It takes us a while, but everyone manages to show up sooner or later: Bruce (Belwin Linnet), Paul (Cassidy), Tim (Tz'kri) and Nick (Ooth). We hadn't expected Tim to show up, but Hurricane Bret managed to persuade him to show up through the expedient of forcing the evacuation of Corpus.
Dan announces that everyone should have gotten an extra Legend Award for roleplaying last session. He claims that he didn't award it last time out of an oversight, corrected when he read the last session summary. We all know better, and accept our 100 Legend Points with as little gratitude as possible.
There have been a number of new developments since the characters' recent return to Belhanna Kaer.
Cassidy tries to remember every story he's ever heard about Dragons. During the Age of Dragons (which preceded the current Age of Legends), dragons ruled the world. Their Age came to an end only because the Name-givers they had chosen as lieutenants proved to be untrustworthy, and overthrew them. They remain phenomenally powerful and intelligent.
Tz'kri adds to this body of knowledge by noting that he cannot recall any previous association between the t'skrang and dragons, in spite of his earlier conclusion that the mountain dragon was his personal god.
Ooth manages to become a Questor of Jaspree, Passion of Nature. This creates a few changes in his behaviour, as he is now impelled to plant seeds, nurture farms and forests, and protect animals from "casual or deliberate harm" (which really seems to encompass all possible forms of harm).
Given the rather large public backlash against the characters' previous goat-hunting plans (owing mostly to the existence of the dragon and the well-known unreliability of the characters), the group elects to go back into Belhanna to try and dispose of some of the more unpleasant creatures resident there.
Because the characters already know that there are poisonous, stinging insects the size of a human hand resident in the city, Ooth decides to learn the Insect Repellent spell. He does this even after he realizes that it will only help him, providing no benefit to the other characters at all.
Belwin asks the Council for some supplies for the expedition, including a dozen torches, three small barrels of a flammable substance, and two sets of flint and steel. He also asks for four days' worth of flatbread and four waterskins. Much to his surprise, the Council grants all of his requests. He only later suspects that they may have agreed because they saw an easy, low-cost way to get rid of the characters for several days.
The characters head towards the building previously identified as the lair of the kril-worms, the flying insect-like creatures that Bazt previously fought during the first work party expedition into Belhanna. Tz'kri heads in first, bearing a barrel of pitch and protected by an Inspect Repellent spell. He Silent Walks into the building, looking for a hive upon which to dump the pitch. He is quite disgusted to see that the walls are festooned with the creatures. They look like segmented, winged worms with horrific lamprey mouths that drip a foul slime. They have six eyes that look like weeping sores.
Tz'kri fights down his native disgust enough to splash pitch everywhere. The kril-worms respond by flocking out of the building in a horrible swarm. The remaining characters are waiting outside with their missile weapons ready, though they are somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of the creatures.
Tz'kri dashes out of the building surrounded by a cloud of the things while the other characters valiantly (but somewhat pointlessly) thrash about at them. The characters' rough estimates suggest that there are at least 50-100 of the creatures. After two rounds of combat the characters have managed to wound a few, but haven't dropped any of them. They start to understand just how hopeless any thoughts of fighting the kril-worms with hand weapons are.
After two rounds, the intensity of the kril-worms' attack increases dramatically, while the characters' attacks continue to have little useful effect. Belwin manages to get out a torch and set the puddle of pitch aflame. Tz'kri calls for a retreat, a call that most of the characters heed. Belwin, overcome by obstinacy, chooses to stick around for a while to see what kind of effect the flames are having. He notes that a few of the creatures appear to have gotten crisped, but not enough to have any immediate impact upon the swarm. Ooth is quite upset to see that the smoke doesn't appear to bother them at all.
As the characters pull back, two kril-worms set upon Cassidy and wound him badly. He stays on his feet long enough to dash to safety. Everyone else manages to make it into another ruined building without too much trouble.
While everyone hides in a nearby ruined building, Tz'kri sets out his plan. He counted six large holes in the walls, plus additional holes in the roof. He suggests using brush and rubble to slowly block up these holes. Then, once the building is sealed up it will be simple to roll a barrel of pitch inside and roast all the kril-worms like sausages in an oven. The other characters, nursing a variety of painful wounds, agree that this sounds like a pretty good plan, especially compared with their previous hare-brained "rush in hacking" idea.
