Lost Lore 29: Southbound Unicorn
The School's latest hires are tasked with escorting the rescued Unicorn amid a host of new threats
General Summary
At the Wagner Orphanarium there's been a couple months of tense respite from the madness following the weekend of discovering the Shadow Court's invasion plans. All three spent a lot of time working on the Abbey again, improving the living conditions there by securing more funding from the Grand Order of the Lion, renovations and additional staff. Ospher found some professional gardeners to work with some of the downpour hommes we have and are able to not only harvest high quality produce for the kids, but have enough left over for us to take to local markets and sell for a slight profit. He also had a chance encounter with a Journeyman wizard from the Westbound Star Company that irufan was familiar with and upon meeting him Ospher offered something more stable and, likely boring employment than that of a house mage, and he accepted. Rashua Haram, a former academy student of Conjuration and as a Baradradi, offered to teach history as well as his speciality. Charity offered Yelamar employment as a teacher, which he accepted as an herbology teacher, with the express caution against teaching them how to make Harvest Children fare. She also worked with Bianca in her lab, studying arcanika with her and general learning more about some of the scientific processes there.
With the contacts and as word spread about the capitalistic opportunity was made known in 'lawless' Bellhaven, more and more people are starting to flock to the immediate area. The single little stretch of torn-up road that used to contain just the Orphanarium, Renderer and General store has now grown. There is now a tailor, an apothecary, and a corner tavern by the name of Bronze Bear along with an adjoining stable and wagon workshop. Some of the old rubble has been cleared away as well for about half a dozen homes that are starting to gain residences. The city has been forced to send crews to restore your street and even put up a new street sign to finally identify this prospering patch as Acorn Way.
Sadly, now that an actual population exists in Bellhaven, the city elders of Frial have been forced to reopen its alderman seat. Irufan and Charity hosted a small get-together for the local businesses and incoming civilians. Irufan likely just wanted to enjoy hosting a party but Charity's intention was to make sure none of these people coming into the area were going to cause or exacerbate trouble. What she didn't expect was for the local businesses to want the owner of the abbey to take on the alderman position for now. As it stands, besides having to maintain a Frialri citizenship, her duties require her to attend Kreastos meetings to lobby for certain interests, and to host bi-monthly meetings in her ward to update them on news.
Between much of that, I worked to advance some goals of mine; Bianca's delving team was more than capable of scouring the sealed off cave near the ancient battle site to the west and successfully retrieved a set of old Balmoran half-plate for me and netted the two of us a tidy profit in the transaction of meeting Barnabus Soto's request by turning over some of the ancient materials to him for study and the other... half of the the plate armor I wouldn't be using. I set about applying a mithral treatment to it as well, in order to lay a magical foundation upon which I would build this protection up to further Nisaba's goals in these lands.
Working through Bianca in that manner also freed me to make contact through Tyrom with the Savage leader, Red Claw, who, in spite of not knowing anything specifically about unicorns aside rumors of the one we had set free through the whispers of Circles within Frial, was able to point me towards an encampment further into Rylan Woods that have stayed free from the allure of the city and may know more of the fate of Unicorn-kind. After some brief reconnaissance via Broom of Flying, I was able to sneak up onto a druidic cultist of the woods who was living on his own, a halfling that went by Conrin. He was willing to share his knowledge if I would provide assistance in defending a glade, as he put it, from befoulment by a Becklinberger logging crew. Sadly accustomed to butchering these deluded Frog worshippers as they flailed to rebuild their town, again, I made quick work of the five loggers, destroyed their tools and left the corpses as warning, as requested by him. Returning to the site of our meeting, he explained what he knew of innately magical creatures and their link to Tairos with the The Queen's Rebuke having made their exsistence wane due something inherent in their nature that enervated them over time, dubbed to those it affected as The Fade. I reasoned that this must have been the condition those imps in the "haunted apothecary" where Tadlo and Lorgen celebrated their pre-nuptuals were forestalling by sipping mana from the potent dweomers on the potions within.
