Eryiedes
First Post
The Keep on the Shadowfell:
Fallcrest is nestled in a broad borderland named Nentir Vale.
Only sparsely populated, many dangers await those who travel outside the few towns and villages that dot the land....but nearly as frequently, danger comes just as often from within fortified walls as without.
Although a northern land, the Vale sees little snowfall and summers almost seem idyllic.
It is from this quiet place that you recieve urgent dispatch....
A rider on winded mount arrives at the steps of an ancient temple carved into the living stone of the mountain that shields it.
He approaches the pair of dark robed priests who stand like sentinels at the top of the gargantuan stairwell.
Walking with purpose, but mindful to their bow in their presence, the exhausted rider holds up a vellum scroll with a dwarven seal.
The priests simply point to deep within the temple beyond and part for him to pass.
Leaving both blade and shield at the entrance, he gingerly steps into the massive ancient monument.
Seemly swallowed whole by the sheer majesty of stone, rows of monarchs of ages long passed stand like sentries to the nervous riders arrival.
Appearing lost, he calls out...but the only reply are the sounds of his own echos...."Gorshak!!!"
He turns and with a puzzled look ponders his next action, never suspecting the shape behind him is that of a goliath and not a statue.
His massive hand reaches out to alert the rider....
An arm pushes open the front doors of a rowdy tavern.
Lost in the commotion of revelry and gambling another dispatch rider tries to make his way throught the crowd.
Rowdy patrons cheer, drink and shout encouragement to a half-orc savage and a giant human brute locked in an arm wrestling match unlike any the rider has ever seen.
A contraption of pully's and ropes and nails designed to impale the hand of a losing arm wrestling contender.
Not wanting to waste a single moment to this spectacle before him he calls out:
"Mardok...." (The orc raises an eyebrow but does not break focus) "...Dispatch from Arune Staul for Mardok!"
Upon uttering this, the half-orc turn to look at the rider.
Thinking his opponent distracted, the brute tries to capitalize on the moment and exerts the last of his strength to get the orc to budge but with a horrid growl and ease of fluid motion the competition ends in the sounds of human agony and tearing flesh.
Visibly disturbed by the display the rider holds out his trembling hand to give Mardok the parchment....
A trembling hand goes to hand yet another sealed scroll, yet this time to a deva who stands once more in places most sacred.
With a knowing smile...the hooded figure, with only a look assures the rider of his safety as an aura of warmth and light bathes the room in brilliance making it impossible to mistake the recievers angelic origins.
Tension subsided to relief in a wash of luminous intent.
Breaking the seal he begins to unfurl the scroll and and read the contents to himself out loud only to freeze in an expression of shock as he reads the words: "has been lost".
The scroll is dropped by the shaken cleric before he can finish it as he walks out passed the rider, leaving him alone with the silent members of the Order of Bahamut who seem just as confused as the rider is by Quinn's hastened departure....
The sheet flutters to the ground at the feet of a darkly cloaked Eladrin who is startled by the sound of the city guards pounding on his hostel door.
Hastily he grabs his backpack over one shoulder while skewering the scroll with his longsword for ease of recovery.
Behind him, the door begin's to splinter.
With a taunting smirk the rogue waves at the guards through the newly created breach in the door.
Stepping backwards into a shadow and with all to farmiliar laughter, he vanishes from the room only to emerge from a shadow of the stables beneath his room's window.
He pauses briefly to look at the scroll and has a look of grave worry overtakes his features...
A massive column of wounded men and wagons move in an unending procession from the site of a great battle as marked in the distance by dozens of pillars of smoke that climb the heavens above.
On a wagon for critically wounded, a weary man tends to the dying.
Pushing the blood smeared scroll, the badly wounded rider tries to give the urgent dispatch to Travis.
He clings feebly to the hand of the Warlord who tries to comfort him while pushing the scroll to his hand.
with heavy heart, Morgan drives a misery corps into the heart of the suffering man and in an instant, all is quiet.
Stifling his tears he looks solemnly to the bloodied parchment and wonders what could be worth another brave man's life.
Stepping from the "meat wagon" he joins the procession of walking wounded as the bedraggled and beaten army moves south with the majestic peaks of the Jotenheim's mocking their retreat as they go.
