The next morning found the companions sitting in the back of a wagon, much as they had on their trip to Valleros a few weeks earlier. The main difference was that this wagon was filled with the aroma of spices rather than the smell of sheep's wool, and that they were now a foursome rather than a trio. During the trip they made various contingency plans for what they might do if they were discovered by the doppelgangers. Most of those plans came down to running like hell in separate directions and then meeting up again later.
The trip passed without incident and when the caravan reached the outskirts of Providence the four companions said goodbye to the wagoneers with a friendly wave. From there they took a circuitous route back to Aggy's house and watched it from a distance for over an hour before finally going inside. When they entered the house everything seemed to be exactly the same as they had left it which made them all feel considerably safer.
Aggy had just started the process of making a fire in the stove when they were surprised by a knock on the back door. Fear gripped them and they all immediately sprang into action. Flem and Aggy ran to the back wall of the room, each taking a position on opposite sides of the door. Scarlett stood further back in the room, his hands out in front of him, ready to begin casting. Terri drew her hammer and walked quietly to the door before suddenly flinging it open. Standing before her was the huge, muscular figure of Thisss.
Terri let out a huge sigh of relief. "Ogden's beard Thisss, why didn't you come to the front door like a normal person?"
Thisss walked inside before answering, "I have been sleeping in your back yard awaiting your return since I came back to Providence. I have important news that I wished to tell you as soon as possible."
"You're lucky we didn't try to set you on fire," Aggy replied, "we've been battling doppelgangers up in Valleros."
"What is a doppelganger?" Thisss asked in surprise.
"That's a long story," Aggy answered, "and can wait until we've revived ourselves a little. I can't offer you anything much to eat, we've only got some of the beans and hardtack we were eating while we travelled, but I was about to put the kettle on. Do you drink tea?"
"Yes, thank you. There are a number of plants in the swamp that we steep in water to make flavoured drinks. Since coming to Gravenhall I have adapted to drinking tea quite comfortably."
This was by far the politest interaction Aggy and Thisss had ever had and Terri was not inclined to bring the focus back to the business at hand, but after a moment’s pause she reluctantly changed the subject.
"Before we go too much further down the tea making route, shouldn't Scarlett and Flem be heading off to start watching the professor, or do we think that waiting until nightfall is better?"
After a brief discussion it was decided that the safest approach would be for Scarlett and Flem to operate together rather than apart and that it was best to wait until after dark to begin their surveillance. Once that was decided, Aggy went back to making a fire in the stove while Terri brought Thisss up to speed with everything that had happened in Valleros. The lizardman was very interested in Terri's description of the doppelganger and was quick to speak up when the young cleric had finished telling the story of their escape from Lord Dennyson's estate.
"We have some stories about these doppelgangers in my tribe, although we have another name for them. The stories are very old but they tell of terrifying grey demons that were almost impossible to kill. It was said that they could steal the soul of a lizardperson and assume their identity. However, our stories also say that the monsters left our land long ago and for us they are now part of our ancient past. But perhaps we are fated to live in times when the terrors of the past return to threaten the present. I was called home because the shaman from my village has had a terrible vision. A vision of pain, of death, and of dragons."
Thisss then recounted everything he had learned during his stay in the swamp, including full details of the shaman's vision. When he finished speaking Aggy looked up from her cup of tea and shook her head.
"All I wanted to do was come to Gravenhall and learn a little bit about magic. At my age I should have known better. Barely a year in and I'm fighting off giant grey shapeshifters and now I can look forward to being roasted alive by a terrifying dragon. I should have known better."
Terri laughed despite the worry she was feeling. "Well, I don't doubt Thisss when he says that the shaman's visions have never been wrong before, but it was fairly vague about exactly what part we're going to play in all this. Holding up a glowing stone that saves the land from dragons could be interpreted in a number of ways. The vision didn't actually show us fighting any dragons after all."
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Aggy refused to be lifted up out of her gloom. "The vision didn't show us fighting any dragons because it's not possible to fight dragons. Oh sure, you can be killed by them while carrying a sword or while shooting off a spell, but you can't really call it fighting if there's absolutely no chance of doing them any harm. Our legends don't tell us much about our life in the east but almost everything they do say makes reference to how absolutely impossible it is to kill a fully grown dragon.
