It is the Common Year 580 in the domain of the Free City of Greyhawk, often called "The Gem of the Flanaess." Two rather strange companions walk down a dusty overgrown track out of the Cairn Hills. The one on the left is a dwarf -- Thorgrim is his name. He wears the heavy armor of a warrior, but a symbol of the priesthood dangles around his neck, just below his full beard. He looks behind him often as he and his companion walk along the road. Is he looking back to the crumbling ruins of three towers atop the hills to the north, or is it that weird blotch of darkness that floats across the ground nearby? It looks like his shadow, yet from time to time it moves in a way that Thorgrim himself doesn't.
The fellow on the right is... well, he's a human, one would guess. But probably there's something else coursing through is veins besides the blood of men. In any case, his face is not clearly visible, so he most likely prefers to maintain the mystery. His name is Chuck, but maybe that's not his real name either. He holds in his hand a skull. Not an ordinary skull, but a skull carved out of gold. There are four depressions spaced equidistantly around the crown of this skull, and Chuck examines them curiously. He turns to the dwarf and asks, "well... now what?"
But before we continue on with the beginning of this story, let us learn a little bit of how the companions got to this point, shall we?
It all started several days ago in the Free City itself, and the two companions were three. Chuck and Thorgrim were each enjoying a goblet of mead with their friend Lover. The thing about Lover is, he is strong enough to yank the tentacles off a Sasserine blood squid, yet he possesses the sweet disposition of a Oljatti snuggle-opus. There's no other way to explain it. When his comrades would descend into a bout of nasty bickering, it would always be Lover who would quietly try to interrupt saying, "hey, you guys? C'mon you guys. Seriously." Somehow this was enough to keep the band of adventurers together.
So anyway, there they were, gulping mead at The Whistling Fish and listening to a minstrel sing a ballad about a group of brave heroes who met their doom within the bowels of an evil temple. Later, when the trio spoke to the drunken bard, they learned that he himself was one of the heroes in the song. He was one of the two adventurers who survived the perils of the deadly temple (though it could be said his sanity did not survive). Apparently, he and his companions' fate was wrought when an object holding the key to the dark temple's downfall was sold for seventeen copper pieces and a Charms Blow Pop by an impulsive halfling. The object was a skull made of pure gold.
Thorgrim, Chuck, and Lover were all intrigued. What became of this skull? The bard -- almost too inebriated to hold two thoughts together -- tried to recall what he knew of its whereabouts. When his tale concluded, the three comrades decided to seek out the only other survivor of the doom beneath the temple, a reclusive woodsman named Merrick. Apparently, he might have some clue as to the last known possessor of the golden skull.
After journeying through the darkest recesses of the Gnarley Forest, the group managed to locate the arboreal grass hut of the half-mad woodsman (thanks in part to a bribed centaur named Febricio). Merrick had tracked a mercenary believed to have won the skull in a game of chance to the fell ruins of Castle Greyhawk. But the ranger would dare to go no further. The adventurers had the lead that they needed!
After braving kobold ambushes, vicious giant rats, pit traps, and killer dust-covers, the group came to a mysterious cavern where they found a brown gemstone sitting atop a flat-topped stalagmite pedestal. Expecting a booby trap, they whisked it up into a sack and fled the cavern. Their boobies remained unharmed.
Shortly thereafter, the companions discovered the lair of the mercenary they sought. A giant of a man who disdained armor in favor of tattoos that covered his whole body. As he rose from his throne, the group could not help but notice how strangely his shadow behaved... as though it had a life of its own. There was little time to ponder such things, for soon he challenged Lover to a clash of steel. Lover would have preferred to chat a bit, but the mercenary charged across the chamber with his sword drawn. A terrible battle ensued and when the dust had cleared, the tattooed mercenary lay dead in a pool of his own blood. Chuck and the others investigated the pedestal on which the throne stood and found a hidden compartment containing the golden skull! The quest had come to a successful end! Or had it...?
The band took notice that the depressions ringing the skull were similar in size to the gemstone they found. But when Lover removed the stone from the sack to insert it into the skull, he immediately disappeared! The adventurers may have found the skull, but now they had lost one of their own. But another had come to take Lover's place. Thorgrim -- who had landed the killing blow upon the mercenary -- had aquired a new companion of his own: the strange shadow now followed him.
No comments:
Post a Comment