The scene dissolves once more a crossroads at the edge of Nentir Vale.
A massive goliath and a weary human watch as a brutish half-orc and a slender eladrin approach from the South and a luminous deva from the west.
The motley assortment would be half expected to do combat with each other rather than what happens next.
Without a word they all look sullenly to the township that lies before them.....and step as one into the dusk before them.
Fielin: "Well, what now?"
Mardok: "I'm HUNGRY."
Fielin: "(I never would of seen that coming)"
Gorshak: "This is as good a place as any to make camp..."
Quinn: "Then let us make haste...the night is sure to bring its share of perils."
Travis simply nods in agreement and (with a certain degree of satisfaction) FINALLY takes the pack from his back and lets it drop to the ground.
Fielin: "Did you heard that?"
Travis: "What....thats just Mardok's stomach?"
Fielin: "Not that!"
Quinn: "I think I heard it too...."
The party looks warily into the night around them.
Shadows play and dance on the foliage of the forest and suddenly a group of grouse take to flight, alerting the assembled heros to the danger that even now charges through the night at them.
From behind the camp, party is charged by a group of goblins driven insane by an inhuman hunger for the taste of fresh man-flesh.
From in front, another of their Blackbladed bretheren and a Cutter make their advance on the heros.
Looking to the ambushers in the rear, the devan cleric Sears the central most foe with a burst of divine radience that leaves its shrieking foe smoking and bloodied.
Quinn: "CRADLE OF LIGHT!"
The nimble attckers charge the encampment with violent abandon with no regard for personal safety as they charge passed closer targets to strike at their intended.
The goliath paladin towering over diminutive opponent is taunted by the blackblade as he dances around his giant opponent but a slash from the knights kopesh convinces his foe of a different strategy.
Travis, seeing Mardok maybe in danger of being flanked, moves in behind the blackblade closest to him.
The barbarian half-orc takes a mighty swing at his smaller opponent but fails to find his mark in the din of combat.
Holding forth a symbol of his faith, the devan points to his enemy and a brilliant ray of light sears his foe...sparkles of light then linger around the target as he falls but fail guide any of the hero's strikes.
Quinn: "LANCE OF FAITH!"
The sneaky goblins jockey and shift for position and finding a vunerable target, manage to land a ferocious blow on his distant cousin.
Flustered by the savagery of the attack, the barbarian is unable to get his target to stand still long enough to strike him.
While distracted, the sneaky cutter jumps in to attack the deva while he seeks to assist the wounded barbarian and manages to draw blood with his strike.
Quinn snarls in pain....."SMITE HIM"
Gorshaks swing seeks to punish his enemy but his blade finds nothing but air, but it gives Mardok the opportunity to catch his breath against the savage goblins.
Mordak finding himself nearly surrounded attempt to beat his foes back but they are too many and too tiny.
Quinn: "Don't worry friend, I have your back."...as does Travis who moves in and attracts the ire of his enemy who tries to keep him at bay....Quinn, however has more success and the back of his hand makes contact with goblin nose in a sickening crunch.
The Mighty barbarian swings once more but distracted by wounds and is unable to strike at his enemy.
The massive goliath brings his kopesh down with full force on his foe's skull with the wet crunch of bone and tissue his dirty green-skinned opponent slumps lifelessly to the ground....he then looks from bloody sword to goblin, smiling madly.
Seeing an opening Mardok capitalizes on the moment and sends his cutter foe screaming into the afterlife....or whatever it is that goblin's have happen to them when they epically fail their diety and lose the ability to breathe!
Quinn: "Goblins are stupid."
Gorshak: "I'm not complaining...leave it at that....besides what will you accomplish by telling someone with a PINK MOHAWK that they are stupid?!"
Once more with a shout of divine power, the cleric attempts to invoke the power of his god once more but it only results in a haphazard retaliatory swing.
Not wanting to be left out of the mele....Gorshak charges into the middle of the fray only to trip in spectacular fashion fumbling into The Mighty Quinn knocking both of them down in front of the evil blackblades.
Gorshak grumbles loudly at his folly as only a goliath can.
Mardok shakes his head in shame at the "fallen" comrades as Gorshak the Clumbsy gets to his feet.
