AURYN

Princess of Destiny

Part I

The oldest stories ever told...

...are written in the stars...

...stories of time before man and gods...

A storm was brewing off the coast of Argos.  A cool breeze crawled up out of the ocean that morning, crawled out with the rising of the two suns.  The light of the two brothers slipped beneath the cloud cover as they rose above the far horizon, and then they were above the darkening blanket of portance, not to be seen again for the rest of the day.  Lightning followed the wind, starting far out to sea but slowly creeping coastward.  It crackled and rolled across the sky and shot from cloud to ocean as it came, and the thunder rumbled through the stone houses and the bones of the people of Argos.  

A few of the sailors in the port began to make their way into the city to get away from the battering waves that were coming in, after making sure their ships were moored properly of course.  Shop owners started closing shutters, and those in the outdoor markets started storing their wares and rolling up canopies to keep the wind from tearing them down and sending them hurtling into the city.  Pedestrians began to find their ways indoors, or even home, and still the thunder came closer, and closer.  And the waves lashed higher and higher.  

The swells groaned the foundations of the city near the water; it didn't take long for waves to begin breaking against the levies and slowly begin to splash into the city.  

No.

It wasn't the swells or the port constructions that were groaning.  It was something else.  

The rain that started to fall was cold and hard, brutal, unforgiving, malicious.  Thunder roared now, and fire struck a ship in the port and set it ablaze.  Buildings vibrated with the intensity of the squall that had strolled into town.  Those that hadn't been awake already were now, and anyone that wasn't indoors was scrambling to get there.  Lightning struck buildings and lit more fires in the port.  People close to the water were starting to scream now, and there was a sudden torrent of water from the sea that rolled over the levies like soldiers may march over ants, and then the streets closest to the shore were standing in water.  

Then something roared out there near the coast...something obscured in the rain and the wind...

Pag yells for everyone aboard to abandon ship. Normally they would fight a fire, but waves that high would surely sink them, if not drown all his Gelfling sailors in a matter of minutes. Chaos reigns as years of discipline fail to help his crew maintain their composure. Some jump overboard to swim to the docks or shore. In the end, it is just him and his first mate Reble who manage to get into the dinghy to row to shore.... but they were not fast enough. Wave after wave crash over them. They should have reached the docks, but the docks were gone. They should have reached the levees by now, but where are they? A giant wave tips them over completely. Tumbling under the water, sadly Pag has been in this situation before. As a young sailor, he learned to surf, the hard way, under the cliffs of Aughra's Observatory. Finally he can feel the bottom... of the ocean? No, it is a cobblestone street! He gets his footing and takes a breadth. Soaked. Beaten. Annoyed. (He doesn't mind being wet, but pissed to have lost his ship... again. But there had been other Dragonflies, there would be a new one eventually. His mentors Captains Kurk and Pag-urd, lost and rebuilt their ship, the Enterprise, many times. Where in the hell is Reble? If I survived, I am sure she's fine. Maybe she's in that old tavern we snuck out of that one time without paying. They must have forgotten me by now! Starts wading through the waist high water towards the tavern...

Ventris can tell something is off, and he steps outside of the church he was in. He sees the chaos all around, and tries to help people get somewhere safe. 

She took a breath, trying to find solace in this raging storm. It was there, she could feel it yet it wasnt what she was hoping for. Her right palm pointed towards the floodwater as it barreled its way threw a street below, Her will while strong in this moment her connection was far too weak. An exasperated sigh left her as she stood from her kneeling postion on the rooftop and ran to the other side, away from the floodwaters. Grasping a ladder and sliding down its length to streetlevel. She waded threw the knee high water, a sense that the worse was yet to come. The screams of dozens were drowned out by roaring winds and surging tide crashing upon the land.

Wading pass a small church, where already dozens of people were not sheltered. Now among them, Malenia tucked her right arm inside her cloak to conceal it. Her gaze lingered in the open doorway onto the swelling clouds. Then there was Silence, none dared make a peep as a roar echoed threwout the city itself. Breathlessly, she stood in the doorway, looking out to the coast. "What was that." Her soft voice, barely a whisper cast out into the swelling storm.

Ventris, bringing people into the small church, notices Malenia in the doorway. “Everyone, get inside.” He looks at Malenia. “Are you alright?”

