29: The Seaweed Man

Wellentag 23^nd Sigmarzeit

After finally agreeing to bring Greta to Carroburg, you sailed after the Tench and the Grismarie and caught up with them, so you could travel in convoy. The day’s sailing was mostly unremarkable and towards evening, the two boats slowed and you could see they were checking out a stricken carrack that was listing and seemingly had no crew. You could see a body on the foredeck and a load of birds were constantly circling over the boat and diving down to it, and flying up again.

It looked strange and so Dietrich concentrated on the magical winds and could see that at its source was Dhar, but it was surrounded by billows of uncontrolled Ghur. You decided you wanted to look into it, but the crew of the Tench decided it was too dangerous. Greta asked you to move along as she wanted to get to Carroburg, but she also acknowledged that Rotter would probably be interested in whatever you could salvage from the vessel.

So, Balden, Berta, and Dietrich boarded the jolly boat, while Heinrich looked after the Mudlark and Greta (Max was still a bit under the weather). They rowed up to the stricken vessel, while the crew of the Grismarie decided it was too dangerous, and followed the Tench up river.

Berta pulled herself aboard and was immediately set upon by dozens of the birds, and she rushed inside the stern to get away from them. And Dietrich followed and was similarly attacked. Balden, only a few yards away on the jolly boat, was unaffected, however.

The first room you came to at the stern was the mess, and it was. The tables and chairs were strewn about and there were five bodies on the floor. Four of them looked like regular crew but Dietrich could tell that the fifth was an amber wizard. This looked a bit more serious than you had been expected, so you went to get Balden.

You came up with a makeshift defence against the birds by using bits of the shattered tables as shields. Berta got to Balden and protected him from their attacks and got him safely to the stern, but Dietrich fell over and hit his face on the table and got attacked by the birds, anyway. Luckily Balden was able to see to all his scratches.

The room looked like it had been destroyed by a blast centring on the Amber wizard, and Dietrich could see that she was wreathed in Dhar. And inspecting her body he found a couple of guilders in her purse, and a large shark’s tooth necklace, which he took and put on, thinking it might give him protection. Behind the wizard was a cabin, and there was a bearskin sack on the floor and an upturned chest as well as a destroyed desk, caught in the same blast that had wrecked the mess.

Dietrich inspected the bag, and was suddenly bitten by what he might have imagined was a bear’s mouth and then the bag became inanimate again, and he went through it and found an array of strange objects, a wolf’s skull, feathers from a baffin, reindeer droppings, a scrimshaw abstract fish design, a cod liver, a walrus tusk covered with strange carvings, a badly constructed taxidermy rat seemingly made to look like a grey wizard, and three cat paws in a pouch. There was also a scroll detailing the amber spell Beast Form. Balden and Dietrich agreed that the tusk was some sort of magical focus that could act like a wand or staff. And you were annoyed enough by the biting bag that you threw it out the cabin’s open window and shut the window behind it.

And again, Balden had to see to Dietrich’s wounds. And among the things on the broken desk he found a letter which said,

You may find what you are looking for among the Skaelings of Norsca. They have no reason to respect the strictures of the colleges, and even glorify in its unpredictable properties.

I understand a mage of Kirkjugarður, Inga Boddrsdottir, is willing to deal in it.

Beware of the stuff.

Mag. S.

The upturned chest was very heavy and made of lead, and beneath it were seven dark rocks, which were hard to look at and seemed impossibly black when focused on but flickered with green light at the corners of your perception. Balden had heard a lot about this, and called it wyrdstone, and explained that they were made of pure magic and a focus of great power, while Dietrich said that they were dangerous and he had been warned off them at college, but he hadn’t been paying that much attention. Dietrich told Balden not to touch them, but Balden just scooped them up and put them in the chest.

Then you checked out the rear cabin, which was obviously the captain’s. The door had been closed which had protected it against the blast. There was a chest in there which Berta opened and found some nice clothes and a hat. There was a hairbrush that looked valuable, so he swiped that.

