Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
Just wanted to let you know that I'm still reading here.
GW
GW
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
The Scourge of the Ratmen [Scarred Lands] - Updated 1/26
- Thread starter Amaroq
- Start date
Thank you!
Talk about a loyal audience - you mean an unexplained seven-month layoff wasn't enough to completely alienate everyone? Seriously, I appreciate the show of support. Thank you. I was stunned to see this explot listed in somebody's post over in piratecat's story hour as one of their favorites despite the lengthy layoff, and I'm looking forward to getting this caught up with where we are for real.
My all-time favorite adventure is Issue #16, coming up next week...
Talk about a loyal audience - you mean an unexplained seven-month layoff wasn't enough to completely alienate everyone? Seriously, I appreciate the show of support. Thank you. I was stunned to see this explot listed in somebody's post over in piratecat's story hour as one of their favorites despite the lengthy layoff, and I'm looking forward to getting this caught up with where we are for real.
My all-time favorite adventure is Issue #16, coming up next week...
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Allright! I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
Amaroq said:
I posted a good list of the story hours I keep up with, for someone looking for some good ones to read while waiting for piratecat. I'm pretty stubborn, you pretty much have to say the story is over to have me take it off my list.
Looking forward to it. I don't know much about the scarred lands setting, and am enjoying learning about it through your writing here.
GW
Issue #16: The Shrine of Gormoth - Episode 1 of 5
We have been busy since the attack on Kratys Freehold. We followed the remnants of the defeated ratman army, tracking them through the treacherous Mourning Marsh, a desolate swamp filled with uncounted horrors.
We met and allied with a band of lizard men, helping cleanse their lake of an ancient evil, and in return they helped us find the rat man warren. Together, we entered the rats’ lair, and in a climactic battle, defeated their shaman and a great albino warrior. The last survivors of the Disease tribe scattered far and wide, and it will be many years before that tribe bothers Vesh again.
We rescued twenty-one slaves, and put to merciful death others which had been infected with the Slimy Doom. Through a gathering storm, we escorted the refugees out of the swamp and have brought almost all of them safely to Kratys Freehold, slipping through the gates just hours before the full fury of the storm broke over southern Vesh.
It is the first Charday of Madrer, the sixth day of the second month of fall. A great storm rages outside, and though it is the middle of the afternoon, it is almost dark beneath the towering dark clouds which loom overhead. After nine days of tramping around in the depths of a swamp, we are all too happy to be safe, warm, and dry in Kratys Freehold.
At the moment, we’re sitting in a room just off the hold’s common hall with Taryn Kratys and his family: his wife, Myrs; the ranger, Llewyn; and the smith, Brand. The discussion has turned to the division of the magic and treasure we acquired in our last adventure. Taryn has been asking for some financial support, and concludes his argument with, “It would help us if you could spare about two hundred gold pieces. We need to buy food for the slaves, and get it transported from Southport or Lave. As you know, our harvest was destroyed in the battle with the rat men, and now we have even more people to feed. In addition to our own people, and the newly freed slaves, there is now a small garrison of professional men at arms here, sent from Lave. We’re responsible for provisioning them as well.”
Novalia turns to the rest of the group. “Why don’t we give them four hundred? We can afford it, and they’ve certainly done a lot for us.”
Miriel and Paks are nodding, and Chuck says, “Let it be so.”
“Thank you! Your kindness is outshone only by your skill at arms,” Taryn exclaims.
“You’re most welcome,” Miriel says graciously, and Novalia looks very pleased.
“Before we divide the remainder of this,” Paks starts, gesturing to the pile of treasure on the table, “I think we need to decide what to do with the scimitar. I can feel the evil taint on it; I think we should destroy it.”
“I agree,” Miriel says. She looks down on the great silver scimitar which the albino once wielded, and it is as though a palpable evil rests on the table. She shudders.
“I don’t think we should destroy it,” Goldpetal objects. “I think it can still be used to destroy Titanspawn.”
“I don’t think that would be safe,” Paks warns. “A blade this evil could corrupt the wielder to its purpose.”
“In any case,” Telryn interjects, “We should study it more, before anyone wields it.”
Chuck interrupts. “I’m not interested in this,” he says. “I’m going to go practice flying. Call me when we divide up the treasure?”
Miriel puts out a hand. “No, stop. We’ll divide up the rest of the treasure, and decide about the scimitar later. For my share, I want to destroy the Agony Pearl.”
Telryn says, “Absolutely. I agree.” Nobody dissents – a magical pearl which causes pain and agony is something none of us wants a part of.
Goldpetal picks up the wooden ring which Telryn had identified it as a Titan-warning ring. “I’ll keep this,” he tells us. He seems to feel strongly about it, perhaps due to his religion.
Miriel says, “I’ll take the potion of blur.”
Chuck asks, “Can I have the potion of vision?” When there is no dissent, he picks it up.
Stone says, “I’m keeping the crown.” The ghoul-king’s crown hasn’t left his head, and he crosses his arms over his chest and glares at the rest of us, as though daring anyone to try to take it from him. The half-orc is intimidating, even to his companions, and no-one objects.
Telryn tentatively requests, “I’d like the glitter ink and the five vials of acid.” His quest has been to find glitter ink, and he is all too happy to claim it as his share.
While we’ve been talking, Myrs and Taryn have been studying the studded leather armor we found. While we were in the swamp, Chuck had been wearing it, but now it is one of the treasures available for division. Now Myrs looks up from the examination and tells us, “This is made from the hides of a myre worm. It is very rare.”
“What’s a myre worm?” asks Paks.
“They are great beasts, perhaps twenty feet long,” Taryn explains. “They live in deeper water, well into the swamp. They have a gigantic maw, and eat nearly anything. A person would be a nice meal for one, and blood in the water may bring even more. You were lucky not to meet them!”
“I’d like to keep the armor,” Chuck says, pulling it off the table.
“I’m the only one that uses the scimitar,” Goldpetal says, taking the masterwork scimitar instead of the enchanted evil blade.
Telryn asks, “Does anybody else want the dictionaries?”
Everybody is shaking their head. Chuck says, “I’ll keep the enchanted manacles.”
Hands of Fire, the great seven-foot tall lizard man warrior whom we met in the swamp, picks up the fine metal mace we found. He swings it around experimentally, and exclaims, in his broken common, “Metal club, good! Wooden club from ancestor tree, not as good.”
Brand overhears him. “I can make you a heavy morning-star,” he offers, “Especially if Dorin is willing to help.” Dorin, who isn’t in the room, is a dwarven smith who was one of the slaves we rescued from the ratmen. Telryn translates Brand’s words for Hands of Fire, who understands some common, but has trouble following someone who speaks rapidly.
“Hands of Fire, for now, you take the mace,” Paks says. “I’ll take the Twilight Warden's longbow; it suits me much better than the short bow I’ve been using.”
“Oh, I wanted that,” Chuck says. “I lost my bow in the warren.”
Paks looks at him sharply. “You’ve already had three shares!”
“Okay,” he says, “I’ll just buy a new bow from the freeholders.”
“What about his amulet?” Miriel asks.
“I’d like it,” Chuck and Goldpetal say simultaneously.
“Let’s keep the amulet for the party,” Miriel says. “I’ll hold onto it, for now.”
“That leaves the Hide ring,” Telryn says. “I’d like that, if I may.”
“Sure,” Chuck says. “I’ll see if I can get the poison off of these flick knives.”
“Use fire,” Taryn advises.
“Okay, we’ll divide up the coins evenly,” Paks says. “But Novalia, Stone, Hands of Fire, and I have gotten less of the magic than you all have, so we four will divide up the gems and jewelry.”
“That seems fair,” Telryn says.
With that, we are done with the treasure. Each member of the party seems happy with their share, although Goldpetal’s purple eyes glint inscrutably.
Later, Paks, Telryn, and Miriel find Brand, the smith, and gather to discuss the evil scimitar.
“Telryn,” Paks says, “How can we unmake this foul thing?”
“I don’t know,” Telryn says. “My training did not progress that far.”
“Brand, would you be able to melt it down?” asks Miriel.
“Were it a normal blade, yes,” the smith says with a shake of his head, “But a magical blade with the taint of evil? I can try, but I doubt I have the skills to deal with such a work. You may need a powerful wizard to unmake it.”
Chuck buys a new bow from the freeholders. The young Vigilant then sets to burning the poison off the flick knives and washing out the vials. Myrs and Telryn work on translating the Slytherin scrolls. The rest of us help out around the freehold, each doing what they can to repay our hosts for their hospitality.
The storm continues to rage outside, but by evening, its fury begins to wane.
As we gather for dinner, Dorin Silvershield, the dwarf we rescued from slavery to the ratmen, finds us all. “I thank you again for freeing me,” he says. “I owe you a great debt. If you be going on to Southport, I would accompany you.”
“We have not yet laid plans,” Miriel tells him.
Dorin takes out a gold piece, and draws a rune on it with his index finger. His finger glows as he does so. “This is the rune of my clan, the Silvershield,” he says, and hands the coin to Paks. She looks at it, and the rune is etched on the coin in a glowing script. As she watches, it fades away. “If ever you come to the Burok-Torn, citadel of the dwarves in the Kelder Mountains,” he continues formally, “You may use this token to gain entrance to the dwarven city. My clan owes you a debt: if you need help, you have but to reach us to receive assistance.”
“You are gracious indeed,” Paks says. “We thank you.”
Dinner is served, and we begin to eat. Myrs keeps a fine table, and the food is excellent. We mingle with the townsfolk and the refugees, and spirits are high. One of the former slaves is a fine singer, and many in the hall join him when he reaches the chorus. Goldpetal contributes a song, with the haunting beauty of an elven ballad, which brings tears to many an eye even if the language is understood by only a few. Stories are traded, and we are again asked to give a rendition of our adventures.
Finally, as the dinner winds down, we all gather around a single table in the back of the room.
“We should discuss what we want to do next,” Paks says. “I think we’ve discharged our obligation to the Freehold, and to these freedmen. Do we want to return to Southport?”
Goldpetal speaks first. “I want to hire people to tear down the standing stones,” he says. The standing stones are a ring of great stones positioned on a hilltop perhaps five or six hours travel from Kratys Freehold. We explored them a few weeks earlier, and discovered an altar, with dried blood on it, and sensed a great evil. We think that the place was used for Titan worship. “I also want to find out more about the Elvish city in the swamp. Eventually, I plan to finish my journey to Rika.”
Miriel nods. “I will be returning to Lave,” she says. “I must report back to my high priestess at the Cathedral there. I do think we should send a message to Southport, with Dorin, to wrap up our employment there.”
“I want to stay here,” Novalia tells us, “And purge the rat men from the swamp! I think we should hire some mercenaries from Lave, and build a force here. With the stalwart hearts of this company, we could stand as a shield between civilized land and the Titanspawn of the Mourning Marshes.”
“I need to return to Mullis Town,” Telryn says, shaking his head at her idea, “To take this glitter ink to my master. Mullis Town is a few days north of Lave, so Miriel, I’d go with you to the capital.”
“I will have revenge,” Chuck vows. We don’t need to ask what for: twice he has apprenticed himself to elder Vigil, Steve and Jim, and both have been killed by ratmen. “I want to continue my training, and to fight against evil.” After a moment’s thought, he adds, “I also need to practice flying.”
Paks says, “Miriel, I’d go to Lave with you. I want to ask your priestess some questions. But I’d like to pass through Southport on our way there.”
Miriel shakes her head. “I don’t feel that I can delay further,” she tells Paks regretfully.
There is a brief lull in the conversation, and then Telryn launches into a story which he hasn’t told us before. “My father, Kellharyn,” he tells us, “Was a Callastian battle mage. He was supporting Virduk’s first foray into Durrover, but I understand that he was more interested in the study of the Arcane than the conquering of foes.
