ADVENTURE 7: THE TRUTH OF GREENVALE
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 15 January 2020
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The elven guards led the five Jalamir slaves into a building. They were surprised to see a long table awaiting them in what was quite obviously a banquet hall; lunch was brought out for them while Tock observed everything from his perch at one end of the table. Jhasspok, puzzling over a suitable chair configuration (he eventually turned it sideways so his tail could hang off the back end without running up against the chair's back, which then served as an armrest for his left arm), was surprised to see the lunch that had been prepared for him: a wooden bucket, inside which were a pair of actual fish! And normal fish, too, with proper fins and everything - not those weird fish with legs and wings that sat on tree branches and sang.
"These are for me to eat?" Jhasspok asked. He had assumed that to be the case but didn't want to have guessed wrong.
"By all means," smiled the lead elven guard - the one with the purple hair and eyes. "Please, enjoy your meals while we talk." The other four slaves had a quite different fare, served on plates with the standard eating utensils. They tucked into their meals but before Utred started on his own plate of food he asked the elves if he could keep Jhasspok's bucket after the lizardfolk had finished with it.
"I, uh - sure, I suppose," stuttered the blue-haired elf. It wasn't a question he'd been expecting. Marlo frowned at the dwarven barbarian, wondering what his fetish about buckets was all about.
Jhasspok reached into his pouch and pulled out a slave-coin. "I will give you this square piece of metal for the fish," he offered.
"No, that's not necessary," replied the guard, smiling. Jhasspok frowned in confusion; he thought he'd finally had this "money" thing figured out but apparently it was more complicated than he had imagined.
"Before we begin our discussions in earnest," began the purple-haired elf, "I would like to point out that this entire building has a false-image anti-scrying field around it: anybody casting a scry spell - say, through your tattoos, for instance - will receive a false image of you doing something perfectly innocuous." He didn't mention the room was also covered in a zone of truth spell; if these slaves tried lying to their elven hosts, they'd know the falsehoods for what they were. Of course, that worked both ways but at least the elves were aware of the situation and could choose their words accordingly.
"You know about our tattoos?" asked Cramer. The little gnome wasn't particularly surprised, as the guards had intimated as much before ushering them in here. The fact they'd also known about the ring gate necklaces by which the mind flayer N'zorthal kept track of them also spoke volumes about how much they understood the ways of the drow of the Overreach. How they knew so much was a mystery Cramer was itching to find out.
"We know quite a bit," the guard replied. "But what we'd like to know is how much House Jalamir knows about Greenvale."
Cramer gave the question some thought. "I'm not aware of any of the drow knowing about Greenvale," he answered truthfully. "If they did, they never discussed it with us."
"We only learned about it ourselves yesterday," Khari added, chewing on a chicken leg. "The caravan people we attacked had said they were coming here, and we saw it on the map we took from them."
"May I ask about your hair?" interrupted Marlo. "It's very distinctive. I've never seen elves with blue or purple hair."
The purple-haired elf smiled again. "Some of us born in Greenvale are born with an unusual hair and eye color," he replied. "Those of us with such a trait who go on to develop magical talents often find their spell effects tend to reflect the same color. Were I a wizard, for example, my magic missiles would undoubtedly be purple." Marlo found the concept intriguing.
"May I ask how you came to the surface?" asked the purple-haired elf, returning the conversation to more important points.
"There's this thing called the Writhing Gate," began Cramer. "It's a sort of immobile teleportation circle without a set end-point; it's activated from its Underdark location by mind flayers working for the drow of Overreach, who used it to send us to the surface. At the end of our two-week scouting session it'll open back up and we'll use it to return. My understanding is that N'zorthal can program it to send us pretty much anywhere. And it's open-ended: he set it to drop us next to a caravan, but not any particular one."
"Interesting," replied the guard.
"You don't know the half of it! It looks like ten long tentacles, and that's exactly what they are - but they're just the tips of ten out a hundred or so tentacles coming from the severed head of an eldritch monstrosity called the Dying One." Cramer looked over to Marlo as he said this but the sorceress was suddenly devoting her full attention to her salad. In so doing, the gnomish cleric missed the astonished looks the two elven guards gave each other.
"Can you tell us more of this Dying One?"
"I don't know much more myself, but we met up with this blind elven prophet in the caravan we attacked and she said something about needing to finish what Wee Jas had started. I gather it was her, the Goddess of Death and Magic, who brought the Dying One to his, well, dying state. I gather he's an Elder God or something." Cramer took a bite of his food and then said, "My turn for a question: what's the connection between Greenvale and Overreach, exactly? And why do the elves of the Elderwood hate you guys so much?"
"We have covert agents inside Overreach," explained the lead guard. "They were uncovered by the Elderwood agents, who then assumed we had been working together."
"Those assassins we fought?" Marlo asked. "The fake drow?"
"Yes, they were Elderwood agents," explained the purple-haired elf.
"Pity they were really just elves with full-body tattoos making them look like drow," Cramer interjected. "I'd have been happier knowing it was actual drow we'd killed. If I had my way, I'd see all the damned drow dead!" The two guards gave each other a significant glance at that remark.
"So your agents, were they in the same get-up?" asked Utred. "Full-body tattoos making them look like drow?" The question seemed to make the purple-haired elf uncomfortable; finally, he hesitantly answered, "...No."
"Magic, then, I guess," hazarded Utred. He was a simple dwarf, "magic" was a believable answer to anything he didn't understand. But the elven guards didn't answer, allowing the barbarian to drawn his own conclusions, even if they were erroneous.
