thatdarncat
Overlord of Chat
Woot! I'd say get in the chatroom, but I have to take Seri out in search of Nunchuks. And GRR Martin novels.
good luck!
good luck!
Zad/Wizardru's Story Hour (*final update 11/12*)
- Thread starter Zad
- Start date
thatdarncat
Overlord of Chat
No luck on Nunchuks OR Rayman I'm afraid. Did rent Lego Star Wars (original trilogy) and Trauma Center. Trauma Center is interesting.
Nice damage
you must have ruined SOMEONES' day.
Nice damage
you must have ruined SOMEONES' day.
Zad
First Post
Flood Season - Chapter 6
Flood Season – Chapter 6
OOC Notes:
Exp is 1560.
This Week’s Adventure:
Sparky leapt forward, crossing the large cavern in a single bound, and smashed his snout into Elizabeth, snapping ribs even through her plate armor. She struggled to keep her feet through the pain and she and Astrid made their stand against the creature.
Not for lack of desire mind you – the others were all there, doing what they could. But most of their spells had already been cast and what they had left was no use against the huge skeleton. A massive bite nearly ripped off Astrid’s head, while the girls did their beast to beat the creature down. Elizabeth’s falchion was of limited use, but Astrid was breaking bones with the enchanted flail recovered from Triel’s body.
Sparky however was clearly winning. It nearly killed Elizabeth twice, and she finally stepped back to establish her mental shield to try and survive just a bit longer. Astrid had been attacked so fiercely she lost consciousness only to be healed by Kris and get up again only to be knocked unconscious again. The girls (and everyone really) struggled beat the creature apart, but couldn’t land a telling blow. An eternity followed where all combatants hung on the edge of death, waiting for the blow that would kill their foe or kill them. Astrid’s armor had been half destroyed and Elizabeth had lost a great deal of blood.
Finally after her fourth return from unconsciousness, Astrid managed to bring the flail into Sparky’s leg, and it snapped with a crack. The dinosaur wavered for a moment, then fell sideways and collapsed into a pile of bones.
Elizabeth could barely stand upright and the floor was slick with the blood of four people, all of it coming from Astrid. We stopped only long enough to search the room for a wand before moving back to Triel’s room and locking ourselves in to rest. Thanks to the healing wand and what few spells remained, we were mostly in fighting shape by the morning.
Which isn’t to say it was an uneventful night. Elizabeth meditated before bed. There was something itching in her mind, and she needed to find it. The two of us entered a deep trance together and were wandering in a wash of colored lights and clear musical tones. She was close to understanding – it’s as if one was hearing musical notes but could not pick out the song, and then suddenly it all snaps into place. After a time, she found the song, and everything clicked. The colors and sounds harmonized, and after enjoying it for a while, she ended the trance.
This was not the first time this happened. This time was different though, but I didn’t understand it til a few hours later, when I was pacing around the small chamber, in theory on guard with Astrid. I say “in theory” because the room was quite secure and trapped, so it was unlikely that there would be any incident. The others were all sound asleep.
I had wandered near the door, and was considering what might be moving about.
“Don’t even think it,” Astrid said quietly.
“Think what?” Innocence was never a quality I had much of.
“Of going out for a look around,” she said flatly, then added “the trouble you could attract far outweighs the trouble you could prevent by looking around.” Astrid knew me well enough to know that anything like an order would just invoke defiance in me. A reasonable argument however would usually do the trick.
Feh, I thought. It’s not as if I can’t take care of myself.
“I heard that,” Astrid said sarcastically at first, then she stopped. “Wait. I heard that.”
Fascinating, I thought.
Astrid didn’t speak. I know you do this with Elizabeth but since when can you do this with other people? she asked.
Since now I suppose. I hadn’t really considered it but I suppose it was only a matter of time before I figured it out. This could be very handy, I replied.
After several hour sleep and some improvised armor repairs, we were ready to set out again. We resumed our exploration of the caverns. Beyond Sparky, there were a series of caverns infested with undead – ogre zombie were driven off by Kris and then destroyed for instance. What we weren’t finding was any more wands.
