Date in Real Life: Sunday, 20 November, 2022
In Game Day: Afternoon of Shalosh, the 14thof Sawol
Brigitte Hansen, the Quartermaster from the Salt Dog, read off from her list. “2 crates of dragon propaganda, 1 crate of dragon statues, 4 cords of rough cut black spruce from the Black Forest, 6 barrels of wine, 10 barrels of seed, and 5 crates of spoiled food.” Brigitte set the list down on Francessca’s desk.
“Thank you Brigitte. You can head back to the Salt Dog, now,” the 13 year old captain dismissed the borrowed quarter master.
Brigitte inclined her head to Francessca respectfully, nodded to the Lightraiders and Julia, the first mate, then left the cabin.
Francessca drummed her fingers on the table top. “That black spruce is probably the most valuable cargo we have,” she murmured. “We usually sell that sort of thing in Hoyde, since that’s where the shipyards are.”
“Were,” William corrected. “The dragon torched Hoyde’s docks, ships and ship yards.”
“Thus making demand for this black spruce all the higher,” Francessca said. “But we agreed to sail for CremCremCare. Maybe we can sell the seed there, and then continue on to Hoyde after that. In the meantime, dump the spoiled food in the river, along with that dragon propaganda and dragon statues. In the past we could have probably made good money on those statues, but it doesn’t feel right, now that I serve the Overlord.”
“Aye, Captain,” Julia said, moving to the door.
“He will bless you for this,” Edward reassured her.
“Wait,” Starflower said. “Before we dump the statues, I want to take a look at them.”
“Go ahead,” Francessca said.
Starflower waited for the crate of statues to be hauled to the deck. The propaganda was uninteresting. “How to be a fisher of men. Step 1: get a net.” Nonsense. At last the statues came up. She pried open the lid and peered inside. Sure enough, the crate was full of little statues. She picked one up to examine it. Dark green, with red tips on its wings. “Firedrake,” she murmured. She looked into the crate again and saw that all of the statues were of Firedrakes.
Hector was at her side. “Did you say Firedrake?” he asked.
“Yes, these are Firedrake statues,” Starflower mumbled. “It might mean the local dragon is a Firedrake.”
“Maybe,” Hector agreed. “Or there might be other ships carrying other crates with other sorts of dragons represented.”
Philip inserted himself into the conversation, “I don’t think so, everyone around here seems surprised when we ask what kind of dragon the dragon is. As if the local dragon is the only one they know, and they don’t know there’s other kinds. So, I think Firedrake is all they know. The dragons would be silly to introduce other statues into the area if that’s what the people believe.”
“Good point,” Hector said. He held up his war hammer. “So, shall we smash them?”
Starflower smiled. “You boys go ahead.”
The afternoon passed peacefully as they sailed slowly up the river. The Lightraiders puzzled over the Selfoe’s map, but couldn’t make sense of the markings.
“These symbols might mean ‘Troll’” Philip said. “Isn’t this where the forest trolls were?”
Edward looked where he was pointing. “Yes, that’s where the forest troll camp was.”
“So maybe these other marks and words represent other things important to the Selfoe,” Philip said. “And look at this! There’s some islands over here, and one of them has an X on it. Maybe they took over that island, and plan to take over other islands!”
Hector looked where he was pointing. “Maybe. That island is marked, anyway, with more strange symbols near it.”
“Hmm?” Edward said. “I was trying to see if any of the symbols are repeated anywhere. What do you make of this one? The two little circles and the straight line. Is this one letter or three?”
“All three together are similar in size to these other letters,” Starflower observed.
“I see a big circle over here,” Hector pointed.
They arrived in CremCremCare late in the afternoon. The Lightraiders went ashore to get the lay of the land.
“First, the mercantile,” Starflower said. Edward glanced around. The mercantile was easy to find, as it was a prominent building near the docks.
They went inside and found many shelves of various goods. A man stood behind the counter, a polite bored expression on his face, while a plump woman stood on the other side, talking almost non-stop. She held a basket on her arm with a few groceries in them.
“Of course, Dagic is going blind. Whoever heard of a blind blacksmith, anyway?” she was saying as Philip approached the counter.
“Excuse me,” Philip tried.
The woman kept talking, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Anyway, I said that was ridiculous, since Dagic was already married by that time, and his cousin decided it would be a good time to...”
