Monster Blood Tattoo RPG: The Eekers' Lament - Part II

The Eekers' Lament
Part II, A First Tattoo

Casketoon - a biololog newly invented by the surgeons in Sinster.  It is formed in the shape of a carrying device or piece of luggage, most often a backpack.  Its main function is to regulate the temperature of its internal compartment by its ability to absorb heat or cold.  Originally developed to transport the organs taken from monsters for surgical purposes, it is becoming more common for preserving cruor for later puncting.

After fighting off the ambuscade in Brandenbrass, the party exited the city and proceeded down the Athy Way toward the hills of the Brandenfells and the town of Spelter Innings.  At the fading light, they reached the well appointed wayhouse of The Guiding Star.

Lord Danny's seemingly bottomless wallet procured for them a seemingly bottomless dinner.  Throgmorton, who was used to twenty years of eating partially dulcified fish aboard ship, was astounded by the amount of fresh meat and vegetables.  All save Roman, who insisted upon sleeping in the wayhouse stable, enjoyed a restful sleep in well-appointed rooms.

The next day, they arrived in Spelter Innings, a a well guarded but pretty little town.  They proceeded to the magistrate's hall to register their claim to the singular contract for the Swarty Hobnag.  When shown the commitment that Mordhowe had procured for the contract back in Brandenbrass, the officious clerk had merely sniffed.  However, once he recognized the famous teratologists Lord Danube and Lady Brandywine, he grew more enthusiastic, admitting that the contract was in need of fulfillment. The creature, the corpse-eating Swarty Hobnag, had been troubling the region for some time.  He duly listed Roman as the premier signant on the contract but noted that proof of the creature's demise was required before payment would be made.  The party retired to another excellent inn, the Lame Sparrow.

In the morning, they set off again, the staff at the Lame Sparrow having provided an ample breakfast and picnic basket for their travels.  As they ate their repast, Roman surreptitiously slipped the scraps into his casketoon.  The casketoon heaved frequently in seeming satisfaction and on occasions ejected a well gnawed bone onto the road behind them.  After some time on the road, Roman looked to the rear of the coach and noticed that something very quick and very large was snatching the discard bones and disappearing into the roadside brush before he could determine exactly what it was.

The sense of threwd increased and the rest of the party began to notice movement now parallel to the coach.  They drew to a halt at a necropolis just a few miles beyond the town.  While Lord Danny approached from one side, Roman approached the entrance of the necropolis, Sister Brandywine and Throgmorton standing back a bit and Flossie climbing to the top of the carriage to watch for possible ambush.  Roman let the waste from his casketoon flow onto the ground as he walked hoping to attract whatever the source of threwd might be.

Suddenly, a great hulking creature leapt from the woods and in two bounds rushed at the party.

Throgmorton, whose first battle against monsters this was, seemed to be the particular target of the monster's attack.  He hastily pulled a vile of loomblaze.

The novice scourge threw wide, however, and his cast merely set fire to some heather.

Roman charged forward, the electricity surging through his metal stave. Although he struck the creature who cried in pain, the monster raked the fulgar with its great claws, cutting through his thick proofing.  Bloodied, Roman fell to the ground.

With Roman now lying prone, the rest of the party were clear and well positioned to fire upon the monster.  One after another, bullets from Sister Brandywine's salinumbus, then from Lord Danny's long rifle, struck home.  Then arrow from Flossie's warbow struck the creature in the neck.

Finally, Throgmorton threw another cast.  He again missed and the burst nearly caught Lord Danny.

As the creature reeled from these terrible blows, Roman sprang to his feet.  The Hobnag raised it hands more in supplication than in threat, its eyes full of pain and pleading.  Roman smashed his stave across the creatures fingers, breaking them.  He then thrust the metal stave at the creature's head, which smoldered and then burst into flames as the monster screamed and collapsed.

Thus it was over, the fearsome Swarty Hobnag lay dead. Throgmorton shouted, "We did it!  Good work everyone!"