The Mighty Quinn, dignified immortal of the cloth that he is, simply crawls away from the debacle of shame that is their accident.
As he does, he murmers a prayer to his diety...invoking a blast of white radience from the symbol of Bahamut at his neck...every goblin present is burnt by this stern light and Travis, Gorshak and Mardok instead take heart in their enemies agony as more gobins goto the abyss beyond the pale.
With the din of combat passed the weary heros look to each other once more in triumph....with the exception of the shamed paladin who only seeks to return to his tent in humility.
Mardok: "Who wants the drumstick?"
Disgusted by the notion of eating goblin meat Travis can only wrinkle his nose at the comment until he stops as if he remembered something.
Travis: "Uhhh, fellas....where did Fielin go?"
The remaining heros look at each other in confusion.
View of the village of Fallcrest as nightfall begins to creep in once more.
The heros all gather around a hearth in a cozy and comfortable home obviously belonging to a Dwarf.
The trappings of marriage, war and long life hang from the walls and ceilings of the "miniaturized" homestead.
Arune brings them various breads and cheeses with a selection of water, warm milk and honey and buttermilk tea and a flagon of warm pig's blood for Mardok.
Sitting around Douven's hearth they can recall their youths, spent by this very fireplace as though it were yesterday.
Arune:"Thank you all for coming on such short notice."
"I'll tell you what I know."
"Three monthes ago, Douven went to Winterhaven...still obcessed with dragon's hordes all these years later...I'll never understand-"
"He even had a map this time, claimed it had on it the very tomb he had been looking for.....Dracos Blancos Horribilus."
"If he could find it he said he would finally be able to create his masterpiece...a full suit of white dragonscale armor."
"Winterhaven is not that far away...I should have heard something from him by now...it's been an entire season."
"Don't know who else to turn to....please, you must help me find him."
Her aged diminutive dwarven frame tries to bow before the assembled company but is quickly stopped and helped to stand by Travis.
Travis: "You bow to no one in present company...in fact, it is I who should be bowing to you..."
"...if not for you and Douven I am sure Ogden would have had me living in the shire by now."
"My sword is ever at your service."
END PART I....TO BE CONTINUED
Fallcrest is nestled in a broad borderland named Nentir Vale.
Only sparsely populated, many dangers await those who travel outside the few towns and villages that dot the land....but nearly as frequently, danger comes just as often from within fortified walls as without.
Although a northern land, the Vale sees little snowfall and summers almost seem idyllic.
It is from this quiet place that you recieve urgent dispatch....
A rider on winded mount arrives at the steps of an ancient temple carved into the living stone of the mountain that shields it.
He approaches the pair of dark robed priests who stand like sentinels at the top of the gargantuan stairwell.
Walking with purpose, but mindful to their bow in their presence, the exhausted rider holds up a vellum scroll with a dwarven seal.
The priests simply point to deep within the temple beyond and part for him to pass.
Leaving both blade and shield at the entrance, he gingerly steps into the massive ancient monument.
Seemly swallowed whole by the sheer majesty of stone, rows of monarchs of ages long passed stand like sentries to the nervous riders arrival.
Appearing lost, he calls out...but the only reply are the sounds of his own echos...."Gorshak!!!"
He turns and with a puzzled look ponders his next action, never suspecting the shape behind him is that of a goliath and not a statue.
His massive hand reaches out to alert the rider....
An arm pushes open the front doors of a rowdy tavern.
Lost in the commotion of revelry and gambling another dispatch rider tries to make his way throught the crowd.
Rowdy patrons cheer, drink and shout encouragement to a half-orc savage and a giant human brute locked in an arm wrestling match unlike any the rider has ever seen.
A contraption of pully's and ropes and nails designed to impale the hand of a losing arm wrestling contender.
Not wanting to waste a single moment to this spectacle before him he calls out:
"Mardok...." (The orc raises an eyebrow but does not break focus) "...Dispatch from Arune Staul for Mardok!"
Upon uttering this, the half-orc turn to look at the rider.
Thinking his opponent distracted, the brute tries to capitalize on the moment and exerts the last of his strength to get the orc to budge but with a horrid growl and ease of fluid motion the competition ends in the sounds of human agony and tearing flesh.
