Knights of the Daystorm

[Jairami]

The next morning, Khuuld stood at the door of the inn, looking like thunder as he watched down the main avenue. When twenty-one men in barefeet and armor in variable states of repair each with a short curving sword and a heavy bladed knife entered town from the south and began apporaching the inn, he nodded grimly to himself and called in to the others in their preparations that they wouldn't have to go track down the ruffians.

In the interim, the group had inquired about the ruffians and been informed that they were thugs and hooligans, cut-rate pirates of the sea who were tolerated because they had gold and because no one could really stand up to them. That was about to change.

The pirate's apparent leader stopped out in green and called for the backstabbing murderer who had killed one of his crew to show his cowardly face.

Khuuld, Frederick, Andrew, and Collin came out with expressions like thunderheads. Frederick declared their crimes as he could put them together (at which some of the pirates looked at each other in confusion--and were promptly barked at by their captain) and called for their surrender. The answer was bared blades.

Summoning forth creatures at range to attack the captain Collin identified himself as an arcane caster of some sort. The captain ran a tight crew and promptly had the men near him fall upon the summoned monsters while several others advanced and threw daggers at Collin. Frederick healed Collin on the spot and gave the captain another problem to deal with. As both sides advanced cautiously, the Captain took more and more hits from summoned creatures that would appear, strike him, and then be struck down. By the time both sides had closed with each other, all in a matter of second, the captain was gravely wounded.

Swordswinging melee insued with the first mate doing his best to keep the sailors in line as their numbers failed to overwhelm the four. People fell on both sides, but the losses weighed more upon the small group of four.

Eventually the party was defeated, with one member running for help. Battered and bloodied in an encounter that did not go anything as planned, the pirates dragged their wounded back to their ship. When Collin returned with the inkeeper and the herbmistress, Frederick was doing his best to see to Khuuld and Andrew. Licking their wounds, they limped back to the inn.

The following day both sides clashed again, as the party was successful in preventing the pirates from setting the inn afire. The battered pirates in bandages and slings were no match for the party healed by Equitus's blessings. Those that did not scatter were captured or killed. ((Sorry, still summing up. Got a long ways to go. Perhaps Velenne will fill in some details.))

Lacking any established law system or court in Jigond, Frederick tried the remaining five survivors himself. Their lives and all their possessions were found forfeit and would be auctioned off to make reparations for the damages they had inflicted on both the townsfolk and the party.

In their search of the ship, they discovered a map with sketchy details regarding the locations of several ports in the sea and several possible locations they could travel to from Jigond. But without the knowledge of how to pilot or navigate a ship, nor the crew to run it, they were stuck. After a thorough interrogation of the captured crewman, it was decided that they would work off their debt in indentured servitude. Teaching the operation of the ship and seeing to it's upkeep. The cowed crewmen were thankful for their lives and accepted the terms as superior to death by hanging. Though never enthusiastic, they would prove at least competent and pliable.

But upon returning to town from the ship, the party found Tylette stumbling out of the inn, a vision still burning in her eyes.

 

[Velenne]

Ya I remember that first battle not going very well. Apparently Tylette's *ahem* assailents seemed to conveniently forget to mention to their captain what they had been caught in the act of doing. Most of the pirates just thought someone in our group had murdered one of their crew.

Fortunately for us, the pirates lacked a healer. So we faced them full strength again the next day. The second battle would not be a repeat. Poor Frederick did everything he could to take prisoners, but Khuuld wasn't having it. He would chase the unarmed, fleeing pirates down (even into the water!) and put them to the sword, judge, jury, executioner...particularly the latter.

But we managed to save 5, somewhat reputable individuals who were, at best, misguided. Pirates? Yes, but only because they followed their captain's orders. Hooligans? There's something to be said for peer pressure, or at least that's what Frederick thought.

The rest of us were just fine with hanging the bastards, but justice prevailed that day and the town had seen enough death. Commandeering the sailing vessel and learning what we could of navigation from the surviving first mate (Kaima? I think that's how it's spelled), our initial sea-voyages could be likened to a newborn horse trying out it's legs for the first time. But I'll leave that for Jair.

Most of the party was fairly disappointed with Jigond. We were all expecting a big city with all sorts of wonders and sights to behold. Instead we found yet another sobering event and a lot more growing up. (The party's average age is about 19. Small village-folk barely of age having no contact with the outside world) Killing goblins was one thing. Killing people was quite another.

Oh and the ravens...yes that session had us all clawing our armrests. Imagine knowing that at any second your death could be upon you, all around you, biting at your eyes and scratching off your flesh tiny bit by bit. Needless to say, the group felt pretty betrayed by Khuuld. Yet as our old friend, we could tell that something was influencing him. He may have been brash, headstrong, and dirty before, but now he had the aire of evil. Unsettling, to say the least. The player also did a great job of talking to himself and keeping his temper only a hair's breadth wide.

And now we get to try our sea legs...close your eyes, this won't be pretty.

 

[Darklone]

Hmmm

Did I get that right, the group lost and the pirates left them there without killing and capturing them? ... strange...

 

[Velenne]

Both sides had substantial losses. The crew was worried more for their captain who was on his last legs. They had to drag him off and without any leadership, the rest of them fell back when we did.

 

[Jairami]

Ah the joys of low level gaming. You think an encounter will go one way...

Twenty-one men faced four, and while they did down three, one got away to bring back help. Already demoralized beyond description at watching their captain taken down before they could even reach them by creatures none of them had ever seen, plus watching each man account for four of theirs, when Caema ordered two men to drag the Captain back to the ship, the 3 men left looked to the inn, looked at each other, and were about to break and run when Caema got them to grab other wounded and take them back too. He was about to lose his captain and his crew and even if two people came back he wasn't sure he could take them if they were like the first four.

