Leo and Damu eatting with Alzeya

The tales of Leo Wayfarer and Damu the Kenku Assassin, as told by Leo to his Nephew Leto Wayfarer: 8 of 33- Our first run in with Alzeya.

 

You know when we had to take Alzeya out it took a long time for things to calm down. For a few years after that I had to look over my shoulder while walking around town. People admitted it in the long run that it had to be done, and everyone liked to forget at the time that it was her daughter who hired us to kill her in the first place. But really what happened to that lady was accidentally our fault anyway.

 

Alzeya was at the time a wealthy up and coming "business" woman, but her business was using shipping, slaving and real estate as a cover for smuggling, and running whore houses. She was the Witch daughter of a rich Elven pirate and Human concubine. She was born into a bit of coin and was educated, but she was rich amongst the poor around the docks of Scardale where her Father worked out of, so she ended up pretty gaudy, tacky and full of herself. When she turned 16 she married one of her Father's men, a human named Kiko, and with the dowry that her Father gave to Kiko they started a more legitimate shipping business as a front operation for all their pirate contacts. They had a daughter a few years later that they named Seka, and shortly after Seka was born Kiko was killed in a fight at sea.

 

One day while I was on my way to go waste my money on hookers and liquor like I always did in those days when I just happened at random to head down to the whore houses by the docks. On my way there this guy Povin I knew from around town started waving me down and walked quickly up to me and so I was like, "Listen I don't care what you're into, but another man is not what I'm headed this way for".

 

Now Povin was a big mother fucker, but I'm glad he had a sense of humor. We laughed and he said, "Hey Leo I'm working for this rich Lady Alzeya who needs some tough guys to go after some prick who ran off with her stuff and get it back, are you and your Kenku partner available?" I should have said no, but I told him that yes we we're free and we had just got done killing some Ogres' hiding out in swamps half way across the country, but the trip cost us so much that we didn't make as much as we thought we would have. He told me to stop by this one Salon in two days to meet Alzeya and work out the deal. At the time I knew who she was and had seen her around town, but never had any dealings with her.

 

So two days later Damu and I headed over to the Salon, which was right where the north end of the docks area touches the wealthy commercial district rather then the slums to the south. It was in a nicer area, but not too far into the nice part of Scardale that we stood out.

 

I saw her right away as we walked up to the place. She was barely covered in a thin flimsy blue dress, and she had extremely long blond hair down to her knees that by some manner of sorcery moved and contorted around her seemingly with a mind of it's own. She came up to us quickly, coyly smiling at us both with a come hither and fuck me look in her eyes. When Damu was unfazed by her behavior she was reflexively irked and I could tell both that she was used to using her looks to get her way and that also she never dealt with any Kenku before. Without skipping a beat a beat however she was all over me, and magic or not I probably would have done anything she asked.

 

She brought us in to the salon and had a team of servants feed us a huge meal of roasted quail and imported wine. One thing I recall that was out of place was that Alzeya drank out of some weird ivory horn rather then a glass. I always figured it was a some Witch thing, I dunno. She made small talk during the meal and acted more silly and drunker then she really was was. Though at nightfall she hit a gong and the place quickly was deserted except for the three of us. As the last servent left, some old Halfling woman, Alzeya's deminor quickly changed. She sat up sternly and pulled forth a map seemingly out of no where,-.

 

"A man named Milton that worked for me ran off with valuables of mine and some rare slaves. He was a pirate who fancied himself an explorer. He came to me with these tales of some black egg of mystical power in the mountians near Lu'Hadej and wanted me to fund his desire to explore the region and secure the black egg. I did and Milton managed to get the black egg. However shortly after returning to Scardale he took off with the boat I bought him, money, a ship crew and valuable slaves. After awhile most of the men deserted him saying he was getting increasingly sick and loosing his mind. They came back and told me he was hiding in a old fort of the coast in the jungles of Fazas only a few days to the south. I don't care if you have to kill him or not, I mainly want the black egg back, along with with his research journals and strange young girl he has with him. He keeps the egg in a ivory and gold lined case with a golden spiral on top. You will be well rewarded".

