Master's Journey: Tales to Astound! #4
Added 2019-02-03 23:52:18 +0000 UTCAuthor's Note: No real notes, but at least the story's starting to progress a little and I think it's looking pretty deec.
[story]
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You glance down at yourself, offering a small shrug of your shoulders in response to the question. “Nothing but the rags I wrapped myself in, and the blade I scavenged from the shipwreck. I may be able to help in another way, though.” While you attempt to keep your voice neutral, cautious, you feel desperation wearing at the edge of your senses. Cleaning out and wetting your mouth seems to have only made you more thirsty, and rolling pangs of hunger continue to insistently wrack your salt-encrusted body.
“Well,” the man says, nodding with a pensive expression on his bearded oval face, “let’s get you some food, first, and we can discuss repayment after you’re recovered. You may want to clean up in the river, as well -- no biting fish or snakes, as far as any of us can tell.” Moving to his tent, the phyragian withdraws a package of what appears to be crude, blood-drenched sack cloth, unwrapping it and revealing its contents: a heavy slab of what appears to be tough, malformed meat. Certainly not something coming from any of the animals you’re familiar with. Meat, however, is meat. “Kinna, could you toss this onto a spit for our guest?”
The light-haired woman, apparently Kinna, catches the wedge of meat, glancing from her kinsman back to you. “Aye, I can. Well, nameless girl -- you said you came here by ship, eh? You wouldn’t happen to remember the name of it, would ya?”
You watch her skewer the dripping, bloody strip for a long moment, your mouth welling up with what little water that hasn’t already spread to the rest of your body. By every god out there, it’s taking what little self-control you have not to rush across the river and eat it raw. Finally, though, you regain your senses -- Kinna’s question filtering back into your mind just in time for you to attempt to answer. “I fear I do not. My past was lost with the ship, as I said. All I know is what I have observed since this morning... so while I do not know the name, I remember its tattered flag.” You inhale through your nostrils, crouching to scoop up and drink another handful of water from the river. “It was blue, or what was left of it was. Sodden with water, splashed with blood. A white serpent coiled about a white crown, in its center. I have some memory of where it crashed, as well.”
“We could use that,” Kinna says, turning back to her male kinsman. The second woman, the one with the markings, remains fairly silent -- staring into the licking, churning flames of the campfire. Listening, but not speaking. “Ozrik, this would be good enough word for a visit to the city, would it not? Knowledge from the coast, of those who might invade or voyage to this accursed continent?”
The man pauses, thinking, the suggestion seeming to hit him like the kick of a pack horse. His bright eyes brightening further, a wide grin spreads across his face as he rushes to Kinna, wrapping her in a tight hug of excitement and kissing the top of her head with a noisy mwah. “What a mind you have, Kinna! Aye, aye, it could work, could it not? Very well, Drowned Lady of Kalt--” Ozrik turns his attention back to you, his grin not faltering. “We will give what we have as if you were one of our own. All we need is for you to travel with us to a city, some few days away, and tell them of the ship you saw, and this flag!”
You nod slowly. “Very well. I can help you.” Right now, you’d say anything to get that food -- and from the smell coming from the campfire, it’s almost done. You can make an actual plan once you’ve eaten.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
An hour passes as you cross over to the camp, accepting your “reward” of cooked meat and strange, leek-like vegetables, the former of which you find to be incredibly tough and of distractingly gamey flavor. Tough or not, though, it’s one of the best meals you’ve ever had -- and you remain largely silent, invested in your meal while the three phyragians talk, both to you and amongst each other.
During this time you learn a few things -- that they are indeed of phyrai heritage, and that they hunt for rare animal parts, largely ivory or certain strange glands or horns that aging nobles believe will aid their waning sexual triumphs. The man, as you learned, is named Ozrik, and the lighter-haired woman (who you learn is Ozrik’s sister) is Kinna. The marked woman is spoken to little over the passing hour, and speaks herself even less -- you learn that her name is Shie, but not much else. From the arrangement of strange bone totems and talismans decorating her tent, you grow to suspect that she took up rare animal hunting for darker reasons than simple coin.
“Well, we should get packing up and moving, aye?” Kinna remarks as you finish the last few bites of the haunch of meat you were given, far more than you might ordinarily be able to eat and only forced down through your state of near-starvation. She looks up at the two suns, Oyeph growing brighter as it hangs in the center of the sky, while its sister, Akkesa, begins its journey to the horizon, casting splashes of fiery pink light out across the sunset. “Soon, only the Lord in Blue shall shine. Perfect for traveling.”
You nod slowly, stifling a burp that your newly-made phyrai friends would likely have let loose. This is your moment to make your move -- you’ve had food and water, and may be able to survive in the jungle on your own, make your own way, perhaps. Then again, the city does include temptations of its own, if you can indeed get inside.
1) Travel with the phyrai hunters to the city they spoke of, using the long comfort of dusk to walk safely.
2) Bathe in the river before going, burning dusklight but cleansing yourself of salt and sand.
2a) Invite someone to join you.
3) Attempt to escape via the river, going back on the bargain you made and keeping the information you have to yourself.
