The Undying Dragons - Campaign Thread

Jan hears a lot of gravely chirping but nothing to indicate distress. Perhaps K' is just enjoying the flight and is catching the up and down drafts caused by the mountains. 

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The kobold, who appears to be some kind of major domo for the household, barks fresh orders out the open doorway. A bowls of warm water and clean towels are brought for all of the guests. 

During the lull in conversation when the serving kobolds come in, Geffroi moves up close to Avaria and whispers in her ear. "The Undying Queen. I've read of her. That what her followers call her. It's Tiamat, the five headed Queen of dragons."

He pulls back when Talis turns her gaze towards him.

Talis turns back to Vonth.

"The forest around here is not a city park. There are many dangers. Dangers that someone on their own would have trouble facing. So yes, helping find them, helps keep them safe," Talis says. "Of course they are as welcome here as you are. And Trepsin is smarter than the other two."

Another loud bang from outside.

Vonth can see the second troll being dragged into he stable. The door keeps slamming against its head though. The sight is illuminated by a pair of kobolds carrying torches as full darkness has fallen outside.

"The drakes obey him unquestioningly." Talis then looks up to the ceiling. "The perytons? They sleep at night."

She sits back in her chair and sips on the wine.

Hammerdasher follows Vonth's lead and washes the days events from his hands and face before diving into the food, either not carrying that it could be poisoned, deciding Solomona has survived so its safe, or just relying on his dwarven fortitude to keep him safe it's hard to say. In any event, he's clearly hungry.

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Marrin's trance continues though unfamiliar calls and growls drift across the air; from creatures Marrin has not come across before.

Jan settles in to wait, taking the opportunity to rest and recover her magics.

She is able to remain in the ring for up to 6 hours, but will at least try to get a short rest in before needing to think about how to let K know when she'll be needing to exit... at least she can grant herself flight, otherwise popping out of the ring far above the ground would be a losing proposition.

Vonth...

     “Trepsin?” Vonth asks, his hands moving with slow, deliberate care as he arranges the water and towels before him.  Each motion is precise. Measured. Almost ceremonial. “Who is that?”

     He pauses often, mid-motion, mid-gesture even, to listen for answers before continuing.

     “And how did you come to fall in with Trepsin and the others?” he goes on. “They are not known for being… community-minded.”

     A faint glance up.

     “At least, not in my experience.”

     Outside, something heavy thunks—the second troll being dragged, dropped.  Vonth stills again.

     “And what is this about?” he asks. “Burial? Or butchery?”

     A slight tilt of his head.

     “Or do they still heal, even in death?”

     Once the questions are answered he nods as if the answers meant nothing at all, he resumes.  Water poured. Cloth folded. Hands cleaned with slow, methodical care.

     It is not truly about washing.

     It is about time.

    Rest, stolen a moment at a time.

Avaria stands frozen for a moment.  Tiamat?  Everyone has heard of her.  Why do they... no... this was not a topic she wanted to dwell upon.  She decides now is the time to nourish herself as the others have started doing.  Worry gnaws away at her and she finds she has no appetite, but she makes herself eat nonetheless after cleaning up a bit.  The troll goo was all over herself.

With a heavy heart she takes a seat by Hammerdasher and starts in.  She finds she is out of questions and is listening hard for any familiar sound out in the yard.  Each thud feels like it rattles her teeth as she sinks further into her chair.  She also finds she cannot stomach looking at Soren.  

Geffroi takes a few nibbles of bread and a few weak sips of the stew, seeming to be feeling about as comfortable as Avaria is. Hammerdasher though plows ahead. Ula holds a glass of wine but no one sees her drink nor eat.

A loud barking and yipping of kobolds drifts through the closed windows. If you had to guess, it sounds like an argument; likely around who's fault it is for banging the dead trolls around.

"They know to clean the yard," Talis says in reference to the kobold activities outside. "Beyond that, I let them have their secrets. All I know is, you'll never see sight of those two trolls again."

She then looks back to Vonth.

"You're quite right. They don't help out of a sense of community. But they do respect strength and they do like to be paid. And Trepsin, you have met, well at least seen. He is the keeper of our little drakes."

The kobold major domo returns and whispers something to Talis.

