Our story begins...
Episode I
The heroes have traversed the Icespire Mountains to the north from the Woodland
Realm of King Kagonestri. Their journey, at the height of summer, has so far passed without incident
apart from two stubbed toes, one heated argument (subject no longer recollected) and a touch of
heatstroke.
Following a traders’ road through a desolate valley sheltered by the foothills of the mountains, the party
comes across a caravan being ambushed by goblins. Having approached the wagon and joined the guards
beneath it, Zimlok summons an illusion of a bugbear and scares the goblins off into the woods, with the
caravan guards in hot pursuit.
One goblin manages to set the fallen tree by the wagon on fire before he makes his escape. The heroes
realise that these goblins are linked to Tanueviel’s arch-nemesis, Gobchuck, a brutal but stupid bugbear
who terrorised the Woodland Realm many years ago.
A second band of goblins approach to pillage the luxury silk and grain in the wagon, but the adventurers
easily scare these off also, with Haji’s thunder spell and Lightstrike’s ferocious leopard-form. A squirrel
reassures Tanueviel that the coast is clear and Lightstrike’s mouse investigates the wagon. They set the
horses loose after Tanueviel calms them, and choose to carry on down the road.
Shortly, they happen upon a goblin just behind the treeline who is caught in his own beartrap. He hisses
at them and celebrates Gobchuck’s intelligence (“He’s smarterer than you!”), and points them in the
direction of Sloog’s bog, before Haji Baba loses patience and delivers a coup de grace. (She dislikes
goblins as they desecrate the woodlands she reveres as a Druid.)
Following the goblin’s directions, the party happens upon another wagon, this one upturned and
peppered with barbed goblin arrows. There is no sign of bloodshed and some more wagon tracks
disappear into the woods. This one is submerged in a sulphurous bog, where Lightstrike nearly loses his
shoes.
The adventurers manage to obtain a raft by Zimlok’s magic and general enthusiasm for jumping, but they
are intercepted by Sloog the ogre at the opposite bank. Only Lightstrike is not intimidated, and
singlehandedly manages to rout the hulking ogre by transforming into a leopard.
Tanueviel speaks to a bird who shows the way to Sloog’s dugout lair, where they find treasure including
a silk evening gown that’s been used as a handkerchief. Lightstrike walks on the ceiling for no apparent
reason.
They camp down for the night having laid a trap using Tanueviel’s hunting prowess. The magic-users
have not had chance to prepare more spells, but still have a few tricks up their respective sleeves.
Tanuviel’s bat wakes her in the early hours to warn her of the ogre’s cautious approach…
Episode II
Ye saga continueth…
Tanueviel’s and Lightstrike’s brave attempt to stalk Sloog the Ogre almost backfires as
Lightstrike accidentally snaps a twig underfoot (rather embarrassing really for a stealthy
wereleopard). But the quick-thinking Elven Ranger saves the situation by suggesting he
should use his diminutive pet to reassure the now wary Ogre that it was nothing but a
scurrying mouse. The plan goes better than they could have expected when it is revealed
that Sloog is scared of rodents and cowers against a tree in fear.
The mouse returns to its feline master, and Sloog, stumbling back to his lair in a panic,
walks straight into Tanueviel’s improvised trap. He is caught in a wooden cage, but not
for long! Zimlok dances around the cage like an idiotic wingless bird, but fortunately Haji
Baba arrives and charms Sloog into trusting them. He reveals that he has been stationed
in the swamp by a goblin called Glibbol, to “scare off nosers”, and that the goblins were
responsible for raiding the second wagon. It remains unclear, however, how or why the
wagon was driven so far from the road in the first place.
Sloog also reveals that the goblins’ hideout is at the Festering Caverns, and begs to be
released unharmed. The half-Hobbit Druid easily persuades Sloog, in his charmed state,
to abandon his lair and head for pastures new, where there might be some choice flocks
of sheep to prey upon. Let’s hope the local farmers don’t find out it was our heroes who
set an Ogre loose on their flocks…
Arriving at the Festering Caves, Tanueviel investigates the tracks outside the entrance and
determines that no goblins have been here for four days or more. Santoro goes on a
reconnaissance mission and returns indicating that the coast is clear.
Entering the dark and rancid caverns, they find signs of the goblins’ presence in the form
of soiled bedrolls, old fires and chicken bones. At the end of one twisting passageway,
they find an underwater lake that hides a Grey Ooze. Within its semi-translucent, writhing
mass can be seen the part-digested remains of a human. The heroes deliberate for a little
too long, and the ooze lashes out at Lightstrike, taking his dagger and whipping his leg
with a corrosive strike.
The adventurers wisely leave the ooze to its own devices, and investigate the parts of the
caverns that the goblins had made their home. In one chamber are arcane glyphs scratched
into the walls. Zimlok examines the runes and determines that someone or something has
been dabbling in magic, for these are the scribblings of a new student of the black arts.
Investigating another tunnel, the heroes hear some snuffling which is revealed to be two
Rust Monsters hungry for metal. After sacrificing an arrow, Haji Baba intervenes with her
thorn whip and eventually manages to entangle both beasts. The cave beyond is daubed
with paintings of goblins chasing animals and humans, and Zimlok finds an illustration
of an impressive-looking Bugbear in a shadowy alcove. Could this be Gobchuck himself?
Amongst the cinders of a fire are three scrolls. One is trapped, another is a barkskin Druid
spell, and another Zimlok hastily tucks into his many-pocketed cloak without even
looking at it. Haji Baba takes Barkskin, whilst Zimlok hangs on to the others.
Our four intrepid explorers at last leave the claustrophobic gloom of the caverns, and try
to follow some more tracks that lead away into the forest. At a stream, they lose the tracks
and Tanueviel shins up a tree to get their bearings. In the distance she spies a keep atop a
hill and the smoke of village chimneys.
With Lightstrike bounding acrobatically through the branches, and Zimlok holding on
for dear life to the scruff of his neck, whilst Tanueviel leaps gracefully from bough to
bough and Haji Baba struggles to keep up on her nimble but stubby hobbit-legs, the party
soon reaches the trade road and follows it to the village of Sparrowkeep.
A squat keep overlooks the village. There is also a large barn with giant black horns
mounted above the door, and a round roofless structure that seems to glow strangely in
the dusk. Other buildings include a creaking two-storey inn and a busy tavern.
Heading for the village tavern for some sustenance and information they are greeted with
suspicious glances by villagers going about their evening chores. The tavern is tucked in
the shadow of a giant upturned foot made of shiny black rock. From its toes are suspended
nets and sacks of food, and around its base are tables at which local revellers drink and
talk.
Inside the tavern our hooded heroes are met with a stony silence by patrons, but the ruddyfaced barkeep Amona Large has a loose tongue and is willing to exchange gossip and news
in return for some good advice on sock-darning.
She tells of a “troll” in the nearby swamp, and explains that the forty-foot foot outside is
a great mystery that attracts tourists from all around. Archaeologists have tried to excavate
its footings (or should that be anklings?) but workers have been discouraged by a strange
ringing in their ears and recurrent nightmares. Some say the cyclopean foot has a malign
influence, some say its interior is hollow, and others that it is part of a fallen angel turned
to stone.
When pressed on the matter of goblins, she says they’ve always had a problem with the
local Brownleaf goblin tribe, but that in recent weeks they have become more cunning and
organised. Rarely do their ambushes result in bloodshed (itself rather odd), and they
always seem to successfully target those caravans that are carrying luxury items and
valuables.
The village sheriff has employed a renowned Goblin-catcher to deal with the problem, but
she says he seems to spend most of his time hanging around the village and drinking with
mercenary company leader Dash Flashheart. Amona points out these two individuals, who
are deep in conversation at a table beneath the obsidian foot.
Zimlok flips Amona a gold piece for her trouble (and her sandwiches), and Tanueviel
plucks up the courage to engage with the mysterious Goblin-hunter and mercenary
captain. The moustachioed and bombastic Flashheart appears relieved to hear that his men
have survived and (with the help of our heroes) foiled another goblin ambush, and regrets
that they always seem to give his men the slip in the woods.
The sallow-faced and sunken-cheeked Illintendo Sharpchin appears confident that he and
Flashheart will rid the village of these goblin pests, but the adventurers detect something
amiss about these two characters. For one thing, Sharpchin claims to have traced the
goblins to the Festering Caverns, but of course the heroes already know that the caves have
been abandoned for several days.
As the evening draws long, the party decides to retire to the inn, where both Dash and
Illintendo are staying. They agree to meet for breakfast to discuss how they might aid the
fight against the goblin tribe, and the hunched and smelly innkeep, Phill Bottomcleft,
shows them to their room. The inn seems to be damp and rotten and creaks worryingly
against makeshift props and beams.
Despite the creaking timbers, the heroes sleep well and manage to heal wounds and recover
their magic. Zimlok has detect magic and shield; Haji Baba has charm person and thunder
wave. A further 400 XP have been earned by each adventurer, but Lightstrike must embark
upon this quest without his precious dagger.
“Gobchuck the Clevva”
Episode III
The heroes awake in Phill Bottomcleft’s creaking Inn in Sparrowkeep, where they meet
mercenary captain Dash Flashheart at breakfast. Over a plate of sushi, he fobs off inquiries
regarding the whereabouts of Illintendo Sharpchin, saying he’s gone Goblin-hunting in
the night, and attempts to defend his abysmal record at thwarting the Goblins’ caravan
ambushes by maintaining that nobody has so far been injured.
Suspecting he is not being fully straight with them, the companions head off to see Sheriff
Felica Fullintraye, who is looking flustered and half-buried beneath a pile of
parchmentwork, despite a distinct lack of prisoners in her gaol. She complains of
Flashheart’s incompetence and Sharpchin’s inaction, and she agrees to pay the party 100
gold pieces if they can rid Sparrowkeep of these pesky goblin raids that are so ruining
trade and tourism in the village.
The adventurers also learn of a wandering wizard who visited the village a couple of weeks
ago and whose boots were found by the side of the trade road along with traces of violence.
The Sheriff directs our valiant heroes to Marvin Bighorn’s outfitters, who agrees to equip
them with a wagon and two horses, along with some cloaks and travelling boots. He loans
them a couple of strong-looking dun-coloured mares, although the party also notices a
beautiful white stallion tethered in the stables.
When the fearsome fellowship inquires if there is a discreet way out of Sparrowkeep,
Bighorn suggests taking the old cart track up the hill and past the ruined Ivy Church.
Agreeing on this course, Tanueviel takes the reins and the others hide in the back of the
covered wagon, which clatters up the path in the direction Bighorn indicated.
Out of the corner of her eye, the Elven Ranger spies movement in the bushes to her right.
Morphing into Leopard form, Lightstrike bounds fearlessly up to the source of the
disturbance to find Illintendo Sharpchin cowering in the dirt.
With a snarl, Lightstrike picks Sharpchin up by the scruff of his neck and carries him in
his jaws back to the horse and cart. He tries to tell the companions that he has been out
Goblin-catching, but he fails to convince them and is unceremoniously thrown
whimpering into a corner. The friends fail to notice a sly gleam in his eye as they continue
to trundle noisily towards the old ruin…
Vines and creeping ivy have a stranglehold on the abandoned church. Before the entrance
is a headless statue of a praying woman, the head having rolled somehow into the interior
of the building.
As they draw up close to the Ivy Church, arrows begin to fly from the undergrowth, and
Tanueviel is struck savagely by two Goblin arrows. Pulling herself to safety, she goes to
salve her wounds whilst the rest of the party jump from the wagon and warily approach
the crumbling edifice. Zimlok (a “person of ravenage”, in case anyone cares) takes
Sharpchin hostage, but the traitor manages to escape as Zimlok is shot at from behind by
a hidden enemy, and the sallow-faced ne’er-do-well joins forces with the Goblins against
the heroes.
A bloody fight ensues. Zimlok shields himself from Goblin arrows, which fortunately
happen to miss him by a whisker anyway. He then brains one Goblin with his twined
willow staff after faffing around pointlessly with his not-so-blinding light spell.
Lightstrike, now in hybrid form, wounds another Goblin before finishing it off with a
hideous coup-de-grace straight through the top of the skull and out of the chin. Goblinbrains slough from his knife as he withdraws the blade from its shattered scalp.
Tanueviel snuffs out another Goblin with her merciless longbow, and wounds their leader,
who is surely the same Glibbol Wiggletoes that had bribed Sloog to keep nosers out of
the bog and away from the Festering Caverns, with a glancing blow to the hip. Glibbol
flees into the forest with a bloodcurdling yelp.
Zimlok casts mage hand to grab hold of Sharpchin before he too can escape, but he
muddles up the incantation and punches himself square in the nose with the conjured
holographic hand. “Don’t worry, guys,” he croaks, “I’ve got this.” And he tries again, only
this time messing up his mystical gesticulations so that the glowing ethereal hand slaps
him repeatedly across the jowls until he’s seeing stars.
Meanwhile, Haji Baba creeps around the side of the church and entangles Sharpchin with
her thornwhip. She crouches over her ensnared foe, who just manages to land a vengeful
blow on the Druid before he is finally subdued.
The victorious heroes drag the dead Goblins into their wagon along with the trussed-up
traitor, Sharpchin. Such is their bloodlust and ecstasy that that they quite forget to search
the area for treasure, as any Dungeons & Dragons character worth his salt ought to do as
a matter of course, and they walk straight past the glinting gold cached in a niche towards
which the disembodied head of the statue gazes. (Oh well, this is often the way with rookie
adventurers. The battle frenzy gets the better of them and they miss all the loot… maybe
next time, eh…?)
Back in Sparrowkeep, Sheriff Fullintraye throws the treacherous Sharpchin in gaol, and
shows her gratitude to the companions by giving them 25 gold pieces of their reward up
front, as a token of good will. A slightly less tangible reward comes in the form of 100
XP each, and 2 points of Inspiration each for Tanueviel (for having the courage to enter
the fight after being so grievously wounded, and for slaying one of her Favoured Enemies)
and Lightstrike (for so swiftly hunting down Sharpchin on the cart track, and for so
skilfully and ruthlessly dispatching his foes). Zimlok gets the award for Best Comedy
Moment, but sadly there are no points available for this. Haji Baba? Well, she was
adequate, wasn’t she? Stolid? Yes. Inspiring? … No.
The heroes learn that the wandering wizard who disappeared on the trade road was known
as Grendelf, and he had been in possession of some sort of magical headband.
Gobchuck the Clevva
Episode 4
Our adventure continues at Sheriff Fullintraye’s gaol, as the key turns on Illintendo
Sharpchin’s cell and a friendly house cat rubs itself sleepily against Tanueviel’s leg.
When she attempts to communicate with the creature, it gazes up at her languidly and
scampers outside on to the street.
While the Sheriff is distracted by the rest of the company, Lightstrike quietly lifts the
cell door key off its hook next to her untidy desk, and tucks it into his pocket.
Tired of Sharpchin’s malevolent games, Haji Baba charms him and he spills all he
knows. At least, it seems that way. The party learns that he has been payed, and
possibly threatened, by Glibbol Wiggletoes to give the goblins information on the
trade caravans. He says he doesn’t know why the goblins abandoned the caverns.
Furthermore, Sharpchin admits that he has bribed Dash Flashheart and his
mercenaries to throw the ambushes in the goblins’ favour and to consistently lose
them in the woods, leaving the wagons to be plundered by a second wave of raiders.
He claims that Glibbol approached him in the dead of night to propose this shady
deal, and he begs the companions to take pity on him – but his pitiful pleas are in vain.
Still mistrustful of this traitorous rogue, Haji Baba approaches a friendly soul – pudgyfingered and kindly Mrs Rinkeldbloomers – who lives across the street. The canny
Druid gives her a gold piece to keep an eye on the jailhouse until they return. A savvy
move, perhaps, for one of the Sheriff’s watchmen turns up for his shift at that moment
and he doesn’t inspire much confidence: an absent-looking old fellow whose shirt
hangs out, his scabbard empty and his hat on back-to-front.
Satisfied that Sharpchin is as secure as can be, the company decides to investigate the
roofless, circular stone building that glows in the centre of the village. The place is
empty, but a large radiant orb hovers and hums above a steaming fountain. A saddle
and a silken robe hang on the walls.
Unable to resist a nice frock, Haji Baba tries on the robe while Zimlok investigates the
steaming pool. Finding nothing more in the Temple of Light, the companions try the
circular hut next door, and are greeted by the Elven priestess, Elovyn Sorrowsong. She
is pleased to see the adventurers, especially Tanueviel, for up until now she had
thought herself The Only Elf in the Village.
She buys Haji Baba’s tall tale that she is “looking after” the robe, and tells our heroes
that the sleepy village of Sparrowkeep has been tainted in recent times by a growing
evil. As well as tending to the villagers’ spiritual and medical needs, she tends the Sun
Orb, which balances the malign influence of the cyclopean foot. Recently it has been
thrumming and throbbing as if working in overdrive to suppress a burgeoning
malignancy. She tells also of a dark and corrupting presence overshadowing the
enchanted Forest of the Old Margreve to the South.
The adventurers thank her breezily, and Haji Baba begrudgingly returns the robe,
before setting off for the Ivy Church on the outskirts of the Festering Woods.
Confident they will find Sharpchin’s stash of loot there, Lightstrike and Tanueviel race
gleefully up the cart track while Zimlok flaps his wings exuberantly, before
remembering sheepishly that he can’t actually fly, and desists before anybody sees.
At the ruined church, Lightstrike smells goblin-breath (or possibly feet, or
underpants) in the air, and Tanueviel finds some scuffed tracks that lead in the
direction of the Old Margreve. Haji Baba discovers a gold coin by the disembodied
head of the praying statue, and the Elven Ranger volunteers to scramble up the wall
to which the head gazes, where she can see a niche in the stonework.
The centuries-old wall crumbles as she shins up to the hole, and she finds herself flat
on her back in a pile of stones and dust. A large wooden chest has fallen down with
the wall, but it lies empty.
Following the goblins’ tracks, the party passes some sheep that belong to local crofters.
The sheep complain of being terrorised by a marauding ogre (to which news Haji Baba
whistles innocently) and corroborate Elovyn’s suspicion that the forest is plagued by
evil spirits, or even some more terrible horror.
The companions arrive at the borders of the Old Margreve, which rise like an
impenetrable wall from the surrounding farmland. As they follow the goblin tracks
along a twisting animal trail, the heroes are disturbed by an unnatural quiet that
pervades the forest. Not a leaf stirs, nor a bird calls, and strange shadows stretch out
and seem to reach for the intruders as if with malicious intent. The air is damp and
stifling, and the canopy of the trees soaks the forest floor in a pervading gloom.
The Druid is immune to such fey malignancy, and Tanueviel strides forth with
confidence, feeling always at home in natural places, no matter how unnatural they
may appear. But Zimlok is noticeably perturbed, his beak clenched and his buttocks
likewise, whilst Lightstrike is quaking with uncharacteristic fear.
Our heroes reach a dry riverbed, where they are bothered by a swarm of biting insects
that sicken the Wizard and the Wereleopard with their poison. Haji Baba draws the
venom out, and they continue on their way, but it is not long before Tanueviel senses
movement up ahead.
Parting the undergrowth, they see that the goblins’ footprints terminate at a huge
purple flower with twisting roots and black pustules upon its stem. Their instincts
warning them of danger, the allies fire arrows at the giant plant, causing black acid to
spurt from the burst spores and wither the greenery it touches. In response to the
torrent of arrows, the weird plant uproots itself and flails towards the heroes, shooting
out a tendril and crushing Haji Baba’s legs and sinking its thorns into her flesh.
Zimlok the Lightbringer, who has been quietly considering his options over a
sandwich, shins up a tree to get his bearings, but it seems the tree itself wills against
him and moves its boughs to block his route. Undeterred, the tenacious Zimlok clings
upside-down to a branch and prepares to launch his dagger at the carnivorous flower,
but the tree shivers at the crucial moment and shakes him off on to the floor in an
undignified heap.
After a further flurry of missiles from Tanueviel, Lightstrike delivers the final blow,
his arrow sinking deep into the centre of the flower. It shrivels up in a shower of
pollen.
Investigating the roots of the strange plant, the adventurers find a sword hilt poking
out of the soil. It is a goblin scimitar, which Haji Baba tucks into her belt, having been
restored to health by her Elven companion.
Taking leopard form, Lightstrike digs at the earth with his claws and soon uncovers a
swiftly rotting goblin corpse and the hand of another, still buried, that clings on stiffly
to a hempen bag of swag. Surely this is Sharpchin’s loot?
