A Thousand Ships

Tamkizka. 23rd of the moon unquantified.

The next morning.

We head for breakfast. Tall dude wearing a hood comes in after we do. He heads for the grub, lots of people stare at him. Someone from a group who wasn’t staring approaches us, asking what the fuss is about. We dunno. Jess asks somone what the commotion’s about. He gets a brief intense look, an odd expression, then he’s back to normal, grins and says “get around in front of him and see what you can see.”

The door is pushed open by someone large. He looks around, and looks terribly pleased, hurrying over to the hooded dude, gives him a big hug and then his hood falls back. Undoubtedly an elf. They chat about their previous few months’ journeys. The young man is the baron’s son, and has been travelling like the rest of his family - sister’s due back within the month. The elf’s been travelling far further afield, including to Sigil and Ygdrassil, and there is mention of the blood war.

Back in the rooms, Rannon mentions that he had to visit Sigil at one point while trying to understand the writing.

Hmm. Nagan’s not with us anymore. Nanda goes to check on him in the dining room - he can’t be found. There’s a yelling and commotion from downstairs. We follow. It’s the woman Nanda spoke to in the dining room when looking for Nagan. Lying on the floor are two gutted humans and a blood-covered unconscious dwarf. She whistles, and the place is immediately filled with, uh, large hairy people. They all have the weird nostril-flared expression that Jess saw earlier - they’re trying to smell everything. “There were at least two more. They have fled. The baron will be, at the very least, extremely displeased. Confidante, is the dwarf hurt badly?” That’s not his blood. “My name is Vork, I am the captain of the guard. It looks, as best I can tell, as if he did this to them with his bare hands fighting them off.” What now? “We will wait for my subordinates to return, and we will see what they have to report.”

Nanda searches the clothes and finds shaft pendants. She tells Vork they need to be destroyed. “Now that they are off the bodies they smell more ordinary. How are they destroyed?” The cat lady can burn them, destroy them in a fire. “Will any fire do?” Dunno. “Let us find out.” It does. “They are unnatural things. There is an absence of them in scent.” So they can be used to mask as well as track. “While I scented the blood, it is the blood on the floor, not the blood on the people that I was scenting. Now that they are gone, I can smell dead people.”

Khalid thinks it’s odd that after two of theirs had fallen, and they manage to incapacitate Nagan, that then the other two run away. The four guardsmen sent out return. Vork: “My men followed what trail there was, and it was very faint, down through the village, and then nothing. Further, no one in the village saw anything.” Guardsman: “It is as though they were almost not there, and at the point where they were running toward a tree, a big beech tree, they disappeared. Just gone.” Khalid wonders about a trail. Khalid: “I have tracked men across sand.” Guardsman: “Come.”

On paving stones, Khalid can see the faint marks of booted feet. The trail skids to a halt just before the tree they mentioned. On the far side of the tree is a small bit of tobacco ash. Very careful examination shows that whoever was standing here was standing on a protruding branch about three feet up. At some point he jumped from there quite some distance out from the tree, and landed. Then that vanishes as well. But the new spot is within line of sight of where the other guys landed. With some hunting, he finds landing points for three sets of boots, equally spaced fifteen feet apart, to the harbour where the Good Hope is drifting unmoored, along with every other boat there. There’s one boat doing a tacking maneouver to get out as quickly as possible. With great effort, Khalid can make out a clear pattern on the sail of a downward pointed spire. Then it goes over the horizon, way too quickly for anything natural.

Khalid: “It is difficult sometimes to express just how much I dislike magic.”
Guardsman: “I think I know what you mean.”

Nagan’s starting to stir. Khalid spills to Vork. “Were they wearing boots?” Yep. “In another manner I can jump that far from standing, but not in boots.” Nanda legs it to check on her boat. A guard dives in and doggy paddles to collect the Good Hope, and Nanda is helped to haul the boat back in. All the ships, bizarrely, were untied, not cut. Guard: “It *happened* that no one was looking. There is an ill scent of magic in the air.”

Nagan wakes. “Something grabbed me. Something managed to lift me into the air and put what felt very like a hand, even though i could see nothing, over my mouth, and I started to flail, and next thing I am waking up covered in blood.”

Vork: “This is a bad time for the Baron to be out.” Nanda: “His son was here earlier?” Vork: “His son is back?” He drops to all fours and speeds off. After a while, the son appears. “Good day. I am Volsgud. I find myself temporarily in charge here. I apologise in advance for this disturbance, and in retrospect for the disturbance you have already suffered.” We explain that Nagan was grabbed bodily and assaulted, fought back, and three assailants escaped through magical means, having first untied all the boats in the harbour, and using magical wind to power their boat. The attackers were wearing pendants of inverted spires. “You have come across these before?” We unfortunately had one with us until yesterday when it was destroyed. “And unfortunately I missed my father coming in, so I did not get any details from him of what has been happening here in my absence.” He asks Vork to clean up and take the bodies to a temple - Jess checks there’s no magic on them - and brings us somewhere to make reparation for the attack in their premises.

