The Journal of Thane Cawdor - Troll Sky Raider

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t6-lfg-down-the-coil-wednesday-oct-4th-2pm-gst

We were hired by the merchant Darranis to walk the Coil river down to Lake Ban and look for a place to establish a trading port. We took detailed notes and made many rough sketches in order to allow a map to be assembled. The weather was for the most part acceptable. Many days were overcast, but there were only a few days we decided to remain in camp rather than travel.

We brought along a great many supplies for the trip. We calculated it would take a minimum of 11 days to walk to lake Ban, and probably as many to return. We decided to bring 30 days rations each. This turned out to be much more than we needed, since, as I will relate, we found a thriving market at Lake Ban at which we could have purchased additional supplies for our return trip had we needed them.

We first marched to Bergin's Rest, where we purchased the bulk of our supplies. The T'Skrang Trask was to meet us there, but after a few days of waiting we went on without him.

The 3rd day we encountered a huge Cyclopes, with amazingly huge tusks. It attempted to attack Heartscry when we approached it. We let it throw sticks at us for a while, and it had a truly pathetic aim. I would have been happy to let the two spellcasters handle the creature at range, but eventually Ulgar got within what I feared was it's charge range, and I felt it best to leap forward to stand in front of him. Both Ulgar and Heartscry had cast many potent spells upon me, and I felt very mighty. The beast was as slow as it was clumsy, so I charged forward hoping to knock it down. I gave it several mighty bashes with my shield, but was unable to knock it down, so I switched to using my mace. Ulgar knocked it down with a mighty spell. I delivered the deathblow (and one or two more for good measure) and it was slain. Despite it's massive size and obvious power, it had not managed to hit any of us, so we were all in very excellent health.

We havested it's tusks, Ulgar kept one to use as a staff, and I kept one to show around. The creature was cooking parts of a cow slaughtered nearby, and we liberated a sheep which we took along as  meat on the hoof. While we were enjoying out roast beef, Trask finally showed up.

A few days later we reached the confluence of another river. It looked like a perfect site for a townsite, and in our entire expedition we did not find another site that was even acceptable.

We spotted a ruined windmill on the far side of the river. Heartscry flew over, and Trask swam the river. The current was swift and even the T'skrang had difficulty keeping from being swept downstream into the rapids. They spotted a hermit living with some apes. He had even fashioned leather armor for the largest gorilla.

After consultation, Heartscry approached the hermit. At first the Ork refused to talk to her, but Heartscry was amazingly persuasive, and eventually won the old hermit's friendship. The hermit showed us his maps and explained them.

He told us that the T'Skrang have a floating city in Lake Ban, There is a recently opened kier on the hills to the NE of the peninsula, and another one, still shut within a deciduous forest to the SE of the lake.

His maps also showed an ancient road beading north along the serpent river before turning into unexplored lands. There is an arrow pointing towards an X upon the map. The X is labeled "Parlanth". I have some knowledge of the history of this province, and also it's legends and hero's. I do not recall a place called Parlanth mentioned in any of them, so I guess it is a small and unimportant place. Still, I wonder why the crazy old hermit decided to mark it on his map and leave out so many more important and famous places. I guess he is just crazy.

The hermit also mentioned that there was a water spirit living in the river. It flipped his raft when the hermit crossed the river. A town situated here will need deal to with that spirit or at least be careful not to anger it.

We continued down the river to Lake Ban and found the floating city of the T'Skrang. They were very excited to hear that Throal was open for business.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t51-lfg-thursday-oct-5th-1130pm-gmt-brotherhood-of-steel

The guild of the Brotherhood of Steel asked us to explore one of the pre-scourge mine sites. We decided upon one that very easily walked to without crossing any major rivers.

Along the way we had the good fortune to encounter a small flock of Chakta Birds. We greeted them courteously and conversed with them, and they were kind enough to give us a vision of the land ahead. We were given to understand that an ogre lived at the mine we were traveling to.

After a bit more travel, we spotted a Genhis running. We slaughtered it for food. We saw that it had recently given birth to a fresh horde of baby Genhis, which is a major danger.

Upon arriving at the mine, we found the Genhis horde had fought the ogre family living there. The female, who seemed to be a shaman of some sort was dead. The male was sorely wounded, but roared a challenge at us and attacked us. We dispatched it quickly. The Genhis had also slain a number of Qwirl's that had been trained to mine. Inside the mine itself we found 6 baby Genhis, which we slew.

We shored up the mine. We brought some recently mined elemental earth back with us. The Brotherhood of Steel gave us many weapons in recompense.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t62-lfg-saturday-october-7th-2pm-gmt-who-attacked-the-caravan#113

The reestablished land route between Travar and Throal has had problems with sneak-thieves and bandits. Lately merchants have been captured and held for ransom. People have seen Crates being levitated out of wagons, so a wizard of at least 3rd circle is thought to be involved.

Ulfgar Gemcutter organized an expedition to find the bandit lair. Heartscry, T'rask S'krill, and myself accompanied him.

It was a very long journey to get to the place the bandits have struck. Our journey was uneventful except for spotting a nest of giant ants and dispatching a few of its warriors.

Eventually we came upon a site of a bandit attack. Three rough fellows were stripping the silver chasing off of a coach. They had two war dogs with them. It was a long and drawn out fight, but eventually we were victorious.

I must say we work very  well together. Ulfgar and Heartscry give us some very good buffs. T;Rask, Heartscry and myself have Taunt or Battle Shout, which debuff the enemies. Heartscry works very hard to keep spells up upon us such that they can't hit us.  Ulfgar has a good spell that bypasses physical armor. At the end of a fight, we are all exhausted, but mostly unwounded.

Two of the humans were knocked unconscious. We awoke one and interigated him. He told us where the bandit lair was. It was 2 miles away. He also told us the gang totaled about 20 persons. I felt that this was more than we could handle, but thought with luck we might sneak in and engage them piecemeal.

Heartscry was able to scout out the fort they were holed up in. We ended up sneaking right up to the main gateway and charging in. We fought 2 more wardogs and 4 more bandits. Frankly, the war-dogs were the toughest. As we were finished, we saw the sentries from the towers running towards the central bailey ringing bells. As I ran to the Bailey, I heard singing and dancing going on inside. The third and biggest group of bandits had not heard the fighting at the gate!

I did a quick fireblood and felt much better. As the others started to withdraw I did a quick recon and counted the enemies. There were way too many, this last group seemed to include some adepts, including the wizard, most of us were almost out of karma, and some of us were quite strained. I jumped to the roof of the bailey just to see what they would do. They were well organized and they put archers on ether side of the very steep roof so I would always be exposed on one side or the other. I played with them for a minute or two in order to let the others get well and truly away, and then jumped to a different roof and over the wall.

After taking a very brief rest (and discussing the pro's and con's of coming back the  next day) we came in again, with buff spells freshly recast. We slew the Wizard and his most loyal henchmen, but some of his gang, sensing their cause was lost, slipped away.

We searched the fort and found the bandits loot. We also found 6 prisoners the bandits were holding for ransom. We escorted the freed merchants and our captives to the floating city were we turned them over to the T'Skrang authorities.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t64-aar-the-three-bears

I spoke to an officer of one of the restored merchant airships that were stored throughout the length of the scourge who told me that upon their last journey they saw what appears from the air to be the remains of a broken Kaer, high in the Twilight Peaks. They figure it is probably the remains of a Highlands Troll Moot.

The airship captain decided against investigating the broken Kaer themselves, but said that upon their next voyage west, they would be willing to fly a group of adepts who wanted to explore the Kaer out there, and pick them up again a few days later on their way back. The deal would be a 50/50 split between the adventurers and the airship crew of whatever is found.

Heartscry, Moore, and T'rask S'krill all excitedly agreed to go. Unfortunately, T'rask apparently got drunk and missed our departure, so it was just the three of us.

It was a pleasure to fly aboard the Cape Wrath under the good T'Skrang Captain Corvus. It was a pleasant day, and the Cape Wrath, though ancient was well persevered and still sound. I carefully observed the officers and crew, and learned a lot. I can't express how wonderful it was to, for the first time in my life, have a swaying deck under my feet. The crew was gracious, and the captain honored us by hosting a meal in his cabin.

When we arrived at the site, we could see two trolls, standing watch outside the cave mouth. One seemed to be a beastmaster, as he had a large boar as an animal companion (and he later demonstrated that he had claw shape), The other one was equipped as a melee fighter of some sort. They seemed somewhat hostile until Heartscry greeted them with her customary enthusiasm. I heard the beastmaster say in trollish that they were supposed to stomp us, but the leader said that he liked heartscry.

Heartscry, after saying friendly things to both trolls, flew over to the apparent leader. That is when the hidden archer stood and loosed an arrow at her, striking her severely and knocking her to the ground. I ran towards the archer, while Moore ran towards the warrior and the fallen Heartscry. At this point we saw that both the archer and the beastmaster were wearing Obsidiman skin as armor! Now I have been known to collect a tusk or two from a fallen foe, but I would never wear the skin of a namegiver.

A savage Melee ensued, with at first all of the opponents focusing their attacks upon Moore. Heartscry, not bothering to get up, rolled away from the troll warrior and eventually cast a lovely defensive spell upon herself and Moore. In the meantime, I bashed the archer a time or two. The Enemy leader went into the cave, obviously to bring back reinforcements. Moore took a very savage wound from the beastmaster. I finally slew the archer, then the beastmaster was felled, and finally the Boar.

I listened at the mouth of the cave for a few minutes, but the troll warrior did not bring out the reinforcements he had so obviously been going to get. We retired a ways away and Heartscry prepared a hot meal which we ate.

I had only been hit seriously once but did not have a severe wound and a single recovery test left me feeling in the pink of health.
Both Heartscry and Moore however did have wounds, though Moore was able to use a Garlen stone to clear his away.

We returned to the cave mouth and entered. Inside we found the warrior, along with 6 other trolls was dead, apparently mauled by a great beast. As we were still absorbing this news, a bear attacked us. We slew it.

We examined all the corpses, they all seemed very fresh, and all apparently killed by a great beast. We penetrated deeper into the complex, and encountered and slew a great bear. I recall making a joke about how the party of trolls make a severe mistake when they left their beastmaster outside to guard the cave mouth while the rest went into the cave to get mauled by bears.

Just as we were congratulating ourselves upon a job well done, a mighty Brithan came charging up. It roared at us (I was not very impressed), and I roared back at it (it was one of my best battle shouts ever, and I think I made an excellent impression on it). Heartscry, being knowledgeable about Brithan, suggested single combat. I gave it a mighty blow with my spiked mace, then a great bash with my shield, but the huge creature was unmoved. Then it gave me a great swat with a massive claw that sent me bowling ass over teakettle. The great beast backed up and gave another roar. I dropped my mace (but kept my shield handy) and made submissive gestures. The Brithan gave a somewhat less loud roar, and we all slunk away.

We looted the pockets and pouches of the trolls on the way out, and ended up with a good bit of pocket change and worthwhile gear. We took the Obsidiman skins, which we later gave to the liferock nearest Travar, and were rewarded for it. We split our haul with the airship crew as per the deal, but still ended up with a fairly good haul.

We did not penetrate very far into the underground complex, not even to the kear door (assuming there was one). I am sure we are going to attempt this quest again soon.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t68-aar-the-jungle-cure

A virulent sickness of unknown cause has been sweeping through Tent City. The healers at the sanctuary of Garlen are concerned that it might become an epidemic. They have found a cure, but need much more of a specific rare ingredient and time to brew large batches. They have engaged us to travel to the outskirts of the Servos Jungle looking for Myst Blossom. They showed us pictures of the blossoms and explained that it needed to be harvested and transported carefully. Before we left town we obtained enough flats to safely hold hundreds of the blossoms, most of us also bought gloves to more safely handle the medicinal plants. They also warned us that the blossoms like to grow in oily locations or alongside of oily plants, so we were told to look out for them as well. They mentioned that while everybody in Tent City is becoming aware of the mysterious fever that people are coming down with, they requested that in order to prevent panic, we guard our tongues and not throw around words like epidemic or plague, at least not before the cure was well in hand. I guess after all this time has passed it is OK to say that for a while there they were worried.

