NPCs: Little Vega initiate of Yelmalio.  Lisa initiate of Chalana Arroy, Zeena Duran, White Healer of Chalana Arroy, Willow Barkstrong, elf, Lucky Leana, Esrolian adventurer, Esmelda the Forlorn, Extremely Unlucky Farm Girl. Humakti and Yemalian flunkeys.

NPCs: Little Vega initiate of Yelmalio.  Humakti and Yemalian flunkeys.

18) 1625 Darkness Season, Illusion Week, Fireday (Saturday July 13, 2019)

Party: Belintar Fatesson, the Dog Boy, Initiate of Foundchild, Yelmalio and Brother Dog, prophesied uniter of the Balazarings (Owen B.), Bjorn Windchaser, Storm Voice of Orlanth, Durnfal Strongspear, Baron of the Golden Ears fief and Light Son of Yelmalio (Gary H.), Hallelujah Harnsdottir, Babeester Gor Axe Maiden (Doug S.), Kannr Sword of Humakt (Henry S.), Lawrence of the Desert, Baboon Storm Bull and Grandfather Baboon initiate (Grant M.), and Peracles, Aeolian Sorcerer (Jeff N.)

This quote is here because it makes me think of pretty much every roleplaying session I've ever run and it makes me laugh

Glimmer: “We'll handle this the way we always do.”
She-Ra: “Brute strength?”
Swift Wind: “Almost dying?”
Glimmer: “No and no.  By sticking together and never giving up.”

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Signals.  Season two episode 3.

The party having finished their quest found themselves on the mortal plane once more.  Most of them were quite distressed to discover that the Red Goddess had rewarded them with an elemental Moon affiliation for their help of her followers.  After some debate as to their next course of action they decided to head to Corflu and seek passage back to Pavis.  As they were paddling along they discovered the reed boat they were in had been seized by a strong current that was dragging them along.  Since they were unable to resist the current they went along with it.  Soon they found themselves in the grip of a mighty whirlpool!  Instead of capsizing the craft clung to the walls of the vortex as it dragged the craft down.  Everyone managed to hang on to the craft and their stomach contents. 

The party found themselves in an underground river of some sort still being carried along by a strong current, especially since they’d lost their paddles in the whirlpool.  They entered into a series of caverns each seemingly inhabited by one of their gods.  Each in turn took (or tried in the case of the initiates and allied spirits) this opportunity to engage in the proper worship of their gods.  They found that this cheap GM effect gave them the chance to renew their rune points and in the case of Belintar and Kannr’s allied spirit make a POW gain roll.  At the end of the caverns they passed through a large seemingly empty cavern dedicated to the Invisible God and found another whirlpool, this time going up.

When they reached the top of the whirlpool it disappeared and they found themselves in darkness.  They were still in the boat and it was floating in a large echoey chamber.  Durnfal cast a light spell and they discovered they were in a large cavern full of water.  There was a small reed boat floating near a wall and a small island with a large chest and two scruffy looking men on it.  Using their shields as makeshift paddles they went closer to the island.  Lawrence detected Chaos everywhere in the cavern (fumbled his Sense Chaos roll) but was persuaded not to attack as Kannr’s mouse did not detect any Chaos in the chamber.  They hailed the two men in Tradetalk and asked them what they were doing there.  They replied that they were guarding the chest for their mistress.  The pair were dressed in cuirboilli and seemed somewhat the worst for wear.  They proved to be incurious and unresponsive to most lines of enquiry.  (For some reason Bjorn was convinced that the pair were werewolves).

Suddenly their mistress put in an appearance in the form of a beautiful head sticking out of the water.  She tried to hire the party to attack a water wyrm on her behalf using a sword she had in her possession called the Wyrmslayer.  She said she would allow the sword bearer a share in the treasure if they swore to help her.

