"Promisary notes, yeah whatever. Ah some 'potions' for emergency use, probably rot gut but perhaps there's something useful there too..."
Silas hums his magic detecting tune as he inspects the potions.
The potions are all Cure Light Wounds but at CL 3 so they heal 1d8+3.
The bug came from a hole in the ground.
"Right then, lets check the room where all the undead came through"
Silas walks to the room due south and listens before trying the door.
This log cabin reeks of blood, rot, disease, and
excrement. Within the cabin, two long, roughhewn
wooden tables are festooned with opened
bodies dripping gore onto the floor.
Two dead bodies lay on the tables half eaten, they look like they might have once been lumberjacks.
Silas manfully tries not to throw up due to the charnel house stench and splutters, "Ugh the smell! There's bodies in here and they've been ganwed on!"
A few moments is enough and he heads out to check on room #3.
Silas cracks open the door and peeks in, he sees.
This cramped wooden room is strewn with
sawdust to keep people from slipping on the
mud-slick floor. A simple stone hearth is set in
one wall and a newly fashioned desk of unvarnished
timber sits the middle of the room. The
body of a fat man is slumped on the desktop,
his broken spectacles lying in a pool of thick,
congealed blood. Parchments are strewn all
over the floor by the desk, each with a lumberjack’s
name on it and a record of his work
hours and wages owed. Each paper is marked
with a childish crude face painted in blood,
with Xs for eyes.
'Twisted. I wonder what got the Kobolds so riled up? I wonder who the dead guy is.'
"There's a dead guy in here, maybe Payden knows who it was. There's a bunch of defaced time sheets, somebody fancied themselves an artist!", Silas puts an ironic emphasis on the last word, "this is all very strange. Kobolds would not normally attack something like this, well I suppose they're undead kobolds, which makes them hardly normal..."
Silas briefly casts his magic detecting tune, before taking a look at the interior door.
What a mess....so crude.
Hecktor tries to help Silas with inspecting, but seems to miss details.
As Silas and Hecktor inspect the interior of the tent the adjoining room door bursts open and three blue skinned kobolds come bounding out with spears readied....they take one look at Hecktor though and scream in terror.
izi öldürmək etməyin. Biz çəhrayı dəriləri deyil, Depnakkra dost və onun xəsis stingys
Silas does a double take and asks something in a strange language.
Gilmork looks at the fleeing blue-skinned kobolds, pretty delighted at their sudden fear of Hecktor.
"I's alright, those kobolds don't seem to be hostile, just afraid that's all. Apparently some leader named Depnakkra is scaring them."
The kobolds stare a little before one of them tries to answer.
Biz Truescales . Insan öldürmək üçün bizə rəhbərlik Depnakkra , lakin ölü soyuq truescales həlak etmir. Biz bunu and içir , saatlar justs ! Biz pinkskins üçün dostlar!
Luc whispers These ain't part of Michael's tribe...they called themselves Truescales.
The kobolds look around warily Biz Cold Ilik , orada çox ölü soyuq gəlir. Tunellər altında kimi deyil .
The heroes hear this whisper, My people do not often venture to the Land of Cold Bones. It is not a good place.
Gilmork whispers back to Lucanor.
"So they're trying to lead us into a trap? How mistaken I was about their honesty."
Wonderful...more little treacherous kobolds. At least Michael's got a decent lot.
'Land of cold bones? That doesn't sound good.
Silas smiles and repeats his question.
Həşərat kimi kokuyor olan Depnakkra ölü soyuq kobolds edir.
Silas nods and asks a follow up question again in the spidery language of the dragons.
Digər True Ölçeği Soyuq sümük Torpaq gələn Depnakkra the kobolds respond.
Silas frowns slightly and says, "It seems these came from the The Cold Marrow with Depnakkra and others. I'm inclined to view them as a nuisance rather than a threat."
"Is this "Cold Marrow" a burial site of sorts? A graveyard perhaps? Since if the kobolds are speaking in riddles, we're not going to know for sure unless we see it for ourselves."
"Well, I doubt they're 'friends' to the pinkskins," He says
"And if I'm reading him right...I get the sense that Depnakkra isn't who actually made the undead, just who they think made the undead."
Silas nods walks outside and whispers to Lucanor, "I hear ya. Let's cut these loose and see what they go?"
If Lucanor and the party agree, Silas will tell them in draconic:
Silas out of the Kobold's earshot asks Jaxom, "Can your friends follow them, and see where they go? If we're lucky they may do something dumb like meeting up with their masters."
