-what here is not as it seems
-what has happened here
Lyntel pulls a large canteen from her pack and fills it from the river, careful to avoid touching the liquid "gold." She retreats to a safe distance with the canteen and waits to see what happens to the liquid inside.
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Bathilda begins dancing and laughing with joy as the others try to figure out if it's really gold. Then she begins to sing.
"I'm queen of the castle!
I'm queen of the castle!"
Well, until someone tells her to stop, at least.
The gold river is obviously not what it seems, but you can't tell how yet. Your initial observation, Archepex, that the heat of molten gold would be filling this sewer is absolutely correct. What you haven't yet figured out is how this seeming trick is managed with such convincing appearances. It's not real gold, no matter what it looks like. You're sure of it.
You also find evidence that something was dragged through here. Kneeling to the ground, you find disturbed dirt and filth on the walkway that seems to point to a small victim's body being dragged past this very spot. The dragging was done in the direction of "upstream," to your left. No struggle signs.
Meanwhile, the Wizard-Bard is scooping some liquid gold out of the river. The seeming metal flows over the lip of the canteen, and the first thing Lyntel notices is that it's much heavier by volume than water would be. Even a small amount of it flowing into your canteen is nearly enough to rip the canteen right out of your hands from the sudden weight.
It still looks like gold inside your canteen. There's no heat coming from inside, either. Curious.
Perhaps the rat witch can answer a few questions. Help me make sure she doesn't make any trouble.
The jewel expands and Lyntel calls inside. We are coming in. Try anything funny and you are dead.
She gestures for one of the warriors to lead the way in.
Emma strolls in, and puts her boot back in the Queens neck.
"What's going on with the fake molten gold? One of your plebs was messing with it. Tell me and I'll leave you in peace. For now. Otherwise..." she shows a few inches of steel "Me and my baby here will be leaving with a few pieces of you." She pulls her boot slightly away, and watches for a response. Her new chestplate is watching as well.
Bathilda, who had to be dragged into the jewel, looks at Emma in shock.
"Whaddya mean it's fake? I looks real enough to me," she says as she stands there with her sweetheart in maul form before her.
"Basic alchemy Bath," she mutters "If it was real our eyeballs would be dust by now. Molten gold at that viscosity would have to be almost at boiling point."
"It's Ba-til-da, not Bath," she growls as she looks away from the paladin as her face turns red with embarrassment.
From behind the safety of the two warriors, Lyntel manages to feel somewhat at ease with the Queen. She has been working up the courage to have this conversation for a while now.
Easy now easy now. We are all friends here. She gives the Rat a smile. Listen, I know it wasn't you. You've been set up, a patsy, a fall ... rat. We don't care about you. We all serve someone. Tell me, who do you serve? Lyntel glances at her allies, hesitates, and then pushes forward. All those weeks you had me, and I never answered any of your questions. Well here we are, quid pro quo.
As the conversation moves on, Lyntel gives the Queen a conspiratorial wink. But enough about you and me. It seems I have something that you want, and you have something that I want. You want me to keep these two ladies from ... Well, you know. I want to know every gods damned thing you know about this. . Lyntel tosses her the canteen. Speak, and I'll make them leave. Otherwise... Let's not talk about otherwise.
The Witchmother is easily subdued by Emma as the antipaladin knocks her roughly to the floor and steps hard on her neck. When she's first questioned, all she does is gasp and gag. Glancing at Lyntel, Emma loosens her pressure on her foot imperceptibly, enough to let air into the Witchmother's lungs.
She gasps and shudders for a moment, before smiling at Lyntel. "They told me I should've just killed you after you defied me for the first time. Fools, *cough, hack* them, and you." The antipaladin's boot presses harder against her throat and her eyes bug out a little. Lyntel urges the antipaladin to release the pressure enough for her to speak once again.
The rat-queen gazes balefully up at Emma for a moment, before turning her attention back to the elf woman with a smile. "You don't realize that I've already won...your voice has already sown the seeds of your world's rebirth." her eyes lid shut. "It will be...beautiful...would that I could see it for myself."
"Found the dwarves' secret, eh? We'd heard tales of some kind of great wealth beneath Tollerhelm, but hadn't found anything to confirm it. We were more concerned with what we'd be doing with you." she sneers at the bard, exposing her partially-broken teeth in a wicked smile as part of her face is mooshed to the ground below.
"After what we're going to accomplish, no gold will matter anymore."
"Oh, you're assuming we'll kill you and allow your nefarious plot to move along nicely, hm? Well." She turns her back on the Queen, confident that Bathilda will be able to deal with anything, and winks slyly at Lyntel.
