[WFRP] The Bloody Crown X

[LCP]

The Bloody Crown - Continued

In that dread desert, beneath the moon’s pale gaze, dead men walk.

They haunt the shifting dunes of the breathless, windless night, brandishing weapons of bronze in mocking challenge and bitter resentment of the life they no longer possess.

And sometimes, in ghastly dry voices, like the rustling of sun-baked reeds, they whisper the one word they remember from life. The name of the one who cursed them to their existence of more than death but less than life.

They whisper the name, Nagash.

OOC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?566965-WFRP-The-Bloody-Crown-OOC-X)




Elsa's attention had also been drawn to the iron chest, and like Adelbert, she seemed somewhat worried about whatever it contained. Raqiyah's answer did little to appease her sense of foreboding.

"Hmm. How much do you know about arcane magic, Mother Raqiyah?" she asked hesitantly. "Because I sense strong Amethyst magic around this thing, and I wouldn't want it to make the Book stronger. Please at least tell me this place has many blessings against necromantic spells."

Raqiyah paused for a long while before answering, her blind eyes seeming to stare into the middle distance just above Elsa's shoulder. If she had not seemed so calm Ludo would have suspected they were trying the priestess' patience.

"This is a temple of Morr," she said, at last, making the sign of the Raven over her breast. Hieronymus coughed. "And of all the gods. I understand your concern, Magister. You trust most in the work of your own hands to protect this thing. But what hope does one woman, however skilled, have against the power that wrote those pages?" She paused again, leaving time for her words to sink in - or for Elsa to interject. "None of us can fight the darkness alone. It is an act of faith to put our trust in a higher power. Faith is what the gods require."


”Mother Raqiyah, does this temple have any wardens? Guards who keep the sanctity of the temple, perhaps?

"My initiates keep watch over the temple," said Raqiyah. "We keep no men under arms."

[LeSwordfish]

"How many of the Iron Company could we station here?" Ludo asked Elsa, aware that Raqiyah would probably also have strong opinions on how many armed men could be in her temple. "And is it safe to have people so close to it for so long? I don't know if it could... affect them, right?"

[-Sentinel-]

"That is a concern," admitted Elsa. "Thankfully the chest is made out of lead, which dampens much of the Book's power; we've had no problems with it so far as long as it was in there. Still, we'll see to it that the guards are rotated often."

[Erulasto]

”Fortunately we have enough soldiers from the Iron Company here in Savonne that it should not be much of an issue.” Sighed Astoria. ”It is better than the limited number we had access to at Manaan’s Keep.”

When their business had been completed in the temple, Astoria would retrieve Aminah, being sure to give extra thanks to the driver of the cart they had hired for transporting the book.

[LeSwordfish]

"The faster we rotate the guards, the more people will know about it." Ludo pointed out.

[Erulasto]

"I am sure our procession through the city drew more than enough attention, Master Stubbs." Astoria said with a somber expression.

[LeSwordfish]

"They don't know much, though. The guards will know a lot more."

[-Sentinel-]

"They don't need to know what they're guarding," said Elsa. "We'll work out the details, but it could be done with two dozen men. Four men per watch, three watches a day, and we rotate every week between the two groups. Maybe introduce some unpredictability in the assignments, to prevent anyone from having advance knowledge of who'll be on watch and trying to bribe them."

She knelt by the chest to cast her spell.

OOC
Channeling: [roll0]
Casting 8+: [roll1]

[Erulasto]

”A wise decision.” said Astoria with a nod as she waited for Elsa to finish weaving her magick.

[LCP]

Only a faint shimmer of firelight around Elsa's fingertips betrayed the magic she was working. To her eyes, though, the circle of protection she had drawn around the chest was as clear as if it had been painted on the ground. If anyone broke it, she would know.

They made their exit from the sanctuary, and Raqiyah turned to utter a prayer over the closed doors. Elsa felt the filaments of Shyish that lingered in the dark corridor stir in response to the blind priestess' words - whether she saw it the same way as Elsa or not, she clearly had power of her own.

"We will feed and house your guards if you wish it," she said, turning back to Elsa and the others. "My own initiates will grant them every assistance. I ask only that they do not disturb the worshippers in the temple above - and that they do not enter the sanctuary itself." She motioned with her staff towards the doors. "You have seen there is only one way in, and one way out."

Outside the main gates of the temple, Valdes was waiting with his men. He listened attentively to their proposals for the guard rota - more attentively to Astoria, Ludo noticed, than any of the others.

"Two dozen would be a stretch for my veterans. With the recovered wounded, I have perhaps that many, but it would leave none for other duties. I don't know if the lady would be happy. We have our new recruits, but we should not trust this thing to untested men." Ludo could tell he was still unhappy at having to adulterate his regiment with locals. "Perhaps the Southlanders could make up part of the rota. Myrmidia knows they've done little else since the battle..."

OOC: The ball's in you guys' court. Move this scene on as fast as you like and let me know what you want to do next. Back to the army? Other business in Savonne?

[-Sentinel-]

"Two dozen would be a stretch for my veterans. With the recovered wounded, I have perhaps that many, but it would leave none for other duties. I don't know if the lady would be happy. We have our new recruits, but we should not trust this thing to untested men."

"Only a dozen at any one time," Elsa pointed out, "who we replace with the other dozen every week. But that'll be once the war is won and we have plenty of unused manpower. Until such time, two guards per watch should be plenty."

"I'd love to stay and do my part with guard duty, but I think I've been absent from the front lines long enough. Sforza will want me with him while he mops up the rest of the Duke's forces."


OOC
I believe Elsa left her horse in Selsan on the way to the Uplands. She'll want to get him back. (I'm assuming whoever owns the stable knows better than to sell off or eat the wizard's horse.)

[Erulasto]

Astoria spent some time with Valdes and the others working through some simple guard rotations for watching the book, even offering up a suggestion that the pair of guards on duty are not the same pair every shift. Toss in a little bit more randomness to try and throw off any chance of scheming.

”Perhaps Ranald will show the Capitano some favour and the war will have already been completed by the time we arrive back at the front lines.” mused Astoria with a wistful smile. The Estalian took a moment to re-braid her hair before they set back out. ”Do we leave immediately, or stay a night to get a bit of extra rest for the road? We’ve been on the go fairly consistently.” she said, before eyeing Valdes. ”If there is time, sir, I would sit with any of your men here who are servants of the Eagle if they'd wish."



Aside from Selsann was there any other real stops we need to make before heading back up to the front lines? I’m pretty sure Astoria has everything she needs on her at the moment. Spear, armour, sword, shield and her horse.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert had accompanied the group to the gates to bid them farewell. 'I suppose this is it until you get back from the war. Try to come back in one peace my friends.'

He shook hands with Ludo and Elsa and then Astoria. 'May your goddess watch over you Caballera. I confess I am not a Myrmidian - in my home we honoured Margileo - but it would be a pleasure to talk with you again about the divine.'

[-Sentinel-]

Though Elsa had had her differences with Adelbert in the past, she regretted leaving him behind so soon. But perhaps she could convince him to come.

"Oh... are you still interested in local history, Adelbert?"

When the priest perked up, she told him about Harmugstahl; the ruined city that had once been rival to the Lost Library, and where a deadly battle between wizards had taken place long ago. She described their first passage through the ruined tower, and the sealed-up staircase that went down to unknown depths.

"I want to know what's down there. In the war to come, we can't leave any possible advantages behind."


OOC
For the second Harmugstahl expedition, we need three or four pickaxes. They're 1gc 60p per rulebook prices. We could buy them from the Guild of Jewellers and Mineworkers, perhaps? I'm assuming the Guild isn't doing much mining now that the Dwarfs have reclaimed the Dwimmulhold. Maybe we can also get some lighting from them.

Gossip 39 if needed, to get in touch with whoever is in charge of the guild's stores: [roll0]

Haggle 20 to imply as politely as possible that no one else is gonna buy their excess pickaxes anyway, since the Dwarfs have their own, which are no doubt better: [roll1]

(Elsa needs to work on her politeness.)

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked surprised when Elsa mentioned her proposed expedition. 'In theory I certainly agree it is worth checking out but your timing is very poor. With the war still raging will Sforza even let you off?'

He stroked his goatee thoughtfully, then gave the wizard a rueful smile. 'Still, you are the cleverest of us and if you think it is worth a look I'll go with you. I admit you've won my curiosity. You better tell Irene Sforza you're conscripting me though - I sense I'm still on sufficient probation I'd need an excuse to leave the city.'

[LCP]

”If there is time, sir, I would sit with any of your men here who are servants of the Eagle if they'd wish."

“We are the Brotherhood of Magritta, caballera,” said Valdes with a smile. “You should rather ask if there are any of us who aren’t.”

With it seeming impractical to set out for Selsan so late in the day, Astoria had the rest of the evening to fraternise with her fellow Estalians back at the castle. Even if they weren’t as pious as her brothers and sisters in the Order, the Brotherhood men were very happy to talk with her - of Myrmidia, of swordplay, of home. She heard a few of their grumbles about the Lady Sforza too, though Valdes put a stop to such backbiting before it could go too far.

Elsa, meanwhile, took a couple of her Iron Company guards to see if she could pick up equipment for her planned expedition. The Miners’ and Jewellers’ Guild was clearly not the well-oiled machine it had once appeared - she soon found they had store-rooms heaped with the abandoned tools of Guildmaster Gisela’s tunnel. They seemed keen to be rid of them - despite her typically blunt approach to negotiations, she came away with what she wanted at what she felt pretty sure was a knock-down price.

Finally, Adelbert made arrangements for Bertelis to be left in the care of Hieronymus and the Temple while he was away. The young initiate didn’t seem too happy to be left behind again, but loyalty to Adelbert and Hieronymus’ stern instructions kept him from complaining too loudly. There was something about the older priest the boy seemed to find intimidating. Perhaps it was the owl.

“Don’t stay away too long, Brother Schreiber,” said Hieronymus. He had made no effort to stop Adelbert from leaving, but he seemed troubled - he always seemed troubled these days. “And do take care. Lady Sforza may have granted you clemency, but the wife is not her husband.” He patted him on the shoulder with his withered hand. “We will need you here soon enough, and in one piece."



Selsan was a solid day’s march from the city, punctuated only by Giulio’s sotto voce grumbling from behind, and the memory of Irene's insincere reluctance to see them go. For all they moaned about their aching feet, Astoria suspected the eight Iron Company men Sforza had assigned as Elsa’s guards were eager to get back to their regiment – all these matters of priests and forbidden grimoires were beyond a simple soldier’s pay grade.

Bastard was still stabled at the Hammer and Chisel, as the bruises and bite-marks on the stable boy attested. For all that he was clearly keen to be rid of the beast, the innkeeper was very firm on the subject of stable fees. According to the smudged sums he chalked on his slate, Elsa owed him a crown, seven schillings and six pfennigs. He was quite particular about the pfennigs.

From Selsan it was two more days to the foot of the Silver Falls, following the narrow and gravel-strewn tracks that traced the north bank of the river through the Karst. As long as they kept in sight of the water, there was little danger of getting lost, but Elsa kept Morrslieb aloft to scout their path all the same. She remembered Captain Edelman and his talk of wreckers in the Knives – such people probably wouldn’t be too picky about robbing travellers by road as well as by river.

At the falls, they found the cranes Alvarr’s retreating soldiers had destroyed had yet to be replaced, leaving them to undertake the arduous climb up the cliffs unassisted. After an exhausted night’s sleep in the river town, they pressed on across the open ground of the Uplands towards Bunthafen and the army.



Aubentag, 29th Sommerzeit

The smell of smoke was on the wind as they approached the siege lines. Adelbert was worried they would come upon a scene of devastation, but the fortress still stood – the smoke was blowing from somewhere further afield, fogging the air with its acrid scent. Iron Company men on picket duty let them pass, saluting to Elsa and Astoria as they rode by.

Bunthafen rose above the surrounding country as stark as if it had been dropped from the sky, a square pillar of dark grey stone. The huge blocks that made up its walls fit together so snugly that one could hardly have slid a fingernail between them, their foundations built into a weathered outcrop of solid bedrock. It looked like dwarf work to Ludo - or built on dwarf work, at least. Centuries of battle damage and repairs had left their patchwork marks on the walls, marring them with blotches of less skilful masonry. Still the place looked impressively impregnable.

The banner that flew from the top of the keep was not Alvarr’s boar’s-head standard - red on black, it bore the device of a swooping bird of prey. Elsa recognised it from her first journey to the Uplands as the banner of Falkenwald’s Falcons. Perhaps the Duke was not entirely out of allies.

In the sprawling siege camp surrounding the fortress, she could see more familiar banners. The black and gold of the Iron Company took centre position, closest to the road and the Captain’s grand pavilion. On the right wing flew the sword-and-thunderbolt of the Storm Swords, while on the left the crowing **** of Sermena fluttered alongside the tree and crossed quarrels of the Thorns. Through the anthill bustle of the camp, she thought she made out Sieghard talking with Ingwald and Zollner. They had not noticed the approaching party - Elsa wondered how close she could get before they did.

[-Sentinel-]

Savonne

Elsa bought three pickaxes and five torches from the guild, keeping one of each for herself and giving a pickaxe and two torches to both Astoria and Adelbert.

"They're still mine since I'm paying for them," she thought fit to add. "But I'm not carrying three pickaxes all by myself."

She also bought twelve matches; eliciting some puzzled looks from the guild people, who no doubt thought that casting a fire spell was an effortless or risk-free thing.




Selsan

In Selsan, Elsa was more than willing to pay Bastard's hefty stabling fee, even rounding up the sum owed to two crowns. She paid half of the difference personally to the stable boy; Sigmar knew he richly deserved it.

"I didn't miss you at all," she told Bastard as she saddled him. In response he just tried to bite her hand. Clearly the feeling was mutual.




Bunthafen

Elsa scowled up at Falkenwald's banner still flapping defiantly in the breeze. Was the man truly that loyal to the Duke, or merely out of bridges to burn?

She did not hail Sieghard just yet. She wanted to be close enough to see his expression when he looked at her.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert had not been thrilled at leaving Savonne so swiftly himself, so he could only commiserate with Bertelis and nod along to Hieronymous's words.

'Who knows, perhaps we've been lucky and the war will have gotten rid of the husband for us,' he muttered to the older priest. He didn't sound hopeful.

Bunthafen

Adelbert frowned up at the banner, then turned in his saddle to address Elsa. 'What do you expect me to do while you lot are fighting?'

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

As Elsa approached, it became obvious that something was wearing on Sieghard's nerves. It wasn't until after he had dismissed the men he was speaking to that he noticed the others approaching and his mood brightened a bit. "Looks like everyone made it back in one piece," he said, "Is it done then? Is the book safe? Klammenberg dead?"

[-Sentinel-]

"Yes and no," said Elsa, dismounting. "We stopped the attack, and the threat from the Raven Hills is all but eliminated. Hakon's dead. His men are slain or scattered. We didn't lose a single man. We moved the Book to Savonne where it can be better protected. But Klammenberg is still at large."

[LeSwordfish]

"He was planning on meeting them in Rivermouth, but he sent his coachman instead so we couldn't catch him." Ludo explained.

He looked up at the imposing walls of Bunthafen. "I see why they didn't want Alvarr getting here. Are we just going to be waiting outside?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

'That is an excellent question,' Adelbert said after Ludo spoke. He couldn't help but notice Elsa had ignored his question about just what they expected him to be doing here.

Wearily the priest dismounted and smiled ruefully at Sieghard. 'How about you? How are you doing?'

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"I've been worse," He replied, "Not much has happened since you rode off for Manaan's Keep."

"Alvarr's not in there" Sieghard told Ludo, "I figure he didn't want to take his chances trapped inside with the mercenaries after how easily they handed the place over to Rorik the last time." He paused and looked towards the fortress. "Probably a good decision if that's what he was thinking - Captain didn't want to leave them at our backs so he's been trying to get them to do just that."

[LeSwordfish]

"And how's that going?" Ludo asked, looking at the defiant banner.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"If nothing else, he's got their attention. Their commander is meeting with Sforza tomorrow."

[-Sentinel-]

"Alvarr's not in there, you say?" said Elsa, surprised. "Do we have any idea of his whereabouts? He doesn't seem like the sort of man to just cut his losses and leave for greener pastures."

Were she the Duke, she would have returned to Alvarran. Surely this was possible without crossing the Downlands again.

"I'll definitely be at the talks tomorrow. In the meantime, Sforza will want to hear my report."


OOC
Sorry RossN, I didn't mean to ignore Adelbert's question... although I do seriously have no idea what to ask of Adelbert, except keep a low profile when Sforza's around.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"He's crossed the Karst back to the Shepherd's Valley..." Sieghard said, confirming Elsa's suspicions. "... Burning everything along the way to prepare for a long siege."

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa cursed under her breath. "Swear to Sigmar, there won't be a single carrot left in the Reaches by the time this nonsense is over. The next year looks grim even if we win tomorrow."

Hopefully, news of the loss of Bunthafen would make the Duke's remaining soldiers lose heart and turn against their leader. Alvarr knew how to surround himself with fanatically loyal men, like Jaeger, but the bulk of his armies was just lowly paid levies.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked grim, but didn't directly say anything for a moment. Instead he looked at Sieghard. 'I can help with some of your injured but we should probably speak with the Tilean first. Believe me this is not an interview I'm longing for but Elsa has an expedition planned. Let's get it over with.'

[LeSwordfish]

"Wait, do we want to just tell him or wait until after you've been really useful to the Thorns before he finds out?"

