Well, it's been a while since I tried to write anything, so I thought I'd see what I could do with the new War of the Burning Sky campaign. This obviously contains spoliers for that AP. 
To that end, I will be scribing up a kind of lightly fictionalized account of our sessions as I have time. If I move the occasional encounter around or put words in one of my fellow player's mouths... well, most of them don't read this board anyway!
Constructive criticism is always welcome.
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Snow swirled down in fat, heavy flakes, a city's worth of pigeons coming home to roost. I pulled my cloak tighter around me, wishing I'd brought something heavier. This festering boil of a city might look slightly better in the winter, but the same mountain pass that made it important made it colder than an Inquisitor's heart.
I wondered again what in the world I was doing here and whether honor had brought me to the right place. Ever since the Immortal Emperor of Ragesia had vanished, things had been so confusing. That witch, Leska, had been abusing her power ever since, using her Inquisitors as a secret police force to round up any potential dissent to her new
rule. She even had some kind of vendetta against arcanists; Leska's men had even stolen away Old Ilse, our tribe's wise-woman, as if that crone had any thought beyond her next meal or playing with her latest grandchild.
Now here I was, half a thousand miles away and traipsing through falling snow with as misfit a group as I had ever seen. If this was the best Gate's Pass fledgling resistance could put together, the whole town was going to ground to dust as soon as the Ragesian Army in the valley below could get organized. Looking around at the windows shuttered against the cold, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for these people. Caught between Leska's ambition and the Shahalesti Elves on the other side of the mountains, they didn't stand a chance. I'd delivered the warning of coming forces and done my part. Now it was time to go.
A soft, tentative voice floated back on the breeze. "Poison Apple Pub, just ahead, snow already thick on her shoulders." It hadn't taken me long to learn not to question Jaela's eyes. Even through the thickly swirling snow, the Shifter had effortlessly picked out the shadowy building. As disconnected from reality as she might seem, her sharp eyes missed very little. I smirked to myself, flashing my tusks. Now if only she didn't occasionally see things that weren't there at all.
Sure enough, I made out the outline of the meeting point a few seconds later. An old, run-down building even in this part of town, the Poison Apple was currently closed and boarded up, the note tacked to the door stating that the owner had been arrested under suspicion of
working against Ragesia. I sneered at the sign, more proof that the lackwits that ruled in Gate's Pass planned to be as inviting to the incoming army as any other whores.
Shuffling around to the side of the building through the quickly deepening drifts, I knocked on the door as instructed. When it didn't open, Timmo appeared like a ghost over a disturbed grave, his already quiet movements further masked by the snow. Giving his trademark disturbing grin, the little Halfling made some picks appear as if by magic in his tiny hand. Speaking more to himself than anyone present, the little thief commented, "I'll have it open in two shakes."
Before he could make good on his boast, the door swung out of its own accord. The wan candlelight that spilled out into the night, revealed a heavily armored woman with hair as white as any old woman's, despite her young and athletic form. Looking up and down the alley, she ushered the three of us in without comment.
The Pub was mostly deserted, with the furniture stacked in the corner near the bar, drop cloths keeping off the dust. The rest of the place was empty but for a lone table with a candle flickering forlornly on it and a circle of chairs pulled up close. Two of the chairs were
already occupied and I felt my hand rising of its own accord to the hilt over my right shoulder. One chair held another shifter, but the other… an enormous Dragonborn lounged at the table. That scaly bastard was easily the biggest thing I've ever seen on two legs, at
least six and a half feet tall and carrying an axe bigger than most war shields. He was eyeing us coldly, one arm curled protectively around the relatively tiny shifter leaning against his bulk. "Peace, you two," said the white-maned woman as she closed the door behind Jaela, glaring at the pair of us.
"My name is Torrent. And with so much violence about to spill into this city, we don't need any more to start the New Year. You're all here because of the Resistance. Jaela, Timmo, Jedrek, I'd like you to meet Rhogar," with a nod to the Dragonborn hulk, "and his wife Rose. They've been with us for a while now, though she's still learning the Common Tongue of the Empire."
I have to admit, I probably gaped like a landed fish. The huge Dragonborn and the tiny shifter... I shared a look with Timmo, who shook his head in disbelief. I glanced over at Jaela, but she seemed currently fascinated by the way her fingers flexed as she moved her
hand. With an inward sigh, I turned back to the 'couple' at the table. "I'm Jedrek, this is Timmo, and Jaela's the one over there." The Dragonborn nodded agreeably enough, his blue-white scales gleaming by candlelight.
