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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 1474" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #18 “Nephthys, guard me from the danger of this fire I use to flush out the enemies of freedom,” Ratchis said, invoking the power of his goddess. The gnome up in the tree began to shake it, dropping snow on the fire threatening to put it out. But Ratchis was waiting with another piles of brush and branches and tossed it into the dying fire, while Kazrack took a shot at where he though the gnome was shaking from as he could see a silhouette of movement. The fire went up brighter this time, with less snow in its way. The tree shook some more and the ifire hissed, but did not die. Kazrack took a second shot, but could not tell if he hit anything. The fire crept up the trunk of the tree, and a column of black smoke lifted into the air. The tree sap popped and crackled. After a few moments the tree began to rock again. It was fast at first, and then the arcs became slower and wider, and the shadow the tree fell over the spot where the prone bodies of Jeremy and Beorth lay. Kazrack grabbed Jeremy’s leg and pulled him towards where Jana and Martin lay and out of the way of the tree if it fell, and ran back for Beorth as it began to come down with a might cracking roar. The small gnomish figure tumbled out of the tree and is landed with a thud and cloud of smoke and tossed up snow around it. Ratchis charged, and before the gnome had gotten to its proper footing it cried out in pain as Ratchis’ sword cleaved through it armor on the left side. The gnome spun on the half-orc with a forced titter and stepped back and lifted his hands to speak the words of a spell, but the pain made him lose his focus and the spell failed. “Damn,” the gnomish voice said. Kazrack picked up his halberd and ran into the fray, flanking the creature and striking it on the shoulder, the huge axe-head of his halberd catching for a moment on the gnome’s armor. Checking over his shoulder at the newly arrived foe, the gnome felt the bite of Ratchis’ sword again. And again he felt the weight of a blow from Kazrack, knocking him to his knees. The gnome climbed back to his feet, swinging around for a glancing blow against Kazrack’s side. But it would not be enough, Ratchis struck again and this time the gnome went down with a grunt, green and black blood pooling beneath him and hissing in the snow. Ratchis called upon his faith to have his goddess heal Martin and Jana, while Kazrack stripped the gnomes’ bodies, looking for anything useful or valuable. Martin and Jana were able to groggily sit up, while Ratchis hurried to prepare Jeremy and Beorth’s unconscious forms for travel. “How are you feeling?” Martin asked Jana. “Lousy,” Jana replied, rubbing her head where the gnome’s mace had struck her and wincing as her singed skin cracked when she moved. “We should rest here for an hour or two. I don’t feel up to moving.” She retrieved a balm from her healer’s bag and taking some passed it to Martin. “Rub this on your wounds. It takes the sting out.” “Are we ready to go?” Kazrack said, walking over with an armload of stuff. “Not quite,” said Ratchis, walking over to the second gnome’s body and driving his long sword through its neck. “Nephthys, forgive me.” The gnome’s body hissed and dissolved into a smoke. Ratchis did the same to the other gnome and the remaining wolverine corpse. Kazrack handed Martin a vial of clear liquid, “One of the gnomes had this. I know your kind might have a use for this sort of thing.” Martin took the thing and put it away, scratching his head. “Thomas?” Martin called mentally. “Where are you?” “In the hole in the ground,” came the frightened reply. “You can come out now,” Martin reassured him. “I don’t ever want to come out again,” Thomas said. “Those things didn’t smell right. They were unnatural.” “I know, Thomas, but they are dead now and we have to go,” Martin the Green said to his familiar and the squirrel hurried out of the hole and into his robes. “Would you like a nut, Thomas?” Martin offered. “I’m not hungry.” Martin turned his attention to Kazrack and Ratchis who seemed to be having a disagreement. “The weather is getting worse,” Kazrack said, the snow billowy around him, and covering his beard in a white layer. “I know, but those gnomes might have been an advance force for more gnomes,” Ratchis replied. “We need to get as much distance between here and ourselves as possible.” “It won’t matter much if we freeze to death,” Kazrack said. “That hole is the best and closest shelter we have and the only we know for who knows how long.” “You are going to have to trust in my ability to keep us alive in the wilderness, I guess,” Ratchis said. “And we have the scroll the gnomes gave us.” Ratchis turned to Martin, “Be ready to cast that thing as soon as you can. It could mean someone’s life.” Marin gulped and nodded, “Tomorrow morning would be the earliest. I need to prepare the spell that will let me read it.” “You didn’t prepare it this morning?” Ratchis asked incredulously. “Uh, I didn’t think we’d need it,” Martin responded weakly. “I don’t know how far I can go,” said Jana interjected. “You will go as far as you go, I