Their elation turned to horror as Roman produced a large surgeons' blade from his coat and began to carve into the dead monster's body.  He ripped several organs from it and stuffed them into his casketoon. Sister Brandywine was especially appalled.  She asked Roman what reason he had for doing this.  "To provide proof of our kill!" was his only response.  He also drew doses of the monster's blood for each to receive a cruorpunxis, the monster blood tattoo.

They returned to Spelter Innings and received their commission for the slaying of the Swarty Hobnag.  Roman had been aloof to their investigation of what had happened to the eekers' colony near Luthian Glee.  Now that they had assisted him in slaying the Swarty Hobnag, he seemed inclined to go along with them.

Two days later they arrived at the remote, well fortified town well in the midst of the Piltdown hills.

Just outside the walls, there was a Pilt encampment.  The Pilts, decendants of the tribes that originally inhabited these hill and who had been conquered by the Burgundans and Tutins that dominated the Empire, likely were itinerant farm laborers.  They showed interest in the lentum as it passed their camp but also they showed resentment.

 

The warders at the town gates wore the mottle of Fayelillian, in whose territory the town lay.  Lord Danny being a favored son of that city, the party received a warm welcome.  They proceeded to yet another excellent inn, the fame Alabaster Brow.  The proprietor of the establishment informed Lord Danny that the senior suite was available.  Lord Danny cried with excitement, "I'll take it for a month!"  He explained his older sister often holds long term reserves on the best rooms in the inns in Fayelillian territory, on the off chance she might travel but mostly to vex others. "That will fix that haridan!" Lord Danny exclaimed with satisfaction.

Yet another feast awaited the party. Throgmorton finding that if this was what teratologising was like, he wondered why he hadn't taken it up sooner.

Roman retreated to the inn stable, as was his want.  He took some of the cruor and began working at punkting himself 

Meanwhile, Sister Brandywine approached Lord Danny.  She expressed concern that Roman might be engaged in the black trades, selling monster organs for dark experimentations. Their discussion was interrupted by the sound of a dispute going on in the stables between Throgmorton and Roman

The former vinagaroon had attempted to retrieve some of the cruor to find an artist to give him the tattoo. Roman, who in addition to being a fulgar, had some talent as a cruorpunctists, was offended.   Danny and Brandywine intervened and all agreed to allow the fulgar to mark them. Throgmorton was well pleased with this, his first monster blood tattoo.  Danny and Flossie were likewise was satisfied with this marking.  Roman's hand faltered upon Sister Brandywine, either due to her apparent suspicion of him or perhaps his lack of comfort at being so near a beautiful woman, and the mark on her arm proved to be unsightly.  She promised herself to get it corrected by a proper cruorpunctist as soon as possible.

After this, Throgmorton who wished to celebrate the first success of his new career, went to the gaming rooms of the Alabaster Brow.  The rather small room had only a few dice and card games but there was also an intriguing sign for something called "Go Fish."  The rest of the party had followed more to ensure that Throgmorton stayed out of trouble than any desire for a game of chance.

When Throgmorton inquired as to the game, the bartender produced a small fishing pole and indicated a large bucket filled with sea water.  "Catch the fish that's in there in half a minute and you double your wager."

Incredulous at the seeming ease of the challenge, Throgmorton pointed at the barrel of dark water, asking, "Catch a fish from this small thing?"  

Suddenly, a very large creature leapt from the bucket and latched onto Throgmorton's arm with its razor sharp teeth.  

"It don't count if the fish catches you!" the bartender said as he pried the creature off Throgmorton's arm with a large set of prongs ad tossed it back in the water.

Throgmorton fumed as blood dripped from his arm. He tossed the fishing pole aside and thrust his arm into the bucket.  He plucked the creature out instantly, the sharp teeth chafing at his fingers.

"I suppose that's a winner," said the none-too-impressed bartender.

"So ye are good at the catching of sea monsters?" came a voice from the corner of the room.