Within the bag is an Elven masterwork +1 light crossbow (which Zimlok with
ceremonious grandiosity names “Jim”), a Druid’s sickle and a rapier perfect for a
Thief. There is also a leather pouch containing 12 gold pieces and an expensivelooking signet ring on which is inscribed the letter “S”.
The party turns away from the macabre goblin-grave only to realise that the trail
seems to have shifted while their attention was elsewhere. Disorientated and
exhausted, they examine their options. One path seems strangled to almost nothing
by thick undergrowth and leads into an impenetrable and unnerving darkness. The
other way is less overgrown but echoes with a distant booming sound.
The heroes have not gone far down this second trail before the booming rapidly comes
much louder and closer, and an enormous toad leaps and crashes through the trees
and right across their path. As big as a cow, its skin is thick like bark and two great
horns sit above its bulbous demonic red eyes. As swiftly as it appeared, the toad
vanishes into the depths of the forest, leaving a trail of slime and destruction in its
wake.
Hearing a high-pitched shouting coming from the direction whence the toad came,
Lightstrike returns to human form and the party hides quickly in the ferns, only the
tip of Zimlok’s wizardly hat poking out from the bushes. In moments, a cete of
oversized badgers comes galloping into view, and saddled precariously upon their
backs are some kind of wild-haired forest sprites.
The lead sprite pulls on his reins opposite the companions’ hiding place, stopping so
suddenly that the badgers behind him plough into each other’s posteriors in an
ignoble pile. Dismounting, the forest gnome sniffs the air and listens intently, not
seeing the protruding tip of Zimlok’s hat, as the rest of his clan dust themselves down,
adjust their tunics and straighten their trousers.
The Kenku mage plucks up his courage and reveals himself to address the diminutive
creature. One by one, the other adventurers break cover as it becomes clear that the
sprites are not aggressive. Zimlok’s attempts at communicating through improvised
sketches come to nought, so Tanueviel tries talking to the alpha badger directly. The
beast immediately complains of being forced to break off its chase and losing its
amphibious quarry, but the gnome leader interrupts when he spots the Elf and breaks
into fluent Elvish.
His floppy hat falling persistently over his brows, and blinking rapidly and shortsightedly at the companions, the gnome reveals himself to be Bloondar, and tells of
the infestation of toads and frogs that has blighted his sacred home, the Old Margreve.
He explains that the ancient forest is like a living entity, that until recently was full of
life and light and an ally to all who lived within its borders. It would defend the
gnomes against ill-willed intruders and fulfil their every need, in return for their
respect and care.
But since the toads arrived the Old Margreve’s heart has turned black. The air has
become dank and oppressive, and the very trees and plants have grown twisted and
cruel. There is an unnatural rot set in at the very core of the forest, too, for the Bearded
Man has withered and died and curious gnomes have reported seeing creatures that
do not belong in the Margreve, skulking in the vicinity of the great willow.
His tale finished, Bloondar approaches Lightstrike and reaches up to touch him lightly
on the forehead. Immediately a wave of healing energy courses through the
Wereleopard’s body and his fearfulness dissipates in an instant. The gnomish toadhunter does the same for Zimlok, and invites them to rest and feast in Treeholme, the
realm of the Margreve Gnomes.
Relieved to have found an ally in this cursed forest, our heroes gladly follow the clan
of badger-riders to their hidden kingdom, with Zimlok merrily picking up rabbit
droppings and pocketing them for reasons unbeknownst most likely even to him.
Gobchuck The Clevva
Episode 5
“The Sacking of Treeholme”
Our bedraggled companions make their way with relief to the Tree City of the Forest
Gnomes, in the company of the floppy-hatted Bloondar along with his cete of badgers
and mounted toad-hunters. ’Tis an enchanted haven of delicate soaring rope bridges
and quaint little huts lodged on precarious platforms and tucked against the crooks
and boughs of majestic sylvan trees. Queer folk with wild hair of greens and ochres
and autumnal yellows go about their business, a few stopping to stare at the strange
and oversized company of adventurers from the North.
Bloondar welcomes the weary fellowship into his home, granting our heroes not only
food and lodging, but also gifts of a sort only fey sprites of the forest might give.
Tanueviel is imbued with magical prowess, her keenness with a bow sharpened to
superelven acuity, whilst Lightstrike becomes even stronger and faster and sleeker
under Bloondar’s expert tuition. Haji Baba is admitted to the legendary Forest Circle
of Druids, and Zimlok is trained in the dazzling arts of Gnomish Illusion Magic.
Just before dawn breaks, Tanueviel rouses herself from her nightly meditation and
goes to investigate this strange and lofty kingdom. Being sure to stick to the shadows,
she makes her way to the edges of the city, where she is met by the impenetrable
vegetative mass of the Old Margreve, silent and impassive like an unnerving wall of
darkness before her. Disquieted, she turns back, only to be distracted by giggling
coming from the canopy above her. Sending Santoro the Bat to investigate, she realises
she is being watched by a couple of inquisitive Gnomish juveniles.
Thinking no more of it, she returns to find her friends, who are being roused by their
host. “Come quickly, come quickle,” Bloondar is urging them. “You have an audience
with the King!”
Following Bloondar to a lavishly carved hut near the centre of Treeholme, the
companions are ushered inside to be greeted by an obese and disgruntled-looking
gnome spilling in rolls of flab out of a delicately chiselled throne.
King Bloblingoop is angry at Bloondar for losing his quarry in the forest, and doubly
so for bringing back “foreigners” into his secret realm. The king eyes our heroes
suspiciously as Bloondar throws himself to floor in a fit of obsequious snivelling.
Exchanging knowing glances with Zimlok, Lightstrike the Wereleopard steps forward
to convince King Bloblingoop of their goodwill and expertise. A small frog, conjured
on cue by Zimlok the Lightbringer, appears at the foot of the throne and hops towards
the king, who recoils in horror and presses himself against the back of his chair.
“Aargh!” he screams, “It is such as this horrid little beast that have blighted the
Margreve and turned our benign sentient forest into such a twisted and corrupted
place of nightmare!”
With all the considerable feline grace and poise of a Wereleopard, Lightstrike
transforms into leopard-form and pounces silently on the illusory frog, toying with it
for a moment before appearing to crush it to nothing between his cruelly clawed paws.
Bloblingoop is dismayed by this show of unparalleled stupendousness; as are the two
Gnomish children who have been hiding in the rafters and snooping all this time, and
who now fall in an inglorious heap at Tanueviel’s feet. Ba-dumph!
“Lenkh! Coleslaw!” bellows Bloondar, for these are his children who have been spying
in the king’s court. Flushed and fuming, he picks them up by their pointy ears and
drags the mortified pair outside in disgrace.
Just as King Bloblingoop begins to address the heroes, the hut they are in and the
entire tree in which it is lodged begins to shake wildly. Shouts and cries pierce the air
outside along with the snapping and cracking of breaking wood.
The companions rush outside to see that the entire city is under attack. Great golems
made of living vines, almost as tall as the trees themselves, have invaded Treeholme
and are ripping down the rope bridges and squeezing and crushing the houses to
splinters. With dispassionate swipes of their tendril-like arms the monsters sweep
hysterical gnomes aside or toss them from the trees to lie broken on the forest floor far
below. For a moment, the heroes are struck dumb by this scene of wanton violence.
Across the nearest rope bridge is Bloondar, stranded and frozen in horror in the face
of one of these thrashing monstrosities, with Lenkh and Coleslaw trembling helplessly
behind his legs. The gnome’s rage of moments ago has been usurped by an allconsuming and paralysing fear.
Instinctively, Lightstrike sprints to save them. The children leap on his muscular back
and Bloondar follows as the vine golem makes a grab for them, missing by inches.
Realising it is hopeless to fight this army of green faceless giants, Zimlok arrives at a
plan: “Run!” he cries, and the heroes make a dash for it, King Bloblingoop in tow.
They manage to negotiate one monster, all except for Haji Baba, who is caught by a
stray vine and pulled helplessly towards the mass of writhing vegetation. As she
desperately clings to what remains of the rope bridge, Tanueviel tosses Zimlok a torch
and they attempt to burn the thing with fire. It recoils as it smoulders, surrendering
its grip on the Druid, who scrambles to join her friends.
One vine golem still stands between our heroes and their route out of the Hidden City:
down a spiral staircase cut into the centre of a hollow tree at the end of another rope
bridge, which thankfully yet remains intact. This time it is Bloondar who gets snagged
by the ankles, and Lightstrike turns back to bite his way through the offending tendril.
Before the golems can react, the company is away, down through the tree and off into
the forest, leaving Treeholme and its innocent people stricken and destroyed.
A haunting last image stays with our friends as they plunge into the relative safety of
the Old Margreve: from out of the torso of the nearest vine giant protrudes the lifeless
face of a badger, its tongue lolling and its once bright eyes blankly staring.
[Lightstrike receives 1 point of Inspiration for his selfless bravery, and all the heroes receive
200 XP each for escaping the assault on Treeholme with their lives and for achieving the story
awards that were available for saving the king along with Bloondar and his family.]
Distraught but determined, Bloondar decides it is his duty to help the heroes find the
Bearded Man in the trackless, shifting wilderness, so they might vanquish whatever
has infested and poisoned his once-beautiful forest and devastated his home. He
leaves Lenkh and Coleslaw in the capable if rather fat-fingered hands of King
Bloblingoop, who struggles to keep up with the pace of the swift-footed fellowship
anyway. “Go!” he insists, wheezing and red-faced. “We shall lose ourselves in the
Margreve! Go! Go! Find the source of this evil and purge it forever from the forest! For
Treeholme!”
Without pausing to rest, the heroes plough on through the undergrowth after their
diminutive and floppy-hatted guide, oblivious to whatever it is that is currently
heading towards them from the opposite direction…
Episode VI
“Beneath the Roots of the Old Margreve”
Our intrepid foursome pause to catch their breath in a rare open glade amidst the dense
undergrowth of the Margreve Forest. A disturbance in the vegetation on the opposite side
of the glade is accompanied by a loud snorting and snuffling sound, and the companions
ready their weapons, their collective hackles rising, only for Bloondar Toadhunter to stay
their twitching fingers. A great badger comes bursting out of the woods, leaps at the
Gnome and bowls him to the floor, covering his face with enthusiastic licks. It is Gerard,
Bloondar’s faithful mount, fortuitously escaped from the carnage in the Hidden City!
Barely are their celebrations complete when something else approaches from the North
and East, gnashing and rasping. Two decrepit Goblins, raised by some black magic from
the dead, emerge from the bushes and stagger towards the comrades, intent on murder.
One of these at least, the heroes realise to their horror, has risen from the hole beneath the
Bulbous Violet they dispatched only the day before. These Zombies are no match for the
Fellowship, however, and are soon dispatched back unto Death!
But there is no respite, for another Zombie Goblin, this one legless, drags itself over the
boulders to their left, hissing and snarling. With an arcane utterance Bloondar reduces it
to the size of a rabbit, and the heroes make ready to destroy it … when a huge Ogre leaps
from behind the rocks and lands with a tremor next to where Lightstrike lies hidden. Its
skin hangs from its bones in ragged strips, and it stinks of rotted flesh. “I AM SLOOG!”
bellows the undead Ogre, slamming its great club down upon the trembling earth.
Our brave companions do not hesitate to assault the monstrosity from the Festering
Swamp. Soon it is peppered with Tanueviel’s arrows and skewered by Haji Baba’s spear,
but the beast keeps on coming! Bloondar lowers his staff like a lance and charges at the
Ogre’s legs on Gerard’s back, but his weapon shatters on impact and only serves to enrage
the monster further. The comrades resort to guerrilla tactics, striking and retreating to
cover, until the resourceful Zimlok deploys his Illusion magic to cloak the Ogre in a
blinding rainbow of dazzling light. Lightning then courses from Zimlok’s feathered
fingers and the blinded Zombie shudders and reels as electricity flows through its rotted
body. Like X-ray vision, its spasming skeleton can be seen easily in the electric glow. After
another succession of blows, Tanueviel finally fells it with a lethal arrow. And just to be
sure, Haji Baba beheads the beast with her goblin scimitar.
Lightstrike thrusts his blade into the shrunken dismembered Zombie up on the rocks, and
the group breathes a collective sigh of relief. They are just setting about burning the foul
creatures, to ensure they cannot rise again, when more tremors reach them from beyond
the glade. Before they have time to react, three ginormous Vine Golems stumble into the
clearing, thick coiling tendrils whipping out towards our exhausted heroes. Zimlok spies
a fissure beneath the boulders from which the Ogre had leapt. “Tis our only hope!” cries
Bloondar, for these Golems are nothing less than the Wrath of the Forest itself, and the
heroes swiftly plunge headlong into the dank safety of a darkening tunnel.
Water drips from the crumbling ceiling, through which poke the roots of the trees above.
Huge fist-sized beetles and woodlice scurry from crevice to crevice and thick webs drape
between the rough stone walls. An obstacle soon presents itself: a sheer wall of stone, at
the top of which the passage appears to continue. Zimlok has been waiting for just such
an opportunity, and he immediately whips out his trusty portable trampoline (have a point
of Inspiration, Zimlok – DM). One by one the heroes vault up on to the ledge, Tanueviel
somersaulting acrobatically through the air (have an Inspiration point, Tanueviel – DM),
and Zimlok himself folds up his precious springboard and uses his wizardly magic to
bound up to join the others.
The heroes are faced with a strange sight: a Bukavac – one of the giant horned toads that
Bloondar was chasing – is trussed up in rope-thick spider’s webs, the light faded from its
demonic eyes. Fearing spiders, the Fellowship hastily light torches …
… And they are right to be fearful, for just then a Giant Spider scuttles at them from
behind. It sinks its fangs into Haji Baba’s shoulder, but she struggles free before it can
inject its lethal venom. The heroes hack at the nightmarish arachnid, managing to keep it
at bay until Lightstrike, in leopard-form, bounds up the web-wrapped corpse of the
Bukavac and leaps from its horns down upon the bloated abdomen of the Spider. He sinks
his teeth and claws into its flesh and its prancing legs collapse and fold up as it expires
(have a point of Inspiration, Lightstrike – DM).
But danger, it would seem, is relentless beneath this curs-ed forest, for two fearsome
monsters appear just then from out of the gloom. Hulking and slavering, with the heads
of spiders and arms that end in cruel-looking hooks, they advance upon the adventurers.
“Ettercaps!” Bloondar squeals. “Spider-shepherds!” And he charges once more upon
Gerard the Badger (who was surprisingly good at using a trampoline, so it happens), but
his foot gets snared in his stirrups and the gallant Forest Gnome slides from his saddle
and is ignobly dragged beneath the belly of the galloping badger.
Undeterred, the heroes use the last of their reserves to attack these strange spider-ogres.
Employing her Hail of Thorns and uncanny hunter’s accuracy, the Elven Ranger soon has
one looking like a pin cushion, and Lightstrike finishes it off with his trademark move:
leaping from the head of a giant toad to knock it prone and rip into it tooth and claw.
And yet one Ettercap remains, poised to attack!
But wait! What is this? With her keen Elven-sight, Tanueviel spies a moving shape upon
the ceiling behind their foe. A crossbow quarrel suddenly spirals into the back of the
Ettercap’s skull, its tip exploding from betwixt its six beady black eyes. The abomination
collapses to the floor, and a hulking hooded figure leaps down heavily from the ceiling
behind it. From beneath the shadows of its hood, the comrades can just make out the
jutting incisors of an Orc, although its features are not as bestial and a wicked intelligence
dances in its eyes.
“Well met, Friend!” ventures Tanueviel, and introduces her companions to the stranger.
“I am Mherren, a Halfblood.” replies their unexpected and menacing saviour. “I have
taken to wandering the tunnels beneath this forest since its heart was turned dark by a
force that, alas, I do not recognise.”
Ever suspicious, and seeing little distinction between Orcs and Goblins, which she detests,
Haji Baba surreptitiously charms Mherren with her Druidic magic, and the Half-Orc
confesses to them his purpose. He seeks the Shaghaspondium, a lost unholy tome of
demonic secrets, and had heard that a darkness had befallen this part of Yore and
wondered if it might lead him to his goal.
He explains how he was cast from the Orcish tribe that was his childhood home, derided
and persecuted as a half-blood, leading him to harbour a hatred for his own kind. Golak,
his chief, sent him away to find his purpose, and he wandered for years until he found a
smoky black onyx crystal of darkest origin, and realised in a vision that Demogorgon, the
Prince of Demons himself, had singled him out for greatness.
Imbued with the power to invoke his demonic patron, and granted powerful sorceries and
a chattering Quasit familiar that could morph into a viper and with whom the Half-Orc
had a telepathic bond, Mherren was reborn Warlock of Demogorgon, and now thirsts,
like his Master, for the undoing of the very fabric of reality!
Except … he is also a loner and an outcast, and he seeks acceptance just as much as he
seeks to fulfil his patron’s terrible aims. Which of these two contrasting sides of Mherren’s
character wins through, remains to be seen…
Gobchuck The Clevva
Episode VII
“A Secret Way”
Our wily heroes begin to smell a rat, or, more precisely, a maggot, as the passage
broadens. Things scuttle in the damp darkness, and huge beetle larvae ooze their way
deeper into cracks and crevices. The companions move quietly into a tactical
formation and ready their weapons, wiping Ettercap- and Spider-blood from their
blades, and cold sweat drying in grimy streaks from their brows.
“I know that stench,” mutters Lightstrike gruffly, his feline eyes gleaming in the
gloom. “… Carrion Crawler.”
And then it is upon them.
Bursting from the darkness of the cavern beyond, a monstrous centipede with flailing
tentacles and cruel-looking teeth wriggles forth. It pauses and squirms, suddenly
hesitant, as Mherren unleashes an onslaught of eldritch sorcery and Tanueviel
showers it with arrows and magical thorns in her signature “T”. Haji Baba thrusts at
it madly with her spear, and Zimlok fires his crossbow wildly at the ceiling.
Fearless in the face of this giant screaming bug, and unmindful of Zimlok’s erratic
aim, Lightstrike morphs into a leopard, runs up the wall of the cavern and leaps
powerfully at the head of the beast. He sinks tooth and claw into its stinking flesh,
ripping mercilessly at it and holding fast as it writhes and thrashes.
As its mindless rage begins to subside to resignation, Zimlok levels Jim, his trusty
crossbow, at the monster. He winks at Lightstrike, still clinging to its head, with an air
of quiet confidence. Any who cared to look might have spotted a quiver of naked fear
flash through the Wereleopard’s eyes, spine and haunches, as he looks down the
length of Zimlok’s quarrel.
But Zimlok the Lightbringer knows no fear. He lets the quarrel fly. It spirals straight
for the open mouth of the worm, soaring past its gnashing teeth, driving through its
palate and straight into its tiny brain.
The Carrion Crawler slumps dead with a reverberating thud, its grotesque slimy body
virtually filling the cavern.
As the heroes begin to edge past the lifeless corpse, Haji Baba notices something
unusual; part of the rough cavern wall is completely smooth. Bloondar incants a spell
to detect magical fields, but he finds nothing. Yet on close examination Zimlok notices
a slight draught coming from a crack at the base of the featureless stone. Suspecting a
secret door, each of the comrades attempts to budge the wall, but to no avail.
All except Lightstrike who, now in human form, steps forth, crowbar in hand, and
nudges it into the crack at just the right angle so that he can prize the door open as
easily as popping the cap off his water bottle. The stone wall shifts with a grinding,
grating cacophony to reveal what looks like a manmade passageway, with straightedged walls and weird carvings of ravening beasts with many mouths and eyes.
Finding a dust-coated room a little further on that appears to have laid undisturbed
for many months, the adventurers bed down for the night, being sure to leave one on
watch duty throughout the night. (Not that there is any distinction between night and
day in this hellish blackness.)
When they rise, Haji Baba produces her giant egg from a fold in her robes and studies
it closely. Bloondar, grooming Gerard, his Toadhunter badger, notices the Druid, and
he joins her to inspect the mottled grey-and-pink shell with great curiosity, squinting
at it and pushing back the brim of his flopping hat, but alas, he cannot identify its
origin. The druid, warlock and mage prepare their spells, and Tanueviel tends to her
wounds, before gathering their equipment and continuing up the passageway, which
is gradually rising with shallow stairs.
Oddly, the sharply-cut angles of the stonework around them change suddenly to
curves and waves as though some intense heat has melted them, and the stone floor
is slightly springy and spongy underfoot. Echoing down the passageway from some
way distant are many voices, too distant to be distinct or identifiable.
