The three adventurers were gathered in the comfort of Gorfang's manor at Southwold, together again for the first time in months - all three had been travelling extensively. Each had a tale to tell. After several nights of increasingly turbulent dreams, each had experienced a deeply significant night vision of their respective deity.
 DM Note: This could be confusing; the term Old Gods is used here to refer to the gods of Classic Alair - the Erlyid gods like Pelor, Aderrra and Diruc, and the elvish and dwarvish gods.New Gods refers to cults born since the Slaying; the Triad, and the three returned Khabran gods Hektis, Nebekheshut and Sabath. Technically, the Khabran gods are older than the Erlyid ones, but they've been away, and in their current forms are new to the peoples of Alair.. |
DM Note:
Dreams of Heroes; click the faces!   |
Although the details varied, it was apparent that all their patrons needed their services once more. The Old Gods were deeply unimpressed at the appearance of more new religions, and in the case of Hektis, Nebekheshut and Sabath were doing their best to stamp them out again.
Each had awakened to find a small clay tile had been given them, their means of following their instructions.
Gorfang, however, had something he wanted to do first. "I'm going to Nasirolan," he announced, "to find a temple to Gruumsh." The others looked at him a little oddly; born in the Kordasa and now bound to Hektis, the orc had never shown interest in his ancestral gods before. "You two coming?" he finished. Lynien nodded, and Eloy flashed a grin. Gorfang returned it. "After all, I might need saving..." he joked.
Among the plunder from the fall of Vorsand [probably!] had been a Helm of Teleportation. Gorfang was wary of teleport, as he'd heard rumours it was unpredictable, but in this case he was willing to risk it. Hands gripped, magic flared and the companions were gone.
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The place Gorfang had chosen to arrive was the taproom of the Weeping Wife, scene of their encounter with the Fae Mhor Ghanim. Ignoring the odd looks of the patrons as they stepped out of nowhere, the three walked out of the tavern and headed across the city, in search of the temple Gorfang had seen last time he'd been here. It was a cold, rainy spring day in Nasirolan, and the smell of the lizard pens on the city's edge brought back memories of their expedition into the Trakar for Lynien.
The Temple of Gruumsh was exactly what they had expected; a rough building, carefully set up to resemble an orc-hold. Two burly orcs loomed outside, leaning on spears. They nodded at Gorfang as he headed inside. He glanced back and pointed at Lynien. "I can vouch for her," he said with a straight face, "but I've no idea who he is," That should slow him down a bit,he thought as he continued inside.
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Inside, rough-hewn pillars of wood supported heavy dark beams over log benches set in rows on a straw-strewn packed earth floor. Flaring flambeaux cast flickering light across the scene. At the far end, the altar looked as if it were made of a single heavy block of stone, scarred and marked by blows from blunt and edged weapons, and stained black with blood. The single crimson eye of Gruumsh hung on the wall behind it, carved and painted in wood by the looks of it. Two heavy-shouldered orcs in the long red mail-coats and broadswords that marked them as dark paladins of Ilneval stood either side of the altar, and in front of it was a third orc in the black-and-red robes of a priest of Gruumsh, clearing bones and blood from the altar from the last service. This individual turned to look at Gorfang as he walked up the aisle. Behind him, Eloy and Lynien appeared in the doorway, having successfully talked their way past the guards outside.
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"You in charge here?" asked Gorfang. The priest inclined his head with dignity. "I am Aragog," he said in a gravelly voice. His scarred face was missing an eye, marking him as a senior priest of He Who Never Sleeps. "and you I believe I have heard tell of. You are Gorfang of Lossal are you not?" Gorfang nodded. "I have heard much of you, not all of it good," continued the orc priest. "Rumour has it that you are founding an upstart religion." Gorfang frowned. "My followers are given a free choice of faiths," he said. "When their successful leader chooses one, the followers will take his example," contended Aragog. Gorfang squared his shoulders. "I want to talk to your God," he said, "can you arrange it?" Aragog blinked, surprised and also not having missed the word "your". "I can," he said. "I cannot guarantee you will enjoy it. Kneel and prepare yourself." His gaze shifted to the two non-orcs at the entrance as Gorfang knelt down. "You two!" he roared, "leave or kneel!" Glancing at each other, the pair shrugged and turned to leave. As he did so, Eloy quietly slipped one of his dragon-tooth pendants into a crack in one of the log benches, pushing it out of sight, Lynien cocked an eyebrow to herself; there was no way she could have missed it, though the orcs were oblivious and even she hadn't caught what it was he'd left behind.
