It has been 375 years since The Rupture. Nearly all of mortalkind was laid to waste, countless innocent lives were lost to the armies of the Demon Lord. The forces of demons were brutal and ruthless - but that’s not all they were. Even more important than their own bloodthirst, was the eradication of knowledge and the crippling of mortals. To tear apart civilization from its roots, sabotaging it from the inside out. That was when the shining pillar of scientific and magic understanding, the expansive island city Arkannon, fell to rubble and ash. In the centuries past, the island and secrets locked behind its gates were all but forgotten.

That was until The Holy Vitkatzi Empire laid their ears to the rumor mill of gossip amongst the Southlanders. Where they heard tell of powerful weapons, mass industrialization, and sentient robots lurking just inside the mountains of the Isle Arkanna. They have been on the prowl, noses up, ears straight, and claws extended searching for adventurers either desperate, brash, or stupid enough to brave the island’s dangers and reap the rewards. The following is just one story, from one of those many groups of adventurers.

Hushed Whispers

The party hole up on the second floor of a relatively intact house that probably hosted a quite affluent family on the edge of the market district. They board up the master bedroom, pushing furniture to the surrounding doors and windows and settle themselves down for rest. In the dead of night, during Ashton’s shift watching the party, he hears some scratching and scrambling noises from within the wall behind him. After first writing these noises off as some raccoon or large possum, he hears a hissing whisper of someone telling him to keep quiet, lest his innards become outtards. While spooked, Ashton ignores the voice, immediately shouting and banging on his shield for the group to wake up.

The party stumbles to their feet, weapons in hand, Holly and Jessie beginning to cast some buffing spells while Ashton and Helen aim their weapons toward the door, now being slammed against its hinges with some sort of large force behind the attack. The slamming stops for a moment, interrupted by a gruff female voice commanding for the “friend of Pedro” to step out, that she knows what scheme he’s playing and doesn’t want any part of it. Ashton, knowing immediately what she’s talking about, seeks to resolve this peacefully. He responds that he doesn’t know what scheme she’s talking about, but he’s “with the others” and has been looking for them since arriving to the island. She sounds surprised after hearing this, and asks if they can speak in private. Ashton agrees and tells the rest of the party to put away their weapons and they remove the barricades in front of the door. They also hear the group of people on the other side stowing away their own weapons and shuffling further into the hallway, giving Ashton plenty of room to walk out and get a good look at the group.

Upon opening the door, Ashton is greeted with a stout dwarven woman, with a magnificently braided and decorated beard down to her waist. She raises an eyebrow at Ashton and crosses her arms. Ashton does the same, sizing her up, and squaring his jaw. She meets his gaze, leaning forward and squinting at him. Holly sighs at the dick measuring contest. She breaks the silence by inviting him to one of the vacant bedrooms across the hall from the master bedroom. The other members of her squad stand awkwardly, a younger naive human woman making some idle small talk with Jessie and Helen.

Holly strikes a deal with Dandy. He wants them to spy on Ashton and Felix’s conversation, but they are far too engrossed watching the goblin in the wall trying to work his way out. They giggle to Holly, saying they’ve blocked all the holes and he can’t get out anymore. Holly does in fact hear the scratching sound from earlier as the goblin makes his way across the entire bedroom wall, unable to find his exit. He hears exasperated grumbling and tells Dandy that if they go spy on Ashton, he’ll make for certain that the goblin won’t be able to escape before they get back. Dandy agrees, silently flying into the other room.

Some Answers

The dwarven woman introduces herself as Felix and asks Ashton what him and his group are doing. Ash explains his assignment. He was sent by their mutual employer at the Django Museum of Human History to infiltrate a Vitkatzi Empire sponsored excavation crew and steal pertinent military information, mislead the crew following red herrings, and otherwise obfuscate information on what exists on the island. Felix expresses frustration that her group hadn’t been made aware there would be other crews coming to the island. She says there had been some overly ambitious junior members in the archeology sector of the museum who have gotten too big for their britches, and in the service of looking for a quick promotion and fast cash, visit the island unprepared. Felix and her crew have made a large portion of their visits searching for and scaring away these members, either by tricking them into thinking they’ve stumbled into a hostile fae’s territory, or by beating them within an inch of their lives. She explains that, while this sounds perhaps over dramatic, these groups tend to ruin experiments their group runs in the surrounding area and tend to make a huge mess of the island. She admits she thought Ashton was one such member, given she had never heard of him and misread his previous message as far more passive aggressive than he intended it.

