Ogburg sucks! I'm not sure if you can imagine a city dominated by a religion they forced down your throat. The Church was the ruling class, brothels were outlawed, drunkenness was a crime, worship of any other god was a crime and we had to stay there for two weeks! Not my kind of town at all. Myself, Millie, Turok, T'Rojan and Cuhltron all holed up in an inn and stayed off the streets as much as possible. We went out only a couple of times to secure Millie a new horse, and purchase some supplies, Millie also had to get some new armor and I bought some books to read during our voluntary imprisonment.
Culhtron went out and visited with some people on occasion, I really didn't pay much attention to what he did, but the rest of us spent most of our days sitting around the common room playing checkers and trying to keep cool. I hated it. Eventually, our incarceration was lifted when one afternoon, who would walk in the door, but Mordagin and Immilarn.
"Hey look at that, first tavern we walk into and we run into you guys." greeted Mordagin.
"I hate to say this, but I'm actually glad to see you guys. Now we can finally get the hell out of this lame town." I responded.
"Where is everybody else?" asked T'rojan.
"I believe they are on their way to prison." added Immilarn.
"Prison!?!" we responded in unison.
Mordagin then set about describing the situation. Apparently Bran had brought down the wrath of the religiously intolerant law when he healed the wounds of a dying child who had just been run over by a wagon. The rest of the crew, being a bunch of saps, had claimed to be accomplices of Bran and were in custody with him. That group included Bran, Fessick, Grumle, and some dwarf by the name of Forge. Super, we could leave the next day, knowing the rest of the party would be well looked after by the legal system of the Theocracy of Pale. The rest of the group didn't quite share my viewpoint. After much discussion, it was decided that we would see what happened before trying any risky rescue attempt or bribery.
The next day, Mordagin and Immilarn went to the court house to see if they could find out what was being done with our crew of criminals. I did not want to go with them, for fear of having my good name tarnished by associating with criminals. They eventually came back, with the rest of the criminals in fact. The law had gone easy on them, since they had only been practicing the illegal magic, to save a child's life. They had been released after swearing an oath to go and bring in some slave trader to justice, after which, they would be cleared of all charges. Immilarn had been planning on going back with that group, so he requested to serve Forge's punishment for him, allowing Forge to be free to travel with us, northward. The court accepted the offer, as they had need of our services in other areas as well. Forge, along with Mordagin, and any other of Bran's accomplices who did not wish to join him in his slaver hunt, were to escort a recently captured criminal to Wintershiven, the Theocracy's capital, several days journey to the North. Everyone accepted their "punishment" without protest. What's with this justice anyway? Back in my old home of Sanctuary, if you didn't have enough money to pay the judge, you were in deep trouble.
It was decided that Mordagin and Forge would join myself, Millie, T'rojan, Turok and Cuhltron on our journey. Forge was a dwarven warrior priest who had joined up with the rest of the group a week or two ago. Forge, along with a party of fellow dwarves, had been captured, along with the rest of my group, by a gang of gnolls working for a deranged arch mage. After performing in some psychotic chess match, the survivors were free to go. The dwarf's travelling companions had not survived the experience however, so he joined up with our crew. Apparently both the mage and the gnolls were still alive, those guys must be losing their touch.
We quickly set about preparing for our trip to Wintershiven. It had been the next stop in our planned trip anyway, and from there it would be only one short day north and we'd be free of Pale all together. Hopefully the Duchy of Tenh would be a more reasonable place to visit than this god forsaken country. Escorting a prisoner to Wintershiven would be small penance to pay to be clear of this land.
We went and retrieved our charge, some despicable human scum who'd been involved in slave trading. Normally I don't mind criminals, they are often just people who don't have the money to make ends meet, but slavers, are the scum of the Oerth. Preying on the weak, forcing innocent people to become the property of the rich and wicked. Scum, all of them. No don't get me wrong, I don't like murderers, or assassins wither, but I really hate slavers. I think several childhood friends of mine were captured off the streets and forced into slavery. Rudd only knows what happened to them. Personally I'd have just killed this guy outright, but it wasn't my decision. We were to make sure he made it safely to Wintershiven to face trial and execution.
The walls of Ogburg fell away in the distance a we journeyed north. Soon we were out in the open plains, the last farm house, hours behind us. The Slaving Scum started offering us money if we'd let him free. Yeah, like we'd ever see a copper if we let him go. At first we just ignored him, but his pleas got louder.