There was a group of Pilts at one of the tables who had taken interest in Throgmorton's enterprise.

A middle-aged man among them said, "Your skills may be need here."

Throgmorton asked, "A sea monster?  We're in the hills, far from the sea.  How could one get here?"

"It walked."

To be continued...

A Device Infernal III

 

A Device Infernal

Chapter III: To the Crimson Bayou

Now Pyere Barouse, known by everyone as the Com'dor, was not a bad man.  He was proud and he could be foolish, particularly in thinking he had more control over things than he did.  But everything he did was for the love of his children. And when he died, it was in the saving of them and just about everyone else in Salteon. 

For had he not sacrificed himself and blown up that big ironclad boat, none would have gotten out there.  As it was, they had just enough time to load up on the Virago. Matre Viltote and Post Master Mercier got everyone on to the canoes, and bateux and anything else that would float and headed them on up to Matre Viltote’s secret place on Green Leaf Bayou.  

Now they were about a half a league up from Salteon, whose fires lit up the whole night. Matre’s canoe, with Vangeline still motionless inside it, was lashed to the Virago, and Leon was saying some mighty powerful conjuring to keep that boiler hot as the fires of Hell.  

They had just passed Kobold’s Bend when they see coming up from a deep cut a big steam launch pulling a couple of big batueax and in the bow of each of them boats, there was a trapeuse turning their long rifles toward the Virago.  

And across the water, they could the spellcasters in each boat, mumbling their incantations about to bring some big magic down on them.  And in the middle of that big launch there was Shad Le Duc, and two his time-jumping dogs and him fiddling away at the watch that controlled them so that as they got close enough, he was going to send them forward a minute or two to be inside the Virago.

Servan took some shots at the oncoming boats but none found their mark.  Brother Maksen cut the big fishing net loose, hoping to foul the launch but that was unlikely.

Just as he had finished dropping the net into the water, the two riflemen in the bow of the launch turned their guns on the unlucky priest.  One shot struck him right beneath the shoulder blade and he fell onto the deck near the cabin.  Leon looked up from where he was tending the boiler and said, "Preacher man, that god of yours is sure neglectful, that's the third time you were shot in as many days!" Maksen began chanting a healing spell on himself.

In the meantime, Fiddlesticks summoned up one of them friends he had made while he had been planted down below.  It formed up in the water just in front of the steam launch and it looked for all the world like a giant version of that candied ogreberry tart that had cursed Vangeline.  But it could move on its own, and it swam down the side of the launch, hoping to get at Shad Le Duc.

It suddenly leapt into the boat at Shad's throat.  But the serf-hunter was a wily one and cut deep into the thing with his sharp hunting knife.  Some said that knife had been blessed by an dark loa and could cut near about anything.

That Mivioran sailor that was piloting the launch weren't no riverman while Sabeen knew them waters like the back of her hand.  She glided the Virago in amongst some mangroves where the rifle shots and spells from their pursuers went awry in the tangled growth.

As she made that turn, Servan jumped off onto the shore, hoping to repay Shad and his boys with a little sniping of his own.

Seeing as how Fiddlesticks' candy hadn't worked out so well, Coralie used her gardening magic to summon up some of the river weed to entangle Shad.  It dragged him off the boat into the water.

Shad's men didn't notice him going overboard.  Back on the Virago, Skeeter picked up Leon's keg of moonfire whiskey and hurled it toward the launch.  Jbili shot at the soaked rag he had placed in the bung of the keg igniting it.  The Virago was close enough to shore for the dwarf to scramble over to join Servan.

The burning keg drifted towards the launch just about the time the net Maksen had cut loose finally reached it as well.

The launch failed to avoid either.  The keg smashed onto the bow and started a small fire.  The net passed under the boat and snared the propeller of the launch.  The steam boat lurched to a halt and the two towed bateaux slammed into its rear.

