Of Eggs and Entanglements
Day Nine, Year Unknown
A shiver of unease goes down your spine the more you look at the creatures. Here you are a stranger in a strange land and this time without any to explain it beyond your own judgement, and if you guess wrong it will not only be you that suffers. Best you think to err on the side of caution. "Hold," you call to the men behind you. "Let them pass."
Some of the men look surprised, and perhaps a touch mournful at seeing so much meat on the hoof vanish from sight. James looks relieved that he will not be chastised for his misstep, but none of them argue the point further beyond a mumbling of 'strange damn beasts'. Likely they do not want to say it too loudly least you take offense at it given the company you kept over the last few days.
Skirting the highest peaks of the mountain you keep mostly to the woods, though you find them filled only with the chatter of birds and no beasts worth hunting. Though you shoot two black-red bellied birds that look to have more meat on their bones than most of their kin they would make for a poor meal for the whole complement of the
Marcella, so you venture once more beyond the eves of the woods and onto the stony ground. There you spot more of the birds and, as evening turns to dusk, some of their nests on the ridges.
"Eh, likely there are naught but fledglings in the nest this late in the season if there is anything at all," old George grumbles.
"We know little of this land or the ways of its fowl," you counter, silently adding:
And I would not trust the seasons to be the same as when we entered that storm. The cold rain could have just been another bit of strange weather, or it could be the mark of something else wrong with the skies.
You are not sure if you should be pleased or further disquieted to find your guess is right when James, by far the nimblest among you, makes it up to one of the nests and exclaims. "You were right, Ser Roland! Eggs for all! Oh how I have missed some nice egg on that damn tub." Then he turns his head and looks westwards. "I think I see... that's the sun on the sea. I think we are on an island Sir, and not that big of a one. Back in the tub we go I guess," he does not sound overly displeased, with the prospect of egg and meat in mind.
For your part you have other concerns in mind. "Do you see any smoke from up there? Any sign of other people?"
"There is something to the south, but I cannot say if it is smoke or haze," the boy replies uncertainly.
Something you might want to look into on the morrow then, you think as the boy clambers down from his perch. On the way back you see neither the strange goats nor any other larger creature, though you do manage to kill three more birds worth the arrow in them, enough to make some stew and for everyone to get a taste of if not the feast you had promised this morning.
When you reach camp it is clear Tom had not been idle. Sentries challenge your approach in the dark, so as not to ruin their night sight, and beyond them the light of a bonfire on the shore makes this seem as something more than a gathering of strangers thrown together like flotsam on the tides of fate, more like a proper camp and a cheerful celebration at your landing.
Alas, not all the news you get is good news for it seems Ripper has broken with his custom and vanished into the sea not two hours after you left this morning and he had not returned.
Was this island his home to which he leads strangers out of some strange charity known only to his kind, you wonder.
Would you ever see him again? Loss gnaws as you silently, all the more so for the fact that most others seem relieved at Ripper's absence.
***
Day Ten, Year Unknown
Midnight brings strange tidings from an even stranger messenger, not Ripper returned from the waves, but a seabird passing overhead, one of scores you have seen on this island. This one has more to drop upon the deck than the usual offerings of its kind, a piece of beech bark, and carved on the inside that is undeniably a message of sorts.
"It is not in any tongue I read, nor does it even look alike to it," Zaia admits, frustration in his voice as he motions towards the strange sighs. "I do not even think it is a alphabet such as most witting is done in from Samarkand to Spain, rather it is..."
"So we are not going to talk about the part where a bloody seagull dropped a letter on my deck? That to me seems stranger than just some scribbles in bark..."
"If you can use pigeons to carry messages, as the Caliph is said to do in Baghdad, I see no reason why you suspect that sea birds would be any less adept at it," the doctor waves the question away. "Now, as I was saying, there are too many distinct symbols on this message to make an alphabet even the most derived. If it reminds me of anything it is of the marks on the pagan temples of the old ones where they would paint a dog to mean dog and a house to mean house, and each word you would have to learn in its own right, though that tongue is now lost to the ages. "
"So you can't read it," you conclude, cutting to the heart of the matter.
"No, I cannot even begin to guess what it might say without some basis for comparison. Whoever sent it to us shall have to wait or send a better message next time. I think we should not be distracted and keep following the path of the stone to the larger piece. From how swiftly it tilts now I think what we seek is close, that it is on this island."
What do you do?
[] Offer to lead your men to accompany Doctor Zaia in his search for the stone he posits
-[] Write in how many
[] Suggest that you try to make for the place where James had seen haze in the distance
-[] Write in how many
[] Wait on the ship in the hopes that Ripper will return
[] Write in
OOC: I know that hieroglyphs were not that simple, but before they were deciphered in the 19th century this was the general view of them among scholars going back to late antiquity.
