Perception DC 15 (anyone), for the information at the bottom of this post
Though Xira crafts in a very different medium, she still admires the dwarven metalwork with an artisan's eye for aesthetics and detail. So when she finds odd little slots in the pommels of some of the daggers, she practically has to investigate. From what she has seen so far, the dwarves seem to have been highly skilled at melding both form and function in their handiwork. These slots do nothing for the form of the blade, so surely they must have a function.
That little mystery gets solved when Xira finds a dagger with something inserted into its slot, something metal. After carefully winkling it free, Xira finds ... a coin-shaped pendant with a square of iron inset into it. Which in turn begs the next question: why store something like this in something like that?
These may not be the most pressing questions at hand right now, but Xira refuses to let them go just yet. Laying out what daggers and pendants she has to hand on one of the bunks, including a couple of the blades with faintly glowing gems, she extends her mystical sense.
What she sees triggers a surprised huff: runes. Each pendant now sports a couple of glowing runes that were not visible before she used her cantrip. At least she thinks they're runes; she can't claim to know for certain.
Brow furrowed, Xira turns her attention to the daggers with the glowing gems. No surprise that she senses magic on those, but what kind of magic?
Okay, the small amount of evocation seems about right for the glow, but what is this bit of divination for?
Curious.
Fortunately Xira has at least one second opinion ready to hand. Sticking her head out of the bunk room door, she calls, "Phantrel, can you come look at these?"
Weapon in hand: Quarterstaff
Effects:
Phantrel murmurs inaudibly, the mental equivalent of a nod of recognition. Apparently pushing back a bit had got him somewhere and Thunder-follows-Lightning was more forthcoming as a result. Thank you, he replies.
He’s definitely learned some things and decides to share them with the group. ”I’ve been speaking with Thunder-follows-Lightning and it believes that this level is likely to be only stores,” he announces. ”Which tallies with what we’ve found, though the supplies have definitely been useful. However, it suggests that in order to find better weapons we would probably need to go up a level. And yes,” he adds grimly, ”it thinks that it would be prudent to be armed. The original inhabitants may be long gone but there may still be guardians of stone or metal, probably more mechanical traps for the unwary too. And possibly other interlopers more troublesome than rats or silverspore, not to mention the possibility of more shade-creatures.” Phantrel shivers involuntarily, his flesh where the creature had touched him still numb and burning with cold, even though the contact was light. Having seen what it did to Lord Highcliff, he doesn’t want to dwell on his fate had the shadow got a firm hold on him.
After a pause to let that sink in, the half-elf continues, ”It hasn’t been in these halls before – I assume, though I don’t know for certain, that it was crafted in another Dwarven city – but it seems to have a sense of how they are generally structured. Or it’s inferring things from the signs and messages. Either way I think this seems sensible advice and again fits with what I think we have managed to piece together.” Seeing no need to mention the disagreement with his new sword, and with it settled at least for the present, Phantrel says nothing of the matter.
He is also able to give some more time and consideration to the items that the others have been scavenging from the store rooms. At Xira’s call, Phantrel comes over to examine the array of daggers and pendants that she has carefully laid out.
”I think you have the right of it,” he agrees, as Xira shows him how the pendants slot into the empty dagger pommels. Having seen the young woman do so, he too works through the words and gestures to a simple spell. ”There seems to be some minor magic on both types of items too. As far as I can tell, the ornaments have been inscribed with some kind of personal mark, maybe an identifier.”
He picks up a dagger, holding it up to the light in order to examine it more closely. ”This seems more interesting though – or at least I find it so. They appear to have been enchanted as a set so anyone in possession of one of these knives can monitor where its companion blades are. That’s extremely useful to a squad of guards or a battalion of soldiers. Or indeed a group of lost miners,” he smiles at Xira before returning his focus to the dagger. As he scrutinises it, something falls into place in his understanding and he lets out a breath of astonishment. ”There’s something else to it as well. I think – though I could be wrong on this – that it also alerts its bearer as to how its fellow bearers are faring in terms of health and whether they need aid. This is a rare gift indeed.”
"Wow. That's some find!" Raka grabs one of the daggers, grateful that there are plenty enough for each of them to have one. "Everyone make sure your dagger is somewhere it won't get lost. Even if we don't end up usin' them as weapons, they're gonna be awful important down here. The rest we can keep in the backpack." She encourages everyone to take a second dagger, just in case.
It seems an unspoken agreement that Raka would be the one to carry the pack, so she loads it up with everything that seems like it might be useful.