All of this coupled with his own strong urge to run made the fact that there was at least one healing potion that he knew of on the ship the smartest decision a retreat. At least so far as his own cowardice was concerned.

I know I'm forgetting the details of how it came about, but every session has so many details and occurences (stretched over 10-12 hours) that I'm mainly highlighting events. Once I catch up to what we did Saturday, things will make much more sense from then on.

Consider this the cliff notes prequel to the main event.

 

[Piratecat]

Wow! This is great! You had me at the ravens. Good stuff.

Hey, Jai, drop me an email and I'll tell you a sneaky rat bastard trick you may want to use; if you don't, I'll post it here, as it is at least a bit relevant.

 

[Jairami]

That'd make my day.

E-mail sent.

<Evil DM laugh>

 

[Velenne]

If it's one thing Jair doesn't need, it's to be a rat bastard DM. He already runs the Sultans of Smack thread! That's bad enough!!! QUIT CORRUPTING HIM!!!1

 

[Darklone]

*grin*

DMs don't corrupt each other, they lighten up the lives of their players. Ok, it's the same

 

[Jairami]

Tylette begins telling of the gaunt, almost skeletal, face of the man she saw in her dreams. The green pasture upon which they lay wilting and rotting away to brown slime and muck as clawed skeletal hands burst forth through the mud and grabbed each of them, slashing and pulling them into the earth's embrace.

Tylette had dealt with her ordeal by locking it away. It never happened, she was never there. She wept no tears and allowed no kind words as she locked herself in denial. Much of her joyfulness, curiosity, anger, and personality was locked away with it. But as a result she was calm and dispassionate in her dreams and viewed her fortellings in clarity.

What she didn't mention was what she saw within the corrupt earth. As she herself was pulled down in the odd perspective of dreams wherein she could see herself descending, she reached a massive open air cavern heaped with the remains of all manner of creature. Fire roared along the ground in places and great vents of steam burst through fissures in others giving an ever shifting ominous light to the horrific surroundings. Firelight danced through ten thousand hollow lifeless eye sockets in a mountain of human skulls upon which stood Khuuld, strapped down hard to two gnarled boards that formed an X behind him of blood-soaked dark wood.

Except from his expression, he didn't know he was a prisoner. He gazed in rapt fascination at the captivating and compelling man in front of him. So much so, that he didn't appear to mind that he was feeding upon him, corrupting his inards, leaving that which was inside cold, black, and diseased.

From her height Tylette could see through the sham to the true features of the man. Mottled skin the color of slate was stretched taut against his gaunt features, his hands were so bony and elongated as to almost be claws. His black teeth smiled around the blood dripping from them at his plaything writhing before him in delusional ecstasy, but then he straightened.

He snapped towards Tylette's floating consciousness and hollow black twin voids where his sunken eyes should have been suddenly blazed to light with green fire licked with sickly brown. They burned into Tylette's soul as he cast a clawed finger towards her and she fled screaming back to her body to find herself trapped in her twisted and coiled sheats, sweating and trying to clamp her teeth shut around a scream of absolute terror.

This part she left out.

Herding their at least clothed now, if still weaponless, indentured servants into a single room they posted Khuuld outside it as a menacing guard while they retreated to the common room to plan their next move.

Tylette insisted that Khuuld's condition was worsening some how and that they needed to seek out treatment for him. Collin was also concerned but more wanted to seek out possible knowledge of Gaedri's ruins and what could possibly be affecting the earth and causing Tylette's visions. He had heard about town of the frontier town of New Galdamond far to the west being built upon the wreckage of the great city that used to stand there of the same name. Apparently the earth there was almost completely despoiled and, more alarmingly, was still spreading. The rate and cause of this was readily accepted as being of utmost importance.

It sounded like adventure to Andrew; it sounded like suicidal folly to Frederick, but then what else had they to do? Consulting their new map--a fairly accurate enough looking thing, at least with landforms though very few named locations, found hidden in a compartment of the desk in Captain Crayder's cabin among charts and notes in a grid system no one understood--they asked about the two towns, besides Ardonia, that they could reach by ship.

According to the map they were stuck in an immensely huge inland sea, that while it reached a nearly unimaginable amount of shoreline, to their adventurous young minds seemed limiting. Helpful word around town though was that a determined (or maybe insane) dwarf was attempting to construct a canal in a thin isthmus of land about two days south of one of the cities, Yogdush. Yogdush was apparently a good sized city of hard work and industry and the primary house of the following of Diggadin, the dwarven deity of labor, toil, and unending work.

The other mark on the map was identified as Galearon, the beautiful Elven capital. No one seemed to know much about those lands, except that for longer than the oldest grandmother's grandmother could remember before she passed, an endless war had been waged by the elves against some shadowy enemy. There were signs that the war had died down, maybe even ended, but for as long as it had raged, it might simply be a lull.

From what Frederick and Collin had read about elves, they were a long lived people and might have knowledge of the ruins north of Ardonia. Then again, they were far outside of human lands, much less the elven lands so far south across the sea. But they were also touted as being masters of powerful magicks, so they may know, or have a way to find out. And, as Tylette and Frederick both agreed, they may know of what has befallen Khuuld and perhaps some way to reverse it.

Agreed that Galearon was the best choice, they set out gathering supplies and preparing what was needed.

Now if only they could figure out how to get there...