Betrayed by all and sundry
Brendan Zuke’s mission report to Thar Noomis
Well..er..it sort of went something like this.
Margouutoulle,
you remember my friend, the huge wolverine that wanders outside
the city and has developed a taste for Thayans and their minions.
She sends big licks by the way. Well she ate one and decided to
bring me the pouch one of them was carrying. I opened it up and
there was this letter that I couldn’t read. I decided to
go and speak to Anghyl, that friend of mine who helped me...er…redirect
you that time you decided to go wandering off in the vast without
any clothes on.
Anyway, so I thanked Margouutoulle, fed her a dead
crocodile (it seems that the bog doesn’t agree with all the
creatures that I have been introducing to it), and went off to
find this elven mage.
For
some strange reason Anghyl was in the city and he read me the
letter. It was written in drano-comic, or something like that,
and twittered on about some plot against a high priest, a female
leader, and a thayan wizard. Well as it was obviously nothing
to worry about and wishing the writer the best of luck in killing
the Thayan, I threw it in a bin and decided to wander down to
the Stone Street Hospital and see if I could do anything to help.
Said a quick hello to Jedron and that weird wizardy fellow Melgar.
They had a dwarf with them called Martok, a nice polite fellow,
sort of a male Shamil, although he had a beard and wasn’t
pink, and a rather ugly fellow called Vorlan or Vohan or something
and left them to it.
Well
Kithran came and got me from the hospital at one point as he and
the others were investigating something that they seemed to think
was important and showed me some tracks. Positively made me shudder
they did as they belonged to a Were-rat. I think the reason I
could identify them so easily was it was the same one who chased
me around North Sarbreenar all the way to the Elks Roost a few
months ago. You remember me telling you about that.
Anghyl asked me to look at a body inside and it
was easy to tell that the were-rat had ripped his throat out.
A bit wasteful if you ask me as the blood hadn’t even gone
in to a decent soup but was splattered everywhere. No idea who
it was and the others didn’t bother to tell me. They then
went rushing from building to building and went into that house
of horror, the Elks Roost. You know that pub that Sylvanus in
his wisdom has shown me dying in at least twice. The one I refuse
point blank to enter. Well they all came out of there having met
someone and Jedron was fairly puffed up with his sense of importance.
I don’t know what was said in there but Jedron seemed happy.
Anghyl asked me to come with them so we all went
along to that abomination where all those spellcasters go and
I waited outside while the others went in.
Moonis
was getting bored by now so I let him chase a few of the local
dogs just for fun. I don’t think that wolf hound was used
to be chased by an orange and black cat four times his size. She
wasn’t really interested so she let it run away.
Anyway, after a while Melgar came out and told me
this story and showed me this letter that said that Godwin had
been replaced by a Yuan Ti, Angel was even crookeder and that
they were working against the city. Not quite sure how that all
works and not really my concern but Melgar took me, very reluctantly
I might add, inside the spellcasters building. He had made it
look really pretty like a glade with butterflies and sunshine.
Nothing like a good swamp I always say but I appreciated his effort.
They asked me if the poison on the glass was Yuan Ti and after
tasting it I was able to confirm this for them. Anyway they got
all excited and ran down to the Elks Roost again and had another
chat with the people inside. I think that bint you fancy, Lady
Jillian, was in there but I couldn’t be sure.
So we then decided to wander down towards the Brynn
Wood as apparently there was some corpse down there they wanted
us to examine.
Well, we got close to where we were supposed to
go and I barely had time to catch a brace of coney to feed to
Moonis and Kithran’s lion friend when some fey saw our heavily
armed and armoured party and quite understandably took flight.
Well Melgar grabbed Vohan and Jedron and dumb-doored (I think
that’s what you call it) and caught the poor fellow and took
his bag away. Jedron them threatened to have Vohan rip his wings
off if he didn’t tell us where he had got this bag from.
I have to admit I did find it strange that the sprite kept denying
he had ever seen the bag in his life when they took it out of
his hands. Anyway, Melgar reads the letter that was in it then
hands it to me. I read the letter and then put it in my pocket
as I didn’t want Jedron to see it. You know what Jedron is
like. If a Thayan with legal authority had told him to reveal
the contents he would of. So I thought I would save him the embarrassment
and keep it. Sigh….Well Jedron then tried to put manacles
on me so I turned in to one of those large white ice-bears…so
Jedron tacked me. Poor lad. It was like I had grown a human tick
so I gently put him down and walked away for awhile. It was sort
of at that point that Jedron decided he would report me in the
city instead. Anyway. We found the body and ..oh..what was in
the letter. Um..tell you whole story later…but it said that
a harper was supposed to kill Thannazzar and replace him for a
while.
I had to eat the letter to stop Jedron fussing.
By the way, a letter that has been stored underground on a decomposing
corpse really could have done with a strong sauce!
Well, let me tell you, when we found the body a little later it
sure put the weasel in the henhouse. The body was exactly like
Thannazzar’s (if he had been rotting in the ground for two
years) and had been blasted in the chest with fire and ice. We
also found on him a Ring of the Dales which as you well know no
harper would let out of his site. Things got even worse when Melgar
found out that the body had had a very nasty spell cast on it
called Mindrape. So in conclusion; we found the body of the harper
who had been sent to replace Thannazzar. We found the letter which
detailed the plot to replace him and we found the ring that would
have been the harpers only means of identification. As you know
no harper would leave a letter and ring around especially as it
was his only means of identification, and the body had been mindraped
so it was pretty easy to work out. Thannazzar caught the harper
before he could kill him and then mindraped him.
