The goblin waves before scurrying off.
Rudrik watches the little goblin go and shrugs.
"Huh. She was all right as far as goblins go."
Calendula shrugs. "Goblins are people. They're just dumb and scared, usually. That surprise you?"
Rudrik cocks his head and raises an eyebrow at Calendula.
"You think I of all people have not figured out about judging people based on their appearance and their type?"
"All people are people," Nime says with a chuckle. "We're all just dumb and scared of something."
She walks off in the direction the goblin took, giving Rudrik's shoulder a squeeze as she passes.
"I'm going outside."
She shrugs. "Prejudice lives in all sorts, kid. Growin up in Vigil, it was pounded into us that orcs were the enemy and none of 'em could be trusted, that they up there in Belkzen would do anything to break our lines. Even growin up that didn't seem right, but I bought into that rhet'ric after a orc dug his axe into my head," she traces her longest scar, running from her eyebrow to the crown of her head and nods. "Not proud of it, but it made it easier to fight. Took ten, fifteen years to unlearn that. Ultimately, I have your father t thank for it. Alls I'm sayin is, we all have our prejudices, and it's our responsibility to ourselves and each other to examine them, set them aside, and grow."
The rest of you follow Nime back outside to get some fresh air. You return to your previous night's campsite and spend the afternoon resting after the morning's brutal fights. A light rain falls in the evening, and you sleep undisturbed overnight. The next morning, you venture back down to the dungeon beneath the goblin caves.
Using the teleportation circle, you return to the rectangular room. Calendula strikes the wall of force with another solid blow, and it crackles and collapses as the weakened magic dissipates completely. You are able to cross the room and use the eastern runes to transport yourselves to a different circular chamber with a teleportation circle in the center.
A door to the south leads into a hallway. There is a door to the west, and to the east the hall turns in a southerly direction.
Calendula keeps her sword in front of her and aglow. "Any bright ideas. folks? Left, right, what we thinkin?"
If no one responds, she starts off toward the cave in.
"Right," Theo said, gesturing towards the cave in as he lit his spear up, "it's as good a direction as any."
"Incidentally; anyone else get that weird tingling at the back of the tongue from those things? My grandfather and great grandfather rigged some up around the mansion in Magnimar way back in the day and I always get that. Gonna be tasting it for a good hour."
The pile of rubble appears to be the other side of the same one that blocked progress from the area the goblins had claimed. The door to the south is unlocked.
This room appears to be nothing more than a hallway surrounding a 15-foot-by-10-foot room. A double door exits the room to the east and a single door allows passage to the north. The western reaches are choked with rubble. A large stone door on the south side of the central section bears a carving of a seven-pointed star. Seven round knobs, each etched with their own runes, each protrude from a point of this central star-shaped carving.
A dwarf in studded leather armor kneels by the door, turning the knobs with a look of frustration. Once he notices you, though, his frustration turns to rage as he whirls on you. "Bloody hell! What good is posting guards if they can't even keep the riffraff out while I'm trying to work! Get in here, you lazy dolts!" He reaches for several vials at his belt.
Before you can react, the dwarf drinks one of the extracts, and a shield of force springs into existence in front of him.
"Whoa! You a friend of those other dwarves who were being held captive by the goblins?" says Rudrik, holding a conciliatory hand up.
"Who? You working with the goblins?" the dwarf shouts, face scrunched up in confusion. "I don't know what you're babbling about, but this here is our score! I haven't spent all these days trying to crack the code just to have some claim-jumpers steal the loot out from under me! The treasure belongs to the Roadkeepers!"
"We just stumbled across this place by accident," says Rudrik. "Uh, we fought some goblins, they had a couple dwarves held captive, we freed 'em? Like good folks?"
He turns to his companion. "One of you explain it! You're better with words than I am."
Nime steps forward to clarify the situation.
"Shelyn has whispered to me that we're supposed to save the world," she explains. "We have no interest in stealing your treasure even though some Roadkeepers were quite rude to us on the way here."
She looks around at the others with a smile.
"We only worked with one goblin because she was really hungry and didn't try to poke us with something sharp." Nime tips her head and looks thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder if that will change how she looks at us. Maybe it will be a shift in how goblins deal with other peoples."
She looks back at the dwarf and grows more serious.
"Although, I've experienced similar behavior from dwarves as well," she says, shaking her finger at the treasure hunter. "Maybe we should fee you as well. Are you hungry?"
Nime lowers herself down to sit next to Calendula. She leans over and rests her head on her friends shoulder.
