Chaos appears in Northern Ilmiora
Bomilcar's narrative
It takes us several hours to recover from the dream vision inflicted on us by the backlash from what is now Marion's dream staff. It has affected her the most; she is the only one of us who was knocked unconscious, but eventually she wakes up. There is no sign at all of Si'ule the sorceress. We limp back to Dhoz-Kam to collect our horses and the Ilmioran minstrel, and head back to our bireme. Fortunately it is safe in its sheltered cove, so we cast off for the two-week voyage back home. Very little happens; at one point, a potentially dangerous fire breaks out in the little kitchen, but Destiny makes short work of it. Water elementals do have their uses. We even make it back in less time than expected, as favourable winds speed us on our way.
We spend a leisurely month resting while Jorthan catches up on some complex business negotiations. He has decided to do a deal with the noble lord Drystan, who owns the estate next to his own. Jorthan's memories of his country estate are now clouded with the pain of his father's death, and he needs some ready cash to invest in the new trade route to the east. He is proposing to sell the land to Drystan, whose own lands border the nasty swamps to the north of the Forest of Troos. This will incidentally give Drystan enough clout to become a member of the Consortium, a welcome development since the council desperately needs more new blood. Another ally there will be an added bonus. After securing the legal side of it all, Jorthan and I ride out to visit Lord Drystan, accompanied by Destiny, Marion and Sir Blanque. Ehlessa, Nadjana and Alexia stay behind at Jorthan's townhouse in Ilmar. [Umpire's Note: their players weren't there this time, so it's back to the standard party of the three player characters plus my participating NPCs Jorthan and Bomilcar.]
We take a bit of a detour on encountering a rather dodgy looking ravine as we enter Drystan's lands; no point in taking any chances of some sort of ambush. Our experiences since meeting up over a year ago in Karlaak have made us rather cautious. This takes us a little out of our way, and we move towards the first of his villages, where we are hoping to spend the night. All is eerily quiet, however, and there is a smell of death on the wind.
This is the sight that greets us; something really nasty has carved a passage through the village, massacring the locals and also, on closer inspection, eating bits of them. We spot some furtive movement in a small, heavily boarded shack off to our left behind the main street, and go to take a look. It turns out to be terrified huddle of peasants, who manage to tell us that the thing is now living in their temple at the top of the main road.
I string my bow and aim at the only entrance; Destiny stays with me atop her demon mount. Marion and Sir Blanque move stealthily to either side of the exit, and Jorthan slips into one of the partially ruined houses with his broadsword and shield at the ready. Destiny deliberately makes some noise as she trots towards the chapel, and this provokes an instant reaction from the thing inside. A great growling chaos mutation emerges at preternatural speed [DEX 27]; part bear and part man, with the horns of a goat, it clutches a two-handed spear in one hand and a sling in the other. It spots Sir Blanque off to its right and immediately exchanges blows with him. He defends himself well, making a riposte that opens up a large wound down the length of its right leg. This just seems to make it angrier, so it drops its weapons and tries to grab him. Destiny sends her elementals after it, and then Marion brings her demon dagger up from behind and rips open the thing's abdomen. It drops to the ground, writhing in a set of very noisy death throes. I didn't even have the time to loose an arrow. Destiny thinks this is the sort of sorcery associated with the Dharzi.
We clean the place up as best we can, and Jorthan attempts to calm down the remaining locals. They take one look at the dead beastie, then another at us, and decide that we might be even worse than that thing; en masse, they do a runner for the hills. Sometimes having a Melnibonean along can produce that effect [as can a fumbled oratory roll...]. Since the temple is a reasonably substantial stone building, and also because it has only a single entrance, we decide to stay the night there in case anything else is lurking in the vicinity.
