Welcome back to my playthrough of Colossus with Starforged rules! I hope you're enjoying the story so far and that it might even help inspire your own Ironsworn or Starforged games! For Part I, click here.
Without further ado, here is the continuing story of Iris and Sora!
Colossus Part II
Iris suspects Kaito Crowley is still in North Spire, but
doesn’t seem to be in the Smokeys. She decides to try the Sable Lands, the city
of Arid Acropolis. She and Sora set off for the Sable Lands in the morning. She
makes good time to the Sable Lands, where the soil darkens to an almost black
color. She sees a tripwire from a distance; she cuts it with her knife and a
boulder falls from a cliff onto the path. She easily goes around it and remains
vigilant for raiders and robbers.
As Iris and Sora continue on, they see a pack of wolves
eating the fresh corpse of a deer. Sora growls and scares off the wolves. The
deer is in good condition. They set up camp and eat deer and make jerky out of
the leftovers. In the morning the weather takes a turn for the worse. Sora and
Iris persevere through it, though it slows their journey down.
They come across poisonous plants that are mutated and
moving. Sora and Iris maneuver around them. Suddenly some unstable ground gives
way and Sora falls into an old basement. He is not hurt, but it takes some time
for Iris to pull him out.
Things get better as they come across some branches that are
perfect for fletching into arrows. They come across a settlement. It is a town
called Lyric. Iris and Sora resupply and rest there. The town is trying to
terraform the land to make it better for farming. The people of the town also
scavenge the nearby ruins of the old city of Bard.
Iris encounters Hydrangea in Lyric who has just finished a
mission. Iris and Hydrangea talk and Hydrangea asks Iris if she would like
company to Arid Acropolis. Iris says the more, the merrier. They set out for
the capital of the Sable Lands.
As they reach a fork in the road, a raider shoots at them
from cover but misses by a wide margin. Iris immediately reacts with arrows and
kills the lone raider. They endure no further incidents and reach Arid
Acropolis by nightfall.
Hydrangea offers to help Iris ask around about Kaito
Crowley. As they ask around, they learn someone named Kaito matching the
description recently traveled to the ruins of an old village named Sung.
Hydrangea offers to explore Sung for clues with Iris and Sora. Iris thanks her
and they leave the city for Sung.
As they travel along a mountainous path, a sudden rockfall
erupts. The two Scouts and Sora avoid the danger just in time. Suddenly a
raider jumps out from behind a boulder and claims Iris is responsible for his
brother’s death, who died at Enigma. Iris and Hydrangea both shoot. They hit
him, but he still charges forward in rage with his machete. Sora tackles him
just before the raider can strike Iris. Sora rips his throat out with his
teeth.
Iris feels a strange pang of regret, but the Scouts and Sora
continue on.
They reach the remains of a terrible rockslide blocking the
road. They have to go around, which makes their journey take longer. They pass
by an abandoned farmstead and scavenge, finding medicine.
Shortly after, they reach Sung. Sung was a rustic village
now in ruins and ravaged by scavengers, raiders, and time. Iris wonders why
Kaito decided to come here. They enter an abandoned saloon. Rats the size of
small cats scuttle all around. They find an old bottle of wine that might be
worth some credits.
They leave the saloon and find an old research lab full of
empty animal pens. They find evidence of horrific experiments on monkeys, dogs,
and pigs. This place was trying to create a super-soldier serum using animals
as test subjects. They find a room where computers and papers had been set on
fire. Clearly someone wanted to hide the evidence of this lab’s experiments.
Nevertheless, they find evidence that Lotus funded this place.
They enter the living spaces in the lab where scientists and
their families lived. The name on the placard on one of the doors to an
apartment says Crowley. Iris, Hydrangea, and Sora enter the apartment.
The room is covered in destroyed furniture and papers. From
the papers, Iris pieces together Crowley was a scientist who gave himself the
super-soldier serum. That explains how he so easily killed Sparrow. But why
kill Sparrow at all? What is the connection between the two men?
The Scouts determine they’ve learned all they can from here.
They decide it’s time to go back to Arid Acropolis and check to see if Lotus
has any missions for them.
On their journey back, they encounter a robber. They subdue
him, but not before the bottle of wine they found in Sung’s saloon is smashed.
They continue on to Arid Acropolis without further incident.
Iris thanks Hydrangea for all her help. Hydrangea suggests
asking Lotus or a Scout scientist for further answers. Hydrangea says goodbye
and returns to Lyric for a mission. Iris and Sora set themselves up at an inn.
Iris decides a Scout scientist would be more reliable than
asking Lotus directly. She writes a letter to Parrot, who is somewhere in the
Smokeys. She asks if he’s heard about a scientist named Kaito Crowley. She
sends the message with a courier bot. Now all she can do is wait for his
response.
