Three Kingdoms and Empire

[the Jester]

The Lajatang

As a youth in a dwarven hill community, Barouk was the son of a smith named Tordek. Tordek had a very good reputation amongst his own, and all the surrounding, communities. Some even called him “Truehammer” for the skill with which he wrought metals, base and noble alike. For Tordek Truehammer could craft silver bells or golden bangles nearly as well as he could iron weapons and steel armor.

Most folk of such lofty and diverse skills would have trouble come, if anything, because of their skill with gold and jewels. But for Tordek Truehammer, it was his proficiency with forging even the strangest of weapons.

It was called a lajatang. It was a weapon originally of Peshan origin, said the customer- a haughty human aristocrat. It was a curiosity. Yet he had heard of Truehammer’s skills, and he would have no lesser smith work the weapon for him. He offered Tordek an exorbitant price for the work- for his finest work. Near to bursting with all the things the nobleman said to inflame his pride, Tordek carelessly agreed and set to work immediately, spending day and night laboring over the strange dual-ended weapon.

Young Barouk watched his father work as if possessed. The amount of money that the aristocrat was willing to spend was outrageous.

Tordek finished the work in just over two months. When the nobleman arrived to claim his prize, his breath left him at the sight of the work now before him. “It is perfect!” he exclaimed, feeling its weight, its balance. He tried a few experimental cuts in the air. “Perfect!”

Tordek smiled proudly. “Ah, I am glad you like it,” he declared. Then he cleared his throat. “Now, as to the matter of payment...”

“What? Oh, yes. I am afraid,” the earl sniffed, “that this piece does not measure up. What I told you I would pay in gold, I offer instead in copper.”

The dwarven smith was thunderstruck, outraged. He spluttered, he demanded, he shouted; and the aristocrat laughed in delight, for the dwarf had played in his hands. “You dare to raise your voice and your fist in anger at me, earl of these lands! Well, I dispense judgment here, and I judge that treason!” And as simple as that, the smith was hanged by the neck until dead.

Barouk hid, then fled, joining the Order of Saint Spadron, where he learned to discipline his mind, his body- and his voice. For he knew that to level such an accusation at someone from the upper class was asking for trouble. Indeed, the earl was perhaps within his rights. No, Barouk would never speak of it... until the time came for his revenge.

Someday, he vowed, I will reclaim my father’s lajatang.

But somehow, that day never came, as months became years, and years decades, until at last, Barouk was ready to go on his Walk and to earn his beard girdle pin.

***

It is him.

After all these years, it is him. Barouk recognizes him: the earl is the man who betrayed his father, who hanged his father, who killed his father, who murdered his father.

All around him, well over a dozen men-at-arms shift their hands onto weapons.

“You know this man, Barouk?” asks Severin boldly.

“Yes,” the dwarven monk bites out. He spits on the ground.

The earl chuckles. “Come now, Barouk. We are acquainted, yes. It is fortunate that you have come along; I require... a favor of you.”

Barouk cannot believe his ears.

“Yes- aid me in what I require, and you and your friends will be on your way in an hour, probably less.”

Barouk’s fingers flex. He glances around, trying to count the number of men-at-arms serving the earl. Over fifteen, he thinks grimly. He glances at Romdar; the duskblade looks lost and confused, standing near the earl.

“Uh,” Romdar says, then stops, shaking his head. “Do I know you? Do you know me?” He pauses, frustrated. “I don’t remember any of you, or much of anything else... just a woman’s face,” he groans.

“Ah, the woman,” Striker nods sadly.

“What?” Romdar wants to pounce on any clue as to his lost memories. “What do you know about her?”

“Not much... you talked about her, and you used to say-”

“There will be time enough for this soon,” the earl interrupts smoothly. “Assuming that Barouk here cooperates.” He rubs his hands together. “Ah, Barouk, years ago I was too hasty. It was a mistake,” he admits. “Now, will you help me?” His tone is soft, but the menace is implicit.

Romdar looks at his friends helplessly, then looks back at these people who seem to know a great deal about him. I was a captain here, he thinks. I could be again. It’s obvious that these people are ready to follow me- all of them except the earl. He must be the one that is really in charge. I have probably sworn myself to him at some point that I can’t remember. His teeth clench together like lovers in a very small nest. And I have to know! I have to know who I am, and whatever these people can tell me is the most that anyone I have encountered so far can. He almost groans in indecision. He doesn’t want to see his friends hurt.

But he has to find out what he can!

“What do you want me to do?” Barouk answers the earl at last.

“You aren’t very nice,” Kifla declares, pouting at the earl.

The earl ignores her. “Come with me,” he replies to Barouk, “into my keep. Just for a few moments. I need you to open something for me.”

“Something trapped?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” the earl shrugs.

“I’m not killing anyone for you,” the dwarf grumbles.

“I am not asking you to hurt anyone, or any thing. Now, are you coming or not?” The earl is clearly not a patient man. The image of his father, eyes bulging out and tongue protruding grotesquely from his mouth, dancing in the wind beneath the tree...

“All right,” Barouk sighs. He steps forward.

“Excellent,” the earl moans.

Barouk, the earl and four guards walk away towards the empty-looking keep a few hundred yards away.

The others watch, fascinated. Kifla glances over at Romdar. What is he doing? she wonders. Is he under a spell? Does he remember things, like these people? He looks very confused and uncertain. She sighs and shrugs. I guess we’ll see what happens, she thinks, and gets distracted by murmurs of conversation from some of the men-at-arms, talking about the best way to cook a pheasant.

Severin keeps his eyes open. We’re in a very bad situation, he realizes. Something is clearly up between our dwarven friend and this earl. There is bad blood between them. I worry about what is happening between them right now. I hope that Barouk is okay. The earl- well. If Barouk is right that he’s a murderer, then I hope that Barouk is pounding his face in right now. He has counted the men-at-arms as best he can, though he is not sure that he has seen them all, and he may have counted some twice; but he thinks that there are about seventeen of them, plus Striker and the earl.

Well, minus the earl and four of them, for the moment.

We could take them, Severin thinks. Looking them over, he has come to the conclusion that the shabby men-at-arms are a rabble that will frighten easily and break almost as easily. He mutters his conclusion to Kifla. She looks at him like he is crazy.

“What about Romdar?” she whispers.

“He’ll fight for us.” He glances over. Romdar is engaged in conversation, laughing and joking with Striker. “Hmm. Or will he. I see your point.”

The two of them exchange uneasy looks.

***

The keep is abandoned, but not ruined. It is clear that this is the earl’s keep, though why he and his men choose not to inhabit it is... unclear. The architecture, to Barouk’s dwarven appraisal, appears sound. But no fires are lit, none of the rooms appear lived in, and, in fact, the earl leads him directly to a descending stairway and into the dungeon.

Barouk prepares himself. If the earl intends treachery, the dwarven monk vows, he will pay for it. I won’t go down without a fight, and I swear that I’ll go straight for that bastard.

The stairs lead to- and through- the keep’s dungeon, via a narrow passageway. Cramped quarters, Barouk thinks, are nearly ideal when one is outnumbered. But he doesn’t make his move, not yet. What would he do about the dozens of men-at-arms? Romdar, he thinks grimly, if you don’t buck up and help us, I am going to kick your ass.

The narrow passage ends in a slightly wider room. The earl ushers Barouk in. Two of the guards remain in the hallway to prevent retreat, and the other two move in to flank Barouk. Here it comes, he thinks grimly, and clears his mind for battle.

The earl draws out the lajatang- the lajatang Barouk’s father died for. The lajatang that the earl killed for. Barouk starts to fall into a fighting stance, but the earl hands the lajatang to the startled dwarf. “Here,” the earl says. He gestures at the wall behind Barouk. “Insert the end of the lajatang in that slot.”

Uneasily, Barouk turns to regard what the earl has indicated. Indeed, the rock wall of the passage has a metal piece affixed to it in one area, cut by a thin slot.

Reluctantly, Barouk inserts the lajatang.

Click!

The metal bracket around the slit starts to slowly push itself forward out of the wall. It seems to be some sort of drawer.

