A Thousand Ships

The peasants didn’t notice the dead guy. They didn’t even seem to notice that there was a doorway there.

There’s a lot puzzling about this place, and what happened. One particular, Rannon notices, is that while there are small figures to represent six of us, there’s nothing to represent Rannon. Little charms through which you can be summoned. We each take ours, Nanda minding Nagan’s.

We wander further through the complex. Arcvanin says that it’s more warehouse than anything else. The roof soars up above for three storeys worth, and the place is packed high with bolts of cloth, crates, barrels and ingots of metal. Sacks of grain at the end. There’s another entrance visible where the stacks of ingots begin.

Arcvanin’s head is spinning due to the notion of a militant order of Corus. He’s a farmers’ deity. Entering the next door and climbing stairs, Vasco finds black satin - assassin’s gear. Climbing further, we emerge at the top into a mausoleum, containing eight large tombs. There’s a name on each. The two nearest read “Lord Piotor Greywing” and “Lord Tavit of Breem”. That last name is a nonsense, Strazi lords qualify for surnames one way or another. “Lady Varia Teriem”, “Lord Saral Jin Ikab”. “Lady Arla Pleasance”, “Lord Crevnan Peregrin”. “Lady Constance Peregrin”, “Alacrity.” The back wall has scratch marks as if it were still being dug further back, unlike the other smooth carved walls.

Khalid thinks Alacrity is the name of a horse. Vasco wants to rob some graves. We crack on instead.

At the top is a large square chamber with a bunch of doors leading off, three in each of four walls. The middle in each one gives on to a room fitted out as some sort of dining room, kitchen or (empty) armoury, the others on to passageways. Down one of them turns out to be a statue of Corus holding, bizarrely, a whacking great sword and staring at it with a bemused expression. It’s the only thing remaining in the place that isn’t actually bolted down.

We’ve yet to find another way into or out of this place.

Rannon: “What did the note say?” Take the items and the knowledge here. “What knowledge?” One would have thought a library.

Vasco pokes about a lot and eventually the sword arm of Corus swings down on a joint that wasn’t noticeable before. It’s now pointed straight ahead, perfectly down the centre of the chapel. Khalid starts pushing the statue. He eventually finds a pressue point at the “sweet spot” on the sword. Pushing gently there, the whole statue pivots, revealing a spiral staircase under it going down.

Nanda leads the way. Down two turns leads into an ancient, ancient library. Someone was spending quite a lot of time here - there’s a makeshift bed made of rags, some empty bottles of Taji table wine (some recent, some quite old), and some greaseproof paper. The room is pretty much the same size as the mausoleum - and is probably nearby - full of books, scrolls and maps, all looking ancient and fragile.

Khalid suddenly realises that it’s not clear how the place is lit. Then realises he’s underground. Ahh shit. He decides to swap places with Nagan.

A huge quantity of the books are arguments in Spires theology, but there is some from the court of Rangar, and a few on the court of Jewels, who typically don’t write stuff down. The remaining 40pc are about strategy, tactics and logistics. They’re a peculiar set even at that. Not much in the way of, say, history of past battles - these are all theoretical. “Principles of”, not “History of.”

There are diaries right beside the makeshift bed. Not very illuminating though. Seem to deal with a research project making a distilled volume that would get across the essentials of what’s in here. Seemed to be making decent progress as well. Comes down to “the ultimate manual for the holy warrior”, except assuming the warrior already knows all the stuff about how to actually fight - this is about commanding armies, managing huge number of weapons, people, animals, supplies, how to do it without doing damage to the place you’re in, not doing damage to your supply sources, and in accordance with the theology of the court of spires.

Nothing about how he’s been tracking people like us. Only personality in the diaries is frustrated margin notes about two prominent theoretical tacticians who utterly contradict each other.

Khalid returns to Nagan and the prisoners, still terrified. But something’s niggling at him. Scent of… cloves? Seems to be coming from down in the valley. He heads down the way we came to check it out, and most of the way out he hears a scuffling sound around the corner. He goes around. No one there, but a circle in the sand drawn with a fingertip, and a little cone of incense burning. At the next bend, he hears the sound of an indrawn breath overhead. Looks up - no one there. He closes his eyes and listens. Someone - adult male, dressed in robes - is hovering about two feet above his head. He does a standing jump, grabs him and pulls.

