Servants of the Swift Sword (A Kalamar campaign)
- Thread starter Wicht
- Start date
Nice!sword-dancer
Explorer
Interesting Story with a good kalamarian feeling!
Theodorus lives!
Theodorus lives!
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Wicht
Hero
Chapter 3 – Hooberan’s
Tilliana woke with a start. Her dreams had been bad and her head throbbed. Around her, the other three were all waking up as well. Heidon groaned and turned over, burying his face in his bedroll. Alairic slowly sat up. Around them, the air was foggy, dawn was just beginning to break and it smelled like rain.
“Who was on watch?” asked Niccolo groggily.
Slowly it struck them that no one had kept watch, all had been asleep. Then they realized that Tolo, the little wood-gnome, was gone. Heidon spotted a note near the camp fire under a rock. It read
Sorry to run on you guys, but I have other places to be. I took my inheritance from my cousin and I will maybe see you someday. –Tolo
“What does he mean, his inheritance?” asked Tilliana, “I thought he was scared to go in the village.”
They swiftly realized that one of the bags containing coins was gone. The gnome had taken all the gold coins they had found in the village and had left them with the heavy sack of silver coins. There had been close to 300 gold pieces in the sack.
“Was it magic?” asked Alairic, referring to the fact they had all been asleep.
“He cooked our food last night,” said Tilliana, settling herself down to prepare her spells for the day.
“He spiked our food! If I get my hands on him, that gnome is toast!” growled Niccolo.
“The gnome is the least of our worries,” said Alairic, “we are no closer to finding Giovan. We have to search the rest of the village today.”
Grudgingly, Niccolo agreed. As Alairic began picking up the camp, Tilliana healed Heidon and Niccolo, both still badly hurt from their fight with the zombies the day before. That done, they picked up their belongings and headed for the village. As Heidon unlocked the gate for them once more it began to rain. The day promised to be cold and dreary.
The first thing they noticed was that the carrion eagles were gone. The cows seemed pretty much picked clean and all that was left were skeletons, laying grotesquely in the corrals.
They began by searching through the houses again. Inside the first they found a mother, clinging to her baby. Both were dead. Rats were chewing on them. That set the tone for the next few houses. House after house filled with the dead and with rats.
“This could be depressing,” muttered Alairic as he went to the door to the next house. They had not even had the heart to search the houses for more coins. Heidon had found 14 gold coins in the last house, but that was because they had been out in plain sight. Alairic opened the door. Inside, just past the door was a corpse. Four gigantic rats, each almost three feet long, were chewing on the body. They hissed. The other three tensed for battle. Alairic shut the door.
“That was real brave!” said Niccolo. But no one else opened the door again to kill the giant rats. Instead they decided to leave the last four small houses and go look at the chicken coops. These two buildings were built against the southern wall of the stockade and were fenced in by wire mesh.
Inside the coops, chickens and turkeys alike were dead. No rats seemed to be bothering the corpses and the stench was pretty bad. They decided not to bother searching through the dead barnyard fowls. They trudged through the rain to the large rectangular building near the coops instead.
The door closest to them was chained and padlocked. There was a door on the other side however and it was open. Something had busted it open. There were three large berry presses on the outside of the building. They were stained within but the red stains were that of berry juice, not of blood.
Looking in the building they saw a large room, a third the size of the full building. Many clay casks were stacked within, each sealed with pitch. They entered in. There was a door on the far side of the room. It was partially open.
“I wonder what is in these,” said Niccolo as he pried open the lid on one of the clay containers. Inside was juice.
“Don’t drink it,” cautioned Alairic, “It could be poison.”
Tilliana smiled at the paladin, “I’ll drink some.” She lifted the open cask and drank.
“Redberry Juice,” she announced.
“Hope its not poisoned,” muttered Alairic.
“Dumb Paladin,” chimed in Niccolo.
The room beyond the first was the same size, but this one was filled with oak barrels, on their sides, stacked from the floor halfway up to the ceiling. Each of the barrels had a spicket.
“They are making wine,” stated Niccolo.
Alairic turned a spicket and, cupping his hand, caught some of the liquid. He tasted it. As Niccolo had surmised, it was juice in the process of becoming wine. They entered the third and final room of the building. This one was filled with shelf after shelf of wine bottles. In the middle of the room, some of the bottles had been smashed on the floor. Otherwise the room was empty.
“Think we should stay in here?” asked Alairic. The others just grimaced and pushed him back towards the entrance.
“Lets check out the wagons,” said Niccolo as they left the winery. It was still raining. He indicated the three wagons a little north of them. The two wagons on either side looked normal enough but the one in the middle looked different. It looked suspiciously like a giant barrel on wheels.
“We still haven’t found Giovan,” said Tilliana.
“There’s those two big houses over there,” said Alairic, indicating the two houses on the west side of the village.
“I say we check out the wagons first and then look in the barns over there,” suggested Tilliana, “Though we could check the big houses for money, I doubt we find any people.”
“I don’t think Giovan is here personally,” said Niccolo, “Its obvious that everyone is dead. All we have found are rats and undead.”
“Do you think the rats brought the plague?”
No one had an answer as to what had caused the plague but they decided to check out the wagons next. The two normal looking wagons were exactly what they appeared to be, wagons used for carrying various things. The other wagon was a bit of a puzzle though. It was indeed a giant barrel, on its side and wheeled. There was a seat on the front of it and a tongue to which horses could be hitched. A sturdy set of steps was built onto the left side, suitable for one man to climb up to the top. Atop the wagon there looked to be a small hatchway. The hatchway was currently closed. Tilliana noticed that the back of the wagon could also be opened. It was hinged at the top and latched at the bottom. The latch could easily be lifted and the whole back of the wagon would open up.
“Let’s open it,” said Niccolo. They could tell he thought something might be hiding or hidden in the barrel of the wagon.
“Let me look in the top first,” said Alairic, climbing up the steps on the side of the contraption. He reached the top and opened the hatchway. The smell of manure and human waste hit him and he slammed the lid back down.
“ooo,” he said climbing down the wet steps.
“We still have to open it and I guess I’ll be the one to do it,” said Niccolo, “Everyone get your weapons ready.”
They drew their weapons as the half-elf instructed and moved around him. Alairic was the closest. Niccolo lifted the latch. They tensed. The back swung up and open.
Niccolo, more by luck then skill managed to leap back just in time. Heidon and Tilliana were not as close and stepped out of the way easily. Alairic was not so lucky however and the putrid and foul contents of the sewer wagon washed over his legs, soaking him from the knees down. They all stared at Alairic and then started to snicker. Though the smell from the manure and offal was strong, the look on Alairic’s face was too much.
“There is a well over in the center of the village,” said Tilliana helpfully and then all three of Alairic’s companions were laughing.
“It’s not funny,” said Alairic, stamping out of the middle of the sludge.
They howled louder.
When they were done laughing they decided to examine the barns in the corner of the stockade next. They opened the door of the first structure and looked in. Within was row after row of preserved redberries. Some were hanging, drying in clusters. Some were stored whole and uncrushed in barrels.
Niccolo and Alairic noticed it first. Some of the berries had a yellow growth on them.
“Watch out,” cautioned Alairic, “It could be yellow mold.”
But the fungus growing on the berries did not seem particularly threatening. As they looked closer they saw that every single berry was infected with the yellow fungus.
“We should take a sample of this,’ said Niccolo, “We need a jar.”
“A bottle would work,” said Alairic.
“There are the wine bottles,” said Heidon. They ended up trudging back out into the rain and over to the winery where they grabbed a bottle of wine, opened it, and poured out the contents. Then going back to the berry barn, they stuffed it with some of the berries with the mold on it.
They looked in the second barn and it was the same way. The next building was not a barn but was instead a giant shed. It contained half-finished barrels and crates as well as the wood to make more barrels and crates. There was a stack of iron barrel hoops and 10 large barrels holding oil by which the new barrels could be sealed. There were piles of straw.
“Why straw?” asked Niccolo and then comprehension dawned and he answered his own question, “For packing in the crates obviously.”
They poked apart the straw just to make sure nothing was hiding but it was just straw. There were also many tables in the room, all of them stained with dark red stains. Examination led to the conclusion it was berry stains.
They left and went back outside into the rain. As the water ran down their faces from their wet hair they surveyed the rest of the town. There were four small houses and two large houses left to examine. They opted for the large houses first.
They went to the one closest to him. It was, like all the other houses in the village, two stories tall. Unlike the others though, this one had a porch. There was a plaque above the door. It read, “Deerl’s House.” The door was ajar and they went in. The front room was tastefully furnished and it seemed obvious that the owner of the house had had a little more to spend on furnishing then many of the other villagers.
