Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

[DragonParadox]

Finding the Spark​

The Year is 4706 counted since the day when Aroden the Last Azlanti raised the Starstone from the depths of the Inner Sea in an act that would raise him to godhood, one hundred years to the day, to the hour since that god died, taking with him the Starfall Doctrine's promise of an Age of Glory for mankind and the power of prophecy. The Age of Lost Omens has come, from the fel nightmares of the Worldwound spilling upon the ruined land of Sarkoris to the endless roar of the Eye of Abendego and the mailed fist of the Thrice Damned House of Thrune driving Cheliax into the maw of hell the world is now a darker place than in the days of yore. Yet to you it matters not at all, no living god had promised you the world, no portents foretold to your people everlasting glory. Why should they after all when you are nothing but a...

[] Caligini: ...down, down, down in the dark your ancestors went, out of legend and tale, sliced apart and molded like clay, like shadow, puppets and toys to the owb, and yet the dreams linger and sometimes one is born to dream them. Sometimes one escapes up the winding passages through the narrow crumbling stairs until you find the sky that was stolen to you. Though the sun burns and those who live under it count you monster you rejoice, for perhaps where one has come others might follow.

[] Goblin: Friend of fire, greedy guts, spawn of monsters, bane of dogs, all these your kin has been called yet from the Age before the Ages you have endured in every corner of the world; hunting and scrounging, singing and striving. From folly into fortune you stubble upon a brighter path.

[] Kobold: Long you have toiled under the mountains, before the dwarfs found the sky, before the elves came from elsewhere, kin of dragons you are. Crafty-cunning, spiteful-swift and all the barbs of the big folk are not enough to make you forget it. Yet there's never enough room under the mountains, never enough paces for those who dream strange. Whether by wanderlust, heresy or ambition you've made your way into the wide world and vowed to make something of it.

[] Lizardfolk: Born to the swamp, grown strong from its trials, yet discontent with a hunter's simple lot. Do you wonder at how the warmbloods have grown so strong and want to bring something of that secret back to your tribe, or do you just want the freedom to bask under the sun of strange places, to find yourself in company of those who speak many stranger tongues?

OOC: It's been months since I ran Pathfinder quest and I find I miss it quite a lot. At the same time I never ran a quest on Golarion even though I enjoy the world; its history, its gods and its twist on classic D&D. Speaking of twists, this is in some ways a familiar theme, a being thought evil climbing out of darkness, but where most of these tales focus the great fallen to evil and ruin this is a quest of how the small and insignificant that scurry in the dark and dank places of the world can. Once the species is chosen the next update will be working on who your PC is, where they are from, what are their deeds before going out in thee world, etc.

 

[DragonParadox]

Songs in the Dark​

Seventh Bell Prayers, Hall of the Young

Threads of light grey, green and flickering blue danced upon the rough stone of the hall in time with the words of the First Prayer, spoken first in the old tongue of the Ancestors and then in the tongue of the People to the beat of many small hands.

Kápote zoúsame sta parapáno edáfi, sofoí kai epidéxioi sti téchni
Once we lived in the lands above, wise and skilled in craft.

You shuffle against Vex's shoulder and bump against Ixil's foot, knowing that you've earned many pinches and bruises from it, but not caring. You need to hear this, you need to know what the whispers and furtive hand gestures the caretakers mean. Vex claimed that you were defective and they'd feed you to the Sloppers instead of the Knife Gifting. Too tall to be a whisper-foot, too clumsy to be a dancer, too warm-souled to be a hunter, and ugly besides with the way the lines of your face seemed sharp enough to peel the bark off fungus-wood.

Metá írthe to makrý skotádi
Then the long dark came.

In your heart of hearts you had hoped that that the tale-teller be as you are, but she was not. Only coming up to your chin and you haven't gotten your full inches in yet. Yet in spite of the disappointment the light of the burning ether-cap is warm and filling, and the tale she spins grips you like a sudden under current.

Ósoi pálepsan enántia sto skotádi péthanan
Those who struggled against the darkness died.

The tale-teller's wrists shone with sliver bells, finer than anything you had seen before, the pale light holding within it reflections like the face of water. 'If I look close enough into them will I see myself?' You wonder, 'is that the secret to making light and sound cast back into the shape of the world? Would it be strange to take in that light as well? Would it make me more myself? What would that look like?'

