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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr Midnight" data-source="post: 3620453" data-attributes="member: 69">Session 1 - Chapter 2 COD OIL, CROW'S NESTS AND SEA TOADSIn the morning, Jade, Gerrit and Arianna set out for Chandrar, a town to the north. It was a coastal town. It was the closest town where they might find a ship that might take them as fare to the Island of Farplane, to the northeast. <img src="http://a107.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/74/l_3c51c6e724a7c490adab76ea6f05a8b2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Gerrit said “I took the liberty of dropping in on the library last night. I looked up your uncle’s castle. By the position on the map it’s closest to a town named Barovia, in the foothills of a mountain range. I couldn’t find many specifics, other than that the region is buried in coniferous black forest and that the townspeople are highly superstitious.”“Superstitious?”“You know… they bury their dead with herbs and garlic, toss salt over their shoulders, stuff like that.”“Sounds like they like to waste food.”“Maybe once we taste Barovian cooking, we’ll understand why.” They laughed. It was forty miles to Chandrar. If they pushed hard, they could make it to town by ten o’clock. <img src="http://a132.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/74/l_8cb59b0bf1f8084d97818e3453a2be0b.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> That night, they walked into Chandrar. This was a fishing and shipping village that might have been quaint if not for all the foul-smelling dockworkers. Arianna and Gerrit found a wharf with a run down yet good-sized sailing barge. Its captain was overseeing a crew of dwaves loading crates of ice-packed cod into its holds. “Excuse me, sir,” Gerrit said.“Yeah?”“We’re looking for passage to Farplane. Can you take us?”The captain tipped his cap and grinned. “Sure can. I’m Captain Evory, this here’s my ship the SeaToad. We’re settin’ out fer Farplane in the mornin’,”“Will you be stopping in at Palervale?”“First stop.”Gerrit smiled. “Excellent. Well then, how much will you be asking as fare?”The alarmed moans of dwarves behind the captain cut the conversation short. The dwarves were backing up the wharf, away from them. Jade had found the crates of fish and was eagerly licking the condensation off the side of one. Captain Evory turned back to the group. “What’s that?”Arianna said “Um. That’s my animal companion, Jade. She’s harmless.”“She don’t look harmless.”“She’s obedient, really she is.”“She stays locked up somehow on ship. Leashed or caged. Okay?” Clearly he was not loving the idea of having the two hundred pound cat aboard his ship.Gerrit cleared his throat. “Perhaps there’s some service we can perform on board that will help the voyage somewhat.”Evory thought on this. “Hmm. What can you do?”“I can be as nimble up in the rigging as anyone on your crew, and I have good eyes. I might be good in the crow’s nest.”This caught Evory’s attention. “That might be a help. We have to keep watch at sea, constant watch, for Gald’s black scum.”By this he meant Hald Guerrik, the self-proclaimed Pirate King of the Saerrin Sea. Though the five ruling kings of the mainland denied him a claim to the islands and eastern sea, all efforts to thwart him had failed. His navy was a fleet of privateers and he ruled a large island where the materials to produce black powder were in ready supply. Sailing the Saerrin Sea was a tricky thing, especially if you had cargo to carry. One in five voyages were plundered further south. Up here by Gimfrit Strait it was slightly better, but only slightly. Evory shifted his weight. “It’s because o’ the pirates that your fare will be so high, I’m afraid. I have to hire a half-dozen mercenaries to help guard the hold each time we go out. It’ll be ten gold each, plus five for the cat.” The adventurers paid him that much plus an extra ten gold for the trouble. He blinked in surprise and said “Well then! You two can have my private cabin. If you’ll give me about a half hour, I’ll have it fixed up for you all nice-like.”Arianna and Gerrit said thank you, called to Jade, and went for a walk about town. They entered the market square. Everywhere were shanty-booths of vendors selling fish and fish-based items. A bottle of brownish liquid was shaken in Gerrit’s face. “Cod oil!” Gerrit stopped walking and looked at the craggy old lady selling her bottles of cod oil. “Sure! I’ll buy one.” He pulled out a coin and dropped it in her outstretched hand, then took the bottle. The woman looked at the coin in disbelief as Gerrit walked on. It was a gold coin. She ran back around in front of him. “More cod oil!” she shouted. “All kindsa uses, it has!”