However, Cramer had picked up on the elves' evasiveness. He stared at the two elves sitting across the table from him, focusing the full powers of his concentration on the one with the blue hair. The elf returned the gnome's gaze somewhat nervously, wondering what the suspicious stare was all about. He let a hand stray unconsciously to the back of his head, running his fingers absently through his blue hair.
"Crap!" exploded Cramer, leaping down from his chair and grabbing for the mace hanging at his belt.
"What is it?" demanded Marlo, looking up from her meal at the sudden commotion.
"They're drow!" Cramer called. "It's a trap!" But despite the accusation, the two elves remained calmly sitting at the banquet table, making no sudden moves to attack. Khari looked at the elves, then back over to Cramer. "Those aren't drow," he tried explaining to his gnomish friend, trying to figure out how the little cleric could have made such an obvious mistake. "Drow have black skin, for one thing."
With a sigh and an exasperated look between each other, the two elves reached up behind their heads and pulled at something unseen. "No, Cramer is quite correct," replied the purple-haired guard. At once, the skin of the two elves darkened to an almost black color as the guards pulled away invisible ribbons they'd had in their hair like headbands. Their oddly-colored hair, however, remained the same vibrant blue and purple hues. "We are, in fact, drow - but we are not allies of the drow in Overreach. Quite the opposite, in fact."
Cramer looked from one to the other of the drow, his mace still in his hand. "You'd better explain," he suggested.
"We are 'sunborn' drow," the lead guard said. "For some reason not fully understood, drow born on the surface and exposed to the sun at birth have hair and eye colors not normally associated with the normal members of our race. We are different from normal drow in other ways as well: we do not live in the Underdark, do not worship Lolth, and do not take slaves to be sacrificed to their insane Spider-Bitch."
"Wait," interrupted Marlo. "Are you saying...Greenvale is a drow city? The whole city - drow, not elves?"
"It is indeed. Hence our prohibitions against spellcasting within the city limits: we don't want our illusions to be seen through, as the outside world believes Greenvale to be an isolated elven community." He turned to Cramer. "How did you see through our illusions without casting any spells?" he asked, clearly intrigued.
Cramer put his mace down and climbed back into his chair; it seemed his initial reaction might have been unwarranted. "Gnomes and illusions go hand in hand," he offered. "If you suspect you're looking at an illusion, sometimes that's all it takes to see through the fakery and see what's real underneath." He thought back about his statement about wishing every drow dead. "Uh, about what I said earlier..." he began.
The purple-haired drow raised a hand. "Never mind," he reassured. "It is an understandable sentiment, but one I would hope might be amended now that you are aware of our quite different offshoot of the drow race." Then he got back to the topic at hand. "As far as Overreach goes, your House Jalamir poses the greatest threat. The Writhing Gate is particularly worrisome and something we will need to deal with, in time. But in the meantime, may I guess it is not in your interests to remain House Jalamir slaves for the rest of your lives?" He saw he had the undivided attention of all five slaves. "I thought not. Well, we have the power to remove your tattoos, but to do so would be to tip off House Jalamir you had all gained your freedom - and your current master, Calish, has been known to make examples out of the friends of escaped slaves."
"Yes," confirmed Jhasspok. "I have seen him do so." Cramer's face darkened at this thought, knowing his friend and mentor Honeycomb Buzzwart would pay the price of Cramer gaining his immediate freedom.
"Therefore, I suggest an alternative plan, one which may be instrumental in Greenvale's plans to take down House Jalamir. We will alter your tattoos, removing your inhibitions against harming drow, for one thing" - and Cramer grinned broadly at this thought - "and adding in the same type of magic that currently covers this building: if any drow were to scry on you through your tattoos they would pick up a false image of you doing something innocuous." Jhasspok and Khari looked askance at each other, neither having the slightest clue what "innocuous' might mean but trusting in their friends to decide whether to go along with this deal.
"What about N'zorthal?" Marlo asked. "By now he knows we've been disconnected from his mind. He'll know something is up - and if we put those necklaces back on he'll be able to pick up our thoughts about this conversation, about any deal we make here - about everything!"
"You need have no fears on those fronts," assured the lead guard. "The same type of magic is already in play. Your mind flayer overseer is currently under the impression that you're still wearing the necklaces and all is well - you're exploring the elven city of Greenvale to see what resources we might have that Overreach could take, as instructed. The necklaces can be modified to give him false sensations even when his tentacles are touching your skin. So, what do you say?"
Cramer didn't need much time to come to a decision. "I'm in," he said.
"As am I," added Marlo.
"Yep," said Utred.
"Sure," said Khari - if it was good enough for his fellow dwarven warrior, it was good enough for him.
"I am confused," admitted Jhasspok. "We will stop being Jalamir slaves and become Greenvale slaves?"
"Not slaves, no," started Marlo but then Utred cut in; he'd become somewhat adept at explaining things to the inexperienced lizardfolk. "We're going to pretend to still be Jalamir slaves, but we'll really be secret Greenvale slaves instead. And then, when we help take down House Jalamir, we'll be all done being slaves!"
"That's not entirely--" began Marlo.
"He understands being a slave and working for a master," Utred interrupted. "Right now, that's all he understands. For now, we'll get him working for the right master and later we can get him used to the idea of freedom." He turned back to Jhasspok. "Tell them you're in," he said.
