With nothing to be found on the desk, Vyana presses to continue forward.
Alorea carefully follows the others...
Alorea examines the ring. "This is blessed by Torag. It can protect you from fire and help extinguish the flames if you catch ablaze. Very useful for those who work the forge."
"Or for those who run into the fire." Lucia nods at Siobhan to sugest that she take the ring.
HERO POINT
She looks at teh desk carefully. "Hey, look what I found!" She gives teh book to Alorea to see if she can maek sense of it. "I don't speak the language.
Alorea examines the book. "I can't read it either, but the iconography is related to Droskar. More evidence that the dwarves who once dwelled here lost their way."
Your steps have now led you into the heart of the ancient monastery, a vast ruined chamber. The ceiling was once vaulted, a true wonder of dwarven masonry, but now is mostly collapsed; through gaping holes in the roof you can see, far above, the faint light of the stars. One of the stone columns that once supported the ceiling has toppled, its broken pieces littering the floor. A thick patch of black mushrooms hides in a nearby corner, giving the room an earthy scent that’s barely noticeable above the stench of wet fur. At the far end of the room, a flight of steps leads down to who knows where.
A vast shape, wreathed in shadow and darkness, leaps from its hiding place onto the top of the ruined column. A huge, grey wolf the size of a small pony looks down on you and gives a bone-chilling growl that freezes the blood in your veins, pushing hard on the primitive bit of your brain that knows there is predator and prey, and that you are prey...
...before the growl dissolves into laughter. "Oh, I do enjoy seeing the looks on people's faces when I do that. Now, what brings you into my lair, disrupting my pack and killing my wolves?" His yellow eyes blink in amusement as he sees you were not expecting a wolf to be able to talk. "I trust the cat has not got your tongue."
Wargs are the subject of many grim tales and campfire stories. Frightening accounts of wargs gobbling up children whole have a disturbing basis in fact, for these ravenous creatures have jaws that can unhinge like those of a serpent to gulp down small prey while the victim yet lives.
Alorea whimpers slightly as the menacing wolf reveals itself. She shies away as it prowls closer, but when it speaks, she tries to summon a modicum of courage.
"We are terribly sorry for any trouble we have caused. We were merely defending ourselves from the wolves in your pack. We've come seeking ingredients for a remedy to treat a vile plague that has swept through the town we have come from. We have no quarrel with you, and if you'll simply allow us to find what we need and depart, we will be on our way without need of further hostilities."
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"A friend of ours was taken from the woods." Siobhan adds, refusing to cower in the face of the large lupine. "We seek to rescue him and then leave this place and return to saving our village. As my friend said we have no quarrel with you and only defended ourselves when attacked."
Despite her fine words Siobhan has faced down many a bully and shifts a little so that she will be the one to take the brunt if the warg charges.
Vyana keeps her bow at the ready, fully expecting the negotiations to fail. Wolves are wolves, after all, talking or no. And like with any similar creature the only true diplomacy is demonstrated strength.
Lucia tries to keep her fear from showing to obviously, but a talking wolf is a new terror. She gulps back her scream and adds her voice to Siobhan's. "My friends are right, we fought the wolves but it was defeniding ourselves - they atakced us. We are here to get ironblom mushrooms, to heal some of the people in our town."
The wolf-thing lifts one paw off the column and waves it dismissively in an oddly human fashion in response to the apology about the wolves. You rather get the impression he's enjoying having someone to talk to. "Oh, no matter. Plenty more wolves in the forest, after all." When Lucia mentions the quest for mushrooms, you can see the look of puzzlement on its face, before it nods its huge grey head once, in assent. "That is nothing to me. Take your weeds and begone with you!"
It is only when Siobhan mentions the friend you are following, that his yellow eyes flicker with malicious amusement and he cackles. "Oh, it's far too late for him - he's been taken below."
His gasp and the deadly silence that follows tells you he did not intend to let that slip.
"Well now, that IS a pity. Because the only way you will be heading belowground is in your graves!" Hoping to correct his admission, he leaps off his column onto Siobhan, biting her savagely twice before any of you can so much as move.
"No!" Alorea shrieks. She raises an amped shield of force in front of Lucia and hurls a projectile at the warg!
Lucia gives a wordless cry that harmonises with Alorea's shriek to create a sound of defiance, and hope, and courage. She moves to stand over Siobhan, protecting her from further attacks by the monster. "She is brave and kind and - well maybe not the cleverest but she is my friend. She stansds aginst everything you are, and though my sword shakes and my voice trembles I will fight you."
She lashes out with her swrod, trusting to the gods Siobhan belives in to protect them all.
