Session 17: Optimism, Rolling Poorly, Rivers, Shadow Hounds, Pajama Guys, Sewers, Naive Birds, Dwarves with Weird Shadow Fists, Shadowy Mages, Guys with Big Swords, Saying Things I Did Not Say, Ingratitude

General Summary

My life lately has not been so much happy occasions. It has not been filled with joy or sense of deep personal fulfillment. No, it has been flood of bullshit. I have been captured, tortured, branded, addicted, insulted, sneered at, and dismissed. Enemies are all around, and every other day is bringing almost certain death. Life is big ugly pile of crap, for most part.
But you know what? Even with all that, tonight is maybe ok. I am looking very fine after recent makeover. It is nice knowing Aleorman’s head is currently rotting away beneath shooting range back at College. We are far away from all stupid Nightshade business. Unseen are, well, not being seen. Yehlan is terrifying, yes, but there is something to be said for not pooping in jungle with mosquitos biting your ass, and food is very much better.
We are going to scout mansion – Ingoria, Skreek and me. I have felt crappy so much lately, but Baermek’s spell is holding right now, and it is beautiful night. Air is warm, but not too hot, stars are out and shining very bright. There is sounds of people laughing and singing off in distance, where taverns are still open. Belly is full, and I am not being all fucked up and injured, for moment. It is hard not to have little smile, as we walk through town.
Bird is flying as usual, and Cat and I are doing what it is we are so good at – being sneaky. As we approach bridge leading into hoity-toity area of city, we decide best way to avoid guard’s attention is to pass along beneath. Ingoria is leading way, and I am following behind, having fun, swinging and flipping from beams. Am I acting little bit like idiot? Well, yes, maybe. But is simplest thing, like something first year could do, and I feel free and easy as I swing both legs forward, release my grip and reach out to catch myself from next beam. One. Two. Three. Everything is good, until I reach fourth beam and find it is rotted clean through.
It breaks off with dull cracking sound, and I flail to catch myself, but there is no catching possible, and I fall down, down, down into warm waters of Iaspis River. I hit hard and sink fast. New clothes, cute purple hair, and good attitude – all going under.
Yes, I think, as mineral taste of river fills mouth, this is more like normal.
It is little bit disorienting in muddy water. Clothes are heavy and want to drag me down, especially kicky new boots, but fuck it, I will not be abandoning them to river bottom. I pull and pull, and when my head breaks surface, I can see water has been moving me along. Not too fast, maybe, but bridge is disappearing away into distance. Banks on both sides of me are steep drop-offs, and climbing up them seems like too much effort, so I let water carry me for while. It is only when I am thinking of what kind of slimy, blood-sucking things might be currently fastening themselves to my body, that I am feeling motivation to climb up. It is harder than it should be, being weighed down with heavy wet clothes like I am. Knowing that I am going to get so much shit from Bird and Cat, is also not great motivator.
But it cannot be helped. There is mission to do. I start heading toward where I think mansion is, and soon Ingoria finds me. She uses handy little spell to make clothes not so moist, so I am feeling little bit better. But what is best part is she does not say anything but, “You ok?” when she finds me, and I am not having to deal with scorn or making fun. This is… unexpected.
It does not take us too long to get to mansion, and we scout exterior wall again until we find place where we are hopefully little bit hidden as we climb over. It is not too hard to scale fence, and I drop down to ground inside, while Ingoria stays up in tree to see what she can see on second floor.
I sneak toward house, and am just about to look in window, when I hear growling sound of large beast, behind me. I whirl around and some pajama-wearing asshole drops to ground, boom, not ten feet from where I am standing. PJs is not seeing me though; he is too busy staring up at where Skreek is hovering in air.
But, tell me, are you seeing big black dog that’s standing there just beyond PJs? Yeah, now that fucker sure as hell is seeing me. And it is not ordinary big black attack dog. No, of course it is not. There are shadows crawling all over it. All I can tell is that it is fucking huge, and has great many teeth, and I am filled with sense of fear and shame that has nothing to do with current mess I am in.
I glance around me. It is dark and filthy and we have almost no cover here. Half a dozen people must have seen us come this way, and it’s really fucking hard to act inconspicuous when you’re half-dragging a bleeding man behind you. It would help if I had any idea of where we are, but I’ve never been in this part of the city before.
In the distance, I can hear the baying of hounds. Dogs? Holy shit, they are hunting us with fucking dogs. What the hell? I haven't seen so much as a single fucking dog since I came down through the tunnels, and I sure as hell don’t want to see one now. Shit shit shit shit shit.
Nothing for it. I find the wound in his side and punch him there. Hard. He screams and I swarm up his body to cover his mouth with both my hands.
Goddammit! I shake off memory, and emotions it brings to me. Why must past always be sticking its nose in when I am very busy not dying?
I take quick opportunity to glance into window nearest me and see that I am looking into very simple bedroom where is Sylvan man, asleep. Not particularly interesting, and definitely not worth getting my ass chomped over. When I turn back around I see Skreek and Ingoria making run for it, so I do same, stopping just for brief moment to smack shit out of PJs.
As I reach wall, I hear very, very familiar sound – ting ting ting of metal bits hitting wall and ground around me. Fuck fuck fuck. I stop to retrieve one of them. Dangerous, yes, but I need to be sure. Doggie catches up with me and gives me little light mauling, but I manage to get over wall and away without any major damage.

