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| Magic: The Gathering |
With daylight dwindling, the adventurers took a detour down an anabranch of the Redriver. They'd heard tales of traders from the Shattered Islands in these swamps. Soon the islanders' outpost came into view, outriggers and stilted huts smelling of fish, spice and woodsmoke.
As day turned to night, the party played cards with islanders. Between swigs of rum, they learned of a barge filled with Hobgoblins sailing the Redriver. Strangely, the hobs had been flying a banner with the pelte heraldry of House Attis. The islanders doubted the ornate flag belonged to them.
The following morning, the Brood Snatcher left the anabranch and rejoined the Redriver. They soon came upon a houseboat anchored by the riverbank. The vessel was ridiculous, so high-sided and heavy laden it scraped the riverbed. Stranger yet was the seven Ogres throwing furniture overboard.
The big men, culveriners from the Giant Corps, warned the Brood Snatcher that the river ahead was cursed. They were lightening their boat so they could take a detour. The half-giants didn't mind the gang poaching furniture, but the wizard who owned the houseboat did. Uave Twice-Burned accused the adventurers of thievery. They said he was throwing stuff away. The wizard argued he'd return for his property later. He winced as a chiffonier shattered on impact with the rocky shore.
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| Warhammer Fantasy |
After some back-and-forth, they discovered Uave was cursed to explode if he ever touched land or water. He was scouring the Marches for hags to torture, offering scrolls for intel on their whereabouts. Once the wizard reentered his floating prison, Sergeant Gregor helped the adventurers move more furniture into the Brood Snatcher's cargo hold.
The big man and his men were sick of babysitting. Rumours said cyclopes laired in the southwest, Gregor wanted to find out if they were strong leaders worth serving. He offered an oversized handgonne as a reward. The gang said they'd keep an eye out.
Heeding Gavel's rumour and the advice of the Giant Corps, they took a detour down another anabranch, arriving in a crater lake filled with neolithic fish traps. The rock pools were enchanted with boulders of Charm Animal, creating an abundance of aquatic life. The party spent some time fishing, but left the magic rocks alone.
Continuing up the side channel, the crew noticed a bronze flying machine - twice the size of their boat - crashed into a grove of mountain ash. The snakes always had a penchant for incredible inventions, which had a penchant for exploding. Given the wreck was two leagues away (and 100' in the air), the adventurers deigned to investigate.
Night fell and the crew made camp. The adventurers awoke to a flock of cassowaries eyeballing them, rumbling vocalisations barely audible to the human ear. Not wanting to fight giant birds with knives for feet, they cast off before the hissing ratites got too close.
Back on the Redriver, the party passed beneath the columns of a stone viaduct. Robin pointed out the ancient markings consecrating it to Phantom Limb. The feeling of pride was bittersweet. Their cult once made such mighty works, but only in eras the dead remembered. The cleric's musing were interrupted by the sighting of a Dwarven carrack. The half-submerged vessel was moored beneath the bridge, holes smashed into its hull below the waterline.
The Brood Snatcher dropped anchor and the adventurers rowed ashore. They found a pack of wild dogs occupying the ruined boat. Heiwae Mann, an animal trainer by trade, used a basket of freshly caught cod to lead the hungry hounds away. The others searched the boat, finding graffiti scrawled on the walls: BONE FLUTE WAS HERE. Despite the vandalisation, there was no signs of a struggle. The carrack had been scuttled from within, sledgehammers knocking holes in the hull.
After concerted searching, the party found a hidden compartment containing the vessel's blackbox, a tome of engraved steel used by Undermen to record their voyages. With no one fluent in Dwarven, they stowed the metal book and reboarded the Brood Snatcher. |
| Jerry Thompson |
As day became dusk, their destination came into view. The tower was a mess of transmuted stone, polymorphed wood and gravity-defying spells. Ears popping from a sudden pressure change, the party were greeted by a man appearing from thin air. Chalcolith the Djinn bowed to the adventurers, introducing himself as Ingmaind's majordomo.
The Genie thanked the party for coming. With a flick of a finger, Chalcolith whisked the package inside as he explained his predicament. His contract didn't end until the construction was complete, but the tower was endlessly falling into the swamp - trapping him in the wizard's service. The sack contained a golem preprogrammed to lay a foundation and stop the sinking.
He just needed the adventurers to descend into the tower's sub-sub-sub-substructure and unleash the cement elemental. In exchange they'd get 5,000 GP, plus anything they could carry out. If the wizard cared about something, he wouldn't have let it sink into a fucking swamp.
Chalcolith showed the party to their temporary quarters on the tower's sixth level. The old sitting room was sparsely furnished, but the Genie magically-refurbished all the furniture the gang had taken from Uave's houseboat, even reusing scrapwood to create privacy partitions. Though tired, the adventurers were eager to investigate the first floor of the dungeon delve.
The Djinn unsealed the magical wards securing the subbasement's door and wished them luck. With blades in hand and spells memorised, the mercenaries descended into the SINKING TOWER.
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| For The King |
The room they entered was smoking lounge. Continual Lights lit the walls, but a persistent haze of tobacco smoke limited their line of sight. Robin scooped up a still-burning cigar from an ash tray, identifying it as Godsbeard. The joint held enough clerical herb to Cure Light Wounds, either by inhaling the magical smoke or by mouth-to-mouth blowing it into someone's lungs.
Heiwae Mann listened to a closet door. Hearing sad tweeting, he stepped into a cabinet of curiosities - shelves of eyeballs, pickled newts and malformed stillborns. The noises came from a quartet of Hercynian Birds, malnourishment making their inner light flicker. The adventurers carefully moved the starving hercinia and began slowly feeding them crumbled hardtack.
The thief continued to loot the shelves, filling his pack with makeshift grenades of Carrion Crawlers and Rot Grubs. His questing hand touched a large jar filled with bubbling acid and a jolt of magical fear coursed through him. A skull floated into view, filled with writhing maggots and worms and bugs and other things that crawled. An endless cycle of growth and dissolution.
With a shriek Heiwae fell backwards, slamming into the shelf and tumbling out of the room. Laying on the nicotine-soaked carpet, the thief gritted his teeth and prayed he didn't just shit himself.
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| Catbat Artings |
Momentum built up.
It tipped to one side.
The skull grinned as it fell.
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