A slight growl was all the warning they had. Tilliana was standing next to one of the two doorways out of the room and was the one attacked. A creature, similar in look to the two they had fought two days before in the cellar of the house by the front gate, charged through the doorway and crashed into Tilliana. Flashes of her dream from the night before filled Tilliana’s head and she heard her father’s voice in her head explaining, “They are ghouls. They are undead monstrosities and feed on flesh.” And then the ghoul sank its claws into her shoulder. The wound was slight but Tilliana’s muscles froze and she collapsed to the ground, paralyzed. Things could have gone badly for Tilliana just then, for it looked like the ghoul planned on dragging her out of the room but her companions acted swifter then the ghoul. Alairic charged forward, pushing it back through the doorway and hitting it with the blade of his greatsword. Heidon could not get a proper swing at it for Alairic was in the way and he tried ineffectually to poke it with the tip of the great blade Tilliana had given him. Niccolo moved to get to where he could stab it, but another stroke from Alairic’s sword and the ghoul fell dead.
They waited for Tilliana to come back around.
Her first words were, “That was a ghoul.”
“Ahh,” said Alairic, “Well we need to explore the rest of this house.” The rest of the floor was empty except for some rotting food and moldy bread in the kitchen. There were stairs to an upstairs as well as stairs down to a basement.
“This time we are not splitting up,” said Niccolo.
“No! No more splitting up,” said Tilliana.
“Yes that last time we split up was too close,” agreed Alairic.
Heidon nodded his agreement, “Think there are any more in here?”
“If they are they can smell me,” said the paladin wryly. He led the way up the stairs to the second floor.
“I’ll go in front,” said Niccolo taking the lead. Alairic followed behind with Tilliana third.
“Wooh!” exclaimed Tilliana holding her nose as she smelled the paladin’s boots. They all laughed but Alairic.
There were two more ghouls upstairs, feasting on the flesh of a dead woman. Alairic saw them first and Pushing aside Niccolo charged forward down the narrow hall and into the room in which the ghouls were. He swung and missed. The ghoul he had swung at smiled evilly and latched a claw into Alairic’s side. The paladin froze. The other ghoul charged at Niccolo, who was just outside the room. It missed and Niccolo managed to cleave into the ghoul while at the same time stepping into the room allowing Tilliana the room to move in and dispatch the undead monster. Heidon had his bow out but could not get a clear shot through Tilliana at the other ghoul. Enraged, the other ghoul leaped on Niccolo and bit down on the half-elf’s shoulder. Niccolo answered by stabbing it in the belly with his longsword. Tilliana swung and the ghoul fell dead.
As they waited for Alairic to come out of his paralyzed state they examined the room. The most interesting thing seemed to be a mannequin holding a suit of fine looking studded leather armor. There was also a composite bow of exceptional quality by it. Next to the first was another mannequin, this one empty. They noticed the armor and bow were a match for the armor and bow on the man they had found atop the watchtower by the gate to the village. This armor though was quite obviously cut and fitted for a woman.
“Are you going to ever use that bow you took from the corpse on the watchtower?” asked Heidon to Tilliana.
“No,” said Tilliana. It had not occurred to her that one of her companions might have wanted to use it, “Do you want it?”
Niccolo ended up taking the bow from Tilliana for it was strung for a stronger wielder. The one in the room was slightly weaker and better suited to the young thief.
“Do you want mine,” asked Heidon offering up his own longbow, one he had carved himself.
“Bows are for pansies,” said Alairic, finally coming around.
“I am not allowed to use a bow,” explained Tilliana, “Bravery is better demonstrated in melee. If you wish to separate yourself from your enemy by the length of an arrows flight, that is your choice, but I have sworn to meet evil face to face.”
As they further searched the room, they found 50 gold coins. Niccolo also found some perfume which he sprayed on the paladin’s legs. The end result was that Alairic smelled like an outhouse covered in perfume. It was not an improvement. Tilliana did not want the leather armor and none of the others were female so they left it behind.
They went back downstairs and Tilliana hollered into the cellar, “Anyone down there?” There was no answer.
“There is no evil down there,” said Alairic with some certainty. They left the house and walked over to the other large house. The door to this house was closed, but the window next to the door had been smashed in.
They let Heidon pick the lock and went in the house that way. The front room was sparsely but elegantly furnished and just to the right of the front door was another door. It was made of solid wood and securely locked. Heidon picked that lock too and they went through. The room beyond was filled with books and dominated by a corpse. The rotting corpse was sitting at a writing desk, its head slumped forward onto the desk. They noticed that unlike every single other corpse in the village this one had not been eaten. It clutched a quill in one hand and there was a paper under the other. Niccolo wen tforward and grabbed the paper and started to read it. Meanwhile the others looked over the books. Heidon grabbed one and opened it,
“How to grow Berries.”
“Hah,” said Alairic and he opened up the book he had chosen to pull down. Inside the hollow book were many gold coins. His was the only book with money in it however, all the others were on various topics of agriculture.
“Listen to this,” said Niccolo and he read aloud the paper he was holding, “Everyone in Hooberan’s is dying. We burned down the house he was staying in but it was not enough. The fire was very bright and he screamed. The fever is taking us all. I can barely see to write and it grows worse. Was it the water? The Festival? Hooberan tricked the things and locked them in the shrine to the Farmer’s Wife. It is now an evil place where are the dead. My head burns and I cannot burn the town for I cannot leave my room here. There are things I fear clawing at the door. But they will not kill me. The fire kills me and burns my hand to the touch. The town must burn. There is oil in the packing crates. Stay away from Hooberan’s and don’t read this. Burn the town.”
“Don’t read this?” said Heidon. Alairic grabbed the paper to read it himself.
“He was obviously delusional,” said Niccolo.
“It was the berries,” said Tilliana.
“Yeah, sounds like they had just had a berry festival.”
“Do you think we are contagious?”
“Well you are the one who drank the berry juice.”
“We need to burn down the town,” said Tilliana.
As they went through the rest of the house, they found one more ghoul, or rather it found them. Charging from a downstairs bedroom it bore down on Alairic. Niccolo managed to wound it and then Alairic, pushing it away, split it open with his great sword.
“You guys get all the fun,” complained Heidon.
They ended up searching the last few houses before actually torching the town, but then, satisfied there truly were no living souls in town other then them, they rolled the barrels of oil out of the packing shed and began dousing the front rooms of the houses with oil. They considered putting it on the outside of the houses but decided against it as it was still raining. One by one they lit each building in town. Soon each house, barn and body was burning. The winery in particular went up with a roar as soon as they fire reached the barrels and bottles of wine. The four companions even burned down the watchtowers along the wall. Nothing was spared. As the town burned the rain stopped.
They decided to camp one more time outside the village walls, just to make sure the fire did not spread past the stockade. As they stood outside the stockade walls waiting and watching the village within burn, Tilliana said to Alairic, “We did not offer a sacrifice to Naemae from our battles.”
“The village itself is a sacrifice,” said the paladin wisely.
Tilliana nodded and led the group in a prayer of sacrifice as they watched Hooberan’s burn.
Tilliana woke with a start. Her dreams had been bad and her head throbbed. Around her, the other three were all waking up as well. Heidon groaned and turned over, burying his face in his bedroll. Alairic slowly sat up. Around them, the air was foggy, dawn was just beginning to break and it smelled like rain.
“Who was on watch?” asked Niccolo groggily.
Slowly it struck them that no one had kept watch, all had been asleep. Then they realized that Tolo, the little wood-gnome, was gone. Heidon spotted a note near the camp fire under a rock. It read
Sorry to run on you guys, but I have other places to be. I took my inheritance from my cousin and I will maybe see you someday. –Tolo
“What does he mean, his inheritance?” asked Tilliana, “I thought he was scared to go in the village.”
They swiftly realized that one of the bags containing coins was gone. The gnome had taken all the gold coins they had found in the village and had left them with the heavy sack of silver coins. There had been close to 300 gold pieces in the sack.
“Was it magic?” asked Alairic, referring to the fact they had all been asleep.
“He cooked our food last night,” said Tilliana, settling herself down to prepare her spells for the day.
“He spiked our food! If I get my hands on him, that gnome is toast!” growled Niccolo.
“The gnome is the least of our worries,” said Alairic, “we are no closer to finding Giovan. We have to search the rest of the village today.”
Grudgingly, Niccolo agreed. As Alairic began picking up the camp, Tilliana healed Heidon and Niccolo, both still badly hurt from their fight with the zombies the day before. That done, they picked up their belongings and headed for the village. As Heidon unlocked the gate for them once more it began to rain. The day promised to be cold and dreary.
The first thing they noticed was that the carrion eagles were gone. The cows seemed pretty much picked clean and all that was left were skeletons, laying grotesquely in the corrals.
They began by searching through the houses again. Inside the first they found a mother, clinging to her baby. Both were dead. Rats were chewing on them. That set the tone for the next few houses. House after house filled with the dead and with rats.
“This could be depressing,” muttered Alairic as he went to the door to the next house. They had not even had the heart to search the houses for more coins. Heidon had found 14 gold coins in the last house, but that was because they had been out in plain sight. Alairic opened the door. Inside, just past the door was a corpse. Four gigantic rats, each almost three feet long, were chewing on the body. They hissed. The other three tensed for battle. Alairic shut the door.