Once the pair were gone, Aragog began the ritual, invoking his terrible deity. The harsh words rang with theological power and Gorfang could feel the walls between worlds weakening. He nerved himself for the experience to come.
Eloy smiled quietly to himself. He'd managed to place his amulet unseen. Maybe it would bear as much fruit here as the one he'd given the elf-maid Milani. He stepped through the door and looked up at the grey sky in disgust before wrapping his black cloak around himself and leaning against the wall, nicely shadowed under the eaves, to wait for Gorfang.
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Lynien was far less good at patience. Glancing up and down the street, she set off to see what she could find. Disregarding the fire-blackened and overgrown ruins of a sizeable tower to her left, she strolled off towards the centre of town. Completely spontaneously and to her utter surprise, three purses containing forty gold had simply jumped into her pockets by the time she was bumped into by a solid-feeling figure. She looked up - and up again. A massive lizardman stood in front of her, clothed in rough swamp-wear and clutching a heavy wooden staff; two others moved from behind him to flank her. "Do you honour the Scales of Steel?" he boomed. Lynien shrugged. "Uh, sure," she said. Eyeing her dangerously, the lizardman barked "What is the First Duty?". Any knowledge Lynien might have had of Shushkrah's cult was long exhausted. "To be slow!" she taunted. Dropping a shoulder, she rolled out from between them and was off back the way she'd come. The lightning speed of the Sandals of Nebekhenshut meant that she could have been out of sight before they'd turned around - but where was the fun in that? Moderating her pace so as to keep ahead without losing them altogether, she headed back towards the temple, giggling.
Eloy had just finished surreptitiously laying a Curse on one of the orc guards, just for something to do, when Lynien burst into view, sprinting down the street, hotly pursued by two hulking lizardmen. Turning left as if mounted on rails, she dove between the guards and into the temple, leaving Eloy outside as the lizardmen lumbered up, looking angry. From their glances at the outside of the temple, it was clear they had second thoughts about pursuing her inside. A moment later, they turned their attention on Eloy.
"Do you honour the Scales of Steel?"
As Aragog completed his spell, Gorfang felt his mind expand as it came into contact with another. He had encountered Gods before, and conversed with his own patron Hektis more than once, but this was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. Gruumsh's presence was vast - aggression, courage, strength in vast quantities and all layered through with more anger than Gorfang had ever expected to find in one being. Gruumsh, it seemed, had been angry for thousands of years...
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I KNOW YOU, thundered the voice of the God of the Orcs, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO DARES TO RAISE FALSE GODS IN MY PLACE. ORCS ARE MINE! ALL ORCS ARE MINE!! I CREATED THEM, I CREATED YOU! HOW DARE YOU CORRUPT THEM FROM MY WORSHIP, UPSTART APOSTATE HERETIC!! Gorfang rocked mentally back for a moment in the face of such spleen. "I give all my followers a choice," he pointed out again. "There are surely enough orcs in the worlds for us to share?" Gruumsh roared in fury; he knew the truth of how such things would go. "Why did you create orcs?" asked Gorfang curiously. Gruumsh's pride rang in his voice as he spoke. ORCS WERE CREATED THE PERFECT WARRIOR RACE. SOME WEAK INDIVIDUALS FAIL TO LIVE UP TO THE PATTERN, BUT THE STRONGEST WILL BE FORGED ON A MILLION BATTLEFIELDS UNTIL THE PERFECT WARRIOR RACE IS REFINED. He changed tack. EVEN NOW IT IS NOT TOO LATE FOR YOU. RETURN TO ME, SERVE ME IN THE BLOOD WAR AND YOUR REWARD WILL BE IMMENSE. DEFY ME AND I WILL DESTROY YOU.
