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"Oh, we're telling tales, are we?"
Gavin tells a story he's very rarely spoken before: One of his parents.
The story itself is somewhat cliche. The daughter of a Taldan noble falls in love with a Galtan mercenary. There's a great deal of scandal, when the daughter becomes pregnant, and is disowned as a consequence. The two lovers run away to the great City at the Center of the World, Absalom, where a strong, young boy is born. He leaves out the tragic bits about his father leaving, but lays on as much of the courtly intrigue/gossip as he can.
”Ooh, ooh, ooh, this is fascinating!" Yrishi says, her voice trilling with delight. ”Kindly knitting monsters and fungal elves! Tales of fierce love! And what’s that you say, a pipefox with my name who served a god? I don’t think that was me, but I have learned and seen so many things, I suppose it’s possible I forgot.”
After a bit more discussion of the party's true goals in the Deepmarket, Yrishi replies with a warm yet vulpine grin, ”Oh, you are interesting, even more than I had hoped! And the fact that all these animals like you is a good sign indeed. I have been here in the Undermarket for some time, exploring all the ins and outs, and in the Deepmarket too. I know where to find Tseka’s hideout, and I will show you the way, as long as you agree to share whatever secrets you find within! I don’t want to go inside, but I’d like to hear about it!”
Coiling around a bit of pipe sticking out of the broken wall, she adds excitedly, ”I recently heard that the Aspis have begun trying to ally with a group of alley bashers named the Dragon Fangs, which is interesting, just because there must be a story behind it and I don’t know what the story is. I wonder why they’d join up? What will each side get out of the partnership? I can also tell you, I’ve heard that someone who wore a wayfinder defected to the Aspis Consortium a few years back, which isn't usually what those people do.”
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Idgethun chuckles. "No! It is not. We are happy to share what we find -- it is what we do -- though I do worry that on this particular occasion what we find may not be altogether, ah, wholesome." Her smile takes on a sad slant. "But! We will not know until we do, no? Shall we?"
She motions the pipefox forward, eager to get moving.
Yrishi nods briskly at Idgethun’s words and says, “Yes, follow me!” The little pipefox leads the party along, chattering much of the way as she scampers and leaps along, sometimes riding on a Pathfinder’s shoulder or surfing along on the back of one of the various beasts they travel with. She’s particularly intrigued by the spellcasters in the group, asking lots of questions about spells, magic, and rituals, both arcane and divine.
After about two hours of travel, Yrishi stops and says, ”We’re approaching an Aspis checkpoint, so we should be sure you’re disguised well. Make sure you don’t have anything that will make you stand out in the Deepmarket – jewelry, flashy clothing, anything that will attract unwanted attention.” She darts about, looking at each of the Pathfinders, squinting and peering sidelong, nodding and saying quietly, ”Yeah, that’s good. Oh, you’ll never be picked out of a crowd!” She pauses a moment while studying Idgethun, her face scrunching up in thought before saying, ”Well, you’ll just have to take your chances.”
She darts forward a few yards, then turns and says, ”I’ll meet you on the other side, those Aspis guys scare me! Good luck!” Moving quickly, Yrishi disappears into the shadows ahead. Following in the direction she was headed, the party arrives at a natural chokepoint, a tunnel where purple and yellow bioluminescent fungi line the base of the walls and a thin, shallow stream of water trickles quietly across the passageway.
Two guards stand in the passage, wearing no armor and with no evident weapons beyond a small knife or two. One calls out, ”Stop right there. State your business here.”
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"Oh, hello there!" replies Zirt with a wide smile, putting on her very best I'm a dirty rotten smuggler and you'd better leave me alone face beneath the smile.
"Our business... is business! I don't suppose you have many people coming down here for whom that isn't true, now do you?" She pauses a moment and eyes the two men dubiously, then waves her hand imperiously. "Now, I suggest you step aside!" The last few syllables are punctuated by the wee gnome's hands clapping together loudly.
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Idgethun steps forward and smiles broadly. "Worry not about the gnome, she is a most impatient merchant." She spreads her hands as if to suggest that this is expected of gnomes. "But we are here on urgent business, to ply our trade in the furthest markets where value can be found. Perhaps you would be interested in some of our wares..."
Her grin widens as she taps Li's box. "For a price, of course."
