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Post by zipp on Dec 29, 2008 3:29:53 GMT
It is the end of the Summer of MS 5052. Lone Wolf, last of the Kai, has departed for Kalte on a king-given mission to rid the ice continent of the threat of Vonotar the traitor and bring him back to Sommerlund for justice.
With Darklord Zagarna defeated and the rest of the Darklords in a civil war, King Ulnar had thought this the perfect opportunity to spare his last Kai Lord. Also, fighting is traditionally done in the Summer, and the King has turned his thoughts to rebuilding his army over the Winter months, rather than preparing it for more fighting.
Little does he expect that, more than ever, his army will be needed.
In an unexpected move, Zagarna left his reserve forces, the forces that were to sweep Magnamund after the fall of the Kai, in the hands of Xog, a Darklord residing in Helgedad and looked down upon by the other Darklords. These forces number in the thousands. Though not nearly as numerous as the forces that besieged Holmgard, they are more than enough to raze the countryside and destroy the petty remnants of the King's army.
With Lone Wolf out of reach, the King sends his five greatest generals with the majority of his forces to the Durncrag mountains to meet this threat.
Meanwhile, news trickles in from the Wildlands of a mysterious plague that is ravishing small villages. Thouroughly unequipped to deal with this new issue, the King initially ignores it, and hopes that the plague will burn itself out. He sends a few healers to do what they can for the villages, but they never return.
Then the city-state of Oasis is struck. A gathering of merchants that exploded into a city over generations of wealth and influence, Oasis is not only an important trading post, but is located only three or four day's journey south of Holmgard, a little inside the border to the Wildlands. The threat of plague can no longer be ignored.
In desperation, the King calls for the various houses and guilds to send him what help they can spare for an investigation into the city. In the end, six travelers are told to meet in the Golden Axel, a well-to-do inn in Holmgard, where they will set out for Oasis.
While Lone Wolf's journeys into the Winter of Kalte were remembered for all time, little today survives of the account of the adventurers of the Summer back on the continent. Only vague whispers and the occasional mark in a tome speaks of the horrors and evils they encountered at the end of the Summer that time forgot.
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Post by zipp on Jan 11, 2009 8:08:47 GMT
The journey did not begin well. For one thing, Ishir's Foulness, a time when the moon ran red, came early that season, and unexpectedly cast the night in a baleful gloom filled with superstition and nervous energy. For another, only five of the six companions ended up arriving at the inn: Meldorac the scholar, Gregor of the Brotherhood, a priest of Ishir named Owain, Bonnie from the Rangers, and Michael of Eshnar (a healer). The identity and location of the sixth investigator is unknown.
There were two other guests at the Golden Axel that night, one of them a mercenary recently returned from the Wildlands, and a first hand witness to the plague. The second was a fat merchant hoping to make his usual summer's fortune in those same Wildlands. His wishes were not to be, however, as he died suddenly and mysteriously during the night.
Now, ill rested and lacking a companion, the investigators prepare to leave Holmgard and start down the road that leads to the merchant city of Oasis.
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Post by zipp on Jan 16, 2009 8:01:22 GMT
Leaving Holmgard, the companions were joined by the mercenary of the night before. An experienced traveller, this Trenton fellow pledges them a week of his services, which includes knowledge about the plague that has struck the Wildlands.
On their way now, the party discovered the Eledil River Crossing had been blocked off, the first signs that the King was taking visible steps to prevent the outbreak of the plague. Meeting an old friend at the Crossing, Bonnie gained the party passage.
The first day passed without further incident, but the second day saw the appearance of a freak storm which drove the party into taking shelter and making camp inside a small forest. It was here that Owain and Trenton, having ventured out on their own to gather herbs, discovered the presence of a large Darklord camp on the North Eastern outskirts of the forest. The enemy discovered their position, but with a bit of luck, they managed to lead them astray.
Making their way back to the party, they found that two giak scouts had attacked their makeshift camp. Though they had been defeated, it was now certain that the party could no longer take shelter, and they headed out in the rain again to push for Oasis.