"How bout I smash your skull in with my hammer?" offered Forge. The dirt bag just sneered at him.
"Hey Mordagin," I asked, "we're supposed to deliver him alive right? But did they say he had to be uninjured as well?"
"Well, no not exactly, but I don't think they want us to hurt him." answered Mordagin. By this time, everyone's attention was on me.
"That's close enough for me" I said, and wheeled my horse about and drew up along the right side of the slaver. He was sitting on his saddle, with hands shackled together behind his back. T'Rojan had the slaver's horse's lead tied to his horse.
"Look here asshole" I said, "I really want to kill you, but I'm bonded to keep you alive. However, no one said I couldn't hurt you REAL bad. The next time you open your mouth, I drop you on your head and that dwarf over there starts busting you up with his hammer. Got it?"
"Fuck you, you half breed fuck!" he replied, staring straight into my eyes. I smiled and slowly reached down grabbed his boot in my left hand and lifted it up dumping him over the other side of his horse onto the ground. "Teach him a lesson, if you wish Forge." I said, wondering if the dwarf would back up his words or if he was all talk.
"C'mon, Stop that!" Shouted Turok, but Forge had not been bluffing, and quick as a rabbit, hopped off his pony and delivered a vicious blow to the Slaver's leg as he tried to regain his feet. The first swing dropped him to the ground, the second one shattered his left leg above the knee. It made a sickening cracking sound and the slaver screamed in pain. T'Rojan looked ill and turned away. I looked to Millie and saw a smile on her face that sent a chill through my body. Cuhltron tried to ignore the entire incident.
"Goddamn, what the hell are you idiots doing?" yelled Mordagin. "Now we have to listen to him screaming in pain for the rest of the trip." Then under his breath, I thought I heard him say "why do I travel with these fools?"
Forge stood over the whimpering form of the slaver, "You want more Scum?" he shouted. "I can break the other one too, if you want a matching set."
I pulled my horse up over the two of them, and looked down "I told you to keep your mouth shut, open it again and it will only get worse. See that woman over there" I said, drawing his attention to Millie, "She used to worship Orcus, and knows more about causing pain than your worst nightmares could ever make you think of. Now get back on your horse, or we'll drag you to Wintershiven."
Forge yelled, "Get up slug!" then grabbed him roughly by the belt and lifted him to his good foot, causing him to scream in pain again, before toppling back over.
"Goddamnit you sick bastards! Heal the man up so he can get on his horse!" yelled Mordagin. "How do you expect him to ride with a broken leg?"
Forge emitted a low growl, and scowled at the mage before bending down to the slaver's side. "Hold still scum!" he said as he put his hands on the broken leg and began to pray. I couldn't see any change, but I knew he was healing the leg. "There, that should allow you to ride your horse, but don't expect any more, you aren't worth wasting Moradin's power on." Forge then walked away and climbed up on his pony.
Turok had dismounted, and stood there, unsure of what to do. The slaver got to his feet, still wincing in some pain, but was able to limp over to his horse. He tried climbing in the saddle, but it was apparent that he didn't have the strength, and having his hands manacled together didn't help. Turok walked over and helped lift him up onto his saddle. The slaver just shot me a dirty look, but kept his mouth closed. Mordagin sat astride his horse, watching the whole scene, apparently quite unpleased with what had just taken place.
"Lets get moving" stated T'Rojan, trying to break the tension.
"Indeed, so we should." repeated Mordagin, staring at me the whole time, then wheeled his horse around and moved up to the front of the group.
The rest of the day went uneventfully, we met a patrol of Pale soldiers coming down the road, heading for Ogburg, but nothing else worth noting. The night went uneventfully as well, though dinner time was quieter than it usually is, as we all kept silent, except for the occasional failed attempts by T'rojan to bring up some inane bit of conversation.
The next morning found us breaking camp quickly and quietly, heading north along the road to Wintershiven once again. We passed through a group of Pale crusaders, nodding as they passed amongst us. We still had a four day ride before we'd reach Wintershiven, hopefully the tension would end before that, as the silence was getting to me, and the geography was damn boring.
