Roots of Darker Times by Gravesong PDF Print E-mail

Roots of Darker Times by Gravesong

So after seven years away I'm back, changed a bit but still nails.  Took me all of a month to get bored back in the Nation so when da recruiting posters went up I was out of there like a shot.  Apparently some bad shit was going down and needed a good boot to da face.

Who else was dere'?

Kandi Greyspider - Boss.  Sorcerer Warlocky type and not nearly as spikky as you might expect for a drow.
Woooolf - Scouty Fighter type with a fondness for crosses of all shapes.  2nd in command.
Jux - Fighty Chop your legs off type.
Nathan - More priest than one body should hold.  Useful chap.
Sister Mary - Smiley Medic.  Potential wife material.
Spark - Sorcerer of fire, odd relationship with his sword.
Flint - Dwarf smith, can make some cool stuff even if he's not sure what it's going to be when it starts
Malice - Deranged druid.  
Jonathon - Cartographer without a map
Kyle - Chief Sentinel chap, potentially allergic to certain teleport types
Lan - Posterboy for the brooding loner crowd.  Bet the chicks dig it imagining he's all cuddly and vulnerable underneath da exterior.  Hint ladies. . HE's NOT!

Oh and Me. Gravesong. Crusader . . erm Sentinal of the White Retreat . . erm. . Somewhere yet to be decided.

What happened?
Rather than tell da whole story I figured I'd give da summary and let someone else do the "then so and so struck high and Gravey bravely dove in front and took the brunt of it" stuff.  As lets face it next time we's all out in da field dat stuff makes for good over a pint chatting but when you need to get down to doing your job you need da facts.  So here goes.


White Magic Node
A bunch of Mescona (we'll come to then later) appeared on top of one of the White Nodes of magic (fink it was the Light one.  The Ice one was in da lands of the Asgaard fellas and got done in a while ago).  Da Mescona Boss (RIP - see later) called the Master of Lore out of da big pillar thing and stabbed him up with a dagger of inky darkness (oooh poetic).  He went from all shiny and bright to dark and spikky before my eyes then started kicked our heads in.  I think we eventually did it in by catapulting walnuts at it from the silver spoon while hopping on one leg. . or it might just have been really fecking hard (Editors Note: Being a master of lore this seems more likely).  As a result of dis white magic is no longer working on Orin Rakatha although items will still work if youse got em.

Mescona
Are an evil bunch of shits. (Editors Note:  While accurate this isn't entirely useful).

Oh you want more?  Right then.  Eons ago (Editors Note:  Oh dear I hope he doesn't overdo this now) dere was a young aspect of spideryness which for the sake of the tale we will call Llolth.  She had a number of worshippers who really liked her and wanted to make her da best.  Dere was a few Humans, a Night Goblin, a couple of drow, a Duergar  totalling eight.  Dey were Da Mescona.  Dey eventually as all spikky types do decided they fancied a bit more power and started taking Shadowmancy stuff (which is one step from da void) from Velash a nasty aspecty type who wasn't too fond of Lloth.  Dere was disagreements and stabbings until Lloth eventually bound da Mescona up in Anne Ach Morranninannal (Editors Note:  he tries).  

Wiv da towers all blown up da Mescona are now free and running about the place trying to bring Velash to OR which would be 'Catastrophic' to quote an aspect with more legs than you really want to see on a body (more on that later).  To do dis deyve started by removing Light and having a go at Fire (one of those nodes is gone too) as it is apparently good vs the void.  Suspicion is dat dey will move on Good nodes of power next but as there is six of dem they probably thought it best to crack on with magicy ones first.

Should probably say dere used to be 8 Mescona and now hopefully there is less.  We killed da Boss (spangly god and white chap with a dagger and a fucking deadly scarf thing) who was human, a lanky human with a stabby spear, fink we did for one of da drow and another one which may or may not have been the Night Goblin.  One of them in particular (a very sneaky shadowmancer assassin type) kept getting away.  He will be back to haunt us probably.  Especially as nations aren't actually safe to sleep in. . who thought that was a good idea??? I thought we got to make the rules?? How come we said "Nah that's OK we don't need perfectly safe places to put our heads down. .once you've been out in the wilds stabbing people who can instantly appear behind you in the dark and cut your head off why on earth would you want somewhere _SAFE_ to kip???"  Fucks sake.

