Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventure “Descent Into the Depths of the Earth”
Ezekiel sat for some time in his room, seeking answers straight from his boss.
[A sheet of notes in Ezekiel’s handwriting:]
- Should we swear to slaughter the priesthood of Lolth?
- Should we swear to bring the gems to Alserv?
- Can I call on Mike with Gate and get support for the battle? [Note: he doesn’t mean Mikael]
- Should we turn over the scroll to the sage?
- Is a 12,000 gold piece budget high enough for the scroll?
- Should we spend whatever it takes?
- Will Lolth negotiate on terms acceptable to Lawful Good?
- Is my ultimatum for her appropriate?
- Are there secret exits from the Thane?
- Can we defeat the priesthood and Lolth in one day?
- Should we save the drow slavegirl? [Note in Elwyn’s writing: Ez was worried about the half-drow working for the squid-man sage, but turns out she’s an independent contractor, not a slave. So I guess she can look after herself.]
- Access EEG shrine? [Should we? Can we?]
**
Ezekiel seemed perturbed when he rejoined us. He says the answers were not all straightforward, but what was clear is this: he and Aliana should swear to “bring the gems to Alserv” (had some discussion on what exactly those particular words could mean), and we should get the scroll for the sage. So at least that firms up our plans for the afternoon.
As far as wiping out the priesthood, that sounds about as difficult as our previous temple clearings…there’s always a handfull that run away through a back door in the chaos, and either show up at the next battle or take something important with them, or who knows what. Ez thinks we’ll have to do something with the Elder Elemental shrine at some point, but the details are not yet forthcoming.
Raven pointed out we might be able to fence some of the ropes of entangling we got off the drow, so our auction budget is a little higher than what our cash reserves can afford.
****
Wow, so much useful information! But let’s keep everything in order…
We went to the auction as planned, and no one challenged us at the border (the street was clogged with enough other people, these two ghettos probably see a lot of traffic).
The Choral Cafe looks pretty tavernish, and there were a handful of other people there for the auction (including some drow and gnomes, plus a bull-headed man that I’m on the fence about whether we call them people. Lydia says yes, Clatriel says no). In the corner we spotted the humans we think Master Pembreg warned us about (did ge warn them if us, I wonder? Only for a price…) Ezekiel casually scanned the room, and said there was nobody he would trust with an item of such potential danger.
I have not been to many auctions, so it was interesting in that regard. Master Pembreg sold a painting that I gather was of a male drow socialite, so it’s appropriateness is totally up in the air (they carried it away wrapped in cloth, so I never actually saw it). I think the minotaur bought an ivory lizard, and some other things came and went, but no one wanted the kua’toan incense (I felt almost bad for them).
Finally, Master Pembreg mentioned the scroll, and we watched everybody else put in bids until the gnome clearly got out-priced, and started just enjoying the show with his drink.
Ezekiel started bidding then. The human woman obviously wanted this scroll badly…she’s the one who kept switching the price to higher denominations. Once in a while, Ezekiel glanced at Aliana and Raven to make sure his math was right, but every time we were still under budget, so he kept inching over the woman.
At last we must have hit her budget, because she couldn’t top us…just glare. She gave a look to her two male underlings (I guess they were all clerics? But I really couldn’t tell to look at them) and they slipped out the door, quite ominously.
The auction wrapped up, and everybody came forward to pay what they had promised, and collect what they owned. Ezekiel took the scroll, and we started back to the inn.
But nothing is ever easy. We got about as far as the big square where several ghettos feed into one another, when this drow woman started screaming that Ezekiel had insulted Lolth. (I mean, he has, but we’ve tried to keep it to private conversations.)
Ezekiel handed Raven the scroll behind his back, while assuring her he had done no such thing, in his best cleric voice.
Raven slipped to the back of the party, then into the crowd milling along a nearby wall. I lost sight of him quickly, partly because I was trying to follow his example…but by then a patrol had come up and stood to block us from moving. I may be small, but I haven’t practiced how to not stick out in a crowd.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel was behaving strangely. He insisted that the lady should know he’d never do such a thing (whatever it was), and she could depend on him as her best friend to tell the truth. I glanced at Aliana, but I guess Fetafencer is like Tressarian and he can’t dispel magic while he’s in a sheath.
The lady couldn’t even keep her story straight. First she said Ez had insulted Lolth (not “our mother of the legs”?); then she demanded he give her the paper of nasty things he wrote about Lolth (Ezekiel pulled out his journal, but insisted it was writing to do with quite different things. What nasty things was she thinking, like “Lolth loves kittens and flowers and adopting orphans”?). Then she told him to give back the paper he stole from Lolth, which is changing the story so much surely even the patrol noticed.
Mikael picked up a stone from the road (I saw him bend over because he’s so tall, but I don’t think anyone else did), and then held out a little statue of Lolth, saying Ezekiel was actually a big fan, and he even had Lolth memorabilia in his backpack (I think it was modeled after the big statue in the square). Either Mikael was really persuasive, or the patrol was getting tired of the whole incident, but they gave us an inspection (making us as uncomfortable as possible, of course, especially Master Oaklock) until even the lady had to admit we didn’t seem to have anything like what she was describing on our persons.
They told us each to move along, and once we were far enough down the road (in the opposite direction to the lady), Mikael smacked Ezekiel’s hand and Aliana ducked us into a quiet alleyway where she could draw Fetafencer and cast dispel on Ezekiel.
The moment she did, Ezekiel started spluttering about how that lady wasn’t *really* his best friend, and he felt all gross inside. Agnar muttered a comment to me that I thought was rather witty, but I’m glad only Heiron and I heard it. Anyway, we finally made it back to the inn – maybe a little concerned about Raven when he wasn’t there, but we knew we couldn’t find him even if we tried.
