Fireday, Desnus 20 (dawn)

We followed Gathok over 15 miles into the Mushfens overnight, stopping in the pre-dawn light just a couple of miles outside his village’s patrol perimeter.

It’s been a long time since I have done this sort of thing. In my days (and nights) with the Night Walkers, we would be out a couple of nights per week, occasionally well into the early morning. The only rule was that we would always be back before what Sergiu called “civil twilight” because that was when you could no longer navigate by the stars, and the point of the Night Walkers was, obviously, to be out there in the dark. Supposedly this term comes from sailors, though how he got to know sailors in a land-locked mining town in the middle of the Fenwall Mountains is beyond me.

We made camp while Gathok continued ahead, and waited for his return.

We didn’t have to wait long. Just as the sun was rising above the horizon, we saw Gathok walking up the path towards our campsite. His expression was grim, which told us what we ultimately needed to know. The rest was just details.

“I have good news and bad news,” he began. “Our worst nightmares are confirmed. This batch of eggs are full of corruption. However, our alliance with Ilthane is not ill-informed. Her own egg is deeply infected as well, so she’s but a victim of the same ill fortune as our tribe.”

I hate being the one to deliver bad news. Really. I do. Gathok was holding on to a spark of hope, that there would be something salvageable in this mess, and I was about to smother it.

“Gathok…when we spoke with Hishka yesterday, she said to us quite clearly and directly that Ilthane was protecting your eggs, and leaving one of hers with you as a show of faith. That she was your ally, protecting you from this corruption.

“Either she hasn’t protected your tribe as she promised, or she is the source of this corruption and has been lying to you. Regardless of which of those statements you believe, your alliance with her has ultimately failed.”

However bad I felt about doing this to him—and I felt plenty bad, you try it sometime—he was feeling far worse. Losing another generation of eggs like this would be disastrous. Ilthane was their one great hope, that she had the power to stop it. With her alliance revealed as a fraud, and no understanding of why and how this was happening (much less how to stop it), they were facing the extinction of their whole tribe. And that thought was terrifying.

It took some gentle cajoling to get Hiska’s actual message from him, and not just his interpretation of it. She said she snuck into the egg chamber long enough to use the wand without being seen and saw that both Ilthan’e eggs and the ones closest to her were corrupted. “We are in over our heads,” she told him. “let the soft skins know!”

So here we are.

There were three problems to be solved: separate the good eggs from the bad ones to save as many of the new generation of hatchlings as possible, remove chief Shukak from power, and free the prisoners. Just the first one, alone, required that we meet with Hishka: we needed to get a better understanding of the egg chamber, and what could and couldn’t be done with the eggs. So we needed a place to meet.

Gathok said that their current lair is underground, next to their old village (now abandoned since their numbers have dwindled). He suggested that we sneak into one of the huts of the old village after dark, and meet with Hishka there. We’d have to hide everything about our presence, including our scent, but it would put us in a position to meet quickly and do so face-to-face without raising suspicion from their tribe. As I’ve said, time was not on our side, and multiple, long treks through the swamp would compound the problem. We agreed to the “abandoned village” plan, and sent Gathok back to deliver the message.

Hiding our scent would be a challenge, of course. Varin has a cantrip that is good for cleaning, and certainly a clean animal smells a lot less than a dirty one, but that can only take us so far. We could, however, use natural scents to mask our odor, and make the natural smell of the Mushfen on our bodies stronger than that of our own. This was another throwback to Sera’s and my time with the Night Walkers. She’s kept her skills sharper than mine, so I deferred to her.

We’re resting here for the day. We’ve been up nearly 24 hours with no sleep and we’re starting to feel it. And, the spell casters need to refresh their spells for what comes next.

(late night)

Gathok said that Ilthane has stationed kobolds in the egg chamber (ostensibly to guard the eggs, but we suspect their real purpose is to prevent interference with Ilthan’s plans, no matter the source), and they are loyal only to her. As soon as we enter, there will be a fight. That told us right away that dealing with the eggs would have to come last, lest we find ourselves trapped inside with angry kobolds in front of us and angrier lizardfolk behind us.

That meant dealing with Shukak first.

As an added complication, we cannot put Hishka or Gathok in danger from their tribe, or the lizardfolk tribe in danger from Ilthane. Which means they need what’s known as “plausible deniability”. Everything we do has to have the appearance of us acting alone.

As such, we formed our plan around a prisoner rescue, using a lightning raid. Zhog actually had the best idea on how to do that.

“Why don’t we just run straight through?” he said.

It sounded crazy at first, but…we have a map, courtesy of Gathok, and we know exactly where to go. With cover provided by invisibility and magical silence, we could get quite a ways before we were detected by other means, and even then it would take time for them to figure out what was happening. That would be enough for us to get into position and block off key passages, so we could limit the scope of the engagement by making it more difficult and time-consuming for the rest of the tribe to enter the fray. If we take Shukak down quickly enough, Hishka can assume the role of acting chief before we put other members of the tribe at risk.

At that point, we can legitimately negotiate a cessation of hostilities with Hishka. From the lizardfolk tribe’s perspective, humans will have staged a raid into their lair to rescue their prisoners, and Hishka will have acted in the best interest of her people since, after all, it was Shukak that led them to attack the human lands.

Then, Hishka arranges for us to enter the egg chamber and deal with the corruption in the eggs. Once again, plausible deniability would come into play here: no lizardfolk would enter the egg chamber with us, just in case one of the kobolds escaped. It had to look as though we were raiding the lizardfolk lair on our own, and specifically going after Ilthane’s egg. We wanted Ilthane retaliating against us, not the lizardfolk. (Actually, we don’t want Ilthane coming after us, either, but she may not give us that option.)

The biggest unknown was the safety of the prisoners. What would stop Shukak from simply executing them once he learned we were inside? Fortunately, Hishka had a solution for this. “I will have them brought to my chamber. Shukak’s lieutenant knows I’ve been healing them, and tending to their wounds. I’ll simply find another excuse to do that.”

Good enough, and probably as good as we were going to get.

We launch the raid at midnight.

Wealday, Desnus 18 (night)

We smelled the smoke from campfires long before Blackwall Keep came into view, and we made first sight of the tower as we emerged from the forest just as the sun was setting. It sat atop a hill dotted with fraises made from large, sharpened stakes, and from a quarter-mile away we could see it was under siege by scores of lizardfolk. They were organized into several squads of about a half dozen or more that surrounded it, with one squad equipped with a crude battering ram that they used to hammer the door. We watched as the lizardfolk exchanged salvos with the soldiers on the walls. Every time one of the latter took aim, javelins were sent in response.

We couldn’t take on an entire army, but there had to be a way we could help. To do that, though, we needed to make contact with them. Since I had the best understanding of military matters, I volunteered to go. We wrote up a message explaining who we were, and attached it to a weight so it could be dropped from the air. Under the effect of spells for flight and invisibility, I flew out above the tower and dropped it down.

