A mysterious bay
After the battle against the Pale Ones in Selbingen, our four heroes set off on a new adventure: their destination is the mysterious rocky island in the centre of Lake Selbig, which they suspect to be a possible hiding place for the Pale Ones. Find out what awaits them there here:
In the last blog, our four friends made their way to the rocky island in Selbig Lake. Here they want to get to the bottom of the robberies that have been plaguing the small village of Selbingen recently. When they arrive, the island turns out to be a kind of giant dome. A huge entrance leads into a kind of cave inside the rocky island. After exploring the top of the island last time, our heroes now venture into the cave itself.
To do so, they first have to crawl back into their small wooden boat, which they had landed at a flattened spot. Aldric in particular is very excited about the new boat trip, but at least the prospect of a short journey doesn’t make him lose all his nerves. They row carefully into the huge, dome-shaped cave, which is supported by several stone pillars. At the back of the cave, they see the flickering light of torches and, as they get closer, they can also recognise some boats that look very similar to theirs. Wisely, Aldric begins to draw his bow, Löwenzahn takes up his javelin and Kel summons his mighty battle axe. Now that everyone is armed, Theo has to paddle alone, which doesn’t have a particularly positive effect on their travelling speed.
After a while, however, they land on the beach and see an armed warrior emerging from an opening in the rock. In general, the rock face in front of them is dotted with small windows and entrances that have been cut into the rock. Torches light up the whole stretch of beach, and so brightly lit their arrival doesn’t go undetected for too long. Even before Aldric’s arrow strikes the warrior’s chest, he shouts ‘alarm’ and they suddenly hear various frantic shouts from inside the rock face. However, Aldric’s arrow is quickly followed by Löwenzahn’s javelin and another arrow, causing the warrior to falter.
But then suddenly they are also being shot at. Bows protrude from several windows and shoot one arrow after another at our friends. But that’s not even the most acute problem, because some warriors are now also pouring out of the entrances and running towards them with their weapons raised. While Aldric works his way through his quiver, Kel and Löwenzahn are now fully engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Theo, on the other hand, still hasn’t really found his place. It’s too light to sneak, his throwing stars do no damage and his dagger is just enough to butter a sandwich if he doesn’t attack from ambush. The halfling therefore concentrates on distracting and impairing opponents. He throws sand in their faces, waves torches around and sprays water from his drinking tube at the enemies. And he does indeed distract some of the fighters or at least temporarily incapacitate them.
Little by little, our heroes fight their way through the enemy warriors, but they also take a lot of punishment in the process. After beating back their opponents on the beach, they quickly run to the rock face to escape the archers’ fire. They briefly discuss whether anyone is about to die and plan their next course of action. All this really means is that they storm the place now and take no prisoners. However, they also discuss the fact that their opponents don’t look as spooky this time as they did in Selbingen. Instead, they are completely normal-looking people. This unsettles them somewhat, and the thought briefly flits through their minds that they are wiping out a harmless community, but they quickly discard it and step through the first entrance in the rock.
A labyrinth of corridors, crossroads and dead ends lies before them. Sometimes it goes slightly uphill, then they have to descend a few steps. Occasionally they come across one of the archers who had fired at them earlier and make short work of them. But then they discover a slightly wider staircase that clearly leads to another floor. They carefully stalk their way up and send Theo ahead for the last few metres. With a successful throw on ‘Sneak’, he silently makes it to the next fork in the path, which seems to lead into a larger room. He overhears a conversation about a raid on their outpost, and a powerful voice that seems to be in charge determines that they remain here to guard the treasure. With this information, he returns to Kel, Löwenzahn and Aldric.
But that doesn’t really influence their decision, they wanted to keep going anyway and blow away everything in their path. But the word ‘treasure’ boosts their motivation considerably. They enter the room together, united and with weapons at the ready. Four heavily armed men stand in front of them, and a slightly older man stands a little further back in the room. The room is overflowing with various riches, ranging from marble statues and armour to weapons and gold. But they can’t look at all the riches in peace yet, as the four heavy fighters go straight for Kel and Löwenzahn. But as bad as the four looked, our friends are disappointed by their performance. After a few minutes, all four are lying on the floor covered in blood, desperately gasping their last breaths.
The old man at the other end of the room had watched the fight silently and didn’t seem to want to react in any way. But just slaughtering him like that is somehow morally wrong, even for our friends. So they just threaten him with death and ask him who they are and what they are doing here. In the face of imminent death, the good guy has probably already let go and willingly answers all their questions. They are a small tribe from the island of Ceaydryssnar, which lies to the north of Rhatcyl. With their magic potion ‘’pale‘’, they can make their skin colour appear so eerie that it is perfect for raids, and since Ceaydryssnar is very poor, they wanted to use the raids on the mainland to increase their wealth. But as you could see, they haven’t brought the riches home yet. That’s enough small talk for Kel now, and with one elegant movement he splits the old man’s head in two.
While Theo now turns his attention to an alchemy table in the corner with the recipe for making the ‘’pale‘’ potion hanging large above it, Kel and Löwenzahn begin to drag all the riches to the beach to cart them back to Selbingen. In view of the upcoming boat trip, however, Aldric has other plans. He looks for a few bottles of rum, sits down on the beach and opens the first one. But you won’t find out how that turns out until the next Arkanthia Pen and Paper blog.