One cavern was covered with black and red crystals, casting dancing reflections from magical sconces on the wall. In the center was a large black slab of stone. Two dwarven corpses were rotting against the far wall. To no one’s surprise, they suddenly shifted and lurched awkwardly to their feet.
Even for zombies, they seemed clumsy. Then I saw the bodies seemed to be infested with some kind of worm (or worms?). The worms seemed to be using the bodies like puppets, and were looking for more. They lashed out, the worms emerging to attack or were flung at their target. One latched on to Elizabeth but was ripped off before it could do much more. With some sorcery and some sword-work, they were cut down.
The large stone was apparently a cache for someone and held a considerable amount of coin. But that marked the end of exploration in this side of the complex. Since the quasit suggested that we might find more wands at the far end of the complex we started backtracking.
It didn’t take too long before we found a room strewn with webs. In the middle we saw a spider covered in sharp spines near a gnome, and in one corner an ettercap.
“So these are the creatures that you feared Skaven? I shall deal with them for you. I hope to make a meal of at least one of them,” the spider quipped as we came in. The gnome made a few gestures and vanished.
I suspect we would have been just as happy to talk if it would have gotten us the wands, but that didn’t seem to be an option. And the battle began.
Elizabeth moved to block the spider, while Astrid headed for the ettercap. Maris blanketed an area in that grave mist cutting them off from retreat. The spider shot some of it’s spines at Astrid but it didn’t stop her from smashing into the ettercap and dropping it in a heap. A number of spells went off, and the spider was killed too. The gnome was invisible but still trying to join the battle without revealing himself and he summoned a fiendish centipede but Maris blew it apart with a scorching ray.
Once the spider was dead, the gnome ran. We chased him down the hall, trying to get a bead on him so we could cut him down. Astrid startled him enough to make him yelp, and that was enough for Bellsin. He threw his spear and managed to hit the cringing gnome, but in doing so stole his invisibility spell. The gnome was revealed and vulnerable, and his life after that was short and unpleasant.
It took some time to search through all the webbing and piles, but the rewards were worth it. Besides the monetary value, two more wands of control water were located. There was now only one wand unaccounted for, and suspicions were high that a magically locked door would hold the final prize. It took a fair bit of bashing to finally destroy the door, but at this point the Blue Tyger Legion held the field so there was no one left to argue. The door revealed what was surely the gnome’s living chambers, and the last of the wands.
There were some unexplored areas left in the complex, but we had what we came for and it was time to leave. We were already worried that we had taken too long and flooding would be claiming lives, so we exited with all speed.
As we were moving back up the cavern by the rope car, there was a movement in the water below. Some kind of creature – something between a toad and an alligator, crawled out of the water. It looked up at us, an eerie intelligence in its eyes. It then started laughing, and slithered inside through one of the open doors. Maris believes it was an aquatic demon called a skulven – perhaps it was going inside to feed on the carnage we had left behind.
At the top of the lift, Glyphandar removed some parts from the mechanism that would hopefully deter anyone returning or any new evil seeking to make a home here. We considered cutting the ropes entirely but worried we might need to get back down some day.
We emerged back onto the island in the lake to find it was early morning and the rain and lightning were going at a steady pace. The boats were gone – taken by fleeing hillfolk surely. Kris used a spell to turn Astrid into a cloudy gas, and she floated to the shore and retrieved the boats from where the hillfolk had abandoned them.
We slipped through the village, which was deathly quiet. None of the ghosts or shapes that had shown themselves before were in evidence now. The wet mud showed that the hillfolk had left this way, and we began to worry they would discover our hidden horses.
We were right to suspect it, but wrong to worry. As we approached the horses, we saw bodies. The hillfolk – nearly a dozen in all – were lying dead around the horses, themselves unharmed and unfazed. The bodies were pale white – one clawed at his eyes, another at his ears. They all seemed to be dead of fright. Just then we heard the odd sound of a child’s laughter from a distant place, and just the hint of a scream.