Tz'kri very much takes the lead in putting together barricades. Belwin tries to help him by cutting down saplings and dragging them to the site. Unfortunately, Ooth and his newfound naturalist tendencies prove to be something of an obstacle: he outright forbids the other characters from cutting down living trees, and pulls down any barricade made out of new-cut plant material. Tz'kri finally decides that he might as well let Ooth have his way: after a couple of days, all the new-cut material will be dead and dry, and Ooth won't object to using them. This insight proves to be correct, but doesn't speed up the process of sealing up the building. The whole process takes days.
The ork adventurer Grith-Tu ventures out of the Kaer to see what the characters are doing with the kril-worms. He chuckles a bit at Ooth's obstinacy, but compliments Tz'kri upon the plan, saying that he could come up with no better.
During his visit, he tells the story of how he came to arrive at Belhanna Kaer. He and his group were traveling down the Tylon River when their ship was attacked and left for derelict by a group of t'skrang pirates. Unable to continue on the river any longer, they landed and headed into the mountains north of Belhanna. Soon after they debarked, they were set upon by a pack of wyverns. Grith-Tu describes the wyverns as big flying lizard with a poisonous stings in their tails, and cautions that they are vicious to a fault and (even worse) fly in packs. In the face of their onslaught, all of the other members of Grith-Tu's party were slain. Grith-Tu claims that he only managed to survive through the sheerest of luck and the fact that he fled. He has been living in the mountains for months, living off the land as best he could. He was really quite glad when he saw work parties clearing the ruins of Belhanna, as they were the first civilized sight he had seen for some time.
Belwin asks him how his people deal with infestations of kril-worms. Grith-Tu explains that he's never seen an infestation like this: from his experience, they only live in isolated places, rather like Belhanna was a month ago.
With Grith-Tu's epic story out of the way, the conversation soon disintegrates into Grith-Tu and Ooth talking about brothels and women of many different races and questionable morals. Belwin stomps off in disgust after Ooth and Tz'kri start chortling about Belwin's erstwhile fiancé.
After several days, the house is ready. After Tz'kri sneaks inside to verify that the kril-worms are all still inside, the characters set it on fire. It goes up in a glorious bonfire. The characters are standing by with a variety of missile weapons, but notice that the kril-worms aren't even managing to make it out to object. The entire building turns into a giant oven, baking them all alive. It takes two days for the building to cool down enough for the characters to be able to go inside and verify that the kril-worms have largely been reduced to charcoal.
Having removed the threat of the kril-worms, the characters go through the remaining buildings. They find nothing more threatening than a couple of opossum nests. They conclude that the presence of the kril-worms was probably enough to ensure that nothing else near the top of the food chain tried to live in the area.
While everyone else is poking through Belhanna, Tz'kri spots another herd of dyres lumbering through the plains. He decides that he absolutely has to try and domesticate one of them. He starts out by Silent Walking to within arm's reach of a nearby specimen, then does his best to scale the creature's shaggy flank. The dyre is none too happy and starts to thrash around in an effort to dislodge him. Tz'kri latches himself onto its top hump as the dyre tries to get into a circular defensive formation with the other creatures in its herd.
Ooth notices Tz'kri's distress, and uses his newfound Jaspree Questor power of Command Animal in an effort to make the creature either "Be calm!" or "Sit!" Despite the very brief duration of his powers, this attempt is fairly successful right up until the dyre decides to roll over. Tz'kri, seeing his imminent crushing death approaching, engages in Full Defense to avoid being trapped.
The drama lasts until the dyre stampedes across the plains as fast as it can go, dislodging Tz'kri in the process. Tz'kri's final analysis of the project is, "I think we made progress." Belwin is skeptical about the value of this behaviour, but Tz'kri does get himself a Legend Award for barebacking on a dyre.