"Say, Lyntel, how much faith do you have in the greater good? In particular, my greater good? Specifically, would you be sad if I killed you because you turned into some kind of hideous, world-destroying monster?"
At Emma's words, wheezing coughs begin to emit from the Witch-Queen's subdued mouth. After a moment, you realize she's laughing.
Lyntel stares at Emma for a moment, stepping backwards. If I posed a legitimate threat to the entire world, I would have to be stopped.
Lyntel looks thoroughly confused.
"Put the sword down," Bathilda says to Emma without turning to look. All she needed was that hint of worry in Lyntel's voice.
"As for you,"[b] the young mercenary says as something wicked gleams in her eye, [b]"I had an uncle that may or may not have been an inquisitor at one point in his life, and I may or may not have learned a few things from him." She kneels down and takes the rat queen's hand so that her thumb was against her pinky. "Now, mind telling us exactly what you have done with my friend here," she asks sweetly.
A sickening crack and pop echos through the place within the gem as Bathilda's thumb snaps the rat queen's pinky. The mercenary adjusts her grip on the rat queen's hand and gets ready to break her ring finger.
"What did you do to my friend? What did you use her for," Bathilda asks again.
Behind the gem, you can see Grigor shifting position slightly, in seeming discomfort. His armored, gauntleted hand stays loose and near to his longsword, and his fingers twitch as he gazes calmly at Emma's back.
The Witch-Queen is clearly unused to being directly physically threatened so personally. She tries to be stoic but her forehead is beginning to bead out in sweat from trying to hold back her scream of pain from her wretched finger. She exhales a slow, deliberate, slightly shuddering breath, and turns to Bathilda. Each word the Witch Mother utters is deliberate, individual, as the Skaven struggles to maintain her equanimity through the intense pain the barbarian is inflicting.
"Stop. Stop. I'll confess. The demons from today's concert...they were just the beginning. The climax of the rock concert would have awakened the behelit within the elf b+~%~'s mind, but that was only a speeding along of the inevitable. The seed has been planted in her dreams. Only an elf would do. Their dreaming minds are different than the rest of us. It...is...known. We chose her because we needed an elf...for that stage of the plan." The Witch Queen turns her gaze to Lyntel, narrowing her eyes in glee. The joy in her eyes contrasts sharply with her tightly gritted teeth, as her old bones creak under Bathilda's "advanced interrogation". When the Queen speaks again, it's barely over a whisper. "She will be the mother of the end. Glorious, glorious...we've won..."
Lyntel looks from the Queen to Emma. Did you know? Why did you save me?
Lyntel desperately searches her mind for any knowledge of this "behelit."
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Bathilda laughs in the rat queen's face. Not a small nervous laugh either, but a great rolling roar of laughter that comes from her belly.
"You've won? HA! I'd strip naked and make love to you right now if that was true. You may have the advantage. Hells! You may even be right at the cusp of it, but you ain't won. Your entire race or you yourself. Winning means ya made it back to the tavern to tell of how you kicked some hopped rat-b&~$!'s ass. Winning means yer dancin' over the graves of yer foes. Ye ain't won. I'm still here," Bathilda says, getting right up in the Rat Queen's face, "Afore I send ye to whatever hells await yer corpulenceness, allow me to tell ye who's sending ye there. I am Bathilda Wodensdottir of the mercenary clan Mardu, late of the Steel Talons, late of the 3rd Landschneckt Brigade, and most recently of the Mousetrap Company. You may not have heard of us, because we tend not to leave survivors. We are the roughest, most mean-spirited band of brigands this side of the River Styx. Death fears our passing. Demons bow to us. And there hasn't been a foe yet we can't kill or a plan we can't wreck."
A mad manic grin spreads across Bathilda's face as she stands and hauls the rotund skaven up by the folds of fat hanging from her shoulders. She brings the Rat Queen's face close to hers, looking down with a wild look in her eyes.
"Ye 'ave the gall to say that ye won to me face when I'm still standing free and breathin'? Ye is as dumb as a brain-addled ass an' ye can watch as I prove ye wrong from the depths of the Hells themselves while me kin have ye for a roast. Whaddya say to that lard-ass!" She throws the fat skaven to the ground and pulls out her hammer which twists and morphs until the face of it is shaped like the head of a scarred and demonic bear.
"Tell Uncle Merlon I still ain't sorry when ye see 'im," she says almost conversationally before getting ready to pound the life out of the fat rat before her.
Emma grabs the hammer-holding hand in a vice-like grip, before looking Bathilda directly in the eye. She thinks for a moment, then nods "You may break both her hands. Mind you, she better still be breathing when I get back. Understand? Lyntel, meet me outside. We need to talk."
Lyntel prepares to follow Emma. Bathilda, my mother knew a spell that can force foes to speak truly. Leave her alive and I will attempt to master the spell. The choice is yours.
