A Thousand Ships

5th of the moon unquantified

We’re headed for Tomin.

We sail through fog, rain, sleet and by the time we’re sailing into Tomin it’s snowing. We sail in unchallenged and look for a berth. Khalid’s testicles are like raisins. Guy well wrapped up asks us to pay the port fees. Jess and Vasco go to the harbourmaster’s. He grouches at us. We pay and get a recommendation for an inn, which we find and eat in. There are some wizards making a nuisance of themselves, which distracts some attention from us.

Barmaid says they might not be who they claim to be. One of them set his beard on fire earlier, but there was a strong smell of black powder which she suspects wizards don’t need. Someone dressed in a long red coat comes in, takes a sheet form his sleeve, mumbles something in Strazi and looks around. Shrugs, Vasco says “and that was for the rest of us?” Some sort of auction, the stuff of “Captain Covotrin Albresar”, a notorious pirate. Vasco offers him ale. Fourth time there’s been an auction this week.

We go to bed and sleep peacefully.

Until 4am, when Vasco wakes hungover to a persistent tapping on the window. He opens the window and gets a bundle of rags and sticks for his efforts. He runs out and grabs Jess, waking up half the place in the process. The pile was once magical, but isn’t now. Vasco throws it out the window and a human skull tumbles out.

From somewhere downstairs is a piercing scream. We head out. In the common room the barmaid, wearing a nightdress, is staring at one of the doors off the back of the bar, screaming. It’s a dormitory room, and in the middle of the one empty bed in there is another bundle of sticks, rags and a skull on top. The window behind the bed is wide open. Vasco nips out and sees that one of the stable doors is slightly ajar, in a gale force wind. As he approaches it, it creaks open in the wind and thumps shut. He checks inside - it’s a tack room. Inside is a ladder going up.

Nanda goes to check on the wizards. They don’t respond to being called. She pushes the door. Both windows are open, snow piled up inside them, in each of the beds is a rather bloody mess. In each bed is one of the bundles. She checks on the pilgrims - there’s a priest in there who may be useful but lets her sleep for now.

The landlord is called. Nanda explains. Jess and the landlord go up to take a look. The other priest, Confidante Selo (order of Glies, herald of agriculture and animals), wakes up and joins us. We go inside. Oh dear.

Vasco scrambles up the ladder, emerging into a hay loft. Sits and listens for a bit. There’s something moving up here, cat sized or something. It’s a cat.

Three beds. Vasco makes his way back up. “Where are the other two?” Landlord: “This is the only room they took.” Three men. None of their beards are appreciably burnt. Nanda: “Who keeps order in this port?” Landlord: “At the moment, the army.” Nanda: “Is there anybody that ordinary people can go to if they find this?” Landlord: “You go to the guardhouse.” He sends Hans to go get a guard. Nanda summons the rest of the NPCs.

Confidante Selo notes that the “wizards” had no spellbooks. They had books of law and letters. Three books concern obscure matters of sea law, particularly misdemeanour and punishment, one on literature, one on plants and herbalism. Five bundles - and the bundle that the barmaid discovered had fallen on her.

Barman said he had to throw the three of them out of the common room when he was closing up. One of the five (burnt beard) had been carried to bed earlier in the night. The woman is unaccounted for. He thinks she’d gone off a bit earlier, because for the last two rounds he brought them it was only the three of them there. Did they ride in? Nope, says barman (Hestor), there are no horses in the stables atm. Vasco: “The tack room’s open.” Barman: “HANS! Check the stuff meant to be in the tack room is in there.”

The wind’s up to a serious gale. Nanda remarks that we’re being followed by strong winds and horrible weather.

Hans notices that there’s an old falcon hood is missing from a hook.