“His company raided a village, and captured a priestess of Madriel. Instead of treating her with the respect that she deserved, the war leaders decided to try to extract information of Durrover’s defenses from her, in a most un-respectful manner. Kellharyn stepped to her aid, and one dark night, he freed the priestess, helped her escape, and deserted his order all in one moment.” The noise of the wind howling outside lends drama to the tale.
“They were on the run for many months, and eventually, they fell in love. They committed themselves to trying to stop, or at least stall, Virduk’s progress into Durrover. To this day, they are a powerful force for good, and continue to travel in, out, and around Durrover doing whatever they can to harry the Callastian forces and help those in need.
“They had two children, my older sister, and myself.” When Telryn’s story moves away from the dramatic rescue, Chuck becomes bored, and wanders away. Telryn continues, uninterrupted. “Recognizing that Durrover could not stand long against the Callastian assault, and that my mother could hardly fight while saddled with two babes, they fostered us to a friend of my mother’s. We grew up under the care of a High Cleric of Hedrada, Victor.
“My sister thrived under their strict rules, and became an accomplished man-at-arms. She went on to become a Paladin of Hedrada. However, I became a follower of Madriel, as my mother had before me. Fortunately, Victor recognized my talent for the arcane, and secured an apprenticeship with Loowys Strangeblood, a mage in Mullis Town. After two years of apprenticeship, my master sent me to the mage Delmeron to secure some glitter ink. As you know, Delmeron said he would teleport me where I could find some glitter ink, but the spell went awry, and he teleported me to your side instead.
“So, I don’t believe that I found Miriel by chance,” Telryn concludes, “And I plan to follow her to Lave, as I believe that is what I am meant to do.”
His final declaration is met by nods of understanding, even from those in favor of returning to Southport: the gods move in mysterious ways, and this is a reason everyone can understand.
In the ensuing silence, from up on the roof, we hear a faint shout. “Don’t do it!” This is followed by a short scream and a crunching thump.
Miriel yells, “Chuck!” and runs outside. Stone follows; the rest of us stay inside and dry.
Miriel finds Chuck crumpled in the interior courtyard. She helps him to his feet, but he is limping heavily. She gives it a quick examination, and says, “You’ve sprained an ankle. Here, come inside, and let me bind it up.” With Stone helping on one side, and Miriel on the other, Chuck hobbles into the hall.
She and Stone are soaking wet, but minutes after she’s finished binding the leg, we hear a commotion again. One of the guards comes in, and tells us, “You’d better stop your friend. He keeps jumping off the roof.”
Miriel goes outside, and finds that this time he’s broken his ankle. Again, Stone helps haul him inside, where Miriel gives him a lecture. “Have you learned your lesson yet?” she asks, as she calls Madriel’s healing to mend the fracture.
Chuck nods wearily. “It’s not the best day for flying,” he says. “The wind is too strong.”
22nd of March, 2003
Issue #16
The Shrine of Gormoth
The Shrine of Gormoth
We have been busy since the attack on Kratys Freehold. We followed the remnants of the defeated ratman army, tracking them through the treacherous Mourning Marsh, a desolate swamp filled with uncounted horrors.
We met and allied with a band of lizard men, helping cleanse their lake of an ancient evil, and in return they helped us find the rat man warren. Together, we entered the rats’ lair, and in a climactic battle, defeated their shaman and a great albino warrior. The last survivors of the Disease tribe scattered far and wide, and it will be many years before that tribe bothers Vesh again.
We rescued twenty-one slaves, and put to merciful death others which had been infected with the Slimy Doom. Through a gathering storm, we escorted the refugees out of the swamp and have brought almost all of them safely to Kratys Freehold, slipping through the gates just hours before the full fury of the storm broke over southern Vesh.
It is the first Charday of Madrer, the sixth day of the second month of fall. A great storm rages outside, and though it is the middle of the afternoon, it is almost dark beneath the towering dark clouds which loom overhead. After nine days of tramping around in the depths of a swamp, we are all too happy to be safe, warm, and dry in Kratys Freehold.
At the moment, we’re sitting in a room just off the hold’s common hall with Taryn Kratys and his family: his wife, Myrs; the ranger, Llewyn; and the smith, Brand. The discussion has turned to the division of the magic and treasure we acquired in our last adventure. Taryn has been asking for some financial support, and concludes his argument with, “It would help us if you could spare about two hundred gold pieces. We need to buy food for the slaves, and get it transported from Southport or Lave. As you know, our harvest was destroyed in the battle with the rat men, and now we have even more people to feed. In addition to our own people, and the newly freed slaves, there is now a small garrison of professional men at arms here, sent from Lave. We’re responsible for provisioning them as well.”
Novalia turns to the rest of the group. “Why don’t we give them four hundred? We can afford it, and they’ve certainly done a lot for us.”
Miriel and Paks are nodding, and Chuck says, “Let it be so.”
“Thank you! Your kindness is outshone only by your skill at arms,” Taryn exclaims.
“You’re most welcome,” Miriel says graciously, and Novalia looks very pleased.
“Before we divide the remainder of this,” Paks starts, gesturing to the pile of treasure on the table, “I think we need to decide what to do with the scimitar. I can feel the evil taint on it; I think we should destroy it.”
“I agree,” Miriel says. She looks down on the great silver scimitar which the albino once wielded, and it is as though a palpable evil rests on the table. She shudders.
“I don’t think we should destroy it,” Goldpetal objects. “I think it can still be used to destroy Titanspawn.”
“I don’t think that would be safe,” Paks warns. “A blade this evil could corrupt the wielder to its purpose.”
“In any case,” Telryn interjects, “We should study it more, before anyone wields it.”
Chuck interrupts. “I’m not interested in this,” he says. “I’m going to go practice flying. Call me when we divide up the treasure?”
Miriel puts out a hand. “No, stop. We’ll divide up the rest of the treasure, and decide about the scimitar later. For my share, I want to destroy the Agony Pearl.”
Telryn says, “Absolutely. I agree.” Nobody dissents – a magical pearl which causes pain and agony is something none of us wants a part of.
Goldpetal picks up the wooden ring which Telryn had identified it as a Titan-warning ring. “I’ll keep this,” he tells us. He seems to feel strongly about it, perhaps due to his religion.
Miriel says, “I’ll take the potion of blur.”
Chuck asks, “Can I have the potion of vision?” When there is no dissent, he picks it up.
Stone says, “I’m keeping the crown.” The ghoul-king’s crown hasn’t left his head, and he crosses his arms over his chest and glares at the rest of us, as though daring anyone to try to take it from him. The half-orc is intimidating, even to his companions, and no-one objects.
Telryn tentatively requests, “I’d like the glitter ink and the five vials of acid.” His quest has been to find glitter ink, and he is all too happy to claim it as his share.
While we’ve been talking, Myrs and Taryn have been studying the studded leather armor we found. While we were in the swamp, Chuck had been wearing it, but now it is one of the treasures available for division. Now Myrs looks up from the examination and tells us, “This is made from the hides of a myre worm. It is very rare.”
“What’s a myre worm?” asks Paks.
“They are great beasts, perhaps twenty feet long,” Taryn explains. “They live in deeper water, well into the swamp. They have a gigantic maw, and eat nearly anything. A person would be a nice meal for one, and blood in the water may bring even more. You were lucky not to meet them!”
“I’d like to keep the armor,” Chuck says, pulling it off the table.
“I’m the only one that uses the scimitar,” Goldpetal says, taking the masterwork scimitar instead of the enchanted evil blade.
Telryn asks, “Does anybody else want the dictionaries?”
Everybody is shaking their head. Chuck says, “I’ll keep the enchanted manacles.”
Hands of Fire, the great seven-foot tall lizard man warrior whom we met in the swamp, picks up the fine metal mace we found. He swings it around experimentally, and exclaims, in his broken common, “Metal club, good! Wooden club from ancestor tree, not as good.”
Brand overhears him. “I can make you a heavy morning-star,” he offers, “Especially if Dorin is willing to help.” Dorin, who isn’t in the room, is a dwarven smith who was one of the slaves we rescued from the ratmen. Telryn translates Brand’s words for Hands of Fire, who understands some common, but has trouble following someone who speaks rapidly.
“Hands of Fire, for now, you take the mace,” Paks says. “I’ll take the Twilight Warden's longbow; it suits me much better than the short bow I’ve been using.”
“Oh, I wanted that,” Chuck says. “I lost my bow in the warren.”
Paks looks at him sharply. “You’ve already had three shares!”
“Okay,” he says, “I’ll just buy a new bow from the freeholders.”
“What about his amulet?” Miriel asks.
“I’d like it,” Chuck and Goldpetal say simultaneously.
“Let’s keep the amulet for the party,” Miriel says. “I’ll hold onto it, for now.”
“That leaves the Hide ring,” Telryn says. “I’d like that, if I may.”
“Sure,” Chuck says. “I’ll see if I can get the poison off of these flick knives.”
“Use fire,” Taryn advises.
“Okay, we’ll divide up the coins evenly,” Paks says. “But Novalia, Stone, Hands of Fire, and I have gotten less of the magic than you all have, so we four will divide up the gems and jewelry.”
“That seems fair,” Telryn says.
With that, we are done with the treasure. Each member of the party seems happy with their share, although Goldpetal’s purple eyes glint inscrutably.
Later, Paks, Telryn, and Miriel find Brand, the smith, and gather to discuss the evil scimitar.
“Telryn,” Paks says, “How can we unmake this foul thing?”
“I don’t know,” Telryn says. “My training did not progress that far.”
“Brand, would you be able to melt it down?” asks Miriel.
“Were it a normal blade, yes,” the smith says with a shake of his head, “But a magical blade with the taint of evil? I can try, but I doubt I have the skills to deal with such a work. You may need a powerful wizard to unmake it.”
Chuck buys a new bow from the freeholders. The young Vigilant then sets to burning the poison off the flick knives and washing out the vials. Myrs and Telryn work on translating the Slytherin scrolls. The rest of us help out around the freehold, each doing what they can to repay our hosts for their hospitality.
The storm continues to rage outside, but by evening, its fury begins to wane.
As we gather for dinner, Dorin Silvershield, the dwarf we rescued from slavery to the ratmen, finds us all. “I thank you again for freeing me,” he says. “I owe you a great debt. If you be going on to Southport, I would accompany you.”
“We have not yet laid plans,” Miriel tells him.
Dorin takes out a gold piece, and draws a rune on it with his index finger. His finger glows as he does so. “This is the rune of my clan, the Silvershield,” he says, and hands the coin to Paks. She looks at it, and the rune is etched on the coin in a glowing script. As she watches, it fades away. “If ever you come to the Burok-Torn, citadel of the dwarves in the Kelder Mountains,” he continues formally, “You may use this token to gain entrance to the dwarven city. My clan owes you a debt: if you need help, you have but to reach us to receive assistance.”
“You are gracious indeed,” Paks says. “We thank you.”
Dinner is served, and we begin to eat. Myrs keeps a fine table, and the food is excellent. We mingle with the townsfolk and the refugees, and spirits are high. One of the former slaves is a fine singer, and many in the hall join him when he reaches the chorus. Goldpetal contributes a song, with the haunting beauty of an elven ballad, which brings tears to many an eye even if the language is understood by only a few. Stories are traded, and we are again asked to give a rendition of our adventures.
Finally, as the dinner winds down, we all gather around a single table in the back of the room.
“We should discuss what we want to do next,” Paks says. “I think we’ve discharged our obligation to the Freehold, and to these freedmen. Do we want to return to Southport?”
Goldpetal speaks first. “I want to hire people to tear down the standing stones,” he says. The standing stones are a ring of great stones positioned on a hilltop perhaps five or six hours travel from Kratys Freehold. We explored them a few weeks earlier, and discovered an altar, with dried blood on it, and sensed a great evil. We think that the place was used for Titan worship. “I also want to find out more about the Elvish city in the swamp. Eventually, I plan to finish my journey to Rika.”
Miriel nods. “I will be returning to Lave,” she says. “I must report back to my high priestess at the Cathedral there. I do think we should send a message to Southport, with Dorin, to wrap up our employment there.”
