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Adventures in the Eastern Provinces
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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 7503111" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>“I won't be able to fire my bow,” says Alkor. He groans, rubbing the stump of his right arm. </p><p></p><p>“There must be something we can do. Some magic we can employ.” Sepia looks at Karl hopefully.</p><p></p><p>“There is a ritual,” the wizard replies. “<em>Regenerate.</em> We don't have it, but Spender- the ritualist in Grumbleford- might.”</p><p></p><p>“All right,” Shar declares, “that's our next move. Let's get out of the rift and get to Grumbleford.”</p><p></p><p>“I might have a little trouble climbing the rope,” Alkor says glumly. </p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>When it's time for the ranger to ascend, Sepia and Kane rig a harness at the end of the rope and drop it down. Alkor clambers into it, aided by Karl and Shifty, who are still below with him. Then orzza and Kane haul him up.</p><p></p><p>After that, it's back to the governor's tower. This time, they find three of their soldiers awaiting them. </p><p></p><p>“What's up?” Shifty asks. “You guys are obviously here for some reason.”</p><p></p><p>“Yes, sir. The tower of Deryndradin- it has been attacked, sir.”</p><p></p><p>“The what, now?”</p><p></p><p>“My master's tower,” Karl exclaims. “What happened? Attacked by whom?”</p><p></p><p>“We don't really know,” the guard replies. “But something happened. Some kind of, I don't know, a magic field formed around the tower. And the front door has been bashed in.”</p><p></p><p>Shar glances at Karl. “Do you know anything about that field?”</p><p></p><p>“I know the tower has magical defenses against intrusion, but I've never seen them in action. It could very well be. When did this happen?”</p><p></p><p>“A couple of days ago.”</p><p></p><p>“So either whoever did this is gone, or they're trapped inside.” Karl rests his chin in his hand thoughtfully. </p><p></p><p>“Does your master have any enemies?” asks Shifty. “Or do you?”</p><p></p><p>“Not that I know of.”</p><p></p><p>Alkor asks, “Isn't your tower in Overland?”</p><p></p><p>“Yes.”</p><p></p><p>“So does that mean that we put off going to Grumbleford?”</p><p></p><p>“Maybe we should,” Karl says. “After all, who knows what could be happening with the tower?” </p><p></p><p>“As you pointed out yourself, it's already been several days,” Orzza says. “I think restoring our archer's arm is important enough to delay another couple. Whoever did this is probably long gone.”</p><p></p><p>The party agrees. To Grumbleford. </p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>After a night at the Governor's Inn, they go to see Spender, and after some hard bargaining, trade 300 gold pieces and Orzza's magical glasses, which allow the user to read any language for a scroll of <em>regenerate.</em></p><p></p><p>Soon enough, Alkor is marveling at his new arm. “I am whole again!” he cries. </p><p></p><p>“But look,” Sepia says with a giggle. “It's pale. You're tan, except for your new arm.” </p><p></p><p>The group takes two days in the town, during which Karl learns the rituals <em>brew potion</em> and <em>identify.</em> Then they start the trip back to Overland, making camp at the crossroads as they often do.</p><p></p><p>But that midnight, as most of them are asleep and only Karl is awake on watch, they find themselves assailed. </p><p></p><p>Out of nowhere, a group of wights erupts from the night.</p><p></p><p>Karl shouts a warning and casts a <em>flame burst</em>, catching the wights, who stagger as they close the distance. The rest of our heroes scramble to rise, but the wights fall upon them before they can fully bestir themselves. </p><p></p><p>From behind the wights, another flame slithers into view, this one clinging to a crimson snake like a halo. And following <em>that,</em> come two people that look human- at least, at a glance. </p><p></p><p>Alkar springs up and scrambles back away from the wights, new hand shooting out to grab up his bow. The string thrums under his hand and arrows whistle as they fly into the foe. <em>Ah, that feels good.</em> He can't help but grin. </p><p></p><p>Radiance blazes as Orzza lays about himself, smiting one wight after another. Sepia leaps past him, whip cracking as she attacks the flame snake. Shifty throws a handful of darts and retreats to the opposite side of their campfire. </p><p></p><p>Suddenly a wight topples as a tremendous howl announces that Kane is in the fight. A desiccated arm spins through the air as the barbarian strides to the next foe. </p><p></p><p>“That one's for me, right?” Alkor chortles, sending more arrows into the foe.