Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Oh yeah, there is going to be plenty of action. Every session since #9 (and including it) has had at least one combat encounter, some of which get pretty chaotic.
It seams to me based on you previous story hour that your story telling seams better suited to recounting action rich scenes (which I Quite enjoy reading)
So I am looking forward to you next post
thanks
PS
Hopefully this does not come of as a back handed complement
Session #9 – “Returning to Sluetelot & Leaving Again” (part 3 of 3)
Ralem, the 15th of Quark – 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
The next day they were heading southeastward again, the cliffs of the Border Rift, rising up to their left, and the water of the River Takken slipping away ahead of them to much sharper degree to the east. It was clear that these lands were still often used by the halflings, but they had now officially passed out of Thrician territory. The track they followed was wide and well worn, and in a few place, wooden staked fences held back packed earth bursting with grass sprouts. Once or twice they even heard the ring of a goat’s bell, way up at the top of the bluff, which was not nearly as steep here as it was in the eastern part of the island. To the south, green and yellow fields of tall grass wavered in the wind coming down off the bluff.
Here they could spread out some, and ride with some speed for the first time, and it was not until after some miles that they saw anything unusual. Falco noticed it first, but soon they could all see the corpses of men and horses strewn on the track. They approached slowly, suspicious of ambush. Kermit Buckleburr whispered to Duckhunter and he and his mount leapt off the track through the small apple trees and into the fields beyond to flush out anyone that might be in the tall grass.
Most of these men were wearing ring mail armor, a sure sign of their Rube origins (1), though a couple of men wore lighter armor. There were broken spears and several scimitars scattered about. Small arrows had made all their wounds, including those on the horses, though, whoever had massacred these nearly two dozen men, had retrieved the arrows themselves. They could only find one broken haft with a bit of blue-green fletching.
“Halflings did this,” Timotheus said.
“Who cares? They’re Rubes!” Telémahkos pointed to one of the men in ring mail. “These are probably dervishes come to raid the halflings.” The men had long dark hair and sun-baked complexions. All were clean-shaven, and the tattered remains of turbans were strewn everywhere.
“This one’s alive,” Bleys said, as he was going from body to body examining the details of the fight. It was a young man in studded leather armor. Unconscious, he had been lucky enough to stabilize on his own, but abandoned he would surely die.
“This is strange,” Flaco commented. “Rubes don’t use horses, but these seem to have been…”
“They don’t use horses?” Timotheus asked.
“It has something to do with interpretation of scripture,” Tymon piped up, happy to contribute.
“What are we going to do with this guy?” Markos asked, pointing to the unconscious Rube.
Before a debate could begin, however, there was a cry from the field. Kermit had spotted someone hiding behind a nearby tree, and now they could see the figure bounding in the tall grass, Duckhunter appearing mid leap behind it, Kermit on his back. Victoria of Anhur was still on her horse, and spurred Ironside on to cut off the fugitive.
“Stop!” She cried out. “You will not come to harm if you surrender quietly!”
The young figure, a boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen summers, cried out in a language most of them did not recognize, and cut to the right. Kermit and Duckhunter leapt to cut him off, easily, and soon they were driving the young man towards the trail. The others drew their weapons and called out for his surrender.
The boy eventually fell over, tripping over a rock and looked up to see Victoria’s long spear in his face.
”Get up slowly,” she said to him. Soon, they had him on his knees over by the track. He looked around at all the dead with a long face.
“Who are you?” Telémahkos asked him. The boy steeled his freckled face. He had short brown hair, and was wearing a leather jerkin. He had a long curved dagger at his belt.
“No parlosh a’vochstra linguch echfidole,” the boy said. (2)
“What?” Laarus frowned.
“Uh… He said, he doesn’t speak common,” Tymon offered.
“No! No common!” the boy spat on the ground.
Using Tymon as a translator, they gained few answers from the reticent and defiant young man. More than once when refusing to answer questions, he announced his willingness to die. The signers of the Charter of Schiereiland looked at each other with disgusted wonder. His name was Cosimo Najem and was a scout for the missionaries of the Red God leading bands of dervishes to explore the northern borders of the Disputed Territories.
“Raid villages and kill halflings, he means!” Kermit spat.
“Ask him where he came from,” Laarus asked Tymon. “Was it the Kingdom of the Red God of the West? Is there a dervish camp nearby?”
“Sheh fo’ch vichdub perchè hech bisogno dich alif guida voi licker degli asini de’jann,” Cosimo spat back.
“Uh, he said, there is no camp nearby, that was why he was guiding them,” Tymon said to the priest, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead. When asked about the horses, the boy explained that the missionary had led them had brought them along, which only made their presence more mysterious.
Anything of value had been taken from the Rube party by the halflings that had killed them, and so the debate arose of what to do with Cosimo and his unconscious companion.
Laarus considered the issue for a long time, but finally decided to use an orison to stabilize the dying Rube. After this the debate shifted to whether or not to give Cosimo, and the still unconscious Amadeo, any rations to help them on their trip back south.
“It is a further journey back to where they came from than any provisions we could afford to provide them would cover,” Bleys the Aubergine said. “In addition, we owe them nothing. They were leading raiders against citizens of our nation. They are lucky we do not just slay them.”
Victoria nodded her agreement.
”We cannot just slay people in cold blood,” Timotheus objected. “And I do not feel right just sending them off into the wilderness to starve.”
“If this young man is a scout, he should be able to forage for food,” Laarus reasoned.
“But it will be days before this other one is ready to travel,” Timotheus said. “We need to leave them food at least that long.”
“We do?” Bleys cocked and eyebrow.
“I do…” Timotheus said.
“I don’t care either way,” Markos said, sounding bored.
“Tim has a big heart,” Telémahkos smiled.
Timotheus shrugged and took two days of rations from the party’s packhorse and two from his own, and left them for Cosimo.
“And remember the mercy we have shown you here, and the mercy the priest of Ra showed your companion,” Timotheus said to the young Rube sternly. “Translate!” He pointed to Tymon, losing his usual happy demeanor for a moment, and the servant did so.
“Uh… he said, thank you,” Tymon translated a string of harsh words from the boy. (3)
Tholem, the 18th of Quark – 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
Three days later the young nobles and their hirelings had long ago left the track, blazing across the dry harsh grasses of this area of the Disputed Territories. Occasionally, there would be a small copse of trees, and some held cool ponds fed by little streams emerging from lonely hills. The party rose before dawn each day to get as many miles behind them in the cool thinning darkness, allowing them to stay out of the sun in the hours surrounding mid-day. Kermit would lead them to a shady grove or tiny cave to eat and rest out of the relentlessness of Ra’s Glory. Each night he refused to allow them a fire, and a few times he would disappear for an hour or so, giving Falco directions on how to guide the party in the meantime. He would return sometimes with some rabbits or pheasants to ease the party’s reliance on their limited rations. Once Falco managed to take down a sickly doe, which provided food for the big group for nearly two days.
They were heading nearly due south now, and the land was becoming increasingly dry. The foliage here was made up of low scrubby trees, and thick rolling thorny bushes that created a barrier to the east. To the west fingers of a sparse wood over a range of uneven ground obstructed much progress in that direction.
It was late afternoon and the group had spread out quite a bit, the horses slowed to a walk in the heat of the sun, and Kermit was at the lead, ever vigilant.
Ironside nickered nervously, and Victoria reached forward and patted the horse’s neck to soothe it. “What’s the matter, Ironside?”
Suddenly there was movement in the thorny bushes and a wild boar, a runt for its kind, came rushing out in their direction. All the horses shuddered nervously, and Victoria’s reared up. As suddenly as the boar came rushing out, it began to stop, kicking up dust, seeming to just notice the party and all their horses. They could see where thick thorns had torn up its hide on either side of its head and body.
“Something must be hunting it,” Timotheus called out to his companions, as Kermit and Duckhunter hurried ahead toward a tree in the middle of their path, coming around to face what else emerged. The boar squealed nervously, and adjusted its path to hopefully avoid all the horses.
“Dragon!” Kermit cried, but in the chaos of the moment not everyone heard his cry of alarm. There emerged from the thorny bushes a bright green draconic beast, nearly six feet long. Its wings snapped as it gained a bit of height as it emerged. Its tiny scales gleamed in the afternoon light, and it hissed, showing its long dagger-like teeth set in a powerful jaw.
Markos’ horsed reared, and the seaman-wizard was thrown from it. The boar charged past, and Victoria, still not seeing the dragon cried out, “Are we just going to let it go? It could be dinner!” Telémahkos having dismounted on the far side of his horse, did not see the dragon either, nor did he hear Kermit’s cry. He hustled forward towards the boar, crossbow in hand. Looking up he saw small wyrm rise up, and he leapt back. “Let it take the boar!” he cried to the others.
Falco Fletching leapt off his horse and sent it away from the others with a slap to its rear. He hustled over to the tree Kermit was near, getting down to one knee beneath it as he drew an arrow to his bow.
“Pull together!” Timotheus cried out to the others. “If it tries to take one of us, make it pay!”
“Materia maxima! Markos intoned, and Tim’s voice grew deeper as he spoke, enlarged by the spell. Now he was nearly thirteen feet tall, and his flail was nearly as long as a man was tall. He took a swing as the dragon was suddenly upon him, but it swooped out of the way and locked its teeth on his shoulder, his breastplate protesting. Timotheus was barely able to push himself free. Dunlevey ran over to support Tim, shield raised and long sword in his other hand, as Laarus dismounted and called out to Ra.
“Ra! Please send us the holy light of your glory to burn this beast that dares attack your servants under your ever-watchful eye!” And a beam of golden light seemed to flash out of the sun itself. The dragon shrieked as its scales began to smolder. (4)
Kermit let loose an arrow from his position south of the melee, and the small dragon shrieked again. The boar disappeared into the sparse wood.
The dragon flicked its head back and forth now, seeming to realize it predicament as Victoria came around from its other side, still astride Ironside, and thrust her spear into its haunch. Green steam blood splattered on the dry ground.
There was a crunch of it scales as Timotheus’ flail slammed into it. It nearly lost its footing. “Take that, lizard breath!”
The small dragon had had enough. It spun around and began to flee along the ground, using its wings to maneuver and get longer strides. Timotheus tried to smash it again as it pulled away, but it was lower down to the ground as it crawled away, and he failed to compensate for his new height. Victoria tried to stab it as it fled as well, but it sidestepped and avoided the bow. (5) There was something odd about the way it scurried away; something that seemed awkward for its sinuous body.
Another of Kermit’s arrows struck it, but Flaco who had been firing at it steadily, wary of hitting any of his allies accidentally, could not find the target.
Victoria spun Ironside around and charged again, as the dragon was making its way back into the thorny brush. It rolled on one side at the last minute, avoiding the blow and then hopping up to gain a little bit of air, its head lolling a bit as it panted. Telémahkos rode up from its left, and lowered his lance even with it, but it hopped again, avoiding the blow.
“If you are not fighting, gather the horses, we need to move!” Timotheus called out to the others as he hurried on foot to join the fight. “If this thing has a momma, we need to be long gone!”
Bleys, who had just dismounted and drawn his sword, put it back away and climbed back up to do the chore, realizing the fight would be over one way or another before he got a chance to contribute anything to it.
“Sagitta aquom! Markos cast, and two arrows of watery translucent blue light struck the dragon as it hurtled itself into the brush, barely avoiding the blow of Tim’s flail as he arrived at the edge. They saw it bound once more, and then disappear.
“That… that was a dragon!” Kermit said, sounding nervous. “That is the first I heard of dragons around here…”
“I take it that was why you never mentioned them?” Victoria asked. “Still, it seemed rather small for what I have heard of dragons.”
“It was a young one,” Timotheus said. “Or at least, so I would bet… We need to put some distance between us and this place…”
The others agreed.
Teflem, the 20th of Quark – 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
Two days later they skirted a dry lakebed just beyond a row of low hills, approaching the village of the Ray-Ree tribe. The day before, as they made their final camp for the day, Kermit Buckleburr had made map in the dust with the end of a stick, showing the relative positions of the King Stones, the Mounds of the Ray-Ree, the tribe’s village, and the marsh held in by the hills they had passed. The group had agreed to go directly to the so-called barbarians.
When Kermit informed them that the village would be just beyond he horizon, the signers of the charter of Schiereiland dismounted, and left Dunlevey, Falco, and Kermit to bring the animals along a bit behind them. They did not want the tribesmen to think that they came as raiders, and Kermit explained that his presence might sour the meeting, as these barbarians did not tend to like non-humans.
Bleys, Laarus, Markos, Telémahkos, Timotheus walked forward and only a couple of hundred yards away they could see shacks made of thatch that looked as if they were made to be moved. Three figures were jogging in their direction. They were clearly two tall men, and an equally as tall woman. They thrust spears over their heads and called out, “We are the warriors of the Ray-Ree! We do not fear you!”
