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Steel Dragon's "Tales of Orea"
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<blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 5794540" data-attributes="member: 92511"><p>The search party found Haelan first, not far beyond the path they had been following.</p><p></p><p>The cleric was bent over, hands on his knees, huffing and puffing.</p><p></p><p>"I'm sorry, Erevan, I tried to catch up. Their legs are so long! I....I don't know where they went. I hope nothing bad has happened to them." the Hilltender panted.</p><p></p><p>Fen placed a reassuring hand on the daelvar's shoulder. "Don't worry, friend Hilltender. We will find them."</p><p></p><p>"Sure you did your best." added Festus as he crouched down to scan the ground.</p><p></p><p>With little trouble they came upon Braddok, standing in a nondescript clearing, surrounded by fog. The swordsman's face was very pale as Erevan broke the mist to see the dark-haired human clearly.</p><p></p><p>"Erevan?...It...it is Erevan, right?" Braddok stammered. The big warrior was visibly shaking. "Am I dead again? There was this....horror...and now I'm here....and the fog is like...<em>before</em>...and...am I dead again?"</p><p></p><p>Erevan looked at the obviously distraught warrior and said plainly, "No, Braddok. You are not dead."</p><p></p><p>This seemed to reassure Braddok very little until, shortly after the elf, Haelan, Fen and Festus came into view.</p><p></p><p>The big man exhaled audibly and shook off the last remnants of his "fear". </p><p></p><p>"I don't like fear. I have failed you, my friends. I have failed Alaria." Braddok said with disappointment.</p><p></p><p>"Do not be, warrior." Fen, again stepped up to reassure. "The creature has an unnatural...well, no...an <em>enchanted </em>gaze. There was very little you could have done. Feel no shame." the druid smiled warmly.</p><p></p><p>Braddok shook his head in understanding before asking, "Where is Alaria? Is she ok?"</p><p></p><p>"We're...um...working on that." Festus piped up. "Did you see which way she went?"</p><p></p><p>Braddok admitted he had not. He had raced through the mists in a panic that clouded his still-fragile memory. He had stopped running in this clearing with the distinct horror and panic that he was, again, in the Grey Lands of the dead. </p><p></p><p>Festus began, again, scanning the swamp's soft ground around the clearing. Just as he found what appeared to be a small stamp in the soft marsh-mud a woman's cry rose up from somewhere in the fog.</p><p></p><p>"HELLLLP!!! Braddok? Erevan?! Anybody!" it said.</p><p></p><p>The, now five, companions followed Erevan's keen hearing to find Alaria up to her thighs in muck and mud. She was desperately trying to reach the edge of the mud-hole, in which she was firmly entrenched, with her staff.</p><p></p><p>A little of shimmying later, Braddok, led out to his knees gripping Fen's spear shaft, was able to grab the magess and pull her to safety.</p><p></p><p>"I<em> hate</em> this swamp." said the R'Hathi wizard as she released Braddok from a thankful hug. "What happened? How did I end up here? Where were you all?!" She bulleted off the questions.</p><p></p><p>The companions filled her and the warrior in on their way back to find Duor smoking a cigar setting atop the fallen bulk of the fear-beast's large body. Coerraine was leaning casually against its side but jumped up as they returned.</p><p></p><p>Alaria began to chuckle and laugh into the wind, to some of the companions confusion. Coerraine, Fen and herself were almost entirely covered in muck and mud. </p><p></p><p>Expending a few simple <em>prestidigitations</em> to clean up the company, they re-grouped companions again set off in, what Festus was<em> sure</em> was, the right direction.</p><p></p><p>The next few days passed with relative unevent.</p><p></p><p><em><insert Author/DM's 80's-style montage here...></em></p><p></p><p>*The group forced to go to single file through some particularly close underbrush. </p><p></p><p>*Huddled close around a small campfire at night. Keeping two-person watches throughout.</p><p></p><p>*Running away from a surprise encounter with two large alligators.</p><p></p><p>*Festus and Braddok slashing through the brambles and grasses with their blades.</p><p></p><p>* A very nervous Haelan keeping guard with a very calm Fen as an array of strange eyes watched the campsite from the darkness.</p><p></p><p>* Festus, Duor and Braddok arguing over the map and pointing in various different directions.</p><p></p><p>* Butercream munching happily on a large snake that the company had not noticed in the brush beside them.</p><p></p><p>* Alaria, and all of the company, laughing at a satyr covered head-to-hoof in mud who had made a misstep from the path into a pool of mud. The magess performed another <em>prestidigitation</em> to clean him up.