Rolemaster 

"Did Janus receive any messages for me? I am waiting for word from a friend." you ask, sorry to break up the chat.

"Why yes, now that you come to mention it, I'm terribly sorry I forgot all about it." she gets up from her chair and goes behind the counter. "It's just that essaence quotients are fascinating." She returns in a few moments with a crisp brown envelope, with an ochre wax seal.

Your pulse races! At last, word from home perhaps?

You take the envelope and bow gracefully to Althea. "My dear, it was lovely to meet you. Please pass on my best wishes to your sister and your future brother-in-law."

Althea beams and shows you to the door. "Oh sir - I mean Asheren, please call again. Whenever you wish! There are too few gentlemen in this world, and few as learned."

As you leave the shop a squad of soldiers walks by you, drill sergeant at the head. Left-march! Some of them looked as though they needed the practice. Elbows all over the place and their weapons were sloppily jostling in their scabbards.

You duck around the side of the building examining the seal in the pre-dusk light. In the wax is a stylised fir tree, it's leaves marking the edge of the wax. Tuathir!

A powerful memory of a low farmhouse with an enormous oven in one corner. You remember Tuathir opening the oven doors and summoning hundreds of tiny fire elementals to amuse you. You remember them setting fire to almost everything and laughing out loud as Tuathir tried to regain control of them.

As the memory fades you open the letter.

My dear Asheren,

I have been looking for you for almost two years. Where have you been? I was staying with friends in Slaw, thinking you must have gone north from Meluria, now I find myself in Norek. I remembered getting word from your father about young Janus and his shop in Norek and I called in only to find you had passed this way also.

I left word with the young girl, Agnes. I understand you found her. Did you notice that she was charmed? Has the touch of the fey folk about her, methinks. Anyway the script I left with her is a reading I did for you almost a year ago now, it convinced me to seek you out.

But I did not seek you out for old times, my friend. Grim days are coming. Days when the skies will turn black and the rivers run red. 

He is among us once more. The Magician. 

I saw him while I was in Vorn, he was advising Lord Boshkar's court. Encouraging him to invade Norek. "After Norek," said the Mage, "then Cynar and Lethys.  Annexe yourself from Haalkitaine and Rhakhaan and you control half the continent!"

I had heard reports of his presence in U-Lyshak, but I could not believe he would be so bold! He is plotting something, and it does not involve giving Boshkar half of Jaiman. There seems to be some sort of power source in Norek, I am investigating. I suspect the Priests Arnak are mixed up in this. What I do know is that Norek can not survive the Unlife a second time. This time they gather in force. Remember your lessons!

And now we cross paths again. It is fated. You must find Prince Keir! Restore the Sea-Drake crown to him and he will vanquish the enemy. The crowns have real power, power long forgotten. Keir is the keystone to all this, I can feel it.

I will be gone for a few days,but leave word here if you have anything to tell me. I sense a great conflict looming - let us stand against it.

Yours in the light,

Tuathir

Where There's a Wolf

Pith Elbon, a retired rogue from years back, who entered the legitimate employ of Englick and has been with him ever since, is their link to Benwe and Englick's hideout. Benwe and Englick have disappeared after all. They ask at the Red Headed Lady and are told that Pith is an associate of theirs. 

Raal and Lysar stake out the Red Headed Lady, spot Pith and confront him in the back room. Dehl attempts to warn Pith about them, but Raal bustles her into the room at knifepoint. Lysar, meanwhile has run around the back, entering the door in time to see Pith hurl a dagger from the tabletop, spearing Rall in his leg. Lysar grabs him and Raal throws himself across it and down they all go in a heap. Pith is kicking and spitting, but they bustle him out of the room and into the busy street. Raal and Lysar give Pith the old Rodney King treatment and people begin calling for guardsmen. Dehl is standing on the front step of the pub screaming at the growing crowd to grab them. As Raal administers a final stunning knee to head, Pith's legs collapse. As he falls he grabs Lysar and whispers "Help Me!" in her ear. Just then two guardsmen arrive. Raal and Lysar try and talk their way out of it, but all three are bustled off to a guardpost.

