Session 2 - In Which Many Obfuscations are Swept Away to Reveal Larger Questions

After a day's worth of navigating the swirling landscape by the light of the strobing sky, the warriors spied another set of lights in the distance. Cautioned by their earlier encounter, they stole towards the nearest metal shard and circumvented the lights, sending Ashpaw ahead. He returned with a resolute nod and drew his blade with a grin. In mere moments, the warriors were upon them, ripping the lights to fetters before they had the opportunity to fully coalesce. Howling back in mockery of the lightspawn screams, the group was silenced abruptly by a deep thrumming. Looking up, between the flashes in the clouds, a monstrous titan walked with deliberate, booming, invisible footfalls.

Ramfell turned to Torym. "How far?"

"... Miles yet. " The Gnoll whispered.

Bolstered by their quick victory, they decided to continue towards the crater's center. Mere minutes into the journey, and the warriors were halted by a hailing voice from behind. They drew their weapons and readied themselves as two figures pushed through the dust towards them, illuminated only by the coruscation of the sky.

"Five years already?" The taller one queried. "Be easy. We mean no harm."

Mahog, a Shifter, and the calmer of the two explained to the group that he and his weary Half-Orc companion, Vulcan, had been hopefuls from the previous expedition. They told the group that they were originally five, and that the crater is not all dust and storms. Deeper in, between patrols of ancient things, there grew gardens in open sunlight with edible fruits and pure water. They would join the warriors in their quest to the center, if they would be obliged.

Tarkrim narrowed his eyes at the two. "What of your companions, travelers? Where are they now?"

Ashpaw whispered to Tarkrim. "You suspect an ambush?"

Tarkrim turned, replying. "I suspect much."

Vulcan removed his hood and grimaced with disgust, telling them that the leader of their group knew something about the stones' ability to grant power and persuaded endlessly that they should be had for their own gain. In the night, Vulcan told, he slipped away treacherously. Mahog and Vulcan had awoken to find him gone and hunted him for hours, finally killing him for his treason. When they had returned to camp, the other two had gone. Vulcan's voice appeared shaken, as though trying to contain terror, rage, or both.

"Gone where, exactly?" Minas asked, clearly feeling that Mahog and Vulcan were hiding something.

"--We aren't sure, exactly" Mahog interjected. "They are traitors --that much is known. Can we not continue on your journey? It has been some time since we've had reinforcements against this wasteland."

----

Seeing no clear reason to distrust the pair, the party ventured further, now stronger by two. The further they traveled, the less cyclopean shards punctuated the darkness with harsh reflections and the more the dust seemed to solidify under their feet and rise ahead of them in sets of highly gothic ruins of reflective, black glass.

After hours of navigating what soon became the obvious ghost of an obliterated metropolis, the roaring sounds of battle burst and clanged in harsh echoes through towards the warriors. Voices boomed and howled, flashes of light challenged the lightning in brilliance, and the earth vibrated under thunderous slams. Now unofficially categorized as the group's spotter, Torym spidered himself up the nearest ruined wall before abruptly dropping down and returning to the group.

"Only three." He let this surprising fact sink in before continuing. "A Hobgoblin and an Orc fight a large beast of metal. They are illuminated by some strange power."

"And are these your companions, Shifter?" Ramfell demanded. "Tell us what you know!"

Mahog shared a look with Vulcan before sighing in resignation. "The Hobgoblin is Garnt; the Orc, Krusk. They somehow each found one of the stones for himself and began to supplement their power with them. From what we understand, the metal creatures contain the stones, and we've spent these last five years sabotaging their further acquisition by ambushing their attempts."

Vulcan again summoned his visage of disgust. "With the stones, they've grown far too strong for us to engage directly. It's shaming to us." He hooded himself again and drew his sword with a snarl.

The group reached an unspoken decision and shared its conclusion with one another with a singular nod. As they tore around the nearest ruin to engage the twin traitors, the Orc Krusk bellowed a cry of warning to Garnt, who saw the small army approaching and roared. Shaping the metallic dust to his will, the Hobgoblin enveloped his blade with the congealing material as the ancient, glossy construct retaliated by unlocking the floating hemispheres of his abdomen and spewed familiar light as a turret, forming lightspawn from his own bosom. With a spin, Garnt snapped his blade through the air, causing a shockwave beyond the dust's material, turning the jettisoned debris into tiny spears, killing the newborn lightspawn and driving the construct backward with the blast.