Allá o Sofós íxere óti o Skoteinós odigoúse to drómo
But the Wise knew the Dark lead the way.

On she sings and on you clapped, nine times nine, each verse a trial that the old ones were given by the Dark on their way down from the Burnlands into the hidden homes of the People. She speaks of how they had become smaller and nimbler of fingers, save for the warriors and hunters of great beasts, of how song had been stolen from the burbling waters of Orv, how the first blue-flame had been tamed to forge the tools and knives of the People and of how...

Émoiazan perissótero o énas me ton állon óste oi fylés na eínai dynatés
They grew more alike, one with the other, that the clans might be strong.

A thought kindles in your mind with strange surety. 'Had the Old Ones been less alike one to the other, less smooth of face and sure of their path? Maybe you were like them. That wasn't bad right? The Old Ones had been 'wise and skilled in crafts' even before the Dark came. Maybe they too had been like...

[] Write in name

Maybe you weren't just a weird...

[] Boy (Male)

[] Girl (Female)

[] Child (Non-Binary)

OOC: I decided to go with Greek for the Azlanti tongue, because the Taldans who were later Day Imitators of Azlant are very Roman coded. Originally I wanted to go with ye olde Liniar B Greek, but there is no way I am making coherent sentences with just a dictionary. Apologies to any native speakers of modern Greek for the inevitable weirdness of Google Translate.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Winding Path ​

Deep-rush Season

Who had named you Akorian none would tell you, no matter how much you asked the eyeless Keepers of the Hall, but all would agree it had an odd sound to it, one that did not easily translate into the knock-speak of the tunnels for it recalled the old tongue of the prayer and tale. Sometimes as you rest your head upon the dried spring-moss pillow you wonder if it had been your dame or your sire. It was a yearning almost as foreign as the name. Children belong not to those who bring them into the world, but to the whole clan, to the oathbrothers and oathsisters beside which you walk the Fivefold Path.

But I do not walk the path. The thought is like a whisper within, barely daring to form, as though fearful a sharp eared hunter might pluck it from your very mind. You practically dip your head in the stew bowl and almost choke on a piece of ash-root in the process.

Vex must be Fire Keeper today, gotta be. He's the only one among your peers who does not have the patience to pull the woody nodules out of the root, and the only one who can get away with it. With the way he had shot up in height he's practically guaranteed to be a hunter and he's already acting like he is chief, though it's still five full turns of the seasons before Knife Gifting comes again. He's still got a lot to learn about fair rule, not just prancing around with that chitin-topped club like he is Zul the Caver-Taker come again.

It's not champions of the xulgath with fire and keening wind your people have to worry about these days. Its kaergath tunnelers burrowing around the traps and guard posts of the northern approaches. Ixil is certainly stronger than one of those, but then so is every one of your people fit to raise a weapon. The trouble is they raid the mushroom farms without warning, snatch food and farmer alike to devour, and vanish back into the wild tunnels.

Soon enough you find your own true passion, you...

[] Become first a cook, then a healer of sort, experimenting with strange mushrooms and the meat of beasts unfit even to burn (Alchemist)

[] Grow into a fierce warrior, turning the rage at your fellows' disdain against the enemies of the tribe
-[] Barbarian
-[] Bloodrager

[] Follow the path of the Dancer as best you understand it, those unbound by clan who wander the long tunnels to bind the people to one another beyond the trackless miles
-[] Bard
-[] Skald

[] Discover a strange altar of ancient make in your wanderings from which a voice speaks without words, soothing the uncertainties of your soul
-[] Cleric
-[] Paladin
-[] Inquisitor
-[] War-Priest

[] Wander far into the wilds, finding the company of the beasts that fill the nightmares of your kin to be better at times than their own
-[] Druid
-[] Hunter
-[] Ranger

[] Learn the ways of battle, you will protect your kin as a warrior even if they will not accept you as a leader (Fighter)

[] Follow the path of the Whisper-Foot, most common among your kin
-[] Rogue
-[] Slayer

[] Only grow stranger as you age and many whisper that you are ill luck upon the tribe. As you grow apart so do you gain a measure of understanding of what you have become and how you might wield it (Oracle)

[] Are pushed too far by your peers and in a moment of strife discover the power within that will mark you for all your days in the eyes of your kin and beyond (Sorcerer)

[] Call out in the dark places of the world for someone, anyone to hear your voice and give you purpose. Something answers (Summoner)

