A Thousand Ships

So our interrogee says that if he was accepted by the Red Wrought Wave, he could have brought down Tajidar single handedly. He also says the crew of the ship he was on had made mistakes in the past year, and were expendable. In order to be accepted, he was to give the Wave the Strazi ship.

Siartin doesn’t recognise the state of the crew of the Rose as ghosts. THis means he either has theological or necromantic training.

Nanda asks around, finds a Taji rag seller who knows something but won’t talk. While she goes off to find a bribe, he shuts up shop and disappears down a tunnel. She finds a friends, picks up Khalid and they head to the other end of the tunnel at the beach. Said friend (Marius), on the mention of Taji sailors, says “Business”. Marius carries a sabre.

A bag is thrown out of the hole onto the sand - *clink* - and it’s followed by a head who looks carefully around - but doesn’t see our friends behind him. He’s grabbed by Khalid. The bag has around 15 royals in it.

Ibn Kohar Mizati. He’s brought back to the temple for interrogation too. This is getting to be a habit. Karis Benz Meadin, a Taji he knew *years* ago, arrived at his shop and asked if he had seen any of the people from the Rose and Chestnut. (Nanda asks about the Wave.) He didn’t say anything about that.

Ibn told him he’d seen one of the Strazi sailors heading into the hills. It was the guy now sitting opposite him, the second mate. Karis said he’d probably have to hide in the shop in the near future, and gave him 15 royals for that.

Khalid to second mate: Could Karis have been your contact?
second mate: yes
Nanda to Ibn: why did you run away?
Ibn: You were asking, I didn’t want to spill. Now if he finds me he’s going to kill me. He used to kill things when we were children.

Second mate says his second contact didn’t turn up. The first (Karis) said that the second contact would be along.

- Ibn saw Siartin passing by the window, heading up the hill
- Karis arrived, said to Ibn I’m going to need you to hide me, headed up the hill
- Karis made contact with Siartin and his subsequent whereabouts are unknown
- The second contact (from the Wave) never showed

Ibn’s free to go. With his gold.

So’s Siartin.

A small boy comes pelting in the door. Probably Wa-kim. There’s a dead man on the beach, dead from having his throat cut. It’s the tailor. Oops. No sign of his bag.

Strange, awkward cut - clean and strong, but with a bend in it, as if from an odd angle. Done with a curved blade, probably, like a sabre.

Nanda gives the boy a copper and sends him to tell the Marmoset. Khalid can see that a track was concealed, but it’s not clear where it came from or went. May have come from near the temple, and headed back toward the town, but difficult to say. In fact (fate point), they came in from one side, killed the dude, then headed up to the cliff toward the tower building up there. Khalid calls Nanda up to where the tracks reach paving.

The tower is a lighthouse - inn for the mercenary group for the winter, and storage place for their stuff the rest of the time.

Khalid and Nanda wander up to check it out. Nanda greets the steward. “Something up?” “Somebody dead on the shore there.” “Who?” “The rag seller.” “Ibn? What did he do? And this is?” “This is Khalid. He was dead on the shore but got better.”

Khalid: “The man who did this, the tracks led in this direction.” Steward: “It’s been like a circus up here, people back and forth for two or three days now. Well, this time a year if I see one person a week it’s a lot. But Marius Sabre has been here a few days ago, brought me some good chai, and was here again yesterday, said he wanted to see a good ship from the top so i let him in he hung around for half an hour and he left again. Four or five nights ago in the middle of the night there was a yelp. Grabbed a crossbow, thought it might be someone messing with the back door. Not a sign of anyone.”

Jess goes to tell the habourmaster about the body. He gets nominated to sort out the funeral arrangements, and is asked to arrange some sort of cheerful sermon or something this time around.

The Rose is returning again. Jess goes back to tell the harbourmaster, then recovers the body with Vasco.

Khalid, Nanda and the Steward see the Rose returning again. They tell the Steward that it’s a ghost ship. They stay for chai.

As Jess returns to the temple, there are sailors swarming, staggering off the ship and toward the town. They don’t look well at all. Vasco thinks we should try to interrupt the ship. Damage it enough to worry the captain.