(1) The people of the Kingdom of the Red God of the West are not known for their skill at metallurgy and armor-smithing, having notoriously inefficient armor.
(2) Direct Translation: “I do not speak your filthy infidel tongue!
(3) Throughout the exchange, Tymon was softening the boy’s responses, just giving the gist of them without the invective and insults.
So I just finished typing up Session #10 last night and started on Session #11, and I have to say it went a lot quicker and was a lot more fun to write than Session #9 and the InterSessions.
I hope to finish writing Session #11 over the weekend, or at the very least before I leave for GEN CON on Wednesday - and post the first part of #10 (which will be in 2 parts) before heading off, and then posting the second part when I return.
It's looking like we are going to be having a month and a half break in the game from now to mid-september, so I have a chance to close ground, though I have little hope of actually catching up.
“We are the warriors of the Ray-Ree! We do not fear you!”
The three figures were clearly young. Two men and one woman called out with spears over their heads. Bleys took the lead, dropping his sword belt and his bow. Telémahkos tried to hand the watch-mage a shovel to bring with him, but typical to his manner, Bleys just ignored it, letting it fall into the dust as well.
“Hail and well met!” Bleys the Aubergine called out. “I am Bleys the Aubergine. My companions are the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland, noble adventurers who come bearing gifts for your people!”
The figure in the middle came forward. He was young man with long thick black hair dusted gray by the dry powdered ground. He was the tallest of the three, but they were all tall and wiry, wearing thick leather bands tied around their feet and calves, and crude leather jerkins, decorated with thick and necessary stitches, and lined with tarnished metal studs. The young woman wore a flute about her neck on a leather thong. Her hair was dirty and braided, but her dirt streaked face seemed friendly. The other young man was slightly shorter, but broader in the shoulders. His black hair was cut much shorter, and he wore a quiet grimace.
While they clearly walked with warriors’ gaits, they seemed too young to be the ones to come out and meet strangers.
“I am Marysus,” the man in the middle said, with an exaggerated smile. He spoke common haltingly, the vowels were exaggerated and the diphthongs made into guttural noises. “We have been sent to bring you to the First Elder. Your coming has been foretold.”
“Greetings, Marysus,” Bleys nodded his head in a half-bow, and Victoria and Markos walked up to join him.
“This is Trititia,” Marysus gestured to the young woman on the left. “She is the Voice of the Ray-Ree. She is its memory and its tales.” He then gestured to the young man on his right. “This is Tanliss, son of Tanliss. Son of the chieftain…”
Bleys introduced himself and then Victoria and Markos as well, each of the young barbarians raising a hand to them in greeting. Trititia sang their names back to them, her accent thickening with song. Urged on by Telémahkos, Tymon hurried forward with a sack full of some tools and other gear.
“We come with gifts for your people, and would enjoy the opportunity to present them to your chief,” Bleys explained. “We wish to do your tribe honor and not encroach upon you in our forays into the King Stones and the Dalvan Moor.”
“You coming has been foreseen,” Marysus said again. “You are to come and speak with the First Elder, and may present your gifts to him…”
“We have seen that you have left your servants and the hairy-foot-child with your animals,” Trititia said. “Tanliss, son of Tanliss will go with one of you to retrieve them to the village, as the rest of you come with us. The First Elder must speak to you of the Blood-Eye and the danger they pose.”
Tanliss nodded, but he never spoke a word. Timotheus volunteered to go back with Tanliss and get the others, while Bleys, Telémahkos, Markos, Victoria, Laarus and Tymon followed Marysus and Trititia towards the village of the Ray-Ree.
The young nobles were quite right about the village seeming like it was not permanent. The homes were shacks made of rectangular bundles of thatch tied together with thick hemp rope. There were also some larger huts that seemed to serve communal purpose, and the Ray-Ree began to come out and line up to watch the foreigners walk towards the only structure that seemed to have an actual foundation. It was immediately evident that everyone in the village was either no older than fourteen summers, or nor younger than fifty. Marysus, Trititia and Tanliss, son of Tanliss, were clearer the oldest of the young people, but not one of them had reached eighteen. The people wore ragged clothing tied close to their bodies with spare patches of cloth. The children, their hair long, wild and dirty, had faces of unnerving solemnity, and the permanent grimaces of the old women gave the sense of lives of untold suffering and utter lack. The old people were all shorn; some bearing scarred scalps as if the hair had been cut by force. It was strangely silent.
Telémahkos smiled and waved a shovel at the crowd, hoping to elicit a reaction, but there was none to speak of, just some unintelligible muttering among the women.
There were no animals around except for a wandering handful of scrawny goats, biting stubbornly at equally stubborn grass coming out in harsh shoots through the dry rocky ground.
The central building had a foundation made of stones cemented together and then covered over with a dome of hide nailed to wooden frame. Trititia slipped through the dire wolf pelt serving as a door, and a few moments later, Marysus held it open and motioned for the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland to go in.
The inside of the hut was dim and cool. There was a mix of musk and flowers in the air, and streams of light came through narrow slits cut in the hide. The ground was covered in soft quilts. Sitting on the floor was a man in a long gray poncho. He was very long-limbed, and had a long thick mane of white hair, streaked with black. He had a sharp profile, and deep crags in his leathered skin. He nodded as the party entered, gesturing them to sit on the floor before him. The young Thrician nobles, did so, looking around to take their strange surroundings. There was a young girl of about nine years sitting on a lone pillow. Where her eyes should have been was just scarred over tissue, her head bobbled, following the sound of their arrival and awkward sitting. There were four boys of about thirteen or fourteen dressed in painted hide armor, holding short spears flat against their tall shields. They stood in pairs on either side of the mat of the First Elder, Admentus.
“Welcome Sons and Daughter of Thricia,” Admentus said, his common was much better than that of the young greeters. Though it was thickly accented, he had a good grasp of vocabulary. “It gladdens our hearts that in this time of need you come to us bearing gifts, but our need is greater than mere tools can provide for. While we cannot hope to buy your aid, for the Ray-Ree buy nothing, we can give you the gift of our hospitality, and share in what many young and eager Thricians have shared in over the years in their forays to the King Stones. It was so when I was a boy, and it was so when the First Elder of that time was a boy…”
“I am Bleys Winter, called Bleys the Aubergine, watch-mage of the Academy,” said Bleys formerly. “My companions and I thank you for your seeing us, and for your people’s hospitality.”
“It is not I who saw you, but our seer,” Admentus lay a large calloused hand upon the head of the blind girl.
“I am Telémahkos of House Briareus, my cousin Timotheus will be joining us as well when he has helped settle the horses and the tools we have brought as a gift for your people in return for your hospitality,” Telémahkos said.
“In return? The Ray-Ree buy and sell nothing, but we appreciate your gift, and hope to make good use of them,” Admentus said.
“I am Victoria Ostrander of Anhur,” the militant introduced herself, and Laarus and Markos followed suit, but the young mage went further. “Marysus made it sound as if there was something else we could do in return for your hospitality, some aid in your time of need…?”
“The Ray-Ree buy nothing. We exchange nothing. All is freely given, or not at all… But, yes,” Admentus replied, but instead of explaining, he spoke some words in their harsh Rubar-influenced tongue, and a young girl, much the same age as the seer, came out from a dark corner of the hut bearing a huge skin, nearly as tall as she was. She placed a small ceramic cup in front of the First Elder, and then one in front of each of the young nobles. She then stood by Admentus, holding out the heavy skin, and he took it and filled his cup with some thick off-white liquid. The girl took it back and then went over and stood beside Bleys. The watch-mage followed suit, hoping he was following the custom correctly, and then the girl took the skin and did the same with each of the others.
Admentus raised the cup and waited for everyone else to mimic him, and then he drank deeply. The others did the same hardly able to bear the sour taste of the fermented goat’s milk. Telémahkos coughed, and Markos grimaced.
“As you have no doubt noticed our warriors are gone,” Admentus began. “Our chief, Tanliss, father of Tanliss has led them all to the council of chieftains, where all the great tribes gathered to decide how to act in response to the incursions of the people who worshiped the Red God of the West. It has been generations since such a council was called, but the hordes were gathered, and the cities of the Kingdom the Red God will suffer for the hubris of their priest-kings.”
“Yes, but Trititia said something about the danger of the Blood-eye?” Markos fidgeted, restless.
“Yes… The absence of our warriors leave us vulnerable to the bugbears of the Blood-eye,” Admentus replied.
“Bugbears? Are they from Tar Fane?” Bleys asked, remembering the location from Malcolm’s map. (2)
“Yes, and for near a generation now, the Ray-Ree have avoided conflict with this tribe by granting the gift of a delicious brew for their chief, who is called Bruggah,” Admentus explained. “Left to their own will, the bugbears would stream out of the hills into the moor and hunt the aurochs we depend on to total destruction. The Ray-Ree warriors would be forced to try to stop them, but even if we prevailed, the bugbear tribe serves as an obstacle to much more dangerous groups of ogres and giants that live beyond the Tar Fane… The gift of the brew, four times a year, has placated Bruggah, and he keeps his kind at bay, losing perhaps one aurochs a year to their raids. But now Bruggah has returned ahead of time demanding more brew. We fear that he has been informed about the absence of our warriors, and he seeks to press his desire for the beer… He has given us three days to produce it… Though he has been known to be late…”
“Who would have told him?” asked Bleys.
“Hezra, called Hezra Blacktooth, witch, and lover of orcs.” The crags in the elder’s face deepened when he said the name. “She was once the student of Rudwilla of the Toadstools, witch and midwife of the Ray-Ree, but is now exiled. Gone for years, she was recently seen in the area, and long has she held bitter resentment to her former people and to Rudwilla. It is Rudwilla that makes the brew for Bruggah.”
“So you fear this Hezra may try to interfere with the making of more brew for Bruggah?” Laarus asked.
“Yes… We have no warriors to spare to watch over her as she gathers her ingredients and prepares the crucial brew, for if the bugbears do decide to attack the village, every boy, girl and old man who can raise a spear or throw a stone will have to fight,” Admentus said, solemnly.
The girl was walking around and handing people the huge skin again and refill their cups. Trititia began to sing a song in their strange tongue that obviously told a tale, perhaps of their coming, for they were sure they heard their names chanted in it.
Admentus drank again. This time Telémahkos only pretended to drink, taking the smallest sip.
“We would happily gift you this aid,” Bleys said.
”Yes, the goblins have long been a danger to my people, so I know that they must be handled carefully,” Telémahkos added, as the others nodded their agreement.
“But why is it that your warriors have not slain this chief long ago?” Victoria asked.
“Bugbears we could fight, giants we cannot hope to last against,” Admentus replied. “And if our warriors return and find us slain by the bugbears, then Bruggah and his kind will sorely pay for their crime… Have no doubt of that, but wisdom must be exhausted before revenge is considered.” Victoria lowered her head as if in deep contemplation of alternatives.
“What can you tell us about this Hezra Blacktooth? Why was she exiled?” Bleys asked.
“She dabbled in magics that the Jackal God (3) forbids,” Admentus said. “She left our lands never to return upon pain of death. She had already been cast out of the village proper for her bearing the half-breeds. You will want to be wary of her sons who have the blood of the boar god’s runts…” (4)
“How many sons does she have?” Markos asked.
“At least four, perhaps more now? She has been gone twenty years, and as far as we know she went to the orcish lands to the due west.”
It was decided that the party would head out to Rudwilla’s cottage on the moors after they had partaken a meal with the tribe. Dinner was served outside, a huge roasted aurochs which people were allowed to cut their own piece from with the knife every man, woman and child seemed to carry with them at all time. There were boiled greens, and whole potatoes that had been shoved into the carcass that cooked as it roasted. There was also a lot more of the fermented goat’s milk, though most of the party avoided it, Timotheus took a liking to it, comparing it to a drink made in the area of Chalkour.
The young nobles noticed that anything they left uneaten a neighboring tribesperson would just reach over and grab and eat it, without asking. They also noticed that those sitting around Tim seemed to be eating out of his bowl a lot, and then he stood and staggered and tried to excuse himself. Telémahkos stood as well to help his cousin, and Tymon was right there on the other side. Telie could immediately see Tim was flush and sweating.
“I don’t feel well…” Timotheus croaked. It was bog flu, or something resembling it, and the tall warrior was guided to a ‘pest shack’ where the sick and dying were brought. There the elder women of the tribe would care for him as the rest of the party used the remaining light of the day to get to Rudwilla’s in the swamp. The time limit of Bruggah’s return made waiting for their companion impossible. (5)
Marysus and an unnamed boy of about twelve summers were to guide the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland to a place where they could then easily explain to Falco and Kermit how to arrive at Rudwilla’s cottage. The barbarians were uneasy around Kermit, and never addressed him directly. For his own part, Kermit Buckleburr wore a smug expression as if this treatment was all that could be expected from big folk.