“Well done, Barouk,” the earl smiles wickedly. “Now return to your friends.” The guards close in on Barouk, leaving him no choices save to go with them or fight.

He almost attacks.

Instead, he turns and slowly leaves the chamber.

“At last, at last, at last,” the earl croons behind him.

Next Time: Will the earl let our heroes go? What will Romdar do? Find out- next time!!

 

[the Jester]

Had Baruk been at full hit points, he may have had a go! But at less than half, he didn't dare.

Edit: Posted by Baruik in disguise.

 

[the Jester]

Decisions

A short update, but a fairly pivotal one.

Sorry the pace of updates has been slow, but most of my creative efforts have been going towards the prep for the epic game. One of the things I'm really looking forward to about 4e is lower prep time.

Anyway, here's the update

***

“What do you think?” whispers Severin. He glances around.

“I don’t know,” murmurs Kifla. “I don’t like the odds. There are a lot of them.”

“Yeah, but if Barouk doesn’t come back soon...” He trails off as one of the shabbyu men-at-arms sidles a little closer. Speaking a little louder, he says, “Well, those soldiers back a little ways were very helpful.” But the guard stays right where he is, and any further collusion between the heroes will just have to wait.

“Look, it’s them,” Romdar calls, pointing up the hillock towards the keep. Indeed, Barouk, the earl and his men are emerging from the cracking walls and starting to move back towards the camp. As Barouk returns to the group, he glares at Romdar, who is with the earl’s men.

“So, Romdar, it seems your loyalties have shifted,” the dwarf grumbles.

“These people know me. I have to try to find out what I can about my past. My history.”

“Perhaps you should look to your present, instead.”

“Barouk, imagine if you couldn’t remember your clan. Imagine if you didn’t even know who you were.”

“I would know what loyalty is.”

“I hope to rejoin you later...”

“Bah,” Barouk sneers, and turns his back.

“You see, Romdar?” the earl says quietly, after Romdar has rejoined him. “They aren’t really your friends anyway. They turn their backs on you as soon as you need something.” He shakes his head sadly.

Romdar says nothing.

Across the camp, under the predatory eye of well over a dozen men, the rest of our heroes cluster together beneath the sunset.

“What did he want you to do?” Kifla asks.

“There was some kind of secret chamber. He needed me to open it.” Barouk grits his teeth, thinking about the lajatang. I will avenge you, father. He glares hard towards the earl, who is talking to Romdar. The desire to attack, despite the odds, is so strong that he can barely resist it. He certainly does not want to resist it. He wants to give in and run raging at the bastard, the murderer.

But... if he were to fail... his father would remain unavenged. And the odds of failure, right now, are too high.

“Can we go now?” he snaps loudly.

The earl looks up. Slowly, a smile slides across his lips. “Of course,” he nods. He waves them off with one hand, and then, as if it were an afterthought, adds, “Thank you for your help, Barouk.”

It is all Barouk can do to swallow his anger. Whatever it is that the earl got from the locked chamber, it can’t be good. And he’s taunting me. I want to rip those taunts right out of his chest. He killed my father! MURDERED him! He finds himself starting to growl aloud and seizes control of himself. He knows discipline; he must simply exercise it. He breathes deeply, regularly, and the burning anger crawls from his face down into his belly.

The party- minus Romdar- makes their escape. They hurry away from the earl’s camp, traveling for several hours into the night before setting up camp.

***

Watching Romdar walk around the camp like an aimless child, the Earl of Thyrozim cannot help but smirk. He turns to Striker and says, “Take a few men and go after them. Kill or capture them, I don’t care which.”

“What?” Romdar says.

The earl turns to him. “They are criminals,” he pronounces. “They have stolen from me, the rightful authority on this land!”

“They did?”

“Yes. And there must be justice. Come now, Romdar, surely you agree.”

Romdar glances around at the men-at-arms all around him. “Of course there must be justice.”

“And, of course, you are ready to help me, if need be?”

“I... those people are my friends. I’ve been traveling with them. I owe them my life. If there must be justice, there must be justice; but if that means that they have to die, I... would prefer not to be involved.”

“But you are ready,” the earl presses him, “to help me as I require?”

“Yes,” Romdar says.

“Good!” The earl grins and claps Romdar on the shoulder. “Come, then. Now that that’s all settled, let’s have a little ale.” He turns to Striker. “Go. Get your team.”

Striker grins. “I’m on it, milord,” he answers, and then he turns and trots away.

Romdar winces.

Next Time: Betrayal! Attacked in the night! Things get far uglier!!

 

[the Jester]

Captured!

Kifla moves away from the low-banked fire, casting her eyes about furtively. Well, okay, she’s not really furtive about it. She’s looking for a bush to hide behind, so nobody can see her while she pees.

But our heroes have camped in a depression with a good view of the surrounding area.

Pinching her legs together, she spends a moment doing the pee dance and then hurries up and out of the depression, blushing at her own modesty. There has to be somewhere, she thinks. Desperately, she scans the surrounding areas- aha! There it is, silhouetted against the night sky- a tree. Quickly, she scurries over to it. A few seconds of fumbling with her robes- you can’t be a dignified illusionist if you pee on yourself- and she sighs with relief, at last unclenching her bladder.

A blissful minute later, Kifla composes herself. She starts walking back towards the camp, still straightening her robes- and freezes.

In the light of the campfire, she can see battle.

In fact, it is the end of a battle.

Horrified, Kifla can only watch as Striker’s team herds her companions off. She recognizes the earl’s chief henchman.

“Oh no,” she whispers. “Oh no, oh no.”

The figures vanish all too quickly into the dark night. The meager radiance of the campfire is not enough to keep them in view even long enough for the gnome to reach the camp, but as she comes closer, she stops. I’m alone, she reminds herself. What if they left a guard behind? I’m no warrior, I’m just a gnome.

For a moment her face screws up in indecision. Then, slowly, something else dawns on her. Yeah, I’m just a gnome- but I’m a gnome. We’re tricky. Sure, maybe these big mean human ruffians could take me in a fair fight... but I’m a gnome.[/i]

Lots of things can out-fight me- but I don’t think that there are many,[/i] Kifla thinks, that can out-trick me.

She sneaks up to the campsite. There is no guard behind, but there are a couple of dead men-at-arms. One of them doesn’t have a mark on him, but he seems to have fallen dead instantly clutching at the strange, frog-hilted sword that the party captured from the Mouth of Bleak.

Interesting, thinks Kifla. She gingerly retrieves the sword; it does no harm to her. Puzzled, she straps it to herself and then resumes her pursuit of her captured friends. She can’t keep up with them, especially once they mount up- but she knows where they’re going.

***

When Kifla reaches the area around the earl’s camp- which she can see from a good mile off, thanks to their campfires- it is late, late, late. Many of the rough men-at-arms in service to Thyrozim are dozing, some at the crude tables that they eat at. More are still awake, drinking or drunken or both.

She spies her friends immediately. They are painfully obvious. They have been left in small cages along the edge of the earl’s camp, with their hands bound behind their backs and their ankles bound. Severin’s face looks broken.

There are a lot of guards, Kifla sighs mentally.

She watches for a few moments, keeping her distance, circling the area. After she circles around twice, she decides on her approach- the least observed approach that she can spot that will get her up to the cages. Fortunately, as a gnome, she is very small, and thus she manages to get perilously close to the cages unnoticed. Careful to act when nobody is looking her way, Kifla casts a ghost sound as far away on the other side of the camp as she can, and suddenly the sound of marching soldiers comes from that direction.

There is an immediate commotion from the conscious men-at-arms, and others begin to rouse from a bleary half-awake state. Interest turns heavily in that direction. The earl cries out, “What’s that?” He frowns, staring off into the darkness.

“YOU WILL GET YOUR DUE!!” Barouk roars at the earl and his men. And Romdar. Especially Romdar.

Romdar, who looks more uncomfortable with every passing second.

As Kifla reaches the cages, she sees the earl speaking to Romdar, attempting to distract him from Barouk’s baiting. “What do you remember about losing your memory?” the earl asks him.

Romdar stares at him. “As important as that is to me, I feel that I first need to ask- what is your interest in this dwarf?”

“He stole from my family,” the earl answers glibly. “And now our fortune shall be restored, and he will face justice.”

