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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sayburr" data-source="post: 1175" data-attributes="member: 92">Earning Passage to Find HalaanOn our way to the inn, we see some Kalamarian lawmen heading up the same street we are. They go right to the same inn at which we have been staying. The big northman and I decide to hang back a little to see what develops. They walk up and deploy in a military fashion. A small squad goes in with weapons drawn while two flank the door. I notice there are quite a few more dwarves about today and they seem to be pacing the Kalamarians. This is serious. Some one is about to get ambushed and, unless I miss my guess, then the ambushers are going to get a dose of their own medicine. I just hope it doesn’t involve one of our own. I can’t leave it up to hope tho. I ask the big man what tactic he wants to use and of course he wants to go barging right on in. I think I’ll see how well trained these men are and tell him I will go to the side of the inn and try to warn our group thru their windows. We tie our horses up a little apart time and space wise. I see him get to the door and get a hand in his chest as I slip around the side of the building. Oh well, he is on his own; I will need all my attention focused in this alley because if these guys are well trained their should be another squad covering the possible avenues of escape. I am so glad I listened to Magnus and didn’t take his intellect for granted because of his massive frame as so many people did( and usually to their great sorrow).There they are. Well trained but evidently not well disciplined or they would be hidden. I will just pretend to be on my way thru. Maybe the back entrance is uncovered. Perhaps this far from home the simply don’t have enuf men to do the job right. I really hope this doesn’t concern us. More short, stocky figures heading my way. More dwarves! Find some cover girl!The dwarves make short work of the lawmen and head for the front of the inn wanting still more blood. They nearly bowl over Rakis as he comes around the corner. He tells me that Ars has been arrested by these men and there is a near riot in the front of the inn and that the blue-cloaks have arrived. The blue-cloaks take Ars and the Kalamarians to the nearest jail. We follow at a discreet distance to see what will happen, making plans to ambush the lawmen to get Ars back outside of town or perhaps making sure that the dwarves know of the time and direction of the lawmen’s departure. Amber grabs the bull by the horns and says that they already know that she and Ars are friends and that she will go in to see him. Better her than me. No jail time for me, thanks anyway.Some three hours later they both come out separate from any law that I can see. Ars tells some story to Rakis about his father being killed by a friend but for some reason he is being sought for the crime and now the crimes of killing his mother and grandmother too. The main thing I take away from it is that Ars is exiled from Zoa. After not finding our enslaved captain, I tell them I will go to the harbormaster to see if we can chart a ship to take us south to Halaan. The harbormaster tells me to check with him tomorrow as I slide him some gold. I take this opportunity to hit the markets again. A certain item caught my eye while potion hunting and I mean to have it if possible. I go to the harbormaster the next day and he says he may have found some one looking for a crew to head south. I thank him and follow his directions to the slip where the ship is moored. The ship is captained by a wench calling herself Balama. We agree to go with her as muscle on a treasure hunt of hers in exchange for a split of the treasure except for a certain gem and passage. We will leave after I pick up my bead and glove. She even allows Ars to bunk on the ship until we leave. Pandora decides she will stay in Zoa for some reason. Just as well I say. While we are stocking the ship, I can’t help but think that I know the cabin boy from somewhere.After a couple of days, it bothers me so much that I come right out and ask him face to face if we know each other. He says he doesn’t know me but I can’t help thinking that I know him.About four days into our journey, a sea serpent attacks the ship. It cannot stand up to the focused attention of our group. After about three more days, I notice we cannot see the shore any more. I bring this to the group’s attention. Ars and Rakis check the sky and say that we are heading away from shore is why. We confront Balama with this oversight in her navigation. She says that her destination is a little more than the day she led me to believe it was beyond ours. We are not happy about this, but then again we are at sea with no sight of land She goes on to explain that she seeks a magical gem called the Rain Tiger. She believes it to be in a