Red, Green, Blue, Bronze, Gold, and Silver, the simple yet brilliant colors of the Ancient Dragons that rule Draconia, a continent equally divided into 6 pieces, regions based off the rule of each of the 6 Dragons. The Dragons preface that they are neither good nor evil, that all they seek is a willingness to maintain peaceful and orderly rule of their domains.
Among my race the Dragonkin are revered with awe and ion some cases fear. Many of the elders remember a time when the Dragonkin were not so kind and would give little thought of other races and creatures on the continent in their quest for gold and precious jewels.,
My name is Kalamitee Wolfsmoon and I am a Cleric of the Eladrin and have spent most of my years in the Feywild forests among the creatures of my Goddess Sehanine.
10 years past I left the Feywild, at the request of my parents, so that I may learn of the other races outside of our home and see the worlds and maybe even the various regions of the Dragonkin.
The land outside of the Feywild was vast and vacillated from beautiful fields, mountains and forests to desolate arid deserts not to mention cities and towns laid out precariously and at random by the Human Race. Some of the humans, such as those in the smaller towns, were welcoming and friendly to travelers regardless of their race, whereas the humans of the larger towns, keeps and cities tended to look down upon me with scorn and ire. How so many people could live in the conditions that the city dwellers did, was beyond me. The stench of the bodies and waste enclosed in narrow winding streets and allies was way too much for me to handle and I made sure to arrive and depart as quickly as I could, occasionally stopping at the local Clerics' hovel to greet my colleagues and maybe learn a new skill or two.
At the town of Lochlainn, while visiting the local Clerics' hovel I was told of a city called Ancor where there was Cleric's School that they thought that I may grow in my studies at. Though I was not fond of the human cities, the next morning I packed my small backpack and headed off towards the North.
Towards dusk of my third day of traveling I came upon an Oasis with a merchant there selling wood and food. Since he was the only merchant there, his prices were quite steep I was able to barter 13 logs for the fire for 10 gold. With the sun sinking quickly I prepared the fire and asked the Ranger stand off in the shadows to spare some fire from his pipe to light it ablaze. Once the warmth of the fire began to emanate a bit beyond the ring, the other travelers began to relax and take part of the warmth. The Ranger who introduced himself as Alek Redmont was a human male who kept to himself and spoke very little. Next to him stood a Tiefling Warrior name Zerkorza Zaidai who spoke even less. The last of the travelers was a Halfling Thief....sorry Rogue (just a fancy name for thief if you ask me), name Morobunce Greenhills. The other travelers had moved off into their own groups earlier in the evening which left just the 4 of us at the fire. After the merchant had packed up his wares and left for the evening we all agreed that it might be good to set a watch for the night.
Alek and Morobunce took the first and second shifts respectively, and once they turned in Zerkorza took over. While on her watch she heard chanting, but it quickly faded when she stood to investigate. Returning to her seat near the fire, she resumed her watch and then chanting came again. This time the chanting was close enough that it pulled at the edges of my trance and alerted me to potential danger. As I exited my trance, we were approached by three armed strangers. Alek and Morobunce were knocked unconscious when they started to wake at the commotion caused by Zerkorza who was still near the firering. I has used my Feystep abilities to move back into the shadows to see where the chanting was coming from and that was the last thing I remembered until I came to in the most uncomfortable position tied down onto a stone slab.
In the dim light torchlight I could see the walls were lined with skulls that seemed to hold not only secrets, but unanswered screams and cries of torment. Others gave you the feeling that there was something otherworldly watching you waiting for your demise. There were 4 stone tables in the circular room, each containing grooves for bloodletting. I could see that the Ranger and Halfling were tied down much like I was, and the ropes from the 4th table had been broken apart and laid upon the floor in shreds. I could hear the Ranger struggling to get free from his binds, not knowing if they had been enchanted or not I tried to Feystep away and found myself going nowhere. (That answered that question, didn't it?) I gave a good yank on my arm ropes and they came apart, from there I proceeded to undo my leg restraints and then went over to help the poor ranger with his.
I asked Alek if he knew where the Warrior had gone and he just shrugged and said he had no idea, but wondered if she had wandered down the open doorway that was dimly lit. He then asked if we wanted to go look for the Warrior or free the Halfling who was still unconscious on the table. I yanked on the upper ropes holding down the Halfling who came to as we struggled to get him untied. Once free we decided that we would explore the hallway and see if the Warrior had exited through there or if she had been taken off to her own demised or , running away leaving us to our own demise at the hands of the religious nuts that were probably on the other side of the door where the chanting was coming from.
Much to the surprise of the party, we found the Warrior rummaging around in a barracks room.
“Were you trying to escape without freeing us?” asked the Halfling.
The Warrior turned, startled. “No,” she said rather quickly. “I was looking for our weapons and armor.”
