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theupstartsparty · 6 years ago

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Chapter 3: Tor

The sky was a tapestry of webs. Webs outlined the constellations and cinched them together, webs held his vulnerable body aloft and held it fast, webs threaded behind his eyes to his soul and began weaving into the smallest folds of himself and dissolved them when they had completed their work. If he could he would have taken his soul and hung it in the highest windowpane of the temple and let the light burn away the webbing. A spider crawled out of his mouth. It picked its way towards his ear, whispering viscid, unintelligible words too close, too close-

Tor gasped himself awake and jolted into a sitting position. His heart pounded, beating adrenaline throughout his body. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

In, two, three, four, hold. Out, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

The earth genasi tried to remember what had woken him up once his heart steadied. Dreams typically evaded his recollection, and this proved to be no exception; he would have been unable to recall the faintest detail about it even if pressed.

Thankfully, one of the perks of traveling alone was not having to be pestered about his nightmares.

There was no use trying to fall asleep as the sunlight was beginning to shine in through the rock crevice he had chosen as his refuge for the night. His white dragonscale armor clanked as he rolled to the side, stopping short just before crushing a nest that he had not noticed in the twilight shadows of the evening before. He moved the nest deliberately farther away from the campsite so as not to unwittingly crush the glossy pink eggs.

Breakfast was the last of the sourdough bread and some dried figs, bought from the treetops of Sherthyr a few days ago. It was a nice enough town, but any consideration Tor had for making a permanent residence there was immediately overruled by vertigo from the swaying bridges a dizzying distance from the ground. He washed the last bit of tangy bread down with some stale water from his skein.

The morning grew brighter as he sat cross-legged on the grey stone and lit a stick of incense. Light filtered around the thin ribbon of smoke as he recited a prayer. Sarenrae’s worship was not as codified as some of the other deities’ considering her relatively recent revival. Routine and rhythm had been ingrained in his life since his days as an Ashari youth, however, and prayer emulated the grounding effect he had grown up with. He sat in silence for a moment, inhaling the incense and feeling it sting his nasal passages like saltwater in an open wound.

Time to get moving.

He packed up and began making his way through the crevice. The opening in the stone was narrow, and if it were not for the semi-elemental form of his body to phase him through he would have been wedged tightly in the gap. But nearly effortlessly he exited that night’s shelter and made his way down the base of the mountain.

-----

The tavernkeep in Sherthyr who had poured him an impressive glass of rubamel a few nights ago told him that the closest settlement on the way to Everspring was a village called Phandolin to the south.

“I’d avoid anywhere else but here in the Waters,” the plump elven woman said at the bar counter, pulling her neatly embroidered glove tighter down her wrist in a failed effort to conceal a blackened left hand. “We’ve heard tell that there’s a mighty nasty disease going around. Best keep a wide berth towards the mountains while you’re at it,”

“What kind of disease?” the cleric asked, taking a hearty drink of the raspberry mead. By the gods, that was unbelievably sweet. He passed his puckered expression off as an awkward scratch.

“No details yet. Lord Jude had gone out a few days ago to check it out firsthand, but he’s not due back for a few days, so I hear. He brought some druids out there, so with any luck they should clear all of it up,”

“And how far is it to Everspring from Phandolin? I plan to end my journey there,”

“And with no map in sight,” she clucked teasingly, before ducking below the bar and bringing out a crusty map of her own and spreading it wide in front of them. “There’s a route from there directly to Everspring. It looks about a week’s travel if you’re walking, but you might want to get yourself a ride-- I hear there’s slavers from Ruhn-Shak running along that trail,”

“Ruhn-Shak?” Tor thought he had a pretty good grasp on geography, but the name was unfamiliar to him. The keeper did not try to hide her surprise.

“Where’d you say you were from, stranger?”

“I didn’t,” He took a less ambitious sip from the glass in front of him. “Terrah originally, but I’d been living in Westruun for the past couple of years. I’m Tor of the Earth Ashari, by the way,”

“Chandral,” The keeper said in reply, then poured over the map before putting her finger at Terrah’s location at the top of the continent. “My word, you’ve moved quite a bit,”

“I have my reasons,” Tor said, a bit more gruffly than he intended. Chandral seemed unfazed, merely raising an eyebrow in his direction.

Breathe in, breathe out. “What’s Ruhn-Shak, then?”

“It’s a drow city in the middle of the Stormcrest Mountains,” What the hell was a drow? “It’s all underground. Apparently, they’re bent on destroying Illan Dorai. Or Illan Dorai’s bent on destroying them. I always forget,”

A pain had suddenly grown behind Tor’s eyes, and he set his half empty glass down on the bartop, rattling some flatware behind the counter. Chandral looked up from the map and furrowed her brow in concern.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “Your nose is bleeding a bit,”

“I’m fine, though I’ll have to turn in for the night soon,” He changed the subject. “That’s quite a curse on your hand there,”

The elven woman drew her gloved hand closer to herself. “I… yes, it is. A friend bought me a set of gloves a while back, and it turned out one of them was cursed. Dried up my hand entirely, it did. How odd is that?”

“Very,” Tor touched the winged symbol of Sarenrae on his necklace. “Allow me to remove the curse for you. As thanks for the information,”

A wealth of emotions played out across her face in the span of a second: confusion, surprise, embarrassment, disbelief, and finally settling upon curiosity to lead her. She wordlessly held out her hand. He took it in his own, pulling his holy symbol from around his neck. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to be a conduit for Sarenrae’s divine intercession, channeled golden energy into her palm. The glove was pulled off and her hand morphed from a dessicated black to a deep and healthy brown. She pulled her hand back and marvelled.

“I’d stay away from any other gifts your friend might bring you,” Tor advised dryly, tucking his necklace back underneath his armor.

Still looking at her hand she remarked, “Her and her husband both. I have a feeling he was behind it,”

He propped himself on the water stained bar table and stood, having at least a head over Chandral. “Sarenrae is allowing for another chance here. You’ll have to decide who will be given that chance,”

She nodded, looking a bit lost in the verbiage and the message.

“I can get rid of the glove for you,” he continued, taking the cursed item off of the counter and wrapping it in a worn dishrag from his pack. He placed a few copper pieces in front of the tavernkeep, then turned to walk out the door to his lodgings for the night. “Have a good night, ma’am,”

-----

The day’s journey would pass through the foothills of the Stormcrest range into a southern woodland of the Verdant Expanse. The morning air was already heating up as he walked out of the mountain’s shadow. Tor took a leather strap from his wrist and drew his long dreads into a ponytail in an effort to beat the sweat. Summer in the south was oppressive to those not accustomed to it. He had spent over a week in this weather already, but the morning heat still punched him in the gut whenever it came in.

