Day 77: Toilday the 4th, Kuthona, 4707
Today was Jonathan's turn to wake me up, and he did so with coffee and a decent breakfast. Honestly, I don't know why these people put up with me half the time. It's not like I'm really all that useful in the field. I mean I can make fantastic armor and bikes, and even some interesting gear and weapons, but aside from that, I am really just a gun guy that can sometimes pick out the obvious issues and point them out to everyone. I ensured that everyone's bike would be in top condition, and that everyone's armor was likewise in good working order, the least I could do.
We all got mounted up on our horse/bikes, with Jonathan riding on the back of Shalelu's bike again. We took the North Route that will take us up to Fort Rannick. Apparently it continues on to a giant Thassilonian Ruin called Skull's Crossing that is a giant dam that automatically regulates the water level of the massive lake behind it, Storval Deep. I reckoned that if we had the chance, we might go and check that out, so I could see what kinds of marvels this Thassilonian ruin has. Since it was less than twenty miles away, we figured that it would be a nice leisurely drive of about two hours, and that we would get there at about ten o'clock.
We rode up the path until we got to the wooden bridge that crossed the Skull River. As we crossed the wooden bridge, Jonathan heard what he claimed was a yowl of pain from the woods nearby. I didn't like the thought of an animal being in pain, so I figured that we should carefully check it out. We headed in that direction and we shocked to find a firepelt in what looked like the worst version of a bear trap that I had ever seen. Shalelu told us that this animal was well trained and was likely a ranger or druid's animal companion. Shalelu looked to me and I carefully went over to attempted to disarm the trap.
The bear trap was painfully simple to disarm. I don't know if I could have actually failed to get the cat free. The moment the mountain lion got free of the trap it pounced on me, but instead of biting me, it was nuzzling me. Just then, we heard the howls of hounds and the cat tensed. I got Shalelu to get the cat off of me, carefully, and we all got ready to ambush whatever was hunting a ranger's companion. We all figured that whatever it was, wouldn't be pleasant from the whooping and hollering that it was doing as it rushed through the woods with what sounded like a pack of dogs.
I checked with everyone to see if they wanted to do anything to prepare for this thing. Jonathan noted that it sounded fairly big for whatever it was. Faunra smiled and pulled out a scroll, making it look like the forest extended another twenty or so feet past where the trap was, with the great cat in the trap further on. She also had us all hide, and used a second scroll to hide Dame Rebekah. It worked like a charm, a pack of five of the ugliest dogs I had ever seen rushed into the clearing where the firepelt's illusion was there dodging and weaving from the nipping hounds. A deformed man wielding a spear was egging on the dogs to kill the kitty cat. I remembered vaguely that Jonathan had positioned himself in a tree just above where this thing stopped. I can't say that I felt sorry for what would happen to the deformed hunter in any way.
Unfortunately, it wasn't Jonathan who struck first. It was Faunra who invoked her power and launched a barrage of arrows at the degenerate. Even with three arrows sticking out of the thing's chest, it didn't faze it at all. Neither did the nine millimeter that I sent its way with surprising accuracy. Shit, this thing is like Kane's bigger and more inbred brother, no wonder a gun didn't do anything. The ogre-thing gave one look towards Faunra, and licked his lips in a way that even I found disturbing before rushing towards her with his spear. He slammed her with the spear and I could see blood gush out from where the spear jabbed.
Then the first dog ran towards her. She deftly evaded that. Then the second dog charged her. She avoided that too. Then the THIRD dog charged her. She managed to avoid that but it was getting harder. It annoyed me so much that I yelled out that waiting for the perfect moment was going to get Faunra killed. Jonathan took that as his moment, and he dropped down from the tree above the ogre-kin and lashed out with a flurry of attacks with his cestus, dropping the thing and two of his hounds in one go.
Dame Rebekah came up and attacked one of the hounds that were still messing around with the illusion. Cytheria even got in on the fight, stabbing the other with her stinger and making it run for home. I thought for a moment that Shalelu might be the voice of reason for trying to save the dogs, but she put the one who was trying to kill Faunra down in an instant. She noted that the dogs couldn't be broken of the training of ogre-kin. Faunra looked over at the fallen degenerate and noted that she didn't like the way he was looking at her anyway. Then I noticed the blanket. I couldn't tell why but five patches that had been crudely sewn on looked to be important. It was a crest with black arrows. I realized that these were the crests of the warriors of Fort Rannick.
I passed this along to everyone and noted that we should probably find out how they had gotten these crests. Everyone agreed, and we drove off after the dog. It wasn't very long before we caught up with it, and Jonathan put it down with a blast of lightning. Oh yeah, and the firepelt has figured out some way of perching on the back of my bike to allow it to balance and keep up with us. So yeah, that's a thing. We rode down this trail another third of a mile before we came up to very dilapidated farm. The place had an extremely "Hills have Eyes" look to it and we were looking to be cautious.
