Struggle and Strife- A scarred lands storyhour

[Nightfall]

Well that's understandable Kid. But I think what needs to be stated here, is that, like all the others in this book, Yugman ISN'T objective, or at least he's objective to a degree. He's not one to pass judgements on the rightness or wrongness of an act, like Elminster. He also won't put any stock in mortality or even ethics, except maybe about change. Regardless of that fact, even HIS perceptions of history are just that, perceptions, and not always perfectly accurate. He's accurate yes, but he's still just a powerful mortal. (At least I HOPE he's just that!)

 

[Ancalagon]

The writers will have to be carefull for him not to become as irritating as Elminster, but that sould be easy.

Anyway...

Very nice story Lars! Clasical murder-gost mystery, and very well done!

Ancalagon

 

[Lars Frehse]

Glad you like it!
I will post the next update within this week.

 

[Nightfall]

Sweet! I can't wait! I REALLY enjoy this story hour Lars! Btw, good luck with your fan site!

 

[Lars Frehse]

Passing on part 1

Passing on through


The men entered the river valley of the Dardale on a sunny morning. The river cut through the Kelders and the group walked along it's bank towards it source in the north.

Days passed peacefully, as the Kelders towered higher and higher to their left and right. The river was running strongly, since the spring sun had melted the snow in the mountains, and an
occasional rain forced the travellers into the mountains, since the river was full enough to go over it's banks when the river had to carry the rainwater, as well.

Apart from that, it was a pleasant march. The sun was shining most of the times, the air was crisp and clean and in the evenings, there was usually plenty of fish for dinner. As the days passed, they were ready to forget the pain and horror the land had gone through during the titanwars and afterwards- here, nature and the world seemed at peace and in order.

It was on a sunny day like that, when the group marched along a rocky part of the riverbanks. Here, boulders that were taller than a man were laying on the beach as if a child of a giant had tossed them around in a violent rage. With the sun in their back, they walked along, as Ben, who was leading a mule on a leash, saw a glint of metal behind a big rock ahead of them. Squinting his eyes, the halfling was able to identify the tips of two blades.

Slowing his pace, he signaled to Trepat, who marched next to him, leading the other donkey of the party. The elf too saw the weapon tips, and in turn tapped lightly on Jan's shoulder, pointing at the rock. The young Paladin, who walked in front of them, now saw the blades, too and shouted: " In the name of Corean, show yourselves!".

Ben slapped his forehead, cursing under his breath, as something unexpected happened. While he, like the others, focused on the left and right side of the rock, a feline creature leaped straight over the boulder and charged at the Half Orc Torn, who had walked up front.

The creature that was now closing in with vicious speed looked like a panter that was made of obsidian. Sticking out of it's shining black back were swords and axes, their wicked blades protecting the beast's body in the way a hedgehog is protected by it's spikes.

Initially, the fearsome beast clawed away at it's chosen enemy, ripping open Torn’s leather armor and tearing into the flesh of his right shoulder. But already, the others came to his help. Jan swung his sword at the beast, but as he hit, he felt the blade being pulled into the predator! Fortunately, he was able to hold fast to his sword and free his blade. Now, from the other side Niklas approached the beast, and ignoring the blades that cut his fists, he punched at the cat.

Soon, they surrounded the beast, but the predator seemed to be tireless. Heedless of it's injuries, it struck down Torn and then shot one of the longswords in it's body at Trepat, who had been tormenting it with his magic missiles.

Eventually though, they managed to overcome the beast, surrounding it and overbearing it with their weapons and magic. The blade beast, as it was called, now lay still in front of them, and with it, another of Golthagga, the titan smith's, minions was defeated. Trepat cast a spell that enabled him to detect magic, and to their common surprise, he found that two of the longswords- the one that the beast had propelled out of it's body and another that was
still stuck in it, had magical properties. So, they put those swords on their mules and after disposing of the body in the river, they marched on.

The scenery was beautiful, but after a few more days, some of our heroes would have wished to meet others of the divine races. While Ben and Trepat were enjoying the calm, the humans and the half orc were getting restless and wished for some faces other then their own to talk to.

