Henry Southgard lays a hand back on Gorim and tries to staunch the bleeding.
"Igith? Innkeeper? Where can we find a shop with healing potions?"
When he found a spare moment, Henry chucked Moss's bag over to Gwath and asked him to look for anything useful.
If Quick intends to go up into the snowy mountains, a layer of fur would not go amiss. In fact, it is probably why the orc’s are clad in these warm garments -they found a passage through the southern heights.
Igith begins walking down the side alley past Quick as the innkeeper scratches his hairy chin in thought. “Well, ol’ Percy had a shop called Potent Potables down the road, but he closed up shop about two weeks-”
“Elaine has some potions,” Igith interrupts, pointing at a door in the walkway. It appears to be a back door to the establishment next door to the inn on the same road. “I don’t know if they’ll be the ones you need, but I noticed a shelf full of them in the back room the last time I was ...escaping.”
She tries the door. It doesn’t budge. “Of course, she always kept it locked after that…”
Gwath opens the pack to find the bulk of it’s weight to be eight heavy pouches of coin, presumably, Moss’ payments to the party of four. The half-orc also finds a worn, leatherback journal, filled with jotted notes in Common, with a few pictures illustrated here and there.
The notes follow the travels of Moss, and his pursuit of information on the Silver Scale. His handwriting is most frantic when there another clue is found, and at its neatest when a lead proves to be a dead end. The image of a dragon rampant with open wings is drawn a few times throughout the entries, citing it to be found among carvings or uncovered texts. On one occasion, a riddle is written in Draconic, and several guesses are listed below, with the last answer circled heavily.
Another page catches the eye of the browser, one that says:
No new findings in the Bloomrot crypts. Still, I must be cautious. There are others searching for this Silver Scale. Narrowly escaped the ambush set by “Sheog’Dritkaan, Pye’thiuxib”. Drow is close enough to the mother tongue for a rough translation: Sheog, Mistress of No Escape. Or Mistress of Webs.
The archaeologist's progress is plain as one flips closer and closer to the end. Finally, the last entry recounts the finding of the map. The last page is a drawing of an arched entrance. The capstone bears what Moss came to calling “The Sign of the Uthylzarion”, the dragon rampant image noted throughout the journal. The pillars look as though they are gripped by massive, reptilian claws. Under the drawing, it says:
A few records state “To enter the Maw, one must pay the dragon’s price.” If this is a reference to entrance of the shrine, use great caution! The meaning of “dragon’s price” not found. The Silver Scale should be displayed at the center, or at the highest point in the room.
Aside from the journal and coin, Gwath finds little else of consequence -a broken quill, a small rag, a compass, a bundle of trail rations, and so on. Checking a smaller pocket, the half-orc is elated to find three potions, one a tumultuous green and the other two are a deep red, each of them labeled. The red bottles say “drink if injured”, and on the green is written “use against swarms”.
"I've got a key."
Henry Southgard picks up Gorim's mace and edges past the other mercenaries to Elaine's door. He hefts the mace, takes a few practice swings, and then knocks politely on the door.
When he gets no answer, he tries to break down the door.
"All yours, Igith. What did you say this place was?"
The crossbowman destroys the handle and the lock behind it with a single blow. Igith snickers approvingly. “Elaine’s Eccentrics, art and curiosity shop. She has some shineys on display I really like.”
The door swings inward to a small and very quiet office. A lantern on the desk illuminates business ledgers, a chair, a few books, and most notably, a still body leaning against the opposite corner, whose simple clothes are covered with blood not yet dried from a terrible cut in the neck. In her pale arms rest an unpacked healer’s kit, with swabs, bandages, and ointments arrayed over her lap. A trail of smeared blood leads from the shop, to the place the woman lies. Her eyes are half-lidded, but gazed with death just the same. Igith’s smile evaporates with a sharp intake of breath at the sight of the body. “That’s her…”
The shelf hanging over the desk contains six potion vials, and a green-dyed feather trimmed to resemble a tree. Three of the potions are deep red like the two from Moss’ pack, one is coffee brown, one is a bluish-purple color, and the last one contains a roiling green like the other potion discovered among Moss’ possessions. A curtain hangs over the entry to the rest of the shop.
Passing through the curtain, the single large room is walled with framed paintings, and rows of statues, vases, and other ceramics are scattered in pieces over the ground. Some of the statues look to be decapitated. A glass cabinet in the corner displays sparkling rings and necklaces that couldn’t possibly be authentic for their low prices. A body of a customer is visible among the destroyed art. The front door hangs open by one hinge, though the windows are still intact. Presently, a handful of orcs run past the shop, eager to shed blood elsewhere in the city.
