Kurth shrugs, but offers up 3 golden measures. "I suppose everyone needs salt. It might make for an interesting peace offering at least."
Imperia shakes her head at the mention of mules. "If we're planning on rope and climbing gear I wouldn't waste money on mules. Seems like an either-or kind of choice there, and I think it's more likely we'll need the climbing gear."
"Those who can afford to, contribute a gold crown each to the pool," Talas suggests crisply. "Baird and I can visit the market and obtain some useful spices and such for trade, as well as any other last minute needed supplies, in the interests of being ready to go in short order."
The elf inclines his head towards Imperia, considering her words on the mules to be quite sensible. Hauling mules up cliffs sounds like a frightful hassle. "I agree with Miss Imperia that climbing gear sounds more sensible than beasts of burden."
Vannah watches the money curiously, and fishes around in a little purse of her own. She has two silver pieces, and makes a little sad face, shaking her head. Still, she puts them on the table, having to lean up to do so.
Baird put down a gold coin, and then a fistful of silver with a wink at Vannah.
Boreyn looks through the last few coins he has left and puts 3 silver pieces on the table.
"I wish I'd have more to trade, but I didn't intend to stay as long as I have at the inn here. Drained more of my remaining money than i would have thought."
"So who knows where we could get the best prices for those goods?"
Imperia nods at Talas and fishes a pair of gold coins out of her coin purse to add to the pile. She shrugs. "Clockmaking pays quite well, especially when you're the best in the city."
"I know where mother buys her groceries. Maybe we can get a deal out of him with a longtime customer discount."
Talas tips his head to Imperia in a little bow. "I defer to your more intimate knowledge of the city," he says, and fishes one of his own coins to add to the pool. After a moment's hesitation, conscious of the Look that Baird is giving him, he adds in a silver coin as well.
"...and if you could pick up a warm bedroll, please," he adds on slightly sheepishly. "Apparently I am somewhat underpacked."
Drogic chuckles at the group's planning, but not without respect. "May as well spend it all, won't do you much good in the dark."
The group moves in two forms through the city. Imperia takes Talas and Baird to the market, where they purchase a variety of spices, and a decent-sized sack of sugar. Imperia is indeed able to get them a small discount. Meanwhile, Kurth, Boreyn, and Vannah take stock of everything that they group has on hand.
As the others return, a complete inventory has been taken, revealing the group to be in better shape than previously believed. "Might not be doomed after all." Drogic grumbles with a wink. Kurth and Imperia both have climbing equipment. Baird and Talas together have extra rope, a mining pick, and a few pieces of flint and steel. Boreyn has the means of documenting their journey, possibly even drawing a map as they venture into the unknown. They have pots and torches, hammers and picks.
While they are packing up their supplies, new and old, no one notices Drogic slip out for a few minutes, but silence fills the room as he returns carrying an old, wooden box, barely larger than his hands. "You're missing one thing," he says quietly. "There's one piece of equipment, saved my life more than any other, last time I was in the dark." Opening the box, he reveals quite the relic - an old compass, forged during the days of Dammerhall. Holding it out to be picked up, he explains, his voice slightly choking with emotion. "It belongs down there," he says, "As do we... Don't forget that."
Boreyn wonders what Drogic has brought back with him, but as he opens the wooden box his eyes glow with amazement of another part of Dammerhall that still persisted.
"Well Drogic, you're just as a sentimental fool as I am, no offense meant of course." Boreyn grins as he picks up the old compass.
"I'd never expected to see another piece of Dammerhall's history and fine craftsmanship before I got back down there. We will take good care of it, my friend."
Imperia looks with interest at the relic of old dwarven craft. She nods at Boreyn. "And I'm sure it will take care of us in return. A compass forged underground hopefully won't be fooled by the strange energies we'll run into down there."
"Torag bless your home, Drogic," Kurth says with a smile and a warm clap on the back.
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Baird wordlessly clapped Drogic on the shoulder, his nod of gratitude heartfelt and, he hoped, communicated as well through his strong hand as his expression. Kitted out and ready to embark on their great adventure, he grinned at the others and tipped an imaginary hat.
"Thank you for all you've done for us, Drogic. Let's be off to make history, then!"
Talas smiles brightly at the sight of the compass. "It's always good to know where you're going," he says with a little laugh. "Ah, such craftsmanship... I hope we'll see its like again."
