The Curse of the Crimson Reprieve: Fire on the Water

Savage and skilful, the cannibal raiders rowed away into the night, their five canoes — hollowed tree trunks carved with bone-blade precision — slicing across the dark water. They bore hostages with them: sailors bound and bleeding, taken alive for grim purpose. But the adventurers aboard the Crimson Reprieve reacted without hesitation.

Salt raised her staff and cast a spell of holding. Beside her, Mustafa and Ryu joined their magic to hers, freezing several of the escaping raiders in mid-paddle. Bojing, Tetsukichi, Dolkar and Nekhil loosed volleys of arrows — some struck home, but the canoes continued their desperate flight.

Bojing weighed the option of asking Ryu to summon a whirlpool, but the danger of drowning the sailors as well as their captors discouraged him. Instead, Salt extended her magic, conjuring a towering wall of flame across the sea ahead of the fleeing canoes. The fire hissed and crackled on the water, casting its red glow across the night. The cannibals veered, paddling to avoid the inferno — but Salt summoned a second wall at right angles to the first, boxing them in.

Then came illusion. Mustafa conjured terrifying sea monsters — tentacled horrors of the deep — rearing up behind the cannibals. Their teeth shone in the flame-light, their eyes like burning coals. Panic broke out among the raiders.

One canoe had already fallen into disarray: the holding spells had frozen all the raiders, save one — the cannibal chief. The bound sailors wasted no time. They overpowered him and hurled him into the sea. But another canoe veered close, and a raider hauled the chief aboard.

The illusions worked too well. In their terror, the cannibals took their hostages — the captured sailors — and threw them into the sea. A sacrifice to the monsters, a desperate bid to appease angry gods.

This had not been Mustafa’s intention. Bo-Jing called out to the sailors through the illusion. The party shouted from the deck, assuring the drowning men that help was on its way. Even as the rowing boat was prepared for rescue, Mustafa steered the monsters towards the canoes, hoping to show the futility of their human offerings.

Salt, resolute, raised her hand again and sent a missile of pure force streaking toward the furthest canoe — one filled entirely with raiders. The missile struck true, and the boat was torn asunder, its occupants hurled lifeless into the sea.

Arrows flew again. More spells of holding surged across the waves. The tide turned.

A sea monster — real or illusion, none could say — pulled one last screaming raider beneath the surface, vanishing in a froth of blood. Then, as swiftly as they had come, the illusions faded, leaving only silence.

The sailors were pulled from the sea by the rescue boat. The surviving cannibals, held fast in place by enchantments, remained adrift in their canoes. When the spell’s duration ended, they would find themselves weaponless, surrounded by open ocean, and utterly alone.

Bojing ordered the chief brought aboard the Crimson Reprieve. He was tightly bound and held under watch. When the spell was reversed, the man grinned with broken teeth and introduced himself as Mad Dog. He asked for wine.

They gave him none.

Under Bojing’s questioning, Mad Dog revealed the truth of his people. They raided passing ships when the winds favoured them, seeking plunder — and captives for their rites. Their god, he said with wide eyes and reverence, was the Great Turtle, an ancient power to whom all sacrifices were owed.

Once he had said enough, Bojing gave a single nod. Mad Dog was cast back into the sea.

The following morning, with the sun climbing behind them and the wind strong in their sails, the crew of the Crimson Reprieve looked over the stern — and beheld an island where none should be.

It rose from the water in the perfect shape of a sea turtle, its shell a mossy dome, vast and unnatural. The island had not appeared on any chart.

The crew fell silent, soon broken by a wisecrack and grim laughter among Captain Hu’s men. Sailing under a curse for centuries, many had already died in worse ways than being fed to a giant turtle.

The winds were in their favor and the Crimson Reprieve sailed on.

The Curse of the Crimson Reprieve: The Library of Ma Tsu and Sailing Toward Acererak's Island

At the quiet inn on Tushuguan Island, where the adventurers had first sought rest, the walls shook with monstrous force. A massive, armor-plated ox thundered through, its eyes glowing with unnatural fury, and its hooves sparking as it turned the nearest patrons to stone with a stomping roar.

Salt, ever quick and fierce, unleashed a torrent of scalding steam from her breath, searing across the ox’s flank. Wu Jian Fen followed with a volley of magic missiles, shimmering darts of arcane energy that struck like hammers. Bojing and Tetsukichi loosed arrows with deadly precision, their shafts singing through the smoky air.