“I want to stay here,” Novalia tells us, “And purge the rat men from the swamp! I think we should hire some mercenaries from Lave, and build a force here. With the stalwart hearts of this company, we could stand as a shield between civilized land and the Titanspawn of the Mourning Marshes.”
“I need to return to Mullis Town,” Telryn says, shaking his head at her idea, “To take this glitter ink to my master. Mullis Town is a few days north of Lave, so Miriel, I’d go with you to the capital.”
“I will have revenge,” Chuck vows. We don’t need to ask what for: twice he has apprenticed himself to elder Vigil, Steve and Jim, and both have been killed by ratmen. “I want to continue my training, and to fight against evil.” After a moment’s thought, he adds, “I also need to practice flying.”
Paks says, “Miriel, I’d go to Lave with you. I want to ask your priestess some questions. But I’d like to pass through Southport on our way there.”
Miriel shakes her head. “I don’t feel that I can delay further,” she tells Paks regretfully.
There is a brief lull in the conversation, and then Telryn launches into a story which he hasn’t told us before. “My father, Kellharyn,” he tells us, “Was a Callastian battle mage. He was supporting Virduk’s first foray into Durrover, but I understand that he was more interested in the study of the Arcane than the conquering of foes.
“His company raided a village, and captured a priestess of Madriel. Instead of treating her with the respect that she deserved, the war leaders decided to try to extract information of Durrover’s defenses from her, in a most un-respectful manner. Kellharyn stepped to her aid, and one dark night, he freed the priestess, helped her escape, and deserted his order all in one moment.” The noise of the wind howling outside lends drama to the tale.
“They were on the run for many months, and eventually, they fell in love. They committed themselves to trying to stop, or at least stall, Virduk’s progress into Durrover. To this day, they are a powerful force for good, and continue to travel in, out, and around Durrover doing whatever they can to harry the Callastian forces and help those in need.
“They had two children, my older sister, and myself.” When Telryn’s story moves away from the dramatic rescue, Chuck becomes bored, and wanders away. Telryn continues, uninterrupted. “Recognizing that Durrover could not stand long against the Callastian assault, and that my mother could hardly fight while saddled with two babes, they fostered us to a friend of my mother’s. We grew up under the care of a High Cleric of Hedrada, Victor.
“My sister thrived under their strict rules, and became an accomplished man-at-arms. She went on to become a Paladin of Hedrada. However, I became a follower of Madriel, as my mother had before me. Fortunately, Victor recognized my talent for the arcane, and secured an apprenticeship with Loowys Strangeblood, a mage in Mullis Town. After two years of apprenticeship, my master sent me to the mage Delmeron to secure some glitter ink. As you know, Delmeron said he would teleport me where I could find some glitter ink, but the spell went awry, and he teleported me to your side instead.
“So, I don’t believe that I found Miriel by chance,” Telryn concludes, “And I plan to follow her to Lave, as I believe that is what I am meant to do.”
His final declaration is met by nods of understanding, even from those in favor of returning to Southport: the gods move in mysterious ways, and this is a reason everyone can understand.
In the ensuing silence, from up on the roof, we hear a faint shout. “Don’t do it!” This is followed by a short scream and a crunching thump.
Miriel yells, “Chuck!” and runs outside. Stone follows; the rest of us stay inside and dry.
Miriel finds Chuck crumpled in the interior courtyard. She helps him to his feet, but he is limping heavily. She gives it a quick examination, and says, “You’ve sprained an ankle. Here, come inside, and let me bind it up.” With Stone helping on one side, and Miriel on the other, Chuck hobbles into the hall.
She and Stone are soaking wet, but minutes after she’s finished binding the leg, we hear a commotion again. One of the guards comes in, and tells us, “You’d better stop your friend. He keeps jumping off the roof.”
Miriel goes outside, and finds that this time he’s broken his ankle. Again, Stone helps haul him inside, where Miriel gives him a lecture. “Have you learned your lesson yet?” she asks, as she calls Madriel’s healing to mend the fracture.
Chuck nods wearily. “It’s not the best day for flying,” he says. “The wind is too strong.”
Issue #16: The Shrine of Gormoth - Episode 2 of 5
During the night, the wind relents, and the rain lessens to a steady drumming. Goldpetal slips outside to sleep out doors, as is his wont – the previous night was the first time anyone remembers seeing the elf sleep indoors of his own volition. By dawn on Belsaday, the seventh day of Madrer, the rain has stopped, and the sun peeks through from the horizon. The storm has passed. Miriel and Goldpetal are both pleased, as their dawn rites are more meaningful with the light of the sun.
When they return, we gather in the dining hall. Over breakfast, enjoying the fine meal which Myrs has prepared, we resume our discussion about where to go.
“We need to decide where we go from here,” Miriel tells us firmly. “I would like to set out for Lave as soon as possible. If any of you are willing to come with me, that’s good, but if not, I will go, regardless.”
“I still think we should stop through Southport,” Paks argues stubbornly. “We still have unfinished business, and we at least owe Grilliam a report.”
“I agree with Paks,” Chuck says. “We should finish out our contract.”
“I’ll go where Miriel goes,” Stone says implacably.
“That goes for me, too,” Telryn agrees, “Though I would like to stay here for a few days to have some quiet time for studying.”
“I have little interest in going to Lave,” declares Goldpetal. The druid turns his eyes to Paks. “Paks, if you decide to go through Southport, I do feel we owe Grilliam our report. If you follow Miriel to Lave, I will return to Southport with Dorin – though elves have no love of dwarves – and discharge our obligation there.”
Six pairs of eyes turn towards Novalia. The newcomer shakes her head. “Oh, no. Don’t look at me to play tiebreaker,” she says emphatically. “I’d rather stay here.”
It is evenly split, and it seems no argument can break the deadlock. A silence lingers, and the specter of dissolving our companionship begins to loom in everyone’s minds. Finally, Paks steps in conciliatorily. “We could all use a rest,” she offers, “And the roads won’t be easy to travel so soon after a rain, anyways. Let’s stay here for another day.”
This meets with almost universal agreement. Seeing that everyone but her agrees with this, Miriel reluctantly concedes. “I can stay for a short while at the freehold,” she says, “So that I can travel back to Lave with at least part of this company for protection, but I must leave tomorrow.”
Through that morning, we are all feeling happy and full of joy. We are not in the cursed swamp, we don’t have to constantly watch out for rat men, and we’ve all had a bath. Even Stone, over his half-hearted protests, has enjoyed his first bath since the Laughing Ogre Inn. Stone, Paks, Chuck, and Hands of Fire spend the morning working with a large group on building shelter for the refugees. The solution of having them sleep in the freehold’s great hall would not work for an extended period, and an additional dormitory-like building needs to be constructed. With the strength of the half-orc and the lizard man, they make much quicker progress than expected. All throughout the morning, Llewyn finds excuse after excuse to be by Chuck’s side. The rest of us find this very amusing, but all he can seem to think about is flying and ducks.
While the stronger folk work, Telryn begs not to be interrupted, and finds a quiet room in which to study his books. Goldpetal performs a harvest ritual, helped by a couple of the townsfolk, Miriel, and Novalia.
By lunch, however, the mood begins to grow more somber. “Have you seen the Nameless Orb?” Goldpetal asks, referring to the world’s second moon. “It is full today.”
Stone shrugs it off. “The gods tell us we should not pay attention to it,” he declares.
“It's very odd,” Novalia adds. “Its been visible all day, despite the clouds.”
“This is a very bad omen,” Goldpetal warns. Half-orc and elf glare at each other, and then shrug.
Miriel has felt a vague sense of unease throughout the day; however, she can’t define it, and says nothing. After lunch the priestess secludes herself in meditation, asking Madriel to aid her in divining the source of the problem. No inspiration comes to her, just a steadily growing feeling of horror.
Novalia takes Paks off for a talk, and outlines her plan to build a small force to guard the Veshian border, using the walls of Kratys Freehold as a starting point. She has a very detailed plan for hiring mercenaries with the money we made, using lizard men as guides, basing a force around the Freehold’s new garrison of men at arms, building barracks, and reinforcing the walls of the freehold.
Paks declines, saying that while she can see that it is an important job which needs to be done, she does not feel the call that tells her that it is her job.
Novalia gives Paks a shopping list which she has prepared, and asks her to buy the items on it, and send them back to Kratys Freehold. One of the items on the list is a group of mercenaries, which she tells Paks to put in charge of delivering the remaining goods. Over Paks’ uneasy objections, Novalia tells the former mercenary that she trusts Paks to pick an honorable company for it.
When Miriel is done with her meditation, she spends the afternoon studying with Myrs. Telryn is off on his own, buried in scrolls and spellbooks, as he has been all day. Stone and Hands of Fire keep helping with the building, while Chuck spends the afternoon working on fletching arrows. Llewyn takes the opportunity to approach Chuck, but again all he wants to talk about is ducks. What was funny in the morning strikes everyone as very sad in the afternoon.
In the later part of the afternoon, Paks and Goldpetal go off to talk, walking through the apple grove beyond the walls of the freehold.
Paks tells the elf that Milo told her, before he left, some very strange things about Miriel. “I don’t know if they are true,” she says, “But he implied that he was an agent of Madriel’s church, and that she was not behaving as a priestess of Madriel would. I don’t trust the little git, but he gave me this holy symbol, which spoke some words in his favor, at least.”
“She was certainly the one most opposed to him,” Goldpetal says thoughtfully. “Which makes sense both if his tale is true, or if he were a liar.”
“I don’t mean to spread discord. I just thought, if anything should happen to me, somebody else should know,” Paks tells him. “I don’t think there’s anything to do about it immediately.”
They walk in silence for a minute, and then Paks changes the subject. “Have you felt anything odd today?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head and giving her his full attention – an uncomfortable moment, since he frequently appears not to. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve had a vague sense of dread all day,” she tells him. “I thought it was my imagination, at first, but it grows stronger and stronger. I feel like something is very wrong.”
“I have noticed nothing,” the elf tells her. “But I will stay alert tonight.”
As the sun begins to set, everyone gathers in the main hall. Conversation is subdued and quiet, and Stone and Chuck are drinking heavily. Miriel is in the kitchen, helping to prepare for the evening meal. Brand and Dorin enter with the morningstar, which they have spent all day forging for Hands of Fire. The lizard man is very pleased, and so overcome that he has trouble expressing his thanks in Common.
Midway through the meal, Telryn arrives and asks for lunch. Normally, everyone might have laughed, but the somber mood has spread, and the hall is quiet. Conversation turns to halting awkward pause by the end of the meal, and afterwards everyone is sitting in an attitude of morose lassitude.
Just after sunset, a guard bursts into the main hall. “Captain!” he says breathlessly. “We need you at the gate! A strange ratman needs to speak to you and the heroes!”
“What?” Taryn exclaims, “A ratman? And he’s not dead? Why isn’t he shot full of arrows?”
The guard looks embarrassed. “That’s just the thing, sir,” he says nervously. “We can’t seem to fire at it.”
Taryn grunts impatiently. “Send for Myrs and Miriel,” he says. “Let’s meet this ratman.”
The leader of the Freehold heads for the gate, followed by the rest of the party. We climb behind him to the top of the freehold’s hall, overlooking the gate. In the crisp autumn twilight, we can see a robed rat man leaning on a wooden staff, cloaked and hooded. Two guards stand staring at him, apparently unable or unwilling to draw their bows.
Novalia and Goldpetal immediately try to draw theirs, but find that they cannot find the heart to bring their weapons to bear. Chuck manages to draw his, and aims at the rat man, but hesitates. Taryn, however, has no hesitation. He grabs a bow from a guard, and fires. The arrow flies straight towards the ratman, aimed directly between his eyes. Just as it reaches him, the ratman casually knocks the arrow away, as one might brush aside a fly.
