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

[DragonParadox]

Hair of the Dog ​

Eighteenth of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

The girl looked up at the black winged shadow growing smaller against the pale light. Quietly Inge agreed with Wanderer that they should not have freed the wolf-man, not because he was a wolf, but because he was a man. A wolf would drive you off his hunting ground and be done with it, even if he might come looking for you if he sniffed out out later, but a man held grudges. Still it was not for her to make those choices, the knew the goddess and she knew the sea, she knew the beasts and the birds, but the ways of foreigners near and far still escaped her.

She sighed. I know where things grow as well, she reminded herself.

As the camp started to gather up to head back into town she approached one of the locals, paying less mind to his warding gesture than she might once have. To the folk of Orinilu she had learned Ikomi was more mistress over death than over the life-giving sea and so it must be strange indeed for them to hear that she wanted to look for healing plants.

"Wolfsbane?" the fellow spits. "What would you be wanting to do with that damn thing?" His voice trembled on the last word.

Oh, Inge realized. They think I want to fight the Moon Eaters. "I just need to to help with the sickness."

"The curse?" Somehow the man did not seem any more at ease. Truth be told Inge could not really tell the difference between 'sickness' and 'curse' in the tongue of these far shores. In Anwari they were one and the same.

"The curse," she replied, telling them what she knew of the thing. Some of it she had learned from Zaia, some from Esha, even Megun had shared her some herblore, though hers had been an eye unlike that of man in such matters. So now she listened dutifully for such nuggets of wisdom as could receive from those who called these wide plains and river-hugging forests home. How much was fact and how much was folly only time and experience would tell.

***​

Towards the middle of the day with the sun casting emerald light though the fresh leaves of holly, oak and sage she saw it, its roots clinging precariously on the rocky edge of a dry stream bed, leaves wilted, but not quite dead. The flowers were long gone of course, but even without the bluish-purple of the petals she recognized the shape of the leaves. Fingers trembling slightly the girl uprooted the plant and brought it to Zaia.

The old man was not doing well, for all the Silver and Megun could take not to allow the litter lashed between then in haste to quake too much there weren't many roads out here and none of the stone roads that were the marvel of lands east of the Blue Sea.

"Is this it?" asked the girl.

A nasty cough and a shudder passed through the old man's limbs. "Damnable sickness, doesn't even have the decency to make me feel ill."

"What does it feel like?" Roland asked, looking worried a moment later, like maybe his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

"Like getting younger, getting drunk and cooking alive one piece at a time starting from the tips of my fingers and toes. The first I would take, the second I'll endure, but I would rather leave the cooking to the wild root stew."

Inge thought she made a face at the mention of that, too many roots and not enough fish for her liking, for all everyone else had complained about too much fish when they had been in the islands. Fortunately she did not have time to brood too long the food because Zaia had lifted his head from the litter enough to look at the plant and to her relief he nodded.

So that night Inge seeped the leaves once and then again and again, the leaves were poison if not treated right. All the While she spoke prayers so that Ikomi would grant Zaia fortune in good health.

"I never did much like wolves nor even dogs, I was more in the mind to like cats," the old sorcerer said with grim humor as he downed the infusion.

***​

Twentieth of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

By the time the walls of the city were once more in sight Zaia had started to make an obvious recovery, much to the shock of Hengo and his lot who had not given 'the old tablet-bitter' much of a chance to defeat such a fearsome curse. As for the merchant himself, he is happy with his new lot of wild horses and had set to haggling over the price of the beasts.

Zaia is cured

Gained 8,350 Gold Icari

As you all return to the keep, richer in both gold and experience you have more than enough time to speak with more of your companions or retainers. Who do you speak to?

[] Write in three people to converse with

OOC: And you guys finally have a chance for those social interactions @Arhin reminded me of.

 

[DragonParadox]

With Voiceless Want ​

Twenty First of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

You find Megin in the shade of the blacksmith's workshop, the ringing of hammer upon anvil, the grinding of iron upon stone and other stranger sounds echoing from within. She is peering curiously through the window, though not in the manner a man would, instead she moves her head slowly from side to side, trying to make sense of the contents of the room. As someone who has been inside that place before you do not think horse sight is the issue.

"Hail and well met Megin. How fare the?" You ask, though not with your own voice. Not for the first time you feel a stab of jealousy that you do not share the mind voice of the otter-kin and not for the first time also you marvel at the though that would once have been so alien to you.

"Better than I have in many a day, worse than I aught," she replies after a moment. "I feel restless in this place, through no fault of yours of course, but still the land north and west of the city is green and the grass whispers with the voice of the far wind. Having come so far, over the rushing sea I wonder at times if I am meant to go even further and yet at once I think to myself, what use to know alone if I cannot partake?"

Taken aback by her words you stand for a moment in thought and then reply that she may of course partake of whatever part of the life of Wayfarer's Rest she is minded to.

"But I cannot and it is through no fault of yours. I cannot speak, but through the aid of the little ones, I cannot enter the halls meant for men nor make use of the tools meant to be grasped in the hand. I watch the craftsman craft, the dancer dance, the scholar write and yet all of that is closed off to me. They say that when one earns the ire of the Lonely ones they will at times cast upon you a curse meant to torment you above others. I wonder almost if my escape was not just such a thing, I have found much that I wish for and yet which is beyond my reach."

