RPG Campaigns

Giraine Summaries

Well well well, that was exciting!

You went down to the second floor to see what Boamund the Penjang was doing, and he paused at his bloody meal of knights, then transformed tortuously back into the blood-drenched, naked form of Boamund again. Shrett briefly explained what happened, and helped Boamund back into his armour. Bog, still Darkwalking, snuck around, finding himself disturbed by the Zistorite prayer wheels that still spun on the walls of this floor's rooms. Eventually he got too frightened of them and ran downstairs to flee the tower, while Shrett was joining him to disable the wheels and inspect the rooms. Bog heard something near the front door and paused, looking around the corner of the first chamber, to see a big triple-3-eyed demon-hound-thing blocking the inside of the main door. He ran back up to the others. Boamund had finished donning his armour again, but most of your magics were gone. You finished exploring the first floor, encountering no threats, then went to the ground floor, and there was nothing extraordinary left to explore-just the nature of what was by the front door. Shrett tried sneaking up to that corner to look at it, and it looked right at him and its eyes sparkled with dazzling energy. He pulled back before it ensorcelled him, but then the raspy voice of Vran called out, “Do you think you can leave here alive? Do you think you can stop Majestic Vran the Conjurer?” and continued asking questions and making threats or offerings of undesirable allegiances/slavery while you cast spells. Shrett tried taunting him out but did not have any success.

Finally, demon-sword in hand, Boamund charged the Demonhound and began slashing at it. Bog ran past him into the other chamber with the sword-carving on the ground, and found himself darkwalking amidst two other demon-things: a big Shadowtroll; a Dehori enslaved by Vran; and a smaller nasty green Swampdemon (familiar to some as a creature of the Book of Eyes, like that demon-hound was). Shrett waited for an opportunity to help. Bog went berserk after he bashed the Swampdemon's arm and the Shadowtroll came over to bite at him. So Shrett called up a Shade from Subere and sent it to help, but it found that it was but a kindred spirit to the Shadowtroll and could not do anything to it. Boamund knocked out the Demonhound with a skilled blow to the head, and turned to face the Swampdemon, who had bitten and envenomed Bog. Bog now was gripped on his left arm by the Shadowtroll, but his Shield spell was keeping its powerful bite at bay. Boamund slew the Swampdemon and you made short work of the Shadowtroll. Shrett made sure the Demonhound was dead, and was thinking that maybe this was Vran reborn, so he could deal the killing blow for Quick Sister?

You explored the first floor more, especially that second room where Bog had been cornered. It featured depictions of the Bridge of Swords, and the sword motif on the floor matched this theme, while a wall inscription asked a question about metal and urged readers to question their strength. There was one tall bronze prayer-wheel there that Boamund tried to spin but oddly, while he had the strength to, it refused to do. Boamund exited the tower and asked Seshgallah if she was able to bring the tower down but she was not. Something was still there. Bog pried off lead from the bas-reliefs with tools. He felt the painful venom of the Swampdemon's bite come and go. Boamund then noticed that there was a pattern in the stones of the floor around the sword that showed a hidden trapdoor! It was a slab that Shrett reckoned you could just lift and slide off, so you did, opening a hole straight down 6m into a dark chamber that seemed to be set into the earth with no walls, just bare soil held at bay somehow. Shrett gathered rope and Boamund started climbing in, but a huge clawed green hand grabbed his leg, sinking into his flesh! It tried pulling him down but Shrett pulled back; yet then it spat a little gorp-thing onto the rope and that broke the rope while eating its way upwards. Shrett called his Shade to easily destroy the gorp. Vran's voice called out from down there, “Do you think yourselves clever? Well, I am clever too.”