The ratman pulls back his hood, and we see that his fur is mottled black and white, and he has no eyes at all! He addresses us in a strange whistling accent, as if he is speaking a tongue very foreign to him. “Humans! Slytherin Killers! Listen to me, you must!
“I am Sklar-d’sklas of the Unseeing. Evil, unspeakable, stopped, it must be. Feel it, can you not? Are you blind? Waxing, the power of the dark moon, night of ritual power. To the site of power, look!”
With his last words, he points off to the hill of the standing stones, looming many miles to the east. As he points, a large bonfire of lavender flames ignites atop the hill!
“Ancient hated enemies, followers of Twisted Gormoth, prepare. Evil Rituals to enact! Stop them, now, you must! Or too late it will be!”
“Why do you tell us this?” Goldpetal demands.
The rat man does not answer, he just covers his head with his hood and quickly strides off into the gathering gloom. Chuck looses the arrow at him, and he casually reaches behind himself, batting the arrow out of mid-air without breaking stride or turning.
“No way!” Stone exclaims passionately. He jumps off the parapet, landing in a tumble which breaks his fall. “I’ll take care of the blind one,” he yells up at us. “You guys take care of the ritual!” He sprints after the rat man, quickly disappearing into the shadows of the orchard.
“What do you make of that?” asks Chuck.
“I have never encountered one of the Unseeing before,” Goldpetal tells us. “But I’ve heard many tales of them. It is said that they live in the south of the Ganjus Forest, where I grew up. They used to follow Golthain the Faceless. Golthain had the power to feel all living things. The other Titans mocked him, and tortured him; destroying all his senses. He was the only Titan who surrendered, and the gods allowed him to be absorbed into Denev. The Unseeing are all blind, born without eyes. Instead of sight, they have an empathic sense. They hate all the other tribes of rat men terribly; this hatred is equaled only by their hatred of the followers of the gods, who they believe betrayed the Titans. They are hard to find, as there are very few of them, and each is an expert monk.”
Paks inquires, “Who or what is Gormoth?”
“Gormoth is one of the worst Titans of all,” Goldpetal tells her. “He is known as the Writhing Lord. He was the first Titan to figure out how to create sentient beings, and all the other Titans were jealous, so they poisoned him and fed him to parasitic worms. They then buried him; he was supposedly dead, but eons later he returned twisted and mad. Eventually, he was cloven in two by Chardun and Vangal. His two halves lie on either side of a forgotten canyon. His followers are all mad, and devotees of pain, both giving and receiving.”
Taryn adds, “The rat men who follow him are known as The Stricken. They live far south of here. They are all twisted, with weird appendages and strange powers, and they are very evil, and very mad.”
Miriel asks, “How long would it take us to get to the hill?”
“You won’t make it by midnight on foot,” Taryn tells her. “You can borrow horses from the freehold, though. I’d think, in the dark, you can make it in about five hours on horseback.”
“I’m going to go get my armor,” Paks says, stepping down off the parapet.
Miriel, Chuck, and Goldpetal all go to get their armor as well. Miriel also grabs a couple of loaves of bread from the kitchen. We leave the treasure in the freehold, taking only those items, such as the potions, which have become part of our equipment.
On the top of the parapet, Telryn gives a quick summary to Hands of Fire, in Draconic. “Is good,” the lizard man tells him. “I try out new morningstar.”
Within minutes, we are all gathered in the courtyard. We only have to borrow a few horses, as most of us had left ours at the freehold before we went into the swamp. Paks asks Taryn, “Will anyone from the freehold come and help us?”
Taryn shakes his head. “No. I need all of my people.” In lieu of manpower, Myrs offers a blessing upon us.
We ride away, moving as quickly as we can to take advantage of the last light. Goldpetal leads, since he can see in the dark. As we travel, Miriel casts bread of life on the two loaves of bread, imbuing it with Madriel’s healing powers.
During the night, the wind relents, and the rain lessens to a steady drumming. Goldpetal slips outside to sleep out doors, as is his wont – the previous night was the first time anyone remembers seeing the elf sleep indoors of his own volition. By dawn on Belsaday, the seventh day of Madrer, the rain has stopped, and the sun peeks through from the horizon. The storm has passed. Miriel and Goldpetal are both pleased, as their dawn rites are more meaningful with the light of the sun.
When they return, we gather in the dining hall. Over breakfast, enjoying the fine meal which Myrs has prepared, we resume our discussion about where to go.
“We need to decide where we go from here,” Miriel tells us firmly. “I would like to set out for Lave as soon as possible. If any of you are willing to come with me, that’s good, but if not, I will go, regardless.”
“I still think we should stop through Southport,” Paks argues stubbornly. “We still have unfinished business, and we at least owe Grilliam a report.”
“I agree with Paks,” Chuck says. “We should finish out our contract.”
“I’ll go where Miriel goes,” Stone says implacably.
“That goes for me, too,” Telryn agrees, “Though I would like to stay here for a few days to have some quiet time for studying.”
“I have little interest in going to Lave,” declares Goldpetal. The druid turns his eyes to Paks. “Paks, if you decide to go through Southport, I do feel we owe Grilliam our report. If you follow Miriel to Lave, I will return to Southport with Dorin – though elves have no love of dwarves – and discharge our obligation there.”
Six pairs of eyes turn towards Novalia. The newcomer shakes her head. “Oh, no. Don’t look at me to play tiebreaker,” she says emphatically. “I’d rather stay here.”
It is evenly split, and it seems no argument can break the deadlock. A silence lingers, and the specter of dissolving our companionship begins to loom in everyone’s minds. Finally, Paks steps in conciliatorily. “We could all use a rest,” she offers, “And the roads won’t be easy to travel so soon after a rain, anyways. Let’s stay here for another day.”
This meets with almost universal agreement. Seeing that everyone but her agrees with this, Miriel reluctantly concedes. “I can stay for a short while at the freehold,” she says, “So that I can travel back to Lave with at least part of this company for protection, but I must leave tomorrow.”
Through that morning, we are all feeling happy and full of joy. We are not in the cursed swamp, we don’t have to constantly watch out for rat men, and we’ve all had a bath. Even Stone, over his half-hearted protests, has enjoyed his first bath since the Laughing Ogre Inn. Stone, Paks, Chuck, and Hands of Fire spend the morning working with a large group on building shelter for the refugees. The solution of having them sleep in the freehold’s great hall would not work for an extended period, and an additional dormitory-like building needs to be constructed. With the strength of the half-orc and the lizard man, they make much quicker progress than expected. All throughout the morning, Llewyn finds excuse after excuse to be by Chuck’s side. The rest of us find this very amusing, but all he can seem to think about is flying and ducks.
While the stronger folk work, Telryn begs not to be interrupted, and finds a quiet room in which to study his books. Goldpetal performs a harvest ritual, helped by a couple of the townsfolk, Miriel, and Novalia.
By lunch, however, the mood begins to grow more somber. “Have you seen the Nameless Orb?” Goldpetal asks, referring to the world’s second moon. “It is full today.”
Stone shrugs it off. “The gods tell us we should not pay attention to it,” he declares.
“It's very odd,” Novalia adds. “Its been visible all day, despite the clouds.”
“This is a very bad omen,” Goldpetal warns. Half-orc and elf glare at each other, and then shrug.
Miriel has felt a vague sense of unease throughout the day; however, she can’t define it, and says nothing. After lunch the priestess secludes herself in meditation, asking Madriel to aid her in divining the source of the problem. No inspiration comes to her, just a steadily growing feeling of horror.
Novalia takes Paks off for a talk, and outlines her plan to build a small force to guard the Veshian border, using the walls of Kratys Freehold as a starting point. She has a very detailed plan for hiring mercenaries with the money we made, using lizard men as guides, basing a force around the Freehold’s new garrison of men at arms, building barracks, and reinforcing the walls of the freehold.
Paks declines, saying that while she can see that it is an important job which needs to be done, she does not feel the call that tells her that it is her job.
Novalia gives Paks a shopping list which she has prepared, and asks her to buy the items on it, and send them back to Kratys Freehold. One of the items on the list is a group of mercenaries, which she tells Paks to put in charge of delivering the remaining goods. Over Paks’ uneasy objections, Novalia tells the former mercenary that she trusts Paks to pick an honorable company for it.
When Miriel is done with her meditation, she spends the afternoon studying with Myrs. Telryn is off on his own, buried in scrolls and spellbooks, as he has been all day. Stone and Hands of Fire keep helping with the building, while Chuck spends the afternoon working on fletching arrows. Llewyn takes the opportunity to approach Chuck, but again all he wants to talk about is ducks. What was funny in the morning strikes everyone as very sad in the afternoon.
In the later part of the afternoon, Paks and Goldpetal go off to talk, walking through the apple grove beyond the walls of the freehold.
Paks tells the elf that Milo told her, before he left, some very strange things about Miriel. “I don’t know if they are true,” she says, “But he implied that he was an agent of Madriel’s church, and that she was not behaving as a priestess of Madriel would. I don’t trust the little git, but he gave me this holy symbol, which spoke some words in his favor, at least.”
“She was certainly the one most opposed to him,” Goldpetal says thoughtfully. “Which makes sense both if his tale is true, or if he were a liar.”
“I don’t mean to spread discord. I just thought, if anything should happen to me, somebody else should know,” Paks tells him. “I don’t think there’s anything to do about it immediately.”
They walk in silence for a minute, and then Paks changes the subject. “Have you felt anything odd today?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head and giving her his full attention – an uncomfortable moment, since he frequently appears not to. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve had a vague sense of dread all day,” she tells him. “I thought it was my imagination, at first, but it grows stronger and stronger. I feel like something is very wrong.”
“I have noticed nothing,” the elf tells her. “But I will stay alert tonight.”
As the sun begins to set, everyone gathers in the main hall. Conversation is subdued and quiet, and Stone and Chuck are drinking heavily. Miriel is in the kitchen, helping to prepare for the evening meal. Brand and Dorin enter with the morningstar, which they have spent all day forging for Hands of Fire. The lizard man is very pleased, and so overcome that he has trouble expressing his thanks in Common.
Midway through the meal, Telryn arrives and asks for lunch. Normally, everyone might have laughed, but the somber mood has spread, and the hall is quiet. Conversation turns to halting awkward pause by the end of the meal, and afterwards everyone is sitting in an attitude of morose lassitude.
Just after sunset, a guard bursts into the main hall. “Captain!” he says breathlessly. “We need you at the gate! A strange ratman needs to speak to you and the heroes!”
“What?” Taryn exclaims, “A ratman? And he’s not dead? Why isn’t he shot full of arrows?”
The guard looks embarrassed. “That’s just the thing, sir,” he says nervously. “We can’t seem to fire at it.”
Taryn grunts impatiently. “Send for Myrs and Miriel,” he says. “Let’s meet this ratman.”
The leader of the Freehold heads for the gate, followed by the rest of the party. We climb behind him to the top of the freehold’s hall, overlooking the gate. In the crisp autumn twilight, we can see a robed rat man leaning on a wooden staff, cloaked and hooded. Two guards stand staring at him, apparently unable or unwilling to draw their bows.
Novalia and Goldpetal immediately try to draw theirs, but find that they cannot find the heart to bring their weapons to bear. Chuck manages to draw his, and aims at the rat man, but hesitates. Taryn, however, has no hesitation. He grabs a bow from a guard, and fires. The arrow flies straight towards the ratman, aimed directly between his eyes. Just as it reaches him, the ratman casually knocks the arrow away, as one might brush aside a fly.
The ratman pulls back his hood, and we see that his fur is mottled black and white, and he has no eyes at all! He addresses us in a strange whistling accent, as if he is speaking a tongue very foreign to him. “Humans! Slytherin Killers! Listen to me, you must!
“I am Sklar-d’sklas of the Unseeing. Evil, unspeakable, stopped, it must be. Feel it, can you not? Are you blind? Waxing, the power of the dark moon, night of ritual power. To the site of power, look!”
With his last words, he points off to the hill of the standing stones, looming many miles to the east. As he points, a large bonfire of lavender flames ignites atop the hill!
