Chapter 6 (Saemon)- Beneath the Surface
With the morning sun casting its golden rays through the loose canopy, our weary band stirs from their slumber. Despite a restless night punctuated by uncomfortable rocks and uneven ground, I rise with purpose. As we hastily break camp preparing a meager morning meal, anticipation hangs in the air. We aim to reach our destination before the sun’s full ascent, driven by urgency and determination.
Amidst the bustle of our preparations, Tink wraps up a project he began working on early this morning, a small toy box that opens and closes on his command. “You can do some crazy stuff with that” I mention while continuing my own clean up, sliding my books into my bag.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Magic is limited” I begin a display using an illusion of the weave flowing between worlds. “It’s not from this material plane, it sits silently behind a wall between here and there. Mages, from time to time, can reach through that wall and open a temporary pinhole to pull it through. But the mechanical is so meticulous, with the right infusion it could create a DOOR, and channel all that energy exactly as necessary. That could be some dangerous stuff if put together right.” He looks intently between me and the trinket, his curiosity piqued by the potential for innovation and danger alike. “Mull it over, I look forward to your progress”
With our belongings packed and our minds filled with anticipation, we set off along a small path, overgrown and discarded, marking the second right we were looking for. After short walk we arrive at the dilapidated cottage looming in the distance, a stark contrast to the vibrant forest that surrounds it. As we approach, a sense of unease settles over us, amplified by neglect evident in the outside porch overhang which appears like it could fall over at any minute. Lisle sure takes poor care of his home. Our walk was silent with each other until Tink suggests “Shall we try the door?” I nod, Survivor shrugs and goes to open it, the rest of us crowding closely around. Her touch is light but resists little against her touch, the timeworn door creaks open revealing the musty interior beyond, a feeling of trepidation washes over us.
“None home?” Peyt retorts obviously.
Tiamus pushes past the door “let’s get this over with.”
Inside the decrepit shack, the musty scent of decay assaults our senses as we venture deeper into the rundown interrior. It reeks of woodrot, feet, and moss in here. Everyone spreads out to the few rooms in this small hamlet; each area we explore reveals further evidence of neglect and abandonment, yet our focus remains steadfast on our objective. As I descend a small cellar stairwell, a sense of foreboding washes over me, amplified by the oppressive atmosphere of the dimly lit space. The cellar is a large storage area, the west wall is lined with tables covered in tools and survival equipment. To the east, a collapsed or filled in hallway suggests another room behind it. I take a closer look and it definitely appears placed and unnatural. I wonder what’s back there. I leave it be for a moment turning towards the rest of the room, in the dark two deep amber eyes stare back at me, my heart sinks in fear before the relief of reality floods in when I begin to recognize the vibrant pink frill of Peyt. “Whew, Peyt you scared me. Help me look for anything…. Floating maybe? I’m not so sure what we’re looking for.” she nods viciously before searching the cellar with me. Her reptilian movement patterns give me the heebeegeebees but she’s been kind so far.
I refocus my efforts to the search, rummaging through crates and drawers of this, nearly completely untouched cellar. Though one particular detail stands out to me: the dust cakes everything down here but it’s very thin, almost non-existent in a single trail leading back towards a corner of the basement where Peyt is searching between a number of very large kegs. She disappears behind the corner from me for just a moment and before I can finish looking around she pops right back up, smiling big “Peyt found something!!!” I call to the group upstairs:
“OI! There’s something down here! Come take a look!” They begin to fill the small space as I take a look at her discovery. I round the corner and Peyt points to a pulled spigot acting as a lever, adjacent to it one of the large kegs on the southern wall has been swung open as a door, it was a fake. “Great job Peyt!” a small draft comes through the new opening as I peer inside. A ladder leads down to a set of rock tunnels beneath the house. A minute amount of torchlight can be seen below.
