Our attendance this week takes a series of body blows from Tim (who is called off to prevent relatives from being reduced to homelessness) and Mike (who takes a page from Tim's book and inexplicably decides that family and loved ones are much more important than hanging around with his no-account good-fer-nuthin friends). The good-fer-nuthins include Chris (Gruul), Chuck (Galen), Paul (Marik) and Bruce (who couldn't make a positive contribution to society if his life depended upon it).
The session begins with the characters back in Shochunstal, dividing up the loot from their recent escapades. This predominantly includes a variety of rather large (but empty) powerstones. Marik gets the 10 ST Powerstone from the Lady Gleya Aucul Durgis' magically-talented servant, and one of Jeggrey Zetto's 20 ST Powerstones. Galen gets the other 20 ST Powerstone. Gruul takes Zetto's +2 Puissance dagger. The characters leave the five sets of +1 Fortify magical cloth armor to the side, expecting to issue it to appropriately-needy troops among their forces when the time arises.
With the loot appropriately distributed, the characters find themselves faced with an incredible dilemma: what to do with Jeggrey Zetto? They know that his spells include staggeringly threatening effects like Entombment-15, Invisibility-20, and Walk Through Earth-15, all of which combine to make him very hard to keep imprisoned. Marik admits that he can't do anything permanent that would make Zetto safe to be around. Galen suggests going with the morally bankrupt plan of simply killing him and harvesting his skull. As an added bonus, this would also provide a quantity of blood to feed Abbek Choff. Gruul needs no convincing. He walks into Zetto's cell and breaks his neck, taking care to ensure that the poor fellow's blood, heart and skull can all be harvested. Marik, forgetting the unusual dietary needs of the blood-walker Choff, asks, "What do we need his blood for? Do you want to take a bath?"
The question of dealing with the Lady Aucul's five servants is much simpler. None of them have any talents that would make them impossible to imprison, so they just end up in the Holder Taften's basement until the characters have a chance to interrogate them.
Antok Six-Hearted and Kellin are sent to Nircharstal to bring Zetto's body to Abbek Choff and the various documents written in Thrux taken from Castellan Argul Yosp and Lady Aucul. This very conveniently explains why they're not involved in any of the following action. To speed them on their way, Marik sends them with a flying carpet.
The next morning the characters accompany Holder Taften to a meeting of the Holders in the Steadsman's Citadel. The central issue is clear: the replacement of the current Steadsman Cabo Durgis with a new candidate, a candidate prepared to take the necessary actions to repel the thrux menace.
Things go unsurprisingly well. Holder Taften is nominated by one of his allies, and makes an appropriately modest speech about how he will do all he can to revitalize Shochunstal and make it into a pillar of a new, resurgent Faian nation. Marik listens and groans, "The Faians are turning into Israelis!" Gruul responds, "This is a surprise to you? By the way, we need to have a vote on the legality of vigorous shaking." Marik considers this, then suggests, "Maybe the rushufarr are more like the Jews. They're sort of nomadic, they've been oppressed, and now they have a homeland that is a desperate wasteland." Galen pipes up, "And they kick ass in battle!" By this time, the Holder Taften's speech is long done.
Steadsman Durgis takes the proceedings pretty well, in part because he understands that his allies are generally all dead or imprisoned. The fact that the characters have him guarded by four heavily-armored Sangorn mercenaries with hard faces and big swords helps.
The Holder Taften is successfully voted in as the new Steadsman after only modest debate. Immediately upon being confirmed in office, he introduces a series of additional motions:
Having decided that they will negotiate with Doorway City for military aid, the Holders and the characters debate what sort of treasure they might be able to offer in exchange. The initial proposal is a share of loot from the battlefield, plus some conquered territory. Steadsman Taften suggests that the coming military campaign might not generate all that much conquered territory. The characters agree with glum faces until one of them suggests that the city of Dith Lun is now pretty much uninhabited. The only problem with offering it to the Electors of Doorway City is that the best route there requires going past the Flutes at Nan Ro Nan. Gruul fails to see the problem, telling the others, "But the only thing that comes out of those flutes are grayfeather storks, and we've demonstrated ourselves the master of those things." Steadsman Taften very delicately points out, "but you're semi-mythical heroic figures! The 10- and 20-point sailors on most of the ships will just get picked off." Gruul replies, "Yes, but you can give us a drink and we'll be happy to go and knock out a few storks for you." The Steadsman seems unconvinced.