"I'm in," dutifully reported Jhasspok. Things were so much easier when somebody told him what to do! He returned his attention to the last fish still swimming around in his bucket.
The tattoos were modified that very afternoon, after which time the group was allowed to rest for the remainder of the day. The following morning, they'd been told, they would be undergoing a final test. Cramer pushed for details but was rebuffed. "I'm sure you'll do fine," he was informed. They spent the night in comfortable guest quarters.
The next morning the five were brought back to the building with the banquet hall but instead of being greeted with a lavish spread they went immediately to a set of stairs leading down. There was a small library room with bookshelves on either side and a pair of double doors at the far end. The same two guards were acting as their escorts; not having been provided their names, the slaves referred to them as "Purple" and "Blue" when discussing them amongst themselves. And despite the slaves knowing full well their status as sunborn drow, they apparently had their headbands of disguise back on for they gave all appearances of being light-skinned surface elves - no doubt because their duties involved walking through the city above where they might be seen by a visitor.
"Your trial is a rather simple one," Purple explained. "You will be locked into one of our silk farms. Your task is merely to find the silver key hidden somewhere within which will unlock the doors. Do so and you will have passed the test. I only ask that you try not to kill too many of our silk producers. If it helps, they have been trained to fear the color purple." He smiled again, causing Cramer to wonder if the fear of the color purple had anything to do with the sunborn drow's own natural hair and eye color. If so, that might not be a good sign!
Purple opened the doors and ushered the five slaves inside. "Good luck!" he called, closing the doors behind them. There was the sound of a lock being engaged. Just to be sure, Khari tried the door - it was locked, as expected.
"So what's the plan?" he asked. "If needs be, I can knock this door down with my hammer in no time flat."
"I hardly think that's the intention of this trial," chided Marlo, looking out into the cavern ahead of them. They were in a rather cramped area at present with a purple energy field of some sort immediately in front of them but just beyond it widened out into a vast cavern with tall ceilings hidden in darkness. The cavern was unlit but from the light of the slave-light cloaks the group could see the floor was covered in hundreds - if not thousands - of spiders of varying sizes, from little ones smaller than the palm of a hand to a few almost as large as Jhasspok.
"First things first," said Cramer. "Slave-light cloaks to purple." With a mental command, the illusory flames emanating from his cloak changed colors to a deep violet. The others followed suit. Then, one by one, they stepped through the field of purple energy (a permanent repel vermin spell, keeping the spiders from leaving the area) and into the vast cavern beyond.
"Look for a silver key," Khari reminded Jhasspok, stepping cautiously into the cavern, his warhammer gripped tightly in his hands. By the expression on his face, the fearless Hammerslammer dwarf was not a particular fan of spiders. Khari went right so Jhasspok went left, each exploring the edges of the vast cavern in a different direction, looking for the telltale glint of silver. Marlo followed Khari but stayed farther from the wall, extending the scope of their search. She noticed the spiders all did their best to stay out of range of the purple illumination from their cloaks.
With his dwarven darkvision, which extended far beyond the reach of the light from the cloaks, Utred saw a thick section of webbing hanging suspended from the ceiling like a stalactite towards the middle of the cavern. He pushed forward to go check it out. The spiders scurried to get out of his way but the occasional crunch from beneath his boots indicated not all of them did so successfully. As he approached, he saw the webbing was a cocoon binding somebody tightly inside. Pulling a short sword from his belt, Utred carefully cut the webbing away, revealing a drow woman with white hair - so not a sunborn drow, then. She was breathing but unconscious.
Cramer finally stepped into the cavern proper and cast a spell he thought would be particularly useful in this trial: a locate object spell. Concentrating on the image of a silver key, the gnome's gaze was directed up toward the cavern's ceiling...where he locked eyes with a creature standing upside-down on the stone ceiling. A silver key dangled from a necklace he wore around his neck. Focusing immediately on the key at first, Cramer eventually noticed the build of the creature wearing it. From the waist up he appeared to be a drow - with silver hair, well within the normal color standards of that race. From the waist down, however, his body was that of an enormous, silver spider, whose eight legs were spread out in a wide circle ensuring his firm grip on the cavern ceiling. In each hand he held a longsword.
"Erm...hello," said Cramer. "I wonder if we might borrow that key for a moment?"
T'puuli Tyne said nothing but was silently intrigued and somewhat impressed that the gnome's initial reaction to seeing a drider was to attempt negotiations rather than immediately attack. Still, he understood the party's true test was what they would do with Niradi so he walked across the ceiling towards Cramer, then scampered down the wall in a rush until he stood directly before him, longswords out and pointed in the gnome's direction.
Utred, however, had his back turned to all of this and was paying more attention to the unconscious drow woman in his arms, for he had sliced through the webbing keeping her cocoon hanging from the ceiling. And now, there at her throat, he saw what he'd at first taken for a necklace ornament: a silver key! "Guys!" he called. "I found it!" Rather than try to remove the necklace from her, he hoisted the entire cocoon and started lugging her back to the double doors.
Jhasspok had made it to the back of the cavern by then and Marlo and Khari were across the way from him when Utred called out his findings. They all turned and saw Utred hauling a cocooned form back toward the doors, which led them to seeing Cramer facing the drider. "We don't want to take it from you permanently," Cramer insisted. "We'll give it right back, that's my absolute promise to you."
"What's he trying to do?" Jhasspok asked, catching up to the dwarven barbarian.
"Get the drider to give him the key," Utred answered.
