The Broken Seal (Ayanna)
From Toosigma
| Title | The Broken Seal |
|---|---|
| Author | Philip Mann - Ayanna |
| Campaign | Shattered Prisons |
| Session | The Broken Seal |
| Posted | |
| Game Date |
Malidin found me after the second arrow stuck, and I was grateful because it meant that I would not have been hidden for long from the Aundairians who were trying to recapture me. I also knew that we could not stay and fight, so we moved as stealthily as we could manage through the wood and out of their area while wolves who answered my call for help sacrificed much to allow us to flee. I felt strange though, odd feelings, that Malidin wished to war on the soldiers for what they had done to me. The village welcomed the Aunairians and they posed no obvious threat to the wood, so I could see no reason to attack the once we were distant enough that we were in no danger. He finds it a personal thing that they had hurt me...
We found the halfling that I left by the shore. Thank the Mother that he seemed without additional injury from wandering around the forest all night. Malidin took him into town to get aid, and I returned into the wood to find what I could about the seal. However, I found Pnugre and Keradin to be almost right on my heals...but the ranger's blood-covered speer told a tale I didn't want to hear...he had taken the fight to the Aundairians that had captured me. While he helped to bandage what remained of my injuries, I found that the time it would take to tend them later was not to come. He said we were to talk with Zaarin about the scouting party, but when I asked him about the seal under the ruins his mood changed. The seal itself, while he told me nothing of it, was only one of several. He shook me to get my description and I could not tell him more than I knew. Realizing that, he sent me to check on the seal and report back to him with great urgency, but still he did not explain why...
I ran as fast as my legs and spells could take me, only to run nearly head-long into more Aundairian patrols. They were everywhere, but I had no time...had to get to the ruin again to report for Keradin. I ran around the groups who did not notice my passage. I was in my home, and I knew where to avoid their senses as I would the poachers who come with the snow...I sent a messenger bird with a note for the others to meet me:
Malidin and Marius: Returning to ruin, Keradin says great danger if seal broken, saw Aundairians moving into the wood but could not stop to count, too many...
When I came to the ruin, untended wounds beginning to soak the bandages Keradin applied, I saw aberrations everywhere. I scouted the area trying to count them and there seemed more everywhere I looked. I feared I had been discovered already as no natural creatures stirred...then I saw him...the wolf from my dreams. He was huge...and beautiful. In my mind I could hear a voice, his voice I knew, telling me that the aberrations were too many. He walked through them and they could not see, and he took my wounds from me so I could find the others and bring them to this place.
So I ran back to Silvervale...
Malidin and the others had received my message and were on the way to meet me. I told them what I had seen at the ruin, but did not feel to tell them why I was seeking them instead of waiting; my dreams are of no consequence to them...
With the resources brought by the band from the village, the aberrations on the surface fell quickly. My want to avoid conflict somewhat diminished by my need to complete the task Keradin set for me, I used a spell to grant me a purely destructive weapon the likes if which I have never held: Flame Blade. Even the elemental of earth did not withstand the force of the group, and my friend the dire badger aided in the task...But the seal was already broken...
The beautiful voice from my dream told me that there was another seal inside, and I looked at the tiny space through the wall. I knew I was not alone, so I closed my eyes and squeezed through the crack as I kept focused on the mission I was here to do...
Through the other side, we found a stairway opened to the air all around. Bats flew around and I heard something larger among them. It did not make it past the touch of that Hazairah girl though, which I barely noticed as I was chased to the bottom of the stairs by the rest of the bats. Once down, however, we saw a twisted and evil version of the natural world above. Hideously deformed trees and putrid water, and creatures all mutated as if some desired to negate all of Nature's beauty. Wolves, so beautiful in life, challenged us with their tentacles and hate-filled eyes. Even the great bear that struck that girl down was twisted into a form my heart could barely recognize. Still, even when the bear and wolves were passed, and when we were beginning to believe Hazairah gone, she emerged from what seemed sure death amid the wickedness of this place as if energized by it. She worries me more every day...
We found the room eventually, in the room with walls concealed in the air. We could not see them, but the fountain of horrible water showed us that it was there. Once inside, as if being prepared to walk among the wickedness of the world outside, we found table after table of creatures living and dead. Wolves being twisted and gnomes apparently dead, nothing seemed free of experimentation here. In the corner though, was a floating beast of teeth and eyes that seemed none-too-keen to have Malidin and I near it. It turned...I screamed...
A gnome on a table near us stirred, but our attention was focused far more on the teeth and eyes before us. It attacked with energy from its eyes, and only swift and decisive action by the more combat prone among us saved the moment. But then we had another issue completely...the gnome.
He seemed as confused to see us there as we were to see him moving and without signs of the evil that has infected all of the other creatures here. He spoke plainly enough to me, but the others could not seem to understand him. We spoke and it became clear that he knew nothing that would help us and only wanted to be on his way. I was content to let him go or allow him to follow along with us, but the others seemed to believe him an adversary as surely as anything we might find outside. I could not understand this, nor could I understand the strange staff that he kept waving at the others. He did not seem a threat to me, only reacting as the others were treating him and he was understandably concerned. In retrospect I probably should have been as well, especially after he came with us and showed that the staff-thing was a formidable weapon, but that is not the way I want to live...
The gnome, Brit I discovered, traveled with us instead of striking out on his own. He had many questions about the state of things that I could not answer because I did not understand what he was referencing. Mayhap he had been experimented on and his mind was not quite what it was, but I believe such things would sort themselves out in time. Ioth's suspicions made me curious as he would not allow Brit to walk at the rear of the group. It made no sense to me to keep someone in front who may be unwilling or unable to engage a fight if we find one, and might wish to flee for his own safety. If the latter, he should be allowed to go and return as he alone knows his heart for battle, and I cannot say that I would not wish to flee myself save that I do not believe Malidin or Marius would leave me, so I shall not abandon them...
We eventually found another cavern and progressed along through the horrible water in the darkness. I focused on my mission and simply getting done what Keradin asked of me; I promised myself to not let him down. Even when Marius fell below the water, I knew that I had to go after him if anyone could. I was not hampered by equipment that could be lost or cause me difficulty, and only the hazards of what lay beneath the surface mattered. When I found him, and the others fearing for my safety began to pull me back up, I tore a piece of my dress to give him what aid I could in the form of light. It was not much, but I would be back soon, I knew...
In what seemed like an instant we were all there, battling a creature that seemed as much a part of the water as in it. Horrible screams and row upon row of teeth, and other weapons I'm sure, were brought upon us as a predator defending its home. It fought ferociously until finally it had no more to give and died. Were it a creature of Nature, I would have felt sad, but I could not help but feel we had done the world above a service by ridding it of such an abomination...
We found the inner seal already cracking and guarded by many other aberrations. Our fight was nearly over and we could sense it, but in the balance was what might happen if this seal fractured as the first. Quickly, almost too quickly, the group was fractured and many somehow taken out of the fight. I tried to use tips I had learned by watching the others to help Malidin and was thankful that it seemed to help. I do not know if the apparent leader of the aberrations considered me a threat as I was not attacked so directly as the others, but his departure and the restoration of the seal brought me relief...
...All that was left was to get out of this sofarundergroundthatitcouldcollapseandburyusinwayswewouldbeforgotteneventotime place...
