Boy, a veritable Hamburger Hill the Mistmarsh has become. I'm amazed our heroine has survived to carry on her journal so far, and we'll burn incense and offer prayers for her continued survival and for the souls of the departed :'-(
Hard to believe we've been reading this journal for a year and a day now. I think my home game has finally gotten ahead (we're in HoHR now).
Reaping 29, 595 CY
Who would have guessed that sleeping on a bed of soggy leaves, twigs, and bits of questionably-preserved leather and fur could be so comfortable? Had anyone asked me if I’d ever consider sleeping on something so foul even just a week ago, I would have probably slapped them. That was before the Mistmarsh.
We spent the night in the Twisted Branch lair, sleeping in nests left by one of the numerous lizardfolk warriors we’d slain the day before. I felt a little guilty about how things had worked out, but then again the lizards had hardly given us a chance to open diplomatic relations. And then I think about poor Tassilo, wrapped in a hammock and held together only by the grace of Wee Jas, and my guilt washes away in a flood of righteous indignation. If it wasn’t for these lizardfolk, Tassilo and Kol and Belgrak would still be alive. And I wouldn’t have spent the last week sludging through this horrible place!
After my morning prayers, I joined the rest of the group near the entrance to the lizardfolk lair. We had gathered to prepare our exit from this filthy region, with promises of peace between the lizardfolk and the domain of Greyhawk. Left ahead was the daunting task of convincing Greyhawk to honor the pact, but the important matter was the fact that the four prisoners we’d come to save were all still alive.
Of the three, Marzena was obviously the leader; she kept the other three soldiers close to her and for the most part they seemed to be content with taking orders from her. These three men were named Kyl, Mursk, and Tevver. Kyl was the one we’d rescued a few days before from the ruined temple; he seemed to be the most sensitive of the three, and was taking his time in the swampland particularly poorly. I actually felt sorry for him, but before I could decide what to do to try to soothe his worries, Taan (of all people) stepped in to give him an actually rather bolstering talk. He ended it by casting a simple cantrip on him, but he convinced Kyl that it was actually a spell of good fortune. It really did nothing to protect him, but as long as Kyl thought he was protected, I saw no reason to burst his bubble. It was heartening to see Taan do something nice, even if at the core it was all about deception.
The other two soldiers were quite a bit less agreeable. Of the two, Mursk was the less obnoxious, although his devotion and toadying to Tevver didn’t help his case. Tevver, for his part, seemed to be made of equal parts racisim, sarcasm, and misogyny, three qualities that are more or less guaranteed to get you moved to the bottom of my “to save from bleeding to death” list. I’m not sure how much of his hate stemmed from the humiliation of being captured by lizardfolk and how much of it was for real, but his snide comments and biting quips did not earn him any points in my book.
Shukak, the shaman (and now the new king) of the Twisted Branch tribe was there to introduce us to the lizardfolk guides he’d selected to lead us out of the swamp. He asked which of us was the leader, to which I answered. None of the others seemed particularly ready for the responsibility, and after all… we were in this mess because of me anyway. I was the one that gathered us together in the first place to investigate the Whispering Cairn so many days ago, so if what had befallen us since that date was anyone’s fault, it was probably mine. In any case, the leader of the band of lizardfolk guides was named Jhesk. With him was a tracker named Helius, and three soldiers named Jessik, Lhock, and Kevver. Shukak made sure to get us to promise to deliver the treaty to Greyhawk one last time, and then we were off!
Most of us remained in a tightly-formed group as we returned to the horrific mud-slopping trackless swampland. The fact that we were finally heading out was only moderately uplifting—until we reached ground you could stand on and perhaps sniff without gagging, I would hold no real hope. Somehow, Tevver managed to make the whole thing even more grueling, with his bitterly muttered comments never far behind me. Up ahead, Dram, DaeJin, and Helius scouted the way for us. Now and then, they’d stop to take pot shots at birds with their arrows; I’m not sure what they were up to, really, but at one point one of them noticed something disconcerting—the sudden flight of a flock of swamp quail or some such nasty birdlife indicated we were being followed.
Jhesk asked us if we had any ideas of who could be following us, at which point our uncomfortable glances among each other tipped him off. It was only a few moments later before we admitted to our contact with the bullywug Groak and his frog Schlub-Schlub, and of how Taan had secured non-violent passage through his territory by tricking him into accepting a depleted wand as a bribe.
The lizardfolk seemed a bit shocked at this news. Turns out, Groak is what amounts to a prince among the bullywugs, and his frog Schlub-Schlub is some sort of imperial mount. It seemed likely that upon his return, Groak quickly discovered his wand was all but broken, and facing humiliation would gather a warband of his greatest warriors to track down the outlander who dared to intrude upon his lands. Armed with this information, we redoubled our efforts to leave the swamp.
As we continued on our way, a different thought occurred to me. I asked Jhesk if he thought it was possible that the dragon his tribe was allied with was in fact following us, but Jhesk quickly discounted this possibility, saying that Ilthane was the tribe’s protector. I was unconvinced, and tried to point out as gently as possible that the dragon wasn’t a very good protector, since she wasn’t ever around. Jhesk continued to defend the dragon, saying that she’d saved the tribe years ago from an infestation of worms. I pointed out that even this was a failure—that members of his tribe were still infested by worms. He seemed shocked at the news of recent worm infestations. And strangely enough… so did Mursk and Tevver. In fact, their reactions to the talk of worms was so strange that I surreptitiously cast a spell to detect their thoughts.
What I found in their minds was shocking. Disjointed thoughts of a militia officer locked behind a door in a basement, of terrible scratching noises from a basement, of guilt, of fear. I continued the conversation with Jhesk, steering it in a way to involve Blackwall Keep, and the surface thoughts of the two soldiers swam into sharp focus—they’d seen the worms before as well, when the previous Blackwall Keep battle mage returned from a failed diplomatic trip infested with them. When I revealed I could read their minds, they grew angry—for a moment, it looked like Tevver was about to draw his weapon to attack me, but Mursk’s sudden breakdown and admission of guilt stole the wrath from his soul.
It turns out that several soldiers were in on the conspiracy. Unsure of what to do with the worm infested battle mage, they locked him in a basement chamber under Blackwall Keep hoping he’d get better. He got quiet, but never better, and eventually they think he perished. Afraid that they’d get in trouble for their ham-handed handling of the infested man, they all swore to keep their poor decision a secret, yet Mursk was convinced to this day that if you listen at this door at certain times of the night, you can still hear the battle mage scratching at the walls…
Visions of worm-infested undead dancing in my mind, we eventually found a large mangaroo grove. We began to look it over, and just as we discovered a poor adventurer shrouded in a coccoon of silk, we were attacked by a mass of monstrous spiders! A few moments later, the true terrors shambled out of the mist—spidery humanoids with faces full of fangs. Ettercaps! With the aid of the soldiers and lizardfolk, we managed to defeat the monsters, but two of our lizardfolk guards were slain and both Mursk and Tevver were mortally wounded. I called upon Wee Jas to restore some of their health, and for the rest of the evening the normally unfriendly soldiers had resorted to stony silence. Tevver did manage a curt word of thanks. Hopefully they’ve learned that “witches” can be helpful too, the ungrateful thugs…
In any event, the spiders defeated, we gave the two slain lizardfolk proper swamp burials as befits worshipers of Semaunaya. Jhesk seemed to be both surprised and impressed that I knew the proper words and rituals for the burial. I was just happy to send them on in a way that their souls deserved.
