Manifest Destiny

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The final tribe of barbarians has been subdued, their lands absorbed into the Old Kingdom, and Pelor's glory spreads from the Skyraker Mountains to the Nastell Ocean. The God King Ostrak, anointed by Pope Reginald XXI, had declared that the Old Kingdom ruled all of the known world, that all of its peoples bowed to him, and that Pelor's might held sway over all.

However, news had been brought to the God King that an exploratory ship had discovered a new land, many weeks of sail travel from the Old Kingdom, if a ship was willing to follow the setting sun. This pleased the God King, for it meant that there was new lands for the word of Pelor to spread to, and Pope Reginald XXII blessed the colonization effort.

Over the next year, many ships left, but only a handful returned, but each of those ships reported success, that they had landed colonists and supplies onto the shores of the New World. Six colonies and four military garrisons had been landed, and the Old Kingdom bureaucrats relished the thought of new taxes, new loots, new peoples, and new cities.

Undesirables were rounded up, to provide labor for the struggling colonies, people that the Old Kingdom would not miss. Beggars, thieves, street performers, outspoken church officials, ambitious political appointees, soldiers who the old Kingdom had not been able to buy out.

These undesirables were loaded into the Galleons that made up the 2nd Colonization Armada, along, and the ships set sail amidst great fanfare.

At sea, those who had begged for a royal charter and those who were press ganged into the journey began to blur. Each person was assimiliated into the colonization effort. During a great storm the Armada was seperated, and those of the O.K.N. Endevour watched as the O.K.N. Justicar broke up in the storm and sunk.

The Endevour made its way alone to Charlotte's Port, a colony only a few days older than 6 months, with a natural harbor, quickly sloping hillside, and cliff to either side. The new colonists were ordered to help unload the colony supplies, as the residents of Charlotte's Port answered the summons of the church bells to assist in the unloading of the ship.

Once the ship was unloaded, the new colonists then helped load boxes and crates returning to the Old Kingdom, and watched the 83rd Legion, 9th Century march aboard the ship. The Endevor cast off its lines, and sailed off into the seas.

The new colonists were given a speech by Militant Bishop Leonidas Christopherson, a high ranking member of the Church of Pelor and the spiritual/political guide of Charlotte's Port. Those colonists who were not properly outfitted were given clothing, daggers, and other things. Males recieved pocket watches, females recieved "Virtue Keepers" (Daggers), and children recieved small hand axes to chop wood.

Each colonist family, group, or individual would be responsible for clearing and settling their own property, and after three days of rest, the group would be expected to find and choose a plot of land within a week.

When asked, Bishop Christopherson dismissed the idea of a native species of hominids or intelligence, as nobody had reported or even seen any sign of a civilization, or even of a barbaric tribe.

Those who had not already gravitated into a group, or arrived with a family, were placed together, and so it was the Verdoon the Storm Witch; Hoggle, veteran of the Last Great War; Kalife, fresh from the massive commune/farms of the Old Empire; and Ambrosia the Pelorian Nun; found themselves assigned to work with one another.

****

Verdoon asked about the strange construction appearing, how the church was made entirely of granite and basalt blocks, complete with lead shingles, and how most of the houses were too, and was informed that apparently the soldiers built all of it before the colonists arrived.

Ambrosia was assigned a room in the church, and met Bishop Christopherson and Sister Alishia. The Bishop assigned her with the duty of taking the wagon in the mornings and gathering up the children from the six outlying farms and bringing them in for daily lessons.

Hoggle discovered that there was no need for a guard force, as the colony only staked out 4 people each night to watch the woods. He walked around the pallisade surrounding the colony, noting its wood construction, and staring into the misty heavy woods outside the pallisade.

Kalife went to bed early, pulling out the small stone he'd poured so much of himself into and named "Acorn", and they talked to one another.

----------------------------------------------------

I needed a new campaign setting. Shtar had finally been shut down, and the gaming group I had been part of, we'd jumped ship after some unpleasantness. So, rather than actually put any effort into it, I decided to run with it.

First, the PC's know almost nothing about the place they are except the following:

• The oldest non-military colony is 6 months old, the oldest military colony is 2 years old.
• The trip back is around 3 months (actually 72 days, for GM reference)
• The soldiers of the colony all left, and took a lot of crates with them
• The God King was recently crowned, as of 5 years ago
• Charlotte's Port contains 425 souls.
• While pocket watches, church/city hall clocks, and huge ships are available, gunpowder is not.
• The Witch is a "Church Approved" witch, bearing tattoos around the wrist signifying her bondage to the church.
• Hoggle was there when the last barbarian tribe was exterminated, and the rule of the Old Kingdom was firmly established.
• The Old Kingdom encompasses the entire known world.
• There are no creatures around Charlotte's Port that are demihumans or humaniods.

Each male was given a frock coat, a pea coat, knee boots, a pilgrim hat (complete with polished brass buckle), a brass pocket watch, an eating knife, a spear, and some other sundries.

Women recieved: Petticoats, pantaloons, corsets, cloaks & shawls, an eating knife, a dagger for guarding her virtue, a cooking pot, a ladle, a frying pan, and some other sundries.

All players wanted exploration and mystery, and were tired of hack and slash. They wanted to be completely in the dark about almost everything, and have to find it out over time. They wanted a new world, one that none of them had ever played in.

So they got it.

Next Up: The Chicken, the Farm, and the Endevour Returns

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The Chicken, the Farm, & the Endevour Returns

During the night, in the wind and rain, the Storm Witch went out and danced in the wind and rain, and although some of the villagers saw her, the Bishop reassured them that she had absolution by the church to perform such pagan actions, and assured the colonists that should the Storm Witch try anything against the town, or against the worshippers of Pelor, Pelor would punish her severely.

The Storm Witch saw, out in the distance, in the ocean, a low red glow appear slightly under the horizon, which stayed for over an hour. Just after her first sighting of the red glow, she heard the church bells heavy steel chains jangle.

The next morning, our intrepid group of heroes/colonists/criminals went outside the colony pallisade and began searching out a suitable location for their farm, agreeing to pool their resources. The rain was cold and dripping off of every single branch, and the only one who seemed happy was the witch, who was flushed and excited, running to everything to check out whatever caught her eye.

It took them most of the day, but a site had been selected. A good site was turned down when Hoggle noticed bear claw marks over 14 feet off the ground on a bunch of trees, one of the markings only about a week old.

They tied thier ribbons to a huge oak tree, and returned to file their claim. Due to the distance, they were allowed to grab nearly 80 acres of land, and were quite pleased with themselves. The Mayor-Governor told them that once they cleared the land for their home, the other men of the colony would help them build it, so they would have a livable area as soon as possible. They would be able to draw tools from the community.

