Iron Kingdoms (608AR; Tempen 26 - Tempen 28): Courage Receipt
-
Reynard, Felcyr, Roandar, Wren, Evakai, Yevgeniy, and (David) / [XP: 1.0]
Robert was exhausted and left a little early.
Tempen 26th
My mid-morning, Melissus had located the cluster of islands that they were looking for. As the ship closed in on the one which allegedly contained the mighty doombull; Peeta retrieved the lock box which he’d brought on board and gave it to Lorna, who set it down near the cannon.
The island was just under a mile in diameter and its terrain resembled a cylinder which had been diagonally sliced in half. It was surrounded by cliffs which rose as high as 400’ feet on the north-east side but which diminished down to sea level and formed the mouth of a small bay on the south-west side. As they sailed around, the PC’s spotted a white building on the east side (atop a 300’ set of cliffs) which Melissus believed might be an ancient Morrowan temple.
In the middle of the natural harbor on the south-west side was the remains of a very old oar galley; smashed in half and mostly submerged. The PC’s sailed around it and docked at a stone quay built on the interior shore.
With his brand new long rifle in hand, Peeta was very eager to get started; and suggested that the ruins of an ancient temple seemed like the kind of a place where a doombull might lair. Reynard quietly instructed to Roandar to keep more of an eye on Peeta than himself.
The interior of the island was heavily forested, so the PC’s opted to take the slightly longer but more open path which followed the coast; which was broad enough to keep a comfortable distance from the tops of the cliffs. Wanting to try to strike up a friendly conversation with his new charge, Roandar complemented Peeta on his rifle. When he haughtily replied “Of course”; Wren, who was walking ahead of him, silently mocked him. “Your head jiggles in a very particular way when you do that, Elspeth”, he called from behind her; having apparently endured such mocking in the past.
As the PC’s began their ascent, they very quickly noticed that every single rock in sight which was more than about a yard along its widest dimension had the same symbol crudely chiseled into it. Wren and Evakai, both of whom were skilled in rune reading, identified it as the magical rune for ‘ailment’ (poison, disease, etc.) They also both concurred that there was no way that such a crudely-carved rune could have any sort of actual magical effect.
The PC’s first theorized that it might be some sort of warning; but it was pointed out that not even all spell-casters were able to read runes (Yevgeniy, for example, was not), so it would make for a pretty crummy warning system. Evakai then conjectured that it might be some sort of bluff; perhaps someone wanted for uninformed people to think that the runes were creating some sort of magical effect.
About half-way up to the temple, Felcyr inexplicably began to feel agitated. Her distain for the tendency of humans to overcomplicate everything in their lives was almost always present in her mind, but suddenly it seemed a lot more intense. That they were trudging across this island to kill something just to enhance one man’s social standing suddenly seemed ever more stupid to her. She practically wanted to scream at everyone to drop these ridiculous trappings of ‘civilization’ and get back to the basics of eating, sleeping, and procreating.
But she kept it in check and kept on trekking; silently fuming to herself. Wren eventually noticed and asked if she was all right, but just got a silent glare in response.
Another quarter of the way to their destinations, the PC’s came to a silent halt when they spotted a group of four beings near the tree line. They appeared only vaguely human; with cloven hooves, fur-covered legs, and small horns topping their heads. Two of them were fighting as the other two seemed to egg them on with grunts and growls. Though they were all in possession of lower-tech melee weapons, the two fighters were using only their fists.
As the PC’s silently watched and waited, one of the combatants eventually took a staggering blow which knocked him to the ground. As he held up a hand in surrender, the victor not only broke off his attack but reached down to help his opponent to his feet; seeming to confirm, as Roandar has suspected, that it was a simple dominance struggle. After the four of them disappeared into the woods, the PC’s waited another minute or two and then continued their ascent.
The round white building atop the eastern cliff was indeed a Morrowan temple. The path which the PC’s had been following led right up to the main entrance on the south side. The forest had grown right up against the west side, and the east side was practically hanging over the edge of the seaside cliff.
