Kid Charlemagne's Story Hour, Pt II

[Kid Charlemagne]

Fencig, Ambardor, January 15th, AE 420

Cristof casts dimensional folding and sends Aris and Batista to the one spot in Fencig that he remembers well: The Church of Kelloran. The Sanctuary itself, to be precise. No services are in progress, but several young priests are frightened near out of their wits as the elven Bladesinger and half-elven Ranger step out through a glowing portal and into their Church.

“Sorry,” Aris says. “Just passing through.”

Several of the priests run off to tell their masters, but by the time anyone comes to investigate, the two are long gone. They rush into the plaza in front of the Church, and flag down a passing carriage.

Jovah has just finished settlign in in front of a nice, roaring fire in his residence, wearing his favorite floppy purple hat, and his bunny slippers when Aris bursts in on him.

“Is everyone still here?” the elf demands.

“Yes, I was…”

“Great! Get everyone together! I have important information!”

“Well, alright, but…”

“What are you waiting for!?”

Within the hour, the entire group is assembled in Jovah’s drawing room. Aris retells the story of his visions, and then tells them that he now knows they all represented events in the order that they occurred.

Gavin is non-plussed. “Okay, so what does that mean? What’s the big rush?”

Aris tries to compose himself.

“Here’s what it means. We gave the Egg to Lord Masato so he could return it to the Monastery in Ralt Gaither. Now we know it never arrived. The Drow – the Loraxite Drow – attacked Lord Masato and tried to get the Egg from him, and he tossed it into the sea. It may still be there, with the wreckage of his ship. The Drow may be looking for it, and who knows who else may be looking for it too. It’s been a couple of months since Lord Masato left Gujo with the Egg, we don’t exactly when he went down.”

“Does this mean that the Drow hired Virenzo?” Jovah asks. “When we spoke with dead with him, he said he didn’t have a master…”

“He might not have had a master technically,” Reana says. “He might have just been working on one job for a price.”

“That could be,” Aris says. “But that doesn’t really matter. We need to find the Egg.”

“Alright, Mister Genius, how do we do that?” Gavin asks. “It sank with the boat! How do you find a little egg in the middle of the sea?”

“Um,” Aris replies. “Uh, I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Were there any landmarks that you saw in that last vision?” Jovah asks. “Any coastlines off in the distance?”

“Not that I can recall,” Aris says. He pauses, thinking for a moment. “If I remember rightly, the stars would give the impression that the boat was heading west, though.”

Sir Brennen jumps into the conversation. He is the only person in the party with actual sailing experience.

Jovah used to refer to Brennen as “Captain Seabucket.” It was not a term meant to convey Jovah’s confidence in Brennen’s sailing skills.

“That makes sense; Lord Masato would have been heading west to Ralt Gaither. I’ve travelled that route, there are a number of harbors that a ship like that would typically put in at. We could follow the route, and see if Lord Masato’s ship docked in each of those places, and that would help us narrow down the search quite a bit.”

The next day, the party folds to Gujo and speaks with Gerika, the Kensai who was Lord Masato’s interpreter. Gerika takes them to the Ambassador’s ship, and they speak with the captain of that ship. The Ambassador has two ships; they are quite close in appearance. The captain explains to the party the route that the ships typically take, and the party prepares to fold the next day to Caer Cuthlin, on the island of Eirval. Jovah recalls the town from their previous journey to Sander’s Island. This would have been the first port after Ulfang for Lord Masato’s ship.

Somewhere in all of this, Jocvah blew a roll for Dimensional Folding, and the entire party aged by a year. I can’t recall which jump it was, but it was long overdue…!

The party spreads out on the docks, operating in pairs to reduce the risk of anyone getting jumped; they’re feeling a little paranoid right now. They find no one on the docks who has seen or remembers seeing a Ralt Gaitherese ship of that description in the past several months.

Jovah and Brennen are working one side of the docks together when Brennen stops and loks in the window of a little curio shop selling knick knacks along the quay. Jovah rolls his eyes.