[-Sentinel-]

"I don't know if this is necessary, Adelbert," said Elsa. "You tagged along at the Lost Library without Sforza's permission and no one took issue."

She shrugged. If Adelbert wanted to take the chance of facing the Captain, it was his decision, and Elsa would do her best to support him. She didn't stand much to lose either way. "In any case I'll go make my report to Sforza."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert smiled ruefully. 'Ah but here I am essentially the face and voice of the temple. I probably should be present... and anyway I'm sure Elsa will be explaining how vital I was and will be.

[LCP]

If there had been any rain, the ground around the Captain’s tent would have long ago been trodden to mud. As it was, it had only been trodden to dust, the hardy grasses of the Uplands worn away by the relentless passage of soldiers’ boots. The dust clung to the Iron Company banner that stood outside the pavilion, making its fine colours seem muted and drab.

The soldiers on guard duty stood aside to let Elsa pass as she ducked through the flap of the tent. Men’s voices were speaking inside - she recognised the voice of the man talking to the Captain as Al-Makir.

<..only saying our funds are not limitless, sire. The Falcons have a reputation, and their reputation is that they are not cheap.> The talking stopped as Elsa came into view, both men stopping to look.

<Hildebrand,> said Sforza, acknowledging his wizard with a curt bob of his head. <Good to see you back. I trust you succeeded in heading off Rorik’s robbers?>

His greeting trailed off as Adelbert emerged through the flap behind her. Narrowing his eyes, he pointed an imperious finger at the priest.

“You,” he said. “Shiba? Scriba. Scribo.” He snapped his fingers impatiently, trying briefly to remember the name before giving up. “Hildebrand, what in Ranald’s name is this bookworm doing with you?”

OOC: Other players, please feel free to decide for yourselves whether your PCs are in attendance.

[-Sentinel-]

Are they really planning to try to hire the Falcons? thought Elsa. After they've shown themselves willing to stab their employers in the back?

She found she really did not care all that much. It was Sforza's money, and the war had lasted too long.

<Hakon's dead and his men are scattered,> she reported. <No losses on our side, though it was a close thing. Had the Manann's Keep garrison been on their own, things would've gone quite differently.>

To the question about Adelbert, she answered, switching to Reikspiel as the Captain had: "Herr Schreiber is... a representative of the Church of Verena, sir. And an ally in pushing back the Norscans." Which brought her to the more perilous part of her report. "In light of how vulnerable Manann's Keep turned out to be, I've elected to move the artifact to Savonne, where we can better protect it via means both mundane and mystical. For the latter, I've... taken the liberty of involving the churches. Though, of course, all armed guards are ours," she added quickly.

[RossN]

Adelbert

<'She speaks truly Captain,'> Adelbert said in Tilean. He bowed. <'I believe I must congratulate you on your success in the field.'>

He drew a deep breath, trying to fight back the urge to retch and plunged on, switching back to Reikspiel.'We have had our differences but the fact remains you are the victor and the churches want stability and peace. That hope rests in the success of a great prince... and I cannot deny that you are a great prince. It is everyone's interests that your reign go well. In such spirit Capitano..., I offer my services.'

Adelbert gestured at Elsa. 'As Signora Hildebrand states I helped prevent the book falling into Norscan hands, though the heavy fighting was borne by your soldiers and the lady wizardess herself. I admit I lack Hildebrand's power, or her brilliance but I could feel the evil of the tome standing close to it.' He shivered just thinking about it and had to pause a moment to recollect his composure. 'To be honest I am not sure Mannslieb is far enough away to put that terrible thing but I and the others of the churches believe the temple in Savonne to be safer than anywhere in the Reaches.'

[LeSwordfish]

"Signora Sforza agreed to the placement of the book, though she held the priests to a strict set of terms." Ludo said. He resisted the urge to suggest they got Irene up here to negotiate with the Falcons.

[LCP]

“The Temple,” said Sforza, giving Adelbert a stony stare. “I should have known. Anything involving this damned book and up you pop, eh? Like a cat after the cream.” He raised a solitary eyebrow. “You must be happy that this time no-one has crucified you. Yet.”

Finally breaking off his menacing look, he sighed and drew a hand over his face. “I have no patience for this. Irene set the terms?" That was as much acknowledgement as he gave of Ludo's presence. "I know my wife; she would not let any pack of priests get away with robbery. And you say our men are standing guard." He took a long breath. "Just tell me one thing, Hildebrand - is it safe?"

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa was relieved to face no opposition to getting help from the churches.

"Just tell me one thing, Hildebrand - is it safe?"

She considered the question carefully. "Safe? Safe from theft, or safe for us? All I can say is that we made it as safe as we possibly could, in both respects. The Morrites are well known as sworn enemies of necromancers, so I'm fully confident that they're sparing no effort in keeping the Book right where it is."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert's expression darkened at the mention of crucifixion but he said nothing, merely nodding at Elsa's words.

[LCP]

Sforza spent a moment in silence, turning over Elsa’s words. “Alright,” he said, composing himself a little more. “Then that will have to be enough for now. We’ll deal with this when we get back to Savonne.”

Turning to Adelbert, he forced a strained smile. “My apologies if I have been short with you, Signor... Schreiber. You will please convey to your brothers and sisters my gratitude for their assistance in this matter - and my promise that I will bring my full strength to bear against anyone who thinks to remove the book from our joint protection.” The veiled threat was not so veiled, but it was something at least to be treated as more than a worm. Clearly the name of the Temple carried some weight.

“In the meantime, we have other matters to attend to. Hildebrand, we have a parley tomorrow to negotiate the surrender of this fortress. I would like you to be there - showing them that we have our sorcerer back may give us some leverage. Abdul, perhaps you can find a tent for Signor Schreiber.” The Captain’s voice was deadpan and flat. “I’m sure he doesn’t wish to be bored with matters of military strategy.”

[Erulasto]

To Adelbert…

”If Myrmidia allows me to see you again, it would be my honour to sit and discuss theology with you Brother Adelbert. Hopefully in times that are not as…trying as these.” the knight said, raising her gauntleted hands to flash the sign of the Eagle to the Verenan priest. ”Perhaps over a drink?”

To Valdes…

The grumblings that seemed to lay heavy upon the men of the Brotherhood in regards to the Lady Sforza earned a small smile from the Estalian, though she was careful not to make her own opinions known on the matter. The Brotherhood seemed forthright and honest, and their loyalty to the Capitano was appreciated by Astoria. Loyalty seemed a true commodity in these dark days. Sforza was fortunate to have such men at his command.

”Myrmidia watch over you and your men.” she said with a respectful salute to the commander. ”It was an honour to serve alongside you, and rest assured, when I inevitably return to Magritta I shall be telling tales of the bravery and skill of your Brotherhood. You are a credit to our home in these lands.”

To Elsa…

”Of course, my Lady.” Astoria said with something of a cheeky grin. Regardless of what amusement was playing on her features, the knight secured the pickaxe and the torches to her travelling kit on Aminah. The horse had served her well so far she didn’t suspect that the pickaxe and torches would add

Aubentag, 29th Sommerzeit

Astoria followed her companions to Bunthafen, and she allowed a smile of her own to rise at the sight of Sieghard. The troubled expression on his own face was a bit disconcerting, and not for the first time since she had set out to return to the front lines did she wonder at what they had faced in her absence.

”Sieghard. It is good to see you again.” It hadn’t been all that long, but regardless, it felt like an age.

Astoria listened intently to the commentary between her companions, expression darkening as she learned of Alvarr’s scorched earth tactics. It was sound tactically, to be sure. But one had to have a measure of compassion, and it seemed that the Duke cared more for his hatred for Sforza than for the people he was supposed to be governing.

”I do not truly know what greivances are between Adelbert and Sforza, but I do fear that Sforza’s pride may blind him to the greater good in this situation.” mused Astoria a bit dejectedly.

Politics were so tiresome.



I am officially home from my stay as a patient at my own work, and settled into the comfort of familiar surroundings. Also means I can use my desktop instead of a little notebook to get posts up. Huzzah!



With Sforza...

Astoria accompanied her companions to meet with Sforza once she had found a place to set Aminah to rest for the time. She would come back later and tend to the horse - ensuring she was brushed down and given ample food and water.

Listening to Sforza, he seemed somewhat more amenable than the Estalian had expected. Which was a pleasant surprise.

"The Book is dangerous, regardless of where we are able to keep it. A single drop of blood was enough to give it the power to raise the Norscans we killed."

When talk came of strategy, her interest piqued further, and she fell silent as she waited to hear what news there was.

[RossN]

Adelber


To Adelbert…

”If Myrmidia allows me to see you again, it would be my honour to sit and discuss theology with you Brother Adelbert. Hopefully in times that are not as…trying as these.” the knight said, raising her gauntleted hands to flash the sign of the Eagle to the Verenan priest. ”Perhaps over a drink?”

Adelbert smiled. 'Thank you caballera, it would be a privilege.'


'Thank you Capitano,' Adelbert replied, dipping his head in a light bow before following Abdul out of the tent.

[LCP]

Abdul was swift and efficient in finding a spot for Adelbert, on the other side of the militia encampment and about as far as possible from the Captain’s tent. Handing Adelbert over to two of his men, he took his leave with a thin smile.

“If you want for anything, please come find me. It’s best not to trouble the Captain in these times,” said Al-Makir. “He has many things weighing on his mind. You will understand for your own sake, Herr Schreiber, you might find it best not to be… underfoot.”


~

Back in the tent, Sforza didn’t have much to tell them that they hadn’t already learned from Sieghard. Falkenwald had agreed to meet tomorrow, and he wanted Elsa there as a show of strength. “I will be doing the talking,” he said. “All you need to do is stand there and let them know who you are.”

Sinking back into his folding chair, he gave a weary sigh. “We’ve already been delayed here far too long. We should have been pressing Alvarr every step of the way back to his city. Instead we’ve been stuck here for what, a month?” He shook his head. “I wish we’d had you with us, Hildebrand. Still, how is it you say? No use crying over the spilled milk.” He looked up to Elsa. “Dawn, tomorrow. Be ready.”



Marktag, 30th Sommerzeit

The next day dawned dry and windy, a strong smell of smoke blowing from the west. Standing beside his fluttering standard, the Captain waited with his officers for the defenders of Bunthafen to make their appearance. They appeared to be taking their time.

“This is horse-****,” grumbled Dolokhov, watching the gates with a sour expression. “They take Edouard’s coin, they fight us here for weeks, and now they want to talk?” He snorted and muttered something insulting in Gospodar. “It’s a trick. We know they still have supplies. You should have that wizard of yours burn them out, like the rats they are.”

“Falkenwald‘s playing both sides of the game,” said Abdul, in more measured tones. “He takes Alvarr’s money because it is money he does not have to share. He holds out on us because he knows the longer he holds, the more valuable his defection becomes to us. And now he seeks to deal while his position is still strong.”

“M - Ranald’s balls, Abdul,” said Carraciolo, thinking better of a Myrmidian curse when he caught sight of Astoria, “you’ve got a mind like a corkscrew. Do you sit up at night thinking on these things for fun?”

Abdul grinned. “Friend Giovanni, are you forgetting how we met?.”

Sforza held up a hand for silence. The gates had inched open, just wide enough for a small party to emerge in single file. They were on horseback, and their horses looked well-fed - Dolokhov was clearly right that the defenders’ supplies still ran deep.

Falkenwald’s men were clearly well-equipped too. Where the Storm Swords carried a mix of armour and weapons that looked as old and battered as the men themselves, the Falcons were all kitted out in sleek half-plate and burgonets, reminiscent of the young men of the pistolier companies that Elsa remembered from the taverns around the Emperor’s Palace back home. The armour was where the similarity ended - these were not boastful youths, but serious men with serious scars.

Falkenwald was with them, but there was no sign of the woman Gunda. As the leader of the Falcons dismounted and shook the Captain’s hand, Sieghard scanned the battlements of the fortress, wondering if one of the grey silhouettes up there might be her.

Falkenwald was as he remembered him - professional, well-spoken, and significantly taller than the Captain, which seemed to rankle with Sforza a little. “Captain Sforza,” he said, “your reputation precedes you. It’s good to finally speak face to face.” Folding his hands behind his back with the automatic motion of a soldier on parade, he looked around at the assembled company. “This is all very neat. Is there anything more pleasing than a well-ordered camp?”

“I can think of a few things,” said Sforza, skipping the pleasantries. “The surrender of Bunthafen would be one.”

“It’s a fine fortress, isn’t it?” said Falkenwald. “A place like this, fifty men could hold it against five thousand.” He paused, looking around. “I have to observe, you don’t have five thousand men. If you’re expecting us to quit, you must have some powerful reason in mind.”

“I suppose I must,” muttered Sforza. He remained silent for a short while, scrutinising his fellow mercenary’s face - then, abruptly, he perked up and clapped his hands. “But where are my manners? Introductions are in order. Commander Falkenwald, this is Beatrix Hildebrand, my court wizard. Just returned from the south.” He held out a hand, presenting Elsa like a prize pony. “And this is Caballera D’Evangelisti, of the Order of the Blazing Sun. You may have heard of her actions at Arrow Heap? A firm friend of our company.”

“Ladies,” said Falkenwald, bowing, “charmed.” A glimmer of recognition dawned as his eyes lingered on Elsa’s face. “Though I think we may have met before.”

[RossN]

Adelbert

'My dear Abdul,' Adelbert drawled, 'I wouldn't dream of bothering the prince, but I thank you for your advice. I'll remember it. I have an excellent memory.'

Once the treasure had departed Adelbert took stock of his surroundings and set down his bedroll. He doubted he'd get much sleep but by Verena he was going to try.

[-Sentinel-]

The banter between Carraciolo and Abdul caught Elsa's attention. It occurred to her that she had never asked how an Arabyan had come to work for Captain Sforza. This would be an interesting topic for a later conversation.

She stood stiffly by the Captain's side during the introductions, putting on her best expression of grim competence.


"Though I think we may have met before."

"We have," said Elsa in a curt tone that betrayed nothing. "In Putbad, in the company of Lady Groz."

She thought it best not to say too much. She had a checkered history when it came to negotiations.

[LCP]

"Yes," said Falkenwald. He lowered his gaze. "A pity, what happened to her husband."

"You'll be pleased to hear that she is well, and under my protection in Savonne," said Sforza. "As is her child. A son, I believe."

"That is good to hear," said Falkenwald. "But we didn't come here to speak of the fortunes of the Groz family, Captain."

"No," said Sforza, "we did not." He stepped aside and motioned with his arm towards the command tent. "This way."

Leaving their various lieutenants inside, the two commanders headed inside and out of view.


~

It was almost an hour later when Sforza and Falkenwald re-appeared. The Captain's face did not look as dark as Elsa would expect if he had got nothing from the exchange - she presumed they had a deal.

"Four days, then," said Falkenwald, as he rejoined his men and mounted his horse. Sforza nodded. "Four days."

Watching the Falcons ride back to the gates, Sforza shook his head. <That one has some gall,> he muttered to himself.

After they had waited for a moment in patient silence, Abdul loudly cleared his throat. "Captain?" he asked. "What is the news?"

"Alvarr only had the money to buy them for a month," said Sforza. "They will honour their contract, and hold the fortress until Sonnstill. Then Falkenwald has agreed to turn it over to us."

That was cause for some happiness among the assembled listeners. "A bloodless victory, then!" said Carraciolo. "We could break camp tomorrow."

Sforza shook his head. "I won't leave a knife at my back on trust that it won't be used. Falkenwald named a price; I intend to pay it. He'll march with us into the valley." That seemed to put a damper on the happiness of Dolokhov and Al-Makir, which Sforza immediately noticed. "We'll need every body we can get for the siege of Alvarran," he explained, "and his men are good soldiers. More than that, we keep them where we can see them."

"Alvarran will be... difficult to besiege," said Abdul. "Alvarr has left nothing for us to forage. Our supply lines will be stretched thin."

"Then we secure them. With Falkenwald we will have the manpower." Sforza seemed to have shifted from discontent to decisiveness - definitely a preferable mood. "We'll raise new levies in the Downlands and block the pass. For now, I want our path through the Karst scouted, and the whole army ready to move come Angestag." He grasped Carraciolo by the shoulder, giving him a comradely shake. "This is his last bolthole, Giovanni. Alvarran is where we end it."

"You remember our deal?" demanded Dolokhov, still disgruntled. "Siege or no siege, Edouard is ours."

"Of course," said the Captain. "Signor Dolokhov, I am nothing if not a man of my word."

[-Sentinel-]

More sieges, thought Elsa, her heart sinking. More waiting around, and more starvation. And now Sforza was talking of raising levies, which would only take farmers away from their crops.

She cleared her throat for attention. "Sir. At this rate we'll be eating our horses by fall, and our boots by winter. I know it's early in the season, but we may already need to consider rationing. For soldiers and civilians and rich and poor alike."


OOC

"You remember our deal?" demanded Dolokhov, still disgruntled. "Siege or no siege, Edouard is ours."
I don't remember this part, I must admit. But Elsa won't miss a chance of taking another shot at Alvarr if she thinks it'll end the war quicker.

[Erulasto]

The Estalian gave the sign of the Eagle to Falkenwald upon the Sforza's introduction.

"It is a pleasure, sir." she said succinctly.



Sieges were, by their very nature, the best way to take a fortification. Astoria knew this, objectively, but she did share some of Elsa’s concern about food. Waiting for Alvarr’s troops to run low on food and, eventually, morale would take time.