temple known as Rana Mor where the Rangka kings are buried. The Rangka Empire was a civilization rumored to be full of riches and magic and culture whose demise is as mysterious as its location. We sail around the tip of the continent, out of the Sea of the Dead, into the Kalamarian Sea. We anchor just off the coast directly in front of the mouth of the river we are supposed to take into the jungle. We: our group, Balamra, the cabin boy, and the half-orc first mate, Hurm, take the sloop and head into the river. We stop at a delta town called Coral Bay for a short taste of civilization before starting our trek. Just after we enter the jungle proper, we spot a hut on stilts in the middle of the river with a figure jumping up and down waving and shouting frantically. After a short discussion, we decide to stop to see what all the fuss is about. The man, as it turns out to be, is a loon. We garner what information we can from him but it will be hard to cull much of anything useful from his ramblings. The rest of the day is relatively quiet. Fighting the current makes for slow going, but the jungle swallows the banks immediately at the river’s edge. It would probably be easier to forge your way thru a druid’s thicket than to walk the banks. It is a veritable green wall. The second day is just as quiet as most of the first until we run into what the loon was babbling about as the last native tribe upriver. The green wall seems to suddenly spit dozens of arrows. We cannot see one single target to even return fire upon! I dive for the cover of the ship’s retaining wall and weigh my chances over going over the side of the sloop away from the arrow fire and getting a handhold. We are sitting ducks! Amber stands calmly under the deadly rain and displays the power of her Mother as she calls up a thick fog from the river to blanket us. Either its blinding effect or the display of such magical power discourages the natives from following us beyond the fog’s duration. We only travel a few more hours after our escape. The canopy that covers the river brings darkness early and makes nights on the river like being in a cave without a torch. We set the guard schedule that puts Amber, Hurm, and me on first watch. Amber takes the fore deck and I take the aft while Hurm takes the main. The half-orc says that he can see well enuf but I don’t believe him. I have heard that some of the demi-human races have improved vision, and Ars certainly bears that out, but this is like being inside a closed barrel. Amber and I have decided to depend on our hearing and wits. We string my silk rope between us with a few signals of tugs to communicate without giving our positions away. A short while into our watch the sloop lists hard to starboard and we hear Hurm cry out in anger and terrible pain. I speak the words of light Watcher taught me and the rail shines like a torch. I had no idea that this world was so full of monstrosities! Everywhere we go there are strange corruptions of nature to balk us. I leap to the deck and draw Flamesinger to battle a version larger than a horse of a shellfish that Gretta used to put hundreds of into a kettle to fill it that is trying to cut Hurm in half with its huge pincers. Amber and I keep it from finishing the half-orc until Ars and Rakis can get on deck. It grabs Ars like it did Hurm and its claws bite deep into his belly, going thru his leather armor he seems so proud of like one of Foebin’s fire-warmed hunting knives thru some of Gretta’s sweet butter. I offer another silent thanks to Risk for his protective aura. We wound it grievously and it seems to decide to cut its losses and take Ars with it back into the river rather than press the battle. Rakis grabs Ars to keep him on the ship but I know the power in the creature’s claws and know it will be happy with half an Ars as well. I use Watcher’s power to guide my blow to sever the creature’s claw before it can do the same to the lower half of Ars from the top half. Amber helps the wounded with the spells she has left. The rain starts in the middle of that same night. It rains like a cow pissing on a flat rock for what we can only guess is two days solid. At least it keeps the bugs to a minimum.The morning after the rain stops we travel to where the river shallows and widens out into a marsh. Despite the soundings the cabin boy is taking we run aground on what must be a sand bar recently hidden by the deluge. Ars, Rakis, Hurm, and I decide that we may be able to muscle the sloop of the sand bar and we jump over the side after looking for gators. Amber flatly refuses to join us in our endeavor. We four put our backs into it and do manage to move it some. Rakis says he could use a rest before finishing the job. This takes me by surprise. I know he can see it in my face when I turn to look at him. But that is nothing to the surprise I get when I see that he is very pale. I tell every one that