The Journey Of Callister Draabyn
In just under a year, Callister Draabyn had been set upon by freak storms, falling objects, flying blades, vanishing cargo, and sea monsters of indescribable ferocity. Not long ago it seemed as if the ambitious young mariner would enjoy a future as a wealthy and respected trader, clearly a chosen successor to the powers that proudly navigate the most dangerous routes of the Sapphire Main.
But then, without cause or explanation, the strands of Fate and Destiny began to weave a new pattern... apparently with Draabyn as the focal point of all that is bizarre and unlikely, ill-timed and unfortunate. Callister Draabyn is now, apparently, the plaything of the gods. All manner of misfortune befalls him continuously, punctuated by short moments of good luck that strain belief.
The cursed sailor's most recent misfortune occurred while serving as first officer aboard the Zealot, a small independent cargo ship from the Drakkellian Alliance. In one voyage, Draabyn lost his captian, ship, crew, cargo, and nearly his life. After his ship was attacked and sunk by a huge and frightenly lethal sea-creature that seemed to spring up out of nowhere, he found himself floating in the Wild Sea, naked and alone. For three days he floated, clinging to a piece of wreckage (a piece of the ship's name plate). He was very near death when he was picked up by a caravan of slaver ships that were returning to Rukemia with a large shipment of slaves from the far west. The captain of the slaver ship decided to toss the dying man into irons and add him to the group of slaves already sweating below deck. When he refused to go quietly, Draabyn was introduced to "the cage" (where they drag the slave behind the ship in a metal cage after putting chum in the water as a disciplinary measure). After a half day of that, the slaves are usually softened up. Draabyn, however, was now even angrier.(He'd had, of course, a very bad week) The Captain ordered the ship-mage to put him to sleep with a spell. Hours later, the unlucky one awoke in chains in the belly of the ship. His future was set - he was going to be sold at the Slave Market somewhere in the Great Empire.
When he arrived in port, he was quickly sold along with a batch of other slaves and transported via wagon to the eastern realms of the Empire… a great forest known as the Snowy Timber. Here, a great camp site was being built and many slaves were put to work digging in a vast stony area of strange black rock.This new group of slaves were lined up in front of a wizard, and each marked upon the forehead by a strange glyph. Large stone obelisks were being erected around the perimeter of the camp.Draabyn had little experience with Magic, but guessed that this was some sort of security measure- to keep the slaves within the perimeter. As outnumbered as he was, he had no intention of putting this theory to the test. Draabyn was put into a digging team with eight phellysians and a myrian (a primitive, bronze-skinned human race from the far south west). This digging team was led by a heavily armed and armored human slaver. Draabyn decided to bide his time and wait for a better opportunity for escape. Fate never seemed to leave him alone for long.
The slaver who ruled Draabyn's digging team, a captain named Varren, led the slaves away from the other diggers, to an area very near the perimeter. Here he had them dig in a different location every day. He often consulted old maps and seemed to be searching for something. He also seemed to be keeping his findings to himself, without notifying the other officers. Draabyn, curious as to his overseer's private agenda, stepped forward to offer his services as a cartographer. To gain some small measure of trust from his captors might prove useful in a future escape attempt. Several days into this limited working relationship between Varren and the mariner, a baenite wizard by the name of Shr'lee arrived to meet with the slaver captain.Varren seeked to hire a rune and glyph specialist to gain a better chance of understanding this buried architectural mystery, and Shr'lee, having recently exiled himself from his desert homeland in search of adventure, seemed more than up to the task. The two talked long into the night in hushed tones with Draabyn allowed to listen in, already gaining some minor "status" among the slaves. Varren, it seemed, was becoming quite obsessed with both the buried chambers and the possibility of glorious treasure hidden within. After that night, Shr'lee stayed with Varren and his digging team of slaves. Every day, Shr'lee would make use of a special crystal to search the rocky area for the faintest wisp of magical energy. After several weeks, he found what he was looking for. Varren immediately had the team begin digging where Shr'lee instructed, neglecting, Callister Draabyn noted, to reveal this to any of his fellow officers. Whatever was down there, the captain wanted it all for himself.
The Journey Of Kramtha And Stryfal
Kramtha, a phellysian warrior of the Lopar tribe, was out hunting for several days. While he was away, slavers from the east came in force and swept through the area. Kramtha's tribe was singled out and attacked, and many were taken captive. In addition to 250 neighboring Myrians from various clans, the slavers took over 200 Lopar tribesmen. All told, nearly half of the whole tribe was wiped out.
