- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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Shadows Over Fire posted:The byway has just stopped being visible when a deep voice calls out an urgent command: “Oi, stop ya – don’t take another step!”
A giant of a man emerges from the jungle. He has a full head of bright red hair and a beard to match. Slung over his right shoulder is a longbow so big you doubt you could pull the string, while at his waist hangs a naked machete, running with the sap of jungle weeds. He holds up his broad, calloused hands to show he means no harm then kneels in front of you and carefully brushes aside a scattering of fresh cut leaves and branches, revealing the spring loaded bear-trap hidden there. He wipes sweat from his brow.
“You be lucky I was out checking the game trails,” he says, the sunlight glinting off the fangs of the trap. “Otherwise, you might have lost a foot. Not wise right now for a traveler to leave the road, not with the disappearances.”
“You know about the merchants?” you ask.
“Marchants?” the hunter asks, his voice thick with the accent of a northern homesteader. “I haven’t heard anything about marchants. I’m talking me animals. Dogs – hunting dogs, well trained. Three gone missing in the dead of night, no trace of em. There’s something out there, something what comes down from those cursed Mounds.”
The Mounds. He is speaking of the Lod Mounds, a desolate land of hills and old ruins that lies past the jungle to the north west. “That’s a distance from here,” you comment.
“Aye,” he agrees, pushing fingers through his red beard. “We used to range there, for the game is not much hunted. But evil has claimed that land. Our last hunt me wife and I heard things in the fog. Then the dogs start their yapping and yowling and off they are, nevermind my curses. Of the five that went, only one came back, and him so broken he ain’t good for nothin’ but sitting by the fire now.”
He straightens and looks around him uneasily, as though the trees are listening. “If yer seeking something in the Lod Mounds, then you best avoid the jungle. Take the long way, down the road towards Herdos and then follow the river. It’s what sensible folk do – or would, if it were sensible to go the Mounds in the first place. Evil cannot abide the swift-running waters.”
The disappearance of the dogs sounds disturbingly like the disappearance of the merchants. Close enough that you must investigate. The rest of his advice may be based on myth but is good guidance, nonetheless. The river path is a longer way to the Mounds but a surer one.
Write “Clue: Missing Dogs” on your Action Card.
Do you wish to reveal who you work for to the hunter, in the hopes he may tell you more?
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Feb 19, 2024 04:11
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Apr 29, 2024 04:21
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Feb 19, 2024 17:28
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- moosecow333
- Mar 15, 2007
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Super-Duper Supermen!
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Lets keep yapping
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Feb 19, 2024 20:42
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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Shadows Over Fire posted:You call to the hunter to wait and he does so. His quizzical expression changes to one of shock when you pull down the sleeve of your tunic and reveal the brand. With both hands he makes a gesture, a triangle around his left eye. The sign is quickly dropped, turned awkwardly into a movement of brushing off the knees of his trousers. Some of the small folk of Dessi still know and respect the Order. Fortunately for you, you’ve come across one of these people.
“As I said, a merchant caravan was attacked near here,” you explain. “Only the people disappeared. I’ve come looking for why.”
“I told ya, it's the evil what's taken over the Lod Mounds,” the man says. “More than that, I cannot say. The old spirits have long stopped watching over it, their shrines overgrown and forgotten. All's left are shadows.”
He reaches under his collar and pulls out a simple necklace, a symbol of Ishir, Goddess of Good, High Priestess of the Moon, which he presses into your hands. On it is also carved the runic symbol for “33,” a number that has superstitious importance to some homesteaders of this land. Then without another word he leaves. You watch him go, observing that here was a man, taller and stronger than most, made so afraid by whatever it is you are seeking as to not be able to even speak of it.
Add the Chain of Ishir to your Action Card and make note of the number 33 next to it.
It takes you the rest of the day to hike the long road and then follow the thin branch of the river out to the west. During this journey you will become hungry, and you don't have time to forage enough to appease it. If you do not have a Meal or do not wish to eat it, then lose 3 ENDURANCE. Erase the Meal if you use it.
You hike well into the night until exhaustion forces you to stop. You make a simple pillow out of your backpack and lay down in a clearing, staring up at the darkening sky, listening to the sounds of the river and the songs of insects. The first of the autumn breezes pushes past the palms and jungle growth to run cool fingers down your body. It feels incredible after your long hike.
It does not take you long to fall into a peaceful sleep.
Endurance: 20/23
Dawn comes slow, the sun stretching out its golden arms to drive away the night. Rain fell for half the night, leaving the jungle steamy and humid under now clear, hot skies. You wince as you uncurl from your position and begin your morning routine of stretches, doing them three times until your joints and muscles loosen and you feel a little more energized. For breakfast, you have a long draught of water and a handful of nuts and berries you gather in a short walk around the area.
