AAR: [ECR 10H] Waltzing Matilda 2020-09-12 1700 GMT

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Waijhou
Posts:245
Joined:Sat Oct 27, 2018 2:27 am
Re: AAR: [ECR 10H] Waltzing Matilda 2020-09-12 1700 GMT

Post by Waijhou » Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:23 pm

September 12, 2020

To unlock the greatest powers of his belt, Zil must walk a mile (actually, much more) in the shoes of a legendary bagman, immortalized in poetry and song. Join him to deal with all the problems sure to spring up along the way.
After some meticulous investigation into his belt, Zil determines he needs to head out to 33.15, and converse or negotiate with it/him/her. After a short discussion with the adventuring crew, we decide to catch a ride on an air ship to get close as possible to our destination, then we can jump off the air ship and fly thanks to Metal Wings spell. Along on Zil’s expedition are Dvarim, Jael, William Carver and myself. I was a last minute sub as Karl had a personal engagement and could not attend. We are able to convince the Throal government to do a mapping expedition of the Servos jungle in that particular area. Having William Carver along is a bonus for the government as he is a renowned map maker.

We arrive at 33.16 and jump overboard from the air ship. We all landed safely thanks to the Metal Wings, except for Dvarim, he landed safely and didn't use the Metal Wings spell. I will have to ask him about that later.

We hike a short distance to a billabong. Dvarim and Zil both confirm there is a water spirit here. Zill attempts to speak to it. Zil is speaking some strange language, but I can not understand it. A second spirit shows up and speaks Dwarven. THe spirit says it used to carry it, and it used to be a bag. It must have been reworked into a belt. The spirit tells a story of love and betrail. Apparently it was a poem and possibly a song. A Troubadour named Banjo, a lovely wife left home, and a thief. Zil asks about doing a service for the spirit to receive its blessing. The spirit says he has descendants at around 36.18 and something there isn't right. Go fix it to receive my blessing.

We head off following William Carver's lead. After 3 days of travel we come to a small village right next to the Servos River. As we are walking up to the village, a human male walks out to meet us. He says “Greetings and hail Thystonias”. And he introduces himself as Theoren. Zil greets him and says something about Garlens blessings on him. He looks askance at this. We make introductions all around. He asks what we are doing here. Zil explains we are on a quest. He welcomes us to his town of Varilla and says they bask in the glory of THestonias and hail the strong. He says wait a moment, and asks our names again. Apparently there was a troubadour that came through this village about a month ago telling tales of us. He wore a scarlet tunic. We are famous here.

He says they found a temple of Thestonias and since then he has been speaking to them. We ask about seeing this temple and we are told tomorrow, after the games we can go. THe games are ones of physical strength. Dvarim speaks to several of the villagers, and asks about possibly seeing the temple today before the games, so we may also receive and praise the great Thystonias. Theoren was the one who actually discovered the temple. I ask Zil to look astraly and see if these people are tainted. He says the astral in the area is tainted, but couldn't tell if the villagers were horror marked.

We are invited to a feast tonight. Lots of food, music, dancing. We are shown to a house that we can use for the evening. As we are setting in the house all are all in agreement we need to find this temple tonight, not waiting for tomorrow. Zil tries to summon a large air elemental and is unsuccessful. Dvarim tries to summon a mid sized earth elemental to help find the temple. THe earth elemental gives Dvarim a direction of east. People go east, there was blood shed to the east. William Carver activates his amazing boots and sneaks off to scout out to the east. He is being very carful incase somebody from the village is trying to watch us.

As William is looking around to the east, he finds an arena. Then he notices a large mass of something coming his way so he returns to the rest of the group. We all prepare for battle, going to the edge of the village. Several large groups of cadaver men are heading towards us. Just before we begin to fight we hear the voice of Theoren say “I meant to take care of this tomorrow, but today is fine too. I was thinking about bringing all of you into the fold, but you're all too famous. The fight begins.

THe battle is long and very hard. 6 different cadaver man hordes come at us. It is roughly 180 of them. THey are trying to overwhelm us and knock us down. We are able to fight our way through these attempts. THen they tried to grapple me, but my good friend Zil had given me the Mantle of the Fire Marauder, when they tried to grab me they would burn themselves. Several of them killed themselves this way. I looked over my shoulder and noticed William getting bore to the ground. I used my great leap talent to land right next to him and decapitate the cadaver men that were on him.

After the cadaver man are dealt with we search for Theren, We track him to a crystal tower next to the river. He sees us, and tells us he is mad at us for destroying his army. He knows our names, then the crystal tower disappears. We go and look for the villagers. They are easily found, but they are all corrupted to one degree or another. Zil tries to use his blessing of Garlen to help some, to no effect. We will have to leave them here and bring back help. There are about 200 villagers here and I am unwilling to kill them . We head back to the billabong to talk to the spirit. The spirit is distrubed at the news but is happy we did all we could to save as many as possible.

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: AAR: [ECR 10H] Waltzing Matilda 2020-09-12 1700 GMT

Post by ChrisDDickey » Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:34 pm

From the journal of Zil, Elementalist on the path of the Purifier, and Exemplar of Garlan. 

