted them that maybe meant:

"Are you my father?" she asked the shinny prince, really really hoping he would say yes.

What do you reply?

[] Write in

OOC: Well you managed to argue Ansefu around, with a crit yet, but I was not getting anywhere trying to make this a normal update so I went with interlude from the changeling's PoV.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Kinder Face ​

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

There are certain moments in a man's life when the dictates of good sense which some claim are seated in the gut, run wholly counter to those of honor: the sight of home vanishing over the horizon for the first time, the din of the first battle drawing close, the first time one if asked to judge the sharpness of a sword or the quality of a horse to name but three. To that number you would add a dirty sunburned child reaching her hands out and towards you and asking if you are her father...

What are you meant to say? That her father is likely the dark ship in the water darting away on a strange errand having fulfilled his obligations by his lights by leaving them all in the company of strangers? Taking a deep breath an praying to Saint Nicholas who in addition to sailors and wanderers is said to have a special place in his heart for children you answer as honestly and kindly as you know how: "No, little one, that honor belongs to another. My name is Roland. Your father entrusted you and your siblings into my care, for he knows he is not well suited to such a task but wishes the best for each of you."

As you pick up the child who had suddenly gone still you hear Antonio sigh in relief behind you. The children will be none of his affair and you have no doubt he will not hesitate to relay any misbehavior to you.

"There you are..." you say as you continue to help the children off their raft, adding in more small words of reassurance that they are welcome and fussing over their weight as you recall your mother doing for you when you were young by way of that you hope will be familiar and comforting.

"S'all right, we don't eat much promise," one boy says looking at Zaia of all people as though he was expecting a blow. You will certainly believe he does not eat much, on account of him being small and thin for the ages the spirit had given. Somehow you doubt it had been voluntary on his part.

Meanwhile the first child you took out of the raft and clearly the eldest had found Inge and after a moment's just standing and watching the other girl she turned into a living mirror of her, expecting... something.

"I'm not like yer lot, I have my own magic though," Inge says bobbing up a light from her hand with a word of prayer. Ooloa seems relieved... but one of the younger boys, the last to come off the raft and that reluctantly starts to cry.

"Don't wanna die! I'll be good, I'll be good I promise!"

Poor Inge flinches back at the sight, looking helpless as you have not even seen her in battle. "What'd I do?"

Thankfully that is when one of the otter kin slinks slowly next to the child, his head at about the right height to pet and his mind obviously sending something reassuring. The boy's panicked crying fades into sniffles as the faintly horrified otter-kin explains that a priest of Ikomi had tried to 'kill the bad blood in him' which had left him in a nightmare-wracked sleep for days just before the raft had come for him.

Inge mumbles something that sounds like: "I aught to send him to the halls," and you cannot bring yourself to disagree, though once the children are attentive again, or at least as attentive as their tender years allow you continue: "We have many weeks of sailing ahead of us, so there will have plenty of time to learn about one another. Why don't we start with your names?"

Tell you their names they do: Ooloa, Leni, Unki Iles and... Kasibo. You almost flinch at the last, the name of the crying boy which means something like 'mockery' or else 'rotten fruit' in Anwari, an insult and certainly no name for a child, yet none of the other children seen to find it strange and the boy is only five. Could you change his name without confusing him?

Zaia obviously guesses your thoughts for he leans close and whispers: "Leave it be for now at least until they have had a warm meal in them and a night's sleep."

You are inclined to listen to his judgement but once they wake someone will have to see to their needs and it cannot just be you. Like as not you will be in the city then, dealing with the affairs of kings, perhaps even of trade and of recruitment.

Who is to take care of your new wards on the journey?

[] Swift Pebble and the rest of her people, they seem to be easily trusted by children and their mind speech conveys sincerity in a way words cannot (lowers the readiness of your sentries)

[] Tom and those of the company who have taken care of children before, caring for children, be they sons and daughters, brothers and sisters or even just cousins is common enough that even in a gathering of soldiers you should find some who know the way of it (soldiers are less able to help with the rowing or other tasks around the ship)

[] Write in

OOC: Being a shapeshifter in a culture that sees such beings as inherently dangerous at best and spies of inhuman masters at worst is not a pleasant life, all these kids are going to have some degree of trauma. Since someone has to watch them at all times, at least at first, who you choose will have an impact.

