Session Thirty-Four: Rocketman
General Summary
Session - December 10 - Same day - Midday - 21st of Duscar
Whisper looked at all the dead bodies, then at Bait and Shiro who were recovering on the ground. Her face flashed red and she stormed straight at Drezzin. Everyone knew what was about to come next and braced for it.
“What the hell was that about?” she yelled. This was the first time she had truly raised her voice in anger since her vocal cord surgery. Every time she had spoken prior using the minor illusion magic, it was to others liken to hearing her voice through a sending stone. Hearing the power of her lungs, as she let loose on Drezzin was as much a treat as it was frightening.
“First you want to keep two alive for questioning, and then after I negotiate a ceasefire so that no other members of our group are killed you murder them in cold blood while they were walking away unarmed. You fucking literally stabbed them in the back. What if they had parried and counter attacked? That could have gotten another one of us killed. I don’t know how you can be so noble in the city and then revert to some sort of animalistic barbarian when you come out here. You disgust me.”
Drezzin looked at Whisper but nothing and showed no remorse. He simply began gathering the bodies and once they were grouped up quietly spoke. “If you did not like that then perhaps you should turn away for this part.”
Whisper, still furious, looked on for a moment as Drezzin began disemboweling the bodies, removing their jaws, and ultimately burning them to dust. She turned away knowing full well there was nothing she could do to stop this. What stung even more was the realization that Drezzin was right. Those soldiers would have reported back regarding this battle and the details of the group. A bounty would have been placed on them, and as word spread, every squad and battalion would be chasing the party down. She knew this because she had been one of those squads for the Kryn. These were the rules of war. The Dwendalian’s were the invaders and no matter how barbaric Drezzin’s actions were, no matter the degree to which this might be deemed a war crime, they were ultimately an act of protection for each and every life within the group, and one that would ensure they live for another day.
Whisper sat down beside Shiro and Bait, then looked over Hacket’s wounds. Andy came down from the tree and joined the others. Hacket and Andy started sifting through the remains of the battle and found several good swords, but one longsword in particular that was to Shiro’s liking. There was some full plate armor infused with mithral that was deemed worthy of salvaging. Amongst the remains of the dead was also seventy-five gold pieces and a letter from one’s wife back in Hupperdook wishing them well in their deployment.
“Looks like we’ve made a widow of at least one,” said Shiro.
“What about that black case?” asked Hacket, as he picked up the box and examined it for traps. “It seems normal,” he said after a momentary inspection. “Everyone back up. I’m going to open it.”
Everyone did as instructed.
“Wait, Hacket,” Andy interrupted. “If that thing has a trap and it goes off, you’ll be dead.”
“He’s right,” said Shiro. “Here, let me help out a bit.” Shiro then cast a healing spell that nearly healed Hacket completely.
“Just let me open it,” Andy said taking the box. He looked it over, and as he did felt the presence of something gazing into his very soul. He didn’t have time to reach as beams of electrical energy burst from the box and coursed through Andy’s body. He nearly dropped the box, but held steadfast.
“It was trapped. I knew it,” Hacket said, matter of factly.
Andy shook off the jolt and began to inspect the box. “It’s like a bag of holding, except it’s a box. It appears empty.”
“Just put it in your sack. We need to get out of here,” said Shiro.
“Wait,” Andy said, rooting around more. “Oh fuck,” he paused as his hand felt the surface of something familiar. If this is what I think it is then this squad was transporting something super valuable and we just intercepted it.”
“What is it?” said Drezzin as he joined the group.
Andy said nothing but pulled out of the box an entire Luxon Beacon, fully intact.
“We gotta go back to Rosohna,” he said, breaking the silence as everyone stared in disbelief. “There are sure to be more coming soon.”
“What do you mean there are more coming soon?” Drezzin interrogated Andy anxiously.
“It’s just a hunch. When this squad is declared missing the empire will know something is up and send soldiers to investigate. We need to get far away from all this,” he said pointing around.
“We have to get going, but where?" Whisper asked. "We need to get that ruidium."
“We should just get going.” Andy said.
“Andy, what do you think? You have a connection to those Luxons,” Shiro asked.
“I don’t know what my thoughts are. This is still a crime scene kinda. We should go.”
“Leave the wagons,” Whisper said. “Bandits attack all the time. Make this look like a bandit attack and let’s head out.”
Andy didn’t seem to hear Whisper but kept rambling. “I don’t know what to do with this, but it’s really valuable. There are a lot of souls in it. Last month while we were in Rosohna I was trying to do some research into these things. I learned that the Kyrn originally had four but one was stolen by the empire. And each one of these is unique and they all don’t look the same. They all have different energies to them. Based on what I learned, this is not one of the original four. It is a new one.”
