Ascertaining which craftsman or master is the progenitor of an enchanted item is an extremely difficult endeavor, to the point of being near futile. In the cases of well known masters who have a maker’s mark or signature of some kind, the identification can be a quick affair, as long as a forgery can be ruled out. However, the fact that a craftsman can spontaneously gain knowledge of a runic language, of which there are multiple, muddies the waters greatly. There are many runically enhanced items that have no maker’s mark or any other distinguishing factors. Frustratingly, the only way to find out the original maker is to inquire with the seller. With the nature of markets, it is possible that the seller may not be in the same town that the maker produced the item, and may not even know the progenitor of the item. As such, cataloguing runic items by maker is not recommended. Instead, if you are researching runed items, I would recommend sorting them by the language used. You can then take them to someone proficient in that language of runes and have them help you subcategorize them by the effects of the item. Should you find yourself purchasing a runically enchanted item, I would recommend doing this posthaste, as I have experienced first hand purchasing an item that had secondary effects that the seller either omitted or was unaware of.
-Preface to A Catalogue of Weapons and Their Many Enchantments
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Despite his taking the time to soak in the morning life of the city and the rising sun, he was still at the governor’s estate in little time at all. He once again was met by the large gate and gatehouse of the governor’s estate. Taking off his helmet for a moment to speak with the guard at the gatehouse, Xander stated his business, “Xander Jones, here to see Lady Grefelt.”
“Right, yes,” the guard said with a nod of confirmation. “We were instructed to direct you to the storerooms when you arrived. Do you know the way?”
Xander nodded his assent, and he was let in through the gate, waiting only for it to be cracked just enough for him to fit through. He followed the same, wide path that he’d driven on before with his APC, wondering as he went how things would play out. This was the first time that he’d be meeting the team - he didn’t like thinking of them as his team, just a team that he was temporarily a part of – and he wondered what they would be like. Would people who were specialized in stealth, a skillset he had had little experience with, look like they were sneaky? Would they look like some kind of D&D-esque caricature of a rogue, dressed in leathers, with a mask and two daggers, vials of poison on a bandolier?
The answer was no. As he neared the storehouses and his APC, Xander was able to make out five figures standing near the vehicle. One, judging by the fact that they were wearing well made, brightly colored clothes in contrast to the drab, sensible traveling gear the others were wearing, Xander assumed was Brinn Grefelt. The other four must be his companions for the mission. By the long sword handle Xander could see rising over one shoulder, Xander identified who must be Rald. As he drew nearer, he also identified Norin and Florin, by their similar features and age, meaning the final one, a grizzled looking man bearing a heavy coat of stubble and a scar on his face pulling the corner of his lips on the right side into a slight frown, must be Varnne.
Now that he was closer, he could see more of their equipment. All four wore traveling cloaks of various earthy colors over their out clothes. Rald had on plates of armor underneath his cloak, and his helmet was strapped to his belt, leaving his short cropped brown hair to the air. Norin and Florin were equipped similarly to each other, wearing what looked to be sturdy leather cuirasses. They both had sandy blonde hair, and young faces. Xander guessed they were in their early to mid-twenties. Xander couldn’t see any weapons on them, but it would be easy to hide them under the voluminous cloaks. Varnne managed to look like he was still a criminal. Despite being clean and free of dirt on his skin and equipment, his stubbly, scarred face, untidy mop of black hair, slightly hunched posture, and just general... aura all contributed to someone who looked like they were on the wrong side of the law. Xander could see a short sword dangling from his belt and a dagger strapped to one of his legs.