Another boring night and day, before the tension was finally disrupted. We had been travelling along the road northward, when we met yet another group of Pale crusaders heading south. Only this time, they weren't really crusaders. Just as we passed alongside them, one of them grabbed the Slaver and pulled him onto his horse, while the others pulled weapons and attacked. I quickly cast a snowball swarm into the bulk of them, Millie charged forward to the attack, and Mordagin followed up the snowball swarm with a web of shadows, inadvertently catching Millie within its clutches along with the enemy. T'Rojan dropped a couple with a color spray, while Forge and Turok jumped from their mounts and pulled weapons to face the attackers. Cuhltron wheeled around behind us, trying to avoid the enemy. In all there were about a dozen attackers.
I went into a rage when I saw a horseman swinging his sword at the defenseless Millie, as she was caught in the webs of shadow. I charged my mount forward and leapt onto the back of the horseman. I pulled my short sword and we battled back and forth, twisting and wrestling, before I was finally able to slip my sword under his rib cage and end the fight. By then Millie had gotten free of the webs, and several bodies of the enemy were laying dead. Only three of the original attackers were still alive, having had the good fortune of being knocked unconscious by T'Rojan's color spray.
T'Rojan had galloped off after the Slaver and his rescuer. We tied up the three enemy survivors, and while doing so, saw T'Rojan leading the horse of Slaver and would be rescuer back towards us. We put our three new prisoners up on horses, and as T'rojan arrived, I sauntered over alongside the freshly recaptured slaver.
"That was brilliantly executed." I said in my most sarcastic tone, "Veerry Nicely done. I congratulate you on your stupidity. Now we have just cause for delivering you in a very injured state. I hope you enjoy hot pokers. Hmm... I think I'll use your body to put out the campfire every night for the rest of this trip." The slaver's face went pale, the confident sneer was gone, he knew he was a dead man now, and if I kept my word, the rest of his short life would be one of extreme pain.
"Just kill me." he asked quietly. "They'll hang me in Wintershiven anyway."
"Indeed they will," added Mordagin, having ridden over to us, "I promise you that I will deliver you and your cohorts here, into the hands of the authorities. However, I'm not sure if I care to keep the others from torturing you, now. That was very stupid of you."
The slug just lowered his head in despair, the rest of the prisoners looked very scared. I turned to address the group of prisoners.
"Well I hate to break the news to you, but your choice in employer has just cost you your lives. Unfortunately for you, you messed with the wrong people. Pray to whatever god it is you pray to, that the court will have mercy on you, because I won't. We have been charged with delivering that scum, to Wintershiven alive." I announced, as I pointed at the Slaver. "We have no such agreement regarding your well being. Any attempt at escape will result in the immediate death of the escapee and one other prisoner chosen at random. So if you want to die, try and escape." With that I turned and rode up along Millie.
"Ran, you're a real hard ass, I didn't know you were such a cruel bastard" she said to me with a smile, could it be pride?
"I'm not, I just don't want to spend every night chasing after some damn fool that wants to escape." I replied. "You think they believed me?"
"Only time will tell."
Either my charisma had improved, or Rudd had smiled on me, for the prisoners never made a single attempt to escape. We were able to make Wintershiven without further incident, and delivered five prisoners, instead of one, over to the courts to face justice.
We grabbed some rooms at an inn and relished a night of real sleep. I was rudely reminded that we were still in the religiously oppressive Pale when the innkeeper, refused to believe that Millie was my wife, and forced us to stay in separate rooms. But a night without having to worry about prisoners escaping, or being attacked by a herd of trolls made for the best rest I'd had in a week. I didn't even bother getting up and sneaking into Millie's room, hopefully she wouldn't take that as an insult.
The next morning we all gathered around the breakfast table, later than normal, and decided that we would stay here in Wintershiven for another night. We'd leave the next day for the Duchy of Tenh's capital Nevrond Nevnend. We'd have to cross the Yol River, then skirt past the Troll Fens, Phostwood and a stretch of the Griff Mountains to get there. From all accounts, it would not be a safe journey and should take us about a week on horseback. >From Nevrond Nevnend, we'd make our way to Calbut, a three or four day journey, which would be our last stop before heading into the wilderness of the Griff Mountains, and possibly even on to the Corrusk Mountains. An extra night's rest wouldn't hurt us.
Later that day, we were called in to meet with Bednaran, the Captain of the Guard, who we'd turned the prisoners over to yesterday. I feared that we were to be punished for our harsh treatment of them, but since they didn't send along a contingent of guards, I felt it more likely that we were going to be be paid a reward. We arrived at his office, and he ushered us in, it turned out that he had a little problem, just across the border into Tenh, that he wanted us to take care of.
