A Thousand Ships

Strasi Year 643
Year 37 of the Mage King
Early Autumn, picking up straight after the last one

Marmoset suggested we go to the Locking Tavern.

Lots of people standing around looking toward the Tavern. Everyone’s noticed the sailors leave and come straight back. Bystander says they look sick, grey. As we approach, we can hear fairly rowdy singing inside. Bunch have spilled outside and are having a sailor’s good time.

One staggers our direction, pasty and pale looking, hungover sort of thing. “there’sh a thing i wash supposhed to do. Letter.” To? “Eh? Not much into letters, got one here, I’m writing it to a girl, been writing it for two months now, she said nothing less than three pages.” This guy’s definitely ill, not just hungover. Could be sleep deprived? Just physically or mentally weak, delerious.

There’s a guy, officer’s jacket sitting apart from the rest. “Are you quite well sir?” “I’m not entirely sure.” Nanda takes up bodyguard position. He offers Jess a drink. “I have a peculiar feeling, and I am at a loss as to how to describe it.” Physical? Mental? Emotional? “Yes. I have a feeling of boredom and an irritating feeling that I have been doing something again and again.” Where have you just come from? “From the mainland.” Detail’s a matter of royal security. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow” ANd your men aren’t getting some sleep in the meantime? “Mmm. How odd. And yet, with that boredom, I have an urge to sieze things. Drink, eat, dance, fight.”

Nanda asks him about the letter one of the men mentioned. “Do you know which man?” Jess hasn’t got a bugger, Nanda can narrow it down to two. “Ah, Gimel’s letter, yes. I will be surprised if that thing is ever carried on.” Seemed to think that he had another letter? Something he was meant to do?

He calls for beer and rum. A thought crosses his mind for a moment, but disappears. Jess keeps him talking for a while. After 10-15 mins, it’s at the points where he thinks that he could order the men to stop drinking, he drifts away from that thought immediately.

“Now, where is the second mate? He has the purse, so it would be well if he were to reappear soon. Ah there he is.” He waves him over.

There’s something dreadfully, dreadful wrong with the second mate. He looks hollow. They all have no reflections. Khalid approaches. “That man is not right”. He steps away again.

Mate and captain have an exchange. Jess asks if he can take a look, captain gets the mate and gets him to answer our questions. Nanda starts to follow the captain, who’s heading away. Jess and the mate have a very stilted conversation ending with “Thank you. I am the second mate.” Khalid: “That is creature. Not a human.”

Captain goes to bar, comes away, rubs his forehead staring into the crowd then moves purposefully to a fight, taps one on a shoulder, and takes his place.

Nanda chats to barman. Dair. He’s really bothered. These guys laid down 10g for a tab last time they were here, hadn’t run out before they left, and when they came back insisted they’d never been here before.

We get back together and chat. One staggers toward us again, determined expressoin on his face. Might be the guy with the letter.

“You are a priest. I’ve got a letter.” Produces a battered, filthy envelope. “’s addressed.” He was concentrating very hard. Soon as Jess takes it, his face clears and he heads to the bar. Addressed to Sarla Ploughman in . Nanda fetches a lantern from inside. Something like “Achenbell.” Fairly notable country town in the eastern end of Elbenstraz. Has a large faire. She opens it.

“Dearest Sarla,” he’s at sea, no back on land, on at sea again, he’s in the navy. Definitely. It rambles for 2.5 pages. He’s not good at writing, but he’s persistent.

Vasco sees the captain and recognises him as Captain Aglimar Tariston. The ship is one they pull out for special duty, and they don’t put Captain Tariston on it unless it’s Important. Legend has it that he’s never failed in any task that has been assigned to him. The Captain returns to his seat near us. Vasco greets him by name. “You’re not on the crew. How’d you know my name?” “Reputation.” He thinks about this. V: “Your reputation also says you don’t get drunk with your crew.” “You got a rank?” “Not any more.” He’s concentrating hard, then loses it.

