AAR: [9M] Shadows of the Past (2021-02-12 23:59 GMT)

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verse86
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Re: LFG: [9M] Shadows of the Past (2021-02-12 23:59 GMT)

Post by verse86 » Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:40 pm

Thorkell's Journal:

Azurea has requested my assistance on a matter most personal to her. She hopes to learn of her past. It seems she was raised by adoptive parents and believes her parents threw her off a cliff as a baby. Along with myself, she invited Norg, Vlolkir, LaShana and Zivilyn. She was told of an outcast troll who lived on a mountain who was able to see visions. Immediately, I knew who she was talking about. I only hoped the crotchety old man would be willing to hear us out.

The trip was not difficult since we knew our way. On our way up we were greeted by the new addition of warning signs informing us of spirits and cats. Of course that would not dissuade us. We arrived at the house to find the door we previously used missing. LaShana flew up to check the windows, but her instincts told her the windows were warded with potent magic. She was however able to see him and goad him into replying giving away that he was actually home. Knowing we were the obstinate type, he decided letting us in was the only way to get us to leave.

Azurea told the hermit her story and implored him to help her. He was rather crass with her, but almost seemed to soften when he realized how hurt Azurea looked. He agreed to help her and brought us upstairs where he kept a most curious thread item. After sculpting some clay figurines he placed them around an old plate. This plate we would realize the thread item. Unfortunately it was made prior to the scourge and was unable to collect enough magic from the environment to work. We were required to offer some of our blood to power the contraption. *drawings and ideas on how to create and improve the design fill the next few pages*

As the device activated strange shadows extended outward and twisted around us. I found myself in a silent vision of what I can only imagine was the past. I saw a troll chieftain in what I believe was the Iceclaw's kaer preparing for closing just before the scourge. He was talking to some namegivers who seemed to implore entry. Despite the saddened look on his face he turned them away. Just then five trolls came forward and seemed to offer aid. They took a drakkar and flew the namegivers to the bottom of the mountain where they flipped the drakkar and warded as best they could as an impromptu kaer. A few of the trolls stayed behind while the others attempted to make it back to the kaer. Unfortunately they were too late. The doors were closed and they succumbed to the scourge.

After this vision I snapped to a grey area with our other members. We each accounted our tales. It seems I saw the forming of Azurea's childhood home. The others' visions told of later times in the kaer with a warrior who was smitten with the chief's advisor. The warrior shirked his patrol and met for a tryst with the advisor. Unfortunately his lapse in judgement allowed a horror to destroy much of the kaer's food reserves. The warrior was outcast and the advisor swore revenge. She somehow convinced the kaer that the chieftain's child must be expelled as well. The chieftain threw out a false child and tasked 11 warriors with taking his child to the makeshift kaer from my vision.

This part was much more clear as we seemed to embody the warriors. This vision was much more vivid and included sound and color. We agreed to the task and slipped out under the cover of night.

Let me first say, I hope the Scourge never have their way as the world was a true nightmare to behold. We lost comrades left and right. From ants whose sting crystallized the body to the earth literally swallowing people. As we neared our destination our last comrade who was not one of us noticed what appeared to be gnashers in the distance. They told us to go ahead while they slowed the approach. The tide of teeth would not be stopped and soon caught up with us. We fought with everything we had, but it soon became evident we would not come back from this. We handed the baby over to LaShana who dashed off towards the makeshift kaer. We continued to hold the line for as long as we could. Vlolkir was the first to succumb, bitten in half by a crackjaw. Thanks to his and Norg's efforts I was able to fell two of the monstrosities. Just in time for two more to overtake us. One by one we all fell to the overwhelming number of maws intent on consuming us. As death would take us we would snap back to reality. It was then I learned LaShana was successful in delivering the baby to the kaer.

Azurea was happy to learn that she was not cast aside out of malice. This however does raise more questions and I'm not sure returning will yield the answers she hopes for. Either way, if she does intend to confront her old moot she will have my blades at her side.

sigfriedmcwild
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Re: AAR: [9M] Shadows of the Past (2021-02-12 23:59 GMT)

Post by sigfriedmcwild » Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:45 pm

From "The Skies of Barsaive", as penned by Norg, Brother of Earth and Sky, Corsair of Throal

Not long after the events in Kampung Gaja, Azurea came by looking for some information. In her quest to discover her birth family, she had heard from her "auntie" that there is an old sage up in the mountains that may know more about her origins. After a few questions it became clear this was the old outcast near the Scorched Tusk moot.

