# Middle World/Lakelands 1:  Main Group



## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

I am a bit behind on producing campaign logs for my own group, but I thought I'd share what exists with the ENWorld crew.  Comments are welcome!

Campaign logs are all copyright (c) 2004 Daniel J. Bishop, except where otherwise noted.  At one point, I did lift a creature's description from the S&S Creature Collection rather wholesale.  Googling my name will turn up other fiction I've written, for places like iHero.net, Fables, Ideomancer, and Strange Horizons.  Comments on those would be appreciated as well, and can be sent to ravencrowking@hotmail.com.

This is a homebrew world, so I'll start by posting background cosmology, then jump into the campaign logs.  Each log represents one session, usually lasting about three-four hours of game play.  Games are held at Golden City Comics   on Tuesdays, starting between 3-4 pm and running until store closing at 7 pm.  If you're ever in the Toronto area, drop by and watch!  If you live in the area, you might be able to arrange to play.  Because of the current volume of players, I have been half thinking of having two ongoing groups.  There is also a PBEM game....again, interested parties should contact me at ravencrowking@hotmail.com.

Daniel


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## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*Cosmology*

In the beginning, there was Chaos, void and without form.  And in that Chaos dwelt the Elder Gods, who swam in nothingness, spinning and consuming light and matter in their endless insanity and evil.  There were not days, nor years, nor eons, and Time before Time passed in an infinite unmarked crawl.

From whence the Great Titans came, or how, cannot be told, for it was unseen by mortal eyes and the Great Titans did not say.  Yet it was they who first strove with the Elder Gods and brought Order to the Cosmos.  They formed the Heavens for their dwelling, and the Hells, and consigned the Elder Gods to the Far Pit, and sealed them there with the Elder Sign.  In that epic battle, the bones of the Great Titans mingled with the blood and ichors of the Elder Gods, becoming the Middle World upon which mortal creatures dwell.  The formation of the Middle World is thought to have twisted the cosmos, creating the elemental and transitive planes.

In the early days of the Middle World, the air was thick with Spirits of various powers and abilities, too many for mortals to name.  These Spirits brought forth mortal life in their diverse images, including the various races of Men and Elves, the beasts, and the Dark Folk.  These were days of High Magic, when the Spirits communed with Men and taught them the secret language of the Cosmos.  This is accounted the First Age of the Middle World:  between the creation and the attention of the Great Titans.  For when the Great Titans became aware of the Middle World, they sought to devour its creatures as sacrifices upon an altar.  

The Spirits strove with the Great Titans for mastery, and cast the Great Titans down, binding them forever within the Earth.  In this battle, new lands were raised, and old lands cast down.  Nations were washed away, and much that was once known was lost.  This was the Second Age, the Age of Chaos on Earth, when the Elder Signs were first weakened, and the servants of the Elder Gods again began to manifest from beyond the Far Pit.

Now two thirds of the Spirits sought to control the Heavens under the banner of their leader Mardan, and those who were powerful among them called themselves the Younger Gods.  One third of the Spirits loved the world, and became entwined with it, and became the Faeries.  Some of these also called themselves Gods, and became Lords of Beasts, or minor Lords of Oak and Wold, or Gods of Places and Events.  Yet already the tendrils of the Elder Gods wormed their way into the hearts of some among the Younger Gods and the Faerie Lords, and they turned to evil.  There was War in Heaven, and half the Celestial Host perished, and of those who remained half were banished to the deeps of the Hells, there to remain unless released, or until Time Itself should come to pass away.  This was accounted the Third Age of the Middle World, and long it endured, while the Celestial Spirits turned from the mortal races, who in turn ceased to look toward the Celestial Spirits and instead worshipped the Faerie Lords.

Then the Middle World entered the Fourth Age, which is the current Age of the World.  Now the Celestials have turned their eyes once more to mortal affairs, and seek to bring order and plenty to their mortal worshipers.  Yet the Faerie Lords have grown strong, and not all wish order and growth for the mortal races.   Though the Fallen Spirits are consigned to the Hells, still mortals may call them forth, and their powers may fuel agents in the Middle World, who seek the undoing of the Celestials.  Finally, the Elder Gods still act from the shadows, malevolent, evil, and older than Time.  Their threat lies in the spread of madness, and the shortsighted greed of those that came after them – mortals and Spirits alike.  For if the Elder Gods prevail, all order shall turn to Chaos, and the Cosmos shall pass away.


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## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*First Session*

The North Road Inn was a small inn near the North Gate of Long Archer.  The North Gate was little used, save by woodsmen and lumber cutters, as well as the odd Lakashi or adventurer.  As a result, the patrons of the North Road Inn were of the same type.  The area around the North Gate was fairly poor, but few of the lower class locals patronized the North Road Inn itself.

Hrum leaned on the counter of the Inn’s tavern, nursing a small beer.  Although he had been involved in several jobs for the Foresters – mostly guarding woodsman while they worked – he was currently unemployed.  His last copper tick had just gone into a leathern jack, and would soon be nothing more than dregs.  

As he tipped the last of the beer from the mug, the inn’s door opened and a well-dressed man entered with a manservant.  They were dressed in livery of blue and green.  “Landlord, a private room,” the man calls.  He casts his eye around the inn.  “And if any here be men of deeds, they would do well to come with me.”

Hrum shrugged.  It was good timing.  He stood, drained his cup, and followed the man.  At the same time, a man in a dark hooded robe stood up and followed.  A priest of Badur, perhaps, Hrum thought.  He followed the Church of the Seven Good Gods himself.  The Church had taken care of him since he was very young.

No sooner were they in the room than the man began to speak.

“For those who do not know me, I am Hubert Oarsman of the Guild of Shippers.  I am a hard man to cross, but a good man to have for a friend.  My family has done well in this village.  But we were not always a family of merchants, and my eldest boy is an impetuous lad.  Two weeks ago, he set out with a score of men-at-arms to seek his fortune in the Dragon’s Lair, and he has not returned.  Go there.  Bring back my Brand, living or dead, and I will pay you well.  More, you will have my gratitude, and the gratitude of my kin.  You may find that my friendship is worth more to you than gold.”

“I’ll do it,” the black-robed man said.  “Where are these caves?”

Hrum admired the man’s confidence.  “I’ll go, too.”

“They are caves, about three days north of here, too small to have ever held a worm, leastwise one of any size.  But local lore would have a dragon there an age ago, its treasure still lost in the darkness.  Make no mistake, there will be dangers.  But a dragon will not be among their number.   May I have your names?”

“I am called Locke,” the black-robed man said.

“And I am Hrum.  Though orcish blood flows through my veins, I wish you to know that I am a man of honor.”

“Save my son, and that will prove your honor well enough.  The moon will be full in six nights, and my heart fears that if Brand is not found before that moon rises, then all hope is in vain.”

The black-robed man, Locke, turned to Hrum.  “Shall we leave tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Hrum agreed.  As they turned to go, Hrum realized that he had just spent his last coin.  He turned back toward Master Oarsman.  “Um…I know we haven’t done anything yet, but I was wondering…it’s just that I don’t have any money, and I need a place to stay…”

Master Oarsman turned an appraising eye toward Hrum, and his features turned cold.  “Now I understand what it is that you were seeking, Master Orc.  Hermann, give him something for his trouble.”  As the guildsman swept from the room, his manservant opened his purse and tossed Hrum a silver penny.  It would not be enough for both a room and a meal.

“The clerics of Mellador keep places for such as you,” the manservant said.

The orcs were probably the worst of the wild humanoids dwelling near to Long Archer.  Hrum was used to the sour looks his orcish parentage brought.  It did not mean that he liked it.  Hrum had guarded woodcutters against orcs in service of the Guild of Mercenaries, and none could say he refused to lay sword to any goblinoid when an honest man’s life was in danger.  Hrum fumed silently, but he took the silver penny and left.

Luckily, he was well enough known at the North Road Inn.  After Hrum bought the inn’s thick venison stew – served with huge slabs of brown peasant’s bread – he was able to barter work for a place to sleep by the common room fire.

“I couldn’t help but overhear.”  The black-robed man, Locke, had approached the bar where Hrum was speaking to the innkeeper.  “When I go adventuring, I prefer my companions to be well rested.  I will pay for his room.”

In the morning, the pair left the North Gate along the trail into Weirwood the Great.  The forest was cut back a good two bowlengths from the village wall, but once it started, it started thick.  Overhanging boughs cut the light down to a green shadow, and areas of thick undergrowth reduced visibility.  The northward trail was used by woodcutters, Hrum knew, so there were liable to be clear-cut areas and glens at least as far as the caverns they sought.

The first day passed rather uneventfully.  It was pleasant enough land, rising and falling, alive with shallow streams and narrow rills.  All they saw were birds and small animals – chipmunks and squirrels, the occasional rabbit.  It was not until evening that Hrum realized that he hadn’t brought food.  With the day work he’d done for the Guild of Mercenaries, food was provided when the woodcutters camped outside the village wall.  Of course, the Guild of Mercenaries also took more than half of Hrum’s pay, as he was not a guild member, so the provided food was not as much of a bonus as it might seem.  However, Hrum had not even considered packing food before now, and he thought back to the odd rabbit they had seen with hunger.

Luckily, Locke had brought enough food to get them to the cavern at least.  “We are going to have to try hunting, though,” he said.  “Or we won’t have food for the trip back.”

“It’ll be good to have something other than dry trail rations anyway.”

They ate silently for a while, listening to the crackling of their fire.  Suddenly, they realized that there was a figure standing just at the edge of their firelight.  It seemed tall and craggy in the shadows.  An owl perched on the figure’s shoulder turned its full-moon eyes on them.  The teeth of a badger near the figure’s feet gleamed.

They were unsure at first whether the figure they saw was a forest spirit or a man.  “Who are you?” Locke asked.

“I am Desu Atram, of the Catfish Tribe,” the figure answered.  As he stepped forward, they could see that he was human, though entwined with the natural world.  A druid.  He was also a Lakashi, one of the tribesmen who dwelled in the Lakelands.  Some called them savages, and relations between city dwellers and Lakashi were not always peaceful.  Still, the man seemed more curious than dangerous, and he had observed them quietly from the shadows without bringing them harm.  “May I share your fire?”

Locke spread his hands to include them in the largesse of their camp.  A memory floated up from somewhere.  Sharing a fire and protection was common courtesy among travelers.  Of course, it was not always well rewarded.  Still, some spirits and fey could be bound from harm simply by offering them hospitality, and one never knew.  “Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes.”

Shortly afterward, they were discussing Hubert Oarsman’s missing son, and the reason Hrum and Locke had entered the Weirwood.  They were uncertain what dangers they might face.  Since Desu seemed willing to aid them in their task, Hrum and Locke were equally willing to share what reward there was with him.

All seemed to be going well until the trio encountered a boar the following day.   Boars were certainly not rare in the Weirwood, where they used their tusks to dig up grubs, acorns, and fungi.  Boars were as large as most hounds.  Their nasty tempers were legendary, and many a hunter had ended up treed by his quarry.  Even wounded or dying, a boar can make a fatal attack.  Caution when dealing with these animals is so deeply ingrained that even experienced hunters will use boar spears when hunting them – iron spears with a crossbar far up the shaft to prevent an impaled boar from simply driving the shaft through its body in order to charge the hunter.

Hrum, though, had never seen a boar spear.  Perhaps he didn’t realize the danger the creature represented, or that it might not attack if they remained calm.  He was leading when they spotted the boar, some ways ahead of them on the trail.  It was clear that the boar had seen them as well, but it stood tensely, watching them with suspicion.  With thoughts of succulent flesh foremost in his Hrum drew his sword to charge.

Instantly, the boar was upon them, tusks flashing.  Desu’s badger companion, and early victim of the boar, was thrown into the air and trampled under its hooves.  Although they fought valiantly, and gave the animal its death-wound, the boar’s fury was unabated until all lay bleeding on the forest floor.  And there they would have died, had it not been for the kind heart of another.

Against hope, they awoke at twilight to the smell of roasting boar.  Locke, who had awoken first, reported seeing a woman in shining silver mail.  She had obviously bound their wounds and granted them divine healing.  She was elven-fair, but taller than mortal men, with the face and lithe grace of the fair people.  After rendering aid, she had mounted a great elk and ridden off down the forest path.  They had not been given a proper chance to thank her.

“I shall commune with nature,” Desu said, “and see what I can do to heal us further.  We can do no more this night.”


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## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*Second Session*

The next morning, the scent of roasted boar brought another visitor to their camp.  This time it was a dwarf with a large black raven perched on his shoulder.  Locke had lost all memory of his life three years ago.  Something had happened in Weirwood the Great – he knew not what – that left him wounded with no recall beyond his name.  When the dwarf came toward the ashes of their fire, some brief recall fluttered just beyond Locke’s grasp.  It was the raven, not the dwarf.  Something to do with ravens.  Then it was gone.

Before long, the dwarf was breaking fast with them on greasy strips of roast boar.  Locke had met but a few dwarves in the time he could remember, but most of these were either taciturn or grumpy, and some few had had heard of – but never met – were greedy to the point of wickedness.  By contrast, Darwin Ravenscroll was chatty and energetic, often spinning off into irrelevant swirls of speech as though he were fey-touched.  He would occasionally croak bird-wise at his raven, although it clearly knew dwarf-speech.

For all his speech, they learned little about Ravenscroll as they broke fast, apart from the fact that he studied the arcane arts.  Nonetheless, when Desu invited him to join their quest, all were swift to agree.  After all, with additional help they were more likely to succeed, and by now they realized that they hadn’t even found out what reward they might be sharing.  When a reward might be enough for four, or too little for one, what was the point in arguing about it?

Their most serious discussion over breakfast was on the subject of food and equipment.  The boar’s meat would help, but would not last forever, and their defeat at its tusks had left them with injuries that Desu’s magic had been insufficient to fully heal.  They considered splitting forces, sending some back to Long Archer to beg for aid.  Desu was desirous of getting a donkey to carry the extra burdens they began to realize they needed.  Indeed, the group as a whole began to succumb to despair, feeling themselves less than equal to the simplest of the Weirwood’s challenges.

Time spent in the Hidden Shrine of Badur had given Locke another perspective.  The priests of the Bonewarden had taught him that life was a passage, and death nothing to be feared if life had been lived well.  Locke himself would not be bound for gray Lymbo.  Had it not been prophesied that he would only regain his lost memories once this life had ended?

“I think we should continue,” Locke said.

Darwin Ravenscroll chimed in his agreement.  After all, the dwarf had not been part of the skirmish with the boar, and as a result was uninjured and whole.  His raven familiar cawed harsh agreement.

Despair postponed, but not cancelled, the group rose from their breakfast and began to travel along the path.  It was long after their noon-day meal when they came upon an ancient woman hobbling with a cane, her back bent nearly double with age and a heavy saddle basket of turnips she carried, full enough to give even a donkey pause.  One of her arms was in a sling, and she was limping.  

They could hear her muttering under breath, but could not tell what she said.

Locke hailed her.

“Do you need help?” Desu added.

The old woman looked up, and a snaggle-toothed smile brightened her lined face.  “Bright Spirits,” she said.  “Bright Spirits sent you to me!  Save my Henry!  The troll’s got him, just down the path” – she pointed back the way she’d come from – “If you don’t hurry, I fear Henry’ll be killed and et!”

At once the morning’s despair arose.  “A troll?” Ravenscroll said.  “I’m not fighting a troll!”  He looked the way the old woman had pointed.  It was the direction they were already headed, down the trail they were using.  “There is no way that we can face a troll and survive.”

Desu sat upon a fallen log.  Clearly he was recalling the badger he had befriended, and how easily they had all fallen when the boar had attacked.

“Nonetheless,” said Locke, loosening his greatsword in its scabbard.  “I am going.”  He took no more than a dozen steps before the dwarf turned his mind and hurried to catch up to him.  Most fey-like and unusual for a dwarf.  Locke wondered what it meant.  A merry company of misfits, this group was.  Once Locke and Ravenscroll had disappeared into the trees down the path, Hrum and Desu exchanged a look.  Desu rose.  Sighing heavily, they followed.

The ruined tower was no more than a hundred yards down the path, in a smallish clearing.  Its base was perhaps thirty feet in diameter, and it had fallen past a height of fifteen feet or so, in a tumble of large stones.  Most of these were scattered to the northeast.  Where the door once allowed access, a ragged wound ten feet high had been smashed out of the stone.  The growth of moss, weeds, and lichen showed that all this happened long ago – many of the jumbled stones were nearly hidden by deep green coatings of moss.  

Tied to a stake in front of the tower ruin was a very miserable-looking donkey.

“This is old stonework,” muttered Ravenscroll, “as humans count the years, yet not so old that more would not be standing, had it been better crafted.”  He began to walk toward the tower.  The donkey seemed overjoyed to see him.  Locke drew his greatsword and peered about cautiously.  He had, after all, been warned about trolls.  Stepping quietly on the spring grass, Locke edged around the glade until he could see some of what was hidden by the tower.

A giant humanoid, nearly ten feet tall, was engaged in building a cairn with some of the fallen tower stones.  Not a troll, then.  An ogre.  Still dangerous, but not as dangerous as what they had feared.  From the size of the cairn, whatever it was burying was about the size of the ogre itself.  The ogre was wrapped in a bear’s hide, tied on with a rope.  Its well-muscled arms were hairy and knotted with warts and muscle.  What Locke could see of its face was bestial, with huge teeth and a bristling beard.  At least the ogre favored one side as it worked, as though wounded.  Thank Badur for small favors.

Hrum and Desu caught up to them and stepped into the clearing.  Desu let the donkey free.  It raced across the clearing, and cowered behind the half-orc warrior.  As Desu returned to where the donkey and Hrum stood, they caught sight of the ogre.  Hrum quickly strung his bow.  Desu, however, saw that it was injured and, as Ravenscroll stepped through the ragged stone gap into the tower, Desu hailed the ogre.

“Forgive our intrusion,” he said.  “Maybe we can help.”

The ogre turned its red-rimmed eyes toward Desu.  Its face was twisted with grief and rage.  It howled in anger.

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Locke said.  Suddenly prophecies didn’t seem so imperative.  Recovering his lost life didn’t seem worth dying for at the moment.  He stepped quickly away from Hrum and Desu as the ogre retrieved a huge greatclub from near where it was working.  From within the tower, Ravenscroll gave a cry of pain.  Hrum loosed an arrow.  Again, the ogre roared with rage.  The dwarf’s raven shot out of the tower in a flurry of panic.

Hrum fired arrow after arrow as the ogre advanced.  Most found their mark.  Locke and Desu moved swiftly away, leaving Hrum to face the ogre alone.  “By the Seven Good Gods!” called Hrum.  “Some help here!”  He fired another arrow, and then dropped his bow in favor of his sword.

“Draw it this way,” Locke called.  Desu prepared a sling stone.  The raven fluttered between tower and the companions as Hrum hurried toward them.  It almost wasn’t enough.  With it’s great stride and reach, the ogre struck Hrum a glancing blow with its greatclub.  Clearly, a solid blow would be lethal.

Another ogre, this one a stripling no taller than a tall man, stepped out of the tower.  It was armed with an ornate trident.  The raven redoubled its efforts, trying to draw its master’s friends into the tower.  But now Hrum, Locke, and Desu stood together at last.  Whether it was this or not, the ogres did not stand long.  The young ogre was already greatly injured.  Perhaps his father did not want to lose him.  In any event, the fight had gone out of them, and they quickly fled into the forest.

Moments later, Desu followed the raven into the tower, where Darwin Ravenscroll lay injured close to death.

The tower walls were five feet thick, giving way to a space about twenty feet in diameter.  A narrow stone stair wound counterclockwise around the inner wall, leading nowhere.  Part of a wooden roof remained, giving shelter to a massive cot.  Darwin lay crumpled near the side of the cot, bleeding from a vicious stab wound.  

There were various pots and pans, bones, bags, and bits of rusty dented metal armor scattered about the tower in an untidy hodgepodge.  Desu clattered through them quickly to the dwarf’s side.  At least he was still breathing, but he was pale with blood loss.  Despite the extent of Ravenscroll’s injuries, Desu was able to stabilize him without too much difficulty, staunching the wounds with sticky cobwebs and bloodmarrow.

By that time, they had all entered the ruined tower and looked around.  Locke and Hrum began sorting through the ogres’ stolen loot.  They set aside those items that might be useful in the Dragon’s Lair, such as a coil of hemp rope.  Locke gave a small gasp of delight when he found a sack filled with tobacco.  He immediately withdrew his pipe from his pouch.

By this time, they had a sour feeling about the identity of Henry.  Desu took the donkey, which had stayed nearby, back down the trail.  

When the donkey caught sight of the crone, he immediately set his hind legs and pulled at his traces, braying loudly.  The old woman just laughed.  “It’s only turnips, Henry,” she said, “and you know your burdens.  You wouldn’t want Annabelle to get lonely.”  The donkey struggled a minute more, then hung its head and submitted.

The old woman slung the saddle basket up onto the donkey’s back.  Henry grunted as it settled.

“I was wondering if we could get some turnips,” Desu said.

The old woman looked at him without blinking.  “My Henry’s well enough,” she said, “and you need repaying.  I’ll give you your turnips, if you want them, but it seems hardly enough.  I always repay my debts.  Yon tower will give you a safe night’s rest, now that the landlord is away.  When morning comes, look to the depths, and you’ll be rewarded sure enough.  Only, wait ‘til dawn, mind.  Does no good to be dredging up old ghosts.”

As she led the donkey away, a fog rose from the ground to meet her.  The donkey cast one beseeching look over its shoulder, then plodded after her.  For a moment, it seemed as if the turnips in the donkey’s saddle blanket had become a jumbled pile of tiny heads, though it must have been a trick of fog and shadow.  Then the mist swallowed them, and they were gone.

Desu looked in the bag the crone had given him.  The turnips seemed normal enough, so he made a stew of them with what remained of the boar’s meat, and they ate it that night.  They camped in the ruined tower, so that they could look for the reward the old woman had mentioned in the morning.  At twilight, Desu communed with the natural spirits of the glade – moss and grass and tree – but he didn’t have magic enough to heal them all, and despite his best efforts Ravenscroll remained stable but unconscious.

In the morning, it became obvious that the tower once had a stone floor beneath the accumulated soil and detritus.  They discovered an ancient wooden trapdoor set with an iron ring.  Though the iron was rusted, and the wood swollen and gray with age, the entire thing seemed sound enough – indeed, they must have unknowingly trusted their weight to it many times the night before.

Hrum gave a great heave and the trapdoor opened.  Looking in, they saw that the trapdoor gave way to narrow wooden steps leading down into the darkness, slick with moisture.  Hrum, Desu, and Locke crept down the stairs carefully.  They were too narrow for anything more than single-file passage.

At the end of the stairs was a tiny damp chamber, once the cistern for the men stationed here when the tower was whole.  The walls were covered with translucent slime, giving them an opalescent sheen in Desu’s torchlight.  A small, slime-coated wooden chest sat close to the narrow well shaft, which led down into moist blackness.

After checking the slime with the torch to see if it would react – for there were dangerous slimes and oozes that seemed like nothing more than damp walls, they knew – they opened the chest.  Within were an ornate helm and a soft leather bag containing what appeared to be colorful sling stones.  Desu took the stones, and Hrum took the helm.  Briefly checking the well, and deciding that it wasn’t of any serious interest, they climbed the stairs again.

They decided to make a litter to carry the dwarf, and continue on toward the Dragon’s Lair.  Already they were feeling the press of time, remembering Master Oarsman’s fear that if his son were not found by the full moon, he’d not be found alive.

Luckily the caves were not far, so even with the extra burden – Desu wishing bitterly that they had kept the donkey – they arrived before noon.

The Dragon’s Lair had two visible entrances:  a wide but low entrance right off the trail, and another, narrower entrance somewhat up the hill to the left.  Clearly, if any dragon ever crawled into the earth here, it was a small dragon indeed.