We are wakened in the night by the sound of someone failing to be stealthy outside. Destiny takes up station at a convenient narrow slit with her javelins and uses her fire elemental to give herself night vision. "There are three of them," she hisses, "and one is giving off a substantial magic signature." Sir Blanque and Marion sneak into the night and take out the two grunts protecting their mage, after Destiny downs one of them with a really good javelin cast [major wound to the right arm]. Their leader type tries to make a getaway, but is hindered by her air elemental. He looses some sort of spirit demon thing that looks like a giant grey spider with a rat's head at Sir Blanque, but the combination of his naturally enhanced night-time Power and the effects of his displacer cloak protect him. It tries again, this time attacking Destiny, but it only just passes though her demon armour before Sir Blanque sprints ahead and takes out its master with a vicious swiping bow to the head, adding incidentally to the guy's already impressive collection of scars. The demon ceases its assault.
Joining the others, I recognise the look of this bloke - a corrupted shaman, obviously some sort of servant of chaos. The two dead bodyguards are renegades from the Wastes. The shaman is dying from blood loss, and Destiny takes the opportunity to bind his spider demon to her own service; after a struggle, she succeeds. I want to execute him in the traditional manner reserved by my people for traitors, but Marion has a better plan; "Let's save his life for a bit and try to find out what is going on here!" Sir Blanque staunches the shaman's wound and Destiny feeds him one of our standard healing potions. He regains consciousness.
"What did you lot do to my pet?" he screeches. "Curse you all in name of Xiombarg!" This guy is definitely not friendly. He shudders a bit when he sees Destiny, and then some more when he notices me; he knows what I want to do to him. He is obviously completely deranged, because even our double threat won't make him talk. "Ahem" says a beautifully modulated voice. It's Destiny's Demon of Knowledge; "I know I don't interfere very often, M'Lady, but I think it would be fun if you possessed him with his own demon?" This is a great idea, and it scares the guy into talking; he says he'll tell us the truth, but this isn't someone to be trusted, even at death's door. Marion thinks we can use the spider demon to access his memories and then we'll find out everything we need. The demon goes to work with some relish; it really didn't like being bound to this guy's service. I turn to Destiny; "I thought demons didn't like being bound by anybody?" She shrugs; "They prefer us, because we have a certain...affinity. Better a Melnibonean than New Chaos."
The demon has done its job, and spills the beans. It has a particularly nasty gloating tone to its voice; apparently it can feel the shaman's pain and hatred, and it seems to be relishing the situation. Anyway, this is not a full power Demon of Possession like the one that took the soul of Lord Jagger in Shazaar, more like one with a temporary effect - the victim regains control if the demon leaves the body for any reason. We discover that a Hooded Man has been doing deals with the Ophidians to learn the secret of their sorcerous magic. These are the ancient snakemen we first learned about in the Shudder Mountains; according to our possessed shaman, they secretly taught the Dharzi how to manipulate physical materials in order to create their monstrous hybrids. So Destiny was correct; that beast we killed earlier is based on Dharzi magic. It was a sort of initial test, the first in a line of modified killers to be unleashed on the world once the Hooded Man frees an avatar of Xiombarg. Our pet shaman, who goes by the name of Manuun, was its controller, and had come back to the village with his two bodyguards to see if the experiment had worked - it had! - and to bring it back to their encampment. Destiny's Demon of Knowledge converses for a while with the possessed Manuun, learning the language of the Ophidians for future use - this is how Manuun was able to control the thing in the first place. Destiny is delighted; she can learn the language for herself later.
Manuun describe the encampment of his followers; there are another fourteen Weeping Waste outcasts not far from here. He was intending to return with the chaos hybrid beast thing and then report to his boss. Marion has a further idea; why not use our possessed shaman to infiltrate the cult from within? He can always tell something of the truth: that the creature was successful, but was killed by us, as were his bodyguards, he only escaped by throwing his possession demon in our direction, and even so took a nasty cut to the head. This sounds like a plan, so off he goes.
The next day we ride to Lord Drystan's fortified manor house. He meets us before we even get there; he and his men are suiting up for a battle of some sort. Grim-faced, they report a series of attacks by the men of Org, led by a mysterious hooded sorceror. Apparently they have destroyed three villages nearest the swamps, capturing several villagers and taking them back to whatever foul lair they inhabit. Now that the alarm has been raised, Drystan reckons he has enough men to guard against any further incursions. He is delighted when Destiny volunteers our services - not something he was necessarily expecting from a Melnibonean. She takes us aside and explains; "I've never heard of the Orgjenns coming out of their forest - ever. We need to find out what is going on in there." We agree and ride to the edge of the swamps at the northern edge of the great forest itself.