“That was real brave!” said Niccolo. But no one else opened the door again to kill the giant rats. Instead they decided to leave the last four small houses and go look at the chicken coops. These two buildings were built against the southern wall of the stockade and were fenced in by wire mesh.
Inside the coops, chickens and turkeys alike were dead. No rats seemed to be bothering the corpses and the stench was pretty bad. They decided not to bother searching through the dead barnyard fowls. They trudged through the rain to the large rectangular building near the coops instead.
The door closest to them was chained and padlocked. There was a door on the other side however and it was open. Something had busted it open. There were three large berry presses on the outside of the building. They were stained within but the red stains were that of berry juice, not of blood.
Looking in the building they saw a large room, a third the size of the full building. Many clay casks were stacked within, each sealed with pitch. They entered in. There was a door on the far side of the room. It was partially open.
“I wonder what is in these,” said Niccolo as he pried open the lid on one of the clay containers. Inside was juice.
“Don’t drink it,” cautioned Alairic, “It could be poison.”
Tilliana smiled at the paladin, “I’ll drink some.” She lifted the open cask and drank.
“Redberry Juice,” she announced.
“Hope its not poisoned,” muttered Alairic.
“Dumb Paladin,” chimed in Niccolo.
The room beyond the first was the same size, but this one was filled with oak barrels, on their sides, stacked from the floor halfway up to the ceiling. Each of the barrels had a spicket.
“They are making wine,” stated Niccolo.
Alairic turned a spicket and, cupping his hand, caught some of the liquid. He tasted it. As Niccolo had surmised, it was juice in the process of becoming wine. They entered the third and final room of the building. This one was filled with shelf after shelf of wine bottles. In the middle of the room, some of the bottles had been smashed on the floor. Otherwise the room was empty.
“Think we should stay in here?” asked Alairic. The others just grimaced and pushed him back towards the entrance.
“Lets check out the wagons,” said Niccolo as they left the winery. It was still raining. He indicated the three wagons a little north of them. The two wagons on either side looked normal enough but the one in the middle looked different. It looked suspiciously like a giant barrel on wheels.
“We still haven’t found Giovan,” said Tilliana.
“There’s those two big houses over there,” said Alairic, indicating the two houses on the west side of the village.
“I say we check out the wagons first and then look in the barns over there,” suggested Tilliana, “Though we could check the big houses for money, I doubt we find any people.”
“I don’t think Giovan is here personally,” said Niccolo, “Its obvious that everyone is dead. All we have found are rats and undead.”
“Do you think the rats brought the plague?”
No one had an answer as to what had caused the plague but they decided to check out the wagons next. The two normal looking wagons were exactly what they appeared to be, wagons used for carrying various things. The other wagon was a bit of a puzzle though. It was indeed a giant barrel, on its side and wheeled. There was a seat on the front of it and a tongue to which horses could be hitched. A sturdy set of steps was built onto the left side, suitable for one man to climb up to the top. Atop the wagon there looked to be a small hatchway. The hatchway was currently closed. Tilliana noticed that the back of the wagon could also be opened. It was hinged at the top and latched at the bottom. The latch could easily be lifted and the whole back of the wagon would open up.
“Let’s open it,” said Niccolo. They could tell he thought something might be hiding or hidden in the barrel of the wagon.
“Let me look in the top first,” said Alairic, climbing up the steps on the side of the contraption. He reached the top and opened the hatchway. The smell of manure and human waste hit him and he slammed the lid back down.
“ooo,” he said climbing down the wet steps.
“We still have to open it and I guess I’ll be the one to do it,” said Niccolo, “Everyone get your weapons ready.”
They drew their weapons as the half-elf instructed and moved around him. Alairic was the closest. Niccolo lifted the latch. They tensed. The back swung up and open.
Niccolo, more by luck then skill managed to leap back just in time. Heidon and Tilliana were not as close and stepped out of the way easily. Alairic was not so lucky however and the putrid and foul contents of the sewer wagon washed over his legs, soaking him from the knees down. They all stared at Alairic and then started to snicker. Though the smell from the manure and offal was strong, the look on Alairic’s face was too much.
“There is a well over in the center of the village,” said Tilliana helpfully and then all three of Alairic’s companions were laughing.
“It’s not funny,” said Alairic, stamping out of the middle of the sludge.
They howled louder.
When they were done laughing they decided to examine the barns in the corner of the stockade next. They opened the door of the first structure and looked in. Within was row after row of preserved redberries. Some were hanging, drying in clusters. Some were stored whole and uncrushed in barrels.
Niccolo and Alairic noticed it first. Some of the berries had a yellow growth on them.
“Watch out,” cautioned Alairic, “It could be yellow mold.”
But the fungus growing on the berries did not seem particularly threatening. As they looked closer they saw that every single berry was infected with the yellow fungus.
“We should take a sample of this,’ said Niccolo, “We need a jar.”
“A bottle would work,” said Alairic.
“There are the wine bottles,” said Heidon. They ended up trudging back out into the rain and over to the winery where they grabbed a bottle of wine, opened it, and poured out the contents. Then going back to the berry barn, they stuffed it with some of the berries with the mold on it.
They looked in the second barn and it was the same way. The next building was not a barn but was instead a giant shed. It contained half-finished barrels and crates as well as the wood to make more barrels and crates. There was a stack of iron barrel hoops and 10 large barrels holding oil by which the new barrels could be sealed. There were piles of straw.
“Why straw?” asked Niccolo and then comprehension dawned and he answered his own question, “For packing in the crates obviously.”
They poked apart the straw just to make sure nothing was hiding but it was just straw. There were also many tables in the room, all of them stained with dark red stains. Examination led to the conclusion it was berry stains.
They left and went back outside into the rain. As the water ran down their faces from their wet hair they surveyed the rest of the town. There were four small houses and two large houses left to examine. They opted for the large houses first.
They went to the one closest to him. It was, like all the other houses in the village, two stories tall. Unlike the others though, this one had a porch. There was a plaque above the door. It read, “Deerl’s House.” The door was ajar and they went in. The front room was tastefully furnished and it seemed obvious that the owner of the house had had a little more to spend on furnishing then many of the other villagers.
A slight growl was all the warning they had. Tilliana was standing next to one of the two doorways out of the room and was the one attacked. A creature, similar in look to the two they had fought two days before in the cellar of the house by the front gate, charged through the doorway and crashed into Tilliana. Flashes of her dream from the night before filled Tilliana’s head and she heard her father’s voice in her head explaining, “They are ghouls. They are undead monstrosities and feed on flesh.” And then the ghoul sank its claws into her shoulder. The wound was slight but Tilliana’s muscles froze and she collapsed to the ground, paralyzed. Things could have gone badly for Tilliana just then, for it looked like the ghoul planned on dragging her out of the room but her companions acted swifter then the ghoul. Alairic charged forward, pushing it back through the doorway and hitting it with the blade of his greatsword. Heidon could not get a proper swing at it for Alairic was in the way and he tried ineffectually to poke it with the tip of the great blade Tilliana had given him. Niccolo moved to get to where he could stab it, but another stroke from Alairic’s sword and the ghoul fell dead.
They waited for Tilliana to come back around.
Her first words were, “That was a ghoul.”
“Ahh,” said Alairic, “Well we need to explore the rest of this house.” The rest of the floor was empty except for some rotting food and moldy bread in the kitchen. There were stairs to an upstairs as well as stairs down to a basement.
“This time we are not splitting up,” said Niccolo.
“No! No more splitting up,” said Tilliana.
“Yes that last time we split up was too close,” agreed Alairic.
Heidon nodded his agreement, “Think there are any more in here?”
“If they are they can smell me,” said the paladin wryly. He led the way up the stairs to the second floor.
“I’ll go in front,” said Niccolo taking the lead. Alairic followed behind with Tilliana third.
“Wooh!” exclaimed Tilliana holding her nose as she smelled the paladin’s boots. They all laughed but Alairic.
There were two more ghouls upstairs, feasting on the flesh of a dead woman. Alairic saw them first and Pushing aside Niccolo charged forward down the narrow hall and into the room in which the ghouls were. He swung and missed. The ghoul he had swung at smiled evilly and latched a claw into Alairic’s side. The paladin froze. The other ghoul charged at Niccolo, who was just outside the room. It missed and Niccolo managed to cleave into the ghoul while at the same time stepping into the room allowing Tilliana the room to move in and dispatch the undead monster. Heidon had his bow out but could not get a clear shot through Tilliana at the other ghoul. Enraged, the other ghoul leaped on Niccolo and bit down on the half-elf’s shoulder. Niccolo answered by stabbing it in the belly with his longsword. Tilliana swung and the ghoul fell dead.
As they waited for Alairic to come out of his paralyzed state they examined the room. The most interesting thing seemed to be a mannequin holding a suit of fine looking studded leather armor. There was also a composite bow of exceptional quality by it. Next to the first was another mannequin, this one empty. They noticed the armor and bow were a match for the armor and bow on the man they had found atop the watchtower by the gate to the village. This armor though was quite obviously cut and fitted for a woman.
“Are you going to ever use that bow you took from the corpse on the watchtower?” asked Heidon to Tilliana.
