Curse of the Witch King Chapter 2

[ewancummins]

DAYS PASS IN RESEARCH AND PREPARATION FOR THE FORAY INTO THE FAR NORTH...



Klokulf’s research turns up several items of potential interest:

1 The mountain passes are subject to mudslides and avalanches in the spring, as snow packs and ice walls break loose in huge masses, sliding and tumbling down the steep slopes. Parties can and do pass through safely, but travellers should be wary of rumbling noises…
2 The Bleak Steppes are at their wettest by far this time of year, a wilderness of brown, rotted grass mats and pools of muddy water, the air buzzing with blood-sucking, disease-carrying insects. Roads, or rather the regions dirt trails, will become much more passable in the dry summer weather later in the year.
3 Early spring is called the Ogrebite by the people living on the coastlands south of Thar. Ogres’ food supplies have run out by the end of winter and the beast-giants launch hunger-fueled attacks on every farm, caravan, town, and trading post within several days’ march of their primitive castles. The monsters gobble human beings along with their horses and livestock and stores of food. Tipsy ogres hardly mind eating maggoty bread and green beef, so some settlements keep food gone bad in a tithe house along with casks of rotgut liquor and sour beer, which they offer the ogres in return for being left alone.


He can buy the scroll of swiftly 'walking' through the air as a cloud form, if he likes.

If not, he will want to arrange for mules or horses after the sea voyage (unless he means to ride the entire way there), as well as make an enchanted provisions box or see to a mundane way of securing adequate supplies for the lengthy journey.

Wagons won't do so well. Mud.


------------------------------------------------------------------
Katrin’s inquiries about ships uncover several vessels leaving for Phlan, Hulburg, and Mulmaster over the next tenday. Not much room for passengers on these heavily-packed cargo vessels, but a cramped cabin could certainly be found for a marked-up price.

[ewancummins]

Katrin secures passage to Hulburg and helps plan some of the practical aspects of the expedition. Food and water and fodder, she's told, won't be a problem to worry over...


Alain and Klokulf collaborate in the creation of an enchanted box intended to supply provisions for their journey to Vaasa.

For this purpose, Klokulf haa to make use the magical laboratory of High Doom Thorodus. Another favor owed his patron...

Now the box is ready to test.
Klokulf places some empty jugs, sacks, and baskets inside and closes the container.


Kolkulf speaks the word that sets off the spells laid into the box. Runes engraved in the lid flare with amber light and the box shudders as if a living thing jumps around inside it, thumping the walls.
Then the carvings lose their glow and the panels cease vibrating.

Alain opens the top and both men see the fruits of their labor: day rolls, a wheel of cheese, full water jugs, a basket of dry fish.
And as they take things out, the men find more things beneath, rather more than one would think this box could hold. Yet the interior space seems no bigger than expected upon examination.

This bounty proves sufficient to provide a day's meals to Alain, Klokulf, Alwina, Katrin, Theophilus, the lizardlings, the new slave wet-nurse and the recently hired guard--and with some leftovers for breakfast.

Theo has taken to taken well with the lizardlings. The little creatures eat a lot, mostly fish and vegetables, and creep about the cellar "swamp" making squeaking sounds, when they aren't dozing near the warming brazier, which is often.


....


15th Kythorn



It is only five days until the Summer Solstice.


A cool breeze blows from the northeast on the sunny, clear day when the small expedition party arrives at the docks of Zhentil Keep, ready to board the Corby's Prize , a stout cog bound for Phlan, Thentia, Hulburg, and points east.

Handlers move the ponies on board first.

Alwina accompanies the small group to the pier, having for once left her adopted baby at home with the slaves. The slim young blonde wears the same light blue cloak she wore in the dragon-slaying swamp expedition, with a weasel-fur stole added.
(The hired guard hangs nearby, ready to escort her back after the ship leaves).
Leaning close to Klokulf and looking up she whispers,

VIEW CONTENT:

"Be careful, please. I need you. Our little one needs you, too, Klokulf. Come back to us, my love."

She rises on her tip toes and kisses the priest full on the mouth.

[kintire]

Katrin follows the group down to the pier, and boards the ship. She is laden down with bags and supplies, camping gear mostly, that she lays in the hold where the sailors direct. She remains below after that, preparing the sleeping places. Her last glance at the pair on the quay is from a slightly absent face as if her mind is elsewhere, but her eyes are cold as she glances across Zhentil keep, and not much warmer as they wander over the dock.

She is more her old self with Alain though, and is clearly looking forward to the trip. Or perhaps just to leaving this dark city.