 

As she said that last bit about being rewarded I felt like a mouse caught in the eyes of a cat. Damu spoke up and soon a deal was worked out.

 

In a few days we found ourselves on a ship filled with cut throats, derlicts and drunken loosers of a variety of races. We slept on deck and passed the time getting drunk in a constant misty rain. I remember this particularly annoying Half-Orc that always trying to play dice with us that I had half the mind to throw over board, but he seemed well liked by the crew.

 

 

Even though Fazas isn't that far from Scardale I really hate going any where near there. There is something really creepy about that place, as if the whole jungle is alive, watching and waiting- 'cause it wants to eat you. When the boats dropped us off at the river inlet along the coast I immediately had second thoughts once my boots hit the sand of the beach. According to the map we were given the ruined fort Milton was hiding out in was only less then a mile up stream from the beach. But it was through dense jungle and high cliffs. I saw the boat sailing away in the dawns early light and felt trapped between blue waters and black jungle. Damu like usual was unfazed, but he had to take off his leather armored hoody, and I my plate mail. He always looked so frail and delicate unclothed, yet he was one of the most dangerous people I ever knew.

 

It was fucking hell hiking up hill with armor strapped to my back while having to hack through vines, fight off endless swarms of insects, climb sheer walls, and while drowning in a wash of sweat from the unbearable heat. It was like we were fighting against a wave of boiling water. Not even the deserts of Lu' Hadej are as unbearable. It took us half the day to close that mile. When we found the ruined fort it it was a low tower, with a wider base built atop the face of a cliff. From what I could see it was covered in rather ornate relieifs of snakes, but it was over grown with vines and bright pink and yellow bulbous flowers and was falling apart. I stopped to look at it for a second and pondered who the hell made it. It clearly wasn't an abandoned Regentum fort, and it was too fancy for pirates. Maybe some old reclusive Wizard built it years ago?Certainly someone with a thing for snakes at least.

 

The guy Milton had two Bugbears standing guard who I imagined must of been in even worse hell then us with all that fur. We really weren't in the mood for a fight with these guys so we pulled a pretty cheap tactic to get rid of them. I tied a rope to a bolder, while Damu creeped by them and lassoed them from behind with the other end, and I pushed the bolder off the cliff, dragging them to a quick crashing death. Then we armored up and went in.

 

Surprising all we found inside was the strange looking valuable slave girl we were told to capture and return. She was stoically sitting at a table eating a bowl of stew. The place was dimly but I got a good look at her. She looked like a regular human little girl, except she was hairless, and her skin seemed to always match the color of whatever she was around. I imagine if she didn't have clothes on I may not have seen her right away. Damu squawked in disgust as soon as her saw her, and dropped a smoke bomb right away. A few moments later after choking a bit and letting the smoke clear I heard him say, "Leo I got her". He was behind her with her hands in one hand and a sword to her neck in the other. A funny site it was 'cause she was still taller then him. I tied her up and starting looking for the ivory case and books. Damu was keeping a sharp eye on her, "The Kenku know these things, they're called Skulks. There aren't too many of them. They're all thieves and killers". "Great", I said but thinking to myself I was like, "How not unlike Kenku! No wonder they don't like them!".

 

I found the books, but not the ivory case. I walked over to the girl and asked with my sword point at her cheek where the guy Milton and the ivory case was. I don't think she understood me completely, but she pointed downward. We found stairs going down and as we went down them we could hear screaming and moaning. The steps opened up to a cave system and we could hear the rushing of water echoing in the distance. I lit a torch and went ahead of Damu who darted off to the side for cover. I saw the guy laying next to the edge of a crevasse that he was puking over into. As I got closer chills ran through me. The air was foul and thick and chunks of flesh were either falling off of his body or the flesh of his body was shifting around in undulating waves of purplish-green. The chunks that fell off seemed to be frozen, but yet left off a brown steam.