I think we should all take a rest before finishing and try to hurry and help Rakis to return to the ship. Looking back to see if the rest are coming, I see Ars going up his tie off rope and see that the half-orc doesn’t look much better than Rakis. This makes me urge them faster.When we get on deck, we find the reason for their paleness and their weakness. Gigantic leeches have attached themselves to the big men. We use our blades to remove them but both are weak from blood loss. Regardless, we are still stuck. Amber says that she thinks she can use her Mother’s power to help us push the boat the rest of the way free. Hurm and Rakis don’t think this is a good idea in their weakened state and Ars doesn’t look too keen on the idea either. But I know we must. How else will we get free? If we wait, the current might even push us back onto the bar, costing us what ground we have already gained. I think I can shame them into action. I tell Amber to ready her spell, that I will jump back in and push. I hope the thought of those slimy, bloodsuckers didn’t put a noticeable quaver in my voice and I turn and walk toward the edge of the sloop. As I do, I mutter a quiet prayer to Risk to grant me good fortune enuf not to get one of the parasites on me and over the side I go. It works! In just a short while I hear their voices and then hear them hitting the water. We position ourselves again and begin pushing. It is harder and slower this time with the big men weakened but when Amber’s current gets behind us that is enuf to free the sloop. We climb back up and everyone is checking frantically for the leeches. The woodsman is the unlucky one this time. I kiss Risk’s side of my holy symbol and thank him again. All three of the men bitten break out in red splotches and are very weakened and shake nearly constantly for two days. After that time, all their symptoms disappear. Near the end of our sailing day that the men recover, we see a temple just beyond a small, carved stone landing on the bank. It is really the first break in the growth since we have been heading up river. That alone intrigues me. I ask Balama to stop next to the landing. She assures me that the temple we seek is still about 30 miles upstream. I tell her I don’t care, I want to see this one first. The others seem to be ready to out vote me until Rakis says he will go too. Balama stops, saying it is nearly time to anchor anyway, but even tho she is captain I feel that she needs us more than she lets on. The others seem downheartened about this trip. Almost like they have been thru too much trouble already. Almost like they feel that the trip is bad karma. Don’t they know that experiences come in at least two varieties: good and bad. The bad ones, as long as they don’t kill you, become your servants, tools if you will, to make you stronger. Not to mention, that they make appreciate the good that much more. And as Watcher knows, any experience that you learn from is not wasted, good or bad.We leap to the landing. We come upon a sight that startles me and nearly turns Rakis back to the boat. The temple is a pile of rubble mostly, but it is ringed by 13 skull-topped stakes. The eerie part is that the skulls are wreathed in an emerald flame and a bowl of blood sits at the bottom of each. If that is not bad enuf, when I cross the ring’s perimeter one of the skulls starts speaking in some language I don’t understand. Even without a translator, the message is pretty clear- STAY OUT! So I keep going. Rakis is really ready to go back now. His pride is the only tool that grants me enuf leverage to get him to continue. His upbringing will not let him quit while someone else continues, especially a woman. There is really nothing to be gained here but I had to come. I play around a little, looking for anything helpful. I end up leaving my rock I got from the river madman next to part of the shrine with similar markings and even cut my hand a little to put a little blood in one of the bowls. It is time to head back. The big northman looks so relieved. When we get back to the sloop, we describe what we saw to the others. They suddenly feel that we should try to get some more miles under our keel before we lose all light. I tell them they are crazy. I tell them that we won’t get more than a half of a mile before we have to stop again, but they are adamant. We lift anchor and sail far enuf away so that if I were to fire my bow as far as I could accurately and go to where that arrow fell and fire again that it might take me 6 arrows to hit the landing. What a waste of time. Amber, Hurm, and I take the first rotation again tonight. A short time into our shift I hear a muffled pattern of sound behind me on the river. I listen closer. It could be oars dipped into the water trying to be quiet or some river beast swimming close by, not caring whether we hear it or not. I don’t want one of those creatures that nearly