Feeling the tension in the room abate a bit, Torrent moved up to the table. Dipping a wooden tankard into a cask I hadn't noticed on the floor, she held it up and told us to grab our own. Once everyone was seated, she took a slug of beer like the drink had personally offended her, slouching in her chair and staring off into space gloomily. "Just because we're about to be invaded and the spineless slugs on the council are going to open the gates, there's no reason we can't celebrate the New Year. To lost friends.” With that rather morose toast, she downed her mug in three swift swallows.
Our odd group sat quietly for a minute or two, drinking and lost in our own thoughts. Torrent shook herself like a horse bothered by flies and sat up. “Alright, enough of that. You’ve all helped the Resistance before, for your own reasons. Some of you are just looking
to get out of town. Others believe in the cause or want to save lives. Regardless, we need to ask for another bit of assistance. A spy, a slippery little gnome by the name of Rivereye Badgerface,” she paused, waiting for our snickering to die down before continuing “yes, his name is a bit odd. He’s a rather effective spy, though. The slippery little bugger is in a guarded depository about a half-mile from here. He managed to ‘liberate’ a case of vital military intelligence from the Ragesian palace and the heads of the Resistance think it needs to reach the Lyceum. I need your help to get that case, get out of the city, and get far away from here before the idiot city council lets the Ragesian Inquisitors in. Once that happens, the odds of us escaping are… slim, at best.”
Jaela suddenly stirred from whatever internal world she generally inhabited. “I was on my way to the Lyceum once. Leading a friend there to study, the best mage academy in the lands. We didn’t know about the Inquisitors or the danger. My friend did a few tricks, entertaining some children. Just a few colored lights to make them laugh. The next morning, she was gone. Taken.” She waved a hand in the air, batting away memories, perhaps. “It’s far from here, to the south. Dassen’s southern peninsula.” We all stared at her, Timmo and I shocked to hear her string together so many words in a reasonably coherent stretch. Oblivious to our continued staring, she went back to idly carving designs in the table with her dagger.
Torrent nodded, though she continued to view Jaela a bit skeptically. “I have a plan. South of Gate’s Pass is the Forest of Innenotdar. No one knows what happened there during the last war, but the forest has been aflame for the last few decades. I’ve got potions – enough for all of us for six days – to get us through the forest, protected from the flames.” She smiled, tight and cold. “Let’s see those Ragesian bastards follow us through there.” Her smile faltered, turned brittle. “Of course, we have to get there, first, and the gates are currently closed to all but military personnel. We’ll have a time getting out of town, even if we can get our hands on the case.”
Timmo cleared his throat, drawing our attention. If nothing else, the little man loved his drama and picked his moments with care. And his knives, but I was trying not to think about that at the moment. “If I remember what I’ve heard on the street right, Erdan Menash is one of the few on the council that doesn’t like the Ragesians. I’m pretty sure he could convince the Guard to let us out, even if the gates are supposed to be closed. Or maybe he could get us some uniforms.” Idly walking a coin down his knuckles, the Halfling smiled at the flicker of light in the dark room. “Might be a way out of town. He owes me one anyway, I bought one of his oddball weapons.” He looked around the table, probably hoping someone would ask to see one of his little toys.
I cleared my throat. “My father always told me to kill the man in front of you before you looked for his backup.” I looked around the table, gauging reactions. “We need to get the case before we worry about getting out of town.”
Torrent nodded. “We’ve an hour from the midnight bells before Rivereye leaves the Depository. It’s not that far from here, though, so it shouldn’t be an issue.” She sighed. “I’m no soldier, but I feel like a coward, running from the Ragesians. But this mission is important. We have to get that case. It could be worth more than all of our lives, depending on what information it contains.” The bells began tolling midnight, as if on cue, their forlorn tolling like a call to a funeral given the current mood in the Poison Apple Pub.
The Dragonborn’s voice rumbled into life between the bell’s tolls, startling us all with its depths. “You are not a coward. You act to save other lives. A commander must be the one who leads, inspiring his men with his example and showing them the path. The way is not always glamorous. But it is vital that he sees the battlefield and drives forward, choosing not the most popular or easiest path but the one most likely to lead to victory.” It was an odd speech, but even I felt a bit stirred by it. You could feel the conviction in his voice, radiating like heat from a campfire. Torrent straightened a bit in her chair, heartened by his words.
Nearly hidden by Rhogar’s speech, a couple of quiet thumps sounded on the roof. I took them for snow sliding under the continuing fall outside, but I noticed that both Shifters kept their eyes on the floor above us as Torrent started speaking again.
“Alright then. We move forward. We’ll go to the Depository, get the documents, then see this contact of Timmo’s and escape the city. We must not fail or the Resistance may fail with us.” The bells, finally done declaring midnight, fell silent.