The others come through crowding around and an unease comes over each of us. Those prone to weapons equip them and get ready for whatever lies ahead, a single door in the darkness at the bottom of the ladder is lit up at the edges wherever light could seep through leading further into the tunnels. My finger comes to my lips instinctively, compelling the party not to speak as a number of shadows signify movement in the next room. I silently whisper “get ready” and Survivor steps out in front of the crowd to get the door. Before she opens it however Peyt gets frantic with an idea whispering (barely) “Wait wait wait!” Before we have the chance to ask, she begins changing, magical energy swirls around her as her form diminishes and she becomes…. A lizard?.... Okay not much of a change but we’ll take it. A tiny new form, still just as colorful that slithers immediately under the door. The rest of us watch, listen, and wait, bracing ourselves for whatever may lie ahead.
Minutes later Peyt slithers back under the door Before she shifts back, Navirah displays her own abilities, staring gently at Peyt and Peyt back at her the two begin carrying on a conversation with their eyes, likely discussing telepathically. She begins translating the scene ahead to the rest of us in hushed tones. “Three men are imprisoned behind bars and another three more sinister figures are at work in some kind of makeshift workshop. No signs of floating garden tools yet. She’s gonna head to the other side for the fight, the way in is a bit tight.” The tiny Peyt lizard nods in agreement before disappearing once more beneath the door, her tiny form vanishing into the darkness beyond. We wait in tense anticipation, each passing minute feels like an eternity. Before Survivor’s steely gaze sweeps over us, silently gauging our readiness. With unanimous affirmation, she takes a deep breath and crashes into the door with explosive force, flooding our tunnel with the torchlight beyond.
Three men stand scattered around the room as expected, with surprise on their face they spring into action. They all immediately draw their maces while one of them yells “What the fuck is this Lisle!?”
“We got some visitors boys” the one he was yelling towards responds, oddly composed amidst the chaos. “Let’s give ‘em a welcome!” Peyt shifts forms back to her regular irregular self atop a raised ledge behind Lisle, who whips around towards her with a smug grin on his face. The other two swiftly stand in Survivor’s way stopping the rest of the group from entering into the tight area. Navirah and I share the same idea and cause mental agony through spikes of mystical energy to stab into the mind of the thugs on Survivor. At the same time Peyt tries to tie down Lisle with Vines and thorns coming up from the ground which writhe and lash out around him, but he manages to keep them away from getting too entangled around him. Then he sprints at her up the ladder. Stuck in the hallway, we continue slinging a plethora of spells, though not entirely noteworthy. Until Tink pushes through the blockade and lines himself up to fling acid from a flask on his side all over the two in front of us. They reel back in pain as it begins melting through their armor.
Through the battle I barely catch a glimpse of Peyt running past Lisle towards the prisoner’s cage, good thinking, I’m sure they’ll help. Lisle quickly follows behind while Tiamus gets nearly knocked out by a mace to the face. Peyt begins hitting the lock on the door while Lisle swings a mace at her from behind. Closer to me Survivor, Tiamus, and Tink continue their melee, locked in a vicious battle to keep the men back from the spellcasters in the back. Survivor knocks one of them, covered in acid, to the ground. He writhes in pain from the acid eating away at his clothes and skin and finally falls lifeless. Now turning their attention to the final man blocking our way, Tiamus and Tink send a flurry of slashes at him dicing the man to pieces, on his back foot he shifts his weight towards Tiamus clocking him in the side with his mace. His pain is audible, as it reaches Navirah’s ears she is visibly in anguish not able to reach him through the large group of people between them.
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Across the room, Peyt continues beating the lock on the door while Lisle tries to restrain her from accomplishing this task. I continue my attempts to meddle in the minds of the remaining brigand engaged on Survivor, but my magic is thwarted, his mind too focused to be muddled. He screams out echoing through the small underground chambers “You will have to kill me, I won’t be taken alive!!” he takes a small pouch off his side belt, entirely inconsequential until now, he opens it above his head and a cloud of red dust falls slowly onto his face. He shakes his head wildly as he breathes it in and instantly becomes sporadic, twitching every which way. He swiftly presses his attack on Peyt with his mace smacking her off balance then to the ground with two incredibly hard pummels. The CRACK!! Against her also reverbs through the room. She is nearly knocked unconscious but reinvigerates herself by grabbing some nearby moss and melding it into her body using it to heal herself. Taking this opportunity while he’s distracted, Survivor takes the pummel of her greatsword and beats the back of his head, he immediately falls to the floor unconscious.
