A Matter of Faith - part II

16th of Ambyrmont (first month of Autumn), Gromdain

The wheels of the covered carriage groaned as they struggled through the mud. The rain was growing steadily worse, soaking your clothes, and those of the rider on top of the carriage. Automn has finally arrived in Karameikos, and grey skies, sharp winds, and bad roads was the best you can hope for, until the weather will turn even worse once Winter arrives.

The old Patriarch takes refuge inside the carriage throughout the entire trip. He is an old man, and walking the entire distance to the last civilized settlement on the edge of the realm was behind his power, even if the weather was fine. Besides, sitting inside the carriage allowed him to travel incognito, with only a handful of loyal guards riding inside with him. He insisted on avoiding any attention, in fact. Any public movement would risk drawing more zealots from Kelvin, or even just multitude of devotees who would insist on traveling with him, which would make everything more complicated.

A few days into the journey, not long after passing the outskirts of Kelvin, you are forced to halt. The Duke’s road is blocked by several men in wet cloaks and worn leathers. They are all busy dragging bloated, limp bodies of goblins from the road. Dozens and dozens of them, the corpses turning the already muddy road into a grisly barricade.

What do you do?

The men looked up at you, water streaming from their hoods and cloaks. One of them, a broad-shouldered Traladran with a thick beard, approached, giving Miyana a wary eye when he sees her drawing her bow

"Goblins. They’ve been getting bolder and bolder. Seen all up and down the Duke’s Road lately. This lot probably thought they could raid the farms near Kelvin" he grunted, raising his voice over the raging rainstorm "Kelvin's men cut them down quick enough. They rode back into town like proud heroes, and left us to clean up the mess"

Another man muttered something under his breath as he rolled a goblin limb off the road.

"It’s gonna take us a bit to clear the path… unless you’re willing to lend a hand."

The next leg of your journey is nothing short of miserable.

The land north of Kelvin is even more sparsely populated. The tiny farms and roadside inns of southern Karaemeikos are now a distant memory, replaced by open fields surrounded by wild forests. The Duke’s road continues forward, cutting through the wilderness, but there is little life or civilization along it. The few scattered hamlets have dwindled, or are too far off the road to bother seeking them out. There is no warm inn and a cozy bed waiting for you at the end of the day.

The rain that hasn’t stopped since you left Specularum has only grown worse. Even the best of your cloaks are heavy and useless now. Your bedrolls are soggy, you are completely soaked, and there is no way to light a fire when there is no shelter or dry wood to be found

The Patriach rides in the covered carriage drawn by two exhausted horses, which offers him some protection from the elements, but its cramped and barely large enough for him and his two faithful retainers. Even he, wrapped in thick robes and sheltered from the rain, looks pale and weary. He offers you a prayer for your health each night, and you suspect that it is only due to divine intervention that none of you has succumbed to pneumonia by now, or worse.

This day has been just as bad as the last couple, but at least brightened by the knowledge that you can’t be more than a day travel from a roadside inn, where you might catch your breath for a while.

You pull off the road to make camp as best you can in a small clearing beside a rain-swollen stream. The ground is soaked, and even setting up a tent in the strong wind would still mean your bedrolls will end up in the mud.

What are your sleeping arrangements?

And more importantly, do you set up a watch, and who takes which one?

Miyana

You sit by the dim magical light Barns conjured up, all cold and wet, trying to stay alert through the miserable night. Then you hear it. Footsteps, just outside the edge of the light. Something is sniffing, like a large animal, but not quite. You can't see beyond the glare of the light, and whatever is out there is getting closer

What do you do?

A hulking figure lumbers out of the darkness, into the glow of the magical light. Towering nearly ten feet tall, with sickly green skin stretched over thick muscles and clawed fingers on his long arms. It doesn't stop to growl, or threaten them. Instead, it lunges forward with terrifying speed, straight for the nearest adventurer

The troll's thick hide deflects Will's blade, and the few wounds you manage to inflict begin to close almost instantly. The creature roars when a sudden burst of blinding light flashes in front of its eyes. It staggers and flails its massive arms in wide arcs. It snarls in frustration, disoriented and unable to see, before it decides to turn and flee into the darkness.

