TH 15 Strassa 1507 (9/21/2013)

Mission Report
Action Team Hound – Camithon One-Eye (Team Leader)

Our 2-week patrol of valleys Delta and Gamma had 4 incidents of note:

1. An adventuring party of 5 adepts. These poor fools appeared to be following a forged map to some rumored treasure in the Caucavic mountains. On this occasion, agents Saiph and Androstachys impersonated a mad hermit and spirit to lure the targets out of the patrol area into a concealed position for an ambush. While the lure was successful and the targets were eliminated, these two agents need to review the concept of matching cover stories. Agent Kira showed promise in the tactical use of stealth. Suggest looking into whoever is supplying these bogus maps.
2. A wisp swarm appeared to be breeding in valley Gamma. The reproduction rate was unnervingly rapid for a location so close to the Citadel, so we intervened. A partially coordinated ambush eliminated the strongest of the wisps, and although it was a hard fight, the others were also destroyed. One wisp with useful properties was captured for experimentation.
3. An adept hunting party from the Sharptooth cannibal tribe (standing orders – no survivors). Although we were able to place them under surveilance, they were too many for certain victory. Agent Kira was sent to request backup (Kira has shown reliable instincts for avoiding trouble so was a reasonable choice for a solo messenger). While we awaited backup, one hunter ventured up valley and was eliminated without alarm. Kira returned with the Royal Guard, who destroyed the tribesmen while Action Teams Hound and Zephyr (our relief) acted as security.
4. Although the Royal Guard was overkill for the cannibals, their presence was lucky as the final event was the arrival of the Horror Old Bog over the ridge from valley Epsilon. Old Bog was destroyed by the Royal Guard, with two casualties (remedied in the field).

Quote of the Day: “I’ll bag the slutty one!”

TH 23 Strassa 1507 (9/29/2013)

Journal Entry:

After a week of furlough, Team Hound has been assigned to cover for one of the smuggling teams that keeps the citadel of New Marrek in commercial contact with Marrek. We set out yesterday at first light and headed down the hidden canyon trail with a string of mules. Despite reassurance that the Elementalists were sure there was to be no rain all day, the team hurried to avoid getting trapped in a narrow canyon in the event of nasy weather. We arrived at Rift Gap Camp with time to spare and settled down for the night.

Overnight we got an unpleasant surprise. Apparently a nest of greater termites has moved in near the camp. We barely got ourselves and out goods out of there. Agents Lenore, Androstachys, and Wynarr were instrumental in distracting the vermin while the camp was evacuated. The nest will have to be reported and cleared out by specialists.

We made do with a makeshift camp a little farther down trail. Tomorrow we’ll leave the mountains and cross the river.

TH 25 Strassa 1507 (10/06/2013)

Camithon’s Journal Entry:

We successfully made it to the river crossing and on to the outskirts of Marrek. One the way we exterminated a hunting party from the Blood Foot tribe. We have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I am the only member of Team Hound who can read a map (and to be honest, I’ve never been that good at it). As such, we got a little lost in the ruins of the Via Cloaca while trying to find the first stash location. Luckily, Kira found our way out and we were able to start over. We eventually found it, and made our delivery, but ran into a small group of ghouls. Luckily, we were able to drop them before anyone was poisoned. Those windlings sure are agile little buggers. One mule was lightly injured.

Now we just need to pick up our return cargo and we can get the heck out of this hole.

This mission began simply enough. We were to escort a non-vigilant Wizard to Axalalail where some tribal humans would tell him where to find a pre-scourge alchemical recipe. Our job was to make sure he got the recipe safely and to make sure he didn’t tell anyone about New MarreK. Why can’t any mission be simple?

The Wizards name was Ajirr* (*Note: Gordon made up his name on the spot and couldn’t remember it and didn’t write it down, so this is his name now). A seemingly absent minded old human, he was extremely focused in his craft to such an extent that it was hard to gain his attention on anything else. If you could divert him however, he was very scholarly on many subjects, although his tendency to need to check his notes before he did anything could be a bit annoying.