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Post by zipp on Jan 30, 2009 21:33:20 GMT
Late in the day, the companions reached Havon's Way, a defensive waypost set in a small ravine. Built by the dwarves ages ago as part of some forgotten truce, the waypoint was stationed so that two gates created a potential arena inside the ravine. Any enemy getting caught in this arena could be pelted with arrows without a way of escape.
Unfortunately for the party, this device became a trap set for them, as Drakkarim had killed commander Bannon and his guards. As the companions entered the arena, the gates shut behind them, and archers appeared on the thirty foot high ramparts. Also, the Drakkarim Commander (posing as Bannon) came into the arena with them, determined to cut them down.
The Drakkar hadn't counted on their prey being skilled in combative arts, nor had they counted on Bonnie's skill with the bow. Between her and Gregor's long range attacks, the archers were soon taken down. Even so, the Drakkarim Commander was no easy foe, and in the fight against him the party exhausted most of their healing implements. Even Trenton didn't come out unscatched. Furthermore, Michael, the group's healer, was knocked unconcious. Though revived at the end of combat, his overall condition is unknown.
With the Commander defeated, the party had a new problem: how did they get out of the locked arena? The distant cry of Doomwolves did nothing to lessen the anxiety of their situation. Fortunately, the scholar Meldorac found a scroll on the Drakkarim containing a riddle that was a clue to opening the gates. Between him and the rest of the party, they managed to solve the riddle and leave the arena. The Drakkarim had the last laugh, though. As Owain went to retrieve one of the archer's crossbows, he was struck by a poisoned dagger.
It is unknown what Drakkarim are doing so close to the capital, but there was little the party could do to answer that question. Oasis was still their goal, and they had to keep heading for the merchant city. Having now experienced the strength of their enemy, however, the party decided it would be best to stay off the roads and to head into the hills, where the ground, still wet and marshy from the rains, would make them harder to track and harder to follow.
Night has sunk into the hills as the companions press on...
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Post by zipp on Feb 18, 2009 8:51:30 GMT
The hills were dark and foggy. The companions were cold and miserable as they traveled late into the night. Sometime before midnight they arrived at a house. It seemed too good to be true and indeed this rose had its thorns. A terrible incident had occurred at the house in which the owner, a Mr. Mason, had murdered his family and serving staff, leaving only one remaining in the house. This occupant, a serving girl named Sherri, was found by the companions who agreed (pressured by Brother Gregor) to take her under their protection. They also found a knight of the realm, sir Aram, whom fate had brought to the house on his way to Oasis where he hoped he would find his sister.
From the moment they entered the house, things went ill for the companions. First of all, Michael (whose condition had worseneed since the Drakkarim's ambush) disappeared, with no sign of where he'd gone. Then several of the companions found a secret room in the house filled with signs of dark ritual and from which Owain took a strange book. Finally, the companions were set upon by rabid dogs which arrived eerily out of the fog that haunted the hills and whose appearance led to a showdown in the adjoining stables... which was complicated when they caught on fire. Though the companions triumphed over their adversaries, the mercenary Trenton was struck in the back of the head by a flaming beam. The injury killed him.
Though shaken, the companions were too tired after the fight to do anything but use the house as shelter. That night, Meldorac revealed his reason for going to Oasis: he was searching out an artifact that he believed could be causing (or at least connected to) the plague. He believed the artifact was in the possession of a priest gone mad with faith... and maybe power. However, the "scholar" was none the saner for the events of the night, and it is yet to be seen whether his story is taken at full value by the others.
Also, several persons have been left unaccounted for. Aside from Michael, there are members of the Mason household who have not been discovered, among them Mason's son, the other servant Thanh, and Lemuel Mason himself. Though Bonnie and Aram searched the house, they only found the bodies of Mrs. Mason and the Mason twin daughters, Reilly and Samantha.
Whether the Masons have a further role to play in this twisted tale has yet to be seen...
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Post by zipp on Feb 24, 2009 20:52:50 GMT
Though many did not sleep well during the night, in the morning, all felt more rested. Before setting out, the companions set fire to the Mason home, to clear it of the signs of dark ritual and evil that had pervaded it.
