The time had come, the correct information had finally found it's way into my hands. As a young hatchling I often was told tales of the greatness of Denlikiyan and the ships the provided to the people of T'skrang. I have dreams of a ship plying the river, and a wish to make it real. Denlikiyan craftsmanship can help with that. I knew they were on the reaches north of Lake Ban, but the reaches are long and dangerous and Denlikiyan was renown to have hidden their docks. A researcher came across some information as to the possible location of the kaer they were likely to have used based upon some old shipping manifests. I was rather elated, I hired transport and began collecting supplies, I ran across a number of friends and invited them to travel with me to investigate.
An airship to near the area cut down the time, Azurea, LaShanna, Vlolkir, and William accompanied me. A rather adept party for sneaking and finding things, with just the right amount of muscle to back it up. As we approached the probable location we started to encounter t'skrang, they spoke in Theran, which I tried to coax back to t'skrang and upon performing a ritual of greeting learned that we had in fact found the kaer of the Denlikiyan descendants. I explained how Barsaive at large was rather hesitant of Theran and produced a copy of the Council Compact. They felt they had encountered the book before and had someone retrieve their Elder of Knowledge. After a thorough inspection of the book, he did confirm they had a copy but had not paid it much heed. He was very interested in our stories. So we took the opportunity to exchange knowledge and explain the reasons for our expedition. Upon learning of the wish to learn their trade I was directed to their master shipwrite Glenn.
Glenn seemed rather distracted when we entered and needed to draw his attention. He seemed a bit scatterbrained, but many a genius are like this. He thought we were the woodsmiths and began to explain exactly what he needed. I politely interrupted and advised that we were not in fact the smiths he was expecting and detailed our origins and reasons for arriving in his workshop. He further explained that he was hoping to move to full scale ships, instead of the miniature prototypes he had been working on. We obliged his request in hopes of gaining some favor, off to collect the rhomboid shaped bark shards of the red maple. The work wasn't so bad, a bit tedious, but with a pair of scouts and some strong arms the work went quickly enough. We returned about a week later with the wood he requested, and Glenn appeared to have no idea who we were. This struck me as odd, some of the group had already voiced suspicions of horror taint, but as I found no traces of illusory magic the possibility of taint grew stronger. I wanted to test his grip upon reality and determine if it was a taint, or a possible touch of derangement. I drew upon the powers of Assumed Authority and took on the guise of a ranking officer, drawing up my Ideal Appearance I commanded him to give a full report and provide any documentation of "the plan", every evil entity has "a plan" and every scattered brained genius writes down a detailed plan of this sort of plot. Glenn was rather flustered at first, but the magically enhanced force of my will was hard to argue with. He began to explain all the plans were in the other room, on scrolls. I asked that he retrieve them with the assistance of LaShana, and to ensure he did not lose focus again I continued to bark commands to hurry with the plans, and that our time was valuable. As he returned with the plans and offered them with apologies, I flipped the switch and returned to normal, advising that we were not here for the plans, he had advised us to return with these bark pieces in exchange for valuable boat construction plans. We took the scrolls and examined them, they all seemed to be rambling non-sense.
At this point we tracked down the Elder of Knowledge, he seemed a bit evasive, dismissing Glenn as just being like that because of a frustration at a lack of river projects. He asked that we help remedy the situation by attempting locate their ancestral drydocks. I suspected any such location would be reclaimed by nature, and when voiced the concern, he followed by indicating that we could simply find a suitable location for a drydock then. This was not the ideal group for that task, but wishing to be away from the insanity I acquiesced and we were off.
Upon our travels we came across more and more denizens of Denlikiyan, some were even heading in the same direction as us, so we joined them for travel and conversation. When we advised of our search for a drydock they were rather shocked. They had already located the drydock, though it seemed inhabited by something evil, and they had advised the Elder of such. We gathered the coordinates when we were due to part company, and made our way towards the river. As we snuck forward, we could see resources being worked upon in the dry dock, but nobody was around. There was a taint in astral space and it put us on edge. Before we could make our way into the compound we came across three more t'skrang. They introduced themselves as Bert, Ernie, and Grover. A pair of warriors and a wizard. They claimed to be affiliated with Syrtis, and while their answers aligned with what I knew, something still felt off. They explained that they were here hunting a horror who had apparently marked a few people. They had held the people for questioning and were just about to try and hunt the beast down. They invited us to follow them into one of the structures long the drydock to discuss what we knew and investigate on our own. William quickly noted the trapdoor they walked over, and with a slight of hand I quickly unleashed my flying carpet to land underfoot as we were about to step upon it. The discussion with the t'skrang was far too cagey for a wizard and a pair of warriors, but they advised that we could go into the holding cell and investigate the afflicted. Assessing what we had, I re-attuned some spells to allow a better escape and advised that only myself and Vlolkir would descent to investigate these 'horror marked' individuals. They offered to accompany us, but I declined. They showed how the trap door opened and as I descended I hit a patch of mud and slid to the bottom. Vlolkir seeing this quickly tied a rope to a small blade he had and buried the blade in the door up to it's hilt.
As we took in the scene below, this did not look like a mere holding of few possibly horror marked individuals. There appeared to be over one hundred individuals down here, with the majority of them desiccated and dead at various points along the floor and wall. This appeared more of a slave pen then a jail cell. Many of the bodies appeared to have been skewered multiple times, looking around the apparent instruments used for this probing were a number of crystals scattered on the floor and into the wall. As I began to examine the crystal, Vlolkir called for some sort of fire as there were a lot of bodies to burn, this garnered a reaction from the few that were still alive down here, huddling into the corner thinking he thought to burn them. These people too were starved and frail, it seemed to take all of their energy just to cower. At about the same time as I began to examine one of the crystals, the entire group of them began to move, coalescing into a vortex. A single shard shot past Vlolkir and I and hit the trigger on the trap door, slamming it shut behind us. It then began to attack, while upstairs everyone attempted to open the door, through prying, mechanisms, and brute strength.
It inflicted a fair amount of damage, but we defeated the horror and collected the captives. I secretly inquired as to their home towns as we escorted them out. People were from a very wide swath of Barsaive, most having little to no reasons for being here. The t'skrang up above had not acted suspiciously, but I find it hard to believe they were un aware of nearly a hundred people in a pit where they kept them for 'questioning'. We were not in a situation to press the matter. Azurea assisted in purifying the area and tending to the captives. We eventually returned to Denlikiyan and announced our success, the Shivalahala (yes there was one that had not greeted us up until now) arrived and thanked us. I arranged for everyone to return to Throal while I spent some more time by the drydocks shrouded in illusion, trying to determine what may still be amiss with this drydock and the town that was slowly forming around it now.Statistics:Posted by Xzandrate — Thu Feb 04, 2021 3:41 am
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