Warlock! Something is Rotten in Grim Biskerstaf...

Warlock!
I: Something is Rotten in Grim Biskerstaf

It is a gray day in the city of Grim Biskerstaf, the largest city south of Fesselburg, the capital of the Kingdom of Fesselmark. Biskerstaf is a bustling place, a busy port and a refuge for many of those displaced during the civil war that wracked the Evening Lands. Indeed, among its citizenry it now counts hundreds or perhaps even thousands of refugees displaced by the tragedies at Pomperburg, as well as deserters from both the King's and the Traitor's armies. A walled city originally built by the elves in an age past, the red stone of Biskerstaf’s once stalwart defenses is now worn and crumbling, bleached and pitted by the sun, rain, and wind. The ruins of an ancient temple still crown Lord's Hill in the middle of the city, and the surrounding noble houses and villas are stone and have great permanence. The lower city, though, is newer and more crudely constructed, having been razed by goblin raiders from the Cragtops several times in the last two centuries. The citizens rebuild anew each time, but with structures of wood, wattle, and daub rather than redstone and slate.

The Vessen is the lifeblood of the place -- the massive, half-mile wide river that flows slowly from the lands and lakes in the north to the wide ocean a few scant leagues south of Grim Biskerstaf. And it is that river that brings a frown to the face of Magistrate Donaras Navari. A sour-faced man in the best of times, his expression now, as he overlooks the city from the second tallest tower in the central Fortress of Strumdorf, is one of complete and abject disdain. All the weighty troubles that should worry Lord Kelberond, they are like stones and chains around the neck of the Magistrate instead. Lord Kelberond is a fool who Navari helps prop up, a man unqualified in all respects to rule one of the Kingdom's greatest cities. The man was confused as to what room he was in half his life -- how could be be expected to keep the Little Council in check? To play the Docker's Guild off against the Fish Mongers, to press the often shiftless City Guard to improve the walls and other failing defenses, and to watch the Priests of the Red King carefully. Those dangerous, red-robed men had been cast out of the capital by Queen Isalodora and Viscount Rubrix -- who many said actually ruled the Kingdom now, with King Pelleron IV so long out of the public's eye.

Smaller things, too, bothered the man.

The children down on the docks, dressed as goblins and pretending to attack Biskerstaf's citizenry. Outrageous! The colorfully gilded, magnificently rigged trade ship in the harbor from Far Hissain. Worrisome! Kelberond’s strange daughter Meageller, who had holed up in the Fortress's tallest tower with her legion of cats. A woman most peculiar.

Worst of all, though, was that Lord Kelberond seemed blind to The Blight. True enough, that reviled sickness was primarily affecting the poor and the downtrodden outside of Lord’s Hill, but who was to say it wouldn't one day spread among the noble houses? Among the artisans and craftsmen? Among the wizards who teach strange magics to those who can find the College of Doors, or the ardent clergy of Thrice Blessed?

The befouled river was the key to it, the Magistrate was certain. So certain that he'd decreed that the city would pay silver to anyone working to skim the frothy, chunky scum from the surface of the sluggish, dark water. Terrible things had been found floating in the river lately, and to Donaras's eye it would only improve the situation if those atrocities were fished out and incinerated by members of the Golden Crown -- blight hunters and confessors charged by the King with rooting out the last of the demonic taint left behind by the Traitor and his dark allies.

It is the promise of that silver, then, that starts our story...

---

The Docks

A fisherman's ship is just tying up to a stout wharf as two men from the City Guard approach, gaffs in hand, followed by none other than Confessor Tyrinious. That tall, grim-face ghoul has doubled the bounties on the vile sludge in the river, making collecting it a more lucrative enterprise than fishing itself, with pennies paid by the bucket, and silvers by the barrel. The witchhunter wears a sword on his hip -- normally frowned upon inside the city’s walls -- dark leather armor beneath a beautifully made black and silver cloak, and a broad-rimmed hat. He is about to ask the boat's occupants about their 'catch' when a musclebound dock worker with one ear and a heavily scarred bald head cuts in.

