A few weeks after helping Xeviouz earn the respect of the Scorched Tusk moot, I was still quite bothered by the missing drakkar. The thought of that poor defenceless ship in the hands of Scourge cultists filled me with equal measures of dread and rage, so I went around asking friends and acquaintances if they would help me in a rescue mission. Eventually I managed to rope Reys, Zivilyn, Vralino, and Thorkell Gulbrandsen, a troll friend of Vralino and Weaponsmith.
Travel to the moot went by without trouble and Brosme was overjoyed at the idea that we would recover the missing ship. He could not gives us any information on where she may be, but mentioned that there's a madman living in a tower on top of the mountains that may have seen her. His careful avoidance of the man's name makes me think he may be an outcast.
The evening was spent celebrating with a feast and we set out in the morning, up the mountains with the lingering winter rain making the already barren mountains even more inhospitable. Soon we reached the tower, which, really, was more of a two story building. I approached the door and asked Thorkell to knock, since my knocking technique is rather hard on doors.
The man inside tried to avoid talking to us, using such brilliant plans as shouting that no one was inside. I took far too much pleasure into being annoying enough that he would talk to us just to make us go away. I believe the breaking point was reached when he asked why I was talking to someone that would not answer and I replied "that I was just talking to the mountains".
At this point the troll opened the door, spouted a rather well crafted pronouncement of doom on one of the windlings, we never really ascertained which, and started answering questions. He was definitely an outcast and seemed to know of the Scourge cultists and their goals. He explained that there are horrors to great to come into this world, which he called "Ruinations", and the Scourge worships one of them, the "Beauty that Plummets from on High". He also claimed to have beholden one of these "Ruinations" himself: the "Terrible Burden of Wonder".
Eventually he got tired of our questions and retired to his bedroom, I followed and pressed him into answering questions about the drakkar. Questions he felt were boring. With enough prodding he finally mentioned that he may have seen her go towards a lake to the northwest about a week ago. Meanwhile Zivilyn was looking through his journals and found what looked like some extremely advanced nethermantic research and memorized one of them.
From the vantage point of the mountain top I identified where the lake could be and we started making our way there. Reys and Zivilyn took care of foraging, Vralino keep lookout, and I provided directions. The first day of travel was quiet but Vralino felt we were being observed, the second day, as we camped for the night, Zvilyn and Reys noticed that wildlife was very scarce and all the magicians agreed the astral was tainted.
That night I heard a twig snap during my watch, which let me spot the cultists before they could get the drop on us. The cultists attacked moving with impossible speed and grace, supported by two impossibly beautiful four armed constructs wielding blades. Cultists being cultists, they had to be extra unsettling with the first guy I put down kissing my knuckle and saying "we'll all be scourged in the end".
The fight was harder than I expected because at least one of the cultists could disrupt magic, which was intensely aggravating but we still prevailed even if with some serious wounds and one managed to flee.
The next day we continued towards the lake, following the tracks left by the constructs and arrived to a scene from my worst nightmares: the drakkar was cocooned in some kind of material that Zivilyn later described as "astral tendrils" and an elven woman dressed for a high society party was directing the cultists. The woman started to rant about expecting us, how we were all corrupt and despoiling the earth, the cleansing that would happen soon... Honestly I did not pay attention and just charged.
The cultists were obviously aware of who we were now and decided to mostly ignore me to instead focus on my friends. By the time I had turned the crazy lady into paste, not before she wracked me with terrible pain, Vralino, Thorkell, and Haze (Zivilyn's pet bat) had been taken down by the cultists.
As I made my way back Reys mentioned something about a spirit that had disappeared when I killed the elf just before binding a boar spirit in me. Buoyed by the boar's fury I charged back only to be mobbed by the cultists who managed to shank me good a couple of times forcing me to my knees. You cannot keep a angry boar possessed troll down and I got back to my feet with an uppercut that sent a cultist flying away. Zivilyn also took out his fury on the cultists mopping up the remaining ones.
After the fight a quick check revealed that only Haze was in serious danger and I have waded through way too much guano to let the critter die, so grabbing Vralino's physician's kit, and with flashbacks to scrubbing bat shit out of every nook and cranny, I set to the task of tending to its wounds before Zivilyn applied the last chance salve. Luckily for us all, the bat pulled through.
Our attention shifted to what was going on with the drakkar and the magicians thought the cocoon was linked to something somewhere in astral space on even a netherplane, whatever those are. The ritual was to turn the drakkar in a physical "body" for the astral entity, but was not ready yet so we dug in and started ripping the cocoon to shreds. In the end it took almost a week to ensure the ship was thoroughly cleansed, which also removed the majority of the astral corruption in the area.
Examining the bodies found some more Scourge correspondence which we did not investigate at the time. Once the drakkar was cleansed we, well me with some minimal help from Reys and Thorkell, flew the drakkar back to the moot. As I expected she was a joy to sail and even to this day I have rarely seen her equal. Once at the moot we participated in the mandatory feasting and celebrating before being flown back to Throal on the same ship, which, of course, attracted everyone's attention.Statistics:Posted by sigfriedmcwild — Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:24 am
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