the Jester
Legend
Alathion, situated in the southern reaches of Forinthia’s Wortharian Jungle, is a medium-sized port situated at the end of the Alathion Canal, which- several centuries ago- was the Alathion River. Since the reclamation of Forinthia after the defeat of the Tarrasques two centuries ago, Alathion has grown into a major center for lumber operations; it is surrounded by miles and miles of wild jungle. It is also a growing trade hub due to its geographical location- the Alathion Canal dumps into the sea, and wherever two major waterways meet, commerce flourishes.
Alathion also has a definite seedy underbelly. The neighborhood in question is called “the Night” by the locals, for reasons we will probably explore at a later time. It is mostly run-down, with thieves and thugs common. The authorities send watch patrols through the neighborhood fairly often, though there is no watch house within the Night itself since the last one burned down. This is not a safe place to be alone and unarmed after dark. At night, the street seems to sprout fires as those with no where else to go huddle around small piles of burning wood. Roving gangs menace those without the strength or charisma to look out for themselves. Rumors of a powerful thieves’ guild called the Quiet Girls persist.
The Night’s features include a shabby, run-down church of Galador, an elven fruit and vegetable stand, a retired illusionist recluse who lives in a tower surrounded by deadly glass thorns, a notorious house that hosts the local population of dwarven crahk addicts (crahk is a dwarven drug: strange crystals taken from deep within the earth, which the addicts smoke), multiple abandoned buildings (including the burned-out shell of the old guard house) and a few empty lots turned into small parks with worn benches at which the homeless sit. Though it is not the nicest place to be, to many folks of the city it is, nonetheless, home.
Take Snave, for instance.
Snave grew up in the jungle, amongst his mother’s folk. As a youth, he played with the other children, enjoyed climbing trees and swinging from branches. Like the elves, he learned to ignore sleep in favor of trance. His senses grew uncannily acute, until he could discern the details of sight and sound well in excess of those of a normal human. He learned the elven hate of things unnatural, and of undead.
It was in trying to exercise his skill as a hunter of such unnatural beings that his frustrations finally grew larger than the comforts of his home and family.
The human blood in his veins made him grow faster than the children around him. He learned more quickly, absorbing in but a few weeks things that young elves took years to fully take in.
An incursion of unliving things had begun to creep southwards into the elven camps, and most of the elven warriors were called to the fight. Snave was eager to join the battle, and was indeed allowed to accompany the scouts. He watched and soaked up everything that they had to teach about tracking and slaying the undead. Yet, when the time came, he was not allowed to help. The elves spoke to him as if he were still a baby- as, indeed, an elf of his age would have been- and refused to allow him to take any part in the battle. His aid was rejected, again and again.
Afterwards, when the elves were triumphantly returning to their lodges high in the trees, Snave left. They won’t even notice I’m gone for two years, he thought bitterly, leaving without saying goodbye. All he had wanted was to help. If they had let him, he might have been able to prevent the loss of a few of the dead. Maybe he could have blooded his swords (of elf-make, of course!) in the ichor of zombies and ghouls; maybe he could have been the bulwark that prevented the one elven platform that had been overwhelmed from falling. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Nobody would ever know, now; it was too late for that.
So Snave determined to make his own way, and came to Alathion, where he sought out frugal living quarters in Porter’s Tenements.
In the Night.
***
Eron had come from a group of elves that commingled to a great extent with Snave’s people. They had met, briefly, in Snave’s youth; but only once, and never again, under Alathion.
Eron had come to the Night in search of something greater than himself. The elven loose reverence of nature was not enough for him, and the remnants of the Old Faith (which espoused cannibalism and sacrifice) made him shudder. He could always sense that there was something greater out there, but what was it? His dabblings in Galadorianism and the Dexterite faith were profoundly unsatisfying, and Eron would stare into the water for hours, watching it flow past, always changing, always the same. He would tell himself that there must be something more, something larger than all the things that he could see. He had thought to find it in Galador, but Galador was so static, so in denial of the need for and inevitability of change, that faith in the Light seemed to him to be nothing more than spiritual constipation.
Then, one day, in the woods not far from a lumber camp just to the north of Alathion’s edge, Eron came upon a vicious battle.
There were over a dozen men, garbed in the uniforms of Imperial Peregrines- that branch of the military assigned to hunt and kill the Empire’s deadliest enemies. They were renowned for the skills, and there were over a dozen present- and, Eron began to note, there were nearly a dozen more dead in the grass and bushes.
The Peregrines surrounded a human woman. She moved with grace and speed, blurring from one deadly attack to another. In each hand she wielded a greatsword that should, by all rights, have required both hands. Her only armor was a bare chain mail bikini. Red hair whipped through the air like a matador’s cape as she danced amongst them, sending one after another across the threshold and into the grim reaper’s domain.
Awed, Eron hid behind a screen of brush and watched.