"Right! You there, deadfish! Get this floatin' pile of shite off my dock! We need to make room for the Crystal Serpent!" the man shouts at he points, out into the river where the ornate merchantman from Far Hissain is anchored, patiently waiting to finally complete its long journey. The foreign ship would be laden with spices and silks, no doubt, and other exotic treasures that tickled the minds of the curious.

Tyrinious steps forward, peering at something floating in the water behind the ship -- some gelatinous, jellyfish-like mass it looks to have towed. "What's that, then?" he says with his usual intensity and gravel tone. "There, in the water?"

"Easy, I say, easy boy," Foghorn blusters. "Can't y'all see we're conductin' important business with the Confessor and his officers here?"

Foghorn turns back to Tyrinious with a obsequious grin. "Nasty is what it is, sir. Took a lot of work for me and the boys to bring it in, yessir!"

Foghorn hopes a little exaggeration will get him a better bounty. The sooner to pay off that shark, Quint, for this tub. The Amity's a good gal, but with hauls like this one, Foghorn may soon need a bigger boat.

"It’s the fingernails what does it for me." Lambert says, as he sniffs the tips of his fingers. He makes a face that suggests it’s less than pleasant.

"Can’t never seem to get the bloody stink out from underneath em!" he says, sniffing them once again.

The man is dressed in the finest of gear… for a thief that scoops slime to make ends meet. A heavy, functional cloak is pulled around him as the evening cold sets in.

"Is he calling us deadfish? I’ll show him a deadf…" The man was about to shoot a rude hand gesture towards the bald man, but then the thief spots Tyrinious standing, waiting for them to pull their catch in. The thief removes his cap, and holds it in front of him in two hands.

"Evening, Sir!" he nods to the man, on his very best behavior.

"Sirs!" he nods again to the city guards, the bane of his life.

"Don’t rightly know, sir; if you’ll forgive our ignorance, sir."

Lambert leans over the side to get a look at the thing.

"Some kind of blob, I reckon. Blob monster, I suppose it could be."

He looks to the others to back up his theory.

"Och, it's a sea drake. A babe," Rausimod mutters for not the first time. His voice is low, as he is weary of stating the obvious so many times. It also possesses that characteristic rumble of the dwarves, a voice that could almost be described as shifting stone. He sits down in the boat in his cloak and hood, the latter of which is a deep purple with a golden knot at the end; his eyes never quite meet the Confessor's. Though he may be an initiate of faith, it would seem to be the wrong faith in these parts. For he knelt before the Dragon.

Going on this short voyage had been to the purpose of earning some quick coinage to further fund his true goals. For the Dragon slept atop a hoard of gold that was not earned fairly, and so any appeasements he were to offer must be acquired much the same. But crooked games were expensive, and the dwarf more often than not found himself penniless on the streets, clawing his way back into society. All the while, his shield and helm stood to protect him, and his mace threatened to topple any in his way.

How is it that a dwarf thinks he knows about sea drakes, then…

Lambert had given up trying to reason with Rausimod. Now, Lambert had never seen a sea drake, as such. He wasn’t sure if he even knew what they were. But he knew what they weren’t, that much was for sure. And they weren’t blobs!

At the sound of raised voices, Banio Phelbt pushes aside the tarp beneath which he's been snoozing and squints into the dusty light. He's been under there for most of the day, sleeping off a nasty hangover from the night before. He gave out that he wasn't feeling well-- true, as far as it went-- wondered if it might not be "a touch of the Blight," and reasoned that isolating himself for a time might be best for the health of the rest of Foghorn's crew.

A fussy, pudgy little man, Banio knows fuck all about boats or fishing, but quite a bit about getting other people to see things his way. There is some question as to whether he's actually pulled a rope or cast a net at any point during his brief 'employment' aboard the Amity. He's been using the boat as a place to lie low, his recent screeds against the established faiths of Fesselmark having earned him some unwelcome attention from the authorities. Confessor Tyrinious of the Golden Crown, for example.

And wasn't that Tyrinious' dulcet voice inquiring about something the ship is towing?

Without yet emerging from his shroud, Phelbt feels for the dagger at his belt. He's dressed in what was once a fine, chocolate-colored doublet, now frayed and stained from years of rough use, with a similarly shabby cape to match. Knee-length trousers, discolored socks and heavy, buckled shoes complete his ensemble. Somewhere under the tarp is a shoulder satchel of some sort.

