Session 19: Protection

Game Date: 11/23/07, 11/24/07
In-Game Dates: Disander 5th, night – Dis 8, night

After Quirky leaves, Rowan and Nialia convince Grumble to give Quirky the benefit of the doubt. Grumble mutters that while he doesn’t trust the “gnome,” he won’t do anything rash unless Quirky gets out of line.
Eventually the party hears the faint, clear, tenor voice of Quirky singing an elven lament, “Ard hi Ethenialle”. Rowan remembers her father singing it once when he found that a former companion of his had died. A while after the song ends, Badger gets up and heads in the direction Quirky had gone. Though she tells everyone not to follow her, Grumble heads off after them about five minutes later.
Badger finds Quirky, who has carved a rough headstone in front of a grave. He must have used magic, for etched into the rough stone surface is the inscription:

“Here Lies Grayle, loyal companion and friend. Ill-used in this life, may the gods grant her peace in the next.”

Badger apologizes; wishing she’d died, or done anything rather than to have forced Quirky to choose between her and Grayle. Quirky takes her by the shoulders and tells her that Grayle was trying to save the person she knew from making a mistake. However, says Quirky, he is no longer that person anymore. Sadly, Grayle didn’t give him time to explain. Quirky did what he had to do, and while he regrets more than anything having to kill Grayle, would make the same decision again if he had to.
Badger pleads for Quirky to tell her everything, right now. Anything else he’s been hiding, Badger wants it out in the open. She thinks she can forgive him whatever he tells her, but she wants to hear it all now; after this she’s not sure her heart could take any further betrayal.
Quirky is silent for half a minute, but instead of an answer, he greets Grumble, who has done a fair job of sneaking up on the two. Badger screams at Grumble to leave, even throwing her kukri at him in her rage. Quirky gets Grumble to leave them in peace for a while, asking “I just killed my only friend and the only family I’ve ever known to save Badger’s life. Do you honestly think I’m going to hurt her?”
Quirky asks Badger what she loves about him, wondering if Grayle wasn’t right about Badger not being able to love him for what he truly is. Sighing at Badger’s confusion, Quirky admits to Badger that he’s a shape-shifter, a doppelganger, a changeling. To his amazement, Badger finds this fascinating. After saying she forgives him, Quirky comes out and, naming all her names (Roywyn Ellybelle Badger Goodlock Turen), tells her that he loves her. She is much more shocked by finding out that Quirky was a near-mythic assassin known only as “Shadowspawn.” Quirky explains that Shadowspawn was actually a title conferred upon him, that he adopted the name from another to keep the legend going (a la the “Dread Pirate Roberts”). Badger exclaims: “I’ve woken my parents up thinking you were under my bed!” Despite himself, Quirky laughs. He quickly sobers as he realizes that Badger is still bleeding from Grayle’s claws. He presses his hand to her wounded stomach and heals her. Eventually Badger taked the hand on her stomach in her own, and the two sit, hand-in hand, by the grave in silence. Quirky stays by the grave for a while longer after Badger reluctantly heads back to camp, but not before she tells him the name given to her upon her becoming an adult gnome: Lunhedia, which means “beloved mystery.”
The next morning, Quirky not only tells the rest of the party what he truly is, but reveals his true form to them, a thin, hairless gray creature. He does not, however, tell them about being Shadowspawn.
The party sets off down the road, passing a crossroads. They should reach Brindinsford, a city between them and Pythia, by mid-day tomorrow. As they make camp, Badger drags Grumble off to gather firewood while Rowan hunts. Badger tells Grumble that she’s forgiven Quirky for everything, and that they love each other, and would he please cut Quirky some slack. Grumble says that he’s just trying to look out for her, and he’ll try.
The next day, the party passes a gnome-run caravan heading north along the road. The party warns them of possible bandits, and the gnome wagon-master warns them that Brindinsford is a bit off, from what it has been in the past, though it’s hard to say exactly how.
Soon after parting ways, Nialia smells smoke on the air. Topping a rise, the party can see a column of smoke rising out of the forest into the cloud-laden sky. Rowan takes them into the forest to investigate, and they eventually arrive at the remains of a village. The village has been destroyed, not a building remains standing. A mass grave has been freshly dug just south, and there are fresh tracks leading down a road that heads back towards the main road towards the city. Following the road, the party soon meets a work party of perhaps a dozen men and a squad of mounted militia led by a dwarven sergeant.
The sergeant, Boxar, tells them the gruesome story: that this is the second village to be attacked this week. No one has survived to see who’s responsible, but orcs are suspected, even though they haven’t attacked the area in nearly a hundred years, and mainly keep to the plains to the west. The annual Brindinsford festival is coming up in a few days, and with all the bustle from that, the militia has no manpower to spare to protect all of the independent Halfling farm communities scattered around the area.
Curiously, the sergeant seems to have been given orders regarding the party, he was told adventurers matching their description would likely be on the road coming south, and the Baron wants a word with them. Boxar doesn’t know what for, only that it can’t be too bad, or Boxar would have orders to apprehend them.
Upon reaching the city, Boxar leads the party to the Baron’s manor estate within the city walls. After waiting awhile, they are instead met by a human knight, Lieutenant Eve Shella. She is terse with the party (Boxar warned them that the Lieutenant is none too fond of adventurer-types), informing that the Baron cannot see them tonight, but she has authority to act in his stead. She tells them that the Baron will hire them to find and eliminate the force or forces attacking the villages. The party agrees (Rowan feels a funny vibe about the whole thing, but agrees that protecting innocent farmers is worth the weirdness). Shella provides them with a map of the area showing the independent Halfling villages. Shella seems to also have a low opinion of these villages, as they have had the opportunity to be protected by the Baron, but declined, clinging to their tradition of independence.
The party leaves the barracks next to the Baron’s enclosure and is accosted by a slightly deranged Beggar woman who, when they give her a few coins and some food, whispers fiercely: “Beware those who hear whispers in their dreams! They sleep fitfully, now, awaiting the Speaker’s plans!” After than she ambles off as if nothing had happened, and begins begging for coin again from other passersby, ignoring the party.
Creeped out, the party heads to the nearest inn. Tired and road-weary, Grumble, Rowan and Nialia head up to their rooms after eating. Badger and Quirky share an awkward drink or two, then head upstairs, with plans to spend the night in the same room. Ish. Kind of. They couldn’t be more nervous.
Quirky, ducking into his own room to change, finds Grumble waiting for him. Grumble gives a small and obviously rehearsed speech about the painful things he’ll do to Quirky if he breaks Badger’s heart. Quirky takes it in stride. As he leaves, Grumble asks Quirky a curious question. Just after Grayle’s attack, Quirky mentioned something about “just because Grumble failed to protect something precious in the past,” and Grumble wants to know how the shifter knew anything about Grumble’s past. Not wanting to tell the dwarf that he can read thoughts, Quirky tells Grumble that he was talking in his sleep. Grumble asks Quirky to stop him if he does so again. Quirky offers the suggestion that it can be beneficial, even therapeutic, to let your past out, and to not let it haunt you. Grumble glowers at the gnome* and Quirky backs off the subject. With a last warning of grievous bodily harm in the event of gnomish heartbreak, Grumble heads for his room.
Finally Quirky knocks on Badger’s door, and she opens it, wearing a flowing sleeping gown that makes Quirky weak in the knees. The gnome and the changeling talk for a while, trying to get the nerve up for a kiss. As Badger is about to give up and climb into bed alone, Quirky, panicking, pulls Badger to him, only to have her slam her jaw painfully into his shoulder. Rubbing her jaw while Quirky apologizes, aghast, Badger informs him that he’s allowed to try again. Quirky smiles and leans toward the beautiful young gnome once more. For tonight, at least, death-marks, assassins and the perils of the world are forgotten, and nothing exists for the two fumbling lovers except each other.
At dawn, Rowan heads out to post a letter to Potter. She gets back to the inn as Grumble and Nialia are starting to eat. Badger comes downstairs, greeting everyone with a bright cheerfulness. Rowan and Nialia share a knowing “oh, really” look over the head of the dwarf. Quirky comes down a few minutes later, and the party sets out onto the road towards the nearest village on the map.