Time she wasn’t entirely sure they had.

Especially if they were going to begin rationing. That would buy them a little extra time, but there was a chance it would further plunge the region into greater depths of need.

Regardless, Astoria would be ready to ride when the army set out.

[LeSwordfish]

"Isn't there a plague in Alvarran?" Ludo asked. "That will make it easier."

[LCP]

"We control the Reaches from north to south," said Sforza. "We'll bring our reserves up from Last Water and the Vale. By river, by road, right to Alvarr's doorstep. We have the routes to the north, too - we'll buy supplies in from outside if we have to." Abdul winced at the mention of further costs. "Giovanni will tell you, Hildebrand - I do not let my soldiers starve."

Abdul politely cleared his throat. "As I mentioned, Captain," he said, "those supply lines will be extremely extended. Many more men survived the battle at Arrow Heap than went with the Duke. Armed men who will jump at the chance of robbing our caravans if it turns a quick schilling."

"Then we will put them down," said Sforza. He was clearly growing impatient with this line of questioning. "Post a force at Putbad, Savonne, wherever. I think our men can deal with a few bandits and deserters. Four days, gentlemen," he said, making it clear this was an end to the matter. "Make sure you are ready to march."

[-Sentinel-]

Four days.

More than enough time.

Elsa spoke up again: "Captain, if we're not expecting any fighting in the next few days, I'd like to do some digging around Harmugstahl. I've passed through before and can confirm that true to local lore, it was once inhabited by wizards. They might have left behind something valuable."

[LCP]

Sforza grunted. "The last time you went looking for such things, what you found was more trouble than it was worth," he said. He paused. "How many men do you need?"

[-Sentinel-]

"Need I remind you that one of these expeditions also brought you a nice big chest of gold?" said Elsa. Although he did have a point; the Lost Library had cost a few ahosi lives and brought Sforza nothing that was especially useful. "Hmm. I came mostly to ask for permission rather than men. Although there are trolls roaming the area, so a few blades couldn't hurt. Or crossbows. I've worked well with Commander Sieghard in the past. A party of eight or ten should do."


OOC
This number includes PCs.

[LCP]

Sforza didn't seem pleased with Elsa's tone, but the mention of the gold from Kheneb-Ptra-Urush gave him pause. Clearly money was no longer no object.

"You don't go charging off into the Karst without protection," he said. He hesitated a moment longer, still thinking. "Abdul wants men to guard our supply lines. You can go with them and make your 'expedition' along the way." He still seemed a little reluctant to send his wizard away, but the decision was made. "Use the bird to stay in touch with our main force. I'm not planning to storm the walls, but plans may change."


~

Sieghard had just about got back to his men when he was accosted by an Iron Company runner. Already the discipline of the siege was beginning to break down as news of the Captain's deal spread - Carraciolo and the others were having to bark and shout to get their men to stick to their posts. The possibility still remained that Falkenwald's agreement was a trick.

"Orders from the Captain," said the Tilean, pointing back towards the command tent. "He wants to see you."

"Sieghard," said Sforza, when Sieghard arrived. "I'm rotating you and your men back from the front. You've been on the sharp end long enough." He poured a cup of wine for himself, then offered one to Sieghard. "Bunthafen needs a garrison - I want you to pick thirty of your men, and someone to lead them. Someone reliable, without ideas above his station. The rest of you are going back to Savonne. Secure our supply lines from Manann's Keep to Putbad, and set a patrol on the mouth of Pieter's Pass. Let it be known that anyone trying to run supplies to Alvarran will be treated without mercy."

Taking a seat in his camp chair, he took a swig from his cup. "If that isn't enough for you, you can do some recruiting too. After Arrow Heap there ought to be plenty of fighting men looking for work. Let them know there's food and good pay on the winning side - as many of them as you can get. Irene and Esteban will have instructions to assist you. And finally, Hildebrand says she has an errand to run on the way. Shouldn't need more than ten of your men." He swirled the wine around his cup, some part of his mind clearly somewhere else. "You can leave as soon as you're ready."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard nodded. "I think I know just the man for the job," he said, an idea beginning to come together in his head. "How urgent is Hildebrand's errand? I could have things arranged and set out tomorrow morning if need be. Or, if you prefer my men stay nearby in case Falkenwald means to play you false-" he continued, his tone making it clear that he thought Falkenwald was the sort who might, "I can wait until the fortress is in our hands and use the time to recruit."

[LCP]

Sforza shrugged. "Ask her," he said. "We have more than enough men to handle the Falcons."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard returned to camp and found Ludo. "Walk with me for a bit," he said and began to recount his meeting with Sforza. "You've spent more time with her than me lately" he said once he had finished. "Do you have any idea what it is that Elsa's after?"

[LeSwordfish]

Ludo thought for a moment then shook his head. "She hasn't mentioned anything since Harmugstahl. There was one moment when the book opened when she and Adelbert went a bit funny, but she snapped out of it straight away? She's definitely not mentioned anything."

"Although," he added, "you were there. It didn't look like the sort of place you'd find fabulous treasure in. She must have something in mind."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"She really ought to tell us what she's got in mind before volunteering us to run off to who knows where," Sieghard grumbled. They were approaching where the halberdiers had set up their tents. "Soon as we're done with this I play on finding out,"

"Oswald," he called out once he found the man, "Come here, I've got a job for you. Word's already spreading, so maybe you've heard... If the Falcons keep true to their word, in four days Bunthafen will be ours. Four days and the Captain plans on moving the Iron Company up to Alvarran to starve the Duke out, but he needs someone to hold the fortress for him. Do you think you're up to the task?"

[LCP]

Oswald looked a little suspicious at being called for, but puffed out his chest like a pigeon as soon as he heard why. "Hup to it? 'Course I'm up to it. Me and the boys was garrisoning the Keep for years before His Tilean Nibs came along." He paused, wondering if he had perhaps overstepped his bounds. "Meaning no offence to His Nibs, of course."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Good," Sieghard replied. "It's a strong fortress. I doubt it will come under attack, but you should easily be able to hold it against any enemy so long as supplies last; Make sure they do. You'll have command of thirty men - half halberdiers and half crossbowmen. Is there anyone in particular you want?"

[LCP]

"Heinfried's a solid sort," said Oswald. "Tell you who I don't want, if you don't mind, sir - Roth, or any of his lot. Too big for their britches by half."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

That was about the answer Sieghard had expected. "I don't think that'll be a problem," he replied. "Gods willing, the Captain will starve Alvarr out and it'll be ended without any more fighting. Show me that you can be counted on here - that you can do more than just shout orders, but actually lead and earn the respect of the men you command - and I'm sure there will be more chances for you once the war is done."

"I don't suppose we have anyone other than Ingwald that knows how to write?" Sieghard asked Ludo after they had left. "I doubt there's any way for him to get into any trouble guarding a fortress, but I'd still rest easier if we were getting regular reports." As little as a year ago he had nothing but disdain for the written word, but after seeing how easily Morrslieb could deliver messages he was beginning to see how useful it could be.

[LeSwordfish]

"Nat knows his letters, and apparently one of the Volunteers does too, a man called... Dio, Diel, something like that? Not as fluently, though. We could always hire a local, though, someone to do the numbers for the garrison. Might be useful to have someone who knows the town. Much as Oswald isn't a fan, a couple of Roth's men might keep them honest and know the area better."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard shook his head. "We'll need Nat as much as we'll need Ingwald. Hiring someone may be best... Diel is an option, but I already told him it would be halberdiers and crossbowmen garrisoning the fortress and I'd rather not send one of the Volunteers alone," he said. "None of Roth's lot either. The Thorns we send can keep them honest and half the reason I gave Oswald the job was to keep him and Heinfried away from them. Too much of Fischwillen's influence in those two... Not so much that we can't break them of it, but still something to be careful about."

~

"So what's this errand all about," he asked Elsa once they had found her.

[-Sentinel-]

"So what's this errand all about," he asked Elsa once they had found her.

"It's about getting all the advantages we can for the next war," said Elsa at once, as if she had been mentally rehearsing this conversation. "I want to know what's down the pit of Harmugstahl. I bought us pickaxes."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"The pit," Sieghard said, unamused. "The one that screamed last time we were in that place? And you volunteered my men to go digging in it? What could possibly be down there that would offer any sort of advantage in anything?"

[Erulasto]

Four days was plenty of time.

The somewhat old spear Astoria had picked up in Manaan’s Keep had served her reliably so far, though it hadn’t had a chance to be truly tested in the heat of combat. As such, Astoria spent some of her time running through drills with the weapon, trying to get a feel for the spear.

She would have to try and find Abdul to see if he could wrangle up something in a little better condition than the one she’d currently had.

Besides that, Astoria sought out Brother Adelbert.

When she found him, she offered him a friendly smile.

”Brother, are you still tending to the wounded? Would you care for an extra set of hands, by chance? While I am by no means a skilled surgeon, I have experience with battlefield triage.”

[LeSwordfish]

"The pit," Sieghard said, unamused. "The one that screamed last time we were in that place?"

"Don't worry," Ludo deadpanned, "she bought us pickaxes."

[-Sentinel-]

"The pit," Sieghard said, unamused. "The one that screamed last time we were in that place? And you volunteered my men to go digging in it? What could possibly be down there that would offer any sort of advantage in anything?"
"Look. If it's your men you're worried about," said Elsa, sounding increasingly vehement, "we'll let them stay upstairs. I'll let you stay upstairs, if you'd prefer. Also this isn't just a matter of gaining advantages, but also denying them to the enemy. You know as well as I do that manpower alone won't defeat a god. We need knowledge, we need magic. Our time's running out; we can't afford to wait until Alvarran has fallen before we start preparing for the actual war."

[LeSwordfish]

"I trust you on magic stuff." Ludo said, though he sounded dubious. "But... do you know if there's something specific down there, or do you just think there's something nasty?"

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"What advantages?" Sieghard demanded. "If I can't change your mind then I'm not going to let you go alone and get yourself eaten by trolls or whatever's down there. But if you're going to drag us down some cursed hole and involve men who were unsettled enough just being near the thing, then I at least want to know what you think is down there."

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa seemed at a loss for a moment. "I'm guessing something that the wizards of Harmugstahl drew power from," she said at last. "The tower had some sort of apparatus to focus the Winds. I want to see if I can somehow tap into their well of power. If not... well, we can just walk away. We're not taking anything that'll be a burden, like we did with the Book."

Then again, with the Book, we didn't have a choice. It was that or remaining stuck in the Lost Library.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"The wizards had a painting that looked a lot like the daemon of the Library," Sieghard pointed out. "For all we know, that's what they drew power from."

"I'm not ordering anyone down the hole," he said after a long pause. "I'll go myself, but I still think this is a bad idea."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert was still in his tent. The priest looked happy to see Astoria, though he shook his head when the templar offered her aid.

'Thank you Caballera but there are no wounded, at least that I know and I'm not about to chance the Tilean's good graces by poking my nose around camp... to tell you the truth the quicker we are away the better.'

[-Sentinel-]

"I'm not ordering anyone down the hole," he said after a long pause. "I'll go myself, but I still think this is a bad idea."
Elsa nodded. "Fair enough." She could understand his reluctance, following the Rivermouth disaster. "I've no more desire to die than you do. But we won't defeat Nahorek without taking a few leaps into the unknown."

[Erulasto]

”Of course.” said Astoria with a smile as she listened to the Priest of Verena. ”I will admit that I am not entirely familiar with all the details of the conflict between yourself and the Capitano, but the tension between you both could be cut easier than butter. May I inquire as to what the problem stemmed from?”

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert frowned, and remained silent for a moment, obviously thinking through his reply. 'Have you sworn an oath of loyalty to the Tilean Astoria?'

[Erulasto]

"Not exactly, no." said Astoria with a shake of her head. "I am collecting a salary from Sforza by acting as a..well...a bodyguard for Elsa. But my oaths are to the Order of the Blazing Sun and the temple of Myrmidia. It serves my purpose while I assist in dealing with the Book and Nahorek."

[LeSwordfish]

Ludo still suspected Elsa knew more than she was letting on. "Well, you know we're with you. Adelbert and Astoria too, I expect. When are we going?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert hesitated. 'Frankly while I do have personal scores against Sforza I think Elsa and the others were wrong to support Sforza. I thought then and still think we should have sided with the Duke. I believe the Tilean was involved with the greenskins and that he orchestrated the death of Commander Evatt - the poor mad fool who used to rule Mannan's Keep.'

[LCP]

Sieghard was in no hurry. He spent the rest of the day making his arrangements to leave, hand-picking the men who would make up Oswald’s garrison – and the squad that would accompany them into the Karst.

For the latter he chose two of the halberd militia and three of the Thorns. The halberdiers’ names were Hartmann and Durnhelm; the Thorns’ were Silas, Steffan and Thom, though the other crossbowmen called him Whispering Thom on account of his exceptionally loud voice. The last three were all men who had been with the company long enough to remember Adelbert as a friend, and they greeted him as such, full of curiosity about where the wizard’s mission was taking them.

Ingwald watched all the planning with suspicion. Sieghard suspected he was merely put out at being left behind, but the canny crossbowman did his best to find an angle he could work. “I don’t like it, boss,” he said. “Splitting us up, sending us every which way... seems like counting our chickens to me.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “You really going to give over good Thorns to that prat Oswald?”



Backertag, 31st Sommerzeit

The ten of them left camp the next morning, the Captain having been informed of their plans and Ludo having ensured they had plenty of provisions for the journey – particularly water. They were three days out from the summer solstice, and the sun was already hot on the back of their necks as they turned west into the rocks of the Karst.

The Harmugstahl passage was much as they remembered it from the last time they had come this way. Choked with weeds, fallen boulders and gravel, it was slow going even for those on horseback. Morrslieb circled above the trail, riding the thermals that rose off the baking rocks to keep a beady eye out for trolls or bandits on the path ahead. Thankfully, he saw none.

The day was dying when they finally came upon the ruins, tired from their long day’s march. A number of crows or ravens were perched on the broken wall that sealed off the overgrown courtyard of the tower, and flew up in agitation when the party approached. After a brief aerial altercation, Morrslieb dived down onto Elsa’s shoulder, croaking indignation at how rudely he had been received.

The militiamen kept a tight grip on their weapons, not approaching the ruins until Sieghard led them closer. “Thought we’d seen the back of this place,” said Steffan, scanning the gravel-strewn courtyard with a wary eye. It looked deserted, empty but for fallen masonry and growths of spiny weeds.

Still squawking and squabbling, the crows began to settle on the ravaged roof of the central tower, above that broken window that seemed to stare like an empty eye-socket across the Karst. The sun was sinking fast, lending the shadows within an inky blackness that put the birds’ coal-coloured feathers to shame.

[Erulasto]

Adelbert’s hesitation drew an arched brow from Astoria, curiosity plain upon her features as she listened to the priest speak.

”That is fair. We all do what we feel is right in this life.” said the knight. ”While I have no real love for the Capitano himself, I cannot say I feel much better for the Duke. When I arrived in the Reaches here at the behest of my Order and the church of the Eagle in Magritta, it was the Duke’s men who clapped me in irons and sought to deliver me for execution.”

Astoria shrugged idly.

”But no respectable man should ally with something so monstrous as the Greenskins. May I ask what led you to this conclusion?”


Backertag, 31st Sommerzeit

Astoria hadn't seen this Harmugstahl herself before, but the strange structure in the heart of the Karst didn't do much to allay any creeping misgivings she may have had. With the torches and miner's pick that Elsa had given her securely strapped to Aminah, Astoria reigned in her horse at the head of their group and eyed the tower curiously.

"Why anyone would want to live out here, I could not venture a guess."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked like he would much rather be having a different conversation. 'It is complicated and, well, based on hunches. Look please forget I said anything. For the moment it seems we're stuck with the Tilean.'

OOC:
I think Astoria will probably need to get Adelbert drunk to get the whole story - they are still strangers and even though she's made a good first impression on him he is trying to keep secrets that could see him executed stay secret. :smalltongue:

Backertag, 31st Sommerzeit

Adelbert looked around the ruins with interests. Nothing obviously stood out to him, but presumably Elsa had brought them up here for something other than pure archaeology. He dismounted Bella and withdrew his writing kit and and a sheaf of parchment from his pack. If there was any inscriptions they'd come across he'd be ready.

'Well... it has a certain lonely splendour,' Adelbert commented in answer to Astoria's question.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"We don't have enough men to garrison the fortress from only one unit," Sieghard replied. "And if it does somehow come under attack, crossbows on the walls will do more to hold it than anything else. As for Oswald, not a lot of ways he can get into trouble stuck in Bunthafen."

Backertag, 31st Sommerzeit

“Thought we’d seen the back of this place,”

"And if it was up to me, we would've," Sieghard said, not hiding his own distaste. "Captain's wizard wants to poke around some more so we've got to keep her from being a troll's dinner."

[LCP]

30th Sommerzeit

"Plenty of ways he can make trouble for the poor sods who get stuck with him," muttered Ingwald. "They come under attack with him in charge, they're going to have a whole lot more to worry about than how many bows they've got."

If he had more to say, he didn't say it - he'd made his opinion clear enough.


31st Sommerzeit

"Right," said Steffan, obedient but far from enthusiastic. "Wizard business."

The others looked to Elsa, curious to hear what she wanted from them. The light was going quickly - already the jagged rocks that surrounded the ruins had cast the whole of the courtyard into their lengthening shadows.

[-Sentinel-]

31st Sommerzeit

"Well, it's been a long day," said Elsa. "Let's get some rest."