</p><p></p><p>One of the two humans draws his cloak around himself, and suddenly vanishes in a puff of smoke, only to reappear next to Kane. He strikes, his blade coated with poison. </p><p></p><p>Kane responds with a devastating strike and enters a rage. </p><p></p><p>Shifty and Sepia flank the flame snake and cut it to pieces in mere moments. But the other human meets Alkor's eyes, and the elf finds his world spinning. He tries to look away, but he can't- there is something <em>wrong</em> with those eyes. </p><p></p><p>Those eyes....</p><p></p><p>They're the eyes of serpents.</p><p></p><p>And then the spell breaks as Orzza smashes the weird-eyed man's head in. </p><p></p><p>Alkor looks around, feeling as though he is emerging from a fog. The enemy is down. Shar is healing Kane and Karl, who took the lion's share of the damage. All seems well. And yet....</p><p></p><p>He walks over to the man's corpse and wipes blood from the eyes. </p><p></p><p>Opens the body's mouth and examines his tongue. </p><p></p><p>Turns to his friends, and says, “This guy has the tongue and eyes of a snake. What about the other one.”</p><p></p><p>Shifty peers close. “Yep... What the hell were they?”</p><p></p><p>“And were they connected with whatever happened at my master's tower?” Karl wonders. </p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>They are not disturbed any further that night, except by their own thoughts. Even in the depths of his trance, Alkor can't stop seeing those serpentine eyes. Shifty has a terrifying nightmare of Gnomehome, the hidden community from which he came, and the oozes and slimes that overcame it in a single terrible night. </p><p></p><p>Orzza can't help but feel that his destiny is drawing near. Since connecting with the rest of the party, he has sensed that they are doing important things- things that may ultimately change the world. </p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Just after noon the next day, they reach Overland. They take pride in seeing that it is now surrounded by a low berm, and a pallisade is under construction. The town's central square is en route to Deryndradin's Tower; when they reach it, they are shocked to see a gallows with three bodies swinging from nooses, signs labeling them deserters around their necks. </p><p></p><p>“Uh-oh,” mutters Shifty.</p><p></p><p>Kane stares, mouth set in a grim line. “Those were Double Javelins.” </p><p></p><p>“Over there.” Shifty points toward the Silver Fish, where the party can see a crowd has gathered. </p><p></p><p>The group approaches. There, a red-faced Sheriff Dugan is waving his hands and talking to one of the Double Javelin soldiers. Their conversation halts as the party approaches. The mood of the crowd is ugly; rumbling curses and angry looks are everywhere. </p><p></p><p>“What's going on?” demands Shar. </p><p></p><p>“Your Honors! Thank the gods you're back!” Dugan disengages from the other man and hurries over to them. “We should talk.”</p><p></p><p>“Apparently so,” Shar says. They step outside, but about a score of people follow them. </p><p></p><p>“They beat up my boy!”</p><p></p><p>“They <em>hanged</em> mine! That's my son up there!”</p><p></p><p>“Put it right, Governor!”</p><p></p><p>“Ain't right!”</p><p></p><p>Shifty turns and raises his hands. “Friends, friends,” he cries, “we don't know exactly what has happened here, but I assure you, we will, well, we'll see that justice is done! But first, you have to give us some time to look into things and figure out what's what. Please, give us that time!” </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Dugan tells Shar, “Those Double Javelins are a rowdy bunch. They've stirred up quite a bit of trouble.” </p><p></p><p>“Enough to hang three of them?” demands Kane.</p><p></p><p>Dugan's face reddens once more. “As to that, well, you'd need to talk to Lentor.” He shakes his head. “They have beat several people up, and maybe burned up a bunch of grain and stolen some kocho. But there's more. There was an attack on the wizard's tower. Now it's all a-glow, and one of the Brender kids touched it and got hurt real bad.” He glances at Karl. “The tower is probably more your area than mine. I couldn't figure out...”</p><p></p><p>“We'll look into it,” Karl promises. </p><p></p><p>“Who attacked it?” asks Shifty, rejoining them now that he has at least temporarily mollified the crowd.