This mission was truly urgent, and it was critical that the blossoms be delivered fresh, so to cut travel time to almost nothing the sanctuary arranged for the Travar Air Marshal service to transport us in their flagship galley the "Cloud Runner". The Cloud Runner is the biggest ship that the Sky Patrol runs. In addition to it's naval reserve duties, the Cloud Runner is normally engaged in Air Mining, a challenging and prestigious duty. The crew were less than thrilled to have to waste (as they took it) a full day on a round trip passenger run, especially on such a short journey too and from the Servos Jungle. It is funny the perspective that an Airship give. If we had undertaken this journey overland, it would have involved at least 4 days walking each way, and we would need to figure out how to cross a major river at least once. And then once again, any blooms we brought back would have been 4 or 5 days old. If we had taken a riverboat, we would have had to pay House K'tenshin's fees, taxes, and tollls and it still would have taken several days. But what would have otherwise been a major and time-consuming trip was considered a mundane waste of time by the airship crew.

The bosun challenged us to to a knife throwing contest. At first they handed me a tiny little flight dagger, but it was so tiny I knew I could not use it well. Instead I used my own axes. The target was set up 20 yards away (almost the full length of the ship). I should have insisted upon an actual contest where the bosun and myself threw at the same time, as every time I threw the ship gave a lurch and each time I narrowly missed. By the last throw I was keeping a half an eye upon the quartermaster who had the helm to see if he was bumping the tiller as I released. However it seems to have been nothing but bad luck as upon my third throw, none of the crew apparently did anything, yet the ship gave a huge lurch and dropped at least 5 feet. Several people were knocked from their feet by the lurch (though I was not). and even with the lurch, my throw was good enough to hit the mast above the target, though it missed the target itself. I am sure that if I was willing to spend karma upon the throws I could have hit most of the throws, but I had serious business yet that day and could not expend my magical energies upon mere play. The others also gave it a try, but none were able to hit the target cleanly, until Ulfgar drilled the very center.

As we approached the jungle, we spotted a small tower and noted that it was occupied. Ulfgar seemed to attach some importance to the tower and marked it upon his map, thinking that we might stop and visit next time we travel this way on foot.

It was not yet even mid-morning when the Cloud Runner dropped us off. We took our bearings and headed into the jungle. Moore marked the trail one way, while I put blaze marks upon trees every 30 feet or so. I must say the Survos is an amazingly fecund jungle. Upon our way out of the jungle just that afternoon many of the blaze marks were already overgrown and getting difficult to see. Nevertheless, we made steady progress into the jungle, keeping our eyes peeled for the plant were were looking for.

we came to a clearing, where the vegetation was all blighted and frost-damaged. There we were set upon by a windling demiwrath. The abomination attempted to swoop attack us. It was a bit out of range at first, so I threw a spear at it, and moved more closely under it. I then gave a great leap and attempted to bash it with my shield. Very soon a wing was clipped and upon the ground it was easy meat for us.

It was only a little while after that that we finally discovered a good sized patch of Myst Blossom. Unfortunatly, as we were warned, Myst Blossom likes to intertwine itself with oily plants, and this particular patch ti was intertwining itself with fireleaf, an oily menace not dissimilar to poison ivy, except reputably much worse. The problem was that the Myst Blossom needed to be handled carefully, taking immense care not to crush or otherwise injure the blossoms, while fireleaf should not be handled at all. The slightest touch causing unbearable pain. There was some discussion of using gloves to remove the fireleaf, then carefully harvesting the Myst Blossom, then removing several more feet of fireleaf, etc. But in the end I got out my climbing kit and constructed a harness for Ulfgar to be suspended from above.. I then climbed a tree above the patch, and held Ulfgar above the patch. The fireleaf was low to the ground. The Myst Blossoms reaching high to the light. Ulfgar could carefully pick the blossoms while totally avoiding the leaf. Every time he filled two flats, I would maneuver him back tot he edge of the patch were Moore would exchange the loaded flats with empty ones. It took us a while, but we harvested all the mature blossoms in the patch.

We then attempted to follow our blazes and marks out of the jungle. We successfully followed them back to the clearing where we fought the demiwrath, but must have taken a wrong turn after that, because we came upon a tree that we most certainly did not see upon our way in. It must have been 500 feet high, and I am informed that it was an Ironbark tree, a rare and valuable wood. We saw indications of magic about it, and there were signs that somebody might have attempted to form it into a kaer, maybe using spells similar (or identical to) those meant to protect the Wyrmwood. Whether this attempt at a wooden kaer was more, or less successful than the ill-fated wyrmwood we did not find out that day, since the tree was not undefended (we spotted some will-o-wisps that were apparently on guard), and we had a mission to complete, we needed to be back at our rendezvous point well before sunset and we had obviously lost our true path.

We pulled well back from the huge tree and I climbed a lessor one. I did not need to reach the top and a clear view, I only needed to climb high enough to see which side of the tree the lowering sun was striking. That side would obviously be west, and we needed to go East. Once I could see the sun, I dropped an axe down upon that side of the trunk, and we used that mark to plot our direction out. This worked and we were soon out of the jungle, and had arrived at the rendezvous in plenty of time.

I was in great spirits, and wanted to do more knife throwing, but the crew were no longer in the mood. They did not seem impressed by our large crop of blossoms, and continued to grumble about playing passenger ferry. The Questors of Garlen back at the sanctuary however were properly appreciative.

(OOC, I deleted my notes on this session, so accuracy and detail suffer)
https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t71-aar-crossing-the-adipae-3a

On our journey down the coil, we came back with a crude copy of a map, which the Delver's Athanaeum bought a copy of. It did not take long for a copy of a copy of a copy of that map to find it's way to the current leader of the trading House Achura in Travar. He issued an invitation (and a set of passes) for us to enter Travar and meet him at his place of business.

He was an imposing human in costly robes, with a beard a dwarf could be proud of. He explained how he his ancestors before the scourge had made a series of very long term investments, providing the materials to build kaers in exchange for promissory notes due following the scourge. The map we had copied from Garrada showed that one of these kaers was now open! House Achura desired to hire us to travel to this newly opened kaer, which had been named Kaer Adipos, after the town who's population it housed, which in turn had been named after the Adipae river upon who's banks it was. Once at the site of the new town and in the presence of it's leaders, we were to open a scroll he would give us and immediately read it. He warned us that once the seal was broken, the scroll must be immediately read or the very expensive spell upon it would spoil. Looking at that mans house and clothing, I recall wondering just how much money a thing had to cost for a man like that to consider and even mention with a pang that it was expensive. More than my life is worth I am sure.

He gave us some further details, including that we were to collect the first of the monthly payments from the townsfolk before we left, and that silver would be our payment for undertaking this mission. In addition to delivering his messages and securing the townsfolk's acknowledgement of their debt, we were to encourage trade with House Achura by obtaining from them a list of the new towns most desired imports and most valuable trading exports. We agreed to all of this, he gave us the scroll, and we set upon our way.

We discussed travel among ourselves, but finally decided upon T'Skrang riverboat, which was pretty fast and not obscenely expensive. We changed riverboats at the Floating City.

We arrived at the newly reestablished town of Adipos, and exchanged ritual greetings with a very nice Ork Guard named Eedai. He took us inside to meet the town council. At this point a very funny episode occurred. Ulfgar had been carrying the very expensive scroll that House Achura had given us. We had been told to read it to the town council, so Ulfgar whipped it out, helpfully unsealed it, and handed it to Heartscry. Heartscry, wanting to at least say hello to these people before reading a scroll at them ignored it for a few crucial seconds as she piped "Hello, Hello, it's Heartscry!". The scroll, when unsealed had triggered some sort of illusiary spell. A gigantic image of our employer formed behind Heartscry, boomed out the first half word that was on the scroll, and then, since nobody was actually reading the scroll, froze in place as the spell collapsed.

After Heartscry had said hello, she finished opening the scroll and read from it, but the image behind her did not move, nor boom out her words. The motion and voice of the spell failed, but the image remained frozen there for several minutes before it faded completely. The scroll Heartscry read contained greetings and well wishes from the trading house to the town, and reminders of the debts incurred by their ancestors, and now due.

As an aside, one night while chatting after supper, Ulfgar and Heartscry discussed the spell that was probably upon the scroll. From the brief glimpse they had of it before it failed, they speculated that the spell was probably a "glamour" combined with a "Bellow of the Thundra's". They spent quite some time debating whether the trading house would have also included something that they called a "Clarion Call" in the spell. They seemed quite concerned about the possibility. I don't know why this concerned them, nor do I know what a Clarion is, but speaking as somebody who has done my fair share of Battle Shouting, I can't imagine that a Clarion's call should be any more upsetting than a Thundra's Bellow. Those beasts are loud! Anyway, whatever the spell had been, it fizzled.

Over the course of the day, we spoke privately with each of the kaer's ruling council. The miner mentioned that the newly reopened mine (unworked these last few centuries) was having problems and three of the minors were dead. We volunteered to check it out. We explored the mine until we came across a Gnasher and 3 cadaver men, whom we bashed. It was a high point of a day that mostly consisted of yammering. We warned the minor that Gnashers were not generally known for raising cadaver men, so it was likely that there was still something in the area that raised cadaver men, but nobody seemed overly concerned about the possibility.

The farmers were having problems growing food crops. Their fields were overrun with circles of weeds. Strangely enough it was me who recognized the weeds as Ashweed, a commonly used in Kelix's poultices. We suggested they farm it as a cash crop, but they said cash is good, but food is more important right now. I suggest that with a name like Ashweed, fire might be part of the problem or the solution. Ether Ashweed only grows upon fields that have been burnt, or it can be cleared by burning the Ashweed. I asked if they had burnt the fields to clear them. Ulfgar asked if there was a library nearby, and we went to visit the most prominent local magician, an elderly nethermancer. Ulfgar spent a few hours among his collection of books and emerged announcing that Ashweed was best cleared by burning. It grows in circles, and standing well back and applying a torch causes the whole circle to quickly go up in smoke. The farmers re cleared most of their fields that very afternoon and were busy replowing and replaning for several days thereafter.

As I said, we ended up talking to most of the old kaer council. Now that the population is moving out of the kaer and building a proper town, they wish to reform their government. The two main factions are the leader of the farmers and crafters who wish all decisions to be put up for a town vote, and the dwarvish leader of the merchants who wanted a hereditary Duke to be appointed. We suggested that maybe the town could compromise, and periodically elect a mayor, who would make all the day to day decisions, but would have to stand for re-election periodically. This idea proved popular, and it looked like the head merchant was going to be elected mayor.

There was also discussion of whom the town would be most closely allied with, The floating city, Throal, or Travar. And whom they would trade with. We reiterated our message that House Actura wished to be among the towns trading partners.

Having collected the first months loan payment as our fee, we returned to Travar carrying letters from the Town leaders.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t70-aar-wreck-of-the-cape-wrath

Getting my butt kicked so quickly and thoroughly by that Brithan last month did not sit well with me. I resolved upon a rematch at the first opportunity.
Also, I hired Ulfgar to spend 3 weeks doing research upon that mountain, and he came up with some very clear leads about a trollish hero with the nifty armor who went missing near there. I have attached his notes separately, but the short answer is that the mountain is certainly worth a closer look.

Hiring researchers seems to give a lot more bang for the buck than trying to do the research myself. I spent 3 weeks cooped up in a library doing research myself and got only a few leads. During the last 4 weeks of research I just paid the researcher and then headed to the gymnasium for training and met with them once or twice a week to go over the results! Much easier! Speaking of going to the gymnasium, I have hired a few coaches to work on both my Dexterity and my Awareness. They have been helping me a lot.

So anyway, after Ulfgar gave me his latest reports upon the site of the Brithan Lair, I got hold of Captain Corvus and asked if he was willing to transport us for a share of the loot again, and he agreed and told me the dates of the Cape Wrath's next journeys over the twilight peaks.. Heartscry, T'Rask and Kato agreed to accompany me back for the rematch with the Brithan upon their next trip.

It was our 2nd journey upon the proud airship Cape Wrath,
The Cape Wrath was an ancient merchant ship, laid into storage at the beginning of the scourge, and lovingly tended through the centuries by succeeding generations of captains whom would never sail her. Her stories and legends, including the one about how she gained her name, repeated and kept alive by repeated tellings. Less than 7 years ago she was finally taken out of storage by the T'Skrang Airsailor captain Corvus. and restoration took 2 years. She was relaunched less than a month after Travar's storm shield was brought down.
For 5 years the Cape Wrath had made her lonely way across the sky of Barsaive, one of the few pre-scourge craft preserved intact through the long centuries of the scourge, though in recent years the old guard ships have been joined by a scant few of recent constructions, often the Cape Wrath would sail through a sky unoccupied by anything else but birds.

