Journey of the Pathseekers

Oathtaker: Ra`hul`s memory - Session 9

You all stand in what you presume to be a pasture, a large fog cloud floating ominously around a sheep herd. Dead wolves lay strewn about. You brush yourselves off and check each other for wounds and bite marks. Luckily no one is badly injured. You hear the sound of sheep bahing calmly inside the fog cloud, and the sound of acid crackling as it continues to eat away at the wolves skin where it hit.

The fight with the wolves was quick and victorious. Ra’hul turns away from the melting carcass of the wolves and looked down at his feet at the wolf with his Mace still embedded in its skull. He stepped on the head to stabilize so he can pull the mace of out of the skull. As he grips the mace and cracks it upward his body goes rigid and he appears to go into a trance like state, his eyes head back, his eyes open wide, his mouth hanging agape.

Ra'hul is standing in an open battlefield, atop a pile of creatures bodies, his mace is not embedded in a wolves skull but a human cult leaders chest. His hands frozen on the mace as if it had to tried to pull it out of his skull before he perished. You crack the mace upwards pulling it out, a slick sound can be heard as the muscle and skin pulls away from the mace like a slimy gelatin.

You are older now, your armor no longer shiny, and marked and weathered with the stains of battle. You raise your head to the heavens, whispering words to the divine and lay your hands upon the humans chest. The human’s body jerks and thrashes, like a lightening bolt has been fired through its body, and then as you hear it breathe again you move your hands away quickly, not wanting to heal him too much, seeing a wild anger in its eyes.

“WHY!?” he growls at you. His voice is a low guttural animal like growl. You can see the rage and hatred in his eyes, and know he is a man of great magic, but you are not afraid, you only healed his chest enough to give his heart another beat, only enough for him to think and breathe, and hurt. Hurt so bad. The human’s tibia still jars out of his leg so he cannot walk. Its elbow bent at the opposite angles which you had taken care to crack over your knee when he first swung at you with his fist. His back had been broken as as you slammed him down upon the mountain of bodies of his disciples.

“Where is he?” you growl back. Your acid bile runs spills down your chin and drips onto the creature's skin, hissing and burning small holes into it like acid botflies.

“In hell with your spawn” he snickers back.

Rage overcomes you. You bring the mace down towards his skull breaking his jaw. The life leaves the creature once again.

You look up to divine and place your hands around the human’s head. You pray and whisper, but there is no answer.

You look over to your men, and point at the cleric who had been forced into the battle. “You, bring him back, now.”

“But my lord, it is wrong, I won’t be part of this” he stammers, fear racking every nerve in his body.

“NOW!” you bellow. The cleric afraid for his life climbs up the mountain of bodies towards you, pulls out elixer and pours it over the human. He then waves his hands over the creature's body, chanting and praying and you watch as a beam of light enters the dead beasts body. As you watch the ceremony you only wish you had known of these powers before. Before they had taken your family from you.

The creature jolts again, sputtering and coughing. “NO! LEAVE ME!” he screams.

You push the cleric away who stumbles back and trips, rolling down the dead body of the creatures that the leader had summoned to protect him during their battle. You pull the now breathing human up close to your face, his jaw hang barely functional anymore, his teeth still destroyed.

“I will find every cleric on this earth, I will pray to every divine god and goddess, and kill you and bring you back again until I have my answer. Now where is he? WHERE IS TRAVOK?” you growl deeply into his face.

You see the fear in the creature's eyes. It realizes it has no choice, “Cold….. Wood…. forest.”

You nod, your eyes still blazing, you stand and slowly walk down the bodies.

“No, finish me, the pain.”

You continue walking ignoring the struggling voice behind you. Your duty was not to him. Your duty was to finding the map. And Travok held the map. You must find this man Travok regardless of how far you had to go and how many evildoers you had to smite.

You stop at once you reach the cleric, who is hunched over dry heaving from the experience, "You will find his family, arrest them and have them hanged as traitors. Use this gold to give them a proper burial.” You hand the cleric 5 gold.

The cleric looks shellshocked "but my lord... Even the children?"

You look to the man before you. You are silent, letting him understand that your response will not be questioned. Then you speak, “Evil is like a tree, its roots lie in the darkness whilst its leaves wave in the sun and to those who suspect nought, it has an attractive and pleasing appearance. Truly, you can prune away its branches, or even cut the tree to the ground, but it will grow up again ever the stronger and ever more comely. Yet all awhile the root grows thick and black, gnawing at the bitter soil, drawing its nourishment from the darkness, and growing even greater and more deeply entrenched. Such is the nature of evil, and this is why it is so hard to destroy, for it must be eradicated leaf, branch, trunk and root. It must be exorcised utterly or it will return all the stronger, time and time again, until it is too great to destroy. So yes, even the children must hang for his evil acts against nature.”

“But my lord, what about the man.”

“Leave him, the gnolls will feast tonight.”

A hand shakes you. “Ra’hul, I said you almost got me with that acid shot!” Travok the dwarf is now standing next to you laughing, “that was amazing!”

You are now back in the town pasture of Selgaunt. The dead bodies of the wolves lay about you.