What’s mind rape? Oh…It’s this 9th
circle arcane spell that allows the caster to call on the memories
and abilities of the person that the spell was cast on at any
time, so Thannazzar can call on all the harper knowledge to confuse
you at any time, when he wants, as he wants. It also leaves the
recipient with a blank slate for a past. They forget everything.
A truly wicked spell!
So off we trundled back to the city…
The
others went back in to the Elks Roost and they told me later they
spoke to Jillian.
Apparently the Thayan’s and their minions, the Zhent’s
you keep calling them were ready to start the next part of their
plot against Sarbreenar. The minions were getting ready for the
major push in to Sarbreenar so we rallied all the forces and prepared
for battle. Anghyl chatted through magic to all those Dwarves
and apparently Godwin had been telling them every day to stay
away from Sarbreenar as it was a matter of honour, or some such
crap, that Sarbreenar freed itself. This seemed to confirm the
suspicions of the party that Godwin had been replaced as no person
who cared about the people would let them die in their hundreds,
be enslaved and raped purely for his sense of honour. Jillian
agreed with us all apparently and the Dwarven leader, never did
catch his name, promised loads of troops almost immediately.
I sent Margouutoulle to ask Mr Da Hood to mobile
as well, you remember those goblins I have arming for over a year,
while Kithran and Jedron went and mobilised the forces of High
Haspur who were just outside the gate. I also sent a load of hatters
out to the outlying villages asking them for their aid, while
the others got in touch with everyone they knew including the
elves of Brynwood. This had to be done immediately as the Thayans
had sprung their trap. With their minions in the north mobilising
in force the Thayans had a large army ‘conveniently’
outside the gates who would only come in if we asked to ‘free
us from the oppressor’. Well since we had mobilised virtually
everyone we knew, we were sure the city could hold out while we
freed up our last ally.
The others knew of a gold dragon who was willing
to help but her children had been kidnapped in two different locations
so we would attack one while she attacked the other, thereby stopping
revenge on the other.
Melgar had been made head of the Spellcasters Guild
at this point so we requisitioned some scrolls and knowing we
had very little time we started to run. We didn’t stop running
until we got back….
I used a spell from the guild to step through in
to an old spruce on Taiga mountain and we immediately charged
in to the attack. Things got pretty bloody at this point and the
strange creatures that were guarding the cave, Giffyankey, or
something like that barely lasted a few seconds before we cut
them down. It helped that we were able to get close looking like
a bunch of mosquitoes, don’t ask, and Vohan and Martok were
still making buzzing noises half an hour later.
Well the cave was trapped and their was big a cavern
of fire rock so we went around it. Melgar turned in to an abomination
that burned through rock and we charged onwards. We knew we only
had minutes so we didn’t even hesitate. I suppose that is
not entirely true. We did hesitate for a moment when the huge
red dragon was seen in the cavern but it was only for a moment.
Vohan transformed himself in to a huge giant and
charged in with Martok behind him, while Anghyl made us all go
faster. Jedron snuck around the back to try and free the baby
gold dragon imprisoned in crystal while Kithran cast one of my
favourites, wall of thorns to isolate and hurt some of their casters.
That with Melgars dreaded Black Tentacles and Acid Cloud, and
the Huge Fire Elemental, two ‘rhino-saureses’ and the
heavy blades of the others sent the enemy into full retreat. Didn’t
have to kill many as they just popped out and didn’t come
back. Jedron and Melgar freed the baby dragon, Anghyl helped gather
up the dragons coins and we were about to leave when Sylvanus
sent me a warning.
I turned around and saw one of Thannazzar’s
servants sneaking up on me. She had a blade in her hand was covered
in blood and had obviously been sent to assassinate me at his
command.
I ..er..um..called out and retreated to the far side of the cavern,
and that elf they called Nineveh started playing all innocent
now she had been discovered and pretended that she had come looking
for us.
The stupid bint then started to berate us saying
that in the thirty minutes we had been away the Thayans had over
run the city to fight off their own servants and we were supposed
to be there to stop them. She also said that because of us all
of Angel’s men were being arrested and that it was our fault
and seemed to think we could have made the difference rather than
gaining a gold dragon as an ally. It was a little funny though.
The only reason I dismissed my animal and elemental friends who
were about to attack her is because Anghyl asked me to and the
others were all looking as if that had been a big mistake! If
we could have made that much of a difference in half an hour what,
by Sylvanus’s right kneecap was she doing out here looking
for us, rather than defending the city herself! We didn’t
make the decisions but merely presented the facts to Jillian.
So Thannazzars servant spends her time spending propaganda and
descent amongst those workingthe hardest to save the city.
So in summary..the Thayan plot has come to pass
and they are all over the city.
I
am not sure what happened next as I went off to the bog, but I
was told that the foolish citizens of Sarbreenar have welcomed
the Thayan’s with open arms. So when Thannazzar manages to
‘persuade’ his own men to leave and then marries that
daft cow, Jillian, Thannazzar will rule Sarbreenar and your city
will be allied to Thay, and therefore the enemy of every decent
person in Faerun.
Um…Thar…you do realise that at that point
I can no longer consider the objectives of the city as anything
except evil.
Oh…I have a load of those gold coins that Gerroff
keeps stealing from out of your pocket as well.
Bredan Zuke
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