Session 22: The Foulness of the Faire

Game Date: 12/15/07
In-Game Date: Godsday, Disander 12 mid-morning – midafternoon


Grumble, Audric and Badger stroll into the Moneylender’s Guild. Changing their jewels and other treasures into coin, they find they have close to 40,000 in gold coin at their disposal. They agree to pay the 5,000 gold fee to open an account with the guild, take some spending money, and keep the rest on account.
Grumble nearly skips back to the smithy and orders an enchanted adamantine shield, as well as some returning javelins. Quirky changes his mind and buys a sickle of alchemical silver for Nialia.
Leaving Shooma’s, they walk towards the librarium of the Grey University. Badger sees a few gnomish carts touting their wares. One is blathering on about the value and worth of their locks, “guaranteed unpickable or your money back!” They offer a prize to anyone who can pick the lock they have on display.
Narrowing her eyes, Badger strides up to the raised platform on which the gnome speaker and his “unpickable lock” are standing. For two gold pieces, she is allowed three tries. Badger’s first two tries are nearly successful, but the lock is rather clever. She sits back and thinks for a minute. Then, smiling sweetly at the gnome, she proceeds to pop the lock in a matter of a few seconds, kicking the trunk lid open with a flourish.
The crowd, always ready to cheer an underdog (especially an attractive one), erupts into applause. Crestfallen, the gnome hands her the prize: a gnomish motorized lockpick with a silence charm cast on it. The gnome feels a little better after hearing her family name. “Perhaps we can say, ‘Only the finest gnomish locksmiths in the world stand a chance of defeating our locks?’” Receiving a hearty pounding on the back from the dwarf and a kiss from Audric, Badger feels prouder than she has in quite a while. As the trio heads off into the crowd, a female dwarf stares, un-noticed, after them. She gives her shoulders a small shrug, and disappears into the throng as well.

*****

“So what’s a ranger like you doing in a forest like this?” Asks Sellim, the more handsome of the two brothers. Rowan can’t help giggling at the question; Sellim’s brother Grellick just groans. Sellim has been brazenly flirting with Rowan the whole time they’ve been tracking the odd trail left by their mystery creature. His cheerful demeanor and unashamed tongue can’t hide the fact that he (and his brother) both know their stuff. The three rangers track the beast as it wanders, seemingly aimlessly, through the woods near the river. They stop for lunch, briefly, but as soon as they’ve taken just a few bites, Rowan’s fox Gus starts backing away from her and growling, his fur raised.
Rowan realizes that it’s not her, but a smell coming from behind her, the scent drifting on the wind. Blood, and fresh blood at that. There are no jokes as the rangers move stealthily forward, arrows nocked to their bows. Less than a hundred yards away are the savaged remains of a brown bear. The bodies of her two cubs also lay nearby. All three animals were torn apart and disemboweled by some powerful claw or weapon. Bloody tracks lead off into the forest from there. The animals have been dead less than an hour, so the rangers follow this new blood trail as quickly as they dare…

*****

In the grove of Amrauthlin, Nialia helps the elf collect belladonna and other herbs used in creating potions of wolfsbane. These will be administered to those bitten by the were-rats in last night’s attack. The work is pleasant, though the urgency behind it casts a pall over what would be an enjoyable day in a well-tended garden. Nialia and the elf converse casually, Nialia deflecting questions that might lead towards the subject of the Lythari. Amrauthlin asks about the feeling of alien-ness over the city. He says that it’s been growing slowly over the last two fortnights, but the past week it’s gotten markedly worse. He can’t forget that the coming week is the Horfang, the week of ill-fortune on the elven calendar.
The plants gathered, the two druids head for the small shack Amrauthlin uses for a dwelling and a workshop. He glances at a sall leather sack and swears abruptly. He explains to Nialia that the druid in the grove outside of town and across the river needs the herbs in the sack as quickly as is possible, but the pressing need for the wolfsbane drove it from his mind. He asks Nialia if she’d be willing to deliver the supplies for him while he stays and work.
She agrees, and Amrauthlen gives her detailed directions to the grove, then invites her to take her evening meal with him. She agrees, and sets off towards the city gates. She does not get far when Enialis begins hooting softly, nipping at her ear and staring behind them. Nialia notices two tall, lean, rough-looking men who are obviously following her. She tries to act nonchalant, but the two men notice that they’ve been spotted and begin to close the distance between them and the druidess.
Nialia casts fog cloud, and an obscuring mist spills out from an alley and across the street. She ducks into another alley as soon as the fog obscures her view of her followers. Losing them does not take too much effort, and she’s able to leave the city without being accosted by anyone, nor does she see the two thugs again. Following the druid’s directions, she crosses the river and enters the woods.

