Compromise and Conceit

The Wrathbreakers have returned to Estona, sure that a disaster is going to strike the city on the 14th of Thaw, and with most of the clues they need to find the Puppet Master, the strange wizard who has been directing criminal operations in the city using printed notes, and who may or may not be in league with a strange cult of deep magic-using humans. Upon their return Itzel let slip to one of the prime suspects that they had secret knowledge of his plans, and soon thereafter they were confronted by the Iron Hand, a gang of rival adventurers known to have previously done at least one job for the Puppet Master. They defeated the Iron Hand and captured its injured leader, and from her they have learnt that they were paid by a “generic elf” to set this ambush. They now rush to capture that elf, who is supposed to be meeting the Iron Hand to pay them for their job in a small square near the Westgate, in one hour. The roster for this mission:

• Bao Tap, human stormcaller
• Itzel, elven Astrologer
• Ella, spume dwarf scoundrel
• Xu, human weaponmaster from Ariaka

They warned the Iron Hand’s leader, a woman named Garag, that if she did not help them with the capture of the elf they would hand her over to the city authorities, but if she helped them they would give her a portion of the money the elf was carrying, and give her the chance to flee the city. She agreed, and they headed to the square near the Westgate.

The Puppet Master revealed

The square was a typical Estonan public space, a square open area of paved stones with a disused well in the middle, one entrance to the square on each side, and shops and businesses lining the square at ground level. They stationed themselves at places around the square: Itzel used her magic to disguise Xu as a street-sweeper, and the two of them took positions in the square itself, Xu near the well and Itzel at a chestnut seller. Ella found a public library at one corner of the square, which specialized in Biographies, and hid herself in its unused rooftop garden. Below her Bao Tap pretended to be reading in the public reading gallery, near the door and with a view of the square at ground level.

The elf walked into the square on time, approaching Garag where she waited at the disused well. He carried a bulky, well-made leather bag that looked quite heavy. As he approached Garag, Xu walked towards him to speak, but the elf realized immediately that Xu was disguised, threw the bag of money at him and turned to flee. He slipped as he turned, but still managed to evade Xu’s mad grab for him. Ella shot him in the back of the leg, which caused him to stumble, and Itzel tried to levitate him, but he resisted this magic and was just landing and ready to hit full sprint out of the square when Bao Tap rocketed out of the library door, throwing aside a book of salacious pictures about a famous young Gigolo, and hit the elf with a ferocious tackle that dragged him to the ground and nearly ripped his head off. They rolled to a stop in the slush of the square and much as the elf struggled, he could not escape Bao Tap’s grip. They had their agent.

They immediately dragged him from the square to the nearby gatehouse at the Westgate, where the city guard – warned earlier in the day by Kay the Myrmidon that the Wrathbreakers were investigating events – let them drag him to a cold basement room. The man told them his name was Crulhum and yes, he was a Changeling. He promised to answer their questions truthfully, and revealed that his employer was the Wizard Eliabak. Eliabak! The Wizard that Itzel had visited earlier that day for a consultation about crafting a prosthetic arm, and who would be part of the exhibition on the 14th. Their suspicions confirmed, they demanded that Crulhum tell them the full story.

The Changeling’s web of lies

First of all, Crulhum told the Wrathbreakers that he had been working for Eliabak for about 3 – 4 years. He told them that the printed notes came from a magical printing press installed in the basement of a house in the Stone Quarter. This printer could produce notes on Eliabak’s command, without anyone being present to operate it. These notes would be printed with an address and a message. The old man living in the house folded them up, read the address, and then gave the letters to street kids working for the messenger network in town. He always chose children who could not read, and told them where to deliver the letter. This old man was happy to provide this service without any complaint, and was paid a decent amount of money every month to maintain the service. He never saw Eliabak, but instead received supplies for the printer by delivery, and sent the letters on without further instruction. This ensured that Eliabak’s network of crimes was conducted remotely, without anyone tying anything together. The old man in the Stone Quarter had met Eliabak once some years ago but did not know who he was (and would probably not remember his face). Crulhum’s primary job was to visit people (like Creosote or the Iron Hand) to make the initial business arrangement regarding receipt of the notes. He would always visit in a different form, thus ensuring that no one who worked for Eliabak’s little network of notes ever saw the same agent as anyone else, and no one every knew that the agent they were talking to was Eliabak’s assistant.

