And Then...

Nothing happened.

Will the Trio become a Duo?

Morning came early in Varna. It may have been the biggest town in the Eldeen Reaches, but it was still a frontier place, and when the cock crowed at dawn people began to move. First up were the farmers, followed by the tradesmen and laborers. Before the body of the sun broached the horizon ninety percent of the city was up and working. By the time the entire sun cleared the horizon only a few noble scions of the dragonmarked houses were still sleeping.

Well, them and a pair of tired adventurers.

Pillar regarded his new comrades quizzically as they groused about the noise outside of their window and tried to hide under their pillows. Kaspar's vocabulary was particulary colorful. Pillar did not sleep, and as such he did not understand the attraction to a bed, but he did not see why someone would enjoy being non-functional. A short time later a smeal from downstairs came wafting through Pillar's olfactory receptors. While warforged did not have the same range of smell as a born creature, they could detect smells and their basic nature. Pillar took a moment to realize that bread was baking and meat was roasting. The second smell was more familiar to him as he had been among a group of human soldiers that had died from a fireball attack during the war.

Kaspar and Castille obviously liked the smells as it finally got them up. They greeted Pillar and got dressed, and shortly all three were packed and downstairs. Pillar watched them drink a bitter thing called "coffee" and eat "sausage and grits." They swore it tasted excellent and gave the server some extra coin. The girl bringing the food shuddered every time she looked at Pillar, but was pleasant enough otherwise. Pillar noticed that he was drawing several looks, as warforged were not common in this part of the world, but he was used to them and so he ignored it.

"Why don't you eat?" came an accusing question. Pillar turned to look at the man walking in, and he noticed that Kaspar and Castille both put a hand on their weapons. "Why don't you EAT?" asked the man again, his voice rising.

Pillar regarded the questioner. The human was dirty, and wore hides that had not been polished in some time. A long snake draped itself over the man's shoulders, and it peered about the room, tongue flicking as it regarded everyone. It seemed to Pillar that the snake was watching the man's back. Druid, Pillar realized. The warforged knew little about the nature priests, but the room had gone quiet and pople were watching the situation warily.

"I do not need to," Pillar answered him truthfully. "I draw sustenance out of the air and the ground, the very sun and the moons."

"It is the natural way to eat," the dirty man insisted, jabbing an accusing finger. "It is unnatural - EVIL - to depart from nature's way!"

"Ashbound sect," Castille muttered to Kaspar. The half-orc nodded.

"This - THIS cannot be tolerated!" the man said, whirling and addressing the room. "You have sinned! You have allowed the arcane to come in and corrupt the natural! The Ashbound WILL protect nature, and nature is watching, noting who sits here and ALLOWS -"

Kaspar was up so fast that the snake barely had time to hiss. The half-orc's huge blade was out and the point was mere inches from the mad druid's neck. The human had shut up, and the snake had bared its fangs but made no move towards the half-orc.

"Leave," was all Kaspar said.

The human swallowed, then ran. "The Ashbound are watching!" he yelled as he cleared the doorway. Kaspar made some ribald comment and the crowd laughed nervously. The half-orc sat down and sheathed his blade as the covnersation in the common room returned to normal.

"Thank you," Pillar said to the half-orc.

"No problem!" the half-orc said, giving Pillar's shoulder a good-natured punch. Then Kaspar winced and blew on his knuckles. "The Ashbound don't like sorcerers much either," Kaspar then added, nodding towards Castille.

"And I don't care much for them," Castille replied around a mouthful of food.

Some ten minutes later they had left, much to the relief of the inn owner. They did not see the Ashbound druid again, but a pair of shfiter watchmen gave the trio a cautious escort to the north gates of the town.