“Shh,” Kifla whispers to Barouk, “it’s me, Kifla.” She saws at his bonds, cutting his wrist slightly in the process. Once that is done, she glances over to where her distraction is. They’re going to realize there isn’t anything over there, she thinks, unless I make something over there.

“Watch this!” she tells Barouk quietly.

Again, she weaves a spell. This time, she summons three celestial dogs near the Thyrozim men. Immediately, a melee breaks out. More attention is drawn over there.

“I hope that I can count on you to be in the right side in this, Romdar,” the earl comments.

“I will not stand in the way of justice,” Romdar replies cautiously.

“Then we understand each other.”

“Those dogs came out of nowhere,” the duskblade points out.

The earl stares at him. “It is time for you to prove yourself yet again, Romdar,” he says.

Romdar draws his sword. “I’ll check on the prisoners.” He begins moving towards the cages.

Oh crap, thinks Kifla. She saws madly at Severin’s bonds, finally slicing through them. “Here, I brought you something,” she whispers, and hands over Frogspaw.

Barouk emerges from his cage just as Romdar comes around the corner. He halts for a moment, blade down.

Barouk darts into the darkness.

Severin emerges from his cage and stares at Romdar. He shakes his head, and follows Barouk. Kifla darts after him, motioning for Romdar to follow.

Romdar hesitates for a long moment. The face of a woman- one of the only clues he has had, outside of this group of thugs and ruffians- appears in his mind for an instant. Who am I? he cries. I need to know!

Yet... something is plainly wrong here. This earl is asking him to betray his friends. He has shown no sign of honor or honesty yet. He has a shabby entourage that lives in a camp outside his neglected keep. What kind of earl is this?

Romdar casts swift expeditious retreat and rushes after his friends.

Severin glares as the duskblade runs up towards him, and then past him. “Keep going! Keep going!” Romdar urges him. Severin blinks in confusion; he had expected an attack.

They rush away, as the ghost sound fades and the Thyrozim men dispatch the celestial dogs. Into the night they go, running off for about twenty minutes before slowing to a walk.

But almost immediately, Severing demands, “What were you doing in the tents with them? Why didn’t you help us?”

“I thought they could help me... they knew me. I don’t remember anything. Loyalty- I had ties to them, even if I don’t remember them.”

“Loyalty! How about loyalty to us, your friends, your companions! If we’re going to travel together, we need to know that we can count on you in a fight. When there is trouble, we need to know that you’re on our side. We put our lives in each others’ hands every day, man! We need to know that you’re reliable!”

“I’m reliable! I just...”

Barouk, angry past the point of containment, yells incoherently and throws a deadly blow at Romdar. The duskblade rocks back, taking the blow without defense or complaint. His eye starts to swell and turn black immediately. “Feel better?” he asks Barouk sarcastically.

“That wasn’t very nice!” Kifla cries. “Barouk, you shouldn’t do that, he’s our friend!”

“No, he’s not,” Barouk retorts.

“Can we just keep moving?” Romdar asks.

“And you!” Kifla impales him with her eyes. “You shouldn’t have been hanging out with them. They were bad, bad men!”

He shrugs uncomfortably.

Kifla storm off in a huff. Which is to say, she leads the way in a huff as the party continues on, becoming more and more aware of their weariness. They haven’t slept, and the eastern sky is starting to turn light and pink. They continue along for another couple of hours; they want to put some distance between themselves and the earl’s men.

Severin climbs a tree as the dawn starts to peek out of the east. He looks all around for a likely place to camp, and spots what appears to be an abandoned thorp of several buildings, at least one of which still looks intact.

By mid-morning, our heroes are, at last, bedded down- though they always leave one on watch. And not Romdar; oh no, a trustworthy party member.

I made a pretty bad mistake, Romdar thinks. Again, that woman’s face. Who am I?

Next Time: The drawbacks to going to the authorities to complain about the nobility!

 

[the Jester]

“Now what?” Severin asks Barouk and Kifla. The three of them cluster around, keeping one eye on Romdar. Their trust has been broken, and it will take some time and effort for the duskblade to regain it... if he can.

“I want to go back to that camp of soldiers,” Barouk says. “I want to report that Earl.”

“Report him for what?” Kifla pipes up.

“For being a hoodlum! For murdering my father, years ago! He has no right to be a noble. What good is he doing his people?”

After a pause, Kifla inquires, “What does any of that have to do with anything? Do you really think they’ll listen to us?”

But Barouk will not be discouraged. The party marches on, traveling as discretely as they can while still making reasonable progress. They start their journey in late afternoon, and march past nightfall. Just after the sun goes down, the dwarf hears an odd buzzing sound. It sounds familiar. It is something that he has heard before, at the beginning of his adventuring career- something that he has feared ever since.

“STIRGES!!” Barouk bellows.

Then the little things fly into view, silhouetted against the star-filled sky. There are quite a few of them, fanning out as they rapidly approach. Kifla immediately casts her mage armor; then the stirge swarm is upon our heroes. They slash, punch and jab all around them, feeling the little terrors pierce them and cling to their bodies! Barouk punches one and it pops, exploding in a shower of blood like a bloated mosquito. Severin draws Frogspaw and jabs the tip of the sword at another stirge, but the little beast wheels through the air, avoiding the attack. Romdar moves up, his sword naked in his hand, and begins attacking the stirges as well. Kifla summons up a celestial eagle, which immediately starts attacking the stirges with a shrill cry.

But the little stirges are dangerous. They dart this way and that, wheeling around the adventurers like bats. They dart in, but thankfully, they must get very close before they can attack with their proboscises, and our heroes are able to attack them as they move in. Through a combination of skill and luck, the first wave of stirges fails to get a single hit on anyone!

The second wave comes in, and again, our heroes try to slay them before they enter striking distance. This time, however, a stirge gets through, landing on Severin. “Aargh!” he cries, and commences frantically trying to pry it off of his body. “Help!”

The stirges are falling; Severin finally manages to impale the one sucking his blood with Frogspaw. With a roar, he rips it from his body, then flings it off of his blade. Whirling to face the battle, he finds that the other remaining stirges have just been put down. “That was close,” he gasps, wiping his brow.

“Are you all right?” rumbles Barouk. “I know what stirges are like. They almost killed me in my first adventure!”*

“Yes... I’m a little light-headed, but I’ll be okay,” Severin replies. He takes a deep breath. I seem steady enough, he thinks. Right, I’m okay. “Let’s keep moving.”

They do, traveling onward until dawn. Romdar, Severin and Barouk go hunting for food while Kifla finds a place to build a fire for breakfast. They bring back mushrooms, fish, eggs, shallots, quail and a squirrel. It makes a nice meal. Severin hunts out a nice spot with an overhang- the party is paralleling the mountains- and they set up camp and rests through the day. Again, the group travels into the night. Soon they come upon a shallow creek and follow its path by starlight.

Across the creek, a figure slides out of the shadows and calls out at our heroes.

“Did anyone understand that?” Barouk asks. Nobody did. Everyone begins calling out to it, in different tongues.

Speaking Forinthian in an odd accent, the dim figure says, “You are in our area. You must pay tribute to pass. And you must toss your sources of light aside.”

“All right,” Barouk shrugs. He pulls out his torches and drops them. I have darkvision anyway, he think.

“Uh, sure,” Severin bluffs, and drops one torch. He has more in his backpack.

Romdar argues, “We need our light sources. Why do you want us to get rid of them? What if we promise not to use them? We could-”

Three grey figures wielding spiked chains appear from the shadows and attack.

The first one lashes its chain across Romdar’s face. “Aargh!” the duskblade cries. “Wait, we are parlaying!!”

Not anymore, apparently.

The second shadowy creature attacks Barouk, but the dwarf throws himself down below the spiked chain. It whistles overhead. Barouk pops back up and settles into a fighting stance. It strikes again, but he ducks beneath the blow.

Severin, meanwhile, is attacked by the third figure. It strikes him twice across the chest. “Woof!” he gasps.

