A Rose In The Wind: A Saga of the Halmae -- Updated June 19, 2014
You know, we haven't had an update all year.
Heavens, I had no idea we'd been so remiss! Let's remedy that right now, shall we?
8x06
The Alirrian priestess looked down and focused her gaze on Savina. "Why do you do this to us, Sister?" the shape demanded.
Though the sight of the ghostly woman sent a shiver through her, Savina straightened her back and told herself again that this was her duty. She had to do her best.
"Honored Mother, a generation has passed," she told the spirit. "Those who desecrated your temple died long ago. Your presence here is – is creating death, doing harm. Please, it's time to let the temple find the peace of our Lady again."
Tavi gave Savina a quick, reassuring pat and then stepped back to Twiggy, adding his voice to hers as Twiggy began to chant quietly and chalk a symbol on the floor. The woman's figure wavered, then grew stronger. She glared down at Savina.
"We are all that is left," said the figure. She seemed to lean closer, to loom menacingly over Savina. "No one else will protect this home of ours. No one cares."
"I care," whispered Savina. "We – we care."
"Then why are you weakening our ability to protect this place?"
"Is Alirria not best protected through life and love?" asked Savina. "And by keeping everybody out, do you not also keep out those who seek our Lady's grace?"
The woman winced and drew back. "We ache for that more than you know. But this is all we have done for so long. We have no choice."
Twiggy and Tavi were completing a complicated ring of arcane symbols in chalk on the floor. Savina kept her focus on the woman.
"Honored Mother, you know that – that seasons change, that all things have their time. New shoots can grow in this place."
"This land does not feel the change of seasons," said the woman. Her anger seemed to be fading, but now her voice was full of the pain and sorrow caused by the Sovereignty's harsh oppression.
"Already the first breath of spring has come, Honored Mother," Savina said, thinking not only of the buds growing outside, but of the Sovereignty's new policies allowing worship of "the godlings," as Nyoko had called them.
The woman became still in response to Savina's confident assertion. Savina sensed that Tavi and Twiggy were still, too. Everything was silent. The air was thick with magic.
"Be at peace, Honored Mother," Savina prayed. "Lady Alirria, let your daughters be at peace."
The woman's shape wavered, weakened by the magic. She bowed her head and murmured, "I pray that you are right." Then she looked up sharply and suspiciously one last time, and added, "Remember us when they come again."
"May Alirria defend us all from such a fate," answered Savina. "Please – be at peace."
The woman sighed. The whole room sighed with a sound like spring showers sheeting across fields as the woman shimmered into nothingness, and Savina felt the sorrow and anger ebb away like a rapid tide. There was a clattering as something fell out of the air to land right in front of her: an Alirrian holy symbol. She picked it up carefully and felt a faint residual anger within it, a distant cry for vengeance. Beyond the tiny symbol, however, the room felt empty. The spirits that had guarded it for so long were gone.
###
Twiggy sat back on her heels, feeling the magical tension in the room dissipate as the spirit of the priestess vanished and she, Tavi, and Savina relaxed their concentration. For the first time, she allowed herself to focus on what a difficult challenge she had just accomplished: the magic involved was highly advanced, but she and Tavi had pulled it off.
Correction, she thought. I pulled it off and Tavi helped. I led the chant. I outlined the ring and filled in the compass points. She'd learned the theory at the Academy, of course, but now she had put it into practice when the stakes were high, and better yet … I'm not sure they could have done this without me. For Twiggy, who, back home, was used to feeling either slightly overlooked or vaguely problematic, it was a delicious feeling. They needed me. And not just to help Rose lace up her dress. They needed me for something big.
Savina stood up and smiled at Tavi. "Thank you, Tavi," she said.
And what am I? Twiggy thought. Chopped liver?
"Thank you, Chelesta," added Savina.
"I'm happy to have been of aid," answered Twiggy politely.
###
Mena picked a route among the corpses in the barracks room near the front entrance to the derro warren, forcing herself to look at the carnage she'd helped cause earlier in the night. It was necessary to look, to be aware, to endure the knowledge of having killed. Otherwise, killing might become painless … and if that happens, She wins.
Ahead of Mena, who was bringing up the rear, most of the others in the group were trying not to look. Twiggy looked slightly dazed, and Savina practically had her eyes closed. Mena could allow that, for now. For most of them, it was their first time.
They were almost back to their starting point. After Tavi, Twiggy, and Savina had reported success at laying the Alirrian spirits to rest and opening up the back door, the group had set off back through the warren's tunnels to seek Mirtal. They were able to travel fast because they had left the family of dwarves at the small side tunnel that, according to Nyoko, ran many miles through the mountains to the main derro warren. The dwarves were hard at work using all their stonecraft to block the tunnel and delay the reinforcements the derro were surely sending.
As she made her way down the last corridor and emerged into the entrance chamber – the room where they had fought a few derro guards and dodged bolts of electricity from the eerie green moss – Mena nearly ran into Arden. The woman had paused and was staring up the original entrance tunnel to the unmistakable daylight filtering down from above.
"I still hate this place," Mena murmured to Arden.
Arden answered, softly, "I was just thinking … you're all going to lead me from entrance to entrance for the rest of my life, but I'm never going to get out."
"Kindly don't joke about it," answered Mena. "I wouldn't put anything past the Bitch."
"Dame Mena, may I tell you how I feel about this place? Just for the record?"
"Do."
"I hate it."
"Slave!" called Kormick. "If you don't open this door and get eaten alive by whatever the derro are keeping in their kitchen, who will?"