The heat wave hit earlier than usual that morning. It drew the energy from his body quickly, and his pace slowed to a crawl as the sun hit its apex. A tree provided ample shelter from the sun’s intense rays for a blessed hour, but he knew he could not linger in one place. After a lunch of a magically procured but incredibly bland roast elk pocket he set out once more to draw into the swampy forest.

The climate may have been exhausting, but the creatures that were invited by it certainly combated any soporific effects it might have had. Half the day was spent fending off mosquitoes and flowershrouds and some strange lizard-like bugs he could not name. The other half was spent in thought. He had most of his time to himself these days; he was unsure whether or not that was a good thing. On one hand, there was only so much damage he could do being the only person around for miles. On the other, his thoughts had been taking it upon themselves to recount every mistake he had made for the past eight years.

Westruun. Sten. Shamsa. Elios. He shook his head to clear it. But the memories still lingered, constricting around his soul like a serpent and threatening to consume him. He invoked a silent compromise to focus solely on the most recent string of events. The serpent acquiesced.

-----

Bellows and howls echoed around the underground arena. The clamor surrounded a small blue dragonborn and an imposing earth genasi in the pit, each circling each other and looking worse for wear. The dragonborn whipped her tail side to side, neck frills flaring and chest heaving, waiting for her opponent’s next move as she readied her shortswords.

Tor mirrored her, sleek grey greatclub gripped in two hands. He had the disadvantage; the greatclub was much longer than he liked and sacrificed the typical defense of the single-handed mace he was used to. Nearly every attack so far had missed, each swing opening himself up to his opponent’s quick blades. He was bleeding. Much more heavily than her.

She took the initiative, a blue streak of electricity arcing towards him, and suddenly she was in his face. One shortsword slicing through a hand gripping the raised club, the other plunging into a chink in the plates of his piece of shit armor, piercing upwards through his ribcage.

His chest sharpened and he burbled dark blood through his lips and his head grew lighter and lighter. A bell sounded. Directionless, like the crowd, and so far away. His vision narrowed around the dragonborn punching the air in victory. A brief cradle of warmth saved him, a shot of air reinflating his punctured lung before he fell into darkness.

-----

“What the hell was that?”

Rawkin Saemlish’s pale gnomish figure was in the process of being swallowed by a heap of white ermine fur. He stood at the genasi’s bedside alone, having left his two usual guards at the doorway. His dark brown handlebar mustache bristled in malcontent as he spoke to Tor, who was lying down to recover in his room after the evening’s match. A fly buzzed a foot to his left, and Tor’s eyes followed its path around the corner of the room while his manager berated him.

“That was a piss-poor performance. No tension! No effort whatsoever! It took Alvyria less than a minute to drop you, all the while you were looking like nothing more than a… than a… than an oaf!”

The fly landed on a leather-bound ledger that the hopping tea kettle of a man had slammed on the ground in his fit. It began grooming itself with dainty legs. Tor adjusted the bandages on the wrist where Alvyria had slashed him hours earlier.

“Goddamn it, mudcake, what has gotten into you?” An amber eye twitched at the rude nickname Saemlish had given him. “First it was last week’s match against that orc from the Empty Socket, then three days ago with Lyrian, and now this! Have some sense of pride. I’ve spent a lot of gold attempting to impress your patrons, and they have not been pleased these past few matches. Not pleased at all! Spireling Gholesh is considering withdrawing your funding entirely by the end of the month and giving it to Franzi for Alvyria, and may I remind you that he’s the one who’s been paying the most for your stay here?”

The fly was in the air again, repeatedly circling both of their heads in a figure eight.

“Do you know what I think?” An ostentatiously gold-ringed hand reached out from underneath glossy fur, and Saemlish snatched the insect mid flight, crushing it instantly. “I think this has something to do with Elios’s sudden departure,”

A red, viscous anger boiled up from his chest as Tor fixed the Ironmaster with a harsh stare. “Don’t you dare mention him,”

“I wouldn’t have to if you cleaned up your act,”

“You have no right-”

“You know damn well your personal life is not supposed to interfere with your job!” Saelish threw his hands up, pacing around the standard-sized wooden room that had been provided to the pit fighter. “That is part of our contract, the one you signed so eagerly. I feed you, I pay your rent, I train you, I give you whatever your heart desires and in exchange you just have to put on a good show,”

“And bow down to every person who throws a copper my way,”

“Which was something you agreed to! This was never an issue before you met that firebrand,” The gnome whirled around to face his fighter and put his hands on his hips, looking almost petulant. It might have struck Tor as funny if he did not know how truly dangerous the man was. What he was doing, arguing with Saemlish, was risky business in normal circumstances. Challenging him outright, as he was so close to, was unheard of outside of the other Ironmasters, as most who did so tended to find their tongues missing soon after.

Elios had not mentioned to Tor just who he had antagonized the night he ran away, but the Ironmaster’s well-known intolerance for disrespect placed Rawkin Saemlish as a top suspect. For his own safety, and perhaps Elios’s as well, he held his tongue.

“No. And it won’t be an issue going forward. I forgot myself, Ironmaster. Please accept my apologies,” Asshole.

Rawkin drew himself up, tilting his head up in a way that, like everything else about him, was clearly overcompensating for his stature. His ermine coat spilled out behind him, sweeping the dusty floor. He crossed his arms.

“I’ll be holding you to that,” he said graciously. His face softened slightly as he seemed to finally take note of Tor’s battered form. “You need to get out of this rough patch so you don’t nearly die every match. That doesn’t benefit anyone, least of all you,”

Saemlish began to head out of the room towards his guards, who held the door open for their employer. He paused a moment at the frame, then turned his head over his shoulder.

“Rest up and heal, Titan. You can’t afford to destroy yourself in this profession,”

The wooden door closed behind the entourage. Tor’s fingernails stabbed deeply into the umber palm of his hand, and he could not bring himself to dig them out.

-----

His mind was numb. It had been instinct to defend himself (was it?) when the mugger had pulled a knife on him as the earth genasi stumbled out of the tavern (where did the knife go?). Before a single word was spoken between them, Tor had grabbed the man by the neck and swung him against the alley wall. The force impacted against the rough brick, made slick with rain, stronger than he had intended (was it?), the man’s pulse slowing and becoming weaker and weaker. It was all over in seconds (and happened in an eternity).

Tor pulled his hand away and stumbled backwards as the mugger’s body crumpled to the ground. The head lolled at an unnatural angle before slacking down entirely into a puddle that grew steadily with the rain. Shock overcame him. The guards made their rounds near the tavern regularly-- they would find him. He willed himself to move. He willed himself to do anything except stand there and stare.

