Chronicle: Session 16

The shambling mound’s huge form is lost from view, and even the sound of its footfalls are somehow swallowed by the fog.

Tsalta crouches to lay a hand on the unconscious Fergus’ chest, and his eyes flutter open as healing warmth blooms in his chest. He climbs to his feet, disoriented - where is it, what happened? “You got sucked into big boy again,” says Tsalta, demonstrating her uncanny knack for phrasing things in…interesting ways.

“Again?” Fergus only remembers the once, which on reflection makes sense. He wasn’t looking so hot by the time Faeleth pulled him out, he likely lost consciousness pretty soon after it grabbed him the second time.

Faeleth does not hesitate in spelling it out to him bluntly. “You took a nap on the battlefield again.” He flushes, and mumbles something about how last time was’nae my fault and give me some time and...let me have my naps. Faeleth lets out the faintest snort of amusement, and pats the dwarf’s shoulder - don’t mind her, he’s the best protector, he’s doing an absolutely tip-top job.

But...What now? Even with a new torch lit, holding the fog at bay, that doesn’t change the fact we’re lost without so much as a sense of direction. But as the party murmur among themselves, something strikes Faeleth and Nothing - something odd, and in turn oddly familiar, about the fog itself. The unnatural density of it is reminiscent of the clouds that Spindleshanks used to summon, as is the way it moves, swirling around them without the assistance of any wind or breeze.

Nothing looks at Faeleth. “Does this remind you of somethin’? Like, this ain’t natural fog, is it. This is like what little guy used to do.” Faeleth nods in agreement, and both lapse into thoughtful silence as they consider the meaning of this - for someone to cast a fog cloud of this sheer size...they must have access to an unsettling amount of power.

Tsalta proposes the idea that if we head into where the fog is deepest, it might lead to the caster. Everyone gives it thought - that’s a solid theory, but is it a good idea?

Well, it’s the only idea anyone has. The other options are, what - walk blindly out into the back end of nowhere and pray to get lucky? Sit here till dawn? Everyone is acutely aware of how little time they have to waste. Chasing the fog might at least lead to someone who knows where to go - or perhaps to whatever took Stonefist.

Nothing fishes the dropped rope out of the water and climbs back up onto Tsalta’s shoulders once she finishes tying up her hair into a more swamp-proof bun.

Into the fog, then. Tsalta leads the party into what she reckons to be the worst of the mist, and before long she discovers herself back on a trail - the footstep-patterns of holes in the muck are back, leading the same way. The tracks lead the party towards a little thicket of shrubs that part as they approach, shying away from the firelight. Wary, Faeleth brandishes the torch at them, and they pull up their roots and scuttle back from the flame as she does. Nuth shifts on Tsalta’s shoulders, turning around to keep an eye on the shrubs as everyone passes by, but the plants make no move to follow, they just cluster back together.

There’s light in the distance! Tsalta spots it first - a warm orange glow in the mist ahead. “Guys, I think I see a fire up ahead.”

Nothing, who had been casting her eyes around behind, turns immediately to crane over Tsalta’s head. “What? Like a real fire?” They all see it now, looking past Tsalta, and there’s little doubt that it’s some kind of torchlight or campfire, rather than those ethereal orbs of dancing blue. A real fire! That’s got to mean people, right?

“Nothing, can you take my torch, just in case?” Tsalta passes it up, all the better to have access to her weapons if what they find by the fire isn’t friendly. The tiefling holds the torch awkwardly off to the side - uhhh, that’s a lot of trust, putting a naked flame next to so much hair. After a beat, she grabs a braid with her free hand and leans down to pass the torch to Faeleth. “Can you hold this, actually? I’d rather keep my wand arm free.”

Slowly, warily, everyone moves towards the light, past gnarled trees that creak as they lean away from Faeleth’s torch. Everyone but the stoic Fergus murmurs among themselves as they get closer - should they announce their presence? Maybe it’s just someone lost like us, out here in the bog. It isn’t necessarily gonna be anything nasty, right? (It’s hard to tell if it’s an attempt to reassure one another, or merely to convince themselves.)

“Shall I say something?” asks Tsalta. The others nod - sure. Tentatively, she raises her voice. “Hallo?” It’s as though the fog swallows her voice, the sound is somehow muffled before it can travel beyond the torchlight. There’s no response. The fire dances merrily in the distance. Tsalta’s shoulders hunch, she looks around to the others, ill at ease. “I don’t like it...”

“No, no, let’s check it out.” Nothing gives the shoulder below her a pat, part reassurance, part encouragement. Tsalta moves on forward.

It’s curious. Up until now, the fog between the distant fire and the party had seemed so dense, but as they draw near the clear air around the torch in Faeleth’s hand meets a similar circle of clarity. Revealed before them in an instant where before had been an indistinct glow is a haphazard campsite - a pair of tattered tents, a couple of dark wooden logs arranged as benches around the dancing fire.

“‘Heya, anyone there?” Nothing calls out, and unlike before there’s no stifled quality, her voice rings out loud and clear.

This time, there’s a response. From across the campsite comes a low wordless croak - too loud to simply be the local amphibians - and besides, nobody’s heard a single animal for hours. The next croak resolves itself into words, and that low and creaking voice invites, “Come forth...”

After a moment of uneasy silence, Tsalta wonders aloud, “Is that a frog?”

There’s only one way to find out. The party move in closer, the better to see who is speaking to them, and see a squat figure sat hunched by the fireside upon one of the log-benches. A closer look reveals him to be a being none of them have ever seen before - indeed, some kind of frog-man with mottled skin and heavy-set limbs, the firelight dancing off of his glistening skin. His head lifts to regard the visitors, his expression inscrutable. “What brings you to my abode?”

“Lookin’ for a friend who’s gotten lost out here,” Nothing explains. Tsalta backs her up, adding that we’ve heard our friend out here, but haven’t yet managed to find him. She pauses, and inquires, “Is this...your bog?”