[] Show kindness unbidden to a beast which barely seemed large enough to be thrown in the pot and were rewarded with uncanny power (Witch)

[] Acquire a gift for writing and a love of words second to none; watching and cataloguing powers seen and unseen even as you are ignored (Wizard)

[] Write in

OOC: Instead of asking for a plan from the get go. which would require a lot of number-crunching all at once, I thought it might be more interesting to do a class selection first and then worry about the details of assigning stats and the nitty gritty of character creation. The choice here is not just about class, but also about Akorian's relationship with his people and heritage. Classes not show here like Magus and Arcanist are excluded because I could not think of a reasonable way for Kori to gain them, but if you guys come up with good appropriate flavor for it feel free to write them in.

 

[DragonParadox]

Unchancy Beginnings ​

Sudden Flame Season

Odd things have a habit of happening when you are around, like that time someone tied a stone rattler to the tail of a dead foot grub and put it under your bed, scaring you half-to-death thinking it was a Death Rattle Worm. Or that time someone left a sweet-core nugget next to your bed as a treat for High Harvest only for it to turn out that 'well-wisher' had dusted it with frothing powder which left you frothing at the mouth all day and unable to eat much of anything at the feast. The only game anyone will play with you is hide-and-go-seek for the chance to rough you around when they find you. It's 'good training' the Mistress Hulkxi, Keeper of the Hall, insists. If an enemy finds you hiding you can expect more than a scuffing, a xulgath's pot or a duergar's chain that's what you'd get, if you're lucky. But you're not dumb, you can see the suspicion she throws you, like you're a new kind of snake in the pantry. She hides it better than the other children, but that doesn't mean she hides it well, not when you're so used to weighing apathy against ill will in eyes high and low, young and old.

When you try to fight back you are outmatched, not silent-footed enough to deal with the eyes paired up like proper, not strong enough to take on more than one or two even when you get lucky. Well, not unless you picked on the littles and that just feels like rolling the shit ball downslope. So you get better at hiding, squeezing down narrow passages and crouching all snug like in sand-worn dips... well snug after you'd nicked the bedding from the hall at least, but if they didn't want you stealing bedding they should have kept Vex from pouring pitch on you while you slept.

Barely coming out to get meals and snatching as much as you can when you do so you won't have to do it more than one time in three, you start to earn something of a reputation. The older kids start warning the younger ones about you, making it out like you're some kind of people-shaped funnel-web, a monster just waiting to snatch them up, but as the tales grow in the telling you start to notice odd things happening to the worst of your tormentors. Ixil tripping in a storeroom and getting so tangled up in the nets that they had to cut him out of it, chewing him up for ruining a perfectly good net, Lurz getting a rash all over her face and hands trying to make itching powder that you later learned was meant to be dumped all over your new bedding.

You change your nook after that, though you start to wonder... is someone, something looking after me? Can you ask for things? Make things happen? Sometimes it feels like the world's holding its breath, balanced like a rat's bone on an egg so that the smallest push can tip it this way or that. Like it is or like I want.

When you think about it that way the fear of the strange power fades before the chance to change things. After all, what do you have to lose?

[] Write in character sheet

• Caligni
• Oracle
• 20 Point Buy

OOC: I was going to include some of Akorian getting back at his bullies, but I do not know what skills or spells you guys might be getting to use. Also, I rolled up your starting wealth and you got a better than average roll, 120 gp. That will be wealth you get with your magic one way or another before starting in the wide world. You guys might want to start thinking what you want to buy with it. The duergar traders are going to be in town when the time finally comes to equip yourselves.

 

[DragonParadox]

Trade and Treachery ​

The Season of Still Stone

"I don't belong here..." What first puts the thought in your head you do not know, like a pebble falling in the dark, but you know it is different than all the sad wanderings of your childhood. No longer do you imagine going up the north gully and getting yourself killed to show them how much they would miss you.

Partly you know it is because some would miss you, but not for any love of you.

Where else would foolish hunters who do not even give you a second look in public find healing? Where would the poor tanner find magic to undo their error?

A cruel smile, you think, curves over your features. But if that alone had driven you, you still might have balked at the dangers of the wild of which you know little, but there is another gust behind you, as though from some preciously sealed chamber now torn open. You want, you need to know what this is and the answers do not lie in being Vex's wrist-lizard, no matter how much he had learned to dip the sharp edges of his contempt in scarab jelly.

