Prologue wrote:Over the coarse of my long career as a historian, adventurers have always held a special place for me. The first stories I learned as child were of brave heroes cut from this cloth. Not all such people are heroes of course, many are merely mercenaries, or even villains. These collected works are of one such group. Mildly notable at the time the narrative begins, they would rise to heights of fame and power seldom seen. Hailed as heroes almost despite their selves. Zuine the Mindbender, Fenak the Rock, Mithran Dragon’s Blood, Zhou Fei the Traveler, and most importantly Seth the Living Golem. It is Seth who wrote the narratives I have collected and edited from his journals and notes along with occasional forays into other histories to give wider context to the events described as necessary.
All who surrender will be spared; all who do not surrender but oppose us with violence and dissension, shall be crushed.
-Temuldin the Conqueror, ultimatum delivered before every battle.
I am told that writing is a good way to sort ones thoughts. As this is something I desperately need I hope it is true. It had been two weeks since my creation, and the death of my creator. Two weeks of life fueled by the stolen soul of the man whose name I bear. I have followed Seth’s friends, my friends now I suppose. I certainly felt enough attachment to them to kill my creator. Forgive me any who read this in the future but it is woven into my being not to communicate the Golem Master’s real name, ever.(1)
Zuine Arrosa is the one I feel most connected to, Zhou tells me my progenitor was her lover. She is a beautiful woman, with strawberry blond hair, grey eyes and sharp noble features. I watch her as she rides sidesaddle in her gray ‘adventuring’ robe. It flows like water as she moves and the adamant threads woven into it make it better armor than most wizard wear. She is an enchantress who specializes in controlling the mind and will of others. At that point a blue skinned ogre-magi, Magan, who’s will she subverted followed her as her bodyguard. She looked at me occasionally and sadness clouded her features for moments before her neutral expression returned.
Mithran was a strange one, a sorcerer-priest, though I had to discern his goddess’ identity. A wood elf, though a strange greenish cast to his toughened skin, marked him as not of pure elven blood. He wore plate armor made of shed green dragon scales, the armor makes his strange green pall less noticeable. He’s also something of a pack rat, hoarding scrolls and other magical items. He had already showed me his lacquered scroll case, a magical device that holds 50 spell scrolls and unrolls the one you want at will. He prized the thing for its utility as much as the artistry that crafted it.
Zhou Fei is a strange human from somewhere very far away. His very foreign features are marred by randomly placed burn scars, like molten metal splashed him. A master of fighting with only hands and feet, he is a devotee of a religious philosophy that few have heard of beyond him. Clad in a gray shirt and pants covered with a worn robe, that might have been orange once, he seems content to merely travel with us. He rarely takes a share of the treasure, just enough money to eat with and what magical items we insist on.
Fenak is seemingly the simplest of us. He’s a dwarf, from some dwarven community very far underground. Without his special glasses(2) bright lights cause him pain. He’s a typical dwarf, strong, sturdy and wearing so much thick plate armor he could be mistaken for a golem himself. Live hard, drink hard, fight hard, and die well.footnote wrote: (1)Not a surprise as his name was Hud Jermajesty
We had traveled from the golem master’s lair back towards more ‘civilized’ land for some time when we spotted the signs of old battles. Around a year had past since war had swept through the area. The dirt path we were on became a wider tamped earth road built by one of the armies. Near evening we came upon a sign proclaiming our entrance to the township of Evenfall. We did not see any signs of this town for several minutes, we passed several burned out husks of large farms. The surviving farms had makeshift walls and trenches, but there were few signs of any crops ready to harvest. It wasn’t a large town and showed signs of having fallen on hard times equally with the outlying farms. The shops were already closed though dusk was some time away. A few people were on the practically deserted streets, but they avoided eye contact.
“Friendly folk” Zhou commented to Fenak. A tinny “Aye, aren’t they.” came from the depths of the armor. Making our way to the only well kept building in town, the tavern we were unsurprised it was also the town’s only inn as well. It no longer had a sign above the door, but the warm glow of a cheery fire.
