As we headed back to town after our embarrassing defeat and less than daring escape we could see Grief and her men were worse for the wear, putting up a giant barricade where once a door had been. They let us through, though they looked more than displeased. Grief jumped Godfree demanding an explanation, once he calmed her down a bit I realized that Silva had disappeared somewhere between here and there. So I took the clear path set before him, I blamed the entire ordeal on him.
We explained how Silva had tricked us, and when we had made it to Thunderheart he betrayed us, exposing our positions and leaving us to die. Conveniently this was half truth, merely ignoring the other half, and she accepted scolding us for ever having trusted an assassin. During all of this Zarko the barbarian had stumbled out of the Inn, apparently recovered from his sickness. We got him up to speed to which he replied "I am Mountainborn." Praise Zarko.
Rain began to fell, and thunder could be heard in the distance, signaling Thunderheart and his troop were on their way. We held the town admirably. A troll came and destroyed the makeshift barricade with relative ease. Using ourselves to blockade the gate so as to not let anyone come in too far, each of us gave every swing our all. Thunderheart rode in, once he realized we had lied and, as far as he knew, betrayed him, we could see his heart break through his eyes. Zarko, having never met the orc had little problem cleaving him with his axe several times, Thunderheart's axe glistening with sparks had caught his eye. He never spoke a word as we tore him apart, the final blow was left to me. I had transformed into a bear and ended him by biting his face clean off, it tasted rather foul.
The only other orc looking to be of importance screamed from behind Thunderheart's now lifeless corpse, he gripped the banner and shouted to his comrades in orcish, a language fouler than even the taste of their flesh. He attempted to retreat to live another day, but I wouldn't allow that. Turning back into a human I ran after him, past a handful of other orcs and a spiritual axe that had shown up during the chaos. Miraculously none of them managed to lay a hand on me, and just as I got into range I unleashed a thorn to stop his retreat. I could feel strength surge through me as my whip encircled his throat I pulled back, ripping his head and spine grotesquely from his structurally unsound torso. Zarko ran out to catch the last few orcs escaping, and with an impressive display of pure power destroyed three of them within the blink of an eye. The rain subsided.
Drenched in blood we stumbled back into town. Grief immediately kissed Godfree for an awkwardly long amount of time, and as they finished I attempted to tell her that this had been our plan all along. For we knew fighting the orcs up in their own mountain homes would be suicide, and to bring them here to this well fortified town with an expertly trained militia at our side we couldn't fail. Her cold gaze melted my smile as she called bullshit on my claims. I grew tired of this petulant little bitch always fucking with me and made my way to the tavern. Things immediately grew fuzzy. I remember, Grief and Godfree talking about their future. Godfree trying to worm his way out of things, while Grief obviously wanted him to stay. I spent most of the night heckling her, shouting out that he would never come back and visit, and that she was a hideous demon of a woman. Eventually we were at the Inn, I had snuck some alcohol back and continued drinking. Fuck this town. Everybody was asleep, and as my eyes closed I heard a faint "klok" come from my bag.
We were all suddenly in what looked to be the ruins where the orcs had been camping, but off, and one of the buildings was perfectly intact. Together we headed into the building, upon doing so the warforged from the painting appeared in front of a podium in the back of the house. He spoke, declaring himself to be Ive Nogas, a magical savant, whenever he made such a declaration the room suddenly was filled with what was probably warforged illusions who all clapped and cheered for him in creepy unison. Recognizing who he was I ran up to him to figure out what his deal was. He told us he too was looking for the stone of Orcus, and offered us "untold power" if we worked with him. Zarko tried talking to him, but his simplicity annoyed Nogas who made him vanish, though it was clear he hadn't harmed him. I tried to reason with him, telling him that if he would tell us what his goal was that we might work with him, but we had to establish a baseline of trust first. He wouldn't reveal anything more than what he wished to though, and I asked to be whisked away.
