Our return to the
mainland proved uneventful and the pirates finally dropped us off on
the mainland, informing us the nearest Pathfinder base was in a town
called Laekastel and if we followed the iron road we'd find it in a
few days. I will admit that the road we were following was rather
strange. It had a gravel bed like some of the better-maintained
roads, but spaced evenly across the road were wooden beams, almost as
if it was a corduroy road, but they were spaced too far apart for
that. Placed on top of these wooden beams were iron rails, located on
either side of the roadbed and apparently running its whole length. A
nearby signpost informed us this was the road to Laekastel and we
headed along the road with no incident for the rest of the day.
The next day we
continued along the road and began noticing stone statues located
along the right-of-way for the road. As we've gotten rather used to
everything trying to kill us we looked on the statues with some
apprehension but they proved initially harmless and we continued on
our way. Key word being initially. As we continued down the road we
noticed one of the statues moved slightly, and Soma was able to
identify it as a stone golem. Not wishing to provoke something
capable of murdering us with one hand behind its back, we tried going
about a hundred feet off the road and circling the golem.
Unfortunately for us there was a strange electrical phenomenon along
the side of the road, which forced us to return between the rails. As
we returned to the road we noticed a strange man covered in tattoos
standing in the center of the road. As we approached he told us to
surrender our weapons and valuables and we could walk away with our
lives. Meda said nothing, clearly in shock at the sheer impertinence
of such a remark. Whitmore exclaimed, “Where'd you learn to count,
boy? Stupid school?” Soma announced his intention to eat the
bastard, and I merely laughed heartily and said, “All right, let's
kill him.”
I will
say this about our attempted mugger, he at least came fairly
prepared. It turned out the stone golem and
a lightning elemental were also on his side. (Well, Soma says it was
just a quasi-elemental which means it only got its GED, whatever that
means.) If we hadn't pulled a few tricks the muggers may have
actually killed us, but thankfully they were nowhere as bad as those
damn cloakers we ran into on the island. Soma, of course, barely
broke a sweat using fairly low-level spells to handle the situation.
Things looked a little hairy there for a while, but we finally
managed to give these criminal scum the sweet release from life they
desired. I mean, anyone stupid enough to jump us at this point has
to be suicidal.
After patching up
our hurt, especially mine in particular, we continued to follow the
rails until we spotted a building in the distance. As we approached
we noticed it was a tavern that bore the symbol of Cayden Cailean,
always a welcome sight, and entered the establishment. The interior
proved empty except for the landlord, an extremely friendly fellow by
the name of Festivus who immediately welcomed us profusely and shoved
drinks into all of our hands. After a few rounds Festivus asked us
what brought us to his tavern and what we were doing. Which resulted
in us telling a somewhat edited but highly entertaining version of
our adventures beginning in No Fun. (Although I suspect the alcohol
may have made it more interesting.)
Festivus then asked
us what we were planning on doing now, and we tried to diplomatically
ask his opinion on the Pathfinder Guild. Festivus explained that he
used to run with the Pathfinders a few years back and had lots of fun
and adventures with them, but recently things had taken a new
direction with the new leader of the Pathfinders, which had lead to
him leaving the Guild. We found out that the bastard who sent us down
into No Fun was the same one who had taken over the Guild and made
it...well...no fun. We then told Festivus we intended to go straight
up to him and demand that he pay us (Which is partially true) and
Festivus was supportive, but warned us against breaking into the
vaults because quite a few dangerous artifacts had been safely sealed
away. We assured him we'd take precautions and Festivus gladly gave
us a map of the complex, as well as a map of the first two levels of
the vaults, although it seems there may be a third level below them.
Festivus then welcomed us to sleep in his tavern and promptly passed
out from the liberal amounts of alcohol. I'm looking forward to
meeting across our Pathfinder friends again. Cash, loot, and a little
bit of revenge are just what I have in mind.
- Krinsblag
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