The Split Table

Your passenger—Marrow-Mother Hesk, an ursine cook with forearms like smoked hams—was hired to cook a peace feast uniting two rival clans. The great hall is swept and the roasting pits are lit, but only half of the ceremonial feast table stands in the room. "They sawed the table down the middle when the blood-feud began," Hesk growls. "Redbrush Hold kept the other half, and neither clan will sit down to make peace until the whole table is joined."

Redbrush Hold is a tidy, double-locked vulpine stronghold. Their half of the ancient oak feast table sits in the courtyard under a canvas tarp. Hold-Keeper Tamsin Redbrush greets you with a sharp-toothed smile. "To us, that half-table is just seasoned firewood—and good firewood costs forty silver."

The makeshift feast ends after a single tense night. While the elders shook hands across your borrowed galley table, the young warriors forced to eat on the floor exchanged dark glares. Scouring her pots, Hesk shakes her head. "Half a table makes half a peace. They'll be drawing blades again by spring thaw unless you fetch the other half of the true table from Redbrush Hold right now."

Pinned back together with stout oak dowels, the reunited feast table seats both clans for a boisterous two-day celebration without a single blade drawn. On the third morning, Hesk meets you on the dock. "The two clans are felling a fresh oak to carve a brand-new table together, so neither side can claim the old one. That means the mended table needs a new home—and so do I, for that matter."

By morning the hall is empty as both clans march home through separate mountain passes. Hesk has her cleavers rolled in oilcloth and her pots stacked by the door, leaving the elders' coin purse untouched on the half-table. "That silver is for the ship that lent a table," she tells you. "I take my pay in hungry mouths to feed—and your crew looks half-starved."