That would be the elf! The Acolyte is always eager to trade on his magic, and he’s already gotten (perhaps begrudging) acceptance of the deal from his students. They can find some work cooking or cleaning, or can share the Acolyte’s cabin otherwise.

His students grumble good-naturedly, but they understand that as far as the trials of travel go, doing the cleaning on an elf ship is a pretty mild burden to bear. 

The ship itself is a small thing, by the standards of cargo ships, finely arching wood engraved and etched in a manner almost wasteful, each plank sanded down to the point where it appears almost seamless in construction. It has a single mast rigged with a complicated setup meant for agility over speed. The crew are half elves, tall and slender and gloomy in thier fine clothes, to fill all the skilled and senior roles and handle the sails, and half humans - many are locals seeking better lives in Lothern after a spell of sailor work to get some savings - to do the hard work and take risks. The Acolyte isn't the only one being interviewed for a position today, though he is the most important.

The captain himself is a gloomy sort, tall and willowy and sunken into a bone-deep exhaustion of the sort which humans don't live long enough to achieve, jagged scars covered up by finely tailored clothes of sturdy cloth.

A beautiful vessel, enough that the Acolyte doesn't need to wonder why the price for travel aboard is so high, or why the captain is willing to forgo it for the service of a competent mage to defend her.

The Acolyte has already communicated a good deal with the captain over missives, but there are somethings that cannot be adequately captured by words, such as the proof of the Acolyte's Knowledge and its manifestations, or of his general character and bearing in person. He'll happily demonstrates these, and any other requests the captain asks, as well as provide his students' bona fides. He'll make this exchange as quick, efficient, and painless as he can manage, since this elf does not seem like he needs any extra burdens on his shoulders.

He will take note of what others the captain is interviewing, though, just in case there's anyone who might make a good conversation partner over the coming weeks, or might have a spark of interest in Knowledge that he could fan into a flame.

The captain is indeed happy to verify that the Acolyte is capable of doing magic that would be useful against a warship and that he lacks any truely odious charecter defects before sending him with a crew member to show him his cabin, one of only four in the ship. They will set sail on with the tide, tomorrow evening.  

Those applying to be sailors are largely common kislevites, abled-bodied and possessed of an uncharacteristic optimism that goes unphased by the captain's dire warnings of the dangers of life as a sea-merchant. They're people willing to take pretty dire risks for hope of a better life in Lothern, the richest city in the world.  

The Acolyte has sailed a few times in his old life. He's never made a great habit of it, it sat ill with his wanderlust, especially in the first few years after the name-venom, but he has a modicum of experience, and even with his Knowledge, it's not completely without danger. Doldrums leaving you without fresh water, powerful waves capsizing the vessel, falling overboard, spoiled food, and more besides. The Acolyte can protect himself from these things for the most part, and with himself protected can act to help preserve others, but there's only so much even he can do.

He won't intentionally darken the mood, though. Dour thoughts won't make these men work any harder, and their hard work will be an important part of the voyage's success. He will mingle with them, though, getting know some names, sharing some parlor tricks to see if he can garner their interest and maybe offer them some magic to help improve their lot in Lothern if they make it, and learning what he can from them about what Lothern itself is like. He's read a little about it, at one of his numerous visits to various libraries in the cities he's visited, but a better idea of what local folk-wisdom of the place says could still be valuable.

An ambitious young idealist might seem like a fertile ground for spreading knowledge of sorcery, but idealism also means, in many cases, unshaken faith in the Widow and Bear and thus an unwillingness to consider taking up strange foreign (probably chaos-tainted) sorcery. At least one seems to become noticeably more worried for the state of their destination, that one like you would be permitted to travel there at all. Peer pressure keeps any less faithful or more trusting sorts from asking for tuition, at least for now. 

The human sailors have many things to say about Lothern - that it's the greatest city in the world, that it's the jewel of Uluthan. It's strung out over both sides of a strait guarded by a mighty fortress and three great gates that have never fallen in human memory, and which protect the idyllic lands of the elves from the corruption and disaster of the outside world. The Phoenix King, in his generosity, grants humans the rights to live and work in many quarters of the city without need for visa or passport, as long as they obey the laws of Eataine, so it's the one place in the world for humans who wish to never fight against the forces and evil and instead to live peaceful and productive lives. It's walls are tall enough to shelter the entire city from storms, which is good, because the entire thing is built on the sea as a network of islands with great temples and gold that flows like copper in the outside world. 

The elf sailors have many holes to poke in this dream - that it was built in happier days of yore, when the elves could focus on building and not on arresting the decline of the world, that it has in it these days more humans than elves and that their youthful unwisdom infects even the local elves with violence and rowdiness (not always a bad thing, of course, there's no other elf-kingdom where the drink is so fine and the fun so plenty) and even so it's halls are left half-empty, that Eataine is the only Asur kingdom that permits debt-bondage as a punishment and that many humans will find themselves in such a state, unable to compete with immortals at their own trades. They talk about their first visits, in centuries past, to the great city, fresh from tiny villages on misty isles, and the disillusionment they found with gates that don't even protect every Asur, let alone every soul, and a high king more interested in the affairs of mayfly-mortals (no offence) than on protecting his own people from orcs and demons (A name, Grom the paunch, is mentioned, in the grimmest of tones.). But, they cannot deny that it is one of the most beautiful and richest cities in the world, and that every wonder of the worlds old and new can be found there, and that the Lorthern Sea Guard are responsible in large part for what hope they have of sailing unmolested with their campaigns against Norscan, Druchii, and Dreadfleet alike. 