</p><p></p><p>* Erevan and Fen sharing a quiet moment as the others slept. Alert, but comfortable.</p><p></p><p></end montage></p><p></p><p> In the afternoon of their fourth day in the Feldmere, they came to the edge of their path.</p><p></p><p>Festus and Braddok quickly backed up with loud "sssshlunk" noises pulling their feet out of the mire that was before them. They had sunk up to their ankles in a moment. Both of the fighting men backed onto the solid-ish path they had be following.</p><p></p><p>A mound of solid looking ground was not more than 20 feet before them. Cursory prodding to their left and right revealed the mucky, sinking ground seemed to extend indefinitely in either direction from their position.</p><p></p><p>Fen strode forward and whispered some incantation of his secretive langauge.</p><p></p><p>Alaria and Erevan heard certain syllables. They were jolting, but not harmful.</p><p></p><p>"--../..-/.." spoke the druid.</p><p></p><p>Alaria, who knew that the language of the Mysteries sounded like nonsense to the "uninitiated" couldn't help but wonder the origin of this completely alien language of the druids.</p><p></p><p>A five foot wide path of the muddy loam seemed to come together and form something of a causeway for the group that extended across the span to the mound. <<em>Author/DM's note: Druid spell: a reversed "Soften Earth"</em>></p><p></p><p>The group moved, carefully at first, out onto Fen's magically created ground.</p><p></p><p>When they'd reached the mound, Erevan strode off to the side and knelt beside what appeared to be a small bump of weeds and vines.</p><p></p><p>The elf wiped and pulled the vegetation clear to reveal a marker of severely eroded and pitted white stone, like the Selurian's used. The inscriptions on the stone, however were most definitely not Selurian...nor were they in any elvish tongue Erevan or Fen understood fully...though it appeared to them to be similar to elvish.</p><p></p><p>Alaria set to examining the stone with Erevan.</p><p></p><p>"It is, perhaps, some proto-elvin tongue?", Alaria posed. "Ancient as the stone seems to be. Not like the tongue we know today. Could it be ShiStaliiri?" the magess posed to the "young" Miralostae elf</p><p></p><p>Fen seemed distracted by something in the mud they had crossed over.</p><p></p><p>"What is it, Fen?" Haelan asked with his normal innocent curiosity which had become thoroughly tainted with worry, moreso than usual, in their days within the Feldmere. The poor daelvar seemed always on the verge of a nervous breakdown while Fen had seemed to become ever more serene than normal, if that were possible.</p><p></p><p>Then it leaped up from its hiding place in the muck surrounding the mound. A serpent, huge by any definition its brown-black scales glistened in the limited light of the afternoon.</p><p></p><p>Buttercream immediately hunched her furry back and hissed loudly at the snake.</p><p></p><p>"Bloody hells, I<em> hate</em> this swamp!" Duor cried out in surprise as a bolt from his hand crossbow flung, sorely off the mark. </p><p></p><p>The weapons, which were almost constantly drawn since their second day in the swamps, rose to face the creature.</p><p></p><p>"Up on the mound!" shouted Erevan. It wasn't a suggestion. The elf shoved Alaria up the slight incline, away from the edge of the mound where the stone sat.</p><p></p><p>Coerraine and Braddok took positions in front of the dwarf and halfling as the stoutfolk scrambled to climb the mound.</p><p></p><p>Festus pulled out his shortbow and reached for arrows.</p><p></p><p>Fen helped Alaria to her feet, sorely displaced by the elf's harsh push, and the two began to climb the mound a bit before turning to take in the scene.</p><p></p><p>The snake struck with devastating accuracy, clamping its fangs into Erevan's shoulder and reeled back for another attack. It easily avoiding Braddok's sword swing and Coerraine's spear jab. The creature was incredibly fast.</p><p></p><p>Erevan fell onto his back, gripping the bleeding punctures of the things fangs. The wound burned worse than fire. The elf knew he was poisoned.</p><p></p><p>He reached back for an arrow from his quiver...either one! But his eyesight faltered and blurred before he could get one on his bowstring. The arrow fell to the mound beside him from limp fingers as his vision darkened.</p><p></p><p>"<em>KIILI!</em>" shouted Fen before occult verse began bursting from his lips.</p><p></p><p>Alaria, simillarly, called to mind a spell and began to incant.</p><p></p><p>[EDIT] Festus [/EDIT] let loose with an arrow from his small bow that whizzed passed the creature by a hair.</p><p></p><p>Braddok blocked a snapping bite from the giant snake, brushing its head aside with a firm "whack!" from his shield.