(While reading this chapter, keep this virtual map in front of you. Imagine a rather large continent, a kind of a Super-Iceland surrounded entirely by water. On the west coast is an inlet, kind of like San Francisco Bay. This is Bellehaven Bay, and Mount Royal is somewhere on the southeast shore. At the center of the island are the Seven Cities of Cibola and Prester John's lair. A river flows to the southeast taking you to Erewhon, the Land of Machines. Turn inland to the southwest part of the continent, and you come to the Land of Pyramids. Then jaunt through the jungle back to Bellehaven to the northwest. Then sail along the north coast of the continent to encounter the Czesky and Cymri peoples.)
Prester John:Edit
While Asantus was passing the time with his dear IXOHOXI, the captain had more vital matters to resolve. Fewer and fewer men were reporting for duty as they turned their attention to more domestic pursuits with their women. This was quite understandable. There was no other reason for being here, as they had no interest in bush-whacking the interior in search of commodities, and the captain's mandate said nothing about concluding any trade agreements. They'd already been through hell, what with the conditions on board after their encounter with the Kraken: horrifically overcrowded, under-provisioned, and disease-ridden. They could wash their hands of it as did Aldaril Mapfinder, but Aldaril wasn't a professional sailor. A sailor on land is like a beached whale--he's doomed if he doesn't get back to sea!
The captain, for his part, wanted to see what was in the interior of the land, so he took two native guides and Vaezbrub on an overland trek into the forest. He left the first mate in command during his absence, but he couldn't go without Vaezbrub. His estimation of the bastard lunatic skyrocketed when he found a way to escape the ice floe, and he came to realize that Vaezbrub was like a mirror of his own soul--there was a method to his madness--and the captain kept him close as an adviser.
Even so, it would have been foolhardy just to set out into the interior without knowing what they might encounter. With the pidgin language that they had finally worked out as their lingua franca, the captain learned from the king of a tradition that a wonderland existed somewhere in the interior ruled by a king much greater than himself. The captain naturally had never heard of Prester John and the Seven Cities of Cibola, and his immediate response was to inquire in which direction they were to go to see this land for themselves. He was strongly warned that it was situated in the midst of a water-less desert, which is why so little was known of the place. In recent memory, hardly anyone accustomed to the verdant coast-land of Mount Royal ventured into the wasteland, and those who did never returned.
The captain was strongly advised to carry two pounds of food and four quarts of water per person per day, which was why he deemed it necessary to keep the number of trekkers to a minimum. This way each man could ration his own needs, and if supplies ran low there would be no in-fighting. Moreover, all travel should be done at night while daylight hours should be spent dozing in the shade of overhanging rocks and in caves. However, when he inquired into the nature of this Prester John, the answer was vague. Legend has it that if you ask ten people who have seen this Arch-mage what sort of person he is, you will get ten different responses. Thus any graphic depiction of this elusive personage can only be false.
On the fourth day, their burdens were much lighter as most of the water had been consumed, but there on the horizon was the first of the massive cliff-dwellings of Cibola. It was there they hurried to replenish their water and ask directions to the mountain lair of Prester John. The cities are populated by the Hopi people, who are unrelated to any other people on Nirn. For this reason, they live under the protection of Prester John. They plant their crops directly in the sand that somehow thrive in spite of the scant rain. When the rain is late in coming, they perform rain dances to Huhuwa, the hummingbird kachina, to convey their supplication to bring rain to their wilting crops.
Their families are matrilineal. That means inheritance is from mother to daughter while the men own the livestock they have. However, when there is a problem within a family, the mother will turn to her brothers for trouble-shooting and support. This is why they live in close proximity in cliff-dwellings, to be there immediately when the need arose. However, the down side is that this arrangement discourages marrying outside the community. Endogamy can be detrimental in that it brings health problems that can be avoided by introducing "new blood" into the community. (Note: A Scottish friend once told me that in the Outer Hebrides families are matrilineal, but marriage partners are sought on other islands, never in one's own community.)
