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by Anoush » Thu Sep 10, 2020 7:38 pm
Bloodbeat’s Journal:
A carnival had arrived in Throal about a week earlier, Named Phaelon’s Festival of Wonders. They had come all the way from Travar. Word was spreading through town about how exciting their stage production, “The Trials of Irilis” was. So, on the last night of their stay, my friends — Jarock, Lazluin, Mal, and Nib — went to the show.
Arriving at the festival — situated just west of Throal — a cryer was announcing that Onyx the Destroyer, the odds on favorite to win the next Founder’s Tournament was here, too. Incredible! In fact, Onyx was standing by the ticket booth, resplendent with a crystal shield. The old woman at the booth told us we had the choice of ground seats (5 sp) or flying carpet seats (20 sp). Incredible! I was eager to try the flying carpets, but my friends were more frugal, so we all sat together in ground seats. Of course, the usher was sound asleep, slumped over in a corner. But we found the seats anyway.
The play was spectacular. At least at the start. It told the tale of the last of Travar before it closed for the Scourge. Large amounts of illusionist magic and other abilities made the spectacle seem real. People running for their lives. Bear-sized creatures barring the way and attacking. Huge magical hands sprouting up out of the earth. A raised platform above, where robed figures and a figure with metallic wings directed the battles that raged. Eventually a magical glowing done sealed the city, while airships and Theran vedettes burned outside. Truly a wonder for the senses.
But about 3/4 of the way through, cracks appeared in the facade. The illusions flickered in and out, and eventually disappeared. Actors clutched their stomachs and collapsed on stage. At first we thought something was wrong, but others called out that that was part of the play. The flying carpets trembled then began falling! On top of the rest of the audience. Now we knew something was badly wrong!
We raced out of the way of the carpets, then helped the injured people and the old out of the tent. The crowds panicked so one of my companions slashed other exits into the fabric walls of the tent theatre. Eventually, enough of the crowd got out to calm the crowd somewhat, lines formed and people filed out.
Looking around, the astral was open. But most of the actors and carnival crew were laying on the ground, moaning, some having thrown up, others clutching their stomachs. I examined a few with my Physician’s abilities and concluded that they had been poisoned, probably by something they ate.
Then we heard a voice cry out, “Help!”, from outside the tent, towards the ticket booth. Racing there, we arrived to see Onyx the Destroyer laying on the ground, bleeding from multiple wounds, his magnificent shield shattered on the ground next to him. Uh, no. The shield was just wood, covered in a thin metal covering. The festival illusionists must’ve magicked it to appear special. And Onyx, well, laying on the ground, he looked like a young troll, sleeping off a keg of beer, that is, until you saw the gaping wounds.
I stabilized him and did my best to clean and seal and bandage his wounds. He’ll live, but will take a while recovering. We managed to wake him up — turned out he’s an actor Named Clarence — and he explained what happened. About a half hour ago, four or five ork thugs appeared, and attacked him. Three of the works had sword, and there was at least one archer among them. They were dressed all in black and they’d arrived on horseback. He remembered nothing more until we woke him up. When asked why he hadn’t been poisoned like the rest of the cast and crew, Clarence said that the employee dinner was fish stew, which he detests, so he didn’t eat any. So, it’s most likely that the stew had been poisoned.
Our surmise was that the bandits had planned the heist for tonight, knowing that the entire week’s profits would be in the till. Several thousand silver, by our probably conservative estimate.
Meanwhile, Nib talked to any witnesses, but didn’t learn anything more. Jarock examined the arrow I’d removed from Clarence, and declared it to be the kind used by common bandits.
By now the chaos at the festival had mostly subsided, but there were still the poisoned crew and some shocked and injured audience members. I found a young boy, maybe 10 years old, and asked him if he knew where the Temple of Garlen was in Throal. He nodded yes, so I offered him one silver now, and another tomorrow, if he’d go to the temple, and tell them that there were poisoned and hurt people at the festival who needed their help. I agreed, grabbed my silver and ran off. In the correct direction.
