Quest Echos of the Past

[Gossamer]

Plotnote Link

Timestamp: (TBD by Tydus) of Summer, 514 AV

Death at sea was always a certainty to those that lived in the vast oceans of Mizahar. However, where one's soul went was not. Sometimes Dira came to collect, but other times things more of Laviku's realm would sail in and collect the dead. Rumors had it that only Laviku could be so promiscuous that even Dira wasn't one to resist his advances. And while in this day and age he had only one love, the one creature who had finally claimed his heart, in years past the case hadn't been so.

And as with any affairs, children were born, and the seas had become filled with Leviathans. Kalvikasi, they are called, were rarely in a mortal seeming. Instead, they took on mysterious shapes that roamed the liquid world doing Laviku's will. There was one noted exception to the rule though. Rhayav and his ship Red Skies In The Morning roamed the seas. Often, he was more a myth used to scare children. If they didn't behave, Red Skies would be sighted on the horizon and when darkness fell the black ship with red sunrise sails would whisk the disobedient and disloyal away for a hundred years of servitude.

Red Skies In The Morning also was a harbinger of curses and was said to have been seen by many Svefra in the night before the last djed storm. Those that had fled and taken shelter in caves had survived. Those that had questioned what they'd seen had perished. The Svefra Nation had taken a hit Spring 512, one that they were still recovering from by pirating of another form. Blue-eyed children went missing in port cities all over the Suvan and in some places on the outskirts. And those new to the Svefra lifestyle soon learned that Rhayav was real. The Alvina worked hard and constantly changed his crew around as none of them wanted to be there willingly. Early releases were common to the reformed. But it was only granted to those that were still mortal. And when the sunset sails of Red Skies were unfurled, mutiny on ships throughout the seas were always almost unheard of. Captains and Lia's were the law. If they were anything less, the world would suffer.

Other rumors abounded about Red Skies. People who had served and had been released said that ghosts walked the ship. Some even made the claim that enslaved ghosts fueled the ship when no wind was to be felt filling the sails. These survivors claimed that Rhayav was burning them up like fuel, harnessing great batches of them that he reaped like a harvest from deaths at Sea. And evidently it was sanctioned by Dira, for Lady Death did nothing to liberate the souls that rightfully should have been hers.

Cursed.

That was the world that was used. The souls Red Skies collected and burned through were cursed and everyone knew it. And because of these curses, they had given up any right to a true death and then a rebirth. The whispers said the curses were all sorts, some small uttered by a child to a parent on the verge of a tantrum or from the lips of a dying man to his worst enemy. And some were far bigger more complex things issued by unworldly things and even powerful mages or Alvina.

Regardless, it was what it was. So while not unheard of, it was an extremely rare thing that Red Skies In The Morning was sighted. In this case it was one reclining half inebriated Svefra who had grounded his Casinor for the night and was relaxing under the stars half dozing and eventually drifting off. It was in this dreamlike state that he heard what he swore was voices, voices he hadn't heard in a long time without having fire and devastating pain fill his soul. Lia Tatianna was walking along the beach with another of his lost pod discussing something important. Tydus could see them clearly in his minds eye. She looked good, though translucent, and so too did his other long dead podmate.

He could hear their words clearly, as if they too were speaking to him.

"It was the Curse, Tatianna. I told you that you should have been more forthcoming when you left. You could have told everyone when you regrouped and formed the Tempests. She wasn't kidding when she crafted this thing, and it hasn't vanished with our deaths. You know its why we are here now." Tatianna nodded, looked over at her companion and sighed. "So do what now? Tell them? Send them a note written in soulmist? There's no way to warn the others that it will happen to them eventually and anyone else that retains the Tempest ways and name. Our family did not approve of us leaving. But we had to change to survive. We were THRIVING even. If not for their Curse we'd still be sailing and probably into our second or third big ship now. I was pregnant, you know..." The Lia said, shaking her head sadly.

The pair of ghosts paused and seemed to look over at something. Tydus, as he dreamed, followed their gaze.

Offshore anchored The Red Skies In The Morning, a huge dark hulled three masted sailing vessel that rode the tide like a predator surveying a meal it was confident it was about to partake of on the land. The ship was obvious in its design and because of its unique brightly colored sails. A rowboat was just making land down the beach from where Tydus was ran up on the sand. The rowboat was bobbing in the shallow surf letting people off. The people who jumped into the waves and then up onto the beach started laughing and hugging each other. There were three of them together... two men and a single woman who looked no more older than fourteen.

"Free!" They exclaimed, laughing and circling each other with unabridged mirth. The two ghosts observing them sighed.

"So much for shore leave." Tatianna said. She shook her head and gestured to the humans. "We'll be collecting more personnel now. Souls too I imagine. He burned through three just to get here. Thousands are never enough. He'll burn through ten more if the wind isn't with him getting to wherever Laviku is sending him next." She added then shook her head.