We all take a quick second to catch our breath, Peyt doubles over: her labored breathing punctuating the tense silence, her exhaustion palpable. Survivor’s comforting hand on her back offers a brief moment of solace as Tinkerer swiftly moves to secure Lisle, deftly binding him with rope from the assortment of pouches adorning his frame. Meanwhile, I methodically survey the room, scrutinizing every detail with a discerning eye. Tiamus and Navirah begin to engage the rescued prisoners in interrogation. Their voices carry slightly through the chamber while they speak. “Who are you, why are you here?” Tiamus begins.
“Jared” “Slim” “Lin” the three quickly give their names before the first, Jared continues speaking. “We’re members of the Evercast guard. Who are you?”
“Just concerned citizens.” he says with a hint of sarcasm before Navirah cuts in.
“Why were you held here, what’s going on?”
“The three of us were on to the whole operation down here. When the crook” This time Slim speaks, who kicks into the unconscious body of Lisle on the ground while he continues. “Tried to bribe us. And when we didn’t take his money, we were waylaid and have been kept down here since.”
“What good that did you” Tiamus remarks.
I continue my investigation, all the while keeping my mind involved in the conversation and the area simultaneously. With the detritus of their captivity I can’t help but remark “You’ve been here a while haven’t you.” They don’t need to answer, their prison contains the clues. An overflowing bucket of dried feces in the corner, at least 5 dozen wrappers of various packaged meals scattered around the straw laden floor, and their unkempt beards tell me they’ve been here:
“About 2 weeks or so, I’m not sure, the time sort of melds together down here, hard to tell the time without the sun.”
Exactly as I predicted. My eyes continue gazing around the room while Survivor now joins the interrogation. “What exactly WAS the operation down here?” Simultaneously, Peyt pulls out a bowl and begins crushing a handful of various herbs into a paste. Jared takes the questions again: “We don’t yet have everything figured out. In fact Lin got caught while trying to stake out this place.” He nods towards the smallest of the 3 guards who has been rather shy up to this point. “But we know Lisle is working with someone in town to distribute a pretty large quantity of Blood Dust all throughout Evercast. It’s taken some time to catch on but it’s making the rounds. More and more people are becoming addicted. It's a plague that needs to be removed from our town. We’ll see to it he pays heavily for bringing this filth here.”
Peyt begins spreading her paste on some wounds of our compatriots while Tinkerer starts looking around the room with me and the others continue asking some less important questions that I hardly pay attention to, their words fading into the background of my mind while I run through the contents of the room in my head. The cells take up a small space on the eastern wall of the cavern, a few small wooden steps take you to a wooden floored platform. Directly to the south, the entrance we burst through is closed once again and lays silent, further in to the east ,around the circular room which seems to connect in the north back towards the cells, 2 large tables hold a number of lab equipment with beakers, pyre lights, and plenty of glass tubing. Back in chemistry 103 I can’t help but chuckle. Nothing on the tables seems to have been used in a long time however, 4 bedrolls lay out on the floor, some of them slightly under the tables. Towards the north of the room a desk sits snug against a wall with a ladder leading up towards another platform of sorts, where Peyt first began the fight moments ago.
I duck just past the large figure of Tinkerer climbing up the ladder to the platform above where he has been investigating. I try my hand at the desk set before me. The few loose pieces of paper scattered on the desk appear to be scribbles, just bored doodles and miniature games. My eye can’t help but be snagged on a singular board of the desk which looks slightly out of place, like it doesn’t fit where it is placed. What have we here? I pry at the slightly raised board with my fingers and it lifts up to reveal a hidden compartment. A very shallow cubby to stores a small leather notebook, perfectly sized to fit the space. A ledger, perfect. Before I have the opportunity to read through it, Tinkerer calls each of each of our attentions upwards. “Hey! There’s something up here!” The freed guards nod for the party to follow up the ladder, they’ll take care of Lisle in the meantime.