“I only have a few minutes,” I said, landing next to them once they read the message. “What is your situation? How did this start?”

“The situation is dire! I don’t know that we can hold off for more than another day at this rate. As to why? I don’t know, they attacked us out of nowhere, without provocation. We are down to half our numbers, that are still able to put up a fight.”

“How many soldiers is that?”

“Fourteen.”

“Is there a leadership company among your attackers? Are they organized?”

“They seem disciplined. I don’t know who the leader is, but there’s an order to their attacks and they are keeping us pinned down. And…they…they have some of our people, including our commander and our battle mage! They took them captive and dragged them off to the south into the swamp.”

Not good.

Our best bet was to get the soldiers out, but that meant giving up the fort and they refused to abandon it. That left plan the second: find a way to break the siege.

I returned to the group before both spells wore off and we discussed what I had learned, and what our options were, and a plan started to form. We would go for the battering ram, which the lizardfolk had fashioned from the trunk of a large, sturdy tree. Without it, the threat to the Keep was greatly diminished, and it would take the attackers time to find, fell, and work a suitable replacement.

We needed a couple of hours for Varin to prepare some spells, but that worked to our advantage as it meant we’d be coming in under cover of darkness. While he prepared, we studied the attackers to learn their movements. Squads rotated in and out of ram duty, which was smart, but other than that there was no interaction between individual squads, and no active patrol of the perimeter. That meant we could attempt to sneak up on their positions.

When Varin was ready, we came at them from the southeast, making our way carefully up the hill. It mostly worked. We got close, but not as close as we would have liked before some of us were spotted, and two squads converged on us.

We needed to provide a distraction for Snagsby, who was still advancing stealthily toward the battering ram crew. Viore summoned a wolverine while the rest of us loosed a volley of arrows. One of the lizardfolk spotted Snagsby and threw a javelin his way. Recognizing this jeopardized the raid, Sera, Viore, and Viktor took them down at range.

With the wolverine occupying several of the attackers—making a great deal of noise in the process—and me closing for melee, Snagsby was able to sneak up on the ram and hit it with a spell. In an instant, the trunk has transformed into a tangle of thin branches and twigs, rendering it useless.

This took care of the immediate threat to the Keep, but presented a new problem: the lizardfolk formerly ramming the door were now inclined to engage us, and Snagsby was a visible and convenient target. Fortunately, we were able to identify their commander. Viore summoned a second wolverine to boost our numbers, and it, Zhog and Sera took the leadership down quickly while I kept some of the soldiers at bay with my horsechopper.

With the commander dead along with several of their kin, the siege slowly broke. We managed to take one of them prisoner as the rest withdrew. When the last of the lizardfolk had disappeared into the woods, we signaled to the garrison and they opened the battered door to let us in, with our prisoner in tow.

We took some time to assess the situation in the Keep, perform some basic repairs on the main door using magic, and locate a suitable room to detain our prisoner so we could talk to him.

“Our people have been in conflict for a long time,” I said in Draconic. “What has changed? Why this attack here, and why now?”

The lizardfolk stared at me contemptuously for a while before replying. “Our chief told us it is finally time to avenge your wrongs, and Ilthane agrees, so your doom is already sealed!” He started working himself up into a fervor. “You’ve encroached into our lands, decimated our people, slaughtered us at your whim and for your pleasures—”

We needed him calm, so I adopted a conciliatory tone. “Look,” I said, “I understand. I really do. Humans in general can be…invasive, even imperialistic. I don’t want to rehash all of our history. If ‘now’ is the time for this, then what has changed? What have we done recently that led to this?”

“We’ve found allies and strength to finally take action in retaliation for what you’ve done in the past!” His expression softened to sadness briefly, but then he found his rage and indignation again. “Almost an entire generation, young, old, hatchlings! What kind of barbaric race are you to resort to genocide?”

We were at a loss on this. To our knowledge, Korvosa hadn’t ordered any invasion of the Mushfens. If we had, the garrison at Diamond Lake surely would have been involved, or at least aware. And this would be significant news; people would have heard about it.

As for their ally, Ilthane? I didn’t know who that was, but Viktor did. In Varisian, he said she was a black dragon known to periodically terrorize the region. So that was not good. Was she somehow manipulating events?

I asked what the soldiers had done to their people, and he confirmed it wasn’t an invasion. According to him, humans had somehow corrupted their young, causing them to wither and die. This pestilence wiped out nearly an entire generation of their tribe.

The very thought of it was sickening, and it was hard to imagine anyone in Korvosa’s military ordering an attack on children. But it could easily be forces working towards their own goals, independent of the government. The letters we found from the Triad suggested worms would be found here, among the lizardfolk tribes. Could that be what was happening here?

“Look,” I said after some heated back-and-forth, “I know we’ve had our conflicts. But what you describe…this would be considered a reprehensible crime by our people. Who would we speak to in your tribe to get at the truth of this?”

He considered us in silence. “You should talk with Hishka. But you’d need to bring something to the table, to prove you are sincere. And that you have something of substance to talk about.”

So we showed our cards. We told him we were pursuing rumors of unkillable, green worms. “These are stories we’ve been hearing. I’m trying to figure out if what we have heard connects to what has happened to your people.”

We released his bindings as a show of faith (I still had my spiked armor on; I am not a fool), and we found our way to an agreement: we let him go, he takes a message back to this Hishka, and we meet her at a designated spot the following day. We procured a map of the region from the soldiers in the Keep, and together we identified a location that provided no cover for an ambush. We even exchanged names; he was called Gathok.

The soldiers of the garrison were not happy with us. Not in the least. And I get it, but I also didn’t care. “You want to get the hostages back?” I said, “This is how you do it.”

And then there was the matter of a suspicious door in the lower level of the building. It had a heavy padlock that had been smashed open by the lizardfolk when they managed to break into the Keep and capture their prisoners earlier in the siege. After the soldiers drove the raiders off, they hastily nailed the door shut. We had asked about it before, but their Acting Captain Bosh had only said that it was “off limits and may not be opened by anyone, under any circumstances”. We had asked what was behind it. His answer: “It’s not any of your concern.”

Sorry, but bullshit. The man was clearly terrified of what was behind that door, and after our little chat with Gathok? We all wanted a closer look. Viktor and Varin used a spell, and said a single, intelligent mind was on the other side. I walked up to it and opened my senses, and felt a moderately strong, foul aura behind it. We decided to confront Bosh with this. Not our concern, my ass.

He was hesitant at first, but quickly realized he was not the one in charge anymore. Not while we were there, anyway. “That was…You see, Battle Mage Marzena is here for a reason. She came to replace Aldis, our previous Battle Mage. And…that’s him behind that door. Or…what’s left of him.

“He came back two years ago from a mission to those savages, but wasn’t quite himself. After a day or two, they say—I wasn’t stationed here then—he transformed into some kind of monster! His skin was desiccated, like a zombie or something. So they locked him in, and he’s been there ever since.”