Rose suddenly kicked her chair back from the table, letting it topple to the ground as she pulled a staff from beneath the table. Jaela looked at the clatter before returning her eyes to the ceiling. “We’re not alone. Footsteps above.” My eyes darted around the room, seeking a passage to the upper floor, half-orcish heritage serving me well in the gloom. I spotted the stairs against the far wall, noticing belatedly that Timmo was already crouching at their base, staring upward into the darkness. Little bastard moves like a cat when he feels like it.
We moved to encircle the stairs, Torrent standing as if frozen by the table. Timmo struck a sunrod, momentarily blinding me, before the two of us began cautiously ascending the stairs. Rhogar and Jaela moved together on the ground floor, while Jaela took the lead, passing us on the stairs to put her heavier armor and shield between us and harm. Timmo had reached the landing above when a voice called from outside, “Now!” and a hammering slam sounded at the front door.
Swearing in orcish, I dove from the stairs and sprinted across the pub. I dove across the bar and landed near the piles of discarded furniture. With a grunt of effort, I picked one up, still trailing the drop cloth, planning to reinforce the front door before they could knock it down. Before I could take two steps in that direction, though, the door splintered inward, letting in a swirl of cold air and a pair of thuggish-looking men in mis-matched armor. Standing behind them, dropping a portable ram, a rather large and scruffy man was in the process of drawing an axe, with several more thugs crowding behind him. We were about to get overrun.
I could have set down the table and pulled myself another beer for all my blade was needed, though. Rose lifted her staff and pointed at the door, hissing something in a bizarre voice. The end of her weapon kindled with flame that shot across the room, striking and burning the
man who had just knocked down the door. The flames split apart and curled like snakes, settling all around the man and incinerating his companions as they screamed.
An explosion sounded overhead, rocking the entire building and sending splintering wood scattering in all directions. Burning oil poured through from above, scalding my scalp as I changed direction and used my table to block the side-door to the Pub. I had to keep us from being surrounded. Not to mention that I wanted nothing to do with Rose and her snakes of flame.
Footsteps and cries continued upstairs, the heavy tread of Jaela’s boots mixed with Timmo’s much quieter steps Judging by the rapid pounding of footfalls, they had found our visitors. I heard an ominous crackling and groaning from the timber over my head and got my hands up just in time to block part of the falling ceiling. Coughing and spitting up dust, I looked up into an inferno that would have made the Spirit of the Flamebringer Dragon proud. Ragesian oil-bombs had obviously hit the building and the entire upper floor was on fire and beginning to come down.
I heard a meaty thunk and a bellowing voice, drawing me back to the fight on my own floor. The thug, still bracketed by the Shifter’s living flame, had hurled his axe and struck Rhogar in the face. I snarled, dragging my feet through the fallen debris as I began closing on the man. The little Shifter apparently took the threat to her husband a bit more spitefully than I did. She slammed her staff into the ground with an oddly muted thumping sound. The wooden shaft suddenly burst into new, green life that extended in a thorny whip of vine that wrapped around the man, blood spurting from his body where the thorns dug in. She then set her feet and yanked him directly into and through the flames she had created. Writhing like living things, they lept from the floor and struck, burning him horribly before flickering out. Rhogar stepped up and cried out “Form on me, we cut our way out of here!” before finishing the man off with a swipe of his own battle axe.
Looking at the ceiling over the Dragonborn’s head and noticing that it was going to be the next chunk to fall, I decided not to take his command. Grabbing Torrent, who still looked shocked at all the violence around her, I drug her outside into the snow. After the heat and flame of the fire inside, the falling snow felt good on my face. A roaring crunch inside told me I’d been right about the ceiling falling and a minute later the Dragonborn and his wife came outside, the Dragonborn gingerly touching his split facial scales and some new
bruises on his head.
Poking my head back inside of the rapidly collapsing pub, I shouted, “Timmo! Jaela! Grandfather always said that only a fool fights in a burning building!” Rhogar nodded, apparently agreeing with grandfather’s wisdom. Rose darted off, though, heading to the alley that had let us inside in the first place. Handing Torrent to Rhogar, I followed in time to see her incinerate a trio of attack dogs with those same odd snakes of fire. The attacker’s shadowy leader decided that he wanted no part of us without his men and scrambled away on horseback through the trash-choked alleyway.
With a pair of thumps in the snow, Timmo and Jaela appeared in the alleyway, dropping out of a shattered window and into the soft snow. Glancing up at the Pub, engulfed in flame, Timmo cocked an eyebrow at me and commented, “Well, it’s a good bet the Empire knows we’re here.”