“Marysus will point out to you the Mounds of the Ray-Ree as a feature you can look for in the land should you get turned around,” Admentus said.
“Yes, those Mounds are on our map,” Bleys said, his eyes lighting up.
“They are resting place of our chieftains, great warriors and sages,” Admentus explained. “It is watched over by Brother Cineas who was but a novice when he let with his master Oneidas to the great council of monks abroad…” (6)
“A monk of Anubis?” Laarus asked.
“Yes… His patron is the Jackal God, as are all the guardians of the tombs of people honored by the gods,” Admentus replied. “Do not be so surprised that he has gone to your decadent world and chosen to come back… I too spent time in your lands when I was young, aiding a scholar at your University in Moon City, and seeking adventure in your lands, even as you do in ours… I was at the university during the coming of the Anarcanaloth!” (7)
Admentus coughed and sputtered, and the party politely smiled and gave him some respectful silence, unsure how to respond to this pronouncement, and then went to ready their horses for the journey to the moors.
As they marched across the increasingly muddy ground towards the moors, a lone low cloud momentarily abated the heat of Ra’s Glory. Marysus pointed out an area to their right where they noticed some kind of narrow stream surrounding an area of tall earthen mounds. The Mounds of the Ray-Ree.
“When we are done with this gift for the Ray-Ree we should go an visit the monk,” Laarus of Ra suggested.
“Yes, he may have a unique outlook on the area that it would profit us to know,” Bleys the Aubergine agreed. “If the ‘Devoured Town’ (8) on the map Malcolm provided us has to do with undead, as I suspect, then this Brother Cineas would be just the one to talk to.”
Not too long after, Marysus pointed out the edge of the moorlands, a ridge where poplars shaded a drop off. Just beyond was a line of tall blue elms, and beyond that in the middle of pond fed by five tiny streams they would find Rudwilla’s cottage. Marysus was careful to draw a line of landscape features from the edge of the moors towards the Ray-Ree camp.
Some of the horses were reticent to enter the deepening water beyond the ridge, shaking their heads and blowing air hard out of their nostrils. Progress was slow, as Falco tried to pick a route along relatively dry land and still keep to the barbarian’s instructions. Duckhunter was playfully leaping from root structure to root structure, Kermit holding tightly to his saddle horn.
Eventually they came to the island and saw it dominated by a dome-like stone structure built low to the ground. There was a small pen, perhaps for goats, that stood open and empty. The water was deepest here as they approached, and they got off their horses to climb up onto the island.
A narrow stream of smoke was emerging from a chimney atop the round structure, and they noted the door to the front hall, which stuck out of the front of the structure, was ajar. As Falco and Kermit remained behind with the horses, Victoria slowly made her way around the right side of the cottage, while Dunlevey and Bleys made their way around the right, backed up at some distance by Telémahkos and Tymon. Laarus made his way to the door and called in. There was no response.
Telémahkos looked within a little fenced in garden, and noticed all the vegetables had been violently ripped up and the plants stomped down.
“Someone was here and they weren’t happy…” he whispered up to the watch-mage.
Victoria heard a sound like ‘Kuh-Ziizap!’ as she crept around the cottage, and there she saw the low wall of well with an askew wooden cover. Hovering over it were two bizarre creatures. They were balls of fur about a foot in diameter, with large bug eyes, tiny curved horns and a long bald tail that sizzled with lightning. They flicked their tails against the cover and arcs of energy made the wood smoke. (9)
“What in the Hells?!?” Dunlevey cried out as he came around the cottage from the other side. The creatures began to bob through the air in his direction. There was a hiss in the air as an arrow from Bleys’ bow made the lead creature spin for a moment, a jet of blood arcing to the ground. It snapped its tail angrily and continued towards Dunlevey, opening a here-to-fore unseen fanged mouth. He swung his great sword, slamming it away with the hilt as it tried to bite down on his neck. Markos hurried forward letting a bolt fly from his gnomish repeating crossbow as the creature was pushed way, but it fell short.
The creature dove at Dunlevey again, and the bushy-haired fighter was forced to yank it off, dropping his greatsword to one hand. The second one bit down as well, and he could not keep it off, feeling it begin to suck the blood from his body. He cried out, and Bleys the Aubergine was beside him, chopping at the creature with his sabre, still holding his bow in the other hand. Laarus charged from the front of the cottage, slamming the first of the creatures with his flail before it could attack Dunlevey again. There was a revolting crunch and the thing fell to the ground.
There was a tearing sound as Dunlevey began to grow in size with arcane words from Markos, and the creature was forced to bite down to keep its grip. Dunlevey’s body jerked as the thing whipped him with its lightning tail, and blue lights sparked up and down. Bleys dropped his weapons and grabbed the thing in his hands, as Dunlevey grabbed at it instinctually. Together they were able to rip the thing free, blood pouring down the hireling’s arm.
Victoria charged forward in the same moment, but the creature bobbed awkwardly out of the way of the spear thrust, but as it now turned to flee, she thrust forward again, and jerked it off its trajectory, trailing blood. A crossbow bolt from Tymon finished it before it could get much further.
“What in the Hells were those things?” Dunlevey asked again. Bleys walked over to the corpse of one and examined it by sabre-point, while Markos walked over to the well.
“You say they were hovering over this well?” he asked, as he lifted the cover. The sun-drenched young sea-mage looked down and was startled to see the frightened eyes of a girl of about ten summers looking up at him. She was clutching desperately to the rock wall, her bare feet on the earthen lip of the well.
Markos leaned over to help the girl out of the well, and Victoria moved to aid him when she saw what was happening. Her name was Tora, and was Rudwilla’s apprentice.
“Did you scare lightning tails?” the girl asked in broken common, which was still better than most of the Ray-Ree the party had met aside from Admentus, Trititia and Marysus.
“We have been sent by First Elder Admentus,” Victoria explained. “To help Rudwilla make her brew. Do you know where she is?”
The girl’s face grew paler and she nodded. “Hezra’s sons come and take her… I… I hide, and I see them hit her and carry her off…”
“How many were there?” Markos asked.
“Four… I think, four… I heard them talking…Pig-bloods…” the girl replied, holding up four fingers in case she got the word for the number wrong. “They mentioned the old keep…”
“Do you think they brought her there?” Victoria asked.
“If she is a witch why did she not defend herself?” Markos asked.
“Markos, it does not matter,” Victoria said, sternly.
The little girl scampered away a bit, suddenly overwhelmed by the tall foreign strangers barking at her and each other in a language she barely understood.
“Girl, do you know where this old keep is?” Bleys the Aubergine asked.
She opened her mouth to talk, but then shook her head. “A little?” she offered.
“If she means the ruins of the keep on the old borderlands, then I know where it is,” Kermit said, stepping forward. The girl was startled by the sudden appearance of the halfling, and began to walk quickly around to the front of the cottage.
Victoria, Bleys and Telémahkos followed.
Meanwhile, Laarus and Dunlevey had gone around back to the front of the cottage from the other side, looking inside to see it ransacked. The girl stopped in her tracks as she came around and saw them. Laarus of Ra gave the girl a polite little bow. “Hello!”
“What manner of creatures were those that were trying to get at you?” Bleys asked the girl.
“Lightning tails…”
“Did Hezra’s sons bring those here?” Bleys asked, but he could immediately tell the little girl thought it was a silly question.
“They live moor. They came because noise,” she tried to explain. “I hide again…”
“This certainly is a dangerous place if those monsters are what pass for mosquitoes,” Victoria quipped.
According to Tora, Rudwilla had just returned from retrieving the final three ingredients for the brew when she was taken, and that the ingredients had been taken as well.
It was getting dark and after a brief debate about going immediately, or waiting until morning, they decided to stay in Rudwilla’s hut with watches set outside to look over the horses and make sure no bugbears or any of Hezra’s sons came.
They did their best to help Tora straighten up the ransacked place, but luckily the brewing barrels were hidden away from the cottage, so they were still viable. The girl would spend the next day seeking out the final ingredients and prepare to do her best to replicate her mistress’s methods if the party was unable to rescue her.
Anulem, the 21st of Quark – 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
The horses kicked up trailing plumes of dust as the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland galloped out of the moors west by northwest into a dry gray plain broken up by low bald brown hills. Duckhunter ducked in and around the line of horses, Kermit exulting in the open run as much as the animals were. He signaled everyone as they approached a long low ridge that was similar to the brown hills, but topped with green coils of flowering thorny vines.
“Just beyond here,” Kermit said. Tymon stayed behind with the horses, as Kermit and Duckhunter picked their way up the steep slope of the ridge and motioned for everyone to crouch down as they came up, stopping just short of the top. Squatting and laying there, they looked out at an arid field of cracked earth strewn with wind blown pebbles. The lines of long dead streams wound here and there, and here and there were still signs of water, but in the form of slow moving mudflow. One such a stream had been diverted to fill a makeshift moat about a small ruined keep. The moat appeared to be mostly dried, and some wooden boards served as a means of crossing it from the front. The keep looked as if it had once been part of a much larger structure, long gone save for pieces of fractured curtain wall, and the occasional shadow of its foundation.
The keep was perhaps six hundred yards from the edge of the ridge; so approaching it unseen was unlikely. Where the ridge curved to the west, was much further away from great front doors facing where they hid, so they knew they would be out in the open much longer and thus likely to be spotted.
After watching the place for some time and seeing no one come or go, the young nobles discussed their options, from creating a diversion and trying to make their way through a hole in the northern wall of the ruined keep, to simply calling out and parleying. In the end, it was generally agreed that they would approach as if they were seeking this place out as a respite from their mercenary adventuring, and not mention Rudwilla at all, in hopes that Hezra and her sons might be fooled into not using the abducted witch as a human shield or slay her when the fighting started.
They made their way down the ridge toward the small ruined keep on their horses, leaving Kermit to watch from above, as he re-asserted that he would not be doing anymore fighting than he needed to do.
“Hmm… Yes! This looks like a good defensible place to rest before continuing with our treasure hunt!” Markos called loudly to his companions as they approached. Laarus of Ra frowned, not happy with the ruse and not participating in it, though he did nothing to dissuade his companions.
The party spread out along the front of the keep, and Telémahkos began to bring his horse forward along the north wall towards the gap they had noticed, with Tymon right on his tail. He noticed that two narrow wooden planks had been laid across the moat on that side, allowing access, however treacherous, to the gap.
Victoria of Anhur noticed the broader wooden boards that served as a bridge over the moat towards the broken front doors would probably not hold the weight of her horse, so she dismounted to cross. As she stepped on the makeshift bridge, an over-sized mouth appeared in the center of it.
“Be gone ye petty thieves, lest your heads be stuffed with leaves and left to stare upon my wall. I have no time for guests AT ALL!” The magic mouth smirked and disappeared, even as its words echoed through the ruins.
“Heh. A rhymer,” Victoria smirked back, and took another step. She cried out as an arrow came out of the boarded up window above the doors into the keep, clipping her hip. Moving between Ironside and Laarus’ horse, she reached up and called to Anhur, granted the priest of Rabull’s strength. A second arrow made her leap to the side to avoid it.
Meanwhile, Telémahkos and Tymon’s attention was brought to a tall slender dark-complexioned figure, with greasy long-black hair. He had deep-set eyes and thick eyebrows, and seemed startled to see the two adventurer’s so close as he began to pass the gap. He let an arrow fly at Tymon, but fired while off balance and nearly fell on his ass. (1)
“We got us an orc over here!” Telémahkos called to his friends. “The company’s gonna give us a bonus!”
Dunlevey leapt off his horse and hurried forward to cross the bridge and rush the doors, as a third arrow pinged painfully off of Victoria’s scale mail, and she could feel the bruise begin to swell beneath. The hireling, hit the dirt, hoping for a clear moment to resume his charge, but it was not to be. As Laarus dismounted, he thought he heard chanting from behind the boards above, and suddenly, Dunlevey was back on his feet, having dropped his sword, and was running, yelling in fear in the opposite direction from the doors.
Anger making the priest of Ra’s face a stern mask, Laarus rushed across the makeshift bridge and through the doors. As he ran, Markos pointed at him and chanted, “Materia maximus!”, and the priest began to grow, his long legs carrying him across. However, the heavy blow of a great axe greeted him. He staggered back, seeing a nasty rent in his bronze breastplate. Victoria came up behind him, casting cure light wounds. But it was little help. Laarus looked down in time to see the axe rising again in the hands of a half-orc that was gibbering with rage. The foe had ghostly pale skin that revealed the veins and sinews beneath. He had an ugly fuzz-covered jutting jaw, broad shoulders, long thick white hair and yellow eyes. The blow fell and Laarus fell with it, his enlarged form collapsing loudly against the broken door, as he began to bleed out.