They placed Darwin near the cave entrance under the trees, and then sat to make a mid-day meal.  They had finished the boar-and-turnip stew when they broke fast, so they turned toward Locke, who had provided food on past occasions.

“Sorry,” Locke was forced to say.  “I don’t have enough food for everyone.”

It soon became clear that the only one who had food in any quantity was the dwarf, whom they had spent the morning carrying and caring for.  “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” said Hrum.

“Don’t be so sure,” said Locke.  Ravenscroll was flighty and might not mind, but dwarves had as solid a reputation as dragons for knowing what was theirs to the last copper penny.

Desu went into Darwin’s pack, under the raven’s disapproving eye and loud imprecations – again, Locke felt a tug of disassociated memory that refused to coaslese into something solid.  He pulled out enough food for three.  “We need it.  And we’ve been carrying him all day,” he said.  Then he added, quietly, “You realize that we might not have enough food to get back.”

“Perhaps not.  But we’re here now, so let’s see what we can do.”

When they had finished eating, they ducked into the wider cave entrance.  After only a few feet, the cave opened into a wide chamber.  The uneven floor sloped gently downward to the east, and the ceiling rose like a dome to a height of over fifteen feet, allowing them to stand straight once more.  A few narrow stalagmites, and a few more stalactites decorated the room.  The floor was spattered with guano, which in turn gave a home to small roaches, crickets, centipedes, and other tiny vermin.  They could clearly see daylight through the other entrance.

At the far side of the chamber, a narrow tunnel five feet in diameter burrowed at a moderate angle deeper into the earth.  There was nowhere else Brand Oarsmen and his men-at-arms could have gone, if they had gone into the caves at all.

The passage was harder than they supposed.  After some distance, a narrow passage opened from the ceiling of the passage they traveled down, but they decided to ignore it for the moment.  They could hear the trickle of running water down below, and thought it might be better to see where the sound was coming from.

Because the passage was so narrow, Hrum went first, followed by Desu.  Locke was bringing up the rear when something snagged him and pulled him up into the second passage in the ceiling.  He yelled.  Luckily, his sword was drawn, and he didn’t drop it.

Bracing his feet to slow the irresistable pull, he faced a nightmare creature like a gigantic crayfish holding onto the ceiling of the second passage.  A nearly invisible filiament not unlike spiderweb emerged from its snout, and pulled Locke steadily toward it.  It clacked two large claws in anticipation of fresh meat.

In the confused seconds that followed, Locke could hear his companions trying to come to his aid.  The reature was trying to rend him with its claws.  At one point, Locke grunted as a sling bullet impacted his hindquarters, and he felt a tingle as some magic tried to work itself upon him.  Sling bullets and arrows were far more likely to hit him than the creature.  He gritted his teeth and resisted the spell.  It disipated, but his companions were still trying dangerously to help him.  Thus far, the creature had not hurt him much, but he was certain he could not last much longer.

In desperation, he swung his greatsword in as much of an arc as the tight tunnel would allow.  Fate or his god guided the stroke, for it parted chitin and muscle, and the crayfish-thing fell heavily to the tunnel floor, its legs still solidly attached to the ceiling.  Locke stabbed down between the creature’s eyes, slaying it utterly.

Gripping the sticky filament, he pulled hard, and managed to dislodge it.

“Let’s go back and check on Ravenscroll,” he said.  “We’ll need all of our strength to assault these caves.”


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## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*Third Session*

In the morning, the dwarf was well enough to be up and about.  The Green that permeated the world brought many gifts, and one was that time healed wounds.  Where the Green tangled with living, growing things spirits were formed.  There were some shamans of the Lakashi who believed that even the Great Spirits – the Horned Lord and Mother Moon – were merely aspects of the Green, and that Death was the shadow the Green cast over the material world.

The Lakashi were matriarchal.  Among the tribes, women hold the key positions of power, though some male druids, warriors, and shamans are held also in high esteem.  It is rare to see a Lakashi man within the inner circle of the Tribal Council.  Desu knew that this was not true among many other peoples, including those with whom he traveled.  Yet it was often true within the Green.  Among the fey, it was often the Queens who held the greatest power.  Still, he had perhaps underestimated the lack of compassion that a male-dominated society could create.

In the Hooth Marshes, there was a tradition of autumn feasting, when neighboring tribes would invite each other to share in the bounty of the season.  It was a mark of pride for the Hooth tribes to be able to provide more bounty than a guest could possibly eat – the remainder becoming another meal, or a sacrifice for spirits.  It had been natural for Desu to believe that the dwarf would be willing to share what he had with his companions in need.  After all, didn’t they share their skills at arms, and Desu the grace of the Green with his magic?

Yet when the dwarf awoke and discovered a portion of his food missing, he turned to Locke, demanding to know what became of it.  Locke, rather than answering, deferred the question to the half-orc.  Whether it was because of racial animosity or some deeper malaise, the dwarf did not even ask Hrum.  Forgetting that he was no warrior, the dwarf charged the half-orc with his staff…but Hrum was not caught unaware, and he was far quicker.  In a second, the half-orc’s sword was from its sheath, and the dwarf was once more in the abyss of injured unconsciousness.

Desu quickly rushed up to intervene.  He placed himself between the half-orc and the fallen dwarf, preventing Hrum from finishing Darwin where he lay.  “What are you doing?” Desu demanded.  “We need him!  And now I shall have to waste a valuable spell to knit his injuries.”  He knelt beside the fallen dwarf and began to reach into the Green, feeling his way toward the necessary healing.

“I’m sorry,” Hrum murmured.  “He just attacked me.”

Desu had a sinking feeling that some spirit of malevolence held sway over these two, and it would not end its mischief until one – or both – were dead.  As the healed dwarf arose, he stood up.  “I took your food,” Desu said, and the dwarf looked away.

When they had eaten a modest breakfast, and had prepared their gear, the four entered the caves once more.  Where the taller three had to duck to enter the wider entrance, the dwarf had no difficulty.  Again they came to the first chamber.  The dwarf, who had not seen it before, looked about with interest, but the rest when directly to the narrow eastern passage.  They decided who would go first, then descended.  They went past the second passage in the ceiling, where Locke had been attacked, and continued down to the source of trickling water they could hear.

The passage ended in a dark watery expanse, some twenty feet wide, but narrowing to about half that after about twenty feet.  The ceiling seemed to be about ten feet high.  There was a constant noise of trickling and dripping water.  The water itself was scummy, with an oily sheen, and Desu knew instinctively that it was not fit to drink.  He could see signs of bat guano.  This was an area disease spirits might well enjoy dwelling in.

The dwarf made a magical light upon a pebble, and had his raven carry it over the dark water.  When the raven returned, they conferred briefly in the Dwarvish tongue, and Darwin told them that the ceiling was much higher than it appeared, a little farther on.  Also, there was a passage eastward on the far side of the water.

Still Desu was not a good swimmer, and he distrusted the look of the water.  After a brief discussion, they decided to go back up the passage, and try the narrow way they had passed – the way through the ceiling, where the crayfish-like creature has attacked Locke the day before.  They were able to pull their way up into the ceiling passage without too much difficulty, but the way was tight.  They came upon the remains of the crayfish-thing – normal-sized beetles and ants had already begun their work upon it – and beneath where it lay they found a dismembered human skeleton adhered to the floor, some of its bones still held together by stringy bits of desiccated flesh.  The studded leather armor the body once wore was damaged beyond repair, but there was a serviceable short sword adhered to the floor with it.  Try as he might, Hrum could not pull the sword free from where it was glued to the floor.

Beyond, the cave floor evened out somewhat, opening into a nodule some ten feet in diameter and seven feet high.  Beyond that, there was a choice to go left or right.  The left way was narrow and tight, about three feet high and four feet wide, damp, with a trickle of water running along a slick floor rising at an angle of about twenty degrees.  The water spread out as it flowed to the right, where the passage opens out until it was about fifteen feet wide.

Hrum stepped out to look to the right.  The passage sloped suddenly and steeply, and he lost his footing on the slick stone.  His sword dropped with a clatter, waking some bats and sending them flying about.  He slid into a wide chamber, where he managed to catch himself against an even steeper slope.  He looked around at the chamber, and saw that it was some thirty-five feet across and twenty-five feet wide, but the area in front of him was a slick ledge maybe five or ten feet wide with a twenty-five degree slope.  He could hear the steady trickle of water in a pool more than ten feet below.  Hrum got shakily to his feet, trying to keep his balance.

The dwarf sent his raven up the other passage, but it ended in a cul-de-sac.  He jogged down the passage quickly to check the raven’s report, and saw another camber, fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep.  The area was some fifteen feet high.  Water had carved a sinkhole through the stone from the surface.  The sinkhole formed a chimney leading out of the caves, entering the room near the far wall.  It was the source of the trickling water in the area.  Had they meant to exit the caves, it might have been a good find, but they would never find Brand Oarsman if they left now.  He jogged back to tell the group the disappointing news.

When Desu tried to join Hrum in the slick-floored cavern, he lost his footing and went shooting over the edge.  Bats, which had been roosting on the ceiling, flew around, disturbed, and chanced to put out the group’s torch.  Luckily, however, they could not put out the magical light the dwarf’s raven was carrying.  Desu slid and dropped fifteen feet into the brackish water with a huge splash that echoed loudly throughout the caverns.  The water was deep enough that Desu took no injury from his fall, but as he struggled to make it to the surface, he took in water that he knew was not safe to drink.  It was the least of his worries.  Barely able to tread water, he broke to surface enough to gasp out a cry for help before the weight of his equipment pulled him under again.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Darwin Ravenscroll flung his bandolier to his companions and leaped into the water.  He pulled Desu up, and brought him safely to the nearest shore.  They discovered that this was the same shore they had looked at earlier, before trying the higher passages.

Locke gave Darwin’s bandolier to the dwarf’s raven, and the bird carried it down to its master, dropping the light-stone into the water, where the light would slowly diminish and go out.  They swam across the calm, cool water, trusting to fate and their fortitude that none would become ill from the contaminants it contained.  Darwin assisted Desu across.  Archimedes, Desu’s owl companion, and the dwarf’s raven familiar flew.

The passage rose gently out of the water.  They shook the foul water out of their cloaks the best they could, then sat and emptied their boots.  The passage east was about ten feet in diameter.  After about thirty feet, the passage split in a Y-shaped intersection.  The way to the right descended sharply, but the way to the left seemed more or less level.  They chose to try the left.

However, after only a short distance, the floor dropped suddenly away as a ten-foot diameter shaft interrupted their passage.  The shaft extended into darkness both above and below the passage they had been traveling along, though they could see it continued beyond the ten-foot wide drop.  The rock of the shaft was much smoother than the surrounding rock, so it seemed unlikely to offer an easy climb.  They turned back, and tried the other passage.

That passage was very steep, but after climbing their way down for a bit, a large passage opened up to the left.  The passage they were in continued to descend sharply into the earth.  The other passage had a far gentler slope, although it was still descending.  It varied between nine and fifteen feet in diameter.  The ceiling was spiked with sharp stalactites, some thick as a dwarf’s torso and others thin as straw.  Most of the stalagmites had been worn down to smooth nubs on the floor, which made it far easier to walk.

They had not gone far down the new passage when four crossbow bolts shot from the darkness ahead.  Luckily, none were accurate enough to hit a truly solid blow.  Two short reptilian humanoids with scaly skin the color of dark rust charged forward with spears as two more crossbow bolts flew from the darkness.  Somewhere in the distance, something squealed.

“Kobolds,” someone muttered, and in the confusion it was hard to tell whom.  The creatures hissed to each other in some variant of the Reptile Tongue, attacking in a coordinated fashion.  But it wasn’t enough to save them from the swords of Locke and Hrum, who waded into combat with gusto.  Before long, the two kobolds that had charged the group were dead, and arrows had felled those with crossbows farther on.

The group scavenged the crossbows and what bolts remained from the kobolds.  Who knew when they might prove useful?

There were passages crossing the main corridor, both to the north and the south.  Those passages to the north rose, while the ones to the south descended.  The group ignored all of these, and continued along the wide passage they were already in.  At least here the footing was good.  Their wet things had begun to grow clammy, but the combat had warmed them a bit.

For a long way the party went on in silence, noting side passages to the left and right, but largely ignoring them.  Then a long grayish-pink tentacle reached down from the ceiling, wrapped itself around Darwin, and drew him swiftly to the ceiling.

The animosity of that morning forgotten, Hrum immediately set arrow to bowstring and aimed upward.  A large mass of gray and pink flesh nestled among the stalactites, clutching Darwin with two tentacles.  The dwarf was again unconscious due to wounds.  Hrum fired and his arrow found its mark, glancing off the creature’s central mass and drawing blood.

“A thousand pardons,” the creature said, rotating a many-fanged mouth toward the floor.  It lowered Darwin gently among them with two tentacles.  It was obvious that the creature’s grab had reopened old wounds.  “I mistook you for one of those miserable hissers.  Never attack anyone whose friends can fight back, that’s my motto.”

Desu knelt by the fallen dwarf, looking to see if he could stop his bleeding.  It did not look like an easy task.

“Who are you?” Locke asked.

“No one important, really,” the thing replied.  “Just an opportunist out for a meal, you understand, and I didn’t really look to see what was walking below.  More instinct than anything else.  I wouldn’t have touched you had I known you could fight back.”

Locke looked up at the creature.  He could see nothing resembling eyes, with which it could have looked.  Desu also looked up, curious despite himself.

“Do you know what’s down this way?” Desu asked.

“Keep going the way you are, and you’ll end up in the Borderlands.  Nothing past there but hissers and mushrooms, if you understand me.”

Locke looked at Desu.  “Do you think they would have gone that way?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe we can ask Tentacle Guy.”

“You’re looking for someone?” the thing asked.  “I imagine your friends have taken the other passage, the one the one that the spider-folk travel along.”  It pointed toward a northward tunnel with one of its long tentacles.  “Seems I’ve heard some screaming up that way not too long ago.”

“We might as well try it,” said Locke.

“Thank you,” said Desu.

“I’ve been a bit of a help, right?  Well then, what about some reward?”

Desu looked up suspiciously.  “What kind of a reward?”

“How about him?” The thing brushed the fallen dwarf lightly with a tentacle.  “You don’t seem to care about him.”

Desu suddenly realized that Darwin Ravenscroll was still bleeding to death at his feet.  He quickly knelt and finished binding his wounds, using pressure until the bleeding stopped.

“Do you like hisser meat?” Locke asked.  “We killed four just down the tunnel.  We’d be happy to let you have them.”

“You get a lot of hissers down here.  I just caught one a few moments ago, before you people came along.”  The thing sighed.  “I was hoping for something sweeter.  How about one of those flying things?”

With a start, Desu realized that the creature meant the raven and the owl.  It had been helpful, and it did deserve some reward, but could he really deliver his animal companion to it?  That would be an evil deed of the worst sort, and it would reverberate through the Green.  Desu found himself wishing that his spirit quest had been successful, that some friendly spirit was there to advise him.

“I’m afraid I can’t give you my owl,” he said gently.  He found himself truly feeling an attachment, and sympathy toward, this creature.  “But we can bring you the hissers.”  

They were ready to grab the kobold bodies for the creature when another thought crossed Desu’s mind.  “I suppose we ought to leave someone here to guard the dwarf,” he said.  “I’m not sure we should trust this creature completely.”

A few minutes later, the group was carrying their fallen companion into the north-leading passageway, and the creature was bringing the kobold bodies up to the corridor ceiling to eat.

The passage led to a cave some thirty feet in diameter, with other passages to the west and northeast.  In the center of the room they saw a natural pit with steep, smooth walls, twenty feet in diameter and equally deep.  Within they could see five men-at-arms, four living and one dead.

When they came into the chamber, the men shrank against the pit wall.  Then one called out “Hrum my friend!”  Hrum recognized the man as Cedric, one of the guild mercenaries he had served with.  “Thank the Good Gods!  We’re rescued.”

The other three were named Anlaf, Garmund, and Douglas.  Soon the group had pulled them out of the pit, using rope scavenged from the ogre’s tower, and Cedric was telling them what had happened.

“Just a job for us, right?  Young Master Oarsman snoop around for a bit, look for a bit of coin or whatnot.  Do a bit of fighting, maybe.  But young Oarsman, he brings along this girl, and that’s where the trouble begins.  She keeps talking about this really big treasure.  Little risk, big reward.  How do you say no, right?”

Cedric looked around, as though waiting for response.  When there was none, he met each of their eyes in turn, and continued.  He addressed himself to Hrum.

“So, no sooner do we get to the Lair when we lose one of the lads.  Pop!  Old Bill is being reeled up into another passage by some kinda giant crayfish, and he’s dead before we know it.  But we knew there’d be risks, and there’s naught we can do for Billy, so we hope to recover his body on the way out for his widow and son.  But we keep going.  A couple of kobolds stick their noses out, but we fix them all right.  We’re thinking we’re home free.  Got this idea of the big treasure in our minds, see?”

Hrum nodded.  He gestured for Cedric to go on.

“Then suddenly there’s these guys in black robes, and that bitch Kara is on their side.  Some of us got knocked into this pit in the scuffle.  Johan there broke his neck, I reckon, but the rest of us are in pretty good shape, I suppose.  But these black robes – they were talking about Mellythese and sacrifice and full moons…and some of them didn’t seem rightly human.”

“I’m surprised you’re not afraid of me, then,” Locke said.  He was dressed in a black hooded robe himself.

“These folks didn’t seem right, you have to understand,” Cedric said.  “And their robes…they weren’t like your Badurite robes.  They were…inhuman.”

“Did you see which way they went?”  Desu asked.

“I’m not certain, but I think they came from there,” one of the men, Douglas, said, pointing toward the northeastern passage.

“Will you come with us?”

“Strength in numbers,” said Anlaf, “but I’m for going home if it comes to a vote.”

“Not me,” said Cedric.  “I’ve got friends they took.  I’d be for saving them, if it can be done.”

“We still need to carry the dwarf,” Desu said.  “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave your friend behind for now.  We’ll come back and get him later, if we can.”  He briefly considered giving the dead human to the tentacled creature as a reward – to the druids, one creature was a worthy as another, and among the Lakashi the dead were dead, and held no special significance – but he realized that his companions would not see it that way.

They walked down the northeast passage, and were pleased that it provided a fairly level way.  After a while they saw a steady red light ahead, like a malignant, unblinking eye – but it turned out to be the abdominal organ of a large beetle.  Like many of the verminous creatures that hide from the Sun’s eye, the beetle was hungry and seeking prey.  Even so, it was no match for the small band of adventurers.  When it lay dead, Desu cut its still-glowing abdominal organ free.  It was not unlike the light-giving organ of a firefly.  Desu lifted it up, so that he could use it as a torch.

The passage came to another Y-shaped intersection.  The way to the right began a very sharp descent, of almost fifty degrees.  The way to the left rose gently.   However, the left-hand way was shrouded with thick cobwebs that fluttered as though with a faint breeze.

“It doesn’t appear as though the left way has been used in some time,” Desu noted.  “Perhaps we should try the right.”

“It will be difficult while carrying this dwarf,” Anlaf pointed out.  “We could always turn around and leave, while we still may.”

The others ignored him, and began the arduous descent to the right.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*Fourth Session*

Darwin Ravenscroll awoke.  The pain of his many wounds was gone, leaving only a dull ache.  Blinking, he sat up and looked around him.

He was in a roughly shaped cavern, dimly lit by torchlight and the abdominal gland of a fire beetle.  The center of the floor was dominated by a twenty-foot deep sinkhole some twenty feet across.  His companions were there, all seemingly unharmed, and with them were four human men Darwin didn’t recognize.  Darwin realized that Desu, who knelt nearby, must have healed him magically.  

“Who are these people?” Darwin asked.

Desu told him of how they had rescued these men-at-arms:  Anlaf, Cedric, Garmund, and Douglas.  Desu went on to tell Darwin how they had carried his wounded body, exploring further.  When they had come to a Y-shaped intersection, they had taken the right passage, which led downward into the earth.  Yet that passage had ultimately proved too difficult for them, so they returned to the chamber where they had rescued the men-at-arms.  The body they had left behind to attend to later had disappeared (Desu suspected that the tentacled creature they had met earlier had taken it to eat).  They intended now to try the left-hand way, for if the elder Oarsman’s fears proved true, there was now very little time remaining to rescue his son.

When Darwin was ready, the group followed the northeast passage out of the chamber.  Desu pointed out the carapace of the fire beetle, whose abdominal organ he was using to help light their way.  After a time, the passage came to a Y-shaped intersection.  There, the way to the right began a very sharp descent, of almost fifty degrees.  The way to the left rose gently.  That way was shrouded with thick cobwebs that fluttered as though with a faint breeze.

“I would like to try the right-hand way,” said Darwin, for Desu had told him of a carved fountain, with writing that might be in Dwarven script, that they had found in the tunnels that way.

“Later,” Desu said.  “We must conserve our strength for what lies ahead.  And our time grows short.”

“Very well,” Darwin said, pushing past the webs into the ten-foot diameter passage, Locke close behind him.  It was difficult to see far down the passage, choked as it was with old cobwebs.  Dusty bones and dried carcasses lay along the floor, or were caught up in the webs, though none of them seemed recent.  Looking at the bones, Darwin saw that humanoid bones were among them – some almost certainly kobold, and others human.  As he paused to look, he could hear faint chanting from somewhere ahead.

Darwin pushed confidently down the corridor, but the old webs hid a pit.  Both he and Locke fell in, dropping ten feet.  Once they were out of the pit on the far side, the remainder of the party carefully walked around its edges.  The entire group continued, now more cautiously.

As they traveled the winding, web-shrouded passage, the sound of chanting grew louder.  After about fifty feet, the passage opened into a huge cavern, so vast that their torchlight would have been insufficient to light it, had torches not been mounted in the walls to provide a feeble light around the periphery.

Before them was a ledge that ran around the outer rim of the cavern, some ten feet over the bowl-shaped cave floor proper.  The cave floor was dominated by a great stinking chasm, filled with an odor like acid and sulfur.  Darwin could sense that a great evil lurked within that noisome pit.  He could see by the looks on his companions’ faces that they also sensed the menace that hid in the pit’s black depths.

Around the pit were a half dozen people wearing black and scarlet robes, facing the pit.  They were chanting in a language of hisses and clicks.  To Darwin’s left, the ledge ran to another cave opening, which had been covered by a locked iron grate.  Much closer, to Darwin’s right, the ledge ran into another cave room.

In all, the chamber was over one hundred feet across, with a ceiling that disappeared into darkness.

As the party stood for a moment, taking in this evil sight, Darwin became aware of another presence.  In the shadowy light of the cavern’s far side, a large creature had appeared.  It looked like a bloated white spider, nearly nine feet in diameter, but its head was feminine and humanoid, and its forward hands looked almost like human arms.

The creature spoke to the cultists in the same hissing, clicking language, clearly urging them on, though Darwin could not understand what she was saying.  Her eyes glowed with a facetted red light, and even from where he stood Darwin could see that her face was twisted with wicked glee.

As they watched in horror, the spider-thing went up the ledge and came back with a bound human prisoner – presumably from the other side of the same chamber Darwin could see locked with an iron grate.  The spider-thing brought her prisoner to the edge of the pit, and, as they watched, prepared to consign him to the depths.

“Brand!” said Desu.

Locke quickly leaped into action, setting the men-at-arms in a line to fire crossbows down at the cultists while he, Desu, Darwin, and Hrum followed the ledge into the chamber to the right.

As the first crossbow bolts sprayed among the cultists, the spider-like abomination let her captive go.  The man ran to the east.