To unlock the highest ranks of Slim Dusty, I needed to go to the Billabong that is haunted by some spirits and bargain with them. I had thought that a billibog was a swamp or marsh, but in my research I learned that a billabong is a pond or lake left over when a river changes course. I did some more research and found that the Billabong I needed to go to was in the Servos Jungle at 35,15. We traded on our reputation and managed to hitch a ride most of the way on an Airship heading to Travar. At the correct location we cast Metal Wings and flew down to the ground. After a bit of hiking we quickly found the Billabong, and detected spirits within it. 

I called out to the water spirit, who spoke to me, but as soon as I explained what I was doing there, she said that I needed to talk to her friend Nate. The ghost of Nathen Bailey (speaking Throalic) told me things that I at first found very confusing, because it did not match the legends I had heard in my research. The confusion was that hundreds of years ago a talented Troubadour had been purposefully lying (or perhaps merely taking creative licence to improve the story, depending upon the perspective). The Troubadour had been trying to make himself look good, and Nathen look bad. All of this lying / creative licence had confused things and left the legend messed up. The very funny thing is that in his attempts to mess up his friends reputation, the Troubadour has twisted things so that both of their names have been brought into disrepute. 

Anyway, the revised story, as told to me by the ghost, was that Nathen Bailey was a human Thief Adept, who had the Versatility Talents of Summoning and Elemental Tongues. He sometimes adventured with a friend named Banjo Paterson who was a dwarf Troubadour. Bailey mentioned that one of his most famous heists was to steal some mystic jewels from some warlord or another, but that story was not known to any of us. Anyway, they sometimes adventured together, and sometimes adventured separately. One time while Banjo was out of town for a long time, Nathen conducted an affair with Banjo's husband. 

This was just before the Scourge, and after Banjo came back, they fought together against some mindless horrors (from his description I think they were Gnashers), and Nathen Bailey died heroically defeating the Gnashers, right next to this very Billabong. Unfortunately, Bango Paterson found out about the affair with the unfaithful husband almost immediately thereafter, and, being upset, decided to spread the word that Bailey had drowned attempting to steal a single head of livestock, a very unheroic death for such a heroic thief. The poem, and the song that he later composed became very popular, and were sung throughout the land. Infact, it was one of the very last popular songs before most of the kears were sealed, and most kears stopped communicating and songs were unable to spread from kear to kear. Thus this song retained it's popularity for hundreds of years (since many kears did not have anybody writing new songs). Anyway, in the meantime, Banjo had Nathen's sheepskin bag refashioned into a sheepskin belt. Thus the answer to the question "who was the first owner of Slim Dusty, the sheepskin bag?" is "Nathen Bailey", but the answer to the question "who was the first owner of Slim Dusty, the sheepskin belt?" is Bando Paterson. 

Words, of course, have power, and songs even moreso. Trying to twist legends is a dangerous business, and Banjo's legend got twisted as well. When I had arrived at the billabong I had thought that the name of the common swagman who had drowned during a livestock theft was Banjo Paterson! It is hilarious that Banjo, attempting to mess with the legend of his companion sullied his own name! It is more than hilarious, it is a somber warning to us all. 

This Thread Item is also a reminder that Thread Items do not function on Truth, they function on Legend. The Slim Dusty Rank 5 Research Knowledge of "The owner must learn the fate of the first owner", the legends all agree that the answer is "Drowned in a billabong escaping from mounted authorities". And that is the answer that the Item expects and accepts. Because that is what the items legend says. Other than this journal, none but a single lone ghost, and his water elemental companion at a lonely billabong in the middle of a jungle assert that the answer is "died fighting Gnashers". 

I found all of this fascinating, and the magical implications blew my mind, but after hearing his story, I still had to ask what I could do for him. He told us that he had descendents living in a village several days journey to the SW (36,18) in a settlement on the river. He asked us to look them up, find out what is going on, and put it to right. 

We traveled to the location, and found the settlement of Verilla where described. We were greeted by a human named Theoren. When he heard our names he became very excited, as a Troubadour had come through a month earlier and told many of our legends. The whole village feted us as hero's, and invited us to attend the monthly games to be held the next day. Theoren, and everybody in the village of 200 or so mentioned the Passion Thestoonious seemingly every breath. They were always inviting us to bask in the glory of Thestonious, or to "Hail the Strong". We quickly got the story that Theoren had discovered a temple of Thestonious, and that Thestonious himself has been speaking to him for over a year now and guiding the village. 

When asked about the games the next day, they told us that they were to honor Thestonious, and they were gladiatorial games to the death. With my passion lore, I knew that while Thestonious does not strictly speaking disapprove of or reject competition to the death, he is just as happy, if not more so with non-lethal competition, so I knew that something was very, very wrong. Plus of course, Bailey had told us that he could feel that something was wrong from days travel away. I did an Astral Sight and found that the whole village was Tainted with corruption. We tried to get somebody to take us to the temple that evening, but everybody wanted to wait until after the games the following day. They gave us the use of a house for the night to sleep.