We looked towards the village and Elizabeth said “Thank you.” With further delay, we rode off as fast as we could for Cauldron.
We arrived around nightfall. Even outside the walls we could hear angry shouts from unhappy people. The guards waved us in immediately and we went straight to the Temple of St. Cuthbert. Along the way, we could hear tales of water rising above the foundations on the lakefront and distant arguing and shouting made its way up the caldera. Things were getting bad.
Brother Duos was waiting outside in the rain for… well anyone really but certainly he was hoping for us. He brought us in immediately and when we indicated we were successful, he dispatched waiting runners to the other major churches. We went inside and Jenya arrived presently. Without discussion, we handed over the bundle of eight wands and she looked as if an enormous weight was lifted from her.
“Thank you. You’ve done a great thing,” she said.
We nodded, tired and drenched. Warm drinks were brought and everyone nursed them by the fire.
“I’m sorry to ask this, but I’m afraid I must. I know you are wet and tired, and I am sure recovering these was no easy task. But if you have any strength left in you, I must ask you to help us. Priests will be arriving soon from other temples to use the wands – we will go to different sides of the lake and fight the flood. I must ask you to escort us lest anything happen. Krisfallion, your help in fighting the flood would also be most appreciated.” Jenya looked sickened that she must ask even more of us after what we must have been through but the answer she got surprised her.
“Are we wet? Yes. Cold? Yes. Were we nearly killed? Several times,” Astrid said over her warm cider. “But after all we went through to recover these wands and save people, we are not about to let you go out alone now and have someone try to stop you. We will go with you and the other priests and see to your safety.”
And so it was. Priests from the Church of Pelor and the Temple of Kord arrived and we split up as their escorts. Each group made their way down to the lake’s edge in a different part of town and while there were some angry townsfolk to send away, none of the groups met any more trouble than that. For three grueling hours, the holy men and women worked to fight the flood, the wands creating great whirlpools into which water was drawn into and disappeared. Crowds started to gather around each priest to watch them fight the flood. Somewhere in the second hour, they started to make headway. The rain relented to a light drizzle, and the natural drainage of the caldera started to catch up, helped by the magic of the wands. It was inspiring in its own way.
When the waters had been beaten back a safe distance, the priests gathered together. The crowds that had gathered with each group merged together and started cheering.
After a time Jenya held up a hand and spoke with a voice that was tired but strong and full of faith and inspiration. “St. Cuthbert, Pelor, Kord. They have not forsaken you, nor have they forsaken Cauldron. During the flood season, the gods protect us, and hold back the waters, as they have always done.”
“’But where were they when our homes flooded?’ I hear you ask. The gods are not the only ones with their eyes on Cauldron, and not all those eyes are kind ones. Evil moves in the woods and dark places. And Evil tried to stop the gods and let you drown.”
The crowd was responding to her impromptu sermon. Jenya may not have felt herself Sarsen’s equal, but she had true faith and when she shared it, it had a powerful effect.
“But the gods protected you, and the gods stopped this plan and provided the tools to fight the floods. And for that we thank them.” She stopped and bowed her head, as did the other priests and following them, the crowd. “And most importantly we thank them for the help of the Blue Tyger Legion. Without them, where we now stand would be four feet underwater. It was they who stopped the evil, who brought the means, and who served as the god’s instruments. And we thank them for saving us.”
Jenya turned to us, and she bowed her head. And when she did, the crowd erupted in cheers and chants. Jenya smiled, and everyone blushed. (Even Astrid, which I wasn’t sure was physically possible.)
Jenya lead the procession back to the temple, the crowd swarming all around thanking the priests, the Blue Tygers, even each other. At the temple, Jenya split the wands up among the churches, and they departed, though not without each thanking us.
Jenya then brought out a sealed letter of credit. “Your reward, as promised.”
Elizabeth accepted it. “I feel bad about taking this when this flood season has already cost you so much.”
Jenya’s face flashed with sadness. “True, the cost has been high. But please accept it nonetheless. St. Cuthbert teaches us justice, and this too is justice – heroic deeds deserve rewards.”