Upon his return, survivors told Kramtha what had occurred. Galvinized into action, he vowed to follow the slaver ships back to the empire and free his people at any cost.With his work cut out for him, the loyal tribesman travelled due east along the coast, asking questions at every settlement, doing his best to track the slavers' progress by their trail of violence. While on the road he encountered a roguish young woman named Stryfal, also traveling east, although for no other reason but to seek her fortune. The two decided to share the road and their journey. For two months they traveled and fought together. Along the way, they forged a friendship. Kramtha continued to ask questions in taverns along the road, always keeping track of their position, progress to the east and what the locals knew of the Rukemian Slavers Guild. Finally, after nearly three months, they arrived south of the Snowy Timber forest. In a small traveller's inn, the Barkeep told them of groups of yellow-sashed slavers that were coming round to the local villages and buying up all the crops and supplies. Also, the barkeep stated, acknowledging Kramtha's cat-like features, there had been some mention among the officers about phellysians and how much trouble they were to keep disciplined. And then they would always head north into the forest. Hoping that his journey was close to an end, Kramtha thanked his God, the Mighty Rexilar, for guiding him to his fellow tribesman, praying for strength for the task ahead.
Armed with this new lead, Kramtha and Stryfal continued their journey north. After two days of following various game trails into the forest, they came across a great excavation in a northern valley of Snowy Timber. This monstrous undertaking employed many hundreds of slaves, slavers and Imperial Guards, all busy with the apparent goal of unearthing some ancient, still-hidden structure.
They selected a vantage point on a hill to overlook the whole valley. A large campsite was ringed by tall stone obelisks (about 25 yards apart) between which a shimmering blue energy field crackled. They noticed that the slaves were broken up into ten man digging teams. One digging team was much closer to them than the others and close to the obelisk perimeter. It consisted of a human, a myrian and eight phellysians. It was led by a human slaver lord and a baenite mage (judging by his robes and staff). They were digging in a specific spot and, with much grunting and scraping of stone, uncovered an opening in the ground. They then climbed down into this rectangular hole and vanished. They were far enough from the other slavers and diggers that no one saw them go down.
Into The Dark Unknown
Stryfal gave a brief search of the area and found two short rat-like humanoids several hundred yards away. The two rat-like creatures did not see her and entered a fissure in the rock and disappeared into a cave. Stryfal followed them into the cave and soon found herself in the ruins of a long forgotten dungeon. It was completely dark and she found it necessary to feel her way through the darkness with her hands. Using only her fingertips to guide her, she managed to go several chambers in. She heard and moved away from the rat creatures. She then saw a light source coming and hid. It was the digging team that had uncovered the hole and descended below ground. Kramtha, getting nervous that his partner had been gone for so long, followed through the rock fissure and tracked her warm footsteps (with infravision). Kramtha, Stryfal and several slaves from the digging team all managed to end up in the same room. Several of the slaves were phellysian and Kramtha knew one, a skilled hunter named Rothgar. They quickly exchanged stories of how they each had come to be there. Kramtha told them of the rock fissure that he and Stryfal had used to enter this underground maze of catacombs. The slaves, including the human (Callister Draabyn, of course) agreed to follow Kramtha and Stryfal out, hoping that the magic glyphs placed on them would not prevent them from escaping under the perimeter. However, they found their way out blocked by a large group of the rat creatures (which one of the phellesian slaves recognized as a lesser race called the skrell) and so had to retreat further into the dungeon.
They retreated into the main chamber where Varren, Shr'lee, and the rest of the slave diggers were. This was a large chamber and was very old. Cobwebs clung to everything and the floor was covered in a light coating of dust. Ancient corpses, little more than skeletons, littered the floor. Some great battle had occurred here. And this was its aftermath. Many of the skeletons were buried in piles of rubble while others were charred black.
Here, in this ancient chamber, there was a confrontation as slaves (along side Kramtha and Stryfal) informed the slaver and his lieutenant that they were leaving. Varren drew his blade, prepared to beat the unarmed slaves back into submission. Before this confrontation could be resolved, several of the skeletal corpses that littered the dungeon floors suddenly stood up and attacked.Differences were quickly forgotten as the living, scarcely believing their eyes, turned their blades and fists against the dead. Kramtha, whose exceptional hearing could filter out the din of battle and pick up the sound of approaching rat creatures, motioned for his friend Rothgar to help hold the door leading out from that section of the dungeon. Draabyn, picking up the cue, fought off skeletons with one hand and tried to lead the other slaves out of the chamber with the other. With the animated undead blocking the digging team's entrance-way, and what now sounded like a horde of skrell blocking Kramtha and Stryfal's entrance, there was now only one way out of the room. A heavy set of double-doors leading into the unknown. With more and more corpses coming to life, the group realized it would soon be overwhelmed. With Draabyn holding the double doors open, the surviving party members raced through, with Kramtha and Rothgar holding the other door against the skrell until the last moment, when they too let go and sprinted across the room through the double-doors, closing the set behind them. Chaos broke out as dozens of the rat creatures poured in, corpses attacking the skrell and each other in a truly horrific show of carnage. Meanwhile, behind the temporary protection of the doors, only seven had made it out of that room alive. Kramtha, Stryfal, Rothgar, Draabyn (the human mariner), Shr'lee (the baenite mage) and two other phellysians slaves (a leatherworker and a farmer).