"Someone else help me." Quick hisses as he grabs and dons a fur mantle.
"Take what you need to survive," Henry tells Igith as he crosses the office to Elaine's body. "Cashbox. Small stuff that you can easily turn trade for food and shelter. Anything else will slow you down."
He closes the shopkeeper's eyes with a flick of his fingers and packs up the medical kit. He then cleans off the shelf, examining each potion for a label before stuffing it in his bandoleer. Out of pocket space, he instead palms the last one (Red) and returns to help Quick with Gorim.
"Here. Doctor says it's good for what ails him."
"I hope you're right." Quick pinches Gorim's nose and tilts his head back sliding the liquid down the priest's throat.
Gorim gulps down the red concoction, and suddenly coughs whilst his eyes open wide. Taking hold of the vial, he makes short work of the rest and throws the empty container to his side.
For a beat he lays on his back staring upward, taking in the sounds of Elam. "I suppose that'll do it..." he says, grinning only slightly.
He throws an arm up to Quick, for assistance, and pulls himself to stand. "Thanks," and turns to the rest of the group "all of you. I won't be forgetting this any time soon."
His eyes wander to his wounds, where he inspects his torn and bloodied robes.
|
Gwath comes back to the group and sees Gorim standing.
"If we can move, we should move."
Raising Moss's bag up slightly...
"If an Orc raid wasn't enough, there seems to be others following our path. That is, if you all are still willing for the Silver Scale. But I suppose that can wait till we're out of this port and alive."
Quick nods. "Let's get moving." He turns to the innkeeper. "This is your city. Lead on?"
Henry takes the fur ponchos from the other dead Orcs and tosses them to Quick' and Gwath.
"One more for Gorim, if we have the chance."
Quick tosses the extra fur to Gorim. "Thanks Henry, I got one though."
“I only know streets, and we need to stay off the streets if we’re getting outta here alive.” The innkeeper answers Quick. He leans into the back door and quietly calls after the young gnome girl. “Igith! Let’s go! Hurry up!”
A moment later, Igith appears through the curtain adorned in cheap jewelry and clutching a small heavy box. Her excited smile diminishes, at odds with her uneasy glance at Elain’s body.
“Nothing for it, girl. Show us the way out,” the innkeeper gruffly states.
Dropping the small chest into the innkeeper’s bag of foodstuffs, Igith continues down the side alley, whispering, “This way.”
Passing a door on right and reaching a bend back towards the main street. Stopping at the corner, Igith holds her hand up to stop everyone again. Next, she quietly pads up to a second door on the right, with her eyes glued on her view of the road. The innkeeper mutters a curse, apparently understanding something. She pushes open the door, and those behind her are affronted with the stench of refuse and waste. “In here, quietly,” Igith vanishes into the stinky room.
In the alleyway heading back to the street, three piles of dirty clothes lay among the trash. At a second glance, it appears that three of Port Elam’s homeless were slaughtered in the alley, and their orc murderers moved on, though one can still hear them on the street. The young gnome stands in a small room holding up a rusty iron grate from a hole in the ground, in the far corner. The rest of the room appears to be a ramshackle home for squatters, with collections of junk and nearly worthless tools littering the walls and floor.
“The sewer,” she grimaces, “It’ll be our quickest and quietest escape. Just not the prettiest.”
"This town has a sewer?" Henry asks. "I had thought that I left civilization behind."
The mercenary disappears into Elaine's store for a moment, and returns with the curtain which he tears into strips.
"Bind these around your wounds, and wrap your head. We go in order of size, smallest first. So, if one of us big people gets stuck, he won't trap the people behind him. Any objections?"
Henry Southgard then unbuckles his armor and stores as much as he can in his pack.
Gorim, packing his fur while distantly observing the grate, responds, "Aye, solid plan..." He stands to linger toward the back of the group, swinging his pack over his back, a little concerned of his width.
"I'll be keen to get mah mace back too, though you'd perhaps have more use of it..."
The innkeeper grumbles but climbs down into the sewer nonetheless. Igith closes the grate behind the last of the six, and squeezes her way to the front. The only sounds of battle escape from the rusty iron bars behind them, and as they follow the little gnome, those sounds mix with shallow running water, and constant dripping. The air is wet, putrid, and seems to stick to exposed skin. The walls and floor are poorly masoned stone, perhaps more held up by the years of waste build-up on the walls than the actual mortar itself. Their steps feel solid beneath them as the ground inclines downward slightly, but soon Igith leads them to an intersection.
“Gah! Can’t see a damned thing down here!” the innkeeper grumbles. Sounds of the greybeard rummaging through his impromptu pack echo off the walls. After a few minutes, he lights a torch, casting dim amber light on the stone.
