Day 74 - Return to Ginsel
Day 75 - Dinner with the Duke
Day 80
Day 84 - Trip to Yendoril
Day 85 - Dinner with the King
Day 86
We're back on Ginsel in Barretstown again. I met the Master of the Market today. He's a little fragile looking guy with a cynical attitude. I guess that's what happens when you get old. I have set up a tent in the market and I'm having no trouble selling our goods from Oerth.
When we were unloading the cargo from the ship we discovered a charming, extremely tall young lady in our cargo hold. She claimed not to know how she got there. It didn't look like anything was missing. Her name is Annastasia. I have a suspicion that Mustafa has something to do with this.
Tonight we had diner at Duke Bertrand's estate again. This dinner was very nice, but wasn't as elaborate or official as the others. I spent some time talking to Tara about our travels, and gave her the book of myths and poetry and the crystal tulip from Oerth. She was a bit wistful about space travel. I should invite her along on one of our safer trips some time. The purpose of the dinner, other than welcoming us back to Ginsel, was to give the Duke an opportunity to charter The Royal Flush for a trip to Tarven, the capital of another Kingdom on Ginsel. I agreed to take him and his entourage. We are leaving in 9 days.
We have sold all of our cargo and made a very good profit. Anna has joined our crew and signed the ship's contract. We have installed the cargo crane that Zeke designed and prepared the ship for our guests. I bought some wood for repairs should the ship become damaged. Everything has settled down nicely. There's nothing to do now but relax for a few days and wait to fly to Tarven.
We flew to Tarven today. The trip over the mountains was mostly uneventful. Mustafa made a bunch of hors d'oeuvres for our guests, who included the Duke, Tara, Thiel, and Wedge. Zeke can really make the ship zoom now. We made the entire trip in about 5 hours. The Duke put us up in a really posh hotel. It is almost a taste of being royalty myself. The Duke and his entourage stayed at the King's palace.
We had dinner at the King's palace today. Now, I don't mean to complain. We
are being treated very well. Still, all these fancier and fancier dinners are
just not my style. It didn't sink in when the Duke was hosting. Duke Bertrand
has a down to earth ruggedness about him. But the King's banquet finally drove
the point home. Here's an example: One of the dishes they brought us at the
King's banquet was just a couple of vegetables with some decorative sauce over
them. It was more like art than food. Mustafa just loves this sort of thing.
I spent a little while wondering if I should even be at this dinner. Well the
food was very good, and I had a chance to speak to a count about accounting.
*chuckle*
Tara went shopping today and she bought just about half of everything in the city. Tarven has a good market. There are ports here for spelljamming ships. I think the Duke is going to be talking to the King for a while longer.
Tonight I played poker at the home of Viscount Pethers. These nobles were only casual card players, but they played somewhat high stakes. I won well over 1000 gold piece by night's end. I need to be careful to realize that I am not a professional card player. There are many out there who are much better poker players than myself and I need to keep my last few poker windfalls in perspective.
Editor's Note - The missing entries chronical the wrongful imprisonment of Mustafa Morimoto. Mustafa accepted a duel with Marquis Wolsener, which he won, drawing first blood. Later the Marquis was murdered and Mustafa was framed. Although our heroes never did discover the culprit they did find enough evidence to free Mustafa.