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: 1886234" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #17: Interludes and Intermissions - Episode 5 of 13At Kratys Freehold, after discussing our plans with Taryn and Myrs, though it is still early in the evening, most of us retire to our rooms. Chuck is in a state of bleary-eyed exhaustion, having stood watch while the rest of us slept the night before. He’s been up almost forty hours with only a half-hour nap at dawn. He heads straight to bed, and is instantly asleep to dream of his beloved ducks.Miriel examines Telryn, who wakes briefly, but appears disoriented. His eyes do not focus well, and though he recognizes his friends, he doesn’t know what day it is.“I think he has a concussion,” she concludes, shaking her head. “But I lack the energy to perform a healing on him tonight.”“I can heal him,” Novalia offers. “Though Tanil’s healing is slower and seems to exhaust me more, I have slept through the afternoon.”Miriel looks at her, as though sizing her up, and then gives a curt nod. “I will go downstairs to make a tea which will help him rest,” she says. As she steps out of the room, Novalia steps to the bedside and prays to Tanil for healing for the young mage.When they have finished, and Telryn has drunk the tea, he looks much better, and settles into an easier, natural sleep. The rest of the group gathers in the other bedroom. “I am going to sleep,” Miriel says. “We should get a full night’s rest, and discuss our plans in the morning.”Stone nods. “Sleep sounds good,” he says. His bruised and battered face still looks a mess.“You guys sleep,” Paks says, “I want to stand vigil until Goldpetal returns.”“I’ll wait with you,” Novalia tells her.The two women stand watch from the roof of the wall. They talk long into the night, about many things. Novalia outlines her plan for a company to stand against the ratmen here at the border of the swamp, and again tries to convince Paks to join her. The warrior gives her no commitment, but helps revise the plan and assists the young huntress in figuring costs, supplies, and strategies.When they exhaust that topic, Paks describes all of the fantastic events which have befallen her, from the first strange healing she was able to perform back in the tower, to the dream and spells which came to her in the swamp, to her ability to sense as a palpable thing the evil of the Shrine of Gormoth. Finally, she tells Novalia what the Hope had said, privately, about the ‘Knight of the Swan’. When her strange tale is finished, she asks, “What is happening to me?”Novalia looks out into the darkness for almost a minute before turning to face her friend, and responding. “I can shed no light on that, Paks, other than to say, ‘It is clear that the goddess takes a great interest in you.’ Sometimes, the gods act in ways not of our choosing. Paladins are not always created by training and ritual bestowed by other paladins. There are always some who the gods choose, and those that feel that call do not turn from it.”“But... Paladin?  Me?  I’m a simple mercenary.”“You may have been, once, but in the time I have known you, you have never been a simple warrior.”“I just want to do what is good.”“What else would a paladin of Madriel want?”Paks has no answer to that, and they stand in the chill night air for a while. Following the first rains of fall, the air is cooler than it has been in many months. After a contemplative silence, Novalia describes how frosty Miriel and Telryn were on the ride home. “I don’t know why they would be so cold to me!” she says plaintively.Paks touches her hand to the younger woman’s shoulder. “I think they were very upset that you shot the Hope.”“But…” Novalia protests, struggling to find the words to explain.“I know,” Paks says, with compassion in her voice. “You were trying to end its misery. I knew what you were doing. I don’t think Miriel can see it that way.”Again a silence falls over the two companions. When Novalia turns to say something else, she sees that tears are streaming down Paks face. Silent sobs shake the warrior’s body, and Novalia puts an arm around her as she buries her face in her hands.Paks tries to speak, but the sobs make her words impossible to understand. Finally, she chokes out the words “I… miss… him…”Novalia can only hold her as she mourns for Hands of Fire, saying “I know… I know…” She holds Paks until she has cried herself out.It is well after midnight, and tears have dried, before Goldpetal steps from the shadow of the apple orchard to stand before the gates.“Hold on,” Novalia calls down to him. “I’ll get a guard to open the gate for you.”“No need,” the druid replies. “I have much to think about this night. I will sleep outside, and meet you for breakfast. I merely wanted to let you know I had returned.”He turns to go.“Wait!” calls Paks. He turns, looking at her with those inscrutable purple eyes. “Did it work?” she asks, quietly.His elven ears have no trouble hearing her. “Yes,” he says. “The land is healed.”Paks says nothing, but gives him a firm nod. The elf returns it gravely, then steps into the dark shadows of the orchard.Morning dawns on the second Madraday of Madrer. Miriel awakens early to perform the special dawn rites which accompany the holy day. As she meditates, she can feel that the goddess is pleased with her efforts. She can feel happiness suffuse her, as though the warm rays of the sun warm her soul. When her ritual is complete and she opens her eyes, she finds that she has learned a new spell which will allow her to remove a curse. She thinks immediately of Chuck.Miriel returns to the bedrooms, where most of us are still slumbering, and moves quietly among the rest of the party, examining our injuries.Telryn awakens easily at her approach. Novalia’s healing the night before removed his concussion, and his eyes focus