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Blade returned back to the tavern. With a combination of intimidation
and channeling the power of the Lord of Blades he was able to convince
the barkeeper to let them hide in his cellar. The Trust eventually came
by and asked the barkeeper about Blade and Kletus but they didn't really
think Blade came back to the tavern, didn't even look in the cellar, and
the barkeeper didn't let on what was happening. Blade started setting
his squad to expanding and enlarging the hole so that it would be big
enough to move the creation forge out. He convinced the barkeeper to
close the tavern "for repairs" for a little while.
The next day Blade healed the remaining inert warforged and then began
experimenting on the barkeeper. His goal was again to try and convert
him into a warforged. He didn't use the creation forge as he was
concerned about possibly damaging it. Blade spent most of a week working
on this and in the end was unable to graft warforged parts onto the
barkeeper like he wanted but did manage to install a device in the
barkeepers brain that would cause excruciating pain whenever blade
pressed a button on a remote. While not ideal, Blade was pleased that
the barkeeper at least survived the process and was much more able to be
controlled. The barkeeper soon became very compliant to Blade.
In his spare time, Blade cautiously explored a little bit to determinet
he best way of getting the creation forge to The Bladelands. He learned
he was in Trolanport, the capital city of Zilargo. He didn't find out
about the airships or seaships located in the city, however he did hear
a lot about the Festival of the Floats that was coming up soon. The
Festival of the Floats was an annual parade held every year in Zilargo.
This year, monasteries that had recently started joined the Church of
Galifar was organizing it into a massive event that would go from
Trolanport all the way to Oskilor. They were doing this partially to
bring people together during this dark time as well as to publicize
themselves.
Blade decided that disguising the creation forge as a float and entering
it in the parade would be the safest way of getting it out of the city.
He went to register and found that there was a required entrance fee of
1000 gold and also a local business as a sponser. Blade went to the
barkeeper and found he had about 400 gold in savings which the barkeeper
handed over without question. Blade then asked for the title to the
tavern. The barkeeper started to protest that he needed that for his
livelihood. Blade pressed the button on the remote to quiet the
barkeeper then explained that the barkeeper would have no need of the
tavern as he would be going with the warforged when they left so Blade
could reward the barkeep as he promised earlier by finishing the
barkeepers conversion. Stunned by this news the barkeeper showed Blade
where the title to the tavern was and handed it over.
Blade quickly was able to determine that the tavern was worth at least
100,000 gold in it's current condition and location. Blade looked into
selling it but by this time the festival was tomorrow and there wasn't
time. Since he didn't need the money Blade offered the title of the
tavern itself to the monastery to cover the entrance fee. The monastery
gratefully accepted the title instead of the standard gold. As a sponsor
Blade wanted to use the barkeeper. The parade official was picky about
the rules and tried to claim that technically since the barkeeper was
giving away his business he was no longer a local business owner. Blade
countered that the transfer of the title doesn't take effect until after
the festival and so the barkeeper is a local business owner until then.
The official agreed and the barkeeper despondently signed the contract
giving ownership to the monastery after the festival was over. The monks
assigned one of their members, a female gnome named Shrooma, to Blade as
a liason.
Blade took the 400 gold in savings and used it to purchase some cloth
and some costume armor and 15 of the strongest sleeping potions he could
legally get. Blade wanted more potions but was afraid more would attract
attention. That evening he and the rest of the warforged worked to move
the creation forge into the cellar and dressed it up to look like a
coffin. The next morning, the day of the festival, Blade was
disappointed to see that during the night the barkeeper had committed
suicide by hanging himself from the rafters.
Blade had seen wanted posters for Dave around town for being a known
associate of Zergiot. To get both Dave and the creation forge out,
Blade's plan was to knock out Dave with the sleeping potions, dress him
up in the costume armor, drape him under a shroud so he couldn't be seen
clearly and have the float read "Remembering the fallen heroes". The
plan was for all the warforged to carry it like a casket. He gave Dave
one of the sleeping potions. Dave immediately collapsed, and Blade
noticed that Dave wasn't breathing. Aware his knowledge of "fleshborn
medicine" was almost non-existent, Blade decided he was better off
trying to use his engineering skills to try and convert Dave, at least
enough that the body doesn't rot and can be used later. In the few hours
before the parade began, Blade worked feverishly on Dave. In the end,
Blade constructed a machine that pumped a random mix of potions from a
nearby apothecary through Dave's body. Blade tried hiding the machinery
under the armor and shroud as best he could and said a silent prayer to
the Lord of Blades that such a potentially useful "convert" would not be
lost. Blade noticed that Dave's skin was starting to blister but figured
it wouldn't be too visible under the shroud.
