Session 48: The Cobalt Sea Report
General Summary
4 AM 22nd of Deep Winter. It's cold, very cold; precipitation is freezing rain with the occasional ice pellets and snow, and without the sun it can reach -10 degrees farenheit. It's also extremely dark, with no light beyond the occasional lighthouse breaking through the precipitation and the dim lights of other ships and towns; it's far too cloudy & ringshadowed to make out the moon, much less the stars.
Everyone is tired as well, but with such a small crew all but Bubbles and Riptide (who must remain below decks in water with blankets) have to work on the deck to keep the ship going. The splash of sea and freezing rain soaks through thick clothes, necessitating regular change.
In the night, Seklyn asks Mystan how he deals with fear, and Mystan explains that his training and history of battle makes fear part of his day to day, it's something he just... knows to push through. Selina is not used to that, and is deeply worried. She normally tries to understand those feelings, and then let them go - like a leaf on a river. But now, it's much harder. She fidgets mindlessly with his sending stone, and shakes her head. To deal with the light and try to feel better, Selina's ever-burning lantern is at her hip.
While sunrise brings some light (dim light, lightly obscured), there isn't much to see. By then they have already passed Seaton and, come next 3 AM, will have reached the estuaries. Here there is much less large ice, as the abundance of rivers churns the water up enough. In the distance can be faintly seen the glistening light of Crystal Mountain, a high snow-capped peak that reflects light all about as if topped with crystals. Legend says a dragon lives there, but it is too cloudy to see the mountain - just brilliant streams of light in the cloud-breaks. Ships here are slightly more common, ranging from imperial trading vessels to Jan Pana canoes. The shores are blue and white forests of pines.
Day passes to night and day again, as the party rests in shifts.
The 23rd sees the ship double back to travel westerly where the mountains protect them from strong winds. They pass the mysterious Mistlands, whose rolling fog betrays subtle movements and masks silhouettes. Everyone resists its pull but Seklyn, who sees a part in the fog 150 feet away with their family on the shore beyond. She requests Captain Losoya to turn the ship, but she refuses. He almost makes for the shore, but Virion stops Selina, and she comes to her senses, realizing that the mists nearly tricked her. She shakes her hands, and sits down. He casts Sending to her wife "I love you. I'm not doing so great." "I love you too. I'm sorry you aren't doing well. Remember that you are stronger than you know."
They travel along colonized keoish coastlines with olympic-mountain esq peaks to their port, eventually rounding the tip to The Styes, a stinking alchemical mess of a city. They may anchor there for the night or continue past Landgrave's Folly, for here the snow is black with soot and the ice is dirtied with pollutants. The gems will be needed to cut through thin sea ice now.
Under smoke-bent gables, palsied carcasses of houses lean against each other — languid, broken, awaiting the peace of collapse, Door frames sag, dislocated from sod walls heavy with mildew, and hemorrhaged timbers hang like broken limbs from rotting boardwalks into the thick, rancid waters of the harbor below. In many places, sections of the boardwalks have fallen away completely, leaving gaping holes that expose polluted waters. This is the Styes, a motley and decayed ... once-important port city- Dungeon Magazine #121
The Styes is located at the mouth of the Kasilœ River. Given the river's mouth is actually within a fjord, the banks are tall cliffs. Combined with the legality of land ownership, the city was built on the river via platforms, piers, and man-made islands. During Rinshadow, the river's water level drops signifcantly as the glaciers atop the peninsular mountains grow. With the receding of the shadow, the glaciers melt and the river floods.
Selina asks, "What is this place?" And Virion can only respond "Hells if I know."
Past the town is a strange landmark, barely visibile in the night save for a terrible lantern, is the steeple of church of procan, frozen with ice. Nobody knows what it is, save Virion, who vaguely knows that it is known as "Landgrave's Folly", which was a church built by Councilman Landgrave like 130 years ago. He wanted to dig a hole on an islet and made a church by it, but the whole thing sank. It was all-around a strange endeavour.
Virion and Selina continue talking, the latter confiding his terror and worry for her children and wife. Virion's attitude is... well... that he's already dead. Seklyn is confused, and he explains; the moment he leaves on a quest, he is no longer the person he was in town. If he dies, he already left. If he lives, then he gets to go home and continue living. She supposes that if she does die, at least it will be surrounded by people she at least... prefers to be around than alone in his last moments.
The night passes once more to the 24th of Deep Winter, and the ship navigates through unfavorable winds around the peninsula and through ice, until they breach past the Ringshadow line. The precipitation has let up here, and there is a subtle shift as the World's Arch obscures less and less of the sun, it's radiance spilling out onto orange-tinted waters. As they round the peninsula and reach the Snout of Omgar, the foliage turns from blue to green to orange. The snout has an outpost named Ahoyhoy, at which a massive warship has anchored, named "The Grand Shanty".
While everyone - especially Bubbles - would like to hurry up and sail, the haste to leave meant that the group desparately needs to restock on supplies. As such, they dock at Ahoyhoy. Bubbles goes to swim in the warmer waters, while Selina and Mystan go with Captain Losoya to barter for supplies in the market, trading some of the barrels of ale and bottles of fine wine for food, ropes, etc. etc.
This walled area contains the trappings of a market. The ground is covered with sand, upon which rest woven mats, wooden stalls, and display tables. A stone sundial stands in the middle of the market, and stairs lead up to wooden ramparts that line the southern wall
They speak with some tortles and trade two bottles of fine wine and a barrel of ale for all the food, supplies, and other miscelany they need. A trader named Sunny, a red-eared slider tortle, who hooks them up with salted meats, biscuts, and citrus fruits to stave off scurvy. Sunny is a good tortle.
Bubbles is swimming and talks with some tortle fisherpeople, and they then joins them fishing. They talk about the urgency of their quest, but the tortles advise them to slow down and join them for a fish dinner. Bubbles then talks about how crazy the surface world, and ends up sharing the story of the Tower of Zenopus...
Bubbles agrees to join them for dinner to tell their stories.
Virion then steps onto the Grand Shanty and meets Sharkbite Sam at the bar, and they chat a bit about the ship and the history. Virion realizes this is the legendary Pig's Whistle, the once-infamous ship of Captain Ironguts, who was killed at the end of the Cobalt Reconquista by Bloody Gracie, his second-in-command who led a mutiny. This allowed Keoish privateer Commander Artimesia Faulistus to catch the ship. She lost her legs in the battle and retired afterwards, turning the Pig's Whistle into the Grand Shanty.
As Ringers the teifling bard begins playing her lute (and her many earrings jangle), ghosts begin to mill about the ship and light hooded lanterns. Bubbles is looking to trade their fish for weapons, and finds 14 Rime's Binding Arrows to trade for. Selina heads to the Grand Shanty to make sure Virion isn't screwing about. Virion is sipping his drink up on the poop deck near the commander. As Bubbles heads to eat dinner with the Tortles, Mystan returns to the Sea Ghost with Captain Losoya - the rest of the crew is dispersed in Ahoyhoy and the Grand Shanty.
Mystan casts Sending to Talon Delmeriv, asking for an update.
Delmeriv answers. And we end the session there - his answer is a matter for Session 49.
