The

Quartered

Tales



Dedicated to the sidehall kids’ kids.

May they have lives full of adventure, and always return home safe.



by J. T. Minor



Map Sketch



Frame

Owen Weston Sierra Maya
Title Sir Owen’s Travels in the Amber Lands Lord Weston’s Journey to the Tower of the Angels Lady Sierra’s Conversion of the Wildmen of the Silver Coast Maya Bright and Fair’s Circumnavigation of the World
Genre boys own adventure high epic quest personal journey, cultural change swashbuckler
Quadrant NW SW SE NE
Polity cold warring monarchical states high medeival degraded feudal kingdoms oligarchical nation states city focused republics
Client eastern US + volcanic mountains western Europe medditerranean fjords and highlands
Focus feature Volcano Stone Circles Archipeligo Fjords
Totem Sword Hammer Scroll Rope
Tower Tower of the Owl Tower of the Angels Tower of Forgotten Gold Tower of Sir Da Dari Walnum
Element Fire Earth Air Water
Color Amber Green Silver Cyan
Trait Adventurous Gallant Thougtful Skillfull
1 Call  Follows a bird to discover a message in a bottle on the beach. Minor provincial nobility, asked by his father to take on the role of protector of the circles Young girl witnesses a needless act of violence and feels called to make it better some how born to a acrobatic family who have settled down due to injury. Encouraged by her mom to perform
2 Refusal Returns home and takes up a day job as a squire, but also loves to hike the nearby hills Thinks circles are dumb old shit and goes to the big city Focuses on books and learning, becoming a bit of a bookworm Is shy, and decides to settle in a town and begins to get courted for marriage
3 Special help Meets Lord Weston while on a hiking adventure, tells him about Lady Sierra and realizes he misses that wandering he did as a younger kid Meets a talking tiger only he can see and hear, but who has real effect on the world, who tells him he must save the circles from an earthquake but doesn’t know how a benevolent female voice in her head starts giving her good advice Begins to have dreams, vivid visions of adventure and cheering crowds
4 Setting out Decides to travel to the Amber Castle crossing the mountains and following the river  He tells his father and sets out for the circles she leaves her small village to advance her education and learn about her inner voice her aunt comes to town and invites her to join the show. her dreams convince her to go along, but as stage help, and not performer
5 Trials and trainings Becomes a first class frontiersman, fighting off wild animals, path finding, and so on Learns wisdom form tiger along the way, he is alone and has to fight off a bandit attack studying and meeting many new people, including the voice telling her lord Weston’s circle ritual, she is  accused of sorcery for her voice, she is sold to slaver travels with the show and learns all kinds of skills, incl disguise, sleight of hand, lock picking and showmanship. becomes a star of the show
6 Ordeal he is encountered by scouts from the army who, finding a teen alone in the woods, conscript him to join their march on the Tower of the Owl Tiger has disappeared and he is lost. he wanders far off track into the amber lands Kept prisoner on a boat, she sends a message in a bottle from the circles, but then finds escape during a storm while in a new town performing is unjustly imprisoned due to a case of mistaken identity
7 You got that thing! In the battle for the Tower of the Owl, comes across a legendary knight of the Amber Castle, gravely wounded, who gives him his sword and fast black horse, and tells him the war is a pointless fraud designed by a cabal of blacksmiths living on the great volcano, who have set the amber lands against each other Obtains lady sierra’s note from Owen, and learns the way to keep the quake from destroying the circles. he must travel to the tower of the angels, and perform a spell. but  on the boat he is captured by slavers back on land she finds a home and supportive community, and a few women who nature her gift when she finally comes before a judge, she pleads her case so effectively she is released, but now is stuck in great port alone and penniless. She saves the cord of rope used to bind her hands, wearing it as a belt
8 Escape Owen rides across the plains, outrunning both sides who are out to get him the slaver ship is in turn captured by pirates. the pirate crew splits into factions over whether to free the slaves, sell them, or throw them overboard. a young crewman speaks passionately on behalf of the slaves and persuades the crew to free them Pursued by the slaver, she and the villages overcome the attack without violence in desperation, disguises herself as a boy and becomes a pirate, setting off to raid the amber lands
9 Rededication Before he can get to the volcano he must traverse the sulphur swamps. he does this by relying on the horse, faithfully and patiently letting him lead  finally makes it to the island, but has to climb the mountain and tower she goes to the capitol city, with a message of tolerance and determination to use her voice for good, and returns to the city she was run out of ship takes the slaver boat and enables the rescue of lord Weston, she convinces the crew to save the slaves lives and becomes de facto captain.
10 Final Proof Uses his ace climbing skills to scale the volcano and sneek into the fortress where the cabal is meeting. they discover him easedropping and attack. he kills them all with his sword. performs the ritual and the quake comes but the circles are saved she wins a confrontation with the bigot leaders and gives a sermon which convinces the people to accept her and the other women is captured by a fleet from the Silver Castle and is taken there. Lady Sierra has just given her sermon when the ships arrive and Maya uses the tolerant sentiment to reveal her real identity and  convince the silver fleet she should get to complete the circumnavigation for her saving the slaves
11 Triumphant Return he finds records exposing the cabal, and sends a local boy who is looking for adventure to take them to the Amber Castle to expose what has happened. he then returns to his village, and when the news comes, pretends to have no knowledge of it, starts planning  returns to the king and made protector of the circles, returns to a proud papa she returns to her village, where her sermon has become popular and she sees it is a better place for it The crew sails into the great port and get to keep their treasures and are hailed as heros for sailing around the whole continent, she returns to her family with riches


