handforged
First Post
What a trouble all of this is turning out to be. I bet that even if things are figured out, the political suspicions that will arise from such confusion will not go away so quickly.
~hf
~hf
"Second Son of a Second Son" - An Aquerra Story Hour (*finally* Updated 04/19)
Fimmtiu
First Post
I'm a new reader (haven't read OOTFP either). Thoughts:
Pro: You're an excellent writer and a very clever DM -- two rare qualities that are even rarer to find together. Well done! The links, in particular, are a very nice touch for communicating the setting.
Con: I found that I had to stop reading about halfway into the second page. I just couldn't take the neverending inter-character arguing, caviling, backbiting, sniping, and general irritability. With all of the arguing back and forth about every single little decision, it started to feel more like the minutes of a debating club; I was half-expecting them to start slugging each other over what flavour of jam to eat for breakfast. Does it keep up like this? I mean, I respect that the players are sticking to their characterizations so well, but it makes for poor drama.
Pro: You're an excellent writer and a very clever DM -- two rare qualities that are even rarer to find together. Well done! The links, in particular, are a very nice touch for communicating the setting.
Con: I found that I had to stop reading about halfway into the second page. I just couldn't take the neverending inter-character arguing, caviling, backbiting, sniping, and general irritability. With all of the arguing back and forth about every single little decision, it started to feel more like the minutes of a debating club; I was half-expecting them to start slugging each other over what flavour of jam to eat for breakfast. Does it keep up like this? I mean, I respect that the players are sticking to their characterizations so well, but it makes for poor drama.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Thanks for giving us a try!
Thanks! I appreciate the compliment.
Well, I am just relaying the events, and yes, early on the bickering was paralyzing. Frustrating on one level, but also an opportunity to develop character personalities. . . I cannot say that it ever goes completely away (at least at this point), but it certainly does not continue at the rate found on the second page - However, I am not sure exactly how far you got in terms of the actual events of the game - so I cannot give a precise description of how it changes from where you are.
There is one last huge group argument/debate in Session #5 - but after that the action becomes too thick to argue very much for a while until downtime comes again - and by then the forge of battle have made them bond a bit more.
Anyway, hope you'll give us another chance
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Session #23 – “Sleepless” (part 4 of 4)
The meeting was held in the common room of Death & Taxes. Captain Firth arrived with news that Havesting was locked up and was not allowing anyone in or out. This included Darbold the Gay.
“Who commands Havesting?” Bleys asked her.
“Holy Admiral Korwait Tenbrook,” Angeleena said.
“I see you’re better,” Laarus said to Timotheus when he came downstairs after a healing spell from Victoria awoke him. She had come with the only militant present at the temple when she arrived, Custus Frod. All the other priests of Anhur were at some ceremony at the High Temple of Ra in Lilly City.
“I see you’re better,” Timotheus replied.
“You killed two people in a fit of rage,” Bleys said, flatly.
“It wasn’t quite rage,” Tim disagreed. Laarus Raymer of Ra was filled in on all that had happened, and Markos gave the news of his theory that sleep was not the answer, but the problem.
“Putting people to sleep triggers the possession…” He said for about the fifth time. No one was quite taking his suggestion very seriously.
“We need to go to Havesting and see what is happening there, for I was relying on their help in locking down the city,” Bleys said. “On the way we will stop at the house of Darbold the Gay and test your theory…”
“How?” Markos asked.
“I gave his wife herbal sleep draughts to use on their children,” Bleys replied calmly.
----------------------------------------------
“What did you give my children!” Darbold’s wife was frantic. She held the wailing infant, ‘little Barakis’ in her arms.
“Rose, what happened?” Bleys asked. She let them into the house and they could see for themselves. In the sitting room a crib was turned over and upon it were a large cast iron pot and two large decorative bricks. Held captives by the crib’s rails was a vicious little creature, a howling feral child that tore at the wooden slats with claws and unnatural strength. When it saw the party it shrieked and transformed into the form of a little girl of barely two years in light blue jumper. “Momma! Out, out! Momma!”