“No,” said Tilliana. It had not occurred to her that one of her companions might have wanted to use it, “Do you want it?”
Niccolo ended up taking the bow from Tilliana for it was strung for a stronger wielder. The one in the room was slightly weaker and better suited to the young thief.
“Do you want mine,” asked Heidon offering up his own longbow, one he had carved himself.
“Bows are for pansies,” said Alairic, finally coming around.
“I am not allowed to use a bow,” explained Tilliana, “Bravery is better demonstrated in melee. If you wish to separate yourself from your enemy by the length of an arrows flight, that is your choice, but I have sworn to meet evil face to face.”
As they further searched the room, they found 50 gold coins. Niccolo also found some perfume which he sprayed on the paladin’s legs. The end result was that Alairic smelled like an outhouse covered in perfume. It was not an improvement. Tilliana did not want the leather armor and none of the others were female so they left it behind.
They went back downstairs and Tilliana hollered into the cellar, “Anyone down there?” There was no answer.
“There is no evil down there,” said Alairic with some certainty. They left the house and walked over to the other large house. The door to this house was closed, but the window next to the door had been smashed in.
They let Heidon pick the lock and went in the house that way. The front room was sparsely but elegantly furnished and just to the right of the front door was another door. It was made of solid wood and securely locked. Heidon picked that lock too and they went through. The room beyond was filled with books and dominated by a corpse. The rotting corpse was sitting at a writing desk, its head slumped forward onto the desk. They noticed that unlike every single other corpse in the village this one had not been eaten. It clutched a quill in one hand and there was a paper under the other. Niccolo wen tforward and grabbed the paper and started to read it. Meanwhile the others looked over the books. Heidon grabbed one and opened it,
“How to grow Berries.”
“Hah,” said Alairic and he opened up the book he had chosen to pull down. Inside the hollow book were many gold coins. His was the only book with money in it however, all the others were on various topics of agriculture.
“Listen to this,” said Niccolo and he read aloud the paper he was holding, “Everyone in Hooberan’s is dying. We burned down the house he was staying in but it was not enough. The fire was very bright and he screamed. The fever is taking us all. I can barely see to write and it grows worse. Was it the water? The Festival? Hooberan tricked the things and locked them in the shrine to the Farmer’s Wife. It is now an evil place where are the dead. My head burns and I cannot burn the town for I cannot leave my room here. There are things I fear clawing at the door. But they will not kill me. The fire kills me and burns my hand to the touch. The town must burn. There is oil in the packing crates. Stay away from Hooberan’s and don’t read this. Burn the town.”
“Don’t read this?” said Heidon. Alairic grabbed the paper to read it himself.
“He was obviously delusional,” said Niccolo.
“It was the berries,” said Tilliana.
“Yeah, sounds like they had just had a berry festival.”
“Do you think we are contagious?”
“Well you are the one who drank the berry juice.”
“We need to burn down the town,” said Tilliana.
As they went through the rest of the house, they found one more ghoul, or rather it found them. Charging from a downstairs bedroom it bore down on Alairic. Niccolo managed to wound it and then Alairic, pushing it away, split it open with his great sword.
“You guys get all the fun,” complained Heidon.
They ended up searching the last few houses before actually torching the town, but then, satisfied there truly were no living souls in town other then them, they rolled the barrels of oil out of the packing shed and began dousing the front rooms of the houses with oil. They considered putting it on the outside of the houses but decided against it as it was still raining. One by one they lit each building in town. Soon each house, barn and body was burning. The winery in particular went up with a roar as soon as they fire reached the barrels and bottles of wine. The four companions even burned down the watchtowers along the wall. Nothing was spared. As the town burned the rain stopped.
They decided to camp one more time outside the village walls, just to make sure the fire did not spread past the stockade. As they stood outside the stockade walls waiting and watching the village within burn, Tilliana said to Alairic, “We did not offer a sacrifice to Naemae from our battles.”
“The village itself is a sacrifice,” said the paladin wisely.
Tilliana nodded and led the group in a prayer of sacrifice as they watched Hooberan’s burn.
Wicht
Hero
Thanks Buttercup (and Darklone and Sword Dancer).
I am glad you are enjoying it.
One question for those reading... would having any of the planned encounters posted be of interest to you (such as having the key to Hooberan's and an explanation of what happened). I pretype all the encounters and so posting them in another forum and linking would actually be no problem (though maps might be tricky).
I am glad you are enjoying it.
One question for those reading... would having any of the planned encounters posted be of interest to you (such as having the key to Hooberan's and an explanation of what happened). I pretype all the encounters and so posting them in another forum and linking would actually be no problem (though maps might be tricky).
Wicht
Hero
Chapter 4 – Tiolo’ Beach
The night passed uneventfully with brief periods of rain. It was a little warmer the next morning and it looked as if the rain was done. The fires were burnt out, though smoke still struggled upwards here and there.
“I don’t think the fire is going to spread,” said Alairic, putting on his armor.
“Hold still,” said Tilliana. She had just finished preparing her spells. Approaching the paladin she offered a brief prayer and then touched him on the shoulder. Dirt vanished from him and even the stains in his pants disappeared. In a moment he was completely clean.
“Wow,” he said.
“It’s a miracle!” laughed Niccolo, “Anything so long as the Paladin smells better.”
They all laughed. Alairic scowled.
“I don’t really find this very humorous.”
They laughed more. However when Alairic pointed out that he was, courtesy of the divine spell, the cleanest of them all, they quit laughing. It was true. None of them had bathed in several days and the stench of death and smoke clung to them.
“Where now?” asked Heidon.
“I don’t believe Giovan was ever here,” said Alairic, “I wonder why someone would say they had seen him dragged in here?”
“You know,” said Niccolo, “We were told to go see Froima first.”
“Do we still have the letter for Froima?” asked Alairic.
“I have it,” said Tilliana.
“Taesoo should be north of us,” said Alairic, thinking hard and recalling the directions they had been given.
“Well lets go then,” put in Niccolo. They left Hooberan’s.
It took them about three hours to reach Taesoo. It was a small fishing village comprised of a couple hundred buildings haphazardly scattered along a hill just above the beach. There were several fishing boats just out to sea and a short way out into the bay, a sailing ship was anchored. On the beach, children were playing and women were mending nets.
They obtained directions concerning how to locate Froima very easily and every villager they met informed them that the marshal had been looking for them to arrive for a couple of days and was a little upset at their tardiness. This was born out when they encountered the man himself.
Froima was about 5 and a half feet tall. He had a gray and grizzled beard and appeared to be very muscular. He was openly armed and dressed in armor. When he saw them, he immediately began to berate them.
“Where have you guys been! I wrote to Deochoo nearly a week ago! I expected you here a few days ago! I was nearly about to write a second letter asking Deochoo if he actually intended to send any one to help locate Giovan or not.”
“Sorry,” said Niccolo, “We have been at Hooberan’s for the last couple of days.”
“Hooberan’s? I heard they had plague. What did you want to go there for?”
“They don’t have plague anymore,” said Niccolo, “We burnt down the village.”
“Someone told us that Giovan had been seen there,” said Tilliana as she handed him the letter from Deochoo.
“But all we found was rats and undead,” said Alairic. The paladin went on to explain what had transpired at Hooberan’s. Froima listened to the paladin as he read the letter.
Maybe it was their explanation or maybe it was just the fact that three of them looked pretty worn and dirty but the old marshal calmed down a bit.
“This letter just confirms you are who I thought you were. And well, I coulda told you that Giovan wasn’t in Hooberan’s. He was last seen on the northern tip of the peninsula. He was investigating a small fishing village that had been burnt to the ground up there. You should have come here first. I wish you had been here yesterday. A man with a raven on his shoulder spent some time in a little place up the coast two days ago and then left. The place is called Tiolo’s Beach. There’s about five families that live there, fishermen mostly. Tiolo sent word to me yesterday and I sent him five men. If you had been here I could have sent you too.”
“A man with a raven?” asked Tilliana.
“Yeah, one of the towns that got sacked a couple weeks back reported that there had been a man with a raven seen there a day or two before the attack came. We have been on the lookout ever since.”
“What did the man look like in Tiolo’s beach?” asked Niccolo.
“He was ugly, the boy said, and he had long black hair.”
“The last one was tall and blonde,” said Alairic, “There seems to be a bunch of people running around with ravens.”
“I think it could be an organization,” said Niccolo.
“I think we should travel to Tiolo’s beach and see if we can help there,” said Tilliana.
“Yeah, that would be a good idea, and if you guys need a place to stay, I figure you can stay in the house by the shrine. Giovan left it in pretty good shape.”
“You haven’t, uh, noticed anything unusual about the shrine?” asked Tilliana.
“Nothing except the grass needs cut.”
‘The last couple of shrines we have seen have been desecrated,” said Niccolo, “including the shrine to Naemae in Foorun.”