Mena bristled on Arden's behalf, but Arden was unperturbed. She crossed quickly to the door opposite the entrance – the door they'd briefly opened but never passed through.
As she had at the beginning, Arden opened it silently and peered in. A tunnel sloped down into darkness. At a nod from Kormick, Arden vanished into the darkness beyond. Kormick followed on her heels, and the rest of them came after that, Mena once more at the back, willing her armor not to make too much noise.
"This place looks familiar," muttered Kormick, as they reached the bottom of the tunnel and peered into a vast, dark cavern. In the faint light from a few patches of moss, they could make out huge, twisted shapes: grotesque mushrooms taller than a man, some looming and bulbous, some adorned with strange, moist frills. The smell of fungi hung in the air. It was the room Kormick had reported seeing when they'd lowered him from one of the pits upstairs, and indeed, in the ceiling, Mena could make out two dim gaps: the two pits between which they'd fought a pitched battle. She remembered, uneasily, the screams of a derro which had fallen down here during the fight. Terrible screams. How impractical does a race of creatures have to be to put its kitchen down here? she wondered irritably.
Arden and Kormick started forward, sticking to the left wall, easing their way past the nearest mushrooms. The fungi grew right up against the stone, so that Arden had to flatten her body to slip past one, while Kormick went around its trunk on the other side, stepping between it and the next mushroom with surprising grace. Nyoko leaped through the narrow gap like a dancer.
Twiggy still seemed preoccupied – Mena recognized the signs of her student being lost in thought, processing new experiences – and stumbled as she made her way through the narrow gap. She brushed against one of the mushrooms. It twitched spasmodically and suddenly a cloud of spores enveloped Twiggy. The half-elf girl was almost lost to sight, and when the spores cleared, she was lying on the ground, frighteningly still.
Tavi, Mena, and Savina all started to rush forward to help her, but Kormick got there first and raised a hand to them. "No sudden movements, I think," he whispered. "Wouldn't want to disturb these monstrosities." Carefully avoiding contact with the mushrooms, he picked up Twiggy in his arms. "She's just asleep," he told them. Mena breathed a sigh of relief. She put a guiding hand on Rose's back and moved forward with Tavi and Savina.
Which one of them touched a mushroom she was never sure, but suddenly the air was black and foul. She braced herself for a wave of unnatural sleepiness, but that didn't happen. Instead, she simply couldn't see. The spores had blinded her.
The Alirrian priestess looked down and focused her gaze on Savina. "Why do you do this to us, Sister?" the shape demanded.
Though the sight of the ghostly woman sent a shiver through her, Savina straightened her back and told herself again that this was her duty. She had to do her best.
"Honored Mother, a generation has passed," she told the spirit. "Those who desecrated your temple died long ago. Your presence here is – is creating death, doing harm. Please, it's time to let the temple find the peace of our Lady again."
Tavi gave Savina a quick, reassuring pat and then stepped back to Twiggy, adding his voice to hers as Twiggy began to chant quietly and chalk a symbol on the floor. The woman's figure wavered, then grew stronger. She glared down at Savina.
"We are all that is left," said the figure. She seemed to lean closer, to loom menacingly over Savina. "No one else will protect this home of ours. No one cares."
"I care," whispered Savina. "We – we care."
"Then why are you weakening our ability to protect this place?"
"Is Alirria not best protected through life and love?" asked Savina. "And by keeping everybody out, do you not also keep out those who seek our Lady's grace?"
The woman winced and drew back. "We ache for that more than you know. But this is all we have done for so long. We have no choice."
Twiggy and Tavi were completing a complicated ring of arcane symbols in chalk on the floor. Savina kept her focus on the woman.
"Honored Mother, you know that – that seasons change, that all things have their time. New shoots can grow in this place."
"This land does not feel the change of seasons," said the woman. Her anger seemed to be fading, but now her voice was full of the pain and sorrow caused by the Sovereignty's harsh oppression.
"Already the first breath of spring has come, Honored Mother," Savina said, thinking not only of the buds growing outside, but of the Sovereignty's new policies allowing worship of "the godlings," as Nyoko had called them.
The woman became still in response to Savina's confident assertion. Savina sensed that Tavi and Twiggy were still, too. Everything was silent. The air was thick with magic.
"Be at peace, Honored Mother," Savina prayed. "Lady Alirria, let your daughters be at peace."
The woman's shape wavered, weakened by the magic. She bowed her head and murmured, "I pray that you are right." Then she looked up sharply and suspiciously one last time, and added, "Remember us when they come again."
"May Alirria defend us all from such a fate," answered Savina. "Please – be at peace."
The woman sighed. The whole room sighed with a sound like spring showers sheeting across fields as the woman shimmered into nothingness, and Savina felt the sorrow and anger ebb away like a rapid tide. There was a clattering as something fell out of the air to land right in front of her: an Alirrian holy symbol. She picked it up carefully and felt a faint residual anger within it, a distant cry for vengeance. Beyond the tiny symbol, however, the room felt empty. The spirits that had guarded it for so long were gone.
###
Twiggy sat back on her heels, feeling the magical tension in the room dissipate as the spirit of the priestess vanished and she, Tavi, and Savina relaxed their concentration. For the first time, she allowed herself to focus on what a difficult challenge she had just accomplished: the magic involved was highly advanced, but she and Tavi had pulled it off.
Correction, she thought. I pulled it off and Tavi helped. I led the chant. I outlined the ring and filled in the compass points. She'd learned the theory at the Academy, of course, but now she had put it into practice when the stakes were high, and better yet … I'm not sure they could have done this without me. For Twiggy, who, back home, was used to feeling either slightly overlooked or vaguely problematic, it was a delicious feeling. They needed me. And not just to help Rose lace up her dress. They needed me for something big.