One of the men manning the oars glanced over at the ghost son the beach. "You two best get back. I heard we were going to go a reaping for the Father tonight. He'll need some fuel for the ship. Aren't you two on the list?" He asked, then laughed, hopping back in the boat. "If not now, soon. He doesn't like to keep ghosts around that don't amuse him for more than a few hundred yeas. We heard, Tatianna, that you more than earned it. So get on back now... back to the ship. See? He's signaling already." The sailor said, turning and pushing off from the beach with an oar. The big row boat started back out towards the ship.

The ghosts on the shore shrugged, stared out to check the ship, which sure enough now sported glowing sails in the most ominous red. They grumbled, flared brightly for a moment, and vanished presumably to return to the ship.

The survivors ran up the beach, laughing. It was obvious by their talk and excited shouts they were looking for shelter and a place to eat that evening.

As for the ship, it unfurled its remaining sails, caught the wind, and slowly pulled out of sight. It was then, with the Red Skies slowly receding, that Tydus would be able to fully wake up from where he'd fallen asleep in his makeshift camp.

[Tydus Tempest]

12th of Summer, 514

As the cycles of Syna and Leth passed, their progression paralleled to the groggy, half-remembered days of painful sobriety and self-deprecating discontent of day and whirling, savage tides of liquor washing through the course of consciousness in the evening to late night; Tydus found that he was more prone to living in the depths of fantasy than forcing himself to suffer through the harsh reality of decimation.

The Tempest Pod was no more, a fact that Tydus was well-aware of and accepting of, shallowly placated by the opinion that their souls found refuge in the realm of Laviku. But, this acceptance, superficial and false by its very nature, was betrayed in the midst of inebriated solitude. The time of lonesome consumption, the emptied flask of crisp Kenashian rum lying abandoned on the deck of his casinor as the Tempest scion stared into the depths of the sky and the rising glory of Leth's light in the sky.

But, Tydus saw, in the sky, nothing more or less than the fantasies that he clung to so deeply, the succinct denial of events spurred by his imagination allowing him to perceive even the visages of his departed Lia and of Cora Tempest. The Lia, though her form was inexplicably translucent, was still the visage of the Goddess herself, a woman well worth the marks and affection of Laviku that she undoubtedly held.

Tydus wondered, more than once since her departure, if the Sea God himself had claimed Tatianna for his own, wrenching her from Tydus and the realm of the living in order to eagerly claim and hold her in his realm for immeasurable eternity. It haunted the remaining scion of the Tempest pod that the Lia had spurned his affections not once, or twice, but three times, her opinion on the precipice of turning for the hopeful before she was claimed by arrows and tide. Her life had been extinguished with the Sloop that she had wrested from the world itself, her command knowing not the limits of defeat until it at last came for her in overwhelming force.

Since that day, merely a season in the past but in the Tempest's eyes, an overwhelming and eternal pit of cycles, Tydus had indulged in the pleasures of man in order to relieve himself of the undeniable fact that he was forsaken by his Pod, one of the few left alive to suffer the insurmountable burden of their legacy. And it was that very indulgence that made him particularly aware of the words that the Tempests spoke, believing them to be nothing more or less than the deepest pits of his fantasy, the fantasy that he so wished to believe that he ignored the obvious translucency of their ethereal form and instead listened to their words, so eager again to hear the voice of the woman who had claimed Tydus' heart without him ever once claiming her body in return.

Tydus had no idea why he was fantasizing about Cora of all people, though. He had a rather cordial relationship with the man in seeming, but the elder Svefra was far too extreme in his faith to Laviku. He offered blood sacrifices to the Sea God bordering on suicidal, and the Pod, more than once, had to deal with shark threats because of the blood that had painted the side of the Sloop's deck and the water. It was almost to the point of obscenity, Tydus wondering if Cora had even the slightest bit of self-moderation. It was an addiction akin to Ty's own addiction to alcohol, the Tempest almost thinking that some unknown God or Goddess of Blood or Pain would claim the masochistic Svefra as their child and steal him away from the Pod, to their undoubted benefit.

It only made sense that Cora questioned Tatianna's faith in Laviku and her knowledge of the recourse of social niceties regarding the Pod. He claimed them to have been cursed? Cursed they were, with the presence of a Svefra who likely inevitably funneled them to their deaths. It was because of Cora that the Tempests had been in Riverfall in the first place, his wounds too great for Nerida and her fledgling skill in Medicine to deal with. Lacking the gnosis of Healing and knowing that the loss of a podbrother was deplorable, they had docked in the port of Riverfall. It was on their way out that the sea had claimed the Waverunner's Fist, and Tydus' carefree existence took the deplorable turn towards despair.

