Down in the vault of the group's (not so) secret lair, the conch went off with its familiar klaxon horn. It was Wizards' Guild Liaison Sly Dunbar, and he wanted to speak to the group.
So Tylin [Ian] and Sorrow [Jeff] went to the Wizards' Guild. Sly Dunbar greeted them, and gave them a new job.
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| WG Liaison Sly Dunbar |
The Hit Team had made an effort to recover Wilson's body from the inferno. The intent was to cast Speak with Dead on it so that they could question him. They had hired a Vingt-et-Un (Luck) priest to do this. But Wilson's vocal tract had been all but destroyed by the fire, and that spell requires intact vocal chords. So, to restore the vocal tract, the wizards needed powerful priestly healing magic. The Guild happened to have an expensive Regeneration scroll in their vaults, and the hired priest could cast this, so they were set, but, one of the material components of Regeneration is a rare flower called the Elderflower. This flower only grew in a few spots around the Known World. One such spot was three days out of Scabport, up the Scab river, where the Kringle river joined it, at a place called Lake Placid.
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| Elderflower - material component for Regeneration |
Panadines have no temple fighters nor paladins - in fact they may not harm sentient beings - so they need hired swords to guard their temples. At this site, they have help from the Knives who have surrounded the temple with a stockade and have stationed a guard platoon of soldiers there (about 40).
The troops are especially needed here because the area around Lake Placid is not safe by any means. It is only two day's travel to the Kringle Hills (and thence the mountains) and these are infested by dark-kin (orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc). That all said, dark-kin can not survive in direct sunlight, so if these creatures go out on long forays, they need some shelter during the day (sealed bivouacs, tarpaulins and SPF 204, or IMAG stones).
In summary:
- The Wizards' Guild would contract the Budgie Smugglers.
- Budgie Smugglers then retrieve Elderflowers from Lake Placid.
- Elderflowers then used to fuel a Regeneration spell to restore dead wizard Wilson's vocal tract.
- Speak with Dead then cast upon Wilson's head to question him to find out who contracted him to make the magical lasso with which to help capture Guild witch Daisy Crown, presumably so that she could be kidnapped for political reasons unknown.
Sorrow and Tylin told the rest of the awake Budge Smugglers (El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], Attlee [Kevin], Dee Dee [Steven]), and while they were talking-over this new job, Tylin headed off to see Lieutenant Chung. He asked Chung specifically why the Knives actually wanted to kidnap the triumvirate of witches (Dalila, Simone and Daisy).
"It is on a 'need to know basis'," said Lieutenant Chung. "And you don't need to know."
Tylin mentioned that they were headed to the Lake Placid with the lie "to maintain their relations with the Guild with the view to getting Daisy". Chung personally knew Lieutenant Maudlin; the commander of the Lake Placid garrison. So, he wrote a letter of reference for the party.
"Watch out for the orcs," said Chung as Tylin left.
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The normal way to travel to Lake Placid was by river. So the next morning, the entire party (including the four marmaladers, who were safely stacked like chord-wood in the hold) turned up on the party shallop Smoking Loon, piloted by Sorrow, and docked at the Wizard's Tower pier, to get last instructions from Dunbar.
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| William "Lammy" Lamb |
"Dis be William Lamb," said Sly Dunbar. "He knows what dem Elderflowers be lookin' like, so you'll be takin' him on the trip. He can be helpin' you wid his spells too."
William nodded to the party. He had a posh weedy voice, like a toff.
"My magic will come in handy, if required."
Straight away El Cid started to name him "Lammy".
"Da first two nights on de river will be see-af," continued Dunbar. "But the tird night could be dangerous. Dem creatures of darkness from the Kringle Hills might be comin' down to harass ye. But the next day you be gettin' to Lake Placid."
"Lammy will take care of us," said El Cid.
"And don't you be stayin' out after dark beyond that," said Dunbar. "You be stayin' safe in the Panadine stockade."
William Lamb had a 2G brooch on his robes. So he could be contacted using the party's 2G brooch. El Cid was quick to try this and did some crank calls. The group also discovered that they could connect to the conch via the 2G brooch exchange. But it was one-way: brooch to conch and not vice-versa.
The first day was uneventful, and quite relaxing; watching farmland drift past as they headed up the river. There were a few scab plantations, and some bulgur wheat farms. Not much livestock.