It was through this note system that Crulhum had originally proven his worth to Eliabak. A few years ago Crulhum was a junior member of a gang called the Nekkers, which was unique only for having an Astrologer from the academy as its (secret) leader. At some point Eliabak made contact directly with Crulhum and gave him a device which enabled him to activate Eliabak’s secret printer, and to send short messages. They were always of the form “[Address to send letter to] Short detail about a nekker raid”. Eliabak then used his printer and notes to direct various mercenaries to intercept those activities and disrupt the Nekkers. The Nekkers could not understand who was doing this and how to stop them, and although they became increasingly paranoid and desperate they could not penetrate this strange plot, because they did not know about the printer[1]. Eventually Eliabak organized for the Iron Hand – who were new in town – to raid the Nekkers’ base and kill them all except Crulhum. The Iron Hand would be allowed to take any treasure in the Nekkers’ possession, except their magic items.

The night before the raid, however, Crulhum was approached by Anyara, the deep cult leader from the Valley of Gon. She paid him a lot of money and offered him a very bright future if he would do one simple thing for her during the raid: steal a map in the Nekkers’ possession, and turn it over to Anyara. He did this and gave her the map, and since then he has worked for both Eilabak and Anyara, with Eliabak unaware that Crulhum was Anyara’s agent in Estona and secret spy within his own laboratory.

The map, he informed them, was simply a map to a complex of rooms inside some larger building. He did not pay much attention to it, does not remember the details, and knows only that Anyara wanted it, and the wizard leading the Nekkers had left it in their possession. Crulhum believes this raid destroyed a competitor of Eliabak’s, and also cemented Eliabak’s role as a criminal in the town. Since then Crulhum has worked to set up Eliabak’s network of agents, keeping Eliabak’s role as a criminal mastermind secret from both his agents and the town generally. Much of his tasks were mundane – things like organizing drop offs or setting up dropboxes, paying people for information, occasionally visiting agents to ensure that they were still loyal to the process – but occasionally he had to do dirtier jobs. For example, after he learnt from Creosote that the Wrathbreakers had attacked Creosote’s base, and then learnt from the Rock Spider that the Wrathbreakers were starting to investigate the network of children who deliver messages in the town, it was Crulhum who organized to ambush them at the river outside Estona.

Crulhum now had a second employer though, who paid him well and had offered him “a bright future.” His primary task was to give suggestions to Eliabak from Anyara, but occasionally he attended to extra tasks in the town. It was Crulhum, for example, who organized the investigation and ultimately the abduction of Siladan’s apprentice Sara, on Anyara’s request. Crulhum did not receive his messages from Anyara directly, but through a group of agents of hers who were living in a warehouse at the docks. He told the Wrathbreakers that this group were “a little strange” and “don’t seem very nice”, and that he would visit them regularly to give information to be sent to Anyara, and to receive advice and orders from her, as well as his regular payments. Of course he visited them in a different form to the form he used around Eliabak – as always his comings and goings were disguised by his Changeling skills.

They guessed that the agents in the warehouse were deep cultists, though it appeared Crulhum knew nothing about the more sinister nature of Anyara’s magic or her darker connections. When pressed, he told them he did not know the agents’ true goals, but he was sure something big had been planned for the 14th of Thaw. He had been promised by Anyara that once the events of that afternoon were complete – whatever it was she had planned for Eliabak’s exhibition presentation – Crulhum would be free and rich. He told them that at midnight on that night, a ship would arrive at the docks with a large amount of money for him, to take him away from the town to make his own future however he wanted. He completely trusted her, of course – either because her magic had done its subtle work on him too, or because he had no reason not to. Crulhum did not know what Eliabak was building, but said it must be big and important, because he had been working on it for more than a year and was regularly receiving deliveries of Orun stone, metals, and various reagents to one of the biggest laboratories on the first floor of the Academy. Crulhum also did not know what Anyara’s plans were – all he knew was that they would come to fruition at the exhibition. His job was to put the parts of the plan into motion, not to inquire as to what those parts were.

In any case, he revealed, all the plans had changed. After Itzel’s visit to Eliabak, the wizard had called Crulhum and told him some Fay-drenched elven bitch is sniffing around after my work – they’re onto me! He had told Crulhum that for his own protection he would go now to his laboratory and complete the activation of his grand project, two days early, to ensure it was not disrupted by some elven wizard. He wanted Crulhum to organize for the Iron Hand to kill the Wrathbreakers. With that, he had rushed off to his laboratory. Crulhum had organized the Iron Hand in person, and then rushed straight to the docks to meet Anyara’s agents. They told him that everything would have to be sped up. His ship would arrive at midnight tonight, instead of 3 days’ hence, so as soon as he had finished the task of eliminating the Wrathbreakers he was to return to his lodgings and prepare to leave the city.

