Baltana’s mentor surveys the group before her. She speaks again:
“GRIPE is a society that does many things. Some might seem at first contrary to our individual outlooks,” she seems to cast a brief look at Strak and his mentor, “but we have all come to an understanding, and have agreed to abide by certain rules. Your new group is an extension of GRIPE – our hands, if you will. You act openly where we cannot. This is what you have been trained to do…”
“Excuse me!” barks a Kobold voice.
“What is it?” snaps the Drow, annoyed at the interruption.
“Well,” continues Slash, “If we are meant, as you say, to be members of this GRIPE thing, don’t you think we should all be aware of these rules that you mention? Aren’t we bound by them too, if we’re members?”
A faint shadow of a smile flickers in the corner of the Drow’s lip as she says, “Quite right, Kobold. The rules of GRIPE are as follows, “First, members do not act against other members. This includes anything from sabotaging business interests to outright physical attacks. Second, members will, if it safe to do so, assist other members in their ventures. Third, members shall not reveal the existence of GRIPE to anybody not a member of the group. If you are placed in a position where you believe you will be unable to keep information about GRIPE from anybody outside the group, you will do whatever it takes to avoid doing so, even if it includes your own death. The overarching goal of GRIPE is to preserve social stability in the Underdark by consolidating resources that would, without our influence, never come together. Different members of the group, of course, do this for different personal reasons.”
Slash nods, paying close attention to every word, “Is these written down anywhere? I mean, don’t you have like a written code of some sort… ”
The Drow cuts her off, angry, “Have you not been paying attention? Nothing about this group is ever to be written down. There is no permanent record of us, or any of our activities, nor will there ever be! Our safety lies in our secrecy. Our civilizations would not understand how what we do secretly is not a betrayal of their trust in us. We would be cast out, scattered, and killed if we were to be discovered. Do you understand me?” Slash, chagrined, nods and tries to regain her composure.
“Then, if I may continue. A few weeks ago some of our sources indicated a certain secret shipment was to be made. We do not know where it is from or where it is going to, only that several of the methods we ourselves use to keep things quiet were tapped by an individual or group as yet unknown to us. This is dangerous, and could hint that there is something large moving just out of our sights. This vague, but potentially huge threat has been hinted at elsewhere, but this was our first lead. We were unable to track the actual location of the shipment, but suspected it was headed into Human territory.
The Drow goes on, “You are all wondering why you had to travel so far from your home kingdoms to this isolated area on the edge of the surface dwellers territory. The reason is this: we have recently intercepted intelligence that a hidden human outpost in this area has intercepted what they believe to be a smuggling shipment. As you well know, it is illegal for the humans to build a military outpost this far from their borders, so this information was not easy to come by. We think this supposed smuggling shipment is in fact the mysterious shipment we desire to examine.
“Your first mission, then, it to travel to the human outpost, infiltrate it, and investigate the shipment. Information of particular value includes the nature of the shipment, the source of the shipment, and its destination. Do not get captured. Maintain the group’s secrecy.
“This is also, if you have not already figured it out, a sort of test. Some of us,” she looks pointedly at the Derro, “do not believe you can function together as a team. This mission, if successful, will prove them wrong.”
The Drow looks at the faces of the apprentices, seeking signs of confusion, annoyance, or anger. Apparently satisfied, she speaks again, “There is something else about this outpost that warrants our attention. It is rumored that the commander possesses one of the ancient Amulets of Sending, given by the Human king as a gift some years ago. This is how the commander maintains contact with the Human kingdom, and how you, if you acquire it, will maintain contact with us. I hope I make myself clear?”
The group nods. Some of the more roguish of the lot are smiling a bit, but Triesste looks a little nervous.
“Here is a map to the entrance of the outpost,” the Drow concludes, handing it to Beltana, “We will wait here for your report. You may begin.”
The mentors, as one, slip back into the shadows, leaving their newly created group of followers looking at each other. They approach each other slowly, and Beltana holds out the map for them all to see.
“Just a couple hours walk from here,” barks Zya quietly, “Good.”
“Let’s go then,” suggests Crystal.