The first of the three, meanwhile, whips his chain squarely into Romdar’s groin. The duskblade howls in agony. Then, in reprisal, he quickdraws his sword, casts shocking grasp and channels the spell into his blade. With a mighty lunge, he nearly trips over himself, completely misses, and discharges his spell into the earth below him. His foe shakes his head and whacks Romdar with his chain again.

Kifla hurries up to Barouk and casts magic weapon on his fists. “Here, this should help!” she cries. Barouk grins and springs forward, unleashing a flurry of blows at his opponent. One hits, bloodying his face, but the dwarf’s other strike misses. He growls, but his enemy just grins.

Severin begins dancing with the one on him, and he manages to land a very solid blow with Frogspaw. However, the grey-skinned, sad-featured figure he is fighting is still standing. “Take that!” the ranger cries.

The other creature, on the other side of the river, scowls at the scene. Like them, he is grey-haired, grey-skinned, wearing strange-looking studded leather armor and jewels that seem to be pierced into his skin. He begins to whirl his chain and starts crossing the river.

“This is bad!” Kifla squeaks. She casts color spray, and the one that is pressing Romdar shrieks and drops its chain, blinded and stunned! Romdar takes up a similar strategy, casting flare on the enemy that is crossing the river. Unfortunately, the grey-skinned creature throws its arms up, covering its eyes, and continues to advance.

Barouk continues to duel with his enemy. Each of them has wounded the other; now, Barouk focuses his ki into his fists- and they burst into flame. His shadowy adversary’s eyes widen in surprise. “What,” he says, and it is his last word. Barouk is a lethal, flaming blur; and in seconds, the chain-wielding figure has fallen.

Then the one that just crossed over charges him, raking its spiked chain across the dwarf’s flank! Barouk groans in pain, and blood splatters down the side of his robes. He throws another flurry of blows at his new enemy, but the shadowy figure ducks and weaves away from his punches.

Meanwhile, Severin continues to duel with the figure that he has already wounded. Frogspaw seems to sing in his hand as he stabs forward; but the grey figure dances aside and swings his chain around to slap Severin in the nose. “Urgh!” the ranger grunts. The two exchange a series of quick, whirling feints and slashes. Clang! Clang! Steel clashes on steel as they dance.

Kifla has spent a great deal of time watching Barouk’s techniques for tumbling. Now, as she is too close to multiple enemies, she thanks the gods that she had the foresight to do so. She is nowhere near as good as the monk, but she has been practicing- and now, she flips and tumbles back out of range of the enemies and into position. She unleashes another color spray! This time, however, both enemies throw the effects off completely. Romdar unleashes a burning hands spell that catches two of the party’s foes in it, but both remain standing!

“These guys are tough!” Romdar shouts.

“Not so tough,” replies Severin, as he nearly decapitates his foe. At last, the figure drops to the ground lifeless.

“Hah! Well done!” exclaims Barouk, just in time for his enemy to whack him in the face again! Then the shadowy figure turns and starts to flee. Barouk growls, reaches out and grabs him by the shoulder, spins him around and shoves his fingers in its eyes, nearly knocking the crown of its head off! It collapses, slain.

The party turns to their last adversary, who is just shaking off the color spray at last. They spring on him collectively, grappling him. The figure struggles wildly; finally, Barouk forces its head down onto some of its own spiky accoutrements, and it collapses with a wail.

Is it over?

It’s over.

Everyone looks around warily. “We made it!” Kifla cheers.

“Those guys were tough,” Romdar groans. He is badly wounded, and he is not the only one. In fact, except for Kifla, everyone is badly damaged.

“We need to rest,” Severin says, wiping his blade off on the tunic of one of the fallen grey figures. “Search these guys, then move on and back into the Deadgrass Lands a little bit. That is, if you still want to go to those soldiers,” he nods at Barouk.

“Yes,” Barouk replies curtly.

Severin sighs. “All right. But we need to rest first.”

The dwarf scowls. After a moment, he nods.

***

In the morning, as the dawn rises, our heroes rise as well. They didn’t make enough progress before the fight last night to really need to sleep in much longer, and now they have, in one fell swoop, adjusted their collective sleep cycle back to what might be considered ‘normal’ for most folk. They search the dead chain-wielding creatures. Now that it is light, Romdar is able to identify them: “They’re shadar-kai, fey from the Plane of Shadow.”

A search finds only a few coins- 22 gold, to be precise- but Grom decides to take the shadar-kai spiked chains. “They’re fairly valuable,” he points out. “We’ll be in a city before long; we were within spitting distance of the Elsir Vale as it was, before we turned around to go talk to these soldiers.” He frowns. “I don’t like that we’re traveling away from my people now; let’s try to get this over with in a hurry.”

“Yeah, let’s,” agrees Severin.

The party continues along their way, starting to edge back into the Deadgrass Lands. Before long, they spy a patrol up ahead, with a number of garen-mounted soldiers leading the way.

“Hail!” Barouk calls.

“This is a bad idea,” mutters Severin.

Next Time: Is Severin right? What happens when Barouk tries to turn the authorities in to the authorities??

*Back at the beginning of this thread- the very first post, in fact!

 

[the Jester]

Turning the Authorities in to the Authorities

The patrol of soldiers stops, and their leader approaches our heroes. “Good morning,” he nods to them. His mouth is a thin taut line. “What are you folk doing out here? You don’t look to be from these parts.”

“We’re heading for my home town of Drellin’s Ferry,” Grom speaks up. “There are some goblins causing us trouble. Maybe you folks could come help?”

“We’re stationed here, I’m afraid.” The knight shrugs.

“That’s not really what we want to talk to you about, though,” Barouk harrumphs. “There is an earl nearby that is a criminal. He’s a thief and a murderer.”

“Really!” exclaims the patrol’s leader. “What evidence do you have?”

Barouk stops. “Well,” he says, and stops again. “Well,” he picks up after a moment of silence, “he has my father’s lajatang!”

“And?”

“He killed him for it!”

“Is there a body?”

“Years ago!”

“Is there any evidence now?”

“I...” Barouk grumbles.

“Come, walk with me for a moment,” the commander sighs. The dwarf and the human walk a few dozen yards away in silence. The man’s brow furrows; clearly, he is thinking hard about what to say or do next. Then, he says, “Listen, dwarf, if you go accusing a member of the aristocracy of a serious crime, you had better have some good solid evidence. If it comes down to your word versus his, he will win. He’s an aristocrat. And you’ll make enemies, and probably be brought up on charges yourself for slandering him, or inciting insurrection or some such.” He stares Barouk in the eye. “Now, if you want me to take you to my captain, I will, and you can make your complaint. But if you don’t have any evidence to back up your claim, I suspect that you will be dealt with rather harshly- especially given your previously-proven association with bandits.”

“What!”

“We searched your party,” the man snaps, “and you had stolen goods on you.”

“It was loot we found when we fought the bandits!”

“So you say,” the commander answers, clearly unconvinced.

Barouk sighs. “He’s an evil man, and he is guilty of many crimes,” he says wearily.

“Gather evidence, then accuse.”

Barouk stares at him. I cannot just abandon my oath of vengeance, he thinks, but I am a dwarf. I can be patient. We must take time to recover ourselves, to grow in power- and then I will seek my revenge. Then I will return to you, Earl of Thyrozim, and I will destroy you! I swear it!

***

The patrol rides off, leaving our heroes again on their own. Barouk, clearly in a very foul mood, snaps at Romdar several times. The duskblade tries again to explain his actions with the earl, but Barouk will have none of it. Kifla tries to settle the two of them down, but Barouk needs to lash out at someone. His anger cannot be completely contained.

The party discusses their next course of action. Barouk declares that he still wishes to slay the earl in time, staring at Romdar when he says it.

“Look, I’m not going to fight against you guys,” Romdar said. “I never did!”

“You need to fight with us when the time comes,” Severin replies. “Can we count on you?”

”Yes! Yes, I’ll fight with you!” Romdar cries.

“Bah,” says Barouk.

***

The party begins journeying into the mountains. There is a path above them; they climb towards it, finally reaching it, and continue their ascent towards the saddle that leads to the Elsir Vale.

Suddenly, Barouk cries out, “Look! In the sky! A beast!!” His pointing finger indicates a strange monster in the sky, part eagle and part horse. He darts over to a boulder and scampers up to the top.