A captain from the guardhouse turns up. Perry brings him up, with Jess, to look at the room. “That’s pretty rough. Any theories?” Two are missing. “What’s with the bones? There’s a skull in here. Appears to be kind of superfluous.” He lifts the end of a rag with a dagger. “It’s a bit overdone. Ah… hmm.” He’s peering at the rag. “Do you think it’s safe to pull this thing out of here? The rag looks like we need the cloth.” He yanks it with his dagger. “It’s cut out of the back of a naval coat. You know the deck coats?” He explains where the seam and band down the back goes, and where the wearer was shot in the back with an arrow. “You don’t get this cloth in most places. Confidante. Do you think these pose a threat to anyone else here?” Well, the magic is gone. “There was magic? But it’s gone now? Well. They’re naval clothes, that’s a naval affair. There’s magic, that’s a wizard affair. Case closed. I’ll go write this up, and I’ve no idea what to do with it.” He moans about them sending the militia and navy out, and putting the army in her when they should be out in the field.

“So what brings you to sunny Tomin?” Pilgrimage. “Ah I’m sorry. Went on one with my father when I was young. Took us a year and a half to go round it. On the other hand he’s had nothing but grandsons, so it worked. I’m going to leave the windows open so there’s some cold to keep the place as it is, and I’ll talk to the general tomorrow. That’s about all I can do here. Whiskey!”

He takes a bottle of whiskey and pulls on his coat. “There’s no need to hang around or anything to be perfectly honest. It’s a mystery to me, so it’s probably as much a mystery to you. Goodnight all o’ ye.”

Vasco goes outside for some reason, and approaches the ship. The gangplank is ice, the wind is howling and the sea is black and cold. He thinks better of trying to board. A tailor opens for business, so he goes to try to seduce some information out of him.

There’s a duke. There was a militia, but they were sent off with the navy and the ARMY brought in to replace them. Duke is well received but in this instance couldn’t do anything about it. Just lately a bunch of pirate lewt has turned up and is being auctioned off. The navy haven’t been seen for four months. The warships in the harbour are spares that have been there for four months. The army sweep the decks every now and again and that’s it. The captain was yanked from the field some months ago and put in charge of a unit he’d never met. All the guys here have seen or been near battle, so it’s like they took some guys who weren’t going to throw up at the first sight of blood and leave them here. They’re not doing the same in the other ports either side but this is Tomin! Army lads come in here on wagons, pick up supplies that would go on the ships, take them back on wagons to a port down the coast and load them there.

Vasco comes back and recounts to the rest of us. We go to the temple. Big temple, biggest most of us have seen actually. Inside it’s busy and crowded. There’s a fancily dressed Ethark whose eye alights on the open-mouthed Khalid. In nomad proto-Taji: “Greetings, traveller.”
“Greetings”
“you are far from home. What brings you this far?”
“A journey”
“A journey of our kind or your kind, or both?”
“Some of both”
“A message reached me a little while ago form another of my rank who said to keep an eye for such as you. The message goes ‘I am alive, and I know what you’re at.’ And that’s it. I hope that this makes some sense to you. I was a little at a loss but his instructions at least on your appearance were very clear and he was certain that you would be here around this time.’
“Did he mention where he was going next?”
“the message had passed through many hands by the time it reached me, except that he had impressed that it was to be carried verbatim. When Ethark Oakenshield says that something must be done a certain way, by and large it is done that way.”
“It is good that he is alive. Thank you for your message.”

When we reassemble. “It appears that Oakenshield was even more resourceful than we thought. He has just sent me a message. Sent from somewhere, through many hands, to here. The words were ‘I am alive and I know what you’re at.’” He knew we’d be here. Arcvanin: “And he managed to engineer it so that presumably one of the very few Etharks who speaks yoru language would be here to pass the message.” Khalid” So considering it took you reosurces you would not normally have to work out it would come through here, and he did this on his own” — well, a lot of pilgrimages come through Tomin, and we don’t know what he did. But yes.

We wander out into the street. Arcvanin: “I do know that Oakenshield himself is terrible at pilgrimages. He said as much. He’s not interested. He has some very good help.” We get back to the inn. Kid in red coat is at the door. “Auction’s off. Somebody stole the ship last night.”