From that we decided that to keep our profile low and protect Milka from further possible harm, we would have Rashua, Yelemar, and Conrin escort her south to Illsemine's hanging tree, as the area should be rife with mana and outside of the city. Contacting Tarre and Polly, they agreed to another roommate in the setup and wishing the four of them good luck as their introduction to our employ they set off on the southward road out of Frial with a detailed map and instructions after some light skulking in town to get a Unicorn safely out. I should clarify that this was about two weeks after we first rescued Milka in that tumult of a weekend of Saudra-tai.
After the better part of a day's trek, they said they encountered a number of points on the trek where the marsh encroached clear paths to avoid exposing themselves to other travelers on the great road. Evidently the season left the region rife with wolves, as they fended off a number of encounters as the creatures fled to seek easier prey. Also blocking the way was a large muddy wallow that one of the Catoblepas in the region occupyed and was bathing in. They agreed to avoid encountering the legendary creature. Conrin and Milka knew much of the species, reiterating what Ospher told me about them so many months ago, they're difficult to charm due to their territorial nature and disagreeable nature, and possessed of a death stare. At Conrin's direction and lead, they snuck around the creature's territory and continued south until nearly dusk.
"I don't think that we ought to be making its acquaintace in anyway, even to charm it."
"Well are we gonna trudge through, try to go around?"
"We should sneak past yes."
"So if it sees us, it's going to stomp us into the mud."
"Or turn us to stone, yes."
"To stone?!"
"It does something with its eyes, all I'm sure is it kills with them."
"This is what happens when the Fae aren't around anymore! There's no way a creature like this would have existed under their... oh ohh."
"Lady Milka, are you about to coninue onward?"
"Yes, I can walk an entire forest if so chosen. I don't mind the cold either but if you can't continue on then I'm happy to sit by the fire and protect all of you."
"Thank you for not killing that creature. Although it might smell horrible and look awful, it is part of the forest."
"Absolutely. Creatures like that serve as defenders of a biome."
"Agreed, its stare, while fatal, does deter other creature from coming into the forest that shouldn't be there, and I appreciate you doing your best to not kill anything in the forest that you don't have to."
"Life in general is precious. Except for the people that crossed me, they should die."With the bitter winds of late autumn beating across the Frial plains, they knew they would need to find somewhere to make camp but at Conrin's request they put some distance between themselves and the waller they passed, in spite of the possibility of night wolves attack. They followed Conrin's sense of the leyline that led them to a glade that Rashua described as being rich in natural forming Manacite, a pristine pool, surrounded by healthy willows that concealed it from much of the surrounding area. Yelemar, after some brief conversation, spotted some berries he could make into some sedatives, while Milka sat down by the fire that Conrin tended to, and Rashua took in the glade. Some of the ancient trees here must have had roots that grew down very deeply as some of the tree's sap itself was comprised of pure mana.
"These are wobble berries, we can actually turn this into something that would make the night pass pretty smoothly."
"Smoothly as in?"
"Smoothly, we could make it less horrible, more enjoyable and get a good night's rest.
"Indulge if you will, but I prefer to keep a clear mind, our mission is of vital importance."
"They're not harmful, if anything they'll helpy you empty your mind and focus on one subject. Here's the thing, if you eat them as is, you have to eat enough that they're going to give you some awful squirts all night, but if you cook them down and add in the right distillation ingredients, we're talking a little shot out of a vial will keep you going all night."
"Your words are far from convincing."
"Well you're far from fun."
"I wasn't hired to this position based on how fun I would be."
"Wait, you guys are getting paid?"
"I'm being paid in potential future revenge against those that have crossed me."
"Well I hope for our sake that time is not tonight."
"Drugs are done!"
"My thanks Conrin, we have very very few instances of this phenomenon in the Baradrad, the desert does not typically yield such bounty."
Yelemar is putting the finishing touches on his drugs "Are you really from the desert?"
"I am. I don't know much about this cemetary you claim to have lived in but certainly I am much more a foreigner in this land than you are to this swamp."
"Oh our cemetary was so lush, vines everywhere, the fireflies would come out at night and basically drag your mind out of your body into their dance for the whole night. It was beautiful."