"How are you holding up, sweetie?" she asks, reaching out and putting an arm around the scarred woman. "It doesn't sound like being down in some dark cave is doing your cough any good."
She sniffs at Calendula's neck.
"Hmmm... That's interesting."
As Nime talks, the doors to the east open and four swarthy men rush in with weapons drawn. The dwarf holds up his hand to forestall them as he tries to make sense of what the undine is saying.
"No, I'm not hungry... I just want to get this blasted vault door open. If you're not here for the treasure, maybe you would like to help me crack the combination before you go on your way? I'll pay you for your time." The dwarf gestured towards the seven knobs, each etched with five different runes--Thassilonian runes representing different schools of magic, like you saw on Sir Roderic's map.
"I tried bypassing the lock, but it's too advanced for my skills. I've resorted to trying each combination one at a time, but there are 78,125 different possibilities. If I'm not lucky, it could take me months to find the right one, if I don't go insane before then! I hope you might have a better idea on how to figure it out."
Not stowing her weapon, Calendula at least drops her guard. "What do you want with such a door? How much will you pay us?"
Shenuska examines the men and winks at them before sauntering up to the dwarf and taking a look at the door.
"Well, this is an ancient Thassilonian vault, so there's bound to be fabulous treasure inside! I'll give you second pick of the goods if you can get the door open." the dwarf says.
Looking at the knobs, Shenuska sees that the runes can be arranged in an order that matches the pattern on Roderic's map. Perhaps that is the correct combination?
"We'll that's fine. We're not really interested in treasure," Nime says with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"Unless it's a pair of gauntlets. Then we have dibs because ... well ... saving the world and all trumps everything else."
"My sickness isn't getting any better, Nime," the scarred woman sighs. "I feel like fightin? Givin in ta my anger? It's makin it worser. My body is always so cold, my blood so slow, sometimes I can feel it clot and push and trudge along. Can feel my heart, thick with disease, thump slowly, weakly, but when we fight? Blood gets hot, and loose. And I've been sweating? Which, I never do, not since before I was sick. And after the fight is over? Fatigue washes over me in waves and my illness overtakes me. And all the time, my bones feel weaker. Like jelly. Like I could just swing my sword arm and it would go forever and ever, barely connected to my body."
She shakes her head and leans into the embrace, facing away from her friend, eyes lost in the fire. "I've been so cold, Nime. Colder than normal. You're so warm."
"I'm here, sweetie," Nime murmurs in response as she wraps her other arm around Calendula and pulls her in closer. "I'm here for you. I'm your friend." She kisses the woman's head.
"Unless it's a pair of gauntlets. Then we have dibs because ... well ... saving the world and all trumps everything else."
The dwarf raises his eyebrows. "Right... How about we just get this door open first, eh?"
"Right, let's see what we've got here, then," Theo remarked as he moved over to the door.
"Hmm... runes for each of the Thassilonian schools of magic. Not the most original symbols to use for this, Thassilon being essentially an empire of mages."
Not wanting to tip the dwarf off to their map, he purposefully entered in an incorrect combination a couple of times before entering the map's combination on the fourth try, wanting to pass it off as blind luck.
When Theo rotates the knobs to the correct combination, the door silently swings open. The doorway is filled with an opaque screen of dark fog, obscuring anything that might lay beyond.
"Hmph. Guess you're luckier than I am," the dwarf says with a trace of suspicion in his voice. "Well, after you."
"I'm sure I've seen that fog somewhere before but can't for the life of me place it. Any ideas, Shen?"
Calendula murmurs and growls. "What guarantee do we have that you won't lock us in and wait for us to starve? I'm not particularly excited about the idea of working with you folk, but if we're gonna do it, no tricks. The dwarf and one other goes in alongside us- at the same time. Not before, n not after."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of fog. It's just air and water," she smiles as if her logic is self-evident. She then steps into the room and begins feeling around to explore the space.
"You'll just have to trust me," the dwarf says with a grin.
Nime steps through the fog, disappearing from sight.
She finds herself in another room. Smooth white marble lines the walls of this chamber, its faces carved with spiraling lines of softly glowing runes. The chamber's floor and ceiling are likewise adorned with these ominous glowing runes. An elegant but empty sword display made of redwood stands in the center of the room, while an iron chest sits against the wall to the west. Everything in the chamber is covered in a fine layer of ash.
A plaque beneath the display has a single Thassilonian word.
"I ain't trustin the words of bandits more'n the feelin in my own gut. Get in there," she gestures with her sword.