Backpack Inventory:
Chalk
Air crystals
Small hammer
Merchant's scale
Cleats, 1 pair
Dwarven dagger x9
She also fills it with a good quantity of pickled-fish containers. She leaves out the snuffbox, silver pipe, puzzle box, glass wheel box, and gold locket, thinking Brimble is probably right that pretty trinkets and expensive baubles would likely be confiscated anyway so they aren't worth carrying. "If there are better weapons upstairs, then that's where we should go next."
Unfortunately, while Phantrel feels he has at least some understanding of the enchantment on the daggers, when you carry them none of you seem to feel anything suggesting an awareness of each other-- either location, health, or anything else. Maybe it's that none of you are hurt right now (other than Phantrel's lingering, strange aches), maybe something has to be done to activate them, maybe it doesn't work for non-dwarves...
These are clan daggers, Thunder-follows-Lightning says into Phantrel's mind, with perhaps a touch of reluctance. Each of the people are gifted one at birth. It is a marker of identity, family, personhood, membership in the clan. They are tied strongly to their owners.
Argatha sticks to hallway duty, his sack of tinned food resting on the floor next to him. He’s edging toward the stairs up, though he knows there are other doors to check on this level yet. So he remains patient.
"If they're clan daggers, we should not use them out of respect for the former owners. I mean, once we can get better weaponry that is. Necessity says we should carry them for now, but later." He looks uncomfortable with his daggers now that he knows more what they are.
As they explored, Colin suddenly spoke up "I've been thinking, you know that beer you were drinking, it's probably over 350 years old! That's um quite something actually. Oh and random fact, the dwarves had their own calendar, that started over ten thousand years ago, neat huh? Oh the other strange thing is this is proof that conventional wisdom about when the dwarves disappeared is wrong, at least for these dwarves..."
Colin was fascinated by some of the things they were finding, a book of puzzles, merchant's scales, more daggers than they knew what to do with, including special ones.
When Argatha spoke about not using the clan daggers out of respect, Colin considered what the best thing to do with the daggers was to honour the fallen clan. Perhaps there would be a shrine somewhere they should be put, or something of the like.
However, the first thing to catch Brimble's eye is that there's more chalk marks here. A LOT more. Where it was one horizontal row of marks in the previous hallway, the wall directly across from him has at least a dozen vertical rows, line after line, tally after tally, cramped dwarfscript wedged between the five tallies. The lines meander, swerving up and down the walls like a drunk making his way down a street. Brimble doesn't need to be able to read the script to tell that the script here is messier, a scrawl rather than the precise notes of the first instance. His own wall, indeed all the walls he can currently see, feature more and more and more tallies.
Brimble stands in the middle of the corridor, head swinging back and forth to examine the wall… the long LONG tally… the descent from precision to meandering text… likely mirroring the dwarf’s descent into despair… or madness. This is bad, REAL bad. Sorry, pal. I feel for ya.
The constant drone of echoing voices pulls him from his thoughts. He pops his head back into the open dormitory long enough to convey a message. ”HEY. I need a reader in this... uh... second hallway.” Then he goes to the rear door of ‘dormitory #1’ and tries to pop it open.
The doorway to Dorm 1 appears to be free of things that are likely to hurt a kobold or his larger, less scaly friends; once more Brimble tries to force it open.... man, it seems like these things are just getting heavier and heavier.
After enough attempts, or possibly recruiting Raka's muscles to the effort, this door is also forced about a foot back on its tracks/grooves into the wall. The dormitory thus revealed is identical in layout to the other one, though here as well there are the occasional personal touches that reveal hints as to the personalities and lives of those who lived here: some fanciful chalk doodles on the stone above one bed that seem to be unflattering caricatures of a long-ago dwarf, another bunk-alcove hung with curtains of bright, colorful cloth (still remarkably vibrant after all this time), a third bunk outfitted with extra pillows. The personal possessions run the same general gamut, with yet more knives and pendants turning up.
Colin's mind has finally recovered a bit from its shock-- now that he hears the words clan dagger spoken aloud, it triggers a recall of a chapter of a book he once read-- the chapter discussed the absence of any graveyards, crypts, or mausoleums in any of the dwarven ruins found thus far, though memorial inscriptions were quite common. The lack of mortal ruins found led the author to suspect that dwarves might have been cremated rather than buried. Perhaps their blades were also consigned to the fires hot enough to melt them down. It's an educated guess, anyway. Failing that, if you were to find a shrine, that seems a respectful enough place to leave them.