Between us, we have three water elementals plus Destiny's magic cloak and ring she took from the Sahuagin. Destiny summons another water elemental for our excursion into the swamps, but does not bind it to her service. This give us enough between us to cope with the murk, so in we go. It is extremely difficult to follow the tracks of the men of Org once we get right into the swamp, and we lose the trail at one point, but early morning of our fourth day sees us emerge onto a relatively dry area. Up ahead is a large black lagoon, fringed at the far side by the trees of the dread forest itself. We see three of Drystan's villagers tied to stakes protruding from the water at the near shore. Off to our left is a large circular fortification made of mottled red stone; this is definitely not of local origin. There seems to be a village of sorts inside it, and part of the far wall has fallen into the encroaching lake. The whole thing is covered in moss and vines, but even so the fact that it has stayed upright at all is testament to the engineering skills of whoever built it. Destiny says this is not the work of Org; it's far too sophisticated. "In fact," she says, "it might even pre-date them. So it's at leat 10,000 years old."
We hear massed chanting coming from the enclosure, and have a quick confab. Marion and Sir Blanque sneak off to free the three villagers, while the rest of us hide quite far back, but still close enough to see what is happening. The three peasants head off into the swamp to distract the opposition while Sir Blanque and Marion rejoin us. Just in time too; a procession of fifty Orgjenns led by a rather stoned looking shaman comes down to the water's edge. We only catch some shouted imprecations as they discover that their sacrifices have gone. The shaman orders his people to follow the recent trail of the peasants and recapture them; he then goes back to the circular fortification with six bodyguards. They don't spot us in our concealed hiding place.
We have another short conference. Jorthan advises against entry via the lagoon - "After all, whatever they worship is probably still in there!" Instead, we sneak over the 10' high retaining wall to the rear of the compound. We make out various low buildings, one of which is two storeys tall; it too is circular, and is situated right in the middle of the compound, much of which is overgrown with vines. It has a thatched roof, and part of the lagoon has come right through to this point. This looks like the headquarters, so it will be our target. There are some slave pens off to another side; these contain the villagers we have come to free. We'll worry about them later; the plan is to take out the shaman and his bodyguards while the rest of the tribe is off in the swamp, and then free the peasants.
Moving as quietly as possible, we reach the only way into the round building. A large bush has been placed across what used to be the front door, so Jorthan and Sir Blanque stand ready while I string my bow. Destiny and Marion go round one side and climb up and across the thatched roof, dropping down into the part of the wall that has been collapsed by the encroaching waters. Most of the ground floor is slimy, and there is a ladder leading up to the intact second storey.
As Marion and Destiny drop down from the far side, the rest of us enter from the front. I don't like the looks of that water; something seems to be moving in there. Doing our best to remain stealthy, we take up various positions. I'm covering the water with an arrow nocked. Destiny climbs the ladder and puts her head above the floor level above, just enough to see; she then ducks back and has a quick whispered conversation with Marion. The two of them rejoin us and Destiny orders her fire elementals to fireblast and destroy the top floor. She says she saw the shaman in a trance, guarded by his six mates; fortunately, she was so quiet they didn't notice her.
The fire takes hold amongst lots of screaming, and we run out of the building. It's just as well, because six large creatures emerge from the lagoon, man-sized slug things with three eyestalks and vestigial legs. At the same time, four of the Orgjenns come down the ladder; it looks as though the shaman and the other two didn't make it. Destiny orders her Demon of Desire to fetch something she saw the shaman holding, and after a bit of a struggle the thing appears in her hands: a large egg thing covered in chaos runes. At that point the six lagoon creatures turn on the four guards and the screaming commences. Marion smiles; "It looks as though you control them now!"
We rush to free Drystan's people and usher them into the swamp before the Orgjenn hunters spot the fire that has now completely taken hold, and is threatening to spill down into the overgrown courtyard. We lead the villagers though the swamps to safety.
