A Thousand Ships

Next day. We’re debating whether to use the mage prince’s disc to Taelcard, and whether that might help their cause.

Magical travel won’t work for pilgrimage, so probably best not to ask to be sent to our next pilgrimage station. In that case, we should leave the ship here and expect to return here. While at Taelcard, we can ask about the place on the map identified by Khalid’s prophesy.

Essik gets us some supplies and properly changed currency, and warns us not to hand over gold or platinum unless specifically asked, even if the price is over a gold. Vasco brushes up on how much various commodities and essentials cost.

Nanda breaks the disc. There’s a rush of air, a blur of motion and colours around us, and then a sudden turn, a sharp angling away from where we were going. The movement continues, and then comes to a halt. There’s still sand rushing about us. We’ve been dropped right into a sandstorm.

Khalid’s now in charge. He sorts out fashioning the bags into a makeshift shelter. Rannon looks almost pleased. After half an hour the storm dies away, and we’re in a valley with two towering rock faces. Northward is more mountains, southward, a long way below, is lowlands.

This is not a natural place for a sandstorm to happen. We’re somewhere, it looks like, along the Tajidar mountains, the big ones that run down the spine of the island. Nagan pulls a sand lizard from the ground. Nanda identifies it as something southern rather than northern, at least. We make our way to the base of the near rock face, on the eastern side and we look for somewhere to climb up so we can get a viewpoint. Nanda eventually recognises a double peak she’s seen pictures of in the past, which puts us around half way between the pillar and Arcoda, a little way off the line between the two.

So we know where we are. Why are we here? Vasco wonders whether the discs are attuned to somebody or somewhere. He’s also discovered a network of caves here, and suggests we move up toward the mountain before we bed down for the evening. Khalid agrees - make a decision on which way to go tomorrow.

In the meantime, Vasco and Khalid go to check out the caves. It’s a squeeze but they make it to what is very evidently an artificial quay, with a river running right through the cleft, from a hole on one side to a hole on the other. Not dwarven. The river’s running at a distinct angle that causes the water to run quickly. Little enough visible sign of recent use, but the wind here is strong enough that evidence could have been erased. The water is snow-melt cold.

Back where we’re camped, Nanda finds a piece of paper in the sand, a mostly intact page. It has bits from a prayerbook of the church of spires, written in Strazi. Guess it’s been here somewhere between a month and a year. She digs for more, and finds some bits of leather straps that might once have been the binding of a book, but no more paper.

She calls Jess and Arcvanin. Arcvanin: “We have to be miles and miles and miles from the nearest outpost of the church of spires. You don’t get them in the south. The place we’re going to is not even a church site, just a place where one of the heralds is supposed to have disappeared from. These are the blessings near the end of the standard service that are invoked on whoever’s there. They’re eight days from the early part of the year, so the first three to do with planting and the others to do with travel and fishing.”

Jess wonders if it belongs to another pilgrim. Arcvanin doesn’t think so - best we can tell, we’re not on the route from anywhere to anywhere.

In the caves, Vasco plunges his arm into the river to find the bed. He finds nothing for the length of his arm except his own hand, shivering, red and numb from the cold.

Just as they decide to turn back, there’s a rumble from further up the watercourse. A thump, and something - perhaps a barrel - goes past. It’s gone before they can even properly see it. They give up and return to the group.

“What,” Rannon says to Vasco, “did you do to your arm?” and fixes it. They tell us about the canal that they found. It seems to Vasco that it runs 90 degrees to where one would expect it to flow naturally. Nanda explains about the prayerbook page she found.

Khalid goes sign-hunting. He finds a secluded spot, plants his sword in the ground, and does some mystic nomad shite. The sword falls over, such that the curved side of the blade is upward, which is not a way it can fall naturally, and it points pretty much directly north, into the mountains but well away from the direction that the pillar was on the map.

Meantime, Jess is casting Divination and asking whether heading westward, toward the pillars, will help our cause. Vasco mooches around and finds a piece of paper, and Khalid. Insults are exchanged. “Sand eating dune riding camel hunting cock!” It’s another ripped out page from a prayerbook, but a different one, still in Strazi. It’s also in slightly better order. This one’s from the much smaller prayerbook that would be used by a military chaplain. On this page is the very short and disapproving marriage service. Vasco strolls back into camp and attempts to marry Nanda to Khalid. Nanda: “Is there any possible reason Oakenshield was here, and ripped up his books?” Arcvanin: “It’s possible he could be anywhere, but I suspect he has that book memorised.” Nanda reckons the page has still been here around a month at least, but on the lower end of the year scale.

Khalid: “You’ll be happy to hear I have a direction in mind. This involves crossing a span of very fast moving very cold water that falling into will almost certainly lead to your death.”

Arcvanin: “I don’t have a copy of this one, and I don’t have it memorised, but the wording on this is very old fashioned. This book was revised at the end of the last war, and this appears to be the older version, possibly even a previous older version, not the current one.” Nanda: “Is there an enclave of priests from the church of spires in the caves?”

For a moment, Khalid smells smoke from a different fire. He damps our fire with sand. The smoke is coming from the direction of the cleft. Khalid and Vasco head back toward the cleft, Nagan resignedly following. There’s smoke coming out of the cleft. There’s a campfire, and one guy roasting meat. They back away so they can speak. There’s a shout, in solid rural Taji, “is that fucking food ready yet?” Another voice: “Nearly.”