Zuine strode in with the swagger of nobility, Magan having shapeshifted into a particularly tall man with orcish blood held the door for her before going back to care for her horse. She walked up to the bar as though she expected everyone to scurry out of her way. A elder man waved the rest of us to the bar as he spoke to her. “Two nobles fer floor space, two sovereigns fer a private room, the stable is one sovereign a night fer horses a noble fer a person.” She glared at him for a long moment before speaking, “A room for me, I have a man and a horse for your stable. How much for a bath,” she paused then added, “And I mean one with hot water.”
He nodded slightly, “A bath with heated water is 5 nobles. A sovereign if ye want a servant girl to help.”
“Just the bath. And have a meal sent to my room and a to my man in the stable.” I found myself dragged off leaving the others in tavern. At that point I was constantly surprised by what skills I possessed from my progenitor. That day I discovered I was a more than competent masseuse, working Zuine’s stiff and tired muscles with practiced ease. “I have done this before?” “Very often”, she purred “You said you learned this when you were young and delighted in practicing on me when you got the chance. It gave you a good cover identity when you needed one.”
Inwardly I felt a twinge of regret “I wish I had his memories along with his skills.” She sighed contentedly as I worked on a knot in her lower back. ”Your still him you know, even without the memories. Things will be back to the way they were in time.”
The hope in her voice was infectious and made me think maybe she was right. She had picked up a small box once I was done working on her and looked deep in thought before opening it and putting the adamantium ring it contained on. This made me strangely happy, though at the time I did not know my progenitor had given her the box shortly before his ‘death’(3).Footnote wrote: (2)Goggles of Day, magical lenses made of smokey crystal that allow normal vision in extremes of light, on Fenak they allowed him to see normally in daylight.
It was then I heard a cry of “Gnolls!!! I’ve seen gnolls, up on the ridge, their just standing and talking but their up there!!!” in a youthful man’s voice from downstairs. I looked to Zuine who was now fast asleep and decided to make sure she wasn’t disturbed. I pulled out the Symbol of Pain icon she kept for inn stays and affixed it above the door, the device would cause unbearable pain to any foolish enough to enter uninvited.
Mithran and Fenak were putting their helmets on as I arrived.
“Zuine is asleep.” I said before I stressed to them, “Sleep she greatly needs.”
Zhou-fei arches an eyebrow before agreeing, “He’s got a point. She has not been sleeping well.”
Mithran sighed, “Very well lets go help the wheat brigade. Zhou-fei circle around and scout, take Seth with you, don’t engage yet. This may be a scouting party checking defenses.”
Zhou-fei moved quickly and silently through the woods around the town, he seemed unsurprised I kept up with him quite easily and just a silently. Approaching the general area we saw the gnolls and spotted a wolf sitting at the feet of one, not wishing to be smelled out by the animal he motioned me to back off as he did. He talked into his ring, which would carry his voice to an identical ring on Mithran’s finger.
“I’ve got three gnolls 50 feet down the back of the hill, one has a wolf with her, probably a shaman of some kind.”
The elf’s voice came out of the ring at a bare whisper “We’ve got two on this side, take them if possible I want a prisoner. Not the shaman, without Zuine I don’t want to try to hold a spellslinger.”
“Seth, kill the shaman, I’ll grab one of the warriors as a prisoner.”
The shaman, now facing us, was quickly speaking in seeming gibberish as she cast a spell between us. As I charged her a dark cloud crackling with lightning appeared to intercept me. I didn’t know what it was then but later learned it to be a Storm Elemental. A quick internal twist activated one of the abilities my creator gifted me with, greatly enhancing my speed. Rapiers concealed within my arms appeared in my hands as I attacked, shredding the creature cloud creature and moving past it without slowing down to stab the shaman
The gnoll warriors with her bolted for the wood. Pulling herself off my rapier the shaman’s shape swam into that of a dire wolf as she loped off at a dead run. The two gnolls from the other side of the hill ran past Zhou-fei, one close enough for him to strike with rapid blows aimed to disable rather than kill. A clumsy counterswing was returned but was so wide he had no need to dodge it.Footnote wrote: (3)Seth Kilroth commissioned the ring some year before that adventure. The adamatium wedding ring had the magical function of a Ring of Sustenance, allowing her to go days with only an hours sleep, no need to eat, drink, or even breathe if necessary.
