Wealday, Sarenith 15 (afternoon)

We have permanently shuttered Zyrxog’s operations in this city, and along with that, permanently shuttered Zyrxog.

They had been busy. In addition to directing the gang of dopplegangers, they were buying and selling rare items and artifacts on the black market. We found a ledger detailing every transaction, conveniently including names, dates, and amounts for each. For a being known for it’s supposed high intelligence, maintaining such meticulous records openly in undercommon—it’s rare, but far from unheard of—seems like poor thinking. Obviously, even criminal organizations need to keep business records, but most of those are smart enough to use a combination of code names and shorthand so they aren’t so damned obvious. But if Zyrxog wanted to make this all easier on us, then I was all for it.

On at least one occasion, Zyrxog’s two activities intersected. They sold something called the Apostolic Scrolls to one Loris Raknian, and shortly thereafter received a down payment from the same person to have a troublesome group of kids from Diamond Lake assassinated.

That would be us.

Based on the date, this request was made while we were en route to Korvosa. The timing there is just too good to be anything other than a response to our little stunt with the Ebon Triad, which means Raknian is mixed up in all of that, too.

We don’t know Raknian, but we’ve been seeing the name pretty much everywhere since we got here because he’s the organizer of the annual Champion’s Games. So, we have once again managed to draw the ire of an influential, high-profile, public figure. It’s not a good habit to get into. And unlike Smenk and Dourstone, we have the additional complication that Raknian is well-liked and fairly popular. It’s going to take more evidence than his name written in a ledger to take action against him.

But that was drama for later. We had other drama to deal with now.

When we went toe-to-toe with Zyrxog, they had a prisoner with them that they were preparing to, I dunno, de-brain, or whatever you want to call it. That prisoner turned out to be a bounty hunter named Cress, and he had been looking for a number of former slaves who had escaped from Kaer Maga, except instead of bringing them back he had been tasked with…making sure they were safe. Or rather, it had started out as the former, but somehow turned into the latter thanks to the interventions of a sorcerer and a powerful, magical compulsion. Snagsby, it seems, was the last person on the list.

Snagsby doesn’t talk much about his past, but it’s an open secret that he had been a slave in Kaer Maga and had managed to get away. It goes without saying that, given this history, we’re all somewhat protective of him so there wasn’t a lot of trust for the story Cress was selling. Snagsby’s half-orc heritage is subtle, so Cress didn’t realize Snagsby was standing right in front of him, and none of us were too keen on helping out. But, ultimately, it was Snagsby’s decision to reveal himself, and so he did.

Cress’s response was immediate as the compulsion broke. “For the first time in two years I’m free!”

Well, good for you, then.

We destroyed a few things on our way out. There was a pool filled with what looked like tadpoles but were almost certainly young mind flayers. They had to go. The pool itself was infused with magic that radiated a sort of dread, so that had to go, too. Vandalism doesn’t typically make Abadar’s list of approved activities, but it felt like this was an exception. And then Zyrxog’s library had a vrock, of all things, in some sort of suspended animation as a kind of alarm system, and it was really pissed when we triggered it. So that had to go, as well (I am sure it would have been just as happy to tear Zyrxog apart at being used like this, but we had already seen to that).

With all that done, it was time to leave. We led Cress and the other prisoners back up the surface and now we’re hanging back at the Crooked House.

And if anyone needs me, I’ll be taking a nap.

Wealday, Sarenith 15 (mid-day)

Our prisoner said we’d find their village just past the cave with the naga. And, yes, that naga. And I’ll go ahead and point out the obvious: the drow managed to come and go without getting into a fight with it.

It was a huge chamber, easily 40 feet high, just as deep and half again as wide with passages leading out in multiple directions. A large shelf sat halfway up on one end, leading back to chambers that were obviously sleeping quarters, while the main area at ground level functioned as a kind of communal space. It held livestock—a cow and a couple of pigs—in a wooden pen.

After their disastrous raid on the warehouse, they were only a dozen or so drow left, and they poured out of every passage and recess to engage us with their bows. This was obviously intolerable, so I asked Viktor to enlarge me and I stepped into the middle of the fray, horsechopper at the ready. There was not a single drow that wasn’t within my reach, and that put a significant dent in their plans. Clearly, no one had explained to them the concept of “defense in depth”. Things only got worse when Varin followed it up with a blinding burst of glittering, gold dust. At that point, our archers had such an advantage that the end was inevitable.

One of the passages had a barred door guarded by zombies, and this was where they were keeping prisoners they had abducted from the city above. So if you were feeling bad about how easily we wiped out this little colony, let that put your concerns to bed. The zombies were even less of a challenge for us, though they were sufficient to keep four terrified captives from escaping.

“That thing comes in here every so often, drags one of us off, and they never come back,” one of the women said. “It’s a hideous monster.”

“With a squid-like face?” I asked.

“Yes.”

There were never more than six prisoners in there at any one time. Every few days someone new would appear, and someone would be taken away, Those taken never returned.

“When did it last come in here?” Zhog asked.

“Not long ago. Maybe an hour or so.”

It wasn’t necessarily safe for them to try and make their way out on their own, but they couldn’t wait forever for us if something happened, so we gave them food, our map of the sewer, and the key to the lock.

“Give us an hour,” I said. “If we aren’t back by then, make your way to the surface.”

We pressed on. In the next cavern, the tentacle theme continued as we were ambushed by what looked like walking octopi. There were too many to fight all at once, especially since their gaze made us sluggish, so we withdrew down the passage to a choke point. They obliged by being both aggressive and dumb, leaving a superior tactical position to make it easier for us to pick them off one at a time. (Though I did have to occasionally move up and play the role of bait to keep them from losing interest. Now who was being dumb?)

And then things got weird. That cavern had a pair of white marble doors built into one side with veins of a purple, glowing mineral running through them, flanked by a pair ivory columns. Snagsby reshaped the stone so we could force them open, and it revealed a circular chamber with a giant brain carved out of the same, purple-veined marble. Snagsby tried to enter and he said is mind was immediately assaulted by some overwhelming mental pressure to bow to the will of Zyxog the Master (three guesses who that is). He resisted, but not without cost: he stumbled back out of the room somewhat dulled by the experience.

Stone benches and manacles lined the chamber, suggesting that this was used to break the wills of victims. Viktor guessed that, with the rapid onslaught, it would just be a matter of time before someone succumbed to it, so we spent a lot of time debating what to do. Which spells might protect us from the effect, which ones might not be likely to help, and so on. It was all very dull and exhausting. Eventually, I pointed out that I have a large hammer on the end of a long pole, and the effect  from the brain didn’t seem to reach past the doors.

“Just enlarge me,” I said “and I’ll bash it to pieces from here. I won’t even have to enter the room.”

This worked, albeit slowly because the positioning was awkward. But the operative word in there is “worked”, and after a few good hits the magic failed and no more giant brain. While it was satisfying and effective, it was also pretty loud so no more element of surprise. But that was assuming we even had it to begin with.

Now we’re holed up in what looks like Zyxog’s personal lab and study. It’s filled with dry technical books on various boring subjects, as well as piles of research notes that the others are pouring over. Apparently it created the ocotpus things and called them “octopin”, and it was researching creating a parasite it called “mind worms”.

Obviously, naming things was not their strong suit. In fact, it scribbled “find a better name for it later” among the notes for the latter.

Well, at least they knew it, too.

Wealday, Sarenith 15 (late morning)

We descended into the sewers shortly before dawn. There was no one around—unsurprising since normal people aren’t up this early—so we were able to get in without having to wave our letter around in front of some city official.

Believe it or not, sewers are a topic of conversation in the Church, though one that mostly takes place from an engineering and public health standpoint. Proper sewer design is important in separating waste from, say, drinking water, which helps prevent the spread of diseases both mundane and supernatural. What they don’t discuss in detail is the realities of being down in one, which is that they are disgusting. Fortunately for us we tend to plan ahead, and were covered by a spell that surrounds us all with a layer of clean, breathable air. This protected us from noxious fumes, harmful gases and even let us breathe freely underwater if needed. But most important? It got rid of the smell.

But it was still an unpleasant experience, because it’s a sewer, and sewers are filled with sewage.

About an hour of working our way through the labyrinth with only my hand-drawn map as a guide, we came across our first dead body. Well, not our first, obviously, but our first down here. They were dressed like a city maintenance worker, which was not unusual, but what was unusual was the large hole in their forehead. Mind flayers are known for their ability to suck the brains out of their victims’ skulls if they manage to get a firm grip with their tentacles. Just in case there was any doubt about us being in the right general area, or what we were up against.

I marked the location on the map so we could inform the city, and pressed on. An hour later, we saw this translucent barrier ahead of us with what looked like objects suspended in the air behind it.