With no further ado, and seeking to please their mentors, the group heads off, following the map. The conversation is limited to immediate practicalities, “Is it this turn or the next?” “Watch the ledge,” and similar mundane comments. The tunnels through which they travel are cramped and devoid of any signs of life or moisture. With their darkvision, the party has little trouble finding its way, though they have to climb up and down several steep, rocky areas. None of the group feels lost or confused in the tunnels. The Underdark is their home, and all they have ever known. Even without the map, they all know they would be able to retrace their steps precisely.
After three hours of marching through the tunnels, they arrive at a blank, stone wall, identical to the other miles of wall in the region.
“This is it,” announces Triesste, who is holding the map at this point, “There are instructions here on how to open the secret door.”
“Very thorough, our teachers, are they not?” smiles Slash toothily, “One wonders as to the sources of their information.”
“They have good reasons for hiding what they hide and revealing what they reveal,” says Crystal, “We can trust them.”
“I was not suggesting otherwise. I’m just curious, and naturally so, I think.”
“What should we do now? We need a plan,” mutters Triesste, “We can’t just walk in there and start asking questions.”
There is a pause while the group thinks. Strak is examining the rocky ground for signs of tracks, but says nothing.
“I’ll go in,” says Crystal, “and scout around a bit. At least we’ll have a picture of what we’re up against.”
“Better you than me,” grunts Strak. Crystal throws him a dirty look and motions for Triesste to hit the trigger to open the secret door. Everybody else backs up so as not to be in view of the inside. Remembering with amusement that humans cannot see in the dark, they all find hiding spots out of the range of torchlight and wait.
Triesste triggers the secret door by twisting a small bump in the wall counter-clockwise. Next to her, a segment of the wall smoothly swings inward. Inside, an unlit passage is visible, stretching out of sight.
Triesste backs away into the shadows as Crystal moves cautiously into the opening. He can hear nothing, and sees nothing other than the crude stone passage stretching away in front of him.
“No guards?” he thinks, as he edges his way in, “What kind of an outpost is this?”
He slips further into the passage, trying his best to stay hidden, even in the pitch blackness. He carefully scrutinizes floor, walls, and ceiling as he goes, knowing that it is unusual for such an entrance to be unguarded in some fashion. This thought makes him pause. He peers down the hall, but can see nothing after his darkvision ends. If he can’t see any humans, they certainly can’t see him, he figures.
“Come on in,” Crystal calls faintly to his companions, “This much is safe at least. I need somebody who can search for traps.” Slipping out of the shadows, the rest of the party enters the passage. Triesste steps forward, “I’ll check.”
“Careful you don’t set ‘em off and kill yourself now, mongrel,” Strak cackles softly.
Triesste looks as though she’s about to retort, then changes her mind and turns her attention to the hallway, “Stay a good distance behind me, just in case.”
She edges forward, scrutinizing the corridor with a trained eye. After about sixty feet, she stops. Did I see that right? I could have sworn… Ah, yes! She motions for the others to join her. “There is a pressure plate here. I can’t tell what it does, but I suggest we all edge our way around it against the wall.”
“It can’t be too bad of a trap,” comments Crystal, “It’s right here in the main entrance. They’d be bound to trigger it accidentally themselves.”
“It might be an alarm,” suggests Zya. With no clear consensus, the group carefully moves past the pressure plate and continues down the passage, Triesste leading.
The corridor turns out to be almost two hundred feet long, and widens at the end to terminate in a solid set of stone double doors. They do not have a lock, but are closed.
“This is me again,” says Crystal, edging forward in the darkness, keeping close to the walls. Reaching the doors, he grasps the iron handle and pulls. The stone door is quite heavy, and he has to put his weight into it to get it to open.
Beyond the door is a guardroom. A map of the vicinity lies on a table in the middle of the room, showing what look like patrol routes. Several chairs are scattered around the room, and a weapons rack stands against the wall, holding several shortspears. There is a window in the north wall, opposite the entry, but blocked with sturdy bars. Passages lead east and west.
There are no guards. Crystal sees bloodstains on the floors. Hurriedly, he motions his companions to enter. “Looks like somebody beat us here, folks.”