So, now the Wrathbreakers knew who to target, and where. They cut a very simple deal with Crulhum: he would help them until midnight, when they would raid the ship coming for him to catch whoever was going to pay him. He could keep the money he was owed provided he helped them honestly, and left town afterwards. He agreed eagerly to this plan, and told him where the warehouse at the docks was. They decided that their priority was Eliabak: they would go and stop him from activating whatever his secret project was, and capture him alive to hand to the Selkie Queen. Then they would go and raid the Warehouse at the docks, and exterminate the deep cult agents who were lurking there. Once that was done they would go to the docks with Crulhum, wait for his ship, board it, and take captive whoever was waiting for him. All in one night! The sun had set, the evening mists of Thaw had begun to rise, and they had perhaps 5 hours until Crulhum’s ship arrived. But first, they had to rush to the Academy to stop Eliabak.

Eliabak undone

Before rushing to confront Eliabak the Wrathbreakers first visited Kay the Myrmidon at his dockside stronghold. They explained their fears and he granted them two teams of four marines each to help in their intervention, along with a letter of authority that he hoped would help them gain access to the Academy’s laboratories, though he warned them that he had no official responsibility for Estona’s security, and could not guarantee his word would help them at all. With this limited assistance they proceeded to the Academy to confront Eliabak.

Eliabak had hired a special over-sized laboratory on the first floor of the Academy, directly adjacent to the main exhibition space. The exhibition space itself was a coliseum-like theatre structure, large enough to hold a couple of hundred spectators in banked seats, with enough space for a pitched battle between wizards to be watched comfortably from one side. The wall opposite the spectator stands held four huge sets of double doors, each about 10-15 m high and 8-10m wide, which opened into over-sized laboratories large enough for the preparation of unusual and exceptionally large exhibits. Crulhum informed them that Eliabak was working on his secret project in one of these, and so after a short but tense negotation at the entrance hall to the Academy they headed to one of these. Before they even opened the door Itzel and Bao Tap could feel the straining pulse of magic being worked inside the room, and they knew they were close to the activation of whatever Eliabak had planned. They pushed the door open and charged in.

Inside was a huge, high-ceilinged room with laboratory benches lining the walls on one side, and a study table at the far end. The room towered up into shadow perhaps 20-25 m above them, and was dimly lit with just candles and a few recessed enchanted low-light globes. Opposite the laboratory benches, standing against the right hand wall, was a huge structure of scaffolds, perhaps 10m square at the base and about 15m high. Inside the scaffolding stood a huge humanoid figure made of black Orun stone. The stone glimmered faintly in the dark light, but within it lines of silver and gold flickered with magical energy, and gems studded in various parts of the beast pulsed dimly with their own internal energy. This enormous statue was only a crude humanoid form, lacking proper digits, with no face and only rudimentary eye sockets, which were not yet puissant with their own light. It loomed over them, shadowy and threatening, still silent and cold, but Itzel and Bao Tap could feel that if they did not stop this process now the thing would activate, and even in its dormant state they could tell that it carried enormous power. If that thing were to activate, it would easily kill all of them.

At the table at the far end of the room Eliabak stood, preparing his golem. Various magical paraphernalia were scattered across the table, obviously to be used in the preparation ritual. As soon as he saw them enter he yelled a threat and pulled a golden ball from his gown. They had been warned about this by Crulhum: Eliabak’s automated flying attack device, which he called “The Bludger”. It whirred to life, wings buzzing, and flew forward like a bolt of golden lightning to hit Itzel. She dodged, and battle began.

Initially the battle seemed to be in their grip, but it soon spiralled out of control. The two teams of marines and Xu surrounded Eliabak, but he used lightning bolts of incredible power to destroy them, killing four at a time. He also knocked down Xu, although the team’s healer brought Xu back to his feet long enough to take a healing potion[2]. Both Xu and Itzel tried to damage the paraphernalia on the table, and the Bludger continued trying to kill Itzel while Bao Tap used storm spells to bludgeon the wizard into exhaustion, and his rockhopper summoned monster tried to knock him over. Realizing that if he could push them back Eliabak would make time for himself to complete the golem ritual, Itzel ran to the golem itself and intervened directly with the apparatus, to break its magical connection to Eliabak, as the Bludger attempted to shoot her with beams of light. It missed and she successfully broke the connection, but as she completed this task something went wrong and the thing briefly twitched to life, one fist smashing into Itzel and immediately knocking her unconscious.