The beast roared once, staggered—and collapsed to the floor, dead.

From the smoke emerged a towering figure. A woman, immense and regal, bearing a gleaming trident with the ease of a queen holding court. Her presence silenced the room. With a flick of her wrist, she returned the stone-struck patrons to flesh and breath.

“I am Ma Tsu,” she said, her voice like deep waves over coral. “Priestess of the Ocean’s Goddess. Lao Ren, it looks like someone knew you were coming.”

Lao Ren stepped forward, his tone as calm as ever. “She is my friend,” he said. “But this creature came not for me. It came for the clever ones.”

The name he had spoken before. The name he had always used for them. Ma Tsu looked them over with affable skepticism. “Is that why you brought them to my library?”

Ma Tsu offered sanctuary and scholarship. Tushuguan’s libraries, a cluster of squat, crumbling stone houses, were placed at the party’s disposal. Salt dove into charts and maps of distant seas. Tetsukichi pored over dusty histories and the whispers of dark legends — all concerning the dreaded Acererak.

But just as they were settling into their scholarship, a new terror struck. A shattering crack tore through the ceiling — and then, with thunderous violence, a monstrous creature plunged into the study hall.

Its face was a stone gargoyle wreathed in smoke, and it bore four grotesque arms, each ending in claws soaked with rot. It landed beside the grand carousel — a turning tower of scrolls holding secrets thought long lost — and let out a bone-rattling shriek.

They could not risk the knowledge it threatened.

Salt was the first to act, unleashing a bolt of force. Wu Jian Fen and Zakshi followed, while Bojing shot arrows with precision. But it was Tetsukichi who delivered the final blow — his katana, blessed and blooded, sliced through the creature’s neck. The head tumbled, the body convulsed — and then exploded in a minor detonation.

Scrolls ignited.

Flames licked the edges of the knowledge they had come so far to find. But Salt, with a moment of rare grace, tore the cloak from her shoulders and smothered the fire before it could consume more than the outer layers.

Then, a voice boomed through the stone. Ma Tsu.

“They are looking for you. You cannot stay here and risk my libraries.”

The adventurers protested. Ma Tsu relented. She would allow until nightfall. “And then you and your ship and your Captain must be gone.”

They made the most of the next few hours.

With the wind rising and the cursed dead still unavenged, the party returned to the Crimson Reprieve, set once again to sail.

Based on what they had learned in the library, Bo-Jing set a course for Acererak’s Island.

They should sail east, then further east, skimming over silent waters along the equator, and until the solstice, then sail across the equator and continue eastwards. When they reached a great land mass, they should sail north along its coastline, until they reached the massive delta of a wide, turgid river. They would sail up the river to reach Acererak’s Island.

Captain Hu spent several days in his cabin, recovering from injuries he had sustained in the ship’s galley while the party was visiting the libraries. 

For several days they sailed south and east from port to port, leaving the cold mists of Guibao for the tropics. Tetsukichi and Dolkar practiced sparring on the quarterdeck.

The voyage was long, and the sea vast and dreamlike. It gave the party time — time to reflect on what they had uncovered in the libraries of Tushuguan, and to weigh the dangers they would face upon landfall.

What they had learned was grim. Acererak, the ancient and monstrous lich, had constructed his infamous Tomb of Horrors on marshland, a mire of fetid waters and treacherous mists. Captain Hu — cursed, ragged, and bound by a past he could never escape — had said that Youshi’s body lay close to the tomb, by a river that twisted through the swamp. It was not inside the tomb itself. That detail had comforted some of the party, though it did little to lessen the sense of foreboding.

 

The name Mouru Zhai had risen often in their research. Acererak’s former apprentice, a powerful and twisted mind in his own right, had played a pivotal role in the tomb’s construction. He had created the maze of bait and traps that filled the temple: a fake treasure chamber that might yet hold real gold, a shimmering blue door that opened into a pair of rooms — one empty, the other home to a sarcophagus. Within that sarcophagus, the party had read, lay a bandaged corpse with a jewel in its eye — a gem both beautiful and evil, which, if disturbed, would reanimate the foul creature.