Why was he faltering? Why could he not move? He could have easily subdued the man. So why could he not control himself? Why had he been sabotaging himself constantly for months on end in this distressing and dehumanizing job? Was this how he had been training to react? Like some kind of thug?

Why could he not stop staring?

A single word escaped his lips.

“Help,”

A golden light flashed. He fell to his knees, closing his eyes and covering his face. And when he opened his eyes, his vision had disappeared entirely, a dark expanse of void rolled out before him.

A hand reached and touched his shoulder. He tensed. A guard? But no one spoke. The hand hooked itself underneath the soaked wool on his arm and brought him to his feet. Tor did not protest; if it was indeed a guard, he was undeniably guilty of his crime.

But the hand instead took his wrist and gave it a gentle but insistent tug. It wanted him to follow, wherever that might lead. He had asked for help, but it was not clear from whom he had drawn the attention. The rain continued to fall much more serenely than seemed appropriate as Tor let the hand guide him through a winding maze of paths, not knowing where he was and who he was with but letting himself be moved regardless.

His vision was returned to him at the threshold of a modest temple, no bigger than a large family dwelling. The door was opened before him to a warm, dry interior with an open hearth, filled with a soft golden glow from the fireplace and accented by a carmine wall. The engraved slate sign above the threshold read:

The Red House of Trickfoot

Underneath this read a quick blessing:

“May Sarenrae guide your path into the light,”

Tor stepped over the threshold, and the door softly closed behind him.

-----

The path had gotten significantly drier over the past few days, and the massive live oak and cypress trees cast a pleasant shade over the elevated path through the wetlands. His back ached; he needed a new pack when he got into town and preferably a monk to realign his spine with a few well-placed jabs up his stony vertebrae.

The sun dipped below the treeline. It would be dusk soon. He could feel the day’s travel begin to catch up with the rest of his body, but he ignored it and pressed on. Phandolin was only a few hours away, by his estimation, and he was willing to risk a point of exhaustion for a secure place to spend the night.

Shadows began to curl between the trees and around the traveler as he neared the first junction he had seen in days. An uneven wooden sign had been impaled into the ground to his left. He had been on what was called the Viburnum Trail, which had officially stopped at this three-way intersection, though a desire path continued on southward. The road running east to west was the Umbarad Passage. According to the sign, he was about a mile outside of Phandolin. He turned eastward, noticing for the first time a small mountain peak ahead of him, previously obscured by the massive flora.

The twilight deepened as he walked. Instead of fading with the sunset, the forest around him appeared to sharpen as if every leaf was in hyperfocus. This patch of forest felt different from the rest of the Expanse. There was a distinct character behind it; it existed with a purpose, though Tor could not explain why the thought occurred to him. Glowing eyes peered at him intermittently from tree boughs and toadstool caps, but after a quick scrutiny they disappeared, letting the traveler walk as he pleased.

He had read about the fey as a child in Terrah. Sten had always helmed the research on their identification and ineffable behaviors, and while Shamsa wanted the group of them to study the more practical topics of the Elemental Planes, Tor had found himself entranced by the mysteries and the dangers of the fey. A fair amount of that knowledge had stuck with him even until adulthood.

This forest was brimming with fey creatures. Tor was surprised that the ground beneath him was nothing more than earth, as nearly everything else was alight with magical energy. A swarm of vibrant pinks flitted in the air above him, disappearing into the starry sky above, while ribbons of orange and blue coiled around each other lower to the ground. A cohort of large bipedal ants with spears crossed the path ahead of him, mandibles clicking. Those must be what formacids looked like in person. They paused a moment to look at him, then one nodded and they continued on their patrol.

This peculiar but apparently non-threatening scene would have to be explained tomorrow. The pervasive energy overwhelmed him in his exhaustion. His eyes flickered as he walked into Phandolin, and he barely registered the step up onto the porch of the Easthill Inn, or how he interrupted the blond innkeeper’s flirtations with a handsome red tiefling at the bar, or how the steep steps leading upstairs creaked before he turned into the first empty room. In a brief moment of clarity he removed his boots and the worst of his plate armor, then laid down on the mattress, asleep before his head hit the pillow.

#the upstarts #the upstarts story #dnd #dungeons and dragons #writing #taldorei campaign

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theupstartsparty · 6 years ago

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Chapter 2: Rexias and Lahar

Spireling Ymil appeared to be in a better mood than usual when he had called Rexias and Lahar to his office that morning to give them their next task. An anonymous patron had visited that morning with an unusual request. A cave had been discovered a few miles outside of Everspring’s easternmost protectorate, and the patron had it on reliable authority that a crystal ball lay in its depths, a couple centuries old at least. The patron did not disclose the reason for the request. Once Rex soon found out what it was precisely what had gotten the crime boss’s spirits up, he understood why a reason did not matter.

“One hundred fifty gold pieces each upon returning with the objective,” the half-orc said in a smooth baritone, a rare smile curling up his lips. Rex’s ears perked, fully alert. He turned to his partner, whose normally heavily lidded chestnut eyes were open wider than he’d ever seen them, almost making the elf look awake. If that was their personal cut, how much had this patron paid the spireling for the job? He silently doubled down on his policy to never pay for artifacts.

“Anything else you find in the cave is fair game, though if there is something that could prove helpful to the Clasp, know ingratiation will get you far. I know you two are smart enough to remember what happens if you try and screw us over, so there’s no need to go over that policy. Just remember that those marks of yours are there for a reason. Any questions?” The slick half-orc barely gave them a moment to answer. “Wonderful. Be prepared to leave this afternoon,”

The spireling lazily waved them out of the office, and Rex and Lahar, knowing of his capricious and particular temperament, lost no time in making their exit out of the lava chamber the crime boss called his office. They made their way through the system of tunnels underneath the city of Everspring.

“That is a hell of a lot of gold. Not that I’m complaining, but where does he get off on choosing us for this mission?” Lahar asked, keeping his voice in a low drawl as they walked through the underground market. “I thought that Ymil had it out for you somehow,”

“I guess he’s decided six months is enough time to waste keeping me on a leash,” the tiefling responded, flicking his tail on a burlap sack of a white powder on the front of a vendor’s stall. Any objections the vendor might have had were ignored as they pushed through the crowd, keeping an eye out for pickpockets who did not respect the Clasp code.

“Perfect task for us though, huh?” the elf quipped, taking out a finely carved ivory pipe and some dried plants from a side pouch. “If we die, he gets our dumb asses off his hands. If not, he gets to buy, like, goldspun clothing or some shit,” He trailed off as he lit the pipe and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment, then exhaling an opaque blue smoke cloud.

