Unholy Greatsword
H07: Kultari Road Outside Vadran Village
It's Korday, Daeshen 20 16:17:01 1020. The full moon is up. The tide is low and ebbing. Chilly rain falls from a grey sky. It's bleak and raw. The wind blows from the east.
Part of what rangers do is keep watch over the wilderness. In theae days of spreading corruption, the perimeter of this watch has grown large, and it is usually easier to watch a bigger area from altitude. This evening, Erakirak and Ga'Elian, together with their griffons, are riding the east wind out near the Vadran Village where the woods north of the Felwood have seen their share of Fel encroachment recently. From this height, Ga'Elian points to what appears to be a small clearing in the forest. His steed banks toward it, beginning a spiral descent.
Ordinarily, when Rak is out patrolling or hunting with Silverwing outside of the mountains, they stay on the ground. But travelling in two dimensions is BORING!!! (And OK, maybe he's still feeling kind of smug about his wings finally being strong enough to carry him.)
So when Ga'Elian showed up at the Aerie and invited them on this patrol, he'd expected to do the same, and was surprised when instead they travelled up the Spire and leapt off from there... Erithamiel and Rak on their own wings, Elian riding Erithamiel, and Silverwing gliding, with an occassional boost from updrafts and the older griffon.
They've covered a lot of distance when they begin their descent to the clearing.
Even before touching down, a scene of carnage and a scent of blood become clear. In the midst of this clearing sits a roughly constructed shack of wattle and daub walls, its roof thatched with pine boughs. As the rangers and griffons land, they see rhat the door is broken down, laying inside, and a trail of blood leads from inside to a set of impressively big hoofprints, the tracks of which lead through the woods toward the south.
Ga'Elian takes a quick glance and says, "That's an awful lot of blood. The wound must have been severe, if not fatal."
Erakirak gives a low, mourful whistle as he approaches the scene. He stays in the air as he comes closer to the shack entrance, not wanting to disturb the blood or the tracks just yet, but wanting to identify anyone inside who might need help, or need dealing with.
Ga'Elian, for his part, hops off of his mount and tells Erithamiel, "Guard." The griffon knows what to do, and turns around to watch that nothing comes out of the trees. Meanwhile, Ga'Elian moves stealthily toward the broken down door and peers inside. He exclaims, "Oh my gods!"
Erakirak nods agreement and enters the shack, moving gingerly around the broken-down door.
The shack is sparsely furnished, in the center of the dirt floor is a hearthstone with a dried blood pool permeating the coals of a long-extinguished fire. The whole place has blood spatter except for a section where there is a void in the spatter in a parallelogram about 6 feet long and 1 foot wide, as if there has been a box leaning against the wall. Ga'Elian points it out and says, I'm guessing someone was killed for that box and whatever was in it. The curious thing to me is, why did the killer drag the body away?"
Erakirak nods again. "Good question." He regards the door carefully.
The door, upon closer inspection has a single gouge mark fairly high up in its center, looking rather like a heavily gauntletted fist had smashed the door down with a single blow, then scrapes along it as though the person carrying out the bloody body were wearing metal-armor plated boots. The doorposts also look damaged, the hinges and latch being ripped from them, but leaning slightly outward as if the killer were quite a bit more crowded exiting than entering. While Rak is getting a closer look at the door and posts, Ga'Elian is getting a closer look at the hearthstone. He says, "I think there is a concealed passage beneath the hearth."
"Oh? Huh. Interesting. I guess whoever bashed the door down, and killed whoever was here, and took the... whatever it was," Rak muses, "didn't notice the passage. Maybe didn't even look for it. Do you know how to access it?"
Rak looks around the rest of the shack for anything that seems out of place, or missing. "Who lived here, do you know?"
The red-robed, white-scaled Sith-makar moves slowly. In one hand, they bear a quarterstaff, which they lean upon heavily. The two griffons are eyed curiously. "Hrmm. Some part cat. Ssssome part bird. Catbird or birdcat?"