She knew most members of her escort were none too enthusiastic about this venture and she was not about to make herself unpopular by pushing them too far. Not to mention that if the sound of their picks attracted anything nasty from these mountains, it was best to see it coming and fight it by daylight, though she found it best not to voice this consideration.

"I think I'll sleep in the courtyard. There's some residual magic inside this tower that's tickling the edge of my mind in an annoying way," she lied. She hoped the rest of the group would do the same as her and opt to sleep outside, as she suspected the pit might do another scary thing if they slept too close. Not that this would deter her, but it might make it harder to convince the others to stay the course.

[LCP]

Setting their camp in a sheltered corner between the rocks and the tumbledown outer wall, the soldiers tried to gather enough brushwood for a small fire. As the dusk dimmed into night, the crows atop the ruined tower croaked down at the glimmer of firelight below, as if concerned the humans would be taking their rooftop roost next.

Elsa Only
As the last of the sunlight faded into darkness, Elsa could see the gossamer threads of Chamon and Azyr trailing from the latticework of the broken window, like a glittering spiderweb drifting in the wind. The magic was old, attenuated – but it was still here. It would probably linger over these stones long after she was dead.

OOC: Assuming here that waiting for tomorrow/camping in the courtyard is not too controversial - stop me if I'm going too fast.



Bezahltag, 32nd Sommerzeit

Adelbert woke with a dry throat and a sore back, the stony ground not having been conducive to a good night’s sleep. Memories of the Library that had troubled his dreams lingered for a minute or two in the waking world – though the sky was clear and blue, the squawking crows reminded him unpleasantly of another beast with a beak.

Sieghard’s soldiers were already up and about, checking the rocks around the ruins to make sure nothing had crept up on them during the night. Sticking his head through the dark breach in the wall of the tower itself, Whispering Thom shouted the all-clear.

[-Sentinel-]

32nd Sommerzeit

Elsa was almost surprised to have gotten a peaceful night's sleep. Hopefully this was a good omen. She wolfed down a sizeable ration of nuts and dried meat while the Thorns scoured the area.

"Let's get this started," she said, putting on her gloves and grabbing her pickaxe. "We'll start gently... see if we can chip the cement around the bars without making too much noise. We're not in any rush. If we've made no progress by mid-morning, we'll go harder at it. But I want eyes behind us at all times."

She gave the first few tentative strikes just in case there was some spell in place against attempts to damage the well.

[LCP]

No magical retribution followed Elsa's first tentative strike, just the loud clink of metal on stone. Her hopes of doing this quietly looked to be on shaky ground - what the rubble-strewn central chamber of the tower lacked in home comforts, it made up for in acoustics. Echoes reverberated off the hard stone walls, filling the ruin with their fading sound.

The Thorns took guard duty as Durnhelm and Hartmann took the other picks, setting about dislodging the rusted iron bars with rather more force than Elsa's thin wizard arms could muster. The bars were a later addition to the well, and their ends were not set in solid stone; still it took the best part of an hour's hard labour before they had dug out enough of it to give the rusted grille freedom to move. By the time they were done, the lip of the well looked like it had been chewed by a particularly determined troll.

"Don't let it slip, now" said Durnhelm, gripping the bars of the grille as Hartmann and the others took positions to haul it out. There was no question of taking it out bar by bar - time and the moisture wafting from below had fused it into one rusted whole. "One, two - heave!"

With a loud scrape of iron on stone, the bars pulled loose, a drizzle of ancient mortar falling into the darkness below. It teetered for a moment on the edge of the well, Sieghard's men digging in their heels against its awkward weight. Then, with a united pull, they dragged it clear and let it clatter to the floor.

Stepping past the panting soldiers, Adelbert peered over the lip of the well. A slick set of steps led down into the darkness, carved into the limestone wall of the well shaft itself. Beyond them, he could see only shadow - and hear the dripping of water, far below.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Right," Sieghard said. "Hildebrand wants to have a look at whatever's beneath all this. I'll be going down with her, you lot can keep watch over the hole." He turned to Elsa. "We can keep Morrslieb up here with them and have him signal somehow if there's anything we need to let them know."

[Erulasto]

32nd Sommerzeit

As the sun rose, Astoria worked her way through her morning prayers and the ritual donning of her armour as swiftly as she could and maintain respectfulness. Once prepared, she joined the others, working with one of the mining picks to help clear the stone for a while. As they neared completion, the Estalian gathered her shield and weapons instead, ready to descend when they were ready.

"I will join you, if that serves well. If there is something down there, any extra blade will help."

[LeSwordfish]

"I'm in." Ludo said, peering nervously down the well. "Can't be any worse than the library, can it? Or Kheneb. Or..."

He started down the stairs, before he'd had too much time to worry about it.

[LCP]

The steps were narrow and precipitous, with nothing to guard against the sheer drop into darkness on the open side. Ludo had no trouble keeping his balance, but for Astoria in her armour it was a different question altogether. She descended slowly and very, very carefully.

It was perhaps a hundred and twenty feet to the bottom, though the cylindrical shaft of the well itself only extended the few yards it took to penetrate the floor of the tower. Below that, the space around them opened up into what looked like a natural cavern, the steps crept down in an irregular track over walls of undulating limestone. A faint column of daylight filtered in from the mouth well above them; outside its limits, the walls of the cave were hidden in darkness.

Reaching the bottom with the others, Elsa lit up the first of her torches. Dark water reflected the dancing firelight – a deep, still pool in the rough shape of a teardrop, its thin end towards them. Looking up at the shaft through which they had descended, and the remains of broken stalagmites at the water’s edge, Ludo was struck by the way these things fell on one line – as if something had come crashing through at an angle from above.

The disintegrated remains of wooden structures lingered by the water’s edge, long since gone to rot and mould in the damp air. Beyond them, they could just make out a number of vertical fissures in the cavern walls, reaching back into darkness. Some were wide, some were narrow, branching off to all the points of the compass. Where they led, only Ranald knew.

Adelbert Only
Something about the cavern made Adelbert’s skin crawl. There was something profane about this place, about the dark water that glittered so calmly in the light of Elsa’s torch. Above all, he had a sensation of being watched – as if he was trespassing in a place he didn’t belong.

Elsa Only
For Elsa, just breathing the air in the cavern was intoxicating. Raw magic wafted on the vapour that rose from the surface of the pool, iridescent as oil. If the tower above had been build to channel the Aethyr, then this was the source.

As she took a step forwards, something in the corner of her eye caught the torchlight. By one of the cracks in what she reckoned to be the north wall of the cavern, a large black feather, still glossy and fresh, had drifted to the ground. Morrslieb was still up above – besides which, this was two or three times bigger than the largest of the raven’s flight feathers. For just a moment, she thought she caught the faintest whiff of ash and iron.

OOC: Here’s a map of the cavern, showing the pool and the locations of the openings in the walls.:

https://i.postimg.cc/cJRBZJZs/Central-Cavern.png

You can see the steps you descended on the east wall.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa only

So they left me a sign, thought Elsa, eyeing the feather. Perhaps she was being played like a fiddle. Perhaps they were leading her into a trap, or making her do something terrible that would spell doom for countless people. But she also knew they would never leave her alone until she followed the path they had laid for her, and that she had no means of defending herself from them if they grew impatient with her. Just thinking about them, her hand itched where it had last scraped against a nail.

She was scared of them.

More scared than she liked to admit.

But the only way was forward. Elsa had come this far, and refusing to play their games would not make them go away. She only felt guilty about roping her friends into this without telling them the whole truth. She swore to herself that if a moment came where one person had to die down here, she would not shy away from being that person.

Of course, that choice was not always given.


Elsa was silent for a moment. She seemed hesitant, or perhaps troubled.

"This looks like it's actually going somewhere," she said at last in a low voice, pointing at the northern crack. "I'll lead the way. Stay close."

[RossN]

Adelbert

'We are in a fell place,' Adelbert murmured as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Instinctively he found himself making the sign of the hammer he'd been taught as a boy.

'Elsa can you feel it... almost like being watched?'

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Watched? Do you think something lives down here?" Sieghard asked. The grate had to have been put in place for a reason... perhaps to keep something from escaping...

"Let me walk in front. Astoria, guard the rear."

[roll0] vs 46 Perception. Sieghard is looking for signs of anything living down here... Tracks, remnants of a recent meal, waste, the like.

[-Sentinel-]

'Elsa can you feel it... almost like being watched?'

"That's a common feeling when you have the wizard's sight," said Elsa, trying to sound dismissive. "Mundane people are blissfully ignorant of how often something is watching them."


"Let me walk in front. Astoria, guard the rear."

Elsa looked like she was about to object to Sieghard taking the lead, then decided against it.

[LCP]

Another, much smaller pool hugged the side of the passageway Elsa had chosen, extending just a few yards to the point where the tunnel started to narrow. Kicking a pebble over the edge, Adelbert watched it sink out of sight. There was no sign of a bottom - who knew how much more of the cave system lay beneath their feet, drowned under dark water?

The tunnel ran surprisingly straight, radiating away from the cavern. Past the entrance, it was just wide enough for two of the party to pass one another, though it seemed to Sieghard's eyes to be slowly narrowing as they advanced away from the pool. Darkness waited ahead of them, and darkness followed behind them, the light of the torch only reaching about ten yards ahead.

After they had followed the tunnel some distance into the dark, it began to narrow further. Sieghard paused, suspecting a dead end. At the edge of the torchlight up ahead, he thought he could see a side passage branching off to the left, a crooked crack in the rock barely wide enough to squeeze through in single file.

Ludo
Walking 'safely' in the centre of the group, Ludo had been idly trailing his hand along the rock wall, the way he'd used to on visits to the mineshaft back in Sermena. As he approached where Sieghard had stopped, he felt his fingers brush against what felt like worked stone. It could just be structural, there to brace up the cavern roof or the remains of some obstacle that had been removed - but he could have sworn he felt a seam.

OOC: Never know when Trade (Miner) will come in handy!

[Erulasto]

Once safely down, Astoria lit up her own torch and held it aloft. For now, she kept her sword sheathed at her hip - but her polished shield was held tightly in hand. Copper eyes narrowed at Adelbert's statement of being watched, and as calmly as she was able, she let her gaze sweep to and fro.

"If something does dwell down here, I do not suspect it would be living. Not by any stretch of the imagination."

A simple nod was all the knight gave to Sieghard as she fell in behind her companions, occasionally turning to cast a cautious glance behind her. As they approached the end of the tunnel, Astoria set her torch down on the ground behind them to set a perimeter of light while her hand fell to the pommel of her blade. Her spear would prove to only be a hindrance in such tight confines.

"I do not like this..." she muttered softly.

[LeSwordfish]

"Um", Ludo said, sudden in the quiet of the cave. "Someone's done something here."

He was carefully moving his fingertips across one section of the wall, brow furrowed in concentration. "This rock here is worked stone. Someone dug this out, or shored the tunnel up, or something. Or... feel this." He drew his dagger and started tracing the wall with it's point, trying to follow something up and around. "There's a seam here. Like a doorway or something." Ludo paused, then brought his lantern as close to the wall as possible, inspecting the stone closely.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Despite (or maybe because of) his unease Adelbert's mouth quirked in amusement. 'Secret rooms in ruined fortresses... I feel like in the Nuln Players production of The Desolate Prisoner of Karak Kadrin.'

The priest glanced thoughtfully at Elsa. 'Can you sense if this door - if that is what it is - would be trapped by sorcery?'

[LCP]

By the close light of the lamp, the seam in the stone was more clearly visible. Some effort had clearly been made to disguise it, the rock to both sides doing its best to blend in with the natural walls of the tunnel - but to Ludo's eyes it certainly seemed like it traced the outline of a door.

Searching its surface with the lantern, Ludo could find no sign of a handle or keyhole, just a few symbols scratched shallowly onto the stone. They were not any letters he could read, but reminded him of the symbols on the wavy-bladed dagger they had found on their last visit to the ruins above. Primitive and ugly, Elsa could not sense anything out of the ordinary about them. Perhaps they might once have held some glamour or curse, but if they had the magic had long since leaked away.

[-Sentinel-]

"No magic," said Elsa, sounding disappointed.

She brought the torch closer, her brow furrowing, and ran her fingers over the symbols. Was there a password? A spell to cast? If so, it would mean the door was magical, but it felt perfectly mundane to her. Perhaps this was no door at all, but a wall that had been put in place to block off a passageway.

<Open up, stupid door,> she whispered half-heartedly in the language of magick, not believing for a second that it would work.

If only I had charcoal... oh wait, I do!

She used the fire of her torch to light up a second torch, which she handed to Sieghard. She then put out the first torch with the contents of her waterskin. She pressed a sheet of parchment to the symbols and used the charred stub of her first torch to print the symbolst. Perhaps she would one day find someone who could translate the language, or at least identify it.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Waste of a perfectly good torch," Sieghard grumbled. Once Elsa had finished, he handed the other torch back to her. "If it's a door, I doubt it's very thick. Let me try..."

And if it's a magic door with no magic holding it in place anymore, I doubt it's very sturdy either.

[roll0] vs 51 str to try to just cut the knot and knock the door down.

If this doesn't work, we still have the pickaxes.

[LCP]

The crunch when Sieghard collided with the doorway came from his shoulder, not the door. That was real stone, alright - Sieghard could already tell he was going to have a champion of a bruise.

[LeSwordfish]

"I've got wax, you know." Ludo said as Elsa tried her trick with the charcoal - though he didn't press the issue as he suspected it had long ago disintegrated somewhere at the bottom of his backpack.

That reminded him, though - he drew the crowbar from his bag and tried to insert it into the gap. "Maybe we can lever it."

[LCP]

The crack was too narrow to easily admit the tip of the crowbar, but Ludo was able to widen it by chipping away at the limestone to either side. Finally managing to work the crowbar into the gap, he braced his feet against the wall of the tunnel and pulled with all his might. He thought he felt something shift, but the door remained firmly closed.

Sometimes you did need the big people. Wiping his brow and handing over the crowbar, Ludo let Sieghard take a turn. As Sieghard grimaced and strained, they were rewarded with a groan of tortured metal from behind the door. Whatever lock or latch held it shut, it was starting to give.

The five of them froze in place as another sound swelled up to fill the caverns in reply. Echoing down the tunnel from the same direction they had come came the keening wail they had heard the first night they camped in Harmugstahl, far louder and clearer than before. There was no breath of wind down in these damp tunnels - the sound had come from something living. Something large.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert shuddered, whispered a prayer to Verena, Sigmar and Ulric and drew his shortsword.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Have you gone mad, Scrieber?" Sieghard snapped when he saw him reaching for his weapons. He pushed harder to pry the door open. "Help me. If it's as big as it sounds, it won't be able to follow."

He glanced towards Elsa. "If any of them up top have any stupid ideas about checking what the noise was, have the bird stop them."

[roll0] Another strength test if you want it.

Narrow pass.

[LCP]

With a metallic pop, the door finally gave way. Swinging out under the leverage of the crowbar, it revealed on its other side the rust-streaked remnants of a fairly mundane-looking iron bolt, its mountings pulled out of the four-inch slab of stone that constituted the door itself.

Beyond it was a dark, cramped passageway. Wide enough to admit only one of them at a time, it twisted like a snake, following the contours of whatever natural fissure had been here before the door was installed. There was no telling where it led.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa shivered at the scream. It had come from behind them. This meant they might have to deal with that thing on their way out.

But you always knew this wasn't going to be that easy, didn't you? Don't lie to yourself.


"If any of them up top have any stupid ideas about checking what the noise was, have the bird stop them."

"Will do," said Elsa. She called Morrslieb: If any of the people we left outside try to follow, give them a few warning caws. This would do little to stop them if they were determined, but it was the best the raven could do, short of serving as a conduit for a spell.

She peered at the darkness ahead. "I'm not wagering everything on that thing being unable to follow. Let's keep Astoria at the back of the group, just in case, and our less skilled fighters in the middle." She inclined her head towards Ludo and Adelbert. "No offense intended."


OOC

"Waste of a perfectly good torch," Sieghard grumbled.
Hardly wasted. We can still light it again if we have to.

But I wish I'd known Ludo had wax.

[Erulasto]

”What in the name of Myrmidia was that?” Astoria hissed, turning fully to face the darkness of the tunnel behind them. A gauntleted hand gripped at her blade tightly, while she squinted into the darkness as if it would part for her to reveal whatever threats lay shrouded therein.

”Hopefully whatever it is cannot find its way through the hole we opened to get down here in the first place.” muttered the knight.



Perception!

[roll0] vs INT 47

[LCP]

Astoria could make out nothing waiting for them in the shadows of the secret passage, but then, she could only see a few yards before the tunnel twisted around a bend.

From the passageway behind them, subtle sounds of movement were growing louder. It was difficult to tell from the noise what kind of creature was making it – it sounded like the slithering of a reptile, like the scuttling of an insect, like the slow scrape of a wounded man dragging himself along the ground. Most of all, it sounded like they should be somewhere else. Leading the way, Sieghard hurried into the tunnel; Astoria brought up the rear, closing the stone door behind her.

The tunnel was a tight squeeze, even for Ludo. It meandered back and forth, following only the whims of stone and water; at one point its ceiling dipped low enough that the tall folk had to crawl. Thankfully, it was not long – before they had gone too far, they came to another door, far less cunningly disguised. Its iron lock was rusted solid, but the crowbar made short work of breaking it open. With a squeal of long-unused hinges, it swung open.

