A Thousand Ships

17th of the moon umber

Khalid, Nanda and Nagan rescued the rest of the books from the Steinberg and they’re now in the vault. Jess and Arkvanin went a bit mad on the old pilgrimage calculation. We’re gathered in the church of Eislint and Arkvanin, exhausted, is delivering his conclusions.

“We’ve calculated two pilgrimage routes. One follows a more standard methodology than the other and goes in an almost circle. Awkward, btu doesn’t cross itself, and all the places are relatively inoffensive. The other, though, would be much more effective. It doesn’t have a number of ‘weaknesses of association.’ It’s awkward, goes to places that are in effect dangerous, loops back on itself, and will be more difficult to do. And, annoyingly, it’s not that much shorter. The standard one will probably take 210 days. The loops and dangers one will take 191 days. These are obviously guesses.”

We stare at the map. The ‘easy’ one goes onto the mainland, including well into the mountains.

The second starts in Ekra and goes straight to Khal Madiz, then gets worse, hitting Arkoda, one of the major cities of Tajidar, and later to Breme, the seat of the Spiral. This one, however, is likely to be more tolerant of stepping in and out of the relevant temple.

We decide to set off at dawn the next day. The PCs, Rannon, Arkvanin and Nagan agree to come. Jess and Arkvanin seal the vault, excepting the concordances for any calculations we need to do mid-route.

We’re nearly packed up when the Marmoset appears and speaks to Nanda. “Going away?” “We have some business to attend to. We may be some time.” “Important business. I understand. Man insists that there is a parting gift. I understand many of you people have use for these money things. I dislike it. Therefore this one is not so much a gift as giving it to you to get it off my hands.” He hands her a very battered sheet of paper. A letter of credit, drawn against a major Strazi trading house, for ten royals. “You will take it away? I will not have to see it again? Good. Also…” he takes two jars of green stuff from his pockets. “Spinach. It prevents scurvy. Good luck.” “Here too. Don’t let this place be overrun by anything.”

He nods at each of us, individually and carefully, and he and the marmoset on his shoulder head back.

We set off.

Two days and two nights pass quietly enough. On the morning of the third, Nanda takes watch from Nagan and she sees a small fleet on the horizon. A few foremasters and some smaller ships. Through Nagan’s binoculars she sees a decent chunk of the Strazi navy. They’re tacking and likely to intercept. We decide to politely turn due north. They decline to pay any attention to us. They’re headed south east, basically toward Tajidar - say, to Khal Madiz.

Later that evening, we see the lights of Ekra ahead. Thousands of points of light. Nanda cuts off her long braid and drops it into the sea. As we approach the harbour, a small boat rows out to us. “Ship ho!” in Isles trade tonge. He gives us a berthing docket, with instructions to pass it up when we get there. When we want to go, we go to the harbourmaster’s office, pay our way and they unlock the ropes. (Number 4151.)

Jess and Arkvanin head ashore to try to get clothes and stuff for the conspicuous ones. It’s a late trading day, fortunately. Festival air, even. Khalid and Nanda complain. Rannon looks remarkably respectable - turns out he was in Elbenstraz before and had to blend in.

We go find an inn. Lots of them are full, or viciously expensive. Works out though. Decent rooms, Rannon gets to wash, and the common room isn’t as crowded as the street, which freaks Khalid out slightly less. We argue over a potato.

In innkeeper nips over for a chat. In bad isles, “You folks in from the isles?” Yup. “Any news from there that we should know?” Khalmadiz? “Old news by now. Anything else? Alright. Anything I can help you with or direct you to?” Directions to the church of Stanzia. “Ah. Pilgrims.” The directions are complex. “Where are you off to next then?” Next definite place is Tomen, we’re hoping for better news from the Confidante. “That’s a pretty rough calculation. It has to be. If you’re stuck going there, how are you getting there?” Round the coast, pretty much. May have to buy a boat. “Ah, you want to buy a boat.” Funny you should mention that. “My uncle is selling a boat. He’s retiring from ‘business’ if you catch my drift.” Who exactly is going to be looking out for this boat? “If you repaint it, rename it and run a different flag, nobody!” How big? “Two master. Been a while since I was on it, but it’s got a forecastle, rearcastle, decent size of hold and a few hard to find cupboards in the hold.” We arrange to see it at noon.

Arkvanin’s suspicious. That’s terribly convenient.

Next day over breakfast, Nanda gets accosted by a girl who tells her in incomprehensible (to Nanda) strazi that the white star is very lucky and her aunt had it and was very famous. Before being retrieved by her mother, she says her aunt hunts, drinks beer, smokes, fights and is something in the army.

We make our way along the directions the innkeeper gave us. We eventually find a tiny, tiny church. An elderly priest says, “travellers. Pilgrims?” We are, Confidante. “Go ahead in. You’ll just about all fit.” The place is full of statues, sepulchres and monuments to the dead all along the walls and surrounding the pillars. One of the sepulchres is a large affair with a fine knight carved on top, in plaster or even stone.

Arkvanin, Jess and Nanda head for the altar. Khalid spots some writing on a plaque a little like the writing on his sword. He asks Nanda and Rannon to take a look. She can read it - “To the memory of Lucas Goodmill.” Rannon stares. “I cannot read it.”