His newly-acquired bedroll is lashed on to Baird's pack, to Talas's slight embarrassment. He feels his age, needing his young friend to help with the burden... it's not the best feeling in the world, to be reliant on others-- and not just anyone, but on a young fellow like Baird, who he's watched grow up. But it is what it is, and he only offers Baird a slight, sheepish smile of thanks before he readies his walking stick.
"Yes, thank you, Drogic. Well, my friends: the world awaits us... and the road waits for no soul."
The group says their farewells to Drogic, with the exception of the mute Vannah, and begins the first leg of their adventure, all of them having reasons to doubt their success or eventual return. The group moves quickly, eager to arrive, and nearly stops dead at the entrance to the underdark, a large mountain looming over them as the ground slopes rapidly downwards. Taking a collective deep breath, they plunge forward into the darkness.
For the first two days, nothing eventful happens. The aspiring "Savouirs of Dammerhall" talk amongst themselves, attempting to learn more about each other. The group rests of the "night" on the third day, all sat down together around a fire, enjoying some of the surface food while they still have some left. Looking at the map and consulting his memory, Boreyn knows that they are making good time, and ought to be on the Gnome King's Highway the following day, reaching Fasturvalt roughly three days after that.
For the most part, Vannah keeps to herself, other than practicing sign with anyone who looks interested. For all she is small and apparently week looking, she is also adept at taking care of herself, for the most part. She keeps up with the well-laden dwarves, and handles her own bedroll. If she's at all bothered by the darkness of the tunnels, or the seemingly interminable trek farther and farther down underground, it doesn't show much.
"Aye lads and lasses, we're making good time here, though we're not moving at the fastest pace being dwarves and all that." Boreyn says around the campfire before he takes a small swig of a little bottle he has brought with him.
"Ah..That's the stuff. Well now, I have known two of you for a longer time than the others, Talas and I go way back and Kurth I tutored when he was little. I know a thing or two about them, but I'm intrigued by you two, Imperia and Baird. You're the granddaughter of 'Pick Lock', but you haven't had the same ideas about Dammerhall so what drives you Imperia? And you Baird, a dwarf with no last name? I'm not sure where you came from, I'd like to know that of course, but even so a dwarf must have a last name. What can I call ye?"
Afterwards he looks to Vannah and tries to translate it roughly in sign language with them looking through the book together.
Baird scratched his neck uncomfortably, glancing at Talas. Taking the pipe from his mouth, he cleared his throat before pointing out, "Drogic had no last name I ever heard. In any case, my family was forced to become merchants, traveling about, during the civil wars. They never forgot who we were, though. I never forgot, though I wasn't born to live it at the time. We swore we'd get it back someday. So ye can call me Oathkeeper, as that's my intent. I mean to be one of the dwarves to clear Dammerhall, and it's my honor to do so with you."
He put the pipe back in his mouth with a click of teeth on stem, and leaned back with his arms crossed. After a moment, he poked a finger at Imperia. "I've heard a few tales of 'Pick Lock' myself. Wouldn't mind hearing a few more."
For Talas and his relatively long legs, it's more of a leisurely stroll than a hike, for which he is grateful. He thinks if he had to keep pace with a spry young elf, or even a human, he might be needing to catch his breath more often. Oof. He's spent too long in libraries, he thinks.
He spends much of the journey in reminiscence with Boreyn as to the wonders of the old caves, letting the younger generation hear all about them (to the point some of them may be a little bit sick of it).
When they rest on the third night, Talas settles against his pack and amuses himself by creating small balls of bluish light that topple and dance in the air before him, like a juggler who didn't need his hands for the trick. He glances over once, when the topic of Baird's name is addressed, but lets Baird field that question himself. Mostly.
"And he'll do an honor to that name," he can't help but interject. "That and any other name he might claim."
He beckons the balls of light to him and cups them in his hands, smiling at his own parlor trick just as any child might do.
"Yes, do tell us of yourself," he says when Boreyn and Baird urge Imperia for more of her story.
When Imperia showed up for the march, everyone was in for a surprise. The fact that she was wearing armor was probably expected, but the form her armor took was something new. The dwarf woman wore a suit of heavily modified plate, scaled more for a broad shouldered human than a dwarf.
The metal armor alternately encased and was covered by complicated clockworks, pistons, and other machinery. In the suit she could look out the eye holes and stare Talas right in the eye. Nearly twice as tall as out of the suit, Imperia was probably more than twice as heavy. The pistons powering the arms and legs looked very strong, though during the beginning of their trek she had little opportunity to showcase that power. The machine emitted a constant ticking as the machine's clockwork heart wound down, providing power to the arms and legs.
