Miskar under pressure

1618. Fire Season. Harmony. Godday

With so many of his henchmen out of the fight, Miskar hovers towards the enemy.

Hund, a Humakti Acolyte, played by Ben
Odd the Dark One, played by Kristof
Gust, played by Bram
Ulic the sorcerer, played by Alexander 
Gunnar the Demoralized, played by Gunther
Aelwyn and his brother, played by Philip

fter the last confrontation with Miskar the Gagarthi, and the subsequent capture of Aelwyn, our adventurers hunger for revenge, and they manage to field a nice group of stout warriors.  They get help from Hund, a Humakti acolyte, and Gust, a wild barbarian with a foul temper.  The party has several paths open to them.  They could spy on the Gagarthi, attempt to find out what their activities entail.  Or intercept messengers and convoys, in a bid to uncover their activities.  They could find out about their weaknesses and strengths, allies, and other important information.  Based on that information, they could formulate a plan, determine when the enemy is the weakest, and hit when he least expects it.  However, they decide to ride into the woods towards the captured stead, and run into a guard in a matter of minutes.  Miskar expects the adventurers to try something, and has posted guard on both sides of the woods.  His wolf companion is scouting as well, and the gang are ready for the adventurers' attack.  Or so they think.  

hen the guards spot the party, one of the guardsmen blows the alarm, and Miskar's wolf quickly finds our party and informs Miskar.  The gang leader is ready, quickly he leads his troupe into the woods, towards the invaders.  They stand 12 man strong, and are lead by Miskar's right hand, with Miskar in reserve.  They face the party, and the odds look insurmountable, 12 robbers, a runelord and sidekick against a party of 6 adventurers, it looks like the party's only chance is an attempt to escape, and it is certainly what Miskar expects will happen.  However, things turn out differently.  While Odd starts flanking on his warhorse, Ulic steps forward, and using his forbidden craft he palsies several of the robbers in one go.  Then Hund the Humakti advances, and lets loose his powerful divine magic, disarming several more.  This startles the gang members to no end: this was supposed to be a walkover, but here they stand, their number halved before the fight has even begun.  Miskar lets out his Magic as well, demoralizing only Gunnar.  Then, enraged, he drives his men forward, rather than take the time to cancel the sorcery.  Several of his men are lying on the ground, or standing with one of their limbs shaking uncontrollably.  Panic spreads amongst the Gagarthi, and only the bravest make a real effort to reach the enemy.  

his, of course, plays into the hand of our brave bunch.  Odd, forgotten in the hectic battle, succeeds in getting past the Gagarthi unseen and trots towards the captured Stead in search of Aelwyn.  The enemy, rather than charging at our adventurers in one pack, arrive in waves, and with some deadly blows, the party quickly dispatch Miskar's general.  Miskar loses his selfcontrol and hovers forward, intending to take revenge and set things to right, but by the time he reaches the melee he is left alone on the battle field, all others either dead or grievously wounded, or at least pretending to be.  His enemies see their chance and surround him, and suddenly Miskar is under severe pressure.  The constant flurry of blows prohibits him taking efficient action, and after several high damage blows, he needs a divine intervention to save his life.  His hope to startle the enemy by renewing the attack turns out fruitless, and now all his enemies are on him, killing him a second time.  He has to use his divine intervention again, this time at a high cost, and is healed and turns invisible.  This time, he does not insist, he runs off to safety, ready for revenge at a later date.  Meanwhile Odd made it to the Stead, and dispatches two old guards.  He finds the main Stead, but no trace of Aelwyn.  In a second building, he finds the sleeping quarters of the men, and he notices a trapdoor leading down to a narrow tunnel.  He follows the tunnel and runs into a guard, a young guy, not even bearded, but it takes him a lot of time to take the fellow out.  In one cell the young man was guarding, he finds a weakened Aelwyn, who had been under interrogation for two days, but without telling anything to his captors.  The other cell holds two young women, daughters of Orlmarth Carls, that have been captured by the Gagarthi.  They had not been maltreated and were to be sent to some other location, possibly to be sold as slaves or some other grim fate.