Viktor and I exchanged glances, then said to the others, quietly, “gelatinous cube”. We backed away slowly, and looked for another route.

This was safer, but also a lot longer because now we had to take detours that weren’t on my map. But we eventually worked our way back to that sewer line and were rewarded with faint, phosphorescent mold that someone had tracked in along the walkway. This mold was, from what we could tell, a byproduct of the heavy metal pollution from the Forge. A few minutes later, we saw where the sewer line intersected a natural cavern that was filled with the stuff, and we knew we were in the right place.

We entered the cavern and followed the passage to the next chamber, which was lined with a different, yellow mold with numerous giant mushrooms growing out of it. I’d describe the as “swaying in the breeze”, only there was no breeze. They swayed anyway.

Viktor knows more about fungi than I do—I’m not going to ask—and said these things emitted a piercing, screeching sound when they sensed vibrations. That sounded like a natural alarm to us, so Snagsby used a spell to silence the area and I started slicing them up. This kicked up a huge cloud of spores or whatever it is that comes from mold, which would have been bad if it hadn’t been for our magical protection, and instead was just annoying.

Beyond that was a natural passage with a ledge forming a sort of overlook. This seemed like a good place for an ambush, so I opened myself up to the auras around me and sensed the taint up there right away. We snuck up on the ledge and heard something being poured down the shaft. Suspecting it to be oil—again, can’t smell the fumes through this spell—Snagsby conjured a flame to set it alight before it could reach us and we let it burn out. Then we scrambled up and confronted the defenders: more drow.

Legend says that when the Starstone struck the world and plunged it into the Age of Darkness, most of the elves fled through some portal to another dimension. Those that opted to stay on Golarion instead of flee dove down into the Darklands, and were tainted by Rovagug’s influence into a twisted culture of demon worshipers, eventually becoming the dark elves we know today. I don’t know how much truth there is to that legend, but it’s a good story and I see no reason to doubt it.

Why were there drow here? Don’t know, and don’t care. That they were here at all was concern enough. But, we needed to know more about what we were walking into, so I took one of the survivors back to the mushroom cave to have a little talk. I just got finished tying them up before my friends called out an alarm. Something about a snake with a woman’s head.

I rushed forward in time to see them engaged with…well…a giant snake with a woman’s head. She exerted a mental push on me as I met her gaze, but I was able to shrug it off. Some of the others weren’t so lucky, and it was up to Sera, Viktor, and I to take it down while our friends got in our way, because that is what we needed right now.

As we closed in for killing blows, it said, “I could have killed you all before you even knew I was here! I was trying to be nice!”

What?

Obviously, I had missed something, because I hadn’t been there for the start of this skirmish. So I asked for an explanation. “What was that about her trying to be nice to us, but we still attacked her?” I asked.

“I cast a spell that put a bane on her,” Viore said.

I met eyes with Viktor. He was thinking the same thing I was. “I would have considered that a hostile act, too,” he said.

This one is going to stick with me because we were definitely in the wrong here. Lesson learned, I hoped, about not starting fights we don’t need to have.

Fireday, Sarenith 11 (night)

The doors at the end of the hall opened to another stars-be-damned maze. This is only our second one of these and already the idea feels played out.

For what it’s worth, this one at least had a theme. The walls were all metal, polished to a mirror-like surface, and some rose from the ground to alter the layout as we walked through in an effort to isolate us from one another. Or so I assume. That being said, what was the point? It all just reeked of form over function. These creatures would probably be more successful if they spent as much time on their jobs as they did on trying to be clever and stylish at the same (though maybe that’s a good thing, since organized like this, they were already astonishingly successful).

As we worked our way through it, predictably, walls rose up and one or two duplicates of us appeared and tried to take us on, and then (also predictably) they died. This happened, like, five times and they still didn’t get the message. They were taking notes from the Ebon Triad on how to suck.

We found their boss, Telakin, sitting on a throne, of all things, in a giant hall filled with vats and tubes and similar lab equipment, and he had taken Allustan’s form. Allustan? Really? Like that was going to fool or startle us. Ooooh! It’s someone we know! How clever and shocking of you.

Give me a break.

There was a wide open space in the center that just kind of said said “trap” to me, so we approached along the walls. Turns out that was clever, but not quite clever enough. At the far end of the hall, two sets of stairs ascended to their throne, and by sheer, dumb luck I avoided setting off a trap at the top as I closed in. On the opposite side, Viktor didn’t, and nearly fell in a pit when a trap door opened up underneath him. Fortunately the operative word there was “nearly”, as he deftly jumped out of the way.

Telakin responded by creating a wall of fire separating us from them. I won’t lie: being burned in fire is no fun, and I don’t recommend it. But we’ve long since learned how to counter injuries from this sort of thing using magic. One spell from Viktor later and we just walked on through. He was still sitting on his throne, like a chump.

“He’s still sitting on his throne, like a chump!” I said to the others. While this technically broke my no-banter rule, the flames were difficult to see through so it served the purpose of letting our archers know where to aim. So I let it slide.

Of course, he thought the point of this was to exchange quips.

“You’re dumb enough to run through a wall of fire.”

This is why I don’t like to banter during a fight: you just end up looking stupid because odds are good the other person knows something you don’t, like, say, they’re magically protected from fire. Just to toss out a random example.

He transformed into a half-orc as we surrounded him. Unlike the others, taking new forms seemed to actually imbue him with abilities, but he was still afflicted with the same “good plan, poor execution” disease as his henchmen. It was too little, too late, and Sera and I cut him down.

We examined the lab equipment and determined this is where they made the gems like the one we found on Zhog’s imposter. Zhog remembered being strapped to the table here, and having that silvered helmet placed on his head. The gems were obviously an enormously valuable and effective asset to the dopplegangers, allowing them to very seamlessly assume a person’s place, but we learned  that they were also very difficult and expensive to create, and that limited the syndicate’s ability to scale out. Not that I am real upset over this.

Telakin’s quarters contained a number of legal documents and business records of transactions here in Korvosa, and an enchanted mirror that showed the true form of whoever stood in front of it for a brief time. The latter seemed like it would be of value to the city, given that a number of people in government and high society had been replaced. We found two more gems: one belonging to an influential noble, and the other to a captain in the city guard. Reading through the documents will probably clue us in to others.

There was also an interesting note, apparently written to Telakin. It said:

I have a task for you, thrall. Meet me at the sewer junction beneath the cold forge and I will give you the details. There are some troublesome small minds that must be removed.

It seems, then, that Telakin had a boss, too. Also, who actually calls their subordinates “thrall”?

That there was still a head on this snake sounded interesting to us, so we visited our prisoner.

“Congratulations on your promotion,” I said. “You’re now your own boss!”

It seemed less smug in their reply this time. “Well. You’ve won this round, but you still don’t realize you’re dead.”

Whatever. We’ve heard this kind of bluster before, and we’re obviously still around to hear it again, now.

“And who is your former boss’s boss?”

It shrugged and said, “I don’t know his name.”

Whoever they are, our prisoner is absolutely terrified of them. They literally preferred being imprisoned down here to potentially being hunted down as a deserter. Personally, I think they are overestimating their own significance, but if they want to stay locked up in a cell below a dilapidated warehouse? Well, that is a service we can provide.

As for the “cold forge”, that sounds like a reference to an actual business here in the city. When we first got here, I set out to find a metalsmith, blacksmith, or armorer that would let me rent some time with their forges to work on my armor, and I vaguely remember a place called The Cold Forge as being one of my options (I’ve been hit on the head a lot since then, mind you, so my memory is fuzzy). I am pretty sure I can find it once we are out of here, and from there we can figure out what is meant by “beneath it”.

We’re staying the rest of the night here because we are all exhausted and need to sleep. And if you think it’s easy to rest properly when you are chained to wall and have only beds of straw and an uncomfortable chair for furniture, allow me to correct that misconception. Personally, I’d rather be back at the inn and sleeping in an actual bed, but it’s not mere paranoia to assume we might get ambushed as we try to leave. If that’s going to happen, then it should happen when we’ve had time to prepare. Of course, they could just come after us here now, too, but this location is fairly defensible, and while that didn’t work out so well for Telakin, I am confident we can do better. So we are safer where we are.

It also gives us time to wreck the equipment used to create the gems, which I see as a valuable public service.

(afternoon)

Remember what I said about being ambushed? We have gotten good at predicting the obvious.

It happened as we entered the water chamber that they use as a buoyancy lift. We opened the door to the chamber and saw room filled with dark elves climbing out of the water. Floating above them was a grotesque aberration that looked like a man with a squid for a head, which we later figured out was called a mind-flayer. I locked eyes with it, and then we heard a booming voice echoing in our minds.

“I am surrounded by imbeciles! Finish them! No prisoners. No survivors!”