You continue to hunt for useful items to eat or craft throughout the morning and can add one of the following to your Action Card:
- Meal (which will stave off hunger)
- Healing Poultice (restores 4 ENDURANCE after combat, gone after one use)
- A Torch (which you fashion out a large branch and the oil of a certain leaf)
By mid-morning you have broken through the treeline and stare out across a drab landscape of muddy valleys and hills, stacked nearly on top of each other until they become sharp peaked mountains rising out of the steamy fog many miles to the north. Before you lie the Lod Mounds, a fallow land where weeds and scrub grass provide most of the color and only thick-thorned blackberries thrive. Only in the deep valleys do trees flourish and then they are old, ominous behemoths, who greedily gobble up the sunlight before it ever reaches the valley floor. It is spoken by the people of Dalobu that the hills are cursed, though none can agree who or what cursed it.
- Did we find a Meal, a Poultice, or a Torch?
- Shall we head north, toward the mountains, or west, toward the valleys? (Facebook went north)
Equipment:
- Two Short Swords
- Backpack
- Flint and Tinder
- Waterskin
- Blanket
- Torch
- Chain of Ishir ("33")
Tiggum fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Feb 20, 2024
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Feb 20, 2024 03:00
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- Decoy Badger
- May 16, 2009
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Poultice since skipping a meal is traditionally just 3 EP lost.
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Feb 20, 2024 21:54
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Meal, North
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Feb 20, 2024 23:30
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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Shadows Over Fire posted:
Between the hills lie deep valleys and it is towards these that your path now wends, though to call the partial track made by boar and other game a “path” is being overly generous.
In the valleys of the Lod Mounds life has found a way to survive. The blackberries still reign supreme but they share the land with old oaks and gnarled cedars pitted with holes and glossy with their own bleeding sap. Crows hunker in their hoary branches, watching your passage as you weave your way through the trees for hours while the sun rises to its zenith.
Your usually unerring sense of direction fails you in a mist wrapped grove at the edge of a trickling stream. You replenish your waterskin and look around for a place to rest, finding a tall flat stone clenched by blackberry brambles and stained black from the berries. You grip a handful of the vines, watching out for the thorns, and yank them away, sending a flurry of crows cawing into the sky. Underneath the debris is revealed the carved face of a grinning wolf. It is an old prayer stone, a totem dating back to a time when Magnamund’s gods were more numerous. Every lake had a spirit, every grove a protector. This one depicts a wolf standing on its hind legs and holding a bowl out for supplication.
You are hungry. If you do not have a Meal or do not wish to eat it, then lose 3 ENDURANCE (erase the Meal if you eat it).
- Should we eat our meal or offer it to the wolf god (and lose 3 EP)?
- Shall we go in the direction the wolf totem is looking or follow the stream?
Endurance: 20/23
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Feb 21, 2024 03:27
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- Decoy Badger
- May 16, 2009
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Offer the treat and follow the totem.
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Feb 21, 2024 04:11
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Offer the treat and follow the totem.
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Feb 21, 2024 05:13
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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Shadows Over Fire posted:You leave your meager offering in the wolf’s bowl and bow your head. For lack of any other prayer, you repeat a mantra you’ve heard before in the Order: “Father Day and Mother Night, always watching. Light my way to the hearth at the end of the road.”
It is a grim prayer, yet it feels appropriate.
Erase the Meal from your Action Card. Put a checkmark by your name but don’t forget to also remove 3 ENDURANCE for forgoing eating.
Endurance: 17/23
For the rest of the day you explore the valleys. When night arrives it does so swiftly, the hills drawing a blanket of shadows over you so dense that you are forced to stop and wait for the stars to appear before continuing. Thankfully, the moon is near full tonight and the land around you is soon painted with Ishir’s silver shine. Presently you resume walking, your mind and body tense with a precognitive confidence that you are heading in the right direction.
It is around midnight when you come to the hole. It is wide and gaping, easily large enough to swallow a person whole. Its edges are ragged rumps of soil as though this were a boil that burst, leaving the skin around it scarred. Ridges carved into the walls of the pit seem deliberate, as if an attempt was made to form a ladder, though how far down it goes is impossible to tell for beyond a few feet the pit is layered with an obfuscating veil of darkness.
Suddenly you hear cries for help. It is the voice of a young boy, pleading with you to come down into the hole and rescue him. When you call out, asking who he is and how he came to be stuck in the hole, he only cries the louder.
