Random Urban Encounter #17
The Kestrels gained entrance to Casiorn and found their senses assaulted by the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. They didn’t quite where to begin, so they headed towards the center of the city and a large marketplace… just in time to run into a manticore that had escaped from its transporting cage.
Leaping into action, the Company handily defeated this beast, hampered as it was by still being chained to its cage. Immediately afterwards, an excited boy scampered up to the party. His clothes, although dirty, were of better than average quality, and he wore an oversized athletic training belt cinched tightly around his waist.
“Wow! That was great!” the youngster gushed. “You must be mighty adventurers! You’ve got to come help Akevi and the gladiators. Everyone keeps dying! Even the Golden Shambler died!” The boy absently touched the training belt as he said this.
“Slow down there, youngster,” Brogun admonished. “I am Brogun Rhumenheim, Priest of Kirabá. What is your name?” The dwarf grinned, trying to look friendly; Kell winced.
The boy took a step back, then seemed to rally his courage. “I’m Short Fang!” he announced, striking an exaggerated pose as he did so.
= = =
[Note: the following is based on a Dungeon magazine adventure, “Pandemonium in the Veins”.]
[Also note that, because I am so far behind in this story, I will give an extremely brief account of what has happened. The players actually spent many sessions embroiled in this adventure, and to write them up in full detail was too daunting of a task for me.]
Short Fang led the Company of the Red Kestrel to the Casiorn arena. There, the party made the acquaintance of several notables:
Muammar Hafiz, the arena’s commissioner, was a fat, oily man, always huffing and puffing, and spraying spittle when he talked. His bejeweled fingers and turbaned head seemed to indicate that The Veins were a profitable enterprise. After testing the adventurers’ battle prowess and vetting them as gladiators, Hafiz proceeded to ignore them.
Volpone Venazzi, a big brute of a man, was the leader of one of the gladiatorial stables, known as Sand Net. Volpone wore gleaming, bronze-colored plate armor and carried a huge sword strapped to his back, and a spiked mace at his belt. He glowered at the Kestrels.
Only Akevi Vemyr treated them with courtesy. She invited the adventurers to join her stable to replace some gladiators who had recently died under mysterious circumstances. Indeed, Akevi offered the Kestrels a substantial sum of money if they could determine who or what was behind the deaths.
= = =
Over the course of several days, the Kestrels established themselves as a gladiatorial team to be reckoned with. They defeated many foes, hoping to make a name for themselves and secure an invitation to the High-Mayor’s palace. For Kell had learned that the Shard of Gareth was indeed in Casiorn - and the Kestrels were determined to reclaim it.
Meanwhile, the Kestrels began to uncover signs that someone was poisoning the gladiators. It seemed that a performance-enhancing drug was sweeping through both stables (although hitting Akevi’s hardest), leading to addiction, gradual weakness when not drugged, and eventual death. But who was behind this? Some signs pointed to Hafiz, although it seemed nonsensical that he would ruin his own business. Other hints seemed to indicate that Volpone was behind the deaths; he had detected as evil, and insulted the Kestrels at every turn, but those facts in and of themselves didn’t make him the culprit.
All that was certain was that someone at the arena was ordering vast quantities of fararja leaf, an herb with a strong mint-like smell. The Kestrels had detected this smell on the breaths of some gladiators they fought, concluding that faraja leaves must be an ingredient in the mysterious and lethal drug.
= = =
Other problems arose as well. One day, the Kestrels were summoned to a meeting at a seedy inn, where they were greeted by Dothar, a Knight of the White Mountain whom they had met in Durenor. Dothar said that he had been ordered by Eluchir the Truthspeaker to recover the Shard of Gareth, and was prepared to give the party 10,000 Gold Crowns to use in that endeavor. Brogun wanted to use the money to purchase the Shard from High-Mayor Kordas, but Kell was unconvinced. The Herbalish didn’t like the fact that the Knights of the White Mountain were now calling themselves the Knights of Truth; he felt it smacked of totalitarianism.