got Hurm to sneak up on me so I send Amber the tug signal for quiet and cautious attention. Then I find one of our provisional coconuts, and I cast Watcher’s light upon it and throw it towards the sound. Quiet caution time is over! Four canoes loaded with natives were slipping quietly up on us in the darkness but now they throw their backs into it since it is hard to sneak when you are bathed in torch light. I yell for the others. How stupid of me! No wonder the others wanted to move away, the skulls were alarms to alert these guardians. They trade a few oarsmen in each boat for archers and begin to pepper the sloop as they advance. We send a few arrows of our own their way, as we prepare to take on boarders. Amber’s phantom lynx appears in one boat to distract them. Little damage is really taken by either side in the volleys and then they are at our rails. They come up quickly but must be holding some in reserve. I dispatch the first I meet and look over the rail hoping to sink one of the boats holding reserves to put them in disarray but there is only one boat there, empty. Damned illusions, but at least that only has us outnumbered 2 to 1 instead of 4 to 1. I see a likely spell caster and decide to target him. Magnus taught me this tactic. Not only are spellcasters usually the most dangerous foes, especially when their attention is not drawn from their casting by physical attacks, but most troops normally backed by magic become dependant upon it. “Usually if you can take out their magic users, you can break their morale,” he would say, “ get them to surrender even when they are not in a bad tactical situation just because they are not used to being with out their magical backing.” I already have Risk’s protection over me and can feel its power deflecting what would have been sure hits with too many foes around me to dodge them all effectively as I press the magician. I use Watcher’s words to guide my aim and feel Flamesinger bite into the man but it is as if he shrugs off the damage. I continue to attack him but feel the pressure of his pawns trying to slay me first, praise be to Risk for keeping them off me. Their movements and attacks keep me from good position on the caster, he has trained them well. Their magician is no mere spellcaster! I see a holy symbol he is using. He must be a priest like Amber. No wonder I have not sent him to the other side yet. While I am marveling at my discovery, I have let my guard down . His fighters strike thru my distracted defenses and spill my blood on the deck. I must dispatch them now! I pull my power pellet free and throw it at them. It bursts open on them in a rush of eldritch energy, downing the priest and enclosing one fighter and injuring the other. I rush in to finish the fighter off and turn to see why my companions have not come to my aid. Normally, Rakis should have been able to down ten men himself in this amount of time.When I turn, I am dismayed to see only one other native down and several of our group lie bleeding where I expected natives to be. Amber is one of them! How can this be? Rakis is in a lather of sweat and blood, quite a bit of it his own by the looks of it. I have to drink my last curative potion before running to help them or possibly bleed to death before doing any good. As I do, I see a huge owl swoop in from the shore. What now? More magic play? Just as I am readying a death blow for it, I notice Ars seems to talk to it somehow and doesn’t seem threatened by it at all, so I turn my attention to the known threat. My presence has at least made the remaining natives have to pull some of their attention away from killing the others but little else, as I am too weak to be very effective offensively. Amber gets too her feet and harries them with bolts from a distance. She is bloodied but must have been pretending her injuries were worse than they appeared. Somehow I muster the strength to kill another native by the time the rest rid themselves of their foes too. We have had the battle taken to us again. I must look into the hiring of a personal bodyguard. The captain is down and so is Hurm, and of course that little bastard of a cabin boy has been no help at all during this and must still be hiding somewhere. The others feel that we should move from here quickly. I don’t see why but listen to their council after not seeing the native attack coming after our trespass. I tell them to give me directions from the bow and I will get us out of here. It is pitch black now of course. Rakis gets up on the bow and tries to give me hand signals but it is not long before we are aground again. This is not the shallows of the swamp and I don’t think even me jumping in now will get them into the water in the dark. So we hunker down and batten down and try to hold on til day breaks. A short time after I have laid down I hear Ars screaming, “Snake!” at the top of his lungs. Why doesn’t he just