This was accompanied by some sort of psychic hammer that stunned Sera, Varin, and Zhog. So I shut the door. There was no reason to make this easy on them.

“Let them come to us,” I said.

And come to us, they did. We used Zhog’s foaming powder and Snagsby’s tanglefoot bags to slow their advance into the main hallway, and set up on both sides of the tee to make a kill box. Wave after wave of dark elves came in, and wave after wave of them died before they got smart and bolted. We went after the survivors and it quickly became a rout.

The mind flayer was long gone, which meant it hadn’t stuck around to see how this all turned out. Letting someone escape to deliver a report was a risk we could not afford, so we didn’t let anyone escape. While it would eventually figure out that we were still alive, that would take time and, until then? The ambiguity worked in our favor, not theirs.

We spent the rest of the morning at the inn, pouring over the documents from Telakin’s quarters to reveal the extent of the infiltration in Korvosa. It was not as widespread as we feared—again, there were only so many gems they could make, and it was a constant frustration that showed through in their planning—but it was obviously not great. And they were smart, targeting people in positions of power that were not otherwise prominent or public figures. The real power in government, after all, comes not from those who make decisions but those who carry them out.

Starday, Sarenith 12 (afternoon)

Snagsby and I set out to find The Cold Forge today. It was a two story building with a forge area out back and drains for dumping waste into the sewers. And, yeah, we should just go ahead and call that “polluting”, since they are sending heavy metals and other noxious runoff down there along with their blackwater. See Diamond Lake, including the actual lake and not just the town, for an example of how that goes.

While I am not so good at casually casing a location, I can check for tainted auras and a quick scan of building at the lot did not turn up any obvious signs of foul play. Of course, this was hardly an exhaustive search, as most of the dopplegangers didn’t register to that, either, and there are spells (and rings, like the one I was now wearing) that can mask you from these simple abilities. I told Snagsby as much, and he said, “I’ll get a closer look.”

This was my cue to occupy myself elsewhere. While I could guess what that entailed, I didn’t know and I didn’t need to know, and it was best for all of us if it stayed that way.

He found me an hour or so later and said he hadn’t seen anything suspicious. Because finding a sign that said “Ebon Triad here” or “Now serving mind flayers” would make this too easy.

We concluded that whatever was below The Cold Forge was probably not a part of it, meaning the forge itself was just a reference point. To find whatever it was, then, we’d have to go down into the sewers. As the drains around the forge itself were way too small to fit through, the meant finding a nearby sewer maintenance entry and working our way there.

I swung by the city’s hall of records—and before you ask, yes, I specifically sought that out the first day we were here—and spent some time digging through maps of the sewer system. Many of the records were old and bore signs of occasional updates, some of them hastily done and of questionable quality. This was not the level of accuracy, or even detail, that I was looking for, but it was enough to find a couple of promising entry points, identify major maintenance routes, and get directions that may or may not be good once we got down there. It was the best we would be able to do, and it was decidedly better than just starting at the Forge and hoping for a better plan.

Sunday, Sarenith 13 (evening)

We visited Eligos today and brought him up to speed. Varin almost committed a little social faux paus by asking Eligos for a drop of blood so he could verify the man’s identity with a spell. I really didn’t think this was necessary, and I wish he had said something before springing it on us at the last minute like this. Eligos wasn’t mentioned in any of our paperwork beyond a vague note to “track down relevance of that relationship and potential hazards from that person”, and as far as we could tell, that was never done. And, it came a hair’s width from offending Eligos outright. Fortunately, we were able to smooth that over.

Eligos agreed that everything we had found needed to go to the queen’s council right away, and he’d do that through Marzena. He’d also make the offer to sell the magical mirror for their use. We were pretty sure they’d bite here, and he was too. Last, I explained our plan to go down into the sewers and showed him the copy of the maps I had made. Like me, he suspected the city maps were only vaguely accurate when it came to the sewers, but he’d agreed it was better than nothing and offered to relay our request to the city.

Word came back to us at the Crooked House that night, which meant Eligos had been a busy beaver. Obviously, the safety of the city was at stake here so there was some genuine urgency to the matter, but I don’t doubt he was using the opportunity to improve his own influence and standing in the city, proper. This probably explained why he was willing to do all this work free of charge: he was just accepting other forms of payment.

The city agreed to purchase the mirror at a premium price, and also awarded us a handsome sum for uncovering a plot that threatened the security of Korvosa and its holdings. This part was a bit unexpected, and certainly appreciated. The city has its issues, or course, many of which (like the Shingles) are in plain sight, but…it’s trying. What I would give to live in a city that tries.

And last, and certainly not least, was a letter, signed and sealed, giving us permission to enter the sewer system while pursuing this investigation. Few things set my heart aflutter like an official permission slip.

Fireday, Sarenith 11 (small hours)

My memories on how this all started are fragmented and there are gaps. I’m writing this down now before I forget the rest of it. Unsurprisingly, you can’t take notes when you are chained to a wall.

The last clear memory I have is of Zhog asking to visit the Pantheon of Many in South Shore, because he saw tabards and thought we might want one. I had just finished up at the University of Korvosa’s library doing some genealogical research on my family line—it’s a private library, but with some polite requests I was able to get access for the day—and a bit of a walk and a change of scenery sounded good to me, so I said yes.

At the time, it did seem odd that Zhog was asking about tabards since it didn’t seem very Zhog-like, but at the same time Zhog has kind of been like a kid in a confectionary since we’ve been here, and I’ve given up on predicting what will or will not grab his attention. I mean, aside from the obvious in Old Korvosa, Midland, and West Dock. So when Zhog comes to me looking like a kid (not a stretch) who is so excited he’s having trouble containing himself and asks to go look at tabards, I just figure it’s another impulsive Zhog moment and play along. Besides, there are probably times as a paladin when you need to look the part, and nothing looks the part quite like a holy symbol on a surcoat. And, like I said, I needed to stretch my legs after a day of sitting and a change in scenery was in order. So why not?

And we’re there looking at tabards, and then I have these huge gaps and small fragments for what happens next. I remember not being able to move. I remember Zhog running away, shouting back at the people around me. I don’t remember who they were, just that there were too many of them. And that’s it.

When I woke up I was stripped of everything but my clothing, and bound, gagged, and manacled in a prison cell. I could hear and smell water nearby, but it didn’t smell salty so I remember thinking it was the river. I looked around once my head stopped pounding so bad, and saw multiple cells down one end of a hallway. The ones I could see into each held other prisoners.

A voice from the other end of the hall said to me, “Don’t get too comfortable here.”

Yeah. Fat chance of that.

They continued. “We’ll be sending you downstairs for the special treatment soon enough.”

Which, obviously didn’t sound so good. In my limited life experience, there’s only two kinds of special treatment, and the good kind doesn’t usually start with you being knocked out and tied up in a cell.

A couple of dull hours later—there’s not much to do when it’s just you and a 5×5 space—a pair of guards came in. They very roughly hoisted me up to my feet and escorted me out. I had heavy ankle shackles that gave me just enough movement to shuffle slowly without falling on my face (not that they seemed too concerned about that).

I got a better look at the building as they led me around. It was an old warehouse of some sort and it must have overhung the river because part of the floor in one room had collapsed exposing the water below. They took me through several chambers, then set me in a barrel in a flooded shaft. As the water level lowered I descended to an underground complex where I was escorted by even more guards to a large, octagonal room designed to hold multiple prisoners.

They affixed my ankle and wrist shackles to a chain that was attached to the wall, giving me enough room to reach some buckets for waste and straw for cleaning and sleeping. “Any funny business”, one of my captors said, “will be answered with violent retributions to both of you.”

Only then did I realize I was chained up in the room with Zhog.

It occurred to me then that maybe there were two Zhogs, and that one of them wasn’t real. I mostly remembered seeing Zhog get away when I was abducted, but…did he get away? If so, then this wasn’t Zhog. Or maybe the Zhog that was with me in South Shore was not the real Zhog, and this one was.

I’d heard of shapeshifters, of course. Supposedly they can read minds and duplicate anyone within certain limits. How do you prove someone is who they say they are, if there are beings who can also become them, and in some sense, know what they know? That’s what I had to figure out.

I said to him, “Sorry. I wanted to tell you to run, but I couldn’t even speak.”

He stirred slightly at my voice, and I could see that, unlike me, the chains on his arms and legs left almost no room to move around.

“Bel? Is that you?” he asked. He switched to Draconic and said, “Damn. So they got you too. I’d a hoped you’d sense ‘em coming.

“They don’t ask me anything, just beat me and give me food. Not even decent orc rations, neither…. But… told me to run? From what?”