They had to take Eliabak alive, which prevented Xu or Bao Tap from using the full range of deadly abilities at their disposal, but Ella was suffering no such qualms. She lurked in the shadows behind the laboratory benches, firing crossbow bolts into the fray whenever she saw an opportunity, and after Itzel was knocked out, seeing her chance, she fired a crossbow bolt straight at Eliabak’s head. It stunned him[3], and unable to cast spells under the overwhelming pain of the crossbow strike, he was no longer able to fight or even to escape. They grabbed him, tied him up, and smashed everything on the table. They had stopped whatever disaster had been tied to the activation of the golem, and taken Eliabak alive.

Unfortunately 8 marines were dead, fried in electrical storms, and everyone was exhausted and injured from this battle, Xu nearly killed with lightning and Itzel smashed by the golem’s enormous fist. They still had two more missions to complete, and no time to rest. As they finished tying Eliabak some senior Astrologers entered the room to investigate the commotion, and after a tense stand-off, explanations and justifications, the group managed to talk their way out of trouble. Instead of being punished and Eliabak freed, they were given healing potions and allowed to escort Eliabak to Kay the Myrmidon. Here they locked him in a cell, ready to face his fate with the Selkie queen. They barely had time to rest, though: now they must rush to the docks and confront the deep cult nest, to find out what else was planned in this night of chaos and confusion. What had been Anyara’s ultimate goal, and what sinister plan lay beneath her subversion of Eliabak’s golem-making?

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Artist note: The picture of the city in mist is by a Lithuanian artist called Gediminas Skyrius, and appears to be from an illustrated book.

fn1: I think actually this entire setup would make an excellent campaign of its own, possibly using a Blades In the Dark type system.

fn2: Since Calim left the team have no healer, and rather than play an NPC we have decided the team can use a story point to get a healing spell cast. This healing spell is cast using Calim’s dice pool when he left the group, and can heal either wounds, or level 1 or 2 criticals. This is significantly increasing the story points available to me!

fn3: Another miracle critical from Ella, this time rendering him staggered – and thus unable to act – until the critical is healed. Her shots don’t necessarily do much damage, but they have wickedly perfect criticals.

The Wrathbreakers have arrived in the Valley of Gon, where assassins stalk them for reasons they do not understand, seeking the abducted apprentice of Siladan the Elder. They believe this apprentice, Sara, is being held in the Freehold of Ar, which previously sent raiders to find documents once in her master’s possession. They plan to travel to the town of El, whose Warlord leader Elizabeth the 4th is a rival of the Warlord Argalt who holds Ar, and try to make a deal with her. The roster for today’s adventure:

• Bao Tap, human stormcaller
• Calim “Ambros” Nefari, human rimewarden
• Itzel, elven astrologer
• Kyansei of the Eilika Tribe, wildling barbarian
• Ella, spume dwarf scoundrel
• Xu, human weaponmaster from Ariaka

For this adventure the Wrathbreakers have two new members, a dwarven scoundrel on the run from a suspicious ship that she abandoned after learning the crew are occasional pirates; and Xu, a human weaponmaster who was introduced to the party by one of their marine guards. Their marine guards have left and will return to Estona, but upon leaving they gave the party some Striders and a special present: a Shardhawk, a rare bird capable of flying rapidly over vast distances, that is trained to return to the tower of the Myrmidon Kay in Estona. Should they need help they can send this bird back to Estona with their plea, and he may choose to answer it.

The town of El

First the wrathbreakers traveled upriver to El on a nameless riverboat, arriving two days later. El sits just east of the confluence of two rivers that make up the river Gon. The town used to have an outpost on the confluence itself but constant attacks by rival warlords forced the first Elizabeth to give up this town, which is now a ruin, and move El about an hour’s travel East. None of the warlords wanted any other warlords to have control of the confluence of the rivers, so aside from a few ramshackle travelers’ inns and a boat repair dock there was no activity remaining at this strategic point. To the east, however, lay the farms and mines of the Freehold of El, spread around its small but powerful centre, the town of El. Their nameless riverboat drifted into this town, passing through slums on both sides of the river to dock at the westernmost wharf. Here a crowd of scammers, grifters, longshorefolk and labourers gathered to pry the visitors’ money from their grip as quickly as possible. From amongst this gang of chancers the Wrathbreakers selected a guide, Scrim, to get them oriented to the town. Scrim was a busy, active and cheerful young man with an oily manner but an accomplished ease in the city: he had them in a tavern and preparing for their stay in El very quickly and easy. He found them a manse separate to a large and comfortable tavern and hotel complex near the central stronghold. The tavern, called the Last Ember, had multiple levels in its main building, a large and famous restaurant serving Ariakan food, and a pleasant garden surrounding its guest areas. Behind this garden was a separate outhouse, an entire building with multiple bedrooms and its own common areas, which Scrim was able to secure for them at reasonable rates. From there they were able to begin their plans to explore the city and meet the Virgin Warlord. Scrim set off to begin brokering meetings, and they moved to the restaurants and bars of the town to find out what they could before their meeting began.