Phantrel is able to make his way through the dormitory to the hall at some point or another, and then able to take in the writing that covers much of the stone surface here.
If the previous writing had been an account of 'incidents of note', these inscriptions seem to primarily be a listing of tasks needing doing. Trap the rats. - White the fish. - Scrub the floors. - Polish all doors and plaques. - In duty there is purpose. - Repair the furnace. - All rats trapped and killed. - Gather rockgrubs. Process rockgrubs. - In labor there is peace. - Wash clothes. - Clean the toilets. - Rats spotted. Trap the rats. - In duty there is purpose. - Scrub the floors. - Gather algae. Process algae...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Brimble puts the bathroom visit on hold. Similarly, he ignores the temptation of ‘The Bellows’ and ‘The Salters’. Since it seems impatience runs in the veins of the talls, the kobold is forced to streamline his plans. He moves straight to the door at the end of the hall with the bronze plaque. The Overseer’s room is the best bet for having something useful (or historically relevant). It is also the room most likely to be deadly. Well, that and the gold double-door room which is next on Brimble ‘to do’ list.
He inspects the door and wall carefully before probing the door itself…
"If they're clan daggers, we should not use them out of respect for the former owners. I mean, once we can get better weaponry that is. Necessity says we should carry them for now, but later." He looks uncomfortable with his daggers now that he knows more what they are.
"I agree." The soft, somber tone of Xira's voice matches the look in her eyes as she examines the unsheathed blade in her hands The very name, clan dagger, resonates with her family-loving Varisian soul. "I won't dictate to anyone else, but for me to carry even one of these daggers above ground ... I might as well steal another's kapenia." Or their harrow deck.
She sheathes the blade and lays it back on the bunk. "Though I doubt the Consortium will see it that way."
Weapon in hand:
Effects:
It turns out that arcane theory is no substitute for putting it into practice and when the group hold the daggers, none of them can detect any of the benefits Phantrel suggested would apply to the bearer. At this point Thunder-follows-Lightning pipes up in his head, giving an explanation of what they are. It doesn’t outright say that his reading of the items was wrong, but there is a plausible theory that it was based on the fact that the daggers are so strongly tied to individuals.
He explains what his swordcane has imparted, apologising for his optimism about the blades’ usefulness. ”Alas, I may have misinterpreted the magic. And I agree,” he says to Argatha and Xira, ”for now it makes sense to use them if necessary, but let’s hope we have no need. What worries me is that if they are linked closely to individuals, why are there so many of them left here?” he continues. ”I would perhaps expect them to be the kind of item one might always carry on their person. Or something that might be buried with them upon death, though I know nothing of Dwarven customs.”
At Brimble’s call, the half-elf comes to translate the numerous writings on the wall of the hallway. Again, it’s mostly tasks and a record of their progress, though with some sayings mixed in.
Thunder-follows-Lightning is silent a little bit as our heroes displaced ordinary folk discuss the daggers-- which represent, if nothing else, more wealth than any of them have ever touched before-- and what ought be done with them.
Eventually, it says to Phantrel, Your people.... you do not wish to simply profit from the daggers, nor to give them to Auric's consortium? You wish to .... honor their owners, to do what is in accordance with the customs of the stone-born?
Phantrel can sense that the blade feels surprised-- and cautiously approving.
Em watches Raka leave the dwarven items behind. "Those may be taken from us when we reach the surface, but..." Em fiddles with her new clan dagger, suddenly understanding that she herself has become a grave robber of sorts. And what would a little ill gotten gold do, in a place with as few resources as Salt Spire? "Well, at least we can leave them as we found them," she says, tucking the few items back into place. Surely there will be other treasures which the group cannot bear to leave behind, more finely made than these.
Noticing Brimble looking at the writing that covered the wall, Colin read it for him and observed, "It seems they lived regimented lives, performing mundane tasks like most ordinary folk do."
Signaling that he's ready to investigate what is possibly the most 'promising' door in your immediate vicinity - you are likelier to find useful items here than in the toilets, hopefully - Brimble gestures the rest of the crew to wait just around the nearest hallway bend and then slinks forward to the door to look it over.
Solid-looking metal. Again the knob, again the small glass panel above it. Again a careful inspection for tripwires, triggers, weird smells, general vibes....
Brimble concludes that if the door is trapped, it is more subtle than he can find. Setting his small clawed hand to the knob, he once more attempts to jerk the door sideways, forcing it to open.
Alas, not successful.
