Greaves View: The Land of Airam

== The Land of Airam ==
<Damos Crusade Campaign
   Vandal Conningham informs our crew that we are headed to a newly discovered world called Airam. The planet, capable of supporting life, consisted of a single pangea surrounded by ocean. It was our mission to explore this new world, and bring back a report of what we found. He asked if there was anything we thought we should bring. Someone suggested an easily built mobile base, that will be made within seconds of landfall. (By mobile I mean something that can be easily deconstructed and reconstructed.) I suggested that we bring rebreathers in case we walk into a zone of toxic air. He agrees with both cases, and we set off in the warp towards our new destination.
During the journey, I get myself acquainted with my new weapon; a LongLas sniper rifle. I admit that I didn't quite put in time to be accurate with guns during my initial training, preferring instead to use swords and overwhelming my opponents with my strength. In hindsight, this was a tactical error on my part, but not one that can't be fixed with a little practice.
After what seemed to be an eternity in the warp, I started getting nightmares from my past. Nightmares that seemed all too real............ I hardly sleep now........... I feel like I'm being hunted by something..................... I lock myself inside my room to be on the safe side.
We get out of the warp and arrive at our destination not a moment too soon. Vandal starts to reassure the crew that even though we've had a rough week, we should be just fine. (That easy for him to say. Try living inside my head for the past week, then we'll see how you hold up.)
We inspect Airam closer. According to the scans made by a rather high, pitched voiced crew member the pangaea continent on the planet is divided into a northern half and southern half by a natural mountain range. On the northern side, there seemed to be buildings of unknown origin. Safe to say there is intelligent life on the planet, what that life is however, is uncertain. On the southern side, there is one single monolith surrounded by forest, but no other buildings. Since the southern half is less populated, and we don't know what the locals of the north are, we decide to land on the southern side of the mountain range.
Before we leave though, it is brought to our attention that we had two more crew-members added to our group for this mission. One seemed to be a deep voiced individual that I couldn't put a finger on, the other was a void mistriss who introduced herself as Solaris. She seems pretty, but rather unsure of herself. She must be new. I hope she can pull herself together when the time comes.
We land on the planet, with our mobile base already set up. We take a bit of time to view our surroundings. We notice a few things. 1. There are pitcher plants the size of people nearby. 2. We find a large footprint close by, far bigger than any of us. 3. We then see a large monster amidst the forest walking around. It seems to be over 30 feet tall....(Ahhh Bugger.) 4. Someone saw ruins 2 miles to the west of our camp.
Leaving a squad of soldiers to protect the camp, we decide to investigate the ruins, and leave camp. I almost stayed behind to spot the group from afar, but was talked out of it by Vandal and the rest. We eventually find an old cobble road leading us to the sight. No doubt, this used to be a well traveled path, before it got covered in vegetation. Vandal and Red Ded go up front and start cutting the path clear. We eventually spot an overgrown corn crop. Kalei takes an ear of corn from it and eats it. I see a pained expression from his face as he says "Guys this stuff is alive". (I thought I heard screeching from his mouth.) We move on, quickly.
After some time, Kalei randomly, and foolishly, cuts down a tree. The wooden giant fell, and something fell off of it. Curiousity gets the better of us and we look at it. What seemed to be a large acorn, sprouts several eyes and legs. That's when the cat Narvaris looks into its mind and gleams images from the thing's memories. From his description of its memories, there seems to be humanoid figures in armor on the planet, as well as giant monsters, and strange distorted beings with odd limbs such as crab arms and such.
We hear our seneschal (what was his name again?) tell us that something was tugging on his arm. The man had his arm in the downed tree, and seemed a little uneasy. I try to pull him out, but I couldn't seem to get a good grip on his chameleon cloak. Eventually he just brings his arm out, and we all see a harmless slug crawling on his sleeve. Kalei walked up and ate the thing.
"O my gosh I'm dead." Kalei states, and promptly falls on the floor flat on his face. The new guy checks him out and realizes that he was experiencing hallucinations from eating the slug. Next to him, Red Ded takes Kalei's gun and after some inspection, tosses it back on him. The seneschal is next to Kalei too, but I can't see what he's doing. New guy takes out a stimm and injects it into Kalei. Kalei immediately jumps right up, nearly hitting his savior over, and starts cutting another tree down. The new guy talks to Vandal about moving on ahead, and scouting the area, and takes off. Meanwhile Kalei finishes his work on the second tree.
(What is this idiot thinking, doesn't he know the danger he's putting us in!?) I take a chance to look around our surroundings.... dead quiet in all directions, a sure sign that an alpha predator is in the area. I take out my power sword and turn it on. I was about to tell the others to remain vigilant, when a robbed figure attacks our seneschal.