Tanueviel sends Santoro to investigate, and he returns with an indication of “many
things” up ahead. Dissatisfied with this, Mherren spends a few minutes to transform
his viper into his Quasit demon familiar, and he looks through its beady eyes as it flits
down the tunnel.
A sprawling, flesh-coloured monstrosity with scores of mouths and hundreds of eyes
is flowing slowly towards them, raving and gibbering as it goes. It fills the passage
and is turning the floor and walls to a semi-liquid dough as it passes through.
Wisely backing out of the narrow tunnel to the room where they had spent the night,
the Fellowship ready their weapons once more and prepare for battle with this horror.
Realising now that it is a Gibbering Mouther, a fabled horror which can paralyse
anyone who hears its maddening voices with fear, the companions quickly take off
their socks and stuff them into their ears.
As it oozes down the melting steps, Mherren and Tanueviel pepper it with missiles,
popping eyeballs with their iron arrowheads.
Zimlok, smoothing down his feathers, coolly takes aim with Jim. Banishing thoughts
of previous misses from his mind, and filled with confidence by his execution of the
monstrous worm of yesterday, the avian Wizard enters an unblinking, Zen-like state,
slowing his breathing and emptying his (admittedly already fairly empty) mind.
All that exists is his trigger finger and the gaping maw of the Carrion Crawler.
And they are connected by tensioned catgut and the honed point of his quarrel.
The bolt lodges right in the centre of the roiling mass of flesh. All of its countless
squealing mouths cry out in unison, stricken with pain.
But the thing keeps coming.
Bloondar, murmuring in tongues under his breath, gesticulates with a complex series
of Gnomish mudras and suddenly the Gibbering Mouther shrinks to the size of a
rabbit, its nightmarish howls and mutterings strangled to a babble of squeaks.
But the thing keeps coming.
The floor at Mherren’s feet is beginning to soften and melt, but he and Tanueviel
remain, transfixed, as the others break for cover. The monster gathers a great ball of
phlegm at the back of one of its throats, and spits a congealed lump of frothy spit at
the Half-Orc. It bursts on impact into a blinding flash of light, leaving both Warlock
and Elven Ranger temporarily blinded.
Mherren tries to employ his Quasit to reward the horror with another arrow, but,
being blinded by spittle and deafened by his own socks, it skitters past harmlessly.
And the thing keeps on coming.
Enraged at this unnatural monstrosity, this aberration of the natural order, Haji Baba,
Druid of the Forest Circle, shoves her friends out of harms way and conjures her Whip
of Thorns, striking the Gibbering Mouther with a rebuke of magic strengthened by
her sense of its existence being an insult to the Spirits of Nature.
And the thing rolls uncontrollably to the bottom of the stairs and into the room, only
to expire in a chorus of diabolical sighs.
Staggering across the melted morass of stone, Haji Baba sets upon its lifeless body
with her dagger in a futile rage of murderous hysteria, poking out its myriad glazedover eyeballs until she collapses, exhausted, upon the now-solidifying stone floor.
The Fellowship presses on, edging cautiously for another mile or so through the
steadily rising tunnel. Finally, they come to a dazzling beam of light where the roof of
the passage breaks the surface. Peeping out of the hole, squinting in the bright midday
sun but thankful for a draw of fresh air into their lungs after the stale dampness of the
tunnels beneath the forest, the companions find they are in another clearing in the Old
Margreve, far bigger than the last.
To their rear and flanks the enchanted forest presses in, bathed in ominous shadow
and silence. Before them, at the apex of a hill punctuated by just a few scrawny trees
and bushes, is a giant tree, its great boughs draped with trailing, pale, wispy fibres
like the long beard of an old man.
Its massive roots spread out like a web of veins from the top of the hill, penetrating
deep into the forest all around. At its base is a tangle of brambles, like a low hedgerow,
and what can be seen of its trunk behind the veil of pale vines appears to be slit in
numerous places like the cracks in gnarled, weathered hands.
There is also a hole of yawning darkness where the roots of the old willow meet the
trunk, but nothing stirs. There is not a sound nor a breath of air. An ominous stillness
pervades this otherwise idyllic glade; a silence broken only by a nervous gulp at the
back of Bloondar’s throat, and the whine of an uneasy badger.
Bloondar whispers hoarsely: “Here it is. The Bearded Man. The Heart of the Forest.”
Gobchuck the Clevva
Episode VIII
“Showdown at the Bearded Man”
A pointy hat pokes out of a hole. Safe in the dank darkness of the old Gnomish tunnel
that links the Heart of the Forest to the network of natural caverns beneath the roots of
the Old Margreve, our doughty heroes pause to consider their options.
Although the creature makes their skins crawl, they resolve to let Mherren send out his
Quasit familiar to scout the area. The imp flies high and spies a long-abandoned Elven
shrine adjacent to the great tree, overgrown with ivy and gorse bushes. It glimpses
movement in the trees dotted around the tree’s base and behind the veil of vines that masks
the enormous trunk. A moat of thick brambles, barbed with thorns, surrounds the old
willow, and a series of vertical cracks in its bark resemble arrow slits. Nestled between its
thick roots is a gaping hole that appears to provide passage into its hollow trunk.
The Quasit shimmers a few times before turning completely invisible, as it lands and
creeps silently into the Bearded Man. A few nasty-looking Goblins bicker over card games
or lurk in the shadows, where tunnels seem to lead off into the very roots of the tree, but
the diminutive demon sneaks between their legs and climbs the ladder to a platform piled
high with rugs, silks and sacks of grain.
But the first ladder is unsecured at the top, and as the Quasit jumps from the top rung to
avoid a Goblin who is busily examining the revolting things it is picking from its nostrils,
the ladder wobbles and falls to the floor with a crash.
While the Goblins descend into a row of confusion and blame over the fallen ladder, the
imp scampers across the piles of loot and works its way quickly from floor to floor. All
the way to the top it climbs, where it finds a terrifying black-furred Bugbear seated on an
ornate wooden throne with the pelt of a giant bear serving as a rug in front of it. The
Bugbear is wearing a band of gold upon its head and is talking to someone called Mr
Cuddles, who, it would appear, is his favourite teddy bear.
“Gobchuck!” hisses Tanueviel between clenched teeth, as Mherren describes to the
companions what he is seeing through his familiar’s eyes.
Swiftly, the Fellowship arrives at a plan. All except Zimlok pad quietly through the
undergrowth around the perimeter of the clearing, slowly climbing the hill until they are
close to the bramble moat and out of view of the arrow slits in the trunk.
Zimlok, employing his natural Kenku’s talent for mimicry, cries out from the hole in the
voice of Illintendo Sharpchin, where he has cast an illusion of a hunched and hooded
figure. “Help!” he shouts, attracting the attention of the Goblin guards.
Further squabbling erupts inside the tree, and the Quasit watches as Gobchuck breaks off
his conversation with his teddy to bellow at the Goblins to go investigate. A party of eight
head through a hidden gap in the bramble moat and descend the hill, pushing and shoving
each other as they go, while Haji Baba transforms herself into a mouse and scurries past
them unnoticed. Nose twitching, she enters the crack at the base of the Bearded Man and
dashes between the bandy legs of one of the Goblins still guarding the root-tunnels.
The space is a squeeze for a Goblin, but spacious for a mouse, and soon she arrives at a
junction which leads off to a torchlit room where another three Goblins lounge amidst a
sparkling hoard of treasure. One of the Goblins nurses a nasty arrow wound to the hip:
Glibbol Wiggletoes!
Haji Baba continues to explore the tunnel, which suddenly descends steeply as though
dropping off a cliff edge. She goes to scout out the remaining tunnels, which similarly end
in precipitous drops into blackness.
Meanwhile, Zimlok has joined his companions and unfolded his portable trampoline to
ping them over the bramble moat. If the Goblins had been more attentive, they might have
discerned the distinctive boing of a badger bouncing off a trampoline, but they are too
busy scratching their heads at the hole some way distant. As the others press themselves
to the side of the tree, Lightstrike morphs into leopard-form and Bloondar, fondly patting
a slightly jealous Gerard on the nose, springs up and mounts Lightstrike’s rippling back.
The powerful cat digs his claws deep into the bark as he climbs the gnarled trunk of the
sacred tree, but still loses his grip for a few precarious moments before scrabbling finally
up to the arrow slit directly below Gobchuck’s throne room. Bloondar, clinging on to the
scruff of Lightstrike’s neck and peering into the narrow opening, murmurs something
under his breath and inadvisably releases one hand to gesticulate mysteriously at Mherren
below.
The Half Orc is momentarily obscured by a silvery mist, and soon rematerializes inside
the Bearded Man. Quickly dispatching the bewildered Goblin at his feet, he turns to see
Gobchuck’s cruelly spiked morning star swinging at his face. He ducks in the nick of time,
and a flurry of vicious blows ensues, as the Warlock and Bugbear slug it out toe-to-toe,
Mherren’s savage anger matched well with Gobchuck’s hulking might.
Below, Haji Baba has returned to the ground floor of the tree, and she turns herself back
into a Halfling directly behind one of the Goblins. It can only gargle as she draws her cold
steel across its throat.
Tanueviel senses her chance and rushes in, closely followed by Zimlok – both narrowly
missing the trip wire stretched across the floor. She leaps acrobatically up to the first
platform, hauling herself up by her fingertips, and helps up the squawking Crow-Wizard
jumping futilely below her, for he has not the time to unpack his trusty trampoline.
Drawing her blade, the Ranger casually beheads the remaining Goblins as she shins up to
Mherren’s aid.
The Druid sinks into a trance and shields Mherren with her magic as Gobchuck rains
blow after blow upon him. Bloondar, too, casts an illusion to blur the Warlock’s form, so
that fewer swings of that life-drinking morning star are able to find their target. But plenty
do, and soon both fighters are panting and dripping sweat and blood.
Zimlok, flapping his arms as he balances precariously on the ladder below them, sends a
blinding flash of colour at the Bugbear, giving Mherren a few precious moments to recover
his footing and return his enemy’s assault.
As Gobchuck shakes off Zimlok’s illusion magic, an arrow appears in the Bugbear’s thigh;
Tanueviel has joined the affray. Gobchuck, now outnumbered by foes renewed in their
confidence, disengages to stagger backwards and release a hail of magic missiles against his
assailants.
But only one finds its mark: Tanueviel, filled with gritty determination now she is face to
face with her nemesis, shrugs off the pain and releases a deadly succession of arrows with
her longbow.
“Remember the Elven village you pillaged a decade ago in the Forests of the Kagonestri?”
she snarls in Goblin-tongue.
“I’ve ransacked too many villages to remember!” spits back the Bugbear Chieftain.
“You murdered my people! My family! Only my mother and I survived, and when she was
lost to me, I was left an orphan in the woods! You are to blame, you monster!”
“I care not!” Gobchuck grunts as Mherren hacks at him again with his axe. “Elves are
weak!”
“I’ll show you who’s weak!” Tanueviel finds him in her sights and lets fly another arrow.
Elsewhere, the Goblin band is returning, confused and empty-handed, from the hole where
the Kenku had created his distraction. Haji Baba pelts them with slingshots, and Zimlok
whips out Jim with an unjustifiably confident flourish. Unjustifiable, because the first
thing he manages to shoot is an unfortunate pigeon minding its own business in a tree.
“There’s a nice plump pigeon for dinner,” quips Zimlok as he loads another quarrel. This
time he sends his bolt straight into the midst of the Goblins, shooting one clean dead.
Haji Baba concentrates on the fat straggler at the back of the group, and within moments
several are strewn in various inelegant poses, seeping thick, dark Goblin-blood into the
hallowed ground of the hilltop glade.
Lightstrike, now in hybrid form, has been biting his lip with impatience, and even flipped
Bloondar’s floppy oversized hat into the shrubbery, so irritated was he by the Gnome
Toadhunter’s constant habit of pushing up the brim from over his blinking eyes.
The remaining Goblins charge screaming into the Bearded Man, quite forgetting the trip
wired trap they had set against intruders, and not banking at all on the snarling
Wereleopard who leaps in after them with a bloodthirsty growl. One Goblin somehow
evades Lightstrike’s dagger, and it manages to deal him a cruel slash with its scimitar, but
is not so lucky a second time.
The other Goblins are knocked prone beneath their own weighted net trap, and Haji Baba
swiftly deals with one while the rest struggle free. One of the Goblins from the treasure
room has come to investigate, and hacks at the Halfling before she can retaliate. Bloondar,
mounting Gerard and levelling his lance with a solemn grimace, charges in at full pelt, but
the badger catches its paw in the net and Bloondar goes sprawling headfirst on the floor.
But these Goblins are no match for Haji Baba and Lightstrike, and all are soon left lifeless
and dead-eyed in a blur of spear and claw, one sliding with a sigh down the haft of the
spear, which surely shall be known henceforth as “Goblinskewer”.
At the top of the tree, Gobchuck is finally wearying. He is pierced by multiple arrows, and
big chunks of flesh hang from his bones. His Achilles tendon is severed, but somehow he
hauls himself up the ladder and away from Mherren, muttering arcane words that sound
odd coming from the lips of a stupid Bugbear.
He takes one step forward … and is gone!
Tanueviel cries out in frustration as Mherren slumps exhausted upon the grain sacks, and
Zimlok hops up and down with rage.
Yet continue they must, and they descend the tree, seemingly thwarted, as the Quasit,
flying about the throne room in the hope of bumping into an invisible Bugbear, can find
no sign of Gobchuck.
The Druid signals to Wereleopard and Gnome, and they squeeze down the passageway
towards Glibbol and the treasure room, accompanied now by Mherren’s gibbering
familiar. Falling silent and invisible once more as they approach, it flies into the room
undetected and hurls some gems about to distract Glibbol and his henchman.
At that same moment Haji Baba rushes round the corner, brandishing her Goblinskewer
and screaming at the first Goblin with a bloodcurdling howl. Bloondar loses control of
his badger and completely misses the turn, but Lightstrike, in leopard-form to fit down
the tunnel, launches himself at Glibbol and tears at him savagely with his wickedly curved
canines. Somehow Glibbol shakes him off, but the Wereleopard scrambles to his feet and
runs at the wall, bouncing off it to pounce lithely upon his enemy’s back.
As his claws sink in deep, Mherren telepathically directs his Quasit to land upon Glibbol’s
shoulder and terrify him. The Goblin stares for a moment in dumbfounded
incomprehension at the thing prancing on his shoulder, before leaping two feet into the
air despite the weight of the leopard on his back, scared out of his wits. Soon both Goblins
are torn and broken upon the floor, and quickly the heroes (and Bloondar) stuff their
pockets with treasure.
In his dying moments, Glibbol had uttered something about Gobchuck’s making his
escape, so on a hunch the companions venture back outside and send the Quasit out to
scout once more. Soon they locate Gobchuck, who has used a dimension door to escape
to the ruined shrine next to the Bearded Man.
He lies against a menhir, bleeding and defeated, but defiant still.
He looks up at Tanueviel as she aims her drawn bow at point blank range, the arrow tip
seemingly aching for the space between Gobchuck’s eyes. She pulls back on the catgut
string and her longbow creaks with the ominous sound of Elven death-dealing.
But Gobchuck just stares at her with hatred in his dark eyes, and will reveal little, other
than referring to his mysterious “Master”, and the vengeance he will exact upon them.
Tanueviel manages to extract from him that this Master of his comes from “another
World”, but when she relieves the Bugbear of his crown he is reduced to a gibbering,
nonsensical wreck, and she quickly grows tired of his defiance.
Cold-eyed and calm, she sends her arrow straight into his skull and he slumps to the
ground, dead.
The adventurers think to burn his corpse, fearing that the forest in its poisoned insanity
might reanimate him as a zombie, but before they can carry out their plan a great
commotion rises from the woods around and a horde of giant thrashing vine golems
emerges into the clearing. The Fellowship wisely legs it back inside the Bearded Man, and
for a few moments they dither as they wonder where they might turn next. Zimlok gets
stuck headfirst and wedges fast as he tries to squeeze through one of the tunnels, his little
bird feet wiggling pathetically as he tries to push against thin air. Mherren decides he can
do battle with the very earth itself and attempts to batter his way through – but to no
avail.
It seems they are trapped, but then Zimlok, pulled from his hole and dusting the soil from
his wizard’s hat, asks to see what treasure they have recovered, and realises that what looks
like a humble carved stick is in fact a wand charged with a spell of enlarging and reducing.
Without hesitating, the Elf, Kenku and Half-Orc shrink themselves and all return to the
throne room to gather the jewels and gold and several items of armour, weaponry, along
with what looks at first glance to be a humble array of items of clothing, and a map bearing
the name of the wizard who was apparently assassinated by the Brownleaf Goblins on the
trade road out of Sparrowkeep: Grendelf.
Haji Baba has a bad feeling about continuing down this tunnel, and they return to the tree,
risking the writhing, probing arms of the vine golems who have gathered around it and
are reaching within and attempting to uproot it from the outside. The heroes make a
frantic dash for another tunnel, and soon find themselves at a point of no return as the
tunnel falls away into nothingness.
There is no time to set up a rope and climb down, and no way to turn back, so, taking a
collective nervous gulp of air, they sit one behind the other upon Gobchuck’s great shield,
hold on tight and toboggan down through the root, plunging at ever greater speeds until
it levels out and they fall in a heap, flattened by Gerard the badger. Ahead is a light.
Daylight, perhaps?
But no: it is a hole in the top of the root leading through a broken grate and into a room
of crumbling stone lit by flickering torches set in wall sconces. The sigils of ancient Elven
gods – scarabs and scorpions – are etched upon the floor, which is strewn with broken
pottery amongst a few large urns and amphorae. Something glints amongst the ceramics.
The comrades are about to investigate when the voice of what sounds like an old crone
croaks towards them from the direction of the adjacent doorway. Through this doorway
is what looks like a bundle of straw, although their view is restricted and they cannot see
its true nature.
“Who goes there?” The voice echoes around the walls and the torch light sputters.
Something about the voice’s cracked tone sends shivers down the Fellowship’s spines.
Bloondar clings on to Mherren, his face turned ghostly pale. His hat has fallen over his
eyes, but this time he doesn’t push it back up.
“Grandmother!” he whispers, his lower lip trembling. “Grandmother is here!”
Episode IX
Interlude
“Here’s Granny!”
By flickering torchlight our intrepid heroes investigate the crumbling rooms of the Elven temple at the
Heart of the Forest. Scarabs and scorpions are etched in the floor, and upon the walls are faded paintings
of animal headed figures: a jackal, a falcon, an ibis, a crocodile, a goat…
In one room an open chest of gold and gems glints temptingly. The hoard is remarkably similar to the
stash that the companions found hidden beneath the Bearded Man and defended by Glibbol. Searching
the room more fully, they find something sparkling in an overturned amphora. Lightstrike, becoming
impatient with his comrades’ cautious dithering, picks up the giant pot and tips its contents out on to
the floor. It is a shard of obsidian, and the companions are struck by the material’s similarity to that of
the upturned cyclopean foot buried in the middle of Sparrowkeep. Scribed upon it in Abyssal runes are
the words:
BEW
HALIM
Haji Baba and Zimlok volunteer to seek out the source of the old crone’s voice that echoes through the
hallways. The others stay behind to reassure a trembling Bloondar, who insists it is Baba Yaga, a
nightmarish figure of wickedness and black magic from Gnomish children’s tales. “It’s Grandmother!”
he whimpers. “Grandmother is here!” He babbles feverishly about her being a follower of the cult of
Hecate, Goddess of Night and Evil Magic, but the courageous Kenku and brave Half-Hobbit have
already left.
By the light of dancing torches in the wall scones, the Druid and Wizard edge past a doorless and
windowless straw hut that sits incongruously in the main hall of the temple, and almost imperceptibly
trembles as though snoring. For good measure, Zimlok abases himself several times as he negotiates its
circumference… just in case.
In a room opposite, an old hag sits at a great, groaning table, a live crab set before her which could be a
bizarre spell component – or dinner. In one hand she holds a broken tablet of the same obsidian material
that Lightstrike just found in the urn.
“I know you not, my children,” she croons. “Which is strange for I know the true name of every creature
never born in this world.” This confuses Zimlok greatly, which perhaps is her intent.
The Kenku mage stands up on his tiptoes in a pathetic attempt to look bigger and more impressive,
puffing out his feathers and faintly glowing with wizardly light. The witch replies with a crack of thunder
and a momentary darkening of the torches, her face lit by eerie blue light and twisted into an apparition
of purest evil. Zimlok hastily brings his heels back down and, somewhat shaken, is just about to open his
beak when Haji Baba steps forth and announces their purpose and their decisive defeat of Gobchuck and
his minions.
