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gaeleth:campaigns:campaign_vii:vii-1-8

Campaign VII: Chapter One, Session Eight

The morning of the 27th of Davor, 1329

Droog and Savana were going through the Hoard, each searching for those items that might best help them in their reconaissance of Marksmen's hideout.

Thedlar, the needling barbarian in charge of the Hoard, had ensured that they both had cloaks that would help hide them from the Marksmen. The cloaks were made by some of the best of the desert elven mages, and would hide them under extreme conditions.

Droog, his scarred, bald head reflecting the magical torchlight of the Hoard, had his back to the main entrance of the great, vaulted room. Savana could only stare, though, as someone breezed past Thedlar – and the needling barbarian's voice had indicated extreme annoyance, mixed with fear.

Barome strode into the Hoard. The tall desert elf had died defending Droog, when the two of them had been captured deep in the Choranil Desert, and taken into one of the ogran camps. Savana had seen Barome's corpse claimed by Agincoth in the chapel of Lok Magius. She nearly fainted, as the tattooed elf strode up to Droog.

Droog, when he turned around, was just as stunned.

Barome had changed somewhat. His eyes had a distinctively red cast to them, and his sun-bronzed skin was pale behind the lines of tattoos that crossed his skin. He wore only a blanket, arranged as a toga.

Behind Barome, Thedlar's wide eyes peered into the Hoard from the safety of the great entrance doors, the barbarian's body safely back behind the walls.

* * *

The gods of Gaeleth have the power to heal scarred skin, mend broken bones, and even return the souls of the departed to their bodies. The priests of the gods often supplicate the gods, giving them prayers, and asking for their power to do this healing. Only the most faithful of priests dares ask for death to be undone. Sometimes the gods even grant such a prayer.

And sometimes, the gods do not wait for the prayers to be made.

Barome was restored to life, at the behest of the gods. Droog had called upon the god K'Tath to avenge Barome's death. Droog had called upon the god Galgiran to reforge himself into a vessel of vengeance for Barome's passing. Droog had also called to the god Galanus to guide Barome's soul where it was needed. Droog had also called upon the goddess Agincoth to use her infinite knowledge, and put Barome's soul to the best use possible.

Droog's prayers had been answered. Barome was bound to the clerical Droog in a way neither could have foreseen.

* * *

Savana was placed in charge of the shield guardian, which she simply named Guardian. Reed, the executive assistant to the head mage, warned all of them that the shield guardian was a dangerous tool, and would have to be carefully managed to prevent it from accidently killing anyone.

A young mage that Savana had known, had been placed of a shield guardian some months before. In a tragic accident, the young mage had said, “March forward, Guardian” instead of “Follow me”. The shield guardian had marched forward, crushing the mage against the stones of the walls of Lok Magius, and then walking through the wall, causing much damage.

Savana worked with Droog and Barome to fine-tune the programming, to help prevent such an accident, even as the three of them considered Reed's orders and advice.

The four of them – Savana, Droog, Barome, and their mounts, and Guardian on foot – would be sent north of the River Galanus through the Eye of Galgiran. Once there, they would attempt to move more northward, and find the roc-hawkes, the Marksmen, and whatever might be powering the anti-scrying powers the ograns possessed.

From the north, another group, composed of Gundar the sylvan elf and several others, would move southward. Reed told them quite honestly that they would likely be spotted or discovered, and that it was all right. They had gate tokens, and could return to Lok Magius whenever they needed. The other group would be the more stealthful group, and would try to infiltrate the enemy position from behind. Neither group even knew where the ograns or the Marksmen were, and so two groups canvassing the area might find the encampment sooner than one could, as well.

Barome saw that there were holes in the plan big enough to fly a roc-hawke through, but he kept his silence.

Because it was the time of the Freeze, there would be no sun. The gas giant Maroth eclipsed the sun, and provided only a feeble red light. Savana was concerned that when they used the Eye of Galgiran to arrive, roc-hawkes might see the blue of the ring in the dark of the Freeze.