Indrodar and the acolyte

1618. Fire Season. Harmony. Windsday

Hund, a Humakti Acolyte, played by Ben
Hjotra from the Hiording - Colymar Tribe, played by Dominique
Gust, a Grey Dog noble youth, played by Bram
Hildigrim from the Grey Dog, played by Patrick

he murder on the Yelmalio Runelord has alarmed the Lunars. From Boldhome comes word that the culprit must be captured. Divination has revealed the deadly blow has been struck by a young Humakti and some of his acquaintances. The Lunar guard have serious suspicions the party is hiding at the Humakt Stead, as several of their informers have reported a party of adventurers arriving in the Grey Dog Tula late on the 9th, coming from the east. The Indrodar claim they are in the middle of a ceremony preparation and refuse the Lunars entry, and the prospect of facing three Swords does not entice the guard captain. So he decides to wait.
Meanwhile, inside the Stead, the high priest talks to Hund and his party. The Stead is completely surrounded, and there is no easy way out. One option is to break through the guard blockade, or fight to the death trying. Although this prospect seems a good one, the high priest sees another option, albeit somewhat unhumakti. But the unusual twist might just fool the Lunars. As Hund becomes more and more convinced that sacrificing his life to the Indrodar is his rightful path, the high priest proposes to pretend that Hund has admitted to have committed the murder against cult orders, and therefore has chosen dishonourable death.

o fool the Lunars, a secret potion is brewn, and Hund's body is presented to the Lunars. It takes some convincing, but finally they swallow the story, and the Guard Captain lifts the siege and departs, ready to report the demise of the culprit.Hund agrees to take the acolyte rites immediately, and his fellows decide to join him in the HeroQuest he faces. He must face his immortal enemy. The party are assisted by the Indrodar and enter the Hero Plane. They arrive on a barren plain, with not a living soul in sight. They head east, until they run into what looks like a copy of the Humakt Stead. Spectral flames make it look like the Stead is one fire. The party arrive from the east and arrive at a bridge, a dragon is standing on the other side. The dragon is floating, and looks more like a dragon statue that an actual dragon. As the mythical animal does not seem alarmed in the least by the approaching party, Hund carefully crosses the bridge, and touches the dragon. Immediately he is under attack from the dragon statue's powerful spirit.He quickly loses the spirit combat, only to find out he is not possessed by the spirit. When he opens his mouth, spectral flames spew forth, and Hildigrim, standing just in front, gets seriously hurt by the unexpected eruption.A sense enemies reveals that the Stead is full of them, and as soon as they approch, skeletons pour out to attack them. The lesser skeletons are easily dispatched of, and even the larger skeletons and a mummie quickly find eternal rest at the hands of our gang.

fter the fight, the party enters the duplicate Stead, and they find some weird characters in the basement. One of them turns out to be Elmal, one is Chalana Arroy, and one looks just like Delecti, assuming someone knows what Delecti looks like. It is clear the appartitions are mere spectral projections, but when Hund charges Delecti, he quickly learns even a shadow of the Lord of the undead is a formidable foe, and it takes an intervention from Chalana Arroy to save Hund from almost certain death. After taking care of Delecti, instead of returning, the party decides to venture further into the plane, they run into a bear, that probably got sucked up in the Heroquest because of their venture, and it takes a bit of luck to find an exit and return to the mundane plane in one piece. Hund returns an acolyte, and decides to have a long hard think about the rest of his life.

Clash with the Baboons

1618. Fire Season. Harmony. Waterday


Hund, a Humakti Acolyte, played by Ben
Ragnar from the Orlmarth - Colymar Tribe, played by Maximus
Hjotra from the Hiording - Colymar Tribe, played by Dominique
Gust, a Grey Dog noble youth, played by Bram

The Baboons in better days...

After they killed the Yelmalio Rune Lord near Jonstown, our party decides to split up for a while and remain below the radar.  Hjotra and Ragnar decide to lay low in the Apple Lane area, and they meet up with two young Grey Dog nobles and decide to travel back to the Lismelder tribal grounds together.  They stay off-road, avoiding all contact with Lunar guards or Yelmalio patrols.

Around noon, they settle down for lunch, and just when they intend to start enjoying some nice roasted rat, Ragnar's backpack is stolen by a Baboon, who flees back into the trees at once.  The party gets up, and tries to shoot the Baboon out of the tree, but without much success.  This pulls a protective baboon shaman out of his cover, and all of a sudden the party is under attack from a Shaman and several wild Baboons charging at them.  The Shaman turns out to be a lot to deal with, and the spirits it summons hold Hund at bay for a long time.  When the spiritmaster is grievously wounded, hiss Fetch invokes a healing spirit. But his buddies are in trouble from very early on, and once they are dispatched, the Shaman cannot resist much longer and succumbs.  The party mercilessly slaughters all the Baboons and loots their pockets.