It dawned on Gorfang what else he had sensed in Gruumsh as they conversed. Covetousness. Being Gorfang, he was unable to resist making things worse. "Serving Hektis, see what I have become!" he pointed out, "the perfect warrior - the Master of Weapons! Who could you send to destroy me?" Gruumsh snarled. THERE ARE OTHER HEROES AMONG THE ORC RACE, he growled, YOU SHALL BE BROUGHT DOWN.
Gorfang had the answers to his questions. "Farewell, Gruumsh," he said, "We will meet again. And you will lose." Surprisingly, rather than another spasm of anger, Gruumsh laughed. His laugh was terrible, great echoing barks crashing through Gorfang's head like rolling boulders. It faded as the spell ended, leaving Gorfang glad he was on his knees; he might have staggered from the force of it otherwise. One thought was uppermost; I want a laugh like that, he thought.
He turned back to Aragog. One massive hand delved into a pouch, and he handed the priest a thousand or so in mis-matched gold. As he did so, Lynien came loping down the aisle. "I found us some friends," she said cheerfully.
Eloy had tried telling the lizards that Lynien had gone that way - into the temple - but they were still unwilling to invade the temple in such small numbers. Having grown up in Dalagendor, he knew enough of Shushkrah's cant to answer the challenge - in perfect Krultac of course - and was busy spinning them an assortment of whoppers when Gorfang and Lynien came out. The lizardman leader pointed at Lynien. "There's the infidel!" he roared, hefting his staff.
Gorfang's blades blurred as they left the scabbards. One strike removed the preacher's arm, followed by a devastating backhand that sheared him completely in half at the waist, showering internal organs all over the street. Eloy skipped half a dozen steps backward like a dancer to avoid the mess; he was fond of these boots! Unwisely, the other two lizardmen hefted their blades, and a moment later were dead as well. "No-one's indoctrinating anybody," commented Gorfang. He lifted a khopesh over his head, and dedicated the kills to Hektis, God of War. This made the two orc guards step back apprehensively, and one unexpectedly fell over his own spear-shaft. Eloy chuckled quietly as they walked away, but Lynien was too busy tucking a handful of silver coins into her belt and examining the lizard preacher's staff, which appeared to be magical in nature.
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After teleporting back, the adventurers set their affairs in order, perhaps sensing that their journey might be a long one. Lynien left instructions with the Balancers, and Gorfang spoke to Shamlakh, explaining that there wasn't likely to be much of a call for a steed where he was going.
After a hearty breakfast, there seemed no point delaying any further, and Gorfang cracked his clay tile with a snap of his fingers.
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The clay tile snapped with a precise click, and everything went black, as a sensation of movement made their insides lurch. Along with the teleport, each of them felt some kind of magic settle around their shoulders and fade, though none could tell what it was. The next thing they felt was a thick, dry heat, intense and oppressive – an atmosphere they recognized. Slowly, a pale radiance grew to reveal their surroundings. Time-worn walls of pale brown stone outlined a domed chamber a hundred feet across. Dim archways opened on two sides, both filled with sand which appeared to be packed against glass or an invisible barrier.
Four figures occupied the centre of the room; a metal statue of a male khabran nine feet high carrying a khopesh, an incorporeal ghostly shape, a shadowy figure seated in a palanquin carried by four exquisite but dead khabran girls, and a bandaged mummy with heavy shoulders and a massive presence. All three recognized them immediately; Amonenhet Lord of Battles, Luxtenath the Ghost Master, Nakhsataat the Slave Master, Anshenkehra the Great; the Four Great Pharaohs of the Pyramid. Luxtenath and Anshenkehra - servants of the vanished Nepthis and Isetbashyat - both looked and sounded strained and a bit faint as they spoke, and Amonenhet did most of the talking.