Savina stood up and smiled at Tavi. "Thank you, Tavi," she said.
And what am I? Twiggy thought. Chopped liver?
"Thank you, Chelesta," added Savina.
"I'm happy to have been of aid," answered Twiggy politely.
###
Mena picked a route among the corpses in the barracks room near the front entrance to the derro warren, forcing herself to look at the carnage she'd helped cause earlier in the night. It was necessary to look, to be aware, to endure the knowledge of having killed. Otherwise, killing might become painless … and if that happens, She wins.
Ahead of Mena, who was bringing up the rear, most of the others in the group were trying not to look. Twiggy looked slightly dazed, and Savina practically had her eyes closed. Mena could allow that, for now. For most of them, it was their first time.
They were almost back to their starting point. After Tavi, Twiggy, and Savina had reported success at laying the Alirrian spirits to rest and opening up the back door, the group had set off back through the warren's tunnels to seek Mirtal. They were able to travel fast because they had left the family of dwarves at the small side tunnel that, according to Nyoko, ran many miles through the mountains to the main derro warren. The dwarves were hard at work using all their stonecraft to block the tunnel and delay the reinforcements the derro were surely sending.
As she made her way down the last corridor and emerged into the entrance chamber – the room where they had fought a few derro guards and dodged bolts of electricity from the eerie green moss – Mena nearly ran into Arden. The woman had paused and was staring up the original entrance tunnel to the unmistakable daylight filtering down from above.
"I still hate this place," Mena murmured to Arden.
Arden answered, softly, "I was just thinking … you're all going to lead me from entrance to entrance for the rest of my life, but I'm never going to get out."
"Kindly don't joke about it," answered Mena. "I wouldn't put anything past the Bitch."
"Dame Mena, may I tell you how I feel about this place? Just for the record?"
"Do."
"I hate it."
"Slave!" called Kormick. "If you don't open this door and get eaten alive by whatever the derro are keeping in their kitchen, who will?"
Mena bristled on Arden's behalf, but Arden was unperturbed. She crossed quickly to the door opposite the entrance – the door they'd briefly opened but never passed through.
As she had at the beginning, Arden opened it silently and peered in. A tunnel sloped down into darkness. At a nod from Kormick, Arden vanished into the darkness beyond. Kormick followed on her heels, and the rest of them came after that, Mena once more at the back, willing her armor not to make too much noise.
"This place looks familiar," muttered Kormick, as they reached the bottom of the tunnel and peered into a vast, dark cavern. In the faint light from a few patches of moss, they could make out huge, twisted shapes: grotesque mushrooms taller than a man, some looming and bulbous, some adorned with strange, moist frills. The smell of fungi hung in the air. It was the room Kormick had reported seeing when they'd lowered him from one of the pits upstairs, and indeed, in the ceiling, Mena could make out two dim gaps: the two pits between which they'd fought a pitched battle. She remembered, uneasily, the screams of a derro which had fallen down here during the fight. Terrible screams. How impractical does a race of creatures have to be to put its kitchen down here? she wondered irritably.
Arden and Kormick started forward, sticking to the left wall, easing their way past the nearest mushrooms. The fungi grew right up against the stone, so that Arden had to flatten her body to slip past one, while Kormick went around its trunk on the other side, stepping between it and the next mushroom with surprising grace. Nyoko leaped through the narrow gap like a dancer.
Twiggy still seemed preoccupied – Mena recognized the signs of her student being lost in thought, processing new experiences – and stumbled as she made her way through the narrow gap. She brushed against one of the mushrooms. It twitched spasmodically and suddenly a cloud of spores enveloped Twiggy. The half-elf girl was almost lost to sight, and when the spores cleared, she was lying on the ground, frighteningly still.
Tavi, Mena, and Savina all started to rush forward to help her, but Kormick got there first and raised a hand to them. "No sudden movements, I think," he whispered. "Wouldn't want to disturb these monstrosities." Carefully avoiding contact with the mushrooms, he picked up Twiggy in his arms. "She's just asleep," he told them. Mena breathed a sigh of relief. She put a guiding hand on Rose's back and moved forward with Tavi and Savina.
Which one of them touched a mushroom she was never sure, but suddenly the air was black and foul. She braced herself for a wave of unnatural sleepiness, but that didn't happen. Instead, she simply couldn't see. The spores had blinded her.
8x07
"Help me!" came Savina's voice. "Tavi? I can't see anything!"
"Me neither," said Tavi.
Mena waved a hand in front of her own face. Nothing. The dark spores were like blinding smoke from a terrible fire … except there was no heat, and the smell was very different. Unpleasant in its own right, but blessedly different.
"…Mena?" came Rose's tentative voice.
"Can anyone still see?" demanded Mena.
"I can," said Kormick.
"And I," chimed in Nyoko. "You seem to be within a cloud of spores."
"Follow my voice," said Kormick. "I'll … hmm … I'll sing a song."
"Do Undians have a strong musical heritage?" Mena heard Nyoko ask.
"We have no need for heritage. We have drinking songs."
Mena reached out, found Rose, and grabbed her hand. "Tavi, Savina, walk toward his voice," she said through gritted teeth. "Hurry."
"What would you prefer?" Kormick continued. "There's 'The Ballad of Four Fathoms,' but it seems a little formal, yes? Ah, I know: 'I Lay With You in a Ditch, My Dear.' Hoo-kay. Brace yourselves – I am not known for my voice. We begin."