One by one, and two by two, and even four by four, the Imperial Peregrines fell to the might of the flame-haired woman. When it was over, she wiped her blades on the tunic of their dead leader and then turned and looked straight at Eron. He felt her eyes pin him. Knowing it was useless to do anything else, Eron emerged from his protective screen of brush and met her eyes.
Her goddess was Coila, mistress of time, authority, inevitability and relentlessness. All his searching seemed to condense down into a droplet of certainty. This was it. This was what he had been searching for. Coila.
The woman- Sheva- gladly told him of her goddess. He implored her to take him on as her apprentice, but she scoffed. “You elves are too flighty!” she declared. “I don’t think you have the focus for it. If I’m wrong- if you do- you can find me in the Shining City, on Tirchond.”
That journey, of course, would take considerable funds. Thus, Eron, too, came to Alathion, where he rented a small, cheap room in a tenement building.
***
Barouk had worked since his youth to develop his physical and mental self-mastery. Entering the Order of Saint Spadron, he had aspired his entire life to become a full-fledged Spadronite. The right to wear the beard girdle pin was something he strongly desired. Oh, he realized that the odds were against him; even amongst the monks of the Order, only one in perhaps 700 succeeded.
But he would be one of those few, he vowed to himself.
As his training continued and intensified, Barouk toughened his mind and body. His hands he strengthened by smashing stone and brick with them, again and again. Other monks of the order tested him constantly, sparring with him whether he expected it or not. He learned the meditations, the visualizations, the prayers. Spadron had been High Priest in Dexter’s time, and was one of the Companions of Dexter. To walk in his footsteps was a worthy goal for any dwarf
When his final tests came, Barouk managed them all, one by one, physical, mental and spiritual. Regardless of the pride building in his breast, Barouk knew that the true test was yet to come: the Walk. Only if he completed his Walk would he have the right to wear the beard girdle pin.
The beard girdle pin was a celebration of Spadron’s quality as a dwarf. Sadly, no human tongue has ever had a true equivalent word for this quality; usually, scholars translate it loosely as ‘quality,’ ‘manliness’, ‘goodness’ or ‘beardedness’. All of these terms have elements of truth to them, but a truer translation would somehow wrap all these things- and somewhat more- into it. Regardless, Spadron’s quality as a dwarf was evident by the fact that his beard was long enough that he knotted it and wore it as a belt. Thus, the beard girdle pin, which depicts him doing so, really symbolizes just how much of all good dwarven traits he held: a whole lot.
To earn the pin, a dwarven monk of the Order of St. Spadron must first walk Cydra for seven years, aiding those in need. In order to do that, Barouk reasoned, he must first go somewhere full of those in need.
The Night seemed like a good place to start.
***
Kifla had long been fascinated by the intersection of two quintessentially gnomish things: magic and mischief. When she was young enough that her innocent looks were still believable, she would make mischief in places too high for her to reach via prestidigitation. Always good-natured but always a joker, she loved it when the tricksters and jesters came and showed off in the gnome-homes. She was fascinated by their ability to weave colors and lights in fascinating patterns. She gawked admiringly at their illusory shows. The things they did always made her think the same thing: Some day...
When she got to be old enough, she began studying magic. It was her own father that taught her to put people to sleep or to make the clashing colors fan out and dazzle those in their cone. She soaked it up eagerly, drinking in knowledge and secrets as quickly as he served it up to her.
There came the inevitable day, of course, when there was no more that she could learn by studying. “You can now only learn by doing,” her father told her.
She stayed with him for another two years, reading his tomes and doing what research she could to find lore related to her two loves intertwined. There were great enchantresses, illusionists and shadow casters that she could seek; powerful transmuters, enchanted glades and groves, fairy magi and more. There were so many possible avenues to follow!
By the time she had read enough, her father’s travels had taken them to Alathion. Kifla was always a little unclear as to exactly what her father did; some kind of boring diplomatic kind of stuff. He always seemed to be trying to negotiate for gnomish interests. He told her that he would be ready to leave in a few days, and, after a moment’s thought, she responded, “I’m staying.”
There was an illusionist- a gnomish illusionist- reputed to live somewhere in the city!
Somewhere in a neighborhood called the Night...
***
7/29/372 O.L.G., 5 p.m., Porter’s Tenement
The building is large but shabby, painted a yellow that has since faded badly to a bleached piss color. It is divided into eight sections per floor, each section consisting of eight small individual rooms strung along a hallway with a single kitchen, bathroom and communal area. In one of these communal areas in this shabby tenement building in this run-down neighborhood, three people sit on worn couches. All are male. One is a dwarf, one is an elf and one is a half-elf.
“I’m getting low on money,” Snave (the half-elf) complains. “I can’t afford to pay rent, and it’s due in a few days.”
“Well,” replies the elf- whose name, as we already know, is Eron- “you could always try to find work...”
“I don’t want to work!” snorts Snave is disdain.
“I’m pretty low on money too,” the dwarf- Barouk- states. “Maybe we could try to rustle up some action at one of the local taverns.”