Another child of about three years was lying on a sofa with a bruise upon her head.
“They were just sleeping draughts…” Bleys said.
“I fed them to them, and they eventually drifted off, but then they woke up and… and… looked like the walking dead!” Rose’s voice had a tinge of hysteria to it. “I was able to trap Anemone under the crib, but I was forced to hit Daisy with the broom! She bit me!” Rose lifted her skirt and turned her leg to reveal the wound on her calf. “I felt woozy for a moment when she bit me, but luckily Isis was with me and I was able to shake it off.”
Laarus walked over and examined the injured child. “Cousin, heal its wounds,” Markos said to him, but the priest shook his head. Markos looked at Laarus with disbelief. Tim, who stood nearby, echoed the mage’s skepticism regarding Laarus’ lack of sympathy for the child.
“We don’t know what she will be alike if she awakens,” Laarus said. Instead, he had Rose set up a blanket and pillow on the floor, and another crib was laid over the tiny unconscious form.
“What of the possessed one?” Markos asked. “Maybe we should try to put her to sleep somehow, so she cannot hurt herself?”
“Know a good lullaby?” Timotheus joked.
There was nothing more to be done for them. Bleys told Rose that her husband was trapped in Havesting and that was where they were going next.
Bleys, Laarus, Markos, Timotheus, Victoria, Custus, Angeleena, Floris and three of the town watch marched east towards the imposing walls of Havesting. They drew a crowd of sleepless complaining people that Bleys admonished to return to their homes and remain inside. While everyone made a show of leaving, some just hung back following from a far and drawing more attention as they walked.
Bleys called up and announced himself, asking to be allowed within the great thick wooden doors, reinforced with bolted slats of thick iron, allowing entrance into Havesting from the Old Town side, but the guards atop the wall tower refused him.
“We are to let no one in or out by order of Holy Admiral Kortwait Tenbrook,” the guard called down.
“Then summon him, and tell him that Bleys the Aubergine, acting watch-mage of Sluetelot and member of the Charter of Schiereiland wishes to speak to him regarding the plague that afflicts this town,” Bleys called up. “Tell him I am here with Captain Firth of the town-watch and his kindred, Floris Tenbrook. Also, if possible please have Darbold the Gay of the watch-mage’s council accompany him.”
It took some time, but the Holy Admiral did eventually arrive at the wall. During that time much of the crowd dispersed, growing bored. It was hard to make out his features from forty feet below, but they could note his graying hair and his iron-colored beard. Darbold was not with him.
“Hail, honored watch-mage!” He called down. “I would allow you access, but I fear what might happen if the plague of insomnia were to spread too far among the ranks that defend the port. I have already ordered that no ships or ferries be allowed to depart, nor for any to be allow to dock here. The canal is closed…”
“Do you know what caused this plague of insomnia?” Bleys asked.
“No…” The Holy Admiral called down. “We had a guard return from leave complaining that he had not slept in three days and acting irritable and irrational. Darbold was summoned to put him to sleep with bardic song, and when the soldier fell asleep, he was possessed by some fiendish spirit…”
“We saw evidence of this at the gaol…” Bleys replied.
“Darbold was attacked and he too fell asleep and was possessed, but luckily he was quickly subdued,” Korwait Tenbrook continued.
“We have discovered that a shock to the system, like a great pain can break people out of the possession,” Markos called up.
Korwait supported Bleys’ desire for declaring martial law, but he did not want to open the fortress to lend him the troops to accomplish this.
“We shall investigate the source of this and report back to you our findings,” Bleys said.
“What could be the reason behind this?” Timotheus asked. “I mean, is someone behind this? What does it accomplish?”
“We’ve seen once already how people can be changed en mass,” Laarus said.
“The pearl…” Tim replied. 1 The priest nodded.
“This is different,” Bleys said.
“I don’t know, those who are changed seem pretty savage,” Markos said.
