Of Song and Study
29 of Arodus 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
One
very well cheerful goblin in tow, the small caravan makes it into the mongrelmen's home tunnels, the approaches to Cauldron, in half again as much time as you had hoped. Up above the month of Arodus is apparently fading, giving way to Rova, the first month of the harvest. As bizarre as the notion of only harvesting on certain months is, more worrisome by far is the reason for the delay. Gorok had not accounted for the shorter legs of your companions, probably because they are no shorter than Cob and he had always managed. He certainly seems to be doing so now, feet dangling along the side of Warty's... er, warty side and singing along a nonsense goblin song:
The warts are a popin'
Oh the feet are a droppin'
Hey haw round the rock
And down the black gully
Look around and take a walk
Where the water smells so lovely
"You don't think he actually..." Mina gives you a horrified look. One of the things she had least been looking forward in your stopover was the fragrant smell. The loss of her sight— the
temporary loss of her sight— had apparently made her lean more on her other senses, hearing and smell foremost of them, but also her sense of the magic in all things. She insists that everything is enchanted, merest whips of color that give shape to the limestone of the tunnels and the breath of air that passes through them, so you'll just have to take her word for it.
There has to be a curse-breaker in Cauldron, there has to be...
"Worrying about me again?" she asks softly, almost chidingly.
"Well you are blind and you could get ambushed at any moment. I know you trust in your Desna to see you safe on the road, but personally I'd rather trust the same abilities that have seen us all through so far."
"But it doesn't help to worry, does it? You are not going to summon a magician able to break the curse by grinding your teeth at it. You might wreck your teeth though, that is what the sisters would tell me at least."
"See, see even the witch says it's true," you hear one of the halfling children whisper to another.
"She's a witch though. Doesn't that make it
less true?" the other shoots back. "Witches lie."
"Not about teeth, stupid, about important things, like if they are going to cook you up and feed your eyes to her cat..."
"I don't think the cat eats eyes. It likes those weird whiskery fish and those don't have any eyes..."
"Cat's not from down here..."
"How do you know?"
"''Cause it's a normal cat, it doesn't have bug eyes or like a horned head..."
Its hard not to laugh behind your hand at the sheer absurdly of the conversation, though you shift to the other side of the path so that the thin light of Gorok's torch throws your shadow at the wall away from the children. "I heard that cat talk, that makes it a lot stranger than Warty over there," you point out reasonably.
"Is not, that's just a family'ri," one contradicts you.
"No, stupid, it's called a an unfamiliar, you know 'cause they are weird beasties," the other replies and it occurs to you that you had been understanding more and more of the 'common' chatter. It helps that it has many elements in common with the goblin tongue you had been learning from Cob and that they are using small words, but who knows. Maybe by the time you make it out into the Burnlands again you will be able to understand them without having to always look to Mina...
Akorian Linguistics: 1d20+3 =13 (Success)
For now though it is the company of mongrelfolk you have to concern yourself with.
What do you do in town?
Choose Two Actions:
[] Speak to the troll. Had he found someone else to deal with his brother?
[] Cautiously put out feelers to see if the locals learned anything about the poisoning you were 'definitely' not a witness to
[] Go to the market, there's always more to buy and sell
-[] Write in
[] Seek out a curse breaker for Mina
[] Seek out a shrine to deliver the soul-ring to
[] People of all sorts pass through this town, maybe someone knows what Click is
[] Write in
OOC: Enjoy. 