Ludo had to take back his assessment of the second door’s disguise – on the other side, it was a bookcase, its shelves still stacked with a number of mouldering books. It opened onto a chamber about the size of his father’s study back in Sermena – like the passageway, clearly a part of the original caves, but unlike the passageway, extensively worked.

The left side of the cave had been levelled out into a smooth dais, complete with a short flight of steps. On it stood more shelves, a wardrobe, a lectern, even a desk with a fine high-backed chair. Whoever had so thoroughly destroyed the ruins above clearly hadn’t found this place – its books and furniture had not been disturbed. The damp had done its best in their stead, the close air filled with the musty smell of rotting wood and parchment.

Directly across from where they had entered stood a larger door, this one making no attempt to conceal itself. On the right-hand side of the room, where the floor was lower, there were far fewer furnishings. A couple of free-standing iron braziers, the ashes in them long cold and solidified, and a rusted torch sconce on the wall were all that Ludo could see.

Between them, a circle had been carved into the rough limestone of the cavern floor, as perfect as if it had been drawn with a compass. Around its edge, characters were chiselled into the rock, similar to the scratch-mark glyphs they had seen on the door. Nothing stood within it – only blank, uneven stone.

Elsa Only
The scent of old magic was rich in the musty air of this chamber. Those runes of the floor were some kind of circle of protection, their strange lines still clinging to some dregs of power. It was odd though that the lectern stood outside the circle, facing it. As far as her studies at the Bright College had taught her, such circles were always supposed to be drawn around the caster.

There was something else, too, a faint pull on the Aethyr from among the clutter up on the dais. Before she could locate it, however, she was distracted by the way the shadows in the room seemed to flicker at the edges of the torchlight, circling fitfully around Adelbert. If she let her imagination roam, they almost looked like avian figures, crouching in the darkness.

You bring others, hissed a cracked voice that she knew only she could hear.
He will not understand, came the second voice, faint as the rustle of falling ash.
He will seek to take it from you, whispered the third.

Adelbert Only
Something about this hidden room didn’t sit right with Adelbert. The cold metal of his owl talisman seemed to press against his breast, the sense of the profane he had felt by the water rising up stronger than before. Every way he looked, the same pattern seemed to repeat itself, whether in the spines of books, the texture of the rock, or the random fall of shadows. It was the twisting, fish-tailed symbol of Cacophrax’s god.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

”Hopefully whatever it is cannot find its way through the hole we opened to get down here in the first place.”

"I doubt it," Sieghard said, already making his way down the passageway. "The hole's older than the grate over the top and there wouldn't be any reason for a doorway if the wizards who used to haunt this place weren't using it as well as what's up top. I can only guess they were using the creature as some sort of guard." One that hasn't wasted away despite the countless years that have passed since then...

----------

Sieghard took a few steps around the perimeter of the room, trying to think of what could be so important about this place that it had been kept so well hidden. "Did you know something like this would be down here?" he asked Elsa.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. The priest looked around himself, eyes wide, skin pale and mouth opening and closing of its own accord. It took him many moments to recover enough to speak and even then his voice was faltering.

'This is no mere library ladies and gentlemen.' He looked at Elsa. 'That symbol - can you see it? You realise what it means? We... we have to alert the Temple. That or burn everything here on the spot.'

He turned to Sieghard. 'I strongly advise everyone keeping as far far as possible from that circle.' Adelbert gestured at the ground.

[-Sentinel-]

"Well, would you look at this," said Elsa smugly as they entered the room. "There was something left for us to find, after all." The circle in particular seemed to intrigue her.

"Did you know something like this would be down here?" asked Sieghard.

"Not specifically, no," admitted Elsa. "But I knew there was bound to be a place that the tower's attackers couldn't touch. We wizards are a resourceful lot. Living like we do, we have no choice."

For a moment she seemed to be staring above Adelbert's shoulder. Then the priest spoke, and she snapped back to reality.

"Burn this?" she half snarled; for once, adamantly opposed to the notion of setting fire to anything. "What are you, a witch hunter? I thought you Verenans were about gathering knowledge, not destroying it blindly. And no, I don't know what that symbol means," she added, not even looking at it.

They were only starting to explore! For a start, what was that thing tugging at Elsa's mind, on the dais? She headed in that direction to have a look at it, though she kept Adelbert on the edge of her vision in case he tried something.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Not a lot of places for the smoke to go," Sieghard pointed out. "Set a fire now and we're likely to end up choking ourselves and stumbling into the thing while trying to catch our breath." That possibility concerned him far more than some rough markings cut into the floor.

[LCP]

The shelves on the dais were heavy with books and papers. Much of the exposed parchment had crumbled into fragments, including a whole grid of wooden pigeon-holes that looked once to have been stuffed with letters. Those sealed in scroll-cases or bound behind leather covers had survived better, but the smell of mould and mildew was still strong around them.

There might once have been a good number of loose papers on the desk too - now all that remained of them was dust and sprouting fungus, a lead paperweight sitting vainly amid the decay. A brass inkwell and bottles of ink that had long ago dried to purplish flakes sat alongside a number of metal canisters etched with curling floral designs. Opening one, Elsa squinted at the contents. It looked like some kind of incense - what kind, she had no idea, but it smelt expensive.

A cursory examination was enough to satisfy her that none of these objects were what had attracted her attention. That left only one thing that she could see - a tarnished silver hand mirror, its rim fashioned to resemble the folded wings of a bird. The glass was unblemished, but had a curious tint, throwing the colours of what it reflected slightly out of true.

Elsa Only
Examining her reflection in the mirror, Elsa saw a different woman looking back. It was still her... but where she wore her dusty travelling clothes, the Elsa in the mirror wore magisterial robes of countless splendid colours. Her hair had grown back full and lustrous, and on her head sat a silver crown, its points crafted to resemble twisting flames. The rest of the cavern was reduced to shadows behind her splendour, their grey shapes conspiring to suggest the outline of a throne...

[Erulasto]

The study was..surprising to Astoria, and she walked slowly around the room as she took it all in. Steel-clad fingertips trailed down the spines of several books upon the shelves as she passed, eyeing them with a fair bit of curiosity.

”What symbols, Brother Adelbert?” Astoria asked, pausing as she made her way past the bookshelves. ”Is this the abode of a wizard?”



Any books that would catch Astoria’s attention?

Here’s a Perception test.

[roll0] vs INT 47

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert gaped at Elsa. How could the wizardess not see the mark everywhere?

He moved towards the bookcase to investigate. 'Be extraordinarily careful with the paper and parchment. I'm familiar with the damage age and damp can do and a careless touch might easily destroy a tome.'

He kept looking back nervously at Elsa, wondering just what was going through her mind.

At Astoria's question Adelbert blinked and looked over, then at Elsa.. 'I'd rather not say, not until I'm sure.' And not aloud - not in this place if I am right!

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Be careful? A minute ago you wanted to burn everything," Sieghard said, grabbing a book at random. The one he had chosen was already rotten beyond salvage and he let it drop without a second thought. He moved to another shelf and started picking through the books. This place reminded him of where they had found another batch of old books more than he cared to think about, but those books had fetched a nice price... Maybe Adelbert had a point about being gentle with them.

"We already knew wizards used to use this place," he muttered in response to Astoria, dropping a second unsalvageable book to the ground next to the first. "It's the whole reason she wanted to go digging around."

Sieghard will thumb through the shelves to try to find anything that has escaped the worst of the damage. If he finds any, he'll pass them to Ludo to read.

[roll0] vs 46 search

[LeSwordfish]

Ludo was trying to get a sense of the geography of the place. "So there was the building on the surface, and now... another whole complex down here?"

He cautiously approached the larger door, pressing his ear against it to listen for a second, before, if he heard nothing, carefully opening it a crack.

[LCP]

The door opened onto another passage like the one they had followed from the central cavern. On the left, it stretched away into darkness, narrowing as it did. On the right, Ludo thought he caught the glitter of dark water reflecting his lantern's light. Nothing moved in either direction.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa's eyes widened at the mirror. She stared at her own reflection for a minute, fascinated, and moved and turned around as if to try several angles.

Elsa only
Could be a trick, Elsa told herself. Not a vision of a possible future, but simply a lure from the ones who brought me here.

Still. The mere sight of herself in such splendid attire was enthralling, she could not deny it. And that crown... was that a thing that actually existed? Was it right here, or at least, did this place hold the clues to finding it? Or was it merely a way to symbolize how powerful she might become?

OOC
Elsa is trying several angles in an effort to see if the room in the mirror is recognizable, or at least contains some amount of detail and realism. If it lacks detail or looks like it's trying to escape her gaze, it would lend credence to her suspicions that the image is all made up by some intelligence.

"Hmm," was all she said, pocketing the mirror.

She continued her search of the shelves, looking for any books of magic. Most were ruined, but the really important ones might be preserved in boxes, or using special waxes or even magic.

OOC
I need me some grimoires if I'm ever to become Wizard Lord.

Search 75. [roll0]

Edit: Fortune Pointed to 74. I'm glad for Link of Psyche.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert had to cover his mouth and turn away quickly from Sieghard's casual destruction of the books. As dangerous as they were, as much as they might have to dispose of the books the sheer indifference which the mercenary was going about it turned his stomach. For a moment he genuinely felt he was going to retch.

Much, much more carefully he examined the shelves, his delicate scribe's finger's touching the spines of books and parchment scrolls. If they were not going to reseal this room or destroy its contents - and Elsa seemed very clear they were not - he wanted to know what they had actually found.

[LCP]

Elsa Only
The mirror did a poor job of showing anything behind her. The image it reflected seemed to match the rough dimensions of the cavern, but it was murky and indistinct, as if viewed through cloudy water. The others appeared only as blurred figures, grey and indistinct compared to the brilliant colours of the Elsa in the mirror.

Behind Elsa, Sieghard was ploughing through book after rotten book, covering his mouth and nose against the mildew-smelling dust that rose when he opened them. No-one was going to be paying much for these bundles of old mould. Discarding his latest find in disgust, he opened the tall wardrobe that stood beside the bookshelves to see if he might have more luck there. Hanging inside was a set of what had once been very fine robes, their gaudy blues and violets faded with age. A drift of shrivelled feathers on the wardrobe floor were what remained of a once-splendid collar, while a silver mask rested on a small shelf to the side. That at least was only slightly tarnished - though Sieghard found something about its protruding, beak-like nose disquieting. It was as if the mask-maker hadn't been able to decide whether he was making a mask of a person or a crow.

Adelbert, having applied himself to the bookshelves with a little more care, had found something more than rotten parchment - a leather scroll-case, fairly stuffed with papers. Unrolling them with the utmost care, he began to read.

The writing was in Reikspiel, albeit in a style that was a couple of centuries out of date. It read like an alchemist's notes, full of dry instructions and lists. A quick rifle through the other papers in the case confirmed they were all on the subject of 'the Process', which largely seemed to be a grandiose way of saying glass-making. Adelbert didn't know much about the glassblower's trade, but he was pretty sure it didn't usually involve 'powdered star stone' - whatever that was - or detailed instructions for how to extract it from water. Another loose page contained a list of tongue-twisting blessings to be uttered over the glass - words in no language that Adelbert had ever heard of.

Elsa had found something too - a wooden box, half-buried under the detritus of the bookshelves. Undoing the intricate latch, she opened it to find a single book, resting on a sheaf of loose papers tied up with string. Both seemed to have survived far better than the other contents of the room.

The papers were covered in close-written notes - a mixture of Reikspiel and the strange symbols that made up the circle on the floor, both in the same feminine, spidery hand. The book was bound in faded blue leather, a little cracked with age. Opening it to the first page, Elsa read the title:


Seeking the Silver Tower

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard eyed the ugly mask with suspicion. It reminded him of the painting they had burned the first time they had been here which had in turn reminded him far too much of another beaked figure. After a moment he picked the thing up and approached Elsa.

"Is there anything special about this?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert studied the notes with interest. Not that he could hope to make much use of them personally, unless he wished to begin a career in alchemy but maybe with further study he could understand what the magicians here had been hoping to accomplish.

As Sieghard spoke up Adelbert too glanced at Elsa. 'Find something Elsa?' He tried to keep the accusation out of his voice. He had a nasty feeling Elsa would not like it if he raised any of the serious concerns he was feeling.

[-Sentinel-]

"Is there anything special about this?" asked Sieghard, showing Elsa the bird mask.

Elsa seemed dubious, as she suspected her senses would have picked this thing up from afar if it were magical, but she had a look at it all the same. Her gaze became distant.

OOC
Magical Sense 88. [roll0]


Adelbert sidled up to her. "Find something Elsa?"

Elsa stiffened, as if she had suddenly grown wary of the priest. "Hmm. Well, there's this book." She showed Adelbert its title and flipped through the pages. There was no time to read it here, but she would not be leaving this place without it.

She wondered whether the loose papers would allow her to translate the odd symbols. They were undoubtedly worth keeping as well.


OOC
My parents are about to pay me a visit, so I'm unlikely to have time to post tomorrow (Saturday). I'll resume on Sunday.

[LCP]

Elsa could sense nothing out of the ordinary about the mask. As far as she could tell, it was just a tarnished piece of silver.

[Erulasto]

Feeling a bit out of her depth compared to the well-versed Bright Wizard and Verenan priest, Astoria continued her slow pacing around the outside edge of the study. Her mind kept wandering back to whatever that creature was back where they had come from and what else they might uncover down in this unpleasant place.

After a while, Astoria paused to lean against the desk and allowed her gaze to fall on the circle in the center of the study. Was it meant to help with some ritual? Perhaps this was a direction of learning she should pursue. Knowledge is power, after all, and knowing what they were fighting would be invaluable.

[LeSwordfish]

"So what is this place?" Ludo asked. "Like a wizard's laboratory, like Beatrix had? Or a library? With a hidden exit? And the Illuminated Order didn't find it because they just didn't come down the staircase?"

[-Sentinel-]

"They didn't find it because there was a large grate in the way," Elsa pointed out. "I think their goal was only to destroy these wizards, not ransack the place. As for the purpose of this room..." Her eyes slid towards the circle. "Usually a caster would stand inside a circle of protection. But here the lectern where the caster would stand is outside the circle. I'm thinking it might have served to summon and bind something."

There was little doubt as to what kind of thing was being summoned here.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"I'm not sure that's right," Sieghard said. "The grate I mean." He scratched his head trying to remember. "They were driven out of here... No. He thought they were destroyed... But they weren't..." Realizing how incoherent he must be sounding, Sieghard sat down and took a moment to gather his thoughts. "Nicodemus said that. He called them the Bretheren of the Silver Tower." He gestured around the room. "The Bretheren were using all this stuff. If they had sealed the well off themselves, they wouldn't have left all it when they did. It would've been Nicodemus and the Order who did it after they attacked the place."

Sieghard paled slightly and dropped the ugly silver mask as the realization hit him. "He also said the Bretheren had bargained with daemons. The Library was proof enough he was right... So if they were summoning something..." He gestured back towards the tunnel they had come through. "Then maybe that same something kept the Order from searching down here... And they put the grate over the well to keep that something contained..."

[Erulasto]

While she had been listening to Sieghard's explanation, Astoria stayed staring at the strange circle on the floor. There was something unsettling about seeing dark magic up close, and if Elsa was right and this circle was used to summon Daemons, then the Estalian felt it was an entirely justified concern. It was one thing to see something like the flames her Bright Wizard companion could conjure. It was something entirely different to willingly truck with unclean spirits. First undead and death gods and, now daemons?

The sudden clatter of the dropped silver mask was enough to pull her gaze from the circle, and to Sieghard. "That thing out there, you mean?" She jerked her thumb towards the sealed door. A moment later, the knight wore a scowl and glanced to Elsa. "My Lady, Is the circle safe?" Astoria asked with a thoughtful frown. "Will we accidentally...Myrmidia forbid...activate it?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert smiled reassuringly at Astoria. 'I admit I am not an expert but the fact that Elsa is not frantically ordering all of us away from the circle is probably a good sign. Having said that...'

The priest turned to Elsa a frown engraving itself across his feature. 'Are you certain you want to get mixed up in anything involving the sort of magic the Brethern wielded? I admit I am no expert, but I do have some sense of that... 'witch sight' as you call it, and it is telling me this place is all very wrong.'

[LeSwordfish]

"So that... that's used for summoning the things we fought in the library?" Ludo asked. He was already some distance from the circle but felt an itch to step further away. The scar on his back was prickling again. "Why would anyone do that?"

[-Sentinel-]

He gestured back towards the tunnel they had come through. "Then maybe that same something kept the Order from searching down here... And they put the grate over the well to keep that something contained..."
"That grate was in place before the thing was unleashed, that much I'm sure of," said Elsa. "People don't just carry a grate around in case they need to contain a monster. I also think it's unlikely that the thing we heard in the tunnel is any sort of daemon, as daemons can't keep existing for centuries in the material world... unless the whole place was prepared specifically to allow them to."

Granted, there was no evidence that this was not the case here... save for the fact that it would serve no purpose Elsa could think of.



"My Lady, Is the circle safe?" Astoria asked with a thoughtful frown. "Will we accidentally...Myrmidia forbid...activate it?"
Elsa hesitated. She may have read the strange daemonology book from the Lost Library, but she was still far out of her depth. "It seems doubtful to me. Still, I advise we leave this circle undisturbed."



'Are you certain you want to get mixed up in anything involving the sort of magic the Brethern wielded? I admit I am no expert, but I do have some sense of that... 'witch sight' as you call it, and it is telling me this place is all very wrong.'
"We're mixed up in this whether we like it or not, but I'm not planning to summon any daemons, if that's what you're asking."