“Maybe it is something in the water…” Tim guessed.
Bleys shook his head. “I checked the wells first thing this morning…”
“Where is Telémahkos?” Victoria asked, suddenly noticing his absence.
“I’ve already asked twice and no one has been able to tell me,” Timotheus said.
“I already told you, last I saw him he was running around the market in a funny hat,” Markos said with feigned weariness. 2
“Well… If we have no other leads, I am going to go find him,” Timotheus said, worrying creeping into his voice. “Crazy things are going on and Red Lantern assassins are after him…”
“We are bereft of purpose, so we might as well seek out Telémahkos,” Victoria of Anhur agreed. “Do you have a lead as to where we might find him?”
“We can start by looking in the kinds of places that Telémahkos likes,” Tim replied.
“Floris, Captain Firth, do you have any suggestions on how best to declare and enforce martial law without the help of the troops from Havesting,” Bleys asked, as the group began to march back towards Death & Taxes.
“I guess no one else cares about Telémahkos… I’ll just go on my own,” Timotheus said, huffily, turning towards the seedy quarter of Old Town. “What’s that smoke?”
Everyone turned. There was a cloud of black smoke hovering over that area of Sluetelot, and a streak of it rippling along the wind that came in off the bay from the northeast.
“Fire!” Several voices called out at once and suddenly everyone was hurrying to the well-plaza in that section of town.3 The cramped and close-packed wooden buildings ranging from one story squats to teetering four-story structures with warped beams were going up with alarming speed. People were streaming out of the narrow streets, screaming and weeping. Dogs were barking and babies were crying, and more and more people crammed into the plaza making the situation dangerous.
“The lack of sleep must have led to someone’s carelessness…” Captain Firth surmised. She sent members of the watch to sound the alert.
“Is there anyone still in there?” Timotheus asked a soot-faced man stumbling out of burning area.
“There’s still a whole lot of people trapped in there,” the man coughed. Timotheus did not hesitate, he ran right up the widest of the smoke filled streets past two columns of fire. Victoria followed him.
“Come back here you crazy fools!” Markos yelled, but either they could not hear or did not care to listen.
“I will go find more aid!” Floris Tenbrook took off.
Bleys the Aubergine kicked over a nearby cabbage cart and climbed atop it.4 He cast announce. “People of Sluetelot!” You must band together and save your city. The fire will spread if we do not act quickly, and then all shall be lost!”
With the help of Laarus and Markos, the watch-mage organized several lines of bucket brigades to get to work on the fire, while runners were sent to gather more help from the other parts of the town. A guard was sent to give word to Havesting of the new danger. As the able-bodied men and women worked, along with a great number of older children, the elderly were given command over the very young, and people were led towards the larger Market Well Plaza where it would be safer. There was still some chaos and people emerged from smoke-filled streets frightened and confused, but Bleys’ calming authoritarian tone kept the people of Sluetelot working and focused for the most part.
Markos Ackers wandered to the other side of the plaza and sat down to try to prepare a spell that would be helpful, but found the constant jeers from the commoners working to fight the fire too distracting to continue.
Meanwhile, Timotheus and Victoria ran amid burning buildings, covering their mouths with their arms as they burst through clouds of black smoke and felt waves of heat on the wind. They directed a few groups of people towards the best way out of the area and towards the well plaza where the others were organizing, and soon came to a four story building that was choking out streams of black smoke as fire licked up its eastern side, driven across the length of its floors by the wind. Two men were looking up near the top of the building and pointing. There was a scream. Tim and Victoria looked and saw an older woman with a child in her arms. “Help me!” She cried. “We’re trapped! My granddaughter!”
“I’m coming!” Timotheus hollered, he rushed into the building, leaping through a thin curtain of flame into the vestibule, and then down the smoky hall to the stairs.
“I’ll get more help!” Victoria ran as fast as she could back to the plaza.