Hallelujah who had witnessed the Dragonrise and been emotionally scarred was totally opposed to doing anything involved with dragonkind.  Bjorn was quite keen as was Belintar.  Durnfal was on the fence as he expected they would have to deal with the monster at some point.  They decided not to take her up on this deal as they didn’t trust her.  She willingly told them that they could exit the chamber to the “south” or the “northeast”* and they would eventually find their way out of the cavern complex.

They decided to take the northeast exit and found themselves in a narrow passageway that led a couple of ways, both “northeast” and “south”.  They hadn’t gone very far “south” when they spotted something in the water.  It was a long snakelike figure that passed under the boat.  It turned around and attacked the boat!  They started heading back to the cavern where they’d encountered the watery personage and had managed to make it back to the island before their boat was destroyed.  There they defeated the monster which turned out to be an enormous sea snake.  Belintar managed to skin the snake and remover its poison fangs.  At this point they decided to take the woman up on her offer.  When they discovered that the sword was a sea metal short sword it was decided that Bjorn would wield it since he was so keen.  The mistress being apparently new to the evil game forgot to get anyone in the party to swear an oath to slay the monster and return the sword.  Without so much as a handshake she turned the sword over and said she would share the treasure with the slayer.  Peracles determined that the sword was water aligned and self-powered but that was all that he could tell about it.  They asked for and received the boat which turned to be a fishing boat.

Taking the boat they rowed out to the narrow passageway again.  The passageway opened up and a large crab disturbed by their presence quickly attacked and was equally quickly dispatched.  Belintar dove down to the bottom of the pool to make sure it was sent back to the sea, i.e. Peaceful Cut and found an underwater tunnel, a iron spearhead and five iron arrowheads, plus some wheels.

A little farther down they found a side passage which could be explored on foot since it was dry.  Disembarking and wedging the boat in the tunnel’s entrance.  They had only gone a short way with Bjorn in the lead when they spotted three sea trolls. The trolls were making threatening gestures but were not approaching.  Lawrence realizing they were Chaotic shot his sling at them and the injured troll started healing.  Despite this provocation they still didn’t attack directly.  Kannr tried to warn them off in Dark Tongue but managed to fumble and insult their mothers and the trolls attacked.  Of course they were no match on land for death metal wielding rune levels and even though Bjorn just parried their attacks his iron broadsword wounded them so badly that they were quickly disabled.  Durnfal as a good Sun worshipper then waded in and mercy killed the three of them. 

They explored a bit further but found that the chamber ended in a tunnel that led underwater.  Returning to their boat they were going to continue their search for the water wyrm when a disembodied voice addressed them.  “Are you planning on killing everything you encounter in here?”  Suddenly a large water wyrm appeared just outside of sword reach.  Peracles noticed that it had enchantment runes for the sorcerous spell Disappear carved into its scales.  The wrym told them that it was present to get the Wyrmbane sword so his people could destroy it.  He claimed that the mistress  was actually a lamia who was only interested in treasure she had no rights to.  This started quite the debate as no one was that keen on fighting a wyrm that could go invisible but some of the party still felt they had to abide by their “agreement”.  Bjorn, who had never trusted the mistress decided that the wyrm had a better claim on the sword so he was going to drop it overboard.  Kannr with his preternaturally quick reflexes grabbed his arm before he could do this and instead the sword dropped into the boat.  Lawrence who agreed with the Wind Voice and was frankly tired of the caves and lack of decent Chaos grabbed the Wyrmslayer sword and dropped it into the water.  Bjorn felt that this was proper Orlanthi behaviour but the other Sartarite in the party Kannr assured him it was not.  The wyrm thanked them and told them how to exit the cavern.

Deciding it was time to go they took the wyrm’s directions and rowed the boat out of the cavern and found themselves back in the delta of the Zola Fel.

This is where we called it a night.

Afterwords

*Relative to the top of the map rather than an actual cardinal direction.

