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Captured by Orcs!

After about half an hour following the trail, most members of the party are beginning to sweat freely. The temperature has risen considerably, and the undergrowth around the trail is almost tropical in nature. The orcs are similarly suffering, although from their nervousness the beads of perspiration on their brows may not be just from the heat. All weapons are held ready.

The trail is in most places only wide enough for 2 abreast, sometimes narrower, and the orcs remain silent as they walk. Anyone who speaks is rapped sharply with the side of a spear and told to be quiet. The orcs paranoia starts to be infectious, and the party find themselves watching the trees and undergrowth as closely as their captors are, convinced that "someone or something" is out there watching them.

After the party have been marching for a little under an hour, the sounds of a village can start to be heard. Now and then there is the squeaking sounds of machinery. It could be a wheel and a cog. The trail begins to turn steadily to the right, until a view of a clearing opens up in front of the party. A feeling of relief seems to come over the orcs, as they lead the party into the clearing.

The opening is a clear cut in the forest, about 700 feet long and 400 feet wide. To the right, left and ahead of the party are groupings of thatch huts. Many Orcs - 200 or so - mill around the huts. On the far end of the clipping stand five whipping posts, all with hand manacles. Two unconscious or dead orcs are bound to two of these posts.

To your right are two large treadmills. One of these is being turned slowly by two human males in chains wearing only fur loin cloths. A young, blond-haired human woman sits chained to a ring on a rock directly before one of the treadmills. She too wears only a fur loin cloth.

All three humans have the scars of a scourge on their backs. The two men are more heavily scarred than the woman. Two orcs with scourges stand casual guard over the humans, but the scars on the humans' bodies suggest that some time has passed since their last whipping.

The three humans look at the party with somewhat blank faces. If they see the group as a source of salvation, they certainly aren't betraying that to the orcs. The second treadmill is not being used at present.

Directly to your left is a dark cave.

To the right of the nearest treadmill, in front of an orc hut, a strong fire is burning in a brazier. Next to the fire is a stone table with several sets of iron manacles upon it, along with blacksmith's tools.

On the far side of the clearing stands a stone structure, perhaps an altar of some sort. Behind it is the only proper structure in this encampment, a 50-foot/45m stone tower with excessively large windows and entry. At the foot of the tower is a wooden gate 12 feet/3.6m high and 8 feet/2.4m wide. About 100 feet/30m to the left of the tower stands a 15 foot/4.5m monolith with a statue of an ogre in it and the word "Vaprak" carved in large letters at the foot of the statue.

Before you can take in much more of your surroundings, the orcs begin steering you toward the fire in the brazier to your right. When you reach it, the orcs order you to stop. You notice that a more muscular than average orc wearing a smith's apron walks out of one of the huts and comes in your direction.

One of your captors gives you an order: "Everything off! No more clothes you wear. Naked as baby in forest now you. Take all off!"

> Yvandel dropped all his humble belongings on the
> floor, except for his puppet, which still clung to his
> neck with its arms bound together.

One of the orcs who is collecting the party's belongings, pauses, noticing the puppet dangling around Yvandel's neck. He holds out his yellow/green leathery hand, and barks a command in orcish. It looks like he is demanding the puppet.

Ceely understanding the meaning of the grunt gently says, with a sorrow look on her face : "Milo, tell this hellbreath bastard that this puppet is the totem that Yvandell lives for, that?s why he carries it. And that if he doesn?t stay with the puppet, he will suffer the revenge of his god. Not only him, but all around him. Yeah, that should do the trick, tell them they can exam the puppet and see that it can?t be used as a weapon."

The healer grunts some more in orcish to Yvandel's captives- (in orcish) "Vaprak is a gentle god compared to the god of this puppetmaster. You can see clearly that the item and the master both are harmless creatures, but woe to the tribe that removes this puppet from is master! Leave him be or condemn us all."

