We all manage to show up on a reasonable schedule, with the notable exception of Tim (who abandons us in favor of his family once again). The group today consists of Paul (Cassidy), Bruce (Belwin Linnet), Chris (Elias Sang'aree), and Nick (Ooth).
The characters start out in Belhanna Kaer, having recently finished dealing with Dekielle and his apocalyptic madmen. They decide that their next step needs to be a return to the destroyed T'skrang Citadel to finish clearing the place out. Everyone seems to recall that someone wanted to bring "special equipment" along, but nobody remembers what it is, so the group decides to drop the issue and just bring food and crossbow bolts.
Cassidy betrays some interest in learning the history of his newly-acquired Elven small-harp. Unfortunately, none of the other characters know anything useful, so he's forced to fall back upon his Item History talent, which requires that he study the thing for an hour a day every day for a week. He starts this process.
Ooth (as usual) enters into a deep Nature Trance to learn the Cat Walk spell. He is (again, as usual) successful. He puts his nifty new spell into a fetish.
The characters head upriver along the Tylon River in their T'skrang War Canoe. Midday on the first day, the characters spot a series of strange oval shapes floating in the sky. The characters quickly recognize that they are skyships, probably fairly large ones. Belwin (much to his surprise) draws upon his Military Procedures knowledge to recognize them as a Theran military formation. Six ships fly in a close wedge formation, with one more ship on each flank. At this point, Cassidy comments that the Therans are slavers who once ruled the entire world, and want to reconquer it. The formation appears to be heading towards the East, along a course perpendicular to the characters' path.
The characters elect to ignore the Therans, as any dealings with them would seem to be suicidal on the characters' part. Elias estimates that the Therans are probably not going to be able to spot the Kaer, which doesn't do much to reassure anybody.
The characters continue paddling up the river. During this time, Belwin holds forth (at length) on his political views and the incompetence of the Council. He finally shuts up when the other characters threaten to "dump him into the river" if he says anything more.
The characters pass by a group of Cathan tribesmen, possibly of the same tribe the characters helped a long time ago. They appear to be placing the bodies of dead Cathan into trees along the river. The characters approach, and the Cathan wave to them, but no mutual conversation occurs because neither side speaks the other's language. The Cathans finish placing their dead in the tree, then motion that the characters should head downriver.
Cassidy decides to clear up the situation by (magically) learning the Cathan language. This takes all of a minute. Once he becomes able to talk to the Cathans, they tell him that everyone needs to get out of the area because the "cleansing wave" is coming, and will eat everything. The characters get the idea that the "wave" is composed of truly ravenous insects who crawl at a pace faster than a walk but not as fast as a jog.
The characters are glad to hear that there is a spiritual aspect to this process, as the Cathans explain that the insects will cleanse the flesh of their comrades. After that, the Cathans will return, claim the bones, grind them up, and mix them into their bread so the dead warriors remain a part of the tribe.
Elias asks, "what happens if one of your people stands in the path of the bugs?" One tribesman explains, "He screams. He screams a lot." It then develops that they would only subsequently make him into bread if he was a good warrior, and not just a stupid person who stood in the path of the insects.
The characters head upriver, bidding the Cathans goodbye. Soon enough, they hear the sounds of millions of insects moving through the jungle, preceded by a wave of terrified animals. Soon enough, the characters see a swarm of ants overwhelming everything in its path. Waves of ants occasionally surge out into the river, but get dispersed by the current and pushed back to the bank. Interestingly, though any animal caught in the path of the ants is quickly devoured the ants appear to ignore plant matter.
Some time after passing the Ant Swarm, the characters start to see the decayed, dead trees of the Horror's lands around the Citadel. As before, the trees are all dead and worm-eaten, and the entire area just seems unhealthy. This is the first time Elias has seen the sort of devastation caused by a Horror, so Cassidy and Ooth explain what happened here to him. Cassidy explains that this is an area where the Astral plane has been contaminated, and the damage to the Astral space is eventually reflected in the Mundane world.