The guards are startled by the ferocity of Zirt’s tone, and the puzzling nature of her reply. ”Don’t have many people…for whom isn’t true…” one of them mutters quietly, the fingers of one hand moving as if he’s connecting dots in a children’s puzzle. The other, a bit cowed by Zirt – and thoroughly unimpressed by Drizz’n – says ”Uh, easy, we don’t want any trouble, just doing our jobs.” When Igdethun taps the chest from Amara Li, the guard adds, ”And my job is to search things like that, and not let in the wrong folk.”
He asks Igdethun to open the chest and takes a quick look through it, surprisingly unbothered by the amount of contraband within. Both guards then scan the party carefully. ”That’s a lot of animals you guys travel with,” one observes. The other nudges his partner, then tips his chin towards Igdethun and says, ”What do you think?” Giving the servant of Abadar a considering look, the partner replies, ”Probably just the new guy, the rest of ‘em look all right to me.”
The guards step out of the way, saying, ”You can pass. At the next checkpoint, use the password “The serpents rise again.”
After passing through the checkpoint, the party pauses a moment to look around for Yrishi. Bodo glances up at the ceiling and sees the pipefox hanging off a torch sconce, looking expectantly at everyone. ”Well, what are we waiting for, let’s go!” says the little creature, pleased that the Pathfinders have gotten past the Aspis without a fight. As the travelers continue into Deepmarket, small communities of recently constructed but shoddy structures connected by narrow tunnels give way to large caverns littered with dilapidated buildings, the homes of squatters too poor to afford to live anywhere else.
Yrishi leads the party onward through Deepmarket, frequently pausing to listen for trouble. Eventually, the caverns shrink, turning into crude, winding tunnels which eventually open slightly into a small cavern that ends at an ancient stone building nestled against a rock wall. An iron door bearing a raised image of a three-eyed beast on its face stands in the middle of the wall. In a timid voice, her eyes wide as she studies the building before them, Yrishi says, ”I’m scared to go in there. I’ll meet you all again when you come back out.”
Opening the door reveals a sparsely furnished room with three other exits, wooden doors leading south, east, and southeast. Worn wooden benches line the walls, and discarded bottles are scattered across the floor. As the first of the Pathfinders make their way through the door, a ratfolk woman stands up from the game of dice she and two other ratfolk are playing on the floor. ”What’s this? Visitors?” she says, gesturing with the half-empty bottle in her hand. ”State your business! And you’d better know the password, if you know what’s good for you.”
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"Once there, find Tseka. We know that she has valuable information, so do everything in your power to bring her back alive, and collect whatever documents you find in her base of operations."
"Oh, hello!" replies Zirt from atop her valiant canine "steed". "Visitors indeed! I hope you put the kettle on for us!" She starts to giggle at her joke, then pauses for a moment, her brows knitting together into a puzzled frown. "I wonder... do you think the serpents have risen before? And how are they rising? Is it like making bread? My mother used to always allow the bread dough to rise once, and then punch it down and say, 'Now we wait for it to rise again.' 'You just sit there and watch it, Zirt,' she'd say, though of course she'd use my actual name, not the shortened form. But it's easier to let other people use the shortened form." She tilts her head at the creatures for a moment, studying them curiously. "I've heard you all don't have your own language, but do you have names that are characteristic of your race, or do you use the same kinds of names as other people?"
The ratfolk who spoke first, who appears to be the leader of this little contingent of guards, shakes her head in annoyance and confusion at Zirt's eager ramblings. When Gavin speaks up, she says, "Well, why didn't your little friend here just say so? I'm guessing you've got trade goods, let's see what you're bringing."
As she speaks, the other two guards eye the party suspiciously, studying their clothing and demeanor closely. One of them nudges the other, a sneering grin on her face as she gestures at Idgethun, and asks, "What's up with this guy? Looks pretty out of place with these traders, maybe he's a foreign exchange student or something." The other guard lets out a wheezing laugh, raising the bottle in his hand and drinking to what is clearly a funny joke at Idgethun's expense.
The ratfolk leader rummages through the wares on display, smiling lewdly at the bawdy artwork, then says brusquely, "Right, you can pass. Make sure to clean up after them animals or I'll never hear the end of it." With no further ado, she turns to her companions and says, "My turn, wasn't it?" She picks up the dice from the floor, collects her bottle also, and settles down as if the Pathfinders are no longer there.
Idgethun opens the door and steps through into a dark room. His angelic vision allows him to see that an enormous, flourishing mass of purple fungus divides this room in two unequal parts. Two cages lined with straw and fungal spores sit ajar against the north wall. To the east, smooth stone covered in scorched images of screaming faces gives way to rough stone.