A hoard of orcs had been crossing the Yol River about once a week and wreaking havoc on small villages, even ambushing and killing a border patrol in their sleep one night. It had been estimated that the hoard of orcs was sizeable, approximately fifty strong, and that they made their camps on the other side of the Yol River, within the confines of Tenh. The Troll Fens are also near by that area, Bednaran claimed that the Duchy does little in the way of patrolling that area, as it is extremely dangerous. He also speculated that the Duchy of Tenh may have some type of arrangement with the orcs where they don't bother them, so long as they raid into Pale. Bednaran based this hypothesis on the fact that the orcs were using canoes, of a variety commonly found in Tenh, to cross the Yol River to make their raids. In any event, since he couldn't send an expeditionary force into Tenh to deal with the problem, he offered to pay us 100 gold per left orc ear, if we were to take care of the problem. He also stated that he wanted to see at least fifty ears, or he would consider our mission a failure, and wouldn't pay us anything.
Forge immediately started drooling on himself, "YES! We will KILL orcs.! Thank you Moradin for blessing me with this treat. I am forever your faithful servant."
I looked sideways at him and whispered to Mordagin, "Are you sure this guy isn't related to Kordacc?"
Mordagin just shook his head, "I'm beginning to think they're all like that."
"Great!" said Bednaran, "I have a scout, Sarantago, who will show you where to find the orcs. He is our best tracker, and will surely lead you to your quarry."
We agreed to the terms and planned to meet
the scout the next morning at our Inn and begin the journey.
"Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy!"
We met Sarantago and journeyed out of Wintershiven on a warm and wet morning. It had been raining lightly the night before and hopefully would not start back up again. Only Cuhltron stayed behind, not being a man of violence, and whining that we were always wasting time by getting sidetracked at the first opportunity. We ignored him of course. We made our way across the Yol River on a ferry, bringing our horses along with us. The scout then took us eastward along the river, hoping to intercept the tracks of the Orcs where they went across the river.
We traveled slowly for the rest of the day. Not one sign of Orcs. Not one sign of anything but a horses ass swaying hypnotically in front of me. I spent most of the day in thought, my mind wandering over past events in my life, possible future outcomes, and all sorts of random garbage. We made camp and watched as a river boat went by, heading down stream to destinations unknown. I thought about being on that boat, getting away from here. We were heading north into the teeth of the Griff and Corrusk Mountains as summer fled away for warmer climes like that boat passing us by. Winter set in early up in these parts, and we'd be up to our armpits in snow in a couple of months. I hoped we'd find the Moon Gate before then.
The night passed without incident. Luckily halfway through the next day, we came upon the tracks we had been searching for. Sarantago pointed them out, and Turok easily noticed them. Damn, even I could follow all those orcs, even if the tracks were a week old. Sarantago then parted from us, having assured himself that we could follow the trail from here. He handed us two pair of strangely toothed scissors.
"Use these to cut off the left ear of the orcs, it will leave a jagged edge, so we know you were responsible for their deaths." With that he turned to leave. "I need to get back across the river before night comes, remember, if you get caught, you have no affiliation with Pale." He then left heading due south, straight for the river, I guess he planned on swimming across it when he got there.
We followed the tracks for the rest of the day, leading us north and east, nearer and nearer to the Troll Fens. We finally stopped for the night, not knowing how close we were to the Orcs, but hoping they were nearby. If we continued to travel in this direction for much longer, we'd end up in the heart of the dreadful Fens.
That night, while on watch with Forge, we spotted a light moving among the trees and shrubs a ways off. Forge went to wake the others as I crept off to investigate the source of the light. I followed the glowing light, until I was several hundred yards from camp. At that point I still hadn't gotten a good look at it, but didn't want to get any further from camp, so I turned back. As I made my way back, the light followed me. By the time I got back, the others were awake, and as the light came within sight, Mordagin claimed that it was a Will O'Wisp. We all nodded our heads stupidly, as though we knew what the hell a Will O'Wisp was.
"Its an evil creature that feeds off the energy of a dying soul. Its nearly impossible to injure or kill, but will not attack either. It tries to lure fools into quicksand or into the teeth of a dangerous creature. Had Y'Ranwelun continued to follow it, I'm sure some ill would have befallen him. Perhaps someone else would like to try?" Spouted Mordagin, like some professor of vast and ancient knowledge. I think he'd been hanging around Cuhltron for too long. We all sat and watched the glowing thing flit about for another hour or so before disappearing off into the foliage. Nothing further of note occurred during that evening.