Leaving him to beat his clumsy foe, I chased the Dire Wolf easily overtaken it and deeply wounded it. The shaman turned and tried to bite me, its jaws snapping on empty air. She reverted to her own body just in time to be gutted by my return stroke with the other hand.
I dragged the somewhat eviscerated corpse back to where Zhou-fei was tying up his prisoner just as Mithran and Fenak trudged over the hill. The elf pulled out his ornate scroll case, a scroll unrolled on its own, giving him the perfect spell for the occasion. He waited for the gnoll to regain consciousness before casting it. He motioned to Fenak who spoke the Gnoll’s strange language to interpret.
While the relay interrogation was going on Zhou-fei and I started stripping the gnoll shaman of anything that looked vaguely valuable. Which being a druid wasn’t much. Her armor though magical was fairly useless except as coin fodder, the same with her rune etched scimitar, but she had a pearl on a chain that looked promising. There were several scrolls that seemed to be divine spells. The interrogation ended with a thunk as Fenak beheaded the gnoll. Mithran approached the pile with a pale blue wand he had found in the golem master’s lab. He pointed it at each item and spoke a strange word causing floating script describing each item to appear above it. He placed the scrolls into his strange scroll case and put the pearl around his neck.
“The rest we’ll add to the loot we’re selling. Its useless to us.”
Hauling the rest back to town was easy enough, the gnoll’s mundane weapons we left to the citizenry. Back in the inn we found Zuine looking much less stressed than when I last saw her.
“Yer looking better lass,” Fenak supplied as the innkeeper sent a free round to them.
She looked down her nose at him, “I merely needed some sleep in a proper bed” with a gesture to Seth, “And some time in Seth’s skilled hands. He is most definitely still Seth, getting him back to the way he was will just take time.”
They shared a look before sitting. “Aye lass,” Zenak murmured sympathetically “That aside the gnolls were just scouts. From what I could make out from the flea-bag there’s a wizard holed up in the south hills with packs of them and a general who’s likely a giant of some kind.”
“Any idea how many?”
“No, gnolls aren’t known for their countin’.” he stated apologetically,
Zhou looked up from his water, “Are we getting involved?"
“No real reason to, I doubt this place could afford to hire us. Unless we were to do it for whatever the wizard’s got.” Mithran answered with a shrug.
“We might as well,” Zuine returned, “We lost a lot of the loot from the golem master when Seth was......changed. My portable hole barely has anything in it.”(4)
“True, lass,” Fenak supplied,”Should we wait for the locals to offer us some pittance or just go in the morning?”
“All of you require rest, the journey was long, if the locals inquire I will handle it.”I offered, “I do not need rest, really.”
After they went to sleep the innkeeper came to me, “Pardon me, sir. Mind if I have a seat and jaw atcha a bit?”
“Please sit, Innkeep?”
“Jarri, sir, Jarri Cobblepot. You’re strangers here, and we can’t rightly expect you to get involved. But since you have I’d best explain a few things. We was hit hard by the war, rebuildin’s been slow as we got more farms than people . Surviving the winter is lookin iffy. Now this thing with the gnolls. They’ve been out there a long time, buncha little roving bands, raided the farms on occasion. Until lately, they’ve been real quiet of late, making people nervous.” He took a moment to scratch his chin in tought,” That they ran away is strange behavior fer them too. We was wondering if you might be willing to poke around a bit see what’s up. While we can’t pay you money I’ll be more’n happy to refund what you spent this evening in exchange”
“We had planned to anyway, but your reward is welcomed.”
“Thank you sir,” he was practically groveling “thank you.”
I spent most of the night in idle chitchat with the locals and even found something interesting on the wall.
In the morning when the others came down to break-fast. “Good morning,” I greeted, “The innkeep has made the town’s offer for assistance.”
The others slid around the table as Fenak asked “How little did they offer?”
