Vyrican Reclamation Expedition - a motley assortment of
ne'er-do-wells, eccentrics and other typical adventurer types who formed a
loosely organized and ill-fated adventuring group to accompany a large
expedition of orcs who had decided to resettle their homeland on Vyrica in
the wake of the weakening of Egyebreck forces there. They were funded by
Emmanuel Brown.
Known or suspected members: Hawkeye Adams, Spyro Agni, Leonardo
Augustus, Silas "Skip" Brimble, Alexandra Golosov, Franz Haasenpfeffer,
Phillip Karanos, Tiha Lekarstvo, Signy Trigg, Alfred Zimbardo.
Excerpts from the journal of Signy Trigg. 40-03-21 "As I wandered
through the bustling city, KDPE, I happened upon a rather large gathering
of orcs readying their combat gear... One of the guards explained to me
that the orcs intended to reclaim their homeland... The other guard then
pressed a pad into my hand and instructed me to sign my name if I desired
to take part in exchange for a parcel of Vyrican land after we reclaimed
it.
40-03-23 "Today, we eager new recruits received a more detailed
briefing of the mission. Cyrus of Guernica... was to lead the mission,
aided by... Darius and... Thais. Our forces [consisted] of 250 fighters
and 180 artisans, healers, and craftsmen, complemented by several
mercenaries. After... this meeting, I reported to the commander of the
troops, Cyrus the Tall. At his side were the other commanders, Clytus the
Dark and Alexander II.... Eventually, voices speaking in common... wafted
through the air, and I... felt myself helplessly drawn to this strange
fellowship...
40-04-03 "Today, as anticipated, several boats awaited us in the
harbor.
40-04-07 "...we arrived at the smoldering heap of destruction which
once bore the name of Crimson Tide... Those among our company with manual
or construction skills aided in clearing the rubble and rebuilding.
Tiha... seemed quite pleased at establishing her first medical facility,
and she even recruited the other medics in the party to join her.
40-04-09 "[That night] a piercing scream tore through the encampment.
We raced toward the sound, only to discover a handful of tents which had
been flung and tossed to the ground... Three horribly mangled bodies lay
upon the ground, although one tenuously clung to life, and several other
orcs moaned of shattered bones... one orc tremblingly claimed that a 15'
tall beast, resembling a huge egyebrech, ravished the encampment... Cyrus
the Tall gathered a force consisting of 24 of our finest warriors and
departed immediately in pursuit...
40-04-10 "Most of the Orcish force began its journey to Krasgorod...
We who remained... continued our construction work in Crimson Tide...
40-04-11 "Around midafternoon... a battle-scarred Cyrus, along with
only 16 of the original 24 fighters, straggled into the city.
40-04-12 "...we... set out for Krasgorod [assigned to accompany and
help guard a resupply mission to the military vanguard outside the city],
under the leadership of Emmanuel... Around 4:00 in the afternoon, Skip
suddenly released an exclamation of surprise. He initially thought that he
had spotted a rare bird, but discovered... that what he had really seen was
a large, reptilian tree-climber, with an enormous, scaly fin upon its back.
It took us quite some time to notice the presence of the dozens of its
friends staring menacingly at us. ...everyone else professed a feeling of
nausea and discomfort when gazing into the fiery pits of their eyes... A
few wagoneers constructed blinders for the horses, who apparently liked the
reptile-things no more than we did. Looking behind us, we spotted at
least three dozen of them perching on tree branches, but a mere three of
those actually followed us upon the ground, scattering as soon as we
[approached]... As we proceeded in our journey... we encountered three
orcish skeletons, picked clean, presumably, by the reptile-things... As
night fell, we constructed a ring of campfires and set up rather extensive
watches...
Sure enough, Alfred heard one of the wagon drivers scream while on
watch, and woke the rest of us up. Some of us snatched up our weapons and
circled around the campfires, while others melted into the darkness, hoping
to surprise the enemy, which we still hadn't identified. Moments later,
[Hawkeye] burst into the encampment, yelling... [Then], we heard Phillip
scream from some distance, so we all ran forth to the glorious battle...
Eventually, we came across an unconscious Phillip being dragged away by two
egyebrech. As soon as we slew those damned things, we retrieved and
first-aided Phillip.
40-04-13 "[Today] we found the body of an egyebrech which appeared to
have clawed out its own eyes. Lying on the ground beside him were some
rather nice arrows and a golden, elf-sized cloak. Several impressions in
the ground indicated that a body had been dragged away, but no further
clues to its whereabouts were found. Tiha ... concluded that a foreign
substance had been sprayed into the Ecks eyes, irritating them, but she
could deduce nothing specific about its origin.
40-04-14 "We finally reached the encampment... [Xerxes Brigade Camp
southeast of Krasgorod]. If the egyebrech didn't surrender soon, then
their 120 warriors would feel the might of our 150...
