Last time, you cleaned up things in Black Rock by burning all in sight (including the morose villagers in the Yelmalio temple). Haloric Longfarm was a wrathful, merciless organizer of these events. He tentatively spared Azdala's life so she could bury Visla, whose remains you found at the bottom of the pond. (In later news, you hear that Count Solanthos ordered her blinded with hot pokers for her inaction, mercifully sparing her wretched life)
Pachala headed back to the village after the trackers found that the ogre kids had taken solace in the Teelo Norri shrine at Seven Mothers. He killed a would-be ambushing leaping bear in one critical hit along the way. The Chalana Arroy healers at Horn Gate were watching them with suspicion, but later they escaped when "their grandfather" stopped by to pick them up. Dorgon and Caernak stuck around briefly to try to get people to take action, with no luck. Then they went back to Black Rock, falling far behind Pachala. Haloric said he'd make sure all of the burning was done, and would remove the dam that blocked Gone Creek and killed the village of Dry Market. He did. He also brought the elusive shaman Penliss to justice -- you hear from Arcus that the shaman was found, had her hands burned off, and was banished into the Wastes for her complicity in the affair. Justice was served.
Haloric vowed to vouch for all of you at his meeting w/Solanthos and appeared to have done so well, for you were quietly commended for your actions and allowed to keep a lot of loot from Black Rock. Haloric warned you that any mention of the events at Black Rock to outsiders would be punishable by death. The Black Rock area has been renamed Unforgiveable, and passage there is forbidden. You can be sure that Longfarm's men will be patrolling it carefully for a long time.
You returned triumphant to Pavis and settled in for a while. A Humakti mercenary named Chendry Lomorri stopped by Wyrmsjaw to offer his services in return for shelter and glory in the name of the fort and its masters. Pretty cool. He is a solid guy and seems like a great warrior (>100%).
[From 11-02-2000:
Che'en has told you that a maximum of 7 people may go on the quest. It is retracing the steps of a River Voice from the Golden Age of Pavis (~900 ST) who heroquested to gain weapons to fight a dire chaos foe. One RV must be the leader (Caernak) and the rest may come from any cult, although Water magics will be most useful. Few items will be worth bringing along -- armor and such will be meaningless on the heroplane. Living magic objects such as attuned crystals, and matrices that hold ZF divine magic will be useful; other things like bound magic spirits, dead crystals, and spirit magic matrices will be nonexistent on the heroplane. Your personal cult divine and spirit magic will be useful. More info on Sunday. I will have special character sheets for you that have your heroplane stats (very different rules). ]The time for the heroquest came, so you got dolled up in special robes and clay pigments, then the chant of the Zola Fel worshippers sent you to a blinding white desert. You saw a glinting in the distance and headed for it. Giant, nasty ants "six inches long, with six-inch jaws and six-inch stingers" swarmed you but you drove them off. The glinting was from a heroquesting warrior, none other than Balastor the Axe, ancient hero of Pavis. He said he was heading home to fight dark forces (Tison wonders, are you meeting him just before he dies at the maul of Gerak Kag the troll hero?), and traded directions with you.
You went to an oasis with a vortex in the center, and called an undine to speed you through the waters down an underground tunnel. It did, and you were washed up into the coils of a grand grey swamp viper, which spoke to you as friends and told you that beyond its swampy coast was an isle where you must best a warrior to gain his mount.
You heralded a distant ship and convinced the odd sailors to take you to the isle, where a lanky blue-skinned warrior barred passage. Caernak was about to fight him when Tarranyr spoke up, and weaved such a spectacularly convincing tale of your glory and the urgency of your mission that the warrior collapsed in humility and gave you his magical harpoon as well as his steed. The steed was a mythical river horse, which carried you one-by-one across a frothy sea full of sharks to a distant cavern where the waves made a bone-chilling moan. It allowed some people to sacrifice power to it in return for later coming to help them on the river.
In the cavern you could go down a surging rapids thru a tunnel, or up a dry tunnel. You knew that scaly broo waited for you above, and a "seething slime" below, so Dorgon sped upward to fight the hated broo. They were waiting in ambush around a crystal chalice, and they were quite nasty but with teamwork you bested them and won the Chalice of Withdrawn Generosity, which could magically suck water from victims into its cup.
Tison's magic saw that beyond the broo cave was a tunnel down to a vast lake, on whose bone-strewn shores sat a humorous monkey. He mindspoke with the monkey and made it laugh, so it gave him a magic mirror with the power of Glimpse Reality (to make a chaos thing see how evil and corrupt it is). The baleful demon of the lake, the Beast of Boiling Blood, was there and you hurried down to slay it. With teamwork and creative use of magic you felled the thing, and an acid-proof aluminum plate fell off its chest.
That's where we ended, and will start next time. We will certainly finish the heroquest, then you'll recover at Pavis and plan your foray into The Black. Tison may head south to join The One as its "speaker."