The PC’s cautiously entered; finding that a single chamber seemed to occupy the entire structure. Directly across from the main entrance was a statue of Morrow standing atop a stone pedestal which had something carved into its face. There were also four smaller entrances; two on each side; evenly spaced between the statue and the main entrance. Light from the late morning sun spilled in through the eastern entrances, while the western ones were now blocked by foliage.
In the middle of chamber was an open stone cupola supported by six pillars. Within the pillars, concentric stairs led down to an area which was three or four feet lower than the rest of the chamber. The floor in this area had at some point been smashed through, and there was now a huge hole leading to a wide shaft which plummeted straight down to a sea-flooded grotto 300’ down.
As David and Evakai started around the cupola to take a closer look at the statue, nearly half a dozen ‘beast-men’ (like the ones they’d seen earlier) rushed in through the foliage covering the west entrances and attacked. Five archers ran in through the northern entrance and formed a firing line in front of the statue while six charged in through the southern entrance straight at the PC’s.
Evakai and David were both hit with shield slams which knocked them down the stairs under the cupola. David damn near tumbled right into the big hole in the floor, but managed to catch himself in time and eventually threw the same attacker down the hole to his death.
Apparently feeling that Roandar wasn’t terrifying enough on his own, Yevgeniy used a newly-learned spell to set his hammer on fire (preceded by the shouted warning: “Watch your fingers! I’m going to try something!”) Wren had also recently learned a melee-enhancing spell and managed to drop two of the attackers with her difficult-to-wield lacerator.
Peeta took cover behind one of the pillars; and though he was clearly scared out of his mind, he managed to summon the courage to pop around and take a shot at the archers (though he didn’t appear to actually hit anything).
After one of the archers and five of the six melee attackers lost their lives; the survivors decided to beat a hasty retreat, and the PC’s let them go. Wren went immediately to Peeta and helped him to calm down before they rejoined the PC’s.
The carvings in the base of the statue had clearly been made with an unskilled hand; probably long after the statue had originally been made. At the top was a drawing of what appeared to be a boat getting broken in half by a large object falling from the sky. Below that were half a dozen people rendered as little more than stick figures. Below them were six more figures, but these were stooped over and had horns atop their head.
“The island is blighted!”, Felcyr declared; believing that the first picture showed a blighted falling star or some such falling from the heavens and that the latter two depicted men being transformed into beastmen like the ones they’d just defeated. It additionally occurred to her that the primal anger that she was feeling might be the first stage of the effect.
The PC’s never got a chance to discuss the matter because they were suddenly interrupted by an immense-sound roar echoing up from the depths of the pit in the center of the room. They ran back to the cupola and cautiously peered down.
They’d expected that this ‘mighty doombull’ that Peeta had heard about would probably be around ten… maybe twelve feet tall. The horned beast which was now rapidly clawing its way up the side of the pit had four arms and was closer to forty feet tall!
Peeta wasn’t very strong or tough, but the man could run like crazy; and by the time the PC’s reached the harbor, he was already on board the ship. As the PC’s ran up the gangplank, the monstrous creature lumbered into view; holding a huge rock above his head with obvious intent to hurl it at the tiny sloop.
After ordering the crew to get the ship ready to move, Wren found Peeta; who was at the cannon with Lorna. The lock-box which he’d given her earlier was sitting nearby; open and empty. Felcyr started firing arrows at the monster’s fingers; forcing it to shift its grip and buying Wren the time she needed to aim the cannon. When she had a good shot, she let Peeta fire it.
The shot hit the creature in the side of the torso; and though it seemed as though it would cause little more than a flesh wound, the creature dropped its boulder as it clutched the wound and bellowed in agony. As it thrashed and clawed at the wound, its body seemed to stiffen; and it soon feel to the ground with earth-shaking thud. Its angry roars softened into loud but pitiful whimpers; and in a few more moments, it stopped moving.
“It worked!”, Peeta shouted with glee as a beaming smile lit up on his face. “Mr. Hartwell, the head if you please!”
Several PC’s accompanied Hartwell to the fallen giant, and a quick examination by Evakai seemed to indicate that its entire body had essentially been mummified. With Yevgeniy’s assistance, the old taxidermist set about the grizzly task of sawing the monster’s head off; grumbling the whole time about magic replacing skilled craftsmen.