The next morning found us trailing the orc tracks through a wooded area, crossing through some occasional muck, but generally keeping to the dry lands. A couple hours into our journey, and we heard the sound of some creatures moving quickly towards us through the vegetation. Suddenly, not more than 20 feet in front of us, a large cat like creature ran across our path, followed immediately by another larger beast of similar appearance. It was obvious that they were unaware of our presence, that is, until Turok launched a crossbow bolt into the side of one.
"Displacer Beasts!" yelled Turok, as they turned to attack us.
I was in the rear of the party with Millie, and couldn't really see what happened after that, but by the time, I got my horse around to a good position, both creatures were dead. Magic and weapons had made short work of the animals. Hopefully they weren't on the endangered species list.
A couple hours after the displacer beast excitement, we broke from the trees and spotted a wooden fortress standing in the center of a large clearing. There was a large wooden curtain wall surrounding many buildings inside, with a small wooden fortress sitting atop a small hill in the center. We could see the main gateway of the curtain wall, many dark shapes moved about the entrance. Over the fortress, we saw a great many birds circling about. This must be the orc fortress, at least this is where the tracks led.
I dismounted and made my way closer to the fortress, moving among the stumps of chopped trees, and doing my best to stay out of sight. Hopefully the gnomish cloak would help in this open area. Everyone else hung back within the tree line. As I got closer to the front gate, it became apparent that the moving shapes were birds, large birds. As I got even closer, I could clearly see that they were vultures, and they were eating at the remains of what most likely had been a large group of orcs. The gates that once sealed the wall from enemies lay in pieces on the ground, or leaning against the wall. Blackened scorch marks could be seen on the wooden walls as well. The birds flying about the fortress on the hill were mostly crows, along with the occasional vulture. What the hell had happened here?
I went back and informed the party of my find. We all jumped on our horses and rode up to the gate. The vultures grudgingly gave way to our horses as we passed through the demolished gate. The horses were skittish as they had to step on the bodies of dead orcs to get through. Looking down, we could see that at least some of the orcs had their left ears removed. Inside the wall, we saw many wooden buildings and huts. The fortress looked unoccupied, except for the occasional form of a dead orc and its carrion eating guests. We circled about the entire encampment, taking note of any buildings of interest. As we passed a large barn, we heard horses snickering inside. There were three horses still in stalls, all the others, as this barn looked like it could hold twenty or more, must have escaped or be off somewhere else.
We looked about further, and noticed that a hole had been made in one side of the inner fortress. We climbed the hill to investigate. It looked like some kind of acid had eaten through the wooden wall, leaving a hole large enough for a man to walk through. The inner fortress was another rectangular curtain wall with corner towers, with a large wooden building in the center. Between the wall and the building, the ground was thick with dead orcs. Whoever had done this, had wielded some mighty magic, to have dropped so many orcs in one place. Several wild boar were gorging themselves on the flesh of orcs, but paid little attention to us. Crows made the ground look like a moving squeaking mass of black carpet.
We passed through the corroded hole and approached the center building, kicking up flocks of crows as we went. We reached a shuttered window, Turok smashed it open, only to reveal even more dead orcs inside. The fortress was a large one room hall. The charred bodies and blackened walls and ceiling left little doubt that our friend Fireball had paid a visit, either that or a red dragon. I preferred to think it was a fireball. We climbed in and sifted through the bodies. Once again, all the left ears, that weren't burned beyond recognition, had been cut off. However, the cuts were all straight, unlike the kind of cut the scissors we had been given would make. Turok searched about looking for a trap door. He was lucky enough to find one.
"Hey look over here, I found a trap door," he yelled. No one even bothered to look. "Hey, there's a room or something down here." Again no response from anyone. I was kicking through bodies looking for a nice item, maybe a leader would have some nice jewelry or something. "I'm going to go down and investigate." yelled Turok.
"Ok, have fun." said T'Rojan, "I'm getting out of this place."
With that Turok climbed the stairs down into the ground, the rest of us went back to our search. Whoever had wiped out these orcs had cleaned them up of left ears and treasure as well. We decided to leave and look around outside the fortress area. We walked out the front door of the great hall and headed back through the hole in the wall. As we gathered outside, in air a bit fresher than what we had been smelling, Mordagin asked, "Anyone seen Turok?"