Their holy mountain is on the horizon to the southwest, for which reason it is the first cardinal direction named Tev'yuna. Its symbolic color is turquoise, and it is the realm of the winter sunset. Opposite is the northeast, or Ho'poko. Its symbolic color is white, and it is the realm of the summer sunrise. The other cardinal directions are northwest or Kwini'wi, which is yellow and the realm of the summer sunset, and southeast or Ta'tyuka, which is red and the realm of the winter sunrise. Two more cardinal directions, believe it or not, are above or O'mi, which is purple, and below or At'kyami, which is also turquoise. Therefore, when Vaezbrub asked where they could find Prester John, he ended up requesting they just point in which direction.
It was a long climb to the summit where they encountered a doorkeeper who questioned who they were and what business they had with the Arch-mage. The captain entered the cavern first and encountered a mariner holding a spyglass and surrounded by charts, sextants, and globes, the likes of which he'd never seen before.
"I have come to inquire about the lay of this land that we arrived at during our voyage on the high seas," the captain announced in awe of this person who in no way resembled an Arch-mage.
The mariner picked up a scroll from a nearby pile and handed it to him. The captain unrolled it and was stunned to see it was a complete map of the continent.
"It's complete! However,…”
"Is it not complete enough?"
“Oh, no, by no means! I was only wondering if I may have that sphere instead.”
Prester John glanced at the basket-ball sized globe with all the continents depicted on it.
“What you are requesting is a very big thing,” he responded, “for it contains the secret of the size of nirn.”
“Well, that’s precisely what I would like to know.”
There was a protracted silence.
“I will give it to you—on one condition, that you return when you have the answer to this riddle.”
He handed the captain a parchment, and the captain read it:
“You know my face
poking
on every wall
and pulling.
You own me,
the tailor,
but I enslave you,
the needle.
I watch your birth
in and out
then rasp your days
up and down the hem
as I hold your life
in embroidery
in my hands.
On satin
I progress
in somber stitches
until I stop
on canvas,
yet never retreat
until at last,
without me,
the needle slips off.
You cannot be
the thread.”
“Answer me this riddle!” Prester John demanded. “Now go!”
The captain backed away from the mariner then hurried out before he could change his mind about giving away the scroll.
"I guess it's your turn," the captain told Vaezbrub as he exited the cavern.
Vaezbrub timorously entered and soon exited again in a huff.
"Cheh! Old fool!"
He was about to go into the spell-casting mode.
"Whoa, wait!" the captain blurted. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"The 'Cone of Annoyance' spell should soften him up!"
"Don't do that!" the captain ordered grabbing his wrists and pulling them down. "Look what he gave me!"
He unrolled the scroll and Vaezbrub could immediately surmise its significance.
"At least he gave you something," he scoffed. "The scrofulous old fart had the gall to warn me not to disappoint you. But what does he know?!"
"Didn't he look like a mariner to you?"
"In no way! He was more like an unwanted slave. A slave to nobody, but nevertheless a slave. Now there's a conundrum for you, eh?"
Erewhon:Edit
As the captain began rolling up the map again, something caught his eye. Light shining through the parchment made what appeared to be the word "Nowhere" written on the map side visible on the blank side.
"What the...," he said unrolling the map and turning it to the map side.
There it was, a province on the southeast of the continent clearly labeled "Erewhon".
"Want to go Nowhere?" he chuckled to Vaezbrub.
"I'm a bastard lunatic. I'll go anywhere even if it's Nowhere."
The going was actually quite easy because there was a river that flowed from the central highlands, where the Seven Cities of Cibola were located, through the grassy lowlands of Erewhon. The two guides helped them construct a raft that carried them downriver.
The province of Erewhon really was nowhere. There were miles of meandering river with nothing in the way of settlements or inhabitants, and the lack of anything to see or do made them wonder if maybe it were better to leave the raft and cross overland back to Bellehaven.
However, a female voice called to them from distant river bank. As the river carried them closer, they could see it was a young woman wearing only a loincloth. They poled the raft in her direction, but she suddenly dove into the water as a Dwemer steam centurion came crashing through the trees. She didn't resurface, so the captain dove in to save her. The steam centurion also marched into the water in pursuit, but its weight caused it to sink and slide into the river sediment, and soon it fell over into the water with plumes of steam hissing out.
