Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jun 17, 2007 22:21:17 GMT -5
Eskan's connections are swift and effective, as early the next day, the leadership of the Company is summoned to Sir Highrider's stronghold. An armor-clad, heavy-set man with black hair and a thick mustache accompanies Sir Highrider. Sir Highrider is clearly harried and is curt, almost bordering on rude, to the Company. His compatriot, the afore-mentioned Richard Coldheart, is no better, sullenly reading and taking notes on other documents while the Company's leaders talk.
Raven and Otto, who have been chosen to represent the Company, outline the events of the past months. They tell Sir Highrider of the rise of the giants, the fall of Nosnra and Grugnir, the threat of Tharizdun, the presence of a black orb in Istvin before its fall, and last, but most important, the invasion of the Yeomanry. While the two officials seemed to have taken all of the previous points in stride, the tall tales of a mercenary band, the last point catches their attention like no other has. "An invasion of the Yeomanry?" asks Sir Highrider. "Are you certain? I would have expected to hear of this."
Otto, his Yeoman accent especially thick at the moment, relates the fall of his hometown, the encroaching army of orcs and giants and the rallying of the Yeomen. He tells Sir Highrider that he was certain that either Freeholder Redwall or General Greymouse would have called for reinforcements from the east, or possibly even asked for aid from the Keoish. Even with the historic animosity shown between the two countries, Otto finds it hard to believe that no request for aid would be sent.
Sir Highrider looks troubled by this news. Not only has he heard nothing of an invasion of the Yeomanry, but he had sent riders to Loftwick requesting relief of the city. Given the amount of trade that flows into the Yeomanry through Longspear, he was certain that aid would be sent, but he had not heard any reply as of yet. If the Yeomen are stretched thin guarding their own territory, it might explain why no response has been received as of yet.
Richard Coldheart asks if they have enlisted in the defense of the city yet, avariciously looking to have such powerful warriors under his command. Raven, showing remarkable political savvy, mentions that they are attached to the Colnet's private guard and directs any further questions on their status to Eskan Colnet. Richard Coldheart, an outsider, clearly understands how precarious his position is with the ruling merchant families, and he asks no more.
Sir Highrider dismisses them and Otto and Raven head back to the Wheatfield. Most of the Company is disbursed throughout the city. Hugh visits his fellow worshippers and attempting to improve their lot by donation, telling of his adventures, and restoring the confidence of Arthurus. Al searches for news of Garvin. Dell visits the Pelorites at the new shrine, having many questions he wishes to ask of High Priest Abernathy, but the Pelorite is very busy, serving as the primary spiritual advisor to the Lord Governor. Dell is told to return at some other time. Jasper and Diego seek out Maximilian, their fellow former slave, to discuss matters.
Several uneventful days pass, with the Company restocking as well as they can and preparing their next plan, when much ado happens in the streets. Militia-men run for the walls, and others try to find cover. Otto tries to get someone's attention, to learn what is occurring, but to no avail. Richard Coldheart and a group of mounted soldiers thunder down the street, nearly trampling the fleeing masses. Coldheart and his men ride for the Temple District, where low-level warfare goes on daily, giving Otto and the Company some idea of where the trouble is.
Never one to hide from a fight, the Company gathers and follows after Coldheart and his men. Since they entered the city without their mounts, they are forced to struggle through the crowds, bulling their way forward at a frustratingly slow pace. The crowd thins as they approach the Temple District, the reason for the thinning stunningly obvious.
Rising up over the fifteen foot inner city wall is a huge humanoid, easily forty feet tall. Ebon of armor and skin, it wields a huge sword glowing with black flame. Heavy plates of spiked armor hang from its frame, shielding it from blow and harm. As the Company goggles in amazement, the creature makes a double-footed stomping motion, the sound of stone crushing under its feet. When it turns to look over the Company, into the city beyond, a strange inhuman face, half white and half black, bisected vertically, glowers.
The Company is momentarily flummoxed. The behemoth throws a horse and rider up into the air a good hundred feet, the poor creatures doomed to land somewhere within the city. Such destruction is the spur the Company needs to move into action. Winthrop, Dell, and Oaklock pause, grabbing Raven, Otto, and Diego, and begin casting their sorcery while the others run down towards the wall.