“A new one? But how?” Whisper asked.
“The Kryn always suspected there were more than four, but they only had four, and they’ve been looking. But that’s not the part that worries me. The part that worries me is why would the paladins from the empire be bringing this into Kyrn territory? The only thing I can think of is that is was a bargaining chip or peace offering and we just fucked that up.”
“Then why didn’t they declare themselves when given the chance?” Drezzin asked.
“They didn’t know who we were. We could have been bandits. You don’t just tell random people off the street government plans for peace,” Whisper said.
“This was not an official military presentation. They were under disguise and they did not declare. If they were a diplomatic squadron then they should have delared themselves.”
“They were behind enemy lines. Do you seriously expect a highly trained unit of soldiers to just declare who they are and what they are carrying to the enemy, and just hope they don’t kill you? Don’t forget, we fired the first shots. When their disguises were broken by our spellcasting then would justifiably be seen as an act of aggression. If they knew what they were carrying then they would protect it to the death.”
“They should have declared themselves.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Drezzin. You know better,” Whisper said, exasperated with both Drezzin’s barbaric actions and his ill logic. “I’m done with this discussion.”
“With the naval forces to the north of Jigow this is probably what they were trading for the city,” Drezzin continued pondering the strategy at play. “Why wouldn’t the Bright Queen have said something of this?”
Whisper couldn’t resist. “I don’t know why you think that we are so special to the Dynasty that we would have heard of everything discussed in the Bright Queen’s radius. Sure we saved the city. We’re heroes, but that doesn’t make us privy to the highest secrets surrounding the queen.”
Drezzin paused to consider Whisper’s words. “Here’s what we do know: right now the Dwendalian Empire is occupying the city, and creating pressure so that the Dynasty cannot organize. I believe this Luxon is a bargaining chip to avoid war and still gain the territory they desire.”
“Are we supposed to listen to you two argue all day, or are we going to get moving,” Shiro asked getting impatient with Drezzin and Whisper’s near constant bickering.
“This isn’t just an object,” Andy interjected. “It’s not a bargaining chip. These are people. Real people.”
“It’s possible they haven’t started any peace talks. So it’s possible that Rosohna doesn’t know what’s happened yet,” Drezzin thought out loud, ignoring Andy.
“I doubt that it’s possible that the leadership of Rosohna knows nothing of this. They have to know something,” Hacket joined in. “What if we go back to Asarius and attack the Dwendalian forces?” Hacket continued.
“I don’t think we have the numbers to mount a resistance,” Shiro said.
“What about the bridges? What if we blow them up? They would be completely cut off from their supply routes,” Whisper added to the strategy to counter-attack.
“I don’t like any of these plans,” Shiro said. “We need to make sure that the leadership of Rosohna knows of this. That’s where I stand on the matter.”
“I understand what Shiro is trying to say. Essentially we don’t know what the Dynasty wants to do. They could be entirely in peace mode and what we would be doing is against them. We don’t know. Say we blow up those bridges and now we could be enemies of both the Dwendalian’s and the Dynasty, which means certain death. Without confirmation of what to do we could be further destroying any efforts towards a peaceful resolution.” Drezzin reasoned.
“Drezzin is correct for once,” Whisper conceded. “If we don’t have marching orders from the Queen then we could be destroying efforts to create peace. If we had a way in which to communicate we could take orders from the Queen and act as a forward offensive.”
While the party continued debating, Andy stepped away, finding a quiet space to sit and focus his attention on the Luxon Beacon. He bowed his head and reached out. “I respectfully and humbly come here to commune with the ancestors of this beacon… is anybody there?”
There was momentary silence and then the voices within the beacond replied to him in a series of whispers.
“Is that a half elf boy?”
“Are we getting talked to by a half-elf now?”
“Oh god. We have fallen on hard times.”
“Uh… hello, my name is Andy.”
“Oh hello Andy. I did not realize I asked your name. How are you doing today,” one voice cut above the rest.
“I’m fine. Who are you?”
I’m Shutaro the great mage. Who are you Andy? Am I supposed to care? I didn’t realize I was supposed to care. Why are we talking?”
“I’m really confused. You’re not like any of the other beacons I’ve talked to. You’re inside the beacon.”
“Oh, iis that what you call these? What year is it?”
“838.”
“Oh…” the voice went quiet. “Well that’s bad.”
“What year did you think it is? You know you're dead right?”