“Laarus has fallen!” Victoria called out, and felt a cold rush of fear wash over her, but her faith in Anhur was stronger than the same spell that had driven Dunlevey away. He was still running.
During this time, Bleys turned his horse around to give it room to gallop toward the far end of the moat and leap over it, to support Telémahkos and Tymon. He leapt off his horse and quickly fired an arrow at the orc on that side, but missed. As the orc and Tymon exchanged missile fire, Telémahkos leapt off his horse and hurried over one of the beams crossing the moat. He threw a dagger as he came out of a cartwheel. The dagger missed, but the half-orc gave ground, giving the white-garbed young noble a chance to tumble around into a position behind him, the Steep Whip suddenly in his hand. The orcish bowman, spun around and stepped back and Telémahkos instinctively shielded his face as an arrow came bouncing off the bone of his forearm. He cried out in the agony of it. The half-orc paid for turning his back on Bleys, feeling the bite of the watch-mage’s saber, as the latter rushed in to aid his companion. The half-orc moved back again, to try to keep all three of his foes in his field of vision.
Beyond the gap in the wall, was some kind of crumbly hall with an adjacent stairway up to the next level. The stairway was hidden by the remaining portion of the outer wall beyond the gap.
“Swim!” Victoria commanded the raging barbarian that had downed Laarus. He could not resist, and hurried past Victoria and Markos, who was now moving up, torch in hand, and leapt into the shallow moat. (2) The militant of Anhur followed this up by kneeling at Laarus side and curing his wounds. The priest of Ra stirred, and sat up in time to see that the barbarian half-orc had already shaken off the effects of Victoria’s spell. Covered in mud and no less angry, the half-orc began to climb out of the far side of the moat. His battle axe dropped somewhere in the mud.
“Ra! I call on you to smite this foe with your holy light!” Laarus prayed, and a beam of golden light flew out of the sky, and the half-orc sizzled. He roared in agony, drawing a short sword from his side. Victoria readied for the barbarian’s predictable charge.
“Telémahkos!” Bleys tried to warn his brother-in-law, but it was too late. So intent the blond noble was on the tall lithe half-orc that he did not see another had crept down the stairs and stepped out of the shadowy corner to send an arrow at him. Telémahkos ducked feeling his hamstring spasm at the sudden movement. (3) This new half-orc brother was savage-looking, with a long tail of steel-colored hair emerging from the base of his head, and scars all over his bestial face and muscular body.
“Good shot, Lormax!” A third half-orc appeared mid-day up the stairs, firing an arrow of his own. He had tightly woven black braids that were close to his pock-marked scalp. His face was similarly afflicted, and he had a primitive-looking protruding jaw and yellow eyes. “I couldn’t let Sequius have all the fun,” Lormax snorted in reply, referring the tall and lithe brother.
“You foul half-breeds call this fun?” Telémahkos growled. “We’ll kill you all!”
“Yeah, fun…” Sequius let an arrow go that lodged against one of the studs on Bleys’ armor. The watch-mage winced.
By this time, Falco had rode around the perimeter of the keep and leapt off his horse to come to Bleys and Telie’s aid, but in trying to hurry across the beams, he slipped and fell into the moat. A few seconds later, he surfaced, brushing at something long and black attached to his body.
“Leeches!” Falco cried. The leech was nearly four feet long.
Bleys was distracted, and barely leapt out of the way of an arrow from Lormax, who withdrew into the corner. “Materia maxima! Bleys cast on himself, and the watch-mage grew to over twelve feet in height.
Realizing he was at the center of a triangle of bowmen, Telémahkos rushed Sequius, the Steel Whip humming in the air, as it cut the half-orc’s neck open, sending a spurt of blood out. Sequius leapt back, barely avoiding the constant stream of bolts coming from Tymon, still on the other side of the moat.
At the front of the keep, Victoria was jerking the barbarian’s corpse off the end of her spear, as Laarus of Ra called to his god to close his remaining wounds. He felt the exhaustion of pushing his body beyond mortal limits, (4) but endeavored to continue, moving to join the other melee, followed by Victoria. Markos had already gone around the corner, shaking his head with disapproval at Falco’s predicament, but doing nothing to help him.
“Sagitta aquom! Markos intoned, and two of his watery arrows of light slammed into the chest of Lormax, who was sending an arrow to nip the back of Bleys’ large legs, as the watch-mage began to suddenly flee. His face was with white with the fear of the same whispered arcane words that had sent Dunlevey away. There was a spellcaster at the top of the shadowy stairs, the watch-mage had caught a glimpse of Hezra before fleeing.
Telémahkos was relieved to have his companions arrive to support him, as once again, he had found himself between three foes that kept moving back and shooting at him with practiced precession. It was only a matter of time before one of those arrows did more than clip his shoulder, or force him to duck hard against a wall. He withdrew towards the enlarged priest, and Laarus laid a hand on him curing him of some his lighter wounds, while Victoria seeing there were more foes called to Anhur with a powerful prayer of combat, that her allies may prevail, and her foes quake with the contemplation of vanquishment.
The militant of Anhur grunted, as an arrow from Sequius, who was across the gap in the wall, punctured her scale mail, drawing blood. An arrow from a bedraggled Falco drove the half-orc back, before he could follow up with another. The scout had finally dragged himself out of the moat, looking pasty and annoyed. Realizing he had dropped most of his arrows in the moat, he dropped his bow and drew his scimitar.
And suddenly, that whole room, and the rear hall with the steps were covered in darkness that ended abruptly, as if a solid curtain of night. An arrow came out of the darkness, embedding itself momentarily in Markos’ shin. The mage cried out.
Telémahkos enveloped by the darkness moved over to where he had last seen Victoria, whispering to her his location so she did not stab him in the dark.
“Ra! Grant us your light and cast away this darkness that is unholy to your sight!” Laarus cried out, filling the area with daylight. The curtain of darkness washed away, and Victoria turned and charged at Sequius, forcing the skinny half-orc back towards the far wall. She thrust her spear into his side. He slid down the wall, a bubble of blood bursting on his lips, his face one of surprise. She turned towards Lormax, still in the corner, as an arrow from him had gotten her attention.
“Anhur! Fill me with your righteous might and fury that I may destroy these brigands!” Victoria cried out, exulting in the power of her god as it made her stronger, tougher and quicker (5). She charged at Lormax, but he stepped aside at the last minute, and within the reach of her spear, forcing her to step back again. She grunted as another arrow lodged itself in her scale mail. The other half-orc, called Orlec, was still on the stairs. A touch from Laarus and Victoria felt some of her wounds begin to heal.
Telémahkos moved in to help keep Lormax on the defensive, whipping his magical rapier back and forth, menacingly.
There was a flash and the smell of brimstone, and suddenly a reddish-brown furred wolf appeared and charged at Falco, pulling the scout off his feet and savaging him some. Lucky for him, Bleys was suddenly there, having come to his senses before he had gone very far, and able to pull a long sword from his horse on the way back to make up for his dropped saber. He drove the fiendish wolf off of Falco, allowing the taciturn scout to crawl away and get to his feet. A moment later, despite still being enlarged the wolf managed to drag Bleys off his feet as well, worrying his ankle. Bleys Winter yanked his foot free and leapt to his feet, chopping down on the fiendish wolf with his sword. Coppery steaming blood dribbled on the hardened earth from the beast. It backed off as Laarus stomped over, flail above his head, to join this melee.
Markos stood back; lending his own bolts to those Tymon kept sending into the fray.
Desperate and penned in, Lormax raised his bow again, taking aim for Victoria, but this left him open to her spear thrust, which pinned him back even as he let the arrow go. There was a metallic pop and then a sickening sound wet sound, as the arrow drove itself into her abdomen at a strange angle. Immediately, she clutched at her side instinctively as her muscles tore. Blood began to gush down her legs. (6) Lormax put another arrow to his bow to try to finish her off, but cried out as Telie’s sword bit him deep, and he was forced to withdraw. Victoria was oblivious to the pain and tears streaming down her dirty face, still filled with the righteous fury of Anhur, and thrust her spear at the fleeing half-orc, but the attempt was futile.
Tymon finally braved balancing over the wooden beams, and joined the melee, long sword drawn. He grit his teeth and moved towards Orlec to discourage him from sending more arrows at Victoria and Telémahkos. Markos, realizing the battle was too chaotic to hope to use his crossbow anymore, drew a dagger and moved over to help pen in the wolf, which was bleeding sorely from a particularly brutal blow from Bleys. Another, and it disappeared in a puff of smoke as it died.
Dunlevey charged into the fray, out of breath from his long run in fear and the run back. Looking around to see where he might be most needed, he headed over to Telémahkos and Victoria. A moment later, his great sword had cleaved Lormax’s head open, and the half-orc was dying.
Orlec suddenly dropped into a roll and leapt away, trying to flee around the corner of the keep along the inside ledge of the moat. Telémahkos gave chase, as did Markos, Falco and Dunlevey. Victoria of Anhur moved to chase him as well, but the little she moved was by force of will alone; trailing a slick of gore.
Laarus called to Ra to calm emotions, hoping to relieve her of her rage, and allow them to see to her wounds, but her will was too strong. (7) But something inside of her must have sensed the danger, for a half a moment later, she shuddered and the bright shine of determination left her eyes, and she collapsed, increasing the speed at which she bled to death. Bleys immediately got down on his knees beside her with his healing kit and went to work, and Laarus did what he could to aid the well-rounded watch-mage, not having any helpful spells remaining.
Around the corner, Telémahkos, Dunlevey, Falco and Tymon pursued Orlec. Telie stepped over a ceramic potion vial that the half-orc must have dropped. Markos moved around the corner and stopped. Seeing the shattered clay, he suddenly realized that perhaps the potion he carried (8) might help Victoria, and he walked over to feed it to her while Bleys and Laarus worked to bandage her. It did some to knit the strained muscles of her abdomen, but the wound continued to bleed (9).
“I surrender,” Orlec cried out, holding his short bow over his head when he realized he was surrounded, but Telémahkos stabbed him anyway.
“Hey! He surrendered!” Dunlevey complained, frowning. The half-orc took the moment’s distraction to tumble out of the ring of foes and scamper along the wall and around the far corner of the keep.
“He didn’t drop his weapon!” Telémahkos replied, by way of explanation, going after him.
“He may have a potion!” Markos called, coming back to the corner. “We need it for Victoria!”
Telémahkos poured on the speed, and stopped short of the corner, and flicked his rapier at the half-orc and drew blood. Orlec had hardly fallen, when the young son of House Briareus began to search him, running back with another ceramic vial.
This one was fed to Victoria as well, and for a moment the bleeding of her wounds slowed, allowing Bleys time finish his work before she died. (10)
“The witch has fled upstairs,” the watch-mage said with a hint of anger in his usually placid voice, looking down at the critically wounded militant. “Let’s go…” He turned to lead the way up.
(1) The half-orc fumbled, getting this result: 11 – 25 Slip. Make Reflex check vs. DC 15 or fall prone. He made his save. For all the possible fumble effects, click here.
(2) In Aquerra, you are not limited to the five examples listed in the PHB, but can attempt any one-word command with DM approval. The target must understand your language and recognize the chosen word for the spell to function.
(3) This is just a way of describing a very small hit point loss.
(4) In Aquerra, coming back from negative hit points by any means other than full rest means that you are exhausted until you rest a full hour, and fatigued until you rest 8 full hours (though the first hour can count against this if there is no interruption).
(6) This is the nastiest critical I have ever seen anyone take and not die: 86-87: Apply Crit Multiplier +1 to Total Damage (and armor DP damage) – Reflex Save (DC 10 + ½ damage) or Impaled Through Abdomen, -15 to Speed, 2d4 STR damage, 1d6 DEX damage, 2d4 bleeder.
(7) Victoria made her save against the spell, as she was in her righteous fury, she could not willfully fail her save.
(8) This potion was found in Kraken’s Cove. See session #7.
(9) This was a potion of lesser restoration. While it healed some of the ability damage Victoria took from the critical hit result, it could not actually close those wounds.
(10) This was a potion of aid. The temporary hit points gave Victoria enough time before she would have to make checks against dying for Bleys to finish stabilizing her. For the rules regarding how death and dying works in Aquerra, click here.
Bleys the Aubergine charged up the stairs, his deep purple cloak whipping behind him. He had retrieved his saber, and Dunlevey was close on his heels. Telémahkos crept as quietly as he could up the stairs behind them, hoping the sound of the two that proceeded him would mask his approach. Laarus of Ra and Markos went upstairs as well, passing the cautious blond, and leaving Tymon and Falco to watch over Victoria.
