Aislin, feeling much better after a good night's rest, finds the hustle and bustle of the docks and the Siren almost overwhelming after so long on her own. As she boards the ship, she's momentarily struck dumb by her captain. There's no way Captain Steele isn't aware of what she's showing off in that short skirt and standing on the rails and barrels to put it all at or above eye-level. She supposes it's one way to motivate the crew, but she has a time trying not to imitate a lobster anytime Captain Steele is around.
Of more concern, however, is the halfling. She has no idea why he has taken such an interest in her, but after putting on her most brusque voice and telling him to stop looking at her, she takes to spending most of her time in her cabin when he continues. Paranoia sets in as she tries to think of a reason why he'd take an interest in her. The only thing she can think of is that he's seen through her disguise, which is all the more reason for her to avoid him and his surly friend.
When the storm hits during the third week, it's all that the young princess on the run can do to keep any food down. By the end of it, she's thoroughly miserable and all too grateful for a chance to settle her stomach. She does her best to avoid the halfling and his companion, but a ship is only so big, and she finds that he has to deal with the dimwitted halfling's scrutiny more often than not if she wants to be out of her cabin.
The attack on the Siren while the ship was being repaired rattles her. She had hoped that the crew could chase it off and she could remain safely anonymous, but after two of the crewmen were torn in half and another three lay screaming and bleeding, despite the best efforts of the halfling and his friend, she found that she couldn't sit idly by. She did her best to hide her contributions, and in the end, she was able to help chase the osprey headed and winged feline beast away.
Thankfully, Captain Steele's crew finished repairing the ship not long after and some semblance of peace was restored, though Aislin couldn't help but feel her skin crawl every time she felt the halfling's eyes on her. She hopes that he'll disembark at one of their stops or continue on from Tokelau. She's aware that she's becoming more reclusive as the voyage continues, but she's too scared of what that halfling can see or tell to do much more than come out for meals and whenever the chamber pot needs emptying. She had been using a pan to give her a chance to put her disguise back in place if someone comes into her cabin while she sleeps, but she finds herself wishing that her door had a lock.
They attacked on the second night of the fourth week of the voyage. She awoke to the clatter of the pan falling to the deck. As she sits up and takes in the sneer on the halfling's companion's face and the strange monkey at his side, she wonders why he's here. She gets her answer soon enough as the man lunges at her with lethal intent. It's all Aislin can do to keep her wits as she scrambles out of the way of the man's cutlass. She'd never carried any weapons beside her bow, and now in the close quarters of her small cabin, she reaches for the power of the fey running through her blood. She touches the man's forearm and he starts laughing, giving her a chance to slip past and call for help. The monkey leaps on top of her and painfully tears the enchanted ribbon from her hair, revealing her true appearance as the the crew's night watch come rushing in. The fight is over after only a few moments, the man who had tried to kill her dead.
Aislin finds herself in front of a cross Captain Steele in a thin nightshirt, explaining what happened and why she was on the ship and what had happened to her alter ego. The note revealed much about why the attack had happened. The man was an assassin sent by someone that has to know her very well, since only a few people know how precious the painter's tools are to her.
Once the captain is convinced that Aislin isn't a threat to her ship, she let the princess claim any of the gear the now dead assassin had been carrying. Besides the various baubles and sundries the man carried, she claimed the delicate looking diadem he wore hidden under his hair. It took Aislin hours of study, but she learned what it was and that it could be useful once she learned how to use it.
As the fourth week of the voyage drew to a close, Aislin found her thoughts going back to Bridunn and her brothers. Someone had considered what would hurt her the most, and using her most precious possession as a means to hunt her down was especially cruel. She isn't likely to ever see Prince Dohmnall ever again, and she'd been so happy when he'd handed her the beautifully crafted wooden case full of everything a painter would need. She pulled the case out and traced the inlaid coat of arms with her fingers. She clutches it to her chest and sobs as the Siren sails into the deepening night.
Captain Steele is easily placated, having been far more concerned with the outbreak of violence on the ship than with Aislin's royal secret. She and the first mate--the only two present for the confession--immediately resume using the princess' chosen alias and peace settles in on the ship once again- a truer peace, as the missing halfling never reappears, but a lonely one as the crew gives her an even wider berth.
The winds are favorable though and four quiet weeks later the Siren docks in the port of Tokelau. One of the few permanent settlements in the Southern Isles, where the indigenous Kono'ana typically sail in groups from island to island only settling for short periods, Tokelau is a legitimate city with many old stone structures interspersed among the newer wooden ones, and crowds of people from all over Cardriss mingling in the streets.
