Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

[DragonParadox]

Cleaning House ​

The Season of Still Stone

"Now, before the prey scatters!" you hear Gorok shout as he hurtles down the ladder, more of a controlled plunge really than the descent the builders had meant it to be, his claws digging into the rotted rungs. You are already aiming, not at the leader, nor at the thorn-studded beast, but at the rusted hook above the ghoul's cage holding it up. One good hit should do it... Alas, you do not manage a good hit, only one hard enough to make it creak and sway alarmingly over the battle below.

"What are you doing? Didn't you hear me, it's a...?"

You cut off Mina's shocked rebuke without taking your eyes off Gorok as he slams his trusty bone hammer into the head of the beast, popping two of its many eyes and leaving a clear dent in its spongy flesh.

"It's another body in a fight that's not in our favor!"

Thorny takes 12 Damage -> Now at 10/26

"Another body...?" Clank-thump, her stonebow goes off, though to little effect, glancing off the back of the beast rearing up before Gorok to little effect. "Are you mad? They spread sickness and curse everything they touch!"

"No, this is mad!" you say, half to her and half to yourself as you charge down after Gorok. Later you would hear of how Cob had slipped under the belly of the beast and split it open almost end to end, of how he dodged the wrathful 'pokers' of the newly recovered guards, but for now you are focused on the king, shadows billowing around you.

Thorny takes 9 Damage -> Now at 1/26

The overly ambitious mushroom hears or smells just the same and manages to duck under your blow even as Mina strikes one of the half-rotted shelves, sending glass and earthenware flying. That is not however all that is flying.

Pepper, all ten pounds of hissing black fur, lands on the bucket crown of the king, slamming the moldman's head down painfully, or at least so it would have been if they were creatures of flesh.

"Why won't you fucking...?" You never get as far as 'die' as the beast, upon its last legs as it may be, senses danger to its master and expels three of its spines out its backside. Neither shadow nor silken armor can help you this time. Amid the howls of the dead man above, seeing his hopes of escape dashed, your knees buckle in agony.

Akorian takes 6 Damage -> Now at 5/11

Through a haze of hated tears you see Gorok try to finish off the beast, failing, and Mina striking one of the guards in the back of the head, leaving it cracked but still holding together. Fingers gripping the hilt of your dagger painfully tight you measure the length of the ladle and the heft of your foe.

Vegepygmy Guard 1 takes 4 Damage -> Now at 1/5

A quick stab just to distract it... serves you far better than you had hoped. As the blade sinks into the dirty green 'flesh' you hold you breath, anticipating the puff of mold that can kill more surely and more gruesomely than any blade.

None comes.

Vegepygmy 'King' takes 4 damage -> now at 15/19

Spoiler: Rolls

Akorian Knowledge (Dungeoneering): 1d20+5 = 14 (Success)

This thing isn't mature yet. "No spores!" you shout to Cob and Gorok, though they are in no condition to answer as one of the guards spears Cob deeply in the shoulder, slamming the goblin against the far wall, though he still has plenty of fight in him, a slash of his dagger removing his attacker's leg. You hear rather than see the wounded guard struck by Mina again. He won't be getting up. Neither will the beast, Gorok finally finishing it off.

Vegepygmy Guard 3 takes 9 Damage -> Dead
Vegepygmy Guard 1 takes 6 Damage -> Dead
Vegepygmy Guard 4 takes 6 Damage -> Dead
Thorny takes 5 Damage -> Dead

The battle is all but won when the dead man's cage turns just an inch too far from his frenzied smashing and it falls on the other end of the long table. It clangs open from the impact, sending the ghoul racing right out the door. So much for enemy of mine enemy, you think bitterly, batting away the ladle with your dagger, trying to keep the wounded 'king''s' vacant gaze on you. Eventually it is Cob who deals the final blow, his dagger dripping with noxious juices.

Vegepygmy 'King' takes 9+8 damage -> Dead

Experience Gained 1350 -> Now at 2355/2000 XP Level Up!​

"Come on, we have to go after it!" Much to your surprise Mina is racing down the stairs into the wreck of the kitchen.

"It?" Gorok hisses, halfway to barring the door.

"The ghoul! It will bite someone!" She shudders head to toe and not from the reek that was already emanating from the bodies of the slain, mingling with the miasma of rot. "Turn them."

What do you think should be done?

[] Chase down the Ghoul as Mina wants, it is at least partly your fault it got out

[] No, you are all tired, you are wounded, and you have no magic to heal. Loot the place and then set up camp to rest (Will trigger Level Up next update)

[] Write in

OOC: Mina is from the Immortal Principality of Ustilav, they have strong feelings on the undead. Then again, they also have a long experience with them.

 

[DragonParadox]

Second Time's the Charm​

The Season of Still Stone

Blood is still thundering in your ears, the pain in your side revealing new nuances of agony with every breath, and Hollow Fiends know if you had been poisoned. A thousand times content you would have counted yourself to leave the dead to the tunnels, walking or otherwise, but even as you are you cannot help but imagine the thing creeping back here, barred door or no, needing only to overpower the one on watch before making a feast of all four of you.

"We should go deal with it now and not have it stalk us later." Pain stains your voice and you hate it, but far from the scorn you had been reflexively expecting Mina looks suddenly guilty.

"Desna's mercy, I hadn't realized... Let me get those out. Do you feel light-headed, weak?"

"A bit of both, but I'll manage." To be entirely honest her reaction is putting you more on edge than the false heat shimmer in the corner of your eye. That level of guilt is about what you expect from someone who had just burned your bunk and poisoned your spider-lizard, not forgotten you had some spines in your side.

"Just a moment..." Mina is as good as her word, getting the things out as Gorok looks between the two of you then at a clearly still game Cob, snapping his many toothed jaw decisively, and leads the way.