At the top of the stairs a narrow corner led to a wider hall that led up to the front of the keep. Bleys stood looking at the various wooden doors along the hall, and considering the iron-reinforced one at the end of the hall. Light was coming through the thatched roof that was clearly not original to the structure.
“What next, Master Bleys?” Dunlevey asked, still wearing his perpetual smile, despite half-orc blood being smeared on his face and clothes. The watch-mage simply put a finger to his lips and looked up. Now Dunlevey heard it, too. Something was skittering and hopping around on the roof. As Telémahkos joined them, Bleys pointed to him and then pointed to the bar on the second door on the right, and then walked towards the end of the hall. He kept his saber ready and pointed towards the thatched ceiling which he easily reached with is blade due to his enlarged size.
The thing above made some more noise, and again everyone stopped, Telémahkos listening at the first door on the right, before moving on to the one Bleys has indicated.
“What! Wha-wha-Whaddaya want!” came the screeching voice of a raven above.
“Well…” Telémahkos addressed the bird. “Now we’re here to collect the booty you left behind after making the biggest mistake of your life…” He was obviously continuing the ruse. (2)
“Witch! Show yourself and we will make your death a quick one!” Markos tried to sound intimidating, but all he won was a smirk from Telémahkos.
The raven crowed and then fluttered away, even as Markos cast enlarge person on Dunlevey, so now two hulking forms crowded the narrow keep hallway. The hired warrior stepped over to where Telémahkos was listening at the barred door, and reaching down ripped the bar from the doorframe with his big hands. The door squeaked open and Telémahkos rushed past the large man.
“Ah! Now I see!” Huddled in one corner of this room bare of all but a bucket and a straw mat was the bound and gagged form of white-haired old woman with cheeks like pruned apples and spider-web skin on sharp bones. “So, how much is getting this prisoner back worth to ya?” Telémahkos called up to the roof, even as he kneeled down to whisper in Rudwilla’s ear. “We’re here to rescue you. We were sent by the Ray-Ree. Don’t make any sound yet.” He gestured with a finger to his lips to reinforce his point, and then removed her gag, and began to untie her. She wept silent tears as she rubbed the burns on her freed wrists.
“If you’re still here we’re going to take your treasure, your hostage and then burn this keep to the ground,” Telémahkos called out again. “Feel free to try to dissuade us…”
“Any suggestions about this?” Telémahkos continued to whisper to Rudwilla as he worked on the ropes about her ankles. “Can you help us fight her off? Kill her if necessary?”
“I… I am not prepared,” Rudwilla replied quietly.
Meanwhile, Bleys tried using his increased weight to kick the door at the end of the hall open, but ended up falling on his rear end when it resisted. He stood and dusting himself off, braced himself against the opposed wall and gave a sudden short kick that crushed the door, so that a four-inch gap was visible along one side. Dunlevey squeezed in beside him, and on a count of ‘three’ they smashed the door off its frame, and they heard the clang of the metal bar within the room. Bleys charged in as it fell, looking around quickly and suddenly noticing the open slat in the large boarded window across from the door, he hurried to look through it. This had been where the party has first had arrows rain down on them when the battle began. (3)
Dunlevey went into the room and looked around. Aside from a cot and a footlocker, the only thing in this room of note was large stone table covered with interesting items, including the makings of an alchemist’s lab.
“What now?” Dunlevey asked, stepping over to the footlocker.
“We should get her out of here,” Laarus said, squeezing through the doorway as well. Markos stepped around the enlarged priest, and began to examine the items on the stone table. It was clear that the primitive nature of the laboratory set made easy travel with it out of the question. (4)
“Admentus sent you?” Rudwilla asked, coming into the room with Telémahkos her common thick with an accent. She was clearly walking with some effort.
“Yes, and it seems the witch that abducted you has gotten away,” Bleys replied.
“Could she have turned into that bird?” Telémahkos asked.
Rudwilla shook her head. “Familiar… And you are right, met with overpowering force she will have fled, likely invisibly… We need to see if she left the ingredients for the brew somewhere about…”
Dunlevey went to check the long room on the left as they came up the hall, while Laarus went back down to the others. Bleys the Aubergine meanwhile had knocked the boards out of the window and used his magically increased height to easily climb down. He was worried that the invisible Hezra, or one of her here-to-fore unseen sons, might abscond with their horses. Making a quick circle of the ruined keep, he noticed a here-to-fore unseen secret door in a rear hall behind the stairs that now stood open. He called to Falco, who checked for tracks as Bleys gathered the horses.
"Someone did flee through the moat, but their tracks are quickly obscured," Falco said, as he came over to the watch-mage.
Upstairs the others were checking the remaining room which was some form of barracks, with cots pushed together, and sacks of semi-rotten food, and crumbling holes in one corner where the half-orcs defecated. There were some footlockers there, and Telémahkos warned the others to stay clear of the one in the laboratory while he checked the others. He and Dunlevey collected some odd treasures from the lockers (5), and then he came back to check the larger locker for traps.
Telémahkos rubbed his chin for a long time as he stared at the lock, and then examined it with a small glass he produced from his sash. Finally, with a sigh, he took out his picks and went to work on the lock. It opened with a pop, and he finally exhaled, and confidently threw it open. He looked away and towards the others gesturing at the clothing and other trinkets in the locker. “Search away!” And then he felt something crawling on his arm, and with the mounting horror that stretches a moment out into an hour, he turned his head to see a skeletal hand leaping at his exposed neck. Its sharp finger bones tore Telie’s throat and he shrieked in an unmanly way, brushing at it wildly. It angrily snapped the piece of wrist still connected to it by rotted sinew.
Markos was suddenly beside Telémahkos, stabbing at the disembodied hand with a dagger. Or at least, where Telémahkos had been, for the blond noble scrambled away as quickly as possible, punctuating each step with another girlish shriek. Dunlevey stepped up and smashed down at the little thing with his enlarged great sword, but it was too small and quick to get a good bead on.
“Step back! Give me some room, Markos said, withdrawing and pulling some components from his belt pouch. Dunlevey took another swing that went wide, and then took a long step back. The hand however, moved too quickly. Before Markos could get a spell off, it leapt at him and tore at his face.
“Ugh!” Markos cried, slapping it away. “Get this f*cking thing off me!”
“Dunlevey! Get it! And don’t listen to Markos again!” Telémahkos commanded the hireling, making a show of bringing Ruwilla to squat behind the stone table in relative safety.
The now-hulking swordsman rushed forward and caught the skeletal hand with the tip of his sword, sending it flying across the room and against the wall. The hand bounced back, and then leapt right at him, but he was able to knock it away with the flat of his blade, before it clawed him. This time the slightest chip of bone was seen to fly off of it. Dunlevey stepped back again, hoping that he had a better chance of hitting it when he had a clear view of it coming, rather than right atop of it, but the space was enough for Markos. The small mage cast his spell, and an arrow of green bubbling liquid came flicking out of his hand, and landed squarely on the tiny undead thing, sizzling. The acid wore away the bone with great speed, and soon nothing was left but a stain on the stone floor.
“Boy! It sure is a good thing that Dunlevey chose to listen to me,” Markos commented, glaring at Telémahkos as he got up from behind the table. Telie ignored him and wandered off, still bleeding from his many small wounds, hoping Laarus could help him. Dunlevey followed.
Outside, Bleys had gathered all the horses, and soon after the others came down as well carrying whatever valuables they had scavenged from the place. This included two of the three ingredients needed for the brew.
Rudwilla kneeled beside Victoria and put two fingers to the militant’s temple, and chanted some unrecognizable words. A moment later, Victoria Ostrander was sputtering awake. Her body pushed to exhaustion, she just sat and took long ragged breaths. She would still be weak and slow for some time to come. (6)
“Assuming we are now done here now, I say once the honorable militant has recovered sufficiently to travel we go back and see to the making of this brew,” Bleys told the others.
“Yes, but we should burn this place down,” Telémahkos suggested.
“It is a well-built stone keep, despite the damage it has taken, “ Bleys said. “It would take time to raze it properly, and besides, would it not be better to have places such as these available for repair, than to have to build new keeps when the time comes to reclaim this land of Thricia?”
Telémahkos grudgingly saw the wisdom in the watch-mage’s reasoning, and Laarus agreed, mentioning that the keep’s standing also served to preserve Thrician history.
--------------------------------------
Evening was not far away when the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland finally approached the Ray-Ree camp. Rudwilla of the Toadstools rode with Victoria.
Timotheus Smith, still looking a bit pale, but lacking the glassy eyes of bog flu, was among the Ray-Ree children and elderly that came out to greet them. He was the only one smiling and waving as the taciturn barbarian people merely nodded in acknowledgement of their arrival.
“Glad to see you are feeling better,” Markos managed to say without disdain.
“Yep! But you all look like you weathered a bit of hell,” Timotheus could not help but smile, glad to see them all among the living.
Timotheus and Admentus were quickly informed about the status of their mission and the escape of Hezra, and then continued on to Rudwilla’s cottage in the moors to guard over her while she completed her work. Since he was feeling better, Timotheus was able to rejoin the party.
Back at the cottage, they found Tora crying, as she had been unable to retrieve the baby lemons needed for the brew, for more of the ‘lightning tails’ had been hovering in that area. It was decided that Timotheus, Falco and Laarus would accompany Tora back to the lemon trees while the others remained behind to guard Rudwilla as she started her work, helping to bring the brewing casks from their hiding spot to the cottage.
Luckily, there were no monsters of the sort to be found in the area when Tora led them to it, and they were able to return unmolested. Rudwilla would work through the night, as the party took turns watching as the others rested.
Ralem, the 22nd of Quark - 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
The night was long and filled with sounds foreign to the Signers, and while on watch they listened nervously to hear any approach over the cacophony of frogs and insects, but no sound ever came. As dawn picked its way through the mossy canopy of the moorlands, Laarus and Victoria prayed for their spells, while Falco and Kermit watched. The others were sleeping still.
Laarus Raymer granted Ra’s healing graces to Victoria and Telémahkos, while Victoria did similarly with Markos and Falco, as everyone awoke and prepared for the day.
Bleys and Markos had hardly sat down to prepare spells, and Telémahkos was leading Tymon outside to keep watch while the others had breakfast, when they heard a bellow from out in front of the cottage.
“I’ll bring you out some breakfast,” Telémahkos was reassuring a sad-faced Tymon, when they heard a guttural voice cry out, “Rudwilla! Rooodwiiiil-uh!”
The horses, all tied up to the left of the house, nickered nervously as three large humanoid figured walked up onto the island, past the animal pen.
“Roooodwiiil-uhhhh! You best have brew!” the voice came again. Marching towards the cottage were three hairy goblins broad of shoulder and over six feet in height. The center one was particularly fat and wore a huge skin wrapped around his torso, outside of his poorly fastened chain shirt. He had bloodshot eyes, and his sandy-brown hair was twisted into long dirty naps all over his body. The other two bugbears had some girth to them as well, and they were studded leather ponchos tired with chain belts. All three had big spiked clubs.
(1) This session was played on Sunday, June 24, 2007.
(2) See Session #10 for the reasons behind the ruse.
(3) Again, see Session #10.
(4) This primitive alchemist’s kit weighed in at 120 lbs.
(5) Amid various random coins were found a stack of old lover letters that were clearly stolen or found, some torches, flint and steel, silver arrow heads, and other various doo-dads and junk.
(6) Victoria was still suffering from strength and dexterity ability damage.
Telémahkos held Tymon back from the doorway and ducked to one side, as Bleys came forward being led by Rudwilla, who looked annoyed, putting her fists to her hips as she stood in the doorway in her leather apron.
“Bruggah! You know you are early!” She yelled at the chief of the Blood-Eye with confidence. The bugbear stepped forward, and it was suddenly clear from his stagger that he was more than a little drunk. His lieutenants seemed a bit tipsy as well.
“Bruggah get brew when Bruggah want!” The chief demanded, his broken common made harder to understand by his drunken slurring. “Bruggah know! Bruggah decide! Bruggah Chief!”
“It is not ready,” Rudwilla replied with disdain. “So either wait, or go ahead and attack and never get it again, no matter what happens!”
Bruggah cried out with great anger, and shook his morningstar above his head, but then lowering it to the ground just as suddenly with a loud belch, he said, “Bruggah wait…” He sat down to chug the last of what was left in his skin.
Satisfied with herself, Rudwilla turned and went back to her work. “Aren’t you going to invite him in to watch?” Timotheus asked her, a smile on his face.
“No!” Rudwilla did not even look at him.
“Why aren’t we just getting rid of this bugbear problem for them again?” Timotheus asked Bleys.
“These bugbears act as a buffer between these lands and worse monsters beyond their hill,” the watch-mage explained.