The frog doesn’t yet answer her, instead raising a huge scaly arm to gesture to the bench across from him. “Siiiiit,” he croaks. Everyone exchanges dubious glances, save for Nothing, who climbs down from Tsalta's shoulder and does her best to look casual as she takes a seat opposite the creature. She glances at the gnarled staff he holds in one clawed hand, decorated with some kind of rattle and strings of beads. "Who do you seek?" he asks.

Nothing explains - our friend, who vanished off our boat in the night. Has he seen him, at all? Any dwarven guys passed this way? The frog-man raises one huge hand to point a claw towards one of the tents. “One of those?”

One of those? Nothing jumps to her feet and rushes to the tent - wait, is he here? Indeed, as she draws aside the cloth she sees two dwarven figures, bound roughly to the central tent-pole. One is a stranger to her, nothing about his features familiar, but the other is Stonefist, head down against his chest as it slowly rises and falls - alive, but deep in slumber. "Oh! Okay! Right." Nothing turns around, both confused and deeply discomfited by this situation. She gestures back into the tent. "Hold on - why? And can we take him please?" She sees the rest of the party hovering on the edge of the camp, and calls out to them - he's got Stonefist here, guys!

The frog leans on his staff, regarding the kerfuffle without concern. He states his terms simply and bluntly - "You can only take one."

This sits badly with Tsalta - what's he going to do with the one we leave? She can't help asking, but the creature gives a lazy shrug. "That is for me to know, and for you to not care about." He's unbothered by Tsalta heading over to the tent to see for herself, and when she asks if he took Stonefist from our boat, he gives a noncommittal tilt of the head. "Not me, but perhaps."

"And did you untie our boat?"

Another lazy shrug. "Not I, but perhaps."

It's curious wording - vague, certainly, but the careful lack of precision creates plenty of space to read between the lines. Nothing frowns. "Hold on, are the plants yours?" His response says everything we need to know - with a slow nod of the head he replies, "Not all, but some." He pauses. "Why all the questions?"

Tsalta's pretty direct - Well, because our friend got carried off and we're lost out here in an awful lot of fog, we don't know where we are or where we're going, so.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Back to our boat?" says Nothing, looking around at the others for confirmation. It seems everyone's in agreement!

"So you will take your friend, and go back to your boat, and you will leave?" There's something in his demeanor that spells out pretty clearly that he'd be happier left well alone. And for the most part, the party are eager to leave him! Despite his stillness and slowness, something about him is unnerving. Tsalta, however, is still full of questions - is he making the fog?

"No...but I am in tune."

"Huh," says Nothing, surprised and a little intrigued by the idea of this creature being 'in tune' with the swamp mist without casting it, "You're in with the fog?" The frog looks for a moment like he's about to say something, lulling into thoughtful silence, his wide mouth opening just a sliver before closing again.

He will allow us to leave his territory, he says, we can take our friend and go.

There's a moment of hushed discussion as the party debates what to do. Tsalta's still worried about the fate the second dwarf will meet if we leave him - she doesn't want him to get eaten! "Hey, hold on, he never said he was gonna eat him," Nothing whispers back to her. (She's pretty sure he's going to eat him, but...we gotta go. Tell the big girl what she wants to hear, that's the trick.) Even Faeleth isn't sold on the idea of leaving without the guy, so Nothing puts in a token effort.

Turning back to the frog-man, she flashes what she hopes is her most endearing smile, "Don't suppose I could persuade you to let us take both of them, could I?"

It does not seem that she can. With a deep sigh, the frog-man rises to his feet, the beads and bones and sticks on his staff clinking softly off of one another as he moves. The staff begins to glow, and from the fog behind him a massive shape rises up from the swamp as an all too familiar beast of twisting vines looms behind him. He holds the staff to his side, as though holding it at bay. "Take....one."

It's safe to say that nobody is eager to mess with the vine monster again. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Sorry, Anonymous Dwarven Tradesman, but Team Jailbird have priorities. Nothing's smile falters a little as she takes a step back, hands raised in a pacifying gesture - "Nah, nah, nah, okay... We would like to leave." She and Tsalta return to the tent to fetch Stonefist.

Meanwhile, Faeleth and Fergus stand staring at the plant-beast, tense and ready to retaliate should it make a move. Fergus' hand hovers at his pouch of marbles, as if they'd be any use here.

In the tent, untying Stonefist proves easy enough. Waking him is a little harder. Nothing hisses his name and shakes his shoulder, but he doesn’t respond, still deep in slumber. So she slaps him briskly on the cheek a couple of times, and at that he stirs groggily, his eyes drifting open and slowly seeking focus. "Time to go, Stonefist, we're leaving." He takes in the view outside the tent, and says, "Yeah, I think that would be a good idea." Tsalta bundles him into her arms, but not before she catches sight of a wooden bow in the corner of the tent, half-rotten with damp. It’s in no fit state to be used in battle, but it’s the string she’s after. Careful to avoid being spotted by the frog-man, she hides the bow away in her hair.

Okay, time to get the fuck out of here. Tsalta looks at the shambling mound - "You're not going to send him after us, are you?"

"He will escort you."

"But he's not going to attack us or anything?"

At that, that wide amphibian mouth gets just a little wider. "Not if I command him not to."

Oh! Tsalta's face actually brightens a little as the idea strikes her that this creature is the frog-man's pet. Like a big soggy bog dog! "Is he friendly?" she asks, gaining her a funny look from both the frog and Nothing - not that she's fazed in the slightest. She's busy seeing the monster in a whole new light.

Speaking of light, the frog-man raises a hand and points out into the dark, and from his pointing hand manifests a glowing ball of magic, which drifts sedately forward from it. "That way."