Servan took this opporutnity to fire at the launch's boiler, hoping to explode it.  He missed again, proving him an embarrassment to the fine shooting traditions of the Yando trapeuse.  Despite the confusion reigning on the boats, Shad's men did not miss.  Two fat bullets struck Servan despite him hiding in that thick jungle.  Fortunately, Jbili made it up to him by now and pulled the furious trapeuse to safety.

Sabeen kept right on through the mangroves, the distance between them and their pursuers increasing by the moment.  Jbili dragged Servan to the boat and the Virago sped away.  Soon they realized that their pursuers had given up.

As the sun was setting, they arrived at Matre Viltote's "secret place," a small shack hidden among high marsh grasses.  They helped Coralie bring Vangeline onto the porch of the shack where a cool breeze might soothe her. Although she showed no sign of movement, they could see in her eyes fear and the grief from being told of her father's death.  Fiddlesticks struck up a tune, a Yando song often played at a loved one's death, full of fond remembrance and sweet consolation.  The others sang softly along and Vangeline's eye were still sad but seemed comforted.

"We're out of danger now, Coralie. It's all right to cry." said Brother Maksen.

"I'll cry after I've saved my sister.  Then, will I have the time for it," she responded.

After a fine dinner prepared by Placeed, Matre Viltote said she would do some scrying to see what had happened around them and where their road might lead.  

As she began preparing her scrying pot, Jbili asked how she was in the form of a young woman when previously she had appeared old.

"This is not the time for such vanity so I've put it aside," said the mambo.

When the pot was ready, she looked into out and said she saw Lord Alabastre's yacht sailing away from Cacaton with all those Mivior marines and Shad Le Duc's serf-hunters onboard.  They sailed up to Fort Flumens, the only one of the Emperor's garrisons still guarding the river. 

Claiming to report an act of piracy, Lord Alabaste and his men were allowed in the fort.  They seized control of the gate and the Miviorans rushed in, killing the General and his soldiers. A whole Mivioran fleet came up the River Deep bearing a whole army of mercenaries hired by the grandees to keep the Emperor from enforcing his proclamation.  There would be war for sure, and the Yando were going be on their own.

The Miviorans and Shad and his men  came up to Salteon to capture the Com'dor and find out where the gunpowder the General had given the Yando might be hid.  Lord Alabastre decided to combine this with his own personal revenge and so sent the cursed tarts to Vangeline, hoping she could be captured the easier by being an invalid.

Matre also looked to their path ahead.  She said that the great necromancer, the bokor Lazar Mirande, was present on Bayou Crimson.  They would find him by heading up the main channel.  His house is surrounded by standing rocks, like fingers. 

The next morning, they loaded what few supplies they could from Matre's shack and prepared to head up river.  Each of them said goodbye to Vangeline.  Fiddlesticks promised she would dance once more to the sound of his fiddle while Placeed said she would taste all that that the world had to offer once more and Servan said in his roguish way that he would track down the Crystal Lilies, or he was no trapeuse. Sabeen offered her an oyster taken from the water, a remembrance of a childhood joke and looked long into Vangeline's eyes before nodding her head with an unspoken promise.  Finally, Skeeter walked up to her and said, "Ya'll goin be alright, Vangeline... and, if you aren't going have that oyster, I jes' might help myself..." 

A few hours later they came to the mouth of Bayou Crimson. As they turned into it, the sun which was still out in the summer sky, dimmed perceptively and an unnatural quiet began to pervade the surroundings.

Brother Maksen said a prayer to Saint Sankari, the great martyr for the god Huisinga, asking for aid in determining if danger was near.   As he prayed, he perceived everything as in a mist.  He saw that countless malign spirits were circling the boat.  They were too weak to affect the material world but Maksen could feel their rage and enmity and wondered if their power increased further up the bayou.

Then, he was filled with a burst of hope and his courage redoubled.  He sensed that some great, good power was watching over them.

They continued to sail on.  Coming around a bend, they saw furtive movement in the brush lining the bank.  Servan, Jbili, and Skeeter waded to the shore.  The two former soldiers moving stealthily, hoping to secretly scout whatever was in the brush.