"I went to Tengu Town once."
"Oh that's a trek."
"Yeah we were picking up something the locals called The Tengu Twist. It was definitely somethign you could inhale and it changed your week. Its made out of the special Manacite they make there."
"Yeah, they don't make good Manacite."
"They make good Tengu Twist."
"How do you mean? I'm not talking about the Tengu Twists, I mean their production."
"They rape Tairos for it and leave behind poisons that seep into her soil."
"It seemed like nice trees and grass and stuff in there town, I dunno."
"I'm just telling you what I was told by the spirits that communicated nature's need to us and why we've acted in the past against them. I can tell you I was part of a raid once and there were Tengu with many chemicals and their leader was named Shifter."
"Did you kill any of them for what they did to nature?"
"Personally I didn't get that chance, but others did."
"Good, it's very good. Sometimes you must kill."
"My new technique is where I want to put my horn into their stomachs and kind of twist it around to get their guts on it and then yank their guts out all at once. A man named Neville taught me about noodles and forks and thats what I want to do with my horn and their guts."A bit out from the glade, Conrin spotted some wagon tracks as well as humanoid foot depressions that were at most a day old, headed towards Frial, but the look of it. After brief conversation, and Yelemar drifting off to sleep, Conrin took first watch and was able to summon a spirit inhabiting a spider body that helped him keep skillful lookout. And fortunately for him, they sensed some disturbance and rustling in the distance and the shapes were staying a good 60 feet out from the site. He resolved to check on it if it stayed there and then he heard something whizzing past his ear, large barbed darts that hit the tree, and splashed into the water. Other darts did successfully strike the other three companions though, waking up Yelemar and waking Milka and Rashua for just a second before some type of poison in the darts took effect, knocking them out cold. Yelemar's prior experience having indulged in drugs must hav given him the experience to resist this because he was alert very quickly. Conrin's Spider spirit was able to tell him of the goblins with blowpipes that were ambushing them off in the brush past the glade's edge. With that info, his Moonbeam was able to catch three of the bandits in one go and singeing them with power and just as importantly, illuminating them, revealing them to be the sort of goblin that dons masks and helmets with five more goblins beyond these three scurrying off since we weren't all affected by their surprise. Yelemar attempted to tend to Milka, but with the number of darts that connected with her and quantity of the poison he didn't rouse her from her induced sleep. His Magic Missiles connected with one of the goblins within the beam, killing it with its irresisistible blows. Five of the goblins clothed in totemic masks that Conrin didn't recognize and in broken patchy bit of armor closed into the glade and shot another blowdart at Milka, poisoning her further.
"Oh, I didn't know that you guys partied? "
"We're under attack! "
"Oh what?!"
"That's not helping!"Yelemar then enchanted himself with Dragon's Breath, attempting to coat these brave goblins in poisonous spray, but only killing one outright, while the others were too nimble to be caught in his exhale. Conrin's Moonbeam killed the three he cast upon and he then wheeled it onto three of the remaining four that were now in the glade, killing them as well leaving this one remaining goblin to attempt to shoot at dart in Conrin's face a few times and then running away desperately with his companions defeated. The Moonbeam moved too quickly for the goblin to comprehend and it could not resist it's pale fire, reducing his flesh to ashes atop his bones. The two of them attempted to counteract the poison in Milka, but after another attempt, moved onto Rashua who had less of venom in his veins. He was exhausted and still afflicted with the tiredness that overwhelmed him earlier but able to converse and move about. Rashua directed his Hawk familiar to search in the air if they were part of a larger force. It spotted fairly quickly about half a mile away concealed like our campsite, but with a jagged chain of the little miscreants in spots here and there between the two camps, the closest ones in open retreat to that other site. These goblins were carrying sacks and boxes as well, likely stolen from other travelers on the road.