“Not a bad idea,” Snave nods, and the three of them head down to the Drunken Dolphin, a rather rough tavern aimed at the sailor crowd more than anyone else. When they reach it, the place is at the very end of a bar fight, and by the time they enter the swinging doors, the fight is over. Fortunately, there is now a table with three vacant seats at it, and our heroes push through the crowd to claim it.
A barmaid bustles over and soon Snave and Barouk have bowls of fish stew and cups of mead before them. The elf takes only water and stares obsessively at it. After a few moments, they drift off in the crowd to try to pick up bits of conversation and- perhaps- a lead on some easy money. When they reconvene, they have each heard something: some king from a faraway land has declared himself a god, there’s some sort of big war going on in distant places (must not be too important, since it hasn’t touched Forinthia proper) and- bingo!
“I heard an old man,” says Snave, “telling a story about some caves in the King’s Cliff behind the water tower. I guess his dog Skip went into a hidden cave and when he found him, he was dead of two small wounds.”
“Caves, eh?” Barouk nods. “All right.”
The three of them finish their drinks, then go outside. Glancing around, they can’t help but notice something fortuitous: the water tower is the next building over from the Drunken Dolphin, and the cliffs are right behind them! Grinning in the darkness, they move to the base of the cliff and begin searching. It takes them less than half an hour to find what they are seeking: two rocks with a third crossed above them, but with a navigable opening allowing ingress into a cave.
Cautiously, they move in. A small amount of light comes in from the entrance, but not far ahead it becomes pitch black. As they begin to move carefully forward, Snave suddenly whispers, “I hear something- squeaking.” He listens intently and then gulps. “It sounds like stirges,” he whispers.
And then, suddenly, a flock of the horrid little beasts, like mosquitoes the size of a small dog, is flying out at them!
Snave splits one of them in half before it even reaches its target. The other three, however, all attach themselves to Barouk! The dwarf grimaces and smashes one of them with his bare hand! “Kiai!!” he shouts.
But the other two begin sucking his blood at a prodigious rate. The three would-be adventurers struggle to destroy the parasites before they kill Barouk. Eron casts light on Barouk’s quarterstaff, hoping to distract the stirges with it, but they are already attached to a warm, blood-filled target. The dwarf groans as he smashes another of the monsters, and then, a moment later, the last one is destroyed. Shaking, light-headed, Barouk takes a moment to gather his wits before the group proceeds down the hall.
It is here that Snave departs. “I think I drank too much mead,” he groans, and stumbles back out of the cave.
Barouk and Eron push forward, mostly at the dwarf’s urging. “Just a little further,” he insists. At the end of the hall is a shaft that descends at about a 40 degree angle. Carefully, they start their descent. It is slick with moisture, and though it isn’t a sheer shaft, it looks like a painful fall regardless. Soon Barouk tests this theory and decides that it is correct, wincing in pain as he picks himself up at the bottom. Eron follows, descending through about 30’ of hallway into a large cave with two exits coming out of it. Rubble is strewn about, along with a few bones.
“Let’s try that one,” gestures Barouk at one of the entrances.
“I think we should go back,” suggests Eron.
Ignoring him, Barouk starts heading for the exit he had designated. Shaking his head, Eron follows. Suddenly, from the rubble behind him, a 7’ centipede springs forth, biting at his leg! He gives a great cry and begins trying to shake himself free. Simultaneously, Barouk leaps forward, striking at the humungous bug with his pudgy dwarven fists. The two of them struggle with the immense centipede as its mandibles chew great holes in Eron, injecting dose after dose of poison into him! “Aargh!” the cleric cries, and the bug pulls him down! He collapses in a bloody pile of unconsciousness.
Barouk gulps, but springs forward and grabs onto the monster by its segmented body! He begins swinging it so that its head smashes down into the nubbin of a young stalagmite, and soon bug ichor sprays out all over! Barouk releases the centipede’s corpse with a groan, panting. After a few moments, he catches his breath; and then, checking Eron, he finds him unconscious but stable. The dwarf breathes a sigh of relief.
Now what? he wonders. I am wounded, Eron is unconscious... do I go on by myself? His desire to explore the cave that they have found, and hopefully to find some easy money, wars for a few moments with his wiser side. Finally, reluctantly, he decides that, rather than risking both of their lives, he will attempt to carry Eron out of the cave and get some rest. Maybe if they can recover from their wounds- and if Snave has shaken off the liquor- they can return with more success.
So Barouk slings Eron’s limp form across his shoulders and begins to climb. Immediately he recognizes that it is much harder to go up with 130 lbs. of elf and gear on his back than it was to climb down carrying only the few pounds of gear that he has in his backpack. The slope is treacherous and wet; and, almost at the top, Barouk’s toe slips. His fingers dig at the rock, trying to find secure purchase, but he is no match for gravity. There is a disorienting moment of vertigo, and then pain bursts in his lower back as he slams into a flat spot midway down the shaft. The dwarven monk grits his teeth against the pain, and slowly drags himself upright. Swaying, blinking sweat out of his eyes, he realizes, I can’t make the climb now... I’m too badly hurt. If I try, I’ll end up killing us both.* With a groan, he sinks to his knees. A few moments later, his eyes slip shut and he allows sleep to overtake him; after all, what other choice does he have?
