The Rise of Felskein [Completed]

[Iron Sky]

Session 30, Part 10

The locath met them a few miles outside Port, watching them for several minutes before motioning them to go to the surface. They were at enough depth that it took several minutes for them to get there.

“Let's hope we speak the same language,” Bail said as the turtle broke the surface of Landspear Lake. “Turtle, open.”

“What do the turtle-ones want in our master's lake?” the locath said as soon as they reached the mouth.

“We came with treasure for your master, as we promised,” Suniel said.

The locath tilted its head, as if considering what Suniel had said. “Give the treasure to me and it will go to our master.”

Bail smiled. “Surface-dwellers use that trick too. No, I'm afraid we need to take it to your master in person.”

“We've met him before,” Suniel added. “And we gave him a sizable amount. He'd be unhappy if he didn't get the next part of what we have for him.”

The locath considered it for a while.

“Making the master happy is good it is,” it finally said.

“Do the Locath not mind being ruled by such a beast as 'the master'?” Suniel said.

“It is our fate to have a master,” the locath said. “All Locath know this. Come.”

The locath dived.

“Not going to have a master for long,” Bail said under his breath. They stepped back into the turtle. “Turtle close.”

Suniel took a deep breath. “Let's hope so. Otherwise, this turtle is going to have a new master.”

Bail snorted and clapped the elf on the back. “You kidding? It's just a fish.”

“A fish with a True Stone, and that fish is an aboleth. You're not going to find many fish nastier than that,” Suniel said. “Turtle, follow that locath.”

***

“That's a nice palace,” Bail said, as the light from their turtle illumined the bottom of the Landspear Lake.

“It's an illusion,” Suniel said. “Look at it again.”

“That's an ill... oh, yeah. Once you know how to look, you can kinda focus differently and see through it,” Bail said. “So, that big fish head nailed over the cave that the illusion was hiding, whose head is that?”

Suniel stared. “Underdakul's.”

A second later, a dozen massive tentacles reached out of the cave and an immense, sleek brown form pulled itself out behind them, the shimmering blue True Stone looking tiny next to the kraken.

“That... is not an aboleth,” Suniel said.

“Trade one fish for another,” Bail said with a shrug. “Shall we go talk to it?”

Suniel stared at it for a moment, then nodded and grabbed his things. “If diplomacy fails, the attack word is 'banana',” Suniel said. “Turtle open.”

Bail tried to stop him to ask a quick question, but the elf was already out the door, the shimmering bubble of the turtle's protective magics forming around him instantly. Oh well, it's probably not important, Bail thought as he followed the wizard out. I'll ask him later.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 30, Part 11

The Kraken literally surrounded them, a dozen tentacles hovering around them and over them, like a cage of thick, cartilaginous flesh. One huge eye stared at them unblinking, an eye used to gazing into the blackest depths now boring into them. Its speech seemed to sound in the water all around them, the water visibly stirring and silt swirling from the mud beneath their feet with its every word. Through the gaps in their 'cage', dozens of giant squid the size of trees floated, waiting.

-The bearers of another Stone, come for what reason-

Suniel glanced at Bail out of the corner of his eye. The half-dragon was still, the stillness of a coiled spring.

“We come to bargain for the True Stone of Water that you bear. What could be offered that we might use it?”

Mud swirled up and Suniel felt the sound in his bones, a sound that it took a moment for him to determine was laughter. What passed for laughter in a kraken anyway.

-Underdakul the Headless might have given it away, but Nakral the Unconquered, Lord of the Many-limbed, Emperor of the Sea Slave Locath, Ruler of the Sea of the Land Seed and all the waters it touches, he would instead make a demand in return. The two landlings will let their stone float free and hide back in the Turtle of the Dead Ones, return to the Thin Waters above, and in return they will live-

“Was that a threat?” Bail said. He glanced over at Suniel. “Did this big squid just threaten us?”