Hoggle admitted to being able to forge plows, hoes, pitchforks, axes, and the like, and the mayor promised him that he would be sold, on credit, the things he needed for a forge, since the ship carrying the second blacksmith for the colony had never arrived.

Ambrosia was informed by the Bishop that once the house was finished, she'd be in charge of the souls outside the colony, the six families that had outside farms, and the township would build her a little school to teach at.

However, looking at the Bishop gave Ambrosia the chills. He had a mighty monobrow, and beneath his thick beard his jaw seemed large and imposing, his black eyes flashing with zeal as he spoke of Pelor and how the light of Pelor would be cast over this entire new world. She shrugged off his attitude as personal paranioa after how her nunnery was treated after charges of heresy.

Verdoon stayed at the site of their future home, curling up in the branches of a huge oak tree that the group decided would sit about 30 feet from their new home, and watching a storm sweep off of the ocean.

Kalife managed to encourage "Acorn" to suddenly sprout eight little legs and run around, the small fragment of his personality he'd placed within the stone fully awakening and becoming its own creature. He quickly hid Acorn in his pocket, and went out to look around.

The colony was not big enough to rate stores or anything like that, everything excess being held in a communal pot and given out by the Mayor Governor as he saw fit for the good of the colony. He asked around, and discovered that during the previous winter, snow got as deep as 22 feet, and nearly a third of the colonists either starved or froze to death.

A little bit of gossiping, and he discovered that the colony had virtually NO Old Kingdom soldiers left. Apparently in the last recent months the Governor General of the Legions had sent out manipiles that never returned. Over a centuries worth the men had entered the dark and forboding woods and had never returned. Despite this occurance, the Governor General had seceded power to the Mayor Govenor, boarded the ship with his men and the Militant Cardinal, and had left Charlotte's Port.

He took a good look at the buildings, and began to seriously doubt the claims that the legion had built all of the buildings. The colonists knew of no quarry, nor had they ever seen the legion bring in any stone, and on the corner of one of the larger buildings, in the basement, he discovered three strange runes on the cornerstone. Making sure nobody saw him, he quickly did a rubbing of the three runes, each the size of a man's palm, to show both Ambrosia and Verdoon. However, he didn't bother to show them to Hoggle.

Hoggle went out to one of the outlying farms to talk to the family that worked the farm, and on the way heard rustling in the bushes. A paraniod and seasoned soldier, he drew his sword and put his back to a tree, waiting silently for whatever was in the bushes to show itself.

With a loud clucking a rooster, with red and black feathers with white spots, burst out of the bushes hot on the trail of a large bug. Hoggle tried to grab it but it agilly avoided his hand and ran back into the foilage.

The family he visited informed him that they saw those chickens once in awhile too, but all the chickens of the colony were white and quite large, not the small chickens like he saw. The farmer also warned Hoggle that the red and black roosters would kill a white rooster and try to take over the hens.

Something about that fact bothered Hoggle as he walked back to Charlotte's Port.

That night, after looking at the three symbols, the nun was heading toward the library to look at a book of saints to see if the three tantalizing symbols matched anything, Ambrosia hear weird noises coming from the cell of the other nun, and peeked inside. The nun within was stripped to the waist, facing the symbol of Pelor on her wall, and flagellating herself.

Ambrosia quietly snuck away.

She startled the Bishop, who was eating a sandwich and reading from a Bible, who quickly excused himself and moved away. For some reason, he gave Ambrosia the creeps.

The library, however, proved next to useless. The book of Saints was missing, and upon questioning the Bishop, Ambrosia learned that the full religious library had never arrived.

Unsettled, Ambrosia did her evening prayers and went to bed.

The next morning, the party had lucked out. They'd won a rather foul tempered donkey, two oxen, a brace of piglets, twelve chickens, four bags of feed, a steel crowbar, and a stack of wool blankets in the "newcomer lottery" and they loaded their stuff up on a borrowed cart and headed out to the sight of their new home, their spirits high despite the dripping rain.

That day, the foursome spent time cutting down trees and pulling free stumps. However, when the third stump was pulled, all work stopped.

A skull was entangled in the roots. Looking into the hole, the group saw that the tree had managed to thrust its taproot through some tightly interlocked cobbled, upon which several skeletons were still laying.

Careful digging managed to pull five skeletons up. One was taller than a man, covered in rust, a flint arrowhead rattling around in his skull, the other four were small heads, blocky, from four short bowlegged creatures. Verdoon estimated the age of the skeletons, based on the ground, as around 300 years.

Digging up tree stumps all day, the group encountered more skeletons, more flagstones, and what they swore was foundations of two large buildings.

After services, rather than return to their inn rooms, the group returned to their house site, and began salvaging the heavy stone for their own house. They worked until the moon had gone down, then returned to Charlotte's Port, waving at the two young boys inside the blockhouse who were armed with crossbows and staring at the spooky woods.

Kalife noticed something weird down at the docks, and the group walked down to the dock and stared in shock.

While the pilings were stone, the dock itself was wood, and a huge shipmast had slammed into the wood of the dock, splintering and destroying it. The copper banding around the mast gleaming dimly.

Looking around, they found out (via the carved nameplate) that the Endevour had somehow broken up. They found drowed soldiers, several large crates, and some salvage. Verdoon woke up the colony to help drag the salvage from the pounding surf.

The colonists were visibly upset, some of them nearly hysterical, that the Endevour had broken up, but Ambrosia was postive she saw a sly smile flicker across the face of the bishop.

The cargo was sequestered within the basement of the Mayor Govenor's house, and everyone returned to bed, with the exception of Verdoon, who sat on top of the inn and stared thoughtfully out to sea in the pouring rain and flickering lightning of the storm. On the horizon the red glow flickered and eventually went away.

The next day, despite the wind and rain, the group went to their homestead sight. Looking down to the rocks, they saw several crates, part of a mast, several of the great oars, and a few bodies in the rocks at the base of the cliff.

Using a rope harness tied by Hoggle, Kalife was lowered down to attach ropes to the various items and haul them up. Verdoon was anxious to look at the bodies, as they looked strange to her eyes.

Ambrosia noted one of the red and black speckled roosters watching them but disregarded it.

The bodies turned out to have been boiled, as if they had been plunged into a great pot, and the group marvelled over the strange occurance. What could have boiled bodies far out to sea? Unsure of what might have happened to the sailors, Ambrosia gave them the last rites and the group wrapped them up for burial behind the church.

The crates contained oddities. Sheer fabric lighter than even cotton, smooth on the skin, and very strong. The light danced on it, and it seemed otherwordly. Verdoon wanted to keep it, and after a impassioned arguement, her desires were seen as valid, and the two crates containing the sheer fabric were buried by a wild rosebush.

