Dramatis Personæ

Brother Mendel (Herodian)
Dane Sardock (Winston)
Gabriel Auditore (Rigil Kent)
Gestlin the Unpredictable (CommJunkee)
Magnifico the Clown (Feste)
Merasiël Alethmist (Melissa)
Rainald North-Hammer (Gigermann)

Of Stairways and Storm-Clouds

10 May 2014

Continued… As Rainald lifted his spear for another throw, he found that his mark had disappeared back up the stairs to warn, in person, whomever else might be up there of the intruders’ presence and disposition. No longer attempting to pass unnoticed, Rainald yelled to the other Heroes downstairs in the “dungeons” that company was on its way—in the event they hadn’t heard the other man’s cries already. Gabriel tried to motivate the other prisoners to leave their cells, but no matter how frightening he may have made himself, they were far more frightened of their captors, and refused to budge. Then Gabriel and Merasiël sped upstairs and to the window they had all come in through, to secure their escape route; outside, through the upper windows of the compound, they could hear a clamor being raised two levels up, and knew there were more enemies on the way. As the watch was kept outside, Brother Mendel lent Etmund, whom they had come to rescue, a shoulder to aid his progress up the stairs, but it was slow going as the wretched man could barely stand; the others began making their way to the window as well, giving aid to Brother Mendel as they could.

Meanwhile, Rainald had positioned himself upstairs at the next landing and prepared to hold off the guards alone, if need be, to allow the others time to escape. Down the stairs before him came three foes, a sword-wielding Templar followed by two spear-wielding mercenaries, in their armor. Gramjarn in hand, Rainald immediately set upon the Templar, blocking the others behind him up the stairs; Rainald nearly smashed the Templar’s shield to kindling, all the while laughing maniacally and loudly berating his enemies. After the first exchange of blows, the Templar warded off further strikes with his damaged shield while attempting to cast Paralyze Limb on Rainald’s weapon-arm, failing twice before attempting a Tanglefoot spell instead. Rainald was tripped; while getting to his feet, the Templar swung his sword for a kill-stroke, but Rainald narrowly deflected it with his shield as he stood, and smashed the Templar’s shield-arm, then his head. Rainald then began backing down the stairs, leading the two mercenaries back toward the others; they reached out with their spears, to keep Rainald at bay while trying to find the gaps in his armor. As Rainald fended off their attacks, landing a blow or two in spite of their efforts, Brother Mendel had handed off Etmund to Gabriel to be helped to the open window, and joined Rainald at the stairs; with his staff, he disarmed one mercenary, then the other. Magnifico also joined them as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and afflicted one of the enemy with a Madness spell, causing him to hallucinate wildly, just before Rainald smashed the other one’s foot with his hammer. With the stairs cleared of opposition, Brother Mendel cast an illusion upon the door as they retreated through it: sounds of someone attempting to hack their way through the now closed door.

Their flank so secured, the Heroes still inside determined to make good their escape rather than risk further combat, as they had heard others preparing for battle in the upper floors of the compound and knew not their numbers or skill. They fled through the window they had entered, and hasted to the compound gate. As they ran across the courtyard, they hazarded a glance back to see another Templar, and more guards, at the balcony, calling back to the intruders that the matter was not yet settled; Gestlin had been holding a Fireball spell, and now released it at the balcony, as the Heroes disappeared through the gate, into the streets of Bannock.

The Heroes hasted through the city and back to the Gleaming Endeavor, moored a mile or so downriver awaiting their return. As they rowed the ship’s boat over to the ship to board, they noticed that they had been pursued by a large number of mounted troops, some of whom bore the tabard of the Templars. Once aboard, as the ship got under way, the Heroes looked after their pursuers, some taunting them, until Gabriel and Dane recognized the leader of the Templars ashore there as Auqui, Gabriel’s former apprentice, believed killed by Gabriel’s hand four years ago after over some slight he never spoke of.

It was expected that it should take a week and a half to reach Hadaton, where the Templars were said to have taken Lord Wallace after being rescued from a shipwreck; after consulting with Captain Finn the following morning, the Heroes elected to get straight to it, stopping only as the captain saw fit to take on or sell cargo, as they had enough provisions for the trip already. For the next couple of days, little occurred; Gabriel practiced incessantly the sword, as if trying to kill the memory of Auqui on the shore they left behind; Brother Mendel began the long process of healing (by non-magical means) the emotional wounds that Etmund had suffered at the hands of the Order of Talos, expecting that it should take months, if not years, to restore him to mental health (Gestlin was considering using Smil-Blam to temporarily grant some ability to take away the man’s madness; also, Magnifico planned to use a Mind Search spell to discover what Etmund knew of Lord Wallace’s disappearance). The Heroes had not sailed the open sea before, therefore, a new experience lay ahead in Keyhole Bay—Rainald was particularly excited at the prospect.

12 May 2014

Two days further into their journey, the weather took a nasty turn—such was the well-deserved reputation of these waters—and they were caught up by a tempest. The less hardy amongst the Heroes fared not well for the rocking of the ship, tossed about by wind and wave as it was; Brother Mendel and Gestlin were incapacitated with motion-sickness below-decks. Rainald (laughing and joking, unaffected by the storm), Gabriel, and Merasiël were above-decks helping handle the ship; Magnifico came up from below and staggered his way over to the dragons’ cages to calm them, lest they injure themselves against the cages from panic. The mainmast began to crack from the stress of the wind against the sail, and the crew tried to quickly bring the sail down, but one of the lines jammed in its pulley, and would not wrest free. Before the order could be given, Gabriel had scampered up the mast and out on the yard to cut the line, but for the wind and rain, he slipped from the yard and fell into the ocean; Rainald left off attempting to shore up the mast and began to haul in Gabriel by his life-line. Merasiël climbed up the mast as Gabriel had, and made it to the pulley, cutting the line in one stroke with Angrist. As she returned to the deck, she noticed her life-line had become unsecured, as had Tully’s; just then Tully was knocked over by the swinging yard-arm and subsequently washed overboard by a mighty wave; she dove to the deck to grab Tully’s life-line and was dragged to the ship’s rail, where she anchored herself long enough for others to arrive and lend their strength to hauling Tully back aboard. With all back aboard the ship, Captain Finn steered as he could to shallower waters near Keyhole Isle and dropped anchor, to wait out the remainder of the storm.

Notes

• Rainald had a good day at the stairs; for once, the dice seemed to cooperate, and he looked like he knew what he was doing 😛
• As we were unable to get the other prisoners to budge from their cells, they remained behind in the Order’s “care,” unfortunately for them
• Auqui was Gabriel’s apprentice since the PCs met him in the Otherworld in the early days of Book I, having taken him as a Dependent; see Gabriel’s story for details on what happened afterward
• I have no idea what that big island in the middle of Keyhole Bay is called; I just made up a name for story purposes—it could be that other cultures know it by another