Shard Saga – Frightful tremors part 1

Kepler was sitting in a dark corner of the tavern, sipping his cranberry juice. Staring listlessly somewhere beyond the edge of the table, his thoughts wandered. His last adventure didn’t turn out too well, and Kepler deliberately hid from his companions.

Amidst his troubled thoughts, a voice, seemingly from far far above him, struggled through

It is now late autumn, and the days have started to get colder and the nights longer. A rumor reaches you of another strange phenomenon: a mountain peak covered with grey clouds that rumble and roar with thunder, but with no sign of wind, rain or lightning. Lady Sharyn confirms that the familiar magical emanations are coming from somewhere near the top of the mountain, in an area obscured by the thundering clouds.

Kepler sighed, and banged his head on his table. “Here we go again…” Then he propped himself up and drained the rest of the cranberry juice. “Now where’s my dagger?”

=====

The cave was dark. Kepler could barely see his hands in front of him. There was a rustling beside him, and bright light illuminated the cave entrance. There was a grunt, and the bright light flew forward and lit the cave interior. Everyone moved forward, but Kepler kept to the back.

“Who goes there?” a raspy voice went. There was a cowled figure at the centre, near where the sunrod laid. Kepler’s companions tried to pry some information from the figure, and the only useful information was that the figure was a Keeper, whatever that meant. Kepler was more wary of the two cats beside the figure.

Someone said the wrong thing, and the figure pulled its hood away from its face and revealed a hag. The two cats turned into something horribly monstrous, and monsters dropped from above to surround Kepler. Yay.

Kepler thought his companions worried too much about him being surrounded. The fastest way was to kill off the other enemies and by that time, Kepler would probably have killed off his foes. Besides, he’s got a few escapist tricks to get out of trouble. If not, well, he’d die. Kepler’s not exactly fatalistic, but he’s blasé about survival. Those monsters weren’t tough anyway…

The hag, realising her impending doom, struggled forward, most probably to make Kepler’s life more miserable. The barbarian moved up behind her to slow her down.

Then the last of them was the slime drip monster, the one Kepler had been struggling with. Turned out that it was surrounded by minor monsters, which when killed, fed it with more power. Every time a minor monster died, it turned into some form of energy and slapped itself onto the biggie monster. Like slime shlopped on some scaly beast, dripping… dripping…

When all was done, anyone who attacked the kitties and the hag before was subjected to a fear attack. Kepler remembered the hag mentioning something about fear when his companions were fishing for information. The fighter succumbed, and had to live with a penalty to attack until he could shake off his fear.

There’s a cure, but that will have to wait till next time…