As they went throught the gates to the staging ground for caravans, Pillar was overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of so many peoples. Horses, wagons, ponies, and brightly colored tents of merchants competed for his attention. Castille and Kaspar ignored all of it, heading toward a tall banner with the insignia of House Orien, the dragonmarked Transportation and Roads Guild.
House Orien had a small pavillion where some magewrights conferred about roads, some merchants hired guides and horses, and several House Orien retainers were loading parcels and mail onto some large, slow flatbed vehicles that had no wheels, just flat panels of glowing and shifting earth under their axles. Pillar realized that these were Earth Sleds, inventions from Zilargo that had embedded Khyber dragonshards holding bound earth elementals. House Orien Earth Sleds were slow, far slower than horses, but could carry a great deal of weight and they did not need to travel on smooth roads. Pillar noticed most of the Earth Sleds carried heavy construction materials. He had heard that House Orien had been given permission to build more roads in the deeper wilderness. In addition to the supplies and parcels, there were men with crossbows and elves with wands.

"Why all of the security?" Pillar asked a halfling who was walking buy, leading some kind of large lizard on a leash.

"Ain't ya heard?" the halfling said, looking up at the warforged and jangling his bone jewelry. "Ashbound attacks! Thems don't want no more civilizationing in the Reaches, especially not of an arcane nature!" The halfling laughed. "You're a big one, who owns you?"

"I own MYSELF," Pillar growled.

"Hey, hey, hey peace!" the halfling said, stepping back. "Just haven't seen your like in Talenta!" Then the little humanoid scurried off, leading his lizard away.

"Don't fall behind!" Castille shouted to Pillar.

The warforged hurried after the half-elf. Made of heavy admantine, he did not move as fast as his new companions. Pillar followed Castille around the corner and saw the vehicle that Kaspar was approaching.

It was tall, long and thin, a platform atop long, sloped legs of bronzewood, each leg ending in a Khyber dragonshard-studded knob. A gnome in a House Sivis uniform stood by it with bags of mail. Three dwarves in scale armor holding heavy crossbows stood atop it, scanning the crowd. A human in silk robes, half his head shorn to show off his glowing Orien dragonmark, conferred with Kaspar over some papers.

"An Earth Skiff," Castille told Pillar. "Made to be fast, very fast, faster than horses. First of its kind, a prototype. It's made for speed and tight turns, not war or transport. It's our ride. We've got hundreds of miles to go to get to the mining town."

The Orien human looked up suddenly at Pillar. "Oh no!" he yelled. "No, no, no!!! No warforged!"

"You are Ashbound?" Pillar asked the human.

"I'm a pilot for a dragonshard-powered vehicle you dumb hunk of rock!" snarled the human. "You think I follow the wacko nature priests? No, I just don't like YOUR KIND. Warforged are murderers, made to kill and maim, and I'm NOT going to have one on my Skiff!"

"We have tickets -" Kaspar began.

"Wrong!" the Orien pilot said. "You and Castille have tickets. The machine here doesn't have one. And even if he did I wouldn't take him on!"

Pillar hurt, but did not show it. The Orien man was not the first who had such views on Pillar's race. Pillar watched the half-orc and the half-elf exchange a look, and realized that his two newfound companions HAD to be on that Skiff to get to the mining town in time. Was their team about to be broken up...?

Reflections

Pillar at on the heavy chair, whittling with a tiny pick and block of sandstone. The chair creaked, barely holding his massive frame, as the unsleeping warforged passed the night by creating intricate carvings on the stone. Most warforged liked to be creative in their spare time, as that sometimes had far too much of it. Pillar thought about war, about missions, and about his new squadmates. The two were what others called half-breeds, an elf-human mixture and an orc-human mixture. They were brave and dogged, and very loyal to those that were loyal to them. Pillar knew that they were on some mission, and that he was useful to them for expediency's sake, but he hoped to find acceptance. He needed some meaning to his life, and he had been created to have that meaning through comradeship on the battlefield.

The warforged paused to consider what they had found earlier in the day. The prison in the dungeon with the vandalized dargonmarks on the wall, the tunnel in the floor from which the - thing, Pillar had no better word - had risen up from. The screaming in the most inner parts of his mind that had sent him and the half-orc reeling, but that the half-elf had somehow withstood. Castille had dispatched the thing almost all by himself with powerful magicks, until the pressure was off of Pillar's mind and the warforged was able to pierce what was left of the thing's body with his blade. Its body had - well it had shattered, then the shards had dissapated, almost as if the thing was long dead but hadn't known.