HERO POINT THANKS SO MUCH, GODS
HP 16/16
2 Focus points
0/3 Hero points
Curent efects: Inspire courage, Frightened 1
Cantrips Ghost sound, Lihgt, Mage Hand, Summon Instrument, Sheild
Spells 2/day (magic weapn, soothe, true strike)
Vyana wastes no time with cries of rage or fear, her fingers releasing an arrow as the beast leaps.
Greypelt -16 damage
Aided by the gods or not, Lucia's attacks strike true, cutting deeply into the creature's thick, grey fur. He howls with rage. "You - fight me?! You're not my opponent - you're my PREY!" He bites her savagely before dragging her to the ground.
The amped shield around Lucia has three layers, and Alorea causes one to break to absorb the impact of the wolf’s teeth.
Colorful lights swirl around the halfling as she unleashes her psyche. She sustains the shield spell on Lucia as she reaches out to Siobhan to restore her mind. She then finds some cover.
Lucia gives a scream as she falls and the monster attackes her, although there's a glitter of colour as Alorea's spell saves her from teh worst of it. "Thank you! We can all defeat this monster if we work together."
Still trembling from her narrow esacpe, she stands up and strikes it agains with her sword.
HP 14/16
2 Focus points
0/3 Hero points
Curent efects: Inspire courage, Frightened 1
Cantrips Ghost sound, Lihgt, Mage Hand, Summon Instrument, Sheild
Spells 2/day (magic weapn, soothe, true strike)
She didn't even realize that she was holding her breath, but now that Siobhan gains her feet, Vyana draws in a desperate lungfull of air before firing more arrows at the talking wolf.
Greypelt -39 damage, Enfeebled 2
The warg snarls with pain as your attacks hit, but Lucia's words cause it to give a bark of laughter. "That's right, a monster! The Darkmoon Beast, they call me, the terror of the woodcutters. I will be your end, little girls."
He carefully steps to one side to prevent himself from being flanked by the two combatants, before his terrible bite inflicts injury on first Siobhan, and then Lucia.
Alorea breaks the remaining two layers of the shield spell to protect Lucia.
She then restores the bard and hurls a rock at the warg!
There's a dreadful cracking of bone as the rock slams with supernatural force into the creature's skull. The warg staggers back, shaking its head, punch-drunk and opens its mouth to snarl; but instead coughs up a great fountain of blood and keels over dead!
Vyana shoulders her bow and dash forward to kneel at Siobhan's side. Lifting her slightly, she administers one of the healing potions they'd recovered.
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Von opens her eyes again, coughs up a dribble of blood and then manages a smile for her friend.
"Thanks Vy."
With a bit of assistance she levers herself to her feet and gives the warg corpse a rather filthy look. "I really don't like that thing." She declares, as sunlight fills the room for a moment and she stands a little straighter.
"So, we need to head 'down below'. Guess we're looking for stairs or something then. And we still need the mushrooms."
Despite her injuries the champion seems willing to press on.
Alorea heaves a heavy sigh of relief as she sits down, holding her head. "Oof. All of these life-or-death struggles we keep finding ourselves in are starting to wear on me. I think I'm going to need a long vacation when this is all said and done."
She spends ten minutes refocusing her mind before rising to continue exploring.
Lucia stays on task, moving to heal Siobhan before syeeing that Vy has that covered laready. She instead starts to gather up the ironbloom mushrooms, putting them in a pouch to take back to town. She disagrees with Sibhan about their next move. "We need to go back to town, there are lots of people there who will die if we dont' get these back to Laurel. Im sory about Barlus, we can come back later, but ther's more than one life to think about here."
She *does'nt* say what she is thinking which is that Barlus is probly ddead by now. She's very loud about not saying it.
"Barlus isn't dead," Vyana declares firmly. "And it would be simple cruelty to leave him here to suffer even more so now that we've stirred the nest."
She glances at her friend who is ready to set off immediately. More specifically, at the wounds that Siobhan still bears. The blood that still stains her armor. The way she favors one leg over the other. The grimace of pain that she doesn't hide perfectly.
"We should rest, though. I need to recover a bit first."
Lucia shakes her head jsut as firmly. "You don't know that. Nobody does. Waht we DO know is the more people will die the longer we wait." Seeing that Vy is probly a lost cause, she appeals to Siobhan instead. "You know that doing wha'ts right isn't always what you want to do, right? This is one of those times. The needs of the many. I like Barlus, OK I don't know him taht well but he's a good guy, but I've got friends in town who need us. People I've seen in the tavern who I'll maybe never see again, or Jak even, or the sheriff."
She's not going to mention Savram. There are some strings you don't pull on.
"I agree with Lucia," Alorea says. "I know Barlus is important to you, Vyana, but we need to help the ones we know we can help. If we get seriously hurt or killed going deeper into this dungeon, then we are condemning all of them to die as well."
"Von?" Vyana pleads, turning to her friend.
