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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RobNJ" data-source="post: 1159124" data-attributes="member: 3617">After the death of their leader, the party discussed who ought to lead them in the future.  There was a bit of unpleasantness, as Wolfwind made some blatant ad hominem attacks against Scedigoth, who in turn gave a few more subtle (or at least not as offensive) jibes.  Since Kester Senth's player wasn't there yet, I used him to ask pertinent questions to the candidates, eliciting responses that would show what each would bring to the table as a leader.  Initially, the vote is Akai for Wolfwind and Chardak for Scedigoth.  Kester is uncomfortable (that is, the DM is) with the idea of making the final decision, so there's some more discussion.  When Scedigoth makes it clear that it will listen to the warriors when it comes to making fighting decisions, Wolfwind withdraws his name from consideration and the party is agreed on who will lead it.The corpses of rhodin and merchants are burned to avoid drawing a lot of predators and carrion-delvers.  There is some talk about whether or not to continue the mission, and it's decided that since they're halfway between Xavel and Tevdi, and it would probably take them a day to find a surefire way back down the pass, they will continue on with the mission.The party makes camp about 100 feet away from the wreckage and in the night, near the end of Wolfwind's watch, he hears a ruckus among the wagons, and wakes up Akai, whose watch is next.  He then goes off on his own, leaving Akai to watch over the sleeping party.  Wolfwind comes up close and can see about a half dozen normal rats, two rats about the size of a dog, and another rat the same size, but whose hide is covered in spidery, silvery runes.  He remembers that there are such beasts in the world, known as runic beasts.  This runic dire rat is probably intelligent enough to understand speech (though he can't guess which language it might speak).  The smaller rats are burrowing into the charred corpses to find fresh meat, and the larger rats are then tearing away all the charred parts and the rats are sharing it.  Wolfwind decides this is harmless enough, and goes back to camp.  When the party leaves the next morning, they note that the corpses have been arranged in some alien sort of "respect for the prey" ceremony that the runic dire rat must have lead.Also, on leaving, the party notes that the area where Ku-Carram's corpse dissolved is not only devoid of plant life after a night, but indeed, all organic material seems to have been killed off, as there's a pit of loose, dusty sand where the corpse disintegrated.On that chilling note, the party begins its trip to Tevdi, the thorp that is out of communication with Xavel.  Along the way, they notice that these gates have been constructed across the road.  Now, the environment is grasslands, so these gates aren't going to stop a man on foot from heading up the road.  However, they probably would stop a fast cavalry charge across the hardpack road, as they open away from the thorp.  The gates are double-door style, and they are equipped to probably have some stronger piece socketed into the back of them to lock them closed.  They find a dozen or so of these on the way, all newly built (the newer ones not yet complete) and the amount of wood would have had to have been shipped in, because it's not native in this quantity to this region.  The group continues toward Tevdi, and they begin to notice that all the farms are stripped bare.  Ordinarily there ought to be some winter crops, but there is nothing left.Once they can see the thorp on the horizon, the party goes off the road to change out of their dress uniforms into something less conspicuous.  Wolfwind is sent ahead to scout out the thorp.  It turns out that there are very many more buildings there than there ought to be, and that one wall has already been completed, and a second curtain wall is being constructed to fortify the position.  All grassland for a half-hour walk around Tevdi has been cut down to prevent even the slight cover that the grasses would provide.  The thorp has a stream running through it, and on this side, Wolfwind can see maybe a dozen or so riders on horseback patrolling the open space.He makes his way back to the party and gives his report.  As they are discussing this, Kester overhears a man singing a rhythmic song, probably some kind of work song.  Scedigoth comes up with a cover story:  Kester is a merchant, Akai and Wolfwind are his bodyguards, and Chardak and Scedigoth are scholars who are traveling with the merchant for the safety that numbers provide.  Scedigoth carefully hides its features deep inside the cloak it has just for this purpose, and Kester and Wolfwind head toward the sound of the man singing.  Wolfwind has chosen to have a dagger out, and palmed.  He's also sneaking, whereas Kester is moving more openly.They come out into one of the few fields that hasn't been stripped bare.  A middle-aged man wearing a red-fist Humanist badge is cutting winter gourds free of their vines with a machete and throwing them into a nearby donkey-driven cart.  He looks up as Kester leaves the grasses, and seems to see Wolfwind as well.  Then very clearly makes note of Wolfwind's dagger, and his mouth goes agape.  He drops the machete and starts making bowing and scraping gestures.  It's evident that the man thinks they are "Barar Resten's boys", and he's at great pains to show his loyalty to Mr. Resten.  