That night they arrived at a public jetty which they moored against, and they had a quiet night. Apart from the crank call El Cid did, through the exchange, to sound the conch, rousing everyone from their berths with the klaxon horn. How El Cid laughed.
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| The party shallop Smoking Loon |
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The next day the farms were rougher and poorer. But it was a quiet day's travel up the river.
The shallop was a yacht, so was at the mercy of the wind. If the wind was wrong, the narrow river was too small to tack on. At those times, they had to row.
That night, there was another public jetty to moor against.
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The third day, the terrain was much wilder. There was only the occasional structure in view-range of the river; often they were stockades.
The jetty that night was linked to a log cabin with a stout door.
But the group decided to stay the night in the shallop, moored midstream. The river was about 20 paces wide here, and waist deep, so it wasn't a guaranteed safe spot. But they were now in range of dark-kin, so they set up a watch.
Halfway through the night, a group of wolves were hunting about.
Lamb cast a light spell on an arrow which Burrito fired into a nearby tree.
With the light, they shot up some wolves.
Burrito skinned one.
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The next morning, they passed a group of Panadine pilgrims squashed onto a boat, heading downstream.
About noon, they arrived at Lake Placid. It was a wide stretch of water where the Kringle river flowed in from the left and joined the Scab River. In the V of the junction was the actual "lake". It was a marshy bog area, with large trees and many bushes and shrubs. Off on the far right bank of the Scab was the Panadine temple. It was an impressive stone building, three storeys tall, surrounded by a wooden stockade. It had several jetties protruding into the river; Sorrow docked their shallop there.
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| Giselle Pentecost |
Attlee, El Cid and William went to the Panadine temple to get blessed. But the priestesses (all Panadine followers are female) sensed something wrong with Attlee. He was carrying Lido (the IMAG black skull) on his backpack, so they were probably sensing that.
Attlee dutifully undressed and went into the shower. From an overhead nozzle, water started to pour. It was scalding; blistering hot, but there was no steam. Attlee screamed hoarsely and leapt out of the shower, his skin literally smoking. Large sections of blistered skin peeled and sloughed off.
William Lamb tested the water with his hand; it felt tepid to him.
El Cid tried it, on his upper arm. It felt warm to him. (But burned his evil IMAG fists)
The Panadine priestesses told the three that this was, of course, holy water. And this meant that Attlee was evil !
That was enough. Attlee snatched up his backpack (skull and all) and rushed off, quick as a fox, but naked as a jaybird.
The High priestess summoned some Knives guards and told them to catch the "evil abomination" so that she could cleanse him.
Attlee rushed back to the jetty, bounded onto the Smoking Loon, and hid in the smugglers' storage area. The rest of the party was still here and they watched, bemused, as a group of guards arrived and poked about on the jetty, then left unable to locate their prey.
Tylin collected Attlee clothes. The others had seen him hide in the boat, but as soon as Tylin opened the door, Attlee leapt out in a blind panic, and rushed back into the camp. He found a woodpile and hid there.
El Cid and Burrito tracked him, and confronted him. A group of guards arrived too.
Lido suddenly made a black sphere, 10 paces across, pitch black inside. El Cid entered the sphere to grab Attlee by touch. He felt a squirming form in the centre, but suddenly there was a large bang, and El Cid was thrown out by the zap. Badly bruised (despite his armour and his feat).
By now, the rest of the party, a large group of guards and some Panadine priestesses had arrived too. The guards had bows and they offered to full the dark sphere with arrows, but Tylin and the Sorrow stopped them.
El Cid bravely entered sphere again. There was another visceral bang, and he was thrown out again, now severely damaged.
"I'm not doing that again," he moaned.
"Allow me," said William Lamb.
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| Lido |
They then took Attlee and the backpack to the temple separately. The guards and priestesses accompanied them.
The hogtied Attlee was placed in the shower tray, and High Priestess Giselle was about to douse him, but concern stayed her hand. The water might kill him.
"Maybe we should deal with the evil in his pack first," she said.
The dark sphere had gone now, so, Attlee was removed from the shower tray, and the skull was tipped out of the backpack. The soldiers formed a shield wall, and everyone crouched down behind it, as Giselle reached for the tap.
I for one will be glad to see the end of that skull.
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