“What do you mean,” asked Zya, “who?
“Isn’t it obvious? They intercepted a secret shipment. Whoever sent it must have tracked them down to insure that it stays secret.”
“If that’s the case, there won’t be much here for us to find,” mutters Strak. They search the room, but come up with nothing interesting. The window to the north looks into a larger chamber, obviously set up as a temple to the Human god Hieroneous. Interestingly, they can make out a secret door at the far end of the temple, hanging open by a single hinge. Strak looks for tracks, and though he finds some, they all look the same – booted, Human-sized feet.
They decide to investigate the east passage, and find themselves in a large, long room, obviously once having been a natural cavern, but crudely enlarged and squared off. There is a crevasse in the south-east corner that smells like a privy. Sacks and crates of various supplies line the walls.
Just as the party is about to split up and search the room, they hear a shuffling and moaning from behind one of the crates. A human soldier staggers into view, armed with a longsword and wearing a chain shirt emblazoned with the insignia of the army of Silleria. The party pulls out their weapons and prepares to defend themselves. The soldier lifts his blade and stumbles toward them. They can see that his face is twisted with what looks like an expression of incredible agony. His movements are unnatural.
Crystal calls out, “Put down your weapon and surrender! You are outnumbered.”
The soldier speaks. His voice is guttural and forced, but his words are clear, “Kill… me…”
The companions look at each other.
“All right,” shrugs Strak to the soldier, “suit yourself,” and he charges, striking at the soldier with his rapier. The blade sinks into the skin of his arm where the sleeve of the chain shirt ends. A sickly fluid oozes forth, not blood, but something putrid and yellow.
The soldier looks at Strak, raising his sword, “Save… yourselves…” he croaks, and strikes. Strak dodges the blow.
Slash, Triesste, and Crystal join the fray, slicing at the soldier with their blades and trying to break his ribs with their nunchukus. Zya hangs back, waiting to see if the group will need her clerical magic. Beltana, with a thoughtful look on her face, casts a spell. There is no obvious effect, but she mutters, “Interesting…”
Before the soldier can get in another strike, the combined might of the companions facing him brings him down. He falls to the ground, groaning, “Thank… you…” and dies.
“What the Hells was the matter with him?” asks Triesste.
They examine the body, taking a couple wood pieces he has on him. There is clearly something very wrong with the soldier. He no longer has blood - only the foul yellow substance. Upon closer inspection it seems that there are some sort of fine tendrils infesting his body. Occasionally they stick out of the skin, looking for all the world like tiny roots. The tendrils are everywhere, even visible wrapping themselves around his eyeballs. His skin has a faint, sickly yellow cast to it.
“I don’t recognize it,” says Zya, examining the tendrils.
“Nor I,” says Baltana softly, not going near the body, “But I would suggest you keep your distance. Whatever has infected him might be contagious.”
Everybody jumps back in alarm. “Why do you say that,” yips Slash. Beltana shrugs.
“She has a point,” says Zya, “He was healthy once. Now he isn’t. What’s to say it can’t happen to us?”
“I’m not liking this place,” mutters Triesste, “Not one bit.” They search the room, finding nothing of interest. The supplies are only of value if they have a way to transport them, and they don’t. Near the north end of the long room is a passage leading west, and another leading north.
They head north. The passage turns out to be short, only thirty feet long. It ends with two doors, one on the left and the other on the right. Arbitrarily, the party decides to go right.
They find themselves in a small room, apparently the water supply for the garrison. Clear water trickles out of a crack in the wall and into a small basin. From there, it flows down into a basin large enough to hold several people. There is another crack in the wall of the basin allowing the water to flow out and never reach above a certain level.
Floating face-down in the large basin is another soldier, this one unarmed and unarmored. Now that the party knows what to look for, they can see more of the same tendrils infesting his waterlogged body. The water in the large basin looks and smells stagnant, despite the constant in-flow of fresh water from the small basin.
Zya loads her crossbow, “Stand back,” and fires a bolt directly into the floating figure’s head. The body spasms, lashing out with its limbs, but finally subsides, dead.