In other news, we also checked out Marzena’s room and personal effects. Zhog was particularly interested in her desk, which had several loose papers, quills, and ink. I asked him what was so fascinating, and was rewarded with a series of drawings, many of which were, um, rather risqué.

Some things, once seen, cannot be unseen.

Oathday, Desnus 19 (early morning)

Snagsby used a spell to confirm that the thing behind the door was undead. This more or less confirms Marzena’s (non-pictorial) notes, which we read through last night. She wrote down what the soldiers described to her: a zombie with worms crawling under its skin and dripping from its nose and mouth. One of these worms landed on another soldier’s arm and it started burrowing into his flesh. They killed it with an enchanted weapon before it got completely under the skin.

So, yeah, this all seems connected. We meet with Hishka at noon, assuming she even agreed to do so, and hopefully we’ll be able to convince her that our problems are also her problems.

The big question is, “Who is doing this?”

(afternoon)

We entered the clearing and saw the lizardfolk party approach. We both halted at a cautious distance apart, and then two of them stepped forward. One of them was an elderly woman (for lack of a better term), somewhat stooped and walking with some difficulty. A snake was coiled around her arm.

We decided to mirror their actions, so Snagsby and I approached the two while the others stayed back.

We nodded to each other, and the woman, Hishka, spoke in draconic.

“I understand your people actually want to talk to my people. I am curious why.”

“It sounds like both of our people have been taken advantage of,” I said, “and we are acting against one another when we shouldn’t be.”

“But we haven’t done anything to you—not first.”

“And I acknowledge that our people have not been kind to your people in history. But, something has happened to you in the last couple of years, and something has happened to us in the last couple of years, and they appear to be connected.”

Adopting a condescending tone, she asked, “What do you know of such things?”

I let the tone pass. We needed to talk, not argue. “We know that two years ago, one of the human men stationed at our Keep came into the Mushfens. We don’t know what his mission was, we don’t know what his purpose was, and we don’t care. We just know that when he returned he was infested with something, and it was a rotting disease. When it had run its course, he was infested with green worms that could only be slain by enchanted weapons.”

“And do you know why? Do you suspect we were behind this?”

“No, we don’t think you’re behind it. We think you may be victims of it. We uncovered among our own people a conspiracy of men who worship the worst gods in existence, and they are working to bring about what they call the Age of Worms. Part of that is bringing a monster into our world, and apparently the harbinger of that is these worms, infecting and corrupting the living.”

“We have allies that made us aware that the scourge my people suffered was due to the actions of your people. That you admit it is…interesting.”

“Again, I can’t say we’ve always been good to one another—”

“You are all blind! Soft skins! You don’t. Even. See us.”

“We are all young, this group you are talking to. So, I would say ‘yes’, but…we’re learning. So enlighten us. Something has happened to you in the last generation and it has caused disease and sickness, correct?”

“The hatchlings, mostly.”

“It seems related. This plot goes back more than a couple of years.”

“Ten years to be precise. We learned it was caused by you humans, from Korvosa specifically.”

Zhog stepped forward at this and objected. “Will you stop with the ‘you humans’ thing? Are you responsible for lizardfolk on the other side of the world? Stop talking to us like we’re all the same group. We have clans, we have tribes, we have kingdoms.”

Oy, Zhog. But it was a valid point. “What he’s saying is, we are not a monoculture. There are factions among our people, and whatever people are behind this? What they’re doing would be considered a crime. And more importantly, they need to be stopped.”

“But my information is that this is a conspiracy out of Korvosa.”

“And that may be true! Some of the information we are getting is pointing to that, but that doesn’t mean Korvsa, the government, the city, is behind it. Just that the plot originated from people who are there.”

“Fair enough.”

“But what matters to us is that it’s happening, and we need to stop it.”

“We already have the capability to stop it! We’re doing fine, thank you. It took us 10 years to get here after all of our hatchlings were decimated by worms and decay! But we have strong, new allies with the ability to prevent this from happening again! And a strong new clutch of hatchlings that are coming of age as warriors. She is even protecting our egg chamber now, personally!”

And who is their protector? “Ilthane,” I said.

Her eyes widen. “So. Her reputation has reached the Soft Skins, I see.”

“I know she’s a black dragon. One question I have for you is, how do you know your current batch of eggs is healthy?”

“This corruption was ten years ago. Since our alliance with Ilthane, there has been no harm to our clutches of eggs.”

“There’s a possibility that Ilthane is using your eggs as a breeding ground for worms. That she’s gaining your trust by giving you protection and using you at the same time.”

There was a very long pause after I said this. “I admit it’s an outlandish claim,” I added. “But you can’t deny the possibility. The timing is convenient.”

“That would be the worst thing to happen to our people.”

“She’s a black dragon. They are known for corruption.”

She called me out on this. We had specifically objected to having humans painted with a broad brush, and here I had done the same thing with black dragons. What can I say? I am new to this, and I make mistakes. But, thankfully, she was still willing to listen.

Zhog asked, “How did she get rid of the worms?”

“She has laired in our lair. And ever since she did this, there have been no worms.”

Zhog says, “But you have no proof that she’s done anything. You don’t know how it works. You only have her word that she is the one that made it stop.”

It’s no surprise Zhog would be the first to see the angle here. This had Kullen and his protection rackets written all over it. We had to step Hishka through it, and we kept hammering the point that Hishka has no proof that Ilthane has done anything at all to make the corruption stop. It is literally all on Ilthane’s word.

“Let me ask you, blind Soft Skins. I see that it’s in your interest to find a way for your people not to suffer this plight. What does it mean to you that our people suffer or don’t suffer from this?”

“The world is connected”, I said. “Whether or not we get along, we are sharing this space. What happens to one of us, happens to the other in some fashion. This thing is bigger than all of us.”

“But the actual plight of my people doesn’t concern you.”

“I can’t overcome hundreds of years of human and lizardfolk conflict and prejudice. The only thing I have to bring to you is, we want to stop this thing.”

“Perhaps…you’re not completely blind. And you let one of our people go to broker this meeting between us.”

“And you came, which we are grateful for.”

Zhog said, “This is what I meant about tribes and clans. We are not beholden to a king or a city. We are not wearing guard uniforms. There are seven of us here. What can we do for you?”

“I came here not sure what to expect, but…curious…thinking it would go nowhere. And now, I’m going to leave here full of dread. You’re right. I don’t know what Ilthane’s motives are.”

I said, “Let me ask you this. Do you have a way of verifying the health of your eggs? Do you have a way to detect undead? Can you detect disease?”

In short, she did not. But, we weren’t going to let that stop us. Over the next half hour, we talked out ideas both amongst ourselves and with Hishka, and we came up with a tentative agreement.