All too soon they notice yet another column of smoke rising out of the woods, and hasten to the scene. Near the village they find a beaten pat leading off into the woods. Nialia shifts into wolf form and investigates, finding a recently used orc encampment that now stands deserted. The rest of the party gathers to investigate the remains of the orc camp, but are ambushed by a group of lizardfolk carrying bolas and poisoned arrows. The party makes short work of the reptilian warriors, but several escape, running into the woods in different directions. Disheartened, the group heads to the village to see what clues may be found there.
It is a grim sight: this village has been razed just like the other two. Orc, lizardfolk and other, stranger tracks have trampled the area. Wooden poles topped by hastily stripped skulls are dotted throughout the village, and the ground is littered with the skulls of Halfling men, women and children as well as farm animals. Nothing seems to have been spared. A pair of young Halflings emerges from the mist, having spent most of the day burying the dead. The sole survivors, a brother and sister, tell a chilling tale of sudden fog, and silent orcs that make no sound while they slaughter, and great beasts from hell with glowing eyes that are equally noiseless. The only sound the two heard were the screams of their neighbors and family been slaughtered in their beds.
Giving the Halflings some healing potions, weapons and money and instructing them to get to Brindinsford as soon as they can, the party heads off towards the next village. Nialia changes to wolf form and streaks ahead, taking full advantage of her ability to pass through the woodlands as easily as an open road. Three miles from the next village, she finds another beaten path leading off into the woods. Cautiously investigating, she finds the path closely watched by orc scouts. Moving deeper into the woods, she finds an encampment just like the last, only this one is full of at least 30 orc warriors and beasts that resemble a cross between a cat and a wolf with ram horns and large enough to take an orc rider.
She flees back to the party as they make their way up the road. Everyone decides that they have no time to try and evacuate, fortify or even warn the nearby village, night is coming on fast. They decide to head into the woods, their passing eased by a druid spell. Their attempt to circle around the camp and approach from an unexpected direction does not work as planned, however. Quirky and Grumble both wear heavy armor that is difficult to keep quiet. Upon reaching the camp, they find it empty. Wondering if they are too late, they venture into the center of camp. However, fires still burn within the crude fortifications surrounding the encampment, and tents still stand. Just as the party reaches the center of the camp, a fog rolls in seemingly from out of nowhere. The two gnomes are nearly lost in the 3 feet of fog. Slowly the chilling sight of hulking orc shapes materialize out of the mist, circling outside the camp. They see also the beasts Nialia described earlier, an orc warrior atop each. Finally a deep voice calls to them, asking if the Baron had sent them.
Nialia covers Grumbles response that Hell has sent them to bring the orcs home with a hasty declaration that yes, they were sent by the Baron. Hearing this, an order to stand down is barked, and the orcs lower their bows and crossbows, and begin heading into the camp. A towering orc, obviously the leader of the tribe, demands to know where his gold is. It seems the baron was paying he and his tribe to slaughter the villages. Covering their dismay and confusion, the party is forced to admit that they do not have the gold owed the Skull Tribe for services rendered, nor had the Baron told them about any arrangement.
“Well,” says the tribe leader, “the Baron must have wanted you dead then.” In orcish, he calls for his troops to kill the intruders, drawing a huge greataxe.
Grim-faced, the party pulls together against the onslaught of orcs. Nialia tosses her python rod onto the tribe’s spell-caster, shouting the command word just as it hits him. The savage sorcerer never has a chance as the giant constrictor quickly crushes him into orc-paste. Grumble battles the orc chieftain, trading grievous blows until the chief overbalances, topples backwards and impales himself on the blade of his own axe. Meanwhile, orcs mounted on their brutish mounts have smashed into the party from behind. Rowan and Grumble concentrate on the orcs, as do Quirky and Badger, as Nialia calls lighting down from the stormy skies to strike the beasts. As the ranks of the orcs close around them, the beast-riders drive a wedge into the party’s formation, raking the adventurers with claws and teeth.
Hidden in the low fog, Badger slices up the beasts’ underbellies while Grumble takes down two orc warriors with each measured sweep of his axe. Rowan, weaving a tapestry of death with her whirling longsword and mace, single-handedly holds the party’s right flank together. Nialia summons a pack of wolves to distract and maul the orcs from the rear, and sends her python to attack the beast-riders that haven’t been able to join the fray yet. The snake kills one and wounds a second before being hacked to death by the orcs running to help their beast-rider comrade.
The skull tribe is on the verge of defeat when Grumble goes down on a clod of loose earth and bashes himself in the head with his weapon, momentarily stunning him. Orcs and an adjacent beast-rider swarm over him, but Quirky leaps to the fallen dwarf’s aid, literally standing on Grumble as he metes out a brutal counterattack. He pushes the enemy back with spells and his dagger, having lost his mace earlier in the battle. Despite his deadly magic and tenacity, the orcs and beast nearly rip Quirky to shreds. Only an emergency contingency healing spell saves Quirky from falling senseless across the body of Grumble.
Badger screams with the rage of angels as she leaps to Quirky’s aid, and with a savage thrust of her sword rips the throat out of the beast mauling her love. Nialia heals the gnome enough to keep him on his feet, then the three women mop up the remaining orcs and the last of the beasts.
Grumble regains his feet a few seconds later while Rowan walks over the battlefield, finishing off her wounded foes. Looting the camp, they find the gold given to the skull tribe as a down payment, as well as a magical staff that enabled all the orcs wearing skull charms to remain quiet while they attacked. The exhausted party takes the head of the chief with them and staggers back to their mounts left back on the road.
They make it to the nearby village, where they’re met by the village Elder, an old Halfling man named Joram. He and several young Halflings have been standing watch, armed with the meager weapons available to them. The party insists they have taken care of the menace. Joram, eying their wounds and their gore-spattered clothes and armor, wants to believe them, but remains cautions. Out of the shadows behind the party melts a large but striking Halfling female warrior astride a wolf that escapes being classified as dire only because he would have eaten anyone who got close enough to measure him.
She goes off down the trail to verify the party’s tale while Joram allows the party to relax in a barn. He promises them the best accommodations and food the village can provide when Cora Thornapple (the Halfling warrior woman) returns.
Thornapple returns soon after, and with grudging respect for the adventurers, informs Elder Joram that the orc tribe has indeed been wiped out completely. Nialia amazes Cora further when her ferocious mount pads up to the druidess and licks her hand. Joram and the other Halflings, too tired and afraid for the truth to sink in quite yet, usher the party to a common house in the village with “big-sized” rooms. The party is bathed and fed, and discuss what action to follow next. Was this all just a brutal protection scam, or is something else going on? Realizing they have only the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence against the Baron, they decide that all they can do is collect their pay from Lieutenant Shella and move on. They resolve to speak to Elder Joram the next morning; perhaps the Halfling can shed some light on this mystery.
While most of them head off to bed (or out into the woods); Rowan has a question on her mind for Quirky. After she cleans herself up, she seeks him out.
She finds Quirky by the fire in the main room of the common house, stoically stitching shut some of his wounds. Rowan asks about the device Quirky used in the sunless citadel to give them all foul dreams. She asks how it could cause Heidiana’s reflection to disappear after her reflection’s throat was slit in her dream. Quirky does not know, only knowing that the device was full of foul and evil magic, designed to bring madness as well as nightmares. He reiterates that he’s certain he destroyed it before leaving it in the citadel. Seemingly satisfied, Rowan bids him good-night and leaves him as Badger emerges from her own room. She’s obviously been shaken by seeing Quirky come so close to being slain. She helps him clean his wounds, bathes him, and then helps him to bed.
The adventurers sleep uneasily, knowing that while they have saved hundreds of innocent lives, they may have played right into the hands of the one who endangered those same lives in the first place...