The other players arrive on the scene to find an hysterical Dehl, who points them in the direction of the guardpost. Arriving they find that Captain James has been called and is already dressing down the two sorry-looking players. Phrases like "....just got carried away...." and "I didn't mean to hit him so hard....." fall on the deaf ears of Captain James. Eventually Captain James allows them all to go free, but strips them of the Deputy status and demands the council seal from them.

Lysar corners Pith as they leave and Pith agrees to lead them to Englick & Benwe.

As the characters follow Pith out of the city, they break west along the Alunn Road which soon peters out to nothing more than a rough cart track.

The Brank mountains loom above them, blotting out most of the view to the west. It is about a days (8-12 hrs) fast walk.  

After a few hours some of the PC's may notice that the full moon is beginning to get a faint, reddish tinge to an outer edge. This indicates that it is only a few months until Charon ascends.

Foothills of Brank Mountain

As the PC’s move across the countryside, the terrain becomes increasingly steep as the road moves alongside the Brank mountains, the trees become more sparse and thick heather covers the swampy moor-land on to the side of the road. They cross many streams which trickle down from the mountain, soaking through the heather and running down to the coast a few miles away.

Within a few miles, they hear a keening shriek – a woman’s voice. If they investigate they find a small wagon surrounded by six wolves. On the wagon is Gersha and her five year old child, Agnes. Their cart broke down a few miles away and they lost a few hours. They had been intending to camp but heard the wolves and decided to press on, hoping to reach Norek by dawn. They had been visiting their other daughter in Slaw. Their horse now lies dead, it’s throat torn out and the cart’s harness has been torn off in it’s terror. The child is screaming it’s head off but it was definitely Agnes you heard before. It appears that when the wolves attacked, Eruk tried to lead them away but he is now in a tree a few hundred yards away with three wolves prowling at the base. The other six occasionally try and jump into the cart, but so far Gersha has managed to beat them off with an iron skillet.

Within a few minutes of their arrival, a giant wolf leaps from branch to branch and tree to tree. It is heading toward the stranded Eruk. Sira spots him and bounds across the clearing. Swinging from a low branch he lands, cat-like in the tree next to Eruk. He hears the fleshy thud and yelp of a wolf being hit, but his attention is on the grey shadow sprinting straight down the trunks of trees and leaping the twenty foot gaps with ease. As Sira watches transfixed, it clears the gap into their tree. At that moment that Sira explodes into action. He grabs hold of Eruk and falls backwards from the tree, mentally slowing his descent. A huge snaking claw flashes towards him and scores him across the chest. The pain is intense and intensify's when he slams into the ground with Eruk on top of him. With the wind momentarily knocked out of him, all Sira can do is watch and an enormous, shaggy head reveals itself and roars at him. Twin rows of enormous spiky teeth drip with saliva, and then it is gone, bounding away across the branches.

Sira breathes again.

The young girl has slightly pointed ears, betraying her Elrini ancestry. "Aah there you are! Grandfather asked me to give you this, he said I might bump into you." Her 'grandfather' was an old man who lived with the family for a few years, he called himself Tuathir. She hands him the runic note that she has stashed inside the cart. The mother and father were both unaware of it. (Tuathir is Asheren's magical Master from his apprenticeship)

The runic note reads...

As they wave Eruk, wife and child off - walking of course, they break from the road and head into the marshy grasses toward the mountain. They then encounter a roiling cloud of smoke which arrives and resolves itself into a roughly humanoid shape about fifteen feet tall. A wispy extension which could have been a hand, brings forth a crisp white piece of paper and hands it to Ferox.

It is a list of ingredients but for what, they do not know....

They progress. They near the cave and decide to send Pith in and wait and see. The ranger decides to go with Pith as far as the entrance. They head up the shale slope, the ground is slippery with shards of shale, hampering their movement. (-30 to physical manoeuvres) The ranger casts a StoneRunning spell and scampers up the slope to the mouth of the cave. As they crest the lip, there is a foul stench wafting from the corridor. Pith carries the sack of food down the slope and lights the torch. The ranger backs off to the rest of the party. The next thing they know, Pith gives off an almighty scream and the players decide to scarper.