“Let me try,” William suggested as Philip stepped back, shaking his head. William edged up to the counter.
“And my uncle would never hear of it. Why, just the other day he said something similar.”
“You don’t say,” William said, inserting himself into the conversation.
“I do say!” The woman exclaimed, moving slightly to face William. “In fact, he said to me, he said, ‘Antinua! You know we don’t own a bear!’ and I said, ‘I know, but the cat isn’t going to work as a mount,’ and then, of course, my uncle...” The words droned on and on. Edward watched in fascination as William kept her talking, but kept moving slightly to get her to readjust her position. Within minutes, he had steered her away from the counter and they were heading for the door.
Once the door closed, it was peacefully quiet in the room.
“Thank you,” the merchant said. “That Antinua talks way too much. Welcome to the mercantile. I’m Seebo. What can I do for you?”
“Do you have any arrows?” Starflower asked, checking her near empty quiver.
“Sure. Two scales per arrow.”
Starflower glanced at Hector. “What do they cost at home?”
“Five-Star for a quiver of ten,” Hector replied. He counted silently on his fingers. “It’s about the same price.”
“I’ll take ten arrows, please,” Starflower requested.
Seebo counted them out on the counter.
“Would you take one of these as payment?” Philip slapped a coin on the counter. Edward could see it was a golden Liberated Land 5 Star coin.
“Where did you get this?” Seebo asked, holding up the coin.
“We’re not from around here,” Philip replied.
“The greedos aren’t going to like it if they see foreign money,” Seebo commented. He eyed them conspiratorially. “But I won’t tell them if you don’t!” he winked and set the coin on a set of scales. “Yes, this will do.”
“We also have a question for you,” Edward said.
“Oh?”
Edward carefully drew out the elder dagger. “We’re wondering if you can tell us where this came from?”
“Oh, one of those. Put it away and I’ll tell you. Best not to flash those around too much, either. If a greedo saw us...”
“Those? Plural?” Starflower asked. She just finished putting her new arrows in her quiver.
“Sure,” Seebo said, his voice lowering. “Every once in a while, something like that turns up in the mines. I get them from Arao the miner.”
“The mines?” Philip asked.
“North of town. Mountain. Follow the road. Can’t miss it.”
“Ah, you’ve been very helpful.”
“Well, I have no love for the greedos. But you folks are starting to make me nervous. Probably best if you move along. Not safe to keep chatting about such things like this.”
“Have a good day!” Starflower said, smiling.
They stepped back outside. William was waiting for them, and they could see Antinua walking away down the street. They quickly filled him in on what Seebo had said about Arao and the mines.
“I learned some things too,” William said. “She’s quite the gossip. Apparently there’s a pregnant woman in town that many people are wondering if she’ll give birth on the Scarlet Moon so they can have a sorcerer baby of their own. Sounds like there’s sorcerers around here, but not from here. Also, she mentioned rumours of grave robbers in the cemetery and thefts from the Earl’s Residence.”
“Grave robbers again,” Philip echoed.
“I forgot the Scarlet Moon was coming up,” Hector said.
“Eight days from now,” Edward supplied.
“Sounds like there’s lots to do, here,” Starflower said. She spotted Stefan and Elisa from the New Covenant rolling the barrels of seeds towards the mercantile. “How about we have supper on the ship and let the crew know we’ll be staying here for the time being?”
Everyone agreed to this, so they made their way back to the ship. They learned that Francessca had sold the barrels of seeds and had also sent the broken ballista to the blacksmith shop. She planned to set sail for Hoyde that evening and spend the night there.
The Lightraiders informed her of their plans to stay in CremCremCare for the time being.
“Okay,” Francessca said, “Be careful. If all goes according to plan, we should be back here sometime mid morning tomorrow. Maybe late morning. Depends if I can find more crew members in Hoyde.”
“Well, if we’re available, we’ll meet you. Don’t wait for us if we don’t come, though,” Starflower said. “You’ve got a ship to run.”
“Hate to leave you in a dangerous place, but I suppose this is one of those ‘trust in the Overlord’ situations you’ve been telling me about.”
“I think I should go in disguise!” Philip announced.
“Like an Overlord’s Guard sort of disguise?” Hector asked.
“Of course. To blend in.”
“Perhaps one of the dead crew members?” Hector suggested.