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Feb 22, 2024 03:34
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- moosecow333
- Mar 15, 2007
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Super-Duper Supermen!
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Let’s leap without looking!
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Feb 22, 2024 03:39
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Use the Torch
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Feb 22, 2024 04:08
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- achtungnight
- Oct 5, 2014
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I get my fun here. Enjoy!
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We Have a Torch and We Wish to Use It.
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Feb 22, 2024 05:54
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- Toplowtech
- Aug 31, 2004
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Feb 22, 2024 11:05
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- Decoy Badger
- May 16, 2009
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We Have a Torch and We Wish to Use It.
WHATAWWTUI.
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Feb 22, 2024 14:50
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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First, a small piece of news:
Ben Devere posted:I added and rearranged some sections. Section 85 is no longer the end!
Shadows Over Fire posted:Green-and-gold winged moths beat soft wings against your cheeks, drawn by the light of your torch. You hold it over the hole, thrusting it forward as far as your arm will carry it. The gloom pulls back and now you see what it was hiding.
Spiders. Dozens of thick bodies covered in gray fur crawl over each other in their haste to escape the light. What you took to be a wall they were climbing over shifts and you realize it is the bulk of their gigantic eight-legged mother. The creature turns itself until its eight glowing red eyes are staring up at you. Fur-tipped fangs spread open above wiggling chelicerae and the spider – easily twice the size of a horse – speaks in the boy’s voice: won’t you come and save me please?
She climbs the wall swiftly, her children clinging to her back. All the while the boy’s sobs you heard earlier dribble from her open maw. Leaping away from the pit you drop the Torch and draw your weapon. (Remove the Torch from your Action Card.)
You are in combat with a mutant arachnid. If you have a Shortbow then you may erase an arrow every round of combat to ignore taking any damage or Poison because you are able to stay out of the Spider’s reach. If you are using Short Swords, add 2 to all damage you deal.
Gray Hyena Spider: ENDURANCE 20
pre:Number Picked You lose... Enemy loses...
1-3 3 (Poison) 0
4-7 2 (Poison) 5
8-0 0 8 quote:Ashen Poison: Mark Poison on your Action Card. If ever you mark your fourth Poison, you instantly die.
Gray Hyena Spider: 20
We roll: 9
Tetha: 17
Gray Hyena Spider: 10
We roll: 3
Tetha: 14 (Poison 1)
Gray Hyena Spider: 8
We roll: 9
Tetha: 14 (Poison 1)
Gray Hyena Spider: 0
Shadows Over Fire posted:Your last blow punctures one of the arachnid’s octadic eyes. It shudders and makes a strangled sound deep in its gullet, pleading with you in the young boy’s voice to help, please help. Then, legs kicking, it rolls sideways into the hole and disappears.
Backing away, you turn and run from the hole in a blind panic. For several minutes you run until exhaustion pumps awareness back into your mind. You slow down, catch your breath and silence your nerves, picturing a flame burning away your fears, a mental exercise taught to you by Nessa. As you do, you speak aloud: “Though the light may blind me, never will my eye be more than half-lidded. Though the fire may burn me, never will I turn from it.”
It works and soon enough you are breathing normally and able to regain your control and continue on.
Deeper into the valley you come across a place where the trees are slumped over like people struck by disease and sorrow. A path of these stunted trees leads to an archway made of stones the color of a starless midnight, all that remains of what must have once been – judging by the arch’s size – a fortress or maybe a cathedral. No other sign of the structure remains, not even two rocks set atop one another. The entire area is choked by brambles. No berry nor fruit clings to these gnarled vines, only razor-sharp thorns. Looking closer, you see the husks of small animals caught in the wrap of briars, their lifeless bodies impaled on the thorns.
As you approach the archway, your gut tightens and you pause. Your forearm is burning as if the brands there were fresh received and you can hear whispers which dart away from you every time you turn your head. Still, you are the flame, that which is meant to expose darkness. Ghosts and whispers may turn aside a regular warrior but they will not stop you. Indeed, they are like a beacon, telling you that you are close to what you seek. You pass under the archway and ignore the twist in your gut as you explore the area.
The brambles all come together in a mighty clump over a jutting rock. Curious, you draw closer and your tuned senses pick up the slight whistle of wind passing beyond the holes in this gnarled barrier. This alone alerts you that the brambles are disguising the entrance to some sort of cave or tunnel. All of your instincts tell you that what you seek is beyond this doorway. Yet as you reach out to clear the obstruction, the vines move, whipping up from the ground and slashing at you, the thorns like a hundred daggers wielded by assasins intent on your demise.
