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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 179799" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #28 (part vii)Teflem, 13th of  Dek – 564 H.E.Very early   two mornings later, Martin found himself in front of the constable’s office as guards chained Jana, Kazrack, Beorth and Jeremy to a wagon pulled by two oxen.  Jana and Beorth had their manacles locked to one chain (with Beorth taking up the rear), while Jeremy and Kazrack were chained to the other (with Kazrack taking up the rear).Kazrack looked miserable, his beard was caked with dirt and he smelled even worse than usual.  He winced as his still broken arm was stretched to connect to the chain.At that moment, William Turnkey appeared from down the street.  He wore a long leather coat lined with rabbit fur and a red kerchief around his neck.  He had tall work boots and woolen breeches, his curly brown hair waved wildly in the cold wind.“Can’t you see this dwarf is wounded?” He yelled angrily, and shooed away the guard (named Valentine).  “You can’t have his arm outstretched like that all day!”William Turnkey freed Kazrack’s broken arm and slipped it back into its sling and then manacled wrist to the sling.“There that should hold you more comfortably,” the king’s marshal said, and he winked at the dwarf.“Um, thank you,” Kazrack said.Rindalith came out of the inn and walked over, sneering at Jana affectionately.“Okay, let’s get going,” Relaford said, taking charge of the expedition as the constable saw them off. “The Watch-mage and Mr. Rindalith can ride on the wagon with Marshal Turnkey.”And off they went, flanked by two guardsmen on either side, and one more taking up the rear.  They left town by the southern path and then turned north and east.  They were following a track of shallower snow where the frequent passing of wagons. “How long until we reach Twelve Trolls, Marshall Turnkey?” Martin asked, the man he knew was really Richard the Red.“Oh, we should make Earthport by late afternoon, and stay there one night and reach the castle by noon the next day,” William Turnkey explained.In less than an hour’s time they came to a fork and Turnkey left the wagon to lead the oxen over to the right so they could turn east throw deeper snow towards Earthport.Rindalith leaned over to Martin.  He was wearing black-dyed wolf’s fur.  “So, do you know Jana well?” he asked, his voice sliding out of his sallow cheeks like a python.“I don’t think anyone knows Jana well,” Martin replied.“What about your other friend?  The one that died?” Rindalith asked, referring to Chance.“Oh… I didn’t know him well either,” Martin said, and looked away from the imposing man.William Turnkey leapt back into the wagon. “This is the long part,” he said.And on they went for hours, none noticing (but Martin hoping it’d be there) the lone figure that popped out of the snow just north of the fork and that followed at a great distance, knowing where the wagon went because of its fresh wheel rusts, as it bobbed in and out of view at the end of his vision.They stopped at mid-day to rest and eat.  The area was clear of any trees or shrubs, so Ratchis merely waited behind a snowbank, nearly a quarter-mile behind them.  To the north they could see the jagged border of the Ogre Scar (116).  William Turnkey came over to remove the prisoners from the longer chains to allow them to sit and eat, though their wrists and ankles were still manacled.“I’ll assume I can unchain you for a little while without doing something…unwise?” William Turnkey said to Kazrack, as when the dwarf was not connected to his chain freeing his broken arm would be very easy.“Yes, thank you,” Kazrack responded.  “I am beginning to think that we may get a fair trial.”“Of course you will,” Turnkey said with a smile and threw a wink at Martin.They ate dried meat and fruits in silence, the guards looking unhappy about being out there and looking at the distant Ogre Scar occasionally.As the prisoners were being re-chained to the wagon, Martin the Green pulled William Turnkey aside.  “Is there even a real William Turnkey?” he asked.“Excuse me?” said Turnkey.“Did you make him up out of whole cloth or are you impersonating someone real?” Martin whispered.“I have no idea what you are talking about,” William said with a smile and went back to his duties.\And on they went into the afternoon, the wind whipping up from the south across their path making the chains and ox-harness rattle, and those who could holding their hoods down to protect their face from the bite of it.   