Nicolai glances at his companions' faces and doesn't need Corros' link to tell him that the witchling, Jenna, and Gronk are all reliving memories of their experiences in the ancients' caverns.  "'Power,'" he repeats.  "And a summons.  We've seen something like that before," he says, mainly for Amaldaris' benefit.  "There's an underground complex northwest of here. It's older than any history I've read.  It, or something in it, has a similar effect.  Paranoia, acquisitiveness, wild magic.  Possibly creating or attracting monsters, too," he adds with a well-suppressed shudder, thinking of the amorphous, cacophonous blob of flesh.

He turns to Ogar.  "Ogar, thank you for your time.  I'm sorry for your loss.  I think we're done here, but I'd appreciate it if you could make yourself easy to find for a few days.  If you remember anything else, no matter how trivial, please tell us."  He tosses the dwarf a couple of coins and a smile.  "Here.  Go buy a round on the council's money."

He falls silent until the miner takes the hint and leaves.  Then he clears his throat.

"The last time we were here," he continues, inserting a not-so-subtle reminder of services previously rendered, "the orcish threat had a religious basis.  They weren't here to seize the platinum.  They were here to stop you from digging deep enough to awaken a 'Sleeper.'  It's a mythic apocalyptic figure for them.  I'm not saying correlation is causality, but events are strongly suggestive of something exerting more and more malign influence the deeper you dig, whether that's a being or an artifact.

"I expect they'll return soon.  Their shaman will be aware of these events.  So that's another imminent problem to consider.  We managed some diplomacy last time but I don't expect we'll be able to pull that off again."  He doesn't lean forward but his face hardens and his voice drops to a venomous hiss.  "And despite that threat, and despite our full disclosure of what we had to do to stop the war last time, and despite the demons and living dead, these gold-blinded drooling idiots," he stabs a finger toward the wall and the camp beyond, "are still poking the bear.  That stops now.  They are making it worse.  I'm sick to death of having our good work undone."

Now he leans forward.  "So pass the word.  No more prospecting.  No more digging.  No more grubbing for personal wealth at the expense of the entire city's survival.  Until this threat is resolved for good, this operation is over.  The Fire Council sent us out here to solve the problem and we will solve it, but previous attempts to be polite haven't worked.  So polite was yesterday.  Today is getting the gods-damned job done.  So I will personally fucking murder," he chooses his words with deliberate extrajudicial malice, "the next ten men I see so much as lay hands on a pick without our express orders.  I'll start getting creative with the eleventh."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:05, Sun 30 Apr 2017.

The tenets of Arma's faith require Her Clerics to defend the weak and protect the innocent. At this moment in time Jenna is unsure as to how the Goddess's  commandments reconcile with Nicolai's threat to kill ten miners. Perhaps he is bluffing. Perhaps he is not. If these fools have any sense they will not put it to the test. Jenna does not know herself. She should speak out, tell her companion that he cannot do that. Yet her lips remain still, her eyes dart for the most fleeting of moments towards Corros. How many other tenets had she cast aside? The Goddess had told her that she would find redemption in the company of strangers. Was this what She had in mind? And if so who was Jenna, a mere mortal, to question her Goddess?

Her gaze shifts from Corros back to Jaff. Still she remains silent, as mute as a servant of the Reaver, for the Ardani is more than capable of intimidating the hapless Sergeant without her assistance, although the eyes that come to rest on Jaff bear a chill as bitter as that of the frozen Dales of the North, the ones ravaged by the Icewinds. Hopefully Jaff would be convinced of the wisdom of doing as he was bid and ensuring that the mining stopped, would not seek to find out whether Nicolai was truly bluffing or not. For Jenna doubted that he was.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:55, Sun 30 Apr 2017.

"I'll do the best I can," Jaff answers, adding, "... with the men I have available." He looks at Deepdelver, soliciting help from the ersatz mayor.

The dwarf is quiet, conflicted. "You're right," he finally replies to Nicolai, "I had such hopes for this place, but the cost... too high." Deepdelver looks to be on the verge of tears. He's got personal baggage, clearly.

"I will officially forbid all further excavation, in no uncertain terms," he announces, trying to project resolve. "Sergeant Jaff, if I order the evacuation of Yonder's Hole, will you escort the miners back to Balefyre?"

Now it is Jaff who looks conflicted. "I'm not sure my commission would allow such action, but... yes. I think it would be for the best."

"Then I suppose we have a lot of work to do," the mayor says, his tone more assured now. "What are your intentions?"

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:40, Sun 30 Apr 2017.

"Be sure to tell the Council I forced your hand," Nicolai says.  There may be a slight emphasis on the personal pronoun.