She inquires what the crone holds in her hand and invites Lightstrike and the others to show themselves
and produce the shard they just found. The witch takes it and it fits perfectly with her own fragment.
Completed, the tablet reads:
BEWARE
HALIMHETAZI
She tells the heroes that legend has it this obsidian glass is the stuff a demon’s body will turn to if it is
cast from the Abyss and lands with great impact upon the Earth. But surely, ’tis only legend…
The old crone is as mystified as the Fellowship by these Abyssal runes, but her malevolent demeanour
softens somewhat as she realises these are neither goblins nor poisoners of the forest before her. She
introduces herself as Baba Yaga, the Eternal Witch who tends to the dark and deathly nature of the
forests, valleys and mountains, just as the Druids tend to their aspects of light and life.
“Everything has two natures,” she explains. “We need the night as we need the day. But this forest is sick.
I cannot rid the world of this terrible new infection – its evil is too great even for me to contend with –
but I can heal this forest, at least temporarily, and placate its boiling anger. All I need is new life.”
Haji Baba, ever quick to catch on, produces the giant egg she has carried across the Icespires from the
forests of Bor Nyster, at the sight of which Baba Yaga’s good eye widens in dismay. She strikes the table
at which she sits, which yelps unexpectedly. I say unexpectedly, as yelping is not really the sort of thing
you expect a table to do.
She tells them this is the Lost Egg of Koschei the Deathless, a rampant incarnation of Death that for
centuries has lain safely contained and protected from the world inside a duck inside a hare inside a goat.
She promises she will provide safe passage from the Old Margreve if the Fellowship donate to her this
egg, along with any treasure they might find in the temple.
“With the Lost Egg of Koschei the Deathless I can drain the poison at the forest’s heart and restore it
from the brink of madness,” she cackles. “Give it to me! If it falls into the wrong hands Death will stalk
the land unopposed! I will restore it to its place inside a duck inside a hare inside a goat, where it can do
no harm. What terrible thing has been unleashed for Koschei’s Egg to become un-lost?”
But our wise and canny heroes are not so easily persuaded, especially by a distinctly evil-looking old witch
of mythical power. They withhold the egg, distrustful of Baba Yaga’s repeated promises of protection
from the enraged forest and its animated vine golem guardians.
“Why should we trust you?” Haji Baba asks archly. The witches good eye narrows, and then the bad eye
lights up with inspiration and she starts fervently scratching something out on a piece of parchment, from
an inkwell that, if anyone had cared to notice, winces visibly at each dip of the quill. (It is rumoured,
whispers Bloondar, that Baba Yaga binds the souls of those that displease her and keeps them sentient
within her inanimate possessions.) When she is done, she rolls the parchment up into a scroll and offers
them her Prophecy.
Still the heroes hesitate, but now it is Mherren’s turn to lose patience and he grabs the egg and thrusts it
at Baba Yaga, snatching the scroll from her gnarled and yellow-nailed hands. The prophecy is cryptically
worded, as all prophecies rather annoyingly tend to be, but before the heroes can question her further,
Baba Yaga rises, folds up her table (to a stream of complaints and expletives), and flounces out of the
room and round the back of the hut.
With a shiver and the sound of something resembling a yawn, the hut rises upon two gargantuan chicken
legs and stalks from the temple in long jerking strides. From a window that has appeared in its previously
blank wall, Baba Yaga leers out and yells some parting advice:
“Mark these words! Shun not the Dark when thou art blinded. For there are times when only the
Darkness can light thy way!”
The companions, perplexed and unnerved by their encounter with this strange and powerful figure of
darkness, gather the treasure they found into their Bag of Holding and run from the temple out into the
relative brightness of a Margreve sunset. They find themselves amidst long-shadowed and dilapidated
columns that must once have been a grand sight indeed, and look back to see a once-beautiful ruin of a
huge Elven temple. It is hewn of purest white stone and lodged as though bearing its weight beneath a
bluff upon which stands the Bearded Man, whose great roots twine down around the temple’s eaves.
Tanueviel spies a raven in a nearby tree and holds out her arm to it. It willingly lands upon her wrist and
she whispers a message into its ear. It must go to Sparrowkeep and tell of the Fellowship’s
accomplishments, telling the sheriff that it is they who are to be thanked for the ceasing of the caravan
raids (if indeed they do cease and the Goblins do not regroup).
And the raven gladly takes flight, for at that moment more vine golems come crashing through the
undergrowth, their thick tendrils searching for victims to punish for the foreign malignancy that insults
the enchanted forest. … Has Baba Yaga betrayed them after all, and abandoned them to their fate?
The companions are just considering taking to the fast-flowing river, when three large and convenient
logs come rushing from upstream. Zimlok quickly incants his scroll of water breathing, which dissolves
upon reading, and then deftly unfurls his trusty trampoline. The heroes (and Gerard the badger) bounce
one by one into the water and grab on to the logs. All except Lightstrike, who transforms into a leopard
and takes a mighty leap into the river, which ends in an ungainly belly-flop that douses everyone, including
the leering golems, in river water.
The trees of the forest seem to reach out for them with their barky fingers as the comrades are taken
away by the quick-flowing current, but the golems upon the bluff can be seen desisting from shaking the
roots of the Bearded Man and all begin to disappear into the shadows of the Old Margreve. The river
seems to slow its pace a little, although it hasn’t widened, and the trees no longer seem to grasp at them
as they float by.
The heroes manage to find a little rest as they are drawn along by the river, and in fact, despite the
discomfort of a night spent underwater, they begin to feel rejuvenated and Lightstrike even manages to
catch them a few fish for breakfast with a few casual swipes of his paws. It is almost as though some
strange blessing has been placed upon them.
But their luck does not last long, for just before dawn, as the heroes attempt to dry out upon their
respective logs, Mherren spots some movement in the canopy overhead. Before the companions can react,
a terrifying creature leaps down upon Bloondar and sinks its fangs into his neck. The thing has four arms
and four legs, giving it the aspect of an arachnid, but its body and head are humanoid and apparently
wrapped in, or perhaps even entirely made of cobwebs. Except, that is, for its cruel claws and teeth, which
are hard and sharp.
Lightstrike, unmindful of his own safety, morphs into hybrid form and, drawing his rapier, leaps upon
Bloondar’s log and drives his blade home. The creature screeches and hisses, but clings ever tighter to its
large-hatted and unfortunate prey. Tanueviel hurls a poison dart, and Zimlok, upon Bloondar’s garbled
suggestion, lights up his hat. Both seem to have some effect on the monster, for it weakens visibly at the
poison and recoils at the light, but still it sinks its teeth once more into the hapless Gnome, who screams
in pain.
Haji Baba produces a magical flame from her fingertips and through a fortunate mixture of skill and luck
manages to set the thing’s head momentarily ablaze. It shrieks and falls into the water, but still manages
to avoid the flashing swords of both Tanueviel and Lightstrike, before clambering up on to Mherren’s
log. This, of course, is a big mistake, for with one swing of Gobchuck’s massive +2 morning star, the
Warlock knocks the creature’s head clean off its shoulder with a grisly tearing of cobwebs. The head
soars into the trees as the Half-Orc casually kicks the decapitated body into the water.
As Tanueviel kneels to heal Bloondar, he tells her it was a Lunarchidna. “A lesser one, thank the gods,”
he jibbers. “Evil beings of moonlight and spider silk that are created by forests cursed by dark forces.
When such a curse touches a spider on a full moon, its web animates and drifts through the forest
gathering other webs until it collects enough silk to form itself into a Lunarchidna. They hate Elves and
Gnomes and any Fey creature, which may explain why it went for me. Oh, but it could have been you,
too, Tanueviel. Or Haji-Baba. Thank you! Thank you!” As the Elven Ranger skilfully stems the bleeding
and finishes her stitching, a new expression of grim determination crosses his features. “I’m afraid I must
leave you, my friends. For now that you have defeated the goblins and calmed the forest, my purpose
here is complete. I must go to find my king and my children, and whatever survivors of my people there
may be, for one day I hope to rebuild our great city in the trees.”
Tanueviel too turns to face her companions, her eyes moist with tears. “I too must take my leave of you
all now, my friends,” she says, struggling to keep her voice from quavering. “For I have my revenge.
Gobchuck is no more, and I must return to Kagonost to tell my people that vengeance has been exacted.
Something tells me, though, that our lives are somehow entwined, and that we shall meet again before
very long is passed.”
And so the Fellowship is split apart. As the river widens and the dense canopy of the Old Margreve gives
way to scrubland and thickets, Bloondar and Tanueviel swim ashore and go their separate ways. Lost in
a pensive silence, the remaining members of the Fellowship dry out upon their makeshift rafts in the
rising heat of the late Spring sunshine. As they bask, they feel the rejuvenation they sensed earlier building
to an unnatural feeling of increased skill and stamina, and they can’t help but wonder if Baba Yaga gifted
them a little more than just safe passage out of the forest.
As the morning wears on and the sun rises high in the sky, they drift into rolling farmland, and on the
horizon rises smoke as though from a settlement of some kind. They are sure that they are headed east,
as Grendelf’s map and the direction of the sun’s arc appear to suggest, in the direction of Zobeck and
civilisation.
After a bend in the river, a little way ahead they see a small sailing craft moored to the bank, and next to
it a horse and cart. Upon both the shore and the vessel they see four or five figures moving around, but
from this distance and with the sun in their eyes it is difficult to be sure how many, or to tell exactly what
they are doing.
And so we leave our sadly dwindled Fellowship for now, seated inelegantly upon their logs and squinting
into the sun at the silhouette of the moored boat…
Episode X
Interlude (Part 2)
Running on the River Argent
As the sun reaches its zenith, we find our heroes drifting languidly along the River Argent, basking on
their logs in the midday heat and enjoying a moment of peace after the trials of the Old Margreve. Not
only are they dry and well-rested, but they are strangely energised after their encounter with Baba Yaga.
Zimlok and Haji Baba are both surprised to have new spells implanted in their minds, and even
Lightstrike seems to have developed a knack for magic. Only Mherren seems to have been immune to
the old witch’s strange influence. All are saddened by the departure of Tanueviel and Bloondar, yet
resigned to it, and there is much to ponder, besides. What does Baba Yaga’s prophecy foretell? And her
parting words? How is the Fellowship involved? And what of the obsidian tablet with its apparently
indecipherable inscription?
But their musings are cut short as they spy a sailing craft ahead, tied to the shore next to a horse and trap.
A few figures mill around the boat and cart, but the companions are too far away to determine any details,
and so they paddle to the riverbank and approach on foot. Just in case of trouble, Lightstrike pads quietly
through the thickets that track the line of the river.
Four individuals are busy loading the boat with fleeces, salted mutton and crates of fish, while one keeps
watch from the stern of the vessel. She is a wiry young adult with long fair hair and a harpoon strapped
across her back. A nervous-looking, ruddy-cheeked man holds the horse’s bridle, while a shirtless young
hairless man with a huge belly and a cloaked and hooded shady-looking figure throw the goods in the
cart to a heavily-muscled, grey-bearded fellow who has a large hammer strapped to his belt.
Despite their efforts at vigilance, they do not notice the Fellowship’s approach before they are within
thirty feet. Immediately on their guard, they reach for their weapons and wait nervously to see what the
companions will do. A wickedly curved bronze khopesh flashes beneath the cloak of the hooded one.
Zimlok is quick to reassure the strangers that they are neither bandits nor lawmen. Indeed, the shrewd
Kenku is swift to realise that these are not simple traders, but smugglers, and persuades them that he and
his friends are indifferent to their petty criminality. The tension is further relieved as Lightstrike breaks
his cover and saunters up to the strangers with a confident and casual “Wassup!” – a familiar greeting
amongst the Tabaxi but far from customary to most of the peoples of Yore, who are more comfortable
with a “Hail, friend!” and “Well met!” or perhaps just a polite “Good day, sirs”.
The smugglers, while clearly uncomfortable to have been caught in the act, after exchanging a few uneasy
glances seem happy to accept a generous offer of coin for passage to Zobeck and a bellyful of mutton.
The companions help them to finish loading the sloop, and are surprised to find a considerable number
of weapons at the bottom of the cart, which the smugglers stash in a covered hold at the prow, where
they have already placed a few of the fleeces in rolls.
On questioning, the bearded man, who introduces himself as Yanis, a blacksmith of nearby Utherwick,
proudly says he forged these arms himself, and they are destined for a rebel militia in Zobeck that is
manoeuvring against the Mouse King. He claims the Mouse King and his sewer-dwelling gang of rogues,
thugs and wererats have for too long had a stranglehold on the city, extorting the good people of Zobeck
and, even more recently, gaining a foothold in the City Council. “We cannot rely on the authorities to
help,” says Yanis. “The Mouse King’s influence reaches to the most rich and powerful.”
And so they push off shore and leave Gavan the farmer to lead his shambling horse back to Utherwick.
A stern word from Yanis sees the flabby Claude take a central position in the boat, which wobbles
unnervingly as he boards. It turns out that Claude and his sister, Edeila, a fisher by trade, are Yanis’s
children. But the fourth person, Šati (pronounced Shar-tee – DM), remains mysterious and aloof.
Pretending to fumble his magical onboard entertainment, Zimlok cunningly casts a detect magic spell
and realises there is an aura of magical illusion about her. Nothing much escapes the notice of a cat, and
Lightstrike spots an occasional flush of purple to her features, as well as two distinctive bumps beneath
her heavy hood. Oddly, she has a distinct look of Illintendo Sharpchin in her features and bone structure.
Discretely muttering to Zimlok, the Wizard realises they have a Tiefling in their company. Many
Tieflings do not deserve the low regard in which they are held, but some, it must be admitted, very much
do, and he eyes her suspiciously with his beady crow’s eye.
Mherren’s attention is elsewhere. Ever alert in this dangerous world, he senses a momentary and subtle
darkening of the sun, as though a cloud has just crossed its face. But the early summer sky is clear. He
informs his companions of his perceptions by a magical whispered message, and moments later hears a
faint splash in the water ahead.
A split second later, a young River Drake bursts out of the water, attempting to overturn the boat. It
wheels around and spews black acid upon the craft, dissolving the sail to tatters, but misses its intended
prey. Zimlok responds with a well-aimed quarrel from Jim, his fearsomely-dubbed crossbow. Edeila’s
harpoon flies wide, while Lightstrike, eager to test his newly gifted magic, just misses the beast with a ray
of frost. “Not bad for a beginner,” quips Zimlok like he’s in some kind of buddy movie (whatever one
of those is).
With much (some might say over-inflated) grandeur, Haji Baba cracks her Thunder Staff upon the boat’s
deck, and a forked bolt of lightning crackles out of the clear blue sky to fry the ravenous creature in midflight. Its wings curl around its body and it plummets into the water with a great splash.
As the others celebrate, Lightstrike spots a shadow beneath the water hurtling torpedo-like towards the
sloop’s prow. He morphs into hybrid form, but even as he opens his mouth to warn the others, another
Drake – this one much bigger than the first – surges into the hull and knocks all but Mherren into the
Argent. Zimlok and Haji Baba haul themselves back on board; Mherren helps Yanis and Edeila; and
Lightstrike swings up agilely by himself, shaking himself off and digging his claws into the wood in case
the Drake rams into them again.
Haji Baba helps Šati up on deck, while Zimlok hurls a rope to Claude, who is struggling to keep afloat.
Only his hand protrudes from the surface as the Wizard uses his mage hand to guide the loop over his
pudgy fingers. Instinctively, Claude grips the rope and Zimlok, his little feathered legs trembling with
the effort, hauls him back to the surface and to the boat’s starboard.
The second River Drake emerges bullet-like from the river and turns to make an airborne attack on the
vessel. Mherren’s crossbow finds its mark just as the reptile pours black venom over the boat. All but
Lightstrike, who has tucked himself beneath a bench for cover, are entangled in a burning, plasma-like
acid that sticks to them like thick spiderwebs. Being sure not to wet their bows, they all dive into the
water to dissolve the flesh-eating acid, but Lightstrike sees his opportunity. He stands up from his hiding
place and holds up both arms as the flying lizard’s tender belly passes directly overhead. He utters strange
words that he has never uttered before, and three glowing arrows appear in the space between his hands.
As he turns his palms toward the Drake, the magic missiles shoot unwaveringly towards their target.
Schlick! Schlick! Schlick! In rapid succession, the beast’s vulnerable underside is pierced in three places,
in guts, liver and heart, and it falls out of the sky like a rock and crashes down into the water.
“Not bad for a beginner,” says Lightstrike to Zimlok, a wry smile upon his feline lips as The Lightbringer
struggles to contain his envy. The smugglers, meanwhile, look upon Lightstrike with mouths agape as
they realise they have a lycanthropic leopard in their midst.
As they continue downriver, the companions continue to press Yanis about the Mouse King, the very
concept of whom Mherren finds laughable. He pretends to be scanning the horizon and waters for further
threats, but he can’t resist the occasional smirk and raised eyebrow as the blacksmith describes this
subterranean gang of secret-sellers, press-gangers, protection racketeers and extortionists. Perhaps he
would take the Mouse King more seriously if he knew of the sorry demise dealt out to those who fail to
give the Mouse King his due: a grisly death of ten thousand bites as the King’s servants devour the fool
alive…
Of course, Lightstrike rather enjoys the notion of killing a few mice. It’s in his nature, after all.
Presently, they decide to stop and cook some mutton for supper on a likely-looking sandy embankment.
All except the Wereleopard, who prefers his mutton raw and bloody. The smugglers can barely disguise
their revulsion as he tears greedily into the sheep’s haunch and leaves his lips and chin a mess of blood
and gristle.
Conversation turns to the subject of the Fellowship and its purpose. The companions mention nothing
of Baba Yaga or their quest to drive Gobchuck and his minions from the forest, nor do they describe the
destruction of the Hidden City of the Gnome by the self-animated and irate spirits of the Margreve, but
they do mention that they travelled from the great northern forests of Bor Nyster via Sparrowkeep.
“Ah. I know that place,” says Yanis. “Famed for its unearthly cyclopean foot, and its sparrows, of course.”
The companions are confused. “Sparrows? What sparrows?”
“Hah! The town is overrun with them! Thousands of the things! You can’t tell me you didn’t notice?”
But the adventurers, thinking back, can’t recall seeing a single bird…
* * *
The land here is wilder and more rugged than the farmland around Utherwick. Clumps of straggly
woodland cling to stony tors, and a ridge of hills rises beyond to shorten the horizon. Mherren transforms
Viper and, after enduring it dancing briefly upon his head, sends his jabbering Quasit to invisibly scout
the local area. He relates to his comrades what the demon imp sees: a mile or so to the north, a large
company of Orcs, accompanied by many Ogres, travel westward. They travel upon dozens of gargantuan,
lumbering Horizonback Turtles, upon whose shells are ramshackle and precarious huts piled high and
secured with ropes and scaffolding.
They move in the direction of Utherwick, and, brought closer by their shared experience with the Drakes,
the Fellowship are moved to try and help the kinsmen of Yanis and his family. But sadly, it seems there
is little even our mighty heroes can do in the face of an entire tribe of Orcs. Even so, despite the risks,
Mherren and Zimlok decide to get closer and try to discover where these Orcs are headed and whence
they come. Is it a warband? A raid? An invasion? Whatever it is, Orcs are invariably bad news.
The Wizard and Warlock set off at a run to where Viper awaits. They approach as close as they dare
and hide behind a large boulder as two Ogres walk past at the outer flank of the travelling tribe. Spotting
an important-looking Orc looking out from the front of one of the lead Horizonbacks’ shells, Mherren
disguises himself and swaggers up to the nearest Ogre, his heart beating fast. Unfortunately, Ogres are
notoriously stupid and he can get little sense out of it, so he moves a little deeper into the horde and goes
up to a group of bedraggled and grubby-looking Orcs who are on foot beside one of the leviathan turtles,
jostling each other and very nearly getting squashed beneath a plodding giant tortoise foot.
As soon as they spot Mherren they pull themselves together and respond obsequiously to his questioning.
They are confused by his apparent trick questions, but Mherren manages to learn that this is the Urzin,
a nomadic tribe of Orcs who have lived for centuries in the vast expanse of the Festering Marshes to the
east. They have been driven out of their marshland home by what they describe as “the toadsies” that
have infested their swamps – although, Mherren discerns, it is unlikely these are common toads, or even
the giant demonic Bukavac they saw in the Margreve, to have uprooted the entire tribe.