********

Back at room, I take out metal bit and look at it. There is no surprise. It is shuriken, with points dipped in yellow-brown poison that is so familiar. Grandfather cannot identify for sure that poison is same as ones from other Nightshade weapons, but what is chances there is more than one group of shuriken-throwing, pajama-wearing assholes running around? Pretty fucking low, yes? So, once more we are seeing link between Nightshades and Sylvans. Not good.
Skreek tells us that after Ingoria and I left, he stayed overhead a few more minutes. He saw PJs jump over wall to retrieve his shuriken, but nobody tried to follow us. PJs joined up with another Nightshade and also two guards, where they had big, hand-waving, excited discussion about what they have seen. One of Nightshades went inside, to make report we are guessing, and rest went back to stations.
Baermek says room I saw was probably servant’s quarters, and I guess he would be knowing. He is also very interested in what I am describing with shadow dog. He goes back to check notes, then tells us that when Shadow Knights came for Bellaluna, they were bringing along beasts that sounded very much same as one I saw. So, I guess maybe there is also Shadow Knight inside mansion. Is it possible Triskian may be shadow knight? I do not see why not. But who knows? There could be eight million shadow knights inside, stacked like cordwood, for all we know. It is very bad how blind we are about situation into which we are running.
We talk for long while about how we are going to get into mansion, when defenses are so good on outside, and inside is complete unknown. It does not seem like being sneaky was much of help. They spotted us almost immediately.
Skreek mentions that, when he was flying over river looking for me after fall, he saw three giant pipes that came out from under city, and emptied into river. Maybe, it is suggested, we could find way to access house from underneath?
Go through sewers? No, no fucking sewers. I draw lines at sewers.
I am currently knee deep in sewer water, turds and bits of rotten food bobbing around me as I wade upstream. I am approaching the foundations of the Vasiliev estate, a relatively high ranking family. I’ve been tasked with getting some kind of magical doohickey into the house so that we can, I don’t know, listen for blackmail material, or blow shit up, or fuck if I know. I’m just the delivery system. They left the access route up to me though, and I came up with this fucking genius plan. I mean, there are nearly a dozen guards patrolling the grounds above; odds are not in my favor. But nobody assigns guards to the plumbing, right? It all seemed really fucking inspired, right up until I opened the sewer grate and got a whiff of… this.
A dead cat floats past me. Fuck my life.
I am serious. No fucking sewers.