They did not learn much at dinner. El is a small town on the border of Ariaka, with some long-abandoned deepfolk mines where they dig up what is left of the silver, gold and iron that the deepfolk were scavenging for hundreds of years ago. The mines were abandoned before the city of El was formed, perhaps before the Valley of Gon was disputed, and had been left with relatively intact ore loads compared to most abandoned deepfolk mines. This had made the warlords of El rich, compared to many of their neighbours, and they were one of the few Freeholds to have formed a kind of dynastic lineage, in which each Warlord had managed to choose their successor (called the Elizabeth) for the last four generations. This had made the town something of a power in the area, and the most recent Elizabeth – called also the Virgin Warlord – clearly had intentions to expand, perhaps with the ultimate plan of taking back control of the river confluence and declaring the entire Upper Gon their demesne. Such power plays require long, careful preparation, however, and the impression the Wrathbreakers received from their short time in the Last Ember’s bar was that this project was a long way from fruition – though nonetheless the locals of El were proud of their warlord’s power and confident in the superior position their Freehold commanded in the Valley. It was obvious that the wrathbreakers would need to appeal to that long-term project – perhaps offering a way to help with the vassalization of the Freehold of Ar – if they were to have any hope of gaining help from Elizabeth 4. With those thoughts they retired to bed, to dream of living in easier lands.

The Guard Captain’s Problem

By the next morning Scrim had organized a connection for them: a meeting with the chief of El’s guards. They would not be able to meet Elizabeth 4 until they could satisfy this man that they were of use, and as they expected, he had a trial for them. They would have to deal with a small “problem” the town had uncovered, and if they could do so successfully he would pay them 2500 coin and arrange them a meeting with the Virgin Warlord. But they would have to do so immediately, and it would not be easy.

The guard captain told them that a monster had been unleashed in a mine to the southeast of El. A group of miners had broken through a wall a week ago, uncovering a strange set of linked chambers. When they explored those chambers they had been attacked and slaughtered by something, with only one survivor. Some guards sent in later that day had also been killed. The miners had resealed the wall but the guard captain doubted that their hastily improvised stonework would hold for long, and he needed some brave warriors to go in and kill whatever was inside. He had been preparing to send in some of his own guards but did not want to waste his elite soldiers on such a task, which made the Wrathbreakers’ arrival extremely fortuitous. They simply had to go in, kill it, bring him evidence it was dead, and make sure nothing else was in there that could leave any nasty surprises. He wanted them to go immediately before the thing broke out and news of this trouble reached Elizabeth 4. Once it was done he would present the evidence of its elimination to her, along with an invitation to meet them. Since the old mine was originally a deepfolk excavation, his best guess was that it was some form of deepfolk monstrosity, left behind when they abandoned the mines in those previous eras.

The Wrathbreakers agreed to his suggestion, of course, and set out immediately for the mine. A few hours’ travel on their striders got them to the location by mid-afternoon on a dreary, grey and slightly snowy Still day. The mine was a simple hole carved into a hillside, with a messy jumble of shacks and open service tents scattered around the muddy slopes. They perched their Striders and moved into the camp, speaking to a few resting miners at the edge of a shabby tea tent who told them to visit the hospice tent. These miners were obviously not working here by choice: they were typical Valley of Gon indentured labourers, effectively slaves working where their patron sent them. They were thin, grubby, scared and wary, with injuries and signs of mistreatment hidden under scanty clothes. Up the hill a few ill-disciplined guards lounged around a fire, watching the PCs suspiciously.

The hospice tent was just a stretch of awning on poles, barely keeping the drifting snow out of a rush-floored space that had two canvas beds, a rough wooden bench with some herb jars on it, and a pair of miners siting on logs in place of real chairs. One of these was the sole survivor of the initial contact with the beast. He was physically unhurt but appeared gaunt and withdrawn, and he shook when his friend handed him tea. After a little time to break the ice, mostly spent assuring him that they had not been sent by the guards to permanently shut him up about his experience, the surviving miner told them that he remembered little except a brief flash of pale white light, a sudden rush of movement, then everything went dark and people started dying. He described a cloying, supernatural fear in the darkness, and then he just ran while behind him people died. He was followed out by a piece of someone, who had been killed so brutally that their dismembered body parts had flown out of the gap in the cave – he told them it was now being disposed of after the guards investigated it.