“Laarus!” She called seeing the young priest as soon as she came out into the plaza, covered in soot and her tabard singed. “Timotheus has run into a building! We need to help him and the people he is trying to save!” She turned to Captain Firth. “Captain! Have you any men to spare?”
She noted an enlarged Bleys pouring water from an over-sized bucket into the buckets of others while still booming orders to the working townspeople.
Captain Firth ordered two men to follow the militant of Anhur into the burning streets and Laarus took up the rear, working to keep Victoria in sight despite thickening plumes of smoke.
Timotheus winced as a tongue of flame lapped against him, jetting out from an open door way. Smoke choked and blinded him. He bound up the steps letting the cry of the child above draw him past the pain. His lungs burned, and as he came around a corner on the third floor he stumbled right into a curtain of flame and yelled as he fell to his knees and rolled, patting at his side and casting off his burning cloak. He climbed back to his feet, fighting a wracking cough and forced himself to continue. Looked back and saw that the steps behind him were awash in flame. There was no going back that way. Way below he heard wood begin to collapse. The building shook.
“Call out! Call out so I can find you!” He croaked as loudly as he could.
“Over here!” The woman poked her head behind another lower curtain of flame, in the doorway of a set of apartments. She held a wailing child of about fourteen months of age.
“Get back!” Timotheus waved his hands at them as he leapt in their direction, feeling the fire lick his legs as he kicked through it. The pain was excruciating. He ran to the window and looked out. On the street, nearly forty feet below, he saw Victoria and Laarus spreading a blanket with the aid of two of the watch and two townsfolk. The militant had found it in a scattered pile of abandoned laundry beside an overturned basket.
“Go without me! Save the child!” The woman said, trying to hand him the baby. He put his hands up and shook his head.
“Climb on my back,” he told the hysterical woman she clawed at him with one hand, as the baby squirmed out of the grip of her other withered arm. He grabbed the child, who wailed again, but buried her head in his chest. He got down on one knee and the woman climbed onto his back, grabbing around his neck. “Not so tight!” He passed the child around to her. “I need my hands free…” Tim broke through what remained of the window frame and climbed out onto the ledge. He began to try to climb down the side of the building, hanging by pure strength of his arms and his indomitable will, as the woman choked him, and the baby squeezed between them.
“Jump!” Victoria called, but Tim had no choice. He lost his grip as he swung his body trying to aim for a place he could get a foothold climb down to the third floor. Down they fell, the child wailing, the woman screaming, and below Victoria, Laarus and the others called to each other directing the blanket this way and that. Timotheus twisted his body so that he would cushion the woman and child when they landed.
Timotheus felt the blanket tear past him and then everything was black for a moment, the sound of fire and voices coming to him from far away. The child was still crying. He smiled to know it was alive. The woman was dying from the impact, but the child was amazingly unharmed. A call to Ra from Laarus and the woman regained consciousness. Timotheus got to his feet with the help of one of the town-watch. Victoria held the baby.
“Oh my goodness! Thank Isis! Thank Ra!” The old woman wailed. The building groaned as the fourth floor collapsed.
“We need to get out of here,” said one of the guards, as he and the townsfolk began to run. Timotheus scooped up the old woman again. Victoria carried the child, and the two of them and Laarus hustled back to the plaza.
Bleys and his cooperating townsfolk had managed to hold the fire back at the line of the plaza, keeping it from spreading south. “We are going to need to extend this brigade east to trap the fire against the town wall,” he called to Markos.
Timotheus brought the old woman over to where some younger women were organizing groups to lead the old and infirmed towards safety. Victoria handed the baby to her.
”Thank you! Isis bless you! Isis bless you!” She kissed their hands.
“Wild horse!” a voice called out as the crowd murmured like a wave. A horse came galloping into the plaza, driven mad by its burning mane.
End of Session #23
---------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) The party first learned of the pearl in Session #7.
(2) See the end of Session #22.
