5x04
Slap. "Wake up."
Mena crouched over the unconscious derro woman she'd ordered Tavi to spare.
Slap, slap. "I said wake up."
The derro woman's eyes flew open and she spat a curse in broken Dwarven. Mena hurled a curse back. She sensed rather than saw Corani lunge forward, longing to kill the captive, and Tavi hold her back. Beyond them, the rest of the party gathered, looking on.
Mena kept her eyes locked on the derro's.
"Do you have children?" Mena asked in Dwarven.
The woman's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
"Do you want them to live?" Mena asked, keeping her voice calm and even. She saw the flicker of fear in the woman's eyes and waited. The woman nodded.
"Cooperate, and I give you my word that none of us will harm your children. Where are the dwarven prisoners?"
"Some here." The woman's eyes darted up the side corridor.
"With the spellcaster?" Mena asked.
"Protects with spells."
"Where are the others?"
"Don't know." Mena raised her eyebrows and, at that small gesture, the derro cringed. "Don't know!"
Mena decided to believe her. "I need to knock you unconscious now," she told the woman.
The woman shied away. "Will not fight."
Mena smiled almost sadly. Gods, this would be easier if the woman went back to cursing her. "That may well be. But you wouldn't take the chance either, if our positions were reversed, and I can't risk it."
"Do you have children?" the derro whispered.
There was no real answer to that, not that it mattered. Mena slammed her fist into the side of the derro's head. The woman drooped backward. "Give me some rope," said Mena. Someone passed it to her, and she bound the derro's hands and feet, gently but tightly. Then she straightened and found Corani watching her solemnly.
"If we find our children alive," said Corani, "I will abide by the promise you just made. If not . . . "
"Her children are innocent, too," said Mena. Corani looked skeptical. Mena looked her steadily in the eye and said without raising her voice: "And if you make a move towards any child, Corani, I will stop you myself by whatever means necessary."
During the interrogation, Kormick had returned from the dining hall. He was wearing magical bracers that he'd stripped off a derro warrior's corpse, and he was carrying a few other items: a pair of vision-sharpening goggles, which he handed to Twiggy; a pouch of seventy gold pieces, which he added to the money that Savina already carried; and two healing potions and a salve, all of which he offered to Tavi.
"Arden," Tavi said. Arden, who hadn't yet risen to her feet after her brush with death, looked up from where she was sitting against a wall just in time to catch the healing salve that Tavi matter-of-factly tossed her way. Her eyes widened, but Tavi had already turned away to consult with Savina about the potions.
As Arden wasted no time applying the salve, Kormick turned to Mena. "This peaceful, non-violent reasoning you used with the captive," he commented. "It's exactly the sort of enlightened approach that might go over well in Dar Und. I'll remember to introduce it."
Mena, not sure if Kormick was being obtuse or willful in defining what she'd just done as peaceful and non-violent, then led the way up the side corridor. They eased open the door that Tavi and Arden had opened earlier. The fire crackled in the derro women's recently deserted room and a chair still rocked slightly.
Crash. The chair exploded into splinters. Mena gripped her sword and whirled to see Twiggy lowering her casting hand.
"That'll teach it," observed Kormick.
"It was moving," said Twiggy, jumpy and defiant. The longer we're in this horrible place, Mena thought, self-control is going to become an increasing rare and precious resource. Dungeons are a terrible terrible idea. Whoever thought that trapping heavily armed and nervous people in a confined space with only one way out would be a clever little challenge should be dropped down to whatever man-eating plants are populating the basement. We need to get out of here before we all lose control.
Across the room was a heavy closed door, apparently barred on the far side. Tavi and Kormick put their shoulders to it. The door shook in its frame. Under their blows and kicks it flew off its hinges and crashed into the room beyond.
Tavi and Kormick strode through the opening, weapons ready. Mena was on their heels. They stopped short as they saw that the room on the far side was a nursery, its walls lined with cradles and small bunks, carved toys scattered on the floor. Huddled in the corner were a number of children and a few infants, dwarf and derro mingled together. Between them and the party stood a shimmery, derro-shaped figure – the spellcaster.