There’s a struggle. The guy is Taji, 20 at the very oldest and trying very hard to get his hands into a spellcasting position. Khalid: “Keep on struggling and I will break both your wrists.” He stops struggling and suddenly flashes to abstracted interest. “I haven’t heard that accent in a long time. Alright. I won’t struggle.” Khalid opens the front of his robes. Nothing else but tattoos.

Khalid: “Who are you?”
Mage: “My name is Horen, and, well, all other names have been disposed of. I was sent to find a group of people who were travelling to Taelcard and got misdirected.”
Khalid: “Who sent you?”
Horen: “The mage king”
Khalid: “Why the invisibility?”
Horen: “Because I did not know who you were. I did not have any description for the people who were coming in. Indeed we were not aware of anyone having been given a travel disc. The assumption was that there were some invaders who had captured one, but I cannot see you being a part of an invading army of Elbenstraz.”
Khalid: “one of your princes gave us one”
Horen; “Do yo know which it was? because three are missing.”
Description.
Horen: “It is not Ata, but it could be either of the others.”
Khalid: “We know where Ata is.” Khalid relaxes his grip, stands and gives the mage his hand. “I am Khalid Girak.”
Horen: “I thought so. Or at least, I thought you would have that sort of name. You’re not from the isles.”
Khalid: “No. From the desert. Please. The rest of the people for whom you are looking are this way.”
Horen: “I’m glad to hear they are still alive. Lead on.”

Nagan falls to a very careful crouch as they approach.
Nagan: “Who is this?”
Khalid: “He is a mage come to look for us.”
The three guys are now backed even further against the wall.
Horen tilts his head slightly. “I see you travel with unusual companions.”
Khalid: “Yes, although I am fairly certain some of them think I am the unsual one.”
Horen: “What is this place?”
Khalid: “This is a cave near to the important place. a short distance up the river there is a very strange temple built, I am told, to a god of Hearth and Home, yet built as a barracks and a fortress for war.”
Horen: “I see”
Khalid: “The last holy man there summoned us, breaking our trip to your city.”
Horen: “Is this, then, the courtroom of the order of Corus?”
Khalid: “That I believe is the name, yes”
Horen: “That is nothiong short of fascinatin and infinitely infuriating. However. Let us go in then. Do you know the words for the river?”
Khalid: “The words for the river? It’s a short climb.”
He dips his hand into the water, mutters something in - sounds like taji - removes his hand quickly and the river turns to ice.

Khalid goes on a large internal rant about unnatural things like frozen water while keeping his composure for the mage prince.

Khalid: “Nagan, I feel sure that these three gentlemen can probably quite safely go home. They are no threat to anyone.”
Horen: “Go hone. Say nothing of what you have seen. Be prosperous and healthy.”
They get up and walk straight out. He then leads Khalid and Nagan up the river. Nagan stomps up the ice - “it’s like home.”

He stops at the body on the floor. Khalid: “The holy man who brought us here. I feel sure the other holy men we’re with will bury him at some point.” Horen: “There should be examples of how he should be buried here somewhere.”

He wanders around to the door beside the ingots as though he knew where it was and continues up. Khalid: “You look like you’ve been there before.” Horen: “I have seen the floorplans in Taelcard. It is warded in ways we did not believe possible against detection and intrusion. The order of Corus have been known to us for a long time, allies of a sort, and we had long requested that they tell us where their headquarters was, but for a very long time - forever by the looks of things - they did not tell us. To find it is here in the centre of our own territory is annoying but unsurprising.”
K: “How far are we from Taelcard?”
H: “Four or five days as the crow flies. Rough terrain, you probably could not cross it in that time, but it is well within the range of our spells.”
Khalid asks Nagan for some reassurance that the place won’t fall on his head.
K: “If you’ve seen the floorplans, you know where the library is.”
H: “That would be below the statue. One of you I think should go first. If I wander in there unannounced and unheralded, it will not I think be well received.”

