|
25 Mostan 1120
Dead or Alive
It had been several weeks since Tolisa Darius and Merkator of Holle had returned to the Material Plane and Marhaven. Time enough for their new companion, Tana Brightwave, to reacclimate herself to the world she'd been away from for a century or so. Also time enough for the trio to befriend a young hadozee named Auric and add him to their small party. An idle adventuring party earns very little gold, of course. So it was that the party found themselves one morning at the Adventurers' Guild hall, meeting with one of the Trustees of Eldmoor. After receiving the party's assurance of discretion, the Trustee explained his requirements. During a recent "unpleasantness" at the prison colony (Return to Eldmoor) one of the prisoners, the beguiler Garrick Mistrider, had managed to escape. The Trustees did not know for certain whether Garrick had survived the attempt or not, but the prison's reputation depended on them making every effort to recover the convict or to determine for sure that he was dead. Garrick, the Trustee explained, had been temporarily removed from his cell during the unpleasantness and secured in a holding cell aboard the Lucent, a transport ship often hired by the prison and equipped for secure holding. However the gnome had managed to cast a surprise charm on an inexperienced crewman, induce him to open the cell, and then made his escape over water. If he had survived the swim -- and Eldmoor's waters are patrolled by dire sharks to make such a feat extremely unlikely -- then Garrick would most likely have made for the port city of Aldsea on the coast of Corusk. He would not be able to move about freely, however, because he bore the standard Eldmoor prison tattoo on his neck. The tattoo, which is magically affixed to prisoners upon their commitment to the prison and can only be removed by limited wish or similar magic, marks Garrick as an escaped convict and proclaims to any who see him that he has no legal rights to life, limb, or property at all and may have a bounty on his head. Therefore wherever Garrick was, he would have to be well disguised or in hiding. The party agreed on terms for a bounty with the Trustee and hired a Guild wizard to cast legend lore for them, seeking a clue to Garrick's location. The wizard cast the spell, which filled his mind with a short piece of verse:
As usual with legend lore, some interpretation would be necessary. "The ancient elven wood" would be either Aelhandra or Corivan, of course. Corivan was the older of the two and also much closer to Eldmoor, so the party planned to make that their first stop. The rest of the stanza suggested that Garrick was up to his usual hijinks, defrauding people through illusion and trickery, with the goal of somehow obscuring or removing his Eldmoor tattoo. Armed with this information the party boarded the Lucent, which had been hired by the prison to provide transportation for the search. Captain Gilliam Corgan confirmed the Trustee's story of Garrick's escape and was clearly displeased with his crewman for allowing himself to fall prey to the charm spell. He assigned the heroes quarters and the ship set sail for the Horse Realm of Corusk. From there they would have to travel over land to the Corivan Wood. After an uneventful two-day sail the party reached the port city of Aldsea. The asked around about possible sightings of a gnome traveling alone but came up with nothing solid. Several suggested that a gnome seeking to avoid attention would probably head directly for the Kron Highlands, where small folk are the dominant races. Corgan secured docking space for the Lucent and the party set off on foot for Laketon, a fair-sized town on the edge of the Corivan Wood in the Kron Highlands. While not the only human-sized creatures in town the party was certainly conspicuous by their height. Asking around about a gnomish stranger would clearly do no good here -- every fourth soul was at least part gnome, and many of them were travelers. Instead they entered the largest pub in town and asked about strange happenings in the Wood. What they heard was encouraging. In recent weeks, there had been numerous sightings of monsters wandering in a particular nearby part of the Wood. Locals seeking to hone their adventuring skills had flocked to the area only to come back reporting sightings of owlbears, trolls, and more horrific things. Most of the groups who tested themselves were low-level and came back lighter than they left, having abandoned their gear in flight from something beyond their skills. To the party's ears this sounded exactly like Garrick's style, and it also jibed nicely with the legend lore results they'd gotten in Marhaven. They got directions to the thick of the area and set off in the morning for its center. The Corivan Wood is dense and forbidding, though generally not held to be hostile. Still, the going was slow; there were no trails to speak of and limited visibility through the dense forest growth. The heroes picked their steps as carefully as they could considering none of them were experienced with woodland terrain. Auric used his gliding ability to move from tree to tree through the air, giving him a better view of the terrain ahead and allowing him to act as the party's guide. An eerie silence descended over the area as the party moved