Spoiler: Rolls

Gorok Tracking 18+6 = 24 (Success)

The pace he sets is so swift that you might suspect your scaled companion of spite, had he ever shown any sign of it before. Back the way you had come, through rooms long stripped of anything of value and now containing only dust and rubble, in which Gorok reads the signs of dead feet until you come once more out of the mine, through the narrow tunnel until you stand again in front of a familiar pile of stones.

Mina mutters something about shit under her breath, an awkward time for it to be sure, but you pretend not to hear.

"I will go first," Gorok announces. "I will swift-return. If I give no sign a two thousand heartbeats after I have reached the top, do not follow."

Cob frowns, obviously confused. "I follow. Why you not want to?"

"He does not expect us to follow," you explain, clearing things up for the goblin but making Mina even more upset for some reason you cannot fathom. Gorok's words are reasonable, even if somewhat to your surprise you have no intention of following them.

So you turn to watch the scarred warrior climb the slope of rubble and stone, his sharp claws giving him easy purchase. He tests each ledge before he trusts it with his full weight, having to shuffle sideways once to avoid a weak spot, but finally he is up and through the narrow slit at the top.

Spoiler: Rolls

Gorok Takes 10 on roll -> 10 +6 = 16 (Success)
Gorok Stealth 18+6 = 24 (Success) vs Ghoul Perception: 1d20 +7 -2 (Distracted) = 14

Time seems to slow, each heartbeat agonizing in its passage, then he's back out again, quietly tying off a knotted rope to the upper ledge so that all of you may follow. Much to your surprise Cob does not scamper straight up the rope, waiting instead for Gorok to come down and tell you what he saw.

This he recounts in quick, cut down sentences. "A hall there lies, pale stone cracked but not worn. I could not read the markings on the wall. There were within chests like the one the pale-bellies carried, all open, all empty. There is a statue in the middle of a woman who was half bat, her head missing. There are lights in the ceeling, old and clear, not the green of serpent nests, but red. They form patterns with lines between them."

"Can you show us?" you ask, intrigued. Arcane lights are rare, rare and precious. Whenever a new ruin is found to contain even such minor magics it is almost always harvested by the nearest settlement unless the ones who first came upon it keep the information to themselves. In Nar-Voth countless bandit hideouts, stashes, and smugglers' dens are built on the bones of elder things.

Gorok gives a long hiss, his way to sigh you are pretty sure, then the starts to cut into the dirt what seems to you a meaningless connection of straight lines between scattered points, then a second and a third just as baffling, at least to you. Mina has more luck. She runs a finger over the last figure, forming a rough trapezoid. "The Skull."

Spoiler: Rolls

Mina Knowledge (Arcana): 1d20 + 8 = 24 (Success)

"It doesn't look like..." you start, but the sorceress waves you off.

"It's a constellation." She pauses. "It's a Burnlander thing, which makes it all the stranger to find here. Was there any way out of the room?"

"Stairway up, spiral," Gorok replies, adding thoughtfully. "There are many old tracks leading down, they were not careful."

"No matter what it is we need to deal with ghoul first," Mina proclaims.

Pepper gives an almost reproachful meow, earning himself a dark look from his mistress. It does not take an expert in either Burnlanders or their pets to realize what the concern is. Mina is the least likely to be able to sneak up on a ghoul and yet she is the reason you are even here. Doubtless she feels she has to contribute.

What do you do?

[] Tell Mina she can stay. You, Gorok, and Cob will deal with the ghoul

[] Stay silent

[] Write in

---

Definitions:
Hollow Fiends - In Caligni mythology these nameless entities serve the role of both antagonist and tester on the Long Descent, though invoking them in times of misfortune the people of Zul the Cave-Taker do not hold with tales of the Hollow Fiends, considering them something akin to the tales children tell to scare each other past Last Bell
Last Bell - Lights' out in the Hall of the Young
Spider-Lizard - Common short-lived pets of Caligni. Contrary to their name they are all lizard, the spider part referring to how well they climb on splayed sucker equipped fingers

OOC: I really wanted to have the fight with the ghoul this update, but short of having Gorok try to fight it alone (which would have been very dangerous for him and not that in character) I could not fit it in.

 

[DragonParadox]

Dark Halls, Dark Words ​

The Season of Still Stone

"I know little of magic other than my own gifts, but I fear the ghoul isn't the most dangerous thing in that place. Better that we all go."

Your words are greeted with relief by the sorceress herself and a surly shake of the head by her furry companion, but after a few brief moments of silent communion he gives in. With Gorok at the fore and the rope to guide the way the four of you move slowly, stealthily as you can manage up the slope. When you had made it about two thirds of the way, however, it all seems to go belly up. You hear it before you smell it and you smell it before you see it, the reek of rotting flesh and the scrambling of claws on stone, but as the ghoul leaps onto Gorok it does not seem to have accounted for the difference between lizardfolk and warm-blood. Stumbling and off balance it rolls past you, landing with a snap that would have been the end of any living creature.

Spoiler: Rolls

Akorian Stealth: 1d20 +8 = 24
Cob Stealth: 1d20 +18 = 34
Gorok Stealth: 1d20 +8 = 24
Mina Stealth: 1d20 +6 +1 (Guidance) = 12
Vs
Ghoul Perception: 1d20+7 = 16

Ghoul Charge: 1d20+7 = 16 (Does does not make Gorok's Flat-Footed AC)
Ghoul to keep his Balance: 1d20 +4 = 7 (Failure)
Falling Damage: 2d6 = 11

Ghoul takes 11 Damage -> Now at 2/13

As the dead man scrambles to his feet, head twisted at an unnatural angle, the light in his eyes shifts from hunger to fear, pondering perhaps if his next meal might be found on the bones of someone not so well armed and armored. "I must return. If you kill me He will see, and He will have your heads. Do you think you can escape the bite of the Hidden Serpent? Do you think you can escape Her vengeance?" It starts to laugh, a broken jagged sound that is equal parts despair and contempt, but before he could say more or try to flee once more like a centipede under a rock Cob turns to it and, letting go of the rope, draws the stonebow from his back and fires. The stone finishes the job of detaching the ghoul's head from its shoulders, snuffing out the dark hunger that had kept soul and corpse shacked together.