Furthermore, Kell had been approached by another druid nicknamed Oakarms. This fellow, part of a heretical sect called the Redeemers, told Kell some of the powers of the Shard: that it would cause plants to grow uncontrollably and that it could enhance the powers of those attuned to nature. Oakarms speculated that the Shard had lain dormant in its shrine atop the White Mountain in Durenor because that aerie was so cold and bleak that the Shard’s powers could not function. In any event, Oakarms hinted that the Redeemers wanted to claim the Shard for themselves, to use its powers for good: for the Redeemers believed that nature’s purpose was to promote goodness.
But Kell also met up with Almar, a high druid of the Herbalish, who came to Casiorn specifically to see that the Shard of Gareth made its way into Herbalish hands. “Pay no attention to Oakarms’ teleological sophistry,” Almar thundered. “Nature has no purpose. The Shard must be returned to the sacred First Tree.”
The confused ranger didn’t know what to make of these competing claims. Certainly, the Knights of the White Mountain had faithfully guarded the Shard for centuries. But then why had Eluchir asked a lone knight to bring it to Hammerdal? And could the renamed Knights of Truth be trusted? What of the Redeemers? It did sound like the Shard could be a powerful force for good… if it could be controlled. Should Kell obey the wishes of Almar, his nominal superior?
Kell’s head ached.
= = =
The Kestrels were summoned to yet another meeting with Dothar. The Knight was fed up with waiting - he wanted results. Brogun explained that after only a few more battles, the group would be famous enough to secure an invitation to the High-Mayor’s upcoming banquet.
“You’d better hope so,” replied Dothar, “because you are not the only ones with an interest in this relic.”
Kell remained conspicuously silent.
On their way back from this meeting, the Kestrels passed through a sleazy part of town.
“Psst! Kestrels!” came a guttural, accented voice. The speaker was a short, extremely sunburned man with an elaborate mustache, wearing a turban.
“Who are you?” Brogun demanded.
The mustachioed stranger sneered. “Let us just say that I have information about a certain… item.” Intrigued, the Kestrels agreed to hear what the man had to say.
“For 500 Crowns, I will tell you the… item’s… whereabouts.”
“We already know that,” said Kell dismissively. The man looked strangely familiar to him - where had they seen him before?
“Ah,” continued the stranger, “you know it is in the High-Mayor’s palace. But do you know where? Or how it is guarded? Or what it can do?”
The ever impatient Brogun tossed a large sack of gold on the ground. “Tell us,” the dwarf grunted.
As the stranger reached for the money, Kell suddenly remembered who he was: one of the Cener assassins who had assaulted them in the forest outside Durenor and stolen the Shard! The Herbalish scout quickly knocked and arrow to his bow and let fly and point-blank range —
— and missed, as the Cener reacted with preternatural speed. “Foolish Kestrels!” he hissed, snatching up the gold and leaping a full fifteen feet up the wall of a nearby building, then began to climb towards the roof.
Kednor whipped out a throwing hammer and tossed it upwards, where it crunched satisfyingly into the Cener’s back. At nearly the same instant, Otieno finished the words of a spell, unleashing a scorching ray that struck their fleeing enemy right in the back, burning him horribly.
Kell shouldered his bow and began to climb as well. “Surround the building!” he yelled. “Don’t let him escape!”
Each of the dwarves ran to one side of the building, while Otieno took up position in an adjacent alleyway and readied another spell. As the sorcerer craned his neck upwards, he caught a glimpse of the Cener bounding across the gap overhead. Arcane energy streaked out from Otieno’s fingers, blasting into his target, who completed his leap by falling heavily onto the roof of the next building.
Kell saw Otieno’s magic missiles strike home, saw his quarry pitch headlong into the dust and grit that lined the flat roof across the alley. Racing toward the gap, Kell propelled himself off the edge of the roof.