Axalalail is a T’skrang and Windling town about half way between Lake Ban and Urupa and is apparently entirely built in the trees. The only way to navigate through the town was by swinging from ropes with the occasional ladder or the even more rare rope bridge. Wynnar had a grand time especially at seeing a dwarf and an old human (Ajirr) trying to swing on ropes. We spent the night at an inn called “The Bower” and Ajirr met his tribal contact the next morning. After much conversation about the intricacies of alchemical formulas we were directed to go to a village North East of Axalalail near the foothills of the mountains to find the pre-scourge recipe.

We made our way slowly through the wilderness. Ajirr was unused to travel so our progress was slowed a bit. We finally came upon the village we were seeking only to find a hole in the palisade wall and many dead. The destruction looked like it had been done by a Hadrosaur, although these creatures aren’t known for attacking villages. When we searched through the village we found what appeared to be one living person in the grain storage hut, eating raw grain. When questioned all he had to say was that he was fine and then he would continue eating. Finding his behavior very strange I examined him on the astral (this was not easy as the village apparently lies in a tainted area). I saw that he was in fact dead and that another pattern existed inside the body, almost like a parasite. No one had ever heard of such a thing, although Ajirr continued to look through his notes for anything on the subject. Saif , who was not happy talking to an animated dead guy, attacked it only to find that it was very resilient and apparently very strong. It took Saif down with one punch from its fist and tried to escape the granary. Dederick and Kira tried to stop it by knocking it to the ground. I, on the other hand, was trying again to see through the tainted astral space to be able to target the thing inside the body. Luckily I was successful. I hit the parasite with a spirit dart and it abandoned the body and tried to hide among the grain sacks, but I could still see its pattern and directed Dederick and Kira to its location and they finished it off.

At about this time Ajirr piped up that he found it. The parasite was a Relan: a tentacled worm that lacks its own digestive system and thus “borrows” the digestive system of dead creatures. It apparently can also secrete a venom that greatly increases the strength and toughness of its host, so they can be very dangerous. Um…thanks, I think we guessed that.

While I was tending to the injured Saif, Wynnar and Camathon returned and told us they found a cellar where the women and children were hiding (the dead we found all appeared to be armed warriors of some sort). Dederick and Kira carried Saif and we went down into the cellar. The Cellar was actually a tunnel that lead out of the village. We found the women and children near the entrance of their old Kaer. We spoke to them and told them that we killed the thing that destroyed part of the village. They were saddened by the death of so many and asked if we could help them to rebuild. We told them about our purpose and they said that they did not know of what we spoke, but maybe what we were looking for was in the old Kaer. They did not go inside and dark things came out of it at night. They also kept asking if we wanted to bury Saif. When I told them he was not dead and would get better they just sighed and said that he will die.

We decided to settle down near them for the night. From where we were we could see the Kaer entrance. The dark things turned out to be Shadowmants, which have a very potent venom in their tail barbs. Saif did not recover much from the night’s rest and said that he suffered from terrible dreams. When I asked the villagers they said that he will die, it is the screaming death. When ever anyone in the village got badly hurt they would start having terrible nightmares and would not get better. I took a look at Saif on the astral (this area was even more strongly tainted than the village) and found that he was under some sort of enchantment. I asked Ajirr if he could try and dispel it (Wizards are good at that sort of thing). As Ajirr was attempting to dispel the enchantment Dederick informed us that he found small tracks that apparently came into our camp during 1st watch (both Wynarr and I saw nothing when we were on first watch). The dispel was successful, but Saif is still in bad shape and I don’t like the idea of staying in this village. There is something not right here.