“Never mind that,” I said. Something about that answer suggested that this really was Zhog, and the one I was with in South Shore was not. “I couldn’t sense the ones that grabbed me because there was nothing to sense. Our captors must have hired some thugs to do it. You can fool magic, but not a holy strike in Abadar’s name. And the latter did nothing.

“When and where did they get you? …Maybe that’s a dumb question. I don’t even know when ‘now’ is.”

I didn’t. I had no idea how long I’d been out, or how much time had passed. Even up above, there were no windows in sight, and I couldn’t tell if it was light or dark outside.

Before he could answer, the door opened and a human woman wearing underclothes came in. She stared at me for a bit, tore my clothes in a few places, then swapped them for her own. As she did that, her features changed to look like me.

“Much better,” she said. “That’s a mistake I’ll not make again.” As she walked to the exit, she casually said over her shoulder, “I’ll say ‘hello’ to your friends when I see them. Again. Nighty night!” Then the door slammed shut.

I don’t know how long we were down there, just that there were long hours of nothing happening. We talked a lot, and I grew more and more convinced that this was really Zhog. With all this time to think, it came to me that there were generally two ways to establish someone’s identity.

The first is to spend lots of time with them, as Zhog and I were doing. Even if you had perfect access to someone’s memories, you are still missing their mannerisms and feelings. With this much time spent with Zhog, it was clear that it was…well…Zhog. The problem with this approach, however, is that it takes intimacy and time, and a duplicate would, of course, attempt to avoid both. Zhog, I learned, had been taken the very first night we got here. He was out at a bar, because of course he was, and someone slipped something into his drink. We’d been with the imposter Zhog for several days and still hadn’t managed to spend enough personal time with him in close company to notice something was wrong. It wasn’t until the day I got captured that I started to notice something odd—his fascination with those tabards—but that was too easily explained away. So, this method has limits.

That leaves the other approach, which is their abilities. There are things we can do, at least in our group, that help identify us, and some of those are not easily faked or replicated. Zhog, Shangsby, Viore, and I can call upon divine power to heal. Viktor and Varin know and use certain spells. It would take a concerted effort to maintain such a ruse for a long time. Again, it’s not perfect. Sera’s skills are not tied to a divine power, wizards can study to learn new spells, and so on. But we, as a group, roughly know our collective talents and we could find something sufficiently unique for each of us.

I was motivated to puzzle this out. I figured there would come a point where Zhog and I would be confronted by our friends, with our duplicates among them, and we’d need to convince them that the imposters were, in fact, imposters.

My best shot at that, I thought at the time, would be to call upon the power of Abadar in a manner that was so clear and so obvious that they could not help but recognize me for me.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite how it worked out.

After those long hours of just nothing, more of what we now know to be dopplegangers came in. Five took on the forms of the rest of our friends and Zhog and I looked on as they were “chained” up to the walls. They used some sort of breakaway manacles—we got to watch as they tested them out—and it’s pretty obvious what the plan was: wait for our friends to arrive and then cause confusion.

It was a brazenly dumb plan. I mean, why bother with this sort of indulgence? If you’re able to stealthily replace people without their friends knowing, why not just get on with it? This huge confrontation seemed so unnecessary, like they were in it for the show more than the result. And I guess they really thought they could take us all head-on.

It worked at first. When that door opened and Viktor and Sera stepped in, there was obvious confusion as the dopples all called out, trying to convince the others that they had been captured, and were the real person. So I tried to seize the moment, praying to Abadar that I be granted a spell that I could not normally cast all bound like this. And he answered. I created a space around us where those within were compelled to speak the truth. I even put some verbal panache behind it, “In the name of the Keeper of the First Vault,” etc.

And no one believed me. Even Viktor, who I could tell had succumbed to it, didn’t understand. I mean, the point wasn’t to actually force people to tell the truth, but rather to establish that it was me. “Zhog over there and I are the only real ones in here!” I said.

Ultimately, it was Sera who believed me. She entered behind Viktor and I could see it in her face. She was re-evaluating something, and had come to a decision. She walked over to me, and asked why I came to see her that night. She didn’t say which night, but I knew what she was referring to. It was when I first learned I could see in the dark. Knowing what someone knows and being that person are two different things.

“Because I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” I said quietly. “I was scared, Sera. Not because I could see, but because I didn’t know who…I didn’t know what I was.” I’ve never really been scared of anything in my life. Not since those days out in the dark. But this? It terrified me.

“Guys, this is the real Bel,” she said.

And then the imposter Zhog came in behind her, grinned evilly, and slammed the door shut as the imposters threw off their chains.

It was a good ambush, but a bad plan. The the thing about ambushes, of course, is that you have to be able to follow through. I am sure they thought we were trapped in the room with them, but it was really the other way around. They all looked like us, but they weren’t us. Sera got me unshackled after a couple of attempts, I drew one of her scimitars, and as the imposter Zhog bolted, Sera, Viktor and I slaughtered the lot. Then we got Zhog free and went after his dopple. Mine was already dead—Viore, Varin, and Snagsby had seen to that.

“It was fun watching them take you down,” it said to me as we converged on it.

“But you couldn’t do it yourselves, could you? You had to sub it out.” And that was their  fundamental problem. Hand-to-hand combat just wasn’t their thing. If they couldn’t even take me down when I was alone, what made them think they could take on all of us? How did they ever think this confrontation could work?

When we had the Zhog imposter surrounded and beaten, he went out on his own terms. He pulled a concealed blade and stabbed himself in the leg, and rapidly bled out in front of us.

The real Zhog look shaken. “That was my hopeknife,” he said. “Where I’m from, we are each given one as children and taught to use them to take our own lives if we are ever caught by the orc hordes that surround our territory. We don’t speak of it outside our people, and yet he knew exactly how to use it, just like one of us.”

(slightly larger small hours)

Zhog and I got the executive summary of events since I was captured. Imitation Bel returned to the Crooked House yesterday evening and put on a show of a verbal altercation with Fake Zhog (for our friends’ benefit, apparently), accusing him of abandoning her. She said had managed to “escape” after he ran off, said something like “I need a drink”, and then stabbed Tarquin when he served it to her.

Obviously, our friends found this behavior alarming, and they captured her and stripped her of her armor and gear. That’s when they discovered that her clothing didn’t match anything I have every worn, which explains that incident with the doppleganger swapping clothes with me (though how you can be a creature that does this for their entire existence, and then mess up on something that fundamental is a mystery). She was wearing a magical ring that shielded her thoughts, and with that off of her they were able to use mind reading as a part of the interrogation. She also had a strange key that they later learned fit the entrance to this warehouse.

They were set to call the city guard, but the city guard showed up before they could even send a message to them, which was mightily suspicious. The “guards” took Bel away, but Snagsby followed them under invisibility and learned that the guards, too, were dopplegangers. So they intervened, and then the real city guard showed up. Korvosa’s guard, being generally competent, knew at once that they were dealing with imposters, quickly deduced they were shapeshifters, and called in the Order of the Nail. If you have never heard of the Order of the Nail, they are kind of like paladins but without our sunny disposition. Or a sense of humor. Or, really, any warm fuzzies whatsoever. When they see a problem, they just smite it.

The imposter guards clashed with the Nail and they lost. Badly.

Our friends then tracked the key down to this building and raided it. Inside they found dossiers on the entire party, and communications from the Zhog imposter. Turns out they took Marzena, too, but only because she kept trying to make advances to who she thought was the real Zhog. Which is another mental image I did not need.

From reading the dossiers, it’s clear that someone has been looking into us long before we got here, starting right after we took down the Ebon Triad cult in Diamond Lake. Their research was pretty thorough given the short timeline. They even had my full name. Their summary of me said:

Belessandralina Lahovanu

Paladin of Abadar. Skilled with pole arms and threatening a large area in battle. Obsesses with laws and procedures. May be able to exploit this to our advantage if needed. High-risk target, priority to take out. Resident of Diamond Lake. Has family she cares about in town. In trouble with local mine owners Smenk and Dourstone. May be the ringleader. Implicated with disruption of an operation in that town that the boss has an interest in.

May have gnomish ancestry ties.

I admit I found that last bit kind of funny.

Deeper inside the warehouse, my friends found the prison cells and freed the captives, which included Marzena. However, two of those were dopples posing as prisoners just in case someone staged a rescue. Again, good plan, but poor execution. They were hopelessly outmatched.

Our friends found my imposter in another room, and thinking it was really me this time because she was wearing my clothes because obviously that’s enough evidence, gave them my equipment.

I kind feel like we need to have a talk about that.

The rest you know.

The big question everyone had was, how did imposter Zhog convince us all he was the real Zhog for several days? The answer turned out to be a gem on his person, which Viktor and Varin analyzed and determined was a sort of mental copy of Zhog’s memories. Focus on it with mind reading, and you could recall memories from the individual it was made from. Which was admittedly pretty creepy.

