Act I, Chapter One: A Rumor in the Dark

GREYBARROW | THE THIRSTY LANTERN | RAIN-SWEPT NIGHT

A coppery smear still glistened on the floor, mute testament to earlier violence. The tavern door swung open, and the scent of sweat, cider, and spilled blood twisted in the dangerous night’s air.

Azote stepped quickly, moving forward, slender hand raised. Her voice rang out in Elvish, crisp and clear, as her fingers etched a sharp sigil in the air.

With a ‘shluck’, the worn cobblestone glistened as if oiled by some unseen cook. Jasir skidded mid-stride.

"Godsdammit—!"

He toppled, legs splaying as he hit the stone with a thud, though he managed to keep his limbs from tangling too badly.

Behind him, the Collaborator had no such fortune. Already swaying with injury, he tried to pivot—then slipped hard, slamming into the ground with an audible crack. His head bounced once on the cobbles, then he lay still.

For a heartbeat, the city stilled.

Then movement resumed, cautious, nerves rattling. The party begins their ‘clean up’ after the short but harrowed fight.

BEFORE HALFLING WAKES UP:


Petra is relieved that someone already managed a life-saving tourniquet on the halfling's arm above the elbow. But also horrified by the traumatic injury. "Thank you, whomever saved his life? But I fear to physically survive and to mentally survive losing an arm are two different things," she murmurs.


Nearby the orc's final collaborator falls for Azote's clever spell trick (a nasty wet smack of head on cobbles announces that man shall likely die too) and the loss of life to Aryth is painful as always. But the dwarrow must focus on her patient.


She starts gently chafing various limbs to restore the movement of blood, a technique from her grandmother...it works, he's waking!


Over her shoulder to her entire party she asks hesitantly, "Should we, do you think---do we try to make this look like the orc and two men attacked each other? Perhaps leave all their belongings here, so there is no evidence someone left the scene of the crime? Or can we not afford that, like are we too...short on time and supplies?"



AFTER HALFLING STIRS/OPENS EYES:

First the dwarrow tries to reassure her patient. "You are safe now. The brute who almost took your life is dead. I am Petra and my friends and I are on your side."


Next she checks for signs of disorientation. "What is your name, or nickname if you prefer? Do you know what month this is, or is it hard to remember?"


OOC:

DC is 15 to restore a target below 0 HP to consciousness and 1 HP above 0, w/ Natural Healer Feat

"We step away to grab some damn supplies, and come back to this mess. What in the Shadow happened here?"

Without waiting for an answer, he moves toward the unconscious bodies scattered across the floor. He crouches beside each one and starts removing weapons, pouches, or anything else they might use if they wake up angry. Blades are set aside, coin purses pocketed, and he gives each body a quick, methodical pat-down.

Tork lands on the collaborator and pronounces in Erenlander that "He looks like he is going to out for quite a while." Azote proceeds to deal with the Halfling. (I'm assume goodberry & cure wounds isn't powerful enough to rejoin a lost limb.) She places a goodberry into his mouth to be swallowed and casts a cure light wounds upon him. Fairly sure that aid will bring the Halfling around to conscious. Azote has dismissed the grease so no one else suffers it.

"That is the best I can do for this poor Halfling."

Petra stammers out after the elf's merciful healing that seals the wounds as though they'd had months of recovery,


"You-you're very kind and I admire it and I am sure he'll be grateful, Azote. But we're in a city, and I think you may have spent more time in the wilderness and outskirts?

"Using magic in a city or village is like lighting a fire, and the more spells--that is logs--you throw on it, the higher the flames get and the farther the smoke drifts, and the more visible from farther away you see what I mean? The spirit-sniffers and the astiraxes they are always honing in on magic, so we just need to be careful, right?

"Not scolding you, I just mean it's best to take care to perform magic in secluded places like the cellar, through barriers that might block the astiraxes and spirit-sniffers senses better, for example?"



Unfortunately she's too focused on Azote and the halfling to answer the question [by Varin] of what happened here, so she hopes someone else will do it soon.