Still probably worth giving them a good stab if you see one around.  Dey are definitely up to no good.


Sad News for Mistweavers, Good news for Triangles, Potentially Good News for Mistweavers
In good news (ish) to start off.  We did manage to put an end to the misery of Gerbilslut Fantasies (Editors Note:  Burblegut Fanasia) reign of terror in the Icarthian Triangle.  It was a long slog consisting of much planning and preparation (Well done Kandi) but he was eventually defeated.   The cost was high though.  Not only has OR lost one of the original mistweavers but Arnold Sparkfist, three walk mistweaver was killed aiding us against him as was a one walk mistweaver who's name I missed while I was dodging his head that was thrown at us.  Hopefully someone noted it down as I feel quite bad that I don't know it.

Slag.  Troll Warrior of the Valley has also become da first member of the Valley to take "Da Long Walk" into da mists with da intention of becoming a new Mistweaver.  Good Luck Slag.


Spiders and Spikkiness
So we met Lloth.  Or sort of.  Da Grey Man, who is also know as Aaron, is da leader of the House of the Weaver.  He turned up and gave us loads of info although I was guarding so you'll need to talk to Kandi for da details.  But he did offer us more history by summoning their Master of Lore from the node of eeeevil on their lands.  Turns out she takes the form of a big spider.  She gave us loads of good stuff about Mescona and da history of underground spikkly types.  However she doesn't know where Kevvie Babes is?  Does anyone else know?  (Editors Note:  Kevvie Babes based on other party reports refers to Lady Kevralyn Soulfire, Matriach of House Drannath)


You want a fight? You'll need some weapons (also.  Oops was that a valuable bloodline?)
So some of da info we got off the Grey Bloke and Spider thing was dat weapons of Fire, Life and Ice were really good at fighting the Void (Gerbilslut) and the Shadow (Mescona) so we could probably do we a few.  Apparently there is a sword of Ice being wielded by Andrew of Halmaddons Heights but he was wasn't available to acquire it from.  The Grey bloke managed to get hold of some useful ores and alloys and we happened to have a handy Dwarf in tow so we we figured we'd give it a bash ourselves (Editors note:  Gravesong may have missed the importance of these weapons.  Reports indicate that the fates aligned in this time and place for these weapons to come forth.  They have done so on a number of planes previously with Illiyana being of particular note).

Flint bashed away in the rain for a while and an old fella from the Otomi rocked up and offered himself up as a sacrifice to create the weapon of life.  He was consumed and apparently it turned out he was the last of one of the bloodlines which I'll mention later which is a bit awkward.  Still thanks Otomi fella you'll be remembered . . . even if I never caught your name.  In the end we had the Staff of Life which was borne in battle by Kandis and is carried by him now.

Second go around saw a massive important flame spirit called Lavous rock up.  He agreed to help if we (Dat is Nathan, Spark and Me) agreed to fix the Node of Pyromancy on OR as it is a bad thing that fire can't get here as easy. He poured part of himself into the blade Flint was making.  When he was done though the Mescona Boss popped up and gave him a good murdering with a black knife which is a real shame as he seemed alright.  It was at this point we did for the Mescona leader.

The Blade of Flame, named VoidReaper by Flint was given to me to wield against Gerbilslut but as it is a blade and has some significance with Drow House numbers Lan took it in the end.  


New bits of the Map and New allies (wimps)
We did a fair bit of teleporting around during the course of da mish.  In particular we popped down to the Lastgate Woods in da South East and we reckon given Snakey Spikky types were present that dis is where the Halls of Sutekh are hiding.

