Fen, Glen, Den
With the sun setting over the High Moor, the Misfit Six set out for Mother, an agitated Prex pushing the group to a speedy march. The landscape slowly changed from moorland to soggy wetland as the group skirted the northern edge of the Marsh of Chelimber. The going was easy but the pace was brisk and camp was set up reluctantly and taken down gratefully--both goblins anxious to return to the den. Dala'gse frolicked in the marshy fen. Zireael looked to the east. Golun-dal made something he called chocolate and shared its warm luxury with Nancy.
On the second evening of the journey, Slothrop and Zireael spotted a campfire making use of a rocky windbreak to form a campsite. Zireael crept up atop the windbreak while a the others entered the camp. They were well met by Dawson, a human male who called himself a Paladin; Darzoun, a male dwarf practitioner of the arcane arts; Tolly, an amiable halfling female; and Felas, a female wood elf. They introduced themselves as adventurers, setting out for the Marsh of Chelimber to find the Onyx Tower. They claimed someone had betrayed the Dukes of Baldur's Gate, a city on the Sword Coast to the West, and fled to the Marsh to escape their wrath. This person disappeared but soon thereafter word spread of an Onyx Tower that rose out of the Marsh. They were off to investigate, for glory and plunder. Dawson said they were calling themselves the Banded Band. He was quite proud of himself. Delzoun annoying explained that onyx rock formed parallel bands and regretted explaining as much to Dawson. Tolly laughed. Felas said little.
Dawson offered to share the warmth of their fire and some of the grub. The group obliged the stew but declined the camp, saying they had not yet tired of the road and would yet mush along. They did, save Dala'gse who had been fishing in the Marsh and soon thereafter approached the camp. He struck up a conversation with Felas, after she noticed he was a bit Fey around the edges. She didn't know much of the Fey save the old tales, but explained her grandparents were weavers--making intricate baskets out of pine needles native to her homeland in the High Forest. Tolly cozied up to listen to the tale and by the time it was over Dala'gse was a few rubies lighter, but none the wiser. He set out for the others.
The following day, Zireael noticed a familiar stretch of woods, reminding him very much of the place they had met the Lady of the Glen, or the hag of Hag's Glen. They were getting close to the Den and Prex and Kargi were practically frothing at the mouth in their exertion, driving the group onward, when a familiar creaky voice called to them from a cabin porch that they swore wasn't there when they last looked. It was the Lady of the Glen herself, nibbling a scone as she swept scraps of kindling detritus from near the woodpile on her porch. "Come, come, come! It's almost done! Please, you look weary, join me inside!"
The group obliged and entered her rustic home, pushing aside the latest drying herbs from the doorway as they settled in to the table by the fire. Once again, inside the Lady's cabin they felt that powerful presence, an otherworldly vastness that was terrifying and awesome. She smiled at Golun-dal as he entered and the group settled around the table. She talked of pleasantries and the long journey they must have had into the Underdark while she pulled a freshly baked loaf of bread from her earthenware oven, and set it on the table with a crock of soft butter. It smelled wonderfully, with a hint of earthiness which she explained when she invited them to try her newest recipe: mushroom bread.
"Just like my mother used to make it," muttered Safad. The group was confused and assumed it was the addled ramblings of a sfos addict. After they all had tried her bread, she settled into a calm palaver:
"Ahh, good I see our little crustacean here has returned to its shell! And you still have that iron key, good, good. Hmm. Yes, I only offered you one, but you'll likely need stone and blood as well if you're to make it! She glanced mischievously at a shelf behind her, whereupon the group now noticed the intricate stone spindle and the dusty vial. "Tell you what--leave me the Orog and I'll let you have the stone. And if anyone wants to let some of their blood into that vial, you'll have all three, see!"
Golun-dal remained impassive at the mention of "Orog," and didn't seem to know that she was talking--or couldn't hear what she was saying somehow. The group looked skeptical and instead asked to be healed of lycanthropy and sfos addiction. The Lady of the Glen put her palms on the table, laughed, and said warmly, "No, no."
They asked what she would do with Golun-dal and she evaded the questions with what was becoming her typical wordsmithing. They asked what would happen if they let some of their blood into the vial, and she just told them she could not recommend it, they were such nice children, after all. The group was unsatisfied, continued to hound her for answers to the great mysteries of the world, before everyone eventually grew tired and Prex grew increasingly anxious to reach Mother. Golun-dal complained that he didn't understand why they were all talking to themselves with this mute woman, but she gave him a bad feeling...