Azote replies back, "I believe it was safe in here for now. And it had to be done." and mentally calls Tork back to her. She then cloaks herself again. She smiles as she hands Petra a goodberry from her supply, "This will do you well." Azote is touch busy and let's question by Varin slide.

Seelah drags the unconscious thug back into the tavern. Keep all our business out of the street, she thinks to guardian-minded self!

Producing a length of rope from her pack, she ties the colab’s habds behind his back. Our ebony guardian has some questions for him, when he wakes up!

Jasir eventually wins free of the grease and begins moving to help drag the collaborator and any fallen weapons back to the comparatively safe confines of the tavern. The check he gives over the man's vitals is short and not designed to resuscitate. "Please forgive my late hour of arrival. I was delayed. Will some one sum up just whom our guests might be?" he asks with a tilt of his head.

While his manner of dress does not lend itself to ease of recognition, Jasir's voice and bearing are distinct enough to be recognizable. Vaguely accented, but with a perfect cadence.

He seems to regard the overall scene for a long moment before glancing upwards to contemplate the middle distance.

Úlfr picks up the shortsword the dead man dropped at his feet. He then moves to the orc to collect the vardatch that was swung at his head. "A fine trophy I claim from foes fairly slain."

The halfling’s breath hitched. He blinked against the rain, against the blur of a world upended, and when his eyes met Petra’s—his were full of animal panic.

"Was I... still at the door. I—I heard a knock, and then—"

"M-m-my arm—" His voice cracked, raw from a scream that had long since burned its way out of his throat. "H-he laughed, the orc laughed—"

His fingers scrabbled feebly toward the ruin at his side, then froze, hovering, as if unwilling to confirm what absence he already knew.

"It’s gone. It’s gone."

Tefli curled in on himself, teeth chattering not just from cold but from the shock surging through every nerve. The beginnings of a sob wormed their way through his throat, but no tears came, just the kind of hiccuping gasp that toddlers make when they’ve cried themselves out.

"You said—safe? I—I was just supposed to warn if anyone came. Just that. A signal, they said, I didn’t know, I swear it, I didn’t know they were—"

He cut himself off, staring blankly past Petra’s shoulder as though trying to reassemble the last ten minutes from blood-smudged puzzle pieces.

"I said the words. They knew the passphrase."

"Are the others safe?" he whispered, barely audible. "Is Wexley...?"

He then brings the vardatch down to behead the orc as poetry demands.

The goodberry's sweetness melts across the halfling's tongue as he swallows reflexively. A flush of warmth follows Azote's healing spell, mending torn flesh, slowing the red tide. Color seeps back into his cheeks. The shivering ebbs.

But the eyes, the eyes don’t change.

He stares up at Azote and Petra with a gaze far too wide for his small face, as if the world has been turned inside-out and only he remembers what it looked like before.

"I was... it was a quiet. Just rain and gull-calls. I was tracing shapes in the scum on the barrel." His voice has lost none of its tremble. He looks down, hand instinctively groping the air beside his body—then stopping, again, at the absence.

He swallows, flinching as if the act itself causes pain.

"I didn’t scream. Think I couldn’t, maybe. Not with the breath punched out of me. Thought I was drowning in my own blood. Wasn’t supposed to—this wasn’t supposed to—"

Then, quieter, as if even that plea was a trespass:

"Will they still let me stay? I—I can’t watch the door anymore. I'm marked, they'll eat the rest of me..."

Same with the dead thug, as efficient a beheading as possible, "One and two, through and through. Darkness shall not rise." He sings quietly.

Seelah finished tying up her prisoner. Then, with pity in her voice, she asks the halfling, Who, small one, who will eat you?

I am a guardian, and will protect you as best I can!

Jasir returns from wherever his thoughts have taken him. He glances briefly over the scene once more and upon seeing Ulfr retrieving the vardatch speaks. "Ah you found something that is up to the task. Would you mind-," escapes his masked face just as the giant northerner brings the vardatch down to remove the orc's head. "-I see you've had a similar idea," he finishes with a slight shrug of his shoulders before adding. "The tethered dead are best avoided."

