Wight Noise
The now four-member party was once again assembled before M. Their next mission would lead them to investigate an entire battalion of Spessartite Marines who went missing in action across the Itsasoko Sea.
The Gold Dwarf Revolution had hit its peak. An officer in the Royal Artillery had returned after a failed campaign in the half-elf lands as a welcomed leader of his people. The first threat was a series of invasions from the Red Dwarves along the eastern border. The Red Dwarves consisted of three groups- those in the north divided among three kingdoms, those in the south divided among two kingdoms, and those in the center divided among nearly one hundred kingdoms loosely united by a confederate monarchy. When the Gold Dwarf Revolution began, the central Red Dwarf emperor decided a successful invasion could unite his people and strengthen his rule. The new Gold Dwarf leader saw things differently. He counter-attacked, gained the alligiance of one of the three North Red Dwarf kingdoms, and pushed the Central Red Dwarves out of the newly formed coutnry.
"In an attempt to lessen the war crimes the Gold Dwarves are committing against the Central Red Dwarves," M spoke. "We sent a navy to land marines in the kingdom allied with the Gold Dwarves. Our hope was to draw Gold Dwarf forces out of the Central Red Dwarf lands and lure them into a fight in their ally's beaches."
"We sent in the marines to take control of a triplet city- a series of three cities close enough to be seen as a single township. Our navy docked at one of two port towns and the marines disembarked for the inland town. The marines haven't been seen since," M explained.
The party would be sent to Mutiko to locate the missing marines, investigate the cause of their disappearance, and return with information about the whereabouts. The party sailed under a Spessartite navy ship across the Itsasoko Sea to the North Red Dwarf city of Mutiko. At the Spessartite-controlled dock, the party spoke with the admiral about the last sighting of the marines.
"We docked at the port on a sunny day," the admiral explained. "And the marines marched from the port town northeast toward the town inland. When they disappeared from sight, a great fog came over the area and hasn't gone away since."
The party departed the port town and headed into the fog toward the inland town of Mutiko Udala. Once there, they found themselves at a walled town with wide open gates. Not a sound came out of the town as the party entered to see not a living being inside. The party located a nearby temple and chose to create a plan of action on how to deal with the situation, but found none could speak a word. A spell of silence had engulfed them. In an attempt to summon a spirit to help, Ruban accidentally summoned the trickster. The trickster saw they could not speak, and began to roll in laughter- but he too could not make a noise and quickly became angry. He through a small, pebble-sized item to the ground and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
The party left the temple and headed to the governor's mansion where they hoped they might find the origin of the silence. Ruban chose to look into one of his books fo magic to find information about a group of demons from human mythology called "The Gentlemen." Ruban's book about West Human Magic explained the Gentlemen were a group of demons who arrived at cities bringing a loss of voice in order to reap victims of their hearts and turn them into wights. Ruban sensed the presence of the Gentlemen in the town and led his group to the catacombs. The party broke into the catacombs and as they wound their way down the dark stone steps, they heard the door slam behind them. The group wound their way down the spiral staircase into the catacombs to find wights waiting for them. The wights- animated corpses of the missing Spessartite Marines- attacked from all sides. Bonastre positioned himself in a narrow hallway to funnel the enemy forces. Ruban changed himself into a mythical bird that froze the enemy wights and Gentlemen in place. Neith and Mistahimaskwa frantically searched for the key to the Gentlemens' destruction.
The Bonastre suffered from the attacks of several wights as Neith and Mistahimaskwa looked for the wooden box that held the voices of the living. Ruban had shown Neith the page in his book about the box and how it alone could defeat the Gentlemen. Neith and Mistahimaskwa found the box and destroyed it. The Gentlemens' head exploded. The wights fell to the ground- returned to corpses. The sound of tremors overtook the group. "Artillery," Bonastre spoke.
The Gold Dwarves had invaded the city when the fog lifted. Their forces had been located in the other port town; unaware of the Spessartite navy nearby. Their infantry poured into the city as the party exited the catacombs. Spessartite ship were bombarding the city in an attempt to kill the invading Gold Dwarves. The party rushed out of the city, dodging flaming bolts from Spessartite ballista and Gold Dwarf battalions. Finally, Mistahimaskwa was able to fool the Gold Dwarves into thinking they were undercover officers in the Gold Dwarf military, and was able to get his party out of the town alive. The party returned to the Spessartite capital and explained their investigation to the Marshal.