In the Battle's Wake
Seventeenth Day of the First Month 293 AC
"What is your name?" you ask your erstwhile guide after a long moment's thought, a question you realize you had held off with a purpose even if you had not wholly admitted it to yourself before. It is easier to command the summary execution of a nameless man. Better to endure a stain upon your conscience over what might have been than to try and wash it away in another torrent of blood.
"Rolland Snow, my... er... Your Grace," the man answers, caching himself.
"Snow?" Waymar asks, startled, looking up from cleaning his sword. The man neither speaks nor looks anything like a northerner.
"After my grandfather, he was a Manderly bastard," comes the quick reply, probably just glad no one cares to make much of his slip of the tongue. "Name's as good as any other out east."
"Alright then, Roland, you've served me well so far so here's your chance to keep doing that and dig your way out of the pit your patrons have flung you into. I'm going to need a rough count of the men, their locations and the temperament of the various officers as well as information on the supply ships coming in and any connections to the outside world..."
With every word you speak the man's face clears as he finds himself again on firmer ground, and it becomes clear that he would have a chance to show his worth. As you make your way out of the tunnels it becomes clear that worship of Tiamat lies very lightly indeed upon his shoulders and if he honors her in any way it is through the greed and opportunism expected of a man in his position.
Aside from Rolland's character you also discover several other things of note, some welcome and others less so. Just like Illyrio Mopatis, the two apprentice mages had vanished beyond the Wayfinder's ability to discover them, but at the very least there is not much chance of the rest of the sellswords following suit. There are currently no ships or even rafts on the Clearsong River and the next one from the Ombari port of Vaesa is scheduled for six days from now and most of the sellswords are probably still in their quarters scattered throughout the ruins.
"Tis not safe for a man alone at night... and if you send a whole squad that will just rile the ghosts more," Rolland explains, though it takes you a while to realize that what he calls ghosts are less fool-fledged specters and more echoes of horror and untimely death that linger in the ruined streets, petty hangings without the will to act they can only
be. Considering how easy clearing such minor impediments would have been for those as skilled as your enemies have shown themselves, you suspect these remnants were allowed to linger in order to provide the Delvers a clear and visible foe that justified the tainted sorcery and monstrous allies.
***
Unsurprisingly by the time you actually reach the chamber you saw in the vision of the Cheesemonger it has been seemingly stripped of whatever documents and valuables it may once have held its occupant nowhere to be seen. The chests, the desk, the very floor and walls are all trapped with devices both ancient and recent, mundane and arcane...
"I'm glad we don't have fight in here," Ser Richard says, speaking for all of you.
Before you had assumed that the danger of willing yourself directly into the former magester's presence would have been fleeing or receiving timely help. Now you wonder instead if the real threat had not been stepping on some fiendish trap.
"I suggest we seal and guard the room," Malarys says. "Morning is near and with it some of the sellswords may gather the courage to do something ill-advised."
Vee solves the problem, conjuring a stone fey to her side and bidding it to seal the door to the camber over. That should hold against mundane intrusion at least.
When you finally exit the catacombs false dawn is indeed showing, a slight lightening of the sky to the east.
Which do you secure first?
[] The armory
[] The main barracks
[] The shrine of Tiamat
[] The salvage storage
OOC: Yes you have been checking the wayfinder all this time.