It didn't work, as we were spotted by what we guessed was the either the brother, or father, or cousin of the one we had just slain. It knocked me so hard that the bike kept going while I stopped. That fucking hurt. I weaseled my way next to the thing and hacked at a very tender portion of it with my machete. I don't know if it even noticed. Jonathan launched a piton at the thing, and it sprouted a pair of burning antlers, but that didn't seem to bother it in the least. It was Dame Rebekah with the finishing blow this time, with a hack across the things back after she baseball slid under a wild swing it had tried to hit her with when she got within arm's reach. The thing collapsed and narrowly avoided landing on me.
After we dispatched this foe, I went to my bike and saw the cat there, shaking its head like it was recovering from a daze. I told it that there was a reason why I wore a helmet. The firepelt stared at me for a second before sniffing the wind. It looked in the direction of the barn and took off that way. I looked at the others, and they all nodded. I put my pistol and my machete away and got my bike upright and we quietly made our way to the barn. Jonathan channeled energy on both Faunra and myself to help get us in better condition.
We quietly opened the door without listening while Shalelu did her best to restrain and keep the firepelt calm. We were confronted by a trio of ogre-kin arguing about who was going to go in there and do some deliverance kind of stuff to the rangers. The two who wanted to go in there were drank something each that made them larger, I guess to maximize the damage that they would inflict or some other hideous reason. One of them had short stumpy legs and twitchy skin and was wearing a very fine set of chainmail. The other had a very lumpy head and a second forearm growing out of his left elbow. The remaining one with milky white eyes was staring at some gems when he looked up at us and cried out a warning to his brothers.
Without even thinking I ran forward while focusing on a weak point in the highly ornate breastplate that one of the two larger ones was wearing. I leapt up and slashed across the things neck with a powerful overhand chop. I landing deftly after it, posing like it was a big Hollywood movie, with a single drop of blood dripping off my blade. The Breastplate wearing ogre-kin with second arm coming off of his elbow and a deformed head turned to face me but the jerking motion further ripped open the wound on its neck. It dropped and hit the ground. It didn't take long for me to realize the error of my ways, as the milky eyed one tried to jab at me with his spear, which had been resting on the ground.
The spear thrust was wild, but still managed to impress me with its strength. It wasn't as strong as either of the other two that we had fought, but it had considerable strength in this inbred arms. Faunra took advantage of the scene that I had made to put two electrified antlers in the large one with stumpy legs. This dropped him as well. Dame Rebekah ran in with her blessed blade and buried it deep in the milky-eyed one's torso, while Jonathan launched a marble into the thing's brain. All in all, a good quick takedown. I looked around for any further danger, and Jonathan pocketed a set of keys that were hanging by the entrance.
We split up and took the stairs on either side of the barn to head up to the upper level. We made it up to the top without any issue on either side. There was nothing much up here except for a set of doors on either side for the catwalk. Thinking that it would be better to get the drop on whatever it was from above, we kicked open the doors at the same time. We were confronted with another catwalk that went to a larger platform with some crudely made cells. Oh yeah, and a MASSIVE WEB that seemed to funnel down to the floor level.
I didn't want anything to do with a spider that big, but I knew that I would have to, and that it would be big and dangerous. I yelled over to the other side that we should rush to the cells so that we are not on a small catwalk when that beast comes up. Everyone agreed and we hightailed it to the cells. There are three men left in the south east cell, from what Faunra and Jonathan tell me, but we know not to pay attention to that just now. We wait, and watch the webbing. Five seconds, ten seconds, the web is twitching. Fifteen seconds, large legs start to reach out. Twenty Seconds, the body is almost visible. I resolve myself that I am not going to freeze again. Then I see it. It's the size of a fucking elephant, and it is heading toward Jonathan and Faunra.
Jonathan did his best Palpatine impersonation and hit it with a lightning bolt. The blast really didn't have much of an obvious effect on this gigantic arachnid, and it reached out and bit Jonathan. I hoped that the poison wouldn't do anything to him and that we could reach him in time to help. I pulled out my rifle, since I remembered that it burned into whatever it hit, and took aim. My pellet went true and found an area on the back of the things too humanoid looking head and burrowed into its brain. It dropped and landed on its web. Not moving or twitching. Faunra and Jonathan opened up the cell and checked everyone out that was inside.
Jonathan used his powers on each of them to get them up and moving. Jonathan stopped when he got to the third man, as he had noticed the seven pointed star tattoo on the man's wrist. Jonathan asked us what to do, and I told him that it was better for the man to carry himself out than to be carried by another, but that we should note which one it was. Jonathan healed him and we all got out of there. At least they did. I decided that this place needed to go. I threw a pair of vials of alchemist's fire into the room and rushed out the door. As we made it out, the rest of the group noticed the fires. Not a person said a word to me about it.