The final proposal is to offer the Electors the right to sell warrants to trade with the rushufarr. The treaty between the Faians and Doorway City would set out limits on how much the Electors can charge, how many they can sell, and how long the warrants can remain valid. This proposal is accepted and given over to the Holder sent as envoy to Doorway City.
The characters propose that the old Steadsman (now Holder) Durgis be placed in charge of the Faian Navy. He could be sent out to the waters near Nircharstal to drag for submarines with big nets.
The characters suddenly remember that someone needs to go and rally the rushufarr for the coming conflict. Marik clears his throat from the back of the room and points out that he's already spent the better part of a year doing exactly this. The other characters shamefacedly admit that he's going to be Lawrence of Arabia of the rushufarr for his work. Marik agrees.
With the necessary political maneuvering over, the characters decide to take action upon reports that the thrux are establishing an advance base in Dith Lun. They quickly assemble an expeditionary force to clear the city. They already possess a river barge able to hold 50 soldiers and 13 tons of cargo. They assemble a force from among the militias of Nircharstal consisting of thirty axemen, twenty spearmen, and five flelling scouts perched up in the crows' nest. Most of these troops are very green; the characters hope that resistance at Dith Lun will be light, and that they will be able to give their forces a bit of experience without much cost. The characters issue the five sets of magical (+1 Fortify) cloth armor recently captured from the Lady Aucul's servants to their flellings.
The Steadsman of Shochunstal agrees to provide a second barge of similar size. The Shochunstal contingent consists of ten swordsmen, ten archers, three magicians (two healers and one "military" magician), and twenty-seven spearmen (shield and spear), led by the Holder Vaudden, an ally of Steadsman Taften.
Both barges will be escorted by two boats of Nircharstal Riverine Raiders manned by twenty men.
Before the expedition departs, there is widespread concern about the tactical skills of the spearmen. Galen worries that if they are deployed in line behind the axemen, in the heat of battle they might end up stabbing their compatriots in the back out of panic. Gruul drills them for two days, a bucket of beer in his hand. He makes sure to get plenty liquored up through the course of training. It isn't that clear if the spearmen have better tactical skill by the end of this experience, but there is no doubt that their steadfastness under stress is much improved.
The expedition finally assembles at the confluences of the Lower Juffey River on the 36th day of the 3091st Voyage. Two and a half days later, they reach the near edges of the Flute forests around Nan Ro Nan.
The trip has caused some "attitude problems" to become visible among the soldiers. The Nircharstal axemen are visibly more professional than they had been, and have a good sense of esprit de corps. In part, Gruul's military attitudes have rubbed off on them. They say "Hoo-hah!" to each other a lot, which disturbs the characters because they don't know where it came from. Also, they were specifically chosen for size and talent (all of them have ST 12 minimum) and are visibly bigger than the spearmen. The downside is that they tend to look down upon the spearmen as being second-rate. For their part, the spearmen are all terribly loyal to Galen (he's wearing the Circlet at a rakish angle), but their morale is lower. Some are upset because they were passed over as axemen. Some are terrified. Some simply don't want to be here. All of this creates significant doubt about what is going to happen when they come in contact with the enemy.
Gruul and Galen reflect upon whether to try and give the spearmen a rousing speech to build morale (perhaps pairing axemen and spearmen), or to try and rearrange the plan. Galen is concerned that the spearmen will simply shatter like glass as soon as they come in contact with an enemy. He tries to spread out the panic-prone guys among the others to keep them in line while Gruul uses his Leadership skill to inspire the troops (made by 4).