Blade's "float" was pretty ugly but no one questioned it too much as
they took their place in the parade. The weight of the creation forge
and Dave together required the combined effort of all the warforged,
including Blade, to carry it. Blade intentionally designed They marched
in the parade through Trolanport and then followed the parade out the
city and north on the road towards Oskilor.
Once out of the city there was no obvious way to leave the parade
without drawing attention, however since Oskilor was in the direction
Blade wanted to go anyways he wasn't too concerned. That evening when
the parade stopped to camp he learned that it was a traditional part of
the festival for all the floats to be burned in a bonfire at the end of
the parade. It would take about a week to get there, and would pass
through the village of Liugwen first in a few days.
During the night after the parade had stopped to camp, Dave's body
started moving. Checking his equipement Blade found that the pipes going
into Dave's body had been severed and his skin felt very hard there.
Dave didn't actually seem to be awake and simply was twitching a bit.
Concerned about the possibility of a necromancer in the parade trying
something, Blade tried building a remote decapitation machine to cut off
Dave's head if he started to actually get up. Shrooma noticed this and
threatened that he would tell others the body in their float was real
and there was something strange about it if Blade didn't pay him some
money. Blade didn't like being blackmailed but gave Shrooma 20 gold to
keep him quiet because it was less hassle. Unknown to either of them,
Loopa had been following behind them, keeping an eye on Shrooma. As
morning came Dave's body settled down and seemed completely dead again.
Blade noticed that Dave's body was bigger then it was before and
sticking out the shroud a little bit now but there wasn't anything he
could do about it.
Blade and the other warforged marched with the parade when it started.
In the afternoon, a few hours before the parade would stop to camp he
had one of his warforged feign a leg injury so they stopped by the side
of the road. Blade pretended to work on repairing the leg so the other
floats behind them would assume that was the reason they were stopped.
Loopa came up to offer her assitance but noticed that Blade wasn't doing
normal first aid but what appeared to be more like blacksmithing. Loopa
decided she probably doesn't know enough about warforged anatomy to be a
real help and wandered off.
About an hour before the parade would normally stop for the evening
anyways, Blade pretended to finish working on the warforged's leg and
they picked up the float and rejoined the parade to avoid suspicion.
Blade figured he would have the warforged have a "relapse" with his leg
tomorrow causing them to fall further back until they were at the end of
the parade and could get left behind. Blade didn't know it but when he
rejoined there were only 4 floats behind him.
They stopped with the rest of the parade and made camp like normal.
Loopa hid herself in a nearby bush so she could clandestinely watch
Shrooma from a distance. No one noticed Loopa sneaking off.
After the sun went down Dave's body sat up and started looking around.
He appeared to be actually awake and not just random movements like last
night. He was about two feet taller then before, his skin looked gray,
and he seemed lumpy compared to before. The lumps had drastically
changed his facial features and Blade could only recognize him by
looking carefully and having spent a lot of time around him.
Not wanting Dave awake, at least not until they could slip out the
parade, immediately handed Dave a sleeping potion to drink. Dave didn't
question it and chugged it down. It had no effect and he ended up
looking at it strangely as if there was something strange about it.
Blade tried giving Dave another sleeping potion but he wouldn't take it.
Dave stood up and started looking for food. Knowing he had no way of
stopping Dave, Blade just had his warforged be on alert and ready to run
away with the creation forge if trouble started. Even not running there
was a slight shaking of the ground with every step Dave took now.
Shrooma saw the "body" of the float he'd been assigned to stand up and
start walking around. Scared he also hid himself in a bush, though it
happened to be a different one then the one Loopa was in. Once he
thought he was secure he started drinking what he thought was ale that
he had stolen earlier. Actually he had accidentally stolen one of
Blade's sleeping potions by mistake and he was soon completely asleep.
