Arrow of Heaven part V

by Brownbeard

Ho Lads. It be Jack Brownbeard here! And a long way from fair Avalon I be. I find meself (travelling by coach no less!) in a small village in eastern Vodacce. They sure be a strange bunch of coves here, nobles sending perfect strangers like we on a mission to assassinate other nobles.

Still I be a damn sight better off here with this fine bunch of fellows than I was in Castille - escaped from the clutches of those red-coated bastards by the skin o' me teeth this time. As luck would have it I then fell in with this lot, who'd also earned the ire of the Inquisitore - men of me own heart.

Anyway, I digress. We need to abandon the coach & horses, they won't get too far in the swamp we have to make our way through from here on in. We meet a man in the village, a noble by the looks of him, but out of place in this environment. He introduces himself as Antonio Mondavi, fortunately he speaks reasonable Eisen. Antonio assists us in selling the coach and horses in town, and picking up some supplies for our journey in the swamp, he then treats us to a meal. What a fine fellow indeed (even if the food is a bit strange - can't get some good old mushy peas around here no matter how hard I look).

We set off in to the swamp, Antonio has offered to join us, he doesn't know the swamp well, but given we don't have any other guide, the offer is readily accepted. It's tough going, there isn't much of a path, and we're often knee-deep in muck and hacking through rough underbrush. But we are able to make steady progress, and Franz and Dandelion are fairly certain we are going the right way.

The air is still here, and the occasional splash echoes eerily, giving us all a strange sense of uneasiness. I'm leading the way through a particularly watery section, when my footing gives way, I leap from the water grabbing hold of a small overhanging branch, just as a fearful monster snaps its ugly head from the water, narrowly missing taking a nip out of my hide! It then moves quickly away from the party and lands with a large plop in a nearby pond. Antonio informs me that it was a crocodile - what an ugly beast.

We come to a clearing, it has a large, still brackish pool in the middle of it. We halt for a moment, wondering whether to wade through, or skirt around the pool, just as we'd decided to skirt the pool, there's a rippling from beneath it. Out shoots some long, vine-like appendages, wrapping around and trapping each of us in turn. No room to swing an axe or sword, but a few of us have knives and we try to cut the bonds holding us tight.

The creature, or whatever it is at the bottom of the pool slowly drags us towards the pool. Franz tries to break free of the hold with brute strength, but doesn't succeed. A huge shark-like maw appears and takes a bite at Dandelion. I manage to cut loose the bonds, as does Antonio, and we rush to help the others, but the beastie realises it is beaten, and releases its remaining bonds, which quickly dart back under the pool. We decide not to pursue it further.

The day arrives when we need to catch up with Reggie, fortunately we believe we only have a short distance to travel before reaching our destination, and sure enough, we do find the ruins before too long. Hidden behind a myriad of vines and undergrowth, one could have wandered past never noticing the ruins if you weren't really looking for them.

Some excavation has been done, revealing stones with strange runes and other markings. There are a number of workers at the site, who eye our arrival suspiciously. We ask for Reggie, explaining we are friends who need to contact him urgently. Eventually we are able to convince an Avalon woman who directs us to a narrow shallow stairway leading down into the ruins.

We follow the passage for a while, before spotting some light up ahead, it's two of Reggie's companions, standing over a rope leading into a deep pit. They inform us that Reggie is down there exploring. We then carefully climb down into the pit. Well, I say carefully, but Dandelion decides he would rather fall, and only Ambrose anchoring the rope is able to save him from terrible injury.

We follow another passage for aways opening into a gigantic chamber. The chamber contains an enormous mechanical device, obviously not of human design. The roof of the chamber mirrors the star pattern Franz, Dandelion and Eduarde recall from the vision at L'isle du Bete. And there at what appear to be the main controls of the device sits Reggie Coleson, he appears as if he was about to try pulling some lever or other.

We shout our greetings, and Reggie looks up with a smile, "What are you chaps doing here then?". We explain our findings and what occurred at L'isle du Bete. Reggie's face turns ashen, as he contemplates what he was about to do. "I could have killed us all!" he exclaims remorsefully.

We then go on to talk about the Caligari's and how it's likely that Alfredo Caligari is searching for this place. Reggie explains that he had met with Caligari and given him short shrift, at which Caligari had uttered a number of threats.

We determined that the best course of action was to leave this place forthwith. But alas, as we emerged into the daylight, we discovered that we were too late. Alfredo Caligari stood before us, with a large troop of his men. Reggie's team of explorers lay butchered before them.

