[pnpgm] Adventures of Z'LEYRA Part 2

[Alex Koponen]

Adventures of Z'LEYRA as told by her to Kaylle the Legendmaster 
Part 2

    Part of her training and later work as a healer had Z'leyra 
acquiring enough fame as a healer that one night she was woken up to 
care for a man dying from an exotic poison. While unable to save the 
man, she was alone with him when he decided that his mission required 
him to pass a package to her with instruction to get it to his comrade 
in Aratad. The next morning Z'leyra closed up her affairs in Ticasi, 
gathered the equipment she could and took off for Aratad.

Twenty days of hiking later Z'leyra arrived in Aratad after an 
uneventful journey. She delivered the package to the designated 
recipient, a merchant who paid her and invited her to stay the night as 
his guest. She convinced him to help her learn to speak Aratad via the 
Tongues spell and did so.

The next morning the merchant, impressed with Z'leyra and her honesty in 
delivering the packge, hired her to make another delivery. As part of 
the negotiations her gave her a riding horse with tack in order for her 
to make decent speed. A servant who turned out to be a spy overheard the 
negotiations and reported it to his master.

Z'leyra, hoping to find a natural magical item, visited the shop of Leez 
Danor, owner and jeweler of the jewelry shop 'Topaz' and helped him with 
his day's work. She also bought some topaz earrings.

When Z'leyra went out to the merchant's stables she was confronted and 
attacked by four thugs sent to steal the package. By talking fast and 
pretending that the thugs had guardsmen behind them she managed to keep 
them talking long enough for her to cast invisibility on herself. 
Invisible, she stepped behind them and slew them with her axe, leaving 
one alive to be prisoner of the guards.

After the delay and dealing with the guards she rode east down the road 
towards Zara. Outside of town she met a young Donaran troubadour who was 
traveling the same direction. She invited Jaait to join her and he 
accepted her offer to travel together. On the fourth day they met a 
militia patrol of eight men. That night while they camped the patrol, 
who evidently patrolled by day and were bandits by night, crept up and 
attacked them.

While Jaait dodged his attacker by running behind trees and the others 
considered what to do with Z'leyra, she cast Insubstantiability upon 
herself and by passing through the bandits convinced them that she was a 
ghost or something worse. When they ran her eagle FisherKing killed four 
of them in diving attacks upon the rearmost.

Following the fight Z'leyra convinced Jaait to allow her to use the 
Tongues spell to learn Donoran from him. Leaving early because they 
wanted to avoid the likely repercussions of having fought a militia 
patrol they travelled on to Zara, arriving two days later. The next day, 
having done some uneventful shopping, including buying a section of 
laurel wood appropriate for making a staff, they continued on towards 
Thaliba. The eighth day of her adventure they rode into the forest 
marking Thaliba province.

The evening of the ninth day she used the Tongues spell to learn how to 
talk Equine, the Tongue of Horses. The evening of the tenth day she 
completed and enchanted the Staff made of laurel. During the morning of 
the eleventh day they came across and Z'leyra investigates a number of 
bodies slain and left near the road. Later that day they caught up with 
and joined a family with a wagon of distraught farmers. Z'leyra helps 
heal one of them after checking them with Soul Sight.

That night, camping with the wagon folks, a number of sprites attacked 
everyone in the camp. After a hard fought battle by everyone, Z'leyra 
kills the sprites by illusionary fire or hitting them with her staff 
while invisible. More healing, including by spell is done after the 
battle.

On the thirteenth day they arrive in Thaliba City. A dog got too 
aggressive and was killed by FisherKing. The next day Z'leyra and Jaait 
continued towards Malnon, arriving on the seventeenth day.

Arriving in Malnon, coincidentally at the same time as the Wave Dancer 
leaves bearing the party that she would later join, Z'leyra makes her 
delivery for the merchant and bids adieu to Jaait then seeks out a 
balance wizard and finds Krix who she quickly establishes a friendship 
with. That night she finds a message awaiting her from the faerry 
Varange. Evidently he had used some magical method of directing it to 
her. The message asked her to help him but did not specify where he was.