“As the town has little to no wealth, we’ve been offered our tab at the bar and inn gratuitied. The last war held in the area was apparently very hard on them.”
“They have any idea who’s leading the gnolls?” Mithran grumbled.footnote wrote: (4)Most of the really valuable items were in Seth’s magical backpack when he was flung into the golem maker and his physical body obliterated.
“While they do not beyond finding the scouting with no raids suspicious, I have a suspect.” I pulled out an old weather beaten wanted poster showing a cruel looking man with a pockmarked face. “During the war this De’lamor Belshain ran a goblinoid bandit group, he was recruited in return for coin and amnesty. As the kingdom that did so was strapped for hard coin I find it unlikely he was paid the full amount promised.(5) He has not been seen in sometime but was reputed to be a powerful sorcerer.”
“Very good Seth,” Zuine praised with a smile, “See, told you it was coming back to him.”
“Aye,” the dwarf commented as the scant breakfast the inn could provided was set before him. “We should head out after this... ‘meal’.”
Packing up we headed in the direction the gnoll encampment. Scarcely over the first rise we stopped as the yipping barks of arguing gnolls carried to us.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mithran said, “It can’t possibly be this easy. Zhou, check it out carefully.”
The scarred monk slipped into the grass only to return a moment later. “Two groups, a hundred yards away, a shaman with a wolf and five warriors in each. Shamans are arguing over something.”
With the tone of experience Fenak replied, “Standard gnoll warbands, their probably trying to hash out wether to attack the town with what they have or get reinforcements first.”
Zuine got a nasty smile “I’ve got this.” Syllables of magic fell from her mouth as she disappeared under an invisibility spell. A few seconds later she reappeared atop a taller hill as a glowing bead streaked from her outstretched hand to the center of the gathered humanoids, where it exploded in a fireball that engulfed most of them.
One could almost hear a smirk on Fenak’s face. “Let’s finish em off, afore she beats us to it.” He cried before charging down at the blast. Shrugging to each other Mithross and Zhou-fei followed with me and Magan both of us transformed into our true appearance. As the fireball cleared the casualties could be seen. Both shaman’s were horribly burned, seven of the warriors were on the verge of death and one of the wolves had expired while the other was standing if only just.
Magan and I peeled off towards the now smoldering shamans, leaving the three standing warriors for the rest. One of the warriors who had been on the very edge of the blast was not in the shock the others were and charged Fenak. Fenak was brought up short from his own rush as the gnoll’s bastard sword clanged off his thick plate. He returned a more telling blow of his own, though not deep enough to kill it from the bad angle.
I reached the first shaman plunging both of my rapiers through the creature’s chest and lifting it off the ground. I watched it expire emotionlessly before throwing it’s corpse aside.footnote wrote: (5)De’lamor’s goblins and bugbears were used as cannon fodder against the most heavily fortified position of the Battle of Birch Bluff, then they refused to pay death wage for them.
The ogre-magi, Magan was enthralled to Zuine’s magic, but only just, the massive creature’s mind was merely loyal to Zuine, not otherwise altered. Magan still possessed his kind’s vicious love of combat, and drove his huge sword down through the other shaman splitting it in two neat halves. The wolf burned and now bereft of its companion ran into the woods.
Zhou Fei reached his target just as it shook off the shock from the fireball. The small agile man danced around his opponent delivering deadly bone crushing blows that soon had the creature down. Mithran reached the last warrior with an overhand swing of his heavy mace. The creature sidestepped enough to protect his head but his collar bone gave a loud crack as the metal ball connected. The mangy creature looked both pained and enraged but before he could his right eye sprouted a crossbow bolt. Zuine walked up her light crossbow in hand and a satisfied smirk on her face, as the gnoll fell over. We quickly stripped them of any valuables.
“Anyone else notice these gnolls are awfully well equipped?” Fenak asked holding up one of the gnoll’s chain shirts, “Under all the grime this stuff is high quality, they all have a pouch with potions in them too.”
Mithran was sniffing one of the potions in question, “A healing potion of moderate strength, the other is a potion of cat’s grace. The shaman’s were equipped just as well, along with spell scrolls, most of them burned but I found one still useable scroll of Dispel Magic.”