 

[DragonParadox]

Writ in Stone ​

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

The people of Apuku did not expect to see the Marcella again this season, before the smoke even cleared from the sky, before the last of the rubble had been cleared, much less did they expect in your company another stranger wrapped all about in one of the wolf-skin pelts of the far north and wearing a heavy cap despite the heat of summer laying like a suffocating blanket on the city. That this stranger was alike in stature with the king they had lost you doubt anyone even considered... after all he did not have the look of a warrior like their young lord had.

The 'stranger' looks on a place made strange indeed, a barren field where not even the weeds had the time to grow that had once been the hall of his fathers and the home of his childhood. Someone had placed a stone there, carved with signs of good fortune and with prayers for the city... for its people and for the return of the true and rightful king. Long runs the list of titles and dignities that is not commonly spoken, only on high holy days when the king takes on one duty or another:

Warlord and first captain, harvester of the grain of he earth, the fishes of the sea and thee blood of the foes... Among the list last carved in seeming haste is 'Ani', the sort of name one would give a child, or which a child might give.

It feels almost intrusive to be here, on a still sunlit field, amid a busy city as Ansefu runs his fingers over the name that could only have been carved by one who knew him beyond the call of the throne. Was it Ohun, or had it been Lina, you do not know, you do not ask, but in the hasty meetings that follow you see more than a king returned unbidden to the people who had lost him. You witness a father in deed if not in blood embrace his son and you see a sister meet her brother again, after they had been twice parted by the machinations of immortals.

"I should thank you for the fact that I still have a kingdom to return to and not a pile of ashes stirred up by the ambitions of the Iranea," Ansefu says to his sister as she starts to explain what had gone on in his absence, in hushed words, despite the fact that she like her brother is in disguise.

As soon as you had com near the city Inge had borrowed one of the red billed birds that flocked around it, with kinship enough to the sea for her to understand them and bid it carry a message to the regent and her counsel. Though you chafe at the secrecy asked it's hard to ignore the need. Lirman has only just adjusted to the notion of being lead by a regent who is kin to the sea fey, to then restore the king days later would upset any deals that Lina and Ohun made in the name of an empty throne. Ansefu will have to tread carefully now, for to simply renege all of them would be to cast blame on his sister and on Ohun, a thing they might have feared would happen before the meeting had gone so well.

A part of you, that might be speaking in Esha's voice wonders if the prayers on the stone had not been completed since the message arrived, if Lina's willingness to return her brother's power more or less in full does not hinge on the fact that those deals were never brought to fruition and the nobles of the island did not come to think of her as queen in all but name, but that is as the Anwa themselves say sea-foam on the wind, the crown of a wave that never saw shore and never will

What is of greater import to you is that Ansefu himself wants to offer a reward to the brave Fellowship of Saint Nicholas for all that you had done, but they have little in the way of gold to share and the ship is already filled with as many goods as she can take. Thus he can either send a pair longships filled with trade goods to accompany you, about which Antonio will doubtless grumble and the pirates will lust for... or Ohun offers they can raise a more symbolic form of thanks, a shrine or altar to your God, if you would but describe what is pleasing to Him.

You open your mouth to refuse, but then you recall Tam's grave, lonely on strange ground, you had given him a Christian burial the best you had known how but there was nothing of the Church about the place, it was not hallowed ground. Were he alive would he have wanted a marker to God to Christ and to Saint Nicholas there?

Tom, who knew him best of all your company, chews on the thought. "Couldn't hurt," he says at last. "He was as faithful as man as you would expect, not like he wanted to be a priest or nothing but..."

You still do not have a priest, the reminder leaves an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Would be be presumptuous of you to ask foreigners who know nothing of the Church or of Christ but what you tell them to raise am ornate cross by their own arts and makings?

What reward do you want from the Anwari?

[] More trade goods (5,000 gp in goods and 2 longboats)

[] Raise up a stone cross and a small chapel at Tam's grave

[] Write in

OOC: Things went about as well as they could on the return, now it's just choosing a reward and we are off... to the pirate infested waters.