“This is not the time to be shopping for souvenirs, Brennen!” he says, but Brennen walks into the shop, ignoring the gnome.

Jovah taps his foot several times, and then follows Brennen in.

“…so where did he get the piece?” Brennen is asking the shop owner.

“Oy. ‘e said it washed up on t’shore, ‘long the nor’ coast,” the wrinkled little shopkeeper replies. “Twere other stuff wit’ it. Gravinard sold a bunch o’ the stuff.”

“What’s up, Brennen?” the priest of Bes asks.

“Check this out,” Sir Brennen says. He holds up a small, black laquered bowl, crafted in the Ralt Gaitherese style, and inlaid with pearl. “This is a very nice piece, and it washed up on shore here in Eirval just six weeks ago. And there was more like it.”

“From Lord Masato’s boat?” Jovah asks.

“Who else could it be? Thanks very much, sir.” Brennen says to the shopkeeper.

“Keep yor thanks, tha’ bowl ‘ll cost ya two score guilders!” the wizened fellow exclaims.

 

[Lazybones]

Glad to see the thread going strong on the new boards...
Keep it up!

Lazybones aka Faulpelz

 

[Dinkeldog]

Long time without a post, KC. What's up with that?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Long time without a post, KC. What's up with that?

Jeez! You guys are spoiled!

I'll try and get an update posted sometime this morning...

 

[at work Jovah]

Bumparino Oh?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Caer Cuthlin, Eirval, January 17th, AE 420

Sir Brennen and Jovah gather the group together and show them their discovery. It appears that a Ralt Gaitherese ship carrying rich passengers must have gone down off the coast of Eirval. They search out the salvager who found the stuff, a gruff local fisherman named Gravinard. After plying him with a few gold coins, they manage to get him to divulge the area of the coast where the stuff was found. They then hire a small cargo vessel to go do some salvaging themselves.

“Nobody has explained to me how we are going to find an egg under the Retic Sea, even if we have narrowed it down to thirty miles of coast line,” Gavin grumbles. “That’s still a lot of area.”

“Well,” Aris starts, “I’ve been thinking about that. Since I have a sort of connection with the Egg, I’m kind of hoping that when we get close, I’ll sense it…”

“That’s your big idea?” Gavin replies, unconvinced.

“Um, yeah.”

“Hold on, I’ve got some thoughts on that,” Jovah says. “I can cast locate object and water breathing multiple times. We can do that, kind of drag along underwater behind the boat as we sail, and if we get a directional reading off the locate object, we stop and explore.”

“Will you be able to do locate object on the Egg?” Reana asks.

“I don’t know,” Jovah replies.

“Try it on ships,” Brennen says. “This area is known for shipwrecks, so we may get a few false positives, but we should be able to find the ship that way, eventually.”

There is some skepticism as to whether the plan will work, but as it turns out the Retic Sea is not terribly deep at this point (probably one reason that shipwrecks happen so often in the area). It takes a couple of days of sailing to get to the area, but within a day or so, they find their first shipwreck. It’s not the one they’re looking for, of course, but it’s a good sign.

The next day they find another wreck, and Jovah, swimming down amongst the wreckage notices a few shadowy humanoid shapes swimming nearby, although he’s unable to get a good look at them. They swim away quickly, and don’t return. Jovah lets the others know, and they keep their eyes open for the unknown creatures.

The following afternoon they spot a ship on the horizon. As they get closer, they note that it appears to be anchored. They decide to sail up and see what’s going on, pretending to simply be interested in an exchange of ship-to-ship communications, a fairly common courtesy most captains honor. The ship appears to be a fairly large cargo vessel named “The Waterbug,” unarmed (as is the party’s ship). The captain waves them closer after signals are exchanged, but then gets into a heated discussion with a well-dressed man on board who seems to be upset that the party’s ship is approaching.

“What should I do?” asks the party’s hired captain.