It takes us several hours to recover from the dream vision inflicted on us by the backlash from what is now Marion's dream staff. It has affected her the most; she is the only one of us who was knocked unconscious, but eventually she wakes up. There is no sign at all of Si'ule the sorceress. We limp back to Dhoz-Kam to collect our horses and the Ilmioran minstrel, and head back to our bireme. Fortunately it is safe in its sheltered cove, so we cast off for the two-week voyage back home. Very little happens; at one point, a potentially dangerous fire breaks out in the little kitchen, but Destiny makes short work of it. Water elementals do have their uses. We even make it back in less time than expected, as favourable winds speed us on our way.
We spend a leisurely month resting while Jorthan catches up on some complex business negotiations. He has decided to do a deal with the noble lord Drystan, who owns the estate next to his own. Jorthan's memories of his country estate are now clouded with the pain of his father's death, and he needs some ready cash to invest in the new trade route to the east. He is proposing to sell the land to Drystan, whose own lands border the nasty swamps to the north of the Forest of Troos. This will incidentally give Drystan enough clout to become a member of the Consortium, a welcome development since the council desperately needs more new blood. Another ally there will be an added bonus. After securing the legal side of it all, Jorthan and I ride out to visit Lord Drystan, accompanied by Destiny, Marion and Sir Blanque. Ehlessa, Nadjana and Alexia stay behind at Jorthan's townhouse in Ilmar. [Umpire's Note: their players weren't there this time, so it's back to the standard party of the three player characters plus my participating NPCs Jorthan and Bomilcar.]
We take a bit of a detour on encountering a rather dodgy looking ravine as we enter Drystan's lands; no point in taking any chances of some sort of ambush. Our experiences since meeting up over a year ago in Karlaak have made us rather cautious. This takes us a little out of our way, and we move towards the first of his villages, where we are hoping to spend the night. All is eerily quiet, however, and there is a smell of death on the wind.
Scenario from "The Book of Quests" by The Design Mechanism
This is the sight that greets us; something really nasty has carved a passage through the village, massacring the locals and also, on closer inspection, eating bits of them. We spot some furtive movement in a small, heavily boarded shack off to our left behind the main street, and go to take a look. It turns out to be terrified huddle of peasants, who manage to tell us that the thing is now living in their temple at the top of the main road.
I string my bow and aim at the only entrance; Destiny stays with me atop her demon mount. Marion and Sir Blanque move stealthily to either side of the exit, and Jorthan slips into one of the partially ruined houses with his broadsword and shield at the ready. Destiny deliberately makes some noise as she trots towards the chapel, and this provokes an instant reaction from the thing inside. A great growling chaos mutation emerges at preternatural speed [DEX 27]; part bear and part man, with the horns of a goat, it clutches a two-handed spear in one hand and a sling in the other. It spots Sir Blanque off to its right and immediately exchanges blows with him. He defends himself well, making a riposte that opens up a large wound down the length of its right leg. This just seems to make it angrier, so it drops its weapons and tries to grab him. Destiny sends her elementals after it, and then Marion brings her demon dagger up from behind and rips open the thing's abdomen. It drops to the ground, writhing in a set of very noisy death throes. I didn't even have the time to loose an arrow. Destiny thinks this is the sort of sorcery associated with the Dharzi.
We clean the place up as best we can, and Jorthan attempts to calm down the remaining locals. They take one look at the dead beastie, then another at us, and decide that we might be even worse than that thing; en masse, they do a runner for the hills. Sometimes having a Melnibonean along can produce that effect [as can a fumbled oratory roll...]. Since the temple is a reasonably substantial stone building, and also because it has only a single entrance, we decide to stay the night there in case anything else is lurking in the vicinity.