Reynard, meanwhile, queried Peeta as to what the hell had just been fired out of that cannon. “I had it custom made in Fharin”, he replied. “It cost me a fortune, and would have cost me even more had it not experimental. I managed to talk the man down when he couldn’t guarantee that it would work. But now I see that it does and it was worth every last coin that I paid for it.” Reynard then asked for the name of the man who’d made it and made a point to remember it.
Completely disinterested in what was going on and anxious to leave the island, Felcyr took a quick dip in the bay and actually found herself rapidly calming down. This supported her assertion that there was something wrong with the land itself.
After the head was finally severed, Roandar helped drag it back to the ship and get in on board. There was no easy way to get it down into the hold, but Peeta was content to leave it on the deck and just throw a tarp over it. The sloop then departed and headed back north towards Cygnar.
Throughout the afternoon and evening; Peeta could scarcely go more than ten minutes without walking over to the head, lifting up the tarp, and admiring his prize with an enormous grin on his face. Evakai at one point commended him for not only bagging an impressive specimen but also helping to cleanse a Morrowan temple. Overhearing this, Wren shot the girl a nasty glare.
Wren later pulled Peeta aside and asked him why he was really doing this. “You made me the laughing stock of Caspia”, he bitterly replied. “I have to do something to heal my reputation.” Wren (who’d had no idea that her disappearance had caused him so much grief) then asked him why he even cared what anyone thought and tried to give him her ‘noble life sucks’ speech, but he made it clear that he liked that life.
“Will you mention me?”, she finally asked. “No”, he replied; in a tone that was meant to be reassuring. “As it is, people assume that you ran off to marry someone with more money. It would make me look that much worse if they knew that you left me to become a sea dog.”
Wren had almost been started to sympathize with him, but that last comment just made her mad; and she walked away without another word.
David blinked out later that evening.
Tempen 27th
When Peeta awoke the next morning, he went immediately to admire his trophy as he’d been doing through the previous evening. This time, however, his look of beaming self-admiration was replaced with one of uncertainty and concern. “Does it seem a bit less… ‘fresh’ than it did yesterday?”, he asked nobody in particular.
As the day wore on, it became clear… the monster’s head was deteriorating; so slowly that it was nearly imperceivable, but deteriorating nevertheless. Peeta grew more and more anxious and tried to convince himself that it was just the way the light was hitting it or that it was all in his head. Mr. Hartwell was called up to take a look; but since the head had already been ‘preserved’ through unconventional means, there was nothing he could do to stop whatever was happening now.
Peeta was unable to get the sleep that night; getting up every half hour or less to take another look. Late that evening, the truth became undeniable when he gently laid a hand on one of the horns and it snapped right off in his hand.
Tempen 28th
By the next morning, the head had almost completely crumbled to dust. Peeta was no longer wound up or upset; just really, really depressed. “Don’t worry”, he said in an uncharacteristically somber tone when Wren approached him. “Captain Rum will be paid. You fulfilled your end of the bargain.”
Later in the day shortly before reaching Mercir, Reynard approached Peeta with a few papers in his hand. “If things go well”, he began, “we’re going to be family soon. Here…”
Reynard had taken the time to write a sort journal of their voyage. While everything was rooted in truth and nothing was pure fabrication, it was embellished to make Peeta look a thousand times better. He also gave him the name of a writer who could turn it into a good story, and even put his official seal on the whole thing to hopefully squelch any doubters.
Peeta gave him his most sincere thanks.
Reynard then approached Wren; asking if it was the life that she’d fled or Peeta in particular. She replied that it was about half and half.
Yevgeniy, who overhead the exchange, insisted that the journal was a bad idea as it might encourage him to go out and do more things like this and eventually get himself killed. But Reynard fully understood why this was important to Peeta.
As Peeta and company were about to disembark, Wren spoke with him one last time. “You’re not going to do anything like this again, right?”, she asked. “For all of our differences, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“I suppose we’ll just have to see how well this story goes over”, he replied before turning to leave.
