Qthria – The Harsh Lands (a T&T Solo game thread) (Inactive)

Game Master Terquem

It was late. Well past the hours when decent folk knew it was best to be safe at home. The danger this evening wasn’t from thugs lurking in the night, or from tricksters playing at deceptions in the taverns.

This time of year, late in the winter when the hope of spring was close, but not close enough, the sea carried in the worst of the winds and rains. Cold and bitter storms settled in for hours after dark almost every night in Aukenfol, the month of shadows.

And yet on this night the Ceradoul’s hall was filled to the walls. The young mothers, daughters, and sons stood in a crowd in front of the Red Table, the place of law, for this small fishing village on the rocky shores of the Last Lake, near the skerries of Kedrek Duhr. Forty miles out to sea the strongest of this struggling little country, men and women with experience with the dark sea of Rhoandour, were most surely battened down in the long, deep hulled fishing boats that left the harbor four days ago. They would not return for another six days, hopefully their hulls filled with the disc shaped Ekerands, the fat oily fish that migrated past these shores every four eight-months.

But this night, this night a need was great, a demand was made, the Ceradoul, the head-women of the village, had been summoned. Something had to be done. Someone was needed to act. There was one solution, only one, and everyone who was not sick or out to see knew what must be done, and no one, not one soul of Galjargoaht, was willing to volunteer. It was placed upon the Ceradoul, the three wise women of the community to chose who would go and see the Witch of Biminik Shuld.

Such a trip would mean someone, or some brave group, would be asked, no required to make a trip across the lake, from the harbor of the main fishing settlement to the skerrie hamlets of the unfriendly Nerana Ocieds, and once beyond them, if they were lucky, to the sheer walls of Fownieramagah, where the castle of the sea witch stood high above the water.

Maliane, Sandrohen, and Falisheane, the old women who made up the Ceradoul sat on high round stools behind the Red Table, and listened to the pleas of the young mothers. Fifteen young children had fallen ill with high fevers, sweating, and raspy coughs, and this sickness was spreading.

Fortunately none had died from the ailment, so far, but they were not getting any better either, and this had gone on since two days before the fishing fleet left the docks. The sickest of the children were now growing weaker as it was becoming harder and harder to get them to eat, or drink, and it seemed that death was as close as the wind.

“We will choose the ones who will seek the sea-witch’s counsel at first light,” Maliane, seated on the right, at fifty eight the youngest of the Ceradoul said as she raised her left hand high in the air.

“Choose now, choose now!” the crowd chanted back at her.

The chant went on a few more times, and when it had nearly died out a young mother of three, Alima, stepped forward holding Johun, her youngest and only healthy child close to her, and said, “The one must leave at first light. We can waste no more days wondering when the last hour of our children’s lives will come.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” the crowd added, their voices growing louder and turning once more into a chant of , “Choose Now, Choose Now, Choose now!”

Falisheane, the eldest of the Ceradoul at seventy four, seated in the center, rose slowly from her stool, the wooden pegs that were her legs making a loud sound on the wooden floor as she balanced herself back and forth a few times and raised both of her arms high in the air, letting the long sleeves of her brown Hajeril, the traditional dress of a wise-woman, fall into a bunch at her shoulders. “Enough!” she shouted.

“Who will volunteer, again I say, who will volunteer?” She continued to shout above the chanting crowd. “ You, Danielan, or you Shenheen? Which one of you will do this?” She dropped her arms and pointed with a finger from both hands at one after another in the crowd. “Who!? Not you, or you, or even you, Caitlarn, who only last ten-month sailed with the sweeping of the Ekerand, and this year you are home and why? Because you lost one leg, HA! I lost both my legs in different sweepings, and sailed even three more sweepings before my strength was no more. Why will you not go? Is the fear of the sea-witch too much for a woman such as you? Are your children well or sick?”

“I have one who has the fever and Jaminie is too young to care for him if I were to go. You know I would, if I could!” the young blonde woman shouted back at the old woman.

The crowd erupted into shouts of, “It must be your choosing. It must be the will of the Ceradoul. You must decide.”

One voice rose louder and louder than the others, a tall, dark haired girl who rose to stand on a small table and screamed.

“I have said I will go!”

It was Brenda, Brenda Carvol, the granddaughter of Sandrohen, and the daughter of Karan and Tromel Carvol. Brenda was too young to have children of her own, but she was not too young to sail in the sweeping. She would have sailed this time, with the rest of the young men and women her age along with the older people of the village whose children were old enough to care for themselves for a ten-day.

But Karan and Tromel had sailed with the sweeping, and Brenda was an only child, until her parents had returned and her mother and father brought at least one more child into the world, it would be forbidden for her to sail in a sweeping. It was against the laws of the people for an entire family to sail in a sweeping. It was not uncommon for some to be lost in a storm, or a ship to sink if a Garlgadron attacked the fleet. Sandrohen had lost her husband and oldest son in separate sweepings, and as Ceradoul she could not sail.