The captain caught her around her emaciated body and swam back to the surface. She coughed up water and clung tightly to him as he swam back to the raft. There on the raft, her body quaked from the chilling effect of the water, so he held her close and massaged her to get her weak circulation going again.
"Vaezbrub, you'll find a clean shirt in my backpack," the captain said. Vaezbrub took out the shirt and tossed it to him. The captain helped her put it on to cover her pitiful nakedness.
"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" he asked and Vaezbrub interpreted. (cf. Martin Scorcese, 1963)
She was from Cymri and had been carried away into slavery by raiding Dwemer constructs. Eventually, her clothing became so filthy and ragged that she learned to do without any, and there was no shame going about naked among Dwemer constructs. But she turned the question back at them--what were they doing here?
The captain explained it was only to explore this land, but in fact there appeared to be nothing to explore, so they hoped to cross overland to their starting point on the west coast. She told them to stay on the river because the province was ruled by a Steam Guardian, and they didn't stand a chance against all its minions. The only people there were abject slaves carried off from various regions on the continent.
([Samuel] Butler was the first to write about the possibility that machines might develop consciousness by Darwinian Selection. Many dismissed this as a joke; but, in his preface to the second edition, Butler wrote, "I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin's theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin." [Wikipedia]
It would be the height of folly to allow artificial intelligence to design itself. It's bad enough that we already have an internet of things, but to put HAL in charge of it would bring down our civilization.)
As she spoke, the captain gazed as if spellbound into her emerald-green eyes. There was an awkward silence.
"What is your name?" the captain finally asked.
"Arowhena."
There was another lengthy silence.
The captain's face approached hers, and their lips touched. Vaezbrub was startled and turned away so as not to witness this tender moment of intimacy.
"Ahem!" Vaezbrub suddenly blurted. "I hate to interrupt your romantic fervor, but it seems we're not out of the woods just yet."
He motioned with his thumb toward a bridge over the river where some centurion archers had assembled.
"HOLY SHITE!" the captain shouted. "Everybody, under the raft! Hold your breath the best you can!"
They dove in, and as the raft approached the bridge, the sound of "thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk" resonated repeatedly underwater as Dwemer darts hit the raft. The captain clutched Arowhena's slender body to his own as she made leg-vice around his torso to prevent her from slipping away, and together they came up to take a breath, but not for long as the Dwemer darts continued to hit the raft. There was a pause as they passed under the bridge, and then it resonated again, "thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk." They didn't come out of the water until there had been a long pause in the Dwemer dart attack.
"Why were they aiming at an empty raft?" the captain mused out loud.
"I suspect that one eye they have can only see the infra-red light, which means they couldn't tell if we were above or below the raft," Vaezbrub responded.
The raft resembled the back of a hedgehog with all the Dwemer darts lodged in the logs. They collected them to use for hunting during their trek back toward Bellehaven. But then the captain stuck in his tracks as if he’d just remembered something.
“Vaezbrub, I’d like you to look at this riddle and say what you think because it’s got me thoroughly stumped.”
Vaezbrub took the wet parchment and quickly scanned the riddle.
“Oh, this is easy!”
The captain’s face hardened as if Vaezbrub was insulting his intelligence.
“How so?!” he demanded to know, but calmly.
“Read the odd lines together and then the even lines together, and you’ll find it actually has two answers.”
The captain took the parchment and did as suggested.
“OH-HO!” the captain yelled unable to contain his joy. “Vaezbrub, we’ve got to go back to Prester John immediately!”
“You mean go back the way we’ve just come?!” Vaeabrub asked incredulously. "Sir, for their own sake, we'd better not keep our crew waiting too long to see our return. They must be thinking by now that our bones are bleaching in the wilderness."
"Vaezbrub, this means a lot to me. By answering the riddle, I can receive a globe showing the size of Nirn."
"Well, I advise you chill out, Sir, because, after all, it was you who got us trapped in an ice flow a while back..."
"Don't overdraw that line of credit, Mr. V!" the captain barked, poking him in the chest for emphasis.
"Then you’d better head on back by yourself. Speaking for the rest of us, we’re not going back! Nix!"
"You know, you never explained what got you marooned on that island where we picked you up!" the captain added testily.