“I’m talking, therefore I’m not dead. Your calendar is jibberish. Can you get me to one of your floating cities so I don’t have to deal with whatever your bullshit is? Thank you very much, Andy.”
“What city? And first of all, I came to see what you wanted. You were in the possession of the Empire.”
“What empire?” Shutaro asked.
“The Dwendalian Empire.”
“Dwendalian what? You know, I understand that you can just make words up, but that doesn’t make you smart.”
“You know,” Andy said, getting a little frustrated, “I’m used to people talking down to me, so that doesn’t bother me. But what city do you want to go to?”
“Any of the floating cities should do. They should have mages.”
“Floating cities? You’re kidding right? There are no floating cities.”
“What? Ioun be praised this isn’t how I wanted to spend my life.”
“Uh, well I have bad news for you. Your life is over,” Andy pointed out.
“Yes. I put my spirit in here. I’m trying to get it back into my body. I guess you’re just unaware. Now please, can you get me to a floating city or not?”
“No… the floating cities were destroyed.”
“Oh. The floating cities were destroyed?” He laughed. “I’m sure.”
“Yeah, exactly eight hundred and thirty eight years ago the gods destroyed them and knocked them out of the sky.”
“If you insist, Andy. I’ll consider what you’re going to say.” Shutaro then whispered to someone else. “I’m not going to consider it.”
“Are there others in there with you?” Andy asked.
“Yes, most older than me.”
“Well, you’re rude. I’m going to close this and let you cool off. I’ll talk to you later.” Andy said as he closed the box, shutting the beacon inside.
The party eventually ceased their political debates long enough to decide they needed to press on, and that they would attempt to make contact with the Dynasty while on their travels south.
“Anyone seen Bait?” Drezzin asked as they loaded up.
“Not my day to babysit him,” Whisper said.
“It’s ‘they’, not ‘him’,” Drezzin corrected Whisper. “No one really knows what the hell Bait is.”
Whisper rolled her eyes at Drezzin then looked around for their silent and strange bird friend.
No one had bothered to notice that in all the chaos following the fight that Bait remained seated where they had nearly died. None of this was new to Bait. They had experienced war, and in fact, they had experienced this very moment in the past. It was like deja vu. Everything that had happened before was happening again.
“Bad wizard,” they said to themself over and again as they processed what Drezzin had done in the wake of the battle. ‘Bad, bad wizard.”
In the distance, as nature came back to life, Bait could hear the gentle sound of a songbird. Bait picked up a small rock from the ground and threw it into the bushes in the direction of the song. A flutter of wings went up as the bird took flight. Bait threw another rock, but it missed and the bird flew away.
“Never again,” Bait said. “Never again. Bait not dog.”
The party approached their traveling companion and paid their ramblings no mind.
“Load up, Bait. We need to get going,” Drezzin commanded.
Three more days passed as the party reached the southern edge of the Sorrowseep Waters. It was now the twenty-fourth of Duscar. The end of the year was in sight and the new year would bring nothing but more war and destruction. Throughout the past few days their attempts at notifying the Dynasty seemed to have either failed or fallen upon deaf ears.
As they continued south Hacket looked up to the sky. The day was particularly clear with no clouds in sight.
“I have an idea, guys,” he said out of nowhere. “Hold the wagon up here. I want to try something.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Drezzin suspiciously.
Hacket didn’t bother to answer, but cast the spell of flying on himself and shot straight up into the air. He burst through the atmosphere higher and higher until he was barely visible from the ground. Should anyone have dared to blink they would have surely lost sight of him.
“What in the seven hells is he doing?” Drezzin asked aloud.
As Hacket gained altitude he could begin to see the curvature of Exandria. He looked to the northeast in an attempt to pinpoint Rosohna. It wasn’t difficult. Once located he looked for a good spot to cast the skywrite spell with the intention to place a warning message over the Barbed Fields where the patrols could easily see it. However, a mountain range blocked his ideal point so he flew even further higher. He could feel the atmosphere thinning and the air dissipating around him as he was near to breaking into outer space itself.
“Shit,” he muttered as he pulled out his breathing bubble and placed it over his head.
He then looked back. The view was unlike anything anyone had experienced and was likely to experience in many lifetimes, yet he didn’t pause to bask in it. He found his target, drew his gun and with a mightly blast from its formidable barrel and cast the sky write message just as intended.