But all they encountered were mountaingoats and other animals that were at home in a mountain range. At least fresh water was no issue, but the river valley, that had been wide and sandy close to the sea, got ever narrower and rockier, the farther they marched on.

A week after the encounter with the bladebeast, there was merely 20 feet of riverbank left. To the right of them, the Dardale river was turbulent. Here, the valley was rather small and shallow, so that the water was racing past, tearing everything that fell into it along in a mad rush down to the ocean. To the left, the rock was forming a sheer wall of 10 feet height that seperated the banks from a plateau.

Jan and Torn were sunken in conversation, as they walked along that area, as all of a sudden a rock fell down on them. Both reacted quick enough- the one protected by his faith and the other by years of living on the street and watched the rock bounce past them into the river, as several creatures jumped screaming down the plateau.

They were Sargons. Fierce and merciless, these skinny greyskinned humanoids had forsaken the trappings of civilization centuries ago and were now nothing more then cruel bipedal animals. They were naked and almost indistinguishable, since they had no visible sexual organs or individual characteristics to distinguish them.

All of them had long, strong fingernails, which were about as long as their forearms, so that they were forced to either lift their arms up or drag the claws over the floor.

Now, they attacked the group, craving the one thing the heroes had to offer them: fresh meat. And there is only one thing a Sargon likes better then fresh meat: the fresh meat of a member of the divine races. The Sargons were everywhere. Soon, they had the heroes surrounded, and were slashing with their long curved claws at their opponents.

Fortunately, they weren't wearing any armor, nor was their grey skin especially thick, so that Torn Jan and Niklas were able to score some good hits, and when they hit, they usually killed with one blow against the Sargon's unprotected heads and bodies.

But there were eight of the Sargons, and they knew how to wield their vicious claws, so that for a long time, the battle raged evenly, until the remaining four titanspawn overcame Ben and Torn. Now, the situation was dire. Trepat, Niklas and Jan had received wounds from the Sargons as well by now, and even though Jan smashed another skull of one of their attackers, another Sargon bypassed Jan's shield, cutting him deeply over the face, slashing open a deep bleeding wound and knocking the Paladin out cold.

The Sargon turned to face the monk and the sorcerer who were still left standing, as out of nowwhere a raven who seemed to have a body made of shadow dived down on the creature and attacked him.
He hit with his beak, and under the skin of the Sargon, expanding through his vein, there was shadow. The titanspawn looked down in horror, as he saw this dark web reach for his heart. Then, as the shadowpoison reached his heart, he dropped dead.

Niklas now used the momentary panic of the two remaining Sargons and kicked one in the face, breaking the spine, and Trepat, having used all his arcane might for the day, shot an arrow at the other one, hitting his heart.

The raven, in turn, flew up and disappeared again.


To be continued…

 

[Nightfall]

Nice! A Blade beast AND some Sargons. Btw, that might have been a little TOO many Sargons there Lars. Five or six would have worked out fine. But I'm glad the Valraven/Shadow raven appeared. Guess even Golthain's minions can help out on occasion!

 

[Lars Frehse]

Chapter 5 / Part Two - Passing on through

Only the two of them still standing, they warily prepared camp. Niklas was carrying a potion of healing with him, but that one potion had already cost them a good part of the reward that they had received in Weddafurt. So, after a short debate, they decided to keep it for an emergency.

After they had made certain, that their brothers in arms were resting well and after they had disposed the Sagons in the running river, they prepared for nightfall. Darkness came swiftly in the mountains and Trepat took the first watch as Niklas layed down to get some sleep.

Hours inched by and the elf stared at the small fire they had built, as all of a sudden his sharp ears picked up bird cries. He stood up and turned his head- when the Sagons had attacked earlier, they too had been using animal sounds to communicate.

Instantly, he was over Niklas and shook him. Now, the monk too heard the sounds over the noise of the river and gave the potion of healing to Ben the Druid. As Ben regained conciousness, he didn't need much instructions. He used the wand that they had found when they had helped Squirrel Nutkin to heal the others.