Vaezbrub gulped.
"As a ship's captain, I can easily figure these things out, how the crew threatened to mutiny if the sh**bag wasn't dumped onto the nearest promontory in the sea. Eh, Mr. V?" he chuckled gleefully. "It goes to show you were not as indispensable to that captain and crew as you take yourself to be."
"All right, say anything you want, but please, for the love of Azura and your new lady friend, let's get back to our crew!"
"Agreed, on the condition that you no longer trouble me with your blasted soothsaying! Just leave me alone from now on!"
The Captain and Arowhena Connect:Edit
Their progress back into the jungle was halted when they arrived at the base of a stepped pyramid looming above the trees. This was obviously not the way they had come or they would have seen it. The captain consulted the map scroll, but it showed a number of pyramids in an area west-southwest of the cliff dwelling they'd visited. The problem was that this pyramid could be any one of those on the map, and which direction they went from there could greatly affect whether they reached Bellehaven or continued galumphing into the wilderness. The captain asked the natives if they'd always known of this structure, and if they knew who they thought might have built it. They answered that their lives revolved around Bellehaven, and nobody ever ventured into the interior, so this pyramid was news to them as well.
"What do you make of it?" the captain asked turning to Vaezbrub.
"As I see it, these savages weren't always savages. But they don't know this, and I'd rather we didn't tell them."
"Why not?" the captain asked in surprise.
"Well, they didn't have us for dinner, did they? The hieroglyphs chiseled into the stone here read, 'Sacred to the Goddess Amaterasu.' Who knows what they'd be capable of doing if they came to realize they were the children of the sun goddess?"
"You can read that?"
"I'm surprised that you can't. By the way," Vaezbrub added, "the summit up there should make a tidy campground safe from predatory wildlife."
"It should indeed," the captain responded.
They climbed the pyramid and set up three tents, one for the captain and Arowhena, one for Link, and one for the guides. Vaezbrub was to sleep under the stars because none could abide his stench.
Vaezbrub was dropping off to sleep when his shoulder was shaken. He looked up and saw the captain crouching over him.
"Sorry to roust you up, good buddy, but Arowhena has expressed a desire to sleep under the stars."
"Why?"
"Well, it's a balmy night with bright moonlight above the treetops and all that."
"And all what?"
"We would like to be out here."
"I won't stop you."
"With you in the tent."
"There's enough room here for the three of us."
"Two is company; three is a crowd."
"With all due respect, Sir, it's not like you to be so obtuse. Could you just give me the decoded message?"
"What does it take for a dunderhead soothsayer to understand that we want to be by ourselves?!"
"Well, you could have just said so!"
He rose and gathered up his bedroll as the captain and Arowhena came out with theirs.
The captain and Arawhena settled into their bedroll. The captain observed how well she'd recovered. She wasn't as bony as when he rescued her. This bode well for tonight. The two of them lay close gazing into each other's eyes and wondering who was going to make the first move. The air was close, the moons were high, and the treetops were below. She smiled and gazed in expectation. Spontaneous combustion!
The Mystery of the Pyramid:Edit
The following morning as the exploration crew was descending the pyramid, the captain happened to find something like a door opening into the pyramid. He poked his head in then called on everybody to find the wherewithal to make torches. With each holding a flaming torch, they descended flights of stairs zig-zagging deep into the heart of the structure. They entered an otherwise empty room in which a life-sized terra-cotta warrior statue stood in each corner. Their heads were turned as if staring at the far wall.
"Oya-oya!" Vaezbrub exclaimed. "Now here's a pretty puzzle!"
"Maybe there was something placed at the far wall that is no longer there," the captain suggested.
"No, there is more to it than that."
He went from one statue to another to see what they might be staring at. Then he went to the far wall, turned, and found every statue was staring at him. He turned to the wall again and swiped his hand over the surface. His hand stopped. Found it! He pushed the button, and a secret door slid open. He stepped inside, but the captain grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him back out.
"WHAT [dung-elf expletive] GIVES!" Vaezbrub yelled.
"EVACUATE EVERYBODY, NOW!" the captain yelled back.
"But..."
"I said NOW!"