The party bid their amphibian acquaintance good day, and take their leave, Faeleth muttering under her breath about the double-standards of it all - oh, so that's how it is: when she kills people it's bad, but everyone else leaving someone to die is fine. She sees how it is, it's only bad when Faeleth does it, huh?

Following the golden orb of light as it floats on ahead, with the great mass of vines lumbering behind them just outside of their torchlight, the party make the long trek back through the swamp until they arrive at long last at the bank of the river proper. Stonefist's boat is just where they left it, and as they approach the light winks out.

Everyone turns to the huge shadow of the plant-beast, a little concerned that perhaps with its order fulfilled it will turn on them again. It doesn't move, but Stonefist in particular doesn't fancy staying near it any longer than we have to. He'd rather take the time to rest after getting out of here.

Stonefist regards his beached boat with a look of indignation. We ran his boat aground!

"Well, it was floating away," Tsalta points out, "so don't give me that. You're the one who was dragged out the back of the boat."

That shuts him up pretty quickly, his disgruntled demeanor crumbling at the reminder of his previous plight. Can Tsalta just...get the boat pushed off, then? She takes care of that with ease, and Team Jailbird is once more on their way - albiet soaked through with mist and with their shoes coated in mud.

"Okay, I want everyone on watch until we're clear of this thing," says Stonefist as he revs up the arcane engine and the boat starts to chug its way upriver, the path forward revealed now that the party have torches lit. If only we'd thought of that sooner!

Over the next half-hour or so, the fog begins to lighten, then clear. The soupy swamp slowly transitions to marshland, and at last the natural sounds of night return - the chirping of crickets, the distant calls of night birds.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a sleep." Once moored up in the marshland, the Stonefist takes a nap - a nice, proper, natural nap. Before he bunks down, he warns, "We definitely need someone on watch this time."

"We were," Tsalta replies, and the dwarf blanches a little at the realisation he was stolen away even when someone was up on watch. He gives a shaky laugh - well, maybe someone better this time. (Fergus takes offence - he's a good watcher, it's not his fault that the bushes were moving. Stonefist gives him a curious look, then concedes that...that's true, there are some queer things out in that swamp.)

Fergus, too, lies down to sleep off the worst of his aches and pains. The others stay up in shifts, just in case, and watch as the northern sky warms with the soft purple light of dawn and the sun begins to rise.

In the morning, the journey resumes. Everyone washes their boots in the river, and Tsalta re-strings her bow with the parts scavenged from the tent last night. Over the next few hours the river grows ever more narrow, until eventually there's not enough waterway to go on. "Alright, this is as far as I can take ye," says Stonefist. The rest of the journey will have to be by foot. "To be frank," he says, "I didnae expect this to be as dangerous as it's been."

Tsalta flashes a mischievous grin, "Nearly got eaten by a big frog!" He looks rather unhappy to be reminded of this, to say the least! She winks, and adds, "Remember to stay awake."

"And keep your lights on, yeah?" Nothing reminds Stonefist, as he revs up the boat and prepares to turn around. Just as he's about to pull away, Tsalta remembers - oh, does he want his moor-stick back?

"...Yes, please?" Stonefist looks genuinely affronted that she took it! Tsalta holds it out for him to take back, and as he does, she gives him another impish look and says, "Look out for the frog."

Her teasing earns her a scowl from the dwarf. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?"

Tsalta just chuckles. And off Stonefist goes, back down the river, and Team Jailbird are left to make the rest of the journey alone. The party check their map. It looks like it's just a case of following the river now, northward until we reach the mountains. The last leg of the journey starts here. As everyone starts walking, Nothing remembers something - "Hey, didn't Cerios tell us to call when we're about a day out?" So he did! Probably a good idea to send word and let him know so he can get everything sorted out.

Tsalta gets out the little box, and opens it up to reveal the tiny glass bead inside. Tsalta suggests we keep our message as low-detail as possible, in case Cerios is being listened in on. She brings the stone up to her mouth, and whispers, "A day away," and listens.

After a pause, an elderly voice answers. "Hello? ....Hello?"

Tsalta frowns. "Zandar?" Everyone exchanges a look of confusion - what's he answering for?

"....Yes?"

"Tell Cerios we're a day away."

"....Okay."

"Okay, bye."

"................................Bye!"

With a soft groan and a roll of her eyes, Tsalta puts the stone back in the box, closes it and tucks it away again. Hopefully Zandar will relay our message.

The long walk is uneventful, but exhausting. On foot, there's no reading to pass the time, though the party engage in a little idle chatter as they go, but often they end up lapsing into silence, caught up in their thoughts. The ruins of Gheimas are only a day away, and who knows what awaits. Tsalta can't help think of Rosa - is she safe, her wee girl? Faeleth ponders on whether what the Collector said about her mother was true, trying not to hope. Nuth thinks about her kids, holding tight to that burning determination to get them back. Fergus wonders what the hell he's signed himself up for.

The grey sky might dull the summer heat, but it does little to improve the humidity. When the sun finally begins its slow descent to the south, there is no-one who isn't grateful to see it begin to leave.

Dusk starts drawing in. The wind picks up, rolling in from over the distant hills. And carried on the wind is a strange sound - a low, eerie note, rising and falling. It sends chills up Tsalta's spine - and Faeleth's, and Nothing's. What huge and terrible creature could make a noise like that?

Fergus, however, pauses and listens closely. He's heard the wind blow through scaffolding pipes many a time, and this is really quite similar.

The girls, meanwhile, are working one another into a panic as they bounce increasingly wild speculations off one another. "I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it..." Tsalta whimpers. They're not ready to fight that thing, whatever it is! It sounds huge, and horrible, and how can they possibly spend the night in a place with some bellowing monster stalking the hills? "Fergus!" Nothing gesticulates to the hill, amazed at the dwarf's lack of concern. "The fuck is that?"

