The Isle of Ro, Vol : I – By Rezikai
In the realm of Norrath.. there are places even our brave adventurers do not tread..
One such place is the Isle of Zek home of the last vestiages of the Rallosian Empire, or so was thought. A year after the battle with Darathar reports from the Far Seas trading company ships startedcoming in that the great sea storm in the sorthern seas had started to diminish and the great whirling storm of sand and ocean surrounding a large Isle had started to dissipate. Commerce ships were able to brave the still dangerous waters through.
News of this spread quickly through the cities of Freeport and Qeynos, a new Isle of the Shattered lands had been found! This was a desert isle, the Isle of Ro!
Our band of adventurers did as many others, and set for passage through the sand storms off the coast of the isle of Ro to find treasure and adventure. Upon landing at the Sands of Ro many of the peoples of the sands greeted them, most were decendants of the old Devrish nomads known to roam the Ro deserts in the Age of Turmoil.
The adventurers scoured the lands, finding the remnants of the old Orc Highway and then found the Clefts of Rujark, a tremendous maze of canyons and pillars of stone formed and inhabited by remnants of the Rallosian Orcs. Eventually after fighting through the the clefts they came to a grand city at the top of a set of mountains, Maj’Dul, as it was called by the Devrish people.
The Adventure took their band into the city and met and greeted the new peoples seeing them often quarrel and battle each other. As rival factions vied for control of city streets, much the same way old Teir`dal houses vie for political power before Neriak was destroyed. While there, the adventurers came across a young woman. Barely into adulthood, she was surrounded by a gang of brutes of men, Barbarians, half elves and humans.
It was then she noticed the adventures passing and she dropped a note to the ground. While quickly starring at the adventurers, before one of the thugs grabbed her forcefully and pulled her along, one of the adventurers waited a few moments for the thugs to pass and picked the note up and read it. It read that she was being held captive by these thugs, and her family is in great debt.
The adventurers confronted the thugs and came to near blows, but the thugs calling them selves the Terrorantulas, told them this was Majdul business and they were the “Barrashars”, the trotters who come from the shattered lands, not of the Ro desert and they would hold no authority over Maj’Duls laws. The adventurers came to agree, they sensed the tension. The possibility of compromise in a new city as oppose to trying and brawl it out might be more beneficial, and offered to help.
They were told for the girls freedom they would need to steal and reclaim many old family relics the girls family hid in many of Maj’Duls shops and street markets. Only then would they let her go. Agreeing to the less then moral demands they set off, the adventurers used their rogues to help steal these items and swindle street peddlers.
One notable peddler was selling wares in the outcast district of Maj’Dul, went of the name Kantus Mor’Tael. He was quite mad, perhaps by so many days under Ro’s hot sun, but even he parted with the artifact desired by the gang of thugs. Eventually after a few close brushes with Maj’Duls enforcers called the Sha’ir, they returned to the thugs and offered them the family relics for the girl.
The Terrorantulas took the relics and started to laugh, the adventurers realized something was afoul! As they readied their blades for battle the young girl started to laugh with them, she was not a captive, she was in league with them. Infact she told them she was their leader, and now they had enough wares and artifacts to repay her families debt, and to keep her band of thuggs in her services.
The Adventurers were left second guessing themsleves. This was a more complicated place then the battles Darathar, when they knew their enemy, this would be a land of deceit and treachery. They did however come across something odd, when “acquiring” the family goods. The odd peddler Mor’Tael offered them a strange skull, chanting old rhymes about its magics and properties, but to the adventurers the skull did nothing more then give them a few laughs and never so much as moved. But it seemed to vibrate in our old adventurers hands, he thought perhaps it was usefull. They preformed a few tasks for the peddler and he was to tell them odd things speaking in riddles and rhymes. He said search for the peacock to undo the dark cloud rising from the sands.
The adventurers took the crazed old man’s words as foolishness but his offer if nothing but mad talk was intriguing and anything to forget the previous few days dissapointing jobs for the pretty girl that had them doing her dirty work for her was welcome.
Scouring the city, the adventurers came to a “club” of sorts, it was a religous sect of followers that followed an ancient unknown god of healing. This Peacock Club, was more a small religious hideaway then a lounge.
The leader of the club Peacock Lord Wad’dah Haz’Iz was very upset at the stealing of many of the cities better known artifacts, that our adventurers knew nothing about “ahem”, nothing about them being stolen at all. It seems some of the items were sacred to their cause, the worship of this grand healer of old.
Her name was forbidden the adventurers were told as the goddess of healing she was ousted from the Pantheon, and tossed into the Void for her arrogance. They worshipped her as the true god of healing, not the prime healer Rodcet Nife. The adventurers asked if they could in any way help regain the artifacts (as they were accidently used for the theft) and the club leader agreed to their help.
The trail eventually lead the adventuers around Majdul courts and rooftops, fending off Devrish thieves and vandals avoiding opposing court gaurds.They returned to the club with information on leads to an artifact, the skull they had been looking for. When they returned to the club they were expecting a warm welcome from the Peacock members for returning the artifacts. What they found was the door slightly ajar, and the inside was decimated.
To be continued…
stargrace 