Vasco is looking for a map to find a way home when Khalid enters with Horen and Nagan. Horen bows. K: “This is Horen. He is here from Taelcard.” Horen: “My apologies for the delay.It took a while to establish where yop were, and now I understand that.” He asks our names. He gets first names.

Nanda: “I had hoped that you might be aware of what happened.”
H: “We were aware and had a fix on where you were and were preparing to come and get you when your — when the sense of you disappeared. This place is warded, guarded and enspelled like few other places in the world, and while you are here you can not be found by our spells. SO I had to follow the memory of the trace rather than the trace itself to find you and explore from there. I was in the midst of a divination spell when Khalid found me. But, all that aside, and while I am grateful to have found this palce, I am a little puzzled as to why you are here.”
Nanda: “It appears that the final guardian of the place brought us here for some reason to receive the knowledge and items, as he put it.”
H: “Do you have a use for them? I see that two of you are priests but neither of the order, no?”
K: “He was, presumably, acting on behalf of the prophesy as we all are.”
N: “We were speculating that he has been tracking us for a while, but we don’t know why.”
K: “And he did not have the power to bring us here, but had the power to interrupt when we were travelling through magical means.”
Nanda shows him the little statuettes that we think were used to summon us.
H: “He must indeed have been tracking you by some means. The casting room should be in here.” He heads for a blank spot on the wall, puts a hand on the wall, says “In the name of the herald Corus”, and there’s a door there. Proper door, not doorway like everywhere else in the place. He opens the two knobs and pushes.

The room is an utter mess. It was set out as some kind of laboratory in the past, but all of it looks charred, half melted, damaged beyond retrieval. The stone floor is pitted with burn marks in a few places. Horen: “That is not what I was expecting ot see.”
N: “The priest indicated he had died of the after effects of the spell he had cast.”
Jess hands him the note.

Horen: “My knowledge of the magic of the church of spires is not all that it might be, but the use of your own life force would be unusual?”
Jess: “I’d never heard of it.”
Horen: “let me see if I can find out what happened here then. If you will stand reasonably close to the door all of you, we will see what happened here by means of a spell.” He asks us all to watch carefully to pick up what details we can.

Inside is a fitted laboratory, looks wizardly. Reminds Vasco of the workshops that the Strazi wizards work in to make magical weapons and armour for the troops. Not as factory floorish, but that direction. The old man is wandering around in there, poking at bubbling vials, a small fireplace making sure it’s still burning, and then he picks up something, hard to see from here what it is, and drops it into a vial. It bubbles up and there’s a gout of blue green flame - looks familiar - then the whole thing goes dark for a second. When it clears, it’s into flame and smoke, him staggering away from the vial, and slowly appearing two things. Not human, not anything like human, do have two arms and two legs but are grotesque and distorted. One of them reaches for him, he falls over backward choking. The other sweeps one hand through the remaining undamaged equipment, bursting glass and melting metal as it does so. Then the scene is gone.

H: “This happened some time ago, maybe ten, twelve days ago? But I can make absolutely no sense of it.”

That blue green flame is what you get when you burn a pendant of the church of shafts.

Vasco’s checking out the place the guy was standing when it all went wrong. He finds, with some scraping, a pendant of the church of shafts. It’s very hot. “I found what he dropped into the vial. Does anyone have a pair of tongs?” Nagan does. Vasco shows it to the mage, at Nanda’s request, and the mage utters an obscenity in Taji. Nanda: “That needs to be destroyed before they hear anything of what we’re saying.” Horen: “Yes.” He holds out his hand and a flame appears. Vasco gives him the symbol, and it destroys itself in Horen’s clenched fist.

Horen: “He didn’t give you a name. Your companion here said you had met Ata. Three of the princes are out of contact with us. This has happened before but never for as long, and neither Nahesh or Gaher are inclined to stay out of contact for long.” We assumed he’d returned. “Each of us goes about our own business, so we do not always know where the others are and what they’re doing. But we have not seen those three for some time,and I knew to come look for you because the use of one of the travel discs is immediately apparent, and all the more so when it is diverted.”