Xander waved as he drew closer still, eliciting waves from the group. As he entered speaking range, Brinn Grefelt spoke up, saying, “Ah, good, you’re here. I suppose introductions ought to be had. I apologize to all of you for not setting up a meeting sooner, but Rald has just arrived today. Bandit activity inside the border of Thraskian held Dardin is still high, and delays are frequent. I consider us fortunate that we were not delayed. Now,” she said with a small clap of her hands, “the actual introductions. Rald here,” Lady Grefelt indicated slightly towards Rald, who was observing the group with the tired eyes of someone who had been traveling for an extended period of time, “is a swordsman of no small renown. His skills, which trend towards effecting a wide area, will be invaluable should you need to cause a distraction.” This last part was said with a look towards Norin, Florin, and Varnne, indicating that the “you” in that statement was them. “Xander here,” she said with a wave in Xander’s direction, “is a [Combat Artificer]. His skills make him useful in a variety of situations, whether you should need an object fabricated, or a wall burrowed through with his material manipulation abilities. He’s also quite handy in a fight – you may have seen him as the winner of the recent tournament that took place. What you didn’t see were his explosives, which will lend aid in a distraction alongside Rald. He has also, with great speed I might add, created a rather... unique mode of transportation for you all. As you all know, Karlon will likely be in no condition for a hard ride back to Sempta, and Xander’s transport should ease the journey for him as well as the rest of you. Making up the rest of the team are our three stealth skill users – Norin, Florin, and Varnne. All three were well regarded and highly skilled agents and spies under Karlon. Some of, if not the best agents he could call upon. Norin and Florin are more traditional in their skills – highly stealthy, and capable of a devastating first attack upon an opponent. Varnne differs somewhat in that his skills focus more upon making it harder to detect those around him. This should make it easier for you all to extricate yourself from any... situations you find yourself in, or set up an ambush if such a thing is necessary.” Lady Grefelt finished her short briefing on each of the members of the team by stepping back slightly from the group. “Norin, Florin, and Varnne are each in possession of a map on which the prison camp is marked. They are all capable of guiding you to it.”
Once Lady Grefelt fell silent, there was a quiet moment as each member of the team absorbed the information given to them and looked over their new teammates.
Xander was the first to speak up, saying, “Pleasure to meet you all. I, ah, made you all something. A cloak. Um, it shifts colors, so it should help make you harder to see. Not that I doubt your stealth skills!” He exclaimed quickly with a look to the three stealth specialists. “I just thought, well, it might be nice to have.” Xander quickly handed out his cloaks to each of the team members, and watched as they inspected the cloth, turning it over in their hands, holding it up to look at the colors shifting to match the cobblestones that they currently stood upon.
Rald was the next to speak. “Quite a kingly gift! I cannot speak for the rest of the group, but in my own case, this will certainly allow me to hide more easily. Such things are not my forte,” he explained. “You have my thanks.”
Norin and Florin were both still inspecting their cloaks, oohing and ahhing quietly to each other over the color shifting properties. Varnne had quickly thrown his on over his traveling cloak. The deep hood of the new cloak made him look even shiftier. “I like it,” Varnne said simply. “Thanks.”
“Yes, thank you!” Florin said, carefully folding up the cloak and taking off his pack to stow the cloak until it was needed.
“Rald spoke rightly, this is indeed a kingly gift,” Norin said at last, opting to take off her own cloak and donning the cloak Xander had made her, leaving the hood off for now. “In stealth, every layer of help is appreciated.”
“Now that you’re all acquainted,” Brinn Grefelt spoke up again, “I suppose I should prompt you to be on your way. Every moment Karlon is held in that camp is another moment that one of the secrets he holds could be exposed. Xander, I noted the size of your transport and I took liberty of having some preserved foodstuffs prepared in a crate. Ideally – if you’re able to take it with you – this should remove the need for you to stop for supplies on the trip.” Lady Grefelt pointed to a crate that was sitting on the cobblestones outside one of the storehouses.
“Oh! Thanks,” Xander said. “There’s plenty of space for it.” He had no need of the food himself, but he was sure his companions would appreciate it.
“I shall fetch the crate,” Rald offered, “and meet you at this... what is it that you call it?”
“Ah, I call it an armored personnel carrier, or APC for short,” Xander explained to the knight.
“I shall meet you at the APC shortly, then.” Rald walked over to the crate and hoisted it with the kind of ease that told Xander that his class skills were greatly enhancing his strength.