Ghoul takes 10 Damage -> Dead

"Stupid, should run not talk," the goblin offers with a shake of the head that sets his large ears flapping.

"Is that why you shot him?" Mina asks, startled, to which she gets a firm nod.

"Smart stinker would have run, only dumb one stayed to talk, listening to stupid is stupid." 'Stinker', he goes on to explain is how, goblins and their kin refer to the living dead, being that they carry the reek of the dead with them.

For her part Mina seems caught between incredulous laughter and the urge to correct him, to explain the worst things that can arise from death with no stench to warn the living.

Yet another fear lingers in your mind. Mad the dead one might have been, but fervor in his eyes has shone all too genuine and the tales of the People are filled with accounts of wizards who can witness things far off, usually to the great detriment of whoever they are spying upon. No sense worrying over spilled blood, you tell yourself as Gorok turns back to the ascent.

"Wait," Mina says, her voice growing more certain as she speaks. "Now that that thing is gone we should rest first, night makes a fair counsel."

Gorok considers it for a moment before agreeing. "The things above waitied for many years, they can wait one camp-break."

[] Write in level up plan

OOC: Not entirely happy with this, but with the ghoul having tried to get smart and died there is less in character urgency about exploring up above and there is also that level up pending. It would feel like cheating you a little to make you do those rolls as level 1 characters when you have the XP to be level 2. In the meantime, you did get some hints as to what was going on here.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Moment's Respite ​

Elsewhen, Elsewhere

The hall, tall and narrow, was filled not with the solemn songs of Remembrance, nor with joyous Harvest-Time thanksgiving, but instead with the desperate prayer and the crying of hungry children. It never seemed to stop, except when they coughed in the tainted air. Master Ittai had locked himself in his workshop again. The six pointed star shining silver upon the door, for so long a symbol of sanctuary, new beginning, and a balm upon the soul, seems to mock you now. Why was its magic still bright when the Healing Touch had withered, his miracles made dust?

Tick tock, tick tock, clicking of your brass heart with which you had grown long accustomed is suddenly loud in your ears, parting one moment from the other ruthless as an executioner's blade. The temple's stores of food were enormous thrice three times the size of the gallery, the nave and the living quarters put together, for they had been built by the old law dating back to the Age of Unification, but it was nine tenths empty. A waste of church resources to fill it any more when everything you could ask for would be carried hence by ship from Bilith-Vel. Now the City of the Moon may we well be upon the surface of the moon itself. Both are hidden under this damnable dust, the ash of Azlant's pyre.

A girl draws near, six or seven, her hair tangled, eyes too large for her thin face. "Hurts," she whispers. Looking down you are horrified to see red bleeding through the dirty yellow her dress. Her knees give out, you barely catch her

"Master!" you shout, banging on the door. "Master Ittai, please, we need you!"

Three of the refugees hasten to your side, but from beyond the darkwood door there is only silence as the child's life fades away. The pair of men approaching are trying to explain to make some sense of the madness, but their words don't make sense...

"Her aunt went and killed herself, said it would be kinder to meet the Lady's judgement then this, tried to take the girl with her..."

It just doesn't make sense.

As you had so, so many times you reach out, with your hands to hold the patient, with mind and soul to the Beyond for the power to mend what had been marred, to set right the wounds of the People, but this time in your haste the words of the prayer blur together and yet... and yet instead of the flash of pain that is the reward of haste and folly, there is more than silence there, a single chord in the dark. It passes through you and into the girl and you can feel the spark of her life no longer ebbing.

What...

***​

The Season of Still Stone

"What's the moon?" you ask, waking with a shiver from the cold stone floor with nothing but your cloak in between.

Mina, already up and staring at her cat for some reason, turns towards you, intrigued. "Why? Did you dream about it?"

"I dreamed about missing it." Even as you answer the details of the dream seem to flow together like the warm colors of life seen through deep dark water. Or perhaps it is just the unique smell of the moldfolk boiling in their own cauldron under the watchful eyes of Gorok and, surprisingly, Cob, who is stirring with one hand and adding more of the refuse in with the other.

Vegepygmies and Thorndog corpses rendered down to 270 gp worth of Fungal Paste (Can only be used in Alchemical crafting)

The ghoul for all his protests had ended up no better, his brain scooped up and decanted in a covered pot, may it serve whatever magician makes use of the thing better than it did its previous owner.

Ghoul Brain Recovered for 10 gp

Among the rest of the moldfolk lair the others had managed to find other remains of their victims, either thrown carelessly away or made into macabre shrines with no rhyme or reason that anyone could discern. A fine agate and silver pendant had been dragged off by the thorn hound to its lair, mayhap because it liked the sparkling, whereas copper coins had been set carefully over the eyes of some of the corpses, a ritual Mina tells you to honor the dead among her folk and many others beside.

One of the unfortunates who had birthed the colony of moldfolk, perhaps even the chief from the state of his body, had been a priest of Abadar, 'Master of the First Vault', whatever that might be, who had come prepared for many magical dangers, though not it seems what he had found. His company had included several blades for hire, some of which still had weapons and armor in good repair, but the strangest find had been discovered inside the hollow wooden leg of one of the warriors, strips of parchment with neat identical lines of script which Mina calls 'bank notes'. The fact that she admits to never having seen one before, let alone used them, does not make you very convinced of her account of the things.