We explain that Ata was unconscious when the thing fell on Kalmadiz. Vasco tells him that Khalmadiz isn’t occupied. “Yes, we have been looking at it with some considerable puzzlement.” Vasco accuses Khalid of being a magic user, Khalid objects, Horen says “he taps elemental forces, if you prefer.”

Horen: “What is your connection to each other? Why were you travelling together to Taelcard?”
Khalid: “Prophesy”
H: “What is this prophesy?”
K: “A prophesy which I am following which brought me to these people, and which I am following to end this war, and destroy the church of shafts. Destroying the church will either bring about or greatly aid the end of the war. It is the church of shafts who are continuing to incite the hatred and distrust. No one it seems wants this war and yet it is being fought.”
H: “We did not even know that they were active again. We did not know that they had survived.”
K: “it would seem most people consider them a tale to frighten children.”
N: “they had performed some sacrifices on our island, and form what we heard elsewhere.”
H: “Is there more that you need to do here now?”
V: “Something btu not too long”
H: “If you’ll go about doing it then, I will bring you from here to Taelcard and you can discuss with me and some of the others there what you would do next.”
V: “How much can you bring?”
H: “There is a limit, but unless you have a city with you I don’t think you can meet it.”
Vasco grabs eighteen yards of the satin.

Nanda discreetly hands Horen something but we’re all chatting about rubbish so miss it. “They should at least be preserved but I think with it finished you could change the course of history on these isles as much as Alessa did.”

Vasco mutters wanting to know what Alacarity is. Horen: “Alacrity? Is here?” Yep, and a whole bunch of wrong names. “In that case if you do not mind I shall go see those tombs.” He walks through the mausoleum, laying a hand on each tomb, and stops when we comes to Alacrity. “It is a sword, and it is very very dangerous in the wrong hands. It is a weapon known only to us by a few mentions in a few places. It has been wielded by men of the order - well, I suppose sometimes of the order of Corus but of the church of spires in general, who have skill in arms. At this time I would think that only perhaps the Ethark Oakenshield could safely wield it.” Nanda: “We don’t know where he is, if he’s alive or dead.” “I see. It is a sword which will destroy its wielder unless they have particular qualities that match it. Oakenshield might have those qualities, some of the men and women in history who used it had those qualities, others tried to and died.” Vasco: “The ladies and gents laid out before us?” “No, I’m not familiar with all the names, but I don’t think they would have been wielders of the sword.”

What are the qualities? “Priestliness, honesty, and a martial bearing? I approximate, I don’t know. This weapon is not well known to us. It is mentioned in a few places, has been kept by the church of spires for a long time and has not been made known to the larger nations at all because it is so powerful. Given that this is not a tomb, do you of the church of spires think that it would be meet to open it? I would like to check that it is still there.” Hmm. Probably alright.

He waves a hand over it, and opens up. Lying in there is a single, very very ordinary looking longsword. Horen leans on the edge of the tomb and stares down at it. “And the question is how do we tell if that is it or not?” Nanda: “Why should we have to? Does this sword tempt people into picking it up?” “Only by its reputation.” Vasco tries to lean in, but Khalid grabs him. Vasco wants someone to flick it to hear the quality of the metal. There’s an argument. The prince leans in and flicks it. Now Vasco wants the sword. He presents his other wrist to Khalid. The mage prince waves a hand and the tomb lid replaces itself.

We leave. He gestures, and we go from standing at the door of the mausoleum to the top of a wide, high tower, looking down on other towers all around us, under bright starlight in the middle of the desert, with mountains all around us, and two mention standing at either ends of the tower, watching us carefully. Some books that Nanda asked to bring are with her.

We’re brought down. Not all the windows we pass by show the city outside. The ones that show empty desert are fine. The ones that show mountains with no city, not so bad, the ones that show forest and jungle and mountains and bits of Elbenstraz that Vasco recognises, they’re a bit worrying. We’re brought pass various open rooms, one with a parrot in a cage, to a comfortable room with food and drink. Horen goes to find some people to talk with us, and says others might come in depending on what we discuss. Once we’ve talked for a while, he’ll move us on to whatever place or places we need to be.