They shouldered their packs and Zireael led them out the door. As they were leaving, the Lady called after them, "I would just sit tight for thirty minutes at the red oak if you want to avoid passing anyone on the road! Fare well!" Zireael followed her instructions, pausing to sip water when they reached a very prominent red oak, and then they continued. They met up with the Lakeville-Sveldin trail and followed it to the old wooden bridge. Prex and Kargi practically leaped from switchback to switchback in their haste to reach the the river valley below. At the bottom they led the way forward to the entrance to Den No. 47, when Dalag'se and Zireael called a halt. They warned them not to go in, that it could be dangerous. Slothrop did his best to silver-tongue them, but they were not to be dissuaded. Into the Den they ran.
No sooner had the goblins crossed the threshold when a spell the party knew themselves--Alarm--began blaring noisily all around them. Zireael and the rest charged after the goblins into the Den, and were immediately assaulted by a wall of noxious, heavy, stink that permeated the place. They choked their way through the "mudroom" and emerged into Kargi's bar, where what they saw would be burned into their memories for the rest of their lives.
The communal tables and benches had been laid aside, stacked neatly in a corner, and on the floor were a couple dozen goblin veterans, lined up like fish at a market. Their faces wore death masks of terror and their brains had been flayed from their skulls, which were torn open, the hollow inside rotting and crawling with maggots and flies. A few large rats feasted gruesomely. The group pushed aside the urge to vomit and turned down the corridor to Mother's waterfall chamber. Inside, they saw Prex and Kargi weeping at the base of the half-frozen waterfall. Suspended in the ice, around twenty feet up was the charred corpse of what must have been Mother.
Except, it wasn't quite a corpse yet--they heard her raspy breathing, and Prex shouted to get her down. Mother's eyes weren't closed--the lids had been burnt off--but the bloodshot whites rolled back to reveal her iris, and she spoke laboriously as the group extricated her from the ice.
"Those creatures were here...the many-tentacled monsters...they lined up my boys in the bar and made me watch--burnt my eyelids off--as those adventurers held them down and one by one, their monstrous masters wrapped our boys heads with those awful tentacles and feasted on their brains...the cracking noise...their screams..."
"They slowly burnt my skin all over, and force fed me a healing substance when the pain was too great. One hovered over me, seemingly in psionic ecstasy, soaking in my fear, loathing, pain, suffering, and sadness. After every kill, they lined them up neatly, enjoying the ceremony of it. Until, they all were killed and I was here. Then they soaked me in oil and let the flames consume me as they left this place."
At this point, the group had brought her to the cavern floor and Prex held her gently while Nancy and Zireael administered their healing spells. Mother coughed dark blood and let out a choked yell of anguish.
"I know not how long in the dark I wrestled with grisly fear and ghastly pain. But I welcomed the darkness, and it came...except with it was not the oblivion I was expecting. No. Instead, I was in some strange shadowscape, a dreamworld, that I can barely recall. All I know is that there a woman's voice spoke to me--the same voice I heard from the waterfall, before you all arrived. The voice that told me you were the stag, the heron, the dagger, the shepherd, the maiden, the cross. Her back was turned away from me and she was covered and she mumbled softly to me. The next thing I knew I was suspended in the ice of the waterfall...burnt, but alive. I...was...unconscious until now."
She pointed a shaky finger toward a rock at the far end of the cavern and told Prex to take everything from "their spot." She then succumbed once more to the pain.
Prex laid her head gently into Kargi's hands and went to a small piece of stonework that looked part of the ancient ruin. He twisted it and reached his hand into a small opening it revealed, wherein he produced a little cloth bag. Safad recognized it as a bag of holding when the goblin's arm reached deeper than the bag should allow. He produced the researcher's journal, a rough piece of parchment that looked ripped from the journal's pages, and a strange stone and wood totem of sorts. On the parchment was a crude map, sketched in charcoal--what must have been the results of the goblin explorers looking for the old mines that the previous researcher had set out to find. Around a roughly-rendered crater lake, deep in the mountains, there were five cave-like entrances drawn.
With the alarm spell still blaring around them, the group decided it was best to investigate the contents of the journal in a different location.
Kargi picked up Mother delicately and the group exited the death-filled Den. They decided to head north, into the Greypeaks and toward the crater lake. As they did, they realized Prex was lagging a little in the Den and had not yet emerged. They waited anxiously, all eyes on watch for an illithid army. Soon, the entrance to the cave began to smoke an inky, thick, cloud. Flames began to spill from the hole to the hovel. Finally, Prex came out of the cave. He was sweating and greasy, but otherwise unharmed. His face wore a vicious, angry, snarl they had never seen before on the old veteran, and from his hands trailed sparks of magical flame.