Gilmork just stands and listens to the kobolds chatter and feels a little uneasy when Silas releases them.
"Hopefully this won't bite back at us. If they can inform others they may get a headstart on us the next time."
Gilmork looks on as the kobolds go away quite fast.
"So we're off towards that 'Cold Marrow'? "
I will inquire, hero.
Jaxom will leave the camp and make contact with the sprites.
"Noble sprite, what have you learned of the nasty, red smile mudman?"
"Yes its a gamble. They don't strike me as being particularly smart however, so I'm hoping they leads us to where we need to be. That is unless there's some other trail we should be following?"
The sprites reply that they have learned that he smells awful and chews the red leaf all day, and its disgusting. They mention something about the other mudmen demanding payment but that the Red Smile man rebuffing them and saying "Not Yet".
The kobolds look around warily before bolting to the north.
Silas watches them go and when its been a few minutes he speaks up, "I'm tempted to follow them, there's a chance they are heading back to their masters, who I suspect are responsible for this. Still before we head off I'd like to ask if anyone has a better idea?"
Shaking his head, "No,..Gilmork?"
"If you want my vote? I say let's follow. It has its risks, but then, as you say, none of us seem to have a better plan."
"Thank you. There is more: something stirs within the Land of Cold Bones. Those kobolds know something. Please follow them to see where they go and what they do, if they return to the Land of Cold Bones do not follow them. And, send word to the queen that the dead kobolds are walking in the forest."
After thanking the sprite, Jaxom will message the heroes. "Those mercenaries have not yet been paid for a job."
Not been paid? This sounds like an opportunity.
If we can sow doubt amongst them about Payden, that wouldn't be bad.
Silas gets up as if to go and he turns around asks Gilmork, "Looks like they left a trail even I can follow at least to begin with, what do you reckon Gilmork? Can you follow them without getting too close?"
The sprites look disturbed at Jaxom's pronouncement. The Cold Bones Land? Nothing goes there, well nothing that they care about anyways. They agree to follow, but pout a bit at not being able to play pranks on all the mudmen, and they remind Jaxom that they love sweets.
The trail is indeed very easy to find.
Hecktor's eyes must have been hit with dust, his tracking of the trail wasn't quite accurate.
"We should be able to do it without much trouble, look their trail is fresh and hurried and they didn't seem like they would do much trouble in hiding their tracks. We could almost do this with our eyes closed."
"So what do we tell Payden? We're going after some kobolds who might be practicing necromancy? Would he even join us in such an endeavour? As to his mercenaries payment, I'm not sure that rings in my ears as a good thing. It could be that whatever he was up to still has to happen, I feel like we're going to be double-crossed in some way."
"Maybe, but.....if we talk out loud about something fabricated related to payment, they might abandon him."
"Hard part won't be following so much as making sure they don't know they've been followed I think," Lucanor says as he tracks as best he can
"As for Payday's goons... I'm tempted to let this play out. Once all the cards are on the table, the man might regret having laid them down, and we'll have something to show. but I admit, it's going to be a risk."
Jaxom lets the heroes decide what they want to do next, remaining invisible until his charm runs out because he does not trust the ugly mud men.
Silas tells them quietly, "Now isn't the time, but I'll plant the seed."
In a louder voice, he says "Come let's follow our little 'friends', but keep our distance eh? No need for them to know we're coming to the party too."
He turns to follow Gilmork.
Gilmork leads the way in following and tracking the kobolds to wherever they go. He takes note in saying that the tracks are so easy to follow that he doesn't need to slow down to inspect the ground.
For three hours you follow kobold tracks north and a bit west.
Weeds, obviously parched and withered, spring
from cracked earth among the small bones of
birds and animals that lie everywhere, as if the
land itself coughed them up. Even the glum
lifeless rock here is a dull gray, like the petrified
skull of some mountainous god. But the
most striking feature of the desolate site is the
silence—thicker than fog and as oppressive as
thunder. No bird song, no chittering of crickets,
no knocking of woodpeckers disturbs the noiseless
din. The slightest rustle in the withered
reeds that grow here seems to echo through
the limp rotting trees for miles.
You are near to the Cold Marrow. Payden Teedum and his Regulators make superstitious signs to ward away evil.
Do you continue on following the tracks?
Lucanor continues to follow, but he also tries to 'detect evil' now and then as well, wondering if Teedum and his goons might not be right
Silas follows Gilmork periodically casts his Detect Magic and Know Direction cantrips.