DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

DOOM OF THE SAVAGE KINGS
A Level 1 Adventure by Harley Stroh
Starring Judge Harrigan, Ciriaco, KCC, Len, and Darkstar8

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ACT 1

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PROLOGUE

It has been three hundred years since famed King Gulric rode west from his castle in the capital city of Ymeria; three hundred years since he tamed the wildlanders, the petty kings and upstart jarls who had long before settled — in their crude way — the dark and misty forests and moors that crawled up to the towering, snow-fanged Trolltooth mountains in the west. They bent the knee, those savage kings and princes, but only while Gulric and the generations that came after him garrisoned their villages, patrolled their roads, and forcibly levied their various taxes.

But Ymeria has ever been a strife-ridden kingdom, a country filled with covetous and resentful men and women who never seem satisfied with their lot in life. At the very precipice of the known world, it was forever gnawed at by the broken hills, frigid forests and fetid swamps bordering it, and by the decrepit, monstrous and ancient things that dwelled in those uncultivated, brutal places. Many on Aerth, in fact, saw Ymeria itself as barely civilized, with its history of fratricide in the royal family, bloody coups, and rumored pacts made with dark forces to secure what often seemed the most trivial of advantages.

It is a land that often boils with rebellion and civil war, as it does now…

GARION’S FOLLY (ALDRIC, DUFGAL, TY)

Garion, brother of King Gulric of old, had been a stunted and twisted man, one beholden to his brother’s good graces and generosities. So it was during Gulric’s campaigns in the west that Garion was granted what were seen as fertile wetlands and fields that could support a new habitation, one that would expand Ymeria’s borders and be a shining light in the dim mists of the west.

It was not to be.

The soil and the water around Garion’s Hold, it turned out, was sour and spoiled. Plants, when they grew at all, were stunted and sick; the clams from the mudflats were huge and deformed. The eels had an odd taste, and the barley produced a beer that few could enjoy. Over time, the place became known as Garion’s Folly, and it is here that our story starts…

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A light rain is falling as Senka, a heavy gray cloak about her narrow shoulders, hurries from her master’s doorstep to the nearly empty market square in the middle of Garion’s Folly. The place bustled just weeks ago with the Harvest Faire, the days-long end-of-summer market that brought people from all over the region to trade and barter, to secure the supplies and stores they would need to survive the coming winter.

Lacking a nearby quarry, the village was constructed almost entirely of timber and sod, of wattle and daub. Low, field stone walls and chimneys were a common enough sight, but the palisade surrounding the town and its gate were of dark, hard-hewn wood rather than stone. The settlement was on the east bank of the reed-filled lake known as Muckmire Fen, and from it ran the stone-and-earth causeway that Guldric’s engineers had laid three centuries prior. That low bridge, now in a significant state of disrepair, ran straight across the fen, allowing direct access to the hinterlands in the west without the need to navigate the black bogs and mires that acted as a natural border for the wild lands.

"Hello," the hooded woman says as she approaches the three figures waiting in the rain. Empty stalls and some of the detritus of the fair dominates the center of town, but the woman gestures to one of the largest — and perhaps one of the only — mercantile trading houses in town.

"Aldric, Ty and Dufgal, yes?" the slightly-built representative of their employer says with some trepidation. "Relfarious awaits. Come in from the rain, please."

MUCKMIRE MERCANTILE GUILD (ANORA, SOON TO BE JOINED BY THE OTHERS)

Relfarious the Shrewd is a rotund man who enjoys dressing stylishly, a merchant who favors eastern silks of bold colors — greens and golds in particular. His beautifully embroidered garb contrasts heavily with that worn by the simple folk of Garion’s Folly, and he prefers it that way, seeing that he is not partial to wool or home-spun cloth the color of dung.

The man stands behind a huge and ornate trading table; across from him stands Anora the Blue, an acquaintance he’d made some time ago, a young woman from the more civilized lands who was reported to have studied the arcane arts and the unnatural laws that were said to bind them. If anyone in town could get to the bottom of what had happened in Hirot, it was Anora, the extravagantly mustachioed man was certain.

"As i told you last night over dinner, the Baron’s Reeve was of no use to me. He won’t spare even a few guardsmen with the rumors of sinister shadows in the woods across the fen, so I have procured help for you myself. Yes! Three hard-bitten sellswords will safeguard you all the way to the village of Hirot — and back."

Then placing his hands on the sole object sitting on his trucking table, the red-faced merchant raised both bushy eyebrows as he patted the moldering leather cover of the rare folio Anora had found in his back storeroom, in the stacks of his old books, scrolls, and maps. The merchant wasn’t aware of what he had, but Anora brought the magic spell to his attention soon after finding it and confirming its veracity.