Northwest

Sir Owen’s Travels in the Amber Lands

1          The Message in a Bottle

In a small village, not too far from the sea coast, a boy named Owen, by nature curious and brave, followed a bird of unusual plumage. It flew from treetop to treetop, waiting for him to catch up, until they ended up on the rocky beach, many hours walk from Owen’s home. There on the beach Owen spotted the glint of a green glass bottle among the pebbles. In the bottle was a note, which, he being too young to read, he stashed in his box of his most important treasures, kept under his bed.

2            A Squire in the Hills

Many years later he is working as a squire, learning to become a knight, but still unable to even lift a broad sword. He is not considered to be a good candidate for knighthood, however, because he spends his little free time roaming. Rather than practice sword and lancet, he is out alone, tracking birds and fishing. During his studies he sees a scroll with the same type of writing as the message in a bottle. He remembers the message, asking his teacher to translate it. He discovers it is a cryptic warning and ritual, along with a series of dated events, the first of which is in a few months. It reads ’The Amber Squire passes to the Green Lordling in the West Hills’.

3            Passing the Message

Convinced that this message is meant for him, he sets off to wander in the nearby West Hills region, in search of the Green Lordling, on the appointed days. Living off the land, sleeping under the stars he wandered the back roads and foot paths. Along the way he met many people, mostly locals about their business, but also ramblers, and people from distant lands. Eventually he comes across a young well dressed man resting, camped by a small pond. He quickly learns he is Lord Weston, a noble of the stone circles, lost and hoping to find his way back to the pilgrim trail to the circles. Recognizing this from the prophesy he invites Weston to share an ale and hear about the message in a bottle.

4            Crossing the Mountains

After helping Weston on his way, and meeting so many other travelers, Owen’s desire for adventure was stoked. He returned home and told his parents and siblings he planned to travel north across the mountains, taking the old slow trails to the Amber Castle. Knowing there was nothing they could do to hold him back, they throw him a farewell bash. And off he sets on his new adventure, walking north into the hills.

5            Life on the High Frontier

He quickly learns he is ill equipped for life alone in the mountains. Unlike the healthy streams, nut trees and odd jobs which sustained him in the friendly hills, the mountains offered much less easy pickins’. At night he froze with his thin sleep roll. Meeting a small group of ramblers on a mountain pass, he helped to push their wagons over the peak. In exchange they offered to shelter him as far as the next crossroads. Making quick friends with 2 of their number, he quickly learns the essential tools and techniques for life lived outdoors at high elevation. After parting ways he takes a job at the crossroads, until he could buy the gear he would need. Soon he was back on the trails, wondering at nature and making friends along the way.