</p><p></p><p>“Well, we don't know exactly. Different folks saw different stuff. Some say the dead were walking, others that there were giants. Seems like some kind of dark sorcery clouded people's eyes or something.” </p><p></p><p>*** </p><p></p><p>There's a lot going on, all right. A lot for our heroes to check out and look into. And they do so. </p><p></p><p>Kane demands Lentor explain the hangings. </p><p></p><p>“I was running patrols. Three days ago, one of them patrols was ambushed by a group of Double Javelin skirmishers and they were pretty well decimated. Two men died; the others were lucky to escape with their lives. Immediately, I took a group of my best troops to punish them. We found them quickly, and the engagement that ensued left several of them wounded and one dead, with my people suffering only a few superficial wounds. Since we had the advantage, I elected to pursue the enemy.”</p><p></p><p>He shakes his head. “I shouldn't have. We found... something unlike anything I've ever seen. A dog-man of some kind, strapped into a huge suit of metal armor with weird purple crystals set into it. A single blow from its claw tore a man in half. And there were more Double Javelins with it.” He passes a hand before his eyes. “I knew we were in trouble. Things went south fast. I rallied the troops, and we managed to scoop up several badly wounded men and make a quick travois, and then we retreated.”</p><p></p><p>He takes a deep breath and continues. “After about an hour, we thought we were clear. But then they came out of nowhere. This time the dog-man wasn't with them, but there were plenty of Javelins.” He winces at the memory. </p><p></p><p>“That's when those men deserted. Each of them was helping to carry men too wounded to walk, but they broke and ran. Not only that, if they <em>hadn't,</em> we could have won that fight. As it was, two more men died and we had to run off with our tails between our legs. We found the three of 'em later- they'd ditched their uniforms and we even overheard them talking about how better all the rest of us died than they did. So I made an example of them.”</p><p></p><p>After a moment of silence, Shar says, “Good job.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>“Clearly, there are more renegade Double Javelins still out there.” Shar glances at Kane. “We're going to have to go after them.”</p><p></p><p>“Agreed. We can't let them stand against us. It will just encourage the others to desert and join them.” </p><p></p><p>The group approaches the farm where Dalma, the kocho farmer, must be compensated for his lost stock. But when they go to talk to him, it turns out that it may not have been the Double Javelins who stole the kochos after all.</p><p></p><p>“Look at these footprints.” Alkor gestures at the ground. “These weren't feet like ours. These were skeletal.” He looks at Dalma. “Your kocho got rustled by undead.”</p><p></p><p><em>Whoever attacked the tower,</em> Karl thinks. <em>But was this on their way in, or on their way out?</em></p><p></p><p>“I think I'm gonna have to raise my prices,” Dalma complains. “But not for you.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>It takes a full day of study and work to break into the tower. When they finally do breach the field surrounding it, Karl is shocked to find that the whole place has been rudely searched. Scrolls and tomes are scattered carelessly on the floor, alchemical apparati are upset or broken, dressers and closets have had their contents strewn about. </p><p></p><p>“Before you get all heartbroken,” says Orzza, “we'd better make sure that whoever did this isn't still here.”</p><p></p><p>Nobody is there but them. Whoever the intruder was, he or she is gone. </p><p></p><p>“It's obvious that they were searching for something,” Sepia muses. “But what?”</p><p></p><p>“Any ideas?” Shifty asks Karl. </p><p></p><p>He shakes his head. “It could have been anything. A spell, a book... it's hard to tell with things like this.”</p><p></p><p>So the group does an investigation of their own, cleaning up the mess and looking for signs of the intruder's intent or identity. It's an arduous, exacting task, especially since they don't know exactly what they are looking for, or even where within the tower to look. </p><p></p><p>And with every hour, the trail- what trail there might be- grows colder.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>The clue is a bloody thumbprint, significantly larger than a normal human's.</p><p></p><p>“That's it,” Karl exclaims. “That book didn't have anything like that in it before.” </p><p></p><p>“What book is it?” asks Orzza. </p><p></p><p>“<em>Reflections on the Eternal,</em> by Witterfine. It's almost 1500 years old.”