Suniel raised his hand to calm the half-dragon, never taking his eye off the gold-ringed disc of the kraken's massive eye. “You must know of what threatens the 'Thin Waters' and all of Felskein. Iron Sky comes to claim all for themselves, even the Sea of the Land Seed. They are incapable of rest, implacable, they will not stop until there is nothing to resist them. If we do not stop them, your Empire will fall. Perhaps you will hold out for a year or even a decade before the surface is conquered, but they will come.”

-The Deeps will rust them away and the Many-limbed will drag them beneath the tides, pull them apart and cast them to the depths near the Land Seed where the very water devours surface things. Nakral has lived for ten thousand Deep Tides and he will live for ten thousand more. It is only for the surfacelings to fear those archaic metal slaves of the Dead Ones-

“I think he said no,” Bail said. “It just took him a while.”

“Thanks, I got that,” Suniel said. He had little hope of being able to talk his way through this and that little hope was fading fast. He raised the True Stone of Lightning in his hand, strategically placed where Bail could easily reach it as well.

“So there is nothing that we might do to convince you to let us even borrow your True Stone long enough to stop Iron Sky? I swear on my wife's grave, on the True Stones, and on anything else you would name that we will return it when we are done.”

-The landling would have Nakral for a fool. Does the elfling believe that Nakral would willingly do this? Does it still believe that it will leave this place with the stone it holds? No, Nakral will make the offer one last time. Leave the stone, swallow yourselves in your swimming toy of silversteel, flee back to the airy realm. Otherwise Nakral will take the stone, pull apart the landlings slowly, their agony spanning of a Deep Tide so that Nakral might feel the sounds of their cries in the Deeps, then throw the pieces to the Children of the Many Limbs. They will feast on the drifting flesh of the elfling and its lizard. Make this decision quickly, Nakral tires of this empty sound-game-

Suniel hardened himself inside, preparing for what was about to happen. He took a deep breath, aware of the slow constriction of the kraken's tentacles closing in around them. He took a deep breath, aware that it may be his last.

“We brought you this banana.”

There was a moment of stillness, silence.

-What is a banana-

The water became a charged, boiling storm of lightning, thrashing tentacles, blinding mud, and death.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 30, Part 12

Suniel and Bail stood panting, the water around them literally saturated with ink, silt, blood, blubber, and tentacles. The massive bulk of the kraken's body lay half-settled into the mud nearby, its immense tentacles stretched around them like fallen trees. Lightning still arced through the water around them.

“I think we're out of lightning for the time being,” Bail said. “Fortunately, they seem to be out of squid, so it balances out.”

“Don't let go of the True Stone yet,” Suniel said, glancing around at the carnage. “There might be enough of it still in the water to kill us without the True Stone's protection.”

Bail had been just about to let go, but between Suniel's warning and the feeling of energy playing across his scales, he figured it might be a good idea not to yet.

“Do you think those things are edible?” Bail said.

“They might have been intelligent,” Suniel said, looking about at the dead squid – and parts of squid – that were still settling into the mud around them. “Eating other intelligent creatures seems somehow something like cannibalism.”

“I don't think they were intelligent. Not that intelligent anyway, they attacked to the last man, well, last squid, even when it was pretty obvious that all it was getting them was dead.”

They stood there for a while longer as the tinkle in the water faded and the water cleared a bit. “It's eerie down here now, anything keeping us from leaving here?” Bail finally said.

Suniel slowly, tentatively withdrew his hand from the True Stone. “Seems safe enough. Let's get his True Stone and get out of here.”

They waded through the churned goop of the lake-floor and began climbing the thick rubbery corpse of the dead kraken.

“You know, speaking of True Stones, why didn't he use his on us, create a big whirlpool or something?” Bail said staring down at one of its massive, lidless eyes. “That's what I was worried most about.”

“Remember what I did to... did to my son back on the Landspear?” Suniel said, halting for a moment as they looked about for the True Stone.

Bail shuddered. He turned him into little more than an animal, Bail thought. A quick chant and he cut up something in his head...

“I see that you remember,” Suniel said. “Well, as soon as the kraken began attacking, I did the same to it. It was probably no more intelligent than your average shark when it attacked us.”