Another crate contained waterlogged papers, completely ruined by the seawater. However, the items wrapped within the paper were found, and marvelled over. Delicate glass sculptures of deer, bear, trees, and even mythical creatures like unicorns and dragons.

Hoggle brought up the fact that there was no glass blower in the village. Despite the fact that the colony had a glazier who could make windows, he couldn't create a passible blob, much less the delicate swan.

It was agreed to uncover one of the boxes of sheer material and hide the glassworks within the material.

Inside the last crate was wooden children's toys, but buried within the toys they found a locked box, and busted off the lock. Inside were several handfulls of coins. Unlike the Old Kingdom coins, which were oval, these coins were hexagonal, smaller, with milled edges, and a sheaf of wheat on one side, and a fearsome looking single eye on the other. The coins seemed to emenate malevolence to Ambrosia, so the group agreed to throw them off the cliff and into the sea.

Money had no value in Charlotte's Port.

Ripping up a stump, the characters found another group of skeletons. This one was laying on dried and dead grass, his skeletal hand tight around the neck vertebrae of one of the small bow legged ones. His sword was rusted, but identifiable, and Hoggle was able to find scraps of chainmail on the larger one. They seperated the skeletons, and buried the bigger one with the few big skeletons they'd found, and the smaller one with the small skeletons they'd found.

The rain had stopped, and Verdoon got into the hole, and patted the grass, raising a puff of ash that made her cough. Looking carefully at the exposed dirt, she discovered two small lines of what looked like ash several inches apart in the exposed wall of dirt.

She climbed out of the hole and went to look at one of the larger trees they'd cut down. Counting the rings, she discovered that about 300 years ago, the tree had suffered from a fire, then 200 years ago, then roughly 80 years ago.

She looked at the blocks of granite and basalt they'd pulled from the ground, looking at the careful quarrying marks on them, and brushing all the dirt from them.

The group agreed.

Someone had once lived here. A Civilization had flourished here, and volanic activity had killed it.

Verdoon kept the knowledge of the sullen red glow far off into the ocean to herself.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The Midnight Sunrise

It took two weeks, but the farmhouse was finished, as was the barn, and nothing untoward had occurred. However, Verdoon and Hoggle often looked in the forest. Verdoon claimed they were looking for a large pond or small lake somewhere out there, but it wasn't until the second week of searching that they discovered something.

A man's forearm, holding aloft something in one hand that was now missing, just the fingers curled around something long gone, jutting up out of a blackberry bush. Working with shovels, they discovered the man's head some eight feet below the ground.

A large forehead, wide nose, jutting lower jaw complete with tusks, fierce monobrow beneath a wreath of laurel leaves, and hair cut severely short, his face was stern and uncomprimising, not savage and brutal. More work showed that he was wearing plate mail of all things, but Verdoon and Hoggle gave up before digging down much further than his shoulders, giving up when they reached fifteen feet down.

"How big do you think he is?" Hoggle asked, climbing out of the hole.

"Judging by the size of his head, unless he's got the big head sickness, he's at least eighty feet tall, and that's not counting whatever he was standing on." Verdoon answered, leaning against her shovel.

"What is he?" Hoggle looked at the non-human countenance.

"Beats me. He doesn't look like anyone I'd want to cross though. I think he was royalty of some type."

"Why?"

"Look at the wreath. Unless it was fashionable to run around with rotting leaves on your forehead, it's some sort of crown, tiara, what have you."

"Should we get the others and dig some more?"

Just then a low breeze, cold and slippery, plucked at them with invisible fingers, trying to wriggle it's way past their heavy clothing, and a low moan echoed around them.

Both Hoggle and Verdoon looked at one another, and wordlessly, went back to the others.

When they returned, they found that another ship had arrived, and was dropping off supplies. Kalife had asked several of the sailors, and discovered that the Intrepid had gotten lost during a storm from the rest of the colonization Armada, but finally made landfall at Charlotte's Port.

It took most of the day unload the ship, which cast off in the evening and sailed off to the east.

Exhausted, the group stayed in town for the night.

Walking back from the privy, Sister Ambrosia took a shortcut through the bellpull chamber, stopping when she noticed the chains slowly moving back and forth. Curious, and wanting witnesses, she ran out to the inn, in the rain and wind and thunder, and got her three friends. Upon returning, the chains were visibly moving, and began to jangle slightly. The bells began rocking back and forth.

A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, Verdoon climbed up the bell tower as fast as she could, and looked off to the east.

Off in the distance, a sullen red glow pulsed, looking for the world like a sunrise. As if the sun was imprisoned beneath the sea.

"A good omen." The bishop said behind her, and Verdoon screeched, the bishop's words startling her.

"Are you sure?" She asked suspiciously, looking at the priest.

"Of course, a sunrise at midnight? How could it not be proof of our lord Pelor's might?" Verdoon knuckled her forehead at the mention of Pelor's name.

She noticed the defined square jaw of the bishop, his monobrow, his fierce eyes, and was suddenly reminded of the statue they'd partially uncovered in the woods.

Returning downstairs with the Bishop, Ambrosia asked the bishop if Verdoon's newly aquired familiar, the weasel "Stretch", could sniff around the basement and check for rats.

Yawning wide, and displaying prominent canines on both sets of teeth, the Bishop waved his permission, and the group entered the basement and began looking around.

In the corner, they found a block with three symbols arranged in a triangle, and Ambrosia gasped with shock at the reaslization that one of the symbols was an ancient symbol of Pelor, one that had not been used in eons.

Above it was a single eye.

To the right was a flame wreathed skull.

"I don't think the soldiers built this church." Kalife muttered.


(Next up: The Testaments, The Ghost Ship, and the Missing Oak)

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The Testaments, the Ghost Ship, and the Missing Oak

The next morning the Nun, Ambrosia, was teaching class when she saw the Bishop leave to the Lord Governor's house, and excusing herself from the children, she went to his office and looked around quickly. In a drawer she found several thick books, all identical, with those ancient symbols of Pelor on the cover in gold.

Wondering if she was doing the wrong thing, she stuck the book in her blouse and hustled back to the children.

One of the children, a small black haired thing with a pinched face and wide blue eyes, had a bad habit of drawing during class, not paying attention to her lessons. She'd been reprimanded several times by Ambrosia and the Nun Constance.

As Ambrosia walked by, she saw that the little girl was drawing a great flaming eye, staring down on large, blocky figures. She wasn't drawing it line by line, but rather back and forth, her charcoal pencil making tapping noises on the paper as her hand went back and forth across the paper.

Ambrosia stood silently as the picture slowly was completed.