Zuine looked thoughtful for a moment, “It would seem their leader intends them to have greater advantage over their prey.”
A flash of insight struck me, “He may not have many followers. With too few to use as cannon fodder he’d have to view each one as important.”
“Aye,” Zenak put in “Gnolls are difficult to control in large numbers as well.”
With that we continued on, after depositing all the gear in Zuine’s portable hole. It took us some time to find the small crevasse De’lamor’s hide out was in. Zhou Fei and I crept forward scouting the entrance. It was about 40 feet up the cliff face with only a narrow path winding up to it. While a pair of gnolls guarded the entrance, they would have difficulty seeing anyone coming up the path until they turned the last corner practically on top of the entrance.
“We need to take them down before they can raise the alarm.” Mithran whispered, “Zhou, Seth your most likely to get there quietly, once your close I’ll put a silence spell on one of them. Just don’t let them go into the lair.”
We nodded and crept up the path as stealthily as we could. At the last turn we waited for Mithran’s signal. One of the gnolls was yawning when the sound from it was suddenly cut off, we bolted around the corner. From the stunned looks on their faces we achieved complete surprise. I slit the first ones throat before he could blink, I was slightly over enthusiastic about doing so as I nearly decapitated him. Zhou Fei merrily beat his silenced guard to death with his fists before tossing him down the cliff just to make sure.
Once we were all together, we entered the cave like entrance. Fenak and I were in front, with Mithran and Zuine next, and Zhou Fei bringing up the rear with Magan. We passed up the first turn to continue straight ahead where we could hear gnolls in conversation. Ragged furs lined the walls and a kettle of something brown bubbled on a fire in the center of the room. Three warriors and a shaman sat around the room, as we entered they turned and howled that gibbering laugh gnolls and hyenas are infamous for, as they prepared to attack. Zhou set off the battle leaping past the warriors to attack the shaman, there was an echoing snap as his rapid punches and kicks snapped the long bone in one of her legs. As she fell she lost the spell she was casting, the green energy of her spell evaporating into nothingness.
For my part I slashed one of the warriors, though it stumbled back out of the way of my second rapier strike. Mithran suddenly had a wand in hand sending a magical bolt of energy into the shaman killing it. Zuine held out her hand as she snarled a spell and a cone of flaming liquid ripped from her hand to engulf a warrior gnoll and catch my opponent in the edge of it as well. Both died screaming as the liquid was evidently a potent, as well as flammable, acid.
Fenak had simply ran at the gnoll directly in front of him axe at the ready. His first swing devastating the warrior, with a killing blow on the return swing of the heavy great axe. The wolf companion of the shaman bolted, like the earlier one without its bond to the shaman it was just an animal and survival was more important to it.
Zhou suddenly cocked his head, “Six more coming down the corridor.”
We put our backs to the wall on either side of the doorway and waited. Zuine was mumbling an incantation. Five warriors charged past us into the room and were caught in the spell she was casting. Suddenly confused look appeared in their eyes, though one seemed to shake it. That one turned and attacked Fenak, the bastard sword bouncing off his armor. Fenak was unimpressed and answered with a mighty blow of his own nearly cutting the creature in half with a single swing of Stonereaver(6).
From the corridor came the sound of chanting as the sixth member of their group, a shaman, cast a spell into the room filling it with a blizzard of sleet, cutting off visibility to zero and covering the ground in slippery ice. Being close to the door I blindly sidled through it and past the ice to find the shaman there preparing to cast again using the sleet in the room as cover. Almost without thinking I drove one of my rapiers through her eye into her brain and slashed down with the other hand to drive her wolf away. It yelped as I drew a line of blood on its muzzle but backed off before running away, as its mistress finally expired, twitching.