Pillar took a tiny brush and brushed away the grit fromt he carving he was working on. Noting that the had placed the concentric spirals perfectly he allowed himself a sense of satisfaction, and his faceplate fexed in that tiny fashion that only warforged or those who knew them well would realize was a smile.

The House Vadalis people had rewarded them all nicely, and taken care that the shifter cleric would get a nice funeral. Now the three heros were resting at the inn - well, Castille and Kaspar were resting, Pillar did not need to. Tomorrow some of the House Orien earth sleds would be hauling cargo, and teams of merchants with horses would be departing in all directions, but Kaspar and Castille would be riding on a swift new vehicle run by House Orien called an earth skiff. Their destination was a far one, and they had invited Pillar along. The warforged wondered what lay at the end of their road.

Viewer Discretion Was Advised

The Orc squinted at the dark forest pond, for even with a thick canopy of branches overhead sunlight still glanced and flickered off of the pool, daggers of blindness to his sun-sensitive eyes. Squinted yes, but he did not flinch. The Gatekeeper known as Eldest had faced worse difficulties in his long life. Some of those difficulties were on their way to him now for a meeting.

"Come now, come now!" Eldest whispered softly, tightly watching the three figures in his scrying pool. The half-orc figured out how the aberration hunted and dudged it, but the thing's spike poisons drained strength from the half-orc, and astonishingly from the warforged as well. "Spirt encased in stone and metal," the Eldest whispered, fascinated as he always was by warforged. "Alive, and yet built. Will you be the one to solve this riddle, or will the shame of House Vadalis be still covered?"

The hunting bird that was the companion of the Eldest gave a soft cry, telling his master that shame and honor were pointless pursuits, it as hunt and live or fail and starve.

"But this is a hunt," Eldest informed the bird, the orc's sharp eyes never leaving the pool. "A hunt for Destiny." The Eldest continued to watch as the warforged, who was long used to repairing the damage to his own stone and metal, examined some of the dungeons architectural features and discovered thats ections ahd been added. Between the half-elven spell-wielder, the cunning half-orc warrior, and the living construct that fought beside them, they realized that the palce they were in had been attacked and weakend some 50 years previous, and that the aberration had been placed there to safeguard it. Deducing that those who placed the thing there likely had an emergnecy stash of potions for the eventuality of the beast escaping their control, Kaspar found the hidden panel and the trapped chest that contained potions that returned life, strength, and vitality to the three heros. "Well done, half-son of my race's blood," the Eldest whispered, pleased with the cleverness of the young man. The heros then took their next find, a set of odd metal pieces that together formed a sphere, and used it as a key on the great byshek door that imprisoned one of the most dangerous things in this part of the world - a memory of a memory that had taken form and shape due to the carelessness and arrogance of certain Dragonmarked Houses.

The Eldest let the magic in the pool flicker out. No scrying of any kind, by wizard, druid, or otherwise, had ever managed to penetrate the innermost chamber. Either the heros would perish there, or they would come out. And if they came out and they had discovered the shame of Vadalis they may very well be killed by the people that hired them. But the Eldest had faith in them, and in the prophecy. It would soon be time for the meeting. He walked over to the tallest tree in the clearing and sat with his back against it.

A few minutes later a wind blew, counter to the general wind direction of this area at this time. The wind swirled, bringing up dust, then mist, from the ground, and resolved into the figure of a gaunt human who was wearing torn skins decorated with cravings of insects and pincers. This was the Winter's Voice, as he styled himself, a powerful druid of the Children of Winter sect. The Eldest's lips sneered at the unnecessary theatrics on the part of the nihilistic fool. The greatpine Olian's edict allowed all druidic sects to flourish in the Eldeen Reaches, so the Eldest would take no action except in self-defense, but more than a few of the fools who sought to hasten the inevitability of death had died at the hands of the orc who was now called the Eldest many decades ago when the Children of Winter had foolishly tried to gain a foothold in the Shadow Marches. The gaunt human smiled at the old orc, and nodded with tight teeth. There was no love between the Gatekeepers and the Children of Winter.