* Yes, Quirky is technically a doppelganger, not a gnome. But he stays in his gnome form almost exclusively, for Badger’s sake. I refer to him as a gnome for ease of writing, unless he’s in the guise of someone else.

Session 18: Cost of Living (part three of three)

Game Date: 11/18/07 (later that evening)
In Game Dates: Novander 31st, late – Disander 5th, late

“So,” says Quirky, a brittle smile on his lips, “who wants to get drunk?”
Rowan heads upstairs to check on Badger as the rest of the party orders drinks. Quirky gets up and says he wants to go talk to Morwen. Nialia and Grumble get their drink on while Rowan comforts Badger upstairs. Eventually Rowan convinces Badger to come downstairs and join the rest of the group. Soon after that, Quirky returns, his face unreadable. After drinking several rounds with the group, Rowan excuses herself and heads out towards Potter’s residence.
As Grumble is getting well into his cups, a dwarf behind him nods and lifts his own mug in Grumble’s direction. Grumble is stunned by this; as an outcast, a normal dwarf should shun him like a festering mound of rotting garbage. After giving a cautious greeting, Grumble regards the dwarf. Craggy-featured, the old dwarf’s hair, mustache and beard are snow-white; his armor is ornate and gray as a cliff face at dusk. Nialia feels uneasy, this dwarf smells at once like and unlike a dwarf. The smell has a crisp tang to it, like ice on the rocks at dawn.
Regardless of social convention, the stranger challenges Grumble to a drinking match. As the dwarves begin to drink copious amounts of alcohol, the stranger asks Grumble about himself. “What is a dwarf who cannot hold his dwarven ale?” asks the stranger. “What is a dwarf without a clan?” Grumble responds that his friends, who’ve proven loyal and steadfast in combat, are his new clan; he finds his happiness in them. The stranger grunts and they continue to drink, switching from dwarven ale to Old HelmCleaver’s Fire Brandy. As they start downing the hard stuff, Grumble feels himself losing the drinking contest. The stranger tells (in short form) the tale of the first dwarven spirits, and how a clan of dwarves were killed while they were drunk on this new liquid.
Suddenly the stranger demands Grumble demonstrate his prowess with dwarven weapons. Quirky and Nialia are wary, but don’t interfere. Quirky’s half-mumbled comment “Strange. I can’t get a read on him.” goes unheard in the surrounding din of Morwen’s common room. Nialia follows Grumble and the stranger outside while Quirky stays within with an inebriated and still very upset Badger. The stranger daubs a spot of paint on a hitching post outside Morwen’s and draws a line on the cobbles some twenty feet away. Barely even glancing at the post, the stranger buries a throwing axe into the center of the target. Grumble tries several times, but manages only to hit the target once in his drunken state. Suddenly the small crowd around the two gasps; the stranger is now holding Grumble’s axe against Grumble’s throat. The street darkens as the stranger rumbles like a calving glacier, “Is this how you protect the ones in your care? Is this how you defend the only remaining things in this world you claim bring you happiness?” As the street grows darker, Grumble’s darkvision kicks in, showing that wisps of smoke, like fog off the mountains, are drifting off the stranger into the night air. There is a clap like muffled thunder, and everything goes black for a second. When the darkness lifts, Grumble stands alone, his axe once more secured in it’s normal place. As the stunned onlookers mutter to themselves and drift back indoors to their drinks, Grumble falls to the ground and begins vomiting as only a drunken dwarf can do. Nialia and Orderik (who’d come out to make sure there was no trouble) carry grumble upstairs and dump him face-down on his bed, his head over the side with a basin underneath. The rest of Grumble’s night can be imagined as the aftermath of the worst bender ever.
Alone in the bar now, Quirky stares at Badger, his eyes full of a weary sadness. “Come on,” he says to Badger. “We’re going to go see Morwen.”
They go out across the courtyard to Morwen’s house. Morwen greets them and ushers them inside.
“I thought since it was Rascal who told you about how your parents had relocated, you might want to make sure they’re actually all right,” explains Quirky. “I took the liberty of asking Morwen if she would be willing to perform a scrying spell to have you look and see what your family’s up to.” Morwen greets the two gnomes with a smile, and ushers Badger into her lab, where she sits the gnome in front of a large mirror. While Morwen casts the spell, Badger focuses her mind on her favorite brother. To her relief, she does indeed see her family: her parents and three brothers cleaning up after their own evening meal. She recognizes the home they’re in: it’s their house in the Addun-home! Against all odds, Rascal had told the truth, in this matter, at least. Badger watches her family settle down in the sitting room and watches her father smoke his pipe while fiddling with a piece of something or other. Her mother knits while her three brothers play a board game. Her mother looks up at the mantle, where a picture of a younger Badger stands with lit candles on wither side. Her mother’s sigh brings a tear to the eyes of both Badger and Morwen. But all too soon, the spell ends, and the vision ends.
The two women return to the kitchen, where Quirky sits, waiting. Badger hugs him tight, thanking him in a broken voice. Quirky hesitantly hugs her back, and Morwen shoots Quirky an exasperated look.
The two gnomes return to the inn, standing at the bottom of the stairwell leading up to the sleeping rooms. Badger asks again about Quirky’s past. He tells her that he wasn’t always a priest, and wasn’t always a good person. Quirky would rather Badger just know him as the person he is now. “Someday,” says Badger as she starts up the stairs, “I hope you’ll trust me enough to tell me about it.”
“And I hope that someday never comes,” replies Quirky. He turns to find Nialia nonchalantly drinking the last of her wine, gazing coolly at him. With a heavy sigh, Quirky heads off to bed as well.
Nialia heads outside the city walls and shifts into wolf form as soon as she’s out of eyeshot. Her Lythari senses pinpoint the location of the nearest pack of wolves, and she runs to join them, glad to be trading the complexities of civilization and emotions for the simple, primal directives felt by the wolves around her.

