A Son Returns

[Aetosion 2062]

The stormy seas did little to dampen the man’s spirits. His flinty eyes reflected the grey of the menacing skies, but his mind was elsewhere. Within a few nights all his family would be gathered in the torch-lit halls of his childhood home, and he would be there to see them. The haunting melodies of Adria, its Raev-tongued men and women, its bellowing yaks, the clacking of the cobblestones underfoot of mailed boots- this was home to the man who stood at the prow of the old oak-paneled cargo ship, the Driftwood. This vessel was not the one he had departed in those years before- a light caravel, double oared and twice masted, its cedar planks stained black, and its golden sails ornamented with black bears rampant. He had meant to try and circumnavigate the whole continent, but struck ice in the frozen southern wastes. Shipwrecked in sight of land, the young captain had led his fellows in an icy swim to safety. The majority of his crew drowned. Most did not know how to swim, others panicked as the icy waters pressed in on their lungs. They floundered and grabbed at their compatriots, pulling good swimmers to their deaths. Only six reached the shore, seven counting their captain, Alaric Vladovic.

 

 

 

Of the men who made it safely to shore, another three died of hypothermia as the rest shivered and collected sea-sodden wreckage from the coast to try to start a fire. As small flames began to lick at a few pieces of dry wood, and the frostbitten survivors huddled close around the fire, Alaric walked out to the shoreline, water lapping at his yak-hide boots. He stared out into the wreckage of his boat and his youthful dream, and the bobbing, drowned heads of many of his old friends. Alaric arranged three planks of wreckage in the shape of the True Cross on the coastline, and knelt on the cold sands to pray. Rising to his feet, he returned to the makeshift camp and slept fitfully that night. Dreams of bobbing heads and the booming crack of wood haunted him. Just before dawn, he awoke, shivering. A distant, unearthly glow crept across the quiet waves and through the mists toward him. In the light he saw hosts of ghastly sailors manning great pale warships across the depths. It was as if the entirety of the human race had taken to the sea for a new land. He rose, and walked towards the sounds of gruff shouts and a thousand oars slipping into the waves. Soon Alaric was slipping into the same, he was knee deep in icy water, his hand reached out- and found only air. He did not return to his camp that night. As dawn licked at the glaciers that towered over the crew huddled around dying coals and bundled in furs, the first rising sailor found Alaric standing in the waves, hypothermic and barely able to form words.

 

Vladimir, Godanik, and Petrovic tended to their captain, wrapped him in furs and coaxed the fire to life. Seals were speared for meat, and the smoke bubbling off of their melting fat was used to try and tan their hides. When Alaric awoke near dusk, he found hot food and a modicum of dry ground around the firebed. The men had salvaged a crate of water-logged cactus green, and whisps of pungent smoke curled past Alaric’s nose from a makeshift pipe. The next day, they began northward across the wastes, staying near enough to the coast to ensure a regular supply of seal meat. By the time they encountered a small holdfast, their number was three. Petrovic, the gnarled strelt of middling age, has succumbed to a worsening cough and died the prior night. They crept up to the grey stones, alert and aware of whoever may lay in wait inside. Finding the fort to be manned by a small garrison of rogue dwarves, Alaric, Vladimir, and Godanik lay in wait until it was night. Then they scaled the walls and descended on the defending force. Only one man was awake on guard in a small tower, and Vladimir muffled his shouts before they could issue from his mouth with a smelly, seal-fat stained glove, and Godanik and Alaric stabbed him repeatedly until the writhing midget went limp. They took the fort in this manner, killing the remaining defenders in their sleep with well placed dirks.

 

They set out within a fortnight after some rest, well provisioned with supplies and gold and astride the dwarves’ stocky quarter horses. It was many months’ ride westward to the coast, through mountain and taiga- for Alaric sought to avoid patrolled roads. Coming upon a small freeport, he hired The Driftwood and a full crew and a small compliment of pleasure girls, a cook, and crossbowmen. He would not return to Adria a failure. He fully intended to complete his odyssey. 

 

And so he returned to the coasts off the crown lands a year later, his ship laden with spices, dwarves-forged iron, and barrels of the rarest commodities- barrels of dried elves ears’ (a potent aphrodisiac, but one frowned on by the law), of kharajyrite incense, and of glittering gemstones from the dwarves markets. Of the crew’s original number, only one remained- Godanik, loyal Adrian sailor and sworn man to his father. Vladimir had been lost to a tavern with many beautiful women. Godanik, now first-mate, approached the captain standing at the prow, only a year older at 21 but much wiser now than the young man who had shipwrecked in the southern wastes. His black eyes flitted to the right, then he turned. “What news?”

 

“We dock within th’ hour.”

 

“Excellent. Praise him.”

 

Alaric did not leave his perch at the prow of the ship until his craft ground against the docks. He was the first to step foot on land, and as he reached the end of the dock he fell down upon his knees, kissing the soil and muttering traditional Ruskan prayers. He was home.

[3andD 1722]

The return of the king))

[Destroyer_Bravo 1054]

Maly’thill falls asleep as the story is told in court, before being awoken by the jeers of the other courtiers at the length of the tale.

[osumanduas 1442]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

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