On their return to Gadhuvras, the pair considered their next move. Eloy hinted at the idea of Gorfang returning alone to Sar'Prime to "collect his orcs while I look after your place here" but the orc told him in no uncertain terms that if he found any trace of the Cult of Sabath in his Kingdom, Eloy could start making plans for his afterlife. Eloy made no comment, but dropped the idea.
Likewise, the idea of recruiting the dwarvish artillerists didn't appeal to the Weapons Master. Certainly Gadhuvras had space for more. Their last adventure onto Sar'Prime had brought them back to Gadhuvras with nearly eight thousand orcs, but the city could hold five times that easily, and there were deep places, places so deep that not one living had ever been down to them.... With that in mind, the two headed for Sar'Prime once more.
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After an initial aborted attempt to cast Plane Shift from a scroll, Eloy opened a portal and shifted them into the home realm of the Sarkrith. Gorfang frowned and muttered, but the Man in the Shadows simply shrugged insouciantly; they were pretty lucky he could manage to trigger such a powerful spell at all.
As they looked around the world of the Sarkrith, it struck them that something fundamental had changed in the four months since they had left the place. The sun, previously brighter than Alair's and mildly uncomfortable to Gorfang, was dim, barely enough for his human comrade to see by at all. The weird purple vegetation, formerly rich and plentiful, was stunted and withering. Black stains smeared the sky, like clouds of oil, slowly writhing and coiling and blocking the already dim light in weird patterns.
As they walked towards the centre of the camp, githwarriors passed them, moving with organized haste back and forth. Some nodded to the pair, retrieving memories of their faces and identities from the minds of those of their fellows who had seen them before. In minutes they reached the centre of the encampment. Gone was the simple tent that had been General Vanazha's command post; in its' place was a small building, made from local materials but decorated in the inevitable alien Githyanki curliques and flourishes.
The general greeted them, and responded to their questions as to what had happened. The Gith had built on the advantage bought for them largely by Gorfang and Eloy, and after the fall of the regional capital Velgostarn had pushed forward to the great capital of the Sarkrith itself, mighty Sar'Pinoth, and fought their way into the palace of Sar'Drakath. What happened next was only speculation; Vanazha believed that the advance units had reached the great black blade Darthang, the master Opener, and moved it.
The dark secret of the Sarkrith was thus revealed; all the ability they had to suppress and drain magical energy was bound up in this mighty artifact - which was of course itself magical. The amount of energy required to suppress the arcanosphere of an entire world is indescribable, and disturbing the energy flows around the black sword had had catastrophic effects.
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The blast that destroyed the entire city and everything in it had scoured the land around, fusing it into blackened glass, and the taint had bled out across the world from there, expanding slowly but inexorably. Everything within the area died, and psionic communication was disrupted to the point that no gith scouts had accurately reported what it was like.
The world of the Sarkrith was doomed, and the Githyanki were pulling out in good order, their mission accomplished. The black daggers' power was ended, and the realm of the Sarkrith was broken forever.
With the failure of the entire g'dula network, the last organization had collapsed and the slaves of the Sarkrith had found themselves suddenly bereft of the control under which they had lived for generations. The pyschological effects of this combined with the crumbling of the world around them were shattering, and all the slave cities had exploded in various ways, mostly into chaos and violence. The Githyanki were retreating out of the postapocalyptic wasteland as fast as they could, preparing to leave before the world ended.
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Gorfang and Eloy glanced at each other, impressed. Not just victory in war; utter genocide, the destruction of an entire world, not just an enemy people. "That's getting the job done," said Gorfang approvingly.
Vanazha offered them an escort of fifty githwarriors to guide them across the devastated land to the orc city of Demnos. There had been two cities, but the other - Kelmyr - had already been overtaken by the oncoming taint and was lost. Wishing them luck, the general returned to his evacuation plans as the quest moved out eastwards.
The quest had been travelling for several days when they crested a rise and discovered a warband of hefty ogres moving towards them in a distinctly hostile manner. The commander of their githguard wanted to assault them head-on, but Gorfang stopped him. Eloy stepped forward and greeted them in their own tongue, which gave them pause, and then Gorfang addressed the leader - a giant of an ogre naming himself Bujak.
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"Will you fight me, little orc?" rumbled Bukjak. "You could," said Gorfang, "or you could fight for me instead. I know a land with clean air, clean water, all the food you can eat - are you hungry? - and many of your compatriots. If you serve me, you keep a share of your plunder, fight good battles, live in strong quarters." The mention of food and water had struck a cord, and on an instinct Eloy unslung his water-bottle and poured a cup of clean water, offering it to the huge ogre. The described delights of Gorfang's offer had intrigued the ogres, but the impact of a draught of pure, clean water was visceral and immediate and Bujak's hideous face crumpled into a fierce grin. "We will fight for you, little orc!" he declared.
A week later, the enlarged quest reached the walled city of Demnos. Like the other slave-cities they'd seen, the defences had originally been designed to defend against those inside rather than attack from outside; but this had been changed here. Crude ramparts and battlements had been erected to protect the city, and rude banners dangled from them, scrawled with an unrecognizable rune. Alongside them hung the dessicated corpses of the Sarkrith former masters - hung out to dry in no uncertain fashion. Coils of smoke from cookfires spiralled lazily up from behind the walls, and lumpen guards, plainly orcs, patrolled the battlements.