And there was a blue, silk, drawstring bag which he emptied nervously. But it contained what looked like a glass ball, which seemed to change colour as you looked at it, like the sea, and it felt sort of magical to Dietrich so he gave Berta a couple of guilders for it.

There was a desk in the room that had a few nautical charts on, and a captain’s log, which you flicked through and found some passages referring to the amber wizard:

We have a lady, and I use the term loosely, on board for the entire voyage. She wishes to go to Langskipa for her own reasons. I don’t believe she is a Norscan, though she appears a lot like them, unkempt, in furs. She paid good money for the passage and so we should accommodate her as best we can.

…

Wilda has not been an easy passenger. She disappeared in Landskipa for the day and returned carrying a heavy chest. I tried to be pleasant, and asked her whether it had gone well, but she just glowered at me.

…

She seems a strange one. Almost like an animal. Last night we invited her to dinner, but she said she wasn’t hungry. I could swear I saw dried blood around her mouth.

And there was some other notes, one of which was this:

Have stowed the gold in the bilge, under the loose board. I can’t see the excisemen finding it there. Hopefully daddy will approve.

...and Berta decided she really needed to get to the bilge.

The final door from the mess led to the galley and there was some very spoiled food in a pot, and beyond that, in the storeroom there was more strangely spoiled food. Some of it was rancid, but some of it had grown, like the sack of potatoes which was now a bunch of thriving potato plants, and the sack of ship’s biscuits which was writhing with giant weevils.

You also heard a strange scratching noise, coming from below decks, and Balden was reminded of his doom, which said his death would come with scratching from below.

You decided you wanted to check out the forecastle and Balden had the plan to cast a blast across the deck to scatter the birds while you made a dash for it. And he decided that this black rock stuff you had found would be able to help him power the spell. And despite hearing lots of warnings about using it, he did it anyway. And the blast did kill a load of the birds and left a lull in their activity, so you made it unscathed to the forecastle.

It was little more than a rope store, but you found a dead body in there. He looked like just another one of the crew, but his body looked like it had been shaken and broken. He had about six feet of strange seaweed like tentacle wrapped around his leg and a dagger in his hand. Having a closer look at the tentacle it looked like it was made of a mix of seaweed, and sea plants, and other sea animals, with bits of fish and things in it, and it was crawling with sea snails and crabs and things.

Next to the rope store were steps down to the hold so you were able to descend without getting swooped on again by the birds. In the hold there were several more bodies, who had been killed in a similar brutal manner to the crewman in the rope store, and which were crawling with similar sea life.

Among them was the captain, and you had a look through his stuff and you found eight guilders in his purse. He had two fine pistols, and the nicest sword you have seen. You took the sword but decided that if Max wanted the pistols he should come and get them.

Balden spotted a seaweedy like mass in the corner of the hold, but then it disappeared. And you checked out the cargo which was lots of sea-ivory intricately carved but with primitive designs. There were four cannon on the deck and a few hammocks. You made your way to the other end of the hold and found a couple of chests, which Dietrich unlocked, containing lots of pieces of unpolished amber. And beyond that was a storeroom containing all the tools and parts you might need for maintaining a ship.

And as you were looking through the storeroom a seaweed tentacle crept up on Dietrich and wrapped itself around his leg. He screamed, which attracted Berta who quickly hacked through it with her spade. But it took Dietrich a bit of time to get over the shock, and he was left with the sea creatures crawling over his leg.

Berta grabbed some spikes and a hammer from the storeroom and then you checked out the store at the bow. It had four barrels of gunpowder in, and cannonballs, and other items required for the ship’s cannon.

Then you made you way down more steps to the bottom deck. As you went you felt the boat list even more and some of the cargo shifted. The lower deck contained a number of barrels, which were covering the bilge. About half the deck was water logged, some of the barrels had spilled and their contents, whale oil, was floating over the water. And you wondered how much time the boat had left as it continued to list and the water kept rising.