Rose raised an arm, pointing out into Gate’s Pass and hissing and spitting in her odd voice, in no language that I recognized. “She says that the Empire has hit the city, not just us.” I turned, noticing that Rhogar had rejoined us with the still-shaken Torrent. Sure enough, the city was aflame in many locations, brightening the night with curtains of flame.
Overhead, the shrill cry of a wyvern cut the night as one of the bombing crews prepared for another run. The griffon-riders that should have been protecting the city were nowhere to be seen. As I scanned the sky, on the lookout for any new incoming bombs, I noticed Jaela staring with delight at a passing Wyvern. “The thumps before the fight… Wyvern poop!” With a happy grin, she began scooping up snow for a snowball. “Plop!” Timmo and I shared a glance. It looked like a long night was just getting started.
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Everywhere we looked, people had been rousted from their New Year’s Celebrations to deal with the attack. A family stumbled from a burning building, coughing up smoke and dragging their meager belongings behind them. As we passed, the father begged us for help.
Rhogar immediately turned aside, offering first aid to the father and then easing the breathing of one of the children with some kind of herbal concoction. I had to admit it made me smile to see the huge Dragonborn caring for the human child, who stared at this scaled apparition from out of the snowy darkness in a mixture of fear and awe.
Another building farther along had caught an oil-bomb on the second floor, trapping residents above. Most had managed to climb or jump to safety, but one woman was clutching a window on the fourth floor, too frightened to move. Timmo threw a grappling hook into the window beside the woman, deftly hooking it and giving her a way down. Already seeing how this was going to go, I pulled out my winter blanket and gave a corner to Jaela as a makeshift safety net.
Sure enough, the trembling woman made it less than five feet down the rope before losing her grip and tumbling down the building. We easily caught her, lowering her shaking form to the street and leaving her in the care of her family.
We had nearly made it out of the burning district, with one of the city walls in sight ahead, when cries of terror rose from the crowd ahead. Like a rising tide, people began fleeing from the wall ahead. I was about to draw my blade when irrational fear crashed through my mind and filled my head with only one thought: GET AWAY. Pushing and shoving through the crowd, I bounced my head off a building at one point. The sharp pain in my already abused skull was enough to clear my thoughts and I scanned the crowd for my compatriots. Timmo was nowhere in sight and probably hiding out of the way of the crowd, Rose was running in terror with the rest of the mass of folk, and Rhogar was trying to chase her even as the crowd shoved and jostled him farther away. In the end, the panic died as quickly as it started, though the Dragonborn was a little the worse for wear after getting nearly trampled by the crowd while trying to reach his wife.
I was trying to find out if everyone was okay when I noticed Jaela staring fixedly into the sky. Worried she might have taken a blow to the head that could have made her even odder than usual, I walked up as Timmo melted out of the crowd on the other side. “In the sky, wings of crimson. A Wrackspurt, maybe?” Timmo and I shared yet another glance. If she wasn’t so quick to notice detail or useful in a fight, it’s doubtful we would have even considered travelling with her. If something had been in the sky, it was long gone and no one else had seen it.
Every time we stopped, even as we took a quick breather after the near-trampling of the crowd, Torrent stared at the sky. She was fuming at the delay, her sense of duty chafing at the time slipping past.
The last straw was a merchant, whose ‘baby’ had run off. Begging for our help, he told us that he had tried to take shelter in an old church before Kiki had squirmed loose and run off. Despite Torrent’s impatience, we followed his directions half a block to the old building. Jaela lowered her nose nearly to the snow, taking a deep sniff before looking around for tracks. Standing up, she pointed down a side-street. “Big weasel, went off that way. Smells of fear and sulfur.” She looked serious for a moment. “He over-feeds it, too many sweets.”
When I started following the tracks Jaela had spotted, Torrent finally exploded. “It’s a WEASEL! Time is slipping away, the city is under attack, and you lot want to go chasing weasels! At least the rest were human.” Rose looked murderous, Jaela appeared amused by her outburst, but Rhogar was the one who responded. “Lady Torrent… may I point out that not one of US is ‘human’? Would you have us be as callous as our enemy? This man obviously regards his pet highly.”
Whatever reply the outraged woman might have come up with was cut short as Timmo and I returned. “Besides,” piped the Halfling, “not only did I find the little walking fur coat in the sewers that Jedrek pointed out, I also found this down there.” Holding the wayward weasel in one arm, he held up a box in the other.
Shimmering fabric picked up the glints of firelight as a beautiful cloak was revealed inside the box. Despite the filth encrusting the box, Timmo, and the weasel, the cloak was clean and pristine. Sigils and runes were stitched deep into the cloth and it appeared to billow slightly, more than the snowy breeze could explain. “Ooh,” Jaela said brightly, “Looks magic.”