The two PC's at the rear slow down and dive into cover, hoping to watch what arises. The rest of the players keep running. Raal and Lysar hide in the undergrowth and wait. Soon they hear a soft padding through the undergrowth. Medium Per. They freeze. The thief successfully rolls an enormous hiding manoeuvre, but forgets about the sense of smell. They hear a sniffing noise. They realise.  

In one bound the werewolf is on Lysar, bowling her to the ground. Ram / butt / smash attack. Raal rolls, strings his bow and fires. The arrow grazes across Tilkso's back. He turns and swipes at the thief with one of his two attacks, smacking him five or six feet away. Meanwhile Lysar is copping a hiding, Tilkso leans down and takes a bite of her arm and severs her hand. A werewolf's claws and teeth sear the wound at the same time. It stops bleeding but is more likely to infect the victim rather than kill them. Lysar begins screaming. The other players hear and keep on running. The thief shoots again and scores a nasty hit on Tilkso's hind quarter. He yelps and rolls off Lysar, reaching forward and ripping out the arrow with a paw, snarling at Raal as he does so.

Raal has picked up Lionar and is running away as fast as he can. This is, unfortunately not very fast against an 80 mph werewolf. Realising that normal weapons do not affect the creature - they are beginning to panic. Raal puts Lysar down and draws his bow again. Lysar suddenly remembers the arrows that Lionar gave her. As Tilkso readies himself to spring, Lysar hands Raal an arrow. The tip of it is glowing in the moonlight. Raal strings it to his bow and fires, again and again. The wounds smoke and the wolf snarls in agony. The arrows are Of Slaying to werewolves, the points being silver.

After pulling and stringing the last silver arrow, Raal fires and hits the beast right between the eyes. Smoke pours from the bulging sockets and it slumps to the ground, returning to human form as it does so. A naked Tilkso lies on the ground before them. Lysar meanwhile passes out in a faint, the last of her resources spent solving how to survive.

Raal picks her up and carries her back to the rest of the party. The undergrowth which he would have described as 'light heather' on the way up when not carrying Lysar, was now much more demanding.

Raal was becoming concerned. He had respect for the rangers skills, both as a ranger and a scout. Unlike the other two stiff-necked meataxes in the group, Raal had felt a kinship with this remarkably beautiful woman.

He found the others arguing on the road. Biryn (as usual) was lecturing the others.

"Yes, well, we could have gone back to save them, but then we'd be dead too. At least none of us were hurt. I told them, I said, 'Run' if Pith screams, but nooo, as usual the two sneaks go off on their own!"  

Sira was moodily stripping a roadside flower of it's petals. He wished they had gone back. Although he realised the odds were stacked against them, he couldn't help but feel that that was what it was all about - standing by your friends in times of peril. That was the problem with life in the monastery. they didn't teach you all this life stuff - you could only get that from getting out a bit. He glanced over at the old man, and watched as made a blade of straw curl around his fingers, like an absent-minded trick.

Ash was also in two minds about leaving Lysar and Raal up on that hill, Sira had told him of what he'd seen in the trees and it didn't sound very pleasant. Lysar's scream had almost torn him back but he allowed himself to be convinced of Biryn's argument. Now he was not so sure.  

He thought back to the child and his tutor Tuathir. What did the note mean? He had already examined it at least ten times, but it was no clearer now than before.

Ulrich broke into his reverie. "Maybe we should start looking for them?"

"No, wait 'til morning." replied Biryn. "If there are werewolves up there..." he looked at Sira "then during the day they shouldn't be as much of a problem. And if any of them decide that they wanna take the Long March, why then they'll taste my blade."

Just then Raal stumbled in, Lysar still in his arms, unconscious. They gathered around them, laying Lysar out on the road. They couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt as they looked at Lysar's severed hand and Raal's accusing face.

Chapter 7