[ewancummins]

Katrin follows the group down to the pier, and boards the ship. She is laden down with bags and supplies, camping gear mostly, that she lays in the hold where the sailors direct. She remains below after that, preparing the sleeping places. Her last glance at the pair on the quay is from a slightly absent face as if her mind is elsewhere, but her eyes are cold as she glances across Zhentil keep, and not much warmer as they wander over the dock.

She is more her old self with Alain though, and is clearly looking forward to the trip. Or perhaps just to leaving this dark city.

THE HOLD



A gnarled old sailor, barefoot and dressed in tar-stained woolens, shows Kat to a hammock slung in a shadowy cubby tucked under a stairway leading up from the hold to the open deck.
"Your berth. Noise isn't too bad, love. We walk softly at night, we does."
He favors her with a gap-toothed smile and then pads off to see about other work that needs doing.


Not long after she settles in, the Richemuloise woman becomes aware of small noises coming from nearby in the hold. Looking about the dim space, she sees casks, chests, bales, nets, sacks, a few empty hammocks slung along the hull’s interior…
Then a rat races into view, skitters sideways to avoid colliding her Kat’s boots, and starts for a dark corner.
Something falls on the rodent in an orange blur.
A squeak and a snap, and the fat rat hangs dead in the tabby cat’s mouth. The feline gives Kat a brief sideways glance before settling in to eating its kill.

[Lord Skybolt]

Katrin secures passage to Hulburg and helps plan some of the practical aspects of the expedition. Food and water and fodder, she's told, won't be a problem to worry over...


Alain and Klokulf collaborate in the creation of an enchanted box intended to supply provisions for their journey to Vaasa.

For this purpose, Klokulf haa to make use the magical laboratory of High Doom Thorodus. Another favor owed his patron...

Now the box is ready to test.
Klokulf places some empty jugs, sacks, and baskets inside and closes the container.


Kolkulf speaks the word that sets off the spells laid into the box. Runes engraved in the lid flare with amber light and the box shudders as if a living thing jumps around inside it, thumping the walls.
Then the carvings lose their glow and the panels cease vibrating.

Alain opens the top and both men see the fruits of their labor: day rolls, a wheel of cheese, full water jugs, a basket of dry fish.
And as they take things out, the men find more things beneath, rather more than one would think this box could hold. Yet the interior space seems no bigger than expected upon examination.

This bounty proves sufficient to provide a day's meals to Alain, Klokulf, Alwina, Katrin, Theophilus, the lizardlings, the new slave wet-nurse and the recently hired guard--and with some leftovers for breakfast.

Theo has taken to taken well with the lizardlings. The little creatures eat a lot, mostly fish and vegetables, and creep about the cellar "swamp" making squeaking sounds, when they aren't dozing near the warming brazier, which is often.


....


15th Kythorn



It is only five days until the Summer Solstice.


A cool breeze blows from the northeast on the sunny, clear day when the small expedition party arrives at the docks of Zhentil Keep, ready to board the Corby's Prize , a stout cog bound for Phlan, Thentia, Hulburg, and points east.

Handlers move the ponies on board first.

Alwina accompanies the small group to the pier, having for once left her adopted baby at home with the slaves. The slim young blonde wears the same light blue cloak she wore in the dragon-slaying swamp expedition, with a weasel-fur stole added.
(The hired guard hangs nearby, ready to escort her back after the ship leaves).
Leaning close to Klokulf and looking up she whispers,

VIEW CONTENT:

"Be careful, please. I need you. Our little one needs you, too, Klokulf. Come back to us, my love."

She rises on her tip toes and kisses the priest full on the mouth.

Alain just smiles as he passes the couple on the docks on his way into the ship .

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Alwina accompanies the small group to the pier, having for once left her adopted baby at home with the slaves. The slim young blonde wears the same light blue cloak she wore in the dragon-slaying swamp expedition, with a weasel-fur stole added.
(The hired guard hangs nearby, ready to escort her back after the ship leaves).
Leaning close to Klokulf and looking up she whispers,

VIEW CONTENT:

"Be careful, please. I need you. Our little one needs you, too, Klokulf. Come back to us, my love."

She rises on her tip toes and kisses the priest full on the mouth.

Klokulf embraces her.

VIEW CONTENT:

"Do not waste time in worry," he says. "I will do everything in my power to return to you."

Reluctantly, he breaks contact, and boards the ship.

[ewancummins]

A sailor escorts Klokulf and Alain to the cramped cabin the two men will share on the voyage. One wall-mounted folding bed, one hammock, a cabinet, a chamberpot, a porthole on the starboard and a door to the open deck.