“Keep going in,” Brennen says. “Ignore any signals telling you to back off.”

The captain reluctantly agrees. The party sails up to the Waterbug, and Sir Brennen, Jovah, and Reana stand at the rail.

“We have some messages that need to go to Caer Cuthlin,” Brennen says. “Permission to come aboard and deliver them?”

“Certainly,” says the other captain.

“We’re not going to Caer Cuthlin,” says the foppish gentleman. The captain raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything to contradict him.

At this point a diver breaks the surface of the water on the far side of the ship and is hauled up on board; a second rope hanging in the water is also also in the process of being hauled up. Jovah notes that there are two priests on board, they appear to be priests of Velona, the goddess of the sea (priests of Velona frequently hire on to ships as ‘ship’s priests’).

The second rope comes up, and a commotion arises from the people on the other ship. The other rope is frayed and cut at the end; apparently a second diver is missing!

“Watch them!” the fop yells to the captain. “This is their doing!”

Brennen shrugs questioningly, and the other captain answers with his own exasperated shrug.

Reana grasps Brennen’s arm, and points to the prow of the other ship. “Look!” she whispers urgently.

The Sword of Kelanen looks where the Ranger is pointing, and sees a scaly humanoid figure slinking up the anchor rope, followed by another. Each has a trident tied off over his back. The failing light of an early winter sunset barely outlines them against the ships silhouette.

“Captain!” Brennen yells. “You are being boarded by Sahuagin! Look sharp! Do you require assistance?”

“NO!” yells the fop. “They’re behind this!” He then runs off somewhere; the party can’t see where, as the other ship is much larger and its deck is a good eight feet above the party’s deck.

“Do you swear you have nothing to do with this?” the captain asks.

“We swear!” Jovah replies.

“Then yes! We have no strong fighters amongst us!”

Brennen climbs up the rope ladder proffered by the Captain, and Reana follows. Jovah bangs on the hatch to alert Jalea, Batista, Gavin, and Aris (they had not wanted to make the other ship nervous with a large number of well-armed folk on deck) to the situation. Then he clambers up the ladder too.

As Brennen and Reana reach the top, they see a half-dozen sea devils attacking the crew. Brennen yells for them to back off so he and Reana can engage them. The foppish man who had been yelling at them is over at the steep stair leading down, talking urgently to someone, and is surprised to see the party on board, and even more surprised to see them fighting the sahuagin. He stands, jaw dropped as Brennen lays into one of the creatures and flattens it with two whirling strikes. Reana engages another one, but more keep coming up over the sides.

Jovah climbs up on board, and nearly gets his head taken off by a sahuagin. He tumbles out of its way, and in the failing last light of day sees a tall, brunette woman coming up from below decks, talking with the foppish man. She pulls out a small crossbow and plugs a sahuagin, while her foppish companion more or less hides.

Gavin is just about to climb up the ladder when a sahuangin tosses it overboard.

“D*MN!” he yells, and jumps for the Waterbug’s rail.

Aris casts jump and tries to make the leap up to the Waterbug, missing it by just a bit, and crashing over the railing. Something clicks in his head, and he turns to the starboard side, where the first diver is crouching under the stairs to the aft deck, clutching something in a wet leather bag. The diver reaches in and pulls something out.

It’s the Egg.

 

[at work Jovah]

The ship appears to be a fairly large cargo vessel named “The Waterbug,” unarmed (as is the party’s ship).

Yeah nothing BAD could be on an unarmed ship called
"The Waterbug"

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Aboard the Waterbug, in the Retic Sea, January 24th, AE 420

Just as Aris notices the Egg, a sahuagin leaps down from the aft deck, and skewers the diver. The Egg slips from his grasp, and begins rolling across the deck. Aris scampers to his feet, and rushes after it, but the ship pitches unexpectedly, and he loses his balance, and the Egg slips over the deck and back into the water!

