BigRedRod
26th of July, 2006, 22:13
Chapter 1 : Time for Heroes
Scene 1 : Arrival
It was late on a winter's night when Istus, goddess of Fate, arranged for four heroes to meet in the city known as Edinway. Meleaga, the tortured mage from the isle of Hollowfaust, Swires Hofhofenson Dumuzi, a dwarvern servant of Pelor, and two brothers from the land of Jedaart, Harald and Gredrin Godwinson.
The four met outside a scene of chaos. A burning house in Edinhumber. Bursting through the door, the strangers retrieved those trapped inside, finding only two, a husband and wife. The husband seemingly having been stabbed to death before the fire even started. The wife is more fortunate and comes to calling after somebody called Celeste.
Under supervision from the locals, woken by the commotion, a bucket chain was quickly formed to extinguish the flames before the whole city catches fire. While the fire was being put out, Gredrin managed to gain a few details regarding what had happened from the wife, Annie. Celeste was their adoptive daughter, the couple having found her somewhere and taken her in on account of not being able to have children themselves. Annie also mentioned not being able to let Celeste go outside and that she had been taken by men bursting through a window, killing her husband and setting light to the house.
The dense cluster of housing in the area points tot he kidnappers-cum-murderers escaped across the rooftops. Harald also notices a large black feather lying on the cobbles in the street, having fallen from somewhere above. Annie informs Gredrin that the feather had belonged to Celeste, possibly explaining why the couple had kept her hidden from prying eyes. Annie also begs the group of strangers to find Celeste promising them everything and anything despite her obvious lack of means. The locals are rather less trusting of the group, seeing northerners, a wizard and even a dwarf, and suggesting that they could have been behind this.
Scene 2 : The Chase
Following what shreds of trail they can find, the four head through the winding dark streets in the hopes of retrieving Celeste from her kidnappers. The trail leads them to a bricked up alleyway with a sign set upon it declaring it to have been a quarantine measure for an outbreak of plague in the past. The houses beyond the wall had been walled off from the city around them, residents and all, until the danger of disease passed.
Leaving Swires' horse behind, the party clamber up onto the rooftop world of Edinhumber and back down inside the Plague region known as Broken Tower as the first signs of Dawn begin to arrive. After walking through the region of decaying city the group stumble upon an alleyway next to a burnt out Tavern that is surrounded by boot prints in the ash. Before they have time to investigate, however, they are ambushed.
Dressed in patchwork rags, the small forms as those of humanoid rats. Creatures, that the group have only heard about in children's tales before. The swarm of rats is quickly defeated, although two members of the group manage to escape (largely due to their superior speed), a rooftop sniper and a rat dressed in leather armour and wielding a pair of short swords. Oddly, one of the fallen rat-creatures bears the mark of Bargrivyek, a lesser goblin deity.
Tending their wounds and dismissing the ambush as unrelated to the kidnapping, the four follow the boot prints in the ash toward a small courtyard in which a well maintained well remains along with a pair of iron-bound wooden doors, leading down into one of the surround building's basements.
Scene 3 : Mioux's Moonbringer cell
Together, Swires and Harald tear the small double doors free from their hinges and rush down the steps into the basement to confront a group of red robed men armed with a rather pathetic array of weaponry who seems convinced that the party are "servants of the demon". During the melee, a stray bolt from Swires strikes Harald, at the end of the initial attack the party have three hostages, a youth, an older man who was supposed to be guarding the door and a red-robed figure Swires saves from the bring of death with divine magic. Unable to get any meaningful answers from the trio, the youth is locked in a storeroom, the doorguard knocked out and the saved man is tied up.
The remaining men in the basement lair had taken up position in another room at the end of a corridor. In an attempt to draw them out of their position, Meleaga is hit with a pair of crossbow bolts and drops to the ground. The robed men occupy what seems to be a jail room, with a pair of prisoners chained inside a trio of cells constructed of iron-bars. An armoured figure in a red cloak, known as Mioux, and armed with a massive warhammer seems to lead the men in red. Making an attempt to flee, Swires is struck by Mioux and slain. Gredrin also suffers and is critically injured during the melee.
Eventually Harald decapitates the armoured Mioux and almost single-handedly kills the rest of the red robed men. After saving his brother's life with help from Meleaga and finding Swires dead, they turn their attention to the prisoners.