Without meaning to your steps lead you to the mushroom fields. The largest and in some way most important chamber of the tribe, green-caps grow in profusion and the fungus woods grow to twice the height of the People. You had heard from traders before that some find the shape of your tribe's fungus woods eerie and unpleasant, the way some of their branches look like hands stretched upwards only for them to explode into a profusion of delicate filaments, the way each of them has depressions for eyes and a round hole big enough you could shove inside a small bucket but you do not see it. Perhaps it is your memories of the sap harvest, when there is even enough for such as you to get a taste of sweetness.

The traders come as always atop their great striding steeds, the delicate legs seeming much too small to carry the weight of the rider, much less all the sundries, blankets and baubles, and stout baskets lashed to it.

Spoiler: Duergar caravan master

Those deep sunken back eyes do not seem to even notice there is anything strange about the fungus woods, much less is he troubled. 'Grey as ash and twice as grim are the duergar' the saying goes, about the height of the average Whisper Foot you would have a foot on the tallest of them, though what they lack in height they make up for in girth. Even the least the guards are dressed in undyed blood-weed cloth, the dark red an implicit threat, though not as much as the master merchant.

Spoiler: Rolls

• Perception: 10 + 5 = 15 (Success)
• Knowledge (Dungeoneering): 19 + 5 = 24 (Success)

No... not the master, you realize as you fail to see a chain in his beard. A duergar would sooner cut off his right hand that appear before outsiders without his mark of rank. You had ever heard that the father of their race would torment any who show up so stripped before them for eternity, though that seems to you a thing their god would not need cause to do, knowing what you do of him. Crossing your index and middle finger you ward away back luck or the gaze of the stranger gods. Magic burns at the tip of your fingers like an unseen spark, but you do not conjure it, not yet.

Still hiding in the shadows you follow the sound of clinking chains and find the slaves the Still Stone caravan always brings, but never sells, even when the people are flush with the silver-faced lead of duergar coin. They are for whatever or whoever is on the other end of their route. Three goblins somehow find the energy to squabble in their cage, even under the calming potions, or perhaps the merchant did not bother with them. The orc on the other hand is marked with three ritual scars on his cheek and is well and truly lost to the draught dreams, barely able to shuffle forward. There's a woman, tall but oddly proportioned wearing an eyeless hood, a spellcaster you would guess, and another in silks that might have once been finer than the merchant, but now are only rags. She seems oddly pale in the harsh green light of the worm-oil lanterns hung about the great beetle. Six slaves and only... you count again, five duergar. The only way that could have happened is that they had been attacked and lost many guards and likely their leader as well.

Your rag lichen pouch suddenly seems heavy as a boulder in your hands. You are going to need supplies and weapons if you aim to set out... a knife. To touch a foreign knife before it is Gifted is anathema. And yet your feet are light as shadow.

Let them keep their familiar blades, their paths well trod.

You gain 120 gp (starting funds)

What do you do?

[] Trade with the duergar, they are sure to have much that you need for all their are tight fisted

[] Talk to Vex and Ixil one last time, an idea comes to you. A raid of all the young blades against this few dwarfs and this many slaves you'd be able to finish what their mysterious enemies had started. You would start your journey wealthier and do one final favor to the People (2d6 Dark Creepers and one Dark Stalker will join you in the ambush)

[] Write in

OOC: And we are off to the races! Or, as the case may, be organizing a caravan ambush. No roll for the attempt since Kori is burning the leverage he gained on his peers throughout so far, and he knows where their buttons are.

 

[DragonParadox]

In Shadows of Stone ​

The Season of Still Stone

A whisper here, a reminder of old debts there, with but a few words you fan the flames of greed in those already all too prone to is. Eight Whisper Foots in all think the plan is sound, or at least a sound way to get rid of you and thereby enrich themselves. They are righter than they know.

Spoiler: Rolls

Number of Dark Creepers: 2d6 = 8
Sense motive = 1d20 + 7 = 23 (Success)

As Vex binds darkness into ten pebbles and everyone else begs, borrows, or steals some poison, common Black Smear of course, available to all who would dare the dark-facing cave wall in the burial dealings, the gift of the dead to the living it is said in the tales of the People. If that is so, than not even the ancestors in their nooks of stone favor you. 'Be damned before I ask for help from Vex and his lot', you think, so you endure their gibes in silence when you return empty handed, simply following along in silence when Vex says 'move out' in what he fondly believes is an impressive manner.

