El Sid pulled up a chair beside Glorm, who was smoking his favorite pipe next to the fire and pondering his decision for them to head north to find Tanaka and Fuji's brothers.
"You know Glorm, I think your decision concerning finding the two brothers is a good one. Of course, there is all that gold and magic to be considered..."
"Gold?" Glorm inquired his interest instantly aroused.
"Well, Krinn mentioned those Urakai ruins the the south. I am told that Urakai ruins have a great deal of treasure in them. You know, stuff looted from the humans during the fall -- gold, gems, jewels -- the usual stuff. But of course, we have more important things to think about, like Tanaka's brothers."
"Yes, that is very true, we er um must think of the Sa Kajok. Party unity is very important after all. Gems you say? Do you think there might be emeralds; I am most fond of emeralds."
"I only know what I have heard, Glorm, but I was once told of a man who came out of similar ruins with a ruby as big as your fist. Of course rubies, aren't nearly as nice as emeralds..." El Sid stared longingly into the distance as he let that last sentence fade into silence, then added "it was nice chatting with you, Glorm" with a sad shake of his head.
"Yes, very nice indeed" said Glorm. "We must have these talks more often."
As El Sid wandered over towards Dom, Glorm hollered at the inn keeper for a large brandy. His mug in hand he sat down to ponder this new information. Gems were very dear to Glorm, and he was only half way through his brandy, when he came to a conclusion. Most of the party after all seemed very interested in the Urakai ruins. He called Tanaka and Fuji over.
"Tanaka, I have been doing some more thinking on our next move. I know how important it is to find your brothers, but I think it might be better if we stayed close to town. I am sure they will come back for this fine beer before to long, and it would be next to impossible to find them up north with all of those urakou running around. I think we should poke around those Urakai ruins for a week and then check back here in town."
The two brothers looked dubious and Tanaka glared at El Sid, who was carefully studying the bottom of his tankard.
Sensing their reluctance, Glorm shifted to whis second line of attack. "Now I know how dangerous it will be in the Urakai ruins, and we will have to do alot of hacking and maiming, but I am sure you two will make the sacrafice."
"Hacking and maiming?" inquired Fuji.
"Yes I am afraid so."
"Well I make big sacrafice" said Fuji. "For the good of Sa Kajok, of course."
"Yes we must thing of our honor, after all" said Glorm.
Putty in my hands, thought Glorm. You mearly need to know someones weakness to manipulate them... This taken care of the party started getting suplies together for the trip. Lanterns, torches, ropes, spikes and poles.
-------------------------------------------------- Break, Mechanics
Tristan learns MM1 and Detect Magic
Everyone gets one week of training except Glorm, Tanaka, Fuji, who study common, and Tristan above.
Glorm and Tristan sell 10% of Glorm’s stock for 160% of fair market value in Kethem (16 gold). They buy twelve bottles of Micaforo Triple Bock Malt Liquor for 6 gold, which Glorm believes will travel well and that fair market value in Kethem would be 12 gold.
Spent 40 silver per person / horse per day at the inn x 9 days; Spent 14 silver per person and horse for 1 weeks saddle rations Spent 2 gold on spikes, ropes, poles, oil and lanterns, etc. I redistibuted gold, since some people were negative.
Current Gold
El Sid 23.48Don 23.48Glorm 24.08Del 9.68Tan 9.58Fuji 9.58Krinn 5.48Aron 7.68Tristan 9.48
--------------------------------------------- Break, continue story
21 April 10451
Aron rode beside Glorm. It was early in the morning, they having broke camp a half hour or so ago on their slightly over one day journey to Ullmakug Morkath. Aron mentioned casually to Glorm "seems like you've been practicing your common."
Glorm nodded. "Yes, enought to provide some semblance of sophistication to my grammer and diction. Trivial as it may be, complexity of interpersonal communications is such that I thought it best to focus on effective, timely dissemination of critical information using the subtle nuanses of your language."
Tanaka and Fuji, riding nearby, nodded. Tanaka added "Yes, it can be stated with a high degree of accuracy that precision and adroitness in use of language is the keystone apon which mutual understanding of our situation and planning an efficient response as environmental conditions dictate are based."
Fuji shook his head, and kicked in "Ain't that a mouthful? You'de swear these guys graduated from a University or something."
Aron shook his head dazedly. "What exactly are you trying to tell me?"
Glorm answered "The GM says it's OK for us not to talk like foriegners, since some people who shall remain nameless, BARRY, whined about it."
Aron shook his head in sudden comprehension. "Oh, I get it."
Tristan slowed up and the horses slowly coelesed until everyone could speak clearly. "Ullma... Ullma... the cursed place is just ahead. We've made pretty good time, all things considered. El Sid, can we get a quick rundown one more time on what you learned?"