A very attractive woman, clothed in tatters that could hardly be called humble, hung limply from chains in the wall, covered in bruises, bleeding from many small injuries, stared at the floor with a broken soul. As Harald approached, she slowly lifted her head, and he could see her face. Under a canopy of bruises and welts lay what must have previously been a very beautiful visage. One eye swollen over and caked in the dried blood from her brow, the other had lost all sparkle of life. Her fellow prisoner had a red robe crumpled at his feet, clad in simple yet elegant clothing which has acquired far more dirt and filth than it should ever be allowed to, he indicates the key hanging on the wall while the female prisoner groaned.
While he freed the captive woman, the man introduces himself as Guildenstern, a man who had become one of the red-robed figures in order to try and gain information about them. He comments tat the first sign of the group being anything than a gang of thugs was the appearance of a one-eyed man with heavily facial scarring and his orc bodyguard arriving and taking a squirming sack. They arrived and left through a secret passage in the room.
The female prisoner identifies herself as Sophia Franchesca and asks Harald for her holy symbol which she belies is being kept in a room just off the jail. The room is a shrine to the Gatekeeper, a possibly non-existent God tied to the Red Moon and ferrying souls to the Netherworld. Returning her Holy symbol, Sophia heals Gredrin along with herself before returning to the shrine and bedroom of Mioux in order to get dressed.
Guildenstern answered the party's questions, indicating that the basement was lair to a cell of Moon Bringers led by Mioux. Most of the men, however, had just signed up to alleviate the tedium of their lives rather than any heartfelt beliefs.
Leaving the body of Swires behind, the slightly larger group open the secret passage and climb upwards through the tunnel back towards the surface of Broken Tower. Halting at the end of the tunnel, the group spot two more Rats, although these have snow white fur which is covered in numerous brand marks, a strange runic language on their very bodies. They also appear to be well armed, carrying a variety of tools and weapons in leather belts slung across them. After a tense minute or so of the two sniffing the air and chattering in an unknown language, the two creatures depart, rapidly leaping away and vanishing.
Emerging into the light of morning, the five realise they have no obvious trail to be followed. As a result, the group follows Sophia back to the Temple of Pelor in the Great Plaza of Edinway. Somewhere on the way to the temple, Guildenstern manages to vanish.
Scene 1 : Arrival
It was late on a winter's night when Istus, goddess of Fate, arranged for four heroes to meet in the city known as Edinway. Meleaga, the tortured mage from the isle of Hollowfaust, Swires Hofhofenson Dumuzi, a dwarvern servant of Pelor, and two brothers from the land of Jedaart, Harald and Gredrin Godwinson.
The four met outside a scene of chaos. A burning house in Edinhumber. Bursting through the door, the strangers retrieved those trapped inside, finding only two, a husband and wife. The husband seemingly having been stabbed to death before the fire even started. The wife is more fortunate and comes to calling after somebody called Celeste.
Under supervision from the locals, woken by the commotion, a bucket chain was quickly formed to extinguish the flames before the whole city catches fire. While the fire was being put out, Gredrin managed to gain a few details regarding what had happened from the wife, Annie. Celeste was their adoptive daughter, the couple having found her somewhere and taken her in on account of not being able to have children themselves. Annie also mentioned not being able to let Celeste go outside and that she had been taken by men bursting through a window, killing her husband and setting light to the house.
The dense cluster of housing in the area points tot he kidnappers-cum-murderers escaped across the rooftops. Harald also notices a large black feather lying on the cobbles in the street, having fallen from somewhere above. Annie informs Gredrin that the feather had belonged to Celeste, possibly explaining why the couple had kept her hidden from prying eyes. Annie also begs the group of strangers to find Celeste promising them everything and anything despite her obvious lack of means. The locals are rather less trusting of the group, seeing northerners, a wizard and even a dwarf, and suggesting that they could have been behind this.
Scene 2 : The Chase
Following what shreds of trail they can find, the four head through the winding dark streets in the hopes of retrieving Celeste from her kidnappers. The trail leads them to a bricked up alleyway with a sign set upon it declaring it to have been a quarantine measure for an outbreak of plague in the past. The houses beyond the wall had been walled off from the city around them, residents and all, until the danger of disease passed.
