Khûm – Chapter 2

“Winter of 67. Second Age. Banishment.
Ten days the blizzard’s blown and it looks to blow another thirty. The little southeaster ship, the Narliza, is so fenced by ice she cannot raise sail and, the moment she can, she’ll tuck tail and run, stranding the entire company here in this godforsaken frozen hell, huddling for warmth around cookfires against the endless snow.
Home sweet home.
Tell you the truth, I grew up in a pisspot of a town not too different from this one. Made to service miners, not merchants and certainly not mercenaries. I don’t know what they’d do if two hundred hard motherfuckers like us decided to drop anchor and stay the winter.
Minecarts and frostbite and turnip stew. That’s me. This place we’re going, where a place of myths and monuments, wonder and wealth beyond imagination, is as much mystery to me as you.
No grand caverns deep and vast for beholder. Talk to Pudding you wanna hear that shit.”
 – Beholder's Log, Borson 49 68 2A

For nearly a month, the Menagerie wintered in Banishment, awaiting a ship brave enough to take them north to their frozen destination. While Griffon convalesced, Remorhaz and Willow did the recruiting, including a squad of dwarven nûnramali. Umber kept himself busy in the mining town, earning favors and good will the company spent on supplies. When the Unity, a dwarven icebreaker captained by the profoundly ugly Zhakri, arrived in the port, it was Mouse who convinced to take the mercenaries north to Port Sumpton.
En route to Khûm, Remorhaz and Griffon resumed their sword-practice, the slayer venting his fury on the unsuspecting sword-dancer. Sister Slate – the silent leader of the nûnramali – made his displeasure known to Remorhaz, laying out her terms of employer through her translator Vurgi. Umber made another conquest, bedding the dwarven captain with little convincing. The ship made one stopover – the penal colony of Yadsurov – to collect ice and prisoners for the voyage back south.
Port Sumpton was less welcoming than they'd hoped. The town abandoned due to black bloat, the mercenaries disembarked with no answers – until a dwarven escort, bearing a white chimera on a green field – arrived to collect them. These were Queen Dûnya's dragonslayers, a motley collection of 13 dwarven veterans. Led by the aptly named Makem the Mumbler, they arrived to escort the mercenaries south to meet with their queen and potential client. First, however, they must cross the breadth of the kingdom of Khûm.
Much of that kingdom appeared empty, however – save gorgeous mountain vistas and snow-swept tundra – until the marching mercenaries encounter the Pstohu qorhv. Met by their outriders, they were told to turn back, that they could not enter their sacred territory – for fear of spreading the bloat. A short negotiation later, with the mercenaries offering to cure the qorhv's afflicted orcs, and the Menagerie was welcomed into their tent village with open arms. A Pstohu tradition involved the leader of both groups – the Commander and the thrak – to carry one another's children, meaning Griffon was forced to cling to their thrak while Chimera fussed with Pstohu Thak's newborn.
Departing the Ptsohu's company, the mercenaries marched further south and eventually entered a subterranean terminal, leading to the stoneway. For most of the Menagerie, it was their first glimpse of the marvels of Khûm – racing at top speed beneath the ground, rocketing through caves and caverns of immeasurable size. When the stoneway finally came to a halt, they were marched up a great staircase and there, atop the mountains, behind their first glimpse of the dwarven capital of Truethrone.

Campaign: The Menagerie
Game Date: Borson 49 – Hemson 23, 68 2A
Starting Point: Banishment
Player Characters:

• Griffon
• Mouse
• Remorhaz
• Umber