Dragonstone 36

**Chapter 36**

Arin forces a white powder down Alos's throat, which puts him to sleep. She then *“began mixing another drink, this time crumbling a dried petal of a yellow flower into water and stirring, bits of the petal swirling 'round and 'round, changing the color of the liquid.”*

Well, that was a useful and necessary scene.

While Arin tends to Alos, Egil wanders around asking the crew if any of them have ever heard of Doomy. None have, but we learn that it will take three or four weeks to reach Jute, assuming nothing happens to delay them.

Can't you just *feel* the tension? \~/ We're taking a drink every time something like this happens.

Egil asks Holdar about Doomy, but still gets nowhere. Holdar quite sensibly says he doesn't want anything to do with any evil wizards, and wonders why Egil does. Egil says he has the families of forty Fjordlanders *“eager to take off his head,”* which we've never heard of before. I mean, it would make sense, it's just never been referred to.

Samurai Chick reminds him that the “rede” said to *“take only these, no more, no less,”* so his forty-family vengeance will have to wait. Um, if that's true, then **why are you dragging Alos along?!** If Egil is One-Eye in Dark Water, then by definition Alos *cannot* be. If Alos is, Egil is not. You're taking an extra person in *direct defiance* of the phrasing of the “rede,” and thus should be dooming the quest to failure.

\~/

The next day, Alos wakes up and wants to know where the hell he is, and when he realizes he's on a ship, he breaks down crying. *“The yellow woman”* \~/ comes to collect him, and *“For the next three or four candlemarks, there were howls and thumps and sloshings and cursings from behind the old man's locked cabin door.”*

Har har, elder abuse. \~/\~/

And why didn't you do this earlier, when Alos was already unconscious, you abusive stereotype? \~/

So Alos is now conscious, sober, and clean, and he wants some booze. \~/

New paragraph. Alos wants some booze. \~/

We learn that no one will give him any, and apparently the only alcohol around is a keg of brandy Captain Holdar keeps locked in his quarters. We also learn that Alos has horrific nightmares of ogres and green witchfire every night, from which he literally wakes up screaming. But, y'know, drunken sots are funny, right? \~/ It's not like they're real people.

A week passes, and Our Heroes find themselves approaching a mountain range, the Gronfangs, and the Seabanes, which are a series of islands formed by the end of the mountains. In between them is a giant whirlpool called the Maelstrom, because every fantasy world needs a giant whirlpool. One of the Gronfangs is called Dragons' Roost, so named because dragons roost there.

We get a bit of worldbuilding when we learn that krakens – which are exactly what you think they are – haunt the Maelstrom, and they are said to be the mates of the dragons. Yes, really. In Mithgar, dragons are the males and krakens are the females of the same species, and their young are sea serpents. I'm not taking a drink for it because it's not profoundly stupid, but it is weird.

More infodumping on the love lives of dragon. They perch on Dragons' Roost, the strongest at the top, and when a kraken appears in the Maelstrom, the first dragon swoops down into the sea to mate, and so on until the supply of either dragons or krakens runs out. Only the strongest dragons survive the process.

Arin confirms this, because elves know everything, and says that the Children of the Sea (sea-fairies, basically) claim that sea serpents eventually form cocoons and emerge later as either krakens or dragons.

Well, that was five pages of weirdness.

So after twenty-eight days, \~/ they come as close to Jute as Holdar intends to go, so Arin & Co. prepare to depart. Alos hangs around watching, as he does not intend to go with his kidnappers and abusers, and good for him. *“Yet he seemed agitated, as if reluctant to part with those who had cared for him”*

Shut up, McKiernan. \~/

“*Arin with her gentle ways, Egil with his friendship,”*

I wouldn't consider mockery, drugging and kidnapping to be friendship, but that's just me. \~/

“*even Aiko, thought she was rough, making him bathe and all.”*

The word you're looking for is “brutal,” or perhaps “abusive,” not “rough.” \~/

As they board the *Brise,* Egil makes one last appeal to Alos, saying he could use an experienced helmsman. Alos stalks off without a word, but to my disappointment he comes running back with his gear, saying he'll sail with them to Jute and no further. Why he chooses to prolong his time with these people who have been nothing but cruel to him, I don't know.

Three days later, Our Heroes reach the port city of Königinstadt and the chapter ends.

Drinks: 11

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