The T'skrang Citadel comes into view less than an hour later. Ooth notices that the site where the characters had buried the Obsidimen carcasses on their last trip has been severely disturbed. The graves have been the subject of extensive excavation. The characters are not pleased by this development, and head over to examine the area. Cassidy is able to determine that the bodies appear to have been dragged back to the Citadel, but there are no signs of footprints, wagon tracks or animal tracks. There are worms everywhere.
The characters follow the trail along the pier and into the Citadel, with Tz'kri and Belwin in the lead. They argue about who is the worst fighter in the group on the way, with everyone maintaining that they are the worst (and thus shouldn't be first in line).
As the characters approach the derelict riverboat, the flame cannon nearest the pier gouts a wash of fire, striking both Tz'kri (who hurls himself into the water) and Belwin (who runs down the pier towards the riverboat, yelling out mad imprecations). Seconds later, a second flame cannon opens fire and shatters the pier right behind Ooth and Elias. Cassidy finds himself trapped between two raging bonfires. He leaps over one to reach the riverboat.
Belwin and Cassidy find nobody on the riverboat deck, and quickly head down the hatches to find a pair of cadaverous t'skrang equipped with obsidiman-skin armor manning the fire cannons. A furious but brief battle ensues. Tz'kri takes a big hit from one zombie early on. Quickly thereafter Belwin cuts one down while Ooth lays about left and right, hacking down the second. On a more unfortunate note, Elias ends up falling into the mucky water and thrashing about, failing completely to get himself up over the side of the boat. He ends up crawling back onto the ruins of the pier.
The riverboat remains in terrible shape, but the fire cannons are still in working order, and are still charged with a limited amount of ammunition, 12 fire kernels and 14 air kernels. All of the characters feel that it would take a lot of work to make the riverboat really functional again.
The characters quickly run through the lower level of the Citadel, proving to their satisfaction that the place remains empty. They then proceed to the Forbidden Tower, where they find that the door to the Banquet Hall is movable, but still unopenable.
Cassidy becomes curious about what the other door to the tower might be doing. He heads out into the garden and comes face to face with a pack of six zombies, four of them T'skrang in Obsidiman armor, and two of them actual cadaverous Obsidimen. They quickly notice him and lumber his way.
The remaining characters are a touch surprised when Cassidy crashes back through the doorway shouting, "Zombies! Lots and lots of zombies! Aiee!" A rather one-sided fight breaks out, with Elias and Belwin blocking the doorway and chopping at zombies as if they were sides of (slightly dangerous) beef, while Cassidy and Ooth plink at the things with a variety of Ephemeral Bolts and Mind Daggers. By the end of it, Belwin has taken two wounds, but all the zombies are in pieces.
With the zombie threat flopping about in pieces on the floor, attention returns to the unopenable tower door. Elias decides to it open, and lights upon the Banquet Hall table as a useful nearby fuel source. Everyone hears a strange muted "boom!" when he breaks it. After that, the door seems to rattle a little bit more. Chopping up the chairs doesn't produce the same effect.
The characters become curious as to what caused the booming sound, and range through the Citadel looking for other things to destroy. Rampaging through the remains of the Zombie Bazaar doesn't create any audible booms, but destroying the large tent in the center does.
At this point Belwin is struck with a sudden inspiration: each of the objects that produces a boom must be a Pattern Item for the Horror! The Spectral Dancer, the Banquet Table, and the Great Tent, all of them must have some importance to the thing! The next step is to try and figure out what the remaining Pattern Items might be. Belwin asks both Cassidy and Ooth if they can see Pattern Items, and they make unhelpful comments about how they can't (either it'll take a week, or a trip out of the Citadel to load up a new spell).
As a side errand, Elias checks out one of the t'skrang in the Sleeping T'skrang Chamber. The creature wakes up briefly and demonstrates that he has no eyes. He then goes back to sleep. Elias concludes that there is something deeply wrong with these T'skrang, and that they are probably irretrievable. This doesn't stop him from bringing one of them along with him when the characters head out of the Citadel to reload Ooth's fetish and let Belwin heal up. The creature seems to be sleeping, and cannot be roused for more than a moment. Even so, Elias keeps the t'skrang tied up.