They thanked him for his limited information and headed off to find the person disposing of the body part. It was a severed arm that looked as if it had been brutally torn off the body, but there were no signs of teeth marks or claws. They could learn little from such limited evidence, and finding the guards to be of no use at all decided that their best approach was simply to go into the caves and start fighting.

The beast in the darkness

They entered the mine through the cutting in the hillside and passed carefully down a long, smooth, circular passage. Aside from some small recent modifications this was obviously deepfolk work, of far too high quality to have been made by humans, and obviously very old. The walls were so smooth and well-worn that they appeared almost polished, and somehow a cool, dry breeze kept the tunnel airy and comfortable. It traveled smoothly down a considerable distance, curving back on itself and stopping twice at wide, flat rest areas that had obvious signs of recent human modification: quenched fires, rough wooden benches, coat racks and marks of rough human use. Finally the tunnel leveled out and split into three mine galleries. Following instructions they took the right hand gallery and passed along it to its end, where they found a pile of rocks from a hastily constructed makeshift barrier. The miners who had built that barrier a week ago had knocked it down an hour earlier to give the Wrathbreakers a way in, but they had done it as quickly as they could for fear of being attacked, and the gap in the rocks was barely wide enough for one member of the party to pass through at a time.

Naturally they sent their scout, Ella, first. She slipped through the gap and into a long, narrow cave in complete darkness. Behind her Itzel conjured a ball of soft blue light, but she could still barely see. The room was empty and cold. She crept along, checking for signs of enemies, and then crept back to bring the others through. In the glow of Itzel’s light they saw a small cave, probably also of Deepfolk design, that ended in another small gap in the rock. Passing through this gap took them into a smaller cave, fashioned as if it were an antechamber to a larger entrance in its left hand side. This entrance was open, and Ella’s keen eyes saw a thin line of white powder in a smooth arc from wall to wall in front of this gap. The miners who entered here must have missed it, because their feet had scuffed it and scattered powder over the floor, though the line was mostly intact. Calim tasted it and confirmed everyone’s suspicions: salt. It must have been here long before the miners came in here, judging by the way the powder at the ends of the line had solidified against the wall even in the cool dryness of the cave. Had the deepfolk – who hate salt – used salt to bind something inside this room? And the miners, not seeing the salt or guessing its meaning, had simply passed over whatever barrier this represented and into the room?

Sadly Itzel’s magical talent was not sufficient to probe this ancient barrier, and she could not tell if it was imbued with deep magic or any other enchantments, but they all guessed it must be. They paused, prepared themselves, and stepped over the line.

Nothing happened until they reached the middle of the cave on the far side of the room, but when it came the attack was sudden and brutal. Itzel’s light did not reach to the edge of the cave, so it came out of the darkness. There was a flash of light and suddenly a huge figure in bizarre, bone-like white armour rushed into the middle of their group, attacking Ella. They had expected it but it was so fast that they were still taken completely off guard, and it was able to strike before anyone could move. Two of them hit it but the armour absorbed their strikes, and then the room plunged into darkness and the beast was gone, hidden in the deep darkness it had called forth. A wave of torrid sounds flooded over them – the whispers of terrified children, screams of pain, discordant screeching sounds, and a gasping fear of suffocation. They stood solid though, and Itzel fashioned a spell to dispel the darkness. Bao Tap attempted to summon a nature’s champion but failed, and Kyansei struck the beast hard enough to damage it. Itzel then attempted to escape over the barrier, realizing she would be dead if the thing hit her. In the light she had summoned they could see it was 3-4m tall, humanoid, with heavy armour and carrying an enormous greatsword as if it were a shortsword. Its eyes glowed with a malevolent, pale blue light and every time it moved it emitted a sinister hissing sound. It hit Kyansei, Bao Tap summoned a giant scorpion, the thing cast some spell that suddenly caused Xu, Calim and Kyansei to slam into the ceiling with Calim suffocating and struggling on the ground when he landed. Then the thing attacked the nature champion, but Kyansei followed it. They exchanged blows, the thing sometimes exploding with white light and firing beams of brilliant white light at members of the group, but Kyansei’s strikes were hard and true. Soon the warriors in the group managed to batter it into submission and it fell, drained and broken, to the ground. The swirling shadows, the strange whisperings and urgent fears subsided, and the thing lay vanquished.