Thanks to recent significant changes in the direction indicated by her daily monitoring of her seal, Aislin feels confident as she heads ashore that the Southern Anchor is nearby- if not on this island very island than certainly one very close by. She walks through the streets, paying attention to her options for sleeping accommodations, until she finds a quiet alley to duck into. She focuses for a moment on her mark and discovers that the next Anchor is due north of her, prompting her to decide to give up on an inn and instead immediately trek northward across the island until she finds the Anchor or reaches the northern shore where she can look for a boat to take her to any nearby islands.
She adjusts her hat, and takes on a new appearance before stepping out of the ally and beginning the next leg of her journey. She reaches the edge of the city by early afternoon and is somewhat surprised to discover a road with a fair number of travelers there leading up the nearby mountain. Wishing to avoid any questions from pilgrims or whatever they were, she leaves the path to look for an easy way around the mountain. Another quick check of her seal, however, reveals that the Anchor is on the mountain. So she returns to the path and quietly joins the procession upwards. She soon discovers that there are ruins there being visited by scholars and pilgrims alike. Off to one side, and towards the back of the complex stands a monument significantly different from the rest; rather than being made from the local stone it is built of the white granite that's becoming so familiar to her, and its dimensions seem identical to the Western Anchor. Unsurprisingly, when she draws near an azure portal appears on one side, though it appears nobody else can see it. She waits for a moment to make sure nobody is watching and the steps in.
The confused princess checks her seal and finds that it is unchanged, and the portal on the monument persists.
A new portal opens and you step through into another matching chamber. Sans impulsiveness, you're not quite so eager to be drained again, but you've already resolved yourself to the process, so you reach out, offering yourself to the crystal. It leeches away the higher orders of your analytical thought while heightening your instincts. And the next portal opens.
You wait a moment and then begin a more thorough examination of the chamber. You find that your undifferentiated hands will sink several inches into the walls and floors, until you reach the wall in the archway; there, they pass completely through it. You follow them fully through and find your self in a second domed chamber with a matching arch on the wall you emerged from and a flat wall on the far aside. In the center of the chamber, where a crystal had been in the previous rooms, a twelve foot stone statue hovers a few inches off the floor. It depicts a lean humanoid in some sort of unfamiliar breastplate-like armor, holding a two-handed sword with a gracefully curved blade at its side. As you move further into the chamber, the 'statue' raises its sword and grasps it with both hands.
Your heightened awareness grants you ample time to step and draw your bow which now truly feels like an extension of your arm. It lunges at you but you graceful step out of the way and back across the chamber furiously firing a flurry of arrows at it while it turns and pursues you. This pattern plays out three times before a final arrow breaks one of its legs free and it crashes to the ground. There is, however, no time to inspect it as it promptly turns to mist and dissipates while a new portal appears. You take a moment to catch your breath and then step through.
After in instant of disorientation, you find yourself once again standing in the ruins of Tokelau. Your normal senses and capacities have been restored but the portal has vanished and a now familiar warmth on your upper back confirms that you have completed your second attunement.
By the time the Siren pulls into Tokelau's docks, Aislin is ready to be off the ship. Her isolation had gotten worse, not better, after the attempt on her life, and it wasn't all the crew's fault. As much as they avoided her, she was doing her best to avoid anyone on the ship. She heads down the gangplank almost before the ship's tied off. If anything, the voyage has reinforced her decision to continue on with this trial and enter the tower.
Sensing that the anchor is close, Aislin follows the directions provided by the seal on her back. She'd only gotten a good look at it when she was at an inn that had a mirror in the room, but she could feel the warmth of the faintly glowing pentagon between her shoulder blades. She ducked into an alley and adjusted her disguise again, making herself look like one of the locals. She doubted she could fool anyone with her Bridunnish accent, but she only need to avoid talking for the disguise to hold long enough for her to make it to the anchor.
She only noticed the flaw in her plan when she realized that there were a lot of people heading in the same direction, and she didn't know why. Unable to ask any questions without revealing herself, she ducks off to the side of the road and learns, much to her chagrin, that her destination is the same mountain these people are going to. She sighs and continues on, doing her best to appear as inconspicuous as she can manage.
Thankfully, the Anchor isn't hard to spot. Made of the same white granite as the tower and the other anchor, it sticks out from the other ruins in this place. The portal appearing isn't all that surprising to her now. The people walking around this field of ruins not noticing said portal is more than a little odd to the young princess. Still, there is only one way forward. She looks about to see if anyone is watching her, and once she believes she's in the clear, she steps through.