The small gnome girl leads them to the right. At the center of the larger tunnels, a river of bodily wastes, rotten food, and other unspeakable filth oozes through the lowest part in the floor. The sides, while slippery, seem to carry the least amount of grime and grease.
“Been awhile since I’ve been down here,” Igith says, “If we run into Froggy, don’t panic. He’s mostly harmless.”
A sour, unhappy Quick sets his mouth in grim determination. I will not throw up. I will not throw up. I will NOT throw up.
He rests his new falchion on a shoulder and follows Igith from the middle of the group.
"Mostly harmless, Hell. I'm surprised we're not dead already," Henry says. "Back when we were laying siege to Dwellish, the whole city caught the drops. The sewer system plugged, and then vapors started building up. Two months into the siege, some daft bastard lit a torch in the wrong place."
The mercenary pauses for dramatic effect and scrapes something hairy off the bottom of his boots.
"Collapsed the whole north wall, it did."
Gorim peeks down at the mess that's gathered on his boots, and attempts to kick it off, too.
Huh, no good... looks like it's stayin'...
The Dwarf pauses to scratch an itch on his back with his mace, taking in the putrid surroundings.
Igith leads the group down the wide tunnel, and slows down around the corner. The sounds of battle begin to grow once more as they pass a channel similar to the one they entered. The river continues to ooze, the ceilings and walls perpetually drip-drip-drop, and the squelching footfalls of the six fill the open sewer line. The regularity of sound is interrupted by a cheery, croaking voice, and a light lyric echoes off the walls in the dark ahead.
“People panic! Peril and perdition!
Pilferers plummet, into the plumbing,
pandemonium in the planning.
Prithee, persons, who provoke my prohibition?!”
A tittering giggle punctuates the announcement, and the silence is refilled with dripping, squelching, and oozing.
The voice sounded far ahead of the innkeeper’s torchlight. By the echoes, the speaker could be around a corner.
Accustomed to the dark, the dwarf catches slight movement -a head poking around a distant corner. A head belonging to a man with long stringy, dirty hair, and an overwide smile. The look he beams to the six seems a little crazed.
"Alli... something," Henry Southgard mutters. His eye twitches as he mentally stirs the remains of a classical education.
"Hail! Have heart and hope for we who hurriedly hide from harrowing happenings!" he calls. There's a brief pause as he tries to come up with more, punctuated by the frantic snapping of his fingers. "Hear and heed our honorifics!"
"Hostelkeeper!" Henry indicates the Innkeeper, and skips Igith on the assumption that she's already acquainted with whatever's down here.
"Healthmender!" he calls as he points to Gorim.
"Hex Hurler!" he shouts, gesturing at Quick'.
"Halfbred Hunter!" Henry indicates Gwath this time.
"And I..." he falters. Desperately searching for anything remotely resembling inspiration, he remembers the Orc in the alley. "Headsplitter!"
The mercenary finally goes quiet, with the look of someone who has scraped the bottom of the barrel so hard, he got a splinter.
Quick sighs heavily. "Always a dramatist." He smiles weakly in spite of himself.
Prety good...
"It's called diplomacy, lad," Henry Southgard whispers as he digs through his pack. He pulls out a hooded lantern, which he lights and passes to the Innkeeper.
"Pass this to Igith, would you kindly?"
More giggling, with giddy splashing echoes from the dark.
“Gwop!” the voice croaks happily, “The fair fidget and five following friends! Forward, forward! Forward to find your fine fellow Froggy!”
Frantic breathing sounds off the stone as the splashes move further away down the tunnel. By the sound of it, the creature wallows through the river of waste the adventurers have been so careful to avoid.
“Don’t be mad if he throws fish at you,” Igith whispers, holding up Henry's lantern. She steps forward until light is cast on a bend in the tunnel. There is no sign of this “fine fellow Froggy”, save for glistening brown footprints where steps strayed from the river of putrid sludge. Whatever Froggy is, he is likely bipedal.
Coppervein lets out a quiet chuckle, giving Henry a nod, "Fine work, there". He presses a little forward, smiling to himself, now talking toward no-one in particular "This day's quite something...".
The Priest stops to pay attention to an itch; perhaps a little more agitated by the environment than he'd like to let on.
"Fish?" Quick advances down the tunnel.
Henry Southgard pauses by the side passage, wondering what else is happening topside. He listens intently for signs of pursuit.
He inhales deeply and comes down with a sneezing fit that sounds curiously similar to Dwarvish.
"Żyłamiedziana! Ko widzisz?"
Gorim, Henry, Quick, and Gwath can see that the tunnel turns ahead to the left.