Something in the Thief's eyes and body language told me that she was lying. I guess I couldn't really blame her for trying to take flight. After all, when you wake up starting a skulls stripped of flesh & muscle starting at you with empty eye sockets from the walls of a dimly lit room, while being tied to a bloodletting stone, you're first reaction it to get out of there as fast as possible, plus Warriors aren't always known for doing much more than charging into whatever is coming at them. I couldn't have left anyone behind though, too much of my upbringing and the fact that the pack mentality of the wolf courses through my veins, it would have bothered me for eons.
As we rummaged through the room looking for something to use as a makeshift weapon I turned around and came face to face with an alter with an image of the God of War, Bane. As I told the history of Bane and how it was his desire to rule and enslave the world while crushing his opponents and non-believers of his rule, the Halfling sneered in disgust and flung the idol across the room.
After ransacking the room and finding nothing of use aside from a makeshift club that the Ranger made from a bed leg, we headed back up the hall. We could hear chanting from the door opposite the room and the faint smell of copper came from the door to our right. Taking a chance we entered that door and began to walk down the hallway, the coppery smell of blood growing thicker the closer we got to the door at the end of the hall.
As soon as we opened the door and saw the skinned, beheaded bodies hanging from the rafters with our gear piled off to the left of the room. The smell hit us all and Alek doubled over and began to vomit, followed soon by the rest of us. It took everything we had to grab out gear and run back up the hallway to the room with the tables. After taking inventory of our gear, we redressed and rearmed ourselves and made our way to the third door. Morobunce checked for and disarmed the traps that had been placed and we started to make our way down the hall when we came to a second door where the chanting was much louder. The Thief again checked and disarmed the traps at the door and peered in. He counted 6 cult members in a circle around a sconce chanting in some foriegn tongue.
Closing the door he reported what he saw and we formulated a plan of attack. I could see in the Halflings eyes that this was not something that he was thrilled with doing, but he knew it was a necessity for us to survive. Slowly he opened the door and disappeared into the shadows momentarily before springing on the first cult member, and digging his knife deep into his back. From there we all moved into the door as a well formed unit. I took out one of them with my cross bow and then Alek and Zerkorza took out three more. We tried to break the final member from his trance to no avail and in finally put a crossbow bolt through his neck ending his chanting. As the 1st cultist fell we noticed the sconce began to close on a reptilian hand and you could hear the agonizing, yet angry scream as the portal closed.
Taking a moment to regroup and piece together what was going on, we turned and headed down the wide hallway on the opposite side of the room, each step bringing us closer to a door where we could see daylight peering through.
Morobunce checked the door for traps again and disarmed a very nasty poisoned needle trap before peering out the door noticing a caravan of three men sitting on their packs. As we came out the door the men jumped up and stood there in shock as we exited into the sunlight. I recognized one of the men from the Oasis and approached him trying to be diplomatic and negotiate information from them to no avail. They clearly didn't want to give us any information other than the price of 1000 Gold on each of our heads that they were to be paid by the Cultists. They then drew their weapons to attack, the third member of their party staying toward the back of the group. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was a Mage of some sort and that he was preparing to cast spells against us. I tried to counter his spells with a few of my own, but I was not yet experienced with my magic and I missed my quarry a few time. Morobunce went after the Mage with a fury equal to not other and with no regard to himself or his life.The Mage went to cast one last spell, unaware of his surroundings he took a step back into a puddle of water and his spell rebounded into him knocking him down. Just as the Halfling was about to fall, I cast a healing spell to keep him on this side of the grave, he was a brave soul despite being a thief.
Exhausted and injured the Mage explained that he and his companions had been approached by the Cult member to capture us and deliver them to this secret location. They were to await payment from the Cult upon the completion of our demise and were astounded to see us exit the cavern door.
Alek and Zerkorza wanted to leave him to a tree, but even that was too cruel for us to do, so we decided to bring him with us to the city of Ancor. I took his wand and his spell book although it was encoded in text that only the Mage himself could decipher.
Upon arriving at the City, we were stopped by the guardsmen who wanted us to surrender our weapons and queried why we had the Mage bound. Not believing our story, I requested that we speak with the Captain of the Guard wherein we turned over the Mage, who was as well known felon and was wanted for his actions of kidnapping and other dubious deeds.
After speaking further with the Captain of the Guard about the Cultists and their locations, a runner was sent and we were informed that we were to go see the Magistrate. Tired, hungry and in much need of a bath we all protested, but our grumbling was ignored.
We were escorted by one of the Guards to the Magistrate's office where we again told our story of our encounter with the Cult. He then sat there for a moment taking it all in and then turned to us and asked if we would be interested in taking on a few jobs at the request of the Magistrate. We all looked at each other and shrugged, wondering if we could really take on the jobs and work together as a cohesive unit. Warily we accepted his offer and were rewarded with training from each of our respective Guild houses and the promise of pay.
While I should have been happy at the prospect, all I really wanted was a comfortable bed and a hot bath.
After I acquired those and some dinner at the Cleric's Guild House, I laid in bed and wondered just what I had gotten myself into and if I could trust those that I would be traveling with.
No comments:
Post a Comment