As she falls though that sliver of nothingness to land on the other side of the portal, she is certain that she'll never get used to the sensation of taking a step and feeling as if you're tumbling to your death. Looking about the chamber, she sees the stone and wonders what she's supposed to do. As she nears it and reaches out to touch, though, the feeling that it'll take something from her causes her to jerk her hand back.
Hasn't she lost enough, she asks herself. She has no home, no friends, and no family left to help her. She is able to make her way and survive, yes, but that's not the same as living, and now this test was about to steal something from her? Something that she can't replace?
Seeing the portal open, she steps outside, almost hoping that she's somewhere else, only to find that she's still in Tokelau. She takes in a deep breath and steels her nerves to go back in. She starts to several times, but the thought of losing something of herself frightens her.
But where else can she go?
Realizing her only options are to stay and stagnate or move forward, she turns to the portal and closes her eyes before walking back through it. She looks around for other options, any other option, besides touching the stone. Alas, she finds none, and so she touches it and lets it take from her. The first clue she has of what happened is the change of her skin tone back to alabaster pale from her disguise's richer deep tan. The ribbon enchanted to make her look like any other person close to her build does nothing as she tries to put her disguise back on. Worse, her bow, while still a grand bow and one of the best she's ever handled, is now useless as the magic arrows that would appear when she was ready to draw it fail to do so now.
Defenseless and her way back cut off, Aislin steps through the next portal. This chamber too has a stone, save that this one steals her sight rather than the magic she had about her. Panic nearly overwhelms her as she realizes she can't see, and tears roll down her face as she wonders what would be next. She hesitantly shuffles to the next portal and tries not to collapse into a sobbing heap as she prays for this trial to be over.
The third stone takes away the inhibitions that were the only thing keeping her from turning into a blubbering wreck. She weeps and laughs as her emotions go into overdrive. Aislin doesn't even try to assert her self-control. What was the point? After eight years of trying to keep herself together, all of the stress and anguish comes rushing out. She takes a few steps to the next portal, but she stumbles and falls to the floor as she gives into the maelstrom.
She doesn't know how long she lay curled up on the ground sobbing, but it was long enough for her voice to turn hoarse. Once she'd cried herself out, She stands up, and without any hesitation at all walks through the next portal and places her hand on the next stone. The numbness that follows is quite jarring after the almost too sharp emotions and impulses roaring through her. She moves with deliberate and methodical grace as she moves to the next portal.
A corner of her mind rails against the thought of giving even more of herself to this trial, but what else can she do now? She could stay put until she starved, and she's not at the point where she's willing to face that. Calmly, she reaches out, and all thought is gone.
Only instinct remains as the next portal opens and Aislin walks through it. There's no thought nor reason to the action, just that it is something she has to do. It's as natural as breathing. All of it, from entering the chamber, to reaching for the stone, to touching it and letting it take even more of herself. She wanders around the chamber for a short time when no new portal appears, only moving through the archway when some impulse of the instinct that's been heightened by the magics of this anchor sends her in that direction.
She immediately senses the danger of the statue and her bow is in her hands, an extension of herself as she dodges out of the way of its blow. Arrows fly, though how the magic of her bow had returned is a question that doesn't even cross Aislin's mind. Again and again, she dodges the blade and repays the statue's efforts with a barrage of missiles. After the third time, she manages to damage it enough that it cannot move.
She feels the tug of her instincts again as the statue dissolves into mist and the next portal appears. She follows them, having no reason not to, and walks through, and back out into the bright sunlight of Tokelau. Along with the warmth of the sun and the warmth on her back, all of her senses come crashing back, bringing with them the horror of what she'd just endured. She manages to move and hide somewhere so that she has some shred of privacy while she works through the mental breakdown she experiences as she works through her memories of what just happened.
It's almost dusk by the time she makes it back down the mountain and to the city in her new disguise. She'd only been worried about someone recognizing her, so it only altered a few things, her hair color, her eyes, and the tone of her skin. She still looked much like she truly does, but with blonde hair, brown eyes, and rosy skin. She finds a room for the night, and rises early the next morning to find any ship heading east.
She wants to be away from the southern anchor as quickly as she can manage.
While the style and feel of Tokelau is dramatically more rustic than the palace of Bridunn, it does have an assortment of inns catering to merchants, scholars, and travelers. Princess Aislin has no difficulty finding a comfortable place with a reasonably secure room available. The dinner, similarly, is not like what she was accustomed to back home, but the seafood is incredibly fresh and the sweetness and acidity provided by the tropical fruits that seem to be included in every dish is actually quite tasty.