“Say what, now?” Francessca asked. “What’s going on?”
They quickly filled her in on Philip’s gift from the Overlord that allowed him to change his outward appearance. After some discussion and informing the rest of the crew, they settled on the appearance of Nathaniel Ward, the dead Sailing Master.
Back on shore, the Lightraiders pondered where they should go. Hector suggested they could start by visiting the Earl’s residence.
They walked up to the relatively large estate, the only large dwelling in town, and met a guard just outside. He was juggling some small rocks with a bored look on his face.
“Good evening. We would like to see the earl.”
The guard stopped juggling, catching all the rocks in his hands, one by one. “I’m sorry, he’s not here. He’s away visiting Hoyde.”
“Oh,” Starflower stammered. She should have known they would say that.
“When did he leave?” Edward tried.
“A few weeks ago. I suppose he’s been gone a while. Must be that lady friend he’s always visiting.”
“No doubt,” Edward said. “Well, thanks anyway!” Edward turned and ushered the others several feet away from the guard.
“So now, what?” William hissed.
“Maybe there’s an animal around here somewhere that we can convince to spy for us,” Starflower suggested. Everyone started looking this way and that. It was a quiet night. The day time creatures had settled down and the nocturnal animals weren’t out yet. Hmm..
“Cat!” Hector said, pointing down the street.
Starflower turned and saw a kitty dashing across the road about a block away. She called out to it, meowing loudly. The cat paused and looked at them, as if offended they were talking to it.
“Get over here,” Regulus said in the cat language.
Praise the Overlord, he has once again granted me the ability to converse with animals. “We’d like to talk with you!” she called out.
The cat sat down, glanced around, then stood up and trotted towards them as if it had always meant to go that direction. As it got closer, it eyed Regulus warily, then sat and looked at Starflower. “What do you want?” he asked, as if it was perfectly normal for a human to communicate intelligibly.
“We are hoping you can do us a favour,” Starflower explained.
“What makes you think I do favours?” the cat asked.
“We have fish,” Philip broke in, pulling some dried fish out of his bag. Starflower nodded. She forgot that sometimes the Overlord granted the gift of animal speech to Philip or Edward too, these days.
“Fish, eh?” the cat sniffed the air. “What sort of favour are we talking about?”
“We want you to go to the Earl’s house, there, and see if anyone is inside.”
“Fish first.”
“Half the fish now, half the fish when the job is done.”
“Fine,” the cat agreed.
Starflower nodded at Philip. Philip broke the dried fish in half and held it out to the cat. The cat stared at him as if asking You expect me to walk over there? Philip shrugged and tossed it to the cat. The cat pounced on it and gobbled it up in moments.
“Well?” Starflower asked after the cat finished. He had been licking his paws and cleaning his whiskers for several minutes.
“Fine, fine,” the cat said. It trotted off towards the house.
“I guess we wait,” Edward said.
As they waited, a girl came dancing down the street. She whirled and twirled and pranced to music only she could hear. When she saw the Lightraiders, she stopped for a moment.
“Is that a bear?” she exclaimed. “Does he dance? Is it a dancing bear?”
“Uh, no, it’s a war bear,” William corrected.
“Too bad,” the girl giggled. She curtsied in front of Bill. “Hello Mr. Bear, my name is Tovi. May I have this dance?” She swayed back and forth, and tried to pick up Bill’s front paws. Bill gently let her, but he didn’t dance or move. Tovi soon let go, perhaps feeling restricted, and then pranced around Bill a couple of times before dancing off down the street.
“Strange folk in this town,” William commented.
“Indeed,” Bill agreed. “Harmless, perhaps, but strange.”
Several minutes passed uneventfully.
Some guys went by, heckling Philip. “Hey, Nathaniel! The Palaestra’s that way! What are you doing?”
Philip didn’t respond other than to laugh. The guys kept moving.
“So there’s a palaestra in town,” Edward commented.
“Those fighting gyms again?” Hector asked. “They’re everywhere, it seems.”
“Oh, stay sharp, that guy’s heading for us,” Starflower said. A man was hastening towards them. He had a large black cloak, and seemed to be wearing a white powdery wig.
“Nice hair,” Philip commented.
“Thanks. They are all the rage,” the man replied cryptically. “Why style your real hair when you can keep it cut short and just put on a perfect wig every day? Now I look like a judge.”
