A Thousand Ships

Next morning. Jess has an instinct that we should head to the inn.

The oldest man we’ve ever seen comes hobbling toward us. “Guests?” Fraid not. But a drink? “I shall alert the master.” Master bounds out. “Guests!” Um, a drink. “Thank you. Thank you. What can I get you?” Wine and beer.

Nanda distracts the innkeeper while Vasco goes exploring. In one spotless room he notices a small amount of soot falling from the chimney. A brick hits him and he’s out cold. We hear the impact downstairs, and the old guy plus Khalid and Jess go to check. Yup, Vasco lying with his head in the fireplace and a broken brick. Khalid goes up several floors to try and find another entryway to the chimney. The room is concealed behind a cupboard on the fourth floor. He looks inside too, protecting his head with the seat of a spoon. There are two bricks missing four feet below him. They’re out of reach of his arm, though. A small piece of twig hits his stool-hat. He climbs out a window and up onto the roof. In the two pots of the chimneys are jammed, one each, a pile of rags, sticks and bones.

In the general’s house, the fur, teeth and splinters scrubbed the room clean, including the fireplace. Thin linen, not thick wool, so identical adopted for local conditions.

Khalid cleaves them in twain. Some stuff rattles down the chimney landing around Vasco. Jess moves him and he starts to come to.

There are lots and lots of footprints and marks on the sloping roof. People have been crisscrossing it regularly for the past month. No handprints, mind. Shouts: “I, Khalid Girekh, will find you. Run very fast.” People in the streets look around with surprise.

The old guy hobbles into the room and wails. The innkeeper arrives, goes “oh no, not again”, followed by Nanda. Jess and Arcvanin try to fix him up. Khalid returns. “Two bricks missing from the chimney on the fourth floor. On the roof, two o f the bone things were stuck into the chimney.” Oh crap. Innkeeper: “On the roof?” Khalid: “Do you often have gatherings up there?” Innkeeper: “No we do not. And not more of these. Every death we found, one of these things. Nobody else has died in here.” Where did they? “All over. In the bedrooms, common rooms, kitchens, passageways, two in the latrines.” Every death, one bundle? “So we’re due. Or something.” No magic in what’s left though.

The old man pokes at the brick and twigs with the end of his staff. “Where is the other brick then?” Khalid: “From where the bricks were taken, it must have been either someone very small - a child, I could not have done it - or with magic.” Nanda: “Could it have been a halfling?” Khalid: “?” Explanations. Khalid: “Yes, I suppose.”

Fireplaces are further explored. There are three other fireplaces with bundles stuffed up the chimney, stuffed in cupboards, and in one case on top of an open door, with a shower of green powder. He pushes the door open, the bundle falls, a cloud of green powder goes up, and it dissipates away into nothingness. The wood on the door where the gas touched it is pitted and corroded, and his rag in his hands is near corroded. He stuffs the bandage into one of Jess’s jars.

Nanda’s hearing all about the twenty deaths. One guy was evidently murdered - four knives sticking out sort of murdered. The innkeeper painted over the writing on the wall.

N: “Who’s the old guy?” I: “Aben? He’s been here forever. I don’t even know his family and clan names. Theoretically he cleans and opens the door late at night. He worked for my great grandfather. All the other staff ran away. He doesn’t have any other place to go I think. He doesn’t say very much, he’s just there.”

Khalid has a chat with Aben. “I am Khalid. You are?” “Aben Aben Aben.” “I am following a prophesy. I believe this prophesy has brought me to you.” He takes out the sword - Aben recoils - and angles the writing towards him. “Bad. Trouble.” “The writing? Why?” “Trouble. Flames and burning and destruction and death and blood. I saw it when I was a boy. You’re standing in the soot.” “Where?” “Under your feet. Look. You’re standing in the soot. I need to mop it up.”