The following morning finds the group slowly assembling in Morwen’s common room over breakfast. Quirky and Badger go to wake Grumble. Quirky gives Grumble a restorative, which Grumble almost manages to keep down.
Badger has written a letter to her family (her brother, to be specific), and asks Nialia if the elf will accompany her to the elven part of town to talk to someone who can send the message. Rowan agrees, and the elf at the Silverpine Inn promises it will go out on the next coach to the Elvenhome.
Rowan takes the horses to be re-shoed for the journey south as the party prepares to leave. Potter begins shoeing the horses with his usual brisk efficiency. “You can do a good job without hurrying, you know,” she points out.”
“True” says Potter, “but I hate long goodbyes.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be back here again,” says the ranger in a small voice.
“I know,” says Potter, studying the horse hooves intently. “Our destinies lie along different paths. I’d no more ask you to stay with me as you would ask me to come with you.”
“I’m sorry,” says Rowan.
Potter looks up at her with a brittle but genuine smile. He walks over to her and holds her close. “Don’t you dare be sorry. I’ve not ever known happiness like these past few weeks. I will always have that.” He releases her and stares deeply into her eyes, as if fixing them in a hallowed hall of memory. “It will take time, but our hearts will come to understand what our heads know to be true.”
Even so, it is with a heavy heart that Rowan leaves Miel with the rest of the party. Her eyes light up when Gus comes running up as they cross the bridge out of town and leaps into her lap. Grumble is trying to hold himself together. Quirky sits behind Rowan for a few miles. He asks her for a flask of her holy water so he can test the seal on his new mace, an aspergillum. Rummaging through the pack, he finds a letter with a “P” stamped into the wax seal. Quirky hands it to Rowan, who opens it to find a poem from Potter. She breaks the seal and reads the words written on the parchment:

"Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforth in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
The gods for myself, they hear that name of thine,
And see within my eyes the tears of two."

- Potter

Her eyes brimming, but she tries to hold it in while in front of her comrades. Quirky gives Rowan a hug, and while holding on to her, casts calm emotions on her. Rowan finds the pain lessening, and her heart feels eased.
The party makes little progress that day, not necessarily all the fault of Grumble's hangover, and they decide to stop over at the same farmhouse they visited a few days ago. Knocking on the door, however, it seems disaster has befallen the family: one of the farmer’s sons was kicked by a horse and lies in a bad fever. Quirky examines the lad and grimly determines that there must be severe internal bleeding and perhaps a ruptured appendix. With the aid of Nialia, he tends the boy overnight, trying to keep him alive so he can receive the needed spells for surgery the next morning. The surgery and healing is a success, and Nialia examines the horse that kicked the farmer’s son. The horse had an infection in it’s back leg that was causing it pain, and made it lash out. Nialia heals the animal. Only repeated protestations of the urgency of their mission to the Duke gets the party out from the immeasurable gratitude of the farm family. Right now, if a slot for a saint opened up, the party would elect Quirky in half a heartbeat. Badger comments that Zook could carry them both comfortably. Quirky, blithely ignoring a glare from Grumble, climbs onto the back of the enormous Diunsearch wolfhound and Badger suppresses a squeak of glee. It was probably because Quirky was unused to riding a hound, but Badger keeps his hands firmly planted on the dog’s saddle with her own. Of course Badger has to keep tight against him to make sure the tired gnome didn’t slip or slide unduly.
As evening falls, Nialia’s keen nose picks up the scent of blood. Sure enough, there are a few dozen raucously crying crows overhead. Nialia shifts to wolf form as Rowan slides off her mount. The road they ride on now sits atop an embankment some four feet high, with ditches on either side. The woods to either side are thicker and close to the road; there are no farms around for miles. The perfect spot for an ambush. Rowan finds evidence of several men having laid in wait, and a small but abandoned camp a ways into the woods. The tracks are at least two days old, and somewhat obscured by the recent drizzling rain. On the other side of the road, Nialia finds a corpse that was rolled down the embankment and into some brambles. Her nose tells her before her eyes do: the corpse was once a young but foolish gnome named Rascal. His throat has been slit, but aside from being picked at by crows, no other marks are evident. No signs that someone took a body part as proof for a bounty. Likely it was just a plain old bandit attack.
Quirky appears the most shaken by this. “Apparently the gods reserve the right to decide who gets second chances,” he mutters. The sobered party leaves the corpse for the animals to feast on, and they move on.
Speaking of sober, the party notices that Grumble has not touched a drop of his supply of ale or Ha’ak. Grumble has been quieter than usual, thinking over the words of the strange, smoking dwarf. His head pounds, his hands shake, and his skin is chilled from cold sweats, but he says nothing, knowing a true dwarf does not complain of such trifles. Even Rowan senses something deep moving within the dwarf, and for once does not make any jibes. A bit unnerving to Grumble is the frosty cold he feels radiating off his axe, even under the mid-day late summer sun. It’s been like that ever since the night before they left the city; the night he spent turning inside out.
The next three days of travel are uneventful. Wolves have been traveling with the party, and it has become common for a few of them to settle down next to Nialia as he meditates. That night, however, under a night sky cloudy and devoid of stars or moon, Grumble takes out his collection of ale canteens and the filigreed flask containing his precious Ha’ak. One by one he throws the canteens of ale away into the darkness, a strange look on his face. The Ha’ak he looks longingly at for a moment and then tosses the flask into the fire. To his stunned comrades, he says in a clear, strong voice: “I’ve been thinking. It’s time I stopped feeling quite so… Well, I think it’s time to move on.” Quirky and the rest notice that the dwarf’s eyes seem clearer in the dancing flames. Nialia notes he smells slightly different now. Grumble apologizes for behaving the way he has been, and proceeds to take the first watch. His thoughts are awash with the unknown, but now he faces it with a clear head, and the iron determination that only a dwarf can muster.
Badger takes the second watch, but an hour or so into the watch is awakened by Quirky, who has been lying awake. In the firelight his face looks drawn, almost haggard. He does not meet Badger’s soft blue eyes as they speak. Quirky, his heart in his throat, tells Badger that he has feelings for her. More, even. In all his travels, he’s never met someone like her. Not just physically (though Quirky is quick to point out that he finds no flaw in her physical appearance), but that her poise, her heart, and her mind have a rare purity to them that he says has captivated him. He can’t stop thinking about her.
Badger whispers that she has feelings for Quirky as well.
There is another pause, and if Quirky had looked up into Badger’s eyes he would not have been able to go on, such was the dawning joy that was spreading across her face.
As if dragging every word from the blackest pits of the abyss, Quirky asks her if he remembers entering the Sunless Citadel that first day, and encountering him in that orc-held dungeon cell. Confused not so much by the question as the tone of his voice, Badger nods.
“I arrived in that cell scant hours before you found me. I chained myself up in the hopes that you would rescue me.”
Badger’s confusion is quickly turning to alarm, “What? But you-"
“You know the horrible dreams you had that night? I had a device that gave you those evil dreams. I was to use it on you every night until they drove you and Grumble mad. Then I was to kill you both. I was the first assassin sent after you that I spoke of before.”
Badger feels something shrivel and char within her, feels herself turning to ice when just a moment ago she had burned with a never-before felt delight. As if it were someone else, she hears herself ask in a tortured whisper: “Who hired you?”
Now Quirky forces himself to look up, forces himself to gaze into the eyes that now brim and spill over with tears. “I think you know. He told me you and Grumble had murdered his daughter and robbed his estate. I was surprised that someone like me would be hired for such an easy target, but not enough so that I declined the job.”
“It was either kill or be killed by her. We didn’t want to, but she left us no choice!” says Badger hotly.
“I know that now,” nods Quirky. “Your version of events fits much better with what I’ve come to learn about Baron von Hawkmoor. He misrepresented the facts to me, which voids his contract. This may sound odd coming from an assassin, but I won’t be used as that kind of tool. I only killed those I deemed to be worth killing. And once I met you…”
Quirky falters and stops, wishing Badger to scream, to attack him, to call him every foul curse ever uttered by mortal mouths, but she merely gazes at him, tears streaming down her face.
“At any rate, I couldn’t use that device again after that first night. I destroyed it and left it in that forsaken pit. At first I told myself it was because I needed you all to get out of that hell-hole with my skin intact, but afterwards, I couldn’t bring myself to let harm come to you, I cared too much about you. I couldn’t bring myself to touch Grumble either, because he meant so much to you.”
Silence falls, filling the space between the two gnomes like the cold darkness between the stars.
“Look,” says Quirky, “I’m not lying about my feelings. Those are genuine.”
It is the wrong thing to say, and now Badger does lash out. “How could you betray me like this? How could you lead me - lead us all – on like that?”
“If you want me to go, I will go,” says Quirky softly. “You can tell the others whatever you wish.” The words I’m sorry stick in his throat like burrs. Even in his head they sound as hollow as his heart feels.
After a pause, Badger speaks, “Get away from me, Quirky. I need to think. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