On this trip, we were slowed by a series of breakdowns. I did not realize it at the time, but our last breakdown happened just as we were approaching our destination. As a rule, ship combat is a slow affair, Ships usually spot each other miles apart, and chases can last hours or even days. The last minutes of the Cape Wrath were short and brutal. A large stone airship appeared and was already sending borders (trolls wearing obsidiman skin armor) before our lookout could give the first warning. Us passengers found ourselves fighting three of the borders, an Elementalist and two Sky Raiders. The Elementalist we quickly cut down, then one of the Raiders. The last Raider, sorely beset, flung himself off of the ship. I assume he made an effort to use Wind Catcher to safely descend to safety, but from where I stood I could not see if he succeeded. With his wounds, and his disorientation from being Taunted and Battle Shouted, I think there is a good chance that he plummeted to his death. This outcome is especially likely since we later saw no evidence of him upon the ground when we looked around.

Having dispatched or chased off our share of the opponents, we finally had a half moment to look around and take stock. The crew of Cape Wrath had dispatched their share of the borders just as quickly as we had. However our jubilation turned to ashes in our mouths as we got our first good look at the attacking ship. It is much larger than the Cape Wrath was, and had a crew almost 4 times the size. Furthermore, it had not sent over the majority of it's crew in that first wave, instead it had unaccountably sent over only 1/4 of it's crew. It was obviously capable of sending 3 more waves of equal size over. Or worse yet, send them all over at once and overwhelm us.

Instead, the trollish woman at the command position of the enemy ship made a gesture, and a very large air elemental appeared and attacked the spars of our ship. We sprang to counter-attack. The Elemental had some sort of lightning aura, when I smote it with my mace the the lightning shocked me in return. I also strained my voice trying to battle shout the thing. Despite it's defenses, we cut it down within moments. When we looked around, we found that there were two other Air Elementals also attacking the ship. I have no idea what powerful magic allowed them to wreak their destruction so quickly and quietly, but within mere seconds they had rendered the ship unairworthy and turned it into a plummeting wreck. Most of the party, and many of the crew were knocked out as the ship began it's plummet. Both the brave Captain Corvus and myself remained upon our feet until the wreck struck the ground. We survivors woke up an hour or so later. By some fluke, every single officer and crew member of the Cape Wrath had died in the crash. None of them Adepts among them had used Wind Catcher to save themselves. By some even greater fluke, all of us passengers survived without any additional damage except some inconsequential bumps and contusions where we were knocked out.

I find the behavior of pirate ship unaccountable. The Cape Wrath was a prize that any troll moot would have coveted. Yet they made only a halfhearted (one might say quarter-hearted) attempt to capture her. Then they destroyed her. Then they made no effort to take possession of the remains of the cargo that lay strewn around the countryside. I can think of no explanation for their actions other than that they must be mad.

We smelled cooking and found the cave occupied by a troll. We met a very nice troll who introduced himself as Rollchuch taleweaver a, very famous troubadour. from the Bloodmoot tribe.He told us he was investigating the trolls who attacked us, but would not name them to us. He told us he had chased off the Brithen, and would let us have the treasure that was collected in it's lare in exchange for some tales he had not heard before.. We all told some, Kato's was in poetic form. I told the sad tale of the Wreck of the Cape Wrath, a tale he could not have heard before, since it had happened only an hour previously.

After collecting the bag of goods, we noticed a locked door that might reward some further investigation, but started the long hike back to Travar. Upon the way we slew two ogers and rescued a human, the daughter of a Travar merchant named Henrick.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t76-aar-the-dark-tower-3a

A short while ago while searching for "The Jungle Cure", we saw in the distance a tower that was obviously occupied, and for some reason it stuck in Ulfgars memory and he resolved to visit it. T'Rask, Moore, and I agreed to accompany him. The hike to the tower was long, arduous and totally uneventful.

The tower was ancient, but had recently been repaired. It was about 40 feet high and made of stone. When we approached nobody was in sight, but a small flock of wing-rats were perched upon the battlements. We shared what we knew about wing rats, and knew they were dangerous when should a flock of them become disturbed and they attack in mass. We resolved to approach slowly, carefully, and ready to react. The flock did launch itself at us, and we knocked 3 out of the sky before any could close. I felt my magic pulsing from me into my spiked mace. It felt as light as a willow switch in my hand as I hit one of the birds so hard that it literally exploded. I feel the connection with my mace has grown stronger. Being met with such a swift and decisive defense, the flock wanted no more part of us and flew off into the trees.

We briefly circled the tower but all was still within. Moore, deciding that anybody who lived in such a grim and cheerless dwelling, and whom allowed wing-rats to nest upon the eves must be up to no good knocked upon the door with the blade of his axe rather than upon the knocker. He took the door down instantly, surprising a strategy meeting of the Raggok cultists within. They obviously knew we were there, probably due to the distressed cries of the WingRats, but had apparently no finalized their plans for defense. Nevertheless they rallied swiftly and lined up in the center of the room to receive our charge.

There were quite a number of them, I would guess about 9, in three different classes of robes: Novice, Initiate, and leader. We, wisely I think, declined to charge from behind our nice narrow doorway into the large room that made up the entire ground floor of the tower. Instead Moore and T'Rask held positions at the doorway while Ulfgar cast a spell and I threw an axe at the leader. This provoked one or two of the younger and stupider Novices to charge us! Only one could fit within the doorway at a time, so our front line, being just outside the door could fight the one in the doorway two upon one. It took a while to grind through them, but we were making steady progress when Moore was struck savagely, resulting in a wound poisoned by the venom with which the vile cultists coat their blades. If it was not so vile and deadly it could have almost been humorous, the way dastardly cultists would strike at one of us, then run away to coat their blades in another coating of poison. Moore was forced to retreat to apply a poultice to his wound, however the cultists sensed he was weakened and attacked him at every opportunity. Wound followed wound and poison followed poison and soon Moore could not dodge the many attacks against him.

At one point during the fight one of the cultists got through the doorway and attacked Ulfgar. I held the door against the rest while T'Rask and Ulfgar dealt with him. We knew that some of the cultists inside the room were trying to do something magical, as we heard the leader urging an Initiate to hurry up and complete something or another. From our doorway we could not see what they were working upon. It left us in quite the tactical bind. So long as they were coming at us in ones or twos at the doorway, defending the doorway was a great tactical advantage. On the other hand, allowing them to finish whatever project they were frantically working upon could spell our doom. On the third hand, advancing into the room while too many of the cultists were still alive could allow them to swarm upon us and overwhelm us by shear numbers.

As I said, grinding them down in the doorway took a long time, but it was slowly working. Moore, having quaffed many potions and not being presently poisoned bravely decided to enter the room to see what they were attempting to animate. As soon as he did so one cultist rushed back to the door to keep the rest of us from following him, while all the other cultists rushed to surround Moore and attempted to slay him with a thousand rending cuts. Thankfully this did seem to distract the two cultists working upon the pile of bones they were trying to re-animate. Unfortunately, it looked like they might be able to simply slay the wounded Moore and return to their project.

I managed to knock the cultist in front of the door down, and rushed in after Moore, I jumped upon a bench, roared at the leader, and in general tried to make them think I was a problem that needed to be dealt with immediately, and not after killing Moore. Unfortunately, they ignored me and continued attacking Moore. The leader stuck his sword directly into Moore's chest, a fatal blow if I have ever seen one. As Moore stood transfixed by the blade, I felt an eldritch energy surge, and the cultist who seemed in charge of raising the abomination exalted that great progress had been made! The funny thing is that the fatal blow did not kill Moore. In fact it seemed to have no effect upon him whatsoever. When the leader withdrew his sword, it did not gush blood like such a wound should. I did not give the leaders time to exalt in their progress. I slew the leader with a mighty bash of my shield. Next I slew the one who had been trying to raise the pile of bones into undeath. With their leadership broken, the rest were quickly mopped up without quarter asked for or given.

We examined the pile of bones, and Ulfgar declared that they were probably attempting to raise a bone shambler. It saddens me to think that a mighty and good Passion such as Rashomon used to be could fall so low as to actually attempt to create undead and cause his misguided followers to attempt such foulness. Ulfgar also declared that here was a thread tied between the bone pile and Moore. He used his arts to unweave it. We crushed a many of the bones just to be sure. He also announced that Moores pattern had become imprinted upon the sword that the cult leader had stuck in him.

We spent about two hours recovering. Despite being in the thick of the fighting, and despite having been swung at several times, I was unwounded, having suffered nothing except a great deal of strain. Moore and myself shared blood, and he transferred some damage to me. I drunk a booster potion and took two recovery tests and healed most of it.

We climbed the towers stairs and entered another room. There was a disgusting ghoul working in an alchemy lab there. It did not seem to surprised or upset to see us. I wondered if it was one of those "the living all look the same to me" situations in that it could not tell the difference between a human cultist and a Troll. I slowly and calmly walked up and Bashed it in the head. T'Rask followed and struck moments after me. It was dead (more dead than it was before) before it so much as squawked. Ulfgar then informed us that the ghoul was infected with something he called a "Dread Iota". He tried to explain it, but I am still not certain if a Dread Iota is a horror or a really nasty disease. Or maybe both. Anyway, we were really careful from then on. We cut the heads off the cultists and made certain we didn't get any blood or other things upon us. There was talk that maybe it was the Dread Iota that was the mysterious disease that the healers needed "The Jungle Cure" for. If it is, and if it really is something caused by horrors, all hell is going to break loose back in tent city and Travar - Both the disease, and horror panic.

The next floor of the tower was the top. It held 4 harpies, which had been held captive by the cultists. We slew them and returned home.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t82-aar-a-recipe-for-destruction

Ulfgar tells me that some Alchemist wants a book of recipes. At first I thought the guy was just really into cooking, but later on I figured out that he meant alchemical recipes, which are different. So he had an idea that a good book of recipes might be in some old abandoned ruins (I hope this guy checked to see if the Delver's Athanaeum had a copy before sending us into these deserted ruins). Ulfgar asked Heartscry, T'Rask and Myself to accompany him.

It was quite a hike, it took us 6 days to get us there because I somehow kept getting us lost, even though all we really needed to do was follow the river. The river would loop out and away and I would be certain that it would be a great shortcut to cut across the loop, and next thing you know it takes us 2 more days to find the river again. I have got to stop trying shortcuts and just keep close to the big obvious landmarks like the river. For that matter, I am starting to doubt the wisdom of my Navigation trainer who taught me to navigate by the stars. I suppose that navigating by the stars is a fine thing if you are upon a featureless sea or plain, but I am starting to suspect that navigating by mountain peaks or the bendings of the river might be a much simpler method.In any case, it took us 6 days to get there, but much less getting back.

The ruins were in a thick forest, we could not see more than a dozen yards in most directions. Much of the ground was muddy and seemed ready to suck the unwary travelers shoes off of their feet. We heard rustling and our good spellcasters started casting a potent package of buff spells. T'Rask advanced around a large stand of bushes and exclaimed that he had spotted a Cadaver man. I advanced upon the other side of the stand and could not see the Cadaver man, but did see a Ghoul. In short order we dispatched the Ghoul and two Cadaver men.

We found the remains of the tower., which had fallen, leaving only the ground floor and half of the  floor above it. Heartscry bravely flew up and checked out the top of the tower. The ground floor of the tower was cloaked in thick webs. Some of these webs were thin and light as spiders webs, but others were unnatural thick and strong, some were as big around as my little finger (and my fingers are not all that little).

We positioned ourselves to defend against an attack from the tower, and I prepared to start hacking webs out of a window. However as soon as I positioned myself I saw moving within the tower a huge spider, bigger than I am. Heck, bigger than an Obsidiman! It had the head of a little boy, and a high piping voice as it taunted us Somebody said it was a Jethutra, a fearsome monster of chilling legends.

It was a desperate and horrible fight. It used a number of powers to harass and damage us. T'Rash got momentarily stuck to a tree by a freezing ice web. A few moments later, so did I. T'Rask cut the webs from the doorway. Before I could rush in, the it was some weird spell, forming a maze. I still had a straight path directly to it, but it moved away from me and the routes available to the others were all long an winding. The maze walls and floor were spiky, and dangerous. I knew I could only move very slowly without risking taking damage. I decided to ignore that risk and rushed after the monster to bash it to the ground. I managed to dodge a few of the barbs upon the wall, and even more were turned aside by my armor. However just as I arrived at the Jehutra I stepped upon a particularly wicked barb that punched right through the sole of my boot and gave me a wicked wound upon my foot which troubled me sorely for some time.