"So you put your gold and silver in a vault belonging to someone you do not know save by reputation and then travel hundreds, thousands of miles to another vault belonging to the same folk and hand them these... things, and they will just give them to you?" You shake your head at the sheer absurdity. You would call it ripe for someone being stabbed in the back, only you are not sure if it is even worth to unsheathe a dagger when dealing with people this hollow-headed.

Spoiler: Treasure

Valuables:

• Silver and Agate Necklace
• Gold Holy Symbol of Abadar
• 6x Bronze Ulfen Arm Rings
• Amber Charm
• 1x Hollow wooden leg filled with banknotes of unknown value
• Small Loadstone

Magical items:

• 3x Potion of Cure Light Wounds
• Potion of Resistance
• Scroll of Bless
• 2x Scroll of Detect Evil
• Scroll of Light
• Scroll of Magic Weapon
• Scroll of Remove Sickness
• Scroll of Shield
• Scroll of Shocking Grasp

Weapons and Armor:

• 7x Miner's Picks
• 2x Masterwork Leather Armor
• Masterwork Light Steel Shield
• 2x Masterwork Armored Kilts
• Masterwork Battle Axe
• 2x Masterwork Studded Leather Armor
• Masterwork Tower Shield

By the time you had apportioned out the loot to whoever could use it best, or else tucked if away in your pack,s you had almost forgotten the strange dream filled with the longing for things you have never seen.

How do you equip the spoils?

[] Write in

OOC: Well that took a while to get right, for very different reasons between the parts. Hope you guys enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Pyre and Progress ​

The Season of Still Stone

Taken altogether the spoils of the fight make for heavier haul than you had thought it would be, but Gorok is undaunted by the poison in the scorpion, picking out the axe in place of his old hammer and lashing the rest of it together atop a large shield, showing a red beast on a white field, a wolf Mina informs you, which is traditionally used by the 'Ulfen' people whose name means something like Children of the Wolf in their own tongue.

"They first came down from the north as raiders in the days of the old Taldan Empire. These days you are more likely to see Ulfen bodyguards, swords for hire, or traders, though even those have weapons near to hand. I wonder what they were doing with a priest of Abadar, they usually aren't that friendly..." she flips the circle of gold over in her hand, flashing red in the light of the small fire.

Though you only half listen, nodding along when it seems appropriate, she seems happy enough to recount the tales of the Burnlands, long and tangled like a rat king's tails. The rest of your attention is taken up by contemplating how much harder the way back is going to be dragging the impromptu sled along. Maybe you can afford a packbeast of some kind, a centipede or a slurk...

Gorok's next words bring you back into the present with an unpleasant lurch as he rolls the barrel of rot-gut forward with one clawed hand. "We have to find the mold before we return, keep more of them from growing."

"We should see to the dead first," Mina speaks up, her tone level but firm.

"The meat has gone bad, the bones brittle," The hunter tries to explain as Cob spits for emphasis.

"That's not what I meant. We should burn the bodies to light their way across the River, make sure that no wicked folk can drag them back." That leads into a long, though only somewhat confusing conversation into the customs of Mina's people and how they deal with the dead. It makes a kind of sense, if you are more worried about the bones walking around than you are about running out of fuel for the fire.

"Death lingers near," she reminds the rest of you and so reluctantly on the part of you and Gorok and enthusiastically on the part of Cob, who really wants to see a big fire, the bodies are set upon a pyre and set alight.

Shielding your eyes from the brightness you offer in a whisper: "Thanks to you warriors, that your grave was a garden and not a mire."

Lost 5 Hours Worth of Kindling

***​

Thankfully finding the mold proves a lot easier and less perilous than you had feared. The chamber is twenty feet across and roughly symmetrical, it must have once been used for storage, accessible only through a trap door which may once have been locked, though all that remains of it are the hinges after it had been broken open from the inside. The walls the floor below are all covered in dark red mold like a wound in the stone. If the 'herbs' the two orcs had spoken of had been in there they are not going to have much luck recovering them. Someone had clearly tried to burn the thing out, leaving scattered pieces of shelving dotted among the red, for all the good it had done them in the end.

For his part Gorok does not waste time in contemplation, simply opening the barrel and dousing floor and the far wall. Russet Mold is as vulnerable to alcohol and acid as it is impervious to most other kinds of harm. Even if not all the patches get splashed directly the nest will wither and die.

Lost 1x Gallon Barrel of Rotgut

What do you do next?

[] Return to the place with the mage lights in the shape of 'constellations'

[] Make your way back to Cauldron, you can barely carry what you have on you

[] Write in

---

Definitions:
Poison in the Scorpion - the downside of a lucky break, like getting a large kill in the form of a scorpion whose poison you do not know how to extract safely. Subject to a Darkfolk fable.

OOC: A bit more character and world-building as well as actually dealing with the mold.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Light and Echo ​

The Season of Still Stone

The way back, burdened by all you had recovered from the mine, is a companionable sort of hardship. All of you contemplating all you can buy with the coin you are going to get for your haul, not to mention the nine hundred gold pieces from the orc brothers.

"Shoes that fit properly," Mina offers.

"Dog Slicer, Fishing Pole, Drum!" Cob shouts. His desires tend to change quite often, at least you hope they will change away from a drum before you actually make it to Cauldron. The thought of him with any kind of instrument designed for making noise is enough to set your teeth on edge.

"A cloak that keeps the cold off better than my shadow does." It still feels uncomfortable to admit to weakness, but, you reason, it is only a small one. The others would never use anything so petty against you.

When Gorok returns to camp that to help secure it through the Quiet Hours he adds his own desire to the list: "Packbeast. There are enough of us to guard it and keep the predators at bay." There is something in his voice you had not heard before, so unlike him it takes you a moment to place it, regret.

A scaled hand reaches for the handle of his hammer... So that's why he had not thrown the thing away even now that he has too many steel weapons to choose from. Warmer souled than you had thought him. Not knowing what to say you choose to simply say nothing.