</p><p></p><p>“What's the section with the thumbprint about?” demands Shifty. </p><p></p><p>Karl begins to read aloud: “Permanent disposal of artifacts and relics is very difficult. Usually each has but a single method of destruction that will permanently undo its existence, and the method is always obscure and difficult. This is the answer to the ignorant question: Why are so many artifacts of evil and destructive nature hidden in vaults, secured by wards or otherwise locked away when they will inevitably surface again? The answer is plain: destruction is not always an option. </p><p></p><p>“It is possible to take steps to ensure that an artifact or relic remains hidden, but since they often have their own sentience, it is very difficult- some say impossible- to work out a permanent solution. Guardians age and die or can be destroyed; traps can be disarmed or wear down over centuries or millennia of time; spells fade or are triggered. Even burying an artifact is no guarantee of long-term prevention of its recovery and/or misuse.</p><p></p><p>“Some extremely creative methods have been devised over the aeons to secret artifacts and relics away, from the merely dangerous (the Mace of Saint John is said to have been fed to the Chromatic Dragon) to the outrageous and expensive (the Delphinate was said to have hired itself out for an incredible annual sum to contain a pair of dangerous Miloxi artifacts, the Electron Harness and the Radiation Claw). Others have been contained at the center of a large sequence of epic warding magic (the Staff of Sekolah), while still more are simply wielded (Cluma and the Rod of Seven Parts, the Deleter, etc).</p><p></p><p>“A few artifacts and relics can be rendered powerless or destroyed if the Power involved in its forging (if any) can be slain. Deep in the Astral Sea, the floating petrified corpses of dead gods sometimes rest next to the shattered remains of the tools they once invested. However, this is a very dangerous proposition in and of itself, and it is equally likely that destroying the artifact or relic is a necessary precursor to the destruction of the Power. Moreover, some artifacts and relics survive the destruction of their related Power and serve to transform a later wielder, restoring the Power to life and puissance. </p><p></p><p>“Perhaps the most creative and, perhaps, effective method ever used to conceal an artifact or relic was the River Lethe. Using a powerful ritual, the ancient eldritch liege Lillamere banished all memory of an artifact, leaving it hidden deep in the Hells. What artifact? Nobody remembers, of course! The beauty of this method is that not only is any memory of the artifact's existence forgotten; even the artifact itself, if it has any lingering sentience, cannot recall its intention to free itself. Indeed, only some comments made by Lillamere himself allow this author to even mention this! One wonders if His Majesty had indeed stumbled upon the perfect method to hide an artifact forever. Alas, without reaching the impossible heights of arcane mastery that he had attained, it is impossible for anyone to replicate his ritual.”</p><p></p><p>“Huh,” says Shifty. “That's not at all ominous.”</p><p></p><p>“Well, good news, guys. I have a lead on our thief.” Alkor grins. “Even though nobody can remember much about him, there is one detail that seems to be pretty common in peoples' accounts. He had a wagon. And this morning, I went back to the kocho farmer's place and took a look around.”</p><p></p><p>“Maybe the trail isn't so cold, after all!” Sepia exclaims. </p><p></p><p>“We'll see, because I found the wagon's tracks.”</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Next Time:</strong></em> Not-so-hot pursuit!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 7503111, member: 1210"] “I won't be able to fire my bow,” says Alkor. He groans, rubbing the stump of his right arm. “There must be something we can do. Some magic we can employ.” Sepia looks at Karl hopefully. “There is a ritual,” the wizard replies. “[i]Regenerate.[/i] We don't have it, but Spender- the ritualist in Grumbleford- might.” “All right,” Shar declares, “that's our next move. Let's get out of the rift and get to Grumbleford.” “I might have a little trouble climbing the rope,” Alkor says glumly. *** When it's time for the ranger to ascend, Sepia and Kane rig a harness at the end of the rope and drop it down. Alkor clambers into it, aided by Karl and Shifty, who are still below with him. Then orzza and Kane haul him up. After that, it's back to the governor's tower. This time, they find three of their soldiers awaiting them. “What's up?” Shifty asks. “You guys are obviously here for some reason.” “Yes, sir. The tower of Deryndradin- it has been attacked, sir.” “The what, now?” “My master's tower,” Karl exclaims. “What happened? Attacked by whom?” “We don't really know,” the guard replies. “But something happened. Some kind of, I don't know, a magic field formed around the tower. And the front door has been bashed in.” Shar glances at Karl. “Do you know anything about that field?” “I know the tower has magical defenses against intrusion, but I've never seen them