When we got the three of them out, Shalelu recognized one of them and ran up to embrace the one eyed prisoner. She explained that this was her stepfather and I asked her if she could escort the three former prisoners to a campsite at the edge of the trail while we stop this from happening to anyone else. Shalelu agreed and helped the three of them. The firepelt gave me a look and then went off with his master.
Slowly, we walked up and investigated the front porch area. Jonathan noted that there was no real traffic here, so I checked for anything unusual. There were definitely traps here in the front, letting us know that there was no consistent traffic through this area. We found another entrance along the side, but I stopped everyone from entering and cautioned them that these things seemed to like traps a LOT, so Jonathan or I should take point. Everyone agreed and we checked our way in. We opened the door and encountered a trap of a different sort.
It was a charnel house of unimaginable proportion. I was used to seeing this kind of thing from all of the various Halloween events back where I was from. Faunra couldn't take it though, and was throwing up for a good six minutes. Jonathan slowly lifted up all of the cleavers and such and launched them outside. I didn't want them to be able to be used against us if someone snuck up behind us. After Faunra was recovered, we checked out the first door in the room and found a set of stairs heading down. We figured that we should check this place out first before exploring the rest of the rooms.
We came down and encountered a rip off of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There were piles of flayed human skins and a preserved human face on a table. I looked to everyone and realized that these skins were fairly fresh. Dame Rebekah stopped us to bless everyone. I could feel my courage and resolve being bolstered. Faunra invoked her ability to generate multiple copies of herself, and I ratcheted up my focusing on everything. We got to the next door and Jonathan silently noted that there was someone behind it.
Dame Rebekah got ready and threw open the door in front of us. What we saw when we opened the door would have certain fit in with the Hills Have Eyes. The deformed thing in front of us had a conjoined vestigial twin on its back and the room was filled with furniture made from bone and human skin. Faunra was Johnny on the Spot and peppered the deformed brute with two arrows, her third one going wide. Jonathan stepped up and, through a flurry of enhanced cestus strikes took out some rats the size of donkeys. I rushed in to do my part, but slipped on some viscera that was on the ground. I must have been a miracle that caused it because I just slid under the swing of the villain, who wasn't very surprised with our assault. He roared out in rage when he did swing, and I worried about barbaric tendencies. Dame Rebekah came in with her trademarked back slash, but the thing did not drop.
Faunra dropped another two arrows into the thing, and I could smell the burning flesh from the arrows, but still the thing did not drop. The final straw was Jonathan's piton, which planted itself right through the thing's heart. I looked at it with bated breath as it breathed once, twice, and then dropped dead where it stood. We looked around and tried to see if there were any other dangers in the room. We needed to keep moving while we had the enhancements up, so we shut the room up and went back to the last room in the corridor. It was a room full of junk, so we rushed through it fairly quickly.
In the back of the room was another door, which we went through and showed us another short corridor. We rushed through the door to see a large plant that looked like a reject from Little Shop of Horrors. I don't know where I had seen it before, but I muttered the name of the thing, a Tendriculos, and noted that we needed fire to put the thing down permanently. I remembered my air rifle and took aim and fired. Jonathan launched his trademark piton. It was starting to look a little damaged, maybe we will have to replace it soon. Faunra finished the thing off with a pair of burning, shocking arrows. Jonathan rushed through the room to a door in the back of the room and there was a large chest of items. Jonathan lifted it and we rushed back out of this horror show of a basement.
We rushed back up to the area just outside of the house and put the assorted loot that Jonathan had collected before we went back in. We went through the next door and I was just about to walk in when Jonathan pointed to some hidden scythe traps that would have triggered if I had stepped foot into the room. I had been too focused on the crap that was all through the room. I dismantled the traps and Jonathan took one of the scythe blades to use as his new "piton".
We went into the next room and saw what looked like a hideous playpen, but there were two adult sized ogre-kin playing. They were dressed in chain mail, and one had a very fine battle axe, and the other a very fine war hammer. The one who had the battle axe had stunted legs and a very large, very vicious mouth. The other just looked oddly jointed. I shot at the one that had odd joints, and the pellet burrowed deeply into the thing's head. Faunra launched a bunch of arrows and killed the both of them.
Noting that we had encountered another pair of foes, we retreated from that room and Faunra and Dame Rebekah decided to cast some spells to help us with any further encounters we might have. Dame Rebekah cast a protection from evil that effected all of us, and Faunra cast a spell that sped up everyone's perceptions and reactions. We went looking through some other rooms, one of which had the bones of young ogre-kin. We came to the choice of one last room on this level and the stairs. Jonathan signaled to us that we needed to investigate the room. I pulled out my machete and Jonathan shook his head. I signaled to the air rifle, and he shook his head again. I pulled out my pistol and he nodded.