“I suppose so,” Edward allowed cautiously.
“Would you like to buy a wig?” the man asked. He opened his coat to reveal several wigs of various colours and styles hanging on the inside of his coat.
“Are you a merchant?” Philip asked.
“What? No,” the man closed his cloak. “Of course not. How could you say such a thing?” Without waiting for an answer, he shuffled off.
“What was that about?” Starflower asked.
“Maybe you need a greedo business license to be a merchant or something,” Hector suggested.
“That might explain it,” Philip shrugged.
Starflower glanced at the house again. “Oh, the cat’s coming back!”
“Finally,” William muttered.
The cat strode up to them, and sat down, facing a random direction.
“Well?” Starflower asked.
The cat looked over at them, as if noticing them for the first time. “Oh, it’s you,” he said.
“Yes, of course. So? Is there anyone home? What did you see?”
“I approached with my skill and cunning and looked in window. Yes, there are people there.”
“Who are they? Humans? Greedos?”
“Humans.”
“Is one of them the Earl?”
“How should I know what an earl is?” the cat asked, irritation in its voice. “They’re all dressed better than you, anyway. One of them is overly dramatic. The other two are women.”
“Go on,” Starflower urged.
“And they’re in their sitting room being overly dramatic. You asked if anyone was there, the answer is ‘yes.’ What more can I say? I’ll take my fish, now.”
Starflower stepped back from the cat. “Give him the rest of the fish,” she told Philip. Philip handed over the reward. The cat grabbed the fish in its mouth and ran off to a nearby alley to eat it in peace.
After a few minutes of talking strategy, they approached the guard house again.
“Greetings, we request an audience,” William announced.
The guard was juggling again, and this time didn’t stop while he talked. “Why, are you performing?”
“Uh...” William hesitated.
“Go with it,” Starflower hissed.
“Yes, we are able to perform.”
The guard caught his rocks and looked at them. “That’s wonderful!” he gushed. “I’ll let them know a wandering troupe of performers (who are kind to cats) have arrived for the evening entertainment.”
Before they knew it, they had been ushered in to the sitting room of the earl’s residence. There were three nobles present, who were introduced as Lady Ivy, Lady Lisithe, and Lord Gardi. Lady Ivy had a tall elaborate hair-do and wore a red gown. Lady Lisithe had a green gown and looked pleased at their presence. Lord Gardi wore shiny green breeches and an orange vest with a black trim.
“A troupe of performers! Excellent! Maybe I can join your troupe?” Lord Gardi said, striking a dramatic pose, his hand in the air, palm turned up towards the ceiling.
“Not likely,” Lady Ivy said. William’s eyes narrowed. Lady Ivy didn’t seem to be talking to Lord Gardi when she said that. She had turned her head slightly to the side, as if talking to someone else that he couldn’t see.
“It is too bad that the Earl is not here this evening,” Lord Gardi said. “He would have liked to see a troupe of entertainers.”
“We hear he’s been gone for awhile,” Starflower said.
“Yes. Bad business, too. Just after he left, pirates came and robbed our house of its treasure!”
“Oh dear!” Starflower showed appropriate concern. William couldn’t tell if it was fake or genuine.
“Yes, he’s been gone a lot longer than normal, I must say. Anyway. What shall you perform?” Lord Gardi asked, prancing to his empty chair beside the ladies’ chairs.
“How about some ventriloquism!” Starflower announced. “I will make my lion speak!”
William smiled. With telepathy and talking animals, ventriloquism would look very convincing.
“Hello every-one,” Regulus said slowly.
Lady Ivy clapped with glee. Lord Gardi exclaimed how wonderful it was. Lady Lisithe asked Starflower to do it again.
“Nice evening, isn’t it?” Regulus said. More applause and words of amazement from the nobles.
“Not right now,” Lady Ivy hissed to the side again.
William glanced at Philip to see if he had noticed her odd behaviour as well. He saw Hector mouthing the words “sense evil check” to Philip.
Starflower gestured at William. Right. “I can make my bear speak!” William announced.
“Amazing!” Lord Gardi said.
“He hasn’t done it, yet,” Lady Lisithe reminded him.
What should I say? Bill thought in William’s head.
I don’t know! Whatever! Just make it up!
“Hello. I am a bear. Is it time to eat?”