The remainder of the night for them both feels like an eternity of torture: Badger alone with her grief, and Quirky alone with his guilt. Dawn comes at last like a tired plow horse and sluggishly brightens the low slate sky in measured levels of gray. Quirky is nowhere to be seen as the rest of the party awakes, but soon returns with a pair of rabbits for breakfast. Everyone sees the red puffy eyes of both gnomes, but say nothing.
Badger strides off into the forest, and once out of eye and earshot, is finally able to let out some of the raw fury in her heart. Badger collapses to the cold earth, pounding her fists into the soil as if demanding answers from a world that she never knew could be so cruel. Eventually she returns, stone-faced, to the camp. She leans over Quirky, who sits holding the rabbits on skewers over the fire.
“Don’t you leave me just yet, Quirky Timbers,” she whispers with a savage fierceness. Quirky’s face doesn’t change, even though his heart leaps at her words.
That day Quirky rides behind Rowan as she scouts ahead of the party. Badger stares down at the swirled patterns of Zook’s thick fur, wrestling both with her feelings and with concealing them from those around her.
Up ahead, Rowan looks back at the blank face of the gnome behind her. “Things not go too well with Badger last night?”
“No,” Quirky says, willing his voice not to crack. Rowan doesn’t press things, and eventually they arrive at a crossroads. A lonely signpost marks the distance to Miel, Pythus, and another town neither adventurer has heard of.
Alert, the gnome and half-elf scan the area for the bandits that they know are out there somewhere. Oh, please, let there be bandits around here Quirky wishes fervently, gripping his mace hard enough that the bones in his hand creak. Rowan notices Quirky scanning the sky more than the ground. “See anything up there?” the ranger asks.
“Nothing,” says the gnome with a troubled look.
They wait for the rest of the party to catch up, and then take the road towards Pythus together. Dusk creeps across the gray sky, and the party settles down once more. Badger volunteers to take a watch once more. When she’s sure everyone else is asleep, she approaches Quirky, who is fairly certain he will never be able to sleep again.
“Are you even a real cleric, or have you lied about that too?” Badger asks finally.
“I don’t serve Pelor, no.” says Quirky with a sigh. “I’m not a cleric as such. I’m part of a very small cabal of magic users who call themselves Ur-priests. We use our power to steal magic from the gods and use it for our own brand of divine magic. It’s not evil per se, but it’s not good either. I wear the emblem of Pelor because he’s the most commonly worshiped. A healer bearing the Peloric sun is welcomed in many more places than would welcome a travel-dirty gnome in armor. It was just another part of the disguise.”
If looks could kill, Quirky and a good many of his ancestors would have been blotted out of existence.
Finally, Quirky's voice cracks. “Oh, gods, Badger, I can’t take seeing you like this,” Quirky bursts. “Please, for pity’s sake, tell me something, ANYTHING I can do, and I will do it. Tell me to walk through fire, tell me to flay the flesh from my bones, just let me do something for you!”
The two gnomes stare at each other. For the first time, Quirky is crying, his hot tears spilling across the stubble on his cheeks and dripping with barely audible pats onto his bedroll. “You can stay up with me,” says Badger softly.
Quirky laughs softly. “You know, it never happens this way in the ballads, but I really have to pee. I’ll be right back.” Badger almost smiles as Quirky heads off into the darkness among the trees. After a few moments, Badger hears a crackling of branches, and turns to greet Quirky.
Her words die on her lips as she sees a much larger form creeping rapidly towards her. For a half-second she thinks it is a wolf, perhaps even Nialia, but then the thing leaps for her, and thick-skinned claws encircle her throat, choking her scream before it can get past her lips.
With a pump of perfectly camouflaged wings, the creature flies across the camp and alights in the upper branches of a tamarack. The thick bough under them bends under their weight, but holds. Badger struggles, only to feel cold claws at her belly.
A soft, female voice like gravel sliding over honey rasps in Badger’s ear. “So thissss is what takes him away from me, yes?”
Badger draws a ragged breath. Where normally she would find terror, she feels only anger. “When I get free I’m going to end you!”
The thing laughs cruelly, tips of her claws just breaking the skin. “Oh, I don’t think so, little one. I’m going to gut you for stealing him from me!” And spitting the word as if it tastes foul, “Or do you think your cleric will save you?”
Below them, Badger hears Quirky calling softly for her. She gets out a squeak before the thing chokes her.
But Quirky hears. With a few muttered words, the fire blazes up, and the clearing fills with a dirty red glow. Quirky sees the creature and her hold on Badger and goes pale as mist. “Grayle, don’t do this. Let her go.”
Nialia awakes to the growling of the wolves around her and quickly takes in the situation. She is readying a spell when Quirky stops her with a desperate look in his eyes. “If she dodges your spell she’ll kill Badger!” Nialia reluctantly subsides as Rowan and Grumble wake up. Grumble calls to Badger in Dwarven, but before she can complete her answer, Grayle hisses “speak Common, or I’ll bite out your tongue!”
“Grayle, please,” pleads Quirky. “don’t hurt her!”
The creature cries, “Why? Look at her! She will never understand you as I do! She will never accept you! She will never love your real self!” Swiveling her head to look into Badger’s eyes from a scant few inches, Grayle asks her, “Do you love him?”
Without hesitating or blinking, Badger says simply and steadily, “Yes.”
Grayle screams like the death of a comet an raises a hand full of claws the length of Badger’s forearm to strike.
Nialia begins casting, Rowan dives for her bow, and Grumble for his javelins, but Quirky is ready for this and strikes as fast as the assassin he is. His scream for a moment drowns out the gargoyle’s cry, but his scream is full of dark speech. It feels like the very life is sucked out of the clearing for a moment, and a huge, smoky black claw that even the non-magic users can feel the evil washing off of streaks from Quirky's outflung hands. With a sickening crunch of snapping sinew and bone, the claw slices into and through Grayle’s body, nearly ripping the gargoyle in half.
Released from a dying Grayle’s clutch, Badger finds herself falling. As Rowan starts running towards her, time slows down for Badger. With dream-like clarity, she realizes the sprinting ranger will never get to her in time. Idly, she notices that something shiny is hurtling towards her, and she snatches it from the air out of reflex. It’s a fancy ring. Badger wonders why she shouldn’t go out looking glamorous, and puts the ring on her finger…
On the ground, Rowan sees Badger’s fall abruptly slow, which gives the ranger the precious second she needs to throw herself the last few inches, and Rowan catches Badger in her strong arms, cradling the gnome to her.
As the corpse of the gargoyle smacks into the dirt a second later, Quirky whispers, “I loved you Grayle. You were my only friend since childhood. I’m sorry I let it come to this; I should have known.”
He’s still muttering when Grumble grab Quirky, throwing the gnome roughly to the ground and puts his axe to Quirky's throat. “What the hell just happened, Quirky? And what the hell was that spell you just cast! Start talking, because if you've hurt Badger, I swear-”
At Rowan and Nialia’s urging, Grumble takes the axe away and let’s the gnome sit up.
Looking at them, Quirky asks, “do you remember entering the Sunless Citadel that first day, and encountering me in that orc-held dungeon cell?”