6            Conscripted!

During this time in the mountains, he would, from time-to-time spend the evening at a public inn. On one such evening, at a new inn he had never before visited, full of lovely young ladies and a few older gentlemen, he noted the only young men were all keeping to themselves in a corner. After drinking the house cider he began to feel woozy. Waking up the next day he found himself in irons, chained in the back of a covered wagon with three other men. A man came and told them they would all now be foot soldiers in the Great Army of the Amber Castle. The king was paying a bounty for young men, and they would all be sold to march east in the king’s coming war.

7            The Knight of Truth

Unable to escape without risking certain death, Owen was marched east, joining a colossal army preparing to attack the Tower of the Owl. Although the Tower was known to be impenetrable and unconquerable, the King had been convinced to raise an army (by any means necessary) and to take the Tower. Already a smaller army, sent to threaten and parley had been slaughtered to the last man by the masters of the Tower. Now a massive new battle got underway. In this chaos, Owen came on a legendary Amber Knight. A victorious champion of many tournaments and a man the squires Owen trained with admired as a living legend. Recognizing his banner, Owen came to his aide. But too late, as the knight had taken on too many foes who had landed too many blows. Dying, he told Owen the truth, that a group of scheming blacksmiths had provoked the war, to sell arms to both sides. Swearing Owen to the task, he says they must be stopped and exposed, by traveling to their factories on the slope of the Volcano-at-the-Center. He gives Owen his famous blade, Eyestabber, and his black horse, Nightspeed known to be the fastest in the Amber Lands.

8            A Wanted Man on a Black Steed

Determined now to stop the war and reveal the truth of its origins, Owen rides Nightspeed east in the dark, away from the armies and anyone who might identify him or his horse. During the days he sleeps and trains, learning to use Eyestabber by practicing the sword drills he learned in his squire days. Eventually reaching the River Sap he began his journey sounth to the Volcano-at-the-Center. By now he was far from the fighting, far from the most powerful Amber Lands and far from the reach their law. He could return to traveling by day, but sometimes he couldn’t sleep, and so he still often rode through the dark.

9            Surviving the Sulphur Swamps

Just before the foothills of the mountains, the River Sap runs though a wide flat lowland. Carrying runoff from the Volcano-at-the-Center the swamps here are noxious. In places, the poisonous runoff stagnates and becomes toxic, with even its fumes able to kill grown men. Owen, not knowing this place or a way though, entered this terrible bog riding Nightspeed. Choking from the smell and gasping for breath, he was able to find his way back out of the swamp with only a few minutes of life left. After recovering, he began to use the scouting and trailblazing skills he’d learned on the high frontier to plan a way though the swamp. As he began his pathfinding he noted that Nightspeed would slow and flare his nostrils if the went too near the worst patches. Combining this with his skill as an outdoorsman, he was able to safely traverse the swamps and begin his ascent to the Volcano-at-the-Center.

10          The Volcanic Cabal

Ascending the last great hill beneath the volcano, he spotted a faint road, crossing the valley floor and turning up the visible side of the Valcano-at-the-Center. Risking being spotted he decided this would be his first line of exploration for the cabal’s hidden fortress and forges. Coming to a massive chasm with a drawn-up drawbidge on the other side, he feared he would not be able to find a way in. But after securing Nightspeed out of sight from the road, he began to climb. Although the volcanic rock was tearing his hands and feed, it also provided for relatively easy climbing. Crossing above the chasm’s end, he descended down on the other side of the wall. From above he spotted an ornate red tower within the fortress. Sneaking in, he discovers the cabal’s record books. Stealing them out of the tower and down the volcano was easy. But he was badly hurt, drained from his long and arduous travels, and longing for home. Rather than braving the swamps, he heads west to the nearest town. Finding a squire roaming in the fields nearby he gives him Eyestabber, and the cabal’s records, and tells him to take these as proofs to the King, the Masters of the Tower and the Council of Cities that they had all been tricked into this war.

