Session 6: Let Me In!
General Summary
The voice from the shadows is deep and resonant, as befits the echoing hollow behind the long, jagged teeth. Most of the the beholder’s form is hidden by the darkness in the alcove where from which it makes its proclamations, but now and again an eyestalk slithers out into the light, the gleaming orb at its end appraising the Thieves with a cross between great interest, hunger, and great boredom. “You have done well,” Lord Tyranax Calyops says. “But the job was an easy one. Still, you show promise. The next set of items I wish you to obtain for me are … further afield. Five hundred miles to the southeast, in fact, in the foothills of the Chrysanthemum Mountains. A place called--” there is a momentary pause, “--the Ghost Temple. Some long-abandoned bird person shrine or some such, I believe. The temple itself shouldn’t be a problem, and you should have no issues getting me the four large, silk tapestries I want. You will know them: each depicts a black, winged, two-headed hammer. No, it’s the journey there that might kill you. Point yourselves at the Eagle’s Swain Aerie, if you can find it on a map. You’ll have to travel the old Easterling Road to the edge of the Forest of the Two Moons and then cross the Whispering Grasslands, which is probably rife with gnoll and loxoda nomads these days. I’ll send some ravens with you so that you can provide Right Eye with updates. I should hope it wouldn’t take you more than a month and a half, but I’ll give you two months before I decide you’ve either died or betrayed me. Hopefully the former. Oh, and see Right Eye on the way out; he’ll give you gold for horses and supplies and set you up with those ravens.” With that, the beholder pulls further back into his alcove and is gone, accompanied by the sound of stone sliding on stone. And so begins the second raid of the increasingly more adept Temple Thieves. But now there is a further complication: though they are bound by blood contract to perform at least five 'retrieveals' for Lord Calyops, they have also thrown their lot in with the weakened goddess calling herself Little Sister. And the plans of Tyranax Calyops and Little Sister may not be in alignment. But for now, the Thieves have managed to get away with the pushing their luck to the letter of the beholder's law, and so they set off with three wicker baskets filled with three messenger ravens each, a rough map of the dangerous lands to the east, and the remnants of 500 gp after Kelpip purchases a pony -- which he names "Fiddlesticks" -- three riding horses (one named "Lunch") plus tack, and a wagon ... plus a night of heavy drinking at the Brave & Bold tavern. Upon the dawning (or close enough, vis-a-vis hangovers), the adventurers set out and with a new companion to boot: the vengeance-seeking hill dwarf, Dolan Stonefist, whom Little Sister picked up (platonically) in the bar the previous night while she was waiting on the team to return from the Watchtower. They make their way to the edge of the remnants of the Easterling Road, which, like all roads leading out of Etherian Elps since even before the Kingmage Wars, is a 'flying' road, arching up over the high walls of the city, supported on massive pillars, and festooned with clusters of stone-and-wood hovels that cling to road’s remaining underbelly like barnacles to the bottom of a ship. Alas, the Easterling is a ruined road, it's edge a broken finger pointing toward the wilderness to the east. From that jagged crumbling stutter of stone, treetops can be seen stretching off to the horizon, where maps show the Whispering Grasslands to start, beyond which, some 500 miles and barely visible as a slightly darker haze on the horizon, is the Chyrsanthamum Range of the Mighty Silvermonts. Ominous. And a looooooong way to travel in an world where monsters and wildernesses are endemic. But adventurers adventure. And the first adventure for this group is getting down off the road. They contract with a 'De-Elevator', Cram Tep, who lowers the whole kaboodle down on a creaking, swaying railed platform. After that, it's easy enough to set off out through the Forest of the Two Moons on the moss-covered Old Road -- eerie and silent and magical and gnat-infested, but easy enough. Kelpip and Ruhst ride in point, with Ruhst dropping back at regular intervals to flirt with the goddess goddess-napping in the wagon. The kenku bard, Falllenbridge, rides the horse pulling the wagon, while Trajinous and Dolan flop out on the provisions and the wicker bird cages along with Little Sister. Percy brings up the rear on the third riding horse, keepign a watchful eye, even though she is lulled by the fact that this isn't a merchant caravan with puling merchants in need of coddling. Dolan's wolf companion, Fenris, stalks through the woods ahead of them and on the northern side of the road, scouting for danger. The party makes good time, but shortly after lunch