Mouru Zhai had been happy to serve Acererak, crafting death for the tomb’s intruders — until he discovered his own death had been planned as part of its completion, alongside every other servant. Now he was a fugitive, hiding far from his master’s gaze.

Mustafa had already learned Shatter, one of Mouru Zhai’s arcane legacies, and studied its uses carefully. The party spoke often of the traps and illusions they might face — but more often still, they argued about whether they needed to face them at all.

Captain Hu urged the party to avoid the tomb. The river, he said, would yield Youshi’s body. They need not enter the cursed place. His goal was simple: lift the curse that bound him and his ship. Since laying Niao to rest, her spirit had vanished. But those of Youshi — and of the murdered ship’s carpenter Tong — still haunted the crew night after night.

Salt, Tetsukichi, and most of the party agreed with Hu. Their course, they felt, should be swift and direct.

But Lao Ren disagreed — passionately. To him, this was no simple mission. This was destiny. He believed the adventurers were the clever ones, prophesied in old stories, fated to destroy Acererak once and for all. He revealed that Mouru Zhai was now in exile on Guibao, the island of cursed nobles they had recently left. Though the time was not yet right, both Mouru Zhai and Ma Tsu — the powerful priestess of Tushuguan and one-time ally of the apprentice — might one day stand with the party in a future campaign against the lich.

Bojing, meanwhile, had come to suspect a deeper deception. He believed Captain Hu might be a lich himself, and that the ship’s curse could be lifted by Ryu, his magician henchman, without going to the island at all. But his claims failed to sway the others.

For all their disagreements, fate had other plans.

One night, as the ship rocked gently under a full moon, screams rang out. Steel clashed on deck. When the party rushed topside, they found a massacre in progress. Bloodthirsty cannibal pirates had attacked — silent, swift, and savage. Crew members lay slaughtered. Others were being dragged to small boats, bound and unconscious.

And suddenly, all talk of tombs and liches was swept aside. The party now had a new challenge. And it would not wait.

Bo-Jing Follows HIs Wife Part 2

Based on Batar’s directions, Bo-Jing flew west, following the course of a rod. When the road forked North and South, he didn’t follow either fork but continued westward, toward the darkest spot in the mountain range before him. Towards sunset, Bo-Jing saw an enormous bird rising into the sky, carrying a limp body in its talons. He urged Tse-Hemi to gradually descend as he continued his approach toward a group of people and horses on the ground. Some men were struggling to manage panicked horses while others cowered behind rocks or under trees. Among the horses and shouting men was Narantsetseg. She had seen Bo-Jing and was walking toward him, even as he glided toward the ground.

Bo-Jing slid off his horse and walked slowly toward her. Her eyes fixed on his face and she smiled and ran to him and kissed his haggard cheeks. 

“Let others have the morning sun. Too long I have waited for the cool evening rain.”

Bo-Jing received a full recounting of his wife’s quest to find him. He thanked Narnutang and Dolkar for protecting her and mourned the loss of Altani, who had been killed a band of savage and cunning bears, seemingly of the same ilk that had harassed Bo-Jing on the red dragon’s bluff. Finally, he dismissed the bandits who had trailed her from Banua.

And so it was time to return home. After giving the bandits an opportunity to ride out of sight, Bo-Jing asked his wife to join him on Tse-Hemi’s back and started the return journey. After an hour’s travel in darkness, they made camp, with Narnutang and Dolkar agreeing to share responsibilities for keeping watch. The next morning, they were met once more by the giant bird, who spoke to them in Zhou: “Your friend was a holy and righteous man, a most noble soul. His beautiful and generous heart has nourished my children.”

The bird continued, “So, you human children must nourish yourselves for a time is coming when you will be tested like never before. Hosadas was a wicked man, corrupted by power, but centuries ago he defeated a greater evil. When Hosadas gone, the Zaharans are preparing their return.”

The Zaharans, according to the bird were an people besotted with death and cruelty. The remnants of their capital lay beyond the Dark Wall. “Whoever told you to seek passage to the place of Hosadas was not your friend.”

The Roc explained that at the time Hosadas first came to the land of Hunza, he had a rival, a man remembered only as the “Broken Saint” who preached that the Zaharans could not be defeated by any human army, but only by the power of love and righteousness. When the Broken Saint was killed, his followers buried him in secret, and their descendants might still be found in the most remote corners of Hunza. But that was a quest for another day.