11          A Secret Hero

Riding Nightspeed west without stopping, he eventually arrives home. There his parents care for him, and never press him on where he has been or what he has suffered. Weeks later, with his recovery nearly complete, news arrives in the village that the great and bloody war to the east is over, and that the burdensome extra taxes paid by the village would be ended. In the proclamation the deceased old Amber Knight is credited with bringing the war to its end, and exposing a group of traitors and war profiteers. Not wanting attention, and thinking no one would take his word for it anyway, he celebrated this news alongside everyone else, as though this was all news to him. Although he came close a few times in old age, Owen never claimed credit for his heroism, or explained where he had gone when he went traveling in the Amber Lands.



Southwest

Lord Weston’s Journey to the Tower of the Angels

1            A Thankless Inheritance

Lord Weston of Cole was born the first child of minor provincial nobility in the highlands above the Darkwoods. His family had been the leaders of their town and its surroundings for many generations, and their connection to the lands ran deep. Part of their inheritance was not just land and title in the highlands, but the duty of care for a set of ancient and half-collapsed stone circles in the moors, far to the west. To fulfill this largely ceremonial tradition the eldest son usually spends his adolescence in residence at a small defense tower on the moors.

2            Wes Among Friends

Young Lord Weston, though, is an independent sort, even as a toddler. He chafes at the elaborate, and in his view, pointless, ceremonies of his home life, and dreads his noble duties. As he grows, and learns of his future time in exile, mostly alone, defending a bunch of silent old collapsed stones from nothing, he becomes more determined to avoid his appointed fate. One day he conspires with some friends from the stables to run away to the city of Kurn on the delta of the great river, where they will blend in as men of the city and keep their freedoms. As they make their escape along the river road, though, they encounter a tiger. Taken as an ill omen by the men, and spooking the horses, the party disperses, leaving Weston alone, thrown to the ground by his horse, facing down the tiger.

3            Tiger Talks

Expecting to be mauled, Weston screams at the tiger, hoping to scare him away. Instead, the tiger opens his mouth, and rather than a roar Weston hears the a human voice say ‘So rude!’. Shocked, he watches the tiger pace before him, silent and swinging its tail like a friendly house cat. ‘What?’ he eventually asks in quiet confusion. The tiger again speaks, and this time goes on to explain that he has been sent to prevent Weston from abandoning his duties, because the circles happen to be in peril. Soon, the tiger warns, a great earthquake will happen and cause the stones to fall completely. If that happens, the Volcano-at-the-Center will erupt, devastating not just Weston’s highland home of Cole but reign ash to the four corners of the world. The tiger roars that he must go home, and take up his family’s gift, and go to the circles at once.

4            Setting Out for the Circles

Late that night, he wakes up lying on the road alone, no tiger in sight. Although unsure if what happened was real, he decides to return home. There, his father forgives him and tells him that the circles have long been rumored to be protecting the world from the Volcano-at-the-Center’s eruption. But the family has always thought it was a superstition or remnant of a dead faith. Hearing this, which he had only hear before from the tiger, he knew what the tiger said must have been true, even if it was only in his head. He tells his father and sets out for the circles.

5            Attack On The Old North Road

Riding alone along the Old North Road winding west towards the moors, Weston suffers a bandit attack. Although he’s able to fight them off, he again is thrown off his horse again, and after resting he awakes with no memory of the last few months. Lost in the roads of the northlands, and unsure why he is there, and if he is running away from home or trying to find his way back. One night he dreams of the tiger. Although he doesn’t talk he runs to the northwest. Weston begins to head that direction, believing that was his destination.

6            Lost in the Amber Lands

After a fortnight lost in the borders of the Amber Lands, he decides to make camp at a small lonely pond, and rest and try to recover more of his memory before following a vague feeling any further. After a few days, he feels better, but still cannot remember the details of his mission. One day a young traveler happens on his camp. After a brief conversation about the area, the adolescent discovers Lord Weston is the man he is looking for. Over a shared ale he learns Owen has received a message in a bottle. He cannot read the message, but Owen tells him the basics of the message, which jogs Weston’s memory. With Weston’s upper class education, he is able to read the foreign script, which is from the Silver Shores, and the prophesy and directions it contains.