Cinder stopped dead in her tracks as the roar sounded. She shook her head, and pulled her cloak tighter around her. It was fine. Just her imagination. Or a ship crashing into some rocks. She continued through the flooded street, wading through the now shin high water looking for some sort of shelter.

Off in the distance she could see a church. It wasn't large, but it didn't seem to be flooded. At least not yet. 

As he waded through the waterlogged streets, Pag started to take in the devastation. As a seasoned sailor, he has seen his share of big storms. This feels like something different. Something more ominous. As he turned a corner, now feeling lost, both physically and emotionally, he sees a line of refugees heading into a church. Definitely NOT the religious type, he realizes he desperately needs to sit down, some place, any place dry. "I guess its church for me. I could really use a cup of coffee, some bread..."

She glances to the side as a individuals voice lulls her back into reality, for a moment she was lost in thought as the terrifying sound echoing from the coast was far beyond what she had ever experienced before. "I am, We have to get as many inside as we can." Her tenor still carried softly, laced with a tinge of fear. Her sight now set on leading as many people into the church as she possibly could, While ushering and helping the scared citygoes into the church. At the same time, she was sending out a sense of direction to any wayward soul she could see; Directing them to the Church and the relative safety it provided. 

Using the Cantrip: Message on anyone not moving towards the church to direct them towards it. They basically get a sense of direction and a feeling of safety when moving towards the church, no actual words.

Ventris runs back too the church with another group of people.

Pag steps wearily over the threshold. Bumps into Ventris in the doorway. "Excuse me, friend." Looks around for food, or someplace warm to sit and get dry. Tries to avoid be stepped on, pushed over by all of the big people.

Stasolya often felt the pang of loneliness for her herd on her travels, but especially so at night. Unable to comfortably fit in a bed--made for humans and similarly shaped people--or a stall--made for horses, not for a centaur that, well, actually did have to lie down and sleep and took a lot of space to do it--she would sleep out in the scrub, or the steppe, or the forest. It was what her herd did, they just didn't do it alone.

But she woke alone, greeted the twin suns alone, gathered the wind of her pipes under one arm to belt out a morning tune, invigorated by the wailing sound that twisted with the wind in her mane and rumbled with the storm and the lightning. The storm, and the lightning. Waves were pelting the town, down below. Stasolya stopped playing, slung the straps of the pipes back across her back with the rest of her gear. This storm looked bad. As lightning struck the buildings near the levies and screams now mixed in the wind, Stasolya felt a chill. The chaos, the destroyers, the Nothing... it's back.

The centaur flung herself down the hill, galloping towards the town. She passed a small church high up on a hill, the town's citizens already struggling to reach it. She charged into the shallows, ignoring the wind and waves, slinging her own wave of water away in front of her as she reached down to help a small person who was struggling through the water. I couldn't do this if it were one of those big, hulking--well, that's all right, I do what I can, like we all do.

"You'll be all right, let's get to that church up on the hill, people are congregating there." Stasolya pulls the gasping person onto her back--her horse back--and trots back through the deepening water. "Hang on!" As she breaks free of the surf she breaks into a run, galloping up the hill towards the church where she stops, panting, and safely deposits her charge.

Rain belted the top of the church, a million tiny hammers beating out a cacophony of fear and foreboding.  The thunder drew closer, and the wind whipped sheets of rain past the open door as the people piled in.  The people who run in for cover are drenched; not just superficially wet from the rain, but their clothes soaked all the way through to the skin, hair laying in mats of moisture, beards tendrils of dripping water, scales glistening and fur and feathers stuck like a second layer of skin.  Thunder shook the buildings to the foundations, rattled bodies through their cores, and still it grew louder.

Louder.

As did the screaming.

It was becoming apparent that there was something very wrong near the seaside.  The screams were now rolling almost as frequently as the thunder.  Loud.  Frightened.  Some out of a fear so pure it could have been wrung from the air like water from a cloth.  

Water. 

The streets near the shore were flooding, some standing now in one foot, two feet of water.  Big people ran in water up to their knees and Halflings and Gnomes were in water up to their chests.  

Lightning struck a building across from the church, throwing smoking stoneworks and burning wood into the streets.  One woman was hit, a rock the size of a watermelon catching her in the back and driving her to the ground with a splash.  