With his Astral Sight ready and waiting, Ooth checks out the boat, and doesn't see anything beyond the horrible background noise. The Forbidden Tower door is much more promising: he sees a web of threads across it. He is eventually able to pick out individual threads, and starts following one. It goes up to the Tower of Fire, leading to the glass globe around the fire elemental. Another one goes to the fishing net (rope) Belwin has in his backpack. The characters quickly dispose of the rope, and are rewarded with another loud booming sound.
The characters already know that the room at the top of the Tower of Fire is dominated by a huge six-foot glass globe containing a severely annoyed fire elemental. As the characters approach the globe, the elemental hurls itself against the walls in rage, though the outer surface never gets any warmer. The Horror's Pattern Thread appears to be connected not to the elemental, but to the globe itself.
Elias figures out that the globe can be moved off the pedestal, and that it might be possible to roll the thing down the stairs without breaking it. The characters try to carefully move the fool thing down the stairs, but break it anyway. Fortunately for them, the elemental goes ripping up into the sky and vanishes.
As the characters are arguing about who was responsible for dropping the globe and how useful Belwin's Taunt talent is, Elias spots a figure creeping out of the Citadel bearing something large and heavy. The characters easily run him down. They see that he is an ork, and that he is carrying something apparently round (about 3' across) and wrapped in cloth.
Ooth demands that he say who he is. He says, "Nobody." Ooth asks what the package is. He says, "Nothing," and puts it down. He does claim that it' important to him, and not very important to the characters. Belwin says, "I think you're Horror-tainted. Do something artistic!" The Ork sings with sufficiently paltry skill that the characters conclude that he must be Horror Marked. Belwin coolly offers his opinion, then says, "We have a policy about people who get Horror Marked" The Ork, with a worried expression on his face, answers, "I was afraid you might."
Ooth asks him again to tell his story. The Ork finally admits that he's carrying a petrified Dragon Egg, and that it is quite important to his home village because they worship the Dragons. Ooth uses Astral Sight on him, and figures out that he has a strong True Pattern. The egg also has a strong True Pattern. What this actually means is fairly unclear: the Ork could be an Adept, or just destined to do great (or terrible) things.
Elias asks him what Orkish community he comes from. He says that he comes from a small community up the Tylon River. He explains that he's been able to sneak around the Citadel because it's been infested only with zombies, and they're really slow. He finally admits that his name is Fract. He claims that he's been waiting outside the Citadel for two weeks.
Elias offers a plan to Fract: the characters will tie him up, hide the egg, and investigate the tower. Fract doesn't like this idea, pointing out that this would make him meat for any zombie that wandered along. The characters finally make a compromise with him: they will tie his arms with a wooden bar, and let him come along. He doesn't resist, appearing resigned to his fate: "Of all the adventuring parties in Barsaive, I had to run into you guys." The characters opt to not hobble him after a short discussion. They leave him his armor (leather armor), but take away his smallsword.
The characters return to the Banquet Hall to find that the door to the Forbidden Tower is open. It appears that the room behind it was full of worms from floor to ceiling. When the door opened, the things flowed out and are now spread in a writhing pile all through the Banquet Hall. The entire floor of the Forbidden Tower is covered in worm and maggots. All of the characters are quite glad that they were not around to see the door open.
Fract claims that the Dragon Egg was upstairs, beyond the spiral stairways. He also claims that there is a throne upstairs.
The characters head up the stairs. Ooth casts Air Armor on the other characters as they go by, then follows them up. At the top of the stairs, the characters notice that Fract neglected to mention what was sitting on the throne. It is humanoid, armored, huge, and apparently made of worms.
The Horror makes a quick gesture, and Elias feels like something is crawling around inside his medulla oblongata. He goes running back down the stairs, screaming at the top of his lungs, his axe forgotten.
Ooth recognizes that he might not have another chance to exact revenge, and pitches the ork Fract off the staircase, probably to his death. He then turns to face the Worm-Skull Horror and very possibly his own imminent death.
In dramatic contrast, this is the event that Belwin has spent his entire life working up to. Forgetting any possible sense of self-preservation, Belwin rushes the Horror in an Aggressive, Karma-boosted attack. The Horror barely even notices. Undeterred, Belwin screams, attacks again, and again fails to substantially concern the Worm-Skull.