"Good. good." Talis says and looks to the group. "I suspect you're all tried and it would be good to get some sleep in before we look for your companions in the morning. Now, five more guests is a bit more than what we can accommodate with everyone getting their own room, but we do have three free guest rooms, one on this level and two upstairs, and there is a free meeting room upstairs as well that could accommodate all of you but you'd have to sleep on the floor. Please be our guests tonight. Kip Rip here can show you to the rooms."

She says the last, gesturing at the kobold major domo.

Solomona doesn't sit this time, but wanders around the parlour, peering out the windows, inspecting the painting, poking the armour, and peeking into the wardrobe. If the hostess has been willing to share her food, then she is likely willing to share other things too... probably no need to ask, but he checks to see if Soren is watching all the same.

Eventually Sol wanders back to the center of the room and flops down on a chair, or just on the floor if there's no chair.

Sounds off... kinda one-sided, Solomona summaries matter-of-factly. So.. you need ancient artifacts to help the Dragon Queen when she comes, eh? Is that what's in the chest? And you want these fullahs to give you the one they have, and in return you'll help them get the other one, which you also want. Sounds like a lot of helping you, and not much helping them. You want them to work for you? Like the kobolds, eh? 

He doesn't sound like someone trying to negotiate, just someone trying to distill the nebulous conversation down to simple facts.

Vonth...

     Vonth lets Solomona do the talking, asking and prying as he will. That suits him fine. Delay is the goal.

     When Talis offers them shelter for the night, Vonth stills.  He considers it.  He had meant to rest, to gather strength, take another chance at Soren the traitor. A full night’s sleep would help.

     It would help Soren as well.

     And it would mean sleeping under a hostile roof.

     Then again… anywhere within miles of this place is likely just as hostile.

     “I’d suggest we all stay in the meeting room,” Vonth says quietly to Avaria. “Together. With a watch.”  His eyes drift, measuring exits, distances, threats unseen.  “I don’t trust this.”

     A brief pause.

     “But if they meant to kill us, they could have done it already. Solomona was here alone.”

     His gaze hardens slightly.

     Still, no snake bites until it does...

Avaria finds Talis's words just a bunch of noise.  None of it is helping, none of it really makes sense.  

But Solomona's words.  As he methodically lays things out so that she could understand, she wants to jump up and wrap her arms around the big man.  Finally, someone making sense. And speaking of... he was right, this wasn't a good or fair trade, let alone the talk of Tiamat.  

She nods as Vonth mentions staying in the meeting room, with a watch.  Her thoughts exactly.  She wanted to go looking, searching for her friends... but she knew in this darkness it would be fruitless and honestly she'd probably just run into more trouble with her luck.  

After washing down some food with some wine, she looks to Talis.  "We'll take the meeting room." then with a hard glare at Soren, "Just us." 

When Solomona looks closely at the hanging tapestry he swears he can almost feel a cool breeze and smell the forest it depicts. The tapestry appears to be lit by an unseen light. He's sorely tempted to touch it but succumbs to touching the armour instead. When he taps the armour, he feels a spark of energy, much like the static shocks he got in the cold, dry winter days in the prison. A glow lights up the eye slit of the armour and one of the arms begins to move, reaching across to pull a black sword from its scabbard.

"Hold," Talis says. The armour lets the sword slide back into the scabbard but the flow in the eyes remains. She then smiles at Solomona. "Be careful what you touch."

She waves a hand at the food and drink and the kobold major domo barks a few more commands, which brings five kobolds scurrying in to clean up. The five steer clear of the party but also keep their distance from Talis.

"The artifacts aren't to help the Queen," Talis says. "But to stop the darkness that is growing in the east. To stop the challenger. That is who your Hargrove and the Rotting Man serve. They are part of the Order of Osiris. If they gain power, well, that will be the last any of us see."

She sighs and then continues.

"I understand your distrust. That fool Klein completely mishandled your first encounter with the Scalesworn. He'll pay for that if we ever get our hands on him. He seems to have gone into hiding after his run in with you."

Avaria remembers the name Klein - the mayor in Spandeliyon.

"If he hadn't screwed that up, your missing companion might still be with you. She certainly would have learned more about the Order of Osiris. Enough that she would not have willingly rode off with one of them."