Visibly disturbed by the display the rider holds out his trembling hand to give Mardok the parchment....
A trembling hand goes to hand yet another sealed scroll, yet this time to a deva who stands once more in places most sacred.
With a knowing smile...the hooded figure, with only a look assures the rider of his safety as an aura of warmth and light bathes the room in brilliance making it impossible to mistake the recievers angelic origins.
Tension subsided to relief in a wash of luminous intent.
Breaking the seal he begins to unfurl the scroll and and read the contents to himself out loud only to freeze in an expression of shock as he reads the words: "has been lost".
The scroll is dropped by the shaken cleric before he can finish it as he walks out passed the rider, leaving him alone with the silent members of the Order of Bahamut who seem just as confused as the rider is by Quinn's hastened departure....
The sheet flutters to the ground at the feet of a darkly cloaked Eladrin who is startled by the sound of the city guards pounding on his hostel door.
Hastily he grabs his backpack over one shoulder while skewering the scroll with his longsword for ease of recovery.
Behind him, the door begin's to splinter.
With a taunting smirk the rogue waves at the guards through the newly created breach in the door.
Stepping backwards into a shadow and with all to farmiliar laughter, he vanishes from the room only to emerge from a shadow of the stables beneath his room's window.
He pauses briefly to look at the scroll and has a look of grave worry overtakes his features...
A massive column of wounded men and wagons move in an unending procession from the site of a great battle as marked in the distance by dozens of pillars of smoke that climb the heavens above.
On a wagon for critically wounded, a weary man tends to the dying.
Pushing the blood smeared scroll, the badly wounded rider tries to give the urgent dispatch to Travis.
He clings feebly to the hand of the Warlord who tries to comfort him while pushing the scroll to his hand.
with heavy heart, Morgan drives a misery corps into the heart of the suffering man and in an instant, all is quiet.
Stifling his tears he looks solemnly to the bloodied parchment and wonders what could be worth another brave man's life.
Stepping from the "meat wagon" he joins the procession of walking wounded as the bedraggled and beaten army moves south with the majestic peaks of the Jotenheim's mocking their retreat as they go.
The scene dissolves once more a crossroads at the edge of Nentir Vale.
A massive goliath and a weary human watch as a brutish half-orc and a slender eladrin approach from the South and a luminous deva from the west.
The motley assortment would be half expected to do combat with each other rather than what happens next.
Without a word they all look sullenly to the township that lies before them.....and step as one into the dusk before them.
Fielin: "Well, what now?"
Mardok: "I'm HUNGRY."
Fielin: "(I never would of seen that coming)"
Gorshak: "This is as good a place as any to make camp..."
Quinn: "Then let us make haste...the night is sure to bring its share of perils."
Travis simply nods in agreement and (with a certain degree of satisfaction) FINALLY takes the pack from his back and lets it drop to the ground.
Fielin: "Did you heard that?"
Travis: "What....thats just Mardok's stomach?"
Fielin: "Not that!"
Quinn: "I think I heard it too...."
The party looks warily into the night around them.
Shadows play and dance on the foliage of the forest and suddenly a group of grouse take to flight, alerting the assembled heros to the danger that even now charges through the night at them.
From behind the camp, party is charged by a group of goblins driven insane by an inhuman hunger for the taste of fresh man-flesh.
From in front, another of their Blackbladed bretheren and a Cutter make their advance on the heros.
Looking to the ambushers in the rear, the devan cleric Sears the central most foe with a burst of divine radience that leaves its shrieking foe smoking and bloodied.
Quinn: "CRADLE OF LIGHT!"
The nimble attckers charge the encampment with violent abandon with no regard for personal safety as they charge passed closer targets to strike at their intended.
The goliath paladin towering over diminutive opponent is taunted by the blackblade as he dances around his giant opponent but a slash from the knights kopesh convinces his foe of a different strategy.
Travis, seeing Mardok maybe in danger of being flanked, moves in behind the blackblade closest to him.
The barbarian half-orc takes a mighty swing at his smaller opponent but fails to find his mark in the din of combat.
Holding forth a symbol of his faith, the devan points to his enemy and a brilliant ray of light sears his foe...sparkles of light then linger around the target as he falls but fail guide any of the hero's strikes.