They wasted little time in heading to Tiolo’ beach. It was about an hour and a half up the coast from Taesoo and the walk was fairly pleasant. As they walked mostly along the shore, they passed a few other scattered settlements, most of them fairly small. But Froima had given them good landmarks to look for and they did not bother stopping to ask for directions as they walked. They had just estimated they were getting close to Tiolo’s beach when they spotted the two men running along the beach towards them.
“Are you from Taesoo?” the two men called out as they drew closer.
“Yes,” they answered.
“We were heading there this morning when we passed through Tiolo’s and saw that the houses were all burning. Some great big lizard or dragon or something attacked us and it was covered with these sharp things and it killed a friend of ours! We’ve been running, going to go get Froima!”
“We were just on our way to Tiolo’s,” said Niccolo.
“Well be careful, that things dangerous, we just left our friend lying there!”
“We will check it out,” said Tilliana.
“And we will go get Froima then and tell him.”
“You do that.”
The two men took off again, running west along the coast. The four companions wasted no time but walking faster now they hurried towards Tiolo’s beach.
They saw the smoke first, thin threads streaming up towards the sky. And then they saw the houses, five burnt shells, still smoking. There were two sailboats beached on the shore and between them a large lizard lay sunning itself. It was about fifteen to twenty feet long, its tail ended in a mace like appendage and its back was covered with spines that looked nothing so much like a porcupines quills. Just up a ways from the water’s edge lay the body of a man.
Heidon and Niccolo drew out their bows and cautiously, the four adventurers moved down the beach. They approached in a line, the cleric and the paladin on either end, greatswords at the ready, the two archers in the middle. They got about thirty feet away from the creature and stopped. It turned its head a little and gazed at them. The spines on its back rippled a moment, but the lizard did not move.
Heidon and Niccolo let lose with their arrows. Both sank into the hide of the beast. It roared and all the spines on its back flaired out and away from its body. With a shout the paladin charged forward. His sword bit into the creatures flank, drawing blood, but the paladins charge almost brought him into contact with the many spines. The lizard swung its tail, smashing it into the side of the paladin, nearly knocking him to the ground, and then with blinding speed it moved forward, slipping into and under the water, out of sight.
Cautiously, Alairic moved slowly back to the others. Heidon and Niccolo nocked their arrows, their eyes scanning the water’s edge.
“It was a lizard,” said Niccolo, “That means it breaths air. It can’t stay under there forever. It will have to come back up.”
“Come back up charging,” said Tilliana. She readied her sword. There was no movement in the ocean except for the lapping of the waves. Heidon and Niccolo readied themselves. Alairic fidgeted.
The charge came from their right, the large lizard rushing out of the water about twenty feet from where it had gone in. Niccolo missed it with his shot but Heidon’s shot was true. The lizard rushed at Heidon, spines fully extended. The young man barely managed to leap clear of them in time. With a roar, the lizard stopped, moving into a position where it could swing its tail at both Alairic and Heidon. But Heidon moved too quickly, dropping his bow and drawing his sword he ducked under the deadly spines and stabbed it, fatally wounding the lizard. The spines fell limp against its body and it died.
“Hey,” said Heidon as he moved back away from the body, “I got to kill something.”
They searched the small settlement for clues. True to the story of the two men they had met, the man on the beach appeared to have been killed by the lizard. Numerous small stab wounds covered his body from the spines of the beast. Leaving the body where it lay, they looked at the burning houses. In one of the smoldering ruins they clearly saw the foot of an infant, charred and sticking out from under the rubbled. In another of the burnt houses they saw a pile of dead men. It looked like there were about five bodies, all armored. They had apparently been killed and then piled in the house before it was set alight.
“The five guardsmen,” suggested Tilliana.
She asked a few moments later, “Do you think that lizard could breath fire?”
“I think the lizard was just an animal,” said Niccolo, “Why would an animal pile up bodies and light houses on fire.”
“Could be a dragon,” suggested Alairic.
They found two sets of tracks in the village. The first went back and forth from the village to a spot along the beach and had obviously been made by many men. There were indications that there had been a boat beached there. The other set of tracks had been made by a single man wearing boots. Niccolo followed these away from the village. He lost the trail for a bit, but once he found it again, he led the other three up to the top of a small cliff on the east side of the village. The boot prints led up to the edge of the cliff and then stopped. The cliff dropped about twenty feet down to the ocean. It was vertical, but climbable. At least Heidon claimed he could have climbed it. But there was nowhere to climb to and the prints seemed to actually stop a couple of feet before reaching the very edge.
“He laid something down here,” said Niccolo. “But as its not here, he then picked it up again.”
“Where did he go,” asked Alairic.
“He flew,” said Tilliana, “You want to know what I think, I think we are dealing with a shape-shifter of some sort.”
“A dragon can shape-shift,” said Alairic.
“Are there any feathers around?” asked Niccolo.
They searched but found no feathers.
They went back to the village and searched it more carefully. They found no feathers there as well, but Tilliana did find a pool of blood on the ground. There was a faint trail of blood leading from the one pool and she deduced that at least one of the burnt corpses had been killed outside the house and then dragged in before being piled up and burnt.
“I say we go back to Froima,” said Alairic. Not knowing what else to do, the other three agreed.
But the two men they had met earlier had done their job and alerted the marshal. They met Froima about halfway back and ended up walking back to Tiolo’s beach with him and the four men he had with him.
After examining the scene himself, he voiced his opinion.
“I think what I have thought in the other two cases as well,” he said, “It looks to me like the work of pirates. You got the boat marks for one. There’s no doubt that there are pirates around here. There’s a ship docked off of Taesoo now and I don’t like the look of her crew or her captain, but what can you do without evidence. I don’t know though who is doing this or why. Most pirates don’t bother fishing villages. I wonder if Scythe would know anything about this. He’s a notorious pirate but he claims to be mending his ways and has set up a village of sorts west of Foorun. He’s even taking up pig farming or so he claims, sent ten hams just last month to the Duke, though the day I trust Captain Scythe is the day all three moons come crashing into the bay. But he might be worth asking. He knows a lot about what goes on in the bay.”
He moved on over to where the great lizard lay dead.
“Now this, this is a puzzle. We don’t have anything like this critter in these parts, which means he must have been brought here. There’s a woman named Roona lives just east of here. She is said to know every animal in, on and under the bay. Some say she’s a witch as can change shape. She lives in a cave about half an hours walk up the beach. She can probably tell you what this thing is.”
“I think we should see this Roona first then,” said Niccolo.
“Let’s go,” said Heidon.
“I’ll warn you,” said Froima, “in my opinion she likes fish more than she likes people. I met her once or twice and she’s a cantankerous old woman, though don’t tell her I said that. Me and my men are going to take the body of this young man back to Taesoo. We will have to leave the other bodies till they cool down.”
The afternoon was wearing on when they approached Roona’s cave. The old woman apparently liked her privacy. The area she lived in was fairly desolate and no one else lived along that particular stretch of coastline. As they neared beach, Alairic motioned for them to stop.
“There’s something in the water, just off the shore,” said the Paladin.
The others drew out sword and bows. They moved slower forward for now they could all see what the paladin had seen. There was a green creature of some sort, its head just above the water. As they drew nearer, the creature lifted a horn of shell to its mouth and blew out a note that echoed along the beach.
“It’s evil,” said Alairic with certainty.
“Be brave and fight well,” said Tilliana as they moved closer, “Naemae will grant us the victory if we have courage.”
Her words emboldened them and the two archers fired at the creature in the water. Even as they shot, Tilliana was praying, calling on Naemae to bless them. Despite the water, both shots flew true and struck the creature in the head. It rose up and then fell back down, dead. Wasting no time, the four charged towards the mouth of the cave. As they ran, two other creatures charged out to meet them. They were obviously of the same nature as the first. They were green, slightly frog like, with gills and fins, webbed feet and fish eyes. They wielded tridents and they babbled in a strange tongue as they charged awkwardly forward. One stabbed Tilliana with its trident and another wounded Heidon. Heidon dropped his bow and drew his greatsword. Tilliana, far from finished swung her sword, its heavy blade slicing into the creature in front of her. Niccolo charged forward at the one that had stabbed Tilliana, sword in one hand dagger in the other. Niccolo swung his sword and the creature sidestepped, straight into the dagger that Niccolo thrust into its chest. Red blood flowed out of the wound and the creature was dead.
Meanwhile Heidon parried the other fish-man’s trident. He cut into the creature with his sword. Alairic had originally been unable to attack. His companions had been in the way, so he had moved around the other three and now he charged. His greatsword flashed overhead and swung down, splitting open the monsters head. The fight was over.
The four cheered and congratulated one another. They were beginning to feel like a team.
The cave mouth was fifteen feet wide and the cave tunnel went into the hill for about thirty feet before opening up into a wider room. There were four other of the fish-men in the outer tunnel, all dead. There was no one in the cavern room that they could see. The room was sparsely furnished. There was a comfortable bed, with a chest at its foot, and there was a crude table but that was it.
“Let’s see what’s in the chest,” said Niccolo trying to open it. It was locked.
“Let me,” said Heidon and he pulled out his lock picking tools. He chose one and inserted it in the chest lock. There was a flash of light and Heidon jerked his hand back as a small explosion knocked him back from the chest. Heidon was singed, but not badly hurt.
