Grimbol sat on his throne, hewn from a single piece of obsidian, and sighed. He waved away the majordomo with a sheaf of papers under his arm awaiting his royal seal.
"Look, just stamp those for me - I'm sure they're all in order. Nobody told me that being king under the mountain would be so dull! I want to get the old party back together for one last adventure - send a carrier pigeon message to each of them to meet in the Sleeping Dragon tavern at the next full moon"
"Very good sire - will there be anything else?"
"Fetch me my armour and my mace - I'm going out to hit things"
Somewhere in the dark forest, Lyceaa cleaned the blood from her blade. Surely that was the last bandit in this region? She pinned a note to the chest of the luckless felon "This is the fate of all law breakers, thieves and chaos mongers" and pulled the money pouch from his belt. She felt the satisfying heft of gold and tossed it to the family of peasant farmers watching their saviour with a mixture of fear and gratitude.
She looked up to see a pigeon circling above and very nearly put an arrow through its breast before her sharp eyes spotted a scroll tied to its leg. She held out a hand for the bird to perch and read the note.
"Very well old friend, for old time's sake"
Grimbol had received news that his outposts were being destroyed overnight in a swath of destruction that is increasing in frequency with every passing moon. The sole survivor of the latest assault was an elderly dwarf, driven mad by her ordeal. Her fragmented, frightened account tells of an army of beautiful giants, so tall they devoured the moon before turning on her people. At a loss, his vassals begged him to intercede, answering the threat to the realm. Consultation with ancient texts suggest that Stylos in the desert of South East Punjar held the answers.
Meanwhile the Fates warned Lyceaa that the end of the world was nigh, unless she could find the answers in Stylos. There were also rumours that Stylos holds a metal even better than mithril!
We gathered in the bar of the Sleeping Dragon to compare notes while Ivana provided us with a magical feast. We found we all had a common interest in the city of Stylos. In a radical departure for our group we did some research and rented some camels, making sure that we had enough water and food, then set off for the desert.
The first encounter was with a weeping spectre, wailing with despair. The only remnant of her body was a single finger bone which we buried with due respect, and this seemed to satisfy her grief. A magical spring appeared which quenched all of thirst.
Next we came across a sorry looking camp of refugees, on the brink of death. Ivana cast food of the gods then we gave them directions to the spring and gave them the supplies and camels that we no longer needed. In return the leader gave us directions to the city of Stylos.
It wasn’t long before we found the city which was surrounded by many giants camping in tents. An invisibility spell allowed us to sneak into the temple with the blessing of the Carnifex. We went through some gold doors on the far side of the central area where there were three powerful looking warrior priestesses - battle was joined!
No comments:
Post a Comment