Elizabeth nodded. “You should be proud of yourself today. You served your Lord well. You are not Sarsen, nor will you ever be. But you are the High Priestess.”
Jenya nodded, the sadness still on her face. “You all should go get some rest. You more than earned it.”
When the Blue Tygers entered the Drunken Morkoth, you’d have thought a king had entered with the amount of cheering that erupted. There was a lot of thanking and back slapping. The innkeeper started bringing out warm food and drink and more importantly had his child start readying hot baths. And we finally could rest.
While eating, Shensen came to the table. “Congratulations. It’s good to know once more you have come to the aid of innocents.” There were a few “It was nothing”s and even Glyph was being fairly modest about the whole thing.
Shensen looked slightly uncomfortable. “When you are rested and cleaned up, Tyro would like to speak to you in his room about something.”
Astrid and Elizabeth immediately exchanged sharp glances. Kris said “We’ll seek him once we’re recovered enough to be sociable.”
After food, baths and clean clothes were all taken care of, the group gathered up to talk to Tyro. While not armed and armored to their usual standard, everyone was still carrying weapons, suspicious of Tyro. He was either going to come clean or attack the group, and we needed to be ready either way.
Tyro invited everyone in and offered seats. He started with some hesitations. “I have been concealing some things from you.”
“We know,” Elizabeth said, in a slightly less than cordial way.
Tyro nodded. “The boys are overly enthusiastic, but the meant no harm. Will you allow me to invite them in?”
“Why don’t you tell us what you’ve been hiding first?” Astrid said.
Tyro, sensing an opportunity to show trust, nodded. “Allow me to first show you my true form.” He stood up and his shape began to twist until he was revealed as a half elf. “My name is not Tyro, though that is the personality I assume. My name is Meerthan Eliothlorn. I represent a cell of the Striders of Farlanghan. We serve the Travelling one. My masters in the Striders sent me here to investigate certain goines on. We suspect a group known as the Cagewrights may be active in cauldron. We were attracted here because we suspected them in a group of kidnappings. Suspicious at first, we thought you also might be involved, but obviously that is not the case. After we came to realize that, we kept an eye on you thinking you might lead us to them but that has not come to pass. My three associates have all been placed at different locations to see what they can learn. And there you have it.”
Astrid, satisfied for now, said “You can invite the boys in.” Tyro – or rather Meerthan – did. The “boys” entered with minimal fuss, save to introduce themselves as Fallion and Ferun.
“I’m glad you decided to talk to us now rather than later. Your boys there were getting close to an unpleasant mugging in an alleyway following us” Kris said. “The ladies here were getting tired of being followed and had returned the favor a couple times.”
“We know,” Meerthan said, although I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. “But we would hopefully have avoided that. Our mission is not open combat. We think the Cagewrights – mind you we know little about them – have an active interest or involvement in Cauldron. We want to find out why and what they’re up to.”
“We know little about them but we have heard of them. We’ve seen what we assume is their mark on several crates in Drakthar’s way, and he mentioned the Cagemakers on several occasions,” Maris said. And we relayed the details of that encounter.
“Interesting. That’s helpful. We were investigating them in Dyvers. While assaulting a cell, they summoned a thing from Carceri – the prison plane. All of my companions in my group were slain from the effort of driving the creature back, but we did drive out the Cagewrights. Our associates tracked them to this region and soon after the kidnappings started. But we’re not sure what they’re up to or why they’re here. But we intend to discover the truth.”
“The way things seem to go in Cauldron,” Astrid said dryly “we had best discover the truth before it ‘discovers’ us.”
Loot:
15500cp
8000sp
4500gp
200pp
Wand of burning hands 23 charges (caster level 1)
Masterwork dagger
Bracers of armor +1
Goggles of minute seeing
Slippers of spider climbing
Pearl of power level 1
Wand of control water #6
4 Potions of hiding (250 mkt price)
58 gold
4 plat
keyring
small book with spells up to 4th level
500 silver
450 gold
darkwood and silver masterwork harp – 800g
diamond ring worth bunches
jade idol of yondolla (value unknown)
+1 light steel shield
wand of control water #7 and #8
Flood Season – Chapter 6
OOC Notes:
Exp is 1560.
