[IC] The Plague of Tamor Town

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara again feels a little strange and dizzy about the idea of having many husbands. And keeping a city going? What's up with that? It sounds almost suffocating. Well, it is underwater, after all. And Lana's people can breathe down there. So maybe it's different to them.

"I see. Okay." she says simply.

[Izzarra]

As Cailenam considers what he has recently witnessed, what he knows from his studies, and the bodies in the lake that thirst for life essence, he comes to the conclusion that the healing spell interrupted the sacrifice of the hobgoblin causing the strong magic of the summoning ritual to go wild, burning the body from the inside out as there was no other means for its release. The partial lupine transformation likely being some sort of feedback. You would expect magic of this magnitude to be far beyond the reach of those that you have just fought.

---

After being released and upon seeing their former captors dead on the ground the goblins loosen up a bit realizing that you are probably the enemy of their enemy at the very least. They run over and kick the bodies a few times for good measure, spitting on them and performing other goblin insults.

In the loot arranged next to the bodies they point to two of the daggers and gesture tucking them into what passes as pants. They have almost no clothing and no supplies.

Seeing the questioning look on Zarron’s face the goblins say “Xeld,” gesture towards themselves suggesting like us, then hold their hand up indicating a height that is about how tall the hobgoblin was.

---

Adamas’ bread comes out hard and unleavened, dwarves would approve of it.

Spoiler: OOC

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It is difficult to decide how much information to give you on a good skill check so that there are still bits of the puzzle left for you to figure out on your own. I hope that this was not too much.

There are several dozen bodies in the water, It will take two people a couple hours to drag all of them out.

[Zergrinch]

Realization dawns on who this Xeld is.

"Xeld? Xeld gone." Zarron says. He points to the altar, and mimes a dagger being plunged into his chest. With both fists on his sternum, he stretches them outside and up, opening the fists as he does so, pantomiming an explosion. And then he holds his neck with both hands, and sticks out his tongue, miming being killed.

He grabs a couple of daggers in the weapons pile, and tosses them to the goblins with a set of cultist clothes, two of his trail rations, a bedroll, a backpack, and food provisions, not particularly wanting to see nude goblins if he can help it.

"You free. Go home."

[Izzarra]

The goblins manage to comprehend that Xeld is dead, but not much else.

They happily accept the equipment. Taking the daggers and coarsely cutting down the cloths to better fit. They pack the bags up, but leave them near where Adamas has set up camp and wander off. After a while they come back with some sharpened sticks and a three freshly killed marmots, they give two of them to Zarron then they proceed to build a spit for roasting out of some sticks and torn strips of clothing, then skin and gut one of the marmots.

[Zergrinch]

"Ummm... thank you?"

Why didn't the goblins leave? They would simply be putting themselves at risk, since the cultist leader might return with more in tow.

Still, it would be impolite to refuse the gift, so Zarron accepts the marmots and begins to imitate the goblins in skinning and gutting them.

[WhismurWanders]

Cailenam watches the interaction with the goblins warily at first, but they seemed to be acting friendly enough that he could share his thoughts with the others. "I think I can explain what happened to this Xeld, even if it doesn't make sense that such amateur cultists would be able to harness such power. The attempt to heal him interfered with whatever dark energies had already filled his body during whatever ritual they were performing ... either the cultists have well-learned friends hiding elsewhere, or the anvil is more powerful than we suspect.'" With that said, he goes around collecting the flagons of ale from everyone before offering to help with the body recovery, if Lana needed any assistance.

[ProudGrognard]

Adamas

Adamas has very little to contribute to weighty matters, like those of the essence of reality. He keeps an ear in the discussion and hides a smile as he hears the discussion of Staara and Lana. It would be good if they got closer. They both need friends.

The goblins make him a bit apprehensive, but he gives them only a second's thought. They would not be a problem, and they seem to be behaving. He gives them some of the food also, and then sits down to eat. The bread got a bit hard but otherwise the food is nice.

[Izzarra]

While Cailenam and Lana proceed with their rituals the others go about cooking, removing the bodies from the water, and gathering firewood.

The goblins show Zarron how to prepare the marmots for the spit while he in tern starts tutoring them in the common tongue. After a little while they have the marmots set up to slow roast for dinner. Zarron eventually learns their names are Vrat and Jolx.

When the goblins see the others pulling the bodies from the water they go in to help. One of them immediately falling flat on its face unconscious the other runs round screaming in terror, shortly joined by the first after it is woken. After that they remain outside of the cave, but prove useful in helping to gather wood by managing the mule and cart.

After many hours of labor you have all of the bodies gathered near the mouth of the cave and a large pyre set up in a small clearing a little ways up the hill. The sun will be setting soon.

Spoiler: DC 12 History, Culture regarding the goblin behavior

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The goblins probably think that they are part of your tribe now. There is a good chance that they have spent more time with orcs and other desert races to the east then with goblins and are doing what they have always done before to survive, hang around big strong people and be useful.

Spoiler: OOC

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Most of the bodies are humans, or half-humans. Several hobgoblins, goblins, and dwarves. One tiefling. The dwarves are the only ones that are not in tattered rages. There are no items of value.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara smiles and pats Lana on her shoulder. "One second, I have to go do something. I'm really enjoying watching you ask creation to be clean though." she stands and walks away.

She approached the goblins and sat. Not knowing what words they understood, she decided to just go for it. She hung her head in moderate shame and spoke: "I am sorry for killing your friend. He was not himself and he was attacking my friend. So I killed him. If either of you two" she points at the two of them, "try to do anything to any of my friends, I will be watching." after seeing if they understand, she stands and looks out into the fog one more time before coming back in and sitting with Lana.