If you have a Torch then you light it now and wield it in one hand (erase it from your Action Card); as a result, add 2 to all damage you deal this combat.
Druidic Nettle: ENDURANCE 9
pre:Number Picked You lose... Enemy loses...
1-3 3 1
4-7 1 2
8-0 1 4
Druidic Nettle: 9
We roll: 9
Tetha: 13
Druidic Nettle: 5
We roll: 6
Tetha: 12
Druidic Nettle: 3
We roll: 9
Tetha: 11
Druidic Nettle: 0
Shadows Over Fire posted:You manage to cut away enough of the brambles to jump through the hole, the spiked tendrils whipping madly at your back as you escape.
An uneven tunnel stretches out before you, carved out of hard dirt and supported by thick wooden beams, making you feel like you are in a mine. The ground is rocky and broken and you would have no hope of traversing it in the dark. The thinnest slice of moonlight falls inside the tunnel entrance.
Ahead out of the tunnel comes a low grinding, like stone cracking or the growl of a terrible beast that has nursed its hunger for an aeon. You pause, steeling yourself to blindly traverse the blackness ahead. Then you see, by the thin light afforded you, an ancient torch hanging in a sconce along one wall. You grab it, though your hopes that it will light are slim. The oil has long dried, it is true, but the twine wrapped around its top is drier still and after diligently working at it for a bit with your flint and tinder it catches. To your surprise, it flares up brightly, burning unnaturally hot in a way that suggests there is possibly magic at work here, maybe an undetectable alchemical compound.
The light shows no immediate danger and so you progress forward, caution slowing every step.
Light in hand, you follow the passage, which used to have branching paths that are now choked with collapsed earth and rocks. The deeper you go and the more of these cave-ins you walk past the more claustrophobic you become until you are yearning for a breath of fresh air or a sight of the night sky.
Abruptly the tunnel bends at a right angle and past this there is a fifteen-foot pit, about the limit of your jumping ability. From deep within the pit comes a sudden flash of green light which travels up the walls like a wave. Before it disappears, you see skulls, hundreds of them lining the walls. Most appear to have belonged to animals of some kind, though you spot at least one grinning human visage among them. Voices drift up out of this unexpected well, just the barest whispers. Past the pit the tunnel goes on and the ground becomes noticeably smoother.
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Feb 23, 2024 03:50
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- Decoy Badger
- May 16, 2009
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Green light is healing, right? Climb in.
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Feb 23, 2024 14:14
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Flashing green lights, tons of skulls, mysterious whispering voices? Sounds great, let's climb down and have a look.
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Feb 23, 2024 14:28
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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Shadows Over Fire posted:Pushing past a feeling of revulsion, you find grips in the eyes and nose sockets of the various skulls, using them to aid your descent into the hole. You are forced to leave your torch behind but you are not left in darkness for long. Green fires ignite in the eye sockets and open mouths of your handholds, casting a sickly light upon your face. You begin to hear the whispers again, only now they are all around you. They rise in pitch and insistence, worming their way into your brain until red dots begin to appear in front of your eyes and your chest becomes constricted. You shut your eyes and struggle to hang on, aware that you are being subjected to a vicious psychic attack.
Pick a Random Number. If you have the Chain of Ishir, pick two numbers and use the higher result. If your name is Tetha, add 1 to the number. If you have Rope, add 1.
- 0: You are unable to hang on and lose your grip, falling in stunned silence to your death.
- 1-4: Lose 4 ENDURANCE.
- 5 or higher: Lose 2 ENDURANCE.
If you are still alive after this then you realize the voices have all gone silent. You are in another tunnel with the hole open above you, though you do not recall when your climb ended. No skulls line the walls here. Instead a red glow comes out from beyond the bent and splintered wood of an old door just ahead of you. You grip the wide iron ring handle and pull it open.
We roll: 5 & 3 + 1 = 6
Endurance: 9/23
Beyond the door is a chamber made of stone blacker than dreamless sleep, giving you the unsettling impression the room never ends. An iron cauldron, gray and rusted, is bubbling over a roaring fire in the center of the room, green and purple liquid sputtering out like a breaking pustule. Red smoke rises from the fire and pools at the top of the room, escaping slowly through unseen vents.
Out of the cauldron run thick tubes made of animal gut, like engorged worms, slopping over the cauldron’s sides and snaking across the floor to four tables, three of which hold people: two women and a young man. They are dressed in soiled clothes meant for road travel but finely woven with rich materials, the clothes of well-to-do caravaneers. On their faces have been placed strange animal half-masks, leaving their noses and mouths exposed. The tubes run up the tables and are shoved into their open mouths, their throats convulsing around the thick, semi-translucent guts. You have found the merchants.