Spoiler: Rolls

Perception: Poison Harvesting: 1d20 + 5 = 17 (Failure)

By twisting galleries Vex leads you all, through wormways and bone dry former cold walks. More than once you feel the horrific embrace of stone, stories of careless delvers becoming stuck in narrow ways, unable to go forward, unable to go back, and in the worst ones not even able to draw a knife. 'Not that I even have a knife,' you think. One of the objectives of the raid is to 'liberate' a fine duergar weapon. An axe does not feel like your style, but a crossbow... eye, that would be a fine discovery.

Spoiler: Rolls

Vex Survival (I gave him some because given how the tribe works it would not make sense for them to spec into pure stealth): 1d20 + 7 = 16 (Success)

How long it took before you heard the scrape of beetle legs and the clank of chains coming from below you do not know, not being mad enough to count heartbeats for the whole time, but fear it you do as Vex motions to a gap in the stone, about three feet wide opening into a steep ramp that leads to the road below. There is just enough time to slip down securely and fight the caravan in the open or you could be bold and charge down as they pass, hoping to surprise, just as long as you do not surprise them with a tumble into a nasty fall.

It is all that you can do not to laugh when Jalx, one of the younger Whisper Foots, instinctively looks for guidance not to Vex, the Hunter-to-be, but Akorian the Outcast. Yet there is reason for it. You had taken care to never reveal all your powers, nor the degree to which you can twist fate in favor of others and not yourself.

What do you do?

[] Descend carefully and then face the caravan in the open without the element of surprise (Do not have a surprise round)

-[] Charge down (DC 10 Climb Check not to take 2d6 Fall Damage on a failure)
[] ...into the middle of the slaves, try to free or at least rally some of them, for their best chance at freedom
[] ...the beetle, if you can make the goblin cage fall you know the little blighters will wreak merry hall

[] Write in

OOC: If you were able to use diplomacy you would have an option to convince your fellows to go down with their higher climb still, but as Akorian is and with having failed that potion harvesting roll they do not respect you enough to do that.

 

[DragonParadox]

Din in he Deeps ​

The Season of Still Stone

Just like that first time you had called the shadows to ward you it only takes a thought, though you still need to snap your fingers for good fortune and shake it off in flecks of golden light only you can see, they seem to cling more closely to you than to anything else you have tried to give it to. Perhaps your magic is selfish... The thought feels almost giddy that it bubbles on your lips in words of ancient stock, though you know not their meaning, a crown of gentle warding light upon you.

The air is filled with the padding of many feet, the clink of stones herald to an ambush to any but an unweened babe. Alas that your foes are nothing of the sort.

"Yoth Kavir!" they call. "Yoth Droskar!" they cry out, a battle cry known and feared through all the tunnels of NarVoth and below. 'For death, for Droskar.' It is not their own death they are calling on and many a time has Droskar reaped the souls of their foes. Not today, you vow.

All five of the guards, moving like the gears in soma vast machine, turn their crossbows on Vex, but you give the bastard credit even before the first dark-stone is thrown. He knows when to dodge and when to trust his armor with the hit, and then the dark grows deeper, almost a living thing embracing her children and spurning her foes. Emboldened by the sight of Vex weathering the blows the Whisper Foots throw themselves onto the great beetle at the heart of the caravan, climbing after him with innate grace and ruthless knifework.

Copper pots and jars of glass, spikes and spindles, chains and collars all fall within the din and clatter on the ground, more wealth than you have ever seen in your life.

The part of you that isn't trying to keep your stomach in check at your first sight of real battle feels faint pity at the beast's shriek of agony for it, unlike its masters, had not chosen to be here. As though sensing the direction of your thoughts it manages to shake off two of the Whisper Foots, casting them in the flood of the tunnel with a painful thud, even as above them the caravan leader flails against the foes suddenly beside him, filled more with zeal than skill.

Looking around, as much to distract yourself from the sudden violence, more vicious than any you had ever partaken in, as for any love of treasure you spy a dagger in the midst of the caravan's ruin. It has a heavy crossguard and blade that will not dull in a dozen seasons. Without thinking you dive for it and before you realized what you had done your hand was already around the hilt, just in time for three maddened slavers to bear down on you, warhammers raised high.