 

[DragonParadox]

Formless and Unbound
Bestiary of the Accursed​

-Inscribed by Zaia of Alexandria​

One must admit that the first time I heard the tales of beings like men yet not him who dwelt under the sea and there in raised palace and ruled mighty kingdoms, not only because the siren the mermaid is the fantasy of every sailor too long from shore and so oft repeated that it makes its way onto the signs of brothels across the world, but because the very notion seemed impractical. One might think of that as a strange place to let down one's credibility given what else is contained in these pages, but allow me to explain. Birds are meant to fly, hence they have been endowed with wings and hollow bones and strong mussel to move the latter, horses are meant to ride far and swift hence the hoof which may strike on stone a thousand times and not be broken where other feet would strain. So too is it with fish that are made sleek and silvery swift that they may cut the water. When one observes a creature of two worlds such as the seal or the sea cat the compromises are obvious with some parts of the body being suited to move in the water and others on land.

So I reasoned if there is to be a creature part fish and part man than it would have to dwell in the place where fish and man meet, on the shore and not in the depths of the water where the Form of the fish should have primacy, hidden perhaps in caves or rude shelters than their webbed and stubby appendages could make. Little did I know then of the Formless and their quest to experience the one thing they do not have, permanence. They do so by living the lives of fish and fowl, beast and man as well as what I have been confidently told was a flying lizard and not a bat as I had first called it...

The sketch of a winged lizard is included on the next page, likely because the author wanted to set it down while they had it fresh in their mind.

Spoiler: Flying Lizard

Let it be known that Ohun Greenbelt by the lore of his order helped make that sketch, though he claims that is 'no living beast in the sky' whatever that might mean. I fear my understanding of the Anwari tongue still fails in some moments, particularly when dealing with sorcery and the spirits. Regardless, natural or no the formless can take many shapes and they do so for no practical reason but for sensation, experimentation and novelty.

Little wonder than that any civilization that should follow in blood and in reason from such beings are also impractical, but rather than follow the thousand contradictory legends about the perfidy or the mercurial gifts of the Formless I asked instead of the Lady Esha who is far more learned in spirits whence they come from, at least when there are no great worms about. Now that is a tale that I shall not here recount for fear that it should be thought incredible and thereby the entire manuscript.

There is noticeable shift in the thickness of the lines, indicating a new quill and likely a new day

Apparently they come from the 'days yet to come' or so the story is told in Agber and in the lands to the south of it. The story goes than in the days of the priest kings Thousand Year Peace there were many conjurers of spirits bright and dark and since the law of the land bound them firm to do no great evil in the sight of the people those people did not hunt the mages as conjurers are hunted in later ages. Now these old mages had found a use for every spirit and a spirit for most tasks, but there were still some that eluded them, Worse still for their pride that had grown into a bright bonfire the priests who bent their tongues to praise of the gods were alone in being able to take on the shapes of beasts freely and those were of great use. Some there were who learned to alter their servants by the shaping of flesh and the forging of metals but one reached out more impatiently for his prize...

So it is said that the greatest of all conjurors Monbu the Masterful thought to conjure a spirit from times yet unborn reasoning that by then the slow work of his fellows would be done and he could bring it into the now. Alas for him that he was wrong, the future is not a place one can travel to for fate is not immutable and so instead he opened a portal into the place where all things and none were real, into that realm of endless possibilities that is... or perhaps mirrors a moment unborn.

From what realm many spirits entered the world and much that had been assured was set askew and many fine workings that needed the most precise of conditions could never again be cast for Chaos was abroad.

OOC: This does not fit with what Ohun told you about the Formless, but then both of them are the accounts of times long past. Which, if any, you believe is up to you. Perhaps there is even a bit of truth to both.

 

[DragonParadox]

Spears Raised High ​

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

There is a time to grasp one's opportunities and a time to be cautious, the good will of a king even a petty one is a precious thing, but only so far as the king's power runs and Ansefu is far from secure in his seat. Better to wait and, much as you dislike thinking of it in these terms, appear generous and wise for doing so, than to let greed steer you to a hasty choice in matters of the spirit or of the Fellowship's coffers. When you later confess the matter to Antonio your friend shrugs and tips the improbably large hat he had found somewhere to ward against the sun: "Isn't that what wisdom is?"

The point cuts rather deeper than he had meant it you suspect, carelessly throwing it into the wind. The more you have come to be involved in matters of kingship and rule the more uneasy you are left feeling, not from some impression that kings aught to be above horse trading, even in a land with only one horse, but because of all the other things out there. What does one do when arguments of primacy, of wealth, of power or of base lust must contend with the threat of spirits dark and strange? One would think that demons would make the knot easier to cut, not harder.