Rex smirked. “Let’s hope the handsome devil didn’t send us on a suicide quest, then. Who knows how much he was paid up front?”

He took the lead around the corner that turned down a less-travelled tunnel with Lahar close behind him. The path was empty save for a few floating will o’ wisps towards the curve of the ceiling serving to light their way, and they made their way down a few more lanes until they reached the bunkers, where they made up their packs for the weeklong trip.

The spireling had sent one of his lackeys with directions written down on a scrap of yellowed parchment. The lackey, a familiar scrawny purple-haired human they knew as René, was waiting in the outer tunnel that led into the farmlands. He looked almost envious as he handed the paper over, but sent them off just as amiably as usual.

“Once you return, I’ll be expecting that courier’s tip from you,” he said, pretending to inspect his fingernails as he judged their reactions. There was no way the spireling would have told anyone outside of the mission, but René had a way of knowing things regardless. How he had gained the trust of the spireling was a mystery to Rex and Lahar alike.

“In your dreams,” Rex grinned. The two bowed slightly to each other while each placing a closed hand over their chest in the common Everspring salutation. René picked up his torch as he walked away from the pair down the tunnel, leaving a flickering shadow that stretched and soon faded into nothing.

The ancient lava tunnel system in which the entirety of the Clasp operated existed underneath the very feet of Everspring’s population. These tunnels had been historically disputed. The earliest people of the area had once lived entirely underground, virtually unnoticed as the deities and arcanists raged in the Calamity. Once the world quieted, the settlement that would later be known as Everspring was built aboveground. Much of Everspring’s history was deeply entwined with the tunnels. However, the growing weight of the city took its toll on the tunnels, and eventually most of the system fell into disuse in the face of structural collapse. The Clasp moved in soon after the condemnation, building up what they referred to playfully as the Black Market, and had secured the tunnels (“Netherspring,” as some of them had dubbed it) for the past eighty years or so.

It was from these tunnels that the two Clasp members emerged, propping open an innocuous hatch that opened up to a flax storage barn. The harvest of the year had not yet been collected, and the barn currently housed pieces of equipment in various states of repair. No one was currently in the barn, Lahar noted, and motioned to Rex to follow him up the ladder and out of the tunnel.

The tunnel out of the city had taken them past the first hill surrounding the city. A major reason the Clasp valued their hold on Netherspring was because of this particular tunnel, which obscured their movements over land from the curious eyes of the Everspring Guard. Normally, smuggled goods (oloore root and Sannish were the most popular) were handled through ships at the Sea Port. The need occasionally rose to transport inland, and the tunnel was the best means of doing so. It also gave them the advantage against the Myriad, who had been unable to establish a firm trade in the city due to the competition. From the barn the thieves walked inconspicuously to the Shambling Path, heading east to the protectorate of Phandolin.

The countryside of Everspring crested gradually downward, showing off the rolling expanse of farmland that existed outside the walls of the city. Purple fields of flax and saffron gradually blended into the greens of wheat and grapevines, and the landscape itself seemed to ripple as breezes combed through the scenery. The late afternoon skies still recovered from last night’s rain, and a few grey clouds hung onto the otherwise clear blue canvas. The walk was perfect for tourists who would swarm the city like bees at peak season.

The fields stretched on for a few hours before the hills to the south stopped rolling and jutted sharply into sheer rock faces, a formation which was known collectively as the Virage. The hills to the north had changed from agricultural land to the forest of the Verdant Expanse. By twilight, the Virage crested low, and the untamed Mornset Countryside became visible in the distance, and as the sun dipped below the horizon Lahar suggested bedding down along the treeline for the night.

----

It had been four days on the road at this point, more than halfway to their destination. The past hour had dealt them an ill-tempered hydra, which had put them both in a bad way before Rex managed to incinerate it. Lahar’s survivalist magic had kept them alive, but to recover properly they were forced to make camp earlier than anticipated.

The campsite was minimalistic that evening as they only bothered to set up the tent and find a water source. Rations would have to do for the night; hunting and foraging was too much of an effort, and hydras were inedible much to their disappointment. Dark skies had threatened rain all day and the tension in the air alluded to something more impressive than a drizzle. The tent was pitched a few yards inside the forest, underneath a short but sturdy-looking oak at the top of a slope. They set up quickly and crawled through the canvas flaps just as the first drops began to fall.

“How’s the bite?” Rex asked his ranger companion, who had thrown himself onto his bedroll almost immediately after entering the tent.

Lahar groaned, wiggling off the rest of his armor to assess the hip wound properly. “It sucks. Nothing I won’t be able to sleep off though,”

The light pattering of rain on their tent suddenly crescendoed into a roar as the deluge hit. They decided to not attempt conversation and instead started in on their rations. The bacalhau from the Nixie Bazaar was worth the risk of being caught, Lahar firmly believed, and Rex had to admit that it beat the tasteless jerky the Clasp offered.

The black-haired tiefling took out his daggers from their scabbards. Though he had managed to get the worst of it off earlier, the blades were still caked in crusty ochre-colored blood. He took out his cleaning kit and set to work. A blue-tinted opalescent fog began to fill the tent, as if Lahar was calling upon spirits as he smoked.

Rex allowed himself a momentary glance at his former protege. The elf had joined the Clasp’s forces not six months earlier, coinciding with Rex’s own return. Spireling Ymil had assigned the new member to Rex as part of his probation, a decision that he had originally not been enthused about but soon came to appreciate. Lahar proved to have an offbeat personality that instantly clicked with the rogue, and was not lacking in any natural talent for thieving either. According to himself, he had previously taken up with a few roving bands of hunters deep in the Mornset Countryside, and had developed and honed his abilities there for many years.

As with all things dealing with the Clasp, there were a few questions that could be asked about what caused him to join. Unlike René, however, Rex never found himself needing to know everything, and never made a move to ask about Lahar’s past. To his appreciation, this favor was returned in kind, resulting in a comfortable partnership that lasted even after Lahar was branded a full-fledged Clasp member. They had been working together ever since.

The torrential downpour had subsided to a steady rainfall when Lahar spoke up, his naturally low voice raising ever so slightly to be heard over the din. “So, this artifact. Crystal balls are supposed to scry on people, yeah? How creepy is that?”

An obsidian, infinitely reaching tower flashed across Rex’s mind. “I know I’d hate that,” he answered, taking out the oil from his kit and getting to work on the leather grips.

“But Ymil said that it also-- knew things, if you asked the right questions. Do you think it’s sentient? Like, some ancient guy fucked up somewhere and trapped himself in an orb?”

