Day 1
I have arrived at the northern port
today, the first step in my mission to learn what is preventing Fater
Mukawa from guiding the souls of this strange land to their rest.
And what a land it is! The churches have more in common with
fortresses than places of worship, and the common man sees the
servants of these harsh religions as something to be feared rather
than supported. They even see the Reanimated as an enemy, rather
than allies or well cared for tools.
Even as short a time as I've been
here, I already have a lead on what is causing this land's imbalance.
Some of the stones from a nearby quarry resonate with the energies
of the Gate. When I first sensed them, I could have sworn that they
were holy relics rather than the stones that were revealed by the man
carrying them.
I have joined with the group the man
carrying the stones has assembled to investigate the quarry, and we
will be leaving for the quarry tomorrow. It will be a tenday
journey, if all goes well, but two of the churches here have already
tried following us. I hope this does not foretell trouble further in
our journey...
Day 2
The more I learn of these local
churches, the more concerned I become. They own a significant amount
of the local marble production, enough to raise concern from local
workers that they will seize any chance to take more. A church
should sever the needs of its community, not seek to control the
goods that it creates!
The churches have tried to stop us
from leaving the city, but my new companions have managed to drive
them off – at least, the first batch to try to stand against us.
Hopefully this will give us enough of a lead that they will not be
able to catch up with us, but I suspect there will be enough
hardships along our way.
Avery – our elven diplomat – has
taken to teaching me the intricacies of handling animals. It is a
fascinating subject, but sadly not one for which I am particularly
well suited. I have still managed to learn enough to manage our
wagon myself, and will strive to improve my most meager skills in the
area.
Sunshine – our errant warrior – is
a rather a study in contradictions. Her bright and friendly
personality hides a strong fascination with fighting and destruction
that I find frankly alarming. I am certainly glad we are not
enemies, but I hope that she does not end up creating more enemies
than we have already.
Then there's Dr. Skullcrusher, an
orc... Well, something... To be honest, I have never seen any who
acts quite the way he does. Loud and brash, he is constantly
spouting off his rules, but he has refused pay for this journey,
stating he is fighting for peace – a bit of a contradiction, but an
admirable goal.
He has formed something of a strange
friendship with Xerath, a reticent scorpian man. I have yet to get
to know him well, but he and the good doctor are skilled fighters
both, having proved that in driving off the second batch of men that
tried following us.
I have yet to get a good read on Jin
and Lorelie, our final two companions in this journey. I shall have
to remedy that.
Day 7
I have sensed another of those strange
stones from within an inn we were passing. We all agreed that this
was something worth investigating – besides, this was the last stop
before the silent lumber camp foretelling our final destination. Due
to these facts, though it was still early in the day, we decided it
was time to call it a night.
Unknown to us, at the time, a group of
orcs were waiting to set off an ambush – against whom, I fear, we
will never know. Dr. Skullcrusher detected the ambush, and, in an
act of extreme brashness, almost immediately started a fight with
them. Something that he came to rather regret, I fear.
Meanwhile, inside the tavern, Sunshine
and I found the man who was 'carrying' the new stone. While the
others fought off the orc ambush that Dr. Skullcrusher set off,
Sunshine and I spoke with the man. He claimed that he had been
through the gate – I can only assume that Father Mukawa has decided
it was not his time. He thought I was going to send him back through
the gate, and thus panicked – as if I was a rogue Uba who would
send anyone to Father Mukawa's embrace!
His panic did let me see where the
stone was hidden, however – a sliver of it had embedded itself in
his eye. Unfortunately, his panic also set off another event – a
resonance within the stone caused a temporary alignment with the
Gate, an even that could have been potentially devastating if not for
the fact that it was only myself and Sunshine that were near enough
to feel its effects, though the man certainly felt the full force of
the effect, collapsing.
Of course, Sunshine would not tolerate
such an assault on her person. In an act of supreme impulsiveness,
she pulled her knife on the man, cutting out the eye with the stone
in it. Granted, it was likely that the man would lose the eye when I
went in to extract the stone shard anyways, but I would have much
preferred to have the man's consent first.