With that bit out of the way, the Sarcosan contemplates the kits and weaponry of the collaborators and the orc. He then gestures towards the one who'd been brained on the stones outside. "Do we require information from this one? I believe I have some understanding, but not all."

"Wexley is safe, he is here. Can you stand, and I will take you to him?" Petra's face softens as she helps the disoriented halfling stand up, and leads him with her arm over his shoulders over to Wexley Thorn.


The dwarrow flinches along the way toward Wexley Thorn as the axe separates the orc's head from his neck. A wise precaution against the Fell curse. When combined with the pragmatic looting the other fellow is doing, it also fully answers her question of whether they are going to stage the scene that the orc and men simply fought each other---that would a be NO. It had been a distant hope and a longshot anyway.


To Wexley she says,

"I hope you can help recall him back to himself, and that he does not have to stay anywhere alone tonight. But the shock and trauma are, as you can imagine, intense. Azote has him well fed, and that should help, by means of her talent?" (She puts emphasis on the last word, although it's a good bet Wexley saw and understood the whole thing.)


Only after checking for permission with Wexley in whispered Trader's Tongue does she tell the full story of what happened that night to the two latest arrivals.


Returning to Jasir and Varin, she says to them:

In discreetly low tones, "You asked to be filled in? Wexley Thorn--" she indicates the gnome elder with a nod, "met with us in the cellar, along with Serah." (Another indicating nod.)

"Our elder Thorn possesses a map and is recruiting us--and you, I presume?--to go to Ishensa Basin on an eel-fishing boat to seek a legendary weapon against the Shadow. A fellow down in the cellar warned us about an ambush upstairs. We were met with violence by the two humans and the orc. How the halfling fellow met his fate I believe you can work out..." She suppresses a shiver.

Azote exited from the healed Halfling as fast as she could with hopes that he didn't get a firm glimpse of her as surely being an elf marks her. He no doubt was out of it to understand that she has given him the goodberry and casted magic to heal him. She lets Petra deal with him.

Azote watches from her hooded cloaked self as well as Tork with its head slightly visible and looking onward track what is happening. Cloaked Azote doesn't do much of anything but step aside to a wall. By looks she prefers all to not really pay attention to her presence. She feels that she has already exposed her elven side as well magic casting (talent) more than she wished. It just further marks her among those present. Her trademarked emerald, green eyes watch.

More of her efforts against the shadow this evening. This time, the shadow will not know it was her as the collaborate didn't live the evening which is what she prefers. She has no love of any that side with the shadow. She already has the ire of shadows against trademarked her for decades of efforts.

Elven Azote is anxious to follow the map which she has committed to her memory and currently waits for the mess about to be cleaned up. She takes note of new people that seem to have arrived during the mess. She wonders if Jasir remembers her. And surprised to note that Varin is here too! Fate is a fickle critter.

GREYBARROW | THIRSTY LANTERN | RAIN-SWEPT NIGHT

Thunder rolls overhead, rattling half-shattered panes. The tavern smells of cordite, cider and fear, every breath misting in the draught. In the pooling lantern-glow Petra slips a steady arm beneath the halfling’s shoulders.

The halfling lies propped against Petra’s bundled cloak where Serah wedged him out of the foot-traffic. Blood still drips from the hastily tied bandage, but magic has stemmed it's flow. His remaining hand fumbles at empty air, as though reaching for the arm that is no longer there.

The dwarf’s wool cloak bunches like a sling; with a grunt she heaves, bracing Tefli’s uninjured side against her hip. His bare feet scrabble for purchase across splintered boards, knees buckling until Petra’s stout frame takes his weight.