Within seconds of the Winter's Voice's arrival and non-greeting, a humanoid form grew out of the ground a few yards away, roots and branches clearing away for the mud and shale replica of an elven druid. Moments after arising the earth shifted and refolded, and Wahl, the elven representative of the Wardens of the Wood stood with his shortspear pointing toward the Winter's Voice in a none-too-casual fashion. "Eldest," said Wahl respectfully, his eyes locked on the gaunt human who grinned at him in a distinctly unfriendly manner.

"Wahl, my good friend," Eldest chuckled. "It has been many years since we hunted with one another." At that the Winter's Voice stopped grinning. "Are you well?"

"Well enough," Wahl said, still staring daggers at the Child of Winter druid. "I will be better when certain bugs are squashed."

"So arrogant," sneered Winter's Voice. "The elves are too long-lived by half!"

"Is that a threat?" asked Wahl, taking a step towards the human who was now grinding his yellow teeth and preparing to cast his magic.

"The peace of Olian has been declared on this meeting!" the Eldest said sharply. The old orc could not afford the distractions that would come if he could not defuse the coming explosion. "Wahl, please!" The elf frowned, but took a step back. "And Koerl, now is not the time for grandstanding!" Winter's Voice's head whipped towards the Eldest, his eyes suddenly large. The human had thought his birth name, and thus his record as a serial arsonist in Aundair, to be a long-buried secret. "We wait for another -"

"I am here," the gnome said, rising out of the water. The Eldest frowned at the gnome druid who released the watery form that he had been hiding in. Leaftracer Belimda was the representative of the Ashbound, and had been exiled from Zilargo many, many years ago for trying to sabotage the Khyber dragonshards that held the bound elementals that moved so many gnome inventions. "I am here in this beautiful place that is protected from the evils or technology, arcane magic, and other unnatural -"

"Everything is natural so long as it dies," hissed the Winter's Voice, a.k.a. Koerl the Child of Winter druid.

"We didn't come here to have a philosophy debate," grumbled Wahl. He glanced towards the Eldest. "We came here for a meeting."

"Yes," the Eldest said, eyes still on the smug Ashbound gnome, wondering if Leaftracer had been watching Pillar, Kaspar, and Castille as well. "I asked you to come because this involves the prophecy, and what it means to all of us..."

Slithering to Battle

Sensing a new threat, and inevitable pain, Kaspar decided to forgo further inspection of the ruins. With but a few moments before the tentacled beast compromised the room, the thief holed up in the darkness next to the hallway's approach. Meanwhile, Castille, still suffering a tinge of cowardice, readied his crossbow from across the way. Pillar too, knew that a fight was approaching, but nevertheless emanated steadfast silence. The trio entered into battle with the mass of tentacles, only to be surprised by the lack of any central body from which the snake-like arms should have extended.

Crossbow bolts hammered at the fleshy, but powerful mass. Kaspar's dark corner proved worthless as the beast had no eyes from which to hide from. Instead, Kaspar discovered that, like foes past, the tentacles were attracted to the tremors of his feet. The tentacles lashed out, bashing and cutting through the heros. As the headless mass reared its many arms, Castille was treated to the feast of prickly spikes guarding the creature's underbelly. Castille, though, found his weapon of choice in a thunderstone and hurled it successfully at the back of the beast. With a deafening boom, the tentacles suddenly seemed confused, utterly without orientation.

Sword strikes and arrows further wounded the monster, and it finally retreated. An ancient creature, it wasn't used to pain.

Kaspar then took time to investigate the sarcophagi lining the room. In the back of his mind he knew that the tentacles were still lurking. Out of impatience he ran the length of the room, setting off the hidden traps. Nevertheless, he was able to rely on his speed to dodge the ill effects. As a reward, or perhaps out of arrogant luck, he located the treasures hidden within each tomb. But as he lifted the last scrap of gold, the scrap of prickly tentacles neared.

Again, the team readied themselves for a battle. Again, the beast groped and beat its targets. With the gentle tap tap of its spike-laden arms the beast scoured the floor in search of any movement. Pillar suffered an early defeat when a tentacle entangled him and his sword. Kaspar too, fell victim to the squeeze of stray tentacles. Only Castille was left to drill bolt after bolt from his crossbow into the thing.

The team did not fall. Both Kaspar and Pillar managed deep cuts with their bastard swords. Unable to really move, they merely needed to push their blades into the aged skin of their foe. The beast fell, this time without life.

