Scoundrel's Folly part VI

by Borstennskoldmund

"Keep it quiet damn you!", I hissed, as we attempted to row silently past one of the Montaigne patrol ships that were protecting L'isle du Bete. There were just the five of us in the boat, Eduarde, Dandelion and his servant Ambrose, and our new Eisen friend Hans. Captain Berek had set us down shortly before midnight, as close as he could get to the island. Now with muffled oars all we needed to do was pass this one ship quietly... Alas, things are never that easy. Someone misses a stroke, there's a clash of oars and soon some Montaigne is taking pot shots at us with the ships gun!

We see a long boat being lowered from the ship as we abandon stealth for speed to reach the shore. Fortunately it is quite dark, and we are able to reach shore without further incident. I hastily covered our tracks in the sand as we set about hiding our small boat. There's no further sign of the long boat, so perhaps we'll manage to get past the Montaignes after all.

A road runs by the shore, dense forest awaits us on the other side of the road. We travel along the road for a short while before spotting a Montaigne encampment up ahead - time to go bush! We begin hacking our way into the jungle, our work occasionally interrupted by strange howls. We were not looking forward to meeting the owners of these howls - this island is a 'pleasure park' for Montaigne nobles. They zap poor animals and monsters with their Porté magic to the island from all parts of the known world, purely for their own sport. It drives the monsters mad of course, but this is of little consequence, only adds to the sport.

A luminescent glow is spotted just near us, with an ear-screaching howl the most hideous monster I've ever seen springs in front of me, at least 10 foot tall, with gooey-looking luminous flesh. Before I manage to draw my bardische, it spits an enormous gobbet of sticky sputum at me, landing fair smack in the middle of my face. I felt very sleepy...

I was awoken a few minutes later by Dandelion wiping the goo off my face with a rag soaked in some of his precious wine - what a sacrifice! The beast lies dead before us, I assumed that Eduarde had dispatched the beast with his usual flair, but surprisingly I see that Eduarde had suffered the same fate as me, and he too is having his face cleaned of the unpleasant muck. So what had happened? Apparently Hans had tackled the monster, someone named it a Ruin Monster, delivering a couple of telling blows before Dandelion finished it with a pistol shot. Well that left me with a new-found respect for my colleagues, while I suspected Hans was more than useful in combat, I'd seen Dandelion with a pistol before, and I'm fairly certain that his technique was to close his eyes and shout 'bang'. Eduarde likened the giant Ruin Monster to the monster in his trousers, Hans immediately quipped "Well if that's the case, I'd be a bit concerned about the gobbet of spit that landed on your face!". Eduarde was strangely quiet for a good time afterwards.

The gunshot however had resulted in an increase in the intensity of grunts and howls coming from the jungle, and we quickly made our way deeper into the jungle, using the compass as a guide to where we expected to find the fellow who has been tormenting us since Ussura. We came across a wide path cut through the jungle, as if some enormous creature had been tramping through there. We followed the path for a short while before hearing a heavy tramping sound, perhaps belonging to said creature, and we quickly decided to head back into the jungle.

Soon I spotted up ahead a giant cat-like creature, yellow-gold with black stripes along its back, we lay in ambush as it came towards us, the white froth of madness evident around the poor creatures mouth. The ambush was sprung, and a short but fierce battle ensued. Eduarde in particular seemed to be making up for missing out on the ruin monster as he delivered a series of wounds to the beast. With a final roar the maddened beast loped off into the jungle, leaving a large trail of blood behind it. We did not pursue, figuring the spoor of the beast's blood may well lead other potential nasties away from us. Dandelion theorised that the beast may have been a large cat called a 'Tiger' apparently from far off Cathay.

Before long we hacked our way to a clearing in the jungle, it was an area totally unlike the rest of its surrounds. Bordering the area was a series of stones, perhaps acting as some form of ward. In the centre of the clearing was a small stone pond, and beside the pond stood the man that had plagued my dreams since Avalon, and those of Franz and Pierre before me.

Strangely, he was by himself, he must have certainly been confident of his own abilities. He seemed quite calm, and certainly seemed to be expecting us. He introduced himself as Lucius Malvec. Lucius needed little prompting to tell us his story. A bastard son of a noble, he had been abused and mistreated all of his early life, and had grown to hate the Montaigne nobility. In fact as I listened I found his story quite compelling. The Montaigne nobles certainly abused their position of power, the poor folk of Montaigne had very little indeed while the idle rich had plenty, and spent their days in such hedonous pasttimes as those that occurred on this island.

But Lucius had a plan, a horrendously evil plan to use the powers inherent in the compasses to dispose of all the Montaigne nobility. Still, I found myself intrigued by his plan, and his offer to share in the great power that would be unleashed. The temptation was very strong - Lucius looked at me and said 'Give me the compass!'. I held it towards him, should I, could I? Then all of a sudden, it disappeared! I was bewildered, but Lucius immediately looked over to Dandelion, and shouted 'Give it to me!'. Dandelion had Porté'd the compass out of my hands to keep it from Lucius. Lucius then drew a pistol, and with a quick shake of my head, I came to my senses. The fellow was quite mad! How could he countenance the murder of all nobles whether good or evil, simply because they were born noble?

We drew our weapons and the battle started. We discovered to our chagrin, that Lucius was more than able with his pistols, and he carried a good number of them. Dandelion tossed the compass into the jungle, out of the reach of Lucius, he could always retrieve it later by Porté. He earned a nasty pistol shot wound for his troubles. Lucius was able to fire off several more shots, Hans and I were also wounded, but in the meantime Lucius himself picked up several wounds, and he was soon succumbing to our relentless attack. Eventually he gave up, and we tied him hand and foot, and set about patching our wounds. Dandelion retrieved both compasses, and as he held them up to look, Lucius suggested to him 'Why not try for yourself - all you have to do is place the compasses in the stone mouldings on the pond, and all that power is yours'. Before we could say no, Dandelion, in a fit of recklessness did just that!

As he placed the second compass into the moulding on the pond, we were awestruck with an incredible vision. The compasses are designed to be part of a machine of incredible power, harnessing the stars themselves. The vision told of the machine being able to be used only at a particular time of the year, when the Erebus Cross constellation was in a particular place in the sky. The machine was not built here due to lack of space, but on an island near Vodacce - the island depicted on the tapestry at the Explorer's Guild in Carleon! The vision also warned of great danger if the machine was to be misused.

Uh-oh, I thought, that's where our friend Reggie has gone, he's going to get himself into an awful amount of trouble if we don't get to him fast! Hans reminded Dandelion to clean the new compass to ensure that it was no longer 'blooded' and that Lucius could not just Porté it back. Lucius scowled as Dandelion cleaned the compass.

We waited the rest of the night, and all through the day, before returning through the jungle towards our hidden boat. Alas we were waylaid by another fiend of the jungle on the way, a horrible giant winged snake like creature. An asprey I believe. The beast was quickly dispatched, but not before it had given me several rather nasty wounds. Eduarde hacked off its wings for a trophy, and we managed to find our way back to the boat without further incident. The row back to Berek's waiting ship was also uneventful. Berek and his crew were quite elated to see us back safe and sound, albeit without a boatload of treasure. We had a good long party through the remainder of the night, before setting sail into the morning sun.

Borstennskoldmund.