Tales from a Ryakan journal

[i]
The salt bristles my whiskers. The wind russles my hair. The sea rocks the boat.
All things are in order.
I hired myself out to a Captain Johann Mcleod of the "Chanticleer". Odd name for a ship. you would think all the crew to be chickens.
Yet the proved themselves with such steel. Just this for'morn we were attacked by pirates. I was grateful to have been on lookout in the wee hours of early morn. They must have laid down their sails and rowed up against us in the night.
When suns first beams ripped apart the darkness, behold! a ship was beside us.
A fury of a battle ensued on both decks.
I, myself, jumped ships and made use of my dagger and agility to cut their riggings.
What a glorious battle.
Every man was killed save the Captain.
i'm not particular about murdering and killing, but this was for our lives. Besides, we removed one more wretched plight against this gracious, bounteous world.
The Captain we threw overboard, on my account, for I had asked that when such an atrocity takes place upon open seas, that we let Lady Sereus herself act as judge.
He never came back up from the waters tomb.


Or so we thought...

the next night, that bastard must have lashed himself to the back of the ship, he climbed up and made quite the silent killing.
Agian on watch duty, I heard some rustling.
I forsook my duty to enter the keep to find the murderous fiend atop one of my slain comrades. I threw myself out him, knife-handing the blade from his hand. We toppled over each other. he was by far the stronger. But I writhed and clawed and kicked and bite. anything to make noise. i didn't need to win. Just needed to hold onto life.
Fear entered my heart, real fear, for the first time that night. He pulled the dagger from my own sheath and riased it above my head. with one hand he held his "checkmate" blade and with the other he held my head down against the floorboards.
The blade rushed down.
in that instant, I confess I closed my eyes.
I opened them to a dead man on my chest and searing pain in my left ear.
I pushed him off, to see Johann, flintlock pistol in hand.
My stump of an ear was bandaged and the three slain crew were given a proper sea-man's burial.
As for the captain, we hung him from the mast and let the board eat at him for the day. Then we tied him to a rope and let his putrid body trail behind us.

After three days, mists and fogs came upon and some of the crew believed he had sputtered a death-curse upon us. Perhaps he was a rune wielder.
That night, the watchman, fell dead-cold and hard, as if frozen.
The mists grew thicker, and we lost our bearing.

The following day, our food supplies went bad, and fould smeels arose from the kitchen. The for'castle was rotting.
The ship was falling apart.
On the fifth day since his mutilation, i prayed to Sereus for rescue.
As I prayed, the ship hit something large and shattered.

I sputtered for air as I drifted away on a single plank. I was the lone survivor. Sereus be praised.
As I watched the wreckage sink, I swear i saw a ghostly black ship with a pale looking captain watching me. He was drenched and covered in seaweed. He drew his cutlass and spoke to me.

"Remember the debt you owe to me."

I had gotten quite the sea man scare as they call it- when a crewman loses his sailor's legs. I feared the water for a time. It was rather pathetic for a follower of Sereus. I continued the rituals, but never set foot on a ship.

It happened as I was werking for a merchant, that his boy, Lucian was kidnapped. A few cuthroat Naganati had stolen him for ransom. The merchant, Trazile, hadn't the money to meet their demands, he began to sell all he had.
The sight of the poor man giving all he had to save a life, his own sons, moved me. I was already inclined to do what I could to help, but I could not delay.

"Sir," I said, still young and eager, " I will find your boy. Hold your possessions, so that when we return, he may be properly welcomed back. "
I still had my arrogance, despite a hard lesson or two that I had learned.
I had gained somethings though, wit. And not a little wisdom either.

I had been in town for some time. I knew the poeple to tlak to and the people you shouldn't.
I asked the merchant to give me my month's pay then.
He was rather taken aback by that. I informed him of my plans. His mood dissapated to sheer show.
Currency is the engine of intrigue and the oil for well geared negotiations.
With a pocket full of money, I set off for the shadier parts of town.
I met a few fellow Ryakans, but they weren't the type to deal with. My own kind prefered not to dabble in black affairs. I praised them.
The man I was looking for was Tom a' Bedlam. He was crazier than a horse in spring, with a lazy eye to boot, but I swear, that one good eye caught everything that happened. He was the most well informed man. He had one problem:

"What bring you here,
ryakan queer,
the rat fresh out of water?
you bear a task
beneath heart's mask
to save a son or daughter?"

He spoke in rhyme. Got confusing from time to time. But if you could understand it, then you were well off.
He was being easy on me today. I had pointed out a miscalculation in one of his business exchanges a month or so back. He had saved a pretty cren or two. ( Perhaps closer 200...)

" I see you already have an inkling of my task. Then we can get to business."
I tossed my sacthel of money at his feet. He had a second flaw. He was unscrupulous. He knew how much money he had on his person, in his bank, in his chests. He even knew, some say, how much money each person who worked for him had at just about any given moment. He was a wily one, he.

A half-toothy grin gave me reassurance that he knew well what had happened.
He filled me in.
The nagatani had learned that the boy was not the merchants son after, but his nephew. The boys dad had died. He was some duke's son, but until he reached a proper age, he was kept well hidden since the duke had had many enemies.
One of the duke's enemies, some say it was the duke's own chancellor, hired the nagatani. THe point was, the Chancellor had gotten or forged a signature of the duke stating that he would inherit the duke's property and titles, so long as no available heir was found. This statement seemed bunk though, since everyone knew about Lucian.
However, the duke's death came prematurely. Lucian, by other laws in place, was not of age and couldn't rule. THe rule was straight to the Chancellor. The boy's birthday was soon, in which the good merchant, TRazile, would send him back to his home, so that he oculd relieve the Chancellor. Obviously, the chancellor refused to relinquish his power. Hence the plot to take him.
The Nagatani, however, had messed up. The apparently weren't getting paid enough, so they fiured they'd hold the boy ransom, get pay from Trazile and then high tail it out of there, or off the boy and got double payment.

The problem was, where would I find them....