Outnumbered, but cornered, we quickly determined that a good fight was in order, and battle soon commenced. Franz and Eduarde fought skillfully, and I noted as I cleaved some blackguard's head in, that Antonio and Dandelion were also dishing out their share of damage. Caligari soon found the battle was going against him, he had already received a number of nasty wounds, and his men were falling before our onslaught. He took heel and scarpered into the swamp. I followed, along with Eduarde, Dandelion and Antonio, but Caligari obviously knew the lie of the land better than us, and soon outdistanced us despite his wounds.

We trudged back to the camp, worried that he might escape the swamp, a bad thing for us, for then we should incur not only the wrath of the Caligaris, but also the Villanovas. Franz was waiting for us with good news. It seems that Alfredo's men had no great love for him, he is a wicked master, and one of the men on his death bed betrayed Alfredo's likely plan. It seems that he has a shelter some mile or so to the south, in a cave near a lightning struck tree.

We patched our wounds and headed south. Sure enough we came to a low rise upon which a lightning struck tree stood. As we looked around for a cave, a shot ran out. Ambush! We discovered it was just one man, guarding the entrance to Alfredo's hideout. The guard was quickly killed, and we then made our way down a set of stairs. The stairs ended in a small room, where we found Alfredo Caligari, with his wounds well bandaged.

Caligari flashed his swordsmans school badge and challenged us to nominate our best swordsman to duel. Franz stood forward, despite still suffering from a number of serious wounds. Certainly a very brave act, for in my mind Caligari was by no means entitled to fight a gentleman's fight after the way he had butchered Reggie's retainers.

The fight was uneven, in his condition Franz was no match for Alfredo, who was obviously a skilled swordsman. Franz fought bravely, but soon fell. Alfredo stood over him and addressed the rest of us, offering to spare Franz's life in exchange for us allowing him 24 hours grace before pursuit.

Given the situation, we had no choice but to agree, which we reluctantly did. But to my surprise, as Alfredo turned to leave the room, I noticed Dandelion drawing his pistol. I jumped to protect Franz in case Alfredo moved to kill him, but before he could make any move, Dandelion fired, delivering a nasty, but not fatal wound. Alfredo did not stay however, he ran up the stairs and was away, shouting threats at Dandelion as he left. Antonio followed him and fired his pistol, but missed. I be wonderin at the repercussions of these final actions, even given that Alfredo is far from a gentlemanly character.

We trudged back to Reggie's encampment at the ruins, and told our sorry story. We decided to stay the night here and leave early in the morning. That night was the night where the stars of the Erebus Cross overhead matched exactly the pattern seen in the vision and in the chamber below.

As the stars came out, a wonderful, awesome display of light engulfed us. Reggie again was humbled by the power of the display, and how near he had come to attempting to harness this power, an attempt which would surely have been catastrophic. The light display lasted till dawn, we slept not for the whole night, and were all strangely quiet and overawed for most of the day.

We determined that our best course of action was to get out of Vodacce as quickly as possible. We now had earned the enmity of two of the most powerful families, and Vodacce was no longer safe for us. Antonio decided it would be best for him to leave Vodacce with us, he tells us that he is also no longer welcome amongst his own family, so perhaps it is best for him to join us.

We spent the next few days trudging northwards out of the swamp, before finding a village where we could buy some horses. We then rode north to the great river, and crossed by barge to Eisen, and hopefully relative safety.

Reggie decided to part ways with us here, he had to report to the explorer's society and take whatever punishment they declare for him - he had disobeyed direct orders by going to the site in Vodacce. He would then head back to Stefan Heilgrund, his patron.

As we reached a small village, my companions decided they would rest up for a while - we were still carrying the comatose Franz. Ambrose thought that perhaps a few days rest and some Eisen lumpy porridge would help Franz recover. I had yearnings for the open sea air again though, and given that I felt it might just be a little too dangerous hanging around with these folks for the time being, I decided to go my own way. Perhaps I'll head back to Avalon and see if I can hire on as a regular tar again, maybe even with Captain Berek, that would be a treat! With a bit of luck we could be heading to harry a boatload of redcoats. Now that would be real fun.

Feeling in particularly good cheer now, I bid farewell to my friends, Eduarde, Dandelion and Antonio, and took board on a boat heading downriver. As I boarded, I noticed a large Vesten, who resembled the description Dandelion had given me of his erstwhile companion Borstennskoldmund. I suggested he drop by the inn where my friends were staying, perhaps he would like to renew acquaintances, he thanked me and was off.

Avalon here I come!