Jess asks the guy outside who Lucas Goodmill. “Who? Oh! Yeah. Didn’t think his name was on it. Funny that. That’s the one with the funny swirly carving. Yeah, Goodmills have been coming to here for four or five generations, and Lucas was the grandfather now of the current head of the household. Big traveller Lucas was, went to all kinds of places, brought back some pretty strange stuff. They’ve a house further up on the hill, you can see the tower from here. I think Lucas built that tower as well, come to think of it. Peculiar bit of a house, cottage starting out and they built on a festhall. A room to be used for festivals. Onto a cottage. Obviously the cottage kitchen wasn’t up to it, so they built a kitchen, and then kept adding.” They up there now? “Fahrem will be up there, if not now then in the next few days. They’ve got a collection of stuff you wouldn’t believe in museum pieces. People keep telling em they should sell off a few bits of it. Fahrem says that if he retires he won’t be able to acquire any more of it. But yeah, Lucas was buried under the church floor like every other person whose plaque is in there.”

Khalid lays his hand on the plaque. Colder than stone cold. He tinks it with his sword, and there’s a flash of bright blue light. “I think it’s confirming for you that it’s definitely connected.”

We head up to visit the megacottage. A very formally dressed Strazi gentleman opens the door and bows. We ask to see the cool stuff. He fetches the lady of the house.

Ten minutes later there’s a clatter of claws and paws and barking, and half a dozen hunting dogs fire into the room. A cheerful looking woman in TROUSERS and a riding jacket follows them. “Good morning! You’re here for the tour! How long have you got?” Nanda suggests Khalid show her his sword. “Is that writing? What the hell language is it, then? No one’s been able to identify the carving, and Lucas was terribly insistent that it was put on his marker.” Certain instances are read by certain people. “So you’re looking for more instances. That I can certainly help with.”

She scrambles up a stairs, over a huge anchor practically barring the way, and past lots of stuff to bookshelves. Framed opposite the window are a number of writings in the same style, copied onto a large sheet of parchment and framed. “There you go!” Nanda can’t read it. Rannon is staring at one of them, though. “The vast majority of them I don’t understand, but this one here says ‘take the high path’.”

The woman is staring at him. “YOu can read it? We’ve had it looked at, it’s not even a language as such.” Jess: “Do you know where it came from?” “The actual parchment here is one Lucas himself got hold of. I fancy he had some part in having it made. He said it was a collection of - he called them carvings - that had been found right across the archipelago. He was wholly convinced that they were significant and some meaning could be divined from them, but Lucas was convinced of that about many many things.”

K: “They are prophecy.” “Prophecy. If you’ll excuse my saying so, ‘take the high path’ sounds more like proverb than prophesy.” “The piece on your tomb is a signpost. How your grandfather knew it would say what it said without understanding anything, I do not know.” Khalid says others might come, or perhaps all the carvings were meant just for us.

She checks out his diaries for about the time when he got the carvings. His diaries fill half a room. “The menfolk of my father’s family are a little obsessive, and I believe my brother is following in exactly those steps.” She picks out a group of eight and starts flicking through them. “There’s a copy of one of the carvings as he called them depicted in– there we go.”

She reads. “‘Got the final carving for the parchment at considerable expense, but pleased to have the all in place. Temek is also pleased and says that he will be taking his leave of us soon.’ There is nothing but an account of supplies bougth for a couple of pages then ‘we will no longer will be requiring chai which Temek has made us buy in the last ten ports’ then a little further on again ‘Temek is taking his leave of us at Arkoda. We will to be honest not entirely sorry to see him go. He has on many occasions been an irksome travelling companion but he will be missed as a source of information on Tajidar.’ The first entry there is two days after midsummer in the year 553. The entry about Chai is 21 days later, and then the entry about the man leaving is another 8 days thereafter.”

Would it be recorded who Temek was, and why he was asking for carvings to be collected? She works backward.

“Reference nearly six months earlier, ‘we have the second last of the carvings for Temek.’ A month before that, ‘we have found three of the carvings for Temek in one place. He is immensely gratified by this and we have extracted a promise from him to behave a little better in future ports.’ Oh right. The previous night to that apparently Temek had become terribly drunk and quite violent, and had to be dropped into the harbour to calm him down. Back further– ah. He had joined the ship in midsummer of 552 and had the parchment partially completed at that stage, and said that my great grandfather, Lucas, was ‘destined to aid him in its completion’, whereafter he would give it to Lucas.”

It’s now the Strazi year 643.

Rannon’s impressed. He’d not expected to read any new writings ever again. Nanda wonders if the high path means the longer route, in the mountains on the mainland. Khalid speculates about the route between Brene and Erholdt that’s so mountainous we might be better going around by sea.

We go to the inn for noon. With the innkeeper is an elderly man, scarred battered and with a goddamn eyepatch. His name is “Vadmil Affenstore.” “So. Ship?” Native-sounding isles. “Which of you is the sailor, or sailors?” Couple of us can sail. We head down to the docks, via a number of shortcuts. He heads to the last boat there, the scruffiest, most ragged looking two master. A miracle that it’s even afloat at first glance. Nanda notes that the filthy scruffy bit is only above the waterline.

He hops on board and the deck creaks underfoot. “Lets you know if someone’s walking on the deck. Two rooms. Cabins. Two cabins.” They look dreadful, but are definitely watertight, dry and in good order. Splinters visible. What glass there is is in four different colours. There’s a galley. Hold has had people sleep in it before. What’s the storage like? “There’s all that you see here, and a few cupboards that for some reason a few people have a tough time finding.” He puts his fingers into a couple of splintery knotholes, and a wall falls forward.

It’s called the Herald Schelling. We negotiate excruciatingly, eventually getting to “for three, I’ll throw in my charts.” Five huge maps. Nanda wants them, a lot. Smuggler’s charts of the main island of Elbenstraz. Three it is.

Who’s Schelling? “I got into this business on the basis of a bunch of gems given to me by a priests of the order of Schelling who was on his last legs.”