“Ancient hated enemies, followers of Twisted Gormoth, prepare. Evil Rituals to enact! Stop them, now, you must! Or too late it will be!”
“Why do you tell us this?” Goldpetal demands.
The rat man does not answer, he just covers his head with his hood and quickly strides off into the gathering gloom. Chuck looses the arrow at him, and he casually reaches behind himself, batting the arrow out of mid-air without breaking stride or turning.
“No way!” Stone exclaims passionately. He jumps off the parapet, landing in a tumble which breaks his fall. “I’ll take care of the blind one,” he yells up at us. “You guys take care of the ritual!” He sprints after the rat man, quickly disappearing into the shadows of the orchard.
“What do you make of that?” asks Chuck.
“I have never encountered one of the Unseeing before,” Goldpetal tells us. “But I’ve heard many tales of them. It is said that they live in the south of the Ganjus Forest, where I grew up. They used to follow Golthain the Faceless. Golthain had the power to feel all living things. The other Titans mocked him, and tortured him; destroying all his senses. He was the only Titan who surrendered, and the gods allowed him to be absorbed into Denev. The Unseeing are all blind, born without eyes. Instead of sight, they have an empathic sense. They hate all the other tribes of rat men terribly; this hatred is equaled only by their hatred of the followers of the gods, who they believe betrayed the Titans. They are hard to find, as there are very few of them, and each is an expert monk.”
Paks inquires, “Who or what is Gormoth?”
“Gormoth is one of the worst Titans of all,” Goldpetal tells her. “He is known as the Writhing Lord. He was the first Titan to figure out how to create sentient beings, and all the other Titans were jealous, so they poisoned him and fed him to parasitic worms. They then buried him; he was supposedly dead, but eons later he returned twisted and mad. Eventually, he was cloven in two by Chardun and Vangal. His two halves lie on either side of a forgotten canyon. His followers are all mad, and devotees of pain, both giving and receiving.”
Taryn adds, “The rat men who follow him are known as The Stricken. They live far south of here. They are all twisted, with weird appendages and strange powers, and they are very evil, and very mad.”
Miriel asks, “How long would it take us to get to the hill?”
“You won’t make it by midnight on foot,” Taryn tells her. “You can borrow horses from the freehold, though. I’d think, in the dark, you can make it in about five hours on horseback.”
“I’m going to go get my armor,” Paks says, stepping down off the parapet.
Miriel, Chuck, and Goldpetal all go to get their armor as well. Miriel also grabs a couple of loaves of bread from the kitchen. We leave the treasure in the freehold, taking only those items, such as the potions, which have become part of our equipment.
On the top of the parapet, Telryn gives a quick summary to Hands of Fire, in Draconic. “Is good,” the lizard man tells him. “I try out new morningstar.”
Within minutes, we are all gathered in the courtyard. We only have to borrow a few horses, as most of us had left ours at the freehold before we went into the swamp. Paks asks Taryn, “Will anyone from the freehold come and help us?”
Taryn shakes his head. “No. I need all of my people.” In lieu of manpower, Myrs offers a blessing upon us.
We ride away, moving as quickly as we can to take advantage of the last light. Goldpetal leads, since he can see in the dark. As we travel, Miriel casts bread of life on the two loaves of bread, imbuing it with Madriel’s healing powers.
Issue #16: The Shrine of Gormoth - Episode 3 of 5
We arrive at the bottom of the hill just around midnight. As we draw near, the ring on Goldpetal’s finger gives him a sharp shock. Looking up atop the hill, we can see four large braziers, with leaping purple flames, and three figures moving among the towering, ancient stones.
Goldpetal puts his fingers to his lips. “Three of them,” he whispers.
Telryn whispers, “Wait a moment, while I cast a few spells. This won’t take long.”
“That’s a good idea,” whispers Paks. “I’ve something to cast, too.”
The mage casts mage armor on himself and bull’s strength on Paks. Paks casts protection from evil on herself. Novalia offers the blessing of Tanil to Paks and Chuck, which they both accept.
Novalia says, “Let’s shoot arrows or a magic missile, to disrupt the ritual.”
Chuck shakes his head. “We need to see what’s going on first.”
Miriel hands out a piece of the enchanted bread to each of us, keeping two for herself. Thus prepared, we begin to sneak up towards the circle of stones.
As we draw near, unseen in the shadows, we catch our first glimpse of the Stricken. These strange rat men are twisted and disfigured, with weird bumps in their skin, and extra limbs. One has three arms and two tails, another has a lion claw coming out of his back, and the third has a third leg which has an extra mouth on it. They are each larger than the typical Disease ratmen which we are familiar with. None of them are wearing armor, but each wears a harness-like belt which has things dangling from it; we are not close enough to discern whether the objects are useful, or mere adornment.
When we reach the edge of the standing stones, we can see that they are not performing a ritual. The appear to be standing guard, fairly complacently, and we can hear two of them talking in a coarse, guttural language which none of us understand. Goldpetal’s keen eyes note an elf, lying on the stone table in the center of the ring. When he realizes that it is an eviscerated corpse, his purple eyes flare with rage.
“Guards,” Paks whispers.
“Let’s take them out,” Chuck whispers.
Telryn says, “I’ll summon a wolf to attack the furthest one. You archers shoot the other two.” We quickly make our preparations: Telryn readies his spell, Chuck casts magic fang on his viper, and Miriel quietly prays for Madriel to bless us each.
“Everyone, loose your arrows on my signal,” Paks whispers.
We fan out into about a quarter-circle, where we each have shots through different gaps at the three disfigured ratmen.
Paks draws her bow, and everyone follows suit. When she sees that we are all ready, Paks looses her arrow, and we all fire almost in unison. Telryn begins the arcane chant which will summon the wolf.
Paks’ shot wounds the lion-clawed one, and Goldpetal’s arrow further injures it. Chuck’s arrows both miss high. Hands of Fire hurls a javelin, but it ricochets off of one of the standing stones, and falls harmless to the earth. Novalia’s first arrow wounds the three-legged one, but with her second shot, the bowstring catches her on the side of the head, and she is stunned.
As the ratmen turn to face us, Paks draws her longsword and charges at the lion-clawed one. Her solid blow cuts it practically in half, and it collapses at her feet.
The wolf springs out of the darkness to attack the three-armed ratman. It misses, but Chuck’s next arrow catches it in the chest. Telryn casts another spell, and the twin cyan bolts of his magic missile further wound it. The ratman turns and claws with all three arms at the wolf, ripping it to pieces. The magically summoned beast dies in a heartbeat.
Hands of Fire charges at the three-legged one. He leaps up on the table and smashes it with his great morningstar. Goldpetal steps forward, behind him, and shoots at the third one, but his arrow barely nicks it. The twisted figure attacks Hands of Fire, clawing at him twice, and biting at him with both mouths. One claw hits, but the lizard man shrugs it off. Paks moves around to engage it from the other side, and it is now surrounded.
Telryn casts a second magic missile at the three-armed one, and it dies in a blue burst of magical energy, and that frees Chuck to turn his attention to the last ratman.
The Vigilant steps towards the three-legged one, and from close range his arrow bites deep into its chest. As it turns to face Paks, seeking an escape, Goldpetal’s scimitar flashes brightly. The masterful weapon cuts deeply into sinew and flesh, and the ratman dies at the druid’s feet.
We’ve won the hilltop with almost no injury; while Miriel puts a quick bandage on Hands of Fire’s shoulder, the rest of us we examine the area.
Everyone is disgusted to discover what they’ve done to the elf, whose body lies on the rock altar in the center of the circle of standing stones. The elf’s blood has been emptied from his body, and used to fill a blasphemous rune. On the far side of the altar, a stone opening in the ground reveals a dark stairway leading down into the hill.
“This seems to be how they opened the passage,” Telryn says, gesturing at the blood-filled rune. Goldpetal is too sorrowful to speak, but a glint of hard anger is visible in his eyes, to those who have learned to read them.
“There was dried blood there the last time we were here,” Chuck reminds us. “Now we know why.”
Miriel performs some hasty last rites for the elf, with advice from Goldpetal. They don’t know his following, but they invoke Madriel and Denev.
Chuck has been studying the ground. “There are tracks of many rat men,” he says, when they have finished. “I can’t tell how many, since, from the evidence of these,” he gestures to the dead ratmen, “I don't know how many legs they might have. Most of them seem to have gone in there.” He points towards the ominous stairway.
We gather at the opening or the hill. The stairway leading down is ten feet wide but pitch black. Miriel lights a torch, while Chuck draws his dagger, relying on its pale blue magical glow to light our way. Goldpetal and Hands of Fire step to the front, as they have the best night vision. We descend resolutely into the darkness, leaving behind Goldpetal’s hawk and Telryn’s owl.
Thirty feet down, the stairway stops, and becomes a smooth corridor curving to the right. At the bottom of the stairway is a Stricken rat man, impaled on spikes sticking out of the floor. The floor slopes steeply downward, and his blood runs down the hall. As we pass the corpse, Paks slits its throat. “Just in case,” she whispers.
The corridor continues spiraling down in ever-widening circles, like a snail or a conch shell. We don’t see any movement, but stay tightly bunched together in case of surprise attack. When we’re about sixty-five feet down, Goldpetal feels the floor shift slightly beneath his feet. A forest of steel spikes shoots up from the floor, and catches most of the group. Goldpetal is stabbed the worst, but Hands of Fire, Paks, and Telryn are all wounded.
“Is everyone okay?” Miriel asks.
They all nod. “Wounded, but able to continue,” Paks says. We keep moving.
After about a hundred feet, the floor suddenly drops out from under the lead group. Goldpetal, Hands of Fire, and Paks disappear with a brief scream and a crunch.
Chuck runs up to the edge, and looks down. He sees that they have fallen about twenty feet down, into a pit. Luckily, the ground is level, not spiked, and they are all helping each other up.
“Are you all right?” he calls down.
“Fine,” grimaces Goldpetal through a clenched jaw.
“I think I’ve twisted an ankle,” reports Paks.
“Here, I’ll throw you a rope,” Chuck tells her. He pulls out his silk rope and drops it down to them. With Chuck, Telryn, Miriel, and Novalia all helping, we’re able to pull them up fairly easily. Paks is limping.
“Do you want me to look at that?” Miriel asks her.
“No,” the warrior says, gritting her teeth. “We don’t have time.”
“There’s got to be a way past,” Chuck says, looking around the edge of the pit for a lever or passage. “Ah, here it is.” He finds a little walkway along the side of the hole, which we all use to skirt past it. The passage keeps spiraling downward, into the dark depths.
We travel another hundred feet without hitting another trap. Everyone is jumpy and nervous. Telryn has his crossbow at the ready, and Novalia has an arrow knocked, although she keeps it pointed at the ground. Goldpetal begins to ease slightly ahead of the rest of us.
Again he steps on some sort of plate in the floor, and suddenly a sweeping blade scythes across the corridor. It cuts him deeply, through the belly, before he leaps back. The blade stops after conducting a semi-circle, and we can see the little alcove it sprung from.
Goldpetal slumps against the opposite wall. He is grievously hurt, with the sword cut on top of his previous injuries in the pit and at the spikes. He holds his intestines in with his right arm, and fumbles for his bread with his left hand. As Miriel rushes to his aid, he eats the bread.
“Let me look,” she tells him, and pulls his right arm away, hands ready in case his intestines do fall out. She is just in time to witness the magical healing powers of the bread of life, and the long cut in his stomach quickly closes before her eyes.
“Do you need more healing?” she asks, but he shakes his head.
“No, just a hand up.”
She gives him a hand as he stands. “Here,” she says. “Take the spare chunk of bread.” She hands it to him.
“I’ll take the lead,” says Chuck, walking up from the back of the group. Goldpetal takes the spare chunk of bread, while the rest of us form up behind Chuck.
“Everybody spread out,” Chuck tells us. “Goldpetal, you follow me, about fifteen feet behind me. That way, only one of us falls into the next trap.”