As well, the conditions would be dark, and so the young mage made sure to put on her special spectacles – spectacles that would give her superior night vision, among other things. She was rather proud of the spectacles, and the many other magical devices that she had made over the years. She made sure to pack as many as she thought she'd need, including a small stone that created an unnatural zone of silence. The zone of silence would, she hoped, help mask the guardian when stealth was called for.

When the time came, later that morning, they moved out to the courtyard to the east of the Prime tower. There, a pavilion had been set up for the dwarven clerics that continually beseeched Galgiran to open his great eye, that the mages might use it to travel about Rakore.

The moment arrived, and they all quickly went through – finding themselves in a dark world of black trees, lit only by shafts of red light from Maroth, off to the east.

They moved quickly, finding the trail upon which the clerics of Galgiran had promised to place them, and Barome found the trail of many war-horses.

“Marksmen,” Droog growled.

The trail was a primitive road that led from the ferry north of Rilan, through the woods towards Kashin. The road was slow and torturous, and rarely used; it was far more efficient to use the river sloops and barges to move traffic between Rilan and Kashin – but, occasionally, the road was still used.

Barome also found the prints of a smaller horse. Savana easily identified the strange indentations of the hooves. Using a small mage-light, she saw the markings that indicated it was Toirin's horse.

Together, they moved out, quickly following the hoof-prints.

The shield guardian had about its neck the stone of silence that would mask its travels, and it was instructed to follow the party at a distance of fifty feet. They experimented a bit with their instructions to the guardian, and found that it had vision in a full circle around it – even behind its helmed head.

The guardian was an odd-appearing figure in the dappled red light. Its shoulder and hip joints were too narrow for anyone to assume a human wore the apparent armor of the creature. Its massive shield was nearly as tall as it was. Its feet and hands were over-sized to an extreme. Its helmet shaped head with only a slit for a visor never moved from side to side, but remained forever locked in the same direction as its torso. It's steel skin gleamed dully, covered partially by mud from the trail.

The guardian was able to run at the pace of a horse indeffinately.

Barome would occasionally dismount to check the prints he could see in the mud of the roadway, but otherwise, they continued on as quickly as possible. They knew the Marksmen were already a day ahead of them.

Morning turned into noon, and then afternoon, before they saw the tracks veer off the ferry-Kashin road. When they made the turn, they discovered another short-coming of the guardian's orders.

Where before, the road had been relatively straight or gently curved, the trail that veered off the road left it at a near right-angle. As Barome carefully scouted down the trail on foot, and Droog and Savana followed on Lok Magius' horses, the guardian simply cut the straightest path possible – right through a dense stand of trees.

The zone of unnatural silence only extended twenty feet, and when a sizeable tree was knocked over, its top fell onto many of its neighbors. The whole forest went silent for a moment, and even the crickets and the night's bats were silent, before slowly building back up their calls.

Savana and Droog quickly sought a way to fix the situation. After a cautious waiting time, they resumed following the trail, keeping the guardian a bit closer and more in their control.

While they quietly awaited, just in case, they heard coyotes in the forest ahead of them – coming closer, calling to one another.

A coyote-mounted kobold patrol of three or four of the little reptilian creatures went cautiously by on the trail. Once the lead kobold was past, they sprung their ambush, and took the ogran scouts down as quickly as possible.

Barome used a magical device that essentially doubled his size. The seven-foot elf grew to nearly fourteen feet tall, and his weapons and equipment grew in proportion with him. To the kobolds, in the red-dappled light of Maroth, it appeared as though a tree had suddenly moved, and then impaled a coyote to the ground – through the kobold riding it.

The guardian proved equally effective at destroying kobolds and coyotes, turning one mounted pair into so much red goo with its fist.

Savana had sprung the ambush with her wand of magical bolts – their pink and fuscia colors blending in well with the red-dappled light of Maroth. The young mage had originally cursed Thedlar the barbarian for giving her the wand based solely on her gender.

The ambush was over very quickly, but they knew silence was gone. They quickly formed up, and prepared to move forward, regardless – though they hoped that the kobolds had been far enough back from the main camp, wherever it was, that no one had heard the brief but fierce battle.