Nime looks over the redwood display stand. She reaches out and runs one finger along the top and furrows her brow at the ash.
"I wonder what burned?" she says, looking up.
She tips her head as if listening for something, but the stillness of the air causes her to frown. She then looks at the runes uncomprehendingly for another moment before turning her attention to the only remaining object of the interest. The chest.
She leans down stiffly and opens the chest.
Inside the chest, on the rotted remains of a once-fine velvet red cushion, lies a set of ornate gauntlets made from greenish noqual (a rare skymetal that has potent antimagic qualities) and strips of leather. The metal and leather bear hundreds of softly glowing Thassilonian runes.
There doesn't seem to be anything else in this chamber.
---
"I don't think so," the dwarf snarls. He steps back and reaches for his sword as the other Roadkeepers step forward.
"Dibs" Nime says to herself with a smile as she picks up the gauntlets.
Once Nime sees the hostilities taking place outside the chamber, she calls upon Shelyn to protect her. At that point, being unsure how to carry the gauntlets she bows to the expediency of just putting them on. She then steps through the fog.
"No need to point sharp things at each other," Nime says, waving her metal covered hands in the air.
"There was nothing in there besides these gauntlets which I've already called dibs on," she says as if that settles everything.
Shenuska loses herself examining the magic woven into the vault and finds herself caught by surprise at the Roadkeepers sudden, but retrospectively inevitable betrayal!
"Yeah, this was probably gonna happen from the outset," growls Rudrik. "Nime, back up!"
Theo cursed quietly as Nime blithely walked through the fog. As tensions rose, Theo got his spear ready and conjured another barrier around himself as things looked to be kicking off.
"If that's the only treasure, then they're mine! Er, ours! Take them from her!" the dwarf shouts. He falls back behind his thugs and swigs another elixir.
One of the Roadkeepers tries to throw a dagger at Nime but falters due to her warding spell. A second one wavers, unable to attack, but two of them fight past the sanctuary and stab at her with their swords. One drives it deep into her belly, a critical hit!
Calendula pushes her sword into the Roadkeeper before her like a knife through hot butter and runs around the back of the vault, chasing the dwarf.
"You cowardly weak little man," she murmurs.
Calendula's chosen foe groans and falls as she drives her sword into him.
"Nime, back!" Theo called as he moved forward, fiery energy flaring around his spear as he lunged forward.
Nime stumbles back into the safety of the dark fog.
"Everyone always has such pointy things," she says, putting her hands to the wound.
Rudrik stumbles forward and slashes with his gladius. Unfortunately, since Nime took so long to back up, the enemies are already on their toes and he can't get in a sneaky slash.
Not that it matters anyway, because he sucks.
As Calendula moves away, Shenuska steps up and unleashes a color spray on the two Roadkeepers. Both fall to the ground, unconscious!
Rudrik and Theo step up to the last thug standing, but neither one of them hit.
The dwarf steps north a bit and then shouts, "Fire in the hole!" He opens his mouth wide and breathes forth a cone of flames at Calendula and Rudrik!
The thug stabs at Theo, but doesn't hit.
"Hold still you bastard!" Theo said as he struck again.
Nime steps back out from the fog and places her hands on Rudrik's shoulder while calling upon Shelyn's love for healing.
Calendula steps through the flames unhindered, stubbornly clinging to consciousness by sheer will alone. She spits on the dwarf's beard and stabs.
Rudrik winces as he takes the full brunt of the flames. He swings his gladius wildly.
The thug parries Theo's spear and narrowly dodges Rudrik's gladius. Shenuska sends two magic missiles at the Roadkeeper, badly wounding him. Nime steps out to heal the half-orc, while Calendula stabs the dwarf with her sword. He cries out in pain.
The thug backs off and drinks a healing potion. Meanwhile, the dwarf breathes fire on Calendula again, though this time the flames aren't nearly as intense.
Calendula slashes the dwarf, aiming to cut him and his beard. "A tight shave might look a bit better on you," she murmurs.
Nime steps towards the dwarf, frustration growing.
"Enough of this!" she declares. "How many more people will die because of your foolishness? My friends don't want to kill you! Surely there is some wisdom in that face ... hair ... beard ... covered head of yours?" She waves her gauntleted hands in the air. "We need these silly things to save the world! Do you even comprehend that? These people ... " She gestures at the rest of the participants. "I understand them not getting it. Their lives are so short they don't comprehend. But you ... " A shiny metal covered finger waggles in his direction. "I expect better from someone like you."