Captain's Log

The private journal of Hal Shimin, Captain of the Havelock who is a privateer in the service of King Aamon.  Captain Shimin appears to start a new journal each time he goes on a long voyage.  There are several dozen entries, but they appear to go back in date only a month, starting with:  (including only relevant information)

1. the selection of crew, cargo and supplies while it was docked in the harbor of a large port city called Agares .   The captain makes mention that he was taken into the private chambers of King Aamon and given a commission for a very clandestine mission, something he doesn't dare put to paper.

2. Shimin speaks of two black-robed "SoV" who arrived as per his commission a few hours before he is to set sail with the dawn.  He says they identified themselves as Vunog and Vamana but just give him chills.  He doesn't intend to reveal to anyone in his crew, even Rhimmi, anything about them unless he's forced to.  Instead, he writes that he told Rhimmi that they are holy monks who are being delivered south to Yeqon and to tell the crew to just leave them completely alone and let him see to their needs and comforts personally.

3. A week later, when setting into Vepar for supplies, Rhimmi asks for a private meeting and says the crew is very uneasy.  While the journey went smoothly, everyone is plagued with dad dreams and it "creeps" the crew out the way the two monks only emerge from their private cabin at the dead of night and how tall and pale they are.  Shimin gives him extra coin and tells him to buy better-than-normal rations and double the daily alotment of grog.

4. Five days out of Vepar, the Havelock is attacked by the saghuin of the Goldshell clan who are normally friendly to ships that peacefully pass through their territory.  Several crew were lost. Vamana and Vunog reveal their natures to Rhimmi and the crew by unleashing sorcerous death-magic upon the saghuin.  A dwarven sailor named Fikgras Caskfury objected to the sorcerers making offerings of the dead to Vöroth so they melted the flesh from his bones and asked if anyone else had objections.  No one did.

5. Shimin writes that he brought Rhimmi into his confidence, showing him the comission with the king's signature.  They indeed be taking Vunog and Vamana to Yeqon and reprovisioning there.  They are under strict orders, however, to wait for the "passengers" to return from a private mission that will take 3-4 days and then do whatever the passengers wish.  Rhimmi tells him this is a terrible idea but agrees, reluctantly, to keep the crew in high spirits and avoid mentioning to any of them that the SoV are getting back on.

6. The Havelock reaches Yeqon peacefully and Shimin details the reprovisioning and hiring of several new crew to replace those lost by the sahuagin.  He describes it as "the loathsome capital of Cambio, the bane of all godfearing nations"

7. Himin says that the sorcers dropped a bag of rare blood rubies each worth a new ship of the Havelock's calibre from the Agaresian shipyard on his desk when they showed up two nights later and gave him a nautical map of the course to head to, pinning it to the wall for him with a strange ruby-hilted gold dagger.  He stared at the map after they left for their cabain and reported that the madfolk wanted him to sail The Havelock nearly a thousand nautical miles south of Runeshadow Isle, literally to the edge of the Known World.  Himin describes angrilly yanking out the dagger from the wall and that once it was in his hand, he could not let it go.  Instead, he brought it to his own throat, against his will, frozen in place.  Not until he whispered outloud that he would obey the will of the Souldbound did his arm drop and he was able to put the dagger down.  He locked it away deep in a chest, paranoid that it was cursed.

8. The Havelock reprovisions again, this time in the main trade city of Austarad on Runeshadow Isle. They anchor a few miles out of the port, however. He has Rhimmi and the other non-humans on his crew take care of it all in the long boats, giving the rest of the crew some leisure time but reminding them of how the Island Elves of Runeshadow considered humans a slave race and the dangers of setting foot anywhere on the island unless they wanted to be turned into collared serfs bred like cattle.

9.  Three days beyond Runeshadow, Vamana and Vunog begin taking turns standing at the bow and using their sorcery to create a protective barrier around the ship, protecting it from violent storms and creatures of the Deep.  Neither captain or crew can sleep, however.  Food tastes foul, water tepid, everyone seems cranky, accident-prone and scared of their own shadows.

10. Two more days of this and then the ship enters sea so dark and tempestuous that Himin loses track of where the sea ends and the sky begins.  When the sorcers command everyone else to go below decks?  They do so eagerly.  Captain and crew drink rum and huddle together not sure they are going to live another hour, much less another day.

11. Himin reports they survived and turned around but not alone. The sorcerers had apparently summoned "prisoners" they demanded be stripped and put in the empty holds and not all together.  They are all unconscious but as he and the crew watch (crew participates in stripping and binding them, he stares at the young human boy among them sure he'd seen that face before somewhere.  Vamana noticed his interest and laughed when he asked who the young man by me.  "A prince. A slave. A legend. A curse.  A nothing is what she said and then kicked the unconscious youth right between the legs and spitting on him." he writes.

12. The last entry in dated two days after the previous one and says that he unhappily watched as Vunog put a siphon in one of the prisoner's mouths and fed them Krakenblood mixed with water.  "This will keep them asleep and hydrated long enough for us to reach Agares without incident," he told me.  "Along the way, we will begin to perform the proper rituals on the boy to make him completely biddable to the king's will, which is the will of Vasago , May the Darkness be Eternal."