Yvandel, hands hanging motionless next to his body, let's his mind run free, trying to come to a decision about what to do about his current situation. Should he comply with the Orcs, handing over the one thing he values higher than anything else in life, thereby saving the group from more harm, or should he find a way to keep the puppet, risking bodily harm and risking the lives of his friends around him.

Hearing Ceely's idea, Yvandel decides to take the risk. His friends seem to care enough about his puppet to care for it. Slowly, Yvandel reaches up with his hands. The string came loose easily, and in a moment, Yvandel has Volo and Dolo sitting on his left arm.

Glancing up at the Orcs to detect their reaction, Yvandel turns to Milo. He tries to whisper to him, but he knows the Orcs will hear him talk; something they won't appreciate. "Translate into Orcish whatever Volo and Dolo say..."

Before the Orcs can act Yvandel starts his play...

(VOLO) "Great Orcs, hunters of the wild. Hear my tale..."
(DOLO) "We were once like you, conquerors. We were invincible, nothing stood in our way. We got what we wanted."
(VOLO) "Cities fell before us, civilizations were wiped out with a snap of our fingers. We were allmighty."
(DOLO) "Until that day..."
(VOLO) "That unholy day..."
(DOLO) "The day a lone beggar walked into our camp. Ten thousands of soldiers to guard us, and this bastard just walked in like that..."
(VOLO) "Me and my brother did the one thing we did best. We captured the fool and tortured him for days."
(DOLO) "But...to no effect. No matter how much we pained him, no matter what we did, our captive would always appear healthy and refreshed the next day."
(VOLO) "And then on the fifth day..."
(DOLO) "That fifth day spelled our doom..."
(VOLO) "The man, who had not spoken a word before then, suddenly made a demand of us."
(DOLO) "We were to give up everything we had fought for, everything we had gained in our battles."
(VOLO) "We were to give it all up and become fighters of peace."
(DOLO) "If we did not comply to this, the man said, we would be enslaved against our will."
(VOLO) "Ha, enslaved..."
(DOLO) "That's exactly what we told this idiot. We could not and would not be enslaved. Ever..."
(VOLO) "And yet we were..."
(DOLO) "We were indeed...enslaved into this wooden puppet."
(VOLO) "We were to be passed on to simple puppeteers. This poor, simpleminded creature standing here in front of you, holding us while we speak, is a direct descendant from that first puppeteer to hold us..."
(DOLO) "That first puppeteer, who we were given to by that cursed soul who enslaved us."
(VOLO) "For centuries now we have lived like this. We've tried everything to escape our faith. We've tried to have others, ones more evil than these goodhearted puppeteers that rule us, take us away from this miserable life. But to no avail...
(DOLO) "For once we are away from our master, we will spread doom to whoever it is that holds us. We've had kings hold us in their hands...
(VOLO) "and had those kings die of all sorts of mysterious illnesses."
(DOLO) "We've had mages, powerful enough to take on the Gods themselves, take us in their mighty arms...
(VOLO) "and had those mages die in manners worse than anyone can imagine."
(DOLO) "We've even tried to escape our imprisonment by escaping life itself. We've had men toss us into flames, only to have those men burn instead, while we remained unharmed."
(VOLO) "We've had men chop us into pieces, only to see those men chopped up themselves, while we awoke complete the next day."
(DOLO) "Not a scratch has ever remained on our wooden body..."
(VOLO) "So all we ask of you, is to not harm yourselves."
(DOLO) "Simply leave us with this idiot of a puppeteer."
(VOLO) "We have no powers except for that cursed power of eternal life...eternally imprisoned."
(DOLO) "It is not a fate we would wish on you mighty Orcs."
(VOLO) "Leave us be with this simple man and we will do whatever we can to assist you in your battles."
(DOLO) "We will aid you powerful Orcs."
(VOLO) "Good fortune will be on your side..."
(DOLO) "And pity on your enemies, for they will feel the wrath of our anger."

Yvandel pauses for a moment, trying to determine the result of the puppet's words.