Vaezbrub ushered everyone out as the captain activated the wall button, and the door closed and hermetically sealed again.
When they were all back on the pyramid summit again, the captain took Vaezbrub aside and good-naturedly apologized for the sudden change of direction this adventure took.
"Didn't you see it?" he asked Vaezbrub. "That pyramid chamber is a death trap!"
"How so?"
"You didn't see a shimmering pool?
"I saw the silver."
"That wasn't silver--it was mercury!"
Vaezbrub looked at him blankly.
"Oh, you probably don't have it where you come from. A good thing that because the stuff is highly toxic. That said, illegal gold prospectors use it in the Red Mountain for want of firewood to smelt their gold. Mercury dissolves gold in the ore and then is boiled off to extract the gold. Breathing the fumes turns the miners into mad hatters before it kills them with the tremens, and some say even Dagoth Ur wasn't such a raving maniac before the miners arrived."
"Why has nobody stopped them?" Vaezbrub queried.
"Nobody has any jurisdiction there, and gold talks very loudly."
"So what do we do now?"
"How good are you at holding you breath?"
Vaezbrub shrugged, so the captain put him to the test.
"Begin! 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900."
Vaezbrub gasped for air.
"Hmm, not even ten seconds. Not very good."
"I could probably do better," Vaezbrub responded peevishly, "without the nerve-racking counting and if my life really depended on it."
The captain thought, fair enough, a proceeded to outline his plan. Whatever it was that was being so assiduously guarded in there had to be of such earth-shaking value that they would be plum foolish just to walk away from it. So the first order of business is to find a way to drain the mercury. They had to dash in, check the left and right corners to see which is deeper, feel around for a plug, yank it, and dash out again. He hoped this could be accomplished in five minutes at most. Then having allowed a change air for half a day, investigating the chamber would be a lot less dangerous...or so they thought.
As they reentered the chamber, the torchlight glinted on something that had been submerged in mercury but now lay visible.
Vaezbrub grabbed the captain's shoulder to make him stop.
"What is it?"
"There's something very fishy about this," Vaezbrub told him. "let's move back a few paces.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out a collapsible pointer.
"What's that for?" the captain asked.
"Teachers use this to point out details on wall maps, for example."
"You're not a teacher."
"Do I have to be?"
He pulled on the tip to a length of about two feet. He then tapped the trip wire. Suddenly there was a click, and two pendulums with curved blades dropped from the ceiling and began swishing back an forth in front of a stone table where a glowing something lay. Vaezbrub turned to the captain and showed how the pointer had been sheered in half. The captain gulped.
"I'd better get me a new pointer!" Vaezbrub chuckled as he tossed it aside.
They approached as far as they could without getting sliced and diced. The flickering torches revealed a sheathed ithildin katana that glowed faintly in the torchlight.
(Note: ...derived from the rare metal mithril. Ithildin means moon-star, for it gleamed in response to starlight and moonlight... [Wikipedia])
"Holy shmoley!" the captain blurted. "This must be one of those one-of-a-kind enchanted weapons that all the gold in Tamriel can't buy!"
"Stop...two...three...four...stop...two...three...four. Listen, I'm going to count, and at the third count of three, when both blades start the upswing, I want you to lunge forward and grab it."
Vaezbrub took a firm grip on the back of the captain's collar and began counting. At the appointed moment, the captain lunged forward, grabbed the katana, and Vaezbrub yanked him backward with such force that they both fell onto the floor clear of the pendulums.
They rose from the floor, and the captain tremulously began to unsheathe the sword slowly. The blade glowed like the moonlight, casting their shadows on the wall behind them. There was some strange script engraved on the blade.
"Look! It says something--what does it say?!"
"'I am Amaterasu,'" Vaezbrub read out loud, "'despair and die!'"
The captain quaked.
"Am I cursed now for taking it?!"
Vaezbrub turned the sword over.
"Wait, there's more. 'He who takes and wields me is invincible for he has found favor with me.' Hmm, sounds encouraging."
"Could this blade be enchanted with the soul of a goddess?" the captain asked trying to imagine a blade containing a goddess.
"Maybe one of her aspects, but by no means the goddess herself," Vaezbrub responded as he handed the sword back to its victorious owner. "The others must be wondering what happened to us, so let's be on our way."
