Those Who Fight Monsters
Fourteenth Day of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
"Were we meant to maroon ourselves on a strange island, that had already sent grasping dead at our throats?" You give a laugh harsher and more mocking than you had meant it to be but truly you grow weary of this You grow weary of attacks upon your character. Still she is still talking and has not yet crossed the line of decency in her accusations, perhaps you can make them see. "Or should we have abandoned the only certainty we had since our arrival to what was until very recently sheer superstition?" As she opens her mouth to answer you continue. If you have ever been so lost as we were in those days, my lady, then you may answer. Otherwise I do not believe you can with any truth.
It feels strange to call her lady, for you do not know her rank, but one can hardly call her by name for she has not given you one. A sign of yet more distrust perhaps...
"Not then," the hunter admits and for the first time you see something like contrition, or perhaps pity move across her features, though it is gone almost as quick as it had come and. "But what of now? You are in harbor, by all accounts your captain is doing good business selling Anwa goods and you even have a ship that you have found on the high seas, and of that finding you seem most keen to keep that which is unclean."
At that your temper rises. "As to Esha, for half-living or no
she bears a name..." unlike you who has not given one, the words are unspoken but you have no doubt heard. "She has risked her life beside my own to earn my use of it. I will grand that she has been shaped by her nature, but I do not believe she is lost to it. There has been ample opportunity for her to betray me or..."
"Ample opportunity," the hunter laughs, mirthless and hard, like steel striking steel. "How old are you? A little more than twenty I would wager from your face, then let me share with you a secret of this world which you had not before known, those who share the blood of the dead endure the wear of decades as we do years. She might be older than your grandfather's grandfather, her schemes woven over the long years. What do you think weeks and days are to your precious
Esha, "she spits out the name like a curse. "They are but blinks of an eye and your whole life a night's diversion."
The words cut deeper than any others had, for it is true that you had not been unmoved by the sorceress' beauty. The thought that she might discount you as lesser, a child and a fool is not one you wish to contemplate, but at the same time not one easily discounted. No, such is the voice or pride whispering like the serpent in the ear.
A verse comes to mind and at once to the tongue you paraphrase. "'Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth,' so does my faith hold. I will not judge her for the circumstances of her birth any more than I would you or your companions by the same, though I might say that her hospitality has been far less wearing than yours."
"You dare!" the warrior with the hammer speaks for the first time, roars in truth jumping to his feet and in that moment hands already reach for weapons save yours... and the woman in front of you.
"Stand easy Eki, let the man
finish speaking before you judge him," she says calmly. Don't interrupt someone while they might be incriminating themselves, you hear behind the words, though perhaps you are being uncharitable.
"Yes, you bear the blessing of two gods," you continue, yourself amazed that you can call them gods so easily now even in the presence of strangers, but in truth what else is a man to call these beings? "Yes, you hunt strange things, and we are one indeed, I will not deny it. But that does not excuse the expectation that I would take well to your kidnap and questioning of a loyal comrade - and I must now wonder was it questioning only that you subjected him to?"
"Oh we do not take up the silver and the iron expecting to be loved, even by those we aid, much less by those caught up in our investigations," Her tone is almost amused now though there is a darkness behind it that you cannot rightly read. Anger or regret you cannot say which. She did not, you note, answer your question, but just as you are about to ask again more pressingly, she turns again to Zuan. "Well did I harm you in body?"
"You sure as shit said you would!" the cook bursts out, though his courage fades quickly under the withering stare he receives in return.
"Let me say this clear to you, hunter," you cut in, drawing her eye to you again. "We have taken up the same...
profession as you, in lands beset by horrors to which you seem unable to go. We have fought the dead, and vengeful spirits of the world, and those that would come from beyond to tear down it all. Faced with threats that until but months ago were fable unseen, can you blame me for seeking out allies and tools to defend my own, and others threatened by them?
"No," she sighs and all of a sudden looks smaller somehow, old before her time and bent with the weight of secret and worry. "Just the same I would not blame a traveler lost in the woods for seeking to make fire, but if that traveler had not even
seen fire before as you claim not to have seen the wyrd-work good or ill, then I would question if they can make it without burning all around them down. I do not have to mislike you to mistrust you Roland Verley, a sad thing to admit but no less true for it."
"So where does that leave us, drawing blades over the matter that those both of us have hunted should laugh at the great and bloody jest no matter which of us should win?" you counter letting some of your frustration bleed through.
For a long moment there is silence, then the hunter finally shakes her head and rises to her feet, hands held carefully away from the chain at her belt. "You have made your point, I will not act against you, but know that I will be watching and others will be watching also." Before you can reply she adds. "You may go and fare the well for what my well wishes may be worth to you."
What do you do next?
[] Try to speak to the priests about the fey skull, little though they might trust you
[] Go to the markets, Orinilu is a far richer port than any you have been in on this world and you would see what there is to offer
[] Speak with Esha, the conversation has reminded you that you do not know her plans. Perhaps you could try to convince her to sail on with you
[] Write in
OOC: The rolls were all successes... except one nat 1 thrown in there, which would have lead to a fight had Roland not both made his will save not to get angry and then succeeded on the recovery. All in all you got out of what would have been a rather hairy encounter safely. Not yet edited. 