Loopa didn't see Shrooma hiding herself but eventually realized that she
couldn't see her anymore. Not caring about Dave and the warforged she
whistled for her dog and had it start tracking Loopa. The dog very
quickly found Shrooma asleep in the bush she was hiding in. Loopa
crawled in with Shrooma and tied him up with ropes. She then started
pulling Shrooma out planning to carry her off to turn in the bounty.
Dave heard Loopa rustling in the bush as she tried pulling her out. He
didn't see the bush move and didn't know where the noise was coming
from. Curious he started charging in the direction of the noise. Loopa
heard the loud pounding of Dave running towards her and tried to dive
out of the way but failed. Both Shrooma and Loopa were crushed by Dave
as he ran right through the bush and kept going. The pain of getting
trampled by Dave woke Shrooma up. He was confused as to why he was tied
up, why he hurt so much, and who the person next to him was. He cried
out in surprise. Dave, heard this, turned around and started charging
back. Loopa grabbed Shrooma, threw her over her shoulder, and ran
towards the nearest float. Dave kept running off into the darkness.
The people in charge of this float Loopa ran too, which happened to be
the one in front of Blade's float, started questioning Loopa about why
she had one of the monks hosting the parade tied up. Shrooma also
started questioning her about this as well. Loopa explained that she had
found Shrooma being abducted by someone. She had scared them off and was
in the process of rescuing him when a monster attacked. Shrooma could
tell at least some part of her story wasn't true but not what and said
as much. The float workers looked at Loopa hostilely.
"I was rescuing him! Honest!" Loopa insisted cutting the ropes binding
Shrooma.
The workers seemed to accept Loopa's story since she was letting Shrooma
go. Shrooma didn't fully trust Loopa and knew she was lying about
something but her story made sense.
Around this time Dave realized he had probably run too far and circled
back. He saw the light of the campfire near the floats and started
running towards them hoping there might be food even though he wasn't
actually hungry. Dave happened to have noticed the campfire near the
float Loopa and Shrooma had gone too and was heading towards them.
Hearing the loud oncoming thumping noises the float workers who had
weapons started drawing them. Loopa and Shrooma, having been hurt badly
by Dave earlier, started running away from the direction they could hear
Dave coming from. As Dave got closer he saw the float, which happened to
look like a dragon. Mistaking it for a real dragon he swung his hammer
and destroyed it in one swing. The float workers vainly attacked Dave
with some swords they happened to have but they barely damaged him. Dave
swung his hammer, effortlessly crushing a worker. Noticing the
disturbance, workers on other floats prepared to defend themselves from
attack. Realizing the chaos would be the perfect cover to escape, Blade
had his warforged pick up the creation forge and slip off into the
darkness with it. Loopa and Shrooma also safely escaped into the
darkness together.
Dave started stamping with his feet, effortlessly squishing the gnomish
workers. At this point their morale started to break and they began to
run away. Dave chased the ones that happened to be going towards the
front of the parade. He saw the next float and targeted it. All through
the night Dave rushed up through the parade attacking and destroying
every float and most of the parade workers that had been in front of
Blade. Seeing the carnage the workers of the last four floats behind
fled back to Trolanport. When the gnomes finished sorting the survivors
from the dead they found that over 4000 parade workers had been killed
and less then 500 survivors.
After destroying the float located at the front of the parade Dave
didn't stop and continued charging north up the road. He didn't need to
sleep and didn't get tired so he never stopped and eventually reached
the village of Liugwen which he completely destroyed. He then continued
charging up the road towards Oskilor. By the time Dave reached Oskilor
enough time had passed since the "the float massacre" that mages from
Trolanport had managed to scry Dave and warn Oskilor what was coming.
They dug a very large pit trap which Dave fell right into and was
captured alive.
Blade and his warforged marched northeast cross-country. They avoided
the main roads to avoid attention. They ended up going around the
mountains of Darguun since the passes were being guarded. It took them
three months but they eventually brought the creation forge to the
safety of The Bladelands and delivered it to the Lord of Blades.