She only took off the suit at night, when she spent time winding the machine's central gear with a long crank, checking gears and other machinery, and oiling the entire works to insure smooth running. Which is what she's doing as they sit around the fire.
Imperia grins at the question about her grandfather. "Oh, you want a Pick-Lock Grayblade story? Hmm, let me think." After a moment's thought she launches into a long and wildly implausible story that involves a human heiress the dwarf was forced to romance, a rival rakshasa thief trying to steal the same portrait out of the woman's bedchamber, and a chase that ended with Pick-Lock apparently getting caught in the end only to reveal that he had already disposed of the painting beforehand.
She shakes her head and takes a drink after finishing the long story. "Turned out, though, that the portrait was a forgery the whole time! The joke was on both of them." Imperia sighs and smiles, clearly happy to talk about her infamous grandfather.
Vannah scuttles about the edge of the group while Imperia tells her tales. She can't hear them anyway, but the halfling seems happy to be in the warm circle anyway. She has an eerie quality sometimes - she tends to stare without any acknowledgement that this might be odd and or rude.She's doing that now. Its hard to say how much of her speech Vannah gets from watching.
Kurth chuckles at the stories.
"I suppose we've picked on the new guys long enough. I'll go as fair is fair. The short of it is that I've wanted to set foot in Dammerhall, ever since I was a beardless lad. It's in my blood, I think. There's been a Silvermug on nearly every expedition that's gone after it. And I owe it to them to see it through."
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He looks to Imperia and is clearly impressed by her suit of armour.
"If I may be so bold Imperia, that suit of armour looks pretty solid. A fine work of dwarven craftsmanship. I'd almost wonder if you've seen old blueprints from Dammerhall before you made it. It's some sort of battle armour or something?"
Boreyn looks through his book and then looks back at Kurth. "He is right you know, there have been many Silvermugs present in the attempts, though not everyone returned."
"Well my own reasons are that I've lost one home when I fled, I've lost most of my family on our flight out, some lost to the shadows, some aboveground to raiders and thieves, others to natural causes. I've come to the end of my own life and I wish to see my old home once more, restore it to its beauty. I've got not much remaining family to speak of, or none that would follow me in what they call "Old fool's dreams". A shame really."
Boreyn falls silent for a time and seems lost in thought, reminiscing about something or someone.
Imperia shakes her head. "So far as I know, Legion here is one of a kind." She raps on a pauldron with her knuckle and it rings a sound familiar to any dwarf, the sound of good, solidly made steel. "I saw a blacksmith over near the river with some mule-cranked screw wells and a waterworks powering his bellows and it got me to thinking about how I might be able to use pistons to make a jackstand. I built that and figured out if I could make it smaller I might be able to make a glove that could help lift things. From there I tinkered with a gear design and worked on miniaturizing the drive cranks and shafts a bit more before I scaled up. I took a year's worth of salary in my dad's shop to the best armorer I knew of in the city- a dwarf, you'll be glad to hear- for the base suit, then designed the clockworks and pistons myself."
By the end of this she is smiling proudly, like a parent talking about her children. She gives the impression that she could probably talk about her suit- Legion, she'd called it- for hours. But her ears catch up to her mouth she stops and looks at Boreyn with the same kind of intense interest a hawk might show in a rabbit. "Wait. Are you saying you've seen armor like this before? Do you think the engineers of Dammerhall might have worked on something like this?"
"Aye, but not exactly that sort of armour, but similar technology. Talas might remember as well. We've had steam-powered machinery and cogwork machines down there, but in some cases dwarves had gotten wounded or crippled. The engineers scaled the machinery down as well, the wounded were able to walk on their own again using a rougher version of your design, more massive, they could operate their mechanical legs by hand, it took a while, but they could move on their own again."
Baird eyed Imperia's armor - Legion - with the appreciation other races might show to fine art, or perhaps beautiful members of the opposite sex. He stayed leaning against the rock, however; no call to go pawing another dwarf's possessions... however much they gleamed, and his fingers itched.
"Nice work, very nice work," he muttered. "There's more dwarf in ye than ye let on!"
Talas had eyed the armor with a mix of fascination and "huh" when it was first revealed. It was utterly foreign to his elvish sensibilities, but he did have some memories of the dwarven steam-driven mechanisms, vague though they were.