in action. It could very well be. When did this happen?” “A couple of days ago.” “So either whoever did this is gone, or they're trapped inside.” Karl rests his chin in his hand thoughtfully. “Does your master have any enemies?” asks Shifty. “Or do you?” “Not that I know of.” Alkor asks, “Isn't your tower in Overland?” “Yes.” “So does that mean that we put off going to Grumbleford?” “Maybe we should,” Karl says. “After all, who knows what could be happening with the tower?” “As you pointed out yourself, it's already been several days,” Orzza says. “I think restoring our archer's arm is important enough to delay another couple. Whoever did this is probably long gone.” The party agrees. To Grumbleford. *** After a night at the Governor's Inn, they go to see Spender, and after some hard bargaining, trade 300 gold pieces and Orzza's magical glasses, which allow the user to read any language for a scroll of [i]regenerate.[/i] Soon enough, Alkor is marveling at his new arm. “I am whole again!” he cries. “But look,” Sepia says with a giggle. “It's pale. You're tan, except for your new arm.” The group takes two days in the town, during which Karl learns the rituals [i]brew potion[/i] and [i]identify.[/i] Then they start the trip back to Overland, making camp at the crossroads as they often do. But that midnight, as most of them are asleep and only Karl is awake on watch, they find themselves assailed. Out of nowhere, a group of wights erupts from the night. Karl shouts a warning and casts a [i]flame burst[/i], catching the wights, who stagger as they close the distance. The rest of our heroes scramble to rise, but the wights fall upon them before they can fully bestir themselves. From behind the wights, another flame slithers into view, this one clinging to a crimson snake like a halo. And following [i]that,[/i] come two people that look human- at least, at a glance. Alkar springs up and scrambles back away from the wights, new hand shooting out to grab up his bow. The string thrums under his hand and arrows whistle as they fly into the foe. [i]Ah, that feels good.[/i] He can't help but grin. Radiance blazes as Orzza lays about himself, smiting one wight after another. Sepia leaps past him, whip cracking as she attacks the flame snake. Shifty throws a handful of darts and retreats to the opposite side of their campfire. Suddenly a wight topples as a tremendous howl announces that Kane is in the fight. A desiccated arm spins through the air as the barbarian strides to the next foe. “That one's for me, right?” Alkor chortles, sending more arrows into the foe. One of the two humans draws his cloak around himself, and suddenly vanishes in a puff of smoke, only to reappear next to Kane. He strikes, his blade coated with poison. Kane responds with a devastating strike and enters a rage. Shifty and Sepia flank the flame snake and cut it to pieces in mere moments. But the other human meets Alkor's eyes, and the elf finds his world spinning. He tries to look away, but he can't- there is something [i]wrong[/i] with those eyes. Those eyes.... They're the eyes of serpents. And then the spell breaks as Orzza smashes the weird-eyed man's head in. Alkor looks around, feeling as though he is emerging from a fog. The enemy is down. Shar is healing Kane and Karl, who took the lion's share of the damage. All seems well. And yet.... He walks over to the man's corpse and wipes blood from the eyes. Opens the body's mouth and examines his tongue. Turns to his friends, and says, “This guy has the tongue and eyes of a snake. What about the other one.” Shifty peers close. “Yep... What the hell were they?” “And were they connected with whatever happened at my master's tower?” Karl wonders. *** They are not disturbed any further that night, except by their own thoughts. Even in the depths of his trance, Alkor can't stop seeing those serpentine eyes. Shifty has a terrifying nightmare of Gnomehome, the hidden community from which he came, and the oozes and slimes that overcame it in a single terrible night. Orzza can't help but feel that his destiny is drawing near. Since connecting with the rest of the party, he has sensed that they are doing important things- things that may ultimately change the world. *** Just after noon the next day, they reach Overland. They take pride in seeing that it is now surrounded by a low berm, and a pallisade is under construction. The town's central square is en route to Deryndradin's Tower; when they reach it, they are shocked to see a gallows with three bodies swinging from nooses, signs labeling them deserters around their necks. “Uh-oh,” mutters Shifty. Kane stares, mouth set in a grim line. “Those were Double Javelins.” “Over there.” Shifty points toward the Silver Fish, where the party can