Hoggle went out into the woods, his sword in his hand, and wishing that the Legion had trained him in forestry, rather than large scale manuevering. He located the massive statue, and discovered that something had pushed the dirt back over it, and a bush had been neatly transplanted, it's branches wrapped around the rotting marble.

A cold breeze snaked down the back of his chainmail, and he walked back to the house.

In the front room, Verdoon was stripped to the waist, her eyes covered with cheesecloth, a brazier burning local herbs, and she was fondling chicken guts, the chicken that had provided the guts boiling in a stew pot.

Hoggle poured himself a cup of tea, sat down at the stool he'd made that morning, and waited.

"Dead man the decks, the Intrepid returns to its last port of sin, the book, seek the book, the nun hides it beneath her breasts, and the warped priest is unaware! The midnight rising sun shall run in advance of its brothers setting in the West. Ware, ware, ware and doom!" Verdoon wailed, and tore free the blindfold.

"That doesn't bode well." Hoggle said, sipping off his cup of tea.

"Bah, I should know better than try to contact the spirits of this land. They fell.... maddened." Verdoon shivered and pulled her top back on.

"I don't know, that was stranglely concise." Hoggle answered, going over to the stewpot and looking inside.

"It's chicken and dumplings." Verdoon told him. "Shouldn't you be cutting trees?"

"Too much rain, and Kalife is in town trying to get us more supplies, so I don't have someone to help operate the cross cut saw." Hoggle walked back over and sat down. "When's dinner going to be ready?"

Kalife was walking back from the town when he saw Sister Ambrosia leading the mule and smacking it with a stick, cursing its stubborness. Kalife helped Ambrosia get the mule back to the farmhouse, and Ambrosia rushed into the house.

"Look what I found!" She pulled the book out from under her blouse, where it was wrapped with the child's drawing.

"You found a child's picture and an ugly book." Hoggle said, eating a roll.

"You shut up." She opened the book and pointed at the illuminated picture in the front. "Look!"

She pulled a Pelorian bible out of her side satchel, opened it, and pointed at the initial image.

With the exception of Pelor's face, and the two figures looking up at the face of Pelor, the image was functionally the same.

Except the ones looking up had large tusks, wide flat noses, heavy foreheads, were heavily muscled, and taller than humans by at least a foot.

"By Pelor's firey beard, it's a Bible!" Kalife said. "Can you read the words?"

"No. But I noticed something. While the Book of Pelor has six testaments, this one only has the first two. And some of the pictures are, well, graphic, in nature." Ambrosia answered, flipping open the book.

The picture got Hoggle's attention immediately. Verdoon giggled, Kalife turned red.

Instead of Pelor rising from the darkness when the All God Mankar created light, it was a picture of a large, one eyed creature having fairly explicit sex with an elven woman, who was holding his missing eye in her hand. The facing page showed her holding up the strange version of Pelor to the one eyes spear weilding creature with a smile.

And she had a black eye and her golden crown was missing.

"I think, that these people were not barbarians." Kalife said, touching the fine flowing script written in golden ink.

"I'm going to pray to Mighty Pelor to reveal the words to us at dawn, I've already told the Bishop I'm feeling poorly." Ambrosia told everyone.

"Sounds good." Hoggle said, looking at the pictures in the strange book. It depicted living sacrifice, those tusked creatures, and other strange things.

The next morning, Ambrosia found not only the strange bible changed, but one of her copies changed. She gathered up her companions, made tea, and sat down with the two changed bibles and a "standard" bible.

The changed ones spoke of living sacrifice, of building pyramids to Pelor, of selecting volunteers to have their hearts ripped out and sacrificed to the sun God. The end of the new book, and the end of the second testament of the changed book, spoke of another Prophet arrising and leading a new day of Pelorian glory.

They also found the names of important things.

Their overgod was called:

(You called it) Gruumsh
Pelor was called Kapelor
And his half-brother was called "Hades"

The name the featured race was:

Uruk-Hia (Thanks for the name, Papa Tolkien!!!)

The race being crapped out by Gruumsh after he ate poisoned meat was called:

Guruk-Dia

The companion race of the Uruk-Hia were called Mogu-Kia.

The elven woman was called Hecate, and apparently was wooed by Gruumsh away from her husband Correllian, or something like that. Apparently she got the black eye when her husband found out of her affair with Gruumsh and cast her out after striking her. In revenge she brought magic and writing to the Uruk-Hia.

Sacrifices were by volunteer, and only during Holy Days.

Winter came about when Hecate and Gruumsh argued, and Hecate laid him out with the frying pan. Spring came when he woke up on the floor of the kitchen.

The stories and names were different, but the religious rites were the same. The saints were the same, just with different names, the holy days matched.

But the "standard" bible made no mention of these rites, practices, and other things.

Pelorian religion was apparently quite bloody in the first two books, and someone had edited those bloody rites out. Was it out of embarrassment? Was it the Second Pelorian Reformation about 1200 years ago? What had done it?

The group sat all day, looking over the books, and feeling a sense of dread fill them.

One of the things that bothered Verdoon was a picture of an elven warrior with a golden halo around him, spearing mountains, piercings thier hearts, and causing the mountians blood to flow.

"Has anyone noticed anything about our wonderful Bishop?" Verdoon asked, tapping her finger on an Uruk-Hia clad in gold robes.

"That he seems to be changing into one of the Uruk-Hia? No, hadn't noticed." Kalife answered.

"That he seems to have lost the grace of Pelor and can't even light a candle or heal a splinter? No, I haven 't noticed." Ambrosia replied.

"Who?" Hoggle asked, looking up from the picture of Gruumsh and Hecate.

Acorn came toddling up on the table, unsteady on his ectoplasmic legs. Hoggle slammed a mug down.

"GOT THE SPIDER!" He yelled.

"It's not a spider!" Kalife shouted back, grabbing the mug off of his psicrystal.

"I hate you so much." The psicrystal hissed at Hoggle.

"What is it? A spider?" Hoggle asked, squinting at the crysal with 8 ghostly legs.

"It's a psicrystal, a companion." Kalife answered.

"Heeey, those are illegal." Hoggle told him. "It's a sin."

"Hoggle, check out the breasts on this woman." Verdoon said, pushing forward the Uruk-Hia bible.

"Wow..." Hoggle said, forgetting about Acorn, who scurried up Verdoon's sleeve and hid in her hair.

"Hey, how come our bible doesn't have pictures like these? Our bible is boring!" Hoggle complained.

"I'm not sure. The passages those pictures refer to have been edited pretty heavily. For example, this woman, Keelistan, was changed to the male Paeulestes in our Bible, but in the Pelor modified one, she's Paeules." Ambrosia answered. "My head's starting to hurt."

The more the group compared the books, the more they became convinced that the Pelorian bible they had all grown up with had been heavily edited multiple times.

