Session #25 (part II)
Balem, 5th of Dek – 564 H.E.
The next morning the party gathered for breakfast, except Ratchis who was still unconscious upstairs, recovering from the nearly fatal wounds he suffered in the Honeycombe.
Sipping teas, and eating eggs on toast with sausage, the party said little to each to each other, until finally Martin spoke, “I visited the alderman’s last night. It seems that someone in the town was killed by the dragon while we were gone, in addition to the head guard over at the alderman’s estate.”
No one replied. Kazrack nodded as he shoved three chunks of yoke-dipped saugsage in his mouth getting the orange stuff all over his beard.
From the stairs they heard Gunthar’s blaring voice, undaunted by the cold and dismal morning, “Come on you nasty onion-string of a turd, get yer arse down there!”
The tall lanky man, Rondar, came stumbling down the stairs. He was stooped over, lugging a heavy pack on his back and looking bleary eyed. He had a visible bandage on his neck, and the way he walked betrayed that he had other wounds that had not yet completely healed.
”I don’t understand why we can’t wait another day and rest some more,” Rondar said crankily.
Gunthar came down behind him, poking him roughly in the back. The others in Gunthar’s group followed as well.
“The filthin’ dragon has been spotted,” Gunthar said. “We have work to do.”
Frederick the Amazing, the group’s bard, also looked tired and bruised, but not nearly as bad as Rondar. He ordered a whiskey and downed it.
Gunthar asked Wilson for one as well, as the rest of his group made their way outside. The loud-mouthed Neergaardian, turned to the party’s table.
“Well, good luck to all of you,” Gunthar said, raising his shot glass in the air. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. Oh, and Jeremy, the offer still stands.”
He winked and walked out.
“What offer was that?” Kazrack asked.
“What do you think?” Jeremy said, annoyed. “He asked me to join his group.”
“Why would he do that?” Martin the Green asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jeremy said, with sarcasm. “Maybe someone actually acknowledges what I have to offer.”
“What did you say?” Beorth asked.
“What do you think I said?” Jeremy said. “I owe Ratchis, Jana, Martin and Kazrack my life. I have to help them with their quests. I don’t welsh on debts. Anyway, I don’t know if you noticed, but those guys don’t seem exactly trustworthy.”
“Yes, they are going on with one of their number gravely injured,” Beorth said. “He won’t last long.”
“And thus the opening for Jeremy,” reasoned Kazrack.
“Their healer doesn’t seem interested in helping the injured or helpless,” Jeremy explained. “He says he cannot aid the weak in service of his dark lord.”
“So, last night Jana explained to me some about that drow witch you were after in those caves,” Beorth said, cleaning the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin. “What is the next step?”
“I don’t know,” Kazrack said. “I’m afraid that the trail is probably cold.”
“”Maybe Tirhas will learn something in the library of Aze-Nuquerna tha twill help us find her,” Martin hoped. “I’d give almost anything to look through their library myself.”
“So, were you at least able to secure the elves’ aid for the gnomes?” Beorth asked.
“Uh, no. The gnomes leader never made it to the elves. We found a dead gnome there, but we don’t know if it was the chieftain,” Kazrack said.
“And what about Richard the Red?” Jana asked. “Are we trying to stop him? Do we think he is with the drow?”
“We have no way of knowing,” said Kazrack.
“We were so close to catching her,” Ratchis said, suddenly appearing at the table. He looked very tired, but was able to walk without help. He lowered himself to a chair. “I think the quaggoths are a sign that the drow are going to use the Honeycombe as a staging ground for an invasion of Derome-Delem.”
“That won’t happen,” Kazrack said, an edge of righteous indignation entering his voice. “I swear that if anyone retakes Derome-Delem it will be its proper owners, not the drow.”
“What, the dwarves?” Jeremy asked.
“Yes, of course,” replied Kazrack.
“Well, we should get going,” Martin said. “Jana, will you accompany me to the alderman’s?”
“Yes,” the young witch replied.
“Two sets of ears are better than one,” Martin said, and then he added with a sly smile. “We can say you are my apprentice.”
Jana rolled her eyes. Martin moved to stand.
“Wait,” Beorth said. “I have some information to share with all of you. It comes from the brotherhood of Anubis, and it concerns Hurgun’s Maze. I have reason to believe that the maze is the key to all of our problems.”
Beorth retold the story of Hurgun’s Maze and the Mountain Wars, as it was told to him by Master Hamfast.
“Hurgun was an elemental savant?” Martin asked Beorth.