Viktor would craft a wand that Hishka could use to detect undead^†. She was capable of identifying it so she could trust what it does. Gathok would stay with us until it was done, then take it to her, and we would follow him to a point just a few miles from their lair so they wouldn’t have to hike another 20 miles to get a message to us (time was not on our side here). Hishka would use the wand to examine the egg chamber at her first opportunity, and then meet with us afterwards. If our fears were confirmed, we would discuss what to do and how to do it, because they were going to need help.

There was more. Hishka explained that there is a schism within the lizardfolk tribe, with some aligned with her and others aligned with their chief, Shukak.

“In truth,” she said, “this was one of my motivations to come and talk to you here. Shukak is not from our tribe. He arrived and assumed power when we were weak. We needed a leader and he filled that role. But I don’t think he has our best interests at heart. And I didn’t think these raids against the Soft Skins was the best way to avenge our people even before we met here. Now? I am more convinced of that.

“I want to counter the hold he has over the younger warriors of our tribe. If you could arrange in writing some treaty between your government and our tribe, I could probably arrange for a cessation of hostilities, at least for a time.”

It was an intriguing idea and we discussed this at length. Fundamentally she was asking for more than just a right to exist. “They give us the right to live here, but the guards in those towers hold us at a knife point, and we are seen as monsters. We are fighting perception. The perception of things often matters the most, and our people perceive that Korvosa is at war against us.” She wanted lizardfolk to be recognized as a society of people with laws, traditions, and families.

The best shot at accomplishing that? We free Marzena and the captain, and convince them that a treaty is the right thing to do. That both sides have been duped here, and we are not each others’ enemy.

This all had to happen soon. As I said, time is not on our side. Hishka believes she can keep the prisoners alive for another day, maybe two. If they die, any hope for a treaty dies with them.

---

_{†I believe this was our GM invoking Rule 0. Technically she did not have access to this spell, but the plan was good, as was the narrative that was forming around it.}

Moonday, Desnus 16 (late afternoon)

We spent the rest of the morning at the Observatory, and I do mean that literally. I slept in almost to noon. You know, like a normal person.

The irony of squatting at the Observatory is not lost on me, but it was too late to hike out to the house and too early to barge in on Allustan, which I guess was the plan for the morning. If you’re going to squat in Diamond Lake you may as well follow tradition.

Why Allustan? Well, aside from being Viktor’s mentor, he’s also willing to do research into pretty much everything we stumble upon, including this business with the worms, and do it all for free. I don’t really understand the “for free” part, but he can charge or not charge as he sees fit, I guess.

Allustan said he had heard from a friend named Marzena who serves as a battle mage at Blackwall Keep, and she, too, has come across or heard rumors of the same worms that we have. Given that her story and our story seem to be overlapping, and that Smenk’s and Dourstone’s organizations might not look too kindly on us as of later today, maybe it would be a good idea to go visit Marzena and compare notes. And maybe, perhaps, we should set out sooner rather than later. Hence we are spending the night at the house and heading out in the morning.

Allustan also requested that we escort her back to Diamond Lake to meet with him in person, and also share notes. Why does a battle made need an escort? I don’t have an answer to that. But we do need to get a message to her regardless, and we need to come back afterward, so maybe it’s just a figure of speech.

Blackwall Keep is a small fortress on the edge of the Mushfens, the largest swamp in Varisia and quite possibly in all of Avistan, sitting at the base of the mountain pass that climbs up to Diamond Lake and eventually across the Fenwall Mountains. It and Marsh Keep (also constructed on the edge of the Mushfens, only farther south) were built to more or less discourage the lizardfolk from expanding to the east because colonialism is only for us.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard stories about clashes between the lizardfolk and the holdings of Korvosa. The two sides used to butt heads constantly, with the lizardfolk gradually growing more and more aggressive because who wants to live in a swamp?  Anyway, the stories say that, once the keeps were constructed—and manned with heavily armed soldiers—the lizardfolk raids more or less fizzled out, and there’s been an unspoken truce since. The soldiers at the garrison in Diamond Lake do rotations among the Keeps, since ignoring the corruption and violence in Korvosa’s favorite money-making hellhole doesn’t take a lot of their time.

Are the lizardfolk really violent, aggressive, expansionist savages? I don’t know. I mean, I’d be inclined to say “probably not” but then we found that group in the house, and they were way outside their designated territory (though I am inclined to believe that they were not consulted on that matter) and pretty belligerent about it. So, maybe there’s some truth to all of that. Or, maybe it’s just the winning side writing history. I’ve certainly seen firsthand what happens when a select few who are in power get to write the rules for everyone else.

For references on that, see Balabar Smenk and Ragnolin Dourstone.

(night)

I stopped at mom and dad’s before we headed back to the house for the night, as I wasn’t sure how long I’d be gone, or when I would have a chance to see them next. Also, they were going to find out soon enough that I quit my job today, and maybe it was best to hear that from me, first. And, I had an ulterior motive on top of all that.

After selling much of what we found down in the temples under Dourstone’s mine, I am sitting on a sum of gold that would take me four years to earn working for Osgood. Back when I lived at home, I used my income as a server to supplement my family’s, which was fairly meager. Dad has worked in Gansworth’s mine for as long as I can remember, and though Gansworth is one of the least objectionable mine owners in town, no one is getting rich in his employ. Mom does odd jobs for Tidwoad, but it’s never been what I’d call steady work.

A couple of gold per week waiting tables doesn’t sound like a lot, and it wasn’t, but it always felt like we were living on the financial edge once I was old enough to understand finances, so every coin I brought in helped. My parents stretched to keep us out of the warehouses, which is where most miners and their families live, and how much stretching was required depended a great deal on how much work mom was able to get. Kids are expensive.

Once I moved out, they went to a smaller flat and that made things a bit easier on them. Easier is not the same as easy, though.

I knocked on the door, and braced myself.

“Belessandralena!” mom exclaimed enthusiastically. She turned her head to yell back into the flat. “Henric! Belessandralena is here!”

I cringe inside every time they use my name. Especially at full volume like this.

Mom led me to the kitchen, where they were eating dinner because I have great timing, I guess. I greeted dad (and suffered another “Belessandralena!”) and sat down at the table, dropping a coin purse with 50 gold on top. I’d have given them more, but it turns out this new life I’ve started for myself? It’s expensive if you want to survive it.

“What’s this about?” dad asked.

“I haven’t contributed since I moved out. I still want to contribute.”

He opened it up and his eyes went wide. This was easily two weeks of income for him.

“Where did you get this kind of money?”

So, they know me. They know I won’t do anything illegal or unsavory, but they worry anyway. And I suppose they were right to, even if they didn’t know it, since the circumstances behind this were something of a grey area. (How grey? Think charcoal.) I explained it the best I could. And let me tell you, it was more than a little uncomfortable. I left out a few of the uglier details, too, because I didn’t want to scare them.