Z'leyra would spend the next six days seeking clues to where Varange 
was, finally determining that he was on Clima. On the third day she was 
attacked by a street gang of twelve thugs whom she vanquished through 
use of invisibility and the Quarrels spell along with some blows from 
her staff. Following this she practiced some spells at a temple and did 
a divination. She also further enchanted her staff.

 The next day she rescues a moneylender from a mugging and is rewarded. 
Another two days, on the 23rd day of her adventure she found out where 
Varange was. Varange had been headed to the dreaded island of Clima. The 
only place to get a ship that might go to Clima was from Porta, a port 
made infamous by pirates and thieves. Facing the danger of the upcoming 
journey she enchanted her buckler (made long ago by her as a journeyman 
armorer) and ensorcelled a mana battery. She then hired Karl the 
Horseman as a guard for the first part of the trip, through Thaliba to 
the pirate port of Porta.

On day 24 she and Karl headed north, getting to Thaliba City on the 28th 
day. There she Enhanced an Alectorius Stone (acquired through buying and 
eating lots of roosters on her trip). She also buys and enhances a 
Carbuncle stone that she had the good fortune of finding for sale.

A days travel to the west Z'leyra's sleep is interrupted by a screech 
from FisherKing as Grok The Giant grabbed the eagle, intent on stripping 
him of feathers for a pillow. Attacking the giant with her axe after a 
spell didn't work on it, she distracted its attention from FisherKing 
and then backed off and talked rapidly when she discovered the giant was 
a Seabhani. The result was that she healed the wound she had done to 
Grok and arranged for FisherKing to hunt enough other birds to supply 
more feathers than FisherKing had of his own. This done she parted on 
friendly terms with Grok. Karl had decided to 'watch the horses' during 
the encounter.

The next day they left the Thaliban forest behind them and were attacked 
by a band of 8-12 mounted bandits. Again the Quarrels spell proved 
invaluable as she and Karl ended up with all the mounts and the bandits 
ended up with shallow graves. That night an attack by a pack of dogs 
ends peaceably when Z'leyra casts Music after some violent fighting. In 
this fight Z'leyra erases her total novice status in using a sword and 
in using a dagger.

Finally on the 31st day she and Karl herd the horses to a horse merchant 
in Porta, sell them and split the proceeds. Karl is paid off and Z'leyra 
seeks a ship going to Clima. She finds none stating that they are going 
to Clima but with a wink and a nudge several sailors recruiting for a 
mission to a 'secret' location implied that the next day's sailing of 
two pirate ships was to Climan waters. She signs on as a ship's healer 
and buys a broadsword and other items that might prove useful.

The 32nd day of adventuring sees her sailing towards Clima. Three days 
later the two pirate vessels in overhauling a merchant ship off the 
Climan coast are forced to forget the prey and to attempt to run from 
three Climan triremes. Finding it impossible to outrun the Climans, the 
pirates turned to fight and by skillful maneuvering managed to 
concentrate both ships on the leading trireme. The ensuing fight sees 
the leading trireme and both pirate ships sink. Fortunately Z'leyra had 
prepared against this eventuality and had an empty cast she could rope 
to herself that was sufficient to support herself and her equipment.

Washed up on shore she avoided Climan foot patrols, cleaned her gear and 
made her way to a Climan fortification. Going in under cover of a 
Masquerade spell she used her Communicate spell and convinced a Climan 
soldier to help her with the Tongues spell whereby she learned to speak 
Climan. Pretending to be a Climan priestess she questioned men and 
officers until she got both a clue as to where Varange might be (in a 
prison wagon) but convinced them to issue her a horse with which she 
rode off on.

The next day finds her following the tracks of the prison wagon when Z'leyra 
is distracted by a voice from a ravine. A conversation reveals that 
there had been an ambush. Keeping in character as a Climan priestess Z'leyra 
says she will take care of the problem and continues on to the ambush 
site.

Following the tracks from the ambush sight she was reunited with Varange 
and met the party with which she would fight side-by-side and together 
destroy the Climan airship scheme.