“And what are you doing trying to open my chest?” asked an elderly woman. She was standing next to the table where moments before no one had been. They noticed that in addition to her simple blue robe, she had a holy symbol around her neck. It was a piece of blue corral in the shape of a wave. Tilliana recognized her as being a priestess in the Water cult of the Assembly of Four Corners, the church that served the Mother of Elements.
“Well, we just, um, killed some frog things,” said Niccolo “and we were looking for a woman named Roona.”
“Well I assure you I was not in my chest. You should be more careful about things that do not belong to you. I thank you though for finishing off the fish-men for me. What can I do for you?”
“We need some help,” said Alairic and he explained about the lizard.
“Hmm, it had spines? Do you mean it had a few or a lot?”
“A lot, all over its back,” said Alairic.
“And it’s tail?”
“Was like a club,” put in Niccolo.
“Was it a plant eater or a meat eater?”
“We didn’t check.”
“Sounds like a spined lizard, but that’s impossible cause they don’t live around here. I think I want to look at it for myself. I can’t stay here anyway, not since those things finally figured out where I was staying. I’ll come with you then.”
“You,” she said, indicating Niccolo, “You look strong enough, why don’t you carry my chest for me and I will meet you outside in a minute, need to grab some stuff.”
Niccolo dutifully heaved the chest up onto one shoulder. It felt heavy, like she had packed it with rocks. She met them outside, holding a staff and a backpack, though they had not seen either previously inside the cave.
“A shame,” said Roona as they left the cave behind, “I’m gonna miss that bed.”
When they reached Tiolo’s beach, it did not take Roona long to identify the lizard.
“That’s a spined lizard alright,” she said, “If you look at the teeth you will see they are designed for plants, not for meat.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a man named Giovan?” asked Tilliana as the others examined the lizard’s teeth.
“Sure I know the old coot. Why?”
“We are looking for him. When’s the last you saw him?”
“A couple months ago. Though it’s no surprise that he’s missing. Man had no sense! Always charging into battle, being brave when any sensible person would turn tail and run. You mark my words or you’re liable to end up just like him! Rocks for brains is what he had.”
“This lizard though,” continued the old woman, “you find them only one place in the whole world. An island about fifty or sixty miles north, northeast of the peninsula. Its called Dragon Isle by the sailors I believe.”
They offered to let Roona go back to Taesoo with them, but she decided to stay at Tiolo’s beach instead.
“This is a nice place,” she said, surveying the burning buildings, “especially now that all the people are gone. I’ll stay here a while.”
It was dark when they reached Taesoo again but they managed to find the shrine and once Heidon let them in, they made themselves at home in Giovan’s house. The house was rather small, having only three rooms and there was not much of value in it. There was a well outside, and they gratefully drew the water and freshened up.
In the shrine itself they found Giovan’s copy of “To Serve,” the sacred scriptures of the Servants of the Swift Sword. Alairic stowed it in his backpack. He figured if it turned out that Giovan was dead and could not use it anymore, he at least could use it to study. In the shrine, Alairic and Tilliana offered up the tail of the spined lizard as a sacrifice. They had cut it off of the lizard before leaving Tiolo’s beach.
Then, that done, they all settled in to sleep.
The night passed uneventfully with brief periods of rain. It was a little warmer the next morning and it looked as if the rain was done. The fires were burnt out, though smoke still struggled upwards here and there.
“I don’t think the fire is going to spread,” said Alairic, putting on his armor.
“Hold still,” said Tilliana. She had just finished preparing her spells. Approaching the paladin she offered a brief prayer and then touched him on the shoulder. Dirt vanished from him and even the stains in his pants disappeared. In a moment he was completely clean.
“Wow,” he said.
“It’s a miracle!” laughed Niccolo, “Anything so long as the Paladin smells better.”
They all laughed. Alairic scowled.
“I don’t really find this very humorous.”
They laughed more. However when Alairic pointed out that he was, courtesy of the divine spell, the cleanest of them all, they quit laughing. It was true. None of them had bathed in several days and the stench of death and smoke clung to them.
“Where now?” asked Heidon.
“I don’t believe Giovan was ever here,” said Alairic, “I wonder why someone would say they had seen him dragged in here?”
“You know,” said Niccolo, “We were told to go see Froima first.”
“Do we still have the letter for Froima?” asked Alairic.
“I have it,” said Tilliana.
“Taesoo should be north of us,” said Alairic, thinking hard and recalling the directions they had been given.
“Well lets go then,” put in Niccolo. They left Hooberan’s.
It took them about three hours to reach Taesoo. It was a small fishing village comprised of a couple hundred buildings haphazardly scattered along a hill just above the beach. There were several fishing boats just out to sea and a short way out into the bay, a sailing ship was anchored. On the beach, children were playing and women were mending nets.
They obtained directions concerning how to locate Froima very easily and every villager they met informed them that the marshal had been looking for them to arrive for a couple of days and was a little upset at their tardiness. This was born out when they encountered the man himself.
Froima was about 5 and a half feet tall. He had a gray and grizzled beard and appeared to be very muscular. He was openly armed and dressed in armor. When he saw them, he immediately began to berate them.
“Where have you guys been! I wrote to Deochoo nearly a week ago! I expected you here a few days ago! I was nearly about to write a second letter asking Deochoo if he actually intended to send any one to help locate Giovan or not.”
“Sorry,” said Niccolo, “We have been at Hooberan’s for the last couple of days.”
“Hooberan’s? I heard they had plague. What did you want to go there for?”
“They don’t have plague anymore,” said Niccolo, “We burnt down the village.”
“Someone told us that Giovan had been seen there,” said Tilliana as she handed him the letter from Deochoo.
“But all we found was rats and undead,” said Alairic. The paladin went on to explain what had transpired at Hooberan’s. Froima listened to the paladin as he read the letter.
Maybe it was their explanation or maybe it was just the fact that three of them looked pretty worn and dirty but the old marshal calmed down a bit.
“This letter just confirms you are who I thought you were. And well, I coulda told you that Giovan wasn’t in Hooberan’s. He was last seen on the northern tip of the peninsula. He was investigating a small fishing village that had been burnt to the ground up there. You should have come here first. I wish you had been here yesterday. A man with a raven on his shoulder spent some time in a little place up the coast two days ago and then left. The place is called Tiolo’s Beach. There’s about five families that live there, fishermen mostly. Tiolo sent word to me yesterday and I sent him five men. If you had been here I could have sent you too.”
“A man with a raven?” asked Tilliana.
“Yeah, one of the towns that got sacked a couple weeks back reported that there had been a man with a raven seen there a day or two before the attack came. We have been on the lookout ever since.”
“What did the man look like in Tiolo’s beach?” asked Niccolo.
“He was ugly, the boy said, and he had long black hair.”
“The last one was tall and blonde,” said Alairic, “There seems to be a bunch of people running around with ravens.”
“I think it could be an organization,” said Niccolo.
“I think we should travel to Tiolo’s beach and see if we can help there,” said Tilliana.
“Yeah, that would be a good idea, and if you guys need a place to stay, I figure you can stay in the house by the shrine. Giovan left it in pretty good shape.”
“You haven’t, uh, noticed anything unusual about the shrine?” asked Tilliana.
“Nothing except the grass needs cut.”
‘The last couple of shrines we have seen have been desecrated,” said Niccolo, “including the shrine to Naemae in Foorun.”
They wasted little time in heading to Tiolo’ beach. It was about an hour and a half up the coast from Taesoo and the walk was fairly pleasant. As they walked mostly along the shore, they passed a few other scattered settlements, most of them fairly small. But Froima had given them good landmarks to look for and they did not bother stopping to ask for directions as they walked. They had just estimated they were getting close to Tiolo’s beach when they spotted the two men running along the beach towards them.
“Are you from Taesoo?” the two men called out as they drew closer.
“Yes,” they answered.
“We were heading there this morning when we passed through Tiolo’s and saw that the houses were all burning. Some great big lizard or dragon or something attacked us and it was covered with these sharp things and it killed a friend of ours! We’ve been running, going to go get Froima!”
“We were just on our way to Tiolo’s,” said Niccolo.
“Well be careful, that things dangerous, we just left our friend lying there!”
“We will check it out,” said Tilliana.
“And we will go get Froima then and tell him.”
“You do that.”
The two men took off again, running west along the coast. The four companions wasted no time but walking faster now they hurried towards Tiolo’s beach.
They saw the smoke first, thin threads streaming up towards the sky. And then they saw the houses, five burnt shells, still smoking. There were two sailboats beached on the shore and between them a large lizard lay sunning itself. It was about fifteen to twenty feet long, its tail ended in a mace like appendage and its back was covered with spines that looked nothing so much like a porcupines quills. Just up a ways from the water’s edge lay the body of a man.
Heidon and Niccolo drew out their bows and cautiously, the four adventurers moved down the beach. They approached in a line, the cleric and the paladin on either end, greatswords at the ready, the two archers in the middle. They got about thirty feet away from the creature and stopped. It turned its head a little and gazed at them. The spines on its back rippled a moment, but the lizard did not move.
