Dragon's Egg - Act II

[Nihal]

((I don't think the useless mage heard neither Stumpy's conversation nor what Hiljikki said.))

"Eh?" I jump to my feet, grabbing my spear and run to the scream's direction, wherever it is.

Wait, I shouldn't be so careless... uh... too late.

 

[Ireth]

I nod slowly at Baldhart's words, though I know little if anything about her goddess. I have never put much faith in any gods, even those worshipped by my own people. But her talk about the cursed knife is what fascinates me most. I notice her check in mid-word, and wonder what guide she has that is not a goddess. Perhaps that is Nissa? It does seem an unusual name for a deity. She does not seem to wish to speak of it, so I let it pass for now.

"You do not need to fight the curse alone, Baldhart. Ending the Taint upon this place is a burden we all have taken on ourselves, and it is one we must share. I may not be the best to ask for advice about gods, but I will help in any way I can."

I raise my eyebrows slightly when she mentions her desire to commandeer Llucheden in the battle. "I would not have minded much if you had, as long as she and the others came away unharmed. Or... less harmed than some of us." I rather pointedly do not look at my arm. "I am glad to see you well and whole."

Baldhart's next words give me pause. I was not talking in my sleep as well, was I? I shake it off for the moment, and smile at the offer. "Líadan knows I am faithful to her alone, and she to me. It will be fine. Thank you for the offer." I smile. "But how did you know about her? I do not recall mentioning her name, though it is often in my mind."

A distant scream make me jump and turn, tensing. "What more can be wrong now?"

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"Liadan woke me up," I tell Cadell as I reach over my shoulder for my sword. "I didn't want to say anything, but… huh. Something familiar about that cry for help." I see Mauve running. "Wait for us, Mauve." I only assume Cadell is coming, too. He's too brave not to.

 

[Ireth]

I simply sigh and nod when Baldhart explains what woke her. "Well, we can exchange dream stories later if you like. Right now someone needs our help."

I hastily switch my sword to hang at my left hip rather than my right, and hurry out after Baldhart and Mauve, leaving Llucheden be for the moment. Who could be in trouble now?

 

[Steerpike]

Bren sits patiently as Baldhart makes the toast and Mauve gets out the wine. He's not talkative, at first, but loosens up a bit as Baldhart talks of ending the Taint. "It would indeed be something, if you can do it," he says. "The Taint has plagued this land for too long. But I would not know where to begin. This sort of thing is best left to our runecasters. I trust in my hammer, and the strength in my arms. I deem that you understand that, er, Baldhart. We overcome obstacles with physical strength and force of will, and leave the magics to those better suited for it."

Bren accepts the wine from Mauve and takes a swallow. He makes a face, then takes another swallow, tasting the drink slowly. Another face. He hands the wine back to Mauve. "No offense, lass, but I'll stick to my ale if it's all the same to you."

When Mauve asks what Bren saw at the Verstenn Hold, Bren's face grows dark. "We did not go in - we could not - but we saw enough watching from outside. Goblins, and wargs to make the ones you saw yesterday look like pups. Too, we saw larger creatures, gray-furred and tall, and walking amongst the goblins as though they commanded them. With them walked winter wolves." He clenches his fist. "When I think of those vermin polluting our halls...well, I may not be fond of the prick-ears over there, but these creatures are truly vile. We cannot allow them to keep the hold. This insult must be answered, Taint or no Taint!"

Bren lapses back into silence, chewing thoughtfully on his toast.

As Bren is talking with Baldhart and Mauve, Rydh heads into the temple and upstairs to search the upper floor. Burnbright heads into the temple a couple of minutes later.

Darin is sitting with the remainder of the party. He purses his lips when Hiljikki offers to come to the Drimmen-delve with him. "The offer is appreciated, lass, but we mean to stay there once we reach it. What will you do, then? Travel back alone, through dangerous lands? No, Bren and I will make the journey ourselves. We will simply take the long way around."

Hiljikki then offers her alternative, something that can allow the dwarves to complete their mission this very day. Darin looks interested. "What did you have in mind, then? Bren and I return to the hold, regardless, for there is much we must do there in view of what we've learned. But if you can help us, that would indeed be a great thing. Word must reach the Drimmen-delve as soon as possible!"

The conversations continue, the dwarves getting to know everyone better, just as the party members are learning more about the dwarves. A thin, loud scream pierces the air. It comes from beyond the courtyard walls. Both dwarves reach for their hammers and head toward the sound.

 

[Ravana]

((Somewhat out of sequence, since this assumes the screaming turns out not to be a crisis.…))

"I will attempt a journeying—that is, I will send my spirit into the spirit realm, and attempt to attract the attention of something there which can send a message to your people at Drimmen-delve.