The Acolyte definitely gets the feeling that he has learned more about the humans and elves than about the city itself, but that's perfectly alright. Certainly, given what else he knows, he can understand what leads to this divide in opinion.

He will mention to some of the human sailors that he has a number students back in Kislev City, good and faithful men of strong character, who he fought alongside in the Tsar's recent mountain campaign. The Acolyte won't curse this journey by hoping for any kind of violent encounter, but if they are unfortunate enough to find trouble anyway, he hopes they'll appreciate the service he provides.

Once he's done mingling with the sailors, he'll find his alchemist and scholarly students, inform them that he'll be headed onto the ship early to get a feel for its space and familiarize himself with his cabin, and then continue his preparatory work on his forthcoming enchiridion of Fire until he sleeps for the night, and then continue much the same work the following day (unless something comes up, such as perhaps the verenites sending a message for him for one reason or another).

His cabin is well appointed by the standards of small ships cabins, which is to say it has a bed and a desk and neither of those things are too small to function at all. The wall opposite of the bed has a mural of fine engraving in polished wood, showing an elf riding a dragon in combat with a ship pulled by a sea serpent. He even has enough floor space that someone could sleep there, though perhaps not two someone's, and his apprentices draw lots as to who recieves the honour. 

No messages arrive before it is time to leave, so unless he has any last-minute purchases to make from the markets of erengrad (the alchemist does, stocking up on reagents she expects to be rare down south), the ship shall set to sea in good order. 

Just some fresh pots of ink and a spare quill in case the first breaks or is lost. Aside from that, it seems that it is time to set sail and weigh anchor.

(Also, regarding the sleeping arrangement, if either of his students seem particularly put out about drawing the short stick, he'll offer them the bed. He's slept on roofs or on the side of the road more than once, both in Kislev and in his old life, and knows that he can manage it on a ship just as well.)

Both his students would rather that he take that honour, though in a few days the scholar will pivot his practice to the study of power in an attempt to better endure the rolling deck and unpleasant conditions.

The first few days at sea are uneventful. People settle into thier roles and thier work, begin to form a common pool of jokes and gripes (none of which are about the food, which is for now, excellent, at least by the standards of peasent fare), and generally begin to knuckle down for the hard work of crossing the Sea of Claws, whose name makes itself very clear with icy winds that cut like knives into unprotected flesh, rattle the ship's fixtures and sweep away anything left unattended on deck. 

A week in, the food is declining as fresh meat and veg runs out, though hearty food made from smoked meat, onions, and potatoes all well seasoned is hardly bad eating. The weather, if anything, gets worse, and as the storms set in, the captain elects to take the ship north to avoid the infamous "wreckers point" and the greenskins that occasionally launch from it in an attempt to imitate the terrifying piracy of cultures that actually have shipwrights. 

The Acolyte's environmental protections mostly started with Power as well. It took him a few years to really understand the value of passive, defensive Flames, and he'll take some time away from writing (which, naturally, has become somewhat arduous given the roll of the ship) to give the scholar some pointers on how to incorporate the disparate aspects. If the scholar feels they're ready, they can even try and use his staff, as long as he's there to supervise. It carries a portion of the Acolyte's own understanding of Flames within, not something capable of independent Knowledge, but a solid tool for enhancing focus and clarifying thought, and perhaps something to help stabilize the scholar's hesitant steps into Knowledge.

Defensive flames also make an excellent balm against the wind, so the storm will not prevent the Acolyte from dutifully keeping watch for danger, thoughts of rending flame always at the ready as he ponders how best to disable various potential threats with a minimum of death.

The storm rages for days as they drift, presumably making progress according the first mate's read of the waves, but without sight of the stars for a clear fix. It breaks mid-afternoon as the Acolyte keeps watch, and as the clouds part and the rain abates, it's only minutes before a pair of wolf-ships appear from where the visibility-impairing rain had concealed them, rowing at full speed towards the Acolyte and his ship.

It's too bad they don't have any sunstones or whatever they're called. The Acolyte's seen them used to divine the positions of the sun, moon, and stars even under heavy cloud-cover, back on his homeworld, though he's never learned the particular mechanics of the process. Maybe it's some bit of magic that simply doesn't exist here, like how Knowledge apparently didn't.

Hm. He could try and cut these ostensible pirate's oars, which would like stall their advance quite handily, but if the wind stills after this storm it could leave them stranded at sea. Slashing their sails would do less to stop them immediately, but it's much more repairable as well, and hopefully a sufficient warning shot to give them a chance to reconsider whether they want to attack this particular ship.

