The Hundred Seas

[GreyOne]

You move past the wagons, the guards on one side not giving you more than a passing glance. The rain the night before has left the dirt a morass of mud and its slow going until you reach the Mourner's Lane.

Sure enough, the merchant hall's door opens and the five bully-boys emerge, glancing both ways. They catch sight of you and start moving in your direction.

(OOC: The five warriors are about 55' distant.)

 

[Ulfghar]

Ulfghar looks to his companions ands says "let's sort this out now".

He aims his crossbow at the leading man, and yells out "is there anything you'd like to say before I decorate you with a bolt?"

 

[fintain]

Why is everyone in this town so eager to die?

OOC: I grab my dagger and get ready to throw it.

 

[GreyOne]

They halt in their tracks, hands going instinctively to their blades. One of them, a slightly taller man at least seven feet high, with red leggings, has a smile on his grey-hued face.

The street goes quiet but for the lurching and rolling sounds of the three wagons. The wagons roll by the Engolthens, the Rivish mercanters walking past are as tense as bowstrings. Their blades are half drawn as they eye the Engolthens. A few breaths later and they are past.

Several others on the street move against the walls of the buildings on the other side of the road. The sounds of the rest of the town carry on, but here on the Black Lane, all is silent.

"Has-drughda? Moja leivo escut navagh?" bellows the taller man.


(OOC: Fin: You have to hit the colour button again to close off the coloured script)

 

[fintain]

Does anyone know what the hell he is saying? Nado, have you heard this tongue before?

OOC: If they start to charge I am going to throw my dagger.

 

[GreyOne]

The figure stand there, the leader with his arms outstretched.

"It's Engolthen Fin, Bausslauchi, the same as all the others around here. He seems amused from the tone," replies Nado. I haven't a clue as to his meaning."

As Nado speaks, the five figures fan across the street, their hands secure on their blades, but yet to draw.

A moment later, an old and bent figure appears in the doorway twenty paces back down the street. You catch a glimpse of white hair as the figure steps down into the muddy roadway leaning heavily on a staff. As she reaches the middle of the dirt track, you hear a cackling laugh, eerily familiar.

Ha! Maussuach! Adek seda! Hee hee hee. Men with their petty troubles. Kivna knows, Kivna sees. Deef a'ada. Foolish men! comes a raspy voice.

The figure twirls about, her ragged cloak dragging through the mud. She points her staff towards first you and then the five bully-boys.

Ha!

 

[GreyOne]

-Being an excerpt from the Chronicle of Graves, by Ghano

The departure from Eastfair was accompanied only by the sound of songbirds beyond the timber walls of the town early on the morning of the 15th day of the First Autumn Mark. The violent events of the previous day and the killing of at least a dozen wastelands mercanters (by all accounts) had solidified our companions resolve to depart the lands of the Narlann and reestablish their pursuit of the murderers Ghis and Joffer. They left with no fanfare and barely a word to the gatekeeper of Khuritsa's manse.

Their journey north along the marsh road proved uneventful. Had they known, however, that their departure from the town was fully witnessed by their new enemies, they may have offered more caution. Yet would that make for an interesting tale? As Bragon was wont to say, " 'Tis better to know that your enemies know, than not." They were fully aware that the Prince, Leet would not be satisfied with his father's earlier decision, and would suffer no expense to sate his honour. Thus they rode north, full of expectation.

Had they been aware of the size of Leet's warband, they very well may have had second thoughts. But it is another of the fateful coincidences that so often rode the path alongside these men that again raises its head. Leet's band of warriors, including the efeete young princeling himself were themselves to meet with destruction by the hand of abomination. For but an hour's ride behind they met a shrouded woman on the ancient path and after a moment's angry conversation were set upon and murdered, horse and man. The truth of the tale rests only on the maddened ramblings of a single warrior who survived and fled through marsh and water, returning to Eastfair two days later. The validity of the tale, therefore can not be made certain. The later hanging of the man further snuffed out the truth of it. Suffice to say, the lordling, Leet was never heard from nor seen again...

 

[GreyOne]

-an excerpt from The History of the West, Kastimo of the Uracarl

In the days immediately after the Heziliad, the lands of Bausslauch lay in chaos and confusion. Those remnants of imperial power that had survived the inundation of the Hollow Lands and made their way to the highlands about the newly formed sea were desperate. Terrible crimes were perpetrated upon the scattered settlers of the lands southwest of the Sea of Grass. The inhabitants of the thick woodlands bordering the harder lands were driven into the remotest parts of the land, or were slaughtered outright. This land of stone and bitter earth lay despoiled before encroaching bands of refugees and dead-eyed imperial soldiers. It was a time of tragedy, and the land drunk deeply from that cup. And from the cursed soil came forth progeny of cruel vengeance and dark memory...

 

[GreyOne]

(Post-4th game session, after the defeat of the mercanters in Eastfair, the leavetaking of the city and the arrival at the old shrine to Wergand on the North Marsh Road)

The appearance and destruction of the vermin swarm has left you uneasy. After bringing the horses into the shelter of the shine's atrium you have entered the shrine proper. The opposite doorway has led into a courtyard...

The open sky hangs over this fifty-foot wide courtyard. A fiften foot-wide, thirty foot high arcade completely encloses the middle of the courtyard, in which stands a a single beech tree. Bones and skulls, deliberately entangled in the tree's foliage, bob slowly as the wind sweeps its uppermost branches. More bones and skulls litter the ground near the tree's roots. Near the base of the tree you see a finely crafted firepit, surrounded by carved green and grey stone. A sense of dread has come over you upon entering this shrine. The shelter of one of Wergand's shrines is most definitely not supposed to do that. It is obvious that something is not right about this Traveler's House.

(OOC: Fin and Ulfghar, I can't remember what you announced before we stopped - I think Fin had cast a spell. We'll play from here.)

 

[Ulfghar]

(OOC) Ulfghar cast 'Pass as Shadow' and went to take a closer look at the tree and the fire pit.

Ulfghar advances towards the the ominous tree, trying to get a better understanding of what has happened here. Keeping to the shadows to remain invisible, he still has his crossbow at the ready.