“I’ll take another,” Gerrit said as he paid another gold. He took the bottle and placed it with the other in his haversack.They walked away from the woman, who was shouting after them about how you can’t have too much cod oil. “You know,” Arianna said. “That’s probably not even worth five copper pieces.” Gerrit shrugged happily. “I know. I made someone’s day, though. Vennia rewards us for every little bit of good we do.”Within a half an hour, they’d turned around and re-entered market square. Arianna sighed. “Tell me again about how we’re rewarded for the ‘good’ that we do?”"Please shut up.”The market square was lined with vendors, and each was turned to Gerrit. Their eyes gleamed like sharks’ as they moved in, waving useless sea-gotten trinkets and items. The adventurers looked down and began shouldering through the masses towards the SeaToad.“Coral amulet! Magic!”“Tuna? Tuna for you-na?”“Did you know that kelp can cure almost anything?”“Grouper, got plenty of big fat grouper here!”“Cod oil! Makes a terrific gift!”“I had a rash once. Know what I did? I spread on some Squid Paste!”“Shrimp poppers?”“Lobster muffins! Can’t be beat!”The two of them (plus a shaken Jade) reached the ship and bolted the door behind them. The captain’s quarters were little more than a wooden box that smelled of… well, the captain of a fishing vessel. Gerrit put down his things. “At least we can get some rest, finally.” Arianna sat on a chair and began to meditate as Gerrit stretched out on the bed and shut his eyes. Something else was wrong, though, and in a moment his exhausted mind grasped it. The dwarves above deck were still clomping around, loading crates of ice-fish. The noise down here in the cabin was almost cacophonous. Gerrit sighed sadly and tried to ignore the noises.The dwarves didn’t stop loading the ship until maybe two in the morning. <img src="http://a132.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/74/l_8cb59b0bf1f8084d97818e3453a2be0b.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> A knock at the door woke Gerrit and roused Arianna from her meditation. “Whuh?” Gerrit asked blearily. “Whuh time?”“Wakey wakey!” Captain Evory said as he popped his head inside. “What, are you guys hibernating? I let you sleep in all day… it’s almost seven A.M.! There’s work to do… and bring the cat!”Gerrit crawled out of bed and began to pray. Arianna fed Jade and within a few moments, they walked above deck. They were at sea. The SeaToad moved out, eastward from Chandrar Bay and for the first time, they’d left the mainland. The water ran by in a blue-grey wash and the filthy deck swayed underfoot. The kingdom of Thendis began to shrink behind them. Ahead, only ocean. It was seventy-three nautical miles from Chandrar to Farplane. They could expect to arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon. The men in the ship's crow's eye held spy-glasses to their faces as they scanned the horizon for privateers. “Heyyy,” Evory said. “There are my two favorite fares. All right. Gerrit, here’s a spy glass. Get up there and keep a watch. Rusty’ll tell you which direction to look in.” “Gotcha.” With a jump, Gerrit was swinging from line to line, sometimes flipping, sometimes turning, sometimes catching the next line with the backs of his knees, ever moving up. “Huh,” Evory mused. “He is good in the rigging. Anyway. Arianna, I got a special job for Jade here. Come with me.” He led the elf and the leopard to a large wooden block, where a gore-slicked man in a rubberized apron was cleaning fish. Arianna was horrified. It was the worst thing she’d ever smelled, and that included the encounter with the Otyugh. “What… what is it you’d like for Jade to do here?”The man cleaning the fish zipped his knife up a fish’s belly and with a finger pulled out the innards. They fell to the bloody deck with a splat. A young man pushed them and other fish guts out a deck-drain with a pushmop. Evory said “I’d like to give kitty here an all-she-can eat buffet.”“You want my animal companion to eat fish innards?”“Yeah! She likes fish, doesn’t she? It’d be a great help- Junior can’t push that mop all day, and besides, the guts in the sea are effectively chum. By the time we pass Hallowed Point we’ll be trailing sharks.”“Jade isn’t a bottomless pit for fish tripe. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow it. I’ll take over for Junior for a while, if that helps.”Evory shrugged. “Okay, suit yourself.” He walked away. Arianna tied Jade up belowdeck and approached Junior. “Hello,” she said. “I’m going to be taking over for you for a while.” “Really? Fantastic! Here’s the mop- the trick is to not step on the spleens. If they burst, the bile really gums up the wood.” He handed her the mop and untied his apron and walked away. “Oh. One more thing.” He turned back. “After about an hour or so, your hands will start to develop really horrific blisters. Don’t worry, though- after another hour, they’ll pop. Have fun!”Arianna stared after him from her place on the stinking, moist, crimson deck, holding a blister-slicked mop, with her mouth agape.Coming up ISLANDS ON THE HORIZON.</blockquote>

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