7            The Song of the Angels

The note has three parts. The first lists a series of events with the months they will occur. The second is instructions for preventing the quake. The last is a song he will have to sing as part of the ritual which will calm the veins of the world, and stop the quake, the topping of the circles and eruption of the Volcano-at-the-Center. The next step is t travel to the Tower of the Angels, out on the lonely island of Sentibu. Overjoyed and energized to finally have his memory back and mission made so clear, he thanks Owen and heads to the coast and finds passage on a whaling ship stopping at Sentibu.

8            Double Captured

Although the lands further south were well protected and at peace, this area of the sea was dangerous for small ships. Slavers were known to capture sailing boats and ferries and sell the passengers in far away lands. One such cruel sheet fell upon Weston’s ship, and despite a valiant fight with the harpoons, the men on board taken as slaves. After a few days sail as captain, Weston and the whalers hear a commotion on deck. Realizing the ship is under attack, they are able to make an escape and arm themselves. Once on deck they find themselves in a standoff with the slavers and a crew of pirates from far off Tame. But before a massacre could ensue, a young handsome and charismatic pirate (Maya, birght and fair, in disguise) persuaded the mobs to let each other go, with the whalers joining the pirate crew.

9            The Island of the Sentibu

Eventually Weston and the whalers aide this young pirate in mutiny, and in exchange the crew are allowed to disembark at Castle Green. There he is able to call on his family’s name and nobility to arrange a proper escort to Sentibu. When finally makes it to the island however, he finds the Tower of the Angles is abandoned. The paths are swept away and the stairs and bridges used to reach it have been washed away in a landslide. But the month given in the note for him to stop the quake is coming to a close, and he knows he has to climb the mountain and tower, even if it is a dangerous and difficult climb. Finding help from local kids who play on the slope, and then following the path of some mountain goats, he reaches the tower. He climbs part way up, and finds an opening, granting him access to the stairs inside, and letting the last few steps of his journey be easy ones.

10          The Green Crystal Cracks

performs the ritual and the quake comes but the circles are saved (cracks the crystal with a hammer and sings)

11          A Shield with Tigre Proper Rampant Affronté

Now with the note in hand, and the quake come and gone without catastrophe, he returns to Castle Green. There the King makes him a knight, and raises his family’s title to a higher rank. Most importantly this meant Weston had to create and register a coat of arms for his family with the heralds of the Castle. Without hesitation he chose a shield, with tigre proper rampant affronté. And under this new banner he returned safely home to his proud parents, now proud to take his station as Protector of the Sacred Circles.



Southeast

Lady Sierra’s Conversion of the Wildmen of the Silver Coast

1            Unnecessary

In a small village in the Palm Lands far up the river Sudolynn, a young girl named Sierra lives with her parents and siblings. One day, walking home alone from the neighboring village, she sees two men at a distance, standing in the road over a crouching figure. Wary of the strange scene she hides in the irrigation channel next to the road, peeking over to watch. What she sees is an old woman with two young men standing over her. She can hear the woman’s cries and pleas, but as a small girl, she knows there is nothing she can do. She hides until the run off, and she runs, crying home.

2            The Girl from the Library

From that sad day on, Sierra withdrew from the world focusing on books and learning. A pretty girl, she avoids the boys attentions and keeps friends with the small creatures around the village. The one exception is the annual library festival. Each fall the town celebrates its library, and the children compete in a contest of rhetoric. And each year Sierra won.

3            The Quiet Voice

Nearing the end of her schooling, Sierra begins to experience something strange. At first, it sounded like a whistle. A little bird chirping in her right ear. Within a few weeks it had become a whisper, a rush, coming a few times a day in either ear. Then it stopped, and she assumed it was an illness in her ears. But then, one day just before her graduation, she hears a quiet whisper. A benevolent female voice in her ears starts giving her good advice, helping her with school and making friends. She keeps this to herself, worried she will be shunned or thought ill.

4            The Flower College

Soon after her graduation from the village school, she tells her family she wants to go south to the city at the mouth of the Sudolynn, to enroll in the famous Flower College. She told her family she wanted to advance her knowledge in rhetoric to become a teacher. But secretly she hoped to learn about the quiet voice, which by then had again gone silent. Was it an illness? It was so kind and helpful. Was it a spirit? Why didn’t it identify itself, or answer her questions? She hoped to learn the answers in the concrete cloisters of the Flower College.