through a slightly less difficult patch of ground. They paused just for a moment to note the stillness when it was forcibly broken by the emergence of a large tangled creature from the ground. It looked like a massive tree root or hard vine but it towered over them and ripped into Tana's hide with a maw of thorny teeth. Tolisa recalled some of her father's stories and recognized the creature as a burrow root, a predatory plant creature that feeds on blood. Merkator called forth a spiritual weapon and discovered that the burrow root also had a stinging tail. It bit into Merkator and injected him with a weakening poison. He then cast greater enlarge person on Tana, turning her into a Huge sized warrior. She slashed at the burrow root with her bladed gauntlets and was able to do significant damage thanks to their increased size. Auric fired arrows at it from his perch on a nearby tree, but one went astray and hit Tana. Tolisa tossed some alchemical fire at the thing and hit it squarely to add some burning damage. Despite her great size, or perhaps because of it, Tana became the favored target of the burrow root. It bit her again and opened more wounds. Merkator noticed that the bite wounds were bleeding abnormally and cast a cure moderate wounds on Tana to stop the flow of blood. One more blow from Tana and the creature displayed a final trick: it shook from stem to stern and separated into two independent burrow roots. One attacked Tana and the other Tolisa, who returned fire with a magic missile volley. The party landed a couple more telling blows and the burrow roots disappeared into the blood-soaked ground. The party paused only long enough to stop bleeding before making haste away from the burrow roots' feeding ground. They were battered and tired and nearly out of daylight, so they made camp, healed up, and set up watches for the night. Auric took the first watch and was relieved by Tana. An hour or so into her watch Tana heard the sound of multiple large creatures shuffling through the undergrowth nearby. She woke the party and, with Auric alongside, made her way toward the source of the sounds with as much woodland subtlety as her aquatic elf body could manage. About a hundred feet from camp they found the source of the sounds: a trio of owlbears were lumbering through the wood, apparently seeking food. They paused and sniffed the air when Tana made an accidental noise, but after a long moment they continued on their original course, westward away from the campsite. Tana and Auric returned to camp. The group saw no need to interrupt their rest and pursue the owl bears; their real goal was probably to the east and they would need all of their resources for that. In the morning Tana and Auric broke camp while Merkator and Tolisa prepared their minds for a day's spellcasting. The party headed east, toward the area where they suspected Garrick would be. Shortly after they started, they heard a series of frightened cries for help. It took a moment to locate the source because the sounds were coming from overhead, above the tree cover. Auric climbed to the top of a tree just in time to see a huge green dragon flying by a few hundred feet away. Clutched in the dragon's claw was a human female in peasant's clothes, struggling and screaming for help. The dragon was heading west into the thickest part of the wood. Auric reported his findings to the group. None of them believed the dragon was real -- nobody in Laketon had said anything about dragons, and they likely would have to a party arriving in town asking about the woods. Tana also pointed out that even if the dragon was real the woman would be dead long before the group could get to her, and they were not nearly powerful enough to deal with an adult dragon. The party was agreed, therefore, not to pursue the dragon. They did however debate briefly on their direction. Tana felt that since the illusions (they were now assuming that the owl bears were also illusionary) were heading west, they must be designed to frighten people away from the western area and therefore Garrick must be hiding there. Tolisa argued that both illusions, if they were illusions, seemed more designed to lure an experienced party away from the east, so Garrick must be where they originally suspected. Since they were closer to the original goal anyway Tana yielded and the party continued east. Shortly after they resumed marching Auric spotted a pair of large, humanoid creatures heading toward the group. They kept going and closed to encounter distance with what turned out to be a pair of trolls. These trolls were odd-looking, however: gaunt, almost skeletal, with sunken eyes that glowed bright green. Merkator opened things with a deific vengeance on the lead troll. The creature twisted and screamed as the divine energy attacked it. Tana charged forward and slashed at the troll with her blades. A bright green tentacle extruded from the creature's head and tried to wrap itself around her but missed. Auric fired an arrow at a troll and distinctly saw the arrow go through without doing any damage. "Hey!" he called out to his teammates, "they're not real!" Sure enough, the party focused on the trolls and refused to believe and they winked out of existence. Now the group was convinced they were headed in the right direction. As they approached the