“Did I ever tell you I'm glad I'm on your side?” Bail said, still staring into the kraken's eye. It still looks evil somehow, even though now its just meat, he thought.

“I've regained only a fraction of the power I had before, back Thessalock and I were still working together. If I had it all now I could-” Suniel stopped in mid-sentence. “Ah, here it is.”

Bail looked up to see Suniel walking towards him with the bubbling, swirling, head-sized sapphire of the True Stone of Water.

“Let's get back to the Turtle and get out of here,” Suniel said, jumping off the kraken.

“Two down, too many to go,” Bail grumbled. He glanced at the big dead eye one more time, then followed the elf.

"Oh hey, I just remembered," he called as he followed Suniel. "I was going to ask you before we left the Turtle. What is a banana?"

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 30, Part 13

<Note: I took a slight bit of creative license at the very end of this post compared to what "really" happened to make the story fit the mechanics a bit better. Some Prestige Class powers are hard to justify story-wise, so I had to get a bit creative.

No one but my players would know the difference, but a couple of them are/were reading this, so I thought I'd post this up front>

Harold had woken up once before being beaten back into unconsciousness, a stolen glance through swollen eyes at soot-stained wood, a sniff of smoke and coal, the sway and vibration of the blood-stained wood beneath him, and a strange chugging sound was all he caught before black boots appeared before him and iron-studded cudgels fell again.

He had no idea how long it had been since then, but he had been days alone in his black cell, five paces by four, short enough that his hair brushed damp stone of the ceiling as he paced feeling back into his legs. The only light was the flickering illumination around the edges of the moldering, iron-bound door of his cell when they slid a metal food tray of crusty bread and watery gruel and a cracked mug of filthy water through a slot in the door.

He'd tried talking with the jailers but gotten only crude jokes or curses in return. Without weapons, unarmed, unarmored, unequipped, he felt helpless, hopeless. He brooded alone in the dark, his mind ceaselessly grinding away at being trapped there, his imagination playing over and over the horrors that his people faced while he sat huddled in the dark. He'd pounded on the door until his hands ached and bled, shouted at the guards until his voice was hoarse, and paced until the heaps of moldy straw were a pressed mat on the floor. He hadn't slept more than minutes in days and was almost ready to chew through the door.

Then it opened.

As he squinted at the blinding flame of the guard's torches they rushed forwards and seized his arms, dragging him bodily out of the cell. He tried to resist, cursing them all the way, but he was still blinded by the light and weak from days with little or no food or rest. They dragged him up several flights of stairs and threw him into a room full of the assorted machines, tools, and instruments of the torturer's trade.

A fat young man wearing gaudy, rumpled yellow silks and thick white lace sat overflowing a small chair on the other side of the room, four heavily armed, grim looking men standing close behind him.

“So, this is what a foreigner looks like. How disappointing,” the young man said, his voice surprisingly high-pitched considering his size.

Harold resisted the urge to leap up, dig his fingers deep into those quivering jowls and squeeze. Instead, he stood up, straightened his dirty, tattered uniform, and cleared his throat. “Why are you holding me?” he growled, his voice still rough. “Do you treat all diplomats from other nations this way?”

“He talks! What a strange accent too. He'll make a wonderful pet!” The young man looked between his impassive guards as if expecting them to giggle along with him.

“I'm no pet,” Harold said, clenching his fists at his sides.

“How do you work that flying chunk of rock Hadral told me about?”

“Where are my things?”

“You are a thing, belonging to Tondron Argia, I own you. Learn my name well, for I am your master now. The others will be so jealous, I have a foreigner!”

Harold glanced at the bodyguards, trying to guess how long he'd live after he murdered the bloated popinjay sitting in front of him.

“What would you think if I killed one of your guards barehanded?” Harold said.

Tondron seemed taken aback by the question, but it was his guards' time to be amused. They chuckled and sized him up.

“Well, if you killed one of them, I guess I'd need a new bodyguard.”