"Their scales are harder than plate armour and they don't have a soft underbelly like our lizardman friend here. They're almost completely resistant to magical attacks and even if by some miracle you do manage to do them harm, they can just fly up into the air and burn you to death from a safe distance. Even their eyes are protected by a clear membrane that's hard enough to resist arrows and crossbow bolts. And that's not even the worst of it. Their voice has a controlling, hypnotic effect on creatures like us. They don't even have to fight us, they can just make us fight each other. They're closer to being a force of nature or a god than they are to being like us and if even one of them makes it over the Impassable Mountains and into this land, we are all completely and utterly doomed."
In the face of Aggy's hopeless pronouncement no one had anything to say so instead they sat in silence for a while, quietly sipping their lukewarm tea. Eventually Flem and Scarlett stood up from the table and went to get some rest before their long night of surveillance. Finally Aggy broke the silence that had pervaded the room. "Well, since there's not much we can do until nightfall.........anyone up for a game of Krom's Triangle?"
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When Flem and Scarlett came back into the living room, Aggy was at the stove and Terri was sitting at the table with Thisss, still trying to explain the point of Krom's Triangle. Night had fallen and after a quick bowl of beans the two rogues slipped out into the cool darkness of Providence.
They went first to Gravenhall, under the guise of visiting a cleric guild notice board that was located close to the professor’s office. Although they appeared to show no interest in the professor’s room when they passed it, both rogues noted that there was no light showing under the door and no sound coming from within.
From there they walked across to the rogue quadrant to check for any messages that might have been left for them, before finally heading down to the accounts department to check on their current token balances. While they only undertook these errands to make their wanderings through Gravenhall less suspicious, Flem’s visit to accounts proved to be very useful indeed. He was startled to discover that the professor had already made good on his promise and deposited enough tokens into Flem’s account to pay for the rogue’s second level of tuition. Scarlett’s balance seemed rather meagre by comparison.
Their next stop was the professor’s house which was situated only a few minutes walk to the north of Gravenhall. It took the two rogues much longer than that to reach their destination however, as Scarlett went via a circuitous route and they carefully checked each street for anyone who might be covertly watching in the night. Once they were close Scarlett led Flem to a street that ran parallel to the one where his grandfather’s house was located. They then crept down an alleyway, slipped over a back fence and snuck through a garden until they were hidden in bushes just across the road from the professor’s residence.
The house across the road from them was completely dark, unlike the rest of the houses in the street which had yellow lamplight showing through their windows. For the next five hours the two rogues silently watched and waited, only moving occasionally to stretch their cramped muscles. Just before the sky began to lighten they crept back the way they had come and Scarlett then drew Flem aside.
“Well, he’s obviously not home but there is one more place we can check for information on the way back to Aggy’s if you’re willing.”
Flem nodded his assent and Scarlett led him several streets away to an unassuming house surrounded by a low stone fence. As they passed the house Scarlett knelt down and removed a loose stone from the wall. He quickly removed two small objects from space he had uncovered before replacing the stone, standing up and walking on. Flem resisted the temptation to ask what was going on, and together they made their way carefully back to Aggy’s house.
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The sun had fully risen when Flem and Scarlett quietly let themselves in the front door. Aggy was at the stove, cooking up a pot of beans while Terri sat at the table, fidgeting anxiously with her amulet. Thisss was lounging on the couch by the window with his blue tongue lazily flicking in and out. When the door opened the three companions turned towards the two rogues expectantly.
"Well?" Terri asked.
"He’s gone," Scarlett replied, looking worried. "We went by his office and then watched his house all night but he didn’t come home. On a hunch I checked a drop box we used several years ago and found these.”
Scarlett opened his hand to reveal two small painted stones, one yellow and one black.
“What do they mean,” Thisss asked as he dragged himself up off the couch to get a closer look.
“They’re part of a communication system he showed me when I was a child. The yellow one indicates that his current level of safety is ‘medium’, and the black one means that he’s gone ‘dark’. He’s been forced to go into hiding. My best guess is that he was discovered by the infiltrators and had no choice but to flee for his life.”