To say they weren’t thrilled about me revisiting the cairn would be an understatement; they remember Masildi, too. Dad was pretty excited about Dourstone and Smenk, though. “Serves the bastards right,” he said. “Never did like those two. And I can’t wait for them to get what’s coming to them!”

Mom took a more practical approach.

“Does this put you in danger?” she asked.

“A little. But we’ll be away for the next few days, delivering that message to the Keep. Things should cool down by the time we’re back.”

Mom didn’t seem convinced. And to be honest, I didn’t feel so convincing.

Toilday, Desnus 17, 4722 (evening)

Allustan said there was an abandoned farmhouse about halfway to Blackwall Keep, and we reached it just before nightfall. We’ll spend the night here (that sounds so much better than “squatting”) and head out for the keep in the morning. It seems the house serves as a communal rest stop, and there are signs that people have done some maintenance on it here and there, just enough to keep it from falling into disrepair.

It was not an uneventful journey. About noon we came upon a clearing along the trail that looked like a good spot to have lunch, but I’ve spent a lot of time in the brush (albeit mostly at night) and this one looked an awful lot like someone was trying to hide the fact that they recently camped out. There’s no reason to do that unless you 1) don’t want someone to know you came through here, or 2) you don’t want someone to know you’re still here.

I was more concerned about the second one, so I brought the group to a stop and concentrated, trying to find tainted auras in the tree line.

I don’t do this sort of thing very often because I grew up in Diamond Lake, and the few times I have used this power I’ve found the results to be depressing. Sometimes you are better off just not knowing. But this was the wilderness, and we needed to know if we were walking into an ambush. Not that this was a perfect solution—not everything hostile would have a dark heart—but we could still learn something from it. And in this case, the precautions paid off as I sensed several foul auras, just out of sight.

Sensing that their little setup wasn’t going to improve with time, an orc stepped out of the trees near Zhog.

Zhog stared at him and asked, “Are we talking, or are we fighting?”

The orc advanced on him, answering, “It’s a good day for fighting!”  And then a dozen more stepped into the clearing at various points along its length, We had stopped short of being completely surrounded, but it was still not a great tactical position and since I was in front, I was voted most popular target.

Zhog pounded his dance partner, sending them to the ground, bleeding out, as two more took its place.

For some reason, Viore thought that exploding a ball of fire in the middle of them was a good idea. I mean, this worked as a demonstration of force, but here’s the thing about trees: they’re flammable, especially when the wet season has passed. Fortunately, Snagsby had a spell to create water, which he could repeat over and over, and got to work putting out the flames before we had a firestorm on our hands.

Though I had orcs on all sides, I also had my horsechopper. I used that to pin them down as the others picked them off, one by one. I cut a couple down, myself, then barked at the last one still standing: “Sit!”

He sat. And we had a nice little conversation.

“How many of you are there?” I asked.

“This is all of us.”

“What brings you this far northeast?”

“Nothin’ personal, y’know, just figured there’d be spoils to be taken, y’know, when the war comes.”

“When the war comes.? Tell me about that.”

“Y’know… it’s inev’table. The Twisted Branch have been on the path to war for…well, the past month.’

The Twisted Branch is one of the larger lizardfolk tribes in the Mushfens.

“Why? What’s going on with them?” I asked

“They’re just…I don’t know! But they’re hoppin’ mad, obviously gearing up, soldierin’, marching through the swamps…”

“They’re displacing your people?”

“No, it’s just an opportunity we sees up here. Figure if they take on the soft skins, eh, we’ll get a piece of it, maybe, y’know, it’s just how it is.”

We tied him up along with a couple of the other orcs that were still alive, then ate our lunch. They weren’t tied so tight that they couldn’t eventually work themselves free, but they were tight enough that it wouldn’t happen soon.

When we left, Zhog said, “You are at the mercy of the road. May Desna protect you.”

Wealday, Desnus 18, 4722 (morning)

We woke up to the sound of roosters crowing, only the roosters sounded like they’d been breathing gravel and had woken up from the grave. Then it got louder and louder and we realized they weren’t just screechy roosters. We threw open the windows and saw three large, emaciated birds with bat-like wings converging on the house.

Cockatrices. Just great.

Sera, Viore, Viktor, and Zhog took shots at them from the windows, which was a great plan right until they flew up onto the roof. I took a position in the middle of the house in case one of them made it inside, but what we really needed was to get them onto the ground so my defensive position wouldn’t even be necessary.

Varin used a spell to conjure a wolf as bait, they fell for it, and then they were easy pickings.

Maybe if the inn doesn’t work out we can get a job as monster hunters for hire.

 

Sunday, Desnus 15 (night)

We exited the maze into a bizarre, L-shaped hall with walls made from grey marble and a white, stone-tiled floor. Marble pillars ran down the center, each with veins of green that writhed and shifted as though they were alive. The walls had circular bulges at irregular intervals, and as we studied them with magic they opened up, revealing human eyes that followed our progress through the room. There was very little doubt that we were being spied on. Like, zero doubt. Zero is little.

We didn’t want to be spied on, and the whole effect was rather creepy anyway, so we returned to the maze and found another passage out, this one leading into a storeroom. Much like the Zon-Kuthon wing, there were barrels of water and boxes of rations stacked neatly inside. There was also little doubt that these, too, came from Balabar Smenk. Like, zero doubt. See above.

From there we found what appeared to be living quarters, and they were adjacent to an even more bizarre hall with walls made from a strange, green rock that had purple veins writing inside them. Sort of an inverse of the creepy hall with the eye, only it had six pillars along the walls, black this time, with a tar-like appearance.

It also had three fanatical acolytes and a strange shadow creature that babbled constantly, and incoherently, to the point where Viore, Sera, and Snagsby were overcome. It was a bad start. Sera was hit by a spell that left her further debilitated, and was in danger of being overwhelmed, so I grabbed her and literally pulled her back and out of the way. The whole fight just seemed terribly lopsided at this point, so I asked Viktor to enlarge me with the wand. And then Zhog and I entered the fray. The shadow fell first, and the acolytes shortly after.

We actually captured the third instead of killing them and tried to get information from them, but they were so deep into raving lunatic territory that it ultimately wasn’t worth the effort. All we got from them is what we already knew: the last room contained the Faceless One.

Remember how I said I don’t like to chat during a fight? Well, the Faceless One did. He literally would not shut up, even while we were laying the smackdown. It was all “Every action you take is advancing my plans!”, “You only hasten his arrival!” and “My victory is inevitable!” Stars, man, just accept defeat in peace. Please.

I ended up knocking him unconscious with my sap because we’re going to need better proof of what had gone on down here than a bunch of dead bodies. A fanatical true believer with a propensity for running off at the mouth solves that problem nicely.

Distressingly, the various bits about the so-called “Ebon Aspect” did turn out to be true (including, I suppose, the Faceless One’s prognostications, such as, “Your fate will be sealed by your own actions!”). A large humanoid grotesquerie with six arms and a nasty disposition had risen from the pool, and was busy smashing the elevator in anger as we were preparing to leave.