Oblivion...
***
7/30/372 O.L.G., 9 a.m., Porter’s Tenement
Kifla is just finishing her breakfast in the communal kitchen shared by her flatmates and herself. Interestingly, three of them are missing this morning- the elf, half-elf and dwarf. (The other people in their section are all humans, who are present.) It is unlike any of them to miss breakfast. Idly, Kifla wonders what is going on with them as she prestidigitates her dishes clean.
Then Snave, the half-elf in question, staggers in looking awful.
“What happened to you?” asks Kifla.
Snave groans something about lots of liquor, and then shakes his head. “Where are Barouk and Eron?”
The others shrug. “I kind of thought they were with you,” Kifla replies.
Snave suddenly winces. “That’s right- we were going into this cave, at the cliffs... I started feeling an unhappy reaction to the drink I had had at the Drunken Dolphin, and left... but they were still in there!” He winces again, holding his temples. “I hope they are all right- we encountered stirges in there.”
Kifla shudders. Every gnome has heard stories about the dangers of stirges! “We should go check on them,” she declares. “Can you lead me there?”
Snave nods. He staggers up, his face green, and soon Kifla is following him along the edge of the cliff. “It was somewhere up here,” the ranger mutters. Finally, he spots the rock crossing the top of the two stones that form the side of the cavern entrance. “There,” he groans. Then he adds, “I think I need to go...” He staggers off, trying to shake off the aftereffects of the previous evening’s drink.
Kifla nervously slips beneath the crossing stone and into the cave. She gives her eyes a moment to adjust as best they can to the poor lighting; and then she slowly begins moving forward. After only a few yards, she gasps at the sight of several large bloodstains surrounding the mangled corpses of the stirges. “Hello?” she calls in a quavering voice, but there is no response. Biting her lip, Kifla casts a dancing lights ahead of her and continues following the passage until it ends in a cave with a shaft dropping out of it. “Hello?” she calls again, and this time she hears a groan from below.
“...Help!”
Kifla attaches a rope and starts to make her way down, but her skill with rope is minimal and she, too, takes a fall! She lands on her side and hip, scraping herself badly, but she finds herself next to Barouk and the unconscious Eron on a flat shelf midway down the shelf. Shakily, she climbs to her feet and checks for broken bones. Then she and Barouk make their plan to escape: they will tie Eron into a bedroll and drag him up once both of them are at the top. Kifla will go first and tie the rope off up at the top to (hopefully) give Barouk a little assistance on the climb.
This time things go according to plan, and shortly Kifla and Barouk are pulling the limp form of Eron up. They begin heading back into the Night, dragging him in the bedroll. “Maybe we can get some healing from the local temple,” states Kifla. Barouk nods agreement, and they begin heading in the direction of the local temple. But they are less than a block into the Night when they see a trio of tough-looking gangsters coming their way, lions tattooed on their arms and legs.
I’m not even giving them a chance to start anything, Kifla thinks, analyzing the danger instantly. She drops her end of the bedroll and casts sleep. All three of the oncoming gangsters collapse in the street. “Let’s go,” Kifla says, and she and Barouk hurry past with their burden. “I kind of want to call the watch on them,” she sighs, “but they didn’t actually do anything yet!”
Soon they reach a run-down temple of Galador. Sitting within, a waterskin in one hand, is a middle-aged human man with crumpled, threadbare vestments on. There is dust on the friezes and the stained glass windows could use a cleaning. He looks up at them as they enter.
“Greetings,” he sighs. “What can I do for you?”
“We are wounded, and we come seeking healing,” Kifla says.
“Ah, of course. I am Brother Simon. I will be happy to help you for the standard fee.”
“Fee?” asks Barouk.
“Twenty-five gold pieces,” clarifies Brother Simon. He takes a pull from his waterskin.
Barouk and Kifla look at each other is dismay. That’s more money than all three of them have put together! “Is there some service we could perform for you or something?” the gnome asks sweetly. “Perhaps if we cleaned the place up?”
He glances around. “Well, it certainly wouldn’t equal the value of the healing,” he says slowly, “but I suppose I could heal one of you in exchange for cleaning up...” He takes another long pull from the waterskin, and Kifla’s keen gnomish nose detects the odor of a strong alcohol coming from within.
The deal is made, and once again Kifla’s gnomish ability to use prestidigitation makes her life easy. Soon the windows are clean, the dusty areas and cobwebs have been swept out and the floor looks freshly mopped. Drunkenly, Brother Simon casts cure light wounds- but he casts it on Barouk rather than on Eron by mistake! Though he agrees to heal Eron the next morning, he laments that he can do nothing further for him today.
So Kifla and the mostly-healed Barouk head back to Porter’s Tenements with their unconscious friend. Rent is due tomorrow. They can be a few days late, but... rent is due tomorrow.