There is nothing of interest in the water-room, so the party investigates the other door. “Locked,” says Crystal, trying the handle. Everybody’s level of interest is suddenly increased. “Who can pick it?”
“That’s me again,” said Triesste, moving up and pulling out her tools.
Triesste has to make several tries before she finally gets the lock open. With a shove, she pushes open the heavy door, revealing an armory. There are several chain shirts and long swords hung on the walls, and another rack of shortspears. Nobody seems interested in these. Rather, their attention is drawn to a single small, steel chest in the corner. “Also locked. Triesste?”
The half-Drow hunches over the chest, running her hands around it gently, “I don’t think it’s trapped.” She seems to be enjoying proving herself useful to the party. It takes several minutes of trying for Triesste to get the chest open, but finally, with a click, the lid pops up.
Inside, the party discovers five flasks clearly labeled “Alchemist’s Fire,” two vials of a clear, syrupy liquid, and a masterwork spiked gauntlet.
“Wow, hardly anybody makes those things,” barks Slash excitedly, pulling the gauntlet out of the chest, “Good thing I like using them,” and she pulls a regular spiked gauntlet out of her pack, compares the two, and, grinning, stashes them both.
Crystal looks annoyed, “I think we’re going to have to have a little talk about treasure distribution, Slash,” he says, “That gauntlet is valuable. It might be of more use to the party if we sold it.”
“Let’s discuss this later,” says Zya, “just get the stuff that looks useful or valuable and let’s move on.”
“Wait, I want to at least see if I can tell what those potions are,” says Crystal, picking one up and working out the stopper, “It they’re healing potions, we might need them later on.” He takes a small sip and immediately gags, trying to spit out the liquid.
“What? Poison?” asks Zya, alarmed.
Crystal shakes his head and re-stoppers the vial. He points to his mouth and sticks out his tongue, the skin of which seems to have hardened into complete rigidity.
“Interesting,” murmurs Beltana, “A substance that hardens skin on contact? Offensive or defensive, I wonder? And does it wear off?”
Crystal is having trouble speaking with his hardened tongue, but stashes away the vials for later investigation. The party distributes the alchemist’s fire between Zya, Crystal, and Triesste, since they say they are reasonably good at throwing weapons.
Returning to the long storeroom, group heads west, finding themselves in the temple they saw from the guardroom. There is a passage across the room from them leading further west, as well as the open secret door to the north. Beyond the secret door can be seen a set of rough-hewn steps leading down. Triesste wants to go down the stairs, but the rest of the party overrules her. “One level at a time,” they tell her.
Moving across to the west passage, they find another long room, almost a mirror image to the storeroom on the other side of the complex. This room, however, is outfitted as a barracks. Bunks line the western wall, an iron footlocker at the foot of each. More immediately pressing on the attention of the party, though, are two more of the strangely infected soldiers shambling towards them, again uttering tortured phrases and wielding long swords.
The party fans out, preparing weapons. The soldiers are approaching the people closest them, with no attempt at strategy. Melee is joined. Beltana tries another spell, but it also has no affect. Her expression becomes one of curiosity. One of the soldiers manages to wound Strak somewhat, but the Derro shrugs it off and slices off the soldier’s head with his counterattack. Meanwhile, Slash and Crystal are busy bludgeoning their opponent. Finally, the other soldier falls. Zya hurries over to Strak, “Do you need healing?” “No.”
Searching the room and the bodies, the companions discover a total of twenty-four wood pieces which they take) and lots of uniforms and personal effects (which they leave). There is a passage that connects back to the original guardroom, so, with no remaining options, the group gathers and prepared to go through the secret door in the temple. About this time, Crystal notices that his tongue is softening and he is regaining his power of speech.
The group heads down the stairs. Before long, they open out into an office/bedroom of some sort. A desk is against the north wall with a book open on it. A bed and a wardrobe stand on the west wall. There is a passage to the east. Before they can properly array themselves, the group is attacked by another strangely infected human, this one wielding a mace and wearing a silver amulet.
“Take him down,” shouts Crystal, “I think that’s the Amulet of Sending we’re after!”
