The Sea Journey
There is an uncomfortable moment when it looks like the Captain might simply set William and Clem adrift, but then with a nod of his head he relents.
"Show these people to quarters, Bo'sun," he says. "And find them some clothes, especially the womenfolk. Welcome to the Sea Ghost."
Xoria and Vela are quartered in a cabin under the forecastle whereas Olmar, Wade, William and Clem are all quartered with the rest of the men, given hammocks in cramped quarters belowdecks. There are grumblings about having to squeeze in more people, and more mouths to feed, but no outward hostility.
In the morning the Sea Ghost sets sail, leaving the island of the Ur-men behind. Once out in open waters, the bodies of the two crewmen, Ulfgar and Hralf, are cast overboard in weighted sacks. Captain Sigurd "Snake-Eyes" offers a brief eulogy and a supplication to Ramardas, god of the sea, and then work returns to normal.
Over the next week, sea-life settles into a routine. Wade is able to provide useful tuition so that the new "recruits" are able to prove some worth. Punketah, the eastern magician, takes and interest in the newcomers and ofetn invites them to dine with him in his cabin, asking questions about there homelands, and in particular seeking out Xoria with probing questions about magic.
You learn that the ship is bound northwards for Zor, where Sigurd hopes to sell his cargo of exotic beasts (mostly parrots and monkeys, but the prize possession is a creature like a leopard with snakes growing from its shoulder, a creature Punketah refers to as a kamadan) to the new Overlord, Lord Corran, who is apparently very keen on new wild animals to set on prisoners in the arena.
The Ur-man island is roughly in the middle of the Sea of Storms; eastwards lies a vast smattering of islands leading to Wade's homeland of Kinef, beyond which lie the forests and deserts of William and Punketah's lands, and then onwards to Vela's lands and the Empire of Jade. Northwards lies Zor and its hinterlands, Olmar's mountain home and the fjorded coasts of the mostly Norrlending crew of the Sea Ghost.
There is a growing body of discontent amongst the crew at having strangers on board, particularly women. An unlikely ally is the crewman Vela bested in unarmed combat, Sjarl, although his "defence" of the newcomers is that Vela can't possibly be a real woman to have beaten him like that. There are no moves against the newcomers, but you feel the cold glares of the crew on your backs as you move about the ship.
The superstitious sailors see omens everywhere; in the shape of the clouds, in a school of dead fish, in the colour of the water, that the Sea Ghost has a curse upon it. Matters become worse when a sickness strikes the crew, incapacitating 6 of the 10 sailors on board, as well as Clem, Wade, William and Frithof. There are complaints that the cook, Grimnir, has been forced to use rotten meat in order to eke out the rations to include the newcomers, and two weeks out to sea the healthy crewmembers, led by the first mate Bjorn the Bloody, stop work and gather on deck to confront the captain and the newcomers.
"There's a curse on this ship, and it won't be lifted until they're thrown to the sharks," growls Bjorn.
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A brief interlude, feel free to improv any details of your time on the ship up until now.
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