The sally port through the inner wall is surrounded by dead bodies clad in the regalia of the Keoish Army and militia. The portcullis is still down, but it bows inwards from the forces placed on it. A small horde of undead zombies pushes on the gate, apparently ignoring the thrust spears of the remaining militiamen who try to drive them off the gate.
Cedrus, Adrienne, and Hugh charge forth into the spearmen, ordering them back from the gate while the three priests free their holy symbols. Calling on their god and goddesses, they attempt to banish the zombies, destroying their putrefying bodies and turning the undead spirits away. To their shock and surprise, none of the undead collapse or even veer from their position at the gate. With the militiamen no longer prodding the undead with their spears, the zombies put even more of their weight against the metal bars, and it gives a frightful groan.
Otto, Raven, and Diego fly overhead, accompanied by three large gargoyles, the mages having evidently taken on different forms. The city wall is no impediment to the flying Company, and they gain an aerial view of the horrible destruction beyond. The tree-lined boulevards and peaceful archways of the Temple District have been destroyed by the conflict therein. Patches of burnt ground, still smoldering from the pitch and oil poured across them, litter the area. The buildings seem to have been holed by boulder and burnt by oil, and the dead, orc and human alike, lie in the streets. The unholy behemoth strides across the Temple District, blackness dripping from its frame like tar, coating the holy sites of the city with unspeakable foulness. The fanes of Trithereon and Pelor, as well as the Holy Walk, are coated and besmirched, while the huge creature strides on towards the Temple of Phyton.
Surrounding the trail of the creature are wounded and dying men and horses, the remains of Richard Coldheart's charge. Coldheart himself struggles to follow the creature, trailing hundreds of feet in its wake, dragging his sword behind him as he deals with wounds that would have killed most men. His men lie scattered and still. Hordes of undead zombies, each equipped with longsword and longbow, clog the areas around the sally ports, trying to enter into the city proper.
The huge size of the creature provides many avenues of approach for the Company. Diego, unused to flight, lands on top of the city wall, balancing on the relatively narrow surface, and sends shafts into the creature. Raven, more comfortable with flight, sends his shafts into the creature while he flies at it, moving slightly to compensate for the torque such actions place on his body. Otto, eschewing such distance weapons, flies forth, bastardsword in hand, closing with the frightening beast. All three of the gargoyles cast spells of death and destruction, bolts of lightning, magic, and acid arcing from them into the giant creature.
The efforts of the Company are mainly without effect. The archers' arrows are like pinpricks to the giant creature. The behemoth ignores them, and no one can tell whether they actually injure it. The bolts of lightning, magic, and acid dissipate as they land on the creature, the force of the magic dispelled or deflected. Only Otto, hewing mightily at one thigh, seems to get the creature's attention, as purplish fire erupts from the wound, arcing to the ground below.
The creature smites Otto with his flaming sword, Otto barely able to angle himself to catch the flat rather than the edge of the blade. Otto flies through the air and into the side of a temple outbuilding, dust and debris flying off its roof from the impact. Otto coughs blood and makes certain his sword is still to hand. Staggering back to his feet, he waves at the others and points where his sword drew ichor.
The gargoyle-mages continue to pour magical energies at the creature, hoping that one of their dweomers will overcome the creature's resistance to magic. An occasional magical bolt seems to impact on the creature's armor, but the vast majority of the offensive magics dissipate on impact, like water evaporating off of hot steel.
Raven decides that the threat posed by the behemoth is so great that all effort should be made to destroy it. He reaches back into his quiver and grabs forth the black, rune-encrusted arrow found deep below the slavers' stockade in the Pomarj. Identified by Dell and Winthrop as a powerful magic item, he has been assured that it has the power to slay any biped. He puts the arrow to string and draws his bow, the horn and aged wood creaking as he puts all his strength into drawing it. Aiming at the creature's broad midriff, he chooses his moment and looses the string.
The black arrow shimmers for a moment and then disappears, flowing into and over his longbow like some sort of tarry water. An ominous creaking comes from the bow, and it quivers and vibrates in his hand. Rather than leaping forth to slay the behemoth, the arrow instead appears to be trying to split his bow in two! Raven's longbow is specially crafted from aged, oiled wood and bow, much stronger and better made than the average longbow and, while possibly weakened, it is not split by the ill-fated arrow. Raven simultaneous sighs with relief and sneers with disgust.