Now, each of them stood up with readied weapons, and as Trepat heard the fiends approaching, he blindly cast a sleep spell to the area where he expected the Sagons to be. A moment passed an then the birdcalls were substituted by angry growling and screaming, and again Sagons came down upon them.

This time, though, our heroes were prepared. They slashed at the Sagons the moment one of them jumped down, and succeeded in hacking down two of them before the actual fight started. If it was possible, then the Sagons were even more ferocious now, and everyone was locked in a deadly battle as again out of nowwhere the shadowraven appeared.

But after a while, their discipline gained the upper hand against the Sagon's wildness and Torn climbed up the wall to the plateau, were he saw two Sagons which had been put to sleep by Trepat's spell. Without much fuzz, he smashed their skulls with his mace and then tossed the bodies into the river.

Back down with the others, Ben told them what he knew about the raven that had helped them:" They are called shadowravens. Another name for them is "Eyes of Golthain", but I have never heard about them helping travellers.".

"You mean the titan Golthain?", asked Jan.

"Yes, exactly. The only titan who accepted redemption by Madriel and is thought to be truly dead. What I know is that he seems to be a titan who was able to be compassionate, and the other titans, except for Denev, of course, punished him harshly. They took all his senses from him.

"So, he made certain creatures his ears and eyes. Those ravens made out of shadow used to be his eyes, when he was still alive".

Jan scratched his red beard:"Odd. Anyway, I think I want to go and see whether there are more of these demons in the hills tomorrow. Will you come with me?"

They all voiced their consent and put up new watches.

The rest of the night was uneventfull, and on the next day, the sun was shining as brightly as every, illuminating ugly spots of blood and gore on the rocky floor where the party had camped. Cautiously, they climbed up to the plateau and marched towards the entrance of a cavern they saw ahead.

Close to the mouth of the cave, Torn volunteered to scout ahead. Cautiously and nearly soundless he moved ahead and peeked into the cave, from which a smell of feces attacked his nose. All he saw was one big natural cavern. There were eighteen spots with mosses and shrubs that could have been used as sleeping places for the sagons, and in the middle of it there were countless bones, neatly piled up into a small pyramid.

Since the cave appeared empty, the others entered as well, shuddering at the ghastly sight of the bone pyramid. Several bones and skulls of humanoids and beasts of burden were piled up. And for whatever reason the Sagons had built this bone pyramid, these seemed to be the only remnants of their victims the Sagons had kept- there were no traces of coins, clothing or equipment to be found.

As Trepat walked around the ebonycolored monument to the Sagon's primitive cruelty, there was something he saw from the corner of his eye: A thin long fissure in the wall at the back of the cave. Walking over, he now saw that the line marked a rectangular, doorlike form.

He called for Torn, who examined the secret door, and after considering it safe, he pushed it open. The door circled around it's axis in the middle, opening a doorway, and under him, a trapdoor opened up, making him fall into a 20 feet deep shaft. Torn was able to utter a short shout of surprise, before he smashed on the ground, breaking his leg and loosing conciousness.

After the group had evacuated their unconcious friend and healed him, they walked into the dark passageway.

There was no sign that the Sagons had ever discovered this secret passageway. Whereas the cave had been filled with old feces and other "signs" of their inhabitants, this straight rectangular passageway was clean, alas the air smelled a little bit old and stale. It ended in front of a stone door, which, in spite of it's heavy built, offered hardly any resistance when pushed open.
Now they entered an empty rectangular room. Like the corridor it was an artificial structure, and the light of their lamps illuminated drawings on the wall which most likely depicted the creators of these halls.

The humanoids shown were not of any race known to the heroes. They seemed taller and thinner than humans, and they had long necks. Their heads appeared to be long and hairless, while their foreheads were wrinkled in a way that looked as if the skull itself had a wrinkled structure. They were clad in ornamental clothing and their facial expression appeared cold and haughty.

Beneath the pictures, there were strange signs, possible the writings of the humanoids. Trepat tried to use magic on them in order to decipher the symbols, but it felt as if their meaning was slipping away from him.

Now, they explored the rest of the structure and found three similar rooms, all empty except for the paintings and some stone chairs and one closed door. After some searching, Torn discovered a small plate-trigger. He pushed the trigger and the door slid upwards, disappearing into the wall.