We are wakened in the night by the sound of someone failing to be stealthy outside. Destiny takes up station at a convenient narrow slit with her javelins and uses her fire elemental to give herself night vision. "There are three of them," she hisses, "and one is giving off a substantial magic signature." Sir Blanque and Marion sneak into the night and take out the two grunts protecting their mage, after Destiny downs one of them with a really good javelin cast [major wound to the right arm]. Their leader type tries to make a getaway, but is hindered by her air elemental. He looses some sort of spirit demon thing that looks like a giant grey spider with a rat's head at Sir Blanque, but the combination of his naturally enhanced night-time Power and the effects of his displacer cloak protect him. It tries again, this time attacking Destiny, but it only just passes though her demon armour before Sir Blanque sprints ahead and takes out its master with a vicious swiping bow to the head, adding incidentally to the guy's already impressive collection of scars. The demon ceases its assault.
Joining the others, I recognise the look of this bloke - a corrupted shaman, obviously some sort of servant of chaos. The two dead bodyguards are renegades from the Wastes. The shaman is dying from blood loss, and Destiny takes the opportunity to bind his spider demon to her own service; after a struggle, she succeeds. I want to execute him in the traditional manner reserved by my people for traitors, but Marion has a better plan; "Let's save his life for a bit and try to find out what is going on here!" Sir Blanque staunches the shaman's wound and Destiny feeds him one of our standard healing potions. He regains consciousness.
"What did you lot do to my pet?" he screeches. "Curse you all in name of Xiombarg!" This guy is definitely not friendly. He shudders a bit when he sees Destiny, and then some more when he notices me; he knows what I want to do to him. He is obviously completely deranged, because even our double threat won't make him talk. "Ahem" says a beautifully modulated voice. It's Destiny's Demon of Knowledge; "I know I don't interfere very often, M'Lady, but I think it would be fun if you possessed him with his own demon?" This is a great idea, and it scares the guy into talking; he says he'll tell us the truth, but this isn't someone to be trusted, even at death's door. Marion thinks we can use the spider demon to access his memories and then we'll find out everything we need. The demon goes to work with some relish; it really didn't like being bound to this guy's service. I turn to Destiny; "I thought demons didn't like being bound by anybody?" She shrugs; "They prefer us, because we have a certain...affinity. Better a Melnibonean than New Chaos."
The demon has done its job, and spills the beans. It has a particularly nasty gloating tone to its voice; apparently it can feel the shaman's pain and hatred, and it seems to be relishing the situation. Anyway, this is not a full power Demon of Possession like the one that took the soul of Lord Jagger in Shazaar, more like one with a temporary effect - the victim regains control if the demon leaves the body for any reason. We discover that a Hooded Man has been doing deals with the Ophidians to learn the secret of their sorcerous magic. These are the ancient snakemen we first learned about in the Shudder Mountains; according to our possessed shaman, they secretly taught the Dharzi how to manipulate physical materials in order to create their monstrous hybrids. So Destiny was correct; that beast we killed earlier is based on Dharzi magic. It was a sort of initial test, the first in a line of modified killers to be unleashed on the world once the Hooded Man frees an avatar of Xiombarg. Our pet shaman, who goes by the name of Manuun, was its controller, and had come back to the village with his two bodyguards to see if the experiment had worked - it had! - and to bring it back to their encampment. Destiny's Demon of Knowledge converses for a while with the possessed Manuun, learning the language of the Ophidians for future use - this is how Manuun was able to control the thing in the first place. Destiny is delighted; she can learn the language for herself later.
Manuun describe the encampment of his followers; there are another fourteen Weeping Waste outcasts not far from here. He was intending to return with the chaos hybrid beast thing and then report to his boss. Marion has a further idea; why not use our possessed shaman to infiltrate the cult from within? He can always tell something of the truth: that the creature was successful, but was killed by us, as were his bodyguards, he only escaped by throwing his possession demon in our direction, and even so took a nasty cut to the head. This sounds like a plan, so off he goes.
The next day we ride to Lord Drystan's fortified manor house. He meets us before we even get there; he and his men are suiting up for a battle of some sort. Grim-faced, they report a series of attacks by the men of Org, led by a mysterious hooded sorceror. Apparently they have destroyed three villages nearest the swamps, capturing several villagers and taking them back to whatever foul lair they inhabit. Now that the alarm has been raised, Drystan reckons he has enough men to guard against any further incursions. He is delighted when Destiny volunteers our services - not something he was necessarily expecting from a Melnibonean. She takes us aside and explains; "I've never heard of the Orgjenns coming out of their forest - ever. We need to find out what is going on in there." We agree and ride to the edge of the swamps at the northern edge of the great forest itself.