Next Time: Will our heroes pay rent? Are they moving out into the streets? Will the Lion Gang remember Kifla? Who knows what will happen, this game is brand new and we haven’t even played the second session yet!
*The fall reduced Barouk to 0 hp.
Alathion also has a definite seedy underbelly. The neighborhood in question is called “the Night” by the locals, for reasons we will probably explore at a later time. It is mostly run-down, with thieves and thugs common. The authorities send watch patrols through the neighborhood fairly often, though there is no watch house within the Night itself since the last one burned down. This is not a safe place to be alone and unarmed after dark. At night, the street seems to sprout fires as those with no where else to go huddle around small piles of burning wood. Roving gangs menace those without the strength or charisma to look out for themselves. Rumors of a powerful thieves’ guild called the Quiet Girls persist.
The Night’s features include a shabby, run-down church of Galador, an elven fruit and vegetable stand, a retired illusionist recluse who lives in a tower surrounded by deadly glass thorns, a notorious house that hosts the local population of dwarven crahk addicts (crahk is a dwarven drug: strange crystals taken from deep within the earth, which the addicts smoke), multiple abandoned buildings (including the burned-out shell of the old guard house) and a few empty lots turned into small parks with worn benches at which the homeless sit. Though it is not the nicest place to be, to many folks of the city it is, nonetheless, home.
Take Snave, for instance.
Snave grew up in the jungle, amongst his mother’s folk. As a youth, he played with the other children, enjoyed climbing trees and swinging from branches. Like the elves, he learned to ignore sleep in favor of trance. His senses grew uncannily acute, until he could discern the details of sight and sound well in excess of those of a normal human. He learned the elven hate of things unnatural, and of undead.
It was in trying to exercise his skill as a hunter of such unnatural beings that his frustrations finally grew larger than the comforts of his home and family.
The human blood in his veins made him grow faster than the children around him. He learned more quickly, absorbing in but a few weeks things that young elves took years to fully take in.
An incursion of unliving things had begun to creep southwards into the elven camps, and most of the elven warriors were called to the fight. Snave was eager to join the battle, and was indeed allowed to accompany the scouts. He watched and soaked up everything that they had to teach about tracking and slaying the undead. Yet, when the time came, he was not allowed to help. The elves spoke to him as if he were still a baby- as, indeed, an elf of his age would have been- and refused to allow him to take any part in the battle. His aid was rejected, again and again.
Afterwards, when the elves were triumphantly returning to their lodges high in the trees, Snave left. They won’t even notice I’m gone for two years, he thought bitterly, leaving without saying goodbye. All he had wanted was to help. If they had let him, he might have been able to prevent the loss of a few of the dead. Maybe he could have blooded his swords (of elf-make, of course!) in the ichor of zombies and ghouls; maybe he could have been the bulwark that prevented the one elven platform that had been overwhelmed from falling. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Nobody would ever know, now; it was too late for that.
So Snave determined to make his own way, and came to Alathion, where he sought out frugal living quarters in Porter’s Tenements.
In the Night.
***
Eron had come from a group of elves that commingled to a great extent with Snave’s people. They had met, briefly, in Snave’s youth; but only once, and never again, under Alathion.
Eron had come to the Night in search of something greater than himself. The elven loose reverence of nature was not enough for him, and the remnants of the Old Faith (which espoused cannibalism and sacrifice) made him shudder. He could always sense that there was something greater out there, but what was it? His dabblings in Galadorianism and the Dexterite faith were profoundly unsatisfying, and Eron would stare into the water for hours, watching it flow past, always changing, always the same. He would tell himself that there must be something more, something larger than all the things that he could see. He had thought to find it in Galador, but Galador was so static, so in denial of the need for and inevitability of change, that faith in the Light seemed to him to be nothing more than spiritual constipation.
Then, one day, in the woods not far from a lumber camp just to the north of Alathion’s edge, Eron came upon a vicious battle.
There were over a dozen men, garbed in the uniforms of Imperial Peregrines- that branch of the military assigned to hunt and kill the Empire’s deadliest enemies. They were renowned for the skills, and there were over a dozen present- and, Eron began to note, there were nearly a dozen more dead in the grass and bushes.
The Peregrines surrounded a human woman. She moved with grace and speed, blurring from one deadly attack to another. In each hand she wielded a greatsword that should, by all rights, have required both hands. Her only armor was a bare chain mail bikini. Red hair whipped through the air like a matador’s cape as she danced amongst them, sending one after another across the threshold and into the grim reaper’s domain.
Awed, Eron hid behind a screen of brush and watched.
One by one, and two by two, and even four by four, the Imperial Peregrines fell to the might of the flame-haired woman. When it was over, she wiped her blades on the tunic of their dead leader and then turned and looked straight at Eron. He felt her eyes pin him. Knowing it was useless to do anything else, Eron emerged from his protective screen of brush and met her eyes.