Of course, the prisoners just suffered. Ratchis continued to follow at a great distance.Over an hour had passed since lunch when suddenly the usually stoic oxen bellowed almost in unison, and one stopped and then stepped forward faster than usual.“What are they doing?” William Turnkey asked no one in particular.For a second the wind stopped, and from the north could be heard a low whistle punctuated by an occasional sound like great pieces of snapping leather.Martin turned and looked just as the guards on that side of the wagon did.“Look at that!” cried Valentine.Martin could see it as well.  It was a huge quadrapedal winged beast, with a body like a lion’s.  He did not need to see the details of the face surrounded by a shaggy mane to know what it was.“Oh no…” was all the young watch-mage could say.“Martin, do you know what that is?” William Turnkey asked.“It’s a manticore,” he said, looking around nervously.“A what?!” William’s voice changed in that instance, it became more of a tenor than a bass, and it was filled with surprise.At that moment Jeremy started to cry out, “In Ra’s name, you have to free us!  We’re sitting ducks!  It’ll kill us all!”“Quiet down you!” Relaford ordered the prisoner.  “Men, load your crossbows and grab cover!”“Hide behind the wagon,” Kazrack called to the guards on the north side of the wagon, who were frantically getting their heavy crossbows off their backs.“Behind?” Beorth replied.  “Get under the wagon!”William Turnkey stopped the skittish oxen and hopped off the wagon to the right.  Martin followed and immediately began to bellycrawl beneath the wagon.  “Everyone must get cover!” he cried.“William!  Free me and I will help you fight this thing!” Kazrack called to the King’s Marshal.  Jeremy as yanking on his manacles trying to pull them free.“C’mon! C’mon!” the Neergaardian cursed.  “I didn’t come all this way to die again!”“Martin, you’ve got to tell me about these kinds of things,” William chastised, watching the manticore approach.  “What is it?”“What is this all about? What is that thing after?” Rindalith asked, still sounding calm, as he stood at the front of the wagon.Beorth moved forward, gaining slack on the chain, and getting right behind the wagon.“We need these chains off!” Jeremy called.  They could now make out the impossibly large human face on the monster, and the copper and brown patches of color that was his fur.Rindalith looked at William Turnkey and waved his right hand open and made a grasping gesture. “Fascinere!” he entoned. “Friend, why don’t go free the others?”“Yes, but not because you asked me to,” William said, taking the ring of keys off his belt.Meanwhile, Jana was bidding her time.  She knew her blindness spell would likely not work, but it only had a verbal component and was the only spell she could cast with her hands bound.  As the manticore came into range she spoke the arcane word and felt the magic of the spell leave her and hurtle towards the beast.  However, as had happened in the last encounter, she felt it blocked again.“Damn!”“Watch-mage!” the manticore said in his inhuman voice.The two guards on the left side of the wagon, plus Relaford fired their heavy crossbows as a team, but their bolts passed a flurry of spikes coming from the monster’s tail and did not meet their mark.  The guards were not so lucky.  Each of the guards cried out as they were pierced by the super dense insect-like hairs.  But they did not fall.“Regroup on the other side of the wagon,” Relaford called.Under the wagon, Martin had begun to awkwardly load his own crossbow, when William Turnkey tossed him the ring of keys striking him in the head. “Free the others,” he commanded.  Martin dropped the crossbow and fumbled for the keys.Rindalith, unlike everyone else, did not seem the least bit flustered.  Instead he pulled a tiny bag from his belt, and slipped a candle with in and shook it three times saying, “Rufen sie mich ein moss, ein hieb von der hölle zusammen!”  He began to circle his arms over his head and continued to chant the words.Kazrack and Jeremy began to yank together on the chain holding them to the wagon.  They could hear the old wood creak and moan as it resisted.  They hurried under the wagon, and kept pulling.Beorth seeing the manticore flying straight in his direction now, got down on his hands and knees and tried to crawl under the wagon, pulling Jana with him, but witch was not having it.  She held her own and the paladin was denied cover (117).Jana planted her foot in the ground and tried her blindness spell again, and again it failed.  So changing her mind, she scurried behind Beorth and slid under the wagon.The guards turned and ran to get behind the wagon, but the manticore let go another volley of spikes.  This time one struck Beorth, while two others struck fleeing guards.  