Xander and the three stealth specialists made their way to the APC as Rald retrieved the crate of food. Xander opened the drop-down ramp at the back of the vehicle, carefully lowering it so that it didn’t slam down on the stone. He should really have worked out some kind of automatic opening and closing for the door. As Rald arrived with the crate, he ushered them all inside the APC, showing them the seats and how to use the seatbelts. He lashed the crate to a tie point to prevent the crate from sliding or bouncing around too much, using some rope that Norin had in her pack.
“So, are we all ready to get on the road?” Xander asked, after everyone had settled in to their seats. He’d made sure to pad the seats generously, and his new companions were looking comfortable. “Also, which direction am I going?”
“North, for starters,” Varnne offered. “Once we get past the original Thraskian border, we’ll start heading West. For now, we can just follow the trade roads, circle around any towns to keep too much word of this, ah... thing from getting out. It’s probably not the strangest thing someone who lives on a main trade road has seen, but it’s still noteworthy, and we don’t want our movements being retraced too easily if someone was to connect this beast with the disappearance of the spymaster.”
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“Makes sense,” Xander agreed. “We probably ought to leave the APC stashed somewhere it’s harder to see – like a forest – once we get closer to the camp and make the rest of the journey on foot.”
“I agree,” Florin chimed in. “With luck, we’ll be able to get past the wall, find Karlon, and make our way back out without even being noticed.”
Rald nodded in agreement, but questioned, “And if locating Karlon proves to be an issue?”
Varnne spoke up, saying, “We’ll have to be flexible. I recommend we observe the camp and its goings on for a few days to get the watch schedule, see where and how the prisoners are housed, and any other useful information. I’ve got an enchanted spyglass with me,” he patted a sturdy looking pouch on his person, “that should help with that.”
“I just hate the idea of sitting there watching while they could be torturing Karlon…” Norin said, frustratedly trailing off.
“I know,” Varnne said, “but better than botching the job and getting him – or us – killed in the attempt.
“And if a distraction is needed?” Xander asked. “Do ya’ll have any suggestions? Obviously Rald and I can just saunter up to the gates and start a fight, but I’ve also considered breaking in and starting a full blown escape attempt.”
Varnne shook his head at this. “An escape attempt is all well and good, but there’s too much risk of Karlon getting killed during the fighting. Ideally whatever distraction you make will pull as many guards outside of the camp as possible, making it easier for me, Norin, and Florin to sneak through the camp. With enough action going on outside, no one will notice a few guards at their posts going missing.”
“Mmh. You’re right, I suppose,” Xander replied, strapping himself into the driver’s seat. “I hate to leave so many behind, though. Are you sure there’s no way to rescue more prisoners? How many even are there?”
“We estimate twenty. And somewhere between one hundred and two hundred guards housed there as a garrison. So more than can easily be smuggled out. We’ll grab who we can if we can, but I can’t make any promises.”
“Wait wait wait, you want Rald and I to take on a hundred guards each? Isn’t that, like, a lot? Nobody mentioned that part of the job.”
“Well… you don’t actually have to fight them, just draw them out,” Norin said, carefully.
“And they’ll have to keep at least half the guards inside to keep the prisoners in check.” Florin chimed in.
“Okay… so like fifty guards each. Still a lot. But more doable, I suppose…” Xander said, thoughtfully. It was strange to think, but fighting fifty people did sound doable. He’d seen groups close to that number wiped out before by his soul-rippers and mundane grenades before in a flash. That was, of course, assuming they weren’t on his level or above, though. “Do we know what kind of level these guards are?”
Varnne spoke up again. “Probably around level ten or so. Enough to be effective, both as a force guarding the prison and as a local garrison, but not so high that they’d be better served elsewhere. There will likely be a smattering of officers in the twenties, maybe a commander in the thirties. Unlikely that you’ll see any of them, though – they’d be the ones sending forces outside the walls.”
“Ten to maybe mid-teens… that’s roughly the level of a soldier that would have fought in the war?”
Rald nodded. “Roughly, yes. A lot of variance to be had on the battlefield in terms of levels, but for a seasoned foot soldier, that is a good general estimate.”
