Arodus 11, 4712
It has been a long day. Helva the witch and wife of the late Asvig seems to have landed on her feet. I can’t truly tell whether she is sad or happy that her husband is dead. Helva is now in charge so maybe she feels this is a good day. I asked Helva to give me some magical boots partly because they were nice and partly to see how broken up she was. It doesn’t seem to me that she was that upset about the death of her husband. Suddenly the group decided that the sword must be on stony one-eye’s funeral boat. So we headed back down the road towards the city, briefly hiding along the side of the road to let some of Asvig’s men pass. I knew the others wanted to avoid the conflict so I just let them go by unharmed. They were already pretty drunk so it seemed fine with me that for at least tonight we let them live.
Back we went to Fynn’s were we met the charming Uksahkka. Asvig’s men roughed her up pretty good and I now regret letting the second group of his men pass unharmed. Asvig’s men could have just threatened and then sent Uksahkka on her way but no they instead decided to beat this nice woman. Uksahkka was pretty beat up so I cupped her right hand between my hands and healed up some of her wounds. A highlight of the night was her look when Sparna pulled Asvig’s head out of the bag. At least we were able to give her some level of retribution.
As it turns out Uksahkka’s partner Ulf is a guide that has experience crossing the crown of the world. The problem is that Ulf is missing and he was last known to be going to Asvig’s compound two weeks ago for a job. Again we see this two weeks pattern. We also learned from Uksahkka that two weeks ago there were plenty of guides available with experience crossing the crown of the world but they all suddenly became booked. Ulf is an independent fella and it looks like they are making sure that he is not available. It is scary to think about what is after us and the influence that they must hold.
Uksahkka actually knew exactly where to find stony one-eye’s funeral boat. The thought of everyone is that both the sword and Ulf are likely on stony one-eye’s funeral boat. I helped her up out of the chair as she had a little bit too much mead. She agreed to help us and we setup a rendezvous with Uksahkka at Spearshaker’s point.
4am Spearshaker’s point: Uksahkka brought kayaks for us to use to get to stony one-eye’s funeral boat. Luckily for us she also provided lessons on how to use the kayaks. Before leaving us Uksahkka gave me this wonderful clay token with a songbird stamped on one side. She tells us to take that token to the Shelyn temple in the Fire Quarter, hand it to them and they will take us to where she will be hiding. Kali was hyper interested in holding this clay token. She told me that this was the symbol of Shelyn. It was then that I remember seeing that symbol on my shoulder. I tugged on my armor enough so that she could see the song bird. Kali seemed a little shocked by my tattoo, I would have told her about the other tattoos but I wasn’t sure how she would react. I thought it was no big deal but I should have known that some may not be as understanding as Qatana, Sparna, Koya, and Spivey have been.
What is done is done, unless one has a spell to help people forget certain events. I am curious to learn about the gods so I asked Kali if she could tell me about Shelyn. Judging by her eagerness to tell me about Shelyn she must not be too upset about the tattoo, although I have to wonder if that would change if she knew about the others. We shared a kayak so that Kali could tell me about Shelyn on the ride out to stony one-eye’s funeral boat. Shelyn is another fascinating god but the path a Shelyn is just not for me. The love and beauty from within make some sense but I just don’t understand why the bodies displayed at the Gorum temple are not considered art. Kali tried to explain but I just didn’t get why it was not considered art.
We arrived at the funeral boat only to find a dummy double where stony one-eye should have been. We found some type of creature that Qatana says was some type of undead. I couldn’t see anything but the others told me he was nasty. Radella was pretty beat up so I provided her some healing. This was actually the first time that I have had to heal Redella and I suspect that it won’t be the last time. At least it was Redella I had to heal and not Kali, Etayne, or Anavaru.
On deck the others spotted boats approaching with Ninjas. While Sparna, Radella and Qatana found treasure and started filling the back of holding I went on deck to help the others. Once again Kali and Etayne made their big plans with Nihali dropping fire from the sky. I reminded Kali and Nahali to stay up high if they want to stay out of the path of the arrows that we will be shooting.
Kali did her stone call and we all start firing arrows. Even with the invisibility potions enough arrows were fired by us to kill them all before they reached the boat. Olmas said some stuff about allowing the last one to surrender but the last Ninja just said
“We are the shadows of the night. We surrender to none. And we won’t be the last to come for you.”
Olmas and Kali looted the bodies of the Ninjas still in the boats, the other Ninjas sunk down into the water out of sight. The rest of us went down to the treasure pile and kept putting more treasure into the bag of holding. Whether this is right or wrong we clearly should wait on selling anything until we leave Kalsgard. With this much treasure someone with the water breathing spell is going to look for whatever treasure makes it to the bottom.
The Ninjas attacking the boat makes me wonder if Helva is involved. She could have sent a message that we were heading to stony one-eye’s funeral boat. It is the only thing that makes since.