guess,” Ratchis said more roughly than he meant. “Uh, I mean, we have to get moving.” Kazrack reluctantly agreed, and they began to march what Ratchis thought was southward, Kazrack and Ratchis pulling Jeremy and Beorth along on blankets. --------- They marched on for an hour, until Ratchis decided that he should run ahead and scout out the coming terrain for a place to hide and/or rest. The half-orc took off, leaping through the thigh-high snow, while the rest did their best to trod onward and drag the unconscious party members. Ratchis came running back into view an hour or so later. “I think there is a place up ahead that might suit our needs,” he said. “I will have to check it out more closely, but we have another hour before hitting it, so I wanted to come back.” It was closer to two hours by the time the others saw what he was talking about. It filled their gray and limited horizon - A stretch of steam or smoke that washed the sky into a looming grayness. “What is this?” Kazrack asked. “It could be a hot spring,” replied Ratchis. “Or at least I hope it is. You wait here. I will be back soon.” Again, Ratchis took off out of sight, but this time he did not have far to go. The steam swallowed him when he was less than forty feet away. The wait seemed long in the billowing windy snow. Jana shivered. Finally, Ratchis returned, and led them into the steam. The transition was slow at first. The air within the steamy area grew slightly warmer and the snow became rain, and then the rain became mist. They walked down a slushy embankment to a depression where the ground was flooded with a foot and half of water in places. And the water was warm, and comforting, and small barren trees grew on small islands of muck. They marched onward. Jana and Martin stumbling, while Kazrack and Ratchis hoisted Beorth and Jeremy from island to island. “What manner of place is this?” Kazrack asked. “It is a swamp,” Ratchis replied. “I have never been in swamp before,” the dwarf said. “They don’t usually occur in snowy areas like this, not this kind of bog anyway. But since it’s here, we’ll take advantage of it.” “We should find out if this is a safe place of these men to recover,” Kazrack said. “We have no choice,’ Ratchis replied. “We will have to stay here 2 or 3 days.” “Then we better make a more permanent shelter then,” Kazrack said. They chose a larger and drier islands than any other that had a barren tree and a small shrub, and Kazrack hung blankets between branches to make a make-shift tent to keep the wounded beneath. Martin fell to the ground and fell immediately to sleep. Ratchis helped Jana clean and dress Beorth and Jeremy’s wounds, and Kazrack looked for some firewood. Along with wood, the dwarf also found some strange things half-buried in the muck. It looked like burnt case of crossbow bolts, and a crossbow snapped in half and singed. He also found the charred skeleton of a human, still draped in a ring mail shirt. “This isn’t good,” said Kazrack. “No it isn’t,” Ratchis replied. “We will just have to keep an eye out.” “I found this on one of the gnomes,” Kazrack said, handing Ratchis a warhammer. “It is of exceptional quality and has some runes on it I do not recognize. I figured you might use it.” “Are you sure?” Ratchis asked. “Yes, I have my halberd and that takes two hands,” the dwarf explained. The dwarf and the half-orc split the night’s watch, with Jana not getting much rest in order to wake up occasionally and administer to Beorth and Jeremy. Anulem, 21st of Nuiet – 564 H.E.With morning came prayer, and cold porridge crammed in a clay jar by the gnomes. Kazrack did not have time to cast his spell to enchant his runestones and be able to call on his gods’ power, for Ratchis called Nephthys’ blessing upon the injured and by midday they were aching, but able to walk without help. It was decided that the best thing might be to simply get out of the swampy/steamy area and back out into the “normal” weather since they did not know what had caused the burned items and bones they had discovered the night before, and because they could feel the water around their feet growing constantly hotter and hotter, until it was almost too hot to walk through. The mist seemed thicker today, and the party’s visibility was severely limited. Beorth and Jana and Martin walked in front, while Ratchis and Kazrack took the middle flanks and Jeremy brought up the rear, complaining that his legs and back hurt. As they came up one of the larger islands, happy to be stepping, however momentarily, from the near boiling water that they walked in, they heard the sound of something slither ahead of them in the muck. They had barely registered the sound, when coming over the other side of the tiny island, came four flaming balls at about head height, bursting through the mist with a loud hiss. “What the…?” Martin almost said, as the thing in front of him sank into his vision. It was like a giant snail, with shell five feet high and long, but its shell was black and was glowing red hot in places. Steam blasted out from under its shell, and it long snail head was actually four heads like swollen flails, but made of flame. They swung around wildly and menacingly. Martin reached into his red leather bag and felt for the ball of fur and tossed it at the thing, thinking “attack it!”