Skeeter was less careful.  Spotting a big fat frog, he couldn't resist. He cried out in excitement and leapt after it as it hopped away into the woods.

Just as he caught the little creature, he heard the sound of several muskets being cocked.  A large and heavily armed goblin war party emerged from the brush and surrounded him.  Suddenly, one of the goblins cried out, "Cousin Skeeter?"

It proved to be, in fact, Skeeter's cousin, Cooter.  The goblin stated that they were chasing a lizardman war party that had raided their village.  They had tracked the lizardmen this far but they intended to follow no further since the bayou was proving too frightening.  When asked about Lazar Mirande, Cooter said he heard the bokor lived on a small side branch off the main channel, maybe a day's further sail up the bayou.  He said they would know the area by the death wardings that surrounded the bokor's lair. Wishing them luck, the goblins hastily departed.

Jbili was quizzical about Skeeter's relationship to the goblins. "You didn't say you were part goblin, you said you were half elf."

"I am!" said Skeeter without further explanation.

They traveled further up Bayou Crimson.  As the light began to fade into the eastern sky, they found a shallow cut in which to shelter for the night, fearing to sail unseeing into the darkness.  They took watches by turn, most of the party sleeping on the deck as a wind whispered through the high grasses.

While Servan was on watch, he suddenly spotted a few golden lights dancing above the waiving grass.  He was overcome by a feeling that these were the most beautiful things he had ever seen and he must follow them wherever they led.

He slipped over the side into thigh-high waters, rushing toward the lights. 

The sound of his splashing awoke Brother Maksen and Jbili.  They were shocked to see Servan recklessly plunging through the water.

The two leapt overboard as well, the vast bulk of Jbili splashing with the sound of a striking cannon ball.  The mountain-born dwarf, who did not know how to swim, found himself up to his neck in the water.

Servan was oblivious to their calls and proceeded into the ever deepening waters in pursuit of the elusive dancing lights.

By this point, the rest of the boat was awake.  Brother Maksen, having studied the arcane, recognized the lights as Will O' the Wisps, malignant spectral creatures who lured people to their death in the wetlands. He called out to avoid looking at them, warning of the danger.  Sabeen responded, "O yes, we know them very well, the fi follet, souls of dead children who prank the living into joining their play in the deep waters."  Taking up her pilot's speaking horn, she repeated the warning as well as a discursion on this natural phenomenon.

 

While most of them heeded the priest's words, Jbili looked to closely.  He began rushing after the lights.  Fortunately, his short legs and unfamiliarly with moving through standing water this deep slowed his movement toward destruction.

Fiddlesticks levitated out of the boat, hoping to lasso Servan.  Maksen called out to Servan to gain his attention but there was no response.  Skeeter who was adept at throwing all manner of things, flung a rock at the trapeuse, striking him in the back of the head.  Servan turned at this and Maksen cast a blinding light upon him, hoping that temporarily blinding would slow his rush into the marsh. Coralie cast an entanglement spell upon him as well, causing the grasses to entangle the trapeuse.

 

Servan was still under the spell of the fi follet and when he thrashed blindly about, the entangling weeds dragged him under the water.  Fortunately, Skeeter was near at hand.  An accomplished wet stomper, he was adept at the bare handed fishing skill known as noodling.  He reached his hand under the water and thrust his hand into Servan's mouth.  Then he flung Servan by the jaw into the air. 

 The levitating Fiddlesticks snatched Servan out of the air and spirited him back onto the Virago.  This allowed Skeeter and Maksen time to focus their attention on the submerged dwarf.

They plucked Jbili up and returned him to the boat.  The rest of the night was spent fitfully but peacefully.  As the dim morning sun arose, they proceeded up the bayou.

After a few hours travel, they came upon a grove of giant mushrooms.  Three small figures were running panic-stricken among the tall shoots.

As they approached the shore, they saw that it was three mushroom shaped men, calling out that they were being attacked.

To be continued...