El Sid frowned and replied "not much. Basically, the few that did come back acting odd didn't seem to have much in common, other than all commiting suicide after some period of time. They seemed to come back more or less coherent, but would gradually get weirder and weirder over time. One kept cutting his forehead open and bleeding all over the place, until they tied him up, then he bashed his head in against a wall. One hung himself, another drowned himself. No obvious wounds when they returned, cure disease didn't seem to help for the one that could afford it, and before they went totally around the bend, they all claimed they hadn't seen or found anything interesting, just searched the ruins for a few days. The one that found the Urakai battlemagic was already off his rocker when he was found by another crew heading into the ruins. He did have some wounds that looked like claw and teeth marks from some large animal, maybe a wolf or a large cat of some kind. He apparently repeated the phrase "The door is in the mouth of the spider" constantly, but his wounds were clearly not from a insect, and it was excused as babbling. From everything else I heard, others went and returned with no ill effects."
"Anything similar about the people? All clerics, maybe, or something like that?"
"No, nothing on the surface."
"What about the town itself?"
El Sid shrugged and repeated the essentials. "A small town overlooking the river Kazat. Originally settled in 10134 by Urakai, captured in 10202 during the third Orc-Human war by Bessel Kolsky, apparently by luring the Urakai Chieftan Brugsket Spider-on-egg out, then capturing the town behind him. Recaptured by Urakai in 10204, at the end of the war. It was resettled by humans in 10391 after being found deserted when people were reclaiming Pranan, after Funda-Kai bought the farm. Some sort of internal strife in 10409, the details are kind of sketchy, but it was enough to end the resettlement. The town's been abandoned since them, about fourty years now. They don't have much more... Pranan is not a great place for keeping detailed records."
"And, why the name? Curse of the banded warrior?"
"No idea. Officially, it is Rammac. No mention of a name change in anything I saw."
Tristan turned to Aron. "Aron, you're our resident Urakai expert."
Aron shook his head. "It makes little sense to me. Banding is common Urakai practice prior to warfare. There is a Urakai song...
Red for the blood to be spilled, Green for the strength of will to ignore flesh, White for purity of purpose, Black for the madness at the center of the heart..."
Tristan looked at him quizically. Aron continued "Urakai have always been... unstable, I guess you would call it. They are frequently consumed with their passions, sometimes beyond the point of sanity. This madness is said to lie at the heart of all Urakai, and is represented by black. The only cure is battle, the combination of purpose, skill and strength allowing the Urakai to forge themselves into the perfect weapon. So you have white for purity of purpose, and green for the valor to use yourself as that weapon, regardless of the end result to your own flesh, or in other words, willingness to take wounds to accomplish your goals. But there is recognition that in overcomming the madness by battle, only destruction can result, which is also mad. Red is for atonement, or maybe just recognition, of this. Urakai Chieftans band themselves with these colors. Red on the outside, green inside that, white inside that, then black, usually just over the eyes. The widths are significant and change depending on the situation; a cheiftan with mostly green is a beserker, with mostly red a wise-orc, with mostly white on a holy quest or a fanatic, and with mostly black..."
"A madman, or mad-orc rather" finished Tristan. "Interesting, but not obviously relevent. OK, people, I think we are as ready as we are going to be. Let's head in."
As they topped the next rise, the weed-choked remains of the dirt road they had been following curved down a gentle hill and met the north face of an obviously desolated town. Beyond that, the river Kazat flickered in the sunlight.
--------------------------- BREAK, MECHANICS
I need to know how you are going about searching the town, marching order, etc; when you tell me how you approach the town I will give you some details on what the buildings are, etc. Each space is about 20 feet (don’t forget that space width is half the size of hieght, so the town is wider than it looks), so most the streets through town are twenty feet (four hexes) wide. It takes about an hour to search a 20x20 section thouroughly; half that time to ensure you find any secret doors or other large items, and a quarter that time to find poorly hidden secret doors.
------------------------ BREAK, MAP OF Ullmakug Morkath
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|______| |______| |_| |_| |__|___ __ __ __ ____
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|_ | \ \ \ | /\ | / / | | | | \
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| | | | __ \ \ ____ / / /____| |_____\
|_| |__/ / \ \_| | | |_/ ______ _____
_ / \ | | / | | |
_ | \ \ / _ |____| _ \______| |_____|
| | | \ \__/ / \ / \ ____ ___
| | | \ / / ______ \ \ \ | | |
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____ /__/ /________\ \__\ \| | |
| | __ __________ __ |___|
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|____| | \ \ / / / | | | |
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|______| \____\ _ /__/ |____| |_|
___________ / | ___
| | / | | |
| _______ | / | | |
| / \ | | | | |
|/ ___ \| |____| ______ |___|
|___| |______|
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