Arc 8 Post 47: Wonderings and Whispers
Wonderings and Whispers
8th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
One of the little known problems of killing one's employer is that it becomes a little unclear who is in charge of what. You, your companions, and Gorok's tribesmen make for very little fuss in that regard, but when it comes to the dwarfs and sellswords things get rather 'dicey' as the Taldan tongue turns, a word derived not from the throw of the bones, but from the varied things that can get diced. Everyone is rather well-armed and having been party to treachery once they seem to worry about it more.
They should just do as I do and worry about it all the time... You hide a smile behind the turn of your cloak. That is not entirely true of course, you trust your companions through pit and hellfire, but really, even a child should be able to do the sums here. Without the sellswords it would be hard to keep watch over the adamantine all the way back to civilization, without the dwarfs it's about as useful as a particularly cramped and heavy shelter, and without Gorok's Ghosts, the name had even caught on in Fusil somehow, the whole adventure might have ended in ice-cold dragon's breath.
From what you can gather, none of your traveling companions understand just what it is you had traded Sylestrix since the entire conversation had taken place without a word spoken, but the favored theories are that you had either been working with her from the start or that one of you, most often Mina, possesses some secret skill of dragon-speech.
Slowly you turn the silvery flask around in your hand. Once these were as common place as a copper's canteen or a box of flint and steel, not something everyone had, but that most citizens of the High Realm who might want them could afford. Now they are rare and precious things that might be set behind glass in testament to a legacy not even half understood. The spectacles were far more specialized, still bearing the broken mask rune of the City of the Faceless. They had been made to deal with inmates of arcane puissance, at least according to Sylestrix, and they must have been the personal possession of one of the survivors in those last desperate moments, which would imply that at least one of them was an officer. Given the prism that you left with them perhaps even a mage, though perhaps and mayhap can chase each other forever unless and until you find them and... And what? Ask them where you can find more remnants, more shards ground down almost to dust by the passage of ages?
3x Restorative Ointments
1x Vial of Efficacious Medicine
1x Shining Wayfinder
1x Spectacles of Constant Discern Shapechanger
1x Spectacles of Constant Detect Fiendish Presence
1x Vial of Efficacious Medicine
1x Shining Wayfinder
1x Spectacles of Constant Discern Shapechanger
1x Spectacles of Constant Detect Fiendish Presence
"You seem troubled?" Sirim's thoughts reach out to you, barely touching. He wouldn't be offended by silence, you know.
"Wondering if we just left the greatest prize behind to be carried out of all our reach," you admit.
"Beyond our present reach," he corrects and when he feels your disbelief at the words he shakes his head at it. "You were never formally trained in the arcane, none of you were save I, so you do not grasp how swift, downright... meteoric your rise has been."
You chuckle at the jest, he does not make them often, but still you cannot help but wonder if you are again in the position of choosing the safe path over the secret and sublime: a adamantine carrier over the cooling trail of the ancients.
"I have spoken to the dragon, therefore in time I may speak to her again, even over the vast gulf between here and face of the moon," the mage says with unwavering confidence as you come to the edge of a clearing.
No, not a clearing. Even your vague understanding of forests makes it clear this is no natural place, the soil had been hurled up in great waves and the trees bent and broken. There, in the center, are eight cylinders of purple hued metal unblemished by wind, sun, and rain. Hollow as they are you rather pity the horses of having to carry the weight.
Obviously it's more than the soil that had been disturbed. You catch the word 'bedrock' more than once in Urgor's increasingly irate complaints, but the most important part is the timetable, a day and a half, maybe two. Thankfully Gavhaul's sleeping bag allows you to sleep through the worst of the day without the sound of dwarvish picks waking you... though something else does.
"Psst, Kori," Cob whispers from the other side. "Think ken you do a future reading for me?"
"What for?" you ask sleepily. It's not that bright out anymore.
"Wanna try out the crystal thing, see what it does."
One imagines your face is rather shocked as it pops out of the silken cocoon.
"Mina and Sirim don't know what it is, so I'll try it out."
"It might be dangerous to experiment with," you point out, collecting yourself.
"Might be dangerous to drag it with us too," he points out. "We don't know what it does just sitting there, or who might be after it. Mina and Siri..." Something tells you the shade would not be amused by the shortening of his name, "say they don't know any wizard who uses that kind of magic or where to find 'em. Poke it now or it gets poked later when it falls off the back of the cart, probably because the horse made it fall on purpose," he finishes with a grumble that does nothing to hide the shine in his eyes.
Cob Willpower (DC 15): 1d20+5 = 23 (Success)
What do you do?
[] Agree to Cob's plan
[] Try to convince him not to meddle with the strange device
[] Write in
OOC: If he had failed the roll Cob would have just tried poking it on his own, as is he came to you and you can try to convince him otherwise. Don't worry about the curse, you are not trying to change his attitude with diplomacy, just argue for a course of action. That said if you want him to never poke it you are going to have to come up with a pretty good argument. It's shinny as all hell.
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