The seneschal dodged his blade just in time to avoid getting his head lopped off. Kalei springs into action, and puts the being into a grapple. "Don't kill it, let's interrogate it!" Kalei says. We take a closer look at the creature. It is completely covered in rags. It has a bone sword as a right arm: It's left holds a dagger. Most noticeably its mouth and eyes are wired shut.
I see Narvaris off to the side in a trance. All at once he snaps out of it and says "Kill it, it's a monster!". Carefull to not hit Kalei, I take out my mono sword in my left hand, and charge at the fell beast, cleaving its head in half. Once it collapses, I give Kalei a threatening glare and tell him "Be quiet you idiot". He doesn't seem at all frightened by me, since he is the stronger one out of both of us; but he still gives me a nod telling me he understands. I wipe the gore off my blade and sheath it.
Vandal asks Narvaris what he saw in the thing's mind. Narvaris replies that the creature used to be human farmer, but one day it woke up on an operating table, and saw something looking down on it with needle like teeth. The thing operated on the human until everything was changed beyond being recognizable. With this realization I ask him "That thing used to be human? and you told me to KILL it!?" Narvaris looked at my general direction and replied "It was no longer human". I almost slugged the cat right there. The only thing that stops me is the fact that he WAS a mutant, and for him to say that thing is a monster, means that the creature truly was beyond saving. I sympathize with the monster, but in the end, it is the right thing to do.
While this was going on, Kalei takes the thing's bone arm as a trophy. This seems to be a recurring theme with him.
We get a message from the new guy. "I'm at the ruins Vandal. The front of the place is covered by a makeshift barricade, but can be entered from a hidden door on the side. You might want to send one of your more sneaky members here. It's a feudal clusterfuck here." Vandal sends the seneschal ahead of the group. Red Ded runs off to follow soon after.
Eventually we finally reach the ruins. Just like our scout said, there was a makeshift wooden barricade covering the entrance of the outer wall of the village. We wait for some time, I keep vigilant, but it seems nothing is coming to attack us at the moment. Solaris climbs up the wall and keeps watch with a sniper rifle. Seeing this as a good idea, I follow suit but I can't seem to find a good grip. That's when Kalei lifts me up without warning, and throws me as high as he can. After some panicked yelling from me, I try to grasp the ledge of the wall, but miss miserably. Fortunately for me, my body sustained the fall, and I land unharmed. I angerly motion my arms at Kalei, but decide it's better not to start something.
We then get a new message from our scouts. They had found a group of knights inside a church and have introduced themselves to them. (Knights?) The knights want to meet with Vandal, and us, and were warned of us mutants, and the ork. "Also don't enter the church from the front, enter from the back. And come quickly." We make our way through the village, and we see what the new guy meant by "feudal". Everywhere we look, there's rusted armor, and weapons that seemed to be from a renaissance era. A battle was fought here in the distant past, and it seems no one bothered to clear up the dead bodies.
We enter the church from a back entrance, and close it behind us. Red Ded set off on closing and sealing the door with his burner. We then meet the knights in question, and yes I do mean knights. All thirty of them are clad in chain-mail and armor, similar to the ones outside, only shiny new. Vandal talks to the leader, Captain Wilhelm Alderklinge. Meanwhile, Solaris has gone to the top of the church's tower to keep watch from it. I go to a nearby corner and stare at the knights, even as they stare at me.
The scout group had convinced them earlier that we were from across the ocean and had only been able to obtain the technology to get to them recently. (A good metaphor as any) As such it was easy to get information from the Captain of the group, even though they spoke in high gothic. It seems that a civil war is going on in the northern kingdom. A total of twelve sides fight for control of the realm and no one is making any headway. Two hundred of these knights were sent to the south for some reason, but were overwhelmed by the Night-spawn. The creature we had encountered in the forest was just one of many in the area, and they become completely mobile during the evening hours. At this last tidbit, Vandal orders the men back at our base, via microbead, to close the entrances and hole up. He also gives them orders to bring our ship to the ruined village in the morining. He gets permission from the Captain to land his ship on the old decrepit fountain.
"Sir I see a mob of creatures below us wandering around, should I shoot them?" We hear Solaris speak from the microbead, thus confirming the knight's accounts. "Don't be foolish" I tell her. Vandal also tells her to stand down, and asks Captain Wilhelm what made the church safe other than the trap they had on placed on the front door. "Are you joking? This is a sacred place!" Wilhelm merely replies. (Ah, one of THOSE types.)
We make a pact with the knights to assist them in their battle, and we all lay down and get some rest.
Category:Log
Category:Damos Crusade
Category:Campaign