Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Capellan" data-source="post: 1387158" data-attributes="member: 6294">Kull's 11th Report - Part 3In the event, it proved that the Lord Gwebli's problems were with a pack of wargs, which had been attacking the herds and flocks of his people for several months.  He had led an expedition to destroy the creatures, but several had escaped the battle, and his own losses had been heavy.  Three men had died, and only two of his hunting dogs survived, leaving him without the necessary forces to find and slay the last of the beasts.From the journey to his castle, it was clear that the lord and his people were impoverished, and could offer little reward for undertaking this task, nor resistance should I determine to take the quoitine.  However, it seemed that the man might have information that would assist me in my task, so I agreed to destroy the creatures for him.This was duly accomplished the next day.  Trackers had located the wargs' lair some days before, and the lord simply lacked the means to destroy them.  I had no such lack, and the four remaining beasts were swiftly destroyed.  They had not all been mere wargs - at least one was a larger beast, with pure white fur and the ability to breathe a blast of frost and cold - but a combination of fire and strength of arms was more than sufficient for the task.Once the beasts were destroyed, the villagers burnt the corpses - an action which seemed to distress Gnorric, and was therefore probably a wise thing to do - and the lord gave a feast in honour of the victory.  During the festivities, we agreed that in the morning, he would provide me with a guide to lead the way to the village by the sea.The journey took most of the day, ad I arrived in the village near dusk.  It was a poor-looking place, too small even for an inn, and with only the barest of subsistence farming in evidence.  Women were in the fields, spreading seaweed in an effort to enrich the earth.I located the mayor and bid him tell me of Swain, the man who had previously found the quoitine.  According to the mayor, these events were many years in the past, but what little he could remember was that Swain was an adventurer who fought a monster in the hills.  The man was not able to kill the beast, which had murdered several villagers, but he was able to injure it badly enough that it stopped coming out of its lair.  Every year, Swain would return and try to defeat the beast, but without success.  He did, however, keep the beast from attacking anyone else.  Then one year, Swain went to fight the creature and did not return.That the man could speak such utter nonsense and yet so obviously believe it would astonish me, had I not experienced the wilful ignorance of the folk of Saltmarsh for so many months.  What warrior would return time and again to face a foe he could not defeat, without ever seeking reinforcement, seemed ludicrous to me.  Knowing as I did that Swain had brought quoitine from these parts for many years, I began to wonder if the 'monster' of which he spoke was simply a fiction, designed to keep the curious away from the source of his wealth, but further questions to the mayor indicated that those few villagers who had tried to explore the area since Swain's apparent death had not returned.  Evidently there was somehting dangerous there, though whether this was a creature, or Swain himself, was yet to be seen.In the morning, I set out for the hill where the monster was reputed to lair.  The place was windy and exposed, too inhospitable for even the scrabbly farming of these parts.Atop the hill was an indentation in the ground, which proved to be the mouth of a tunnel, leading down into a cave of sparkling stone.  I instructed Dargrim and Ulfgar to examine it, and both reported it to be like no stone they had ever seen.As Ulfgar completed his inspection, however, a face appeared in the rock, and then an arm swept out, batting him across the cave with little effort.  The dwarf's armour - he is one of the few of my assistants who properly equips himself for combat - absorbed much of the force of the blow, and he did not seem hurt, though it took a few moments for him to regain his feet.As he did so, the face disappeared into the stone, reappearing several feet to one side.  From there, it vanished and moved again, emerging in swift succession in over a dozen places.  And then it spoke, telling us that we must leave, or be destroyed.The Windholme Peninsula has far too many talking rocks.</blockquote>

Verification