“It’s a hippogriff,” Kifla announces. “They can make good mounts, but the wild ones might try to eat us, especially those of us that are, um, smaller.” Her eyes widen in dismay. “Hey, that’s me!” Quickly, she casts mage armor.

“It looks friendly,” Romdar says. He still draws his bow. The creature flies over the party, spiraling down and slashing at Kifla’s face. “Hey!” the duskblade exclaims. “Maybe I’m wrong- that wasn’t friendly at all!”

Kifla squeals in dismay and casts expeditious retreat. She tumbles back- she’s been practicing!- and escapes the hippogriff’s reach. “Scare it off!” she shouts. “It’s trying to eat me!”

Grom jumps forward. “If we can tame it,” he cries, “maybe we can ride it!” He grabs the hippogriff’s mane, but it pushes him back and breaks free. He poises himself to try again.

Barouk, meanwhile, leaps from the boulder and manages to kick the hippogriff in the beak. It squawks in pain. He lands on his feet, ready to engage it, but it steps back a pace and instead turns its full attentions on Romdar. Both of its razor-sharp talons tear across him, slicing open his chest and belly. Romdar screams in terrific pain as his intestines spill out on the ground, looping around his ankles! Then the hippogriff’s beak flashes out and it literally bites his head off.

Romdar’s screams cease, immediately and forever.

“NOOOOO!!” Kifla screams. “ROMDAR!!!”

Everyone is paralyzed in horror for a split-second. Then Grom backs away. “Dexter’s nadlies,” he gasps.

The hippogriff weathers a few thrown punches by Barouk as it clutches Romdar’s body in its talons and his head in its beak. It begins to crack his skull like a nut’s shell and leaps into the air. Our heroes can only watch as it flies away to enjoy its meal.

“Wow,” Severin says.

“I feel bad now,” Kifla nods. “We were all mad at him, and we never had a chance to make up!”

“He was a traitor,” Barouk shrugs, but even he sounds less harsh than normal.

***

With no choice but to continue, the party goes over the saddle of the ridge of hills and proceeds down into the valley. Soon they are moving through fields of grains along a trail that leads to the gates of a decent-sized city called Brindol. It costs each of the adventurers a silver coin to enter the city, but they quickly find a tavern-the Thirsty Zombie- where they can sit down and enjoy a drink and fresh food. The proprietor is a corpulent half-orc named Torgin, and a heavy crossbow hangs behind the bar. Grom gravitates to him by virtue of their shared ancestry, and soon they are chatting amicably while they both sip on a brew. Grom explains the party’s mission, and Torgin scratches his chin.

“So,” the bartender says, “you’re adventurers, eh?”

“Yes,” Grom nods. “But we’re on a quest already, and we’ve already been delayed too much. We can’t really afford any more time...”

“Fair enough.” Torgin shrugs. “It’s just that my friend Callus has been having, well, a pest problem. Some kind of big beetles. And his farm is just outside of town.”

“Beetles?” Severin perks up.* “Which side of town does your friend live on?”

“He’s outside of town about two miles, to the north,” Torgin replies.

“He’s on the way,” Severin nods.

***

A night’s sleep in a bed is quite luxurious, after what feels like years on the road (but is more like weeks). In the morning, our heroes are reminded of just how wonderful fresh bread is, and after a very nice breakfast, they set out to find this fellow Callus.

It takes a few hours, during which they are traveling the right direction, although less quickly than if they weren’t looking for someone, but eventually they find him. Callus is a middle-aged human male. When he hears that Torgin sent them, he breaks into a grin. “Ah, Torgin, always helping his friends out!” He grins. “Well, I don’t know if you’re willing to help for what I can afford to pay- which is fifty gold coins each plus some goat cheese and juice- but if you are, I have a small problem.”

“We heard something about beetles?” Severin inquires.

The farmer nods. “Yes. I’ve had trouble with these things eating my crops and livestock.”

“They’re big enough to eat livestock?” Severin sounds impressed.

“Goats,” Callus answers. “They aren’t so big.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, there’s a small nest of them- and they’re some kind of earthquake beetles.”

Next Time: Our heroes fight jishin mushi!



*Vermin, of course, are Severin’s favored enemy.

 

[the Jester]

West of Callus’ farm, our heroes find the beetle lair: a large nest of dirt, sticks and leaves, stuck together with saliva. Two large, ugly beetles the size of a small cow are crawling upon it.

“A mated pair,” Severin hypothesizes.

The beetles notice our heroes and begin crawling towards them. “Well, here we go,” Grom says, drawing his crossbow. Barouk rushes past him, a kama in his hand. With a wild cry, the dwarven monk launches himself at the closest beetle- to no effect! His kama bounces off of the bug’s exoskeleton.

Severin nocks and fires an arrow at the other beetle in one smooth motion. The arrow sinks in, puncturing the beetle’s carapace and sticking into the great vermin. It hisses and it begins to vibrate, pushing itself against the earth.

There is a rumble, and the ground undulates towards the party.

Grom gives a great cry as he is thrown from his feet. Severin is thrown to the ground as well!

“Oh no, that farmer was right!” cries Kifla. “They are earthquake beetles!”

Barouk and the beetle he is on begin a series of attacks on one another, but at least for the moment, neither is willing to commit to an all-out attack. Thus, each manages to defend against the other. The beetle scurries forward, then back, snapping at the dwarf with its mandibles, while Barouk punches, kicks and blocks.

Kifla starts to cast a summoning spell, but the unengaged beetle vibrates the ground again. She is thrown down, as is Severin, who had just regained his feet. He lets out a stream of mighty curses. Kifla, however, manages to maintain her concentration and continues casting.

Grom fires his crossbow at the one that keeps shaking the ground, but his bolt flies wide and shoots off into the distance. “Bah!” Grom cries, casting down his crossbow and drawing out his shortsword. With a roar, the half-orc rushes forward to aid Barouk, who has by now suffered a pair of serious bite wounds that have left him pretty wounded.

Then Kifla’s spell goes off at last, and a pair of celestial fire beetles appear! They flank the other earthquake beetle. Beetle against beetle they struggle; but the earthquake beetle quickly demonstrates its might, biting the head of one of the fire beetles completely off. Severin, on his feet again, leaps at the bug, Frogspaw naked in his hand. He slices at it wildly, but his blow misses it completely. The beetle snaps at Grom, but then the other fire beetle attacks it and snips one of its legs off! It shudders, and the fire beetle takes another nip of it, this time tearing out a large part of the earthquake beetle’s head! With that, the first beetle dies.

Grom and Barouk flank the other one, and although Barouk’s strength is flagging, they keep the beetle from focusing effectively on either one of them long enough for Grom to land a fatal sneak attack on it.

***

Severin is gathering arrows when Grom nudges him. “Hey,” the half-orc says, “look at that.”

The ranger follows his companion’s gaze. A single figure, armed and lightly armored, with a backpack and a walking stick, is making his way along the nearby trade road. Severin looks back at Grom. “So?”

“He’s an adventurer. We could use him. We just lost Romdar; we need to replenish our ranks.”

Severin shrugs. “Maybe, if he really is an adventurer.”

“Let’s go ask.”

“All right.” The ranger gives another shrug. “Why not?”

They approach and greet the man, who regards them with the kind of wary eyes that an adventurer watches the world with. His name is Seivus, and he turns out to be a dragon shaman (whatever that is) who worships the black dragon Lithos.* He relaxes once our heroes prove to be friendly, and fellow adventurers besides. He has no particular destination; he is, as they say, adventuring.

”Well, we’re trying to clean out these beetles,” Grom explains. “Perhaps you’d like to join us for an equal share...?”

“All right,” Seivus agrees, “there is more safety in numbers.”

Thus, the dragon shaman joins the party, and they continue their work on the beetle nest. A few more beetles do show up, and the dragon shaman turns out to be able to produce auras that enhance his companions. Thus enhanced, our heroes manage to overcome the remaining earthquake beetles.

“Not bad,” Barouk nods at Seivus.

“You aren’t bad either,” admits the dragon shaman.