kill it, I wonder, as I make my way towards the main deck quickly. Rakis is already at the door trying to bolt it as Ars runs past me. I turn to ask him if he has lost his mind or nerve or both when a huge serpent breaks thru the door as Rakis almost had it closed. We jump to either side of it and slice it to bloody ribbons.The next morning Balama is back on her feet and so is Hurm, thanks to that slippery cabin boy’s ministrations. Everyone is still injured but the night’s rest has been a big help. Amber helps with everyone’s worst wounds. The river’s current and the captain’s touch help to back us off what ever we hit upon last night. We resume the trip up the river. We sail all day and rest the night again and early into the next morning we drop anchor as we come upon a majestic waterfall blocking further travel in the sloop. To the side of the falls, there is an old stone roadway that winds upward. The captain and our little party leave the sloop behind and take to the road. It takes us most of the rest of the day to get to the road’s end which stops at a bridge to cross the river. The plateau above the falls is grassland instead of the jungle of the basin. In the distance we can make out towering spires that have to be manmade. Balama says that should be the temple we seek. We decide to camp and rest before crossing the bridge. During the night, Watcher speaks to me thru my dreams. “Know your allies as well as your enemies, my little apprentice,” he whispers to me. Then he makes me dream of the night at the Grand Circus when I was summoned to West Wood. The cabin boy! That miserable bitch has used the same mask twice and I have caught her! The cabin boy is the half-elf who gave me the envelope without the tapered ears who in turn is Daresh! That bitch has tricked Balama into believing that she is her cabin boy. But to what end? Or perhaps she has hired Balama to retrieve this Rain Tiger for her. I will tell Balama of the danger she is in when the morning comes. When we are breaking camp, I approach Balama to warn her. As I get close, she looks up. I open my mouth to tell her of my dream and discovery but there is something about the way she looks at me and I hear Watcher’s words again, “Know your allies…”. I just ask her if she is almost ready. She pauses even tho it is a simple question. “Oh, yes. I am ready. Are you?”, she replies. The chill that runs up my back tells me that she is not talking about breaking camp and it is good I have not told her. She hasn’t been tricked. She is in league with Daresh somehow, whether by aims or just thru coin but they are in this together. I know it. Very well. I will let her hold her Rain Tiger just before I break her grip on this life.As we start to cross, we are attacked by some carnivorous plant from beneath the bridge. Perhaps it is just another warning from Watcher to expect danger from unexpected places. We continue to march. When we make it to the temple grounds, we come to the first of several moats surrounding the temple even tho the temple appears to be still a mile in the distance. The walls and buildings here are in fairly ruff shape but it is still evident that they were once grand. The deeper we go into the grounds, the condition of the buildings becomes better almost as if out of respect. We are finally stopped by a massive stone door. The door has carvings on it but I cannot read them. Amber steps up to ponder them and after a short prayer or incantation she lies on the ground and says “Pri Nhar Phul”. I repeat it quietly to myself 3 times and count to 10 and then repeat it 3 times again in case I need to get back out without aid as the doors swing open. When we go thru the doors, we are immediately confronted by another moat but this one has no bridge. I tell them to toss me a rope once I jump across. Ars and Rakis are discussing how to get across and trying the water and other nonsense, ignoring me. So I just back up and start my run to jump when Ars steps in front of me. “ Remember the jelly,” he says. He picks up a stone and tosses it across the moat to the landing on the other side – normally. I guess he does have his uses after all. I back up, run and clear the moat in a smooth leap. We tie ropes from some one side to the other using the large pillars on either side to let the party cross.We are stopped again by a large stone door. There are great depictions of the gods all around this building. I try the words Amber used to open the first door. It doesn’t work. She tries them again. They don’t work for her either. I decide to scout around the building while they try to figure out what to do. I notice in all the depictions the gods have a scroll they seem to be reading but each scroll seems to have only one word on it. I bring this to Amber’s attention. She uses her power to decipher the words to open the second door.Thru this door, we enter a room. It is small and has a dark