As soon as Hacket cast the sky write spell he felt the spell of flying begin to fail. His body floated for a moment, suspended in temporary animation, before he began a harsh descent back to the surface of the planet. His body quickly fell into a spin until he was able to correct himself. A glimmer of red on the horizon caught his eye and he looked over to see the moon of Ruidus far in the distance. As he looked he almost thought he saw something reaching around from the side of it. There was no time to fixate on whatever might be happening with the moon. Hacket’s body was now plummeting towards Exandria at breakneck speed. He could feel the heat of the atmosphere burning away at his skin as the gravitational forces hurtled him faster and faster to the ground.
As he fell, turbulence in the air battered his body, jolting him from side to side making it almost impossible to keep his eyes open. He was now battling the physics of nature itself as he struggled to maintain consciousness.
“One hundred feet. One hundred feet…” was all that went through his mind. It was the precise altitude at which he needed to cast featherfall in order to touch ground and not die.
Hacket continued to fall now at maximum velocity. He focused his eyes towards the ground, but was horrified to see nothing but water beneath him. He had been blown off course. He didn’t have time to look for his allies. The water below was getting closer and closer.
“Fuck,” he said and cast featherfall just in time to bring snap his body out of freefall, but not enough to stop him from plunging through the icy cold waters and into its depths. He held his breath as he began his swim to the surface of the water, but as he began he could hear the ominous voice of a giant shark growl “Leave us be!”
Hacket shuddered and swam faster.
A mile away the party had watched in horror as Hacket’s body plunged to the ground over the Sorrowseep Waters.
“Quick! We need to go!” Whisper yelled out as he bucked her horse into action and raced to the water’s edge. It was a mile to the water, but as a group they ran the horses as hard and fast as they could go. Minutes later they looked out across the water for any sign of Hacket, but could see little.
“There!” said Shiro as he focused on the source of the fading waves made in the wake of Hacket’s splashdown.
Without hesitation Drezzin called out. “We have to get him!” He cast polymorph on himself as he dove into the water transforming mid air into a giant shark.
“Is that new?” Andy looked at Whisper and Shiro.
Whisper shrugged, threw off her pack, and tossed aside her boots, as she dove into the water and began swimming.
In shark form Drezzin was much faster than anyone else. He quickly caught sight of Hacket swimming feverishly toward the shore, but also could see the waters around Hacket beginning to spin as a massive whirlpool formed underneath him threatening to pull Hacket back under.
Hacket panicked as the whirlpool began grappling him. He focused his arcane energy and cast misty step to burst out of the whirlpool and to temporary safety. He continued to swim, now seeing another giant shark heading right towards him.
Drezzin raced towards Hacket hoping he would be recognized when suddenly the same voice that cut through Hacket’s head disrupted Drezzin’s thoughts. Drezzin fell into a state of charm by the voice who commanded him to “Teach the other invaders. Leave here and punish the others who dare invade my space.”
Drezzin turned and saw Hacket swimming, then swam after him to attack. He bit down on Hacket and grappled him in an attempt to pull him under the water and drown him. Before he could dive a fiery explosion went off overhead lighting up Drezzin and knocking him out of shark form.
“Drezzin?” Hacket said seeing Drezzin transform back into his body. “You were going to eat me? What the hell?”
“No time! Swim for shore! I was under a charmed spell.”
From the shore Whisper was swimming as fast as she could, using her shadow step to cut forward like a sleek eel through the water. Andy, cleverly had used his ray of frost gun to blast the water creating a frozen path across the lake on which he could keep up to Whisper.
As the two grew closer Drezzin grabbed Hacket and cast dimension door to launch them both onto Andy’s frozen path. Whisper pulled herself from the water onto the ice, shivered for a second and then ran with the rest back to shore.
“We gotta get out of here. We have to get out of here right now! There’s something in the water.”
On shore, safe again Whisper whipped her soaking hair out of her face, then looked Hacket square in the eyes and without saying a word slapped him across the face. “Never do that again!” she scolded him.
“Why not? It was fun!” Hacket laughed.
“Because that plan was a shit show. Look! Your message is gone. It was there for maybe thirty seconds.”
“It might have been just enough,” said Hacket. “Totally worth it. Plus, I was almost in outer space!”
“Hacket,” Drezzin said as he rang out his soaked clothing. “I am sorry I bit you. I intended to rescue you, but whatever is out there charmed me and I was under their control for a moment.”
“It’s fine,” Hacket said, relieved to be on land again and still exhilarated from his flight.
Whisper slipped on her boots, and tied her hair back into a ponytail, then mounted her blue roan. “I think we’ve had enough adventure for one day. How about we head south, make camp, and see what tomorrow brings.”
“Good idea. I might just attempt that again tomorrow,” Hacket chided Whisper. She scowled at him, nudged her horse and led the party further down the trail towards their destination.
Comments