The flotilla paddles past Nan Ro Nan in the dead of night, silently as possible. Just past the flute forests, one flelling (the one with Night Vision) climbs down from the crow's nest and whispers to Galen and Marik, "Awk! Sir! See something! Must tell! Very important!" Galen and Marik shush the creature, "Not now, we're watching the two Gua Far scouts up on the riverbank." Gruul had been talking about how flellings are good eating, and was the only character to miss the sentries. In contrast, Marik is able to see that they have heavy spears, regular bows (currently ready, but not very heavy), bucklers on their saddles, leather armor, and two riding graau nearby. They are about 15 meters in from the riverbank, about 70 meters away from the characters. They are apparently totally unaware of the characters' presence.
Marik starts out by casting a wide variety of spells upon himself, Galen and Gruul, including Flight. Galen and Gruul lead the attack on the sentries, plunging down upon them like grayfeather storks. Both sentries are dead in seconds. One of the graau gets away, heading towards the city at all speed. It's flight is interrupted by Gruul, who flies after it and simply chops its head off. Galen complains, "Hey, Gruul! You got blood in my eye when you hit that guy!" Gruul scoff, "Oh, so everything is my fault?" Galen replies, "Just saying, man..."
The characters continue on towards the gates of the city. From a distance, they are easily able to see that the gates remain open, a legacy of Gruul's last expedition to steal them for Nircharstal. There are, however, a series of guards standing up on the walls. The characters simply crash into them, ignoring their arrow shots. Gruul takes two arrows, only one of which gets through his armor, then lands and starts killing people. One luckless spearman manages to do enough damage to him to make him go berserk, which only accelerates the bloodshed. Gruul steps to a spearman, watches as Marik stuns the fellow, then chops off his head. He yells out at the floating sorcerer, "You realize he's just meat, don't you?"
Galen lands in front of a spearman, who tries to jab him at 2-hex range. Sadly, the spearman trips and traps his foot. Galen barely notices that he was hit by an arrow as he kills the spearman. And then the archer. And then chuckles as he hears Gruul strain his own arm, crippling it. The Faian chuckles, "Well, now it'll be a fair fight." And stabs another archer. He thinks things are going pretty well, right up until he fumbles and drops his sword. He swiftly fast-draws an axe and throws it at an onrushing spearman... and misses. He is forced to watch as Gruul chops the spearman down from behind.
Marik floats along one side of the fight, stunning Gua Far raiders one after another. Hearing a noise behind him, he notices that a Gua Far magician is sneaking up on him using Walk on Air. Marik quickly Tickles the man, then watches amazed as the magician falls to the ground and breaks his neck.
The fight is over swiftly. Gruul comes out of his berserk frenzy to realize that he actually took several wounds. He tells Galen, "So, I killed four guys. How many did you kill?" Galen just grumbles as he retrieves his weapons. Gruul gets Marik to heal him. And his armor.
The characters take a look into the city. They can see that there is a Gua Far encampment near the center, complete with an impromptu corral with about two dozen riding graau inside. The corral is built up alongside several buildings, and is currently the site of a lot of activity by Gua Far raiders who clearly expect to be attacked soon.
Gruul and Galen fetch the axemen and spearmen and march on the compound. A massive fight ensues, during which the spearmen take the brunt of the damage: four of them are seriously injured and four more are killed. The characters recognize that much of this is due to the fact that the spearmen are not currently equipped with either shields or armor. Of course, the Gua Far are completely defeated. By the end of the fight, the characters have accumulated:
The Gua Far raiders are a mix of Sangorn humans, Faian humans and mongrel humans. Gruul decides to take them back to Shochunstal as prisoners. There are three Faians among them; Galen proposes that they might be good candidates for some kind of "work release" program, as the Circlet and Saber of Nircha can make them loyal within limits. Marik was able to see that the magician required gestures to cast his spells, so binding him will keep him harmless. He takes one of the captured Powerstones. Galen takes the other.
The characters start back to Nircharstal.
The session ends on the 40th day of the 3090th Voyage. Gruul, Galen and Marik are bringing their expeditionary force back down the Yenyen River towards Nircharstal to meet up with Antok and Kellin. Gruul, Galen and Marik each gain three experience points.