The party searches the nest, and finds several half-devoured corpses within it. In addition, they find some treasure- about 500 gold pieces, a moonstone necklace and a scroll. Kifla is overjoyed, upon casting read magic, to find that it has two arcane spells upon it- vertigo and burning hands. Although burning hands is out of her area of expertise, vertigo is an illusion of the second valence- just right for her!

***

Back to Callus’ farm our heroes go; they collect their reward (agreeing with him that they will pay Seivus out of their reward, as the farmer had never agreed to hire him). Then it is back to town, for it is starting to look like rain, and no one in the group even has a tent. Furthermore, Barouk and Severin both took serious damage in the battle against the beetles.

So they go to rest and recover, and they buy some appropriate gear for the remainder of their journey. While her companions heal, Kifla trades in the burning hands from the scroll and, throwing in some additional cash, buys the formula to Therena’s steam jet, which is known instead in some circles as Malford’s steam jet. While they are just leaving, they run into a fellow named Olin from Grom’s home village, Drellin’s Ferry.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Olin exclaims. “We feared that you had been lost!”

“It has been a long, strange journey,” Grom replies, “but I have found adventurers to help our village, and we are on our way there now.”

Olin joins with the group and they proceed down a busy trade road towards Drellin’s Ferry. Some of the traffic on the road is foot traffic; some of the foot traffic is herding chickens along with them, or is accompanied by sheep or some such. Much of the traffic is wagons or carts, drawn by garen, bodokod or bosoch. By the time the sun goes down, they have made nearly fifteen miles. Well-satisfied with their day’s travel, the party makes camp past a screen of brush a little way off the road. They build a fire and are just starting to discuss dinner when a loud, distressed squealing disturbs their conversation.

“What’s that?” exclaims Kifla.

“It sounds edible,” Severin declares, and then it breaks into their camp site and they can see it in the firelight: a huge boar the size of a bull, bristling with arrows.

Kifla hears a thwap! Suddenly a great pain blossoms in her arm. She is amazed, when she looks at it, to discover an arrow protruding from it.

“What?” she says.

Then, as the strange crocodilian things firing arrows come into view, the poison takes hold.

Next Time: The boar, the reptilian monsters and our heroes all fight each other!

*Readers of my epic story hour may recall Lithos, the legendary black dragon of the Swamp of Lithos, who was asleep for an age before the party woke & slew her.

 

[the Jester]

“What are these, some kind of crocodile-men?” shouts Severin. It is hard for them to see; it’s dark. The ranger quickly pulls out a torch and thrusts it into the campfire in order to shed some light on things. As near as he can tell, there are only two of the green humanoid creatures. He hurls his torch forward through the night, towards the two strange creatures.

Thwack! An arrow sinks into his side, scraping across his ribs. “Ack!” he exclaims. He feels a strange burn in the wound, and realizes that he is poisoned. His body throws off the initial effects, but...

“I can barely stand,” Kifla groans. She is trembling with weakness. Haltingly, she casts mirror image, hoping to protect herself from the assault. Suddenly there are six Kiflas, all shimmering and shifting around.

“Whoa there,” Barouk says gruffly to the dire boar. It is wounded, angry, confused, poisoned and worst of all, boxed in. Its eyes are rolling in its head from fear. It has no escape route- it must make its own escape route! The dire boar lowers its head and charges, churning the ground beneath it as it rushes Barouk.

The monk waits until the last instant and then steps aside. The huge pig doesn’t seem to be interested in fighting, just surviving.* Yet it really has no escape before it, since now the six shimmering Kiflas are in its way. It bellows frustration and confusion, and rampages through one of the party’s tents, totally destroying it.

“Nice piggy,” Kifla gulps.

Barouk cries, “Kifla, get out of there! Its head is as big as you!” He takes his own advice, beating something of a retreat and then attempting to assess where he can do the most good. He watches as Severin shoots one of the crocodile men in the chest, wounding him severely; so Barouk pulls out his own crossbow and quickly loads it. He takes careful aim as the crocodile man shoots another arrow at Severin, and then pulls the trigger. His bolt catches it in the throat. It spasms and drops its bow. For an instant it clutches the arrow, and then it collapses!

Severin whips Frogspaw from its sheath and advances on the other green-scaled creature. It has just shot the dire boar again, bringing out a terrific squeal from it. Kifla leaps out of the way as the pig charges forward, but then it stops, confused and upset by the fire and the smell of the other folk camped off the side of the road. Barouk quickly interposes himself between it and Kifla. “Stay back,” he commands his friend, who is so weak from the poison that she can barely stand.

“Don’t worry, I will,” she moans.

Meanwhile, Severin and the green creature dance. The reptilian creature uses some sort of strange weapon with a long, short sword-like blade off one end and a shorter, shovel-shaped blade off the other. The two of them parry and dodge each others’ blows for the first few moments, but then Severin lands a killing blow, decapitating the monster in a single shot!

This gives the dire boar the opening it needs. Severin backs away as it shoots past them into the night.

“Is everyone okay?” asks Severin. “I’m poisoned.”

“Me too,” groans Kifla.

“Well,” Barouk opines, “it’s a good thing that we are resting anyway.”

***

Indeed, they decide to extend their rest through the next day. They trade for a bag of fresh tangerines from some traveling farmers, but mostly just sit around recovering. Both Kifla and Severin have suffered fairly heavy strength damage, but by the next morning, both of them are in much better shape. They head off, moving along the trail with Kifla (who is still suffering worse effects from the poison) riding their garen while the others walk. In the middle of the day, they come to a town called Marthton, where they eat a hearty lunch. Kifla goes to a temple of Dexter in search of healing for the poison’s effects, but to her consternation discovers that she cannot afford it. (Barouk just snorts. He won’t go into a temple to that upstart pup Dexter.) The party spends the night in town, sleeping in Olin’s uncle’s barn.

In the morning, the party heads off with a new tent, lantern and provisions. They join the flow of traffic, and Barouk ends up buying an orange-yellow cat named Spadron from a merchant with a wagon packed with cages of cats.

“What happens if you can’t sell them?” Kifla asks. “Do they stay in cages forever?”

“Oh, they’ll all sell, even if just to a cook,” the merchant answers.

Kifla stares. She can’t believe her ears. “I’d like to buy all the cats,” she announces.

“Why?” demands Barouk.

“If he doesn’t sell them, they’ll kill them and cook them!” Kifla wails.

“No he won’t,” Barouk argues. “He’s just trying to sell them to you.”

“Well, I don’t personally,” the merchant says, “but like I said, I sell them to cooks.”

“I want to buy them all,” Kifla repeats. “How much?”

“One gold piece for the lot of them,” the mercnant replies.

Kifla hands over the money. The merchant starts pulling the cages off of his wagon, but Kifla says, “Just let them out.”

The merchant shrugs and retorts, “They’re yours now. If you want to, go ahead.” He doesn’t really seem to believe that the gnome is serious, but he is being good-natured about things nonetheless. When Kifla starts actually letting the cats out, he shakes his head and walks to the other side of the wagon.

Barouk sighs. “Oh, Kifla,” he says.

An elf walks up. “What’s this? Why are you letting all these cats go here? You can’t just dump them off the side of the road!”

“But he was going to kill them!” Kifla explains the situation to the elf.

“Oh, that’s different, then,” the elf says. “Where is that merchant, anyway?”

***

By midafternoon, the party is in an area of gently rolling hills. Olin points out a swimming hole, and they decide to spend a few moments there. It is a hot day. A narrow trail zigzags down to a creek, where a few other folk are. Barouk tippytoes through water waist deep, being careful to keep his beard above it and lifting it up to keep it dry. Meanwhile Kifla makes the acquaintance of a handsome and charming male gnome named Lucky. The two of them really hit it off, and they are chatting animatedly when a scream rings out across the area.

Barouk cries out, “What’s that?”

There are shapes in the water- some kind of giant crayfish as big as Barouk is! And one of them is right near a child!

Lucky starts singing, and Kifla casts expeditious retreat and scurries over to the child. The others close in on the river, and the crayfish come in on the attack. One of them seizes Barouk’s arm in its great claw! He kicks the other one in the head, stunning it, while Kifla learns that her phantom foe spell won’t work on them- they are vermin, and thus mindless!