Reaping 30, 595 CY
We woke to a chilly morning, but with no sign of bullywug presence. After an uncomfortable night sleeping in a spider tree, no one seemed to be in much of a talkative mood, so we set out in silence. A few hours later we stumbled upon a few weathered shacks on a low island. Reconnaissance revealed several swampers within, likely smugglers or bandits using the cover of the Mistmarsh as a place to base their operation out of without fear of militia involvement. The presence of the smugglers was heartening; here was actual proof that we were close to the edge of the swampland, for certainly bandits wouldn’t go far in to the swamp to establish such a safehouse. Some of the lizardfolk wanted to attack the bandits to loot them of their gear and treasure, and somewhat to my surprise, Father Frothelthimble seemed to be in a right disturbing bloodlust and sided with them, spouting such phrases as, “Let’s cut open some legs!” and “Dibs on any gold teeth we find!” Fortunately, Jhesk deferred to me as the group leader, and I was able to convince the others that we shouldn’t be taking unnecessary risks on a group of feral bandits. The Mistmarsh had already claimed three of us—more, if you counted Rac and Frothelthimbe’s doomed party, and it just seemed foolish to stop and tempt fate one more time when we were finally so close to freedom from this festering stretch of blight.
Psst. Hishka is the shaman-turned-king. Shukak is the big guy you killed a few sessions ago.
Psst. Hishka is the shaman-turned-king. Shukak is the big guy you killed a few sessions ago.Hmmm... that's true. Poor Tyralandi's probably got Swamp Fever or Marsh Jumbles.
James,
I've enjoyed these journal entries greatly, being that I'm running my own AoW campaign, and wondered if you were going to be posting any more any time soon. I know of at least one other poster who has inquired the same thing over at the AoW board. we're anxiously awaiting the fate of Tyralandi and Company. Thanks for a great campaign.
Creative Director
|
Yeah... I'm now 2 sessions behind. I'll post something in a few days, if I can carve out the time. Between starting the new Adventure Path, getting the super-sized anneversary issue off the ground, and working on a new TOP SECRET WotC project, I just haven't had the energy to write much else.
Anyway... there's some good stuff gonna show up in the next journal entry. As in... it'll cover Tyralandi's first non-cleric level, among other things! Which is also to say that she hasn't died yet, despite a close call with certain wormy undeads...
Non-cleric? Hm... so many possibilities. Wizard, with the hope of becoming a mystic theurge? Master of shrouds, because incorporeal undead are fun? Or just fighter so she can live a little longer?
Non-cleric? Hm... so many possibilities. Wizard, with the hope of becoming a mystic theurge? Master of shrouds, because incorporeal undead are fun? Or just fighter so she can live a little longer?
My guess, based on the hints dropped: wormhunter.
Non-cleric? Hm... so many possibilities. Wizard, with the hope of becoming a mystic theurge? Master of shrouds, because incorporeal undead are fun? Or just fighter so she can live a little longer?My guess, based on the hints dropped: wormhunter.
So soon? I know there's one requirement she hasn't met yet, based on the version in Dragon Magazine.
More please, James.
Unless Tyralandi is no more?
GREAT writing skill, James. I'm hooked!
This does, however, make me want to know if you guys are going to put out a novelization of the Age of Worms Adventure Path. I know WotC does have it's own publication program and it seems no sooner than a particularly great series is over than there is a novelization out...
I'll see about converting some of my own group's adventures into a novel and post 'em somewhere here. If you guys like 'em, maybe something can be done with them??
Syrinx
Syrinx!! Another Rush fan on the Paizo message boards?
But of course!
Syrinx turned out to be a great name for my signature character and it's been mine ever since. You can read about her at my site over at http://fcneko.deviantart.com
Enjoy, and comments are always welcome!
Syrinx
Goodmonth 2, 595 CY
Much of today has become a haze. I remember little of it apart from the tingling in my feet as what I can only assume is footrot setting in, the cruel variances of stench in the water and vegetation around me that prevent me from growing accustomed to one horrific stink, the layer of biting flies and mosquitoes that seem to have settled on me like a second skin. That I look back upon sleeping in a lizardfolk nest in a cave hollowed out from a huge mound of compost and weeds as fond memories of comfort sickens me all the more.
At some point in the day, a great beast, a wyvern, all teeth and claw and stinger, swooped down from the rancid wet sky on us. It knocked Dae Jin to the ground and might have eaten her had not the others reacted in time… by the time I managed to bring my magic to bear, the beast had been slain. I nursed Dae Jin back to consciousness, did what I could to tend to her poisoning, and we set on, almost as if nothing had happened. This swamp is reducing us to the state of animals, I fear. We seek only the luxury of semi-solid ground at the end of a day, and hope to survive the night and day to come.
If we don’t reach solid ground by evening tomorrow… I do think it will be time to move on to my goddess’ side. Certainly this vile swamp does not lack in methods of reaching her court.
Goodmonth 3, 595 CY
Had a strange dream early this morning. I was back in the Diamond Lake boneyard, but the size of it was huge; easily twice as large as Diamond Lake. The tombstones swept up over the hills, and instead of buildings, ancient vaults with columned facades stood. For a while, I wandered aimlessly. Here and there I saw tombstones with names I recognized… Abelard… Tassilo… Vyth… Kol… Belgrak… There was even a tombstone for Filge, of all people, only his grave was empty. Before long, I reached what I knew was the center of the graveyard, where one lonely tombstone protruded from a small grassy hummock. This tombstone was blank, but the stone itself was made of vibrant green jade. As I looked closer, I could see that the green tombstone wasn’t quite blank… it was merely so ancient that the name that once graced its face had nearly worn away. I leaned closer to see it, and heard a voice behind me. Upon turning, I saw it was Rac. I called out to him, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed at me. With his outstretched finger, he drew a circle in the air. The tip of his finger left a green trail in the air, and as he completed the circle, he went on to fill it with a complex pattern of lines and smaller circles, crafting a strange rune in the air. As he worked, I suddenly felt a lurching in my stomach as I fell upward into the sky. As the ground receded below I looked down and saw that the entire graveyard I had been exploring duplicated this sigil, its paths the lines, its vaults the flourishes. And then, out of nowhere, Gar’s voice.
“GET UP! GET THE HELL UP!”
A rough shaking and prodding intruded into my dream and suddenly I was awake. As I staggered to my feet, Gar moved on to the next person around the camp, and I saw immediately what had set him off.
Our campsite had been surrounded by frogs, both of the hopping and the talking variety. Nearly two dozen bullywugs watched us in all, and as Gar woke the last of us, a lanky bullywug riding an immense frog spoke to us in halting Common.
“Prince Groak will speak to you now!”