5            The Song and the Sorceress

At College she thrives, immersing herself in study and meeting many people from all over the Palm Lands and even the Silver Coast. After a bit more than a year of schooling the voice returns. Now mixed with bits of advice and insights into her house mates, is a song. Every day the voice sings the song. And then it tells a story, and each month a new event is described. Instead of the comforting kindness this the voice spoke with insistence. Dictating all she was being told, the voice stopped, and she collapse into shock.

6            My Mad Secret

After a week in a coma she awakes. Her housemates urged her to return home, to recover whatever this illness was that attacked her. But the voice said only to go to the Silver Castle with the message. And fearing her professors and friends will think her mad, she skips out one night, finding her way to the docks. There she the voice tells her which ship to sneak aboard to sail to the Silver Castle. Once stowed away and under way the voice again leaves her. Now sailing the great bay as a stowaway, she suddenly panicked. She was mad, to leave school and safety! She throws the message overboard in a bottle, deciding once and for all to be done with it. Doing this, she is discovered on deck. Unfortunately for her, the ships gross old captain takes a liking to her. It saves her life, but now she is a kept woman with no means of escape.

7            The Gracious Voice

Days later, off the notorious northern side of the Silver Peninsula, the ship rams a reef in a fog. Using the chaos of a listing ship she escapes overboard. Finding a small barrel she throws it in to the water and steps inside. Using a detached plank as a paddle, she escapes, eventually washing up on shore, exhausted. She is discovered by some locals, people of a different race who the people of the Palm Lands regard as backwards and evil, prone to cannibalism. In reality, she discovers they live off the shellfish and pine nuts, and are kind, knowledgeable about nature, and able to nurse her back to health. Quickly learning their language she learns to appreciate their culture and its unique way of seeing things. After hearing of other women in the village who hear ‘the gracious voice’ she confesses how she came to their shore, and her own experience with this voice. Rather than shun her, or worry she is ill, they teach her to cherish it, why she should be true to it, and how to listen for it.

8            The Sisterhood of Darkness

During these weeks, she was not aware that she is not the only survivor of the wreck. The captain and his officers also survived. Landing upshore they fear the locals and build a fortified camp, to protect them from these imagined savages. Soon they decide they must strike first, take the locals camp by force and order them to feed and support them while they waited get the attention of another passing ship. A local scout, however, saw them reconnoitering the local camp, and reported they were likely planning something bad. As the sailors apporached the women of the camp put a special mixture in their fires, and soon the camp is cloaked in a black fog. Lost in a sudden fog, the sailors fear they are the target of witchcraft and soon run in panic, never to be seen by the locals or Sierra again.

9            In the Silver Castle

Now healed, she determines to return home, carrying some of the wisdom of accepting the voice she has learned. She learns the best path is to head over the mountain pass to the city of the Silver Castle. There it will be easier to get a ship to take her home, and she can post a letter to her family and school to let them know she is safe. Immediately on arriving in the outer slums of the city she learns all is not well. A greedy and corrupt group of thugs has take control of the Castle and the Silver Penensula. Calling themselves the Wildmen, they have ginned up fear of pirates and foreigners to raise huge new navy, bringing unruly new sailors, gangs of toughs and other rough types to the city. She finds many of the regular folk have been run out of their homes by this soft invasion. Her first night in the city, after walking through slums and watching thugs proudly walk the streets, she has a nightmare. Its the old woman she saw from the ditch as a girl. She bolts up, and hears the voice, now full throated and with the tone of a mature woman tell her she can do something to help. She must.

10          The Sermon of Heart Stairs

Immediately the voice begins dictating an oration. A plea and condemnation, an appeal and rebuke. More glorious than any of her work in the Library competitions, it was a speech to make the Wildmen take stock. To tell them regular folks outnumebr them, and they can form gangs too. To make them scared but also ashamed. To get them to see the humanity in the people they exploited. To extort them to turn on the sociopaths among them who couldn’t be persuaded, and to remove them from high office and put them in a low dungeon. On a day of great public feasting and surrounded almost entirely by Wildmen, she stood on the Heart Stairs, a place of oratory near the Castle, and delivered the sermon the voice had dictated. And it worked. The regular folk came to see they could band together and fight back, and the Wildmen came to see their asshole masters were better shunned than elevated.