The orc attempting to take the puppet from Yvandel pauses as the puppeteer un-slings the puppet. As Yvandel spins his tale, with Milo quietly translating, the orc drops his arm, and listens, his head cocked on one side. After a few moments, almost half the entire group of orcs guarding the party are watching the movements of the puppets and hanging on Yvandel/Milo's words.

As the tale draws to a close, the orcs back away from the puppeteer slightly, and look in some awe at the puppet itself. There is a silent pause for a few moments as Yvandel finishes, then the leader of the orcs war party seems to almost shake his head, then barks a command at the orc collecting the party's belongings. The collector orc shakes his head, and refuses. The leader looks to another orc, who also refuses. All the nearby orcs take a step backwards, and there is some brief shouting between the orc leader and the other orcs. At the end, the leader shrugs and says in broken common "Keep cursed puppet!". He turns on his heel and walks off to one of the huts.

By now, the party has been left standing fully naked, with no equipment or belongings left to them bar one puppet. At the moment they do not even have the small bit of concealment offered by the other captive humans' loin cloths. Watching the orcs who had collected the party's belongings, you see that they are all taken to the large tower.

With goading from the spears of the orcs, the party is herded towards the muscled orc in smith's apron. He quickly fits three-inch manacles around each person's wrists and sets a heavy, 12-inch/30cm long chain between them. For each manacle he removes a red-hot rivet from the fire with a tongs, sets it through the manacles and chain and hammers it tight. The process is repeated again with a second set of manacles to bind the ankles, again with about 12 inches/30 cm of chain between the iron rings. The links of chain are about 3/8 inch/1 cm thick.

With so many spears and swords so close by, the party can do nothing but submit to this humiliation, and after everyone has been manacled, a different group of about 30 orc warriors comes forward, some with with hand crossbows similar to those described in stories about the drow, and some with scourges. The warriors are about 15 feet/4.5m away from you.

An orc motions for you to move to the center of the clearing. Hesitantly, the party move into the clearing wondering what is about to happen, but realising there is little they can do to resist.

Suddenly the orcs, without warning, begin firing their crossbows at you. The tiny bolts, little more than needles, sting as they pierce your arms, backs or chests. (only 1hp each bolt) As first one, then another of the party suddenly drop, it is obvious that these bolts are tipped with some form of fast acting poison, Ceely, finds her part elven blood fighting the poison, and she watches all the others drop after only a few darts hit, whilst it takes 8 darts to hit her before the wounds and the poison finally take their toll and she hits the dirt.

The Whipping Posts

Each of the Unknowns comes slowly awake. They still can feel where the bolts hit them, small minor wounds that have not yet closed, so small trickles of blood run down their naked flesh. Ceely takes longest to wake, and is quite weak from number of minor wounds that she has. As awareness seeps back, each member of the party realises that they seem to be standing, they are not so naked as they were, as they can feel that they've been covered with a loin cloth, like the other prisoners. For some reason their hands are above their heads.

Looking up, they realised that the chains between their manacles have been fastened to a pillar. It strikes them then. Each member of the party has been chained to the whipping posts, three new posts have been erected making one for each of the Unknowns. Looking further around there is an orc with a scourge behind each member of the group. The entire orc village is standing in the clearing, watching the party, including orc women and children.

Behind the whipping posts stands an old male orc. He wears a strange leather tunic with runes or symbols of some kind upon it. He has a large ceramic jug in his hand, sealed with a cork. The old man seems to be waiting patiently for something.

>"I promise you this. If you do not kill me now your blood shall be on
> my hands." Lucretia shouts expecting to be whipped from behind.

Lucretia shouts at the old orc in the rune covered leather tunic, who looks briefly over at the struggling human then returns to stare at the tower. Lucretia is not sure if his words have been understood despite his obvious passion.

> He will actively struggle and try to break the chains. If successful he
> will run to the old Orc in an attempt to grab him by the throat.

Veins stand out on Lucretia's forehead as he strains against the chains, but even his great strength fails against the sturdy iron links. After a few minutes of struggling, he sags somewhat exhausted into his chains, before standing defiantly again.