With that, a familiar figure stepped out of the mists—none other than Prince Groak himself, followed by his royal frog Shlub-Schlub. What followed was a fairly tense standoff… it seemed that the magic wand that Taan had given Groak to secure our passage through the swamp had failed, and in so doing, had mortally embarrassed the Prince. Somehow, we managed to stay our hands (even with Father Frothelthimble sputtering and gnashing his teeth and waving his weapons in bloodlust the whole time), and by convincing the bullywugs we were on our way out of their swamp, mostly managed to talk them out of killing us. On one condition—Prince Groak made me promise to deliver something. With that, he produced a mud-caked coffer and pressed it into my hands.
“When you reach your City of Hawks,” he said in a voice that sounded just as mud-caked, “Deliver this to a man named Fellup Noade. Do not look inside. If you do, he will know. And if he knows, he will tell me, and we will march your city into the mire.”
Although I promised Groak to deliver the box, a part of me cringed inside. I felt certain it was a lie. Nothing Groak could want could be good for Greyhawk. At the time, though, all I wanted was to be out of the swamp, and agreeing to his demand seemed the fastest route.
Seemingly satisfied, the bullywugs retreated, leaving us to catch what tiny bits of rest we could over the next few hours. I, for one, couldn’t get to sleep. The combination of the near battle with an army of frogs and the strange memories of the dream kept me awake. I was tempted to go ask Rac if he knew anything about the strange circle, but he, somehow, had fallen asleep almost instantly.
Two hours later, the sun was up and so were we.
Six hours after that, we cleared the Mistmarsh.
Oh how incredible it was to stand on ground that didn’t shift and quake under the foot! To be able to see further than a few hundred feet, to breathe air that, with each step, was cleaner and less repugnant. Blackwall Keep was only another hour away, and the promise of actual beds to sleep in drove us on. It seems amazing to me that only a few weeks ago, the thought of trudging over trackless hills would have left me so morbidly annoyed, yet now it felt positively divine.
Perhaps this is why we didn’t realize there was trouble ahead until we were practically in Blackwall’s shadow. The promise of comfort certainly clouded my mind, so that when I realized that there were fresh bloodstains on the ground near the entrance to the Keep, and more down by the stables… when I realized that no one was calling out to us or greeting us… it was truly a shock.
Marzeena and the other three soldiers noticed this as well. She called out their names; Gerber Horst… Rogar… Minho… and a handful of others. No answer was forthcoming from the keep. We entered, and immediately split up. Gar took half of us down into the basement to look for clues, while Rac, Marzeena, Taan, Dram, and I headed up into the upper floors. It was on the second floor we found what we took to be the first “survivor.”
Marzeena recognized the cowering, sobbing figure as a man named Yaris. As we approached, Yaris murmured, “…hungry… it hurts…”. I realized something was terribly wrong an instant before Yaris suddenly lurched into horrible life. Or what now passed for life in his torn and rotting flesh.
As Yaris stood, he began a choking scream. Choking, for as he screamed, a torrent of writhing green slithered from his mouth. And from his empty eye sockets. A face of worms regarded us, and as his blood-caked arms reached for us, I managed to call upon the scorn of Wee Jas. I felt her presence fill the room, and then condense around the unliving mockery before us. The creature shuddered, then staggered back against the wall as if struck by a hammer before dropping to its knees and whimpering helplessly. And if that had been all of them, we would have been fine.
A loud thud behind me caused me to whirl around. A trap door had opened to the floor above, and three more of the worm-haunted dead had clambered or fallen through. Their cries were chilling, and before I could raise my shield in defense one of them struck me on the side, knocking me against the wall. As I shook my head to clear it of the ringing, I felt something horrible. One of those wretched green worms must have slithered off its claw and into my armor! I could feel it squirming between the armor and my skin, and in another instant a sudden pain lanced through my side as something bit into flesh.
I stumbled back, hoping that the others would be able to hold them off as I tried desperately to dig in under the armor to get to the worm. But by the time I reached it… all I could feel was the tiny, warm, wet hole it had left as it burrowed into me. I could feel it squirming in me, writhing, and suddenly another blow struck me at the base of the neck. One of the dead had managed to reach me, and now I could feel another worm writhing through my hair and then biting into the flesh at the base of my neck!
Somehow, all of the horror of the Mistmarsh seemed welcome. It had been rancid and wet and terrible, but it had been outside. This was something worse! I could feel both worms now, wriggling around inside me, chewing at times but at others simply nuzzling their way along the bones, making their way, it felt, toward my head. I thought for a moment of leaping from the window, and somehow knew that a similar fate had already visited those poor souls we now fought… and that death would not be an escape.
Desperate, I called upon Wee Jas to purify my body, a spell I’d been casting nightly during the trip through the Mistmarsh to cleanse myself of any diseases or infections the place had visited upon me. And then, just as I felt the first worm rasping its toothy little maw against the base of my skull, a wonderful feeling of warmth enveloped me. In a heartbeat, the horrific intrusion into my body vanished, whisked away by Wee Jas’s grace. I sank to my knees and offered a quick prayer of thanks, then looked up, ready to smite any of the foul dead things that remained in view.
Fortunately, the others had done the job already. The creatures lay on the ground, twitching feebly as their wormy parasites writhed and melted into sludge and Demon Boy capered around them, begging us to help him drag the bodies up onto the roof to burn them. And then I realized that one of our own had fallen as well.
Marzeena kneeled over Mursk’s body, cradling his head in her lap. I could tell at once he was dead, and felt sadness but not shock when his eyes peeled open. For a moment, those bulging orbs looked at me, and then they twisted and split apart as the worms ate them from within. We put him back down and added his bones to the fire.
In all, it seemed that only two of the soldiers we’d left at the Keep had escaped transformation into the wormy undead. Dae Jin was able to determine that they had fled to the north—their trail, a few days old, was apparently obvious to her (although I couldn’t see any footprints at all). No one mentioned the possibility of sleeping in the Keep. It seemed somehow wrong to do so. Instead, we set out to the north, hoping to make Shank’s Rest by midnight. Hoping that the wormspawn undead we’d just killed had been contained in the Keep, that we’d caught them before they’d spread much further.
Hoping that the missing reinforcements Allustan had promised hadn’t become part of this writhing new problem.
Ewwwww...the description of the worms invading Tyralandi's body is just...WRONG.
But she's not dead, by the grace of Wee Jas! Tyralandi lives to scorn another day!
But of course!
Syrinx turned out to be a great name for my signature character and it's been mine ever since. You can read about her at my site over at http://fcneko.deviantart.com
Enjoy, and comments are always welcome!
Syrinx
Another Deviant! *claps* I'm over here at deviantArt.
Woot! I've faved a piece of yours, but don't want to take away from Tyralandi's journal too much (too late).
You know, I actually had a feeling of utter disgust at the mere thought of those things crawling beneath her skin. NICE writing, James!
*takes notes on how to horrify his party when they get bitten*
Very well done. Loved the horror of infection conveyed - very Alien-esque. And the subplot with the bullywug prince is pretty cool. It's good to know that the campaign's being developed beyond just what's in the modules - helps keep people who edited and wrote said modules on their toes.
