Don met Krinn at tavern under the rooms at the Dreaded Horseman, where he was staying. Krinn had elected to stay at the Elvish embassy, since it was convenient to her magic lessons and free. She sat, and Don noticed the subtle signs of relaxing muscles, a sign he needed to be able to spot in his... line of work. "You aren’t too comfortable with them, are you?" he observed.
Krinn was startled. "Huh? Oh, the elves." She shrugged. "Prenanala’s a friend. The rest of them... I don’t know. They remind me of things I would rather forget." She frowned, staring into the distance, then mentally shook herself. "But, no matter. My lessons are going well." Krinn was picking up a fourth level spell from the elves while the Don researched Blackheart in the Hcetlac temple. He also had put out feelers on the Crystal insects and Urakai weapons, hoping to get a good price for them. The crystal insects had been easy; the price was fairly standard, and he had let them go for 36 gold, a tidy profit over what they had paid. The sword was more difficult; he had offers that ranged from ten, basically the worth of the embedded gems, to forty. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take any of the offers. But today the big news was not money; he had finally found references to Blackheart.
He paused long enough to wave over a serving wench, and they ordered. Then he continued "I’ve found some information on Blackheart and the great swords." Krinn looked attentive and nodded. "Not a lot, but some. Blackheart is wrapped around the creation of the twelve great swords... except we know it is eleven."
Krinn looked startled for a moment. "How do we know that?" Don remembered suddenly that Krinn had not been in the room when they had used the spell to find out about the strange gems.
"Rumors in Pranan." He quickly continued "Anyway, the only reference I could find was a poem about a man named Veralin, who lived around 7900." Don frowned in concentration as he recalled the poem.
"Veralin sought the center
but found underneath
lay the bones of giants
He bound his followers one by one
in the black skeleton of death
and they died by the frozen flame
but from the heart came forth
a sword of kings and heroes
twelve
times did he labor
and
twelve powers did he gather
until
he had followers no more
then
Veralin captured others
an
army of thousands
and
they died as had his friends
but
what came forth
was
not his desire
but
the sword Blackheart
made
of the rage of his enemies
Blackheart,
worldkiller, called
and
the dead rose
Veralin
fought for a year and a day
to
no avail
he
fell struck through
and
Blackheart drank his blood"
Don stopped, then said "that was it. There was more at one time, but it was destroyed in one of the Stangri raids fifty years ago."
Krinn shuddered. "Pleasant."
Don nodded, unperturbed. "Some artistic hyperbole, no doubt."
"And the Greatswords?"
"Twelve are mentioned. They were all destroyed during the fall, when the ring islands were formed. Stormbringer, a soul killer. Pathfinder, a plane shifter. Spellbreaker, a anti magic sword. Godsbane, a anti clerical sword. Shield, Demonbinder, Earthmover, Chaos, Changling, Dragonmaster, and Death. Chaos and Changling are the only swords that are not somewhat obvious from their name. Chaos is a sword who’s abilities seem to change from day to day with no obvious reason. There are stories of it causing the user to permanently polymorph into a Unicorn, making rivers run backwards, causing a building to rise suddenly from dirt and rubble, and removing all the air in a hold for an hour. All the swords seem very powerful, and give the users spell casting capabilities and magically enhanced hit and damage, from the description, three to five times that of a quality weapon." [editor’s note: QW = +1]. Changling..."
"I know about Changling" broke in Krinn. "If these other swords fall in that category, they are very powerful, and we should stay away from them."
The Don raised his eyebrows but made no further comment, and they turned to the more serious business of eating as their dinners arrived.
DOM
@ DOM has a 12 LUC, rolls a 21 on 5 dice, misses save
The Don thought about taking a different route for a moment, but shrugged his shoulders. He only had about a half dozen variations on the path between the Hectlac library and the Inn, and one was as good as another; to always vary the route was as bad as always taking the same route.
@ DOM has a 19 WIS, rolls a 18 on 5 dice, saves
It was the back alley and back door this time, and he moved quickly down the cobblestone road, moving around the piles of refuse carefully. It was approaching evening, and getting dark, but the Don had plenty of practice moving in that kind of terrain at that time of day, and his subconscious took care of avoiding trash. The only sound other than his footsteps was the quiet flutter of a few pieces of parchment blowing in the light breeze.