Now he nods at Boreyn's words, sends his little balls of light trickling through his fingers.
"Yes, I recall them. Loud and clanky! But I imagine the noise was of little matter when given the chance to walk again. I am sorry to say I recall little of their precise operation or detailing, though. I remember there was a marvelous forge that used an underground waterfall for power, though, and it had cogs and gears wider than I am tall."
Imperia's jaw drops at Boreyn's and Talas's comments. "That's amazing! I hadn't even thought about that, but yeah, I could see how you could do that. I mean, I don't know anything about healing, but I know a little alchemy. When we get back maybe I could talk to some healers about trying to build something like that for one of their patients."
She shakes her head in awe at the ancient engineers. "That's just... wow. I can't wait to get down there and see if we can find any of their workshops."
"Aye, it should be a sight to see. I've long dreamt of seeing the forges myself. None like them now, or so's I hear."
Talas lets his lights wink out and stretches out to lie flat on the ground, hands laced behind his head. There are no stars to see, down here. No green tree leaves overhead. It's a far cry from Kyonin, and a far cry yet from the halls of the dwarves that he remembers, too. He shivers slightly at the knowledge of all the stone overhead, and how far it is to the surface and to wind in one's face.
"Let us hope that whatever dwells now in the halls of your proud people has not overly defiled and destroyed the forges and the other wonders..."
"Aye, but that is a trouble for long days in the future. For now we have to focus on the present, getting some sleep and making our way down that fungal jungle. Let's worry about defilement and destruction later, we've got no information as of yet what exactly awaits us, no need to dream up shadows and nightmares we don't know about."
Boreyn gets out the bedroll for himself and looks to the others.
"Who's up for first watch? Any of us dwarves can see perfectly fine in the dark, so... I'm up for first or last watch I can do with little sleep myself, but it's better when not interrupted."
"Ah, but it's so fun to let one's fancy run away with one!" Talas grins. He sits back up.
"I do not have dwarven night-sight, alas. But it makes little enough difference down here, for there'll be no day to aid my eyes. I'll take second."
"Better I take second watch, Talas. You elves only rest about 4 hours anyhow. This way you can be up for third and fourth watch."
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"I'll can take first. I need to finish doing maintenance on Legion, anyway."
Talas smiles slightly at Kurth's words. "I think you have perhaps heard inaccurate rumors of my kind. I am sorry to disappoint, but I need a full rest as much as any."
"I'm happy to take any watch needed. Let Master Talas get his sleep," Baird said with an affectionate grin at the elf. He had already rolled out the extra bedroll he'd been carrying so that it was near their campfire, to keep the aged elf's bones warm. "My eyes are better than his down here, anyway."
Talas smiles slightly at Kurth's words. "Though it is true my people don't need sleep in the same way other races do, I am afraid that my studies do require me to spend time each night absorbed with nothing else. I would be a poor watchman for a four-hour shift."
Baird's cheeky (if fond) words earn the dwarf a small pebble flicked his way from the cavern's floor. "Your eyes may be better, but my ears are still sharper! No-- I can take a watch, but perhaps this:
"Master Boreyn in the first, to ensure he has a solid sleep; Imperia, Kurth, Baird, then myself for the last leg so that I also have an uninterrupted period to contemplate the writing of my memoirs. Will that disrupt anyone else's abilities to study or pray as they must?"
He does not volunteer Vannah for a watch. In his view, a deaf guard is no guard at all.
Fine with me.
Vannah would probably be terrible at watch. But she'll offer if requested. Otherwise, she just sleeps wrapped up in her bedroll.
Each member of the group except for the young halfling takes a turn watching through the night, though during each watch it remains almost eerily quiet. The underground has its own sorts of sounds from the falling of small pebbles to the running of underground streams to the various creatures that make the caves their home. Despite being somewhat unsettling, everyone manages to get a fairly decent sleep.
In what the group suspects is morning, they set off again, determined to reach the Gnome King's Highway that day. Everyone is in fairly high spirits, and they make decent time. With enough energy left for a few more hours of walking, they reach the Highway.
The paths that they travel through have been chiseled out of the stone, In several spots there are raised embankments along the edges of the road, sometimes up to ten feet high. At other spots, the passages are tight, barely allowing the caravans through.
Less than an hour after reaching the Gnome King's Highway, the group rounds a corner after passing through such a passage, and comes across a strange and unexpected sight - a lone wagon wheel in the middle of the road.