We also met the Halls of Asgaard's King.  They seem to be barbaric fighty types and drink a lot.  However after promising to join our fight against the voidiness dey apparently spoke to a witch or hag or something which told them this "wasn't their fight" so they stayed at home instead.  Wasn't impressed.

People who did support us well were;  Wizards Concillium (lots of useful support), Saldoriain (lent what troops they had in the area), Knights of His Dark Majesty (lead by Sir Kylar),  Labyrinthe of Xenos (lots of help from Waylan),  House of the Weaver (although I reckon he was doing it for his own reasons as much as to help).

Shout out to Kudo's group too, Kudos, Kass, Ichabod, Slurry, Slag, Kurt, Kurts excellent apprentice and all the others I shared a beer with if not much of a chat!


Cormac and Healing the Land
The land was is a mess.  It was all horrid, poisoned and stuff.  Turns out the way to sort it was to summon Cormac who is an avatar of the tree of life. To do this we had to fetch a bunch of mats linked to the seasons and then summon him to us.  That sentence was a lot quicker to type than actually do.  Laire Tinwe gave us spring which kicked off the whole show.  From there we travelled backward.  The Kalid crimson feast held winter and we had to take it off them by force obviously.  Summer was in the hands of the CeeBees who were duelled for honour by Spark and Kyle who won by dint of only losing both arms and keeping his legs intact! GO SENTINEL POWER!  From there we found Autumn which was a Deathknight and his mates in the Mossflower Wood.  The central one was held by the Halls of Suckthat (Editors Note:  He is clearly just being an arse here as he referred to them properly earlier) in the south east.

Cormac was eventually summoned and talked to us for bit.  He set us on a task to free one of his Dryads and kill a beast in the darkness (dere was a special way to kill him but it escapes me what da method was. . chop his foot off maybe?).  We did this by Sister Mary giving the dryad a good singing at which was lovely and then we found the Beast in question was another of the Mescona along with the Shadowmancer who kept running off) and it was at this point he was murdered while his mate ran off again.

All in all this seemed to do the trick and the according to Malice, who even if he is barking mad, is a druid things seem to be on the up.  No more rivers of blood and shit.  Also apparently Arbor who is a Lord of the Valley has stopped being a tree and is walking about again? Maybe? I dunno.


Bloodlines
So it turns out from discussion dat Orin Rakafa is some sort of prison.  Da bars of dis prison are made up of a bunch of bloodlines.  The Valley seem to have managed to murder a bunch of them meaning there is one bar left which is some old Snifflehiem (Editors Note: Sneverhiem, I believe this is an attempt at poking fun at Khandis) Shaman who lives in da mountains which sounds totally reliable.  Dis means we have to sort out da lines and either get em back or come up wiv some new ones.   Da ones we are missing is
Sir Danis - Came from Illyiana
Otomi - Dis needs looking at.  Pretty sure da archives has got a mission about dere homeworld so should start there?
Halls of Sutehk bloke - Probably somewhere spikky?  Maybe Axos?
Shendia - No idea.

Also not sure if it is da same but where are da River People?  We probably want them back to right or it'll be tricky getting to da central isle for da Time of Reckoning (Assuming that is still a thing?? Did we change that too???)


So in summary, lots of ticks

Kill Burbglegut Fantasty
Fix the Land
Kill Mescona 1
Kill Mescona 2
Kill Mescona 3
Kill Mescona 4
Forge Sword of Fire
Forge Staff of Life
Fetch Mat of Summer
Fetch Mat of Winter
Fetch Mat of Autumn
Fetch Central Mat  (you know I think Kandi got a bit generous with his Ticks toward the end)


Some leftovers and new stuff

Kill Mescona 5
Kill Mescona 6
Kill Mescona 7
Kill Mescona 8
Fix node of Pyromancy
Fix node of Ice
Fix node of Light
Sort out some bloodlines
Find da River people
Find Kevvie Babes and work out why no-one seems to care she's been missing two years.


I'll be in the pub

Gravesong,
 
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