11          Wise Words

The sermon was immediately copied and memorized, spreading throughout the southwest, through the Silver Coast, around the Great Bay and deep into the Palm Lands. Finally now able to get passage, she returns to the Flower College and the city on the mouth of the Sudolynn. She discovers her sermon is being preached there too, and her old housemates welcome her enthusiastically, telling her that the city is a better place because of her words and ideals. Bidding school and friends goodbye, she finally returns home, now a hero and esteemed wisewoman. She becomes the head librarian, and settles into a life of learning, never hearing the voice again, but occasionally catching a little chirp in her right ear.



Northeast

Maya, Bright and Fair’s Circumnavigation of the World

1            The Family that Flies Together

Now known in legend as Maya, Bright and Fair, she started as a small girl born to a family of acrobats. Her extended family toured the free cities of the Fjords of Tame as the Flying Pudding Birds. She was the only child of a pair of tumblers, just after her parents have retired from the act, due to an injury to her father’s leg. Even with the shortened careers of her parents she was always encouraged by her mom to perform with her extended family in the touring act. But despite a natural dexterity, and unlike her eager cousins, she never likes the attention and pressure of the act, and refuses to join.

2            Sweet Settling

Unlike most members of her family, as a young girl she is very shy. Although she enjoyed practicing her tumbling, she grows to young adulthood in her parent’s small hill town. She attends the village school for girls, and learns the arts of language and the home expected of middle class wives in those regions of Tame. Near the end of her schooling, she decided to settle in the same town, to stay close with to her ailing father, and because she had grown to value its cozy ways and creature comforts. She begins to get courted for marriage by two young men, one a farmer and the other a shoe maker’s apprentice.

3            The Dreams That Won’t Stop

After she finished her education and, as she is thinking of who she will settle down with between her suitors, she begins to have a series of vivid dreams. Almost nightmares in their intensity, but ecstatic in their emotion, they begin as her standing in a mask before a cheering crowd in a performing tent. After a few nights of this, she assumes these are memories or lingering thoughts of joining the family business. But the visions begin to develop over successive weeks. The tent becomes a ship. The crowd become seamen. Then the ship changes into a castle parapet. The crowd morphs into an adoring crowd chanting her name in victory. Then back in the performing tent, but now the crowd is her family and friends. Each time she wakes and thinks ’that will be the last time, my nights will go back to normal now’. But within a few nights she is standing somewhere new, looking out at a sea of new faces, all smiling and cheering.

4            Swept Along

A year after the dreams first began, Maya’s mother trades places with her favorite aunt. Maya’s mother rejoins the act as a coach and caretaker, and Maya’s aunt stays with Maya and her dad, doing housework and generally helping Maya around the home and garden. As they work together, she learns of all the places the show travels on its circuit. She hears of the different foods and all the handsome men you meet. During this time her dreams also become more intense and frequent. One day while cleaning the house she asks her aunt if she can join the next tour without having to perform. Her aunt agrees to take her on next year’s tour as an apprentice coach and stage hand. Maya’s dreams disappear, and despite her anxiety, she has no doubt she has made the right decision.

5            Among the Cabinet of Awe

The next season, Maya learns what it is to live life in a traveling show. The family is joined in this tour by a troupe of freaks, a pair of twin fire jugglers, a magician and his young son, and a man with big cats. Traveling with this ‘The Cabinet of Awe’ (as the group is known), she spends her afternoons helping to set up for the show and the evenings helping with the camp dinner and chores. Her mornings are free, and despite her shyness she gradually makes friends with her fellow travelers. From them she learns skills that will serve her well, such as makeup and disguise, sleight of hand, lock picking, voice control and showmanship. With the support of the family and the other acts she begins to perform short solo interstitials, combining these skills, while hiding behind a magnificent masked costume to help with her stage fright.