We spread out, and then continue on. For two hundred feet, whether through luck or absence, we don’t trip any more traps. The passage continues to spiral ever deeper into the hill, and the oppressing sense of ‘wrongness’ which Paks and Miriel had felt earlier in the day seems to emanate from the darkness ahead of us. Even Chuck can feel it, as though the darkness were a palpable thing which we must push through.
Our luck continues to hold when Chuck steps on another floor plate. Massive spikes shoot up from the floor again, but the adroit Vigilant manages to dodge the points: when the trap stops, the spikes are as tall as he is. He has one resting against his back, and another at his chest.
“How many of these are there?” he grumbles. We work our way through them – once triggered, there is room between them, and we can weave our way through them without injury.
Beyond the spikes, Chuck pulls out his grappling hook and starts throwing it at the floor in front of him. This is noisy, but none of us say anything. With the noise of the previous traps, there is little to be lost, and it is clear to all that he hopes to set off any traps before reaching them.
About eighty feet further, the grappling hook does set off a trap. This time, our luck runs out. A jet of flame shoots out of the wall. It is aimed almost head high, and directly at Chuck. It reaches fifty feet back down the corridor, wrapping through the curving spiral, and that hits Goldpetal, Paks, and Hands of Fire as well. Paks is badly burned, and collapses unconscious. Goldpetal is also burned heavily, and quickly eats the other piece of bread.
As the healing of the bread of life works on the elf, he steps to Paks’ side. The flame has burned much of the skin off of her head, and she is losing a lot of blood. “Miriel!” he calls, as he tries to stabilize the young warrior. The priestess steps forward. She calls the blessing of Madriel, and beneath her fingers, the skin regenerates. Within a minute, Paks is healed. She regains consciousness, and shows no sign of the burns.
“Huh,” she says, as she stands up, “Even my ankle feels better. Thanks.” When she’s ready to continue, we move further on.
About twenty feet onward, the corridor begins to straighten out. There's an alcove to the right, and it holds a big metal lever. Chuck illuminates it with the dagger for a moment, then turns to the rest of us.
“There’s a lever here. Leave it alone,” Chuck warns. “I bet it re-sets the traps.”
We all file past it. When we’re about ten to fifteen feet further along, Telryn, who is in the last row of the group, turns. Before anyone can stop him, he casts a quick spell. We can see the lever, with nobody touching it, pulled to the down position. A loud metallic crunch echoes through the corridor.
“Great,” Chuck says. “Now the traps have been re-set.” Miriel glares at Telryn. He looks sheepishly back at her, then he faces the lever and gestures again. Some unseen force acts on the lever, flipping it back to the other side, but nothing happens.
“There’s nothing for it but to continue on,” Paks says, though her tone conveys her disgust.
As we walk further, Novalia whispers to Telryn, “What was that?”
“Mage hand,” he answers. “It’s a spell I know.”
We arrive at the bottom of the hill just around midnight. As we draw near, the ring on Goldpetal’s finger gives him a sharp shock. Looking up atop the hill, we can see four large braziers, with leaping purple flames, and three figures moving among the towering, ancient stones.
Goldpetal puts his fingers to his lips. “Three of them,” he whispers.
Telryn whispers, “Wait a moment, while I cast a few spells. This won’t take long.”
“That’s a good idea,” whispers Paks. “I’ve something to cast, too.”
The mage casts mage armor on himself and bull’s strength on Paks. Paks casts protection from evil on herself. Novalia offers the blessing of Tanil to Paks and Chuck, which they both accept.
Novalia says, “Let’s shoot arrows or a magic missile, to disrupt the ritual.”
Chuck shakes his head. “We need to see what’s going on first.”
Miriel hands out a piece of the enchanted bread to each of us, keeping two for herself. Thus prepared, we begin to sneak up towards the circle of stones.
As we draw near, unseen in the shadows, we catch our first glimpse of the Stricken. These strange rat men are twisted and disfigured, with weird bumps in their skin, and extra limbs. One has three arms and two tails, another has a lion claw coming out of his back, and the third has a third leg which has an extra mouth on it. They are each larger than the typical Disease ratmen which we are familiar with. None of them are wearing armor, but each wears a harness-like belt which has things dangling from it; we are not close enough to discern whether the objects are useful, or mere adornment.
When we reach the edge of the standing stones, we can see that they are not performing a ritual. The appear to be standing guard, fairly complacently, and we can hear two of them talking in a coarse, guttural language which none of us understand. Goldpetal’s keen eyes note an elf, lying on the stone table in the center of the ring. When he realizes that it is an eviscerated corpse, his purple eyes flare with rage.
“Guards,” Paks whispers.
“Let’s take them out,” Chuck whispers.
Telryn says, “I’ll summon a wolf to attack the furthest one. You archers shoot the other two.” We quickly make our preparations: Telryn readies his spell, Chuck casts magic fang on his viper, and Miriel quietly prays for Madriel to bless us each.
“Everyone, loose your arrows on my signal,” Paks whispers.
We fan out into about a quarter-circle, where we each have shots through different gaps at the three disfigured ratmen.
Paks draws her bow, and everyone follows suit. When she sees that we are all ready, Paks looses her arrow, and we all fire almost in unison. Telryn begins the arcane chant which will summon the wolf.
Paks’ shot wounds the lion-clawed one, and Goldpetal’s arrow further injures it. Chuck’s arrows both miss high. Hands of Fire hurls a javelin, but it ricochets off of one of the standing stones, and falls harmless to the earth. Novalia’s first arrow wounds the three-legged one, but with her second shot, the bowstring catches her on the side of the head, and she is stunned.
As the ratmen turn to face us, Paks draws her longsword and charges at the lion-clawed one. Her solid blow cuts it practically in half, and it collapses at her feet.
The wolf springs out of the darkness to attack the three-armed ratman. It misses, but Chuck’s next arrow catches it in the chest. Telryn casts another spell, and the twin cyan bolts of his magic missile further wound it. The ratman turns and claws with all three arms at the wolf, ripping it to pieces. The magically summoned beast dies in a heartbeat.
Hands of Fire charges at the three-legged one. He leaps up on the table and smashes it with his great morningstar. Goldpetal steps forward, behind him, and shoots at the third one, but his arrow barely nicks it. The twisted figure attacks Hands of Fire, clawing at him twice, and biting at him with both mouths. One claw hits, but the lizard man shrugs it off. Paks moves around to engage it from the other side, and it is now surrounded.
Telryn casts a second magic missile at the three-armed one, and it dies in a blue burst of magical energy, and that frees Chuck to turn his attention to the last ratman.
The Vigilant steps towards the three-legged one, and from close range his arrow bites deep into its chest. As it turns to face Paks, seeking an escape, Goldpetal’s scimitar flashes brightly. The masterful weapon cuts deeply into sinew and flesh, and the ratman dies at the druid’s feet.
We’ve won the hilltop with almost no injury; while Miriel puts a quick bandage on Hands of Fire’s shoulder, the rest of us we examine the area.
Everyone is disgusted to discover what they’ve done to the elf, whose body lies on the rock altar in the center of the circle of standing stones. The elf’s blood has been emptied from his body, and used to fill a blasphemous rune. On the far side of the altar, a stone opening in the ground reveals a dark stairway leading down into the hill.
“This seems to be how they opened the passage,” Telryn says, gesturing at the blood-filled rune. Goldpetal is too sorrowful to speak, but a glint of hard anger is visible in his eyes, to those who have learned to read them.
“There was dried blood there the last time we were here,” Chuck reminds us. “Now we know why.”
Miriel performs some hasty last rites for the elf, with advice from Goldpetal. They don’t know his following, but they invoke Madriel and Denev.
Chuck has been studying the ground. “There are tracks of many rat men,” he says, when they have finished. “I can’t tell how many, since, from the evidence of these,” he gestures to the dead ratmen, “I don't know how many legs they might have. Most of them seem to have gone in there.” He points towards the ominous stairway.
We gather at the opening or the hill. The stairway leading down is ten feet wide but pitch black. Miriel lights a torch, while Chuck draws his dagger, relying on its pale blue magical glow to light our way. Goldpetal and Hands of Fire step to the front, as they have the best night vision. We descend resolutely into the darkness, leaving behind Goldpetal’s hawk and Telryn’s owl.
Thirty feet down, the stairway stops, and becomes a smooth corridor curving to the right. At the bottom of the stairway is a Stricken rat man, impaled on spikes sticking out of the floor. The floor slopes steeply downward, and his blood runs down the hall. As we pass the corpse, Paks slits its throat. “Just in case,” she whispers.
The corridor continues spiraling down in ever-widening circles, like a snail or a conch shell. We don’t see any movement, but stay tightly bunched together in case of surprise attack. When we’re about sixty-five feet down, Goldpetal feels the floor shift slightly beneath his feet. A forest of steel spikes shoots up from the floor, and catches most of the group. Goldpetal is stabbed the worst, but Hands of Fire, Paks, and Telryn are all wounded.
“Is everyone okay?” Miriel asks.
They all nod. “Wounded, but able to continue,” Paks says. We keep moving.
After about a hundred feet, the floor suddenly drops out from under the lead group. Goldpetal, Hands of Fire, and Paks disappear with a brief scream and a crunch.
Chuck runs up to the edge, and looks down. He sees that they have fallen about twenty feet down, into a pit. Luckily, the ground is level, not spiked, and they are all helping each other up.
“Are you all right?” he calls down.
“Fine,” grimaces Goldpetal through a clenched jaw.
“I think I’ve twisted an ankle,” reports Paks.
“Here, I’ll throw you a rope,” Chuck tells her. He pulls out his silk rope and drops it down to them. With Chuck, Telryn, Miriel, and Novalia all helping, we’re able to pull them up fairly easily. Paks is limping.
“Do you want me to look at that?” Miriel asks her.
“No,” the warrior says, gritting her teeth. “We don’t have time.”
“There’s got to be a way past,” Chuck says, looking around the edge of the pit for a lever or passage. “Ah, here it is.” He finds a little walkway along the side of the hole, which we all use to skirt past it. The passage keeps spiraling downward, into the dark depths.
We travel another hundred feet without hitting another trap. Everyone is jumpy and nervous. Telryn has his crossbow at the ready, and Novalia has an arrow knocked, although she keeps it pointed at the ground. Goldpetal begins to ease slightly ahead of the rest of us.
Again he steps on some sort of plate in the floor, and suddenly a sweeping blade scythes across the corridor. It cuts him deeply, through the belly, before he leaps back. The blade stops after conducting a semi-circle, and we can see the little alcove it sprung from.
Goldpetal slumps against the opposite wall. He is grievously hurt, with the sword cut on top of his previous injuries in the pit and at the spikes. He holds his intestines in with his right arm, and fumbles for his bread with his left hand. As Miriel rushes to his aid, he eats the bread.
“Let me look,” she tells him, and pulls his right arm away, hands ready in case his intestines do fall out. She is just in time to witness the magical healing powers of the bread of life, and the long cut in his stomach quickly closes before her eyes.
“Do you need more healing?” she asks, but he shakes his head.
“No, just a hand up.”
She gives him a hand as he stands. “Here,” she says. “Take the spare chunk of bread.” She hands it to him.
“I’ll take the lead,” says Chuck, walking up from the back of the group. Goldpetal takes the spare chunk of bread, while the rest of us form up behind Chuck.
“Everybody spread out,” Chuck tells us. “Goldpetal, you follow me, about fifteen feet behind me. That way, only one of us falls into the next trap.”
We spread out, and then continue on. For two hundred feet, whether through luck or absence, we don’t trip any more traps. The passage continues to spiral ever deeper into the hill, and the oppressing sense of ‘wrongness’ which Paks and Miriel had felt earlier in the day seems to emanate from the darkness ahead of us. Even Chuck can feel it, as though the darkness were a palpable thing which we must push through.
