Tharn, weaved through the crowds and alleys of the City of Pentagarn until he made his destination. He enters a conspicuous building with a sign hanging above reading in ManRuskan, The Wooden Drake. Entering through the wooden doors, the smells of ale, drugs, smoke, filth, and gold instantly invade the nostrils and coat the tongue. Upon the given instruction he marches for a doorway that opens up to a small stairway connecting the bar and his goal. Stepping down the stairs, 6 figures sit both in chairs and on crates, watching him as he enters the room. One of the people, the only sitting behind a table, speaks up, “Now that everyone has arrived we can begin.” The man, removing his hood, is revealed to most through his face alone. Bishop Tinscur, known for dealing with the unusual and unwelcome, the one in the ManRuska Church that deals in dirty work, stands before them all with a mission. He tells the group that the Church has a mission for the group. The Church vaguely offers them a great reward for their services. He tells them about a map. A map that is of importance to the Church, but is in another country, and to go retrieve it could be seen as invasion. Thus he hires the unsavory group to do it for them. A man in the back, covered in armor, and a mask, making him appear similar to a very dark purple panther starts to question Tinscur about the mission. Asking more than Tinscur is willing to offer, Tinscur reminds them all that they can either take the deal, or leave, and in leaving they won’t find nearly as good of a payday. A greenskinned man also starts questioning the Bishop. Between invasive questions about the map from one, and nagging questions about the reward from the other he starts to get highly irritated.
Once more the Bishop asks if they are willing to take to mission. Instead of a simple answer, the panther dressed man, known only to others as the vigilante, The Couerl, proclaims he doesn’t care about the Church. Setting off the wrong nerve, Tinscur immediately slams the man against the wall by his throat, reminds him where he is, and tells him to mind his tongue when he speaks of the Church. The Couerl finally says he won’t take the mission and gets slammed to the ground. Tinscur asks the other what they will do, and they accept when reassured there would be a great reward. He fills them in about the details of the mission. There is who is only known by rumors as Leviticus, The Iron Bear. He lives in what is now a ravaged keep, with his troops known as The Gabo Brigade. Rumors state though that it is very deadly to go near there, attack reports have ranged from giants, to crocodiles attacking travelers that go near it. It hasn’t been a widespread problem so no one has really gone to take care of it, and any that might have are only heard from again in the same way as the others. Only one survivor comes back from these experiences to tell the tales of The Iron Bear and the Gabo Brigade. They ask for some form of papers to tell authorities not to hassle them while on the mission for the church, and he agrees and tells them that when they leave they will be able to get the forms from the gatekeepers. He tells them that they can find the Ravaged Keep in the Ottoman Empire, to the north of the city, on the outskirts of the Thundering Plains. He tells them they can meet him in this exact room when they return, and they should be back in two months. He opens the door and tells them they can go now.
The six leave to do what they all feel they need to do to prepare. They all decide they would stay back at the inn they stayed in the night before and then leave in the morning. The group splits two ways. The first group, involving Tharn, the Runepriest Dwarf, Githeran, the Battlemind Githzerai, Marissa, the Ranger Human, Ravener, the Slayer Human, and Tal’ast, the Avenger Drow, and the second the lone Couerl. The first group first went to buy horses. There they asked he owner, a dwarf with hair and a short bushy beard, about how long it would be to get to their destination, finding out how long they think it might be, they go and get the proper amount of rations. And then afterwards they all retire to the inn and taverns. Marissa at the tavern gets guys to buy her drinks, and the others pretty much just go to the inn for the rest of the day and night.