“I don’t know if you’d be able to cast a spell if your soul was trapped. At least, that’s what I remember from Lucius’s books,”

Lucius was the exception to their silent agreement. A month ago, his older brother had interrupted them in the middle of a job. Furious at Rex for taking his gold before leaving Emon, he had come to collect with a vengeance. It was the first time Rex had ever fought together with Lahar, and he had been taken aback by how readily the elf had rushed to his aid. His brother, upon being defeated with two daggers and an arrow to his throat, had sardonically congratulated Rex for making a friend before disappearing into a cloud of sparks.

(“I robbed my brother and he’s not happy about it,” the rogue had said by way of explanation.)

(“He probably deserved it,” the ranger had answered. And that was it on the subject.)

“Probably not sentient then,” Lahar decided. He sat back up, wincing as he was reminded of the bite mark, and began unlacing his boots. “Do you think there’s a limit to the number of questions you can ask it? Or who can ask them?”

“I don’t know,” The tiefling finished oiling the last bits of leather on the hilt and put the newly cleaned blades back into their sheaths. He paused as he mulled the questions over in his mind.

“Maybe we should find out,” he said slowly. A slight mischievous smirk crept across his face as he turned to face his traveling companion. “Once we find it, I mean. Ask it a few questions and see what comes of it.”

Lahar took off a boot and set it aside. “I was thinking along the same lines. Might ask if you’re ever gonna be able to fuck the spireling,”

Rex flung his dingy pillow right at Lahar’s smug expression. The offending party dodged out of the way, laughing softly, and the pillow hit the canvas behind him with a dull thud. Thunder boomed from miles away, and the rain began to pick up again, sounding like gravel pouring onto a rooftop.

“I’ll take first watch,” Rex said, abruptly changing the subject. Lahar, still looking overly proud of himself, nodded and packed up his pipe and whatever recreational substance he used, then laid down faced away from the tiefling. About ten minutes later he began to levitate, signalling that the elf had started his deep trance.

The tiefling spent his watch figuring out his question for the crystal ball.

----

“Fuck! They keep coming?” Rex’s blades sung as they cut through one of the gelatinous oil slicks that had come to life not sixty feet into the cave. Where the dagger sliced a burble of ooze separated from the main body. Its actions seemed entirely autonomous and equally hostile.

They had combed the forest outside Phandolin for some time looking for the entrance to the cave. Even with their perceptive talents, the rogue and ranger had taken over an hour to locate it; the map had proven to be hastily made up and nowhere near to scale. The mouth of the cave was covered by a thick, pale green epiphytic curtain which obscured most of the daylight, plunging the cavern into semidarkness. Neither had bothered with a torch, which, in retrospect, might have helped in spotting the pitch black ooze clinging to the ceiling, waiting in ambush.

“I’m sure slicing at it isn’t helping!” Lahar shouted, rapidly nocking an arrow and turning over his shoulder to release it. The tarlike entity recoiled, rearing up and forming its amoebic body into the shape of a fist. Lahar’s ears flattened and he darted just as the wave of pitch careened into the wall behind where he had been seconds before.

“And your arrows are?” Rex retorted, shuffling backwards as the newly formed second ooze plashed forward. True, blades were proving to be detrimental, but what the fuck else could he do at the moment?

“You have fire, right? Use it!” There was that, he supposed, but he was not too keen on taking a hit from a damn ooze. Part of the slick had stealthily started enveloping the elf’s boots, and Rex ran over to his partner to sever it from the rest of the amorphous entity. Lahar plucked another arrow from his hip quiver and, muttering an arcane phrase, sent a Hail of Thorns at the ooze. The arrow glowed a sparkling green and impacted into the creature, exploding into a ring of long, nasty, thorny protrusions.

The pitchy ooze still clung to Lahar’s leg, and twisted around in a vortex of tar. He grunted and buckled slightly under the constriction. Out of the corner of his eye Rex saw a black wave headed toward them. It had been easy to avoid the sluggish attacks of the ooze. They had only stayed to deal with the gelatinous creature at present, rather than later.

“Ugh. Fine,”

The wave crashed into Rex, barreling him backwards several feet. A feral red heat surged through his veins, and he extended his arm forward and condensed the energy into a cone of flame. The force of the blast blew his unruly black hair flat against his head. When the fire of the Hellish Rebuke cleared, two piles of ash remained.

Behind him on the ground, cursing steadily, Lahar was kicking the ooze around his leg off. The slick, which had not seemed particularly strong to begin with, fell off after a mild beating, and Lahar scrambled backward, fumbling with his pack until he found his tinderbox. He took one of his arrows and set it alight, and plunged it into the ooze that had crawled its way forward. It caught fire and squirmed into ash, ending the encounter.

They got to their feet and stared deeper into the cave. Rex caught the echoes of guttural snarls coming from down the intersection to the right. His body felt like it had been run over by a draft horse.

“We should stop at Phandolin next,” he said.

“Agreed,” replied his companion.

#the upstarts #the upstarts story #dnd #dungeons and dragons #writing #taldorei campaign

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theupstartsparty · 6 years ago

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Chapter 1: Mark

Most travelers from Illan Dorai were known to be snobbish, pretentious bastards. Normally, this was expressed quietly as they wrinkled their noses at clothing with unsatisfactory cuts and visibly clutched handbags on the rare occasion they passed through the residential neighborhoods. However, the Doraien ambassador to Everspring took the cake when, during the Bilarose Troupe’s audition for the Midsummer Arts Festival, the elven man stood up from his seat in the front row and pronounced the troupe’s routine to be “boorish and contrived” in front of the adjudicating Arts Council, adding that he had better things to be doing that day before whipping his emerald colored robes out of the room.

The ambassador’s ill temperament was well known by the Everspring council, and had only succeeded in embarrassing the Bilarose troupe before they were told that they were welcome to play the Upper Exis Theater for the festival. However, the incident had led Rinwald to suggest that perhaps the troupe soon pay a visit to Illan Dorai. The ambassador had a taste for the finer things in life; surely it would pay well to take a look inside his house. So that evening the bardic troupe packed their black-crusted pocket mirrors and tarnished lockpick sets along with the rest of their travelling supplies and hitched up their wagon to begin their trip to Illan Dorei.

The trip there followed the Feshun River inland for about a week through the Verdant Expanse. It was as uneventful as they could have hoped, having only a brief skirmish with a school of carnivorous mudskippers along the way. Each night, the two young Marquesian halflings Ashe and Sashem worked on their acro dance routine, playing off each other in a manner that was expected of siblings. Mark, Kim, and Mordecai, two half elves and a dwarf respectively, challenged each other to some friendly musical duels (magic allowed, but only between each other). The tabaxi strongwoman Coil showed off her prowess and nearly managed to lift the wagon itself, to the delight of some and the panic of others, and the graying human Rinwald regaled them with tales of his days as a delinquent as the impish acrobats diligently took notes.