As Brimble considers trying again versus asking Raka to give it a go, Xiramona whispers, "Maybe try using the crowbar?" She fishes the item out of her pack. The kobold trots back to retrieve it, then returns to the door. He wedges the crowbar in to the wee gap available until he can get the tip of it hooked around the door's edge-- that's better. Now he can push rather than pull!
First try slips a bit. Brimble wedges it carefully back in, pushes with all his might, and is rewarded with the door grinding back under his assault, retreating into its wall groove.
Brimble can immediately see this room is nicer than the others. A stone bookshelf sits just inside the entrance, and a folding screen on the other side creates a bit of a hallway that goes further in. Against the far wall he can see more furniture, a desk, and even what looks to be a rug on the floor. There is a smell, very faint, of rot.
The walls in this room are absolutely covered in tally marks and wild runic writing.
Whatcha doin', Brimble?
Brimble stands in the open doorway, looking and smelling, reluctant to go further. What did he tell Em they would need? Intrepidity… damn right. But also smarts. He quietly sticks the crowbar in his belt and pulls his pick. He moves close to the bookshelf as he slinks into the room, looking for traps and trouble. At the corner of the bookshelf he peeks around the corners trying to see more of the room. He’s careful not to stick a claw on the carpet.
As he sees it, the kobold’s first task is to find the source of the rot smell. Maybe it is just a desiccated rat. But after a few hundred years, it could be all that remains of the stink from a dead dwarf. And how the dwarf died might reveal a trap or (likely) a more mundane death. But either way, it would tell him something.
Brimble is braced for a dead dwarf.. and a dead dwarf he gets. The archaeological significance of the moment may be lost on him, with his more pragmatic bent, but there is indeed a corpse, practically a skeleton as the flesh on the bones is long since dessiccated and withered, on the floor of this room. It is lying face down, limbs outstretched towards Brimble as if it had been trying to crawl towards the door when it collapsed.
Next to the body, even the floor has chalk marks on it, and a piece of chalk is next to one bony hand.
In the room beyond the corpse, there is a good-sized bed, long enough for even a human to stretch comfortably, though the bedclothes look to be more or less rotted and full of holes.
There are also tools here. So many tools! Brooms, mops, buckets, piles of rags, gardening hoes or rakes perhaps, nets with long handles, jars of various mysterious substances. Spatulas. Soup ladles. A stepladder. All of them painstakingly set next to each other, tidy and orderly.
Nothing moves, nothing twitches.
Brimble can notice this dwarf appears to be still wearing their pendant, even in death, and a clan dagger lies near their pelvis, amid the tattered rotted leather scraps of a belt.
Sorry, pal. Brimble looks at the skeleton for a long moment. There is some reverence in it… along with a sizeable dose of self-interested curiosity. Brimble tries to piece together if the fellow died from say, something crushing his rib cage.
When his viewing is complete, he crosses back to the doorway and signals the team forward. ”We got our tally man in here, and books, and a bunch of other stuff.” He then disappears back into the room to check the one corner he hasn’t seen yet. Given the plaque outside, he suspects there will be at least one more bed… and he really hopes no skeleton of a dwarf child. As always, he stays alert, eyes scanning for trouble.
Though Brimble isn't a trained medic, he figures he should be able to see if there was something obvious. There isn't. No crushed in-skull, no bones snapped, and no signs of violence that he can see on the skin even. The dwarf retains some brittle wisps of hair on the skull, pale enough even with darkvision to guess that the hair is either blond or white.
Brimble braces for dead dwarf kids... but does not find any more bodies in the room. As he suspects, there are beds-- two of them, bunk style except where a lower bunk would be there is instead a small desk built beneath the bed, a storage space for personal possessions... but no bodies. The beds were made tidily, even if the sheets are falling apart now.
Brimble sees various things that might pique his interest-- the books on the shelves, a set of well-made chisels that the miner in him likes just on principle, a can on what could have been the dining room table, opened at the top, a spoon or other utensil sticking out of it... but nothing that strikes him as immediately dangerous. There is a chalk drawing of what looks like a fire on the room's inside wall, above the doorway that Brimble entered by.
Curious about what Brimble and Xiramona are up to, Colin nonchalantly walks in and stops dead upon spotting the skeletonized corpse. He gasped, "Ohh, my!" in surprise.
Colin squinted at the runic writing, but the skeleton had his complete attention.
