To the Victors
The Season of Still Stone
Fortunately for the strange woman you are not so surprised to hear the tongue of the People coming from a stranger as to freeze entirely. You mime cupping your hands over your mouth three times in quick succession. Baby talk maybe, but you
need to get this across.
Can she even see me with those eyes?
Just as you are about to add the instruction aloud in the trade tongue she slowly raises her right hand to her face, confirming that she had seen or sensed it some other way. Then she points at your her lips and at your ears...
"You can only speak tongues I know?" you ask in the duergar vernacular, but she shakes her head. "You can only speak in the cradle-tongue of those who stand before you?"
This time she gives a nod and a small tired smile.
Well, you can certainly see why the duergar valued her as a slave, though why chain her beside Messus and an orc?
Speaking of the orc, he had managed to find a fallen duergar warrior's hammer inside your newly made hole in the dark as he tries to free himself. There's barely enough give in the chain for him to even attempt it, holding his wrists painfully taunt, making for an awkward and likely fruitless task.
"Crush your hand flat, it'll slip right through!" one Whisper Foot calls out.
"Maybe you should use that on your head to get some wits," another taunts, though still giving the chained warrior a wide berth.
Vex meanwhile had returned from his hunt, a streak of foe's blood marking his face and chest, though from the way he is careful breathing you suspect at least one of them managed to get some use out of their hammer before they were worn down. He heads right to Messus of the Western Crown Hold and starts asking him about that reward and who he's supposedly worth so much to. As soon as the words 'tens of thousands of gold pieces' pass his lips you know Vex isn't letting this one go, true or false greed is too bright a lure to pass over.
"Chase the orc and goblin off," the young hunter, their would-be leader, commands. Some of this followers start to move to obey, at least until you clear your throat.
"The goblin is with me," you interject calmly.
"Trash always sinks to the bottom, doesn't it?" Vex sneers, not even looking at you. "What about you, fancy a wallow?" he asks the grey-eyed sorceress.
Instead of replying aloud, which would damn her by the very shape of the words, the woman simply points at you and then Cob.
"All know Cob is best cave scout," he proclaims with a literal thump of his chest once he gets past the moment of shock, potentially at being chosen not once but twice inside a hundred heartbeats.
"He's gonna lead them right to a gug's den and then he'll ask to suck on the bones," one wit proclaims, though in the tongue of the People so only you and, presumably, the strange woman can understand it.
"I would rather be far off in the company of a goblin which knew at least to the grateful for healing than near those who would strike the helping hand." The words are far simpler to say than you had ever imagined them being, perhaps for the knife at your side, perhaps for having survived your first battle, perhaps for knowing that you are not heading out entirely alone.
How Vex and the others can be so surprised at this you cannot say, but surprised they are just the same. They are quick to remind you, as though you were some barely-weened hall brat, that no one will come looking for you if you leave in the company of strangers, or telling you the horror stories of sloppers, gnashes, and diggers out there.
While you are forced to listen to this nonsense from idiots who do not want to come back from an unplanned raid one tribesman short, even one who has not yet walked the path, the sorceress steps up to the orc and hands him a key, asking something in his own rasping guttural tongue.
The response sounds thankful, yes, but not affirmative to your ears. The woman mimes first to the now freed warrior, then to his feet, and at last down the tunnel to the west. He will not be coming with you.
Should I feel relieved or disappointment in the lack of company? you wonder, there is no better ward against the dangers of the deep tunnels than company... but this company?
What company you find is what company you get, you remind yourself.
"Right, time to clear this out and get it back home, leave the trash where it belongs," Vex's proclamation has the gift to awake you from ruminating like a
grick with a tasty morsel.
Thankfully you had 'forgotten' to arrange any transportation for the loot, thus meaning you and your new...
companions of the road can have your pick of things too heavy for Vex and company to carry back on the first go.
What do you claim from the ruin of the caravan?
Total Points: 750 (1 Point is roughly 1 gp of market value)
Current Food Consumption: 3 days worth of provisions/day
Supplies:
[] 120 days worth of provisions in Duergar Trail Rations (240 Points total)
Trail bread mixed with worm-lard and finely diced roots, even has some spices for variety
[] 60 Days worth of slave rations (60 points total)
A greenish-white mold harvested from dead vegepigmies and activated by the magic of duergar deep druids, this can turn almost any organic matter edible by most humanoids, if by no means pleasant
[] 3 Bedrolls (3 Point Total)
Simple raglichen bedrolls that allow a comfortable rest
[] 100 days worth of fungus-wood (50 Points Total)
Mature fungus wood fit for burning or whittling into simple tools
[] Compass (10 points)
This strange device of stone, glass, and iron has fine duergar runes printed along the side which you cannot read, but you can recognize the four set in silver leaf in the corners: North, South, East and West. Be wary though, there are many things, mundane and magical, in the Underlands which can trick the north-pointing needle
Weapons:
[] 3x Heavy Crossbow and 20 Bolts (50 points)
[] 2x Lantern Staff (15 points)
[] 3x Warhammer (12 points)
[] 3x Stonebows (35 points)
[] 1x Spring Blade (70 points)
[] 3x Morningstars (8 points)
Armor:
[] Bizarre ornate armor (50 Points)
Messus gets rather argumentative if you choose this, but Vex thinks it looks too impractical to wear
[] Torn up drow armor (250 Points)
At first glance this armor looks utterly ruined, but you are pretty sure your magic can mend this instead of merely salvaging it for silk
[] 5x Clotweed robes (10 points)
Not any sort of armor, these duergar robes are at least warm and hard-wearing
Alchemical Substances:
[] 3x Water Purification Sponge (25 Points)
[] 2x Ooze Grease (50 Points)
[] 1x Rusting Powder (60 Points)
OOC: They way I established how many points you have is I rolled how much treasure you should be getting out of this for your contribution and then I added the starting wealth of your two companions, since narratively they have nothing but the rags on their backs .