********

In morning, it is time to go rescue some dwarves. We have decided to ride out ahead of prisoner caravan. Skreek will keep eye on them from air. On second night out of town we will jump them in their camp, when hopefully they are off of horses and out of armor.
Olden does not think they are leaving until tomorrow, so we expect quiet day, and it is so. With Skreek up in air, we get much less attention from patrols, and other travelers on road are much friendlier. Shows what they know – he’s nice one of group.
After another quiet night, Skreek reports to us that prisoner caravan has left Yehlan, as expected. We slow down pace a bit, letting them catch up slowly, so we do not have to double back quite as far for tomorrow night’s raid. It is too hot and sun is too bright, but we have all walked together many miles now, and there is sense of easy companionship as we move through countryside.
Road runs parallel to river, so we see it peeking out at us from between trees each time we crest hill. It winks and sparkles in sunlight and is very pretty, even if I still have taste of it in my mouth. Baermek tells us stories to pass time, and it is too bad Skreek is not here to hear them; he likes them so much. But when he does show up to check in with us at mid-day, he is looking happier than I have seen him since maybe we have met. Flying, for him is like breathing, and he has spent most of time last few months holding his breath.
Of course, whenever I am thinking that something is looking positive, it is only because I have not yet seen whole picture. That evening, as we are making camp, Skreek comes flying at us like tail is on fire. I am afraid, for moment, he is going to poop on us.
“We’ve been made!” he gasps out, and everyone immediately drops what they are doing to gather around him.
“What have you done, stupid Bird?” Grandfather spits out. Skreek just clicks beak open and closed, not making words.
Baermek takes him by shoulder, “Skreek, tell us! Were you spotted?”
Skreek looks around at all of us, eyes wild. “I encountered one of my people!” he finally says. “He was scouting for the caravan, and he knows we’re going to ambush it!”
Well, fuck.