"What drider? Where? Is he behind the elf-spider thing?"
"The drider is the elf-spider thing!" hissed Utred.
With sudden realization, Jhasspok hit upon why the gnome's dealings were not meeting with success: Cramer had forgotten about money! Reaching into his pack, Jhasspok called out to the drider, "I will give you a square piece of metal for the key!" When that failed, he tried sweetening the deal by upping it to two slave-coins, then two slave-coins and a dried dung beetle snack from his personal stock. The drider just stared at the approaching lizardfolk impassively, his blades still pointed at Cramer.
"If you do not give us the key," threatened Jhasspok, "I will attack you with my sword." He pulled out his short sword, hoping to get the drider to face him and move his own two longswords away from Cramer's neck. But still the drider held off his attacks and by doing so he made Marlo hesitant to throw a magic missile his way - it seemed wrong to initiate combat against someone who had so far done them no harm.
"Very well," said T'puuli, sheathing his swords in a rapid maneuver. "This trial has been successfully completed to my satisfaction."
"Found the key," beamed Utred, nodding to the woman bound up in his arms. Then, seeing the silver key around the drider's neck, he corrected himself with, "Found two of 'em!" He set down his burden as the others approached.
"Isn't that--?" began Marlo, recognizing the unconscious drow woman before her. She couldn't dredge up her name but it was the apprentice weaver they'd rescued from the House Jalamir slave market in Overreach.
"Niradi Ky'hulcressen," supplied T'puuli while Cramer cast a healing spell on the apprentice weaver. She regained consciousness as Utred cut the rest of the web-cocoon away. "Hello again," she said to the burly dwarf.
"The true nature of your test," said T'puuli, "was what you would do to a helpless drow before you. The fact that you refused to attack me as well is merely an additional indicator of your worthiness to the task at hand."
"What exactly are you?" demanded Khari.
"I am a drider, but not one in the traditional sense. Many years ago, my mother, a traditional drow woman, fell in love with a celestial. This angered Lolth, who cursed my birth, causing me to be born in this form."
"What's a celestial?" whispered Jhasspok, looking to Utred who usually had the answers.
Utred thought about it for a moment. "A sky-fish," he answered quietly.
"Oh. Thanks," whispered Jhasspok back. That Utred sure was smart!
"My mother was from House Ky'hulcressen. They worship Eilistraee, who they believe to be the true drow goddess, and view the rest of the drow to have been kidnapped by Lolth. The surface city of Greenvale was founded by House Ky'hulcressen, as a haven for those not fully corrupted by the Spider-Bitch. Unfortunately, the Elderwood elves refuse to acknowledge any distinction between Eilistraee and Lolth, viewing all drow as inherently evil. They have slain the ambassadors we have sent out into the wider world, forcing Greenvale to hide our true nature from the rest of the surface."
"That's terrible!" commiserated Marlo.
"House Jalamir, we have determined, is our greatest threat from the Overreach, as with the Writhing Gate under their control they have become the primary source of slaves for the city and thus the greatest threat toward Greenvale's attempts at peace with the surface races. We believe, with the aid of the nearby surface kingdoms, we can coordinate an assault on House Jalamir, ending their threat to the world once and for all. To that eventual end, we will need you to act as spies against Jalamir. You must keep up the pretense of 'serving' Calish for the time being, all while actively working to overthrow the drow of Overreach."
"I'm in!" Cramer said at once and the other four all followed suit.
"So what do we do next?" asked Marlo.
"Your current mission on the surface is to explore the area and see what resources are available for plunder by House Jalamir," explained T'puuli. "While you are doing that, you can serve as Greenvale ambassadors in our stead. The local kingdoms will not automatically try to kill you, as you do not have the black skin of a drow." Discussing the matter further, the group decided against returning to the Elderwood to try to plead their case - they were already too suspicious of the Jalamir slaves wearing the magic cloaks of their own assassins; better by far to approach several of the other nearby kingdoms and convince them of Greenvale's trustworthiness. Perhaps, in the future, a coalition of allied kingdoms would have a better chance of swaying the Elderwood to their cause.
"We will give you silk to deliver to the nearest human kingdom," suggested T'puuli. "Rather than go back through the Elderwood the way you came, you can cut through the rugged landscape to go there by a more direct path. And while you're there, you'll be collecting information for Calish about the resources available in the lands above, just as you've been directed to do."
"I like it," said Cramer.
- - -
This adventure didn't go anywhere near how Logan expected, he confessed to us (after we completed the session over an hour earlier than anticipated). For one thing, he hadn't taken Dan's inherent suspiciousness into account and thus hadn't been planning on having us know the Greenvale elves were all drow until later. Then we surprised him again by not leaping into battle with the drider. (The mini had been a Christmas present; I teased him later that he'd spent much more time painting it than being able to put it to much use.)
So, not much in the way of combat this time - in fact, I think our only die rolls were initiative when we entered the cavern - oh, and Dan's Will save to see through the illusory disguises of Purple and Blue. And Logan showed Joey the Niradi Ky'hulcressen initiative card when Utred first cut her from the cocoon, but he didn't recognize her - I guess all drow women look alike to a battle-hardened dwarven barbarian!
I also want to document a fantastic pun. When T'puuli was describing how the Elderwood elves saw no difference between Lolth and Eilistraee, Dan asked, "Really? Did you show them an eilistration of what they look like?" Everyone groaned - but in my case it was at not having come up with that myself first!