The captain and Vaezbrub came through the doorway back into the puzzle room.
"I have it!" the captain exulted raising the sheathed katana aloft.
Vaezbrub and the guides applauded, and Arowhena threw her arms around him and held him tightly, having feared for his life.
Cannibals!Edit
Back on the ground, a disagreement arose over which direction Bellehaven was and how far away it might be. The captain took it upon himself to decide one way or the other. He picked a direction and marched back into the jungle with his retinue following him. This was clearly not the way because the jungle was getting somewhat thick, so they must be going inland and not toward the bay. Rather than backtrack, the captain looked at the sun's position and chose what looked to be a more westerly direction.
Just then, the captain's foot was yanked upward, and his head hit the ground as his body was pulled up by a tree branch to which was tied a sling trap. There was a hue and cry among the guides that there must be cannibals nearby, and they dropped their provisions and fled.
“OY!” Vaezbrub yelled at them, “Come back, you filthy...pungaroles!” It was no use.
The captain hung there stunned like a helpless “antipodean” as Explorer would have imagined him. There was the sound of feet running through the underbrush, so Vaezbrub, Arowhena, and Link slipped out of sight but close enough to see what was going to happen.
A group of men who were naked but for loincloths and feathered headdresses came and looked up at their quarry. Great was their delight that it wasn't a deer or a wild boar but a human, because these tasted better. They tied his hands and feet together and slipped a long pole between them so they could carry him on their shoulders back to their camp. Vaezbrub was not one to abandon his captain now or at any time, so he tagged along downwind from the group to see what they were going to do with him.
They finally came to a clearing in the forest where women and children were gathered around the campfire. The women were dressed the same way, just loincloths and feathered headdresses. When they saw that evening's dinner was being carried in by their men, there was a festive mood all around. They put the captain in a cage made with wooden bars tied together with sturdy vines and waited for sundown.
The camp had calmed down and everybody was going about his business. At nightfall, the captain caught the whiff of an odor that told him he had not been abandoned by all.
“Vaezbrub!” the captain whispered.
“SHHH!” Vaezbrub responded.
He took a pronged bastard sword from his inventory and cut the leather thongs that tied the captain's wrists together. He then receded back into the darkness.
He was good at imitating the distress calls of the Triceratops and other creatures that he executed on the "killing fields" in Progress Quest. The wild boar was particularly easy to imitate, so he went some distance away and made the sounds of a wild boar caught in a sling trap. The men cocked their ears and decided they would spread out and investigate which sling trap the sound might have come from.
They returned shortly with Vaezbrub, hoisted him on top of the cage, and dumped him through the trap door in the roof.
"Vaezbrub, what happened?!"
"They caught my scent. But that was only plan A. The question was how long the cannibals would remain fooled by my screaming-pig imitation to keep them off guard. Such a low-brow ruse can't be carried out a second time to be of any use, so I had Arowhena and an Asantian rescuer, who came after being alerted by the guides, prepare our plan B. It seems a contingent of Mount Royal militia has come to our aid. Besides, the rescue of the indomitable captain of 'The Glory of Asantia' must be carried out with a--a high level of 'panache'..., n'est pas?! Anyway, you'll find out soon enough when they start making preparations to roast us alive."
"Are you crazy?!" the captain asked wild-eyed.
"'Are you crazy,' he asks the bastard-lunatic. Listen, just sit tight and enjoy the performance!"
The cage was set on a pile of dry branches and tinder, and interwoven vines tied to the roof of the cage were thrown over a tree branch. The cannibals heaved on the vines causing the cage to rise from the pyre underneath. The vines were tied to the tree to keep it dangling some six feet above the pyre. They were about to set fire to the branches and tinder.
"Surrender now, and we might let you live!" a voice boomed out of the forest in their language.
They wheeled around and saw that there were numerous torches among the trees. The Bellehaven people must have come to rescue the captured men. The savages panicked and ran to save their women and children.
"Brace yourself!" Link said and cut the vines with his bastard-sword.
The cage crashed into the pyre, which broke their fall. The captain took the Amaterasu from his inventory and helped cut their way out of the cage. They hot-tailed into the forest, and the captain was dumb-struck to see so many torches standing upright among the trees.