********

Here is little imagination exercise for you. Imagine all five of us, plus one Sylvan corpse, crammed into little invisible bubble in sky. We are looking down through invisible trapdoor, down to road, which is maybe fifty feet below us. Whatever you are imagining, I do not think it is really showing enough just how uncomfortable and awkward it is being all crammed up next to each other like this. All of us except for Skreek, who has managed to spread out wings enough to keep any of us from getting too close. Also, he is trying very hard to not look at eyes of anybody, especially Grandfather, who is glaring daggers at him, and mumbling whole time under breath in Elven.
“Glupaya grebanaya ptitsa. Bozhe moy, chto my dolzhny zaviset' ot bukval'no rebenka s ptich'imi mozgami dlya razvedki…” He mutters, as he is putting together Boris. It goes on for really long time. I could translate for you, but I will not. (Ok, ok, you really want to know? Fine. He is saying, “Stupid fucking bird. My god, that we should be dependent on a literal bird-brained child for scouting…”)
It turns out Skreek knows trick of how to make magic invisible bubble in sky. It is not something he had mentioned being able to do before, but once he told us it is thing he can do, we decided to use it for ambushing of prisoner train. First, we hid off side of road, waiting for forward scout to come along. We made him into corpse, then dragged his heavy Sylvan ass up fifty feet of rope to where is bubble. Why? Why would we do such thing? Because it is funny, no?
We hear them before we see them, and count wagons as they pass beneath us. When last wagon is past, we start shoving corpse into position. As rear scout approaches, we drop corpse on top of them, and jump out of bubble.
Baermek has made rest of group be all floaty so they do not make flapjacks on ground below. Skreek takes off flying and I fall fast, displacing force of landing in way I was taught at Academy. Even if they knew we were out here waiting for them, we have managed to surprise them, and five sylvans are dead before they can so much as shout. Do not get too excited though; this is highlight of fight. I am just warning you.
Since I am first on ground, I run to wagon further up line and attack driver. In next wagon up is two prisoners, dwarf and human. I do not pay them any attention, because threat must be eliminated before we worry about busting open of cages. But this is mistake on my part. Both of them whip heads around toward me as I run up. Dwarf leaps up, not nearly as hurt as he looks, kicks open back gate of wagon, and jumps out, running toward me at full speed. On his arms he has fancy black tattoos, and from these start emerging shadowy tendrils. What is with so many fucking shadows all of sudden?! They form shadowy fists and start beating shit out of me from maybe like fifteen feet away.
Human follows dwarf out. I had wound up big swing to knock shadow boxer’s head off, but human says word and makes little gesture and staff wobbles in grasp for moment. I hit, but connection is not nearly so solid and head remains attached. Fucking mage type. Ok, both of assholes have pissed me off very much now. Mage fires two crossbow bolts at me. I bat one away and duck away from other one. I am just about to take step toward him to kill his stupid mage ass, when Sylvan officer runs up, pulls out enormous sword, and just fucking takes me out. I would like to pretend it is otherwise, but fucker chops me nearly in half. I am down.
And then I am back up again. Baermek’s magic has not healed enormous wound in my side, but I am conscious, can move, and am even more fucking pissed off. I stand up, swinging staff up from ground toward dwarf. There is satisfying crunch as I smash in his stupid face, and I do not even watch him fall. I am already whipping around to crush skull of Sylvan guard who is standing behind me.
All around me is sounds of pitched battle. I see one comrade after another fall to Sylvans, only to be stood back up again by magic or potion, and keep on fighting. Above me, I can hear that Skreek is fighting sky duel with other Bird, and desperately I want to look up and watch, because that shit has got to be real. But I am focused on mage – mage who now is hidden behind mass of shadows.
Shadows? Again? Seriously?
Good news is, he is caught in Grandfather’s web. I come at him from behind and give him really good thunk to head. As soon as blow lands, he yelps like wounded dog and shadows drop. Then he blips away from web over to where Grandfather is, like total fucking asshole. Why can't he stay put so I can kill him more conveniently? I yell at Grandfather to drop web, which he does, and I follow mage, not even running, just walking, like I have all time in world. Badass, right?
Then really fucking weird thing happens. As I approach him, voice emerges from my mouth, voice which is not fucking mine. It is low and harsh, and words take like ashes on my tongue. “Teni prinadlezhat mne,” it growls as I bring staff down on his head, all business, no fancy this and that.
What the fuck?
I cough, and turn head to side to spit blood from mouth, but what comes out is black, not red. I do not have time to consider this though, because asshole with big sword comes up and puts me back on ground again. And Baermek once again comes to rescue, waking me up with spell, just in time to see Grandfather shoot asshole in back of head. That is end of Sylvans, and thanks be to god, because this was close fucking fight.
Everyone is beat to shit, so it is slowly and painfully that we go through wagons and corpses, searching for gold and other things of interest. We let out prisoners, and they seem confused by what has happened.
“Who the fuck are you?” one of them asks.
Baermek nudges another corpse, just making all Sylvans are properly dead. “Olden sends his regards,” he replies.
I go over to look at dwarf with shadow fists. It is strange, but tattoos have disappeared. I squat down to look closer and see in dirt next to him, is tiny needle. I pick it up and it is dripping with… ink? Well this is one more fucking weird thing in day full of weird things. I put it in pocket and am thinking Grandfather may be able to tell me more about what it does.
We clean up site as well as we can, put dwarves up on horses, and set out overland away from road. It will be too dangerous to stay out where they can see us on trip back to town. We make camp that night and everyone is on high alert, but nobody comes. This is good because I do not think we could have fought off young children armed with butterfly nets.