Ga'Elian shrugs. He says, "I haven't any idea. Anyway, I think I can figure out the mechanism." As he says so, the sound of Hetzakoatl's approach and the Erithamiel's vigilant squawk of alarm come in from outdoors, at the same time that Ga'Elian bends down and pushes on one of the stones. He looks up at the door in response to Erithamiel as the hearth splits in half, sliding open to reveal a spiral staircase leading down. Momentarily undecided between checking the outside and checking the stairs he opts for the griffon and makes his way to the door.
Erakirak interrupts his searching at the cry of alarm from outside, and the sudden shifting of the hearth. "I wonder what they're --" he says, sticking his head outside, then "Oh. Hello," he says to the Sith. "Do you know who lived here?"
"Tsk, sssuch noissy birdcats.", the Sith-makar says, holding out their free hand towards the two griffons, as if for them to sniff at. "Come now, I will not do you any harm, I am jusst looking." The arrival of first Ga'Elian, and then Erakirak, has the white-scale take a step back. A defensive posture. Grey eyes regard Erakirak when he speaks. "Ssadly, I am new to the area.", they rumble, pausing to cough wetly. "I do not yet know the denizenss of the foresst. Why do you assk?"
Ga'Elian tells the male griffon, "Good boy, Erithamiel. Good job guarding." Then he bows to the sith'makar and says, "Peace to your nest." <draconic> Then returning to Tradespeak, he adds, "We would not trespass here, but when we saw the blood and the broken down door, we felt it necessary to look inside. It appears to be the site of a murder. If such things bother you, I advise against following us inside." After a pause, he further adds, "I am Ga'Elian."
"Because it looks like somebody killed them and took their body and their belongings away on horseback, and I'm curious why," Rak replies, whistling to Silverwing to indicate the Sith-Makar's lack of threat. "I'm Erakirak, by the way."
Hetzakoatl coughs and makes a dismissive gesture with their free hand at what Ga'Elian says. "I have endured worsse than blood and carnage." They offer the barest of bows, "Hetzakoatl, of Mictlan." The white-scale looks back the way they have travelled, "Hrm. Just ssso. If you follow this trail, watching for broken and dissturbed plant life, you should come acrosss a box... a bloody box. Held a ssword, I would guesss, due to the internal shape. And, to top it off, a rider on a warhorse crosssed my path, and made for Felwood at sspeed. He bore a broken and bloodied body acrosss his sstead." The Sith gestures with a hand. "You might catch him if these birdcats can actually bear your weight."
"The rider," Rak asks urgently, "and the corpse, what did they look like?" Not, admittedly, that a bloody rider with a broken corpse would be hard to recognize, nor a galloping warhorse hard to track.
Ga'Elian looks surprised at the wealth of newly revealed information. Then he takes a closer look at the blood trail leading off through the woods. He turns to Rak and Hetz and says, "Perhaps I had better pursue then. A sword? Hmm. Um, why don't you two check out what's down those stairs while I try to catch our armored killer?" Then he looks at Hetz to hear a response to Rak's question while he strides quickly toward Erithamiel and hops up into the saddle.
The Sith lets out a low hiss, and gestures to themselves. "The horse wass jet black with some small, white markingss on the chest, and it could look me in the eye, such wass itss height. No sigil or crest was borne by the rider. Iron or steel, he wore, well used but well cared for armor. Add a sticky, messy splatter of blood everywhere, and he iss your man of interest."
Erakirak regards the Sith-Makar for a moment, and seems about to agree with the elf, when Silverwing gives a sudden leonine roar and takes off after Erithamiel and Elian. "Change of plans," he explains a bit sheepishly, and launches himself into the air with a flap of mighty wings to catch up.
The white-scaled Sith watches the two retreating griffons and the Egalrin trying to catch up to his mount. "Strange.", they intone. Turning, they spend several long minutes regarding the shack in the woods. Eventually, Hetzakoatl moves inside, and looks around at the scene there. It is probably not long before the hidden area is noticed, and carefully approached. "Ssa."
