Tuesday, January 8, 2013

A Brothers Search and New Friends

Thargrin was drinking again at the bar, losing himself and his pain in the bottom of his mug. Most of the barkeeps knew him by now, as he was at one of their establishments every night.

One of the days of late drinking, a small and petite lady, dressed in nicely cut robes walks up to Thargrin, while he is passed out and gently touches his shoulder. "Grakslhlasf!" as he pushes her away, a look of concern appears on her face. "I am here to help ease your pain." she calmly tells Thargrin. "I donsh wanna your elp, I'm fiiiine! Leaf me aloon!" She beckons to the barkeep, "Take this one to my room, please sir." The barkeep motions two bruisers over as they follow the lady up to her room. Thargrin fights meekly all the way.

 The next morning when Thargrin awakes, he doesn't feel his hangover. Looking around he sees candles and feels a sense of peace, nothing like what he has felt since a very long time ago. As Thargrin grabs his gear, he hears footsteps coming towards the door, moving quickly and silently behind the door he waits. The door opens, as the lady from last night walks in to the room, Thargrin grabs her, as she screams and drops the food she was carrying. "I mean you no harm sir." as Thargrin gently releases his hold, his anger becoming harder to hold on to, and the feeling greatly confusing him. He shrugs things off and heads back to the ship, as the lady follows him, gently helping strangers on her way but keeping up with Thargrin.

Back at the ship, Thargrin goes to his spot and sits down, as the others greet the newcomer. "Sylvia, a priest of the Lifemother, pleased to meet everyone!" she proclaims with joy. Walking over to Slick and sitting down next to him.

Elsewhere, Kainlan receives a message to meet a man that has information on his brother. Heading over to the agreed spot, the man points Kainlan at a local business man, Jake Muller. Kainlan heads back to the ship and shares the information he has found. The adventurers decide to help their friend, and join him to go meet Jake, so they bring heading over to the warehouse district.

An arrow whistles by and hits Ambryin square in the shoulder. Thargrin and Slick run from the direction of the arrow but are too late, the assassin is long gone. Syliva pulls out the arrow and gently places her hands on Ambryin wound, a light glows and when she removes her hand, it appears to have been healed. Ambryin thanks Syliva, as everyone examines the arrow. "This appears of distinct design, we should keep it and investigate this." as Syliva puts the arrow away in her pack.

Once at the warehouse, the group is confronted by a few bruisers, one of the steps up to Kainlan, "Jake will only see you." The others rile up up at the veiled insult, but Kainlan explains the importance of the information to him and they reluctantly agree to wait. Inside, the hallways is more exquisite than anything Kainlan has seen. At the end of the hallway a great room, with only one man sitting there. "Kainlan, welcome! I know you seek your brother, a favor I ask in return for information, bring me back a shipment of Cotton and I will give you the information you need." he pulls out a bag of cogs and hands it over to Kainlan. "2000 cogs to help you on your journey and expenditures, and 10,000 cogs plus the information on your return." Kainlan questions the ease of the deal as it appears too simple and easy for such a great payout.

Back at the ship, the crew discusses options, they decide to take some material with them, and find out from the locals where the best cotton island can be found. Ambryin and Kainlan go out on the town, asking around, they discover metals and sand are good commodities to trade and Bridgeway has the best cotton supplies in the skies. Once the group has gathered the supplies, they head in to the skies.

"Harpies!" shouts the captain on the third day. As the adventurers and crew scramble to engage. The fighting gets fierce, one of the ladies dies to the harpies, as her friend (Shaelyn) screams and kills the harpies near her trying to get to her friend. After the battle Syliva puts her hand on Shaelyn and shakes her head, Ambryin puts her hand on her shoulder as comfort  the crew as a whole are pained at the lost. Shaelyn gets a void look in her eyes for the rest of the trip, making others worry about her.

As the crew nears Bridgeway, they notice a ship limping in the distance, as they get closer a larger ships appears to be chasing it. The smaller ship has an injured Orc, in the outfit of the couriers guild, he is pulled on to the ship where Syliva rushes to treat him. Before he passes out he hands Kainlan a message saying this needs to get to the Couriers guild as soon as possible. The crew look around and decide to out run the pirate ship, which they do with ease. The Orc is taken below deck and tended to, as the group breaks the seal and opens up the couriers message. It reads as gibberish to the group so they decide they will return it to see if they can get some rewards.