“FISH!” a toady voice echoes from the dark. A silvery white, flat and hand-sized item flies into view, slaps against the stone wall, and limply falls into the river of sludge.
Quick scoops up the fish. "Thank you for your hospitality."
Henry Southgard steps across the miniature Seine and shuffles down the tunnel. He holds his crossbow to his shoulder, as much to keep it out of the muck as to keep it at the ready. All the while, he listens intently to discern what Froggy might be doing.
The innkeeper catches up with the group, stopping near the edge of the turn in the passage. Igith slowly steps forward, mindful of the slippery filth underfoot, into the bend ahead. She raises the lantern, carefully addressing the lurker of the sewer. “Froggy? Where are you? We need to use the sewer tunnels to get away from the monsters on the streets.”
The unseen croaker answers, “Monsters in Elam! Monsters in mud! Making memories of mayhem and ...blood!? Naht funneee!”
Froggy cackles and splashes, and wet footfalls are heard until a man, or what used to be a man, capers into Igith’s light. Wide eyes and a wider, manic smile plays over the gaunt and grimy face. Long, dirty hair hangs over his back and shoulders, reaching well past his waist due to his stooped posture. His low and uneven hunch suggests a severe injury or deformation to his back. Thin limbs sprout from ragged threadbare garments, stains upon stains forever tainting the original color. He is barefoot and the exposed skin from the knees down glistens in the putrid brown sludge from the stream of waste. He holds up a scarred hand missing a pinky and thumb as he blinks away the light from the lantern. The crazed expression on his face twitches from utmost glee to dark rage to amazed curiosity in seconds. “Blighted bright! But my befriended bring baubles? Yes? Shinies to show?”
Gorim approaches the scene , gently moving Igith's lantern around to her side to ease Froggy's eyes.
"Aye, friend. Can take a bead or two off mah beard? Would look fine fitted on your fingers, ey?"
The Dwarf breaks eye contact from the man while he attempts to remove a bead, "It's not much in the way of shinies, though they're among mah only treasure" chuckles the Dwarf. He finally removes one and holds it out flat on his hand.
"Shinies to me, see?" smiles the Healthmender.
“Gwop!” Froggy cowers as the dwarf approaches, but listens and then brightens at the offer. “Shinies to shorty! Shinies for sharing!”
The strange, gangly character sloshes through the filth to stand before Gorim. Kneeling, he cups his slimy hands under the priest’s extended palm, so the bead could be dropped into his possession. His fingers tremble with excitement. Somehow, Froggy smells worse than his sewer home. An idea suddens takes over his countenance and he gasps. “Travelers! Trading trinkets!”
With surprising speed, Froggy scampers out of the light, into the dark of the tunnel.
The dwarf can see him bounding for a hole in the tunnel. In a few moments, he tosses aside a rotting wood board and scurries out of view.
Sounds of cluttering and thrashing echo off the gloomy dank walls, and in about a minute, Froggy suddenly reappears before Gorim. His three-fingered hand holds up the neck of a broken glass bottle, and with his other he displays a narrow metal shard.
Froggy pants giddily, “Try trade?”
Henry Southgard steps back across the stream of sewage and confides with Quick.
"So, did we happen to keep the flask after we administered that potion to Gorim? This, ah, fellow might take kindly to a gift like that."
Pointed on both ends, the metal shard looks like it could serve as a thrown weapon.
Still, this doesn’t look like normal steel... but Gwath can't place the type of metal.
Quick shrugs and brings out 4 copper coins.
"Froggy, I'd like you to have these four shinies."
Gorim peers at the items Froggy has produced:
Henry Southgard waits for Froggy to react to the other's offerings before he steps in. His initial thought was to offer the tarnished silver ring he found on Moss, but he's reluctant to give up something that might be vital to the search.
Pointed on both ends, the metal shard looks like it could serve as a thrown weapon.
Moreover, this potential throwing dart appears to be made of Cold Iron, an iron mined deep below the surface, and forged at low temperatures. Cold iron weapons can be wielded to be especially effective against demons and fey creatures. Throwing darts of themselves are not too expensive, so the market price of this cold iron dart should be 1gp (rather than the standard 5sp).
"Ahh, that shard looks good, eh?"
Gorim digs into his pockets and retrieves a shiny golden coin and places it into Froggy's hand - alongside the metal shard - careful not to startle him.
The Dwarf raises his forefinger as to say 'Just one moment', and begins to rummage through his bag, his eyes settling on an abundance of travel rations, "Ah!" He holds a couple forward, and points at the shard with his free hand, smiling.
"I hope you like 'em. Not too much in the way of taste, but good. Fair deal?"