Aboard their fiery airship, trying to leave the Mournland, the party had stumbled upon a contingent of the Perpetual Legion at dusk. Ula the half orc had blasted apart the warforged group’s homunculus platform with the ship’s lightning cannon, while Turnin the human monk had been polymorphed into a tyrannosaur for a frontal assault, supported by Comfort the tiefling sorceress and Gnofulk the gnome barbarian.
The battle now over, the human wizard Kylar dismisses the polymorph spell from the airship, and on the battlefield Turnin shrinks to his normal stature, though Comfort is still getting a piggy-back ride that shows no signs of stopping.
Francis the dwarf cleric, retires for his evening prayers.
Ula and Kylar descend to the battlefield using the half-orc’s skiff, and the quintet pokes through the wreckage in the waning light.
Of the warforged… nothing remains. As a dinosaur, Turnin’s jaws had done a number on the warforged baddies, and pieces were scattered everywhere. Oddly enough, the monk still had bits of metal in his teeth, but seemed unbothered by it.
The monk had been mop-up though. The lightning cannon had vaporized several of the other warforged. None would be coming back.
The cannon shot had also rent the tall, walking, homunculus platform in two, the halves having collapses and fallen towards each other. A piece is twisted free for posterity. Perhaps future scrying.
Picking through the wreckage, Kylar ritually casts a spell to detect magic, but finds nothing, and is psychically harmed by the Mournland’s spell twist for his efforts to boot. The party uncovers nothing but mundane weapons from their opponents.
In addition to warforged, the platform held been carrying some cargo, all in a pile, which the party knows to be partially metal. Upon closer inspection, the party discovers that the pile is undecayed corpses (since decay is absent from the Mournland), many still armor-clad. Based on the insignia and markings, the party deduces that the warforged are savaging corpses from the Mournland.
Night has set, and Turnin has seen enough. Still toting Comfort around, the Monk hops back into the skiff, and the party soon returns to the ship. The monk marches right down to the galley to confront the party’s warforged companion, Chef the uh.. chef.
The monk demands to know what the Perpetual Legion would want with bodies. The warforged is disgusted at the thought, but has no grand insight to offer. Chef answers the monk’s questions while working up some pierogi. I mean, muses the warforged, what use could there be for corpses in a dreamworld of magic and DieFi rods?
The party trickles in as Turnin continues to ponder the potential uses of corpses, but the talk goes no where fast. Chef eventually opens up the galley for some evening snacks, hoping the party will take their noms elsewhere, and they do.
Turnin is fascinated with the pierogi, and takes a bowl of it up to the main deck. Gnofulk grabs a bowl of nuts, and descends into the hold to munch with Nutasha. Comfort liked the flying squirrel snuggles, and also heads into the hold with her cornbread and honey. The sorceress is wary to interrupt Francis’ nightly meditations. Apparently brand new to snacking, Ula munches on a raw onion, and Kylar eschews snacking altogether and simply heads down into the engine room to catch up with Kaz the kobold and the wounded chief engineer Montgomery Dwarf.
Snacking doesn’t take long, and soon the party is reshuffling, ready to turn in for the evening.
The fiery airship continues westward, and as they take in a little evening air before retiring for the night, Kylar and Turnin spot the still-idling Ghost Train. A quick survey using Kylar’s familiar doesn’t note anything unexpected. The train still idles. The broken warforged still lay where the party left them… as far as the wizard recalls…
The night passes uneventfully, and Chef whips up some pierogi, eggs and OJ for breakfast. The fiery airship continues on, westward, following the lightning rail back towards Breland.
As ever, the Mournland is desolate. The sky is ever-hazy, obscured by the Dead Gray Mist, which appears, twists, and disappears all over the land. The party has had enough of this spooky glumness. A passing wind whispers the most hurtful things, and most of the crew recoils from some (minor) psychic damage.
They spend the day watching the horizon as the fiery airship meanders over the hills. The path back is slightly different, and a few new things are spotted.
Lounging, Ula sees what looks to be a campsite over a nearby hill. The half-orc keeps this to herself though. It’s high-time the party get out of the Mournland.
Minutes later, what appear to be bodies are seen on another hill. The party decides to check it out, and descends in Ula’s skiff.
The party finds an elf in simple armor, face up. Investigating, they find him stabbed in the back with a small, thin dagger.
Turnin flips over of the other bodies with his staff and gasps. The monk was taken in as a child after the brutal death of his parents at the hands of bandits. He never knew his parents, but he knew a little about their killers; criminals with the gang sign of a Silver Fig Leaf. The dead elf woman has such an emblem. Also her throat has been slit.
The monk is intrigued, and takes the emblem, but the woman is a stranger to him.
The last body is overturned by Comfort, and the tiefling is likewise surprised. It is a large half-orc male, with a huge scar covering the left side of his face. The orc was a young pimp in Sharn when Comfort was starting out, tried to “show her the ropes,” and later killed one of the tiefling’s old friends, in addition to trying to kill Comfort. The sorceress kicks the orc hard. In places.
It’s a little mystery these three corpses. Who knows why they were here.
With one final kick, Comfort wheels around, back to the skiff. The past is the past and if this terrible half-orc is dead, good riddance. The tiefling wants out of the Mournland to heal.
The party soon follows her lead. The trio of corpses is interesting, but not worth investigating more. The party pile back into the skiff, and the day-drunk half-orc Ula brings them back.
The party lounge on deck, keeping watch while they snack away the last few miles. Soon, they will have traversed the Dead-Grey mist barrier again. They’ll be able to rest and heal, and the world of Eberron will then lie before them. They should decide on a plan of action.
They have many places they could go. Specifically, Comfort has some mortuary jewels that could be returned to the ancient elves in the island nation of Aerenal. Generally, they know of an alleged “false” god to be killed in the mysterious continent of Xen’Drik.
However, Turnin’s arguments to return to the Mournland sway the others, though not without great hesitation. The monk still doesn’t know what his abusive friend Skull Buddy could be up to with the nefarious Perpetual Legion, and he really wants to know.
Reluctantly, the party agrees that once they are through the Dead Grey Mist Barrier, and in Breland, they will rest up, resupply, and then return to the dangerous wasteland that is the Mournland…
No comments:
Post a Comment