</p><p></p><p>Coerraine "raced" as fast as he could across the soft slippery ground to get his body between the snake and the prone elf. The paladin noticed Erevan's eyes were closed and what little color Erevan normally had in his face was noticeably fading.</p><p></p><p>Ten feet of the thing bobbed above the murky mud, staring with purpose down on the warriors that faced it. Which morsel to strike next?</p><p></p><p>---to be continued---</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="steeldragons, post: 5794540, member: 92511"] The search party found Haelan first, not far beyond the path they had been following. The cleric was bent over, hands on his knees, huffing and puffing. "I'm sorry, Erevan, I tried to catch up. Their legs are so long! I....I don't know where they went. I hope nothing bad has happened to them." the Hilltender panted. Fen placed a reassuring hand on the daelvar's shoulder. "Don't worry, friend Hilltender. We will find them." "Sure you did your best." added Festus as he crouched down to scan the ground. With little trouble they came upon Braddok, standing in a nondescript clearing, surrounded by fog. The swordsman's face was very pale as Erevan broke the mist to see the dark-haired human clearly. "Erevan?...It...it is Erevan, right?" Braddok stammered. The big warrior was visibly shaking. "Am I dead again? There was this....horror...and now I'm here....and the fog is like...[I]before[/I]...and...am I dead again?" Erevan looked at the obviously distraught warrior and said plainly, "No, Braddok. You are not dead." This seemed to reassure Braddok very little until, shortly after the elf, Haelan, Fen and Festus came into view. The big man exhaled audibly and shook off the last remnants of his "fear". "I don't like fear. I have failed you, my friends. I have failed Alaria." Braddok said with disappointment. "Do not be, warrior." Fen, again stepped up to reassure. "The creature has an unnatural...well, no...an [I]enchanted [/I]gaze. There was very little you could have done. Feel no shame." the druid smiled warmly. Braddok shook his head in understanding before asking, "Where is Alaria? Is she ok?" "We're...um...working on that." Festus piped up. "Did you see which way she went?" Braddok admitted he had not. He had raced through the mists in a panic that clouded his still-fragile memory. He had stopped running in this clearing with the distinct horror and panic that he was, again, in the Grey Lands of the dead. Festus began, again, scanning the swamp's soft ground around the clearing. Just as he found what appeared to be a small stamp in the soft marsh-mud a woman's cry rose up from somewhere in the fog. "HELLLLP!!! Braddok? Erevan?! Anybody!" it said. The, now five, companions followed Erevan's keen hearing to find Alaria up to her thighs in muck and mud. She was desperately trying to reach the edge of the mud-hole, in which she was firmly entrenched, with her staff. A little of shimmying later, Braddok, led out to his knees gripping Fen's spear shaft, was able to grab the magess and pull her to safety. "I[I] hate[/I] this swamp." said the R'Hathi wizard as she released Braddok from a thankful hug. "What happened? How did I end up here? Where were you all?!" She bulleted off the questions. The companions filled her and the warrior in on their way back to find Duor smoking a cigar setting atop the fallen bulk of the fear-beast's large body. Coerraine was leaning casually against its side but jumped up as they returned. Alaria began to chuckle and laugh into the wind, to some of the companions confusion. Coerraine, Fen and herself were almost entirely covered in muck and mud. Expending a few simple [I]prestidigitations[/I] to clean up the company, they re-grouped companions again set off in, what Festus was[I] sure[/I] was, the right direction. The next few days passed with relative unevent. [I]<insert Author/DM's 80's-style montage here...>[/I] *The group forced to go to single file through some particularly close underbrush. *Huddled close around a small campfire at night. Keeping two-person watches throughout. *Running away from a surprise encounter with two large alligators. *Festus and Braddok slashing through the brambles and grasses with their blades. * A very nervous Haelan keeping guard with a very calm Fen as an array of strange eyes watched the campsite from the darkness. * Festus, Duor and Braddok arguing over the map and pointing in various different directions. * Butercream munching happily on a large snake that the company had not noticed in the brush beside them. * Alaria, and all of the company, laughing at a satyr covered head-to-hoof in mud who had made a misstep from the path into a pool of mud. The magess performed another [I]prestidigitation[/I] to clean