the Kyri Chronicles - last updated 22 Oct

[Graywolf-ELM]

tearing at him with its poisonous claws and lusting after his meat

I know it wasn't meant that way, but my perverse sense of humor left me teary-eyed, from laughing, after reading this.

One or Two puzzled looks from people as they walked by my office.

GW

 

[robberbaron]

Yeah, come on PS.
Let's get to more of that wholesome Trajan goodness!

 

[robberbaron]

Oops. Double post, mainly due to the board being slow, part due to me being hasty.

 

[Graywolf-ELM]

“Hello” the figure says over his laboured breathing. “I suppose you’re here to hurt me too? Everyone has it in for us svirfneblin. I don’t know why we ever bother to try to help”.

This reminds me of Priggle from PC's story hour.

Thanks for the pointer here. I read the previous editions as well. I'm enjoying the story.

GW

 

[Plane Sailing]

Thanks Graywolf!

Garrick should sound a little similar to Priggle... I was the original Priggle and much of his character results from my roleplaying of him as a depressed and easily ignored svirfneblin I'm dead chuffed he's managed to last this long in that adventure!

 

[Plane Sailing]

At last, an update...

The Imperial Outpost

Garrick leads them deeper into the depths of the earth. Does a day pass? Two? The size and scale of the network of caverns they pass is impressive, but the darkness and weight of rock above them is oppressive to all except their svirfneblin guide. The only thing that marks the passage of time is the twice daily messages from Dominic, keeping them informed of the goings on in the world above, the gathering of powers and the increasing uncertainty.

“Stop” says Garrick. “There is something up ahead which might interest you. A sealed old human outpost”.

Curious, the party edge down the side passage Garrick indicates and they find, set into a rock wall, a corroded old iron door covered in ancient imperial pictograms. Taran moves forward and carefully runs his hand over the door.

“I can read this” he says. “It is imperial, from the age of the Jade Emperor a thousand years ago. Records speak of many underground military arcane listening posts which the Empire maintained – this must be one of them”.

“Can you get in?” asks Tania.

A few minutes work and Tarans nimble fingers have decoded the lock on the door and it swings slowly inward. A dim blue light glows from the ceiling of the short corridor which leads into an octagonal chamber. Halfway down the corridor there is a large humanoid bas-relief figure set into the wall on one side, amidst a wide range of carvings and pictograms.

The chamber has a table in the centre and four other apparent exits, three of them leading to small rectangular chambers with decomposed rubbish in a thin layer on the floor. The fourth is blocked by a sparkling magical field of some type. Taran speculates that it might be some kind of magical prison, before going back to the entranceway to keep watch with Garrick. Trajan’s investigations reveal a hollow section in one of the walls of the octagonal room, and he breaks it down with a few fierce kicks, revealing a secret hollow containing an ancient breastplate – a breastplate which is covered in fine and delicate inscriptions.

Suddenly there is a tremendous cracking sound from the entrance corridor, and what looked like a bas relief steps out of the wall in a shower of plaster, revealing itself to be a stone golem, which charges in and attacks Trajan!

He strikes at it then tumbles past to lure it out. Tania attempts a ray of enfeeblement against the golem but misjudges its reach and gets knocked flying by its AoO. It then chases Trajan and starts hammering at him again. Taran tumbles between the golems legs and goes to the prison, on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy may be my friend". He is able to deactivate the prison and finds a woman in heavy armour finishing a sentence in Imperial. He replies in the same language, warning her to leave now because of the golem. Trajan tries swapping full round attacks with the golem but comes off second best, so he decides to lure it further away. Tania blasts it with a fireball... ineffectively. (she has not really had any experience fighting golems yet!) Then the released Asuran priestess calls out some command words in Imperial, and the Golem stops its attack and returns to its hiding place.

Taran manages introductions with Zherinda the priestess, who can speak Imperial with Taran and can communicate in pidgin Asuran with Trajan. Tania doesn't understand any of it. Zherinda was trapped here about a thousand years ago.

She had been on a mission to seek the body of a lost Singharese champion who was leading resistance against the Jade Emperor. From her conversation she recognises Trajan as a sword saint, albeit a Southlander and not Asuran like herself. She clearly reveres sword saints, which is likely to put her at odds with most of her contempory priesthood. Her world was quite different to this one.

