Chapter 3 / Episode 89 – The Slavelord Icar
Date: Planting 13, 576 CY — Evening
Region: Drachensgrab Hills, south of Highport — the slavelord stronghold.
Weather: Cold drizzle. Low clouds. Mud and mist clung to stone and bone alike.
Players
Dog the Ranger
TerryOr the Cleric
Silversun Ubermage the Magic-User
Slash the Bard
Kern Blackshield of Safeton
Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)
Planting 13 — The God Answers
They watched the stockade from the ridge, counting patrol rotations and noting blind corners. The walls were thick. The towers manned. The gate a death sentence.
Terry knelt in the drizzle and admitted something he rarely would.
“We are overmatched.”
The dice fell.
St. Cuthbert came.
Not thunder. Not glory. Just certainty. A trance. Filth. The stink of animals.
Terry awoke on straw beside a wild boar in a cramped, foul-smelling chamber.
The others lay scattered around him.
They were inside.
The cost? A 10,000 XP penalty laid squarely on Terry’s shoulders for invoking divine intervention in full surrender.
No one said it was cheap.
The Boar Chamber
The room was twenty by thirty feet. Three straw pallets. A lantern on a table. Boar dung thick in the air.
The beast wore a spiked collar.
It charged.
Steel flashed in cramped quarters. Slash pivoted low, Dog loosed point-blank, and Terry braced as tusks raked across shield and wood.
The boar fell quickly—but not quietly.
Terry pressed his ear to the door.
Light beyond. Voices somewhere in the hall.
They were not in a forgotten cellar.
They were in the belly of the stockade.
The Kitchen of Icar
The door opened into a wide, smoke-filled kitchen. Fire pit roaring. A massive lizard roasting over coals.
Three hulking, barbaric men turned—hand axes already in hand.
And at the center stood him.
Seven feet tall. Broad-shouldered. Calm.
The cook.
Icar.
Second in command beneath the infamous Markessa.
Kern didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll take him,” he growled—and charged.
Axes flew first. Kern took both—eleven points of blood for his courage.
Spells followed.
Slash cast color spray—useless against a helm with no eye holes.
Silversun readied magic.
Terry invoked hold person—one barbarian locked stiff mid-charge.
Then they changed.
Flesh rippled. Snouts elongated.
Wereboars.
Lycanthrope Fury
The kitchen became slaughterhouse.
Kern swung hard but missed his first strike. Terry parried a brutal blow and drove steel deep into Icar’s flank. Dog shifted angles, arrows thudding into thick hide.
Slash’s new sword bit deep—and stuck.
“Of course it does,” he snarled, wrenching at the blade embedded in muscle. Singing!
Icar roared, towering over them. Fighter’s discipline. Beast’s fury.
Boars fell first. Silvered steel and holy resolve tore through lycanthrope flesh.
Then all eyes turned to the Slavelord.
He fought like a warlord, not a cook.
But numbers matter.
Slash freed his blade at last and struck true.
Icar fell hard enough to shake dust from rafters.
The Slavelord’s Secrets
When the smoke cleared:
150 gold in each wereboar’s pouch — 450 gp total
Loaf of bread. Cup of wine.
Papyrus-like tablet in a crude but deliberate script—unknown, akin to orcish.
A map.
“The Aerie,” Slash read slowly.
“The Aerie,” Dog corrected. “Eagles.”
They believed it a questioning site. A place where slaves were broken.
They had killed Icar—second to Markessa.
The chain was shortening.
Rooms of Coin and Corruption
They pressed deeper.
Bedroom:
Dagger
Thick leather-bound cookbook (unknown tongue)
33 platinum pieces
100 gold pieces
Treasure chamber beyond:
2,000 gold pieces
10 pieces of jet (100 gp each)
10 silver and black opal bracelets (200 gp each)
Brass coffer containing:
Anchor token
Potion of Undead Control
Potion of Diminution
Scroll (7 clerical spells)
Ring of Warmth
Hidden parchment: directions to the Specialist Quarters where Icar had hidden stash.
Further promise:
5,000 gold pieces
Uncut ruby (500 gp)
8 uncut sapphires (250 gp each)
The stockade was more than holding pens.
It was infrastructure.
Aftermath and Calculation
Kern’s wounds were treated—lycanthrope bite cleaned, watched carefully. Terry cast cure disease as a precaution.
They considered the eyeless helm.
“Disguise?” Silversun suggested.
“Or curse,” Slash answered.
They left it.
They secured doors with chairs. Barricaded halls. Counted corridors.
The fortress assault had begun—not with a charge at the gate, but with a god’s nudge into the kitchen.
Outcome Notes
Slavelord Icar slain (Fighter, 7 ft tall, second to Markessa)
Three wereboars destroyed
Significant treasure recovered
Map to “The Aerie” obtained
Specialist Quarters identified
Divine Intervention used (10,000 XP penalty to Terry)
XP Awarded
Total: 14,000 XP
Per Player (5-way split): 2,833 XP each
Current Status
Inside the stockade
Alert level uncertain
Markessa remains at large
Kern’s wife possibly within these walls
Crown still unresolved
Aerie location now known
The walls that once looked impenetrable now bleed from within.
But they have only cut off the second head.
Markessa still lives.
And somewhere in these halls, slaves wait.
Next move decides whether this becomes a rescue… or a massacre.
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