Pillar, Warforged Fighter 5th

Named for the fact that he never fled in combat, even when surrounded by a horde of enemies, this somber construct was first leased by House Cannith to fight for various sides, then finally sold to the Kingdom of Aundair (despite the fact that he had slain three of their battle wizards when he had been leased to Thrane).

For the last year of the Last War he fought the Karrnathi undead troops, and grew disatisfied with being treated as an object. When the Treaty of Thronehold granted him citizenship, he wandered through Aundair looking for purpose, but finding himself to be an object of ridicule. An Aundarian elf called Pilalr out one day, ordering the warforged to follow him home. "You are my property, fool!" the elf claimed, holding up some document. Pillar shoved the elf, and the elf drew a wand, unleashing a burst of flame. Fearful for his life Pilalr struck, and the elf was severed into two parts.

Not trusting the Aundarian Courts, Pillar fled to the Eldeen Reaches, thinking that the government of the Reaches (such as it was) would not heed an Aundarian summons too well, as they had broken away from Aundair. Pillar's luck was only margianlly better in the Reaches, but aside from an attack on his person by some Ashbound fanatics it wasn't that bad. He eventually found himself in Varna where he worked as a mercenary. Eventually House Vadalis contacted him about a secret mission. He joined a cranky beasthide shifter cleric in a courtyard and quickly grew bored when the shfiter tried to convert him. Some ten minutes later, however, a half-orc in a mithril chain shirt, and a half-elf with a crossbow and a definite presence, came into the courtyard with the human woman who had hired Pillar...

Pillar, Medium Construct (Living Construct)
Fighter 5th, AL N

Str 18, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 6
HD 5d10+10, hp 43
AC = 21 (Adamantine Body, heavy mithril shield, Dex), ACP = -5
Touch AC 11, Flat-footed AC 20
Init +5, Move 20, SV F+6, R+2, W+0
BAB +5, Grp +9

Melee bastard sword +11, d10+7
Melee unarmed strike +9, d4+4
Ranged javelin +6, d6+4

SQ: DR 2/adamantine, living construct traits
Skills: Craft Stonemasonry (and self-repair) +11, Climb +7, Escape Artist +1, Jump +5
Feats: Adamantine Body, Exotic Weapon Proficiency Bastard Sword, Weapon Focus Bastard Sword, Improved Initative, Weapon Specialization Bastard Sword

Equipment: Mwk artisan's tools stonemasonry, 2 mwk javelins, +1 Bastard Sword, heavy mithril shield, Slippery Quality magical enhancement to adamantine body (+5 to Escape Artist checks), Backpack, 2 bags of clatrops, sunrod, dagger, Climber's Kit

Synopsis Part 1 Of Who Knows How Many Parts

(So Tim and I weren't studying the various rules of enemy combatants all that much. What follows is a synopsis of the gaming session, fast and dirty.)

Kaspar did not notice the poison mine until it detonated into the First Mate's face. The cloud of poison gas surrounded the First Mate, the half-elf's Constitution score plummeted as he keeled over. Kaspar held his breath, rushed in, and hauled the dying half-elf out of the cloud. The half-orc rogue plucked his last potion of neutralize poison from his pack and poured it down the man's lips. In moments the First Mate's eyes were blinking open, and Kaspar then heard a commotion from the deck below.

Castille (who was invisible) had followed Clippy the warforged to the deck below and saw Clippy planting more of the poison mines. Castille rushed the warforged and tagged him with a shocking grasp spell, which damaged Clippy badly but also caused the living construct to drop the remaining mine. Castille made the resultant Fortitude save but bolted up to where Kaspar was coming down. Informing Kaspar it was indeed Clippy the warforged who was the murderer, the two descended, but the other mines ahd gone off. Kaspar ran to get some water from the galley to weight the cloud down, the First mate ran to get the captain, and Castille stayed and ehard the sound of a battle. The dwarven woman, the reclusive man, and the hobgoblin adept were all slain by the gas, but Clippy seemed to be in battle with Grarr, the shfiter barbarian. Upstairs Kaspar was fumbling at the lock to the galley when the clouds finally broke up. Not waiting for his musclebound comrade, Castille moved forward. He foudn the dead, but no warforged. Suspecting a sound in the shifter's alvoratory, he prepared a crossbow bolt. It was clipped. Castille opened the door and got his shot off first, injuring the warforged. Clippy returned shot was just as deadly, and carried fire damage.

