Everyone is still kicking their heels waiting for Paradoxides to finish his sums. They teleport out to Basi to see if they can help. They can’t. So Girindor flies them over to Magdalen to see Jusper Herath and do a spot of foraging for alchemically useful plants. What they find there is much better distraction for the likes of Grettir and Wilf, who really just want to slay something. There is a small settlement called Aurora in a bay not far from Jusper’s tower. As they fly over they see a number of things that make them suspicious. They get Girindor to land and they spy it out. Beached on the shore there is what looks remarkably like a Tyrosian pirate schooner. There is a merchant cog anchored in the bay. Inside the palisaded settlement of Aurora there is a young woman suspended by her wrists from a frame. This is not a good sign. The drunken singing coming from inside the longhouse completes a generally piratey picture.
At dusk Ubaron, Kolgrim and Girindor fly into the village and rescued the girl. Her name is Melinda, and she and her father, were passagers on the cog, which was bound for Ianda out of Kos. Salesh, her father, was hoping that he could be cured of a wasting sickness in Ianda. The cog was taken by pirates. The captain/owner was slain along with all his soldiers. Some of the remaining crew turned coat; the rest were in irons inside the cog, along with her father and other passengers. She was being punished for resisting her captors. There were four other girls taken ashore.
The party mount a flying assault upon the cog. The pirates that do not surrender immediately are slain without mercy. The prisoners are freed and swap their chains with their surviving captors. Then Grettir bids Girindor fly him out to the palisade and set it alight with one of his spectacular walls of fire. As the pirates boil out of their long house, Grettir deploys his best battle-field voice to inform them that the schooner will be next unless they immediately release the four girls. They comply.
In the absence of any other claimants Grettir and his companions claim the cog, the Seven Stars, as salvage and sail it to Basi. At the request of the loyal crewmen, the turncoats are flogged and put to work but not executed. Wilf notes that the ship is leaving a phosphorescent wake and is being followed by a sea sepent. Ubaron summons and dismisses the serpent, and then does the same to another. However, it leads to specualtion that the ship has somehow been sorcerously marked – perhaps the reason that it was targeted in the first place.
Grettir invokes Osiris to cure the disease afflicting Salesh. Girindor and Ubaron, the other healers aboard, complete the job of bringing him back to full health. They sell the ship and its cargo in Basi for considerable profit. Melinda and Salesh, who no longer need to go to Ianda are teleported home to Telnus.
The party returns to Magdalen to see Jusper Herath and pick wildflowers as they had originally intended.
F-26
OE Date: June 694
Characters: Grettir, Wilf, Ubaron, Girindor NPCs: Tulkan, Kolgrim
Real World: March 2003 ; Where: Surbiton?
See also Salrod’s Diaries