We’re there for a couple of hours, and Horen returns with an elderly woman old enough that our initial thoughts are “is she going to die?” and a man who looks to be in his mid-40s, both very Taji. “This is Zehanna and Ahabad. Both have a few questions they’d like to ask you.”

Zehanna’s voice doesn’t sound old.

Z: “So, you were in the headquarters of the order of Corus but you had no previous connection to them? But you were doing something against the church of shafts though. Do you have any information on how powerful they are and more particularly how many they are?”
Nanda: “We met some time ago an elf who had some information on them.”
Khalid: “And he lessened their numbers, but we have no information on how many they are. We know they have the ability to influence at least one government if not too.”
Z: “That is the thing. we don’t know how they’re doing it. The old Church of Shafts did indeed seek to continue the last war. They saw it as some virtue in and of itself. They spoke sometimes of the glories of war. But the essence of them was unsubtle. They used their ceremonies and they used their nature to frighten people into doing things, into telling them things, into prolonging the war in small and overall we think ineffective ways.”
Nanda: “That’s not their ultimate aim in this one. They have an ultimate aim which the two spiral priests calculated form the evidence the elf told us.”
Z: “And what is that aim?”
Jess; “To bring the blood war to the isles.”
There’s silence, and all three mages go a little bit pale.
Z: “I see. This is not in any doubt?”
J: “Those on the pilgrimage we reverse calculated have been stopped.”
Z: “To say that makes no sense in the face of something like that is words in the wind. But why would they seek - if they do not succeed, anyone sane who finds out will destroy them, and if they do succeed they will be destroyed anyway, as will we all. I know that the pilgrimages of the church of spires have power, but surely such a thing cannot divert the whole structure of the planes to bring such a war here. Surely there would need to be something here for the fiends to fight over?”
Khalid: “From what little I understand of this, there are evil beings of great power who the church of shafts are trying to bring here. These evil brings of great power, is it not easy to conceive that they have lied and promised great power and honour and glory to those who would bring them here.”
Z: “it is possible to conceive that, and that they are the same organisation, but should they simply wish to bring such fiends here there are simpler ways to go about it. It is possible for any mage of even a little capability to find simple spells that will bring in powerful fiends that they cannot control. The fiends spread such things about. This is something different.”
Jess speculates that pilgrimages only work at the isles, and a fiend wants to bring the war here, and thence to win it.
Khalid says it doesn’t matter why the fiends believe that bringing the blood war here is important, but Z wonders why fiends would be needed in the situation at all.

Z reads the diaries that Nanda brought with her. “I don’t understand the theology in there, but it’s clear he was working out a manual for the militant order. But they don’t exist anymore. Lady Constance was the last, and she held Alacrity, we guess.” It seems destined for Oakenshield.

Khalid: “Oakenshield is missing. Anastatsia is probably findable.” Z: “That, at least, we can do easily for you.” K: “I more feel she and her troops are going to be vitally imoprtant to what we are theoretically planining on doing.” Z: “:Which is?” K: “I think, at some point in this, pilgrimage aside, we are going ot need an armed force. We are possibly going to need an armed force who are willing to take up arms against their countrymen.” Vasco: “But not for the price.” K: “Or for the price of knowing the are doing the right thing.” Vasco: “See, I was convinced I was doing the right thing for my country.” K: “That is the terror and horror of these kinds of governments and kingdoms, of persuading those who work for them that they should blindly follow their commands. That is largely what has got these islands into the mess that they are now in.” Z: “Except that neither of the governments of the nations of the islands are warlike. They are sending people out because they are being attacked, but neither side, as best we understand it, is doing the attacking.” K: “The same people who are doing deals with the disloyal dwarves, who have taken technology from the Steinbergs…” Z: “…disloyal dwarves?” K: “Your city, Kalmadiz, was taken with technology of dwarven engineering, taken from a Steinberg, either made by a disloyal dwarf or possibly by an exceptionally skilled human. The device which sits in the middle of Kalmadiz is, well, I’m not sure if it is a dwarven design, but it involves gears and wheels, and kills those who touch it, and makes a sound that sends men mad. You can enter it, it is just extremely unpleasant.”