There, the northern wall bulged outward, making a chamber some thirty feet in diameter and twenty feet high.  The area was strewn with rough sleeping pallets, and contained an open barrel half-filled with water.  There were several clay chamber pots in there, some partially full.  Where these would be emptied was a mystery, as it seemed unlikely that the cultists would dump their excrement down the chasm in their cavern temple.

The group passed quickly through, into the next chamber.  Like the previous room, the wall bulged outward to make a space some thirty or forty feet in diameter.  Within this room were several boxes and crates, a barrel containing several javelins, and a jumbled pile of swords and studded leather armor.

As the party began to move through the room, a creature leaped from a web-like hammock strung on the ceiling, some forty feet overhead.  It landed near Hrum, attacking with its four spidery arms.  As part of the group moved onward, Hrum traded blows with the creature.  It was humanoid, with stringy black hair and faceted red eyes.  Spider-like mandibles jutted from its mouth.  Desu pulled out his sling to aid his half-orc companion.

Pausing along the ledge before the next chamber, Locke and Darwin looked down into the chamber of the pit, natural temple of the dread spider-goddess Mellythese.  The men-at-arms had been successful, killing several of the cultists, but others were escaping, coming up at the edge of the ledge from the eastern end of the room.  It seemed as though the large spider-thing would escape, so Darwin sent his familiar, Blackwing, to attack and harass her.

This proved ill, as the abomination swatted the raven away with one fell claw, knocking it wounded to the cavern floor.

Darwin cried out in concern, then leapt off the ledge to the cavern floor.  Summoning his arcane lore, he cast a simple cantrip to scoop his wounded familiar away from the spider-thing.  Blackwing floated through the air toward Darwin as though by an invisible hand.  Darwin rushed forward to stabilize his familiar, ignoring the danger from the spider-thing and her cultists.

Locke and Desu rushed through the next web-padded chamber, but dagger-wielding cultists engaged them, slowing them from coming to Darwin’s aid.  Hrum, having defeated, with Desu, the spidery humanoid, leaped off the ledge, following Darwin’s footsteps, ready to defend him with his life if need be.

Another four-armed, spider-like humanoid crawled off the northern wall, this one clearly a female despite her black hooded robes.  It closed quickly with Darwin.  Faced by these horrors, it was clear that Darwin would have been quickly slain, had it not been for Hrum.  Hrum waded in with his greatsword, doing little damage at first, but giving Darwin a chance to retreat.  Luckily, Locke and Desu finished with the last of the cultists, and Desu was able to send Archimedes, his owl companion, to distract the spider-thing as well as sending magical spellstones at the creature with his sling.  That, combined with the might of Locke and Hrum’s swords, might have turned the day, had they been all the party needed to face.

Out of the chasm crawled a wave of darkness, and in that darkness came a bloated black spider the size of a horse.  It was covered with stiff, coarse hair that seemed almost spine-like.  Its many eyes were red, and glowed like fire.  Its fangs dripped with thick greenish poison like puss, and its claws were of scarlet and ebony horn.  It radiated a palpable aura of evil that choked the air like venom.  As it came, darkness washed over the cavern, killing the light.

Daunted, the party tried to fall back, even as Darwin countered the fiendish spider’s darkness with magical light, but the spider’s web fell over the group, and Hrum was trapped.  Unable to move, but still able to fight, Hrum traded blows with the fiend, risking its infernal claws and poisonous ichor.  The men-at-arms leaped off the western ledge to come to their aid.  And, miraculously, they beat back their foes.  Hrum’s blade lashed out.  With a hideous screech, the infernal spider fell back into blackness.

This was more than enough for the spider-thing and the female spider-like humanoid.  As they attempted to flee, Desu continued to send sling bullets after the bloated abomination that clearly led the temple.  The humanoid struck down Darwin and escaped, skittering up the cavern walls.  Later, Darwin learned what had happened next.

The spider-thing, lost and alone, began to sing, even as it moved away and Locke moved around the chasm to cut off its retreat.  Enthralled by the song, as though by a spell, Desu suddenly found himself believing that the spider-thing was his friend.  At its beckoning, Desu picked up Darwin’s body and brought it to the spider-thing.

As the spell ended, the spider-thing picked up Darwin’s unconscious body and threatened to kill him unless the group gave their word to let her escape.  Seeing that there was no other way to save Darwin, the group agreed.  The creature carried Darwin near to the ledge, then dropped him and fled.

The floor sloped up to the ledge on the eastern side of the cavern, allowing easier access between ledge and cavern floor.  Here, there was a narrow passage leading out of the temple to the east.  It was in that direction that the captive had fled.  A lump of old stalagmite there was polished through use over the ages, and stained with blood.

As Desu healed Darwin, Hrum freed himself from the webs entrapping him.  Together, the group went up the eastern slope.  They noted that the air near the eastern passage seemed fresher – perhaps it led outside?

While the rest of the group performed a cursory search for treasure in the caverns, Darwin explored the passage to the east.

The passage was only five feet wide where it began, but after about twenty feet it widened.  The passage showed signs of common usage, and the air ahead was definitely sweeter than the air Darwin had left behind.  Sixty feet up the passage Darwin discovered the body of the sacrificial victim.  Although he had escaped the clutches of the spider-thing, he had not escaped the caverns.  His throat had been cut.

Darwin came sadly back into the cavern temple.

“I am afraid that our mission has failed,” he said, “for the man we were sent to rescue is dead.”

“We can at least rescue the others,” said Desu.  “Perhaps there will yet be some reward for our efforts.”

“There was a reward to return Oarsman’s son, either living or dead,” said Locke.  “I would rather have returned him alive.  Either way, we must free what captives we can.”

They went up the eastern slope, traversing the northern ledge a chamber some forty feet across, barred on both sides by a locked iron grate.  At first, the people imprisoned within cringed, but when they realized that their deliverance was at hand, they quickly crowded near the grate.  It proved too hard to pull open.

“That spider-thing had the key,” Desu said.  “We should never have let her escape.”

“Hold on,” said Locke.  Rummaging through his backpack, he found the crowbar he’d taken from the ogre’s loot in the ruined tower, days ago.  With the crowbar, the group was able to quickly pry open the grating, releasing the prisoners.  They were overjoyed to learn that Brand Oarsman was among the captives – it had not been he who was to be sacrificed first.

After that, things moved quickly.  In addition to Brand, seven men-at-arms remained.  Their armor and swords had been found in the cavern earlier, so they could be quickly rearmed.  So armed, the party moved through the eastern passage.  Hrum was the least hurt, and went first.

It was soon apparent what had happened to the escaped prisoner – Hrum walked into a razor-thin strand of webbing strung across the passage at neck height.  Luckily, he was able to pull back before he was sliced too deeply.  Clearly, the man-at-arms who had escaped had not been so lucky.

“I wonder why it didn’t get me,” pondered Darwin.  “Perhaps, this time, my height was to my advantage!”

They cut the webline and went on.  After another fifty feet or so, they came to a jag in the passageway that blocked visibility.  Rounding it, they could see the sky through a thin veil of vines some thirty feet ahead.  Once more as they moved forward, Hrum felt a razor-thin line cut into his throat.  This time, he was barely able to stop before the cut became lethal.

Darwin raised his blade and ran out into the sunlight, determined to cut any lines that remained.  They had rescued Brand Oarsmen, and brought him safely from the Dragon’s Lair.  And they had survived.

* * * * *

They camped outside the vine-shrouded entrance to the caves, resting and healing.  With the crates of food that they had found in the temple area, everyone was soon well fed and healed.  Eventually, Desu, Darwin, Hrum and Locke went back into the caves.

As they examined the temple again, they saw that some objects had been removed from the web-lined side cave.  Obviously, they had missed some treasure.

Desu took one of the cultist’s bodies to feed to the tentacled thing, but they were unable to find it.  In the end, Desu left the body where the creature had been encountered before, hoping that it would find and accept the gift.

“I liked that tentacled thing,” he said.

At last they went back to the Y-shaped intersection, and Darwin was able to explore the right-hand side with his friends.  After about thirty feet of sharp descent, the passage narrowed into a V of stone.  The floor was only a couple of feet wide, requiring the group to travel in single file to continue.  They could hear running water somewhere below.

The difficult passage emerged onto a spot of more level ground, almost a grotto, where small pink stalactites grew down from the ceiling, with growths of whitish stone flowers among them.  Water trickled out of the right hand wall, forming a sort of small puddle before seeping back down into the rock.  The water came from the mouth of a figure carved into the stone – elflike, but with ram’s horns.  Below the figure, blurred somewhat from the cumulative effects of water erosion, were Sylvan words written in dwarven runes:

Taste of this
And drink full well
For by good will
This Water fell.

They bent to drink.  The cold water had a stony, metallic taste to it, but it also was tingly and strangely refreshing.

“I have a feeling,” said Locke, “that this water would have healed us, had we still been injured.”  He bent to fill his waterskin, and the others did the same.

Darwin went to look at the passage beyond, but the cavern dropped farther than his rope would reach, and at last he gave up on exploring further.

“Come,” said Desu.  “It is time to return to Long Archer.”

* * * * *

They stopped that night at the ruined tower where they had fought the ogres.  Darwin walked up the ruined stairway as far as he dared, and looked out upon Weirwood the Great.  They then went and examined the cairn the ogre had been building.  They uncovered a female ogre, who had been beaten to death by something – or someone – of great strength.  The group recovered the ogress.

That night, three of the men-at-arms, who had been standing watch, disappeared without noise or trace.

Spooked, they moved quickly on.

* * * * *

Back in Long Archer, Hubert Oarsman gladly received the group, and his son.  He invited them to dine in his home, and apologized for doubting the worth of the half-orc.  “For you have brought back my son,” he said, “and I was a fool to doubt you.”  To each he gave forty pieces of gold, with an extra one hundred coins to split among them for returning Brand Oarsman alive.

“I don’t need anything more,” Desu said.

“Nonsense!” the elder Oarsman exclaimed.  “If I could give you more, I would gladly do it, to have my son returned to me!  You have my undying gratitude.”

“Actually,” said Darwin, “I was wondering what it would cost us to buy a ship from you.”  He had heard rumors of the ruined tower of Amoreth the Arcane, down the Selwyn River, in Selby-by-the-Water.  A great desire to find the lost magic of the long-departed wizard had arisen in him.

Little did he know that he would never reach Selby-by-the-Water alive, and that – once there – his body would never leave.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*Fifth Session*

Hubert Oarsman looked across the table at Darwin.  “I assume that you’re not asking about a rowboat.”

“No.  Not a rowboat.”

“Well, then, even a modest ship is well beyond the means of most.  The cost of timber alone…but that is neither here nor over the moon, is it?  If I judge you aright, you’re not looking to buy a ship so much as to do some traveling, eh?  Well, then, you are in luck, for I have a friend who is taking passengers to Selby-by-the-Waves, and I feel certain that he’d do me the favor of including a few of my friends for free.  And if not for free, I feel honor bound to pay for your passage.  After all, you restored my son to me!”

“Excellent,” Darwin began, but Hubert raised a hand.

“What’s more,” he continued, “I will write you a letter of introduction to Mistress Erin Guildwood, a shipwright of my acquaintance down river.  While she’ll not grant you a ship for free – my influence doesn’t extend that far! – she’ll make certain that you’re not overcharged for passage to wherever you would go next.  What say you?  Is that fair enough?”

“More than fair,” said Hrum.

“At the docks seek the berth of the Lady Griswald.  Her Captain is called John Younger – a good man, and a personal friend.  He’ll be expecting you before the ship leaves at noon tomorrow.  I’ll have your letter of introduction ready for you by then, and you can pick it up on the way to the docks.”

After dinner, the group retired to an inn, where most of them drank throughout the night.  The next morning, with several of the party hung over from the excesses of the night before, they made their way to the docks in search of their ship.

The Lady Griswald was a keelboat.  Keelboats were a common sight along the Selwyn River, because they were relatively cheap and reliable.  The ship was large, with a crew of six.  It had a ballista mounted on its fore and a pilots deck on the aft, where it was steered by rudder.

They quickly made the acquaintance of two other travelers that had booked passage upon the ship:  Ahern Atwood, a half-elven ranger, who, like Locke, preferred to keep his face in shadow, and Krog Zando, a hugely muscled half-orc who soon became known to them as Krog the Hungry due to his voluminous appetite.

The Lady Griswald left at noon.  The sailors lay on the oars, and the Lady Griswald moved downstream.  For a long time the coastline sailed by.  Woodcutters and small homesteads could be seen along either bank, leaving many areas clear-cut – either grown into fields or left bare.  Eventually, though, Weirwood the Great closed on the river, and the trees often came down to the bank.  Some of the taller and straighter of these were branded with marks like large arrowheads, showing that the Lord of Long Archer had marked them for use as masts, and cutting them without permission carried dire penalty.

Good smells began rising from the galley.  As twilight grew thick, the Captain called the rowers to a rest.  As the sailors began lining up for bowls of rich stew – served with huge slabs of bread – Desu heard a soft splash close to the side of the boat.

Looking over the edge, he saw a half-dozen creatures frolicking and cavorting like dolphins in the nighttime waters.  They appeared to be lithe, beautiful beings, vaguely feminine, surrounded by soft, jewel-colored auras of ruby, emerald, and sapphire.  They traced glowing paths just beneath the water as they circled the hull of the Lady Griswald.  

Deciding that they were unlikely to be hostile, Desu joined the line and received a bowl of stew.  Krog the Hungry was already on his second bowl, and had a third and more bread before he was finished.  

Desu told his companions what he had seen while they ate.  When they were done, Krog and Locke joined him at the rail to watch the beautiful creatures.  The creatures appeared to be equally fascinated by Desu and his companions – occasionally one rose from the water to stare upward with wide, luminous eyes.

“Aye, river nymphs they call them, though some say river witches,” said Captain Younger, who had joined them at the rail.  “They appear at sunset and away at dawn.  Tales say they can become infatuated with a sailor, and follow his boat night after night, seeking him out.  They’re harmless enough most of the time, though they can cause mischief and little pranks.  They’ve been known to warn captains of danger, or to put themselves between a ship and something dangerous in the water, so many view them to be good luck.”

“For all their beauty, though, the river witches have a strange and dark aspect to their nature,” added Jack Fresh, one of the sailors on the Lady Griswald   “Each month, when the new moon falls, they grow strange and fey.  They still circle riverboats, but their eyes are no longer awestruck and childlike.  Their gaze calls to sailors with music only they can hear, luring them off the boat and into the water.  Those that answer the call join the nymphs in a dance beneath the waters, and their drowned bodies are found at dawn.  So beware, you, and be glad there’s a moon flying above us!”

After the ship drifted for two hours, it became too dark to see the water well.  Captain John Younger called for the anchor, and the Lady Griswald came to a halt, rocking softly against the current.  The river nymphs continued to cavort around the ship, trailing lines of pale light in the water.  

The Captain came up to where the adventurers watched the river nymphs by the ship’s rail.  “Go ahead and get some rest,” he said.  “We have lookouts posted, and these men have sailed the Selwyn before.  If we sight a dragon, you’ll be the first to know.”

* * * * *

The next day started early, with the sailors breaking fast and making the Lady Griswald ready to sail.  By 8:00 the oarsmen were in their places, and the ship was underway.  Krog Zando, sorry to have missed the meal, went in search of a hunk of last night’s bread.

“There are some apples remaining,” one of the sailors told Krog.  Quickly, Krog’s companions descended upon the apples, leaving only two, which Darwin Ravenscroll grabbed.  Krog looked around for more apples, but there were none.

“One for me, and one for my raven!” Darwin said.

“Ravens don’t eat apples,” Desu noted.

Darwin shrugged and ate them both.

“Don’t worry,” the sailor told Krog.  “Soon enough, the noonday meal will come.”

Krog strode angrily toward the back rail of the ship.

The noonday sun had been waning for a couple of hours when the Lady Griswald approached the exposed corner of a ruined building on the southern bank.  The building appeared buried, except for the exposed corner.  That corner has been broken into, perhaps with picks, leaving a ragged gap through which an explorer could easily fit.  An exposed worn pillar made of weather-beaten granite leaned out toward the river, almost as though inviting one to tie a boat to it.

“What is that place?” asked Desu.

“That?” the Captain replied.  “That place has a dark reputation already.  The river or a storm exposed it a couple of years back, and of course there were some that would try their hand at exploring it.  It is said the be dark and haunted, though I have heard at least one tale wherein a handful of jewels was found – such tales are not always true.”

“What do you think?” asked Hrum.  “Should we explore it?”

“If you wish to try your hand, we will wait for you.  Master Oarsmen says you saved his son from the clutches of a spider-demon, so perhaps you could do as well as any.  You can take the ship’s boat, if you like, while we wait here.”

“No,” said Darwin.  “We are making for Selby-by-the-Water.  We shall let nothing distract us!”

“Very well,” said the Captain, and they sailed on.

Two miles later, the Lady Griswald came across a place where a river entered the Selwyn from the north.  A logjam stretched across the river, the mass of logs tight at least as far as the next bend.  Several foresters with iron gaffs were hopping from log to log, trying to get them moving again.

Hrum noticed a pair of Lakashi drawing their birchbark canoe toward the north shore, so that they could portage around the blockage.  He pointed them out to Desu, who waved, but the Lakashi did not seem to notice them.

While the Lady Griswald was not too large to portage with a great deal of effort, the benefit of doing so was questionable, so the Captain called a halt.  The sailors made use of the unexpected rest stop, bringing out a squeezebox and a portion of rum.  Krog dropped a line into the water and began fishing.

As it grew dark, the logjam was broken up.  The Captain had the anchor pulled up, and called for minimal oars.  The Lady Griswald moved slowly through the logs – several sailors using oars to push stray logs away from the ship.  Once past the logs, the Captain let the ship drift for two hours, and then called the ship to lower anchor.  

Before dinner could be made, sailors were posted along the back of the ship, to push off logs as they drifted past the ship in the night.  There was a rotation of extra lookouts hours as the foresters drifted by, their lanterns reflected on the dark water.  

“Lo the ship!” one of the foresters called out softly, and one of the sailors called back “Mellador watch you!”

From the ship’s galley, the smell of fresh fish was rising.

* * * * *

Again, the crew of the Lady Griswald was up early, and the ship was under way by 8:00 AM.  Krog woke to breakfast with the crew, and was soon trolling, his fishing line cutting the water behind the ship.  Desu awoke, and began looking along the banks for animals that he might befriend.

In the early afternoon, the forward lookout saw a doe drinking from near the south bank. 

“A purse of silver to the man who can bring her down!” the Captain called.

“No!” said Desu.  He pulled out his sling, and Ahern strung his bow, intent upon startling the doe enough that it would spring away.  However, before they could succeed two arrows struck the mark – Locke’s, which grazed the deer’s flank, and that of another sailor, Red Carl, which brought the animal down and earned him the purse.

The Captain sent the ship’s boat.  “It looks like venison will be served this night,” he said.

In the late afternoon, the Lady Griswald entered Turtle Lake.  Turtle Lake was a small lake for the Lakelands.  It was shaped like an eye, maybe five miles wide at its widest point and twenty miles long end to end.  The lake was fairly shallow, and weedy along its southern shore.  

The adventurers could see where the lake got its name – several normal-sized turtles floated just under the surface of the water, their heads extended above it.  As the ship approached, they submerged.

As it began to grow dark, the oars were raised and the ship drifted through Turtle Lake.  

“I wonder if we’ll see those dolphins again,” said Krog.

“They weren’t dolphins,” Desu said.  “They were river nymphs.”

After a time, fires could be seen on the north shore, and music and laughter could be easily heard.  Captain Younger called the sailors back to the oars, and brought he ship toward the encampment on the shore.  Soon, wagons and tents could be seen strewn across the beach.  Small figures were dancing gracefully near the fire, to the sounds of violins, fiddles, tambourines, and drums.

It was an encampment of more than two dozen halflings, a wandering folk half as high as humans, with something occult in their nature.  The halflings were known for their musicians and their fortunetellers, for curses laid and undone, and strange pacts with otherworldly creatures.  They had several large fires going, and by each one an ever-changing group of brightly dressed halflings played instruments or danced.  

Two halflings, a male and female, practiced acrobatics while another female ate fire, blowing small jets of flame from her mouth.  Older halflings of both sexes watched, laughed, ate, drank, and smoked from pipes or hand-rolled cigars.
The Lady Griswald dropped anchor.  The Captain called for the ship’s boat to be made ready, and the sailors drew straws to see who would have to remain onboard.  Left-Handed Geoff frowned as he drew the short straw.

“Could be worse,” laughed the others.  “It could be a city full of beautiful elven women.”

The ship’s boat was readied, and the sailors began to ferry across passengers and crew.  The halflings welcomed them warmly, sharing the heat of their fire and their spirits.  It was still cold at night, before the Ides of Burgeoning.  The waxing moon shone brightly upon the sandy beach.

“Have you any beer?” asked Krog.

“No, but we have brandy,” said an attractive halfling woman.  She handed Krog a bottle.  Krog poured it into the dregs of beer he carried in his wineskin, swished it, and drank.

“Not too bad,” he said.

Another halfling handed Hrum a bottle.  Hrum raised it to his nostrils, sniffing it suspiciously.

“Here!  Give it to me!” said Darwin.  The dwarf reached up, trying to grab the bottle from the half-orc’s hand, but he missed his mark as Hrum raised the bottle beyond his reach.  Hrum moved to backhand Darwin for his impudence, but something orcish arose in him, and his hand moved instead to his sword.  Swift as a striking serpent, Hrum struck.  He had, perhaps, intended only to wound Darwin, to repay him for incessant provocations, but anger lent strength to his hand.  Hrum’s sword struck Darwin sharply, breaking his neck and slicing through muscle.  As Darwin’s body fell, his head tumbled aloft, coming to rest in the sand.

Desu ran to Darwin’s head and held it aloft.  “Alas!” he cried.  “Darwin, my friend!”

The music faltered.  The encampment stood in shocked silence.

Hrum lowered his sword.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I…”

Captain John Younger came at Hrum, drawing his sword as he ran.

“Surrender to the King’s Justice!”

Hrum instantly raised his weapon, and the two of them faced each other in the fire- and moonlight.  Ahern moved towards Darwin’s body, as though to despoil it, but Desu held him back.  The five sailors who had come ashore drew daggers to come to their Captain’s aid.

“I surrender,” said Hrum, lowering his blade.

“Then drop your sword.”

Hrum raised his sword, ready to fight.  “No.”

From around the encampment, the halflings drew in, forming a semi-circle around the antagonists.  Most were unarmed, but some had short spears or blades.  An old halfling woman, wreathed in smoke, stood ready with her pipe and staff.

“How dare you bring this to the House of Rom-Untar!” said an older halfling man, dressed in bright colors and gold jewelry.  

“I’m sorry…”

“Drop your sword!”

Hrum looked around him, uncertain which of his former allies would come to his aid if it came to a fight.  Ahern seemed willing, but Locke and Desu were against him.  Krog Zando looked on eagerly, waiting for the bloodshed to begin – but it was Hrum that Krog watched, and there would be no help from that quarter.

Hrum’s blood struggled within him.  He had, all his life, professed to worship the Seven Good Gods.  Priests of the Church had raised him.  Yet there was orcish blood in his veins, too, and to that part of him mercy had no meaning, and there was no law save the law of the strong.

He had tried to live as a man, but he could die as an orc.  He could let his blade sing, taking as many of his foes with him as he could before he fell.  That was a death befitting his grandfather’s people.  Certainly, no true orc would submit while blood yet flowed within his veins.

And, there was always some chance that he might get away.

But if he escaped, what would he be escaping to?  A life in the wilderness, hunted and despised?  Or could he find his grandfather’s people, and if he found them, would they accept him?  Could he live the remainder of his life as an orc?

Before, he had struck in anger, not meaning to actually slay Darwin.  If he fought now, he would be turning his back on the Seven Good Gods, knowingly and willingly.

“I surrender,” Hrum said, and he dropped his sword.