Outside the jewel Lyntel waits for Emma to speak.
Bathilda clenches her teeth for a moment before slowly lowering the fearsome maul.
"Aye, as clear as piss water," she growls, obviously not happy with having to spare the Rat Queen. "If ye can make her speak the truth, then I'll try not to break too many bones," she adds to Lyntel.
"Lyntel, listen. We are both marked by events beyond our control. They destine us for change. For chaos. Not for good or evil. Simply, change. Unfortunately for us, chaos and evil are knit together, and overseen by the demons that mark us, change for the better is almost impossible..."
She exhales, slowly.
"Your demons are outside. Mine are... but never mind. The point I'm trying to make is, every time you claim 'For the greater good', or 'I can control this power', or 'Do not worry. Everything is fine', or 'Others would succumb to this, but not me.' you are that closer to being consumed. You're at a crossroads. You can use this power for the lesser evil, we can try and remove it from you, or... I know the drugs that can grant you peace. And if all else fails, me and Bathilda can stop you from hurting anyone."
"But before we do any of that, we find out whether the Queen is just messing with us." she says in a lighter tone. "And if she has been, we gut her like the lard-fish she is."
We'll find the truth. And if she speaks truly ... well, perhaps there is some way we could use this to our advantage.
Lyntel sits down while waiting for Bathilda and the rest of the group to finish their investigations, diligently thumbing through pages of her mother's spellbook.
Dhice is noticeably shaken by the harsh interrogation that's going on, and moves off to keep his distance. He appears to be struggling with whether or not to intervene...
Lyntel, the best you can remember about behelits are that they are spoken of in a single book that you know of - a scarcely-published collection of three books known as the Saga of the Berserk. Tollerhelm had no such library that would contain the novels, but St. Agnes, the capital city of Valetto where the Mousetrap Company originated, would be sure to have the books you'd need to reference in one of its massive libraries. On your own, all you can remember is that behelit is a synonym for prophetic seed in a language that is best not spoken aloud, Demonic.
The Witch Queen gazes calmly at Lyntel. "I'll be seeing you, child...in your dreams...whenever you sleep, our victory will be that much closer."
She's lapses into silence, before being lifted up by Bathilda, but she seems resigned to her fate, unwilling to be ruffled by the barbarian's threats. Through all of the barbarian's threatening words, the Queen stares deeply into Lyntel's eyes, watching her. The Witch Mother's magic is exhausted, her followers scattered, her fingers broken - the Skaven is a pathetic shadow of the former power she once wielded as a monarch. Now, all she has left is spite.
Archepex, you've never read the saga of Berserk, but you know the legend of a land called Rynoc, far across the sea, that succumbed to some great disaster. It's unknown to most people, but you - you have a connection to rangers that travel far and wide, and a source that you trust told you that something called a behelit was behind it all.
Now, Rynoc is unapproachable by sea, due to great monsters the size of train cars or bigger that infest its oceans. It is said to be even worse on land.
New bond: Lyntel has been marked. If... when... she falls, I'll be there.
Archepex will fill the group in on what he knows after the gem is re-sealed. He doesn't want the queen to know he knows.
Speaking of new bonds, Emma, as I mentioned in the discussion thread you all may Level Up here in the sewer if you possess the XP.
Bathilda spits on the Rat Queen, obviously mad, but unable to do any more to vent her anger. She walks out and keeps an eye on the portal. If the fat skaven tries to escape...
Well, it's not good to get too hopeful, now is it?
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As Bathilda exits the jewel, Lyntel tosses a ration in to the Queen and the jewel shrinks back to its original size. She carefully puts it away.
She turns back to the group. Please keep an eye on me. If what the witch says is true, well, you'll have to stop me. She shudders. The witch suggested that this golden river may be a dwarven mystery. Let's go speak with Gerda.
She puts a cap on the golden canteen and packs up her belongings.
"Agreed. Let's check on our dwarven friends."
As the conversation turns back to the investigation and away from torturing the Queen and demonic possession, Dhice seems to come back to life. "That's an excellent idea, let's get out of here..."
Wicks smiles broadly as Lyntel's magic takes the blood and grime off his clothes. "For that alone I'm almost tempted to give you a full share!" he says, a smile touching his eyes for the first time since you reunited. "Dhice gave me an account of what you did to help us out down there." the halfling pats her wrist, the highest spot on her that he can reach. "Don't worry, lass. Whatever foul magic the Skaven b*++& put in your head, we're going to work together to see that it doesn't...do whatever horrible thing she was alluding to it doing." He finishes off rather lamely.