Something ran past her, heading into the city. 

There were noises filling the air now that wasn't the thunder, or the screams of the people, or the howling wind; it sounded like someone playing brass percussion instruments underwater or maybe even woodwinds; bizarre sounds, alien sounds, sounds that didn't seem to come from this world but there was no doubt that they did because everyone could hear them over the raging storm outside.  

Then they heard something else.  Something in their minds.  

-= Bring out the Princess Andromeda...or I will raze this city to the ground...and I will decimate your people.  Bring out Andromeda. =- 

Ventris turned toward the people inside the church. “Citizens, stay here! Anyone who calls themselves an adventurer, follow me!” Ventris straps on his shield and begins to move to the door, before turning back at the people inside the church, watching what they do.

Stasolya, dropping off her charge, turns to run back for the next one. But the water is rising. The storm is getting unbearable.

This old goat is going to play sore for days, she thinks to herself, trying to keep her plaid woven cloak pulled over the bagpipes. It doesn't matter, though. She and everything on her are soaked through.

Sloshing through the water and rain, Stasolya sees the woman nearby hit with a rock falling from the lightning-struck building, and leaps---crow hopping through the water---to try and get to her, when the words blaze through her mind. She has to splay all four feet out in the surf to stay standing, shocked.

Who is Princess Andromeda? Her puzzlement is quickly washed away with a blazing determination. Any Princess will be an extension of the Empress, of the hold of law and good on the realm... This force of evil must not have the Princess!

A tickle of intrigue crawled up her spine, as she directed another pair of individuals into the church. With an exasperated sigh, she watched as the Drow who had been aiding people on their entry into the building made a call for adventurers among those in the church as he walked towards the doorway with intent. Looking over the people in the church, While one or two appeared as if they may have held a blade before nearly all of them were nearly paralyzed with fear. 

With an exasperated sigh she steps out of the crowd, and stands in the doorway. Not familiar with the city in the slightest, she wasnt about to run out into the flooding streets without someone who knows their way around. "I assume you have a plan of some sort?" Her soft voice carries as she addresses the Drow. Looking out over the city, currently being drowned by seawater. "...That doesnt involve anyone drowning." 

Ventris looks Malenia in the eyes. ”Whatever that thing is, we can’t let it destroy this town and kill all these innocent people. My plan is to find out what’s out there, and make sure everyone can survive.”

It didn't take Ventris long to find out what was out there.  

There was a flash of lightning and rain sprayed in on him, and then a bipedal humanoid nightmare that looked like the love child of a man and a fish surged into his peripheral vision.  It was in his personal space within seconds, rushing out of the fleeing crowds behind it, and trying to get at the Drow...

Witnessing the flash of movement was enough for Malenia to flick her Prosthetic arm from beneath her cloak, Turning her wrist a plate on the underside of the Prosthetic forearm flicked open. Ejecting a brass coloured cylindrical hilt into the hand of her Prosthetic. Dashing toward the Creature she raises the hilt up and ignites it, A four foot long Goldish-yellow blade of energy erupts from it. 

She swings the Light saber to the left, missing wide on the Creature but manages to catch it as she brings her left palm uptowards its sternum. 
Unarmed attack: 26 to hit - 9 Damage

Hearing the shout for adventurers, Pag curses at his luck and runs out the door. (He REALLY wanted that coffee). Seeing Malenia in melee with the fishman creature, he flanks the fishman, sensing  advantage, he swings his Rapier of Warning in his right hand, and misses? (10 to hit). But still manages? to sneakily stab him in the calf with his dagger (17 to hit; 6 piercing damage + 8 sneak attack damage= 14 total). Dancing around the stinky fish-dude with Fancy Footwork, Pag backs away to avoid fish-dude taking any Opportunity to Attack him. [I like trying to work the mechanics into the story, as long as it is clear for everyone.]

The dagger sinks deep into the fish creatures leg, spilling stinking black green blood over Pag's hand.  The fish creature lets go of Ventris and attacks the Gelfling instead, lashing out with its clawed hands in a stumbling gate and missing both swipes before trying to grab the little problem with a tentacle that uncoils from its back.  The squirming appendage reaches out, but instead the fish creature stumbles and falls prone...