Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Ballad of the Pigeon God #44: What Really Happened in Ruuna - Echelon's Side of the Story

GM Notes: After a week of big revelations, we turn to an editorial episode of sorts.  When my college roommate, Steve, unearthed the journal of our much beloved college AD&D campaign, I knew that writing up the journal into weekly episodes would be a vast undertaking. The journal entries were written by numerous players in the style of their characters and had plenty of omissions that I had trouble filling in after two decades of play.  I'm proud to say that I got into the #50's in episodes before my real job and family life pulled me away from the computer.  

Then, over Labor Day weekend this past year, Steve came up to my house with another stack of papers he had uncovered "from a box":  royal decrees, baronial expenses, and a host of other typed up notes from his character, Echelon, while he was Baron of Eding.  I've corrected a few names in earlier episodes, but things are pretty consistent.  

However, a major document in the collection is titled, "What really happened in Runa (sic)- Echelon's Side of the Story."  It covers the actions from episodes #39-43 in the voice of the twice-assumed dead Echelon, former Baron of Eding.  I do find it odd, that it covers the the gruesome attacks at the Chateau, but fails to mention anything about the death of Winston Maless...

Without further ado,  passages from "The Baronial Journal of the Baron of the Barony of Eding"  by Echelon Riemann

It started as a diplomatic mission to Runa (sic).  Me and my entourage (Talis, Norm, Mellandria, and my latest religious adviser, Velandro) all set off to the Duchy in Ras-Prythax.  My motives were honorable, at least on the surface.  I wanted to establish a trading partnership between Runa and Eding (Who knew the road east of town didn't end with the right fork towards Lansluck?  The left fork went right to the border... and Runa.)  I figured formal peace and trade talks would prevent this road from becoming an invasion route.

Secretly, though, my motives were a bit more sensitive.  An ambassador from Runa visited me before we departed and told me of tales that Duke Steven (the guy in charge) was beginning to issue crazy decrees and drive the people of Runa nuts.  In not so many words, he asked me to investigate.

We set off, making other diplomatic stops at both Welldale and Lowdale, as well as the first official visit as Baron to the halfling village of Elmshire (at least that I remember, it's been a little crazy).  I was quite impressed with the citizens of Elmshire, and order some furniture be delivered to the Chateau.  After I was satisfied the everything was happy in all of my part of Crosedes, we went off to Runa. 

The first thing we did was investigate the town.  The people didn't seem to care that their ruler was, to put it nicely, a few arrows short of a quiver.  We tried to talk with the Duke directly, but he wasn't seeing anybody.  We tried to talk with his right-hand man, Dracos, but he wasn't seeing anybody either.  We were getting discouraged.  The king (duke) was still issuing weird decrees, and there seemed like nothing we could do to stop him.  How dare they disrespect the almighty Baron of Eding! When the apocalypse comes, I'm not sparing their city!

One a side note, one of the insane decrees managed to offend all the dwarves in the city by expelling them all from Runa.  As a consequence, the Dwarves of Skyforge vowed revenged in the manner of a war to wipe the inhabitants of Runa off the face of Earth (Georic)!  Figuring that a war between these two can't be good, I now had to stop a war instead of just negotiating a trade partnership.  

Why me?  

Because wars aren't happy.  People die. Things are destroyed. Wives and children are needlessly raped.  One side is obliterated and the other gets cocky.  Then another power sees the mayhem, and declares war themselves.  It spreads and spreads and spreads and pretty soon, the whole world is at war, and it's NOT a happy place.  I refuse to live in a non-happy place, so I must stop this war. 

Suspicions told us that Dracos could be the one behind the Duke's insanity.  So we decided to investigate the city barracks, since Dracos was in charge of the town guard.  During the day, the barracks looked deserted.  And so, we walked right in.  However, the first building we came to did contain some guards, and they quickly escorted us out of the compound.  So we decided to walk around back.  Again, we walked right . This time, the first building we came to was a kitchen.  The chefs inside didn't like us, so they called for the guards.  Guards in full plate mail came pouring out of every building.  This compound wasn't as deserted as we thought!   Using the Echelon school of combat, we ran.  They chased us on horseback, but we managed to disappear into the crowds.  Going back to the compound was certainly not an option.  We needed a new course of action.  