Goodmonth 3, 595 CY
Unfortunately, we only made it a few hours on our trek to Shank’s Rest before the exhaustion hit us, and we decided to camp. Daejin found a good spot a hundred feet or so from the road, and for what I hoped would be the last time for a LONG time… I laid down on the ground on my ratty, swamp-ruined bedroll. It was then that Tevver approached me and asked me about that spell I’d used to cure myself of the worm infestation. He was being rather evasive and a bit more timid than usual. At first, I thought he had just finally realized his place in the scheme of things, but soon enough it became apparent that he had some sort of chronic condition he’d picked up from the Emporium. From the Veiled Corridor, to be precise. A terrible, persistent itching and burning feeling in an uncomfortable place. He wanted to know if what I’d done to cure myself of the undead worms would work on his own social affliction.
Classy. This guy spends the entire walk out of that forsaken swamp firmly establishing his misogynistic attitude and blasphemous habits, and now that he finds out that I can cure disease, he wants me to fix his itch? I told him to go to sleep, and that the next morning I’d see what I could do for him. Maybe an act of kindness would plant a seed in his thick skull.
It was glorious being able to sleep on solid ground, to be able to relax just that much more without fear of rolling in one’s sleep into leech-infested water. It only took a few moments for me to fall asleep, and when I had, the dream was waiting. Again, I was in the huge circular graveyard, and again, Rac was making strange circles in the air. This time, as he made the rune, a strange presence seemed to waver and shimmer in the air, a presence that seemed at once familiar and a little bit frightening. It could have been a woman. A woman with bright green eyes. She pointed at the graveyard’s center, at the green gravestone there, and I was suddenly seized with an urge to inscribe the rune in the soft dirt at the stone’s base. Just as I was kneeling to do so, though, I was awakened by Gar, who mumbled something about it being my turn to watch.
It was a little chilly, so I drew my blanket around me as I sat down against the roots of a tree. The fire had burned low, and once again I wondered why they always wanted me to take a watch. It’s not like I’ve got dwarf eyes that can see into the dark to pick out gemstones in some dusty hole in the ground, or elf ears that can hear bees cough at 200 paces. Nevertheless, about half an hour later, I did indeed hear something.
The violin player had returned.
As tradition called, I prodded Dram in the ribs with my toes. I told him the violins had returned and he made some whiny noise about me being crazy. I poked him again and this time he sat up, quickly (and loudly enough to wake several others) proclaiming that he couldn’t hear anything.
“Fine,” I said. “You stay here and watch for a bit. I’m going to go find out what’s playing that violin.” As I grabbed up my morningstar and headed out, he said, “OKAY! Okay. Hang on. I’ll come with you.”
By the time he’d pulled on his armor, most everyone else was awake too. What initially was going to be me sneaking into the woods to find a mysterious violin player quickly turned into a parade. Hopefully, the sound of a clot of people trampling the underbrush wouldn’t scare it away.
Of course, it did. It sounded like it couldn’t have been more than a hundred feet away when it ceased. This time, however, I didn’t hesitate. I broke into a run, stumbling a few times on roots but quickly enough came to a small clearing where the noise had been coming from.
And standing in the center of the clearing was a skeleton holding a violin. And not just ANY violin. It was a beautiful piece of art, made of what looked like some sort of pale, almost white wood and inlaid with abalone and pearl. I froze in my tracks. As I did, the skeleton turned a little to face me, then kneeled and held the violin out toward me. I reached out to it, and as soon as I touched the amazing instrument, the skeleton itself crumbled to shards. I caught the violin before it fell, and a strange tingle ran up my arm.
It wasn’t a heartbeat before Demon Boy said, “Aww crap. This means you’ll be making those terrible sounds again, doesn’t it?” I ignored him and looked the violin over. It was amazing. It carried with it an almost palpable sense of antiquity, and I was tempted to try it out there and then. But I didn’t. For some reason, I didn’t feel that anything I could do would honor this incredible gift. I needed to practice more.
Dram and Taan both gathered up a handful of the bone shards (I’m not sure why, but whatever), and then we returned to the camp. I finished out my watch in a state of horrid distraction—fortunately, there were no further incidents.
Goodmonth 4, 595 CY
After my morning prayers, I took Tevver aside and called upon Wee Jas’s grace. The widening of his eyes was all I needed to see to know his affliction had been cleansed. He grew quite overly thankful, to an embarrassing degree. Enough that everyone else noticed and started wondering why we’d both left camp for a few moments before breakfast. Hopefully, my glares were enough to get them to mind their own business. I did make it a point, though, to tell Dram that he might want to take it easy on his trips to the Emporium—at least until the employees in the Veiled Corridor could get deloused. He seemed to know what I was talking about immediately.
I skipped breakfast, instead taking the time to inspect and clean my new violin. When I called upon Wee Jas to view its aura, I could even tell that some sort of magic had been woven into its strings and wood. What the violin actually did, I could not yet tell. Taan noticed my distraction and sat down next to me.
“So… you seem to be carrying a lot of things lately, Tyralandi. You know… I could help a bit. I could carry that weird box the bullywugs gave you.”
Seemed like a good idea to me. I gave Taan the box, despite everyone else suddenly growing very interested in NOT giving him the box to carry. I’d been watching him though. Since the disaster back in the Whispering Cairn when he riled up that earth elemental, he really did seem to be changing. He kept up his outward veneer of “devil may care” attitude, but he’d handled the diplomatic relations with the lizardfolk and then with Prince Groak with skill and ease. Why not let him carry the box? Saves me the temptation of peeking inside myself! In any event, he just examined it for a bit and then slipped it into a bag, unopened. We packed up and set off.
We reached Shank’s Rest two hours before noon. As we approached, Dram suddenly froze. He quickly hissed back at us, “Two people hiding in the bushes behind the building!”
We approached with care, and before we got within fifty paces, I called out. The two thugs in the shrubs remained motionless, but a few seconds later, the front door to the old farmhouse burst open and a florid heavyset man emerged. Still distracted by strange dreams and fancy new violins (which, as it turns out, radiated magic as well!), I didn’t catch the majority of the conversation. From what I gathered, though, Dram and Marzeena both knew the man—he was a lieutenant from Diamond Lake named Dobrun Trent. Apparently, he was the one selected by the Diamond Lake Garrison to head south to Blackwall Keep to augment the troops there. That he’d been spending the last week or so holed up here at Shank’s Rest seemed to concern Dram and Marzeena, and for good reason. When Trent found out that Blackwall Keep was lost, that the keep’s previous battlemage had been locked in a room in the basement while his worm-infested body made the transformation from life into undeath, that he’d emerged from the room and had murdered all but a few of the soldiers left there, he seemed taken aback and a little nervous. We asked him if he’d seen the soldiers that fled the undead-haunted keep, and his nervous demeanor increased. He grew blustery, claiming that anyone who would abandon their post in such a manner deserved to be hanged.
That was when Dram said, “So… is that who those bodies were out back?”