He wasn't sure why he was whispering, it seemed silly, the dwarf was long dead. But something horrific suggested itself and softly he said, "You had to crowbar the door open... Given all these tally marks, I think they were trapped here for a long time. Maybe they starved to death, all alone. How horrible!"
Phantrel feels that Thunder-follows-Lightning was not keen to divulge the information about the daggers, it perhaps being something the blade perceives as personal and it is being protective over the dwarven culture. His hunch seems to be confirmed when it speaks up again.
Thunder-follows-Lightning is silent a little bit as our
heroesdisplaced ordinary folk discuss the daggers-- which represent, if nothing else, more wealth than any of them have ever touched before-- and what ought be done with them.Eventually, it says to Phantrel, Your people.... you do not wish to simply profit from the daggers, nor to give them to Auric's consortium? You wish to .... honor their owners, to do what is in accordance with the customs of the stone-born?
Phantrel can sense that the blade feels surprised-- and cautiously approving.
No, he replies, surprised in turn by the surprise in Thunder-follows-Lightning’s ‘voice’. These are personal items, it would be wrong to take them. I think most people try to respect the customs and possessions of other peoples, especially those concerning the dead. Not everyone, he admits, and I agree that it is likely that anything we were to bring out would be claimed by the company. He looks in the direction of Brimble, the kobold being the one who made the comment. As the most experienced in the ways of the GMC, he probably knows what he’s talking about, and Phantrel’s personal experience with large corporations aligns with this theory too.
As the sword is being a little more open, Phantrel offers up some information in return. You should know - though I would guess you probably already do - that walking these halls would likely be considered an important discovery. Little is known of… the stone-born, did you call them? As a result many people are fascinated by them. Some will simply wish to learn all they can of them, for some reason Colin and Em’s faces float into his head, though others would undoubtedly seek the wealth and power that such discoveries may bring.
Mostly I just want to get out of here, he sighs, though that looks to be more challenging than I originally thought it was going to be.
Brimble’s call on the latest discovery brings the conversation to an end, piercing the grey clouds that had been gathering in his mind. Phantrel heads down the corridor and enters the bed chamber. ”A horrible way to go indeed,” he agrees with Colin.
He peruses the items, looking for clues about who their owner may have been.
"Yikes. Starvin' to death in a room like this, with preserved food and fresh fish just a few corridors away. That would be horrible."
Raka looks around at the-- bedroom? Study? A bit of both? "I bet this room was awful fancy, once." With the immediate problem of food having been solved, at least for now, she doesn't mind spending some time to look around. After all, it might be the only time any of them will see these ruins-- and surely the only time they'll see it undisturbed. She hasn't the slightest interest in looking at books full of ink scribbles, but she can still appreciate a well-furnished room.
Brimble indulges his curiosity enough to snoop around the child’s bed area, hoping to see dwarf toys or some idea of how their kids played. He replies to Colin mid-snoop. ”Maybe he got locked in… but look at this whole place. It is all squared away. Things are tidy everywhere and tally man’s scribblings show he was on endless maintenance. When we showed up, every door was closed and hadn’t been forced. My guess is age sealed these doors after our fellow was dead.” He debates saying the next bit, but he wouldn’t be a good safety lead if he didn’t. ”Maybe he just dropped dead in here from age. Maybe he et a bad tin of Spikemouth, because that open can is the first out-of-place thing we’ve seen here. But maybe he was in here, eating his dinner, when a melly came through the wall and sucked him dry. He tried to escape but never made it.”
With his side-trek into dwarf children done, Brimble picks up the set of chisels and packs them into his bandolier. They might come in handy at some point. He stands to one side watching the others search through the room.
As you look around the room, you do realize that whatever killed the dwarf here, it was not likely to be starvation. On the floor next to the table, you see multiple tins of the pickled fish as well as some taller, cylindrical cans; it is one of these that is sitting on the table, opened, with what turns out to be a spoon in it. Peeking into the can reveals some sort of... substance in there, half-eaten, dried up, a pale-white-green. It's anyone's guess as to whether that was the original color, or mold that grew on top of the food, which has since withered away to nothing with no fresh nutrients to sustain it.
By the light of your... lights, you can see colors, now: the hair of this deceased dwarf was indeed white, which might lend credence to it being merely age that killed them. Though that would not rule out the darkest scenario that Brimble puts forth: Highcliff also looked to be dying of advanced age.