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<END SESSION ONE>
To that end, I will be scribing up a kind of lightly fictionalized account of our sessions as I have time. If I move the occasional encounter around or put words in one of my fellow player's mouths... well, most of them don't read this board anyway!
Constructive criticism is always welcome.
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Snow swirled down in fat, heavy flakes, a city's worth of pigeons coming home to roost. I pulled my cloak tighter around me, wishing I'd brought something heavier. This festering boil of a city might look slightly better in the winter, but the same mountain pass that made it important made it colder than an Inquisitor's heart.
I wondered again what in the world I was doing here and whether honor had brought me to the right place. Ever since the Immortal Emperor of Ragesia had vanished, things had been so confusing. That witch, Leska, had been abusing her power ever since, using her Inquisitors as a secret police force to round up any potential dissent to her new
rule. She even had some kind of vendetta against arcanists; Leska's men had even stolen away Old Ilse, our tribe's wise-woman, as if that crone had any thought beyond her next meal or playing with her latest grandchild.
Now here I was, half a thousand miles away and traipsing through falling snow with as misfit a group as I had ever seen. If this was the best Gate's Pass fledgling resistance could put together, the whole town was going to ground to dust as soon as the Ragesian Army in the valley below could get organized. Looking around at the windows shuttered against the cold, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for these people. Caught between Leska's ambition and the Shahalesti Elves on the other side of the mountains, they didn't stand a chance. I'd delivered the warning of coming forces and done my part. Now it was time to go.
A soft, tentative voice floated back on the breeze. "Poison Apple Pub, just ahead, snow already thick on her shoulders." It hadn't taken me long to learn not to question Jaela's eyes. Even through the thickly swirling snow, the Shifter had effortlessly picked out the shadowy building. As disconnected from reality as she might seem, her sharp eyes missed very little. I smirked to myself, flashing my tusks. Now if only she didn't occasionally see things that weren't there at all.
Sure enough, I made out the outline of the meeting point a few seconds later. An old, run-down building even in this part of town, the Poison Apple was currently closed and boarded up, the note tacked to the door stating that the owner had been arrested under suspicion of
working against Ragesia. I sneered at the sign, more proof that the lackwits that ruled in Gate's Pass planned to be as inviting to the incoming army as any other whores.
Shuffling around to the side of the building through the quickly deepening drifts, I knocked on the door as instructed. When it didn't open, Timmo appeared like a ghost over a disturbed grave, his already quiet movements further masked by the snow. Giving his trademark disturbing grin, the little Halfling made some picks appear as if by magic in his tiny hand. Speaking more to himself than anyone present, the little thief commented, "I'll have it open in two shakes."
Before he could make good on his boast, the door swung out of its own accord. The wan candlelight that spilled out into the night, revealed a heavily armored woman with hair as white as any old woman's, despite her young and athletic form. Looking up and down the alley, she ushered the three of us in without comment.
The Pub was mostly deserted, with the furniture stacked in the corner near the bar, drop cloths keeping off the dust. The rest of the place was empty but for a lone table with a candle flickering forlornly on it and a circle of chairs pulled up close. Two of the chairs were
already occupied and I felt my hand rising of its own accord to the hilt over my right shoulder. One chair held another shifter, but the other… an enormous Dragonborn lounged at the table. That scaly bastard was easily the biggest thing I've ever seen on two legs, at
least six and a half feet tall and carrying an axe bigger than most war shields. He was eyeing us coldly, one arm curled protectively around the relatively tiny shifter leaning against his bulk. "Peace, you two," said the white-maned woman as she closed the door behind Jaela, glaring at the pair of us.
"My name is Torrent. And with so much violence about to spill into this city, we don't need any more to start the New Year. You're all here because of the Resistance. Jaela, Timmo, Jedrek, I'd like you to meet Rhogar," with a nod to the Dragonborn hulk, "and his wife Rose. They've been with us for a while now, though she's still learning the Common Tongue of the Empire."
I have to admit, I probably gaped like a landed fish. The huge Dragonborn and the tiny shifter... I shared a look with Timmo, who shook his head in disbelief. I glanced over at Jaela, but she seemed currently fascinated by the way her fingers flexed as she moved her
hand. With an inward sigh, I turned back to the 'couple' at the table. "I'm Jedrek, this is Timmo, and Jaela's the one over there." The Dragonborn nodded agreeably enough, his blue-white scales gleaming by candlelight.