"Brilliant! Whose idea was this?!"
"The three of us put our heads together and brainstormed."
A torch was swaying back and forth in the distance.
"That's Arowhena. Let's get out of here!"
The Asantian rescuer knew of this particular tribe, so he set out in the direction that he remembered. He led them back to Mount Royal.
The Siege of Mount RoyalEdit
One thing uncivilized people can't stand is being played for the complete fools that they are. The morning after the captain's escape, cannibals were found to have come from near and far to surround the stockade of Mount Royal. The Asantians panicked, but the captain took his archers and crossbowmen up onto the stockade to be of service to their timorous hosts. It was not a high stockade because, other than the stick-wielding cannibals, nobody else in the vicinity was a threat.
One cannibal stepped forward and gave a speech. Somebody who knew their language translated it. In effect, he said that the men of the stockade had stolen their supper, and they wanted them back. If not, their champion was to meet the Asantian champion. The problem of residing in paradise is that nobody needs a champion, so the Asantians quaked.
"Now I can test my new katana," the captain, who was actually trained in the use thereof, said offhand.
He rested the Amaterasu on his left forearm to peer down the blade. It was straight--and keen. The air whistled as he swiped it several times.
"This is a magnificent katana," he said in appreciation as he flipped it this way and that.
The stockade gates opened, and the captain strode forth to do battle with Vaezbrub, wielding his bastard-sword, as his second.
Here was their supper striding right towards them. The cannibals all lunged toward them, but their champion motioned for them to back off because this was his fight. He had a war-club and swung it over his head menacingly. The captain approached, drew the katana, and split his body from pate to pelvis. The captain and Vaezbrub began hot-tailing back to the stockade gate.
"Oh, the head!" Vaezbrub said and quickly ran back and sliced it off to present to the king.
They dashed back through the gate that slammed closed behind them. The cannibals were beside themselves.
There was a hue and cry as they dashed toward the stockade. They began forming human pyramids against the stockade wall, upon which they hoped to clamber up and over the wall, while others took a huge tree trunk and began ramming it against the stockade gate. The defenders propped logs against the interior of the gate to keep it from giving way. Bam! Bam! Bam! The pounding resounded as women and children quivered in the corners of their living spaces in the great hall.
The captain ordered his archers and crossbowmen to shoot at will towards the battering ram and the human pyramids. Vaezbrub also swung his bastard-sword to great effect. The field before the gate was soon piled high with corpses, but still they came on, trying somehow to enter the stockade, but they simply did not have the wherewithal to do so. The battle lasted into the evening when the survivors finally straggled back to their camp.
The captain staggered with exhaustion into the throne room where the king of Mount Royal had cowered the whole time. The king rose and approached the captain as he tottered into his presence to report that all was well.
The king took him by the arm and led him to the throne where he sat him down, and then bowing down before him, placed the captain's right foot onto the back of his own head as a sign of submission to a higher power. The captain recoiled and yelled at the king. A crew member who had swiftly learned the Asantian language was called for to translate the king's explanation.
The king told how these cannibals had been a thorn in their side for many years. The tit-for-tat skirmishes had gone on since time immemorial, but this was the first all-out invasion by savages. Clearly, the Mandate of Heaven had been bestowed upon the captain and his crew, and it was only right that he claim mastery over them.
The captain was provoked and wouldn't hear of it.
"We came here as friends, not as conquistadors! You are our saviors, not our slaves! Let it be known that where we come from, this is scant reason for us to lord it over you! I will not be your lord and master! But I will always look after your well-being."
A contingent of cannibals returned with a white flag saying they wanted to recover their dead and were allowed to do so as long as they ceased their hostilities in perpetuity. They agreed and proceeded to clear the field.
The king called on the captain and Arowhena to sit to his right and left in the victory banquet that went all through the night.