He shrugs, nonchalant. "Part of the trade, isn't it?" That response brings all the frightened chatter to a halt as the incongruence of that reply to their anxiety sinks in. Part of the....trade?

They don't know? Fergus sighs a long, deep sigh, and explains the minutiae of architectural acoustics: when houses are being built, sometimes the wind blows through the tubes used to hold them up and creates sound, it's really not unusual.

"Like pan-pipes?" Tsalta ventures. "So rather than little lovely tootly noises, you get big...big noises." Fergus nods - that's about the long and the short of it, yes. Pretty much. Nothing laughs, embarrassed...she thought that was a fuckin' monster, bloody hell. Faeleth's still dubious and doesn't trust it, but all of them agree to investigate the sound briefly just to see what's up.

Fergus leads the exploration, moving on ahead to identify the source of the sound. Before long, it becomes quite clear - one of the hills has been installed with a huge metallic entryway. Inside seems at first to be a cave, but the shallow interior takes a sharp upwards bend, like the chimney of a furnace.

"Ever seen a buildin' like this before, Fergus?" Nothing asks, and he shakes his head.

"Never seen anything like this, no. But you can get things like this anywhere, really," he pauses, hands on hips, regarding the hill as it continues to let out its low quavering tune, "some people think this is art."

Curious, the party climb the hill and discover a quartet of holes atop it, each containing a metal pipe leading down into the hill itself. Tsalta notes that each tube likely aligns with a point on the compass, the metal lips aligned just so to catch the wind and funnel it down. It seems this curious construct must be designed to signal the direction of the wind - to what end, it's hard to tell. But it's certainly an intriguing bit of design.

Tsalta looks down one of the holes, and nudges a rock in with her foot. It bounces off the metal tube walls with a series of muffled clanks. Seeing this, Faeleth's struck by a little curiosity of her own. She tips out a few ball-bearings from the pouch in her bag, and tips them down into the south-facing tube. There's a pleasant series of tinkling chimes as the metal balls bounce down the twists and turns within.

Nothing, who had stopped only to take a brief glance, hears all this noise from behind her and turns around. "We've got places to be, guys!" Tsalta deflates, lowering the hand she was about to toss a second rock with... "I mean, you can throw it down if you want-"

Tsalta needs no further encouragement. She pelts the rock down into the tube. Her throw is far more powerful than she intended! The rock lodges into the metal a few feet down with an unpleasant CLUNK, and the low note from the tube gains an additional tuneless whistle from the aberration to its design. She grimaces - didn't mean to do that...

Seeing this act of vandalisation to a piece of architectural design, Fergus massages his temples...okay, he can probably fix that. "Okay, Tsalta, lower me down."

"That's really deep! What if I drop ye!"

"Just tie a rope to me, come on."

With a rope tied securely around him, Tsalta lowers him down. (Deadpan, Faeleth looks to Tsalta and mouths, "Drop him." Only the ever-so-faint quirk at the corner of her mouth denotes that she's speaking in jest.)

This is the point when Nothing, who had already turned and continued walking on, turns around to see Tsalta leaning over the hole, rope in hand, beginning to lower Fergus into the tube. She stops walking and groans to herself. "The fuck've you done..."

With the help of his chisel to dislodge the rock and his hammer to smooth out the metal, her defacement of the wind tube is neatly resolved. They don’t tarry any longer, and leave the site of Tsalta’s brief vandalisation behind in search of a place to rest. Tsalta catches sight of an alcove in the craggy mountainside that will easily provide shelter for the night, and she leads them to it so everyone can sit and get some rest. Save for Fergus, nobody’s had much time to recover from the night before - sleep is welcome.

Not for Nothing, though. Tomorrow’s going to be it, probably - facing the Collector and whatever she’s going to throw at us. It’s time for one last evening of dart practice. “Sorry if anyone’s tryin’ to sleep, gonna annoy you for a bit.” Nuth roots around in her bag, fishing out Albert’s book, a hammer, and a piton. She leaves the alcove, opens the book to the middle and drives a piton through the pages into the stone wall nearby. Fergus winces - that alchemist had offered him over a hundred gold for that book. Nothing picks out her lump of swamp-charcoal, and uses it to scrawl a crude face on the pages.

Seeing this, Fergus whips out a chisel and deftly chips a target onto the stone beside her book. Nothing steps back, takes aim and pierces the charcoal Collector’s left eye as Fergus chips away at the rock. Taking a glance at Fergus’ stone dartboard, she mutters, “'preciate that, Fergus, but I'm gonna break my darts on the wall.”

“That's not a problem. I thought you just needed a target,” Fergus says, and Nothing bristles. She raises her hand with the other two darts still in it.

"I'm not breakin' these darts," she says, sharply, "I need them."

Fergus fishes a set of darts out from his own bag, utterly unaware of the emotional landmine he's about to step on with the implication of his reassurance - "Not a problem, I've got these." It's unclear whether he's offering them to use right now, or as replacements in case hers break, but Nothing interprets it the latter way and it raises her hackles all the more. She reiterates, more emphatically this time: he doesn't get it, she needs these darts. "Well, okay," says Fergus, "you can practice with these ones, and use yours for...whatever you need them for."

"Sure, but I'm gonna fuckin' break 'em." Nothing snatches the dart from his hand and launches it against the stone dartboard with a crack, the dart tip splitting clean off on impact. She gives him a snide look. "See."

-

Meanwhile, Tsalta gathers up some more fireflies for her hair-lanterns, collecting enough to supply a comforting glow. She cosies up under the overhang and motions Faeleth over to sit nearby her. "C'mon, get some sleep." The two of them settle down together and in no time at all succumb to the welcome embrace of slumber.

-

Back at the makeshift darts range, Fergus is still observing Nothing as she practices and pointedly ignores him. Every time, the trio of darts meet their marks with pinpoint precision - eye, eye, mouth - but he's waiting for the time she fucks up, so he can demonstrate a better way.