Mena stepped forward as the rest of the party joined Tavi and Kormick behind her. "We will not harm your children," she said. "We merely wish to reclaim those who belong to us."
The shimmer took a step forward. "Stay back," came a voice.
"Send out the dwarven children," said Mena, "and we'll leave you and your children alone."
"Swear blood," the voice demanded.
Of course, Mena sighed internally. For all their mutual hatred, dwarves and derro apparently shared the view that honor and parentage were somehow related. Why an oath on my family? Why not anything else in the world? she thought, but she knew that if she didn’t comply, they’d never be able to rescue the children. She reached into the catalogue of her mind and recalled what she'd studied of dwarven oath-making. Then she looked around, found a small stone, and picked it up. "Arden, your dagger, please," she asked, and Arden gave her the weapon. Mena cut her own palm, smeared her blood on the stone, and tossed it onto the floor near the spellcaster. "I swear," she said, “by my blood.” Please, let that be enough without the name.
The spellcaster's shimmer made a gesture and stepped aside. Three dwarven toddlers, one barely managing to carry an infant, moved forward tentatively, leaving only derro children behind.
"May I approach to get them?" Mena asked.
"You," answered the voice firmly.
Mena stepped forward, knelt down, and took the infant from the toddler, who stared at her solemnly. She stood up, nodded once to the spellcaster, turned, and escorted the children briskly toward the door, bracing herself for a parting shot of magical force hitting her square between the shoulderblades. The rest of the party preceded her out of the room. The spellcaster did not stop them.
As they passed through the doorway into the room with the fireplace, one of the other toddlers squeaked: he'd seen Corani. All three toddlers raced around Mena and ran to Corani, who tried to hug them all at once, greeting them: "Gulst! Ladini! Tothi! And is that Fulri?" The toddlers were all chattering, and Gulst was trying assertively to get Corani to hold him, throwing his arms – and his weight – around her neck. As she nearly toppled over, Kormick stepped in and swooped the three-year-old up in his arms.
"No strangling the pregnant lady," he said. Gulst grinned at him uncomprehendingly, and Mena nearly laughed out loud as she watched the Justicar's face soften irresistibly into a warm answering smile. Kormick set Gulst down, bemused and almost self-conscious. "Behave yourself," he said, failing to sound stern.
"Your cheeks are glowing," Tavi told Kormick, straight-faced.
"Alirria has blessed you," added Savina, utterly serious. Mena had to admit, Kormick really did look much better: he was standing straighter, and somehow, his wounds no longer looked recent, but rather as if they were well on their way to healing.
DM’s NOTE: The original module that I based this adventure off of calls for the party to emerge from the dungeon to take extended rests when needed, and then return to the caves. This works in context because the creatures are not all working together, and thus they might reasonably not discover that the caves had been invaded and people slaughtered during the eight hours the party spent napping.
Clearly, clearly that was not going to work here.
So I ended up making the PCs do this entire module without an extended rest.
Since I knew that this was going to make Healing Surges and Daily Powers an *extremely* scarce resource, I decided to help them out by providing extra ones. Every dwarven prisoner that they rescued came with a power—some of them had Daily Powers, others had the equivalent of a Paladin’s Lay on Hands power (heal as if you had spent a healing surge without actually spending one).
The dwarven children, they provided healing surges. I mean, seriously, who wouldn’t be inspired to keep on fighting after looking at those adorable little tykes with their big, dwarven puppy-dog eyes…
"Yes, yes, of course, children are magical and precious reminders of our youth. If we're done here," said Kormick, "there's a door in the dining hall that I'm eager to break open."
As they made their way back to the dining hall, Kormick tapped Savina on the shoulder. "I'd like a word with you, young lady," he said. "What you did in this last fight, running straight into the center of it, was very brave, yes? Very brave and very foolish. Never do it again."
"I – I wanted to help," protested Savina.
"Never, ever again."
"But I – it makes me feel good to – "
"Never."
"But Alirria protects – "
"Ever."
Savina said nothing more, but she didn't look cowed. If anything, her expression reminded Mena of the expression the young Giver wore when caring for patients: she looked sorry for Kormick.