Feeling the tension in the room abate a bit, Torrent moved up to the table. Dipping a wooden tankard into a cask I hadn't noticed on the floor, she held it up and told us to grab our own. Once everyone was seated, she took a slug of beer like the drink had personally offended her, slouching in her chair and staring off into space gloomily. "Just because we're about to be invaded and the spineless slugs on the council are going to open the gates, there's no reason we can't celebrate the New Year. To lost friends.” With that rather morose toast, she downed her mug in three swift swallows.
Our odd group sat quietly for a minute or two, drinking and lost in our own thoughts. Torrent shook herself like a horse bothered by flies and sat up. “Alright, enough of that. You’ve all helped the Resistance before, for your own reasons. Some of you are just looking
to get out of town. Others believe in the cause or want to save lives. Regardless, we need to ask for another bit of assistance. A spy, a slippery little gnome by the name of Rivereye Badgerface,” she paused, waiting for our snickering to die down before continuing “yes, his name is a bit odd. He’s a rather effective spy, though. The slippery little bugger is in a guarded depository about a half-mile from here. He managed to ‘liberate’ a case of vital military intelligence from the Ragesian palace and the heads of the Resistance think it needs to reach the Lyceum. I need your help to get that case, get out of the city, and get far away from here before the idiot city council lets the Ragesian Inquisitors in. Once that happens, the odds of us escaping are… slim, at best.”
Jaela suddenly stirred from whatever internal world she generally inhabited. “I was on my way to the Lyceum once. Leading a friend there to study, the best mage academy in the lands. We didn’t know about the Inquisitors or the danger. My friend did a few tricks, entertaining some children. Just a few colored lights to make them laugh. The next morning, she was gone. Taken.” She waved a hand in the air, batting away memories, perhaps. “It’s far from here, to the south. Dassen’s southern peninsula.” We all stared at her, Timmo and I shocked to hear her string together so many words in a reasonably coherent stretch. Oblivious to our continued staring, she went back to idly carving designs in the table with her dagger.
Torrent nodded, though she continued to view Jaela a bit skeptically. “I have a plan. South of Gate’s Pass is the Forest of Innenotdar. No one knows what happened there during the last war, but the forest has been aflame for the last few decades. I’ve got potions – enough for all of us for six days – to get us through the forest, protected from the flames.” She smiled, tight and cold. “Let’s see those Ragesian bastards follow us through there.” Her smile faltered, turned brittle. “Of course, we have to get there, first, and the gates are currently closed to all but military personnel. We’ll have a time getting out of town, even if we can get our hands on the case.”
Timmo cleared his throat, drawing our attention. If nothing else, the little man loved his drama and picked his moments with care. And his knives, but I was trying not to think about that at the moment. “If I remember what I’ve heard on the street right, Erdan Menash is one of the few on the council that doesn’t like the Ragesians. I’m pretty sure he could convince the Guard to let us out, even if the gates are supposed to be closed. Or maybe he could get us some uniforms.” Idly walking a coin down his knuckles, the Halfling smiled at the flicker of light in the dark room. “Might be a way out of town. He owes me one anyway, I bought one of his oddball weapons.” He looked around the table, probably hoping someone would ask to see one of his little toys.
I cleared my throat. “My father always told me to kill the man in front of you before you looked for his backup.” I looked around the table, gauging reactions. “We need to get the case before we worry about getting out of town.”
Torrent nodded. “We’ve an hour from the midnight bells before Rivereye leaves the Depository. It’s not that far from here, though, so it shouldn’t be an issue.” She sighed. “I’m no soldier, but I feel like a coward, running from the Ragesians. But this mission is important. We have to get that case. It could be worth more than all of our lives, depending on what information it contains.” The bells began tolling midnight, as if on cue, their forlorn tolling like a call to a funeral given the current mood in the Poison Apple Pub.
The Dragonborn’s voice rumbled into life between the bell’s tolls, startling us all with its depths. “You are not a coward. You act to save other lives. A commander must be the one who leads, inspiring his men with his example and showing them the path. The way is not always glamorous. But it is vital that he sees the battlefield and drives forward, choosing not the most popular or easiest path but the one most likely to lead to victory.” It was an odd speech, but even I felt a bit stirred by it. You could feel the conviction in his voice, radiating like heat from a campfire. Torrent straightened a bit in her chair, heartened by his words.
Nearly hidden by Rhogar’s speech, a couple of quiet thumps sounded on the roof. I took them for snow sliding under the continuing fall outside, but I noticed that both Shifters kept their eyes on the floor above us as Torrent started speaking again.
“Alright then. We move forward. We’ll go to the Depository, get the documents, then see this contact of Timmo’s and escape the city. We must not fail or the Resistance may fail with us.” The bells, finally done declaring midnight, fell silent.