It was a difficult fight. I was the first one to engage it so I bore the brunt of its attacks, and got beaten severely—to within inches of my life!—before the others could engage. That bought me time to heal. Viktor used the wand to enlarge Zhog and Sera, and once they had it flanked (and once I was not on death’s door) he enlarged me too. With the three of us working in tandem, and Abadar imbuing my blows with divine power, we were able to bring it down.

I took the liberty of cutting off its head, thinking, If the Faceless One’s insufferable ramblings don’t do enough to sway people, maybe this thing will.

As for the Faceless one, I don’t know what to make of him. Albino, with a featureless face save for a small, sharp nose, he seems more like something from Lamashtu’s playground but for whatever reason he threw in with Urgathoa. I am sure there’s a story there but I honestly don’t care enough to ask.

We decided to spend one more night down here, or at least stay until midnight when Snagsby can pray for spells. A little magic is all that was needed to repair the elevator, so we’ll be able to use it to get back up top.

The Faceless One came to not long ago. Of course, we can’t have that, so I knocked him unconscious again. But not before showing him the head of the Ebon Aspect so he could see just how thoroughly he’d failed. I didn’t say anything. Just showed it to him, and let the image sink in.

Moonday, Desnus 16 (small hours)

We left the mine just after the shift change at midnight. We knew we wouldn’t be able to make it all the way out without being stopped by the guards, so we were ready when six of them hurried to block our exit with swords drawn.

“Who are you?” one of them demanded. “You’re not miners!”

I dropped the sacks I was carrying, and pulled out the head of the Ebon Aspect. Next to me, Sera unceremoniously dumped the body of the Faceless One on the ground.

“We’re here,” I began, “because we uncovered a cult operating under your mine. We are taking these to the garrison, and we need you to get out of our way.”

All but one of the guards looked uncertain about how to handle this. That sixth one, though, gave me a look that suggested he knew what was going on. So I walked over to him, and said, “So you’re aware that there was an elevator built in your mine that leads down to the cultists. And you’re aware that people have been coming and going. And you know what we’re doing. So get out of our way.”

“You’ve been down there?” he asked.

“Do you think that we took these things down into the mine, and then brought them back up again, all to make an elaborate show?”

“What of the Citadel of Zon-Kuthon?”

“There is nobody left in the Citadel of Zon Kuthon, just as there’s nobody left in the Caverns of Lamashtu, or the Maze of Urgathoa.” I was careful to pronounce the capitalization.

“And…Theldrick?”

“There. Is. Nobody. Left.”

And he bolted. I ran after him and tried to grab him but missed. He stopped abruptly, pulled out a dagger, and stabbed me with it. Viore responded by casting a spell that held him where he stood, unable to move. Crisis averted. We tied him up before the spell wore off, and dragged the whole lot off to the Garrison (there was just no way I was going to trust Sheriff Cubbins with this). The guards at the mine just kinda watched us go. I guess they lost their appetite for a confrontation.

It took a little explaining, and more than a little fast-talking, to convince the duty sergeant that this wasn’t just some religious dispute, but actual necromantic activities taking place under the town. Once we got the whole story out, he promised a full investigation…including Smenk’s and Dourtsone’s roles as conspirators. In just three days, we managed to take down the two most powerful and corrupt mine owners in Diamond Lake.

I’ve been dreaming of doing something like this for several years.

 

Sunday, Desnus 15 (morning)

Did I say that the last of the tengu had fallen? If so, I would like to revise my earlier statement. Now the last of the tengu has fallen.

This group of four ambushed us when we moved to explore the far end of the maze. They were a lot tougher than the ones we tangled with earlier, too. There was a spell caster of some sort, and one that was obviously the head of the snake. I faced off against the latter while my friends dealt with the rest. Before long he was the last of them still standing.

I don’t like to chat during a fight (I’ve never understood those who do) but I like senseless killing less, so I broke with protocol.

“Look. You’re the only one still alive. Why? Why keep fighting?”

He said, “Because I have a cause worth fighting for.”

“Is it a cause worth dying for?”

“It wouldn’t be a cause if it wasn’t.”

Which, I can almost respect since I feel the same way about mine. But there’s a key difference here that makes me stop short: My cause creates. His destroys.

Sunday, Desnus 15 (morning)

Our tengu friend did not try to return, and his friends didn’t come looking for him. This was smart, in my opinion. Odds are they knew we were here (even if they didn’t know who we are) and that we’d have to come to them, eventually. Better to bolster their defenses than risk a battle on our terms.

Our biggest obstacle in the “take the fight to them” plan was the lock on their door, but the tengu gave us what we needed for getting around that, and Sera had it popped in just a few seconds. The door opened to a long hallway with numerous side passages branching off in the distance.

“It’s a maze,” I said, shaking my head.

There are a number of strategies for dealing with mazes according to everyone but me. I only knew of one, myself: crumple them up and throw them away. Sadly, this approach was impractical in our particular situation.

As we explored and bickered—I think someone suggested that we always turn right at every intersection for some reason—Sera found a secret door, and then we heard a loud squealing sound echoing from up ahead. That was followed shortly by the source: the first of three giant weasels, which seemed much more at home squeezing through the corridors of a maze than we were. And then things got worse.

There were secret passages everywhere. Tengu popped out of them left and right, dividing us up as we contended with them and the weasels. It was a chaotic, claustrophobic, and extremely musty fight. Stars, but those weasels stunk. Two of them spent considerable time in my face.

My tactics typically center around defending a very large area (and when Viktor uses that enlargement spell on me, a very, very large area) to slow our opponents and prevent them from ganging up on us. Needless to say, this doesn’t work so well in narrow hallways where the best we can do is line up in a single file. That being said, a horsechopper stabs as well as it slices, and does so quite well from several feet away, which put the weasels and myself on somewhat equal footing.

Once the last of the tengu and weasels had fallen, and it took a while to figure that out because we got scattered all over the place, we regrouped in a room that was in a fairly secluded corner to rest and heal.

And to get away from that blasted smell.

Starday, Desnus 14 (late morning)

Well, I asked for different and we got different.

Lamashtu is the goddess of, among other things, the monstrous and misshapen. If you’ve been thinking to yourself, as I have, that grimlocks aren’t really all that monstrous, and might be unfairly labeled as such, then you can set your mind at ease as we’ve gotten to the root of this mystery. We met the grimlock’s high priest today. And he had eyes. In true Lamashtu fashion, he had taken the eyes from some unidentified creature and sewn them to his face. And if that wasn’t enough, he had carved her holy symbol into his chest (their chieftain had done the same, so it was a whole thing). But that is the sort of dedication to abnormality that Lamashtu appreciates. Unlike Zon-Kuthon, it’s self-mutilation with, I dunno, a purpose.