"Animals... animals in purpose if not in form,” a high-pitched voice says from the shadows. Its owner steps out of the depths of the room and draws near the cauldron, grinning at you. He is a specter of a man, far too thin with long spindly arms emerging from the sleeves of his tattered purple robes. He is bald as a baby without even eyebrows to arch over his wide bulbous eyes. His thin lips crease into a greasy smile that doesn’t move a single other muscle on his face.
“Your timing could not be more perfect,” a second voice says, this one wet and lispy. Another man emerges to stand next to the first, his face made red and demonic by the fire but otherwise so similar in appearance to the other that they have to be twins. He licks his glistening lips with a thick tongue. “We lost one recently, as you can see, so we have a vacancy for you.”
“Yes,” the other agrees. “We’ve been a little sloppy. These animals have been exposed to a horrible infection, I’m afraid. No telling what’s been let free in the world now that one escaped.” He makes a mockery of a frown then bursts into a fit of giggles.
“We will rectify our mistakes,” the other twin lisps, raising a hand to his heart solemnly, the fingers resting there like those of a skeleton. “And that’s why you’re going to have to stay here with us – in quarantine – until we can fix you.”
In response you ready your weapon and the Twins gasp – not with fear but with delight. The one who just spoke raises his thin hand and points. “Brother, look at her mark. She is of the Order, one of the Flame. They do still exist.”
“The Künae smile upon us,” the other says, voice quivering with excitement. “Our old enemy still lives for us to torment. We shall have our revenge.”
Like embers sprung from a fire-heated pit, the stories of the high priests of the Cenerese who decimated your Order two centuries ago leap into your mind. You now confront those same priests – every instinct and intuition tells you this is so – but you are given no time to come to terms with this overwhelming revelation.
“Children, seize her!” the Twins command simultaneously and as though rising from their graves the merchants groan and step with naked feet onto the stone floor, pus-colored drool dripping from around the tubes still stuffed into their mouths. They surround you, some with hands balled into fists, others wielding crude knives and scalpels snagged from the tables. Behind their masks you can see that their eyes are completely black, like an overfull inkwell. They are innocents in all this, their minds trapped by the workings of their insane captors.
Suddenly there is a growl and something large and incandescent darts past you, leaping at the cauldron. When it strikes it, the pot explodes. You step away from the boiling liquid, lifting a warding hand against the rush of steam. When again you lower it, you see the merchants all lying on the floor amid pools of the disgusting liquid, limbs sprawled, blood running from their mouths where the tubes have been ripped free. You can tell in a glance they are dead.
Red light flares to life, revealing the Twins, each of them holding a free-floating flame in one hand and vicious daggers in the other.
“She destroyed our experiment, brother,” one of them lisps, spittle flying from his lips in rage. “The worm is dead.”
“There is one yet free, the one that was inside the husband,” the other says, his own voice sharp as a wasp’s sting. “We will find it. After we teach this woman a lesson.”
They advance but hardly have they taken two steps when the light returns. This time its shape is clear: it is a shimmering wolf, huge in size, a growl rising from its throat. At first you think it is a conjuration of your enemies but then the creature steps to your side and you recognize the markings around its face – it is the same wolf that was carved into the totem you left the offering at. A single look from the wolf calms your guilt – the merchants were beyond saving, the look says. Instead you are filled with fury at the ones who captured and tortured them.
“Together, then,” you say, and with the wolf at your side, you rush forward to attack.
You are in combat with The Twins. Every round after picking a number you can decide to either double the damage dealt to the enemy or half the damage dealt to you, due to the assistance of the wolf. If you have the Chain of Ishir then once during this combat you may re-pick your Random Number, keeping the second result.
The Twins: ENDURANCE 40
pre:Number Picked You lose... Enemy loses...
1-2 8 4
3-5 6 5
6-8 4 6
9-0 2 8
Tetha: 9
The Twins: 40
We roll: 3
Tetha: 6
The Twins: 35
We roll: 8
Tetha: 4
The Twins: 29
We roll: 1 10
Tetha: 2
The Twins: 13
We roll: 7
Tetha: 0
The Twins: 1
Well, that was close. Shall we try the fight again or skip it and carry on as though we won, or go all the way back and start the adventure over?
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Feb 24, 2024 03:43
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Try again!