. The ball of fur transformed into a large wild boar, that gored the creature in its fleshy fore-belly. The boar squealed in pain as the creature’s steam burned its face, but it did not retreat compelled by Martin’s command. Ratchis called out, holding a hand to his chest and another to his belt of broken and scored chain links, “Nephthys, protect me from this monster’s flames!” Beorth moved forward stepping in front of Jana and Martin. Jana stepped backward and with an arcane word the now familiar ray of green light emitted from her finger, but she missed the creature entirely, too worried about her footing. Jeremy moved out towards the creature’s right flank and loaded his crossbow. However the flaming flail-like snail’s heads moved faster than its body did, and the two of the balls of flame came down toward the boar, that dodged forward out of the way of one and stepped right into the other. It’s fur lit up in flame and it squealed pathetically, standing there until Martin commanded it to roll away and put itself out in the nearby water. Both of the other two heads crashed on Beorth’s head and shoulder, and the paladin let out a cry and collapsed, tumbling head first into the water. Fortunately, this put out his burning fur cloak, unfortunately he was not headfirst underwater while unconscious. Ratchis ran forward longsword drawn and stabbed the thing, getting a splash of steaming ichor on his hands, while Martin prepared his crossbow. Jana ran forward without thinking to help Beorth, but came to close to the thing, who struck her down with a flaming head, and soon she too floated face first in the water. Jeremy finally go into position and his bolt struck the thing below the shell, and it let out a loud hiss. With more force than the first time it swung all its heads to strike Ratchis, and he ducked and weaved, but still two made contact, but his clothes did not catch fire, though he still felt the heavy thud of the monstrous flesh behind it. Kazrack stepped up and tried to cut one of the heads from the body with his halberd, but it reared up out of the short dwarf’s reach. Martin had the boar attack from the rear, but a jet of steam escaped from under its shell by the tail and the boar was burned again, and again it cried out in agony. Ratchis shoved his blade into the pulpy thing again and again it hissed and reared and swung its heads, avoiding another bolt from Jeremy and coming down to strike at both Kazrack and Ratchis. Kazrack ducked and struck the creature, but against the shell and it seemed to do no good. Ratchis avoided one, but the other slammed him heavily and he nearly fell down. Martin and Jeremy were having no luck piercing the thing’s shell with their crossbow bolts, and the boar was attacking half-heartedly despite Martin’s urgent commands to gore the thing. Ratchis felt another hard blow from the flaming snail, but the second head that swung his way swung too long and chopped the water and the head went out, leaving a muck-covered round lump on the end of the slimy neck. Kazrack dropped his halberd and pulled out his flail, hitting the snail dead in the center top of it shell. The creature let out a sound like a gasp, and a crack went through the shell and steam expelled outward in all directions, and then the thing stopped moving. Ratchis yanked Beorth and Jana out of the water and lay them across his knee as he called for Nephthys to heal each of them. Martin called the boar as he held his magical bag open, and it leapt up into the air and twirled back into a ball of hair and into the bag. Jana could barely walk, but they had to carry Beorth out of there, up the embankment and back past the perimeter of steam, where the snow still fell ceaselessly from the gray sky. Ratchis began a fire, and Kazrack took a hatchet to a small nearby tree and made more wood. As Martin plopped himself on the ground, Ratchis plucked the red bag from his belt. “Hey!” “Don’t use this thing again,” Ratchis said of the bag. “Why not?” Martin asked. “It could be evil, and as far as I am concerned it probably is,” Ratchis replied. “It depends on how it works. Do you know?” “Depends on what you mean by how it works,” Martin said. “Are you asking if it makes a magical animal to do your bidding, or it summons one from somewhere else and binds it to your will?” “Exactly.” “I don’t know,” said Martin. “Though I haven’t thought of it before. But it could be too useful not to use.” “Give him back the bag,” said Kazrack. “He is a wizard and would best understand its use. And we must trust him to not abuse its power.” Ratchis sighed and tossed the bag back to Martin, “Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to, or if we do use it, we can use animals for other less painful tasks than the one you set the boar to do.” “That seems like a reasonable compromise,” Martin said, putting the bag away. “I will send a letter to the Academy about it , at first opportunity.” The day was long and they sat huddled about the fire in the cold, as Jana tended to Beorth groggily. “I hate this place,” Jeremy muttered. “I should have stayed in Neergaard.” No one replied, and suddenly Martin fell to his hands and