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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3866715" data-attributes="member: 1210">As our heroes move down the thin trail beneath the rusty maroon sky, they cannot help but notice areas of burnt grass and blasted craters to either side.  Here and there, the trail itself has been blasted directly and left a shattered mess. Now and again, a body- either human or orcish- lies rotting to the side. Sir Percival- himself a mix of man and orc- looks sad at this; despite being very aware of the typically savage nature of orc-kind, he still feels a crude solidarity with them. Occasionally, the charred shell of a wagon lies pushed to the side, on the edge of the trail or sometimes off it completely. Soon, as they walk along, they see a large pile of dead livestock, including cattle, goats and sheep.  A lone figure is staring mournfully at the pile- an old, frail-looking human man with but wisps of hair remaining on his head. As the party of twenty-one adventurers and refugees marches up, the man turns to regard them with tired eyes.With the aid of their new allies, especially Benito and Adelle, the party manages to communicate with this man. He is the first rational human from this age of madness that our heroes have found in the open (the villagers with them were well-hidden underground). His name, it turns out, is Noltock; at first he is suspicious of the group, but after a few minutes talking to them- or at least, those able to speak Palantian- he opens up and becomes more friendly.Noltock raised cattle and handled animals for his entire life.  Now, he has had to destroy them. When our heroes ask why, he explains that they were exposed to “gamma radiation,” whatever that is. He is very sad; this is the end of his livelihood, and likely he will die a slow death now. “But then again,” he comments gloomily, “won’t everyone? And it’s pretty silly of me to worry about my livelihood, when there’s nobody left to sell milk or meat to! Nor can I eat the meat- it might be contaminated with gamma radiation, and who knows what that might cause?”“What’s ‘gamma radiation?’” Dahlia wonders, but nobody really answer her.Noltock is full of doom and gloom. He knows of no other living survivors that are not extremely crazy or dangerous. There are bandits and brigands, he tells the party, but he doesn’t know where they lair. “They run up and down the Litel Road, thought,” he says. He doesn’t even know what really happened to start the war. “Probably those crazy elves,” he guesses. He does know that it all started less than a year ago. He is not well-informed of anything, but he happily shares information about sheep and cows with the party. When they ask him about Sir Harth and his cronies, Noltock claims to no nothing; but when Sir Colder mentions the beholder, he states that he heard a rumor of a beholder in Litel. “Well, that’s where we’re going,” Sir Jorgen tells him, and Noltock grows even dourer.“I wouldn’t go there,” he warns the party. “It was a prime target in... in the war.  There won’t be much left- and what’s left will be full of mutants and radiation.”“What’s radiation?” Dahlia asks again.This time, Adelle answers her. “Radiation is... energy that comes from certain things. Sometimes it can be very dangerous. The energy that slowly kills creatures here, and that destroys magic that isn’t shielded by lead, is a type of radiation. Gamma radiation is another.” She frowns. “Gamma radiation can mutate creatures, change them.”“Change them how?” asks Sheriff Jorgen.“Sometimes it makes them stronger, harder to kill. Some creatures exposed simply die; in fact, most do. But some become gamma mutants. They often ‘hulk out’ and become much more powerful when angered or frightened.”The party stares at her, not sure whether to believe her at first. Finally, Otis inquires, “What about the Shadow Road? We don’t know much about that yet, either.” The Shadow Road, according to Sir Porthos, is Sir Harth’s destination in Litel.“The Shadow Road? That is how you travel long distances here,” Adelle replies. “It’s- well, the simple way to explain it is that it’s a road through the Shadow Plane that lets you travel much more quickly than you could on our plane.”“Do we walk?” Lord Cedric pipes up. “Or can we take our hortheth with uth?”“No, we’ll be on a train,” Benito responds. “Kind of like a wagon train, but powered by magic.”