It looks like our biggest mistake was not ignoring the calls of help from the “boy”. If we fail again can we rewrite history and try ignoring the obvious trap?
nelson fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Feb 24, 2024
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Feb 24, 2024 04:15
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- Xarn
- Jun 26, 2015
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Skip
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Feb 24, 2024 14:11
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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Shadows Over Fires posted:You are in combat with The Twins. Every round after picking a number you can decide to either double the damage dealt to the enemy or half the damage dealt to you, due to the assistance of the wolf. If you have the Chain of Ishir then once during this combat you may re-pick your Random Number, keeping the second result.
The Twins: ENDURANCE 40
pre:Number Picked You lose... Enemy loses...
1-2 8 4
3-5 6 5
6-8 4 6
9-0 2 8
Tetha: 9
The Twins: 40
We roll: 9
Tetha: 7
The Twins: 26
We roll: 9
Tetha: 5
The Twins: 10
Shadows Over Fire posted:“Brother, save me!” the twin with the lisp cries, as you force them back with a masterful feint and counterattack. He is up against one of the black walls and you position yourself to end him in one final stab. But then his brother snarls and throws the flame in his right hand at you. You leap aside but the flame turns in mid-air, following you. There is no chance to avoid it.
A moment before it strikes, the wolf jumps at you, pushing you down and taking the blow meant for you. The magical flame roars and the wolf’s shining coat burns and blackens as the flames engulf it.
Go, little flame, a voice says in your head. I have opened the path for you.
As the voice says this, part of the wall nearest you dissolves into mist and beyond it you see a tunnel. The wolf, now completely engulfed by the magical fire, turns from you and rushes back towards the Twins, who receive it with their twisted daggers raised high.
Go! the voice repeats, now a command. And you obey, rushing past the new opening, hearing the final, sorrowful howl of the wolf and over it the curses of the Twins:
“We will find you and your brethren,” they shout in unison. “We are coming to quell the flames of your fire!”
Darkness is all around you now, the only sound the slapping of your boots on the stone and the panting of your labored breath. A door looms up sudden and unexpected around a dark twisting turn and you have no time to slow your momentum. Thankfully, it is old and rotten and you crash through it, breaking into a long tunnel draped with vines. Beyond them you can smell fresh air and see the glint of dawn. You keep running and finally emerge into the open air. Rarely has the sun’s early light felt so embracing. But you stop only to take one deep breath and then you are running again, heading south-east for Dalobu.
For over an hour you run, slowing at times but never stopping, until the Lod Mounds are far behind you and you are once again surrounded by the lively animal noises of the Kantara Jungle. Even then, you push yourself until you no longer can, finally collapsing on tall grass in the middle of a clearing. Here you lose your senses for a time, pulled into a dreamless sleep born of exhaustion.
A soft nuzzling at your ear awakens you. You come awake with a start, leaping to your feet in a panic and badly startling the deer that accidentally mistook your ear for a bit of grass. It gives a panicked honk and leaps away, darting back into the jungle. You stare after it numbly, trying to reconcile this comical yet graceful sight with the horrors you have faced.
Then a shocking pain rips through your right leg.
Stepping out into the clearing is a huge man with bright red hair and beard, wearing the garb of a trapper. You instantly recognize the kindly – if frightened – man you met the other day while hunting for clues along the highway. If only then you had known what terrors awaited you in the Lod Mounds.
You are about to call out for aid when you see the man’s eyes. Before, they were a rich chestnut color. Now, they are completely black without any pupils, like a doll’s eye. A chill shakes your body as you recall the words of the Twins: These animals have been exposed to a horrible infection, I’m afraid. No telling what’s been let free in the world now that one escaped.
Your former acquaintance lifts his hands, fitting an arrow to a massive longbow – an arrow that matches the one he just fired into the meat of your leg. With a cry of pain, you force yourself to your feet and continue running, every step feeling as though it is tearing not only your leg but also your sanity apart.
“I shall know no pain but the pain of the flame,” you gasp, trying to burn away your pain with the words, yet there is little need to summon fire. It is already here. Fever is settling in over you, brought on by shock.
You could not say for how long you run. When the trees end at last and you see the stony byway, you are so muddled that at first you think you have found a river and you fall down the embankment gratefully, hoping to douse yourself in its chill. But only the bite of the stones greets you, bloodying your chin where you strike them.
There you lay, feeling the road warm underneath you with the heat of the sun. Despite the pounding of your heart and the pain in your leg, the day is peaceful. You can distinctly hear the songs of different birds, making harmony with each other. Then the music is broken by the clattering of approaching wheels. It draws you back to your senses as you raise your head and see a carriage drawing close. At first you think it an illusion, for it appears to be a duraba, one of the trading wagons of the Vassagonian people, essentially a small decorated home on wheels. It is a strange sight to see on the highway when the borders with that desert country are closed by war. But it continues to come closer and now you can see the driver, his sun-kissed skin and fine desert features, and hear him singing loud enough to drown out the birds:
Though my ship was lost with all her crew,
And I cursed by fate and fortune, too,
I set my hands to build another,
And hunt the man who’d betrayed my mother.