A few moments of recovery passed as everyone had been sleet blasted before the melee resumed. One of the gnoll warriors, being creatures better equipped by nature for such problems as sleet, recovered first. Unfortunately for the comrade next to him he was still under the magically induced confusion Zuine had hit them with, and attempted to skewer him. The attacked gnoll dodged but then just stood there as if he lost what he was going to do. The other two did the same, it was like their thoughts just stopped in mid stream, then they all started babbling random sounds. Zhou Fei, not one to pass this up hit one of them, thus starting a general melee on the gibbering creatures. With them dispatched we relit the gnoll’s cook fire to dry off some.footnote wrote: (6)Fenak’s Great Axe, Stonereavers are rare dwarven weapons enchanted to do extra damage to earth elementals and golems made of earth, stone, or metal. They only work in dwarven hands, being just a very good axe in any others hands.
“This is really starting to annoy me” grumbled Fenak, “They are too well equipped and identically equipped at that. Gnolls just don't organize like that.”
Zuine, in a fluffy bathrobe while her dress dried, thought for a moment, “This mage who leads them must spend a lot of time making things for them, or buying them. No mage made this” she held up one of the scrolls the shamans carried, “Its written in the way of the divine caster.”
“Aye” the dwarf agreed, “all this mail and sword is of high quality, the gortugh(7) didn’t work to maintain it but its still quality stuff.” Picking up a bastard sword he had been cleaning while we dried out, it gleamed in the light with a water like pattern up the blade, “This would cost a good 300 auric(8) in my home city. Its good enough quality to hold an enchantment.”
Mithran rubbed his chin as he thought, “The best we’ve seen out of them was that older shaman Seth killed near town. She managed summoning an elemental. And had a scimitar enchanted for killing humans. The rest are too well equipped for their level of competence.”
“You know” I added, “They’ve all carried longbows, good ones from the look of it. It could be they’re all primarily archers. The Cat’s Grace potion would improve their accuracy, we’ve just always fought them at close quarters. Outside we kept sneaking up on them, and in here their isn’t enough room.”
“They are bored” Magan’s rumbling voice startled Fenak who seemed to have forgotten he was there, “Magan has led gnolls, if left to sit too long they squabble with each other.”
That said, and Zuine’s dress dried we returned to exploring the lair. We find a second chamber like the first, likely where the other group of gnolls was and a small chamber with a ladder leading down. It lead to a small alcove off a chamber that appears to be quarters for a higher ranked individual. We can hear voices, speaking the gnoll’s tongue, but are less rough and deeper. Zhou Fei creeps down the passage the voices are coming from.
When he returns, he whispers “Three sitting in the next room, look like gnolls but are shorter, less mangy.”
“Flinds” Fenak states with certainty “A smarter breed of gnolls, they act as natural commanders. They’ll be tougher and they’ll bring the mage down on us.”
“Maybe not.”Zuine gets an evil smile as she pulls out three bottles. Pointing at Zhou Fei, Fenak, and Mithran.“Drink these.”footnote wrote: (7)Dwarven slang for gnolls, literally translates as ‘carrion breath’. (8)Dwarven gold coins, they are a bit heavier than ours, 350 to 400 gold sovereigns equivalent.
“What’s in that?” I asked honestly curious.
“Invisibility potions. Wouldn’t work for you I’m afraid, and Magan can turn himself invisible. They’ll last about eight minutes or until they attack.”
“Hold that thought,”Mithran pulls a scroll out of his case, “Silence spell for me and Fenak. I’ll cast it on his armor, we’ll drink the potions and surround them.”
While they were doing that Zuine set me a task. “Seth go get the corpses from the last battle.”
Their ambush did not go off without a hitch. They returned somewhat more battered than when they left, though only Magan was really injured. It seems the flinds were wearing enchanted mithral mail shirts. A few of the potions we’ve gathered fixed everyone up. I soon had quite a pile of dead gnolls at the ladder as well. Once we stripped the flinds of anything of value, save their flindbars(9), they were added to the pile. We also found a locked iron coffer in each chamber used by one of the flinds.
While everyone else ate and rested, Zuine pulled out a scroll and began chanting a spell off of it onto the pile of corpses. As she finished a necrotic green glow covered them(10), as their flesh rotted away leaving only fresh bone that arose to stand in ranks at attention. Zuine nodded to me and I plucked the swords we took from their corpses earlier from her portable hole and handed them to the skeletons. The three flind skeletons still held their flindbars making them stand out a bit in the group.