 Once at Bridgeway, the adventurers travel with the Orc to the nearest couriers guild. Once inside, the guild is bustling with people running around efficiently  carrying messages and notes as fast as possible. The orc continues to the back of the hall where he is greeted by the local courier overseer. "Greetings! What messages do you bear?" The Orc beckons to Kainlan as he hands over the message to be handed to the overseer. His eyes squint in displeasure when he notices the seal was broken, "Who broke the seal? All courier messages should have their seals maintained, otherwise we cannot guarantee the message inside. There will be some disciplinary actions taken." The overseer glances over to the Orc, who turns slightly white at the comment. Thorgrin chimes up about a reward, and overseer nodes and calls over a page. "Escort them to the quartermaster." As he hands the page a note. Once at the quartermaster the group receives 1000 cogs for their troubles. Slick and Thargrin feel that the couriers are being insulting and spit on their way out of the halls. As Slick looks back, a page runs up and quickly cleans up before running off again, leaving a grin on his face.

Ambryin and Kainlan proceed to attempt to sell off the goods, and find some cotton for the trip back. Once the cotton is secure, the group begins their trip back. While in the void, they are ambushed by two small pirate ships. The captain with the help of the crew deftly maneuver the ship and blow up one of the small ships with their cannons and chase off the other.

Once back at Gateway, the adventurers are greeted by four hooded men and large man dressed in finely crafted clothes of dark material. "You have something of mine!" he proclaims, Thargrin calmly throws his ax at the man, and charges in to battle. Kainlan takes aim at the man and hits him squarely in the head, but instead of killing him, the man looks angered and hurt. "Kill them all!" as he pulls out a dark sword. Ambryin notices the dark glow the sword has and shouts to her friends, "Be wary of his sword it has a black aura!" as the adventurers throw themselves at the dark man, the four robbed figures begin chanting. Four large spheres of black void grow and engulf the adventurers. As Kainlan, Slick, and Thargrin pass out, Ambryin barely holding on to consciousnesses Syliva walks down the plank and calmly walks down as a light glow quickly expands from her. The dark man looks up with fear in his eyes, "The gods avatar! You should not be here!" The light gets very bright, the last thing Ambryin hears is the footsteps of men running away and a gentle voice saying "Rest."

Bloody Messenger

A bloody elf walks in to the bar, covered in blood and tattered clothes. Many patrons rush to his side to help  him. As the adventurers approach, he can be heard rambling madly about skeletons and undead coming out of the ground. Treasures greater than any have seen and screaming monsters. His ramblings pique the interest of the group, for the alternatives didn't seem 'fun'; following up on the gods warning, helping two elves with some smuggling, or helping a trader procure some cloth. Salvage and fighting seemed more excitable to the group.

Heading over to their ship, the adventurers realize they could hire on a few sailors to help them out. The elf asks Kainlan if they could find female sailors to help. After questioning one of the dock-hands  Kainlan is directed to the far end of the dock, where two ladies were helping load some cargo for a ship. One appears shy and hesitant to join, but is convinced when her friend shows excitement at the opportunity of proper sailor work. The dock-hand also petitions Kainlan to join the crew as he has aspirations to become a Captain, Kainlan reluctantly agrees.

On the way to investigate the island of the dead, the crew encounters a large ship. 'Take them on!' yells the crew; as the captain deftly maneuvers the ship in to position, out maneuvering the other ship very nicely. Once the ship is in position, the adventurers and their new found friends begin to board the ship. Lots of pirates engage them, with their captain in the back urging them forward. Ambryin heads in to the first group she sees and begins to slash away, taunting the enemy captain as well. The two ladies who have recently joined, are inspired and bring down a few pirates themselves. As the fight starts to sway in the adventurers favor, the enemy captain begins to get riled up, accidently shooting one of his own while attempting to take out Ambryin.

Once the pirates are defeated, the adventurers decide to take over the new boat as it is much bigger than their own and let is drop in to the abyss, moving themselves over to the bigger ship. As expected the ship is harder to pilot than their old ship, so food and water become a concern, especially for the return trip.

The rest of the journey to the island is uneventful. Once at the island, the adventurers disembark and begin investigating the ruins. As they approach, skeletons pop out of the ground and assault the adventurers. A wraith also joins the fray. Thargrin rushes to the wraith, while the rest of the adventurers, engage the skeletons.

After a hard fought victory, Kainlan while looking around spots a cache of goods hidden in the rubble off to the side, full of salvage and a relic!

The slow trip back to town to (due to the larger ship) puts the crew dangerously thirsty and exhausted. Once they reach town, Thomas greets them and takes their salvage for them.