“Okay. Right, a distraction should be doable. Things might get dicey if the officers or the commander show up, though.”
Xander had started driving by this point, and had arrived at the gate again. He brought the APC to a halt as a few guards pulled the gate all the way open to permit his exit.
“This is true, but like Varnne said, unlikely,” Rald spoke.
“Think you can handle someone in their thirties?” Xander asked, curiously.
“It depends,” Rald said, slowly. “If it’s a good matchup with my skills versus theirs, then yes. In the chaos of a fight, where they’re almost certain to have help? Hard to say. What about yourself?”
Xander shrugged. “My armor lets me take a lot of hits. So as long as I can wear them down, I should be okay. And that’s assuming they’re immune to being blown up.” Xander left out the soul rippers. He wasn’t sure if there was a great taboo in society about messing with the soul, but there certainly seemed to be plenty of potential of such a thing. It didn’t seem an opportune time to find out and risk friction with the people he was about to embark on a long, dangerous mission with. “Biggest danger for me would be someone whose skills let’s them penetrate heavy armor, I suppose.”
“Always a dangerous skillset,” Rald agreed. “If it can penetrate enchanted armor or skill based defenses, it can cause trouble for just about anyone.”
“Well, I guess that’s settled,” Xander said. “Rald and I will cause a distraction if you three think we need one. All that’s left now is getting there. How long would it take by horse? It took me roughly three months to get to Sempta from Anlet, but some of that was with a mercantile caravan.” Xander remembered the destruction of that same caravan with a pang of guilt.
“At a good steady pace that would leave a horse tired but not dead over that period of time, I’d say four months, as we need to get past Anlet and into Thrask itself.”
“Right, I can probably beat that,” Xander said. “This thing doesn’t get tired, and I can drive all day. If you’re all okay with driving through the day and not stopping ‘til it’s time to make camp, I’d prefer to do that. Seems that speed is at least partly of the essence here.” Xander wasn’t sure if Brinn Grefelt had told them that he was actually a spirit bound to a set of runes, but he wasn’t about to bring it up if they didn’t know. Besides, even though he could drive all night, it would be rough on the rest of the group to try and sleep in a metal box every night for something like three months. And they’d probably go crazy too. There was just no way they could go on that long in a small box.
“Aye, that should be doable,” Varnne agreed. “Faster we can get there, the better.”
“Alright then, North it is, for now.”
The days passed slowly for Xander as he drove. And drove. And drove some more. The novelty of seeing the landscape around him grew thin, and then ceased to exist at all, and even seeing the occasional strange animal as he drove was no longer invigorating by a month in. He wished there were real roads. He could probably turn this trip into mere days rather than months if he could get up to highway speeds. Still, he was able to go faster than the pace of a horse, as evidenced by the ones he passed on the road.
The group was a quiet one. Rald seemed to be the quiet, reserved type, and happy to keep silent. Norin, Florin, and Varnne were perfectly content with their own small group, softly talking about their plans for infiltrating the camp, or reminiscing about old jobs. No one seemed to have much to say, and with Xander focused on driving and avoiding ruts, potholes in the road, and the occasional wagon or caravan, he was a bit too focused to make more than light conversation. At least he didn’t have to worry about getting sleepy anymore. Just being incredibly bored.
Towns were circled around, avoided as if they housed a contagious plague, and each night was spent under the stars in tents and on bedrolls. They rotated watches, Xander pretending to sleep between his shifts. Surely they had to know he was different in at least some way. He hadn’t eaten once during his time with them. But no one suggested he take the entire night watch, and so he was happy to have some time to lie down and daydream about more interesting things than driving.
Varnne had marked their progress roughly on his copy of the map, taking note of where they were by landmarks and the occasional town they skirted around. He had commented that they were making exceptional time and revised their total travel time to around two and a half months. Everyone was happy with this announcement. Xander was not the only one who was becoming increasingly bored. The rest of his companions were also suffering from boredom. They were, after all, people of action, and two and a half months of car rides was stifling for them. But they managed it well enough – no infighting broke out, and arguments were minimal and usually of a good enough nature. They were also generally between Norin and Florin, the twins finding any excuse to argue with each other.
