Legacy of the Silver Dragon: Chapter 1 (Chickens, Demons, and a Missing Girl)

[Binder Fred]

Antares and Stellan

Stellan smiles briefly, Perhaps I'm not as perceptive as you. is the simple reply.

Stellan was always very straight forward in his feelings. It's... it's always been a source of comfort for all those around him. Including Antares, now...

There have been missing people recently of course: Anna, and the bodies of the couple who owned the house above the well. Additionally, workers in the mines and woods sometimes go missing but those are attributed to wild animals and in all cases they have been male.

Perhaps the content of her pouch will shed stronger light on her identity? He deeply hopes so.

This has taken more time than expected, with the others probably already out of the well, into the town, leaving the two of them alone down here, alone... and yet. "We should go," he states with the tone of one trying to convince himself. (Perhaps if they had something to cover her up, he would feel better about the journey back? She is so... naked, and illogically cold in his mind's eye... But they have nothing.)

Nothing except: "Oh. Ah. Could you- hm - pick up father's sword for me, please Stellan?" the young mage asks with some embarrassment. It still lies where he let it fall after the battle, and he - can't - quite - reach it while still holding on to Former-Anna's hand! "And over there is my belt." The metal links glinting coppery gold in the light of Stellan's torch...

It takes a bit of doing - Stellan helping him buckle the belt in place, for one -, but soon both items are back around the young elf's waist and they are, finally (too soon?) on their careful way back towards the exit well...

Antares looks back often as they cross the wider, unworked cavern, eyes seemingly tied to the altar and the runes, the spilled cup, the blood-stains on the floor, the silver water lighting it all... "Should we truly not try to end it now, friend Stellan? To mar it *now* so that it does not fester and gather more to its side while humans are away?" They lack tools able to reliably affect stone, it is true (perhaps master Stonehand had some?), and his teachers have told tales as well, where such runes are often protected in some fashion. And yet, to just leave such a harmful, insidiously corrupting thing behind...

<Response Stellan?>

Antares forces himself to look at the bodies of the White Things as they walk past each one, teeth clenched tight to firm up his slight store of courage. In this though, and as it turns out, he is greatly helped by heretofore unsuspected, horrifyingly thrilling drams of morbid curiosity... This- is death? The remnants of an actual battle? This, is what lay within the shells of their pale flesh?

OOC: Now that he has time to look, does he notice anything else about the creatures and/or the room they apparently lived in? Do they have any equipment on them at all, like Anna's pouch or the like (I beleive a ring was mentioned during that very first encounter? (even if only Muzdin saw it at the time (and he, of course, told nobody else ))? Markings on the walls, signs of past fires, meals, beds, mattresses or other furniture/loot? If need be, Stellan can search while Antares keeps watch.

Though I will wait until after the responses of the rest before bringing the two groups back together again.

OOC: I'm foreseeing a few reflexions/comments from Antares on the way over to the well (just try and stop him ), but unless Stellan has a good idea on the rune-breaking thing or there is much to find in the chamber, the underground group is ready when you give the signal, Gambler.

 

[Voda Vosa]

"Cover her in your cloak, we'll take her to the temple, to see if the high priest know any way to purge her." the dwarf replies. "We'll deal with the underworld later."

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Myst nods at Muzdim's words and then removes his cloak. He looks Anna over, trying to determine if the cloak will cover all exposed flesh and if not, he will attempt to come up with enough fabric to do so. He then says gently to the scared girl, "Are you willing to try this? If we cover your exposed skin, would you be willing to attempt to move out into the light again? If we can get you to the temple, they might be able to figure this out..."

 

[gambler1650]

Antares and Stellan

Stellan does as asked, and gets Antares' sword. Antares does not notice anything else on any of the bodies that he sees - no ring on any of the creatures that was killed by the party, nor is there anything in the caverns he passes that indicates signs of habitation. Stellan shakes his head when asked about defacing the runes: "Seems dangerous to me, and I don't think I have anything that could do it." The creatures look vaguely familiar, as if perhaps Antares had something like them in a book or tapestry, but their strange appearance defies easy remembrance of precisely where. The wide mouths seem to grin in death as the elf passes by them.

