back to The Week Of Nightmare

33 Talislandre, 621 NA

   On this day Kija, Vidan, Aldak and Puliko returned from the Castle of Dreams to the deck of Ceriefseran's windship. The many months spent in the land of Dream have only been a couple of days in the mortal realms of Talislanta. Ceriefseran has a mission for Our Heroes, possibly as a test of what they have become after so long in Dream.

   After a voyage of a couple of days across the Desertlands, the adventurers are landed outside of the caravan-outpost of Akmir, along the Wilderlands Road at the junction of the Maruk Road. Akmir fell to the Tirshata's army about a week ago; they are to learn what happened to the town, and to recover the standard of the garrison. Previous windship approaches drew harassment from Stryx and various other stragglers back towards Akmir. The party will disembark from the windship some ten miles away from Akmir and make their approach overland. Any word they find about a previous scouting party will be welcomed.

   The terrible hordes of Sub-men controlled by the Tirshata have devastated Akmir, leaving only burnt or tumbled ruins and gnawed corpses; the Borderlands Legionnaires are slain or scattered. Stryx, Ur and Darklings still prowl the rubble, but the hordes are moving off. With the help of some concealing cloaks, the party creeps forward, and begins searching among the ruins.

   A single Ur and a half-dozen darklings ambush the scouting party. During the fight, sudden assistance appears in the form of Mord, Khamir, Azoryl, and two Ferrans, Sphyxx and Asphyxx by name. The undersized ambush party is quickly dispatched. Having drawn the attention of far too many Stryx, the heroes crawl into the dubious Ferran redoubt, waiting until the Sub-men lose interest and depart.

   Mord and Khamir reveal that they are survivors of the garrison, having been sent to Akmir a week or two ago as part of a penal unit sent to reinforce Akmir. In a fit of cosmic irony (or perhaps it was just Mord's usual luck), the town was attacked by the Tirshata's forces a few days after they arrived.

   Azoryl was just passing through; the two Ferrans had just arrived with a wagonload of their "finds" for sale. The Legion quickly wrote them an I.O.U. and claimed the wagon and pair of land lizards for their own use, only to lose them all to the Sub-Men. The Ferrans had just tunnelled from a middens pile into the cellar of the inn when the Sub-Men broke into the keep. Mord, Khamir, and Azoryl spotted one of the Ferrans at the top of the steps and took advantage of a break in the combat to follow the Ferrans into their hidey-hole. Azoryl took the form of a snipe to collapse the freshly dug tunnel to the inn's cellar. The stalwarts hid out for rest of the week with only the stench of the Ferrans and a few clever bends in the tunnels protecting them from attacks.

   While waiting for the Stryx to leave, the party does a bit of negotiating with the Ferrans, the standard is retrieved, and the heroes are retrieved by Ceriefseran's windship (though the Ferrans are obliged to travel tethered at a distance). A day's flight or so takes them back to the Jaspar Mountains, arriving at a remote hunting lodge about the 36th of Talislandre. Ceriefserran debriefs the group, paying close interest to the tales of the weapon used to breach the walls of Akmir, the force composition and tactics of the Sub-men, and questions why Azoryl, a Manra shapechanger, was in Akmir impersonating a Thrall (rather poorly too since Azoryl knows only a little about the Thrall language of tattoos). The group vouches for Azoryl and that helps quite a bit. There's just one more thing Ceriefserran wants from Azoryl before he'll let him walk.

   Azoryl agrees to teach our heroes the Metamorphosis Ritual -- he considers the Sub-men Menace to be justification enough. Oddly enough, Ceriefseran has a supply of the derivative of the jabutu plant, needed for the ritual. A week of fasting, trances, and illness brought on by eating the shapeshifting compound results in Aldak and Vidan being able to -- once only -- assume the forms of Za; Puliko and Kija will assume the forms of Yrmanians; and Asphyxx the form of a Darkling. Khamir proves too resistant to the effects of the jabutu plant. Ceriefserran refuses to let a Marukan on the team so Mord will be sent back to the Wilderland's Legion. Sending a Manra as part of the party would be an undue imposition on Azoryl's loyalties, Ceriefserran says, so Azoryl will stay on the windship for a while (Azoryl strongly suspects that this is a polite way of saying "We don't trust you, you shifty Manra person"). Sphyxx declines on the grounds of her pregnancy.

   Ceriefseran's plan is for the party -- Aldak, Vidan, Puliko, Kija, and Asphyxx -- to be landed in the Wilderlands, equipped as Sub-men; and to make their way to the Tirshata's hordes. There, they must discover how the Sub-men have been brought together, how they are controlled, by whom, and what strange powers the Tirshata wields. 

   Vidan: "Hmm, we should try to learn handling of wristblades and whipsashes without cutting ourselves; and also we should either avoid being seen on greymane-back, or get much better at mounted combat."

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