Captain Younger quickly moved forward, and had Hrum bound.  Hrum submitted, head held low, murmuring apologies.  He ordered Hrum brought back to the ship, to be held in the ship‘s hold, and for Darwin’s body to be taken as well.  He began to apologize to the halfling leader, for having brought violence to his camp.

“Can’t we at least take his stuff?” Krog asked.

Captain Younger looked at the adventurers.  With the exception of Desu, they all seemed eager to despoil the body of their fallen comrade.  “That isn’t for me to decide,” he said, and then turned from them in disgust.  “Red Carl, but a guard on the body as well, and don’t let our guests into the hold.”

The Captain recalled the crew and his passengers to the ship.  They drew up the anchor, moving away from the encampment before stopping for the night.

In the morning, Captain Younger had Hrum brought before him.

“As there is none other here to dispense the King’s Justice, the duty falls to me,” he said.  “Hrum, you are charged with the murder of Darwin Ravenscroll.  How plead you?”

“Guilty.”

“Have you nothing to say in your defense?”

“Nothing,” said Hrum.  Then he seemed to reconsider.  “Only this,” he added.   “I overreacted.  He had been goading me, time and again, through word and deed, for as long as I have known him.  Maybe it was because I am a half-orc.  I do not know.  But I did not intend to kill him.”

“You drew your sword, and cut off his head.”

“I know.  And I am sorry.  I am ready to accept what punishment must follow.”

Captain Younger paused to consider.  It was obvious that Hrum’s contrition was honest.  “I am also sorry,” he said, “but my duty is clear.  You are to be hanged by the neck until dead.  May the gods have mercy upon your soul.”

Hrum didn’t struggle as they made the ship’s boat ready.  They placed a plaque with the word “MURDERER” about his neck.  They rowed to the southern shore near the eastern end of Turtle Lake.  Hrum didn’t struggle as the noose was placed around his neck, or pulled taut around the stout branch of an old oak tree near the water’s edge.  When they kicked the support out from beneath his feet, Hrum went quietly into death.

The Captain got back into the ship’s boat, and it was rowed slowly back towards the Lady Griswald.  Hrum’s onetime companions stood on the deck as the anchor was raised and oar was set to water, watching as Hrum’s hanging body disappeared around the curve of the river.

Krog went back to looking for dolphins.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 2, 2004)

*Note*

Thus ended the first arc of the Lakelands campaign.  And, at this moment, it's as much as I have written.  The next story "arc" sees the group membership change a number of times due to attrition, as they decide what they are next going to do.

Daniel


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 4, 2004)

*Sixth Session*


It took three more days of sailing to reach Selby-by-the-Water.  While there were no major encounters along the way, the Captain and crew had turned decidedly cool toward the group of adventurers.  As though responding to the mood, the sky darkened and clouds gathered.  Still, it did not rain.  The air seemed laden with expectation.

At last, the Lady Griswald sailed out of Weirwood the Great.  Farmhouses became more frequent, and then began to cluster as the ship approached Selby-by-the-Water.  It was spring, and the sun still set early, so the heavy chain had already been pulled across the river mouth when the Lady Griswald arrived.  The Captain called for the anchor, and prepared for the adventurers’ last night aboard his ship.  Looking over the rail, Ahern could see, by that point, several other ships ready to enter Selby-by-the-Water when the chain was set free at dawn.

Fat raindrops began to fall as the ship settled.

Selby-by-the-Water had once been much larger than it was now, for more than half of the town lay beneath Lake Elidyr.  Locals called this area “Selby-beneath-the-Waves.”  What remained was still a bustling town, but folk avoided the ruined areas at night, including the docksides where Selby-beneath-the-Waves could still be seen.

Selby-by-the-Water had been founded long ago to protect a deepwater harbor on Lake Elidyr.  A great wall surrounded the town proper from Weirwood the Great, but farms and small businesses arose outside of the old village wall.  There were now several wooden partial walls and watchtowers that protected these areas.  Selby had grown in a radial pattern from the harbor, with several canals cutting through the central village.

Forty-seven years ago, Selby-by-the-Water was wracked by tremors, and more than half the town was destroyed.  The tower of Amoreth the Arcane collapsed in smoke and fire.  Underground explosions damaged buildings.  Whole sections of the town subsided, and were covered by the lake.  Amoreth the Arcane was never seen again – some thought he had died in some dangerous experiment, but others thought that he fled the disaster he had caused.  In the aftermath, the sewers and undercity of Selby-by-the-Water had been broken and partly submerged, with new entrances appearing and old ones becoming lost.  Entry into the Wizard’s Tower was forbidden upon pain of death – it was this tower that Darwin Ravenscroll had once hoped to explore.

It rained throughout the night.

In the morning, the rain had settled into a light drizzle.  The Lady Griswald sailed into town, and Ahern had his first glimpse of Selby-by-the-Water.  Springtime had swollen both river and lake, turning several of Selby’s streets into canals, along which brightly colored boats were being poled.  In the docks, ships were berthing, or preparing to leave.  Large cranes lifted crates from throughout the Lakelands.  Most of the dockworkers were human, but some were creatures that the Beast Lords had blessed with sentience and human form.  Ahern heard his companions draw breath in wonder at several oxmen hauling barrels onto one boat.  One of the people powering a crane was a hugely muscled humanoid bear.

Throughout the port area, hawkers were calling out wares with loud voices.  Most seemed to be selling food items of various sorts, or draughts of ale.  Others were calling advertisements for various inns of common houses:  The Mermaid’s Rest, The Lady of the Lake, The House of Yellow Sashes.  Beggars were numerous, many of them old and crippled.

Many of the buildings in the dock area were warehouses and unnamed pubs, or shops related to travel by ship.  Being so close to the Selwyn River and Lake Elidyr, the area seemed to have been hit hard by the disaster almost fifty years ago.  Many of the buildings were crumbling, and several had fallen into ruin.  The odd spire from a submerged building had been worked into the new piers, but Ahern could see a cluster of buildings in the middle of the river, their top floors rising above the waterline.  Strange leathery-winged reptiles the size of pigeons or gulls infested the town – many of these roosted among the half-submerged ruins.  Others pulled fish from the water, or squabbled over garbage on the shore.

“What are those?” Desu asked one of the sailors.

“Them?” the man replied.  “Leatherwings.  They’re harmless.”

A rowboat painted in the green-and-yellow of the Harbormaster’s Office came out to meet the Lady Griswald and bring her into a docking berth.  Shortly thereafter, a solidly built fellow wearing Harbormaster’s colors requested permission to board the ship, inspect the cargo, and access docking fees.  

His request was, of course, granted.  As he climbed aboard, Captain John Younger greeted him, and pulled him aside.  They spoke quietly together for a few minutes.  Ahern tried to hear what they were saying, but could not.  Soon enough it was all too obvious.  The harbor official turned to where the adventurers stood huddled, ready to disembark.

“Your captain has informed me of the…ah…unfortunate circumstances, shall we say?…of your journey.  If you’ll wait for me to inspect the cargo, I’ll escort you to the Magistrate’s Office, where you can sort out your late comrade’s effects.”

It took more than a few minutes for the Harbor Clerk to assess the cargo and assign fees to the Captain.  During that time, the rain had become a steady downpour, and then ceased altogether.

“Watch,” said Locke.  “They’re going to keep Darwin’s things for themselves.”

“I fear you are right,” said Desu.

Ahern just frowned.  He hadn’t known Darwin Ravenscroll long, but he still felt more entitled to his recent companion’s goods than the Magistrates of this town would be.

The Harbor Clerk charged each of them a silver penny for landing fee, with an additional penny for both Archimedes and Darkwing.  “You may leave your…ah…friend…aboard ship for the moment,” the official said.  “I’ve asked the Captain to bring his effects, however, which you may…ah…verify if you wish.  To make sure he’s kept nothing for himself, so to speak.”

Of the crew of the Lady Griswald, only Captain Younger went with the group.  His disposition seemed to have improved since making port, and Ahern realized that he might have been expecting further trouble from Locke and the others – or maybe just Krog, who was large, stupid, and a half-orc.  Since he had sentenced Hrum, also a half-orc, to death by hanging, the Captain might have expected Krog to become embittered sooner or later.  

Disembarking the ship, they were led to the Magistrate’s Office.  Along the way, several beggars accosted them, asking for small change.  As his companions were giving away coppers, Ahern decided to do the same, though he only had nine coins to give.  The serpent that shows its colors doesn’t live to strike.

The Magistrate’s Office closest to the river was three stories high.  It was probably once an imposing building, but it suffered heavy damage when part of the town collapsed.  Now, its granite façade had shifted, and many of the decorations – once images of aquatic life and the administration of justice – had broken free.  One corner of the building stood in water, making it difficult to enter.

Inside, a musty, moldering smell haunted the building, like parchment left to rot.  Guards moved forward to take the group’s arms and armor – the Captain gave Darwin’s effects into their keeping, and also relinquished his short sword.

It was a long wait.  Ahern was wishing for a mid-day meal when they were at last ushered into the River Court of the Magistrate’s Office.  The Magistrate, dressed in a black robe with yellow trim, and a powdered wig symbolizing age and wisdom, sat behind a desk on a dais.  There were four guards here, plus the two who had escorted them in, but they seemed more bored than alert.  A smattering of witnesses sat in the gallery – local citizens, presumably, with an interest in these cases, or barristers in training.

They were rather surprised to see a gnome dressed cavalier-style in crimson among those in the gallery.  Gnomes were rarely seen in human towns – that one sat here spoke for Selby’s cosmopolitan nature.  The gnome seemed interested in them as well – another oddity.

There was a smooth, hard wooden plank along the front of the Court where supplicants were supposed to kneel.  Indeed, as the group was urged forward, the black-and-yellow clad bailiff smote his oaken staff upon the floor – creating a hollow, ringing sound – and called “Ye supplicants before the Honorable Lord Magistrate Ottomus Frederickson, kneel and be heard!”

Captain Younger immediately went forward and knelt.  The others followed his lead.

“Who is the plaintiff?” the Magistrate asked.  “And what is the nature of the complaint?”

The bailiff leaned forward, and briefly explained what had happened in the Halfling encampment, and after.  From what Ahern could hear, it sounded roughly accurate.

At last, the Magistrate looked up and said, “From what I understand, we are here to resolve the King’s Justice upon the half-orc…Hrum, was it?  Yes…and determine the disposition of the effects of the dwarf, Ravenscroll.  It is my understanding that the half-orc killed the dwarf.  The half-orc was then tried by Captain John Younger, pled guilty, and was hanged for murder.  Are these essentially the facts?”

“Yes,” Locke said.  The party nodded or voiced agreement.

“Is there any here who claims to be next-of-kin to the half-orc?”  He glanced at Krog, who looked blankly ahead.  “Is there any here who would challenge that Captain Younger acted with the King’s Justice when he put the half-orc to death?  Be it noted that the half-orc himself did not contest Captain Younger’s finding of guilt.”

“No, he was guilty,” Locke said.

“The Court hereby considers the matter of the half-orc set to rest.  We must now consider the matter of the dwarf’s effects.  I note that there are none here who are dwarves, so I must ask if any here know of any living relative of Darwin Ravenscroll?”

They did not.

“Is there a will among the effects of the dwarf?”  There was not.  “Does any here know a will to be in existence, and can produce such a will?”  They did not.  “Does any here lay claim to the effects of Darwin Ravenscroll, in whole or in part, and upon what basis is such a claim laid?”

Ahern was not the least ready to lay a claim, but he was not the loudest either.  “We just want his stuff,” Locke said, though he couldn’t bring an argument to bear as to why he should get it.  Krog especially had difficulty understanding why Darwin’s stuff just didn’t become theirs automatically – and Krog was a new to the adventuring party as Ahern!

“Friendship is not a sufficient basis, without a Last Will and Testament, to lay claim to the effects of the deceased,” the Magistrate explained.  “However, it may be that your Adventuring Company is licensed or has a Charter within a town, city, village, or other community which falls under the Treaty of Brentkirk.  Is this the case?”

“No.”

“There is a fee of five pieces of silver for private burial in the Dry Catacombs.  Is there any here willing to pay this fee for the dwarf?”

“I will,” Locke said immediately, and did.

“It is the decree of this Court that the effects of Darwin Ravenscroll shall be held by this Court for a period of fourteen days, pending the production of a will, an heir, or another such circumstance under which disposition of said effects can be better addressed.  After this period, said effects will be remanded by the State.”

The Magistrate fixed them with a sharp look.  “Welcome to Selby-by-the-Water, young sirs,” he said.  “But let me warn you of a few things you should keep in mind.  We have had our fill of problems caused by those that would delve into the earth, or uncover the secrets of the Gods for their own use.  Any spellcasting performed upon a person who has not given express consent will result in immediate and severe punishment.  You may have heard of the Tower of Amoreth the Arcane.  It seems to draw adventurers from near and far, many of whom you will see hanging off spikes around the Tower’s perimeter.  Don’t let me see your faces joining them.  Even attempting to enter the Tower is punishable by death…and I guarantee you that we do not take that place lightly.  If you attempt it, you will be caught.  That place has caused enough sorrow already.  Don’t let it add to your own grief.”

The bailiff motioned for them to rise.  There was a side door, bypassing the waiting area, through which the petitioners were ushered.  They were reunited with their arms and armor in a damp little room whose floor had a sheen of water over it.

“I am sorry for the pain this day has caused you,” said Captain Younger.  “I’ll have Darwin’s remains sent to the house of Lobelia Black, the Bleak House, to be prepared for the catacombs.”

As they were leaving, they noticed that the dashing gnome had followed them out, and was trying to gain their attention.  Ahern was interested to see why the gnome had followed them, but Locke was having none of it.  He stormed back toward the dockyards, where the hawkers had been crying out the names of inns, and found The Mermaid’s Rest.  The others had to struggle to keep up with him.

“I don’t like this town,” Desu said.

Locke paid for a room – which included a salt charge he didn’t understand, and didn’t seem to care about – and they trooped upstairs.

“Alright,” Locke said, “we’re going to sit down and draw up wills right now.”

*****

As Locke and Desu left the room, a halfling stepped out of the shadows.  Locke stepped back and challenged him.

“Who are you?  And what do you want?”

“I am Marlo Shortshield.  I followed you from the courthouse.  I thought, if you wanted your friend’s things, maybe we could work out a deal.  I could steal them for you.”

Locke shook his head, and started down the stairs toward the tavern.

“Then let me at least try to outdrink you.”

“I find that unlikely, considering your size,” Locke said, but they went down to the tavern room together.  Locke saw Krog sitting alone, eating.  “I’ll tell you what…why don’t you try to outdrink him?”

Marlo tried, but ended up retching upon the straw-covered floor, much to the amusement of the bar.  Krog was bought a drink on the house – hero for a moment – but the barkeep told him, “Wait until Forent shows up.  He’ll give you a contest.”

Desu went to the innkeeper to buy his own room.  As had Locke, he was charged a salt surcharge.  “What is that?” he asked.

“It’s for a little bag of salt, to put a circle of it around your bed,” the innkeeper explained.  “Since the accident nigh on fifty years back, there’ve been a lot of ghosts loose in Selby at night.  The salt is to keep inn wights away…the ghosts of children who miss their parents.”

“I see,” said Desu.

“Can I get a bag of salt, too?” asked Krog.

*****

Later, Ahern went back down to the tavern.  He was surprised to see the gnome still there, playing an ornate guitar.  He paused briefly to chat.

“My name is Nift,” the gnome said, sweeping his hat off in a grand bow.  “I found your case interesting.  You see, I, too, long to experience the thrills of adventuring, and would like to join your group.”

“You’ll have to meet the others,” Ahern said, “but I don’t see why not.”

While they sat talking, the door burst open, and a huge humanoid bull thrust his horn-heavy head into the bar with a roar.  “Forent!” the innkeeper cried happily, “here’s a lad who thinks he can outdrink you!”

“You think you can outdrink me, do you?” roared the oxman, leaning down toward the seated Krog.  His breath smelt like old hay.  

Krog, looking up blearily – for he was heavy in his cups – said, “Are you meat?”

“What?!?”  The oxman balled a huge fist.

“What he meant was, pleased to meet you,” said Locke smoothly, stepping up.  “Let me buy you a drink.”

The oxman snorted, still angry, but mollified somewhat.  “The idea that sot could outdrink me….”

“Well, you’ll probably win, but I’ll try it,” Locke said.

“Ha!  I like you!”  Forent crushed Locke in a strong hug, half-leaning his huge bulk upon the man.  “You’re on!”

They began to drink grog.  Betting began, mostly favoring Forent.  Locke matched Forent drink for drink, until eventually the oxman was unable to hold it any longer.  As he sank to the floor, he shook his massive head.  “I never thought I’d be outdrunk by a human.”

“Nor did I,” said Locke.  “Nor did I.”

Nift played and sang in the background.  When his tune was one the room knew, drunken sailors joined in, thumping their wooden cups on the tables.  The Mermaid’s Rest was having an excellent night, and the innkeeper smiled.

*****

The next morning, the group split up to attend to personal business within the town.  Locke crossed the river and found a better class of inn for their evenings.  Nift busked on a street corner with his guitar.  Krog got a job hauling freight onto ships.  Desu went down to the harbor, where the great green-grey Harbor Stones jutted out of the ground – this was still a druidic sacred site, though nestled within the town itself.  Nearby was the Stone Otter Shrine, where the Lakashi Otter Tribe ancestor, Stone Otter, was said to have been buried.

Near the Harbor Stones, an old halfling woman approached Desu, her face wrinkled like an apple left too long in the sun.  “We keep our minds to the big gods,” she said, sweeping an arm toward the Stones, “but it is the little gods who cluster around us and drive our fortunes.  Old gods, forgotten gods.  But Old Hetty, she knows the gods well.  Come, cross my palm with silver, and let me tell you your fortune.”

“Please,” Desu said, giving her a silver coin.  

She leads him into a brightly colored tent in the market, and bid him to sit upon a heap of cushions near a small, battered table.  There were many strange things hanging in the tent, including bits of twig bundled to look like little dangling men, bunches of shells and herbs, and preserved wings or claws.  The old halfling lit incense in several burners, and sweet perfumed smoke coiled into the room.  She sat opposite Desu.  She pulled a deck of old ivory cards out of a velvet bag and placed them on the table’s chipped black lacquer surface.  “Now, cut the deck,” she said.

When Desu had cut the cards, she drew the first one.  “This is what lies behind you,” she said, revealing the Labyrinth of Oak Leaves.  “A great maze that may lead to riches, within a natural setting or a forest.  A recent adventure, perhaps.  This is what crosses you…”  She drew another card.  “The Knight of Swords, reversed.  A man, a warrior.  Perhaps someone close to you…because the card is reversed, he does not cross you, but supports you.  Finally, let us see what lies in your near future.”  The last card was the Four of Swords.  “A difficult battle is ahead.  Perhaps your friend, the warrior, will help you in this.”

In the docks, Krog glanced down as he carried a heavy barrel onto a keelboat.  The sky was clear, and the sunlight penetrated to the bottom of the shallows.  He could see the ruins of buildings below the surface.  Suddenly, to his surprise, he realized that he could see sheep down there, grazing on weeds and algae.  He nearly dropped the barrel he was carrying.

As soon as he could, Krog asked one of the townsmen if he could fish there.  “Oh, aye,” the man replied.  “But if ye wish to do it professionally, ye’ll need to join the Fisherman’s Union, and get a license.”

“Where can I find it?”

Meanwhile, Marlo Shortshield had gone into the River Market to practice his pick pocketing.  He had gained a few coins, a pair of dice, a key.  He had also gained a few small, black dried snakes, about four inches long each, the use of which he was unsure.  Were they some type of food?  He hardly wanted to find out!

Locke ran into Desu just as the druid had befriended a pigeon-sized leatherwing.  The small flying reptile hung off his clothing, and nuzzled up to him for warmth.  Desu rubbed its head softly.

“Ah, Desu,” said Locke, sighting his friend.  “The weather is fine!  I am thinking that we should begin planning what to do next.”

“Would you like to have your fortune told?”

******

Marlo crouched in an alley, hiding from the Watch.  It was the second time that day he had been forced to run from guardsmen; perhaps it was nearing time to quit for the evening.  Selby-by-the-Water had a rather nasty gaol system – if you were found guilty of a serious crime, you might be placed in stocks overnight (meaning that night spirits might get you) or, worse, sent to the Pit.  The Pit was an open-air gaol, guarded to prevent escapes, but once you were dropped into the stinking waist-deep water, you were on your own until your sentence was complete.  Other prisoners, vermin, and – it was rumored – undead creeping up from the sewers could turn a week’s sentence into death quickly enough.  Even if you survived the Pit, the diseases bred there might kill you once you were free.

He waited until he was certain that the alarm had gone down.  He started to get up, to head back to the Last Candle Inn, where Locke had arranged lodgings.

Suddenly, he was pinned by a naked man.  The man had appeared out of nowhere.  Stronger than the halfling, he pressed close.  Marlo could tell that the man wasn’t quite human – his eyes were large and angled oddly, and his ears were slightly pointed.  There was a fey, feral quality about him.

“Friend of Keye?” the man hissed, close enough to Marlo’s face that he could taste the man’s breath.

Frightened, and unsure what to say, Marlo said “Yes!”

“Tell Keye that we are coming,” the man said.

“Okay…okay….”

The naked man released Marlo, bounding off down the alleyway.  He ran toward the wall and began pulling himself up.  Whether it was a trick of the light or something else, the naked man quickly disappeared.

Marlo climbed warily to his feet.  As soon as he was able, he dashed out of the alley and back toward the inn.  Better to take his chances with the Watch than with that…half-elf?  He wasn’t sure, but he was certain that he didn’t like it, whatever it was!

*****

Old Hetty sat across from Locke, and asked him to cut the oracular Deck of Fate.  “This is what lies in the past,” she said, turning the first card.  “The Labyrinth of Swords, reversed.  A battle, in which you were perhaps wounded?  I see that I am correct.  And this is what crosses you, the Labyrinth of Oak Leaves…you are conflicted, yes?  Lost?  The Labyrinth is the great maze, which may lead to riches if you are lucky…this is the forest perhaps, or wandering.  Finally, this card lies in your near future.  The Seven of Oak Leaves.  Good fortune is coming your way, a fortune that will meet you in the forest, or in some similar natural place.  That is all the cards show.”


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## Raven Crowking (May 11, 2004)

*Seventh Session*


That night, Desu left Selby-by-the-Water alone.  The moon was waning, but it was still the night before the half moon, and there was more than adequate light.  When Desu had been younger, he had gone on a vision quest.  His first vision quest had failed; he hoped that this one would be more successful.  If his companions waited, they could decide what to do when he returned.

For most of the group, time ran swiftly by.  Ahern wove rope in the inn.  Krog worked as a fisherman, making occasional forays to catch one of the sheep he’d seen in the river.  Nift busked in marketplace and taproom, turning music into silver as his master had taught him.  

The three days around the vernal equinox were Spring Carnival, and the inns began to fill up with guests from out-of-town.  Nift found himself joined by jugglers and dancing bears in the places he was accustomed to playing.  Fire-breathers and acrobats from the East played to throngs in the High Market.  Puppeteers played out legendary scenes, and guilds put on plays – histories, comedies, and tragedies, many with religious themes.  People went about with masks, and parades both planned and unplanned thronged the streets.

During this time, Krog the Hungry searched for a halfling card-reader to tell his fortune.  Krog’s card reading went thus:  The card that represented his recent past was the Tower of Swords, representing great danger or shaky foundations in a martial matter.  The card that crossed him in the present was the Knight of Wands, reversed.  A man versed in arcane lore, but as it was reversed, a man who was only little versed in the occult or whose work against Krog was only incidental.  The final card, representing the near future was the Seven of Orbs reversed, a small sum of money coming his way.

