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Sixday,
24th Sicklemon The
next morning they catch a lift with a farmer towards Norek and track the stolen
cart. It is difficult given the
number of tracks on the road, but they strike lucky and find the cart they are
chasing pushed off the side of the road, with careful investigation, they find
that there are bloodstains in the trampled grass.
Many hoof-prints lead off along the road to Norek. They
press on. As they get closer to
Norek, patchy extensions of the Remirath appear to their left. Not patrolled by the elves, these woods lead down to the
river and it is not until it crosses the river, that it becomes the elven
domain. About six miles out of
Norek Lysar spots a broken branch revealing a steep track to their left. The
many horse tracks lead the characters to believe that Capt William
was in on this and they soon realise that Captain William is one of the
same men Captain James told them he had dispatched after the drugs in Cynar.
After some discussion, they agree to head back to town, alert Captain
James and bring him and a squad of men along.
They
reach Norek, just before dusk, report straight to Captain James.
He is furious that the PC’s have bungled the job.
Ranting and raving he finally begins to quiet after they tell him of the
arrival of Bill and his thugs. His
face hardens and he is moments away from an apology, when he seems to reach a
decision. “Saddle
the horses men! We’re going to
serve some justice..” The
players, Captain James and six of his best men head out under cover of darkness,
the guards on the gates wishing them well as they close the gates behind them.
The non-riders among the players divide up and ride double. After
finding the trail again, using Lysar’s marking, they began to climb the steep
trail. The going was difficult and
not made any easier by the low, overhanging branches. Thick with broad, green leaves, the moonlight that filtered
through the canopy above only heightened the tension creating flickering shadows
amongst the trees. Captain
James orders silence and less than ten minutes later draws his horse to a halt,
motioning the men behind him to do the same.
There is a slight jingle as some of the horses tack shifts, but up ahead
can be heard the crackling of a campfire and the sound of quiet voices.
He motions Biryn forwards and points out the white tents through the
trees. Biryn nods coldly, as he
catches the glint of metal from the campfire and hears a raucous laugh. Captain
James moves his head and four of his men dismount, sheathing their swords and
drawing daggers. They move almost
silently through the trees, Terry and Lysar’s elven hearing can pick them up,
but over the sounds of the still crackling fire the men will not know what hit
them. Captain James moves the other
two men into position and quietly draws his sword too. He motions for the players to keep back and they congregate
under a tree. Sira decides a better
view will be from the top of the tree and scampers up it before Biryn can pull
him down. As
they watch – fascinated, the soldiers move into the cap site and easily take
the four men prisoner. The soldiers
wave and they all head down to the campsite.
On their arrival, they find nothing but four terrified poachers, all with
bruises and cuts. “This
the men?” asks Captain James. The
players all shake their heads disappointedly. Soon
Captain James has the four poachers being escorted back to town by two of the
soldiers and decides to press on. Soon
they come across a river and Biryn remembers that the old Wilfin manor was
somewhere close along this river. Captain
James seems to think it might be upstream and as they move along it, the river
widens and shallows. A small ford
is revealed with many hoof gouges in the mud – all recently made. As
they make their way across arrows come flashing out of the darkness on the other
side of the bank. A soldier takes
on in the throat and splashes in to the river.
His horse, terrified, crashes out of the water.
Captain James and his three remaining men make it to the other side and
take cover behind a fallen tree trunk. Arrows
are still flashing from the darkness and the PC’s who have them pull out their
bows. Reaching
the other side un-injured Lysar, with heightened elven vision, spots them up the
hill shooting from behind a rock. She
sprints across the clearing, straight at the bowman on the left.
He sees her and looses a shaft, missing completely; Lysar crashes a
thundering fist into his jaw. Raal
has been following Lysar’s progress and suddenly sees the archer on top of the
rock swinging round to fire at her unprotected back.
Raal sights and shoots. And
scores, the arrow slicing up the man’s hand and up into his face.
He drops his bow and begins to run.
Ulrich meanwhile has been swinging around from the right, and seeing that
Lysar was handling her opponent, sets off at a sprint after the other. The
rocks where the archers were positioned made a perfect ambush point, arching
through the rock in a natural tunnel and off up the hill and into the forest.
Ulrich finally catches his target, just before Biryn was about to put an
arrow in his back. He crash tackles him from behind. They
drag him back and quiz him about the layout of the manor and the size of the
threat that awaits them. The man
says nothing. For some reason
everyone goes soft and they leave him tied up and gagged.