Gained Masterwork Dagger

Each time the wards, the darkness, holds as from above you hear a storm of dwarf curses mixed in with cries of pain, and a moment later you had already stepped back between the stumbling dwarfs, your footsteps muffled to near silence. Alas, not all of the Whisper Foots had been so lucky with one dwarf by good fortune or the will of their dread god managing to crush the hand of one who had failed in climbing the great beast.

What do you do next?

[] Try to free the slaves, that is sure to make what is already a tough fight for the enemy into an unwinnable one (Perception DC 15)

[] Heal one of your injured allies and pull them away from danger (at 8 and 14 HP respectively)

[] See what else had fallen off the beetle, you doubt your allies will allow you a fair portion of the spoils so you might as well get ahead of them (Perception DC 12/16/20/24)

[] Write in

OOC: Uff, I'd forgotten how many rolls a Pathfinder encounter with this many moving pieces required. Fun to run one again though. Just to be clear you made the roll against the dwarfs, which heard you pick up the dagger, so you are now once again hidden by a combination of the Deeper Darkness and your native stealth.

 

[DragonParadox]

Chains Clatter, Cages Break ​

The Season of Still Stone

Resisting the temptation to grab any of the treasure scattered on the floor of the tunnel you rush to Ulzar, pressing a hand to her shoulder as you allow healing light to flow from some other place, through you and into her. The sound of bones snapping back in place still ringing in your ears, you look up to see the caravan master staggering under blow after blow even as his skin grows rough and pitted, like the slag of Droskar's forge, for all the good it will do him.

Alas for him it seems at least three of his underlings have reached the same conclusion as they rush back down the tunnel, out of the influence of the dark-touched pebbles... or at least as close to rushing as dwarfs weighed down by steel and spite can manage. Alas that is also when the pack-beetle, bleeding its colorless ichor from many wounds, thrashes into the wall of the cavern with a sickening thud. Two of of your allies are crushed into the stone only to slide down in trails of blood in heap while among its many legs the gagged slave escapes by sheer good fortune...

On the creature's other side the goblin cage comes loose and lands at the feet of one of the dwarf guards who did not have the good sense to flee, perhaps because they too had a foe before them from the failed scaling of the beast. One might perhaps imagine that spending a long time in a cramped cage and fed whatever slop the duergar deign to offer their prisoners only to be cast on the hard stone flood along the remnants of that cage, with splinters still driven through them, would leave one ill-prepared for fighting.

One would have to not know what a goblin is.

Though smaller in stature than even the shortest of the People, bar perhaps for their enormous ears, they have disproportionately large heads, which are themselves disproportionately made up of sharp uneven teeth, a small nose and eyes that somehow glow crimson even in the conjured gloom. Two of them change towards the now fallen beetle. On the other side of the tunnel, where Vex and those of his fellows who had managed to hang on are still fighting the dwarfs' leader, the third smashes seemingly at random into the legs of a duergar warrior and tries to bite through their armor.

Spoiler: Goblin

You would call them mad, but if you had that much life in your after enduring the ministrations of duergar slavers for who knows how long you would at least consider biting. Still, while goblin teeth make a poor match for steel them prove enough of a distraction that the wounded Whisper Foot which had been at the warrior's feet a moment before is able to jump to his own feet and plant a dagger though the side of his neck, between the helm and shoulder plates, ending the first of your foes.

Sliding past the last stubborn guard you rush to offer what healing you can just in time to see Vex kick the duergar leader's legs from under him while two of the others slay him with stabs to some of the only parts not covered by his iron-ward, his eyes. You flinch and without meaning to turn aside. The healing light sputters in your hands as you try to offer some succor to those who had been crushed by the dying pack-beetle's thrashing. The second time your will is steadier, your magic deeper rooted... and the focus of your care shuffles off as though you were about to inflict them with the plague.

Damn it, you hate that there is still some part of you that is surprised by the fact.

As Vex and the others charge after the remaining dwarfs, who had not made near as much headway as they might have hoped, you hear a high-pitched whimpering from nearby as the goblin who had charged heedless into the scrum had been struck full in the middle by the warhammer of the guard you had just slipped past. By luck perhaps, but no less deadly for it, the foe had decided to go in the opposite direction as his fellows but the bold goblin was surely done for... unless you used the last of your healing magic on him.

What do you do?