Planning to take down the creature quickly, the companions soon discover that this new foe is not as much a pushover as the solders they faced upstairs.
Muttering guttural incoherencies, the soldier swings his mace with devastating effect into Crystal, who crumples to the ground motionless. Zya growls a low curse and leaps forward to heal him. Strak has his rapier out, trying to get in a few good hits on the soldier, who was evidentially the commander of the garrison. Beltana hangs back, seeming to wait for a chance to do something useful. Slash whirls her nunchukus with lethal precision, hitting the commander solidly in the side of the head.
Off balance from the blow, the commander’s next attack lacks enough force to damage Strak. Zya begins to cast Cure Light on Crystal, having determined that he was still alive. Strak, having shrugged off the feeble attack, whirls and jabs his rapier directly into the commander’s neck. Twitching, as if unable to accept that he has taken a mortal wound, the commander feebly tries to lift his mace. Yellow goo erupts from his mouth as he collapses to his knees, then falls over, dead.
Crystal was sitting up, mostly healed, “Good job. Let’s see what he has on him.”
They remove the amulet, which Zya confirms as having a strong magical aura. They also take two small iron keys from his belt. Strak goes to the table and does something unspeakably biological to the holy book, ruining the other’s plan of taking it to sell it. He chuckles and says that he doesn’t like Hieroneous very much. The party then turns to the only exit other than the stairs from the room: a hallway east.
“Let’s go!” says Slash, “We’ve got to be almost done with this place now!”
Indeed, she turns out to be correct. The winding passage ends at a sturdy, locked door. Though Triesste is eager to try to pick it, the others decide to try the commander’s keys first. Indeed, one of them fits the lock, and with a gentle click, the door swings open, revealing a chamber of utter carnage.
The bodies of what must have been the rest of the garrison lie here haphazardly, some clearly infected with tendrils and some not. All are dead, and the room stinks of blood, puss, and, surprisingly, a strangely alluring, sweet, flowery scent. On the far side of the room is a large packing crate, constructed from a metal framework with cloth (treated with some sort of hardening agent) wrapped tightly around to form a sturdy container. The lid is open, and a huge plant can be seen emerging from the interior. It has thick, green tendrils, each tipped with a large, incredibly beautiful yellow flower. As the companions enter, the flowers turn and orient to point directly at them.
“We seem to have found the source of the problem,” mutters Strak, “Let’s see what we can do about it, eh?”
He leaps forward, rapier flashing.
“No!” cries Crystal, “Keep away from that thing!”
Before anybody can help, the flowers pointed at Strak emit streams of yellow powder directly at his face. Just in time, Strak leaps aside, swearing, and the yellow dust settles to the floor.
“Get back here,” calls Crystal, “We’ll use that Alchemist’s Fire we found. There’s no need to get close to that thing. Strak returns, looking a bit shaken from his near-miss, but nodding agreement.
Crystal, Triesste, and Zya ready Alchemists fire vials and hurl them as one into the center of the deadly plant. The flowers spray the flasks with yellow dust before they land, but to no avail. The flasks shatter and drench the plant in flame. Writhing, the plant tries to escape, thrashing its tendrils around and shooting off random puffs of powder around the room, but to no avail. It cannot leave the packing crate.
“Again!” shouts Crystal, and another volley of flasks is hurled into the inferno. The plant is now totally engulfed in flame, and its flapping tendrils serve only to wave the fire higher. Moments later, it collapses, the tendrils falling loosely to the sides of the crate, dead.
Judging that the corpse of the plant is not a danger, the companions search the room, taking several wood pieces from the fallen solders. The crate itself is utterly non-descript, but the lid, set casually against the wall, has a shipping label affixed to it. The address is given as “Ziffendell Manor, New Fifechester.” To everybody’s annoyance, there is no return address. Beltana cuts some of the less-scorched pieces of tendril and flower into a pouch, “It might be useful to have a sample,” she comments softly.
There seems to be nothing left to do in the garrison. The party leaves via the same passages from which they entered, and begins their march back the cave where their mentors are waiting.
Next time: The companions report to their mentors, a journey is begun, and a random encounter almost kills two characters but it's their own damn fault.