Tavi, Mena, and Rose burst out of the spore cloud just as Kormick cleared his throat. He was still holding the sleeping Twiggy in his arms.
"Singing won't be necessary," said Mena dryly.
Twiggy stirred and opened her eyes, staring up into Kormick's face. "…singing?" she asked, her voice blurry.
Kormick set her on her feet and caught her arm as she wobbled. "Careful," he said. "You've been taking a nap."
"Were you carrying me?"
"Of course."
"And … singing?"
"Well, the others were blinded, you see."
Twiggy looked around somewhat desperately for Mena, questing for a sane explanation.
"I'll explain later," Mena told her, unable to find sanity in anything just then. "Just keep moving."
Gingerly, moving far more slowly than Mena would normally have liked—couldn't they just run, run straight through and out into the white hot light and the, gods bless it, open space of the Ketkath—they made their way past many more mushrooms. Finally, a door appeared in the wall on the left. They opened it and discovered a shadowy, warm room, lit by a large, crude stove and lined on the walls with rough shelves. It was the kitchen, and in the corner, a rotund dwarf was sitting on a stool, tied hand and foot, his mouth stuffed with a big piece of mushroom.
Kormick made short work of the ropes and the gag.
"Mirtal, I presume?" Tavi asked, in Dwarven.
"Thank the gods," rasped the dwarf, his mouth dry. "Where are the others? Where's – ?"
"Lord Rockminder gave his life, but his family survives," said Tavi.
"Ordren is very eager to see you," added Savina, and Mirtal's face, which had grown grim at the news of the patriarch's death, softened a little.
"Well," he said softly. "Provisions, yes? And then we must be off. I've been eying those dried mushrooms on the far wall… they almost look like what we have at home…" He scurried around the room, muttering to himself, until he'd gathered a hefty supply of (hopefully) edible food.
"We need to go," said Mena. Now. Now now now.
They walked back into the vast chamber and began to make their way back through the mushrooms.
"I've driven myself half-mad, wondering what possible reason the derro had for putting their kitchen in such an inhospitable place," murmured Mirtal.
"Because nothing in this place makes any blasted sense at all," said Mena. Her calm was slipping and she knew it. Pull it together, Defier. Sedellus made good use of internal chaos...and this was no time to give her any more power than she had already.
"My conclusion exactly," agreed Mirtal. Mena liked him.
By moving excruciatingly slowly, they could slip past each mushroom without touching it, but the creeping pace was unsustainable: Mena kept remembering the scream of the derro that had fallen down here … and the words of the derro she had interrogated, who had mentioned "pets" in the kitchen.
She was thus not very surprised when something rustled out in the middle of the room. And rustled again, closer.
Everyone froze. Then Tavi picked up a rock and threw it, hard, toward the sound. He hit a mushroom, and black ichor came oozing out of it.
Something near that mushroom growled, and Mena glimpsed a gleam of eyes, low to the ground. Pets.
"They have these dog-sized lizards…" suggested Mirtal uneasily.
"We've met them. Let's move faster," said Mena, keeping her voice steady, even though she wanted nothing more than to scream and run as fast as she could. "Stick close to me, Rose. Right in front of me."
Nyoko twirled and leaped through the narrow gaps between the mushrooms until she reached the entrance. There, she took out her bow, laid an arrow on the string, and waited. Mirtal followed close behind her, his profound desire to leave the kitchen behind giving him un-dwarf-like grace. Kormick paused near Mena at the back, letting her and Rose move past him as he took out his crossbow and scanned the darkness, covering their retreat.
But as the rest of the group hurried forward, their luck worsened. Savina brushed against a mushroom that immediately oozed black ichor from pores all over its skin. The girl staggered a few steps, wavering, and then sat down, hard.
Arden was right behind her and knelt to help her up. "Blessed Daughter?" she asked.
"I think – it's – poison, I think – I – " Savina struggled to stand up, but it was clear she was in trouble. Arden got her arm around the girl and attempted to raise her. "We have to move, Blessed Daughter," she said. "Please stand up."
There was another growl, closer, and Twiggy jumped. In jumping, she touched the same mushroom Savina had. "Oh – oh no," she said, hugging herself. "I don't feel well."
Arden succeeded in getting Savina to her feet. Briefly. Then Savina went limp against her, pushing Arden off-balance. They both fell against another mushroom. A mist of spores burst into the air. Twiggy, still under the influence of the poison, stumbled into the cloud as well. When the spores cleared, Twiggy, Arden, and Savina were all asleep. Mena groaned in frustration.
"Tavi – " she said, but he was already on his way. Mena winced as his sleeve lightly brushed the poison mushroom, but after pausing for an instant, one hand to his forehead, he seemed to shake off its effect. Two more steps and he knelt to gather Savina in his arms.
"Kormick," Mena said. "We need your help up here." She wanted to help Twiggy and Arden, but her first priority had to be Rose. Kormick hurried up beside her, still impressing her with his ability to be light on his feet when he needed to be. He slung his crossbow over his shoulder and picked up Twiggy, just as he had on the way in.
"Your lady in waiting is forgetting her place," he told Rose, "if she thinks she deserves to be carried everywhere like an Ebisite princess."
"I'll have a talk with her," said Rose with a wry smile.
"This way," Mena told Rose. "Watch your feet. Follow Kormick."
There were at least three lizard-dogs in their wake, Mena thought. Three sounds of scuffling, three slightly different growls. The animals were stalking them through the mushrooms, taking their time, toying with them. Or perhaps they have to move carefully among this cursed fungi, too, Mena thought, and prayed that it was so. Regardless, the growls were close now.
