Year 124SpringWe have reached the sea: The Blood Sea, according to our new Ronin friend. It will run red with elf blood before I am done. There is a cave nearby where we can shelter from the rain and the giant beasts which roam the area.
Deep Blue asks me to make him a wooden axe so that he can harvest wood. I don't see how he can possibly chop down trees with his scrawny arms, much less with a wooden axe. But apparently he can talk the forest spirits into giving us wood, or something.
Everyone gets to work, and before long we have a living space inside the cave and some weapons for Navatar and Deep Blue to hunt with. Navatar is as good with that bow as she claimed. Together they take down some enormous beasts.
All of the black rocks we acquired don't seem very useful to me, but Navatar demonstrates that we can burn them to make something like charcoal. I will call it rockcoal. He uses this rock-coal to turn some of the other rocks into shiny, if not very useful, metal bars. Deep Blue claims these, saying that he will offer them to the spirits in exchange for their blessings.
Deep Blue claims the top of the cave spire and builds a stone circle to make his offerings at, and begins his rites. I don't see much to show for it. He claims to have learned the secrets of a fairyfire spell, but I despite ordering him to learn it a few times, I haven't actually seen him cast it.
A serpentman climbs our of the depths of the caverns and our bone carver narrowly escapes harm. Navatar demonstrates that she doesn't need arrows or even weapons to take care of our enemies. She scares me
Summer
Four orcs arrive and join our clan, and I have Navatar train one as an archer. I am happy to see that one is an Uruk, a strong warrior named Omega. Knowing how much Deep Blue likes to put himself in danger, I assign Omega to guard him. Deep Blue conjures a crystal glass spear to arm him with, which he quickly puts to deadly use when a group of raptors attacks our camp.
Another immigrant is a corsair, who tells us of the freelancers: deadly orcish pirates who prey on the weak races who ply The Blood Sea. After hearing of the riches that are near for the taking and seeing merchant ships sailing near the shore, I help him build a guild for the freelancers and some long-boats to raid them ourselves.
The first longboat comes back empty-handed, but the second overtakes a merchant vessel and returns laden with booty. They returned with gold, silver, some strange human weapons, and a goblin slave. They even captured blueprints for a bazaar, so that we can begin trading our coins for valuable metals goods. But best of all, they captured an elvish slave! I will make that elf regret ever being born. We retire to celebrate with feasting and a game of beat-the-elf, but I am interrupted by bad news.
RACCOOOOONSSSSSS!!!!
I WILL SKIN THEM ALIVE ONCE I CATCH THEM
Well, there go my plans for building a bazaar this summer. I send out more longships after merchant vessels, but have no more luck
Some goblins come to trade, and I ransom the goblin captive for almost everything they brought. So it was not all a waste.
And that ends the first half of our year at Burstscourge.