Rose suddenly kicked her chair back from the table, letting it topple to the ground as she pulled a staff from beneath the table. Jaela looked at the clatter before returning her eyes to the ceiling. “We’re not alone. Footsteps above.” My eyes darted around the room, seeking a passage to the upper floor, half-orcish heritage serving me well in the gloom. I spotted the stairs against the far wall, noticing belatedly that Timmo was already crouching at their base, staring upward into the darkness. Little bastard moves like a cat when he feels like it.
We moved to encircle the stairs, Torrent standing as if frozen by the table. Timmo struck a sunrod, momentarily blinding me, before the two of us began cautiously ascending the stairs. Rhogar and Jaela moved together on the ground floor, while Jaela took the lead, passing us on the stairs to put her heavier armor and shield between us and harm. Timmo had reached the landing above when a voice called from outside, “Now!” and a hammering slam sounded at the front door.
Swearing in orcish, I dove from the stairs and sprinted across the pub. I dove across the bar and landed near the piles of discarded furniture. With a grunt of effort, I picked one up, still trailing the drop cloth, planning to reinforce the front door before they could knock it down. Before I could take two steps in that direction, though, the door splintered inward, letting in a swirl of cold air and a pair of thuggish-looking men in mis-matched armor. Standing behind them, dropping a portable ram, a rather large and scruffy man was in the process of drawing an axe, with several more thugs crowding behind him. We were about to get overrun.
I could have set down the table and pulled myself another beer for all my blade was needed, though. Rose lifted her staff and pointed at the door, hissing something in a bizarre voice. The end of her weapon kindled with flame that shot across the room, striking and burning the
man who had just knocked down the door. The flames split apart and curled like snakes, settling all around the man and incinerating his companions as they screamed.
An explosion sounded overhead, rocking the entire building and sending splintering wood scattering in all directions. Burning oil poured through from above, scalding my scalp as I changed direction and used my table to block the side-door to the Pub. I had to keep us from being surrounded. Not to mention that I wanted nothing to do with Rose and her snakes of flame.
Footsteps and cries continued upstairs, the heavy tread of Jaela’s boots mixed with Timmo’s much quieter steps Judging by the rapid pounding of footfalls, they had found our visitors. I heard an ominous crackling and groaning from the timber over my head and got my hands up just in time to block part of the falling ceiling. Coughing and spitting up dust, I looked up into an inferno that would have made the Spirit of the Flamebringer Dragon proud. Ragesian oil-bombs had obviously hit the building and the entire upper floor was on fire and beginning to come down.
I heard a meaty thunk and a bellowing voice, drawing me back to the fight on my own floor. The thug, still bracketed by the Shifter’s living flame, had hurled his axe and struck Rhogar in the face. I snarled, dragging my feet through the fallen debris as I began closing on the man. The little Shifter apparently took the threat to her husband a bit more spitefully than I did. She slammed her staff into the ground with an oddly muted thumping sound. The wooden shaft suddenly burst into new, green life that extended in a thorny whip of vine that wrapped around the man, blood spurting from his body where the thorns dug in. She then set her feet and yanked him directly into and through the flames she had created. Writhing like living things, they lept from the floor and struck, burning him horribly before flickering out. Rhogar stepped up and cried out “Form on me, we cut our way out of here!” before finishing the man off with a swipe of his own battle axe.
Looking at the ceiling over the Dragonborn’s head and noticing that it was going to be the next chunk to fall, I decided not to take his command. Grabbing Torrent, who still looked shocked at all the violence around her, I drug her outside into the snow. After the heat and flame of the fire inside, the falling snow felt good on my face. A roaring crunch inside told me I’d been right about the ceiling falling and a minute later the Dragonborn and his wife came outside, the Dragonborn gingerly touching his split facial scales and some new
bruises on his head.
Poking my head back inside of the rapidly collapsing pub, I shouted, “Timmo! Jaela! Grandfather always said that only a fool fights in a burning building!” Rhogar nodded, apparently agreeing with grandfather’s wisdom. Rose darted off, though, heading to the alley that had let us inside in the first place. Handing Torrent to Rhogar, I followed in time to see her incinerate a trio of attack dogs with those same odd snakes of fire. The attacker’s shadowy leader decided that he wanted no part of us without his men and scrambled away on horseback through the trash-choked alleyway.
With a pair of thumps in the snow, Timmo and Jaela appeared in the alleyway, dropping out of a shattered window and into the soft snow. Glancing up at the Pub, engulfed in flame, Timmo cocked an eyebrow at me and commented, “Well, it’s a good bet the Empire knows we’re here.”