“What would you do if I did it?” Harold said. Some distant part of his mind realized he was literally betting his life, but he was beyond caring.

Tondron thought for a minute, a pleased smile slowly coming across his face. “I think I'd hire you as a bodyguard. A pet is one thing, a foreigner who can kill with his bare hands is another.”

Pudgy fingers snapped and in seconds Harold was fighting for his life – and losing. He was literally backed against a wall, bleeding from several wounds, at least one serious, his legs shaking from lack of use, lack of food and sleep, and blood loss. I'm going to die here, he thought, the realization striking him as his eyes fixated on the smirk of the huge, grizzled man that was killing him.

Then the door opened beside him, one of the jailers coming in to watch the show. In an instant, Harold was out the door. The jailer stumbled back in surprise and fell as Harold grabbed the man and shoved, the man's keyring coming away in Harold's hand as he ran past. Shouts rose up behind him as he sprinted full-tilt through the twists and turns of the massive jail. When he got tired, he stopped at a huge public cell long enough to unlock it, tossing the keyring in and running on before the startled prisoners inside had time to react.

He had no idea where he was going except up, taking every stairwell he could find. Below and behind him the tumult grew. The prison was quickly growing to a full-scale riot. He managed to find a small guard barracks and changed into one of the uniforms there, grabbing a heavy club and a spear before hurrying on. Somehow he ended up at a small side gate to the prison, the gate guards barely gave him a second glance as they let him through, their attention focused on the shouts and sounds of combat behind him.

The fog he walked through gave everything an air of unreality, the grimy haze of the streets mirroring his internal state. Somehow he found himself to the city wall, its size – towering even higher than the one in Gleam – telling him that he must finally be in the Black City on which he had foolishly pinned his hopes. His hurled spear killed one of the guards at a small, heavily warded gate through the city wall, his cudgel a second, the sword he picked up from the one he'd brained finishing the rest.

Bloodstained, exhausted, amidst a sprawl of bodies, he lifted the double bars off the gate, slashed a dozen crisscrossing ward strips apart, then, straining, pulled the swollen, rust-hinged door open. The dark forest pressed close outside, as though the trees themselves were trying to pry their way inside with limb and root and branch.

Come in then. He thought. They fear you here, more than anything it seems. Welcome to the Black City, may we pull it apart together.

Something in the forest - a darkness in the deepest shadows - seemed to respond, pulsing and twisting at the edge of the light. Harold felt it touch him, a gentle caress of dark power. He smiled and turned towards the city, feeling the Fae pressing close behind like a living thing. Seconds later he stood atop the highest tower of the monolithic prison, staring down at the guards that scurried like ants far below, fighting to contain the chaos he'd created in the prison's depths.

He wanted me for a pet and plaything. Lets see who is the plaything when he crawls from his hole. They have taken my weapons, but I'm far from toothless...

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 31, Part 1

Hours later Harold was still waiting. Hundreds of troops had entered the dungeon and dozens of bodies had been dragged out and dumped in the yard, but no sign of Tondron. Harold had the feeling his personal belongings weren't there anyway. They could still be back at Gleam, sold, traded, put on display somewhere. Regardless, he needed a weapon, something more than the crude sword he had. He stared out across the smoggy sprawl of the Black City and planned.

What have you done and where is the Stone, a voice whispered in his head.

The wording of your question implies you already know Suniel, or should I say, Hollowed One? he thought back.

After a couple of minutes of silence he figured whatever magics Suniel had used to link with him had faded. Guess I'm on my own then. Fine, I'll handle this City...

His stomach grumbled and he squinted at the setting sun. I'll be back for you later Tondron, count on it.

A second later he was down in the streets, wandering alleyways, dodging patrols, and searching for food. It was getting dark when the crackle of flame and a short burst of laughter drew him down an alleyway. He moved quietly up to the edge of the light flickering from the burn barrel. A small huddle of disheveled men and women in rags were roasting some type of meat over the fire. Harold's mouth watered as he stepped into the light.