Marlo Shortshield visited the Shadow House, where he made enquiries about Keye.

According to what Marlo could discover, Keye had been an evil wizard who had come to Selby-by-the-Water almost a decade ago.  He had slain quite a few people, and terrorized the locals with his skulks – humanoids that could camouflage themselves so as to appear nearly invisible.  Eventually, a warrior, a wizard, and a priest had come to Selby-by-the-Water in pursuit of Keye.  One of these people was Keye’s twin, Locke.  Keye fled west into Weirwood the Great, and the trio left in pursuit of him.  Nothing more of Keye could they say, save that they believed (and hoped) that he was dead.

Marlo Shortshield returned to the inn and told Locke about the naked man in the alley.  He then told Locke what he had learned at the Shadow House.  “I feel that the name Keye may have something to do with you, Locke,” he said.  Marlo then convinced Locke to stand watch for him while he picked the pockets of a few travelers.  Whether due to bad luck or inexperience, Locke was soon arrested…though a barrister was able to sort out the matter before Locke even saw the inside of a Magistrate’s Office.

Nift found female companionship with a gnome who was in the town for the Carnival.  From conversations around Selby, he learned that a group of adventurers had slain a giant ghost on a hill south of Selby, toward Rookhaven, called the Green Howe.  There was an underground passage into the Howe, but the adventurers fled from another ghost they saw therein.

On the equinox itself, Marlo Shortshield decided to explore the sewers on his own.  Not telling anyone what he was doing, Marlo located a sewer grate that he could unlock.  Beyond the manhole cover was a tight stone tube descending a little more than twelve feet into the sewer tunnel.  Marlo quickly scrambled down the iron rungs set into the stone, closing the manhole cover above him.

He found himself in an X-shaped intersection made of tunnels are roughly six feet square, with a two-foot wide channel carved into the center of the floor.  With the spring flooding, though, the channel overflowed, so that Marlo stood in a stream of waste flowing slowly southward, both to the east and to the west.  The smell was overpowering.  The flow westward seemed stronger, and Marlo followed it in that direction.  Loose debris and rotting waste floated along the top of the water.  Vents to the surface, occurring on an average every thirty feet, provided dim light and some scant relief.

Not far from the intersection, Marlo found a stone door in the sewer tunnel wall.  It was locked, but Marlo pulled out his lock picks.  After a few seconds, he heard a faint click as the lock’s tumblers fell into place.  He opened the thick stone door, revealing a twelve-foot square room containing sewer workers’ gear.  Several sets of man-sized hip waders hung from pegs along the walls, as well as sewer workers’ masks.  Marlo stole a mask – it greatly reduced the stench!

As he made to exit the room, he noticed a group of small discs, milky white with flecks of red, floating down along the top of the sewage.  They were moving faster than the rest of the filth, so Marlo stepped back into the room and closed the door.  He didn’t know what the things were, and had a natural caution.  He waited long enough for the discs to pass, and then opened the door again.  The things seemed to be gone.  He headed back the way he had come.

Going to the southeast, Marlo found a dry secondary tunnel.  It was only about three feet in diameter, but as a halfling Marlo was fairly short, and could walk nearly upright in it.  There were fewer vents here, and smaller ones, making the entire area gloomier than the main tunnels had been.  Creeping down the shadowy passage, Marlo found his curiosity getting the better of his caution.

Seeing a darker shadow ahead, Marlo peered forward.  He realized it was a body, though whether dead or alive he could not tell.  “Hello?” he called.  “Who’s there?  Do you need help?”  The body shifted a little.  So, whoever it was still lived.  Still, there was no answer.

Marlo came closer.  Having waded through sewage and still wearing the sewer worker’s mask, he didn’t notice the awful stench of the thing that waited for him down the tunnel.  At last, he drew close enough to see that the body, though it was moving, was animated with a dark parody of life.  It was crusted with filth.

The tunnel was low, and the undead creature was as tall as a man.  It wouldn’t have been able to stand and run.  There was a chance that Marlo could have escaped.  Instead, he drew his sword and pressed forward.

That duel in the darkness was grim, and short.  The low tunnel gave Marlo an advantage.  He could dance out of the thing’s reach as it tried to claw and bite him.  He stabbed again and again, severing unliving muscle with each stroke.  The creature was weakening.  If he could keep up the dance for a few seconds longer…half a minute at most…it would be done.

The unliving thing reached out one long arm, its drool-covered claw scraping Marlo’s cheek.  Marlo could feel a cold numbness spreading through him.  He felt another claw rake along his ribs, drawing him into the creature’s hideous once-human maw.  Its teeth sank into his neck, and he knew no more.

Marlo Shortshield had not told anyone where he was going, and the group of adventurers did not know him well.  When Desu returned from his vision quest, having secured the goodwill of a horse spirit, they held a council to determine what their next course should be.

“Keye went west,” Locke noted.  “Perhaps he went to the ruined building we saw on the Selwyn River?”

“I could do some looking around,” Nift offered.  The group agreed to give Nift a week to research, until the new moon on the 30th of Burgeoning.  Then they would hire a ship to take them back upriver to the ruins.

To settle his curiosity, Desu eventually went to the river to see the sheep Krog had said could be seen there.  They were indeed there, no less real than the quarter lamb Krog had eaten the evening before.  There had been some discussion as to what these sheep were – Nift had claimed that some people said they had seen shepherds beneath the water as well.  Krog had thought they were ghost sheep.

Desu found some grass growing not far from the docks and went back.  He reached into himself, feeling his connection to the Green and to all living things.  Through that connection, he befriended one of the sheep, drawing it from the water.  It looked much like the sheep he had seen on the surface, but looking within its mouth he could see that it had something not unlike gills within the flesh of its throat. Unwilling to take the aquatic sheep with him – how could he care for it? – he released it, and, with good will toward the Lakashi druid, the sheep slipped underwater again.

By working his way through mounds of old and moldering paperwork, Nift finally discovered the manifest of the ship that had brought Keye to Selby-by-the-Water.  It had been the Moonraker, captained by Roderick Gryphon and registered to the Cloven Isles in Lake Esmire.  Other than this, there was little to find, for the Harbormaster’s Office didn’t keep organized files.

On the final day of Burgeoning, they hired the River Princess, captained by Mariel Slower, to take them to Long Archer.  Because of the speed of the Selwyn River, it was necessary to pull the ship along with donkey drivers that followed the shore on either side.  On the fourth day, they came to Turtle Lake, which took a day to cross, and on the eighth day, in the early afternoon, they reached the ruins they sought.  This was the exposed corner of an otherwise-buried ruined building on the southern bank.  They paid half fee for the ride back to Selby-by-the-Water, and Ahern went with the River Princess to ensure its return in three day’s time.

They took the ship’s boat to the shore, offloaded, and waved the ship off.  Then they examined the area.  They were surprised to discover three large, well-hidden birchbark canoes.

The buried building seemed to have been made from close-fitted masonry, without benefit or mortar or cement.  Nonetheless, the people who made it had skill in such things, for it had long endured, even buried beneath the forest.  A small part of a corroded bronze door was visible, but it would take much work to uncover it for use.  In the exposed corner, part of the ceiling had been broken into, making for a much easier entrance.

Looking down, they saw that there was a fair jump to the bottom.  They tied a rope to an exposed, worn granite pillar outside the ruined building, and climbed down.  Krog led the way.

They came down into a dimly lit chamber, about thirty feet from east to west, and perhaps twenty feet north to south.  Beyond this area, to the south, a stairway as wide as the antechamber itself descended into the ground.  To the north they saw a pair of great cast bronze double doors ten feet wide – they opened outward, and so were blocked by earth.  The doors had images of stylized wolves standing in relief upon them.  Similar images were carved into the walls.  In the years since the ceiling was breached, loam and leaves have fallen into this place.

The only light came in through the hole in the ceiling.  They lit torches, and descended the stairs.  

The stairs descended ten feet at a 45-degree angle, coming out into a larger room.  The end of the stairs must have been near the water table, for the bottom two stairs were covered in water.

The stairs opened out into a room some fifty feet wide, going farther than their torch could show.  A row of five-foot wide pillars, shaped something like dark trees, lined the walls on either side.  There was a ten-foot space between each pillar, and a five-foot space between the pillars and the walls.  The walls themselves were carved with images of prowling wolves, which seemed to flicker and move in the torchlight.  The whole are was covered with murky, brackish water to a depth of about a foot, making footing treacherous.

They moved cautiously into the room.  When they were thirty feet in, they could see that more stairs went down in a flight fifty feet wide.  However, the building fell completely below the water table there.  After little more than five feet, the far stairs were completely submerged.

Krog paused for a second.  “Locke and Keye!” he said.  “I get it!”

They had gone about forty feet from the first stair when four tenebrous wolves stepped from the shadows behind them, blocking off the exit to the room.  At the same time, four shadowy skeletons appeared, blocking the way to the south.

As the group readied their weapons, Desu reached into the Green, trying to find something that would respond to his call and hold the wolves fast.  The only trees there, though, were carven pillars that slept the sleep of stone.  Nift began playing to inspire their courage.  Krog fell back toward the wolves as Locke confronted the skeletons.

Their opponents stepped in and out of shadows as though they were phantoms, or not real, the sharp lines of their substance blurred like coal drawings smudged by a careless thumb.  The wolves tore into Krog, pulling him down.  Locke could feel his greatsword connect, but it seemed to do little to his dark foe; he could see no sign of hurt.  Risking himself, Desu stepped in to heal Krog magically.

“Friends, we cannot prevail here,” he said.

Nift stopped playing.  The sure-footed gnome skittered toward the northern stairs, dodging dark blades and snapping jaws to gain the first steps.  Once he was on the stairs, the wolves paid him no more heed.

“Get to the stairs!” he called out.  Then he scrambled up the stairs, first to reach the rope and, beyond it, the clean air.

Nift’s companions found the way harder, for the water-covered floor was slick, and their opponents supernaturally swift.  Locke fell once and scrambled to his feet, blood dripping from a score of wounds.

At least, as they retreated, the skeletons ceased their attack.  However, as first Desu then Locke gained the stairs, the wolves turned all of their attention to Krog, who was quickly pulled down again.  As the druid and fighter looked on in dismay, the shadowy wolves savaged Krog, spattering blood and flesh on pillars and walls.

“I had no more healing to give,” Desu said.

Locke placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “We can do no more here.  Let us leave while we still can.”

Later they went back into the ruin.  Though they could see neither wolves nor skeletons – and did not believe they would appear until they had gone far enough into the pillared hall – they were cautious.  The wolves did not return.  They gathered what they could find of Krog and bore him from that place.  By the shores of the Selwyn River, they raised a cairn of loose stones and buried him beneath it.

And so that place robbed them of its first victim.  Little did they know that, within a short time, they would raise another cairn beside that of Krog the Hungry.


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## Suldulin (May 31, 2004)

Very good, sorry I didn't notice this sooner.

Post More?


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## Baron Opal (Jun 2, 2004)

The characters do seem to drop rather quickly. I wonder if it is the same player who suffers recurrent misfortune.

Baron Opal


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 2, 2004)

*A Short Break For Editorial Comment*



			
				Baron Opal said:
			
		

> The characters do seem to drop rather quickly. I wonder if it is the same player who suffers recurrent misfortune.




Thank you, Suldulin, and too true Baron Opal.  They do seem to drop rather quickly.  When I started the game, I told the players that the world was not designed for their characters.  They could encounter creatures of any CR, encounters of any EL, so they had better pay attention to what they were doing.  And they have encountered things beyond them.  Sometimes, they've encountered those things and triumphed.  I'm not going to save them "just because."  They seem to be having a lot of fun, and even the deaths seem to bring a form of enjoyment.  I keep having to turn people away from the table.

Raven Crowking


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 7, 2004)

*Eighth Session*

For three days, it rained.  Finally, the River Princess appeared where the Selwyn bent to the east.  One of the sailors gave the group a wave.  Soon, the ship’s boat was headed toward the bank.  Ahern Atwood leapt out.  Looking at the group, he was quick to see that their number had been reduced.

“Where is Krog?” he asked.

“He has passed on,” Locke said, indicating the cairn they had raised for him.  They told Ahern what had passed in the ruins.

“I would like to see these ruins for myself,” Ahern said.

“No,” Desu said.  “You would not.  All that is to be found there is death.”

“I would still hazard my fortune.”

“Didn’t you hear what we told you?” Locke asked.  “There were wolves.  And skeletons.  We couldn’t even hurt them!”

“I’m not going down there again,” Nift added, shaking his head.

“Well, I am,” said Ahern, “whether any of you will go with me or no.  I know the Lupine Tongue.  I can speak to wolves, and we might learn something to our advantage.”

When it was clear that Ahern would not be persuaded otherwise, the sailors took the ship’s boat back to the River Princess to wait for them.  As Ahern tied his rope to the worn pillar, his companions gave way and chose to accompany him.

They climbed down into the dimly lit chamber.  Ahern led the way.  They lit torches once more.  In the accumulated loam and leaves that scattered the antechamber floor, Ahern found a single wolf track, but it was oddly faded and indistinct.

“Clearly, these are not natural wolves.”

They descended the stairs into the pillared hall.  Moving cautiously to avoid slipping in the water and muck, they slowly approached the area where the wolves had appeared before.  The signs of their last struggle had disappeared – not even the stains of Krog’s blood remained.

They watched the flickering wolf-images carved upon the wall, but these were just images so far as they could tell.  As expected, the shadowy wolves appeared when the group leader stepped about forty feet from stairs.  Again, the four shadowy skeletons appeared, blocking their way forward, as the wolves blocked their retreat.

“Hold,” said Ahern in the Lupine Tongue.  “We mean you no harm!”

The lead wolf paused.  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” it answered in the same language.

“I am Ahern Atwood, a ranger.  Do not attack us!”

“We are Guardians here.  If you try to go back, we must attack you.”

“Then we will not go back.  What of these skeletons?”

“They are also Guardians, to prevent you from going forward.  See that you do not retreat, brother, or I shall slay you.”

Ahern agreed, and then told his companions what had passed.  His companions seemed hopeful at this news overall, though Nift still eyed the wolves nervously.  Nift began to play his instrument, hoping to inspire his friends into acts of great courage.  Nift stepped back away from the shadowy skeletons, and one of the wolves stepped toward him with a low growl.

Now the group faced the four skeletons with zeal.  But their zeal soon turned to dismay, for the skeletons were no less like shadowy phantoms this time than last, and their sharp weapons seemed to do little to the bone when they struck.  The skeletons were supernaturally swift, and did not seem to be affected by the slick floor.  Once more, the adventuring party was swiftly in need of healing, and began to prepare for retreat.

As they retreated, the wolves stepped in, bringing them down gently with their mouths.  Clearly, the wolves were not yet certain that it was a retreat.  Ahern bluffed quickly, pretending that they were not retreating at all, but seeking more favorable positions to combat the skeletons.

Nift was again the first to retreat.  Locke and Desu were not far behind.  Although the wolves sought to stop them, they gained the stairs and then the rope.  Ahern was not as lucky.  As he darted past three of the wolves, one caught him and flung him down.  Rather than risk another attack healing his fallen companion, or to try to pull him the short distance up the stairway to safety, the trio of remaining adventurers left Ahern there to be ripped apart.

Once more they waited a space before going back into the ruin.  They gathered the pieces of Ahern’s body and raised a second cairn next to that of Krog the Hungry.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 7, 2004)

Sorry...duplicate post


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 7, 2004)

*Ninth Session*

Again, the ship’s boat was sent from the River Princess.  This time, along with the sailors came a tall elf, a dwarf, and a comely Lakashi maiden with a longbow.  The elf walked up to the group, while the dwarf and the maiden remained with the boat.  “Where is Ahern?” he asked.

“Alas, he was slain in those ruins,” Nift replied, “by wolves.”

“I feared as much, when I saw you raising a cairn, and I could not see Ahern among your number.”

“He was a friend?”

“He was my half-brother.  Poor Ahern!  To have died so young!”  The elf shook his head sadly, and his gaze seemed far away.  Presently he recalled himself.  “I am called Manveru Atwood,” he said.  “These my companions are Eden, a sorceress of the Lakashi people, and Barrock the Hunter, a sturdy dwarf.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Locke said.

“Thank you.”

“For my part, I will be happy to return to Selby-by-the-Water,” said Desu.  “I do not like this place.”

They prepared to leave.  As they headed toward the ship’s boat, however, a group of Lakashi women stepped out from the cover of the forested area to the south.  

The women were tall and dark, with dark hair braided around feathers and held with snakeskin.  They dressed in deer leather jerkins and pants, with snakeskin boots and belts.  Two of them were armed with short bows – hand axes were in their belts.  Four others were unarmed save for stout walking sticks.  Their leader, a stunning woman with clear green eyes, raised her hands to show that she bore no weapon, and walked slowly forward.

Desu went out to meet her.

“What clan are you?” she asked.

“I am Desu Atram, of the Catfish People of the Hooth Marshes.”

“I am Catori of the Adder People.  These you see are under my charge.  We were on pilgrimage to the Serpent Stone, but we lost two warriors to monstrous spiders, and we were forced to turn aside.  I thought our pilgrimage would be in vain, until I saw you.  Surely our ancestors ordained such a fate!  Will you aid us?  The Serpent Stone is in a hidden valley, not two days from this place.”

Desu didn’t even have to ask his comrades.  This was a thing he would do, even if he must do it alone.

“It is not our custom to bring outsiders to the Valley of Snakes, but if you vouch for your comrades, that they will not betray the secret of its location, I will accept your word.”

“I will vouch for them.”

Apart from Catori, there were the two archers, Altsoba and Amadahy.  The women bearing staves were named Dena, Ituha, Mansi, and Sokwe.  They helped the adventurers gather their goods from the pile readied for the ship’s boat.  Locke spoke to the sailors, letting them know that the company would not be returning to the River Princess.

A serpent as long as a man drew itself off of the ship’s boat, and followed Manveru.  Catori looked at the elf, appraisingly.

When all was prepared, the Lakashi women led the party through the forest to the south.  Small streams and pools broke the land, but overall the way rose from the river to higher ground.  It was slow going on foot.  Occasionally, the party was forced to skirt around a cliff of sheer rock in order to find an easier passage, or to move cautiously over loose skree.  Overall, though, it was clear that Catori knew where she was going.

After a few hours of this travel, they struck a trail.  At first it seemed little more than a game trail under towering pines, but after a while it widened out, and the adventurers could tell that they now followed an ancient road, running almost straight.  Whoever had made it, it was very long ago, for the trees that first thrust up through the old road stones were themselves ancient or fallen.

At one point, a movement in the trees warned them of an owlbear bearing down upon them.  The Lakashi women quickly moved back, leaving the rest of the party to face the creature.  Eden, the Lakashi sorceress, moved back with them.   Altsoba and Amadahy strung their bows.  After a moment, Eden did the same.

Desu reached into the Green and began to make motions necessary to summon up his connection to the living world.  He spoke a word of command, and the Green responded, causing the undergrowth – and even the trees – to entwine around the approaching beast.  Unfortunately, he had miscalculated the distance, and the Green’s fey nature.  Even at the edge of where they stood, the plants tried to grasp their legs.  Those who could swiftly stepped back.  Locke, however, was entangled…and he was their strongest fighter!

Locke struggled to free himself as his companions sent arrows and sling bullets toward the enraged owlbear.  The creature was as large as the great brown bears of the deep forest, but its forequarters were those of an enormous great horned owl.  Its eyes burned with malice.  Its beak snapped ineffectually at them.  The plants held it at bay for a time, but it was strong, and moved forward slowly against the entangling plants.

Though struck by half a dozen arrows, it pushed on until at last it had reached the edge of the entangling effect, where the party stood.  Manveru commanded his serpent companion to attack, and it struck with venomous fangs.  

Locke still struggled against the vines and grasses that held him – there would be no help from that quarter.  

Manveru drew his scimitar, and Barrock the Hunter stepped forward with his axe.  Together they hewed the thing until it fell.  By this time, Manveru was bloodied unto exhaustion, and Barrock had fallen.  Desu quickly stepped forward to heal Barrock, but Manveru was himself a member of the druidic brotherhood.  Reaching into the Green, Manveru caused his own flesh to knit together as much as he was able.

Eventually, the plants grew still once more.  Barrock began to remove the claws from one of the owlbear’s large paws.  “This will make an interesting trophy,” he said.

Locke cut through one of the owlbear’s haunches.  “This will make an interesting dinner!” said he.

They followed the ancient road for the rest of the day.  The land continued to rise and fall about them, though the road must have been well made as it was reasonably level.  Occasionally, they could see outthrusts of rock that loomed over the track, or loose tumbles of old stone that must once have marked walls or stone fences, but these were few and far between.  

As night drew near, the Lakashi made for a shallow cave that they seemed to know well.  Within, there was a fire pit and stacked firewood.  Representations of forest animals had been painted on the walls of the cave with ochre and natural dyes – deer, wolves, bears, boar, and snakes.  While crudely stylized, the paintings had a kind of natural grace about them.

Locke and Manveru squabbled over who would cook the meat, until they decided to work together.  Barrock went out to see if he could find any crayfish in one of the small nearby streams to add to the meal, but he saw nothing.  That night, they ate the owlbear’s haunch.  The piece of meat Barrock ate may have been envenomed, for it made him ill.


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## Raven Crowking (Jul 11, 2004)

*Tenth Session*

The next day, the sky began to cloud up, threatening more rain.  Barrock continued to feel ill, and Locke felt little better, but the group decided to press on anyway.

After following the ancient road for a couple of hours, the Lakashi left the roadway, turning onto a narrow pathway that zigzagged up the rocky hills to the south.  The trees along the strenuous climb were less numerous.  Tiny toads hopped out of their way along the path, and chipmunks were plentiful.  As the path neared the summit of the hills, it turned into a narrow cut, a gap that began to move steadily down toward the valley land below.

Catori, the Lakashi leader, turned toward the adventurers.  “It is just ahead here that we were attacked by spiders,” she said.  “They killed Olathe and Motega, but not before they were able to strike back.  Whether one of the spiders survived, or two, I cannot say.”

“Will any of you come with us?” Desu asked.

 “We are not warriors.” Catori looked away.  “Go forward, be bold, and clear the way.  Surely the spirits will grant you some reward for your bravery and sacrifice.”

Locke and Barrock were still feeling ill, so Desu and Manveru nervously led the way.  Eden and Nift stayed far behind, with Nift playing his guitar to inspire courage.  There was some tall grass, and a few stunted trees growing in the pass.  Manveru searched the area, and found a curled-up, grayish-black husk – the dried remains of a spider the Lakashi had killed.  It had been a hairy spider, not unlike a wolf spider, about three feet in diameter.

“Not warriors indeed!” Desu grinned.  “I had thought the spiders would be the size of a horse at least!”

They could find no sign of the spider’s Lakashi victims, Olathe or Motega.  They moved forward more boldly into the pass.  Two spiders still lurked there, hidden and waiting for a chance to strike.  The adventurers where ready, though, and made short work of the vermin.

Not far from where the spiders attacked them, Desu saw a hole cut into the cliff on the right-hand side.  The hole was only about three feet high by three feet across, about twenty feet up the slope, where rock gave way to soil.  Spidersilk and old cobwebs obscured his view of the hole, but it was clearly too even to be natural.

Desu pointed it out to his companions.  “That must be where they laired,” he said.  “Let us hope there are no more.”

They returned to the Lakashi pilgrims.  After briefly explaining what had happened, the entire group moved forward through the pass.  

Beyond the spider cliffs, the pass descended into a narrow valley, perhaps ten miles wide and thrice as long, ranged all about with hills and cliffs.  The valley floor seemed heavily forested, save where one hill rose, perhaps fifteen miles inward.  That hill was barren save for a single longstone, which stood amid a jumble of rock.  The longstone seemed strangely disquieting.