“I will require your assistance. Sit by me and chant—anything, so long as it is simple, slow… ideally, monotonous. A lullaby, a child’s song; perhaps something from a religious observance. It would also aid if you were to clap or slap your thighs: normally, a journey involves drumming. I will give you a beat; you should select or adjust your chant accordingly. The tempo must not change. You must not change what you chant: keep repeating the same thing until I am done. You may wish to take turns, as this will require some time… probably at least half an hour, possibly an hour or longer. If you do, be certain to overlap one another as you trade off; there must be no pauses.

“If I am gone more than two hours, you should increase your tempo abruptly, to summon my spirit back, and maintain the faster tempo until I stir. If you do not, I could become lost in the spirit world and unable to return to my body.â€

Addressing everyone else in the group:

“The rest of you should remain elsewhere once we begin. And to the extent possible, silent.â€

Hiljikki makes her preparations, the first of which is to rest until her mana is refreshed; the second, to drain dry both her hip flask and her waterskin, then refill both with snowmelt. Journeying always leaves her dehydrated. She eats a Goodberry so that her body will not hunger.

She also tells the dwarves to decide precisely what information needs to be conveyed—and to phrase it as concisely as possible, since the shorter the message, the greater her chance of relaying it; ideally, it should also contain some sign or other which would cause the recipient to accept it as a true report. When they tell her they have this settled, she takes them aside from the rest of the group and rehearses it several times until she has it down to heart.

Next, she requests detailed descriptions of two places in Drimmen-delve for her to focus on as destinations: one should be an external point such as a gate or watchtower, any place noticeable from the outside where there should always be someone posted; the other may be anywhere, though she suggests a shrine or temple would be particularly appropriate. If possible, the dwarves should also give a description of a person they consider likely to be able to receive such a sending, assuming that person is likely to be found in or near such a location: one of their runecasters seems a likely candidate, though their familiarity with the recipient is of greater import than his standing. She rehearses the descriptions as well… probing for further details until the dwarves are amazed by just how much they didn’t know they knew about the people and places, or until they run out of answers they’re willing to give. Should they start to balk, she makes it quite clear to them that no matter how much information they provide her, she’s far less likely to prove a threat to their home than an army emerging unsuspected from Verstenn Hold—and that they’re far better positioned than she to gauge the chances of that occurring before they could reach home on foot.

Once all the preliminaries are done, she takes a short break to top off on fluids (and address the consequences of the last time she did). She reminds the rest of the party to remain distant and quiet. Then she makes a last-minute exception to this, surprising everyone, dwarves and otherwise: “Burnbright… if you feel you can remain silent and still, you may remain if you wish.â€

((If Burnbright does remain, Hiljikki positions her at the foot of the statue of Gefjon, so that Burnbright is facing the main door of the temple; Hiljikki is going to be lying between these two points.))

When she is done making her other dispositions, she orders Taevataat to perch upon the statue of Gefjon. Hiljikki lies down facing the statue, and covers herself with her cloak—and any others she can borrow: she may come from a land colder even than that of the dwarves, but body temperature always plunges when journeying. She tells Täplä “guardâ€; in response, he curls up next to her head, his own head resting on her shoulder and facing the same direction she is. She tells the dwarves to seat themselves on either side of her and begin their accompaniment. Her eyes focus on her raven, then slowly fall shut. Täplä’s do not: he remains alert throughout.

 

[Ravana]

Within the Spirit Realm:

The world falls away into the depths of a raven’s eye.

The Taint is like a hammer-blow; aware as she had been of it before, here, in the spirit world, its foulness is unmitigated. She wishes to howl war-cries at it, bare her teeth, grasp it by the throat and shake it until its heart is ripped out for her to devour.

The spirit realm is a fantastic place for mixed metaphors.

Fortunately, journeying is not entirely an exercise of one’s own will. Though abandoning one’s self is great cause for peril, it is often the case that one is as much passenger as driver, spectator as actor. So it is now. The black wings that bear her refuse to turn toward the blackness. Their course bends to circle it, to seek out a place of stone where the Sons of Runes roost.

Below, the land does not pass: it shifts. The forest vanishes, replaced by mountains; the range vanishes, replaced by broken lands. The Taint hungers now on her left wing. It snaps at her tail. It curses her passing, and she croaks coarse laughter at its impotence… its failure.

So much for the easy part. Now.…

•

Now… and now. Always now. And there is another pair of wings beside her, pacing her, black, edged with grey. Their owner banks; she banks, joining its slipstream. A place of stone looms. Her guide flies within. She follows.