Z: “the most strong willed among us have attempted to enter Kalmadiz” - she glances to Ahabad who grins slightly - “and have concluded that it is not possible at least for them. Your entry with no lasting harm is therefore of interest. There are a great many mysteries here and none of this is making a great deal of sense but - you have places you must be?”
N: “We had thought that we would find answers here, it seemed liek a plcae we would have to come to.”
Z: “I wish that we had answers for you.”
V: “Is this area on the map that you made?”
K: “Do you happen to have a map of this island?”
Um, they don’t want to show us.
K: “I produced a map by pouring sand, guided by the prophesy that brought us together, brought us here, and introduced us to Oakenshield, Anastatsia, all of the people we have encountered. That map had a column in the middle of this island appear, the obvious landmark. Whether that was the fortress of the herald Corus, or this city, or some other location which was important, I do not know.”
Z: “Very well. I will show you a map. If you will indicate where on it this marker was, we will see what is there.”
She steps around, pulls her hands apart and a map appears. He points at the appropriate place. She closes it, and shakes her head. “There is nothing there. You pointed at a place which is notorious for its nothingness.”
Khalid asks nicely about going there in a hurry.
Z: “It is not inaccessible, it is simply empty. It is an opening in the mountains that were it at a coast would be a large bay. It is nothing but flat, empty desert, much more so than places called deserts in these islands. It would be more familiar to you.”

Nanda’s looking around. The dynamic in the room is odd. Zehanna is doing all the talking, the other two are standing back, but there’s something in the body language going on that makes her think that Ahabad is very, very much in charge. Ahh, your majesty.

Z: “Very well then. Horen will be at your disposal until such time as you return to your pilgrimage route. He will take you to whatever places you need to go to, including that place that we call empty if you so wish, and when he has returned you to your pilgrimage route he will give you a token that should, in theory, let you through any military blockade in Tajidar, assuming you survive long enough to pass it. It is not magical, it is only a token. It will identify your party as it currently stands. I will give you another disc so you can contact us again.”

We ask about getting our ship moved to our next pilgrimage station. Jess asks Arkvanin if that’s kosher. Strictly no, but he’s starting to think that this is part of the route.

Nanda gets the disc, handed to her by Ahabad. Vasco asks to leave his 18 yards of nicked satin behind and pick it up later. Ahabad: “Certainly. Will you have it made into something?” “Work clothes.” “What kind of work clothes?” “I repair situations. I’m a trouble stabber. I’ll either get this lot into more trouble than taking them out of it.” “I understand what you mean. I will make you clothes that will allow you to move absolutely silently when you have need.” Nanda gets some too.

Horen takes us to the spot on Khalid’s map. Sand. Khalid visibly relaxes.

We all trundle away and let Khalid get his voodoo working. He meditates. He rolls a six, and spends an aspect to make it eight. There is about this place a great peaceable feeling. It’s not necessarily that there is any great use for this place in the present, but it has a great deal of stored energy, of potential, and it is a place where things end. It’s a place where things have ended before, and a place where, if you were to try and dig deep enough, you might find the remnants of things that have ended before.

He stays a little longer before going back to muddy, watery places of stone.

Horen: “Did you find anything out?”
Khalid: “Yes. This is a strange place. Things have ended here before, and will again I feel. This is not a destination for now, it is a destination for later. We will be back here.”

We return to Taelcard.
Horen: “It would perhaps be useful for you to get a good night’s sleep before you go on. You have the freedom of the place if you wish to wander about. Anything you’re not supposed to see you won’t, so don’t worry about that, and if you wish to find me I will be in the rooms a floor down from here. I will leave you for the night then. Food will be brought here at regular intervals, and if you get completely lost, find someone and ask them the way back.”