19) 1625 Darkness Season, Truth Week, Wildday (Friday August 2nd, 2019)

Party: Belintar Fatesson, the Dog Boy, Initiate of Foundchild, Yelmalio and Brother Dog, prophesied uniter of the Balazarings (Owen B.), Bjorn Windchaser, Storm Voice of Orlanth, Durnfal Strongspear, Baron of the Golden Ears fief and Light Son of Yelmalio (Gary H.), Kannr Sword of Humakt (Henry S.), Lawrence of the Desert, Baboon Storm Bull and Grandfather Baboon initiate (Grant M.), and Peracles, Aeolian Sorcerer (Jeff N.)

Absent: Hallelujah Harnsdottir, Babeester Gor Axe Maiden (Doug S.)

After some more discussion about whether they'd done the right thing or not the party tried to determine where they were.  Using their allied spirits the Light Son and Storm Voice determined that they were at the eastern edge of the Zola Fel delta.  They decided they would row their boat to Corflu and try and arrange passage back to Pavis.  They had no idea if the Lunars were still in control of the port as they hadn't heard any news.  They decided to approach cautiously. With their yummy cargo of 50 odd kilos of giant crabmeat, an unpreserved giant sea snake skin and its poison sacs they headed westwards. Thankfully, due to the lateness of the season the giant mosquitoes weren't too bad.  After travelling most of a day and into the night they reached Corflu soon after dawn.  Sunwing the Lightson's vrok hawk spotted the Watchdog which seemed to be bogged down in a swampy spot.  This allowed them to plan their approach.  There didn’t seem to be any flags flying over the settlement identifying it one way or another but there was a deep water warship with a wolf figurehead tied up to one of the deep sea docks.

They made their way cautiously to the fisherfolk settlement at the north end of the island.  As they approached they tried to hail some of the locals who were out in their own reed boat but ignoring their hail the locals raced to shore, landed their boat and headed inland.

The party landed on one of the docks and gratefully stood on dry land once more.  As they stood there they heard the sound of marching boots and shouted orders.  A small squad of fisherfolk teenagers armed with surplus Lunar weaponry approached and demanded they surrender.  When they were asked for what the leader of the teens told them that they were in possession of a boat that had been reported stolen. The party denied stealing the boat.  The patrol again demanded their surrender and and it looked like it might get ugly until a familiar voice spoke up.  "By Storm Bull's hairy balls and Eiritha's nitty bush what are you ugly bastards doing here?"  It was Tamerlan the high llama rider looking somewhat the worse for wear.  (He was obviously regrowing his left arm).  He persuaded the party to go along with the arrest and even managed to convince the Sword to peacestrap his weapons.  (Mostly through a not at all veiled threat to summon a shipload of Wolf Pirates if he didn't comply).

Once they reached their destination, the Corflu Trade Alliance House he told them they could remove the peacestraps.  He explained that he was in charge and he had to follow his own rules.  He told the party how he had come to be in charge of Corflu (see The Fall of Corflu).  The captain of the Wolf Pirates, a woman with dark skin, tattoos and filed teeth had snuck in at some point and listened to the story and the party explanation as to how they'd gotten the boat.  She commented that her crew could of course handle the situation but they couldn't be bothered.  She then left.

He told the party that the boat they were in had been reported stolen by some fisherfolk near where they'd come out of the cave.  After some discussion they agreed to travel back and find out the truth about the "mermaid".  The riverfolk would provide some sailboats and the Reverend Sa'ar would travel along to provide waterbreathing and extensions. Peracles tried to get the Reverend Sa’ar to summon a water elemental he could bind.  The priest refused to allow one of Zola Fel’s children to be enslaved by an evil sorcerer though.  After a rest, some sleep and some cleanup they headed east again.  They reached the area where the cave mouth had been on the second day of Storm Season. With the able assistance of the allied spirits they found the mouth of the cave.  Spells were cast and the party went back in where Durnfal said he would never go.  The water level was lower so they could walk in a few places. 