*****

The Library of the Grey University is a large, sprawling, two-story building. It appears as though it has been much-added to over the years. The library, along with a handful of other buildings, are old buildings that survived the razing of the old city, making it about three hundred years old.
The three adventurers head inside and meet an older woman dressed in the grey robes of the university’s faculty. She greets them and introduces herself as Kartharine, a Loremaster and wizard.
Grumble wastes little time in asking about his axe. Kartharine peers at it through thick, square spectacles.
“Very early dwarven, possibly pre-tri-clan schism,” she says. “It looks somewhat familiar.”
She casts analyze dweomer, which to her surprise, reveals nothing. “Hmm. There may be more to this weapon than meets the eye. What does it do?”
Grumble tells her that it changes shape on command, but only to dwarven weapons. He doesn’t mention what happened the first time he touched the weapon.
“Have you shown the weapon to Shooma? She is very wise in such matters.”
“Uh, yeah, I did. She wasn’t much help, though,” says Grumble.
“What did she tell you, then?”
“She looked at it and started spouting off about the creation story; y’know, the one with the first dwarf, then the first Goldenaxe. That one.”
“Ah yes, the ‘One dwarf to rule them all’ story.” Kartharine smiles. “Let me think.”
She drifts off, and is silent for a few long moments. Grumble starts to say something, and she comes awake and She snaps her fingers. “That’s it! Follow me.”
Kartharine leads them through row after row of dusty bookshelves and case after case of scrolls. Finally, she stops before a series of drawers, all wide, deep, and short. Inside these drawers lie neatly stacked long, leather-bound scrolls that appear to be rolled up canvas. She picks one and carries it to a nearby table, unrolling it with gentle fondness.
“Ah, as I suspected. This is a drawing of a series of bas-reliefs that have since been destroyed by clan warfare. Both the original sculptor and the artist were very skilled, and the detail is incredible. This one shows the story of the last Goldenaxe slaying Corthonodox, last of the great black Nether-drakes. See anything familiar?”
Grumble, Badger and Audric stare at the drawings. The weapon wielded by the Goldenaxe is a dwarven waraxe, and the designs of the blade and handle are identical to Grumble’s axe.
“I assume you know the story of the Goldenaxe’s weapon?” asks the wizard woman. Grumble nods, still staring at the drawing. Neither Audric nor Badger has heard the story, though.
Kartharine explains: “When a new Goldenaxe was crowned, he was to fast for a day, alone in meditation before the final coronation ceremony took place. If the Goldenaxe found favor in the sight of their gods, some say Moradin, others say Kron’nock, the ruler would emerge from his solitary vigil with a weapon that would remain with him all his life. When he died, it would always disappear within the hour of the king’s death. Innumerable stories grew around the legend of these weapons, some are no doubt myth, and others have respectable historical evidence to back them up. There were Goldenaxes whose names are all but forgotten, but whose weapons will be remembered until the end of days.”
“Many wonder if the Goldenaxes had but one weapon throughout the ages, or if each king was bequeathed a different one. Dwarf scholars argue vehemently over this. In any event, the fact remains that some Goldenaxes carried warhammers, some waraxes, some greataxes, some even the Urgosh. All of them had slightly different abilities, according to legend.
“Such was the influence and symbology of these weapons that what finally broke the rule of the Goldenaxe was not so much the royal family being slaughtered in the precursor to the Great Orc War, but when the next Goldenaxe-to-be to be failed to emerge from their fasts with a royal weapon. Three separate dwarves, part of the Goldenaxe’s family through marriage, undertook this vigil in order to be crowned the new Goldenaxe. All failed. These three, of course, were the founders of the three royal clans. The dwarven high council decreed-”
Kartharine smiles at the adventurers. “I’m sorry, I slipped into lecture mode there for a moment. “I suspect someone created this axe to resemble the axe of the last Goldenaxe. Such things are not unheard of, though I have never before heard of dwarves doing so.”
“As I mentioned, most dwarves hold their weapons as to be only slightly less sacred than their kings, and their kings were revered only slightly less than their gods. Yet it’s obviously dwarven make, or the most cunning forgery I’ve ever seen. You have indeed set before me a curiosity, master dwarf. I will search what records I have. Return tomorrow and I may have found something. Or is there anything else about which you wished to enquire?”