“I have said I will go!” Brenda shouted again, and this time her shouting silenced the crowd.

Silent eyes turned toward the Ceradoul.

Sandrohen, who was not the oldest, nor the youngest of the Ceradoul, tried to stand, and fell from her stool. She was not the oldest or the youngest of the wise-women, but she was the most frail of the three, and her days were coming to an end.

When she had been younger, Sandrohen had been Ywalldrut, an adventurer who refused to adhere to the rules of her people. She travelled with the Dalrow, and the Gahoolie, seeking her fortune far inland in the wild dark places of the deep forest of this world. She did not sail in any sweepings, and when she returned to the village of her parents, she was already pregnant with the child of a man from the High Kingdom, a man the rest of her family never knew. She married Fadran Carvol, and raised a family. When her husband was swept overboard, her oldest son, Nallon, became head of the family, even though he was only half-sibling to his brothers. When Nallon was killed when his ship fought of a young Garlgadron intent on stealing the sweepings of its nets, she allowed her son Tramel to be the head of the family. Sandrohen grew older, and was known as a quiet woman of deep, long thoughts. A woman who would often talk at great lengths about the many possible was any single problem could be solved. She had learned some magic, nothing altogether as wonderful or dangerous as the spells of the Sea-Witch, but it was enough to give her purpose among her people, even if she was often seen as a bit off in ways. When she was young, and adventuring, she had been exposed to strange poisons, bizarre ailments, and peculiar, often near fatal cures, or so she claimed.

Most of the human people of the fjords of Qthria were strong, healthy folk, but Sandrohen’s life had taken its toll on her health, and when she fell from her stool, Maliane rushed to her aid, while Falisheane’s voice rose again in a shout.

‘I have said NO! Brenda, you are brave, and as filled with determination as your father, rest his spirit on the waves, but you are not permitted the freedom to make this choice and will not be until you are twenty years old and have sailed a sweeping. That is final.

Brenda fumed at the refusal, and climbed down from the table, but as she did she kept one eye on her grandmother. When Maliane rolled Sandrohen onto her side, gently rubbing the woman between her shoulder blades, a remedy that often eased Sandrohen’s labored breathing, Brenda’s eyes caught her grandmother’s, who looked right at her, winked and smiled.

This made Brenda furious. She knew her grandmother was only faking to get sympathy from the other women of the Ceradoul. Her grandmother thought that she was so clever, determined to keep Brenda from doing this service for her village, and why? Because her parents were already gone, her one remaining relative, her grandmother, was a wicked, unfair, unfeeling, and foolish old woman.

She was foolish, oh yes, Brenda knew well that Sandrohen was foolish. Because it didn’t matter to her what the Ceradoul believed was permitted or not. It didn’t matter to her. Brenda had wanted the Ceradoul to give her the honor of going to the Sea-Witch for a cure, give her the honor, yes that would be the best way for this to have worked out, for Brenda. But best ways, as she knew from so many of her foolish grandmother’s stories, were not the only ways.

Brenda stormed out of the hall into the dark, cold, windy and rainy night, and went straight home where she packed her backpack, took her father’s Askamad, a fat, short handled, double bladed hand axe, and headed for the boathouses near the docks. She had already stashed a week’s supply of food in a small skiff, tied at the end of the last long pier at the north end of the shoreline.

She had a small oil lamp, a gift on her tenth ten-month from her mother, and a thick seal skin coat, lined with badger pelts. She wore her hard boats, the ones normally worn when gathering along the tide pools, and woolen pants with a thick leather belt. She had four small sacks, three torches, and a few other small things that she knew might be useful in searching the Castle of the Sea Witch. For she already knew the tales.

The Sea-Witch did not like visitors. She did not welcome strangers. She did not hand out gifts of magic potions, spell holding stones, or cures for fevers. No, this was not her nature, or so the stories told. If one wanted the help of the Sea-Witch one had to earn it, and that meant not only reaching her castle high up the seventy foot tall cliffs of Fownieramagah once you managed to get past the little hamlets of the Nerana Ocieds on the wave swept skerries of Kedrek Duhr, but one had to find the Sea-Witch herself, in the mysterious, maze like castle, and that was only possible if you survived the dangers that she kept hidden away there.

The Sea-Witch just might grant you a reward, answer a question that might set the course of your future, or give you the secret to crafting glass stronger than iron, as many such stories told. But to get the aid of the Sea-Witch, you had to survive her castle.

Brenda would not fail. She would find the Sea-Witch, and she would return with a cure before one single child of her village was lost to the fever. She would do this with or without the Ceradoul’s permission, and without the interference of her foolish grandmother.

Well, Brenda said as she dragged the small boat up onto the pebbly beach That wasn't so bad*

She climbed the steps carved into the cliff below the castle, only twice did she have to scramble and climb from one place to another where the ravages of the wind and sea had taken a toll on the once well preserved stair.