Heidon and Niccolo let lose with their arrows. Both sank into the hide of the beast. It roared and all the spines on its back flaired out and away from its body. With a shout the paladin charged forward. His sword bit into the creatures flank, drawing blood, but the paladins charge almost brought him into contact with the many spines. The lizard swung its tail, smashing it into the side of the paladin, nearly knocking him to the ground, and then with blinding speed it moved forward, slipping into and under the water, out of sight.
Cautiously, Alairic moved slowly back to the others. Heidon and Niccolo nocked their arrows, their eyes scanning the water’s edge.
“It was a lizard,” said Niccolo, “That means it breaths air. It can’t stay under there forever. It will have to come back up.”
“Come back up charging,” said Tilliana. She readied her sword. There was no movement in the ocean except for the lapping of the waves. Heidon and Niccolo readied themselves. Alairic fidgeted.
The charge came from their right, the large lizard rushing out of the water about twenty feet from where it had gone in. Niccolo missed it with his shot but Heidon’s shot was true. The lizard rushed at Heidon, spines fully extended. The young man barely managed to leap clear of them in time. With a roar, the lizard stopped, moving into a position where it could swing its tail at both Alairic and Heidon. But Heidon moved too quickly, dropping his bow and drawing his sword he ducked under the deadly spines and stabbed it, fatally wounding the lizard. The spines fell limp against its body and it died.
“Hey,” said Heidon as he moved back away from the body, “I got to kill something.”
They searched the small settlement for clues. True to the story of the two men they had met, the man on the beach appeared to have been killed by the lizard. Numerous small stab wounds covered his body from the spines of the beast. Leaving the body where it lay, they looked at the burning houses. In one of the smoldering ruins they clearly saw the foot of an infant, charred and sticking out from under the rubbled. In another of the burnt houses they saw a pile of dead men. It looked like there were about five bodies, all armored. They had apparently been killed and then piled in the house before it was set alight.
“The five guardsmen,” suggested Tilliana.
She asked a few moments later, “Do you think that lizard could breath fire?”
“I think the lizard was just an animal,” said Niccolo, “Why would an animal pile up bodies and light houses on fire.”
“Could be a dragon,” suggested Alairic.
They found two sets of tracks in the village. The first went back and forth from the village to a spot along the beach and had obviously been made by many men. There were indications that there had been a boat beached there. The other set of tracks had been made by a single man wearing boots. Niccolo followed these away from the village. He lost the trail for a bit, but once he found it again, he led the other three up to the top of a small cliff on the east side of the village. The boot prints led up to the edge of the cliff and then stopped. The cliff dropped about twenty feet down to the ocean. It was vertical, but climbable. At least Heidon claimed he could have climbed it. But there was nowhere to climb to and the prints seemed to actually stop a couple of feet before reaching the very edge.
“He laid something down here,” said Niccolo. “But as its not here, he then picked it up again.”
“Where did he go,” asked Alairic.
“He flew,” said Tilliana, “You want to know what I think, I think we are dealing with a shape-shifter of some sort.”
“A dragon can shape-shift,” said Alairic.
“Are there any feathers around?” asked Niccolo.
They searched but found no feathers.
They went back to the village and searched it more carefully. They found no feathers there as well, but Tilliana did find a pool of blood on the ground. There was a faint trail of blood leading from the one pool and she deduced that at least one of the burnt corpses had been killed outside the house and then dragged in before being piled up and burnt.
“I say we go back to Froima,” said Alairic. Not knowing what else to do, the other three agreed.
But the two men they had met earlier had done their job and alerted the marshal. They met Froima about halfway back and ended up walking back to Tiolo’s beach with him and the four men he had with him.
After examining the scene himself, he voiced his opinion.
“I think what I have thought in the other two cases as well,” he said, “It looks to me like the work of pirates. You got the boat marks for one. There’s no doubt that there are pirates around here. There’s a ship docked off of Taesoo now and I don’t like the look of her crew or her captain, but what can you do without evidence. I don’t know though who is doing this or why. Most pirates don’t bother fishing villages. I wonder if Scythe would know anything about this. He’s a notorious pirate but he claims to be mending his ways and has set up a village of sorts west of Foorun. He’s even taking up pig farming or so he claims, sent ten hams just last month to the Duke, though the day I trust Captain Scythe is the day all three moons come crashing into the bay. But he might be worth asking. He knows a lot about what goes on in the bay.”
He moved on over to where the great lizard lay dead.
“Now this, this is a puzzle. We don’t have anything like this critter in these parts, which means he must have been brought here. There’s a woman named Roona lives just east of here. She is said to know every animal in, on and under the bay. Some say she’s a witch as can change shape. She lives in a cave about half an hours walk up the beach. She can probably tell you what this thing is.”
“I think we should see this Roona first then,” said Niccolo.
“Let’s go,” said Heidon.
“I’ll warn you,” said Froima, “in my opinion she likes fish more than she likes people. I met her once or twice and she’s a cantankerous old woman, though don’t tell her I said that. Me and my men are going to take the body of this young man back to Taesoo. We will have to leave the other bodies till they cool down.”
The afternoon was wearing on when they approached Roona’s cave. The old woman apparently liked her privacy. The area she lived in was fairly desolate and no one else lived along that particular stretch of coastline. As they neared beach, Alairic motioned for them to stop.
“There’s something in the water, just off the shore,” said the Paladin.
The others drew out sword and bows. They moved slower forward for now they could all see what the paladin had seen. There was a green creature of some sort, its head just above the water. As they drew nearer, the creature lifted a horn of shell to its mouth and blew out a note that echoed along the beach.
“It’s evil,” said Alairic with certainty.
“Be brave and fight well,” said Tilliana as they moved closer, “Naemae will grant us the victory if we have courage.”
Her words emboldened them and the two archers fired at the creature in the water. Even as they shot, Tilliana was praying, calling on Naemae to bless them. Despite the water, both shots flew true and struck the creature in the head. It rose up and then fell back down, dead. Wasting no time, the four charged towards the mouth of the cave. As they ran, two other creatures charged out to meet them. They were obviously of the same nature as the first. They were green, slightly frog like, with gills and fins, webbed feet and fish eyes. They wielded tridents and they babbled in a strange tongue as they charged awkwardly forward. One stabbed Tilliana with its trident and another wounded Heidon. Heidon dropped his bow and drew his greatsword. Tilliana, far from finished swung her sword, its heavy blade slicing into the creature in front of her. Niccolo charged forward at the one that had stabbed Tilliana, sword in one hand dagger in the other. Niccolo swung his sword and the creature sidestepped, straight into the dagger that Niccolo thrust into its chest. Red blood flowed out of the wound and the creature was dead.
Meanwhile Heidon parried the other fish-man’s trident. He cut into the creature with his sword. Alairic had originally been unable to attack. His companions had been in the way, so he had moved around the other three and now he charged. His greatsword flashed overhead and swung down, splitting open the monsters head. The fight was over.
The four cheered and congratulated one another. They were beginning to feel like a team.
The cave mouth was fifteen feet wide and the cave tunnel went into the hill for about thirty feet before opening up into a wider room. There were four other of the fish-men in the outer tunnel, all dead. There was no one in the cavern room that they could see. The room was sparsely furnished. There was a comfortable bed, with a chest at its foot, and there was a crude table but that was it.
“Let’s see what’s in the chest,” said Niccolo trying to open it. It was locked.
“Let me,” said Heidon and he pulled out his lock picking tools. He chose one and inserted it in the chest lock. There was a flash of light and Heidon jerked his hand back as a small explosion knocked him back from the chest. Heidon was singed, but not badly hurt.
“And what are you doing trying to open my chest?” asked an elderly woman. She was standing next to the table where moments before no one had been. They noticed that in addition to her simple blue robe, she had a holy symbol around her neck. It was a piece of blue corral in the shape of a wave. Tilliana recognized her as being a priestess in the Water cult of the Assembly of Four Corners, the church that served the Mother of Elements.
“Well, we just, um, killed some frog things,” said Niccolo “and we were looking for a woman named Roona.”
“Well I assure you I was not in my chest. You should be more careful about things that do not belong to you. I thank you though for finishing off the fish-men for me. What can I do for you?”
“We need some help,” said Alairic and he explained about the lizard.
“Hmm, it had spines? Do you mean it had a few or a lot?”
“A lot, all over its back,” said Alairic.
“And it’s tail?”
“Was like a club,” put in Niccolo.
“Was it a plant eater or a meat eater?”
“We didn’t check.”
“Sounds like a spined lizard, but that’s impossible cause they don’t live around here. I think I want to look at it for myself. I can’t stay here anyway, not since those things finally figured out where I was staying. I’ll come with you then.”
“You,” she said, indicating Niccolo, “You look strong enough, why don’t you carry my chest for me and I will meet you outside in a minute, need to grab some stuff.”
Niccolo dutifully heaved the chest up onto one shoulder. It felt heavy, like she had packed it with rocks. She met them outside, holding a staff and a backpack, though they had not seen either previously inside the cave.