Nanda suggests that, since almost all of them are here, there’s only one person on the ship.

“What hour of the night is it, priest?” “About the third or fourth.” “We should… no that’s tomorrow.” N: “Can we help you to the ship?” “No, there’s a complement on board.” “They’re all here.” He orders one of them: “You! Why is there no one on the ship?” “Someone on the ship sir. Short straw. Remember?” “Oh yes. Yes.” N: “Only one person?”

Vasco’s asking out loud about how much he’s remembering of the previous conversation. The captain is oblivious to him.

The mate has taken up position in one of the windowsills and is watching the crowd carefully.

We head back to the temple.

Nanda has a plan. “I have a boat hidden which we can get to, and we should be able to get behind the ship. I know it’s bright, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention.” K: “I want to go to the ship, but the ship makes less sense. Who did the second mate meet? Where did he meet it? Why is he here?”

We’re chatting some more, and there are footsteps outside. Vasco sees one of the nightrunners passing by. He heads out to follow him and runs into some people he knows. “You’re out late.” Follows him around the cherry trees, past the river, and sees him go into his house. He returns.

We go to check out the ship. It’s going to be obvious in the moonlight, hopefully they’ll be distracted. Vasco suggests Nanda ask her friends to distract them. Nanda doesn’t entertain this notion.

We get in the boat. N: “The three of you, lie down.” Okay. Nanda rows, fairly discreetly, and close to the boat tells us to get swimming. Khalid has some difficulty with this concept. We bring the boat into line with the ship, without Khalid getting his toes wet. The three guys climb onto the main deck. Empty. The one guard is slumped against a pile of crates at the end of the gangplank. Vasco chokes him out and leaves him unconscious against the pile of crates. He actually looks a bit healthier than his shipmates, surprisingly, especially given that he finished a barrel of rum.

We search the boat. Lots of weapons to arm the full complement for whatever operation they might want, but barring that nowt. Very well looked after, clean ship. Vasco finds an obviously fake Captain’s Log. Eventually comes across the real log, which only has the last couple of voyages in it, tucked away in a secret compartment. It confirms what the sailors said, they left Hammersport three days ago. No date. He returns it.

Guest quarters are neatly set out, bed’s been used. Second mate’s quarters are subtly better fitted than the Captain’s. Two empty drawers, and no sign of money or records of money. This is odd, because the mate is in charge of money and provisioning.

Vasco takes a sword and we head to the deck again. Khalid can tell there’s something funny about the place. He’s not feeling even the remotest bit queasy. It’s not rolling quite properly. Vasco gets Khalid to look into the captain’s and second mate’s quarters. They try to break into the second mate’s sea chest. The lock turns to dust at Khalid’s hand. It’s been emptied. Vasco wibbles. Khalid: “What do you care? Who knows it was you?” No evidence of secret compartments.

We go back to the boat and lie down. The sky is getting light. We head back to the temple as the sun is coming up. The party is still going on. Khalid checks em out. The second mate is still there. In the daylight looks not so much hollow as transparent.

We chat in the temple and kip for a bit.

Options - try to get the captain to hold it together long enough to order his crew back to the ship. Head to the mountain and talk to Creomor.

Jess mentions that ghosts react by repeating the same action over and over.

Jess wanders out and casts detect undead. It comes back with a confused slight positive. Spends a fate point. They are definitely becoming ghosts. So why are they here? That letter, maybe?

Jess goes with Vasco to deliver the letter to the next temple over, if they have anyone headed westward. Stepping outside, we see a trail of sailors straggling toward the ship. Jess picks up his pace. Someone picks up the unconscious dude and hauls him onboard. The ship goes out under full sail and vanishes, in broad daylight 200 yards out into the bay. Jess goes to deliver the letter — and it’s gone.

Ten minutes later, still no sign.

Mumble, mumble.

There’s a flood of people over the next hours coming to the temples looking for blessings please thanks.