He brings us to the Baron’s study, where the door is battered, which it wasn’t yesterday. “You have been here yesterday? What did my father bring you to see?” Dwarven tools. He opens the door easily. Oh dear? “No. Unless they are of my father’s blood, that will not happen. The door is otherwise impenetrable, as they found out.” They came looking for the tools and found a dwarf? He stares at the tools in the chest. Oh yeah, they were deliberately broken by Nagan yesterday. He looks at Nagan with new respect.

Jess is still trying to treat Nagan. “Can someone get him a glass of water? Or a bottle of whiskey?” The elf who happens right then to be at Jess’s elbow passes over a flask of ale. “It seems a day for introductions, some less gentle than others. I am Kallaro.” We do the intros thing. “So. You too have encountered the church of shafts. I have expended a fair amount of energy these last few months to track them down, to come here to rest and recoup and to find them here. It is a little disturbing. I suspect that the Baron will not be back for some days, and form what he told me of you, you are likely to need to move on soon enough in any case.” He offers to exchange information. “I will start to allay your suspicions.”

“Several months ago, I think around the spring equinox, I had an unpleasant encounter with the church of shafts who intended to make of me a sacrifice. They miscalculated only very slightly and I managed to escape, albeit injured and almost incapacitated. I took a little while and a deal of magic to recover quickly, and began to investigate. I have found evidence of their dealings here and there across the isles, and here and there a little too in Tajidar and Elbenstraz - but, for the most part, across the isles. They have been engaged in these sacrifices, these burials of living people, in some warped form of a reversed pilgrimage. I am not, indeed, as far as I know and none of my kind are, privy to the secrets of the church of spires as regards pilgrimages, but we know at least of their power and the general idea. These people are taking that idea and reversing it in such a way that it still has power but is warped, perverted. I have since not encountered any of them though I have found marks of their passage in these burials here and there, and in one case was on the scene swiftly enough to dig up again one of those they ahd buried, but the man had been underground for two days in a closed box with little air and no food, and is in no state to answer any questions perhaps ever again. And after that, the trail that I was following, one of rumour and guesswork, ran cold and I searched for almost a month without finding anything new. I came here knowing that the baron and his family would be here at this time or soon after to seek some help, and I found them here.”

Nanda: “They turned up in Thiemus some weeks ago.” “I passed through Thiemus very briefly perhaps four month sago on my search, but nothing happened there.” “There was a burial there, we found one of the pendants, and one of the priests told us much what you have told us about the principles. We thought it to be a childrens game. We have not attempted to trace them afterward, but we have encountered them more or less wherever we have gone. We are attempting a pilgrimage to stop them but –” “Some of your number are skilled in the calculations?” Arcvanin nods.

Elf: “Sir. If I present you with a listing and approximate dates of the burials that I found, would you be capable of working backwards to see what they intend?” Arcvanin: “I may. It depends entirely on how much information you have and how much of the whole it is. But I can certainly try.” The elf hands him a sheaf of paper. Arcvanin unrolls. “There are twenty one places on this list.” The elf nods. Arcvanin: “This will take several days.” Nanda: “Should we stay here? It would be useful to these people.” Arcvanin: “on the one hand, yes it would be very useful if we could give a conclusion to the baron and his family, but otoh they know where we are now. I hope they don’t have any inkling what we are doing.”

Jess to Elf: “What do you know of the pendants?” Elf: “That they are a way that those in power in the church of shafts lend power to others.” Can one be heard through them? “I do not know, but certainly they can trace your location from them, and they use them to pass quietly among other folk, unobtrusively or wholly invisibly. Thus far, that I have not been hunted down by them is an indication that it does not, because it took me some little time to work out how to destroy them, and until then I had perhaps six or eight in my possession.”

Nanda: “So far, they haven’t come to one place twice, have they?” Elf: “I don’t think so, but I haven’t doubled back on my trail much either, so I cannot be certain.”

We propose to stay. Jess asks cat lady if you can be heard through the pendants. “Nobody ever said that. Maybe. But probably not.”

By nightfall, Arcvanin reckons he has in front of him about two third of the route, so it could take as much as eight days to calculate. Jess spends a fate point, and four days hits the conclusion.

The conclusion: “To bring the blood war to the isles.” The only really troublesome bit is where they have to bury a body under the spiral’s temple in Breem.

We gather in the Baron’s study. Jess explains. Kallaro looks actually shocked. “To bring that to a prime world…” Nanda: “Why would anyone wish that?” Khalid: “Humans have done many insane things for reasons that those of us who are rational find ludicrous, because they believe it will bring them powers, riches.”

There’s discussion of whether we should split off from our pilgrimage.

Nanda says she was doing some research in the library. She reads out a Strazi nursery rhyme. In the context of buried people, and deep underground, and things being topsy turvy, it’s much more sinister. It suggests that Akbana is a critical place to the church of shafts.