"Return with news of what’s happened there, find out why Dolsten and his two sons did not come to the Harvest Faire — and this treasure is yours, as we agreed!"

"And back." the woman almost scoffs, as if the matter had been in any doubt. "Yes…" she continues, as if giving the prospect great consideration. "… well, I should hope so, Relfarious!" she says, fiddling with the robes around her neck. She judges the bold blue of her own silk against the ones worn by the man across the table. His were most likely the finer cloth, though hers had been harder won most certainly.

Her busied her hands with the cloth, so as to stop herself from reaching out to brush the cover of the book once more. To distract herself:

"A trio, yes? And who are these men? The finest coin could buy, no doubt!" she says, and her sharp eyes scan the man’s face. She doubted they would be the finest of men, but she at least hoped they would be fine enough.

"Whatever their stock, you have no cause to fear, Relfarious. I’ll bring Dolsten here himself, if I lay hands on him!" she says, turning to look out the window to see if the trio were soon to arrive. Her thin face and sharp eyes meet her first, and she checks the beehive she had carefully woven upon her head to make sure nothing was out of place. Relfarious watched her from behind, she could see that in the glass.

"They’ll have certain expectations of a wizard, I’m sure. Anora the Blue won’t be the one to disappoint them." she calls back to the man, as she peers through the glass for her entourage.

Aldric strode forth toward the village, face was pointed to the sky, receiving the rain on his face like holy water. "The Bitch Queen's piss is upon us, my friends! Receive her blessing and rejoice! Har har ... ACK!"

He breaks into a coughing fit that produces a wad of phlegm, which he spits into the weeds beside the path.

Aldric's body had not yet recovered from almost drowning months ago. He wouldn't have lived at all, had Pelagia not come to him. She offered him a chance to live in exchange for eternal fealty, and he didn't really see it as much of a choice. Being in the goddess's presence drove him mad, and left him absolutely terrified of ever meeting her again.

The sickly looking man is dressed in leathers that still creak in a most annoying fashion, having been purchased fresh from the armourer two villages hence. Obsessed with not dying (lest his soul return to the Bitch Queen for eternity) he also sprung for a sturdy shield, which is now slung over his back. He since scratched Pelagia's holy symbol into the wood with a sharp rock- a pair of jagged zigzags lying atop each other, like they're fucking. In his hypothermia-induced blue fingers, he clutches the broken oar that he clung to in the waters as he was reborn as a Witness of Pelagia - his holy staff, similarly inscribed.

It was a fine balance, though, staying alive. His purse was alarmingly light, containing few coins and only one of them golden, and a safe job like potato farming wasn't going to fill it very fast. Pelagia expected him to do great works and mighty deeds and who knows what else, which required the kind of income that brought with it mortal risks.

So he signed on with these two beside him. He wasn't sure what to make of them, but unlike other candidates, they accompanied the Witness willingly. "Complete and utter fools must they be!" he says aloud, accidentally. He bursts into another fit of laughing and coughing.

In the cleric's wake totters a blind and hunchbacked beggar, beneath a battered, broad-brimmed hat and enveloped by a ratty woolen cloak. He's the sort one might see craving alms at any village gate or crouched over scraps in an alley, one of thousand such unfortunates and easily overlooked. There, are, however, a few peculiarities about him, should one care to look. The man's blindfold covers much of his face, down to the bridge of his nose, almost as if he were trying to obscure his features. He has a crooked posture, which makes his height hard to gauge. And the cane with which he taps along is wrapped from tip to tip in rough leather.

"Ahh, yes! The piss! HA ha..." Tyravasiel struggles to agree. It's like these flyspeck humans can't help but be disgusting, even in matters of faith. If one can call the reverence of what Ty imagines must be some sort of sea hag a faith. But trailing Aldric through the human lands as a pilgrim and convert to the worship of Pelgia... does he have that right? No, Pelagia. Pretending to a pilgrim seeking conversion to the faith of Pelagia has proven to be a decent cover for the time being. Aldric is loud and stange and mad enough that people tend not to notice Ty himself, and that is to his advantage.

True to his role, the wayward elf allows his 'spiritual leader' to chart their course across the muddy village.

Dufgal, for the third or fourth time, pledges his services to the others he once followed without permission. He repeats himself when he’s nervous. Surprisingly, he is the least nervous when up to stealthing and such, but everything else in between gives him the quickened pulse.

"well, sirs and ma’ams… I means to be of service to yous and wish to say mah thanks again to yous. I’ll do what’n ye ask of us. And I’se most ready for anythin’ that needs done and I’se have none problems with doing those things."