Seeing that their missile attacks are futile, but Otto's massive sword stroke caused a notable wound, Raven and Diego change their approach. Raven draws forth Blackthorn's halberd, his weapon of choice since the destruction of his sword on the polar worm's flanges, and Diego draws his bastardsword. The great size of the creature is ideal for these weapons, and they leap into the air to the attack. The behemoth's blows are massive in force and certainly contain enough power to knock a building lose from its foundations, but they are somewhat slow and ponderous. The three warriors are like mockingbirds dogging an eagle; their agile flight and magical weapons make the each attack hard to avoid and dangerous to ignore.
Below, at the sally port, things have gone from bad to worse. Al, who has finally caught up to the Company, charges up to the gate along with the remaining militiamen in an attempt to force the undead off of the portcullis. The enchanted weapons of the Company seem to help the situation significantly and first one, and then a second, undead falls under their hammer and blades. Suddenly, the undead fall back, leaving the gate free.
Screened by the bodies of their fellow zombies at the gate, other zombies, zombies wielding long bows, have taken up a semi-circular formation around the gate. Amongst them is a humanoid clad in a fashion similar to the behemoth above: heavy, black, spiked plate armor and with a two-tone mask and cowl. The humanoid gestures and chants in an odd tongue, and Hugh freezes in place, his muscles locking in rigor. The undead shower the gate with arrows, slaying the militiamen and sorely wounding Al and the priests.
Undeterred, Cedrus and Adrienne return the favor, each attempting to grasp the cowled, masked, armored form in the might of their goddess. The armored man seems strong of mind and will though, shrugging off their attempts and calling on his vile god to protect him. Soon both Cedrus and Adrienne are immobilized.
Al, the sole member of the Company holding the sally port, calls for help, relieved when more militiamen run down the street to him. He has them drag the priests out of missile fire while he continues to fend the strange zombies away from the gate. Dell, his hearing still sharp, swings away from his combat with the behemoth, and flies over the city, searching for Al.
As Dell flies up towards the sally port from within the city, he approaches the combat from a different angle. He can see the undead again massing at the sally port, trying to force the gate, and the supporting undead archers prepared to fire through the portcullis again. But, more importantly, he is to the rear of the heavily armored figure. Reaching into his pouch for a sachet of powdered amber, the remains of one of Jarl Grugnir's amber bears, he speeds towards the humanoid.
At the last moment, the foul priest spins about, somehow having intuited Dell's silent approach, but it is too late. Chanting hissing syllables, Dell tears the sachet open and throws the powdered amber onto the armored priest. The amber clings to his form and crystalizes, spreading across the priest's body like some sort of creeping ice, leaving the priest a sepia-colored statue.
The undead seem somewhat dismayed by these events. Some still bombard Dell with arrows, but others are distracted and head off into a different part of the district, to cause havoc there. Dell takes the opportunity to get out of missile range, swinging around the corner of the nearest building.
The constant barrage from the Company's mages and the ceaseless hacking of the warriors has taken its toll on the behemoth, though they are not unscathed themselves. The behemoth leaks ichor from many wounds and is burnt from where a lightning bolt broke through its innate immunity. Raven and Diego each have suffered from massive battering, and Otto, the most effective of the three warriors, has been the behemoth's primary target. He, and his armor, show the most damage, but he keeps in flight.
One last push by the warriors and mages is enough to topple the behemoth. Rather than falling over, the giant creature shrinks and shrinks, not towards the ground, but up into a point in the air. It becomes barely larger than a man and then loses its human shape entirely, looking more like some frightful night-haunt than anything from Oerth, before disappearing with a burst of violet light and a tearing sound.
The undead below, or the creatures controlling them, lose heart with the loss of their great warrior. They turn, en masse, and begin filing back through the Temple District towards the hole in the city walls. The Company, Raven in particular, wishes to give to chase, but it is not to be. The priests of the Company are still mainly frozen and filled with arrows. None have been lost, but all are sorely wounded. Instead, the Company gives succor to the soldiers who have fought to hold, successfully, the gates and sally ports.