"Wake up, Arden," Mena said sharply, as she guided Rose past the sleeping slave. She looked down just in time to see Arden's dazed eyes drift open.
Up ahead, Kormick cursed as Twiggy's foot brushed a final mushroom and he was enveloped in the blinding spores.
"We don't stop!" he announced from within the dark cloud, and seconds later he appeared on the other side.
"You heard him," Mena told Rose, and, holding Rose's hand, she plunged into the cloud. For the briefest moment, the scent of ash seared her lungs. Ridiculous. She'd been through worse than this dungeon, fought through fire and blood and death and never flinched. I still have work to do. Walking with purpose, she led Rose straight through, and smelled no more smoke.
Something growled just to the left of her, very close.
She and Rose burst out of the cloud and ran for the entrance. Kormick had set down Twiggy and joined Nyoko in covering their retreat.
"Arden!" Mena called, whirling around to come face-to-face with Arden, who was following right on her heel. Together, Mena, Arden, and Rose dove behind Kormick and Nyoko just as the lizard-dogs finally broke cover, howling.
Kormick and Nyoko opened fire. A bolt from Kormick's crossbow sent one lizard-dog tumbling backwards, whining.
Mena waited to see no more.
"Up the tunnel!" she ordered. "Come on, Twiggy," she said, taking the groggy girl's hand. Rose ran beside Tavi, who was still carrying Savina.
Everyone raced up the slope and back out into the entryway. Kormick sent a few more crossbow bolts down into the darkness for good measure, and then Arden slammed the door shut. Mena counted faces as fast as she could think.
They had escaped the kitchen.
As they slumped, exhausted, in the entryway, Mena saw that they truly couldn't take much more. Every time she thought their group had reached its limit in this hellish place, they'd found deeper reserves, but this time Kormick couldn't seem to muster the energy to be glib … Arden's hand was trembling from injury and exhaustion as she offered water to Savina … the young healer could barely shake off the poison in her own blood, let alone help the others … and there was a terrible weariness in Tavi's normally alert, eager eyes.
"Take a few moments," Mena said. "Catch your breath. Watch your backs. Our pack-mule should still be where we left him when we arrived. I'll go outside and get him."
"I'll go, Dame Mena," said Arden. "I know where he is."
"I'll find him, Arden. Sit and rest." Mena saw Arden's eyes dart to the sunlight streaming down the entrance tunnel. She understood: Arden wanted to feel the light on her face. "The sooner I get back, the sooner we can all get out, and I'm in better shape to move quickly," Mena added.
Arden nodded understanding, slumped back against the wall, and closed her eyes.
Mena walked up the entrance tunnel and stepped into Ehkt's sunlight. She slitted her eyes and didn’t allow herself even a moment to bask – there would be time for that soon enough, she hoped. Instead, she strode in among the trees where Arden had led the mule at midnight, not so many hours ago.
The mule was tethered to a tree, munching complacently on the last tuft of coarse grass within its reach. Arden hadn't bothered to unload their supplies from its back, but the creature didn't seem to mind, and the packs of food and bedding seemed intact. Mena untied the mule and tugged it forward through the trees. It followed haltingly, and when it got to the crevice in the rock it balked.
"Come on," Mena told it, tugging the rope.
It wouldn't budge. Mena could see the whites of its eyes as it tossed its head. It was afraid of the tunnel. Mena caught its halter and pulled its head so she could stare into its eyes. She gave it her most intimidating glare.
"Come with me obediently," she said, "or face the wilds of the Ketkath alone. Trust me, your life will last longer if you obey."
The mule planted all four feet and would not move an inch. Mena sighed in irritation. Still holding its halter in one hand, she loosened the straps holding its load with the other.
"You wretched creature," she told it. "Go and live the life that you – "
The packs slid to the ground and the mule, startled, kicked Mena in the shin.
"Arg! Go, you ungrateful traitor!" She flung down the halter rope and the mule clattered away down the mountain's slope. She couldn't imagine it would survive more than a day.
Suddenly, the darkness of the dungeons, and of the things she'd done in them, faded away for a moment as Mena thought to herself, I just tried to bully a mule. And of all the unexpected things in all the world, she laughed until her sore ribs ached with the effort. Still alive, then. And still more work to be done.
Mena shouldered the packs and lugged them back down into the darkness.
###
Arden had been fond of the mule. Not only did he make her job easier, but also his purchase represented the first time the group had trusted her. She was sorry to lose the creature, and sorry for the extra weight on her back.
She was grateful to Mena, though, who'd briskly divided the load among everyone equally, not pausing to give anyone time to suggest that carrying the mule's former burden was the slave's job. To be fair, though, Arden found herself reconsidering, they might not have made me carry everything even without Mena's influence. They're decent that way. Strange thought.
They were trekking once more back through the dark tunnels, and as they went, it was impossible not to confront the events and emotions she'd experienced in each hallway, each chamber. Most were hellish. A few were not – another strange thought. Here's where I had to kill my first derro. Blood had covered her hand, and even now it was imperfectly washed off. Here's where the derro nearly killed me -- she remembered the blade passing through her flesh, almost painless going in, searing on the way out—but Mena saved me. Here's where I joked at Kormick.
Halfway down the long inner crevice leading to the Alirrian portions of the warren, they came upon all the dwarves, who had just finished sealing the side tunnel with a neat rockfall.
"Mirtal!" Ordren cried as they arrived. He raced up, his injuries forgotten, to embrace the cook. Arden needed no translation to follow the emotional turns of their greeting: Mirtal spoke happily but briefly. Ordren demanded something, teasing laughter in his voice. Mirtal grew solemn, gripped Ordren's hand, and the two looked a long time into one another's eyes.