The Urzin are travelling through these hostile human realms to find haven in the forests and mountains
to the west. Good news, at least, for the people of nearby Utherwick. Orcs on the run are surely less
dangerous than Orcs on a raid. But still, let’s hope a shepherd hears the horde approaching and the village
manages to evacuate before they are overrun and slaughtered.
“One final question,” Mherren says in his haughtiest tone of voice, feeling that his ruse is going rather
well. “Who is the boss around here?”
The Orcs exchange perplexed looks. “Are you sure this isn’t a trick, Chief?” they ask in confusion.
“No, it’s not a trick! Who’s in charge here?” Mherren demands impatiently.
“Well, Chief…” one Orc ventures nervously. “It’s… er… it’s you. You’re in charge. You’re the Chief,
Chief.”
“Very good,” says the Warlock. “Carry on.”
And, sensing that he’s beginning to push his luck, he returns to Zimlok’s hiding place and they carefully
make their way back to the river, where Haji Baba is busy embroidering her cloak and a bloated
Lightstrike is sprawled out on the sand with a severe case of indigestion.
The odd coupling of heroes and smugglers put out their campfire and remove all trace of their passing,
before returning to the sloop and continuing down the Argent, which widens considerably as another
tributary feeds into it. The sun glows red as it sets over the river.
“We should reach Zobeck before dawn,” says Yanis, at the tiller. “Easier getting into the city before the
Griffon Knights start patrolling the outskirts. Meantime, get some rest. We’ll take turns at the helm.”
“Erm, okay, Pop,” slurs Claude, and within moments he is snoring. Edeila too curls up to sleep, but Šati,
who has abandoned her magical disguise and now bears two curving horns upon her purple forehead,
goes to sit by Yanis and talks to him in a low whisper as the last of the sun’s rays turn the rippling river
waters red.
Sword of Air
Part 1
Episode XI: Fate and the Free City of Zobeck
Our heroes awake before the sun rises to find the smugglers busy dropping sail in preparation for
a covert entry into Zobeck. The sloop slopes languidly along on the lazy waters of the Argent as a
fine rain drifts down through the morning mist.
Two huge birds pass by overhead, which Šati tells them are Griffon Knights, the elite airborne
guard of the city. The griffon riders are heading west in the direction of the travelling Urzin, and
they pay no attention to the little craft floating silently down the river.
The companions learn more of Zobeck: how it become a free republic a century ago following
misrule by the noble Stross family of Castle Shadowcrag, who had formed a pact with fey beings
from the Plane of Shadow; how it has become known as the “Clockwork Capital”, even using
spirit magic to imbue intricate clockwork creations with sentience and to immortalise individuals
in gear-forged bodies; how the city was built upon the foundations of older civilisations, parts of
which remain intact beneath the modern metropolis; and how Zobeck has become a vibrant,
cosmopolitan centre of trade, where people of all creeds coexist – even the formerly enslaved
Kobolds, who now live in a practically lawless ghetto on the south side.
Mherren is taciturn and pensive, having been visited by Demagorgon in a dream. The Half-Orc
was shown a hooded figure, which resembled Illintendo Sharpchin, handing an obsidian tablet to
Gobchuck. Dismissively, the Bugbear cast it aside to break upon the floor, which was etched with
images of scarabs like those in the Elven Temple at the Heart of the Forest. A chorus of frogs
then began to chant “Beware Halimhetazi”, rising to a crescendo, and Mherren saw an image of a
huge, smooth-sided pyramid of shiny black stone. He is unsure exactly what his Demon Lord was
trying to communicate to him, but his faith in his patron is elevated, and his determination to find
the Shaghaspondium and become his patron’s Chosen One is renewed.
Zimlock has a bad feeling about sneaking into the city with the Tiefling and Utherwickians. The
adventurers persuade the smugglers to drop them on the riverbank out of sight of the city walls,
and continue on foot, to the obvious disappointment of Šati. She tells them to come find her at
the Old Docks, as she believes their skills could be useful for the rebel cause against the Mouse
King of the Zobeckian underworld (who has forged ties with the city’s elite and powerful).
She is also surprised to discover that the friends have met Illintendo Sharpchin, for she reveals
him to be her estranged brother, who betrayed the rebels and left to join a strange unholy demon
cult. Despite being her brother, as far as she is concerned Sharpchin is a marked man. Exactly
what the demon cult promised him to turn him from the rebel alliance (that she seems to believe
in so wholeheartedly) she does not know, nor who they are or whom they worship.
“Come if you can, please,” she says, “So that I might introduce you to my Master. For it must
surely have been fated that we should meet.”
*
As the sun pokes above the horizon, the companions find the western trading route that leads to
the West Gate, where a few long-shadowed merchants and farmers are already going about their
business. The friends decide to approach the city guards and pay the gate tax as lawful citizens of
Yore, although their plans for an unobtrusive arrival are almost scuppered by Lightstrike’s
enthusiastic bounding up to the guards at full pelt. Halberds crossed, they are unamused by his
antics, but are eventually satisfied when the adventurers agree to binding their weapons with peace
knots (as it is forbidden to walk around the streets with weapons to hand), and they let them pass.
The Fellowship make their way to the Wool Exchange, where they make a hefty profit on the silks
and other goods that they salvaged from the Bearded Man in the Old Margreve. With their pockets
bulging with coin, they ask for directions to The Shimbles (Zimlok dazzling a local cocktail-stickchewing hoodlum with an illusion of a leaping, iridescent giant fish), which is a busy, narrow,
twisting alley of overhanging buildings with shop fronts at street level.
On the way there they see a Gearforged guardsman striding purposefully along, a woman tipping
her chamber pot out from a top floor with little regard for who is beneath, and also a lunatic
balancing on a barrel with a pie on his head, being taunted by commoners and raving something
about a plague of frogs.
The heroes set about equipping themselves for possible adventures to come, spurred on by the
fact that a great witch of legend believes them part of a prophecy that could end, if things go
seriously awry, with entire worlds “swallowed”.
Mherren acquires a greatsword of such heft it would be unwieldable by any ordinary man. He has
it encrusted with gems from the Fellowship’s treasure hoard, which make its hilt sparkle with a
fiery light, and so he names it “Pyron”. Haji Baba arms herself with a set of exquisite throwing
knives and some healing potions.
Lightstrike bargains for a set of magical lockpicks, but the exchange descends to accusations of
daylight robbery, and then threats and intimidation of the shopkeeper, when the wereleopard
shimmers into hybrid form and puts the poor man in no doubt of the sharpness of his teeth and
claws. The others intervene, exhorting Lightstrike to change back to his human form and leave the
poor man alone, which reluctantly he does, and they beat a hasty retreat from the store and lose
themselves in the crowded chaos of The Shimbles.
Episode XII: Fortune along the Shimbles
A dishevelled-looking colourful tent propped up against one of the shops catches the companions’
eyes. A grubby Dwarf is heckling passers-by to come inside and have their fortunes told. Haji Baba
decides to go in, and she is ushered by the Dwarf into a smoky room where a Karivian fortuneteller by the name of Lumenita sits at a small round table covered by a velvet throw.
The Kariv are a wandering tribe from the Rothenian plains far to the West, beyond the mountains,
where wild Centaur herds and a savage breed of Halflings dwell. Known for their ornate and
colourful caravans, their free spirits and their adeptness at divination magic, the Kariv are a
peaceful people, many of whom have travelled the land far and wide. Some of their renowned
fortune-tellers are gifted with a unique wisdom; others are frauds.
Lumenita gestures with her fingers and the candles dim in the tent. The crystal orb upon her table
glows and she is entranced by the swirling colours within. “I see an eye of bright light burning hot
above a pool of steam; and now there are two storm-lashed towers upon two separate seas; a land
of shadow and a book of terrible nature; now there is an ancient, cursed tomb; and demons” – her
eyes widen in horror – “Demons at the gate, in their thousands, all of one mind, sensing their
release is close, straining to break free of their prison and rampage through the world, destroying
everything in their path…”
She tears her gaze from the crystal ball and looks up at Haji Baba, her heart beating and a film of
sweat across her brow.
Cool as ever, the Druid hands her Baba Yaga’s prophecy to peruse, but the Karivian can help little
with its interpretation. She knows that ‘Goddess Nyte’ and ‘Daemon Blyghte’ are most probably
synonyms for the Lady Hecate, the goddess of black magic to whom many covens of witches, and
even Baba Yaga herself (as well as some ordinary folk with a keen enthusiasm for curses and other
esoterica) are beholden. Hecate, whilst certainly a sinister figure in the pantheon of gods, is no
demon bent on wanton destruction; she relies on humankind to worship her and give her power,
as do all the gods.
Our savage and bloodthirsty goblin-cleaving heroes continue with their little shopping spree,
splashing out on a grappling hook and a bag of caltrops, and looking covetously at the arrow magnet
in ‘Bigby’s Nefarious Items’. Mherren window shops for some chain or scale mail armour, while
Lightstrike suggests to Wesley of ‘Wesley’s Fine Manure & Embroidery’ that it might be an idea
to separate the goods in his store, since the fabrics are getting distinctly whiffy, and Wesley is so
enamoured of the idea that he stitches a stunning image of a leopard pouncing on a goblin for the
Rogue and gives it to him free of charge.
“Why ever didn’t I think of that before?” he says, impressed by such inspired salesmanship. (1
Inspiration Point to Lightstrike for good roleplaying – DM.)
Meanwhile, Mherren has entered the shop and, as a hulking Half-Orc, is confused by the needle
and thread he finds lying around, and indeed by the whole concept of embroidery. (1 Inspiration
Point to Mherren, too, also for good in-character roleplaying – DM.)
Eventually they enter ‘Mordenkainen’s Specialist Magicks’, where a bald-headed man, pencilbearded and old (but with the bearing of a much younger man), and clad in a long, richly
embroidered black robe, is busy sorting through some books while three small magical tornadoes
do his vacuuming.
Zimlok can sense that this man is a Wizard of considerable power, and even Mherren has heard
his name from somewhere, perhaps whispered fearfully by Orcs of his tribe in his youth. Deducing
that they might befriend this Arch Mage, the companions tell of their deeds in the Margreve, about
which he is keen to hear.
He is relieved that they returned the Lost Egg of Koschei the Deathless to Baba Yaga, so she can
restore it to its secret place inside a duck inside a hare inside a goat, and is both interested and
horrified to learn of the giant toads and general sickness of the great sylvan forest. “We’ve been
having trouble with frog infestations in the sewers of Zobeck,” he muses. “Rent-a-Kil just can’t
seem to shift ’em.”
When Lightstrike mentions his suspicions about an evil wizard being responsible for these strange
ocurrences, Mordenkainen says that, thankfully, he knows of no evil Great Wizards in the lands
of Yore. He mentions that his sage and trusted wizardly ally, Grendelf, had recently made a journey
to Sparrowkeep to consult with the Arch Wizard Kayden, who resides at the Lonely Keep on the
Dragon Coast to the East. He believes Kayden was visiting his nephew, the young orphaned Lord
of Sparrowkeep, and Grendelf went to meet Kayden there to discuss the recent worrying rise in
the activities of cultists and witches (for the jails in Zobeck are almost full with them).
Kayden is a good-natured Mage, so far as Mordenkainen knows, although he hasn’t seen him for
some time, not even at the Annual Wizards’ Convention, or WizCon, as it’s known (Funny –
Zimok’s never had an invitation… maybe it got lost in the post – DM). Kayden was closely associated with
another Arch Wizard, Sorten, with whom he was collaborating on magical research, who lives in
the Howling Tower that stands on a promontory beyond the Rothenian Plain to the West, close
to the sea border with Lether.
Mordenkainen is horrified that Grendelf may have met with a grisly demise at the hands of the
Brownleaf Goblins, and wonders if it might be worth our heroes’ while paying Kayden a visit, to
see if he knows more? “Kayden is also very good on matters of history, and he specialises in
research into mythical items and magical weapons,” he says.
Lightstrike volunteers a few details about goings-on at Sparrowkeep, including how Grendelf’s
boots were found on the North Road close to the Festering Caverns. Mordenkainen is concerned,
too, by the news that the sparrows have gone from Sparrowkeep, and in particular that the Orb of
Light at the temple of Elovyn Sorrowsong is glowing and becoming hot. “No,” he whispers in
horror. “It can’t be – he was banished. His name I dare nor speak. Ye gods above – did Arden
sacrifice himself for nought?”
Arden, he tells the Fellowship, is an Elder God, a god of law and light, who sacrificed himself in
an ancient and near-forgotten war against a demon army in order to drive them from the world.
The Orb is said to be the actual Eye of Arden himself, although his sect has been reduced to
almost nothing over the centuries. Few worship the “Sundered God” now, which is decidedly
worrying since it is said to be the Priests and Priestesses of Light who maintain the balance between
good and evil in the world.
That role of keeping the balance used to be played by the Dragons, but dragonkind too has been
virtually eradicated from the land, persecuted by mankind, who naturally fears beasts of such
terrible and unknowable power. With the Dragons almost gone, and the Sect of Arden depleted
to just a few, what is there now to keep evil at bay?
The Fellowship, deciding they can trust this Wizard, show Mordenkainen the prophecy. “The
Sword of Air is a legendary weapon of great power,” he tells them. “It was wielded by a mythical
hero against a demon horde in the same war that was ended by Arden’s self-sacrifice. It is said that
the sword was cursed, but the histories are vague, for it was very long ago.
“I think it might be prudent to investigate this further, to find out where the sword lies now, if
indeed it has not been lost, and to make sure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. There are
forces in the world that would turn such a weapon to great evil, should it fall to them, although…
hmm… I must admit to being confused by the line: ‘Let it not be grasped by Lyte nor Fayre’.
Could the Light be the same Light of Arden? Could the Fair be the Fair Folk, the Elves, perhaps?
I know not, but I do know that I myself would be hesitant to have the Sword of Air in my clutches,
if the stories of its cursed nature be true. Hmm… and it says here that it should be ‘extinguished
in darkest maw’… most curious…”
He goes to rummage in his storeroom, from where there is much crashing and banging and yelps
and curses, and he returns after some time, rubbing his forehead and limping slightly, with a hefty
tome entitled: Meditations of a Bibliognost. “This is reputed to be the most boring book ever written,”
he says with bewildering excitement. “Twelve hundred pages of unrelenting tedium.”
“Take it to the Great Library in Zobeck, and ask for Winnifred. She’s an old friend of mine; she’ll
know what to do. I think you need to look deeply into the Legend of the Sword of Air, to find out
what really happened back then and where the sword might be now, if indeed it has survived.
“Whatever gaps you are left with, perhaps my old comrade Kayden could fill in, with a bit of luck.
And also, while you’re at it, perhaps you might look into the meaning of this ‘Halimhetazi’ – for I
know it not. But this sounds like a dangerous quest, of the sort I myself used to embark upon in
my younger days.” He pulls thoughtfully at his pointy little beard. “I think you’ll need some help.”
And he proceeds to offer the heroes various items from his inventory. Mherren is gifted some
shiny bronze bracers of deflection (+1 AC), and in handing them over Mordenkainen spots the goblin
hand hanging from his belt. “It looks well-used, but that is a Hand of the Mage, if ever I saw one!”
he cries. It is invested with the mage hand spell, with unlimited use.
To Haji Baba he gives a pair of goggles of keen sight (ADV on Perception checks), and to Lightstrike
a wide leather belt of tumbling, which enhances its wearer’s acrobatic manoeuvres to make them
virtually untouchable if moving through a melée (he can move through a threatened space without provoking
an attack of opportunity). To the whole group Mordenkainen gives a feather token, which transforms
into a magical messenger pigeon when it is blown upon and the arcane words uttered.
Then the Arch Mage turns to Zimlok, in whose wide-eyed naivety he sees something of himself
as a young precocious Wizard, still wet behind the ears. To the gibbering, beak-gaping Kenku he
gives a magical quarterstaff of vaulting (jump spell + ADV on Acrobatics checks), which is topped by
a slightly squishy and smelly mummified goblin’s head that lights up like a lantern on the command
word. (Which is, erm, “Fiat Lux!” …but it can be programmed from the default Latin setting.)
And then Mordenkainen produces something special from beneath his robe: a slim vellum spell
book containing twelve delicious incantations for the aspirational magician…
Zimlok is lost for words, and he stares up all starry-eyed at his newfound hero and role model,
whilst simultaneously trying very hard not to lose the pervading air of mystical majesty that,
bafflingly, he believes himself to possess.
But it’s not long before Zimlok’s starstruck eyes are drawn to the shiny mithral shirt that he spies
hanging in a corner. Mordenkainen notices his longing gaze with an indulgent smile, and says: “In
the unlikely event that your investigations lead you on to some impossibly dangerous mission that
seems almost certainly doomed to failure, and upon which the fate of the entire world hangs in
precarious balance, come and see me so that I might better prepare you all.”
The companions gratefully take their leave of Mordenkainen, although Haji Baba hangs back to
have a quiet word with him, worried as she is (as a Druid of the Forest Circle) that she is allied
with a Warlock of Demogorgon, bent on seeking the Shaghaspondium to become anointed as the
Demon Prince’s Chosen One and establish his Eternal Dominion of Chaos.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll grow out of it,” Mordenkainen reassures her. “These young ’uns go through
these phases, don’t they? My own view, though, is that your young friend’s fate is as yet uncertain;
I suspect he will one day have to choose between his charming mandrill-headed demonic patron,
and fellowship and acceptance in ordinary society. I do sense a nugget of goodness at the core of
his dark heart, but I could be wrong, of course.
“Bear in mind, though, wise Druid, that Demogorgon is not the only demon lord or force of evil
out there. It’s a big bad world, and sometimes you need a little evil to defeat the Big Evil. What
was it Baba Yaga used to say, now? Something like Shun not the Dark… sometimes only Darkness
can Light your way…? I forget, now. I haven’t seen her in a century or so and she was always full
of pithy sayings like that.”
Episode XIII
Sword of Air
Part One (which continueth)
Slobbi & The Slammer
The Fellowship exit Mordenkainen’s Specialist Magicks, laiden down with their MSM branded
designer shopping bags, high on consumerism and intent on popping into Rastafar’s Exotic Herbs
& Spices, or perhaps Big Al’s Alchemical Supplies, to continue their browsing.
All four adventurers are well suited with their new acquisitions. Mherren imagines wistfully how
devastatingly he can cleave goblins and disembowel the enemies of Demogorgon with his new
great-sword, Pyron, and he stares admiringly at his own hideous reflection in his polished new
bracers of deflection. Haji Baba tests with great satisfaction the perfect edges on her shiny new
throwing knives, and cleans thoroughly the tinted lenses of her magical goggles of keen-sight.
Lightstrike adjusts his belt of tumbling and proudly displays his embroidered pouncing leopard to
random passers-by, who nervously congratulate him or whistle with timid admiration before
scurrying off looking slightly confused. Zimlok dreams of taking his place at the next WizCon, by
special invitation of course, surrounded by fawning sorcerers’ apprentices jealous of his newfound
powers, courtesy of his new BFF’s spell book, and he lovingly fondles the squishy mummified
goblin’s head atop his staff of vaulting, emitting a decidedly unmagisterial squawk of delight when he
realises it is in fact the much-lauded ‘S’ model with deluxe blinding smite feature.
So infatuated with their purchases and gifts are the companions that they barely notice the
obviously inebriated individual jumping up and down gleefully outside a shoppe signed: “Stan’s
Very Stable Explosives”. He is missing various fingers and part of an ear, and part of his nose
appears to have been melted away. He wears an eyepatch, and happily introduces himself as the
proprietor, Stan, when Zimlok inquires politely.
“Can’t ’elp you, I’m afraid… hic…” he says gleefully between celebratory slugs of whisky when the
comrades inquire about his wares. “If you’d been ’ere an hour ago it would ’av bin a diff’rent story,
hic-hoc, but I ’ad the sale of a lifetime this mornin’. Some ashen-faced Dwarf wiv a bald ’ed an’ a
big red nose came by and bought the lot. Cleared me ’aat, ’e did, hic. Offered me a big sack o’ gold
– no questions arksed, like. You know ’ow it is. You meet all sorts in the explosives game. Truth
be told, hic, I was getting’ a bit nervous ’avin’ as much stock as I did. One stray spark an’ the ’ol
street woulda gawn up. Not that there’s anyfink wrong wiv me goods, mind you. Very stable, they
are. Never ’ad an accident in all me long life…”
Haji Baba narrows her eyes at this last statement, and she presses him on this rich and mysterious
customer.