see a crowd has gathered. The group approaches. There, a red-faced Sheriff Dugan is waving his hands and talking to one of the Double Javelin soldiers. Their conversation halts as the party approaches. The mood of the crowd is ugly; rumbling curses and angry looks are everywhere. “What's going on?” demands Shar. “Your Honors! Thank the gods you're back!” Dugan disengages from the other man and hurries over to them. “We should talk.” “Apparently so,” Shar says. They step outside, but about a score of people follow them. “They beat up my boy!” “They [i]hanged[/i] mine! That's my son up there!” “Put it right, Governor!” “Ain't right!” Shifty turns and raises his hands. “Friends, friends,” he cries, “we don't know exactly what has happened here, but I assure you, we will, well, we'll see that justice is done! But first, you have to give us some time to look into things and figure out what's what. Please, give us that time!” Meanwhile, Dugan tells Shar, “Those Double Javelins are a rowdy bunch. They've stirred up quite a bit of trouble.” “Enough to hang three of them?” demands Kane. Dugan's face reddens once more. “As to that, well, you'd need to talk to Lentor.” He shakes his head. “They have beat several people up, and maybe burned up a bunch of grain and stolen some kocho. But there's more. There was an attack on the wizard's tower. Now it's all a-glow, and one of the Brender kids touched it and got hurt real bad.” He glances at Karl. “The tower is probably more your area than mine. I couldn't figure out...” “We'll look into it,” Karl promises. “Who attacked it?” asks Shifty, rejoining them now that he has at least temporarily mollified the crowd. “Well, we don't know exactly. Different folks saw different stuff. Some say the dead were walking, others that there were giants. Seems like some kind of dark sorcery clouded people's eyes or something.” *** There's a lot going on, all right. A lot for our heroes to check out and look into. And they do so. Kane demands Lentor explain the hangings. “I was running patrols. Three days ago, one of them patrols was ambushed by a group of Double Javelin skirmishers and they were pretty well decimated. Two men died; the others were lucky to escape with their lives. Immediately, I took a group of my best troops to punish them. We found them quickly, and the engagement that ensued left several of them wounded and one dead, with my people suffering only a few superficial wounds. Since we had the advantage, I elected to pursue the enemy.” He shakes his head. “I shouldn't have. We found... something unlike anything I've ever seen. A dog-man of some kind, strapped into a huge suit of metal armor with weird purple crystals set into it. A single blow from its claw tore a man in half. And there were more Double Javelins with it.” He passes a hand before his eyes. “I knew we were in trouble. Things went south fast. I rallied the troops, and we managed to scoop up several badly wounded men and make a quick travois, and then we retreated.” He takes a deep breath and continues. “After about an hour, we thought we were clear. But then they came out of nowhere. This time the dog-man wasn't with them, but there were plenty of Javelins.” He winces at the memory. “That's when those men deserted. Each of them was helping to carry men too wounded to walk, but they broke and ran. Not only that, if they [i]hadn't,[/i] we could have won that fight. As it was, two more men died and we had to run off with our tails between our legs. We found the three of 'em later- they'd ditched their uniforms and we even overheard them talking about how better all the rest of us died than they did. So I made an example of them.” After a moment of silence, Shar says, “Good job.” *** “Clearly, there are more renegade Double Javelins still out there.” Shar glances at Kane. “We're going to have to go after them.” “Agreed. We can't let them stand against us. It will just encourage the others to desert and join them.” The group approaches the farm where Dalma, the kocho farmer, must be compensated for his lost stock. But when they go to talk to him, it turns out that it may not have been the Double Javelins who stole the kochos after all. “Look at these footprints.” Alkor gestures at the ground. “These weren't feet like ours. These were skeletal.” He looks at Dalma. “Your kocho got rustled by undead.” [i]Whoever attacked the tower,[/i] Karl thinks. [i]But was this on their way in, or on their way out?