“Yes,” the paladin replied and Martin let out a low whistle. “I believe that many of the strange and powerful creatures running around this part of the world have something to do with this maze.”
“If this maze is an opening to other planes, this is bad, real bad,” said Jana solemnly.
“Master Hamfast said it was a ‘planar focal point’, so I am assuming one can reach different planes from there and vice-versa,” Beorth said.
“We can talk about this more later,” Kazrack said. “The drow should be our priority, but you might as well find out about the dragon as that might give us a clue as to the location of the gnome chieftain or the gnomes he brought with him.”
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It was decided that Martin, Jana, Beorth would go to the alderman’s to interview the staff and talk to Silvestri himself. Ratchis would accompany them in order to look for any tracks the dragon might have made. Jeremy would go to the general store to buy some more gear, while Kazrack remained in the inn in order to rest.
The bell above the door jingled cheerfully as Jeremy walked into the packed general store. The proprietor’s dog, Noah leapt up on him happily, and Jeremy patted it on the head and scratched it under the snout.
He looked up and saw someone waiting in front of the counter. The proprietor did not seem to be around. The figure wore a long gray fur cloak and a hood. Jeremy walked up behind him.
“Excuse me, do you know if the proprietor is a…”
The figure turned around and his hood slipped off. He wore Academy robes of varying shades of red, and had a well-kempt beard and shoulder length red hair in a pony tail, and held a staff. It was Richard the Red.
“You!” Jeremy cried, reaching for his short sword.
“Hold,” Richard said, holding one hand out, and amazingly Jeremy obey, though no spell had been cast.
“What are you doing?” Jeremy asked, his mouth agape.
“Buying some equipment,” Richard replied casually.
“You are coming with me,” Jeremy said sternly.
The dog looked back and forth between them, drooling.
“I don’t think so,” Richard said with a laugh. “You and your friends mucked everything up. I think we’re even. You know my plan would have worked, but now only one of the drow are free and that is much more dangerous than all three, in the long run.”
At that moment the store’s proprietor came out. “Oh, hello!” he said to Jeremy,.and then turned to Richard. “I checked, you were right there were rations missing. Funny how I did not remember the girl being here until you mentioned it.”
“How much did she buy?” Richard asked, grimacing.
“About four or six weeks worth,” he said.
“Thank you very much,” Richard said to the shopkeeper and passed him some coins. “For your troubles.”
Richard turned to leave the general store, but Jeremy stepped in his way.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Jeremy asked.
“There is nothing more to say,” Richard replied. “She was here, Karellena. She is likely trying to make her way to the Plutonic Realms with the help of those quaggoths that showed up.”
Richard stepped around Jeremy, but the Neergaardian reached out to grab his arm, “You have to talk to Martin!”
Richard looked right into Jeremy’s eyes, “I will. When the time is right.”
“So, you said, that drow witch was here?” Jeremy asked.
“Yes,” replied Richard the Red and he left the shop.
“Can I help you, sir?” the shopkeeper asked, but Jeremy did not reply, running out of the store after the watch-mage.
“Wait! You can’t leave me like this!” Jeremy called after Richard who spun around on his heels.
“Don’t be a fool!” he said. “No, I forget, you can only be a fool.”
Again, he turned and began to walk eastward down the streets of Ogre’s Bluff.
“Where are you going?” Jeremy called.
“To find her,” Richard said, not looking back. “And fix your mistake.”
Jeremy turned and ran to catch up with the rest of the party. It was a twenty-minute walk to the alderman’s house and it had been less than ten since they left, he knew he could catch them before they could get there.
He over took them about five minutes from the estate.
“I just saw Richard the Red in town,” Jeremy said, out of breath.
“What?” Martin was astonished.
“He was in general store, asking the shopkeeper about Rahasia. She has been to town and was buying some spelunking equipment and provisions for a trip to the Plutonic Realms,” Jeremy explained.
“Did you talk to him?” Ratchis asked.
“Yes, I treid to hold him, but he wouldn’t come along,” Jeremy said. “He said he would be coming to talk to Martin ‘when the time is right’, but I think we should go find him now. He was headed for the Honeycombe.”
“Yes, Let’s go, maybe we can catch up with him if we hurry,” Martin the Green said.
“What do you hope to accomplish by this?” Beorth asked.
“Talk to him, kill him, I don’t know,” Martin said, sounding exasperated.
“The man is deeply involved in all of this. He knows more than we do and we need to find out,” Jeremy said, showing a rare bit of insight.
“I am still too exhausted to run,” Ratchis said.
“Then you start walking and catch up to us when you can,” said Martin, and with that, he and Beorth, Jeremy and Jana ran back towards town.