Aris pounds his fist on the deck for a few moments, and then turns to deal with the immediate problem of the sea devils. The brunette woman from beneath decks is plugging Sahuagin with bolt after bolt from her crossbow, and Brennen, Reana, Batista, and Gavin are fighting off over a dozen of the creatures. Jalea has made his way to the Waterbug as well, and is picking a few off with bowfire.

Another image comes to Aris’ mind, and he spins to look back in the water. He sees a four-armed sahuagin, and in a flash his perspective shifts, and he sees himself through the sea devil’s eyes. The creature then blows a call on his conch shell horn, and sinks beneath the waves. The other sahuagin break off and dive into the water.

Jovah surreptitiously has cast detect evil and determined that the brunette radiates quite strongly.

She walks up to Brennen, and after casting a distrustful glance at the rest (seeming to linger longer on Aris than the others) addresses him.

“Who are you, and what do you want? I don’t mean to seem ungrateful for your help, but we could have handled this ourselves.”

“I am Sir Brennen D’Loxor, and these are my companions. We were just in the area and trying to help.”

The foppish man speaks up. “My name is Mauricio DeLaGuarde, and I hired this ship. We’re doing salvage work, and we’ve claimed this area and anything on the sea floor belongs to us.”

Jalea calls out from the front of the ship, “you might want to bury the hatchet, guys. There’s another ship off the port bow, and something is coming this way from it.”

By this time, the sun has completely set, and Aris and Reana strain to see a strange flying creature heading their direction – extremely fast. The brunette woman curses softly under her breath, and gracefully swings herself down below decks. Jovah, curious as to what she’s up to, follows.

As the flying shape comes closer, Jalea sees that it ilooks like a huge skeletal vulture with tattered wings. Aris moves up to zap it with a lightning bolt at his earliest convenience.

Below decks, Jovah sees the woman run back along the length of the ship towards a cabin. She pauses long enough to pound on a couple of crates near the cabin door.

“Wake up! Time to move! We’ve got action!” She disappears into the cabin, and Jovah stops to watch, joined shortly afterward by Reana. The woman emerges from her cabin, buckling on a sword belt that hold two shortsword scabbards. She draws her blades and advance towards the ladder; both blades are blackened steel, and reflect none of the ship’s lanterns light.

Above decks, it is possible to tell that the massive skeletal vulture is bearing mulitple riders.

“They’re Drow,” Jalea says.

Aris lets loose his lightning bolt and a few of the riders fall into the sea. The vulture manages to make it the deck before dying, and the party comes face to face with five Drow, including one that Batista immediately recognizes, even after ten years.

It is Thetra, the Drow who killed Batista’s mother and would have killed Batista if Vershanion hadn’t saved his life.

Batista lets his fireball arrow fly; but just before it hits Thetra, it reverses course and impacts on Batista instead. The Drow laughs mockingly, and fires off a stream of flame at Aris. Aris returns fire with a magic missile, but it has no effect at all on the Drow. Batista and Gavin are set upon by several of the other Drow, but some are trying to help their fellows out of the water, so the odds aren’t all that bad.

The brunette leaps up on decks again, and Reana carefully follows her. The Drow charge the woman, ignoring Gavin and Batista for the moment. Thetra lets off a flame arrow at Aris, but the bladesinger avoids the worst of it and returns fire with another lightning bolt. Thetra fares poorly with that one, and looks fairly injured as he retreats behind several of the other Drow.

Spells are flying in all directions now, and various people are affected by hold person, summon insects, magic missiles and other magics. Batista tries desperately to get through the line of Drow to get at Thetra, but is rebuffed. The shortsword-wielding brunette seems to hold her own against her foes.

Suddenly it occurs to Aris, those aren’t blackened steel, they’re adamantine. They’re Drow shortswords!

Below decks, Jovah sees the tops of the two crates pop off, and two graceful, albino skinned, white haired elves slip from over the edge of the crates.

Drow in my world are albino skinned rather than black-skinned. In that regard, they can be sometimes mistaken for grey elves.