It all appears to have worked out for
the best, however. After channeling Mother Rai's power to heal both
the man and Dr. Skullcrusher – who had been knocked unconscious in
the fight he started with the other party of orcs – we revived the
man. His story was quite the strange one. His story began when the
miners at the quarry found a crack in one of the quarry walls. After
cutting their way through, they found themselves in what he referred
to as the Temple of Doors – a large cavern dominated by a large
arch made of red marble in the center of the room and surrounded by
several empty doorways.
While exploring this cavern, several
of the miners disappeared, and many who returned were less sound of
mind than when they began. It reached a head when the quarry's lead
explosives expert, Lee Ming, set to destroy the red marble arch,
killing himself and several other miners as well as lodging the shard
in our poor miner's eye. This is most certainly something that I
will need to go to investigate.
We will have to delay our
investigation in this regard, however, as Jin has gone and done
something quite dangerous. After discovering a band of thieves
attempting to steal some of the marble from the mine, he slipped one
of the stones that he had been carrying with the thieves' marble, in
theory so that I could track them more easily. I suppose I cannot
hold him too much to blame, as he has no idea of the dangerous
potential that these stones contain. Granted, I only have the
faintest glimmering myself, but I do know enough about them to have
no wish to see this material in the wrong hands.
As for the orcs, it turns out that
they were planning the ambush to release the reanimated being held in
the waystation so they could be corralled back to the quarry and
clear out the remaining workers. There is a band of orcs two miles
out under the leadership of one Wanterer Grift, an orc Guru and known
as a collector of the unwanted.
The orc that Aver had captured earlier
caused quite a fuss before we were able to release him. He managed
to break off a tooth and spit it out with quite enough force to knock
Dr. Skullcrusher off of our wagon, knocking him out in the process.
I would have loved to have learned where this particular gift came
from, but the orc was unfortunately far too aggressive, forcing Jin
to take him out before he could bring harm to any other members of
the party. May Father Mukawa guide him to the rest he deserves.
Day 9
Despite our earlier delay, we have
managed to catch up with the thieves at an abandoned lumber camp.
After Jin and Dr. Skullcrusher had scouted out the camp, we made our
way forward, with Sunshine using a magical artifact to take out the
sentry watching the only path in.
What followed after this was a fast
and furious combat between our crew and the thieves, dropping the
three outside the building in a matter of seconds, and securing the
rest shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, I was rather slow in joining
the battle, but my comrades did not appear to take any mind to that.
In our interrogation of our prisoners,
we learned that Travers, the most recent head of the quarry, had
begun stockpiling the peculiar red marble that I have been detecting
the energies of the Gate from. It has become all the more imperative
that we determine what's happening at the quarry - before an even
greater tragedy than this business with the reanimated befalls this
land!
Day 10
It appears that in the time it took
for us to track down the marble thieves, a new attack had been
launched against the waystation. We arrived to fin the inn and
stables ablaze, and a large number of the reanimated wandering the
area.
Dr. Skullcrusher brought me one of the
survivors from the attack. Upon awakening, she told us that it was
the orcs that were behind the destruction – likely the same ones
that Dr. Skullcrusher had crossed some days before.
As my companions entered into the
fray, a stranger burst from the nearby woods. He was a wild-looking
man, accompanied by a wolf, and clad in little more than needed to
maintain his modesty – indeed, if I weren't so far from home, I
could have sworn that he was a follower of Brother Ilam, my
homeland's god of nature. There is a bit of a disagreement between
his followers and my fellow Uwas. Ilamites claim that we have no
right to reanimate the remains of the departed, while we maintain
that it is for Mother Rai to decide if a soul is returned to this
world to live in that honored position of service. Most times, they
settle for releasing the souls of the Reanimated that have become
feral and dangerous – a great service as such creatures can post a
great threat to others if not contained.
In any case, the Reanimated here were
certainly of the feral variety. They set on the others as soon as we
arrived – indeed, some of them seemed to feel that even I would
make a fine meal for them, as if they would be able to process the
living metal of my body!
We dispatched the feral Reanimated
rather quickly, pausing only long enough to hide the marble shipment
and for Sunshine to mutilate the bodies so that they would not follow
us once they reanimated once more.