The sudden burst of adrenalin from the proximity of the fiendish monster allowed Jeremy and Kazrack to yank the chain off the wagon.While Martin fiddled with keys to get the manacles ff of Jeremy’s ankles, Beorth stood and reached blindly under the tarp that covered all their gear for transport.  He hoped to grab any sort of weapon at all.“Fascinere!” William cried, pointing at the manticore, but there was no visible effect.“Rufen sie mich ein moss, ein hieb von der hölle zusammen!” Rindalith cried one last time and his arms traced out a circle of fire that hung in the air and from within it flew a huge bat.  It had reddish-black fur and left a trail of wispy smoke behind it as it came screeching out.  Its wings seemed to flicker and crackle like flame even as they flapped the thing towards the manticore.Jana tried yanking Beorth beneath the wagon, but now it was his turn to resist, as he finally felt like what might be the strap to a backpack.The fiendish dire bat and the manticore began to struggle against one another.  The bat, being a superior flier dogging the manticore with swooping attacks as the monster tried to bite at Rindalith’s summoned beast.Martin managed to free Jeremy’s hand, having found the correct key and the Neergaardian rolled out to the wagon’s side.  Kazrack followed, though his ankles were still chained together, he was able to easily free his arms because of the bad job William had done fastening him. Rindalith leapt off the wagon on the left side and called out, “Jana, come to me!”----------Nearly 400 yards away Ratchis had been the first to notice the flying form approaching the wagon and had begun to sprint in the direction of the melee.  He knew it would take him nearly a minute to get there, and a minute was a long time in a fight.----------“Ravis raene,” chanted William Turnkey , waving his arms wildly, and thick nearly impenetrable mist began to billow out from his sleeves and out from under his pants and out the collar of his shirt, until in less than a second there was an obscuring mist surrounding the wagon, and stretching beyond the path and into the deep snow on both sides.  Only those within a couple of feet of each other could see each other.Beorth yanked Jeremy’s pack from the wagon and tossed it underneath.  The Neergaardian’s chain shirt was tied to the pack and so he grabbed it. Martin now unlocked Jana’s hands (having already done her hands), and Kazrack fumbled around in the wagon looking for his gear.  He found Beorth’s pack instead.  Jeremy began to hurriedly put on his chain shirt.“Martin, what is its weakness?” Richard called through the mist, no longer bothering to hide his voice.“I think Richard is here!” Kazrack cried.“I don’t know, maybe its wings?” Martin was out of ideas.“Martin, free Beorth next!” Jana said.At that moment, Kazrack looked over his shoulder at Rindalith who let out a snort and leaned forward.  His arms began to lengthen and thicken as they touched the ground, though his legs were still straight.  Rindalith’s back began to arch and lengthen and thicken, as his hair began to grow and attach itself to his neck and back.  The ends of his hands and feet began to harden and turn black, as his face began to stretch, his eyes moving to either side of his head, and his nose stretched down, the nostrils flaring, until it nearly met his mouth.  “Get out of my way!  I don’t want to die!” screamed one of the guards diving under the wagon and pushing Jana out of the way.Martin followed the chain that had been attached to Jana out from under the wagon and reaching up unlocked Beorth’s hands.  Kazrack found his chain shirt, at the same moment that Beorth found his scale mail.There was the sound of a horse whinny, and when Kazrack looked there stood a great stallion where Rindalith had once stood.“Where is it?  Where has it gone?” Relaford called out.“Quiet, or it will track you by sound!” Martin advised.“What do we do? What do we do?” the guard beneath the wagon hid his head beneath his arms and shook.“Just be quiet and stay where you are,” Martin the Green commanded.“Where did it come from?” another of guards asked aloud.“Martin, pass me the keys, my ankles are still chained!” Jana called.“In a minute,” Martin replied, and began to unlock Beorth’s feet.  Beorth began to hurriedly put on his armor.Kazrack found his pack and his flail and pulled them out of the wagon.Martin ran around the left side of the wagon to get at the chains at Kazrack’s feet and saw the horse standing there calmly, “Where in the Nine Hells did this horse come from?”Above and about them they heard the roar of the manticore and the screech of the dire bat as they did battle in the skies.  