“’E went orf toward the Ol’ Docks,” says Stan, his tongue loose from all the drink. “’Ad an ’orse
’n’ cart wiv ’im. Number plate was S-L-O-8-8-1, if me mem’ry serves me right. Says ‘Gee-up,
Nodd,’ an’ orf ’e trots at some speed, wi’ barrels o’ me best burners, crackers, sharpers, cussers,
smokers, flamers ’n’ melters all rattlin’ raand in the trap behind ’im. If y’ask me,” he leans in close
and puts a stumpy finger to his melted nose, his breath thick with alcohol. “If y’ask me ’e was a bit
sozzled… hic-hoc. Shouldn’t’ve been driving a cartload o’ expro-, expo-, explosives in ’is state. But
damned if I’m gonna stop ’im.” And he proudly pats a big jingling bulge in his trousers.
Our intrepid foursome decide to follow this lead to the Old Docks, for that is where Šati said she
was headed, too, but before they get very far they here a voice shouting across the crowded street.
“There! That’s them! That’s the one what threatened me! And there’s ’is crew!”
Quickly the companions realise it is the shopkeeper whom Lightstrike had intimidated with his
terrifying shape-changing antics earlier, as they spot three of the City Watch and their Captain
peering at them and frowning through the crowds. From two side-streets, a couple of Gearforged
patrols converge upon them, leaving only one avenue of escape. Realising that their best weapons
are bound by peace knots, Haji Baba loses herself in the crowd to observe from a safe distance, as
Zimlok urges Mherren and Lightstrike to join him in standing up to these guardsmen.
The Captain, whose name is Manherring, speaks haughtily and rather nasally from beneath his
thickly coiffured handlebar moustache, one hand poised upon the pommel of his rapier.
“Now then, gentlemen,” he pronounces very precisely. “Mister Hudeni here is a very respectable
member of the community here in Zobeck. He smithies all the locks in the city jail, crafts the best
handcuffs in all of Yore…” He shakes a set of handcuffs suggestively at the comrades, to the
amused approval of his obsequious accomplices. “And he tells me one of your number committed
a most scandalous outrage by assaulting him in his own shoppe this very morning. Now, what do
you have to say for yourselves?” he asks with scathing pomposity.
The three companions, who are now surrounded on all but one side by watchmen and Gearforged,
attempt to talk their way out the situation, and begin to draw a crowd as Mherren squares off to
one of the sentient clockwork automatons. The throng starts to jostle the militia, lending the
adventurers with a perfect opportunity to cheese it out of there, but Zimlok decides instead to cast
an illusion of police thuggery to further agitate the crowd, which has the unforeseen consequence
of turning the mob against him as they bridle at his attempt at magical deception. In desperation,
he pushes one of the watchmen with his mage hand, and Captain Manherring’s patience runs out.
“Arrest them!” he shrieks, in a rather higher tone than he’d intended, and, much to his surprise,
the heroes submit as they are handcuffed and led away past the booing and hissing onlookers. The
crowds pelt them with rotten vegetables and fruits, and Mherren, unsuccessfully attempting to
catch a well-aimed tomato in spite of his restraints, gets splatted full in the face. Haji Baba, for no
other reason than her keenness to blend in, of course, enthusiastically joins in with hurling things
at the ‘criminals’, and lobbing various putrefying fruits she follows them to the inner wall that
divides the Citadel from the rest of Zobeck.
Turning into a mouse, she scurries past the guards after her companions and their escort, and she
follows them into a squat tower where they are led up a spiral staircase and thrown into a cell. She
proceeds to scout out the jailhouse as Mherren summons Viper the Quasit and Zimlok catches
the attention of the guard stationed outside their prison cell.
“Psst,” he ventures. “’Scuse me, old boy. Are there any toilets around? Only I rather need to go.”
The guard chortles to himself, then replies, “Look over there, sir. You have luxury ensuite facilities
at your disposal.”
Zimlok looks round to see a stained and stinking bucked in the corner, and swiftly tries a different
approach.
“Y’know, we have some information you might be interested in. There’s been someone moving
explosives through the city in no small quantities.”
The guard, Tomas, who is obviously something of a rookie, looks interested, but then pines on
about affording a nice birthday present for his Auntie Mavis. The devious Wizard catches on and
crosses Tomas’s palms with a couple of gems, resisting the urge to make a break for it when the
guard momentarily unlocks the cell door to receive his bribe.
Tomas goes off to find the Captain, who appears presently and also hints strongly that a few gold
coins might ease the companions’ predicament. Mherren manages to convince Manherring that
the bribe he gave Tomas was intended for him, and the Captain stalks off to find his unscrupulous
recruit, all the while failing to notice Lightstrike’s fumbling attempts to pick the lock of his
manacles. Shortly, Manherring returns along with four guards, one of whom is a sheepish-looking
Tomas sporting a freshly bruised eye. The Captain relents to the companions’ persuasive charms
and agrees to discuss things further at a local tavern, realising that their inside information might
well land him a much bigger arrest than three charges of public affray. Maybe even a promotion…
Their manacles thus removed, the heroes make their way with Manherring and his guards to the
Sweaty Underpants, a nearby dive, with Haji Baba scurrying along behind them, unnoticed. Over
a tankard of ale, Mherren, Lightstrike and Zimlok tell the Captain what they know of the
extravagant purchase of explosives from Stan’s store, and their suspicions of nefarious doings at
the Old Docks. Haji Baba, having transformed back into her natural form and situated herself at
an adjacent table, pretends to be an eavesdropping stranger and interrupts the hushed discussion
to corroborate the friends’ story. Together, they set off by lanternlight to the Old Docks.
*
A light mist coils around the lanterns, and the wooden boards of the dock are slick with moisture.
Rats scuttle into the shadows, and a mangy dog barks incessantly at a moored ship. There are three
outbuildings, from one of which come the boisterous sounds of an illicit drinking hole or gambling
den. Outside a large warehouse is tethered a sullen-looking horse, at whose rear is parked a rickety
trap bearing the number plate: “SLO 881”.
Mherren goes with the guards to investigate the cart, and finds traces of gunpowder that appear
to lead towards the double doors of the warehouse. Manherring brazenly sends his men in first
(“We’ll handle this, half-orc”), while Mherren, erring on the side of caution, sends his invisible
Quasit inside to reconnoitre.
Through Viper’s eyes, he finds himself face to face with an ashen-faced but ruddy-nosed Dwarf,
bald-headed and bearded, who is in the middle of drunkenly arranging some large barrels by a
storeroom of the warehouse. The Dwarf stops dead in his tracks, mouth agape, as he is suddenly
faced with three armed militia and their rather overbearing and self-important Captain, who barks
shrilly and with an unintentionally warbling tone: “Stop, Dwarf! In the name of the law!”
*
Meanwhile, Lightstrike, Haji Baba and Zimlok the Lightbringer have silenced the barking stray
dog with half a sandwich and are creeping on board the ship, which appears to be deserted except
for a few scampering rats. Its timbers creak at the quiet swell of the harbour waters as the fearless
Arcane Trickster and Druid of the Forest Circle sneak belowdecks, leaving their Kenku Illusionist
companion on guard duty above. A stench of decay almost overpowers Lightstrike’s sensitive
feline olfactory sense, and as they reach the bottom of the staircase they immediately come face to
face with its source.
Strewn across the floor of the orlop are no less than forty complete skeletons, in various states of
decomposition, laid out in the darkness in a silent and horrific repose. The Druid and Rogue nearly
jump out of their skins as a face suddenly looms between them.
“What have we here?” asks Zimlok cheerfully, utterly unmindful of his friends’ bloodless
expressions of shock.
Sword of Air
Episode XIV
The Skeleton Quay
Aboard the moored brig, the Dead Calm, Zimlok the Lightbringer continues to stealthily
investigate the gloom of the lower deck amidst spooky creaks and groans of timber.
“Nothing unusual here,” whispers Zimlok with confidence to the others.
“What about that muffled voice coming from the room right next to you?” queries Haji Baba
the Grand.
“Well, if you’d let me finish, I was going to say there’s nothing unusual here apart from a
muffled voice coming from this room right next to me,” snaps Zimlok hurriedly, and shiftily
eyes the others to see if they’ve believed him or not.
Lightstrike the Epic is already pushing open the door and sneaking inside. He finds himself
in plush captain’s quarters furnished with a luxurious bed, a bookcase stacked with dusty
tomes, and a pair of ironbound wooden chests. Upon the bed is Claude, one of the smugglers
from Utherwick, his obese form tightly bound with rope and his mouth gagged.
“He still here,” he warns the companions after they untie him. “I fink he went to the first
officer’s cabin. Izachar left me to guard the ship, and this sneaker with a red mask came and
clobbered me and tied me up! But I fink he still here!”
The companions glean that Claude and presumably the other smugglers, along with the pale
Dwarf, Slobbi, all work for someone called Izachar. He tells them that Yanis and Edeila are
drinking in the tavern on the dock, the Grubby Elbow, and that the explosives they purchased
are intended to blow up the Mouse King in his lair in the sewers.
Lightstrike busies himself making rubbings of the strange glyphs upon the spines of the books
on the shelves, before turning his attention to the chests. One is unlocked, and contains some
expensive-looking clothing in plush silks and velvets. The other is locked, but the skilful
Rogue makes light work of the complex padlock with his thieves’ tools, deftly and harmlessly
springing a poisoned needle trap that would have surely pricked all but the most capable of
thieves. (Inspiration to Lightstrike for being suitably Epic.) The Wizard and Druid see the Arcane
Trickster’s face light up with the glowing reflection of a vast hoard of gold pieces (rather like a
scene from Ye Ballad of Pulpe Fyction – DM).
The heroes judge it unwise to pick their way across the skeleton-strewn floor, and instead
climb back up on to the top deck and descend the stairs near the prow, leaving Lightstrike on
guard duty. Belowdecks, Claude batters in the door to the first officer’s room and charges the
shadowy figure who is lurking inside.
“I got him!” he roars, followed by a shriek of pain, and then the stranger runs headlong at the
doorway and dodges past Zimlok’s wildly flailing Staff of Blinding Smite. Haji Baba coolly
sticks her foot out and trips the fugitive before entangling him in her Druidic vines. She tries
to charm him, but he resists and laughs off her magic like it were nothing. But his bluster fails
him as she leans in close, rips off his red mask and threatens him with the point of her dagger.
“All right, all right! I’ll tell you everyzing – just get ’er away from me!” he whimpers. Once he
realises the companions are not necessarily allied with the smugglers he softens even further,
clutching the wound in his hand where he stabbed himself as he grappled with Claude.
“My name is Kareb. I came ’ere to plant a talismanic curse upon Izachar,” he says. “’E is a
demon-worshippeur, one of ze Cloven Nine, and ’is faction of informants and enforceurs is
responsible for much of ze extortion, gang violence and exploitation in zis city. It is well
known too zat zey take zeir payment not in gold, but in souls.
“In desperation, Consul Brethan employed us Red Masks, ze assassins’ guild ’eaded by
Master Light Touch, to ’inder Izachar and force ’im into making a mistake. ’E is too powerful
to combat directly, for zey say ’e ’as made a pact wiz Orcus, but ze talisman I have ’idden on
zis vessel is a rune imbued wiz shamanic magic zat will bring certain misfortune on ’im and
’is wicked cronies.”
While Kareb spills all, Zimlok is investigating the officers’ mess. “His story doesn’t check out,
Haji Baba,” he concludes with supreme confidence. “There’s nothing in here of value, let alone
a magic talisman.”
“Look be’ind ze ’eadboard,” says the assassin, and sure enough Zimlok finds a hatch behind
the bedframe that leads into a secret compartment in the bulkhead of the brig.
“There’s just another chest in here,” squawks Zimlok, his claustrophobia kicking in along with
his (in his opinion) healthy phobia of trapped chests. “It doesn’t look important to me.”
Haji Baba rolls her eyes and mutters something under her breath about having to do
everything herself. She gestures to Claude, who has lost interest in the Red Mask and has been
busy instead scratching his bottom and exploring the contents of his nose. Claude dutifully
sits on Kareb and continues his search while the diminutive Druid creeps into the secret
compartment.
Behind the chest she finds a turtle shell scored with an intricate design of abstract patterns –
the talisman! She cautiously opens the chest and finds within it a huge pearl (worth 100 gp), a
golden amulet in the shape of a dragon with garnets for eyes (worth 750 gp), and what appears
to be a skull plate embedded with a large bloodstone (worth 50 gp).
Sending Claude upstairs to check on Lightstrike, she makes a deal with Kareb, thinking he
might prove to be a useful ally. The comrades are still confused as to who if anyone they can
trust between the Militia, the Cloven Nine, the Red Masks and the Mouse King, and wish for
now to keep everyone on their side; perhaps they can play the various factions off against
each other? (Sounds like a perilous strategy to me – DM.)
Haji Baba tells him Kareb is free to take two thirds of the gold in the captain’s quarters (leaving
the heroes with 300 gp), and to hide the talisman elsewhere on the Dead Calm, so long as he
leaves thereafter and says nothing to anyone of what just happened on board, nor of whom
he met. Gladly he agrees.
Zimlok and Haji Baba are making their way back to the upper deck when the half-elven
Halfling notices the bloodstone is glowing a sickly red. A shiver runs down both their spines
as they hear the click-clack of bony feet follows them up the steps. They quicken their pace to
join Lightstrike, when an idea occurs to Haji Baba.
She halts, turns around, and courageously holds out one hand. (Inspiration to Haji Baba.)
“Stop!” she commands imperiously.
The footsteps stop.
“Go back!”
The footsteps go back, and a guttural voice speaks in the gloom. “Master says go back.”
“Oh, ye Spirits of Nature! Guys – I think we’ve got ourselves a skeleton army!” beams the
Druid exultantly.
The comrades lower ropes from the jetty and command the skeletons to hang on to them
below the water, specifying that they shouldn’t float off or swim away, and should wait there
silently for further instructions. Dutifully, forty animated skeletons shin down the ropes into
the murky waters of the harbour.
Swiftly, the companions hide on the roof of an outbuilding along with Claude as Captain
Manherring and his three watchmen emerge from the warehouse escorting a bald ashen
Dwarf and a grizzled man who could well be the dockmaster. The Captain is obviously
revelling in his own importance as he informs his prisoners of the traces of gunpowder they
found leading from the horse-cart and reassuring them with relished sarcasm that his men
will soon be back in force to check out the warehouse more thoroughly.
Zimlok makes for the Grubby Elbow to see if he can find Šati or her crew as they watch Kareb
make off like a shadow in the other direction. Meanwhile, Mherren updates them on events
in the warehouse by magic message before following the Kenku Illusionist into the smoky and
rowdy drinking den.
*
While events pan out upon the Dead Calm, Viper the Quasit, invisible and silent, creeps into
warehouse to see a pale and sinister-looking Dwarf holding a barrel, standing stock-still
before the levelled halberds of three city militia-men and the handsomely moustachioed
Captain Manherring.
The warehouse space is full of barrels that smell of fish or beer. There is no sign of any of the
explosives allegedly bought from Stan’s store on the Shimbles. Viper edges a door open to
find a grizzled individual sitting at an important-looking desk in a side office, casually
flipping a dagger as he listens calmly to the commotion beyond his room.
Another room contains a small table littered with parchments and ledgers, and a large
bookshelf covering one of the walls. Lifting out a tome that looked curiously dust-free, Viper
finds a button which he presses, and reveals a crawlspace that leads through into a secret
room at the back of the warehouse.
Here he finds Šati, who is listening intently at the wall and doesn’t notice the tiny impish
presence entering the room. In here are some large barrels that look to be stuffed with what
look like grenades of all shapes and sizes. A trapdoor is open in the floor, and Viper slinks
down into a tunnel that leads beneath the docks to a hidden bay where he finds a moored
sloop – the same one that the companions travelled in from the Old Margreve to Zobeck.
Another hidden alcove contains more barrels that are sealed but stink of gunpowder.
He returns to the main room of the warehouse, past the furtively listening Šati, to find that
the guards have arrested Slobbi the Duergar along with the man from the side office. Both
look fairly unperturbed by their predicament.
Realising that the watchmen will soon be leaving, Mherren slinks away from his place by the
main doors and takes refuge on the roof of an adjacent building next to the tavern. He observes
Captain Manherring leaving with his prisoners, and sees Zimlok making his way past him
into the Grubby Elbow.
But just as he is about to shimmy down to join the Wizard, he hears a door creaking open
below him and through Viper’s eyes sees a rotund and impressively horned individual step
outside and looking up at the roof. His skin has a pinkish hue and a long tail twitches from
beneath his open robe. His pot belly, and indeed all of his exposed skin from top to bottom, is
scarified with strange runic tattoos. Fearing he is about to be discovered, and not knowing by
whom, Mherren telepathically instructs Viper to cause a diversion.
From beneath the tethered horse and trap, Viper whistles and calls out: “Over here!”
Distracted, the Tiefling hikes up his robes and runs inelegantly towards Viper’s location, but
of course the mischievous Quasit has already vanished. Mherren takes his opportunity to
jump down from the roof and follow Zimlok into the tavern.
*
From their vantage point upon the other outbuilding, Lightstrike, Haji Baba and the eternally
trusting Claude watch this little drama play out, ready to intervene should things go awry,
but preferring to remain unseen. They shush Claude as he nearly exclaims aloud, “Look!
There’s the boss!”
They remain hidden and watch as Šati pokes her head out of the warehouse, checks to see if
the coast is clear, and runs across to knock on the door of the building that the Tiefling just
exited, before opening it and slipping inside.
And they remain hidden and watch as the tattooed Tiefling makes his way with a look of
confusion on his face towards the Grubby Elbow, where Zimlok and Mherren have just found
Yanis and Edeila enjoying a horn of ale.
Haji Baba and Lightstrike are in a dilemma. Should they follow Šati and confront her about
her involvement with these supposed members of the Cloven Nine and their gunpowder plot?
Should they go to the tavern in case their friends need their help? (Or, most likely, will they just
ignore everything they’ve witnessed, drop this meticulously plotted quest altogether, raise anchor and
set sail with their newfound skeleton army to become roving pirates of the high seas? – DM.)
“I don’t know which way to turn,” whispers Haji Baba to Lightstrike. “Šati seemed genuine
enough, but it would appear that she works for a gang that’s allied to Orcus, Demon-Lord of
the Undead. But then, what if this Mouse King is as evil as she said and by blowing him up
they’re doing Zobeck a favour? We don’t even know if the authorities aren’t themselves
corrupt! Who is this Consul Brethan, and why does he tie himself to a bunch of red-masked
assassins in the employ of some… what was it?... Light Touch?”
Lightstrike’s eyes widen and his jaw drops open in dismay. “Light Touch, you say?”
“Yes, I think that was what Kareb said.”
Lightstrike has turned pale with shock, yet his feline eyes gleam with excitement. “Light
Touch is the name of my mentor, who disappeared all those years ago!”
In the darkness, nobody notices the turbulence in the waters near the Dead Calm, where forty
submerged skeletons are turning the harbour red with fish blood in a kind of motiveless and
methodical feeding frenzy.
Sword of Air
Episode XV
“Teeth & toes, people!”
An obese figure flings open the door to the Grubby Elbow tavern, wherein sit the brutish halforc, Mherren, and Zimlok the Lightbringer with Yanis and Edeila. He sidles over to their table
and plonks himself down, his long robe falling open as he slouches back, to reveal his
repulsively rotund and hairy belly.
Mherren recognises the robe and deduces that this porky pirate is none other than the same
individual that he saw moments earlier, only he was a Tiefling then with long horns and
tattoos covering his body. “Must be some sort of glamour,” he messages to Zimlok.
The ‘pirate’ ignores the two companions and speaks gruffly to the Utherwickians: “I need you
two to poke around a bit for me. Heard something scratting around on my roof earlier. Think
it might be rats, if you get my gist,” he drawls deeply. “And while you’re at it, check up on
that drunken Duergar, Slob, and make sure he’s helping Šati get the sharpers and cussers
ready to go."
Yanis and Edeila down their ales and hurry off obediently, leaving Mherren and Zimlok alone
with the glamoured Tiefling.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” he says courteously, although every syllable seems
to drip with menace. As Zimlok introduces himself cheerily, the Tiefling, who calls himself
Izachar, swiftly realises they are a part of the group that travelled south with the smugglers,
and offers them rich reward to scout out the exact location of the Mouse King’s hideout
beneath the city. When Zimlok hesitates, Izachar casually slaps a hefty pouch of gold on to
the table (35 gold pieces). It would appear the heroes’ reputation precedes them.