Talis stands and motions to Kip Rip, the kobold Major Domo, again.

"Kip Rip will show you upstairs," Talis says. "After some rest, I think you might see more clearly that we all want to stop Godrick Hargrove."

She walks out of the room first. Soren follows immediately behind having no more wish to spend time with the group than Avaria has for him to be there.

Kip Rip then gestures impatiently for you to follow him.

Assuming you do, he leads you back into the main entry hall with the large sweeping staircase. He leads the group up the stairs and then up the western side. Up top, the group sees at least 8 doors. Kip Rip leads you down a hallway, where at the end you can see another set of stairs leading down. The smells of the kitchen waft up from below. Solomona remembers the stairs in the kitchen leading up and these must be those.

Through a large door near those stairs, Kip Rip leads everyone into a large open room, some 35' x 20'. A roaring fireplace churns out heat and light at one end of this spacious, 30-foot-high chamber, the ceiling of which is buttressed by ten wooden pillars carved as dragons. Five large tapestries hang along the walls—two on the west wall flanking a door, two on the east wall hanging side by side, and a particularly grand one dominating the south wall next to the fireplace.

On the northern wall, two French doors lead out on to a narrow balcony.

There is no furniture to speak of.

"Here. Stay inside. Wandering at night isn't safe."

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Any last questions? Otherwise let me know of any precautions you're taking and we can move along.

OOC:

Solomona's only remaining questions are for Avaria, regarding why they were pursuing the Hargroves and/or Korda. Perhaps if they constitute the greater evil then it might be worth working temporarily with Talis and her cronies. (Sol is a practical guy.) He's also curious about where they got this chest, and why they are carrying it.

He possibly didn't hear the comment about Tiamat, but I'll assume it gets mentioned in later discussions. This Undying Queen of Dragons sounds to him like a fanciful and unlikely goal, so what's the harm in indulging Talis if it moves the group forward on their own goals.

Vonth...

     “Scalesworn?” Vonth asks, almost under his breath, glancing toward Avaria.

     Whether she answers or not, he speaks up before Talis can dismiss them for the night.

     “Wait… wait,” Vonth says, lifting a hand slightly. “You’re saying Tiamat and this Order of Osiris are at odds with one another? And this chest, or what it holds, could tip the balance?”

     He waits and listens for whatever reply is given.

     There are more questions.  Dangerous ones.  Like why he should believe Tiamat is ever the lesser of two evils.  He does not ask them.  No need to provoke anything just yet.

     As they are led through the manor, Vonth’s attention shifts. Doors. Corners. Stairwells. Distances between them. He builds the place in his mind as best he can, piece by piece.  Along the way, he asks Kip Rip a few small questions, lightly, almost idly.

     “How are you treated here? Paid well enough?”  Simple things.  Easy to answer.  Easier to ignore.

     If the moment feels right before the kobold leaves, Vonth adds one more.  “Where does Soren sleep?”

     He pauses.  If there is no immediate reply he ads: “In case we need to… send a message.  Or get his opinion?”

     Once they are alone, the mask drops.  Vonth turns, scanning the room with open distrust.  “Two doors. Fireplace,” he says, already moving. He notes the windows too, if there are any.  "All of them are entry points.”

     He gestures as he speaks.

     “We barricade the doors. We can't expect to stop them but we can at least make entry noisy.”

     A glance toward the hearth.  “Same for that. We cannot assume fire is enough.”

     He moves to the walls, the tapestries.  “We check everything. Behind these. Floors. Walls. Hidden passages, spy holes, wards… anything.”  His jaw tightens slightly.  “I don’t trust any of this.”

     He looks back to the others.  “We sleep in shifts. One awake at all times.”

     A beat.  “Two would be better.”

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Vonth likely isn't the best at investigation (+1) but he has a decent enough perception (+5) if that helps?  But he's probably a better helper, offering Guidance as needed.

To Vonth's question, Talis responds with a simple "Yes. The Order of Osiris winning will mean death at an unimaginable scale."

Kip Rip, the kobold, doesn't have any aversion to answering questions. 

"We's is not justs the hired help," Kip Rip says, eyeing the Goliath up and down. "We's is loyal servants's of the coming Queen."