The entire village of orcs continue to stand their quietly. A few look towards the humans, but most continue to wait in silence facing the stone tower. On the treadmill even the two humans previously pushing have stopped, and appear to be looking away from the party. Only the young barbarian woman chained to the large stone is looking at the party, although her expression is blank.

Xred!

Several more minutes pass, but the orcs maintain only silence virtually ignoring the humans. And then there's movement by the large tower at the other end of the clearing. A garish creature 10 feet/3m tall steps out of the tower. His face is green, his arms yellow and his grinning smile looks almost insane. He walks over to the whipping posts where the party are bound and smiles almost lovingly. He then starts to walk in circles around the party and looks as if he's really pleased to see them. The orcs continue to watch impassively.

The orcs all seem to look at the creature with a kind of awe, almost hero worship type of expression. It's eyes are darting all over the various members of the party, and does not seem to register that Ceely is staring intently at him.

Milo looks up to the heavens, and begins to pray, trying hard to bless the party. A small feeling of comfort is gained as the party feel that Ilmater is looking down on them. The orcs and the creature ignore Milo's words.

After a few moments of walking, almost skipping around the party, the strange 10 foot/3m creature stops and looks down on the captives.


"It is good to see you", it says, nearly gushing. "We do so love guests, and I'm sure you will enjoy your vacation here!" You note that it's accent, although strange is not at all guttural and one could almost say it was educated and cultured. Completely at odds to how it looks.

It looks across the clearing to the girl chained to the rock and says - almost in motherly tones:

"Just look at her! Isn't she sweet? And she's mine, all mine, and that's why I like it here in Zhentil Keep ... no, that's not what I wanted to say! What did I want to say?

"Ah, yes! She will love your vacation here ... no ... you will love her vacation here ... ah! ... it doesn't matter as long as Manshoon is off on his black Agatha. But that's just why Neverwinter Woods is such a dangerous place, isn't it."

He shakes his head, as if it will help get his words out right.

"No, no! Xred has to protect his guests. Mustn't go into Neverwinter Woods, you know! Agatha is liable to be riding Manshoon ... no ... how silly of me. I meant to say, the black dragon is riding Manshoon's Agatha out there in the woods. Yes, that was it! That's what I wanted to say"

This guy seems to be a strange ogre of some kind. That's really the only thing his description comes close to, but it doesn't come very close to that either. One thing is sure. He's a 100% bullgoose loony.

"But I'm sure you'll like it here. There's so much to do. And the mill is so nice. And Söggrin's so nice ... but not for you! No, no, just for Xred! But the time's not right yet. But it must be before Manshoon flies his black Agatha."

He then raises a large finger and waves it admonishingly towards the party.

"And you must learn not to leave the camp! Neverwinter Woods is a very dangerous place! Black Manshoon Agathas everywhere! But it takes discipline to stay in camp. Yes it does! And you learn discipline best, when you taste what happens without it."

As the creature talks, various members of the party try to speak and call out, but the creature ignores them and talks over them. It even ignores Milo trying to challenge it to a one on one duel with staves for the release of the party...

The creature turns to the old orc with the jug in his hand and says:

"Grazzght, help our friends out. Give them a good, long, free lesson in discipline, so they learn to stay here in our happy camp and not go into the woods!"

With that remark, the creature smiles lovingly, turns his back on the party and walks off to his tower, basically ignoring the anything that the captives are saying.

The old orc turns to the party and says:

"Okay, start very good lesson. You learns stay Xred; no go trees. Lesson very good, hurt very much ouch but very good lesson. Lesson all done, Grazzght heal up pretty. Visit no learn someday, Grazzght give new lesson. Someday visit learn. Okay, lesson begin."

The old orc makes a gesture with his hand. You can hear the orcs with the scourges step closer and then they begin flogging your backs mercilessly. One stroke after another after another. The torture seems to go on endlessly, until each of you, one at a time, loses consciousness. You all feel grateful that Milo had cast his blessing, as you believe that the pain would have been even worse had he not.

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