Gripping his staff tightly, the Acolyte feeds the thoughts of rending flames, honing and sharpening them into fine blades, reaching across the storm-wracked waters and cutting the sails, opening wrents in the fabric for the turbulent winds to run through, and severing much of the rigging holding them in place, allowing them to wave freely against the cloud-darkened sky.

The sorcery provokes a brief argument on the ships, quickly quelled when one of the captains, taller than all his men and red face flushed from the cold and his own rage, knocks one of the arguers over the side, and the rowing redoubles. 

The other captain, much frailer and wearing a headdress that looks to be an entire taxidermy eagle, waves his staff in a grand gesture to gather some dark power that the Acolyte cannot identify at this distance

And manages to conjure a great gout of blue fire and throw it at the elven ship! 

That fire definitely seems like the first thing to handle! Unfortunately and somewhat ironically, flames are not especially easy thing to 'cut', so this is going to take fairly drastic action to remedy.

The Acolyte will quickly shift the focus of his thoughts to the litany of protective flames always humming through the back of his mind and feeds it, bringing it to the fore of his mind and pushing it out, expanding it from a personal shield into something that occupies more and more of the space around him.

Then, he squeezes his staff once more, calls up Power, and leaps down from the crow's nest and directly into the path of the blue fire as it flies across the stretch of sea between the ships.

Tzeentch's fire is a direct manifestation of that most hostile entropy, change-that-destroys, energy reducing substance to waste heat and homogenous ash as the march of entropy inevitably must. Which is to say, it's pretty much regular fire, but it's weird colours. It sputters out on the Acolyte's defences as he flies through the air. 

The Acolyte did get scorched by similar flame back in the tower in Praag, and any knowledge-seeker worth the name always takes the second hit better than the first.

He splashes down, hard, but Power protects him from the force of the impact and Flames from the cold and wet of the sea. An old part of him, from before he became a knowledge-seeker, wants to panic, to get back into the boat as soon as physically possible, but that would waste precious time. Instead, he pushes against the water, breaching like a dolphin to give himself a clear view of the wolf-ships decks.

At the apex of his leap, he'll search for spellcaster who slung the fire and he'll cut the tendons in their hands and feet to hopefully disable him, before twisting in the air to the other wolf-ship. There's not many things he can to stop the charge of their vessel, so he escalates to an option he previously rejected, and severs their oars.

The crippled shaman-chief falls to the ground with a scream, and his crew excercise the Eagle's valor and turn the ship around, fleeing to better honour the gods under other, more auspicious circumstances.  

The khornate chieftan rages and seethes from his wolfship as it slows to a dead halt without sails or oars. He shouts curses at the Acolyte and even throws an axe him (it lands in the water not having crossed a fraction of the distance between them, never to be seen again). He seems to be gearing up to leap in the water and swim over, when his own men throw nets over him and tie him down so they can focus on repairs to thier ship.  

It's all over, before the rest of the Acolyte's crew have even finished assembling on the deck to repel boarders. 

The Acolyte splashes down a second time, then gathers Power and breaches again, leaping back aboard the elf's ship, as dry as a desert. Quickly, he'll search the ship to make sure that everyone is okay and that no one has been hurt or fallen overboard due to the stormy weather.

Everyone cheers as he returns! People are very glad that they're not dead. Nobody has fallen overboard, people are good at their jobs. The captain gives him a pat on the back - hiring him was a good investment! He's even going to break out a bottle of hunter's spirits, a rich herbal spirit for keeping warm while hunting demons through icy fog, to celebrate.

The Acolyte doesn't appreciate the effects of alcohol on his concentration, and the cold doesn't touch him through his protective Flames, but he won't begrudge anyone for celebrating, especially not if it's in his honor! To avoid spoiling the mood, he will take a few sips of drink, surreptitiously filtering out the alcohol (and any other active ingredients that aren't exceedingly subtle) before swallowing.

Nope, it's just alcohol and some conventional stimulants, nothing special in that respect, though itnwas certainly made with the skill of an immortal master of his craft. 

That said, even with that and an extra portion of rum for the normal sailors, everyone is going to either get back to work or get back below-decks quick smart, the weather is still wet and freezing even if the wind and sleet seems to be gone for now. 

Fair enough! The Acolyte shivers just from remembering what traveling in this weather was like before he'd developed his flames. Regardless, he'll head back to his post in the crow's nest, keeping watch of any other potential threats. One threat often follows another on the sea, since under normal circumstances a ship that's expended some of its resources to defend against an attack will be that much more vulnerable to the next.

No such tertiary threat eventuates, and hours turn into days of sailing through merely everyday quantities of biting wind and rain. The ship docks twice at deserted or near-deserted isles, whose precise locations are secrets known only to the captain and navigator, to take on fresh water and what little game can be caught overnight. Eventually, they turn south for Marienburg, said by some to be the richest port in the world and perhaps more plausibly the biggest human port, where the ship will stay a few days to resupply and do some quick trades before heading to it's final destination.