It is not the place described to her.

Her guide is nowhere to be seen.

All about her, crystal. A cavern grown from the heart of the earth. She flies in a geode that would swallow cities and dragons. Every flawless, glimmering facet reflects a point of black.

There is no exit. She circles… how many times she does not know. Once, ten times, a hundred, a lifetime. Only crystal. Only mirrors. Only the world and the self. And the word and the self. The word is key to the world.

She sings.

Her voice, now, not that of the raven. Her words, that she learned as a child; then those she learned in her mentor’s hut; then those she hears through her body’s ears. And those words call forth a harmony—one of the crystals chiming in echo, among the echoes that are merely her voice.

She sings on, hunting the echo.

She finds it.

She lights on the ringing crystal.

And it is no longer there.

•

She stands on a floor of stone, surrounded by patterns grown in living rock. She lifts her foot, and in spite of herself has to laugh: while the shape beneath it exactly matches her claws, the meaning of the sign—algiz or alkis, as those of the land where her body awaits her return would name it—is “elk.”

Her laugh is once more that of a carrion bird.

Something stirs at her croak, beyond the shafts of brilliance rising from the floor to dapple the dome of dark, heavy heaven above.

“Son of Runes!” she speaks.

The sounds from her beak are meaningless.

A greybearded pillar shambles her direction; the patterns of light it crosses trace names of power upon it. It could crush her with a single step. Fortunately, she’s used to being small. Less fortunately, she’s also used to having recourse to language.

She casts her inky eye about. The patterns are so many, so complex.… There. Simplicity amidst bedazzling arcana. The shaft with two downward strokes: aesc. She hops, alights upon it.

And she is engulfed in golden light. Her feet are gold. Her eyes are gold. Her feathers are gold. She does not see this: she merely knows it. As if knowing anything could ever be “mere.” And her feet no longer clutch stone; they wrap a branch of what she knows without seeing is an ash tree. As it must be.

The pillar ceases its progress. It now looks up toward her.

Nauðr. Ræið. Gyfu. She does not leave her perch, but the patterns she names in her mind glow, one after another; all others subside to starry twinkling.

Need. Journey. Gift.

Do pillars nod?

The beard brings forth sounds. They have power, music… life: how she longs to sit and listen to them! What she could learn…! Next to them, her singing—

Her voice responds. In words she has never heard. She is not speaking them. Her voice stills. The other makes reply. Then, as she cocks her head in puzzlement, the figure gestures for her sake toward the sign ar or jer: “harvest.”

And now.

•

There is thunder. Iridescent wings fly before the storm.

There is blackness.…

There is now.

 

[Nihal]

((Before Hiljikki's trip on acid... ))


I glance over my shoulder, happy I'm not alone.

I seriously should start to control myself!

Even if he sun is shining I still feel some cold as my cloak flies away from my body with all the running. I look to one side and the other, not seeing who screamed or tracks, then moving beyond the walls.

 

[Steerpike]

((As Ravana said, Hiljikki's actions are out of sequence; let's go the point of Nod's cries for help right now, since a few players and the dwarves are rushing out of the temple. Then we'll work the 'journeying' in)).

Mauve rounds the courtyard walls first, and see a small, bloodied man laying sprawled in the snow. As she draws nearer, she realizes it is a halfling. He is bleeding from multiple wounds, though across the expanse of snowy field around him there is no sign of his opponent.

Cadell and Baldhart are a few paces behind Mauve, and both recognize Nodrick as the halfling from Srilkind.

Behind Baldhart and Cadell, Darin and Bren have spread out to either side of the party members, cutting a wide path to come in flanking the halfling. Both have their hammers out and look prepared to use them.

Nodrick sees everyone coming. In front is a woman he's never seen before, but just behind her he can make out the familiar figures of Baldhart and Cadell, though Cadell has lost a hand somehow. Then, he sees two armed and grim-faced dwarves heading his way as well.

 

[Ireth]

I take in the scene quickly, my eyes narrowing. Nodrick lies bleeding in the snow, though there is no sign of who may have wounded him; as I move forward to help him, I search the new-fallen snow for footprints to follow to the attacker if we need to, but find no prints leading away from the halfling. That strikes me immediately as suspicious.

"What happened, Nodrick?" I ask as I near him.

 

[Ravana]

Nodrick lies bleeding in the snow … no prints leading away from the halfling. That strikes me immediately as suspicious.

((Ooh, cool… someone who's shorter than Hiljikki! ))

Hiljikki is still well-stocked with Goodberries, as no one has claimed any thus far. So Nodrick should be able to be brought to full health quickly enough, without Rhyd needing to use any of his mana.