Captain James instructs one of his men to stay with the horses; they will
be quieter from here on foot. Taking
position around the rock and amongst the trees, the PC’s await more of the
bandits. Raal
and Lysar, the best woodsmen in the party take up position at the head of the
trail, ready to spring like the jaws of a trap. Captain James acknowledges the plan, drawing his bow and
taking cover. After half an hour or
so, both Lysar and Raal hear quiet voices coming down the track.
Lysar leans against the trunk of a tree and pulls her bowstring taut.
Raal shifts from his lying position to a kneeling one, but as he does so,
a small thorn snags in a branch and the undergrowth rustles loudly. One of the men whirls, bringing his crossbow up and around.
He fires a little too quickly and the bolt sinks into a tree a few feet
from Raal. Lysar shoots him in the
leg and he goes down. The other man takes flight back up the path.
Raal steps out, delivering a thundering kick to the crossbow man’s
skull and draws a bead on the running man.
Tracking his target he looses his arrow, the terrified man hears the
twang of the bowstring and puts on an extra burst of speed.
The arrow catches him dead centre, bursting from his chest in a shower of
blood and sinew. Raal twirls the
other arrow in his fingers and slides it smoothly into the quiver. The
other characters join them and they make their way up the trail.
A few hundred yards ahead they can see torchlight as the path opens up
into a clearing. Just then Lysar spots a path leading off to the left,
carefully obscured by threaded branches. Within
a few minutes they come across a small shrine buried deep in the forest.
There is a large archway above it and a column rising from the earth.
Both are made from a pale white stone that none of the characters
recognise. There is a metal plate
set in the column. Although the
archway and the column are covered in moss and lichen, the metal plate is
spotless and polished. There
is an inscription written into it in High Elven.
Lysar and Ferox try translating. _______to the Friend of all Men To
the _______ of the Planet To
the Elvin Lord above all others: We
______ the day you left us And
swear to do your work; We await your _________ return _______
Paladin Innlotu Gerar Pahal. Filing
this discovery away for future reference, they move back to the trail.
As Lysar moves closer to one of the outhouses, she can see through the
open door, two men are moving around inside, playing some sort of game.
As she moves off she hears an elephant coming through the undergrowth,
but it is only Sira. Raising a finger to her lips she motions for Sira to remain
where he is. Lysar gets to the edge
of the tree line and sights along her arrow.
She fires and misses, the arrowhead clanging off the stove.
The two men inside swear manfully and rush outside.
Both Sira and Lysar are waiting for them.
After much kicking of heads, the two manage to subdue the bandits, and
they investigate the inside of the hut. A
small pot-bellied stove heats a pan of water, bunk beds line the far wall –
there is room for about eight people to live in here.
There is a large broadsword stuck into the wooden floorboards and Sira
recognises it as Biryn’s. There
are wooden rings around it. Sira
wrenches it free and wonders where the other six people are.
As he looks through the small window in the hut he sees the other six men
creeping towards the hut. Sira
makes a run for it, while Lysar moves outside and around the hut, creeping
towards the next one. She does not
see the cloaked figure step out onto the balcony of one of the upper windows,
raising their arms. Sira
meanwhile, is making as much noise as he can as he leads the bandits back to the
trail, arrows speed by his head but as he swings from branches and leaps roots,
he can hear the men faring less well behind him.
As he bursts from the tree line, he sees his friends, Captain James and
the soldiers, with grim expressions on their faces.
He takes up position. The
men burst from the trees panting and flustered.
Two of them are dead instantly, arrows through their patchy chest armour.
Asheren calls his power and two more of them drop silently.
The remaining two face up to Biryn and Ulrich.
It is over quickly for the poor wretches.
Biryn and Ulrich’s blades making light work of the battle.
Just then more men appear at the head of the trail.
Shouts of alarm go up, Biryn draws his bow again and Ulrich grips the
hilt of his sword and charges the group. The
other characters dive for cover and begin to make their way towards the new
group of four men. As Ulrich
sprints along the trail, he hears an arrow whiz past his head, hitting the
bowman in front in the hand as he was taking a bead on him.
He drops his bow as if scalded, clutching his bloody knuckles.
Ulrich is less than fifteen feet from them now.
Two of the men were drawing swords and moving in to meet his charge.
Another arrow flashes past him from Biryn’s bow and with a wet thud
hits the second bowman in the leg. He
shrieks with pain and then there is no more time for sightseeing. As
the man in front brings his sword in a broad, lethal arc, Ulrich ducks and
slices his blade into his stomach. With
a disemboweling wrench he pulls the sword from him and whirls to face his second
opponent. This one is much more
skilful and as their blades clash, Ulrich wonders if he might have been a little
hasty in his charge. Biryn
sights along his bow but cannot get a clear shot at the bandit.
