Day 1
On the 25 of Felsite in the year of 4078, Lasiv was poking the dirt with a stick in her hometown of Weightspooned in the Hills of Choking in the civilization of Kemsabehal when something caught her eye. It was a crumpled piece of paper with strange symbols on it. She showed it to a slightly more intelligent person nearby, who translated the "writing" for her. It was a promise of a better life, a chance to live without fear of zombification or dismemberment in a place called Bloodspire. She was unskilled and unremarkable in every way, but right then and there she decided she wasn't about to just roll over and wait for death.
She went around the hamlet asking others to come with her, but everyone just shrugged her off or waved her away. She sighed and decided to just go. No one noticed her leaving.
In the next hamlet, she found some soldiers clearly interested in adventure, but each of them laughed at her. She was just a useless peasant to them, so she spent the day practicing throwing stones at a target. When she was confident she could hit the mark each time, she invited the fighters to join her. Most of them were unimpressed, but the maceman Omud decided to give the lass a chance and join her in her quest for the tower.
He suggested visiting a nearby abandoned fort where they might scavenge some equipment and together they headed out.
In the fort, Lasiv cobbled together some scrapwork armor and chose a copper morningstar as a weapon.
Then the pair, unsure when they'd have a safe place to sleep again, curled up on their backpacks and fell asleep.
Day 2
At dawn they planned out their journey. To the north were haunted mountains where the dead walked, so they continued westward through the forest towards the mountains. Little did they know that they might never see trees and grass again! The shortest path toward the tower on the map took them across several rivers, but as neither could swim, they added a few extra hours to their journey to avoid the water.
Before lunch they reached another fort, this one made from beautiful serpentine. How wealthy and powerful this place must have been once...
Inside the fort, a raven had gotten itself stuck, and in its panic it attacked Lasiv. She lashed out at it with her morningstar and felt the fragile hollow bones crunch as she struck it. Her first kill fell limp to the ground, and Lasiv thought was a pity it was that there wasn't enough meat on it to eat for lunch.
The only thing worth scavenging in this fort was a pair of nice socks, so the duo continued west to the hamlet Agesprings, where they recruited the axeman Shanum.
As the three made more progress, they saw dark lands ahead of them and decided to detour north, taking a longer path the mountains to avoid the haunted regions ahead.
In the hills they discovered a cave and crept in to investigate. Inside was a naked goblin, the first Lasiv had ever seen. It leapt to attack and the three adventurers defended themselves how they could. Within a minute, Shanum was unconscious on the floor, and Omud was limping away. In an uncharacteristic fit of bravery, Lasiv leapt at the creature, and after a brief struggle, it was lying dead on the floor with a crushed head. As it shrieked its death cry, Lasiv thought she caught a flash of reptilian shape in its face accompanied by a soft hiss.
Lasiv didn't escape without damage, however. There was a large gash in her stomach where the beast's claws had torn her flesh. She slumped to the ground and let sleep engulf her.
Day 3
When she awoke, Shanum was dead. Fortunately, Omud was already awake and looking none the worse for wear. Lasiv felt better than the previous evening, but her wound was still very painful and she was concerned about infection; she had nothing with which to treat or even cover the wound. But they couldn't lie around in a cave for the rest of their lives waiting do die of dehydration, so they gathered their strength, bid Shanum's corpse farewell, and headed to the Northwest towards the mountains, which they reached in the late morning. It was clear that it would be slow going from this point forward, and Lasiv was not looking forward to climbing the slopes with her damaged stomach, but there was no turning back now.
In the early afternoon they passed by some disgusting-looking landscape where the ground seemed to sprout eyeballs to stare at them as they made their way by. They kept their distance for as long as possible, but by evening realized that they would not be able to avoid walking through the disgusting landscape.
As quickly as they were able, they made their way through the band of evil landscape which squished unpleasantly under their feet, but fortunately they passed through quickly and without incident.
Back in a saner landscape, they began to hope they might encounter a fresh mountain stream to wash their crusted and exhausted bodies, but such hopes were quickly abandoned as they crossed what had once been a riverbed but had completely dried up long ago.
As night fell, they seemed to agree without speaking that it was time to get some rest, and hope to make it out of the mountains the next day.
