Ocean of Tears

By then I was raring for adventure and the words of the Froglok fisherman came back to me: deep sea fishing in the Ocean of Tears. What a great idea!

I made my way to Freeport; it had been quite some time since I'd been to the big city but I was pleased to find that I still remembered its avenues and byways and found the port in no time. I popped into the Port Authority to book a passage to the Ocean of Tears and made my way to the dock to wait. A young woman was fishing there and happily introduced herself. Olunea, her name was, and she supplied fresh fish to the Grub N' Grog in the city. I must pop in there and try their food, certainly that's proof that their fish is fresh.

Stormbreaker, a large and very seaworthy boat, arrived and I jumped on. I remembered a conversation I'd overheard at the ring in Misty during my holidays.

"There is some great fishing on the boats," said a handsome druid. "I've had a lot of success with trawling, casting off the stern of the ship."
A young woodelf with him interrupted.
"But, Cyrnan, is it safe?"
"Well, relatively. Although once I got something on my hook, pulled me right off the back of the boat! I let go of my fishing rod in a hurry, but the boat was gone, I had to swim to Butcherblock!"

His description made me nervous but I had to give it a try. Unfortunately I found it very hard to keep my balance and keep the line in the water. I hadn't managed to catch a single fish when I heard a voice call that Sisters' Island was in sight.

I rushed off the boat as we docked, when to my surprise a woman attacked me! Bizarrely, she appeared to have heard about a trip I made to the Plane of Growth helping to clear the local thifling population (and, from the amount of old plate armour we found the thiflings had stashed away, clearly they'd been attemping to do the same to the cleric population! I did find a rather lovely breastplate there though which I wore for quite sometime afterwards) and was bent on teaching me the evil of my ways. These tree-huggers, always trying to protect "endangered species" regardless of the havoc they cause ... I really don't understand it. She was quite irate and threw herself at me, ranting and raving, until I felt I had no choice but to reboard the ship to avoid her.

Imagine my dismay when I realised she was following me, on the ship, screaming about the rights of wildlife and how I was not to ruin her lands! I dived off the ship and swam to a small island and found she'd followed me again! And was now haranging me again! Well, you know me, I'm not usually the type to lose my temper, but I'd had about enough by now. I spun towards her and stunned her into silence with my rhetoric; she has no right to be chasing down visitors and imposing her viewpoints on them! I couldn't get her to see sense, even as she left she insisted that the sisterhood of Erollisi and the Champions of Faydark would avenge the thiflings, or her, or something. I kept a watchful eye out after that, imagining some ill-thought out protest at my fishing spot, but her threats were empty, I was left in peace.

Still quite wound up from the confrontation, I forced myself to concentrate on the task at hand. I'd brought a collapsible fishing rod made for me by a gnomish friend, as these were said to be somewhat sturdier and thus, I hoped, more likely to survive the strain of the fast currents and large fish. No such luck, the rod broke under the pressure and I had to go back to my trusty Brell's Fishing Pole.

The scent of the salt and pine on that coast was quite frankly intoxicating. I took my helmet off and revelled in the feeling of the sea winds whipping through my hair. My imagination ran away with me: that small campfire on the next island could be a pirate hideout! The odd ripples in the water could be a shark, or even a siren! The squawking of the gulls could be a colony of some huge intelligent birds evolving here, far away from civilised lands! Whilst I sat lost in my dreams I caught a number of fresh fish and quite a few Gunthak Mackeral. These large fish are sadly not any good for eating, but they slice up nicely into bait which I tucked away in my tackle box for use on more elusive fish.

I had to unwind the drifting seaweed from my line a couple of times which I set on the sand beside me to dry. A sea-faring human had told me that this was used as a sort of temper for their armour. He'd been kind enough to tell me how to flatten it so that you could stack it in your bags which meant transporting it would be a lot easier. Intriguingly, he also mentioned a rumour of a delicacy made with seaweed that he'd heard about on his travels. He claims there are a people who flatten the seaweed, layer it with rice soaked in vinegar and raw fish, and then roll it up and eat it! I am always dubious of those who claim raw fish is edible, but I may try to get some tender salmon or tuna and see if I can recreate this.

After a while, the damp sea air started to bring a chill to my bones and I have to say my hair was an absolute mess. I saw the boat in the distance and managed to convince the captain to stop and let me board. I disembarked at the more civilised port of Butcherblock (where noone, thank goodness, tried to convince me of the rights of thiflings!) and from there made my way back to Rivervale. Hopefully I'll be able to get some of Kizzie's honey conditioner to repair my hair!