Yannicks Tale
When the days come to tell children of the life of adventure
I led, never from my lips will they hear that I nearly lept in Kobold-shit to
be devoured by demon-worms.
And so we rested again, frail bodies nursed back to health
by Quills healing hands and caustic tone. We did what we could to pass
the time: hunting, praying, citing the land for what defences could be errected
in preservation of this poor village that has become our haunt.
Me, I would be in favour of a watchtower to spy the
approaches... but such things must wait until we have a roof above our heads.
Still the villagers work as they do and the hunting fills
the pots. Paige joins me as she recovers, her bow striking beyond my
spear... and the food was hearty, when not cooked by Quill.
Bomani and Cromwell joins us again, good to see him up and
about though I hope that if he's made use of his other recovery he's put it
better use than Cromwell. Still, with Verdugo's last slouching recovery
we are read in company to strike again at the foul depths.
And so we do, passing through the barricades to explore the
lands of the Kobold, as I am now told they are spelled. The rooms proved
interesting to our sight, but no more full of treasure than when we exited them
in haste. The defended parts we found abandoned, with nothing but traces
remaining of the vile beasts. We searched what seemed like a wing of the
building with nothing found to be of note, save for two things of note and the
cliffhanger I shall leave you on...
First of note is the "treasure" room, filled with
valuable goods such as they were... locked and denied to the scuttling vermin
since Paige siezed the keys from their leader upon our first battle. Some
rugs, tapestries and cloth... salt and copper locked tight in a chest.
Books mouldered on a shelf of ages, cloaks rotted on a stand... but the
bed was good quality, though the straw matress would need burning many times
over. We took what was easy to carry and left the rest under lock and
key.
The other matter was more promising: a wide room of treasure
and dripping coin: gems galore and bejewelled chests sitting majesticly in
their midst. Three bodies lie before them, chests rising and falling in
deep slumber but we gave them little thought as our eyes widened... Samis was
the first forward and I pressed to follow, but Bomani's hand strikes out faster
than I and holds me back as the image shifts and blurrs beneath Samis's hands
and reveals the biggest pile of shit, vomit and bile that the Saints have ever
shown me. Strewn across the room under the illusion that no longer masks
the horrific scent.
We all look rather embarassed at this point and Bomani looks
smug for a time. With no treasure in sight and little incentive to
shuffle through a Kobold latrine in search of coppers, so we turned what was
left of our waning (and gagging) attention to the three unconscious guards,
wearing the uniform akin to those of the conscripts... Ildis confirmed that he
had served with one and I went to rouse them to speak of how they had been kept.
some warning twitched in my mind as the body rolled, I think
the breath heaved wrong perhaps but truely I know only at a vile worm lept from
it... perhaps a foot or more in length with teeth far above its need, spurring
forward from its last meal onto the blade of my hastily-drawn dagger.
More and more of the things lept in unseemly manner from the three very
dead men and soon we were all gathered around cutting and chopping at the evil
mites.
That truely settled our desire to leave that room and never
speak of it again.
With the obvious courses taken, we sought to follow the
beasts through the route they had fled. One of the side passages looked
promising and had the tracks of beasts in it... we pursued them to an end that
saw us baffled, for a great door lay against what we knew to be a wall upon the
far side. The tracks we followed seemed strange: to approach the door yet
scrabble around and vanish. We suspect foul play, yet to discover their
destination we must step forward... and that is when I see it.
Amid the flagstones there are many rises and falls, yet one
line lies true past many stones in centre of the passaageway... right beneath
my feet...
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