We turned our attention next to three doors in this hallway, whose mechanisms Sera had thoroughly damaged to prevent them from opening. Each room beyond had, according to Viktor, two Dopplegangers in it. We figured the best approach would be to give one of them to chance to survive this interrogation, and as soon as we made that decision there was a knock on one of the doors.

Zhog and I bashed that door open and confronted the creatures inside.

“Who are you and what do you want?” one of them asked.

I was not in the mood for games. “We want to know who your boss is and where to find them. You can read our thoughts and you know exactly who we are, so if you want to play games with us, we’ll pick a very different game which you won’t enjoy. What’ll it be?”

“Not that it will do you any good, but our boss is Telakin. If you go through those double doors out there and south you’ll find him. Good luck at that point. He has plans for you.”

“OK,” I said. “You get to live.” I pointed the the other one. “You don’t.”

I walked out of the room and said to the others, “This one gets to live, and that one dies.” Though I may have failed to clarify which was which. “That one”, however, resolved the ambiguity by rushing out to attack us, and was quickly put down.

“This one” refused to take us up on our offer of freedom, so we locked him back in. Sorry, “this one”, but it was a limited-time offer.

As for the other four here? We had no use for them.

Moonday, Sarenith 6, 4722 (morning)

There’s no settlement near the halfway point between Veldraine and Korvosa so the coaches have to stop at a suitable spot in the wild and set up a camp. They do this every trip, both to and from, and have done so for as long as they’ve been operating. Nothing to worry about.

So naturally, we were attacked around midnight by bizarre, black, puma-like creatures with barbed tentacles extending from their shoulders. And that wasn’t even the weird part. The weird part was, when you looked at them, you saw them a few feet away from where they actually were. The whole experience was rather creepy, especially in the dark because did I mention they were black? And, yes, I can see in total darkness up to a point, but it’s like seeing in black and white, and…well, black is still black, isn’t it?

They snuck up on us while I was on watch.  There was this moment where everything around us went still and quiet and I knew we were in trouble. Fortunately, Viktor had this spell that made a kind of opaque dome that we could see out of, but which you couldn’t see into, so I was able to duck in and wake the others while the whatever-they-were (I think Varin said they are called “displacer beasts”, which is very descriptive if lacking in creativity) tried to figure out where we were.

The problem with that plan, though, was that the dome only covered us. While four of them were content with probing our little shelter, the fifth found that all rather dull and decided the coachmen were far more interesting. It fell to me to provide a distraction. While ultimately I was successful, this was not nearly as pleasant a task as it sounds, and yeah, I am aware that it sounds unpleasant. I managed to drop the thing, but not before it scratched me up pretty badly.

In the end, we killed two and subdued the rest.

Zhog had this idea that we could keep them tied up and maybe sell them to the games master for the games in Korvosa. That sounded kind of crazy to me, but we’ll be in Korvosa this afternoon so we wouldn’t have to manage them for more than a few hours. That made this merely very risky instead of, oh, I don’t know, suicidal. So why not?

(evening)

We circled around Korvosa the bring the displacer beasts in through the city entrance closest to the arena. And, as I should have predicted because people with even a tiny amount of authority just can’t help themselves, the guards there tried to shake us down.

“There’s just the fee for transporting dangerous livestock into the city limits.”

I had no doubt that there really was a fee for this, and we would have been happy to pay it, but I have a pretty good sense for when someone is trying to take advantage of me, and after the night we had, and a full day of transporting these stupid displacer beasts tied up in one of the carriages, I was not in the fucking mood.

Also? I live for this stuff. “Excellent!” I exclaimed. “Then if you don’t mind, can you tell me which regulations cover the fees for transporting dangerous creatures so we can be sure we are compliant?”

“Uh, It’s in the city charter.”

“Yup. Which part?”

“Um, it’s…Article VI. Fif—one hundred gold pieces. Per animal. In cash.”

“Article VI, section…? Paragraph…?”

“Look, I do this every day as it’s my job. I’m the guard, you’re just the traveler. That’s the rules, pay up or no entry.”

“Greetings, I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Guard! I am Bel, holy warrior of Abadar. Understand that rules and regulations are quite important to us, and we want to be sure we comply with the letter and spirit of the law. Now, since we haven’t been here before, we’d like to go over the specific code which I’m sure you have a copy of somewhere in your guardhouse, to make sure that you are also enforcing the rules and regulations accurately.”

He buried his head in one hand and said, “Oh… followers of Abadar.” Without looking up, he reasserted “Great, then give me the 100 gp for each, and you can be on about your way.”

I nodded enthusiastically, and replied, “But if I just gave you the 100 gp when we weren’t sure if that was the actual fee, it would almost feel like I was giving you a bribe, and that is strictly forbidden, so I need to make sure that we’re giving you the exact amount that is required. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to review those regulations, and we can pull the carriages aside while we work this out.”

It went back and forth like this a couple more times, but in the end, I wore him down. “Just… go! Get out of my sight! Go! Go! I’ll waive the fee! Gods!” he exclaimed. As he was walking away, I could just hear him talking to himself. “I swear, Abadar and his followers…”

And that is how you avoid paying bogus surcharges.

Negotiations for the sale of the displacer beasts are going smoothly. This is something Snagsby has taken point on, and which I am staying out of.

(evening)

Stars, what a day. If you need me, see my associates because I’ll be sleeping until next week.

After crossing the High Bridge into the part of town called Midland, we came across a parade associated with the upcoming Champion Games, complete with musicians, dancers, and a kind of traveling circus. Spectators had lined the streets on both sides, eager to watch it pass by. I’d never seen a parade before. Come to think of it, I’d never even seen an event in a city where people gathered together because they wanted to see it. Public events in Diamond Lake tended to be crime scenes.

I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that, even though I have nothing to compare this to, my first parade experience was decidedly not normal. As we say in the Church, “Results not typical”.

One of the cage wagons had glass surrounding the metal bars and held a three-headed, winged creature that we all recognized as a chimera. As we watched, the dragon head let out a bolt of electricity, that danced along the bars but stayed within the cage, itself. Which explained the glass.

This seemed absurdly dangerous to me. Even relative to what we just did an hour ago. And my concerns were validated just moments later, when the chimera slammed up against the bars of its cage, breaking one loose and shattering the glass. And then it was free, and a chorus of panicked screams rose around us.

Let me tell you how quickly a crowd can disperse when people are properly motivated (and an angry, goat-, lion-, and dragon-headed monster roaming the streets provides sufficient motivation): the crowd scattered around us so fast that the streets were empty in seconds. And from this, you can imply that we stayed where we were because dealing with emergencies like this is what we do.

“Do we gotta keep this alive, guys?” Zhog asked.

“I don’t think so!” I exclaimed.

Our quick intervention saved the life of one of the handlers. He had been knocked to the ground, and the chimera started tearing into him. Snagsby got to him while we distracted the beast, and was able to heal him up before he could bleed to death. With all of us working together, we were able to take it down before it could take to the skies and make the problem much, much worse.

To their credit, the city guard arrived very quickly, and they even seemed genuinely concerned for the public’s safety. I wasn’t sure such a thing was even possible.

(night)

We met Eligos at his manor up in the district called The Heights, which is where people live when they have more money than most families will see in their lifetime. We have manors in Diamond Lake, too, but they are all kind of shabby and sad, nothing like the white marble home surrounded by a neatly landscaped yard with white stone walls that we were staring at here.

We walked up the cobblestone path, with decorative pools and dragon statues on either side, and knocked at the door. After explaining to the valet who answered who sent us and why we were there, we were led to a luxurious sitting room to wait for Eligos, himself. Surprisingly, he did not throw us out—we are a colorful crew—which I guess means Allustan’s name really does count for something in these circles.

For someone who went from “who are you?” to “there’s this cult called the Ebon Triad trying to end the world” in the span of about 30 minutes, he seemed pretty unfazed, and asked that we give him a week to research everything. He was even willing to assist Marzena in the effort to secure a treaty between the city and the denizens of the Mushfens. And for some reason, he didn’t charge us anything. What can I say? Sometimes the world is a baffling place.

He asked if we had found lodging in the city yet, and when we said we had not he directed us to a place called The Crooked House. It is, literally, crooked. Not in the moral sense, but in construction, as there’s not a right angle in the place that I can see. Eligos and the innkeeper, a gnome named Tarquin, are good friends, and so we’ve got a decent, albeit unusual, place to stay at favorable rates.

As far as gnomes go, Tarquin has an absurdly short name for a man, and I have an absurdly long one for a woman (and it would be especially so if I were a gnome, as most women’s names don’t break three letters and rarely break four), so we felt an immediate kinship just on that. I gave him the whole story because he gets it, so why not? And it was nice to just speak gnome with someone I didn’t already know.