The massive purple fungus reaches nearly to the ceiling, forming a barricade but, through gaps in the fungal growth, those with darkvision can just make out a shambling fungus creature, which bears a strong resemblance to a rotund human, but with a mushroom cap for a head. It appears to be using its claws to carefully carve off pieces of the purple fungus and place them in a sack, occasionally raising a piece up to its slit-like eyes to study it before packing it away. Behind the mushroom man are two grotesque creatures, which look like enormous rats infested with misshapen fungal growths growing off their bodies like tumors.
The mushroom man lifts it eyes and observes the party a moment, then goes back to its task.
Drizz'n recognizes the mushroom man as a myceloid, an intelligent, evil walking fungus that feeds off rotting organic matter, with a particular taste for rotting bodies. The ratlike creatures - which on closer inspoection have six legs apiece - look like kirrixes, the result of ratfolk conducting alchemical modification of large riding rats, but these particular ones seem to have been infested with fungal elements as well.
The rotund myceloid lifts its eyes once again from its work, asking in a deep voice, ”What do you know of fleshwarping, surface dweller? You are as pale as I, not like the ones who practice that art.” After a moment of further study, the creature adds, ”But you dress a bit like them. Do you seek to be a dark one? That must be very hard, to wish to be something you cannot. I can imagine what your dead flesh would taste like, I can almost taste the frustration now.” Something like a grin splits the myceloid’s face, though it is not a friendly one.
When Zirt’s spell lights up the room, the myceloid continues, ”Surface dwellers indeed, who cannot see.” He then bends down and returns to carving off chunks of the purple fungus.
As the party returns to the guardpost so quickly, the lead ratfolk guard stands up abruptly and moves into Idgethun's way, her hand moving to her sword hilt as she asks, "What are you guys doing? I thought you knew where you were going. Tell me who you're here to see and what your business is!"
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Zirt narrows her eyes at the rat-guard, then glances over at the ratfolk underlings and addresses them instead. "You know what she's doing, right?" she asks, tilting her head a bit to one side as she studies the game board. "Haven't you ever wondered why she's so keen to jump up when it's her turn, and then how she acts like she's not sure whose turn it is when she sits back down?" The little gnome reaches up and taps the side of her nose with one little finger, winking at the guardsrats on the floor. "Keep your eyes open, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out."
As the Pathfinders file back into the room, with dogs running between their legs and badgers running under dogs, Drizz’n has the opportunity to study the game the ratfolk have been playing. It seems to be related to a game called False Dice that he’s seen before, where the ratfolk roll dice – in this case crudely carved bits of bone – and cover them with their paws, trying to bluff each other about what the total number of spots they have showing is. And there’s something about a little marker, made of some sort of dried up eyeball, that’s moved along on a spiraling track, but Drizz’n can’t sort out how it figures into the game.
The game has come to a standstill, however, as the two junior guards are looking at their chief with narrowed, suspicious eyes, and the head guard is staring open-mouthed at the multi-armed snake man who has come through the door with the party. ”What the…?” she says, before shaking her head and looking back at folks with only two arms, especially Zirt. ”Knock it off, little one, if you know what’s good for you! Now tell me what your business is here, or we’ll put you out of business!”
The infested kirrixes have plant traits and are immune to disease, but don’t have other particular resistances. They can collect diseases from infected creatures and harbor the diseases within their bodies, and expel the diseases, either through a bit or cone of infected spray. And they have poisonous blood!
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Zirt giggles, and winks meaningfully at one of the junior guards, as if to say, see how she's changing the subject?. Smiling sweetly, she returns her attention to the head guard and replies, "Oh, lighten up. We already told you our business here -- don't you remember? It's only been a few minutes! Besides, our intern here already told you; Mister Truffle in there didn't want to buy anything, so we're moving on."
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"We don't want to interrupt your game or anything. We're just gonna choose another route."
Drizz'n is SO into False Dice right now, especially this ratfolk version. He can't wait to get home to Absalom and try to reproduce it, if only so that when people ask him about it he can be like, really, you don't know? It's how all the ratfolk play in Deepmacht.
The guards continue to eye the party suspiciously.
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Gavin watches the conversation with interest, and when it hits a lull he adds, "Boss, you're talking in circles again."
To the ratfolk he says, "What she's saying is that we're here to sell a few items, and have a few buyers who prefer discretion. Nothing is spoken for so... If you want to make an offer, we're listening. If not, we'll just be on our way."