==== Summary 187: Escape from the Wormweald (2018-04-14) ====
[[Giraine]] [[summaries-2018|Summaries]]
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Hi all,

CLARIFICATION: Gates to the library cannot be locked from inside and the bone-key remains in lock until gate is locked from outside. So someone cannot lock themselves in but can be locked in. You suspect it is hard to escape if locked inside; if unlocked the gates open easily. Ahappi has the key again.

Jzhurte was grim, focused, spoke little as you hurried into the woods. Early on as you fled the gates, he said "We must make our escape quickly. Yomil's wrath may not be swift but it will be terrible and relentless. It better have been worth it, whatever you did in there. That horned toad that defended our retreat was with my clan for six generations, and now it is behind that black gate in the grip of our enemy. Granno willed me to act, though; his Thralls must be saved."

Fraud attempted some conciliatory/welcoming remarks but settled on leaving Jzhurte alone, as the Giranois aren't much for pleasantries.
Later, as you followed your old trail through the wood, he said "I heard of you passing this way and knew there would be trouble; your trail was easy to follow. Now, though, I am a traitor in my elders' eyes; I was forbidden to trespass here. I must come with you. I will join your struggle. Perhaps Granno wills that, too." He gritted his teeth and wiped his gooey iron broadsword off on a nearby tree's trunk.

Jzhurte grunted a few harsh syllables to his forces then turned and proceeded to march down the trail of frosty footprints back the way you came. Hopping alongside him was a fierce spiny toad; in the midst were a few wolf-toads with tenders, and a dozen Sharde warriors in frog-skull-masks looked warily around as they shuffled along, with a massive monstrous toad bringing up the rear. Its gape seemed wide enough to swallow two men at once, and it did more than its share of that gulping in the library courtyard (with struggling still in its belly; Boamund saw this and chuckled). Every single figure in the warband bore visible wounds, the blood already frosting over. At least no one would bleed to death on this hike back through the Maggotwood, but the cold was becoming a threat. You all weathered that chill well; some Giranois slowed and shivered, with blisters forming on their raw skin. Boamund worked with Jzhurte to navigate the confusing path in the woods; while there were muddy footprints in the frost, the dark forest didn't make it easy to follow them and the frost was beginning to conceal and contort that path.

But soon you heard pursuers coming- howls and moans and shrieks echoing through the forest. It was hard to determine where they came from until they were upon you- a horde of quick-footed but frail zombies, a couple of the winged, acid-shooting demons, and three(!) of the fly demon-things you'd seen elsewhere on Giraine. (now it was very clear where they came from!) It was a fearsome battle. The Giranois performed well, showing their elite warrior skills and not losing a single man; their arrows soon took down the winged demons. The toad-things proved themselves extraordinarily effective at gulping down fallen undead or, most remarkably, easily eating the fly-creatures. Jzhurte was the best Giranois warrior you'd yet seen on the island (well, ~100% skills anyway), able to survive 1-on-1 with a fly demon until you came to help. But first, Boamund and Fraud faced one of the fly-things (Ahappi and Miguel were still safely lying atop wolf-toads in the middle of the group). Fraud endured losing another shield to the acid-arrows of a winged demon and then unleashed his Foestopper fan to blow it away until Giranois could fell it. Boamund's fire-wall and fireblade, combined with Fraud's darkstrikes and fan-blowing, wore that fly-creature down until finally Jzhurte could destroy it with his sword once it came to engage him instead. Boamund, however, had suffered a near-fatal blast of consuming fly-breath to his face, and by the battle's end his visage was almost unrecognizable amidst the frozen gore that now covered it. But you won! Every last undead and demon was burned or eaten by the frogs.

In this battle and during your flight from the woods, you saw something remarkable: Giranois using magic. They normally are secretive about it around outsiders. But here, under pressure, they evoked some unusual folk magics and sorceries. The former are just atypical, such as talking with amphibians, which seems to give them an ability to learn what their pets have perceived; or making the Sharde more stealthy or their bow-shots silent. They do have some normal folk magics like Pierce. Their sorceries are very odd, however. Like Rokari sorceries, they tend to be subtle, without much visual or auditory manifestations. But their incantations are a weird mix of standard Malkioni words with invocations of spirits and gods, and plenty of emotion and improvisation along with the rigid, logical verses. Jzhurte was the one that most obviously used sorcery. He and all Giranois were all trying to be very discreet with their spellcasting, casting suspicious looks at the party when they did use them. Jzhurte's sorceries conjured wisps of monstrous mouths on his sword that made it bite deeper (even eating the fly-demon!), and made his eyes look like pallid black frog-eyes.