The monster sprang up and fled from me down one of the legs of the maze. When it reached the end of the maze it dispelled the maze and continued fleeing. I considered letting it go, but the thought of such a foul horror construct continuing to exist angered me. The thought of it alive behind me frightened me and lent strength to my chase. T'Rask quickly brought the thing to bay, and Ulfgar poured magical fire into it and it was eventually slane. It had been a gruesome and taxing fight.

We paused to gulp down a hasty hot meal and do a recovery test. T'Rask wanted to pause for a karma ritual, and at first I could see little danger in that. But something about that location disturbed me. I could not lay my finger upon it, but I felt like I was being watched. Ulfgar finally announced that he was certain that something was doing something to us. I proposed that we needed to stop the karma ritual, and ether proceed immediately, or move some 200 or 300 yards away a a less corrupted area. Ulfgar was for going down instantly. T'Rask was for continuing where we were. I was for moving 300 yards away. I don't recall how heartscry voted, but somehow we were all quickly moving into an underground passageway.

After getting our light sources in order, we bravely proceeded into the dark and lurking horror. We saw a large pile of corpses, with 3 things called ghoul lizards munching upon them. Fortunately they were content to attack us one or two at a time, and we were able to defeat them in detail without significant damage.

We explored for a while, at one time we encountered several cadaver men in cells weeping. I don't know this, but I suspect that they are newly formed cadaver men who are not yet reconciled to their grizzly and unjust fate. The weeping moved my heart, yet I could not bring myself to grant the poor wretches the clean death that I am sure their souls longed for. While searching Heartscry found a magic item that her research had suggested might be here.

Shortly thereafter we encountered one more cadaver man who attacked us, along with two ghouls. During this time Ulfgar had been muttering that he was certain something was watching us. In the Thick of the fight with the ghouls, the horror that Ulfgar had been sensing sprang out of hiding and attacked. We had already dispatched the cadaver man, and I was in a good position to hopefully keep the two ghouls from our two spellcasters. However I took the huge risk of moving from my good defensive position and attacking the Infector Horror. I seemed to have had Cursed Luck most of the days, as I almost never gave an average blow. I always ether missed, or bashed my target hugely. In every one of my first attacks I missed. I finally managed to hit the thing solidly, and sent it to the ground, where Ulfgar destroyed it.

We finished searching the remains of the complex and we found the notebook we were looking for, and Ulfgar found two more thread items.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t92-aar-looking-for-the-journal-of-hamish-the-bold

The scourge has been brutal to our poor world, but perhaps it's greatest devastation was upon the badlands. The tales of the few travelers whom have sojourned there are harrowing. I have seen the badlands from a distance upon my own journeys to the Twilight Peaks via the poor ill-fated Cape Wrath, and have marveled upon the sulfurous clouds that hover over the blighted landscape.
When I found out that the last known location of the journal of the last owner of the Thunder Plates was within a kaer at the edge of the badlands I worried. When I plotted the location upon a map and saw that one needs to cross the entire width of the badlands to reach there, I felt despair.

T''Rask and Moore agreed to accompany me upon my quest for the journal. We all bought extra food (which we mostly did not need due to Moore's skill at finding food in Wilderness) and we all carried several days extra water. I considered buying a pack animal just to carry water. Our journey West to the river was uneventful except for an attack by a great bear and her cub. We butchered the mother, but left the almost grown cub to recover from his wounds. The Iontos River has a ferry manned by two friendly boatmen adepts. East of the Iontos, the land was pleasant and verdant. However the bandlands were like going from day into night. The edges of the badlands were preternaturally sharp, like some great deity had drawn a great line and separated the light from the dark and the good from the curst. The heat was oppressive, the air was damp when it was not actually raining. All the water, even the very rain as it fell from the sky was cloudy and bitter.

The landscape changed again with surprising suddenness. on one side of a low ridge, the ground was scrubby and wet, upon the other was a great desert that had the look of a land which hand not seen the slightest hint of rain within years. Within the desert we saw the remains of  a wagon, with parts of additional wagons scattered about. We investigated carefully. Moore warned us to watch for giant scorpions and other such creatures that like to lurk in sand. As it turned out, it was not a giant scorpion that attacked us, but a giant trap-door spider. Despite his forethought, Moore was overcome by poison but the creature was destroyed. There was nothing salvageable about the wagon that the creature had it's lair beneath.

A day or two later, just as we were considering making camp for the night, we spotted a campfire in the far distance. We continued to it and saw an elf sitting by the fire. He looked poor and bedraggled, and he behaved oddly when T''Rask greeted him. After a few moments of observing him, Moore opined that the situation did not feel right and that we should leave. As we stood up and picked up our packs, the elf gave a heartbroken cry and jumped into his own campfire. His suicide was most grizzly. Before we left I indulged my curiosity and looked within his tent, an act which seems likely to haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. Inside were the remains of what I assume to be his wife and child. The child clearly had knife wounds likely to match the mans knife. We silently finished gathering our things and walked another half hour before picking another campsite.

The next day we reached the tiny kaer that the son of Hamish the Bold had attempted to ride out the scourge in. It was tiny, just 2 rooms and 2 corridors connected to an entrance hall. The kaer was not disguised and the door was broken in. Within we found ghouls and a ghoul leader. The fight was desperate as first T'Rask and then Moore succumbed to their foul ichor. We wondered if we could survive, because on the one hand, I for the most part avoided their blows most dexterously. But on the other hand, I was clumsily unable to hit them ether. T'Rask, barely alive dragged the unconscious Moore from the fight and applied a restorative potion which healed him most marvelously. The tide of battle, which until then had been most desperate finally turned when he returned to the fray. T'Rask also, though sorely wounded, also applied timely blows.

We finally prevailed, and collapsed in boneless exhaustion. We rested for a few hours and I performed a karma ritual, since Avoiding so many blows had stretched me to my last reserves.

We once again set about to explore the tiny dwelling. In an armory we were set upon by a Despairthought, which again taxed us to the limit before finally succumbing to our furious assault. We finished our explorations and found the journal of Hamish the Bold, and within it I learned that the Thunder Plate armor was made for: Rask Ironhook Bloodclaw.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t83-aar-twin-troubles-sunday-29th-of-october-2pm-gmt

Moore, wanting an acid test of his abilities to disarm traps, studied the legends of some of the greatest trap-makers from the beginning of the scourge, and determined to investigate the forge of the twin Ork Weaponsmiths Vor and Kor. Knowing that he could not disarm traps that had not yet been discovered, he invited Heartscry along in order to spot the traps for him. He also invited T'Rask and myself along for the companionship.

We traveled South on a riverboat for most of a day, and then walked inland. We were waylaid by two members of the Blackfingers guild. They told us they knew where we were going (strange that they picked this day of all days to loot that particular location, and very, very strange that they knew we had also resolved to do this, I fear somebody is paying close attention to our business. In the future we had best be more tight-lipped about our intentions). They demanded that we turn around. Moore attempted dissembling, but even a bluff fellow like me could scarce keep a straight face at his attempt. After a few moments of bluster and counter-bluster, the archer fired at me (who had been mostly silent in the exchanges), and I took off after her. At the same time, a hidden thief attacked the rear of our party. I spent a while playing tag with the Archer, as she tried to shoot and run, while I occasionally brought her to melee. The others quickly beat the other ambushed into unconsciousness, and as we swarmed the Archer she surrendered.

Heartscry immediately wanted to make friends. We gave a stern talking to too the blackfingers (Which I learned was a pre-scourge multicity thieves guild that had died out in Travar, but was now being reintroduced). We broke all of the archers arrows before letting them go.

Shortly thereafter we came upon an ancient building complex that we thought might be the smithy of legend. There were two adepts waiting for us. An elderly windling who was clearly a spellcaster, and an Obsidiman wearing Crystal Plate armor. They told us that they were not Blackfingers, but that they had been hired by the guild. Again they tried to warn us off, again dissembling was attempted. Again an arrow came whistling in from a hidden opponent. This time it struck Heartscry, wounding her sorely. Up until now I had been considering how I could attack the flying wizard:, but I tore off after the hidden Archer, a Blackfinger member. Trying to fight that blasted sniper was almost as bad as fighting a windling in flight would have been. he would jump to a place I could not observe him and hide. I would jump up next to him and not be able to see him, he would jump away from me and shoot me, I would jump next to him and bash him, repeat. He spent half of his time hiding from me, and I spent half my time looking for him without being able to spot him, then we would each exchange one set of attacks. Once I almost got him knocked out of the tower, but I did not knock him back far enough.

In the meantime Heartscry had settled matters with little and large, convincing them to go away. After my farce with the sniper went on for a while, T'Rask called up a very sensible suggestion that if instead of jumping over next to the sniper, if I simply took cover, he could not shoot at me without first jumping in over next to me. I took his advice, and indeed, instead of shooting at me, the sniper instead shot at Moore, who is not as skilled at Avoiding Blows as I am. I then jumped over next to the sniper and bashed him to the ground and attempted to maneuver him to where I could knock him off the tower, shortly thereafter his body flew from the tower and fell dead to the ground.

We were looking around and discussing our next move (bandages and a hot meal featured prominently in the discussions), when a dwarf came out of the building carrying a sack bulging with loot. He seemed a cheery and easy-going fellow, and quite confident. I liked him immediately. He introduced himself as Breunor and said he was done with his looting and had all that he could carry, and we were welcome to anything left. We fell to chatting with him, and even shared a meal after performing greeting rituals. From things Moore said, it seemed as if Moore has heard of Breunor, and did not like what he had heard. The conversational temperature cooled and Moore challenged him to a fight. Breunor asked if he meant one on one or all on one, and did not seem in the least phased when Moore declared that we would all be attacking him as soon as lunch was over.

The fight was brutal. The dwarf was very skilled. Several times we had him well pummeled, only to have him perform a fireblood test that restored the majority of his health. Finally he had enough and committed suicide in such a way that he might have taken several of us with him. He ran into the building, which turned out to be the legendary smithy, and stopped before a door. When most of us had gathered around him, he quipped a joke and purposely touched the rune upon the door, setting it off, vaporizing him, and doing much damage to each of us, except for heartscry who was fortunately slightly outside the blast radius.

We nailed the doors of the smithy shut and made camp for the night. We did much healing and blood sharing. I did a Fire Heal test, which only healed a tiny bit of damage. Nevertheless, in the morning all the party damage was healed.

We opened the passage that had had the ward upon it. Heartscry fluttered down the corridor and proclaimed it free of traps. Moore stepped in and was instantly impaled by many spikes that came out of the wall. We all tried to gently free him, but each attempt only caused him more damage. Finally, with Moore barely alive I asked him to blood share much of him damage to me, and upon our next attempt we got him off of the spikes. We explored a bit and Moore found and disarmed a collapsing stairs trap. Then he accidentally triggered a dart trap, but fortunately none of the poisoned darts penetrated his armor.I then triggered a trap trying to pick up a book written in Orkish.

We found several rooms, filled with treasures big and small. We found a hidden door that reviled  a hidden section larger than what we had already explored. Heartscry spotted two tripwires, and somebody (I think it was Moore and Heartscry together, but I was too busy diving for cover) triggered an exploding gas trap. There was also a 2nd poisoned dart trap.  By the time we were done Moore and Heartscry were both very wounded. T'Rask and I had blood shared much damage, but since we mostly hung back suffered almost no trap damage ourselves. The whole complex was very well preserved and the food in the pantry was still fresh after all these centuries. We found much of value, so much that it was difficult to choose what to carry back to Tent City. We found many fine weapons and several thread items.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t105-aar-014-an-enchanting-adventure

I had entered Travar to schedule having my armor enchanted when the Journeyman Enchanter I was talking to introduced me to his superior Kelvin, a corpulent human, who explained a problem that had recently arisen. A group of their regular suppliers has disappeared and they wished to know what had become of the group. Further, without the missing supplies the consortium was running low on some much needed exotic components. They wished us to go into the area the group was last planning to visit and take a look, gathering regents as we went. They provided us with a cart and a very large Pot of Grumbah in which to store the gathered items. Ulfgar, Moore, Kel An, and T'Rask agreed to accompany me.

Our first day of travel out from Travar we encountered nothing of interest to our mission. The next day we were attacked by a small troop of Ice Flyers. We slew and harvested the feathers, hide, and eyes of 2 of them, but the matriarch and a baby flew away. It was a somewhat challenging fight in that they had powers that affected the mind of Kel An, and various other powers.  