"It should take the derro reinforcements several hours, at least, to dig through that roadblock," announced Sertani proudly (Tavi translated her words). "And that's assuming that they work with the skill of dwarves, which they will not."
"They will have numbers on their side, however," said Nyoko.
They hurried onward. There's where Tavi battled Lurx while I freed the dwarves, and … here's where the undead fought us to defend their chapel, and …
They guided the children carefully down the crypt-hallway full of Alirrian corpses and finally emerged into the last room, the room with the Alirrian symbol on the floor.
"It's safe now," said Savina, as everyone pressed up close to its edge. She quickly walked over the symbol to the other side. "See? Nothing happens."
"Easy for you to say," muttered Kormick.
"If I might suggest, Justicar," said Arden, "send the slave first." She stepped onto the symbol and walked across it. Reaching the other side, she turned back and called, "No bloody death!"
She caught sight of Kormick smiling before the whole group surged onto the symbol.
Not waiting for the Blessed Daughter's permission, Arden seized her chance and darted up the stairs ahead of the crowd.
She felt the light grow warmer and warmer on her face, and she ran out onto a rocky ledge into the daylight. Ahead of her, the forest fell away and the mountains rose up. A breeze touched her cheek. Blinded by the daylight and not caring, Arden dropped to her knees, bent forward, and kissed the ground. She was out.
"Help me!" came Savina's voice. "Tavi? I can't see anything!"
"Me neither," said Tavi.
Mena waved a hand in front of her own face. Nothing. The dark spores were like blinding smoke from a terrible fire … except there was no heat, and the smell was very different. Unpleasant in its own right, but blessedly different.
"…Mena?" came Rose's tentative voice.
"Can anyone still see?" demanded Mena.
"I can," said Kormick.
"And I," chimed in Nyoko. "You seem to be within a cloud of spores."
"Follow my voice," said Kormick. "I'll … hmm … I'll sing a song."
"Do Undians have a strong musical heritage?" Mena heard Nyoko ask.
"We have no need for heritage. We have drinking songs."
Mena reached out, found Rose, and grabbed her hand. "Tavi, Savina, walk toward his voice," she said through gritted teeth. "Hurry."
"What would you prefer?" Kormick continued. "There's 'The Ballad of Four Fathoms,' but it seems a little formal, yes? Ah, I know: 'I Lay With You in a Ditch, My Dear.' Hoo-kay. Brace yourselves – I am not known for my voice. We begin."
Tavi, Mena, and Rose burst out of the spore cloud just as Kormick cleared his throat. He was still holding the sleeping Twiggy in his arms.
"Singing won't be necessary," said Mena dryly.
Twiggy stirred and opened her eyes, staring up into Kormick's face. "…singing?" she asked, her voice blurry.
Kormick set her on her feet and caught her arm as she wobbled. "Careful," he said. "You've been taking a nap."
"Were you carrying me?"
"Of course."
"And … singing?"
"Well, the others were blinded, you see."
Twiggy looked around somewhat desperately for Mena, questing for a sane explanation.
"I'll explain later," Mena told her, unable to find sanity in anything just then. "Just keep moving."
Gingerly, moving far more slowly than Mena would normally have liked—couldn't they just run, run straight through and out into the white hot light and the, gods bless it, open space of the Ketkath—they made their way past many more mushrooms. Finally, a door appeared in the wall on the left. They opened it and discovered a shadowy, warm room, lit by a large, crude stove and lined on the walls with rough shelves. It was the kitchen, and in the corner, a rotund dwarf was sitting on a stool, tied hand and foot, his mouth stuffed with a big piece of mushroom.
Kormick made short work of the ropes and the gag.
"Mirtal, I presume?" Tavi asked, in Dwarven.
"Thank the gods," rasped the dwarf, his mouth dry. "Where are the others? Where's – ?"
"Lord Rockminder gave his life, but his family survives," said Tavi.
"Ordren is very eager to see you," added Savina, and Mirtal's face, which had grown grim at the news of the patriarch's death, softened a little.
"Well," he said softly. "Provisions, yes? And then we must be off. I've been eying those dried mushrooms on the far wall… they almost look like what we have at home…" He scurried around the room, muttering to himself, until he'd gathered a hefty supply of (hopefully) edible food.
"We need to go," said Mena. Now. Now now now.
They walked back into the vast chamber and began to make their way back through the mushrooms.
"I've driven myself half-mad, wondering what possible reason the derro had for putting their kitchen in such an inhospitable place," murmured Mirtal.
"Because nothing in this place makes any blasted sense at all," said Mena. Her calm was slipping and she knew it. Pull it together, Defier. Sedellus made good use of internal chaos...and this was no time to give her any more power than she had already.
"My conclusion exactly," agreed Mirtal. Mena liked him.
By moving excruciatingly slowly, they could slip past each mushroom without touching it, but the creeping pace was unsustainable: Mena kept remembering the scream of the derro that had fallen down here … and the words of the derro she had interrogated, who had mentioned "pets" in the kitchen.
She was thus not very surprised when something rustled out in the middle of the room. And rustled again, closer.
Everyone froze. Then Tavi picked up a rock and threw it, hard, toward the sound. He hit a mushroom, and black ichor came oozing out of it.
Something near that mushroom growled, and Mena glimpsed a gleam of eyes, low to the ground. Pets.
"They have these dog-sized lizards…" suggested Mirtal uneasily.
"We've met them. Let's move faster," said Mena, keeping her voice steady, even though she wanted nothing more than to scream and run as fast as she could. "Stick close to me, Rose. Right in front of me."