They agree it would be for the best if Ashton were in contact with the rest of the formal group leaders from the Museum. She lets him know that, while none of them are with her currently, they will be having a meeting within the coming days that Ashton ought to attend. She explains there are four total groups - as far as she knows. A group lead by herself, a group led by an orc named Dargish, a group led by a goblin named Molar, and a group led by a human named Pedro, Ashton’s friend. While Ash and Felix agree to stay in contact, they also agree it would be best for Ashton’s purposes specifically if they didn’t make this a normal occurrence while he is with his group. Ash vouches for them, saying they’re not all exactly fond of the Vitkatzi Empire, but it’s better to be safe in case any spies tag along. She extends an offer for the party to join them in the tunnels surrounding the towers, as that’s where her group is headed next. Ashton says he’ll discuss it with the group and if they choose to come with, they’ll meet there.

They shake hands and return to the master bedroom. Meanwhile, Holly feigns aiding the goblin in leaving the wall while two other members of Felix’s party also attempt helping him to leave. Just in time, Dandy returns, before the human man begins swinging his sword, chipping away at the brittle drywall. The goblin, who they find out is named Teller, is getting progressively distressed at being trapped as he reveals the call of nature is getting stronger and stronger as time passes. Right as Teller is able to escape the dusty cobweb covered crawlspace, Holly subtly casts Legerdemain on Teller, causing him to piss his tan-colored pants. Teller is mortified, his green cheeks turning a deeper shade of purple as he desperately rushes past the two parties to wait for them outside. Dandy is more than pleased, laughing and giggling around Holly’s ears. Felix and her group leave, finally allowing the party to have some rest.

The group collectively asks Ashton the second the front door shuts. He explains the majority of what he and Felix discussed, but leaving out the specific details of who and what the organization is and the details of the eventual meeting between leaders. Helen questions if the group can be trusted, which Ash confirms that yes, they are a force for good in the world and stand opposed to the Vitkatzi Empire, which is enough for the party to drop it for now. They do agree it’s probably best to stay as far away as possible from Felix and her group, just to prevent further drama. Dandy fills Holly in on the other details just before he sleeps.

Scavaging

The next morning, the group spend a good portion of the day plotting how they’re going to more convincingly appear competent to the tabaxi while still providing them with almost nothing. They decide that it would be safest to keep the goods they plan on selling outside of Ptolonox so the Vitkatzi don’t get too suspicious of their scheme. Luckily, Jessie knows a good place to hold things up for short periods. They also think it wise to begin asking to requisition more materials from the Empire, such as wagons and donkeys to haul them, improved weapons and armor, and other things to make their lives easier while forcing the Empire to spend precious gold. In the meantime, they spend their remaining day in the city searching for miscellaneous magic items.

Holly finds a small wind-up toy clockwork frog. While at first it doesn’t seem very noteworthy, until he realizes that as long as he keeps skin to skin contact with it, he loses the need to breathe. Holly does some tests with it, finding that if he speaks eventually he will need to breathe in, physically running out of oxygen in his body as dark spots collect around his vision. But as long as he keeps his mouth closed, he can seem to go an extremely, extremely long time without physically breathing. Ashton finds a well preserved set of chain armor with the ability to cause large amounts of undergrowth to grow rapidly in a specific area, creating some difficult terrain for enemies.

Things Left Unsaid

After wrapping up their first official trip to Arkannon, the party begins the uneventful walk back to Ptolonox. About a half day’s walk from the city, Jessie takes the lead showing them the spot she knows of. It’s deep in some brambles in the jungle on a small, rarely travelled path. The vibe immediately seems off when they arrive to a small, hidden cave on the ocean coast. Jessie lifts some hollowed out rocks just inside and begins stowing their smuggled good there until they can individually come back out to sell them. Helen seems very on edge here, she stands on lookout duty with her bow out, looking up at the path they walked down from. Meanwhile, Jessie seems very at ease here. Holly senses the odd disconnect, but isn’t quite sure what it means. Ashton also picks up on this and looks closer at the area. He sees an arrow sticking out of a nearby tree. It appears it has been there for awhile, the tree bark had grown around the arrow head. He asks what happened there and Helen makes a stilted joke about how she “must’ve missed” while hunting in the area and laughs awkwardly. This seems to be a lie, but Ashton and Holly aren’t sure what she’s covering up exactly. The area seems like it was once a camp for someone at some point, but hasn’t seen any use in months, if not a couple of years.

Regardless, they make their way back to the main road and enter Ptolonox with their goodies. Holly and Ashton have worked out an interesting deal. Holly can’t tell outright lies without his shadow reacting, however, if he says his friend Ashton said something, that isn’t technically a lie, even if the thing Ashton says is untrue. So, Holly asks Ashton to run through some lies he’s likely to tell to Kogen when they meet up again.