The plan for Illan Dorai was the typical one. They would pose as the traveling performance troupe that they were and offer to play a few taverns a week for a place to stay. Ashe, Sashem, and Mordecai would stake out the ambassador’s house to determine security and potential targets. Rinwald would formulate a plan of entry and escape with Kim and Coil. Meanwhile, Mark would visit the more ramshackle areas of town. Usually, he would find an older woman, a tavern owner, or a band of laborers that were well known in the community, and charm them into dinner and conversation. The half elf’s quiet but earnest demeanor endeared him to many, and it tended to be nearly effortless to work out how the slum community’s underlying economy worked. More importantly, he could learn how to effectively and efficiently redistribute any large sum of gold before local authorities worked out a connection to a high profile robbery elsewhere in the city.

Illan Dorai, the elvish capital of the region, was a city nigh obsessed with appearances, and having the appearance of a half elf made the process a bit more difficult for Mark than he was used to. However, after a few days of searching, he found a woman in her forties who used her home as a recovery haven for blue-lipped Sannish addicts. Her insight on the community proved profound and invaluable, and he thanked her for her time with a silver piece in her hand and gold piece under her couch. He then returned to the tavern just in time to bring out his lute for their evening performance.

The ambassador’s mansion was standard of Illan Dorai, built of a material somewhere between stone and lumber, with an elegant facade of pillars growing skyward until they formed a canopy of a rooftop. Large windows were set in gaps between the frame of the house, allowing for a panoramic view of the Doraien Falls to the left and the city below. In the Bilarose troupe’s case, it allowed for an extensive view inside the house. The only obvious entrance was the front door, which was guarded by a vigilant rotating watch.

Mordecai had spied a trapdoor on the rooftop during the stakeout, which (he’d signed excitedly) would give him the opportunity to use the grappling hook they had found at the gnomish establishment in Athelwick. Ashe and Sashem had noted a kitchen well-stocked with silverware, and there appeared to be plenty of valuables used as decoration throughout the house. A room on the second floor was shut with an enticing lock, which tempted Mark and Sashem in particular. Rinwald believed that time was of the essence, to their disappointment, and opted to just take the dinnerware and the luxurious ornamentation.

The acrobatic siblings and Mordecai were to scale the house unseen, entering from the trapdoor on the roof. A few servants had been spotted on the grounds after hours, so Mark and Kim were to keep a lookout from the trees on either side of the house to keep in contact with those inside the house. Rinwald and Coil would be at the stables a few blocks down, ready to hitch up the horses at a moment’s notice should it all turn sideways.

So that was how Mark found himself the next evening, uncomfortably scrunched up against an overgrown oak which gripped tight to the mansion. It was a rare cool summer evening in Illan Dorai, though his Odessloi clothing kept him warmer than some of his more fair-weathered compatriots.

Kim’s Message tickled his inner ear. “Hey, they got the trapdoor open. I see Ashe heading downstairs to the ground floor, no one else. How about you?”

His eyes swept the mansion. There were six guards on the veranda, two of them near the door, who were seemingly unaware of the situation inside. His position from the tree allowed him to see into the parlor and the foyer on the first floor and the east wing hallway and bedroom on the second floor. And there. A flicker of movement from the dwarven man, moving down the stairwell in the middle.

He Messaged back, “Mordecai’s heading down. I haven’t seen Sashem, which means she’s either getting very good at this or she’s breaking into that room.”

“Let’s hope it’s the former, shall we?”

Five minutes passed in silence as the troupe put their faith in each other to pull off the caper. Then eight minutes. Then ten.

“What is taking them so long?” came a sudden spell from Kim. “In and out. My spell’s not hitting anyone. Can you try?”

Mark put his thumb and forefinger together underneath his chin and straightened out the rest of his hand in the familiar motion of the spell, forming a string of deep purple light.

“Ashe, how-”

Kim’s Message cut across. “Hey, is that a yes or a no?”

Mark rolled his eyes. “It’s a yes. I was just doing it,”

“You’re supposed to say ‘copy’ or something,”

“I can’t talk to both of you at the same time, you know,” The dark-haired half elf could practically hear his friend huff in irritation, but no other Message came through. He began the spell again,

“Ashe, how are you doing in there?”

The older sibling’s reply came back almost instantaneously in a light Marquesian accent. “So, yes, we have a small issue. We did not see a child earlier. The child currently sees us. Sashem is trying bribery.”

The Message cut out just as an ear-piercing shriek rang throughout the area. The guards on the veranda, now alert, turned inward towards the sound and drew their weapons.

“They ran into a kid. Time to leave,” he sent Kim. She cursed, then sent back, “Will you do the distraction or shall I?”

A few magically amplified notes of a dwarvish lullaby played on a fiddle, and a group of guards that had been on the east staircase of the foyer fell to the floor. Probably about half, Mark guessed, letting out a low whistle.

“I can manage. I wonder how much these windows cost?”

The half elf swung himself around the trunk of the oak and flipped onto a branch below with youthful agility, putting the tree between himself and the mansion. He brought his lute forward from his back, dusted his fingers in fine mica from a pouch at his hip, and aimed a Shatter spell at the massive windows. The lute emitted a visible discordant shock wave, directly colliding with its target, and the window burst outward into a mosaic of shrapnel, daggers of glass impaling themselves on the tree and the lawn below. Startled yells came from inside the mansion, and Mark allowed himself a small satisfied smile.

He flung the lute back behind him and leapt down the tree, from branch to oversized branch until his feet hit the soft, firm ground. He glanced quickly at the mansion for any sign of his compatriots. There was scuffling inside, then some groaning as the guards who had been knocked out began to come to. As that happened, three small figures carrying full sacks barreled out from the trapdoor on the top of the mansion and jumped off from the rooftop, their fall slowing gradually as they drew closer to the ground. Kim’s Message came in, hurried but controlled.“Mark, do you see them? I’m down the street ahead of you. I sent a message to Rinwald-- they’re getting ready to blow this place.”

“Yeah, they just hit the ground. We’re going to start running. See you in a minute.” The three other troupe members reached the base of the tree, and Mark stepped out from behind the tree to run alongside them. A hint of steel reflected the beams of the moon as Ashe jumped and instinctively drew a dagger from his hip.

“Nine Hells, you startled me!” Ashe hissed, resheathing the blade.

“What happened in there? What was with the kid?” Mark asked, then winced as a crossbow bolt nicked a pointed ear. Ah fuck, they’d been seen.