Vasco returns to tell us what’s going on, and Nanda joins him. The priests wait at camp. Rannon nudges Jessen and points up. There’s a bird flying downward in slow spirals. It comes to a halt ten feet away from us and hops over. It’s a crow. Very ordinary looking. Peers at us. Hops over to the food bowl. Rannon stares at it. It pecks out a piece of meat, eats it, hops over to us, tilts its head to one side and says, in isles, “the elf has succeeded.” It hops back to the pot, helps itself to more meat, looks around and flies up and away again.

The guys in the cave listen to the convo. Voice #2 is growling about the amount of time it’s taking to cook the foot. Cook is complaining that ye cannae change the laws of physics. Voice #3 is trying to calm them down, we have all night, and asking why the hell they’re doing this at night. Voice #2 says it’s because they want to keep it quiet and secret, and night is good for that kind of thing. At this point food seems to be served. Eventually…

Cook: “Right, are we going in?”
Voice #2: “Yes, we’re going in, get ropes, get going.”

Nagan peeks. “They have ropes strung up along the river tunnel and are going up them, hand over hand. Their feet may be dragging in the water although I doubt it, the arch looked high enough that they could get up clear of it. The rope is tied to the same rings as the netting on this end. I can’t see from here what else they’re tied to.” Vasco reckons they’re thieves, the two nets are for slowing down and stopping whatever they throw down. Nagan says it won’t stand up to being in the water very long, it’s assembled from scraps. Something comes hurtling down in the water, catches in the first net, is turned around by it and is caught gently by the second. It’s a cask, which Vasco pulls from the water. Markings in Strazi, the traditional indicators of property of the church of spires. It’s light but not empty, something inside it shifts about but doesn’t slosh.

Khalid jumps over and pulls a rope so the others can cross. Vasco follows the cleft through the far side and emerges into a valley. Maybe four miles away, lights are visible. He returns to the river. “There’s a village back there.” Another barrel comes hurtling down, slows in the first net, catches in the second. Vasco helps them out. This barrel has liquid in it. It’s followed by a crate, then two crates in a row, then a larger barrel which might have oiled weaponry in it, then finally one more of the same. Vasco’s unloaded the lot. Now the rope is twitching. They fade back into the shadows, except Nagan who does a jedi mind trick thing to hide. One arrives out onto the side, lands, coughs quite a bit, spits and starts digging into his robes for a pipe. He’s within arms reach of Nagan. The other two appear one after the other. The last one notices the stacked barrels. Vasco pushes him into the river so he’s caught in the net. The other two produce their swords, which Nagan calmly removes from them and crumples them.

Khalid, in Taji: “My overly violent friend is acting unnecessarily. Can we be of any assistance to you.” Nanda, in Taji: “One at a time. This guy is about to catch his death unless we do something about that.” He’s heading over to the fire and removing his wet clothes. Nanda helps him out. Khalid: “Please, sit down.” Vasco grumpily goes to collect the priests.

Nanda: “What’s your name?”
He’s incoherent.

Khalid: “My friends. What are you doing here?”
Cook: “My gracious lord we found the place here when we were looking for a few sheep that had gone missing, and after some more exploration up along the made river we found the storage of goods there and finding that some of them were valuable we thought to benefit our families and village by bringing these things down and providing them to merchants who will pass through…”
Nanda: “What kind of stuff did you find there?”
Cook: “There are stores of robes of strange cuts and so forth, and stores of wine and spirits in casks, and books in boxes and larger barrels that contain mail and swords of the strazi kind packed in oil, and there are other boxes of chalk and candles and other such things.”
Khalid: “How long have you been doing this?”
Cook: “This is our first time trying to bring things out in any number.”
Nanda: “When did you find it?”
Cook: “A month ago, perhaps a little more?”

Nanda to the shivering guy: “How are you doing there?” He has hypothermia.

Rannon, Jess and Arcvanin return with grumpy Vasco. Rannon sorts out the hypothermic. Jess casts detect magic. The three guys don’t flinch, and don’t seem to be carrying anything magical. The big barrels and one of casks (that does not go slosh) have magical contents, and the place upriver glows strongly.

Exploring up the rope, there’s another jetty with piled barrels, crates and stuff, all of which have been shuffled around, and a doorway at the end which has not apparently been touched at all. The glow is coming through the doorway, where there are neatly stacked, untouched boxes. Khalid walks through the doorway into a small chamber on which there is a dead man on the floor, very old and dressed in the robes of a priest of the church of spires. Beyond him is a set of chalk circles and diagrams drawn on the floor, and in the middle a scattering of small objects.

The small objects are a miniature curved sword, a miniature book with a sword on the cover, a couple more very tiny miniature books, and a miniature stone hammer. There’s a also a very miniature sword with a crown etched on the hilt.

The old man has a piece of paper crumpled in his hand, and beyond here is what looks like a warehouse. Jess picks up the piece of paper. It’s a scrawled note. IN strazi: “I do not know if I will survive the after effects of this spell, but you are our best chance against the shafts. Take the items and the knowledge here - this is a chapter house of the militant order of the herald Corus. I apologise for the intrusive method of bringing you here, but”

It’s only two thirds of the way down the page.