Eden caught a flash, like sunlight on metal, on one of the hills on the far side of the valley, but it was too far away and gone too quickly to determine exactly what it was.  Still, it seemed that there might be old stoneworks there, standing against the sky.

As they moved down into the valley, there was a sudden hissing noise.  They stopped.  Ahead, an adder twice as long as a man was coiled around a tree, perhaps twenty feet ahead.

Catori raised one hand, as though in greeting of the huge snake.  The adventurers stepped back warily, though none of the Lakashi women seemed alarmed, save Eden the Sorceress.

The adder let out another long hiss, then spoke in the Serpent Tongue:  “Speak, Sister,” it hissed, “or die.”

Manveru pricked up his ears, for he understood the language of snakes.

“I am Catori of the Adder Folk,” the Lakashi leader hissed back.  “These women are with me, pilgrims to the Serpent Stone.  These men have aided us, but they are not of our kind.”

“No outsiders may know the way to this valley and live,” the snake hissed.

“I understand.  When we have passed on, you may do with them as you like.  Only recall that they have aided us, and be gentle with their deaths.  May they fill your belly, and the belly of your children.”

“It is so,” hissed the serpent.  “You may pass.”

Catori turned to the adventurers, and spoke in the common tongue of the Lakelands.  “Beyond this place, only the faithful may enter.  I have spoken with the Guardian.  Remain here while we go, and you will be rewarded.”

Manveru bit his lip.  Better to let his enemies divide themselves, and fight them one at a time.  Still, it chaffed him to have aided these women that, all along, had plotted his ruin.  He quietly loosened his scimitar in its sheath.

The Lakashi pilgrims descended into the valley.  The Guardian of the Valley, coiled around its tree, stared unblinking at the adventurers.  “Get ready,” Manveru said, quietly but tersely to his comrades.  He stepped forward and addressed the Guardian.

“I, too, speak the Serpent Tongue,” he said.

“It grieves me, then, that you must die.”  The huge adder uncoiled itself from the tree.  It hissed and writhed on the ground as it came forward, and the grasses began to animate, seeking to hold the adventurers fast.  Manveru leapt forward with his scimitar, cutting the evil serpent, and breaking its connection to the magical energies it was gathering.  The adventurers drew their weapons, and melee was joined.

Locke and Barrock were still weak, poisoned or ill, and could do little to aid their comrades.  Desu and Manveru leapt into the fray, while Eden stepped back and conjured a magical pool of greasy slime in an effort to contain the serpent.  The serpent lashed out, again and again, with venom-dripping fangs.  It was clear, though, that the group was getting the better of their adversary.  Whatever minor healing powers it could draw upon were not enough.  Soon, the Guardian of the Valley lay dead.  The adventurers stood, wounded and poisoned, victorious but unwell.

“We need to rest before pursuing those witches,” Desu said.  “We need to recover, and let this venom run its course.  We are in no shape for more battle today.”

The rest of the group gave mute agreement.  They began to make camp, thinking about the women they had befriended and aided, and how they had been betrayed.  Had Manveru not spoken the language of snakes, they might all have been ensnared and slain.  There would have to be revenge.

Revenge, however, would have to be delayed.  Desu lay on the floor of the pass, close to the fire they had built.  He was growing chill, but the venom was a constant fire burning within his muscles.  The Lakashi were matriarchal.  Desu had been raised to respect the words and advice of women.  How could he have denied these their simple request for aid?

Yes, he thought, there would have to be vengeance.  Not only for himself, but for the honor of the tribal mothers Catori’s actions had betrayed.

* * * * *

Barrock and Locke were still ill in the morning, but the rest of the group felt a little better.  They broke camp and headed down the trail.

The valley was moist, and the growth was dense, both in terms of the trees themselves and the undergrowth choking the area between their trunks.  It was very difficult to see any distance into the forest.  The air seemed thick and cloying.  The trees seemed to crowd the path, and at times it seemed as though hostile eyes were peering down from the trees upon the group as they passed beneath them.

The oppression of the valley seemingly did little to affect Desu’s spirits.  The rest of the group, though, was becoming increasingly, and to varying degrees, nervous.  After following the path for several hours, they came across a side track.

“The Serpent Stone is straight ahead,” Manveru said.  “It is the direction they would have gone.”

The continued onward.  Some little time later, a man-sized constrictor snake dropped from a low branch onto Nift, who was walking last in line.  They came quickly to the small gnome’s aid, but by the time they could stop his assailant, Nift was already unconscious from his wounds.

“We need to leave this valley,” Desu said.  “Rest again.”  He looked down.  “We may be forced to let these Adder Folk go.”

“We’ll rest another day,” said Manveru.  “But we’re not letting them go.”

* * * * *

That night, as they camped in the pass once more, they cooked the constrictor snake that had attacked Nift.

Manveru noticed a pair of eyes, reflected yellow-green from the fire, staring at them from the darkness, low to the ground.  Standing, and approaching the eyes, he saw a red fox crouched near the pass wall.  The creature did not seem afraid of him, so Manveru tried the Lupine Tongue, which he also spoke, and which was understood by most intelligent canines.

“What do you want?” he asked.

The fox licked its lips.  “Just a bite of your dinner,” he answered in the Vulpine dialect of the same language – a more cultured, and less aggressive, form of the Canine Tongue.

“We are happy to share,” Manveru said, and threw the fox a goodly portion.  The fox sat beyond their firelight, eating daintily and seemingly contented to listen in on their speech.  In the morning, it was gone.


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## Raven Crowking (Jul 11, 2004)

*Eleventh Session*

They were all better in the morning, save Barrock, who continued to feel ill.  

Once more they headed into the oppressive forest of the Valley of Serpents.  The sense of watchfulness, combined with the thick growth, played upon their nerves.  Again, Desu seemed immune, and Manveru nearly so, as though the forest recognized their druidic nature and allowed them to pass nearly unmolested.

The path left the forest about a mile aay from the treeless, boulder-strewn hill they had seen from the pass above.  The halted for a short while, gathering their courage against the dark forest behind them.

From the pass, the Serpent Stone had seemed like a single longstone of moderate size – now that they were about two miles away, it appeared to be the work of giants.  At least fifty feet tall, it towered over the other shards of stone on the hill.  It seemed likely to have been of natural origin, because at least part of it must have lain beneath the hill to hold it upright, especially as it leaned somewhat to the east.

As they approached the hill, they could see the Lakashi pilgrims performing some ceremony at its summit.  Catori was before the colossal stone, arms upraised.   . Dena, Ituha, Mansi, and Sokwe assisted her.  Altsoba and Amadahy, the two archers, stood some way off, keeping watch.  Amadahy gave a piercing whistle as she saw the group begin the long climb uphill.

“You profane this sacred place with your presence!” Catori shouted at them.  “Go now, and thank the Spirits they allow you to leave with your life!”

“Throw down your weapons, and perhaps we will leave you with your life!” Nift shouted back.

Altsoba and Amadahy loosed a volley of arrows, one of them striking Barrock, the stone arrowhead cutting into his skin even as he twisted to prevent the arrow from lodging in muscle.

“Enough,” Desu said.  He reached into the Green and commanded the grass on the hilltop to ensnare the Lakashi women.  He warned his comrades, for the entangling plants would not distinguish between friend or foe; it would attempt to hold fast any that entered the spell’s area of effect.

Apart from Altsoba and Amadahy, it seemed that the women were armed with staves only.  Eden bent her own bow, as the two druids – Desu and Manveru – prepared their slings.  Locke and Nift brought out the crossbows they had taken from the kobolds of the Dragon’s Lair caves, while Barrock ran straight into Desu’s spell effect, and was entangled.

There followed a battle of missile fire.  The Laksahi women closest to Catori closed around her where they could, trying to protect her as she backed into the Serpent Stone.  Catori chanted and sang spells, but they seemed to be ineffective, save to heal her wounds.

One by one, the archers fell.  Dena fell.  Catori, struck by a sling stone, slumped to the ground, and the other women surrendered.  They threw down their staves.

They could see now that the Serpent Stone was a single spar of black basalt thrust up from the ground, six feet in length and width, and about sixty feet tall.  It was obvious that the stone was natural.  Even so, it had been decorated over the centuries with carved whorls and images reminiscent of entwined serpents, double-headed snakes and dragons.

Desu cautioned his friends to wait until the spirit that animated the grass departed.  As soon as the entangling effect was gone, the three remaining women – Ituha, Mansi, and Sokwe – threw down their staves and ran away, down the far side of the hill.  Nift and Barrock made to give chase, but Desu called him back.

“It’s Catori we want,” he said.  “I want to know why she betrayed us.”

Desu knelt by Catori, but leaped back as a small viper curled upon her chest struck at him.

The Serpent Stone radiated an almost magnetic power – although it seemed more to attract people than their metal gear.  Desu could feel its pull without difficulty.

Manveru came forward.  “Who are you?” he asked in the Serpent Tongue.

“I am Askook,” the small viper hissed.  “You will not harm the Mistress!  If you touch her, I shall strike!”

“Can you convince it to let us heal her?”

“I’ll try,” Manveru said, but it was not easy.  The little snake wasn’t terribly intelligent.  In the end, it only agreed to allow them to touch its mistress when Manveru carefully explained that, without aid, its mistress would die.

“But if you lie, I shall strike!”

As soon as Manveru got the tiny snake to slither off of Catori, Desu stepped up and examined her.  He reached into the Green and used a portion of his power to knit her wounds, bringing her to consciousness.  Desu watched carefully.  It took Catori a few seconds to take in her circumstances.  When she was fully aware, he asked her, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you betray us?”  Desu could not keep the poison from his voice.

“You should have died,” Catori said, her voice dripping with contempt.  “It should have been enough for you to serve, and to depart when your time came.  You need to learn your place, man.”

“Now it is you who shall die!” Nift said.

“Perhaps, but if I die it will be restoring the holiness of this sacred place, and the spirits will avenge me.  You are not allowed to walk here and live!  Better if you fell now upon your swords than continue to profane this valley.”

She stood slowly, making no sudden moves.  She then leaned back into the Serpent Stone.  “If you cured me, you wish me healthy.  I am going to cast a charm now that will knit my wounds.  Do not seek to stop me.”

The adventurer’s stayed wary as Catori spoke rapid words in an arcane tongue.  Her wounds began to close and heal.  When she was done, she opened her eyes and looked at Desu.  “I thank you,” she said.  As she spoke, Desu felt needle-sharp fangs bite into his ankle.  Askook, the tiny viper, had poisoned him.

Desu danced back, trying to strike the tiny sepent before he was struck again.  “What are you doing?”

Catori drew a dagger.  “What you should be doing, Lakashi-man-who-does-not-know-his-place.”  She looked at Eden.  “What you should be doing, Sister.”

“I don’t think so,” said Eden.

“We would have let you live!” Desu said.

“Do you think I could live, and allow you to desicrate this sacred place?  While there is breath in me, I will strike at you!”

“Enough.”  Manveru’s sling bolt dropped Catori once more.  Desu danced back, was bit again, and then managed to strike Askook a mortal wound.  Manveru knelt by Catori.  “She is still breathing,” he said.

“No more,” said Desu, and he killed her.

“Hey!” said Nift.  “I was hoping to have some fun with her first.”

Desu looked on him with distain.  “Are you a gnome, or one of the goblinfolk?” he asked derisively.  “She did not wish to live if we entered the Valley of Serpents and lived, and I have honored her request.”  He looked down upon her body.  “As I should.”

Nift caught the disgusted looks of his comrades.  “What?  I just…”  He shrugged defeatedly, and went to loot the dead.

Manveru stepped forward, and placed his hand upon the Serpent Stone.  There was no part of the stone that had not been touched by carving, and much of the work had been worn away and redone over the ages.  He could feel its power, a great nexus of ley lines that radiated magic almost a dozen yards away.  His hair felt as though it should be standing on end.

“What is it?” asked Nift.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Desu asked.

“Nothing.”

“I would swear from your expression that there was something.”

“No, nothing.”

“Very well.”

There was little on the bodies of the dead, for the pilgrims were not wealthy.  The group decided not to pursue those who had flown, but instead returned to the pass, going through the forest.  Though they were again assailed by a sense of watchfulness and oppression, it affected them less.

Perhaps it was some spirit of the place that sought to punish them, or prevent them from leaving, but as they passed through the forest, Barrock was attacked by something that seemed to be a leopard, only it was made of branches and twisting vines.  The group was able to defeat it, but Barrock was sorely wounded and lay unconscious.  They bore him upon their shoulders up, out of the valley.

They camped in the pass one last time.  In the morning, Manveru found himself contemplating the three-foot wide tunnel in the side of the cliff.  “I could get up there,” he said.

“I am poisoned and ill,” said Desu.  “I’m not going up there.”

“Will you wait for me if I go?”

“Two hours,” said Locke.

“I’ll go with you,” said Eden.

They only had to climb twenty feet up the sloping cliff.  The angle was not too severe, and there were plenty of handholds, so it was a simple task.  Looking into the hole, Manveru saw a narrow tunnel sloping downward for about ten feet or so before opening into a larger area.  The tunnel was lined with old cobwebs, but there was no sign of living creatures, apart from tiny insects and miniscule spiders.

Manveru pulled himself into the tunnel, and crawled into the larger space.

The tunnel was lined with slabs of stone, and slabs of stone made up the ceiling.  After ten feet, it opened into a circular chamber some twenty feet in diameter.  The spiralling ceiling of stone was a mere five feet high at its highest point.  Hearing Eden coming up behind him, Manveru stepped in to make room.

The chamber was littered with old bones, and with the spider-wrapped, dried carcasses of small forest animals.  The two Lakashi the spiders had killed – Olathe and Motega, Catori had called them – had apparently been a man and a woman.  They had been dragged in here and consumed.

There was another three-foot passage opposite the entry tunnel.  Manveru looked down it; it ended after about five feet with a stone slab.

Moving down the tunnel, Manveru tried to shift the slab.  It was heavy, but it moved, revealing a small chamber, just a little more than seven feet in diameter.  This was obviously a burial chamber, for ancient mouldering bones were laid out on a small stone slab.  

Manveru entered and looked around.  Various urns and clay pots in the chamber held the goods that the deceased had brought into the afterlife with him.  Although many of these things had long ago turned to dust, Manveru found several interesting items:  many amber beads, apparently once part of a necklace; an ivory ring carved with the crude likeness of a cat; a crudely carved soapstone owl, and a ring carved from bone.

Bringing these things into the first chamber, Manveru gave the bone ring and some of the beads to Eden.  They then looked at the chamber walls.  Soon they discovered two more stones that looked as though they might shift.

Behind the stone slab to the northeast, they saw a three foot section of passage, opening into a small chamber no more than five feet in diameter.  Small animals had crept into this place, disturbing the bones of the dead.  They could hear several mice squeaking as they sought to hide within the shattered remnants of old burial urns.

Again they searched, finding a handful of amber beads.  They also found a piece of corroded brass, upon which were pressed letters they could not read.  Finally, they found a pair of jade earrings shaped like tiny fish.  Once they were back to the central chamber, Eden spoke an incantation to learn which of their treasures might be enchanted.  Both rings, and the earrings, glowed faintly to her eyes.  She put the earrings on.

It was much more difficult to shift the stone leading to the southwestern chamber, but with some effort they were able to shift it.

A scent of age, spices, and must wafted out of the tunnel.  Behind the stone slab was a three-foot section of passage, three feet wide and three feet high.  After that, they could see a tiny, low chamber perhaps five feet across.  Obviously, that chamber had never been disturbed – the buried dead had been mummified on his stone slab, and they could still make out the spirals and waves of the tattoos he once proudly sported.

Although several clay urns had been buried in the chamber as well, Manveru and Eden returned the stone without entering that place.

“I have no wish to disturb a mummy,” said Manveru.  Eden agreed.

Of course, once they had returned, everyone wanted to know what they had discovered in the small crypt.  Yet, though Manveru and Eden were willing to describe the layout, and the mummy they had seen presumably still arrayed with his treasures, of what they found they would say nothing.  Only the inscribed plaque, which they could not read, would they reveal – but none in the group could read it, either.

They were at last ready to leave.  Barrock continued to lie unconscious and near to death.

“I grow weary of carrying him,” Desu said.

“Shall we leave him behind?” Locke asked.

“We should at least take his gear,” Manveru added.

“I don’t think we should just leave him here,” Desu said.

“Well,” said Locke, “we could roll him down the hill.”

Thus it was that Barrock the Hunter was stripped naked and pushed to the brink of the Valley of Serpents.  They then pushed him down the hill, and watched his body disappear into the underbrush.

“Well, that’s that,” said Locke.  They each picked up a portion of Barrock’s gear, then headed toward the north side of the pass.


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## Raven Crowking (Jul 12, 2004)

*Twelth Session*

The party moved through the narrow cut of the Spider Pass, away from the Serpent Stone and the Valley of Snakes.  For a brief while, the roadway went upward, toward the highest point of the narrow pass.  Then it began to cut its way down the steep hill in a number of zags and reversals.  It was far less strenuous going down than up, but it still required care as a misstep could have severe consequences, and they were following little more than a footpath.  At last, the group reached the ancient roadway they had traveled with the Lakashi pilgrims.

As they looked at the straight, ancient road, they realized that they were uncertain which direction to go.  None of them could remember which way they had turned off the road when they had gone onto the path leading to the valley.  After a bit of terse discussion, they decided to go to the left.

As the sky grew darker, it became clear that they had not chosen correctly.  They never saw sight nor sign of the cave where they had spent the night with the pilgrims.  Moreover, the as they went on the pines that thrust up through the old road stones became more numerous, so that it was sometimes difficult to follow the road.

That night, wolves approached their camp, though the fire kept them at bay.

In the morning, they continued on the westward way.  They were occasionally forced to ford small streams that now cut through the path, and more than once they looked down through breaks in the roadway, to see water flowing in the ground far below them.  They hurried on.

As it began to grow dark, they lost the roadway altogether.  It ended in a stone fence, which they followed to the right until they could find a gap.  They had come to the farmers’ fields outside of Long Archer.

In that wilderness town, the village gates closed with the setting of the sun.  They were unsure that they would be admitted until morning, so they went to the nearest farmhouse, apologized for trespassing, and asked for lodging.  That night, they were fed bacon and stale bread.  They camped in the farmer’s barn.  

In the morning, Desu walked along the stone fence, looking to see if there were any more signs of wolves.  He found none.  “A wolf would have made a potent ally,” he said.  “I should have befriended one when they approached our camp the night before last.”

They gave the farmer their thanks, and some small coin for his generosity.  Turning toward the river, they approached the wooden palisade surrounding Long Archer.  It was too early in the year for farmer’s markets, so there was little traffic at the East River Gate.  They were soon within the town.

They got rooms at the North Gate Inn, where Locke had first met Hrum.  It seemed long ago, now, although surely it had been little more than two months ago.  Then they went into the markets, looking for places where they might sell the extra equipment, and some of the treasures, that they had acquired.


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## Raven Crowking (Jul 12, 2004)

*Note*

Thus ended the second arc of the Lakelands campaign.  As you can tell, that arc was one of wandering around, finding out more about the world, and engaging in minor adventures.  It also pointed out a few adventuring locations that the group didn't explore at the time, or was unable to finish exploring due to inexperience:

1)  The Tower of Amoreth the Arcane in Selby-by-the-Water,
2)  The sewers in Selby-by-the-Water,
3)  The half-submerged ruins in Selby-by-the-Water,
4)  The Dry Catacombs (and, by extension, Wet Catacombs) in Selby-by-the-Water,
5)  The Green Howe south of Selby-by-the-Water, toward Rookhaven,
6)  The ruined building where they fought wolves and skeletons,
7)  The old stoneworks they could see on the far side of the Valley of Serpents, and
8)  The caves under the ancient roadway.

In addition, they didn't explore all of the caverns in the Dragon's Lair, site of their first adventure.

As you can see, I prefer to allow characters to have a lot of options as to what they do!

The next story arc sees the group hunting orcs near Long Archer, then go after the Bonewardens.  

Daniel


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 25, 2004)

*Thirteenth Game*

They woke in the morning.  After breaking their fast, they went into the market to sell some of the extra equipment the party had acquired.  Manveru and Eden also wanted to see if the amber beads they had recovered from the ancient tomb near the Serpent Vale had any value.

In the Lower Market, Desu found himself browsing near a half-orc.  Dressed as a priest of Amatheon, the other heavy muscles and a low brow that seemed reminiscent of Krog.  “Pardon me,” Desu said, “but you have a familiar look.  Are you any relation to the Zandos?”

“I am Gork Zando.”

“I was a friend of Krog Zando.”

“Krog!  He is my brother!  Tell me how he fares!”

“Alas,” said Desu, “but Krog is dead.  He was torn to pieces by wolves, though he fought valiantly.  In the end, Krog found something too mighty for even his appetite.”

When Desu returned to the North Road Inn, he discovered that others of his company had met with an elf, Gammon Oakleaf by name, who claimed to be a friend of Darwin Ravenshield.  It was soon decided that Gammon and Krog could join with the group, taking the place of those who had departed.

They were uncertain what to do next.  Some wanted to travel again to Selby-by-the-Water.  Gammon wished to pay his respects to Darwin, who rested in the Dry Catacombs there.  Desu wanted to go north to those caves known as the Dragon’s Lair.  The tentacled creature he had met therein had struck his fancy, and he wished to meet it again.

“But we need to rest,” said Manveru, “and to recover our strength, ere we seek another adventure.”

It was agreed.  Gork and Locke went fishing upon the Selwyn River that day.  With good fortune, they caught a sturgeon heavier than either of them.  On the 17th of Showermont, Gammon went to Caer Selwyn, the Baron’s Keep in Long Archer, to see if there was any task that might be accomplished, but he was rebuffed by the guards posted there, for the Open Court was held upon Mardays.

Nift thought that he could do better, and tried the Keep on the 18th, which was a Sunday.  As with Gammon, he was told to await the Open Court.  That night, and for the next few nights, Nift played in the North Road Inn, ostensibly to defray the cost of his stay, but he was off on both Sunday and Marsday.  Thankfully, on the Hearthday his playing and songs were very well received indeed, and Nift was told that he would be welcome to play again at the North Road Inn.  

Neither Gammon nor Nift attended the Open Court that week, where the Lord Baron Archer heard many tales of orcish depredations from forester and farmer alike.  Travelers claimed that the orcs were becoming more warlike.  Merchants had been attacked along the roads east and north.

That Landsday, it was not long before the group discovered a notice posted in several places along the stalls of both Upper and Lower marketplaces.  It read:

*By Order of Lord Karl 
Archer, Baron of Long Archer, 
Protector of the Dale of Selwyn:*

Let it be known that Orcs once more threaten forestry and
homesteading beyond the walls of Long Archer Town.
Travelers are herby given notice to be wary.

A bounty has been placed on Orcs – half a gold crown per
ear, to be presented through the Chancellery of the Exchequer
each Marday at the Oak Pavilion in the Lower Market.

Orcs and those with Orcish blood are hereby restricted from
entering the Town Gates during hours of darkness, or being
abroad during hours of darkness, upon pain of imprisonment
or death.

Signed this day, Being the 21st day of
Showermont in the Common Year 421

_Lord Calder Brookman_

Provost of the Baron’s Forest​​
Gork seemed sorely puzzled by what he was seeing.  “What does this mean?” the half-orc asked aloud.  “Do I have to leave town?”

“It means that you cannot be abroad at night,” Desu told him.  “You may otherwise stay in the town.”

“Oh,” said Gork.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Locke confirmed.  “We should go orc hunting.  No offense, Gork.”

“None taken.”  Gork seemed rather enthused by the idea.  “We should get a cart.  And a donkey.”

“We could pretend that we were travelers on the road,” Desu added.  “That may well draw out our prey.”