Krusk launched himself at the warriors, charging with his shield before spinning his axe into his palm, defining the combat distance before the party could reposition. Ashpaw, Ramfell, Minas, and Vulcan peppered the air around Krusk with strikes as he spun and roared with the fury of combat, keeping them from engaging Garnt at the front line. Tarkrim, seemingly unconcerned with Krusk, ducked under an axe swing, trying to gain a wider view of the battlefield.

The obsidian construct mewed with an ancient whirring as he ejected four more lights from his unfolding breast, spawning more flowing, dustborn assailants. Garnt caught a stone fist against the broad side of his blade, sending him backwards, nearer to Krusk. Seeing an attacker to his right, he turned to engage before redoubling his efforts against the guardian. He stopped in his own running footprints when he saw Tarkrim in full. "... Brother?!"

Frustrated by the lack of progress they were making against Krusk, Minas' patience broke at this new revelation. "Tarkrim! Kill him!"

Tarkrim, turning his indecision into resolution turned to the charging lightspawn to his immediate right, destroying it with his glaive with a single swing before diving under the congealing weapon of another of the creatures as he tried to engage the construct. The eldritch creature of stone bucked with seemingly sympathetic pains as its progeny were slain.

Distracted by the turn of events, Krusk caught a blade to his leg, dropping him to one knee before the butt of a weapon drove him unconscious to the ground. Ashpaw kicked Krusk's shield, exposing the Orc's midsection. He directed his victorious companions to Krusk's chest, where a large, amber stone was embedded in his sternum where it pulsed rhythmically with light.

Torym, guarding Tarkrim against the lightspawn's attacks with well-placed arrows, yelped a warning to the rest of the group. They looked up to find the two hobgoblins unable to keep the construct at bay as it advanced upon them with crushing fists and a small army of lightspawn.

Garnt, finally noticing how Krusk had fallen to the warriors cried out. "You fools! It will destroy us!" He leapt into their center, driving his blade into the ground, creating a harmonious sound which abolished the group's fatigue and awakened Krusk again to the battlefield. The group only had a moment to allow for confusion before the construct swung its impossible anatomy into the air, leaping at the group with a symphony of blows.

The group was clearly surrounded on all sides by the lightspawn horde as the construct moved to box them in for easy smashing.

The Shifter, Mahog yelled "The small ones! Kill the small ones!" as a rift of fire opened from his fist, destroying one of the lighstpawn in an eruption of smoke and sound.

On command, the group neatly dispatched two more of the smaller creatures while Minas and Ramfell bucked the guardian's efforts while Tarkrim assailed it from behind. It groaned monstrously as its conspirators were slain, clearly affected physically by their loss. In a move of frustration, it spun on one of its untold axises, bringing both fists to bare against the group as a whole. In a tactically genius maneuver, the warriors stepped behind the remaining lightspawn, dragging it into the path of the fists. Once the creature was swept away as mere smoke under the construct's flailings, the black monster fell onto its arms abruptly as its animation simply ceased.

The creature's matter began to shimmer after a moment before bursting with heat and light, leaving in its tiny crater, a pulsating, amber gem. Seeing opportunity, Garnt slapped Krusk on the back and began to flee. Krusk, slowed by his earlier felling, detached the large satchel that he'd strapped to his back, tossing it into the warriors in an attempt to slow their pursuit and followed Garnt into the darkness.

Uncowed by this suddenness, Torym readied his bow and fired, striking Krusk in the shoulder, dropping him immediately to the ground from the force. Torym moved forward to inspect the shot before a figure charged at Krusk, yanking the arrow from his shoulder and yelling a single booming word to restore the Orc.

"... Tarkrim?"

Tarkrim stood between Torym and fleeing Orc with a challenging gaze for a very tense moment. Receiving no reply, he abruptly shouldered his glaive as he turned away and began to follow the two into the darkness, leaving the young warriors behind.


( Edwin and Josh joined the campaign as Mahog(Cleric) and Vulcan(Avenger), respectively. Jon had to work, so Gunjir's actions didn't bear mentioning this week. )