Quinn: "LANCE OF FAITH!"
The sneaky goblins jockey and shift for position and finding a vunerable target, manage to land a ferocious blow on his distant cousin.
Flustered by the savagery of the attack, the barbarian is unable to get his target to stand still long enough to strike him.
While distracted, the sneaky cutter jumps in to attack the deva while he seeks to assist the wounded barbarian and manages to draw blood with his strike.
Quinn snarls in pain....."SMITE HIM"
Gorshaks swing seeks to punish his enemy but his blade finds nothing but air, but it gives Mardok the opportunity to catch his breath against the savage goblins.
Mordak finding himself nearly surrounded attempt to beat his foes back but they are too many and too tiny.
Quinn: "Don't worry friend, I have your back."...as does Travis who moves in and attracts the ire of his enemy who tries to keep him at bay....Quinn, however has more success and the back of his hand makes contact with goblin nose in a sickening crunch.
The Mighty barbarian swings once more but distracted by wounds and is unable to strike at his enemy.
The massive goliath brings his kopesh down with full force on his foe's skull with the wet crunch of bone and tissue his dirty green-skinned opponent slumps lifelessly to the ground....he then looks from bloody sword to goblin, smiling madly.
Seeing an opening Mardok capitalizes on the moment and sends his cutter foe screaming into the afterlife....or whatever it is that goblin's have happen to them when they epically fail their diety and lose the ability to breathe!
Quinn: "Goblins are stupid."
Gorshak: "I'm not complaining...leave it at that....besides what will you accomplish by telling someone with a PINK MOHAWK that they are stupid?!"
Once more with a shout of divine power, the cleric attempts to invoke the power of his god once more but it only results in a haphazard retaliatory swing.
Not wanting to be left out of the mele....Gorshak charges into the middle of the fray only to trip in spectacular fashion fumbling into The Mighty Quinn knocking both of them down in front of the evil blackblades.
Gorshak grumbles loudly at his folly as only a goliath can.
Mardok shakes his head in shame at the "fallen" comrades as Gorshak the Clumbsy gets to his feet.
The Mighty Quinn, dignified immortal of the cloth that he is, simply crawls away from the debacle of shame that is their accident.
As he does, he murmers a prayer to his diety...invoking a blast of white radience from the symbol of Bahamut at his neck...every goblin present is burnt by this stern light and Travis, Gorshak and Mardok instead take heart in their enemies agony as more gobins goto the abyss beyond the pale.
With the din of combat passed the weary heros look to each other once more in triumph....with the exception of the shamed paladin who only seeks to return to his tent in humility.
Mardok: "Who wants the drumstick?"
Disgusted by the notion of eating goblin meat Travis can only wrinkle his nose at the comment until he stops as if he remembered something.
Travis: "Uhhh, fellas....where did Fielin go?"
The remaining heros look at each other in confusion.
View of the village of Fallcrest as nightfall begins to creep in once more.
The heros all gather around a hearth in a cozy and comfortable home obviously belonging to a Dwarf.
The trappings of marriage, war and long life hang from the walls and ceilings of the "miniaturized" homestead.
Arune brings them various breads and cheeses with a selection of water, warm milk and honey and buttermilk tea and a flagon of warm pig's blood for Mardok.
Sitting around Douven's hearth they can recall their youths, spent by this very fireplace as though it were yesterday.
Arune:"Thank you all for coming on such short notice."
"I'll tell you what I know."
"Three monthes ago, Douven went to Winterhaven...still obcessed with dragon's hordes all these years later...I'll never understand-"
"He even had a map this time, claimed it had on it the very tomb he had been looking for.....Dracos Blancos Horribilus."
"If he could find it he said he would finally be able to create his masterpiece...a full suit of white dragonscale armor."
"Winterhaven is not that far away...I should have heard something from him by now...it's been an entire season."
"Don't know who else to turn to....please, you must help me find him."
Her aged diminutive dwarven frame tries to bow before the assembled company but is quickly stopped and helped to stand by Travis.
Travis: "You bow to no one in present company...in fact, it is I who should be bowing to you..."
"...if not for you and Douven I am sure Ogden would have had me living in the shire by now."
"My sword is ever at your service."
END PART I....TO BE CONTINUED
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