Day 4
After an uneventful night the pair awoke and began trudging further to the west. Lasiv found that she was still feeling exhausted despite the 8 hours of sleep. Her gut was definitely infected and even though the wound had scabbed over, it was incredibly painful to walk. By lunchtime she felt she could no longer drag herself along in this manner. Not having encountered much of anything hostile since their invasion of the goblin creature's lair and it being more important to keep moving than to keep protected, she decided to drop all of her armor on the ground and leave it behind. She was able to move much more quickly after that, but the pain did not subside.
In the afternoon they were beset by a pack of rabid wolverines, and Lasiv momentarily regretted her lack of armor.
Fortunately the group was not difficult to take down without sustaining further injuries.
Nevertheless, by nightfall she felt she would collapse if she tried to take one more step. Still stuck in the mountain range without an end in sight, they fell asleep on their packs after an entire day of silence.
Day 5
So much gray, so much rock, so much barren wasteland, and so much pain.
As the sun neared its peak in the sky, a miracle occurred: green! The ground ahead was covered in grass!
By afternoon they were finally out of the mountains and looking over the deserted wasteland ahead of them. They were close now. Not much longer, and they'd be safe in Bloodspire.
They increased speed as the terrain leveled out, but their attention to their surroundings had faded and they failed to notice a pack of dingoes rushing toward them. Fortunately Omud was able to dispatch them with little help from his injured companion. They were a bit more careful from then on, and had to fend off several more packs of dingoes before the sun set.
Day 6
Lasiv's exhaustion seemed to deepen each day despite rest. But they could not stop, not here, not so close to their goal. Omud watched her with concern in his eyes and tried to keep her spirits up by swapping stories from their imagination about what Bloodspire would be like. When the sun set, Lasiv collapsed on the ground and fell into yet another sleep, riddled with feverish nightmares.
Day 7
So close. They knew they were close. They could see the small cluster of mountains ahead that the map said contained the safe haven of Bloodspire. Omud helped Lasiv to her feet and pushed her onwards. They tried to keep the thoughts out of their heads that Bloodspire might not even exist, that they might have traveled all this way just to strand themselves in the desert to die of thirst.
They rounded the mountain cluster until they could see it in the distance, and all their fears melted away. It did exist!
Just as they reached the base of their final bit of mountains, Lasiv fell to her knees. She was beyond exhaustion now and the fever was raging through her body. But Omud spoke some words of inspiration, and she found the strength to sumble forward.
Within an hour they saw the wall.
Omud could read the words on the map, guided them to the northwest. At the opening in the wall they located the small path of blue and gold.
When the path split, they judged that the way south looked less worn than the one east, and true to the map's clues, a marker of green glass was laid into the ground just outside of a narrow passage.
Stepping over a goat corpse, Lasiv nearly fell into a small pit in the ground, but Omud quickly found the lever for the bridge.
He pulled it, and at first nothing happened, so he pulled it a second time and this time the retracted bridge appeared and allowed them across. When they had both reached the other side, he pulled the second lever until the bridge was gone.
At the door to the tower stood a dwarven child carrying a pot of beer. It stared wide-eyed at the tall newcomers and allowed them to pass through the doors.
After stumbling through the maze-like entrance (clearly designed to keep out intruders while bowmen shot at them through fortifications in the walls) and the barracks (empty of soldiers at the moment), they started climbing the stairs. Lasiv was relieved to discover, past rooms of statues and engravings portraying the life of Gatshi Gulgudathrab Cilko Lecit, that there was a very modern-looking and well-stocked hospital (there was even soap for cleaning her infected wound). Just above that was a dining hall and stockpiles of divine gourmet food and a seemingly endless supply of alcohol (and also a well for those who preferred water), and then, at last, a room lined with beds and stocked with storage containers for their few worldly possessions.
Overcome with gratitude and relief, Lasiv and Omud collapsed onto the finely crafted beds and drifted off to their first peaceful rest in their new home.
Final stats:
Map of the journey:
Points:
Reached tower safely: 100
Rescued one innocent: 10
Killed one abomination (werecreature): 1
Total: 111
Author
Topic: Necropia: Adventurer Succession Survival Game (Players Wanted!) (Read 22217 times)