40-04-15 "After a half-hour conference between the orcish leaders and
the egyebrech envoy, little was resolved, ...we suspected that we would
face battle very soon. As we returned to our tents, we spied Emmanuel
conversing with a wildly-gesturing, and slightly hysterical orc, [who]
raced over and... exclaimed that his father fell down a hole... his father
wanted to look upon the family home - just once - before it faced possible
destruction in the upcoming battle. [his father] had broken an arm and
couldn't climb out. Instructing his younger sister, Anna, to watch the
house, Dmitri ran into town, seeking aid... we asked Emmanuel if we could
undertake this mission, but he advised us that we would be directly
countermanding orders by approaching the town... As a group, we decided
that it would be prudent to obey our orders... Hawkeye and Leonardo,
however, seemed a bit more dubious about this course of action... Later
that night, Hawkeye claimed that he was going to do a perimeter search. We
all knew what he truly intended to do, but we had little ability to stop
him. Leonardo merely faded away... unobserved... At some point, Alexandra
slipped away and reported their absence to Emmanuel... About an hour
later, Hawkeye stumbled into camp, still asserting that he was merely doing
perimeter duty... Emmanuel informed us that Hawkeye would be taken into
custody and chained to a tree for the duration of the attack [with Dmitri,
and Leonardo would be arrested on his return.] The non-orcs of the party
were [searched] for evidence of espionage... [by Alexandra and Phillip,
along with Emmanuel and two other minor officers of the Xerxes Brigade.]
The Deceased Spirit of Spyro Agni to a Group of Elf Girls with a Oujia
Board --Some little kid name Dmitri claimed that his father had gone back
to look at his house before the Ecks took it and fell down a hole. (He was
actually trying to get some goodies he had stashed in a cave system near
his house.) When Krasgorod turned out to be basically abandoned by the
Ecks, [How? There were no Ecks observed leaving the night Hawkeye and
Leonardo got everyone in trouble.] we managed to convince Emmanuel to let
us investigate the caves where Dmitri's dad was supposedly trapped.
Escorted, of course. We found a box stuck way back in a hole with some
gold in it. It may have had some other stuff, too, but that n-gram (?) got
swiss cheesed by an orc. It turned out that Dmitri's sister Anna
supposedly disappeared down here a while ago (even though the original
story was that she was left behind to keep an eye on their trapped father).
We never did find Dmitri's father. Then, the orc guards accompanying us
decided to go back to camp and take us with them. We wanted to stay
because there was some generally weird stuff in this cave and weird stuff
spells treasure. Now, having marched in here with AN ENTIRE ARMY of orcs,
we decided to whack the guards escorting us. Well, needless to say, one of
the guards got away. Instead of thinking "Hey, he's going to get the whole
army on our arses; let's flee" we think "Hey, let's go down into the caves
where we can be trapped and killed at their leisure!" (See the Krasgorod
Caves.) Anyway, while we're exploring the caves, we hear the orcs entering
the cave to come kill us. We run to this room that turns out to be this
huge cave that spirals around in a circle down to a pool of supercold
liquid. I should mention that the spiral went up a turn above the
doorway. But the incredible thing is that NO ONE IN OUR PARTY HAPPENED TO
NOTICE THAT IT WENT UP. Anyway, the plan is that we'll thread some rope or
twine across the entrance to the room, and have someone lure the orcs into
the room while the rest of us hide one turn below the entrance (i.e., right
below where the door is, near the lip of the spiral at the entrance instead
of up a turn where we could have had the drop on them. Sigh.). I forget
who was supposed to lure the guards (Alfred, perhaps?), but the orcs come
running into the room at a clip. One of them hits the tripline and goes
sailing over our heads. Whoooooooo... splash. Instant orcicle. That was
almost worth dying for. It was fantastic. At this point we engage those
remaining orcs. However, we're getting plugged since we're at a
disadvantage. Finally, a couple orcs get a hold of someone, I think it was
Silas, and drag him down to the pool. Each orc grabs a leg and they dip
him _head first_ into the pool. At this point, something in the already
fragile psyche of Alfred snaps and he does a cannonball off the top of the
spiral. Splash. I'm not sure whether he got the two orcs or not. It was
at this point that all Hell broke loose. The ceiling of this cave falls in
and Anna, the girl who was supposedly lost, and incidentally should have
starved to death by this time, descends from the ceiling like a
MOTHERBUGGERING DEMON FROM HELL AND JUST HANGS THERE IN THE AIR and wastes
the orcs and us. And after she's finished frying us she CLIMBS UP THE
SHEER FACE of the walls and back up through the hole she made of the
ceiling. It turns out that some of the party survived the attacks. I
think it was Tiha and Signy. They got taken back to the camp and Signy was
executed. Tiha, I believe, was used to boost morale of the male soldiers.
Does this just ring out beigebeard or what?????????? Were any puzzles
found???? etc. etc. etc. Chad.
Corrections? Additions?
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