Her night there passes uneventfully and in the morning she heads to the market. People from all over Cardriss mingle together in the bustling streets as she sells off the odds and ends taken from her would-be assassin and picks up a pair of blades for herself. Once that business is done, she returns to the docks and books herself passage on the first ship she can find heading east: the Kelpie's Curse.
Her haste, however, soon proves to have been at odds with her desire hideaway from the crew. There are no state rooms on the ship--save one large chamber on the upper deck shared by all the officers--and she is expected to bunk amongst the crew below deck. Worse still, she is expected to be an equal participant with the rest of the crew. Her ability to climb and balance amid the rigging, and to tie decent knots, is quickly noticed and she is assigned as a rigger. By limiting herself almost entirely to speaking Tengwae, she's able to mostly keep to herself despite the lack of privacy, but even so after weeks of working together she does begin to feel a certain bond with the men and women she spends everyday with up in the ropes.
It takes seven weeks to reach Mozumbi, the capital of one of Suderan's largest nations and Cardriss' southernmost city. Although the ship is continuing on from there, and her with it, she's heading up the dock for some much deserved rest and relaxation with she's suddenly struck by the strange sensation of being watched. Looking around, she sees nobody observing her and realizes that she has just been the target of an unsuccessful scrying attempt. Immediately, her concern about giving away too much information about her whereabouts grows and she returns to the ship to wait out shore leave below deck.
The next morning the ship departs again to sail up the eastern coast. Its smooth sailing for three and half weeks and then one of the lookouts spots a pair of armed sahuagins riding sharks off the port bow. Some of the sailors opened fire with their crossbows, killing one of the fishmen and scaring the other off. The crew celebrated that victory until that night when a group sahuagin raiders crept onboard under cover of darkness and killed three people. Guard rotations are doubled but the attacks continue and even intensify. Aislin does her best to stay out of it as long as possible but as more sailors die the pressure for her to take up arms mounts. Eventually she can no longer hide from her responsibility to help. She still hides her full power, but she begins to fire her bow from the rigging every time an attack comes and makes a big difference in the crews efforts to kill and scare off the attackers.
The conflict with the fishmen continues for nearly three weeks before they finally put enough distance between the damaged, now-understaffed ship and the sahuagin's homes that the creatures relent and leave them be. Despite toning down her abilities, the princess racks up a large number of kills during that time. The officers debate stopping for repairs once the aggression has ceased but decide that too much time has been lost already, so the ship undergoes whatever repairs the crew can manage while at sea and limps along northward. It travels all the way to Kostaldea in Eastwatch before it finally settles into port nearly 4 months after departing Tokelau.
Checking her seal once more, the Princess is pleased to discover that the next Anchor is nearly due west of her, and she should be able to follow the Eastern Trade Road (the main thoroughfare from Korryn eastward to Kostaldea) much of the way. After, of course, she reacclimates to dry land and sleeps in a decent bed once again.
The incognito princess makes her way through the crowded streets, away from the docks and towards the western side of the city. The road leading to the city's main gate is swarmed with all manner of merchants, shoppers, and people transport goods in both directions, and the inns there are similarly busy. Veering slightly off course she finds a quieter establishment where a lovely half-elf who happens to be heading in also holds the door for her. Once Aislin has arranged her accommodations, she retires to her room to experiment with her new diadem until the time comes for dinner. She finds the common room nearly empty, save for one table of young men in similar looking robes- likely students at one of the local arcane colleges. After months of eating only seafood and gruel, she pleased to find roasted chicken a fresh bread among the dinner offerings.
After eating her fill, she return to her room and begins preparing for bed, but something feels off. Her haversack lays on the bed where she left it but the top is slightly open and one corner of her paint set is still visible. She catches the faint sound of a breath near the door and quickly--instinctively--calls on her natural magic. Sparkling motes of light cling to a humanoid figure momentarily before it lunges forward with the thrust of a shortsword. The lovely half-elf Aislin entered the inn with appears and a fight ensues. Both women battle with short blades and spells, but in the end only the princess is left alive. She quickly searches the latest would-be-assassin and claims a mithril shortsword , an eye of the mantis, and 600 gold in sundries, along with a parchment enchanted to conceal a message which--after identifying the command to reveal it--she finds to be in an unfamiliar language.
