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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 6206668" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 367Q & ASlowly, Ernie opens the door from behind which the snoring is coming. There is (unsurprisingly) someone asleep in a bed, a creature of the same race as the doomed priests from the Temple. His skin is a mossy green, heavily wrinkled. He is eight feet tall and broad-shouldered, but the bed is sized for his kind. Grey Wolf pokes his head in and sees a staff leaning up against the wall next to the bed, but there is no sign of armor or weapons. Grey Wolf casts mage hand and taps the sleeping figure on the shoulder. The tall man’s eyes open; he blinks a few times and sits up slightly, looking confused.“Hello,” says Ernie from the doorway.“We’re the saviors,” Dranko adds. “Sorry we’re late.”“Not sure I would have opened with that,” Grey Wolf grumbles.“Sorry to wake you,” says Kibi. “But you’re the first living being we’ve seen down here.”The creature sits up fully, his body folding and unfolding in ways that are just slightly wrong due to his odd physiology. He speaks in a strange tongue that is translated into heavily accented common by Parthol’s stones.“You are… late.”“We’re not late,” says Ernie. “Just those jerks were here first.”The creature looks at them askance and cocks his head.  It’s tricky for the members of the Company to make themselves understood; they are talking too much, and garbling the thought-parts of their speech. When the native creature had spoken, it was mostly subvocalizing, but he was also thinking what he was saying, directly, and employing a rudimentary form of telepathy to augment that. But Parthol’s beads are up to the task of mimicking this odd half-thought communication.“You are very late. But better late than never. So, you have come from the Temple, then?”“Yeah,” says Dranko. “We’ve put all your people to rest.”“Then you have dealt, I trust, with the creatures.”  He looks at them carefully with green, oversized eyes. “Seven from Outside,” he intones, as if reciting something from memory. “And here you are, seven from the Outside.”“I’m Ernie.”“I am Toq.”Toq stands up and stretches. His arms are freakishly long.“Is this Kessedth?” asks Kibi.“Yes. And what is your name?”“I’m Kibilhathur Bimson.”“He’s the opener,” says Dranko.“Is that important?”The Company has by now all moved into the room, and they introduce themselves to Toq one by one.  They make sure to stress that the temple is now safe for visitors.Toq makes some odd clicking noises in his throat. “But now there is no reason to go, because you are here. I suppose the most devout may wish to see the place, but there is no longer the chance of meeting you coming down.”“Were you expecting us at a particular time?” asks Kibi.“Everyone had a different guess,” Toq replies. “For 900 years people have been guessing.”“What did the legends say we were going to do?” asks Ernie.“Yavin’s Prophecy,” says Toq. “Yavin is the Sister God of…”  Here he speaks a word that Parthol’s stones find difficult to translate, but more-or-less means ‘she who solves problems peacefully.’   “The Prophecy of Yavin is very simple,” Toq continues. “That deep in the heart of the Underdark is that which will mean the end of all things, all life. But seven from the outside will come to set things right. That is all there is.”Kibi nods. “And the Circlet will take us?”“It has been waiting there for you for almost a thousand years.”“Well, it’s not there now,” says the dwarf.“So,” says Dranko, “if you had a circlet like that, and someone stole it, and it was supposed to tell you where to go next… where would you go next?”“I don’t know,” says Toq. “A group of many pilgrims went up, one came back, saying something horrible had happened, and everyone was dead, and the Circlet was gone. But no one ever attacked the town.”“Wait a minute,” says Ernie. “If no one attacked, but the only way down from the temple is through Kessedh, where did Meledien and Tarsos go?  “They must have disguised themselves, or snuck through at night,” says Dranko.“Next we sent an armed force up to the temple,” said Toq. “None of them came back either, so we locked the doors, added the glyphs, and sent out warnings that people should stay far away from this place. After that, slowly, one by one, the inhabitants of Kessedth, many of whom have been my friends for a long time, left to go elsewhere. Mostly to Emmenth. Now it is only me. I thought someone should stay behind. The danger did not seem so great, as the creatures in the temple did not seem interested in traveling all this way. The doors were locked and sealed, and I have plenty of food and water, thanks be to Yavin.”“For your steadfastness, may you be blessed with long life and great riches and peace,” said Dranko.“That is very nice,” said Toq.“Are you a priest of your people?” asked Morningstar.“I am a farmer-priest. I tend to my gardens.”“”Anything else you can tell us?” asked Dranko.“Yes,” said Toq. “We did see one stranger, but she did not come from up, but from down.  Not a Zeraphin like myself, and not one of the Stribe. She was of a race I had not seen, and she asked about the temple, and whether someone had come from there. She was… arrogant, I would say. Disrespectful.”“Did she wear red armor?” asked Morningstar.“No, but her skin was red, and horns curved out of her head like a macoot.  She radiated power, and an unconcern for us.  But when we told her no one had come from the temple, she lost interest, and she left, in the direction of the Crystal Wood.” Dranko raised an eyebrow. “Crystal wood?”“That tunnel there goes to the Crystal Wood, but there are no riches left there to be harvested.”“And she hasn’t come back?”“No… that was two months ago.”Aravis draws pictures of Rosetta and of Meledien, but Toq shakes his head when he looks at them. “Who are the Stribe?” asks Morningstar.“They are… how do you say… bugs.  But we do trade with them. They are not hostile. Not very communicative. They have thriving cities.”“So we’ve got you, the Stribe, and red-skin lady. Anyone else?” asks Dranko.