She can feel his eyes on her, and catches his smirk out of the corner of her eye. He's not just watching, he's fucking judging, and it grates on her already frayed nerves.

“Fergus..." she says, not looking up, her voice low in warning.

"Mm?"

"Leave me alone, please." The dwarf takes a single step back, but remains, arms folded and a faint smirk of amusement playing about the corner of his mouth. Nothing takes a few stiff steps forward and pulls Spindle’s darts from the paper. She waits, listens for retreating footsteps and hears none. He’s still fucking there, and she wants him to piss off.

So she does the thing that tends to make people piss off pretty bloody quickly. She wheels around to face him as her eyes darken over to twin voids of abyssal black, her expression a furious snarl. Her hair whips in an impossible unseen gale, and she growls, “Fergus, go the fuck away!" He takes a startled step back, then another, trying to maintain an air of composure. The kid looks like she could have stepped straight out of the Nine Hells, and he's not gonna fuck with anyone giving him a look like that. He turns around and hastens towards the camp. Perhaps it really is best to leave her to it.

Alone, at last, Nothing sighs. She takes up her darts once more. Eye, eye, mouth. Eye, eye, mouth. On and on, over and over, until the first drops of rain begin to fall.

By the time Nothing returns to the camp, the rest of the party are asleep. So she sits up, and keeps watch. Not like sleep would have come easy right now anyway. The weather sours further over the hours she sits awake - outside, the wind begins to pick up, the drizzle grows to a steady patter as the clouds roll in to blot out the stars. She considers making Fergus be the one to sit up, but...after the other night, she trusts Tsalta more, so it’s our ranger who finds herself nudged awake and asked to take the last of the night’s watch.

Over Tsalta’s watch, what at first seemed only a passing shower grows into a fully fledged storm - the clouds crowd together overhead with the first low rumbles of thunder, and with a flash of lightning the heavens open with all the force they can muster. The rain pelts the mountainside, the angle threatening to drench the occupants of the little shelter, so Tsalta removes her cloak and manages to secure it to the cavern opening like a curtain. The howling wind tugs at the cloth, so she takes the bottom edge and sits on it so the elements can’t find passage inside. Before long, her back is drenched and she’s shivering, but she tucks her knees up closer to her chest and knits her hair around herself like a cloak to resist the worst of the chill.

And when morning comes, that’s how the party find her - soaked, huddled up, smiling proudly down at them with the makeshift curtain behind her. Everyone is touched at the lengths she’s gone to just to ensure everyone was able to sleep dry through the night.

“Smart,” Nothing says, regarding the improvised curtain appreciatively, “That’s really good, that.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I’m used to it!” She smiles brightly and gives the sodden material a little pat, “Didn’t have this before, so.”

Faeleth stands up and gives Tsalta a warm hug - the most affection anyone’s ever seen her display to another person. She can’t believe it. Tsalta chose to sit with her back against the storm for everyone else’s sake - it’s ridiculous, and absurdly selfless, and that’s not a way she’s used to people being. Especially not to her. Tsalta gives the elf’s shoulder a squeeze, and Faeleth pats her arm a couple of times before she disengages.

Fergus tries to offer her his scarf, though the tiny thing would really do little to help the massive Tsalta stay warm. “You guys all okay?” Tsalta asks as she gets to her feet.

“As okay as I’m gonna be today,” says Nuth, “You?”

Yeah, Tsalta reckons she’s slept through worse- got stuck up a tree one, ‘cause Willie chased her up it. She’d just had one of her growth spurts, and didn’t have much of a head for heights back then! The others chuckle at the image of a gangly teenage Tsalta trying to figure her way down from the branches - chased up by a halfling child, no less.

But there’s only so much time to dally on cute personal anecdotes, isn’t there? Today’s the day. It’s time to go.

Under the driving rain, the party trek up the mountainside, edging along precarious ledges that would likely be perfectly passable in pleasant weather, but with the stone slick and with everyone’s eyes squinted against the storm it’s a far harder journey than it would be.

And eventually, there below them lie the ruins of Gheimas. Jackalweres patrol between the crumbled buildings, the party see their roughly constructed watch-posts dotted across the city. And beyond the ruins is a building untouched by whatever caused Gheimas to lie in pieces - an austere castle of dark stone, standing intact, proud as the day it was built. The flash of lightning backlights its silhouette against the hills beyond.

“Now, I know I’ve been useless in the past,” Fergus says, “but this is where I’m strong.”

He explains that we need a strategy; we can’t rush in heedless of what lies ahead. He singles out Nothing and Faeleth - “You can turn invisible, and honestly sometimes I don’t even know where you are.” If the two can sneak in, they can return with information about what they see, the better to plan our route.

Nothing hears the familiar voice rumble in her ear - “Remember my words.” Yes, I remember, she thinks. I’m taking care of it, give me time. She taps Tsalta - could she hold her cloak out a sec for a bit of shelter? Nothing takes out her map and glances back and forth between the scroll and the ruins below, trying to match up the layout.

It turns out that she doesn’t need to look for long. When she looks up from the map, the glowing sunspot X remains burning in her vision, overlaid with a half-crumbled building near the edge of the ruins. She looks back at the map, at how that building is close to the easiest entrance, and she lays out her plan. We can enter through that side of the ruins, she says, and that building would make a perfect mid-way stopping point for us to hide and get our bearings. That sound good?

Everyone gives their assent - it sounds like a solid starting point. All the better to travel unseen, the party take precautions to make themselves less visible. Fergus smears his face and torso with mud, and at Tsalta’s suggestion Nuth changes into her old brown cloak rather than the bright white velvet of the demon hunter regalia. Despite their very effective efforts to improve their stealthiness, Nothing’s still a little concerned about Fergus’ plan...if something happens to her and Faeleth while they’re snooping around, there’s no guarantee they’d be able to signal that something was wrong. She’s got a better idea.