Kester gives the party's cover story, and the man collapses into irritation at their barging onto his land and scaring him half to death.  He's giving answers to Kester's questions, but he's grouchy about their presence and the way they scared him.This seems to sit wrong with Wolfwind somehow, who decides to that he will start being aggressive toward the man, saying threatening things, drawing out his dagger again, etc.  He expresses out of character that he's close to killing the guy's donkey for not being forthcoming enough.  In truth, unless he's a very good actor, he's giving up pretty much everything he knows, especially now that he's scared, but it's not enough for Wolfwind, who wants to hurt the poor man's donkey for not being cooperative.  Kester manages to put a cork in Wolfwind's murderous anti-livestock fury, and the old man gets away.  They have learned from him that Barar Resten is some sort of strong man who says he is "the future" and that he's going to protect the poor people from "the scourges".  The farmer got the pronunciation of the word wrong, making it pretty clear that he's spouting some sort of half-memorized rhetoric.  He also says that all the food's been taken by Resten's boys.The two humans go back to their troop and make report.  There's some irritability on Kester's behalf, and some bitching back and forth, and Scedigoth severely demands that the arguing end and says that their mission--to find out why the grain isn't being delivered--has been achieved and that they have to report back.  They start back on the road, remaining covered up and de-militarized, and come upon a patrol of two soldiers on horseback, along with a pair of commoners who are hammering in a massive wooden brace across the back of one of the gates.  The brace has metal bars that are hammered into the dirt to add to its strength.The party try their cover story, but the soldiers find it difficult to believe that these merchants got past them without their knowing it, sine they traveled this road back and forth.  They decide they're going to bring the party into town, something that the party at first agrees with, until they're told they'll have to abandon their weapons.  Scedigoth signals to Kester that they won't be going, and it becomes clear to the soldiers that Scedigoth is in charge here.  They demand it reveal its face.  So it does.Scedigoth is heavily tricked out for Intimidation, and it successfully cows the <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> out of the soldiers.  The commoners literally take off into the grasses and it's all the leader of the patrol can do to avoid letting his mount throw him in reaction to the serious fright he communicates to it through his body.  Scedigoth demands that they step aside and let the party pass, and they do--though the soldier tells his second, "Let the race-traitor pass."Scedigoth lets the insult go and the moment the party is beyond the soldiers, they race off to the north as fast as they can.  The party commandeers the draft horse and wagon that was being used to cart the brace, and then hammer the brace in hard behind them.  They then get on the cart and push the horse hard and mercilessly, for about an hour and a half.When they see the dustcloud of pursuit far behind them, they light the wagon on fire to drive the horse forward and leap off into the grasses to hide in the dark and their depths.  The patrol races past the point they got off, then comes back, then begins to search the road carefullly.  After a few minutes, the patrol races back north, but Scedigoth and Wolfwind notice that one of the horses is without a rider.The party cautiously creeps away from the road.  First Kester, then Scedigoth, then Chardak each notice a Medium-size rattlesnake slithering past them, but it leaves them be, and they think nothing of it.  When it reaches Wolfwind, however, he immediately recognizes that there's no way that kind of a snake should be active on an early winter night.  He strikes the serpent, which takes a double move off into the darkness, then he calls a halt to the crawl.At that very moment, a wiry black man jumps onto Kester's back, pinning his knees with each of his feet and his shoulder with one of his hands.  He's not wearing armor and has ritual scarifications all over his face and chest.  His tongue has been split down the middle and the halves wriggle around one another, and his hair is knotted into multiple dreadlocks, which are tied back behind his head.  He can see the man's features transforming out of a distinctly snakelike form, as well.  The free hand drives a wavy-bladed dagger down onto his back, but his studded leather jack turns aside the dagger's bite.The party snaps into action, racing toward the combatant.  Several valiant attempts are made to strike at the unarmored foe, however he is scathingly--almost preternaturally--quick and he evades every attack before leaping up into the air and backward at least twenty feet.  None of the party have any light sources, and the only one who can see well in the light, Scedigoth, loses the assailant in waving blades of chin-high grasses.  They decide to make their way toward the road, and leave Akai and Wolfwind behind to try to track the assailant.  Before they can make much headway back onto the road, and just as Wolfwind finds a snapped blade of grass, the man appears from the darkness and slashes at his forearm, leaving a nasty gash.  Wolfwind can feel his joins freezing up for a second, but he manages to fight down the virulent fluid the blade was coated in.  