[kintire]

Preparations completed, Kat tries to find her own accommodations, a small bag of her own possessions in hand, including abedroll which she is rather expecting to be putting down on a patch of deck somewhere, her new belt about her hips under her simple clothes, avoiding attention as before

[Lord Skybolt]

Alain after putting away his gear in the cabin provided moves around the the ship to get the mapof it in his head about where everything is including fastest ways to get get around the ship as well as where Kat is staying . While he is doing this he stays out of the way of the crew in always possible as he has plenty of time to explore while the ship is underway .

[ewancummins]

THE SEA VOYAGE



The cog’s journey starts out with fine sailing weather but before nightfall a gale rips down from the north and pushes the ship off course, damaging the sails and rigging and nearly sweeping a man overboard.

The ship limps into Phlan two days later, makes repairs, and heads out to sea again by midday.

A day of smooth sailing, and then the real storms hit. Hailstones hammer the decks like volleys from a battalion of slingers. Rain, wind, sleet. When the weather clams, a deep fog settles over the coasts, forcing the vessel a little further out onto the open Moonsea to avoid shoals and reefs.
Even being supplied with magical lights by Alain doesn’t completely allay the captain’s fear of running onto the rocks.
Sailors begin to openly mutter about the voyage’s ill-luck.

Off course and running late for the port of Thentia, the midpoint of their trip to Hulburg, as the sun slips out of sight in the red western waters, everyone aboard hears what sounds like the tolling of bells in the deep
CAROOOM

CAROOOM

CAROOOM

The sailors become agitated and the captain calms them with an extra half-ration of grog.
A man mutters something about “The Drowned City” and a curse, but nobody seems to want to talk about it to foreigners.

A stop at the bustling port city of Thentia next evening, some trading and resupply, a visit to a tavern, and then the Corby’s Prize sets sail for Hulburg.
The men all seem much relieved to have made a friendly port and sailed out again. The mood aboard ship lightens considerably and that afternoon the sailors dance a hornpipe to amuse themselves and entertain the travellers.

Midnight the sixth night at sea

KAT

The rain has been falling hard for an hour, drumming the decks above Katrin.
But now the woman, twisting in her hammock slung under the stairs, hears something else—a strangled curse, a thud as of something heavy falling.
Whatever it is lands on the stairs above her and tumbles down.
It’s damned dark down here.
A few tries with flint and steel and a tinderbox and she lights a lantern.

Peeking out she sees Second Mate Hugin, the old salt who’d showed her this sleeping nook on the first day, sprawled limply at the base of the stairway leading up to the open deck. A reddish pool slowly spreads from the man’s slit neck. His glazed eyes stare past her into the murk.

Kat hears rapid footfalls on the deck. Sounds like someone coming down the stairs, now…


ALAIN AND KLOKULF


The two men sleep in their snug little cabin. They’ve grown somewhat accustomed to the noises of the sea and of storm, and don’t waken fully even as the weather worsens…

[ewancummins]

[ewancummins]

Kat's nook is under the stairs in AREA 10, hold level


The quarters shared by Klokulf and Alain is AREA/room 6 on the main deck.


Animals are stabled in the cargo hold with moveable wooden fences.


Day crew sleeps in hammocks, AREA10

[kintire]

Kat leave the lantern on its hook and slips back into her nook, leaning under the hammock to the pile of her clothes and possessions. They may seem random but they are carefully arranged, and from the top of the pile she swiftly grabs a pair of gloves, while from the bottom she draws out her rapier. She then tries to slide into the shadows at the edge of the lanterns light. that light will tell whoever is coming down that someone is awake, but she will try to hide exactly where she is...

[ewancummins]

Kat leave the lantern on its hook and slips back into her nook, leaning under the hammock to the pile of her clothes and possessions. They may seem random but they are carefully arranged, and from the top of the pile she swiftly grabs a pair of gloves, while from the bottom she draws out her rapier. She then tries to slide into the shadows at the edge of the lanterns light. that light will tell whoever is coming down that someone is awake, but she will try to hide exactly where she is...

The sounds of ship and storm and the snoring of sailors in their hammocks cover the little noise Kat makes, or so she hopes.

The stairs creak under the weight of someone coming down.

A dim figure steps off the bottom stair and casts about.
Lantern light leaking out from under the short stairway glints off the scales of the man’s armor. Rainwater spills from his crested helmet. He steps over the slain sailor and moves toward Kat’s light, a short spear hefted in his right hand.

[kintire]

Kat slips to one side and lets the figure move towards her lantern before levelling her rapier and exploding into a lunge, taking her in from half behind without any warning, trying to impale the figure with a single thrust, hand low at the start of the thrust and swinging upwards to slip the point under those overlapping scales. Once she feels her point drive in, or the creature becomes aware of her, she lets out a wild yell, aiming to rouse the ship!