Reynard, Felcyr, Roandar, Wren, Evakai, Yevgeniy, and (David) / [XP: 1.0]
Robert was exhausted and left a little early.
Tempen 26th
My mid-morning, Melissus had located the cluster of islands that they were looking for. As the ship closed in on the one which allegedly contained the mighty doombull; Peeta retrieved the lock box which he’d brought on board and gave it to Lorna, who set it down near the cannon.
The island was just under a mile in diameter and its terrain resembled a cylinder which had been diagonally sliced in half. It was surrounded by cliffs which rose as high as 400’ feet on the north-east side but which diminished down to sea level and formed the mouth of a small bay on the south-west side. As they sailed around, the PC’s spotted a white building on the east side (atop a 300’ set of cliffs) which Melissus believed might be an ancient Morrowan temple.
In the middle of the natural harbor on the south-west side was the remains of a very old oar galley; smashed in half and mostly submerged. The PC’s sailed around it and docked at a stone quay built on the interior shore.
With his brand new long rifle in hand, Peeta was very eager to get started; and suggested that the ruins of an ancient temple seemed like the kind of a place where a doombull might lair. Reynard quietly instructed to Roandar to keep more of an eye on Peeta than himself.
The interior of the island was heavily forested, so the PC’s opted to take the slightly longer but more open path which followed the coast; which was broad enough to keep a comfortable distance from the tops of the cliffs. Wanting to try to strike up a friendly conversation with his new charge, Roandar complemented Peeta on his rifle. When he haughtily replied “Of course”; Wren, who was walking ahead of him, silently mocked him. “Your head jiggles in a very particular way when you do that, Elspeth”, he called from behind her; having apparently endured such mocking in the past.
As the PC’s began their ascent, they very quickly noticed that every single rock in sight which was more than about a yard along its widest dimension had the same symbol crudely chiseled into it. Wren and Evakai, both of whom were skilled in rune reading, identified it as the magical rune for ‘ailment’ (poison, disease, etc.) They also both concurred that there was no way that such a crudely-carved rune could have any sort of actual magical effect.
The PC’s first theorized that it might be some sort of warning; but it was pointed out that not even all spell-casters were able to read runes (Yevgeniy, for example, was not), so it would make for a pretty crummy warning system. Evakai then conjectured that it might be some sort of bluff; perhaps someone wanted for uninformed people to think that the runes were creating some sort of magical effect.
About half-way up to the temple, Felcyr inexplicably began to feel agitated. Her distain for the tendency of humans to overcomplicate everything in their lives was almost always present in her mind, but suddenly it seemed a lot more intense. That they were trudging across this island to kill something just to enhance one man’s social standing suddenly seemed ever more stupid to her. She practically wanted to scream at everyone to drop these ridiculous trappings of ‘civilization’ and get back to the basics of eating, sleeping, and procreating.
But she kept it in check and kept on trekking; silently fuming to herself. Wren eventually noticed and asked if she was all right, but just got a silent glare in response.
Another quarter of the way to their destinations, the PC’s came to a silent halt when they spotted a group of four beings near the tree line. They appeared only vaguely human; with cloven hooves, fur-covered legs, and small horns topping their heads. Two of them were fighting as the other two seemed to egg them on with grunts and growls. Though they were all in possession of lower-tech melee weapons, the two fighters were using only their fists.
As the PC’s silently watched and waited, one of the combatants eventually took a staggering blow which knocked him to the ground. As he held up a hand in surrender, the victor not only broke off his attack but reached down to help his opponent to his feet; seeming to confirm, as Roandar has suspected, that it was a simple dominance struggle. After the four of them disappeared into the woods, the PC’s waited another minute or two and then continued their ascent.
The round white building atop the eastern cliff was indeed a Morrowan temple. The path which the PC’s had been following led right up to the main entrance on the south side. The forest had grown right up against the west side, and the east side was practically hanging over the edge of the seaside cliff.