He glances around the assembled group.  "Recommendation: Let's rest tonight, but maintain a watch in case anything boils over.  In the morning, we'll help get the evacuation moving.  I don't want to go too deep into the mine works until the noncombatants are out of the way, in case we provoke an extreme response from the Sleeper or its ancillary evils.

"Sergeant, you'll need all your troops to cover the evacuation, given the local wildlife's activity levels.  But if any miners want to stay on for security - and in case we need excavations opened or closed in a hurry - I won't object.  That's only for volunteers who understand the high likelihood of dying horribly, though."

"I will stay," Deepdelver announces, barely waiting for the Ardani to finish his piece. "I know my way around a mine, and I was known to swing a mean hammer in my day." His tone makes it clear that his decision is non-negotiable.

-

"We will be happy to accept all the qualified help we can get," Corros says with gracious tone.  He's more than willing to play good-watchman to Nic's bad-watchman.  Of course, with the agent, it's probably not a bluff that he'd do exactly what he's proposing.  Nic might not enjoy it, but....  No link is necessary for him to pick up on the tension coiled in Jenna's frame.

"I agree with Nic, we need to rest.  It is still our hope that Zima shows up, yeah?  If not, our evacuees are going to have to keep any eye out for our missing ranger.  Once we finish up below ground, we can go look if necessary, but the evil underground is probably a worse situation than whatever is crawling around outside of this camp."  Probably, anyways. The  gods only know the truth.  There is an itch in his rib cage, a little spear of guilt, accusing him of leaving an ally behind.  But there is only so much that can me done.

Gronk wasn't really an idea guy, but one had occurred to him, perhaps even important enough to share.

"What if something from the tunnel grabbed Zima & Kerek and took 'em down there?"

-

Corros starts in his seat at Gronk's interjection.

"Well that's a hopeful thought," he mumbles before smiling at the half-orc.  "And entirely too possible to be ignored. Although there's not a whole lot we can do for them except rest up and go get them when we're ready.  Shitty though, yeah?  Well done, Gronk."

The warlock knew that Gronk didn't exactly consider himself the brains of the group and Corros wanted to make damn sure he felt comfortable speaking up whenever he felt the need.  Plus, he just likes the guy...er orc...oh whatever.

Nicolai blinks at Gronk.  "That is very astute.  And very disturbing.  And it makes me wonder if some of the creatures in the area may be drawn by the Sleeper, not just randomly wandering around out there."

He draws a deep breath and shrugs.  "I'd expect Zima to leave some signs if she were being dragged along against her will.  We'll keep an eye out for that.  In the meantime, though, we need rest if we're going to be effective rescuers."

"That there is a connection between the Sleeper and the sudden appearance of these monsters seems logical to me." Jenna offered as the conversation continued., the words followed by a barely stifled yawn. She was tired, knew it, knew that meant that her channel to the Goddess was weak, Dangerously weak. If she was to be of any use to the others she needed to rest, and to pray, to regain her strength, spiritually as well as physically.

The sky is dark when Corros walks outside.  He feels exposed, not dreadfully, but exposed enough that it. Rings back bad memories of his past.  Still he has allies in danger and while it is more likely that they have been drug underground,looking for evidence of their passage may give them the best chance possible.  The warlock scans the sky, remembering with physical pain the manticores that hunted earlier.  Fear is nothing.

He utters the necessary words, and rises into the still night air.  He won't be gone long.

Corros glides through the cold darkness that covers the landscape like a heavy, black burial shroud. A human wouldn't see much from 50 feet above the ground, but Corros is blessed with his elven lineage's darkvision. He sees the openings of several mine shafts of various sizes- all but one appear dormant. The lone exception appears to be occupied by a single humanoid zombie. It shuffles around mindlessly, taking no notice of the half-elf warlock floating overhead. Corros can't make out any tracks, save for those left by the wagon trains that, until recently, come and go every few days- he doesn't have the skill to pick out the spoor left by small groups or individuals. He does, however, find a dead horse, or what's left of it. He can't identify it, per se, but he's relatively certain that it was one of his companions', lost during the Yeti attack. All that remains is gnawed bone, scattered tackle, and a few scraps of hair.

-

The hilltop fort would be a better vantage point, but it also has too many potential witnesses on duty.  Instead, Nicolai swings out the window of his room on the inn's second story and levers himself onto the roof.  A low whistle brings his ravens swirling to him in a rustling, shadowed cloud.  With a flicker of thieves' cant, he sends a trio soaring away in Corros' wake, ready to report if the witchling finds trouble he can't fight or flee on his own.  For the rest, he has scraps of dinner.  He's not certain if Mórag's bond with the birds needs reinforcement in this manner, but it can't hurt.