Her goddess was Coila, mistress of time, authority, inevitability and relentlessness. All his searching seemed to condense down into a droplet of certainty. This was it. This was what he had been searching for. Coila.
The woman- Sheva- gladly told him of her goddess. He implored her to take him on as her apprentice, but she scoffed. “You elves are too flighty!” she declared. “I don’t think you have the focus for it. If I’m wrong- if you do- you can find me in the Shining City, on Tirchond.”
That journey, of course, would take considerable funds. Thus, Eron, too, came to Alathion, where he rented a small, cheap room in a tenement building.
***
Barouk had worked since his youth to develop his physical and mental self-mastery. Entering the Order of Saint Spadron, he had aspired his entire life to become a full-fledged Spadronite. The right to wear the beard girdle pin was something he strongly desired. Oh, he realized that the odds were against him; even amongst the monks of the Order, only one in perhaps 700 succeeded.
But he would be one of those few, he vowed to himself.
As his training continued and intensified, Barouk toughened his mind and body. His hands he strengthened by smashing stone and brick with them, again and again. Other monks of the order tested him constantly, sparring with him whether he expected it or not. He learned the meditations, the visualizations, the prayers. Spadron had been High Priest in Dexter’s time, and was one of the Companions of Dexter. To walk in his footsteps was a worthy goal for any dwarf
When his final tests came, Barouk managed them all, one by one, physical, mental and spiritual. Regardless of the pride building in his breast, Barouk knew that the true test was yet to come: the Walk. Only if he completed his Walk would he have the right to wear the beard girdle pin.
The beard girdle pin was a celebration of Spadron’s quality as a dwarf. Sadly, no human tongue has ever had a true equivalent word for this quality; usually, scholars translate it loosely as ‘quality,’ ‘manliness’, ‘goodness’ or ‘beardedness’. All of these terms have elements of truth to them, but a truer translation would somehow wrap all these things- and somewhat more- into it. Regardless, Spadron’s quality as a dwarf was evident by the fact that his beard was long enough that he knotted it and wore it as a belt. Thus, the beard girdle pin, which depicts him doing so, really symbolizes just how much of all good dwarven traits he held: a whole lot.
To earn the pin, a dwarven monk of the Order of St. Spadron must first walk Cydra for seven years, aiding those in need. In order to do that, Barouk reasoned, he must first go somewhere full of those in need.
The Night seemed like a good place to start.
***
Kifla had long been fascinated by the intersection of two quintessentially gnomish things: magic and mischief. When she was young enough that her innocent looks were still believable, she would make mischief in places too high for her to reach via prestidigitation. Always good-natured but always a joker, she loved it when the tricksters and jesters came and showed off in the gnome-homes. She was fascinated by their ability to weave colors and lights in fascinating patterns. She gawked admiringly at their illusory shows. The things they did always made her think the same thing: Some day...
When she got to be old enough, she began studying magic. It was her own father that taught her to put people to sleep or to make the clashing colors fan out and dazzle those in their cone. She soaked it up eagerly, drinking in knowledge and secrets as quickly as he served it up to her.
There came the inevitable day, of course, when there was no more that she could learn by studying. “You can now only learn by doing,” her father told her.
She stayed with him for another two years, reading his tomes and doing what research she could to find lore related to her two loves intertwined. There were great enchantresses, illusionists and shadow casters that she could seek; powerful transmuters, enchanted glades and groves, fairy magi and more. There were so many possible avenues to follow!
By the time she had read enough, her father’s travels had taken them to Alathion. Kifla was always a little unclear as to exactly what her father did; some kind of boring diplomatic kind of stuff. He always seemed to be trying to negotiate for gnomish interests. He told her that he would be ready to leave in a few days, and, after a moment’s thought, she responded, “I’m staying.”
There was an illusionist- a gnomish illusionist- reputed to live somewhere in the city!
Somewhere in a neighborhood called the Night...
***
7/29/372 O.L.G., 5 p.m., Porter’s Tenement
The building is large but shabby, painted a yellow that has since faded badly to a bleached piss color. It is divided into eight sections per floor, each section consisting of eight small individual rooms strung along a hallway with a single kitchen, bathroom and communal area. In one of these communal areas in this shabby tenement building in this run-down neighborhood, three people sit on worn couches. All are male. One is a dwarf, one is an elf and one is a half-elf.
“I’m getting low on money,” Snave (the half-elf) complains. “I can’t afford to pay rent, and it’s due in a few days.”
“Well,” replies the elf- whose name, as we already know, is Eron- “you could always try to find work...”
“I don’t want to work!” snorts Snave is disdain.
“I’m pretty low on money too,” the dwarf- Barouk- states. “Maybe we could try to rustle up some action at one of the local taverns.”
“Not a bad idea,” Snave nods, and the three of them head down to the Drunken Dolphin, a rather rough tavern aimed at the sailor crowd more than anyone else. When they reach it, the place is at the very end of a bar fight, and by the time they enter the swinging doors, the fight is over. Fortunately, there is now a table with three vacant seats at it, and our heroes push through the crowd to claim it.