"M-m-my… name? Ah—T-Tefli…" The syllables skitter like frightened crabs. Is it still Storm-month? I—can’t—cold… so cold…

He hears Seelah’s steady question about safety, but all he manages is a damp nod and a broken whisper:

"Safe… yes… leave the door to me next time… ‘Storm’s hungry’… I—I’ll say it right, I swear…"

Each step jostles the stump; Azote’s healing keeps it closed, but shock drips from the halfling like rainwater. His eyes fix on Seelah’s towering silhouette.

"Safe, keeper? Door’s shut, door’s… shut…" He trails off, lashes fluttering.

Wexley Thorn

The gnome’s spectacles glint with lattern-fire as he addresses Tefli, beard trailing. He spares only a glance toward the trapdoor where Bran’s shadow still lingers.

"Easy, lad. You’ve done more than enough." His tone tries for warmth and lands nearer grief. Fingers flick a subtle diagnostic cantrip—no flare of magic, just habit—before he rises, cloak snapping wetly.

"We'll do what we can, Lass." He says to Petra, "He'll have to ride the barge with us for a spell, poor lad hasn't got anyone in Greybarrow aside from those in this room."

"We’ve stirred every nest in Greybarrow: grease spells, barrels flying, steel singing. Izrador’s Eyes will be sniffing this tavern by dawn—if not sooner."

The map, still tight in his fist, thuds against his thigh.

"Gather what you own. The barge casts off when the witch-light touches the third mast—twenty, maybe thirty minutes."

Serah of the Loom

The elder’s shawl hangs heavy with cellar damp, but her spine is willow-straight, as she hand's Petra another pouch, "A tonic for shock, boil two slices, child." She gestures at Tefli, then turns to Wexley. Shawl pockets produce a coil of twine and a bone needle; she pockets them again, as though even these might buy a moment’s healing later.

"I ride the barge beside you after all, old friend. Someone must pack the wound when river spray loosens the turniquet." Her eyes flick upward to the shredded rafters.

She stoops, whispers a lullaby verse into the halfling’s ear, and presses a thumb of salt beneath his tongue, an old healer’s trick to keep shock victims anchored to taste and breath.

Below, the cellar yawns like the throat of some buried beast. Bran remains at the old table, helm still covering his face. Oil-lamp light crawls across dented iron.

Bran

"Hold fast, Elise... I stride darker paths than these for you." The words scarcely leave his mouth, more steam than sound. His gauntlet taps the hilt of his sheathed sword—one, two, three—then stills.

He did not block their exit—true to his word—but neither does he climb. Instead he sinks deeper onto the decrepit table, cloak pooling like spilled ink, and lets the storm’s distant thunder answer for him. The cellar air grows colder around his silence.

After slipping the blood-slick dagger into his belt and stuffing the looted rations into his pack, Varin grabs the dead orc by one arm and starts dragging the heavy corpse across the bloodstained floorboards. His boots thud dully with each step. He hauls the body to the cellar door, heaves it over the edge, and lets it drop with a dull, wet thump.

Then he turns to the dead collaborator—human, likely local, doesn’t matter anymore. Varin doesn’t flinch as he grabs the body by the collar and repeats the process, the sound of flesh sliding over wood and bone clunking down the stairs echoing in the quiet tavern.

Reaching down, he picks up the orc’s severed head and boots it down the cellar after the body. The second head follows with a hard kick and a satisfying thud against the steps.

"If Izrador’s Eyes are coming," Varin mutters coldly, "we’ll make ‘em dig for their answers."

With the bodies disposed of, he starts moving through the wreckage of the tavern, checking behind the bar, kicking open storage crates, and rifling through any cabinets that haven’t been smashed. His focus is on anything useful for the road—food, tools, gear—but his eyes linger on shelves for anything strong enough to burn on the way down or the tavern.

Bran doesn’t even shift when the orc’s carcass thuds beside his boot. Another body follows, then the heads, rolling to rest against the keg he’s using for a seat.

"Stack them high if it pleases you," he rasps, voice hollow inside the helm.

The corpses are obstacles for someone else—markers of sin, yet to be committed, born this night. The question hangs in his mind if they will ever be cleansed.