Jonathan thrust open the door with his powers and we saw a hideous sight. An extremely corpulent ogre-kin woman was being floating above a destroyed bed, or should I say four extremely corpulent women. I recognized the spell effect immediately. There were three zombies that looked to be her former children around her. She yelled that her children should come and defend her, obviously not directing her talking to the zombies that she controlled.
Faunra did the heavy lifting for this enemy and I have so much to thank her for that. Also, I'm pretty sure I just added another spellcaster to my list. Faunra went first as soon as the door opened, with almost methodical precision, taking out one image, then another image, then the third image, and finally hitting the necromancer with a snowball? I took Jonathan's advice and used my pistol to its fullest potential, striking her three times. The first one took her in the left shoulder, stunning her a bit from the noise and fury. The second one hit her in the heart, and the final one struck her in the forehead, dropping her. She slowly floated down to rest on the bed.
Everyone in the room that was still mobile was staring at me. The Zombies were looking at least in my general direction, but Jonathan, Dame Rebekah, Faunra, and even Cytheria were all extremely taken aback by the lethality of my weapon. Dame Rebekah rushed in and took out one of the three zombies, and Jonathan launched the scythe blade at another of the zombies. The Zombie that was remaining lumbered towards me and took a swing. I almost felt bad but it wasn't even close to avenging his fallen mother, lover, creator, and animator.
Faunra launched a pair of arrows into the remaining zombie, and we took stock of what was left. Jonathan apparently stomped on a frog or a toad of some kind. I left from there and wandered around the rest of the house, noting all of the dangers and removed any of the traps in case any local kids end up trying to "spend the night" in a horror house. I don't know if this is right. I mean this family had captured, tortured, consumed, and violated the remains of a group of people who work to protect the area from dangers. On the other hand, what I had just done was a home invasion. Granted it was a home invasion against a group of cannibalistic, torturous, violent, rapacious, and incestuous monsters, but this was still their home.
Shalelu and the three remaining Black Arrows came over to the area where I was sitting. I was slumped over and Shalelu asked me if I was wounded. I told her that I was not, and I stood up. I noted that we had just slain the family that lived here. Jakardros spoke up and corrected me, by telling me that this wasn't their farm. Jakardros told me that they had taken it over not too long ago, that it was run by a family that had not been seen or heard from in three years. I looked at him and asked why.
Jakardros looked at me like he was a bit confused. I pressed the issue and continued with asking him why no one had even known that these people were gone? I looked Jakardros in the eye and continued by asking, I can understand not seeing someone for a month, or even a season, but not knowing about people being even alive for years is unacceptable for people who are supposed to be looking after the people in the area, especially when you have taken it upon yourself to look over this area.
Jakardros looked exceptionally pissed and he lashed out. He accused me of not knowing what had happened with him and his fellow Black Arrows. He told me that I, being a pampered adventurer had never experienced anything, let alone anything close to what he and his men had gone through. I stepped closer and told him that I had served in the Navy and had been involved in conflicts that dwarfed anything that he had ever been associated with. Shalelu saw that the tensions were rising and went in to get between us.
That was when it happened. I wanted this insufferable prick to have some humiliation. It probably wasn't right or correct to need this, but it was what I was feeling was needed at the time. I only vaguely remember what happened, as it is all blurry. I wanted this man to fall on his ass, hard. It wasn't him that fell. It was Shalelu, and myself. Both for different reasons. I felt something in my mind break and I saw Shalelu rush forward towards me as I saw the ground get closer. Just before my eyes closed, I saw Shalelu slip and land on the ground, hard.
I woke up about an hour or so later, with everyone standing around me. Even Jakardros and the rest of his men. I felt like my brain had been pulled through a wringer sideways. I slowly sat up as everyone was kind of mum. Faunra asked me if I was okay, and I told her that I had a headache, but other than that I was okay. Faunra told Shalelu that I was probably going to need to rest for a few hours. I asked her why and Faunra told me in a manner that was clearly meant to tell everyone that casting a true spell for the first time is an exhausting experience, and that I should get some rest.
I tried to rebut, saying that I have invoked those cantrips at least dozens of times by now. Faunra noted that the source of those cantrips was not the arcane weave that she pulled her effects from, which is what the grease that I manifested was from. I was kind of shocked and noted that I didn't even realize that I was casting a spell. Faunra noted that it was frequently like that for those that don't get proper tutelage, but that I should probably sleep for now. I was just about to nod off when I noticed that it was a LOT brighter than I had expected. The house and the barn were both on fire, in the distance.