Nanda hears a billion and one peculiar stories about the sailors. Not a lot we didn’t see for ourselves, really, except for the conspiracy theories. There’s also a rumour that a fairly notable Taji ship, called the Red Wrought Wave, has been seen in the area in the last couple of days. Nasty miserable ship, just get out of its way. Anyone who clashes with it comes off badly eventually. Bad luck.

Vasco heads to the inn. The second mate was handing out gold all night. Vasco asks for a look - the landlord opens the chest, and all it has is the four gold and a few coppers left from the night before last. He’s pissed.

Nanda has a chat with one of the guards from the duke’s place. Two of his men were here last night, left early. Didn’t want to get into any fights. They were pouring gold into the bar all night. Nina spends a fate point. Vasco happens to be walking by. Landlord doesn’t have the gold. Nanda: those sailors weren’t entirely alive.

If it wasn’t the letter, what did they leave behind? The second mate? If they come back, one of us should jog the captain’s memory, keep him sober, and another should interrupt the second mate.

Khalid announces that he’s going to walk toward the mountains and see if he can find a body somewhere. Vasco says that if the ship reappears, he’ll need Khalid back.

Two miles into the mountains, Khalid sees a cottage off to one side, boarded up with fresh boards and fortified. Competently too. There’s movement inside. “Hello?” There’s a resounding silence. “I’ve come from the village. I’m here to help you.” The point of an arrow emerges from a knothole in the wood. It shoots. Khalid sidesteps it. “I’m here to try and find out about the creature that was here.” “Go away! Begone!” “I’m afraid I cannot do that. We must find a way to remove the ghosts from the village.” “Go! Leave!” “I would ask that you aid us. You obviously know something. Please open your door.” Silence.

He asks one more time. There’s a noise from behind the cottage. He circles around, to see someone legging it into the forest. He runs after them and catches up to the fat dude with a huge backpack. It’s the second mate, but not hollow. The backpack feels like it’s full of gold.

Suddenly, without warning, he erupts out of the backpack, knife in hand, looking a lot more competent in his movements. Some dice are rolled. Second mate is smacked back hard. He’s hurt and bleeding, but comes back again. “I really do not wish to hurt you.” *whack*. Khalid gets stabbed. Ouchie. Khalid tries to grab and break his wrist, but fails and gets stabbed again.

Eoin spends a fate point to have not let him go by himself. Khalid draws his sword, invokes his aspect and cuts his hand off. He takes a look at the stump and passes out, just as Vasco arrives.

They slowly, indiscreetly, head back to the temple with the second mate and the backpack. The backpack was trapped with a crossbow. Vasco snarfs it.

Nanda checks out the backpack. A couple of changes of clothing that would be respectable if you were a sailor in the Tajidar sailor - one rank and file, one officer.

He remains tied up. We wake him. We stare at him silently. Looks-wise, he’s fairly nondescript. Currently dressed as Strazi.

Vasco: “I’m kind of rusty. I haven’t done this since the war.”
Name: siartin of Vaseli
Rank: Second mate
Serial number: what?
how long? eight years
first commission? 21 yeas ago
ship captain? first: hammer under fire. elven grey.
current mission? infiltrate the tajidarian navy under pretense of fleeing the strazi navy.
he looks early 40s
what went wrong? My contact did not show.
Why didn’t you follow proper protocol? the men form the ship that brought me here came back.
Three days, standard turnaround, they should ahve come back? THey were supposed to be dead.
Red Wrought Wave? An eyelid flickers.

Nanda crouches in front of him to do the good cop thing. “Why should they have been dead?” The Taji ship to whom he gave their location should have destroyed them.
“Was the Taji ship the wave?” Yes
K: “This was part of the plan?” Yes
Khalid spits in disgust.
N: “Whose plan was that?” I dunno.
After this a second contact was to collect him and bring him to the Wave.
“And from the wave were you meant to be sending info to the Strazis?” yes

Detect magic. Faint traceries, no more.