After leaving the ruined home behind, the companions made good time, reaching the valley where the city of Oasis lay about two hours before sundown. Oasis proved to be an impressive sight. Built up the rise of the hill, the ground had been leveled in steps, eight in all, so that the highest point of the city rose many yards above the rest. The whole city was encircled by a great wall with a single entrance. This entrance was a gigantic gate. The highest step was also encircled by a gate, and in the middle of the step rose a huge tower, the Citadel, which housed the richest members of Oasis.
After three harrowing days, the companions at last saw ahead of them their goal. But their path to the city was hampered by one last obstacle.
From the entrance to the valley, a huge army composed of the servants of the Darklords had drawn up, and looked to be preparing for a siege. The companions, if they rode now, would be trapped inside the city with the besieged. But if they didn't go ride for the gates, they may never make it in at all.
In the end, their decision was hastened by the arrival of Kraan, which attacked the party. Fighting bravely, the companions fought off the creatures, killing one and escaping the other to arrive at the gates of Oasis. Though they saw or heard no one, their presence had apparently been noted, for large circular gates opened to admit them into the city...
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Post by zipp on Mar 11, 2009 23:23:18 GMT
The city was devoid of life. Assuming everyone had retreated into the city, the wary companions let Sherri take the lead, heading for her mother's house and hopefully some much needed safety.
Safety had become a rare commodity in Oasis, though.
It was not long before the companions fell into a bizarre trap: when investigating a cry for help in an alleyway, Aram and Owain found a young girl. Upon seeing the duo, the girl wrapped herself around Aram and screamed loudly enough to shatter ear drums, turning into a living alarum.
Answering the alarum were the citizens of Oasis, though they seemed very upset... and violent.
During the ensuing fight, Gregor was nearly killed, Meldorac demonstrated the fine art of dangling like bait, and Bonnie was separated from the group. Owain used his god-given gifts to protect the group as best he could, while Aram proved himself a terrifying force on the battlefield, once he'd freed himself from the "screamer's" embrace. Sherri was mostly helpless during the fight, but thankfully the citizens seemed to ignore her.
Before all the citizens could be fought off, though, a terrifying roar shook the companions to their cores. The remaining citizens ran off, and the companions followed suit, having no time to look for Bonnie. As of now, their number has been reduced by one. The scene's close sees them fleeing through the ever darkening streets of Oasis, while the rain begins to fall in earnest, and behind them the roars become ever louder...
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Post by zipp on Apr 7, 2009 19:49:19 GMT
The companions fled uphill and found themselves at a dead end made up of wealthy homes. A man who looked Vassagonian and who called himself Naseir met them and led them into one of the houses. He barely had time to tell them that he was part of the city guard before whatever was chasing them caught up to the house and laid siege to it.
Then things got... strange.
Meldorac and Gregor (and Sherri) disappeared. Meldorac returned shortly, though he seemed even more tweaked than usual. The others didn't have time to wait for Gregor and Sherri. With the roars getting louder and the whole house shaking, they withdrew further, seeking to find some back door out of the house.
Instead they fell into a trap.
Finding themselves in a hallway with an intricate tapestry of an ancient battle, the companions were attacked by a dark smoke which drove them into an illusion wherein they were forced first to find their way out of a devious riddle involving four strange travelers. Afterward, they were forced to fight their way free of fearsome beasts in a scene from the tapestry.
One by one, the companions broke the illusion and freed themselves of the smoke, though their sanity had been sorely tested by the ordeal. Now back in the tapestry hallway where they had fallen into the trap, they evaluated their situation. It didn't look good. Naseir had not been able to free himself, and attacked them. Also, the beasts from the illusion had been made real, and continued their assault. Meldorac, his sanity drifting, took on Naseir, while Aram bravely held his ground against the beasts, though he was on his last legs.
Fortunately, Gregor had come back, and he set the tapestry on fire, creating an obstacle which the beasts seemed terrified to approach. He then threw open the door on his side of the hall and prepared to escape.
Again, things weren't what they seemed.
Beyond the door lay a storm, obviously magical in origin (or maybe another illusion). A voice came through the door, urging the companions to hurry. As if to further this point, the door at the other end of the hall burst open and... something entered. Whatever had been chasing the companions had found them.