We all looked at each other, shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders, "Nope haven't seen him." I said. Where the hell was that half-pig anyway? Just then Turok came out through the hole in the wall behind us.
"Oh there you are." said Mordagin, "where have you been, we were looking for you?"
Annoyed, Turok answered, "I went through the damn trap door, I told you I was going down there."
"What trapdoor?" asked Forge.
"You find anything?" asked T'Rojan?
Dejected, Turok answered, "No, just some old food and water."
We all wandered down the hill and looked inside one of the larger buildings nearby. We were surprised to find that it was a covered entrance to a cave opening. Several mining tools hung on the walls, and some handcarts lay about. A few dead orcs lay around as well, looked like they'd been killed by conventional weapons. At the back of the building, stairs went down into the earth, and a rough rock cavern could be seen leading down into the ground. It was decided that Millie and Trojan would stand watch in one of the fortress towers, while the rest of us would investigate the cave. This would turn out to be a bad idea.
Millie and T'Rojan took up there posts, and the rest of us made our way down, down, down into the earth. The passage was obviously well traveled, but it got skinny in places, forcing us to pass in single file. At last we made it to a large opening. We had entered into a large cavern The floor had been filled in with dirt to level it off, and there were more hand carts strewn about, along with the occasional pick axe and shovel. There were openings to the left and right, we went to the left and passed into a larger opening in the cavern. On the ground we could see more slain orcs. The absoluteness of the slaughter was beginning to disturb me. Had these orcs even drawn a wound from their assailants?
We moved forward, but soon stopped when four large creatures came into view. They looked like five foot around beaked feather balls, on top of four, ten foot long, chicken legs. They came running at us and we prepared to fight.
"Try to hit them in the bodies" yelled Mordagin, "they're also resistant to magic" he added as he unleashed a fireball spell on them. They ran through the plume of flames like it didn't exist, charging right at us.
How the hell did Mordagin know all this crap, I wondered. I knew he'd been studying up on creatures, but surely he wasn't that knowledgeable, he'd only recently begun studying.
As the creatures came in for the attack, I could see that their legs looked like they were made of metal. Obviously the bodies would be better targets than the legs, but how could I reach them, they were ten feet in the air? Turok and Forge swung away at the creatures, I threw up a web spell, trying to catch one or two within it, but it didn't work, the big chicken ran right out of the webs. Mordagin then enlarged Turok so that he could reach the beast with his sword, while Forge ran around one of the chicken's legs trying to avoid its claws.
I waded in with short swords and tried to cut one of the beasts down to size. It was nearly futile, most of my blows rang off the legs of the beast, as I dodged its attempts to claw me. Mordagin kept firing spells at them in hopes to get through their defenses. I noticed one of the beasts dropping to the ground, in seconds I was enclosed in a thick black smoke. It burned my lungs, it was agonizing to breath. I stepped back, trying to regain my breath. It came back, slowly, my lungs still hurting. I saw two of the beasts down, and Turok was attacking another. I continued my assault. Slashing its legs, it had become injured and was limping about as I damaged its legs. Another cloud of black smoke erupted around Turok, as the bird he'd been fighting, let out the gas and ran off. He was coughing and wheezing and fell to the ground. The bird I had been fighting went limping off as well. I had no desire to chase it.
I looked over to see what Mordagin and Forge were doing. Forge was walking around in a circle with an incredibly stupid look on his face. Mordagin was watching him in fascination.
"What the hell happened to him?" I asked.
"Its quite fascinating, isn't it? The smoke those birds discharge is a caustic chemical that burns the lungs and causes those who breath it to lose their minds." said Mordagin.
"Uh, yeah, fascinating, what do we do with the idiot, now that he's an idiot?" I asked.
"Well the affects should wear off in a few hours."
"Great." I then looked over and noticed the enlarged Turok go running into my web spell and become entangled. "Looks like we have two idiots." I said.
"It appears that way, lets tie them up before they hurt themselves." responded Mordagin.
We decided to get Forge first, since Turok was momentarily confined. I dropped him with a sleep spell, then we tied him up. An enlarged deranged half-orc could cause more of a problem. Mordagin reduced him back down to normal size, and when he got free of the web, I slapped him with a color spray. He went down and we were able to tie him up as well. I then went and got Millie and T'Rojan to come and help us drag the unconscious imbeciles out of the caves.
