Colossus Part II (Ironsworn: Starforged Rules)

 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.