Sashem’s animated voice piped up from his left. “So listen, before you cast any judgements here, I have to say that I did wait until we finished our job,”

Her older brother’s irritated reply came from his right. “She went to that locked room we saw earlier,”

“After getting the kitchen! We went down to the kitchen and raided it and we were ahead of schedule and ready to leave. And so I went back up to that second floor and decided to see if I could quickly break into that room.”

Hooves clattered on the stone behind them, and the group turned to see a group of the ambassador’s guards, faintly illuminated by the moonlight, making their way towards the troupe on horseback. Mordecai grabbed Ashe’s hand and led him down an alley to the right, and Mark led Sashem to the left. She did not take a breath as she continued,

“I was in front of the door and had just picked the lock and I turned around and suddenly there was this kid standing right behind me! I don’t know how elves age but he looked like a toddler, at least. Maybe he was my age, though,”

The guards seemed to have split up as well, and shouts came from behind, gaining on them. He saw a house up ahead, covered in a wall of ivy and creeping vines, and gestured towards it. The pair scrambled up the vines and immediately flattened themselves on the roof as a volley of arrows shot upwards at them, none of them hitting their mark.

“Shit!” various people chorused. Mark held up a finger to Sashem, putting her story on hold as he Messaged Kim.

“We’re being chased, are trying to lose them. I have Sashem. The others split off.”

A moment passed before she replied, “Be safe. Let’s try not to have them chase us out of the city.”

Mark nodded to Sashem to continue, and they began running down the roof ridge.

“So anyway, I see this kid and I freeze up. Then I remembered that I still have that chocolate croissant from the other day. And I figured it would buy us some time as we left. So I give the kid the croissant and guess what?”

They jumped between rooftops with practiced ease, the night air cooling them down as sweat beads formed on their foreheads. They were outpacing the guards at this rate, forcing them into dead ends and blocked roads.

“Guess fucking what? It turned out that he was allergic to it. As soon as I gave it to him, his entire hand started swelling up! So he started making a big deal out of it, and next thing I know Ashe is pulling me by the collar. Dropped my croissant too, by the way,”

“How sad,” Mark said, scanning the area to make sure the coast was clear before hopping down a pile of crates and startling a family of rats surrounding an indistinguishable blob; what they had been eating, he did not want to think about.

“It was!” she squeaked indignantly, nimbly landing next to him. The crates provided enough cover for the two of them to duck down behind, and they did so without giving Mark time to register the puddle that he knelt in, prompting a soft sound of disgust from the back of his throat. They caught their breath and waited for a few tense minutes behind the crates until the bard felt confident that the immediate danger had passed.

Sashem broke the silence. “Are we still meeting them at the stables?”

Mark shrugged. “Probably. I think I’m out of range to contact Rinwald, but I can give it a shot.” His fingers touched as his hand formed the familiar motion of the spell, but even as he sent the Message he could tell that it could not find its recipient.

“No response, but now that we have those guys off our backs we should be able to make our way back there without being seen. I don’t know if the guards will be out looking for us near the fucker’s place, but we should assume that they are and try not to draw attention to ourselves as we go.”

His dark-skinned companion nodded in agreement, and so the two stepped gingerly out of the alleyway back onto the street, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the patrolling Verdant Guard. Perhaps it was the chill of the summer night, or the scent of linden on the breeze, or the stiff-necked guards on every corner, or a combination of the three that struck him as familiar. Images of Odessloe with its sharp needle towers came to mind, along with echoes of his former classmates’ laughter and the sharp, self-assured look of his old compatriot. Better memories than he was used to from his time in the city. Before it all went to shit.

Sashem was tapping his forearm urgently, saying something. He had to push the thought away, stay in the moment. He shook his head to clear it.

“Sorry, what?”

“Don’t you hear that?” Sashem asked, pointing down the thoroughfare ahead. The clattering of wagon wheels on stone was growing louder with every second. As he listened for a few seconds more Mark swore that he heard the rumbling of a stampede behind it. A number of Verdant Guards had turned their attention towards the sound as well, and were jogging forward to investigate. Shouts began to be heard down the street.

“How much do you want to bet that that’s our ride?” the half elf grinned, looking down at his younger friend.

Sashem giggled in response. “You’re not getting any of my money today, you dick,”

Kim’s voice suddenly broadcasted itself in Mark’s ear, “Can you hear me now?”

“Subtlety’s out, then. I’m up ahead,”

“Get ready to jump on the wagon. We’re not stopping,”

Mark got into position as the wagon came in sight. Various curses, notes, and bolts were thrown with reckless abandon by the Bilarose troupe and a very large group of armored guards and residential security alike chasing after them on horseback.

“We’re jumping on. Get ready,” The pair of them braced themselves, Sashem adjusting the brown sack on her back. The wagon came closer, and Mark saw Rinwald and Coil hanging off the side of the frame, arms outstretched towards the street. Mordecai had the reins and, as soon as the cart closed the distance of the two on the street, slowed the wagon down slightly. The two sprinted towards the carts and leapt, each grasping a hand on the side of the cart. The wagon wheels rattled beneath Mark. For an instant he saw himself fall off the side of the vehicle and visions of mangled limbs flashed in his mind. And then Coil’s muscular, leopard-spotted arm yanked him into the wagon, and the moment passed.

The wagon rocked precariously as Mordecai turned sharply down to the main avenue, and the inhabitants of the vehicle struggled to maintain their footing as bags and boxes slid across the floor.

“Hey, watch your driving!” Ashe yelled toward the front. Without turning around the dwarf raised his right arm with his middle finger extended. Mark steadied himself on a wooden side, then turned to Rinwald, who was helping Sashem to her feet.

“We’re having a bit of an issue shaking the guards, I see,” the black-haired youth noted. Three more crossbow bolts tore through the fabric of the wagon covering, and in response, Kim, who stood at the back of the wagon, clapped her hands together, and a wave of thunder sounded from behind them, throwing a few guards from their horses and cracking and uplifting the street directly behind the wagon. Ashe took out a blue stone and whispered a few words, then brushed the stone over the tears in the fabric to Mend them.

“They’re a resilient group. It turns out elves don’t fall asleep too easily,” Rinwald replied, eyebrows betraying the worry his otherwise calm demeanor hid.

“I could have told you that,” Kim yelled over her shoulder, narrowly avoiding a bolt to the chest in the process. She tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her slightly pointed ear, then began preparing another spell.

Rinwald continued, “There’s only been a few that have been able to be charmed, and they weren’t the important ones, I’m afraid. This chase may lead outside the city. I should be able to buy us a minute at the front gates with a Hypnotic Pattern, but I think our best course of action is splitting up and confusing our friends back there and lightening the load on the horses. One or two people take the wagon, and the rest split off into two other directions”

“Wait, what if someone gets hurt?” Ashe asked, turning away from the canvas to voice his concern.

