Vlolkir was going around Throal shouting at people to join him on some kind of adventure and I was really tired of dealing with the Admiralty Board and their red tape. You would think they would get over the Arngeir being wrecked in the Coil given the whole "flying citadel of doom" thing, but no, apparently that was proof us "civilians" were not fit to handle "real" airships.
Vlolkir set up "interviews" with people willing to join him at the Swindled Hog an inn of, at best, questionable repute. The interviews mostly consisted of shouting at novice tier adepts until they left in tears, a stellar example of Sky Raider leadership, or maybe it was the Horror Stalker talking? Either way eventually the crowd was reduce to the only people willing to tolerate Vlolkir, namely Bloodbeat, LaShana, Zivilyn and I.
Vlolkir's plan was to go to the Sevros to find the grave of one of his ancestors and somehow restore his ancestral moot. I think. Normally I would be very excited to help a fellow troll in such an endeavour, but I had... reservations, shall we say, about Vlolkir's ability to lead a moot.
We left, hitching a ride on an airship heading in roughly the right direction and dropped at the headwaters of the Galanga, where Bloodbeat joined the crazy cult of "setting self on fire for the health benefits". More importantly there was no sign of the grave. After some pondering I was pretty sure the river course had changed during the scourge and Vlolkir muttered something about griffins being involved in the burial.
We started following the river down looking for clues and admiring the work the Daicar brothers had been putting into making the path suitable for regular traffic until we heard some fighting. A group of namegivers were getting wrecked by a troll looking spirit so we stepped in to try and calm things down and help the dying.
Turns out the spirit was in fact Vlolkir's many times removed grandmother and we could all see who he got his social graces from. After hearing about his plans to restore the moot she was definitely not impressed and demanded that he return to the "proper" raiding ways something that Vlolkir was way too happy to agree with. She also demanded that I serve Vlolkir... I would rather walk to Thera and invite them back to Barsaive.
Anyway we were instructed to open up her cairn and retrieve the items inside a simple matter of smashing some rocks. The grave goods included a bow, a bronze sword, some bracers made of brocha shell, and a wargirdle make of razorboar hide (I hope it does not shed). All thread items according the the magicians. We also found a scroll case with a pre scourge map listing various locations along the route the moot took from the Twilight Peaks to Throal. After some confabulation we determined they must be places where members of the moot were left behind for one reason or another.
Ommgagh Soulcrusher (Vlolkir's ancestor) showed the family one track mind by demanding the Vlolkir go and find the descendants of those left behind, bring them back into the moot and a return to raiding. We also got treated to an overly detailed explanation of why she was called Soulcrusher which included a large number of improbable sexual acts.
Of the namegivers we rescued, one (a dwarf nethermancer) asked to join us to make amends to the spirit his work had offended so we took him along to the closest location on the map, some kind of sanctuary. LaShana and I managed to track a reasonable course and we arrived in about a week. Along the way we saw several interesting sights which I am sure have their location noted down in LaShana's journal.
The sanctuary looked like the ruins of a shrine to Jaspree and assuming some climactic fight would happen we stopped outside for Zivilyn to cast War Party on us. Turns out the tree we stopped under was in fact a chidra and surprise chidra hugs are surprisingly vicious. As we were finishing with reminding the tree things why trees should not move, an elf dressed in rags popped out of the jungle and tried to send the last standing chidra away before we finished it.
The elf then proceeded to chide us about or choice of location and past time before leading us to the "elders". Turns out the elf came from a village nearby populated by elves and a smattering of other namegivers. The elders turned out to be another elf, an ork, and an obsidifolk. After introductions we are shown to their kaer and told some of their history. Vlolkir enquired after the trolls and was told that there were a few and two were out in the jungle for their rite of passage in adulthood.
By nightfall of the next day the two kids were not back yet and our dwarf friend had also disappeared, so we started trying to track him down. A few miles out we found him walking back down the path, looking dazed and confused but not obviously tainted so we sent him back to the village and continued to search for the kids.
We eventually found the kids, one with a monkey near her and the brother holding a bow. They were surrounded by mandrakes and forest trolls which seemed to be herding them. Once we got close the creatures dispersed back into the forest leaving two very confused novices.
Not a moment later we heard the noise of one of the forest trolls being hacked to pieces by, as it turns out, a horse sized, beetle shaped horror construct of some kind (later research tells me they are called scar'kek). There were four of the things and they seemed intent on killing us, or the kid, or some combination thereof.
Vlolkir jumped right up to one and got brutally stabbed for his trouble. LaShana also got badly injured before I could crush the one attacking her. The things seemed focused on the kids and treating us as targets of opportunity. As it turns out they had an uncanny ability to target weak points in armour and I got repeatedly poked by one, but it did not actually do that much damage.
Two made it to the kids and mandrakes repeatedly sacrificed themselves to save them. As we were about to finish the last one, the horror directing them spoke to Vlolkir and asked him which kid he wanted to save. Vlolkir did not even hesitate to name the brother who had to watch his sister get impaled not three feet away.
Excellent leadership Vlolkir, make the first impression be that you are willing to throw your followers lives away with no hesitation. Truly what would make a scared kid wish to pledge their life to you.
After dealing with the last beetle, Last Chance was applied to the dying girl and we managed to save her and we returned to the village were we pieced together some of the history. Apparently the forest trolls and mandrakes were elves and trolls that had been "blessed" by Jaspree to save them when they couldn't fit in the kaer.
In response to Vlolkir's demand that the kid join him in restoring the moot, the demanded both the bow and training. On the way back I tried to make sure the kids would be ok and let them know that they owed Vlolkir nothing, in fact he owed themStatistics:Posted by sigfriedmcwild — Fri Apr 23, 2021 11:26 pm
]]>