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Old 01-18-2020, 02:45 PM   #9
coronatiger
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Trondheim, Norway
Default Session 11 (2020-01-12)

23rd of Varatga, year 412

O Ashtar, Mother of Snakes, Keeper of Death’s Door, hear my confession!

Lunari woke me for my turn at the watch, and warned me that there might be orcs nearby. He pointed to the north and said that he had seen movement there earlier. I asked what I should do if orcs approached, feigning worry. “Scream, and hide behind us,” he replied, and asked if I had any weapons. I told him I had a knife that I could wave around.

Lunari had told me to wake Xipil before sunrise, so I did. I asked the lizard-man if he was going to take over the watch, for mine hadn’t lasted very long. He said yes, so I went back to sleep.

We moved on after breakfast. Baldrian was worried about orcs. There should have been more patrols in the area.

Lunari showed me his spear. It was made on the plains north of the Prince’s Cities, and while I’m not a connoisseur, I could tell that the weapon was very fine; it must have cost him a small fortune. I asked if I could touch it, and he handed it over. I displayed a lack of skill with it, waving it dangerously about. I showed him one of my knives in return, and pretended not to have any skill with that either. My two throwing knives would have given the ruse away, but the long knife I showed him was plain and simple. He recognized it as Arland-made and explained to me how similar blades from the Prince’s Cities were slightly different. He told me that when we came out of the pass, we would see the site where he and Grogg once defeated a band of orcs. He implied there would be a monument erected there.

Xipil scouted ahead, I stayed near Grogg, and everyone kept their weapons close. After a few hours, Xipil returned to tell us there had been an avalanche, and the road through the pass was blocked. There was mumbling about a possible ambush, and Baldrian turned the wagon around, retreating a safe distance, while Lunari, Grogg, Xipil and I climbed a cleft to the north of the road. When we reached the top, Xipil stealthed ahead. Without his huge cloak, his skin melted into the surroundings, and I found it difficult to keep my eyes on him.

When Xipil returned, he told us he had found tracks of two trolls and up to eight other people. Humans could have made the tracks, but Xipil had spotted a green-skinned bowman who watched the pass, so there was at least one orc among them. Grogg sniffed the tracks, and agreed that trolls had been here recently.

I listened to the others discussing how to proceed. We could sneak up on the ambushers and attack them from behind, but that might be risky, as we didn’t know where all of them were. We could probably get one or two, but the sounds of battle would alert the others. I said we shouldn’t count me as a fighter, so it would be three of us against ten of them, including two trolls. Even if Baldrian and his friend joined us and were able to fight, the enemy would outnumber us two to one.

Another possibility would be to bribe the ambushers with something from Baldrian’s cargo. If they were runaway slaves, part of the rumored uprising, the shortswords and crossbows Baldrian brought would be very useful to them. However, if we gave them weapons, could we be certain that they wouldn’t use them against us?

We agreed that Xipil should take another scouting foray. On this trip, he discovered three orcs watching the road. I suggested that we might go around. That would mean that Baldrian had to turn back, as he wouldn’t get the wagon up the cleft we had climbed to get above the orcs. Lunari and I went back to Baldrian to discuss what to do, while Grogg and Xipil remained to watch.

While Lunari explained the situation to Baldrian and his friend, I rummaged through my backpack, which I had left on the wagon when we went to explore. I smeared a few drops of poison onto each of my knife tips, taking care to keep the cargo on the wagon between the others and me. Lunari said that we would sneak up on the three orcs we knew the location of, and then begin bargaining.

Lunari retrieved a giant crossbow and asked if I would take it, but I thought it was too heavy, so he took it himself. He made an agreement with Baldrian about what kind of deal he should make with the ambushers, and then we went back to Xipil and Grogg.

We were still discussing exactly how to proceed when we spotted an orc approaching. He was armed with bow and arrow, and carried a backpack. Grogg stood up and bellowed something in what I assume was troll speech, before switching to common: “I am Grogg Orgalogg and I want to speak to your leader!”

The orc took cover, but a troll voice replied. The two of them shouted back and forth in their own tongue for a couple of minutes, then two trolls and another orc joined the first orc below us in the cleft. Above the avalanche, a few orcs looked around, uncertain what was happening. One of the trolls approached us and asked us to lower our weapons. I hadn’t drawn any, but Lunari and Xipil put down their crossbow and bow. Grogg led Lunari towards the troll, and I followed, peeking out from behind Grogg’s back.

Grogg introduced Lunari as his elf daddy. Lunari commented that the two trolls looked very similar, and asked if they were related. The other troll called himself Nark, and it turned out that he and Grogg hailed from the same region. Nark remarked upon Grogg’s weapon, a huge maul, and called for one of the orcs, Dorr, to come take a look. Dorr prostrated himself before the weapon, which clearly had some cultural significance to the orcs. I wonder where Grogg got it.

Lunari offered to sell weapons to Nark and his band, in exchange for safe passage and any trinkets they might possess. Grogg, Lunari and I followed Nark into a nearby cavern, where they had a box of marble sculptures that the former slaves had grabbed when they escaped. Nark seemed pleased to give up the marble for weapons. Military grade shortswords and crossbows were a clear upgrade over the improvised weapons they carried.

We returned to Baldrian, and he was seemed satisfied, too. We made the exchange, and the bandits cleared the road so we could pass with the wagon. Baldrian asked Lunari to do something about the box of marble; he couldn’t sell it as it was. He claimed it looked like someone had dumped loot in it.

We decided to make haste so we’d clear the pass before nightfall. That meant that Xipil couldn’t range ahead, but we figured it wasn’t likely that there would be two bands of former slaves waiting to ambush travelers in the same area. By Your mercy, we emerged from the pass without further incident.

I pitched my tent as soon as we stopped. I needed to pray, I explained. I kneeled down inside and licked clean each of my knives. I prayed silently while my glands slowly excreted fresh poison into my mouth. I only paused occasionally to spit out a few pale, green-yellow drops. Four hours later, the vial was as full as it would get, and I packed away the medicine kit, brushed my teeth and went to sleep.

O Ashtar! I surrender my life to Your coils. Take me while I sleep, or grant me another day in Your service, as You will.
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You don't need to spend 100 CP on Status 5 [25] and Multimillionaire [75] to feel like a princess, when Delusion [-10] will do.

Character sheet: Google Drive link (See this thread for details.)

Campaign logs: Chaotic Pioneering / Confessions of a Forked Tongue
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