14th of Thirdmonth, 10006 DK
The rest of the group hastily signed the contract with the Eastern Bardic College, then they went and turned it in and met with their handler. Their handler eyeballed them a bit and offered them four jobs: an assassination of a politician that was working against the colleges, the removal of a youth gang that had taken to robbery, murder, and become a general blight upon Meroteth. The other jobs were collecting a few rents for the college, and also working over a blacksmith that had reneged on a contract with the college in an attempt to convince him that he should pay the money owed.
The group split up to cover the majority of the collections, meeting up in the early afternoon for the final collection, which was from a fighting school. The master of the fighting school, a Vyanth, was reluctant to pay unannounced ruffians that appeared from nowhere demanding his money, but the group was able to convince him after producing their list of accounts and work order from the Eastern Bardic College. After that, they returned to their handler and accepted the extortion job.
They found the smith's shop easily enough, and recognized it as the area where they had worked ten years ago to kidnap one of Cenn's reavers. Kethralzahn took the lead by informing the angry looking smith that he had reneged on a contract and the group subdued him, and then destroyed his forge. Krieg took one of the smith's masterwork weapons off of the wall to be sold by the college as a partial payment on the smith's loan, though he did admit that he was concerned about destroying the smith's means of production. With the other jobs looking unappealing to the group, they decided to retire to the rowe'dhauss and relax while awaiting their letters.
15th of Thirdmonth, 10006 DK - 18th of Thirdmonth, 10006 DK
The days were spent hanging out in the rowe'dhauss, experiencing lost memories, and other fairly mundane things. Once again, Krieg's resemblance to Nakmander was brought up, and once again, Krieg denied ever having heard such a thing, and once again, the issue was dropped with no resolution. On the morning of the eighteenth, letters arrived at their night fowl P.O. box. Xein received his later from John Johnson, but seemed to think that John had been compromised in some way. Kethralzahn received his letter and without word grabbed the group's map of The Known World and began walking east. D'alton ran after him and asked where he was going and they discussed D'alton following him and Kethralzahn agreed that that might be ok, and he would wait while D'alton did things like sleep and eat. Then everyone else started following and Krieg asked what the Hell was going on and no one would tell him. Eventually he figured out that they were walking to Steeltown. Krieg thought that was stupid as they would have to cross a desert and climb mountains (or go around them) and they had no supplies or climbing gear. He said perhaps they should fly, but the group had no money, just a bunch of guns and weaponry. Krieg asked Kethralzahn if he would wait a half hour if he could provide means of transport far quicker than walking and the Rankethlek agreed. When Krieg returned he had several pounds of marks with him and explained that he would finance this flight, but they would stop at the Necropolis and visit The Great Library of the Necropolis after they visited Steeltown and Kethralzahn said that would be ok and they began their flight.
19th of Thirdmonth, 10006 DK - 6th of Fourthmonth, 10006 DK
The flight to Steeltown took many days and The Robust Five were awed by the majestic mountains and deserts and open skies of The Known World.
7th of Fourthmonth, 10006 DK
The group arrived in Steeltown around midday. Xein immediately approached the guards standing on the zeppelin dock and explained that he was friends with A'lst about ten years ago and needed to see him. The guards began to visibly go on the offensive, their hands gripping weapons. Kethralzahn intervened by explaining that he was bringing them to the first five of the Rankethlek and that they would not be allowed to wander the city. Kethralzan led them to the Hall Of Remembrance and Meeting and met with the first five alone. Mokethneer was leery of him, despite Carenkere using his knowledge and secret arts to determine that Kethralzahn was still a Rankethlek through and through and bore a lightning heart just as the first five did. Mokethneer could not accept this, coupled with Kethralzahn's story of memory loss. Mokethneer decided that the only creature knowledgeable enough to judge the nature of Kethralzahn was A'lst. Then he called for the friend and brother of his dead father.
D'alton and Xein entered the chamber and Mokethneer began yelling at them immediately, he bellowed like thunder that they were never supposed to come here, were ordered to never tread within this halls. Xein then explained what was going on with them and that he wanted to use sorcery and A'lst to ressurect Kethranmeer. Mokethneer got louder and angrier and sort of metallicly sputtered in rage at Xein's words, finally silencing him and his heresy and telling him to gaze upon what he and D'alton and Nakmander had wrought. Then he unveiled a statue of Kethranmeer, the statue was Kethranmeer as he had fallen, every molten wound and bit of rust and shattered metal was perfectly preserved, but D'alton was not fooled and Xein's craftsman's eye knew it to be a reproduction as well. D'alton was shaken to his very core, so much that he fell to his knees and spoke that he knew he was not welcome here, but felt he owed it to his fallen brother come here and see what he had built. Mokethneer was not moved by D'alton's words, but he was no urged to greater rage. Mokethneer told them to leave this place, to leave his sight, he told them they should accompany Kethralzahn to the bottom of the world and find A'lst and tell him of Xein's twisted desire to bring back Kethranmeer with sorcery. If A'lst allowed them to live, they should work with him and aid him to perhaps serve as penance for the death of Kethranmeer. Xein thought it was preposterous that A'lst would kill them. Then Mokethneer really did kick them out. Krieg, ever cryptic, asked if he could speak privately with Mokethneer about Nakmander Zauber'konig and the Rankethlek's goals of destroying him, Mokethneer acquiesced and everyone else left. After a short time, Krieg rejoined the group and they rented a room for the night in Steeltown.
No comments:
Post a Comment