An Unexpected* Journey
*And almost certainly unwise
We travel to the Blasted Lands (Blast them!) seeking out Berial Duc, who will reward us handsomely for the diamonds we possess. He offers us a choice: A fabulous array of magic items that can only enrich and empower us to greater achievements and wealth; Or access to a transportation system that will take us anywhere in the world and beyond for as long as we wish.
Well there’s no decision is there? We have been travelling all over the world with no problem up to now and have just gained a base of operations from which to conduct operations, operations that will no doubt be yet more successful with the magical items we will be rewarded with.
But apparently not. Only the night elf and I see the sense of our opportunity, Plainsweaver, Woodwanker the part time murderer and Lutzbar out vote us. Some kind of mechanical monstrosity arrives a few days later, pieces falling from it as it lands; this apparently is our unlimited means of passage. A motley crew* emerges from the daemonic beast, which goes by the name of Glassenheit. Ralcolm Meynalds, their leader expresses displeasure at Berial’s deal and offers us a week’s worth of transport. Upubumia and I exchange ‘told you so’ glances.
*And that’s us calling them that!
In a shocking act of Plagiarism it turns out our ex paladin diamond gobbling friend is a shepherd,* the rest of the crew are also equally painful echoes of another reality although there is little surprise at the lack of action twixt the nethers of the gnome engineer.
*Sam has no shame in these matters, I guess we should be grateful that the last TV show Sam watched was Firefly and not, I don’t know, Father Ted.*
*OK so I called this account An unexpected journey, but at least my plagiarism is a little more topical.
So we take ship to Outland, reassured by offers of magic items to sweeten the deal* and spend some time travelling in the inter-planar vessel to this daemon infested destination. Better and better eh? Remind me never to let this lot pick my lottery numbers; they’d probably go 50, 99, 89, 72, 66 and 0. We are comforted by the GM that there are plenty of opportunities for acquiring the daemon dust here to which night elves easily become addicted, so a new vocation as drug dealers? Great.
*Which notably failed to appear
But are we disheartened? Well of course we are, haven’t you been paying attention? We decide to drown our sorrows in the Worlds End Tavern which is apparently the only pub in this place which is called, Shatraf. Personally I think its name should be more present tense.*
*Think about it ok, that one’s a little subtle.
In the tavern there is an ogre looking for muscle to help him assassinate his own brother and take over his tribe. What kind of loser is he and who would possibly wade into such a foolish and dangerous venture? You’re spot on, I can see you’re getting our measure now, although to be fair I think this was Upubumia demonstrating that the rest of the party have no monopoly on FUCKING IDIOTIC DECISIONS!*
*Why do I put up with them you ask? Well the hours are good.
This place is a city under siege in a long war against daemonic enemies. Although it’s not been attacked for a century the war continues across the planetoid with Blood Elves the bad guys. Within the city are a number of factions: Our very own shiny Blood Elves who split from their evil kin to join the good guys; The Drenai, blue chaps who don’t like Blood elves, Aracoa, bird people who don’t like flying and The Consortium, who are incredibly difficult to describe but are essentially mummies containing mystical nothingness.*
*That wasn’t to hard now was it?
There are also of course all the usual races although this world is the original source of orc kind though the local orcs are brown in hue. Oh, except the daemonic ones, which are red. So, when in doubt go shopping. Lots of magic stuff around and at least they take gold, seems like we’ve got a lot to learn about this place though.
The bazaar sells some powerful looking energy weapons at extortionate cost and we bump into a guard on a triple trunked elephant like creature. From him and elsewhere we pick up information on some of the facts of life. Seems that inter plane travel is possible at some risk through a portal and the two main factions, the Drenai and Blood Elves are uneasy bedfellows, not exactly enemies but not exactly friends either.
Our dilemma is that befriending or allying with one will alienate the other and both have attractive reasons to become our new best buds. Seems that the Blood Elves are slightly more offensively orientated in terms of the skills, magical and otherwise. But both factions worship the real bosses here: the Naru, creatures that are apparently half orchestra, half wind chime.
