Almost two years after her first flight the Arngeir was finally ready to return to the Howling Cliffs and investigate the floating fortress and its horror cloud. Sandrin once again captained the ship while I took the helm. In the absence of Icarus and Vlolkir we were joined by Thorkell, Zivlin, LaShana, and A'horangi a t'skrang Monk and Bodyguard.
Zivilyn worked on navigation, Thorkell, who had learnt some Air Saling since the recovery of the Scorched Tusk drakkar, managed the rowers, and LaShana and A'horangi manned the cannons.
The flight was swift, even with all the extra load from the armour, guns and ammunition but our quarry had moved a good distance to the south in the intervening time, something that should have been a hint to the true nature of the situation.
As the stormwraiths and wyverns swarmed towards us we prepared for combat. The plan was to punch a hole in the swarm and fly through counting on the ships superior speed to buy us enough time to reach the floating castle and thanks to the earth imbued ammunition Sandrin had procured, it went off without a hitch. We sailed by so fast only a handful of straggling stormwraiths managed to make contact with the ship
We repelled the boarders easily, although Zivilyn seemed to be punching them instead of his usual spellcasting. Just as we were about to be rid of the pests, a clearly undead wyvern managed to close in to the ship just to have its wings brutally maimed by Sandrin. I hope no one was below us.
Clear from immediate threats we approached the flying island for a better look and had to dodge lighting being shot at us. As we got closer we could see several people on the parapets including the human Illusionist that was heading the plot with the hydra eggs and the invasion of the Scorched Tusk moot, Soben I believe was her name. One of the others seemed to be Shanktooth the orc fighter who'd helped her raid the moot.
Given that the floating fortress seemed to be a Scourge stronghold, Sandring decided it would be too dangerous to try and land, much to my disappointment. Before leaving we flew under the island to collect a sample of the rock, and had to dodge the giant roots dangling underneath which had animated and were acting like tentacles.
Sample secured we made full speed back to Throal, where I and Zivilyn started spreading the word about the Scourge and tried to find more adepts that had encountered them. With the floating castle under their control they no longer were the joke I had previously assumed them to be but a clear and present danger to all of Barsaive.
Once the rumours about the Scourge were strong enough to self sustain, I decided it was time to start working on an idea that had been in my head for a while: Throalic privateers, the navy would never have sufficient numbers to defend all of Barsaive, but private ships could help if properly sanctioned and even once the Scourge was removed, Thera would be coming back soon enough.Statistics:Posted by sigfriedmcwild — Sun Dec 13, 2020 11:48 pm
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