Rose raised an arm, pointing out into Gate’s Pass and hissing and spitting in her odd voice, in no language that I recognized. “She says that the Empire has hit the city, not just us.” I turned, noticing that Rhogar had rejoined us with the still-shaken Torrent. Sure enough, the city was aflame in many locations, brightening the night with curtains of flame.
Overhead, the shrill cry of a wyvern cut the night as one of the bombing crews prepared for another run. The griffon-riders that should have been protecting the city were nowhere to be seen. As I scanned the sky, on the lookout for any new incoming bombs, I noticed Jaela staring with delight at a passing Wyvern. “The thumps before the fight… Wyvern poop!” With a happy grin, she began scooping up snow for a snowball. “Plop!” Timmo and I shared a glance. It looked like a long night was just getting started.
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Everywhere we looked, people had been rousted from their New Year’s Celebrations to deal with the attack. A family stumbled from a burning building, coughing up smoke and dragging their meager belongings behind them. As we passed, the father begged us for help.
Rhogar immediately turned aside, offering first aid to the father and then easing the breathing of one of the children with some kind of herbal concoction. I had to admit it made me smile to see the huge Dragonborn caring for the human child, who stared at this scaled apparition from out of the snowy darkness in a mixture of fear and awe.
Another building farther along had caught an oil-bomb on the second floor, trapping residents above. Most had managed to climb or jump to safety, but one woman was clutching a window on the fourth floor, too frightened to move. Timmo threw a grappling hook into the window beside the woman, deftly hooking it and giving her a way down. Already seeing how this was going to go, I pulled out my winter blanket and gave a corner to Jaela as a makeshift safety net.
Sure enough, the trembling woman made it less than five feet down the rope before losing her grip and tumbling down the building. We easily caught her, lowering her shaking form to the street and leaving her in the care of her family.
We had nearly made it out of the burning district, with one of the city walls in sight ahead, when cries of terror rose from the crowd ahead. Like a rising tide, people began fleeing from the wall ahead. I was about to draw my blade when irrational fear crashed through my mind and filled my head with only one thought: GET AWAY. Pushing and shoving through the crowd, I bounced my head off a building at one point. The sharp pain in my already abused skull was enough to clear my thoughts and I scanned the crowd for my compatriots. Timmo was nowhere in sight and probably hiding out of the way of the crowd, Rose was running in terror with the rest of the mass of folk, and Rhogar was trying to chase her even as the crowd shoved and jostled him farther away. In the end, the panic died as quickly as it started, though the Dragonborn was a little the worse for wear after getting nearly trampled by the crowd while trying to reach his wife.
I was trying to find out if everyone was okay when I noticed Jaela staring fixedly into the sky. Worried she might have taken a blow to the head that could have made her even odder than usual, I walked up as Timmo melted out of the crowd on the other side. “In the sky, wings of crimson. A Wrackspurt, maybe?” Timmo and I shared yet another glance. If she wasn’t so quick to notice detail or useful in a fight, it’s doubtful we would have even considered travelling with her. If something had been in the sky, it was long gone and no one else had seen it.
Every time we stopped, even as we took a quick breather after the near-trampling of the crowd, Torrent stared at the sky. She was fuming at the delay, her sense of duty chafing at the time slipping past.
The last straw was a merchant, whose ‘baby’ had run off. Begging for our help, he told us that he had tried to take shelter in an old church before Kiki had squirmed loose and run off. Despite Torrent’s impatience, we followed his directions half a block to the old building. Jaela lowered her nose nearly to the snow, taking a deep sniff before looking around for tracks. Standing up, she pointed down a side-street. “Big weasel, went off that way. Smells of fear and sulfur.” She looked serious for a moment. “He over-feeds it, too many sweets.”
When I started following the tracks Jaela had spotted, Torrent finally exploded. “It’s a WEASEL! Time is slipping away, the city is under attack, and you lot want to go chasing weasels! At least the rest were human.” Rose looked murderous, Jaela appeared amused by her outburst, but Rhogar was the one who responded. “Lady Torrent… may I point out that not one of US is ‘human’? Would you have us be as callous as our enemy? This man obviously regards his pet highly.”
Whatever reply the outraged woman might have come up with was cut short as Timmo and I returned. “Besides,” piped the Halfling, “not only did I find the little walking fur coat in the sewers that Jedrek pointed out, I also found this down there.” Holding the wayward weasel in one arm, he held up a box in the other.
Shimmering fabric picked up the glints of firelight as a beautiful cloak was revealed inside the box. Despite the filth encrusting the box, Timmo, and the weasel, the cloak was clean and pristine. Sigils and runes were stitched deep into the cloth and it appeared to billow slightly, more than the snowy breeze could explain. “Ooh,” Jaela said brightly, “Looks magic.”
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<END SESSION ONE>