That is what gets you thinking. In all this tangle of grudges being settled and power re-balanced surely there must be some even on Ansefu's side who would rather not see their home shores for a long while, until spirits have cooled and grudges have been if not forgotten then softened.

"That'll be five pirates less on the waves as well," Antonio japes, though when he sees that you are not smiling he grows more serious. "I don't think most sailors out of Lirman are pirates save by opportunity."

"The ones who would become raiders are also the most likely to take up the challenge given that it would be under the banner of Olweje, a god honored to be sure, but not..." you hesitate. "Well liked." Is it even wise to hire on men for the company for the purpose of asking them to take on the skin of a servant of war? you wonder.

"Can't hurt to look," he shrugs depositing a handful of roasted nuts in your hand...

"You want warriors loyal and in good standing who wish to honor Olweje in someplace far from here for good pay?" Ansefu asks, glancing towards his sister, who you are glad to see is on a chair only slightly less ornate to his left seeming in good spirits... or at least so she had been before the exchange. "Fine, fine I will grant that is an honorable place for them..."

"Them?" you prompt, a touch wary now.

"Several women of noble blood have taken Lina's role in recent happenings as a sign that they aught to take up arms in more than the defense of hall and tree as tradition calls for. Lina was considering taking them on in her service, a hand of warriors to help guard and serve her... but it would be more palatable to certain clan heads if they wet their blades someplace else."

"They are all girls and women of good family and they know the ways of war as well as being faithful enough to the ways of war to take on his mantle," Lina offers, though it is clear she is still of two minds about this.

Do you take on Lina's would-be guards (Warrior 2)?

[] Yes, it seems a fair deal

[] No, you do not want anyone in the company as part of some political deal, you will take warriors more motivated by gold and glory

OOC: If you guys want to do something more in the city, now is the time to speak up.

 

[DragonParadox]

Seekers Honest and Shrewd ​

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

On the balance of things you would rather not meddle with Lina's ambitions. Honors make knights and great lords and that is as true for men as it is for women you do not doubt. So should you then take these very folk on a long and perilous journey from which they will return seasons hence, if at all, then you would be removing a piece from the hand of the woman you had been fighting alongside not a few days past. Sometimes not falling on your face is as simple as knowing where the rutted road is and avoiding it.

For his part Ansefu sighs, not pleased, but not displeased either. He had gambled that you would find him a solution to yet another problem and he had found it not. You take your leave and return to the glare of too-bright summer, looking for warriors of a more ordinary sort to fill out the ranks of the Fellowship.

***​

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

Between the word of the king and your own reputation as a warrior and, as some have mistaken you for, a captain you find them aplenty. Young men hankering for adventure, already blooded in nearer journeys garbed in bronze helms and heavy coats, older and more seasoned folk with beards shot through with grey and less gold... you err on the side of the latter. After all whatever their past sins they are less likely to spur into trouble like young stallions and given the power you are planning to hand them that is needed over and above their skill at arms.

There is Uvo, whose cheeks, more burned than pale in the sun, tell the story of some northern blood, a bastard with a bastard's way of carving his way in life, and Aki who had come along with him, missing two fingers of his right hand, but as skilled a knife thrower as you have ever met in addition to his skill with sword and shield. Tom wonders not so quietly if the two might not spring from the same root, but be that as it may the warrior passes muster.

The next few potential recruits are glory hounds and the one after that is in... someone's pay and not planning to leave it you are quite sure. Someone mortal Esha insists, she had seen no signs of magic despite how carefully she is looking. But neither is it hard to guess what one might want with Marcella. The news that you had refused the king's offer of ships and treasure to bear away has sent a flurry of whispers through the city like the west wind.

Surely they must have so much treasure jammed into that ship that they dare not risk taking on any more crew for the longboats...

I heard they dealt with the fey and you know what they are like, you have all heard the stories, gossamer cloth and starlight swords...

...a beast fit for an emperor to breed with theirs. It can run on the wind...