OOC: Given the length of time taken, and the resolution I'll describe for the next group, I will suggest that Antares and Stellan don't hear voices above as they approach the well, and can leave without incident - but there's no sign of the rest of the party other than footprints in the dust.

 

[gambler1650]

Myst, Muzdim, Bosco

Anna hesitantly nods. Being somewhat smaller than Myst, the cloak should suffice. "I.. I can try." Her voice is close to tears, "Please, I just want to be back to normal. Can you tell my family that I'm alright?" She appears to be fine when she's moved back into the sunlight, under the cloak, although whoever guides her can feel her trembling. The journey to the temple occurs without incident, although some of the town's residents give the party curious looks. The two clerics seem to deflect the curiosity however from being given actual questions by the residents.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

OOC: Not sure if this is a temple to Pelor (Myst's deity) or another...

Myst guides Anna into the temple under the cover of his cloak and then takes care to keep her away from any stray rays of sunlight being filtered inside. He seeks out anyone he can find, be they acolyte or high priest. Assuming that he finds the former before the latter, he says, "We need to see the high priest to discuss a matter of great urgency."

 

[Binder Fred]

Antares and Stellan

Stellan shakes his head when asked about defacing the runes: "Seems dangerous to me, and I don't think I have anything that could do it."

The elf sighs, and rips his gaze forward once more: "We have the drawing of the runes, and our vial of silver water," he softly agrees, looking down at his working feet, then at his friend. "I suppose that is much for a first foray... Or at least sufficient?" He has little experience of these things after all.

Antares does not notice anything else on any of the bodies that he sees - no ring on any of the creatures that was killed by the party, nor is there anything in the caverns he passes that indicates signs of habitation.

A shrine? A shrine to the five-fold star, where one only comes to worship? In truth, this would also implies the unfortunate presence of a *den* else where, perhaps quite near -- a place where White Things actually live out their strange lives, amid the bleached remains of- Antares walks just a tiny bit faster, his eyes nervously scanning wavery shadow after flickering shadow, the thought leaving him feeling irrationally... exposed.

It is only when the three of them have gone a few turns into the twisting passage to the first pool room that he realizes he did not even *think* of laying out the little creatures for their eternal rest...

What does that say about him? Is there a line between us and them in all creatures then - him, Mysthyr, Muzdin, Bosco, Former-Anna - and his is simply in a different place than theirs? ('Line' is probably the wrong thought object... Circle? A circle of *us* with the speaker standing at center?). His circle is larger, theirs more... compact? Which version is in the right, he wonders even as they thread over the dusty, rocky floor of the first pool room, that room of first meetings... Is it wrong to dream of a world where that circle surrounds all things? Inscribes all thinking, feeling beings within its diameter? (Or is that too restrictive a criteria still? 'All things', with no qualifiers? Does unthinking stone warrant compassion? Scampering squirrels, wobbling ooze? That seems too extreme...) And, despite such musings, despite (or perhaps because of) the unanswered padding of their boot-clad feet, the outside silence is slowly quickening the beat of his thoughts, is starting to build, threatening to swallow him whole even as they turn the corner of the Y and the laid out skeleton of that un-named victim hoves into view once more, still covered in the slowly drying slime of its killer. The smell of burning oil is still strong in the air...

(Antares sadly nods to it as their little 'funerary procession' quietly pads and hops across: "We will send someone to get you soon. Soon you will be able to sleep," he reassures... her? (Surely the constabulatory will want to investigate once informed? Will be able to put to rights all things askew with their greater man-power?))

But as to the threatening silence, and perhaps encouraged by the imagined outline of the blessed well ahead, nearing with every step now (surely that is the growing telltales of old smoke he smells?)... "It comes to me, friend Stellan, that this is, truly, my first encounter with the truly unknown -- paths never before threaded, sensations never before felt..." Both thrilling, and unsettling.

There is briefly the echo of a sound from an indeterminate distance behind them, making him jump and shorten the already short distance between himself and Stellan, between him and Stellan's light. It sounded something like rock brushing against rock...