Boamund fell onto the floor of the chamber, still held by the big demon that lurked there, but as it tried to knock his demon-sword away with one claw, he managed to slip free of its grasp. Bog cast some spells and Shrett climbed down to help, first sending in his Shade. The Shade proved remarkably effective! The demon (the Vomitous Beast of the Fosnoir; a thing of the Book of Eyes that you'd met before) succumbed to its icy embrace, crumpling to the floor and returning to the filth from which it had formed. But, as you all turned to look at the open coffin that lay at a far wall, holding the emaciated body of Vran in another set of robes, Vran waved a hand with an incantation and sent rays of crackling black lightning, which wreathed Boamund and Shrett in deadly energy that felled them both! Bog remained Darkwalking and prepared to face Vran 1-1, but the Shade noticed the magical attack and enveloped Vran's near-helpless form. Soon he was dead, frozen solid. The battle was won?

Bog began burning the books on the far desk, unnerved by a nasty green haze around it and a strange paranoid feeling. He false-healed Boamund and Shrett, so they rose in lingering pain and helped him to move the Vran's body and the coffin onto the growing fire, which Boamund fed with his fire-ring magic. But you saw a sinister green-leather book with three red eyes that watched you, and a blasphemous voice that started pushing its way into your minds, offering great power if you read it. Boamund(?) would have nothing of this, and tried to burn the book, but it would not burn! It fell to the floor and opened its pages wide, its cover still facing its beckoning eyes toward you. You all tried to stem the urge to take the book and learn its secrets, but Boamund invoked the power of Granno and gained new insight, that this was a menace from the Psychetheca Everlasting that could only be destroyed by Granno's way-to throw it off Chuck Em Off Point into the Fosnoir! You put the book into a sack, and Bog climbed up the rope to wrap the book in battered lead. Shrett noticed loose flagstones in the old soil under where the coffin had been, and lifted them to find an ornate iron broadsword with runes of Life, Death and Unlife/Hunger emblazoned on it; and a carving like Vran's black electricity magic. He felt something unpleasant about this sword; it was not inert. So he wrapped it up and took it out of the smoky chamber with the rest of you. Back on the ground floor, you got together everything you could; Shrett's sack of a few iron swords and some other things, and rescued Fraud's body from the tower; and escaped. Boamund again went to Sesgallah and called for her to try to bring the tower down, once you all ensured you were well clear of the mudflat around it. Right as the tower began swaying and groaning, so did Boamund and Shrett, their false-healing magic gone. Bog was the only one to see it fall and to celebrate the defeat of Vran! (+1 party luck pt = 2 now) Sesgallah did not rise again. The tower's three burning eyes had still been blazing when it fell, so maybe that Book was still keeping some evil alive?

Bog knew it was not safe to stay here, within the Bad Place and Dead Mists. He cast his final reserve of False-Healings on Boamund, again and again, and they trekked across the Big Gunge to Narak's Sounder, dragging the others. Boamund collapsed one final time as you arrived and she welcomed you, concerned for your wounds. You rested, she agreed to use her piglet-spirit's magics to heal your group, and while she takes some days to do this, Bog slinks back to New Arv, prays to Zorak Zoran to regain his magics, and learns that Captain Ahappi is not there yet. With Fraud healed first, Narak thanks you for awakening Seshna Gira, which she could feel, and she says “I have watched the skies and spoken with the beast-spirits, seeking to know more of Nagi-Mer, and I foresee a new quest coming, that will sweep many of us into either aiding or opposing the Serpent Beast Alliance. I may have to leave here soon.” But she comforts you that she thinks she will have time for a final farewell when this happens. She does not like what she senses of the book and sword (there is a soul within the latter, and a great demon within the former), so she wants them to be gone. As you prepare a plan to split up, with Bog and Fraud carrying the sword and book to the Fosnoir and Boamund and Shrett going to Quick Sister, a messenger relays the news that Ahappi has come to New Arv on a giant sea-monster. Fraud sends a message through his magics to go to Toadhaven in two days, and you agree to rendezvous there, to join the fight against Seshnela.

Bog and Fraud succeed in their journey to throw the two evil artifacts into the Underworld's waters. As they throw them down (Bog the sword; Fraud the book), frenzied whirlwinds whip up and grab the items, hurrying them downwards. Only Vran's soul learned what happened; his sword was the soul-jar that kept his body reforming, but now Death had been brought to him at last. (and you don't know it, but Bog killed Vran!) The Book of Eyes presumably could only be returned to this world through some great magics or heroquest.

