Teleri raises a hand to her mouth to conceal her smile as Ives wraps his head in canvas and looks hopefully out at her -- looking like a weird plant-boy with his head wrapped in canvas.
"All right, hold on," she says. She unwraps the canvas, cuts a somewhat narrower strip using her dagger, and begins wrapping it around Ives head. "When I was very little, Mr. Owens had a visitor from Rukh al Tadru, a desert land across the sea," she tells him. "The men wear turbans there -- hats wrapped out of strips of linen. Mr. Owens asked him to teach Prentice how to wrap a turban, in case Prentice ever goes there on business. But later I made Prentice teach me, because I thought it was interesting. Never thought I'd find a real use for it, but ... voila!"
She looks critically at her work. "Canvas is too thick a material, really, and I doubt it'd pass muster in Rukh al Tadru. But it'll do here in Pentrefan. I doubt we're going to run into any Tadrani today."
After packing away the supplies, she starts walking into town. "Let's go, then."
You walk into the river side of Pentrefan past some huts, near the old church building, the stables, the dock, and the infirmary. The mine is a couple minutes walk up ahead. Some miners who are off work look up at you somewhat curiously then resume their conversations.
"He mixed up lots of B and P sounds," she says, "And his voice was rather nasal. I'm not sure if that's a Tadrani thing, or if it was just him."
She continues following the river, looking for any signs that might indicate the source of the "sour"-ness.
The river does lead up to very near the mine and then past it. There is a small ditch draining from the mine into tbe river. The water in the ditch is somewhat yellowish and smells of sulphur. When it reaches the river, however, it becomes greatly diluted and the scent is almost undetectable a few yards downstream.
"It would be Miss Teleri," she corrects him gently. "'Mrs.' is for married women. Or you can use 'Ms.' for either."
She takes out an empty vial, uncorks it, and sets it to float gently through the air to the center of the stream with a word and a gesture. It dips into the water, well above where it joins the main river, then floats back to her hand. She takes a brief whiff of it, wrinkles her nose at the sulfurous stench, then corks it firmly and stores it away.
"Whatever this stuff is, it's certainly foul, isn't it? Hold on, I want to check something."
She repeats her performance with another vial, this time sampling the water a good twenty feet upstream of where the drainage ditch joins the river. She smells it, and hands it to Ives. "Does that seem 'sour' to you?" she asks.
There are miners exiting and entering the mines, many of whom are orc children. In addition, superivsors stand around at intervals directing the work.
This water is very clear with the taste and smell you would expect of the stream, carrying subtle notes of the stone and earth with it.
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Ives smells and tastes the upstream water. "It tastes like it should, I think. That means this ditch here is the problem. Coming from the mine. Coming from the town, just like I thought! We have to make them stop it, Miss Teleri! Who can we talk to? Even if the workers could dump their sour water into the ground instead of directly into the river, that could make a huge difference!"
"Let's find out what it is," she says. "We could talk to the foreman at the mine. Perhaps there is a better way they can dispose of it."
As the two approach the mine, a foreman holds up a hand. "Whoa... Mr. Trenton told me you'd be investigating and I'll show you where the vandalism is but who's this? If you want to go in there, you need to wear these." He pulls out some metal helmets with leather chinstraps from a pile nearby while looking at Ives "But I'm not so sure if he's allowed in..."
"He's assisting my investigations," Teleri says. "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be well-behaved." She shoots an Ives a look that says pretty clearly Hear that? Behave.
"Before we go in, though, I was wondering if you could answer some questions for me. Could you tell me about the water in this drainage ditch? It smells sulfurous. What's that from?"
The foreman shrugs at Ives. "Ok sure just be careful in there. People get hurt in mines and we don't want any accidents." When Teleri asks of the water, he looks at it as if he's never paid much attention to it. "Oh that? It's just draining the mine. Water trickles in all over the place in this mountain, especially with the snow melt right now. We have some small ditches in the mine that collect it to keep it out of the way." He points to a small iron tramway coming out of the mine. "Don't want it on that, in particular."
"I see," she says thoughtfully. "We'll definitely want to go into the mine and take a look around. But before we do, I gather an outbuilding was recently vandalized. Could we take a look at that first, please? As long as we're here."
The foreman nods leads you to a storage shed down near the dock. "They beat up some of the boards and scratched it all over the place." He points to some damage all over the shack. "There's been some other vandalism on the dock itself. The headquarters building also got hit."
"Odd. What's kept in here, sir?" she asks.
She examines the scratches, trying to determine if they were made in an attempt to break into the shed, or simply to do damage to the structure.
Teleri tries to imagine the motions a humanoid body would have to perform in order to cause damage like this.