“The Stribe and the Zeraphin are the only races who live in this region. There are others, I’m sure, far off in other directions, but we do not know them.”“Are there any predators we should know about?”“Ah, yes,” says Toq. “Living in the darkness and tunnels. You should be careful of the peshovar.  They are very big. Hard shell. Tail with big ball on the end. Teeth in the front. They stay away from civilized areas, and I have not seen one in a long time, but they sometimes prowl the dark tunnels and caves.”Dranko gestures to the shining dust motes in the air. “Do you know what the light is made out of?”“It is light,” says Toq. “It is not made out of anything.”“Our light comes from a huge ball of fire in the sky,” says Morningstar.“Sky?”“Imagine there was no ceiling,” says Dranko, “and open air just went up and up and up…”“That sounds horrible!” Toq exclaims.“I could show you…” says Morningstar.“Show me what’s it like without a roof?  No!”“It’s wonderful,” says Morningstar.“No! I think perhaps you are not yet speaking our language correctly.”“We find having a roof always over our head to be… confining,” says Morningstar. “Constricting.”“Speak for yourself!” Kibi grumbles.“We find it comforting to know, to understand the boundary of the world,” says Toq. They talk for a while longer about cultural and racial differences between the surface world and the Underdark, before the Company turns the conversation to the local Gods, purported to walk among mortals.“There are two Sister Gods,” Toq explains. “Yavin and Wlaqua.  Do not have truck with Wlaqua.  She is a Goddess of …”  Again, the translation is spotty, but it comes across as “she who solves problems with violence.”“We solve problems with violence,” Ernie points out.“So you serve Yavin,” says Morningstar. “Yes. Almost all of the Zeraphim and the Stribe do, though here and there you may find a bad seed who reveres Wlaqua.”“Are there other Gods?” asks Dranko.“The Sister Gods would not allow other Gods. I shudder to think what they would do if they found any.”Aravis tries not to look as nervous as this suggestion makes him feel.“Have you ever seen Yavin walking around?” Dranko asks.“Alas, it has never been my good fortune to see Yavin.  But She will sometimes manifest in people, when she feels it appropriate.  Here in the Outward North, Yavin is ascendant.  But I understand that as you go south and down, you will reach places where Wlaqua is more influential.”“So worship is not divided among races?” asks Ernie.“No, it is personal, though I imagine most races are naturally inclined to worship one or the other.” “Do you have a creation myth?” asks Morningstar. “How the Sisters came to be here?”“They were once like us,” says Toq, “but they grew in strength, and then found a source of great power, and ascended to Godhood. At first there was great strife between them, but as  neither could destroy the other, they reached an accord.”“And where did they find a source of divine power?” asks Ernie.“The legends do not say. But it is my belief that the earth itself… we call it Abernia… endowed them with the power.”“Have you noticed anything strange happening in the past few months?” asks Kibi. “On the surface, our fish are dying.”“That is happening in places here, too,” says Toq. “Strange deaths of sea creatures, that correspond with earthquakes, which are happening more frequently than usual.”“What we are supposed to do, will stop that,” says Kibi.There are several tunnels that lead out of the village of Kessedth, and the Company asks Toq about where they go.“If you go that way,” says Toq, pointing to the nearest tunnel, “you will have to duck under. The tunnel has only recently been built. It goes directly to the Stribe capital of Keshem, where I think there is a Leaping Circle.”That gets the party’s attention. He must be talking about the teleportation circles Parthol had mentioned. “Where does it lead to?” asks Dranko.Toq shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably another Stribe city. I do know that the Stribe restrict its use greatly.”  He points to the next tunnel. “That way takes you to the Croaking Oracle. I have never actually seen it, and I don’t intend to. I have no questions I want answered badly enough.”“Is there a price?” asks Ernie.“I don’t think there is a price you have to pay, but if you want better answers, it prefers you bring a live Stribe to eat. It is a big toad. It likes to eat insects. It sits in the middle of the Pressing Lake. It is said to have perfect knowledge of all things in the Underdark.”“Could we bring it a peshovar?” asks Dranko.“That is not an insect. It is more of a reptile,” says Toq.The Company is not happy about feeding the toad a sentient creature, but figure they might be able to feed it something else. Toq tells them the Croaking Oracle is not far, maybe a week’s walk to get to Pressing Lake. The oracular toad is said to live on an island in the middle of the lake.”Before conferring on which of these place to go next, Dranko asks about the gray crystal chits. “Ah, those are khet chips,” says Toq. Dranko then shows the mithril squares. “Those are bits,” says Toq. “Ten bits to a khet.”“Wait,” says Ernie. “the crystal is more valuable than the mithril?”“Of course,” says Toq. “Mithril is commonplace.  Not quite as commonplace as those other gems…” here he points to the diamonds and sapphires in Dranko’s palm, the ones found at the Temple of Arrival. “The khet only come from crystal khet trres, that grow in groves around the Underdark, very slowly. If you own one and control the growing of them, it is good for your people, but they circulate about.”Dranko looks crestfallen. “So, the emeralds and sapphires and diamonds…”“They are pretty,” says Toq. He points to a sapphire in Dranko’s hand, one probably worth five hundred gold pieces on the surface. “That is probably worth half a khet, to someone who wants to use it for a craft of some kind.”Dranko takes off his gem-studded helm of brilliance, for which he paid tens of thousands of gold pieces not long ago.  “What would you say this is worth, then?”Toq looks it over. “Not a great deal. But the craftsmanship is nice.”Dranko tries not to cry.…to be continued…</blockquote>

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