knees with dry heaves. He turned and looked at the rest of the group, that just watched him numbed to the spectacle by the cold and misery. “I’m sorry I have been so useless,” Martin choked out. No one replied. Night came and went with almost no discernible difference in light. Everything was a miserable gray. Ralem, 22nd of Nuiet – 564 H.E.With morning came indecision as to witch way the party should travel: cut through the swamp area directly to what they thought was south, or go around it to the east, until they could move south again without being in the swamp. “We saw some burnt equipment and the new saw something that can explain that, and we can keep watch for it,” Kazrack said. “I should hope that we can move faster than a slug.” “But look at how hot and strange that area is,” Ratchis said. “There could be hundreds of those things in there, and we don’t know how far south it extends, what if we end up having to spend another night in there?” “Are we even sure that south is the right way?” Kazrack said. “That is the way the gnomes said to go,” Beorth said. “Where on the map would this place be then?” the dwarf said pulling out the map the castle steward had provided all the groups of dragon-hunters. They could not decide though they all generally agreed that it had to be somewhere in the top left had corner of the map. This of course did not help them come to a decision at all. In the end, only Kazrack wanted to go back through the swamp, and the will of the others won out. They began a slow march, Beorth still aching and hardly conscious, to the east by southeast, hoping to get around the steamy area. They journeyed for hours, only stopping infrequently to ration out water and a bite of hard tack. The wind blew the snow up in great whirls and right into their faces. Their feet had grown numb as they found they could finally turn back to what they thought was the west, but in the distance was the looming shadow of the rocky ridge that marked the perimeter of Greenreed Valley. “I hope we will be crossing to the right side,” said Kazrack. “Look!” Jana said pointing to the darkness of the earthen incline. There was the flickering of a fire light about halfway up the side, I looked as if it was emerging from with the ridge. It must be a cave. “I’ll go check it out,” Ratchis said, and made to take off. “Wait!” Kazrack said, grabbing his cloak. “Shouldn’t we have a signal for you to let us know of we should go forward or run away?” Ratchis rolled his eyes, “Sure, I’ll yell.” And the half-orc took off. The rest of the party waited what felt like over an hour, so finally they began to march towards the ridge, but were met up with Ratchis before they arrived. “Maybe next time we should settle on two kinds of yells one that can mean move forward and the other which means run away,” Kazrack said. Ratchis ignored him. “It is a precarious ascent,” Ratchis said. “I found a cave, and there were voices speaking in common up there.” “Anubis, the journey is long and I am tired. Lend me your strength so that I may continue,’ Beorth said, laying his hand upon his chest. “Do you know what manner of people are in there?” asked Kazrack. “No, but I do not trust anyone speaking common in this area,” Ratchis replied. “But if they are speaking common then that means they are men,” Kazrack said. “Men can be dangerous,” Ratchis said. “Anything can be dangerous,” Kazrack said. Jana nodded. “I will go alone and ask to share their fire, that way I only endanger my own life,” Kazrack said. “In our encounters so far, without any one of us, we’d all be dead. We all go, or none of us go,” Ratchis insisted. “I agree,” said Jana. “It is too dangerous for anyone to go alone.” “What about Thomas?” suggested Jeremy. “Martin could send him ahead to see what is in there. It’d look like an animal just coming in from the cold.” “They might try to eat him if they are waiting out the storm and are hungry,” Kazrack said. “But we need a place to wait out the storm,” said Beorth. “No, we could go back northward a bit and Martin could use that scroll,” said Ratchis. “Um…” Martin gulped. “I could?” “Couldn’t you? Didn’t you prepare that spell you need?” Ratchis said his voice becoming a growl. “Well, I kind of forgot,” said Martin. “Don’t forget again,” Ratchis said through gritted teeth. “Now, can you ask Thomas if he’ll go scout for us.” “Does he think I can’t hear him?” Thomas said to Martin mentally. “I’m not going anywhere that people might eat me!” “He refuses,” Martin replied to Ratchis. ‘Fine than we have no choice, but to make our way up there as a group and maybe find another cave we can fit into. If so, we can avoid a confrontation, if not we will go and talk to these strangers,” Ratchis decided. “We can go up there as a group, fine,” said Kazrack. “But we shouldn’t all go in at once, that might scare them into thinking they are being attacked. I’ll go in first, and if it looks too dangerous and we could all die I will say, ‘I’ll take some of you with me!’ and you’ll know to run. If it looks like we can take them, I will say ‘come forth my friends!’” “Yeah, that’s exactly what we are going to do,” said Ratchis sarcastically, as he led them up the narrow rocky trails that switched back and forth up