AAR: [3H] Worlds of Arcana 2020-05-10 1900gmt

[Sharkforce]

Myself, Rama, Nez, and Moe-uhane will be going on this adventure. Let's go find that book!

[BrandenV]

AAR: Worlds of Arcana
GM: Branden
Rating: 3 Hard

Player Rewards:
Rama: 5 TIPs, 2000lp, 413sp
Nez: 5 TIPs, 2000lp, 413sp
Ziv: 5 TIPs, 2000lp, 413sp
Moe: 5 TIPs, 2000lp, 413sp

Journal Awards: 100lp, 103.25sp

GM Reward: (Kain) 3 TIPs, 800LP, 200SP

Alternate Awards: Last chance salve for Moe, Ziv can be a wizard.

Downtime Actions Available:
Moe Research - step 9
Ziv [Animal Training] [Step 14 including karma] [Rank 4]

Summary:
The adepts faced The wizard and lived to tell the tale they retrieved the book Worlds of Arcana. The Wizard escaped. Fort with fancy building in 41.10. Fort and building perfectly intact. Burned out magical organ and circle in the building.

[Sharkforce]

Summary:
The adepts faced The wizard and lived to tell the tale they retrieved the book Worlds of Arcana. The Wizard escaped. Fort with fancy building in 41.10. Fort and building perfectly intact. Burned out magical organ and circle in the building.

disclaimer: fort may or may not be able to suck the life out of you if you live there for very long, may or may not render you incapable of speech, may or may not summon ghouls to murder you, may or may not murder you in your sleep (or unconsciousness), and may or may not suck the life out of any nearby crops you even *try* to grow. The adventuring party takes no responsibility for these or other side effects if you are stupid enough to take up residence in a fort that is at the epicentre of some sort of life-draining effect.

From the Journal of Zivilyn, Windling Magician: Worlds of Arcana

I am of mixed opinions about this latest adventure. By some measures it was a success; we recovered the tome we were sent to locate, albeit just barely by the purest of luck and the skin of our teeth. In many other ways, it was far less of a success than our employers seem to think it was. The villainous necromancer that was spawning ghouls and stealing life from his minions escaped. The book we were sent to recover may or may not have played a part in the horrific events that happened there, but one way or another he undoubtedly has some dangerous knowledge that would be better off not known. And I only hope that if the Worlds of Arcana is related to his vile powers that the Library buries it in a hole so deep that none ever find it again. It is, perhaps, less awful than some of the things I hear about from other adepts who have been dealing with other problems in the area. Rumours abound about the placed called Grakor and it's growing danger. I fear the fool who meddled in things which ought to be left alone will not be brought to justice any time soon, unless perhaps he also is related to the doings of Raggok, which seems like it must be a priority as I hear they are corrupting the beasts in service of their ill will. It is possible that he is a part of such things, I suppose; the undead are certainly not unfamiliar to Raggok's chosen followers, and all the beings we fought were uncannily silent save for the magician himself, perhaps related in some way to the Cloister of Silence that the Mad Passion has assaulted recently.

Still, I suppose that is another tale. This one is about a book. I had heard that a book, potentially of considerable import, had gone missing. Hidden in a shipment of... less valuable books, the shipment had first been stolen and then the leader of the bandit group that took the books, a Wizard, was found dead... probably by the mad fool who was the master of the fort we raided today. Myself, Rama, Moe, and an adept I had never previously met by the name of Nez, a fellow Windling and a Beastmaster (although he had no beasts with him) had been tasked with retrieving the book. It had been traced to a fort in the wilderness in the vicinity of Juniper's Hollow, which itself recently has faced many trials... horror-spawned disease, I hear, and even more recently dark deeds of creating foul beasts from the remains of namegivers and beasts combined were traced to the region. Our employers did not seem to know much of it, but that this was supposed to be where the book was kept, stored in some contrivance of magic that would preserve it through the ages. I cannot fathom how they knew that much without knowing more... perhaps the book was never in the shipment that was stolen, but rather a mention of where it was kept, and when they retrieved that they sent us after it. I shall have to make a point of investigating my employers a little more thoroughly in the future.

When we got to our destination, expecting perhaps some ruins with who-knows-what in it, we instead found a perfectly intact fort, with who-knows-what in it. There was definitely something strange about them; they appeared to be Namegivers, a mixture of Orks and Humans, but they were silent as death and did not seem to be acting naturally. They raised no alarm on seeing us, but merely fired arrows. When angered, they seemed unable to grasp the concept of using the bows that they had previously wielded with an uncomfortable amount of skill. When we were not in sight, they often merely stood in place rather than moving to engage us. I do not know what was wrong with them, but these were no normal bandits or brigands. In addition to the people there being odd, the trees surrounding the perfectly intact fort looked as if they had simply died on the spot, for no apparent reason. Astral investigation revealed that there was definitely something off about the area, but I lack the experience to say exactly what it might have been. Future evidence would suggest that *something* was draining the life from everything around the fort. Perhaps the energy so gained was used to restore the fort to wholeness. In any event, I care not for the place; there is something unnatural about it, and it is not wholesome in the slightest.