Laz tried tracking the orcs in conjunction with Mal’s Mystic Pursuit, using the arrow as the token. The Mystic Pursuit indicated the bandits were due east of here. Having done all we could do to contain the chaos here, we set off in search of the bandits. Laz and Mal led, followed by Jarock and me, with Nib watching overhead.
We traveled through the night, made camp, and were up early to continue the search. The tracks struck out across country, not following any defined roads. Yet, the tracks were easy to follow and confirmed by the Mystic Pursuit. As we traveled, the Servos Jungle loomed closer and closer on the horizon. We were headed straight for it.
On the next day, around mid-day we found the bandits’ campfire from the night before. By now by examining the tracks, we were convinced that there were five oaks in the party. Near the campfire’s remains we found. Brown and black striped band. Jarock recognized it as a small town thug identifier, “Dahnat’s Clan,” comprised mainly of common ork thugs. They’re mainly located at the entrance to Throal. We took the band just in case we needed it for Mystic Pursuit.
About two hours before sunset, we caught sight of a horse, and then two more to the north. We were now at the very edge of the Servos. The horses had probably been stolen, along with their tack, both of low quality. Still, we removed the tack from the horses and let them roam where they wanted.
We followed the tracks into the Jungle. Once inside, the path meandered to and fro, and eventually we found that we’d circled around and were now heading east. Here, the astral was somewhat murky, but not horrible.
We neared a land bridge that connected to what looked like a largish island in the jungle. Then Mal stopped us, and pointed out webs up ahead and large creatures in the jungle canopy that looked like giant spiders. Someone in the group identified them as Giant Weaver Spiders. There were five of them at first count. Our best knowledge was that these spiders could poison us and then once the poison took effect, they’d wrap us in cocoons for later meals. Not something I’d want to experience.
Nonetheless, we fought the spiders. There were a few tense moments when one spider took on Nib, one-on-one. But between Mal and Jarock, they made short work of the spiders. We recovered to a degree, and continued on.
We had lost the tracks shortly before encountering the spiders, so now after passing the spiders’ webs, we continued onward. On the other side of the lake, we found a dinghy, barely seaworthy, with the familiar tracks of our ork bandits. We stove in the boat so that they could not use it to make a fast retreat. The tracks led to a more rocky terrain and eventually a cave entrance (hex 38.09).
he astral was clear, so we entered the cave. A few feet down the passageway, we saw an intricate design on the floor. The design is perhaps best described as a child’s rendition of the Rites of Protection and Passage in crayon. Perhaps this was intended to scare off the mundane? Just past the design, there was a trip wire, which Mal tripped on purpose, causing a lot of rocks to fall down. If he’d been where the trap expected him to be, he’d have been damaged, or even crushed, by the rocks. As it was, the rocks were a nuisance, making the path into the caves tighter, but nothing more.
Up ahead we saw a glow coming from deeper within the cave system. Shortly thereafter, the passage opened into a large cavern. On the other side of the cavern were a good number of large, reddish mushrooms. A ledge on the right side of the cave obscured anything further there. And then we noticed the four works.
Battle ensued. At one point Jarock was seriously hurt, and I had to keep him awake to get him to stand up and fight. It turned out that there were five orks in total: four thugs and one boss. We knocked the boss unconscious and killed two of the thugs, at which point the remaining two orks surrendered.
I swapped matrices and cast Soulless Eyes. This and some theatrics convinced the works to tell all they knew. According to the orks — Otto and Kramer — the theft had been the idea of an ork Named Stryker. Stryker and their boss, Grunshilk, worked up the details. Stryker ran a shop in the Dahnat, called Dahnat’s Hides. The plan was that they’d meet up with Stryker in four days time in Throal and everyone would get their cut. They’d put the Giant Red Mushroom poison into the festival company’s dinner, a stew, as we had suspected. We took samples of the mushrooms to give to the Temple of Garlen in Throal; perhaps the mushrooms would help them create an antidote for the poison.
On the ledge, we found a huge amount silver and a chest, obviously the take from the festival theft. We packed up the silver, and returned to Throal with it along with the three living orks. We turned the oaks over to the Throalic police and returned the silver to the Festival. Stryker’s shop had been cleared out.