This Week’s Adventure:
Sparky leapt forward, crossing the large cavern in a single bound, and smashed his snout into Elizabeth, snapping ribs even through her plate armor. She struggled to keep her feet through the pain and she and Astrid made their stand against the creature.
Not for lack of desire mind you – the others were all there, doing what they could. But most of their spells had already been cast and what they had left was no use against the huge skeleton. A massive bite nearly ripped off Astrid’s head, while the girls did their beast to beat the creature down. Elizabeth’s falchion was of limited use, but Astrid was breaking bones with the enchanted flail recovered from Triel’s body.
Sparky however was clearly winning. It nearly killed Elizabeth twice, and she finally stepped back to establish her mental shield to try and survive just a bit longer. Astrid had been attacked so fiercely she lost consciousness only to be healed by Kris and get up again only to be knocked unconscious again. The girls (and everyone really) struggled beat the creature apart, but couldn’t land a telling blow. An eternity followed where all combatants hung on the edge of death, waiting for the blow that would kill their foe or kill them. Astrid’s armor had been half destroyed and Elizabeth had lost a great deal of blood.
Finally after her fourth return from unconsciousness, Astrid managed to bring the flail into Sparky’s leg, and it snapped with a crack. The dinosaur wavered for a moment, then fell sideways and collapsed into a pile of bones.
Elizabeth could barely stand upright and the floor was slick with the blood of four people, all of it coming from Astrid. We stopped only long enough to search the room for a wand before moving back to Triel’s room and locking ourselves in to rest. Thanks to the healing wand and what few spells remained, we were mostly in fighting shape by the morning.
Which isn’t to say it was an uneventful night. Elizabeth meditated before bed. There was something itching in her mind, and she needed to find it. The two of us entered a deep trance together and were wandering in a wash of colored lights and clear musical tones. She was close to understanding – it’s as if one was hearing musical notes but could not pick out the song, and then suddenly it all snaps into place. After a time, she found the song, and everything clicked. The colors and sounds harmonized, and after enjoying it for a while, she ended the trance.
This was not the first time this happened. This time was different though, but I didn’t understand it til a few hours later, when I was pacing around the small chamber, in theory on guard with Astrid. I say “in theory” because the room was quite secure and trapped, so it was unlikely that there would be any incident. The others were all sound asleep.
I had wandered near the door, and was considering what might be moving about.
“Don’t even think it,” Astrid said quietly.
“Think what?” Innocence was never a quality I had much of.
“Of going out for a look around,” she said flatly, then added “the trouble you could attract far outweighs the trouble you could prevent by looking around.” Astrid knew me well enough to know that anything like an order would just invoke defiance in me. A reasonable argument however would usually do the trick.
Feh, I thought. It’s not as if I can’t take care of myself.
“I heard that,” Astrid said sarcastically at first, then she stopped. “Wait. I heard that.”
Fascinating, I thought.
Astrid didn’t speak. I know you do this with Elizabeth but since when can you do this with other people? she asked.
Since now I suppose. I hadn’t really considered it but I suppose it was only a matter of time before I figured it out. This could be very handy, I replied.
After several hour sleep and some improvised armor repairs, we were ready to set out again. We resumed our exploration of the caverns. Beyond Sparky, there were a series of caverns infested with undead – ogre zombie were driven off by Kris and then destroyed for instance. What we weren’t finding was any more wands.
One cavern was covered with black and red crystals, casting dancing reflections from magical sconces on the wall. In the center was a large black slab of stone. Two dwarven corpses were rotting against the far wall. To no one’s surprise, they suddenly shifted and lurched awkwardly to their feet.