“Uh, oh,” the luck-priest mutters.

Aris is confused by the apparent contradictions; he’s fighting Drow alongside someone who is wielding Drow weapons. Perhaps they are a hunter of the Drow like him? Having not seen the two Drow below decks, he isn’t certain.

The Drow that came from the Vulture are having a bad time of it, and are getting beaten badly. Thetra tries to make an escape, beginnig to cast a spell, but before he can complete it, he receives another shot from Aris, this time a wall of fire that springs from the deck and cuts the Drow group in two. Thetra goes down, and the rest of the Drow either are killed or forced into the water. It turns out they don’t swim very well, and Aris makes no attempt to help them.

Brennen turns once more to the brunette, but she is having none of him now. She slashes the fighter hard with both short swords, hitting much harder than Brennen thought she would. She then turns towards Gavin who is also nearby, and throws a crystal orb that breaks at his feet in a flash. Gavin finds that he is paralyzed. Mauricio tries to help her, but Batista cuts him down in a whirl of steel.

Then she seems to go into overdrive, and her swords swirl about her even faster than Brennen’s. She lands three more blows, taking a couple from Brennen in the process, and leaps below decks.

Jovah is hiding from the two Drow below decks, and sees her come down and yell something in a language he does not understand, but believes to be Drow. The two Drow move to support her. Both are male, one quite powerfully built and lean muscle, the other more bookish and wielding only a dagger. Behind them, the shadows appear to deepen, and the lights below decks fade.

Reana and Brennen come below decks, and are met by a flame arrow from the bookish Drow. Both are now also moving at preternatural speeds, and the warrior-drow draws a longsword and twirls it about him.

Just before Brennen and Reana reach their opponents, they vanish – but not completely.

“Look out!” Jovah yells. “They’re still there!”

All that can be seen of the three is a blurry disturbance in the air, as invisible whirling blades cut deep into the two fighters. Aris and Batista reach the fight, and Brennen and Reana fall back. The shadows are extraordinarily deep towards the cabin, and the invisible foes fade into the darkness.

Jovah tosses one of his continual light rocks into the shadows and they disperse. There is no sign of the enemy.

"Those were Drow...? Why were they fighting each other?" Brennen asks, gamely trying not bleed all over the hold from his multiple shortsword wounds.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

A couple of my players pointed out to me somethign that I forgot in the ship-battle:

Just before the enemy below decks retreated into the deepening shadows, an ear splitting roar shook the ship from stem to stern, apparently coming from below decks. Jovah and Reana saw nothing; Above decks Aris, Gavin and Batista all looked at each other and said, "There's no way a noise that loud could come from anything that could fit on this ship!"

But when they got below decks to check it out there was no sign of the enemy or of anything else.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Aboard the Waterbug, Retic Sea, January 24th, AE 420

The party starts licking their wounds, and Sir Brennen tries to explain to Captain DiNovo (skipper of the Waterbug) what’s going on, and that DeLaGuarde is working with forces counter to the interests of Ghithor. DiNovo accepts Brennen’s story, and the atmosphere on the ship gets a little less tense.

But only for a moment; Jalea slips up next to the Sword of Kelanen and whispers in his ear:

“Don’t look now, but there’s another small fishing vessel approaching us!”

“Oh, no,” moans Brennen.

The party gathers to meet this new potential threat. The light is failing, and the occupants of the ship can barely be seen, although it is sailing with lanterns aglow. A small figure is standing in the prow of the ship while a couple of sailors man the sails and rudder.

“Aris? Are you there? It looked like a battle going on… Are you alright?”

It is Tolaro Telegar, Aris’ mentor from Cape Varna.

The party breathes a collective sigh of relief, followed by a collective thought that Aris voices.

“Tolaro! It’s good to see you! But… what are you doing here?” The bladesinger helps the elderly grey elf on board.

“Dear Lord! Aris… You should really know better, giving me a scare like that. I’m fifteen hundred years old, for goodness sake!”