“Hello, do you think I could-”

Harold couldn't even finish his sentence before the barrel was kicked over, food snatched away, and people running into the night.

“Damn,” he said, running after them. He caught up to one of them and stepped the street behind the man, grabbed the man's arm and pulled the man to a halt. “Hold, wait! I'm not a guard, I need help!”

The man stopped, his expression weary under smeared dirt and soot and long strands of tangled hair. “What's wrong with your voice?”

“Wrong with my... I'm not from the Black City if that's what – damn!”

He caught up to the man a minute later. “I'm not from the Fae Wood or Charst either.”

“How can that be?” the man said, suspicion and fear in his voice. “Where else is there?”

“There's better places... well one better place at least – if it still stands. Forget it. I'm just looking for refuge. I'm guessing by the way you ran, you're not a friend of the authorities here.”

The man shook his head. “The authorities are friends of the Bank and the Council. The commons are just supposed to stay out of their way.”

“Sounds about right. They're probably hunting me right now, I don't suppose there's something you could do...”

Suspicion still tinged the man's features, but he nodded slowly. “Normally I'd tell you to bugger off, but I've never heard someone talk like you... maybe what you are saying is true.”

The man paused and chewed his lip for a moment. “I'll take you to my boss. The Black Rat will know what to do, follow me.”

Harold followed, moving quickly through the dark streets. His boss? Some type of resistance movement maybe? Well, lets see what this Black Rat thinks of Harold Trisden.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 31, Part 2

Harold awoke to the smell of sewage, the sight of moldering stone, and the tightness of a stiff back from sleeping on a wooden bench. He stood and stretched, looking around the large, drained tunnel that was apparently the Black Rat's hideout. Dozens of other figures were waking up too, several already gathered around a burning barrel to cook rats on charred wooden poles.

Harold normally wouldn't have gone near undercooked rat for breakfast, but today he was so hungry he might eat it raw.

The weary-looking outlaws glanced up at him with brief interest, then returned their gazes to the slowly cooking rats.

“So, when does the Black Rat get here?” Harold said, warming his hands over the fire.

Just then Kent, the man who had led Harold to this miserable place the night before, walked in and looked about quickly, jogging over to Harold when he spotted him. “Sleep well?”

“Marginally better than in prison.”

“Well, at least you have the option of leaving here,” the man said with a curt laugh. “Anyway, I told the Black Rat about you and he's interested. He wants to know a little bit more about you before he comes to meet you in person though. Namely, how could you be of use to the Resistance?”

“How? Something like this.”

Harold ceased to be in front of Kent and reappeared behind him. His new trick didn't have the effect he desired.

“Fae Bent!” Kent screamed at the top of his lungs, running away from Harold so fast he slipped and scrambled on all fours away as he got back to his feet. There was more shouting and screaming and a few minutes later Harold had the place to himself.

Harold stood there shaking his head and sighed, then walked over to the burning barrel and grabbed one of the discarded rats. He was just finishing it off when three Fae Hunters showed up in their elaborate silver-runed uniforms, armed to the teeth with exotic and obviously magical weaponry.

He squinted at them, wondering if he could take one down before the others dispatched him. Judging from his earlier experience in the jail, he wasn't sure - perhaps caution was the wiser choice. It's time to go.

When he re-formed he immediately fell, landing hard in the street amidst a crowded marketplace. His sudden appearance had a similar effect in the densely-packed market as it had in the hideout, but there were a hundred times more panicked people around him now and he already spotted Fae Hunters pushing towards him through the fleeing crowds when he stepped elsewhere.

He reappeared on a the roof of a massive building with a dozen brick smoke-stacks billowing heavy clouds of black soot. In spite of the cover of smoke, a Fae Hunter riding a griffin spotted him and waved as he banked his griffin towards Harold.

The gesture took Harold back and he waited warily, ready to step away if the Fae Hunter proved hostile. The griffin landed with a final flap of its strong wings, its claws digging deep into the tarred shingles of the roof. The Fae Hunter was a woman with long blond hair, a silver rune glowing on her cheek. “You must be the foreigner, the Huntmaster would like to speak to you.”