Even for zombies, they seemed clumsy. Then I saw the bodies seemed to be infested with some kind of worm (or worms?). The worms seemed to be using the bodies like puppets, and were looking for more. They lashed out, the worms emerging to attack or were flung at their target. One latched on to Elizabeth but was ripped off before it could do much more. With some sorcery and some sword-work, they were cut down.
The large stone was apparently a cache for someone and held a considerable amount of coin. But that marked the end of exploration in this side of the complex. Since the quasit suggested that we might find more wands at the far end of the complex we started backtracking.
It didn’t take too long before we found a room strewn with webs. In the middle we saw a spider covered in sharp spines near a gnome, and in one corner an ettercap.
“So these are the creatures that you feared Skaven? I shall deal with them for you. I hope to make a meal of at least one of them,” the spider quipped as we came in. The gnome made a few gestures and vanished.
I suspect we would have been just as happy to talk if it would have gotten us the wands, but that didn’t seem to be an option. And the battle began.
Elizabeth moved to block the spider, while Astrid headed for the ettercap. Maris blanketed an area in that grave mist cutting them off from retreat. The spider shot some of it’s spines at Astrid but it didn’t stop her from smashing into the ettercap and dropping it in a heap. A number of spells went off, and the spider was killed too. The gnome was invisible but still trying to join the battle without revealing himself and he summoned a fiendish centipede but Maris blew it apart with a scorching ray.
Once the spider was dead, the gnome ran. We chased him down the hall, trying to get a bead on him so we could cut him down. Astrid startled him enough to make him yelp, and that was enough for Bellsin. He threw his spear and managed to hit the cringing gnome, but in doing so stole his invisibility spell. The gnome was revealed and vulnerable, and his life after that was short and unpleasant.
It took some time to search through all the webbing and piles, but the rewards were worth it. Besides the monetary value, two more wands of control water were located. There was now only one wand unaccounted for, and suspicions were high that a magically locked door would hold the final prize. It took a fair bit of bashing to finally destroy the door, but at this point the Blue Tyger Legion held the field so there was no one left to argue. The door revealed what was surely the gnome’s living chambers, and the last of the wands.
There were some unexplored areas left in the complex, but we had what we came for and it was time to leave. We were already worried that we had taken too long and flooding would be claiming lives, so we exited with all speed.
As we were moving back up the cavern by the rope car, there was a movement in the water below. Some kind of creature – something between a toad and an alligator, crawled out of the water. It looked up at us, an eerie intelligence in its eyes. It then started laughing, and slithered inside through one of the open doors. Maris believes it was an aquatic demon called a skulven – perhaps it was going inside to feed on the carnage we had left behind.
At the top of the lift, Glyphandar removed some parts from the mechanism that would hopefully deter anyone returning or any new evil seeking to make a home here. We considered cutting the ropes entirely but worried we might need to get back down some day.
We emerged back onto the island in the lake to find it was early morning and the rain and lightning were going at a steady pace. The boats were gone – taken by fleeing hillfolk surely. Kris used a spell to turn Astrid into a cloudy gas, and she floated to the shore and retrieved the boats from where the hillfolk had abandoned them.
We slipped through the village, which was deathly quiet. None of the ghosts or shapes that had shown themselves before were in evidence now. The wet mud showed that the hillfolk had left this way, and we began to worry they would discover our hidden horses.
We were right to suspect it, but wrong to worry. As we approached the horses, we saw bodies. The hillfolk – nearly a dozen in all – were lying dead around the horses, themselves unharmed and unfazed. The bodies were pale white – one clawed at his eyes, another at his ears. They all seemed to be dead of fright. Just then we heard the odd sound of a child’s laughter from a distant place, and just the hint of a scream.
We looked towards the village and Elizabeth said “Thank you.” With further delay, we rode off as fast as we could for Cauldron.
We arrived around nightfall. Even outside the walls we could hear angry shouts from unhappy people. The guards waved us in immediately and we went straight to the Temple of St. Cuthbert. Along the way, we could hear tales of water rising above the foundations on the lakefront and distant arguing and shouting made its way up the caldera. Things were getting bad.