Prex's eyes looked dead as he took one last look at the blaze behind him and left Den No. 47 forever.
On the second evening of the journey, Slothrop and Zireael spotted a campfire making use of a rocky windbreak to form a campsite. Zireael crept up atop the windbreak while a the others entered the camp. They were well met by Dawson, a human male who called himself a Paladin; Darzoun, a male dwarf practitioner of the arcane arts; Tolly, an amiable halfling female; and Felas, a female wood elf. They introduced themselves as adventurers, setting out for the Marsh of Chelimber to find the Onyx Tower. They claimed someone had betrayed the Dukes of Baldur's Gate, a city on the Sword Coast to the West, and fled to the Marsh to escape their wrath. This person disappeared but soon thereafter word spread of an Onyx Tower that rose out of the Marsh. They were off to investigate, for glory and plunder. Dawson said they were calling themselves the Banded Band. He was quite proud of himself. Delzoun annoying explained that onyx rock formed parallel bands and regretted explaining as much to Dawson. Tolly laughed. Felas said little.
Dawson offered to share the warmth of their fire and some of the grub. The group obliged the stew but declined the camp, saying they had not yet tired of the road and would yet mush along. They did, save Dala'gse who had been fishing in the Marsh and soon thereafter approached the camp. He struck up a conversation with Felas, after she noticed he was a bit Fey around the edges. She didn't know much of the Fey save the old tales, but explained her grandparents were weavers--making intricate baskets out of pine needles native to her homeland in the High Forest. Tolly cozied up to listen to the tale and by the time it was over Dala'gse was a few rubies lighter, but none the wiser. He set out for the others.
The following day, Zireael noticed a familiar stretch of woods, reminding him very much of the place they had met the Lady of the Glen, or the hag of Hag's Glen. They were getting close to the Den and Prex and Kargi were practically frothing at the mouth in their exertion, driving the group onward, when a familiar creaky voice called to them from a cabin porch that they swore wasn't there when they last looked. It was the Lady of the Glen herself, nibbling a scone as she swept scraps of kindling detritus from near the woodpile on her porch. "Come, come, come! It's almost done! Please, you look weary, join me inside!"
The group obliged and entered her rustic home, pushing aside the latest drying herbs from the doorway as they settled in to the table by the fire. Once again, inside the Lady's cabin they felt that powerful presence, an otherworldly vastness that was terrifying and awesome. She smiled at Golun-dal as he entered and the group settled around the table. She talked of pleasantries and the long journey they must have had into the Underdark while she pulled a freshly baked loaf of bread from her earthenware oven, and set it on the table with a crock of soft butter. It smelled wonderfully, with a hint of earthiness which she explained when she invited them to try her newest recipe: mushroom bread.
"Just like my mother used to make it," muttered Safad. The group was confused and assumed it was the addled ramblings of a sfos addict. After they all had tried her bread, she settled into a calm palaver:
"Ahh, good I see our little crustacean here has returned to its shell! And you still have that iron key, good, good. Hmm. Yes, I only offered you one, but you'll likely need stone and blood as well if you're to make it! She glanced mischievously at a shelf behind her, whereupon the group now noticed the intricate stone spindle and the dusty vial. "Tell you what--leave me the Orog and I'll let you have the stone. And if anyone wants to let some of their blood into that vial, you'll have all three, see!"
Golun-dal remained impassive at the mention of "Orog," and didn't seem to know that she was talking--or couldn't hear what she was saying somehow. The group looked skeptical and instead asked to be healed of lycanthropy and sfos addiction. The Lady of the Glen put her palms on the table, laughed, and said warmly, "No, no."
They asked what she would do with Golun-dal and she evaded the questions with what was becoming her typical wordsmithing. They asked what would happen if they let some of their blood into the vial, and she just told them she could not recommend it, they were such nice children, after all. The group was unsatisfied, continued to hound her for answers to the great mysteries of the world, before everyone eventually grew tired and Prex grew increasingly anxious to reach Mother. Golun-dal complained that he didn't understand why they were all talking to themselves with this mute woman, but she gave him a bad feeling...
