A sea voyage...

Be a lot ta tell since spring broke one o’ the coldest winters I’s ever known. I’ll start at the beginnin’, I s’pose, then see if I can be bothered tellin’ the rest sometime. An eventful time, nowt but trouble since Miss Justine’s twins were born… meant ta be some symbols o’ the land’s fertility or some such (them druids don’t ‘alf do some strange things). Yer can wager everybody flocked ta see the new babes… an’ o’ course the lightest o’ feet belonged to the darkest o’ souls. Was nah a month afore them babes were taken – kidnapped – an’ suspicions loomed until an almighty battle raged across the land against these mercenary folk who ‘eld the twins.

Meanwhile, yer old friend Swith ‘ere was getting’… well… more than a little nervous about impendin’ war, an’ on the mornin’ o’ battle, I pulled a little raft I been workin’ on from under the wharf where I’d been hidin’ it and sailed off before first light. Me plan were quite simple… find a passin’ trade boat or somethin’, talk me way on, an’ ‘ead south ta spend a few days on a beach wi’ some rum. Give it a week or so, then ‘ead back to Erebos ta see ‘ow things looked.

Well, all were goin’ exactly ta plan… were the same afternoon when I were caught up by a small boat, an’ before it got close, I pretended ta fall over in a faint like some damsel in distress, an’ then cooked up some story about bein’ a lord’s minstrel who’d been stolen an’ abandoned by pirates. So they took me on board an’ give me some ‘ard-tack an’ grog, build up me strength a bit, an’ I were all thankful o’ course. I were jus’ settlin’ in an’ getting’ ta know the lads over a couple o’ sea shanties an’ whatnot, when a mighty storm came sudden out o’ nowhere, pushin’ back toward the north an’ near breakin’ the little boat in two.

Them superstitious scurvy sea-dogs… they blamed it on me! Said I were cursed ta bring down boats wi’ bad weather, put me in a barrel an’ shoved me overboard ta fend fer meself. Well… as yer can imagine, I thought me days were numbered. So tossed an’ battered were I by the storm, I thought I would die right there, in the middle o’ the sea, wi’ nowt but fishes an’ strange things. I don’ know how long I were driftin’… a day, maybe more… but jus’ as I feared ne’er seein’ land again, I raised me ‘ead an’ saw a mountain loomin’ before me. Oh, what ironic sight…. I were headin’ back to Erebos…