“Ta-dah, fourteen, fearless fodder for fierce fighting.” she alliterated before dissolving into giggles.
With the small warband of undead in the rear we proceeded, Mithran was in front now with a spiral wand in hand. A short way down the passage he motioned us to stop.
“Magical trap, give me a second.” he whispered over his shoulder as he pulled out a scroll. A few words later and presumably the trap was rendered inert. We found another ladder in the room the trap protected going down.
There in a large cavern was a dozing giant, he was around 12 feet tall, much broader than a human with over-muscled arms and weathered bronze complexion. A massive scimitar and a strange pipe sat within his reach. We crept into the room, while Zuine got her undead band into the room as quietly as possible I moved the pipe-like object, not trusting an unknown object within his reach.
With him quite surrounded we waited for Mithran’s signal, he had a different, golden wand in hand. At his spoken command it shot an intense beam of light(11) into the giant. We all started stabbing the dozing giant. Magan fired a cone of icy energy through the undead, who ignored it, into him. The giant shuddered and died as we made a bloody mess of him. From one of the passages out of the large cavern we heard the sound running.footnote wrote: (9)A pair of iron bars linked by a chain, used one handed, a weapon particular to Flinds. (10)Having been present while a necromancer preformed a similar feat of corpse animation, no such glow presented itself, leading me to believe it was a function of Seth construct eyes.
Skidding to a halt was De’lamor himself, his wanted poster did little justice to his unwholesome appearance. He had teeth missing from his rotting gums, and an severe acne problem on top of flea bites. His cloths were worn but fine material, surrounding him at waist height were swirling metal blades(12).
I was at somewhat of a loss at what to do, I could not get within striking range as long as the blades protected him. Mithran seemed to work out an idea first, turning the wand on De’lamor, blasting the mage with the beam. The mage and Zuine began casting at the same time but Zuine finished first. Her enchantment was one of her most powerful specialties, called Spellslip, it changes the next spell a mage casts into a random spell they know. De’lamor was trying to cast some spell on his crossbow so when the random spell went off it targeted the crossbow in his hand. A column of flame roared into existence around him, we stood listening to his screams as it burned him to death beyond our reach. We waited until his conjured blades dissipated to loot what remained of his gear.
Zuine was actually quite delighted to discover that under his greasy hair, De’lamor had a Head Band of Intellect, something she always wanted. Now that the lair was cleared we could take the time to break into not only the chests we found in his quarters, but the ones from the Flind’s as well.
“You know what bugs me.” Fenak put forth as he worked on one of the chests with a crowbar, “Why were none of these whoresons carrying keys to these fucking chests.”
“True,” Zuine says from De’lamor’s desk where she’s perusing his journal, “Our new friend the Warmage De’lamor,” she gestures to his remains she had raised as a zombie, “is somewhat understandable. He could magic them open and closed, but the giant, or the flinds. How did they get into them?”
Several hours of breaking into locked chests later we were pleased to find a rather good sum of money some 16000 sovereigns and 200 emperors(13), along with 2 emeralds and a silver raven that glowed under Mithran’s magic detection wand. Our loot loaded into the portable hole or onto one of Zuine’s skeletal gnolls, though not De’lamor who’s body we showed to the town before destroying it, we set out. Our destination, our base of operations, the city of Three River’s Port, to sell loot and buy booze as Fenak puts it.
footnote wrote: (11)Searing Light, a beam of divine energy. (12)Ring of Blades, a popular spell among mages who get caught in melee combat more often than is healthy. (13)Many of my readers may never have heard of an emperor, much less seen one, they are rare coins of platinum used for very expensive magical items, or elder dragons as mercenaries or small countries. An emperor is worth 10 sovereigns and is about half the size.
Final Words wrote:And on that rather typical adventurer’s note this first narrative ends. While not the greatest of wordsmiths as yet Seth does get better as the narratives continue. Though the battle with the mage was somewhat anti-climatic I do hope this was enjoyable. And you keep a wizards eye out for the next narrative.