The simple song brings tears to your eyes, not because it is well versed or well sung but because it is a sign of normal, happy people going about their lives without knowledge of the things that crawl in the dark places just under their noses. Nessa was right, there is a shadow over the fire. And if it goes out, all pleasant things may die with it.
The fever is coming on again. Your thoughts are becoming confused. You push yourself to your feet, cry out against the pain, and then in the next breath call out for the duraba to halt. You limp for the wagon and its shocked driver, trying to keep your story straight in your head but all that comes, borne on a wave of fear, are the same words over and over: “Nessa must be told, the Twins have returned, the Order must be told.”
The man leans back and knocks on the roof of the cabin, calling to whomever is inside to “Better come take a look at this.”
The door to the carriage opens and someone steps out.
This is where we leave Kelidrassi, at the edge of death on the road to Dalobu, her lips still carrying the message.
Did she deliver the warning? Were your efforts in vain?
This is not the end of the story. "Shadow Over Fire" has been a prelude to a new adventure featuring a fascinating new character in the world of Magnamund.
Criminals spit her name like a curse. Veterans speak it before battle to bring them luck. Courtiers are told of secret places they can leave a list of their rivals and, if they are deemed worthy, she will come for their enemies in the night. Old sages whisper, to find that which is lost — you need only seek The Huntress.
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Feb 25, 2024 02:44
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- Tiggum
- Oct 24, 2007
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Your life and your quest end here.
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The Huntress: Book One
Marked for Death
Written by Jonathan Stark. Illustrated by Gary Ward.
Marked For Death posted:The Story so Far...
In Vassagonia, there is a saying:
"Two things surely will curse you: the keeping of a secret and the seeking of a secret."
In your case, you are doubly cursed, for the secret you seek is your own.
Eight years ago you wandered out of the great Dry Main clad in a bloody and torn surcoat and collapsed at the edge of Nezhi, a village surviving on a thin strip of habitable land nestled between the river Khorda and the burning sands. Blood covered your body, most of it your own, flowing from a terrible wound across your chest. You were found by two children who alerted the village healer. Under the ministrations of this kindly old man you slowly recovered your strength but your memories were lost. You do not recall the blade that cut you, nor the adversary who wielded it. No history or sense of belonging was yours to claim.
Since that time, you have taken up bounty work, traveling across all of Magnamund, lending your sword-arm to those who can afford it. You have aided in the capture of many criminals, been bodyguard for highborn, and have even tracked and brought to heel the occasional monster. Your reputation has prospered and though no trace of the person you may have once been has returned to you - not even your name - a new persona has grown in its place. You have become known to your clients as The Huntress.
Years on Magnamund are measured against the creation of the Moonstone, a legendary artifact of the mystical Shianti. The year is now MS 5000, five thousand years after the creation of the Moonstone. You are spending the last days of summer in the city of Toran on Sommerlund's northern coast, famous as the location of the Guildhall of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. You are ending a period of rest afforded to you by a very successful bounty captured in the Wildlands, and are now turning your sights to the war-torn kingdoms of the south where you are sure to find work to carry you through the colder seasons.
However, just as you are about to board the coach that will carry you the long miles to Varetta you are approached by a young page. He presses an envelope into your hand and then disappears back into the crowd without a word. Curious, you open it to find a message written in beautiful handwriting in golden ink:
Meet in an hour's time-Haert Manor.
On the back is scrawled another message, one that makes your palms sweat and your heart race. You call over the coachmaster and show them the letter, asking if they know where Haert Manor is. The coachmaster spits and backs away, making the sign of warding across his chest. "Burn that letter," the stout man insists. "The Haerts are cursed."
"What do you mean, cursed?"
"All that have dealings with them come to a bad end," the coachmaster says. "We're about to be off. You'd do well to climb aboard and forget you ever saw that letter."
"You can keep the cost of my ticket, just tell me where Haert Manor is."
"It's bad luck to have an empty seat in a coach," the man says.
"Then save it for my ghost," you say.
The coachmaster hesitates but he knows he will not be able to fill your spot before he is due to leave. Finally, greed wins out over fear and he gives you an address in a wealthy part of town, along Laumspurr Lane. Then he turns away, mumbling something about fools, but your own thoughts are on the back of the letter and the brief message printed there. They are words that would convince you to go into the halls of Naar himself:
Help me and I will give you the key to unlocking who you are.
