RiseOfTheMilar part 2

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Events occured during the evening of 87th day of Fall year 372

10/06/06

Ja'liim, HoChi'im, and myself look across the room at Sjer Mi'han. He is telling us of our next mission. I still ask myself why this man is different. When I look at him I do not feel the revulsion and hatred that I usually have for all men and women. And these others around the room are hand-picked by Sjer for their abilities and loyalties. Sjer makes me feel like I am part of something worthwhile, the quest for the rise of the Milar. Certainly being part of the human race is for sh'ite.

The man L'saam is going on about the resistance they faced at the warehouse. Some warehouse where some things are stored. Some things that Sjer wants are stored in that warehouse and the first crew couldn't do the job. L'saam says there are 6 to 8 men still there and that he is unsure if anyone else from our crew is still alive. I don't see a scratch on this guy. My anger stirs a bit, but I tell myself that Sjer trusts him. Still, he's worth watching as even Sjer might mistake intensity for loyalty. This guy L'saam seems like an intense fellow.

Ja'liim is a quiet fellow. I like his reserved calculations. HoChi'im is a competent looking warrior. Still, there is something unstable about him. I would not like him watching my back where coolness of character is required.

L'saam finishes his recounting and Sjer hands out the potions. 5 vials of liquid designed to keep us on our feet when otherwise the mission might fail. I hate failure. People fail all the time, they haven't got the sense Chal gave a mule.

Armed and ready we ferry to the point where the other team entered the warehouse.

We stand at the brink of failure. Four men went into this compound. One came out. He was uninjured, but the stink of fear was upon him. He claimed his withdrawal was calculated, but I have sensed his motives and they were more self-serving than not.

My blood begins to boil at the thought of this place. Sjer is a good man, with good aims. That the people in here would thwart him is a call to blood. Their blood.

L'saam made it back to Sjer with word of the failure. It is now past midnight, around 2am. Time to right a wrong.

We begin eyeing the place up. We see no one on the rooftop, but we are suspicious of that lack of presence. Ja'liim hears something from the rooftop. We decide to climb up to the roof to begin out assault.

Ja'liim goes past them and HoChi'im and I quietly move to the near corner to wait his signal.

As we move up I slip slightly, alerting those on the other roof to our presence.

As we moved forward the rooftop in front of us. Flames explode up from the rooftop. The bastards laid a trap for us.

HoChi'im takes an arrow to the chest. I leap over alley below and cut one of the fellows waiting there. The other fellow cuts me back and then I drop the first one permanently. One down, his blood forever stilled in the night.

The other man cuts me with some cursed poison blade. I feel it's bite and worry for the future. I end his life and now the barbarian lands beside me, beating his frustration out upon the trapdoor. HoChi'im begins jumping on the wooden trapdoor with all his weight and might. On his fourth bash, the door explodes in splinters under his feet. He disappears with a crash into the darkness below. I stare appalled. I had given him help in bashing the now splintered door, but I did not know he intended to cannonball himself to the depths below. I resist the urge to follow and go get a bow from one of the nearby fallen. I peer down the hold again and see HoChi'im with a lit torch. I see him cast it behind him, pull out his club and start wailing on a spider the size of a pony! I put two arrows in the spider and begin to hear sounds of combat from the ship below. Now I am torn. Ja'liim must be making his move. If I stay here and fight the spider then the greater mission will fail.

It will not be spiders but people that will decide this battle. I move to the wall and begin peppering the boat with arrows. The sounds of the battle on the floor below me is horrendous. HoChi'im's battle cries and the strange thumps of the spider can be plainly heard. Ja'liim has killed someone on the boat, but appears to be unconcious and two of them are hovering over him. I drop one with well placed arrows and then I am surprised to see Ja'liim stand and kill the other. Perhaps he was only playing possum.