For a moment, I thought Dram was talking about the thugs who were hiding in the bushes. Not the case—I peeked out a window and indeed, hanging from a tree branch behind Shank’s Rest were three bodies, each wearing the uniform of garrison officers. Each, apparently, executed for abandoning their post and spreading “ridiculous stories of the walking dead.” When our story collaborated with the one the executed soldiers had told, Dobrun’s nervous demeanor began to shift into one of desperation. We decided to leave then, to continue on to Diamond Lake. A good choice, I think. Dram and Marzeena agreed to report Dobrun’s cowardice and overly-zealous methods of punishment. I would have rather had him beaten senseless and dragged back to the garrison for his own dose of punishment. At least… that’s how I’d handle it if he were a lesser member of a church I was in charge of. But he’s not, and I’m not in charge of any churches, and I just got this neat violin that I’m afraid to try out because I’m worried that my paltry skills would taint its beauty. So I left the decision in Dram’s hands. He seems capable enough when it comes to matters of the Diamond Lake Garrison anyway. He keeps getting promoted, so he must be doing something right.
In any event, we reached Diamond lake an hour after sunset. The place seemed not as terrible as I remembered it, which really kind of depressed me. I’d never really thought of Diamond Lake as “home,” and the feeling that it WAS my home only made me hate it all the more. As we hit town, we split into groups. Taan wanted to go hit the Feral Dog (and doubtless sniff around for that elf woman Tirra he seemed taken with… never mind the fact that after what we pulled on her and her friends I doubt that she’d be that happy with us), and most of the others wanted to speak to Allustan. Dram, Marzeena and the other rescued hostages, and I instead headed up to the Garrison. They seemed to be overjoyed to see Dram and the others, and there was much rejoicing cut short when they gave their report on the situation in Blackwall Keep. Dram got himself ANOTHER promotion when he said he was heading in to Greyhawk to deliver word of the treaty he’d drafted with the Twisted Branch lizardfolk.
Finally, they seemed to notice me. When they asked Dram why I was here, I stepped forward. “The body of one of your soldiers, whose absence you haven’t even commented upon, lies here. He wanted to be laid to rest here, so we kept his remains in state and returned him. See that he gets the respect he deserves.” My little speech seemed to take them aback, but I didn’t stick around to see their reactions. Dram can handle them. I’d only get frustrated and do something or say something I’d regret.
Most of the rest of the group were waiting at the guildhall by the time I got there. Gar gleefully reported that Auric, Tirra, and Khellek had returned to Diamond Lake some time ago, and apparently caused a minor riot in their attempts to find out where we had gone. Auric in particular seemed to have been put out of shape by our treachery. He put six people in the sickbeds at the shrine of St. Cuthbert after he flew into a rage at the Feral Dog, and when another six used a table to push him into the dog pit, he killed three of the dogs. Gar wasn’t quite so gleeful when he reported that the three had apparently fled Diamond Lake, bound for Greyhawk. The free city’s a huge place, I hear. But I doubt it’s large enough to hide us from their attention. Oh well. We’ll deal with that when the time comes.
Before I staggered into the side room to claim a bed, visions of an early morning bath and clean clothes dancing in my head, I approached Rac and asked him if runes in circles meant anything to him. He seemed momentarily taken aback, then admitted in a somewhat evasive way that he used circled runes to focus his faith. I’m not sure what exactly he meant by that, so I told him about my dreams. He seemed intrigued, and when I asked him if he would accompany into the boneyard the next morning to try something out… to see if I could scribe the rune I’d seen in the cemetery’s center from dream’s memory… he agreed.
Ooh. A new vestige, perhaps? And I like how Tyralandi keeps being distracted by her nice new violin. Nothing at all suspicious about magic items freely given by the DM, oh no...
Oh yes, we all know how the violin is a devilish instrument of temptation!
"The Devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' fer a soul to steal . . . "
And then there are all the rumors about Paganini's bargain . . .
Oh yes, we all know how the violin is a devilish instrument of temptation!
"The Devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' fer a soul to steal . . . "
And then there are all the rumors about Paganini's bargain . . .
And Robert Johnson.
And Robert Johnson.Oh yes, we all know how the violin is a devilish instrument of temptation!
"The Devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' fer a soul to steal . . . "
And then there are all the rumors about Paganini's bargain . . .
Yeah, but he played a guitar. And Liszt played piano.
Oh, on a rather unrelated note, thanks to Erik and the gang for inspiring me on how to make the Mistmarsh memorably miserable. I wasn't quite as hard on my party as Erik was, but the mosquitoes in my Mistmarsh were nastier, necessitating several trips away from the campsite by the party Cleric/Ranger to gather gnatsbane leaves, which smell nasty but allow one to get a proper night's rest instead of scratching mosquito bites all night. And of course, searching for gnatsbane does put one in danger of nasty encounters with the denizens of the swamp (details to be posted on my campaign log later).
And I like how Tyralandi keeps being distracted by her nice new violin.
One of my players is playing a diabolus barbarian/favored soul who plays a violin. He has taken no ranks in performace, he just plays it horribly and figures that since diaboli culture is so different, that maybe the horrid sounds he makes with his violin is beautiful music to other diaboli. The rest of the party thinks he plays horribly and his violin has been threatend with harm a few times.
When I told him about Tyralandi and her violin he thought it was a cool coincidence. He's not a poster or a lurker, so I know he didn't do it to emulate her.
M@
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Creative Director
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Reaping 29-30? Man the swamp fever must have really got to her. Me too actually, since I didn't catch that until today's re-read.
Yeah... no one caught that until Erik and I went to check something else about the Greyhawk calendar and realized that Tyralandi was making up dates. It's all good going forward though.
I blame the swamp. That place is wretched enough to make a 24 hour day seem like a month.
O.K., GenCon is over, it's been a month, can we get an update? Please? ;)
Contributor
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O.K., GenCon is over, it's been a month, can we get an update? Please? ;)
Sure!
We played last night. Frothelthimble almost died. There were wyverns. Cool stuff happened. Umm... best use of a suggestion spell I've seen in a long time... maybe ever.
For details, I give you... James Jacobs, ladies and gentlemen...
James Jacobs!...
James...
Please excuse me for a moment...
*goes to look for James's update*
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Creative Director
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I am now, officially, 2 updates behind again. And while Gen Con is over... that week basically ended up being stolen from the issue of Dungeon we're working on right now. Plus, I got crazy sick with the flu and the snot (thanks, Gen Con!) so I haven't really felt like doing much but being cranky lately.
ANYway... what that all means is that I should be able to get the latest two installments up by the 1st of September. Some previews:
Tyralandi binds her first vestige!
Gar and Frothelthimble get involved in some criminal goings-on!
Tyralandi goes through an entire fight in her pajammas!
And yes. Wyverns. Those things are TOUGH!
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Why blame GenCon when you've got a perfectly good publisher/editor of your sister magazine to blame? I heard Erik's been taking levels in Cancer Mage. Watch out for his evil, snot-encrusted tissues of plagebearing!
We will all wait here (im)patiently for your next update. As soon as you can James, put up some of that Tyralandi goodness. Maybe we'll even venture forth from our basements to brave the dangers of the Outdoor plane, with its ball of flaming hate!
Nah. Probably not.
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Creative Director
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Wow. Busy is putting it lightly. Between secret projects and starting Adventure Paths and out-of-town weekend guests... not a lot of time to update poor Tyralandi's journal!