“Welcome, Regalia-Bearers (he had a special nod for Gorfang). Our masters have given us instructions for you, safe to tell only in this place, at this time. The Younger Gods of your time – far more numerous - resent the Khabran Gods’ renaissance and seek to drive them back into oblivion. You are here to quest for something to even the balance.”
“The place you must visit is difficult to reach; it only exists at all from a certain point of view, and no God can go there. We cannot send you there. We can send you to a being who can send you there, and we can equip you with that which can buy you his services.”
“You are to go to Sigil, the City of Doors,” continued Amonenhat, “and locate the Portal Trader Cherwell. He will accept this,” he opened his hand to reveal a small flat disk, above which hovered a small image of a dancer, 4” high and slowly moving,” in payment for a key to the Portal to the City Forever.” He closed his fingers on the disk, shifting it from the vertical, and the dancer vanished. He handed it to Lynien. “You’d end up with it anyway,” he said with as close to humour as a mummy can manage.
“The City Forever lies on the marches of the Positive Energy Plane. While Gods gain their power from the Soul Harvest, the ability to focus that power and channel it back to their agents as magic comes from the Seeds of Life. These emerge from the Gates of Life and are collected by flickerships from the City Forever, to be released to the Gods through the Fortress of the Beating Heart in the midst of the city.”
"No God can come to the City Forever; no mortal can be affected by the Seeds. In between are beings you would perhaps refer to as angels. These are the guardians and inhabitants of the City Forever; but such proximity to the Positive is hard for such beings to cope with. It .. affects them, makes them dysfunctional. In your language there is a phrase; too much of a good thing."
“Not all of the Seeds are the same. Your task is to gain entry into the Fortress and secure the equipment used to harvest the Seeds, then travel by flickership to the Gates of Life themselves and harvest the special seeds. You’ll know them when you see them; perhaps it's better to say that they will know you. Take only one each – this is important! Return them to Sigil and thence to here.”
"Why do our Gods need these things?" asked Lynien. Amonenhat shook his head. "I do not know," he said simply, and she was pretty sure he was telling the truth. "What opposition will we face?" asked Gorfang, a relevant question that earned an approving nod from the Lord of Battles. "Some of the angels of the City may try to prevent you, though all kinds exist there, and some may be bargained with or threatened. Once the other Gods find out what you are about they may well send their servants to try to stop you."
Eloy looked at Nakhsataat, who he could feel was linked to his own God. "May I ask for a token of Sabath?" he requested, "a small statue would be nice?" Nakhsataat waved a languid arm, and the sand between them mounded and reared up into a humanoid figure. He gestured, and the revenant strode across the chamber and straight into the sand blocking the exit. A few moments later it returned with a small figurine of the god, and Eloy looked at it with interest before stowing it away. It showed Sabath as he had been portrayed in ancient days, rather than the form he was adopting now. He thanked Nakhsataat.
"How do we get to Sigil?" asked Lynien. "I cannot send you there," said Amonenhat, "one cannot teleport or plane shift to the City of Doors. Only an appropriate portal will suffice. One exists ... existed... in my city of Hathkesa." Luxtenath broke in. "My city," he corrected. "Mine!" chipped in Nakhsataat. Anshenkehra raised his voice. "It was all of ours, once," he said, "and now it belongs to the wind and the desert." Amonenhat bowed his head and continued. "Look for this sign," he sketched a burning heiroglyph in the air, "on an arch, and pass through. The arch was in the Hall of the Conjurers near the palace.. but it may not be easy to find now."
He pointed to one of the blocked arches. "Walk through there, and good fortune go with your quest." With the echoed wishes of the other Pharaohs echoing in their minds, the three stepped into the archway and were gone.
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Session Date: 30th November 2011 |
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