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Within the coral coffer rests the severed head of Captain Arryn Aelberoth, his lifeless grey eyes staring back at Basmajian from a pale, bloodless, expressionless face. Basmajian slams the lid of the coral coffer closed, his own normally tan face almost as pale as that of Captain Aelberoth's decapitated head. "Norebo preserve me! He must have found out .... Damn him to Baator!'
In the third week of Coldeven, His Noble Prominence Basmajian Arras, High Admiral of Asperdi and Commander of the Sea Barons, having received word of the evil fate that befell his vassal, Captain Fenslo Twan of the carrack Triton, in the court of the Horned King of Medegia, issued a command to another of his vassals, Captain Arryn Aelberoth of the caravel Brine Devil: "That fish-eyed cretin Captain Twan has gone and gotten his bloody soul sucked out by the Sword of Kas," ranted the Commander of the Sea Barons, "because the damned fool couldn't follow orders! He thought he could play both sides, and made a devil's deal to sell plans of Castle Skullgard and other sensitive information to Drax of Rel Astra, instead of doing what I ordered him to do -- secure an alliance with the Horned King! An alliance that might give us the strength necessary to crush those arrogant knife-ears of the Lendore Isles! Alas, Captain Twan has likely shipwrecked any chance of such an alliance with his barnacle-brained side-deal!" Basmajian shook his tanned fist in frustration and sighed, then jabbed a finger into Captain Arryn's chest, and gave him the order: "Any hope of salvaging an alliance with the Horned King now hangs upon you, Captain Aelberoth! You must sail to Nulbish and do whatever must be done to clean up Twan's mess, and restore diplomacy with the Horned King! Is that clear, Captain Aelberoth?" Captain Arryn Aelberoth saluted High Admiral Basmajian Arras, and replied with feigned enthusiasm: "Aye-aye, High Admiral! .... Uh, I won't make the same foolish mistake that my predecessor made." Captain Aelberoth was a sun-tanned man of mixed Oeridian-Flannae blood, with wavy brown shoulder-length hair, gray eyes, neatly-groomed mustache and goatee, and a compact, slender but athletic build. He was clad in a gaudy crimson greatcoat with large brass buttons, cinched at the waist with a broad leather belt, baggy blue-and-white checkered trousers tucked into knee-high boots of supple brown leather, and a wide-brimmed black hat with a white feather plume drooping to one side. A rapier with an ornately-wrought bronze basket hilt hung from his left hip, in a scabbard of gray sharkskin wrapped in silver filagree and inlaid with aquamarines. Arryn Aelberoth was the captain of the Brine Devil, a privateering caravel from the Dominion of the Sea Barons, and had under his command a crew of some 40 seasoned privateers. He did not relish the mission he had just been ordered to undertake, and he briefly tried to imagine what it would be like to have his soul devoured by the Sword of Kas .... "Um, if I may speak freely, High Admiral?," Captain Aelberoth requested, to which Basmajian impatiently gestured his permission. "Might it not considerably improve our chances of assuring the Horned King of our friendship if we offered a handsome sum in reparation of the renegade transgression of Captain Twan?," suggested the captain of the Brine Devil, rapidly rubbing the fingers and thumb of one hand together in the common gesture indicating monetary incentive. Basmajian Arras grimaced in irritation at Captain Aelberoth's suggestion, but knew that he was right. "Sink me to the seabed!," cursed Basmajian, and then sighed before he acquiesced: "Very well, Captain Aelberoth! We shall send along with you a suitably incentivizing tribute as an apology for that bilge-rat Twan's treachery .... But you had better convince the Horned King that Twan was a renegade, who acted in direct contradiction to my orders!" Again, Captain Aelberoth saluted and affirmed, "Aye-aye, High Admiral!," and made ready for the long voyage from Oakenheart Isle to Nulbish on the Thelly River in Medegia. Basmajiam Arras supplied Captain Aelberoth with a "reparation gift" -- an ornate coffer of ivory engraved with nautical motifs containing a hundred white pearls (worth 100 gp apiece) and a single large black pearl (worth 500 gp) -- and sent him to the Horned Kingdom as a replacement for the ill-fated Captain Fenslo Twan. Embarking from Ironport on the 17th of Coldeven, Captain Aelberoth and his crew sailed the caravel Brine Devil west and south down the coast of Medegia, reaching the mouth of the mighty Flanmi River on Sunday, 23rd of Planting. They continued another three days up the Flanmi to its junction with the Thelly River, which they took westward, reaching Nulbish on the afternoon of Waterday, the 5th of Flocktime (at the same time that the party was using their second scroll of greater teleport to beat a hasty retreat from White Plume Mountain, and the Frost Barbarian Sveinn Heldensson was turning the stolen highlands pony loose before swimming across the Thelly River to Castle Skullgard). |