"I suggest we engage, now is the time for vengance Milka."We concluded that they likely spotted us in the campsite resting and communicated that back while Conrin was on watch and knowing something as precious as a Unicorn was about, attempted subterfuge to get the group. Conrin reached into his Bag of Tricks and pulled a Hyena that he told to harry the goblin retreat while he and Yelemar figured up a way to revive Milka with some Manacite sap and reagents from both his herbalism kit and Yelemar's bag of drug related unguents. She awoke similarly confused as Rashua and hungry for vengance, so they agreed to indulge her by pursuing the Hyena's deep tracks in the slightly soft earth towards the other game in order to scout out that camp and possibly exact some vengance upon, presumably, poorly organized goblins. As they pursued, they observed the Hyena had made short work of another two goblins before hearing a wolf howling in pain, and as they approached, they said they heard more cries of wolves, but they were coming from the sharp mandibles of gigantic wasps, crawling about feasting on some dying wolves and accompanied by many goblins, surrounding a fire and hanging out. Near to the campfire, there were six travelers, dressed akin to commoners, bound up and gagged with their wagons parked and being looted nearby as well. The 20 odd goblins and six wasps milled about, creating chaos that was hard to peer through as the six remaining goblins that fled the hyena arrived back into the camp to report to another goblin adorned with better quality armor and a crown of what looked like stingers from their wasps? Conrin's Hyena had already pursued the six goblins into the camp and their screams in the goblin tongue drew a lot of attention, so he sent in a Tiger from his bag of tricks as well to attempt to injure these large wasps, while Milka charged in against out wishes, spearing a goblin and killing it after being blessed by Conrin's Hawk spirit. Five goblins attempted to surround the hyena as well as Wasps surrounding and stinging the Tiger while it resisted their poison, it was greviously injured by the concentrated attack. Milka and Conrin then saw some other taller shapes rounding the fire, a human wearing rugged clothes and carrying a dwarven firearm, a gigantic troll looming tall above the flames with a demonic looking face and gnarled horns moving quickly witha large club, a human child about the age of some of the students here but covered in tattoos and ritualistic scarrings that Conrin recognized as totemic, and a woman with a long fur coat keeping her warm and long hair blowing in the night that was held rapt by the hyena.
"Oh no no. We're teachers! And we just happened to be on a drop mission, we're just dropping a horned horse somewhere. This isn't a blood thing. Don't wake up the horse and give her a vote."
"We're teachers and spellcasters and our pride has been impugned."
"I don't have pride..."
"They must pay! They're going to defile that beautiful glade we found as well."
"That might be true, but that's a troll and if that thing is a firestick like I've heard of before, no spell is going to be worth anything against it. We need to get out of here."
"Trolls have guts and I still have my horn!"
"Then we'll see if we can lure them out where they can't see what we're doing."
"That weapon is rare, even in this civilized part of the continent."Rashua assessed that they assuredly meant us and especially Milka ill-intent. Seeing the need to likely withdraw with the sheer numbers in the camp, he used his Winged Boots to remain in the darkness near a tree and conjure a Flaming Sphere atop a few goblins. Yelemar withdrew a bit while Milka struck another goblin with her hooves in her alacrity. At Conrin's direction and seeing Yelemar retreat with Rashua, he directed her to teleport them to the safety of the glade where they could meet back up with the others since the odds here quickly became overwhelming, but not before emptying his bag of tricks for a final critter of a black bear. Her spell transported the two of them, with a couple of goblins skewered atop her horn intact as well.
"He needs to be able to see to use it."
"And we don't know the capabilities of these others. A troll on its own is dangerous enough. But it seems I cannot sway our friend here from acting in hot blood."
"Are we doing a battle thing or are we running?"
"I didn't come up here so that you could give away my position Yelemar. We have to keep Milka safe, if she perishes then all is lost."
"I mean, but we weren't told we were taking a suicidal unicorn anywhere."
"Yes it seems the professors left that part out."The troll advanced hungrily into the darkness, not seeing the two of them disappear, while the young boy was working himself into a furor, screaming up at the sky and his body started to grow, hunched over, fur sprouting everywhere and his head reshapening, and even at the distance, Rashua could hear his bones twist and crack as he finished transforming into a sort of a boar/human hybrid, a wereboar. The hunter shot the tiger in the campsite, killing the creature as it disappeared into faint dust, and the woman cast an Expeditious Retreat to keep up with the Troll. The goblins and wasps attempted to kill the black bear and Hyena, with marginal success, landing a number of blows.