I tried to summon an earth elemental, but failed, fortunately Dvarim succeeded in his attempt. The elemental could not tell us where the temple was, but was able to to us that Theoren frequently goes East (towards the river). After dark, we waited until everybody seemed asleep, and William went out scouting. He found that nobody seemed to be spying upon us. He found a large arena on the east edge of town, and a path that he felt confident would lead to the temple. He decided to go get the rest of us so we could go to the temple under cover of dark. Just as he started back to get us, he saw a very large mass of something approaching from the direction he thinks the temple lies. He ran to warn us all, and we set up at the east edge of the village and had several minutes to prepare, then almost 100 cadaver men organized into three hordes, descended upon us from the east. We hear a voice that sounds like that of Theoren, but much louder than a voice can speak (without the aid of magic) It said “I considered trying to bring you all into my service, But stories of your exploits have reached those here. I think it will serve me better for you to all vanish without a trace. The fear it will spread will be delicious.”  

At first it was hard to fight so many. We could destroy them, but there were so very, very many it was hard to make a dent that seemed significant or stem the tide. It took us a while to find our most efficient strokes. William Carver and Xevious were both briefly overwhelmed and suffered wounds, and Jael, while slaying many, was taking immense amounts of strain. I shared out a Grove Renewal among the three of them. About the time we hit our stride and were starting to slay them quickly, we noticed another 3 hordes approaching from the west! Fortunately we managed to almost destroy the three eastern hordes before the western ones made their way (through the deserted village) to reach us, we destroyed these hordes one at a time and victory was ours. 


We quickly rushed up the path to the site of the temple, and beheld a large crystal edifice. The voice that sounded very like, but not quite like Theoren's said something mocking about it knowing our names, or maybe it was that it knew where we lived, and then the whole edifice vanished from sight. I tried to look at Astral sight, but was unable to pierce the corruption, though Dvarim says that he got a glimpse of it leaving. We were unable to track it or find where it had gone. 

We checked the people of the village again, and now, as if scales had been lifted from our eyes, it is clear that many are corrupted, and some seem to be partially converted to horror constructs already. I tried everything that I could to reverse the process, but as a Purifier, I can purify the earth, but not people. The only way I know of is to destroy the horror that has touched them. I did do a few things that I think might help in the future. We marked the location of the crystal temple on our maps, and I made sure that everybody could recognize the site from the air, via landmarks visible from the air. I also spent several days in the "ritual of cleansing", and was able to cleanse about 1/4 of the arena. About twice a week I summon a swift spirit of air to fly to the arena and check the level of corruption. I have no doubt that if the crystal horror ever returns to that village, the arena will quickly become corrupted again. 

We returned to the Billabong and reported our actions to the ghost of Nathen Bailey, He agreed to give his blessings to my tieying higher ranking threads to Slim Dusty, but I still feel that I owe a debt there, in that the village is at present only half saved. I also asked the water spirit Matilda to make frequent inquiries about the state of corruption in the arena, and if the corruption level starts to arise again, indicating that the "games" have restarted, to try to get word to me.

Montaugh
Posts:203
Joined:Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:49 pm

Re: AAR: [ECR 10H] Waltzing Matilda 2020-09-12 1700 GMT

Post by Montaugh » Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:26 am

My name is William Carver and I am an 8th circle Scout, 5th Circle Thief, 5th Circle Cavalryman, and 3 rank in the path of the Journeyman

The adventure started out easy enough for Zil, Xevious, Jael, Dvarim and myself. We just needed to complete the deed for Zil's belt. We contacted the elemental who happened to be a former human in his previous life and were given the task to find out what happened to his descendents.

We traveled by airship into the jungle, this is where we met the elemental. It was a pretty easy travel and nothing much to report. While once the jungles brought a lot of fear to me traveling within them, they have since become not so bad of a place.

We entered the village and were greeted and told about the contest of the strong. It was a fight to the death. We stayed the night in the village, and I set out late in the night to do some looking around. I found the arena where a lot of blood was split, I got the general direction of the area to look in by some elementals that dvarim and Zil conjured.

While I was there I heard a lot of somethings, and decided it was best to get back to the others. it was a good thing that I did, once before I had seen a lot of cadavarmen but we did not engage them, this time we found ourselves attempting to defend the city from a horde of them.

We engaged a group to the east, and while Charlie did well, I did not do so good. I tried to charge through them, and they succeeded in me getting surrounded and pulled to the ground. It was not one of my finer moments. Xevious saved my life and cut a path through the horror constructs, even Charlie had a better showing than I did. The cadavarmen could not even harm dvarim and Jael was being like Karl and killing himself with strain. Another group of them almost ambushed us from the west.. how we almost missed 90 more of those creatures is beyond me. Though I was a bit busy with being knocked on the ground and swarmed.

We managed to defeat them though it was a close call for a while there. We engaged the horror, who said it knew our names... it must have known our reputation as well because it quickly fled the area. We will track it down and do to it like we have done to the others of its kind. It was a crystal entity sort of horror, I believe this is the second sort of horror like this I have now encountered.

I need to get stronger, that much is certain.

William Carver

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