After a swallow the mage's voice, already soft, softens even more into downright whisper -- bravely putting words between him and the dark, their glorious magic fading the reality of these horrible tunnels for a blessed instant into views of the inner mind, into things that can be studied, and perhaps even *understood*? "But think of the secrets deep slumbering inside the skulls master Stonehand would so carelessly split? What struggles fierce they have lived, what territories unknown their claws have thread, what sights unique their-" The White Things' apparent lack of anything resembling eyes brings him up short... Where indeed could such things have come from? How could they never have wandered up to the streets of Ascandar, in all its (admittedly short) history, to be spotted and commented on? Ancient foreign ecologies slumbering beneath the ground perhaps? Or recent expansions upwards? In response to what dark (and deliberate?) stimuli? (Did Eliaesel, she of the silver scales and strumming, thundering voice, keep them at bay before? Preserve them from the attention of the five-fold star?) "Surely this pocket of strangeness crouching beneath our planked streets is worthy of the thoroughest of investigation?" The apparent attitude of the others still puzzles him.

He pauses as Stellan enters the well: "Is the rope still there?"

<Assuming it is:
But the paler circle above them is dark of any torch, the air - otherwise drowning in the wafting smell of smoke and wet ash now that they are actually in the well - is bare of any voice save their own: the others did *not* wait for them, is the sad, inevitable conclusions... "I hope they did not have any trouble with Anna's health?" Both fear and hope at the same time -- that they were not abandoned out of spite but out of necessity... "Perhaps I should go first, with you to catch me should I.. fall?"

OOC: Whatever the plan, Antares will do his best to climb while supporting Former-Anna with one arm.

Once up <assuming he makes it >, his green elven eyes survey the small cellar, finding it much as they have left it... was it only a pair of hours ago? "Ah... Should we try to block the well?" A gesture at the collapsed section of the floor above, "Perhaps we might lie some of these broken planks across, then pile a barrel or two on top?" They never did investigate that sentinel row of metal-circled casks, did they? In all likelyhood only pickled provisions, but still.

OOC: Should Stellan agree, Antares will carefully bring Former-Anna down to the ground in an out-of-the-way spot and then help as best he can (lifting things with his "magic", etc). Oh, and he'll investigate the row of barrels at the back of the house while he's at it, content and if anything is hidden behind, please.... Anything? After that, he's planning to go straight to the watch... That's assuming Former-Anna doesn't burst into flames at the first sign of sunshine, of course. (Can I assume he finds some sort of a covering for her in any event? (To avoid shocking everybody with her nudity, don't you know). Sheets from the bed on the first floor would work very well, I think?)

 

[gambler1650]

OOC: Hi guys.. Got slammed by a cold, and now traveling for a work meeting. Will try to update tomorrow night, but otherwise it will be Thursday... Thanks everyone for hanging in. I've been enjoying a great deal, and hope it's still interesting even though it's gotten much slower than I anticipated (my issues, not yours in keeping up the pace)

 

[Binder Fred]

OOC: I could use two helpings a week, sure, but one is so much better than none. By the way I'll be AFK all of friday (plane rides and big meetings).

 

[gambler1650]

Myst, Muzdim, Bosco(?)

OOC: I assume Bosco is with this group... If he's decided to do something else, please let me know!

The temple of Pelor, as is the case of all temples in Ascadar, is a modest affair. Glass is expensive, so instead of the usual large windows that one might see, a practical route to letting in the light of the sun is taken. The roof is a thick weaving of bark that can be smoothly drawn up and over the curved tops of the walls when inclement weather occurs. Usually the roof is half drawn down, as it is today - which perhaps unfortunately for the party means that light fills the main hall. Simple carvings of the sun, and some of the saints are present on the walls and in alcoves. A few townsfolk are seated throughout, praying for the guidance of Pelor, and acolytes and priests - though not the high priest are immediately visible.

One of Myst's friends in the clergy, a former teacher, named Carlog, comes up and says, "High Priestess Elara is currently in a meeting with the other High Priests of Ascadar, regarding the upcoming elections and whether - as the agents of the gods and goddesses in this town, they have a duty or even a right to influence the election." As an aside, Carlog adds, "Of course, even if they agree to not be involved directly, I wouldn't be surprised if there's already much maneuvering beneath the surface.." Finally he seems to notice the newcomer, "Oh, and who have we here?" He bends to peer under the cloak to try to see the face of the person beneath.