him up. * Erevan and Fen sharing a quiet moment as the others slept. Alert, but comfortable. </end montage> In the afternoon of their fourth day in the Feldmere, they came to the edge of their path. Festus and Braddok quickly backed up with loud "sssshlunk" noises pulling their feet out of the mire that was before them. They had sunk up to their ankles in a moment. Both of the fighting men backed onto the solid-ish path they had be following. A mound of solid looking ground was not more than 20 feet before them. Cursory prodding to their left and right revealed the mucky, sinking ground seemed to extend indefinitely in either direction from their position. Fen strode forward and whispered some incantation of his secretive langauge. Alaria and Erevan heard certain syllables. They were jolting, but not harmful. "--../..-/.." spoke the druid. Alaria, who knew that the language of the Mysteries sounded like nonsense to the "uninitiated" couldn't help but wonder the origin of this completely alien language of the druids. A five foot wide path of the muddy loam seemed to come together and form something of a causeway for the group that extended across the span to the mound. <[I]Author/DM's note: Druid spell: a reversed "Soften Earth"[/I]> The group moved, carefully at first, out onto Fen's magically created ground. When they'd reached the mound, Erevan strode off to the side and knelt beside what appeared to be a small bump of weeds and vines. The elf wiped and pulled the vegetation clear to reveal a marker of severely eroded and pitted white stone, like the Selurian's used. The inscriptions on the stone, however were most definitely not Selurian...nor were they in any elvish tongue Erevan or Fen understood fully...though it appeared to them to be similar to elvish. Alaria set to examining the stone with Erevan. "It is, perhaps, some proto-elvin tongue?", Alaria posed. "Ancient as the stone seems to be. Not like the tongue we know today. Could it be ShiStaliiri?" the magess posed to the "young" Miralostae elf Fen seemed distracted by something in the mud they had crossed over. "What is it, Fen?" Haelan asked with his normal innocent curiosity which had become thoroughly tainted with worry, moreso than usual, in their days within the Feldmere. The poor daelvar seemed always on the verge of a nervous breakdown while Fen had seemed to become ever more serene than normal, if that were possible. Then it leaped up from its hiding place in the muck surrounding the mound. A serpent, huge by any definition its brown-black scales glistened in the limited light of the afternoon. Buttercream immediately hunched her furry back and hissed loudly at the snake. "Bloody hells, I[I] hate[/I] this swamp!" Duor cried out in surprise as a bolt from his hand crossbow flung, sorely off the mark. The weapons, which were almost constantly drawn since their second day in the swamps, rose to face the creature. "Up on the mound!" shouted Erevan. It wasn't a suggestion. The elf shoved Alaria up the slight incline, away from the edge of the mound where the stone sat. Coerraine and Braddok took positions in front of the dwarf and halfling as the stoutfolk scrambled to climb the mound. Festus pulled out his shortbow and reached for arrows. Fen helped Alaria to her feet, sorely displaced by the elf's harsh push, and the two began to climb the mound a bit before turning to take in the scene. The snake struck with devastating accuracy, clamping its fangs into Erevan's shoulder and reeled back for another attack. It easily avoiding Braddok's sword swing and Coerraine's spear jab. The creature was incredibly fast. Erevan fell onto his back, gripping the bleeding punctures of the things fangs. The wound burned worse than fire. The elf knew he was poisoned. He reached back for an arrow from his quiver...either one! But his eyesight faltered and blurred before he could get one on his bowstring. The arrow fell to the mound beside him from limp fingers as his vision darkened. "[I]KIILI![/I]" shouted Fen before occult verse began bursting from his lips. Alaria, simillarly, called to mind a spell and began to incant. [EDIT] Festus [/EDIT] let loose with an arrow from his small bow that whizzed passed the creature by a hair. Braddok blocked a snapping bite from the giant snake, brushing its head aside with a firm "whack!" from his shield. Coerraine "raced" as fast as he could across the soft slippery ground to get his body between the snake and the prone elf. The paladin noticed Erevan's eyes were closed and what little color Erevan normally had in his face was noticeably fading. Ten feet of the thing bobbed above the murky mud, staring with purpose down on the warriors that faced it. Which morsel to strike next? ---to be continued--- [/QUOTE]
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