No fewer than seven of these mystically ethereal godlike beings run the place. Helpfully, they are unable to carry the fight directly but are happy to advise and assist. We find out where they hang out and go to see them. Somewhat confusingly, they communicate by music. After some amusing discussions that result in extensive unprovoked use of the cuckoo waltz,* they bring forth no lesser personage of Cadgar – yes the great Cadgar who famously disappeared two hundred years ago.
*Yes the Laurel and Hardy theme, can’t imagine what they meant by that.
It’s not every arch mage who has spell ingredients named after him, and I was overwhelmed at meeting one of my boyhood heroes. What wizard would not be? After all Cadgar it was who had unlocked the chamber of secrets, duelled with the half blood prince, located the philosopher’s stone, wielded the goblet of fire. Of course my companions hadn’t even heard of him but then what more would you expect?
He looked a little more worn than the poster I had on my bedroom wall for so many years and he explained more about the facts of life here. Apart from a confusing tendency to refer to the blood elves, both the good guys in the city and the bad guys outside, as blood angels, he gave us useful intel and we felt a little more aware.
He lent us a spirit guide of some sort to help further and answer our questions, as apparently he cannot leave his lair with the Naru, otherwise he falls to dust, although curiously he did appear to forget about this at one point. Crime here is punished with a leap of faith which apparently involves the certainty of horrible death. Lesser crimes involve what sounds like a trial by combat type solution. We also found our way to a primitive bulletin board requiring almost no Technology of any kind.
Infact to the untrained eye it resembled a hand written notice listing jobs attracting bounties. Helpfully located outside the Worlds End Tavern we noted a large number of employment opportunities for deranged killers such as ourselves, mostly involving meeting greeting and slaying enemies of the state currently unfortunate enough to be resident in the surrounding forests.
Talking of deranged killers, guess what? A spate of child murders is currently affecting our favourite city named Shatraf. Woodwanker?? We have meanwhile by democratic vote decided that the Blood Elves/ Angels are our priority allies and from the bounty board we have noted a worthy mission to locate and nullify a doomsday device apparently being brought against the city.
Our first priority is some transport, plenty of flying mounts available for sale but we felt these were high maintenance and potentially unreliable. I was naturally far more comfortable with the alternative: Flying carpets, which were also in plentiful supply. Woodwanker took an old rug off the hands of a dwarf who hadn’t realised that his rug was of the magical variety but it turned out to be somewhat unusual.
After I’d done some testing I called on Plainsweaver, and the Tauren was able to contact the spirit of a wizard named Chappaquiddick who had fatally misjudged his steering skills when flying the carpet. The impact had merged him spiritually with the carpet as his mortal remains were squashed flat in the collision. We returned to Cadgar, who indicated he had the means to release the spirit of the carpet and allow it to be controlled normally.
But, this would end the spirit’s existence. Alternatively he could transfer it to another living being. Chappaquiddick was desperate, he had already tried to bribe us with offers of treasure if released. Woodwanker clearly had no intention to aid him and was on the point of asking Cadgar to banish him, forcing me to act.
I was forced to intervene to offer a fellow wizard the dignity of choice. Chappaquiddick, or Quid as he was becoming known, was desperate and chose to transfer to another vessel. Woodwanker omitted the whole truth of the situation as he had recently added to our aerial fleet a parrot. A parrot that shortly afterwards became the container for a very angry wizard’s spirit.
I managed to make peace between several party members who appeared less than happy with the new arrangement, in particular one who shall remain nameless, who seemed to view the parrot as an appetiser for his hawk. Woodwanker however seemed to be seeing potential in the new relationship, and as I am duty bound to support and protect a fellow wizard, it seemed an unlikely alliance was taking shape. Meanwhile, I bought a second carpet to meet our transport needs.
So two possibilities face us now: We find the Blood Elves (or possibly angels) planning to destroy the city, or make a date with an ogre chief whose little brother has very strange ideas about family values.… Let’s hope our next choice is better than some of our recent ones!
23.3.13
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