Our luck continues to hold when Chuck steps on another floor plate. Massive spikes shoot up from the floor again, but the adroit Vigilant manages to dodge the points: when the trap stops, the spikes are as tall as he is. He has one resting against his back, and another at his chest.
“How many of these are there?” he grumbles. We work our way through them – once triggered, there is room between them, and we can weave our way through them without injury.
Beyond the spikes, Chuck pulls out his grappling hook and starts throwing it at the floor in front of him. This is noisy, but none of us say anything. With the noise of the previous traps, there is little to be lost, and it is clear to all that he hopes to set off any traps before reaching them.
About eighty feet further, the grappling hook does set off a trap. This time, our luck runs out. A jet of flame shoots out of the wall. It is aimed almost head high, and directly at Chuck. It reaches fifty feet back down the corridor, wrapping through the curving spiral, and that hits Goldpetal, Paks, and Hands of Fire as well. Paks is badly burned, and collapses unconscious. Goldpetal is also burned heavily, and quickly eats the other piece of bread.
As the healing of the bread of life works on the elf, he steps to Paks’ side. The flame has burned much of the skin off of her head, and she is losing a lot of blood. “Miriel!” he calls, as he tries to stabilize the young warrior. The priestess steps forward. She calls the blessing of Madriel, and beneath her fingers, the skin regenerates. Within a minute, Paks is healed. She regains consciousness, and shows no sign of the burns.
“Huh,” she says, as she stands up, “Even my ankle feels better. Thanks.” When she’s ready to continue, we move further on.
About twenty feet onward, the corridor begins to straighten out. There's an alcove to the right, and it holds a big metal lever. Chuck illuminates it with the dagger for a moment, then turns to the rest of us.
“There’s a lever here. Leave it alone,” Chuck warns. “I bet it re-sets the traps.”
We all file past it. When we’re about ten to fifteen feet further along, Telryn, who is in the last row of the group, turns. Before anyone can stop him, he casts a quick spell. We can see the lever, with nobody touching it, pulled to the down position. A loud metallic crunch echoes through the corridor.
“Great,” Chuck says. “Now the traps have been re-set.” Miriel glares at Telryn. He looks sheepishly back at her, then he faces the lever and gestures again. Some unseen force acts on the lever, flipping it back to the other side, but nothing happens.
“There’s nothing for it but to continue on,” Paks says, though her tone conveys her disgust.
As we walk further, Novalia whispers to Telryn, “What was that?”
“Mage hand,” he answers. “It’s a spell I know.”
Issue #16: The Shrine of Gormoth - Episode 4 of 5
We have reached the end of the passageway. At its end, it opens up into a cavernous hall. It must be fifty feet wide, and easily a hundred long; the end of the passage opens into the center of one of the narrow sides. The arching ceiling is nearly forty feet above us. A massive crack splits the room, running lengthwise down the center of the floor.
The room is walled with polished marble with streaks of green running through it. A narrow raised area lines the edge of the walls, about five feet above the floor, and just wide enough to walk on; in fact, where the passage enters the hall is similarly raised. In the center is an altar, with a starburst pattern radiating out from it. The crack runs directly through the altar, as though a great force has split it. At the opposite end of the room are the remains of a large idol, tumbled and smashed beyond recognition. Only the feet remain intact. The rubble spreads around over a fifteen by ten foot area. There are two columns of beautiful marble pillars along the length of the room, near the walls.
By the statue, another brazier with purple flame is set up, and there are seven rat men standing around it. One is pouring sand from a bag into the brazier, and it appears that this is what burns with such bright color.
“Ratmen!” cries Chuck, drawing his long sword and stepping into the room, at the edge the ledge.
Thus alerted, the ratmen turn toward us. Like the ones we encountered above, they are strange and misshapen. One has a horse leg growing out of its chest, while a second has a weird squid tentacle. Vestigial bat wings grow from the back of a third, and another has a large crab-like claw for an extra arm. Extra tails, arms, and legs adorn the others.
Goldpetal and Novalia are the first to react, stepping into the room, him on the left and her on the right. They fire their bows almost in unison, at the closest rat man. Goldpetal’s shot misses, but Novalia flies true, and she draws first blood. Telryn steps up into the doorway in the center, and looses his crossbow bolt. It caroms harmlessly off the altar.
The ratmen closest to us begin charging towards us, but the three in the back start making a weird wriggling motion. Tiny ratman homunculi begin to claw their way out of their flesh, and are quickly standing beside their progenitor. We all watch, bordering between fascinated and horrified. “That’s the most disgusting thing I've ever seen,” Chuck gasps.
Then the four that charged at us are upon us. The first two claw at Novalia, and one of them wounds her. The third to arrive has a horse leg coming out of its chest. He kicks at the archer, but she leaps back out of the way. It looks like he could kill with a single blow: the leg is powerful but ponderous. The fourth one, with Novalia’s arrow still in its side, attacks Goldpetal, but the elf dodges his claws.
Still powered by the bull's strength, Paks steps to the front center and attacks the one with the horse hoof. Her longsword catches it deep in the neck, killing it instantly. Chuck steps to her left, between her and Goldpetal, and attacks the injured rat man. He cuts it across the rib cage, but just as he does, he screams in pain. He hasn’t been hit, but he clutches his left arm to his ribs, right where he wounded the rat.
Hands of Fire steps into the room, stepping past Novalia towards the far right of our line. One of the ratmen claws at the lizard man as he moves through, and rakes him brutally. The blow knocks the great warrior off the narrow ledge, and he falls to the floor of the room. He is unconscious, not moving.
Miriel steps to the doorway of the corridor. From there, she can’t see that Hands of Fire is injured, with her view blocked by the battle and the edge of the short ledge. Instead she asks Madriel to bless everyone. Beside her, Telryn begins mumbling a spell.
On the left side, Chuck’s snake bites at the injured rat man. It glances down in time to notice, and dodges, but Goldpetal takes advantage of the momentary distraction. The elf’s scimitar slices the ratman from armpit to armpit. Its eyes glaze over, and it falls over backward.
Telryn completes the spell and unleashes a magic missile at one of the rat men in back. The magical cyan bolts strike it in the head, and it falls over, apparently dead. The other two are lumbering towards us with their homunculi, and mere seconds away from reinforcing their comrades. However, behind them, the mage sees the third homunculus return to the corpse. The strange, small figure climbs back into the body, and the “dead” ratman comes alive. It shakes its head as though disoriented, and then climbs to its feet.
On the far right, Novalia is in desperate straits. One of the ratmen has climbed up onto the ledge, cutting her off from Paks and the others. The archer drops her bow and tries to stab the ratmen with an arrow, but they have better range. When she hits the one the ledge, she barely scratches it. In return, it swipes at her, and lands a solid blow to the side of her head. As she falls, unconscious, the other one next to her wraps its squid tentacle around her. It has no trouble grabbing her limp form.
Paks yells, “Miriel! Hands of Fire is in really bad shape!” Just as she finishes, the two rat men from the back reach us. One charges Paks, with its homunculus just behind. Both have a scorpion tail, a crab claw, and an extra rat tail. His homunculus, identical, leaps forward and tries to claw Paks, but she blocks it with her shield. That leaves an opening for the larger one’s crab claw, and it pinches her leg.
The second rat man and its homunculus charge Chuck. They both hit him, knocking him backwards. He is badly wounded, bleeding from numerous places. He backs into the doorway, fumbling for his piece of bread, while his viper attacks the homunculus. The brave little snake scores a hit. As the Vigilant eats his bread and feels the healing power course through him, he hears Miriel shouting, “Chuck, move out of the way so I can get to Novalia and Hands of Fire!”
On the left side, we’ve been holding our own, but on the right, nobody can make enough progress to reach the wounded lizard man. The ratman holding Novalia tosses her aside. Her body lands, like a rag doll, on top of Hands of Fire. Their blood pools together beneath them.
Paks thrusts her sword at the crab-clawed ratman. The sword penetrates deep into its breast, and it slumps to the ground. She feels a deep piercing in her own chest, as its agony reflects back onto her.
To the left, Goldpetal attacks the homunculus in front of him, spawned from the ratman attacking Chuck. He misses, but Telryn casts a magic missile at its progenitor. The ratman looks badly wounded. Its homunculus climbs back into it, and the ratman claws at the snake. It misses.
The squid-tentacled ratman steps forward from the right side into the gap in our line, and attacks Chuck. It claws him across the face, but its tentacle gets caught on Paks’ shield, to Chuck’s right, and that throws the ratman off balance.
The other one which had been attacking Novalia rushes around to our left and attacks Goldpetal. It leaps with its full weight on him, clawing him, and biting deep into his shoulder. The frail elf screams and collapses beneath it, unconscious.
The final homunculus leaps back into the crab-clawed ratman, the one which Paks had killed. As we had seen before, the return of the homunculus reanimates it, and it staggers to its feet, trying to escape her reach. The last ratman, from the back, finally reaches the skirmish, and charges to its rescue. It rakes Paks with its claws, but she shoulders it aside, using the Bull’s Strength. She steps over to the right, and with a solid blow of her sword, she kills the crab-clawed one a second time. She can hear Telryn chanting another incantation behind her.
Chuck swings sword and dagger wildly at the ratman on top of Goldpetal, trying to drive it back from Goldpetal’s body. He misses, but forces the ratman to retreat, buying Miriel space to treat the stricken elf. Miriel leaps to Goldpetal’s side, and begins bandaging his bleeding shoulder.
Telryn casts color spray, and a rainbow of blinding brilliance bursts from his fingertips. It stuns three of the ratmen, knocking them unconscious, and leaving only one standing.
The surviving rat man rushes towards the mage, leaping over the snake. It flaps its vestigial bat wing to help it glide the short distance, and claws Telryn as he desperately tries to reload his crossbow. The ratman’s teeth fill the young mage’s view as it tries to bite him, then Paks lops off its head, and it falls at her feet.
Miriel and Paks rush towards Novalia and Hands of Fire. Miriel bandages Novalia, who is pale but breathing, while Paks ministers to Hands of Fire.
She looks up with shock on her face. “He’s dead,” she says.
Stunned silence follows her words, and then Miriel steps to his body. She checks for a pulse, but a sad shake of her head confirms the announcement. The great lizard warrior has passed to another place.
While Paks sits in stunned silence, Chuck and Telryn administer the coup de grace to the remaining ratmen. Telryn shoots one with his crossbow, while Chuck slits throats of the other two. Then, the process of administering healing begins in earnest. Miriel prays for Madriel’s healing upon the unconscious Goldpetal and Novalia. When they are conscious, the archer eats her chunk of the bread of life. Miriel gives Goldpetal her last chunk of bread, which the elf also eats. Telryn and Chuck both follow suit.
Paks sighs, and gets to her feet. She places the newly forged morningstar across Hands of Fire’s chest, and closes his eyes. She leaves him everything he has carried with him, but does take his slice of the bread of life. She utters a brief prayer to Madriel, and a brief promise.
The rest of us search the room quickly, but don’t find anything save the rubble and a lot of dust until Chuck looks behind the statue. “Guys, over here,” he calls. We walk over, and see a spiral stone staircase continuing down.
“I don’t think we can go on,” Miriel says. “I think we should rest here.”
Novalia argues, “There’s probably another ritual going on.”
“We must stop it,” Goldpetal declares firmly. “There is no time to rest.”
As though to make the druid’s point, an unearthly scream of pain echoes up from the earth. Without further discussion, Novalia runs for the staircase, followed by Goldpetal, then everyone else, with Miriel reluctantly bringing up the rear.
We run sixty feet down the spiraling stairs, which describe a slow turn of about 180 degrees to the right. At the bottom we see a hall very similar to the one we just left. We’re entering from the opposite side this time. The marble walling this room is an unsettling deep blood red, and two braziers akin to the ones above bathe the room in a disturbing flickering purple light. A wide chasm runs through the center of the room, but it passes to the right of the altar, which is not cracked. At the far side, there’s a tall statue of a hideous being, perhaps 30’ tall. The crack runs through it. The wall behind the idol looks shadowy and insubstantial. We can see shadowy tentacles which appear to be seeking a way through it.
