Well, I was planning to only update once per week, but seeing as I have plenty of time on my hands right now I might as well give a 'mid week' update...
Burl:
Burl heads down to the main hall of the Pendarme residence, where Karai is waiting for him. She leads him into the left wing of the residence, down long corridors, where he notes the many ornaments and paintings - the Pendarmes are rich in a way he's never come across before.
Karai advises Burl that Tewlcroghen is a *very* powerful individual, and
must be treated with respect. Eventually she leads him into a bare stone corridor lying down a flight of steps, at the end of which is an oak door. Then the elf leaves him to it.
Burl pauses to straighten out his clothes and generally make himself as presentable as possible, then knocks on the door. A deep, powerful voice replies
"Enter." and he does so. The chamber beyond is impressive.
Large and rectangular, the stone walls are bare apart from vines climbing up them. The ceiling is mostly a skylight of grey and green stained glass designed to give a dappled effect on the room below. The place is dominated by a big rectangular pool of murky water, around which four statues trickle water into it from marble horns.
To his left, there is an arcane laboratory and shelves of books against the wall. To the right, a greatsword is held up on brackets and a suit of black armour stands. On the far side of the pool, ahead of him, is a huge tapestry depicting the Pendarme arms, and below that a large mahogany chair - more like a throne.
There sits Tewlcroghen.
Tall, powerfully built and with short black hair, the mans skin is extremely pale, and he wears simpple-cut black clothing. His eyes seem to be pits of blackness from this distance.
They converse, Burl being respectful and awed, complementing Tewlcroghen on his arcane laboratory and on the manner in which the room is so obviously someones home, unlike the rest of the building and its ostentatious style. The man takes well to the praise, and offers Burl a chance to pledge his alleigance to Pendarme, and with it all the benefits that would bring - support and resources, in particular free use of Tewlcroghen's lab - and emphasises the freedom the necromancer would still have - indeed, his patron
wants him to go out and gain experience of the world, so he will be more useful to Pendarme. Now that the man has approached closer, Burl can see his eyes are not entirely black - the iris and pupils are, but the 'whites' are dark gray.
Before the beginning of his journey into the world, Burl had been unwise to the ways of subtlety, not realising the potential problems his path of necromancy and worship of Charon might cause - hence the fiasco with the priest of Solanthar. Now a bit wiser, he tentatively asks whether Tewlcroghen knew about those things. His patron did indeed and seemed perfectly happy with it, though professing not to follow a god himself.
Reassured, Burl agrees to become an agent for Pendarme, and Tewlcroghen gives him an amulet through which the man could contact him - one way only, and only a simple message. The amulet, the glossy scale of a young black dragon on a silver chain, had another property too, he said.
Once Burl had put it on, Tewlcroghen asks for him to put his hand out, which he does. Tewlcroghen then takes hold of the outstretched hand in a grip like that of steel.
Then he pulls out a small vial and pours acid over Burl's hand.
The wizard tries to yank his hand away but then realises all the acid is doing is causing a faint stinging sensation. Once his patron has poured alkaline over it to neutralise it, he explains the amulet also gives some small amount of acid resistance - "Don't try anything stupid like swimming in vats of the stuff," he warns.
The Blackscale Amulet grants Acid Resistance 5
Burl is impressed and thankful for the gift, and Tewlcroghen informs him that there is a week until Morgrim has him taken before clerics to check the veracity of his story - then orders him to go to one of the side gates when darkness falls and meet with another of Pendarme's agents; there is a task to be undertaken, it seems, that the agent will fill him in on.
Once again, Burl is told that Morgrim doesn't know about the necromancer pledging alliegance to Pendarme, and as yet doesn't need to either. He's allowed to speak to Karai about it - the mere mention of her name makes Tewlcroghen soften in attitude somewhat, and he claism that they keep no secrets from each other.
So Burl heads off, leaving Tewlcroghens chamber, and gets some food from the kitchen, before wandering around the residence, finding Karai's observatory in the roff, a small secret garden near Tewlcroghen's chambers, and other areas of the house such as barracks and armoury. When the time comes, he heads out to meet the other agent - who turns out to be an elf called Irial, wearing studded leather armour and with two short swords strapped to his belt. The rather sinister elf hands Burl a crossbow, saying he's going to need it because they're heading in to flush out a cell of cultists of the Bringer of Pestilence...