They take the Shaman staff along, and everything else that can make them any money, and advance towards the Grey Dog Tula.  Several miles down the road they meet up with a centaur patrol, but they are very careful not to upset the powerful creatures or do anything that might trigger a fight.  They are able to continue their trip unopposed, and find out Grey Dog is under direct Lunar control.  There are patrols everywhere.  Under the -hardly believable - guise of having to quench a Chaos threat, they patrol all the roads, enter the steads, and seem to be looking in the most impossible places for a Chaos threat that is rumoured to have been solved more than a week before.  They decide to avoid detection, and head north towards the Humakt stead, the only place the Lunars are not checking, officially because Humakti would never allow chaos on their terrain.

Stalking the stalkers

1618. Sea Season. Truth. Wildday


Brian Boru, a drifter without tribe, played by David
Xaldin from the Orlmarth - Colymar Tribe, played by Anthonius
Ragnar from the Orlmarth - Colymar Tribe, played by Maximus
Hjotra from the Hiording - Colymar Tribe, played by Dominique
Hund, a Humakt initiate, played by Ben

The stone bridge near Jonstown

e find our adventurers in the middle of a fight with a trio of vicious Tusk Riders.  Xaldin, who found out his friends left for Snakepipe Hollow, quickly realized the peril they were getting themselves into, and decided to follow their trail, only to run into the Tusk riders at the exact moment they ambush the party's camp.  He arrives just in time to see how his clanfellow Ragnar is grievously wounded and loses his right arm by a charge from one of the tuskers, and does not hesitate.  By now the other adventurers have realized how bad things are: they might not live through this one.  The party focused their attention on the riders, but the threat comes from the tuskers, huge trained warboars with an attitude, and they deal some fearsome damage.  At the same instant Ragnar loses his second arm, and although he bravely keeps standing, all that remains there for him to do is to bleed to death quickly.  Hund casts his Humakti Truesword spell.  Xaldin enters the fray.  Between the two of them there is some serious damage potential, and slowly the fight turns, although it takes more divine magic from Hund to heal a crushed arm.  Brian tries a bit of acrobatics and jumps on one of the boar's backs.  Riding the bloody animal is another matter and he is thrown off seconds after, but the party prevails just in time to staunch poor Ragnar's wounds.  They loot the beastly bandits and realize the Dangerford wilds may just be a bit too dangerous for them at this stage.  They need decent armor, better spells, and more experience to survive the trip to Snakepipe Hollow.  They then return to Jonstown.

rian gets noticed by an Eurmal trickster, and decides to join the cult.  He fails the first spitting contest, but the second time around he gets accepted as an acrobat.  But Ragnar is still running around without any armor to speak off, and since a set of lamellar armor should be just about ready in Old Man Village, they decide to return to their stead and pick up the promised armor.  They take the old road to Runegate, and run into a Lunar Patrol at the river crossing.  The Lunars squeeze some good money out of our adventurers, but when the guards continue their travel, the party has a sudden change of heart.  From nearby, they attack the Lunar guard party in the back, and a fierce fight develops.  Xaldin immediately charges the Lunar sorcerer and prevents her from doing her magic, while Hund charges the guard commander, who turns out to be a Sun God Rune Lord.  Bad news!  The other party members take care of the two guards.

he Rune Lord immediately summons a salamander, which attacks our heroes, but Hund puts a lot of pressure on him, and manages to cut off his arm.  It looks as if the fight is turning to their advantage, but the Rune Lord miraculously heals completely, and presses home  another attack.  The party notice the allied spirit hawk in a tree nearby, and they feel the fear.  Is this the one fight too many?  Xaldin remains occupied with the sorcerer, unable to finish her off, but at least disallowing her to weave her spells.  Hund has a Bladesharp from the matrix he gathered from the Tusk Riders, and has cast his Truesword successfully, and with a superb blow he beheads the Rune Lord, making the salamander disappear.  The allied spirit tries a divine intervention, but fails, and the Rune Lord dies.  The sorcerer sees the fight is lost, and tries to gate out of the fight using a divine enlightenment, but the party use their hero powers to refuse the sorcerer exit, and finally they succeed.  Against all of the party, the sorcerer is killed in an instant.  The party is ecstatic and loot all the valuables, including a scroll for learning Auld Wyrm, a scroll for learning Mindspeech II, and four bronze runic coins with Lunar Runes on them.  A magical choker worn by the sorceress and a similar magical hairband, both adorned with a Lunar Moon Rune are looted as well.  The bronze armor makes some good money, and the party happily continues their travel to the Orlamrth Lands.  What will the empire's reaction be?  Will our heroes flaunt their new trinkets and get caught?  We can only wonder!
 