The rug is one of rich colors and fine weave, faded some with time but well-preserved by the dark: deep reds, bright yellows, pale blues to lend some color and warmth to the gray stone. An etching hangs on one wall, fine line work on a copper plate showing a family: two grown women, two small children seated on their laps. You are looking on the likeness of dwarves! Past representations have shown people that dwarves were broader and stouter than humans, yes, but past representations have not been intimate family portraits. Now, you can see their faces, their eyes gazing towards the viewer, the cheerful smile of the younger child...
Brimble's snooping in the children's area turns up a number of toys: a tiny wheeled cart made of thin metal; a miniature dwarven warrior with a removable helm, axe, and shield; blocks for stacking. The playthings of children seem to be somewhat universal. There are no daggers in the children's chests, but each one does contain a pendant.
The books in the room are a mingled bunch: some appear to be parchment bound with leather, and are showing their age - others have covers of thin metal plates - a few even appear to be solely made of metal.
The runic writing on the walls repeats over and over the endless list of chores that must be done. Even when the writer died-- however they died-- it looks as though they were still, obsessively, trying to write their next tasks on the ground next to them. It is not necessary to get next to the body to read these:
-Kill the rats; seal their entrance holes.
-Attend to the shrine.
-Repair the furnace.
Phantrel stops wondering what the dwarves might have grown down here and puts down the rake he was inspecting. "That's an unpleasant thought," he says, heading over to look at the body. In the heat of the moment, there was a lot going on and grabbing Lord Highcliff's weapon was his priority, not to mention the fact that the body here is extremely old, but Phantrel figures it's worth looking to see if there's anything on the corpse that resembles what happened to their unfortunate employer.
Phantrel approaches the body, crouching to see if he can figure out what killed this person. Unfortunately, his observations are inconclusive-- it is probable that a body that died of natural age and a body that died of the strange accelerated aging the shade-monster had inflicted would look much the same, in death, even if the body itself was not centuries dead by this point. For whatever it is worth, though, it occurs to him that he doubts Highcliff had time to write out a list when he died. So maybe it was natural age after all, or something else entirely.
His eyes keep returning to the chalk, to the script. What could be so important that a dwarf on the verge of death still felt the need to make a list of tasks?
Phantrel pauses. Something feels wrong, here. He finds himself reaching for the piece of chalk....
Colin's eyes settled on a rune above the doorway, the symbol of the fire. He suddenly spoke up, pointed at the rune and said, "Oh look at that! It's Droskar's symbol, he's a cruel god, the outcast of the pantheon, who demands endless and meaningless toil from his followers." Colin reassess the scene with new eyes.
"That's not exactly reassuring," Phantrel says. "Although it does make a certain kind of sense given the seemingly endless list of chores marked on the wall. That one, however," he indicates a line of runic script, "is even more concerning." He reads it aloud to the group: "I killed her. I killed him. I killed them both. I am damned."
* * * * *
As he suspected was likely, Phantrel cannot tell whether the dwarf's death was caused by one of the shades. While he's looking at the body, however, he starts to feel the hairs on his arms stand on end. Something strange is happening here and he realises that his hand is slowly making a move towards the piece of chalk. Stopping the forward motion of his arm, he calls, "'Ware! There's some kind of strange magic afoot. Be on your guard." He indicates the chalk on the ground. "Something is making me want to pick it up, drawing my hand towards it. I suggest that nobody does so until we can determine what might be causing the effect." With one hand still on Thunder-follows-Lightning, the half-elf keeps his wannabe-wandering hand in place and moves his fingers through the gesture of a spell, his focus on the chalk.
Em stands inside the doorway, wishing she had time to peruse the bookshelf thoroughly. What kinds of secrets might these long neglected texts hold?
Her eye, however, is drawn repeatedly to the line of runes which Phantrel reads aloud. "If Droskar lives up to his reputation, he'll want to get us back in the clutches of the GMC as soon as possible," Em says, her bold and insouciant tone belying the worm of dread that has crept into her heart.
Deciding that she can't contend with whatever magic may lie in wait inside the overseer's chamber, Em makes haste for the hallway. "Watch out Argatha, our friends may become possessed by strange thoughts."
Phantrel: yes, there's magic in the cone ahead of you! Which includes the pendant and the dagger, naturally. But before you can analyze it in depth...
But it’s better than thinking about everything else. About how you wound up down here. About the dead.
As long as you just focus on the tasks that need doing, you don’t have to think about all the rest of it. You don't have to think about anything at all.
You look up from the task-list to realize that the others have left. They went.... elsewhere, apparently. They left you behind. (The shirkers!) There’s so much to do, and it’s just you. Fifty iron-caste once dwelt on this level and kept everything running, and now they’re gone, and you have to do all of it. You’re tired. But that doesn’t matter. There’s work to be done.