“Uh,” Aris stumbles. “A scare like what?”

“Near gave me a heart attack! PS, What’s a Loraxite? Indeed! I should never have given you a pass on your history exams, it just goes to show the dangers of not paying attention in school…”

Aris is flumoxed. He tries to regain the upper hand in the conversation.

“How… how did you get here? How did you find us?”

“Dear me, Aris, it wasn’t all that difficult. Time-consuming, but not all that difficult, not for a competent mage… I scryed you, of course. And then teleported to as close as I could reasonably get. And then hired this fine fisherman to bring me out here to your ship, er, ships.”

The grey elven scholar looks about him at the crew and captain of the Waterbug, who return his quizzical looks. Tolaro sees the dead Drow bodies on the deck, and walks over to investigate them.

“So, you have found some Drow, I see.” He bends down and examines them.

“There was another group of them,” Batista says, and Tolaro looks up sharply at the Ranger.

“Really? And, um, did they seem like the others?” Tolaro examines Batista for injuries, tilting his head to one side and the other like a barber getting ready to shave a customer.

“They went invisible, and were moving at an extraordinarily high speed,” Reana says.

“Ah.” Tolaro says. “Loraxites.”

“Did they injure any of you?”

“No, not really,” she replies. “But what are they? Another faction of Drow?”

“Well, sort of, but not really,” Tolaro says. “We’d better sit down, this is a bit of a story.”

“Can we just cut to the chase?” Gavin asks, not hopeful that a 1,500 year old elf will get to the point at anytime in the near future.

“Hmm.” Tolaro pauses. “No, I think you need the full story.”

The party finds some chairs and sits down for the full version. Tolaro tells them the full tale.

“At the most basic level, Loraxites are followers of Loraxus. Loraxus was a powerful Grey Elf who lived around 4,000 years ago, long before Vecna and the Long Night. Only the Grey Elves have histories of those times. The Elves were one people then, united. There was a distinction between High and Grey, and between them and the Wood Elves, but it was more one of interests than of race. The Grey Elves were the rulers, more in fact then than now. The Elven High King lived in his great city in the Witching Woods, far north of here. The Princes lived in Cape Varna and in Zelligar, as they do now.

“The High King was elderly, and died childless; a common problem among Grey Elves for millenia. Loraxus was the Chamberlain, a powerful figure in the Elven capitol, and a member of a leading noble family. She was ambitious, and tried to take the throne for herself.

“She put together a coalition of allies who were more enamored of wealth and power than the average Elf. She swayed the priesthood of a powerful merchant-goddess, the goddess of weaving and wealth – the weaving of cloth from spider silk has long been the Elves’ chief export to human lands, and a great source of wealth.

“The weaving-goddess’ name was Lolth.”

“Several noble houses joined with Loraxus. It devolved to the point of civil war, and elven blood was spilled in the streets of the capitol for the first time in its history.

“Loraxus forces were defeated, and retreated to the mountains, where they holed up and tried to regroup. The were forced ever deeper in the mountains, and eventually found places defensible enough that they could hold off the other Elves. The Elves forced beneath the surface were Grey Elves, and they took the name ‘Drow’ for themselves, and made Lolth their goddess-protector.

“Loraxus wasn’t finished, though. Her delusions of power led her to try and defy the priestesses of Lolth, who had taken the mantle of leadership of the Drow. Loraxus tried to depose Lolth and set herself in her place. Loraxus was powerful, and Lolth was not yet the hard and vile goddess she is now, but still, Lolth won, and Loraxus was defeated a second time.

“She was banned from the Drow enclaves as well as from ever returning to the surface. And for her temerity and for the evil she had done to the Elvish race, she was cursed by the gods themselves, never to see the Sun again.

“This is the part that the Grey Elves aren’t terribly fond of letting out.” Tolaro says, mopping his brow.

“Loraxus was turned into a Vampire. In fact, the very first Vampire.

“And the Loraxites share her curse.”