Cassidy joins the assault by letting loose with a barrage of Ephemeral Bolts, none of which have any more effect upon the Worm-Skull than Belwin's blows. The Worm-Skull responds by casting Pain on Cassidy, dropping him like a stone.
Overcome with magical Panic, Elias runs downstairs, along the way noting that that Fract is very much dead after his tumble from the stairs. He recovers at the base of the stairs, though he is unable to muster enough Willpower to return up the stairs. Seeking something useful to do, he shatters the Dragon Egg, discovering to his distress that it really was a dragon's egg, and that it's no longer going to make it.
Moments later, Elias discovers a stream of T'skrang cadaver men coming from the room of sleeping t'skrang. He engages them, using Battle Shout to as much effect as Belwin normally gets from Taunt. He cuts down a couple of cadaver T'skrang, then meets a huge bunch of Cathan tribesmen coming the other way, killing zombies as they come.
Meanwhile, back on top of the tower the Worm-Skull strikes at Belwin, knocking him down. To add insult to injury, the Worm-Skull follows it up by using the medulla oblongata trick on him.
Having largely dismissed the characters as real opposition, the Worm-Skull steps away from the characters, raising up to his full 12-foot height, then heads down the stairs. Various characters attack him as he goes to only minimal effect. Both Belwin and Elias recognize that the Worm-Skull is going to attack the tribesmen, who have come to kill everything in the tower. They also realize that they've got an inside line on the Horror's mind, and have been Horror Marked. This has a number of effects, most notably that they have -5 steps to fight him. They think this kinda sucks, considering that even without this penalty they were barely able to threaten the thing.
Downstairs, the Worm-Skull lays into the Cathan while the Cathan and the characters surround him and let loose a dizzying variety of rather ineffectual blows. The Cathan go down like ninepins, apparently lacking the impressive skills and weapons that Belwin hoped that they might have.
Belwin manages to hit the bloody thing with a tremendous, Karma-backed, aggressive attack. He does enough damage to cut himself in two, but the Horror barely even notices. Ooth, in uncommon desperation, rushes the Horror and inflicts no real damage. The Worm-Skull responds by Horror Marking him.
At this point, the characters decide that the natives are the real horrors, and kill them all. Six of the Cathans had survived the Horror's attacks. Ooth, Elias and Belwin are more than able to slaughter every single one of them like sheep. Nobody gets out alive.
The three Horror Marked characters drag the Cathan bodies and the remains of the Dragon Egg outside. They place the Cathan bodies in trees. Elias buries the Dragon Egg remains. At this point, both Cassidy and Tz'kri decide that their erstwhile comrades have become aggressive menaces and head for the War Canoe and the Kaer.
Elias checks out the Worm-Skull's throne. It's made of gold and gemstones, and looks incredibly valuable. The Worm-Skull doesn't appear to be around to defend it any more, as an additional benefit.
Ooth, making a surprisingly rapid transition to the lifestyle of the Horror Marked, keeps up with a continual stream of, "Hey, let's be evil!" comments until both Elias and Belwin threaten to kill him if he doesn't shut up. He shuts up.
From his knowledge of Barsaive History, Belwin knows that there have been some Horror Marked folks who managed to exist normally in society. Most of the ones he knows about eventually went berserk and did horrible things, but that implies that there might be some others who went unknown. This proves to be a relatively paltry reassurance to Elias.
Elias listens to Belwin's ideas on how to live as hermits in the Ruined Kaer (amid the Horror Taint that doesn't really bother them any more), then decides to end it all. He strips off his breastplate and falls upon his own blade. Ooth ruins this plan by running up and feeding him a Second Chance potion, bringing him back to life. Ooth then ties him up to ensure that he can't try the same trick again.
Much to his surprise, Elias quickly figures out that he's no longer Horror Marked. Belwin, amazed that this works, expends his Death Cheat blood charm to bring himself back after Elias stabs him. Only Ooth is left out in the cold, as the characters don't have another death-prevention item to retrieve him from the jaws of Death.