Halting the escort beyond bowshot, Gorfang and Eloy sauntered up to the walls, Gorfang with his antimagic ring donned. Apart from protecting him from arcane assault, he rather thought it might mitigate the effects of the creeping taint a bit. Halting before the gates, he hailed the city in the time-honoured tradition of polished orcish diplomats.
"Oi! Bastards!" he bellowed in a voice loud enough to rattle the bones of the displayed Sarkrith.
The guards turned their attention to him. "Orc, and a human. You bandits?" one asked dubiously. Gorfang grinned. "I came to take, not to steal," he declared. There was a pause in which the effort of thought was almost painful. "Uh?"
"Who's in charge?"
"Hold on, I'll get 'im."
A few minutes later a much bigger orc appeared on the ramparts. He glared down at Gorfang and Eloy, then spoke, in a much purer orcish than the ex-slaves had used.
"You're not from round here, either, are you?" he said. "Go away and find your own city; this one's mine."
Gorfang's eyebrows lifted. This orc was no more native to Sar'Prime than they were. "Do you like it here?" he asked. "Aren't you getting hungry?" The orc chuckled. "No; we've been eating ogre the last couple of weeks. This place is wide open and we're sitting pretty here."
"I have a proposition for you," began Gorfang.
"You're a bit stringy, but I'm sure we can fit you into the menu somewhere," responded Zatrul. Eloy bit back a laugh.
"You can stay here," continued Gorfang, "drinking poisonous shit and eating ogres, until the taint reaches here and you all die. Or, you can come with me and join my kingdom. I'm trying to get as many orcs off this plane as I can before it dies."
Zatrul rolled his shoulders. "These are my subjects," he said thoughtfully, "but if I do this, they'll be yours instead."
"You need to listen to this," put in Eloy, "or you've had it." Zatrul shot a look at Gorfang. "Your food's talking," he commented. "Somehow, I don't think so. My city. My orcs. I am Zatrul, King, me!" Hefting his massive sword, he vaulted clean over the ramparts and dropped to the ground, already running headlong at Gorfang, the weapon swinging around his head.
 DM Note: There was a little doubt as to whether a character can jump a 30' battlement. For a running jump, the maximum is 6x height, which for Gorfang is at least 36' - so we're good!. |
Eloy stepped calmly backwards, and lit a cheroot, speculating on how long this was going to take. In the event, it was not long. Zatrul charged towards Gorfang and he braced himself, hefting his khopesh. As the King of Domnar arrived, the Master of Weapons swung a looping underhand strike which struck Zatrul neatly between the legs, slashed up through most of his body and tore out just below his ribcage. Zatrul's ripped remains cartwheeled past Gorfang to splatter over the ground in a steaming spray of gore and organs. Gorfang's left-hand blade hammered into the burly neck and the orc grabbed Zatrul's loose head by one of the spikes on his helmet. Bracing himself, he leaped the thirty feet onto the battlements, hefting the head high.
There was a stunned pause. After a moment, Gorfang noticed a skinny, grizzled orc of advanced years who had been standing on the stairs to the battlements, near to Zatrul but carefully out of view of the attackers.
"Changing sides?" the Master of Weapons asked him.
"What sides?" answered the orc. "Hail to the King?" he hazarded, his eyes on Gorfang.
As the gates were opened so that Eloy could make a more leisurely entrance, the skinny orc - Grometh of Skekun - spoke with Gorfang. It soon emerged that he was a seer, whose divination ("Will I benefit from going to this place?") had led him and his warrior associate to Sar'Prime. Ruefully, he admitted he should have tried for more detail; while perhaps true, the divination hadn't warned them that it would be Zatrul's death. "He was never the brightest penny in the purse," he said sadly.
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Grometh was a priest, serving a god he called Poldath, but which sounded an awful lot like Grummsh, the one-eyed God of the Orcs. With his aid, taking control of the five thousand orcs remaining in Domnar was pretty straightforward. The fact that the world was coming to an end encouraged him to co-operate.
After a week's travel, and some sorting out of issues like who was food and who was a fellow warrior, the quest returned to the bridgehead. The evacuation was now well under way, with only a small garrison left holding a shrinking circle around the field set aside for opening Gates. A gith wizard created one to the gates of Gadhuvras, and Gorfang and Eloy prepared to leave Sar'Prime for the last time.
General Vanazha came up to them, and after a considering pause, offered his hand hesitantly. "This is your custom, I believe?" he said as Gorfang took it. "My reputation is secured. My fame will be immortal by the time my Queen eats my soul. I shall mention your names to her," he ended as one promising a great honour. Gorfang and Eloy nodded with as much enthusiasm as they could muster; tales of the hideous and deadly lich-queen of the Githyanki portrayed her as no-one they wanted to attract the attention of. Eloy recovered his poise first. "An honour," he said politely. "Let me offer you this in return," and handed the general one of his dragon-tooth pendants. Gorfang's eyebrows shot up - if the gith general took offence he'd strangle Eloy - but the gith simply reached out and took the thing. His peculiar head tilted from side to side as he eyed the pendant, the strange movements enhancing the impression of his alien nature. "Interesting," he said, and tucked it away.
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Session Date: 17th July 2013 |
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