Melisande and Meg'anna:
The two women talk mroe now that the dreadspawn has fled, with Meg'anna using Mel's pencils and paper to write messages - it turns out she can write four languages in fact, common, sylvan, gnoll and elven. They're a bit worried the dreadspawn might come back with friends, and Melisande asks the druid whether she'll accompany her into Naseria.
Meg'anna is troubled by this. Part of her wants to wander, to see the world, but part of her is afraid to ever leave her druid grove and walk into the unknown out there. With the fleshtearer and everything, she feels extremely uneasy, in the end deciding she will let the forest decide. She sits down and waits, praying to Lliras that if she is to stay in the grove, nature should give her a sign.
Mel watches the mute druidess sitting in silence, worried she's said something that means the woman is going to stay and not accompany her. Then, after a while, Meg stands up, resolved in spirit that she will travel - for it is clearly the forests wish, which has sent her no signs to remain. The two, buoyed up emotionally, head into the forest through the night.
They walk on, and dawn breaks, the dawn chorus trilling out as Mel chatters incessantly to the silent Meg - a one-sided conversation if ever there was one. Then as the day wears on they hear sounds of battle nearby, and Mel gets in a state - because she doesn't know which side she should be on. In this conflicting borderland of gnolls, Carthagians and Naserians, she's cut off from any of them and unsure as to her place.
Then things go from bad to worse. A line of dreadspawn can be seen advancing through the trees from the other side - they haven't seen the pair yet, but it means they're hemmed in between abttle and spawn. Then Meg'anna feels the
wrongness of nature rebelling due to a fleshtearer being nearby. A dark figure flits among the trees nearby.
Their situation really couldn't be too much worse right now...
Sebastion:
The troops head out of camp, each group given a war horn to blow if they encounter a group of enemy that is more than they can cope with. Argus instructs the Blood Raven cavalry to stay a bit behind the skirmishing scouts, so the scouts can fire their crossbows with clear line of sight and so that if they are engaged in melee the horsemen can charge in. The fleshtearer spends its time ranging ahead and around, rarely in vision.
They head into the forest, and quickly hit trouble with a band of dreadspawn. The scouts have some trouble since their bolts rarely kill a spawn outright before it starts healing, and many reach melee; then the Ravens charge, smashing through the line of enemy and killing many outright with the impact of the cavalry charge. They pile straight on into the next line of enemy; two ogres. As they bear down on them, Seb wonders in fear just
where the 'tearer is...
The cavalry charge kills one ogre but the other survives unscathed and with a slap sends Seb's horse reeling, before closing in to hit him with its club. Then its chest sprouts claws as the fleshtearer rends into it from behind, tearing its torso in two with a great crunch. It then lopes back into the trees again, covered in gore.
The strike force is regrouping when they hear the sound of horns blowing nearby - one of the other detachments is in serious trouble, it seems.
Sandslipper:
Sandslipper picks herself up from the road, still exhausted, and presses on.
She travels for many days, never seeing another gnoll nor one of the shadow-arachnid things, and eventually after a good deal of distance reaches the end of the Sudokan valley and enters the edge of the borderlands between Carthagia and Naseria. As she wanders through the woods there, feeling terribly alone and claustrophobic due to the way the trees block her vision (so totally unlike the empty, open desert), she hears the sounds of battle nearby. Deciding to head towards the conflict and cehck it out, she suddenly finds that closing in from behind her is a line of strange creatures - dreadspawn, though she doesn't know that because she's never encountered them before or even heard of them. Though they don't seem to have seen her yet, she finds they are closing in, also heading towards the battle...
Wyshira and Kale:
Wyshira, Kale and Kaerval head into the
Great Serpent tavern, which proves to be a cut above the other dockside inns - this one's clearly for the merchants and captains rather than the common sailors. They're quite surprised to see a tall, blue-skinned lizardman serving at the bar, a crest running down his head and back.
After ordering food, they pick up the news and rumours. The barman is apparently a lhazakk, a subspecies of lizardman that can generate an electric current through its skin - hence he's good at keeping order. They mostly live in teh Limnus Glade swamps south-west of Corinthia, and apparently also over the Azure Sea on the Avorasa continent.