But not dead. They stood in the room, panting and shaking, looking at their slumbering foe. If they wanted they could wake it, try to ask it questions about what manner of creature it was and why the Deepfolk had left it here. Or, they could kill it and take its head back to the guard captain with incurious savagery. Which would they do? Were they sufficiently curious about what this thing was to wake it and risk fighting it again, or would they settle for simple, bloody victory?

Kiss me goodbye

Pushing out before I sleep

Can’t you see I try

Swimming the same deep water as you is hard

“The shallow drowned lose less than we”

You breathe

The strangest twist upon your lips

“And we shall be together… ”

The Wrathbreakers have stumbled upon a strange cave complex while they were searching for wreckers, and now they feel they have stumbled on something that is much stranger than mere criminal damage. It appears that there are some kind of magical seals in the cave, perhaps somehow linked to the sea, and the ship they came here to investigate was not lured onto rocks by wreckers at all.

Having escaped from a trap set by the seals in a cave just off the entrance to the complex, the Wrathbreakers regrouped at the entrance and decided to risk exploring the rest. They left Quangbae on guard, and began their search. There were three tunnels leading from the cave, and having investigated the first, they decided to search the next.

The next tunnel turned almost immediately and opened into a small cave, still dimly lit by the light from the entrance. It was empty, with a dry sandy floor and small cracks in the ceiling letting in wan daylight. The entire wall of the cave was covered with a network of faintly glowing pale blue lines, laid on the wall in a pattern disturbingly reminiscent of the tattoo they had seen on the patch of skin they had recovered from the wrecked boat. It was not the same pattern, but obviously from a similar hand or culture. Whoever’s skin had been flayed and cured and hidden on that boat, they or their relatives lived in this cave.

They could all see where this was going, but they needed to be sure. They ventured into the final tunnel and followed it down a steep, precarious and slickly wet descent to a much larger cave. At the entrance to the cave was a large pool of dark, still water, and beyond the dim glow of Itzel’s werelight the cave disappeared into darkness. A narrow ledge of rock led around the edge of the pool. Treading carefully to avoid stepping in the water, they threaded their way along the ledge.

They were halfway around the pool and separated by some distance when the water began to rise around their feet. Before they could scramble back a new squad of seals appeared in the water and the powerful surge of the water hit them, dragging one of them into the water and forcing the rest of them to take positions on the ledge or the steps. This time, however, as they fought the seals in the water, three humanoid figures emerged from the shadows, screaming in rage.

They were tall, bigger than humans, two wearing sharkskin armour and carrying coral spears. The third was a tall, austere-looking woman in a ragged robe that appeared to be made of seaweed, also carrying a coral spear. Their skin was covered in a fine layer of grey-brown fur, just like the fur on the skin they had found in the ship. When that woman screamed, they knew they were in trouble. Feeling the full force of the strange creature’s power, Itzel stepped forward and yelled “Parley!” in every language she knew, while holding aloft the skin they had found on the shore.

The seals in the water withdrew, and the woman responded in an archaic and almost incomprehensible elven dialect. Her demands were clear: if they returned the skin and promised to bring to her the people who had done this to her fellow selkie, she would let them live. They agreed, and leaving the skin behind, they retreated up the stairs.

Ivrem and Selm

Outside, they gathered around a small fire to rest and eat and dry themselves. They had to wait three days here for Kay’s marines to arrive and take them away, which gave them plenty of time to make plans. It was at this point, recovering their poise around the campfire, that they remembered the two men they had seen hiding in the cliffs behind the cave. They had a good idea of who those men might be, but regardless of who they were they must have seen what happened on the beach. The Wrathbreakers decided to go and get them.

It did not take them long. The two men were hungry and desperate, and had little they could do. After Bao Tap sent them a message with his spume owl they descended the cliff face and, after a brief, tense negotiation, entered the wrathbreakers’ camp. Over a small meal they attempted to talk their way out of the trouble that must be coming, but they failed, and their story was spilled for all the world to know.

They were the surviving members of a team of men who had been assembled in Estona and sent out to hunt Selkie. Selkie are fey, and someone somewhere was willing to pay good money for their skin and “Other parts”. The hunting had been good at first but the Selkie soon learnt what was going on and became harder to trap. Then, on their last journey back down the coast, their ship had been run aground in perfect weather and attacked by Selkie. In the foaming shallows the crew had turned crazy and started hacking at each other while seals dragged them underwater and drowned them, but somehow Ivrem and Selm had been able to get away, and had fled to the cliffs. Here they had been for a week, unable to come down to the beach because the Selkie were waiting for them, but unable to find a way up the cliffs. They had survived on rainwater and raw lizards and eggs, getting ever more desperate.