Of course I had to join, how could I pass up the opportunity to harass the old git? I am pretty sure Thorkell, LaShana, and Zivilyn were thinking the same thing, while Vlolkir (who like Azurea had not yet met our grumpy Outcast) would probably provide the other side of the entertainment.

The trip to the old man's lair was a simple affair, with a quick stop at the Scorched Tusk for "supplies". As we approached the tower, Vlolkir once again leapt in a fire "for the health" benefits with predictable consequences. It seems our host was becoming aggravated with the amount of visitors so he'd put up several signs warning people off, which we promptly ignored, and had some spirit cats watching the area, which made Azurea unhappy.

Once again he refused to answer some polite knocking at the door (which in retrospect may not have been a door at all), until LaShana attempted to fly in through one of the first story windows (Throalic cultural hegemony be damned, this is one bit of Ustrect tradition I will die defending). Luckily for our windling, her well honed sense of danger alerted her to the Kaer level wards that blocked the window, even better the hidden grouch could not resist taunting her revealing his presence to us. At which point some pointed heckling got him to give up and let us inside.

Azurea valiantly tried to get her questions through, but trolls gotta troll and it ended up taking the better part of an hour, until the decrepit bastard turned his sharp tongue on her, with the unexpected result of seeing one of the deadliest trolls alive break out in tears. Tears which in turn got the old man to actually take this seriously and take us upstairs in his study, tell Zivilyn to clean (he is the apprentice afterall) while he prepared something.

A while later he came back with an assortment of items that formed an ancient artifact (well I'm told probably built during the scourge itself) that he claimed would reveal the truth. He conducted what looked like a very complex ritual which needed to be powered by blood magic and looked about as spooky as you would expect from a Nethermancer.

First we all individually experienced some visions of the past and then brought us together in a place made of nothing. There the five of us and the Nethermancer's cat pieced together Azurea's past:

Her father was the chieftain of a kaer. His chief advisor, a seer, had a lover, one of the kaer's warriors tasked with guarding one of the food stores. One night horrors snuck into the kaer, murdered the warrior family and ruined the store while he was, let us say, "otherwise occupied" with the seer. For this shame the chieftain cast the warrior out. The seer did not take this well and convinced the moot's elders that the chieftain's daughter was cursed and managed to get her cast out. We also saw that as the kaer was being sealed some trolls begged to be taken in, but there was no space, so the kaer offered a drakkar and a few people to help them. These would go on to build a makeshift kaer out of the drakkar's hull.

As we were piecing this information together it was clear that the makeshift kaer was in fact the kaer where Azurea grew up, but we didn't have too much time to ponder the full meaning as we were pulled into another vision, all together this time.

In this vision we seemed to embody some of a group of 11 warriors who were tasked by the chieftain to secretly take baby Azurea down to the drakkar-kaer, we were given an ancient map, a whole lot of well wishes and not even a spare nappy, hard times indeed.

After a moment to recover from the hilarity of Zivilyn and LaShana in troll bodies, we set on this deadliest of journeys, it was only a few years before the opening of the gates and the Scourge was almost over but, let me tell you, that "almost" is doing a lot of work. The landscape was twisted, horrors roamed the land, even the trees and the very ground were against us.

It was was a mad race against the inevitable, our only option to keep pushing ever forward even as our companions fell one by one. Eventually as we were almost in sight of our destination and down to just the five of us, a large pack of gnashers caught up with us and we had to make our stand while LaShana alone raced for the kaer with the baby in her arms. One by one we fell until it was just Thorkell and I holding the line against Crackjaws and Gravetails and Spikestalkers and who knows what else when LaShana finally reached the goal and the vision ended.

Being a vision we were all fine back in the Outcasts tower, even Vlolkir, who had been torn apart by a Crackjaw first thing in the fight, and the cat, who'd been devoured by the ground on the first day of the journey.

Azurea understandably needed some time to process this, as we tried to piece together which kaer it was that we had seen. The best we could come up was that the architecture looked very similar to the Iceclaw moot.

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