When the Company finally gathers together again, they do so surrounded by the Keoish Army, grateful for their presence and aid. Raven and the others are ecstatic over the relatively easy destruction of the such a powerful and massive beast. Dell, Al, and the priests grin like the cat who has caught the proverbial canary. Unable to contain themselves, they drag forward a frozen sepia statue of an armored man. "You got the behemoth, but we got a priest of the Dead God who can still talk," grins Dell.
Raven and Otto, who have been chosen to represent the Company, outline the events of the past months. They tell Sir Highrider of the rise of the giants, the fall of Nosnra and Grugnir, the threat of Tharizdun, the presence of a black orb in Istvin before its fall, and last, but most important, the invasion of the Yeomanry. While the two officials seemed to have taken all of the previous points in stride, the tall tales of a mercenary band, the last point catches their attention like no other has. "An invasion of the Yeomanry?" asks Sir Highrider. "Are you certain? I would have expected to hear of this."
Otto, his Yeoman accent especially thick at the moment, relates the fall of his hometown, the encroaching army of orcs and giants and the rallying of the Yeomen. He tells Sir Highrider that he was certain that either Freeholder Redwall or General Greymouse would have called for reinforcements from the east, or possibly even asked for aid from the Keoish. Even with the historic animosity shown between the two countries, Otto finds it hard to believe that no request for aid would be sent.
Sir Highrider looks troubled by this news. Not only has he heard nothing of an invasion of the Yeomanry, but he had sent riders to Loftwick requesting relief of the city. Given the amount of trade that flows into the Yeomanry through Longspear, he was certain that aid would be sent, but he had not heard any reply as of yet. If the Yeomen are stretched thin guarding their own territory, it might explain why no response has been received as of yet.
Richard Coldheart asks if they have enlisted in the defense of the city yet, avariciously looking to have such powerful warriors under his command. Raven, showing remarkable political savvy, mentions that they are attached to the Colnet's private guard and directs any further questions on their status to Eskan Colnet. Richard Coldheart, an outsider, clearly understands how precarious his position is with the ruling merchant families, and he asks no more.
Sir Highrider dismisses them and Otto and Raven head back to the Wheatfield. Most of the Company is disbursed throughout the city. Hugh visits his fellow worshippers and attempting to improve their lot by donation, telling of his adventures, and restoring the confidence of Arthurus. Al searches for news of Garvin. Dell visits the Pelorites at the new shrine, having many questions he wishes to ask of High Priest Abernathy, but the Pelorite is very busy, serving as the primary spiritual advisor to the Lord Governor. Dell is told to return at some other time. Jasper and Diego seek out Maximilian, their fellow former slave, to discuss matters.
Several uneventful days pass, with the Company restocking as well as they can and preparing their next plan, when much ado happens in the streets. Militia-men run for the walls, and others try to find cover. Otto tries to get someone's attention, to learn what is occurring, but to no avail. Richard Coldheart and a group of mounted soldiers thunder down the street, nearly trampling the fleeing masses. Coldheart and his men ride for the Temple District, where low-level warfare goes on daily, giving Otto and the Company some idea of where the trouble is.
Never one to hide from a fight, the Company gathers and follows after Coldheart and his men. Since they entered the city without their mounts, they are forced to struggle through the crowds, bulling their way forward at a frustratingly slow pace. The crowd thins as they approach the Temple District, the reason for the thinning stunningly obvious.
Rising up over the fifteen foot inner city wall is a huge humanoid, easily forty feet tall. Ebon of armor and skin, it wields a huge sword glowing with black flame. Heavy plates of spiked armor hang from its frame, shielding it from blow and harm. As the Company goggles in amazement, the creature makes a double-footed stomping motion, the sound of stone crushing under its feet. When it turns to look over the Company, into the city beyond, a strange inhuman face, half white and half black, bisected vertically, glowers.
The Company is momentarily flummoxed. The behemoth throws a horse and rider up into the air a good hundred feet, the poor creatures doomed to land somewhere within the city. Such destruction is the spur the Company needs to move into action. Winthrop, Dell, and Oaklock pause, grabbing Raven, Otto, and Diego, and begin casting their sorcery while the others run down towards the wall.
The sally port through the inner wall is surrounded by dead bodies clad in the regalia of the Keoish Army and militia. The portcullis is still down, but it bows inwards from the forces placed on it. A small horde of undead zombies pushes on the gate, apparently ignoring the thrust spears of the remaining militiamen who try to drive them off the gate.