By the time the characters have finished with the kril-worms and Tz'kri's dyre, some of the diplomats and cartographers the Council sent out return from their destinations. One of them comes back with an obsidiman merchant and Troubadour named Omasu, who owns the Overland Trading Company and says that he has trading interests all through the region. Omasu claims to have heard about Belhanna Kaer from some t'skrang rivermen, and was interested in seeing what they might have to trade. Tz'kri boasts that he will be able to trade horn-monsters within a month, a claim that swiftly gets debunked.
In an effort to determine just how successful any effort to train dyres might be, both the characters and Omasu quickly determine that there are exactly zero Beastmasters in the Kaer. The closest the Kaer is able to come are the two windling Cavalrymen, both of whom are used to riding only goats. Tz'kri gives them the challenge of domesticating a dyre, a challenge that they eagerly accept. Cassidy and Tz'kri head off to watch them, Cassidy to write songs mocking their efforts, and Tz'kri to try and learn the Animal Handling skill.
The folk of the Kaer are also talking about a new cave discovered by Gorlock Stonebreaker's workmen. The cave has clearly been sealed for many centuries, and proved to hold deposits of both Elemental Air and Elemental Earth. Since this discovery, Belhanna Elementalists have been mining and storing these resources. The characters reflect that this discovery makes sense, as it appears that Belhanna was once a mining community. Unfortunately, the fact that the Kaer has not needed to mine new metal for generations has caused the residents' mining skills to degrade somewhat.
The Council organizes a tremendous celebration outside the Kaer to commemorate the opening of the Kaer Seal. About a week prior to the celebration, the Council arranged for those Kaer residents who had already been outside to help some of the other Kaer residents get used to the experience. All of the characters participate in this project.
The characters spend a month upon their various projects within the Kaer. To provide a few Legend Points for everyone to spend, each character gets one Legend Award of 150 points for defeating the kril-worms. Tz'kri gets an additional 150 point award (mentioned above) for his dyre-riding episode.
During the month, the characters notice that the dragon is only visible upon its mountain a couple of times every week. It appears to be monitoring the Kaer's progress in rebuilding.
The merchant Omasu departs, but not before he agrees to bring back some foodstuffs and additional seed grain, to help the Kaer out in its time of need. Though the claims he is doing this out of the goodness of his heart, the characters (and hopefully the Council) suspect that he will eventually ask the Kaer for something in the future.
Tz'kri spends most of his time with the Cavalrymen, trying to learn how to ride animals (a talent that does not appear to be listed as a skill). By the end of the month, he has become a passable rider, though he does not actually acquire any of the specialized Cavalryman riding Talents as a skill.
The Kaer at large turns out to need substantial help in the planting, a task that Ooth immediately agrees to contribute to. He uses this effort as an excuse to both perform an act of Devotion to Jaspree (planting) and to learn the Herbalism skill. The entire planting effort is quite complicated by the fact that the earth-q'wrill (the small burrowing things the characters earlier saw infesting the remains of Belhanna's fields) are quite fond of eating seedlings and largely make any effort to plant futile. Ooth learns from Omasu that these creatures are very slightly magical, and have the ability to pass through earth. They aren't normally able to pass through stone or metal. After thinking hard enough to make steam come out of his ears, Ooth comes up with a plan to resist earth-q'wrill: dig a trench around a field, then line it with a continuous stone barrier. Clear the earth-q'wrill inside by planting poisoned seeds. Use the enclosed area for agriculture. He tests this suggestion out with a small garden-sized patch, and is pleased to see that it works. His plans are well-received by the Kaer's overworked farmers, who had already lost about one-fifth of the Kaer's remaining seed grain to the earth-q'wrill. By the end of the month, the Kaer farmers have managed to clear and seed about 40 acres of ground.
Tz'kri spends some time (rather as a hobby) trying to hit earth-q'wrill with a pick. He is somewhat taken aback when one of them leaps out of the ground and whacks into his armor. Unwilling to give up, he continues to attack the earth-q'wrill, eventually mashing the creature with his tail. Tz'kri then inspects the body, learning that the things look like moles with long, lizard-like tails and birdlike beaks, and are about as long as a human's forearm.
While everyone else spends their time gallivanting around in the outside, Belwin expends 200 of his Legend points to learn Oratory Rank 1, with the fond ambition of finally being able to get the Council to pay attention to him. He doesn't immediately get an opportunity to find out, as the Council appears to have other things to do than listen to his ravings.