You know that there are important tasks that need doing. Sealing off the rat holes in the kitchen would mean they can’t keep getting in and that would break the pattern of having to kill them every few weeks. And repairing the furnace would make everything much easier. And... should you summon the courage to do so... there is the shrine. The shrine, and the judgment that awaits you there.
But there are all these other tasks, too. Polishing the plaques and the doorknobs. Sweeping the floors. Mopping. Salting the fish. Mending the bedsheets. Washing the dishes. Doing the laundry. So many others… The tasks that seem to need doing all the time. Did you clean the kitchen yesterday? You can’t remember. The days blur, one into the other, each the same. You just have to finish those piddling little tasks, before you can do the big ones. You just have to get caught up, and then everything will be fine.
Maybe today you’ll manage it. (In your heart, you know you won’t.)
In duty there is purpose. (Even if it’s a hollow purpose, now, with everyone–-) In labor there is peace (or numbness; isn’t that the same thing?).
You grab one of the tools from your collection. Time to get to work.
**********
You felt a moment’s compulsion to grab a tool (or chalk, in Phantrel's case), but you recognized it as an intrusive thought coming from outside of you and shook it off, bolstered by Colin's identification of Droskar and by Phantrel's warning. But you realize that not everyone has had such success. You can see that Brimble, Colin, and Raka are moving as if in a trance towards the tool collection– one grabs a mop, another a broom, etc., all without saying a word to you or anyone else.
Weapon Equipped = None
Sling Bullets = 10
Conditions = Light (Raka)
Melee: Attack: BAB +0, Str +2 Damage: +2
Ranged: Attack: BAB +0, Dex +3 Damage: +2
Called: Reroll a one on attack (1/1)
Healer’s Hands: (1/1, 1hp)
Spells Memorized (Caster Level 1, Concentration +2)
. . 0 (11): Create Water, Light, Purify Food & Drink
. . 1st (12): Cure Light Wounds,
- - -
”Er. OK. It does seem weird, wanting to mop now. Do you think the Dwarf worked himself to death?”
Argatha stuffs his sling into a pocket, and moves out of the doorway to stand in the bellows doorway, in the hopes the ill members of the party don’t go that way. He tries to stay out of the hall so he doesn't block their passage. For now.
- - -
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The mention of the altar in the tally man’s writing clicks for Brimble, confirming his guesses. That’s GOT to be what’s behind the gold door! He was sorely tempted to grab Raka and try to open that door right now… and then there was the Droskar talk (a thoroughly unpleasant god) and Phantrel’s warning… and then it all just seemed less important than handling all the tasks here. Brimble was already tired from nursemaiding talls and now he had even more tasks on his list. He’d get to the gold doors as soon as he tidied up here.
Raka moves as if in a dream. She lowers her axe, the light in the room shifting as she does so, and moves towards a bucket and some cleaning rags.
"Oh look at that! It's Droskar's symbol, he's a cruel god, the outcast of the pantheon, who demands endless and meaningless toil from his followers."
"Meaningless toil," Xira mutters. "The poor beggar certainly gave his all doing that. But at least it came to an end."
Phantrel's translation sends a shiver through the young woman. Xira remembers the runic note from the first hallway: keep thinking i see G. Did the despairing writer trade visions of his missing loved ones for hallucinations of their deaths at his hands? Or have we just not found the bodies yet? Perhaps it doesn't matter. If her people value anything as deeply as family, it is freedom, and by whatever means, the dwarf who died here appears to have lost both.
"'Ware! There's some kind of strange magic afoot. Be on your guard." He indicates the chalk on the ground. "Something is making me want to pick it up, drawing my hand towards it. I suggest that nobody does so until we can determine what might be causing the effect."
For an instant she feels it herself, the impulse to take a net and do something about that horde of rats - but then with a firm headshake and Phantrel's warning in her ears, she returns to herself. Just in time to see that others have not.
Deciding that she can't contend with whatever magic may lie in wait inside the overseer's chamber, Em makes haste for the hallway. "Watch out Argatha, our friends may become possessed by strange thoughts."
"Called that one right, Em." Careful to avoid physical contact, Xira quickly ascertains that called names, waved arms and colorful invective in three languages do nothing to distract her tool-selecting friends. "Phantrel, they're not responding at all! What can we do? What could be causing--" Her words cut off as her gaze once again lands on the skeleton on the floor.