“BRUGGAH! JASH APSHAI JASH SPISHOO LOXXO GUND!” (1) The voice came from outside, to the left of the doorway on the other side of the small island from where the horses were tethered. “JASH APSHAI ORMUGAH TASH!”
Suddenly, from all directions about the front of the island there rose large desiccated ants, each about five feet long. Their shells were cracked and empty of flesh, their pincers sharp and bony. They began to converge on Bruggah, who was still squinting trying to get a view of who had called out to him in the goblin tongue, not having bothered to get up out of the muck yet. “Ish Mulcrod!” Bruggah said.
“Rudwilla! We are looking to you to know if we should get involved!” Telémahkos called to the witch, who had come back to the door to see what was going on.
She shrugged, “If Bruggah is killed there is no telling what will happen to the political situation…”
“Oh f*ck this!” Timotheus swore, and ran out to intercept one of the skeletal giant ants, and cracked the shell of one with his morningstar.
“Bruggah! I offer you aid on behalf of the Ray-Ree, should you choose to accept it!” Bleys called as he hurried out of the door, even as Laarus took his place there. Bleys moved to his right and was suddenly started by a figure in his peripheral vision. He turned in time to see an ugly humanoid with a look that made no doubt he was of Hezra’s brood. The half-orc smiled, as he slapped the horses, now untied, crying out “HEE-YAH!” to send them into the chaos of the battle in fear. Bleys stumbled back to avoid the possible stampede, even as Falco stepped beside him to let an arrow loose at the half-orc, missing. The half-breed snickered and drew back towards a tree in one corner of Rudwilla’s property.
“Anhur! Make me your good right arm!” Victoria prayed for bull’s strength as she hobbled out the door, spear in hand.
Hearing the militant, the watch-mage called to her, “Victoria! Hezra’s last son awaits over here!”
“Dunlevey! You stay with Rudwilla. Tymon, help Bleys!” Telémahkos gave orders as he hurried out among the horses, hoping to grab his own and have the undead ants ignore him. Dunlevey went back into the cottage to stand by in case anyone got through, while Tymon loaded his crossbow and moved towards Bleys. Markos joined Dunlevey, crossbow in hand, having not had a chance to prepare spells.
It was clear that the bugbears’ drunkenness would interfere with their prowess, as they moved with exaggerated anger, breathing heavy as their morningstars struck the muddy ground more often than their ant targets.
“What in the Nine Hells is going on?” Timotheus called out to no one in particular as he crushed the body of one of the undead ants. He started jogging towards another, but taking a roundabout way to look around for where the other goblin voice has issued from. Suddenly, he felt the tingle of magic washing over him, as his limbs were momentarily brushed numb, but he shook it off. “Magic! Who the f*ck did that?” He looked around wildly.
“May Ra calm the hearts of these steeds!” Laarus chanted, casting a spell, which caused most of the horses to immediately slow down, as their fear fled. Telémahkos leapt atop his own, hoping to get a better vantage point to spot whoever had summoned the undead, and had tried to cast a spell on Timotheus. Seeing that the horses, were now going to move away from the combat as quickly as possible without panicking, Laarus of Ra grabbed hold of his holy symbol and called out to his god, “Ra! Smite these creatures with your holy light!”
Light exploded from Laarus’ symbol, bursting like a wave in all directions. The three bugbears grunted their drunken complaint at the light, but three of the ants crumbled to dust as the light washed over them. The priest of Ra continued to glow, a hemisphere of daylight surrounding him.
Meanwhile Victoria of Anhur had hurried around the corner of the cottage as fast as she could despite her lingering wound and the weight of her armor. Spotting the retreating half-orc, she called after him in challenge. “You! Where is your bitch of a mother?”
The son of Hezra banged his axe on his shield, roaring for her to come towards him, and to punctuate his summons, he hefted the axe at her. Victoria felt the weight of the axe slam into her chest, the worst of the blow absorbed by her armor, but it was still enough to disrupt the spell she had started to cast.
“I won’t fall for your trying to get me close to the tree and whatever trick you have in mind,” Victoria replied, and she called to Anhur to grant her a spiritual weapon that would fight at a distance. A glowing spear appeared hovering in the air next to the half-orc. It thrust forward, but he raised his shield in time as he drew his battle-axe.
From behind the tree appeared a reddish-brown furred wolf and it charged at Victoria, acrid stream rising off its body. Falco let an arrow fly at the wolf but it missed, while Tymon let a crossbow bolt go at the half-orc, nicking him, as he stepped into it to avoid an arrow from Bleys, who like Markos was without spells.
The young mage was at the doorway of the cottage, watching the melee. Kermit has slipped out past him on Duckhunter to attack one of the ants. Markos called back to Dunlevey. “Block the doorway so no one unseen can come in and threaten Rudwilla.” And with that he started to jog towards the left of the house to join the fight against the wolf and the half-orc, crossbow in hand.
Telémahkos tried to ride down one of the undead ants, but failed to compensate for how low to the ground it was and missed. Catching sight of Timotheus, he turned the horse in that direction. The Briareus cousin was charging towards another bugbear that had sent a javelin flying at Tim’s back as he tried to help Bruggah and his lieutenants with the ants.
This bugbear stood at the edge of the island, a few feet from the mucky water of the moors, a few feet deep at first step. He wore a leather tunic and his brown fur was dyed black. About his neck was an elaborate necklace made of bones encrusted with precious gems. He held a morningstar in one hand, and as Timotheus approached he could see the other was twisted and black, ending in an ugly, but powerful looking pincer. He moved around deftly as Timotheus charged, and they circled each other.
“There’s a bugbear shaman over here!” Telémahkos cried out as he rode to join his cousin, and Laarus began to walk with purpose in that direction.
“GOONDA LOXXO! the bugbear shaman, Mulcrod, chanted as he stepped away from Tim, and he began to grow in height and girth. In less than a moment, he was over thirteen feet tall and his morningstar was nearly as long as Timotheus was tall.
“Tim! We gotta hurry up and kill this thing!” Telémahkos cried as he rode by, stabbing at Mulcrod with his lance, but the bugbear knocked the weapon off-line with his own.
“I’m working on it!” Tim swung his flail, but each time the bugbear stepped out of the way with a snarl. With one step, the shaman flicked his morningstar across his body to the right, and caught Timotheus full on in the face; only the fact that the bastard-born warrior wore a helmet protected him getting a spike in the skull. Driven to the ground, he looked up in time to see Mulcrod’s pincer grab him tightly about the neck. Timotheus coughed and pulled himself up, swinging out as he stood.
“I’m gonna take it out on your kneecaps!” Timotheus coughed, as he stuck with a bone-crunching blow to Mulcrod’s leg. This exchange gave Telémahkos time and room to spin his horse around and come in from the water side and flank the bugbear shaman, but the goblin seemed an adept warrior, and continued to knock away or avoid his blows.
“Tymon! Falco! Shoot the wolf!” Bleys let an arrow go at the half-orc, who was drawing his battle-axe, but the son of Hezra raised his shield blocking the arrow. Unfortunately for him, this left him momentarily open for Victoria’s spiritual weapon, and he cried out as it drew blood. Sensing an opening, Falco fired at the half-orc as well, but missed.
“Falco didn’t listen! Falco didn’t listen!” Tymon tattled in a whiny voice as his own bolt missed the wolf he was instructed to aim at. The wolf changed directions and went for the arriving Markos, nipping at his ankle, as the young mage pulled away with fear on his face. It snapped at him again as he put distance between himself and the fiendish animal.
Bleys let another arrow fly at the half-orc, and it barked with pain and anger, jogging around to the other side of the large tree in that corner of the small island. Victoria of Anhur wasted no time in having the spiritual spear move over and attack the wolf, striking it deep to draw steaming blood that look like smelt copper.
It bit at the militant, but its teeth could not get a good grip around her greaves.
Unable to watch the battle and not take part, Dunlevey yelled to the retreating Markos to watch the doorway into the cottage while he ran at the wolf, great sword in both his hands. He chopped down, cleaving it in the back, and it disappeared with ‘pop’ and a puff of smoke.
“Many thanks, Dunlevey,” Victoria said with a fatigued sigh.
As Bruggah finally smashed one of the undead ants, allowing him to step over to aid his lieutenants, Telémahkos’ horse was whinnying in despair, as Mulcrod’s morningstar caught it on the flank.
“You goblin bastard!” Telémahkos swore, pulling his war-trained horse away.
Mulcrod grunted as he spun around to deal with Timotheus, who had used the momentary diversion to get in a solid blow on the bugbear’s hip. Tim reared back so the shaman kept moving, swinging his morningstar at the horse again, missing. However, when Telémahkos turned his horse, he left his flank open and he felt the tight pinch of Mulcord’s twisted pincer on his leg and he cried out in agony as he felt flesh tear.
“Dosh crah’sh Apshai bloondich art et et coss!” Mulcrod taunted him, though Telémahkos could only make out a few words (2), as he leaned over on his horse in agony, feeling blood pour down his leg. Thankfully, Laarus finally made the long way around the fray and was able to reach up and heal Telémahkos as he called out to Ra.
“Dunlevey! Go aid Timotheus,” Bleys commanded, as he moved to a position to shoot at the now fleeing half-orc. His arrow and Tymon’s final bolt both missed as the son of Hezra leapt into the brush, and Dunlevey ran across the melee in time to see Bruggah and his lieutenants destroy the last two remaining ants, and Timotheus smash Mulcrod in the face with his flail. The shaman showed fear for the first time, and backed away.
Bruggah, Chief of the Blood-Eye Bugbears, walked towards the cottage door with what passed for sober purpose suffering a few wounds from giant ant bites.
“Bruggah take brew now!” he said.
“The brew is not ready,” Markos gulped, being the only one between the brutish drunken hairy goblin and the inside of Rudwilla’s hovel. He pointed to his left. “There are still combatants to be dealt with.”
“Little boy! Bruggah will add you to his pen to go with girl,” Bruggah said. “Now Rudwilla give brew to Bruggah!”
“Hold Bruggah!” Victoria said sternly, limping over to block the doorway as well. “You will get your brew in due time…”
Kull and Grug, the bugbear lieutenants, walked over to stand at either side of their chief.
Mulcrod stepped back to avoid another blow from Timotheus, and right into the point of Telie’s thrusting lance. The bugbear shaman dropped unconscious, immediately aspirating swamp water.
“Role call!” Victoria called out. “Where is everybody?”
“All clear!” Timotheus said, lifting Mulcrod’s head out of the water to slit the monster’s throat.
“Hezra and her son got away again,” Bleys complained as he came around the cottage.
Seeing the fight was done, Bruggah rethought his aggressiveness and went over to see Mulcrod’s body, passing Timotheus going in the other direction. As Telémahkos, who had dismounted, turned the corpse over, Bruggah leaned over and tore the jeweled necklace from the shaman.
“Mulcrod dark insect god weak!” he said.
It took another three hours before the brew was ready, but Bruggah waited with the occasional pitiful grunt. In that time, Timotheus expressed his dismay when Markos and Victoria mentioned Bruggah’s reference to his ‘girl kept in a pen’.
“If the bugbear numbers are small enough we should attack them,” Timotheus suggested. “At least to free the girl, even if we do not kill them all in order for them to still act as a buffer…”
When asked, Rudwilla said that she thought the girl was Hezra’s daughter, though she would not be a girl anymore, as she was carried away over twenty years ago in the time when the deal was first made with the bugbear chieftain.
“Hezra’s daughter?” Telémahkos scoffed. “Why risk our lives to rescue her if she might try to kill us herself?” He shook his head.
Finally, Timotheus helped Rudwilla pour the brew into eight huge skins that were then handed over to Bruggah and his lieutenants.
“Bruggah return before winter for more brew… Double batch!” the bugbear chieftain said by way of good-bye, right after sampling the brew right away and burping happily. He allowed his lieutenants the slightest taste each. And with that, they left.
Rudwilla thanks the young nobles for their help by awarding them a large clay jar filled with the equivalent of seven potions of cure light wounds. Timotheus was happy to drain some flasks of foul spirits (by drinking them) to make room for the potions, so they might be divided among the group.
“Do we have to worry about the witch returning?” Markos asked Rudwilla, but the corpulent witch shook her head.
“Not any time soon,” she said. “My guess at what happened was that she informed Mulcrod the shaman about the absence of the Ray-Ree warriors, perhaps knowing somehow that that he planned to challenge Bruggah for leadership of the tribe, and daring him to come command more brew was a way of doing so. Mulcrod probably figured he could take Bruggah by surprise far from the rest of the Blood-Eye, not expecting a group of adventurers to be involved. Know Hezra, she probably did not tell him, played down your prowess, or accepted your ruse at face value, and did not know of your involvement until they came here. Regardless, now that most of her sons are dead and her ally is too, she should not be returning until she has had time and opportunity to hatch some other plan…”
Satisfied by the response, the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland rode back to the Ray-Ree village that afternoon.