. . .

After hearing all Quirky had told Badger, Nialia, Rowan and Grumble are dumbfounded. He explains that Grayle was his partner for many of his jobs, and they had worked as a team for many years, though he had no idea of her feelings for him.
Nialia says she trusts him. Rowan thinks that the gnome should be judged by the behavior he’s exhibited since they met him, not by past misdeeds. Grumble remains adamant, though, he most definitely does NOT trust the would-be assassin. Badger is huddled in a small ball, her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Grumble goes to her and puts his arm around her small, shivering form.
“Are you even a gnome,” wonders Grumble, eyes bright with suspicion.
Looking at the still sobbing form of Badger, her hands covering her face, Quirky, agony etched in his face, silently mouths the words, “Please. Not now.” Aloud he says, “Yes.”
Eventually, Rowan suggests that they all try to get some sleep.
Quirky stands up and says grimly, “I’m going to bury my friend. I don’t want help.” He walks off into the darkness, leaving a pensive elf, a concerned half-elf and an angry dwarf holding a weeping gnome girl all staring at his retreating form.

****

DM's Notes:
-This was kind of a Role-laying Season Finale. I do not expect to be writing out a session summary this detailed for a while.
-The poem is not mine. It was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the sixth of her "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
-My players did some of the best role-playing I've ever seen this session, I'd barely scripted anything for this, so I hope it wasn't too melodramatic. Kudos to you all.
-Lastly, "WAAAAH! I NEED A HUG!"

Session 18: Cost of Living (part two)

Game Date: 11/18/07
In Game Dates: Novander 29th, late – Nov. 31st p.m.

That night, Nialia snaps out of her trance to find Quirky gone. She hears what sounds like an explosion and a flash of red light off to the east. She slips into her wolf form and pads silent as fog towards the noise. She hears an inhuman screech, and then all is silent.
She arrives in another small clearing some fifth of a mile east of their camp to see a strange sight. She watches Quirky deliver a death-blow to a staggering elf. Another corpse lies at the feet of a hulking, winged figure. The winged figure and Quirky converse for a moment in a tongue Nialia does not know, but soon the winged creature spies Nialia and gives a cry of alarm. Quirky spins, and after identifying the wolf as Nialia, dismisses the flying creature before Nialia can get a decent look at it. Quirky staggers over, beaten and badly burned. Nialia heals the gnome, who tells her that these bandits lured him away from the camp then attacked. He fears that more might be watching the campsite, waiting for signs of them stirring. They creep back to find a would-be sniper sitting in a tree, watching the sleeping party. Nialia ruins his day with a few well-placed lightning bolts. Rowan and Badger awake quickly enough to finish off the elf before he can recover from his fall out of the tree he was in. In the firelight, the elf is revealed as one of the Dinear Drubdha, “They who dwell apart from the sun,” or more commonly known as Drow. Quirky apologizes for falling for such a stupid trick of these “bandits” and then passes out from the wounds he’s sustained.
The next day of travel is a test of wills for the exhausted party. They finally pay a nearby farmer a few silver pieces to sack out in his warm, cozy barn instead of sleeping under the rain-laden sky again.
Better-rested, the party awakes and travels the rest of the way back to Miel, arriving just after mid-day. They rush to the temple, only to find that Rascal had left two days before and hasn’t been seen by the clergy since. Everyone’s groans of dismay are interrupted by a cough from behind them. Zalaina stands there, and upon hearing that the party retrieved the item, informs them that the bounty hunters caught Rascal trying to escape the city, and have sequestered him under their careful (but not gentle) supervision. She agrees to a hand-off during the dinner hours in the common room at Morwen’s.
Quirky heads off after Zalania leaves, and Nialia follows the cleric. Remarking upon Badgers growing affection for Quirky, Nialia bids him to take the same advice he gave to her a few days ago if he really cares for her. Quirky snaps at her, asking if she doesn’t think he’d lay down his life for her, or do anything else for her to keep her from harm? That’s not what I meant, speaks the Druid. Quirky tells her that he knows he doesn’t deserve Badger, and Nialia asks him about the evil spell he cast, and what deity he really serves, since no real cleric of Pelor could cast such a spell. Quirky does not say, only swears that he serves no evil deity, nor will do anything to betray the party if he can help it. Niaila presses him further, asking what deity would tolerate Quirky pretending to worship another. Finally Quirky admits to not being a cleric at all, but a practitioner of a strange form of divine magic that he can shape to do a variety of things with. Quirky reiterates his commitment to Badger and the rest of the party. He also asks that Nialia keep quiet about the creature she saw in the clearing. Nialia decides to trust the gnome. Finally, Quirky asks Nialia if she can smell what direction Zalania went. Nialia sniffs, points a finger, and the gnome strides off into the city.
While this happens, Badger heads into the temple, seeking Father Tilok. Tilok is glad to see the young gnome, and asks her what he can help her with. Her face beet-red, Badger stammers that she’s developed feelings for Quirky, and wonders if there are any… limitations imposed by Pelor on his followers against, well, um...
With a neutral face a poker player would kill for, Father Tilok assures her that Pelor’s greatest command is for his followers to love, and love truly. He says nothing forbids the priests or clerics or paladins of Pelor from romantic relationships. Badger, relieved and still embarrassed, but feeling more at ease, thanks Father Tilok and heads for Potter’s smithy.
Meanwhile, Grumble and Rowan are already at the blacksmith’s shop, selling some of the treasure they found and getting minor repairs on Grumble’s armor. Potter is overjoyed to see Rowan again, and the adventurers quickly leave to give Rowan and Potter some privacy.
After a few other errands, the party gathers together at Morwen’s, waiting. Waiting. Picking at food. Drinking. Waiting.
After what seems like months, the bounty hunters arrive, Rascal in tow, who looks haggard, but cautiously optimistic to see the party waiting. After Zalania carefully inspects the jewel both by normal and magical means, the massive gem is traded for the gnome without incident. Zalania states that they have no more professional interest in either the party or Rascal now that they have the jewel. As the bounty hunters leave, Zalania adds an aside to Badger that she would have been better off if Zalania had killed Rascal, and not to let leeches like him take advantage of her good heart. With that uncharacteristic bit of personal advice, the Bounty hunter fades into the deepening twilight and is gone.
Rascal, realizing he’s been saved, sobs with relief and throws his arms around Badger. In a quiet voice, Quirky asks Grumble to split Rascal in half with his axe if he so much as touches her again. The party looks confused and a bit alarmed as they see Quirky truly angry for the first time. Quirky tells the party he always wondered how Baron von Hawkmoor found Grumble and Badger so quickly after leaving Blackreach on that caravan. Then there was the matter of the drow, who, Quirky confesses, he knew not to be bandits but the second group of assassins (which fits, since the party found enough poison on the corpses to drop a herd of elephants in their tracks) sent from von Hawkmoor to kill Badger and Grumble. They had to have had been given information as to where the party was headed to be waiting in ambush like they were, and nobody knew that but the party members themselves…. and the one gnome who told the party where to go. Quirky tells the party that he tracked Zalania after their meeting at the temple steps back to her rented room. There he was allowed to ask Rascal questions, which confirmed his suspicions: Rascal had sold Badger out not once, but twice. Apparently Rascal promised the drow that he would lead them to Badger and Grumble if the drow could help him escape the bounty hunters. The drow had demanded information first, and help afterwards. Rascal, figuring that if the drow succeeded or if the party returned successful, he’d be saved either way, had agreed.
Badger explodes, her world going red as she begins throttling Rascal, tears streaming down her face, screaming at him “How could you!? How could you do that to me?! How could you put me and my whole family at risk like that?!” Quirky stops Badger before she can kill him, and to the rest of the party’s amazement, tosses a large bag of gold onto the table in front of the traitor. “There’s two thousand gold in there,” says Quirky in a voice devoid of all emotion. “It’s yours. Use it to start a new, honest living somewhere. Just get out of our sight, because if any of us see you again, it will mean your life.”
Rascal stares, incredulous for a moment, then clutches the bag to himself and slinks away, out of Morwen’s, out of the party’s lives. Badger, still shaking with sobs, stumbles upstairs to her room.
After a few moments of silence, Quirky surveys the group.
“Give her some time,” says Rowan, “she’ll be all right.”
Nialia regards the gnome cleric. “That was incredibly generous of you, Quirky.”
Quirky stares at the door both the bounty hunters and Rascal had so recently left through. “I wanted to kill him,” he whispers. “But I had to do this. I have to believe a traitor should have a chance to redeem himself somehow…”
Grumble sighs deeply. “You did the right thing, Quirky.”
“So,” says Quirky, a brittle smile on his lips, “who wants to get drunk?”