 

Milton rolled over and looked up at me. In the center of his chest was a solid jet back fist sized ball of what looked liked polished stone and he coughed up a glob of blood and teeth. In agonizing gasps he sputtered, "I....I...know...know she sent you....but I ran away to save her". "Th-this...thing", pointing to the black ball in his chest, "t-took me over. I thought I could control it, but it's..it's...killing meeee....". I looked at the poor fucker and ran him through. I turned around to look for Damu and was like, "That was easy enough", and then was immediately knocked back 20 feet in the direction we came. I rolled around to see his corpse shifting into a larger mass of oozing flesh, eyes and rolling spiked tendril limbs. The thing started to sink down into the crevasse and Damu leaped after it. His acrobatics were always amazing.

 

I ran to the edge of the crevasse and saw him riding the creature by having his sword plunged into it by the hilt with one hand, while he tried to pry the black ball out with the other. The thing had a huge oval mouth that was growing in size in order to be able to swallow him whole. I had no choice I had to jump too, by my jump was more of straight plunge. I fell about 15ft onto it and caught one end of the creatures oval gaping maw mouth with my sword and let my weight cut through the fucking thing. Quickly I hit a wall of the crevasse at full force, but lucky landed on a wide ledge. Damu yelled out "Catch!!", as I heard a loud popping sound and saw the black egg come flying towards me. I caught it, but immediately put it away without looking at it, the thing was colder then ice!! The creature fizzled away and dripped down the rest of the crevasse towards an underground stream.

 

We found the Ivory case and figured out right enough that the black egg went inside of it. We took the Skulk girl and got out of there ASAP. On the trip back I read the journals that Alzeya was concerned about. I never heard this before, but when the guy Milton was looking for treasure in those mountain ruins around Lu'Hadej that Alzeya spoke off, he spent a lot of time talking to the mountain folk, who are Human, but not like us, nor like the Lu' Hadej people who are all tan and have big noses. I remember in the army when I was stationed in Lu' Hadej, the people there, who are mostly desert nomads and goat herders, these folks were spooked out about the mountain people who they left alone out of local superstition. I never saw one, but I was told they had thick black hair like the Lu' Hadej, but were deathly pale and had very bright pale blue eyes.

 

 

Milton's journal had said that these mountain folk claim that in ancient times those mountains where the original Kingdom of the Dwarves. That earthquakes caused them to leave. The mountain people where descended from slaves that the Dwarves had captured from Human countries to the south that the Dwarves were constantly at war with. I never heard this before or sense. I've only ever known Humans and Dwarves to get along, though I know the Lu' Hadej people hate Dwarves. The note books said that Human countries to south were completely wiped out by earthquakes that sank them beneath the waves and that the few survivors became the Lu' Hadej people, or they sailed away to places unknown. The journal also states that the mountains are completely dangerous and overridden with nightmare creatures and bestial races. Whatever treasure may lie in those Dwarven ruins are in what has been the hovels of demonic monstrosities for countless ages now.

 

Apparently Milton stole the black egg from a creature that lived high on a mountain peak. He described the creature as a tall shaft of flesh with bone-spur protrusions and a oddly rabbit like head. He learned about the creature from a tribe of Skulks, but who call themselves the Nirna. These Nirna are a cursed tribe of ex-slaves who did the most foulest work for the Dwarves. Dwarven Wizards cursed them to have no natural color in order to reinforce that they were only ever to serve their surroundings. The Nirna train their children to kill and to steal and send them off into the world to either return with goods and riches, or not return at all. During their rare contact with outsiders they often sell their young to keep their numbers purposefully low. The have lived in constant guerrilla war with Orcs for centuries and their only consistent ties with another people are with the mountain folk, whom they were once part of.

 

On the trip home I taught the Skulk girl how to speak Alsonian a bit. I used to see her around for years here and there, and I hear from younger guys she was working as a mercenary in Bayport recently. I know Milton regretted going into those mountains and finding the black egg, and we should have left it in the crevasse. We saw so much crazy shit over the years, and a lot of it was fun, but somethings turned out to be pretty fucked up in the end.

 

If we didn't bring Alzeya the goddamn black egg back we wouldn't have had to kill her a few years later.

Done