They ran between the many buildings, and past the constable’s office. Jeremy saw the constable give them a long look of suspicion as they hustled past.
The came to the eastern edge of the bluff and looked down at the many caves that pocked its surface, and listened to the sounds of dripping water that made a distant knocking sound as it fell into this opening or that.
There was no sign of Richard anywhere. All they could see were some shepherds grazing their goats on the plain below, in spots where the snow had melted or had been cleared.
“I’m going down to see if the saw him,” Jeremy said.
“I think it is a waste of time,” said Jana. “He is gone.”
Beorth and Martin nodded.
“I didn’t come all this way for nothing,” Jeremy said, and started making his way down.
It took Jeremy over twenty minutes just to make his way down the icy paths and gain the attention of one of the shepherds.
“Excuse me, sir,” Jeremy called to him as he approached. Some goats stubbornly stood in Jeremy’s way and he clapped his hands loudly to frighten them off. They still did not obey, so he had to walk around a clump of them through a deep snowbank.
“Um, sir, you haven’t seen a man in red robes, like a wizard, baring a staff?” Jeremy asked. “He also had a gray fur cloak.”
“Nope, I ain’t seen no wizards,” the shepherd said, shivering. He had some frost in his dark brown beard, and was wrapped in many layers of woolen clothing.
“Aren’t you worried about grazing your herd over here within sight of the ogre caves?” Jeremy asked, looking over his shoulders at the many ominous cave openings above them.
“We had to start bringing our herds down here, what with the dragon being around here and all,” the shepherd said. “Old man Carson got his sheep killed, his house burned down and now he’s dead. I want to avoid that if possible. At least you can run from ogres.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jeremy said. “Well, thanks for your time.”
Jeremy made the slow progress back up to Martin, Jana and Beorth,
He relayed to them what the shepherd had said.
The group headed back towards the Alderman’s estate, and caught up with Ratchis who was barely making any progress, as he was feeling so run down.
“I guess you didn’t find him,” Ratchis sighed.
“No,” said Beorth.
“We should warn the elves that he is still around,” Ratchis said. “He may be trying to get back to Aze-Nuquerna to free the other three.”
“He said he was trying to catch Rahasia,” said Jeremy.
“Regardless, Beorth is right. It doesn’t hurt to be safe,” said Jana.
“We still need to interview those who saw the dragon at the alderman’s house,” said Martin the Green.
It was decided that Martin and Ratchis would continue to the alderman’s house. Martin would talk to staff, while Ratchis looked around for tracks. Beorth, Jana and Jeremy would return to the inn, alert Kazrack and get the group’s equipment ready for traveling back to the elven enclave. They would then meet near the alderman’s house and leave from there.
Jeremy ran right upstairs ahead of the other after they had trudged back to the Golden Plough. Beorth and Jana, feeling hungry stopped to grab a quick bite and a drink.
Upstairs, Jeremy was stopped by Wilson, the innkeeper.
“Oh, Master Jeremy,” he said. “I had forgotten to tell you. Someone came by to see you while you were gone.”
“Who?” Jeremy asked suspiciously.
“You know who,” the innkeeper said mysteriously. “You know the one whose name we should not say aloud because it’d get her in trouble.”
“Who?” Jeremy asked again, clueless.
The innkeeper leaned in close and whispered, “You know. The alderman’s daughter.”
“Oh!” Jeremy said. “Yes, I should go talk to her if I can. Thank you.”
He passed the in keep a handful of copper for his troubles.
Downstairs, as Beorth and Jana munched on thick slabs of buttered bread at the bar, they heard someone clear their throat behind them.
They turned.
The constable stood there. He looked to be nearly middle-aged, with graying hair, and creases etched by years of toil and worry into his face around his eyes and mouth. He wore chainmail, and had his hand on the pommel of his long sword.
Instinctually, Jana looked to the door and saw that two more guards were standing just outside of the inn.
“Are you called Jana?” the constable asked.
“Yes,” Jana said, hesitantly.
“Jana of Westron?”
“Yes,” she replied again.
“I’m taking you in,” he grabbed her arm roughly and spun her around keeping one hand behind her back. She did not resist. “You see we do not take kindly to murderers around here.”
The constable manacled Jana’s hands behind her back.
“What’s going on?” Beorth asked shocked. He fought down an urge to try and stop the constable.
“Murder is murder,” the constable said. “Doesn’t matter where you committed it. It will catch up to you in time.”
He led her out of the inn, and the two guards at the door fell in line, bringing her to a cell in the constable’s office.