(3) Sluetelot is divided into two basic areas “Old Town” and “New Sluetelot.” Old Town is divided into quarters, each with a central plaza holding a well and small local market. The seedy part of town is the northeastern quarter, sometimes called ‘The Salty Quarter’. The events of this portion of the campaign are based on “A Hot Day in L’Trel” by Ted James Thomas Zuvich from Dungeon #44 (Nov/Dec 1993).
(4) MY CABBAGES!!
The meeting was held in the common room of Death & Taxes. Captain Firth arrived with news that Havesting was locked up and was not allowing anyone in or out. This included Darbold the Gay.
“Who commands Havesting?” Bleys asked her.
“Holy Admiral Korwait Tenbrook,” Angeleena said.
“I see you’re better,” Laarus said to Timotheus when he came downstairs after a healing spell from Victoria awoke him. She had come with the only militant present at the temple when she arrived, Custus Frod. All the other priests of Anhur were at some ceremony at the High Temple of Ra in Lilly City.
“I see you’re better,” Timotheus replied.
“You killed two people in a fit of rage,” Bleys said, flatly.
“It wasn’t quite rage,” Tim disagreed. Laarus Raymer of Ra was filled in on all that had happened, and Markos gave the news of his theory that sleep was not the answer, but the problem.
“Putting people to sleep triggers the possession…” He said for about the fifth time. No one was quite taking his suggestion very seriously.
“We need to go to Havesting and see what is happening there, for I was relying on their help in locking down the city,” Bleys said. “On the way we will stop at the house of Darbold the Gay and test your theory…”
“How?” Markos asked.
“I gave his wife herbal sleep draughts to use on their children,” Bleys replied calmly.
----------------------------------------------
“What did you give my children!” Darbold’s wife was frantic. She held the wailing infant, ‘little Barakis’ in her arms.
“Rose, what happened?” Bleys asked. She let them into the house and they could see for themselves. In the sitting room a crib was turned over and upon it were a large cast iron pot and two large decorative bricks. Held captives by the crib’s rails was a vicious little creature, a howling feral child that tore at the wooden slats with claws and unnatural strength. When it saw the party it shrieked and transformed into the form of a little girl of barely two years in light blue jumper. “Momma! Out, out! Momma!”
Another child of about three years was lying on a sofa with a bruise upon her head.
“They were just sleeping draughts…” Bleys said.
“I fed them to them, and they eventually drifted off, but then they woke up and… and… looked like the walking dead!” Rose’s voice had a tinge of hysteria to it. “I was able to trap Anemone under the crib, but I was forced to hit Daisy with the broom! She bit me!” Rose lifted her skirt and turned her leg to reveal the wound on her calf. “I felt woozy for a moment when she bit me, but luckily Isis was with me and I was able to shake it off.”
Laarus walked over and examined the injured child. “Cousin, heal its wounds,” Markos said to him, but the priest shook his head. Markos looked at Laarus with disbelief. Tim, who stood nearby, echoed the mage’s skepticism regarding Laarus’ lack of sympathy for the child.
“We don’t know what she will be alike if she awakens,” Laarus said. Instead, he had Rose set up a blanket and pillow on the floor, and another crib was laid over the tiny unconscious form.
“What of the possessed one?” Markos asked. “Maybe we should try to put her to sleep somehow, so she cannot hurt herself?”
“Know a good lullaby?” Timotheus joked.
There was nothing more to be done for them. Bleys told Rose that her husband was trapped in Havesting and that was where they were going next.
Bleys, Laarus, Markos, Timotheus, Victoria, Custus, Angeleena, Floris and three of the town watch marched east towards the imposing walls of Havesting. They drew a crowd of sleepless complaining people that Bleys admonished to return to their homes and remain inside. While everyone made a show of leaving, some just hung back following from a far and drawing more attention as they walked.
Bleys called up and announced himself, asking to be allowed within the great thick wooden doors, reinforced with bolted slats of thick iron, allowing entrance into Havesting from the Old Town side, but the guards atop the wall tower refused him.
“We are to let no one in or out by order of Holy Admiral Kortwait Tenbrook,” the guard called down.