<==========lost pages=============>

...convince Velandro to check out the temple of Galmar.  Velandro then managed to convince us that this was the way to go, and we headed off to check out the temple.  

Getting inside was not a problem.  It was all the people we had to fight on the inside that was a the problem.  From sea serpents to clerics in every room, if it looked like it wanted to seriously harm us, we killed it first.  At one point, Talis prayed to Modee for a little help, which was granted in the form of revealing a secret passage for the price of most of his bardic abilities.  Inside the secret passage, we found some sort of demon, who would just not die, no matter how much damage we did to it. (Fire traps, flame bolts, tridents, daggers, cold water we could have sworn was magical, etc.)  All damage dealt to him seemed to have not effect, as he quickly regenerated as fast as we could do him damage.  

As we ran away, he gave us a riddle, "....high in the sky and deep in the earth at the same time" which we later figured out to be a mountain, with a little help from the old man who helped us navigate the high hills.   So we set off in search of this mountain, apparently looking for the soul of this demon fellow.  Coming to a crossroad, we decided to go left down into the valley of Abalone instead of into the mountains of Skyforge. 

Well, that was a mistake.  The only things we found there were a hill giant (whom we killed) and three orcs (whom we killed also).  There is just no reasoning with primitive animals.  

After three days, we turned around and decided to go back towards the mountains.  We did indeed find that mountain we were looking for, as we saw an inscription on the wall that told that infidels would be annihilated. Velandro assured me that we were not infidels, and we proceeded onward.  We first met a vile beast with an identity crisis.  It had three different heads, each one wanting to eat us.  Since being eaten was not on my agenda of things to do as Baron, we killed it, and I got a cool new happy trident.   The next beast we face definitely had its head on straight, but it also wanted to eat us, so we killed it too.  Up the stairs we proceeded, killing everything that stood in our way.  The only time we ran was from a mist that seemed to drain us of both energy and mental capacity.  Believe me, you would run too. 

Over the next couple of days, we cleared out this entire place, mostly just for fun and vengeance for that stupid mist thing.  Eventually we did find the demon's soul, in the form of a gem.  But by the time we got it back to Runa, the city was under martial law of the dwarves.  

We were too late, and now we were really pissed off.

No one was allowed in or out of the city.  We decided to send Talis back to Eding to make sure everything was peachy back home, as the rest of us would attempt an audience with the Krugraf of Ras-Prythax  to see if we couldn't stop this war from spreading further.  The representatives of Krugraf, who had come from the neighboring Gran Duchy of Vesthamm were very receptive to peace.  The Dwarves were not as receptive to us, not even letting us into their Kingdom.  Doing everything in our power to stop this war and turning up empty-handed, we decided to go back home.

Upon our arrival in Eding, something was different, I immediately sought Lady Iris.  As it turned out, much has happened in the two months we've been gone.  

You better sit down for this:
  1. The king was assassinated
  2. His brother, The Dread Lord, has seized the power of the throne.
  3. The leaders of the Mage's Guild and Hydincal Lyceum, have been deposed. 
  4. The new king, thinking that we're all dead, made Timmy baron
  5. However, upon the event that we're not dead, Talis, Count Zabty, and myself supposed to report to the king immediately, probably to be "dealt with."
  6. Dew turned out to be a spider person and killed Karthon (Carthon).
  7. Norm then killed Dew with a chair (Oh yeah, Norm came home several weeks earlier - you'll have to hear his side of the story.)
Now knowing the Dread Lord as we do, we did not take kindly to this information.  In fact, it down-right pissed us off.  Based on Dew's recent turning, I am now convinced that we cannot trust anyone who has not been with us since the beginning, namely Mell, Talis, Velandro, and myself.  Since the world thinks we're dead, we're playing dead.  We are going to find every spider person in the world and kill them.  Then, we are going to incite the towns to riot against the King.  Finally, after joining forces with Count Zabty and the faction of the mage's guild that is anti-Dread Lord, we will kill the King!!!  

As Shan Hai Shing as my witness, I will make this world into a happy place with my happy trident, even if it kills me!

NEXT: #45 An Accounting of One's House

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