Some half-mile ahead, Barome's keen elven ears heard the screams of a woman, be it elven or human he did not know. The screams were deffinately torturous, and another soon followed that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

As they moved slowly through the forest, getting within hundreds of yards of the screams through the dense forest, they quickly moved off the trail. Ahead, armored figures on horseback were galloping towards them – apparently checking on the kobold patrol.

Barome again used his magical device to make himself incredibly huge, as the guardian was called into service to attack. The ambush did not go so well, and even the guardian was hard-pressed to do much damage; the Marksmen were well-organized, and well-prepared to retreat, which they did so in an ordered manner.

Thinking to engage them before they had a chance to organize, Barome and Droog led the others along the trail at a break-neck pace – and the screams of some woman continued, growing louder.

Droog wondere if, perhaps, such torture could be powering the anti-scrying powers of the ograns.

As they burst into a clearing, they realized that it was time to use the gate token.

Off to their right, on a small hill in the clearing, four great roc-hawkes turned their heads towards the party. Ahead of them, on the other side of the clearing, were a number of tents and pavilions on their side of a fast-moving stream, beneath the trees. Marksmen were tumbling out of the tents at the behest of… Captain Vadrus Hague. His sword was held aloft, its blade roiling with living fire, serving as a torch for the man.

Out of the ground itself, from some hole in the earth, crawled out a bulette – a sand shark. The great creature's jaws were as large as a roc-hawke's, and its armored hide and enormous claws allowed it to bury beneath sand and dirt as though it were a shark. Atop the bulette's back sat an orc rider.

More orcs were pouring out of the earth from another hole nearby, even as others moved about near the great roc-hawkes.

Even as Droog broke the portal token, a scream of torture pierced the night, and was cut off in mid-scream.

Barome could only stand in shock, seeing the hoard of evil being arrayed against him.

Out of one of the holes in the ground climbed an ogre in full plate, with a sword so massive that it carried the blade in two hands. The ten-foot tall ogre made even the magically enhanced Barome very wary. Another ogre, and then another, crawled out of the hole.

Captain Hague continued to rouse his men, even as arrows began to fly from orc bow strings.

The shield guardian lived up to its name, shielding all of them as they dove through the Eye of Galgiran that had formed. The ten-foot-tall ring lent the clearing an eerie blue counter-light to the flaming sword of Captain Hague, and the red light of Maroth above.

Savana, Droog, and Barome poured through the ring with their mounts, and called to the other mages and the dwarven clerics to be ready.

Moments passed, and still the shield guardian did not come through the ring.

Barome readied defenses, and prepared to engage the first ogre to come through the gate. Droog had his medallion in hand, holding it up, the symbol of Galgiran held out and ready. Savana prepared her wand, reading to unleash pink and fuscia bolts under a blood-red afternoon sky.

The guardian strode through at the last moment, and the Eye of Galgiran closed behind it, barely missing its hind end.

So ends the afternoon of the 27th of Davor, 1329.

DM's Notes

We played at my place, this time, to give the guys a break from the demands of family while they played. The session went well, with plenty of humor and several jokes to start off. Erin wore a red shirt, and we wondered if that was good, or bad, as the red-shirts always died in the original Star Trek episodes.

James had NO clue Barome was coming back, and Erin and I enjoyed that. Erin had decided he wanted to bring Barome back, but didn't know how, until I pointed him to the Shadow Guardian prestige class I had. Erin would take the experience gained from the night his character 'died', and use it to make him a 1st-level cleric, and meet the requirements for the prestige class. This makes Barome a fighter, a cleric, and a shadow guardian.

James' Droog is a cleric, and a barbarian. This makes an interesting mix in the party, though I think James is going to shift back towards Cleric, for now, and only now-and-again work with his barbarian classes.

XP Awarded

2,000. (total XP awarded to date is 14,000)

gaeleth/campaigns/campaign_vii/vii-1-8.txt · Last modified: 2021/09/28 15:51 (external edit)