At first, she’s hesitant in her explanation - from what little she understands of Faeleth, she may not like what she’s about to propose.

“Okay, so. I can do something that I ain’t done before, but it only works if you’re okay with it-”

“Spit it out,” Faeleth says, impatient. If the kid has an idea, she may as well voice it.

Time to say it straight, since Faeleth’s got no time for the sugar-coating: “I could look through you.”

Exactly as predicted, Faeleth’s expression is dubious, and her blunt tone doesn’t quite hide the uncertainty when she says, “That sounds invasive.” Okay, fair, but think of it this way: Nuth can relay what she sees in real time. If shit goes down, everyone’ll know in an instant and know her precise location. It’s safer, it’s better, it just needs a bit of trust to make it work. She can’t do the spell if Faeleth is unwilling.

“Does that sound okay, Faeleth?” Tsalta asks softly, and with a little reluctance the elf agrees to the plan. Nothing reassures her - if anything happens, she’ll know, just run straight back. “And drop marbles behind you,” Fergus adds, because that’s always worked for him.

Nuth turns to Fergus and Tsalta- if anything happens up here, fuckin’ hit her. She isn’t gonna be able to hear or see anything around her while Faeleth carries her senses. She steps close to Faeleth and lifts a hand - “Can I?”

“Okay.”

The moment she touches Faeleth’s wrist the party see Nothing’s eyes glaze over, the colour draining from them to leave them white, pupilless, blank. Her arm falls limp to her side. For a few seconds Nothing stands motionless, save for a soft back and forth rocking - her body innately maintaining balance while her mind adjusts to being in two places at once.

For Faeleth, there’s a sickly jolt and a faint lingering pressure behind her eyes, a coppery metallic taste rising on the back of her tongue.

Nothing looks down on herself standing there half-empty, sodden with rain. She watches as she raises an arm, grasping awkwardly out to her side, and murmurs, “Tsalta, can you hold on to me please.” Tsalta takes her hand and steers her in, nestling her close against her hip. “Thanks.”

And with that, Faeleth disappears into the storm. With the rolling thunder to mask her footsteps and the driving rain to hide her, she darts from wall to wall between the flashes of lightning - swift, silent, and unseen. She presses herself against the stone as she spots a gang of jackalweres pass by, chatting amongst themselves as they patrol. Once they pass by, she flits to the building that she’s to investigate.

All the while, Nothing murmurs what she sees. Faeleth peers through a dilapidated window - inside is a large room, empty and with no signs of life. Dust coats the floor, the furniture, and the shelves upon shelves of books within - the place looks like a library, or an academic building, and more importantly it looks safe to enter. Faeleth comes across a half-rotten door, big enough for Tsalta to pass through, and waits for a rumble of thunder to push against it and slip inside. It’s a good thing she took that precaution, because the rusted hinge gives way and the door falls in with a muffled thud.

“It’s safe,” Nothing says, and without thinking Tsalta asks her if they should go down before realising the tiefling at her side can’t hear her. But she can certainly feel it she’s scooped up into Tsalta’s huge arms, cradled like a child as she and Fergus follow Faeleth’s previously narrated path. They’re going in. Carefully. (“If I say run, you run, and don’t look back,” Fergus tells Tsalta.)

Inside the library, Faeleth waits. She’s so intent on staying hidden, she doesn’t notice Tsalta and Fergus slip inside with her at first, and when Tsalta whispers her name she jumps - and so does Nothing at the sound of a voice! She drops the spell, and grins at Faeleth - it worked!

Faeleth’s not so sold on the experience. “My brain felt like it was going to be sick.”

“Sorry. But it worked, though!”

“You taste like death.”

“Piss off!”

Now everyone’s inside the designated hiding-out building, Fergus is eager to chart the rest of the plan. But as he does, Nothing finds herself distracted. Down. Go DOWN. Her patron's voice rumbles dark and forceful in her mind.

Okay, she can do this. She can explain later, all she needs is to make sure everyone follows her lead and it will be fine. Under the guise of "looking at the books", she starts to search the room, despite Fergus’ and Tsalta’s protestations. All she wants to find is a stairwell, a trapdoor, any way of moving down. The others watch as she hurries around, uncertain of what she could possibly be looking for - didn’t she say this building was just a good hiding-spot to catch their breath before continuing? Time’s running out, it’s not the time for poring over mildewed books! “It’s just a dusty library,” says Tsalta, but the tiefling shakes her head - just trust her. Just trust her.

There’s no sign of any trap-doors here, but Nuth still feels her patron’s presence pushing her on. The next room, then? She leaves the rest of the party trailing awkwardly behind her, perplexed at this odd behaviour. Fergus wants to know what the plan is from here exactly, but Nothing is too caught up in her scouring of the library floor to bother with faking a convincing explanation. “The plan is just trust me for a second, alright?” she snaps.

She's too swept along in following her patron's instruction to really absorb the horror of the room she enters into - yes, there's operating tables, yes, there's the smell of death and decay and there's the blood-stained trays holding long-rusted bladed implements but far more important is the cellar door. There it is, at the back of the room, ajar and exactly what she needed to find.

She pulls it open. There's a stairwell below, dark and roughly hewn.

''DOWN. ''

“Guys. Can we look down here a second?”

Understandably, as the others filter into the room and take in the surroundings...there is a generally dubious reaction to this suggestion. Tsalta in particular looks absolutely horrified at the prospect.

“I know, I know, I know - I see what this place is, and I know it looks bad, but again: just trust me.”

Actually, you know what? Forget the coaxing. She’s already off into the dark, not waiting to check if anyone is following. DOWN. There's an eagerness and an intensity to her patron's command that she's never heard before. It's like he's pushing her forwards, urging her on so powerfully that she physically feels it, like her body’s only half her own. She knows, deeply and certainly that if he could take control and force her onwards himself he would. Not that he would need to - she's barely bothering to steady herself as she rushes down and down and down.

