Tormeron wrote:Here is the letter Coalbrow picked up:
Correction, the letter that Thelarwen picked up. Coalbrow has not been taking part in the serious events for a while now.
Anyway.
In the last exciting episode of...
Tormeron's Events!
After reading the note that Thelarwen picked up last week from the corpse of the half-gnome-half-robot, the group gathered in Gadgetzan. As the note did not yield much information -- only two names -- the first order of business was to try and track down the author, the mysterious "Archi". The local innkeeper pointed them towards the pirate ships anchored off the coast. However, he was not sure which ship was the actual one that housed Archi, so the adventurers needed to make a guess.
The guess was: the third and rightmost ship out of three.
Upon landing on a small island near the ship, they were immediately confronted by irate pirates, who figured that attacking such a powerful, well-armed group would be an excellent strategy. It was, assuming the pirates' goal was to get killed messily. Because they got killed messily. An otherwise straightforward battle did have one odd incident: the fairly simple spells of both Aroona (hurricane) and Serendipity (arcane blast) went mysteriously out of control, grew in power, and almost injured their companions instead of (or in addition to) their intended targets. Something magical was going on.
So having cleared the island, everyone boarded the ship. Curiously the ship was empty, and every pirate who had been on it, had jumped overboard and was swimming away with great haste. Fearing a trap, the group briefly debated whether to escape as well, or explore the ship. Of course, as they were a bunch of adventurers, caution was thrown into the wind and everyone strolled downstairs to the cargo hold.
Fortunately, there was no trap. At least not one that would go *boom* and blow the ship (and the group) to smithereens.
Instead there was a glowing jewel. Immediately upon coming closer to it, magic users (Serendipity, Chepi and Thelarwen) started to feel their magical strength increasing and promises of great power being whispered in their ears. Tessliana, being a hunter and therefore non-magic-user, dared to pick the gem up. It showed her (and whoever else touched it) visions of a coffin marked with an X and a skull, as well as additional two powerful items.
As Tess did not feel much from the gem (fortunately not getting mind-controlled this time, like she was in Wetlands), she decided to hand it over to a more magical group member so they might examine it further. Serendipity, showing great wisdom, declined the offer, despite the gem's insistent whispers in her ears, and even its proximity enhancing her magical power.
Thelarwen, however, was willing to take the gem, if only to shatter it. There was a brief discussion of whether to destroy the gem or keep it for study, but its strong influence on Thelarwen's mind (Power! Overwhelming!!!) and body (a glowing death knight!) quickly ended all debates. The death knight attempted to do to the gem what she had successfully done to several other evil magical items, and crush it in her palm. Except this time things did not go quite so easily. The gem drew the strength from Thelarwen's body and she was quite incapable of destroying it, even though her mind broke through the mental restraints the gem also exerted. Fortunately Zeneth was there to help, and with her warrior strength helped squeeze Thelarwen's gauntlet shut. This cracked her bones, but also the gem.
But only cracked. The jewel grew dull and fell on the floor, but was still mostly intact with only a small crack to show for all the effort. Tess tried to stomp on it, which did not work very well and only slightly enlarged the crack in it. Then Thelarwen, ever the take-charge-and-smash-stuff type, hit it with her runeblade. This caused a huge explosion which threw the group all over the ship's cargo hold (fortunately not compromising the hull). As Thelarwen was obviously the closest (just about at ground zero), she got thrown all the way to the other end, smashed against the wall and knocked unconscious. Others got away with lighter injuries, other than Claraa who was also knocked briefly out, and Zeneth who got a mighty blow to his head (but he was a warrior, and wearing a helmet, so the damage was negligible). The gem, finally, was in two pieces. Both of which still seemed full of energy and tried to crawl into Tessliana's mouth. (I think it was Tess.) This fortunately failed, so Aroona sat on them... and we totally expected the jewel pieces to try and crawl up Aroona's arse instead, but noooooo, that wouldn't happen.
(I am somewhat unsure what happened with the jewel halves at that point. Did someone pick them up, and what did they do with them?)
Zeneth picked the unconscious Thelarwen up and carried her to the ship's deck. The rest of the group followed. While some attempted to heal the injured death knight (Adrenus, you silly dog, never use holy spells on a death knight!), others noticed that the ship had set sail and was now in the middle of the ocean...
Thelarwen recovered sufficiently to at least manage to walk weakly, and the adventurers sought a way off the ship. They found no better option but to get Serendipity to portal them to Theramore. The portal went a bit wonky (it was a Serendipity portal, so no surprise there) and deposited them in the mountains near Gadgetzan, which was actually totally fine, as they would have needed to get back to Tanaris anyway. The adventurers travelled back to the inn they had started from and re-questioned the innkeeper. They had not found Archi, but now they did know what to look for: the pirate tomb from the vision given by the jewel. In exchange for yet another bribe the innkeeper told of an old pirate graveyard further to the south, down the beach...
And that is where the adventure will continue next week.