[/i] “I think I'm gonna have to raise my prices,” Dalma complains. “But not for you.” *** It takes a full day of study and work to break into the tower. When they finally do breach the field surrounding it, Karl is shocked to find that the whole place has been rudely searched. Scrolls and tomes are scattered carelessly on the floor, alchemical apparati are upset or broken, dressers and closets have had their contents strewn about. “Before you get all heartbroken,” says Orzza, “we'd better make sure that whoever did this isn't still here.” Nobody is there but them. Whoever the intruder was, he or she is gone. “It's obvious that they were searching for something,” Sepia muses. “But what?” “Any ideas?” Shifty asks Karl. He shakes his head. “It could have been anything. A spell, a book... it's hard to tell with things like this.” So the group does an investigation of their own, cleaning up the mess and looking for signs of the intruder's intent or identity. It's an arduous, exacting task, especially since they don't know exactly what they are looking for, or even where within the tower to look. And with every hour, the trail- what trail there might be- grows colder. *** The clue is a bloody thumbprint, significantly larger than a normal human's. “That's it,” Karl exclaims. “That book didn't have anything like that in it before.” “What book is it?” asks Orzza. “[i]Reflections on the Eternal,[/i] by Witterfine. It's almost 1500 years old.” “What's the section with the thumbprint about?” demands Shifty. Karl begins to read aloud: “Permanent disposal of artifacts and relics is very difficult. Usually each has but a single method of destruction that will permanently undo its existence, and the method is always obscure and difficult. This is the answer to the ignorant question: Why are so many artifacts of evil and destructive nature hidden in vaults, secured by wards or otherwise locked away when they will inevitably surface again? The answer is plain: destruction is not always an option. “It is possible to take steps to ensure that an artifact or relic remains hidden, but since they often have their own sentience, it is very difficult- some say impossible- to work out a permanent solution. Guardians age and die or can be destroyed; traps can be disarmed or wear down over centuries or millennia of time; spells fade or are triggered. Even burying an artifact is no guarantee of long-term prevention of its recovery and/or misuse. “Some extremely creative methods have been devised over the aeons to secret artifacts and relics away, from the merely dangerous (the Mace of Saint John is said to have been fed to the Chromatic Dragon) to the outrageous and expensive (the Delphinate was said to have hired itself out for an incredible annual sum to contain a pair of dangerous Miloxi artifacts, the Electron Harness and the Radiation Claw). Others have been contained at the center of a large sequence of epic warding magic (the Staff of Sekolah), while still more are simply wielded (Cluma and the Rod of Seven Parts, the Deleter, etc). “A few artifacts and relics can be rendered powerless or destroyed if the Power involved in its forging (if any) can be slain. Deep in the Astral Sea, the floating petrified corpses of dead gods sometimes rest next to the shattered remains of the tools they once invested. However, this is a very dangerous proposition in and of itself, and it is equally likely that destroying the artifact or relic is a necessary precursor to the destruction of the Power. Moreover, some artifacts and relics survive the destruction of their related Power and serve to transform a later wielder, restoring the Power to life and puissance. “Perhaps the most creative and, perhaps, effective method ever used to conceal an artifact or relic was the River Lethe. Using a powerful ritual, the ancient eldritch liege Lillamere banished all memory of an artifact, leaving it hidden deep in the Hells. What artifact? Nobody remembers, of course! The beauty of this method is that not only is any memory of the artifact's existence forgotten; even the artifact itself, if it has any lingering sentience, cannot recall its intention to free itself. Indeed, only some comments made by Lillamere himself allow this author to even mention this! One wonders if His Majesty had indeed stumbled upon the perfect method to hide an artifact forever. Alas, without reaching the impossible heights of arcane mastery that he had attained, it is impossible for anyone to replicate his ritual.” “Huh,” says Shifty. “That's not at all ominous.” “Well, good news, guys. I have a lead on our thief.” Alkor grins. “Even though nobody can remember much about him, there is one detail that seems to be pretty common in peoples' accounts. He had a wagon. And this morning, I went back to the kocho farmer's place and took a look around.” “Maybe the trail isn't so cold, after all!” Sepia exclaims. “We'll see, because I found the wagon's tracks.” [i][b]Next Time:[/b][/i][b][/b] Not-so-hot pursuit! [/QUOTE]
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