The Gaming Outpost

The Wavefriend coasted up the heavy seas, and down them, its mostly open hull crowded with treasure boxes, and be-cloaked men and women trying to rest in canyons between the boxes where they could escape the perpetual damp. The helmsman, Sir Robard, wiped salt spray from his right eye with his sopping overcloak (that went over the regular cloak). Toward the prow of the boat, the quartet of magicians picked up in the last town were tossing the dragonbone knuckles to seek our Fate.

“Aiii.” One cried, and the others took up his wail. Exhausted knights sat up, and ladies in waiting raised their face masks to open sleep-heavy eyes. The Wavefriend had been running for nearly two weeks from Cotrogan, where its peers were fighting off an aggressive invasion of pirates intent on ‘taxing’ the southern city, and its environs.

It was reputed that the pirates would speak with noble prisonsers, and use them harshly with a cruel sense of humor.
‘How much is your life worth?’
‘Priceless.’
‘Then our taking everything you own is less than one percent tax rate. Are we not generous?’
‘Um.’
‘Are we not generous?’
‘Urrggh. Yes, very generous, my lord, very generous.’

No one knew if this story was true, but we did see that the outer islands had gone up in fire and smoke. So the Wavefriend fled for aid, carrying a load of nobility who were of note, and who had friends in the north, and a Duke.

Duke Rugtinan emerged from his cabin at the bow of the ship, and he would have slept with his men on deck, and gave the ladies his cabin, but all had denied it loudly. For the Duke, though a most goodly man, with a keen wit, and a just nature, was also well into his ninetieth year. Still, as he stepped around the boxes in mid-ship, he seemed lean and strong, like a fox in mid-hunt, than an aged firesitter. His cloak of forrest green rippled behind him, and his head was tall even if all its locks were white.

“What is this noise?”
“My lord duke, we see dreadful signs in the North.”
The duke jerked the magician to his feet, not roughly, but strongly.
“Say on. And speak so that all may hear you. We are the pride of Cotrogan. There is no man or woman here of faint heart, or unwise mind.”
“My lord duke, we saw great pressures under the earth, and many things came rising out of the earth.”
“Volcanoes.” Hissed Lord Kyl, a quick man with dark hair, and a keen blade that he wielded like lightning.
“Furthermore…”
“There’s more?” The Duke asked.
“This storm we chase.” The magician pointed in the sky toward the dark clouds that raced ahead of us. “It will batter the city from which we seek aid.”
“We need those troops. Those catapults.” Lord General Sir Blaise ground out, and the Duke’s respect for him was such that he turned to calm the heavy man with a gentling hand on a shoulder.
“Worse still…”
“There’s more?” The words came despairing to the mouths of many in the crew and passengers. They needed the help of the northern city, or pirates would overthrow their land.
“Flood, and famine.” The magician said, and then the four magicians sat back down, and began to beat their faces with abacuses in token of the pain they felt at this mischance that bedeviled them.
And all, even the Duke seemed set back, and disheartened.
But when the Lady of the Duke, the Duchess, who was tall and strong with glorious black hair, and seven adopted children, and a strange way of speech, she came out of her cabin. Her children, who ranged from a toddling two to a fierce fifteen, followed her, and the eldest two went to their ‘father’ to support him in his distress with arms to hold him up.
The Duke looked beseechingly at the woman he had married, who despite all the decades looked the exact same as she did the same day she appeared out of nothing in his courtyard.
She listened to the magicians, and then snorted.
“Hogwash.” And she turned to the duke, and smiled gently at the man who had been a stout warrior four decades ago. “Come husband, sleep, and worry no more. I shall play you the harp while the fools prattle on.”
The magicians sneered at her, and made ready to cast a curse upon her, but her twelve year old leapt up to the bow, and boxed the lead one in the nose.
“No dark spells, it was agreed. And it was agreed that if you lie, you go overboard.”
At this, the other knights were roused from the lethargy wrought by shock, and were reminded of their duty.
No one was to be permitted to cast a spell against any of them, let alone the Lady.
The magicians bowed deeply, apologizing, but few believed them.
The day wore on, and night came, with some winds, and the magicians laughed loudly as they talked even louder of how doomed everyone was. And no one dared go to them to tell them to be quiet, but the Duke slept quietly in his chambers while the Lady played the harp.
And then dawn came, and there were great clouds over the city as they approached its harbor. And fear gripped all, but the Lady and her children who had long learned that their mother had a wisdom borne of many worlds and lives. So they sneered at the magicians and ate their breakfast cheerfully.
And then when the Wavefriend had come into the city’s harbor, they saw an overset boat, floating upside down,and how the magicians crowed.
And they went further, and they saw that on the great domes of the temples that some patches of gold were missing, but it seemed inconclusive, but still the magicians crowed.
As they crossed the harbor, they saw many boats, but not yet working, and no one said anything. All hoped, but for different things.
As they approached the dock, they saw a man in a boat, and so they yelled to him for news of the city.
“A great storm?”
“Aye, lords. It were a nasty thunderstorm, it were. Blew my candles out, and I could not get them relit for the wind for several hours. Had to go to bed early.”
“But famine and flood?” Cried the magicians.
“Well, a few streets were cut off from a few feet of water. I could not get to my favorite breakfast cafe’ this morn. Had to eat at home instead.” The man in the boat replied to the increasingly upset magicians.
“Volcanoes.” Sang out the fierce fifteen year old of the Lady.
“Ah, well, we had a great bit of groundhogs messing up the Palace Garden. The Palace servants are out trapping them, and yelling as the little beasts eat the prize rosebushes of the Princess Irene. Most amusing.”
“Ah, oh.” Said the magicians.
“Urgh.” Said the magicians as fists clasped about the robes about their necks.
“We’ll just get off here. Our payment is ten silver…”
“Your payment if you lied was to go overboard.” The Lady said. And she motioned with her hand. The magicians were hoisted to the edge of the boat along with all their magical instruments.
“But our magics will sink. You cannot…” The leader of the magicians spoke directly to the Lady.
“By your word, we can throw you overboard. Now if you object to how I do this, I shall have this ship taken out five miles, and then have you tossed overboard.”
The magician looked in the face of the Lady for some sign of turning, but all he saw was disgust at him and his kind.
So the magicians and their boxes of tricks were tossed overboard. They swam the hundred yards to shore whle their boxes sank to the bottom as a reminder to all that it is not wise to lie.
The Lady then tossed the fisherman in his boat a silver coin, and directed the Wavefriend to land where they were met by a small delegation from the Palace. For with most of the guards cleaning up fallen branches, and the palace servants chasing groundhogs, there were few to meet the Duke and his Lady.
But it distressed her naught, I saw, and so I say as Minstrel Kewlan, of the House of Rugitan, that I now fear not the future. The Duke and his Lady will vanquish those pirates, just as easily as the Lady banished those noxious charlatans.