Among her belongings she carries a scroll of raise dead, and as thanks for her rescue she agrees to use it to attempt to bring Anne-Marie back to life. The scroll is completed, the divine energy crackles around the room – but her body is too badly damaged, and it looks like it will fail. Trajan steps forward and with an invocation to Asura pours healing into her body; Taran also steps forward and jiggles around his little divine icon to activate it, and between them they repair her body enough for life to return to it.

With a shuddering breath, Anne-Marie comes round, and gazes up into Trajan’s open face with adoring eyes. “You brought me back” she says.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Heh, with email notification turned off and the number of storyhours going on at the moment I don't think either of my readers noticed an update

I'll try to get the next installment ready tonight.

Cheers

 

[Graywolf-ELM]

Heh, with email notification turned off and the number of storyhours going on at the moment I don't think either of my readers noticed an update

I'll try to get the next installment ready tonight.

Cheers

Nope, I read it. It's hard to post so much as a comment these days.

With notifications turned off, I go to "My Account" and list all the threads I am subscribed to, and see if any of them are updated. Makes spelunking through the forums easier and takes much less time. When things speed up, late at night, I go back and look for new stuff that interests me.

GW

 

[Plane Sailing]

With notifications turned off, I go to "My Account" and list all the threads I am subscribed to, and see if any of them are updated.

Good thinking - I'll take that up. I'd particularly got in mind Sumi and RobberBaron since they both play in my campaign (although Sumi hasn't rejoined the party yet at this point)

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

While they rest, they ponder the text which they found etched in acid on the ancient steel breastplate which had been hidden behind the stone panel. The armour is soot-covered, but copper from melted coins was dribbled into the acid-scarred words, so it is easier to read than it could be.

I am Corvos of Bellemir, scribe to my Lord Hengel the Radiant, Jazumai of the One Kindly God. At his command I tarry here to write this message on the breastplate of his fallen guard, so that those who come after us will hear the word of the fire spirit and heed her wisdom after we are long dead.

For my master sought her here, daughter of the Living Flame, and he courted her with vasty gifts, and she prophesized for him truly. When she had finished foretelling his personal matters, she raised a fiery hand and spoke sooth.

"But do not leave, Hengel son of Hagel son of Hellstrom, for you shall be my voice to those of flesh not born. There will come a time that in the lands above us, a second temple shall rise that sings its hymns to One Who Sleeps. It is corrupt. It festers, for it lacks the purity of true flame. Shall they wake that Sleeper Beyond? Pray that they do not. It would carry away all who are just, as those who are godfearing would learn to fear God.

"But the flame may be cleansed. When the songbird tumbles at the crossroads on a day edged with pain, the flowing blood will signal that the time is nigh! Those above may slave to wake the foul, but they forget... They do not know that more than foul dost sleep, and that purity can be awoken as simply as corruption. More simply, in fact! For purity is closer; it too sleeps, but only a breath away. The second sleeper may be woken by those who have known loss and triumph, fear and bravery beyond compare. But are they brave enough to choose? This even I can not see. A choice can let the second sleeper rise as a phoenix, and he will soar forth, yearning to burn away the corruption he senses from the unnatural temple above.

"And these who I see... they may make that choice. They may call him, he whom I once loved, and if they do, the sleep of a millennium shall shake from his ancient bones. I foresee the Offer, the Tribute, the Dance, and the Balance Restored. I foresee the fall of the false gods. He shall touch the world and all voices will be raised to him." She smiled then, terribly. "All voices except those of the priests from the Temple Above, for none may speak with lungs of char.

"How to call, how to call, sleeping, waking, rising tall? Blood in magma, song in stone. Hammered altar, melted bone.

"So call him, heroes, if you wish. Call him before the sea god rises, or perhaps he will sleep forever. Few like him still exist in the world, for he is older than mountains and wise beyond kings; but desperate times call for desperate measures, and fate favours those bold enough to make a choice."

And so she foretold, and so I commit her prophecy for all time to come. I do not envy you who read this and know of the songbird, but I will say this; I have seen the fire maiden, and she holds my heart forever. Any being that she once loved has my jealous respect and my eternal envy. Her words are bound in truth; may you follow them, and your heart, to wisdom and grace.

Respectfully scribed this day, by Corvos of Bellimir. May the One Kindly God hold you and keep you safe.



Anne-Marie thinks it's a song, Trajan thinks it refers to their task of freeing the stone plug which will enable the volcano to erupt once more. Zherinda the priestess says that Lord Hengel the sword saint was the one she was sent to contact all those years ago. The debate about the meaning of the prophetic words goes on fruitlessly long into the night.