The Couerl decided he wanted a special mount of his own. To find out what he could tame, he started to ask around for what the local wildlife is. In the trading section, he found a gnome who sounded louder than the rest. He asked the bargaining, fast talking, gnome what was around. The gnome introduced himself as Gibbla Grassroot, and told him he’ll tell him if he buys something. After haggling, first 100GP for a dwarven ale known as Blacksand Ale, only found in dwarven cities, and then 70GP for pouring it directly into his mouth and not giving him a glass but then the final deal of 80GP to pour it into his waterskin ultimately ruining the ale with that nasty waterskin. He tells The Couerl that he knows about Bulettes, Scathebeasts and Tribes living in the plains around here known as the Terraheim Plains. He heads north of the city and eventually realized the plains have wild grass that are taller than he is, he continued until he found a large path cut out of the yellow and green sea. In fact it even seemed as though the grass was dissolved that short, not cut or trampled. Eventually he found a travelling mammoth of a gray, sluglike beast. Not knowing what it is, but knowing what it isn’t he decides it’s a scathebeast and tries to pet it. Unfortunately he pet it where the acid pours out and he burns his glove and hand. He tries it again but the Scathe beast doesn’t stop, he persists with pushing into the hand. Couerl takes his hand back, and realizes the beast looks hungry and that it’s staring at him. It then begins to chase The Coeurl who then wildshapes into a small displacer beast and attempts to run away. The beast still gets to damage him more, but eventually Couerl runs into the tall grass losing the beast. He transforms back into his normal form and heads into town. He then goes back to the inn and sleeps.
The next day he finds Tharn, and tells him about the ale and offers him some. Tharn declines because he ruined it with the waterskin. Githeran offers to drink a small amount, and with even the small amount he gets drunk. He took in what tasted like the worst thing in his life but he got drunk. He then went to the bathroom and puked it up as not to poison himself more. Couerl then tried to give his one good glove to a little kid, but the kid panicked at the masked stranger and so he ran away. The group then headed out of town. They stopped at the gates and got 5 official papers asking people not to discriminate against the holder of the paper. The 5 got distributed to everyone but Couerl, because he isn’t working for the ManRuska Church. They decide to travel the main roads first instead of navigating through thick grass. They arrive at Delco Town. A smaller town of all humans. They don’t cause any trouble but start to get followed by 3 guards in case they made some. There they were discriminated against where the weirdos were charged more for everything. Couerl for no reason decided to run into some alley ways, making 2 guards react by following him. He loses them so he can wildshape into a dog. There the two gueards try to pet it but Couerl runs off to the group again. Recognizing the scent, Ravener picked up the dog and placed it on the horse. They went to an in, where again they were discriminated against, with the exception of Tal’ast who got normal price do to his religious nature. Marisa tried to con a free room by seducing a guy to let her stay with him. He had to leave for a moment so she locked him out of the room. When he tried to get in, Marisa ignored him. He made a commotion so Ravener to him to stop being loud. It was then that he went o a manager who opened the door, and so Marissa ended up paying for both her room and a room for the guy she tried conning. The next day the guards were following them again, but then one approached them and mentioned seeing the dog before and asked to pet it, Ravener said they could so he did, and so they stopped following the group.
They decided to continue their mission by cutting through the wilderness. Along the journey they noticed many watering holes with Coeurl as paranoid as there were more and more scathebeast. Eventually the grass and animal died down as they exited the Terraheim Plains and entered the Dry Ring, an almost barren wasteland where only those who can endure the life living there, scavenging. On the foray through the fairy realms, they suddenly realized there were behemoths surrounding them, caught in an ambush they defended themselves. The Behemoths mostly attacked horses, as easy prey. Tharn hustled up to one of the behemoths and with one mighty blow smashed his head in. Another tried to assault Tharn but ended up tripping. Meanwhile Marissa danced amongst the battlefield attacking at all sides of the battlefield, moving from quarry to quarry. Once in Displacer mode, Couerl swatted visciously at the tail of a behemoth that was making lunch out of his horse. The behemoth playfully dodged all strikes with his tail. As the ambushers slowly became dwindling in numbers, a behemoth stealthily got up beside Tharn, jacking one of his belt pouches. With many other Behemoths to deal with, he was unable to run after the thief. Ravener started after the beast, at first, making sure not to lose it, and as the field dropped its last brave raptor, Tharn charged after the beast. With a mighty chuck of one of his throwing hammers, the behemoth dropped with a broken skull. Thus the imminent legend of Tharn, Behemoth Breaker is conceived.
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