A barmaid bustles over and soon Snave and Barouk have bowls of fish stew and cups of mead before them. The elf takes only water and stares obsessively at it. After a few moments, they drift off in the crowd to try to pick up bits of conversation and- perhaps- a lead on some easy money. When they reconvene, they have each heard something: some king from a faraway land has declared himself a god, there’s some sort of big war going on in distant places (must not be too important, since it hasn’t touched Forinthia proper) and- bingo!
“I heard an old man,” says Snave, “telling a story about some caves in the King’s Cliff behind the water tower. I guess his dog Skip went into a hidden cave and when he found him, he was dead of two small wounds.”
“Caves, eh?” Barouk nods. “All right.”
The three of them finish their drinks, then go outside. Glancing around, they can’t help but notice something fortuitous: the water tower is the next building over from the Drunken Dolphin, and the cliffs are right behind them! Grinning in the darkness, they move to the base of the cliff and begin searching. It takes them less than half an hour to find what they are seeking: two rocks with a third crossed above them, but with a navigable opening allowing ingress into a cave.
Cautiously, they move in. A small amount of light comes in from the entrance, but not far ahead it becomes pitch black. As they begin to move carefully forward, Snave suddenly whispers, “I hear something- squeaking.” He listens intently and then gulps. “It sounds like stirges,” he whispers.
And then, suddenly, a flock of the horrid little beasts, like mosquitoes the size of a small dog, is flying out at them!
Snave splits one of them in half before it even reaches its target. The other three, however, all attach themselves to Barouk! The dwarf grimaces and smashes one of them with his bare hand! “Kiai!!” he shouts.
But the other two begin sucking his blood at a prodigious rate. The three would-be adventurers struggle to destroy the parasites before they kill Barouk. Eron casts light on Barouk’s quarterstaff, hoping to distract the stirges with it, but they are already attached to a warm, blood-filled target. The dwarf groans as he smashes another of the monsters, and then, a moment later, the last one is destroyed. Shaking, light-headed, Barouk takes a moment to gather his wits before the group proceeds down the hall.
It is here that Snave departs. “I think I drank too much mead,” he groans, and stumbles back out of the cave.
Barouk and Eron push forward, mostly at the dwarf’s urging. “Just a little further,” he insists. At the end of the hall is a shaft that descends at about a 40 degree angle. Carefully, they start their descent. It is slick with moisture, and though it isn’t a sheer shaft, it looks like a painful fall regardless. Soon Barouk tests this theory and decides that it is correct, wincing in pain as he picks himself up at the bottom. Eron follows, descending through about 30’ of hallway into a large cave with two exits coming out of it. Rubble is strewn about, along with a few bones.
“Let’s try that one,” gestures Barouk at one of the entrances.
“I think we should go back,” suggests Eron.
Ignoring him, Barouk starts heading for the exit he had designated. Shaking his head, Eron follows. Suddenly, from the rubble behind him, a 7’ centipede springs forth, biting at his leg! He gives a great cry and begins trying to shake himself free. Simultaneously, Barouk leaps forward, striking at the humungous bug with his pudgy dwarven fists. The two of them struggle with the immense centipede as its mandibles chew great holes in Eron, injecting dose after dose of poison into him! “Aargh!” the cleric cries, and the bug pulls him down! He collapses in a bloody pile of unconsciousness.
Barouk gulps, but springs forward and grabs onto the monster by its segmented body! He begins swinging it so that its head smashes down into the nubbin of a young stalagmite, and soon bug ichor sprays out all over! Barouk releases the centipede’s corpse with a groan, panting. After a few moments, he catches his breath; and then, checking Eron, he finds him unconscious but stable. The dwarf breathes a sigh of relief.
Now what? he wonders. I am wounded, Eron is unconscious... do I go on by myself? His desire to explore the cave that they have found, and hopefully to find some easy money, wars for a few moments with his wiser side. Finally, reluctantly, he decides that, rather than risking both of their lives, he will attempt to carry Eron out of the cave and get some rest. Maybe if they can recover from their wounds- and if Snave has shaken off the liquor- they can return with more success.
So Barouk slings Eron’s limp form across his shoulders and begins to climb. Immediately he recognizes that it is much harder to go up with 130 lbs. of elf and gear on his back than it was to climb down carrying only the few pounds of gear that he has in his backpack. The slope is treacherous and wet; and, almost at the top, Barouk’s toe slips. His fingers dig at the rock, trying to find secure purchase, but he is no match for gravity. There is a disorienting moment of vertigo, and then pain bursts in his lower back as he slams into a flat spot midway down the shaft. The dwarven monk grits his teeth against the pain, and slowly drags himself upright. Swaying, blinking sweat out of his eyes, he realizes, I can’t make the climb now... I’m too badly hurt. If I try, I’ll end up killing us both.* With a groan, he sinks to his knees. A few moments later, his eyes slip shut and he allows sleep to overtake him; after all, what other choice does he have?
Oblivion...