Leaving Swires' horse behind, the party clamber up onto the rooftop world of Edinhumber and back down inside the Plague region known as Broken Tower as the first signs of Dawn begin to arrive. After walking through the region of decaying city the group stumble upon an alleyway next to a burnt out Tavern that is surrounded by boot prints in the ash. Before they have time to investigate, however, they are ambushed.
Dressed in patchwork rags, the small forms as those of humanoid rats. Creatures, that the group have only heard about in children's tales before. The swarm of rats is quickly defeated, although two members of the group manage to escape (largely due to their superior speed), a rooftop sniper and a rat dressed in leather armour and wielding a pair of short swords. Oddly, one of the fallen rat-creatures bears the mark of Bargrivyek, a lesser goblin deity.
Tending their wounds and dismissing the ambush as unrelated to the kidnapping, the four follow the boot prints in the ash toward a small courtyard in which a well maintained well remains along with a pair of iron-bound wooden doors, leading down into one of the surround building's basements.
Scene 3 : Mioux's Moonbringer cell
Together, Swires and Harald tear the small double doors free from their hinges and rush down the steps into the basement to confront a group of red robed men armed with a rather pathetic array of weaponry who seems convinced that the party are "servants of the demon". During the melee, a stray bolt from Swires strikes Harald, at the end of the initial attack the party have three hostages, a youth, an older man who was supposed to be guarding the door and a red-robed figure Swires saves from the bring of death with divine magic. Unable to get any meaningful answers from the trio, the youth is locked in a storeroom, the doorguard knocked out and the saved man is tied up.
The remaining men in the basement lair had taken up position in another room at the end of a corridor. In an attempt to draw them out of their position, Meleaga is hit with a pair of crossbow bolts and drops to the ground. The robed men occupy what seems to be a jail room, with a pair of prisoners chained inside a trio of cells constructed of iron-bars. An armoured figure in a red cloak, known as Mioux, and armed with a massive warhammer seems to lead the men in red. Making an attempt to flee, Swires is struck by Mioux and slain. Gredrin also suffers and is critically injured during the melee.
Eventually Harald decapitates the armoured Mioux and almost single-handedly kills the rest of the red robed men. After saving his brother's life with help from Meleaga and finding Swires dead, they turn their attention to the prisoners.
A very attractive woman, clothed in tatters that could hardly be called humble, hung limply from chains in the wall, covered in bruises, bleeding from many small injuries, stared at the floor with a broken soul. As Harald approached, she slowly lifted her head, and he could see her face. Under a canopy of bruises and welts lay what must have previously been a very beautiful visage. One eye swollen over and caked in the dried blood from her brow, the other had lost all sparkle of life. Her fellow prisoner had a red robe crumpled at his feet, clad in simple yet elegant clothing which has acquired far more dirt and filth than it should ever be allowed to, he indicates the key hanging on the wall while the female prisoner groaned.
While he freed the captive woman, the man introduces himself as Guildenstern, a man who had become one of the red-robed figures in order to try and gain information about them. He comments tat the first sign of the group being anything than a gang of thugs was the appearance of a one-eyed man with heavily facial scarring and his orc bodyguard arriving and taking a squirming sack. They arrived and left through a secret passage in the room.
The female prisoner identifies herself as Sophia Franchesca and asks Harald for her holy symbol which she belies is being kept in a room just off the jail. The room is a shrine to the Gatekeeper, a possibly non-existent God tied to the Red Moon and ferrying souls to the Netherworld. Returning her Holy symbol, Sophia heals Gredrin along with herself before returning to the shrine and bedroom of Mioux in order to get dressed.
Guildenstern answered the party's questions, indicating that the basement was lair to a cell of Moon Bringers led by Mioux. Most of the men, however, had just signed up to alleviate the tedium of their lives rather than any heartfelt beliefs.
Leaving the body of Swires behind, the slightly larger group open the secret passage and climb upwards through the tunnel back towards the surface of Broken Tower. Halting at the end of the tunnel, the group spot two more Rats, although these have snow white fur which is covered in numerous brand marks, a strange runic language on their very bodies. They also appear to be well armed, carrying a variety of tools and weapons in leather belts slung across them. After a tense minute or so of the two sniffing the air and chattering in an unknown language, the two creatures depart, rapidly leaping away and vanishing.
Emerging into the light of morning, the five realise they have no obvious trail to be followed. As a result, the group follows Sophia back to the Temple of Pelor in the Great Plaza of Edinway. Somewhere on the way to the temple, Guildenstern manages to vanish.