She would not admit it to Adelbert, but she had already crossed too many lines the Colleges had set for her, including the use of Dhar on a few rare—wholly justified—occasions.



"So that... that's used for summoning the things we fought in the library?" Ludo asked. "Why would anyone do that?"
"Maybe to seek knowledge from a daemon," said Elsa. She paused. "Maybe to strike a deal with one."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert raised a brow and looked at Elsa uncertainly for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to fully trust her glib reply. 'If you're sure... well I suppose you are are our expert.' A hint of a rueful smile touched his lips. 'I've always admired your knowledge there. I sometimes wish I'd studied magic.'

[-Sentinel-]

'I've always admired your knowledge there. I sometimes wish I'd studied magic.'

"I could lend you some of my books," said Elsa. She paused. "Which reminds me. One of my books does mention daemon-summoning. But for this, you need to know the daemon's true name."

She pointed at the inscriptions on the ground. "This could be it."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert's eyes widened. 'Do you think whatever is back there-' he pointed in the direction they had come, 'was summoned?'

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard's expression grew dark. "It's Cacophrax," he said.

[-Sentinel-]

'Do you think whatever is back there... was summoned?'

"Possible, but not likely," said Elsa. "As I said, daemons shouldn't be able to exist for long in the material world. They're like fish out of water. Of course I may be wrong."

Sieghard, for his part, voiced the suspicion that Elsa had not dared think about too hard. "Perhaps they did summon Cacophrax," she said. "Perhaps they're responsible for what happened to the Lost Library? Their final revenge, after their tower was attacked..."

[Erulasto]

All this talk of daemons, binding them with their true names and the potential horrors that these Brethren could have unleashed were making Astoria somewhat uncomfortable. The Estalian picked her way across the room, careful to avoid the Circle and came to pause near Sieghard. Bending down cautiously, she plucked that strange silver mask up off the floor from where Sieghard had dropped it and gave it an appraising look.

”Is there any symbolism behind this?” asked Astoria curiously. ”Was this something these…Brethren…wore? A badge of office? Or is it merely a curio?”

Unless Sieghard wanted the mask, Astoria made to slip it into her pack. Who knew what could come in handy.

”This…Cacophrax that you mentioned. He…it…was in this Lost Library? I have heard some mention of it in passing. That is where the Book was found, yes? Are there any ties or connections between Nahorek and the Daemon?”

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"The daemon taken over the Library by the time we found it - all but the room that held the book." Sieghard replied. "Cacophrax is what it called itself, but it wasn't the fiend's real name - it refused to give that. As for the mask, it looks exactly like the thing's face."

He turned to Elsa. "Copy down the symbols. The daemon isn't dead - if its name has power over it, then better to have it in case it has any thoughts of revenge."

[RossN]

Adelbert

'I doubt the daemon and Nahorek have any true connection other than desiring the book for their own ends. They are akin to the Border Princes - rivals at best, enemies in truth.'

Adelbert looked at Elsa. 'I'm going to have to tell the temple about this.What are you going to tell the Tilean?'

[LCP]

Elsa Only
The shadows on the cavern walls had not stopped dancing with more life than the flickering torchlight ought to give. When Adelbert spoke, Elsa thought she caught momentary glimpses of familiar shapes in the dark.

"I'm going to have to tell the temple about this."

The silhouettes of Teufelssohn and his cronies ghosted across the wall, a phantom smell of burning flesh assaulting her nostrils. I am here to deliver Sigmar's justice, drifted the words from the recesses of her memory, not to bandy terms with a witch.

"What are you going to tell the Tilean?"

The shadow of the witch hunter distorted and broke apart. Other shadows took the shape of Irene, her mocking laughter already tinkling in Elsa's ears.

[-Sentinel-]

"Copy down the symbols. The daemon isn't dead - if its name has power over it, then better to have it in case it has any thoughts of revenge."

"I suppose I could, if Ludo will give me his wax," said Elsa, "though I couldn't begin to guess how to pronounce it. Perhaps I could study it in the coming months." She hoped merely carrying an inscription of the daemon's name would not bring an unintended curse upon her.


'I'm going to have to tell the temple about this. What are you going to tell the Tilean?'

Elsa stared into nothingness for a moment, then blinked. "Uh? Oh... I'll tell him we found arcane knowledge, but no loot to fill his coffers."

That ought to make him lose interest.

She paused again, though this time her mind seemed to be working fast. "What would you tell the temple? The churches here are not like the ones in the civilized realms, with soldiers or knights or witch-hunters at their beck and call. They're only a few elders tending to their flocks, not exactly the ruin-exploring type. Like it or not, we are better suited than they are at just about any important task. Besides... I know the temptation to burn down this place and salt the earth is strong, but it wouldn't serve much of a purpose. The wizards of Harmugstahl are long dead. Daemons can't come and go as they please. At best you may destroy valuable knowledge. At worst you may cause a latent spell or enchantment to lash out."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard nodded. "Anything that happened here happened long before the oldest priest at the temple was born." he said. "Tell 'em what you want, but I wouldn't expect much to come of it."

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert tried to conceal his shock. He'd always considered Elsa an absolute Sforza diehard. It took him a moment to collect his thoughts.

'I would remind you Elsa that the temple is currently safeguarding the book for us, the same one that we so foolishly reintroduced back into the world. In a very real sense those elders are aiding us with our past mistakes. We're relying on them to be more than a few feeble elders.'

His eyes dropped to the book she was currently holding. 'If you are so worried about a latent spell then surely the answer is to work with us, at the very least Hieronymous and myself. I am not a wizard but I have insight... and so does he.'

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa gritted her teeth, feeling like she was losing the argument. "We're getting the Morrites' help with the Book because they're experts at keeping the dead all nice and quiet. On the other hand, we have no one who's well-versed in daemonology. No one but me."

Sigmarites were likely the closest thing to dedicated daemon slayers, though they had a culture of willful, almost aggressive ignorance when it came to their foes. Elsa would certainly not trust them with this matter.

"At the very least I'm begging you to see what advantages we can get from this place before we take any steps to cleanse it. Opposed to Chaos we may be, but magic is part of Chaos and we've needed it many times. There's no clear line to cross where we've doomed ourselves, is what I'm saying."


OOC
We're likely getting to the point where we have to start exploring some more. I'm in favor of going through the other door.

[Erulasto]

Astoria watched the interaction between Adelbert and Elsa curiously, noting the obvious tension between the two of them. It was an understandable tension. Even one as uneducated in the matter such as she could tell that magick was a polarizing force in the world, for good or ill.

”If you wish a few moments to take a transcription of the circle, I could push ahead somewhat. I believe that I am capable enough to hold out in the event of trouble until yourself or Sieghard can join me.”

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert wondered how 'well-versed' Elsa could actually be in daemons. He didn't know exactly how the Colleges operated but Elsa had not struck him as terribly experienced when they'd met.

He looked at her doubtfully for a long moment. 'Why did you even bring me along if you didn't want me even talking to my mentor?'

Adelbert turned to Astoria. 'You have a point Caballera. I'll go on with you.'

[LeSwordfish]

"If we can't read the way this is written, all we do by copying it is make it possible for someone else who can read it to find it. Do we even know it's for Cacophrax?"

Ludo shook his head. "We can go on. But we should smash those symbols with a pickaxe first, if you ask me."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Not for certain," Sieghard replied. "But it seems more likely than not. The Bretheren bargained with daemons and destroyed the Illuminated Order. They're responsible for what happened to the Library and Cacophrax had become the Library's master. The painting, the mask, it all points to him, and I wouldn't want to pass something that can be used against him if we ever need to."

[LeSwordfish]

"Well, do we have a dictionary of daemonic languages somewhere?" Ludo asked. "Because unless we can read it, there's no point having it."

"Let's leave it for now and move on. But on the way back, if we come through here again and we haven't found anything that could interpret it, we smash it."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"And then we'd have nothing," Sieghard said. "We can worry about how to read it later. Compared to what we're already safeguarding, what harm can some symbols on parchment do? "

Of smashing the circle on the floor, he had no objection - so long as they copied it first.

[-Sentinel-]

"I say we leave it intact," said Elsa firmly. "For one thing, nobody will just wander in and use it to summon Cacophrax; they need the ritual. For another, this circle likely contains a lot of magic, and smashing it carelessly would release it in... unpredictable ways. And besides, magic circles can be used for all sorts of spells, not only summoning. One day I might want to use it."

She wondered how things would have worked out if she had had this kind of setup when attempting to save Beatrix Fassbender.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked troubled but slowly and with clear reluctance nodded at the logic of Elsa's words.

'Well, I think that's decided. You transcribe, we'll continue exploring.'

[LCP]

Leaving Elsa to her occult symbols, Adelbert and Astoria took one of the torches and headed out into the passageway on the other side of the door. To their left, it narrowed into darkness, much like the first tunnel they had followed from the cavern beneath the well. To their right where the tunnel widened, still water gleamed in the flickering light, twenty yards or so from the door.

Holding the torch above his head, Adelbert approached the water's edge. It was about eight feet across at its narrowest point, and deep. Undulating limestone walls faded down through the murky water into bottomless blackness, a handful of pale cave fish schooling at the furthest point the light could reach. He brought the light closer to the surface, and the fish vanished, jacknifing further down into the dark.

On a smooth ledge of rock about seven feet down, a wrecked jumble of ancient planks clung precariously to the side of the flooded chasm. If Adelbert had to guess, he would have supposed them the remains of a small bridge.

OOC: I have a message from Erulasto saying he's ill, so RossN please take the lead!

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert knew very little about caves but there was something vaguely comforting about the fact that fish could live down here. Whatever else the water could sustain life, even if that life was unfamiliar.

'Well, short of us building a boat that isn't an obvious way out,' he said to Astoria. 'Let's try the left.' Cautiously he shone the torch down the dark passageway.

[LeSwordfish]

Ludo frowned. "I could jump that."

"Probably."

Instead, he turned to follow Adelbert.

OOC
Long jumping is Move+SB-(DoF on a Strength Test) in yards, and the river is <3 yards across, so Ludo has about a 60% chance of making it, I think. Adelbert has about a 70% chance, Astoria roughly 90%.

[LCP]

Following the passageway left from the door revealed no more doors or turnings - just the one tunnel, narrowing continuously as it stretched back into the dark. Before they were thirty yards from the chamber, it had become so narrow that the three of them had to pass in single file; before they had gone another twenty, Astoria in her bulky armour could not proceed at all.

[RossN]

Adelbert

'Let's turn back,' Adelbert advised. 'I suppose Ludo could go further but since the daemon worshippers who lived here do not appear to have been halflings I don't think it is worthwhile.'

Assuming the others agree Adelbert would return to the spot where the bridge had been. 'Looks like we might have to consider jumping after all.'

[LeSwordfish]

"Give me a few minutes." Ludo said, shoving past Adelbert's legs. "Let me see what's up there and come back."

Holding his lantern high, he began shoving forward into the passage.

[LCP]

Ludo hadn't got far past the two tall folk before the passage became a squeeze even for him. Worming his way around a tusk-like stalagmite that rose up to constrict the tunnel further, he turned a corner and found himself looking straight at a dead end - but not an entirely empty one. Slumped against the back wall, so constricted by the narrow walls that it still sat semi-upright, a human skeleton lay in a jumble of age-yellowed bones. A few rags still clung to its ribs, but from their colour and state of decay it was clear that it had lain here for a very long time.

[LeSwordfish]

"Oh..."

Ludo had seen more aged dead bodies recently than he'd really expected, and never really knew how to react to them. This particular one seemed unusually wretched to him - he was used to tunnels, and still thought that this would be a horrible horrible place to die.

He performed a cursory search of the body, and began worming his way back towards the others.

OOC
I think we can probably reverse all the way back to the water?

[LCP]

There wasn't much to find among the old bones. In one skeletal hand was a lump of rust that might once have been a dagger. Nestling in the yellowed pelvis was another that looked like it could have been the head of a crossbow bolt. A silver chain, tarnished almost black, hung over the faded blue rags that still clung to the collarbone. A symbol hung in its centre - a slender inverted triangle, like a blade without a hilt or handle.

Ludo returned to the others, and the three of them made their way back towards the doorway, and the flooded section beyond it. The gap looked eminently jumpable, but the bottomless chasm beneath the surface made the prospect of failure more intimidating than it would otherwise have been. Ludo never had learned to swim.

Somewhere down in the depths, a brief light flared, garish violet. It was gone in a moment. Ten or fifteen seconds later, a hissing stream of bubbles rose to the surface, bringing a whiff of brimstone with them as they burst.

[RossN]

Adelbert

On hearing of the bones Ludo had found Adelbert solemnly made the Sign of Morr before the narrow tunnel. There was not much else he could do, but it was something.

Back at the water Adelbert's eyes widened as he saw the light in the water and even as the first bubbles popped he turned to Ludo, his face paling: 'Get Elsa and Sieghard, quickly!'

The priest risked a further glance at the water, hoping to find some pattern there...

OOC:
Magical Sense: [roll0] vs 53.

[LeSwordfish]

"Right... yes!"

Retreating sharply from the brimstone, Ludo headed back to the laboratory they had found to fetch their allies.

[LCP]

Adelbert
Peering down through the murky water, Adelbert thought he caught a glimpse of swift, rolling motion at the very edge of the light. It was there for a moment, then was gone - but whatever it was, he got the impression it had been much larger than the little white fish.

Elsa had just about finished copying down the last of the symbols around the circle's edge when Ludo burst in. Hurrying out into the passageway, they joined Adelbert and Astoria by the water's edge. The water looked still and calm - no bubbles rose to the surface, no lights gleamed in the depths.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa's brow furrowed as she peered at the still waters. She had adventured long enough with Adelbert and Ludo to know they were not the sort to be spooked by tricks of the light. If they had seen something under there, she believed them.

"Hmm. Maybe it's best if we call it a day, wouldn't you say?"

The expedition had not yielded the great wealth of knowledge she was hoping for, nor the literal wealth Sforza must have been hoping for, but unlike Kheneb-Ptra-Urush and the Lost Library, it had claimed no lives yet. If things could be kept that way, Elsa would consider it a success.

Elsa only
Of course, they might disagree, thought Elsa. What do they want of me? Do they want me to perform the summoning ritual?

She wanted power, but she was not quite that desperate.

[LeSwordfish]

"We're not going to try to get across?" Ludo said. He seemed notably less keen to do the jump himself. "It's not that far, and who knows what's on the other side. All the fuss about what's down here for one room?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

'I'm pretty sure something is down there in the water, and it is not an overgrown cave fish.' Adelbert told Elsa. 'There was the flicker a strange violet coloured light and then the smell of brimstone.'

[-Sentinel-]

"Well, if we're to carry on," said Elsa, digging inside her purse, "I don't want this thing at our backs. Let's try to deal with it right here and now."

Her hand came out with a handful of shillings. She raised her closed fist, ready to chuck them into the water.

"Anyone objects, say it now."

[LeSwordfish]

"I don't think we can pay it off," Ludo joked. He took a few steps back from the pool and drew his sling, but didnt otherwise object.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Foolishness," Sieghard muttered. Nonetheless, he loaded his crossbow and moved to where he would have a clear shot.

[LCP]

The coins sank slowly into the blackness, trailing bubbles as they fell. They waited some time in silence after the last of them sank out of sight - but nothing rose from the dark water in reply.

[LeSwordfish]

"Well, that was a waste of money." Ludo said.

He took several large steps back. "Hopefully i'm no more palatable."

And with that, he sprinted forwards into a leap, tripped on a rock, and went face-first into the water.

OOC
The chasm is eight feet across, which is <3 yards. Ludo is taking a run-up into a jump.

Jumping distance is, in Yards, Move distance (4) + SB (2) - Degrees of Failure on Str test.

Strength test: [roll0] vs 21, re-roll [roll1] vs 21

I need three or fewer degrees of failure to pass the jump (since three degrees takes me 3 yards, greater than <3) - so 61 or better.

Of course correct me if something else comes up or if I have misread the maths.

WELL THIS WILL BE INTERESTING

[LCP]

The world around Ludo vanished in a sudden shock of cold water, the weight of his gear pulling him under. He thrashed wildly with arms and legs, trying to bring his head above the surface - it was at times like this that he really wished he'd learned to swim.

A long, keening wail rose from below, the vibrations resonating through the narrow column of water. Something moved in the darkness, a returning hint of sinuous motion. More glimmers of light, blue and pink, sent streams of sulphurous bubbles rising past the struggling halfling...

OOC: Ludo needs to pass an (untrained) Swim test to get out on his own; if he fails repeatedly he may be in danger of drowning. He can be pulled out with an assistable Strength test by anyone not currently in the drink.

[LeSwordfish]

Ludo broke the surface briefly with a strangled yell, before vanishing below again, limbs flailing as if trying to scramble on the water itself.

OOC
I forget precisely how "untrained" works in WFRP - -20 or half? If the former, these tests are vs 1, if the latter, vs 11.

I assume that I can't choose not to take the tests? Here's three to get started.

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert turned white as Ludo tumbled into the brine. The priest scrambled to the edge and reached out his hand to the waterlogged halfling: 'Ludo grab it!'

OOC:
Strength 36 vs [roll0]

[LCP]

Ludo's frantic struggles to stay above the surface made him difficult for Adelbert to catch hold of. Rushing forwards to help, Astoria held Adelbert from falling forwards, letting him reach out as far as possible - as he did, he made the mistake of looking down.