"Not much but a dead horse," Corros says to Nic when he lands.  Having the crows show up had been a welcome addition, one that the warlock wishes he would have thought to ask for.  Despite the last months that he has stood along side his new friends and love, he still has moments where he's too tempted to just do things on his own.  "If our allies are out there, I can't see them.  We should rest."

Amaldaris, now a lot cleaner after his bath, had listened with great interest to the discussions between his new companions and a couple of the local officials.  There had clearly been a lot of trouble around this mining settlement and it sounded like it wasn't yet all resolved.  He had been a little shocked by Nicolai's threat to murder any errant miners who continued to take risks digging in the earth and drawing vile threats towards the village but he had managed to keep his impassive Elven demeanour and to mask his emotions.  He did wonder whether it had been an idle threat meant to bluff the miners or if Nicolai actually meant it.

At present he simply didn't know the man well enough to decide.

"Resting until morning and then organising a search seems like a sensible way to proceed," he commented to Corros.  "Do you believe us secure enough here or do we keep a watch ourselves?  I need little rest."

The companions are given a room of their own at the inn. They pass a restless night in peace, troubled only by strange dreams- not quite nightmares, but in a way more upsetting. In their dreams, each of the Five is haunted by a presence, always on the outer edge of perception- invisible, odorless, silent but...

There.

Trying to communicate.

Pleading? Warning?

Each companion wakes alone at some point in the night, strangely compelled by the dream to leave the inn and go to the shaft alone. All manage to resist, although Gronk is halfway out the door by the time an awakening Amaldaris stops him. These wakeful turns facilitate an ad hoc watch schedule. By dawn, each companion has managed to piece together enough sleep to regain his/her full strength (Long Rest completed).

After a breakfast of rabbit and wild mushrooms, the companions are ready to depart. Mayer Deepdelver has ordered the evacuation of Yonder's Hole and put Sergeant Jaff in charge. There's some grumbling, but it appears that most of the settlement's remaining residents will cooperate.

The Five plus one make the short journey to the shaft entrance. Deepdelver wears an old suit of mail and carries a two-handed war hammer, neither which appears to have seen recent use.

The party enters the shaft and descends into the darkness. Nic's ravens wait dutifully at the opening, hopping around squawking nervously.

The roughly dug miner's shaft opens up into a tunnel, about 10 from floor to ceiling, reminiscent of the loop beneath the City of the Forgotten Ones but smaller in scale. The floor is tiled, the smooth, arching walls show no pick marks. Confirming their suspicions, the wall bears an inscription in the dead language of the Forgotten Ones. Only Corros can understand what it spells out.


The tunnel runs roughly north-south.


Your Turn.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:53, Sat 13 May 2017.

The last time the Five were underground, Ulfgar was along for the trip.  Nicolai finds himself missing the vulgar dwarf now, less for the druid's ease in cramped quarters than for the occasional gift of temporary darkvision that he bestowed.

The Ardani pauses and passes a hand near the inscription, not quite touching it.  He looks inquiringly at Corros.

Jenna had not slept well, her rest disturbed by a feeling that someone...something...was probing at her mind, trying to reach into her head, but for what purpose she knew not. At one point it had caused her to wake from fitful slumber, enticing her, luring her towards the mine shaft. The Priestess had closed her eyes tightly, tried to force whatever it was out of her head, clung tightly to Corros through the night, was glad when the Sun had finally risen over the horizon and it had been time to actually go to the mine. Whatever lay in its depths it was better confronted, now.

Slowly she descends with the others, her right hand grasped tightly around Arma's Blessing, as tightly as she had held Corros during the night, her eyes adjusting easily to the gloom, a gift from the Goddess Herself the Priests had said at the Cloisters. When she sees the inscription on the wall she comes to a halt, watches as Nicolai steps closer, mimicking his action as she looks to Corros, waiting for her lover to translate the inscription. And doubting very much that it was an invitation to proceed.

"It says 'all those who enter here will be skinned alive in the Hell of the Upside Down Sinners," Corros says solemnly.  When the heads of his companions turn, he smiles, trying to break the mood of the oppressive night it seems like all of them shared. "Nah, just kidding.  It says 'No unauthorized people past this point.  Leave your weapons here.'  I think we should ignore that part."  The most winning grin the warlock can muster crosses his face and he winks at Jenna.  Hopefully it's good for morale.

The warlock peers into the dark shaft, thankful for the heritage of his mother that allows his eyes to function in the gloom.

"No time like now, yeah?  Just remember, before we go down there, we all like each other and if it get's weird, it's the tunnel or the things we find.  Not us."

Nicolai ostentatiously adjusts one of his sheaths to tuck a dagger a little farther up his sleeve.  "Oops," he intones with mock solemnity.  "Right.  Forward into wholly-authorized exploration we go."