"Is that part of the test, or are they idiots or do they not know that their unicorn is suicidal?"
"Speak less, cast more!"
"Fine but what about the people?"Rashua rolled the Flaming Sphere through the woman and the troll while retreating in the air and struck the troll with a Toll the Dead cantrip. Yelemar fled after Rashua, but also on foot and using his cover to conceal himself in the brush. The Troll and woman attempted to track them in the night, but really not doing it well, in light of the Flaming Sphere and additional Toll the Dead attacks distracting him. The goblins broke off from the animals fighting near the campfire to help the troll then, while the Black bear finished what the tiget started on one wasp, slaying the flying horror before succumbing to its wounds from the remaining five wasps. The hyena slew yet another goblin, but was slain by the remaining three goblins that continued to attack.
"I don't know that there's anything we could do for them, look at all this. That's a wereboar over there, this troll means to eat you!"
"Fine, but this isn't a surrender."
"Come forward, it's ok. I'm here to help!"Back at the glade, Milka attempted to lay down and give into her fatigue, but Conrin asked her to use her Pass Without Trace while they left at speed to get back to the mixed camp. Rashua and Yelemar were able to use their carious cantrips to create false tracks going the wrong direction and conceal Yelemar's actual footprints from the growing group pursuit. Rashua's hawk overhead confirmed that somehow the wasps from the camp were carrying additional goblins as well and directed the two of them out of the direction of their hunters to safety.
"We should really go back for the innocent people."While they got into the clear, Conrin and Milka crept back around to the rear of the camp, just now noticing that is borders up against a sizeable pool of water, with just the dead wasp, four goblins, the hostages, and the hunter with the firearm, holding a chain that trails off into the water, with Conrin convinced there was a gigantic crocodile in the water, 25' long-ish and connected to its collar. The hostages tied up numbered five, three men, one woman, and one Tengu, restrained to some of their empty boxes and each other. Conrin's spider was directed to go and quietly chew through the ropes holding the people. Milka served as a distraction at this point, insisting on covering herself in mud to serve as camoflage in the event that a new fight starts here. Observing from the hidden patch within Milka's spell, they eventually observed the four wasps return with a number of goblins, dismounting and reporting to the goblin that had the stinger crown, his armor, now clearly visible, a goldish color with black striping, to represent the wasp we guessed and he spoke with the other goblins and then eventually went to address the man with the crocodile, about "The Game" some sort of murdering competition that had now updated the prize to include Milka to the winner.
"We should go back and find the others."
"Yelemar is not an innocent person."
"Fine, but who among us is?"
"I am."
"Alright, but who among us will live up to the standards of a unicorn?"
"No one!"
"Well there you go."
"Maybe we should just wait for five minutes though..."
"Well things got very interesting, didn't they? new prey to hunt, the game is, well there's more on the line this time!"
"So what's the prize then?"
"Well the unicorn of course! My men will hunt it down and bring it back alive and whichever one of you brings back more skulls gets the unicorn!"
"I like it, I like it."
"They're hunting us now! We should find the others and get away instead of resting tonight."Yelemar and Rashua arrived back at the glade at this point, and began packing their gear while determining from the tracks left that Conrin and Milka had been there and once again set out for that campsite. After Yelemar took some additional drugs to steel his nerves, they set out to follow the trail left by Conrin and Milka.
"What they don't know is that I am hunting them."
"Where could the two of them have gone?"
"Probably captured and dead! We could go back to Frial, I know kitchens we could work in, there's jobs and good ones too!"
"Again, calm yourself man! They couldn't have been captured if they were ahead of us and got back here before us."
"Did you see what was out there? The horse has got a death wish, capture is possible!"
"All the same, we can't abandon them now."
"What do you suggest?"
"They left tracks, it possible Milka demanded to back and free those prisoners."
"Oh, by the Queen's golden apple..."
