The World of Telvar

A group of five ships had gone north past the Korinn archipelago, including Malmir’s ship, the privately owned Sea Dragon ship (a cloaking ship), called the Belle Venture. Nine days north of the Korinn, they were suddenly attacked. A fog had moved around the ships, and they were staying in contact by lanterns. Suddenly it became clear that one of the smaller ships was under attack. The Belle Venture cloaked and went to see what was going on, and by the time they reached it, everyone on the ship was dead. Hearing cries from another ship, the crew of the Belle Venture noted that orcs of the Kara-kara tribe were taking money off the ship. Four people were rescued from one of the other ships, but everyone else was dead on the second one as well. The people rescued were incoherent and babbling.

Rushing to the aid of the large merchant ship in the convoy, the cloaked ship was suddenly assaulted by orcs, who had apparently gotten close enough to see it. The mist itself gained fangs and everywhere these fog creatures attacked.

Malmir took one orc prisoner and realized that all was lost, so the ship ran out of the fog. 10 men of 40 crew had survived, along with the 4 prisoners, and the ship limped home. It was clear that the other ships were scuttled and scavenged by the orcs.

This coordinated attack by the Kara-kara defied everything they knew about the tribe. A primitive tribe without metal weapons or armor, or very seaworthy boats, the tribe had recently become far more dangerous. While the Kara-kara had always scavenged ships, now they were actively attacking them, along with fog monsters, apparently under their control. Apparently a new leader, the “great pig” had risen to power and was commanding them. The leader claims to be an avatar of the Pig God of the orcs, but a Divination revealed that there was no such thing on the island. In addition, the orcs are removing gold off of the ships, which has no value for them. This is quite suspicious.

The fog itself can apparently travel against the wind.

Rollo suspects that some trainee of Eggy Gax is putting on the show of the decade, but he is afraid of this spreading. Our job is to find out about the new leader and if possible, kill him.

We sailed out toward the island, and, incredibly, managed to get attacked by another sea monster, a giant squid. Fortunately, the ship’s ballistae hit the creature decisively on the initial shots, and it vanished under the waves.

We arrived, and landed on June 8th. The full moon rises on the night of June 9th-10th, so we planned to arrive and do our exploration while most of the village was at the ceremony held outside of a temple.

We have a map, which shows the main features of the island. The island is a T shaped one, about 4 miles across in each direction. It is a thick jungle, with two high mountains, one near the orc village, and one on the other side. The mountains are separated by a sheer ravine, called “the Trail of the Dead.” There are about 1000 orcs on the island, so a big fight is obviously out. Our plan was to land, do some reconnaissance, and see if we could find an easy way to expose or kill the leader. Then we would run back to the boat, which Kodo had piloted in, and make our escape.

The orc captive spoke of the original inhabitants of the island, the Ancient Ones, but was relieved that they were long gone when the orcs arrived.

We landed on the beaches, and stowed the boat. For this mission we decided that it was critical not to be surprised, so everyone except for Balinor and Felix went into non-metal armor. Morgan, who has excellent scouting and stealth abilities, Kodo, who is a 3rd level woodsman, and Alduin, who is a 4th level elven thief in woodlands, took the lead and remained ahead of us. Quentin’s bobcat Chester, his two crows Lenore and Morris, his owl Tyveris, and his ferrets came with us.

We trekked through the jungle, dealing with the lizards, and bugs, and other nasty things. Up ahead, Morgan spotted a ruined tower, and small village. We explored the area and discovered that some sort of giant white gorilla lives there, perhaps more than one. They live in the ruined basement of the tower. Deciding that fighting them would be bad, we hurried on. In fact, if the orcs weren’t on the island, Morgan declared, this would be a good place to adventure and check out!

We moved on and stopped in time to avoid being seen by the outpost.

There was an enclosure of bone, in which sat 6 orcs, and 2 “riding lizards.” They were chameleons of some sort, giant things. They were guarding the only pass around the ravine, the Trail of the Dead. Theoretically there was a pass on the other side, but it would take about a day to circle around, which would be too late.

The animals in the area sensed that something was “wrong” about the chasm.

We backed up a half hour and set up camp, since it was getting late. Hoping that the guards would be gone to the festivities come the next morning, we rested.

On the first watch, Chester avoided being eaten by a lizard.

On the third watch, with Felix on watch, he noted three burly humanoid shapes moving around the camp. They were stocky for orcs, and he suspected they might be the gorillas. Calmly, Felix moved to Balinor and Morgan and woke them up. Balinor couldn’t see in the dark, but Morgan noted the shapes. Soon everyone was up, and we tensed, hoping that we could talk to the things.

Suddenly, one of the them came running into the camp, and Quentin tried to cast Speak with Animals. Felix, Balinor, Morgan, and Kodo moved to clobber it, and it ran away as fast as it had come.

Shrugging, we went back to sleep.

Felix and Quentin were on watch, and Quentin suddenly noted the raspy breathing of Kain. Quentin shook him, and he didn’t wake up, but Kain felt cold, and it pained Quentin’s hand. Felix moved to help and shook Kain. Balinor coughed and woke up, feeling weak (his strength had fallen from 18/33 to 13) and he had taken cold damage. Balinor pulled out Maiden Basher.

Alduin was weakened as well. Quentin got out a Continual Light bead, and shined it on the camp. The light did something very odd around Alduin, and it blocked it completely for a moment, then all was normal.

The shadow around Felix’s feet suddenly disappeared into the ground. The light revealed two other running away. Only Felix could catch them, and he chose not to give chase.

Kain was alive, but very weak (his str was 2). Cure Light Wounds helped the cold damage.

Relieved, but annoyed, we went back to sleep. In the morning our strength had returned.

Suspecting that the shadows had come from the chasm, we were now even more intrigued, but we had a mission to do.

We moved out to the ridge again, but to our discomfort, the orcs were still there.

A plan was hatched, in which Donald would cast Sleep and Quentin would Entangle the orcs. Hopefully this could prevent them from reaching the drum to signal for help.

That’s where we left off. Tune in for the next edition!

Joel/Balinor