There's other news too - apparently eight of the High Mages recently ambushed and killed a leading religious figure of the Ascarian's religion of Fenris.
Cryosia abuts to the west with the tundra-lands of Ascaria. In the east of Ascaria, nomadic barbarian tribes are the main inhabitants, and they're often in conflict with the Cryosians. Recently an expansionist war with the barbarians has begun, since the population of Cryosia has grown and the cryomancers have decided to 'appropriate' the lands from the tribes, whom they see as primitive irritations. However, the religion of Fenris and its priests have done remarkably well in holding the tribes together in defence against a better equipped and magically supported foe.
Other news - rumours of a potential coup against the weak king of Corinthia, and fears of famine if the years grain crops in Huron and Adbar are poor.
The food is excellent, and after asking the lhazakk for advice on the best way to reach the temple of Ishrak, they first head to the market, with Wyshira picking up bits and pieces and some leather armour, and Kale buying a scabbard for the blade he took from the brine beasts lair. KAerval buys some spell components - the young man really intrigues Kale, who thought he'd dislike the bard but has found him to be a very agreable person. He usually doesn't think much of mages either, but finds the concept of Kaerval as a spellcaster really doesn't worry him.
Then they head to the cathedral, along the rocky peninsula. There are lots of sailors and captains heading up to pray to Ishrak for good weather on their next voyage - a common custom.
The cathedral compound is impressive - a massive building of gothic architecture and huge blue stained glass windows... well, sod it, I'll just cut and paste the description straight here:
The walk along the peninsula of rock rising from the water, at the edge of the port, was cold and windswept, but nonetheless there was a great deal of traffic - mainly sailors and captains heading back and forth to give praises to the Storm Lady before their next voyage over the seas. Occasionally a cleric would pass the trio by as they made their way towards the massive temple complex, usually wearing azure or white robes, often with one of the three central emblems to the religion of Ishrak highly prominent on their garb - a lightning bolt, an eagle, or a fish or dolphin.
The main building was huge, gothic arches rising high above, and the tower-lighthouse climbing even higher towards the skies. Two massive, metalbound doors were the entrance - closed shut, with smaller doors in the wall next to them admitting the worshippers in and out. A walled compound of buildings attached to the cathedral must have been where the clergy lived and worked.
Great swathes of blue-hued stained glass allowed great amounts of light into the building, and they could see a great dome of dappled blue glass atop the main section of the building. As they approached the doorways into the interior, they could see guards; men and women wearing gleaming armour and blue robes, lightning bolt emblems clearly visible and holding greatswords or halberds, carefully watching those entering or leaving the temple.
One of the temple guard - Storm Knights, the order of templars dedicated to the Storm Lady - walks up to Wyshira as they approach, seeing she is a water genasi, and bows, introducing himself as Levarian Imaskar. The big man asks what he can do for her, a blessed of Ishrak, and she replies that she is a priestess and would like to see the Cathedral of Storms, requesting the man lead them to a cleric who can perhaps show them the place and answer her questions. He does so, leading them inside.
Once again I'll copy/paste the interior description:
The Storm Knight turned round, blue cloak whipping round to reveal, emblazoned on the back, a large white circle emblem with a lightning bolt striking across it. He strode forwards through the doors, the trio in tow, into the interior of the cathedral.
It was quite a sight - huge arches rising high above, massive stained glass windows and domes letting in swathes of dappled light onto the mosaics covering the floors - depicting the seas, the skies, and all kinds of creatures that inhabited them. At the far end a massive banner hung behind the altar, depicting in cerulean blue and gold thread the serpent Jormungand coiled around the emblem of Ishrak.
Clerics and worshippers wandered the huge central chamber, quiet, reverential hushed conversation going on as at the far end an aged male priest - wearing a gold-edged aquamarine robe and obviously of high-standing - conducted a ceremony by the pool of water that lay before the altar, a line of supplicants bringing gifts for the Storm Lady to be cast into the waters. Two Storm Knights wearing golden helms stood to either side of the altar, resting their hands on the pommels of their greatswords which they held with points on the ground.
He leads them up to a blue-robed elderly priest quielty lighting some candles, and hands them over to him. The old priest is extremely affable and friendly, delighted to see a water genasi, and is happy to talk to them as Levarian returns to his post at the entrance.
All that, in some three days of play-by-messageboard game...