With a plan in mind, they went back into the Lower Market to purchase equipment.  With donkey and cart in tow, they exited the North Gate before the third hour after noon had passed.

There were still foresters out harvesting trees north of Long Archer, but there were fewer than normal, and those were accompanied by contingents of guards.  The guards scrutinized the group – Gork in particular – as they passed, but clearly did not see them as a threat.  It took three hours to get well beyond the guarded areas, and into places where orcs might be more easily encountered.

Indeed, it did not take long once they had entered true wilderness, for the north road was watched.  A group of six orcs with greataxes came silently through the trees.  In that desperate combat, the silence of the orcs was uncanny.

“Why won’t they speak?” yelled Locke.

“Their tongues must be cut out!” Desu yelled back.

That proved not to be the case.  When they examined the dead orcs, they saw that their tongues were intact, though tongue and gums were stained a dark blue hue.

“Zurgâsh,” said Gork.

“What do you mean?”

“Zurgâsh.  Blue fire.  It is a drug that enhances rage, but those who take it become mute.  For a time, at least.”

“I have heard something of this,” Nift said, “though I had heard it called dumbwode instead.  It is said that orcs keep it in clay pots to bolster their guards and warriors.  That is why orcish guards oft rely upon gongs, bells, drums, or similar devices, though they may be enraged, or lack the wisdom to use them.  For, while if dumbwode prevents speech, it is said also to have other, long-term effects upon those who use it.  They are said to grow foolish and weak of will, throwing their lives away without fear or remorse.  As were these.”  He indicated the orcs they had slain.

Quickly, then, they cut the armor off the orcs and piled it into their cart.  They then gathered the orcs’ weapons, and began the process of cutting the ears from the dead.  This seemed to cause Gork no discomfort – indeed, he participated in it.

They were nearly done when yet more orcs set upon them.  Some of these bore short bows while others bore greataxes.  The leader, one of the bowmen, had several clay pots upon his person, from which he scooped a greyish paste that he distributed among the axemen while the archers engaged.  The axe weilders took a portion each, chewed it, and spat out what remained.  Now silently, they rushed raging into the party.

That second battle in the forest was even more desperate than the first, for the party was already wounded, and the archers posed an additional challenge.  At last, though, the group succeeded in slaying their foes.  Again they despoiled the bodies.  And, once more, as they finished, they heard something coming toward them through the brush.

Locke turned and drew forth his greatsword.  “If this be another battle,” he said, “we are through.”

The party prepared tensely, but the thing that came through the trees was larger than any orc….


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 25, 2004)

*Fourteenth Session*

The party drew weapons and prepared to fight, expecting another contingent of zurgâsh-taking orcs.  It became quickly clear that the thing making its way through the trees was larger than any orc.  Nearly eight feet tall and shaped like a young willow tree, the being had supple bark for skin and long leafy stands instead of hair.  As the party scrambled back, it began to sing softly, and the song soothed them.  They calmed, and sheathed their weapons.

“A treant,” said Desu.  “Who are you?”

“I am Longfall the Windsinger,” the creature replied, its voice the calm sound of the wind through the willows.  “If you are enemies of these” – it swept one long arm toward the despoiled bodies of the orcs, where they still lay upon the battlefield “ – then I say to you that I fear greater evil is abroad than it now seems.  Pixies I have found decapitated and piled in the forest, and where their heads are I do not know, but it would take a being of vile evil to do such a deed.”

“Do you have an idea who might be responsible?”

“I do not know with certainty for all things, but seek the the Bonewardens.  Eastward beyond the Alder Stream they dwell.”  It swept one long arm east.

“Very well,” said Locke.  “We will look for these Bonewardens.”

“Thank you,” said Desu.  “We need to return now, or Gork will not be let past the town gates.”

They took their leave of Longfall the Windsinger, who was already striding away, north and west – the direction from which the orcs had come.  Hurrying back toward Long Archer, they made the North Gate, and the North Road Inn only just in time.

In the morning, they sold the orcs’ armor and weapons in the markets, though being orc-make, they did not command a generous price.  They tried to turn in the orc ears, but it was Smithsday, and the Chancellor of the Eschquor was not at the Oak Pavillion.

They considered waiting the four days, but Locke said, “Let us just go and seek out the Bonewardens.”

In the Lakelands, travel by ship was often deemed by men to be superior to travel on foot.  Now they learned the obvious truth of that suposition.  Even on the often-used roads neares Long Archer, they found the going slow and hard.  Often, they were forced to help push the cart out of a rut, for it had rained somewhat of late, and the road was muddy.

Unbeknown to the travelers, there lived in that area a witch who called herself Dame Gretel.  Indeed, Desu and Locke had met that witch earlier that year, though they did not then recognize her for what she was, and at her behest they fought an ogre and his son.  When those creatures fled, Desu had returned a reluctant donkey to the witch, and received what he believed to be turnips in return.  They were not turnips, but had been glamored to appear so by the witch.

When they fought the ogre then, it had been wounded.  The witch had killed its mate.  Rather than allow its son to be killed, it had fled.  The pair had survived by raiding farms along the edges of the wilderness.  That night, they saw the fire of the party’s campfire, and came to take what they could.  Whether or not they recognized Locke and Desu would never be known, for they were swiftly cut down, and the leathern sack containing their loot was thrown onto the party’s cart.

The next day was foggy, and the group traveled enshrouded in damp mist.  As evening approached, a phantom – a grey lady, seemingly made of fog – came from the shadowed mists.  Her cold touch seemed to damage them, although it made no perceptible wound save a white mark like frostbite.  They tried to prepare with her, but the grey lady glided through the mist like a wind, touching and retreating before a return blow could land.

Gork stood away from the group, and raised a wooden disc inscribed with an oak tree and crossed sheaves of grain – the holy symbol of Amatheon.  “Begone, foul being, back to the Pit from whence you came!”

The phantom glided forward again, laying her freezing caress along Locke’s shoulder.

“Very well!” growled Gork.  “If you will not obey me, I shall send you to the pit myself!”  As the phantom swept by, Gork stepped in with his scythe, cutting through the phantom in his holy fervor.  Although the grey lady was seemingly made of mist, her mouth opened wide with surprise, and her form broke up into the fog.

“Well done, Gork,” said Nift.

Gork grunted.  “Now, perhaps, we will be able to find a place to sleep.  I could use a quiet night.”

That night was not destined to be quiet.  During his watch, Nift heard something rummaging in their cart.  Creeping quietly to the area, he saw that a skunk had found one of their bags.  With its sharp claws and teeth, the skunk had ripped a hole into the leather bag, and was eating something within.  In truth, it had found a hunk of hard, moldy cheese.  It had been in the ogre’s sack, which they had failed to check.

Nift tried to speak to the skunk in the beast tongues that he knew.  This was not unwise, for he had already encountered a fox that could talk, and the shadowy wolves of the river ruin could speak as well.  However, this seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary skunk.

Nift tried to shoo the skunk away.  It turned, facing him.  It stamped its front feet aggressively – an action which a druid or ranger would have interpreted as a warning.  When Nift continued to try to shoo it away, it turned and raised its tail.

Nift fled…but not far.  He went to his piled gear and retrieved his crossbow.  Loading it, he took careful aim at the skunk and fired.  He succeeded in killing the skunk, but at terrible cost.  The skunk released its musk as it died.  The spray caught the cart and the goods piled within it, befouling them with its odor.  Even throwing the skunk’s body into the bushes did little good.

Within two hours, forest ants began to arrive.  These were large ants – each as large as a small dog, at about two feet in length, colored a reddish brown hue.  Perhaps attracted by the skunk smell, they attacked with pincers and stinger, holding fast and stinging repeatedly.  When the second wave of ants was defeated, the group hurriedly packed up their camp and moved.  

Luckily, it was nearly dawn.  Manveru, who had taken to riding in the cart and traveling on the efforts of the donkey’s labor, chose instead to walk.


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 26, 2004)

*Fifteenth Game*

The road continued to travel more or less eastward, taking the easiest way around hills or outcrops of bare stone.  The group was averaging about 16 miles a day when they kept moving – faster than some of the heavily laden peasants and farmers they passed, but slower than the occasional mounted rider who passed them.  

Much of the land they were passing through had been clear-cut for farming, and there were places where sheep or goats grazed.  The farmhouses were thick-walled with narrow windows.  Despite these fortifications, they saw signs of violence – burned farmhouses and the charred remains of orcs and men.

It was cold in the morning.  They pushed forward anyway, letting the motion of walking warm them.

Around midday, the clouds grew heavy, and by late afternoon the first fat drops fell from the sky, accompanied by a roll of thunder.  They could see an old farmhouse ahead – sound looking, but seemingly deserted.  Away from the road behind it was a wide well, capped with stone.  Bits of bright cloth fluttered like banners from a thorn tree overlooking the well.

While some of the group huddled near the cart, Locke and Desu went to fill their waterskins at the well.  Laying on the well’s stone lid was a silver comb, which Desu took.  The stone lid was difficult to push open, but when they had managed it, they filled their skins and bottles.  The well water seemed cool and clear, forming a pool that they could easily reach.  The stone lid had obviously kept the water fresh.

As Desu watched, what looked like a severed head floated to the surface, rolled over, and submerged again.

“Maybe I won’t be drinking that water after all,” he said.

While they had been examining the well, the rain and wind had abated somewhat, but now it grew stronger yet, presenting a danger to Desu’s animal companions.  They decided to hazard the farmhouse.

It was a simple, two-room affair with a wooden floor.  The roof leaked a little, but not too much, and rats had taken to nesting in the thatching.  There was a jumble of old furniture – mostly broken, but enough to make the house reasonably comfortable.

They used some of the broken pieces to make a fire in the grate.  The fireplace flue was not completely clear, and some of the smoke came back into the room, curling about the ceiling and making the air a little thick.  They were just getting comfortable when the door opened, and a half-orc stepped in.

The group looked up, startled.  “Who are you?” asked Nift.

“Forgive me,” the intruder replied.  “It is wet out, and I saw the signs of your fire.  I am Firestar Dragonwing, paladin of Mardan and Odnasept.”

“Mardan I know,” said Gork.  “Who – or what – is Odnasept?”

“Odnasept is the combination of all dragon deities into one perfection of being, the Creator of Worlds, Serpent of Beginning and End, the Infinite Dragon, the Great Unity.  Odnasept is a champion of law and good, and a friend to the Seven Good Gods.”

Gork grunted.  He knew well that the world had been created by the battle between the Elder Gods and the Great Titans.  Odnasept sounded like an aspect of the Beast Lord of Reptiles to him.  Nor had he ever heard of a half-orc who was a paladin.  Such things simply did not occur in the world he knew.  Still, this Firestar seemed decent enough.

Soon, they were talking as old friends.  The group learned that Firestar was the product of a rape.  His father was an orcish chieftain, and his mother a Lakashi woman.  He was traveling from Long Archer, looking for deeds to accomplish.  Locke explained that the group had been asked to seek out the Bonewardens, and thus end the current threat caused by orcs in that area.

The connection wasn’t really clear.  “We were given the mission by a talking bush,” Locke explained.  “Of course, I am a follower of Badur, Judge of the Dead, which would seem to make me a Bonewarden myself.”  He shrugged.  “We shall see when we find them, I guess.”

When the thundershower stopped, less than an hour later, the entire party – now including Firestar – went back to the well.  They wished to see for themselves the severed head that Desu had reported.

As they watched, the head floated to the surface of the water.  It’s long golden hair was matted about the face, and the flesh was half calcified.  It appeared to be a young warrior of perhaps twenty winters, comely once, but now bloated and hideous.

“I’m _definitely_ not drinking that water,” Desu said.  Both he and Locke began emptying their skins.  There were small streams enough near the road.

The decapitated head’s eyes opened, and he spoke:

“Wash me, Comb me, Pleat my golden hair.
Lay me gently on the green bank to dry.”​
“The comb!” Desu cried, retrieving it quickly.  He pulled the severed head up out of the well and began trying to pull the comb through its wet and matted hair.  At last, when Desu deemed the job was done, he set the head on the green bank to dry.  Though the grass was wet, the sun had come out again.

“The red haired lad can never eat his fill,” the head said, “but feed him enough and he’ll be a friend to thee.”

“What?” said Eden.

“Hurm,” said the head.

“Did he say _Hrum_?” asked Nift, who was familiar with the group’s history.

Another head rose – this one even more hideous than the first.  “Wash me, comb me, pleat my golden hair,” this head said.  “Lay me gently on the green bank to dry.”

“That is my brother, Beorn,” the first head said.  “And he is harder to please than I.”

Desu again tried to groom the head to its liking, but this head was not so easily satisfied.  When Desu placed it on the bank, it caught its reflection in the well and flew into a rage.

“You have left my cheeks all blotted with mud!  May dirt fall in your eyes ‘til a beggar gives you alms!”

No sooner was the curse spoken than it occurred.  Desu found himself half-blinded with dirt and soot.  Quickly, Nift stepped forward and began complimenting the head’s appearance.  After a time, the head stopped frowning, and retracted its curse.  As Desu’s vision cleared, it spoke:  “Knock on the house of bone, but enter not.  He who dwells there would sell his soul for a drop of the good red wine, had he a soul to sell.  He will try to give you many a treasure, but hold fast ‘til he gives you the stick he keeps behind his door.”

The second head looked up at Nift.  “The three brothers that dwelt in that house had a sword wondrously sharp.  Watch the first rat you see.  Reach without fear into the hole it chooses, and you’ll draw forth the blade.”

“Excellent!” said Eden greedily, and she ran into the house with Nift.  Each saw a different rat; each rat ran into a different hole.  As Nift drew out a keen longsword, cunningly wrought, Eden hesitated.  “I was not addressed,” she said, “and something bad will no doubt happen unless I master my greed.”

Nift approached Firestar, and presented the blade to him.

“It is too large for me,” Nift said.  “I deem it will be put to better use in your hands.”

“I thank you,” said Firestar.  “This is indeed a princely gift.”

By this time, the third head had arisen, and it was more terrible than the first two put together – not only had this warrior been decapitated, but also his skull had been split wide.  

“That is our brother, Glam-Morgan,” the other two heads said.  “And he is the most difficult of us all.”

“Wash me, Comb me, Pleat my golden hair.
Lay me gently on the green bank to dry.”​
Again, the head was displeased with Desu’s ministrations, though Manveru did his best to help Desu groom the head.

“You have plaited my hair too tight on the left and too loose on the right!” Glam-Morgan’s head complained, referring to the sides where his head was split.  “May your hand be struck with palsy whenever you draw blade, ‘til the tears of a saint washes it away!”

Now, this was not a terrible curse for either Manveru or Desu, who tended to use non-bladed weapons.  Nonetheless, again Nift was able to charm the head into retracting its curse.  Indeed, he was able to make the head quite jolly.  It offered them advice.

“Fear not to pay thy debts, though the aspect of the collector be terrible to behold.  That which you are bound to do is that which you must do.”  The head then turned to Nift.  “Wait by the hanged man where the crossroads meet.  When the raven plucks out its right eye, grab quickly that which falls to the ground.”

They could see neither crossroads nor hanged man in the immediate vicinity.  When questioned, the heads would say nothing more, save “Hurm” from the first head, “Hum” from the second, and “Hoom” from the third.  The heads lay drying on the bank, enjoying the sunshine, until Desu stuck his hand into Glam-Morgan’s split skull.  Then they all hopped back into the well.  Glam-Morgan’s skull squeezed tight, and he nearly pulled Desu in to drown.

The group continued on their way.

They were now moving into wilder lands.  The farmhouses and woodsman’s cots became fewer and farther between.  Still, the road was good, as it was often maintained at the command of the Baron Archer.

In the late afternoon, they came across a contingent of six orcs, well armed and strong, with pots of zurgâsh and bows.  For a few tense moments, the two groups stood their ground, choosing their positions.

“We do not wish to fight you,” Firestar said in the Dark Tongue.  “Step aside, and we will be on our way.  Or better yet, do you know of the Bonewardens?”

The orc lieutenant passed out dabs of grey paste to the warriors.  The orc captain stepped forward.  “What is your business with the Bonewardens?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“We are seeking them.”

The orc captain sized up the respective might of his troops, and of those they faced.  “All who would pass here must pay a toll,” he said at last.

“Really?” said Locke.  “And what do you expect us to pay?”

The orc captain began to answer, but at that moment their attention was drawn to the sound of two boars crashing through the woods to the north, toward their position.  They were huge, ancient creatures.  Their massed muscles were pulled over a frames more the size of black bears than boars.  Their tusks were long and wickedly sharp.  Spikes of bone protruded from their skulls, protecting their mean little eyes.

Desu reached into the Green.  Around the boars, the vegetation came to life, twisting around their limbs, restraining them.  But the boars were too strong.  They pulled against the entangling foliage.  Their charge was slowed, but not stopped.

Other feuds were, for the moment, forgotten.  The natural fury of the beasts made them a common foe.  The orcish archers stepped back, and began firing upon the boars, but the orcish warriors enraged by zurgâsh charged foolishly toward the foe, and were snared by vine and fern.  The stronger boar pushed easily toward the orcs, and sliced them to ribbons while they tried to bring their axes to bear.  One orcish warrior went flying into a tree, and moved no more.

Still, the orc archers were able to send arrows into the large animals.  As often as not, though, they glanced off – or broke upon – the boars’ tough hides.  The adventurers, the orc captain, and the lieutenant prepared to meet the creatures as they arrived.  One of the boars charged into the cart, killing the donkey.  With Gork leading the attack, the adventurers cut into the first boar while the second decimated the orcs.  With the first boar slain, they turned their attention to the second, and were able to slay it as well, for it had been heavily wounded by the orcs.

Only one orc – one of the archers – remained standing.  He looked at the adventuring party.  They were sorely wounded, but they were all standing.  It was not difficult to imagine how he would fare in combat against them.

“You have proved your valour in combat,” the orc said.  “You may go forward without paying a toll.”


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 29, 2004)

“You have proved your valor in combat,” the orc said, speaking in the Dark Tongue.  “You may go forward without paying a toll.”

The group looked at him in surprise.

“You think so?” said Gork, answering in the same language.

“I am Ragmar of the Black Skull tribe.  I am only a soldier – I do not ask why I fight; only who, and what spoils are mine.  I do not beg quarter.  I am an enemy of your people.  You will do what you must.  I only ask, come one at a time, and let us dance a while before the final darkness.”

“We aren’t going to kill you,” said Firestar.  “Leave this area, harming none, and you are free to go.”

The orc, Ragmar, blinked.  “Truly?”  When the party seemed to make no move to attack him, he lowered his weapon.  “Then I will tell you this:  I have no love for the Bonewardens you seek.  They are found beyond the river…” he waved back the way he had come “…and to the north.  They are deep in the councils of our chieftains, yet I fear it is unwise to trust in them.  They drag down the honor of our people.”

“I hope you don’t mind if we cut off these orcs’ ears,” Locke said.

Ragmar shrugged.  “Not if you treat the fallen with honor.  We also despoil the bodies of those we defeat, but thereafter they should be buried or burned, that their spirits may descend to Morgâsh.”  Orcs believed that their dark gods created the Fortress of Morgâsh to harden their spirits with dark fire until the end of time, when, led by demons, they would assail the heavens and throw them down in the final battle of the world.

The slain orcs had three short bows between them and a total of twenty-seven arrows remaining.  They had five great axes and five suits of scale mail.  One of the orcs had been carrying a clay pot of zurgâsh – there were five doses remaining.  These the party took, along with the orcs’ ears, throwing the spoils onto their cart.  Each orc also had a bundle containing food for three days (some form of greasy grey meat and rough bread), a wineskin filled with a pungent elixir (an alcohol of fermented mushrooms and meat, called morwine), and a bedroll.  These the party left to be burned along with the orcs’ bodies.

Ragmar took a drink from his own bottle.  It was very easy to get drunk with morwine, but it also removed fatigue and made one feel the pain of his wounds less.

They left Ragmar to mourn his companions in whatever manner he chose.  When they finally rested that night, the reddish-brown forest ants again attacked them, during the second and third watches of the night.

“This is going to keep happening until we do something about the skunk stink,” said Desu.

In the morning, they woke up and began to break camp, pausing only long enough to eat something and pack their goods.  Although they were growing accustomed to it, the smell of skunk still lingered on their cart and equipment, and may have at least been partly responsible for drawing creatures like the dire boars and the giant ants to them, as Desu had supposed.  Skunk spray could linger for weeks, or even months, and they feared that they were destined to have some exciting times ahead!  

In any event, they were quickly packed and moving.

At last they were passing away from the areas that had been cleared for timber and farmland.  As you moved into the deeper forest, two great trees formed an arch over the road, as though to mark the boundary between settled lands and the wilderness.  It was moving toward evening, but not yet twilight.

At various places along true roads in the Lakelands – such as that which they followed – travelers’ caches had been created to aid the desperate wanderer in the wild.  These could be recognized as tall cairns of stone, often containing necessary supplies within them.  These were free for the use of any who needed them, but it was incumbent upon travelers to make up for any loss at a later date.  

Indeed, when travelers found an empty cairn they were responsible for leaving supplies if they could – for the untamed wilderness was vast and unexpected needs arose.  These cairns were maintained by all, for the good of all, as a matter of honor and necessity.  Typically, they contained a knife, blankets, and the means to create fire as a bare minimum.

They were also sureties that travelers were on the right road.  The party sought sign of such a cairn as they traveled through the wilderness, but there seemed to be none.

After traveling for a few hours, they noticed that the new-budded leaves of spring had become thick and green, and there were blossoms in some of the trees.  Although it was the cusp of nightfall, the air was still warm and sweetly scented.  They occasionally catch glimpses of hidden forms darting among the tree branches – tiny humanoids, clad in leaf and moss, with or without tiny dragonfly wings.  The occasional tittering reached their ears.

As true twilight came, the path – for the road had become a path – took them to a clearing where they could easily make camp.

Manveru looked about at the trees, and found a thicket of thorn trees beside the camp.  He had the power, as a druid, to step into the Green and pass through such areas without harm.  He wished to meditate without distraction, so now he used this power, stepping off the path into the thorny thicket, and disappeared from sight.

Soon after Manveru had gone, the rest of the group was approached by a slender gnome with ruddy skin and curly red hair that seemed to move as though by a breeze.  He was dressed in red breeches and a bright yellow jacket.  He wore no armor, but they could see a sickle hanging from his belt.

“Who are you?” they asked.

“You may call me Bryne of Lig,” the small man said.  “Have you any food to share with a weary traveler?”

“I think we have enough to spare,” Nift said.  They took out a share of food, and gave it to the small gnome.  Instantly, it was consumed.

“Do you have any more?”

At first the party was reluctant to waste their supplies upon this being they did not know.  Then one of them realized that this must be the “red-haired lad” the first calcified head in the well had told them about, and they gave Bryne of Lig more food.  And more food.

When he had eaten enough for many days, Bryne of Lig smiled at them.  “That was but a modest repast, but it needs repaying,” he said.  “And so, I will tell you something to your benefit, and perhaps a bit more.  Aware of it or not, you have Passed Over, and there are rules you need to be aware of.  For you are no longer in the Middle World, but the Otherworld, which you may call the Spirit World or Faerieland, as you will.  To aid you in your journey, I will tell you three things:

“First, even the most gracious of creatures can prove fell to the greedy or rude.  Mind your tongues and your manners here, for the Good People are not all Good, nor even all People.  Gifts and insults must be repaid in kind, so be wary.

“Second, neither eat nor drink, but of that which you bring with you.  To taste the fruits of the Faerie Realm is to court disaster.

“Finally, and above all, _*stay on the path*_.  The path will always go where you need to go, though it will take its own time in getting there.

“Now, because you will forget, or because you will stray, or because you will be tricked from your proper course, I will teach you this rhyme.  Thrice you may call it, and if I hear I will come to aid you as best I am able.  Call it a fourth time, and _you_ will owe _me_ a debt, which I shall surely reclaim.  Ready?