PC Roster:
Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 3
Jhasspok, lizardfolk 3
Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 3
Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 3
Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 3
Game Session Date: 15 January 2020
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The elven guards led the five Jalamir slaves into a building. They were surprised to see a long table awaiting them in what was quite obviously a banquet hall; lunch was brought out for them while Tock observed everything from his perch at one end of the table. Jhasspok, puzzling over a suitable chair configuration (he eventually turned it sideways so his tail could hang off the back end without running up against the chair's back, which then served as an armrest for his left arm), was surprised to see the lunch that had been prepared for him: a wooden bucket, inside which were a pair of actual fish! And normal fish, too, with proper fins and everything - not those weird fish with legs and wings that sat on tree branches and sang.
"These are for me to eat?" Jhasspok asked. He had assumed that to be the case but didn't want to have guessed wrong.
"By all means," smiled the lead elven guard - the one with the purple hair and eyes. "Please, enjoy your meals while we talk." The other four slaves had a quite different fare, served on plates with the standard eating utensils. They tucked into their meals but before Utred started on his own plate of food he asked the elves if he could keep Jhasspok's bucket after the lizardfolk had finished with it.
"I, uh - sure, I suppose," stuttered the blue-haired elf. It wasn't a question he'd been expecting. Marlo frowned at the dwarven barbarian, wondering what his fetish about buckets was all about.
Jhasspok reached into his pouch and pulled out a slave-coin. "I will give you this square piece of metal for the fish," he offered.
"No, that's not necessary," replied the guard, smiling. Jhasspok frowned in confusion; he thought he'd finally had this "money" thing figured out but apparently it was more complicated than he had imagined.
"Before we begin our discussions in earnest," began the purple-haired elf, "I would like to point out that this entire building has a false-image anti-scrying field around it: anybody casting a scry spell - say, through your tattoos, for instance - will receive a false image of you doing something perfectly innocuous." He didn't mention the room was also covered in a zone of truth spell; if these slaves tried lying to their elven hosts, they'd know the falsehoods for what they were. Of course, that worked both ways but at least the elves were aware of the situation and could choose their words accordingly.
"You know about our tattoos?" asked Cramer. The little gnome wasn't particularly surprised, as the guards had intimated as much before ushering them in here. The fact they'd also known about the ring gate necklaces by which the mind flayer N'zorthal kept track of them also spoke volumes about how much they understood the ways of the drow of the Overreach. How they knew so much was a mystery Cramer was itching to find out.
"We know quite a bit," the guard replied. "But what we'd like to know is how much House Jalamir knows about Greenvale."
Cramer gave the question some thought. "I'm not aware of any of the drow knowing about Greenvale," he answered truthfully. "If they did, they never discussed it with us."
"We only learned about it ourselves yesterday," Khari added, chewing on a chicken leg. "The caravan people we attacked had said they were coming here, and we saw it on the map we took from them."
"May I ask about your hair?" interrupted Marlo. "It's very distinctive. I've never seen elves with blue or purple hair."
The purple-haired elf smiled again. "Some of us born in Greenvale are born with an unusual hair and eye color," he replied. "Those of us with such a trait who go on to develop magical talents often find their spell effects tend to reflect the same color. Were I a wizard, for example, my magic missiles would undoubtedly be purple." Marlo found the concept intriguing.
"May I ask how you came to the surface?" asked the purple-haired elf, returning the conversation to more important points.
"There's this thing called the Writhing Gate," began Cramer. "It's a sort of immobile teleportation circle without a set end-point; it's activated from its Underdark location by mind flayers working for the drow of Overreach, who used it to send us to the surface. At the end of our two-week scouting session it'll open back up and we'll use it to return. My understanding is that N'zorthal can program it to send us pretty much anywhere. And it's open-ended: he set it to drop us next to a caravan, but not any particular one."
"Interesting," replied the guard.
"You don't know the half of it! It looks like ten long tentacles, and that's exactly what they are - but they're just the tips of ten out a hundred or so tentacles coming from the severed head of an eldritch monstrosity called the Dying One." Cramer looked over to Marlo as he said this but the sorceress was suddenly devoting her full attention to her salad. In so doing, the gnomish cleric missed the astonished looks the two elven guards gave each other.
"Can you tell us more of this Dying One?"
"I don't know much more myself, but we met up with this blind elven prophet in the caravan we attacked and she said something about needing to finish what Wee Jas had started. I gather it was her, the Goddess of Death and Magic, who brought the Dying One to his, well, dying state. I gather he's an Elder God or something." Cramer took a bite of his food and then said, "My turn for a question: what's the connection between Greenvale and Overreach, exactly? And why do the elves of the Elderwood hate you guys so much?"
"We have covert agents inside Overreach," explained the lead guard. "They were uncovered by the Elderwood agents, who then assumed we had been working together."
"Those assassins we fought?" Marlo asked. "The fake drow?"
"Yes, they were Elderwood agents," explained the purple-haired elf.
"Pity they were really just elves with full-body tattoos making them look like drow," Cramer interjected. "I'd have been happier knowing it was actual drow we'd killed. If I had my way, I'd see all the damned drow dead!" The two guards gave each other a significant glance at that remark.
"So your agents, were they in the same get-up?" asked Utred. "Full-body tattoos making them look like drow?" The question seemed to make the purple-haired elf uncomfortable; finally, he hesitantly answered, "...No."