Galleon Construction 101:Edit
The captain found that many of the men were already pining to get back. Bellehaven was paradise as long as there were no cannibals in the equation. Besides, those who'd attached themselves to women soon found they'd swapped unknown diseases, so more and more men found the novelty of amethyst-eyed women wearing thin. IXOHOXI and her mother soon had women coming to them with maladies that had never been encountered before. The ship's healers were also hard-pressed to come up with remedies for maladies they'd never seen in their lives. Fortunately, none of the diseases were life-threatening, like the Corprus or Porphyric Hemophilia, and the healers gained tremendously from the newfound knowledge.
For this reason, IXOHOXI prevailed on her mother to allow her to sail with Asantus back to Cyrodiil to get medical training in the diseases of Tamriel and share the knowledge of the Asantian diseases that would soon be unleashed on the people of Tamriel. She promised to return with the next expedition.
The captain managed to negotiate an agreement with the natives to allow his men to go into the forest and cut down as many trees as they needed for building a second ship to accommodate the excess crew. The natives were more than happy to help in the construction as nobody among them had ever ventured into the sea. Dug-out canoes were all they knew, and here were a few of the finest shipwrights in all Tamriel begging to show them how to construct a galleon.
The wood had to be seasoned before it could be used. It takes two years to season hardwood, so to speed-season it, the planks and beams had to be stacked upright in a closed building with a constant roaring fire, even in the hottest weather. Kindling wood was plentiful, so all it took was an around-the-clock stoking of the fire.
While that was happening, a folder of ship plans for the flagship was brought from the captain's quarters and studied in detail. The goal was to create an exact replica of the flagship itself, but the ship carpenter had never managed construction, so this was going to take a lot of teamwork to pull off. Every beam and plank had to be measured and cataloged as the ship was being overhauled on the beach.
Then a general assembly of the crew was called into the great hall of Mount Royal. After much discussion with the first mate and other officers on board, the entire crew was divided into brigades--the hull brigade, the mast brigade, the sail brigade, the rigging brigade, and so forth. Trusted crew members were put in charge of each brigade, and the roll was read off indicating who would be in which brigade. Then instructions were distributed to each brigade member detailing what he was responsible for.
First, the Tamrielites taught the natives how to saw planks and shape a particular tree trunk with an adze to make it conform to a specific piece in the grand puzzle of the ship. They were also taught how to twist hempen rope and weave hempen sailcloth. This was extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming, and we in the digital age can't imagine doing this without laptops and power tools.
Next, for lack of a drydock, which would have been too time-consuming to construct, a slide of stout heavy timbers was constructed at a 20-degree angle on the beach with deep foundations to prevent any part of the slide from sinking into the sand. On this slide was constructed a wooden cradle-sledge upon which the hull was to be constructed. Lumber was stacked in designated lots, each piece numbered with indicators as to which side or which end was up. Rain soaked wood is difficult to work with, so each stack of wood was covered over with sailcloth, and the hull was also roofed over to keep out the rain. Quarter-circle protractors with plumb lines mounted at the corners were used to find the vertical at a 20-degree incline. As the ribs of the hull were set, props and buttresses were placed to prevent the structure from lurching to either side. Scaffolding was constructed all around, and the men set to work clambering all over the entire structure making the skeleton hull look more and more like a ship.
Astute Asantians stood nearby sketching and noting everything they observed in order that they may try their own hand at shipbuilding.
After about a year, the flagship had a twin sister that was to be captained by the first mate. A crowd gathered around the hull, which now had three masts and was loaded with rubble as ballast to keep it from capsizing once it hit the water. It was also loaded with rigging, sailcloth and cross-trees for finishing the ship once it was afloat. The scaffolding had come down, and there she stood, the most beautiful hand-made galleon a captain could ever wish for.
And our captain was overcome with emotion at seeing her beauty. They did it. They made it themselves. And now was the time for launching. He took a large bottle of Asantian wine.
"I christen thee--'The Glory of Asantia'!" he shouted and smashed the bottle against the hull.
The blocks were knocked away from the cradle-sledge, and it slid down the incline and hit the water with plumes of water spraying to either side. The ship rocked a bit and then settled into a stable float.
A roar went up in the crowd, the fiddlers began fiddling, and dancers began teaching their Asantian friends how to do the jig and the hornpipe. Drinks and victuals were provided by the king, and the carousing went late into the night as the Glory of Asantia rested in the bay with lanterns lighting up its deck.