For his part the poor otter-kin who is playing interpreter for you today, one of the younger of them, which had not picked up a weapon is scratching his tinny paws around the sides of his face in what you had come to recognize as a gesture of distress, not that you can blame the poor fellow. This... this is not what you had expected today. At worst perhaps a leave-taking which you would have regretted given the aid Megin has given you so far, but still something you could accept easily enough if that is her will. How does one react to such formless want, to limitations not of circumstances, but of body and voice?

What do you reply?

[] Assign one of the otter-kin to be with her at all times so that she may speak at her leisure is the best you can do

[] Perhaps magic might serve the task, it will not be cheap or easy but you have seen many marvels worked by sorcery

[] Write in

OOC: I know we still have two other socials, but I felt this was important enough to merit its own update given the nature of the request and the potential to make Megin a part of the Fellowship if you play your cards right.

 

[DragonParadox]

Warrior and Ward ​

Twenty Third of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"I've seen much that I would have once counted impossible since coming to these lands, Megin, including magic that allows creatures to speak like a man or even to change their shapes as they will it. Who is to say that you cannot learn such abilities, if that is your wish? There are many among the Fellowship who might provide some manner of instruction in magic, and we have met and will likely meet many more such people in our travels."

At these words Megin's ears perk up and her long silky tail swishes, mid-hooves snapping against the ground. "You think that is so? I never had much affinity to the soft world-whispers that men call magic. Strange thought, but fair-and-fair."

It takes you a moment to realize she means both pleasing to the ear, or is that to the mind and just. You nod and in the days to come you ask of one of the otter-kin to help her navigate the paths of a world strange and ill fitting for those who walk on six hooves not two legs, but still fascinated by it just the same

***​

The morning was bright, willed with the chatter of shoppers and the shouts of merchants trying each to outdo the others: jade and ivory, obsidian and copper, all were shaped by the hand and mind of artists from as far as the Greystone Mountains and the jungles south of Humbai. Here fine silks were as flashes in the morning sun, there bags of spices guarded more closely than fine silver filled the air with the aromas of a dozen lands.

Spoiler: Marketplace

Inge sneezed once, twice, blushing when you looked down at her. "People put too much stuff on food, it's cuz they have too much coin and get bored of honest fare."

You think back to some of the banquets you had been invited to. "Because their guests would grow bored of it and call them stingy."

"Like I said," the girl nods confidently. "Stupid."

Still there is something for her among the dozens of stalls, benches and reed mats that make up the bazaar of Orinilu. Carvers work with bone and ivory, flint and obsidian. Glassblowers work their trade with all the artistry of a singer performing for a wealthy patron and breath to match them. The two of you watch entranced as a southerner with the red ribbons that mark a master craftsmen among his people blows a series of smaller and smaller glass spheres, each a different color and then carefully cuts and places them one inside another creating a dazziling and bewildering whole which he claims represents the Sea of All Twilights, the source of life and font of chaos from which the world was born.

You are about to buy thing, seeing how fascinated Inge is in the sculpture is compared to the Anwa conception of primordial chaos as the sea of Ikomi, but then with the mercurial swiftness so common of the young she moves on to a set of polished wooded plates that are meant to fit together into a scene of the Founding of the City and then to a puzzle box wrought in ivory and copper covered in the script of Nokuma which is said to reveal the 'mysteries of the stars'.

In the end however Inge waves off your attempts to buy any of the things that had caught her eye settling for lunch in the form of a flat bread filled with fish, onion and carrot.

"Better spices this time?" you ask teasingly.

"Not worth more than their weight in silver," she snorts.

"Are you sure you don't want to buy something?" you ask after a moment. The first thing you had gifted her had been a dagger and for all she grows more skilled at it by the day you cannot shake the feelings that you failed somehow to have given a young ward only such practical gifts. Granted you are no expert on what girl-children and their likes, but something tells you that weapons and supplies fir for a hardened traveler cannot tell the whole tale.

"Maybe some clothes?" she sounds as dubious as you feel.

That is how the two of you end up in the grasp of a sharp eyed seamstress whom you later realize must have picked up that none of you had the least clue as to how one buys clothes for girl of any age. Headscarves and dresses fastened with fine copper chain, double sown skirts 'for work', capes and detectable cowls... by the time you make it out of the market you are carrying enough clothes that Inge could pass for a noble girl of the city perhaps twice over, but she is smiling and that is worth the lightening of your purse.

Lost 750 Icari
Inge Gains Noble Attire

Esha's reaction upon seeing the cart roll into the courtyard filled with colorful garments i all but bubbling into open laughter and even the men on guard cannot quite keep back their smiles.

"We all perform upon the stage of life," another voice calls out unexpectedly from the door of the guestrooms. "Better to have garb for every hour than to scramble for it when you should be learning the lines."

"See, I am vindicated," you proclaim a touch dramatically. "How goes your day?"

"Untroubled by misfortune, though in its absence I find that time has slowed down to a crawl. Perhaps I should put on a show...?" she half asks.

What should Amara do in her time here?

[] Entertain the Fellowship and guests at Wayfarer's Rest (+3 to all skill rolls in the next turn)

[] Try to teach something of her arts to whoever may have a skill for it (small chance that one of your NPCs gains Bard levels)

[] Speak with Esha about her spell-songs (Esha gains one of more level 0-1 spells for her spellbook)

OOC: Inge kind of filled out the social update and I did not want to drag it out more with Amara, specially with updates slowing down. I'll try to include more from her organically in the future.