shifty louts

Wolves of Thracia Session 1: Theodora Resplendent

thraciapink

Players

Summary

Winegard holds the knife that stabbed the master. The other enslaved oarsmen of the trireme, spurned by this freedom cry, fall upon the master, beating him as Winegard stabs them over and over, earning them the title Master Killer from the others.

The master’s body is dumped into the wine-dark ocean. The trimere gallops across the roiling waves of the misty sea until landing upon a pebble beach.

A humid jungle lies further past the stony beach. Through the foliage, a cyclopean structure of sun-bleached white still stands. The remains of a cobblestone road lie choked with waist-high grasses.

Winegard and Heggid lead three brave companions, the strong Pheronikos, the silent Melania, and the lithe Dmitir, as they investigate the ruins. The structure is clearly ancient, from the stone’s trees bloom. The structure’s stones are taller than a man.

Heggid climbs a tree to get a better vantage, finding the surface flat and also covered with more trees. The five ascend, finding the structure mostly flat. They carefully head west across its surface, surveying ahead.

A snapped stick ahead alerts the free thralls. Three figures march in the same direction, backs turned. Upon their heads, dirty ivory theater masks of a snarling dog. Dirty and frayed robes. Each carries a dented and chipped great sword.

Winegard readies their axe; the others do the same as they charge forth, catching the figures unaware. Winegard’s axe digs into the shoulder of one as Heggid’s flail smashes into the hip of another as Pheronikos, Melania, and Dmitir attack the other. Their weapons find purchase, wounds that would fell a mortal; however, no blood nor scream emits from the snarling masks of these fiends.

Flurries of blows and graceful arcs of steel that dig into bloodless flesh. Grunts emit from the masked ones. Dmitir’s sling hits one in the head as it charges. A downward cut slices the lithe one in two from the shoulder to the stomach. Quickly followed by Winegard, who is shorn from the hip.

Heggid and the remaining armsmen retreat, followed quickly by the Ivory-Masked Dogs who stop at the edge of the cyclopean structure and watch them escape. The bodies of Winegard and Dimitr are left where they fell as the survivors reach the ship.

The group recovers from those losses of the one who killed the master. Pheronikos speaks of attempting to rescue the body of Winegard, worrying that the spirit of Winegard will be under the auspices of the fiends who killed them.

Another two steps forward, an educated man, Nazim, a speaker of Arabic, and the armswoman, Theodora, grab her spear and shield that bears a scorpion image.

Urged to action by the sacrifice of the Master Killer. The thralls decide to avoid the area, heading southward along the pebble beach, avoiding the larger white structure.

Following the coast, the humid jungle follows as the sun attempts to part the mist and fog that enshroud this malignant isle. The thralls plunge back into the jungle, find an opening that rests just before the white cyclopean structure. Further to the west of the jungle’s thinning, a copse of trees sprouts from a low pile of black rock.

The group finds ancient stone steps descending into the pitch blackness. Steps bowed and indented by thousands of feet across thousands of years. Nazim prepares a lantern as Pheronikos and Theodora, the most well-armed and hungry for vengeance, take point out front.

The group descends but is soon shocked to find the tunnel passages low and narrow, made for men much smaller than them. Ahead, just at the edge of the lantern’s light, a man dressed in dirty animal hides holds a stone spear and turns as he runs. His footsteps echo. The thralls give chase, seeing him cross a wooden bridge spanning an empty chasm.

Soon the man reaches the other side, as more of his ilk join him. The thralls decide to meet them upon the wooden bridge. A clash of weapons as the one, a man dressed in grey robes, issues commands in a strange language to them. The group of the spearman, two stone club wielders, and the grey one reach the other side, clashing to push their way forward.

A man wielding a stone mace cracks Pheronikos across the face as the spearman behind follows quickly, fell the strong Pheronikos. Theodora and Nazim hold the line as Haggid attempts to get Pheronikos’s spear.

The press continues, as Theodora fells one and Nazim throws their lantern at the leader, missing, plunging the group into twilight. Theodora’s shield protects against more blows. The Grey One takes a bundle of tied herbs and mushrooms and utters an incantation that seems to draw the pneuma from Theodora, as her skin blisters and boils. Yet she still stands defiant.

Nazim attempts to cut the rope bridge, its thick cordage difficult to saw through, as Theodora is pushed back as the fiends push their way further across the bridge onto land. Heggid lands a blow, felling another.

A tense back-and-forth, as Theodora is able to drive the fiends back. She picks up the spear of Pheronikos, throwing it into the side of the Grey One. The two try to retreat across the bridge, but are felled by the thralls who give chase.

Theodora drives her spear into the throat of the Grey One, as she collapses exhausted. Heggid applies bandages as Nazim and Melania retrieve strange items from the Grey One and Spearman: a bundle of herbs and a small leather purse of dirt and ash, and a whistle engraved into the shape of a human skull.

The group presses forward, curious to see the room from which these strange men emerged. They find a domed room, encircled with black curtains. In the middle of the room is a basin with human skulls, some recently flensed, others bearing marks where a stone knife bit deeply during the scalping.

A 20’ tall obsidian statue of a winged man with yellow-orange eyes dominates the room, emitting a malignant aura. Nazim is overtaken by such idolatry, kicking the basin of skulls over as Heggid looks behind the curtains.

Overcome by iconoclastic fury, seeking to rid this place of this evil statue, Nazim gazes upon it and intones the shahada unto it

أَشْهَدُ أَلَّا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ

I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

As Nazim’s eyes meet the idol, an overwhelming sense of dread, ancient and reptilian, strikes through him. His muscles tense, refusing to budge, as he falls to the floor in utter terror, unable to speak. The rest of his companions attend to him as the blood returns to Nazim’s arms and legs.

Seeking not to stay for a second more in this place that not even Hades would be welcomed in, or so says Theodora, the group leaves, gathering the body of Pheronikos and making their way back to the trireme.

Upon the shores of this forsaken isle, the free thralls bury strong Pheronikos, building a cairn where his body is interred.

Aftermath

Treasure Found:

Foes Encountered:

Rumors:

Deaths:

Notes

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