Trusova pulls off the scarf from her face, and winces as it pains her not-quite-healed broken nose. The fabric had started off as a reasonable defence against the Vessen's stench, but the smell was winning and her nose was hurting like a bitch.

Trusova doesn't stand out at first glance. She cuts a mostly androgynous figure, especially with her raven-black hair up in a bun and under her hood. Black cloaks were a little cliché for someone on the lam, but cloaks were common enough on the docks, and everything ends up stained black in Grim Biskerstaf eventually.

However, if you look closer, you'll notice some irregularities. When the wind shifts her cloak, you might notice the flatbow strapped to her back with a leather harness. That spear she carries has a coppiced ash shaft and the metal head is stamped from the King's forges. And not a lot of fishermen walk around in knee-high riding boots.

It's not that she didn't think to leave these things behind, she just couldn't think of a safe place to stow them. There's probably no such place in this whole city, she sighs to herself. In that case, all the more reason to bring her tools of the trade with her.

Trusova had ended up in Grim Biskerstaf carrying a message from the north. Her patrol had come across a Knight Herald in a pitched battle with a pack of highwaymen. She scattered the bandits with a fierce charge, but it was too late to save the Herald. In his saddlebags they found a message with the Royal seal on it destined for Lord Kelberond. Her patrol drew lots, and Trusova drew short - it became her job to deliver the damned thing.

The message must've been pretty important, because the bandits followed her all the way to Grim Biskerstaf, and even tailed her after she had delivered it. So, she tried get lost in the throngs of other lost souls in this city, hoping the trouble would pass. Problem was, after a day in Biskerstaf her beautiful stallion, Whiskeyjack, took ill. They called it "The Blight." Suddenly she had to pay a stable to isolate him and take care of him; letting her best friend die was not an option.

And that's how she ended up on The Amity.

The city guard approaching was not a good sign. She didn't trust them; worst case they could be they were bought off and in league with whoever was tracking her. With this talk of sea drakes and blob monsters, they were drawing too much attention to themselves. Trusova promptly begins stabbing at the blob with her spear.

"See? Just a thick blot of river slime," she says with a overly-embellished masculine voice.

The burly docker glances at the witch-burner and the guards flanking him, then glowers back at Foghorn. "This here dock? Do you know who owns this dock?" The same greasy, stubby finger that had pointed out the foreign ship in the harbor suddenly points back at Lord's Hill -- to the top, the residence of the wealthiest noble in the city. "Lord Telk, who heads the Little Council. Who my boss' boss' boss reports to. Get it? To the fuckin' Dredge with ya. Vomit up all your chunky river slime there. Keep me dock clean of all that!"

"Step aside," Tyrinious commands sternly of the dockworker, and when the two city guardsmen raise their gaffs, the man relents.

"Fine, fine -- but you'll hear about this, all of ye. Be quick with your rancid business then!"

"We shall," the Confessor says with a nod as the man moves aside. Coming to the edge of the dock, so he can better see both the crew and what they have dragged in the water, he shakes his head. "A blob monster, you say. Perhaps. It's no drake, that's for certain."

When Trusova pierces the thing with her spear, the disturbingly smooth fungus-like flesh quivers a little with each thrust.

"Right, stop that," Tryinious says to the hooded spearman as he gestures for his men to come forward. "Lift that up onto the dock. You fishermen, help."

"Oh! Is it not a sea drake then, sir? Pity that, ain’t it?"

Told ya…

"And will you be minding if we use the hook on it, sir? On account of you not liking us spearing it. Heavy, is all, sir!

Or should we fetch the net?"

Like a baby worm, Banio squirms his tarp up against a pair of nearby crates, then lifts his head just enough to peer through the crack between them. It gives him a narrow but serviceable view of Tyrinious and the dock, while showing only the black of one eye and a hint Banio's stringy, greasy brown hair, which blends well enough with the wood of the crates.

Trusova steps back at the Confessor's command and cleans her spear point with a rag. She searches for a smarter way to haul the thing up than by hand. So far she's stayed clean and would like to keep it that way.