archway as its only interesting feature. We walk thru it, except for Rakis, that is. For some reason, he cannot pass thru the shadowy barrier. We find ourselves in a similar room on this side with another shadowed archway. This time only Balama and Amber can pass. Ars and I wait and search the room we are in. We find nothing. Soon, Amber and Balama come running back thru the arch. They tell us about a pit trap in the next room and of a room beyond it trapped with darts and then Rakis comes thru the arch. We all ask him how he got thru and he tells us that he just went back to the start and tried again and he was able to pass without any problem. We all decide to try this. Amber, Balama, and I are able to reach the dart room but the bladesmen are stuck in the room before the pit even after multiple attempts. We girls decide to press on without them. After taking our wounds in the dart room, we make it to an altar room. There are two undead creatures guarding this room. One moves to attack us while the other moves toward what looks like a bell’s pull rope on the wall farthest from us. It would be a good race without the interference of our attacker but I don’t think I can make it. The first god mentioned here was a deity of the dead! I drop as Amber did at the door and repeat the words she said like I did to insure I could get thru the door again only louder now. “Pri Nhar Phul!” It works! They go back to their positions passively. We pass them quickly to enter the next room.In this room, we are confronted by another undead monstrosity. The power nearly rolls off this one as a testament to his superiority to the other 2. He is reigned in high priest robes and his movements are not the stiff disjointed ones of the lesser undead and he has a voice. In which, he grates out a proclamation from beyond the grave; “You came seeking a place of death but death finds you in this place!” I have invoked Risk’s protection and am readying Watcher’s enchantment to guide my strokes, as it seems that suddenly I am our group’s best representative of the blade. I take the battle to it to try to give my spellcasters the very time I was trying to deny the native spellcaster on the sloop. Despite Watcher’s guidance Flamesinger seems to hardly scratch the creature tho it does seem to dislike the flames themselves. Amber must have noticed this too, but what is she doing? I strike again to keep it occupied. She is getting out her lantern. Ahhhhhh! Fuel for the flames! Balama sends a bolt of lightning past me into the creature. It sure doesn’t shrug that off. Amber douses the creature with her lantern and I strike true. That does the trick. The creature is immediately engulfed and falls under the fire and my stroke.We take the stairs that the fiend once guarded down to a crypt. Balama says something about this being the crypt of the Seer King. She says that she can get into his crypt but that each crypt is warded differently so we can proceed but at our own risk. I tell her to get what we came for and then we will see about anything else. Amber says she will watch toward the back of the room and I say I will watch toward the door. I do watch that way but am readying my last spell to strike down Balama as soon as she comes thru the crypt arch. She says her chant to pass and goes over to the sarcophagus and lifts the lid. When she does, water pours from the ceiling and the door starts to slide shut. I call to Amber and we dash thru the door. I didn’t see Balama come thru behind us. I guess I won’t have to play the heavy after all. Damn it! I forgot about my alter self potion. I could have stayed behind to make sure that bitch was dead and gotten the treasure. Damn it! Oh well, it was more important to get Amber out safely. We run back to tell the men of the aborted mission. We are just starting to tell them when Balama, soaked and scraped, comes thru the archway behind us. She is grinning from ear to ear. She says she wasn’t sure she was going to make it when the door trapped her leg, nearly breaking it. She holds up the stone tho, removing her gloves as she does. “ Thanks for helping me again,” she says. It is then that we notice the marks branded into her hand. It is the Coin of Power! She is Daresh! I pull Flamesinger and mutter my last incantation but she is gone again in a blink. She has cut her own throat now. Before this I could have walked away. I never believed that take over the world rubbish anyway. That is a scary tale for children. I will not be made a fool of and have it go unpunished. Coin or no coin, world domination or no, she has made a blood enemy this day. I will not lay this down until one of us is laid down for good. She has married this day and doesn’t even know it. Until death do us part my pretty, and only then. This I swear by the blood that runs thru my veins and out of this cut.</blockquote>

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