“It would explain Hezra’s resentment of the Ray-Ree and Rudwilla if they did nothing to help the girl when Bruggah took her, and continued to exchange this brew for peace,” Timotheus said as they rode.
“Gifted, not exchanged… The Ray-Ree do not purchase anything… Please try to remember,” Bleys said. “We can ill-afford to insult our hosts.”
“If Hezra’s sins must be paid for by her daughter, then so be it,” Victoria said. “Ever have children had to bear the sins of the parents. It is the will of the gods that it should happen that way.”
Timotheus rolled his eyes.
They had dinner with the Ray-Ree that night, though the fare was much leaner than the time before. Scraps of aurochs meat crusted with salt in some flavorless unidentifiable yellow mush. Two old women clucked over Timotheus in their bizarre tongue, looking at the whites of his eyes and touching his forehead. He smiled and shooed them away, drinking many cups of the fermented goat’s milk.
Afterwards, they met with Admentus in the meeting hut, and drank more of the stuff. He thanked them for their aid and reiterated that the party was allowed to stay as long as they needed and may leave their horses here while they explored the King Stones.
Timotheus asked about Hezra’s daughter.
“She was orc-blooded too, the first of Hezra’s foul brood,” Admentus said. “She lived on the outskirts of the village until she was seven or eight summers old…”
“Do you care to have her rescued?” Markos asked.
Admentus’ brow furrowed. “Rescue here? It matters not to us, but I doubt taking her from that life now would be a rescue…”
“Is that enough for you?” Markos turned to Timotheus smarmily.
Timotheus nodded.
“We would like to ask you more about the Moor Tombs,” Bleys said to the First Elder, but it appeared that Admentus knew very little of them, and recommended visiting the monk, Brother Cineas at the Mounds of the Ray-Ree.
At their own camp made beside a shack set aside for them, they fell to discussing their next move. Bleys Winter wanted to explore the Moor Tomb and look into the retrieval of the amulet, and Laarus and Victoria agreed.
Telémahkos was against this, fearing the Moor Tomb would be too dangerous, having avoided being penetrated all these centuries. Markos felt ambivalent about the tomb and was more curious about the ‘box of wands’, and so voted to go to the King Stones.
Timotheus thought it over. “At the very least we should visit Brother Cineas and see what he has to say about the moor tombs before we make our final decision…”
Bleys, Victoria and Laarus agreed to this compromise.
“As much as I want to go kill a bunch of goblins and I don’t like the idea of some trapped tombs, retrieving the amulet is probably more important, and the more pious thing to do…” Timotheus added.
Telémahkos sighed and glared at Tim, “Can I talk to you privately for a moment?” He took his cousin to just out beyond the doorway of the shack, as the others saw to their things and unrolled blankets and bedrolls. Bleys, however, paused by the doorway and noticed Telémahkos standing with a hand way up on his tall cousin’s drooping shoulder. The blond Briareus was punctuating his points against going to visit the monk.
“All we need is for some crazy monk hermit to mention something that will get the priests all up and arms and then they decide we have to go to these tombs… Tombs I have no desire of seeing now that I have once again been so well reminded of my own mortality…” he said, fervently. “Laarus is a zealot, and we have to consider that when making these decisions… We might learn that going there is certain death and yet they will feel the need to go there all the more because of something said by the monk… We have to keep these scenarios in mind!”
Timotheus sighed and walked back into the shack. “I change my vote… Let’s just go to the King Stones…”
“What? Are you not your own man?” Bleys said, his disdain for Timotheus evident on his usually placid face.
“I… Yes, I am…”
“It certainly doesn’t seem like it, if your cousin can tell you to change your vote and so you simply do,” Bleys replied.
“He changed his mind of his own accord,” Telémahkos said, walking in with a smile.
“Oh fine! We’ll go to the Mounds…” Timotheus threw his hands in the air, acquiescing once again.
Just a note that I added about a paragraph of exposition from Rudwilla that I had forgotten about. It is after the battle with Mulcrod.
Quote:
“Do we have to worry about the witch returning?” Markos asked Rudwilla, but the corpulent witch shook her head.
“Not any time soon,” she said. “My guess at what happened was that she informed Mulcrod the shaman about the absence of the Ray-Ree warriors, perhaps knowing somehow that that he planned to challenge Bruggah for leadership of the tribe, and daring him to come command more brew was a way of doing so. Mulcrod probably figured he could take Bruggah by surprise far from the rest of the Blood-Eye, not expecting a group of adventurers to be involved. Know Hezra, she probably did not tell him, played down your prowess, or accepted your ruse at face value, and did not know of your involvement until they came here. Regardless, now that most of her sons are dead and her ally is too, she should not be returning until she has had time and opportunity to hatch some other plan…”
Satisfied by the response, the signers of the Charter of Schiereiland rode back to the Ray-Ree village that afternoon.
I finally caught up again. School starting has a way of taking time away from pleasure reading. And quite pleasurable it was. Both of the fights were exciting, and I am enjoying the delicate politics of this foreign area. The promise of the keep being revived as a stronghold of Thricia definitely sounds exciting. Thanks again Nemm.
I finally caught up again. School starting has a way of taking time away from pleasure reading.
Having started on my second semester of grad school, it also takes away from the pleasure of wriitng this thing and preparing for sessions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by handforged
And quite pleasurable it was. Both of the fights were exciting, and I am enjoying the delicate politics of this foreign area. The promise of the keep being revived as a stronghold of Thricia definitely sounds exciting. Thanks again Nemm.
~hf
Thanks for reading. I am glad you are enjoying.
Each of the next four sessions have fights in them.
Perhaps it is bad form to bump your own story hour, but if I don't do it, who will?
Anyway, look for an update this weekend as I will be posting all of Session #12 in one fell swoop. (EDIT: Actually, looking over the installment again, I decided to break it into two parts) However, I plan to continue with my method of not post a session until the one after it is already written in full. Yes, that means that #13 is already written, but it also means that it won't be put up until I can say the same for #14.
Morning found Timotheus Smith pale-faced and sweaty once again. He had a relapse of his bog flu, and the old women of the tribe hustled him back to the pest shack to be fretted over and fed strange sickly sweet purgatives and an incredibly spicy tea. Once again his noble companions were forced to go on without him. (2)
“You know, the only reason we are down here is because we can’t think of anything better to do,” Markos said, commiserating with Telémahkos about not wanting to go see Brother Cineas. The blond noble nodded quietly. “These pearls of power (3), or whatever they are, are much more intriguing, don’t you agree?”
Again, Telémahkos nodded, still fuming a bit about this journey to the Mounds of the Ray-Ree despite a night’s sleep. He dreaded what would come of it.
They approached the moat about the area of the mounds on horseback, led by Kermit on Duckhunter, and found the island it held was shielded from view by a circle of tall swamp pines. Looking beyond they could see the long earthen mounds, some as long as forty feet and as tall as fifteen, raised up on the slope of a hill. However, the very top of it was obscured by a steep depression.
They could see the moveable wooden bridge on the other side, sticking out from behind some trees. It looked heavy, and the deep round impressions in the earth on their side attested to this.
“Falco, get us across,” Laarus said to the hireling, and Falco frowned.
“And how should I do that?” he asked.
“You are the scout, you are supposed to know,” Laarus replied, evidently unimpressed with the question and Falco’s attitude. “Wade in if you have to…”
Falco walked over to the edge and began to examine gap, but made no other obvious move to obey. The barrier was five or six feet deep before coming to the sludgy water of unknown depth.
Sighing, Telémahkos fetched a rope and grappling hook from his horse and a moment later affixed it to a tree on the other side with a deft flick. He fastened the other end to the saddle horn, and had Tymon hold the animal still as he shimmied across the taut rope to the other side. After quickly examining the well-constructed wooden bridge (it looked as if it were meant to be carried by four men), he crept further past the tall trees. He noted that the mound covered island did not simply taper up towards the center and have one depression at the top, but rather there were two more dips concealed tiny manicured gardens of small trees and brushes flanked by smaller mounds. Just at the edge of his sight, he could see a man fighting a loping figure with yellowed nacreous skin and stringy black hair. The man was tall with sinewy muscle. His head was shaved save for a small braided tuft at the back. He wore a black tunic and a long brown kilt that wrapped around his waist, along with long beaded chain holding a silver ankh emblazoned on a black jackal's head at the end. He fought with wide circling kicks, and close rapid punches, staying out of the range of the undead menace. A second figure was charging out from behind a mound at the monk.
Telémahkos hurried back and took the grapple from the tree. Dragging the bridge over he attached the grapple to one of the supports underneath, and called for Tymon to have the horse pull.
“The monk is in trouble!” He called over in a hissing whisper. He stepped to one side as Bleys, Dunlevey and Falco galloped over the bridge once it was in place, and then Tymon brought him his horse which he mounted.
“I don’t know what those things are!” Telémahkos cried out to others, as Bleys let an arrow fly from his long bow and it bit into one of the mounds. The watch-mage brought his horse around to the right, while Dunlevey slowed his, not sure if charging down the embankment through the trees was the best idea for one with his limited equestrian ability. Victoria of Anhur, however, had no such trepidations, and charged right into the fray on Ironside. Unfortunately, one of the jaundiced creatures, naked and streaked with grave dirt, turned as she arrived, ducking the spear blow and clawing the horse’s flank. The militant of Anhur steeled herself for her horse’s reaction to the wound, but instead it was rigid and an unmoving, its eyes open and not blinking.
“Unholy fiend!” Victoria swore, leaping off her paralyzed horse. She drove her spear deep into the ghoul and it snarled, clawing the spear away. Such a blow would have easily killed a normal man.
“What allies are these in my hour of need?” the fighting monk said, looking at Victoria, as he kicked the other ghoul back and fell back into a crouched fighting position.
Meanwhile, both Falco and Dunlevey were surprised by ghoulish figures emerging from the trees.
“Falco! To me!” Telémahkos called, fear in his voice. He was hanging back still not far from the bridge, with Tymon not too far away either, held back by his master’s will.
But Falco did not obey. While Dunlevey had withdrawn from his opponent to better prepare his defense by dismounting, and readying his shield, Falco whispered with a tone known to those practiced in the arcane arts. “Shu, I call on you to obscure the air with the mists of the highlands…”
Suddenly, a swirling mist burst out from his position, obscuring the area about the tree he was beside and the ghoul that was attacking him.
The ghoul Dunlevey had withdrawn from, decided to run at the still mounted Bleys instead of chasing the hireling, but the watch-mage easily pulled his horse’s head away to avoid the wild thing. This one had long thick black hair crusted with blood, and wore woolen rags tied all over its body covered with weeping sores.
“Ra! Use me as your vessel and reveal your power to these monstrosities!” Laarus of Ra called out, holding his ankh-emblazoned sun holy symbol aloft. Most of the ghouls began to flee, except the one reaching for Bleys’ horse again. Dunlevey ran at it, chopping down at it with his long sword, but over-extending himself as it leapt back more deftly than he had imagined it could. An arrow from Kermit, who had finally come over the bridge upon Duckhunter, lodged in the ghoul’s back. (4)
Laarus turned his horse and drove it back toward Bleys, dismounting to aid with the one that had flouted Ra’s will.
“Are you alright?” Victoria asked the monk as the ghouls fled.
“I will be better once these creatures are destroyed!” He replied, charging after one of the undead. His blow missed, as it leapt at the last minute, falling into a roll. It climbed back onto its feet, and continued its run.
That ghoul followed another into the muddy gap around the area of the mounds and soon they floundered and disappeared leaving behind large bursting bubbles.
“They may eventually make their way out the other side, but they will not return again so soon,” the monk said to Victoria, as they watched them sink.
The remaining ghoul had been quickly surrounded, and penned in by Laarus and Telémahkos, it was unable to avoid Dunlevey’s devastating blows. He sliced hunks of bug-infested flesh from the thing, and it fell into a jiggling pile of congealing mess.
As they gathered to greet the monk, Telémahkos leaned over to Falco. “I did not know we had a devotee of Shu among our number…” he said, with a sly nod.
“You don’t,” Falco replied curtly, walking off to retrieve his horse, which had sent out of the mist just as the ghouls had fled.
After thanking the young nobles for their aid, the monk introduced himself as Brother Cineas.
“We are from Thricia,” Bleys said, with respect in his voice for the young monk’s station. “We have been staying with the Ray-Ree and gifting them our aid.” He introduced himself and the rest of the party. Cineas bowed low to Laarus of Ra, and gave an extra respectful nod to Victoria.