As a final note, by the end of the month the two windling Cavalrymen have successfully tamed two dyres and have claimed them as their mounts, though they really can't wield any weapons large enough to be useful from atop the creatures' backs. They have some hopes of being able to use the creatures as beasts of burden.
One of the expeditions the Council had sent out to explore the area was a group of some four diplomats and one Warrior Adept. They were to travel north along the Tylon River to visit a t'skrang town that Belhanna had traded with before the Scourge. By the time the characters finish their various projects, this group is over a month overdue.
Belwin manages to persuade the Council to send the characters on an expedition to find out what happened to them. As usual, the Council is overjoyed at the chance of getting rid of Belwin for a while, though they groan at the thought of the exorbitant list of demands that he is sure to make. As it turns out, he asks only for food. Cassidy requests (and is granted) a crossbow and a dozen bolts.
Prior to departure, Tz'kri happens to remember that he found a strange brooch some time ago while exploring Belhanna. He asks Cassidy to determine what it is. Cassidy takes a moment to look at the thing, then tells Tz'kri that it is a Desperate Blow blood charm. It costs 4 Blood Magic damage to keep operating, and when activated gives the user +6 steps to either an Attack or Damage Test. It can be reactivated when the user regains at least 4 points of damage in a single Recovery Test. Tz'kri instantly sticks it into his flesh.
This brings up a debate on whether or not Ooth should activate his Horror Fend. He finally decides that the monetary value of the thing is higher than the ability to use it against Horrors, and puts it back into his pocket. Half a day later, he relents and activates it. The realization that a blood charm won't work for 24 hours after it is first activated makes him rethink his initial idea of simply sticking it into his flesh when he meets up with a Horror.
The characters walk to the Tylon River without incident, though the going is somewhat tougher near the river's edge due to the denser shoreline jungle. Faced with a need to cross the river, the characters watch as Tz'kri puts together a fairly passable raft from fallen trees. Making the raft and poling across the river takes the better part of a day, most of which is spent trying to find a clear place to launch the raft.
Halfway through the next morning, Cassidy feels a strange chill. Instants later, a vaguely humanoid apparition manifests in front of him, adopts a fighting stance and hits him twice in surprisingly rapid succession. Cassidy is even more shocked to find that the thing hits through armor with fingers that chill to the bone. The other characters rush to the attack, with varying effect.
While the other characters rush in to the conflict, swinging weapons about in an almost random manner, Belwin does his best to discomfit the creature with his clever Taunts. Sadly, the creature is hardly impressed by Belwin's wit and responds by savaging him. It then turns to Cassidy, wounding him and knocking him to his knees with a single powerful strike. Ooth, noting that nobody has thus far managed to hurt the thing, decides that this would be a good time to incapacitate it with Pain. His first couple of castings bounce harmlessly off the thing's Spell Defense, but the third strikes home, with absolutely no visible effect. Ooth learns a valuable lesson: supernatural creatures are sometimes made of much sterner stuff than mortals. Ooth learns a second valuable lesson when the apparition hits him through his armor, inflicting wounds upon both his body and his pride. He continues to learn lessons over the next several rounds, taking a total of three wounds and sucking up a truly staggering amount of damage. When the spirit finally turns it's attention to Belwin, Ooth takes the opportunity to crawl away from the fight and slurp down a Healing potion.
Belwin manages to come back from his poor showing earlier in the fight by discovering the amazing power of the Riposte. The creature swings at him and gets a Karma-powered Riposte back down it's throat for it's trouble. This represents the first significant damage the group has done to the thing, which is quite depressing considering the sheer amount of firepower that has already been directed at it. The thing doesn't learn from it's first experience and continues to attack Belwin, who Ripostes it again for a shocking quantity of damage.
The fight comes to an abrupt end when Tz'kri, who had been chewing away at the spirit with hammer, tongs and tail to little visible effect, finally manages to get in a solid hit. He sends his tail blades straight through it, causing it to vanish in a puff of smoke and damage.