Agirr wanted to get into the Kaer immediately, but we were more cautious. First of all Saif was badly hurt (something had put an enchantment on him that kept him from healing), second there were an unknown number of shadowmants near the entrance, and third we had no idea what we were walking into. He agreed that a guide would be helpful since kaers can be somewhat maze-like. The villagers agreed to give us a guide in exchange for help rebuilding their palisade wall. While the others were working on the wall, I spent part of the day learning a new spell, Life Circle of One. I thought that we might be up against a horror or construct of some kind. “The Screaming Death” that the villagers spoke of sounded like something a horror would do. It turned out that I was right.
p.
We spent the night in the longhouse with the rest of the villagers. We decided to keep a watch because something had stole into our camp the night before and cast a spell on Saif. During third watch Dederick saw something small and childlike crawling on the roof of the longhouse heading towards the smoke hole (Dederick was outside the longhouse while Camathon kept watch inside). Dederick entered the longhouse and saw the thing crawling along the ceiling (definitely not a child) heading towards where Saif lay. Camathon, who could not see it, began waking each of us while Dederick prepared to strike. I awoke to a shrill shriek and Dederick stabbing at something that started crawling up the wall. Andros took off into the air and yelled “It’s a horror. A Kreescra.” Which started a panicked exodus of the villagers from the longhouse. I immediately got up and began weaving thread for Life Circle of One. Dederick prepared to attack if it came back within reach, Camathon threw his spear and missed, and Kira helped the villagers get out. Andros charged the thing, with only his dagger in hand, and managed to pry it off the wall where Dederick promptly skewered it. It was still alive however so I cast my spell around Saif and myself to help ward it off. It seemed bent on escape rather than fighting and began to dig its way through the wall. Andros called his Zoak and continued his attacks, while I threw several Spirit Darts at it. I was Dederick who got the final blow with a well placed thrust and a flourish. The thing turned into goo.
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The next day Saif seemed to be on the mend and we began a plan of Andros’ to deal with the shadowmants. Since they were in the kaer all day and the entrance was fairly small we constructed a net from all of our ropes plus some others from the village and placed it over the entrance. When the shadowmants tried to leave the kaer at night they would get caught in the net. I would then Spirit Dart the caught shadowmants to death (the spell wouldn’t harm the net, whereas arrows might). We spent 2 days killing shadowmants in this manner (and collecting their venom). On the third day no shadowmants came out, so we figured they were all dead and prepared to enter the kaer the following morning.
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Our guide was a twelve year old boy who went exploring into the kaer occasionally. He said he would only take us to the traps, as he knew of nothing beyond. This first part of the kaer was empty anything of value had been stripped long ago. Agirr figured that what we were looking for would most likely be beyond the traps. We dismissed the boy and gazed at the magical runes that lined the floor and walls in front of us. Agirr said that it was a horror ward and would only affect horrors. We passed through unharmed and Kira took the lead looking for more traps. There were many layers of traps, mostly mechanical, that we avoided on our way through. We found a cadaverman caught in one trap that begged us to set it free. We simply killed it. We noticed that the traps and the ward appeared to be set up to keep something in rather than keeping something out. We guessed that this kaer had been partially compromised and some of the residents withdrew towards the entrance and put up a new ward and traps (perhaps trapping some people behind them) to keep the horror at bay.
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We finally came to a much larger cavern with residences carved out of the rock. What we saw horrified us. Many of the skeletons had an unusual number of heads, arms or other limbs. They were Namegivers only highly mutated. Astral space was highly tainted with some bodies or objects that were highly corrupted. The well in the center was the largest source of corruption. We guessed that the water might contain still active “Dread Iota”, but we weren’t sure if that would cause the mutations we were seeing. Either way we avoided the water. Looking around we began to piece together the story. Part of the wards on the exterior wall were damaged, as if they were purposefully destroyed from within. We then found a small shrine to Raggok hidden in one of the houses. It looked like a follower of Raggok damaged the wards and let one or several horrors in (maybe even our friend that we destroyed the other night). Some of the residents escaped and set up the traps and new ward leaving everyone else at the mercy of the horror or horrors. The “Dead Iota” appeared to be the only one left, although we did find the body of one horror buried beneath part of a building.
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We finally came to a hallway that was littered with bodies. The door at the opposite end was still intact and radiated strong magic. Agirr looked at it and told us it was enchanted with a permanent spell that would activate when someone tried to open the door. What the spell actually was, he couldn’t say, but the hallway of bodies gave us the idea that it wasn’t pretty. The recipe we were looking for was created by a powerful wizard so we guessed that we probably needed to get past the door. Agirr managed to dispell the door and we looked inside. Astral space was open here. The taint in the rest of the kaer had not entered here, so it appeared that this was the right place. We found what we were looking for. The recipe was for a type of blood charm and the body of the wizard one of the actual blood charms on it. There was also a lot of other valuable stuff. We took everything including the aged and damaged books and then looted the rest of the place of anything of value. The horrors except for the “Dread Iota” appeared to be gone, having left when all the people were dead or when the magic dropped. We took all we could carry and exited the kaer.