“Then summon him, and tell him that Bleys the Aubergine, acting watch-mage of Sluetelot and member of the Charter of Schiereiland wishes to speak to him regarding the plague that afflicts this town,” Bleys called up. “Tell him I am here with Captain Firth of the town-watch and his kindred, Floris Tenbrook. Also, if possible please have Darbold the Gay of the watch-mage’s council accompany him.”
It took some time, but the Holy Admiral did eventually arrive at the wall. During that time much of the crowd dispersed, growing bored. It was hard to make out his features from forty feet below, but they could note his graying hair and his iron-colored beard. Darbold was not with him.
“Hail, honored watch-mage!” He called down. “I would allow you access, but I fear what might happen if the plague of insomnia were to spread too far among the ranks that defend the port. I have already ordered that no ships or ferries be allowed to depart, nor for any to be allow to dock here. The canal is closed…”
“Do you know what caused this plague of insomnia?” Bleys asked.
“No…” The Holy Admiral called down. “We had a guard return from leave complaining that he had not slept in three days and acting irritable and irrational. Darbold was summoned to put him to sleep with bardic song, and when the soldier fell asleep, he was possessed by some fiendish spirit…”
“We saw evidence of this at the gaol…” Bleys replied.
“Darbold was attacked and he too fell asleep and was possessed, but luckily he was quickly subdued,” Korwait Tenbrook continued.
“We have discovered that a shock to the system, like a great pain can break people out of the possession,” Markos called up.
Korwait supported Bleys’ desire for declaring martial law, but he did not want to open the fortress to lend him the troops to accomplish this.
“We shall investigate the source of this and report back to you our findings,” Bleys said.
“What could be the reason behind this?” Timotheus asked. “I mean, is someone behind this? What does it accomplish?”
“We’ve seen once already how people can be changed en mass,” Laarus said.
“The pearl…” Tim replied. 1 The priest nodded.
“This is different,” Bleys said.
“I don’t know, those who are changed seem pretty savage,” Markos said.
“Maybe it is something in the water…” Tim guessed.
Bleys shook his head. “I checked the wells first thing this morning…”
“Where is Telémahkos?” Victoria asked, suddenly noticing his absence.
“I’ve already asked twice and no one has been able to tell me,” Timotheus said.
“I already told you, last I saw him he was running around the market in a funny hat,” Markos said with feigned weariness. 2
“Well… If we have no other leads, I am going to go find him,” Timotheus said, worrying creeping into his voice. “Crazy things are going on and Red Lantern assassins are after him…”
“We are bereft of purpose, so we might as well seek out Telémahkos,” Victoria of Anhur agreed. “Do you have a lead as to where we might find him?”
“We can start by looking in the kinds of places that Telémahkos likes,” Tim replied.
“Floris, Captain Firth, do you have any suggestions on how best to declare and enforce martial law without the help of the troops from Havesting,” Bleys asked, as the group began to march back towards Death & Taxes.
“I guess no one else cares about Telémahkos… I’ll just go on my own,” Timotheus said, huffily, turning towards the seedy quarter of Old Town. “What’s that smoke?”
Everyone turned. There was a cloud of black smoke hovering over that area of Sluetelot, and a streak of it rippling along the wind that came in off the bay from the northeast.
“Fire!” Several voices called out at once and suddenly everyone was hurrying to the well-plaza in that section of town.3 The cramped and close-packed wooden buildings ranging from one story squats to teetering four-story structures with warped beams were going up with alarming speed. People were streaming out of the narrow streets, screaming and weeping. Dogs were barking and babies were crying, and more and more people crammed into the plaza making the situation dangerous.
“The lack of sleep must have led to someone’s carelessness…” Captain Firth surmised. She sent members of the watch to sound the alert.
“Is there anyone still in there?” Timotheus asked a soot-faced man stumbling out of burning area.
“There’s still a whole lot of people trapped in there,” the man coughed. Timotheus did not hesitate, he ran right up the widest of the smoke filled streets past two columns of fire. Victoria followed him.