densest part of the eastern wood Auric spotted an odd figure perched on a tree limb ahead. It looked like a human woman but she had wings, vulture-like legs and clawed feet. He alerted the group that there seemed to be a harpy ahead. Merkator cast a detect magic and Tolisa fired a crossbow bolt at it to see whether the harpy was real or illusionary. The bolt missed, but Merkator's spell picked up the presence of magic auras. Then the harpy began to sing. Auric found the song captivating; he glided across the way to the harpy's tree and stood there enthralled. Tana was also charmed by the harpy's song but, lacking the ability to glide, had to walk toward the tree. Merkator continued to focus on the magical auras around the harpy's area and did not notice immediately that she was not alone. Then he was struck by an arrow fired from above and saw a second harpy, armed with a footbow, streaking across the sky overhead. The arrow was certainly real enough. Tolisa moved to catch up with Tana, pausing only long enough to send a magic missile at the flying harpy in response to an arrow hit from the footbow. The flying harpy responded with another well-placed arrow and was joined in the fight by the first, who fired an arrow at Merkator. Despite the distractions Tolisa caught up with Tana and administered a dispel magic that broke the harpy's hold over her mind. The flying harpy saw this and dropped a tanglefoot bag on Tana. The bag burst at her feet but Tana managed to avoid being caught completely in the gluey muck. Seeing the harpy attack his friend snapped Auric out of his mental fog. He took a flanking position on the harpy and delivered a deadly sneak attack. The harpy fell off the tree limb, hit the ground, and snapped her neck in the fall. The second harpy swooped down to rake Tana with her claws, but Tana pulled out her magic restrictioning band and threw it. The iron bands expanded, enveloped the harpy, and clamped down on it. Unable to use her wings the second harpy also fell, but survived the impact. It lay on the ground swearing revenge and shouting loudly about the party's exact location, direction, and composition -- obviously warning someone -- until Tana silenced the creature with a coup de grace. Knowing for certain that they were expected now, the party moved eastward a few hundred feet until they spotted a platform home some 40 feet up in a huge oak tree. There was no apparent means of ascension, so Auric climbed the tree trunk to the lowest platform. There he found a rope ladder rolled up so he dropped that down to his companions and held his position while they climbed up it. The home had a total of three platforms connected by inclined plank bridges. The first platform was clearly just an entry way with little else on it. A plank bridge to the right led up about 15 feet and across to a kidney-shaped platform that wrapped partially around the massive tree trunk and another led up 25 feet and across to a higher platform that spanned to another tree. The party elected to start at the high ground and ascended to the top platform. There, sitting on a wooden foot locker, was a gnome in slightly tattered, plain clothing. Tolisa and Merkator recognized him even without the colorful clothes and mithral armor he'd worn at their first encounter: it was Garrick. Garrick sucked on his pipe and blew a smoke ring off into the distance. "Persistant bunch, aren't you?" he said. Then he made an arcane gesture with his arm and lowered his voice. "You should all just go away and leave me alone now." The mass suggestion spell caught Auric, but the rest of the party shook it off easily. Tana stepped past the hadozee and threw her restrictioning band at Garrick but the gnome ducked and the magic item flew past him into the woods below. Merkator cast spiritual weapon but the weapon struck without harming Garrick. Tolisa saw the glowing blade go through the gnome's body and deduced that he was using a displacement spell to protect himself. She cast dispel magic on the area where Garrick sat and the gnome vanished. The heroes looked at each other and concluded that Garrick had turned invisible to hide from them. Merkator stepped back and called out, "We want you alive and unharmed" while Tolisa cast see invisibility on herself. Then, inexplicably, Auric turned and fired his shortbow at Tolisa. The shot missed. Tolisa grabbed her trident and thrust it at Auric but that also missed. Then an eerie silence descended over Tolisa and everyone within 20 feet of her. Auric's lips moved but no sound came out. Tana ran for Tolisa and grappled her with ease. Tolisa tried to attack Tana but failed miserably and was reduced to babbling in silence. Auric suddenly leapt off the platform and glided to a nearby tree where he huddled against the trunk, still apparently babbling to himself. Merkator recognized the effects of a confusion spell and figured that Tolisa and Auric were temporarily neutralized by it, so he went by himself to check out the third platform. He kept detect magic running and looked for the presence of magical auras. He noted that the rope ladder had one but found nothing else on the other platforms to indicate that Garrick might be hiding there. On the top platform Merkator suddenly found himself immersed in a phantom battle but he'd seen this trick before and easily