The characters tie up Ooth to bring him back to the Kaer. Cassidy and Tz'kri have already taken the War Canoe, so they build up a simple raft to drift downriver.
Back on the Tylon River, Ooth (still Horror Marked), Elias and Belwin encounter a T'skrang riverboat heading upriver. From the characters' queries, the T'skrang Captain explains that he doesn't have any canoes or Second Chance potions available, but does claim that the cities downriver have such things. The Captain offers to let the characters come aboard and ride with them.
Elias explains that there will be two passengers, plus a wild Troll captive who is gagged for safety's sake. The Captain welcomes the characters on board, and offers to take the characters where they want. Belwin says, "Take us to the cities downriver." The T'skrang Captain notes that they haven't seen anything interesting up here, so they have no problems with reversing course. He offers to drop them off at Trask, a place where people are watching the Badlands. The Captain doesn't want to go past Nine Diamonds, explaining that there are piles of warships coming out of there ever since House K'tenshin woke up.
The characters learn that this ship is crewed by T'skrang from House V'estrimon, whose symbol is a sheaf of wheat. They are enemies with House K'tenshin, a foundation of rather vicious T'skrang who sail under the symbol of nine faceted diamonds in a circle. For reasons that remain unexplained, the T'skrang of House K'tenshin did not emerge from their Citadels when the other Houses did. They waited another sixty years, until just recently when a flight of Theran airships docked at their complex at Nine Diamonds.
During the journey, the T'skrang Captain tells a story about a meeting between the dragon Icewing and old King Valurus of Throal. King Valurus came back from the meeting with all sorts of useful information about defending Kaers from the Horrors, but he also lived for a couple hundred years, substantially longer than most dwarfs live. His son has also lived an unnaturally long time, and is currently King of Throal. His grandson is also still alive. Normal dwarf lifespan is about 100 years.
The T'skrang drop the characters off at Trask, which appears to be a semi-permanent settlement of tents, lean-tos and shacks. The population is a mix of races, with an intense focus upon studying the Badlands. After the characters disembark, Elias pops a gemstone out of the throne loot and gives it to the T'skrang Captain in thanks for the ride. The Captain is quite grateful for their gift.
As the characters disembark from the T'skrang riverboat, they are joined by Thorn Spinner, a Windling who had been traveling with the T'skrang, but who figured that the characters were much more interesting to hang with. Belwin and Elias agree to let him accompany them.
The town guards interrogate the characters for a while. They verify several times that neither Belwin nor Elias are Horror Marked. The guards are also interested in knowing if the characters serve the House K'tenshin, which has recently been sending a large number of troops out to reconquer the lands that are "rightfully theirs." The characters get the idea that House K'tenshin could really spend a lot more effort burnishing their public image.
The guards then ask about Ooth, who is tied hand and foot. Elias gives an incredibly bogus-sounding explanation about how Ooth is a wild Troll who speaks an unknown language. Elias claims that he wants to get an alchemist to help him talk to Ooth so his tribe can raid their tribe and steal brides. The guards don't seem to really accept this explanation, but they are willing to tell him how to find Thraac the Alchemist, who lives in the tent two tents down from his sister Edwina's tent.
Along the way to Thraac's place, the characters hear the story of the Badlands from a couple of the locals. Apparently, the Badlands were once the most fertile farmland in all of Barsaive, and the Horrors didn't like that one bit. They ripped the place to pieces, leaving it dotted with wasteland and chasms. The current problem is that the desolation appears to be spreading. This is obviously of some concern, and most of the population of Trask are Questors interested in finding a way to stop the process.
Thraac proves to be an obnoxious old man who offers to make a Second Change potion for the characters if they go three days into the Badlands and bring back a leg spine from one of the local Sand Crabs. It develops that the Sand Crabs are approximately the size of houses. He further explains that the crabs' pincers are the size of scythes. The characters are unenthusiastic about this plan, but Thraac isn't that interested in gold or gems. Elias argues that they should get three potions, because this sounds like a dangerous plan. Thraac offers to toss in two Healing Potions. The characters accept.
