S28: Lessons Learned

In a prison cell too small for the number of inhabitants, Fey and Alora stare in bewilderment at an unconscious and armless Nom. Mokon towers above Nom’s body with a look of justification and a little shock. Glug lies unconscious on a dirty, worn bed in the back. And five of Huther’s prisoners, most of whom are familiar to you, cower in the back corner of the cell trying to stay unseen.

Many events have transpired in the last hour. Huther is dead; his remains lie dormant on the ground of his pit of death. Swarms of carrion crawlers return to their habits. And Nom has finally doffed the bracer that has caused so much pain to so many, unfortunately, at a very high cost. As the group discusses next moves, they hear a slurping sound coming from the shadows. Spinning around they see the frail, skeletal woman, the very woman Nom had dangled above the pit of death, hunched over Glug. Her back writhes and her body undulates over Glug as the sound of sucking and drinking comes from their mouths that are pressed tightly together. Fey jumps into action, barely giving the new couple a chance to get better acquainted. She grabs the wretch trying to pull the emaciated woman off her friend, but the woman’s grip seems to tighten, unaffected by Fey’s attempts. Angry, Fey begins to stab the woman repeatedly in the back and head, again to no effect. Noticing not only her attempts have been futile, but there are no signs of blood coming from the repeated stab wounds, Fey begins to tear and pull at the woman with heated ferocity. Her clothes rip and shred as her thin frame is exposed. As Fey continues, limbs break loose not only from grip on Glug, but from the woman herself. Mokon prays for insight into the nature of this ferile woman, not expecting the answers he receives. The woman gives off no evil aura, but Glug is another story. Alora watches in horror torn between helping her two unconscious companions. 

Only a minute passes before Fey is standing above the scattered and torn remains of a once human woman -- her face, body, and limbs look almost mummified -- bones and dust. Glug lies still. Fey rests her head on Glug’s chest. She can hear a beat, but it doesn’t sound as though from a heart. Mokon approaches and gives a deep breath in, hoping to use his newfound ring of enhanced smell not forgetting that this room seems to dampen magic. Even without the ring there is a definite odor to Glug -- earthy and damp.

Alora, Mokon, and Fey stand in disbelief. Nom and Glug remain motionless. Alora asks the prisoners if they know what is happening and why the woman attacked Glug. No answers come forth, but a man does. A dirty human male pushes his way through the others. Fey’s first instinct is to bury her blad in yet another potential threat to Glug, but Alora wonders if he can help. The man approaches Glug slowly, Alora and Fey watch, prepared to act if necessary. The man continues forward… slowly. The man gently raises his hands toward Glug, but then, with unnatural speed, pounces on the unconscious Glug, pressing their mouths tightly together. A loud gulping noise is heard once more. Alora and Fey grab and pull the man from Glug as he releases his grip. The man’s eyes look scared and confused as Fey and Alora angry shout questions, expecting immediate answers. He has none as he retreats to the safety of his fellow cell mates.

As the three regroup from the insanity they begin to hear a rustling coming from the back. As they turn they see Glug standing upright, his eyes as dark as night. Glug says nothing. Then he begins to walk. As Glug approaches the barred cell walls, he doesn’t stop. His body begins to warp and reshape. The sound of bones breaking and muscles stretching fills the room. As Glug begins to reform outside the cell, some of his belongings, the pieces too large to fit through the bars clang to the floor -- a staff, a makeshift spellbook, and a small Journal. Glug’s body takes shape. He takes a few steps forward, turns to the group, and speaks.

“I tried my best to outrun my past, but it appears I can’t outrun the same issues I’ve always had. Bullied. Pushed to the edge everywhere I go, Maybe it’s me. It’s hard to decipher between what I know to be true and what the passenger helps me see. I know now what I must do.”

Glug turns and continues to walk once again oozing through a barred door and down a long hallway. Fey yells, trying to get Glug to come back to the group. He does not acknowledge her pleas.

Visibly shaken, Fey begins to pick the cell’s lock. Hands trembling she eventually does to only be met with a second locked cell door that Glug had passed through moments ago. She quickly picks the second lock and races down the hall with no regard for her own safety. Glug is gone.

Fey blames herself for Glug’s choice. If only she hadn’t taken his ring as a joke. It was meant to be funny. Fey heart drops.