The movement in the depths was resolving itself into a black outline, big as a bull ox and rising fast. Adelbert had been born far from the sea, but he could tell this was no fish - it had far too many limbs for that. It half-swam, half-scuttled up the sides of the channel, spider-like legs and sucker-tipped fingers gripping the smooth rock as easily as the rungs of a ladder.

Another flash of purplish light illuminated the grotesque silhouette. The flare burst from an orifice on its back, a gout of flame that turned immediately to a steaming rush of bubbles. Its brief light revealed only the hunched back of the beast, pale and twisted like scar tissue. Eyes and teeth gleamed in that twisted expanse of flesh, shapeless mouths gaping where no mouth should be...

OOC: First swim test from Ludo is used; Adelbert fails to fish him out but may continue to re-test (with Astoria assisting). Terror checks for Adelbert and Ludo please. Sieghard and Elsa can't currently see the Friendly Lifeguard but as soon as they do they will need to test as well.

Terror for Astoria: [roll0]

[LeSwordfish]

"Get me out of here! Get me out of here!" Ludo howled, inadvertently slapping Adelbert's hand away as he clawed at the air.

[RossN]

Adelbert

'I knew it!' Adelbert cried out, the awe of his inner scholar at being proven right overcoming even the shaft of terror that he felt at the sight of the... whatever it was...

Well, he'd just have to dissect it after they caught it. No doubt it would look fascinating inside as well as out.

Of course that rather depended on them surviving. Once again the priest reached out and tried to drag Ludo clear of the water.

OOC:
Strength: [roll0] vs 36.

[-Sentinel-]

"Knew what?!" asked Elsa. She could see a purple glow under the water, but all the activity in front of her kept her from getting a clear look.

Nevertheless, she was prepared to blast anything that came out.


OOC
I don't suppose there's anything I need to do right now? I'm assuming that only so many people can help Ludo at a time, and Adelbert seems to be succeeding.

It seems that Sieghard is the only one of us with Swim! And since he's often wearing heavy armor, I don't think it would do him much good. It's a good thing this isn't a sea-based campaign.

[LCP]

Slender tentacles uncoiled out of the murk with deceptive speed, reaching for Ludo’s frantically kicking legs. Tearing his eyes from the beast, Adelbert seized Ludo’s arm in an iron grip, putting all his strength into heaving his friend clear of the water. The two of them fell back together, almost knocking Astoria over in the process.

The thing that exploded out of the water behind them beggared description. Its body was an asymmetrical tangle of insect and vertebrate parts, its hide a mottled patchwork of blue-grey scales and pale, disturbingly human skin. Razor-toothed mouths split its hide at seemingly random spots, opening and closing like gasping fish – but instead of sucking in air, they breathed out flickering twists of pink and blue fire.

Three heads pushed from the twisted tissue at the centre of its trunk. One had a long beak like a bird, ragged clumps of iridescent feathers stippling its wizened flesh. The second was little more than a lamprey’s mouth, a ring of eyes circling a denser ring of teeth. The third was a human face, twisted in an expression of terror and anguish. The features of that half-buried head had melted and flowed like wax, but Elsa thought it looked like a woman’s.

All the thing’s mouths howled at once, filling the narrow tunnel with the echoes of its moaning cry. Stretching out its many-jointed limbs, it lunged at the intruders who had stolen its prey…

OOC: Terror checks for Elsa and Sieghard now, please.

https://i.postimg.cc/8kJ0VPsY/Aquaman.png

Since it won initiative, the beastie will kick things off with a Swift Attack. One attack each on Elsa, Ludo and Astoria, and a fourth on a randomly chosen PC – 1 = Elsa, 2 = Ludo, 3 = Astoria. [roll0]

Attacks:
[roll1], [roll2] - hit, 7 wounds
[roll3], [roll4], [roll5] - hit, dodged
[roll6], [roll7], [roll8] - hit, 6 wounds unless you want to fortune point the dodge
[roll9], [roll10] - missed

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa's jaw dropped. "What....... is that thing?"

A daemon? A mutant? Perhaps some unholy fusion between an unfortunate Silver Tower wizard—the human face of the abomination—and a daemon she had been trying to summon...

Before she could get a good grip on the Winds, one of the monster's insect-like limbs tried to cut the legs from under her and left a great gash in her left thigh. She was too close. Entirely too close.

OOC
Terror test failed. Disengaging.

[LeSwordfish]

Soaking wet and still terrified, Ludo scrambled backwards away from the creature, pulling his sling from the pockets of his sodden trousers.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard had been ready to shoot at whatever emerged from the water. Had been. The moment he caught sight of the creature, he nearly dropped his crossbow and stumbled back.

"What....... is that thing?"

"That's a good ****ing question!" he snapped at Elsa, horror adding an almost accusatory edge to his voice.

Half action fumbling with his crossbow and failing to do anything, half action moving back towards the passage we came through

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert had the good fortune not to be within claw range of the beast, though his eyes widened as he saw how swift it was.

The priest pulled back, his eyes locked on the creature, his hand slipping to his hilt. In a surprisingly calm voice he said: 'Keep your heads my friends, I admit it's as ugly as a dwarven courtesan but we've far faced worse.'

OOC:
Move directly back, ready weapon.

[LCP]

Astoria fell in behind the others as they fell back, positioning herself as a rearguard between the beast and Elsa. The thing screamed as it heaved itself up into the tunnel, water drizzling from its twisted body.

Turning its bird-like head to follow them, the monster quivered and croaked, its gullet bloating up like a frog's throat. The water on its surface began to boil into steam, fiery light shining through the distended skin. Opening its beak, it vomited a stream of many-coloured fire, filling the narrow tunnel with a furnace heat.

OOC: Templates! You guys like templates, right?

https://i.postimg.cc/8kvgxtLQ/Aquaman.png

Those completely covered by the template take a Damage 4 hit, ignoring armour. Those partially covered (Astoria, Adelbert) get an Agility test to evade it.

Dodgers:
[roll0], [roll1]
[roll2], [roll3]

Non-Dodgers:
[roll4]
[roll5]
[roll6]

[RossN]

Adelbert

<'Stercus'>, Adelbert swore in Classical. Though he'd managed to avoid the chaos-things flames - maybe Verena wasn't the only deity looking out for him - it was beyond clear they were faced with disaster.

The priest drew back still further to the doorway leading to the laboratory. 'Lady of Mysteries help my companions keep their heads,' he whispered in prayer, eyes turning to Sieghard. 'Goddess lend power to my words! Sieghard remember yourself!'

OOC:
Adelbert Moves to the door, casts Blessing of Courage on Sieghard.

Casting number: 3
Casting roll: [roll0]

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Morr's teeth, that hurt..." Sieghard muttered, through gritted teeth. He was inclined to attribute it to the burst of searing flame rather than Adelbert's shouting, but he was no longer fixated on the disgusting wrongness of the creature. "Don't let it do that again!" he shouted, "Flank it!"

Quickdraw sword, charge attack, 2 rolls as per the houserule.

[roll0] vs 51 + 10 (Charging) = 61
[roll1] Damage

[roll2] vs 51 + 10 (Charging) = 61
[roll3] Damage

Well... He at least succeeded in giving Astoria an outnumbering bonus... :smallsigh:

[LeSwordfish]

At least the water had stopped anything on him from catching fire, Ludo thought. It was still, perhaps, the most painful thing he had ever experienced, more so than the swords or arrows he'd taken at Arrow Heap. Struggling to keep his composure, he brought his slingshot up, and cracked a stone forwards towards the beast.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa gritted her teeth as the creature's fire raked her clothes and reddened her skin. An irrational outrage rose in her.

"Oh, you think you know something about fire, abomination?" She raised a gloved hand and traced a symbol in the air as her lips intoned the spell. "Let me teach you about fire."


Fireball with Magic Focus (double fireballs)
Using a ball of sulphur (+2 to cast).
Channeling 78: [roll0]
Casting (7+/10+): [roll1]
Chaos die: [roll2]

Not one but two minor manifestations...

Damage:
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]
[roll6]
[roll7]
[roll8]

...and sh*t damage. :smallsigh: At least we're about to learn its Toughness Bonus.

[LCP]

Rearing up to fill the tunnel, the beast howled in surprise as Ludo's sling-stone whipped out of the darkness, stinging it in its lumpen underbelly. Oily ichor dribbled from the wound, igniting into blue flames the moment it met the air. The thing's burning blood charred its skin, making it twitch and howl as Sieghard came rushing in.

With a gurgling wail, it slammed its mismatched forelimbs down before it, blocking Sieghard's swinging blade and bringing him face-to-face with its writhing heads. The stink of sulphur gusted in his face, violet fire glittering in its lamprey maw...

The temperature in the scorched tunnel soared yet higher as a flight of screaming fireballs left Elsa's fingertips, the guttering remnants of the flames the creature had spewed leaping briefly higher in response. The beast convulsed and shrieked as it was struck again and again, its shapeless body wreathed in bursts of honest, yellow fire. Screaming in a disturbingly human voice, it skittered back on misshapen limbs, cringing like a beaten dog. All its countless eyes were on Elsa - or rather, Adelbert got the strong impression, on the space just behind her shoulder. Were there shapes in the shadows there?

With a last mournful wail, it turned and dived back into the water, Astoria having to jump back to avoid the whip of its eel-like tail. The tremendous splash drenched her and Sieghard both, waves sloshing back and forth in the narrow channel as it sped back down into the dark.

Elsa showed no signs of wanting to follow - she was staring blankly into the last of the guttering fires that clung to the stone around her, eyes fixed on something only she could see. Ghostly voices filled the air around her - panicked shouts and screams, punctuated by the sounds of fighting. The sounds of a massacre.

Elsa Only
Dancing in the gorgeous colours of the dying flames, Elsa saw images she had seen before in her dreams. Sunlight streaming through stained glass, illuminating three figures in robes of splendid blue. A masterwork of pure sorcery taking shape between them, thread after thread of complex enchantment being woven perfectly into place. Dim, grey shapes storming up from below, cutting down the closest of the blue-robed mages with ugly blades of dull iron.

The second figure broke off their chanting, reaching out in panic to snatch something small and physical from the centre of the glowing threads. The spell was already breaking apart, the frantic efforts of the third figure unable to contain its accumulated power. More magic than any one wizard could wield, and it earthed itself through the only available conduit. She felt it as the raw power of the ritual whiplashed back through her, burning out the channels of her body in an instant as her flesh began to bubble and change...

Screwing shut her eyes, she tore herself away from the vision. When she opened them again, the last of the flames had died. Holding up her hands, she saw they were smooth and unblemished - but she could still feel the echoes of that tearing, twisting pain, deep in her bones.


OOC: Considering the size of the beastie, I think Ludo should get a +10 to hit it with his missile attacks - the first shot connects.

Astoria doesn't have Quick Draw so the most she could do is Ready her shield and move up alongside Sieghard. It doesn't matter, though, as the creature Disengages back into the water.

Elsa takes a wound from Tzeentch's Curse.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Repulsive thing," Sieghard said, then spat into the water after it. He had a strange urge to jump in and chase it, but pushed the mad thoughts aside. No doubt the monster was even deadlier in the water.

He approached Ludo and firmly grabbed his shoulder. "Maybe let someone with longer legs give it a try next time," he said. Turning to the others, he asked "What now? Do we keep going?"

[-Sentinel-]

Staring vaguely into nothingness for a moment, Elsa snapped back to reality. "I had... a vision," she blurted out. "The wizards of this place were casting a great spell. They were in their tower, not down here. Then they were attacked from below. Not a monster like this one... smaller things, with blades. The lead wizard took an object from the nexus of the ritual, but it was too late, and the spell lashed back at the wizards."

She paused, thinking hard about what she had just seen. This was not her first vision but it seemed like an important one. "This object. I want to know what it was. I want it."


OOC
LCP, did the things appear humanoid in shape?

I have an idea what they were, but I'm not sure-sure...

[RossN]

Adelbert

'No one is going anywhere until I see if I can do something for your wounds,' Adelbert insisted. The priest moved over to Elsa first and carefully examined her from several angles.

'Hold still, soothsayer,' he instructed, laying his palm on Elsa's forehead and closing his eyes as he murmured a prayer. 'Lady Verena please grant me the power to heal this woman.'

OOC:
Channeling: [roll0] vs 53
Blessing of Healing: [roll1]. Target number 5.

[LeSwordfish]

"I thought I could make it," Ludo said, damp and morose. "At least I didn't sink. You in your armour would have gone straight to the bottom."

Whatever it was that Adelbert was doing was highly restorative though, and Ludo's spirits perked up a little as Elsa told her tale. "So before they were cleared out by the Illuminated Order, the wizards of this place were attacked by something else?" he said. "That explains why it exploded that one time. Did you recognise what it was that attacked?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

Noticing Elsa looking slightly better Adelbert smiles. 'The goddess would seem to favour you Elsa. Now tell us more about this vision and this object. Why do you want it? And where did that creature come from?'

While he awaits the answers he moves on to treat the others, carefully washing and treating their wounds and burns, then wrapping them in cloth. It is clear to the priest that with the possible exception of Ludo they'll all need further treatment - and rest.

[-Sentinel-]

"So before they were cleared out by the Illuminated Order, the wizards of this place were attacked by something else?" he said. "That explains why it exploded that one time. Did you recognise what it was that attacked?"

Elsa shook her head. "No, but it's unlikely they're still around. Then again... the same could've been said of that monster we just drove off."


'The goddess would seem to favour you Elsa. Now tell us more about this vision and this object. Why do you want it? And where did that creature come from?'

Elsa made no comment on Verena; though nominally a believer like any good Empire-born person, she was far from spiritually inclined, and the idea of an omniscient being watching her and judging her every move was not one that she liked to dwell upon too long. To Adelbert's questions, she answered:

"I want it because it was in the center of a ritual spell, and is likely an object of some power. No idea where it is now; perhaps it was taken by the attackers. As for the creature we saw, I'm guessing it's a fusion of a daemon and one of the wizards who were performing the ritual."

She paused. "There were three wizards. I dearly hope there aren't three monsters. I'm pretty sure I saw at least one of the wizards die in my vision."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"If you've no clue where it is, then all we can do is keep looking," Sieghard replied. "Before we set out, you mentioned you had rope. Let me see it."

He tied the end around his waist for safety, took a look into the water to make sure the creature was gone, then stepped back, started running, and jumped the gap. "Wasn't so hard," he said, untying himself and looking for something to secure his end to.

[roll0] Bad roll, but it still gets him across. When I said Sieghard can't fail earlier, I wasn't accounting for the movement penalty from armor. Failure + 2 DoF here still gives him a 5 yard jump though.

[RossN]

Adelbert

As he waited for Sieghard to finish tying his rope Adelbert looked at Elsa, doubt and concern written across his features. 'Given what we've just seen here are you entirely sure you want to continue messing with the magics these people used?'

[-Sentinel-]

"I don't know what ritual they were casting, and I've no intent to attempt it," answered Elsa.

She approached the edge of the water cautiously (she hated water) and grabbed the rope.

OOC
Strength 30 for jumping. Does the rope provide a bonus? [roll0]

Edit: Not a good roll, but with Movement 5 and SB 3, I believe that's a narrow success.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert did not reply, though the look on his face spoke volumes.

The priest waited for Elsa to cross, whispering a prayer to Verena before taking the rope in turn.

OOC:
Channeling: [roll0]
Blessing of Speed (casting number 4): [roll1]

Strength: [roll2] vs. 36

[LCP]

One by one, the five of them made the leap, this time taking extra care not to trip on any rocks. When all of them were across, Elsa gathered up her rope again and they proceeded down the tunnel.

The tunnel widened as they headed further from the water, making Elsa suspect they were tracing another one of the fissures she had seen leading off from the central cavern. Before they had gone far, another crooked side-passage opened to their left. Like the others, it looked natural, disappearing around a sharp dog-leg bend before they could see twenty feet into its shadows. Adelbert wondered how many such passages riddled the rock down here in the roots of the Karst. How long might a man wander if he became lost, following the paths carved by dripping water, without ever seeing the sun?

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Maybe we should start marking the path back to where we came from," Sieghard said. The path they had taken so far was easy enough to recall, but the further they delved, the less true that would become.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert nodded. 'I agree. Do we have anything to mark the way - preferably not edible. I can't imagine or piscine acquaintance will follow us but there could be lizards or rodents about.'

[-Sentinel-]

"We could use coins, I suppose," said Elsa. "If we space them out wherever there's only one way to go, we won't need that many."

She had already sacrificed a few coppers since coming here.


OOC
Of course there's the question of how many low-value coins (coppers and shillings) we actually have. This isn't a market; we cannot break down gold coins into smaller coins.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Or... We could just mark the ground and walls with that torch you put out," Sieghard said, turning down the left passage.

[LeSwordfish]

"They built a bridge over to here originally." Ludo said. "So they must have come down here quite often.

He crouched down and inspected the floor closely, trying to find the scuffs or footprints that would show which way to go.

Perception vs 48: [roll0]

[LCP]

It had been a long time since anyone else living had been this way. What traces they might have left on the rocks had long since been erased by time and the slow seep of water - at least, as far as Ludo could see.

Holding up the lit torch, Sieghard led the way down the passage. Compared to the tunnel they had just left, it was narrow, though not as constricted as the passage behind the secret door. It twisted like the innards of a snake, throwing off more cracks and side-passages seemingly at random. In the space of about thirty yards, they found two that were passable. The first, wide but low-ceilinged, led back off to the right. The second split off to the left, a narrow crack through which glimmers of a larger space could be seen. Ahead, the passage they were in continued, narrowing enough to force them back into single file.