He doesn’t realize just how uneducated he sounds because everyone else he has known sounds like him. The thief has no smile on his lips or in his eyes, neither does he seem unhappy. He is difficult to read so one must take him at his word. He resumes his position leaning against the post awaiting the next move.

The rain seems to have no effect on him as he is quite accustomed to being in the elements. Honestly, he prefers the rain as it washes the usual filth and grime away. His clothes are as simple and drab as his demeanor. He’s the sort that a bandit ambush would let pass assuming there’d be nothing to steal. He assumes that the only reason he’s been hired is because he seems utterly expendable.

Aldric turns back to this Dufgal fellow they had picked up along the way. He wasn't sure exactly how that had happened. Dufgal seemed to just not go away after being told so, repeatedly. Ah, his second acolyte, praise Pelagia. Was his force of personality so powerful now that it could pluck men like Dufgal from their lives and onto the road without a second thought? And 'Sir.' Nobody called him 'Sir' before in his whole life, or 'ma'am' for that matter. There was power in being pledged to Pelagia, alright. True power.

He turns to him as he bumbles through his words. Gazing into his rain-speckled face, he can't help but think: what a plain and utterly expendable bastard!

"Dufgal - we know. You're a man of many talents and overflowing initiative. Now listen here. What you need to do right now is to be a convincing man-at-arms. We're to be paid to escort something ... or, someone? It matters not. They want men of action, and we need to look the part. Can you do this?"

When he turns to the disguised elf, his shoulders sag at the look of him. "Ugh, and what's your plan, Ty? Convince them that you can fend off highwaymen by threatening them with leprosy?"

Tyravasiel spreads wide his arms, as if to say, "Look at this wreck of humanity!"

"Now, father," he starts in. Father? Is that how the flyspecks refer to their religious leaders? "What highwayman would think me a threat? I'll take them by surprise, won't I?"

Ty vaguely spears the air a few times with the tip of his cane, by way of illustration. It would be more impressive if he looked like he could see what he was stabbing.

OUTSIDE (THE TRIO)

Senka breaks off her approach to the building when the trio stops in the drizzle to converse and gesticulate, then rounds them up again and ushers them again towards the Muckmire Mercantile Guild House. No one wants these three to appear more hardened mercenaries than not-so-young-as-she-was Senka, a merchant apprentice who’s already been a clerk, a money-counter, and a notary… and who now has the responsibility, given to her by Relfarious, to find tough men to escort Anora the Blue on her long journey.

"This way, please!" she reiterates, then indeed leads the three man inside. Rainwater is shaken off, sodden boots are stamped, cloaks are hung if so desired, and the trio is led by the junior member of the guild into her master’s trading chambers.

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RELFARIOUS’S TRADING CHAMBERS (ALL)

"Ah! Here we are then, the men I spoke of, Anora! Iron-handed and trustworthy men all, it’s plain to see! Seasoned travelers, armed and equipped for striking across the mire and into those woods where lurks Hirot! Welcome, welcome you champions of Garion’s Folly! We have need of your strong arms and… and… oh. Well. Hm. Senka, this is them?"

The well-groomed master guildsman’s enthusiasm wanes as he takes in the three men fully, and behind them, Senka’s cheeks redden. These dregs were the best the woman could do on short notice. Garion’s Folly wasn’t exactly brimming with adventuring types looking to head into the western wilderness!

Dufgal sets his shoulders and sucks in his tummy. He looks pleadingly to the cleric.
"uh, more like this, sir?"
Then he looks at the blind man with a mix of confusion and concern.
"don’t be worryin’ sir. If’n any trouble comes, I’se gonna take care of it."
The gritty thief flashes his handmade garotte without flashing a smile.

The woman lets a quiet settle over the two of them as she considers his warning. She sighs to herself then, wondering how she had ended up so far from civilized lands.

"As you say." she says, relenting on the matter. She was no fool, and knew the names of several who had thought it a good idea to change hearts and minds this far out, to their own demise.

Peering out the window, she sees the correct number of people approach, but surely the incorrect manner of people. The man had refused to speak on the quality of the men hired, and so she feels her stomach drop a little as they creep ever closer to the storefront.

She fixes her silken robes, and adjusts them so that her long sword hangs on her hip for all to see. It might be that she had the strongest sword arm of the lot. She gives the man a stern look, before planting herself just inside the door for the others arrival.

"Equipped indeed." she says. "This one even thought to bring himself a walking aid." she says, gesturing to the blind man.

"All the better to strike across mires, madam!" Ty concurs. "Anora, is it? And were those the stentorian tones of Relfarious I just heard?" The apparent beggar looks out into the space somewhere between wizard and merchant.