Now, from behind a short corridor, and unearthly light shone at them. They walked towards it and entered a huge room, 90 feet long and 40 feet high. On the wall opposite of the entrance, there were faintly glowing pictures and symbols covering the entire wall. The strangest thing about it was that some of the symbols were moving, flashing or changing.

On the left half of the wall, there were collums of symbols which looked like the writings in the previous room which slowly moved upward in an endless stream. Every now and then, a symbol appeared, showing strange and unknown objects.

To the right, there was a big picture of...

"The solar system", Trepat said.

He now recognized it from his studies of arcane knowledge:" You see, there, in the middle, that is the sun. The small dots on the circles are the planets. The third dot is Scarn, and you can even see the twin moons circling around our world.".

He cast a spell and then continued:"Well, this moving picture is magical, alas that is no spell I have ever heard of. And those beasts there", he pointed to the upper left and right corner:"are dragons. All I know about them is that they were supposed to breath fire and they had the habit of stealing virgins. Fairy tales, mostly. But they were wiped out in the titanswar.".

Torn stood a few feet behind the elf, listening to his explanations and looking at the wall. As he gazed at Trepat again, he saw something strange in the pale light that the wall produced: Trepat's shadow didn't look like an elf shadow anymore...

His shadow looked like the shadow one of the humanoids on the pictures would have. He tapped on Jan's shoulder, putting his index and middle finger over his lips, thus signaling him to remain silent, and then pointed at the strange shadow.

Jan saw the shadow too, and heeding the Half Orc's advice, he signaled to Ben, pointing at the shadow.

Ben held a lantern himself, so his eyes weren't well enough adopted to the darkness. Seeing nothing, he asked: "What?"

Jan whispered:"There, Look at Trepat's shadow!".

Ben looked again, but still seeing nothing, he asked: "What do you mean?"

And indeed, now Trepat's shadow looked just fine, and there was no sign of the strange form left.

Suspiciously glancing around, they turned to leave and return to their mountain path, since it didn't look as if there was much left for them to do there. Looking back to the illuminated wall one last time, Jan saw a little dot moving away from the innermost planet. Turning back, he watched it moving to the second planet and then disappear. Shrugging he followed the rest.

As they walked back through the underground structure, Trepat now saw the strange shadow that Torn had described to him earlier attached to Jan's body. He nudged Torn who, remembering the dream in which his father had told him to adopt his weapons according to the enemy, wouldn't let the opportunity slip away again. "Light, we need light!", he shouted, and he ignited one of his sunrods, which bathed the room in a white light.

The others followed his example, and this time the shadow leashed out with it's arm towards Jan, who in turn felt the strength being drained away from him. Now, they were over the shadow with their sunrods, and the shadow futively tried to wiggle out of the light's way, but without much success- whenever it was in the direct vicinity of one of the sunrods, it melted away a little. And even though each time the shadow hit one of the heroes with his arms, they felt their strength lessened, eventually though, the shadow had been dissolved by the light.

Now, the heroes ran out of the halls with the last strength in their legs, hoping to avoid other terrors of the kind they had just defeated. Once outside, the mountainair seemed clearer and fresher then ever.
Deciding to put as much space between themselves and the cave as possible, they set off and marched northwards till dusk.

Fortunately, the next days were uneventfull, until they reached a small dwarven fortification worked into a natural pass. Staring down from the walls were the faces of grim dwarven warriors.

At last, they had reached an outpost of the dwarven Kingdom, Burok Torn.

 

[Nightfall]

Sweet! Slacerians AND Vertigen! Or was that just Slacerians?

 

[Lars Frehse]

Chapter 5- part 3

After parlaying with the commander of the outpost, the dwarves opened the gate, and two dwarven warrior escorted them along a rocky path towards the halls of Burok Torn. Once inside the citadel, the heroes had the opportunity to behold the marvels of the dwarven city state- the 700 feet cascade being one of them.