Harold pointed his sword at the woman. “How do I know you aren't sent by Tondron?”

“Tondron?” the woman said, blinking in surprise. “You really are a foreigner. The Hunters are independent of the Houses, the Bank, the Council, all of it. The Huntmaster will tell you more. All you need to do is drop that weapon, give me your hand, and we'll be off. There's even a warm bath, food, and clean sheets in it.”

“Last time I was offered food and a bath, I was poisoned and ambushed.”

“Well, if you don't come we'll be forced to hunt you down and take you alive for questioning anyway. This way is much easier for all involved. Honestly, I'd rather be out hunting the Fae beasts that slipped into the city and tracking down whatever bastard opened the Quartertown gate than wasting my time chasing you. Decide quickly.” She placed her hand on a silver-runed weapon he'd heard called a pistol that sat holstered on her leg.

Harold thought hard for a minute, then tossed his blade off the building, and reached for the woman's hand.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 31, Part 3

Harold set his empty plate and mug down on the bed stand and stretched out, looking through the glass of his tower window at the snow falling outside. It felt good to lay on a bed after too many days in sewers, streets, and cells, even though doing so made him feel restless and guilty. While I'm lying here, people are dying in the Crystal Towers, hundreds, thousands of them. The longer I take, the less of the Crystal Towers there will be when I return!

His mind ran deeper and deeper down its familiar spiral, but he somehow drifted off. He awoke to the sound of his door opening, reaching for weapons that weren't there. A man in Fae Hunter blacks walked in, by his bearing a warrior though he carried only a single slender blade at his side. “The Huntmaster would see you now,” the man said.

“For what purpose?” Harold said, rising to his feet and straightening the simple, comfortable clothing they'd given to him.

“For whatever purpose he likes, this is his tower after all.” The Hunter turned and began to walk away, not even bothering to see if Harold was following him.

Harold did follow and after fifteen minutes and dozens of flights of stairs, they arrived at a large metal-bound door with two scarred, dangerous-looking Hunters in full battle regalia sizing Harold up. The Hunter that had escorted him nodded to them and left without a word.

“He's waiting for you,” one of the Hunters said, pulling the door open. Harold straightened again and walked in.

Inside was a large study, the ceilings tall as if built specifically to accommodate the massive black bookcases that covered most of the walls. A simple bed sat next to a large stone fireplace and another door stood open to a large stone balcony. A slender figure wrapped in a thick, black-furred robe traced in silver ermine sat in a stout leather-backed chair by the balcony, a large tome on one knee. The figure looked up into the storm as Harold approached, revealing fine-boned elven features and long silver hair.

Harold stopped a respectful distance from the elf and stared out into the storm as well. He didn't acknowledge the cold as they waited there, though the waiting itself quickly began to wear on his patience. He was about to say something when the Huntmaster spoke.

“The people of the Black City seem to be mistaking you for a Fae Bent quite frequently, Harold Trisden of the Crystal Towers.”

“How do you know who I am? Do you have word from the Crystal Towers?”

“All I know is that my Hunters won't waste any more time chasing you around the City instead of chasing down the Fae Bent.”

“How do you know I'm not a Fae Bent?” Harold said, taking a step closer as the anger that lived close under the surface rose.

The Huntmaster made a dismissive gesture. “My Hunters tested you when you first arrived in Charst and watched you when you were led to the prisons. I trust my people implicitly. You just escaped yesterday anyway, if you had somehow become a Fae Bent in the mean-time, it wouldn't show in your blood for several days yet, so it doesn't matter.”

“Is this how your people treat diplomats from other nations?” Harold said, purposefully changing the subject as his temper cooled. “I was assaulted, humiliated, imprisoned, and my belongings taken within hours of my arrival!”

The elf waved his hand and glanced back at his book. It was beginning to bother Harold that the elf hadn't once looked at Harold, as if he was barely worth the Huntmaster's time. “I care not what the Houses do. The Fae Hunters have never gotten involved in city politics for our aim is higher – the preservation of the Black City as a whole. A single Fae Bent creature can cause the destruction of hundreds, whole families slaughtered, homes destroyed, panic, mayhem...

