Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1312895" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #7: The Red Witch - Episode 2 of 5Everyone has had a chance to speak their mind, and the group is about evenly split. Clearly democracy cannot provide an answer, and Miriel has been our moral compass. Everyone looks to her expectantly.The priestess considers the case, her brow furrowed. The tableau seems to stretch at length. Milo begins to fidget impatiently. Finally, Miriel looks up. “Okay,” she says. “For the peace of the party, let’s interrogate her now, but we need to keep her under control.” “I can handle her,” Delonia asserts again.Paks asks her, “Delonia, why don’t you cast charm person on her, first?” The sorceress nods in agreement.“We’ll keep her tied up,” Chuck says. Stone and Paks take SySy out of the sack. Chuck keeps his bow ready, Delonia charms her, and we take her gag off. Miriel says, “Delonia, what should we ask? You started this!” Delonia says, “I’m just trying to get my obligation over before you return to Southport.” “Miriel, you do the interrogation,” Paks says, taking charge. “Stone, keep guard.” Stone goes up the tower’s second floor; it's a nice hot clear day, and he can see for miles. Miriel begins. “Tell us about the smuggling operation,” she says. “Who else was at the compound that we didn’t see, who is expected at the compound, what is the purpose of the slaves, the smuggling, and the poisons, and what do you know about Virilius’s plans?” SySy talks at length.  She says she likes to trade; she's one of the few rat men who actually likes dealing with outsiders. She tells us that the slaves are for rituals, trade, and labor. She made the deal with Virilius to trade poisons and drugs for slaves, as the slaves were so useful. “Why hasn’t anyone come after us?” Delonia asks.SySy shakes her head. “I was hoping Eltron would, but he’s dead, isn’t he? I suspect my daughter, Seedar – she’s very ambitious – has probably taken over in my absence. She’ll be pleased to take over, and won’t want me to come back.” She turns to Delonia, and confides quietly, “As friend to friend, you know, friends don’t really keep each other tied up.”“I know,” Delonia says. “Some of my friends are afraid of you. You wouldn’t hurt them, would you? Please just answer their questions, for a few minutes. Tell the truth – my life may depend on it.”SySy nods in agreement, and Paks asks the next question. “Where do the slaves go? Do you sell them to other ratmen?”“Yes,” SySy answers. “I just sent a recent shipment of slaves and weapons to Xyler Blackfoot, a clan leader for one of the disease clans. He’s been gathering a lot of weapons because he’s finally in power, and he wants to avenge the death of his brother, slain by Taryn Kratys in combat these many years ago at the battle of Twotrees. He says that he’s going to go collect his weregild from Kratys Freehold. I think they’ll probably attack any day now.”Delonia glances intently at Paks, and asks, “Do you know when?”“No. What day is it? I think perhaps they’ll reach the Freehold tonight or tomorrow.” “How will they attack?” asks Paks.“They’ll attack with weapons and diseased slaves. The disease clans love to unleash plagues on their enemies.” The thought of ratmen using human slaves to breed diseases, and then unleashing those diseases on a human settlement is deeply revolting to all of us. Everyone begins to ask SySy questions, one after another.  Stone, hearing the commotion, comes back down the stairs to find out what we have learned.“How large is this clan?” asks Goldpetal, his voice grim. “I don’t know,” she says, looking above Delonia to look up at the elf standing behind the sorceress. “Maybe a hundred or so in his clan.” Milo inquires, “Do any of the rat men use the standing stones to worship Gormoth?” SySy looks at him as though he is strange. After a moment, she gives a brief shake of her head. “I don’t know anything about those stones. The disease clans worship Chern.”Chuck asks, “Do you trade with any of the Asuras besides Delonia?” “Only Delonia. We were friends. Hey!” Her voice turns sharp and she gives Delonia a cutting look. “Why did you attack me?” “We heard of a plot against you,” Paks lies glibly, trying to keep up the charm’s pretense that we are SySy’s friends. “We had to save you.” “Oh,” SySy digests this for a moment. “Thanks. Will you take me back now?" “Not yet,” Paks tells her. “Your daughter is still there.” Miriel turns to the rest of us. “An attack on Kratys Freehold is imminent,” she says. “Should we head over there immediately? How long will it take to get there?” Milo asks, of nobody in particular, “Do rat men clans usually travel and attack at night?” SySy glances at Delonia. Still charmed, she appears to feel compelled to answer. “Of course. We love to attack at night, ’cause you humans can’t see much in the dark.” Paks answers Miriel’s question. “We can probably all get there by sunset. If I took one of the horses, I could get there more quickly.” Milo, ever curious, asks another question. “SySy, how long have you been trading?” “Oh, for years,” SySy says.“How many?” he persists. The rest of us have fallen silent, waiting to see if the halfling’s line of questioning turns up anything new.SySy thinks about it for a moment. “More than ten years, now, at least.” “What are the names of the people you trade with?” “I don’t remember,” SySy says. “I’d have to get my ledger.” “SySy,” Goldpetal asks, “Were you an independent, or one of a network of traders?” “We red witches have a loose confederation of trading posts,” she tells the elf, “But they’re competitive; particularly myself and my daughter.” Stone diverts us from further questioning. “Someone should run to town to get reinforcements for the hold,” he says.