The group lacks only Tim (Bango), who is being forced to read Plato's Republic. Dan is a touch leisurely about showing up, which lets the rest of us slack off about being ready to go. The group consists of Paul (Thorn Spinner), Bruce (Belwin Linnet), Chris (Elias Sang'aree) and Nick (Ooth).
Before the game proper starts, everyone spends some time trying to figure out where the various mysterious items the characters have found have actually gone. After a certain amount of debate and discussion, we determine:
Ooth once again spends time plucking another spell out of the aether (or, actually, nature). He learns Winds of Deflection, which he presumes will make him truly invincible.
The characters spend a week in Trask, learning in the process that there are actually residents in the town able to tell their asses from holes in the ground. The characters hadn't met up with them in the past because these townsfolk normally spend their time doing useful things, rather than sitting in front of their tents all day waiting for free food and water to come by.
This discovery brings into question how exactly the alchemist Thraac is able to produce useful alchemical potions, considering that he does spend his time sitting in front of his tent waiting for the free food and water. The characters decide that they can leave this mystery unsolved for the moment.
After the characters spend a week hanging around their tent eating low-quality food, the t'skrang riverboat Proud Mary docks at Trask. The characters immediately arrange for passage. As they walk up to the boat, they notice the alchemist Thraac walking in the same direction, loaded down with an array of colored bottles suspended from a wooden yoke. Thorn Spinner briefly irritates Thraac by trying to trade various useless or inappropriate objects (trees, dirt, whatnot) for a drink from one of the bottles.
The t'skrang aboard the Proud Mary trade timber to the people of Trask, mostly in exchange for Thraac's potions. The other folk of Trask don't seem to have much to trade, though they do offer up a variety of exotic animal parts, including salamander blood, lighting lizard eyes (which are supposed to be quite valuable), and a variety of stuffed heads.
The Captain of the Proud Mary explains to the characters that they are headed towards the mouth of the Mist Swamps, where they intend to trade with the Fire Barge Folk. They need to purchase Elemental Fire and need to get two of their fire cannons repaired (the captain explains that they had, "a little confrontation"). After they visit the swamps, they had actually planned on visiting Belhanna. The trader Omasu is on board, and (according to some of the crew) he expects to be able to obtain domesticated dyres in exchange for lumber. Elias, remembering that Tz'kri had made some ill-advised promises along these lines, is horrified. He thinks about talking to Omasu and disabusing him of his beliefs, but then decides that that would put the characters' free ride in jeopardy. He manages to persuade the captain to give the characters passage to Belhanna in exchange for service as guards.
Shortly after boarding the riverboat, the characters run into Ike, the ship's engineer. He is quite happy to see the group. He tells the characters that his fungal problems are doing much better, ever since he started just scraping it off. He also is pleased with the fact that he was able to inflate his wattles to a full eight inches. The characters are deprived of an opportunity to witness this feat, however, as he wants to save it for an occasion when there are some t'skrang females around.
Posturing and skin fungus aside, Ike has some important news. The crew of the Proud Mary recently pulled another of the group's members up off the water. Cassidy was in poor shape, but appeared to have been rather badly poisoned. His wounds have healed, but he remains catatonic and can't be roused. The characters' Jungle War Canoe is tied up to the side of the riverboat, and has obviously seen some action: it's hull is cracked where it hit a rock, and a spear was actually thrust through the hull. There are also a series of arrow impacts along the thwarts.
The characters look at Cassidy and agree that there are no visible marks on him, though he remains near-unconscious. They find that the riverboat crew have tied him into a hammock so he won't fall out in rough weather. Ooth examines Cassidy's pattern and concludes that it is flowing normally. He thinks for a moment, then claims that there are some alchemical potions that might bring him around.
Elias cuts Cassidy out of the hammock and tries to get Thraac the alchemist to look at him. Unfortunately, the alchemist is quite busy trading with the t'skrang and is just feeding off the attention. Elias defers briefly to Belwin Linnet on the theory that the Swordmaster might be slightly more polite, and thus more likely to be able to get Thraac's help. Belwin flatters Thraac mercilessly, finally persuading him to look at Cassidy in exchange for his used Death Cheat charm. Thraac claims (with a lot of nonsense explanation) that he will not be able to work well until the night, because the starts aren't right. Belwin is willing to accept this, and Elias heads off to Omasu to get him to hold off on the Proud Mary's departure until midday tomorrow.