The branch to the left was only a few yards long. Edging down it until he could see what lay beyond, Sieghard raised his torch. An irregularly-shaped cavern opened on the other side, easily the size of the hidden study. Mostly bare, its rough floor was potholed with several deep, flooded pits. Here and there, some small items of wooden furniture lay smashed and rotting - and piled against the back wall, two yellowing mounds of bones gleamed in the torchlight. They looked big enough to be human.

OOC: https://i.postimg.cc/C15V73Jq/More-Caves.png

[LeSwordfish]

"I don't know if that thing would pile up bones." Ludo said uneasily. "Definitely seems like something else is down here. Or was down here maybe, but why be optimistic?"

Ludo had no particular desire to "rummage" or "poke around" in the pile of bones, but was willing to "inspect" them, and after looking over them for any obvious differences from an expected pile of bones (was that a horn he saw on one?) turned to investigate the tunnel opposite.

OOC
Perception vs 48 again: [roll0]

[LCP]

Squeezing past Sieghard, Ludo headed over to the larger of the two piles. Passing by one of the pools of water on the way, he saw that it too appeared to be of great depth - even if he held the lantern just above the surface, the bottom was lost in darkness. Who knew just how deep these aquifers went?

Sure enough, the bones appeared human - mostly adults, with a few small enough to have belonged perhaps to adolescents. Though now a disarticulated heap, from the relative completeness of the skeletons and the dark staining on the rock beneath, Ludo suspected that before it had been a pile of bones, it had been a pile of bodies, left to rot where they lay. Many of the bones showed signs of a violent death, but he could see no signs of them having been split or gnawed by scavengers.

A disconcerting number of bones showed signs of strange deformities. Here was a skull with a single, twisted horn rising from its temple, just as Ludo had thought he'd seen from the entrance. There, another was pockmarked with tiny, smooth holes around the edge of its broken eye-socket. Arm-bones that were too long, shin-bones that were too bent, vertebrae that boasted long, mostly broken spines. Here and there, a few rotten rags still clung to these sad remains, the same long-faded blue as on the skeleton he had found earlier.

Returning to the others, he passed Sieghard again and examined the tunnel continued. It didn't go far before turning around a sharp bend. Proceeding to the corner and raising his lantern, he peered into the darkness. It seemed to continue for some distance, but another deep pool of water blocked most of the tunnel's already tightly constricted width, leaving only a narrow ledge of rock to one side. It would be a balancing act for the tall folk to shuffle along a shelf that narrow, though they could probably jump the gap as they had before. Probably.

OOC: https://i.postimg.cc/c4gm6Wq9/More-Caves.png

[LeSwordfish]

"We could be here forever searching every tunnel." Ludo said. "We're not looking for lairs like this, we're looking for proper rooms like the study. If a passageway isn't easy to pass, like this, we should find another route: people lived here, they wouldn't have done this to get to the latrine every day."

OOC
Ludo's plan is to return to the main passageway and follow that further. Any objections?

The passageways were carved out by the water, right? Can I use Trade (Miner) to identify any that weren't, or that water isn't actively running down? A roll for that, if so: [roll0]

[LCP]

Doubling back to the tunnel in which the beast had emerged, they followed it further away from the water, until they found themselves back in the large cavern into which they had originally descended. Shadows moved in the dim shaft of light that came down from the well, a faint voice drifting down with them.

"Hello! Are you alive down there?" The echoes of Thom's shout rebounded from the cavern walls for some time before they faded. "We heard screams!"

An inhuman wail drifted out of the darkness, muffled as by layers of water and rock.

"...Like that!"

Ludo was making a quick circuit of the cave, examining each of the side-passages in turn. Most seemed unaltered from their natural state, although there was something curious about how they all seemed to branch off radially from that central pool - like cracks in glass, or the strands of a spider's web. Only one, the first to the left of the tunnel Elsa had taken them down originally, showed any sign of having been artificially widened. It had been crudely dug out to about the width of a mine cart. At the edge of the light shed by his lamp, Ludo thought he could make out a wooden door.

OOC: Waiting for everyone to sound off is a bit slow/timezone-unfriendly so I'm going to go ahead on Ludo's lead and people can backtrack if they want to.

Here's a map of everything you've found so far, now that you have the central cavern for reference again:

https://i.postimg.cc/VNKKvrPx/Cave-Exploring.png

[LeSwordfish]

"We're all alive!" Ludo called back, a little more circumspectly than Thom. "There's something - or somethings - down here, but we fought it off. All good up there?"


OOC
I'm knocking off for the night but: if nothing from the team above needs a specific response, Ludo will go see what's behind the door.

[-Sentinel-]

All the shouting made Elsa wince. The monster may have been driven off, but it might gather its courage again. And there might be other, similar things down here.

"Don't get too far ahead, Ludo," she hissed, hanging close to the halfling. She too was curious about the door.

[LCP]

Ludo's blasé comment about "something or some things" seemed to give Thom pause. After a long silence, he shouted back down the well: "Aye! We're good!"

They're getting agitated again, Elsa heard Morrslieb's croaking voice inside her head. Shall I peck them some more?

The door Ludo had found was already hanging ajar. It had clearly been forced with some violence - it almost fell off its rusted hinges when Ludo pushed it further open. On the other side was what looked like some kind of store-room, lying in as much destruction and disorder as the ruins above. A large number of empty wooden buckets lay scattered about, while half a dozen large barrels were arranged along the left-hand wall. Two big work tables stood against the back, one of them leaning drunkenly where its legs had collapsed. A number of tools hung on metal hooks hammered into the cavern wall - copper funnels and sieves, and the rotted remnants of what might once have been large wood-and-sheephide sieves.

In the centre of the floor was a fire pit, much larger than anyone would need simply for warmth. A cauldron big enough to boil a calf had fallen into it, the hefty wooden crossbeam that had once suspended it above the coals smashed and toppled. Under one of the fallen baulks of timber, the bones of another unfortunate lay mouldering, the business end of a broken spear still jutting between the yellowing ribs.

Another tunnel led off to the left, just past the row of barrels - the air that breathed from it was humid and cold, more so than the rest of the cave. In the right-hand corner, a much narrower passage crawled away into the dark. From the look of it, it seemed uncertain whether it remained wide enough for a human being to get far.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked around, expression grim, then gestured at the narrow passage. 'I'd be willing to bet we'll find the remains of some poor fool down there too.'

Turning he looked at the left passage trying to listen in for... well... anything.

Ooc:
Perception: [roll0] vs 86 (+20 for Acute Hearing.)

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Just stay put up there!" Sieghard called to Thom and the others, "We've got things under control!"

"Mutants, monsters, and all sorts of weirdness," he muttered . Even if they did find something down here, he was becoming more and more convinced nothing good would come of it. He stared at the fire pit and the cauldron for a moment and turned to Elsa. "What do you reckon they used this place for?"

[LCP]

All Adelbert could hear was the slow, slow drip of water.

[LeSwordfish]

"So did the Illuminated Order come down here and break everything as well?" Ludo asked. "Or did it just all get old and rot? Or, well, was it something else?"

He headed off into the right-hand passage, interested to see if it got far before narrowing down again.

[LCP]

Ludo hadn't got far before the passageway became a tight squeeze even for him. With some nimble wriggling through the tightest spaces, he was able to keep going. He lost sight of the store-room very quickly, the light of his lantern the only thing keeping him from feeling utterly lost in the twisting dark. Still the tunnel extended deeper into the rock ahead - but he knew that if he went much further, he would have left the others far behind.

Back in the store-room, Adelbert was still lingering at the opening of the left-hand passage when a familiar, eerie wail came bubbling up out of its mouth. It sounded muted still - but closer than before.

[LeSwordfish]

In the end, Ludo's own suggestion about only following paths people would have taken won out over his curiousity - or, so he decided to believe - and he returned to the main room.

[-Sentinel-]

They're getting agitated again, Elsa heard Morrslieb's croaking voice inside her head. Shall I peck them some more?
Leave it, said Elsa. If they won't follow direct orders to stay where they are, they won't be intimidated by a bird.

"What do you reckon they used this place for?" asked Sieghard.

"Alchemical laboratory would be my best bet," said Elsa.

She probed the room with her mind in search of anything magical it might contain.

Magical Sense 88: [roll0]

Edit: Re-rolled to a 23 in the OOC thread.

She shivered at the sound of the wail. She told herself the thing would not be wailing if it were on the hunt... but it did sound closer. Perhaps it would stumble upon them and fight in defense of its lair.

"Shall we call it a day?"

[LCP]

Elsa's attention was drawn to a silty residue at the bottom of the fallen cauldron. Though mostly grey and inert, here and there a grain or two seemed to glitter with a tantalising variety of colours. She had seen that glitter once before - in the canisters of warpstone dust they had found beneath Gilbertus' manse.

[RossN]

Adelbert

'I believe we should call it a day,' Adelbert replied. 'I'd hate to have to patch you all up again.'

[LeSwordfish]

"At least let's try the other routes from the main cave." Ludo said. "We've come all this way and not found anything."

[RossN]

Adelbert

'Something did find us,' Adelbert commented dryly.

[-Sentinel-]

"At least let's try the other routes from the main cave." Ludo said. "We've come all this way and not found anything."

"It has been underwhelming in terms of things we can actually carry back," admitted Elsa, choosing to wait another day before showing them the mirror. "I suppose we could keep exploring a bit while we're here. But keep in mind, we don't have to do it all in one day."

She had not expected this place to be so large. Had she known, she would have brought more torches.


OOC
Not sure how many hours of light we have left. Did we ever establish how many torches out of four are lit at any one time, and who carries them? The latter could be important in combat, or if someone gets separated from the rest, etc. I think Adelbert should have one, as he rarely needs both hands in a fight.

Where shall we explore next? Do all those tunnels look more or less identical? If so, let's keep doing it counterclockwise.

[LCP]

Backtracking to the central cavern, Elsa led the way into the next tunnel round. Like the side-passage that Adelbert had examined, the air that flowed from it was cool and damp. It didn't go far before it opened onto a rocky shelf, overlooking a dark expanse of water far larger than even the pool beneath the well. Practically an underground lake, the cavern that contained it stretched back further than the reach of Elsa's torch, the far shore - if there was one - lost in darkness.

Elsa Only
In the moisture that permeated the air, Elsa could taste the same power that breathed from the surface of the pool beneath the well. It was fainter here, diluted, but it was present all the same. Gazing into the water, Elsa thought she saw currents stir beneath the surface - currents that gleamed with the same polychromatic glitter as the dust in the cauldron.

She saw other things too - the reflection of three crow-like figures, standing so close behind her shoulder that she should have felt their breath on her cheek. She caught the stink of ash and iron in her nostrils - but when she looked around, there was no-one there.

As if on cue, another bubbling howl filtered up through the water. The loudest yet, it filled the cavern with its echoes. Astoria pulled Elsa back from the edge, standing with her spear at the ready - but no fires flared in the depths, no shapes moved beneath the surface. After perhaps a minute, when it became apparent that the beast was not going to appear, they turned back to continue their search.

The next three tunnels that radiated from the central cavern were all busts, either running into dead ends or tapering off into worm-warrens of fissures too small for even Ludo to squeeze through. The fourth, and last, seemed to lead into the same maze of narrow passageways in which they had found the cave of bones. They found a low-ceilinged cavern that looked to have been used as either sleeping quarters, a prison, or both - the mouldered rags of blankets lay between rusted chains and shackles, anchored to iron pegs driven into the floor. A number of tunnels led off into the rock around it, pocked with flooded pot-holes like the ones they had seen elsewhere.

The shrieks of the creature continued to haunt them, bursting from the darkness at random intervals. It didn't have the decency to have a single cry. Sometime it howled like an animal in pain; sometimes it sounded almost like human speech. Sometimes it issued eerie, ululating wails that sounded like nothing living. As their exploration wore on, the thing's screams wore inevitably on their nerves, though none sounded as loud and close as the one they had heard from the shores of the lake. The sentries up top could hear them too, and called down periodically to check everyone was still alive.

Ludo had exhausted in the oil in his lamp, Elsa was down to her last two torches, and hunger was gnawing in the pits of their stomachs by the time they returned from the cavern with the chains. There was no daylight down here by which to count time, but Thom shouted down from above that noon had been some time ago. Even the creature seemed to have grown a little tired - it had to have been at least half an hour since they had last heard it scream.

OOC: https://i.postimg.cc/kgfGqzrF/Cave-Exploring.png

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Not a lot of places left to search unless someone feels like going for a swim with the monster," Sieghard said. "Let's head up and have something to eat. We can decide what to do next after that."

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa nodded. "We're running out of light anyway, and I'd rather not have to rely on magic for this."

She suspected the creature was purposefully trying to get them to leave, but could not work up the nerve to attack them directly. She was almost disappointed; it was likely the only living thing under here that dated back to the time of the failed ritual, and perhaps it somehow held the key to many of this place's mysteries.

But now there's no grate keeping it from leaving...

Would it go after them come nightfall? Or would it enjoy its newfound freedom? Or would it simply sulk in its dark hole?

[LeSwordfish]

"Do you think it's just a spell?" Ludo asked. "Just something that makes a noise to scream at us to make us go away?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked at Ludo in disbelief.'Have you forgotten the very real monster we met? What in Sigmar's name makes you think that noise is a spell, a spell which seeminly is the only thing left intact down here?'

[LeSwordfish]

"Just an idea." Ludo said, shrugging. "But we've searched most of this chamber, and made enough noise to wake the dead - so where is it? Either it's underwater, or hiding from us. Or maybe it's some member of the Illuminated Order's plan for warding off treasure-hunters."

"If there's something else down here, I don't know where we can find it. Lets head upstairs now, we can try something else later."

[LCP]

Returning to the cavern beneath the well, they made the treacherous ascent back up the narrow steps. No howls chased them up out of the dark, no monstrous shapes scuttled in the shadows behind them - though Ludo looked over his shoulder half a dozen times to be absolutely sure.

Sieghard's men helped them out with worried faces, unable to understand what had compelled them to stay down with the source of the screams for so long. Outside the ruins, the sun was about halfway past its zenith. It looked they still had a few more hours of daylight before it set.

[-Sentinel-]

"Just an idea." Ludo said, shrugging. "But we've searched most of this chamber, and made enough noise to wake the dead - so where is it? Either it's underwater, or hiding from us. Or maybe it's some member of the Illuminated Order's plan for warding off treasure-hunters."

"I think the creature was afraid of us but wanted us out," said Elsa. "That's why it kept screaming but never showed up again. If it wanted to eat us, it would try to sneak up on us."

She squinted from the sunlight through the broken windows as they reached the top of the well. She stole a quick glance at the mirror she had found in the summoning room, wondering if it would show her the same thing it had shown earlier.

[LCP]

Elsa Only
Elsa appeared in the mirror just as she had before, in magisterial splendour. The image of anything more than a couple of yards behind her was still poor, but even in that blurry, warped reflection, she could see the grey ruins around her transformed. They appeared as they had once been, whole and full of light and colour - or perhaps, as they could be again.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa pocketed the mirror and sat down to rest her legs, sore from all the walking. She only now realized how tense she had been this past hour or two. It felt good to be back on the surface.

"So," she said, addressing the others who had come down with her. "I believe there's not much more to search, and even if there is, we didn't bring enough torches. Perhaps we should be on our way."

She doubted there would be any objections, since she was the one who had insisted on this expedition. Still, she felt disappointed. The summoning circle was an interesting thing to know about, but without a ritual to cast, it was not all that useful. Had she missed something?

Elsa only
Elsa also knew that her mysterious 'helpers' had wanted her to do something. No doubt they would be back, sooner or later, to demand that she return down there and did... whatever they had been expecting of her. Summon Cacophrax? Even if she wanted to, she did not know how.

[RossN]

Adelbert

'That seems like a good idea,' Adelbert said. 'We also have to face the possibility that that creature has taken vital materials to the bottom of its cavern pool and therefore beyond our reach short of a priest of Mannan showing up.'

He opened his pack and carefully removed the alchemy and 'glassblowing' notes he'd discovered. 'And we do have these of course, though perhaps they would have been more use to poor Beatrix.'

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"No complaints from me," Sieghard said, "Though we won't get far today with what sun we have left."

Re-read some stuff and saw my question was already answered. Post edited accordingly.

[-Sentinel-]

"No complaints from me," Sieghard said, "Though we won't get far today with what sun we have left."

"Any distance we can put between ourselves and the thing that's down there is welcome."

Elsa was lost in thought for a moment. "I sure can't wait to be back to my books in Savonne. We saw some inscriptions down there that jostled my memory about something I read before. Perhaps this expedition wasn't as pointless as I feared."


OOC
I don't recall whether we're expected to go to Bunthafen or Savonne next.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert nodded. 'Yes I can't say I'm delighted to linger her. Still, we better do something about that well. Not only might that thing get out other parties might decide to take a look down there.'

He pointed at the rusted grille they'd originally removed. 'That will have to do I suppose. Better than nothing.'

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Sieghard nodded and turned to his men. "Help me get this thing back in place," he said, grabbing one end of the grate.

[-Sentinel-]

"Might be best if we stay here for the night, after all," noted Elsa, gauging the lengthening shadows. "If anything tries to come through the grate, we'll hear it."

Still, she intended not to sleep too close.

Trolls in the karst, a Chaos abomination down the well... Neither choice was attractive but this seemed the safest option. She would only allow herself to truly rest once she was back in inhabited land.