the face of the ridge. They could not find any other cave, so finally, Ratchis led them up to where the low mouth of the occupied cave was. Kazrack stepped in first and walked down the narrow way, near to where the cave turned to the left and obscured whomever was in the rear with a fire and sounding as if perhaps they were playing cards. “Ho! I am a traveler seeking shelter from the cold!” Kazrack cried out. There was the sound of several pairs of scrambling feet, and a voice returned, “Who’s there?” Ratchis slipped into the cave and clung to the wall, wrapped in a shadow. “I am called Kazrack Delver,” Kazrack replied, and came around the corner. The fire was smaller than the great shadows on the cave wall made it seem. There were three men standing with weapons at the ready. One was short and stocky man with a truncheon, he had dark eyes and hair and a swarthy complexion. He wore a shirt of rings. The other beside him was gangly and tall, with patches of black hair seeming to be equally spaced on his face as it was on the top of his head. He wore a suit of studded armor in poor repair. Behind these two was a third dark man of medium build. He held a loaded crossbow aimed at the dwarf. At this men’s feet, leaning against the cave walls, with their hands tied behind their backs were four other men. They were immediately familiar to Kazrack. “I am seeking some shelter,” said Kazrack to the armed men. “How is it that you have these men bound here?” “Let’s move,” Ratchis hissed to others hearing what Kazrack had said, and began to creep forward. “What business is it of yours?” said the stout man. “Shh, Torsius!” said the man in the rear. “Let me do the talking. These men are deserters. We are bringing them back for the bounty.” There was the sound of movement as the others came up the cave. “Who is that coming?” the man in the rear asked. “Do not be alarmed,” Kazrack said lifting one hand from his halberd and showing the men his open palm. “It is my companions.” “Easy boys,” said the tall gangly one as if he has a mouth full of marbles. Ratchis, Jeremy, Martin and Beorth came up behind Kazrack. “It’s Martin!” said the stout one. “Blimey! It is Martin,” said the tall one smacking his dry cracking lips loudly. Martin waved weakly, “They are part of the group I traveled to Gothanius with from Westron.” “We have no objection to sharing our fire,” the man in the read said. “Come on in. You are all welcome.” They could not w all see who was bound there. It was four of Crumb’s boys. Finn. Carlos, Frank and his brother Gwar. “Karack!” said Finn excitedly. “You keep it quiet,” said the man in the rear. “How do you know they are deserters?” Kazrack asked.“They were running away,” said the man obviously in charge. “Yeah, they were running away!” echoed the stocky one. “Carlos, did you desert?” Kazrack asked the dark-skinned foreign boy. “Es verdad que estababamos corriendo cuando el glaive nos encrontramos, pero es porque viemos el mostro,” Carlos replied, rapidly. “Just as I thought,” Kazrack said, looking at these men’s faces. “They did not desert.” “Listen, we don’t want to fight or anything,” said the man in the rear, who Martin knew as Phillip. “We were deputized by this bounty-hunter who is working for the king, and he got us to help him round up these four, and one more who I think he is still looking for, because he had seen them run away from the dragon.” “The dragon?” Martin said incredulously. “Finn, you saw the dragon?” Ratchis asked the Herman-Lander youth. “Yes, we did,” Finn replied. “It was huge and scary and it swooped down out of the sly and flew above it us. It was like a wave of fear hit us, we all just started running, except Josef, we don’t know where he is. We had no choice.” “Sounds like these men are strategic retreaters, not deserters,” Kazrack commented. “Where did you go after you saw the dragon, Finn?” Ratchis asked. “We tried to get back to Summit, where we have been staying out the winter,” Finn explained. “But the Glaive and these guys came out of nowhere, and wouldn’t listen to us. I tell you one thing that old guy can fight. Oh and yeah, you know who is he, he is the old guy that wouldn’t talk to anyone when we traveled with Crumb.” “These men are being unjustly held,” Ratchis said to the three armed men. “Says you!” said Torsius. “Hold on,” said Phillip. “Like I said, we don’t want to fight, and we are acting under the bounty-hunter’s orders. Why don’t you stay here out of the storm, dry off, warm up and we’ll all wait for the Glaive to return., and then you and he can work this thing out.” “That seems reasonable,” said Martin. Kazrack nodded. “Put your weapons down, boys,” said Phillip, lowering his own crossbow. “Make yourselves comfortable in our little cave.” The party walked deeper into the cave and took spots around the fire, and waited. Ratchis noticed, a narrow crack at the back of the cave that seemed to lead to another chamber beyond. “It is quite a coincidence that you ran into us, Martin,” said Phillip to the Watch-Mage, who was holding his boots above the fire. “Yes, there are a lot of coincidences happening around here lately,” Martin replied dryly. End of Session #18</blockquote>

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