“We captured and executed several inmates from the prison you escaped from heading out through a small sealed door to the Fae Wood not far from the prison. Already hundreds of people have died from the Fae-twisted creatures that slipped in before we could seal the gate and dozens of our best Fae Hunters are out tracking the Fae monstrosities as we speak.

“The complaints of one foreigner do not weigh heavily upon me. It is only for purposes of curiosity that I haven't had you killed yet. So tell me, how fares the outside world?” He finally turned and looked at Harold, his eyes a cold silver, glinting in the firelight.

“The Crystal Towers was under siege by the Ashen Tower and sabotaged from within by a necromantic plague, the Span Wall has fallen and the Crystal Towers now fights for its very survival. This is why I came, seeking allies-”

“What about the rest of the world? I get so little information and at times I find it valuable to know what else goes on.”

“The rest of the world?” Harold said, staring into the Huntmaster's cold eyes. “If the Crystal Towers falls, there will be nothing of value left in the world. It is the great hope, if only the Ashen Towers could be broken, others would see that the Crystal Towers it the only-”

The Huntmaster waved Harold to silence and it was all he could do to not attack the elf. He bit his tongue, his fists clenched.

“I see now,” the Huntmaster said, turning back to his book. “That is all. Know that if you enter the Black City again, my Hunters will kill you without a second thought.”

If I had my weapons, you would eat those words, Harold said, fists clenched. The door swung open and the female Hunter that had brought Harold here was waiting for him. He fumed, planing his revenge on the Huntmaster, on the Houses, on the Black City itself.

They launched from tower that rose hundreds of feet out of the heart of the Fae Wood and flew south. An hour later he stood on the beach, the Radianus Sink to his back, the Fae Wood to his front, and the glinting line of the Hallowed One's prayer strips stretching out on either side of him. He stood for a moment, deciding, then turned east, stepping rapidly along the shore towards Gleam.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Just found this yesterday, and read it straight through... really great stuff!
Thanks for posting this, looking for ward to following the last few sessions.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 31, Part 4

<Notes: Glad you enjoyed it the_orc_within. I wasn't feeling very inspired to write, but saw your post and thought I could write up something even if it wasn't very long. Also, this is the last session. I happens to have been about 9-10 hours of play time though and a ton of stuff happened. I'd guess it's going to be about 30 posts to finish it...>

Harold stared at Hadral's estate from the rooftop of one of Gleam's sprawling factories, squatting like a gargoyle while a sea of black industrial smoke roiled just below the rooftop. He watched the guards change at the ornate fence surrounding the palatial mansion, watched Hadral's small army of private troops marching in a courtyard. He studied the small three-story officer's barracks set slightly aside from the main estate and planned his attack.

She thinks she can attack Harold Trisden and get away with it? With this new power that courses through me I'll get my bow back and reap a bloody swath through her palace with it.

Squinting at the morning light, he focused on the barracks and stepped off the roof and into the distant building.

He was in some sort of indoors outhouse, with room for ten men to sit at once. Only one was there and Harold took three quick steps, grabbing the man's sword from the belt around his ankles and running the man through even as he shouted in alarm. A second later there were three more of them in the room with him, thirty seconds after that, he was again alone and stepping over the bodies and around the corner of a short hallway into what looked to be the main barracks to face a double line of ten soldiers, five kneeling with five standing behind them, the long-barreled weapons called rifles aimed at the doorway Harold had just walked through.

In the small space, the weapons firing sounded like being inside a thundercloud, the flash like a dozen lightning bolts. Harold stepped instinctively and found himself standing in what appeared to be an individual room, probably for a high-ranking officer. He winced and clutched at the bloody gouge in his chest. One of the weapon's projectiles had apparently been just breaking the skin of his chest when he'd stepped and others had nicked his arms and legs.