Between us, we have three water elementals plus Destiny's magic cloak and ring she took from the Sahuagin. Destiny summons another water elemental for our excursion into the swamps, but does not bind it to her service. This give us enough between us to cope with the murk, so in we go. It is extremely difficult to follow the tracks of the men of Org once we get right into the swamp, and we lose the trail at one point, but early morning of our fourth day sees us emerge onto a relatively dry area. Up ahead is a large black lagoon, fringed at the far side by the trees of the dread forest itself. We see three of Drystan's villagers tied to stakes protruding from the water at the near shore. Off to our left is a large circular fortification made of mottled red stone; this is definitely not of local origin. There seems to be a village of sorts inside it, and part of the far wall has fallen into the encroaching lake. The whole thing is covered in moss and vines, but even so the fact that it has stayed upright at all is testament to the engineering skills of whoever built it. Destiny says this is not the work of Org; it's far too sophisticated. "In fact," she says, "it might even pre-date them. So it's at leat 10,000 years old."
We hear massed chanting coming from the enclosure, and have a quick confab. Marion and Sir Blanque sneak off to free the three villagers, while the rest of us hide quite far back, but still close enough to see what is happening. The three peasants head off into the swamp to distract the opposition while Sir Blanque and Marion rejoin us. Just in time too; a procession of fifty Orgjenns led by a rather stoned looking shaman comes down to the water's edge. We only catch some shouted imprecations as they discover that their sacrifices have gone. The shaman orders his people to follow the recent trail of the peasants and recapture them; he then goes back to the circular fortification with six bodyguards. They don't spot us in our concealed hiding place.
We have another short conference. Jorthan advises against entry via the lagoon - "After all, whatever they worship is probably still in there!" Instead, we sneak over the 10' high retaining wall to the rear of the compound. We make out various low buildings, one of which is two storeys tall; it too is circular, and is situated right in the middle of the compound, much of which is overgrown with vines. It has a thatched roof, and part of the lagoon has come right through to this point. This looks like the headquarters, so it will be our target. There are some slave pens off to another side; these contain the villagers we have come to free. We'll worry about them later; the plan is to take out the shaman and his bodyguards while the rest of the tribe is off in the swamp, and then free the peasants.
Moving as quietly as possible, we reach the only way into the round building. A large bush has been placed across what used to be the front door, so Jorthan and Sir Blanque stand ready while I string my bow. Destiny and Marion go round one side and climb up and across the thatched roof, dropping down into the part of the wall that has been collapsed by the encroaching waters. Most of the ground floor is slimy, and there is a ladder leading up to the intact second storey.
As Marion and Destiny drop down from the far side, the rest of us enter from the front. I don't like the looks of that water; something seems to be moving in there. Doing our best to remain stealthy, we take up various positions. I'm covering the water with an arrow nocked. Destiny climbs the ladder and puts her head above the floor level above, just enough to see; she then ducks back and has a quick whispered conversation with Marion. The two of them rejoin us and Destiny orders her fire elementals to fireblast and destroy the top floor. She says she saw the shaman in a trance, guarded by his six mates; fortunately, she was so quiet they didn't notice her.
The fire takes hold amongst lots of screaming, and we run out of the building. It's just as well, because six large creatures emerge from the lagoon, man-sized slug things with three eyestalks and vestigial legs. At the same time, four of the Orgjenns come down the ladder; it looks as though the shaman and the other two didn't make it. Destiny orders her Demon of Desire to fetch something she saw the shaman holding, and after a bit of a struggle the thing appears in her hands: a large egg thing covered in chaos runes. At that point the six lagoon creatures turn on the four guards and the screaming commences. Marion smiles; "It looks as though you control them now!"
We rush to free Drystan's people and usher them into the swamp before the Orgjenn hunters spot the fire that has now completely taken hold, and is threatening to spill down into the overgrown courtyard. We lead the villagers though the swamps to safety.
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