The mist made it impossible to tell exactly where they were.Kazrack shoved his flail into his belt and began to rummage through his backpack for his grappling hook.“I am not free yet!” Jana cried, stumbling towards Martin and yanking the keys from his hands.“Our lives are in danger and you are going to leave us?” Martin said, gesturing to the horse, as he made the connection between it and Rindalith.“Let me free myself,” was all she said, turning her back to the horse. “I am not going anywhere.”“All right, I’ll trust you,” Martin said with a sigh.“Give me your crossbow,” Kazrack said to Martin.“I left it under the wagon,” Martin replied shrugging his shoulders.Jana unlocked her feet, keeping an eye on the horse, which stepped forward and nudged her with its snout.Kazrack continued to rummage in the wagon for a ranged weapon.Martin decided that this was a useless place to stand so he stumbled to the edge of the mist and began to follow its perimeter to the right, looking for the manticore and for signs of Richard the Red (aka William Turnkey) as there had been no sign of him since the mist appeared.  He saw the manticore and the bat still locked in combat, but the bat was flying awkwardly now, one wing hanging lower than the other.  It continued to attack, but seemed to be doing so without real desire to do so. The manticore tried to pull away from it.“It’s over here, banking west!” Martin called to everyone else, and then moved clockwise around the perimeter, looking for Richard.“Jana, help me don my armor!” Kazrack said, holding up his broken arm limply.  Jana did not hesitate and began to do her best to help him slip it on.  “Martin! How long can we expect this mist to last?”“A few minutes, no more,” Martin called back.“Jeremy, get up on the wagon and find our crossbows and start loading them,” Kazrack called to the Neergaardian that he could not see.  Jeremy did not hesitate.  He leapt on the wagon and started rummaging, finding all the crossbows tied together.  He pulled them apart and began to load.The horse began to change again.  It reared up on its hind legs and immediately shrunk down, and grew thicker fur.  Its head collapsed into its chest and became rounded.  The fore-legs became long disproportionate muscular arms.Kazrack looked over.  It appeared to him to be something similar to the small monkeys he had occasionally seen for sale in the market in Verdun, or as part of the act of the local hurdy-gurdy men, except it was the size of a man, with broader shoulder and chest.  It looked very strong and fearsome.Beorth’s mouth dropped open as the huge ape loped towards him and then leapt up on the wagon.  “Ahhhh!” Jeremy cried out, dropping the loaded crossbow in his hands.  It did not go off.Beorth covered his eyes with his right hand and put his left hand out towards the ape-creature, “Anubis, grant me your divine vision so that I might peer into the heart of this beast and discover its true intentions.  (118)   Beorth uncovered his eyes and could see the faintest aura of blackness coving off the gorilla as if it were smouldering.“Evil!” Beorth cried.Martin clambered awkwardly off the path and through the deep snow, still on the edge the mist to provide himself with cover, when stepping on something he looked down.“Aah! Aah!  It’s got me!  I don’t want to die!”  It was one of the guards who had tried to hide by burying himself in a snowbank.“Shh!  No, you’re fine.  Just be quiet,” Martin said.The ape saw spotted Jana moving from helping Kazrack to move towards Beorth and it leapt off the wagon, scooping her in one arm and holding her tightly to his chest.   Jana tried to break free with all her might, but it was not nearly enough.Rindalith, in gorilla form, began to hurry down the path back in a westward direction, clutching an writhing Jana.End of Session #28---------------------------Notes(116) The Ogre Scar is a craggy canyon in the center of the all the alder-villages of the Kingdom of Gothanius.  It is avoided as several tribes of ogres live there that only stop their constant feuding to kill humans that wander in there.(117) DM’s Note: Jana with her Strength score of 10, beat out Beorth (with his score of 17) in an opposed strength check.(118) DM’s Note: In Aquerra, Detect Evil only detects immediate evil intention, not alignment.  It also detects outsiders from evil planes, or those mortal beings who had completely immersed themselves in the undertaking of repeated evil action, like a powerful priest of an evil god, for example.  It is impossible for a paladin to use his Detect Evil ability without the subject of it noticing.[/I]</blockquote>

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