The Harrowmark Twisted Oak - part 2

Gravelines

The jury-rigged Rotmoon limped over the tangled, malignant forests. The hard-pressed crew of orruk sky-pirates were all exhausted and even more argumentative than usual: they had fought-off two Crypt Flayers before breakfast and narrowly avoided a collision with a black skull-formed rocky outcrop in the fore-noon. A few crew-members had been pushed overboard since then.

Kapitán Da Leeva, first mate Bortagno and El Doctoro stood on the aft-deck and stared at a filthy and dog-eared map they had spread out on the top of a barrel. Unseasonably strong winds had pushed them off course by three and a half miles and forced them through the rocky areas area far further south than the course they had plotted. Their maps and charts were old and inaccurate, all the compass bearings were reversed since the Necroquake, which added an extra layer of calculations needed to navigate over the Harrowmark's horrible forests. They didn't even get on with the first layer of calculations very well.

Even taking all this into account, something seemed to be throwing out their navigation. The thaumaturgic compasses both seemed to be off by a few points; it like something powerful was pulling at them. El Doctoro the Shaman took measurements with a ceraunostant and drew lines on the chart, he muttered to himself as he tried to calculate the source.

He straightened up and jabbed a gnarled finger at the parchment. “Whatever it is, it’s somewhere here-around.” he pronounced confidently.

The other two orruks looked closely at the area of the map around the Shaman’s finger. “Nothing is there, but only forest!” said Bortagno, incredulously.

“Something new is come into to the forest,” said El Doctoro “something newer than the map.”

The Kapitán scratched his chin and thought for a minute, “We’ll take a look, it might be worth something.” he said with a grin and a piratical glint in his eye. He nodded to Bortagno who turned to the deck and started shouting orders to change course.

~ ~ ~

Our Warcry campaign is about to start and I am going to continue the story of the Rotmoons. 

Their ship, the Rotmoon, is battered and broken and badly in need of proper repairs. El Doctoro has heard the rumours of the Twisted Oak and he wants to cut it down, saw it up into planks and use the timber to repair their sky-ship - what could be better to repair a flying ship than magical wood? He urged Kapitán Da Leeva to make sail through the area where the rumours suggested it might be, knowing that it would be hard to find and that navigation around it would be difficult. He hasn't been entirely honest about what he expects to find there...