Zhog and Snagsby took off after dinner. Snagsby is looking to find a temple to Nocticula. Zhog is looking for…you can probably guess what he’s looking for.

Moonday, Desnus 30 (early morning)

We’ve kept a low profile in town over the past few days. Given how dangerous the pursuit of these worms and those responsible for them have become, we used that time to better both ourselves and our equipment. We can’t do those things if we are constantly looking over our shoulders.

We’ve also kept an eye and ear out, discreetly, for signs of Smenk taking the initiative. Like, revisiting our families and friends to kick things into gear. So far, all has been quiet on that front, too, though my visits to see mom and dad are not doing their anxiety any favors.

We all know this can’t last, especially with us departing for Korvosa tomorrow. That means dealing with it now or never, and no one is keen on leaving family behind to fend for themselves. Which leaves “now”.

(afternoon)

I spent the rest of the morning arranging for repairs at the house. The first step there is to fix the roof, since there’s no point in doing the rest of it if we can’t keep the rain out. The hardest part of that was explaining how to get out there since there aren’t roads and the landmarks all look the same (“go to this grove of trees, and turn right towards this other grove of trees,” and so on). I just had to trust that they could follow a cadastral map.

When I got back, everyone was ready to put the gears in motion. So we brazenly walked into town as a group at close to noon to have lunch at Kullen’s. We picked up a tail on the way there, but Dasi used some spell to spook him and he took off towards the observatory. Pretty much what we expected assuming Kullen’s info was good.

None of his henchmen were in the bar. It seems he wasn’t so anxious to cause trouble that way, either because it was too public or he didn’t want to tangle with Kullen at the same time.

After lunch, we decided to poke at the hornet’s nest by checking out the abandoned mine, and that got a quick response. One of Smenk’s thugs was there and he moved to block the road that led to the ruined building, lead pipe in hand. The message he was sending was obviously “keep moving”.

Viore approached him and called out in a decidedly friendly tone. “Good day, sir! How are you doing?”

The guy just glowered at us. “You ain’t got no business here.”

“You don’t even know who I am,” Viore answered. “Maybe I do.”

“You aren’t too bright, are you, boy?” He swatted his pipe into his open hand and said, “It’s not your business. You get on to wherever you’re goin’ but stay outta here if you value your skull.”

And that was my cue. I stepped up. “Are you saying we can’t walk on a public street?”

He looked at me, then said, “T’aint no public down this road.”

“I believe that’s ‘obstruction of the public right-of-way’. And that,” I said, pointing at his lead pipe, “is ‘menacing’.”

There are rules to this, you see.

For a moment he looked like he was going to have a go at us, but Zhog spoke up. “If you swing with your pipe, we’ll kill you. If you hit with your fists, you get to live. Be smart.”

He looked at Zhog, taking him in for the first time. “Aren’t you Kullen’s kid?”

Zhog smiled wide. “Yup.”

Smenk’s man seemed to get the feeling he was in trouble here, so he made a shrill whistle and went to swing his pipe at me. His problem, though, was that we were faster. Much faster. Zhog swung into action, hitting him hard with his fists. I punched him in the jaw, then Viore knocked him down and out.

From the ruined building, we heard a crashing sound and looked over to see two enormous apes on long chains rush towards us. That’s right: apes. Where did Smenk get apes?

“And that,” I said to no one, “is a public safety hazard.”

Varin hit them with a spell to blind them, and the rest of us took them down mostly with saps and the flat of our blades to knock them out. We just didn’t have an appetite for killing animals.

We found another of Smenk’s goons back there, likely the one that set the apes on us, and he surrendered so fast we barely had time to threaten him.

“So. Where is he? You know who I mean,” Zhog asked.

“Mr. Smenk?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I know you. You’re Kullen’s kid.”

I was very annoyed at this exchange. “You know what? I’m getting really offended by how no one recognizes us. But, Zhog? Him, they know!”

The goon ignored me. “I don’t know what kind of business you all have with Mr. Smenk, but now is not the time,” he said to Zhog. “Maybe you don’t know but your dad, uncle, whatever he is, he’s no longer in good favor.”

Zhog said, “Uh huh. Remember that group he’s really angry about?”

It took a while for him to put two and two together, but he got there. He pointed us to the observatory, because it was only fitting, I guess, that this both began and ended there.

We knocked on the door because we’re very polite people. It opened and another of Smenk’s henchmen tried to shoo us off. “The observatory is closed. Go away!”

But at the same time, we heard Smenk’s irritating voice echoing from somewhere deeper inside: “…go and grab the girls’ families. You, lure those kids…”

“We’re done here,” I said to no one in particular. And just as the guy was shutting the door, Sera and I shoved it hard, sending him stumbling back behind it. Then we converged on Smenk and his henchman and quite thoroughly kicked their assess. When it was all over, one of his goons was dead and everyone else had been tied up.

Not gonna lie here. I found this all extremely satisfying.

I went to get what passes for the authorities in town—none of them were inclined towards Smenk as it was, and given recent history, they weren’t likely to try and turn this back on us—while the rest of the group mopped up.

I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but sometime between when I left and when the Sheriff and his goons arrived, Smenk had developed a fatal case of being stabbed.

(evening)

We met up with Kullen after things had calmed down. And I am really looking forward to the day when I no longer have to write things like “we met up with Kullen”.

Kullen wasn’t exactly thrilled about being summoned. As I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being here, I figured that made us even.

Zhog started us off by dropping a set of keys on the table. “I understand you and Smenk were partners,” he said. I didn’t know what those keys were for, but I could guess that their owner no longer needed them.

Kullen caught on real quick, especially the part about him being a partner. I tuned out most of a conversation that I didn’t want to hear. When they were done with their scheming, he said, “I see you have someone among you that knows about legalities, right? Someone who can draw up papers for claimin’ ownership?”

This is the sort of thing that gives me heartburn. But, when you are hired as an advocate, your job is to give legal advice and answer questions, and what the client does with all that is on them. I explained about partnerships, wills, what sort of paperwork to look for, and what he’d need to do to make a transfer of ownership once that’s found.

And, yeah, I knew what he was planning to do. Here’s the thing. Smenk doesn’t have any heirs, which should surprise no one, and that means that his mine and bar are at risk of falling into probate. Which would put them under the control of the esteemed Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff.

Given that these were my options, I went with the one that didn’t make me physically ill.

Starday, Sarenith 4 (evening)

This is the farthest I’ve been from Diamond Lake. Actually, just about every day since we left has been the farthest I’ve been from Diamond Lake. And, previously, that record was held by Blackwall Keep. This should tell you something about how much traveling I did as a kid.

We passed through Melfesh, Baslwief, and Palin’s Cove before arriving here in Veldraine. I honestly believed the closest I would ever come to these places in my life was seeing them on a map.

Melfesh is the largest of Korvosa’s inland holdings, and it controls access to the Runtash River. There’s a huge drawbridge there (which we didn’t get to cross since we aren’t headed in that direction) and if you want to go up the river, or down into the lake, you have to pay a toll for the privilege. Charging a toll and blocking a river like that requires some military muscle, and that makes Melfesh a pretty heavily garrisoned town for its size.

Rumor is they charge more for ships sailing out of Magnimar’s holdings than they do for ones flagged internationally because people in power basically suck, and tend to abuse it when they have the opportunity.

Baslwief is a mining town. I almost wrote “a mining town, like Diamond Lake”, but on reflection, that’d be a misleading statement. The only thing they have in common as far as I can see is that they are both mining towns. Baslwief seems to be blessed with such amenities as “drinkable water” and “an atmosphere that doesn’t smother your soul and drain you of hope”.

I got my first sight of the ocean at Palin’s Cove.

The city started life as a military outpost long ago, and then kind of grew into this industrialized complex. With all the forges and smelters and refineries belting out smoke so thick you can taste the air, it kinda feels like what Diamond Lake will become once it grows up. Only with more siege engines. I’d say something trite like, “I’ve never seen so many siege engines in one place”, but until recently I’d never seen any, so that kind of rings hollow.

As for the ocean…I don’t even know how to begin to describe it. It’s majestic. It makes me feel small and inconsequential. It’s also terrifyingly huge. There’s just…nothing there but water as far as you can see.

I could watch it for hours.

We’re currently in Veldraine. It’s an old and beautiful city, and the second-largest city in this part of Varisia. It’s a navy town to its core and the military here is responsible for the defense of Conqueror’s Bay, which means they are the naval defense for Korvosa. We stayed here a full day to stock up on supplies and do some research in their libraries, among other activities.