That evening, Verdoon climbed up on the roof and watched for Ambrosia to shine a lantern when the chains began to tremble. First, a flicker of red off to the east, then a steady red glow. Hoggle checked his watch when the lantern lit in the bell tower.

"Three minutes, fourty-nine seconds." He told Verdoon. "What's it mean?"

"I don't know." Verdoon answered, writing down the time that the glow started, when the chains began to sway. The lantern flashed, meaning that the chains were jangling.

"Six minutes, nineteen seconds." Hoggle said. "Oh, crap."

"What?" Verdoon asked, looking up sharply.

Off to the West, a glow had started, a slow pulsing.

"I was afraid of this." Verdoon said, watching over Hoggle's shoulder at the time and marking it down.

It took two hours for the ocean glow to subside, and three hours twenty minutes for the Western glow to subside.

"I think I know what killed off the Uruk-Hia." Verdoon told Hoggle as they walked down the attic stairs.

The next night, another glow appeared, this one far north, but still off in the west. The night after than, another glow far to the south.

"We have to do something!" Ambrosia said. "The lives of my flock are in jeapordy! The chains are swaying worse, and last night the bells actually moved."

"And that Bishop is looking more and more bestial. I have some serious suspicions." Hoggle added.

The group read through the books, and made a decision.

The Bishop had to die.

They looked up the old ways of sacrificing those who were descending into evil or possessed, and decided his throat had to be cut and the blood sprayed across the altar.

The group snuck into the church, ambushed the Bishop, who used hellfire against them, drug him to the altar bound, and when the light to the east began to glow, they split his throat, spraying his blood on the altar.

With a wail, red mist poured from his mouth, and the body shivered into ash.

Verdoon slaughtered a chicken, and sprayed its blood against the cornerstone of the church, and Kalife read aloud the sancification prayer and the prayer for mercy from both the Uruk-Hia bible and the old-style Pelorian bible, then threw both bibles into a small fire prepared just for that.

However, the group's victory turned to ash when the fifth glow to the west appeared that night, and the chains jangled, and the bells tolled.

With a crash, the warehouse down by the dock collapsed as the ground shook. Panicked colonists ran around, and a house burned down when the lantern fell from the wall and broke.

"I told you not to mess with old magic. Old magic is powerful, and unrestrained." Verdoon told the group.

-----------------

The next day, the little girl, Lemee, was drawing again, and Ambrosia stood behind her, watching as she drew a ship, with the dead laying on the decks, and when Charlotte's Port appeared at the bottom, she collected the girl's "spelling quiz" and hid it away.

The group decided that a ghost ship, possibly a plague ship, was going to crash into Charlotte's Port. However, storms were making the seas heavy, and wind and rain was lashing at the colony of Charlotte's Port.

"I can get us there, but your flock won't like it." Verdoon told Ambrosia.

"Witchcraft?" Ambrosia wrinkled her nose.

"Witchcraft." Verdoon answered.

Two nights later, the chicken-guts and the sticks proclaimed the ship was coming. A night of the full moon.

Verdoon took along a basked of chickens, and slit their throats onto the water, calming the ocean around them so they could board the ship. They dropped the sea anchors, anchoring it about a mile from the port.

The sailors were all dead at their posts, the soldiers were all dead below decks, and the stench of sulfur filled the inside of the huge ship.

"Devilry." Hoggle murmured.

"Horse hockey. Volcano." Verdoon answered. "The wizard group I hid with after I was accused of witchcraft was near a volcano, and sometimes it would belch fire and ash and a flock of sheep would die the same way. Volcanoes throw out ash, fire, and poison gas."

"From Hell." Hoggle mumbled, but moved away.

On board the ship, in the cargo area, the party found something that scared them.

Mummies, marble, gems, gold, what looked like a mausoleum, along with holy books.

Over the course of the next several days, the party deduced that somewhere out there, the Legion found a shrine to one of the Uruk-Hia saints, and had looted it and disassembled it. The markings of the Old Kingdom Archeology Society showed that it had been taken apart with the intent of rebuilding it.

The group rebuilt it behind the Church, interring the mummy of the Uruk-Hia, his wives, and his servants, placing the precious items back, and carefully arranging the organ jars.

It didn't rise and smite the colony, and the three children who'd fallen with sickness suddenly got better.

It was the notes and log books of the Captain, the Militant Cardinal, and the other people on the ship. Four Militant Bishops, a Militant Cardinal, four Militant Governors, all travelling on the ship. However, the maps were burnt up, while the cases they were in were unscorched.

Apparently they were going to arrest Hoggle on trumped up murder charges, as he was aboard ship on the way to Charlotte's Port when the murders occurred. The charge of Heresy against Ambrosia was a little more realistic, and the charge of Witchcraft against Verdoon was plenty realistic.

They pulled the supplies from the ship and had them loaded into the warehouse that was left, then scuttled the ship.

Something bad was happening in the Old Kingdom.

----------------------------

Kalife and Hoggle were out clearing more trees, and left behind the crosscut saw while theywent in for lunch several days after they scuttled the Reliant. When they returned, the crosscut saw was crushed up into a ball.

When they ran back and told Verdoon, she went out with them to where the saw was crumpled up, the two axes were missing, and the steel crowbar was bent into a small ball.

"What do you think happened?" Hoggle asked, looking nervous.

"We must leave the forest. It will no longer suffer our murder of these old sleeping giants." Verdoon said, backing away.

When they returned, they noticed something.

The old oak tree by the house was missing. Not cut down, but missing.

Completely.

That evening, from the rooftop, Verdoon stared out in the forest, and wondered whether or not the oak tree awakening and walking off was good, or bad.


(Next: The Earthquake, The Rooster, and the Tsunami)

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The Earthquake, The Rooster, The Tsunami

The next day, Verdoon was walking across the town square of Charlotte's Port when all of the animals began crying out, the oxen and cows kneeling down, the mules running into the square, and the chickens all squatting low.

Verdoon threw herself to the ground and rode out the earthquake, which caused several of the houses to collapse. When it was over, Hoggle and rest ran into town to help care for the wounded and help bury the dying.

The colony suffered over 50 dead, and 150 wounded. Ambrosia kept asking for Pelor's grace to help heal the most drastically wounded, but while her divine magic could remove and heal serious splinters, the child with a ruptured spleen and the pregnant woman with the collapsed and punctured lung died.

Verdoon returned to the farmhouse in time to see a wild rooster kill their rooster. Kalife used ectoplasm drawn from the astral plane to entangle the little thing, and they threw it in the henhouse.

Hoggle happened to notice that the water at the shore was starting to recede, and when he mentioned it to Ambrosia, she realized that it was a tsunami wave approaching. Yelling, she hurried everyone up the massive hill, and then up the trail of the next one, arriving just before the water hit.