Khalid gets offered the guided tour of the lighthouse. He’s intrigued by this strange notion. From the height, he can see, some distance inland, a patch of freshly turned earth. Near the tower, about 30 yards inland. It’s completely concealed by the bushes and shrubbery when you’re at ground level. Khalid and Nanda make their excuses and leave.

Jess goes to collect Gimel’s letter. He looks dead. There’s a priest just about to set off, so Jess hands him the letter. He takes it somewhat reluctantly.

The crew are beating on the door of the closed Lock-In Tavern. Vasco climbs in the back and convinces the innkeeper and family to leg it out the back before the door gets kicked in– oh, there it goes.

Khalid and Nanda go grave digging. The patch of disturbed earth has some leftover pieces of ripped up paper, and a small piece of wood on a string. Upside-down symbol of the church of spires. In the grave is the body of a Taji sailor. He was buried alive. Oh dear. This is probably the second mate’s second contact.

Everyone makes it back to the temple. Jess is unimpressed by the upside-down symbol. Vasco takes it. Nanda tries to reassemble what’s left of the note. It’s words of a ceremony, strung together backwards, handwritten. Ceremony for the start of a pilgrimage. Nanda chokes. Was someone trying to undo a pilgrimage already undertaken?

Vasco and Khalid to check out the inn again. There’s a huge fire in the hearth, fuelled by furniture. The sailors are dancing with nonexistent partners. The instruments are in rag order. The captain’s standing on a table directing the scene with a mug of beer in one hand. There’s a damp feel to the air despite the fire. No sign of the second mate.

They go to check the ship. There’s a shadow flitting back and forth across the deck. Khalid takes out his sword and marches up the gangplank. The shadow retreats to a corner of the deck. The moon hasn’t risen yet. K: “Come out.” The marmoset ambles up the pier behind them. M to V: “I see a live man, and a dead shadow.” The shadow steps forward and materialises into a very transparent wisp resembling the second mate. K: “Why are you here?” It reaches into a pouch, produces some transparent coins and offers them. K accepts. They feel almost insubstantial in his palm. It looks confused at him. K: “What do you want?” It reaches into the pouch again, produces more coins, looking both worried and confused. K: “Vasco?” V: “Yes? Marmoset?” M: “Yes? Man, you stay here.” Vasco and the Marmoset approach.

K drops the coins. The figure bends down and picks them up, looks hurt. M: “It is not so much a ghost as the ghost of a ghost.” K: “It is a magical creature summoned by **wizards** to impersonate the second mate. It should not still be here.” M: “So it is the ghost of an illusion. I do not think you are going to get much from it. It is a sad and a lost thing.” K: “So what do we do? Burn theboat?” M: “I thinkthat it will simply come back again.” K: “Can your priest remove ghosts?” V: “?” K: “Get him and ask him.” V ambles onto the pier and boots up toward the temple to get Nanda and Jess.

K starts scouring the ship. M: “They are upset about something. If you get rid of what they are upset about, it will probably go away.” K: “They were betrayed.” M: “Find the betrayer and kill him.” K: “Well…”

The Marmoset sits down and starts singing about gold. Nanda arrives. The Marmoset summarises for Nanda. Nanda takes the bizzarro pendant from Vasco, shows it to Marmoset, and explains about the corpse buried alive. “If there was ever a necessity to talk to the gentleman to whom I recommended you yesterday, this would be a time to do it. I suggest at first light that you set off into the mountains and speak with him. He is an authority on things both temporal and secular. Also sacred.”

Where’s the second mate gone? Three real options. First, find anywhere to hole up, close by, so that the searchers will hopefully just go past. Second, head for a pre-prepared bolthole. Three, go to the duke, present credentials as a Strazi operative, and demand a place to stay.

Arc-Vanin Drummer answers the door to Jess. “I’m going down to the ship. Is anyone mad enough to come with me?” “We’ve heard some very odd reports. What’s going on down there?” “Don’t know, not been since it came back.” Drummer grumbles, takes a staff, and steps out.