Grumble tells Kartharine that they are looking for information on the House of Bel. Kartharine grows pale. She steps back, fingers moving to her hair. She pulls one of the sticks securing her graying brown hair atop her head. It appears to be a wand. She doesn’t point it at them, but her hand shakes visibly as she holds it at her side. Audric steps protectively in front of Badger, holding his arms out in a “hold-on” gesture. “Whoa, wait a minute. We’re all friends here. Let’s calm down, milady.”
After a few tense seconds (where Audric calculates a roughly 65% chance that Grumble and Badger can escape with their lives if he engages Kartharine in a direct magic duel, with a 20% chance of himself getting out alive), Kartharine nods to herself.
“Follow me,” she orders.
She takes them to a small room in one of the corners of the building. Two young students are poring over books spread on a low table.
“Out!” commands Kartharine, and the two scramble to obey. She shuts the doors and tells the three to sit at the table with her. She casts Otiluk’s resilient sphere around them all. Grumble and Badger are alarmed by the translucent sphere that materializes around them all, but Audric remains unperturbed.
“Air can pass through, but sound does not. Nor can we be detected by any scrying. Now, that name you uttered is proscribed. How came you by it?”
Badger and Grumble tell Kartharine about the nightmarish citadel under the earth, and the final, separate battle with the fallen druid Belak and the destruction of the Gulthias tree. They don’t mention the lythari, but then they tell of the apparition that appeared afterwards and savaged the mind of Heidiana. He told them they had earned the wrath of the house of Bel before disappearing.
Kartharine shakes her head. “I cannot believe you, yet why would you make up such a tale?”
Audric murmurs, “There was another name he told us, but it was not his own.”
Grumble perks up. “Hey, that’s right! It was, um… Kordon or something. Kolven, Koran… Kovan! That was it!”
Kartharine, looking grim, leans toward the patry. “I will tell you this once, and it must remain a secret among you. Few now live who can tell this tale, and every book that makes mention of those names, and the names I am about to utter, has been destroyed. We have worked hard to erase them from the world, that none may know who they were or what they did, for they came perilously close to destroying the world.”
She sits back, and fiddles with the rings on her slender fingers as she speaks.
“Do you know of the Demon War?”
“Is that the one with that Oruk-Thrun guy?” asks Grumble. “If it is, then yeah, we’ve all heard it.”
Kartharine nods. “It is indeed. Here is more knowledge than any bard will be able to sing you in the telling of that tale:
“In the year 1032 of the Laisren calendar, the Elfin Necromancer Tanneldwyn (who is called the possessed, the accursed, as well as other titles) attempted to re-open a portal to bring back Oruk-Thrun to this world. Tanneldwyn and his six acolytes labored in secret, unearthing the ancient ruins of the city of Scourge underneath the Old Forest.
“Afterwards, Tanneldwyn and his acolytes were all tracked down and slain, but the acolytes, powerful magic-users themselves, had servants and acolytes as well. Nearly all of these were slain, but three escaped.
“These three were all servants of Kovan, chief lieutenant of Tanneldwyn. Normally, Kovan ritually slew most of his disciples and raised them as undead servants, but these three were living. These most trusted disciples were two brothers and a sister, last remnant of the ancient and accursed house of Bel. Their names were Amroch and Hemen, and their sister was called Rannah.
“We know from reliable sources that they agreed to separate and pursue their own destinies, but each harbored a desire to see the goals of Tanneldwyn the Accursed fulfilled.
“Rannah and Amroch we have not seen since in thirteen hunderd years. About a thousand years ago, Hemen was discovered far to the north in what is now Stelichtz. He built for himself a fortress of black ice on the cliffs of the sea. Karak-vulk-marr, it was called, the tower of the wolf’s shadow. This fortress was destroyed and crumbled into the arctic waters with him still within. To the best of our knowledge, Hemen was slain when it fell, though his body was never found.
“To this day there are clans of elves, progeny of those who fought Tanneldwyn, who still hunt for any sign of these last two evil beings.”
After Kartharine finishes speaking, she waves away the spell of the sphere around them. Even the quiet susurrus of the library is welcome after the still silence with that sphere, listening to such a tale. Grumble and company leave the library, somewhat shaken, and glad to be back underneath the blue sky and bright warm autumn sunshine.

