Hi,
Last game, you descended the mountain past the Huru, followed by Rudu's warband, and they soon made it clear they wanted to talk, not just ensure you left. He called Fraud Shaven aside and confided, “The elders play their games but we young, the war leaders, may see some things differently. Trust in us, and, ehh, watch yourselves as you continue your quest on our island. Your kind were not the first “colonists” here after the Shattering, no, not by many generations. The worst of them may still infest this land. We ate the rest, but some have not sat so well with us.” So, for what that was worth, you parted, now understanding better that the clans' war leaders tend to see things more your way these days, whereas their elders are the real sticks-in-the-mud.
You returned to The Shadow. Amur related to the Captain that while you had been gone, he led an inventory of supplies in the cargo hold and noted that some finely spiced viands from Oradaros that he was saving for a special occasion had been eaten; none of the crew have confessed. (remnants were left in a crate, pried open and poorly secured back shut) Investigations before and after you set sail didn't turn anything up- was it a bad crew member, a stowaway, a curse/spirit or what? Miguel asked Micaela and she didn't seem to know about it, although there was something she did know that she didn't say and he didn't push it. The monsoons gave you some distractions-Storm Season was again earning its name, with pelting cold rain, sleet, winds and worse that were blowing down off Valind's Glacier far to the north, and interacting with wild Gagarth-Storms inland, whose edges you skirted.
But en route around the island to the south, Boamund's keen eyes on watch at night spotted the stowaway, who turned out to be a 16 yr old girl from Handra, named Baelulam Koehelvar; dressed like a sailor with shorter-cut blond hair, and boldly even going on deck in the shadows when she wasn't lurking in the hold. Boamund pursued her below decks and she gave up, so he brought her before the Captain and, with some petulance, she was convinced that she must join the crew to earn her keep and pay back for her thievery. Amur kept an eye on her from then on, and she began to prove her worth but the crew were very sceptical to say the least.
With the Captain's expert piloting, despite losing a day to difficult navigation, you weathered the fierce storms out on the ocean east of the reefs. Within another day you met the Ouori and Omen, who had plenty to say. Gumthunooreebou, your old friend, had risen to be an acolyte of Magasta and was arranging a meeting with his priest from the Trenchward tribe. But first, he said he had business… there was a bad place that wrought terrible things from the winds; a man-made island that floated on the seas and used wicked magic to use Orlanth's storms against everything around it. An Ouori, Eshalintho, had died by coming too close to it. So now the king of the Trenchward wanted something done, and the priest of Magasta saw it as an affront to the seas themselves, so it would be a holy quest to do what could be done. The Ouori explained that a “man-thing” had been seen there, outside of it, so you might be ideal to enter and investigate. Ahappi pledged to do so.
But there was more! Someone had been killing and mutilating (skinning, and more) Ouori pups around the Orninior coasts, and the Ouori (not just this tribe) were furious! Maybe, Gumthunooreebou thought, you could find clues ashore amongst the menfolk, such as at New Arv. It didn't seem unlike something that Vadeli, Chaos, or other evil agents would do, maybe for a profit?
And there was yet more-maybe even worse! The mad bishop Umrovide repeatedly visited the Arvonesse cathedral in recent weeks, then last week entered after conjuring a bright spell that opened the shield for him, and he left some time thereafter, with the shield closed behind him. He returned toward St Thosos and has not been back to Arvonesse yet. Ahappi was deeply concerned.
The Ouori gave you a nice shell-helm and some big pearls for just accepting the mission to that strange shell-thing that they described. You were 2 days from it- you just needed to sail southeast, and the winds were with you (it was slower than a sailing ship), so you'd surely catch it, they thought. The weather continued to batter The Shadow but it was holding up well enough (even if some of your stomachs were not). You found it as described: it was about 50m tall, spiralling, with flutelike holes in it that emitted a terrible wind, whose notes forced their way into your heads once you drew near, causing headsplitting migraines. There was a wooden shack and dock attached to its outside, and adequate mooring for the Shadow, so you made it there with good seamanship again from Ahappi. The “man-thing” the Ouori spoke with had been fishing from the docks when you first came into view, and he spotted you through the weather too, so he stood up and waited in the doorway of his shack. As you disembarked, he went inside and stood behind the countertop inside. He was a frail old man, almost hairless, with pale but weathered skin, in simple but finely wrought robes like a scholar's. Was that an odd glow of impossibly black energy that emitted from his chest sometimes? No, that wouldn't make sense.
The old man spoke old Seshnegi and would parley with you, first trying to trade his knickknacks from his “shop” and dodging most questions. He eventually, as Boamund and Ahappi pressured him, related that “(Storm) Shell Island” was this place and it followed ley lines of magic around the oceans, for the glory of the Jrusteli/Middle Sea Empire. He dismissed reminders that this empire was long dead. His job was the “caretaker” of the island and that was about as much you got out of him. When Ahappi offered knowledge of the outside world in trade for more, the caretaker outstretched his hand, offering (with a clear hint of malevolence) to accept such knowledge, and that was enough for Ahappi. The Captain sought to strike the man with his spear, but the man showed some nimbleness and spun back away from the counter, through an iron portal which he slammed shut behind him. You crossed the counter and found that the door was without clear mechanism to open it, and seemed very strong. Ahappi searched the shop and found an odd apparatus of tubes and bottles (which was magical, his new lens showed), and the remaining stuff was probably worth something but would take a lot of effort to sort out-although there was a silver box with nice pearls in it.
Miguel sorcerously crafted a bronze harpoon-grapple out of shop-junk and shot it from his bow, into one of the shell-island's lower wind-holes-and it caught, amazingly! So you had a firm line anchored to ascend into whatever lay within. You could tell that the bad effects of the storm were nullified inside this shack and indoors on the ship, so Amur got the crew safe and you prepared to climb up to begin your assault on Storm Shell Island!
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