I end the miserable lives of two more people and Ja'liim chalks up one more as well. We no longer seem outnumbered, but the sounds of HoChi'im's battle on the has gone on far longer than I would have believed. Suddenly HoChi'im comes out on the second floor roof below me. I decide that Ja'liim needs more immediate support and seeing as how my bow just snapped in my hands, I leave it behind and move to another one. However, before I can retrieve, it a gust of wind coming on a still night knocks me down to the street below. Blasted witch. After my knees recover from the shock, I head to the boat to attack the nearest bow wielder. He goes down and I move to the man hammering Ja'liim. As I engage him I realize how strong he is. I am suddenly on the defensive and I call for help. My blood flows freely in many places. Then HoChi'im steps behind the man and catches his attention with his large club. I fade back and grab a dead man's bow.

My strength has suddenly left me. I notice a dagger protruding from my back. The Chal cursed poison from the rooftop swordsmen has overwhelmed me and I feel my strength has drained away. I am too weak to fight with my blade, but I can still pull a bow. I offer support from a distance as their witch and Ja'liim try to decide who lives and who dies.

Back on the wharf, the lower door has opened, and the giant spider has made its way out onto the platform. It spies its old foe HoChi'im and heads over to attack. A violet cloaked figure follows it. Ja'liim seems to have forced the mage to climb the rigging. She seems about finished. I put an arrow into her and she slumps, suspended up there like a marionette when the play is done. Then HoChi'im, weakened after his long efforts against the spider, the fire, the man, and the mage, slumps to the deck. Ja'liim fires one last arrow into the spider and then jumps into the water. On deck there is only the cloaked man, who is climbing the rigging on the stern, the spider that is rapidly making its way to me, and myself, weakened, 3/4 dead, and with only three arrows left. I know one bite from that spider will kill me. I fade away from its poisoned fangs and let fly one last arrow at the focus of my hatred. I hit the man as he continues his climb upward in the rigging. He slumps unconcious. I am hoping to throw myself into the river if the spider charges me, doubting that I will have time to do anything but die, when a strange thing occurs. The spider has stopped. He or she begins feeding on the bodies. I begin to understand that it was the cloaked man who was controlling the spider.

After the battle, only a couple of hours before dawn, we separate and try to find our missing men from the first group. In my weakend state I dare not attract the spider's attention. It still feeds on the bodies of the dead. I give what aid I can to HoChi'im and get him to drink the last of our five healing draughts. He comes to and agrees to watch the spider while I go below decks to look around.

Ja'liim concentrates his search on the inside of the warehouse. I see him enter without a torch and assume he must have lit one inside. I turn my attention to the boat. At first the craft seems entirely empty. All of the doors are open and nothing seems hidden or particularly well guarded.

I was about to return when I spied a small misalignment of the woodgrain. A hidden compartment revealed three objects. One small chest, and two identical boxes. The boxes had large circular rings larger than a foot in diameter and wider than my hand. The chest I could not open. I returned to request that HoChi'im go and retrieve them as I had not the strength to do so.

Ja'liim had located a large mirror amongst other things. He told us not to look at it under any circumstances as we might become trapped within it. Inside the warehouse was another box which we were unable to open and would return to Sjer.

Outside, with its own keyed entry was a small room at the South end of the wharf. The lock was extremely complex and it is doubtful that we could have opened it without the key, which Ja'liim had found. Inside was a cot and a nightstand.

I was getting worried about the time and the lack of people we were finding. I became convinced there was a hidden room we had not found and we commenced a more thorough search. After an hour Ja'liim found another box on the boat that I had been unable to find. I found a trap door in the small room off the wharf. It was under the cot and extremely dusty. I bet it hadn't been used in a hundred years.

Unfortunately the hour was late and we were all far from healthy. The caked dust on the rungs going down told me we would not find our people down there. As inviting as the search was, who knows what hidden secrets would be unveiled by descending, we felt we could not take the time or risk further loss to Sjer. We loaded up a wagon that was in the top of the warehouse with everything we had found and headed back to the meeting place.

I felt defeated, that we had been unable to locate any survivors was not a good sign. However, it became clear later that perhaps the missing people were trapped in the mirror. We had left many unanswered questions back at the wharf. We may have aided the Shadow Water Circle by finding that hidden trap door. It was obvious they hadn't been down there yet, and maybe knowledge of it had been lost until now.

Any further forays would depend on Sjer.