At this point Ooth, who knows something about alchemy, points out that alchemy has nothing to do with the phase of the moon. He suspects that Thraac isn't really much of an alchemist and is almost certainly hiding something. He suggests that this is a good opportunity to learn what secrets Thraac is hiding. Everyone else agrees, especially when it develops that Thorn Spinner will be taking point in the project.
Elias talks to Omasu, who has the unctuous politeness of a successful merchant, and disillusions him on the progress of the dyre domestication project. He explains that the original project was conceived by the t'skrang Tz'kri, who recently died in the Badlands heroically saving his comrades from the claws of a Sand Crab. He notes that Tz'kri had the poor habit of making (and then promptly forgetting) a lot of promises along those lines. Omasu isn't too happy to hear this, and suggests that without some sort of trading goods available in Belhanna he won't have the riverboat dock there. Belwin mentions that the Kaer is mining Elemental Air, and might be willing to trade it for lumber. Belwin claims that he is often heard by the Belhanna Council, and will speak on Omasu's behalf. Omasu agrees that he has heard Belwin's name in association with the Council, though he's not so sure of the context.
For no particularly good reason, the characters spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about christening their little coterie. They kick around a number of suggestions, finally settling upon the name Dog Watch. The notion is that most of their actions have been in the interest of Belhanna, though often against the desires of official authority. In a similar vein, the dog watches are the odd hours of the day, and are appropriate to unusual actions. To commemorate the formal creation of the Dog Watch, the characters are allotted group Karma Dice, amounting to one Karma Die (appropriate by race) for each member. Dog Watch currently has two d4, one d8 and one d10 as group Karma Dice.
At nightfall the group sets the windling Thorn Spinner to following Thraac at a close distance, protected (at least for four minutes) by Ooth's Shadow Meld spell. He watches Thraac sleeping in his tent for some hours, getting more and more bored as he does. Eventually, he thinks to search the tent, verifying that there is nothing close to alchemical equipment inside.
After nightfall, Thraac thrashes to alertness. He picks up a lantern on a stick, lights it, and heads out of town in a stealthy but terribly incompetent manner. Thraac follows him with ease, watching as he enters the edge of the Badlands and creeps into a small cave.
The remaining characters follow Thorn Spinner out. Ooth recasts Shadow Meld upon the little windling for good measure. Thorn Spinner sneaks into the cave to find Thraac (the ork) brutalizing a disheveled and tied-up troll. Thraac hurls ingredients at the troll until the troll picks them up and starts working on a potion. Thorn Spinner glances into astral space and learns that the troll's pattern is very strong, but strangely isolated. Even worse, the creature appears to have some sort of tumorous astral growth in his head. In contrast, Thraac's pattern appears to be extremely weak, almost nonexistent. During this time, the other characters note that the troll acts like an idiot savant, hovering obsessively over his work.
The characters walk into the cave and confront Thraac, who is quite standoffish. He claims that he's making good on his part of the agreement, and that the characters should leave. He claims that he found the troll in a settlement upriver, and that the locals were mistreating and abusing the poor creature. He brings the troll food and gives him shelter. Ooth tries to talk to the troll, who is only barely able to talk but who can mumble out that his name is Bron, and that Thraac is "faaa-aaa-aaamily."
The characters end up in a shouting match with Thraac that fundamentally goes nowhere. Efforts to threaten and cajole Thraac appear to be useless. Elias complains that Bron is chained, but Thraac explains that he would hurt himself otherwise. Elias finally heads back into the town, fetches Cassidy and brings him back to the cave. Along the way, he runs into a couple of townsfolk and tries to get past them by explaining that he might have found a cave with "healing waters" in it. The townsfolk betray all sorts of interest, and practically insist that they be allowed to go along, even after Elias explains that the "water" smells and tastes like oil, that there are poisonous rats about, and that one of them bit Belwin and sent him into a berserk rage. He finally slips away from the townsfolk when they go to get some cages for the rodents.
It takes the troll several hours to finish the potion for Cassidy. The characters force the potion down his throat. After a half-hour, he stops sweating and starts to regain consciousness. He is disoriented, and is initially only able to shout out, "Aaaah! Aaaah! The t'skrang!"
When Cassidy regains some measure of sensibility, the rest of his story comes out. He and Tz'kri fell to arguing about what they should do about the other characters (who at the time were severely Horror-Marked). Eventually, Tz'kri decided he would swim to try and rejoin the rest of the group, while Cassidy paddled back to Belhanna. Along the way, he was attacked by an eclectic gang of warriors led by a horrible savage t'skrang with way too many teeth. They poisoned him after a terrific fight. He lost consciousness just as he saw a riverboat come around the curve of the river.