They tried to bargain, but to no avail. The Wrathbreakers dragged one of them down to the cave – Ivrem or Selm, they couldn’t remember and didn’t care which – and offered him to the matriarch. They told her they would take the other back to Estona and use him to find the man who had organized the mission, and they would bring that man – and anyone connected to him – here. The Selkie matriarch agreed to their terms, and as they left the limpid pool filled with lampreys, which tore the prisoner to pieces as he drowned in a murky soup of gelid brine.

Three days later the marines made landfall, and they dragged their surviving prisoner – Ivrem or Selm, they still didn’t care – down to the boat, to be taken back to Estona to cash in all of his friends. They did not feel many qualms about staking their survival on the hideous deaths of this man and his employer, and they had a strong feeling that Estona would be a better town once everyone involved had been thrown to the lampreys …

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Picture note: This is a picture by Natalia Drepina on Deviantart.

Hugo Tuya’s guards have set off into the mountains as the month of Storm enters its last, tumultuous week. They are chasing the possible remnants of a deepfolk raiding party that they destroyed in the caves just outside of Estala, on the request of that town’s doughty Myrmidon. The roster for today’s session:

• Bao Tap, human stormcaller
• Calim “Ambros” Nefari, human rimewarden
• Itzel, elven astrologer
• Kyansei of the Eilika Tribe, wildling barbarian
• Quangbae, wandering blacksmith

They decided to travel to the Observatory first, on the eastern face of the mountains, then take the high passes from the Observatory across the peaks to Cauldron Lake. The journey to the Observatory takes two days of carefully picking narrow paths through culverts and gullies, along switchbacks and sparsely-forested mountain faces, then into thickly forested sheltered canyons that are perfect ambush spots for raiding deepfolk. They traveled slowly and carefully along these usually-peaceful pathways, mindful of heavy rainclouds above and wary of the dripping stillness of the mountain pines. At the end of the day Itzel and Kyansei sought camp, but with little success: they passed a harsh night sleeping on rough stones in a windy rock outcrop, eating cold food with no fire for fear of being seen by any deepfolk scouts that might be about.

In the morning they were glad of their chilly fastness, though, when they descended the rockface to find the footprints of a large animal in the mud at its base. The creature must have been looking for them at night but failed to find the path, and after coursing the ground at their base in confusion wandered off. They were glad to have hidden, because each of its prints was easily larger than a bear’s, something like a huge cat with what looked like scales on the underside of its paws, and many wicked claws. Though they had been cold and damp, they had escaped a vicious fight they could ill afford to risk.

They ate another cold meal, decamped and continued climbing into the mountains. Around midday their path turned into a wider, heavily forested canyon, ideal for an ambush – and of course it was here that they were ambushed. A fusillade of arrows struck them from both sides of the road, striking Itzel down instantly, and as they set themselves for battle another huge Orc warrior came screaming out of the trees, barreled straight down into the path and slammed into Kyansei. Remembering their last encounter with these monsters, Kyansei, Quangbae joined Kyansei in battle immediately while Bao Tap tried to find the archers, and Calim frantically healed Itzel.

Fortunately this time they found the archers quickly, and Bao Tap was able to charge into the trees with his summoned monster to fight them. On the other side of the road Itzel, brought back to consciousness by Calm, used her magic to pick off archers, and Calim alternated between healing Kyansei and shooting archers. The archers were Grig, the small pale-skinned and large-eyed creatures they had slaughtered in the cave. They were good at hiding and shooting, but frail and easily downed. This time the numbers were in their favour, and they soon killed all the Grig and brought the Orc champion down, Bao Tap returning from killing the Grig to join the brutal butchery. Just like the last Orc, this thing had supernatural endurance, and long after even a wildling Berserker would have collapsed it kept fighting, hopelessly weak but refusing to give in. Finally Quangbae tore its arm off and it collapsed in a heap, snarling weakly as it died.

They had prevailed, but it was obvious now that the raiding party they had destroyed near Estala had been part of a manoeuvre, and there was more happening in the mountains. They turned their faces to the higher slopes of the mountains and pressed on. The observatory was up there somewhere in the high cold air, and they began to have a very bad feeling about what they would find on those stony heights …