“Come back here you crazy fools!” Markos yelled, but either they could not hear or did not care to listen.
“I will go find more aid!” Floris Tenbrook took off.
Bleys the Aubergine kicked over a nearby cabbage cart and climbed atop it.4 He cast announce. “People of Sluetelot!” You must band together and save your city. The fire will spread if we do not act quickly, and then all shall be lost!”
With the help of Laarus and Markos, the watch-mage organized several lines of bucket brigades to get to work on the fire, while runners were sent to gather more help from the other parts of the town. A guard was sent to give word to Havesting of the new danger. As the able-bodied men and women worked, along with a great number of older children, the elderly were given command over the very young, and people were led towards the larger Market Well Plaza where it would be safer. There was still some chaos and people emerged from smoke-filled streets frightened and confused, but Bleys’ calming authoritarian tone kept the people of Sluetelot working and focused for the most part.
Markos Ackers wandered to the other side of the plaza and sat down to try to prepare a spell that would be helpful, but found the constant jeers from the commoners working to fight the fire too distracting to continue.
Meanwhile, Timotheus and Victoria ran amid burning buildings, covering their mouths with their arms as they burst through clouds of black smoke and felt waves of heat on the wind. They directed a few groups of people towards the best way out of the area and towards the well plaza where the others were organizing, and soon came to a four story building that was choking out streams of black smoke as fire licked up its eastern side, driven across the length of its floors by the wind. Two men were looking up near the top of the building and pointing. There was a scream. Tim and Victoria looked and saw an older woman with a child in her arms. “Help me!” She cried. “We’re trapped! My granddaughter!”
“I’m coming!” Timotheus hollered, he rushed into the building, leaping through a thin curtain of flame into the vestibule, and then down the smoky hall to the stairs.
“I’ll get more help!” Victoria ran as fast as she could back to the plaza.
“Laarus!” She called seeing the young priest as soon as she came out into the plaza, covered in soot and her tabard singed. “Timotheus has run into a building! We need to help him and the people he is trying to save!” She turned to Captain Firth. “Captain! Have you any men to spare?”
She noted an enlarged Bleys pouring water from an over-sized bucket into the buckets of others while still booming orders to the working townspeople.
Captain Firth ordered two men to follow the militant of Anhur into the burning streets and Laarus took up the rear, working to keep Victoria in sight despite thickening plumes of smoke.
Timotheus winced as a tongue of flame lapped against him, jetting out from an open door way. Smoke choked and blinded him. He bound up the steps letting the cry of the child above draw him past the pain. His lungs burned, and as he came around a corner on the third floor he stumbled right into a curtain of flame and yelled as he fell to his knees and rolled, patting at his side and casting off his burning cloak. He climbed back to his feet, fighting a wracking cough and forced himself to continue. Looked back and saw that the steps behind him were awash in flame. There was no going back that way. Way below he heard wood begin to collapse. The building shook.
“Call out! Call out so I can find you!” He croaked as loudly as he could.
“Over here!” The woman poked her head behind another lower curtain of flame, in the doorway of a set of apartments. She held a wailing child of about fourteen months of age.
“Get back!” Timotheus waved his hands at them as he leapt in their direction, feeling the fire lick his legs as he kicked through it. The pain was excruciating. He ran to the window and looked out. On the street, nearly forty feet below, he saw Victoria and Laarus spreading a blanket with the aid of two of the watch and two townsfolk. The militant had found it in a scattered pile of abandoned laundry beside an overturned basket.
“Go without me! Save the child!” The woman said, trying to hand him the baby. He put his hands up and shook his head.
“Climb on my back,” he told the hysterical woman she clawed at him with one hand, as the baby squirmed out of the grip of her other withered arm. He grabbed the child, who wailed again, but buried her head in his chest. He got down on one knee and the woman climbed onto his back, grabbing around his neck. “Not so tight!” He passed the child around to her. “I need my hands free…” Tim broke through what remained of the window frame and climbed out onto the ledge. He began to try to climb down the side of the building, hanging by pure strength of his arms and his indomitable will, as the woman choked him, and the baby squeezed between them.