“I can go right away,” Paks says earnestly.Milo looks her up and down, with a sneer. “Will they believe her?” he asks. “She’s a mercenary.” “Why not?” Miriel asks rhetorically. “She has corroborating details.” Paks looks at the priestess. “Can we get help from Southport to the freehold?” Miriel nods. “Let’s send Nik to town to fetch help,” she suggests.  This suggestion meets universal acclaim, and it seems we have our plan.“Okay,” Paks says, “Chuck, Goldpetal, Miriel, would you please step outside with me for a moment?” The four of them step outside of the tower, and Paks asks, in a lowered voice, “Can I use the slush fund to hire Delonia to help at the freehold?” Everyone agrees, and they rejoin the group. Paks approaches Delonia with her idea. “Delonia,” she says, “I think you’ve completed your obligation to us. But you’ve been amazingly useful, and this freehold is in danger. Can we hire you to help defend the freehold?”Delonia nods with a thoughtful look on her face. “You're clearly lucky,” she says, “So I might be willing, but I’m not going back to Southport with you afterward.”“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Paks says with a smile. “I can offer you one platinum piece, plus a share of any treasure, to assist us at the freehold, for however long this attack may last.”Delonia accepts readily, and Paks has begun to saddle Star, Jim’s warhorse.Miriel explains the situation to Nik, asking him to go to town to fetch help, and he agrees. The priestess writes a note to Fox, and gives Nik a peacock feather from her spear as a token to identify him as coming from us. She also takes her dagger back, as nobody expects Nik to need weapons on the way to town. Chuck gives him some money and food. Nik is about to leave when Milo stops him. “Wait,” Milo says, and turns to the rest of the group to ask, “Before he goes, what should we do with SySy?” “I think we should kill her,” Goldpetal says. His purple eyes flash with loathing for the ratman witch.“I don’t think Grilliam would agree,” says Milo.“Stone?” asks Chuck. Unnoticed by any of her guards, the witch has begun testing her bonds. She finds Chuck’s iron manacles too strong to break, and too tight to wriggle out of.“I dunno,” Stone says, “But she deserves death.” Milo unveils his plan. “Why don't we send SySy back to town, as well?” Miriel shakes her head. “No,” she says, her tone somewhere between incredulous and indignant. “Nik shouldn’t have to deal with that.” “One of us can go, too,” Milo says, too quickly.“Are you volunteering?” Miriel asks dangerously. “Yes.” Miriel looks away dismissively, without answering. When she speaks, she addresses the rest of the group. “I think we should take SySy with us to the freehold, and let Nik go by himself. Maybe Delonia can even get SySy to help us.” “I don’t feel comfortable traveling with the witch,” Milo says, although he has just offered to do so.“Let’s just kill her,” Goldpetal says.Milo looks perturbed, but Miriel tells him, “Milo, it’ll be okay.” Delonia says, “All this talk of killing SySy has certainly counteracted my Charm spell.” She replaces the gag in SySy’s mouth as we talk. Paks says, “I think we’ve learned all that we can. I’m ready to leave – I trust you all to decide what to do with the witch.” She swings up into the saddle for the long ride to Kratys Freehold. Miriel offers a quiet blessing, asking Madriel to keep an eye on the young warrior. As soon as she is finished, Paks rides away at a gallop.Stone, Delonia, and Goldpetal begin packing our little campsite – the second camp we’ve made without sleeping in. Meanwhile, Miriel takes Milo outside for a stern talking to. “Look,” she says sternly. “You say you’re here to serve me? No matter what is happening, I don’t want to see you pull a blade on one of my friends ever again.”“I’m sorry, mistress,” he says, careful not to make any promises.“We need harmony in the party,” she continues, “I think the gods have brought us together for some purpose, but your incessant arguing threatens to break that up. You need to learn to pick your battles; if you have a problem with somebody in the group, bring it to me.”“I’m worried about Goldpetal or Chuck killing SySy,” he argues, his tone as much as his stature reminding her of a child complaining about a sibling to their mother.She rolls her eyes. “Listen, I promise that I’ll do my best to keep that from happening, but we must stop arguing and leave, immediately.”Milo can only agree, “Yes, mistress.”While they are outside, and the others are packing, Chuck checks to see if anyone else has been in the tower. He can’t tell for sure; although there are no signs that anyone has been, we have disturbed too much of the upper levels to be certain. When Miriel and Milo rejoin the party, and all of our gear is in the cart, Miriel takes Goldpetal and Chuck aside. She explains her promise to Milo. “I promised him that I’d do my best to keep either of you from killing her out of hand. I want you to give me your promise, as well.”“Fine,” Chuck says. “I won’t kill SySy.”Goldpetal looks her in the eye. “I can only agree to wait as long as I can stand to,” he says. When they return, they find that Stone and Delonia have loaded SySy into the cart, and are ready to leave. Nik heads north along the coast road, with Miriel’s message for Fox and our request for assistance. The rest of us, bearing SySy in the cart, follow behind Paks towards Kratys Freehold.</blockquote>

Verification