Session 17: Cost of Living (part one)

Game Date: 11/16/07
In Game Date: Novander 29th

The day dawns gray and drizzling with rain as the party stares into the forbidding depths of the entrance of the ruins. Grumble strides forward into the gates, only to have a portcullis drop down both in front and behind him. As Badger desperately searches to find a release switch, Grumble begins to be pelted with small, spiky stones that glow with an eldritch green light. Through the dim gloom the party makes out several small hunched figures slinging the rocks at Grumble. Nialia distracts them by summoning monsters to charge the wizened, red-capped gnome-like creatures while Badger slips through the bars of the portcullis and begins searching the inner walls of the gates for a release. Quirky squeezes through the first set of bars to grant Grumble some much needed healing. Grumble has cast almost all his javelins, but the distance, dim light, and the well-constructed earthen berm the creatures are taking cover behind keep him from doing any significant damage.
Finally Badger finds and triggers the release for the portcullis trap and scampers out of the way of the rocks now being slung her way. Slipping under the rising bars, the party can do nothing but charge into the hail of stones being cast their way and engage the small but powerful creatures in hand-to-hand combat. Up close, the party has the advantage, but not much of one, as the murderous fey creatures shrug off much of the damage dealt by the party’s weapons and magic. Finally Nialia casts a spell that causes the wounds of the fey to quickly fester, weakening them. Grumble takes two of them down in one mighty blow, and the rest fall quickly after that. The redcap bodies vanish, leaving no gear behind except for one long, sharp tooth for each one slain. Curious, the party gathers them, resolving to ask someone knowledgeable about these things later on.
The ruins have an evil pall felt by the party, but most especially by Quirky and Nialia. Quirky finds his healing spells less effective, and is hard-pressed to shake a feeling of dread that grows the deeper into the ruins they go. Nialia shifts into lupine form and tracks their quarry’s scent through the ruins. They find one body, evidently slaughtered by the murderous redcaps they just fought. Another body is found in the lair of a huge fiendish carrion crawler. The carrion crawler gets the drop on the party, and it's tentacles paralyse Rowan, but Quirky is ready with a handy remove paralysis spell. Rowan and Grumble keep hacking at its hide and dodging the tentacles filled with paralyzing poison. It is Nialia who finally steps forward, throwing her Python Rod up onto the abberation’s back, where it transforms into a giant constrictor snake. The party backs away as the two creatures writhe and grapple with each other. The snake, though, clearly has the advantage, and slowly crushes the life out of the carrion crawler. Smiling smugly, Nialia commands the snake to turn back into her staff.
Following the trail still further into the ruins, the party finds the corpse of the wizard who bought the diamond off Rascal. His body has been slashed and torn, and no treasure, diamond or other, is found on his corpse.
Just then, a sweet, siren song fills the air. Badger and Grumble begin to walk, entranced, towards a darkened stairwell that seems to be the source of the sweet music. The rest of the party manages to stop them, but the song continues, and the dwarf and gnome struggle to draw near to whoever is making the beautiful music. Finally not one but six harpies fly out of the stairwell, hovering and wheeling about the tall chamber. The song’s effects begin to wear off, but not before the harpy, evidently a sorceress of no mean power, starts hammering the entire party with destructive spells.
During the fight, Quirky casts a particularly powerful spell in the form of a black bolt that reeks (to Nialia’s senses) of evil. Nialia files that gross incongruity away as the party desperately tries to pierce the harpy’s mirror image illusions. Quirky has his hands full casting healing spells as quickly as he can, but takes a few hard hits from some searing rays. Rowan, who was hit hard by a cause fear spell early on in the battle, recovers magnificently and puts an arrow right through the eye of the harpy, killing her instantly.
Beaten and bloodied, the party finds the diamond they seek, as well as other gold and jewels. Also in the treasure hoard is an old, blackened book. Suspicious of such an innocuous-looking item, Rowan and Badger have Quirky cast detect evil on the book. Quirky casts his spell and is nearly blasted into next week as the overpowering malignance of the book stuns the poor gnome. He tries touching his holy symbol to the book, and his symbol explodes. Quirky realizes they’ve stumbled upon one of the few extant copies of the Libris Stygia Vilius, the fabled Book of Vile Darkness. This explains why so many evil and aberrant creatures had been drawn here. Shuddering, the party wonders if this was the treasure that the previous party sought. At any rate the party locks the book in a trunk, and throws the trunk in their bag of holding. The evil aura of the book can’t penetrate the bag, being a pocket of extradimensional space. So contained, Quirky states that a only a priest of great enough ability (greater, unfortunately, than Father Tillok), can destroy the book utterly.
The party gladly leaves the ruins behind them, riding hard during what little daylight they have left to put distance between them and the rotting evil of the ruined keep. They make camp some ten miles north of the ruins in a clearing off the road. Quirky, insisting he’s not as badly hurt as he seems, takes first watch, allowing the healed but exhausted other party members to fall into much-needed rest.

Session 16: It's Nice to be Wanted

Game Date: 11/10/07
In-Game Dates: Novander 23 p.m. – Nov. 29 a.m.