Kallaro: “Is there one person or a group of people who must be at each location in this anti pilgrimage? If so, those people can be more directly stopped, and their locations predicted.” Reckon so. “In that case, I will take it upon myself to find and stop that group. I have a great deal more information about them now than I did, and I have a listing from you of where they are likely to be.” You going alone? “It is how I have always worked. Also I am more qualified than anyone else here to go about this?” Perhaps. “There is no perhaps about it. I have been a trained assassin for 1200 years.” Awesome!

Arcvanin knows one person he can trust in Breem. Kallaro, since he’s going there, offers to bring a message. Arcvanin writes a letter.

Kallaro gets on his way, and Volsgud kits us out for supplies bigtime.

We get underway. Akbana is six days sailing. The weather is clear sailing throughout, with the briefest of runs through fog. Taji warships are HUGE. Only a few of them, entire navy is only 20 ships, but they’re a city unto themselves. As we approach the harbour, a small boat makes a right angle turn to approach us. Single inhabitant clambers up the side. “Good day! Pilot?” How much? “Two clips.” Fine. We’re guided carefully in. Under the water we can see huge metal blades. Once in, Nanda goes to find the Harbourmaster, then picks up some clothes for the Strazis.

Once we’re properly clothed, Nagan suddenly blends in. He’s conveniently short, and he doesn’t stand out like he used to. Arcvanin and Jess do, mind.

Half way to the temple, Nanda catches sight of a familiar face, the Thiemen smuggler Marius Sabre. He didn’t seem to notice her. She stops at a stall, feeds us Samosas, and whispers the news. He was one of the runners in Thiemus, and he was around when shit hit the fan with the ghost ship and dead people on the shore. We head for the temple, quickly. People are streaming out of it - it’s just the end of some fairly major ceremony. Dwerm is the herald dedicated to metalwork, so these guys are mostly blacksmiths. The priest who’s left is remarkably young, maybe 20. He asks the subject of our pilgrimage. Arcvanin: “To aid in peace.” Priest reckons that’s a bit peculiar. Nanda denies all knowledge. “At least they’re trying. You’ve got to give them that.” He’s very young. “Well, I had a dream.” What of? “Being a priest of the court of spires.” As we’re heading out he asks where we’re staying. Somewhere he can recommend? “There’s somewhere I can un-recommend.” Pointing to a building with a lot of balconies. “Not that one. Best as anyone can make out, it’s cursed. Any party of travellers who stayed there, one of them didn’t make it through the night. They just died. Some of them drank too much, fell downstairs, broke their necks, some choked on food, one threw himself out a window.”

Rannon knows a place. Good and clean. He comes to what seems like a wholly nondescript house. A man of Rannon’s own age answers the door, and there’s some manly-hugging. “This is Essikh Tahf Assis, who is an old, old friend. He is familiar with my researches and an expert in many many languages.” It’s a big house, all the other doors on the street seem to be false fronts on this one. There’s a jaguar lying by the fireplace. Nanda asks for some REAL CHAI. OMG CHAI. Five servants come running. Nanda proposes. The food is almost appetising to Khalid, and heaven to Nanda.

Essikh: “So. What are all of you doing here? You’re not just assisting Rannon in his researches I suspect. And you two gentlemen do not quite sound like islanders.”
Nanda: “We are on a pilgrimage. That is actually true. The feasibility of the pilgrimage is entirely another matter.”
E: “Now, I had thought to myself not two days ago I think that Rannon would soon show himself again here, because some of that writing you keep chasing has showed up here.”
Rannon: “Where?”
E: “The house of nine balconies.”
Nanda: “Naturally. We were warned about it by the priest there.”
E: “Well then, you know what has happened there recently, that the poor innkeeper is tearing his hair out in the most literal sense in desperation, and that something is amiss there. What did you hear?”
N: “He said the place is cursed, people have died there, one member of each party who stayed there.”
E: “One member of each party of strangers who stayed there. Those who had been there before seemed perfectly safe. And as with any merchant inn, it had its regulars on their routes, and all of them were fine. They seem disinclined to stay there anymore though. 20 deaths in a month is enough to put anyone off. The writing is on the rear wall of the house in the alley that runs along its length. Naturally, it means nothing whatsoever to me, but Rannon has been able to read some of it in the past, or so he claims.”

We go take a look.

People are crossing the street to avoid the place. We head down one side of the building and into an alleyway at the end. He eventually arrives at a patch that is freshly painted over. Khalid touches it, and there’s a whoosh of flame. Bits of flaming paint fall into the alley. The wall is pretty much untouched but for the swirl of curving black writing painted on it. Rannon can’t read it.

Nanda: “Seek the elder servant now.”

Rannon sighs, then looks at the sky. “I realise that the translation from the tongue of the gods to the tongue of men is difficult, but why does it always emerge in riddles?”

We head back. Rannon mutters. Essikh is surprised to hear that Nanda can read it.