While Li Wei and his group leisurely fished aboard their ship, a fierce argument was likewise underway in a gloomy underground tavern near the port of Baldur's Gate, dozens of nautical miles away.
Bang!
"She's provoking us!"
A middle-aged, one-eyed man with a face full of flesh slammed the table, rose to his feet, and roared.
The sheer force sent the liquid in the cups on the table splashing across several people's faces, immediately drawing furious glares from those seated with him.
Yet, wary of his intimidating bulk, his considerable strength and influence among pirates, and his status as a follower of Talos, Lord of Storms, they all took a deep breath, thought it over, and ultimately chose to swallow their tempers.
It was not as if this was the first time. They would endure it for now—perhaps one day, this reckless brute would be struck down by "divine retribution."
After all, in most people's minds, Talos, the Lord of Storms he worshipped, was a cruel, impatient, hot-tempered deity, one utterly obsessed with chaos and destruction, quick to repay every slight. His demands of his followers were also exceptionally harsh and entirely unrewarded. Once one angered this god, dreadful divine punishment often followed.
Thus, although Talos was one of Coriel's most powerful deities of great divine power, he had never had many followers. His church was likewise very small by comparison, and was secretly scorned by nearly all Clerics of other faiths.
In the eyes of other gods and their followers, this deity who ruled the seas and storms was less a god than one of those chaotic beings in the Abyss, incapable of controlling its own emotions and not quite right in the head.
For that reason, he occasionally became a tool god for other evil deities or certain