Cedrus, Adrienne, and Hugh charge forth into the spearmen, ordering them back from the gate while the three priests free their holy symbols. Calling on their god and goddesses, they attempt to banish the zombies, destroying their putrefying bodies and turning the undead spirits away. To their shock and surprise, none of the undead collapse or even veer from their position at the gate. With the militiamen no longer prodding the undead with their spears, the zombies put even more of their weight against the metal bars, and it gives a frightful groan.
Otto, Raven, and Diego fly overhead, accompanied by three large gargoyles, the mages having evidently taken on different forms. The city wall is no impediment to the flying Company, and they gain an aerial view of the horrible destruction beyond. The tree-lined boulevards and peaceful archways of the Temple District have been destroyed by the conflict therein. Patches of burnt ground, still smoldering from the pitch and oil poured across them, litter the area. The buildings seem to have been holed by boulder and burnt by oil, and the dead, orc and human alike, lie in the streets. The unholy behemoth strides across the Temple District, blackness dripping from its frame like tar, coating the holy sites of the city with unspeakable foulness. The fanes of Trithereon and Pelor, as well as the Holy Walk, are coated and besmirched, while the huge creature strides on towards the Temple of Phyton.
Surrounding the trail of the creature are wounded and dying men and horses, the remains of Richard Coldheart's charge. Coldheart himself struggles to follow the creature, trailing hundreds of feet in its wake, dragging his sword behind him as he deals with wounds that would have killed most men. His men lie scattered and still. Hordes of undead zombies, each equipped with longsword and longbow, clog the areas around the sally ports, trying to enter into the city proper.
The huge size of the creature provides many avenues of approach for the Company. Diego, unused to flight, lands on top of the city wall, balancing on the relatively narrow surface, and sends shafts into the creature. Raven, more comfortable with flight, sends his shafts into the creature while he flies at it, moving slightly to compensate for the torque such actions place on his body. Otto, eschewing such distance weapons, flies forth, bastardsword in hand, closing with the frightening beast. All three of the gargoyles cast spells of death and destruction, bolts of lightning, magic, and acid arcing from them into the giant creature.
The efforts of the Company are mainly without effect. The archers' arrows are like pinpricks to the giant creature. The behemoth ignores them, and no one can tell whether they actually injure it. The bolts of lightning, magic, and acid dissipate as they land on the creature, the force of the magic dispelled or deflected. Only Otto, hewing mightily at one thigh, seems to get the creature's attention, as purplish fire erupts from the wound, arcing to the ground below.
The creature smites Otto with his flaming sword, Otto barely able to angle himself to catch the flat rather than the edge of the blade. Otto flies through the air and into the side of a temple outbuilding, dust and debris flying off its roof from the impact. Otto coughs blood and makes certain his sword is still to hand. Staggering back to his feet, he waves at the others and points where his sword drew ichor.
The gargoyle-mages continue to pour magical energies at the creature, hoping that one of their dweomers will overcome the creature's resistance to magic. An occasional magical bolt seems to impact on the creature's armor, but the vast majority of the offensive magics dissipate on impact, like water evaporating off of hot steel.
Raven decides that the threat posed by the behemoth is so great that all effort should be made to destroy it. He reaches back into his quiver and grabs forth the black, rune-encrusted arrow found deep below the slavers' stockade in the Pomarj. Identified by Dell and Winthrop as a powerful magic item, he has been assured that it has the power to slay any biped. He puts the arrow to string and draws his bow, the horn and aged wood creaking as he puts all his strength into drawing it. Aiming at the creature's broad midriff, he chooses his moment and looses the string.
The black arrow shimmers for a moment and then disappears, flowing into and over his longbow like some sort of tarry water. An ominous creaking comes from the bow, and it quivers and vibrates in his hand. Rather than leaping forth to slay the behemoth, the arrow instead appears to be trying to split his bow in two! Raven's longbow is specially crafted from aged, oiled wood and bow, much stronger and better made than the average longbow and, while possibly weakened, it is not split by the ill-fated arrow. Raven simultaneous sighs with relief and sneers with disgust.
