"The Pious Turncoat"
The Order / Sorcerous Society / Celestial Protectorate verses Shornaal's Beastmen / Beastmen Raiders with Mark of Shornaal / Scion of Chaos
Wyrdstone Hunt
"We're going on a beast hunt," called one of The Order's greenhorn grunts, as much to bolster his own resolve as to improve that of the many other greenhorns around him. They echoed his cry with a little more spring in their step, feeling a little more confident that their righteousness would overcome any evil.
"We're gonna catch a big waaAAHH!" he squealed as he was charged by a wild boar, disturbed by the noisiness and proximity of the group. Scared as he was, the grunt jumped several feet in the air, avoiding the swipe of the boar's tusks. Luck was definitely with the greenhorn, for as he came back down with arms stretched out behind to break his fall, his dagger, which he had fotten to let go of, sliced through the tough hide of the boar to sever the spinal cord. The others crowded around to cheer and slap their friend on the back, but many, including the lucky grunt, were now looking quite pale as the boar's head trashed around in anger.
The warhound snarled at the raven as it alighted on a nearby ruin, but the scouting Gor at her side paid it little heed, more concerned with the haunting sounds coming from the patches of woodland. The unmistakable prickle of magic in the air brought the Gor to a stop as he fantically scanned the area for the hidden spellcaster. Seeing nothing, he made a dash for a nearby two-story ruin and began his ascent to the top - the best tactic in fighting a wizard is to get in close, but you need to know where they are in order to do that. Again the tingle of magic filled the air, but this time around the whimpering warhound who was left cowering at the base of the ruin. Two failed spells, praise Shornaal. The Gor reached the top of the ruin, careful to keep as much out of sight as possible. Carefully taking quick peeks over the edge, he scanned the area, seeing nothing more suspect than a cocky raven eyeing him with a gleam in his eye. Confused, the Gor huddled back down out of sight, accidentally disturbing some of the rubble in the process. Noticing something smooth and green in amongst the coarse debris, the Gor took a quick look a the jade carving before stuffing it into a pocket, to then stop suddenly and retrieve the piece back out. The carving was of some type of sorceress with an owl sitting on the top of her staff. The raven! The raven was a familiar and the spells were somehow being redirected through the raven. The Gor quickly returned the carving to his pocket and began the descent in order to report back to his Chieftan.
"Unholy intestines," muttered the magus as his second spellcasting attempt failed. He was still adjusting to having to cast through the eyes of Rannikin his raven familiar and the difference in vision was making his head start to ache. It didn't help that he was out in this forsaken set of ruins far from any civilised settlement. He would much rather be back in the library of the wizard's tower of Helyune researching more spells, but as his order demanded he must now take a sabbatical from his studies and put them to good use in restoring order where there is none. To spite his superiors, he simply named this rag-tag group of, in his opinion, talent-less humans, two guards (what were their names again? He never could remember) and three mages 'The Order', as putting any more effort into coming up with a suitable name was, he felt, beneath him. The devout mages at the compound of course thought this wonderful, believing the name a tribute to their order of orderliness, and at the same time ranking their order above all other orders. Niko Jr., as he was affectionately but begrudgingly known, didn't appreciate that his efforts had backfired, though he was probably the better off for it. Now Nicodemus Sebastian Albright is his name, and sharing a name with the Cursed Pilgrim himself is quite an unfortunate thing in an order fighting against chaos, with the name being a constant reminder of how careful one must be when dealing with magic and dark powers. He was quite sick of people coming up to him and reminding him to not following the paths of his namesake, and for anyone to think that he was the junior of anyone was quite irritating.
Now the other two mages, Sigmund the White and Rudolf the Grey, were less talented buy much more pious than Niko Jr., so he had to constantly remind himself to be careful - if he were too sacrilegious or too lenient on the unholy or not devout enough, he might find himself cast out all alone in this hell-hole of a region (a fate he'd rather avoid). Despite this, for now their presence in this hostile environment was welcome, knowing he could count on them to make themselves useful in the heat of battle. And it looked like that might come quite soon, and Rudolf and Niko Jr. simultaneously cast silver arrows at a Gor and a warhound that they glimpse through a large ruin...