Aram and Owain didn't hesitate to flee into the storm. Meldorac, however, had completely lost his mind. Gregor tried to drag him away from the approaching horror, but the scholar refused to flee.
And thus the scene closed, with Sherri missing, Naseir knocked unconcious, and Gregor and Meldorac on the brink of being overtaken on the edge of an unnatural storm.
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Post by zipp on May 26, 2009 19:32:43 GMT
A storage room. Such was the opening of the next scene. Gregor, Aram, and Owain had escaped the Darkness to find themselves amidst boxes of supplies. Meldorac was nowhere to be seen, and Gregor couldn't provide satisfactory explanation for what had happened to him.
Suspicions against the Mage Gregor only grew as the scene progressed. While the others explored the house (for of course the storage room opened into a larger setting), Gregor ignored them, preoccupied with a strange machine in the basement that he figured was a portal generator.
Upstairs, Aram and Owain found a man of Oasis, Gertwiller. He had some bad news. He'd fled to this house, which he revealed to be a guardhouse of Oasis, with an entire horde of zombies on his tail, led by Screamers, mutated versions of the screaming woman Aram had encountered earlier in the night.
With barely any time to spare, Aram set about barricading the house, while Owain spent his time looking for supplies. Gertwiller proved a helpful ally, helping in barricading, searching, and even providing some healing root to the companions. Just as the attack began, the newcomer to the party went to help Gregor with the portal generator.
As efficiently as he'd worked, Aram couldn't fully barricade the house. Within minutes, plague victims swarmed the upstairs. Owain, his sanity already tested by the events, fled to the basement, while Aram held the narrow stairway, using it as a pinch point to take down his enemies.
This plan was working well. Until the Screamer appeared.
A terrifying visage of a woman with stretched skin and abnormally long arms, the Screamer so frightened the knight that even his stalwart demeanor broke and he fled to join the others. The Screamer gave chase. And, at the same time, the portal reactivated. Gewrtwiller rushed to take advantage of this, but little did he know that the portal was RECIEVING, not sending. Running into a magical dissonance field will usually not kill a person, but it's never a pleasant experience. Gertwiller was knocked unconcious, while another newcomer appeared in the room.
This woman had the same tattoo as Nashier had. She refused to give her name to strangers, not an entirely unsensible sentiment. She also rambled about Burrowcrawlers and a woman called Sera Veshin, but thankfully, she was quick on the uptake. Being told the situation, she came to her senses and helped Aram and Owain barricade the room against the rampaging Screamer. She also knew about the portal system, and ascertained that the system was missing a focused destination crystal, which would help to send them to another portal and not into a piece of solid rock. Finally, she proved some skills in medicine by helping to bring Gertwiller to. As the man was coming awake, Owain's manner suddenly changed and he leveled his crossbow at Gertwiller. As he'd been looking through Gertwiller's pack, he'd found not only the crystal but evidence that the man was an agent of some dark force.
This twist was put aside for the moment, when the newly arrived woman explained something disheartening about the nature of the portal: it could only be used by one person at a time, lest the two travelers wished to be spliced together at their destination. Also, it would take time after each use to recharge. Owain and Aram were at their breaking points. It was decided that they should use the portal first, and the others would do their best to hold off against the Screamer if it broke into the room.
No sooner had the decision been made when the portal activated, finally fixed. A second later, Gregor disappeared into it. Then Gertwiller awoke. He demanded, of course, to know why he'd been betrayed. Before Owain could present his evidence, however, the Screamer burst into the room. Gertwiller didn't have time to explain himself: he was slashed in the face by the creature and fell screaming to his knees.
After cutting down Gertwiller, the Screamer focused its attack on its original target: Aram. Again the woman proved herself. Working together, she and Aram held off the beast until Owain could escape through the portal. Then Mowyer took the creature on alone while Aram took his turn at the machine. Just as he prepared to flee, the Screamer impaled the woman. Aram had other things to worry about, though. Gertwiller was still alive, and he was not happy. He launched himself at Aram with a growl. Before the knight could act, the portal activated and the two were sent away together to an unknown fate.
