Laughing Tolkazzi shakes his head, straightening his impressive beard with one large hand

"Twenty it is trader. Take it or leave it... I say leave it, but come Godsday you'd better be far from this place and that goes for you too Sandy. Much as I like your folks I'm not going to be messed around. It's bad enough having to deal daily with the invaders and now I have a bunch of scallywags slinking about my settlement too."

He points at Ohanzee, "And you keep away from that lady, nowt will come of it and I've important dealings with her father that I don't want jeopardised by some randy Rhino....Savvy?"

He's serious but smiling.

Then the smiles vanishes "There's to be a crucifixion tomorrow at dawn. The killers of the hunters, well those that were caught and are still alive. Silly business truth be told."

In reply to Tolkazzi (msg # 816):

Melock, having finished his lunch, stands up, "I'll take the offer, as you said they pay extra if we fight, so it could be worth a lot more than the 20 silvers." He reaches out to shake his hand, "Thanks for getting us the work. If you will all excuse me, I have to see a priest about a fish." He nods to the others and heads off to see Sa'arrachmbro.

Still wearing his ingratiating smile, Hoskar shrugs. Reckon I'll take it too, sir; and with thanks.

I am hoping to do more commerce here eventually: happy to help if truth be told, but mustn't let my trading skills get too rusty either he adds in self-deprecating tone.

Dawn, eh? It's an early night for me, then.

Tolkazzi says he'll arrange a contract on the morrow and heads off to do what he does, leaving the rest of the day free. Not long afterwards Melock returns, clutching a handful of shell fetishes gifted by the Newtling priest to show that they were Newtling friends and trusted by the river. Quite an honour for nomads.

Then that evening Amara returns, fresh faced, and looking surprisingly calm, joined by Tarnessh, returning from his holy day ceremonies. The night is spent talking, making plans and deciding what to do during the next day.


Dawn finds Hoskar on the shores of the island, standing amongst a small crowd of onlookers. Four wooden X's have been set up on the edge of the water, looking out to sea, affixed to each a prisoner.

Three men and a woman, in various states of composure....

Silent, brave and stoic.

Loud, accusing and venomous.

Shrilly proclaiming their innocence.

and finally just glaring.

Of the Sable rider and the other woman of the gang there is no sign and one of the locals mentions that one member of the gang died during their capture.

It is an ugly business, not helped by the fact that the two Sartarites are hung upside down, the incoming tide already lapping at their heads.

After a Lunar officer reads out a proclamation, most of the crowd disperses, a contingent of marines left on guard. It's then that something unexpected happens.

From out of nowhere comes a thunderous gust of wind, howling from the West. It scoops up one of the upside down men, tearing him free from his bonds to carry him up and quickly out of sight.

Divine Intervention.

The Lunars act quickly, stabbing the remaining three with spears and hastening their execution.

Hoskar finds the Rangers back at the hut, going over their final plans, making sure to share any relevant news or information they might have....
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:02, Fri 12 Dec 2014.

...and he's not feeling especially pleased; either with himself or with events. Can't credit that that bastard Sable got away. Hell. Still, at least I had my face covered during the attack.

He looks troubled and speaks in a low, somewhat halting voice. That was grim. Very grim. Thought I recognised one of the dying. Seen it happen in Pavis. Never been responsible for it though. The Sable wasn't caught. No point me being there, unless it was to see the wind from a god rescue someone.

Anyone got any good news? Could do with some.

"I do." Tarnessh turned to Amara and handed her the newly made protective leather glove that he had purchased. "I wish to make amends for my outburst two days ago. I was unfair to speak to you so. Here, this is a token of my hope to make peace between us." He said formally.

In reply to Hoskar Feather (msg # 820):

"They were sables, they got what they deserved." While his face doesn't show much emotion, the look in his eyes prove that what he says is for show.
"I need to get some dried fish for the trip, Hoskar could you come with me and tell the sellers what I want?"

Ohanzee shakes his head and then corrects Melock "No, only one was a Sable Rider, the rest were other outsiders. And as Hoskar has said the Sable Rider escaped." He sighs "And of the outsiders some were enemies of the Lunars sothey are twice helped by this act." and he glances at Amara as he says this.

Amara glared at Ohanzee as she returned, cleaned, with her hair combed and braided freshly, scented of flowers as she took her place "Our actions only provided the pretext. Their lives were close to forfeit in any case. We brought it forward and some who follow the Gods we do are sitting with him now in his hall. The lunars are likely to have found some excuse to kill them regardless and while I feel bad for them, I'm happier about the information I have discovered."

She moved close to the fire urging all of the others to come closer "There is a simple fact here. The Lunars are here to stay at this location. They will not move. They're not especially interested in Corflu as a town, but what they are interested in is the ruins of the port that was here before. There are 200 lunar soldiers in the surrounding area, but they're not really the force in charge. That is a sage here to unroot artifacts found from Feroda." Amara leaned forward secretively "But that's not all. Desi will be on the ship from here to Pavis....and perhaps more importantly, something they dug up in Feroda that they want in Pavis as soon as possible. I also saw someone else on my stay there. Someone is seeking to buy this town from Tolkazi....there may be scope for a deal to be struck.... and my hand has started growing again."