normally. After sixteen hours of deep sleep, he looks fully healthy, and heads downstairs for breakfast.Paks, too, seems fully healthy. She sighs deeply in her sleep, however, and Miriel suspects that her heart is still heavy. Stone’s bruises are fading. Instead of the dark purple and grey of the previous day, they are now a dark, sickly green. The effect, with his pugnacious piggish nose, makes him look closer to full orcish. If she hadn’t known him for so long, Miriel might have found the visage frightening. Instead, she concludes that the bruises will heal without further assistance from her.Chuck, who has the worst injuries of anybody, she has intentionally left for last. He has not received healing since being battered by the falling rocks of the collapsing shrine, and she lays her hands on him as though to heal him. Instead, she surreptitiously casts her new spell, remove curse, on the young Vigil. She feels it fizzle beneath her hands. Chuck starts to wakefulness. He looks up sharply at her and demands, “What was that?”“I was just trying to make you feel better,” Miriel placates him.He looks at her dubiously, but she calls on Madriel to heal him, and as his injuries heal, his suspicions fade.The brief commotion has woken the others, who begin to rise and dress. Miriel offers to look Novalia over, but the archer dismisses her with a brief, “I’m fine.”  Since nobody else needs further healing, Miriel completes her rounds by healing her own bruises and sore ribs, for she too had been hit by the falling rocks of the collapse.When we go down to join Telryn for breakfast, we find Goldpetal coming through the main gate. He joins the party in the main dining hall.“Paks says it worked,” Miriel tells Goldpetal, as we sit down to Myrs’ fine morning meal.“Yes.” The elf cocks his head at her. “The land is healed. I have learned many things about ritual casting.”When he says no more, Stone recounts his story, briefly describing the encounter with the ratman monk, and his defeat at the blind one’s hands.Miriel describes the disease Brand had caught from the enchanted scimitar, while trying to melt it down, and how she has learned a spell to cure disease, and that she was able to heal him. She does not relate the tale of the dove or her attempt to remove Chuck’s curse.Finally, we tell Goldpetal about the rat man plot, and discuss where to go next. The last time we’d discussed our next destination, we had been split evenly between going to Lave or Southport, but the events of the past day, and the things we have learned, have changed many of our minds.“I’m convinced,” Paks starts. “I think we should go straight to Lave.”“Though I would prefer to go straight to Lave,” Miriel responds, “I have had a message from Verenia. I must go to Southport first.”“I am willing to go to Lave,” Novalia says, “To fight rat men, but I don’t think we can spare the time to stop through Southport.”Goldpetal looks at her with those dark eyes. “But we have a responsibility to go back to Southport and inform the town council of what has happened,” he says.“Yeah,” Stone adds, though he appears bemused that he is agreeing with the elf.“I don’t,” points out Telryn, “Nor does Novalia, but if that’s where Miriel is going, then there I go as well.”“I’m still going directly to Lave,” Novalia tells us firmly. “Even if everyone else agrees to go to Southport.”“Are we agreed?” Goldpetal asks, looking at Paks and Chuck.“Sure,” Chuck answers cavalierly.“I will go with the group,” Paks agrees. “Novalia, here, take your shopping list back – you’ll be able to fill it sooner than I will. Where in Lave should we meet?”“We can meet at my family’s tavern,” Miriel suggests, “The Sleeping Dragon Inn.” We pack for the trip. Myrs includes some of her special spicy food, and we take the scrolls from the rat man warren. The evil scimitar resides deep in Paks’ backpack. The freeholders are more than happy to sell us horses. Novalia buys two horses, so she can trade off between them. We leave the aged horses, the nags we had rescued from Delonia’s crew, and the cart in trade, buying better horses for everyone else, and a pony for Dorin, the dwarf. Stone declines to have a horse, stating that he can outpace any horse ever foaled.Novalia sets out north through the hills towards Lave, while the rest of us move east towards Southport, trying to reach the ruined tower by nightfall. During our travels, Telryn talks to Dorin about Burok-Torn. Dorin is willing to talk seemingly forever about his ancestral home, describing at length what a wonderful city it is, made of the finest rock wrought by the master craftsmen of the dwarves. He tells us that we must visit, but of course we'll need to slip through the Callastian troops somehow. Telryn asks about the city’s history, and Dorin tells great tales of about how Burok-Torn was founded, and epic battles the dwarves have fought. Dorin talks his ears off, tracing the lineage of the dwarven kings and the dwarven clans, on which he dwells for several hours. As we begin to approach the familiar ruined tower, Dorin begins to tell a dwarven legend from the early history of the dwarves. He tells it in a formal style, as though recounting it word-for-word from some other source. Some of the story is known to Telryn and Miriel; all of it is new to Paks and Chuck, who listen in rapt silence. The final words of his tale, after telling of a glorious dwarven victory, are, “And thus began the time of prosperity, which lasted until we met the enemies below.”He shuts his mouth immediately after, and then abruptly changes the subject. This last is too much for Telryn’s curiosity, and he begs the dwarf to explain what he means. Try though the mage might, however, the dwarf’s lips remain closed in stony silence, and we ride the final hour to the ruins of the tower without any further explanation.</blockquote>

Verification