Left alone to face her death, the woman tried to calm herself and prepare her soul for the abyss. However, her life and her quest were not meant to end here. The Screamer, left alone with the woman, turned suddenly docile and released her. It then proceeded to hibernate in a corner of the room, completely ignoring her.
Though wracked with curiosity, the woman decided not to question overlong her situation. She activated the portal and fled the room.
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Post by zipp on Aug 6, 2009 18:39:45 GMT
Mowyer came to with a groan and the taste of blood in her mouth. Rising to her feet, she saw she'd come into the aftermath of some huge battle. Owain was there, trying to see if he could revive anyone. Gregor, who had fled through the portal leaving the others to their fate, was nowhere to be seen.
The brave knight Aram was dead.
Or so Mowyer and Owain at first surmised from a suit of armour that matched his and contained naught but a burnt corpse. Looking closer, Owain noticed a scar on the corpse's face which matched the wound Gertwiller had received from the Screamer in the last scene. It seemed that maybe Aram's body had been displaced somewhere else in the castle. That meant Gregor was probably alive, too, though neither of the companions had much interest in finding the man they deemed a traitor to their cause.
The two were not allowed to linger long. They had enough time to discover a strange crystal orb and for Mowyer to realize she had a map of the place engraved in her memory, some trick of the bag Charles had given her. The crystal came to life in this interim and further complicated matters... it seemed to be some sort of communication device and the person holding the other end was Sera Veshin who, as Mowyer explained, was responsible for the entire plague in the first place. Sera neither denied her guilt nor attested her innocence but instead labeled herself the leader of a group of rebels fighting in the castle. She agreed to meet with Mowyer and Owain if they could get out of the castle and find their way to her.
Then all hell broke loose.
The dead bodies rose from the floor, re-annimated into the plague victims that they'd been fighting all along. To make matters worse, the torches in the room blew out and two little twin girls, all too familiar to Owain's eyes, appeared to taunt them and demand that they play.
Their form of play was disturbing, though. They wanted Mowyer and Owain to become intimate with each other, like two children who play with their dolls and force them to do whatever they want. When the two companions refused, the twins became angry and set up another challenge. Mowyer they took outside the room, and pitted her against Gertwiller, for it was indeed he in Aram's armour. Owain they left in the room and posed a riddle to him. When he failed to answer it, he had to make his harrowing escape in the dark, avoiding the dead hands that tried to find him.
He succeeded, and came outside just as Mowyer finished off Gertwiller, for good this time. The two, now more sure than ever that Aram was alive and somewhere in the castle they'd all been transported to, decided to keep moving. Mowyer had her own motives. Her brother Charles had left her a map of this place inside her mind and now she needed to follow it to a certain bag waiting for her. She was hoping it would lead her, just maybe, to her other brother... Jason.
It was not to be, though.
Mowyer and Owain, distracted by the sounds of combat, found themselves with a group of the rebels Sera Veshin had mentioned. These ones were led by a distinctive warrior named Xaviee Domico. The warrior didn't explain their mission, only that he was searching for a cure to the plague with Sera and that in the meantime they had to make do with killing anyone infected with it. He requested that the two come with him and his group and so together they made their way through the castle and into the outer gardens.
And here they found an illusion. The garden seemed to go on forever and by wandering it, the rebels became lethargic and lost. Only Mowyer and Owain broke the illusion and then it was only to find themselves in the middle of a siege. Fire and brimstone fell from the sky, accompanied by the shrieks of Kraan and Giaks. Owain barely had time to wake another rebel before the creatures landed and attacked. The rebel joined them in battle, but all was interrupted by spires shooting from the ground and dousing the grounds in electrical energy.
Mowyer and Owain fell into darkness.
What has happened to the duo? What are Xaviee and Sera's real goals? Why are the Mason twins haunting Oasis? Is Aram alive and trying to make his way to the companions? Is Gregor alive and if so, what has he been doing? How did the Darklords make their way into the city?
Such are the questions posed by this scene. Will the next scene bring any answers, or just more questions?
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