He takes a parting shot at the man, then the battle is joined again.Akai and Wolfwind manage to flank him, while the others variously take missile attacks, use alchemical devices, or just wait for a good shot.  The two are able to deliver a series of quite vicious attacks to the snake totem warrior, who at one point jams his dagger back into the sheath and got another hit, this time on Akai, who also fought off the poison.  The warrior manages to break off the combat and flee into the night, but not before giving them a jaunty salute (earlier in the fight he had mocked their abilities, but revised his opinion by the end) and throwing down the fine wavy-bladed dagger he was fighting with.  The warrior got away, though Wolfwind was able to put together what had happened.  The warrior ran a bit, then hid, and Wolfwind ran past his hiding place, then he went back onto the road and met up with the patrol down the road.As the party started to head back, however, they found a sack waiting in the road.  In a spidery, flowing script written in a dialect of the Southern Trade Language, the note read, "Congratulations, you earned this.  -- Sades".  The sack had 193 gold queens and 6 platinum thrones in it.  They are not mercenaries, so they must return the money found to the Steward of Xavel, however Scedigoth allows Wolfwind to keep the dagger as a trophy, since he did the most damage to the warrior.The party manages to find a way back down the box canyon and heads into town.  They break the news to the assembled soldiers in the garrison, and it's taken very poorly.  They deliver Ku-Carram's battered breastplate and the money they found to Ixrznr, the verrik quartermaster, who says that he will deliver it in turn to the Steward, and arrange an audience.  Shortly, they are telling their story to the Steward who, despite her reputation for flightiness, is very grave about this.  The party notices that her verrik speaker never blinks the entire time of their quarter-hour interview.She mentions that Fisgar mentioned, yesterday, that he felt a disturbance of some kind far to the north.  She asks that the party go to speak to him at the local pub, The Spirit of Fury, but asks that Scedigoth remain behind for a brief conference.  Once alone, she mentions to it that despite the fact that it clearly handled this mission well, she cannot give it control over the garrison.  The garrison's commander needs to be a giant, or at least not a mojh, given the tensions around here.  It agrees, and she says that for the time being, she will name herself in charge of military affairs in the town, until a suitable successor has been found.  She says that there will be a Ceremony of Renewal to celebrate Ku-Carram's passing into the ranks of the ancestors.  She also warns Scedigoth that now could be a very delicate time, and asks for absolutely exemplary behavior from all of its men.  It assures that this will be done.Cut to Scedigoth being belied without its knowledge.  The party makes its way into the pub--which is small despite the size of the town because verrik mostly only engage in debate and other more sober types of public meeting.  Mostly just humans frequent the bar.  Fisgar is an early middle-age human greenbond who is known to have sympathies with some of the more moderate elements among the Humanists.  Publicly, he says that he's grateful to the giants for saving the humans, but it's time to let them control their own destiny.  He uses the Steward's frequent absences and rumors of the verrik speaker's ties to crime to bolster his argument.  One of his favorite subjects to rail against is Scedigoth--not only is it a mojh, but the greenbond can feel the whisps of The Dark whirling around it after it uses negative energy spells.  Fisgar has lightly tanned skin, blue eyes, and white-blonde hair.  He is very severe, deep-voiced and charismatic.  He spends his evenings at the pub not to drink, but because that's where his people gather.  He there ministers to them.When the party enters, the greenbond is counseling a weeping farmer who is apparently having some trouble with his marriage.  Kester comes in, pats the man on the back, and rudely dismisses him, offering him a few coins to go get some more drink.  Fisgar doesn't stop the man, but lets his irritation at this be known to Kester.  He says the farmer was talking about his problems with his wife, who complains about him drinking too much and spending too much time away, and Fisgar was trying to convince him to heed his wife's concerns.Kester says that the "government is here to listen to your concerns" in a very patronizing way.  This only makes Fisgar even more irritable, but he explains that he felt an "orgy of river-spirits" a few days travel to the north, and believes that someone has forcibly caused a stream to thicken and deepen, out of harmony with nature.  The knowledge gained, Kester leaves a fuming Fisgar behind, and the party meets back up to discuss what it has found out.  Scedigoth warns its men in very strenuous terms not to step out of line right now, though no mention is made of the unpleasantness at the pub.The next morning, the party meets to see Ku-Carram off to the afterlife.  In a scene stolen almost whole cloth from Time Bandits, a massive roast cow is brought in, and at the appointed hour, Wolfwind splits it in two with a machete, and out comes tumbling fresh fruit.  What I thought would be a stirring ceremony was mocked as a "meatyata" (as in pinata), and I was humbled.</blockquote>

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