Tsalta watches, brow furrowed, looking at the others with confusion and discomfort, as Nothing hastens down a dark staircase to gods-knows-where. “Guys, I don’t know what’s going on. We don’t have time for this.” She calls out - “Nuth? Nuth?”

There’s no reply.

She’s got a bad feeling about this - everyone’s got a bad feeling about this, but nobody is about to let the kid run off alone. They follow, down into the unknown.

“It is really dark in here, I don’t like it, I don’t like it, no-no-no...” The claustrophobia from being inside a staircase made for smaller humanoids is doing Tsalta no favours at all, and she sing-songs quietly to soothe herself as she descends...and broadcast to Nothing, should she be listening, that she does not like this plan one bit.

Fergus creaks the cellar door shut behind him as he follows. He regards the roughly carved steps with a certain disdain - this is shoddy work, even for an underground cellar. No architectural pride went into this.

“Now it’s even darker, I don’t like it, I don’t like it, no-no-no-no-no...”

Hearing the familiar strains of Tsalta’s anxiety song behind her, Nuth breaks focus to call back reassurance - “This might lead somewhere! This is good, guys, trust me, trust me.”

-

And lead somewhere the stairwell does. The stairs end. The tunnel opens out, the rough-hewn walls giving way to a more carefully carved hallway. And then that hallway opens up, and the party enter what is quite clearly a crypt, with alcoves to hold coffins inset along the walls...This does not make anyone feel any less uneasy!

To ease Tsalta’s tension, Nuth lights her a torch, just to help keep her on board with the ‘exploration’. Time to poke around. What's beyond that grated gateway? (Fergus regards the wrought-iron gate in question. “Grate door,” he dryly observes. Perhaps puns are how he handles tension.) Nothing peers in, curious to get a better look, and ducks back just in time to avoid being grabbed by an emaciated hand that lunges out for her. "SHIT!"

Tsalta brings her warhammer down on the grasping hand, but the swing brings her a little too close. The fingers clutch out at her and gain purchase on her hair, and she and the zombie (because of course it’s a zombie) engage in a little tug-of-war before Fergus brings his staff down on its wrist, the bone snapping on impact. The hand flaps limply from the smashed wrist as it continues to flail…

Nuth draws her wand, points it through the bars, and with a flash of crimson the zombie crumples to the floor. It makes a few last groans and then moves no more. She puffs out her chest and postures at it with a little "yeah" of contempt - take that, zombie. Wasn't scared at all. Not even a little bit, nope.

“Celebrating that you killed a dead person.” Faeleth smirks at Nuth’s cocky display, “Good job, I guess.” (Fergus hooks a thumb at the gateway and nudges Tsalta. “Told you it was a grate door. Didnae let him out, did it?”)

So. There are things down here. Good to know! The pieces all slot together pretty neatly for Nothing and her good good Arcana rolls: the laboratory-slash-operating-theatre, the undead...the building up above probably belonged to a necromancer, the crypt below a perfect place to stash their experiments.

But that is ‘fine’, according to Nothing. The zombie went down quick enough, didn’t it? We can handle whatever dead someone raised and left milling around down here. And a peek through the grate, now there’s not a shambling undead in the way, does reveal a broken tomb - he probably wasn’t even meant to be out and about.

These reassurances are not super reassuring, especially not to Tsalta, who grips her torch tight in one hand and her warhammer even tighter in the other as the party begins their exploration.

The catacombs are maze-like in their construction, and while at first Nothing's the one who forges ahead she quickly discovers herself hitting dead-ends and losing track of the twists and turns. It's only a passing comment from Tsalta when they reach a crumbled staircase ("I think that would have led up into the cathedral...") that causes her to realise that her large companion has retained a sense of direction beneath the city, and she quickly hands over the role of guidance, constantly checking in to ask which passage looks most likely to lead towards the castle.

After that, they meet fewer dead ends - though there's still many a time a corridor leads only to gated rooms with sarcophagi. On one deeply unnerving occasion, Nothing's investigation of some dancing coloured lights in the distance reveals a hovering orb-like creature covered in tentacles. Slowly, it rotates, revealing an empty mutilated eyesocket - nope, nope, no thank you!! To her relief, it doesnt follow as she hurriedly shoos everyone back the way they came.

Occasionally, the party's path leads into more open rooms, family crypts with little nameplates over the burial alcoves. The first is early in the exploration, the graves seemingly those of tradesfolk. An unsettling pile of bones lies in the center of the room, and Nothing's investigation reveals it to be a rat's nest, which is a relief, because it's not some lurking dormant bone-monster, but it’s still incredibly creepy. Even if it's the only available material with which to build, a nest of bones is never not disquieting to happen across.

They enter the next corridor. Strewn across the stone floor, over their path, is a pile of filthy rags. The party eye it warily - that could easily be hiding a trap. “Don’t touch it,” Tsalta warns. At the sound of her voice, the rags shift. There’s an undulating giggle as a figure shakily clambers to its feet - a gaunt, hunched-over human with straggly greying hair that’s falling out in patches. From the pallor of his skin, and the jut of his bones, it looks likely that he’s been down here without much sustenance for quite some time. Again, he lets out that muffled giggling, and lowers his hands from his face - his chin dripping with blood from the rat clutched in his grasp.

Nothing’s grip on her wand tightens. “Oi! Who are you? Hello?”