That evening a Storm Wolf appeared at our camp, and using body language seemed to urge us to accompany him somewhere. After about 15 minutes of travel we arrived at a site of slaughter, where apparently a whole pack of Gate Hounds and a pack of Storm Wolves had massacred each other. Of the two packs, there was only one Gate Hound left standing. I could feel it attempting to suck my magic away from me, so I charged straight in and attacked it. As I approached I saw what appeared to be a small rat riding it. Some of the others recognized it as a Leech Rat and made slaying it a priority. After the battle we found 3 other (dead) leech rats. We harvested the various components from the leech rats and gate hounds, but burned the Storm Wolves unharvested.

At dawn our camp was attacked by two Cockatrix. I had taken the first watch, so was unarmored. I decided to hastily don my armor before emerging from my tent to fight. Before I joined the fight T'Rask had beaten one such that it fled and hide, but fortunately Ulfgar spotted it as it slunk away and slew it. We harvested their blood and other useful organs.

That day we also slew 3 CrackBills and harvested their neck cords. The next day, near the side of a river we came upon a patch of Black Mercy that had entranced a group of Lightning Lizards. Only one was still aware enough to put up a fight, but the lightning had absolutely no effect against my armor. We harvested their eyes and other useful parts. While skinning them, we discovered that most had feasted upon Human's within the last week or two. Nearby we discovered the previous regent gatherers camp and cart. T'Rask also harvested the patch of Black Mercy.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t110-aar-015-crystals-of-caldor

T'Rask had a need to travel to the mines of Caldor to investigate the mine from which the crystals that made up his armor came from. He arranged us transport upon an Airship that was going in that direction. The first mate of that ship was the famous Troll Sky Raider Tristia the Hewer. It was pleasant speaking with her, and I even got to Arm Wrestle with her. (she won). The airship dropped us off about a day and a half's walk from Caldor.

The night before we arrived at Caldor we were set upon by ghouls shortly after everybody but the first watch had retired to their tent. There were 8 ghouls total, including their leader. What would have been a challenging fight was made treblely more so since so many of us started asleep in our tents and had to fight without armor. I was wounded twice by damage that my armor would easily have shrugged off and was very fortunate to not be affected by their virulent poisons.

Immediately upon entering the city of Caldor, we were set upon by 6 cadaver men. Our impression was that the entire city was overflowing with these abominations. We climbed up on a roof where we hoped to be safe from attack to eat a leisurely meal before setting off to the mine.

We expected trouble at the mine entrance, so as we entered Heartscry cast Displace Image upon us all and I moved in a defensive stance. We entered to find nothing of apparent danger. It seems they liked their mines well decorated in Caldor, since the entryway was lavishly furnished with the remains of many statues. Two of the statues were mostly whole and still had nameplates upon them. I resolved to read the nameplates so that I could see if perhaps I had heard legends of the hero's they represented. I mistrusted the statues so at first attempted to read the nameplates from a distance. Moore, carrying heartscry resolved to circle the vestibule checking for trouble or unusual features. I was unable to read the nameplates from a distance so approached one of the statues up close but still had great difficulty making out the ancient lettering. I spent some half a minute or more attempting to puzzle the lettering out, Moore had time to circle a full half of the room, and the protective spell Heartscry had placed upon us had time to expire. I felt the spell expiring, and as soon as it did so, just as I was preparing to withdraw from my attempt to read the hero's name, the statue came to life and bashed me upon the head with a blow such as I have never before received. If the thing had struck even a few seconds previously, it would likely have been fooled by heartscrys spell, as it was I was splayed bonelessly upon the ground and dazed. The other one also came alive and struck at me but I managed to roll over and avoid it's blow. Before I could further gather ether my wits or my feet, I was struck again upon the head in a blow that nearly killed me and did break off the tip of my right horn. I knew no more from that fight. As I spiraled down into unconsciousness it came to me that the nameplate must read "Grilthron", the name of a decidedly minor hero who haled from this city.

Once I was roused by my stalwart companions, we penetrated deeper into the mines. The mines were crystal mines where living crystal was harvested. As we penetrated the mine we saw what appeared to be many name-givers encased in crystal. We speculated as to whether this was yet another novel approach to weathering the scourge, and that some of the residents of Caldor had somehow encased themselves in crystal, or if this was yet another horrible torture or trap of the horrors, and whether these people were alive or dead, corrupted or whole. We were still discussing this when we arrived at the innermost reaches of the cave. There was a statue and two imposing figures encased in thick crystal. Before them was what at first appeared to be a good sized offering box, also made of crystal.

Heartscry, thinking the crystal was an offering box started to sing a song of greeting. However the lid of the box opened and she cried out in pain as it cast some spell or another upon her. We all took to bashing the crystal box with our various weapons. It cast various harmful spells at us. Both Moore and I suffered from having some crystal spikes erupt from our skin. T'Rask and Moore ended the fight almost unconscious, and I had many wounds. Fortunately we were able to smash the thing before it incapacitated us all.

With that thing in residence within the mines, I fear that there is little hope for the people encased in crystal. If the encasing was a torture by the horror, I hope that the smashing of the crystalline Entity as ended their suffering. If it is something they did to themselves, I fear that the horror has perverted their magic and most likely driven them all insane. In any case, I see no huge rush to further meddle with the situation there.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t123-aar-018-the-dreaming-serpent-4a

The Infection spreading through Travar has taken a big toll upon the cities Merchant Airmen. The house Dumorjen True Air mining ship Dreaming Serpent can barely scrape together a crew, and what crew they can find is new and under-trained. Air Mining is dangerous work and in addition to it's sailing crew, most ships also carry fighting crew whose duties are to handle all the non-environmental dangers and keep danger away from the ship and it's sailing crew. Merchant Captain Shela Northwind, a formidable Dwarf Sky Raider has hired T'Rask, Ulfgar, and myself to protect the ship and it's crew. This is an opportunity for me to both train and receive training. This being my first time on an Air Mining ship, I bought good quality flying gear to handle the cold of the upper altitudes.

The scratch crew put together by our dauntless captain was missing both her regular first-mate, an Elementalist, and her second-mate, a beastmaster. Many other skilled positions were filled by crew members jumped-up for this voyage. I spent much of the trip to the Dragon Mountains teaching workshops on Navigation and Air Sailing to the new crew.

Our captain explained that the ships greatest danger was being attacked by a Thunderbird. To prevent that, she proposed catching some Griffens, Hippographs, or Espagra to serve as bait. We kept a lookout, and spotted 3 young male Hippograph out hunting. We marines placed ourselves upon the ships rail, and they dove upon us. I avoided the blow of the first two, and T'Rask turned back the attack of the third. At first I had thought to lasso one, but it proved both difficult and unnecessary. T'rask clipped the wing of one, and I managed to knock another one down long enough for us to slay it. The third flew away heavily wounded. We hosted the carcasses over the side and dangled them from a cathead. When we reached the Dragon Mountains we looked not only for True Air kernels (which are very hard to spot, and impossible to spot at a distance), but also for Thundarbirds. They are much easier to spot, and tend to be near True Air kernels.

We approached a Thunderbird, and as it took notice of us, unshipped the line tying one of the Hippograph carcasses to the ship. It plummeted, and the Thunderbird took our bait, diving after what it thought was fleeing prey. I am sure it caught it, and was probably confused that it's prey was not as fresh as he had expected. I am sure he ate it anyway. I, however, did not have time to rubberneck at wildlife, no matter how magnificent. The captain sent me to take command of the port outrigger division. I think she expected more Talent of me than my poor skill could muster, but at least I managed to avoid embarrassing myself. Ulfgar managed to spot the small cluster of True Air kernels the Thunderbird had been circling.

T'Rask was assigned to handle one of the Orechalcom nets with which the True Air kernels are captured. He was having problems when Ulfgar shouted out that the kernels were being jostled by an invisible Air Elemental. I asked to be released of my duty upon the outrigger to defend the ship in case the Elemental took more direct actions how that it's subterfuge had been discovered. While the fight against the hippograph had been exhilarating, the fight against the Air Elemental was frustrating, for the cowardly spirit would not stand and fight. It slunk around under it's cloak of invisibility, never in reach of our weapons. I tried throwing stuff at it, including several pounds of salt and a perfectly good spear. Finally I more or less just stood against it and let it exhausted itself upon my armor (which is particularly good against air elemental), while Ulfgar lobbed spells at it until it was slain.

With the Air Elemental defeated, we harvested that batch of True Air.

It took us another hour or two to find another Thunderbird, and thus another patch of True Air. During that time T'Rask performed a recovery test or two. Immediately upon harvesting the 2nd batch, we were attacked by a Stormwraith. This foe at least had the common courtesy to close and engage me in melee. We slew it. During the fight, T'Rask discovered that there was a Plague Lizard on board(!) and he immediately dispatched it. After the fight we searched to cargo area and discovered the things nest. We decided it must have been on-board for most of 10 days! There was no way a creature such as that could have happened to make a nest upon this ship. It must have been deliberately brought on board and hidden. I suspect the 2nd officer as being the Saboteur , he is a beastmaster and also the cargo-master. It will have to be investigated once the ship returns to Travar however, in the meantime we set a course to return to Travar, disposed of the Plague Lizard carcass and took what precautions we could for the health and safety of the crew,

A small and swift Drakk'ar loaded with Crystal Raiders swept up behind us and bordered us before we knew they were even there. 6 boarded us, leaving only a helmsman upon the smaller ship. The leader (who had a Storm Crow upon his shoulder) called out that they were only after our cargo and they would leave us alive if we yielded, but slay us if we resisted.  They acted quite cocky, and I was unable to judge if they were as powerful as their actions suggested. Their handling of their small ship and their quick and decisive boarding action spoke quite highly of their skills. Furthermore, they said that they wanted our cargo, which we had just moments ago condemned as plague tainted. It galled me to think of Pirates upon a ship which I had sworn to protect, but it rather tickled me to think of them taking all that plague tainted material off of our hands!. I resolved that ultimately it was the captains decision and watched her closely for her lead.

At first Captain Northwind seemed inclined to let the Crystal Raiders have the plague tainted cargo. However the raider leader was unfortunate enough to guess that the captain probably had True Air upon her person, and when he made to search her, she kicked him in the fork. After that the action was very swift and amazingly successful. I had worried that these 6 might be adepts who outnumbered us two to one. However it turns out that they were not adepts at all, merely highly skilled non-initiates. They could not stand up to us for even a few seconds. T'Rask and I both hammered the Raider Captain, while Ulfgar cast a spell upon both the captain and his pet Storm Crow. The Raider captain, sourly wounded in the opening seconds of the engagement, called for his men to retreat, but in his wounded, Battle Shouted, Taunted state, failed to make the leap back to his Drakk'ar, nor manged to catch hold of the side as he fell plummeting to his death so far below. While the Raiders ran back to their ship, T'Rask and Ulfgar started taking that Storm Crow apart. I could have given the Coup de grace to the poor bird, but instead counter-boarded the Drakk'ar! I leaped aboard and mashed the fingers of some poor sod who was clinging to the side of the ship, sending him also plummeting to his death, and loudly demanded the rest surrender. Most did instantly, and the only one who was for holding out quickly reconsidered. Captain Northwind locked the prisoners in the Foc'sol and permitted me to pilot our prize back to Travar.

Upon return to Travar the 4 captured Crystal Raiders were turned over to the city authorities. I stayed upon the Dreaming Serpent for a further week, receiving training as a Journeyman Sky Raider from Captain Northwind. Since Airship Maintenance is a Half-Magic Talent for Sky Raiders, the Captain and I ended up doing much of the dangerous parts of the decontamination of the ship ourselves, assisted by whatever Air Sailor and Sky Raider adepts could be hired for day labor.

We still do not know who sabotaged the House Dumorjen's ship, though I suspect the 2nd mate, and think the ships cook should be examined closely as well. Some are wondering how the crystal raiders knew how to find us, but finding trading ships is half magic for Sky Raiders. Apparently none of these raiders were Adepts, but a Sky Raider adept might have told them where to look for us.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t126-aar-020-mavarre-s-mansion-4a
I have been adventuring pretty hot and heavy lately. It was a relief to take a week off to train up to Journeyman! I also paid Ulfgar to do more research upon the thread items I hope to quest for soon. He did his usual very excellent job and we think we have got a solid lead upon a pair of very interesting items. In recent weeks the port have been abuzz with rumors of sightings of an ancient and decrepit airship, seen to be maneuvering under full sail without any crew whatsoever manning the helm or rigging. Ulfgar and I have been poring over ancient records and believe we have identified the ghost ship as "The Flying Travarian", which never returned from it's last trading mission before the scourge. It's last captain was known to possess two fabulous thread items, A pair of boots and a spear. We think there might be a pattern to the sightings, and hope to be able to figure out how to predict where "The Flying Travarian" will next be seen.