Day 11
Thanks to our new companion, Wesley,
we have managed to overtake the orcs and their Reanimated entourage,
arriving at the quarry well before they did.
When we arrived, we found the quarry a
flurry of activity. Along with the fragments of the Gate stone, as I
have taken to calling it, we found one of the church wagons arriving
ahead of us, its owners in a heated argument with the miners. As
well, there were several wagons ready for shipping, many of them
heading deeper into the mine.
After a brief discussion, we left for
the back of the quarry, where we found a caravan leaving. We
learned, with some hardship, of a railroad line from our
nature-loving comrade, and decided that the best course of action
would be to sabotage the rails.
On the way, Dr. Skullcrusher, Jin, and
Xerath separated from us to investigate a stockade that Dr.
Skullcrusher had spotted. Inside, they found the orc miners that the
attack party was coming to free – a resource that we could
certainly use to create chaos while we continued to sabotage the
shipping operation.
After disabling a section of the rail,
preventing the shipment from leaving if all else failed, we split
into two groups: Dr Skullcrusher, Sunshine, Avery, and I split off to
take on the guards at the stockade, while Jin, Xerath, Lorelie, and
Wesley went to destroy the engine.
As my group made our way toward the
stockade, Xerath split from his group in order to gain access to the
engine. In doing so, he learned there was some sort of creature held
within the engine - something that he decided would need to be
rescued.
Meanwhile, my group arrived at the
stockade, and decided that I would provide a most opportune
distraction – something that I did rather well, preaching to them
of the benefits of accepting Father Mukawa before their time had
come.
Perhaps a touch too dramatic –
particularly as I channeled Father Mukawa's power to cause fear in
one of the guards that was ready to dismiss my teachings out of hand,
but it served its purpose. The guards were wholely focused on me,
allowing Sunshine and Dr Skullcrusher to reach the inside of the
stockade unseen – at least, by the guards themselves.
Unfortunately, their followup attacks
against the guards were rather less than fruitful. However, the orcs
inside the camp were ready for the battle, and quickly moved into
position to take out the guards inside the stockade while Avery and I
worked on the guards outside of it.
While this battle was occurring, the
other team moved into action, with Wesley dispatching one guard nigh
instantly, allowing Jin and Lorelie reaching the train shortly
afterwards.
The combat on both fronts was fast and
furious, with both of our teams taking damage, but emerging
victorious with Wesley being our only casualty – knocked
unconscious during the melee. Dr. Skullcrusher and Sunshine, with
the help of the imprisoned orcs, made short work of the guards, while
Avery and I worked to take out the guards on the wall, and the
reinforcements that were pulled in from the train yard when the
combat started.
The orcs' aid was instrumental in
destroying the rail engine, and the remaining guards broke and fled
at the overwhelming numbers that they faced. And it was during this
time that I had an idea.
I had seen – and felt – the
connection that the Gatestone had to Father Mukawa and the Gate, and
there were a great many bodies that would likely reanimate soon if
nothing was done for them. So I briefly took on the role of Uba, and
channeled Father Mukawa's energy through the red Gatestone that Jin
had been carrying, on the idea that it would open a brief portal
directly to the Gate and allowing the souls of the departed to pass
on to their rest.
The plan did, indeed, work – to a
degree. While the energies were able to separate the souls of the
departed from the corpses that they were tied to, they did not depart
immediately. Instead, they formed up a ghostly procession of
red-tinged ectoplasm, and moved back into the camp.
The rest of the group gathered
quickly, and followed after the shades – though Dr. Skullcrusher
broke off for a time in order to aid the orcs in their bid for
freedom. As I had expected, the red shades lead us to the entrance
to the Temple of Doors, still blocked off from the explosion that had
sealed it off some weeks prior.
I immediately set to work on clearing
the rubble away, even knowing that I would be too late to see the
completion of my experiment and witness the spirits crossing over to
their rest, but I wanted to see the Temple for myself, to ascertain
if it was connected with the problems that this land was facing.
During this time, Dr. Skullcrusher
negotiated the return of the min from the orcs, securing it in
exchange for three lumber camps. I do not think our employer will be
much pleased by that, but I suspect that is, perhaps, the best that
we could have expected.