The gates of the fort were guarded by a pair of towers; we decided to attempt to get into the compound by way of a dead tree nearly touching the rear wall, which had no towers (another factor in my belief that this fort is unnatural is in the fact that all the trees nearby are dead, but none were felled; not to build the fort, not to clear the area around it, nor even for firewood). It was certainly easier to get inside without the guards firing arrows at us, but once inside things got a lot harder. Cover was not as abundant as we might have liked, and we took a number of wounds in dealing with the guards scattered around within the outer walls. While pressed up against the inner building, made of wood unlike the stone outer walls, Moe was able to hear organ music playing all the while, which was most unnerving. We also saw some horses in a stable nearby, which strangely made no noise either, in spite of the sounds and smells of battle nearby; most unnatural. As an unfortunate side effect of our chosen method of entry, we were unable to bring Pepper or Jolly Jumper along with us into the fort; I left them a ways off to eat, knowing that they would be unable to sneak up to the wall or climb a tree or a rope to get inside. Their help would have been greatly appreciated, as another two sets of hooves may have turned the battle more quickly and prevented some harm.

In the end, we prevailed... we resolved to take a Hero's Feast to recover from our injuries, but after only one hour of food and stories the organ from within the central building grew louder. We had wanted to take care of a few other things before attacking, like opening the gate of the fortress, gathering my animal friends, and burning the corpses of those we had felled (who had died, even when stricken with wounds that should not have killed them), but in our haste to, as we thought, prevent some great evil from occurring we quickly prepared to launch our assault. Well, I don't know that we prevented much evil that day. The main hall had a raised area at the far end of it, where a madman was playing an organ that seemed to control his minions; a combination of Human guards similar to the ones that we had faced outside, and ghouls. I had recently faced ghouls for the first time, and I must say; I was not looking forward to facing more of them. Fortunately, these ghouls seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Unfortunately, a magical circle in the centre of the hall kept summoning more of them. Additionally, there were faces carved into the wall below the stage where the mad musician played, and at his command the faces fired lightning bolts at us. The villain seemed not to care for the lives of his minions, who I am frankly not certain were genuinely alive in the first place, and they caught a blast or two as well. Moe was particularly hurt by the lightning; perhaps the T'Skrang on the stand hated his own kin more than he hated others. We charged in to strike at him, but he withstood our attacks for more easily than I would have liked. He was able to simply send us out of the building by means unknown to me, all the while playing the organ and cackling madly. Moe went down to a well-aimed arrow from one of the guards, and since we had already somehow been transported outside we decided that perhaps we were out of our depth. I suppose we were lucky, if you can call it that, for the master's lack of care for his own minions; in attempting to destroy us with his lightning bolts, he did far more harm to them. There had been I think 3 guards standing and at least 5 ghouls, with more coming, when we started to leave; his insanity killed most of the ghouls, and the humans were nearly dead, though more so than I would have expected since we had barely been able to so much as scratch them... I believe they must have been drained by whatever foul magic was creating the ghouls, or perhaps simply by their long time being so close to the center of whatever was stealing life from the land. We made it to the gate, which Rama unbarred while carrying Moe's body, in a fighting retreat, and were barely able to finish off the last of the enemies, including even the ghouls that had been acting as a personal guard on the stage near the organ, but not the wizard, when we heard a loud clanging noise come from the main building. Rama and I carried Moe's body out of the area that was drained of life and started applying the last chance salve I had recently purchased (he carried the body, obviously; I got out the salve), while Nez decided to quickly investigate the building to see what had happened. He returned with news that the building seemed empty, no enemies were around, and that there was a trap door on the stage area leading to a living area with a secret passage. I hurried off, leaving the salve with the others, and went to investigate (being a Beastmaster, Nez was unsure of what he was looking at; he had grabbed a few books, but wasn't sure if they were the one we were looking for). I arrived just in time to see the master of the keep leaving through an escape tunnel, and when I chased him he turned around and drew a sword. I blew a whistle I carried with me, hoping to get the attention of my fellow Adepts, and I believe that more than anything saved my life; he threatened me to allow him to escape with the promise that he would let me live. I refused, and he promptly cut me down while I attempted to Invoke a Crow Spirit to peck out his eyes. If my friends were not on their way, forcing him to flee, I believe I would have likely been killed, and then probably used in some corrupt ritual. As it was, I held on to life by a thread, and regained consciousness quite some time later. At least I can say that I tried to stop him, but I worry that it was not enough. Trying and failing will not prevent him from causing more harm elsewhere.