“A shame,” said Roona as they left the cave behind, “I’m gonna miss that bed.”
When they reached Tiolo’s beach, it did not take Roona long to identify the lizard.
“That’s a spined lizard alright,” she said, “If you look at the teeth you will see they are designed for plants, not for meat.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a man named Giovan?” asked Tilliana as the others examined the lizard’s teeth.
“Sure I know the old coot. Why?”
“We are looking for him. When’s the last you saw him?”
“A couple months ago. Though it’s no surprise that he’s missing. Man had no sense! Always charging into battle, being brave when any sensible person would turn tail and run. You mark my words or you’re liable to end up just like him! Rocks for brains is what he had.”
“This lizard though,” continued the old woman, “you find them only one place in the whole world. An island about fifty or sixty miles north, northeast of the peninsula. Its called Dragon Isle by the sailors I believe.”
They offered to let Roona go back to Taesoo with them, but she decided to stay at Tiolo’s beach instead.
“This is a nice place,” she said, surveying the burning buildings, “especially now that all the people are gone. I’ll stay here a while.”
It was dark when they reached Taesoo again but they managed to find the shrine and once Heidon let them in, they made themselves at home in Giovan’s house. The house was rather small, having only three rooms and there was not much of value in it. There was a well outside, and they gratefully drew the water and freshened up.
In the shrine itself they found Giovan’s copy of “To Serve,” the sacred scriptures of the Servants of the Swift Sword. Alairic stowed it in his backpack. He figured if it turned out that Giovan was dead and could not use it anymore, he at least could use it to study. In the shrine, Alairic and Tilliana offered up the tail of the spined lizard as a sacrifice. They had cut it off of the lizard before leaving Tiolo’s beach.
Then, that done, they all settled in to sleep.
Desdichado
Hero
Really shows the strong points of a Kalamar campaign so far! Or maybe just the strong points of having a good DM. Good job, Wicht!
Wicht
Hero
Thanks for the kind words Joshua - I don't know whether its my skills as a DM or the players or Kalamar itself, but I am pretty pleased with how the first two gaming sessions have gone.
And now another brief interlude -again a character handout disguised as a bit of the story.
Visions
Alairic settled himself down before the altar to Naemae and opened “To Serve.” It was the fourth watch of the night and Alairic had guard duty. Though they expected no trouble while in Taesoo, one never knew. Froima had seemed anxious about the crew of the ship in the harbor and a little caution would not hurt. But the night was quiet and the shrine felt peaceful. It seemed a good opportunity for religious meditation. Behind the altar the statue of Naemae watched over the paladin as he began to slowly read.
“There was a demon in the village of Delik, a black rat that ate children and raped the women. The men of the village could do nothing to stop it and night after night all trembled in fear. Having no other options, they sent for servants of the swift sword. Two men, both valiant priests, heard the call and decided to do battle for the village. They were named Nok and Rimon.
Nok arrived first. A strong man of action, equipped with a stout heart, he wasted no time but valiantly stormed the lair of the demon. The demon dwelt in an abondened temple north of the village and was guarded by many fell beasts. The guardians of the lair Nok dispatched with speed. But when in a battle with the rat demon itself, the brave priest was slain.
Rimon was slower to arrive for he had first traveled to visit with a wise woman and learned all he could of the rat demon. It was an ancient creature of evil and stories told of it said that it was invulnerable to steel, but certain tales of lore suggested that weapons of wood would hurt it. Armed with this knowledge Rimon traveled to the village of Delik and fought the black rat. Like Nok, he dispatched the guardians of the demon with ease, but when he met the demon itself in battle he did not fight it with a sword as Nok had done. Instead he fought with a stout branch of oak, one which he had cut himself and blessed with many prayers and rituals. With this staff he slew the demon and freed the village.”
As Alairic read, the walls of the shrine faded away around him and the light grew brighter and the words flowed easier. As he finished the account, Alairic looked up and saw that he knelt before the altar of Naemae upon a great field below a blue sky. Globes of light danced freely around him, the altar and the statue of Naemae. As the paladin gazed at the scene before him a voice spoke from behind.
“Do you understand what you have read?”
Alairic turned and beheld a figure, dressed in armor, a greatsword strapped on its back. Though it stood like a man, its face was like that of some great dog and it looked to be covered with golden fur. But though its visage was strange, Alairic felt confident that it was a creature of good.
“I do,” said Alairic humbly.
“Which of the two priests was braver?”
“Both fought the demon,” said Alairic remembering this lesson and the answers.
“Which of the two priests was wiser?”
“Rimon, for he studied his enemy beforehand and entered into battle prepared.”
“And which was the greater servant of good?”
“The one who defeated the evil.”
“You answer well,” said the being, “I am Rowlandigo, one who fights besides the Knight of the Gods, and it falls to me to give you this message for Naemae is concerned lest evil should win a battle. Beware the snake that bites from the darkness and the vulture that feeds on lies. The tomb of the demon should remain sealed lest darkness grow stronger. Now be brave and may the sword of Naemae slay all evil in your path. But heed my words and learn well from the lessons of the past.”
As Alairic watched, the scene changed and the light faded. Gone was Rowlandigo and the many globes of light that flitted gaily across the grass. Once more Alairic sat alone in a small shrine. But the hours had passed swiftly and as Alairic gazed out the open door of the shrine he saw that the sun was already beginning to rise in the sky and that the night was past.
And now another brief interlude -again a character handout disguised as a bit of the story.
Visions
Alairic settled himself down before the altar to Naemae and opened “To Serve.” It was the fourth watch of the night and Alairic had guard duty. Though they expected no trouble while in Taesoo, one never knew. Froima had seemed anxious about the crew of the ship in the harbor and a little caution would not hurt. But the night was quiet and the shrine felt peaceful. It seemed a good opportunity for religious meditation. Behind the altar the statue of Naemae watched over the paladin as he began to slowly read.
“There was a demon in the village of Delik, a black rat that ate children and raped the women. The men of the village could do nothing to stop it and night after night all trembled in fear. Having no other options, they sent for servants of the swift sword. Two men, both valiant priests, heard the call and decided to do battle for the village. They were named Nok and Rimon.
Nok arrived first. A strong man of action, equipped with a stout heart, he wasted no time but valiantly stormed the lair of the demon. The demon dwelt in an abondened temple north of the village and was guarded by many fell beasts. The guardians of the lair Nok dispatched with speed. But when in a battle with the rat demon itself, the brave priest was slain.
Rimon was slower to arrive for he had first traveled to visit with a wise woman and learned all he could of the rat demon. It was an ancient creature of evil and stories told of it said that it was invulnerable to steel, but certain tales of lore suggested that weapons of wood would hurt it. Armed with this knowledge Rimon traveled to the village of Delik and fought the black rat. Like Nok, he dispatched the guardians of the demon with ease, but when he met the demon itself in battle he did not fight it with a sword as Nok had done. Instead he fought with a stout branch of oak, one which he had cut himself and blessed with many prayers and rituals. With this staff he slew the demon and freed the village.”
As Alairic read, the walls of the shrine faded away around him and the light grew brighter and the words flowed easier. As he finished the account, Alairic looked up and saw that he knelt before the altar of Naemae upon a great field below a blue sky. Globes of light danced freely around him, the altar and the statue of Naemae. As the paladin gazed at the scene before him a voice spoke from behind.
“Do you understand what you have read?”
Alairic turned and beheld a figure, dressed in armor, a greatsword strapped on its back. Though it stood like a man, its face was like that of some great dog and it looked to be covered with golden fur. But though its visage was strange, Alairic felt confident that it was a creature of good.
“I do,” said Alairic humbly.
“Which of the two priests was braver?”
“Both fought the demon,” said Alairic remembering this lesson and the answers.
“Which of the two priests was wiser?”
“Rimon, for he studied his enemy beforehand and entered into battle prepared.”
“And which was the greater servant of good?”
“The one who defeated the evil.”
“You answer well,” said the being, “I am Rowlandigo, one who fights besides the Knight of the Gods, and it falls to me to give you this message for Naemae is concerned lest evil should win a battle. Beware the snake that bites from the darkness and the vulture that feeds on lies. The tomb of the demon should remain sealed lest darkness grow stronger. Now be brave and may the sword of Naemae slay all evil in your path. But heed my words and learn well from the lessons of the past.”
As Alairic watched, the scene changed and the light faded. Gone was Rowlandigo and the many globes of light that flitted gaily across the grass. Once more Alairic sat alone in a small shrine. But the hours had passed swiftly and as Alairic gazed out the open door of the shrine he saw that the sun was already beginning to rise in the sky and that the night was past.
Spider_Jerusalem
Explorer
How did "To Serve" come about? Is it from the Kalamar book, yourself or the player? I'd like to know, because it's a wonderful focus for a character such as Alairic and was thinking of implementing something similar into my campaign (semi-yoink!).
Cheers for any info, and keep up the *great* writing.
Spider.
Cheers for any info, and keep up the *great* writing.
Spider.