All was well when he joined us not too long afterward…with some very interesting news. He headed straight to the house of the sage Oolachrithon (though an old, blue-skinned lady tried to accost him on the way), and once outside his house, decided to pause and look over the scroll quick before handing it over. Sounds like we all had hoped to copy it in some way before selling it, but things didn’t quite work out that way. Fortunately, Raven has a keen memory, so here is the gist that he got from the scroll.
Long ago, the Earth Mother destroyed the Elder Elemental God, shattering him into fragments that rained down on the earth. These fragments tainted their surroundings, forming “places of power” like the ones we raided in the lands of the giants. (This all being interpreted from poetic language that Raven could only half-read. Good thing the scroll was written in several languages, one of them Flan, which Raven apparently has a smattering of.)
The bad news is that Beori didn’t 100% destroy the EEG, so it could be possible to break the seals on his side-dimensional prison and unleash him on the world (with all the horrific chaos that would bring).
Mysteriously enough, the ritual seems to require four “elemental keys” placed around another stone. If the Alserv are planning to do a ritual of this kind, we can only assume they have the worst intentions…even if their worship of the EEG is mostly a political move.
Raven took a moment longer to parse through another section, and discovered something of the utmost importance. If the stone at the center of the ritual, among the elemental keys, is dedicated to the EEG, then the prison will shatter and whatever vestiges of him remain will be unleashed on the world. But if the stone at the center if dedicated to Beori, then the cracks of the prison will be reforged, as it were, and the prisoner locked in forever.
Importantly, the “last key placed” will cost the soul of the creature placing it. Raven says he’s not sure about that part, that it was all euphemism and fragments of poetry and idiom, which he’s really not familiar with in Flan (and the other scroll languages were even worse). But it makes sense to me this is why no Good forces have gone all the way and completed the Earth Mother’s work (that and a lack of “elemental keys,” perhaps).
Anyway, it’s becoming clear why Ezekiel was told to go ahead and acquire the gems. We could be at a turning point in the history of the world. I feel…like a glass dish balanced on the edge of a table. Which way will the breeze blow?
When he had gotten everything he could from the scroll, Raven went in and sold it to the sage, as we had discussed. He says the sage even paid extra to hear about the human party who were so desperate to get their hands on it. The money doesn’t quite cover what we spent at the auction (Father said auctions and games of chance were dangerous things; they carry you away with the moment), but it is a nice cushion. And if we all get eaten by unfathomable evil in the near future, we won’t need money anyway! (Clatriel said that’s not funny.)
**
Ezekiel and Mikael secreted themselves in one of the rooms with the paving stone, to try and make a consecrated object to Beori. It’s good we have Ez with us, as he can kind of liaison across deities. Wonder what Yeti is up to these days…
Raven went out to do some “shopping.” He didn’t invite any of us to come…probably because he knows he’s faster than most of the threats around here, and if one of us was there cringing and hiding our eyes, it wouldn’t help much, anyway.
Clatrial says she hasn’t slept once since we got here with all the screaming and banging and strange creature sounds. Agnar said his snoring would drown all that out, and she was welcome to try our room sometime. Before she could think of a proper response, I pointed out it was already pretty crowded, and who would he kick out for her? I think it just as well Aliana came into the room at that moment before things got out of hand.
She says Ez is moody about potentially handing the gems over to Alserv. We’ll attack that bridge when we cross it.
****
Today the liaison lady from House Alserv brought us a bag of tokens to allow passage across the bridge (and told us not to open it until she left to avoid rousing suspicion in any onlookers). In return, Ezekiel swore to “bring the stones to Alserv” (he thought long and hard about the exact wording he should commit to, since he said he’ll follow the letter of the contract and no more, with “people of this kind.” So that’s a vote for calling drow people; election’s still contested on minotaurs).
Ez paid our inn bill a few days in advance, and we headed upstairs to prep for action. When he came to his, Aliana’s, and Clatriel’s room, however, the door was cracked open and some drow girl was poking under the mattresses. Raven heard Ez exclaim, and dashed over, and pretty soon, most of us had our heads shoved in the entryway to see what was up.
She wasn’t one of the inn staff, so Raven had her turn out her pockets while I hid behind everyone and switched to the ring of truth.
She had Ezekiel’s writing kit, and a knife of Clatriel’s that folds out a tiny pair of scissors…and also a bundle of letters detailing sordid liaisons between a priestess of Lolth and an assassin for House Alserv. Ezekiel talked with her a bit, and learned her name is K’shetsra, and nobody sent her to our room specifically…she just wanted to make a living.
Naturally, he tried to recruit her (Aliana says she’s half-elf, and Ez has a soft spot for those), and said that if she goes to stay with Telek the mad priest, he has enough food for both of them, and we’ll take them both to the surface when we leave. He kept the bundle of letters but sent her off with the rest of the things that seemed to be hers (a pair of earrings and a switchblade, for instance). I hope nothing bad happens to Telek (whom I have never met).
We double checked the other rooms (glad I keep most of my stuff on me at all times…but the other rooms were untouched) and returned for a final strategy session. Ezekiel and Aliana showed us a little token, like a broach, in the shape of a sword, which I guess will get us across the “Flying Bridge” into the inner sanctum of drowness. The velvet bag also contained tokens of a gold spider, which I guess will get us into the Thane? The Fane? There’s no point hanging around, so we’re leaving now.
Forest arms receive thee.
Find the previous entry here.