I was pleased at least to find that the salve had worked to restore Moe to life as well. Money well spent, in my opinion; I would have been greatly saddened if he had died, and luck seemed to have abandoned him in all other things that day. And it so happened that when Nez grabbed a few books from the room, he had coincidentally grabbed the very book we were looking for. I almost wish he had destroyed the rest before the knave had escaped with them, for I cannot imagine they contain anything the world is not better without, but I suppose that decision would only make sense in hindsight; at the time, he did not know he already had the book we needed, and we had promises to keep. We did our best to burn the bodies of everything that had died in the fort (except Moe, of course). The fort remains. I hope it will not trouble us again. I fear that it will. And I worry that other more pressing concerns will mean that the fort is not dealt with properly any time soon. At the very least, I have been able to persuade one of the librarians to train me as a Wizard; I hope that I shall gain the skills to return, discover what foul plan was set in motion, and put an end to them before others are hurt as badly as we were.

I will add one last thought: the organ player seemed to be quite skilled with a blade, and when confronted without the instrument did not seem to use magic at all. Make of that what you will; I do not know if he was an adept, or any sort of magician, or if he was a warrior or swordmaster. He was the only one that spoke or even seemed capable of it. I should think it would be wise to keep an ear to the ground in case word of a T'skrang skilled with a broadsword and tail blade and carrying books and accompanied by silent servants in the future. If an opportunity arises to deal with him properly, it would be a shame to waste it.

[Xzandrate]

From the travels of Moe'uhane, T'skrang Illusionist, 3rd Circle.

We have been recruited to retrieve a book ferreted away within a fort before the scourge. The book was wrapped in magical protections to ensure it's survival, the fort was not. Again I would be joined by Zivilyn and Rama. Finally we would and another Windling to the party, Nez the Beastmaster. Ferocity bottled in a tiny form.

Our guide took us as close as he dare warning nobody had ventured to this fort and knew not it's condition. Rama then tended to the animals as the remainder of us snuck forward under spell cover. We soon came upon the fort, surprisingly intact, even more surprisingly wrapped in a visage of death. The trees nearest the walls had withered, this did not look ancient, so it did not bode well for us. There stood two Ork archers upon towers flanking either sides of the gate. It would be a long and difficult approach. The just stared forward as if in a daze. Zivilyn and Nez conducted more detailed recognisance and determined that we may be able to climb over the wall a bit more out of sight of the guards. More disturbingly, when they were briefly seen the guard let loose an arrow with no alert to his companion. We retrieved Rama and made our attempt to burgle the fort. The wall was a bit too difficult to climb over and we were short the tools for entry, so I clung to Rama's back as we climbed over.

As we crested the top an arrow lodged itself into the tenderest part of my tail, it was the start of my troubles in this cursed place. We quickly dropped down the other side and made short work of one of the sentries. Unfortunately the compound was large and we needed to cover a lot of ground to take care of the archers, especially as they relentlessly peppered us whenever we broke cover. The soreness in my tail was a great distraction, and as adamantly as I attempted to recall the transformations from Cloak to Monstrous Mantle I could not re-attune the matrix. The others fell upon a second sentry and then took cover behind a second out building, using it as cover to close on two more just under the watch towers. As they were upon the two sentries upon the ground, I changed tactics and prepared to launch Fog of Jeer at the maximum range that I could. I crept along the main building, which I continued to hear organ music from within. I thought myself safe, but a second arrow came lancing into my tail again, Passions the pain. Finally the group prepared to assault the watch towers and I cast Fog of Jeer on the furthest archer. It triggered an odd reaction in the fellow, but I took advantage and pumped as many True Emphemeral bolts into him as I could. The rest of the party caused the other archer to topple from the tower to a sudden end at the bottom, and then we finished his companion from range. We took a small rest to recover, patch the arrow wounds, and dispose of bodies. I used the booster potion on my tail to help numb the pain, quite helpful.