Seeing that their missile attacks are futile, but Otto's massive sword stroke caused a notable wound, Raven and Diego change their approach. Raven draws forth Blackthorn's halberd, his weapon of choice since the destruction of his sword on the polar worm's flanges, and Diego draws his bastardsword. The great size of the creature is ideal for these weapons, and they leap into the air to the attack. The behemoth's blows are massive in force and certainly contain enough power to knock a building lose from its foundations, but they are somewhat slow and ponderous. The three warriors are like mockingbirds dogging an eagle; their agile flight and magical weapons make the each attack hard to avoid and dangerous to ignore.
Below, at the sally port, things have gone from bad to worse. Al, who has finally caught up to the Company, charges up to the gate along with the remaining militiamen in an attempt to force the undead off of the portcullis. The enchanted weapons of the Company seem to help the situation significantly and first one, and then a second, undead falls under their hammer and blades. Suddenly, the undead fall back, leaving the gate free.
Screened by the bodies of their fellow zombies at the gate, other zombies, zombies wielding long bows, have taken up a semi-circular formation around the gate. Amongst them is a humanoid clad in a fashion similar to the behemoth above: heavy, black, spiked plate armor and with a two-tone mask and cowl. The humanoid gestures and chants in an odd tongue, and Hugh freezes in place, his muscles locking in rigor. The undead shower the gate with arrows, slaying the militiamen and sorely wounding Al and the priests.
Undeterred, Cedrus and Adrienne return the favor, each attempting to grasp the cowled, masked, armored form in the might of their goddess. The armored man seems strong of mind and will though, shrugging off their attempts and calling on his vile god to protect him. Soon both Cedrus and Adrienne are immobilized.
Al, the sole member of the Company holding the sally port, calls for help, relieved when more militiamen run down the street to him. He has them drag the priests out of missile fire while he continues to fend the strange zombies away from the gate. Dell, his hearing still sharp, swings away from his combat with the behemoth, and flies over the city, searching for Al.
As Dell flies up towards the sally port from within the city, he approaches the combat from a different angle. He can see the undead again massing at the sally port, trying to force the gate, and the supporting undead archers prepared to fire through the portcullis again. But, more importantly, he is to the rear of the heavily armored figure. Reaching into his pouch for a sachet of powdered amber, the remains of one of Jarl Grugnir's amber bears, he speeds towards the humanoid.
At the last moment, the foul priest spins about, somehow having intuited Dell's silent approach, but it is too late. Chanting hissing syllables, Dell tears the sachet open and throws the powdered amber onto the armored priest. The amber clings to his form and crystalizes, spreading across the priest's body like some sort of creeping ice, leaving the priest a sepia-colored statue.
The undead seem somewhat dismayed by these events. Some still bombard Dell with arrows, but others are distracted and head off into a different part of the district, to cause havoc there. Dell takes the opportunity to get out of missile range, swinging around the corner of the nearest building.
The constant barrage from the Company's mages and the ceaseless hacking of the warriors has taken its toll on the behemoth, though they are not unscathed themselves. The behemoth leaks ichor from many wounds and is burnt from where a lightning bolt broke through its innate immunity. Raven and Diego each have suffered from massive battering, and Otto, the most effective of the three warriors, has been the behemoth's primary target. He, and his armor, show the most damage, but he keeps in flight.
One last push by the warriors and mages is enough to topple the behemoth. Rather than falling over, the giant creature shrinks and shrinks, not towards the ground, but up into a point in the air. It becomes barely larger than a man and then loses its human shape entirely, looking more like some frightful night-haunt than anything from Oerth, before disappearing with a burst of violet light and a tearing sound.
The undead below, or the creatures controlling them, lose heart with the loss of their great warrior. They turn, en masse, and begin filing back through the Temple District towards the hole in the city walls. The Company, Raven in particular, wishes to give to chase, but it is not to be. The priests of the Company are still mainly frozen and filled with arrows. None have been lost, but all are sorely wounded. Instead, the Company gives succor to the soldiers who have fought to hold, successfully, the gates and sally ports.
When the Company finally gathers together again, they do so surrounded by the Keoish Army, grateful for their presence and aid. Raven and the others are ecstatic over the relatively easy destruction of the such a powerful and massive beast. Dell, Al, and the priests grin like the cat who has caught the proverbial canary. Unable to contain themselves, they drag forward a frozen sepia statue of an armored man. "You got the behemoth, but we got a priest of the Dead God who can still talk," grins Dell.