Thraac comments that the last party they sent out to try this thought that a full frontal blitz was a really good plan, but they never came back with a spine. Actually, they never came back at all. He also advises that the characters should head more East than West, because of the proximity of the Mist Swamps. The dragon of the swamps sometimes ventures out into the Badlands to consume things. There are also a wide variety of other unfortunate critters living out in the Badlands, but they live in both the East and the West.
At the last minute, Thraac offers that there is a local expert on Sand Crabs. The man is a quadriplegic who lives out on the edge of town. The characters eagerly hunt the fellow down. He is able to tell them that Sand Crabs are pretty slow, but they'll cut your legs off in a jiffy if you get caught on a cliff and can't run away (as happened to him).
The entire Badlands area represents everything that's bad about deserts. The daytime heat is stifling and the nighttime chill can drop below freezing. The entire area is broken and rough, with many sudden drops and caves. And that doesn't even count the local fauna, much of which is first cousin to one or another Horror.
Elias heads out into town to look for local experts, people who can tell him what is safe to eat and drink out in the Badlands. Every expert he talks to says that he should stay far away from standing water, but that running water is probably fairly safe. Most of the local creatures have "don't eat me" written all over them. In particular, Bloatforms are endemic to the Badlands. They are Horror Constructs, and come in a variety of exciting shapes and sizes. Most of them are fairly big, glooshy things, and all of them have horrible piercing spines. Elias' local experts tell him that if he runs into one, he should run away, quickly. Should he happen to run across a dead one, he shouldn't eat it. There is also a local catlike creature that is reputed to be pretty vicious, but nobody knows much specific information on the things, except that their stealth abilities are almost supernatural.
While Elias tries to learn what kind of creatures the characters can expect to find in the Badlands, Belwin concentrates on learning what sort of equipment they should bring along to maximize their chances of survival. He approaches this problem by looking for the most weathered locals he can find and striking up conversations with them. He is none too pleased to learn that the first things they suggest bringing are a lot of potent spells and a lot of sharp things like swords and spears. Opinion is divided on whether or not armor is a good idea or not. On the plus side, it protects against horrible creatures. On the minus side, you can bake to death in it. Everyone agrees that extra shoes are important, because the terrain will wear them out quickly, that lightweight, warm blankets are necessary to survive the nights, and that long cloaks are important to shield from the sun. At this point, Elias speaks up, suggesting that Belwin should bring along a shielded lantern, because he can't see in the dark like a Troll (ha ha ha).
After some discussion, the characters agree that a reasonable set of equipment for the Badlands should include:
|
Belwin |
Elias |
Ooth |
Thorn Spinner |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
STRENGTH |
13 | 17? | 15? | 9? |
|
Carrying Capacity |
105 lb | 200 lb? | 145 lb? | 60 lb? |
| Armor | 0 lb |
67 lb (crystal) |
0 lb |
3 lb (padded leather) |
| Long cloak (5 lb) | 5 lb | 5 lb | 5 lb | 5 lb |
| Two Pairs shoes (@2 lb) | 4 lb | 4 lb | 4 lb | 4 lb |
| Warm Blanket (2 lb) | 2 lb | 2 lb | 2 lb | 2 lb |
| 20 feet of Rope (8 lb) | 8 lb | 8 lb | 8 lb | 8 lb |
|
Dry Food for 7 days (7 lb; 11.5 lb for a troll) |
7 lb | 11.5 lb | 11.5 lb | 1 lb |
|
Water for ? days (8 lb/day for a human, 12 lb/day for a troll) |
||||
| Shielded lantern (2 lb) | 2 lb | |||
| Lantern oil (1 lb) | 1 lb | |||
| Weapons |
9 lb (sword, x-bow) |
12 lb (axe, spear, dagger, s-sword) |
5 lb(axe) |
2 lb (s-sword) |
| Shield | 12 lb | 12 lb | ||
|
Total Encumbrance |
38 + water | 121 + water | 47 + water | 25 + water |
The session ends with the characters on the verge of setting off into the Badlands to hunt for the elusive Sand Crab. Dan has promised to calculate the Legend Awards for the session later on, just so he doesn't miss anything, but they can't possibly be all that impressive considering that we mostly got our asses kicked today.