The Lingering Disquiet of the Khatun Part 2

Narantsetseg left a letter with Batu explaining that she feared for her husband’s life and would find him though it cost her her own.

As companions, she chose Altani, the long trusted shaman, and Narnutang, the woman warrior would had established her reputation for prowess and loyalty fighting at Bo-Jing’s side during some of his most desperate battles, and Dolkar, a baghatur of high birth, so far unproven. Tetsukichi, visiting hero of the Sansar clan, had identified Dolkar as a youth of great promise, despite his penchant for gambling and other reckless behavior.

The people of Banua would speculate why the Khatun selected this small retinue to escort her on her journey. Less conscientious chronicles might join in these speculations, this one only reports knowable facts.

Narantsetseg and her retinue made their way first to the monastery on the ridge. The monks there did their best to persuade the Khatun that she should trust her husband to return and failing that, she should trust her people to protect her and, remembering her young child, return to the safety and comfort of Banua. But she would not be persuaded and, after threatening to venture into the wilds with nothing to guide her but her love stricken heart, the monks took pity and gave her their best counsel.

The monastery had a well-stocked library including several maps. The monks that they should travel due north for a day, changing their course to the west as the sun set. For another week they should travel westward, through the open country that separated the Empire from Hunza. The Master’s realm was surrounded by steep mountains. As they reached the mountains, they should find a stream and follow the reverse of its course. Finally, they copied from a map, the sketch of the safest pass between the mountain peaks.

Even with the monks directions, the journey was a difficult one. It was cold and the stream bed was dry. Narantsetseg responded to the hardship of the journey by insisting on her status of the Khatun. The three members of her retinue, being little acquainted with each other, did not dare to discuss their misgivings about the journey, their questions about what they would find in the land where a larger, more powerful group of adventurers with no queen to escort had disappeared.

By the time they reached Hunza, Altani, Nanutange, and Dolkar had gone two days with nothing to eat or drink but gravelly snow scooped from a crevasse I the pass. So when they saw a farmstead, they approached boldly. The farm was deserted, and the scavenging travelers made a meal of half-spoiled grain. The water in the well was clean.

The next day, they reached working farmland. The farmers did not speak to them, but happily received the Khatun’s gold in exchange for good food and decent beds.

After several days, they reached Magden, a large market town on the river. The Khatun found a good inn and the others split up to try to learn more. The Most people were unfriendly, or didn’t speak Zhou-Yi, or both. No one wanted to the discuss the Knowledge of the Master, but the Guardians of the Knowledge were even stricter in enforcement, closing the town gates at dusk and shuttering townspeople in their houses after dark.

Nevertheless, the Khatuna and her retinue did confirm that yes, almost a year ago, Magden had been visited by a company of foreigners, led by the “One with a the Face Like the Morning Sun.” The people of Magden didn’t know why he had come or where he had gone, and before they could find anyone to answer such questions, Narnutang did something that forced them to leave the town quickly.

With no other plan, they followed the road westward, passing through more farmland, and then into forests and wilderness. One night, when camping in a clearing under tall trees, they heard deep moaning from deep in the forest. As the sound drew closer, it was answered by another moan of the same timbre. Narnutang recognized the sounds as belonging to bears, but heard something alien in their vocalizing. Altani, long accustomed to leaving among the beasts, called out to them, imitating their ursine moan. The voices answered viciously, even seeming to pronounce insults and invoking the name “Zahra.” And then the bears rushed into the clearing.

Dolkar stood by the Khatun and readied his bow. Narnutang and Altani stood on opposite sides of the clearing, with weapons ready. The bears charged in, each taking an arrow from Dolkar without recoiling. Altani raised his staff in front of him and continued to murmur soothing words. The bear attacking Narnutang was met with similar slashes from her sword. Neither charm nor force deterred the bears attack. They swatted with their enormous paws and lunged with open jaws. Narnutang was knocked to the ground, but when the bear stooped to finish her, Narnutang braced her sword against the ground and drove its point into the bear’s throat; Narnutang rolled away, extracting her blade as the beast feel with a heavy thud.

Altani, meanwhile had been severely beaten, slashed and, and bitten. Narnutang rushed in, and while the bear was doing its best to bite through Altani’s staff, thrust her blade into its side, finding its heart.