“Huh,” Kyle says. “A magical wagon train! Fantastic! But where would he go?”Otis clears his throat. “More importantly, will this Shadow Road still be functioning after the war?” Our heroes have much to ponder. They offer to let Noltock join their group, telling him that they are leaving this time and going to a better world, but Noltock snorts and declines. “No way would I go to Litel!” he declares. “Like I said, there’s bound to be mutants and radiation everywhere. No thank you!” They shrug, wish him luck and continue along their way; it is his choice, after all.Before too long they are confronted with another atrocity. In the distance, they can see some kind of poles lining the road. As they get closer, it becomes apparent that these are crucifixions. Elves, and a few elfbloods, are strung up. All seem to be dead. As they proceed along, flanked by this grisly display, other types of victims start to be interspersed with the elves: dwarves, halflings, goblins, orcs, humans... everything. It is almost as if an unquenchable thirst for slaughter possessed someone.Suddenly there is a cawing sound from behind some of the bodies, and a flock of horrid mutant vultures drag themselves into view. Seeing the prospect of fresh meat, they launch themselves forward. Behind them, a huge winged beast made out of bones, almost like some kind of great skeletal bat, rises up. But Benito swiftly shows his prowess, skewering one of the vultures on his crackling shock ranseur almost immediately. The vultures are foul, reeking beasts; they spit foul, disease-filled gobs of pus at the party. The large skeletal thing rushes in and tries to snatch Cedric up, but a concerted effort from our heroes slays the beasts fairly easily and without serious harm. The party continues towards the city that they can now see in the distance. The environment changes one last time before our heroes reach it. A thin, clinging fog springs up, tinted slightly yellow and smelling like strong grapefruit. It stings the nasal passages, lips and eyes very slightly, burning just a little. There is little that the band can do, except for bite their lips and move forward. The fog is substantially more dangerous to the peasants than it is to the hardened adventurers; our heroes hope that they can clear it before anyone is seriously hurt by it.As the party closes to within 2 miles of the ruined city ahead- they can see multiple plumes of smoke rising from it- they slow their pace.There are riders coming towards them.“I count eight, my lord,” Sir Fwaigo barks. “Those look like bandits to me,” Benito comments. Those who can understand his tongue (Palantian) translate for the others. Everyone draws weapons and stands ready. When the riders draw up a short distance away, the two groups study each other. The bandits- assuming that Benito’s assessment is correct- are led by a woman with a longbow out. Next to her is a squat dwarf, a large mace in his hand. Behind them, a half-dozen riders in studded leather fan out. Half of them have bows in hand; the others, longspears.“Greetings, folks,” the leader says cheerfully. She looks the party over carefully, noting their armor and weapons. Their numbers. Meanwhile, as usual, there is a murmured translation by those who speak the tongue of this era for the benefit of those who do not. “Well,” she says after a moment. Her manner is not quite as certain as it was when her band first road up. “This road is very dangerous. We came to offer you protection.”“For a price, of course,” Benito growls. “Of course,” the woman smiles.“We are not in need of ‘protection,’” scoffs Lord Cedric. “We are quite capable of protecting ourthelveth!”There is a tense moment; then, the woman nods in agreement. “It appears that you are. I am surprised to see so many people gathered in one group.”“Oh?” replies Dahlia.There is a moment of silence; then the woman sighs. “Pass on, friends, and good luck to you, in this unfortunate time we live in.”The party passes on through the clinging, acrid mist. Finally it clears; and then, for the first time, Litel comes into view, now only about half a mile away.It stretches before them: a huge, ruined city.  When it was alive, it must have been home to unfathomable numbers- hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions, of people. The remains of tall buildings reach for the sky, but their tops have been shattered off, or they have been pushed over, toppled onto their neighbors with careless, destructive abandon. Smoke rises from innumerable places in the ruin, some of it the blackish-grey that one would expect, but some of it other, less natural colors- from an oily olive green to an unwholesome orange-brown. Everywhere, buildings have been pounded to rubble; almost nothing still stands. Entire neighborhoods seem to have been struck by some titanic hammer, and other areas seem to have been melted to glass or blasted to bare rock.  Here and there, our heroes can see distant figures half-obscured by the smoke moving within the ruins.