6            She’s Not Me!

After the second year of touring, the Cabinet of Awe breaks up, and the Flying Pudding Birds accept an invitation to bring their high wire act to the great port of Flodenworl at the far northeast of Fjords. Retuning to stagehand duties Maya joins them on the road. One evening walking alone outside a small village, a group of young men stop her. They accuse her of being a woman from a nearby town, wanted their for murdering her family. Despite all her protests, they take her kicking and screaming to that town and the magistrate, desperate to calm the townsfolk and claim victory, pays them the reward and puts her in custody.

7            Power Plea

Unable to find her, the show moves on, with a strict schedule of shows to keep and no hands to spare. Off the path of the show, Maya sat in a tiny town jail for more than a year, in shock and unsure what to do. Although she is confident she could escape, she waits in hope that justice will come soon and she will be freed. Finally she is told the day has come where she is to be brought before the town council to be sentenced and executed. Summoning all she had learned about persuasion and showmanship, she pleads her case to the assembled elders and handful of onlookers. Her powerful oratory makes them quickly realize their terrible mistake and she is immediately freed. She saves the cord of rope that had been used to bind her hands, wearing it as a belt and reminder to grateful for her freedom.

8            Joining up with the Jolly Roger

Now penniless and alone, she decides to finish the short journey to Flodenworl, and hope to get a passage home or temporary employment there. At this time, though, the great port is in an economic depression, resulting from recent cold winters and slowing of trade in the fjords. With no options for legitimate work, Maya disguises herself as a boy and signs up to be a seaman, in hopes she can make her way towards home by boat. After a day’s sail, she realizes that she has joined up with a crew of grey market mercenaries. Mixing legitimate shipping with piracy, extortion and smuggling, they make their way west along the coast to the Amber Lands, whose bloody internal war has left their coastal cities vulnerable to plunder.

9            Saving the Slaves

Now far from the fjords, Maya, living as a boy, has become a popular officer on the ship, running the rations and commanding respect for a no-nonsense way of working and a personal kindness, in addition to her impressive dexterity. While sailing between the Sunset Island and the Amber Lands the captain decides to board a slave ship sailing unprotected nearby. Usually they raid these ships for cargo and send them adrift, but the slaves of this ship use the raid as an opportunity to escape. Meeting on the deck, three armed groups come to a standoff. Again summoning her skills Maya convinces the groups that the best way to resolve the situation is not to kill each other, but to allow the slaves to join the pirate crew, while both would leave the slave ships crew alive and with their other cargo. The mobs grumblingly agree this is the best compromise and the two ships agree to sail in opposite headings. The slaves join the pirate crew, including lord Weston of the stone circles.

10          Seeing through the Great Circle

Continuing south, the crew keeps up its ways, but in the western lowlands and the lands of Castle Green the pickings are slim and better defended. Maya is approached by the slaves and many crew suggesting a mutiny, with her as new captain, as the old captain and old habits fail to provide. Her first order is to let all those who wish to leave do so at Castle Green, and those who wish to stay will head east to the Silver Coast and eventually home by sailing around the world. Unknown to her, the Silver Castle has a large naval fleet, and soon after entering their waters the suspect ship is forced into port at the Silver Castle. There, Lady Sierra has just given the Sermon of the Heart Stairs. Maya takes the tolerant sentiment in the city and potential end to their sailing to reveal her real identity. Despite their shock the crew stand by her.

11          A Full Ovation

After telling her story to the rulers of the Silver Coast, they are amazed that this small young woman has nearly circumnavigated the world, as captain of pirates and rescuer of the slaves. After days spent telling stories of adventure and close escapes, strange places and even throwing in a mermaid or two she and her crew become popular heroes. They let her and her crew sail away, with an escort to ensure they leave the southeast peninsula and Great Bay without stopping to plunder. Word of the ship and Maya, their captain Bright and Fair, precedes them back to the fjord lands. And as they sail back into the great port of Flodenworl they are hailed as heroes. Allowed to keep their booty, and given pardons as a reward, the crew decides to go their separate ways to enjoy their new celebrity and wealth. Maya retires to home, still that quiet, homey, but now more successful and famous and well travelled than anyone in Tame.