He shrugs at Ohanzee's comment, "Still, better them than us."
He is pleased to see Amara and is impressed with what she has found out, "Are you sure you haven't got a little Raven in you sister." He grins at her, "If things carry on going to plan, Desi wont make it Pavis nor will the boat. Do you know what it was that they dug up?" He passes her the fetish from the river priest, having already given the others theirs. "This is from Sa'arrachmbro, it will let other newtlings and river folk know we are friends of the river"

Amara shook her head, sorry she couldn't answer Melocks question "I'm sorry Melock. I thought I could get more just by being a passive observer at the temple than I could staying with all of you. There's not a lot of questioning I could do without tipping my hand and I wanted to get as much as I could." she put the fetish on to mark her as having river folks favour. "I'm glad the plans are to get off the boat early. I would not like to be late for our rendezvous with the Earth witch. For me it would be a much happier trip if we got off early with Desi and the Lunar trinket."

Ohanzee shrug at Amara's report "Yeah, we knew about Desi, the ruins of Feroda" glancing at Kobal "It turns out you don't need the lingo, just the balls to ask around."

Then looking back to Amara having thought of a way to enquire about Tella without doing so directly he asks "Who want to buy this place then? Tella's father maybe, Tolkazzi said he had a deal to strike with the man. Did Tella say anything?"

"It's good that you're back, Amara," Kobal says, "and that the priestess has honoured her bargain.  What you've found out will interest the elders as well, even if it may not be good news."  He ignores the jibe by Ohanzee.

"You mentioned last time that someone you know has joined the Moon worshipers.  Why would she do this?"

Whilst the braves talk Sandy and Shell come and say their goodbyes, saying that they would see them all back at the Shallow Water family land.

Hopefully.

They wish each of the Rangers good luck and then depart, mentioning before they leave that the boat will be crewed by three trustworthy Deep Channel men.

"It would seem that freeing Desi is going to be quite easy, as we are the guards and the boat is going to be crewed by people on our side. The only problem I can see is the wizard. How do we convince him not to help the lunars with his strange magic?" He tries to catch a glimpse of Amara's re-growing hand, "How long will it take to grow back?"

"I get the feeling that he'll not care too much one way or another so long as he gets to the black feathered tower and since that is on our path I for one am fine with bringing him along to pay off one debt at least."

"And talking of debts, Hoskar, what is this contract thing that was spoken of for guarding the boat. Any oaths involved, swearing to any gods or similar? Or is it just that we'll upset the Lunars, in which case not being welcome back here is no hardship."

He looks from Hoskar to Amara for answers.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:06, Sat 13 Dec 2014.

From what Hoskar can make out the contract is just a legal paper, with no reference of oaths to gods. From the little he understands of Lunar Law, they will be treated as criminals if it is broken, with depending on what they do or don't do a list of various eventualities. Finally there is a description of each Ranger as well as their name.

No oaths to gods, how do these Lunars expect people to follow this contract?

Henal looks bemused.

These people are strange and I won't miss leaving them behind. The only thing that l.ooks bad is the description, don't want to be getting hunted by the chaos friends if we go to Pavis.

"That just lets them come to us instead of us having to bother finding them." Tarnessh joked

Ohanzee considers the implications. It isn't that he particularly cares about the Lunar laws, but... "When he brings the contracts, see to it that he does not include me. Easy to explain as I'm already in the employ of the wizard and not free then to take another contract."

"It might be useful if at least one of us is free to move about here in the open if we ever return."

In reply to Ohanzee Shappa (msg # 835):

He grimaces, "Why would you want to return here? Give me the open plains with a bison between my legs and the wind in my hair any day." He smiles at the image, I know why you want to come back here Ohanzee.

"It looks like just squiggles on paper," says Kobal, "but maybe there's some Lunar magic involved.  I don't care so much for Lunars, but breaking the contract also means Tolkazzi will be looking out for us as well, if we ever come back to Corflu."

"Who cares" adds Nixa "They're all weak. Faster I'm back on my Bison the better. We've done what we came for, scouted them out, fixed Amara's hand and got some work.

I say we rob the wizard and dump him in the middle of nowhere, or kill him. Once he's fixed old Blue arm over there that is."

He looks at the contract with contempt "Pah"

Tolkazzi returns to pick up the contract. He seems distracted, but examines the parchment to make sure marks have been made against the names.

Nixa had, once explained what to do, made a cross against each name in turn also running a line through Ohanzee's, a big smile on his face.

"There you go, screw 'em"

Then after lecturing them on what was expected, what to do and how not to do it, Tolkazzi left. He'd mentioned that Ohanzee would have to pay for his journey.

Amara looked at the glove Tarnnesh had handed her. A warm smile on her face "Thank you Tarnnesh for the gift. I shall wear it while my hand takes the season to regrow, though you should know, that even though we disagree on many things, you are and always will be my brother brave."

Amara waited until Ohanzee was alone before speaking to him quietly. "I cannot add much information to what you already know. I met Tella, but we did not exchange many words. The rumours I heard were exactly that. Rumours that her father was trying to purchase the town from Tolkazzi. I would suspect that Tella's involvement with the Priestess, as the daughter of the man wishing to purchase this place might make this town more Lunar controlled than it is currently."


OOC:Sorry, I'm catching up.