"Magic, then, I guess," hazarded Utred. He was a simple dwarf, "magic" was a believable answer to anything he didn't understand. But the elven guards didn't answer, allowing the barbarian to drawn his own conclusions, even if they were erroneous.
However, Cramer had picked up on the elves' evasiveness. He stared at the two elves sitting across the table from him, focusing the full powers of his concentration on the one with the blue hair. The elf returned the gnome's gaze somewhat nervously, wondering what the suspicious stare was all about. He let a hand stray unconsciously to the back of his head, running his fingers absently through his blue hair.
"Crap!" exploded Cramer, leaping down from his chair and grabbing for the mace hanging at his belt.
"What is it?" demanded Marlo, looking up from her meal at the sudden commotion.
"They're drow!" Cramer called. "It's a trap!" But despite the accusation, the two elves remained calmly sitting at the banquet table, making no sudden moves to attack. Khari looked at the elves, then back over to Cramer. "Those aren't drow," he tried explaining to his gnomish friend, trying to figure out how the little cleric could have made such an obvious mistake. "Drow have black skin, for one thing."
With a sigh and an exasperated look between each other, the two elves reached up behind their heads and pulled at something unseen. "No, Cramer is quite correct," replied the purple-haired guard. At once, the skin of the two elves darkened to an almost black color as the guards pulled away invisible ribbons they'd had in their hair like headbands. Their oddly-colored hair, however, remained the same vibrant blue and purple hues. "We are, in fact, drow - but we are not allies of the drow in Overreach. Quite the opposite, in fact."
Cramer looked from one to the other of the drow, his mace still in his hand. "You'd better explain," he suggested.
"We are 'sunborn' drow," the lead guard said. "For some reason not fully understood, drow born on the surface and exposed to the sun at birth have hair and eye colors not normally associated with the normal members of our race. We are different from normal drow in other ways as well: we do not live in the Underdark, do not worship Lolth, and do not take slaves to be sacrificed to their insane Spider-Bitch."
"Wait," interrupted Marlo. "Are you saying...Greenvale is a drow city? The whole city - drow, not elves?"
"It is indeed. Hence our prohibitions against spellcasting within the city limits: we don't want our illusions to be seen through, as the outside world believes Greenvale to be an isolated elven community." He turned to Cramer. "How did you see through our illusions without casting any spells?" he asked, clearly intrigued.
Cramer put his mace down and climbed back into his chair; it seemed his initial reaction might have been unwarranted. "Gnomes and illusions go hand in hand," he offered. "If you suspect you're looking at an illusion, sometimes that's all it takes to see through the fakery and see what's real underneath." He thought back about his statement about wishing every drow dead. "Uh, about what I said earlier..." he began.
The purple-haired drow raised a hand. "Never mind," he reassured. "It is an understandable sentiment, but one I would hope might be amended now that you are aware of our quite different offshoot of the drow race." Then he got back to the topic at hand. "As far as Overreach goes, your House Jalamir poses the greatest threat. The Writhing Gate is particularly worrisome and something we will need to deal with, in time. But in the meantime, may I guess it is not in your interests to remain House Jalamir slaves for the rest of your lives?" He saw he had the undivided attention of all five slaves. "I thought not. Well, we have the power to remove your tattoos, but to do so would be to tip off House Jalamir you had all gained your freedom - and your current master, Calish, has been known to make examples out of the friends of escaped slaves."
"Yes," confirmed Jhasspok. "I have seen him do so." Cramer's face darkened at this thought, knowing his friend and mentor Honeycomb Buzzwart would pay the price of Cramer gaining his immediate freedom.
"Therefore, I suggest an alternative plan, one which may be instrumental in Greenvale's plans to take down House Jalamir. We will alter your tattoos, removing your inhibitions against harming drow, for one thing" - and Cramer grinned broadly at this thought - "and adding in the same type of magic that currently covers this building: if any drow were to scry on you through your tattoos they would pick up a false image of you doing something innocuous." Jhasspok and Khari looked askance at each other, neither having the slightest clue what "innocuous' might mean but trusting in their friends to decide whether to go along with this deal.
"What about N'zorthal?" Marlo asked. "By now he knows we've been disconnected from his mind. He'll know something is up - and if we put those necklaces back on he'll be able to pick up our thoughts about this conversation, about any deal we make here - about everything!"
"You need have no fears on those fronts," assured the lead guard. "The same type of magic is already in play. Your mind flayer overseer is currently under the impression that you're still wearing the necklaces and all is well - you're exploring the elven city of Greenvale to see what resources we might have that Overreach could take, as instructed. The necklaces can be modified to give him false sensations even when his tentacles are touching your skin. So, what do you say?"
Cramer didn't need much time to come to a decision. "I'm in," he said.
"As am I," added Marlo.
"Yep," said Utred.
"Sure," said Khari - if it was good enough for his fellow dwarven warrior, it was good enough for him.
"I am confused," admitted Jhasspok. "We will stop being Jalamir slaves and become Greenvale slaves?"
"Not slaves, no," started Marlo but then Utred cut in; he'd become somewhat adept at explaining things to the inexperienced lizardfolk. "We're going to pretend to still be Jalamir slaves, but we'll really be secret Greenvale slaves instead. And then, when we help take down House Jalamir, we'll be all done being slaves!"
"That's not entirely--" began Marlo.
"He understands being a slave and working for a master," Utred interrupted. "Right now, that's all he understands. For now, we'll get him working for the right master and later we can get him used to the idea of freedom." He turned back to Jhasspok. "Tell them you're in," he said.