Boamund and Shrett come back to the Blackstone Geyser and see it is steaming less. Many dozen frogs and toads of varied sizes and colours, some rather large in size, are gathered croaking and hopping around its base. Tusynta's head cackles from the muddy swamp near it. There is no one else. Tusynta calls, “Oh, my lovely heroes, she knows! She knows! We all know of the defeat of the evil enemies. You have won your bride, and the land will prosper from this union. Come forth and join the ceremony to tie yourselves together by the power of Life.” But then she stops you and says that there are two of you, but who struck the killing blow on your enemy? You asked for help answering his, but she rebuffed this, gruffly stating that Quick Sister was impatient and it was your business to sort out the truth of what happened.

So Boamund and Shrett retreat into the swamps to debate. And argue on and on. Shrett feels Boamund has good points, that he can unite Giraine and help the Giranois with Quick Sister's union, and that it does not matter if he already has Cyroosta as a wife. Boamund is not convinced by Shrett's arguments, born of obsession and infatuation that has lasted since their first encounter long ago, that he has good personal reasons for their marriage. You eventually agree that, while Boamund's Penjang form first felled Vran, that was not true death, and then the voice you heard on the ground floor might not have come from any of the demons there (you weren't sure), but what you did know was that Vran was “alive” in the basement and the Shade killed him, so Shrett could take credit for conjuring that Shade. This took hours, but Shrett's argument was honed by the end whereas Boamund lost the energy to argue more, and saw some value in ending this discussion.

Shrett comes close to the Geyser and it spouts forth the large, greenish humanoid-amphibian form of Quick Sister, who leaps down beside Tusynta with a thump. Her leering froggish head is way oversized and quivering like jelly. She is entirely nude, and provocatively shapely in form. She deeply croaks out, “Tell your tale of the death you brought to the necromancer, and tell it well to feed my cravings.” Shrett does, using his feelings about the children of Crassigyre to infuse his tale with emotion.

Quick Sister's eyes bulge and her grin widens as she listens enraptured by this eloquent tale, and her head explodes messily into a form that Shrett recognises as an imitation of Miguel's mother, whom he has not seen since his childhood. “Have I taken a shape you know? She must have been a good mother. She might have approved of our wedding. To be tied to the land, to the form runes of Water and Earth, can make for a bountiful family.” Shrett is short on words; shocked but acknowledging that he feels fondly for his mother - and Quick Sister drops the unsettling reply that maybe she can be a mother to him…

Her head explodes again and reforms as a better imitation of Micaela. “I don't see her face amongst you, but this does not concern us. She will be cared for, and my power of Life will surround her, if you take my hand.” She extends a rubbery hand. - Shrett quickly agrees, feeling greatly put at ease by the notion that his (?former?) sister now would have some protection, since he must be absent. He happily takes her hand. Quick Sister's head then explodes and reforms in her normal state.

Tusynta: “I taste many runes here, many spirits, much flow of magic drawn to this ritual. I call on the winds of Giraine to carry forth the essence of the Invisible God's authority in Law and Truth, to bind Shrett of the Sottogh and Quick Sister, protecting the integrity of this bond.” Winds blow from the north, swirling around the swamps, causing the trees to sway and rustle. The frogs' and toads' chorus loudens to be heard over it; it becomes a rhythmic song that matches that of the wind and trees. Ripples spread across surrounding waters, in tune with this. Shrett's hairs stand on end with the tickle of magic.

Tusynta: “Shrett of the Sottogh, what say you of this union? How do you pledge yourself to Quick Sister? She pledges her many powers and her fertility to bring forth new growth in these lands.” He pledges that he will protect her strongly as he can, and that he has no power of Fertility but he will do what he is able to do. She seems content with this.

Tusynta is about to begin, then the waters and mud quake. A great form slowly rises nearby, and Tusynta and Quick Sister watch inscrutably. Shrett interposes himself between the shape and Quick Sister, unsure if it is friend or foe. Is this a ritual challenge by an enemy drawn by the heroquest of the wedding?