“Come Bryne of Lig, Come Bryne of Lig,
By Branch and Bough and Tinder Twig.​
“Let me hear you say it.”

They repeated the words several times.  Bryne of Lig was patient with them, repeating the rhyme until he was certain that they had it memorized.  “Good,” he said at last.  “Then I shall depart as I came, with a hop and a pop and a burst of flame.”  He leapt into the air, and disappeared in a flash of light and fire.

While they had spoken to Bryne of Lig, summer came into the trees, though the day did not seem to have progressed at all.  They found that they could rest, and rest seemed to relieve fatigue, but any hurts they had taken remain as they were – neither healing nor growing worse.  They were in a land of eternal twilight; the dawn would not come so long as they remained there.  As magic in the Lakelands was tied to the passage of time, they realized that they had to make do with what spells they had, and what healing they carried.

It was then that Eden realized that disaster had already struck – Manveru had left the path!  As soon as she spoke, the rest of the group realized the truth.  They called for Manveru.  He did not answer.  Whether he did not hear them, or could not reply, they didn’t know.  They knew only that they could not leave the path to search for him, or they would never find it again.

Immediately, they fell to arguing.  Some said, “Call Bryne of Lig” and some said “No.”  Some said it was Manveru’s fault for stepping off the path in the first place, though he could hardly know that they were in Faerie when he did so.

At last Firestar decided the matter:  “Argue what we may, we cannot simply abandon him to his fate, and I am ashamed of you for even thinking it.”

They called Bryne of Lig.  It was harder than they thought, for indeed despite his making them repeat his rhyme; some thought he was “Brian of Leg”.

Meanwhile, Manveru had found himself in a thorn thicket indeed.  Miles of thorn trees stretched around him in all directions, without end.  He could not find the path.  When he called, he heard nothing in response, save the titter of diminutive fey hiding in the branches overhead.

Luckily, Manveru was a druid, and it took him a long time to panic.  He had just reached the conclusion that he would be unable to find his way back by any means, and thus would never see his companions again, when a little red-haired man stepped from behind a thorn tree.

“Would you like me to take you to your friends?” Bryne of Lig asked.

“Yes.”

“Then take my hand.”  With Bryne of Lig’s aid, Manveru was able to walk quickly through the trees and into the clearing where his friends awaited.  “That is one favor repaid,” said Bryne of Lig.  “Now I shall go as I came, with a hop, and a pop, and a burst of flame.”

Many in the group could not help remonstrating Manveru for his carelessness in stepping off the path, though he had not known they were in Faerie at the time.  Chief among these were Eden and Nift.  In the case of Nift, this proved ironic indeed, for in the events that followed Nift failed to heed any of the warnings the party had been given.

After a time, they grew used to seeing lights and figures dancing in the trees, and off the path.  Although the trees were once strong and vigorous with summer green, those leaves now turned red and gold as though the autumn was coming.  The fall of them washed the path, rustling around their feet.  The trees were heavy with succulent fruit, and berries were growing thick on the vines.  

They had, of course, heard stories of folk who wandered into Faerie young, and came out ancient, though seemingly little time had passed.  They had also heard tales of those who spent a single night in faerie revels, only to discover that the world had changed when they returned, and their grandchildren assumed them dead a century before.

Whether the changing of the seasons here had any relevance to what was going on in the Middle World they could not tell.  But it was troublesome.  And still, the eternal twilight went on.

About three days seemed to have passed, and their path was going into ever-higher country.  The waterskins that they filled before entering Faerie were much lighter; they were beginning to use the last mouthfuls available.  There were many small rills and natural fountains, crossing or beside the path, where they could refill them.  However, they remembered Bryne of Lig’s warning, and went on, parched instead.

Crouched in the wooded hills, they at last come to a house that was beside their path.  Indeed, the path allowed them to continue up into the hills, or to go directly to the small cottage.  

The last leaves had fallen, and there was a chill in the air.  There seemed to be no fire burning, for no smoke came from the chimney.  The wind tasted thick, as though snow were about to fall.

They went up to the cottage.  Firestar felt the evil coming from within emanating out in waves.  In answer to their knock, a thin, old voice answered:  “The door is unlatched.  Enter freely, and of your own will.”

This was the House of Bone.  It was covered by a glamour that makes it appear to be of stone, but when they looked closely, they could discern that the “stones” were in fact the bones of men, animals, and giants.

They walked forward, and pushed the door open.

The interior of the house was shrouded in cold and darkness, as though winter itself dwelt therein.  They could see a white cat curled up before the dead fireplace; it looked up at them with glowing green eyes.  

“Come in, come in,” the ancient voice called from a farther room.  “And close the door behind you.”

“Thank you,” called Locke, “but we are quite happy here.”  They chose not to enter, for they remembered the warning of the second head in the well.  They were polite, for they remembered the warning of Bryne of Lig.  

From a further room came the Old Bone Man, cold and white of skin, skeletally thin.  His eyes glowed with a red fire.  “Please, come inside.”

“No thank you,” said Nift, shivering in his summer attire.  “It is quite beautiful out here.  You should come out.”

The Old Bone Man made no move.

“We have wine!”  They held out a bottle that they carried.

“That is not the good red wine,” the Old Bone Man said.  His voice was as dry as the winter wind.  He looked up at them with his red eyes, and they could clearly see his desire.

“He’s a vampire!” said Firestar, recoiling in horror.  The Old Bone Man just grinned at him.  “He wants our blood!  We should not deal with this thing.”

“But we want the stick,” said Desu.

“There are many things I would trade for the good red wine.  Name your desire.”

But, before they could begin negotiating in earnest, a fey mood struck Locke.  As a jest, he said, “Spin around three times and bark like a dog.”

“Done!” the Old Bone Man cried with glee.  He spun around thrice, and barked.  “Now, give me what is mine.”

Locke scowled, for his jest had turned sour.  “Very well,” he said.  He took his dagger and sliced his arm, letting the blood drip into a cup.  He gave it to the Old Bone Man, who drank it with relish.

“Now, about the stick…” began Desu, but the Old Bone Man merely laughed.

“I have gained what I wished,” he said.  He tossed the emptied cup out of the House of Bone, and closed the door.


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 17, 2005)

*Seventeenth Game*

For a while they stood there, stunned.  For a moment’s jest, they had lost an object that they believed they needed.  After all, were it not some item of power, something they would need on their journey, why would the Three Heads of the Well have told them how to obtain it?

Desu gave voice to what they were all thinking:  “We need that stick.”

“Fine,” said Nift.  He threw back his cape and marched toward the door.  He rapped smartly on the door, but got nothing for his troubles but a muffled voice telling him to go away.  Instead, he reached down and pulled the door open.

The white cat flew at him, landing on his face, clawing and spitting.  It was cold…so very, very cold.  As it clawed at Nift, its breath was like ice.  Had Nift been alone, he would have been in severe trouble.  Yet he was not alone.  Firestar Dragonheart reached in and pulled the cat off Nift, cutting it in twain with the magical sword Nift had given him.  They threw the dead cat off the trail, and then turned toward the door.  It had closed, perhaps of its own accord.

Now, knowing better their danger, they made quick plans to open the door.  Eden prepared a spell, while Gork, Locke and Manveru made their weapons ready.  Desu looked grim.  Firestar stepped forward, and threw open the door once more.

This time, no mere cat faced them, but the Old Bone Man himself.  The very sight of him seemed to paralyze them with despair.  “If you will not leave me in peace,” the Old Bone Man said, “you shall never leave at all.”  He breathed out a cold wind upon them, and all it touched felt the strength run out of their limbs.  Laughing coldly, the Old Bone Man reached behind his door and pulled forth a rune-covered ash staff, shod at either end with knobs of cold iron.

Firestar and Gork leading the way, the party entered the House of Bone – which the Three Heads had told them not to do – with their weapons swinging.  Trying to find a more secure position, Nift stepped to the side of the door outside, and off the path.  Instantly, he was gone.  Inside, weapons seemed to have little effect upon the Old Bone Man.  Steel seemed barely to bite in his cold, hard flesh.  

Outside, it fell to Eden and Desu to call forth Bryne of Lig once more.

“Come Bryne of Lig, Come Bryne of Lig,
By Branch and Bough and Tinder Twig.”​
“What is it you need, my friends?” said the small, fire-haired gnome, who had appeared seemingly from nowhere.

“Can you bring back Nift, who has strayed off the path?” asked Eden.

“A simple thing,” said Bryne of Lig, and he stepped off the path, returning almost as swiftly with Nift in tow.  “That is twice I have aided you,” he said.  “I owe you a third time…shall I take care of yonder for you?”  He inclined his head toward the House of Bone.  The clamour of serious combat came from within.

“No,” said Desu.  He was worried that they might yet need to call upon Bryne of Lig’s aid another time, and he was concerned with what the small fey would want as a reward if they had no more favors owing.

“Then I shall come as I came,” said Bryne.  “With a hop, and a pop, and a burst of flame.”  He leaped into the air and burst into flame, disappearing into a little spark.

Within the House of Bone, Firestar had a sudden premonition that the Old Bone Man was about to use the ashen staff…and that if he did so, not a one of them would survive.  “The staff!” he shouted, and redoubled his efforts.

Risking all, Gork grabbed at the staff.  Gaining hold of it, he strained his mighty muscles, trying to wrest it from the Old Bone Man, whose eyes now blazed with red light.  With a twist and a heave, Gork pulled the staff free.  He stumbled backward with the sudden release.

“Run!” shouted Firestar.  “I will cover your retreat!”

They ran, back to the fork in the path, and up the slope.  Even with the danger behind them, they refused to relinquish their cart.  Luckily for them, the Old Bone Man did not pursue them beyond where the road forked.  Even so, Firestar was sorely wounded.  They had little magical healing left, and they well knew that wounds would not heal naturally so long as they remained in Faerieland.

The path continued to climb into the mountains beyond the House of Bone.  As the path grew steeper, it became increasingly difficult to pull the cart. Eventually, it required two people, and they were forced to go with extra care, or the cart would go crashing down the steep slope.

It felt as though five days had passed from the time they had fled the House of Bone to the time they approached the top of the pass.  It had been growing steadily colder as the elevation rose, until their spring clothing no longer provided adequate warmth.  Outside Faerieland, it would have been cold enough that freezing to death would have become a real concern. Here, they found themselves moving more slowly, and their reflexes were dulled.  At least at the top of the pass, when the cart was released, it did not immediately begin to skid down the path, as the snow impeded its progress.

In that place, they were attacked by an invisible ice faerie, but they made short work of it.

From the top of the pass, the path descended sharply, and soon they found themselves in warmer lands.  As the steep slope gentled, winter seemed to give way to spring, then spring flourished fully.  There were many tiny rivulets beside the path, and fruit was growing.  Hungry, and not at all certain that the warnings of Bryne of Lig were to be taken seriously, Nift tried some of the fruit.  He found it delicious indeed, but none of his companions would share his discovery with him.

Coming off the mountain, they saw ahead of them two huge longstones, each fully five feet wide and five times as tall, one on either side of the road. As they approached, a giant figure stepped from behind one of the stones. It was a knight clad in emerald green plate mail, bearing a huge greataxe. The creature was easily as tall as an ogre. 

“You all may pass,” it said, “save you, and you,” pointing to Desu and Locke.

Firestar paused to concentrate, seeking to know if the creature before him was evil.  He could sense nothing foul about it.

“Why not?” asked Locke.

“You have consumed my kin,” the Green Knight said.  “You have eaten the heads of pixies, and the stench of it is foul upon you.”

“No we haven’t!” said Desu.  “I never ate pixie heads!”

“What proof do you have?” asked Nift.

“Do not insult my honor,” said the Green Knight.  “What need I with proof?”

“I do not mean to insult you,” said Firestar, “but how do you know they have eaten pixie heads?”

“Servant of the Gods, how do you know that I am not evil?” the Green Knight rejoined.  “In the same way, I know that they consumed my kin.”

“You need proof!” Nift said.  “Who are you to accuse them of anything?”

The Green Knight lifted his greataxe and took one step forward.  Nift ran quickly, hiding behind the wagon.

“Insult me again,” the Green Knight warned, “and I will take thy life.”

A sudden remembrance came to Desu, and he shuddered.  A pile of turnips in that seemed for a moment to become a jumbled pile of tiny heads, that he stewed with boar’s meat and consumed.  Only he and Locke remained from that time, when he had met the old crone whose donkey they rescued.

“I would make things right,” he said.  “What must we do?”

“One of you must undertake this challenge:  three blows with this axe I will allow you to take.  If I live, in a year and a day you must come to me, and I will be granted three blows in return.”

“Does it matter who does what?” Desu asked.  “Must the one who takes the blows be the one who receives them?”

“I care not, so long as one of you does this thing.”

“You can’t make them do that!” said Nift.  “You have no right!”  He scurried away again when the Green Knight turned his attention his way.

“Your life is forfeit,” the Green Knight said.

“Very well, said Locke, in an attempt to forestall anything worse from happening.  “I will accept your challenge.”

Locke took the great axe from the Green Knight, who knelt on the path before him.  His first blow barely cut into the Green Knight’s massive neck, but his second blow did better.  On the third blow, the Green Knight’s head rolled to the ground.

Nift came out of hiding.

The emerald-clad knight rose to his feet, his nine-foot height shortened by the loss of his head.  Unerringly, the creature lifted his head by the hair and turned it  face the travellers. “I will see you in a year and a day,” the Green Knight said to Desu and Locke. Turning the head to where Nift stood open-mouthed at the figure's rising, he added, “You I will see far sooner.” The green figure stepped behind one of the massive longstones and disappeared, leaving a scent like ozone behind.


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## Odnasept (Jan 18, 2005)

*How sweet it is*

Reading the intricately-realized quality of your campaign world just makes me want to play again all the more, to have some level (2 or 3 presumably, yet one may dream) of effect on it (hopefully for good this time, as opposed to for awesome (what with the whole Bael Ebrous/Soul Striker thing)).

On a similar note, that last session has always been one of my favourites (along with the Next One, the Cyclopean City, Firestar's Becoming a Dragon, Siluria and the Giant Psionic Silurian Fish, etc.) and has me wondering: was that THE Old Bone Man? The one people offer sacrifices to? If so, then it really was alot like the Gandalf vs Balrog (whom John and I like to call Lessgoth because it's not as powerful as Morgoth or Gothmog) Isaidflyyoufoolswhyareyoustillhere thing! That foe was WAAAAAAAAAAY beyond any of us (which would explain the power of the staff)!

Anyway, if you would like, I can always scan in my map of the Bonewardens' Dragonskull Dungeon for the group (we could even compare it to Locke's). Did I mention I look forward to when we can get everyone here and play again?


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 27, 2005)

*Eighteenth Game (Part One)*

The group passed beyond the longstones into a rocky, sloping land, which gave way to forest all around.  Nift looked about nervously as he passed the stones, afraid that the Green Knight might be hiding behind the stones.  He was not.  They passed safely beyond, still following the path.  Clumps of small trees – poplar and jack pine – grew amid the abundant heather to either side. The tiny flowers scented the air. It was spring where they were, and the drone of the honeybees was loud.

After a short time – it seemed less than half an hour – the travellers became aware of another party approaching them, coming the opposite direction on the same path.  The other party seemed to glow with a soft greenish-yellow light in the twilight.  It was a large group, at least two dozen figures on cream-colored or black horses and many more tiny figures that flitted like living lanterns amid their party.

As they drew closer yet, Firestar could see that the riders looked like very tall and slender elves – he realized that they are taller than the average human. The elven-looking people were dressed all in black and gold. The males wore doublet and hose, with rapiers hanging from their belts, while the females were dressed in fancy gowns, wasp-waisted with black-and-yellow hoop skirts that made them seem rather bell-like. Their skin was a pale hue, like new butter, and their hair was either as black as a raven's wing or as golden as honey dripping from the comb. The tiny fairies flitting about them seemed much of the same sort, though smaller. The drone of their wings made an audible buzzing, even when the riders were still one hundred yards away.

By unanimous consent, the adventurers came to a halt, and waited for the wondrous company to approach.  They drew no weapons.

When the faeries were a dozen yards away, it was clear that the fey party centered around a tall and regal-looking woman, whose black hair was worn up in a hive bound by a golden diadem glittering with shiny black jewels. She glanced at the adventurers blocking the path with a rather vacant stare, then went back to doting the mortal child she carried on her horse. 

The child could not be more than five months old, but her eyes as she glanced at the adventurers showed interest and cunning far more than one would expect from a person in her middle age.

One of the males stung his horse slightly with his long spurs, coming toward the adventurers with a quick movement. He was dressed in black hose and a yellow jacket. His black hair was worn long, with a sharply pointed beard and moustaches.  Like the other faeries, he was tall and elfin, with pointed ears and a narrow waist. 

As he addressed the adventurers, Firestar realized that the faerie’s eyebrows swept forward into tall antennae – a feature he then realized was common among the riders and their diminutive swarm. 

“Make way for Queen Beatrice,” the faerie knight said. “Clear the path.”

“Um,” said Desu, “would it be okay if we went to the side of the path, and you went around?”

“I am Sir Humm-a-Buzz, the Queen's Champion. If you will not yield the path, select a champion from among your number, and I shall duel him for the right of way. If your champion fails, you shall leave the path. If I fail, our Rade shall disperse, yielding the path to you.”

“What if we put a rope across the path?” Locke asked.  “Maybe we could hold the rope, and find the path again that way?”

“I don’t think so,” said Desu.

“Good Sir,” said Nift, addressing the faerie knight.  “We mean no disrespect, but we can’t leave the path….”

Sir Humm-a-Buzz frowned.  “If you have no taste for honorable combat,” he said, “I shall have my warriors” – he indicated the hundreds of tiny fairies about the party – “drive you from the path. I shall grant you a moment to consider, and to choose your champion.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” said Desu.  “We cannot leave the path.  Firestar, do you think you can yet fight?”

“I am sorely wounded,” Firestar replied, “but I will attempt it, if I must.”  Having taken the brunt of the Old Bone Man’s attacks, it was doubtful that he would have lasted long against the slender fey.

“I can fight,” said Locke.  They used the very last of their healing magic upon him to prepare him for the battle.

“Should we call upon Bryne of Lig?” someone asked, but the idea was quickly voted down.  They somehow knew that they would need aid a third time from that one, and that the aid they would need would be more dire than that which they needed now.

Sir Humm-a-Buzz dismounted, and his squire led his horse back to the faerie Rade.  Queen Beatrice's eyes no longer seemed so vacant – she looked on with interest, as did the changeling child at her breast.  Sir Humm-a-Buzz swished the air a few times with his rapier, limbering his arm. 

“Lay on then,” he said, “'til one of us falls, or is dead, or cries mercy upon the other. Prepare for my sting!”

As Locke and Sir Humm-a-Buzz fought, Nift quickly checked the strings on his guitar and began to play.  Almost instantly, a swarm of tiny, angry faeries surrounded him, flitting about with miniscule rapiers drawn.

“What?  I just…” he started.  Then, realizing that they knew he hoped to inspire Locke with his playing, he allowed his fingers to falter on the strings.  

Locke and Sir Humm-a-Buzz exchanged taps with their sword.  Sir Humm-a-Buzz’s blade was slender in comparison to Locke’s weapon, but the faerie knight was quick.  Locke drew first blood, but Locke was bloodied more often as the rapier stung him again and again.  At one point, Sir Humm-a-Buzz unfolded transparent, wasp-like wings as he leapt back to avoid Locke’s cut.  The fey turned side-stepped another cut and stabbed Locke again.

Locke stumbled back, tired and hurt.  He was bleeding from a score of wounds.

“Enough,” he said.

Queen Beatrice clapped her hands lightly.  The droning buzz of the flying fey quieted almost immediately. “Well fought,” she said in a voice like warm honey. “We are amused. Yet time tarries not, and the first stars have appeared in the sky. We must away.”

“Wait a minute!  Is there some way that we could…” Desu began.

“Have you no honor?” Sir Humm-a-Buzz said angrily.  “Your champion has lost.  Cede the path, or I shall have my warriors sweep you from it.”

Sullenly, the group surrendered the path.  As they stepped off it, they expected to be whisked away, separated in Faerieland.  Perhaps lost forever.

But it was not so.  Looking back the way they came, they could see that the mountain of the Old Bone Man was gone.  Where it had been there was now a low, rocky hill, treeless but for a single large, leafless oak at its crown. The path went back, seemingly to the hill, which was surmounted by a henge of dark shadows standing out against the darkening sky.  For the sky was indeed darkening, and the stars were winking into sight. The long twilight was over.

Sir Humm-a-Buzz called for his horse. He mounted, and then inclined his head toward Locke. "Well fought," he said. The faeries tapped spurs and made their way along the path toward the two longstones, which now seemed weathered and bent, no longer the proud stones they appeared in Faerieland.  As the riders passed between the stones, they faded out like old paint, until at last they vanished completely.

The company spoke briefly, and then decided to continue travelling along the path to the north.  Soon it became clear that both Gork and Nift were in trouble.  Gork was racked with chills, and he was coughing cold phlegm from his lungs.  “It is the staff,” Desu declared.  “The one we got from the House of Bone!  I will not touch it!”

Nift’s affliction was different, for he had eaten Faerie fruits, and now he suffered their loss.  He recalled how he had eaten fruits plucked from that twilight land where summer ripens at all hours.  He began to pine and pine away; he would eat no mortal food but sought Faerie fruits by night and day.  Finding them no more, he dwindled and grew grey.

For four days they travelled northward.  Gork grew colder and weaker.  Pines and evergreens began to dominate the forest.  Nift refused to eat.  At one point, they spotted what must surely have been a sabre-toothed tiger crouched beside the trail ahead.  Desu tried to befriend it, but it growled and ran off instead.

Frightened for Gork, they tried to summon Bryne of Lig.  When he did not come, they reasoned that he would only respond if they were in Faerieland.  They would have to travel back to the place where Locke had fought Sir Humm-a-Buzz.

“What about me?” asked Nift.  “I fear I am dying also.  I ate and ate my fill, and yet my mouth waters still; you cannot think what apples my teeth have met in, pellucid grapes without one seed, and sugar-sweet their sap.”

“But you are not dying yet,” Desu returned.  “If we do not save Gork soon, he will be beyond our ability to save at all.”


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## the Jester (Feb 11, 2005)

Good stuff!  I like it.


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## MK-Ultra (Feb 18, 2005)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> *Sixth Session*
> 
> 
> “What he meant was, pleased to meet you,” said Locke smoothly, stepping up.  “Let me buy you a drink.”




Eh, I remember sixth session, way back when . . .
Sure this version may sound better, but I'm quite proud of the real story of Krog and Forent's conversation:
Krog: Are you made of steak?
(Forent's fumin' an' cursin')
Desu: Uh, He meant to say It would be a miSTAKE . . .    to, uh, challenge you to a drinking contest.

Two statements from two great PC's. Krog's belying an uncharacteristic knowledge of cuts of meat. And Desu, humble, quiet man who can smoothly defend his comrades. 'Cept when they spend 3 freakin' hours deciding to open a door!!! Looking forward to that, hehehe   . Oh man, crazy staff of winter antics . . .

Hey you! keep up the good work with the stories!


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## Richard Rawen (Aug 3, 2007)

*Again  !  ?  !*

Well Damn and BLAST! Once again a great story unfolds only enough to lure your interest... and no more.


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## Raven Crowking (Aug 5, 2007)

Richard Rawen said:
			
		

> Well Damn and BLAST! Once again a great story unfolds only enough to lure your interest... and no more.





Well, now that I know someone's reading this, I'll have to dig up my session notes and continue.....


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## Lopke_Quasath (Jun 3, 2008)

Please continue 

I am about to use your encounters with my group and I am curious about the cross-roads and what happens there. Quite the fascinating read, too!


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