T'Rask needed people to accompany him in a quest to find out the cause an ancient hero called Mevarre the magnificent championed. He booked us passage upon a boat commanded by a unpleasant human named Victor. He and his crew were all human, and it seemed that the majority of his crew did not like victor very much. I must admit Victor ran a taut ship and appeared to be a master of his craft, even if his medium was simple water and not air. He took us as far up the Dragon Mountain Valley as was navigable, and told us he would be back in two weeks to pick us up if we were back by then.

It was a further 6 days walking to the manor from there. Upon the 2nd day we were attacked by 4 tigers, 3 of which we slew. Heartscry caused the remaining one to loose interest in eating us and we hurried away before her spell wore off. We crossed a bridge to put water between us and the tiger and almost walked into another ambush, fortunately I heard the 2 Cave Trolls and warned the others. Even so, several of us got bashed moderately hard, Especially T'Rask who had already been banged up by the tigers and myself. Fortunately we had several days to heal up before we arrived at the manor.

The manor was amazing. it looked in excellent repair for such an ancient dwelling, and looked to have weathered the entire scourge without so much as a scratch. The grounds looked as if a team of gardeners were still maintaining them. Moore checked the outer doors for traps, but did not check the hallway inside and suffered impalement upon some spikes that sprung from the walls. We heard some noises that sounded as if a great and terrible beast was behind some doors that prevented it from getting to us and attacking us. At Moores suggestion I hopped over the spike trap pressure plate, but almost immediately fell into pit with poisoned spikes. The poison had little effect upon my iron constitution. I hopped out of the pit, listened briefly at some large double-doors to confirm that the beast was behind those doors, and opened them and hopped over both traps and out the door.

From the huge room beyond a Dyre emerged and clearly wanted to attack us. It did not however seem to want to attempt to jump over the open pit trap. It snuffled around for a while, then left and appeared a few moments later behind us in a shower of glass from a broken window. T'Rask reacted instantly and sorely wounded it. I threw a spear at it and moved over to more closely engage it. Shortly thereafter a new enemy appeared in the doorway I had just vacated. It was a giant flying slug of some sort. I have since heard the others refer to it as a Changeling. It cast some sort of spell or power upon Heartscry which caused her to cry out in pain. Shortly thereafter the thing waved it's Pseudopods at me and I also felt a great pain in my head as if my skull was being crushed. It almost drove me to my knees in agony.

I rushed back to the doorway and did a shield bash to knock the flying slug into the traps pressure plate. I swung my shield high from my shoulders, down through the space occupied by the small flying slug, and knocked it back at a downward angle. I was very careful to make an attack to knock the creature back, not to knock it down (even if my attack was angled such that the direction "back" was partially also "down"), and while I think my shield attack probably wounded it, I don't think I did enough damage to it to knock it down. Nevertheless the creature ended up prone upon the pressure plate. I can only surmise that the creature was highly intelligent and realizing what I was doing, It must have voluntarily decided to go prone upon the impact, even though nothing I had done would have knocked it down. By falling prone, the creature caused the spikes from the trap to miss it, which is a shame since it is possible that the trap would have killed it.

After that my memory of the fight grows hazy due to the fog of agony I was in. I was attacked by the headache thing at least twice more. I recall jumping over the pressure plate to close with it, but being repeatedly unable to smash the thing due to the disorientation caused by my wounds. I recall that it flew away from me an I heard T'Rask howling in agony in a nearby room. I charged after the thing only to see that T'Rask had successfully made his escape. As the thing did it's last headache attack upon me I recall falling thinking that I was most certainly dead. I woke up a short time later with Heartscry pouring a booster potion down my throat and telling me that the changeling was dead. Or more dead than it was at the start anyway.

My repeated bone shaping's (which turns out to be the wizard term for headache attacks) left permanent (or at least long lasting) changes to my head. To be honest I kind of like how my chin now seems more sharp and jutting. However the symmetry of my horns has been absolutely ruined. They used to be nearly perfectly symmetrical, a rare and desirable trait among trolls, but now the left one (the one with the broken tip) now juts off at what I consider a most unflattering angle. No matter how much I study my reflection I don't see it myself, but I have been told by several people that my left eye is now noticeably further from my nose than my right eye.

We examined the manor and learned that Mevarre had been famous for her free-running. We returned to Captain Victors ship and thence to Travar.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t128-aar-021-return-to-the-tower-of-cats
A short while ago Ulfgar organized a trip to a place called "The tower of cats".. I was unable to journey with him on that trip, but when they got back I learned that they got their asses handed to them by two of what they called "Globberogs". Apparently they have characteristics similar to Bog Gobs and the melee fighters weapons kept sticking to them. Ulfgar organized a new expedition, and this time I accompanied him, T'Rask and Heartscry. Before we left I did some shopping and bought some potions and some lumber with which I intended to fashion enough clubs that I could not possibly run out. I also bought some nets, something that I have long coveted.

The journey to the tower was mostly uneventful. When we arrived we beheld a most impressive structure. 60 yards tall, capped with a graven image of a huge cat with glowing eyes. The glowing eyes apparently exerted some force that slammed flying creatures to the ground, often killing them. The grounds were littered with the carcasses of dead birds. There were hundreds of cats lounging around the entire estate. Ulfgar cast Dispell Magic and the statues glowing eyes dimmed and the magical effect that made flying impossible went away for a period of time, but it returned after a few minutes.

Before we entered the area where they had encounters the Globberogs before, our magicians cast several buffs upon us, including heartscry's new spell shield willow. With shield willow protecting us from magical effects I had no troubles with my weapon or anything else sticking to Globberogs. T'Rask however did get stuck at one point. Heartscry also got stuck to the ground early in the fight, so T'Rask had to stand in front of one Globberog, while I stood in front of the other, thus we could not combine our attacks upon one target.

I started the fight by casting one of my new nets upon the creature, but while it stuck to it, it failed to entangle it. I graduated to spear and mace. With Ulfgar's and Heartscrys help I managed to defeat the one, while T'Rask, dispite being stuck to his target defeated the other almost single-handedly. The Globberogs had many coins and other things of value stuck to them.

The outer doors of the tower proper were weathered and warped, but quickly gave way to a good buffet from my shoulder. There was a short entryway leading to some inner doors. There was obviously some magical effect in operation that preserved the tower proper from the effects of age, dust, etc.With Mevarre's Monor fresh in my mind I could not help but think that this was a perfect place for there to be traps. I eventually stomped around all over the ground floor but there were no mechanical or spell traps.

Within the ground floor was a huge domed chamber. In the center of which was a magical sigil. After exploring the room we stood upon the sigil one at a time, becoming teleported to a higher floor in the tower. I teleported first, and was dismayed to find myself facing 3 tigers. The tigers did not attack however until everybody had arrived and T'Rask attacked the nearest tiger. The fight was short but vicious. Fortunately, the tigers were unsuccessful in their ambushes and pounces. We slew one and rendered the other two unconscious. It was decided to leave the two tigers alive. We explored the room. There was a sheep that we decided was possibly magically enchanted to be both immortal and regenerative. Apparently the much traumatized creature was the source of food for the tigers. We did not bother to discover what it's source of food was. There were also 3 large crystals that when rubbed produced a tone. Our magicians told us that the tones modified the pattern of the teleport sigil that we had arrived upon. We rubbed the purple crystals and again I stepped upon the sigil.

This time I was at the top room of the tower. There was one broken window, and rain and water had ruined one bookcase. We had just dispersed to explore the room further when two shadowmants ambushed us, attacking T'Rask and heartscry. Now that I have learned the Talent of Iron Constitution, shadowmants hold considerable less terror for me than they would have just a few weeks ago. T'Rask who had stoically not requested a rest after ether of the previous two fights, was almost unconscious by the time he managed to guzzle an antidote potion. Heartscry was knocked to the ground and scrambled under a table. All it took was for us to got ourselves organized, and one shadowmant was slain and the other fled through the broken window. I am not certain why the anti=flying spell did not affect the shadowmants. As far as I can figure, the giant cat statue was directly above this room and affected everything the light of it's eyes touched. The statue faced South, and the broken window was in the SW. Maybe Shadowmants are somehow immune to the effect.

This floor was a gigantic library, mostly tomes of magic. We stayed there for 2 hours so that we could all have a meal and T'Rask could make two recovery tests. He existed the room feeling much better than when he entered it. It was here that Ulfgar found the information that he needed to tie a stronger thread to his spectacles. .

The sigil upon the library floor was smaller and could only hold one person at a time. Again I went first. I found myself in the large ground floor chamber, but looking at a Felux, a huge lion-like creature. Apparently we forgot to shut the inner tower door when we entered (to be honest, I dislike touching them still fearing some trap), and the Felux might have just wandered in after us. We stared stupidly at each other for a moment, each surprised to find the other there. Then the creature's eyes lit with a blinding glare that strobed on and off, and I fell to the ground with convulsions. I closed my eyes, but the damage had already been done. I was unable to regain control of my own feet until quite later. The beast spent most of the time attempting to eat me, but had a hard time attempting to gnaw through my armor. T'Rask and the others had almost killed it by the time I finally got to my feet and reopened my eyes. My contribution to the battle was to serve as chew-toy, and to fling one spear at the retreating Felux's tail.

We returned to the 2nd floor to try the third crystal there. The two tigers were awake but kept to their kennel's and left us unmolested. We returned the favor. The brown crystal on the first floor teleported us to a huge basin of water. Fortunately Ulfgar was able to locate the teleport sigils and get us out of it. Ulfgar was positive that the one crystal we had not tried yet would take us from the top tower to the 1st floor. He popped up to demonstrate that. The tigers did not attack him the two times he passed through the 1st floor.

We returned triumphantly to Travar.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t134-aar-024-the-witch-s-cottage-4e#494

Ulfgar has been attempting to research the key knowledge's for his spectacles. He needs to know the name of the first book somebody or another wrote. For some reason he has come to believe that at one time or another before the scourge, the answer could be found at the cottage of a specific witch. He asked us to go to the site of the ancient cottage, I dubiously accepted, not imagining that anything would still remain of a simple cottage through the full length of the scourge, during which whole cities have been reduced to scattered ruins.

Our journey was, if not uneventful, at least not noteworthy until we got near to the site of the cottage. In the afternoon of our last day of travel we were ambushed by some bearlike creatures that dropped out of trees upon us by ambush. I believe that somebody refereed to them as Cannon-Bears. I do not recall any famous legends featuring the creatures, but they did a number upon Moore. One pounced upon me and did me a wound, but fortunately I managed to keep my feet, unlike T'Rask and Moore. This allowed me to more easily free myself from the creatures hold. The creatures are fast as lightning. The one I threw off of me climbed a tree, almost causing me to loose sight of it in the branches, and dropped down upon me a 2nd time all within a few scant seconds. I ignored it and went to attack the one that had it's teeth embedded in Moore's neck. I attempted to pry it loose, but it's grip on Moore was too strong. T'Rask slew the one that had attacked him, and also the one was still greedily sucking the blood from Moore. With two dead the remaining one was easily slain, I jumped into a tree and knocked it down.

We retired to a nearby pool to rest and recover. The area was of unnatural beauty, and it looked as if the pool had been landscaped into a bathing pool. We had been resting there a little bit over an hour when some people approached. There were three very pregnant women, 2 orks and a human, and 6 curious looking solders belonging to no race I had ever seen before. Eventually I managed to place them as Invae, a horrible spirit race that was one of the first manifestations of the early scourge. Centuries ago they had apparently infiltrated the sanctuaries of Cholorius, and the rooting of them out was known as the Burning Time!

We talked to the women. The human Daio was their spokesperson, but I found the body language of the Ork Morn most expressive. The other Ork was Uloth. The Invae solders did not say a word. Daio told us that while they can understand name-giver tongues, their mouths can't form the correct sounds. The human invited us to return to the village with them, and said we ought to meet the queen. We plead that we had urgent business elsewhere and that we might stop by upon our next time our journeys took us to this area. In all the conversation, while outwardly pleasant left is all deeply disturbed. We left a few minutes after the women and their guards, but were careful to stay well behind them.