After sneaking up the ladder a small tunnel leads to another room to the north, the light of a torch around the corner flickers in the dark. This tunnel is rather thin and as we all cram through it opens into a large storage room with tall crates stacked up like walls, The torch’s source unseen. While distracted taking in the room’s secrets I don’t see Tink trip over the step in front of me and I too trip over him falling to the ground in the room, he hits his shield against one of the crates. The clattering noise echoing slightly through the storage room followed by a hastened “WHO’S THERE?!?!” the torch light quickly moves through the crate maze and another heavily armored thug comes running into view. Survivor takes a couple large steps over Tink and I while we try to get up, she slices across his chest with her greatsword stopping him from continuing further. I take this opportunity to unleash hell on the mistaken ruffian. “Survivor duck” I let out before my hands glow red hot lighting up for a brief second before each of my fingers extend with white flame burning a cone in front of me. Survivor is still singed but the man is engulfed near completely. A few of the boxes and crates in the room begin smoldering as well, one of them blown off another crashes onto the floor revealing a bag full of dark red mushrooms which also begin burning in my fire. Suddenly a shreak fills the air piercing through the chaos quickly growing. “RREEAAAAAAKKKK” Bursting from another crate on the opposite side of the room, a large myconid comes rushing towards me with pure hatred in its fungal face. The eyes tearing over with red blood which is smeared along its body. It furiously rushes at our frontline. Is shakes wildly releasing a cloud of red spores into the air over Tiamus. He shrugs off its effects but his eyes are bloodshot and the spores make it difficult for him to see. Peyt rather violently slithers her way past the backline, grabs the thug’s face, and opens hers around it spitting acid straight down his throat. Vicious animal, glad she’s with us. She smiles towards Survivor afterwards, a glob of green acid on her lips still which she licks up after noticing.
Behind her Tiamus slices into the Myconid with frightening speed which manages to avenge itself by winding a heavy punch into his gut, he falls to the ground before Survivor finishes it off with another large blow. As the lifeless myconid slumps to the ground, the chamber falls silent, save for the crackling flames consuming the spilled mushrooms. Survivor wipes her blade clean on the thug’s tattered clothes while Tiamus rises, shaking off the effects of the myconid’s last strike, his head still cloudy, and eyes bloodshot. “Well, that was unexpected.” Survivor mentions. Peyt, still grinning with a trace of acid on her lips nods approvingly. I take a quick look over at the smoldering crates and mention “Let’s be careful with these mushrooms, I’m not so sure they’re the kind whose smoke we want to be breathing in, we should make our visit short.”
Navirah, eying the crates: “Maybe we should check if there’s anything useful before we leave.” I nod in response. While the group begins to sift through the crates I approach Navirah, speaking in a low voice:
“You know, there’s something odd about all this. No floating swords or horned devil. It doesn’t add up.”
Tink, who is eavesdropping while looking to see if any of the crates are NOT full of drug mushrooms, pipes in “You noticed too??”
Survivor too overhearing the conversation: “Yeah, something’s off. We were expecting a confrontation with some animated weapons, but there’s no sign of them. And a horned devil? Nowhere in sight. What is the connection between the two?”
Navirah finally responds to the rest of us “Are you suggesting there might be another player involved?”
Survivor nods “It’s a possibility. We need to stay vigilant. There might be more going on here than meets the eye.”
Tiamus, still recovering from the fight, hastens our conversation: “Let’s wrap this up quickly. We have Lisle to deal with and that mushroom smoke thing doesn’t sound too fun.” As the group gathers the freed guards and battered Lisle, we make our way back through the cramped tunnels, up the ladder, and into Lisle’s dilapidated cottage. Jared is helping the other two carry Lisle and asks: “What’s the plan now?”
Tiamus: “We’re taking Lisle back to town, getting paid for his capture, and figuring out why the smithy sent us on this wild goose chase.”
Slim: “You have our thanks. We’ll make sure justice is served when we get back to Evercast. Can we share the road with you in the meantime?” I quickly look around to see if anyone has any objections. And with no issues in sight Survivor nods the approval back to him. With Lisle securely bound, we exit the cottage. The first light of dawn is beginning to filter through the trees as we make our way back towards the town on the road once again, leaving the hidden chamber and its mysteries within behind us except for the secrets contained in this ledger.