What truly grabs our attention, however, is the angel bound to the cold altar. It is nearly fifteen feet tale, and is manacled, spread-eagled upon the massive stone slab. Standing around it are five Stricken led by a fearsome shaman. The shaman has two heads and two tentacles on either side, in addition to its arms, and a scorpion stinger. The angelic creature is being ritually tortured. Blasphemous runes have been carved into its flesh, and a pattern carved into the altar is filling with its glowing blood. The ratmen have removed the angel’s right eye and are in the process of sawing off its left wing.
Miriel and Goldpetal both look shocked.
“That’s a Hope!” the priestess cries, recognizing the angel as one of the celestial beings consecrated to Madriel, and she is alternately horrified and saddened at the blasphemous things which have been done to it.
The druid, however, is gaping at the tentacles which are beginning to come through the far wall. He whispers a single name, in mortal terror:
“Gormoth!”
.
We have reached the end of the passageway. At its end, it opens up into a cavernous hall. It must be fifty feet wide, and easily a hundred long; the end of the passage opens into the center of one of the narrow sides. The arching ceiling is nearly forty feet above us. A massive crack splits the room, running lengthwise down the center of the floor.
The room is walled with polished marble with streaks of green running through it. A narrow raised area lines the edge of the walls, about five feet above the floor, and just wide enough to walk on; in fact, where the passage enters the hall is similarly raised. In the center is an altar, with a starburst pattern radiating out from it. The crack runs directly through the altar, as though a great force has split it. At the opposite end of the room are the remains of a large idol, tumbled and smashed beyond recognition. Only the feet remain intact. The rubble spreads around over a fifteen by ten foot area. There are two columns of beautiful marble pillars along the length of the room, near the walls.
By the statue, another brazier with purple flame is set up, and there are seven rat men standing around it. One is pouring sand from a bag into the brazier, and it appears that this is what burns with such bright color.
“Ratmen!” cries Chuck, drawing his long sword and stepping into the room, at the edge the ledge.
Thus alerted, the ratmen turn toward us. Like the ones we encountered above, they are strange and misshapen. One has a horse leg growing out of its chest, while a second has a weird squid tentacle. Vestigial bat wings grow from the back of a third, and another has a large crab-like claw for an extra arm. Extra tails, arms, and legs adorn the others.
Goldpetal and Novalia are the first to react, stepping into the room, him on the left and her on the right. They fire their bows almost in unison, at the closest rat man. Goldpetal’s shot misses, but Novalia flies true, and she draws first blood. Telryn steps up into the doorway in the center, and looses his crossbow bolt. It caroms harmlessly off the altar.
The ratmen closest to us begin charging towards us, but the three in the back start making a weird wriggling motion. Tiny ratman homunculi begin to claw their way out of their flesh, and are quickly standing beside their progenitor. We all watch, bordering between fascinated and horrified. “That’s the most disgusting thing I've ever seen,” Chuck gasps.
Then the four that charged at us are upon us. The first two claw at Novalia, and one of them wounds her. The third to arrive has a horse leg coming out of its chest. He kicks at the archer, but she leaps back out of the way. It looks like he could kill with a single blow: the leg is powerful but ponderous. The fourth one, with Novalia’s arrow still in its side, attacks Goldpetal, but the elf dodges his claws.
Still powered by the bull's strength, Paks steps to the front center and attacks the one with the horse hoof. Her longsword catches it deep in the neck, killing it instantly. Chuck steps to her left, between her and Goldpetal, and attacks the injured rat man. He cuts it across the rib cage, but just as he does, he screams in pain. He hasn’t been hit, but he clutches his left arm to his ribs, right where he wounded the rat.
Hands of Fire steps into the room, stepping past Novalia towards the far right of our line. One of the ratmen claws at the lizard man as he moves through, and rakes him brutally. The blow knocks the great warrior off the narrow ledge, and he falls to the floor of the room. He is unconscious, not moving.
Miriel steps to the doorway of the corridor. From there, she can’t see that Hands of Fire is injured, with her view blocked by the battle and the edge of the short ledge. Instead she asks Madriel to bless everyone. Beside her, Telryn begins mumbling a spell.
On the left side, Chuck’s snake bites at the injured rat man. It glances down in time to notice, and dodges, but Goldpetal takes advantage of the momentary distraction. The elf’s scimitar slices the ratman from armpit to armpit. Its eyes glaze over, and it falls over backward.
Telryn completes the spell and unleashes a magic missile at one of the rat men in back. The magical cyan bolts strike it in the head, and it falls over, apparently dead. The other two are lumbering towards us with their homunculi, and mere seconds away from reinforcing their comrades. However, behind them, the mage sees the third homunculus return to the corpse. The strange, small figure climbs back into the body, and the “dead” ratman comes alive. It shakes its head as though disoriented, and then climbs to its feet.
On the far right, Novalia is in desperate straits. One of the ratmen has climbed up onto the ledge, cutting her off from Paks and the others. The archer drops her bow and tries to stab the ratmen with an arrow, but they have better range. When she hits the one the ledge, she barely scratches it. In return, it swipes at her, and lands a solid blow to the side of her head. As she falls, unconscious, the other one next to her wraps its squid tentacle around her. It has no trouble grabbing her limp form.
Paks yells, “Miriel! Hands of Fire is in really bad shape!” Just as she finishes, the two rat men from the back reach us. One charges Paks, with its homunculus just behind. Both have a scorpion tail, a crab claw, and an extra rat tail. His homunculus, identical, leaps forward and tries to claw Paks, but she blocks it with her shield. That leaves an opening for the larger one’s crab claw, and it pinches her leg.
The second rat man and its homunculus charge Chuck. They both hit him, knocking him backwards. He is badly wounded, bleeding from numerous places. He backs into the doorway, fumbling for his piece of bread, while his viper attacks the homunculus. The brave little snake scores a hit. As the Vigilant eats his bread and feels the healing power course through him, he hears Miriel shouting, “Chuck, move out of the way so I can get to Novalia and Hands of Fire!”
On the left side, we’ve been holding our own, but on the right, nobody can make enough progress to reach the wounded lizard man. The ratman holding Novalia tosses her aside. Her body lands, like a rag doll, on top of Hands of Fire. Their blood pools together beneath them.
Paks thrusts her sword at the crab-clawed ratman. The sword penetrates deep into its breast, and it slumps to the ground. She feels a deep piercing in her own chest, as its agony reflects back onto her.
To the left, Goldpetal attacks the homunculus in front of him, spawned from the ratman attacking Chuck. He misses, but Telryn casts a magic missile at its progenitor. The ratman looks badly wounded. Its homunculus climbs back into it, and the ratman claws at the snake. It misses.
The squid-tentacled ratman steps forward from the right side into the gap in our line, and attacks Chuck. It claws him across the face, but its tentacle gets caught on Paks’ shield, to Chuck’s right, and that throws the ratman off balance.
The other one which had been attacking Novalia rushes around to our left and attacks Goldpetal. It leaps with its full weight on him, clawing him, and biting deep into his shoulder. The frail elf screams and collapses beneath it, unconscious.
The final homunculus leaps back into the crab-clawed ratman, the one which Paks had killed. As we had seen before, the return of the homunculus reanimates it, and it staggers to its feet, trying to escape her reach. The last ratman, from the back, finally reaches the skirmish, and charges to its rescue. It rakes Paks with its claws, but she shoulders it aside, using the Bull’s Strength. She steps over to the right, and with a solid blow of her sword, she kills the crab-clawed one a second time. She can hear Telryn chanting another incantation behind her.
Chuck swings sword and dagger wildly at the ratman on top of Goldpetal, trying to drive it back from Goldpetal’s body. He misses, but forces the ratman to retreat, buying Miriel space to treat the stricken elf. Miriel leaps to Goldpetal’s side, and begins bandaging his bleeding shoulder.
Telryn casts color spray, and a rainbow of blinding brilliance bursts from his fingertips. It stuns three of the ratmen, knocking them unconscious, and leaving only one standing.
The surviving rat man rushes towards the mage, leaping over the snake. It flaps its vestigial bat wing to help it glide the short distance, and claws Telryn as he desperately tries to reload his crossbow. The ratman’s teeth fill the young mage’s view as it tries to bite him, then Paks lops off its head, and it falls at her feet.
Miriel and Paks rush towards Novalia and Hands of Fire. Miriel bandages Novalia, who is pale but breathing, while Paks ministers to Hands of Fire.
She looks up with shock on her face. “He’s dead,” she says.
Stunned silence follows her words, and then Miriel steps to his body. She checks for a pulse, but a sad shake of her head confirms the announcement. The great lizard warrior has passed to another place.
While Paks sits in stunned silence, Chuck and Telryn administer the coup de grace to the remaining ratmen. Telryn shoots one with his crossbow, while Chuck slits throats of the other two. Then, the process of administering healing begins in earnest. Miriel prays for Madriel’s healing upon the unconscious Goldpetal and Novalia. When they are conscious, the archer eats her chunk of the bread of life. Miriel gives Goldpetal her last chunk of bread, which the elf also eats. Telryn and Chuck both follow suit.
Paks sighs, and gets to her feet. She places the newly forged morningstar across Hands of Fire’s chest, and closes his eyes. She leaves him everything he has carried with him, but does take his slice of the bread of life. She utters a brief prayer to Madriel, and a brief promise.
The rest of us search the room quickly, but don’t find anything save the rubble and a lot of dust until Chuck looks behind the statue. “Guys, over here,” he calls. We walk over, and see a spiral stone staircase continuing down.
“I don’t think we can go on,” Miriel says. “I think we should rest here.”
Novalia argues, “There’s probably another ritual going on.”
“We must stop it,” Goldpetal declares firmly. “There is no time to rest.”
As though to make the druid’s point, an unearthly scream of pain echoes up from the earth. Without further discussion, Novalia runs for the staircase, followed by Goldpetal, then everyone else, with Miriel reluctantly bringing up the rear.
We run sixty feet down the spiraling stairs, which describe a slow turn of about 180 degrees to the right. At the bottom we see a hall very similar to the one we just left. We’re entering from the opposite side this time. The marble walling this room is an unsettling deep blood red, and two braziers akin to the ones above bathe the room in a disturbing flickering purple light. A wide chasm runs through the center of the room, but it passes to the right of the altar, which is not cracked. At the far side, there’s a tall statue of a hideous being, perhaps 30’ tall. The crack runs through it. The wall behind the idol looks shadowy and insubstantial. We can see shadowy tentacles which appear to be seeking a way through it.
What truly grabs our attention, however, is the angel bound to the cold altar. It is nearly fifteen feet tale, and is manacled, spread-eagled upon the massive stone slab. Standing around it are five Stricken led by a fearsome shaman. The shaman has two heads and two tentacles on either side, in addition to its arms, and a scorpion stinger. The angelic creature is being ritually tortured. Blasphemous runes have been carved into its flesh, and a pattern carved into the altar is filling with its glowing blood. The ratmen have removed the angel’s right eye and are in the process of sawing off its left wing.
Miriel and Goldpetal both look shocked.
“That’s a Hope!” the priestess cries, recognizing the angel as one of the celestial beings consecrated to Madriel, and she is alternately horrified and saddened at the blasphemous things which have been done to it.
The druid, however, is gaping at the tentacles which are beginning to come through the far wall. He whispers a single name, in mortal terror:
“Gormoth!”
.
Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
Awesome, you are really making up for lost time. All their plans are put aside to fight the next bit of villainy, I like it.
GW
GW
Fulcan
First Post
To date, this adventure is the favorite for most of us. The pure evil of the setup, and the dastardlyness of our DM made it really fun to play. We were on pins and needles the entire time.
(And Telryn has since promised not to pull any levers. Although, he has found that's not the only way to get into trouble with traps).
(And Telryn has since promised not to pull any levers. Although, he has found that's not the only way to get into trouble with traps).
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