Ambling back to Morwen’s, the team decides to split up in the morning: Nialia will go look for Araven, and the rest will travel north to the cave of the sphinx to retrieve the treasure.
The next morning, however, Lady Juliet intrudes on the party’s breakfast with dire news: likenesses of the elf woman who poisoned the farm children have been posted all over the city, and people have reported seeing the woman arm-in-arm with Nialia. Knowing that rumors will spread, Juliet informs the party that if Araven cannot be found (and submit to being arrested), the angry townsfolk will turn on those people seen to be Araven’s companions. Soon, Lady Juliet will be forced to arrest the party if only to save them from a lynch mob. It is at this point the party realizes the common room of Morwen’s is filled with barely-disguised city watchmen. Juliet also mentions that if the party flees the city, it will be seen as a sign of guilt, and the party had best never return.
It is Quirky who finally comes up with a workable solution: since Nialia claims she can guarantee that Araven will not return to the city, Mayor Miel and Lady Juliet can pin the crimes on the dead goblin sorceress, since the goblin had demonstrated shape-changing disguises already, and was trying to gather weapons for her tribe for raiding purposes. Lady Juliet grudgingly agrees to the necessary deception, and the party breathes a sigh of relief.
With the problem of Araven resolved, the group sets out as a whole for the cave of the Sphinx. Just before leaving, Potter waves down Rowan. He has a gift for her: a young fox that he saved from a farmer’s henhouse instead of letting the farmer kill it. The fox takes to Rowan immediately, who throws her arms around Potter in gratitude. Potter mumbles something incoherent in embarrassment, and Rowan rejoins the group with her new animal companion, who she dubs “Gus.”
The journey to and from the sphinx cave is uneventful, though Rowan finds a new suit of elven chain for herself. While riding, the party asks Nialia about these new abilities she seems to be exhibiting (sniffing, among other things), but Nialia passes the oddities off as part and parcel of her burgeoning power as a druid. Most of the party seems mollified by this, but others are still concerned.
Returning to the town, the party is greeted by the guards and townspeople as heroes! Evidently the deception worked, since many of the families of farmers with poisoned children come up and thank the party (which isn’t awkward at all). The party returns to Morwens and proceeds to have practically everyone in town clamoring to buy the heros drinks.
Rowan gets dolled up and goes to “show Potter her new armor.” Badger, feeling mischevious, pulls Quirky along and follows the ranger. Grumble drinks his body weight while Nialia orders… steak. Raw steak. And ale. After her food, she leaves the city to commune with nature. Meanwhile, Rowan and Potter have a quiet evening together. Quirky pulls Badger back to Morwen’s before things get heavy. Potter takes a while to get there, but he finally tells Rowan of his feelings for her, and she demonstrates her feelings for him in turn.
The next morning, Quirky is waiting for Nialia as she re-enters the city. The little cleric proves himself to be sharper and more deductive than he’s previously appeared as he talks to Nialia about the changes coming over her. He suggests that for the sake of the party she tell everyone the truth about what’s happening to her. With that, he heads off to check on Heidiana and Rascal at the temple. Nialia and Rowan have both made it to Morwen’s for breakfast when Quirky comes back with news that the bounty hunters seem to have staked out the front of the temple. The party goes to the temple and is met by the leader, Zalania, and one other bounty hunter. Zalania gives the party a week to track down the people Rascal sold the jewel to and get back to Miel with it, or they will take Rascal’s head, which will still earn them a bounty price, just not as high as the one for returning the gem. If successful, the bounty hunters agree to let Rascal go unharmed.
Grumble finally convinces Rowan to go to the half-orc blacksmith (probably the most popular NPC that has never gotten a name) and barter on his behalf. Rowan finds some boots for herself, but doesn’t get the magic shield Grumble covets. Grumble starts asking around as to the story behind the half-orc and the shield, finally going to see Lady Juliet and then the half-orc. The half-orc turns out to be an outcast, similar to Grumble, and the two of them ALMOST share a moment, but then racial memories take back over. Grumble leaves, still without a magic shield.
At the end of the day Rowan heads to Potter’s place to “pick up her new armor.” Badger corners a solitary Quirky over drinks and dinner at Morwen’s, and convinces the cleric to talk about his past as they take turns pulling pranks on the tavern customers. After several hilarious (to the gnomes) pranks, Morwen herself shows up behind them and puts a stop to the mischief by pulling some prestidigitation of her own, much to the embarassment of the two gnomes. Even though they’re both pretty tipsy, Badger gets the feeling Quirky was on the verge of revealing something about his past when Morwen interrupted. Frustrated, she heads to bed.
The next day, the party readies themselves for the trek south to a ruined keep; the last known destination of the party Rascal sold the diamond to. Morwen comes to them over breakfast and asks the group if she could do a fortune reading for them, as she used to be an oracle for the Royal Court in the capital city of Fallo. Agreeing, they head to Morwen’s house, where the sorceress has them all draw a card from her fortune deck. The cards begin to levitate off the table, still face-down, as Morwen casts her diviniation spells. Abruptly, she snaps forward, red-white fire illuminating her and the cards. The cards begin to spin around and even through the astonished party members as a voice at once like and completely unlike Morwen’s issues from her throat. As she reads off the images on the cards, one by one, they turn to dust before the alarmed eyes of the party. She intones:

“The first card: The Wheel of Dragons… One will slay the one bent on slaying them.
“The second card: The Broken Mask… One will lose themselves forever.
“The third card: The Paige of Cups… One will find their heart’s desire.
“The fourth card: The Hand of Glory… One will betray, to the ruin of all.
“The fifth card: The Throne of Chaos… One will either die in failure or live in love.

“Answers to ancient mysteries must be learned,
Lest he who was vanquished once more return.
All must suffer, all must toil,
Lest the mountains fall, lest seas boil;
All will be tested, but all must prevail,
Else all good will die and all lights will fail;
All links will be bent, but the chain must not break!
In life’s name and for life’s sake,
All must stand against the house of Bel,
Lest the world become a demesne of Hell.”

Morwen collapses after finishing this rhyme, and the party quickly revives her. Morwen believes the message to be divine in origin, but has no idea which card was meant for whom. Still pondering these ominous prophecies, the shaken group mounts up and departs the city.
Two days riding brings them to a disused game trail, where Rowan guides them to the remains of a ravaged keep in the center of the clearing. The sun has just set when Nialia finally tells the party her secret of the past few days:
She tells them that Araven has awakened the Lythari blood that lay dormant in Nialia. Nialia’s grandmother, she believes, was once Lythari. Now Nialia will gain the powers of the Wolf Clan as the transformation progresses. How long it will take for her powers to awaken she does not know, but she can now become a wolf at will, and even cast spells while in this form. Badger seems the most excited out of the party at this prospect, while Rowan seems to hold the most reservations, though she keeps them to herself. Nialia changes before their eyes and pads around the perimeter of the ruins, trying to track any scent traces of their quarry. She smells three people who recently came to the place, and smells blood, but is unable to tell for certain if they are still here. There are other smells she can’t identify, both plant and animal. Returning to camp, the party agrees to enter the ruins at dawn, building a fire in the clearing in front of the ruined gates, hoping perhaps any surviving adventurers will come out to them.
While they encounter nothing from the ruined keep, both Grumble and Badger, hear the rustlings of large things moving nearby in the forest. Grumble sees pale, luminous eyes reflected in the firelight, but they vanish before he can investigate.
Dawn comes over the horizon, and the party gears up to enter the yawning blackness of the ruins…