Gradually, over many long days of meditating with it she finds that she is able to at least get basic directions from it. She can sense when the ship is on course and when it is not, all despite not knowing what destination awaits. Still, her mother conceived this device and she can sense that too. Or rather, she can sense in it a version of her mother that existed and died before she was born. The mother she grew up with was a sorceress, not a healer. Nyneve was quite surprised the first time she heard about healing.
The sea is vast and once the ship is beyond the main promontory there is nothing but blue. You can see so far the earth curves and falls away before you see anything else.
—————
Zymaan sits in the lotus position in the centre space of a star inside a circle etched in the stern of the ship with a still-burning-stick and then retraced by that invidious black powder he somehow acquired beneath the haunted house outside Saltmarsh.
Somehow Zymaan convinced Captain Stormwind to veer course for some side adventure for Zymaan to acquire a familiar promised him by The Old One who guides his path. Now the ship sits, sails furled, going nowhere while Zymaan the horned tiefling hums infernal sounds and summons who knows what.
It takes much longer than anyone expected.
It takes more than a day.
Zymaan sits and hums. The ships sits too. So does the crew.
Time drags on.
Captain Stormwind begins to grow impatient and, in fact, the whole crew suddenly becomes irritable. Grim is the first to understand that whatever terrible magics Zymaan is casting is spewing some ugly magical effluent upon everyone else aboard the ship. The consequences could become terrible quick. Zymaan is now very deep in his casting. Zymaan has left his body and is somewhere else entirely now.
That night Grim stays awake and sharpens his blade openly while sitting in the nearby rigging. It is only this that keeps the crew from killing Zymaan in the night and ending whatever curse is being brewed.
Talk among the crew turns to concerns about saving their own immortal souls.
Another day passes.
Ryparin attempts to meditate too to counteract whatever horribleness is occurring, but the effort drains him quickly and he simply cannot.
Finally, at last, Zymaan returns to his body and, in a sulphuric puff of smoke, a slimy, big-eared creature appears in his lap. Zymaan barfs seawater and begins to wretch heavily. The creature in his lap moans, turns over, and displays a thick manacle connecting its foot and a heavy stone. The powder that drew the circle and star inside it burns in a sudden black fire that permanently scars the wood of the ship with its vileness. At least the terrible acrid smoke it creates eventually dissipates.
The mood aboard the ship slowly begins to dispel and when Captain Stormwind orders the crew to hoist the sails, a new day dawns.
Zymaan, his new critter Quagmire, and Grim, all sleep heavily and safely in Zymaan’s locked cabin.
Nyneve resumes her post at the prow of the ship and the hunt for Alandra de Winter’s Lanterns of Light resumes.