Finally you exited the border of the Maggotweald, and everyone relaxed but couldn't help look warily back at the sinister forest. Evil sounds continued to issue forth, but no enemies. And as you turned southwest, silence fell--- but with it came twilight. You had lost track of all time in there, but a day must have passed. No Giranois awaited you here; Gratt was nowhere to be seen. Soon Jzhurte paused, wiped mud and blood and ichor and moisture from his face with his leather sleeve, and said:
"We must avoid my people's holy hill until you are ready to return to my clan to satisfy the elders' many demands. Indeed, I urge that we do not go further east and risk meeting other Sharde, for now... Where we go, though, is for you to tell me."
You knew that the troll caves were about a day away to the west, and Jett's camp would be another day further, so you wanted to go there; and then take the fight to the Rokari!
Fraud and later the Giranois tended to your wounds- Ahappi awoke but was fragile from his head-wounds, and Miguel was still alive but gravely injured and would need weeks (or troll healing!?) to recover.

That night, Fraud inspected the book he'd recovered from his brother in the library: "Of Bloode Dranke and Spil'd"; which has a black tattooed cover bearing Darkness and Undeath runes. It did respond to his queries in black ink that appeared: it is a journal made from the body of a Second Age vampire necromancer (Umbrodriith of Tanisor; also a mechamagician of Zistor - you had visited his tomb to help Quick Sister! Miguel's bow is made from a bone that came from there) who created the "venators" but was betrayed by his last creation, the final venator who killed him and imprisoned him (with Yomil's conspiratorial help) in the Library. His spirit's fragment here has been sapped dry; just the body's husk and memories remain as this book. Ahappi then took it and inquired more. It was mostly quite forthcoming, although a fragment of personality remains (a strong, bitter will, and nasty intent!). He soon figured out that its knowledge of Yomil was curiously limited, probably wiped/manipulated. And it knew of the "saints" (fools, it said) but didn't work with them. It described Yomil as a competitor, collaborator and ultimately traitor who stole his works and corrupted them. Umbrodriith revered the black saint called Ulfrathgar; known to Malkioni as the original dark magician among their kind, who dealt with beings of hell, undeath and worse. He had worked in the Second Age along these Old Seshnelan coasts, as one of the few Zistorites in the area; but in frequent consultation with his comrades in the infamous Clanking City far to the east, where they'd created their machine-god, mass-produced magic weapons, and more insanities.

Bad news came that Umbrodriith's writing explained that he would be reborn, as a Chuckling Babe--- uh oh! News of that had come to you from the peasants many seasons ago, when you had destroyed the demon in his tomb; you must have set his spirit free or something? A mess left to clean up, then, and it is deep in the heart of Rokari territory somewhere; near St Thosos... From your recollections (Jett had told you of this): A boy was born in outlying farm run by Pithdaran peasant Jibril and wife Ishraq; "the way peasants would tell it, it was a dark night of baleful, frigid gales and ill-smelling mists that writhed across the countryside." The baby laughed as soon as it has born, and never cried; continually smiling. It had very dark skin and eyes. Peasants took this as a bad omen that fit obscure prophecies of the devil's incarnation. In a dream, the wife knew to call the child Sylbi'in. Ron was unsure; had men watching... but the Rokari invasion stopped all that surveillance. Crap.

Furthermore, Umbrodriith's writing told you that he'd worked in the forge under St Granno's Mountain (you had not been there for many years and had assumed an eruption destroyed it?), where he created that Venator (which he fashioned as a vampire-like thing) that killed Sir Menekeyil before you defeated it near the forge. And he said that Yomil had no weakness he knew of but Granno probably knew it. (I've probably forgotten some other nuggets it gave you; e.g. it told Ahappi about the powers of vampires but refused to tell him of their weaknesses-that knowledge is now not available from this book! Clearly now, failures to get information from it will make that information permanently unavailable)
There must be much more that this book could tell you BUT it was thoroughly evil, the Giranois would want to destroy it immediately once the Sharde elders had it (Jzhurte was sure it was good proof of your deeds), and it wrote entreaties to you that offered knowledge "of blood dranke and spil'd"-powers of sorceries involving vampirism, creating ghouls and other undead, warping bodies with metal to create mecha-zombies, and more. Ahappi shrugged off those offers but it was still not a book to be trifled with!

You rested that night, a safe distance from the wood, with many guards on watch, and then were to leave to see the trolls.


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