*****

The three rangers hear a quiet thrashing noise from the bushes nearby. The tracks lead to a thick, heavy cluster of brush. Grelleck tells Rowan that a small stream lays just behind it; the creature may be washing or drinking. Grelleck plans to circle around to the other side and then flush the thing towards her and Sellim. The two rangers nod, and Grellick melts, ghost-like, into the woods.
After a tense few minutes, they hear a loud snapping of branches, and ready their weapons. But then there is a horrible scream that cuts off abruptly. Then another scream, coming from farther away.
“Grelleck!” screams Sellim, and charges towards the stream, with Rowan close on his heels.
The rangers find a large bloody patch on the ground just on the other side of the stream. Grelleck’s sword lies beside it. From there, a bloody trail, as if something were being dragged, leads off into the brush. The two rangers charge headlong into the woods after the creature and his prey, Sellim still calling for his brother.
Nialia, nearby, hears faint screams coming from off to her left. They seem less than a mile away, so she shifts into her wolf form and streaks forward towards the sound.
A few minutes of fast travel brings her to a small clearing where a grisly sight awaits her…
Rowan nearly collides with Sellim as he stops short at the edge of a small clearing. The creature has obviously made this its nest; several carcasses in various states of decay lay strewn about the place. The creature, a bizarre cross between a lizard and a bird (look, it’s a Deinonychus. Kind of.), is slashing open Grelleck’s body with powerful, long talons on his hind legs. Sellim charges forward only to be slammed back onto the ground as the creature makes a 25-foot standing jump terminating on the ranger’s chest. Sellim is slashed nearly in half before he even hits the ground.
Rowan yells and charges forward as well, her swords flashing, as Nialia appears, unseen by the creature, across the small glade. Rowan feels the talons ripping into her, and the thing’s foul teeth snap just inches away from her throat. Nialia, still in wolf form, calls a lightning bolt that distracts the creature for a moment, though it seems to confuse it more than hurt it. Rowan presses her own attack, and Nialia charges forward and grabs the thing’s leg, pulling the large lizard to the ground. Rowan whispers the name of her new blade as she slices into the beast, and it shudders into stillness. Helpless, only a few strokes are needed to finish the beast. Dying, the thing seems to melt, it’s limbs going soft, as if putrefying, in a matter of a second. Several new eyes open in it’s mangled head, as well as a second mouth. This nauseating display lasts for a moment, then the creature succumbs to its wounds and perishes.
Nialia saves Sellim from the brink of death with her wand of cure light wounds.
Sellim’s good humor and smiles are gone as he gets to his feet, staring at his brother’s body. He takes Nialia’s package, telling the women that he’ll be taking his brother’s body back to the grove for burial. He thanks them for saving him, but insists he do this alone. They follow him for a while at a careful distance, making sure nothing else in the forest bothers him. Finally they set their feet towards the city once more, their hearts heavy.
At the city gates, Nialia stumbles as she’s overcome for a moment by a wave of vertigo. The feeling of wrongness in the city spikes, and she fights off nausea. A few seconds later, another wave hits her. She can’t pinpoint the location, but she thinks it’s coming from the direction of the West Hill district. Rowan asks, “Wasn’t the library that the guys were going to in that district?”
The two women look at each other for a moment, and then increase their speed as they enter the city.