I've notices the scratches look like they were made by small daggers while the broken boards were struck with hatchets about 2 inches across. Teleri notes that the damage isn't concentrated near the door and is all under 4 feet high. The foreman shrugs "Just extra rope and things for the dock. It's not even locked."
"Well, they were short -- look, all the damage is low down. How peculiar. Was anything taken from inside?"
The foreman shrugs at these odd tidbits. "Nothing that we could tell. Do you want to see some more of the vandalism?" He thinks for a bit. "Yeah the stables were hit too. And the headquarters building."
Mindful of Ives' reluctance to go closer to town, Teleri says "We're here at the mine just now, so perhaps we should look at all the things here first; we can visit the stables and the HQ later. Unless the stables are here, I suppose? I know the headquarters are in town."
There are definitely plants nearby! Weeds, grasses, mosses, etc.
Ives has a bit more trouble here with these plants he isn’t familiar with. It’s hard to know which ones are smart and which are dumb! He feels around a bit asking them what they remember. Mostly, he receives inane comments about water, getting stepped on, cloudy days, etc. One weedy bush that has been cut back multiple times replies ”Stay the hell away from me! I don’t know you! And I’m not answering any questions. You can’t prove anything!!!!” But maybe, just maybe, if Ives focuses he can figure out something useful from all the tiny messages he’s receiving?
Ives is able to sort out that the plants almost never get stepped on at night! But the one exception recently was some of the plants between the dock and the storage shed which did get stepped on. But none of the plants on the gently sloping bank got stepped on that night.
"I'm not sure," Teleri responds quietly. "I've only ever seen one, and only for a moment. It looked human-sized to me, but maybe it was unusually large."
"Let's go into the mine now," she suggests. "We're here, and anyway I suspect that the real cause of the problems has something to do with this runoff." Teleri takes a moment to tuck her hair back up, coiled up tight in a bun, and straps on one of the helmets the foreman pointed out, whereupon she discovers that having one's hair in a bun fits poorly under a helmet. Vexed, she takes it off, puts her hair down again, and straps the helmet back on.
She hands one to Ives as well.
"I've never been in a mine before," she tells the foreman. "Are there any particular safety procedures we should know about? Also, I imagine it's dark -- do you have a lantern we could use, please?"
WWWWWWWWWWW
WWWWDDWWWWW
WWWWDDWWWWW
PPPPPPDDPPPPP
PPPPPPPPPPPPP
PPPPPPSSPPPPP
From his past experience, Ives knows that naiads aren't short.
The foreman nods vigorously. "Oh yes. Lot's of hazards. Stay out of the way of the tramway. Don't go through openings you can't fit through easily. Stay in shored up parts of the mine. If the air smells too funny, stay away from it. Don't hit your head. Don't fall down shafts. And stay away from any tunnels with a board across them. The fire man has to clear those out." He agrees to your illumination request "Sure you can borrow a couple lanterns since you're on SMC business. There are some torches on the walls but they're a bit spread out."
Your needs sorted, you head into the mine. It's a novel experience for both of you! Teleri has never been underground, especially not to this extent. Ives has explored caves before but none of them were this big or so crowded with people and metal! Orc, human, and dwarf children pull impossibly heavy tram carts loaded with ore or loose rock. Men fill the mine with clamoring noises as they chip away at the stone with picks. The twisting tunnels and changing elevation are extremely disorienting! But for the most part, you are going up. And you note that the small drainage ditch gets smaller and smaller as you head up into the mine past several small rivulets that feed it. You explore as long as you can stand the loud, crowded, cramped, and somewhat smelly conditions. You don't find anything particularly of note here but you do confirm that the ditch is fed by drainage from all over the mine.
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Ives does not enjoy the tour of the mine for one second. The crowded conditions, the sight of poor workers laboring without a breath of fresh air or the sun, and barely a plant in sight except for some half-crazy mosses makes Ives feel sick to his stomach. And the trickling water continues to drain, running through ditches built throughout the mine, continually reminds Ives that his friends and drinking this poison even as they speak.
"Miss Teleri, this place is awful. I think I am going to... going to..." He does, all over the ground. "Lets get out of here. I need to see the sky."
Teleri finds the trip interesting, though she is not pleased at the sight of children working in such a dangerous location. She vaguely pokes around at the rocks, wondering if there is some way to tell which of them are causing the problems with the water; but rapidly concludes that she's out of her depth there. Prehaps an alchemist could discern the source more closely, she thinks. But I am not one of those, no indeed.
"It's not very ... oh, dear," she says, as Ives splatters vomit on the floor.
"Yes, I think we're done here anyway," she agrees hurriedly. "Back to the surface."