While Cassidy tells his story, Ooth puts Divine Aura into a fetish and studies Bron's aura. It takes him some hours, but he concludes that Bron is an idiot-savant, with the instinctive ability to manufacture alchemical potions if the proper ingredients are put in front of him.
At this point, Thraac falls to the floor and has some sort of seizure. He struggles back to his feet at the mouth of the cave, then staggers out of the cave and promptly falls over. The characters finally realize that he is suffering from the effects of suppressing orkish jihad, induced when Belwin told him how he should be caring for Bron.
Nobody pays any attention to the fact that Thorn Spinner is busily memorizing recipes from Thraac's recipe book.
Both Elias and Ooth are interested in taking Bron back to Belhanna so he can be cared for by the local troll population. They think that Bron would enjoy a lot of empathy from the Belhanna trolls. He is clearly touched by the Passions, and needs to have constant care and supervision. Belwin suggests that Thraac hasn't actually taken such bad care of Bron, and should be allowed to continue caring for (and using) him. Both of the trolls in the group look at him as if he were insane. Elias finally tells Thraac that he can come along, but that the characters are taking Bron. Thraac sullenly claims, "I'll go along for the time being."
During this conversation, Bron demonstrates that he really does need to be restrained as he notices Thorn Spinner and lumbers his way, arms outstretched and calling out, "Pretty!" Thorn Spinner takes evasive action.
The characters head to the Proud Mary, with Thraac and Bron added to their group. They bring along Thraac's book of alchemical formulas.
Thorn Spinner and Ooth negotiate with Omasu to get paper and writing implements. They agree to allow him to transcribe the formula for the Healing Potion in exchange. It turns out that Omasu is a Troubador, and is quite fond of wearing clothing made from long strings of beads. Thorn Spinner does his best to transcribe good copies of Thraac's alchemy book, making two rather questionable copies for the group and one more for Omasu.
The rendezvous point at the mouth of the Mist Swamps is already occupied by a number of t'skrang boats, all of them waiting for the Stone Barge to show up and repair their fire cannons. Captain K'Tina expects that the Stone Barge Folk will show up within a month, unless they were devoured by the dragon. If they don't show up within the next two months, he will assume that they were eaten, and will head off to face the pirates and the enemy houses without repairing his fire cannons.
While Ooth is watching Bron, Elias talks to the Captain to learn how the t'skrang fight against each other. He is surprised to learn that the t'skrang have strict rules of combat. They really try to avoid killing anybody. If a fighter is hurt, he is expected to simply sit down and give up. Fire-cannons are used only against ships, to slow them down and make boarding easier. The fight continues until one side surrenders and gives up 10% of it's cargo.
Elias is both impressed with this very humane means of settling disputes and appalled by the need to follow all these rules, but he agrees to abide by them. He persuades the Captain to teach him how to use a fire-cannon. It turns out that each cannon requires a crew of two or three, and is pretty simple to use. The t'skrang won't let him actually fire the cannon (the ammunition is too expensive), but they do let him practice aiming it a lot.
Belwin spends his time learning how to leap around the Proud Mary, following the example of the t'skrang. They are very enthusiastic about his new hobby, but are much better at it than he is. He responds by learning the Great Leap talent from Elias, thanks to his Versatility. He spends 100 Legend Points gaining Great Leap Rank 1. He also spends some time in Taunting contests with the t'skrang. His taunts continue to be as pathetic as those he hurled against the Wyrm-Skull Horror.
The riverboat crews spend their time swimming from boat to boat, playing games, trading and exchanging gossip. They also corral large schools of fish, leading to a much-improved diet.
There are many rumors going through the fleet, a lot of them quite fantastic. Some of the more interesting include:
The characters ask the local t'skrang if they know anything about their two mystical objects, the Golden Ring and the Obsidian Spear. They aren't too useful.
Lacking anything else to try, Ooth tries putting the ring on. The world he sees is immediately gone and he finds himself in the middle of a huge city, with massive ziggurats and mighty towers everywhere. Crowds of well-dressed and happy people throng the streets. Most are human or elven, but every race is represented. All are clothed in bright colors. Ooth tries to talk to a troll, and is disconcerted when the troll walks right through him (the other characters see him emit a short, surprised shout). He takes the ring off, and finds himself back on the ship.
During the time Ooth wore the ring his face was passive but he continued to walk around. He finds that he's able to explore the city only as far as the deck of the ship allows him to.