Altani tended to the Khatun, and then to Narnutang, and then to himself. Guessing that it was close to dawn, the party elected to press on in the darkness, and put the danger of the forest behind them.

Over the next few days, they timed their travel carefully, and paid liberally to sleep in huts and barns along the road to a town named Gilgat.

As the sun was setting, the lights of Gilgat came into view. Remembering the curfew in Magden, the travelers elected to camp in the hills. But as they were starting a fire, they heard the moans of bears; as in the party’s previous encounter, the ursine voices seemed to call to each other across a distance, and seemed to be drawing closer on all sides. Leaving their fire still burning, the party mounted their horses and made haste toward the lights of the town. Narnutang led the way and when, she encountered a bear, closed with it to fight, urging the others to press on. The bear was eager for the fight, and called for its fellows. Narnutang slashed at the bears head, severely wounding it, and then followed her companions.

Gilgat provided a most uncivil welcome, demanding that the travelers prostrate themselves and declare their allegiance to the Master. When Narantsetseg refused, she was thrown to the ground and beaten until she wouldn’t get up again.

The Guardians summoned their superior, Batar, one of the Experts of the Knowledge, who ordered that they brought to his own house for questioning. At Batar’s house, Altani was permitted to tend to Narantsetseg’s wounds, and they were provided a place to sleep.

Batar woke them at dawn and fed them. As they ate, he asked why they had come and seemed very pleased with their answer. Yes, he had heard about the One With a Face Like the Morning Sun. He and and his companions had visited Gilgat close to a year ago and left in secret after offending the Guardians.

Batar had given it little thought at the time, accepting his subordinates assessment that this was just a foreigner troublemaker. But there were rumors now that he was The One. The Master’s successor. For since that time, there had been no new Knowledge from the palace over the mountains. Instead of Knowledge, there were rumors that the war had been lost, the Master’s armies broken and scattered, his bright-eyed soldiers returning in confusion.

Batar pressed the travelers on the identity of the man they were seeking. Why had he come? Was he the One? Was he the new Master? They didn’t know.

Batar had never been to the palace over the mountains. The only way he knew to get to the palace of the Master was over the Dark Wall, the citadel of the Zaharans before the coming of Hosadas. The Master, of course, had another way, but Batar didn’t know it. Again, he had never been invited. The Dark Wall was a dangerous place and becoming more so. The beasts who lived there were turning wicked and migrating from the wilderness to the fields and villages. There were rumors—not Knowledge—about flying lizards gathering in the sky above the old Zaharan citadel.

“If your friend is the Master’s Successor, then he will protect you from these forces of ignorance and help you cross the Dark Wall. Whoever he is, if you live long enough to find him, tell him that Batar showed you kindness.”

Batar allowed Narantsetseg and her retinue to leave Gilgat by a rear gate, directing them to the Dark Wall.

The next day, the retinue were met by bandits. Not Guardians or soldiers, but bandits. Zhounese thugs who had followed them all the way from Zhou-Deng. “We were supposed to escort the Khatun, but you left before we had the chance.” They were eight in number, but carried poor weapons, and did not sit strong in the saddle. Dolkar’s hand drifted to his sword and the Khatun looked to the open road. But Narnutang spoke up. “We are glad you have found us. The Khatun will gladly pay you handsomely for your escort. And give you an additional reward when we return to Banua.”

The bandits smiled and their leader gratefully accepted a heavy bag of coins.

The bandits were poor escorts. They rode badly, had difficulty crossing the river, drank at night, and didn’t wake in the morning. But when the group reached the Dark Wall and the bears attacked, they were the easiest prey. While the cruel beasts tore apart two of the cowardly bandits, the Khatun’s true protectors secured the high ground and prepared their bows. As a half-dozen bears gathered around them, Dolkar and Narnutang assailed them with arrows. Some fears fled and others chased another of the fleeing bandits into a canyon. One bear, however, did scale the archers’ post and fell on Altani, seizing him with both arms and crushing his body. Narnutang drew her sword and killed the beast, but the loyal Altani was dead.

In the distance, the sound of screaming bandits were silenced and the few remaining bears retreated with their feast, but the party knew they would return.

Naransteseg collapsed in hysterical sobs. “What have I done?”

A shadow fell over them and Dolkar looked up to see an enormous bird descending.