A particularly bad omen

1618. Sea Season. Movement. Clayday

Characters partaking:
Brian Boru, a drifter without tribe, played by David
Ragnar from the Orlmarth - Colymar Tribe, played by Maximus
Kemal from the Hiording - Colymar Tribe, played by Dominique
Hund, a Colymar Humakti, played by Ben

Tusk Riders on a raid!

ith Ranath paying back his debts to the Sage of the Grey Dog temple, our adventurers undertake their adventure without spiritual guidance.  This turns out rather poorly.  The party first decides to return to Old Man Village to recuperate the sets of armor that are being made for them.  Kemal already made the trip with a trader the week before, and was able to lay his hands on the first set made.  The party returns taking the wilderness route, in order to avoid Lunar patrols, even more so because they have learned during their dinner at the inn the night before that the Lunars take captive any stranger without ties to the Colymar, or, to a lesser extent, to the Lismelder.  Soon after leaving Grey Dog Village, they notice they are being followed.  They wait for the group on their tail and learn it is a small band of Lismelder, with the obvious intention to not abide by the King's rule that Lismelder and Colymar should keep the peace.  Some quick maneuvring by our adventurers causes the already nervous Lismelder to attack, and a fight ensues.  The four attackers are no match for the party though, and they are dispatched relatively easy.

 discussion ensues, will the party leave the attackers to die, or will they make an effort to save their lives and show the Lismelder their good intention?  In the end, after much mudslinging, they decide to escort the Lismelder back to Grey Dog Village, and their mercy is well received by the villagers.  After having lost a day, the party leaves for Old Man Village once again.  This time their voyage is rather uneventful. Upon arrival in Old Man Village, Brian insists he should get the armor that is finished, and his fellow party members back down.  When after this Brian shows up with a brand new and expensive Kite shield, although he had been claiming to have no money, and has been unable to repay debts owed to his fellow party members, dissatisfaction starts to spread.  After collecting the armor the party returns to Grey Dog Village, and from there they decide to head north to the Humakti Stead in order to allow Hund to recuperate his divine spells.  They spend a day on the Stead, and on the way back they run into a pair of Dragonsnails, those vile chaos creatures that emanate out of Chaos spawns all across the lands of Sartar and way beyond.  Against expectation, they dispatch the ferocious beast without casualties, but after the fight Brian insists that Hund should have his Bison carry one of the dead horrors' shell on its back.  Hund refuses to have his beasts of burden sullied by anything chaosspawned, and Brian challenges Hund to a duel.

umakti never refuse a duel, and a short fight follows, in which Hund puts down Brian easily.  After the fight, Hund uses his divine healing to save Brian from bleeding to death, and requests the new kite shield as compensation.   This rekindles the enmity, and the two barbarians start to fight again.  This time Hund decapitates Brian by chopping of his hand at the wrist.  They have to return to Old Man Village once again, and the clan members request a ridiculous price for regrowing the clan-less Brian's arm.  He insists no further, and asks the local smith to manufacture a contraption that he can fasten to his stump, in order to have some way of doing combat.  The party members decide they need to find more money, and fast, and come up with a daring plan, to travel to Snake Pipe Hollow, the imprint of chaos on Dragon Pass, in order to get some of the riches accumulated there.  They travel north to Runegate, than follow the road to Jonstown, avoiding Lunar patrols as good as possible, and bribing them if everything else fails.  After spending the night in Jonstown, they leave the tribal ring grounds, and spend the night in Dangerford, the last beacon of civilization before the long and dangerous road that leads to Alda Chur.
They travel north for most of the day, until the light fades, and then make camp in a clearing near the road.  Brian is not paying attention when a small gang of the violent tusk riders charge without warning, and the fight turns ugly quickly.


Will the party be able to overcome this enemy?  Will Xaldin be able to follow the trail and find his party members?