THAT ENDS TODAY!
As in, I just started writing her latest journal entry. Aside from an approval meeting, I've got not much to do today or tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be all caught up again sometime soon...
Wow. Busy is putting it lightly. Between secret projects and starting Adventure Paths and out-of-town weekend guests... not a lot of time to update poor Tyralandi's journal!
THAT ENDS TODAY!
As in, I just started writing her latest journal entry. Aside from an approval meeting, I've got not much to do today or tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be all caught up again sometime soon...
Fantastic news, James. Having seen the madness on the messageboards regarding the Savage Tide player's guide & supplemental materials, I didn't want to add a whiny post of my own about not having heard from Tyralandi in a while. That said, I've been eagerly waiting to hear where her travels have taken her. Glad to hear that life is giving you a bit of a break.
Goodmonth 5, 595 CY
It was probably a good thing that I woke up before Gar, because as I opened the front door to step outside for some early-morning fresh air, I nearly knocked over a skeleton that was waiting patiently on the stoop. It wasn’t a bad one, but it wasn’t a dead one either. It held a strip of parchment in its bony hand, and as I took it, the thing crumbled away to dust. I sat down on the stump next to the front door and read it. The parchment, not the stump.
It was a message from Lady Amaris—it seemed that she knew I’d returned to Diamond Lake and wanted to speak to me. A nervous chill caught me, I admit. What did she want? Did she have another mission for me, like the one she sent me on to deliver the “scroll” to Filge? Did she know something about the weird violin I’d found? Or did she have something to do with the strange dreams I’ve been having?
By the time I’d gathered my thoughts, the rest of the group was awake. I told them that I needed to visit some friends just out of town and made to leave, but that proved too intriguing for them to let alone.
“Friends? You don’t have any friends outside of town!” Gar guffawed. I let his rude comment slide.
“Well, let’s call them… accomplices?” I replied.
“Who are they? It’s those cultists on the other side of the lake, I bet!” Dram said as he tugged on his hat.
I paused, then said, “Yes. Lady Amaris needs to speak with me.”
“How do ya know that, missy?” Gar asked, his eyes narrowing in comfortable suspicion.
“It’s better you don’t know that.”
Demon Boy popped up from behind a table, two handfuls of suddenly forgotten kindling clutched in his hands. “I wanna go! I wanna go!”
And that was it. My quick visit to the Green Lady’s Carin turned into a circus.
It was easier to find this time. There was a bad moment when we reached the sentinels—I was sure Gar was going to attack the animated skeletons, but I managed to talk him down from the attack (with Taan’s help, of all people!). We reached the clearing before the cairn entrance, and while a few of my companions balked at entering, Gar and Dram and Demon Boy seemed eager to find out was inside.
We found Lady Amaris waiting for us on a large padded chair in a grand hall—a different place than when I last met her. The walls of this chamber, like all of the walls in the cairn, were thick with carvings of the Green Lady’s works so long ago. Lady Amaris greeted me, but there was something in her voice that seemed different than before. She began by asking me what I had accomplished recently, so I gave her a full report of my adventure in the Mistmarsh. She seemed particularly interested in the spawn of Kyuss we’d encountered, and was relieved we’d left each of the ones we’d seen destroyed. I told her about the violin, and the strange skeleton that had given it to me, but she didn’t seem surprised. She may have even smiled a little, but it was hard to see in the gloomy chamber. I asked her about it, and she said only cryptically that some mysteries we had to unravel on our own.
Which brought her to the reason she’d called me to the Cairn. She began telling me about how the Green Lady was a key figure in saving many of those who fled the Rain of Colorless Fire and served as a bastion of our faith in the new world the ancient Suel found themselves in. Only five minutes into the captivating story, though, Demon Boy sighed loudly and asked, “Isn’t this story over yet?” He was lucky—Lady Amaris didn’t kill him. She just told him it was best if he went and waited outside. Which he did.
After she finished, Lady Amaris said she knew (or at least suspected) I was about to head to Greyhawk, and when I confirmed that plan, she nodded and then asked me a strange question.
“Do you know yourself?”
It took me aback. I asked her what she mean, and she asked me what I could remember. I shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t easy to think back on my childhood, let alone talk about it. Especially in front of Dram and Demon Boy. And Gar.
But I couldn’t not answer Lady Amaris, so I told her what I knew, of how I’d grown up in a traveling carnival, of being sick a lot as a child, of taking care of my father when he grew too drunk to help with his roustabout duties, of learning about Wee Jas from several large books on the occult and religion, and of how her teachings seemed so right to me. About how the Rhennee thugs attacked the carnival one night, of how my father’s wagon burnt down and the fire spread, and of how I’d managed to kill the priest who had tried to tear me open with his magic only to heal my burn wounds. And of how for the next few years I’d wandered the backroads of the Hills until finally settling down, after a fashion, in the outskirts of Diamond Lake.
As I finished, an explosion of laughter startled me. It was, of course, Gar.
“You were a CARNIE?” he managed to blurt out between peals of belly laughter. I closed my eyes and did my best to ignore him, and soon his laughter trickled down to a series of giggles and snorts. Lady Amaris took it all in stride.
“So you know where you are from? You know why you walk the path you walk? Why the darkness soothes your soul and the light burns it?” she asked me.
“I… um… no. I suppose not.”
She shook her head. “Then it is not yet time. I’m sorry I brought you out here.” She stood and was about to leave the room, then paused to look back at me. “When you reach Greyhawk, you may wish to pay a visit to Alamander, at the temple there.”
And that was it. Feeling worse than before, I returned back to the surface, only to find Demon Boy the center of attention—his fire-breathing trick had apparently captivated the acolytes of the Green Lady. When he saw we’d returned, he asked what had had taken us so long. I summarized things for him as we left, and of course that only confused the little guy all the more.
“What did she mean, Tyralandi? What’s the darkness? Which path do you have to follow? Aren’t you from Diamond Lake? Why did she think you were from somewhere else?”
“Maybe we need to find some fellow carnies to read her fortune,” Gar muttered, then burst into a new round of chortles. During the whole time, Dram remained uncharacteristically silent, but of the three, the worried look on his face actually bothered me the most.
We made it back to Diamond Lake by noon, and I asked Rac if he was still willing to help me with the urge to visit the graveyard. He agreed, and before long we were standing at a forgotten grave of some nameless miner. We didn’t speak. I simply squatted down by the grave and proceeded to draw the circular rune in its soil with my holy symbol. It took only a few moments, and when I was done, I glanced up to Rac. He nodded, then indicated the rune I’d drawn. I looked back down, and suddenly I understood. The rune was more than a rune. It was a focus for the Green Lady, a way the echoes of her power could be focused from the past, when she was alive, into the present. As I realized this, a surge of energy bloomed inside me. The entire world suddenly flared with green fire, and I felt… someone… something else in my mind. Someone who felt incredibly familiar, yet at the same time, a bit unnerving. The emotions locked in this second soul were nearly overwhelming.
When my vision cleared, the world looked different. There was a strange underlying green tinge to the world, and everything seemed just a little more focused. As I stood, ripples of this green light seemed to dance over my skin, barely visible yet impossible to ignore. As I looked at Rac, his expression made me pause.
