Everyone is still kicking their heels waiting for Paradoxides to finish his sums. They teleport 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 much prefer to slay things.
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 pique their interest. Girindor lands and they spy it out. Drawn up on the beach is what looks remarkably like a Tyrosian pirate schooner. A merchant cog is anchored in the bay. Inside the palisaded settlement of Aurora a young woman is suspended by her wrists from a frame. This is not a good sign. 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. She and her father were passengers on the cog, which was bound for Iander out of Kos. Salesh, her father, was hoping that he could be cured of a wasting sickness by the famous healers of Iander. The cog was taken by pirates and the merchant captain was slain along with all his ship guards. 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 taught a lesson for resisting too fiercely. There were four other girls taken ashore with her.
The party mount a flying assault upon the cog. The pirates that do not surrender immediately are swiftly slain. The prisoners are freed and swap their chains with their surviving captors. 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.
Its owner having been slain by the pirates, 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 serpent. Ubaron summons and dismisses the serpent, and then does the same to another. They speculate 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 Iander are teleported home to Telnus.
The party returns to Magdalen to visit 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