I specifically used the time to connect with my Aunt Esma. It took a while to find her home—you try finding your way in a city this size when it’s your first time in a city this size—and it was a bit awkward at first because I was showing up unannounced (well, that and she’d not seen me since I was a toddler, and I had to give her a letter from dad to get that whole “Who are you?” thing out of the way) but she graciously invited me in and even offered to let me stay with her that night instead of at the inn we had chosen.

Also, she called me “Bel”. I’ve made a mental note to visit her more often.

I got to see the old letters and diaries of my great-great-grandmother Galeriana, which was pretty amazing just on its own. I’m not known for being book-smart, but I can take notes and do research when I’m motivated, and I was motivated. Aunt Esma was surprisingly supportive of the idea of trying to find the dragon Galeriana had, um, been intimate with. Her logic was, if he spent a lot of time among humans, as a human, and spent enough time with my grandmother to, uh, have this romance, then that says something about his temperament. “Just don’t ask him for money when you find him.”

I couldn’t tell if that was a joke or not. I still can’t. So I’m just going to assume it’s not.

Speaking of dragons, we asked about Ilthane at every stop. No one seemed to know her by name, but there were plenty of stories about a black dragon with encounters and sightings going back several years, ranging all the way from here to the Storval Plateau. This information was not directly helpful, but it was at least interesting.

In Veldraine, we also learned about an upcoming event in Korvosa called the Champion Games. It’s some sort of pseudo-friendly gladitorial thing that attracts competitors from Varisia and beyond. It was all the locals could talk about, really, which I guess isn’t surprising given the military influence here. What was surprising, and this took us a bit to piece together, was that those adventurer types we saw back in Diamond Lake (the ones that mistakenly thought the Stirgenest Cairn held anything of value) have actually been in the Games, themselves.

Odds are good, I suppose, that we’ll be seeing more of them.

Starday, Desnus 21 (night)

After dealing with a knot of aggressive boggards mid-day, we reached the fort this evening. It was not the celebratory welcome of our triumphant return that we were expecting.

From the top of the tower, one of the soldiers called out, “Quarantine! Quarantine! Keep your distance!”

The Captain answered back, “This is your commanding officer, soldier! What is your status?”

The status was, the worm-infested, undead monstrosity that was their previous battlemage had broken out of its makeshift prison. Several soldiers were unaccounted for. They had blocked off the stairwell to the bottom level, and at least two were known to be down there with it.

Zhog turned to us and asked, “So do we just take care of this problem?”

It was clear the soldiers weren’t able to manage it. Zhog suggested that Marzen and Captain Alezar stay outside as a last line of defense in case we fail. The Captain agreed, and so we shut the door behind us, prepared defensive spells and some magical enhancements, and descended into the keep.

There were four soldiers down there with it and all had been turned into similar worm-infested zombies. Two ascended the stairs when we removed the makeshift blockade, and we engaged them on the main level. Each projected a sort of aura of panic-inducing fear (both Varin and Sera fell victim to this and fled upstairs), and if that wasn’t enough, they were literally throwing their worms at us, presumably to infect us, as well. All of these distractions made it difficult to truly gang on up on them. And if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, their wounds were healing as we fought, albeit slowly.

We destroyed those, but had to descend to the lower level of the keep to deal with the remaining three, as they didn’t want to cooperate by coming to us. This was more of the same, just in much tighter quarters.

Once all of them were destroyed, I headed outside to give them the update on the immediate crisis. Zhog called out after me, “Tell Marzena I’m okay! I don’t want her to worry about me.” Um. What?

I headed outside and spoke to the captain and Marzena. “All five of them are dead…again.”

The conversation turned to their long-term prospects, which were honestly not good. Down more than half their numbers, they were worried about another lizardfolk attack.

To say they were skeptical of this cease-fire we had negotiated would be an understatement. There was even less faith in the proposal for a long-term treaty. “And what if they break their agreement and attack?” someone asked. I wanted to say, “They were thinking the same thing about us,” but wisely didn’t. Instead, I took a different approach to help them understand the machinations at work here.

“This is the basic problem. These worms are popping up everywhere, and everyone is blaming anyone they can find. The lizardfolk saw them and blamed us, and then we got attacked and blamed them, but what we’ve learned is that neither side is responsible. There seems to be a black dragon named Ilthane that started all of it.”

Captain Alezar didn’t know Ilthane by name, but he’d heard rumors of a black dragon terrorizing this region for quite some time. Which sounded too much like a coincidence to be a coincidence.

“We’re still cleaning up down there,” I said. “We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back in.” We agreed we should scan the tower, one level at a time, to make sure there were no more surprises.

I headed back downstairs. When I saw Zhog I said, “She didn’t ask about you.”

Um. I am not sure why I did that. I mean, I feel kind of bad about it now? But, Marzena is, uh, quite a bit older than him—again, old enough to be my mom, and I’m four or five years older than Zhog—and I don’t want to see him get hurt, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading this all wrong.

It’s late, so we’re spending the night here before heading back to Diamond Lake. Marzena is coming with us to speak with Allustan, and she’s agreed to accompany us to Korvosa as well so she can advocate for a long-term peace treaty with the lizardfolk.

I’m keeping my eye on you, lady.

Moonday, Desnus 23 (morning)

We spent the night at the farmhouse again, which to our surprise was holding a group of soldiers that had fled from the keep when the worm-infested zombie broke free. Marzena scolded them gently last night, and convinced them to return to the Keep. “I am sure the Captain will understand given the unusual circumstances.”

Hopefully, she’s not sleeping with all of them, too.

When I saw Zhog I could tell that something was very wrong. He looked off and was having trouble concentrating. I used a spell and determined that, yes, there was some illness running through him that was fogging his mind and draining his stamina. It didn’t feel like worms, so it was probably something he picked up in the marsh. Given our timing, it might have come from the boggards or the giant toad they had with them. Viore use a spell to end the illness and keep it from getting worse, but it would still take time for him to recover.

(evening)

Our return to Diamond Lake was not the triumphant return we were expecting, either.

We headed straight for Allustan’s, and after he and Marzena geeked out in the lab for an hour or so, he sat down with us.

“Balabar got released pending trial. It pays to have money and power in a town like this.” He looked at Zhog and said, “I don’t know how welcome your uncle would be to see you again. Word on the street is that he declared himself the owner of that bar he managed for Smenk.

“I think Balabar’s days in this town are numbered, but I don’t know what he might be capable of. All of you should keep a low profile.”

Damn it! This problem just will not go away.

Zhog was, very reasonably, concerned about his relationship with Kullen. “Why would my uncle be mad at me?”

“I don’t know how he feels about this after this shake-up,” Allustan said. “I think he’s broken with Smenk. And I know Smenk blames all of you. I don’t know how feels about it. Maybe he’s fine with you, maybe he’s not. I’m just warning you is all.”

Basically it came down to this: we didn’t know where we stood with Kullen, and Smenk’s people (and those loyal to him) might not be above jumping us if we made it convenient for them to do so. Allustan offered for us to spend the night at his home while we work out what to do.

In the meantime, he has suggested we travel to Korvosa—which we were going to do anyway—to meet with a colleague of his named Eligos. There were two reasons for that. The first is that Eligos was talking about some event happening soon in Korvosa and a need for exotic animals, and it turns out he is very interested in an owlbear chick. So that’s at least one less problem on our hands. The second was that Eligos is also a scholar and wants to look at all the notes we’ve gathered on the Ebon Triad and these worms. Allustan is going to write everything up nice for him and we’d just take the bundle with us. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Marzena had some ideas as well. She says she can make an oil from the crushed worms we have which can be used to coat a weapon and make it particularly harmful to worm-based undead. The potency will fade after an hour. The other option is to make a foul-smelling paste that can protect an individual’s skin from the worms, themselves. This is less interesting to us as a whole because of our collective abilities, but it’s still an entry on the “good to know” list.

Toilday, Desnus 24, 4722 (afternoon)

This business with Smenk has us concerned, so we decided to assess the situation. As discreetly as we could, we slipped out into town to learn what we could. I stopped by mom and dad’s.

“Belessandralena!” mom said when she answered the door. Ugh. Why does she do this? “I am glad you made it back OK.”

She let me in. Dad was at work so it was just the two of us. And I could tell something was wrong right away.

“Mom. Did something happen while I was gone?”

“Someone came to the house trying to find you. They wanted to ask you about some investigation they were pursuing.”

“Was it one of the deputies?”

“No, it wasn’t. And they didn’t say where they were from when I asked. They just repeated that it was important that they talk to you. I told them you don’t live here, and that I didn’t know where to find you. Then they got pretty belligerent, and your father got involved and asked them to leave.

“What’s going on Belessandralena? Does this have to do with this business with Smenk?”

Fuck!

I stopped by my flat—the lease is good until the end of the month—and, sure enough, someone had broken in. Nothing was missing (not that there was a lot to take) but it had been searched.