Mokon, Alora, and Fey reassess their surroundings. Two more cells with locked doors lie to the north. In one a large moaning troll her left and right leg are drastically altered, looking as though from an infant. Scars litter her body. She is tired and weak. Alora instantly finds her to be a soul who needs saving. After a quick discussion the team agrees. Unlocking the door, the troll timidly limps out and drops to the floor in wait -- seemingly happy to be out of her prison for who knows how long (of which Fey couldn’t care less). The second cell holds a familiar face, one of the two small wyrmlings (or so it would seem) the group had left outside Therack tied up and caged a few days prior. (The group had given very little thought of these two small beasts since they were left with no food or water.) Upon opening the cell door, the wyrmling seemed almost excited to see the group.

While Alora tends to the misshapen troll and forgotten wyrmling and Fey takes a moment for self loathing. Mokon picks up and begins to read the journal Glug had dropped. The journal depicts that of a troubled man. A man who has tried to get away from his past to only feel like he was trapped in the same situation here with his thought to be friends. He speaks of a dark passenger who he is trying to fight and keep hidden from his companions not believing they would understand. The journal tells of a man who is at the end of a long rope. In a lighter entry the journal lists specialty crafted ale -- one for each of his newfound friends.

Fey, getting herself together walks down the hallway once more, approaching a mirror she had seen from the corner of her eye when she had chased after Glug. The mirror appears to be a dark void. As she gets closer her gaze becomes locked as she stares into nothingness. She can sense someone… something… watching her. She looks deeper -- unmoving and still. Alora tries to get Fey’s attention, but she does not move. Uncertain of what to do she grabs Fey and pulls her from the mirror’s line of sight. Fey startles awake, not remembering anything about looking into the mirror, just that she was going to do so. Fey begins to approach the mirror once more. Alora grabs her arm and then quickly gives an EXACT expression/impression of what Fey looked like when looking into the mirror seconds earlier. 

While Alora and Fey are busy with the mirror, Mokon takes time to review where the purple hue emanates. He finds a lantern housing a heavily used white candle with a purple flame. Upon blowing out the flame magical items seem to resume their properties -- a magic dampening field.

Fey’s curiosity has the best of her as she approaches the mirror once more. As she peers, the mirror’s once deep black void turns reflective as a purple hue surrounds the area. (Mokon was doing his best to deter Fey with his new found lantern.)

And after a quick discussion with the group, and a rope tied to her waist, she approaches the mirror a second time, this time averting her gaze. The onyx shard begins to vibrate. As she removes it from her pocket and feels the shard getting colder as she gets closer to the mirror. Words or symbols appear down the shart of the shard -- words that do not look familiar. Otherworldly voices and whispers surround those near. With her eyes closed she feels around the mirror by hand and by shard -- no effect. Finally, the intrigue wins and Fey tells the group she is going to look once more. Halfheartedly they agree. As Fey looks at the mirror once more an enormous yellow eye with a darting black pupil stares back. Tendrils lash and squirm within the eye as the whispers louden. The mirror begins to crack and splinter then it shatters sending sharp shards of glass outward. The mirror is no more only the frame that once housed it.

Confused as to who the figure was or how the mirror works Fey walks back to the group, the onyx sliver dormant in her hand.

Mokon tired of waiting for Nom to revive tried to kick her awake. Her body slumps across the floor slightly with the force of Mokon’s boot, but she remains unconscious. 

Time to leave, but how to take the large and awkward to carry Nom with them. Just then her eyes open wide as does her mouth as a bloodcurdling scream escapes her lips. She grabs the stump of where her arm once lived. Angry and confused she demands to know what happened. Mokon deceitfully responds explaining the dead and dismembered woman was to blame. Nom does not believe the lie gently punching Mokon in the face. His reply, a swift and mighty blow to Nom’s face using her own severed limb and telling her not to put on magic items without knowing what they are again! Nom winces in pain, staring at Mokon knowing revenge is better served cold. 

The crew, now almost whole, minus the space for a grumpy wizard plus a temporarily deformed troll and happy wyrmling, decide to leave this prison letting the prisoner they were here to save fend for themselves and asking very few questions. Consider this quest half-assedly-complete! The group (minus human, orc, and  elf prisoners) climbs the spiral staircase leaving this horrible place behind. The troll and wyrmling follow suit needing only minor help from Mokon to do so.