Khalid moves. “I am following to trails. One devised by a man, the other given unto me by this prophesy. What can you tell me about what you saw as a boy.” “Blood and burning. Here. I have never been anywhere else.” “Was it invaded?” ‘Many times, but not this time of which I speak.” “What was burning?” “Buildings, people, animal, carts…” “Who set the flames?” “You ask as though it were an organised thing. There was burning, there was blood. I was a small boy. I was stuffed into a barrel and taken away on a cart. The writing was on a sword, held by a big man about your side how came out of a burning building shouting and had that sword in his hand, and he waved it about and shouted at people and then I was put in the barrel.” “That is the last time you saw the man?” “Yes. He was dead thereafter. I did not see him dead, but when I asked later they said he was dead. Of course lies to small children are sometimes told and ‘he is dead’ is better than ‘he has gone off to become a great leader of men’ because the small boy might follow. But I think he was dead.” “What happened to the sword?” “I was four years old. They do not tell you things like that.”

Khalid: “There is something you know that I believe it is important that I know.” “I know how to mop up soot.” He hands Khalid the mop. Khalid does as told. Aben: “Good. Good. Another seventy years of that and maybe you will be old and decrepit.” “Sadly I do not have seventy years. You have never seen this writing again?” “No.” “Has anything else before the deaths here happened to you? Have you witnessed it?” “Many things have happened to me.” “Anything that might be connected?” Silence.

It’s aspect invocation time. Now that the soot is all mopped up, there’s a faint, distant, half scent of lightning. He takes out his sword again and tries to use it as a dowsing rod. It points at the right hand side of the old man. “You have a pouch?” “Yes.” “May I look inside it?” He reaches into the robe and pulls it out, hands it over. It’s full of sand. Very clean, clear, white sand. Centre of desert, uncorrupted, almost pure white sand. Khalid: “You carry this with you?” Aben: “It keeps things clean.” “Where did you get it?” “In the cellars. They’re closed off now but there’s a barrel in the part that’s closed off of this.” It almost forms patterns where it falls through his fingers. “I need more sand.” “It’s in the cellars. They’re bricked up.” “Do you have a hammer?” “Talk to the master. He will show you where the bricked up door is and you may go through if you wish.” He reverently ties the pouch and hands it back, then calls Jess and Nanda.

Khalid kindly asks the innkeeper for a hammer. Nagan pshaws and breaks through the bricked up door like only a dwarf can. Bricks and Vasco tumble down the curved stairs. We take some lanterns, it’s dark down there. We head down. It’s a vast hall. There are half a dozen barrels, a couple of crates and some very old burlap sacks gathered around the entrance. They’re the only objects in the hall which must cover the floorspace of the inn. It goes up to a vaulted ceiling and looks unerringly Strazi. Two other doors. In the middle of the floor is a round hole. Vasco tiptoes over. There’s a very faint waft of warm air coming up from it, just like the one in the island. Khalid divines with his sword that the barrels contain sand. Five packed with it, the last very nearly full. The burlap sacks contain broomtwigs, and the crates contain old kitchen utensils.

Nanda heads for one of the doors. Stacked barrels, each branded onto it the downward pointed spire. Vasco sniffs at em. Oil, for weapons. He prises one open. Drops a sword in. Oh look, resistance an inch from the surface, like pushing into pebbles. He hefts the barrel over. It’s lots and lots of good chain mail. Eight suits or so on the floor, and another few in the barrel. The oil trails across the floor down to the shaft. Vasco tries on some gauntlets.

Nanda goes to the other door and through the hallway behind it. There are doorways either side. Jess checks for magic. No, the armour isn’t. One of the barrels over there, though, tucked away from the others…

Vasco opens it up and pulls out the contents. The spellcasters have the good sense not to LOOK INTO THE LIGHT. Vasco sticks his fingers in. It’s densely packed with swords, point down. There are around two dozen longswords packed in there.