We were given the mission to go on the T’skrang Pilgrimage in order to ask the the Prophetess a specific question about New Marrek. I volunteered to be the pilgrim. Surprisingly Dederick, Saiph and Kirra also decided to be pilgrims because they had their own questions to ask the Prophetess.

The Pilgrimage begins at the Ayodhya life rock, which we arrived at on the 24th of Mawag. We began our pilgrimage under the full moon as is traditional. Astral space is very clean around Ayodhya and on the pilgrimage route and I was curious about the spirits that might dwell there, but most of them were Earth spirits and I could not communicate with them. We made our way down to Lake Ban and V’strimon where we prayed at the six towers without incident.

We began making our way North along the pilgrimage route. We were not the only ones on the pilgrimage at this time. There were also some humans, a few T’skrang, one Obsidimen, and a rather large group of Dwarves. On the pilgrimage there are particular stopping points each day of the journey, so at night we got to talking with our fellow travelers. The Dwarves were 2 members of House Avalus (the ruling house of Throal) and their 12 bodyguards.

The following day we were headed north along the pilgrimage route when Kirra yelled out and manged to pull Dederick aside just as a pair of razor sharp pincers came out of the ground and attempted to rip Dederick’s leg off. The pincers belonged to a giant insect that unburied itself from the ground and attacked. It was soon joined by 4 others. At first several tried to attack me but my insect repellent kept them at bay (I usually travel with this spell up to keep off various biting insects). These insects were tough, their carapaces were hard to punch through with normal weapons, although my spells seemed to be doing OK. They were also very deadly with their pincers. Saiph soon went down, but was revived by Andros. Personally I was really glad I had my spell up.

Winnar identified them as turf cutter beetles, but these were not behaving normally. Several times it looked as if the beetles might run only to be forced back into the fight by some other will. We soon realized that we were most likely dealing with a Beastmaster. Winnar and Andros began looking for the beastmaster. The rest of us could not leave the path or our pilgrimage would fail. Andros’ Zoak found the beastmaster and both Andros and Winnar homed in. He did not last long to say the least. With the beastmaster dead the beetles ran off. It is considered bad luck to ambush pilgrims on the route, so we wondered about the motive for the attack. The beastmaster had 70gp in his pocket so we figured that he might have been paid as an assassin. Most likely the members of House Avalus were his targets, but he got mixed up and targeted me instead.

That night we rested at a house that sort of served as an inn for pilgrims. We told the group of dwarves about the attack and our suspicions. That night both the dwarves and us kept extra watches, just in case of another attempt. It was a good thing we did.

I awoke to the sound of a thunder bolt. Dederick and the dwarven guards were aiming at someone in the rafters of the building, while Saiph was trying to climb up. The assassin was hard to see in the rafters and the dwarven crossbows kept missing their marks. Saiph managed to get into the rafters and the assassin, realizing that he was trapped, turned into a bird and tried to fly through the hole in the thatch he had made coming in. Andros had predicted that the assassin might try and go out the way he came and was waiting for him. The bird went down and we decided to keep him alive and question him.

The assassin told us that he was hired in Barter Town and was only told to look for a dwarf with a lot of body guards. This explained the first assassin’s mistake. I could also be seen as a dwarf with a lot of bodyguards. He also told us that he saw at least 3 others hired at the same time as him. All were paid 70gp with expectation of another 70gp if their target died, no matter who actually killed him. If the target died they all would get paid. He could not tell us much about the person who hired him unfortunately and we let him go, without his equipment, grimoire, or 70gp.