Spoiler: Rolls

Akorian Sense Motive: 1d20 +8 = 22 (Success)

Thankfully the awkward moment passes quickly as the four of you chew through more of the trail rations with a few bowls of conjured water to make it go down easier, or, as the case might be, at all. Truth be told you are looking forward to a cooked meal and not having to sleep in shifts almost as much as that cloak, but you did not want to seem like you disdained your company. In spite of the peril of the wild tunnels you have never been more at ease in the company of others.

What is 'this' though?

***​

The thought follows you into slumber, at least until you wake with a start, cold light spilling onto your cheek, only to see that it's just a glimmer-beetle on its long meanderings into the unknown. The cave you are sleeping in for the night is not a large one, maybe thirty feet at its widest, narrowing rapidly to little more than five feet at the edges of its spindle-shaped form, but it does boast stalagmites and stalactites adorned with with complex knots and groves upon which the light plays, casting strange, beautiful shadows. Tis good luck to see a glimmer-beetle, or so at least the story goes. Perhaps for once the stories do not lie.

Spoiler: Glimmer-Beetle

As you blink awake you notice that Cob and Gorok are still sleeping, leaving Mina on watch, though she seems to have taken the chance to do a spot of cooking on the side. Well, either that or she is punishing Pepper for being suborn earlier by feeding him soggy parchment boiled in the ink written on it. Still, the cat seems to lap the thing up. Tilting your head and your perspective into the shadows of the world you see a spiraling blue glow pass from the bowl to the odd beast.

Spoiler: Rolls

Mina Spellcraft to Learn Spell: 1d20 +9 = 22 (Success)

"Do all cats eat magic, or only witches' cats?" you ask playfully, or at least that had been your intention. From the way she whirls towards you, her dark hair flying in her haste, it was apparently closer to alarming.

"Oh! No, that's just how he learns the shape of spells," she answers quickly. "This one is a minor ward against sickness. Not a cure you understand, I'm not strong enough for that, but a way to keep us all healthy."

Mina Learns Spell Remove Sickness

"Power from your gut. You and Cob have that in common then," you hazard a joke.

Mina smiles and you think that was a sniff of amusement, not offense, from Pepper. Before either of them can reply you hear something past the entrance of the cave.

Carefully stepping over the simple trip-rope Gorok had laid so that you might have some warning if something unseen tries to walk into the cave, you spot a spark of red and orange flame, then another.

Torches.

Seeing as there are only two of them you do not wrap yourself in shadows, but instead step a little closer.

Its a pair of goblins arguing with each other in their own tongue, the words just comprehensible enough to know they are looking for someone without any details, as at least half their words are not akin to what Cob had been teaching you on the trail. When it comes to their looks, other than the slate grey color of this skin and the almost stone-like texture of the warts on the lead one, they do not seem particularly extraordinary. One might wonder why they are carrying fire, but given all the times Cob has begged to do so you suspect they do it out of love for the flames. The glass knives in their other hands gleam wickedly.

"Over here, careful," you whisper to Mina, wanting to know what they are saying.

"What?" She asks a little too loudly. Perhaps the goblins outside might have still failed to notice if, in her haste to get up, Mina had not stepped on Pepper's tail, causing him to give a very offended yowl.

Spoiler: Rolls

Akorian Stealth: 1d20 +10 = 29 (Success)
Akorian Stealth (Aid Another): 1d20 +10 = 29 (Success)
Mina Stealth: 1d20 +6 +2 (Aid Another) = 9 vs Goblin Perception: 1d20 +5 -2 (Arguing) = 20

That's torn it, you may not speak much Goblin, but you understand: "They're over there!" and "Get 'em!"

What do you do?

[] Fight to kill, they are clearly after your lives and your goods

[] Fight to capture. Goblins, as you have found of late, can be reasoned with

[] Write in

OOC: I know Kori learned Goblin last level up, but you cannot actually learn a language in a few days so for now his understanding is limited and accents make it harder. Also, poor Mina is bad at stealth again.

 

[DragonParadox]

Poison of Flesh and Mind ​

The Season of Still Stone

"We take them alive!" you call out. Two goblins you can deal with, and once there's a dagger to their throats you can find if they are indeed hunting you.

Things go Orv-way almost instantly. As Mina runs up behind you the farther goblin raises a filth encrusted javelin, his aim true. She stumbles, her face a mask of pain. "P...poison!" she manages to gasp out.

Mina takes 3 damage and 3 Constitution Damage -> Now at 11/14

Should I have cast a warding spell? The question passes through your mind even as you charge forward, dagger at the ready. No time, not if you want to end this quickly. Dwarf steel strikes against the side of the lead goblin's head like a chisel against stone, but the blood does not spray, it drips, viscous like week old worm oil...

Goblin takes 4 Damage -> Now at 6/10

How Mina manages to whisper soothing words through bloodied lips you will never know, but sing she does. A moment later you are rewarded with the heavy thump of her attacker landing unharmed on the cave floor.

Goblin 2 Unconscious for 2 rounds

"Git up! Git up! It's here stupids!" the wounded goblin shouts at his companion, seeming to expand with sheer rage at the sight of him sleeping... and then he explodes.

A wave of stones burst from his warty skin, each no larger than a pebble, most of them bouncing off your armor, but a few bouncing off your face instead, sure to leave a hell of a bruise. As you cautiously open your eyes you realize two things, one far more welcome than the other. Firstly, that the damn goblin didn't blow into chunks in sheer indignation, it's still there, if looking a little winded. Secondly, Mina is somehow still singing...

Akorian takes 2 Damage -> Now at 16/18
Mina takes 1 Damage and 2 Constitution Damage -> Now at 6/10

The second foe falls, just in time for you to kick the weapon out of his hands and rush to his companion, holding the dagger just above his eye as he wakes. "Don't move!" you bark, drawing on your still sparse grasp of goblin tongue.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Mina slump against the wall as she draws the javelin from her shoulder. "D-didn't think l'd need that spell so soon."