Brother Duos was waiting outside in the rain for… well anyone really but certainly he was hoping for us. He brought us in immediately and when we indicated we were successful, he dispatched waiting runners to the other major churches. We went inside and Jenya arrived presently. Without discussion, we handed over the bundle of eight wands and she looked as if an enormous weight was lifted from her.
“Thank you. You’ve done a great thing,” she said.
We nodded, tired and drenched. Warm drinks were brought and everyone nursed them by the fire.
“I’m sorry to ask this, but I’m afraid I must. I know you are wet and tired, and I am sure recovering these was no easy task. But if you have any strength left in you, I must ask you to help us. Priests will be arriving soon from other temples to use the wands – we will go to different sides of the lake and fight the flood. I must ask you to escort us lest anything happen. Krisfallion, your help in fighting the flood would also be most appreciated.” Jenya looked sickened that she must ask even more of us after what we must have been through but the answer she got surprised her.
“Are we wet? Yes. Cold? Yes. Were we nearly killed? Several times,” Astrid said over her warm cider. “But after all we went through to recover these wands and save people, we are not about to let you go out alone now and have someone try to stop you. We will go with you and the other priests and see to your safety.”
And so it was. Priests from the Church of Pelor and the Temple of Kord arrived and we split up as their escorts. Each group made their way down to the lake’s edge in a different part of town and while there were some angry townsfolk to send away, none of the groups met any more trouble than that. For three grueling hours, the holy men and women worked to fight the flood, the wands creating great whirlpools into which water was drawn into and disappeared. Crowds started to gather around each priest to watch them fight the flood. Somewhere in the second hour, they started to make headway. The rain relented to a light drizzle, and the natural drainage of the caldera started to catch up, helped by the magic of the wands. It was inspiring in its own way.
When the waters had been beaten back a safe distance, the priests gathered together. The crowds that had gathered with each group merged together and started cheering.
After a time Jenya held up a hand and spoke with a voice that was tired but strong and full of faith and inspiration. “St. Cuthbert, Pelor, Kord. They have not forsaken you, nor have they forsaken Cauldron. During the flood season, the gods protect us, and hold back the waters, as they have always done.”
“’But where were they when our homes flooded?’ I hear you ask. The gods are not the only ones with their eyes on Cauldron, and not all those eyes are kind ones. Evil moves in the woods and dark places. And Evil tried to stop the gods and let you drown.”
The crowd was responding to her impromptu sermon. Jenya may not have felt herself Sarsen’s equal, but she had true faith and when she shared it, it had a powerful effect.
“But the gods protected you, and the gods stopped this plan and provided the tools to fight the floods. And for that we thank them.” She stopped and bowed her head, as did the other priests and following them, the crowd. “And most importantly we thank them for the help of the Blue Tyger Legion. Without them, where we now stand would be four feet underwater. It was they who stopped the evil, who brought the means, and who served as the god’s instruments. And we thank them for saving us.”
Jenya turned to us, and she bowed her head. And when she did, the crowd erupted in cheers and chants. Jenya smiled, and everyone blushed. (Even Astrid, which I wasn’t sure was physically possible.)
Jenya lead the procession back to the temple, the crowd swarming all around thanking the priests, the Blue Tygers, even each other. At the temple, Jenya split the wands up among the churches, and they departed, though not without each thanking us.
Jenya then brought out a sealed letter of credit. “Your reward, as promised.”
Elizabeth accepted it. “I feel bad about taking this when this flood season has already cost you so much.”
Jenya’s face flashed with sadness. “True, the cost has been high. But please accept it nonetheless. St. Cuthbert teaches us justice, and this too is justice – heroic deeds deserve rewards.”
Elizabeth nodded. “You should be proud of yourself today. You served your Lord well. You are not Sarsen, nor will you ever be. But you are the High Priestess.”
Jenya nodded, the sadness still on her face. “You all should go get some rest. You more than earned it.”