All these and more you hear without even trying to eavesdrop. By the second night you are asking about reavers in port, though you can hardly do so openly without disparaging your hosts. There are at least five known to be skilled in blood and brine, and by the end of the fifth day when Inge is satisfied with the squawking collection of gull chicks three more of them had tried their luck at punting spies on board, either to confirm the rumors before they make the decision or for yet more sinister causes.

Marcella gains Gull Colony

The final three actual trustworthy souls you find in the churn trickled in one by one. First there is Old Fegu, a leathery faced fellow who barely speaks save to the old shaggy dog he brings with him. It takes a while to convince him that you do not need a ship's dog for the rats, but you let him keep the beast anyway when he proves to be a skilled carpenter, then there is Osenku, the youngest of the lot, though anyone who can wrestle Wanderer to the ground and be laughing about it with the Knikut by the next drink is worth noting. Last of all is One Eyed Langa who looks more like a goat herder than a fisher by his dress, but insists he knows how to work the nets as much as milk goats and he is also uncommonly untroubled on meeting Ripper and Megin.

"Got some skin-changer in his blood, but otherwise trustworthy as they come," Inge says.

So you sail out of harbor with the evening tide again... looking back as often as you do forward.

Who do you want to speak to?

[] Mog, see what if anything the tinker fey has in mind for projects and creations

[] The changeling children, find out more about them, what they expect and what they want of their future

[] Antonio and Zaia, to chart the path of the Fellowship going forward past your return to Orinilu

[] Write in

OOC: Mechanically all the Anwa are the same, but then so are your men-at-arms and they certainly have their own narrative peculiarities.

 

[DragonParadox]

On Rough Waters ​

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

Speaking to the children is not like speaking to Inge you soon find and not just because of their tender years. For all you had found Inge in dreadful peril she has always been her own keeper, be it in eating, sleeping, batching and offering a helping hand around the ship. You almost had not noticed she needed new clothes because she was so fastidious in keeping the clothes she did have clean and mended. The changeling children are... not that. Scarce a day passed by without some trouble. Be it that Leni had dumped a bowl of food on Zuan's head or that Ooloa was refusing to eat dinner because she thought three full meals every day was a 'sin' and greedy. Then there was the time Iles accidentally set her bed on fire playing with some of Zaia's 'lenses' which her minder hand given her, seeing only baubles of glass.

Worst of all are the children who rather than making trouble hardly seem to talk to others at all, especially Kasibo who does everything he is told in a sort of scurrying silence that has Zaia shaking his head quietly. "That boy needs a home that is less out of a tale and more good solid hearth he can warm himself at."

When you find him the child is sitting on the ground next to Silver, having apparently been introduced to your friend by Swift Pebble in an effort to get him to open up a bit more. As far as it has gone it seems to have worked at least a little... but as soon as you walk close he ducks his head and hunches his shoulders, looking at the ground and waiting for... whatever fate you are about to deal him.

"Is everything alright?" you try. "Making new friends?"

A small nod that looks almost like a puppet on poorly tied strings

Why is this harder than going into battle, you wonder even as the boy shivers under your gaze, his face or what you can see of it at least, flowing and changing, into what, into who, you are not sure.

"You are alright, it's going to be alright," you crouch down as to be closer to him. "No one will hurt you here I promises."

The boy does not look convinced, but at least he does look at you and even manages a 'thank you' when you offer to move his bed down here with Silver instead of with the other children crammed so close to the noise and bustle on deck.

You end up spending much of the next two days explaining to the otter-kin, youngsters by the measure of their own kin, what is and isn't healthy for human children and when they should ask for help. Alas those who know the most about how to deal with children are those among your men who had nephews and nieces, cousins or siblings even children of their own left behind in another world. Would be be wise ro involve them, or would be be cruel?

Antonio brings up that you could ask the new recruits to help, they are of the same people as the children and all of them are seasoned, likely to have some experience with the children of kin. On the other side of the scales you do not know how much they might hold to the superstitions and suspicions that have already done so much harm, none of them claim to have any ill will towards those of the Formless' blood, but if you ask warriors new recruited to play nursemaid even some of the time they might find that ill will.

What do you do?

[] Involve those of your soldiers who have experience with children

[] Involve the new Anwa recruits

OOC: Rolls for children integration were not great, it does not help that this place is so odd and chaotic or that they were ripped from their lives, unpleasant as those might have been. You need to get these kids a more stable home.