“Wow,” whispers Sheriff Jorgen in awe.Our heroes have never seen a city anywhere near this size. The biggest thing in their experience is Kamenda City, with its population of perhaps four thousand. You could fit a hundred Kamenda Cities in here, thinks Sir Colder in awe. And it’s totally destroyed.What titanic forces must have been employed to do this much damage to the once-proud city? Dahlia shudders thinking about it, and about how unnatural this much city in one place is. When she comments, a debate erupts, leaving her rolling her eyes.The approach to this ruined city leads the group to a crushed wall. The stench of corruption fills the air. Corpses of humans, whom our heroes can only assume to be either the city’s defenders, its attackers, or both, are scattered all along the shattered battlements. It looks easy enough to enter over the ruins of the fortifications, and neither to the right nor to the left does it seem as though there is a more palatable entryway.The party advances. The villagers quail at the smell, but at this point they have little choice but to trust the party to lead them to safety. Everyone begins clambering over the rubble of the wall; but as they crest the broken wall, they spy a pair of strange clouds, shaped almost like malevolent faces, flowing over the ground towards them. They are grey-black, and seem to radiate an almost palpable hatred and malice.“Soulbiters!” cries Benito. He moves to the side, pulling out his ranseur.“What??” asks Sir Colder, just as one of the soulbiters flows over him. He screams and leaps aside, barely avoiding being engulfed within the mass of malice! Dahlia unleashes a flame strike at the other one, which is rushing towards Goer, and damages it, him and his mount. Nonetheless, the weird monster survives to exude a pseudopod and flail at Goer. The former squire ducks back for a moment, dodging the blow; simultaneously, the other one strikes at Benito, but it, too misses.“Don’t let them engulf you!” cries Benito. “They’ll suck your souls!”“Oh, great,” moans Goer. Sir Colder strikes, then tries to move away from the one nearest him; unfortunately for him, it lashes out and smacks him across the head. He almost collapses as a terrible weakness washes over him. With a gasp, he staggers further away, but he can barely stand. “What... happened?” he groans.*Swords seem less than effective against the monsters, but Otis and Adelle both fire magic missiles at one of them, and Benito cries, “Yes! Use magic!” So saying, he thrusts his magical ranseur at the same one and slays it. Dahlia calls lightning at the other one, but the soulbiter flows over Lord Cedric. With a cry, Cedric is pulled from the saddle. “Aargh!!” the Lord of Whitewater shouts.Sheriff Jorgen cries, “Here, my lord!!” He thrusts his lance forward for Cedric to grab hold of. Me leaps in, strikes and tumbles away; he manages to hurt it with the magical mace that the party found. But then Adelle fires another magic missile and finishes it off.“Colder, are you all right?” Kyle asks. “Yeah, it seems to be passing,” gasps Sir Colder. “But that thing did something terrible to me!”“They are no good,” Adelle confirms.“What were they?”“Soulbiters,” Adelle responds. “Living soulbiters, to be more accurate. They are living spells. I take it, in your time, you no longer have the soulbiter spell?” At Otis’ reluctant nod, she continues, “Well, you’ve just experienced it, Colder.”“What is a living spell?” Otis cries. “This is fantastic! Lost magical secrets- how does one make one, what...”“Living spells are just that- spells given animation and a semblance of life. You could have a living fireball, a living blasphemy, a living acidic repulsion or almost any other type of living spell.”“But why?” Kyle asks.“They are powerful weapons,” Benito responds. “Think of it: a spell that you can use over and over again at will.”“Although imperfectly controlled,” Adelle adds.“All right, we need to keep moving,” Otis announces. “We know- well, we think, anyway- that Harth is heading to the Shadow Road. Where is that?”“It’s near the center of the city,” Adelle replies. “It’s a huge octagonal building- we’ll be able to see it from some distance away.”“All right,” declares Lord Cedric- the young lad from the village, Bates, is walking next to his horse- “let uth go! Forward!!” Next Time: Our heroes move into the ruins of Litel, where the dead walk *To make the effect clear here in game terms, when the soulbiter hit him, Sir Colder was hit with the disabled condition for 10 rounds: staggered, plus any standard action deals 1 hp of damage to him.</blockquote>

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