The sorcerer finally got a chance to use his earth elemental to excavate the chamber where they suspected the water wyrm had buried its loot but only found a few pieces of armor 5 clacks, a near valueless gem, a semi-precious stone worth next to nothing anf a bent clack.  The smaller party members explored a long twisty tuneel infested with rubble runners but didn't find anything.  Belintar was angered by the Peracles' killing of a lot of the rubble runners since they weren't keeping the meat for anything.  They then decided to split up and block the two exits they were aware of to the lake chamber the "mermaid" had been in.

Kannr, Lawrence and Belintar went to one entrance while Durnfal, Bjorn and Peracles went to the other.  Using his Flight spell Bjorn spoke to the two scruffy men on the island and tried to get them to explain what had happened to the people who had owned the boat they had been accused of stealing.  Bjorn and Durnfal landed on the island (Peracles had used his sylph to carry him over to the island). The pair of scruffy men had adopted wolf form and were attacked by Durnfal and Bjorn.  They managed to dodge their first attacks but quickly fell without wounding either.   

Bjorn cast a Detect Enemy spell to try and locate the “mermaid”.  He found her lurking underwater and flew over.  The mermaid turned out to be a succubus and she controlled Bjorn who went looking for someone to shoot.  He took a potshot at Durnfal who had retreated underwater and missed.  Belintar decided to run back towards the other tunnel while Lawrence started swimming toward the succubus.

The succubus stabbed him in the chest with her dagger and he fell unconscious.  Kannr started heading over to help him.  The succubus swam straight towards Peracles who cast a hinder spell on her making her close to immobile.  She charmed him too though and picked him up and started heading towards the exit to the sea.  After a bit of effort she cast a Mindspeech on him and asked him to cast a Mobility spell on her (Peracles had sorcerous versions of both of these spells.  He cast the Mobility spell which returned her speed to normal.  Bjorn, Durnfal and Kannr and Lawrence who had been healed by Kannr were all closing in.  (Bjorn was no longer being influenced by her since he’d left her immediate presence). Belintar threw a javelin at her despite the fact that she was still carrying the sorcerer (and his familiar) and hit her in the arm.  Finally Peracles dispelled the Hinder spell and she raced off fleeing the cave complex.

(As Pericles watched the demon flee he wondered if it really would have been so bad to become the plaything of a succubus, living a life of sinful slavery. He shook himself and told himself to pay no attention to what were no doubt stray thoughts created by the shredding hold of the spell over him.)

The party returned to the boats and discovered that no one there had seen the succubus fleeing.  They decided to return to Corflu and Durnfal offered to put them up at Rabbit Hat Farm.

This is where we called it a night.

Afterwords On the Way Back to Corflu

Lawerence is sitting in the boat returning to Corfu waiting for an opportunity to talk to Kannr Sword of Humakt when the Orlanthi is out of earshot. He passing the time playing hide & seek with Hsss. Hsss started playing hide & seek on the first boat ride to Corfu, hiding behind the larger party members. This worked quite well because Hsss is very small. Obviously the runt of a litter and not able to get the attention of his mother to be fed. I guess the Great Winter reached where ever he is from. Those were hard years to survive, even those who came out stunted had to have a tough soul to survive. Hsss has a new strategy on this trip, being invisible is a good strategy in hide & seek. Sometimes Hsss becomes visible when he does things, then Lawrence listens very intently trying to follow Hsss' movements. Since Hsss is invisible it is not Lawrence's fault if he accidentally bumps into Hsss when moving around.

After checking both Bjorn and his familiar are out of earshot Lawrence sits down beside Kannr and asks "Kannr Sword of Humakt, I would like to ask your opinion as a master swordsman. Could you tell how is the Ortlanthi's sword work? I had to face him in combat and even after letting him strike first in the hope I had misunderstood his intent, he did not seem a challenging opponent. I am a Storm Bull and a Baboon but only an initiate, I expected an Orlanthi Rune Lord to be more ...  I have seen you and the Babeester Gor fight and I do not think even if either of you lacked iron armour I could strike a disabling blow on my first attempt, but without iron armour the Orlanthi's sword arm would have been useless."