After the spirit is driven off, Ooth examines the residual traces and determines that the spirit was an unnatural thing (which doesn't come as any particular surprise to the other characters), and that it had been specifically summoned and sent after the characters. The characters think about their various enemies, and quickly conclude that Mank and Ragvorn are much more likely to have sent it than the Council, especially considering that the orks number a Nethermancer among their company.
The characters set up camp and rest, making Recovery Tests and boasting about their various exploits. They end up camping for three days before Ooth and Cassidy are well enough to travel again.
After two days of rest, Cassidy hears something moving in the jungle nearby. Tz'kri Silent Moves out into the jungle to see what it is. Meanwhile, the characters sprout weapons and armor like fire ant mounds in my yard while Ooth starts throwing defensive magic on everyone in sight.
Tz'kri eventually finds a lone elf, gathering herbs. The elf introduces himself as Asbeth, from a small settlement near Lake Pyros. Tz'kri introduces himself, says that he is from Belhanna, and shows a small wooden item he carved to prove that he is not a Horror. In return, Asbeth says that he's exploring the area on behalf of his home settlement and is interested in any information the characters might have about the area. Tz'kri very reasonably asks him to demonstrate that he's not a Horror. Asbeth does some hemming and hawing about not being particularly artistic, then picks up a stick, turns around, does something, then produces a crude carving of an elf's face.
Tz'kri remains very skeptical, particularly because the gamemaster asked him to make a Perception test. He claims that he's uneasy about telling Asbeth where his Kaer is. He also lies about there not being any elves in Belhanna, a rather foolish lie that he admits to practically instantly. He does tell Asbeth about Omasu the merchant and the local mountain dragon. In return, Asbeth gives Tz'kri two Healing potions and a Last Change potion.
Tz'kri returns to the other characters with the potions, and confesses his various fears about Asbeth and his possibly-tainted status. Ooth makes a special effort with Alchemy to examine them, concluding that they are just fine. Satisfied that Asbeth is not likely to be an immediate threat, the characters agree to let Tz'kri bring Asbeth back to the camp.
Asbeth asks about what the characters are doing in the area. They explain that they're out exploring, just like he is. Ooth gets right to the point, asking Asbeth if he gives out potions in exchange for information. Asbeth says that he's looking particularly for information that will help his people open up trading relations. He is unimpressed with the story about Ragvorn and Mank's "pilgrimage" to the south. He offers two more potions if the characters will tell where their Kaer is, suggesting that he can just learn the information from Omasu if they don't tell him. Belwin speaks for the group when he says that he doesn't fully trust Asbeth, but that if Omasu is willing to talk to him then he's fine with it.
In what is meant to be a parting request, Ooth asks once again that Asbeth carve something. Asbeth refuses, saying that he's got a lot of stuff to do, whereupon Tz'kri stabs him in the back. Asbeth shouts in surprise and terror, then runs into the jungle bleeding profusely. The other characters just stand around like bumps on logs, understandably surprised by Tz'kri's sudden action. Though they admit that Asbeth may well be Horror Marked, they do succeed in making Tz'kri feel bad about stabbing him.
To try and make amends, Tz'kri tracks him into the jungle and tries to give him a healing potion. Unsurprisingly, Asbeth runs away. Tz'kri returns to the camp, where the debate upon what to do has opened up again. Belwin favors leaving all of the potions for him as an apology. Tz'kri favors hunting down and killing him, but feels bad enough that the other characters can shame him out of it. Ooth refuses to hear anything about leaving valuable potions in the jungle. The characters finally keep the potions (though Belwin refuses to carry any of them) and move their camp a bit north.
After three days' rest, the characters continue moving north through the jungle. Two days later, they notice that the animal population is thinning out and the scents of rot and decay are evident. Hours later, the characters note that the trees and vines look visibly sick and no (living) animals can be seen.
Ooth brings up Plant Speak and tries communicating with some of the vines and trees. The tree says, "Pain… Dying… Stop the pain…" but isn't able to offer any more detailed information. After speaking to several other trees, Ooth tentatively thinks that something may have poisoned the ground around. He takes a look into astral space and sees that the entire area looks hazy and evil, making the obvious conclusion that there is something very bad going on here.