When the Blue Tygers entered the Drunken Morkoth, you’d have thought a king had entered with the amount of cheering that erupted. There was a lot of thanking and back slapping. The innkeeper started bringing out warm food and drink and more importantly had his child start readying hot baths. And we finally could rest.
While eating, Shensen came to the table. “Congratulations. It’s good to know once more you have come to the aid of innocents.” There were a few “It was nothing”s and even Glyph was being fairly modest about the whole thing.
Shensen looked slightly uncomfortable. “When you are rested and cleaned up, Tyro would like to speak to you in his room about something.”
Astrid and Elizabeth immediately exchanged sharp glances. Kris said “We’ll seek him once we’re recovered enough to be sociable.”
After food, baths and clean clothes were all taken care of, the group gathered up to talk to Tyro. While not armed and armored to their usual standard, everyone was still carrying weapons, suspicious of Tyro. He was either going to come clean or attack the group, and we needed to be ready either way.
Tyro invited everyone in and offered seats. He started with some hesitations. “I have been concealing some things from you.”
“We know,” Elizabeth said, in a slightly less than cordial way.
Tyro nodded. “The boys are overly enthusiastic, but the meant no harm. Will you allow me to invite them in?”
“Why don’t you tell us what you’ve been hiding first?” Astrid said.
Tyro, sensing an opportunity to show trust, nodded. “Allow me to first show you my true form.” He stood up and his shape began to twist until he was revealed as a half elf. “My name is not Tyro, though that is the personality I assume. My name is Meerthan Eliothlorn. I represent a cell of the Striders of Farlanghan. We serve the Travelling one. My masters in the Striders sent me here to investigate certain goines on. We suspect a group known as the Cagewrights may be active in cauldron. We were attracted here because we suspected them in a group of kidnappings. Suspicious at first, we thought you also might be involved, but obviously that is not the case. After we came to realize that, we kept an eye on you thinking you might lead us to them but that has not come to pass. My three associates have all been placed at different locations to see what they can learn. And there you have it.”
Astrid, satisfied for now, said “You can invite the boys in.” Tyro – or rather Meerthan – did. The “boys” entered with minimal fuss, save to introduce themselves as Fallion and Ferun.
“I’m glad you decided to talk to us now rather than later. Your boys there were getting close to an unpleasant mugging in an alleyway following us” Kris said. “The ladies here were getting tired of being followed and had returned the favor a couple times.”
“We know,” Meerthan said, although I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. “But we would hopefully have avoided that. Our mission is not open combat. We think the Cagewrights – mind you we know little about them – have an active interest or involvement in Cauldron. We want to find out why and what they’re up to.”
“We know little about them but we have heard of them. We’ve seen what we assume is their mark on several crates in Drakthar’s way, and he mentioned the Cagemakers on several occasions,” Maris said. And we relayed the details of that encounter.
“Interesting. That’s helpful. We were investigating them in Dyvers. While assaulting a cell, they summoned a thing from Carceri – the prison plane. All of my companions in my group were slain from the effort of driving the creature back, but we did drive out the Cagewrights. Our associates tracked them to this region and soon after the kidnappings started. But we’re not sure what they’re up to or why they’re here. But we intend to discover the truth.”
“The way things seem to go in Cauldron,” Astrid said dryly “we had best discover the truth before it ‘discovers’ us.”
Loot:
15500cp
8000sp
4500gp
200pp
Wand of burning hands 23 charges (caster level 1)
Masterwork dagger
Bracers of armor +1
Goggles of minute seeing
Slippers of spider climbing
Pearl of power level 1
Wand of control water #6
4 Potions of hiding (250 mkt price)
58 gold
4 plat
keyring
small book with spells up to 4th level
500 silver
450 gold
darkwood and silver masterwork harp – 800g
diamond ring worth bunches
jade idol of yondolla (value unknown)
+1 light steel shield
wand of control water #7 and #8
Last edited:
Spatzimaus
First Post
Zad said:
DING! 5th level! So, did everyone level up, or only Elizabeth?
Argent Silvermage
First Post
Go ahead... Rub it in... I was sick.dravot said:
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