It was a very short walk to the old Witches cottage. It was in perfect repair, with neatly tended garden and even three fantastic topiary shrubs. We could smell a stew simmering within the cottage kitchen. A voice called at us to go away, and was quite insistent. It took several tries, but rather quickly the others managed to coax the other into conversation. It turned out to be a Hearth Spirit that had been maintaining the cottage awaiting it's mistresses return. As we conversed with it more, it became apparent that it's mistress, an Ork named Ilka, had left centuries before, before the scourge even, and it had been maintaining the cottage, and keeping a supper upon the fire that entire time. We promised the spirit to make an attempt to find it's mistress, or at least find out what happened to her.

The spirit steadfastly refused to let us into the cottage, but Ulfgar managed to convince it to bring the library out to the porch where he could study it. He found the information he had come for. It is amazing that it was still here after all those centuries. Ulfgar also shared a treatise upon Invae with us. Moore endeared himself to the spirit by fixing a damaged table that the spirit had been unable to make perfect. We also managed to listen to a message stone where the Neathermancer admitted to making horrible mistakes in her pride. We conjecture that the Nethermancer accidentally summoned an Invae, thought she could control it, but instead fell into it's control. We suspect that the witches body might possibly still be, in some measure, alive, though the condition of her spirit we can not even speculate. It is possible that the witches body might possibly house the Invae Queen. We have a dagger that seems to be a major pattern item of somebody, probably the witch. The fact that it is still an active pattern item seems to point in the direction that the witches body might still be alive, and more importantly, that her pattern is still recognizably intact. We borrowed the dagger from the hearth spirit, and thus we might possibly have a pattern item to an Invae hive queen or other such important spirit.

Rather than make an immediate assault upon the hive, we resolved to do additional research first.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t136-aar-027-journey-to-the-gaen-valley-4a

Heartscry has taken it into her head to look for a place called the Gaen Valley, a far away kingdom (near the Ares Sea), that none have ventured to since bygone days. Ulfgar, T'Rask, and Myself accompanied her.  It was many days travel, and it rained a distressing number of them.

In all my previous journeys it has been my practice to not bother hunting as we moved, feeling that it distracted me from keeping a proper watch out for danger and contenting myself with eating trail rations, which are cheap and much less bother. This trip I decided to try foraging on the move, and found that it helped the weary miles pass much more pleasantly, and the nuts, berries, and wild greens, not to mention the occasional small game, made for a pleasant change from trail rations. T'Rask also tried a different diet this trip, but his change was to Dwarf Mine Rations. That lizard be crazy. There were a couple of days when the others stayed in camp due to rain, and I enjoyed the solitude of foraging alone.

We needed to cross a large river, and Ulfgar cast Flight upon me, and I enjoyed the sensation of soaring flight. The sky is a natural environment for a sky raider. T'Rask and his horse swam the river. Once across the river we were in unexplored territory, and did not know precisely where the valley of Gaen was, nor if any of it's settlements had survived the Scourge. We spent several days searching the area where we had crossed the river, then decided to move closer to the sea. Our first hint that we had found an inhabited area was when we were dove upon by 2 Griffins being ridden by two humans. None of us spoke human, and nether of them spoke any language we did. We suspected we did not really need to fight them, but they gave us little choice. I was mostly attacking to knock down and disarm, but T'Rask really had is blood up. Heartscry was so worried that she cast Displace Image upon an unconscious rider, just to be sure he was not killed as he lay helpless.

After both griffins were slain and the remaining human had been knocked down and disarmed a few times, he was finally persuaded to surrender. He led us to his village as I carried his unconscious comrade, There we were able to speak to an elderly gentleman who introduced himself as the court troubadour to his majesty king Gaen of Gaen. He spoke to us in an archaic and heavily accented dialect of dwarfish, I don't think it was of Throalic roots. I also don't think he had ever had occasion to ever speak the language since his schoolboy days. We expressed our regret that when we were ambushed by the griffin riders the necessity of slaying the mounts. We had a nice chat. He told us that the court was still in residence at the kaer 29 km NW of the village.

Heartscry explained the nature of our quest, and they explained that the village was troubled by two sets of monsters. Some giants whom had taken over the ancient castle some months before, and a pack of Stingers laired in a cave. We agreed to handle both situations.

The giants were by far the most troublesome. They were huge ogres, and one turned out to be an ogre twin, so when we slew it, it apparently regenerated instantly and fully. fortunately we slew one of them very quickly. Ulfgar cast darkness upon the other, which was a great trouble to it, but also to us as we had great difficulty hitting it. Fortunately during the entire fight neither ogre got a solid hit on any of us, when I think of the massive clubs and how they whistled through the air and slammed into the walls when they missed us I am most glad, as I am sure a strike from ether of them would be devastating.

After reporting our success at the village, we went in search of the Stingers. We found them eating the corpses of the griffins we had slain. We killed 3 of the 5, but two fled. The grateful royal troubadour gave heartscry the information we had came for.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t154-aar-029-pay-my-dues#594

Zalph made a deal with someone to look for a missing thief. He was told an Elementalist named Ariel had disappeared with some guild property. The guild wanted the property back. They gave him a list of the items they wanted returned and told us to look in a specific cave a few days travel out of town. Zalph, T'rask and myself took the ferry across the river and started walking.

On the 2nd night, during the middle watch (I was on watch) we were attacked by some ghouls which gave me two nasty wounds, but did not poison anybody. By the next morning I had healed one of the wounds, but the following afternoon we were set upon by three giant weaver spiders. They gave me another wound. Again I healed one of them the next morning, but I still had one wound when we arrived at the cave.

We were still arranging our light sources at the entrance when I spotted the heat of a large hound in the interior dimness, I recognized it as a Gate Hound. I have fought these magic sucking creatures before, but these were much more powerful (or at least more successful in their special ability) than the previous encounter, since they weakened my magical connection to my Talents such that they barely functioned at all. Fortunately they never quite managed to sever my powers totally, so while my powers were very much weakened I was still able to empower them by lavish expenditures of karma. It did not take us very long in an absolute sense to defeat them, but due to our karma expenditures and our weakened powers we were all much more drained than a much longer and harder fight would normally have left us. By the midpoint of the fight I once again had two wounds.

We were still catching our breath from this battle when two humans entered through a curtain on the far side of the cave. They were quite upset that we had attacked their home and killed their guard animals. I quipped that I did not see the "home sweet home" nor "beware of the dog" signs, which did not go over well with them, and the woman knocked and drew an arrow. This battle was very short, the woman got off one, maybe two shots, and the man got off one gust of wind spell before the woman was cut down and the man knocked down and surrendered.

The man claimed to be named Tuanth, and that the woman was his wife Stasha. They claimed not to know an Elementalist called Ariel. He produced a writ granting him title to this cave signed by an official of Travar. He accused us of being murderers and thieves in the employ of the Black Fingers. He said the person who hired Zalph as probably Maggie, a member of the Black Fingers. the cave did have all the items on the list that the person who hired Zalph said was stolen from the consortium. We allowed the man to treat his wife with a last chance salve.We offered to instead of delivering the goods to Maggie, we could instead deliver him and the goods to the magistrates of Travar, where the couple could argue possession of the goods before the magistrates. He demered and instead wished us to just take the goods to maggie, but to tell her he was dead.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t165-4h-aar-031-a-horror-able-mission-wed-6-dec

Ogobo was contacted by Glendor Ogrebane, an elderly dwarf of the village of Golden Fields about a missing merchant. The merchant and his companions are 6 days overdue from what should have been a 20 day trading trip. T'Rask and myself agreed to accompany him.

We spent three days following the path southwards until we unexpectedly came upon a large sinkhole that encompassed the path. The sinkhole was about 20 yards across in places and so deep we could not see the bottom. There was a well made improvised rope ladder hanging down the side. Skirting the sinkhole we found a set of wagon tracks that lead into the area but not out. Assuming the cart horse and driver were not so blind as to just walk into the plainly visible hole, it seems as if maybe the hole collapsed while the wagon was above it.

We climbed down the ladder and found a cavern floor covered with a huge inlaid rune, of what we assume is mystical significance.. The inlay had a steely sheen. They seemed ancient, but recently polished. The cavern floor was clean without debris that one would expect to find at the bottom of a normal sinkhole, nor evidence that such debris had been removed. From the top of the hole it looked as if the earth had opened up and sunk into the hole. From the bottom of the hole it looked as if the roof of a cavern had simply disappeared, with no evidence of falling earth.

There was a wagon near the center of the ruin, with a dead horse still in harness. Near the edge of the cavern we found the survivors of the merchant party, one corpse and 4 very traumatized persons. They were all in shock and could barely move. They shrunk from us, or indeed any movement, and whimpered in an unmanly fashion. Before we could ascertain anything more, we were set upon by three Gnashers, horrors that are all mouth and appetite. They have a very nasty bite and I feel fortunate that I only received one wound from the several bites which I suffered. Ogobo was very nearly bitten in half by one of them.

After dealing with the Gnashers, and before we had even regained our breaths, I was trying to chivy the survivors up the rope ladder. However we were instantly assaulted by 4 things called infectors. These horrors have wicked tails that stab into victims and I assume infect them. T'Rask got impaled upon one, and it tried to drag him away. During this fight the rune upon the ground started to glow ominously. After the fight we were able to rest for about an hour. I burned a few crates from the wagon in order to perform a Fire Heal ritual. I then drank a booster potion which removed almost all my current damage except my wound. During this time the survivors were almost catatonic, mumbling only that we were doomed and the worst was yet to come.

Given where and when they appeared, we have reason to believe that least some of the Gnashers and Infectors had been there to start with and had not just teleported into the rune. The Ghamek I am less certain of. The arrival of two Gharmek was accompanied by the rune upon the floor glowing brightly and in general signaling that bad magic was probably happening somewhere. They were first spotted upon opposite sides of the rune. The Gharmek are sluglike being with a hard carapace, but a soft underbelly. Bashing through the carapace was hard, but hits to the underbelly were very effective. One of them attached a psudopod to me and drank a distressing amount of my blood, leaving me much weakened and itself healthier. For this fight (and the next) I activated my horror fend charm at the start of the fight.  We landed some fortunate blows managed to slay both quickly enough I was again at almost full health when I took my last fireblood recovery of the day at the end of the fight. I reattached my horror fend charm and was able to use it again during the next fight. T'Rask however was almost dead and Obogo (who had never really recovered from the huge bite the Gnasher gave him in the first fight) was in poor health as well. I still had over 1/3 my karma, but I think I had about 2 or 3 times more than the other two combined.

If the last horror had appeared before T'Rask could do his recovery test, it would have slain use easily. As it was I would not have chosen to bet money upon our prevailing when with some pyrotechnics I was too busy activating my horror fend charm to properly appreciate, a Windflayer formed (or probably appeared) above the rune. It was desperate fight and Ogobo was rendered hors de combat almost immediately. The thing was quick and strong. It seemed to be everywhere and doing everything. The horror used Cursed Luck upon T'Rask. We knocked it down a couple of times, and then stepped back, forcing it to use it's actions to stand up and come at us. T'Rask ended the fight barely upon his feet, and Ogobo ended it on his back. Again, when things looked very dim and series of good blows, some by me, but mostly by T'Rask took the fiend out.

We managed to get the survivors up the rope ladder and the next day returned for what portion of the goods we could carry back without wagon or horse.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t162-aar-033-when-friends-fall-5a

I have spent large amounts of time working with Ulfgar lately as he does research upon lost thread items that we hope to be able to locate. Thus when he announced that he had a likely location for some "bone armor" which he coveted, I happily volunteered to accompany him.

The trip out was pure misery - It rained every single day. At least food was plentiful, during the week's travel I only used a day or two of rations. I have been very successful at foraging ever since I started it, and am thinking of learning more.  Still, mushroom hunting in the rain is not fun. After we arrived at where Ulfgar said the location was, it took us several days to determine that the main entrance had been buried under an ancient landslide that would take weeks to clear. We decided to start looking to see if the place happened to have a back entrance.

Eventually we found a cavern that had apparently been eaten out of the solid rock by Rockworms. Upon entering we spotted a bachelor Gargoyle, which attacked us and which we slew. Progressing further into the cave we entered a large area with many interesting flora and fauna. We heard a beautiful sound, which I assumed was made by some horn shaped fungus, but T'Rask explained that poisonous spores would shoot out of the horn if the plant was disturbed. The music like sound was coming some crystal bats that were fluttering around the back of the cave.

