Wednesday, March 16, 2005

WFRP Update 19

"It seems like an eternity has passed since these events took place." The old halfling murmured into his beer.

I watched the wee man adjust his bulk into a more comfortable position in the chair and light his pipe, waiting on his words with baited breath, quill held at the ready, eager to preserve his tale. "It was the river Styr. Everything changed once we started up those waters. You could feel the change settle on us as we pulled away from Kemperbad. We didn't recognize it back then, just thought that it was some side effect of that damned chaos magic that had seemed to infest Rudolpho...poor bastard.

We was heading up the river Styr. Still on the lookout for that witch Iltelka...why we was following Magdelaine's ideas is still beyond me, but we was doing what she wanted for once. You gots to realize that most of these river journeys is nothing but watching the bank roll by and figuring out ways to aggravate Magdelaine and Rudolpho. So when Elpham spied that horse floating towards us it caught our attention. It took us a bit of work, but we finally got the poor beast hooked and hauled it along side. The thing must have been in the water for a few days...it smelt worse than a goblin's arse! We hooked the saddle bags, cut 'em lose and let the thing float away. At first we didn't see much of interest; a few days of water logged rations and a few coins. But then Elpham pulls out a sealed oil-skin packet. Damn thing was still dry and had a seal of some demon dancing on the emperors crown. Now, being the fools that we was, we called Magdelaine up to see if she knew anything about the seal. Damn crazy wench done rip the packet open without a second though. I kept telling her that playing with those chaos touched things would be the death of her. Anyway, seems that someone went to a lot of trouble to keep a map nice and dry, although we couldn't figure out why. It was just marking the spot of the signal tower where we had helped out them dwarfs a few weeks back. Maybe someone was trying to create a journal of our exploits."

"We did pass some strange monoliths that had some sort of mystical carvings on them. But seeing as how none of us had wings and we wasn't ready to climb the 400 feet, up the cliff sides, we didn't spent too much time one them. For too long, we reached the water falls; I tell you, seeing that much water falling towards you is a bit of a scare...probably would have been worse if we was up top and coming over the edge.

"Now, someone had gone too far too much trouble and cut themselves a set of locks in the side of this damn gorge...it would have been an interesting ride to take; floating up the side of a cliff. But since we wasn't carrying a kings ransom, we didn't think about that journey too much. We did see a pair of ladies on a landing under the waterfall, waving to us and it seems that that was all the invitation that Rudolpho and Elpham needed. It was a real change of pace to meet people that was friendly and didn't want to kill us on sight. So 'fore we knew it, we was heading up the trail and into their village. Unterbomb it think they called it. Strange place, there was this huge tree growing in the middle of the place. Friendly people though. That's where we first met up with that priestly fellow, Corobath. So it seems that they don't be getting too many visitors, so our arrival was cause for celebration. We broke out one of them kegs of wine and the party started. Damn fine feast they put out. Now, somehow, we start talking about what we is doing there and all that and they tell us that Iltelka and her followers is probably headed out to the "devil's bowl".

At this point, the grizzled adventurer, turns his head and spits onto the floor.
"Foul place. There be times when I wish that I had stayed in the moot. Anyway, they volunteer Corobath to lead us to the bowl and then next day we is off at dawn."

A smile crosses the haggard face for the first time in many hours. "Rudolpho never did live down THAT little trip. We had to journey to the top of the cliff and ride some canoes upriver to get to the bowl. Now, I had some experience doing this, and that Corobath fella was a natural at it. Elpham and Magdelaine seemed to manage, but Rudolpho...if I hadn't been in the same boat with him it would have been a riot to watch him. As it was, he gets in the back and starts doing his own thing. Ignoring what I was telling him and one second I'm looking at sky and the next I'm looking at the bottom of the river. I get a hold of the boat and float off a little ways, but Rudolpho starts trying to swim. 'Course he swim like he does most other things...badly. He ended up going down more times than...uhhh, anyway...he was a splashing and gurgling. Corobath rows over to help and Rudolpho starts trying to rip the boat apart with his hands. Maybe he was trying to climb in, but he was doing more damage to the boat than anything. It was getting so bad that Corobath had to beat him with his paddle to try and calm him down. Several times as I recall. So, anyhow, after a few minutes of this farce we finally got everyone back into their boats and headed back up the river."

"That was the last smile that we had for a while. As we got closer to that cursed place the landscape changed. The trees got more stunted and twisted. Even the grass changed....it moved of it's own accord...the whole place stank of chaos. And there was the sounds at night...they was always off in the distance, but they never sounded normal."

"Eventually we stop and hike inland and arrive at crater lake. Supposedly some force split the earth here and the monoliths that surround the lake are the only thing that is keeping the chaos from getting out. I don't know too much about that, but that night we did see us a spirit."

"This lady come floating towards us, asking us for help. We could almost see right through her. She had these gaping wounds all over her. It was foul stuff. Now, since she had gone to all the trouble of waking us up, we followed her. She led us to a small cave and a shallow grave. Now something had been digging through this grave and disturbed the bones, so we figured that was what she was on about. We buried her again and said whatever words we could remember. Seemed to work anyway. She pointed down another tunnel and told us what we seek is that way and then sunk into the grave."

"So we follow the tunnel and find us a cave in. Elpham figures that we can clear it easy, so him and Corobath get to work. Now, it was nice of the lady to point us the way, but she could have mentioned that there was a hoard of skeletons protecting it. The rocks was coming down a bit too easy and next thing we know some bony arm is trying to claw Elpham's face off. Once we gets over our shock we made short work of them, what with Elpham hacking bits off and Magdelaine calling down magic bolts on them. I never did trust her calling up magic in some place that was so heavily infested in chaos, but she never done listen to anyone but herself."

"So we kick the remaining bones into a pile and make us a quick grave. Seemed to work for the lady, so we figured that it couldn't hurt. And then we find what all the fuss was about. There was a bunch of sacks in here and one of them had this stick with a six pointed star on it. Took us a moment or two, but then we remembered where we had seen it. Back in the dwarf tower; it was one of the them keys that we figured would open something. Looks like this be the missing key. Course we had no idea what to do with the damn thing at that point, so we had no choice but to keep it. Maybe we could make us a trip out that way again and give it to the dwarfs for safekeeping."

"Of course, that had to be the time when the rat men showed up".