As we contemplated resting further, the organ music from the main building built in volume. We felt this was ominous and required immediate attention. We prepared in front of the doors, and as Zivilyn and I completed our spells, Rama threw open the doors. There were more guards, and a number of ghouls inside a makeshift theatre with a wizard playing an organ upon a stage. We entered cautiously, though not cautiously enough, as the lightning trap trigged and made it's way through friend and foe alike. Rama, Zivilyn and I watched as the trap singed a ghoul that had just emerged from an ominous magical circle, and continued into us. For what it's worth, when taken aback a T'skrang tail will often brace against the ground naturally, making it the perfect grounding for lightning. I could feel the tingling in my tail and did not wish to repeat that, so stepped aside the door and attempted to gain enough concentration to weave. Nez bolted towards the far wall and then the wizard. Rama followed after him and apparently got hit by a second similar trap. At this point I could hear the battle fully joined but could not maintain enough concentration to weave my spells. As I finally did complete my weaving, my compatriots were teleported outside, followed by our adversaries from the door I was standing beside. As I was gauging my surroundings and preparing to let loose an ephemeral bolt a THIRD arrow lodged itself in my tail, this one rather close to my backside and rather deep. The shock caused me to blackout. I do not remember a thing until Zivilyn, Rama, and Nez stood over me. If not for Zivilyn and his last chance salve, I would not be here to write this journal.

I am told that the wizard used the circle to drain his underlings and after we fell back to the gates they all fell except the ghouls. My compatriots finished them off, and while Zivilyn and Rama tended to me Nez checked the theatre. The wizard was gone, but there were a number of books, so Nez grabbed as many as he could carry. Once it was determined to be clear, Zivilyn returned to the theatre and as he explored the hidden passage Nez had located was met upon by the wizard, with more books in hand. Zivilyn called for help, but was downed by the wizard and left for Rama and Nez to find. As luck would have it, Nez had grabbed the book we came for in his random grab. We camped until I regained consciousness the next day and returned to Throal. Luckily as part of my reward, the Library allowed me to replace Zivilyn's last chance salve so he would not be in a bind in the future. I am going to take some time and let my tail heal and work more on my spell forms.

[Jexel]

NezPerce GrosVentre.


The Written Histories of Nez and …

Heading out with Rama, Zivilyn and Moe’uhane to track down a magical tome. The tome is located in an old abandoned fort somewhat near Throal. The outside world has proven to be a very harsh place. If it wasn’t for the wonders and freedom I would understand why many of the dwarves are complacent with staying underground.

We came to what was supposed to be a very old Fort. I did some scouting and found that the fort was in good shape but the trees around the fort appeared to have been killed by some sickness. The trees that were closer to the fort were the first to die. I also noticed two stoic watchmen on some towers, they were carrying longbows. We learned that the area around the fort was heavily tainted and when scouting out one of the guards shot an arrow at me. The strangest thing is that the guard did not shout out to its companions, as if the guard had lost the ability to think outside of simple tasks.

We then found a large tree to get the big guy Rama over the wall in the back. This led to a series of small skirmishes with speechless and devoid guards on the inside. During these battles even though we tried to break them up the guards on the tower were shooting arrows at us. One of them pierced through my abdomen and I was severely wounded. Finally after another big battle and some trickery by our magician’s to make one of the guards go into a murderous rage confined to his tower we cleared the courtyard.

We tried to rest for a bit and to lick our wounds before entering the main building. As we were waiting the sounds of an organ inside the building began to grow and we decided that we could not wait any longer.

We burst through the front door to find three ghouls, four guards and one very evil T’Skrang wizard. The wizard was on a raised platform in the back with two ghouls playing a very unnatural song on the organ. The main room had the others and some arcane glyphs on the center of the floor. With my flight I was able to move in and attack the wizard who was extremely tough for a wizard. I also asked him to stop but this was not a friendly T’Skrang. This also helped me because I inadvertently moved out of the way of some lightning traps. I think Sagarmartha may have been guiding me there. Even with how tough Rama is we all were getting badly beaten and Moe dropped dead. Ziv was badly hurt as well. We had to retreat.

Once we were back outside the guards chased us out and we finished them off. The unholy music stopped so I decided to scout back in. The room was cleared and I checked a room below the organ. After noticing a hatch below the bed I grabbed all the books I could carry and went back outside to see if the healing magic had saved Moe.

Fortunately Moe was not lost to us and Ziv was keen on getting his book so he rushed back in. Unfortunately for Ziv the red wizard had reappeared and he was in there alone. We heard Ziv’s whistle and hurried over to find the wizard had fled and Ziv was knocked out. In some irony and with the guidance of Sagarmartha I had actually grabbed the needed book.

We limped back to Throal. I must find Sagarmartha soon or I will not survive this dangerous world.

[ottdmk]

The Great Library of Throal thanks Moe'uhane, Zivilyn, and NezPerce GrosVentre for their contributions. +100 Legend and +103.3 sp.