Barouk struggles in the crayfish’s grip, and it soon becomes a contest of fumbles, with both himself and the crayfish horribly flubbing their attempts to grapple each other. Barouk ends up stunned on the ground, while the crayfish drops him and retreats a pace. Kifla reacts instantly, using a steam jet to cook it in its shell! The first crayfish falls. Lucky and Barouk (once he has recovered) manage to quickly slay the other one.

“Hmm,” muses Barouk. “Smells tasty.”

“Oh, you saved us!” exclaims one of the women present, sobbing in relief.

***

The next day is warm and muggy, and as the party hits the road, Kifla pines for Lucky. “He was so handsome,” she sighs. “And smart.”

Barouk just shakes his head. “He was a bard. How can you take that seriously?”

But Kifla just heaves another sigh.

Next Time: Garbage Plot!

*We actually had a guest player for the wounded dire boar (Alcar). That was really cool, and helped to make this whole thing a great atypical fight.

 

[the Jester]

Garbage Plot

The city of Brindol is not as large as Alathion, by any means; yet it is still a large enough city to have walls, a busy road running through it and a mass of vendors on the streets. There are somewhere over eight thousand inhabitants; it is clearly a fairly prosperous community that has made its way in the world mostly via farming.

Our heroes rest a night in town, then spend a portion of the next day shopping. Barouk is disappointed to find that he cannot locate a lajatang. The memory of his father’s work in the hands of the earl burns within him. He could commission one, but how long will it be before he can return to Brindol to reclaim it? And the party must keep moving- they are heading into danger, after all, heading to aid the folk of Drellin’s Ferry with their goblin problem.

By mid-afternoon, our heroes leave town and head down the Dawn Way towards Drellin’s Ferry. But though the shadows are lengthening, it is not yet evening when they hear a plaintive cry for aid.

“My baby!”

Our heroes hurry towards the cry, and soon they find a sobbing peasant woman. “My baby is gone!” she wails. “Please, I can’t find him!”

“It’s okay,” Kifla tries to comfort her. “We’ll help you find him. Tell us what happened.”

The woman sniffles. “I was gathering mushroom, near the edge of the woods,” she explains. “I didn’t want to actually go in very far, because everybody knows that there are fairies in there, and if you aren’t careful, they’ll steal your baby. Well, I didn’t think I was too deep in- but I must have been, because I turned around, and she was gone!” The woman starts to become hysterical again; but Kifla and Severin, together, soothe her.

“We’ll find your baby,” Severin promises her. “I’m a tracker. Have no fear! Just show us where you were when you lost her.”

The weeping woman- whose name is Amara- leads the party on a short walk, then indicates the baby’s last known position.

Kifla wrinkles her nose. “What’s that smell?”

“The dump,” Amara informs the party. She points. “It’s just a couple of miles that way, not far from here. When the wind shifts, you can sometimes smell it here.”

“Eww,” Kilfa opines.

***

Severin leads the party into the woods, his eyes scanning for tracks. He moves with confident speed, but soon slows down. The tracks are starting to become confusing- doubling, vanishing, turning back on themselves.

“The lady might have been right,” the ranger muses. “The involvement of fey would explain a lot here. And they are said to steal babies sometimes...”

“Maybe I can help,” Kifla suggests. “I know a little about trickery and illusion. If they were using magic to cloak their journey, I might be able to help guide us to them.”

“I’ll see if I can see anything from up this tree,” Barouk says, and starts climbing. Once he gets up to the top, he looks around in all directions for anything unusual, but he doesn’t really know what to look for.

Almost as if she’s reading his mind, Kifla shouts up, “Barouk, look for rings or circles of some kind! That might show us where the fairies are!”

“Humph,” Barouk mutters to himself, “fairies.” But he has a good look around, and he notes what appears to be a ring of mushrooms on a nearby hill. He drops out of the tree, slowing his descent with his monkish skills, and reports what he saw to the others.

“It sounds like our best lead so far,” Severin says. “Let’s check it out.”

The party walks a few hundred yards uphill until they reach a clearing on the face of the hill. There is, indeed, a ring of mushrooms on the hillside. The party spreads out and searches around, and soon Severin turns up a secret door in the hillside!

“Let’s be careful,” the ranger urges his companions, drawing out Frogspaw. He can feel a surge of squirming power run through him while he holds it.

The party moves into the cramped passageway revealed behind the secret door. Barouk and Kifla hold torches aloft; all three of them have their eyes peeled. Into the hill they go, into the earthy smell. It is cool but not unpleasantly so; the air feels moist but not wet.

In no time at all, the passage opens up into a chamber. And there, our heroes find the baby, as well as his fairy kidnappers.

A lot of fairy kidnappers.

The baby looks perfectly happy; she is playing with some small blocks. The fey watch the party impassively as they survey the scene. There are almost two dozen small, winged fey figures in the room.

“We’ve come for the child,” Barouk barks.

“I think not!” squeaks one of the sprites.

“He must go back to his mother,” Severin states.

“He is not safe with her.”

“Safe!” the ranger exclaims. “And you think that he is safe here, with you?”

“Safer here than out there,” the little man replies tartly. “At least we don’t have garbage trouble!”

“What do you mean, garbage trouble?” Barouk asks.

“There is an infestation of terrible monsters in the dump,” the little fey man answers. “Living garbage. They try to wrap around you and take over your body.” He strokes a lock of the girl’s hair with a tiny hand. “The very young are especially vulnerable.”

“Well, then, what if we took care of the garbage monsters for you?” Severin asks. “Perhaps they are even vermin!”

Negotiations break out, and soon the sprites are convinced to release the baby- if our heroes can root out these “garbage monsters”. They return to Amara, who looks despondent when she sees them returning without her child; but when they explain that they saw the baby, she was healthy and they are still trying to get her back, the peasant woman seems to gain some hope. “Thank you so much,” she tells them. “The Light be with you.”

So our heroes set out for the dump. It’s only about two hours away, cross country; it should take a little under an hour to get there. They are nearing the outskirts of the dump when a wind springs up. A pile of garbage, mostly the rags of discarded old clothing, starts to swirl about. At first, it appears to be carried by the gust; but suddenly, it starts to advance on our heroes. It is obviously no normal pile of garbage!

A few blows cuts the trash into smaller pieces, and whatever spirit animates it seems to flee the scene. The garbage falls back to the ground, unmoving. “Weird,” comments Barouk.

“Stinky,” answers Kifla.

The party continues, closer to the dump. The stink has become much stronger, and much fouler. Kifla keeps waving her hand in front of her nose and wrinkling her face.

Something clatters to the side, in a pile of garbage as big as a small hovel. A dire badger trundles out and charges.

It is wrapped in bits of old cloth, jewelry and scraps of rope. A worn and tattered burlap sack covers its back.

“Another one of them!” exclaims Barouk.

Kifla tries her color spray, to no avail, while Severin and Barouk spring to flank the hapless badger. It growls and yowls and bites and claws at them, but they are experienced, savvy warriors. They hack and punch at the badger from both sides, keeping it from inflicting more than a few minor wounds before they manage to slay it.

“This could get pretty ugly, before it’s over,” Severin states, bandaging a cut along Barouk’s arm.

Just at that moment, a pile of trash nearby moves- and our heroes realize it isn’t a pile of trash at all: it’s a strange creature, with several long, strong-looking tentacles, one of which has eyes at the end of it. Its drooling mouth is stained with offal. In its non-eye bearing tentacles, it holds some kind of chest or box.

“It’s an otyugh!” exclaims Severin.

Next Time: Garbage Plot, part 2!

 

[the Jester]

Garbage Plot (pt 2)

To our heroes’ amazement, the otyugh towering over them-

Speaks.

Yes, its words come out in a gurgle. Yes, they are accompanied by the foulness of otyugh halitosis. But it is undeniable: the trash monster speaks.

“What did it say?” exclaims Barouk in disbelief.

Simultaneously, Severin’s jaw drops, and he cries, “Did it just speak??”

“Yes,” the creature rumbles. “Me speak. You help. Take junk. Give junk.”

Our heroes, whose hands had been readying spells and weapons, hesitate- and, who would have ever thought it, parlay with an otyugh.