The characters decide to forge ahead towards the actual site of the t'skrang settlement. As they continue, the trees start to look worse and worse until they are no more than rotting hulks barely supported by their own weight. The ground is covered in a two-foot thick layer of rotting leaves that makes travel extremely difficult. The atmosphere is thick, humid and hard to breathe. The characters end up walking for three more days before they find the tributary upon which the village was located. A half-day after that, the characters find the site.
The t'skrang site is marked by two stone towers on the banks of the river with a series of large bluish domes around them, extending out into the river. One side of the riverside dome is shattered, and small sparkles of dome-stuff lie around its sides. As the characters approach closer, they see that there are tracks leading both into and out of the hole. The domes extend partially over the river, and the river bottom near the dome edge looks tremendously roiled and disturbed. A riverboat is visible inside the water part of the dome.
Ooth looks at astral space once again, and is actually physically repelled by the terror and devastation he sees. There is nothing visible moving, but the background is very horrible. Ooth stops looking very quickly.
Tz'kri makes another raft to get the characters out to the break in the Kaer Shell, but the supply of available wood is quite minimal, so his efforts produce a series of logs lashed together. The characters pretty much wade their way out to the Kaer Shell break.
Once inside the shell, the characters see that their way into the rest of the Kaer is blocked by another interior dome. From the inside, the Kaer looks like it once housed a small t'skrang Foundation, comprised of a single family with o single riverboat and maybe 100 members. The riverboat looks fairly small for a t'skrang craft, and is rotting into oblivion. There is one obvious occupant: an obviously undead t'skrang, who appears to be washing the deck. It swiftly spots the characters as they climb up onto the dock, and shambles towards them.
Tz'kri tries to talk to it, with the other characters playing backup. It is able to respond to his inquiries, but not in a particularly useful manner: he asks what happened to the Kaer, and gets responses like, "Feast. Inside. All feast. Others inside. Two. They feast." The zombie shambles up to the main door, which opens before it. It disappears inside.
The characters follow the zombie t'skrang into the Kaer proper. Along the way, Ooth notices that the structure is Horror-marked, which indicates that the Horror responsible remains alive (though not necessarily still in the area).
The characters follow the zombie through a large storeroom lined with disintegrating barrels and boxes. Fading light-quartz cast a gloomy, yellowed glow through the darkness. The entire area is pervaded with evil malevolence. The zombie urges the characters, "Come! Hurry! Feast! Sumptuous feast!"
The characters once again follow the thing to a long room dominated by a huge banquet table. Several other zombie t'skrang are wandering around or seated at the table. The meal on the table, far from being sumptuous, is quite unpleasant and certainly not recognizable as food. It isn't Horror Marked, so the characters speculate that it might be the remains of the Belhanna emissaries. The zombie who had led the characters in urges them to, "Sit. Sit! SIT!", becoming increasingly agitated when the characters refuse to. Ooth looks around and sees that everything in sight except for the "food" is Horror Marked.
A decision point comes when Cassidy strikes one of the zombies. The rest of the group swiftly follows suit, reasoning that any further attempt at conversation with the array of undead terrors facing them is likely to be useless. It quickly develops that the creatures, which normally move quite slowly, can become extremely fast under provocation. After taking a wound, the zombies enter into a frenzy that gives them the ability to strike four times in a round. It is fortunate that frenzied zombies are no more accurate than quiescent ones. Even though they are slightly outnumbered, the characters manage to make short work of the creatures, dissecting them into worms and gruesomeness. Along the way, Belwin distinguishes himself with yet another incredible Riposte that sends the flayed remains of one zombie in bits across the table.
After the dust clears and the characters regain their breath, they examine the debris upon the table with great care. They manage to determine that it does incorporate human body parts, but it is impossible to determine if they were chopped from Belhanna Kaer's emissaries.
The session ends with the characters deep inside the ruins of the T'Urgulobon Kaer. Each character gains five Legend Awards, each worth 125 points. The total award for each character is thus 625 Legend Points. Each character also gains a separate Legend Award for defeating the kril-worms (150 Legend Points). Tz'kri gains an additional separate Heroic Legend Award for barebacking on a dyre (150 Legend Points). Both of these awards were dispensed earlier in the session.
Ooth gains 20 Questor Points for his acts of devotion in planting the fields of Belhanna.
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