It was the quiet that tipped him off. He kept moving; to stop suddenly would do nothing but alert them that he was aware of the trap. He slowed down a bit and pretended to be more fastidious about avoiding the rank trash to give himself time to think. There should have been a drunk or two out at that time; the old man with the battered cloak of Kethem Navy manufacture that lived back here at a minimum, but there was no one, or at least no one obvious. He thought about prepping a spell, but they had to be ready for that. At the first sign of a prep, he would undoubtedly get hit with missile fire and lose it.
His hand slid under his cloak, loosened the ties around his sword hilt, and gently pulled it from the scabbard, while he pretended to be bending over in a coughing fit.
@ DOM changes weapon to SWORD
He drew and turned at the same time, and ran the other way, hoping the trap was only in front of him. They were good, and sometime good meant overconfident, and perhaps they had not counted on his training about setting the kind of traps he had almost walked into. Then he saw the two behind him; they had actually been following him, and he had not heard a sound. One drew a sword while the first waited almost casually with a dagger. The sword made not a sound when it freed the sheath, which meant a silence spell, which meant this was not just a set of street toughs or a team of muggers.
They were very good.
DOM is wearing / using:
SWORD LEATHER Carries no itemsBad Guy 1 is wearing / using:
SWORD LEATHERBad Guy 2 is wearing / using:
SWORD LEATHERBad Guy 3 is wearing / using:
DAGGER LEATHERBad Guy 4 is wearing / using:
SWORD LEATHER
NEW
MELEE ROUND
DOM
moves from 5 4 to 5 5
Dom slowed enough to let them move toward him a bit; to do otherwise would have left him gutting himself on their weapons. The men he knew must be behind him were totally silent as well. More silence spells. This was going to be grim indeed.
@@
NEW MELEE ROUND
Bad
Guy 4 moves from 5 8 to 5 7
Bad
Guy 3 moves from 4 8 to 4 7
Bad
Guy 2 moves from 5 1 to 5 2
DOM
moves from 5 5 to 5 6
Bad
Guy 2 moves from 5 2 to 5 3
@@
Dom went for a fast overhead swing while he had the room; after this blow, he would be in too tight with the knife fighter and would have to play a game of keep away. He had the sword on the upward part of the swing when the swordsman flipped his sword forward and out, faster than anyone had a right to move. It thudded into his armor and through, and he felt a wrenching pain in his shoulder that almost cost him the sword. It didn’t matter much; the knife fighter was in and had a dagger into the Don’s side up to the hilt and was back out again before his swing was through three quarters of its arc. The sword went into the dirt as his arms lost the capability to direct it, and he followed, confused for a moment. Why had he fallen down? Then the pain hit and he wondered if he were dying. It didn’t matter much, nor did the pain. Pain was a friend he had lived with for years. You couldn’t inflict it properly on others without understanding it yourself, and he suffered much worse than this as part of his training in the art of torture.
@@
NEW MELEE ROUND
M:3
+ H:9 + W/MP:4 + PA:2 - CA:2 - D:5;
CP:1 -> 2 x dam
Bad
Guy 4 attacks DOM and hits for 2 times damage doing 9 points
H:9
+ W/MP:2 + PA:4 + CA:5 - D:5 ; CP:1
-> 4 x dam
Bad
Guy 3 attacks DOM and hits for 4 times damage doing 17 points
DOM knocked down by force of blow!
@@
Of course, that was not from a death blow, but less intrusive, more effective ways of metering out agony.
He pulled himself together, forced his other hand to reach for a dagger. A foot stepped on his good arm, surprisingly gently. He tried to move the other arm, but it would not obey him. He realized that he was dead. If the wounds didn’t do it, the questions would, since the Grettle worm would kill him when he broke. Even in his current state, he knew he would if they were good enough, and they were clearly good enough, and they clearly were not after money. They were after information.
His last thought was a bitter realization that El Sid was probably dead as well. He did not believe these people were after him, and to back track his movements and to find out he had arrived from Cherifyr would be difficult, but not impossible for people with resources. These people obviously did. He started up into a frowning face, a frowning face that he recognized with as much shock as he could muster under the circumstances, then everything went black.