The chieftan back-handed a Gor to let out some of his anger. He should have been happy that two treasures had been found by two Gor, but he wasn't happy of having to repeat his order twice for his men to move into this groaning copse, to still have two not brave enough to enter. He would have to remind himself to make them more scared of him than some noisy trees when they got back to camp. His anger was quickly diverted though, as a troupe of humans were spotted. The others in the group started to itch to run out and spill some blood, but were wary enough of their leader to wait until he gave the order. When the chieftan saw silver streaks flying out from two wizards to stun two of his warband to the group, and tactics or caution was thrown to the wind, and with a bellowing roar the Beastmen stormed towards their enemies.
"Hey, take a look at this," called one greenhorn to his buddy, both lagging behind the rest of the party. "Do you think it would be worth something?"
"It'll be worth your head if you don't hand it over to Niko Jr., that's for sure," replied his buddy. "If he catches you with that in his possession, who knows what he'll turn you into."
The conversation came to an abrupt end however when two warhounds charged the second greenhorn, knocking him to the ground. Seeing his buddy in peril, the first greenhorn charges one of the warhounds, which distracted it long enough for his buddy to get back on his feet. Praying to his god, the first young man tried to slash the warhound with his dagger, but despite both warhounds focusing on his buddy, what little experience he had wasn't enough to wound the quick warhounds. He sadly watched as his buddy was stunned and taken out of action. All alone, he turned tail and ran, dropping the artefact in the process.
"Charge!" yelled Niko Jr. when the area suddenly swarmed with the heretical Beastmen. He stopped in his tracks when he felt a spell being cast at him, and he looked around to notice Rudolf muttering the final incantations of his spell and eyeing Nico Jr. with a red gleam in his eye. "Stop him!" he yelled to a nearby guard, "he's been enchanted." Having no defense against Silver Arrows of Arha, Niko Jr. was expecting to be knocked down any second, but fortunately the spell failed.
"Whack!" sounded the gloved hand of the guard against the face of Rudolf as he was backhanded. "Wake up you durned fool!" growled the guard. Rudolf responded by attempting to knife the guard, but the latter's superior fighting skills kept him safe. Another slap and another sidestep to avoid a clumsy swing, and the red glow faded from Rudolf's eyes. "Urrrgh," was all that Rudolf managed to say, as he put a hand to his head and tried to maintain his balance.
Meanwhile, the battle had begun. The Order charged in with righteous bravey, but their inferior strength and fighting skills did little damage against the tough Beastmen. One grunt had a lucky hit against a Bestigor who didn't think it necessary to use a shield against such an unworthy opponent. He paid for that mistake with his life. Another grunt was unlucky to injure the Chieftan, who was lucky enough to get his shield in the way to take the brunt of the force. Snarling, the chieftan responded by taking the unfortunate grunt OOA. One of the guards tried his luck against the Shaman, who promptly stunned and beheaded him. The other men of The Order were likewise dropping like flies. Two grunts and two untrained were taken out by a Bestigor and two Gors, and with that, Niko Jr. had seen enough. "Retreat!" was the call, and soon all were running in defeat, lucky to have only lost one man. To Niko Jr. though this was a victory - a fiend of chaos had been killed and he was still living. He was thinking of how he would celebrate when he had to suddenly dive off the path to avoid being trampled by a runaway horse. "Unholy intestines!" came the expletive.
The Chieftan smiled a wicked smile. Today had been a good day, and there was still plenty of time to get drunk. All four of his Gors had each found a valuable artefact and three more had been found after the battle, which in itself was a marvelous victory. He did not think twice about the loss of a Bestigor. They were easily replaceable after all, and with his new-found reputation, they would be lining up to join his warband. He smiled again, when he felt a welcome malevolent aura come over him - Shornaal was pleased.
The Order found 3 treasures, a runaway horse, rain coat, net, 2 garlic cloves & D6 gc.
Shornaal's Beastmen found 7 treasures and failed Eye of the Dark Gods by only 1.
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