Jess and Arc-Vanin arrive at the ship. N: “The Marmoset seems to think these men are here because they have been betrayed and the betrayer is the second mate.” M: “Really, and I hesitate to say this, but there really is only one useful way out of this. Enact the ghost’s revenge on the betrayer.”

Nanda’s suspicious of people being sent on wild goose chases - but the Marmoset seems trustworthy.

J: “So what can we do here?” M points at the shadow on the ship. N prompts J to tell Arc-Vanin about the upside-down symbol and the backward ritual. A: “The church of shafts. It was a fiction, a rumour, a made up thing years ago. It was said that some of the children of the nobilty were playing with the reversal of ceremonies to get their ends without needing to consult the priests for pilgrimage calculation.” J: “Does that work?” A: “No. How could it. If it was reported, it was only in the gossip sheets.” N: “There’s a fresh dug grave in the lighthouse. There’s a man’s corpse there who has been buried alive. These thigns were found on top of that.” Arc-Vanin goes very pale. A: “Buried… alive. Unwillingly. The force behind pilgrimage, the key, the most fundamental part of it is that the pilgrim is willing. Everything else can be messed up, but as long as the pilgrim is willing, it works. If one were to reverse it then… well, unwillingness - and if one went so far as to kill someone, then maybe it could have some power.” J: “It would be a binding?” A: “I Don’t know what it would be, but it would have some power. It would be — I’m looking at what is here with this ship, and what you said of the sailors, and I am thinking that thelands where pilgrimages are done regularly are fertile nad pleasant places. This is very m uch the opposite.”

Anything we can do to undo it? “I am going on conjecture and a 25 year old rumour.”

J: “What’ll we do about the shadow.” A: “I can attempt, if you wish, to lay it to rest.” He starts into a basic funeral ceremony for an unknown departed, J helps. There is a certain resistance. Getting the words out is difficult. Feels feverish. Breaking into a sweat. Into the last lines of the ceremony and it’s suddenly easy. The shadow vanishes. It worked.

Vasco and Khalid are pounding up toward the tailor’s house. V: “You want this guy dead?” K: “Ultimately, yes.” V: “Then I’ll do it. There’s something I want to check, something form my past. Please don’t kill him yourself.” They take a door each. The place is dark and quiet. No evidence of a hiding place. Nothing in the outhouse but a bad smell. K finds the exit of the tunnel. Still no motion or sound.

There’s fire coming from the top of the inn’s chimney.

Vasco heads into the tunnel. It’s tight. And he seems to be going right under Jess’s temple. Khalid takes the overground route. As he passes by the temple, there’s a sound somewhere across the wall. Khalid leaps the wall into the temple grounds. Something lands in the ground above Vasco’s head. He prises his way up. Vasco and Khalid meet. There’s a sound in the barn. K: “Get out. Quickly.” Vasco explodes up from under the cobbles. They leg it to the barn. There’s a sound from above. The Siartin of Vasili is sitting on Vasco’s bed.

V: “You know I’ll have to kill you.”
Siartin pulls out a nasty looking blade with his left hand.
V: “I have questions for you, but obviously…”
Dice are rolled. Siartin goes for Vasco with his cheese grater, and connects an unpleasant number of times. Khalid kicks Siartin squah in the nuts. There’s quite a lot of bleeding. He heads for the window, and is tripped by Vasco.
V: “I had so many questions for him…” *squish* He’s dead.

There’s blood everywhere.

The ship is suddenly starting to look a lot less substantial. We sprint off. Arc-Vanin almost doesn’t make it as the gangplank vanishes from under his feet. There’s no ship whatsoever. Run to the inn. It’s on fire. Jess calls for help.

Khalid siezes Jess. “Vasco needs your help. Now.” Oh dearie me, he’s a mess.

Things gradually calm down. The fire in the inn is extinguished. The innkeeper is displeased, but isn’t sure who to be displeased at.

Vasco finds 30g in Siartin’s backpack. He gives the innkeeper 5g “from the sailors.”

We reconvene in the temple, Marmoset included. M: “Daybreak is coming. Go to the mountains.”