Iris bumps into Goose, who is on his way to a mission. Iris
offers to help, but Goose seems to hesitate. He doesn’t know Iris well and
prefers to work alone. Finally he tells her a small child has gone missing. He
knows the parents personally and would appreciate Iris’s help. Iris asks if
there’s any personal effects of the child’s. Sora can try to follow the smell.
Goose presents a rag doll and Sora sniffs it and leads them
to the market district. Goose describes the girl to Iris and they split up and
ask around. Iris learns the little girl was dragged towards the sewers crying
by someone the spectator thought was her mother. Iris tells Goose and the two
investigate the sewers.
They find one of the girl’s sandals at the entrance. Sora
sniffs it and leads them into the sewers. They quickly find the little girl and
a woman about to plunge a dagger into the little girl’s heart. Iris tells the
woman to stop. Sora leaps on top of the woman. Sora bites the woman twice as
the woman struggles to reach for her dagger. The little girl recognizes Goose
and runs to him. Sora bites the woman more. He finally tears her throat out as
Goose hides the little girl’s face.
As the Scouts investigate the immediate area they find
cult-like paraphernalia. They discover from the woman’s journal she’s part of a
cult called the Blessed Martyrs, who abduct children to sacrifice to supposed
inter-dimensional beings to stave off the end of the world.
Goose thanks Iris and Sora for helping him. He says he needs
to get the little girl back home and then tell the mayor about this new cult.
That night at the inn in Arid Acropolis Iris dreams of the
cowboy in black at a beach overlooking the waves next to a campfire. Iris
senses the dream is a Miracle. In the morning she finds Goose and describes the
beach from her dream. He says there is a village by the coast of the sea called
Inlet. She could ask around there.
Goose, to thank her for yesterday, offers to go with her.
She says she appreciates the company. They leave Arid Acropolis and start their
journey towards Inlet. They find wolf tracks leading away from the road. Sora
sniffs at them, wanting to hunt, but Iris urges him onward. The path wanders
too close to a cave, however, that happens to be the wolves’ den.
Sora growls at the wolves and bares his teeth, scaring the
wolves back into their den. They pass by an oasis and refill their canteens and
let Sora get a drink. After the oasis they find a dead scavenger on the road.
He is riddled with knife wounds. They leave the body behind and arrive at Inlet
by the sea a few hours later.
Goose and Iris start asking if anyone has seen a cowboy in
dark clothing with one eye and one ear. Someone says they remember seeing
someone like that on the beach, though she doesn’t remember when. Goose and
Iris investigate the beach. They find an old campfire that looks like the one
from Iris’s dream. They also find a water-logged gun. Iris recognizes it as the
gun that killed Sparrow.
She finds a label on the gun: Lotus. Goose and Iris exchange
a glance. Only Scouts have guns with the Lotus label on them. Is Crowley a
former Scout? If so, why did he kill Sparrow?
Goose and Iris decide to spend the night in Inlet at the inn
and leave for Arid Acropolis in the morning. They notice they are getting
stared at a lot, which isn’t unusual as they are Scouts. The food at the inn
tastes funny. Iris falls into a deep sleep.
She is woken by the sound of footsteps in her room and Sora
growling. She hops to her feet quickly and narrowly dodges a blow from a
villager with a bat. There are three people in her room wearing robes and
wielding bats. She grabs her knife from under her pillow.
She stabs one of the villagers and dodges an attack. She
stabs another villager but the third villager swings on her and she falls down.
She is hit with a bat but Sora attacks the villager, jumping on him and digging
his claws into the man’s shoulders. She gets hit by another bat in the stomach
before she can stand up. She stabs upwards and slashes a villager, making him
drop his bat. She leaps to her feet. She stabs again, killing him. She dodges
another bat swing. She stabs the second villager while Sora kills the third.
Bodies litter the floor of the room. Iris grabs her bow and
satchel and she and Sora run to check on Goose in his room. Just as they
arrive, Goose cracks a villager’s skull with his bat. Bodies litter the floor
of his room also. Goose appears tired but uninjured. He suggests they leave
Inlet.
As they exit the inn, they are set upon by more villagers in
robes. Iris fires a volley of arrows and takes out some villagers, clearing a
path for the Scouts and Sora to run. They jump over the bodies and head for the
road out of the village. A villager throws a dagger at them that barely misses
Iris’s head. A few villagers shoot at them but luckily they are bad shots and
miss. The Scouts and Sora escape the village into the cover of night.
They make it back to the city without further incident, but
Iris is stressed and hurting from the bats. She takes some pain pills when they
get to the saloon for a drink. Goose tells her he is impressed by her. He
didn’t think she had it in her to handle this lifestyle. He makes a toast to
her.
Then he gets serious and says it’s clear Inlet has become
consumed by a cult, probably the Blessed Martyrs. He makes it his mission to
stop the cult from spreading however he can.
Iris, on the other hand, has no choice but to wait for a
response from Parrot regarding Crowley’s connection to Lotus. That’s if Parrot
even knows anything at all.