Khalid checks one of the barrels of sand, putting his sword down through. It meets no extra resistance. Nanda and Jess take a look at the passage leading through the city, the others following. It has doors leading off either side. The first, second and third pair of doors go to dormitories, each with twelve beds. The fourth have a kitchen on one side and a workshop on the other. The passage goes on and on, and eventually ends with a ladder going straight up into darkness. We send Vasco, who puts on some of the armour he nicked.

It goes up much more than the 12m or so that we perceive as street level, eventually arriving at a stone trap door overhead. He listens carefully, and can hear birdsong. Pops the trapdoor which springs back smoothly on oiled, sprung hinges. Can see sky. No buildings around. Vertigo cuts in - we’re at the very top of one of the towers on the walls. He’s at the opposite side of the tower from the city, so we’re not directly visible unless someone’s paying close attention. He can hear conversation directly below. He tilts back in head first and tells the story. The outside of the trap door is near indistinguishable from the rest of the roof, being stone covered in moss, but some handholds are also visible going down the outside of the tower.

We go back down the way we came.

Vasco (stealing goodies) reckons that this isn’t the main part of the deal. Arcvanin speculates though that the handholds are so you can climb up, down the inside and emerge into the middle of the city fully armed and armoured. He lowers some rope into the shaft to see how far it goes. In or around 75 feet. Winds it back up. Nothing on the end of the rope, not stained or anything.

Arcvanin notes that a whole lot of oil poured down that half an hour ago, and there’s no oil on the end of the rope. He takes a crate, empties it, pops out the top and bottom, ties the rope and drops it. Nagan suggests we send down his hammer on the end of a rope and see if it hooks something up. Okay. Fine. Lowers it, swing it around, jams in something, yank. Reel it in. The claws of the hammer are jammed into the socket of an old, dry skull. Lovely. The skulls we saw in a bunch of rags and twigs have been fresher, but it’s otherwise similar enough.

We try to work out what to do with the shaft. Mention is made of the Steinberg, at which point Khalid suddenly remembers he’s DEEP UNDERGROUND and decides to go upstairs for a bit and do stuff with the sand. It’s resolving itself into patterns, but the sheet he’s spreading it out on isn’t big enough. He gets more sheets. The patterns are turning into a map.

Vasco gets some pitch from upstairs. “Priests. Bless them.” Uh, ok. He wants to cremate. Um where’s the smoke going to go? Arcvanin wanders down the passageway to see where the chimney in the kitchen is? Oh, that’ll work. Vasco puts the pitch down and follows it with some armour. Sets fire to a rag, and drops it down. Tongues of fire up out of the shaft. Huge amounts of flame roaring up. No smoke evident - just flame, licking to the top of the vault, roaring like you would not believe. The ground is beginning to shake. Jess starts the ceremony. It’s being resisted. He calls on Arcvanin to help, and Rannon joins in, chanting a church of spires chant (and looking pissed off while doing it). Jess is leaning forward, fighting his way into the wind. The heat is becoming unbearable. Nanda helps Vasco turf stuff down, which brings about another roar and shot of flame. Holy cow. We reach the end of the ceremony about the same time Vasco chucks the last barrel in, and the flames go - out.

Up above, the sand has formed itself into the perfect outline of the main island of Tajidar, except it’s piled itself into a small pillar at a point somewhere inland. The roaring noise from downstairs stopped at the moment the last grain settled. He calls us.

To Nanda and Rannon, that pillar isn’t at any special place on the map. Rannon: “It’s very nearly nowhere, up in the mountains.” Nanda: “Is that where you’d put a mythical city of mages?” Rannon: “Where are we going next?” Nanda: “A place inland” Arcoda. “The line between here and Arcoda passes very close to the pillar.” Then there’s a noise almost like a sigh, and the whole thing loses consistency and falls. “I think we’ve just seen the first map to Taelcard.” Nanda takes out her disc. Rannon tells her that to use it, she breaks it, and she’ll be brought straight there. “They use those things to move entire armies with all their equipment, seige engines, the whole lot.”

Khalid fills a pouch with sand, and moves the rest to Essik’s house.