“Your eyes…” he said.
I pulled out a mirror and checked myself out, and indeed, my eyes had changed. They shone from within with an emerald light, and I realized the green I was seeing wasn’t in the world. It was from my own soul. Or more to the point, from the second soul that had bonded with my own. I had called up a remnant of the Green Lady, an echo of her spirit, and made it my own.
As we returned to the guildhouse, the rest of the group seemed equally shocked by the change.
“And what sort of evil you get yourself into this time, girly?” Gar asked, his eyes narrowing. As he asked, I felt the Green Lady’s soul flare up inside me, and suddenly something came into focus as I looked at him. A spell. An arcane spell. I knew then that I could unleash two arcane missiles of force upon him if I wished, and the urge to do so was nearly overwhelming, but I fought it back. The Green Lady would have to learn to accept Gar’s intolerance, because we needed his skill in mayhem more than we needed a zombie Gar who obeyed my every command. And plus, I wasn’t keen on having my head lopped off.
I explained to the rest, with Rac’s help, what had happened. As best as I could, which was difficult since I didn’t quite understand it all myself. In any event, the day being almost over, we decided it would be best to bed down and then head out for Greyhawk first thing in the morning. As I lay there and tried to sleep, my mind raced with the possibilities and curiosity. What sort of secrets did the Green Lady have to reveal to me?
Goodmonth 6, 595 CY
When I awoke the next morning, the Green Lady’s spirit had left me. I felt hollow, and a wave of depression washed over me. I asked Rac about it and he nodded. “The vestiges fade when you sleep, you have to rebind them every morning.” The news made me feel a little better, but at the same point, I couldn’t help but wonder. Wasn’t there a way to permanently add the vestige? Having felt it in my soul for just a few short hours… it just felt wrong to go on without it, if even for a relatively short time.
We were ready to go within the hour. Some of us, particularly Gar (“Remember when Beaky nearly bit off my thumb while he was sitting on that shelf?”) seemed a bit emotional about leaving the half-rebuilt dump, but I couldn’t wait. I headed back up to the graveyard and rebound the Green Lady, meeting up with the others on the way out. I didn’t look back as we left Diamond Lake behind us. Hopefully, forever.
By Dram’s best estimate, it would take us about five days to reach Greyhawk. It seemed impossibly far away, but at the same time, I knew that with each step westward, the dregs of Diamond Lake fell further into my past. It felt pretty good!
As we traveled, we passed other folk now and then. We heard stories of a strange increase in the number of wyverns sighted in the region, and met several St. Cuthbert priests on a slow journey to the west, on a pilgrimage or some such. A few hours after noon, we came upon a patrol from Diamond Lake, a patrol of fairly desperate-looking soldiers. They slowly started surrounding us, and it became apparent that they were interested in claiming Demon Boy and returning him to Diamond Lake for the bounty. Fortunately, with Dram’s and Taan’s aid I was able to talk them out of it and they went on their way with a final warning about the wyvern sightings.
Wyverns. What’s the big deal? We killed that one in the Mistmarsh handily enough.
That evening, we came to the first of what would be several roadside inns. Gar quickly purchased the only available room, leaving the rest of us to the fate of sleeping in the common room. Which kind of made me feel a little queasy to the stomach, but with memories of sleeping in spider-infested trees deep in the swamp still fresh in my mind, I suppose I took to the common room with some bit of relief. I can’t wait to get to Greyhawk! To have my own room, one befitting me rather than one befitting a farmer or dirt merchant or dwarf!
Of course, since the common room was the same room as every other room, it made no sense to try to get to sleep early. Instead, I sequestered myself in a chair against the wall and just watched the commonfolk do their thing, as I’d done so often before in Diamond Lake. One guy, a filthy local or some such, staggered half-drunk over to our table at one point and tried to make friends with Dae Jin, but she rebuffed him with a quick comment about how she could never respect someone who wore striped yellow pants. Which, of course, sent him over to me for a second round of disappointment, after which he returned to his lonely little table to drink himself unconscious. How can anyone live like that? A few minutes later, a less depressing local, a ranger by the looks of him, stopped at our table to chat, mostly with Dram and Taan.
Gar and Frothelthimble seemed to be having a great old time at the bar, sitting to either side of some guy they’d befriended. Their conversation was loud and was giving me a headache, so I turned my attention to the woman on stage who had been playing several tunes on her lute. She was actually not bad at it, and I found myself starting to enjoy her music. My thoughts drifted to the strange violin in my bag. The one the skeleton had delivered to me. And of how, even now, days later, I still hadn’t tried it out. When one of the woman’s lute strings snapped, I was momentarily struck with an urge to take her place, to try the violin out, but my fear of not being able to do the beautiful instrument justice made me hesitate long enough for Frothlethimble to stagger over, half drunk, and drop a cantrip on the broken string to fix it.
Eventually, people started drifting off to their rooms (or onto/under tables in the common room). Frothlethimble and his new friend stepped into the back room, which seemed strange to me, especially when Frothlethimble came racing back out a few minutes later to gather up Gar. I thought about heading over to pry into their business, knowing full well that a sober Frothlethimble and a drunk Gar meant trouble, but then Gar returned, paid his tab, and headed into his room. Frothlethimble emerged a bit thereafter, a creepy grin on his face.
None of my business.
I tried to stay up as long as I could, hoping to cling to the Green Lady’s vestige and curious what would happen if I stayed awake all night. Was it sleep that released the vestige? Or was it time? I was on the verge of falling asleep anyway when someone stood up across the room and made for the exit. I recognized him as the ranger who’d talked with us earlier. He was moving quietly, obviously trying to sneak out without waking anyone. I called out to him.
“Off to hunt some midnight wyverns?” He stopped, looked at me, and said, “As a matter of fact, yes. Care to join me?”
I thought for a moment, then waved him on. “No thanks. I’d rather avoid poisonous dragons for the rest of the night.” But something seemed strange about his voice when he’d answered. As he left, I drew my mace closer to me and listened. Yes… there were definitely voices just outside the door.
Which is how I was the only person in the inn who wasn’t shocked when the “ranger” and his four friends kicked in the door and stormed in, armed to the teeth.
“OK everyone! No one move, except to empty your pockets onto the floor, and no one gets their throats opened!”
This is so cool, I want an update every day!
It's good to see the rightful order restored.
In that you're not frenziedly working on multiple projects and have some leisure time.
But three updates in a week is pretty nice, too.
Wow. I just finished reading the three journals from this campaign, and ... wow. What a great project. Good job, y'all.
El Skootro
Goodmonth 6, 595 CY
For a few seconds after the bandits shouted out their commands to empty pockets, the common room murmured with sleepy confusion. As people slowly woke, I jabbed Dram in the ribs with a foot.
“DRAM!” I hissed. “WAKE UP! We’ve got some idiots here!”
To his credit, Dram was up and in action before anyone else. The bandits saw him reaching for his bow, and suddenly it turned from a nice gentle robbery into chaos.