[] Heal the goblin with the last of your spell-slots for the day (Potential goblin ally)

[] Hold the spell back, you have been stung too many times already to spend the last of your powers before the loot is even apportioned

[] Write in

OOC: I hope this was not too confusing, but I tried not to do a play-by-play account of every single move in the battle which Akorian would have had no way to see.

 

[DragonParadox]

Flotsam and Jetsam ​

The Season of Still Stone

You would like to say you do it boldly, without a hint of hesitation, just as you'd planned to leave, just as you had plotted the carnage all around you, even as your own hands are not dipped in blood. It truth you do it from lack of anything else to put the spell towards. What, after all, would be the purpose of keeping the spell back in a long dark tunnel? So do you watch as flesh knits and skin heals until the terrible blow to the little creature's body is nothing worse than a vast purple bruise.

The vice-like mouth full of teeth snap closed, the lips pull taunt... into a smile you realize with something like wonder. When was the last time I saw that directed at me, without scorn or carefully hidden motives?

"Cob better, Cob no hurt," he gets out, the trade tongue coming out oddly sharp and singsong in his mouth, as though he were about to whistle it. "You no eat Cob, no chain Cob?"

You nod, then realizing he might not be able to see you properly, which would make the previous charge all the more mad in retrospect, vow aloud that you will not do either.

"Spit on it?" the question comes with a gob of grey-green phlegm in the goblin's right hand which he then extends. To the general laughter of the wounded among Vex's lot, you do. There is something reassuringly solid about the gesture, something new.

The sounds of pursuit come from down the tunnel where Vex is trying to deal with the fleeing trio of duergar guards, only to find them standing back to back with now hammers at the ready and striking more with the rhythmic thumping of the forge than with the wild flailing they had showed before.

The cornered rat is twice as deadly, you are reminded, but rather than pay attention to the fight whose conclusion matters little to you, you turn your eyes instead to the other prisoners. Perhaps unsurprisingly the sounds of bloodshed had awoken something in the orc and he is testing the chain with frightful strength, though the ragged one beside him looks like he is not quite sure he would prefer to be free if he must share that freedom with one of the Children of Gorum.

Or perhaps he is simply terrified of not being able to see his hand before his face, that is a possibility as well, Akorian, you note, humor bubbling up in your blood with the relief of a battle won.

You snatch up the nearest dark-stone and pocket it, then another and another until the shadows are merely shadows and not the embrace of the Gift.

Spoiler: Odd Fellow

The fellow in the ragged garb looks at you and for a moment he seems vastly relieved. Then he deflates, shoulders hunched inwards as though expecting a blow, and speaks in a manner stranger than any man you had yet known: "Messus.... I born am high pledged Messus Syla of the something-hold of the Western Crown. My clan will pay much ransom for me fresh."

"Ooh... can I eat little bit then, cut off toe?" Cob giggles, thankfully speaking too fast for the pale-skinned fellow to notice.

This Messus certainly sounds like he could be worth something to someone. It would take years of practice looking down one's nose to be able to do it while manacled and chained to two others... or as the case might be, one other. The gagged slave had not been under the legs of the great beetle because of some folly or mischance, but because she had been seeking and somehow managed to find the jagged key to her bindings on the cave floor.

They fall with a click and a moment later the slave parts her hood using the sharp edge of the key to reveal a woman whose face seems to have been carved from oiled stone. Her black hair seeming to fade into whips of grey smoke about her face and grey are her eyes as granite pebbles lit from within, set in orbits that seems to have been stitched open. Beneath her left eye and writ of fire is a line spelled, though what it says you could not begin to contemplate.

Spoiler: Magician

"The path is still, the way is broken, are we lost or are we found?" She asks... in the tongue of the people which no outsiders are taught. Witchcraft, the accusation springs to mind like the first flames in new kindling. But even as you cross your fingers you are shamed, for how is this any stranger than your own sorcery which has seen you outcast?

Looking around a moment longer you realize that the other two goblins have already made their escape east down the tunnel, perhaps to ambush the lone dwarf who had gone that way.

What do you do next?

[] Promise you will help Messus, you like the thought of that reward

[] Shush the grey eyes woman before the others notice, they are unlikely to be as philosophical as you on the matter

[] Try to distract the other dark folk while Cob 'scavenges around'

[] Free the orc, everyone deserves that much.

[] Write in

OOC: And so I finally get to introduce these people. Well, kind of in the case of the nice lady who speaks in both tongues and riddles, but you get the idea.

 

[DragonParadox]

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 .