The priest (Theldrick’s journals imply his name was Grallak) had some scrolls—I have no idea what someone who can’t see is doing with scrolls, so don’t ask—that were written in Common, but they were faded and nearly illegible. All we could make out was some reference to a power growing “in the pool of the dark cathedral” that would serve as a champion for the Triad, and more references to Kyuss bringing forth the Age of Worms.

The letter in Theldrick’s chambers also spoke of something called “The Ebon Aspect” stirring in the pool, and even suggested that heretics (that would be us) raiding the temple might awaken it.

Three guesses which pool they are referring to.

(early afternoon)

We’re resting back in the Zon-Kuthon wing because it’s nicer than a cave. And the beast, which Zhog has named “Bubbles”, needs to eat.

While we were waiting, there was a knock at the door in a deliberate pattern. It repeated after a short pause.

We were not expecting company. Not polite company, at any rate.

Snagsby did what any reasonable person would do, which is knock back with the same pattern. Then he said he heard footsteps retreating, and we decided to do something about that. He opened the door and there was a tengu backing away down the hall. Sera walked out after it and said, “Come in!’ with Snagsby following right behind her.

He froze and looked at Sera, then looked over at us through the door and said, “You’re not Theldrick’s…” leaving that thought hanging in the air.

Sera circled behind him somewhat threateningly, and it snapped at her with its beak. “Where is Theldrick?!” he demanded.

Viktor answered, “We’ve replaced Theldrick.”

“Prove it!”

I stepped into the hall with my horsechopper in hand, gave him my most charming smile, and said, “Honestly, we were not expecting visitors today! Come on in and we’ll show you around!”

“I see, I see…I didn’t mean to stay. It was just a simple errand…I’ll be back later.”

“What kind of errand do you have?” I asked. “Maybe you don’t have to leave!”

“I just want to talk to Theldrick. And I see he’s not here…”

“He is here! You can talk to Theldrick all you want! He just…won’t…answer.”

He was alarmed, and not sure what to do, so Sera decided for him. She gave the Tengu a shove, pushing him towards the doors. I swept my horsechopper low, catching his feet, and he tripped and fell forward into the room. He tried to stand up, so Zhog punched him and he went down again, this time unconscious.

We tied him up and decided to pump him for information. I checked his aura while he was out and it wasn’t tainted, which suggests…he just fell in with the wrong crowd. When he came to, I went with “nice”.

“Look, we get it. You wandered in here; you weren’t expecting all of this. You’ve got a message for Theldrick. Just tell us what it is, and maybe we can find a way for all this,” I said, gesturing around the room, “to end.”

“What’s your relationship to Theldrick?”

Honesty is important when you’re trying to build trust. “We’re alive and he isn’t.”

“The message was to simply ask him where his guards went.”

I smiled in response. “Oh! I can help you with that! They’re with Theldrick.”

The short of it was: he works for The Faceless One, which is the name mentioned in Theldrick’s journal, and the head of the Urgathoa contigant. Those journals have suggested that there is more than a little strife between the groups and something of a power struggle. He had written, “Grallak is the key. Thank the Midnight Lord that he trusts me and not the faceless One.” Well, good for you, Theldrick!

Of course, we couldn’t just kill him because I wasn’t going to allow another summary execution of a prisoner, but we couldn’t keep him with us, and we couldn’t let him go back to his cohorts. In the end, we made an appeal to logic and his sense of self-preservation: if he goes back to his master he’ll be seen as a snitch and most likely killed. But if he takes a chance on us, worst case is he has a lengthy head start running away. Best case? He’s the only surviving member of his little cult. He accepted the deal.

We aren’t naive. We sent him up the elevator, but there was nothing to stop him from coming back down so we set up a watch, just to make sure there were no surprises.

Fire Desnus 13 (night)

We’re spending the night down here. Everyone agrees that it’s too much of a risk to keep coming and going from the mine, and this wing of the…whatever this is seems safe now that we’ve cleared it out. The odds of being interrupted are low since there does not seem to be much inter-faith traffic.

We did more exploring and learned two important pieces of information.

The first is that “the beast” is just a wild boar. I don’t mean to imply that wild boars aren’t dangerous—they certainly are—but rather that it ended up being significantly more mundane than we were expecting. It was chained up in a room, like you do I suppose, and seemed hungry and not particularly discriminating about its meal. Zhog endeared himself to it by feeding it parts of its former captors and now he’s making noise about having another pet. And that’s all you need to know about that.

The second is just how deeply Smenk is in this mess. We found a storage room filled with crates that have his trademark rooster and coin painted on them, and they were filled with food and water. The story this told was pretty clear: Smenk entered into some deal with Dourstone to supply these fools with provisions, and Smenk being Smenk, he managed to irritate them to the point where it was less trouble for them to just knock him off the board. If that doesn’t sound like Smenk, I don’t know what does.

Also, how dumb do you have to be to do this? He essentially hired us to investigate himself, and even without that letter to Theldrick there’s mountains of evidence establishing that he is a co-conspirator in all of this.

Since he all but blackmailed us, I am not feeling particularly charitable about what to do with it, either.

Starday, Desnus 14 (morning)

The night passed without incident.

We found a stone key with Lamashtu’s symbol on it in Theldrick’s quarters, so we opted for that wing next. Unsurprisingly, the door opened up to a complex of naturally occurring caves. The tunnel leading away from the door was worked a bit into steps as it descended, and it emptied into a large chamber filled with stalagmites and stalactites.

We were admiring the beauty of this natural formation when something threw a javelin at me.

Viktor identified our attackers as grimlocks: humanoids that have adapted to living deep underground. The skin on their faces had grown over their eyes, presumably because eyes aren’t much good in the dark (for most people, anyway) so why bother having them at all.

This theme has repeated itself over and over: tunnel leading to cave, cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites, attacked by grimlocks. Sometimes there are chasms, sometimes there are ledges, sometimes there are pets, and this last one had a rope bridge, but that’s pretty much been it for variety. We’re taking a moment to rest up before moving on to—you guessed it—a cave with grimlocks in it.

 

Fireday, Desnus 13 (afternoon)

When I learned there was a temple deep under Dourstone’s mine, I was picturing a small space, roughly hewn out of rock and packed earth. Maybe three or four chambers, at most. Instead, what we found was a massive, sprawling complex. The antechamber was exquisitely carved from stone, with black marble tiles lining the floor and marble pillars and arches. And did I say this was just the antechamber?

There is no way this was done recently. How long has this been here?

The welcoming committee was a small squad of tiefling guards. They looked bored when the first three of us came down in the elevator, as if random people visit the place all the time. Which they must, because one of them casually asked, “Delivery?” Which would have been a great cover story for us, except that this was followed closely by, “Password?” And then we had a fight on our hands. A very short fight, fortunately. Varin put three of them to sleep with a spell, and that tilted the odds significantly in our favor.