The nobles laughed. William glanced at Philip. Philip pointed at Lady Ivy, then at the top of his own head, then made a face while clenching his hand like claws. Something evil in her hair?
The ventriloquism routine went on for a few more minutes before Lord Gardi said, “What else can you do? Can you juggle like Quarios the guard?”
“Sure!” Philip announced. “William, may I have your knives?”
“My knives?” William stalled. Did Philip even know how to juggle? Oh, wait, he threw his battle axe around all the time. William pulled out all ten of his throwing knives and watched in amazement as Philip kept them in the air. The nobles clapped and cheered with glee.
“Excellent, excellent,” Lord Gardi said as Philip took his bow. “I’d like to do a scene with you guys. Let’s do a scene.”
“Okay,” Philip said.
“Great, uh, okay, we need a place,”
“The mercantile,” Edward blurted out.
“Good one, the mercantile. Let’s do the mercantile,” Lord Gardi said. “I’ll be a customer, you can be the shop keeper,” he pointed at Starflower. “And you can be another customer,” he pointed at Edward. “And you can be my pet dog,” he pointed at William.
Did he say pet dog? William thought to Bill as he continued resheathing his knives.
I’m afraid so, Bill returned.
Sigh. How long were they going to “perform” for?
“Okay, ACTION!” Lord Gardi jumped to a different part of the room and burst into song. “I am here to buy!”
Off-key, William thought.
“Welcome to the mercantile!” Starflower sang back, mimicking the tune.
“I am shopping, shopping,” Edward sang in the background, pretending to browse shelves.
“Woof,” William interjected, not musically.
Good job, Bill thought at him.
Oh, be quiet, William snapped back mentally.
“What shall I buy?” Lord Gardi wondered in song.
“What shall he buy?” Edward chorused.
“Woof,” William said.
“We have nice wigs!” Starflower sang.
“What sorts of wigs?” Lord Gardi sang, the pitch raising.
“We have red wigs and yellow wigs and green wigs and purple wigs,” Starflower sang. She looked like she was enjoying herself.
“Did you hear that?” Lord Gardi asked Lady Ivy. “They have purple wigs!” he turned to Starflower. “I would like a purple wig!”
“He would like a purple wig!” Edward droned.
“That’ll be a double claw!”
“Double claw, double claw,” Edward repeated.
“Sold!” Lord Gardi handed her an apple.
“Is this real gold?” Starflower sang dramatically and took a bite of the apple. “Yes it is!” she sang with apple in her mouth. “Here you go!” Starflower continued, pulling out a glove and slapping it in Lord Gardi’s hand.
“Sold for gold!” Edward tried.
“Woof woof!” William said.
“Try on this amazing wig!” Lord Gardi said, draping the glove over Lady Ivy’s hair.
Was this guided by the Overlord? This was a perfect excuse to investigate Lady Ivy’s hair. William bounded towards her, yelling “Woof! Woof!” He leaped up, roughly grabbing the glove and knocking her hair askew. As he landed on the floor behind her, he heard a buzzing. He spun around just in time to see a wood sprite flying up to the rafters.
“CURTAIN!” Lord Gardi called. “That was marvellous!” He applauded.
Good thinking. Bill thought. William grunted in acknowledgement.
“Lady Ivy, your pet got loose again,” Lady Lisithe commented, bored.
“She’ll come back. She just got scared,” Lady Ivy cooed.
“Well, that was entertaining,” Lord Gardi said, as if he hadn’t noticed the wood sprite. “I’m afraid we can’t pay you much, since our treasury was robbed by pirates, but I can pay you a scale each.”
“Great,” Hector said.
Lord Gardi paid them each a brass dragon coin, and then they found themselves back on the street.
The team made their way towards the Palaestra.
A girl, Silaniphia, tried to flirt with Philip, since he looked like Nathaniel Ward.
In the Palaestra, Arao the miner was fighting. Philip entered the fighting ring in an attempt to get close to Arao. Philip kept dodging every blow, tiring Arao out. The crowd cheered for Philip. Later, they tried to talk to him, but he wasn’t very talkative.
As the team explored, they found a door to a hidden basement. They discovered the real Earl of CremCremCare locked in a crate. They praised the Overlord for guiding them to the Earl. They still had some dark cloaks in their bags, so they gave one to the Earl to get him out of the Palaestra in disguise.
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