Week 1 (08/03): Cultists in Independence

GM: Declan

Players:
 * Wallace/Quentin
 * Emry/Steve
 * Tarian/Sophia
 * Vice/?
 * Divona/?

Report from Wallace (Quentin):
[Wallace can't write, so this report is delivered in a nervous voice with much hand-wringing to a very impatient scribe in the main library.]

"Doug--he's the inkeeper--called the Granite Citadel in because there was a problem with the Beam, it was making people disappear and then come back in the mountains--what's the word for that? I know there's a word for it, Doug said so."

"Teleport? It teleported them?"

"...Maybe? I think it was something like that. Anyway, a kid went missing in the middle of the day and the Soothsayer told us that we could find her in the mountains, so we took a boat up there and--well, a lot of us died, but we found the kid and brought her back to town. Her big sister is looking after her now because her mother was one of the people who died. After that we thought maybe we shouldn't try and deal with stuff like that ourselves any more? Well, Doug thought of sending a message to the Granite Citadel to get them to deal with it. I wish we had thought of doing that in the first place, my best friend Maria died...

"Anyway, then these big fighters and stuff from the Citadel turned up! Me and Doug told them how to get to the mountains by boat, but they just decided to take a shortcut by touching the Beam so they tele-trele--teleported? Teleported. I can't believe we didn't think of that the first time!

"I wanted to go with them because--I don't really know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and Doug thought it was a good idea too, and he's really smart, even if he can never remember my name--my name's Wallace, by the way, did I tell you?"

"Yes, when you first walked in."

"Oh, Right! So, I went with, but as soon as we turned up in the mountains some cultists attacked us! It was really scary, but the Citadel folks made short work of them!

"They also killed the goatwolf! Did I mention the goatwolf?"

"No, you didn't."

"Well, it's a big wolf but it has goat feet! It's huge and scary and it killed--it killed Maria and--and--"

[Wallace starts to cry, the scribe shuffles her paper away from him. Eventually he regains his composure and continues.]

"The Citadel folks killed the goatwolf and then we found the room where the cultists were going to kill the kid who disappeared--her name was Ethelfril--Atherfrith--Aethelflith--I can't remember her name, it was all elven and stuff. But there was no one in the room so we kept looking around and eventually found them camped in the forest at the bottom of the mountain and they had a huge cage which was filled with all this weird black fog!

"The Grantice Citadel folks killed all of the cultists with a clever plan! They opened up the cage with some kind of monster in it and the monster helped kill them. I tried to help too, but I really didn't do any good. I think I need to learn how to use a spear. I picked up a spear from one of the cultists, and since he's dead now I think it belongs to me? By the way, do you know where the training yards are? This place is so big, I keep getting lost."

"Didn't they give you a map when you first got here?"

"Yes, but it's so confusing."

"Look, ask someone else, I'm just here to write down your report for you."

"Oh, ok, sorry. So once all the cultists were dead some of the Citadel folks were really hurt so we went back to town as quickly as possible. One our way back I happened to look back at the forest and I saw the monster in the cage coming out and you'll never guess what it was!"

"Just tell me what it was."

"Guess?"

"No. Just tell me."

"Ok, ok. It was a dragon."

"No it wasn't, there are no dragons any more."

"Yes it was, I saw it. No one believes me!"

"That's because it's well documented that all dragons have been killed."

"But I SAW one!"

[The scribe starts packing up her things.]

"We're done here."

"But don't you want to hear more about the dragon? It had nine--"

"No."

[The scribe walks out of the room, muttering, leaving Wallace alone in the library.]

"...It had nine heads..."