"If you lack the courage, leave if you must; I will not be slowed down by somebody who is questioning their duty."At the campsite, the woman returned, with some burn marks and marred clothes and spoke briefly with the lead goblin, expressing her doubts that the game could even happen at this rate, but the goblin explained reinforcements were on the way, convincing Conrin that they needed to leave quickly. The woman knelt then while Conrin was urging Milka to leave and began to cast a spell in the ground, giving him the familiar feeling of totemic magic but the script she wrote in wasn't druid runes.
"No! because what if you succeed then you're gonna go back and talk them out of giving me this really plush job working with kids, uh-uh! Let's go!"
Rashua smiles at Yelemar "See? Spellcaster's pride."
"This has all gone terribly sideways. Are we even going to play the game tonight?"
" Rest assured we are! We just have to get the prize under control. The prize is big this time, that unicorn!"
"If you can even catch it!"
" More wasps are on the way, it can't stay hidden forever."
"We need to trust this rescue to Auntie Weaver, they're growing in numbers and they'll be searching from the skies shortly. We need to go now."
"We need to attack now, they're so few of them here!"
"No there's so many of them here."
"Do we count differently?"
"We do."
"If you're worried about the troll, light my horn on fire"As he tried to usher her away, Yelemar and Rashua caught back up to them and explained what happened in each other's absences. Milka atttempted to convince the others into attacking, but no one else was ready to throw their lives away and they trekked through the night under the cover of Milka's Pass Without Trace to reach the Fae's treehouse.
"If it comes to that, yes."
"I was gonna go with that being the first option and not a desperate last, but alright."
"Okay good, we're all together and I assume we're not on the murder mission anymore?"
"Yes, that's correct. We're gonna need some help from the school's friends, Polly, Tick, Kay, Tarre, ...Gud, Lug?"
"Those are fake, terrible names!"
"You got me there, I didn't listen that close."Upon arriving to the tree, they warned the Fae there of the possible threat and then after some brief discussion set to rest up for a different route back to Frial after getting their bearings after a difficult night. I was able to contact Tarre that evening to confirm they had made it safely and got the short version of the story from them and left Frial with the ancient flying vehicle to pick them up instead of having them walk back through the dangerous plains. I'm glad Milka is safe with the other victims of time displacement in the South, but with the oddities they reported back here we would soon learn more about a few of them and make even more contact with these new faces on the scene.
"Alright, if we're going to leave these people behind, like absolute villains, then i guess we'd better go before I change my mind."
Character(s) interacted with
Reveks The Swarmlord - The Goblin leader of these Giant Wasps and totemic worshippers
Bailey Peach - Warlock with Hyena patron
Ebbo Dobb - The Druid devoted to Boar
Yelemar - Former member of Harvest Children that was rescued from Berris control and offered employment after the Harvest Children were broken
Rashua Haram - Former Baradradi Academy student and Westbound Star Company journeyman mage and associate of Irufan Rimer, sort of teacher at Wagner Orphanarium
Conrin - Former member of The Choir, but disillusioned with blatant terrorism in order to meet their goals, left as the leader of the organization was captured and imprisoned by the Kreastos of Frial's constabulary
Milka - The vengance driven unicorn also flung through time by the Konning Castle Anomaly
Bailey Peach - Warlock with Hyena patron
Ebbo Dobb - The Druid devoted to Boar
Yelemar - Former member of Harvest Children that was rescued from Berris control and offered employment after the Harvest Children were broken
Rashua Haram - Former Baradradi Academy student and Westbound Star Company journeyman mage and associate of Irufan Rimer, sort of teacher at Wagner Orphanarium
Conrin - Former member of The Choir, but disillusioned with blatant terrorism in order to meet their goals, left as the leader of the organization was captured and imprisoned by the Kreastos of Frial's constabulary
Milka - The vengance driven unicorn also flung through time by the Konning Castle Anomaly
Created Content
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z7X3hGMXUk&list=PLvtBQ_uFn4UQNFzdqHTEZ3Nn7ssDUbY0z we tend to keep gross talk to a minimum but it does happen. consider yourself warned
This is a side game from new characters recruited to work at the Wagner Orphanarium
Report Date
06 Jan 2022
Primary Location
Related Characters