Meanwhile, Haji Baba and Lightstrike persuade Claude to go after Captain Manherring and
the militiamen who have arrested Slobbi and the dockmaster. They then approach the hut that
Šati slipped into a moment ago (and out of which Izachar emerged). The crude door is marked
with arcane runes and decorated with bones.
The door opens to reveal a large mahogany desk upon which sits the skull of an enormous
ram or goat. Šati, peering cautiously from behind the door, is pleased to see her friends, and
quickly offers them the same task that Izachar has just proposed to the Wizard and the
Warlock. She rummages around in a back room and finds a crude map of Zobeck on which is
marked the area, near the Great Library in the city plaza, where they suspect the Mouse King
has his lair. “We’ve narrowed it down to this area, near Pelor’s Head,” she says.
They tell Šati that they saw an overweight Tiefling go towards the tavern, and she gratefully
accompanies them there, where she greets Mherren and Zimlok and tells Izachar of the raid
at the warehouse by a patrol of city watchmen. Izachar looks highly concerned by this news,
and makes his excuses to leave after imploring the adventurers to waste no time in carrying
out their mission. “We’ll deal with the militia and shift our stash, but we must find him and
strike soon, before he gets wind of our plans. He has eyes everywhere…” he growls, and with
an arrogant gait he rolls out of the pub with Šati in tow.
The comrades make their way to the centre of Zobeck and find accommodation for the night
at the plushly décored Drunken Dragon Inn, although not before Mherren grasps the
bloodstone and magically orders the forty skeletons beneath the pier to have a nap and only
wake up if they’re attacked. “Okay, boss,” they cheerfully reply as one from beneath the
murky harbour waters.
The next morning, the heroes venture boldly into a grand, cathedral-like building on the city
square, replete with shining spires and towering double doors: it is the Great Library of
Zobeck. Perhaps they will find access to the sewers within? Already it is bustling with cowled
and bespectacled figures, and a preoccupied librarian ushers the Fellowship inside with
barely a glance.
They approach an important-looking fellow with a pince-nez and a few wisps of hair clinging
resolutely to his pate, who introduces himself as Erasmus, the principal of this imposing
edifice. When the companions mention Mordenkainen and the Meditations of a Biobliognost, he
happily directs them towards Winnifred, whose domain apparently is the top floor.
After some searching, for the place is truly vast, containing no less nor more than three million,
four hundred thousand and seventy-eight volumes, they happen across a feeble-looking crone
balancing precariously atop a very high ladder and straining to put a book in its place on one
of the highest shelves. “Ahem,” Zimlok clears his throat politely. The woman’s knee buckles
as she reaches full stretch; she wobbles for a few moments, spinning her arms wildly in a vain
attempt to regain her balance, and plummets from her vertiginous perch only to be deftly
caught by Lightstrike’s mage hand (Inspiration for quick-thinking there, Lightstrike - DM).
Once her nerves have recovered, Mherren tells her of Mordenkainen’s suggestion that they
should meet with her, while Lightstrike rummages through Haji Baba’s bag of holding to find
the Meditations of a Biobliognost, unwittingly draping his companions with an array of hats,
boots, cloaks, scrolls and knitted socks in the process. Ankle-deep in weaponry and treasury,
his feline head finally emerges from the bag with a triumphant grin, which quickly turns to
confusion as he is met only with scowls of irritation.
Winnifred explains that she can show them the way to the “Specialist Archive” (wherein are
kept those volumes that are hidden to keep the world safe from dangerous knowledge), and
leads the party to a strange extension of an aisle that projects out from between bookshelves
into the empty space above the main atrium of the library. It resembles a ship’s gang plank,
or a diving board, except that below is not water but a precipitous drop of nearly a hundred
metres down to the cold, hard slate slabs that form the ground floor far below.
“You must walk off the edge,” she tells them breezily, “holding the Meditations of a Biobliognost
upside down before you. Have faith!” (And the heroes are reminded of a scene from an old
mummer’s play called Indiana Jones and Ye Last Crusade – DM.)
After some nervous deliberation and cajoling of the Druid, our doughty adventurers pluck
up courage and step off the edge into nothingness…
… And tumble into a swirling vortex of energy that appears below them and, after much
tumbling through twisting psychedelic wormholes, spits them out upon a metallic golden
bridge.
The bridge leads across a stygian moat to a gleaming edifice that is architecturally identical to
the Great Library in Zobeck, except that it glows with a blinding golden radiance whose
source is a great orb atop its central spire. All around them is endless blackness, perforated
only by an occasional star. There is no earth, no sky, no horizon – only the void of space
reaching out into an endless, cold nothingness.
Mherren feels a shiver run through him and his hairs stand on end, but the companions
nevertheless press on across the bridge and reach the massive, glowing double doors, which
creak open at their approach. A head pokes out: it is Winnifred! Except it is not, quite, for as
the heroes follow her inside they are disturbed to see that she no longer walks nor dodders,
but glides along silently upon writhing suckered tentacles.
Sinister-Winnifred brings them to a lectern upon which rests a large, open volume that she
calls ‘The Index’ and insists they must sign and read for guidance in finding what they seek.
Zimlok scoffs and elbows her out of the way to begin leafing through the pages (Inspiration
due there, methinks, for pure rashness – DM), but he is immediately transfixed by the magical
tome and cannot wrench his gaze away. His eyes burn and his whole body courses with
agonising waves of pain until he feels blackness closing in and the bliss of unconsciousness
beckoning. His face contorts in deranged madness and even his beak seems to buckle and
twist, when all of a sudden the agony lifts and he is blessed with an ecstatic vision of two
books floating in his mind’s eye. One is bound in human skin and its pages are made from the
skin of a poisonous frog; the other is bound in dark scaly leather and is embossed with a
glowing simian eye. Indecipherable whisperings seem to emerge from these books and fill
Zimlok’s mind with maddening incomprehensible voices, before the excruciating agony
returns in one final wave, washing away the images and leaving him stunned and shaken.
At that moment an elderly man shuffles towards them and introduces himself as Senuthius
the Ageless, eternal custodian of the Astral Library of Athenaeum. He explains that the library
was created by followers of the god Arden in a more dangerous age, when society and its
store of knowledge was under threat of extinction from barbarian hordes, to protect those
tomes deemed most esoteric and profound, or most destructive and infernal. Athenaeum itself
is beyond time and space, safely hidden away in the astral dimension. Senuthius has resided
here peacefully for centuries, and here he must stay, for he would crumble to dust should he
ever venture back to the plane of mortal existence.
He tells the companions that the orb atop the library’s spire is an Eye of Arden, an immensely
powerful relic that wards against evil. The heroes are reminded of a conversation they had
with Mordenkainen: he spoke of Arden, the God of Light, who is nowadays little known or
worshipped, who sacrificed himself to combat some demon army, and banished it from the
world in an ancient war near-forgotten. He said the orb at Sparrowkeep was thought to be the
Eye of Arden, too, and he was greatly perturbed by the companions’ reports of its growing
intensity of heat.
Senuthius then proceeds to ramble on to the heroes about Winnifred, who has glided off to
do some cataloguing or some such, telling them she is one of the last remaining priests of
Arden, magically bound to guard the portal in Zobeck and grant or deny access to the astral
library. She submitted to her soul being magically divided from her body to manage both ends
of the portal. “In Zobeck you met her physical form,” Senuthius explains. “Here you see her
spirit-form. I must say, none of us were expecting her spirit to be half-cuttlefish. But there you
go – you think you know someone, huh?”
He obviously looks forward to visitors, who mostly comprise great wizards and sages, and
more rarely heroes and kings searching for rare nuggets of lore, and so is pleased to welcome
the Fellowship and gladly shows them to the Restricted Area in which are kept books and
scrolls of darkest necromancy, witchcraft and demonism. “The last to visit was a wizard of
some sort, I believe,” he frowns as he struggles to recall. “But I’m afraid I appear to have quite
forgotten his name.”
He temporarily disables the magic mouth ward in the hideous brass doorknocker of the
blackened oak door to the Restricted Area, and proceeds to fumble around in a dizzyingly
improbable array of pockets for the correct key. All this time, Zimlok has been trying to
describe the vision he saw in great detail, but with little success, when he suddenly remembers
his minor illusion spell. A few arcane utterances later, and two disturbingly bound holographic
tomes are hovering between his feathered fingers.
“Ah,” says Senuthius as he finally produces the key he’s been searching for. “The Psalms of the
Frog, a demonic psalter of indescribable evil, and the Shaghaspondium, a forbidden tome that
is said to contain the True Name of Demogorgon.”
Mherren’s eyes light up at this last title, for the Shaghaspondium is the very book that his patron
has commanded him to recover, for which he has been searching for years and had all but
given up on ever locating!
The door clicks open and Senuthius beckons the Fellowship into the chamber, which is dark
and thick with dust. He gestures and a dim magical light diffuses through the musty, stale air.
There seems to be some kind of scrabbling noise coming from the far end of the room.
Lightstrike, distrustful still of this apparently harmless old man, escorts him bodily down the
eerie aisles between racks of books and parchment scrolls marked with strange runes and
glyphs not dissimilar to those upon Izachar’s brig. Mherren recognises them as Abyssal signs
– this whole chamber is a Warlock’s intellectual heaven!
The scrabbling sounds grow louder as Senuthius reaches for a sliding ladder, and without
warning a book hurls itself off a shelf and straight at Lightstrike’s face. Taken unawares, he
frantically swats at the thing as it sinks its serrated pages into his nose. Another animated
book, complete with little hands and feet, leaps at Zimlok and fastens on to his beak, but
Mherren plucks it off and deftly ties it up with his belt. Haji Baba casts thornwhip and tears out
its pages, rips apart the other book-monster and grabs hold of Senuthius by his collar as the
feral books flop open, dead.
“What kind of a joint are you running here, old man?” she screams into his face, all three and
a half feet of her livid and quivering with rage, veins bulging in her dainty half-elven forehead.
He turns ghostly white and stammers something apologetically about the unpredictable
powers in demonic texts: “I’ll get on to finding your books right away.” (I like this unhinged
psychopath version of Haji Baba that’s emerging; have some Inspiration – DM.)
Senuthius climbs the ladders and searches extensively, mumbling to himself in an increasing
state of distraction. “They must be here – they can’t have just disappeared…” Eventually he
clambers down with a look of helpless confusion on his face. “I’m terribly sorry,” he gibbers.
“I just can’t understand it. Both books, well, they appear to have… gone!”
But before he must suffer another splenetic torrent of Haji Baba’s decidedly un-druidic bouts
of rage, the magic mouth at the door pipes up: “Intruders! Alert! Intruders!”
The heroes rush to the mezzanine balcony, where they look over into the atrium to see
Winnifred prone on the floor. Over her still body stand six heavily-muscled and swarthy
warriors armed with spears, and another of more diminutive stature carrying a staff from
which hang coloured tassels, tokens and rags. All seven of these intruders have the heads of
bulbous-eyed toads, and in those alien eyes the friends see nothing but bloodlust.
Haji Baba unhesitatingly stuffs handkerchiefs into her ears and runs at the creatures to unleash
a thunderwave. The sorcerer-frog responds with a lightning bolt that knocks down part of a wall
on to the Druid. She narrowly avoids a spear, as Lightstrike gives covering fire from above.
Mherren steps forth and commands the creatures in Abyssal: “Leave!” he booms, and the frogsorcerer and one of his heavies turn and walk from the combat.
Zimlok casts colour spray, blinding three of the warriors, as Haji Baba cracks another with
sizzling lightning from her thunderstaff. But she cannot avoid the thrusting spears and
retreats, bloodied.
Mherren charges at a toadman with his greatsword, Pyron, held aloft and a manic look in his
orcish eyes. As he bears down upon the creature and the huge blade arcs through, the
toadman gulps and cheeses it in the opposite direction.
A flameblade now flaming from Haji Baba’s hand, she slices at her opponent to draw a
signature H on his chest before running him through. Mherren hacks another to pieces in a
frenzy, his face splattered with amphibious blood. Meanwhile Lightstrike swings
acrobatically out of a window and back in through another one to impale a toadman with his
rapier. (Nice move, dude; have some Inspiration – DM.)
Zimlok conjures magic missiles, but he gets a bit overexcited and misses his targets by some
considerable distance. The magical darts bounce harmlessly off the walls and lightly singe
some priceless works of scholarship.
The sorcerer, having shaken off Mherren’s command and returned to the fray, creeps up
behind the Warlock. But Mherren spins around and the sorcerer-frog is met by a hulking
blood-streaked Half-Orc Warlock with a hissing demonic Quasit on his shoulder. Frozen with
terror, the creature cannot even react as Mherren swings at him with his greatsword.
The wizardly Kenku pulls himself together and casts Tasha’s hideous laughter from his vantage
point. The bewildered frog-sorcerer snorts, then giggles a little, before dissolving into fits of
uncontrollable hysteria, rolling around on the floor and clutching his belly as his toady face
contorts into a grotesque mockery of helpless amusement.
… And Mherren plunges Pyron into the creature’s heart. “Not so funny now, huh?” he quips.
(Or arguably should have – DM. Have Inspiration anyway for being suitably murderous, Mherren.)
Haji Baba, her flameblade now extinguished, draws her goblin shortbow too tight so that the
string snaps and twangs her on the nose (shoddy Goblin workmanship, right?). Zimlok pulls Jim
from his pack and expertly dispatches a toadman with a carefully- (or should that be “flukily”?)
aimed quarrel. Throwing her bow away in disgust, Haji Baba flicks one her throwing knives
at the last remaining warrior and the blade lodges, fatally, between its toady eyes.
As the companions recover their breath and bandage their wounds, Senuthius returns from a
side room and thanks them profusely for saving him and his books. He is confounded as to
how these intruders reached the extradimensional library, and he exhorts the company
passionately to discover the source of the attack.
“Also, I found this,” he adds. “It’s a very well-respected work by the renowned historian,
Jaladh. Very comprehensive, and reliable, too. If you study its pages you should find some
clues to whatever it is you seek.”
Zimlok takes it upon himself to scour the hefty tome. “Wizard’s work, this,” he claims
snootily. He peers closely at it for hours with what he hopes is an expression of erudite
scholarship, and eventually and quite randomly hits upon a passage in Annals Book III, Chapter
LXV, Verses 52-66, that describes the ancient kingdom of Arcady during the reign of Bahotep.
It describes a demon-beyond-demons, a Great Old One, who came from beyond the stars to
wreak devastation upon the realms of mankind. Only Hecate, Goddess of Night and Evil
Magic, would answer this challenge, and forged with the aid of the Djinn a magical weapon
that had the power to turn the tide against this unassailable foe and its legions of demonic
servants. It is recorded that this miraculous deed was accomplished by a sorcerer and advisor
to the throne, a devotee of Hecate named Aka Bakar, although of what happened to him and
how the war was finally won, Jaladh does not speak. (See your electronic parchment hand-out for
the full passage – DM.)
Zimlok copies down the passage as his decidedly bloodthirsty companions hack away at the
bodies of the dead toadmen for parts. “Teeth and toes, people,” he hears Haji Baba instructing,
although Lightstrike just elects to drag an entire corpse with him.
And so the Fellowship take their leave of Senuthius the Ageless, and, holding the Meditations
of a Bibliognost the right way up this time, they step back into the whirling energy pool that
appears beyond the golden bridge, and within moments of kaleidoscopic tripping to mystic
sitar music they are spat out upon the balcony at the top of the Great Library in Zobeck.
They tell the waiting Winnifred of the attack on Athenaeum and her brow furrows with
worry. “Nothing travelled through the portal,” she says. “And of course, you weren’t gone
for any time at all.” She mentally connects with her spirit-self on the Astral Plane (who is now
conscious), her skin flushing through multiple chameleon-colours as she does so. Then worry
turns to horror: “I saw them approach from the Void! They came from the Void of Space!”
Before it closes, Lightstrike boots his toad-corpse back into the vortex in disgust.
Anybody watching the companions as they leave the library would wonder what in the
heavens had occurred in that bastion of civilisation, for they emerge blinking into the light
bruised, bloodied and torn as hooded, monkish figures nervously duck past them with their
bundles of books. Erasmus, the principal librarian, just returning from his lunchbreak with a
nice sandwich, is too polite to question their grizzled appearance.
“How do we get in the sewers?” Zimlok demands.
Erasmus blinks, perplexed, from behind his pince-nez. “Erm, well the best way, I suppose, if
one wanted to do such a thing, might be to head into the old cartways that run beneath the
city, and head for the buried statue of Pelor,” he stammers. “Through the archway, yonder.”
He gestures to a yawning tunnel that opens beneath the eaves of some adjoining buildings.
“Thank you,” says Zimlok, curtly, and the four companions head off for the yawning
darkness, leaving Erasmus standing on the steps to the Great Library, still blinking, his
sandwich fallen from his hand and being whisked away by an opportunistic rat.
*
The camera zooms out, out from our four intrepid heroes, smeared with blood and stalking
across the city plaza, out from the fair and free City of Zobeck, out from the lush valley of the
Argent and its patchwork of agricultural fields, out from the Realm of Yore with its forests
and mountains and plains, out and out and out to the spherical surface of a great crystal orb
inside of which all these things are seen.
Seen by whom? You may well wonder, for two hands rest lightly upon the surface of the orb,
and a hooded figure in silhouette nods with satisfaction as he gazes upon the image of the
Fellowship, blissfully unaware that they are being magically scried upon.
“Yes,” whispers the figure. “Yes. They will do nicely…” [close curtain]
Sword of Air
Episode XVI
“Down ’n’ Dirty”
After recuperating at the Inn of the Drunken Dragon, our fearless band of adventurers return
to the central plaza of Zobeck at dusk. Next to the Great Library are the dark arches that
Erasmus told them lead to the Cartways and the statue of Pelor, near to which Izachar
suspected the Mouse King’s den might be located. The heroes venture in beneath the arches,
and find themselves in a high, wide and airy passageway lit dimly with occasional torches. It
seems the people of Zobeck use some of these tunnels as thoroughfares, for there are a few
people hurrying through the shadows and casting furtive glances as they pass by.
Lightstrike and Mherren approach a street hawker, whose ramshackle table is strewn with
various cheap-looking trinkets and bric-a-brac. She tells Mherren that the Cartways are part
of the Old City of Zobeck, now half-buried and built over, and only parts of which are open
for public use (and many of those parts are inadvisable to use as they have become the haunts
of thieves and vagabonds). She also confirms that the statue of Pelor can be found deeper in
the tunnel complex, describing him as an old and half-forgotten god of hope and harvest.
They flip her a few copper pieces for her time and return to their companions.
As the passageway inclines downwards and begins to split into smaller, windier tunnels, the
heroes’ confidence falters. Lightstrike grabs hold of a passing civilian and demands to know
the way to the statue of Pelor. The man struggles to break free of the wereleopard’s grasp and
fearfully confirms they are on the right track, before running off scowling. Sure enough, the
companions shortly hear the sound of running water, and soon they are following a swiftmoving, foul-smelling channel that seems to flow down towards the city’s sewer system.
Some way ahead they hear the sounds of some kind of altercation, so Lightstrike creeps
forward to investigate. At a junction between passageways he finds a halfling surrounded by
four men. They are all swarthy, hard-nosed types with dirty clothes and carrying curved
knives or scimitars. The halfling has a staff from which dangle a few dead rats, and from his
belt hang several rat pelts. He seems to be making a brave attempt to hold his own against
these bandits, but he is sorely outsized and outnumbered. From the shadows Mherren
messages him but he seems improbably confident of his own capabilities, in spite of the
Warlock’s offer of help.
But Lightstrike, impulsive as ever, reveals himself and boldly confronts the outlaws. Their
burly leader, Regon, squares up to him and scoffs at his posturing, as his cronies continue to
press in on the unfortunate halfling. But their expressions soon change as Lightstrike morphs
into a snarling leopard and a Druid’s arrow flies out of the darkness, its mark true. Mherren
steps forward and unleashes an agonising eldritch blast upon the bandit leader, who after
emitting a howl of pain responds by rushing the Half-Orc and slashing at him with knives
and scimitar.
Lightstrike pounces and sinks his teeth into the bandit’s back, but just as he shakes off the redtoothed cat he is shrunk to the size of a mouse by Zimlok the Magical. Haji Baba entangles the
squeaking, protesting bandit and hauls him towards Mherren, who unhesitatingly and
decisively decapitates him with his greatsword, Pyron. Meanwhile Lightstrike leaps at the
bandit still holding the halfling and tears chunks from his shoulders.