The majority of the houses were destroyed, and the basement of the church flooded.

Another 75 people were killed, including two infants.

The group conferred, and decided it was time to abandon Charlotte's Port. In Verdoon's belief, things were only going to get worse.


Next Up: The Dead Kingdom Roads, the Legion Fortress, and the Savages.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Hoggle had discovered an old creation, an upraised road approximately 30 feet wide that led off to the West, and the four companions, now the leaders of the surviving colonists, decided that roads had to lead to places where civilization had been. If the area had been good enough for the Uruk-Hia to put cities on, even if the city was wholly destroyed, the location should still be good.

It didn't take long to find the first major intersection, only 3 days. There was an upraised "highway" leading south, and another leading northwest. After some discussion, it was decided that they would head northwest.

Over the course of the next week, the slow caravan of survivors moved through the woods. During the time, 6 of the injured died of the wounds inflicted during the tsunami. Three women were getting very close to term, so they were all assigned to the same covered wagon, and two men assigned to guard them.

During an afternoon storm, a week after they had left Charlotte's Port, Hoggle, a veteran legionairre of the Old Kingdom, sensed the attack before it came. Two flint arrows shattered on his armor right before strange stunted creatures, screaming their war cries, attacked the caravan.

Hoggle's mighty greatsword swept aside the twisted mockeries, Verdoon dropped her robe on the ground, raised her stick, and called lightning and wind down from the heavy clouds to strike dead or repel those who attempted to attack the pregnant or un-attached women wagons or the children wagons, while Ambrosia guarded a small group of children who had been listening to her parables about Pelor. Kalife sprayed a cone of crystals from one hand, obliterating four of the twisted creatures who were running at him with spears.

"FLEE! ALL IS LOST!" "sneaky" (the psi-crystal) called out when a rain of arrows fell upon the caravan. Several men went down, gushing blood, and a pregnant woman screamed as an arrow punctured her abdomen.

Hoggle charged into the woods, wading through the creatures, and Verdoon used a sheet of flames from her hands to incinerate a flight of arrows. Ambrosia picked up the injured pregnant woman and pulled her into the cover of the wagon, while Kalife told his companion crystal to shut up and check on the kids.

A little girl was getting drug into the woods, kicking and screaming, and with a snarl one of the twisted little creatures cut her throat and threw her body aside. Kalife killed the creature with a single crystal that shot from his hand.

Hoggle leapt over the fallen forest giant, a huge pine, that the twisted creatures were hiding behind and raining arrows upon the caravan, and began killing them, his greatsword sweeping through them . None of them could stand before the mighty ex-legionairre, and the survivors ran screaming into the woods.

When the attack was over, Verdoon retrieved her robe, and sat still for one of the young girls to bandage her arm. Hoggle and Kalife buried the dead, which included a couple of children and one old man, as well as nearly a dozen men. The woman survived, as did her baby.

After a short service for the dead, the caravan moved on, Hoggle watching closely.

"We should have hidden." Sneaky counselled Kalife.

Two days later, Hoggle spotted tumbled down ruins just off the road, and the four leaders decided that they bore some investigation. Leaving behind the elderly nun, the four companions journeyed into the ruins.

Only the gatehouse, a section of walls, and a sinkhole leading into semi-collapsed storerooms remained, but after several desperate flights with the spirits of the dead, who were disturbed by the companions investigations, several books written in the language of the Uruk-Hia, several scrolls of strange and unknown arcane magic, and a holy symbol of Kepalor were discovered.

A few more days of travel, and the caravan found a cleared side road leading off the highway they were following. After some discussion, the four companions left the caravan and went to check the road.

What they found was a slaughter. Literall hundreds of the dead, twisted Guruk-Dia, dozens of slain legionarres. At the top of a hill was an ancient Uruk-Kia fortress, the gates wedged open, the salley port forced, ropes danging down from the walls.

Fending off several foul undead legionairres whose very touch could paralyze a man, carrion eaters that feasted on the flesh of the dead, the group recovered important supplies (food, water, blankets, bandages, backpacks, weapons, armor) to help the caravan. Hoggle and Ambrosia found two ancient sets of armor in the commander's office, and Hoggle found a greatsword of fine quality with Uruk-Hia runes upon it.

There would be no help from the XI Legion beyond what they could recover from the sight of the pitched battle.

Rearming, the group rejoined the caravan and led it past the slaughtered fortress.

After several days, the trees began to thin, and the group entered an area of low hills. Hoggle, once more marching before the caravan, spotted a pair stakes in the ground, on either side of the highway. Atop the stake on the left was a Guruk-Dia head, ravens flapping away from it. On the left was a helmeted legionairre head, complete with helmet. A raven was painted on both heads, and raven feathers were attached to the sticks.

Verdoon told everyone that the stakes were warnings that the territory beyond belonged to a tribe, possibly a Raven Clan, and that the group should take care. Do not leave the highway, keep the children in the wagon, and do not act aggressive.

Later in the afternoon, Hoggle was confronted by four small creatures, barely three feet high, with powerful hind legs, scales, tails, and dog-like snouts. They were dressed in buckskin, adorned with jewerly, and their buckskins had intricate bead patterns. The lead one drew a line in the dirt covering the highway, held up a stick with yellow gunk on the end, posed for a few moments, then struck a combat stance.

The smaller one came forward and handed Hoggle a stick with yellow gunk on the end, and then the trio waited. Hoggle posed several times, and struck a combat pose. The oldest one (maybe, he was the more heavily scarred, more ornate beadword and jewelry adorned) barked something, and the one with the stick struck at Hoggle.

After a furious set of exchanges, blocks and parries and dodges, the strange creature leaped into the air, the stick held strangely over it's head, and brought the stick down to bypass Hoggle's guard and mark his chest.

With whoops and cries, all three ran into the bushes, vanishing into the hills.

Bemused, Hoggle waited for the caravan.

The next day, they passed another set of stakes, the skulls facing the direction the caravan was travelling, and Verdoon cautioned Hoggle to watch for the next set of clan markers.

Less than a half day, the next set appeared to be the Clan of the Bear. Within an hour Hoggle was met by four of the small lizardlike creatures. They tried speaking to Hoggle, their voices musical and flowing, but Hoggle couldn't understand. However, the most muscular offered to lock hands with Hoggle.

Hoggle removed his gauntlets, and locked hands. Both contestants flexed, and when the oldest one barked the same word, Hoggle and the small creature began straining at one another, trying to force the other's wrists back. Hoggle squeezed hard enough that the other one grimaced, and then bent his opponent's wrists back. The small creatures said something, and relaxed, and Hoggle barely managed to stop in time.