At least it came to an end.
"Ohhhh, crap," she breathes. "Maybe I spoke too soon."
Weapon in hand: Quarterstaff
Effects:
Colin suddenly felt personally insulted that the rats had been allowed to run rampant, he'd have to smoke them out! Then there was all the other chores, a neverending list as long as his arm. There was a lot of scrubbing to do, it had been neglected, the thought of all the brass polishing to do made him weary but duty calls!
Argatha and Em, while you are admittedly concerned about the danger of your friends attacking you, it seems that they're in some sort of stupor, and maybe vigorously shaking them or splashing some water on their faces might be helpful? But perhaps once they are out of the room-- the effect didn't get to you both, standing out here, after all.
But now you know better. The tally will never hit zero. There will always be another task. Another dig site. Another job. Another shift lead to try and charm, another morning waking up with sore muscles and the knowledge that you HAVE to get up, you HAVE to, you're so tired but you HAVE to... Another day and another day and another day and another day and another day--
You will only be free when you die. That is the only rest awaiting. And when that day comes, when you finally collapse, then you'll be judged for your sins, and the judgment will be merciless.
You're young still. For now, it's fine. For now, you can keep hauling and lifting and scrubbing and all the rest of it.
But someday you'll be old. Your back will stoop, your muscles will flag. You'll work and work and work and work until that day- until that day you can't work anymore, not like you used to, the day that weakness will seize your limbs and you won't be able to lift an axe or a hammer or anything else.
And what use will anyone have for Raka, then? No use at all....
What if it's going to be like that at every dig site to come? What if they don't take you seriously and treat you like just another grunt laborer? Can you stand it, if mining continues to be nothing but digging and hauling, lighting tindertwigs, killing rats, polishing plaques? Forever, and ever, and ever....
"If we can get them to stop, we should," Phantrel says, "though I'm not sure how easy that might be." Physically tackling Raka might take at least a couple of them. "It doesn't seem to be doing any obvious physical harm to them currently at least. Ideally I think the best course of action would be to cut off whatever is invading our thoughts at the source. I can feel the presence of magic here," he indicates the corpse, "so I'm going to see if I can discern what it is and hopefully that might lead to an idea of how to suppress it."
"Xira, maybe see if Droskar's rune has any magic to it as well? Gods' symbols are a often a source of power." Phantrel points above the doorway, while keeping his mind focused on the spell.
There are two magical auras within Phantrel's area of detection: one is on the dead dwarf's pendant, and the other is on the dagger... unsurprisingly.
The chalk does not detect as magical to Phantrel.
Instead of detecting magic, Xira tries one last thing-- she shakes Colin by the shoulder, vigorously!
It works! The engineer comes to, blinking around, though he looks incredibly wearied by the brief effect of ... whatever that was.
With their new cleaning tools in hand, Raka and Brimble start to set to work-- Brimble starting to take care of that rotted food on the table, Raka beelining for the hallway and presumed scrubbing tasks beyond it. She walks past Em and Argatha as if they are not even there.
The big woman walks on as if completely immune to whatever has rendered Colin so haggard-looking. Doo de dooo....
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Argatha, thinking hard about a way to get the big woman to snap out of it, decides a slap to the face is the best option. But because he doesn’t want to administer it, instead he turns to a cold water shower.
He casts Create Water to douse the warrior-woman.
Frowning, Phantrel looks up at the sound of splashing as Argatha soaks Raka with some freshly conjured water. With the only sources of magic the dagger and pendant - not a surprise given what they have learned about the rest of them - he decides that perhaps they are not the origin of the fell power. Having successfully snapped Colin out of his desire to clean, Phantrel abandons his spell for now and copies Xira's action by walking over to Brimble and giving the kobold a brisk shake. "I'm sorry, Brimble" he says, reaching down, "but I thought you would probably prefer this to an impromptu shower."
Despite the sudden dousing, Raka seems unperturbed. The tall woman shows no signs of breaking stride just yet.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Raka," Em begins, taking her arm with a gentle pressure, "if you intend to clean out the food stores, you're going to need some potash. It's in the jar back inside the Hammerfasts," Em points back the way Raka came, giving her a firm tug. "I might also recommend the tongs. There could be snakes."
Raka slows down at her friend's gentle touch, her face creasing in fuzzy confusion. She stops walking, staring at nothing for a long stretch of seconds, then gives a big shake of her head and her impressive shoulders.
"I-- what was that?! --and why am I all wet?"