“Are you often beset by these creatures?” Victoria asked.
“They seem to have grown more brazen since my return from the convocation,” the monk replied. “It was when I was a boy that that a party of adventurers penetrated the seal that closed the portal to the kingdom of the ghouls… Since then, the Devoured Town might be more aptly named the ‘Town of Devourers’.”
“Yes, we were hoping we might learn more about this Devoured Town, and about the Moor-Tombs beyond the Ickle Trick,” Bleys said. “It is for this reason we have come…”
“Yes… I imagined it must be something like that, even when I was a young novice here learning with Master Oneidas, did adventuring bands such as yourselves come and seek out my master for his lore of the area,” The monk bowed again. “Come with me and we shall share tea and discuss the matter.”
He led them to a very small cottage carved of limestone that was not common to this area. Within its cool and barren confines, he brewed tea atop a tiny stone stove, and poured them some in cracked cups. He ripped a loaf of bread apart with his hands to make sure everyone had about the same morsel.
The signers of the Charter of Schiereiland were disappointed with what they learned from Brother Cineas. He knew little more about the King Stones than they did, as he considered those tombs defiled and plundered long before he was ever born, and beyond his ability or that of the Ray-Ree to reestablish or maintain. He knew nothing specific about the tomb of Dalvan d’Amberville, and warned them against trying to use the bridge out of the Devoured Town.
“Many stalwart groups have entered the ruins of that town well-armed and none have ever returned, well… None save the priest of Bast,” (5) Cineas said. “There are bound to be many powerful items there, brought by those groups, but the items did not seem to help. Those who come seeking more them seem to ignore this fact…”
“How else can we cross the Ickle Trik?” Bleys asked. “How wide is it?”
“Wide?” The monk frowned.
“Yes, wide… Can we swim across?” Bleys continued his questions.
“Its width varies, but it is a strong and deep current. You will be unable to cross unless you can… Perhaps conjure a boat…?”
“Well that leaves that out,” Telémahkos said.
Markos shook his head. He had learned a spell at his recent stay at the University of Thricia that allowed him to conjure a boat. (6)
“Cineas, let me ask you, this tomb of Dalvan, would it not violate Anubis’ laws to penetrate it?” Laarus asked.
“He and his followers were known as necromancers. Their tombs are not consecrated and need to be razed,” the monk explained. “There are many in there, and in these past centuries some have been destroyed, andstill others have sunk into the loam to never be seen again.”
“But not the tomb of Dalvan d’Amberville?” Bleys asked. He opened the map that Malcolm the Bronze had given him.
“I do not know. I have been to the moors, but have not seen it,” Cineas looked at the map. “Ah! The masks. I know of the masks. . . They are stone obelisks marked with masks… They lead to a stone spire deep in the moors.” (7)
“What else can you tell us about the moors on that side of the Ickle Trik?” Bleys asked.
Cineas warned them about something he called ‘the Cult of the Mummies’. He did not believe they were true mummies, but could not eliminate the possibility that they were still undead. “They may only be a tribe of men who dress as such, or some other creature entirely…”
Bleys explained that they were seeking an amulet holy to Fallon, and Cineas agreed that was a worthy goal.
“Would you like to accompany us?” Bleys asked.
“My duty is here,” Brother Cineas replied.
Not too much later the young nobles were riding back to the Ray-Ree village. Nothing had convinced them of the need to seek out the Moor-Tomb immediately, and Telémahkos and Markos voiced their preference for exploring the King Stones. Laarus and Victoria agreed to going there first, and Bleys remained silent, knowing his own will had been overruled.
After spending another night at the Ray-Ree village, Bleys, Laarus, Markos, Telémahkos, and Victoria marched eastwards towards the King Stones. They were led by Kermit and Duckhunter, and accompanied by Dunlevey, Falco and Tymon. Timotheus was still ill.
The horses were left with the Ray-Ree, the barbarians ‘gifting’ them the care thereof. Kermit warned them that the horses would leave them vulnerable to predatory attack if they were left tied up in the wilderness, and their strong scent would make their camp more attractive to monsters. The halfling would lead them to a fairly sheltered campsite where he could find them again, as he would be returning to the Ray-Ree village to lead Timotheus to them once the tall warrior was feeling better.
The land here was similar to that around the ruined keep at the old borderlands (1). It was a dry craggy plain broken up by the occasional mud pond surrounded by scrubby trees. Ra’s Glory was unrelenting, and while Kermit led them by shaded routes whenever possible, the opportunities were very few, and despite a two hour break under some trees and being hounded by Kermit to drink lots of water, before night fell most of them were suffering from heat exhaustion. (2) They barely said a word as they stripped off their armor and lay atop their rolls, panting. Kermit would take the first watch and would wake a pair of them later to take over, but they would be leaving before the sun rose again in order to get as many miles covered before they could be so afflicted again.
Tholem, the 25th of Quark - 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
The young nobles of the Charter of Schiereiland waited for the noontime hours to pass before preparing to try their luck in the area of the King Stones. They had arrived mid-morning to a close copse of trees that provided shelter and was isolated enough from other such copses to allow anyone approaching to be seen at quite a distance. From here they could see the silhouette a shady watering hole about six or seven hundred yards away. Kermit explained that fresh water could be gathered there in the daytime, but that monsters and wild animals came there for water by night, so to approach it warily.
He pointed to the dark outline of the rising landscape to the south. “There is the gorge of the King Stones,” Kermit said before leaving.
Before beginning their explorations, Bleys asked Telémahkos to bring out the map they had gotten from Joezyn Barhyte (3), and they lined it up to their approximate position.
After a surprisingly brief discussion, they decided to go around the caves in the gorge and climb up to the forested hill above in search of the Flar’choo goblins and the legendary ‘box of wands’. (4)
“If we are here for anything, let it be this ‘box of wands’ that we may use its contents for further good in our home lands, otherwise we are naught more than raiders” Laarus had said, and Bleys agreed, as Telémahkos and Markos rolled their eyes behind the priest’s back.
They went over to the watering hole area and found that the muddy pool was fed by a spring and flanked with spears holding the skulls of some kind of small rat-like humanoid.
Falco found sign of a goblin trail and he led them south from there. They marched southward and after a mere half hour they were climbing the gentle slope to the hill, and could see the sudden depth of the gorge off to their right. It disappeared along with the rest of the landscape into a thick forest of curling brown leaves and yellowing grass.
“This place is really dry,” Falco warned. “We should be careful with any fire for fear a setting the whole forest ablaze.” The scout led them along a narrow trail that eventually ran parallel to the eastern side of the u-shaped gorge, and they reasoned that after a couple of miles into the woods they would not be far from the lookout marked on map. A fork in the trail they followed seemed to back up this supposition. Falco checked for tracks again and told them that there was frequent travel in both directions by small feet, most of it turning south there. As they assumed the lookout was to the right, and so they decided to go that way.
About a mile and a half later he put a hand up to signal the others to stop. He was close to forty feet ahead and signaled to Bleys that he saw one figure by pointing to his own eyes and then holding up a finger.
A lone goblin was standing behind a large tree at the edge of a sudden drop. It was about four feet tall, but stout. It had ruddy orange skin, and a big head with a broad face. It was dressed in leather armor studded with bone, and wore a small wooden helmet decorated with a piece of bone as well. The nobles and their retainers quietly fanned out. Telémahkos and Bleys creeping forward with Falco, while Laarus and Victoria waited a bit further back not far from Markos and Dunlevey. Tymon readied his crossbow as everyone did their best to be ready and get into defensible spots.
Bleys held back as Telémahkos went around the left flank and Falco the right, both noticed a second goblin appear from the cliff edge. They knew then that there must be some trail just beyond and out of sight, and they guessed it led to the lookout marked on the map.
With a nod, Telémahkos and Falco let arrows fly, and in a flash both goblins dropped, but the second one tumbled back over the edge, sending up a stream of blood and a plume of dust. There was a cry of alarm from below, and as Telémahkos hurried back towards Bleys, the others hurried forward, readying for any more goblins to appear.
The next goblin to arrive poked his head up carefully as he climbed up to the edge, and took a crossbow bolt to the chest from Telémahkos. The creature bellowed, but miraculously was alive, trying to draw an arrow to its own bow. A bolt from Tymon and an arrow from Bleys flew over its head caused it to duck as it loosed an arrow at the watch-mage. Bleys leapt aside, startled. A shot from Markos’ gnomish crossbow, as he stepped up beside the mage, sent the goblin to the ground, even as another appeared, with a companion right behind it.
“Dookaloo!” They cried in alarm.
Telémahkos fired again, but when this shot missed, he dropped his crossbow and hurried into the chaos of battle, rapier drawn. The latest goblin to arrive tumbled back down with one of Bleys’ arrows in its throat. While the other leapt aside to avoid the worst from one of Falco’s arrows, only to step into the arc of a spear hurtled by Victoria as she charged in. Laarus came around the other side of the large tree and smashed the skull of yet another goblin that had thought to make its way up a bit further along the edge. Its brains were splattered against the tree trunk. The priest of Ra swung his flail and sent gray droplets in all directions.
Now the last four goblins had made it over the edge in the mounting chaos, decided that perhaps it was best to flee back the way they came.
Two readied spears to cover the retreat of the other two, but one of those was cut down with one heavy blow of Dunlevey’s great sword. Markos let a bolt fly into the other, and Victoria moved in to drive it back.
Bleys sent an arrow after one of the fleeing goblins, but missed, Tymon having better luck with the other. A javelin from Telémahkos finished it.
Flicking the corpse of the goblin she had skewered out of her way, Victoria ran up to the edge of the drop off. She could now see that the path wound its way down through thorny bushes and rocky outcroppings to the plateau overlooking the gorge of the King Stones. The plateau itself had a few bushes growing in the muddy ground that covered it, and the scattered remains of what must have once been great statues of black stone, clearly not indigenous to the area, were also visible. (5)
Victoria saw the remaining goblin, ducking and bobbing as it hustled down the path.
“There it is!” Victoria called, pointing with her long spear awkwardly with one hand as she reached to her back for a shorter one to throw. Telémahkos hurried over and flung his last javelin, and it yelped as it clipped the top of its head, shattering the piece of skull on his wooden cap. Less than a moment later, it stumbled as Victoria’s spear bounced painfully off one of the bone studs on the goblin’s armor, but it recovered and continued to run.
Telémahkos tumbled over the side and began to give chase, but an arrow from Falco caught it in the side of the head and it finally fell. Not wanting to waste his effort, Telémahkos continued down to check out the lookout stealthily.
He stopped and stooped to pick up a small bow and a quiver of matching arrows from the dead goblin, and was startled when he heard Bleys’ voice right behind him.
“Do not be alarmed. I am using a spell that allows us to whisper messages back and forth unheard.” The watch-mage was at the top of the embankment, talking softly into his cupped hand. “Describe to me what you see.”
Suddenly there came from the plateau a steady drumming, punctuated with rapid triplets after a seeming random number of beats. Telémahkos crept around the last outcropping and looked around the wide plateau. He described to Bleys what he saw: the small bunches of bushes, and the shattered black stone torso of a statue that must have once been twenty feet tall.
“I hear drumming,” Telie said.
“Yes, we hear it, too,” Bleys replied, as the sound was echoing out over the gorge and through the forest. “Do something about it…”
It was hard to tell where the drumming was coming from at first, but then, noticing how one of the small bushes wavered, Telémahkos raised the small goblin bow and awkwardly fitted one of the small arrows to it. He gave a quick silent prayer to Bes and let the arrow go.
The tiny thing sliced through the air in a perfect arc, ending with the mortal grunt of the unseen goblin. Telémahkos hurried over and pushed the branches aside to reveal his goblin arrow deep in the eye of a goblin with a now bloodstained drum on his lap. Telie smiled. (6).
“Done!” he replied to Bleys.
Quickly looking around the watch-post camp, Telémahkos found little of interest and nothing of value, so he hurried back up the winding path to the others.
“That drum was echoing all over the place,” he said. “There are probably more coming…”
Reasoning that whatever additional goblins were on their way must come from the other side of the forked trailed, they hurried back in the direction in hopes of setting up an ambush.
(1) This was where the party fought Hezra and her sons. (See Session #10)
(2) The party had all taken non-lethal damage and were fatigued or exhausted from the march through the incredible heat of the area. Remember, it is mid-summer.
(4) Bleys the Aubergine learned of the ‘box of wands’, from Garkhan the Green, watch-mage of Weirspierogen.
(5) On the party’s map of the King Stones, the nearly illegible writing on it near the “lookout” area, said “broken statues’, though they were originally not sure if it might say “broken stairs”.
(6) Telie’s player not only got past the 50% miss chance for the concealment of the bush, but also rolled a critical hit result, killing the goblin drummer instantly.
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