The man takes a staggering step towards her. “Be-hay car-ay-faul…”

She tries to step around him, but he rises and moves to block her path. The man grins and jibbers, shuffling even closer to Nothing, a hand outstretched towards her horns. She backs away, wand arm raised at his face in warning, her eyes darting around to the others - if he’s human, she doesn’t want to shoot some poor mad guy trapped in these catacombs, even if he’s creeping her the fuck out. She slaps his hand away as he burbles unintelligibly and grasps eagerly for her horns - “Fergus, knock him out or something, knock him out-“

Fergus’ staff comes down on the back of his head with a sharp crack, and the ragged man gasps, then turns to glower at his assailant. “Noot...NICE-AY!” His lips curl back in a hideous snarl. “NOOT NICE-AY!” His face twists, distorts, and with a sickening series of cracks the bones erupt from beneath his skin to form wicked spines - in an instant anything human about this thing is gone. In his place, bowed to all fours, its spine arched and twisted, is a nightmare made flesh. And bone. There’s so much bone.

Nothing staggers back in shock, raising her wand and barely clipping its shoulder with a flare of scarlet light. Its gaze fixes on her, a stare of absolute malevolence, and before she can do a thing to stop it and bowls her to the ground, pinning her beneath it. It barely heeds the others’ attacks, so intent is it on this retaliation - it ducks Fergus’ swinging staff, takes a battering strike from Tsalta’s warhammer that shunts its protruding shoulderblade to an unnatural angle without so much as breaking stride.

With a creak and a snap, one of the spines on the creature’s arm unfurls to reveal a hollow tubelike appendage, the rim of it jagged like a sawblade. The bony protuberance strikes out towards Nothing's temple, and she kicks and screams for help as the serrated edge of it breaks the skin and grates on bone.

With staff and blade and hammer, the rest of the party do their utmost to drive it off of her, but it takes the blows and refuses to relinquish its prey. Tsalta brings her hammer down on the Wretch’s arm where that awful appendage sprouts from, hoping it might snap. But no - though there’s a splintering, a fracture running across the surface, the bone holds.

Nothing struggles with all her might, but its talons are clamped around her wrists like vices, preventing any chance of escape. Her cries turn to wordless shrieks. The scrape of bone on bone is all she can hear, each twist of the thing in her skull wracking her with a wave of nausea and agony. The dark magic that twisted this man’s form and stole his sanity, the wrongness of it, is as overwhelming as the pain itself, tangible enough to choke on.

In one vivid split second of lucidity, for the first time since that searing afternoon in Red Larch with a silver blade in her side, Nothing realises that she is probably about to die.

Fergus brings his quarterstaff back, and slams it into the side of the creature’s head. It goes flying, skidding across the floor...dragging Nothing, screaming, behind it by the hole in her skull. For Nothing, it’s terrifying (and needless to say excruciatingly painful), but for Faeleth, it’s just the opening she needed. She lunges, and with pinpoint precision drives her rapier in at the base of its skull, the blade exiting in gleaming mockery of a tongue through its open mouth. Brackish ichor drools from between its slack jaws and from the puncture wound left behind as she withdraws her weapon, and with one last horrible gurgle it falls still.

Shaking, Nothing scrabbles free from beneath the Wretch’s body, covered in the creature’s awful gunk and with a startling amount of blood streaming down the side of her face. Before she’s even standing Tsalta drops to her knees beside her to assess the damage, pulling the kid into her arms and pushing her sodden hair aside to lay her glowing hand over the wound and stem the flow.

The bleeding stops as the soft green light diffuses over her temple, the broken skin knitting back together, but there’s only so much a minor Cure Wounds can do. The scar left behind is livid and obvious, marking a deeply indented circle as big as a copper piece - the damage to the bone below remains. But the wound is closed. It’s better, so to speak, than a hole in the head.

Shaken but more or less intact, Team Jailbird press on. “Nuth, you’re no longer in the front. Okay?” She’s in no position to argue. Faeleth silently presses a potion into Nothing’s hand as they walk, which she gratefully - and immediately - chugs. Blessedly, no other necromantic monstrosities appear to assail them in the halls of the catacombs.

Tsalta, ahead of the others, is first to discover the room of dancing skeletons. They twirl in pairs - save for one, who dances alone, arms around an invisible partner. Their feet clacking against the floor as they dance to some nonexistent melody. On a podium above, another skeleton mimes gracefully playing a fiddle. Wary, weapons clutched tight in their hands, everyone skirts the edge of the room... One of the dancers’ skulls turn to watch the party as they hug the wall to the other side of the room, but they do nothing more - they just continue their eerie, eternal silent ball.

More skeletons stand guard over the doorways of the next room - one that seems to be a higher-class crypt. The masonry is more finely carved, the tombs more ostentatious, plaques feature names befitting of guildsfolk and the like. The skeletons make no move to aggress their visitors. Tsalta asks Nothing if she knows anything about...skeletons? And she does, actually, because today is Nothing’s Big Nat 20 Day, and also she grew up in a church. She’s read about things like this - undead, you know. Stories of holy folk vanquishing them. So she explains: not all things undead are out to kill the living. Sometimes, in places full of necromantic energies, the dead just...come to unlife and act out their lives, emptily echoing the stuff they did in their old day-to-day.

So the guards are just...guards, or bannermen. Tsalta’s anxiety around the skeletons quickly fades - she gives one a courteous nod as she passes, the skull politely inclines in response, and that little interaction makes them seem far more benign, actually.

Knowing that, it’s just a matter of skirting around skeletons, and leaving groaning tombs behind grated doorways well alone. That works out well - save for running into a few dead ends, progress through the catacombs is made without incident.

The hallway opens up into another larger room, not unlike the one they entered into from above. Like that room, there’s a stairwell, leading up. But there are a few distinct and vital differences between that room and this.

For example, differences like the shimmering barrier that spans the opening of the stairwell.

The chalk runes, scrawled at the foot of the steps.

Or the Gnomish words in that same chalk scrawl, that only Nothing can understand, and her heart sinks as she takes in the words and realise what they have to mean. “Forgive me, for I have failed.”

The others may not be able to read those words, but they can all see the body. There, to the left of the words, slumped motionless beside his dying message, is Bobby.