As soon as we advanced into the cavern proper, we were attacked by two Rockworm's. I don't know how long Rockworms live, so I don't know whether these were the same Rockworms that had dug the cavern, or their decedents, but it was obvious from the amount and variety of flora in the cavern that it had been eaten out a very long time ago. The Rockworms attempted to ambush us from a deep pit in the ground, but we heard them coming early enough that none of us were surprised. They were brutal opponents, and I got bit several times. I tried to knock one of the creatures down into the pit, but it stuck to the rock like a limpet. At one time one of the creatures burrowed into the rock floor and momentarily disappeared from view. I don't know why, but when it reappeared below me a few seconds later I was totally flabbergasted at the tactic and reacted as if I had not expected that exact thing. I ended the fight with two nasty wounds and almost almost unable to stand from blood loss.

Ulfgar meanwhile was making good use of his new Nethermancy Talent of Command Night-flyer. He had befriended the whole colony of Crystal Bats, which are amazing creatures.

I spent 2 hours resting and recovering from the fight with the Rockworms, but I still felt very poorly. I felt like insisting that we rest a third hour, or even an entire day (since there was no particular rush that I could see), but I very foolishly carried on. We found a passage leading South, and eventually it opened into an area of worked stone. Apparently the rockworms had tunneled a back door into the complex that we had been looking for. We saw some Cadaverous Porcupine Snakes. Which are an undead form of Porcupine Snakes. I kind of wanted to form a fighting wall in the narrow passage, but Moore thought it would be advantageous to hold a dais within the room as high ground and advanced into the room. It turned out that the dais's were easily climbed by the snakes, so the high ground was worthless. T'rask was grappled by one of the snakes and constricted. I rushed up and pried him loose, but was soon grappled myself. the mighty snake constricted me horribly, and in my already weakened state I succumbed to the siren song of blissful unconsciousness, and knew no more until I woke up the next morning. The others tell me that before the end everybody except Ulfgar was rendered unconscious, without defeating a single one of the snakes but that he, with his crystal bat allies slew all four of them. By that time Ulfgar was wearing a nifty new set of armor made from bones, which I guess he found somewhere in the chamber, but I have no personal knowledge of it myself.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t145-aar-034-the-flying-travarian-4h

In recent weeks the port has been abuzz with rumors of sightings of an ancient and decrepit airship, seen to be maneuvering under full sail without any crew whatsoever manning the helm or rigging. Ulfgar and I have been pouring over ancient records and believe we have identified the ghost ship as "The Flying Travarian", which disappeared during a trading flight in the last years prior to the scourge. It's last captain was known to possess two fabulous thread items, The famous merchant ship may have been carrying other items of treasure as well.

We believe we have detected a pattern to the sightings, and think we know where "The Flying Travarian" will next be seen. The new owners of that small raiding Dra'kar that we recently captured have agreed to make it and a small crew available to us for a share of whatever we are able to capture / loot off of the ghost ship.

Sadly, I could convince only T'Rask and Zalph to accompany me upon this mission, everybody else I talked to was ether put off by the notion of a ghost ship, or distrusted our calculations that we could actually locate the ghost ship. The Raiding Dra'kar though tiny, is a fast ship. It's new Captain and crew are bold and competent. The captain informs me that the ship is being renamed, but was superstitiously unwilling to use the old name, nor reveal the new one yet. The interception location we had predicted was at dawn, and at a so high an altitude that it was decided to keep the Dra'kar aloft all night rather than anchoring. Like I said, the captain and crew are bold, and confident in their skills such that they do not fear to fly at night as so many Air Sailors do.  I had arranged with the watch officer to be awoken several hours before dawn. This being a former Sky Raider ship, the galley, though minuscule, was constructed such that a troll could use the fires for a fire healing test. I anticipated a very hard mission, so for the very first time attempted to gain two additional recovery tests through the ritual. I was overconfident and failed, burning myself slightly, but in a very tender place, leaving a wound. I ruefully activated the Garlen Stone I had purchased just a few days previously, and started the mission with one less recovery test, rather than 2 extra ones!

As dawn broke over us, and while the world below us was still shrouded in darkness, I was on the bowsprit completing my karma ritual. I felt so alive, I felt more of a Sky Raider than I have ever before. Astride the bowsprit of a Dra'kar, Shield and Mace in hand. The world small beneath me. And as the dawn illuminated the sky, it revealed our target, a fat merchantman, dead ahead of us. By Thystonius's testicles it felt great to be alive.

As our Dra'kar closed with the ghostly ship I ran over signals with the captain. Our Dra'kar eased up behind and above the ghostly merchantman, and the crew lowered a rope which T'Rask and I slid down onto the Flying Travarians quarterdeck.. Zalph used Wind Catcher to float down - which impressed me no end - as I had once fancied learning that talent myself before deciding against it, still I must say it looks impressive. I paused at the end of the rope and kept a firm grip upon it as I let my feet thump into the deck. The deck, like the rest of the ship looked weird, in that it was translucent and would sometimes fade all the way down to transparent. The deck felt solid enough however. As we touched down upon the ship, our perceptions changed. The ship looked and felt different. More solid, more detailed. For the first time we saw some ghostly crew members. There was a Quartermaster at the helm, and several others manning various posts upon the two upper decks.

We were still getting our bearings when we were dove upon by a flock of 8 skeletal eagles. They hit us hard and did a lot of damage in their initial dives, but they were fragile and easily destroyed. All one had to do was knock them over the side of the ship and they faded away. After we withstood their initial dive attacks, their normal attacks were much less harmful and it was a simple matter of mopping up. During the fight T'Rask maneuvered such that he was accidentally sharing the same space as the ghostly helmsman. He did not bump into him, they just coexisted. T'Rask reported it felt cold and weird, and he moved as soon as possible. After the fight, We rested an hour, and some did a recovery test. The helmsman ignored us except for saying one word. Zelph reported that the ship was not using Elemental Magic to fly (which is unprecedented). He speculated that he felt the ship was somehow drawing energy directly from the Astral Plane.

The instant we set foot upon the main deck, the 4 Ghostly figures there attacked us. 4 others, whom had been in the rear cabins also rushed out and attacked us. This was the most time consuming fight of the day, We were each hit several times, as the ghosts passed a hand though our bodies, leaving a cold chill that stayed with us for hours before finally fading. I shudder to think of what might have happened if any of us were hit hard enough to overwhelm us. At one point during the fight I felt an enormous surge of magic as I was shield bashing a ghost. I hit him extremely well and discorporated him instantly with the one bash. When I had leisure to examine my shield I found that it had become a Major Pattern Item of mine. We explored the officers cabins under the quarter-deck and the foc'sul, but found nothing of interest.

As we entered the Middle Deck we were all simultaneously overcome by a sense of urgency, as if we needed to finish our cleansing of the ship as quickly and efficiently as possible so we could escape this doomed vessel. This sense of doomed urgency stood us in good stead, since we wasted no time and few words dispatching the two demiwraths upon that deck. The same sense of urgency sent us hurrying down to the lower hold, where we quickly discovered the strong room (meant to hold the most valuable of treasures on the ship) and the new master of this vessel, a Crystal Entity. Obviously the horror had known all along that we were on the ship, but I think it was surprised by our rapid and silent progress. Again with no wasted words or motions we ferociously attacked. T'Rask's opening blows did tremendous damage to the horror, with shards of crystal flying everywhere. We all felt the horrors magic attempting to warp the very fabric of the world.  I landed one solid blow, not a minor one, but inconsequential compared to the great blows T'Rask was landing. Almost before the combat had even begun T'Rask laid one final blow that shattered the Crystal Entity into a million tiny shards.

With the horror that was sustaining it and keeping it aloft destroyed, the ship started to fall apart. We were in the strong room, so we each paused long enough to shove three or four things into our packs, and then raced pell-mell to the upper deck. The Dra'kar, seeing the rapid deterioration of the ship had already closed. As we raced up to the quarterdeck, they laid a plank across so that we could run across it. Zelph was still only half across when The Flying Travarian faded completely from view, and with a pop, disappeared. The far edge of the plank no longer being supported, the plank, and Zelph, fell away. Fortunately, ships had descended much closer to the ground, and Zelph was able to Wind Catcher his way safely to the ground.

https://earthdawn.forumotion.com/t161-aar-035-clean-the-tainted-land

4 Questers of Jaspree, all Elementalists, wish to attempt to heal the damage the scourge has done to the Badlands. They have developed a magical ritual that they hope will accomplish this. The ritual takes all of their concentration the entire 24 hours, so they hired us to travel with them, and protect them as they cast it. The ritual will be felt in the very pattern of the badlands, so they expect a violent reaction from horrors and denizens of the badlands.

The journey out was uneventful. We all traveled in 2 wagons for about 7 days. Obviously some parts of the badlands are not very far from Travar, but the Questers had chosen the place for their ritual very carefully, and had decided this place 7 days travel away was best. We were all up well before dawn. I and two of the Elementalists did a fire heal and everybody did a karma ritual and ate a very hearty breakfast. As we gathered in the predawn darkness we all felt well, healthy, and centered in our Disciplines. The ritual started at dawn and would last until the following dawn. Nothing happened during the entire day except a bunch of chanting and whatnot. We guardians took turns sitting down and resting, but none of us attempted to sleep even though we knew it would be a very long night. The questers would need to keep chanting for the entire time without the slightest pause or moments rest.

The first attack took place just shortly after sunset, 3 Silver Apes appeared. As we got near them, we could see that they were cadaverous and undead. They approached from 3 different directions, so T'Rask, Ogobo and I went out to meet them well away from the questors. Zelph cast Icy Surface and worked with Ogobo on the northern ape. That one bypassed both of them in order to throw a rock at a questor.

Some few hours later, 4 cyclops appeared. I There was a bit of a mixup and both Ogobo and T'Rask went for the same one, leaving one free to advance upon a questor. I had to leave my half killed Cyclops and rush over and attack the one who had run up to the questor and dealt a him a fearsome wound. I had hoped that the cyclops I had left would charge T'Rask, but it charged into the melee around the questor as well. T'Rask and I soon dealt with both of them.

As the night wore on, we could clearly see 4 great bears pull themselves out of the earth and form themselves! By this time Zelph was chain casting Icy Surface upon the norther approaches and had suggested that he be left to cover that area alone. That worked out well until a bear managed to cross his Icy Surface and bite Zelph, who was knocked down with a nasty wound. This was yet another long fight, but successfully resolved.

By this time the night was almost spent. The questors were upping their game, and adding swaying and dancing to their chants. We had very little warning when an Espraga attacked. It dove upon T'Rask, who was rather quickly rendered unconscious. The rest of us beat it to death. For the remainder of the night I helped Zelph skin the beast, and I built a fire outside the magic circle and cooked the heart, liver, and one of the legs for our breakfast, the questors had not eaten a single bite the entire course of the ritual.

The ritual ended at dawn. As the sun started to poke it's weary head above the horizon, the Questers brought their ritual to a climax amid a flurry of dancing and chanting. Each of us, even I who do not have the Talents required to directly view magical energies (even though I can of course still shape and use them via my Talents), could feel the reservoir of magic that they had slowly built up over the previous 24 hours shaped and released. And even I could feel in my very bones the land reject the magic and shrug it off to dissipate harmlessly, like rain running off of a patch of land whose soil refused to drink it in. A few scattered blades of grass grew up, a single withered shrub blossomed, but that was all. The ritual had mostly failed.

Wearily we all stumbled back to the wagons, where all 4 questers immediately fell into an exhausted slumber. T'Rask was still unconscious since the encounter with the Espraga and we loaded him into the wagons as well. Zelph also racked out while Ogobo and I started the wagons on the long journey back. Later, after everybody had rested, one of the Questers confided that he was not in the least disheartened. The ritual had mostly failed, but had partially succeeded. Much of the magic had been shrugged off by the land, but some had not. The land had improved. Life had briefly regained a foothold. They expect that the pattern of the Badlands will rather quickly overcome their works of this day. But they claim to have learned a lot. And they remain optimistic that with future tries, the ritual can be perfected. That they can ether heal the corrupted pattern of the Badlands, or more likely, remove lands from it's sway and grow or expand and strengthen the patterns of the neighboring lands. This last days activities were but the first steps in a path that might last decades. I marvel at their resolve before such a monumental task.