Relief washes over you as Pepper darts in, a vial of antitoxin in his teeth, but you cannot afford to take your eyes off the stone-skin goblin in front of you. So, clearly still unsteady from the poison, the sorceress has to draw her own dagger to capture the second foe before the power of her sleep spell can fade.

Used Vial of Antitoxin
Mina heals herself -> Now at 10/10
(Constitution Damage will heal with rest)

After asking your prisoners if they speak dwarf tongue, they don't, you ask Pepper to wake up the others. How he does it you are not sure you want to know, but it is fast. Cob shows up with rope and Gorok with his axe, just to make sure the little bastards understand the stakes.

"Ask them why they hunt us," the lizardman hisses.

What follows is a long back and forth what involves as much waving of hands and stomping of feet on Cob's part as it does shouting. The prisoners would likely do the same, but he had tied them up, leaving little choice but to wiggle energetically to make their point.

"These are from Stone Gobbler Tribe. They say big bat came in sleep, told them to come this way and find me, eat me. If they eat me they get heap big treasure," Cob explains, swallowing words more than usual in his annoyance. "I ask why they listen to sleep-bat. They say I look tasty and treasure sounds good."

Gorok gives a thoughtful rasp. "Treasure, which-treasure... ring? Show them."

With a shrug Cob takes out the black steel ring, sending the prisoners babbling... and licking their lips.

Already pale from the lingering effects of the poison, Mina bleaches white as chalk. "Let me look at that again..." She mouths something, tracing the runes on the ring. "It has the mark of Zura the Vampire Queen. The bat in the dream, the statue up above, the death magic tainting the stone..."

Spoiler: Rolls

Gorok Wisdom: 1d20 +2 = 10 (Success)
Mina Knowledge (Religion): 1d20 +20 = 25 (Success)

Tales of blood drinking undead are common fare for frightening one's peers in the Hall of the Young, but the way Mina speaks echoes of the sorrow and hatred of generations uncounted. "It walks among the people unseen, unholy hunger behind a familiar smile, beast in guise of man and corpse at the dinner table sitting, watching and waiting. It is mist outside the window swirling, the wolf glimpsed in moonlight, the nightmare that that leaves young and old alike bedridden, too weak to fight, too weak to call for aid, and at last too weak even to move as its shadow looms. Then again, when the pallbearers come to take the bloodless corpse and take it into the earth it wears a mask of sorrow, and from among the grieving chooses its next victim. A plague and pestilence upon the living world." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Their lady is Zura, to whom they toast in befouled cups, tp whom they glory in the symphony of screams. They are the teeth of the Tyrant's Guard."

"If we let you loose will you not hunt us more?" Gorok asks in the grim silence that follows.

The two tied up goblins nod and nod again, the wounded one starting to bleed a little from the sheer force of the act. It does not take Cob to tell you they promise not to come after you again. But can you trust them to keep that promise if the dreams come again? you wonder. Looking upon them you see no enchantment so perhaps it had been mere blandishment and promise of power that had lead them here. How many others could it lead? Perhaps it is best to get rid of the ring while you still can, before something worse than goblins is draw to its trail.

Spoiler: Rolls

Akorian Sense Motive: 1d20+8 = 23

What does Akorian say?

[] Advise Cob to get rid of the ring
-[] Find a pit to throw it in
-[] If these two had come so far for the ring, give it to them and thus be rid of it.

[] Suggest you let them go and continue on to Cauldron as fast as you can (Forced March)

[] Gorok should execute the prisoners. They cannot be trusted not to follow you and next time you might not catch them arguing

[] Write in

OOC: Since you went capture and not kill Mina focused on putting them to sleep with her hex instead of dealing with her poisoning, but hey at least now you know why they were after you, or rather after Cob.

 

[DragonParadox]

By Unlikely Counsel ​

The Season of Still Stone

"I think it would be safer for all of us to kill them before they come back with friends to embolden them. Who's to say how far these dreams go?" the thought hangs like ice in your stomach. Maybe Cob aught to leave this thing here in the dark for any who might come after this lot to claim and be rid of, or if not to offer some other quarry to the servant of this 'Zura.' But on the other hand... oh on the other hand, if someone is hunting for the ring that means it's precious. It seems no less than kicking fortune aside before you know if it is good or bad, if you were in the habit of doing that you wouldn't be out here at all, but back in the caves of Zul playing scrambling for scraps

While you had been pondering the future Mina turns towards Gorok to speak, then seems to think the better of it and with a sight she turns away, but much to your surprise it's Cob who speaks up. "They don't have nothin' we want, no whoozy no shinny."The latter words translated directly from goblin means something like, no valuables and no alcohol , though a sufficiently determined goblin would imbibe far more exotic substances for the promise of a good time and a sufficiently bored one might think of an unusually shaped rock as as shinny. "If we let 'em, maybe they come back with shinny."

"You want to wait for them, here?' You ask It is not the worst idea Cob had since you met, but it is at least among the five worst.

"No, no, come to Cauldron, maybe buy ring form us," the goblin explains. "I hear Goblers have many, many shinies because they can dig in stone." He shrugs. "Thing that gives dreams already knows about ring, can send goblins right to proper place we not even know we be in now."

"It would be two fewer foes," you insist

"In whole tribe? Whole tribe, too big for us," the goblin points out splaying out his fingers to show 'big' is more than ten. "Tribe too big to go chasing after ring, but if Za... Zo... Talks in Dream Thing show them dead goblins whole tribe have red in head."

Gorok considers the matter for a long moment before putting away the axe and asking Mina outright: "Thoughts?'