The PC’s cautiously entered; finding that a single chamber seemed to occupy the entire structure. Directly across from the main entrance was a statue of Morrow standing atop a stone pedestal which had something carved into its face. There were also four smaller entrances; two on each side; evenly spaced between the statue and the main entrance. Light from the late morning sun spilled in through the eastern entrances, while the western ones were now blocked by foliage.
In the middle of chamber was an open stone cupola supported by six pillars. Within the pillars, concentric stairs led down to an area which was three or four feet lower than the rest of the chamber. The floor in this area had at some point been smashed through, and there was now a huge hole leading to a wide shaft which plummeted straight down to a sea-flooded grotto 300’ down.
As David and Evakai started around the cupola to take a closer look at the statue, nearly half a dozen ‘beast-men’ (like the ones they’d seen earlier) rushed in through the foliage covering the west entrances and attacked. Five archers ran in through the northern entrance and formed a firing line in front of the statue while six charged in through the southern entrance straight at the PC’s.
Evakai and David were both hit with shield slams which knocked them down the stairs under the cupola. David damn near tumbled right into the big hole in the floor, but managed to catch himself in time and eventually threw the same attacker down the hole to his death.
Apparently feeling that Roandar wasn’t terrifying enough on his own, Yevgeniy used a newly-learned spell to set his hammer on fire (preceded by the shouted warning: “Watch your fingers! I’m going to try something!”) Wren had also recently learned a melee-enhancing spell and managed to drop two of the attackers with her difficult-to-wield lacerator.
Peeta took cover behind one of the pillars; and though he was clearly scared out of his mind, he managed to summon the courage to pop around and take a shot at the archers (though he didn’t appear to actually hit anything).
After one of the archers and five of the six melee attackers lost their lives; the survivors decided to beat a hasty retreat, and the PC’s let them go. Wren went immediately to Peeta and helped him to calm down before they rejoined the PC’s.
The carvings in the base of the statue had clearly been made with an unskilled hand; probably long after the statue had originally been made. At the top was a drawing of what appeared to be a boat getting broken in half by a large object falling from the sky. Below that were half a dozen people rendered as little more than stick figures. Below them were six more figures, but these were stooped over and had horns atop their head.
“The island is blighted!”, Felcyr declared; believing that the first picture showed a blighted falling star or some such falling from the heavens and that the latter two depicted men being transformed into beastmen like the ones they’d just defeated. It additionally occurred to her that the primal anger that she was feeling might be the first stage of the effect.
The PC’s never got a chance to discuss the matter because they were suddenly interrupted by an immense-sound roar echoing up from the depths of the pit in the center of the room. They ran back to the cupola and cautiously peered down.
They’d expected that this ‘mighty doombull’ that Peeta had heard about would probably be around ten… maybe twelve feet tall. The horned beast which was now rapidly clawing its way up the side of the pit had four arms and was closer to forty feet tall!
Peeta wasn’t very strong or tough, but the man could run like crazy; and by the time the PC’s reached the harbor, he was already on board the ship. As the PC’s ran up the gangplank, the monstrous creature lumbered into view; holding a huge rock above his head with obvious intent to hurl it at the tiny sloop.
After ordering the crew to get the ship ready to move, Wren found Peeta; who was at the cannon with Lorna. The lock-box which he’d given her earlier was sitting nearby; open and empty. Felcyr started firing arrows at the monster’s fingers; forcing it to shift its grip and buying Wren the time she needed to aim the cannon. When she had a good shot, she let Peeta fire it.
The shot hit the creature in the side of the torso; and though it seemed as though it would cause little more than a flesh wound, the creature dropped its boulder as it clutched the wound and bellowed in agony. As it thrashed and clawed at the wound, its body seemed to stiffen; and it soon feel to the ground with earth-shaking thud. Its angry roars softened into loud but pitiful whimpers; and in a few more moments, it stopped moving.
“It worked!”, Peeta shouted with glee as a beaming smile lit up on his face. “Mr. Hartwell, the head if you please!”
Several PC’s accompanied Hartwell to the fallen giant, and a quick examination by Evakai seemed to indicate that its entire body had essentially been mummified. With Yevgeniy’s assistance, the old taxidermist set about the grizzly task of sawing the monster’s head off; grumbling the whole time about magic replacing skilled craftsmen.