Amaldaris normally didn't dream.  His sleep each night was actually two hours of meditation and dreams didn't normally intrude in that so last night had been very strange and disconcerting experience for him, enough to wake him, as such, from his meditative state to be able to stop Gronk leaving their shared room in the tavern.  And Gronk's desire to enter the mine alone had been the same as Amaldaris had felt in his dream and so what they had dreamt had not been a coincidence.  Something, or rather someone, had initiated the same dream in both of them.

It has taken him a while to regain his centre and begin his resting meditation again but he had eventually succeeded and had managed to rest for long enough to be fully refreshed by morning.  He was still disturbed by the dreams however.

"Did anyone else dream a strange dream last night?" he enquired of the others as they contemplated the mines.  Continuing he started to share his thoughts but they were inconclusive, just a collection of things that had occurred to him that he could only speculate on at the present moment without any form of conclusion.  "For me dreaming is a rare enough experience but if I read my dream correctly there is some evil presence in these mines that can both invade our minds and wishes us to enter the tunnels.  It wants us individually however so does that imply that it fears us as a group?"

He glanced again at the inscription that Corros had deciphered before continuing.  "And is that inscription recent or old?  If it is recent then why write it in a language that most cannot understand.  If it is old then whom was it intended for.  Not us at least."

"I'm not sure if it's even a presence," Nicolai admits.  "It may be a spiritual contamination without any will behind it.  When we explored another set of ruins nearby, last year, it manifested as paranoia and greed.  But it was unfocused.  You're right - it seems to work against group integrity.

"The language is ancient.  It's the same one we saw in the other ruins.  These may be connected to that complex, if we delve deep enough.  I suspect the inscription dates back to those times as well."

The Five arbitrarily choose the branch to the right (north) and proceed in that direction, leaving the dim light of the opening behind them. The tunnel slopes gently, almost imperceptibly, downward, into rapidly deepening darkness. Nic is the only member of the party not blessed with some degree of Darkvision; the others accommodate for this hereditary disadvantage by lighting a hooded lantern. All benefit from the added light (see Darkvision rules).

The air is still. Cool and dry. Dead.

They haven't gone very far when they find the remains of several that had gone before. Some of the bodies appear freshly dead, showing very little sign of decomposition. Deepdelver recognizes a familiar face among them, one of Yonder's Hole's old-timers, Mortimer Greech. Other bodies are nothing but piles of bleached bones. One particular corpse, bisected at the waist, displays both conditions. The legs of the lower half look fit enough that if it they were miraculously attached to a willing torso, they could stand up and walk out of the tunnel right now; the upper half, however, is bone crumbling to dust. There are no useful artifacts among the strewn remains. Fortunately, none of the remains appear to be those of Zima, although a couple of badly decomposed dwarven bodies can't be ruled out as belonging to Kerek. Strangely, there's no odor of corruption.

The companions press forward, past the small field of dead. Amaldaris and Corros see it first. Up ahead, just beyond the reach of the lantern flame's orange light, a large humanoid figure stands stock still in the middle of the tunnel, its head almost touching the ten-foot-high ceiling. The Five slow their pace, approaching with utmost caution. As they draw nearer, the construct lifts his left hand, palm facing the intruders, and points with his right to a room cut into the left (west) face of the tunnel. The being appears to be formed from the same hard, grey stone through which the tunnel is bored. Like the walls, it bears no chisel marks. It's been carved to resemble a warrior clad in archaic armor; its flawless facial features are more or less human, perhaps elvish. It speaks not, its face completely dispassionate, but its posture and gestures seem to say, 'Stop! Enter that room.' On its chest, a platinum badge of some sort glints in the lamplight.

"I reckon that's a stone golem," Deepdelver opines.


Your Turn.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:23, Sun 14 May 2017.

Amaldaris looked at the badge on the chest of the stone golem, taking a few moments to study it, trying to work out any symbols that had been carved into the platinum.  It was clearly important, otherwise why would the badge have been made of such a valuable material.  Understanding it might well be a clue to working out the purpose of the golem and therefore bypassing it.

After studying the golem's badge for a little while Amaldaris then moved cautiously over to the entrance to the room the golem was pointing at and looked inside it in an attempt to figure out what it was indicating.

"I assume that that is some kind of guardian to prevent us proceeding," he said quietly to his companions.  "They are strong constructs and tough to defeat.  It will be a severe test for us if we have to fight it.  Does anyone have any ideas on how to bypass it?"

"It seems to be offering an alternative," Nicolai suggests.  "We could take its recommendation and go west.  Or we could negotiate."  He glances at Deepdelver.  "I speak the language but I think it might react better to one of the Stoneblood.  Do you recognize the heraldry on its chest?"
This message was last edited by the player at 00:37, Fri 19 May 2017.