Spoiler: Rolls

Cob Diplomacy (Yes really): 1d20 - 1 = 17 (Success)

"The Tender of Dreams is said to protect against fel powers," she says, more than a little hesitantly, though she seems on firmer ground the more she speaks. "And we should not spill blood without need, just because we are afraid of what might be after us."

That is how rather than an axe to the neck your most recent prisoners receive advice on how to pray to Mina's Goddess, which they mouth after her enthusiastically with Cob's help.

"Are the Cauldron folk likely to welcome them?" you ask Gorok as the two of you pack up the meager supplies you had gathered in preparation for a march at double speed to the settlement.

"They will take anyone once, then judge by how it went," comes the reply.

I guess that might have been what they did with your lot, it's not like you are a common sight in these tunnels

On the hopefully quiet way back which of your companions do you speak to?

[] Mina to learn more about the gods of the burnlands, fair and foul

[] Gorok, question him about how he left his tribe

[] Cob, keep learning goblin and learn more about him in the process

[] Write in

---

Definitions:
Red in head - Goblin expression meaning riled up
Shinny - Valuables to the goblin in question, actually shining is helpful but not required
Whoozy - Substance ingested by a goblin in the hopes of recreational use

OOC: Akorian gave it a go, but he did not push so far as to count as an actual diplo roll of his own, he knows what happens when he tries that and he did not want to make the others upset, they are the only company he has in the wide world

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Bright Eyes and Minds Gone Dark ​

The Season of Still Stone

Getting to know Gorok is at first an exercise in patience. He does not like chatter, or more to the point he does not see the point of it, stalking through the mud that bands the shallow nameless creak, his tail drawing sinuous patterns in his wake. One might think he does not enjoy the company... but for the fact that he is here, looking for spiral-caps and black root to add a bit of flavor to the next batch of stew. At first he had been uncomfortable with you trailing him, but when it became clear that you were decent at staying unnoticed even when your shadow wasn't coiled around you he had started to count on your eyes more to keep an ambush from your back while he is foraging.

Eventually the simple signs and short sharp words had developed into a... companionably one-sided conversation as you bring up dwarfen trade routes and market prices for your haul, tales of ghouls, moldfolk, morlocks, goblins and what they might all have to do with each other in this long twisting chase.

"There's part of me that almost wishes we had said no to that coin and not gotten tangled up in..." You catch yourself, eyes flying to the green-scaled face of your companion and expecting to see some some kind of disdain there for the fear you had admitted to. But there is nothing of the sort, so you just keep rambling in between listening for echoes and looking for any sign of peril approaching from among the patchesof blue-grey spiral-caps feasting eagerly on the mud left over in last flood season, or as the pompous duergar tongue would have it, 'The Season of Rushing Water.'

For a little while you ponder asking Gorok to learn his tongue as well, but the goblin tongue is troublesome enough with the way it chops up pieces of words and not even consistent pieces at that.

Spoiler: Rolls

??? Hide: 1d20 +2 = 7 (Automatic Failure)

A distraction comes in the shape of twin sparks of crimson light just on the edge of seeing, eyes. As you start to motion Gorok he waves it off. "Blindhelm, no threat. They are small weak, will not defend territory."

Emboldened by the words you decide to to have a closer look. By the light of the enormous red eyes that dominate its head you spy a frog-like humanoid about as large as Cob, its tongue darting nervously in and out of its mouth.

"I mean you no harm..." you start to say, presenting your palms in the most common mark of peace, but the creature hop-shuffles off, splashing through the mud.

Spoiler: Blindhelm

"They have not the wit to understand words," Gorok explains, sounding uncommonly vehement about it. Is that bitterness? You wonder.

After a few heartbeats pause you decide to chance it. "How do you know?"

"When I was a young hunter I tried to teach one of them the words of the Iruxi, my people. He did not understand, not truly, for all he wished to and followed me around. I think it may have been just because I fed him. "

"Why did you? Feed him, I mean?" While you would be willing to offer a meal to a stranger on the road once or twice, this seems to have been more of a uncommon thing.

"I had found..." He stops to dig up a root, leaving you wondering if he had thought the better of explaining before continuing. "There are overgrown stone walls almost sunk into the swamp three days walk-swim from the hatching grounds. They are carved with strange pictures of them, Iruxi in long robes with collars like onto the wings of birds..."

"Birds?" you prompt, curious to hear about another Burnland thing.

"Like bats, but in bright colors, with a beak like a squid," Gorok explains, leaving you with a very strange image in your head, one you do not get a chance to refine as he is not done explaining about the ruins.

"There were other pictures as well. Iruxi shaping waters, raising islands, and building cities upon them, and in one corner there was an Iruxi and another smaller one, a blindhelm, talking, bowing, and praying together..." This is the fastest and most you had ever heard him talk. "I was young and I thought I knew better than the elders, thought they had forgotten our tongue and we ours. Could not teach, could not speak, elders called it waste of time."

"But you think they are wrong?"

"I think that perhaps the elders of the blindhelms once thought as they did." It takes you a moment to realize what he is saying. When it does your eyes fly back to the place the creature had been hiding among the spiral-caps, horror no doubt reflected in your face. Does Gorok have as much trouble reading you as you do reading him? You wonder.

"We do not shape the waters, nor build up islands and set stones upon them. We hide from the warmbloods, drawing ever back into poorer hunting grounds, worse foraging, less and less of us, less eggs too. Maybe one day they no longer have the wit to make a spear, maybe they think claws good enough, go into the water, into the caves, away from the warmbloods. Out of sight and out of knowing."

"Is that were you saw the Xulgath forges and learned so much about them?" you guess, trying to keep your voice under control.

"No. I looked for other ruins. tablets, pots, I think road stones, to mark edge of territory. Like carving into a tree, but more solid. One of those had Xulgath on one side and Iruxi on the other, passing gifts to one another, cloth and food for iron and steel. Maybe things that were can be again. Worth the try at least."