"I'm in," dutifully reported Jhasspok. Things were so much easier when somebody told him what to do! He returned his attention to the last fish still swimming around in his bucket.
The tattoos were modified that very afternoon, after which time the group was allowed to rest for the remainder of the day. The following morning, they'd been told, they would be undergoing a final test. Cramer pushed for details but was rebuffed. "I'm sure you'll do fine," he was informed. They spent the night in comfortable guest quarters.
The next morning the five were brought back to the building with the banquet hall but instead of being greeted with a lavish spread they went immediately to a set of stairs leading down. There was a small library room with bookshelves on either side and a pair of double doors at the far end. The same two guards were acting as their escorts; not having been provided their names, the slaves referred to them as "Purple" and "Blue" when discussing them amongst themselves. And despite the slaves knowing full well their status as sunborn drow, they apparently had their headbands of disguise back on for they gave all appearances of being light-skinned surface elves - no doubt because their duties involved walking through the city above where they might be seen by a visitor.
"Your trial is a rather simple one," Purple explained. "You will be locked into one of our silk farms. Your task is merely to find the silver key hidden somewhere within which will unlock the doors. Do so and you will have passed the test. I only ask that you try not to kill too many of our silk producers. If it helps, they have been trained to fear the color purple." He smiled again, causing Cramer to wonder if the fear of the color purple had anything to do with the sunborn drow's own natural hair and eye color. If so, that might not be a good sign!
Purple opened the doors and ushered the five slaves inside. "Good luck!" he called, closing the doors behind them. There was the sound of a lock being engaged. Just to be sure, Khari tried the door - it was locked, as expected.
"So what's the plan?" he asked. "If needs be, I can knock this door down with my hammer in no time flat."
"I hardly think that's the intention of this trial," chided Marlo, looking out into the cavern ahead of them. They were in a rather cramped area at present with a purple energy field of some sort immediately in front of them but just beyond it widened out into a vast cavern with tall ceilings hidden in darkness. The cavern was unlit but from the light of the slave-light cloaks the group could see the floor was covered in hundreds - if not thousands - of spiders of varying sizes, from little ones smaller than the palm of a hand to a few almost as large as Jhasspok.
"First things first," said Cramer. "Slave-light cloaks to purple." With a mental command, the illusory flames emanating from his cloak changed colors to a deep violet. The others followed suit. Then, one by one, they stepped through the field of purple energy (a permanent repel vermin spell, keeping the spiders from leaving the area) and into the vast cavern beyond.
"Look for a silver key," Khari reminded Jhasspok, stepping cautiously into the cavern, his warhammer gripped tightly in his hands. By the expression on his face, the fearless Hammerslammer dwarf was not a particular fan of spiders. Khari went right so Jhasspok went left, each exploring the edges of the vast cavern in a different direction, looking for the telltale glint of silver. Marlo followed Khari but stayed farther from the wall, extending the scope of their search. She noticed the spiders all did their best to stay out of range of the purple illumination from their cloaks.
With his dwarven darkvision, which extended far beyond the reach of the light from the cloaks, Utred saw a thick section of webbing hanging suspended from the ceiling like a stalactite towards the middle of the cavern. He pushed forward to go check it out. The spiders scurried to get out of his way but the occasional crunch from beneath his boots indicated not all of them did so successfully. As he approached, he saw the webbing was a cocoon binding somebody tightly inside. Pulling a short sword from his belt, Utred carefully cut the webbing away, revealing a drow woman with white hair - so not a sunborn drow, then. She was breathing but unconscious.
Cramer finally stepped into the cavern proper and cast a spell he thought would be particularly useful in this trial: a locate object spell. Concentrating on the image of a silver key, the gnome's gaze was directed up toward the cavern's ceiling...where he locked eyes with a creature standing upside-down on the stone ceiling. A silver key dangled from a necklace he wore around his neck. Focusing immediately on the key at first, Cramer eventually noticed the build of the creature wearing it. From the waist up he appeared to be a drow - with silver hair, well within the normal color standards of that race. From the waist down, however, his body was that of an enormous, silver spider, whose eight legs were spread out in a wide circle ensuring his firm grip on the cavern ceiling. In each hand he held a longsword.
"Erm...hello," said Cramer. "I wonder if we might borrow that key for a moment?"
T'puuli Tyne said nothing but was silently intrigued and somewhat impressed that the gnome's initial reaction to seeing a drider was to attempt negotiations rather than immediately attack. Still, he understood the party's true test was what they would do with Niradi so he walked across the ceiling towards Cramer, then scampered down the wall in a rush until he stood directly before him, longswords out and pointed in the gnome's direction.
Utred, however, had his back turned to all of this and was paying more attention to the unconscious drow woman in his arms, for he had sliced through the webbing keeping her cocoon hanging from the ceiling. And now, there at her throat, he saw what he'd at first taken for a necklace ornament: a silver key! "Guys!" he called. "I found it!" Rather than try to remove the necklace from her, he hoisted the entire cocoon and started lugging her back to the double doors.
Jhasspok had made it to the back of the cavern by then and Marlo and Khari were across the way from him when Utred called out his findings. They all turned and saw Utred hauling a cocooned form back toward the doors, which led them to seeing Cramer facing the drider. "We don't want to take it from you permanently," Cramer insisted. "We'll give it right back, that's my absolute promise to you."
"What's he trying to do?" Jhasspok asked, catching up to the dwarven barbarian.
"Get the drider to give him the key," Utred answered.