This mixed group witnessed horrors in the battle and knew that their only hope of escaping this ancient dungeon was to find another way out. The rogue Stryfal by this time had already scouted a few of the rooms ahead, and ran back to inform the group that she had stumbled upon a group of statues that could possibly be used to barricade the door. The group went to work, and within a few minutes had accumulated enough statues, rubble and debris to form a strong makeshift barricade. With the battle on the other side already starting to die down, they decided to try to explore the dungeon for another way out Draabyn, whose sense of direction was true, led them in a direction which would hopefully take them to the far side of the perimeter.
The Great Hall and Chamber- Lives Forever Altered
While they explored, they encountered a room they would later refer to as The Hall of Memories and Prophecies. A large barrel-vaulted chamber, happened upon by chance, that would change the course of their lives forever. The room was filled with magical stone plaques and tapestries. Kramtha and Rothgar, the first ones to approach the peculiar-seeming wall decorations were amazed by what they saw. The plaques displayed images of the past, their own past, etched into stone. while the tapestries seemed to weave themselves into creation before the phellysian warriors' very eyes, again depicting themselves. But in this case they seemed to be involved in situations completely unknown to them. Perhaps a vision of the future? Each person left that room with a glimpse of what had been and what could possibly be. Callister Draabyn was profoundly effected by this room. He already supposed himself to be cursed, a plaything of the gods. He had been convinced for many months that no normal man could have the impossibly strange luck that he had had, but until now, this was an abstract thought, simple paranoia with no proof whatsoever. Now, at long last, there was a piece of the puzzle that seemed to be within reach. He believed that the image on the tapestry showed him a way to undo the curse. Everything in this ruined dungeon took on new significance for him.
As the group filtered out of the great hall to continue searching for a passage-way out,( with Draabyn staying transfixed much longer than the rest), Kramtha separated himself from the party just long enough to go back and check on the barricade. He wanted to peer through the doors to see if the great battle was over. He was treated to a terrifying sight. The battle was indeed over, with dead skrell and dead (again) skeletons strewn about all over the place. Except now something was happening- the undead, and now even the rat creatures, were slowly coming back to life. If the party could not find a way out soon, the undead they faced would be doubled in number.
Racing through a labyrinth of corridors, the party encountered a magnificent marble chamber with a glowing green pit in the center of the floor. Around the pit was inscribed a great symbol, a triangle within a triangle within a circle. The same symbol that they had seen elsewhere in the dungeon, including on the tapestries and marble statues which were (hopefully) still blocking the double-doors.. Glyphs and symbols inscribed in the stone walls glowed and dimmed in rhythmic patterns. A horrible green mist churned in the belly of the pit. Draabyn, desperate now for more information, any information that could possibly help him understand the nature of his curse, borrowed the baenite mage's magic-detection crystal ( He'd seen Shr'lee use it in the camp) and thrust it near everything in the room, looking for the automatic faint glow that would shine within the crystal whenever he held it near an item radiating magic. While the mage took in the details of the room itself, Draabyn looked to find something that could be as revealing and important as the tapestry.
This room, like the others, was littered with corpses. The whole dungeon seemed to have been evacuated in great haste amidst a battle of two armies that raged in its corridors. The party gathered many things from these chambers - books, scrolls, ancient weapons and several items that radiated magical energy through Shr'lee's crystal. Meanwhile, the baenite wizard hastily scribbled notes about the chamber and copied down the glyphs that glowed upon the walls. While he worked, the others gathered many treasures and explored the chamber. The greenish mist that churned in the center pit seemed to grow agitated and vicious tendrils of the mist suddenly lashed out towards the group. They quickly fled and continued to search other chambers, with the sounds of the undead behind them growing louder and more intense.
Soon, the group found a small chamber with a raised platform. Shr'lee, thankful for the group's first stroke of good luck, knew it was a magical transport pad that could possibly teleport them out. After studying the device, he was able to decipher its commands and gain control. Gathering everyone to stand on the pad, he managed to teleport the group out into the forest, about one mile outside of the excavation site perimeter.
This was the end of Session 1.
Session 2 - Everyone will explain who they are, what they were doing there and what they know about the ruins that the Empire is excavating. Also, will Kramtha decide to stay until all the phellysian's will be rescued? What will the mage discover from the books and scrolls he recovered? What secrets will his quickly scribbled notes reveal about the glyphs on the walls of the great chamber?