Quickly, he opened a small wardrobe and pulled the soiled clothes from the bottom of it, tying off his wounds and wiping his blood from the floor. That done, he scanned the room quickly for more weapons and found none. The room belonged to a woman judging by the cut of the uniform draped over a chair and the notes in the journal by the bedside. As he glanced through its pages, the words inside reminded him of the young soldiers Crystal Towers, even now probably dying by the dozens and hundreds, spending their lives by the hundreds to give the Crystal Towers another day of life against the crushing assault of the dead.

And no one will help! Not the Freeholds, not the Black City, not even my companions! Can they not see? Without the Crystal Towers there is no hope, what care I if Iron Sky comes if there is now Crystal Towers left to oppose it? Felskein will fall without us. I must find some way to save my homeland, there must be something! Harold realized he had crumpled and torn the pages of the journal in his clenched, shaking fist. He glanced around and tossed the book under the bed.

If they will not help then they are useless, those who stand in my way are enemies of the Crystal Towers and doom themselves. Hadral and all who willingly associate with her will pay the price.

He slid under the bed and waited, eventually dozing off as he waited for nightfall and bloody vengeance. He slipped off into dark dreams with a final thought - they won't see this coming.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 31, Part 5

Harold lay in wait under the officer's bed, waiting for the woman to finally go to sleep. She'd come in, sharpened her sword for a while, then had chatted with someone who came to the door about some uncooperative new recruit. He watched their feet from under the bed, gritting his teeth at every minute of wasted time. People are dying in the Crystal Towers as you chatter about nothing!

Finally, the other officer wandered off and the woman came back next to the bed and took off her boots and uniform, sliding the boots under the bed and hanging the uniform up in the wardrobe before laying down. Her small lamp was on for a while longer as she read a book. Harold considered killing her then, but the risk of her rousing the alarm as he attacked was too great.

Then the book thumped onto the nightstand, she blew out the lamp, and the bed frame creaked as she settled in. Harold waited another ten minutes or so, then stepped out from under the bed. The woman lay sleeping with her back turned to him. All he saw was her hair splayed out on the pillow, a thick blanket pulled up next to her chin. Harold took two steps towards where her sword hung from her chair and drew it quietly. He tested it a few times in the air and was disappointed. It was well-made, but it didn't have the feel of a magic weapon– like the weapon was reading your mind and going where you wanted it before your body had even begun to move.

He sighed, walked over to the bed, and silently dispatched the woman.

After wiping off the blade, he walked to the hallway and peeked out. It was lit by several lamps, all the doors closed and dark but the one adjacent to the room he was in. It lay open a bit, flickering light and a soft lullaby emanating from inside. He counted the doors, memorized their positions, then silently pulled door to the room he was in closed.

Five minutes later, all the officers were dead except the singing woman. Not one had stirred from sleep to sound an alarm. Not one had a weapon of even minimal arcane potency – though one had a longbow and a quiver of arrows that looked ancient on display over the bed.

Harold stood in the hallway outside the cracked door with the bow now, testing the weapon's pull and nodding as he drew an arrow and nocked it.

When he kicked the door open and stepped in, he stood facing a young blond woman sitting in a chair in a nightgown, frozen in the midst of braiding her hair, the lullaby forgotten as she stared at him with a gaping mouth. The woman looked too young to be an officer and her face reminded him of a beautiful young woman he had half-fallen for back in the Crystal Towers of his youth, a young woman that had probably been cruelly murdered by some Ashen Towers monstrosity by now.

He put two arrows into the woman's chest before she had a chance to scream, the force of the arrows striking throwing her out of her chair and slamming her against the wall. She clutched at them gasping, staring at him in shock as he put a third arrow between her eyes.

After a perfunctory search of her weaponry, he grabbed her lamp, pulled out the burning wick, dumped the oil inside onto the bed and tossed the wick onto it. The room was a raging conflagration in seconds.

Harold stepped back to his perch on the factory that overlooked the estate, watching the barracks burn with grim satisfaction. With that distraction, time to recover my weapons, find Hadral, and make her pay.

Step.