Our Endurance is set at 25 in this book rather than being randomly generated. The combat still uses the same system as Lone Wolf (although there are slight changes to the Combat Results table) but doesn't use Combat Skill; instead, we're told each time what the Combat Ratio will be. I'm guessing this may be an effort to fix the balance issue the Lone Wolf books pretty much always suffered from. So our first choice to make is to pick four Hunting Arts from the following twelve:
- Alchemy: Create and identify potions and poisons. Start the game with one potion or poison from the following list:
- Tincture of Larnuma: +3 EP
- Viper's Bite Poison: +2 damage per round for one combat.
- Glow Bottle: Emits bright light.
- Concentrated Acid: Melts locks and other objects.
- Antitoxin: Cures poisons and venoms.
- Skin Crawler Poison: Ignore one round's combat damage.
- 2 Fireseeds: Automatic 4 damage to enemy at the start of one combat.
- Exceptional Awareness: You are a keen observationalist and almost impossible to ambush.
- Wordcraft: Know the right thing to say at the right time.
- Toughness: +4 Endurance. Resistance to poisons, toxins, heat and cold.
- Zantashi: The Perfect Cut: Additional options in combat that can only be used when wielding a sword.
- Salas-Zan: The Cleaver's Cut: Additional options in combat that can only be used when wielding a two-handed axe.
- Denthasi-Kar: Itikar's Talons: The ability to throw daggers.
- Drova Das: Corvayl's Grip: No penalty for unarmed fighting. Additional options in combat.
- Borese Gunner: You have a Borese Hand Cannon and enough powder for two shots.
- Thief's Touch: Can use lockpicks, pick pockets, sneak, and understand thieves' cant.
- Cat's Step: Perform acrobatic feats.
- Mark of the Agarashi: Lost an eye to an encounter with an Agarashi. Ever since, you hear voices whispering around you.
We will gain an additional Hunting Art at the beginning of the next book, but Borese Gunner and Mark of the Agarashi are only available right now. We can't pick them in book two or three. Denthasi-Kar can be used with regular daggers as well as throwing knives. If you pick Alchemy, don't forget to also specify which potion or poison you want to start with.
Next is equipment. We start with 2d10 Gold Crowns (7 + 3 = 10), a Flint and Tinder, a Backpack, and one weapon: a longsword, an axe, or a dagger. We also get to pick five items from the following list:
- Any one additional weapon
- Meal
- Meal
- Meal
- 5 Gold Crowns
- Torch (takes up 2 spaces in Backpack)
- Lockpicks (requires Thief's Touch)
- Potion of Laumpsur (+4 EP)
- Healer's Kit (Restore up to a total of 10 EP at designated points in the adventure)
- Rope and Pitons (takes up 2 spaces in Backpack)
- Crowbar
- 4 Throwing Knives (requires Denthasi-Kar)
- Leather Satchel (space for 2 additional Backpack items)
- Lucky Coin
Meals work slightly differently in this book; you still lose 3 Endurance for skipping one, but now it's subtracted from both your current and maximum Endurance. Take that into consideration when making your decision.
So the decisions we need right now are:
- 4 Hunting Arts
- Longsword, Axe, or Dagger
- 5 items from the equipment list
List your choices in order of preference.
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Feb 29, 2024 04:34
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- Decoy Badger
- May 16, 2009
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Just going for Garrett with a gun here, since I don't think we've ever seen lockpicks as an option before and there's no bow.
Exceptional Awareness
Cat's step
Borese Gunner
Thief's Touch
Sword
Lockpicks
Healer's kit
Lucky coin
Satchel
Rope
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Feb 29, 2024 05:50
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- Toplowtech
- Aug 31, 2004
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Mark of the Agarashi is too weird not to take. I have no particular opinion about the rest.
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Feb 29, 2024 10:37
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- Guy Fawkes
- Aug 1, 2014
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Lvl 62, +5 meadow defense
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Exceptional Awareness
Thief's Touch
Cat's Step
Alchemy
Longsword
Lockpicks
Leather Satchel
Potion of Laumspur
Meal
Lucky Coin
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Feb 29, 2024 21:00
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Apr 29, 2024 04:21
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- nelson
- Apr 12, 2009
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College Slice
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Toughness
Mark of the Agarashi
Salas-Zan: The Cleaver's Cut
Exceptional Awareness
Axe
Lucky Coin
Leather Satchel
Meal
Meal
Healer’s Kit
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Feb 29, 2024 22:30
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Feb 19, 2024 04:11
