I can investigate the harbour, or the supply depot. I choose the supply depot.
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You follow a cobblestoned alleyway and soon arrive at a large square, flanked to the north, south and west by warehouses, yet dominated by a smaller building on the east side. Its granite walls are festooned with black flags bearing the emblem of a silver ship and fiery sword, and atop its flat roof there sits a huge, winged creature with mottled grey skin--an Imperial Zlanbeast. You watch with grim fascination as the beast feeds from a pile of horse carcasses stacked beside its perch. Then a daring thought comes to mind. If you could reach the roof of the building and steal the Zlanbeast, it would be possible to reach Aarnak by air in a matter of hours, rather than the days it would take by land or sea.
After riding once around the building to assess its defenses, you leave your horse tethered to a rail near a side entrance and approach the only door that appears to be unguarded. It is locked, but the crude drawbolt that secures it proves no match for your basic Kai skill of mind over matter. The bolt clicks back, the door swings open, and you enter the building unseen.
Beyond the door lies a corridor that leads to a narrow hall of stone. Its ceiling, flat and undomed, is supported by thick columns that march in rows down the sides of the walls. Between the columns are plain steel doors, the largest one guarded by Death Knights. From the safety of the shadows you watch as this great door swings open and a man, swathed in a voluminous scarlet robe, emerges into the corridor. He speaks at length with the two guards, who depart in haste when he has finished, as if running an important errand. Beyond the great door you can see a flight of stairs ascending into darkness. The man in red watches the Death Knights leave, then turns and ascends the stairs hurriedly, leaving the great steel door ajar.
Hoping that this staircase leads to the roof, you cross the corridor and follow the robed man, taking care not to be seen, as you stalk silently in his wake. Your Kai skills keep you hidden from view and enable you to gain entry to the chamber that occupies the entire top floor of this building. There you take cover behind one of many statues that encircle the floor, and witness a scene that chills you to the core.
On a throne of hewn granite, ringed by seven pillars of fire, sits a being whose form radiates pure evil. A loose grey robe shrouds his skeletal frame. It is drawn closely about a stringy throat that swells and shrinks repulsively as he sucks the sulphurous air. With a claw-like finger, he scrapes nervously at the blistered flesh that is stretched tightly across the swollen left side of his face, attempting in vain to hook the head of a snake-like parasite that has burrowed into his jaw. His eyes, deep-sunken and red-rimmed with the unbearable pain of his affliction, burn with sick fanaticism as he listens impatiently to the pleas and excuses being offered by two who stand before him--the man in red and one other, both humbly bowed.
The luckless mortals plead their case, speaking in the Vassagonian tongue--a language that you mastered long ago. They speak of delays in the construction of a mighty battleship, of shortages of material and of too little time in which to finish their work. Their words anger the seated one. He curses them, and the floor shudders beneath the weight of his unnatural voice. 'You would dare defy me?' he roars. 'You would court the anger of Kraagenskûl, Lord of Argazad? Fools! Know you this. If your work is not completed before the next moon, you shall wish yourselves truly dead. A thousand years of agony shall be the reward for your failure, a thousand years of undeath in the dungeons of Helgedad!'
Fired by his own rage, the corpse-like Darklord Kraagenskûl, rises from his throne and draws the sword that hangs sheathed at his side. The blade is unlike any that you have seen. It is wholly black, a black so dense that it appears entirely separate from the hilt, like a tear through which you glimpse the nightmare depths of space. He levels the sword at the cowering men to reinforce his threat, but the blade rebels. It twists in his hand and points accusingly at the place where you are hiding. The Darklord narrows his feral eyes and a wave of psychic shock buffets your mind.
I use Psi-Screen as Darklord Kraagenskûl assails me. I roll a die. Luckily, I roll a 7 and there is no damage dealt to me.