Kaspar showed up and attempted to get in with his sword, but the cabin was too narrow. Clippy began to get desperate and attempted to bluff them into believing that he would bring the airship down via another device but they Sense Motived that one down. Clippy then cast a Sleep spell. Kaspar made his save but faked falling for it. When Clippy drew an AoO by moving past the 'sleeping' Kaspar, the resulting blow from the sabotaging bastard sword shredded the living construct to scrap.

The ship's crew then looked at Clippy's cargo. 8 Emerald Claw terrorists in suspended animation. A knife through the heart for each one was then followed by the bodies being tossed overboard. An Emerald Claw plot to steal the airship had been thwarted. Our heros earned the financial and diplomatic gratitude of House Lyarandar.

The rest of the trip to Passage was uneventful, and by noon the next day the airship docked in the Eldeen Reaches town of Varna, where Kaspar and Castille got off, moving towards an appointment with a House Orien earth sled that was to take them north. A notice was up that the earth sled had been detained and would be a day late. Needing shelter, the two decided to visit the headquarters of House Vadalis and show their friendship token.

House Vadalis was glad to take them in, and provide them with comfort and pampering. But then a matter of a side quest (because the DM wanted to get them up to level 5 - assuming that they survived) came up. A bit of trouble in the forest. Two mercenaries had already been hired, a warforged fighter and a shifter cleric. Were the PCs interested? Oh and there would be great monetary reward as well.

Ferala - the shifter cleric - was a pain, quite frankly, constantly trying to prosletyze to Kaspar and Castille, who couldn't have cared less. Matters were not helped when Kaspar, born and raised in the Shadow Marches, kept referring to Ferala as a druid. (While the agitated cleric had a nature domain, he was most emphatically not a druid and the accusation seemed to set him off.) Pillar, on the other hand, was a typically impassive waforged, speaking little and emoting less. The one point the warforged raised was that it was odd that a dragonmarked house wanted four complete strangers to deal with a task so close to their headquarters.

According to the estate manager (and Kaspar rolled a rather high Sense Motive check which said that she was definitely leaving some things out), some House Vadalis employees had been looking to trap some wild animals in the forest, and had traveled near a cave not far from the town of Varna. The cave had long been sealed by a rockfall, but now it was open. The men reported that a 'dark shadowy thing' had erupted from the cave mouth and grabbed a man. The man was now in a coma.

House Vadalis provided a carriage to transport the four, and they entered the cave, cracking sunrods that the Vadalis henchmen had provided them with. No sooner did they enter the cave then a wraith flew out fo the wall, through the warforged, and tagged Castille with a negative level. Even the magical swords of Kaspar and Pillar failed to touch the wraith, but some magical missiles did and then Ferala successfully turned it, making it flee. Ferala restored Castille's negative level, and then the party advanced to a deep hole that consisted of a concentric series of 10 foot steps. It was there that they tripped a Fireball trap. Some members of the party made their saves, some failed them. Not only did Ferala fail his save, but the 3 flasks of alchemist's fire he had on him went up, and Ferala was no more. With no cleric the team wanted to leave, but the mouth of the cave closed like the mouth of a living thing, and the wraith returned. After nearly tagging Castille again, Pillar's magical sword shattered the undead thing's evil existence.

Now chastened, the team descended, and a small room with stone doors proved loaded with magical glyph traps. Kaspar removed some of them to allow access to a dusty hall that had odd points of distrubance in the dust. With no ranks in Survival they could determine little else. Pillar, who has ranks in Craft Masonwork, noted new arches (or relatively new, they were 50 years old as opposed to the indeterminate age of the rest of the place) that were to support the ceiling. Several sarcophagi were in the alcoves of the room, as well as an enormous door made of Byshek, and a side tunnel. While examining the room, a mass of tentacles with spiny needles came slithering towards those who had invaded its domain...

(To be continued, possibly even soon.)