Thorn Spinner tries the ring next, as the characters reason that he can explore further by flying than the other characters can by walking. He finds that if he puts the ring on while he is flying, ground level appears at whatever altitude he was. He can ascend by flying even higher. He quickly concludes that the city's civilization is much more advanced than what he is used to. In some ways the place is staggeringly alien to him. The people of the city appear to be "prosperous" in a way that he has never directly experienced, and use small disks of metal to exchange for whatever goods they want. The entire city is perfectly laid out in a geometric pattern. The buildings are huge, and some of them hover in the air thanks to magical supports.
Thorn Spinner tries to look for some street signs, but finds that there is no writing visible on the street. In the process of looking, he finds that he can hear snatches and bits of all the languages he can speak and more, but in a mode of speech that is extraordinarily flowery and archaic. He finally manages to find a bookseller, and sees that most of the available titles deal with engineering and the design of magical protections. Thorn Spinner speculates that he is seeing a city before the Scourge. He flies straight up to see that there are mountains to the southwest and forest to the northeast.
By the time Thorn Spinner removes the ring and returns to the Proud Mary, the other characters see that his skin has turned sky-blue.
Elias suggests that the group should find a really large field to allow the characters to more fully explore the city without risking running into things or falling overboard. If they do this back in Belhanna, they could use rocks to mark off specific locations in the city and build up a map of the place. This suggestion is so creative that Elias gains an extra Legend Award.
With the Golden Ring exhausted for the moment, the characters turn to the Obsidian Spear. It looks very primitive, but is still quite well-made. It's head is chipped from sharp obsidian, and it is clearly of orkish manufacture. It inflicts Step 5 damage (one better than a normal spear). Some time ago, Cassidy determined that it was dipped into Horror's blood when it was made. Elias proposes taking it to shore to try and hunt with it. Belwin agrees to go with him, as does Ooth. The "valiant" t'skrang (from the rumors section above) suggests that it is a fearsome weapon, and should be used against a fearsome opponent. Such opponents are easy to find in the Mist Swamps.
The characters paddle their way into the Mist Swamps and look for something to hunt. They find something that looks very much like a large rabbit. While they characters are trying to decide what to do with it, it runs into the depths of the swamp. The group rushes after it in a mass, with the exception of Belwin who stands off with his crossbow. Elias manages to catch up with the critter and stab it with his spear, incapacitating it. Thorn Spinner compounds the insult by entangling it in vines.
After Elias dispatches the creature, the characters notice that it was actually equipped with tiny claws and sharp teeth. Everyone agrees that these are unusual features for a small herbivore, but that doesn't prevent the group from bringing it along to cook. Rabbit stew suddenly seems really appealing to everyone, so Belwin shoots a couple more with his crossbow, providing enough meat for dinner.
The characters decide to try and find something larger to hunt. After realizing that nobody has any ability to track animals, they conclude that the only thing they'll be able to locate is a herd of dyre. Elias announces his intention to try and kill one with the Obsidian Spear. Most of the other characters point out that dyres normally travel in large groups, are exceptionally large and protect each other. Elias eventually relents, agreeing to return to the boat with everyone else.
The characters quickly discover that Fanged Rabbits are poisonous. Everyone gets badly sick after dinner and stays that way for several hours. Elias curses the existence of such a useless animal.
Six weeks after the Proud Mary arrives at the headwaters of the Mist Swamps the Stone Barge creeps into view. It is a truly phenomenal vessel, filling half the width of the river and forcing several of the t'skrang riverboats to change their anchorage to avoid it. A whole village is visible upon it's decks. While most of the t'skrang are quite glad to see it, some are unhappy because they lost money betting against it's survival.
The riverboats cluster up along the sides of the vessel and the crew head up to meet with the Barge Folk. At this point, Cassidy takes his leave of the group, returning to his kinfolk. The characters quickly find that they are able to buy all of the Elemental Fire they want, provided they can come up with something to trade. Thorn Spinner offers one of his copied alchemy books in trade, but his offer is declined on the basis that he spilled ink on every other page.
The Barge Folk prove to have a lot of really unpleasant stories to tell about people falling into the magma of the Death's Sea and burning to death. It sounds like this is not a particularly common event, but quite memorable when it does happen. Elias questions them about whether or not they use safety harnesses. They tell him that they use such harnesses, and elemental magic besides, but that the magma can be extremely dangerous and treacherous.
Thorn Spinner is so distraught that his earlier copies are unsalable that he trades some additional paper from Omasu and makes another copy. He is much more successful this time, producing an excellent copy. He trades it for an orichalcum box able to hold five kernels of Elemental Fire.
The t'skrang boatmen trade with the Barge Folk to get their fire cannons repaired and recharged. After that, the Proud Mary heads upriver towards Belhanna.