*****

Walking along the street of shops in the west hills, Grumble, Badger and Audric consider the news they’ve heard. Few people walk the street with them; most of the shops are closed, their owners having displays and carts set up on the main street of the faire. Suddenly the world seems to tilt and twist before their eyes, and a strange, alien landscape seems superimposed over the façades of the stores. Unlikely trees sway above a gray-green swamp, and the sky above is a sickly orange. That image fades quickly, but a pool of slime expands under their feet, and the three have to backpedal hard to avoid it sucking at their footgear. Before they can do more than utter startled cries, a giant creature emerges from the slime. A translucent worm-like thing, it towers over them, seven waving, claw-tipped tentacles wave like cilia around a circular, toothy maw. With a strange, high-pitched cry, it attacks.
As Grumble and Badger wade forward, blades swinging, Audric looks behind him to see a second pool expanding behind them, trapping them. He curses as another worm creature rises from the new slime pool.
It is a grim, desperate fight to slay the creatures while dodging the seething mass of tentacles that seek to drag them into the worms’ mouths. Soon all three are bleeding from a score of claw and bite marks, and all have barely evaded being stuffed into the sickening, pulsating mouths of the worm-creatures. The worm creatures, seemingly oblivious to the gashes in their own thick hides, attack mindlessly. More clear slime spills from their wounds, coating Grumble, Badger and Audric in the viscous goo.
Finally, both worm creatures take so much damage that they can no longer attack, though even as they lay still, tentacles still snap feebly in the direction of the exhausted trio. As the worms finally die (which seems to take forever), the corpses and the slime pools under them fade out of existence. Audric, realizing the creatures must have been summoned via a spell, looks around for a magic user in the gathering crowd of onlookers, but sees no likely suspects. The crowd, believing the spectacle to be some manner of show, applauds enthusiastically. Some even throw a few coins at their feet. Muttering darkly, the three of them are just getting their breath back when Nialia and Rowan show up. They overheard people talking about a dwarf and two gnomes putting on a show of fighting monsters as they passed through the city, and came as quickly as they could.
Nialia and Rowan tell their comrades what has occurred in the forest. A suggestion to retire to the inn and discuss the rest of the day’s events is lauded by all, and the tired adventurers head towards the center of town, to the Shield and Shingle.
Nialia remembers the offer of Amrauthlen for a meal together. She tells them that she must tell the other druid that their dinner will have to wait until a later date, and then she’ll meet them at the inn. She walks away in the direction of the grove, passing a troupe of actors performing on a hastily erected stage. The play is a poor rendering of an old elven story, and Nialia doesn’t even look up as she threads her way through the dozen or so people gathered to watch (or jeer).
As the hero onstage proclaims his intent to go and slay the trolls that have abducted his love, a hulking figure emerges from behind the curtain on the stage. Tall, gray-skinned, and muscular, it wears only a loincloth and wields an axe made of crudely carved stone. Where the things eyes should be, only blank stretches of skin exist. It sniffs the air for a moment, then turns toward the actor on the stage.
“Oh, hells below,” whispers Audric, “that thing’s real. Shoot it!” and takes off at a dead run, yelling warnings at the actor.
The actor turns and sees the monster and gives his first convincing performance of the afternoon as he screams in terror. The monster cuts him with his axe, and the actor collapses to the stage, bleeding. Before the monster can finish the job, Rowan’s arrow takes him through the back of the head, killing him instantly. But while that happens, four more of the creatures have leaped out from behind the stage and have jumped down to the stunned crowd below, attacking indiscriminately. The party wades in, weapons swinging, but not before several more bystanders have fallen.
Grumble had started towards the action along with everyone else when he stops as if pole-axed. Just beyond the panicking crowd is a small knot of dwarves hurrying away from the action. One of them, a female dwarf, turns and looks straight at Gumble. Their eyes meet for a moment, and Grumble feels his blood turn to ice in his veins. The face... it can’t be. She’s dead. But the likeness is exact, down to the last metal band used to fasten the end of her braids.
“Glorwyn!!” comes the tortured cry from his lips. She turns away as one of the dwarfs takes her arm and they hustle away.
Grumble chops through the monsters before him without even really seeing them. The last creature hasn’t even finished collapsing to the ground when Grumble takes off after the dwarves at a dead run.
Pushing through the crowd, he finally catches up with the dwarves he saw, but there is no girl with them. Panting, he accosts them, and they draw back, hissing through their beards at the sigh of him.
“Yeah, yeah, no beard. Deal with it!” he snarls into their faces. “Where’s the girl who was just with you?”
The dwarves look confused now as well as offended. “We have no female with us, fool,” spits the closest to Grumble.
“I just saw her with you when you ran away from those things on that stage, now where the hell is she?!?”
Again the dwarves insist that they have no female companion with them, and tell Grumble that he should learn to handle his liquor better. They turn from him and walk away. Grumble stares after them, his face suffused with rage and frustration. He picks up a loose broken cobble from the street and hurls it into the back of the helmet of one of the dwarves. “DON’T YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ME YOU BASTARDS!”
The struck dwarf turns and tries to charge at Grumble, fumbling with the peace-bond leather covering on his own axe. “Kil-mar’nock FILTH!” the dwarf spits. “I’ll gut you like a-”
But his companions tackle him from behind, shouting that he should not sully his blade with the blood of an outcast. They carry their struggling companion away as Grumble watches, motionless, gripping his axe so tightly that his hands ache.
Grumble says nothing as he returns to the rest of the party. Audric and Nialia have healed who they could. The actor, upon waking up, takes one look at the blood-and mud-spattered adventurers and takes off into the crowd with yet another scream.
Looking behind the curtain of the makeshift stage, Nialia and Audric find the rest of the acting troupe slaughtered. A door leads out of the back of the wagon the stage is erected upon, and leads down a narrow alleyway.
“Nialia,” asks Audric, “can you track the trail of these things back to wherever their lair is? There may be more of them.”
Nialia becomes a wolf and goes sniffing around while Audric goes back out to the stage and informs everyone else of their dark discovery. Healing themselves, the party prepares to follow Nialia’s lead through the maze of back alleys. All the while, Rowan feels like there’s something she’s forgetting about the foes they faced. Something her father said. Something very important…