She reached the top of the cliff as the sun was rising over the sea to the west, and a misty blanket of fog was rolling in below.

The castle sat a few dozen yards back from the edge of the cliff face. In front of her was a curved stone wall twenty feet high. Set in the wall were three open gateways. Each gateway was ten feet wide. The tops of the gateways were simply arches, but above each was a mysterious rune.

Brenda had not learned the runes. She knew they had their own power, and she remembered well her grandmother's slow and graceful hand when she would paint a rune-hallar (a special invitation to a wedding, or a blessing for a family that gained a new member - these rune-hallars, painted on long pale yellow cloths and draped from the household rafters near the sitting places fetched a good price and those with the skill to make them would always know that someone would be asking for one, usually every three to four ten-day, and it provided a steady income for Brenda’s grandmother).

She opened the glass shutter on her oil lamp and blew out the flame. Brenda carefully transferred the remaining oil in the lamp back into the wooden bottle she carried in her sack, and then rolled the lamp up in an empty sack to keep it safe, and stowed it away with the rest of her gear. She lifted the sack and placed the shoulder rope over her head, slinging the sack low on her hip, and then drew hew small double headed axe, and approached the gates.

She had no way of knowing what the runes above each gateway meant, but she guessed that they were a kind of warning, and imagined that some sort of significance was placed on the choice anyone made as to what gateway they passed through on the journey to the castle.

Brenda paused by the middle gate and looked at the castle beyond. The castle of the Sea-Witch was square, and large, nearly a hundred feet on each side, and was turned so that a corner of the castle faced this wall and the three open gateways. High on the walls of the castle Brenda could see narrow arrow loops, and two large shuttered windows, but she could not see a gatehouse, or stair leading to the castle’s main entrance. In fact from her viewpoint it appeared that there was no entrance to the castle from the ground at all.

She tightened her grip on her axe, adjusted her sack, and checked the strap on her chin that held her steel cap helmet in place, and then Brenda took a deep breath and marched straight toward the castle through the middle gateway.

Brenda’s eyes sting and her head spins as she seems to be walking forward toward the castle one moment, and then in the next, just as she crosses the boundary of the middle gateway, she takes a step and comes to a stop realizing she has been teleported.

Before she even has a single moment to ponder the magic at work her lungs burn and she blinks her eyes as she realizes she is in a dark, smoke filled place. There is no light and she does not know if she is still on the cliff, still anywhere near her village at all.

She drops to her knees for just a moment, and in the dark recovers her lantern setting it on the ground in front of her and then taking a moment to touch the ground with her hand to try to see if she can at least determine what the floor here is made of. He hand touches cold stone, flat, smooth, and then she moves it to the side until it comes to a line, a mortared joint, and she begins to think she has been sent inside the castle after all.

She fumbles with the oil reservoir cap on the side of the lamp, and then reaches into her sack for the wooden flask. She knows it will be a bit messy, but she puts one finger down into the neck of the oil reservoir and pours the oil until it fills up to the point that she feels it on the tip of her finger.

She replaces the cap, stores the rest of the flask of oil back in her sack, and with a match drawn from the pocket of her trousers and struck across the stone floor she lights the lamp’s wick, and can soon see a few feet in front of her, and to a short way all around.

Well, let’s hope there is a door out of here and that I can find it soon Brenda says to herself and stands and starts forward.

WM Check 1: 1d6 ⇒ 5
WM Check 2: 1d6 ⇒ 5
WM Check 3: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Stumbling through the smoke, Brenda comes, at last, to a wall. It is hard to see, but by sliding along the wall she finds a door, an exit, she takes it.

1-3 north, 4-6 west: 1d6 ⇒ 2

Relieved to be out of the smoke filled room, Brenda takes a few deep clean breaths, and then looks at the options,

Well, here is a door, and then the passageway off to the east, I suppose I should see what’s in this room she thinks to herself as she reaches for the door knob.

Brenda lays her spear by the door, keeping it close in case she must retreat, and draws her Askamad* and readies her buckler as she approaches the pool.

Suddenly two massive tentacles with many suction cups all along their length erupt from the pool and strike toward her.

She has heard of these monsters of the sea and is not afraid of them, swinging her sailor’s axe she tries to pin one of the tentacles to the lip of the pool

Brenda’s Attack: 3d6 + 1 ⇒ (4, 4, 6) + 1 = 15

Another rubbery tentacle emerges from the pool and Brenda dances to the left, striking again

Second Round Attack: 3d6 + 1 ⇒ (6, 5, 2) + 1 = 14

What can Brenda do, flee? No, the children back in the village aren't going to get any better if she turns and runs home before she even finds the sea witch

As 4 tentacles assault Brenda all at the same time, she spots something small and wet struggling to get out of the pool.

Quick, get away while you can! Brenda shouts, I’ll keep it distracted

Brenda’s r3 Attack: 3d6 + 2 ⇒ (2, 2, 2) + 2 = 8