find their way blocked by a deadfall. As they try to move it out of the way, however, the badgers who have made a cozy little home inside the debris take umbrage and attack, nipping at Percy, who had just almost sat down on a spitweb trap (darned spitweb spiders and their spitweb traps) as she waited for Dolan to get his grappling hook and rope out. Almost as soon as it shows its head, though, it is met by one of Dolan's arrows. And nearly as quickly, Percy kicks a club-sized branch up into her hands with the flick of a boot and brains the beast. But these aren't regular badgers. They're GiANT badgers, and not easy to kill. Kelpip launches a sizzling bolt of fire, but misses, the bolt disappearing into the fortunately-moist innards of the deadfall. At almost the same time, Fallenbridge opens his beak and lets out a terrible, shattering peal of sound that follows Kelpip's fireworks into the heart of the deadfall and explodes, causing spitweb traps, shards of wood, and hunks of fur to erupt in a deep CAAA-thruuuump of debris ... and riling up the other two (two!) badgers in the process. Fenris and Percy are both injured during the resultant kerfluffle, but eventually the badgers are brought down by arrows and blunt trauma. Ruhst sets about trying to impress Little Sister by ripping the hides off of each of the carcasses in a show of woodcraft and beginner-level taxidermy. They team clears what's left of the deadfall after Fallenbridge's scathing screech, and after a brief break during which the bard plays soothing tunes on his accordian, they continue on, arriving at the Endsfar Roadhouse shortly after dark. The Endsfar is an End of the World kinda roadhouse, the only place of respite for miles for traders, trappers, survivalists, adventurers, and homesteaders. It's also run by an orc named Seamus Mac Seamus, whose half-orc daughter, Rotgut, is the bar's only barmaid. After giving it the old college five-minute college try, Dolan, visions of Orcish murder dancing in his head, just can't handle that there is so much unspilled orc blood in the room and, rather than make a scene, heads out into the woods back of the inn to set up a camp near the river. Fallenbridge aquires some vodka for the vodka-loving fellow and heads out after him to see if a bard's services (or more vodka) might be required. Meanwile, inside, Kelpip and Percy get pulled into the rather non-PC sport of Toss Your Buddy, where competitors throw their padded and helmeted companions at a bullseye. The sport part goes poorly, but the Thieves make out well on the betting side, even though they weren't really certain what the rules were there, either. All seemed poised for a pleasant last-good-night-in-a-bed, when a cloaked-and-hooded figure bursts into the bar with a strange request: he wants Seamus to call everyone in the bar his family, lock the doors for the night, and not let anyone else into the inn. He accompanies this with a bag of gold, so Seamus shrugs and acquieses. Having heard a great hubbub of noise coming from inside, Dolan and Fallenbridge head back to the inn from Dolan's camp, only to find the back door locked. Using strange kenku bard magics, Fallenbridge communicates telepathically with Trajinous that, y'know, really would be nice and loverlies if someone would pop the bar off that back door and let them in, wot? Trajinous tries to sneakily knock the bar off the back door with her head, but, being, dammit, Jim, a cleric and not a rogue, she doesn't do a very good job at the sneaking part, and the stranger freaks out. At the same time though, a knock at the doors -- nay! a POUNDING at the door -- draws everyone's attention, accompanied by a reverberating voice that says, simply, "Let me in." Percy, thinking it must be Fallenbridge using who-knows-whose? voice, heads for the door, but the stranger freaks out about THAT, too, and so the ex-Moonrise Knight shifts to the window, where she sees that indeed, the figure at the door isn't Fallenbridge, but rather a tall, pale man in a tattered, blood-red cloak. And standing not far from him is a hissing, steaming clockwork horse! At about the same time, on the other side of the inn, Dolan and Fallenbridge are horrified when two steam-venting clockwork dogs, each almost the size of Kelpip's pony, Fiddlestics, stride from each direction around the far corners of the building. The hounds spot the pair and growl low in their mechanical throats, while in the front of the inn, the figure in the tattered cloak mounts his unnatural steed, laughs, and yells out once more: "LET ME IN!"
Rewards Granted
Three badger pelts
Character(s) interacted with
Dolan Stonefist, dwarven ranger; Cram Tep, De-Escalator Operator of Etherian Elps' Easterling Road; Seamus Mac Seamus, orc owner/operator of the Endsfar Roadhouse; his half-orc daughter, Rotgut; and some mysterious figures in cloaks. Plus a mechanical horse and two mechanical dogs that are not in cloaks.