When they reached the dining hall, Mena was proud to see Tavi move instinctively to help Kormick with the barred door and Twiggy station herself on watch in a spot where a well-placed magic missile would take out anyone or anything – even a rogue rocking chair – that might dare to show itself on the landing at the top of the room's spiral staircase.
Arden leaned against the wall, still weak. Despite the salve, she wouldn't last long if they kept up this pace. As Kormick turned and opened his mouth to summon her, Mena beat him to it:
"Arden –"
Arden jerked upright defensively, like any slave caught loafing. By the gods, Mena thought at her in frustration, when we're keeping watch together, we converse like friends. Please trust me. Aloud, she said, "Would you please guard the corridor we came from?"
Arden relaxed. "Yes, Dame Filomena." She moved to a vantage point where she could see the second pit. She leaned back against the wall, caught Mena's eye, and soundlessly mouthed, "Thank you."
Kormick and Tavi heaved the bar off the door and opened it.
Mena joined the two as they crept down the short corridor beyond. It opened up into a room lit by a single guttering torch – a room containing a row of barred cells.
In the second-to-last cell, someone moved. In the last was a lump of rags.
Tavi called in Dwarven, "We seek the husband and sister-wives of Corani."
A voice answered from the second-to-last cell with a mixture of exhaustion and pride: "I am Sertani, first wife of Kartan Rockminder. Who are you?"
"Friends. We're helping Corani. Is anyone else here?" asked Tavi.
"Only Ordren, one of our caravan guards, and myself," said Sertani. The lump in the final cell, a badly beaten dwarven man, stirred painfully and groaned in response to his name. "They took my husband first. They said something about the lower tunnels. Kartan – Kartan was defiant. But they took him anyway."
Mena heard a rattle as Kormick lifted a keyring off a hook on the wall.
"I would never tolerate such lazy, lazy jail-keeping in Dar Und," he said happily, and set about trying to find the key that unlocked Sertani's cell.
"There were others in your party, correct?" Mena asked Sertani.
"Yes," she said. "Our children were taken. I don't know the fate of Thurran, Kartan's eldest son. He is seven, and we must find him. There are four other children, toddlers and the baby –"
"We found the four," said Tavi. "They're safe, down the hall."
"Truly? Praise the gods." Sertani's fists clenched on the bars as she watched Kormick work.
"Do you know what became of the other wives?" Mena asked.
"Zerkai tried to kill herself, but they stopped her. She is pregnant and vowed not to let them have her child, no matter the cost. They took her and Jalissi. They also took Mirtal, our cook."
"Mirtal," groaned Ordren, dragging himself upright to his knees. His face was nothing but bruises.
Kormick got Sertani's cell open and she stepped out quickly.
"They took Mirtal," murmured Ordren, now staggering to his feet, as Kormick went to work on his cell's door. "They took him . . . " Mena knew that in the polygamous dwarven society, young dwarven men, not yet advanced enough in years and craft to support families, often formed loving attachments to other young men. Ordren's worry was that of a lover. "Have you found Mirtal?" he asked, begging them with his eyes to say yes.
"Not yet," said Mena. The weight of the work still undone suddenly felt heavy. So many people left to save, but how long until they were too weak to fight?
With a rattle, the door opened, and Kormick reached out to steady the young dwarf, who managed to walk with some assistance. They all hurried back up the corridor to the dining hall.
After a few minutes of reunion, Sertani turned to address the group. "We must find Kartan, Thurran, and the others," she said. "Corani has told me of your kind assistance; I would be grateful if you would continue to help us. If not, we go on alone."
Mena looked over the dwarven party: four babies, a man weak from torture, and two women, one pregnant. So many innocents. How long until a misstep puts them in danger again? "I think," she said, "that we should go on alone . . . assuming we can find someplace safe for you to wait for us."
"Absolutely not," said Sertani. Behind her, Corani nodded fiercely, and even Ordren looking up in outrage. "We have skills, we can help. More importantly, we have honor, and it's our family. I understand that our route lies up those stairs?"
Mena sighed. Dwarven honor could be so . . . problematic. "Yes, but –"
"Then respectfully, new friends," interrupted Sertani, "what are we waiting for?"