saved against it. "Nice try, Garrick," he taunted the unseen gnome. Auric climbed higher in his tree and then glided back to the bridge between platforms. There he pulled out his short sword and, with one mighty blow, cleaved in half a squirrel that accidentally got too close. Tolisa had a moment of clarity, realized she was being toyed with by a spell, and pulled out her dispel magic wand. The wand was not powerful enough to overcome Garrick's caster level, though, and the fog quickly drifted back into Tolisa's mind. Auric fled the scene of the squirrel's slaughter and clung to a different tree, babbling incoherently to himself. Finally, the confusion spell ran its course and Auric and Tolisa recovered their wits. Auric rejoined Merkator on the lower platform and Tolisa, aware of the silence but willing to endure the inconvenience for the moment, focused on sweeping the platform with her still-active see invisibility. Merkator charged up a light of lunia for use when he spotted a target. Suddenly Tolisa looked back toward her party and spied the figure of Garrick perched on a tree limb that was supporting the first platform. She pointed and jumped and tried to shout "There he is!" but, with Tolisa still enveloped in silence, only the gesture made any sense to the group. Auric responded by gliding to that limb to block any escape. Tana had had quite enough of Garrick's abuse. She charged past Auric at full speed, intending to bull rush the invisible gnome into the trunk of the tree. Instead, she went sailing right through the space where she expected to meet resistance and bashed face-first into the tree trunk herself. Tana was shaken for a moment but managed to stay aloft. Tolisa, with her see invisibility, saw Garrick double over with laughter at the sight of Tana -- she had moved right through him, to her eyes, and made no physical contact. She wondered, had Garrick become ethereal? Merkator took the dispel magic wand from Tolisa and moved out of the silence radius, then dispelled it. Tolisa felt herself being targeted by a whelm. She shook it off and then, knowing that a force effect could damage an ethereal creature, launched a magic missile volley at the figure of Garrick. The missiles faded out instead of hitting their target. Tana's sharp ears picked up the faint sound of muffled laughter. Her eyes swept across the area above and there, sitting on a limb some 20 feet above their heads, she saw Garrick. He was completely visible and had a hand clamped hard over his mouth. When he realized he'd been seen he stopped laughing and gulped. "We don't want to hurt you," Merkator said with no apparent sense of irony. "But we have to take you back." A lengthy debate ensued between the party on the deck and Garrick on his high limb. Garrick argued that he hadn't harmed anybody and that he only stole from those who could afford what they lost. He told the party how, for his misdeeds, he had been sent to Eldmoor and nearly eaten by mind flayers along with the entire rest of the prison population. Surely the death penalty was excessive for a simple thief, didn't they agree? Besides, with an Eldmoor tattoo Garrick was effectively banished from every major settlement -- wasn't that punishment enough? The party listened to Garrick and, to their own surprise, found themselves agreeing with much of his position. Even Tana, who minutes before was swearing loudly about how much she wanted to see Garrick's blood, was willing to put that aside and listen. The prospect of mind flayers feeding on the population of Eldmoor was horrifying, and they began to wonder whether the Trustees wanted Garrick back to finish his sentence or to prevent him from talking about mind flayers ... or, they considered, were the Trustees themselves under the influence of mind flayers? Still, they argued, if they did not bring Garrick back the Trustees would just send someone else. Garrick had an answer for that, too. In the foot locker, he told them, was an old chain shirt that happened to have some punctures in it. They could take that back and tell the Trustees that Garrick had been eaten by dire sharks. Logistical problems made that story unlikely to hold, but between them they came up with a better plan: Garrick would have his illusionary green dragon fly past Laketon, but this time holding Garrick in its claw. Then the party could "recover" the chain shirt from the lake and there would be eye witnesses in Laketon that Garrick had been taken by a dragon. Garrick could remain in the forest, where he hoped to amass enough money to pay for a limited wish to get his Eldmoor tattoo removed, provided he kept his promise not to harm anyone in the process. Garrick also offered the party one more incentive: a scroll bearing the custom spell blend into water, which he used to escape the notice of the dire sharks in the waters outside Eldmoor. The plan went off perfectly. Garrick conjured a masterful illusion of the huge green dragon plucking him out of a treetop and flying off toward the western wood while Garrick screamed and struggled. Several in Laketon saw the illusion and the party made a great show of pursuing the dragon, only to return several days later with the bloody chain shirt and a tale of how they arrived too late to save Garrick. If only he'd surrendered when he had the chance ...
<MR>
|