Nyoko twirled and leaped through the narrow gaps between the mushrooms until she reached the entrance. There, she took out her bow, laid an arrow on the string, and waited. Mirtal followed close behind her, his profound desire to leave the kitchen behind giving him un-dwarf-like grace. Kormick paused near Mena at the back, letting her and Rose move past him as he took out his crossbow and scanned the darkness, covering their retreat.
But as the rest of the group hurried forward, their luck worsened. Savina brushed against a mushroom that immediately oozed black ichor from pores all over its skin. The girl staggered a few steps, wavering, and then sat down, hard.
Arden was right behind her and knelt to help her up. "Blessed Daughter?" she asked.
"I think – it's – poison, I think – I – " Savina struggled to stand up, but it was clear she was in trouble. Arden got her arm around the girl and attempted to raise her. "We have to move, Blessed Daughter," she said. "Please stand up."
There was another growl, closer, and Twiggy jumped. In jumping, she touched the same mushroom Savina had. "Oh – oh no," she said, hugging herself. "I don't feel well."
Arden succeeded in getting Savina to her feet. Briefly. Then Savina went limp against her, pushing Arden off-balance. They both fell against another mushroom. A mist of spores burst into the air. Twiggy, still under the influence of the poison, stumbled into the cloud as well. When the spores cleared, Twiggy, Arden, and Savina were all asleep. Mena groaned in frustration.
"Tavi – " she said, but he was already on his way. Mena winced as his sleeve lightly brushed the poison mushroom, but after pausing for an instant, one hand to his forehead, he seemed to shake off its effect. Two more steps and he knelt to gather Savina in his arms.
"Kormick," Mena said. "We need your help up here." She wanted to help Twiggy and Arden, but her first priority had to be Rose. Kormick hurried up beside her, still impressing her with his ability to be light on his feet when he needed to be. He slung his crossbow over his shoulder and picked up Twiggy, just as he had on the way in.
"Your lady in waiting is forgetting her place," he told Rose, "if she thinks she deserves to be carried everywhere like an Ebisite princess."
"I'll have a talk with her," said Rose with a wry smile.
"This way," Mena told Rose. "Watch your feet. Follow Kormick."
There were at least three lizard-dogs in their wake, Mena thought. Three sounds of scuffling, three slightly different growls. The animals were stalking them through the mushrooms, taking their time, toying with them. Or perhaps they have to move carefully among this cursed fungi, too, Mena thought, and prayed that it was so. Regardless, the growls were close now.
"Wake up, Arden," Mena said sharply, as she guided Rose past the sleeping slave. She looked down just in time to see Arden's dazed eyes drift open.
Up ahead, Kormick cursed as Twiggy's foot brushed a final mushroom and he was enveloped in the blinding spores.
"We don't stop!" he announced from within the dark cloud, and seconds later he appeared on the other side.
"You heard him," Mena told Rose, and, holding Rose's hand, she plunged into the cloud. For the briefest moment, the scent of ash seared her lungs. Ridiculous. She'd been through worse than this dungeon, fought through fire and blood and death and never flinched. I still have work to do. Walking with purpose, she led Rose straight through, and smelled no more smoke.
Something growled just to the left of her, very close.
She and Rose burst out of the cloud and ran for the entrance. Kormick had set down Twiggy and joined Nyoko in covering their retreat.
"Arden!" Mena called, whirling around to come face-to-face with Arden, who was following right on her heel. Together, Mena, Arden, and Rose dove behind Kormick and Nyoko just as the lizard-dogs finally broke cover, howling.
Kormick and Nyoko opened fire. A bolt from Kormick's crossbow sent one lizard-dog tumbling backwards, whining.
Mena waited to see no more.
"Up the tunnel!" she ordered. "Come on, Twiggy," she said, taking the groggy girl's hand. Rose ran beside Tavi, who was still carrying Savina.
Everyone raced up the slope and back out into the entryway. Kormick sent a few more crossbow bolts down into the darkness for good measure, and then Arden slammed the door shut. Mena counted faces as fast as she could think.
They had escaped the kitchen.
As they slumped, exhausted, in the entryway, Mena saw that they truly couldn't take much more. Every time she thought their group had reached its limit in this hellish place, they'd found deeper reserves, but this time Kormick couldn't seem to muster the energy to be glib … Arden's hand was trembling from injury and exhaustion as she offered water to Savina … the young healer could barely shake off the poison in her own blood, let alone help the others … and there was a terrible weariness in Tavi's normally alert, eager eyes.
"Take a few moments," Mena said. "Catch your breath. Watch your backs. Our pack-mule should still be where we left him when we arrived. I'll go outside and get him."
"I'll go, Dame Mena," said Arden. "I know where he is."
"I'll find him, Arden. Sit and rest." Mena saw Arden's eyes dart to the sunlight streaming down the entrance tunnel. She understood: Arden wanted to feel the light on her face. "The sooner I get back, the sooner we can all get out, and I'm in better shape to move quickly," Mena added.
Arden nodded understanding, slumped back against the wall, and closed her eyes.
Mena walked up the entrance tunnel and stepped into Ehkt's sunlight. She slitted her eyes and didn’t allow herself even a moment to bask – there would be time for that soon enough, she hoped. Instead, she strode in among the trees where Arden had led the mule at midnight, not so many hours ago.
The mule was tethered to a tree, munching complacently on the last tuft of coarse grass within its reach. Arden hadn't bothered to unload their supplies from its back, but the creature didn't seem to mind, and the packs of food and bedding seemed intact. Mena untied the mule and tugged it forward through the trees. It followed haltingly, and when it got to the crevice in the rock it balked.