He and Ulrich are lunging and turning so much that he cannot shoot
without risking his friend. Suddenly one of the bodies on the ground shifts and twitches.
The man climbs to his feet, stuffing his entrails back into the gaping
wound in his stomach; Biryn is almost overcome with revulsion.
Undead! “Abomination”
he cries as he walks toward it firing arrow after arrow into the thing as it
shambled towards Ulrich. The arrows
have little effect and Biryn draws his sword and sprints towards it.
Ulrich hears the commotion behind him, but cannot take his eyes off his
opponent for a moment. It was taking all his skill just to keep the longer blade
from taking out his throat. He was
starting to tire when the man suddenly gaped in astonishment at something over
his shoulder and Ulrich’s blade licked out and speared him through the heart.
He turns and sees the horrendous thing bearing down on him, his mind
reeling he can only watch as it lets it’s entrails fall and reaches out for
him. Ulrich felt cold and a wave of
nausea swept over him. Suddenly
Biryn is upon the thing, removing it’s head and arm in one smooth double
stroke. As he continues to hack at
the prone dismembered body, Ulrich grabs his wrist.
“Enough, Biryn.” “Abomination.”
Biryn whispers through gritted teeth, stepping on a still writhing hand and
spearing it through the wrist. At
that moment, Lysar spots the figure on the balcony; she brings her bow to bear,
drawing back on another arrow. She
watches as the figure seems to gather light in his hands and colours begin to
swirl. She drops the arrow and
turns and runs. The figure looses
the light, now glowing a fiery red and it streaks from the mansion and splashes
into the outhouse wall where Lysar had been standing.
She sees red hot liquid splash onto the grass around her, charring it
instantly as she heads for the safety of the tree line, head low.
The heat from the burning hut warms her back and she can hear shouts of
alarm from the other buildings. Eventually
the PC’s regrouped and huddled in the trees they discuss their options .
Captain James recommends fanning out through the forest, leaving twenty
feet between each other, but the PC’s have a better plan.
Raal suggests that he move off to the left and fire a flame-arrow across
the clearing into one of the other huts, when the bandits emerge, they can all
attack en masse. The others nod
grimly and even Captain James sees the merits in the plan. They
give Raal a couple of minutes to get himself into position and move off to the
right of the clearing. As they
reach the first hut, they see that half of the hut has disappeared in the blaze,
the rest of it sits steaming in the evening light; the bandits had abandoned the
buckets of water – leaving them scattered on the ground.
The mansion and its outhouses were suspiciously quiet, but they could spy
small amounts of movement from the next hut. Moving towards it, Sira is still counting quietly under his
breath. “….seventy eight,
seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one….” When
he reached one hundred, they all see a flickering flame, giving away Raal’s
position. Then the arrow arcs
through the sky, landing with a thunk into the wood of the second hut.
Captain James shifts uncomfortably, “I’ve got a bad feeling about
this,” he whispers. There
is movement inside the hut as the arrow spurts and pops. A gust of wind blows across the clearing and the flames go
out. Raal, from his position across
the other side, curses. As he
readies another arrow, he spies movement on the balcony. He curses again, but this time he means it. The
others do not notice, their attention focused on the men in the hut.
Suddenly burning white light sears their vision and they cry out in shock
and confusion. Ulrich was drawing his sword as the light hit and thus his
vision clears in a few seconds, leaving dancing lights across his retina.
He is the only one to see the enormous blue ball hurtling from the
mansion towards them. He throws
himself backwards and down. The
ball hits the trees in front of them and explodes, showering liquid across a
wide area. As the liquid hits
trees, armour, clothing and flesh, it freezes instantly, powdering the branches
and eating it’s way through the rest like acid.
Shards of ice rain down on the players and many of them roll on the
ground shrieking in pain. Ulrich
drags himself backwards, his left leg a mass of pain.
A large splash of the freezing liquid had burned it’s way through his
greaves and into his flesh. He
gritted his teeth against the pain and looked around at his friends.
Half of them had passed out, including Captain James.
One of the soldiers was scrabbling at his throat where a large splash had
landed. As Ulrich watched in morbid
fascination, his movements stop and he slumps to the ground.
His head hits a tree and with a dreadful splitting sound comes completely
off. He sees about ten bandits
emerge from the hut, weapons drawn and fan out among his friends, dragging them
roughly from the wreckage. He
buries himself further in the undergrowth and one of the bandits comes within
ten feet of him, looking for anyone else. “That
must be it, boss,” he says as he turns and joins the others in dragging ,
half-carrying the players towards the mansion. Chapter
3
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