***

The otyugh is a foul-smelling, garbage-dwelling eater of filth. It subsists on rotting food, sewage and refuse. Yet, somehow, it seems to differentiate between ‘good junk’ and ‘bad junk’.

It takes a while for our heroes to negotiate with the beast. It takes a while to figure out what it wants, and what it is offering. But soon, our heroes manage to piece together this much, at least: the otyugh considers the city dump to be its home (and really, having a few otyughs around probably keeps the dump from growing too quickly). It likes junk- at least, good junk. But lately, some ‘bad junk’ has come to infest its landfill. And so, to get it out, the otyugh is offering the party some ‘good junk’ to do the dirty work.

Shake shake. It shakes the chest it is holding and thrusts it forward, making it apparent that the ‘good junk’ it is offering is... treasure!

Negotiations with an otyugh... who would ever be prepared for such a thing? What could one offer an otyugh? Poop?

Or... to help it with a problem.

The otyugh consents to let them look in the box. It contains a pair of boots and a pair of potion bottles. All are smeared in waste, making them unappealing. On the other hand, the boots look fancy, and Kifla’s detect magic confirms that the potions and boots are all magical. The otyugh doesn’t appear to understand the question when they ask what the items are; it maintains that they are ‘good junk.’ Right. They certainly are.

The bargain struck, our heroes move along, their strange ally clumping along behind them. The otyugh (whose name is Spoot) promises to turn the box over once the ‘bad junk’ has been driven away.

“I think we know what the bad junk is,” Barouk mutters. “We’ve already fought one of them.”

The group advances into the dump. They make no real effort to hide themselves. They are well aware that the strange living junk creatures that they are facing are perfectly camouflaged here. Uneasily, Severin scans the refuse for movement. Barouk, too, is trying to watch everywhere at once. Spoot’s eye-bearing tentacle swivels this way and that, alertly watching for any signs of trouble.

Kifla, as usual, is completely oblivious.

“There!” cries Barouk.

Atop a nearby mound of refuse, two giant flies the size of large dogs, wrapped in garbage, buzz into the air and prepare to move towards the party. Two more whirlwinds of garbage rise up, as well.

Spoot charges. Its potato-shaped body trundles forward with relative quickness, and it slaps a tentacle out at one of the flies. Whack! Then it wraps the tentacle around the fly and begins to constrict it, squeezing it hard! Then the otyugh releases its grasp on the fly and smacks it again! The monster is badly wounded; Barouk adds a crossbow bolt to the mix.

Suddenly the garbage sheathing it falls off, and its behavior changes immediately. Its aggression vanishes, and it immediately flies away. Our heroes let it go.

Kifla begins summoning immediately, while Barouk begins moving in. Meanwhile, Severin fires his longbow at the fly that isn’t grappled. He hits it with his first shot, but misses with the second.

Spoot turns its attention to the other fly. In an instant, it has the vermin grappled and is squeezing it with all its otyughish might.

Meanwhile, Kifla’s summoning brings forth two celestial dogs. They rush in at the fly, and one of them wounds it further, but the two whirling ragamuffins zoom in and attack. One of them wraps itself around one of Kifla’s dogs, but it shakes and bites and growls, and finally manages to throw the ragamuffin off of it! Unfortunately, the effort, combined with the wounds that the strange garbage monster has inflicted, is too much. The dog is overcome, collapsing.

The second ragamuffin whirls in and attacks the otyugh! Spoot roars in distress as the tattered refuse wraps itself around him. It struggles valiantly, trying to pull the stuff off of itself, but it cannot tear it off fast enough. The ragamuffin’s substance starts to shroud Spoot, and it gives a bellow of confusion and fear.

Barouk throws himself in, tearing at the ragamuffin trying to take control of his otyugh ally (damn peculiar, using those words together, he thinks).

The ragamuffin endures the blow, which is mighty, and continues to try to dominate Spoot. The otyugh bellows again, struggling to resist. Meanwhile, Kifla’s remaining dog knocks the remaining fly out, and the garbage wrapping it immediately unwraps and begins to move towards the dog.

Severin’s bow drops to the ground as he draws forth Frogspaw, the anarchic blade that the party retrieved from the Mouth of Bleak. Grinning fiercely with the blade’s thirst for battle, Severin charges up to the top of the mound and swings at the garbage wrapped around Spoot, dealing a telling blow to it- a blow that also deals telling damage to Spoot. “Sorry!” the ranger cries, aghast. “I was trying to knock it off of you!”

“Glurgh,” responds Spoot. Or maybe it isn’t a response.

Then Severin’s eyes widen. “On the other side!” he shouts, “it’s the kids we’re looking for!”

“Uh-oh,” Kifla moans, as Spoot turns on Severin and begins trying to slay him. “Barouk, let me reach you!” The dwarf, about to move away, instead springs closer to his gnomish friend. She rushes over towards him. “Here!” she cries, and casts magic weapon on his fist. “That should help!”

“Especially when combined with this!” Barouk invokes his fiery fist, and his fists burst into flame! He strikes the garbage that got rejected by the celestial dog, and it attempts to wrap itself around the remaining active dog. Barking furiously, it drives the ragamuffin off of it!

Severin, meanwhile, finds himself fighting for his life against his otyugh ally wrapped in trash. And if that isn’t a strange combination of circumstances, I don’t know what is, he thinks wryly. He parries, dodges a tentacle blow and then aims a counterblow, attempting to slice at the garbage.

For his trouble, he is slapped upside the head by the otyugh’s other tentacle. The blow knocks him senseless, and he drops to the ground like a sack of corn.

Meanwhile, Kifla manages to destroy the ragamuffin that disengaged from the slain fly with a steam jet. Then she turns to aid the struggle against Spoot. She tries a color spray- but to no avail.

The air is seemingly whirling with garbage. Suddenly Kifla realizes that the one that Barouk is engaging is not like the others. Where they are mostly bits of cloth, paper and such, the one that he is fighting is composed largely of fragments of metal and shards of glass. “Be careful, Barouk!” she cries.

Barouk is, at least for now, holding his own- but only just. Especially with his flaming fists, he manages to land several telling blows against it. It’s tough, though, and it looks like a very painful thing to be hit by.

Spoot roars and begins moving towards the enclosure holding the kids.

Barouk continues his dance with the whirlwind of metal, glass and debris. He keeps ducking and dodging, fighting defensively, and he keeps slipping very lucky blows in against the... creature... over and over again, while it can’t seem to harm him. But even as he pounds it with another flaming flurry of blows, he can see Spoot getting closer to the children.

“Barouk, stop Spoot!” cries Kifla. She hurls an acid splash at the guttersnipe that the dwarf is combating, and it collapses in a heap of twisted metal and broken glass. Barouk springs immediately towards the otyugh and the enclosure.

Too slow.

Spoot reaches into the enclosure with a tentacle and wraps it around a young boy who looks to be about 12 years old. The lad screams, and by some miracle, manages to twist free of the otyugh’s grasp.

Barouk barrels into Spoot, kicking him- but not stopping him.

Spoot reaches for the kid again, but Barouk unleashes a flurry of blows- albeit a non-flaming one- and knocks the otyugh down! It groans and does not rise.

The garbage makes an audible whip-whip-whip as it unwraps itself from around the otyugh.

“Stop it!” cries Kifla.

The ragamuffin is attempting to fly away, moving up into the sky. Barouk takes a swing as it ascends, but misses; Kifla fires her crossbow, but she also misses.

Quickly our heroes check on Severin (stable) and the kids (okay, but meant to be fodder for the ragamuffins to control). The enclosure is easily broken by weapon-wielding adults, and our heroes escort the kids back first to the fey, whom they inform of the success of their mission.

As agreed, the fey let the children that they had ‘rescued’ go as well.

Charges in tow, the party continues back towards the Dawn Way, where they meet up with Amara, who gratefully takes charge of the children.

And then our heroes continue on their way down the road to Drellin’s Ferry. “We should be there in another couple days,” remarks Barouk.

Little do they know that war awaits them- for the Red Hand of Doom is about to strike.

Next Time: The Red Hand of Doom begins!