The BOP are back in the light of day for the first time for what feels like four sessions… erm… four days is in reality only ten hours. The group decides to rest in Huther’s mansion since, to their knowledge, there is no more danger and it was a pretty swanky place to stay. Plus there was a huge bathtub for the crew to clean-up as they had not since the naked frolic in the river many, many, many days ago. 

Bonk, the troll as she was lovingly named due to a miscommunication with Nom, being a little too large and a little too nervous to enter Huther’s dwelling, along with Alora’s persuasion, decides to spend the night in the less intact entryway to Huther’s home. Bonk plops her large frame to the ground. 

Upon entering Huther’s estate Nordrum, Mokon’s frankensteinian brother, is still in rough shape, occasionally coughing up blood and oozing various liquids. Mokon and Sweoren help him to the bed where Alora and Nom take much needed care of his wounds by magical and non magical means. Enough so that some of the external tubes, that are pumping various liquids throughout his body, are not longer needed and are removed. Nordrum is stable for now. Before drifting into a much needed sleep he calls for Mokon and proceeds to apologize for the circumstances of the past and what Mokon had to go through. With a tear in his one good eye he embraces Mokon in a brotherly hug neither had felt in many years.

Sweoren, though appearing to not as much physical pain as Nordrum has clearly been through a lot. The giant mass on his left shoulder moves and writhes. Nom asks to help lance the boil. After taken a minute to get in the right frame of mind, Sweoren agrees. Nom quickly stabs her sword through the unsightly growth. Scores of larva pour out in a green briney liquid. Sweoren face shows a combination of disgust, fear, and relief. Nom finishes the job by slicing off the “extra” skin with little time for Sweoren to prepare. He yelps in pain, but is appreciative of her follow through as he slumps into an unconscious state on the floor.   

Fey bathes first, cleaning off the past weeks’ filth and trying to put Glug’s decision to leave to rest. 

Alora brings her mounds of food from the mansion's pantry. Bonk is not as interested in the vegetables and fruit quickly pushing them off his proverbial plate and instead focuses on the meat and bread. Alora eats with her, accepting the items of which Bonk has little interest. 

Mokon decides to take the much deserved downtime to explore places that had yet been explored. Heading back to Huther’s lab through the bedroom mirror he finds a few, previously missed items, two identical brains in two jars (of which he takes one), some needle and thread (to stitch-up Nordrum and Sweoren), and a necrotic spellbook (previously missed and now taken to give to Glug when he returns).

Nom is second in line for a hot bath. As she disrobes her co-adventurers all notice two long, perfectly symmetrical scars running diagonally across her flank. Fey asks Nom about the marks. Although Nom has many battle scars she does not recall these in particular, especially being so seemingly deliberate. Mokon and Alora follow suit. Alora and some of the others have also ransacked Huther’s closets trading their filthy underclothing for that of Hutherian variety.

Fey and Alora are still very intrigued by the onyx shard and decide to go to Huther’s laboratory cells in the hopes the large mirror is still intact. As they approach the mirror the shard again begins to vibrate and get cold as does the mirror itself. As the two get closer the mirror begins to ebb and flow, almost like water. Fey, once again, notices the unknown symbols on the sliver. Flashes of other places begin to spastically appear on the mirror. Different angles of the same room or outside place flicker and then disappear. It is difficult for Fey or Alora to focus on any one point as the pictures only stay for an instant. They decide to think of the same room -- the entryway to Huther’s mansion. As they do, the images that flash across the mirror are of the entryway, but moving from one angle to another, from one section of the room to another. Fey and Alora devise a plan. Alora runs back to the entryway as Fey plunges her hand into the mirror's liquid-looking surface. It is cold, but not wet. Feys hand and forearm have disappeared into the mirror’s surface as images of the agreed upon room continue to flash seemingly random pictures of the room. Alora enters the foyer, but does not see Fey’s hand. They conclude their experimentation -- a mystery for another day.

All are now in Huther’s extravagant bedroom. The crew feels clean, safe, and comfortable in Huther’s lush mansion bedroom for the first time in a long time. As the small wyrmling, of which everyone just realizes looks nothing like its “mother”, curls up in the corner of Huther’s large bedroom the group falls into a deep relaxing sleep.

Upon waking Nordrum is feeling much better. Alora, having many more spells at her disposal heals Nordrum once again allowing him to remove the remaining tubes and a large piece of steel from his neck -- of which no one knows the purpose. Nordrum’s voice and body are much stronger.