The older one gave Hoggle a buckskin wrapped package containing deer jerky, a buckskin water flask with beadwork, and a lip ring. Hoggle offered one of his steel daggers, but they backed away bobbing their heads.

Verdoon told Hoggle that this tribe must prize strength. When he asked about why they didn't try to shed blood, Verdoon told him that the tribes must be very formal about their warfare here. Using the spell tongues and Hoggle repeating what he heard, Ambrosia was able to determine that the eldest one had said:

"We Mogu-Kia of the Bear greet thee, son of the Uruk-Kia, and challenge you."

The command both sets had barked was the word "Begin"

The caravan passed from the Bear Clan lands to the clan of the ferret. During the day, the caravan was suddenly attacked by dozens of the small creatures, who were darting everywhere, touching people and animals with sticks, smearing red and yellow paint on wagons, howling out war cries.

A man swung a sword and drew blood from one of the Mogu-Kia, and the Mogu-Kia flopped onto his back, lifting his head up and to the side, exposing his throat, and the man, panicked, went to stab the Mogu-Kia in the throat, but Kalife managed to grab the blade, suffering a deep cut on his hand, before the man could stab the helpless Mogu-Kia.

In the lands of the weasel clan, the caravan found items missing, often replaced by other items, and Verdoon assured the caravan that young Mogu-Kia were testing their skills of sneaking and stealing.

The tribe of the Red Bear warned the caravan away with arrows, so the caravan had to go back and take another road. The group ended up travelling through the land of the dragon-fly clan.

At an evening stop, one of the more trouble-making men, a loud and brutish fellow, went to slap his pregnant wife, and that's when it happened.

Before he could land his blow, a war cry was heard and a Mogu-Kia sprung from the bushes, stabbing the man in the throat with a spear. Before anyone would react, the Mogu-Kia destroyed the dying man's eyes, and ran back into the bushes. Ambrosia managed to cast tongues in time to hear the Mogu-Kia cry out: "Blessed be the hand that defends the blossoming womb!" A child was able to mimic the first cry, which Ambrosia heard to be "Accursed be the hand raised against the blossoming womb!"

Word went around the caravan to treat pregnant women and children as carefully as possible.

The next day saw the end of the dragonfly lands, and the hills, and the return of thick forests.

Several days into the forest, as the caravan was travelling beneath large trees, the noise of the animals woke up a swarm of large, bat-like mosquitos, that swarmed over the caravan. Verdoon killed over a dozen with a blaze of fire, and the two armored companions, Hoggle and Ambrosia, moved to the aid of the women and the children as quickly as possible.

Over fourty men died, a fifth of the animal, two children, six women, and an infant, in the attack of the bat-mosquitos. They buried their dead, held a service, and continued on.

The next day Verdoon was heeding the call of nature, when her familiar warned her.

"Mistress, do not move. Do not even breathe. I will get assistance."

Her legs cramping, Verdoon held still as the psi-crystal came up, looked, and ran away.

Hoggle arrived, led in a wide circle around Verdoon, and what he was behind the young witch made him utter a curse. A huge preying mantis, nearly 9 feet tall, was cleaning it's forelegs. Apparently it had not noticed the young witch, because it's forelegs, wickedly sharp, would kill he instantly.

Hoggle charged, swinging his sword and slamming into the creature right afterwards. Talons the size of long swords scraped across his armor, and he felt a burn in his side. Armored jaws scraped across the front of his helmet, but several punches from his guantlet cracked the carapace, and it died squealing as Verdoon scrambled to safety.

Several of the widows of the caravan made a big fuss over Hoggle's wound, binding it, bringing him dinner, and making sure he was comfortable that night.

No children were allowed to wander away from the camp that night.

Next: The Cliff of Visages; The City of the Dead; Grumsh, Kapelor, and Hades Awake

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The Cliff of Visages

Two more days of travel in heavy forest, the caravan decided to go North at the crossroads. Soon afterwards, a large cliff, nearly 300 feet tall, came into view. Carved over ever foot of the cliff were the faces of Uruk-Hia and Mogu-Kia. The caravan travelled beneath the gazes of these silent stone faces for 5 days, following the cliff, until a road was found that went up the cliff.

"West, we have to get beyond the volcanos before they erupt again." Ambrosia insisted. "I will not have my flock suffocated beneath ash and poisonous gas like the Uruk-Kia did."

At the top of the cliff, the caravan followed the road for most of the afternoon, until they came to a huge wall, the gate closed. The walls were nearly 200 feet high, and great statues of muscular Uruk-Hia women held up the walls, staring down ominously at the caravan.

"We'll have to explore it ourselves." Hoggle said. "This vast city may give us refuge.

Careful work opened one of the side doors, and the group found nothing but skeletons and rust inside the towers. When they entered the city itself, they drew back in shock.

Hundreds of skeletons were in front of the gate, thousands of skeletons near the wall, and all of them having fallen as if they were rushing toward the gate.

Exploring a few buildings found nothing of worth, just stone shells.

The four companions followed the main avenue, their nerves on edge in the silence of the vast metropolis of the dead. Within a quarter mile, there were no skeletons on the street, as if everyone had fled toward the gates. And died.

At the northern edge of city the group entered a large palace, finding nothing but empty stone rooms, and skeletons.

"I don't like this place. Something bad happened here." Ambrosia murmmured.

"Listen to her, master, we should flee." Acorn whispered.

In the throne room, they found evidence of a great battle. A dead Uruk-Kia sat on a melted and twisted throne, its bones charred and blasted. A crown, half melted, sat upon his head. The group searched, finding a staff and a strange orb that Verdoon identified as a crystal ball. The staff was obviously a badge of office, and out of respect, the companions returned it to the charred hands of the dead king, and left.

"FLEE, MASTERS, ALL IS LOST!" Acorn screamed, leaping off of Kalife and running down the road as fast as his legs would carry him.

Verdoon took one look behind them and ran, following Acorn.

"What?" Hoggle said, looking behind them and seeing nothing.

Ambrosia looked up, and saw on top of the three tower of the palace, three firey eyes. One orange and black, one made of gold, and one made of purple and black with stars.

"The eyes of the Uruk-Kia gods!" she screamed, and followed Verdoon.

Kalife and Hoggle looked at each other, shrugged, and began jogging after their companions.

Outside the walls, the four companions overrode the colonist's demands that they go into the city and settle there. The three firey eyes could be seen from outside the walls, and the sight of them, combined with an impassioned speech from Ambrosia and mutters of "heresy" from the older nun, convinced the colonists to go back to the highway and follow it further north.

When Ambrosia led the colonists in prayer to Pelor, the light from the golden eye shined out behind the walls, settling a few hundred meters from the kneeling colonists, then swept around, as if the Eye of Kapelor knew that they were there, but could not see them.