No, he is relieved to learn. It is an elongate snaky or fishy thing with a flat, broad, massive head and needle-sharp teeth, tiny front legs, and stubby hindlegs, followed by a heavy finned tail; it is the Crassigyre, the Long Eel. It bellows out in Seshnegi, “Its sister has returned from hiding, and it is a new-found grandchild of Red River Tanosh; a good man indeed; that has helped free Her from the threats of Umbrodriith and its allies, with the violence of his patron. But Disorder and Death are not here; this is a moment where Law and Life preside. The way is open for the Children of Crassigyre to return to the earth, and the waters above it. The Long Eel shall bring them forth. So Speaks the Land.”

Shrett welcomes this and says that yes, he will help the Children.

Tusynta: “We are blessed by our guests [she looks to the frogs and toads]; they show that Giraine is with us, and I feel Seshna Gira herself smiling with us. This marriage is born of good omens. It lives. So Speaks the Land.”

Quick Sister leans down to Shrett with her wet mouth puckering far wider than his head, whispering “So Speaks My Loins.” He consents, kissing her while holding her hands firmly. She grabs Shrett in a moist hug and leaps into the geyser. Tusynta cackles. The Crassigyre wiggles, coating itself in a cloak of mud and splashing dirty water all around. The song of the frogs and toads reaches a crescendo, then goes silent.

Shrett is 'freed' after a night of dreamlike, frenetic, exhausting activity in the depths of the Blackstone Geyser, which wildly spurts and foams. Tusynta and the Crassigyre sink into the swamp. The amphibians disperse. Shrett crawls out of the geyser, very weary and confused and unsettled by what has happened. He is soon found by Boamund, and explains what happened. They converse, and then, once Shrett has some energy back, they hike down to Toadhaven, meeting the other two.

***John forgot to add: Shrett remembers that, toward the end of his night with Quick Sister, that she gave him a message to relay to Fraud Shaven, simply that “I could do nothing to save Inyana.”

At New Arv though, Captain Ahappi has had enough of waiting! Seeing the forces here mobilizing and moving down south, he wanders the town and runs into Captain Gulos, who was looking for him. Gulos says that Fraud Shaven was in these parts recently but his whereabouts are unknown right now. He states that the colonists, with his help especially, have assembled a small navy of Quinpolic League refugees, mercenaries and others to assault St Thosos from the sea, while others attack from land. The goal is to destroy or capture all Seshnelans, and to regain St Thosos and set Giraine free. Ahappi is satisfied to do some destroying. And he soon receives the message that he is to meet at Toadhaven, so he wanders back into the sea.

You are together at Toadhaven and yes, the assault is now coming. You talk things over with Ahappi and explain that all four wielders of the saints' weapons must take them to confront some of your final enemies, first at Good Toad Food. Then… who knows what. But the weapons must be together to be destroyed in the Mountain's Heart, and that means the wielders together.

Boamund cannot remember what had happened at the top of the tower. Now and then, as he falls asleep or awakens, he has little glimpses of the carnage. But his feelings are no longer of raging beastly hunger. He feels sated. For now.

Bog feels triumphant. He defeated iron things and sorcerors and saved the day!

Shrett has many complex feelings about Quick Sister but is glad to have that necromancer out of the way, and proven himself as a Giranois defender.

Fraud is thankful that the Book of Eyes, which has chased you since you last left the Library, may now be gone. For now? And he can focus on other things. Indeed-Aria's Well is nearby. Scouts say that it has been abandoned with the retreat of Seshnelan forces to St Thosos. The Paragon that took over rule of that settlement must have gone there, too. Big Ron assures Fraud that he can stop at his old home as the armies move southwest, and see what became of it. It is known that the Vadeli tower no longer glows red or pulses a river of blood into the Night-Channel. Maybe that is a good thing?

Next game = Call of Cthulhu mini-mission.

Then: the final war for St Thosos, Giraine, vengeance, and expulsion of the Rokari?!?! -John

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