The fool was discussing the repercussions of ancient history, events that had transpired before Tydus' birth flying over his head. He knew the history, if somewhat fractured. From Tydus' understanding, it had been the Wavestrider Pod's fault for misunderstanding the hearts of the youngest and more fiery of the Svefra, the hearts of the Svefra pirates pounding in the chest of women and men too young to know the life that they so desired.

The Wavestriders had, of course, surrendered their sword for the peace of the life of fishermen, just as Tydus imagined the Greytide Pod to have been. Kel rose to mind for a moment, but the Tempest ignored the thought of his now criminal podbrother. Tydus and Callipsia had seen it fit to return to Riverfall without him once discovering that Kel had committed murder and was no longer welcome in the city of Riverfall. They saw it fit to help the man escape the fate of death at the hands of the Akalak, but until he managed to exonerate himself, the Tempests could not be seen with one who could easily end their life of sanctuary in the city of Akalaks. They had a good thing going on there, after all.

The first good thing in ages.

The faintest flicker of hope rose in the Tempest's mind before he once again snapped to the conversation at hand, little by little beginning to dissolve the fantasy that he had indulged in, noting the ethereal wisps that clung to Tatianna's form, streaming from her in wafting shrouds of fog. It was undeniable that the effect was slightly intimidating, but he was far too enthralled by the continuation of the conversation to as of yet connect the dots as to what this truly was. Firstly, the Lia of the Tempest pod spoke of a letter, a message that needed to be conveyed. Then she brought about a strange word, unfamiliar to the Tempest, though interest spiked even further due to the fact that Tydus was likely more verbally educated than his Lia had been in life, so her words were obviously not a fabrication of his imagination.

What the petch is soulmist...? Is that... actually Tatianna? I definitely had too much to-

The Lia was not yet done. She then jumped subjects to the very same curse that Cora had referred to given by the Wavestriders, then lamentation regarding the fact that the Tempests could have grown even further. But it was the last and by far most alarming thing that she referred to that drove Tempest over the edge.

She was PREGNANT?

The Tempest scion, usually one to keep a handle upon his emotions and suppress them before they physically revealed themselves, could no longer do so. The Tempest's eyes were wide with realization as he realized that weas he was listening to and looking upon was the incorporeal form of the departed Lia and Cora Tempest, his heart pacing wildly in his chest. He strove to shout out to them, but found that his throat had clenched, a pit welling deep into the reaches of his stomach as he felt a rife awareness of himself. He was no longer lying upon the floor of his casinor and staring at the sky, but clenching the gunwale of his casinor and staring. He did so unblinkingly to the point of watering and reddening eyes, at the ship in the distance and the two specters that were speaking in plain sight and within earshot of the heir of a name that was obviously cursed to the point of extinction, but fear did not well in his chest.

It was rage that took hold of the Tempest at the stark and unfiltered realization that he and the Tempest Pod were marked for death not by Laviku or by faith, but by the Lia that he had loved for so long. The last image he beheld was that of the ship, the Red Skies in the Morning before he screamed out Tatianna's name, the last sensation the burning depths of dreaming before he awoke to find himself still upon the deck of the casinor, facing upwards towards the face of Leth.

Was it... all a dream?

The Tempest glowered at the distance, noting the shrinking presence of the ship that he had seen in his vision, fastening the cutlass to his belt before he steered himself towards the Guilty Pleasure's wheel. He knew, in the depths of his mind, that he had naught a chance to turn it around. He knew that his answers made their way out of sight, sails taut against Zulrav's wind, carrying the ship past the horizon, and Tydus Tempest stopped. His answers were beyond gone. His hopes were diminished, sunken and gone, and the Tempest had no outlet for the gauntlet of emotions that crashed against his psyche with force. Tydus was, as he always was, lost.

Why...

Why had he seen the specters? Why was the ship, a strange, yet somewhat familiar ship, there? What happened?

Why can't I answer my own Gods-damned questions? Why did I have that dream?

Fratava | Hypnotic Fratava | Common | Hypnotic Common | Vani

[Gossamer]

While Tydus was busy discovering his casinor was ran up on the sand, a common tactic of the Svefra prone to excessive drinking or wanting to camp a few nights on one beach. They ran them into the shallows during high tide and as the tide receded, the ship came to rest on its hull. They could then scrap the hull, easily load supplies, or party well into the night without the fear of drowning trying to swim back out to a ship anchored off shore.

The Guilty Pleasure wasn't going anywhere, unfortunately, until the tide came in and refloated her. Another, better sailor might have figured out an easy way to get her back into the water (mainly by trenching her out), but Tydus had been pursuing other things in recent years... things that did not involve honing his sailing skills.

It was probably fortunate anyhow. The small casinor was not built for speed and once The Red Skies hit wind, the three masted ship would easily speed away allowing Tydus no way to catch her. For the moment, the ship and its crew and ghosts were out of his reach.