You nod in mute agreement, not trusting your voice.

***​

Cauldron is much as you had left it behind the spears of its guards, loud and filled with the echoes of countless sorts of folks, great and small, scaled and soft-skinned, and thankfully filled with all manner of tasks demanding your attention. From topping up on the supplies that have only grown less instead of plentiful over the past journey, to finding someone who will take your rattling sleigh full of weapons, to buying clothes and shoes that fit and aren't falling apart, but most urgent of all is getting paid for your trouble.

Lost 24 Duergar Trail Rations

"I have a lot of questions for them," Mina says, unaccustomed anger threading through her voice. "Starting with who Egriso of Augustana is and why he's trading in Russet Mold."

"They will want to know quite a bit from us," you point out. "How much are you comfortable telling them?"

"The place above is none of their business, if they do not know about it," Mina starts, to enthusiastic nodding from Cob, muttering something about 'keeping the shinnies safe', though you do not think that is quite what the sorceress has in mind.

"But what about the ghoul? The morlocks? The fruit that only grows in death's ground?" she ponders.

What do you think the party should share with the orcs who hired you and what should you ask?

[] Just that you dealt with the moldfolk and the mold that made them, and asking about the dead mercenaries

[] Explain the Black Fruit and ask if there are any places tainted with death near the mine

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Flayleaf Fancies ​

The Season of Still Stone

"The orcs need know only that we dealt with the moldfolk and the mold, not what else was there, especially since they or their chiefs might have something to do with the trouble," you offer and no one objects, though Mina does explain that they are only 'half-orcs', whatever that means, in a town where a fellow with a crab claw in place of his right hand can haggle over the price of stone-fruit flower with a three eyed matron. The distinction is apparently important to those who dwell above, if not to Mina herself, so you endeavor to look for any signs of the other half. What is it that makes a human, most common by far of all the people of the Burnlands, according to your companions?

One thing is for sure, it's not diligence or organization. You find the pair in what might be the worst tavern in town, having somehow contrived to smoke so much flayleaf that the prickly-sour smell of it had managed to overwhelm the usual miasma of the caverns. The bleary-eyed look of the younger brother does nothing to improve your flagging hopes of getting paid.

Yet when Gorok recounts simply 'the danger is gone, all dead' and hefts the pot full of fermenting green mush as proof something remarkable happens, the pair practically explode into good cheer. So much so that Urz tried to slap the saurian warrior on the back, almost earning himself some brand new scars for the trouble.

"Coin?" The question sounds like a threat, which you suppose it is. A more solid one at that than when you had shaken them with the sight of your shadow.

"Yeah, yeah, sure." He pulls a heavy iron bound chest out from under the bed, the kind that takes either the key or an axe to deal with. There is a lot more than nine hundred gold in there, though how much more you cannot say for certain, not wanting to be caught staring. Counting out the coins is a bit of a chore, though not as much as you had feared thanks to Cob of all people, stacking coins in tens and hundreds with all the wide-eyed good cheer of a child who had found a new game, marking a tally as he goes along.

Gained 900 gp

"That is not the only gold in this whole affair, though it is by far the most pleasing to the eye," Mina tries to soften them up with flattery before revealing the golden medallion with the symbol of an ornate key upon it. "Recognize this?"

"Ah... yeah. Really sad what happened to Jo...rock. Boss sent him down there and he got turned into mold mush," the elder of the pair says.

Mayhap you do not know much about the proper names of Burnlanders, but you recognize that pause in the middle as someone inventing a name whole-cloth.

"That was her name was it? Sounds like a man's name to me," you lie without shame. They had shown none doing it to you, and payment in full or no you want to know what they are hiding.

"Ah, right, that must have been Ilys..."

"Fuck's sake, just drop the act already," the other orc says, rolling up some more flyleaf. "Boss ain't paying us for telling tall tales so we might as well cut them down to size. They were enemies that busted in one day looking to close us down on account of they not liking enterprising business folk musclin' in on what they think is their turf. If you want some advice, get rid of their stuff 'fore someone tracks it. They seemed like the sort of outfit that might be able to afford a wizard to tell 'em who killed their mates, and if you are holding onto the loot them they might put two and two together and come up with five."

Spoiler: Rolls

Urz Bluff: 1d20 +5 = 8 vs Akorian Sense Motive: 1d20 +8 = 12
Akorian Bluff: 1d20 +7 = 22 vs Urz Sense Motive: 1d20 +5 = 9

"That not make sense," Cob says, looking up from his counting.

"It's a figure of speech, a turn of the tongue," you add what you think is the right goblin translation.

"Tongue all swollen up then, not good for talking," the little fellow chuckles, leaving your former employers looking bemused, though at what you could not hazard a guess. Cob has that effect.

Still, you think as the four of you get out into, relatively, clearer air of the main cavern. You consider the advice you had gotten, and wonder just how much of what you had gotten in the mine do you sell. Gorok certainly seems fond of his new axe, but he could buy a new one or some other weapon in its place. Quite apart from that are scrolls and potions, those might save someone's life. Maybe just get rid of the recognizable stuff. No doubt the pair and their mysterious boss would love it if all the marks of their misdeeds should never see the Burnlands again, but you are not so flush with funds as to to oblige them without a thought.

What do you sell over the next few Long Sleeps?
List of all your worldly possessions here. All items are sold for half price before haggling. As Akorian has bluff but not diplomacy he can attempt to mislead merchants about the value of the item obtaining up to 30% of its resale value (15% of its full value). If you are caught misrepresenting your goods some of the merchants in town may decide not to trade with you at all

[] Haggle
-[] Write in what to sell

[] Do not Haggle
-[] Write in what to sell

OOC: I decided to break up buying and selling so as not to overwhelm you guys with details.