They shouldered their packs and Zireael led them out the door. As they were leaving, the Lady called after them, "I would just sit tight for thirty minutes at the red oak if you want to avoid passing anyone on the road! Fare well!" Zireael followed her instructions, pausing to sip water when they reached a very prominent red oak, and then they continued. They met up with the Lakeville-Sveldin trail and followed it to the old wooden bridge. Prex and Kargi practically leaped from switchback to switchback in their haste to reach the the river valley below. At the bottom they led the way forward to the entrance to Den No. 47, when Dalag'se and Zireael called a halt. They warned them not to go in, that it could be dangerous. Slothrop did his best to silver-tongue them, but they were not to be dissuaded. Into the Den they ran.
No sooner had the goblins crossed the threshold when a spell the party knew themselves--Alarm--began blaring noisily all around them. Zireael and the rest charged after the goblins into the Den, and were immediately assaulted by a wall of noxious, heavy, stink that permeated the place. They choked their way through the "mudroom" and emerged into Kargi's bar, where what they saw would be burned into their memories for the rest of their lives.
The communal tables and benches had been laid aside, stacked neatly in a corner, and on the floor were a couple dozen goblin veterans, lined up like fish at a market. Their faces wore death masks of terror and their brains had been flayed from their skulls, which were torn open, the hollow inside rotting and crawling with maggots and flies. A few large rats feasted gruesomely. The group pushed aside the urge to vomit and turned down the corridor to Mother's waterfall chamber. Inside, they saw Prex and Kargi weeping at the base of the half-frozen waterfall. Suspended in the ice, around twenty feet up was the charred corpse of what must have been Mother.
Except, it wasn't quite a corpse yet--they heard her raspy breathing, and Prex shouted to get her down. Mother's eyes weren't closed--the lids had been burnt off--but the bloodshot whites rolled back to reveal her iris, and she spoke laboriously as the group extricated her from the ice.
"Those creatures were here...the many-tentacled monsters...they lined up my boys in the bar and made me watch--burnt my eyelids off--as those adventurers held them down and one by one, their monstrous masters wrapped our boys heads with those awful tentacles and feasted on their brains...the cracking noise...their screams..."
"They slowly burnt my skin all over, and force fed me a healing substance when the pain was too great. One hovered over me, seemingly in psionic ecstasy, soaking in my fear, loathing, pain, suffering, and sadness. After every kill, they lined them up neatly, enjoying the ceremony of it. Until, they all were killed and I was here. Then they soaked me in oil and let the flames consume me as they left this place."
At this point, the group had brought her to the cavern floor and Prex held her gently while Nancy and Zireael administered their healing spells. Mother coughed dark blood and let out a choked yell of anguish.
"I know not how long in the dark I wrestled with grisly fear and ghastly pain. But I welcomed the darkness, and it came...except with it was not the oblivion I was expecting. No. Instead, I was in some strange shadowscape, a dreamworld, that I can barely recall. All I know is that there a woman's voice spoke to me--the same voice I heard from the waterfall, before you all arrived. The voice that told me you were the stag, the heron, the dagger, the shepherd, the maiden, the cross. Her back was turned away from me and she was covered and she mumbled softly to me. The next thing I knew I was suspended in the ice of the waterfall...burnt, but alive. I...was...unconscious until now."
She pointed a shaky finger toward a rock at the far end of the cavern and told Prex to take everything from "their spot." She then succumbed once more to the pain.
Prex laid her head gently into Kargi's hands and went to a small piece of stonework that looked part of the ancient ruin. He twisted it and reached his hand into a small opening it revealed, wherein he produced a little cloth bag. Safad recognized it as a bag of holding when the goblin's arm reached deeper than the bag should allow. He produced the researcher's journal, a rough piece of parchment that looked ripped from the journal's pages, and a strange stone and wood totem of sorts. On the parchment was a crude map, sketched in charcoal--what must have been the results of the goblin explorers looking for the old mines that the previous researcher had set out to find. Around a roughly-rendered crater lake, deep in the mountains, there were five cave-like entrances drawn.
With the alarm spell still blaring around them, the group decided it was best to investigate the contents of the journal in a different location.
Kargi picked up Mother delicately and the group exited the death-filled Den. They decided to head north, into the Greypeaks and toward the crater lake. As they did, they realized Prex was lagging a little in the Den and had not yet emerged. They waited anxiously, all eyes on watch for an illithid army. Soon, the entrance to the cave began to smoke an inky, thick, cloud. Flames began to spill from the hole to the hovel. Finally, Prex came out of the cave. He was sweating and greasy, but otherwise unharmed. His face wore a vicious, angry, snarl they had never seen before on the old veteran, and from his hands trailed sparks of magical flame.
Prex's eyes looked dead as he took one last look at the blaze behind him and left Den No. 47 forever.
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