"Well met, masters. Well met. I am Ty, a humble acolyte of-- Pelagia." For the moment, anyway. "Might I make bold to inquire what business you have for us that lurks in Hirot, and how we are to be paid for that business?"

As Dufgal sucks in his gut and they eyes of their patron judge (very poorly, at that), Aldric's mind becomes consumed by the droplets of rainwater that the party drips onto the floor boards of the mercantile house. A remnant of the old potato farmer whispers in Aldric's mind

The gig's up. You reached to high above your station. Give it up, who are you kidding?

But then he remembers the terrible, terrible feeling he felt as the Goddess of oceans came up from the deeps. That horrible Dread as her collosal form swam beneath him, threatening to swallow him whole.

He drowns the doubts of the farmer in the deep pool of fear, and straightens himself. He summons forth his full weight of personality as he comes back to the present moment, ready to speak a sermon most convincing!

And then Ty opens his mouth. Oh, bother.

But the elf speaks rather confidently. Smooth is his voice, not matching his attire at all. Mystique. Mystery. Yes, who knows mystery better than the Goddess of the sea?

Witness.

He stomps the splintered end of his oar against the floor boards three times and declares with utmost religious solemnity "The herald has spoken."

Assuming that he may not speak until spoken to, Dufgal remains silently attentive as the foppish merchant greets them and introduces them to Anora. He sends a signal to his face to soften into a confident smile, but a mutiny of muscles keeps his expression as gray as a cloudy day.

"Yes sir, this is them sir," Senka says from the back as various quips and comments are exchanged.

Then, seeing the furrows in her master’s forehead when the blind one asks about payment, she hastily adds, "I have made an offer to them, Master Relfarious, but they wanted more… details… on the task at hand before agreeing. Thus — this meeting!"

"I see," Relfarious says as he walks out from behind his long, high-sided trading table. On the beautifully patterned floor covering — the nicest in all of Garion’s Folly, though still far from those fine textiles that line the castle and wealthy guild halls in other Ymerian towns and cities — is soaked with the wet and filth that the man’s three visitors had brought in with them. One of the merchant’s eyes twitches at the thought, but then he straightens his back as he comes to stand before the three men.

"Your task is a simple one. This woman, here, to my right — this is Anora the Blue. She is an — an agent of mine. Of the Guild’s. And she has an important task to complete in the far village of Hirot. Hirot that lies across the Muckmire, several days into the hinterlands beyond that far shore. Tis a misty and lonely journey, not safe for a high-born woman to make alone. There are outlaws and savage men who roam the moors and forests of the west; you’ll need to be on your guard to dissuade them from harassing her."

Turning to look at Senka briefly, Relf says simply, "Wine," before the woman disappears and comes back minutes later with a decanter filled with ruby-red fluid and a tray of delicately fluted glasses.

"I have tasked Anora with finding a friend of mine. A man by the name of Dolsten. He lives in Hirot with his wife and sons, and always comes with his boys to the Harvest Faire. That fair was a fortnight ago, and Dolsten did not come." Pausing to raise his glass after Senka fills it, and all the others, Relfarious drains it and continues.

"Hirot’s meager harvests are not something the town can survive a winter on, so they always bring pelts, timber, and other items to trade — for pickled eel, for vegetables and livestock. Dolsten and his lads not coming means something is amiss. Anora is to find out what… and I wish to employ you three to safekeep her and likewise find out what you can about what’s happened there. A simple contract that will see you there and back again."

"It is." the woman replies to the blind… man, and her eyes and ears linger on him a moment more. It is as if she was trying to ascertain what little something itbwas that she was tasting, and at the same time trying to remember what it reminded her of.

As the man outlined the pact they’ve made once again, Anora watches the three.

A fraction less savage than the ones they were meant to guard against… she couldn’t help but think, before chiding herself for judging prematurely.

"Is there a caravan for the caravan guards?" she asks, wondering if the man was going to provide four wheels and a beast for them to travel with too.

So swiftly does the beggar snatch himself a flute of wine that one scarcely sees his hands move. He passes the glass under his half-swathed nose, which wrinkles a tiny bit at the bouquet. Still, he sips.

"You must forgive me, master, but I didn't hear when you mentioned how much we would be paid for this venture," Ty says, between samples of the man's wine. "Old ears, you know. And is this several days' journey closer to three, would you say? Or five? Is that on foot?"

The blind man smiles by way of apology. "One must eat, after all, and I don't suppose that any woman with a sobriquet would be content to fatten upon mire forage. So we'll have to lay in stores."