********

“You are better this morning?” I ask dwarves, as we are enjoying lovely cold breakfast. “Can you tell us how you are being captured by Sylvans?"
One of them starts to speak, but guy who seems to be leader shushes him. "Were you hired to break us out, or interrogate us?" he says all snotty, which is really something, since we were just risking lives rescuing their asses. I still have headache and this guy is giving me shit?
Baermek passes over pot of coffee. "Forgive my companion; we're not looking for any sensitive information, just trying to stay ahead of the Sylvans." He gives me little nod, which I take as signal to shut fuck up. "We're going to avoid the road on the way to the safe house as much as possible. Are you up to overland travel?"
Dwarf studies Baermek, then says grudgingly, “That's probably for the best. They sent a rider back to town when their beaky bastard came back in a huff. The road is gonna be crawling with pointy-eared pretty-boys.”
"Ahh, that is good to know,” Baermek nods. “As you may imagine, while payment for this job is good and appreciated, we have some special interest when it comes to thwarting the Sylvans. Something that I think we may have in common."
I know I am supposed to stay quiet, but I cannot help the chiming in, “Yeah, you are not only ones who have been in prison cart on way to mines."
“Figured you'd have to be some kind of special, to tell someone yer springing their trap right before bashing right into it.” He nods in Skreek's direction, “That bird's got bigger eggs than an ogre's breakfast.”
Baermek winces and gives regretful smile, "Sometimes youth and enthusiasm win out.” He shrugs, “I'm going to guess that our shadowy foes are not standard for this kind of transport. So they must have been expecting some trouble from the outset. Maybe just your particular profile."
Skreek looks up when other bird is mentioned. He is sitting little way away from group, still avoiding us for most part. “What can you tell me about their person?” he demands. “Why was he working with them?”
Dwarf looks at Skreek, confused and little bit suspicious. “I don't know. He seemed to act like he was important, but the officer in charge of the train ordered him around more like a servant.” Turning back to Baermek, he adds, “They have been hunting us more aggressively for the last several weeks, and the beaky bastards are part of it. From what they said after their cloud-rat finished his hasty retreat, they were planning on thwarting a rescue attempt.” For moment, he looks little bit sorry and adds, “I didn't realize the other two prisoners weren't prisoners - they were treated the same as us.”
"Very interesting," Baermek looks thoughtful. "So there are more of my friend's people among their ranks. This is troubling."
“The gilded turd-polishers have been up to something with them. I don't understand why they're working together though - all things considered.” He shoots Skreek another wary look.
Baermek sees look and reassures dwarf, "After some months together, I can confidently say this bird hates Sylvans more than anyone else I know. Though I think he came to that opinion after arriving on these shores.” He takes bite of dried fruit and chews thoughtfully, before asking, “We have heard that Triskian was pushing some business interests into their controlled waters; any idea if he is involved with these Sylvan aligned birds? My friend here has a particular bone to pick with him."
“Triskian?” Dwarf blinks with surprise at name. “You mean The Fisherman?”
"Yes,” Baermek nods. “Is he a major player?"
Dwarf snorts. “You could say that. He's an obscenely wealthy merchant, and high society's most eligible bachelor. He also runs a small navy's worth of fishing and trading vessels. He's got the Baron's ear, and we're pretty sure he's an information broker, if not an outright crime boss.”
Baermek chuckles. "Must be some quality fish. We scouted his mansion and were surprised by the level of security, not to mention some apparent links with some other crime organizations we're familiar with. You might consider that as independent confirmation on your suspicions. We want to get inside and retrieve something, maybe stick a finger in his eye while we're at it."
“That's a tall order – even the Midnight Watch avoids getting tangled in The Winding. It's heavily patrolled, and people who cause trouble there have a habit of winding up dead.” He pauses for moment. “Or working the mines,” he sneers.
There is more discussion, but Grandfather, who has been busy studying needle I found near dead shadow-fist dwarf, looks up and beckons to me like he is all excited.
“Granddaughter,” he smiles, as I approach. “I think you are going to like this…”

Report Date

09 Sep 2022