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Siobhan watches the conversation with obvious pain on her face and her heart practically breaks as the rest of the group turn to her for her opinion.
She looks from one to the other and then drops her eyes and whispers softly. "I shall never cause harm to come to the innocent, or allow it to come through my inaction." Vyana recognises it as part of the oath that Siobhan swore as the sun rose in the Hollow's chapel when she dedicated herself to Sarenrae.
"I'm sorry Vy, we have to go back." She says, lifting her head to meet her friends gaze as the tears run down her cheeks. "I want to stay, I think we should but we can't risk the Hollow, not all those people." She pulls her friend in close and speaks softly in her ear, words for Vy alone.
She pulls back and quite obviously pulls herself together before speaking again.
"We go back, we go back as quickly as possible and we travel all night if we have to. Then, once Laurel has everything she needs, I'm turning straight back around and coming back here. We aren't leaving Barlus here an hour longer than we have to! You don't have to come with me, but I hope you will."
She nods firmly, although one of her hands sneaks out, searching blindly for Von's beside her.
"Come on, we don't have any time to waste!"
Siobhan can see the faint hope in her friend's eyes die as she makes her choice. Vyana gives a final nod. "It seems that my choice is made for me," she says in a tight voice.
She shifts the bow on her shoulder and then steps away to gather whatever arrows survived the battle.
As the others make ready to head back for the trek back to the village, Vyana holds up a hand.
"If we're giving up Barlus to whatever fate below will claim him, then we owe our families back home the best chance. And that does not include braving the forest at night - that's simply suicide."
Her words are without emotion - bare statements of fact.
"We'll move back out to the entrance and rest in one of the side rooms until dawn."
Without waiting for any argument, she leads the way back to the front of the front of the temple.
Alorea nods at Vyana's wise assessment. The thought of wandering the woods at night is not appealing in the slightest. The halfling finds a comfortable spot to curl up and rest for the night.
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Siobhan doesn't even try to sleep - she knows she won't be able to, not with the guilt that's eating her up inside. Instead she sits by the small fire, staring into the flames, and then up towards Vy. Down to the flames, up to Vy, over and over again.
At some point in the night the pressure of the feelings simply becomes too much for her and she stands up, intent on getting out of stifling room for a while.
Vyana takes first watch. She can sense Siobhan's eyes on her, but she doesn't return the gaze knowing that she's not strong enough to endure the pain.
When her watch is up, she stays up a little longer, scribbling in a notebook and considering what she's learned.
Vyana doesn't acknowledge her friend, but continues to sit in silence, her quill scratching at the book in her hands.
The scratching stops.
It starts again.
It stops.
She starts writing one more time, only to release a frustrated breath and shove her gear back into her backpack and race after Siobhan.
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"I'm not." She says softly. "I just can't sleep... can't stay in that tiny room... I'm sorry Vy, so so sorry!"
Siobhan looks utterly dejected, a long way from the cheerful and confident girl of Falcon's Hollow.
"How do they do it Vy?" She asks. "How do heroes make these decisions with people's lives at stake?"
"My mother told me that our hearts never lie to us." She reaches up to clasp at the medallion hanging around her neck. Closing her eyes she stubbornly wipes at the moisture leaking from them. "You'd better get back in there and get some rest. We're going to be going extra hard tomorrow and you need to be at your best."
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She pulls her friend into a hug and Vyana can feel her tears soaking into the half-elf's tunic.
[smaller]"Will you sit with me?" Siobhan asks softly. "I'm sorry, I know you're hurting more than me but I... I can't be strong right now. I need my best friend."
Lucia stays awalke just long enough to make sure ther's a watch order and that someone will wake her up at the right time befre she puts her head on her backpac and falls asleep. She slee'ps through the scratching of Vy's pen but wakes up briefly when Sibhan goes wandering, she opens an eye to see what's going on but goes back to sleep when she realises it's just those tow chatting.
Get a room, you tow. Or at least, a clue. With a final shake of her head, and a slight smiel, she goes back to sleep until it's her turn to take watch.
It's difficult to find a space to sleep in the ruined monastery that doesn't smell of damp, or mould, or wet dog, or a combination thereof; but the exhaustion of the day means that you manage to sleep soundly nevertheless. Nothing disturbs your slumbers and the still watches of the night pass without incident.
28 ROVA (IX) 4707 AR
Here in the foothills of the great (but hopefully still dormant) volcano, the dawn arrives late and heavy with fog - once you leave the confines of the monastery, the low-hanging cloud settles wetly around you all. Sound is muffled and sight is limited: a few minutes of walking and the ancient stone building is swallowed up behind you.
Intending to get back to the village as quickly as possible, Vyana is ready to travel at first light and goads the others to move as quickly as possible - barely waiting for them to finish a morning meal before striking back towards home.