The affects did eventually wear off, but it took several hours and recovery was slow. We decided to get out of the fortress for the night, as it would no doubt attract many visitors from the Troll Fens in search of easy food, so we set up camp just beyond the clearing. That night we heard all kinds of roaring and gruesome noises coming from the area of the orc fortress, but nothing bothered to come near our camp, thank Rudd.
The next morning, all hale as a horse, we creeped back to the fort. The rest of the crew wanted to investigate the caves some more, but this time, everyone was coming. I grudgingly agreed to go back down there. We made it down safely, and began to wander about. We found more dead orcs, but little else. Finally we heard noises coming from nearby. I snuck forward to investigate. Orcs, about ten, mostly women and children huddled in a corner. Four males with pickaxes were sitting with them. They must have hidden here when their clan was being wiped out. I went back and told the others what I found. Turok offered to go forward and parlay with them.
Soon after Turok said hi to the orcs, Forge decided it was time for the orcs to die, and went charging forward, a hammer in each fist. I didn't see what happened, but I had to duck against a wall as a stream of orc women and children went running by. I could hear combat, which was soon over, then Forge came walking back.
"Was that really necessary?" I asked.
Forge looked at me like I had just completely lost my mind, "Of course it was necessary, they were orcs." He had an incredulous look on his face, wondering how I could even think of questioning his actions.
Turok came wandering back, having witnessed some of the recent events. He just looked at me and shook his head. We exited the caves without further incident.
Turok searched the perimeter of the clearing looking for signs of who or what may have caused the deaths of all these orcs. He found a heavy depression of wagon tracks and the prints of six or more horses. We decided to follow these tracks and see where they led us. We traveled for the rest of the day, heading in the general direction from where we'd come. Then again, the only alternate direction would have led us into the Troll Fens, no place for a horse drawn wagon.
That night, we were attacked by a small band of goblins. I slew one, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Around mid-day, we came upon our quarry. We saw a large wagon up ahead. It looked like a small fort on wheels. Alongside it were two men on horses, one man driving the wagon, and a fourth man standing alongside, there were also a few more horses trailing the wagon. As we approached, the men sat waiting for us. An ugly man on horseback, dressed in clothes befitting an unarmed traveler, kicked his mount towards us then stated, "I am Maoder, and these are my Marauders, I assume you have a good reason for approaching us."
"Uh, well, we were just wondering if, uh, you could maybe tell us if you were the, uh, guys, er, um, the people responsible for killing all the, uh, orcs." said Mordagin intelligently.
"Well, yes, I killed all the orcs. Now go away." replied the ugly, and now apparently obnoxious, Maoder.
Turok asked, "Did you cut off all those ears?"
"Do you want to buy some?" asked the man, with a smirk, his comrade on horse back, a half-elf, wearing plate mail armor, let out a bit of a snicker.
"Sure!" piped in Forge, "We'll give you 50 gold pieces an ear."
"Hah! Did you hear that Unirand" said the ugly Maoder, looking back at the man on foot, dressed in splint mail. "these saps want to buy our orc ears for 50 gold pieces an ear."
"Tell them to go back to their mommas, this world is too dangerous for amateur adventurers." Replied the half-elf.
"That it is Fil-Gandel, a dangerous place for the likes of these here." added Maoder, with a most unfriendly look on his face. I was beginning to think he didn't like us.
"Well could you at least tell us who you work for." Asked Mordagin.
"No." replied Maoder.
"Were you hired by Pale?" pressed Mordagin.
"No! Now enough of these games." replied Maoder, "Unless you've got something for us, I suggest you be on your way."
"Just one last thing," asked Mordagin, refusing to give in, "what spell did you use to eat through the wooden wall?"
"If you were any good, you'd know." answered the ever helpful Maoder.
I could tell that there was at least one more individual hidden inside the wagon in addition to the four we were looking at. It was also apparent that our presence was unwelcome, and that these guys could kill us quite easily, so we turned around and headed south.
"Man those guys are a bunch of assholes." said T'Rojan.
"I'd have to agree with you." I said.
We all got in our insults and opinions, but deep down, we knew that a bit of what they were, was who we wanted to be.
It took us a day and a half to get back
to Wintershiven. We were earless, but figured we should tell
Bednaren that the orcs had been wiped out. We fulfilled this small
obligation, then went and found Cuhltron.