Inside, the shack is sparsely furnished, a table against one wall with a cast iron pot on top, a straw-covered platform on another. Suffice it to say, not comfortable living quarters. The hearth in the center has been split in half, the halves spread asunder to reveal a spiral staircase leading downward through about 10 feet of concrete before emerging into a chamber, the floor of which is 20 feet below that.
The Sith taps their quarterstaff firmly against each step as they descend, more concerned about a loose step than traps and mischief. In no particular hurry, they descend one step at a time, their eyes scanning the darkness below. "Curiouss.", Hetzakoatl says to herself. "A bare dwelling, yet much trouble hass been made to conceal this chamber."
Much trouble indeed. As the chamber comes into view, it seems comfortably large with a door at the far end. One wall of this chamber has recessed bookshelves separated by roman-style columns, each column holding a torch sconce, unlit. The floor is of black basalt, polished smooth. There is a plush carpet extending from the bookshelved wall about 10 feet into the chamber, not even enough to reach the base of the spiral staircase. Along the center of that wall sits a desk with a comfortable office chair and a ledger book under an unlit kerosene lamp. To either side of the desk are soft chairs in matching upholstery. On the opposide side of the room, there are smithing tables replete with a variety of tools, and an open but unlit furnace built into an alcove in the wall. A steady stream of water, one foot wide and four inches deep, cascades down another alcove in the same wall. At first glance, the water seems to be glass, but despite the general darkness, a faint glimmer from the top of the spiral staircase is sufficient to betray its true nature. In short, two thirds of this room is a wondrous smithy, the other third a luxurious study.
"Sssa.", the Sith breathes, and then coughs wetly into the back of their hand. Holding up a hand, there's a brief flash and the white-scale glances around the place with fresh eyes. Several minutes is spent looking carefully at everything, Hetzakoatl keeping to the bare, basalt floor for now. After satisfying their curiousity about what may be magical and what is not, a small word brings into being a ball of light, making it much easier to discern details that are sometimes confusing when viewed with darksight.
The vertical stream of water issues from a magical source (conjuration) and vanishes into another (alteration). All the other tools are free of magical aurae, but are clearly masterwork quality smithing tools. With the light shining, there isn't much more to tell, except that the floor isn't basalt at all but beautifully polished and masterfully cut obsodian. The colors of the carpet, books, and furniture spring to vivid life and convey a cohesive and conservative interior design pallette.
While most things get a cursory inspection, the desk merits a lengthy search. She, however, takes quite some time to bring herself to begin investigating, hesitant at opening drawers or reading books. But after some self-prodding, Hetzakoatl begins with the ledger book.
The ledger book contains records of purchases and deliveries of various supplies for smithing, mostly ordinary such as coke for the forge and iron ready for forging, but three items do seem remarkable. One is a shipment of starmetal - adamantine, another is a 10-gallon barrel of unholy water, and the last is a quill feather from an angel. Oh, and the ledger book give the name of the master smith.
GAME: Hetzakoatl rolls Appraise: (13)+5: 18
Among the scrap metal in the shop, there is a bin containing scraps of adamantine.
Hetzakoatl wrinkles her nose as she reads through the ledger, as if finding its contests distasteful. After reading through it, she closes it and holds it close to her chest.
As Hetzakoatl lifts the ledger book off the desk, an unfolded letter is uncovered. The writing is neat calligraphy in plain Tradespeak, although the ink looks strange as if it were some invisible ink that had been rendered visible. The letter gives as the name of its writer, "Lord F." The letter amounts to a purchase order for an adamantine greatsword enchanted with Unholy, Keen, Wounding, and Celestial Bane.
The order was to be ready for customer pick-up this very day.
The letter, once read, is tucked into the ledger. "Surely, they will want the clues.", the white-scaled Sith says to herself. With the same careful consideration, she ascends the stairs one at a time, book and letter held close to her side, her staff tapping away.