Nervously, the caravan returned to the highway, and went north.

Next: The Pass; The Lizard God; The New Colony

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The group of colonists, animals, and wagons moved back down the side of the mesa, with their champion Hoggle in the lead, Verdoon sitting with several injured colonists, Ambrosia sitting with the pregnant women, and Kalife walking next to Hoggle. Acorn rode on his shoulder, nervously watching the woods about them once they descended the mesa and reached the road.

After a short discussion, the group decided to head north along the old highway, and hope it eventually either turned to the west, or branched off to the west.

"Hey, Kalife?" Hoggle blurted out suddenly.

"Yeah?" Kalife was watching acorn scramble down the road and plunge into piles of leaves to inspect them.

"Are any of the widows treating you different?" Hoggle asked, and Kalife noticed he was flushing.

"No. Not really. Widow Prudence insists on bringing me dinner, but the rest of the ladies just ignore me." Kalife answered.

"Oh." Hoggle said, and an uncomfortable silence shut down the conversation.

After nearly a week the road led either west or north, and the colonists chose west, and the mountains drew ever closer. At the base of the mountains was a boulder painted with a flying lizard in red, and two stakes proclaiming that this was the lands of the tribe of the red flying lizard.

A quick discussion between the four champions of the caravan decided that they would go up the pass to check on the condition of the pass, while the caravan would pull a half days travel back along the road.

The group snuck up to the top, and saw two ruined fortresses at the mouth of the pass, ruined buildings in the pass, and two wild orchards. Concerned, the party snuck forward, wondering what could have torn apart the keep on the right.

One of the Mogu-Kia saw them, screamed out something, and ran toward the tower. The party pursued, but the creature outran them. As they left the cover of the orchard, dozens of arrows arced out of the ruined keep and while only Verdoon was hit, once in the arm, the group faltered as another flight took to the air.

"We should flee." Acorn murmmured.

"I agree." Verdoon answered.

Just then, screaming their war cries, a literal flood of the Mogu-Kia swept over the top of the ramp of rubble leading into the keep.

"FLEE! ALL IS LOST!" Acorn screamed.

"FALL BACK!" Hoggle yelled.

"RUN FOR IT!" Kalife yelled.

"Go go go!" Ambrosia cried out.

Verdoon said nothing, just ran.

They ran to the edge, where the road sliced down, and turned to look. Hundred of Mogu-Kia were coming at them, arrows were plunging around them.

Verdoon kept running.

Hoggle paused long enough to take accounting of their forces, and realized that without a fresh and equipped Century, those things were unstoppable.

A gout of flame burst from the cavern, and while Hoggle watched, a huge scaled beast, with a massive wingspan, erupted from the ruined keep and took to the air.

"By Pelor's eyes." He murmured, and chased after his friends.

The dragon swept over where Hoggle had been, blasting the area with flame, then began circling low to the forest, searching for the companions.

When they stopped to gather their breath, they were attacked by Mogu-Kia weilding old Uruk-Hia short swords as two handed weapons. Unlike the others, these wore no intricate beading, no buckskin, only rotten leather rags.

Kalife grabbed one of the short swords, and they kept moving.

Another group of Mogu-Kia managed to ambush them, but Hoggle waded through their arrows, most of them bouncing off the ancient, but sturdy, Uruk-Hia Full Plate. The bows, used by two Mogu-Kia at a time, were only pullable by Hoggle, who took one, with two wrapped bundles of arrows.

Three more ambushes, and Hoggle had suffered enough.

"I will not suffer the attacks by these creature no more." He looked around, at Verdoon's famaliar, at Acorn. "You two go that way and that way, come back if you find more of the twisted creatures. The four of us will wait here. Ambrosia, can you call upon your God to strengthen me? Verdoon, can you call upon the spirits to protect me?"

Ambrosia recited prayers, Verdoon had Hoggle remove his helmet and painted his hair, jamming a chickenbone from her belt pouch through his nose. She hung two skulls on his shoulder plates, and wrapped forest vines around his arms and legs.

"He looks like something out of the old tales." Kalife said.

Acorn said that "lots and lots" of them were gathering, and led Hoggle to them.

In the clearing nearly three dozen of them, a dozen of them armed with bows, were listening to a larger one chant, repeating a single word at intervals.

With a roar of rage, Hoggle burst from the forest, leapt up, and cleaved the one leading the prayer in two. While the rest were stunned at the appearance of this horrible creature, and the killing of their shaman, Hoggle waded into the others, his greatsword killing multiples of them at a time.

Before long, they all laid dead, and the weasel had found another group. The blood lust still filling him, Hoggle charged after the next group, springing among them and repeating his actions. Entrails flew everywhere and blood sheeted across the forest.

"More coming, masters. Over forty, lead by six large ones." Acorn said.

"There. Climb up those stairs to the top, we'll hold there. Gather up the bows, whether you know how to use them or not. We'll pepper them with arrows." Hoggle said, pointing at some ruins.

The group climbed to the top of the stairs, and spread out across the ruin. The twisted Mogu Kia swept into the clearing, and the lead one pointed at Hoggle and began to roar something.

Hoggle put an arrow into his throat.

The fight was brutal, with the Mogu-Kia recieving reenforcements twice.

"ALL IS LOST!" Acorn screamed, and Hoggle looked up, seeing the huge winged lizard swooping down at them.

"JUMP!" Hoggle yelled, and the group jumped from the top of the rocks and scrambled for the forest. Fire erupted from the lizard's mouth, ad the ruins smoked and crumbled.

Twice more they were ambushed, but fought through, and three times they ambushed their ambushers, and wiped them out to the last.

It was nightfall by the time they reached the colonists. Battered, bloody, harrowed and riven. The two most pregnant woman had gone into labor when the flying lizard has attacked the caravan, and many men had died while the women and children were pulled to safety. After killing a score of men, the lizard had grabbed an ox in its jaws and taken to the sky.

"We must keep moving. Back to Mesa of Graven Faces." Verdoon said, rising from the spilled guts of a ram. "There we may be safe."

Ambrosia and Verdoon tended to the younger of the women in labor. The other had born six children, and the newest one would be no problem. The nun Constance was watching over her.

The baby survived, but the young widow did not.

At the top of the mesa, two weeks later, they turned into the forest, and Hoggle and Kalife managed to find a spring flowing out of the rock.

"Here. We will build a new colony here." Hoggle proclaimed.

Until the threat of the huge red dragon could be handled, there was no other way to cross the mountains. Either the four companions would find another way, defeat the dragon, or they would all die when the volcanoes erupted in a cataclysmic fury.

Next: Marriages, Adoptees, Rebuilding, and the Cult of the Bear.