“Jump!” Victoria called, but Tim had no choice. He lost his grip as he swung his body trying to aim for a place he could get a foothold climb down to the third floor. Down they fell, the child wailing, the woman screaming, and below Victoria, Laarus and the others called to each other directing the blanket this way and that. Timotheus twisted his body so that he would cushion the woman and child when they landed.
Timotheus felt the blanket tear past him and then everything was black for a moment, the sound of fire and voices coming to him from far away. The child was still crying. He smiled to know it was alive. The woman was dying from the impact, but the child was amazingly unharmed. A call to Ra from Laarus and the woman regained consciousness. Timotheus got to his feet with the help of one of the town-watch. Victoria held the baby.
“Oh my goodness! Thank Isis! Thank Ra!” The old woman wailed. The building groaned as the fourth floor collapsed.
“We need to get out of here,” said one of the guards, as he and the townsfolk began to run. Timotheus scooped up the old woman again. Victoria carried the child, and the two of them and Laarus hustled back to the plaza.
Bleys and his cooperating townsfolk had managed to hold the fire back at the line of the plaza, keeping it from spreading south. “We are going to need to extend this brigade east to trap the fire against the town wall,” he called to Markos.
Timotheus brought the old woman over to where some younger women were organizing groups to lead the old and infirmed towards safety. Victoria handed the baby to her.
”Thank you! Isis bless you! Isis bless you!” She kissed their hands.
“Wild horse!” a voice called out as the crowd murmured like a wave. A horse came galloping into the plaza, driven mad by its burning mane.
End of Session #23
---------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) The party first learned of the pearl in Session #7.
(2) See the end of Session #22.
(3) Sluetelot is divided into two basic areas “Old Town” and “New Sluetelot.” Old Town is divided into quarters, each with a central plaza holding a well and small local market. The seedy part of town is the northeastern quarter, sometimes called ‘The Salty Quarter’. The events of this portion of the campaign are based on “A Hot Day in L’Trel” by Ted James Thomas Zuvich from Dungeon #44 (Nov/Dec 1993).
(4) MY CABBAGES!!
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handforged
First Post
FIRE! Go Tim. I love the image of giant Bleys handing out water.
~hf
~hf
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I was playing around with the new social group functionality on the boards and created the "Aquerra Story Hour Readers" group for those who are following this story hour and/or read the "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour.
I sent out a bunch of invites to those folks I could recall as readers, but if you were left out of those feel free to join up.
Honestly, not sure what the groups are good for, but what the hell, right?
"Aquerra Story Hour Readers" group
I sent out a bunch of invites to those folks I could recall as readers, but if you were left out of those feel free to join up.
Honestly, not sure what the groups are good for, but what the hell, right?
"Aquerra Story Hour Readers" group
HalfOrc HalfBiscuit
Adventurer
Good stuff, as ever, el-remmen. You certainly seem to enjoy throwing multiple challenges at the group - here's hoping that they continue to cope.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
The writing has been going slow. Session #24 is already written up and I am finally closing in on the end of Session #25, but I started writing it on June 2nd, which means it has taken me a month and a half to write the 17 pages of it I have so far. As soon as I am done writing up #25 I will begin posting #24 (which will be in two parts), but #25 (which will likely be in 3 or 4 parts) will not go up until I finish writing Session #26, and Thoth knows how long that'll be. 
Thanks! I like doing what I call "nested challenges," the ideas for which are usually born of thinking of some the consequences of whatever challenge I begin with.
Good stuff, as ever, el-remmen. You certainly seem to enjoy throwing multiple challenges at the group - here's hoping that they continue to cope.
Thanks! I like doing what I call "nested challenges," the ideas for which are usually born of thinking of some the consequences of whatever challenge I begin with.
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