Screams and curses fought for dominance in the common room as the bandits began spreading out. Dram was already moving, and had a few arrows sticking into the leader by the time the rest of us were up. I cast a longing look at my armor, stacked neatly on the floor next to the still-warm bedroll I’d been lying on. I’d probably regret leaving it on the floor, but there was no way I was going to take the time to put it on. So, like most of the rest of my companions, the battle ensued in sleeping clothes.
The leader, two of Dram’s arrows sticking out of a shoulder, dove behind the bar and took up a defensive position with his crossbow. I called upon Wee Jas, imbuing my voice with her voice, and knowing I wasn’t yet powerful enough to usurp complete control of his will, simply suggested to him that he clean up behind the bar. A strange look crossed his face, he lowered his bow, and then silently began alphabetically organizing the bottles of booze on the shelves behind the bar.
To the south, a door burst open and a loincloth-clad Gar barreled into the room. “WHAT’S THE MEANING OF... OH!” he said, as he realized what all the noise was coming from. He reflexively reached for one of the runes on his armor to cast a spell, then flew into a spout of profanity when he realized that he had left his armor in his room. With an angry shrug, he raised his axe (which he hadn’t left behind) and waded into the fray.
Rac and I fought side to side, defending a table that became an impromptu shelter for a few guests and the bard who’d been performing on the stage not an hour before. No loner bound to whatever spirit he favored, his combat style was less rigid but no less destructive as two bandits fell to his blade. His seeming indifference to defense gave me something to do for a bit, as I tried to keep up with healing his wounds as fast as they appeared. A few feet away, Taan calmly picked out wounded foes and finished a few of them off with magic missiles or beams of fire.
At the other end of the bar, DaeJin and Dram were providing covering fire with their arrows while Demon Boy scurried around. He seemed particularly amused by the bandit leader, who (despite the curses and desperate calls for help from his minions) seemed so focused on cleaning up behind the bar.
Through it all, I’d lost sight of Father Frothlethimble. To the great dismay of the enemy—so had they. One cried out in a terrible high-pitched gurgle as a great gout of blood sprayed out of his lower regions, his weakened knees giving way as he slipped and fell into his own red to reveal a grinning, bloodthirsty gnome with a dripping weapon in hand. Frothlethimble seemed a bit too taken with his murderous work, and didn’t see his victim’s ally coming up behind him with a sword raised.
Fortunately, Gar was there. With a roar, he swung his axe. Frothlethimble looked up to see what all the to-do was about and got a shower of gore as the decapitated bandit fell onto him. Gar paused for a moment as he looked down at the gory gnome.
“Woah... sorry little guy. Didn’t see you down there.”
“No probhlem!” Frothlethimble replied with his incongruous lisp. With a tip of the red-soaked pointy hat, he was off to find a new victim.
At this point, the bandits realized they’d picked the wrong tavern to rob, and were making a hasty retreat out the door. We followed, hoping to at least catch a few of them alive. And that’s when things started to get complicated.
As it turned out, a flight of four wyverns had come to roost on the roof above, likely drawn by the calls of pain and terror below. The first bandit barely had a chance to yelp as he was plucked from the ground and carried off. It seemed like a good idea to stay indoors, what with the wyverns out there, but we were already out there. Practically naked and already wounded from the bandit fight.
None of that seemed to bother Father Frothlethimble, though, who charged one of the fleeing bandits and skewered him in the lower back with his glaive. The killcrazy gnome hooted and howled in delight, shrieking, “I HIT HIM! I HIT HIM!” He was obviously excited about actually striking something with his favorite weapon, and didn’t see the wyvern perched on the eaves above him. I screamed out to him, tried to warn him, but the wyvern was on him.
Rac and I tried to reach him, but another wyvern landed directly in front of us. Rac began chopping at it just as Gar arrived, wild-eyed and axe-mad. By the time we’d murdered our wyvern, the other had Frothlethimble on the ground and was chewing at him and stinging him over and over. The little gnome wasn’t moving.
Before we could reach it, Taan stepped out and blasted the wyvern with magic missiles, attracting its attention long enough for Daejin and Dram to fill its beady little eyes with arrows. The wyvern shrieked and staggered to the side, allowing me to rush up to Frothlethimble to try to save him.
The gnome was bloated with poison. He’d been stung at least three times, and his entire body was swollen with the stuff. I couldn’t tell if he wasn’t breathing because he was dead, or simply because the poison had paralyzed him. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to block out the distractions of combat as I channeled healing energy into his body. I felt something within, a faint glimmer of life, but it was drowning in a sea of poison.
Acting on instinct, and knowing he would die if I didn’t get the poison out of him, I began cutting into his body with my dagger. Gouts of envenomed blood sprayed from the already gory gnome, and as he bled to death I managed to close his wounds with magic. With the poison out of his body, his heart began to beat again and he suddenly gasped for air. He was still unconscious, and probably wouldn’t feel like eating for a few days, but he would live.
I felt dizzy and tired after that much healing, and half sat, half fell onto the blood-soaked ground next to him. My vision was blurry, and suddenly I saw the strangest thing. The bandit leader was screaming at the top of his lungs, waving his arms in the air as he ran out into the field from the inn’s back door. He was glowing, as if covered with luminescent dust, and a few seconds later ran full-speed into a fence. He grunted as he draped over it, and an instant later a wyvern was on him as well, tearing into him with excitement.
Someone was screaming “GET BACK IN THE HOUSE!” I’m not sure who. I felt someone lift me to my feet, saw someone else pick up Father Frothlethimble. The sudden motion was too much, and I think I lost consciousness for a few moments. I came to back in the inn, the doors closed with furniture pushed up against them and numerous scared locals huddled in chairs, listening to the sound of wyverns eating bandits outside. Demon Boy was sitting on a table, swinging his legs and giggling. “Did you see that guy run? Hoo boy! That wyvern was on him like a cat on a mouse! Hee hee hee hee hee!”
Goodmonth 7, 595 CY
In the morning, there was little left of the bandits outside but some torn-up soil and bloody spots on the ground. Four dead wyverns lay in heaps on the ground. I’m not sure what the innkeeper planned to do with them, but that was his problem. We gathered our gear and set out as soon as we could.
The next few days, fortunately, were relatively free of trouble, which was a nice change of pace. Each day, I cast what restorative spells I could on Father Frothlethimble, and in a few days he was back to his old self, seemingly no worse for the wear. I hope I don’t regret keeping the little killcrazy gnome alive.
As we drew ever closer to the free city, I grew more and more excited. I’d never seen Greyhawk, but I felt like everything I’d been doing until now was building to this point. Just imagining the comforts of civilization that dwelt within the Free City’s walls was enough to make everything else seem worth it.
Well… except perhaps those weeks in the Mistmarsh.
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Just a quick note to let you know that I've been thoroughly enjoying your campaign journal, James! My own group is gradually catching up to yours (they're in the middle of the Mistmarsh now), and Tyralandi's journal is very inspirational to the way I describe things!
Thanks for presenting such an evocative account of your Age of Worms experience; I look forward to reading more when you get the chance to update! :)
*Picks up old thread and dusts it off*
Wow this thread is old, but look at the quality of it's construction! The brightness of it's colors!
The tailor may not have touched this in a while, but it's never going to go out of style!