The characters arrive back at Belhanna to find that the town is completely reassembled. By this point, everyone in the community has seen the stones of the town moving, except for one upset dwarf scholar who has never seen the sight, no matter how hard he has tried.
Elias, hoping to enlist some folk in his project to reclaim the riverboat at the ruined t'skrang Citadel upriver, quickly finds that Belhanna doesn't have any actual carpenters mostly because there was little or no wood available to practice on. However, the local trolls are extremely glad that he has returned with a merchant willing to trade lumber to them. Elias is stunned that the local trolls show some interest in actually trading with the merchant instead of simply taking the lumber from them. She-Who-Inspires rationalizes this by explaining that the trolls will need to trade for wood until they can build ships. Then they will be able to raid and steal back the goods they exchanged. On the plus side, the trolls have access to raw living crystal, which Omasu is interested in trading for.
The non-troll folk of Belhanna have been able to mine limited quantities of True Air, True Water and True Earth to trade. They are quite interested in trading for lumber and fish, which really dramatically improves the variety available in the local diet.
The characters (particularly Belwin and Elias) petition the Council for an audience. They wish to travel upriver to the ruined t'skrang Citadel to pull the four fire cannons from the ruined riverboat at the docks. They need an Elementalist to ensure that they can deal with the potentially explosive mixture of Elemental Fire and Elemental Air that the cannons use for ammunition.
The first Council member the characters run into is the t'skrang Councilman Myrttu, laden under a huge pile of scrolls. He is a recent addition to the Council, having won the election against the previous t'skrang Councilman. He is very excited to see Belwin, as he's not had a chance to sign him up for the Big Project. Belwin and Elias are doubtful, and become even more so as the Councilman describes his plan to redirect all the local rivers to flow through the town, over a series of false cliffs, and through a variety of bath-houses, within which all the local t'skrang (and everyone else) can relax and soak for hours.
Myrttu claims to have wide support from the Council and the community, but is rather disorganized about exactly who has signed up and who hasn't. However, it seems clear that the characters are not going to get access to the Council until after they sign up to help with Myrttu's Project. Belwin signs Tz'kri's name, while Elias signs Cassidy's name. Belwin gets a Legend Award for his rather questionable cleverness (in signing a dead party member's name to a petition).
Most of the Council sniffs with displeasure when Belwin enters the chamber. Belwin addresses the Council in as formal and polite a style as he can manage. He tells of the characters' travels, and explains the group's need of an Elementalist to help them in their quest to recover fire-cannons from the north. Most of the Council clucks and squawks like syphilitic chickens, unable to decide whether they want to help Belwin or have him executed. Elias tries to explain the benefits of having fire cannon to defend Belhanna, but his words fall upon uncomprehending ears. In exasperation, he finally whispers to Belwin that the two of them should ignore the Council and explain their problems to Colonel Bainbridge instead. Finally, the human Councillor Darron, who has never been either sympathetic or opposed to Belwin and his projects, suggests that there is a young t'skrang Elementalist who might be willing to accompany them. Unfortunately, he stops short of promising that the Council would ask the Elementalist to go.
Finally, the dwarf Councillors Garnet (an Elementalist himself) and Gorlock (the Weaponsmith) suggest the names of two more senior Elementalists, one an ork and one a dwarf. They promise to talk to both of them and see if either is willing to go with the characters.
With one issue out of the way, Belwin tries to go double or nothing and make a second appeal to the Council. Once again, he adopts full rhetorical pose and tells them of the heroic death of Tz'kri, a citizen of Belhanna. Belwin requests (or, possibly, demands) that the Council agree to construct a suitable monument for him, and to conduct an appropriate funeral. By the end of Belwin's speech, Myrttu leaps up among a flurry of dropped papers and scrolls, exclaiming, "But I'm sure that Tz'kri signed one of these!" Belwin tells him that he must be mistaken. In the end it doesn't matter, as Myrttu is unable to find the piece of paper with Tz'kri's signature.
Prompted by this performance, the Council once again falls to futile bickering. Myrttu, who might be happy to have a local t'skrang hero to boast about, proves to be no help, insisting that any monument must be made a part of his Big Project. The Councillors finally tell Belwin that he should talk to Jeffr'y, the t'skrang Nethermancer, who will arrange a burial ceremony.
The session ends with the characters back in Belhanna. This wasn't much of a session, with Ooth receiving only two Legend Awards and the other characters receiving three Legend Awards each. Each Legend Award is worth 140 Legend Points. Belwin spends 300 Legend Points gaining Durability Rank 3.
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