"Come on," Mena told it, tugging the rope.
It wouldn't budge. Mena could see the whites of its eyes as it tossed its head. It was afraid of the tunnel. Mena caught its halter and pulled its head so she could stare into its eyes. She gave it her most intimidating glare.
"Come with me obediently," she said, "or face the wilds of the Ketkath alone. Trust me, your life will last longer if you obey."
The mule planted all four feet and would not move an inch. Mena sighed in irritation. Still holding its halter in one hand, she loosened the straps holding its load with the other.
"You wretched creature," she told it. "Go and live the life that you – "
The packs slid to the ground and the mule, startled, kicked Mena in the shin.
"Arg! Go, you ungrateful traitor!" She flung down the halter rope and the mule clattered away down the mountain's slope. She couldn't imagine it would survive more than a day.
Suddenly, the darkness of the dungeons, and of the things she'd done in them, faded away for a moment as Mena thought to herself, I just tried to bully a mule. And of all the unexpected things in all the world, she laughed until her sore ribs ached with the effort. Still alive, then. And still more work to be done.
Mena shouldered the packs and lugged them back down into the darkness.
###
Arden had been fond of the mule. Not only did he make her job easier, but also his purchase represented the first time the group had trusted her. She was sorry to lose the creature, and sorry for the extra weight on her back.
She was grateful to Mena, though, who'd briskly divided the load among everyone equally, not pausing to give anyone time to suggest that carrying the mule's former burden was the slave's job. To be fair, though, Arden found herself reconsidering, they might not have made me carry everything even without Mena's influence. They're decent that way. Strange thought.
They were trekking once more back through the dark tunnels, and as they went, it was impossible not to confront the events and emotions she'd experienced in each hallway, each chamber. Most were hellish. A few were not – another strange thought. Here's where I had to kill my first derro. Blood had covered her hand, and even now it was imperfectly washed off. Here's where the derro nearly killed me -- she remembered the blade passing through her flesh, almost painless going in, searing on the way out—but Mena saved me. Here's where I joked at Kormick.
Halfway down the long inner crevice leading to the Alirrian portions of the warren, they came upon all the dwarves, who had just finished sealing the side tunnel with a neat rockfall.
"Mirtal!" Ordren cried as they arrived. He raced up, his injuries forgotten, to embrace the cook. Arden needed no translation to follow the emotional turns of their greeting: Mirtal spoke happily but briefly. Ordren demanded something, teasing laughter in his voice. Mirtal grew solemn, gripped Ordren's hand, and the two looked a long time into one another's eyes.
"It should take the derro reinforcements several hours, at least, to dig through that roadblock," announced Sertani proudly (Tavi translated her words). "And that's assuming that they work with the skill of dwarves, which they will not."
"They will have numbers on their side, however," said Nyoko.
They hurried onward. There's where Tavi battled Lurx while I freed the dwarves, and … here's where the undead fought us to defend their chapel, and …
They guided the children carefully down the crypt-hallway full of Alirrian corpses and finally emerged into the last room, the room with the Alirrian symbol on the floor.
"It's safe now," said Savina, as everyone pressed up close to its edge. She quickly walked over the symbol to the other side. "See? Nothing happens."
"Easy for you to say," muttered Kormick.
"If I might suggest, Justicar," said Arden, "send the slave first." She stepped onto the symbol and walked across it. Reaching the other side, she turned back and called, "No bloody death!"
She caught sight of Kormick smiling before the whole group surged onto the symbol.
Not waiting for the Blessed Daughter's permission, Arden seized her chance and darted up the stairs ahead of the crowd.
She felt the light grow warmer and warmer on her face, and she ran out onto a rocky ledge into the daylight. Ahead of her, the forest fell away and the mountains rose up. A breeze touched her cheek. Blinded by the daylight and not caring, Arden dropped to her knees, bent forward, and kissed the ground. She was out.
Yes. Not only were the characters punchy (and every last one of them either bloodied or nearly bloodied, I believe, and one more monster away from a TPK), but some of the players were beginning to get a little hysterical in small spaces.
Fajitas
Hold the Peppers
The 'Shroom Room was pretty improvised. I based this off a published module, the first in the Scales of War Adventure Path. The room was written as combat with the lizards, with mushrooms that had a random effect if they were touched.
However, it was pretty clear to me that a) the players wouldn't stand for another fight, and b) the characters might not survive another fight, so I turned it into a skill challenge where, as you surmise, each failure meant a tagged 'shroom. Failure on the skill challenge meant fighting the lizards (several of the failures that incurred 'shroom effects were failures on secondary rolls made to help those who failed a primary roll; these secondary failures did not count against the total number of failures).
All told, it was, I believe, five sessions of pretty much non-stop combat. Sadly, my notes do not cover what the healing surge totals were at the end of the slog, but at the start of the final session (before the zombie fight), the party's totals were:
Nyoko: 1/7
Arden: 1/5 (she was at zero for most of the adventure; the 1 was restored by the Alirrian pool)
Mena: 0/8
Tavi: 0/10 (used a *lot* during the fight with Lurx)
Kormick: 2/7 (he definitely lost those during the zombie fight)
Savina: 4/8
Twiggy: 5/7 (it's good to be back-line artillery...)
And that's *after* I handed them about a dozen additional healing surges. It was pretty grueling, but a fascinating experiment from my end on what 4th Ed can handle.
Coming up, things get *truly* unpleasant...
coyote6
Adventurer
Coming up, things get *truly* unpleasant...
Good to see the soft, easy-going, happy-go-lucky thing was just temporary!