It was a relief to everyone when Varnne stated that they were only a few days’ ride from the prison camp. After that the long drudgery of riding in the APC every day, they were all ready to do something, anything. Even the prospect of battle seemed far favorable to more boredom. The mood livened somewhat, regaining a luster of excitement as they drew near. In the next few days, they would have to be on the lookout for a good place to hide the APC. There was nothing much around, according to the maps the party had been given. Just a single town about a day’s ride further north of the prison camp. The landscape was in full spring growth at this point, and so it was not hard to find a small copse of trees that Xander could squeeze the APC into. They spent some time disguising the vehicle as best they could. Xander created a large tarp of his color shifting cloth to drape over it, and everyone helped out with tossing branches and leaf litter over it. By the time they were done, you would have had to enter the stand of trees or already be on the lookout for something out of place in the area to notice the camouflaged APC. Atlas and Lynx were left with the APC with orders to guard it on the off chance that someone did stumble across the vehicle.
It would have been a few hours riding in the APC to get to the camp from where they were. Walking, however, took them the rest of the day. Xander worried that they’d parked too far away – if they were discovered during the breakout attempt, having their escape plan a whole day away would not be good. He didn’t see much of a way around it, though. The tree cover in the area was sparse, limited to small stands here and there. Dense scrub and brush offered plenty of cover for someone needing to sneak around – especially with a cloak that blended in with the terrain – but certainly wouldn’t shield a full sized vehicle from sight. Not that there seemed to be anyone to spot them or the APC. The area seemed completely deserted. Xander mused that it must not be good for farming, or perhaps the local wildlife was too dangerous for the average person? They didn’t encounter anything of note, though. The closest to danger they came was coming across some bear tracks on a game trail through the brush.
Eventually, the walls of the camp came into sight on the horizon. Taking turns looking through Varnne’s enchanted spyglass – it had a higher magnification than Xander’s scope – the walls could be seen to be a palisade made of logs, sharpened to points at the top. A single gatehouse could be seen on the Northern side, facing the town that was a day’s travel away. They were more cautious now on their approach. Varnne began to activate his abilities, to help shield Xander and Rald from sight. Xander noticed the world grow just a hair darker, as if someone had put tinted lenses on his helmet. Norin and Florin were activating their own abilities, and to Xander they appeared more like shadows flitting between spots of brush than people. They could easily be dismissed as a trick of the eye, or something much smaller, like a rabbit, moving through the area.
Once they reached the point where they could more easily observe the guards that patrolled the walkway that was built along the top of the wooden wall, they hunkered down. Varnne wanted to watch the camp for at least a day, get a feel of the patrol pattern, and just generally spy on the place before they moved any closer. Xander could tell Norin and Florin were unhappy with this, chafing at the proverbial bit to try and get into the place and break out Karlon, but they still followed Varnne’s lead. Xander and Rald contented themselves by listening to Varnne’s occasional remark about what he was seeing, Rald absently chewing a piece of dried meat that he’d brought with him from the APC. Xander spent the time going through his inventory, ensuring that he was stocked up on firebombs, grenades – smoke, itchweed, and fragmentation – as well as soulrippers. Better to have them and not need them, he thought. He just hated to use them in a fight with allies around. He couldn’t shield allies from the effects of the soulrippers like he could with an explosive, and just eyeballing the thirty or so foot radius, especially when there was the factor of it bouncing off of something, or getting kicked around, didn’t feel like a good enough safety check. Once he was convinced he had enough supplies, he busied himself making gas masks for each group member, the same design as he had created for the elite members of Lord Huraven’s city watch. That felt a lifetime ago, now. They would come in handy if a distraction was needed. Taking a moment to think, he made an extra one for Karlon, too. It wouldn’t do to have the man coughing and crying while trying to escape quietly. He handed them out and explained what they were for. All that was left now was to wait.