Something tickles the back of Vonth's memory, something about kobolds and the awe they hold for dragons.

The little kobold laughs out loud, a series of barks and yips, when Vonth asks after Soren, "Youse don't likes that one much. He's sleeps downstairs. Youse just call if needs helps."

Examining the room, Vonth finds quickly that there's nothing to barricade the doors with. There's no furniture in the room.

He does get a better sense of the tapestries by looking more closely at them. Four of the five tapestries each show dragons hunting, killing, and feasting on lesser creatures, with blue dragons attacking a desert caravan, elves succumbing to a green dragon’s gaseous breath weapon, a red dragon burning down a part of a walled city, and a black and white dragon circling over a cold swamp dotted with ruins.

The fifth tapestry shows Tiamat, the queen of dragons, in all her five-headed glory, crowned in gold and silver, and worked with gemstones and gold and silver thread. Fully 35 feet wide and 20 feet tall, it shows Tiamat crushing cities and surrounded by adoring followers.

Something about a five-headed dragon pulls at Avaria's memories but she can't put a finger on exactly what it was. A story someone might have told her.

(Perception rolls from anyone searching the room).

Vonth... Perception roll as he is obviously searching (and at least one person gets Guidance which, if only one, I would guess I would suggest Solomona) : 14

(Feel free to put in History checks too if you look more closely at the tapestries)

Solomona would certainly be searching the room, but his focus would be on anything of value. If he spots anything that Vonth would find interesting, I'm sure he would speak up however.

Perception with Guidance: 22+2= 24

Month don’t know about history…  Nat 1, a total of 2

Up in the tree, Marrin absently scratches her cheek and tries to find a good rhyme for murder...

Avaria scowls as she hears the name, Mayor Klein.  That *******, that's who they are in league with?  Oh great, she knew it wasn't good, but not that bad.  She sighs and follows the group into the meeting hall.

As the others check out the tapestries, the shifter walks over to the fire, side-eyeing the largest tapestry and wonders if Jan's dream?  No... something...

But she shakes her head and stares into the flames.

"Vonth, I think that is the most I have ever heard you talk."  She says it like a statement, no inflection whatsoever.  It seems most emotion has been drained from the young woman after everything she has been through.  She pushes down thoughts of Marrin and Jan, she can't help them right now and she believes they are ok.  She feels she would know otherwise.

Continuing to gaze into the fire, "Sounds like there are two well, teams.  Scalesworn and Order of Osiris.  Obviously the former is in love with dragons, I got that feeling when we were so welcomed back in Spandeliyon.  I don't know what exactly they were looking for then, we didn't have the chest.  This infamous chest, we found it in a ghost ship, guarded by undead and some lich like man? ((Sorry, I don't really remember this well - which for Ava, she isn't big on details anyways so I feel it suits her.  But please correct me if I have anything wrong.))  Once we defeated them, wyrmlings came to take the chest from us - which is why Jan hid it away and we convinced them we didn't have it."

She sighs, the whole thing almost like a dream now.  "We have been unable to open the chest, which is probably a good thing.  As for Korda.. Hammerdasher can probably fill you in more about her.  Oh yeah, the Rotting Man.  We inadvertently freed him from a prison in a rotting tree that was contaminating the forest with undead and all sorts of creatures.  We thought he was a prisoner as well, but oh did he know Soren.  That was about the time Jan and Marrin started to mistrust the bard.  Me?"  She takes an iron poker and stabs the fire, "Trusting as always.  Even after being sold as gladiators in a pit."

She quiets down a bit, continuing to stir the fire in a rough manner.

What's this other mob up to then? Solomona looks to Hammerdasher to see if the dwarf has anything further to say about the Order of Osiris, but adds in his high-pitched, slow, sing-song tones:

Seems to me that having them fighting against each other is better than fighting both of them ourselves, eh? If we tag along with this lot, even for pretend, we might learn more about both, and see which one's worse.

((Ya, the half-orc on the sinking ship with chest was some sort of undead. That whole ship was infested with ghouls and zombies.

Was the full orc we liberated from the tower confirmed as the Rottingman? Thought he was just a servant or something that managed to port away with his special 'no-seeum' helmet.))