“Or caught?” Sashem added, “I’m too young to go to jail,”

Mark thought a moment, evaluating their options. The plan was not a bad one, but it wasn’t necessarily good. But no other plan was coming to mind that would keep everyone out of trouble. If only his Invisibility spell could extend to everyone else. “I can take the wagon. I can heal myself, and if something happens, I can let you know with a Sending. We should have someone who can communicate long-distance in every group in case we need to talk to each other,”

Kim ducked down behind the back hatch, clutching her arm which had a bolt sticking through it. Rinwald and Mark both knelt down in front of her, working together to remove the bolt and weave magic around the area to stop the bleeding. Blood trickled from where she bit her lip as the bolt was pulled through her bicep, and she said, “I can go with Mordecai and Coil, and Rinwald can go with the kids. Mark, are you sure you’re okay alone?”

“As long as you’re okay transporting stolen goods. I’ll go south to throw them off your trails and take the long way back to Everspring,” He finished his Healing Word, and she nodded her thanks.

Rinwald put a firm hand on Mark’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Be safe,” the older man said, and Mark felt a surge of confidence flow through him. Rinwald was trusting him to make it back, and he was not about to betray that trust. They stood up as the main gate came into view. Mark made his way to the driver’s seat, sliding next to Mordecai.

“Did you catch all of that?” The dwarf nodded in confirmation, and offered Mark the reins. The half-elf took them, and Mordecai gave him a quick squeeze before heading towards the back. The wagon was fast approaching the gate.

“Ready when you are!” Mark called.

The guards at the front gate were beginning to close the portcullis. With a flick of the reins Mark urged the horses to speed up. They would make it easily, probably with about half of their pursuers as well. The wagon wheels clattered as they hit the bridge leading up to the gate. A few guards made a desperate attempt to stop the cart by stepping out in front of it, but with a quick Suggestion which, thank the gods, worked on these guards, Mark was able to clear the way for the troupe’s vehicle to exit the city.

“Now!” Rinwald yelled as soon as they reached the end of the bridge. Mark slowed the cart down so that the rest of his troupe could disembark. He spared a moment to look back as the last person on board, Kim, began to dismount. She gave him a dramatic salute with a half-cocked smile as the kaleidoscope of a Hypnotic Pattern flashed behind her, and he returned the gesture. She hopped off, and Mark immediately snapped the reins, starting the wagon forward once more.

To his satisfaction, the plan went off as well as he could have hoped. The group of twenty or so guards followed the wagon south into the Verdant Expanse, where he was able to lose the crowd within the hour. Eventually, he was able to slow the horses down to a comfortable trot, and make his way down the Viburnum Trail. The path through the Viburnum Waters added a day to the trip, a fuzzy memory told him, so he opted to go right at the fork and pass through the town of Phandolin. There, he could restock on food and get some proper rest in two to three days time. And so he settled into the drivers seat for the long journey ahead.

#the upstarts #the upstarts story #dnd #dungeons and dragons #writing #taldorei campaign

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theupstartsparty · 6 years ago

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Opening

Phandolin was a small village sitting on the windward base of the Stormcrest mountain range. It had a settled population of one hundred and forty one and covered an area of somewhere between one and a third to one and a half square miles, depending on which cartographer you consulted about the matter. Most of its inhabitants were either human or mostly human, with the few exceptions of dwarves that worked the quarries.

Its main export was the pink marble found there, which was excavated from the base of Mount Wynver and was the medium Lord Elin Tremoya most often worked with to create his remarkably lifelike statues of the fey creatures he had occasionally seen while walking through the woods with his wife. The Lord and Lady were just figureheads for this town, of course. The real political power rested in an annually rotated position of Magistrate. That year, the Kilbrand family, a group of half-orcs who worked the Jukasi grove, had been granted the position, and so the magistrate was their eldest son Earl, who was prone to barricading himself in his office for days at a time to avoid responsibilities.

Phandolin had three main venues for selling and trading merchandise; a smithy, which was run by the Vesu clan and catered mostly to the quarry and the Alverez farm; the Miner’s Exchange, in which you could, upon occasion, find a bead of onyx or a nail-sized fire amethyst making its rounds in the midst of the marble and limestone dust; and Prescott’s Provisions, which picked up the rest of the slack with imported food and clothing and whatever else was needed for the season. All three of these were visited on the regular by the Tremoya’s niece, who would quickly inundate the employees with information about her latest project before disappearing back into the manor for days at a time until either a tone of interference or a deafening explosion sounded in the area.

A temple to the Dreambound sat in the town square, where the elven Sister Petra educated the younger members of the village. They were taught arithmetic, how to scribe legibly, what sorts of wild growing plants were safe to eat and what could make a mountain troll drop dead in an instant, about the basic tenets of the community faith, about the fey creatures who surrounded the village and protected it from evil, and about the history of the village from the days of the Mad King to the present day.

People were free to wander in and out as they chose for a rest, as the temple was nearly overflowing with lush pillows, soft blankets, and jewel colored hammocks. There was divinity in respite, the proverb went. And for those who desired to play with dreams while awake, the temple also was the town center for wagers and bets, though the fighting pit at the Rugged Quartz Tavern proved to be a close second. Fortune and sleep share a meeting ground in dreams, and the temple was a testament to that intersection.

The Easthill Inn was the only place in town to house the rare traveller. A pair of human siblings, Toblin and Arabella Easthill, ran the joint and kept it in pristine condition. The Easthills woke up at six in the morning daily to prepare breakfast for a group of local miners as well as any guest who had stayed the night.

The guests were more often than not merchants, either restocking Prescott’s Provisions or looking to obtain raw materials for building or artisanal work. Toblin would solicit tales of their journeys and excitedly write them down in a roughly bound notebook. Frequently, the stories embellished the perils of the journey from Everspring or Illan Dorai, though in a removed village like Phandolin any entertainment was welcome, and Toblin rarely chose to question his guests.

There was one night when four travellers converged upon that small inn. Toblin’s sight had caught the yellow gaze and puckish grin of the tiefling man who had come in with a spaced-out looking elf, the latter who wandered upstairs as his companion paid for the two of them. The innkeeper’s flirtations were interrupted, once by the lute-playing one who had come in right before the pair who asked for a place to stable his horse and carriage, and then once more at midnight as he began to lead the charming tiefling to his room and a hooded figure in white armor came in from the rain, asking for a room.

It was only then that peculiarity of the situation crossed Toblin’s mind, but the hand touching the small of his back threw any question (and any other thought) out of his head, and he drew his guest into his quarters and closed the door behind them.

#the upstarts #the upstarts story #dnd #dungeons and dragons #writing #taldorei campaign

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