When we met back up later, it was the same story everywhere. Someone was looking for Sera at her parents’ inn. And while we were out, someone showed up at Allustan’s, trying to find “his old apprentice”. Which is pretty damned gutsy, if you ask me.

Obviously, this could not stand. I couldn’t move against Smenk on my own, but if he took a shot at us? If he tried something? Then I sure as hell was going to hit back. Abadar may forbid vigilantism, but there’s no rule against making yourself into bait.

It was time to meet with Kullen.

(late night)

Viktor, Sera, Zhog and I found Kullen at his home after nightfall. He grunted at Zhog, then let us in.

“You caused a heap of trouble in this town, boy.”

Zhog beamed. “And you’re now a bar owner, unc!”

“Didn’t say I didn’t profit from it.”

“He’s gonna want his bar back.”

“He can try.”

“Or we can take him off the board. Me and my friends don’t take kindly to being threatened. We’re ready to jump, but she,” he said, pointing at me, “has to wait until we get hit. It’s a code. And I respect her code. But when he hits, we’re hitting back. We just need to know what we’re up against.”

“His life in town has changed a bit, but in the long run he may pull through, may even keep control of his mine. But I’m not inclined to be in his employ anymore. I can…maybe divulge where he’s hidin’ out. And what you do with that info is not my business.”

“To those folks you know, that are ‘in the loop’. You tell them, all my friends’ families? If they mess with them, it’s a death sentence.”

Kullen stared at Zhog for a while. This wasn’t the same Zhog that he knew from just a couple of weeks ago.

“Where you stayin’ so I can get word to you?”

“We’re not staying anywhere,” Zhog answered. “I’ll come to you.”

Wealday, Desnus 25 (evening)

We made the trek out to the house and back. Someone had been there while we were gone, though nothing was damaged more than it already was.

Zhog dropped by to see Kullen, and learned that Smenk and the remainder of his crew are hanging out at the abandoned mine near the observatory. Next to the entrance is the ruin of an old building, and that’s where we’ll find them.

Starday, 21 Desnus (small hours)

There is a saying among soldiers that goes, “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. What it means is that you can’t account for every contingency, and once the fighting starts something will happen that you did not expect which will necessitate a change in tactics or strategy. A good battle plan, then, must allow for flexibility and adaptability when circumstances change.

That being said, as far as battle plans go, ours unfolded pretty well.

We ran in under cover of invisibility and silence, but were detected (vibrations, air movement, odor, and who knows what else) much more quickly than we had expected. But that was fine, because we were not expecting to go undetected, and the precise timing of it did not really matter. We made it to the chief’s chamber with lizardfolk mobilizing behind us—how many, I don’t know as we couldn’t hear anything outside our magical bubble, but likely dozens—and set up our rear defense.

Zhog dropped the arrow that was the source of our silence spell at the base of the steps before entering the chamber, and our spell casters spun into action. We only had two passages to defend: one’s surface was coated in grease thanks to Viktor, and the other was obstructed when Snagsby reshaped the stone to form a solid wall. The rest of us engaged Shukak and his guards.

One of those guards dropped quickly under Sera’s attacks. Zhog and I tore into two of the others. Then Shukak joined the fray, throwing his trident at Zhog, which then magically returned to his hands. Nice trick.

Sera felled a second of the guards. Viore disabled a third. I dropped the last. And then we all converged on Shukak.

Behind us, lizardfolk were carefully stepping their way through the grease, which was not at all part of the plan. Varin summoned a wolverine to distract the one that made it through while Viktor obstructed the greased passage with dense layers of sticky strands, much like spider webs. We heard the bellowing of one very pissed-off lizardfolk as he tried to pick his way through it. That, we reasoned, was Shukak’s lieutenant.

Viktor used a spell to enlarge me, and we concentrated our efforts on taking Shukak down. I called on Abadar’s power to strike him, then stepped back to help cover the rear.

Then we noticed something odd. As one of Shukak’s guards lay dying, three green worms emerged from its ears and mouth. Several of us called out, “Worms!” Viktor responded by targeting each with bolts of force, killing them instantly.

Sera delivered the final blow to Shukak. As he fell, I called out in Draconic, “We are only here for the chief and his lieutenant! They were the ones who took our people as prisoners!”

From behind us, we heard Hishka’s voice call out. “It was Shukak’s misguided policies that brought the soft skins down on us!”

More arguments and discord followed. “Now is not the time to question our leaders! Our enemies are here!” someone yelled.

The lieutenant reinforced this. “It doesn’t matter what the soft skins’ intentions are. They are invading, and we will hold our territory and our prisoners!”

I answered, “We don’t intend any harm to the rest of your tribe! We have acted to block your access or impede your progress, not harm you who are not the chief’s guard and officers.”

“And what of the chief?” the lieutenant demanded.

“The chief had to go.”

More cries out from behind us. “So the chief is dead?” and “What did they mean by what they said?”

Hishka spoke again. “Now you see the fruits of Shukak’s leadership. This is the future of our tribe if we don’t change our ways!”

His lieutenant scolded Hishka loudly, then asked me, “Where is the chief?”

“Which pieces of him?”

So he tried to take power right then and there. “The chief is dead! Long live the chief! Rally to me, everyone!”

I don’t normally like to trade barbs during battle, but he had earned it. “You’re next.”

And he was. With two strikes from my horsechopper, he fell to the ground, dead. And then it was over.

I called out to the lizardfolk. “We have no quarrel with your tribe. We’re here to free our prisoners, and help you with your worm infestation.”

That got a response. More of a panic, as the news of worms spread. Hishka spoke up quickly before it swelled.

“Soft skins! You are our enemy and have invaded our domain. However, I understand your desire to save your people. Will you agree to a parley to discuss a peaceful resolution?”

“Absolutely,” I said. And that seemed to ease the growing tension.

We negotiated an immediate truce between us. In exchange for releasing the prisoners, we would return their lair to its previous condition, and assist them in removing the threat of worms from their egg chamber. We had already stabilized and begun to heal their wounded (all except Shukak and his lieutenant, that is) which helped establish our sincerity to the rest of the tribe. Long term, we would build a preliminary treaty to take to Korvosa, and propose negotiations for a lasting agreement.

But the immediate problem was the worms.

First, there was the matter of the dying (and now stabilized) lizardfolk which had leaked worms onto the ground. According to Hishka, Ilthane had gifted the tribe several potions, and this lizardfolk had been administered one. And if that wasn’t the very definition of “suspicious”, I don’t know what is.

We had Ilthane’s potions brought out and they were fairly cloudy and opaque, which we found even more suspicious. We used a sieve to filter their contents; each, and every one contained a small, segmented worm. And that took care of any lingering doubt among the tribe that their worm problem had returned, not to mention who was behind it. Fortunately, only one of the potions had been consumed.

Next, was the egg chamber itself. As I said, if Ilthane later confronted the tribe we wanted them to be able to say truthfully that humans invaded it, so we went in alone. It was, as we were told, guarded by eight kobolds, and while they were not much of a match for us, the big surprise was that several of the eggs appeared to be moving. On closer examination, these were lizardfolk young that had been infested and turned into undead in their shells. We destroyed the ones that were infested, then scanned the chamber to ensure no more eggs were tainted.

That left only Ilthane’s egg, which sat among the Lizardfolk eggs. We wrapped it for safe transport and brought it out of the egg chamber into the space where we had been negotiating with Hishka. A close examination of it showed small holes as though numerous worms had bored their way out from the inside. Hishka sent for a cauldron with a sealing lid that would contain any further worms until we had recovered the spells to deal with it.

We revived Captain Alezar and Marzena and brought them up to speed. Marzena was skeptical that we had negotiated peace with the tribe.

“How?!” she asked.

“They had an aggressive, outsider leader. And we solved the problem with a change in leadership.”

Varin got us focused on the important part. “They have a problem where worms are infesting and killing their young.”

And that got Marzena’s attention. She’d been trying to get ahold of one, herself, for study—her now-undead predecessor back at the Keep was way too dangerous to approach—so we showed her one we had filtered out from Ilthane’s potions. “This would be easier back at the Keep,” she said. We agreed, but that would have to wait because we all needed some sleep.

Hishka graciously allowed us to rest in the abandoned village.

(morning)

When I woke this morning, I saw Zhog and Marzena—who I swear is old enough to be my mom—cuddled together. At first, I thought I was still asleep or seeing things, but nope. This was a thing that was actually happening.

That image is going to linger.

We examined the egg once we were all awake and had eaten some breakfast. I cast a spell and confirmed that it was riddled with disease. Viore followed that with a spell to cure disease, and when I cast my spell a second time, it came back clean. So we opened the egg and looked inside.

It was completely full of dead worms.