As you climb up to the top of the ladder and emerge from the broken hatchway, whomever climbed out first (aka the first person to post in response to this) sees a faintly glowing white orb hovering about twenty feet off the ground a block down the street from where you are, in the direction of Tollerhelm's downtown. When you glance at it, two duller "lids" on the top and bottom of the orb widen slightly, and the orb zips off behind a building, into an alley. It's gone by the time you make it to your feet. What do you all do as you climb out of the hatch? Marching order for making your way to Gerda's house will also be needed if you're heading off that way.
Once the party has climbed out of the hatch and arranged itself, Lyntel will dissipate the thick fog covering the area. Lyntel places herself in the middle of the group.
Dhice marches near Lyntel in the middle and keeps his air elemental hovering nearby. It's a bit chaotic and bounces around a lot, sometimes at my side, other times overhead. Occasionally it gets tangled up with people and causes cloaks to flap wildly or sword sheaths to clang against armor.
Archepex tells what he knows before exiting the sewer.
He takes his invisible place at he front of the line, weightless bow in hand.
Lyntel approaches Bathilda once the fog has dissipated, holding out Morley's ring. It is probably best if you hold onto this until we know whether I can be trusted. She hands over the ring.
Lyntel falls back next to Dhice and begins whispering excitedly. In your studies have you ever heard of anything like that river of gold
Emma nods grimly at the mention of this Rynoc place, then takes the rearguard position. So long as the Lyntel and Dhice are between her and Bathilda, they should be relatively safe.
Bathilda takes the lead, looking for some Skaven to smash.
"Stay tight and keep your eyes open as move move through the city."
I guess we head towards the sister's abode.
Lyntel falls back next to Dhice and begins whispering excitedly. In your studies have you ever heard of anything like that river of gold
"No, although I've never really studied. He gets a faraway look in his eye and continues, "I'm the son of a stoneworker, who learned from his da, and his da before him. I was always a natural, and it only recently became clear how I could form and shape granite without arms like an ox" he holds up his skinny, twig-like arms for effect. "All those years with hammer and chisel and I realize now that I was magically altering the rock, and just using the chisel as a mental focus."
Dhice seems to remember that he's not really on topic anymore and refocuses. "Anyway, I for one don't believe any of that stuff about demons in your head. Sounds like a scare tactic by a desperate rat to me."
Lyntel looks on to Dhice with a mixture of shock and awe. She glances at the air elemental. You have never studied any magical arts, at all? This is natural?
Lyntel almost looks giddy. Perhaps I can help you learn to control your power? Myself, I've always had a problem with raw strength. I had a small talent with fire before I ... well before I stopped my studies. Perhaps you could help me nurture that talent?
As for the rats ... well we will know soon enough whether she speaks the truth, and what this behelit holds in store for the world. And if I'm a monster, then Emma will ... handle it. She laughs uncomfortably.
"Like she handles everything else? Without a damn about what is really right," Bathilda grumbles, still on the lookout for any cavemice to bop.
Nothing challenges your journey through the dead city of Tollerhelm as you make your way back to the street where the dwarf sisters all live. The barricade looms over the street in its ruinous state when you round the street corner, and the balcony overhead shows a faint light shining out of it. The rope ladder is drawn up. What do you do?
Dhice sends his air elemental up to rattle the shutters to draw the dwarves' attention without resorting to any dangerous shouting.
"You're full of surprises even after a half year adventurin' together, Master Bierman," Winks comments, staring in awe at the air elemental as it flies up without effort. The shades rattle at the Wind Elemental's brushing, and fly open.
Helga emerges, brandishing some kind of wand that glows dangerously at the tip at the elemental. "Stay back, creature!" she warns it, keeping Gerda and Freya behind her with a warding arm as she defends herself from the elemental.
In a stage whisper, Dhice calls up to the dwarf, "Helga, it's us. We need to talk, and preferably get off the streets before doing so. Can you let us up?"
"Eh? You're alive! By the Ancestors, ye made it! Get moving, lower that rope ladder! Light the oven up again! They've returned!"
In no time at all, the Mousetrap mercenaries - including Wicks, who stares about him in wonder at the dwarves' abode - are all in the three sisters' untouched residence once again.
Helga claps her hands in excitement as she helps you all be seated in various places around the large library-room. Wicks sinks into a pillow bigger than himself with a huge whoosh of air, closing his eyes and nearly falling asleep immediately.
"So. They're dead? You killed them all?" the dwarf leans in to Bathilda, her eager grin plastered all over her face. Then she turns her attention to Emma. "And you found a newcomer while you're at it. Prisoner of the Skaven? I don't recognize you, but I'm glad you're alive and out of there. I'm Helga, and these are my sisters, Freya and Gerda." The introductions are far warmer this time than they were initially.