"What drider? Where? Is he behind the elf-spider thing?"
"The drider is the elf-spider thing!" hissed Utred.
With sudden realization, Jhasspok hit upon why the gnome's dealings were not meeting with success: Cramer had forgotten about money! Reaching into his pack, Jhasspok called out to the drider, "I will give you a square piece of metal for the key!" When that failed, he tried sweetening the deal by upping it to two slave-coins, then two slave-coins and a dried dung beetle snack from his personal stock. The drider just stared at the approaching lizardfolk impassively, his blades still pointed at Cramer.
"If you do not give us the key," threatened Jhasspok, "I will attack you with my sword." He pulled out his short sword, hoping to get the drider to face him and move his own two longswords away from Cramer's neck. But still the drider held off his attacks and by doing so he made Marlo hesitant to throw a magic missile his way - it seemed wrong to initiate combat against someone who had so far done them no harm.
"Very well," said T'puuli, sheathing his swords in a rapid maneuver. "This trial has been successfully completed to my satisfaction."
"Found the key," beamed Utred, nodding to the woman bound up in his arms. Then, seeing the silver key around the drider's neck, he corrected himself with, "Found two of 'em!" He set down his burden as the others approached.
"Isn't that--?" began Marlo, recognizing the unconscious drow woman before her. She couldn't dredge up her name but it was the apprentice weaver they'd rescued from the House Jalamir slave market in Overreach.
"Niradi Ky'hulcressen," supplied T'puuli while Cramer cast a healing spell on the apprentice weaver. She regained consciousness as Utred cut the rest of the web-cocoon away. "Hello again," she said to the burly dwarf.
"The true nature of your test," said T'puuli, "was what you would do to a helpless drow before you. The fact that you refused to attack me as well is merely an additional indicator of your worthiness to the task at hand."
"What exactly are you?" demanded Khari.
"I am a drider, but not one in the traditional sense. Many years ago, my mother, a traditional drow woman, fell in love with a celestial. This angered Lolth, who cursed my birth, causing me to be born in this form."
"What's a celestial?" whispered Jhasspok, looking to Utred who usually had the answers.
Utred thought about it for a moment. "A sky-fish," he answered quietly.
"Oh. Thanks," whispered Jhasspok back. That Utred sure was smart!
"My mother was from House Ky'hulcressen. They worship Eilistraee, who they believe to be the true drow goddess, and view the rest of the drow to have been kidnapped by Lolth. The surface city of Greenvale was founded by House Ky'hulcressen, as a haven for those not fully corrupted by the Spider-Bitch. Unfortunately, the Elderwood elves refuse to acknowledge any distinction between Eilistraee and Lolth, viewing all drow as inherently evil. They have slain the ambassadors we have sent out into the wider world, forcing Greenvale to hide our true nature from the rest of the surface."
"That's terrible!" commiserated Marlo.
"House Jalamir, we have determined, is our greatest threat from the Overreach, as with the Writhing Gate under their control they have become the primary source of slaves for the city and thus the greatest threat toward Greenvale's attempts at peace with the surface races. We believe, with the aid of the nearby surface kingdoms, we can coordinate an assault on House Jalamir, ending their threat to the world once and for all. To that eventual end, we will need you to act as spies against Jalamir. You must keep up the pretense of 'serving' Calish for the time being, all while actively working to overthrow the drow of Overreach."
"I'm in!" Cramer said at once and the other four all followed suit.
"So what do we do next?" asked Marlo.
"Your current mission on the surface is to explore the area and see what resources are available for plunder by House Jalamir," explained T'puuli. "While you are doing that, you can serve as Greenvale ambassadors in our stead. The local kingdoms will not automatically try to kill you, as you do not have the black skin of a drow." Discussing the matter further, the group decided against returning to the Elderwood to try to plead their case - they were already too suspicious of the Jalamir slaves wearing the magic cloaks of their own assassins; better by far to approach several of the other nearby kingdoms and convince them of Greenvale's trustworthiness. Perhaps, in the future, a coalition of allied kingdoms would have a better chance of swaying the Elderwood to their cause.
"We will give you silk to deliver to the nearest human kingdom," suggested T'puuli. "Rather than go back through the Elderwood the way you came, you can cut through the rugged landscape to go there by a more direct path. And while you're there, you'll be collecting information for Calish about the resources available in the lands above, just as you've been directed to do."
"I like it," said Cramer.
- - -
This adventure didn't go anywhere near how Logan expected, he confessed to us (after we completed the session over an hour earlier than anticipated). For one thing, he hadn't taken Dan's inherent suspiciousness into account and thus hadn't been planning on having us know the Greenvale elves were all drow until later. Then we surprised him again by not leaping into battle with the drider. (The mini had been a Christmas present; I teased him later that he'd spent much more time painting it than being able to put it to much use.)
So, not much in the way of combat this time - in fact, I think our only die rolls were initiative when we entered the cavern - oh, and Dan's Will save to see through the illusory disguises of Purple and Blue. And Logan showed Joey the Niradi Ky'hulcressen initiative card when Utred first cut her from the cocoon, but he didn't recognize her - I guess all drow women look alike to a battle-hardened dwarven barbarian!
I also want to document a fantastic pun. When T'puuli was describing how the Elderwood elves saw no difference between Lolth and Eilistraee, Dan asked, "Really? Did you show them an eilistration of what they look like?" Everyone groaned - but in my case it was at not having come up with that myself first!
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