Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Lost Dispatches of Feraso #42 - Sky Maruaders!

16th of the Month of HexDec in the Imperial Year of 1023

Somewhere within Hermetus

To His Lordship, the Viscount Wilfrick of Verbobonc,

With the rest of the adventurers and treasure seekers looking for clues to the fabulous treasure the dead cloud giant, we ventured into Hermetus, with our eyes to the sky.  If there was something from the sky, we hoped it was self-propelled and sometimes going against the logic of the winds.

We did our best to avoid any large towns or wizard towers, lest we get changed into a frog or a deranged homologous.   We also needed to avoid patrols of humanoids, as so wizards had a penchant for hiring orcs, ogres, and goblins to protect their realm.

Finally, we keen eyes spotted an odd object off in the distance, casually floating down to earth.  After a hard ride to reach the landing zone, we came upon a farmstead in the middle of raid.  One giant (definitely not cloud) and two bugbears led a retinue of hobgoblins to steal food and livestock.    We navigated around them and arrived at the landing zone to find not some giant balloon, but a huge Wyrmalian longship over 150 foot long and 40 forty foot wide!

Deeming it wise to surprise the triumphant marauders.  As they began loading their spoils, we sprung in surprise.  Andrei's prestidigitation waylayed most of the hobgoblins while the rest of us pounced the hill giant and bugbears.  Unfortunately for our investigation, we left no survivors.

We felt it right and proper to return the spoils to the farmers before tinkering with this huge ship.  It was powered by magic and after a few attempts, it began levitating.  Our dwarf Morag Mountainhammer barked some orders to us and we got the flying longship moving, albeit slowly.  Some more scanning of the skies finally detected an aberration in the cloud movements, so we turned the ship in that direction.

The portion of the cloud we saw moving erratically was but the the very bottom of a huge island, spread out for miles,  floating 3,000 foot above the ground.  As we circled the island, we discovered a series  of stone piers somehow jutting out of the cloudstuff and into thin air.  The piers were overwhelmed with five other floating longships, two were tethered to the others tied to the dock.

With limited collisions, we managed to tie our boat to another and carefully climbed over to the ship and then the dock.   As we gathered ourselves, we were met by a contingent of a dozen confused bugbears, emerging from a guard tower.  The leader of these bugbears, a Captain Tirrann, politely inquired as to the reason for our visit.  Most of us were taken aback by this unexpected civility, but we were more surprise that Brother Eligius, the priest of Akana, the paragon of virtues thus far on our travels, boldly declared, "Some of my converts were hit by garbage tossed from this floating island, and I demand to talk to the owner for satisfaction!"
The ever-polite Captain Tirrann
Captain Tirrann was quite apologetic and ordered the others to escort us to the castle.

As we walked quite a distance to get to the castle, I whispered to the cleric, "Didn't you say you swore a vow of truth?  That's not how the story went from the elf.  And converts?"

Eligius smiled, "Lord Greyhawk, that elf's rant was so crazed, I'm surprised the "garbage" didn't land on him.  And everyone is a potential convert.  I may be upstanding, but I'm not naive, m'lord."

Yours in Service,

Sir Elsderth, Lord of Greyhawk
SageSword of the The Order of Merit
Wielder of the Legendary Betrayer.
Defiler of the Temple of Tiamat.
Freigraff Vagabundieren of the Totenlinden Amberstoll

Next: #43 - Palace in the Sky

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