Gathering her belongings, she assumes a new identity and quickly relocates to a shoddy inn that happens to be located next to a citywatch barracks. The night there passes uneventfully and in the morning Aislin buys a new horse with the little bit of coin she'd been given on her departure from the Kelpie's Curse. She has a simple but filling breakfast of eggs, sausage, and more fresh bread and is riding out of the city before the streets have grown crowded. For three weeks she keeps to herself as she rides along the road westward, hiding herself in the brush, away from other travelers, to sleep at night. On the first day of what would have been the fourth week of riding, she arrives at Izar, another one of the major city-states of Eastwatch. Rather than risk another busy inn, she rides through the city, stopping breifly for a delicious smelling goat stew for lunch , and continues on.
Once Izar is safely behind her, she consults her mark and discovers that the Eastern Anchor is now noticably to her west-southwest. Rather than following the road until the Anchor is due south, as might be faster, she welcomes the opportunity to leave the road and begins riding straight for her destination. Crossing the open plains does slow her mount some, and sleeping under the open sky becomes less pleasant with the arrival of a light but unending drizzle. She spends 3 weeks riding across open countries, and three times comes across pairs of hill giant scouts: once she spots them early enough to hide from them, and twice she's forced to kill them.
One day short of seven weeks after leaving the Kelpie and its crew behind, she arrives at small settlement in which she can see the third Anchor. Its walls show signs of wear where boulders have been hurled at them and the people of the small town seem wary of outsiders. Thankfully, the mayor--a half-dwarf by the name of Karvin Steelfist--grants you permission to enter the settlement and spend the night in their lone inn. She receives a rather meager dinner and then, under cover of night, she slips out to visit the Anchor.
The structure here is seemingly identical to the two Anchors the princess has already encountered and, as she has come to expect, an azure portal appears on the side when she approaches.
Hoping to have learned something from the previous trial, you approach the central crystal and place your hand on it, ready to submit if it drains you. There is no tugging though, no response at all. With no other options, you then walk to the smaller crystals. Feeling a vague sense of attraction to the purple stone, you reach out and touch it. The crystal begins to glow brightly and an aura of purple light engulfs your hand and spreads across your entire body. When you reflexively pull back your hand, a tendril of indigo light keeps you connected to the crystal. You feel as if every tiny piece of your body is overflowing with indescribable energy, as if you could do anything if you could just focus properly. Wishing to test a different color, you touch the yellow crystal and have a nearly identical experience, save for the color of the aura.
Trying to make sense of what to do with this power, you attempt to shape it like one your spells and find that you are, with some effort, able create a healing effect. Still curious, you try switching to the next crystal over--green--and find it responds very much the same way the yellow crystal had, replacing your saffron aura with an emerald one. Satisfied with that pattern, you contemplate moving forward to touch the large shard again but opt to instead try to activate it from where you stand. After a moment of focusing on moving the power from yourself to the crystal, a bolt of green lightning arcs forward causing the crystal the glow slightly more brightly. No portal opens, so you return to examining the crystals.
As you contemplate what to do next, a pulse bursts from the central shard and a black ray tears across the platforms, injuring you and convincing you of the need to make haste. You once again focus and manage to manifest another green lightning bolt, but this one seems to have no additional effect on the central crystal. You switch to the pink crystal and find its power much easier to give shape, but it resists being shaped into an attack, desiring instead to be released as healing or effects that inspire heroics. You quickly switch to black but struggle to manifest any effects. A moment later, a yellow spectral humanoid steps out of the crystal. You finally find enough focus to conjure a onyx dire wolf which begins doing battle with the yellow figure. Curious if perhaps the color of the effect generated by the central crystal where some kind of hint, you touch the yellow crystal again. You find the yellow energy easier to shape than the black, but harder than the pink. With some focusing, your belly grows hot and you vomit out a gout of yellow flame that strikes the central crystal. It begins to hum and it's glow is now as bright as a torch.
You focus again and, after a moment of concentration vomit another jet of fire. This time it has no effect on the crystal. A sound like a loud chime rings out and a wave of pink energy rolls out from the central crystal; it passes through you and suddenly you feel as though you're in slow motion. You reach out, as quickly as you can, and touch the purple crystal once more. Its energy feels easy to shape and with a moment's thought you've restored your normal speed and blasted a purple cone of cold at the central crystal.
A blinding light flashes and the humming suddenly ceases. When you shake the stars from your eyes, you find that the auras around you have vanished and a new portal has appeared on the wall opposite where you entered. The crystals have turned to vapor (like so many other things within the trials) and are quickly dissipating. With no options for using the crystal's power again, and the way forward clearly open, you move through the portal.
Aislin is surprised by the momentary step through the void, and to have her feet solidly back on Cardriss so soon. The third pentagon on her seal has begun glowing with the first two, and the portal on the Anchor has vanished.