I guess it makes sense that there are frequent deliveries. No one talks about this stuff in stories, but even cultists need to eat (well, some of Urgathoa’s followers may not, though some may eat more than their share) and there’s probably not much in the way of fresh food down here. Not the kind that doesn’t fight back, anyway. All that has to come from somewhere, and conveniently there’s a whole town overhead.

Three doorways—again, carved in marble—led out of the hall. Two bore symbols: one for Zon-Kuthon, and one for Urgathoa. The third doorway had no such adornment. I guess Lamashtu’s followers couldn’t find the time.

There was also a curious pool of black liquid filling the southern half of the chamber. It had a foul aura to match its foul appearance, and it seemed to suck the heat from the air. Zhog experimented with it a bit using…never mind, it’s not important what he used. The experiment was a let-down. The items he dipped in there just got really cold.

Sera wasn’t able to open Urgathoa’s door so we went for Zon-Kuthon. It was shaping up to be a pleasant Fireday afternoon of torture, murder, and self-mutilation. And skeletons. For some reason, the first resistance we encountered was skeletons in suits of armor. I didn’t think this sort of thing was in Zon-Kuthon’s dogma, but maybe his followers and Urgathoa’s have been comparing notes.

I guess we made a little too much noise in that skirmish—hitting suits of armor with metal weapons tends to do that—because we found ourselves rushed by more tiefling guards from three sides. One of them called out “I’ll unleash the beast!” which sounded like it might be bad for us, so Sera, who was next to him at the time, cut him down on the spot. This felt like what mom calls a “teachable moment”. If you’re going to announce your plan to run off and unleash the beast, maybe get some distance first.

We pushed our way through more guards and then found ourselves outside a huge chamber, surrounded by balconies 10′ above on three sides. We divided up into two groups, with half of us going to the upper level and the other half coming in on the main floor. And that’s how we ended up confronting Theldrick, the Triad’s priest of Zon-Kuthon. We knew that was his name because the tieflings we cut through had called to him for help. Help, which I feel compelled to add even though it surprises no one, never arrived.

Zhog’s entrance down below was blunt. “So. Are you that Thel-dick guy that someone was calling to while we were killing them?”

Theldrick responded by shutting the doors behind them. He probably thought this was a trap, but it didn’t really work out that way. Sera and I were on the balcony crew and had to work our way forward, one troglodyte zombie (what is it with those, anyway?) and cultist at a time. Our friends down below, however, were archers and spell casters and had their choice of targets, especially with us drawing away the bulk of his defensive line.

I am not saying it was easy. It was not. But once I got close enough to knock him to the ground, it was over.

We turned up some interesting documents. One was a letter to Theldrick and appeared to be written in an unfamiliar tongue. On closer examination, it was a code and not a language. “Based on how these patterns repeat,” I said, “it’s probably a letter substitution code. Give me some time with this, and I’ll work it out.”

It’s a common technique used by commanders to pass messages during wartime. The idea is, you have several tables and if you know which one was used you can do this quickly. If a message is intercepted by the enemy, by the time they solve it the information is probably stale. When used to send a letter in this manner, it’s just a way of saying “contents are private”, and preventing it from being read by the wandering eye.

Training with soldiers has its advantages.

It took Viktor and I about half an hour but we got it. And our dear friend Balaber Smenk is up to his eyeballs in this place. “The author believes that Smek is no longer useful, and must be killed,” I said, showing them the decoded message. “Smenk is using us to clean up after whatever mess he helped create.”

I don’t like being used.

There was more, though, and it was fairly ominous. It also spoke of someone named Kyuss. “Mighty Kyuss is the herald of the Overgod”, it read, and that undead bearing his worms were the key to the Triad’s research. “…send agents to the Mushfens, across the hills to the southwest. I believe that we will find what we are looking for there, among the lizardfolk”

This problem, it seems, is much larger than just Diamond Lake.

Oathday, Desnus 12, 4722 (night)

Ragnolin Dourstone has been operating his mine in Diamond Lake for longer than anyone can remember, and is arguably one of the more successful mine owners in town. It should be said, however, that this financial performance comes largely from abysmal working conditions and low pay, which keeps his overhead down and boosts his bottom line. And if that doesn’t paint a rosy enough picture of the man, rumor has it that he was run out of the Sky Citadel of Janderhoff after he intentionally caused a mine collapse as a way of quelling a labor dispute.

Surprisingly, Abadar’s church does not have a lot of advice for sneaking into a mine, even one run by the esteemed citizen that is Dourstone, and even if said mine happens to be a front for a world-ending triad of cultists. So, if you’re reading this and are faced with this same problem, this is how you go about it.

First, spend the morning casually casing out the mine entrance. This was mostly Sera’s department, but if you don’t have a Sera, anyone who is good at casing a mine without being seen will do. What you are looking for are answers to questions like:

• “How many entrances does it have?” (One. And before you make a smart remark here, some mines have more than one entrance. I live in a mining town. Please don’t argue with me.)
• “How is it guarded?” (The area around the entrance is enclosed by a wall, and guards are stationed at sentry positions by the main entrance, and more guards patrol the interior. Rotations occur at regular intervals. Note: To answer this question properly, it helps to have someone like myself, who has trained with soldiers and understands guard duty. If I am not available though, there’s always Sera, whose skill set is geared towards avoiding guards, which is almost as good.)
• “What is the general activity level?” (Miners work at all hours, and most of the activity coming in and out is shift changes for employees.)

Second, feel around for hints of any rumors of a cult down below said mine. Note that this tends to be situational, so adjust your feelers as needed. In our case, there were no such rumors, which suggests that Dourstone has so far managed to keep this secret of his pretty darned secret.

Third, identify a person or people that you can bribe to gain access to said mine. Note: If you are a representative of the Church of Abadar, you may want to reframe this as, “To whom can we offer our services as subcontractors, using an unusual financial arrangement where the subcontractor pays the primary?” The answer to this question, by the way, turned out to be “Just about anyone who works in the mine”, because this is Diamond Lake, and while most of the mine owners are horrible people who exploit their workers, Dourstone has raised it to an art form.

As such, it did not take long to find a group of copper miners who were happy enough to get a well-paid vacation day, provided that said payment was enough to offset their risk. As it turns out, my civics training did cover actuarial matters, and assessing the financial impact of personal risk is something I am comfortable doing. We named a figure, they negotiated, we accepted, and then we had a plan.

We meet up with them tomorrow, just before their shift starts at noon. Most of the crew gets a day off, and we get to wear their mining gear (they also get some new gear in case we are down there longer than their shift). The work crew lead will bring us in like he’s not sneaking strangers into a mine, and then he and his second will ensure we have a minute or so of privacy to get to the other shaft.

“The foreman says it’s for accessing another vein,” their crew leader explained. “It’s blocked off for now, and no one is allowed near it.”

That sounds exactly like what we’re looking for.

As to how they address the issue that some of the crew isn’t working because they aren’t really there? Not my problem.