You exit the mine and foreman takes the helmets back. "Well? Did you find something to help put a stop to our vandalism problem?"
"I have some theories, but nothing solid quite yet," Teleri says. "I want to investigate the rest of the damage at the stables and the HQ and interview Mr. Anderson about his assailants before saying any more than that."
She hands back the lanterns they borrowed and starts heading towards the stables.
The foreman nods as he blows out the lanterns and puts them away as well. "Fair enough. Just know that Mr. Trenton wants results soon. He's getting a lot of pressure from Dinas."
The stables bear scratches and marks from four feet high and down. They seem to have been made by small-sized implements.
The headquarters building has several boards which have been repaired at heights ranging from four feet off the ground to six. The broken boards lie next to the building for the time being.
The damage was inflicted by medium-sized hammers, sledges, and picks.
Teleri starts by examining the boards closely, picking them up and looking slowly down each side. Then she comes and examines the marks in the HQ wall.
"Odd that these are higher," she remarks. "The ones by the shed and stables were all below 4 feet, while these are just above that."
They definitely don't look like any form of writing that Teleri has heard of.
Ives knows that there are several races of small creatures who live in the woods in various states of wildness or civilization: Gnomes, Goblins, Grippli, Halflings, and Ratfolk. He knows that Gnomes and Halflings are typically associated with villages while Ratfolk often are.
The odd pair of investigators determine that these marks were made higher on the building but they're not sure about much more than that.
"Well ... none of this vandalism makes much sense," Teleri remarks glumly. "I can't see what they were trying to accomplish."
Although her new boots are substantially more comfortable for it than the previous day's, her feet still hurt. I don't think I've ever walked so far or for so long, she thinks, wishing there was someplace to sit for a moment. But the exterior of the SMC HQ was not equipped with seating.
She sighs, and leans against the building. She looks around to make sure they are not within easy earshot of anyone.
"So here's what I think is going on here," she says. "The rocks in the mine contain some kind of material that's poisonous. Ordinarily it's stuck down in the rocks and no one pays any mind; but now water is seeping through, getting contaminated, and running into the river. The miners aren't deliberately poisoning the river. They haven't even noticed yet, even though they drink the water same as everyone. Either the poison is too low of a concentration to affect them, or they just haven't had enough exposure. But creatures that live in the water, like naiads and that giant frog, are exposed to it all the time. So they're getting sick and even dying."
"One of them -- maybe a naiad, maybe some other fey creature -- has started attacking the town to stop the contamination. That frog was enchanted to be hostile to humanoids, and the vandalism here shows that whoever it is can enlist other creatures that use tools -- probably fey of some kind."
"In order to put the situation right, two things need to happen. First, SMC needs to stop contaminating the river. Diverting the runoff to a holding pool would be a good start, but it would be better to have some kind of filter than can clear out the water. I couldn't build one myself, but I gather that letting water seep through layers of sand and gravel will remove an awful lot of contaminants. Or there may be magical alternatives."
"I don't think there's anything to be done about the contaminants already in the river besides letting them flush themselves out naturally. Cutting off the source of the contaminant is the important thing."
"We need to speak with whoever among the fey is behind the vandalism, apologize, show them that we're fixing the problem, and persuade them to quit attacking people and vandalizing buildings. I'm inclined to think that SMC owes them reparations of some kind for the harm that has already been done, even though it was inadvertent. I have no idea what they would want or consider sufficient."
"SMC has other mines in other places in the mountains besides this one. They'll need to change their procedures at all of them. It will be expensive, and they won't want to do it. But I'm inclined to think that they can be persuaded -- building filters may be expensive, but not as expensive as it would be if the fey decided to really make trouble. That would be something like a small war, I think."
"Lastly," she says crossly, "We need to make sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. The fey and the townsfolk need to talk to each other. Why does no one ever talk with one another? So many problems could be avoided if people just talked. I think SMC should invite the local fey to send a representative round to talk with them on a regular basis. Then SMC could say things like 'we're planning to put a new shaft over there any thoughts or issues you see?' or 'how are things going -- noticed any problems lately?' Maintaining good relationships with the local fey would go a long way towards avoiding problems like this one."
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Ives nods and nods at Teleri's explanation. Everything she says makes sense, if only they could get these...townspeople!... to understand!
"You are so smart, Miss Teleri.But how do they talk to each other? The people in town would never go into the woods to talk to fey. And the fey would probably kill them on sight! Unless..."
He trails off in thought, his young brain straining to make the obvious connection.
Trenton walks out of his office to take a break and stretch his legs. His eyebrows raise as he sees Teleri with this strange boy. "How go the investigations, Miss? And who is this strange friend of yours?"