The next morning I discovered both Godfree and Ishmael had some of their equipment, or fists in the case of Ishmael, enchanted slightly. Nothing diabolic seemed to have come of it though. Having gathered a bit of information from Thunderheart, and having bested the majority of his army we set off to share our knowledge with the Archdruid of the Verdant Enclave. On our way a pixie appeared and tried talking to our group, but this annoyed Zarko who hit the creature so hard it exploded. I would have been enraged if it hadn't been for the horrid hangover I was suffering from, I never was much of a drinker. Nothing else stalled us on our way to the Enclave where we were brought to the Archdruid.
Apparently, we hadn't learned anything they didn't already know, which honestly was kind of bullshit since they didn't bother telling us these basic facts that we could have used to our advantage and learn more. We explained how we had botched the job, but made it out alive, with the stone, and had managed to save the town. The Archdruid seemed displeased with our results. At this point Godfree spelled our doom. For no reason he mentioned that we had a run in with Ive Nogas through my enchanted painting, this caught the attention of the Archdruid. And it all went South from there. When I refused to hand over the painting he told the guards to block the exit. After some more pointless discussion I walked over to a window and stared out of it. The Archdruid seemed almost afraid of this Nogas fellow, but I didn't trust them enough to hand over my possessions, they didn't believe me when I said I had disposed of the painting, so I made a horrible decision. I pulled out the painting and asked for Nogas to assist us, when he didn't I went to throw the painting on the ground towards the Archdruid. Before it left my grasp he cast hold person on all of us. Now frozen and at his mercy he took the painting and told me I was expelled from the order and told us all to leave.
Look, I don't get it either, but I've got a thing for paintings, yeah? So this wouldn't do, I asked what I could do to undo my expulsion after explaining I had thrown the painting down to him. He said there was nothing more I could do. I argued, but he wouldn't budge. Finally, I offered the Orcus stone for the painting back. My companions didn't seem too enthused by this, but he agreed, we swapped and we quickly escorted out of the building. Outside we talked about what happened, and everyone agreed that we didn't really know what to do with these Orcus stones, but that we didn't want them being used, and at least if the Verdant Enclave had one there was a solid chance of them keeping it away from the Necromantic Cult. Suddenly the day worsened, but at least my hang over had mostly cured.
A girl came up to us, asking after a pixie, she went on to describe the same pixie Zarko had exploded just a few hours prior. He told her he hadn't seen her pixie friend, and when she told us she would give us her necklace, her one possession of any real value, he grew interested. As she walked off Zarko grew annoyed, and starting talking about how he would just take this necklace. I couldn't handle anymore disasters so I hailed the girl, and told her that we had in fact seen her friend, and that Zarko had smashed into little more than dust. This shattered the girl. When asked about her necklace for "finding" her friend the decimated husk of the once hopeful girl ran into the Verdant Enclave screaming for help. We left immediately.
We made our way South, stopping in Angel's Crossing before leaving Northern Kana, hopefully for good. In an attempt to cheer myself up I visited a dance hall, unfortunately a seemingly retarded man and two of his friends were already using the place. I challenged him to a dance off, and upon winning I was able to forget the world for at least a moment. In those moments of bliss I found myself dancing with his female friend, flirting with her. Without me even noticing Godfree had come in as well, and having gotten into some kind of an altercation with the retarded man punched him in the face. The woman screamed and left. Dejected I headed out too, I caught Godfree pissing on the retarded man before leaving though. What the fuck happened to us? We wound up having to spend a few days there as Godfree was jailed for a while. Eventually though, we made our way to the South.
While crossing the bridge, which connected North and South Kana over a deep ravine, we encountered a young mage attempting to cast some kind of magic. He was clearly frustrated when Ishmael offered him some sage advice. Just go with the flow. The mage took a deep breath, tried again, and suddenly a wind elemental appeared before him. Unfortunately he had somehow gone beyond his power, and the Air Elemental sent him flying off the ravine. Suddenly everyone was in a panic, leaving only our group to deal with the mess. Within minutes the monster had dissipated back into the atmosphere and... what was this? Cheers? Claps? Triumph?
A new continent, a new beginning, new opportunities. We can turn this around.
No comments:
Post a Comment