"Hooks, nets, use whatever means you need," Tyrinious says, squinting as he casts a glance over the boat, looking for anything that might catch his practiced eye. Anything they could use, anything or anyone that might need drowning, hanging, or burning.

When Trusova withdraws her spear, she sees something dark leaking into the slimy water of the Vessen. Blood?

Trusova puts her spear aside (but not far), and hoists a net that has seen better days, and looks to Foghorn like she might wait for a commanding officer to give her the go ahead. "Ready when you are." She adds "Its leaking something, " and points at the slimy discharge.

"Boy, I say, boy, give that net here," Foghorn directs Trusova. The fisherman expertly casts the net, then positions the "boy" and the other volunteers to haul. "Now, heave! Doo-dah! Heave! Doo-dah!"

Trusova is happy to hand over the net to Foghorn, as she has little practical experience fishing. And, his misuse of pronouns should help keep the guards off her scent. Small blessings were sometimes all you got, but if you strung 'em together you might just get through. She puts her back into the heaving-ho as the crew hauls the blob out of the water for all to see.

The dwarf, having already pushed his luck in the water today, does not make the effort to drag the blob from the water. How he had convinced himself to come out here in the first place, none knew. The others seemed to have this well in hand. Instead, he keeps a keen eye on the witchburner. There was much about Rausimod that the man would not approve of.

Lifting the gelatinous, semi-solid mass from the river proves to be no small feat, but using gaffs and hooks and ropes and nets, many hands and the boom-armed winch on the dock -- there comes a moment when the two city guardsmen start to muscle the crank to lift the blob out of the water.

Tyrinious is not idle during that time, and comes aboard to inspect the buckets and barrels of putrescence that the men (sic) have skimmed from the Vessen. He doles out coins carefully, silvers for the brimming barrels and pennies for the slurry-filled buckets. The captain and each crew member (save Banio) gets a glare as the money changes hands, and when the tall man steps off the ship, he's muttering to himself about what must have transpired to convince a dwarf to come aboard, or to convince the captain to allow it.

"Heave!" the guardsmen cry as they sweat and turn the crank. "Heave!"

Finally, the quivering mass crests the surface, and as everyone watches -- scowling, horrified townsfolk have gathered on the docks and in smaller boats moored nearby -- the huge, jellyfish-like glob of pinkish-red tissue is lifted free of the dark water. It trails all manner of vile, writhing madness beneath it. There are what look like twitching tendrils, vines of seaweed or veins -- it's impossible to know which. Tumors and misshapen, dark nodules that stretch and swell and seem to reach back for the water. And worst of all, that which brings gasps and retches from nearly everyone in the audience, all manner of twitching human arms, legs, fingers, toes, eyes, teeth, and tongues. There is no rhyme or reason to the spouting of those appendages and parts, and none of them move in anything that can be called concert. It is beyond loathsome.

The two men on the crank cannot see the jiggling horror beneath the monstrosity they hoist, but they hesitate when the crowd begins crying out and shouting for the two men to plunge the thing back into the water.

"No!" Confessor Tyrinious shouts as he kneels and digs into the satchel he's been wearing beneath his expensive, flowing cloak. "Higher, men! Onto the dock with this demonspawn!"

"S’like I said, sir! Some kind of blob monster! Gods, the smell is foul!"

Ready to use the long fishhook as a spear at a moment’s notice, Lambert continues to grubby work of pulling the thing to land. He find the choicest piece of it he can, and pulls!

"My buckets were a bit light on account of this thing, sir!" he says, hoping his good showing here will earn him a few extra coins in the end.

"Worth it, though. Wouldn’t you say, sir? To not have this thing fouling up the water!"

He looks at the mass of the thing again, and feels the threat of bile in his throat. Saliva coats his mouth to prepare the way. He swallows deep!

"What’d’ya reckon it is, then?"

Trusova struggles with the ropes before switching to a hook, following Foghorn's lead.She hears the gasps and shouts of the horrified crowd as the first twitching human limb rises above the surface.

"By the dead, there's a person caught inside it!" She shouts out in alarm, but as it rises further, she realizes it is worse by far. Fighting the urge to wretch, she stays on the hook and puts all her strength into it. At least this way she's got something to pierce it with, or drive it away.