The shipmaster leads Alexios down a narrow stair beneath the quarterdeck. The vessel glides east through the salt flats, timbers creaking while lanternlight trembles over salt-stained maps.
The cramped chart chamber is crowded with rolled parchment, bone dividers, and brass weights. A broad table occupies the center, its surface carved with old sailing marks.
The Shipmaster
Mind your crest on the beams. This room was built for charts and secrets, not warriors carrying flaming spears.
She clears a space on the table and places the black shard above a weathered coastline. Its cold pulse spreads across inked waters, stopping over a council sigil beside a faded western ruin.
The Shipmaster
There is the contradiction. The shard points toward that western ruin, yet its magic woke while you traveled east. The chart may explain why.
The Shipmaster
These markings predate Ithaca’s current borders. If the ruin is a gate, not a destination, the shard may be guiding you toward the road that opens it.
Above them, sailors call softly across the deck as the ship holds its eastern course. The shard pulses again, illuminating a thin hidden line beneath the coastline.
“That is my hope, I also hope that I wasn’t wrong to choose go by sea instead of land”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +2)
Alexios
That is my hope. I also hope I was not wrong to choose the sea instead of traveling by land.
The Shipmaster
You chose wisely. Land would have carried you past the gate’s old roads, while this channel follows the hidden line beneath the coast.
The shipmaster traces the illuminated mark with one claw. The shard’s cold glow follows the vessel’s eastern wake, then settles over a second council sigil.
The Shipmaster
See there? The sea is not taking you away from the ruin. It is carrying you along the forgotten road that reaches it.
The chart’s hidden line brightens from the inland channel to a crescent harbor far east, where an ancient symbol opens like a golden eye.
The Shipmaster
By dawn, we will reach waters no Ithacan map records. If your shard is truthful, this ship is exactly where you need to be.
Above, the sailors adjust the eastern sails. The vessel glides onward through moonlit salt flats, and the shard’s steady pulse confirms the chosen course.
“I continue east toward the crescent harbor”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +0)