[Xihirli]

After the long, long, not to mention long process of convincing the water to filter itself free of the Virus, Lana got up and stretched for awhile. "Whoa, that took a long time. Where are we going to sleep? I've been busy and really distracted."

[Zergrinch]

"Let's do everything we want to do here tonight, and set off tomorrow," Zarron suggests, as he gives Jolx the shortbow recovered by his friends from the lake, shows him how to load it, and points at a target he carved on the cave wall.

"We might want to make sure the bad guys can't use the anvil ever again."

[WhismurWanders]

Cailenam finishes cleansing the area with their makeshift holy water, and poses a question back at Zarron. "Is the destruction of the anvil something we can do, or risk? Such a relic capable of such monstrous evil is surely warded against its destruction, and destroying it might let even more dangerous magics into the area we just spent the better part of the day cleaning." He frowns slightly at being forced to admit he didn't know something, but he continues, "I only have a hunch of what our next objective might be. The altar's magic seemed skewed towards the valley; it might not be the only one any more cultists would be interested in, it might have been pointing towards a companion artifact of some kind."

Spoiler

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Cailenam will try to correlate what he saw through Detect Magic with the map inside the building.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara stands and also stretches. "I was thinking under the stars maybe? she replies to Lana.

[Xihirli]

Lana slung her still-tied strap over one shoulder and nodded, skipping outside to set out her bedroll under the stars.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara follows, smiling, and sets down her bedroll next to Lana's. She sits and yawns, stretching her legs out on her bedroll.

[Xihirli]

Lana tucked herself in and laid down looking over at Taara. "We're still diseased," Lana remembered, and actually laughed. "I kinda forgot all that for awhile."

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara looked down at her hand and smiled. "Hopefully not for much longer," she tucked herself in as she continued to talk. "But now that me and Trunksplitter helped get you and Cailenam to the source, no one else will be getting sick. We have done a very good thing." she yawned, but elves don't sleep so it was more of a fake yawn. She rolled over and looked into Lana's eyes, lightly smiling.

[Xihirli]

Lana nodded. "Yeah, we did." She stuck an arm out of her bedroll. "I forgot to put on the anchor. Do you think I'll float away?"

[Gluteus_Maximus]

She watched and listened to Lana carefully. "Honestly, I don't think so, I've never floated away when I've gone to sleep. But," she put a hand around Lana's hand. "I'll make sure you don't anyway. Or at least, make sure that if we do float off, I'm with you."

[Xihirli]

this is so gay
Lana smiled and wrapped her fingers around Taara's hand. "Good enough for me."
She closed her eyes and settled into sleep.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara smiled and watched Lana go to sleep. When she's finally out, she changes her hold on her hand. Drifting off into her trance, she continued to hold Lana's hand and dreamed of whatever visions still haunted her mind from earlier. In the dream, she stood and faced them, standing between them and the sleeping Lana. She fought for hours without backing down, beaten bloody, before finally getting jolted out of her trance 4 hours later. Sunrise on the horizon, and Lana still sleeping, she tightened her grip on Lana's hand and fell asleep.

[Izzarra]

The goblins stare blankly at Taara not understanding what she says.

---

Jolx takes the shortbow gives it a quick inspection and tests the poundage with a pull, then puts an arrow into the target, it appears that they are familiar with the weapon.

---

Upon inspecting the map Cailenam notes that the five points that are marked make a rough circle and that the aura was stretched towards the center of the circle.

---

Taara managed to convey the notion of standing watch to the goblins, but nothing happens during the night. In the morning the fog is still there filling the whole valley.

[Xihirli]

Lana woke up and smiled at Taara. She looked down at their locked fingers and leaned forward to give Taara a good morning smooch before stopping.
“Sorry, I don’t know what our boundaries are actually. I tend to make assumptions and I shouldn’t. Known problem.”

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara's face flushed a bit. She rolled over and panicked for a moment before sliding out of the bedroll and combing her fingers through her hair. "Um... I don't know either. Maybe we can figure that out later when we've figured this whole plague mess out?"

[Xihirli]

Lana nodded and got up, looking anywhere but at Taara as she flushed red. "Right, of course. We need more silver for more holy water, right?"

[Gluteus_Maximus]

She looks towards Lana as she starts brushing her hair."Or valuable things, I guess. Cailenam can make it into silver, right?" she thinks for a moment. "don't suppose you have shiny jewels from the sea?"

[Xihirli]

Lana shook her head. "No, but we passed by a box of copper bars that was too heavy to carry. We can go back and get them."

[WhismurWanders]

Cailenam reaffirms the need for silver to finish purifying the lake with holy water. "For whatever reason, I can't convert the anvil to silver; it must be some kind of artefact. Unless we find an armory or something nearby, we'll have to go back and get the copper from the dwarven vault. Unfortunately, the blessings of Matatabi only allow me to change metals into other things. It wouldn't work with gemstones."

[Xihirli]

"That's no problem!" Lana smiled as she stood. "We'll just go back the way we came! The only thing to stop us is the beetles, right?"

[Gluteus_Maximus]

"And the bat guano. And the lights, but we just need to sing and they don't do anything, apparently." Taara puts a finger to her lips, as if trying to remember something. "Shiny metal things? That reminds me, I saw something shiny when I was looking for firewood yesterday. Maybe it'll be metal?" without waiting for a response, she turns and starts to move at full speed down the fastest safe route towards where she saw the shiny thing earlier.