Reynard, meanwhile, queried Peeta as to what the hell had just been fired out of that cannon. “I had it custom made in Fharin”, he replied. “It cost me a fortune, and would have cost me even more had it not experimental. I managed to talk the man down when he couldn’t guarantee that it would work. But now I see that it does and it was worth every last coin that I paid for it.” Reynard then asked for the name of the man who’d made it and made a point to remember it.
Completely disinterested in what was going on and anxious to leave the island, Felcyr took a quick dip in the bay and actually found herself rapidly calming down. This supported her assertion that there was something wrong with the land itself.
After the head was finally severed, Roandar helped drag it back to the ship and get in on board. There was no easy way to get it down into the hold, but Peeta was content to leave it on the deck and just throw a tarp over it. The sloop then departed and headed back north towards Cygnar.
Throughout the afternoon and evening; Peeta could scarcely go more than ten minutes without walking over to the head, lifting up the tarp, and admiring his prize with an enormous grin on his face. Evakai at one point commended him for not only bagging an impressive specimen but also helping to cleanse a Morrowan temple. Overhearing this, Wren shot the girl a nasty glare.
Wren later pulled Peeta aside and asked him why he was really doing this. “You made me the laughing stock of Caspia”, he bitterly replied. “I have to do something to heal my reputation.” Wren (who’d had no idea that her disappearance had caused him so much grief) then asked him why he even cared what anyone thought and tried to give him her ‘noble life sucks’ speech, but he made it clear that he liked that life.
“Will you mention me?”, she finally asked. “No”, he replied; in a tone that was meant to be reassuring. “As it is, people assume that you ran off to marry someone with more money. It would make me look that much worse if they knew that you left me to become a sea dog.”
Wren had almost been started to sympathize with him, but that last comment just made her mad; and she walked away without another word.
David blinked out later that evening.
Tempen 27th
When Peeta awoke the next morning, he went immediately to admire his trophy as he’d been doing through the previous evening. This time, however, his look of beaming self-admiration was replaced with one of uncertainty and concern. “Does it seem a bit less… ‘fresh’ than it did yesterday?”, he asked nobody in particular.
As the day wore on, it became clear… the monster’s head was deteriorating; so slowly that it was nearly imperceivable, but deteriorating nevertheless. Peeta grew more and more anxious and tried to convince himself that it was just the way the light was hitting it or that it was all in his head. Mr. Hartwell was called up to take a look; but since the head had already been ‘preserved’ through unconventional means, there was nothing he could do to stop whatever was happening now.
Peeta was unable to get the sleep that night; getting up every half hour or less to take another look. Late that evening, the truth became undeniable when he gently laid a hand on one of the horns and it snapped right off in his hand.
Tempen 28th
By the next morning, the head had almost completely crumbled to dust. Peeta was no longer wound up or upset; just really, really depressed. “Don’t worry”, he said in an uncharacteristically somber tone when Wren approached him. “Captain Rum will be paid. You fulfilled your end of the bargain.”
Later in the day shortly before reaching Mercir, Reynard approached Peeta with a few papers in his hand. “If things go well”, he began, “we’re going to be family soon. Here…”
Reynard had taken the time to write a sort journal of their voyage. While everything was rooted in truth and nothing was pure fabrication, it was embellished to make Peeta look a thousand times better. He also gave him the name of a writer who could turn it into a good story, and even put his official seal on the whole thing to hopefully squelch any doubters.
Peeta gave him his most sincere thanks.
Reynard then approached Wren; asking if it was the life that she’d fled or Peeta in particular. She replied that it was about half and half.
Yevgeniy, who overhead the exchange, insisted that the journal was a bad idea as it might encourage him to go out and do more things like this and eventually get himself killed. But Reynard fully understood why this was important to Peeta.
As Peeta and company were about to disembark, Wren spoke with him one last time. “You’re not going to do anything like this again, right?”, she asked. “For all of our differences, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“I suppose we’ll just have to see how well this story goes over”, he replied before turning to leave.