Seeing their leader so brutally dealt with and their comrade being savaged by a terrifying
leopard, the remaining bandits surrender at Zimlok’s demand. The heroes tie them up and
take their gold (15 gp). Lightstrike speaks to them in thieves’ cant, a language that comprises
a mixture of coded hand signals and jumbled words that to the untrained ear sound oddly
like incredibly posh gibberish. Perhaps feeling some empathy for fellow rogues, he offers to
employ them as mercenaries, to which they hastily agree. But the halfling, who, it turns out,
as a Rogue also can understand all that they say, spits in disgust and proceeds to clinically
despatch them with a hidden dagger.
Before he can kill the last remaining prisoner, Haji Baba intervenes and holds him teetering
on the edge of the underground river. Zimlok manages to persuade her to have mercy, for the
halfling tells them he is “The Ratcatcher”, whose job is to control vermin in the sewers, and
he knows these tunnels like the back of his own hand. Thinking quickly, Zimlok introduces
the Fellowship as a group of historians researching the architecture of Old Zobeck, for he
recognises that this feisty vermin-hunter can show them the way to Pelor’s statue and possibly
even take them into the Mouse King’s lair. Haji Baba reluctantly releases her grip on The
Ratcatcher, and the remaining bandit is released after one last warning to “be afraid of the
Historians of Kagonost”.
Following The Ratcatcher through more twists and turns of the ever-descending Cartways,
they eventually emerge into a cavernous space that echoes with the sound of rushing, falling
water. There are various walkways and gantries at different levels, but no torches are lit down
here. With their darkvision, the heroes can make out a gargantuan head of crumbling hewn
stone at the far side of the cavern. It is regal-looking and impressive despite its state of
disrepair. Sewer pipes emerge from one eye and a waterfall of effluent-rich water cascades
from its mouth.
“Here is Pelor,” announces The Ratcatcher. “Once a glorious god, worshipped by many, but
now reduced to watch over the city’s waste and detritus. Here’s a strange thing: only this
week I swear I saw a rat floating along on a pile of debris around here, and before my very
eyes a great big toad hopped on to the island and devoured the rat whole. Never have I
witnessed such a thing, for the rats in these sewers are big. And mean.”
Gesturing for them to follow, The Ratcatcher (whose name they gather is Felix) crosses the
cave and shins nimbly up to Pelor’s gaping mouth. Zimlok vaults after him using his magical
staff and Lightstrike backflips up there, throwing in a few twists for effect. Before Haji Baba
can spider climb up, Mherren grabs her by the elbow and asks with an embarrassed look if he
can borrow her slippers of spider climb. After struggling to wedge his feet into them, the fabric
almost bursting at the seams, he follows the others to find The Ratcatcher heaving
ineffectually at one of Pelor’s molars (Note for the Historians of Kagonost: the attention to detail on
this statue is uncanny; he must indeed have once been an important deity – DM).
“Stand aside,” says Mherren gruffly, and casually throws the loose stone tooth aside. The
comrades cringe at the noise, but it is drowned out by the sound of the torrent next to them.
Mherren has revealed a large hole in Pelor’s gum, and an iron rung ladder leading down into
darkness. Lightstrike unhesitatingly slides down the ladder (Inspiration), the others following
more conventionally.
The Ratcatcher remains at the top of the ladder: “I think this way you’ll find whom you seek,”
he says with a wink, and disappears to leave our heroes in a cramped, stinking tunnel through
which runs a slow-moving stream of the city’s waste and excrement. It seems they have found
themselves in some kind of isolated sub-layer of the city sewers; perhaps an older section
compared to the one they were just in. Mherren and Zimlok almost faint at the stench, but
Haji Baba manages to revive them with some of her druidic herbs.
As she replaces the herbs in her sack, her fingertips brush the bloodstone from the Dead Calm.
Curiosity gripping her, she takes it out and attempts to make contact with the skeletons. To
her surprise, forty skeletal heads, ribcages, and finally full skeletons rise immediately from
the filth of the sewer. “Hello, Master!” they say cheerily. “Skeletons at your service!”
The Druid is pleased to find she can use the bloodstone to summon the skeletons at will, but
the companions decide that having forty skeletons clacking along behind them might
somewhat compromise their stealth, and so Haji Baba reluctantly commands her skeletal
army to return to the earth. The bloodstone glows red as they dissolve back beneath the faecal
tunnel floor.
The adventurers are faced with many passageways to choose from, and, managing for the
most part to stick to the edges and avoid wading through the putrid slurry, eventually find
their way to a chasm down which the sewer waters pour, and around which a slippery flight
of uneven stairs wind. A frog flops out of their way, rodent eyes shine from dark nooks, and
shadows scurry into shadows in this creepy, festering place. The ceiling drips incessantly and
despite their efforts every step seems to echo infinitely off the glistening walls.
Now even deeper underground, the heroes find one way overgrown with some kind of sickly
yellow mould. Unwilling to risk inhaling its spores, Haji Baba and Lightstrike investigate
another tunnel and come face to face with a giant rat. It leaps at the Arcane Trickster and bites
his flank with rotten-looking teeth. But whatever diseases it carries, Lightstrike throws off the
effects and the beast is swiftly dealt with by Haji Baba’s flame blade. (Grrr! – DM.)
Not far away, Mherren the Malevolent and Zimlok the Lightbringer have found a well, from
which seem to be coming whispers that draw them helplessly closer. As they draw near,
emerging tentatively from the well is a tentacle with a frond-like tip, in the centre of which is
a large blinking eye. Mherren’s hand instinctively reaches for his sword hilt, but before he can
draw the blade a deep and ponderous voices echoes up to them from the bottom of the well.
“’Ave you got any food?” it says. “I’m ever so hungry.”
“Who are you?” asks Mherren warily.
A three-legged hippo-like monster with snaking tentacles and a huge, cruelly-toothed maw
clambers up with difficulty and squeezes out of the dry well. The Wizard and Warlock take a
few steps backward as Rogue and Druid keep their distance at the other side of the well.
“I’m Oswald,” says the gruesome creature. “Oswald the Otyugh. Did you say you’ve got some
food?”
“What are you doing down here?” says Mherren.
“I live here. This is my home. I’m garbage disposal for that lot,” says the Otyugh, gesturing
vaguely behind him with one tentacle.
“For what lot?”
“Them rat-men,” says Oswald. “Erm… Didn’t you say you’ve brought some food?”
Lightstrike throws him the giant rat, which the Otyugh gulps down greedily and disgustingly.
“Ah, that’s better,” he says with a big gulp, a satisfied sigh and a loud lick of his lips with his
massive, pink tongue. “Barbequed rat – mmm – much better than the rubbish they normally
feed me.”
“Where can we find these rat-men?” asks Haji Baba.
“There’s some through that way, where the wall’s broken down,” says Oswald sleepily. “Erm,
if you don’t mind, I’m going for a little nap now. Helps my digestion. Thanks for the snack.
I’ll see you later.” And he belly-flops back into the well.
Indeed, there is a passageway leading behind the sewer wall where some bricks have fallen
or been pulled away. Lightstrike turns to hybrid form and slips through, followed by Zimlok.
Haji Baba grips a knife between her teeth and moves creepily along the low ceiling with spider
climb, as does Mherren, palm on Pyron’s heavy pommel, but he bumps his head on the floor
a emits an audible “Ow!”
Ahead the companions hear the distinctive metallic sound of drawn blades.
As the secret passage opens into a small room, a wererat leaps forward and slashes wildly at
Haji Baba. There are two more wererats in the room, but both are slammed into the walls by
Zimlok’s dust devil. Lightstrike casts ray of frost, and one wererat turns to ice and shatters into
shards. Haji Baba and Mherren enact their now-trademark tag-team manoeuvre: the Druid
lassos an adversary with thornwhip, and Mherren finishes it off with a crossbow bolt to the
jugular.
The last wererat staggers dazed to its feet and flees up some spiral stairs in the corner of the
room. Lightstrike follows in hot pursuit, finding another similar room upstairs with a few bits
of furniture, which leads back into the higher sewer level – but his quarry is gone, and his
keen leopard’s sense of smell is thwarted by the thick stench of the sewers.
He returns to the others, and with his lock picks he sets to work on a chest they’ve found.
After manipulating his picks for a short while, the tumblers finally roll and he nudges the
mechanism open with a satisfying click. Inside are 65 gold pieces. There is not much else in
this room, except for the large bookcases against two of the walls. Some of the books are in
Dwarfish scripts and appear to refer to the Ironcrag Cantons to the west, and there are other,
older fonts that none of the companions recognise; but the few written in the common tongue
of Yore seem to document the long history of Zobeck in detail.
Mherren finds reference to the sacking of the city many centuries ago by the Khorians, whose
once-great empire included what is now the southern kingdom of Nuria. He is intrigued by a
passage that tells of a selfless mage called Senuthius, who saved many important texts from
the barbaric Khorians by duplicating the Great Library in another dimension, and who made
the great sacrifice of sentencing himself to an eternity guarding that precious knowledge in
the ageless demiplane of Athenaeum.
From where he has pulled the books from the shelves, Mherren detects a cool breeze. Sure
enough, on investigation the companions find another secret passage leading from behind the
bookcase. They climb through and Zimlok, equipped with his impressive eidetic memory,
flips the books back into place behind them in a decidedly show-offy way, so that it looks like
they never found the secret tunnel (in case the escaped wererat returns with reinforcements).
The Fellowship proceed into what seems to be a natural tunnel, or at least one dug out crudely
rather than constructed and lined with brick like the sewers they came from. This tunnel is
dry, spilling occasional showers of sand from its ceiling, and smells less of sewage and more
of rotting refuse. It winds further down before opening up into a small cavern, littered with
bones and remnants of garbage, from which two passages lead away. Down one the comrades
can hear the contented snoring of a large beast, which they assume to be Oswald, and from
down the other come the faint, muffled sounds of conversation.
The heroes decide to follow the second tunnel, and shortly their curiosity is rewarded, for
before them in the centre of another cave is a small, round hut faced with straw: Baba Yaga’s
hut!
In his excitement Zimlok quite forgets their ninja-like clandestine approach and squawks a
cheery “Hello!” at full volume.
A face they recognise, though slightly bruised and battered, pokes out from the doorway. It’s
Captain Manherring, his expertly waxed handlebar moustache looking dishevelled and
droopy.
“What in the heavens are you doing here?” he asks in amazement.
“We seek Baba Yaga,” bluffs Zimlok, thinking quickly. “We have things we wish to ask of
her.”
“Hmm. Very well, then. I suppose you’d better come in,” he says, and the heroes enter the
Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga – all except for Mherren, who stays on guard outside.
Inside the hut, they are met with an unlikely collection of faces. Sat around in a circle are nine
individuals, including the Captain, and one animal. Upon a tall, audibly groaning stool is
perched Baba Yaga, at her feet a contentedly burping goat.
Next to her in a high-backed chair is a ratty-featured man in a blue silk nightcap and
embroidered silk dressing gown. He is flanked by three others, all with the same rodential
features. One is rather sinister-looking and has heavy gold rings in his ears. The second is tall
and carries himself with a scholarly air. The third has oversized ears and looks a little dopey,
cocking his head constantly from side to side as though listening intently.
Opposite them is a rotund, ruddy-faced and self-important-looking old man with thick
mutton chops, expensive clothing and slightly soiled knee-length leather boots.
The last two are a pair of pirates, judging by their garb. The first, draped languidly across
some cushions, is a young man with an eye patch, a flamboyant tricorn hat, flouncy shirt,
buckled shoes and dirty overcoat. His companion is a young woman, self-assured and
dangerous-looking, her leather boots reaching her thighs. Appearing rather disinterested in
the newcomers, she is instead paying close attention to her nails. Her skin is deathly pale and
she smells faintly of perfume and dried flowers.
Baba Yaga is the first to speak, addressing our heroes from her perch: “These are the ones I
told you about,” she croaks by way of introduction to the circle around her. “The ones of
whom the prophecy spoke. Young adventurers, let me introduce you to the Consul Brethan,
the Rat King and his close advisors, Snorg, Nork and Plooka… and I believe you already know
Captain Manherring.” The Captain nods formally. “And these two are Shurq Elalle and…”
“Corazon de Ballena,” says the male pirate rather shrilly and with a pronounced lisp, as he
leaps agilely to his feet. “Legendary pirate and swashbuckler extraordinaire, at your service.”
He makes a deep and affected bow, doffing his oversized tricorn, as his pale and taciturn
associate rolls her eyes as though deeply unimpressed.
The Consul Brethan also gets up, rather stiffly, from his chair, and glares at Baba Yaga. “They
might very well be in your prophecy, but they’re damn well not supposed to be down here!”
Baba Yaga is unphased by the Consul’s outburst, and the Rat King also remains impassive as
the one called Snorg whispers something in his ear.
All nine faces look expectantly to our intrepid companions as Baba Yaga gestures towards
them to take a seat and to introduce themselves to this strange council.
Sword of Air
Episode 17
At the Court of the Rat King
In Baba Yaga’s peculiar magical hut, the adventurers find out that the witch has come to warn the Rat King
(who maintains the status quo in the underground and black markets of Zobeck) and the Consul Brethan
(responsible for civic affairs) of the impending threat from the East. She has brought with her Martha the
goat, inside of whom is a hare containing a duck containing an egg containing the soul of Koschei the
Deathless, an immortal evil spirit that she dares not risk falling into the hands of this emergent menace.
After investigating the coming peril, Baba Yaga deemed it unsafe to hide the egg anywhere except in the
Kingdom of the High Elves at the haven of Qualimor, but she herself cannot travel there for she,
inscrutable fey witch-mother of Hecate, is anathema to the noble gentility of the Qualinesti. And so she
tasks our dutiful heroes with the imperative mission of taking Martha and her sinister payload south and
east down the River Argent for safekeeping with King Eoneril Ostoroth.
She has enlisted the two pirates, the foppish Captain Corazon de Ballena and his associate, the pallid and
languorous retired captain, Shurq Elalle, to escort the Fellowship to the Elven Kingdom. Corazon is
desperate to recover his ship, the Dead Calm, from the criminals who took it from him, although Shurq
Elalle appears indifferent to recovering her ‘skeleton crew’, whom she dismisses as efficient but unreliable
due to their uncanny knack for consistently finding loopholes in her orders.
The heroes keep their cards close to their chests and reveal nothing of their knowledge of the stolen brig
nor their dealings with Izachar and his cronies. The bruised and dishevelled Captain Manherring tells them
how he barely escaped with his life after he and his men were ambushed by a female Tiefling and others on
returning to the warehouse after they’d locked up Slobbi the Duergar. He has come to petition the Rat
King to help him deal with this demon-worshipping, spell-wielding network of gangsters.
As for the Rat King, he listens impassively and waves away his whispering advisor, Snorg. Nork merely
stands and listens as Plooka twitches and preens. It is strange that he refrains from asking the companions
who sent them to his lair in the sewers – perhaps it is that he already knows, but is fearful of intervening as
Baba Yaga knows our heroes are linked to the prophecy, and she has a tendency of turning interferers and
naysayers into piles of earthworms or complaining pieces of furniture.
The witch rises from her groaning stool and gives the company a magical box that unfolds into either a
rowing boat or a cutter. To Lightstrike she hands gloves of thievery, to Mherren a gourd of oil of sharpness, to
Haji Baba a carafe of oil of slipperiness. She pats Martha on the rump, who trots over to Zimlok, burps, and
disgorges a deck of illusions at his feet. She also flips him a welcome pin badge that reads “One of Us”. He
holds her gaze with an unconvincing steely look as he drives the pin painfully and embarrassingly into the
flesh beneath his collar bone.
The Rat King is just about to speak when an almighty KA-BOOM! reverberates through the cavern and
shakes the witch’s hut. Three more huge explosions follow, which Haji Baba realises originate elsewhere in
the city. (This is most curious. Were the explosives obtained by the Cloven Nine not destined for the Rat King’s warren?
Have our heroes been duped by Izachar and used as a distraction and diversion so he could target his real quarry, Zobeck’s
seat of government? – DM.) But there is no time to contemplate their origin, for the enchanted, sentient hut
begins to spin at dizzying speed at a command word from Grandmother.
A blinking frog in the crumbling cavern looks on in confusion as a strange straw hut whirls and blurs and
blinks out of existence entirely.
As our heroes recover from their nausea and Mherren scrambles up from his less than elegant position
sprawled atop the disconcerted Consul, they peak outside to find themselves in the Temple District of
Zobeck. In the distance they can see plumes of smoke and raging fires on the hill where the Upper District
and Citadel of Zobeck once stood. Now there is only ash and ruin.
Captain Manherring and the Consul rush off towards the blaze, while the hut lurches up on its giant chicken
legs and stalks off with Baba Yaga and the Wererats, scattering bemused and fearful citizens in its path. The
heroes, still wounded from their encounters in the sewers, ignore any opportunity for healing that the
temples may provide, and decide also that there cannot possibly anything of interest to investigate in the
exciting blazing inferno in the heart of the City of Gears (Note to self – always expect these pesky adventurers to
derail your plans and to choose whatever course of action you least expect… when will you learn?! – DM).
Rogue and Warlock disguise themselves as pirates and set out for the Old Docks with Shurq, Corazon and
Martha (on a leash), while Druid and Mage head for Mordenkainen’s Shoppe in Ye Shymbles. Corazon is
elated to discover the Dead Calm intact, and he sets to work scrubbing the decks as soon as he realises
nobody else is going to do it for him.
Meanwhile, in the Shimbles, Haji Baba and Zimlok find themselves surrounded by wounded and shocked
citizens fleeing the rubble and flames of the Upper District. Many bear nasty cuts and gashes, and their
dazed faces are caked in dust. But, single-mindedly intent upon their plan and utterly uninterested in the
plight of these unfortunate folk, let alone what they might have witnessed (I give up! – DM), they arrive at a
familiar locked door beneath a sign that reads: Mordenkainen’s Specialist Magicks. Checking it’s clear, Haji
Baba transforms into a mouse, scurries under the door and reforms as a Halfling to unlatch it for Zimlok.
The shop is packed with spell books, unidentified potions and rare spell components, but Zimlok homes
in on a locked cabinet in the back room. He frenziedly throws everything he can find at the cabinet, finally
bowing the door enough to allow him to crowbar it with his staff. When it finally springs open, his staff
rebounds and bludgeons him square on the beak, which instantly fills with blood. Inside is a scroll of haste
and a blueprint to the floorplan of a tower near a body of water. The writing on the parchment is smudged
but Zimlok can make out the letters K-A-Y and there is a swirl of ink marking something on the basement
floor of the tower. He quickly pockets these items and retrieves a chain mail tunic that appears to be made
of Elven mithral, for it is light as cloth, perfectly noiseless, and exquisitely hammered and linked.
Haji Baba, ever the peace-loving hippy Druid (when she’s not mercilessly slitting throats in cold blood, that is – DM),
has meanwhile been speaking with a couple of pot plants – Trevor and Kevin. Or rather, with Trevor, for
Kevin is either a simpleton or he’s just zonked out on his own chemistry. A friendly soul who can’t stop
dancing, Trevor tells Haji Baba that Mordenkainen has been looking anxious for the last day or so, and that
he’d heard the Wizard muttering something about going to see someone called Hayben, or something.
Shortly after, he had left in a hurry, and Trevor has had his leaves crossed since then that the Arch Wizard
had not forgotten to ask a neighbour to bob round and give him and Kevin a frequent watering.
The two magic-users return to the docks, where Haji Baba summons the skeletons from the bloodstone.
After making sure that they know who’s their boss, she and Zimlok lead them on to the brig with as much
stealth as can be expected from forty clacking skeletons. Alarmed at the racket, the two pirates rush abovedecks and are amazed to see their lost deathly crew assembled and ready for orders.
... And so we leave our four stalwart companions for now, aboard the Dead Calm with their unlikely undead
crew and a burping goat, and watch them set sail downriver (feeling strangely empowered once more by
their meeting with Baba Yaga), with Captain Corazon de Ballena trying hard to look dashing at the prow,
and Shurq Elalle at the helm, looking jaded, cool and dangerous, and smelling faintly of dried flowers and
perfume. Skeletal hands pull in the oars as others climb the rigging and hoist the square sails, and the twinmasted ship glides smoothly on towards the realm of King Ostoroth and the burning orb of the rising sun,
and swiftly away with the current from the burning, smoking devastation of the fair city of Zobeck.
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