Everyone is rested and ready to… well, stay here indefinitely as they have, apparently, accomplished everything there was to do in Grimshackle and have totally disregarded their current 21 quest queue along with some very powerful (and some dangerous) characters they have met along the way. (The DM, quick witted as he is, decides to kick his players in the ass by introducing a small child to a large troll with the possibility of the troll eating said child for breakfast.) Alora runs out the door to make sure events turn out differently. Once outside Alora runs into Smalls who is coming to check on the group via Redd’s orders and mentions that Red has some news for them. Smalls also takes a little time to get to know the Troll… with Alora’s help. The group decides that maybe the FU could use this as a new headquarters… as long as they mind the traps.

The crew decides to return to Fulcrum Underground’s lair along with their new found friends. Redd and the other disregarded are a little nervous to see a large troll, small dragonling, zombie, and flesh golem walk through their doors, still, with a little encouragement and promises from the BOP they accept their friends as their own. Redd begins to give some ideas on how to get into the upper city as the group seemed EXTREMELY interested to do so the day before. Mayor Flounderweasel, the mayor of Therack, has many servants of which get fired and hired regularly. Each servant receives a lapel pin which allows them unhindered access to the entire city. Their two options, sneak through the sewers and steal the pins, or become Flounderweasel employees to earn the pins. The group chooses the latter. 

Realizing bringing their new friends to a job interview probably won’t go over very well they ask that Redd help the Bonk escape through the sewers and the others, Nordrum, Sweoren, and the yet unnamed wyrmling stay with FU. Upon hearing the name Sweoren, Redd’s eyes grow wide as it was the name of one of the adults that once lived with the group. Sweoren, however, has little memory before he was taken. Redd agrees to the guests with slight reluctance.

Before heading out Alora has a thought. Finding Sweets playing with her Gruddy doll in her bedroom, Alora asks her if she wants to see a baby dragon. Sweets quickly puts Gruddy in a makeshift baby sling and grabs Alora’s hand by the ring and pointer fingers. Alora leads her to the other room where the wyrmling and others reside. Sweets barely notices the others as she is infatuated with the bigger than expected beast. Although Alora cautions her to be careful, Sweets instantly hugs the Wyrmling by the neck. As the baby dragon's eyes bulge, just a little due to four-year-old-halfling love it’s tail begins to wag. Sweets walks back to her room with her new best friend in tow. Nordrum offers his services to protect these children at all costs to make up for his past. Redd also mentions to Alora that she is wanted for murder and her likeness is scattered throughout the city on wanted posters. Alora decides she needs a disguise.

Before heading to the Flounderweasel mansion for job interviews, the group brings Redd back to Huther’s mansion showing him the do’s and don'ts. Redd seems very pleased if not somewhat overwhelmed. Alora takes this time to ransack the Huther’s drawers for a basic disguise kit. She finds enough to do the job along with a pair of scissors for an impromptu pixie cut.

Walking through the different segments of Therack there is a definite distinction between districts. While lower Therack has smaller, more run-down homes of common laborers, the residential district is much more well-to-do. Two story homes line the streets. The people and shops are much more impressive and they act as if they know this to be true. The city is busy and bustling. 

Following their map the BOP find themselves at the front door of the largest building in the city -- Mayor Flouderweasel’s mansion. Knocking on the door, and waiting an adequate amount of time, an elderly man in his finest butlery stands before them. Alora instantly lays on the charm explaining their group is looking for work and offering services specific to her party members “abilities”. As she is doing so a large Luxodon approaches the group from behind carrying two large shields under one arm. A long strong trunk protrudes from his face and large gray ears from the sides of his head. His attire is prestinely white with gold embroidering.

Jiver’s overspeaks Alora as he invites Dorus into the mansion swooning over Dorus and Honor’s weapon shop. Dorus politely walks past the group with limited interaction disappearing inside. Alora continues to impress Jiver’s with her words and a little sleight of hand (throwing an unknown servant by the name of Bruce under the horse cart) until eventually he hires the entire group on the spot. Jiver’s proceeds to explain that they are to use the servants entrance, if a door is locked leave it that way, and to avoid thievery or they will not only be fired, but Groc, the leader of the town guard will be notified.

The BOP enter the Flounderweasel mansion with new employment and still very little knowledge of their current quest load. In the distance -- the metallic bang of Dorus’ hammer.