One of the dwarven warriors now turned to him. His name was Tarek Borthammer and he was a rather young dwarf who so far had merely escorted them, answering their questions politely but with short and clipped sentences: “Good sirs. I would be honored if you would allow me to invite you to my family’s stronghold while you are staying here in Burok Torn. My father is a scholar who is interested in the world outside and the tales of travellers, and since you are stout warriors from our ally Durrover, some of you serving Corean none the less, we would all love to have you as our guest of honor.”.

Gratefully, they accepted, and Tarek lead them to a place at one of the great walls of the great hall, where he gently levitated upwards. Following in the dwarf’s footsteps, they followed him until they had reached a balcony where their ascent stopped and they were able to enter the stronghold.

Once inside, they were eyed curiously by other clan members and soon surrounded by dwarven children, who were delighted to see such unusual creatures. The adventurers and their animals were after all the strangest sight of their young lives. Tarek lead them to two rooms that were connected by a door and told them to wait here while he announced their presence to his father.

The next day, they spent sightseeing, and in the evening, Varus Borthammer, rune master and elder of the Borthammer family, sat down for a lavish dinner with them. He was an old dwarf with wrinkles around his mouth and his eyes which made his face look as if this dwarf had smiled and laughed most of his life, so that the happiness was forever etched into his face.

”Welcome! Sit down, eat, drink and be merry, and while we will stuff ourselves, tell me about your travels.”.

Feeling at ease and comfortable, the heroes told him about their adventures so far, and the dwarf listened, commenting every now and then when he considered something to be truly remarkable.

When they had described the Sagons to him, he explained:” Ah, Sagons! There used to be some of their clans in the proximity of Burok Torn, once, too, but I think we have succeeded in wiping them out…

“I think they had a civilization, once before their master, whichever titan it was, fell. Ever since, they have decayed, though. Another theory, brought forward by Yugman the sage, is that they are some sort of Demon Spawn. Oh, but I didn’t want to interrupt you. Please carry on!”.

So, they went on to describe the strange underground structure they had found and the encounter with the fearsome shadow.

“Sounds like the Slarecians to me”, Varus explained.

None of them knew about the Slarecians, and they asked Varus to elaborate.

Now the dwarf smiled broadly, lit up a pipe and leaned back in his chair:” Ahhh… So you want to know about Slarecians…

“You know, I am a bit of a scholar myself. No Yugman, but on some fields I am rather knowledgeable. Still, there is more we don’t know about the Slarecians then what we know about them.

“The slarecians were wiped out by the titans and the gods before the divine war. It is unknown today what they had done to deserve getting wiped out by such a powerful alliance, but the fact is that they seem extinct.

“They lived in subterrean structures and seemed to be obsessed with death. Whether they were benign doctors or dark necromancers is unknown as well. Their writing is undecipherable, and there are only very few texts which don’t defy even magical means of translation.
Once, when I was still a young wizard, I ventured forward with a human friend of mine, and we explored some slarecian ruins. There, after struggling with ghouls, gargoyles and shadows of the kind you have described, we discovered a tome, which was written in a way, that we were actually able to translate it. It was supposed to give it’s student power over life and death, and it was called “The power of death”.

Now Torn was all ears. That was the book his father had told him about all those years ago:” What has happened to it?”.

“Oh, my human friend, Silian of Mullistown, took it with him. Then, some 40 years ago, it was stolen from him. From what Silian wrote me, the thief must have been great at his profession, since both mundane and magical means protected the book.”

Now Torn had to surpress a proud smile. Although he had never met his grandfather, he felt pride at a tradition of formidable rogues.

For the rest of the evening, they talked, and they stayed two more weeks in Burok Torn, since they decided to sell one of the magical blade, and among other things, purchase a plate mail for the paladin with the money gained from the transaction.

Then, after promising the Borthammers to come for another visit one of these days, they set of northwards, towards Adurn’s tear.

Coming up next- The serpent amphora

 

[Lars Frehse]

First, I have to apologize that it had been a while since the last update.
But either later tonight, or tomorrow, I will post the first part of the "Serpent Amphora" chapter.
So, for all those of you who are players in the Scarred Lands and who's DMs intend to run the adventure, themselves, here comes a big, fat:


SPOILER!!!