What was in his reach though were the three sailors that seemed to be having themselves a little party up the beach. They'd been let off in one of the longest continuous uninhabited stretch of the western coast that even they realized they'd have days to walk in either direction to hit Kenash or Riverfall depending. And so they did the only decent thing sailors could do when the day was already partially shot.... they drank.

The trio had a bonfire going and were busy downing the contents of one small keg of ale and talking loudly around the fire. They were down the beach in the distance, but not so far that Tydus couldn't catch up to them if he wanted too. If they noticed him, it wouldn't be unheard for if they tried to negotiate a ride somewhere. It seemed Rhayav hadn't dropped them off with just the shirts on their backs. Because from the smell of food, they'd been released with fully stocked larders in thier packs and and least ale to drink.

[Tydus Tempest]

No answers, no rum. Not even a blasted bottle of wine to calm the Tempest down and smooth the madness that the dream had instilled into him. Part of the Tempest scion continued to wonder whether or not the whole thing was truly a dream, but the rest was too far gone with the realization that the ship, Red Skies in the Morning had the answers that he sought and that it was gone from his sight. He was, in all manners of the word with the exception of the one he could truly use, petched.

The Tempest pursed his lips as he looked to the barrel of ale that he had, half a mind set towards lifting open the lid and simply pushing the top half of his body into it to see if he could complete the race between the need for oxygen and the need for ale, but before he could make his decision, he heard the tones of three men laughing. The Tempest wondered for a moment why he had not noticed it before, but with the dawning realization that the sounds were of three men rather than a combination of gender or the fairer sex, he knew.

The ghosts were, of course, more important than delving into the game of cups with men. But, upon further reflection, Tydus Tempest realized that camaraderie, and perhaps, more importantly, some blasted information could come out of the conversation with the men at the shore. Perhaps even a drink. Rum and wine were drinks that were fine to consume into the blackness of night by oneself, but even Tydus Tempest was not so far gone that he would drink the piss of spirits one called ale alone. The Tempest pulled himself out of the darkened corner of his thoughts, the scion pulling the string upon the loosely fitting material of his pants, ensuring the fit before searching out his flask. Finding the metallic container on the floor, the Tempest decided to progress forward, a leg flying over the casinor's gunwale and onto the sandy shores as he made his way forward.

Perhaps it was his already half-present state of inebriation, but Tydus was, for the moment, quite unable to pull at the power of his gnosis in order to sense whether or not the sailors that were forward were Svefra or not, but it mattered for naught. They looked to be harmless, pulled into, as Tydus was, the deeps of festivity and the reaches of forgetful intoxication, and the Svefra wanted, if anything, to join along. He made his way forward, though they were still too far away to quite shout at at his current pace. He didn't want to stray too far from the ship in the likely chance that he would share his ale with them. Four companions, with one as a stranger to the group, went through ale far faster than a trio, and the Tempest found it ill manners in the game of cups to join without contributing to the madness of it all.

"Hey! You three!"

The Tempest called out in both languages of the sea, unsure of which to use, his feet continuing to drag forward in the sands of the shore. With little sense as to exactly where Tydus actually was (he knew that he was close to the port of Riverfall, but in his desire to sail and make camp outside of the den of incredibly tall, coloured freaks, he wasn't sure), the Tempest could not quite figure whether or not they were headed somewhere.

When the Tempest arrived at their bonfire, noting the rather small keg that they were heartily drinking from, pursing his lips for just a moment before he engaged in conversation, using the practiced, slowed cadence that he had picked up in the city of Kenash in the previous season. His grip upon the Common tongue was improving with practice, and his confidence to employ it improved even in his state of drunkenness. The small group spoke until the small keg of ale was drained away, the conversation moving to that of a ride back to the port of Riverfall. Tydus was by no means inclined to refuse a ride, but he was curious as to exactly what could be gained from it. Tydus wove djed into the layers of his throat, looking upon each of the men in turn before he wove suggestion entranced with a small emotional response into each of the men.

"T'is not a problem, lads. But, in return... it looks like you've been left here by a curious sort of ship, mind telling me a bit about it before we turn in for the eve? I'll take ye to Riverfall in the morning."

The Tempest wove a sense of relaxation into the men, predicting that they would experience surprise by the seemingly random question that the Tempest was putting forward, his suggestion clearly placed to encourage them to ignore it and simply respond with honesty. Tydus was intent on learning more about the Red Skies in the Morning. The dream had created almost an obsessive need to figure out what the petch it was all about. Were there really ghosts on it? Tempest ghosts? Were there more? Tydus had to know, and from what he saw, these three living men were the only leads that he had.

Fratava | Hypnotic Fratava | Common | Hypnotic Common | Vani