The Other, Not Nearly as Fair

In the faint grey of the approaching dawn, Falka and Ironica heard the panicked keening of Dala'gse calling out through the mists that were beginning to rise on the High Moor, somewhere in Hark territory. Their clothes were soaked with the blood of their prey, Dirk of Dragonspear, sacrificed to appease Malar, Beastlord, and God of the Hunt, whose shrine they had defiled. Their boots were caked with mud and cloaks drawn protectively around their shoulders to shield them from the cold spring rain, the last vestiges of the brutal thunderstorm last night. They hadn't slept but they were invigorated with the kill and warmed by newfound camaraderie forged during their hunt. 

"Heathayla! Heathaaaylaa!!" 

Falka and Ironica changed course to intercept the distressed M'balusian. They found him, shoulders sagged, garb muddier than theirs and also bloodstained, walking in zig-zags, eyes on the next hillock. He saw his companions and greeted them. 

"She's gone. Heathayla and the baby too. The Hark attacked and she ran while I took care of them. By the time I had killed them all, she was missing." 

The drizzle streaked down his dirty cheeks into his unkempt fey-touched beard. 

"What should we do?" 

"We're going to get her, is what we're going to do," Falka reassured his companion. She looked at her newfound friend, Ironica, who nodded. Slothrop appeared from behind a boulder, and told them he as in as well. 

The party set off to find Heathayla--or, tried to, but which way had she gone? Dala'gse pulled himself out of his mood and called to a flock of golden plover flittering about a particularly lovely bush of yellow gorse, a pop of color through dawn's grey light. One of the birds took an interest in him. He asked it if it had seen a creature, similar to Falka, walking around alone. The plover nodded but said he had to fly with his congregation.  He alit from the gorse branch and fluttered off with the others, but called out that the elf was headed in the same way! 

They followed the golden plover. 

After a spell the plover congregation veered west and Dala'gse's informant indicated the elf had continued North. Dala'gse thanked the bird. Soon, they found Heathayla's boot tracks, but along with them, goblin-sized boot prints as well. They followed the tracks until they reached a sunken bunker of a staircase. Well masoned stones that led into the earth. As they approached, arrows flew from within.

A fight!

The companions took down the three guards, killing more Hark in their homeland. One was escaping, and they chased it down what turned out too be an underground complex. They tackled the goblin, but he shifted into rat form. They grabbed him yet again, and still, he wriggled free. Dala'gse attempted to have the rat bite him to convey Lycanthropy, but to no avail, his consitituion was too strong. The wererat goblin shifted back into goblin form and shouted that he was Tekki Nine-Fingers and he would very much like to keep living. They killed him. 

And so it was, that the companions found themselves in the Dungeon of the Hark.

They traveled on in the inky darkness, and soon encountered a few options for corridors. They picked one, and Falka marked their passing with a bit of charcoal. After a few paces they discovered a deep pit, spanning 40 feet, with only a thin bit of rope strung across it -- easy for a rat, perhaps, but not a humanoid. 

But these were no normal humanoids.

Falka asked the group to hold her beer, while she tied a rope around her waist and charged straight for the pit and launched herself...leaping into a diving position as she sailed over the chasm and landed in a tumble on the other side. She. Cleared. 40. feet. Nice boots. 

Ironica thought that was pretty cool, but check this out: she gingerly danced her way across the thin tightrope, gracefully darting along, making the other side with ease. Slothrop said screw this and went hand over hand across the rope Falka and Dala'gse were holding between them.

Dalag'se had no other option -- he tied the rope around himself, prayed to Silvanus and leapt. The three on the other side anchored him as he slammed into the pit wall, cruising twenty feet over some nasty looking barbed spikes below. They hauled him up, dusty him off, and thought they had the hang of it. 

They wandered on. Encountering another three way split in the cavern. This time the investigated one to the left, and found a strange offal shoot with an Otyugh at the bottom. And then Falka went down the turn to the right and found a little living quarter, with an old woman and a baby hidden within. She murdered them. When asked by her companions what was down that corridor, she smiled grimly and replied, "a dead end." Falka and the dungeon master exchanged a wink. 

The party traveled on and soon encountered another series of turns in the maze-like complex. This time the hallways yielded the offal pit and a strange tapering tunnel that led up from the wall toward a the surface where a small light was visible. Easy, perhaps, for a rat as a means of access and egress. Hm. 

They carried on, and encountered yet another pit-spike-chasm. This could get old they thought. They managed to make their way across again, testing fate in the process. On the other side they encountered a patrol of Hark, who they summarily slayed. Dala'gse tried to give himself Lycanthripy again and failed. Slothrop succeeded by consuming the corpse of a rat. When was the full moon, anyway?

What followed as a montage of murderous rampaging through the dungeon, including druidic and lycanthropic shapeshifting, traversing spiked pits, and slaying noncombatants as they ventured deeper in the Dungeon of the Hark. All told, they traversed another couple pits and killed 22 Hark, in cold blood, while defending their homelands. 

With their resources well-drained, they needed a rest. Ironica, though, was sitting pretty and decided to explore while her companions rested. Also, she thought, isn't the captured Heathayla going to be in trouble the longer we leave her with the goblins? Oh, right, Heathayla. 

Ironica set off while the group bedded down in a side corridor. She eventually came upon another living quarter and she was able to survey two men, an old grandmother, and a young woman, pregnant, inside. A family unit. She called to the two men before slaying them outside the camp-room, using her signature Tasha's to incapacitate one. She then ventured inside where the old grandmother was standing protectively over the young pregnant woman. Somehow, she managed to convince the old crone to talk to her--probably because she clearly had the upper hand in combat. 

The old crone explained that they were hiding from Di Brigawn, the latest Hark. The Hark was a title passed on to the next leader. Di was a human woman, and took over from a man known as Hawk. They ran bandit operations north of the Moor, and provided for the tribe. But things had taken a poor turn. Di had focused all their energy and resources on finding children to bring to her --- even if it was body parts. At first it was other races, but soon, it turned to Hark themselves. She was hiding the pregnant granddaughter to save her. They had little contact with the Hark but she could travel through the complex, surveying her lands and communicating with her people. They couldn't see her unless they consumed the a vial of liquid that she distributed. 

Meanwhile, the three sleepers were having trouble doing just that. Every time they shut their eyes, their vision was haunted by a cloaked woman who seemed to smile as terrible nightmares played out in their mindseye -- viscious killings that they perpetrated on their companions and then they themselves were tortured and made to do terrible things to loved ones. It was awful. They couldn't sleep. Ironica came back and brought with her the old crone and young woman. The crone explained that Ironica had killed her two sons, but had agreed to send her off to somewhere safe for the pregnant girl. 

They sent her with a letter of introduction to Bhin and Ledo at the Mootscarp, saying to take the crone and child in, and that they had lost Heathayla and the baby. 

The crone was grateful, sort of, given Ironica had killed her sons. She showed them to the surface where they sent her on her way, set up camp, and hoped to finally find rest. 

They did not. Instead, as they drank some of the liquid the crone had on her, they saw an ethereal, hooded figure of a woman, standing over them as they tried to sleep. Sending the same terrible nightmares. This must be the Hark. She smiled and sank into the earth, into her dungeons. 

No choice but to kill her, they reasoned.