***
7/30/372 O.L.G., 9 a.m., Porter’s Tenement
Kifla is just finishing her breakfast in the communal kitchen shared by her flatmates and herself. Interestingly, three of them are missing this morning- the elf, half-elf and dwarf. (The other people in their section are all humans, who are present.) It is unlike any of them to miss breakfast. Idly, Kifla wonders what is going on with them as she prestidigitates her dishes clean.
Then Snave, the half-elf in question, staggers in looking awful.
“What happened to you?” asks Kifla.
Snave groans something about lots of liquor, and then shakes his head. “Where are Barouk and Eron?”
The others shrug. “I kind of thought they were with you,” Kifla replies.
Snave suddenly winces. “That’s right- we were going into this cave, at the cliffs... I started feeling an unhappy reaction to the drink I had had at the Drunken Dolphin, and left... but they were still in there!” He winces again, holding his temples. “I hope they are all right- we encountered stirges in there.”
Kifla shudders. Every gnome has heard stories about the dangers of stirges! “We should go check on them,” she declares. “Can you lead me there?”
Snave nods. He staggers up, his face green, and soon Kifla is following him along the edge of the cliff. “It was somewhere up here,” the ranger mutters. Finally, he spots the rock crossing the top of the two stones that form the side of the cavern entrance. “There,” he groans. Then he adds, “I think I need to go...” He staggers off, trying to shake off the aftereffects of the previous evening’s drink.
Kifla nervously slips beneath the crossing stone and into the cave. She gives her eyes a moment to adjust as best they can to the poor lighting; and then she slowly begins moving forward. After only a few yards, she gasps at the sight of several large bloodstains surrounding the mangled corpses of the stirges. “Hello?” she calls in a quavering voice, but there is no response. Biting her lip, Kifla casts a dancing lights ahead of her and continues following the passage until it ends in a cave with a shaft dropping out of it. “Hello?” she calls again, and this time she hears a groan from below.
“...Help!”
Kifla attaches a rope and starts to make her way down, but her skill with rope is minimal and she, too, takes a fall! She lands on her side and hip, scraping herself badly, but she finds herself next to Barouk and the unconscious Eron on a flat shelf midway down the shelf. Shakily, she climbs to her feet and checks for broken bones. Then she and Barouk make their plan to escape: they will tie Eron into a bedroll and drag him up once both of them are at the top. Kifla will go first and tie the rope off up at the top to (hopefully) give Barouk a little assistance on the climb.
This time things go according to plan, and shortly Kifla and Barouk are pulling the limp form of Eron up. They begin heading back into the Night, dragging him in the bedroll. “Maybe we can get some healing from the local temple,” states Kifla. Barouk nods agreement, and they begin heading in the direction of the local temple. But they are less than a block into the Night when they see a trio of tough-looking gangsters coming their way, lions tattooed on their arms and legs.
I’m not even giving them a chance to start anything, Kifla thinks, analyzing the danger instantly. She drops her end of the bedroll and casts sleep. All three of the oncoming gangsters collapse in the street. “Let’s go,” Kifla says, and she and Barouk hurry past with their burden. “I kind of want to call the watch on them,” she sighs, “but they didn’t actually do anything yet!”
Soon they reach a run-down temple of Galador. Sitting within, a waterskin in one hand, is a middle-aged human man with crumpled, threadbare vestments on. There is dust on the friezes and the stained glass windows could use a cleaning. He looks up at them as they enter.
“Greetings,” he sighs. “What can I do for you?”
“We are wounded, and we come seeking healing,” Kifla says.
“Ah, of course. I am Brother Simon. I will be happy to help you for the standard fee.”
“Fee?” asks Barouk.
“Twenty-five gold pieces,” clarifies Brother Simon. He takes a pull from his waterskin.
Barouk and Kifla look at each other is dismay. That’s more money than all three of them have put together! “Is there some service we could perform for you or something?” the gnome asks sweetly. “Perhaps if we cleaned the place up?”
He glances around. “Well, it certainly wouldn’t equal the value of the healing,” he says slowly, “but I suppose I could heal one of you in exchange for cleaning up...” He takes another long pull from the waterskin, and Kifla’s keen gnomish nose detects the odor of a strong alcohol coming from within.
The deal is made, and once again Kifla’s gnomish ability to use prestidigitation makes her life easy. Soon the windows are clean, the dusty areas and cobwebs have been swept out and the floor looks freshly mopped. Drunkenly, Brother Simon casts cure light wounds- but he casts it on Barouk rather than on Eron by mistake! Though he agrees to heal Eron the next morning, he laments that he can do nothing further for him today.
So Kifla and the mostly-healed Barouk head back to Porter’s Tenements with their unconscious friend. Rent is due tomorrow. They can be a few days late, but... rent is due tomorrow.
Next Time: Will our heroes pay rent? Are they moving out into the streets? Will the Lion Gang remember Kifla? Who knows what will happen, this game is brand new and we haven’t even played the second session yet!
*The fall reduced Barouk to 0 hp.