((She probably gave some to the dwarves, since they haven't received any healing spells. @Steerpike: let me know how many of the initial 15 she has left, if you could.))

•••

((All: to clarify—I went ahead and posted the journeying so that it would be readily able to be placed in sequence, rather than having events pass by it and inserting it retroactively. Besides, the preparations will cover considerable time on either side of concurrent events. Assuming said events don't unduly interrupt those preparations.…))

((Besides, the segue from the external beginning to the internal action made it seem appropriate to place the two together. It's a writer thing.… ))

 

[Nihal]

Half... ling? That's crazy, how many races I've got a closer look in these two days?

"Can you walk?" I hurry over to him, standing protectively between him and the open field. I don't feel he's a threat, he was asking for our help and I got people to watch my back, at least I hope so.

I search around, looking for signs of enemies. Maybe more wargs and globins?

"What happened, Nodrick?" I ask as I near him.

"Eh? Do you know him?"

 

[Ireth]

I look to Mauve and nod. "Our paths have crossed, yes. Our company met him at the Hooded Crow before we came here, but he left before we did, and went I know not where."

 

[Philip Overby]

I look up at the familiar and not-so familiar faces. I muster a smile. "Ah, the knives of time bring us back together." Knives of time? What the hell does that mean, Nod? Just go with it. "I'm--I'm afraid that this is the end of my song."

I roll my eyes in the back of my head, holding one of the deeper wounds on my chest. That hurts, Nod. It really hurts. Did you have to cut so deep?

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"Nod! Why are you always bleeding?" I pick him up. "Let's get Rydh to have a look at you." I run to the temple.


((Baldy doesn't know what good Goodberries are. Hiljikki can't stop the stubborn, over-protective-sisterly barbarian from doing her thing, so whoever wants to help Nod will need to heal/bandage him by the fire.))

 

[Sparkie]

After taking some time, my instincts pay off.

Upstairs, to the right, there is one large room. It looks like it has been thoroughly ransacked over the years, but you search it anyway. Having remembered the storage space in the cellar, you pay particular attention to the stones in the walls. It pays off. There is a small space behind one of them. You find a leather pouch with 10 gold in it, and laying beside it is a toothed disc with numerous little prongs sticking up from it. On the other side is a carving in the shape of a key, and it looks to match the impression on the front of the dwarven book. This does not look like what Darin described, however, as there is no cylindrical piece sticking up from it.

I hear a noise from outside. Must have been the wind. Regardless, if anyone would know what this disc is it would be Bren and Darin. I rush down the stairs and out of the temple to the courtyard...

They're not here. Where did everyone go?

Baldhart enters the courtyard with what looks like a bloody bundle of-

No, it can't be. The Gnat? And it looks like he's hurt again. I drop the things I found at my feet in the courtyard and head over to meet Baldhart. She sets him down by the remnants of the fire and looks to me expectantly. I kneel down and look over our old halfling friend.

"Hello Nodrick. Good to see you again, although I'm sure you wish it were under better circumstances."

I feel like I can cast, so I lightly touch Nod's belly and utter the spell...

Rydh casts Cure Light Wounds on Nodrick, healing 7 HP.

"There now," I say calmly. "All better."

 

[Ireth]

I follow Baldhart back toward the temple, and watch in silence as Rydh heals Nodrick. His wounds, and the total lack of evidence pointing to an enemy, are still rather suspicious to me, though I am sure if I ask he will deny anything other than being attacked. I have heard as many times as anyone not to judge by appearances, and learned that lesson the hard way myself, but sometimes the truth is in plain sight.

 

[Nihal]

He asked for help. How did he know he would find people here?

The words of maimed knight sink in.

They weren't expecting him.

I turn to the halfling, now not so confident of exposing my back to him, just in time to see Baldhart pick him up and head back to the temple.

After taking another look around to make sure there aren't any enemies hiding, I follow them, confused, and only watch.

 

[Sparkie]

Having finished healing Nodrick, I rise from my crouch by his side. "Sorry, but I can't allow myself to get too distracted right now. I think I've found some things that may need some analysis by experts."

I see Cadell and Mauve walk up, looking with narrowed eyes at the Gnat, and I wonder what he's done now. No matter. I go back over to where I dropped the things I found, pick them up, and try to find the dwarves so I can show them these curious items. Perhaps they'll know what they are or how to use them.

 

[Ireth]

When Nodrick is healed and Rydh moves away, I look from the halfling to the two women on either side of me. I suppose I could continue my discussion with Baldhart, if she be willing; or barring that, Darin also said he had things of importance to talk about. I wait a moment, wondering whether Baldhart will speak.