The troll is gone, and the rest of the journey passed without further danger, though not without hardship. By the time you reach Threshold you are all cold, soaked, and tired. The guards at the gate eye all of you with suspicion, especially those of you carrying weapons. They are all very jumpy, and warn you that Baron Theodorou enacted a curfew starting at sundown, and that no one is allowed on the streets after dark, without exception.

Once they wave you through the approach the closed carriage carefully, knocking on the sliding door so they could see who is riding inside.

What do you do?

Boudica

It takes Boudica a long while to track Moryana down. It is late in the afternoon and people are already hurrying inside before the curfew starts. That, and the pouring rain, means there is barely anyone outside to give her directions. She finally manages to find someone who knows where she is staying (luckily for her, Threshold is pretty small, and most everyone knows everyone). A few minutes later she finds herself in front of a door to a shabby Traladaran house.

What do you do?

OOC:
@WanderOne - Barns is an educated Wizard. Even a 'polymorph self' - a 4th-level spell!, doesn't allow one to take the form of a specific creature. Maybe an exceedingly powerful wizard managed to invent a more powerful spell that does, but it is highly unlikely. Sirilia is likely saying the truth when she says no elf she knows possesses such power.

*******

You walk down the streets of Threshold a day later, herding some twenty sheep in the light rain, which is little more than a fine mist that hour of the morning.

When you reach the city gate you spot the long line of townsfolk stretching out before the stables. Men and women of all ages patiently waiting despite the drizzle to meet the Patriarch himself. The holy father has chosen to sit not inside the grand stone church, but at a lowly stable, so no poor soul would feel uncomfortable approaching him, or be forced to enter a building dedicated to the worship of a different faith than theirs in order to receive his blessing.

There are whispers in the crowd about how he healed Bogdan the leper with a touch of his band, and poor Vasili had his eyesight restored to his. People are in awe, and all are hopeful that he could help them too

Which is why you, and your sheep, don't get much more than a curious look. People are more focused on the slow progress of the line that a bleating herd of sheep leaving the city, rather than entering it

******

It takes you a full five days to get to the burial mound. The flock of sheeps slows you down, annoyingly wandering to graze the ferns and grass as you walk through the dense forest. It takes all of you to make sure they dont stray too far, and at least a couple of you have to stay awake each night to make sure your herd doesn't race away at the sounds of wolves howling at the moon.

On the sixth day the trees finally thin near the familiar stream, and soon you spot the burial mound, half swallowed by the earth. You smell it before you ever reach it; the familiar rancid stench that is almost unbearable.

The ground near the entrance is littered with scattered bones and skulls sinking into the mud, and the severed head of a boar impaled on a pointy stick at the very mouth of the cave is crawling with hundreds of buzzing flies.

Darius 'volunteers' to stay back and watch over the sheep, while the few brave souls among you step through the narrow entrance. You barely take a few steps forward before you notice dozens of red eyes staring at you through the darkness.

There is some movement between them, before a dry voice hisses at you in broken Traladaran:

"What you want?"

The goblin cavern smells even worse inside than it does outside. The stench is nearly unbearable, a suffocating mixture of dung and rotting flesh and unwashed bodies. The sheep are herded into the old knight's tomb, which now lies vacant. The sarcophagus has been opened and looted, and now served as a latrine for the goblins

Red eyes glint at the darkness, all around you. And once the sheep are safely inside, the goblins become more and more belligerent, purposely bumping into you, blocking your path with their bodies, and cursing at you everytime they are forced to scurry away.

What do you do?

The passage to the west leads into the 'inner chamber', where the carrion stench is so bad the sheep themselves bleat and stop in their tracks. The stone sarcophagi along the walls have been cracked and toppled, some of them pried open, with the lids now broken and shattered. The interiors now serve as sleeping, or fire, pits, and storage for food and other worthless junk. A skeleton or two remained complete, but most have parts missing - maybe to be found in the heap of bones mixed with refuse and gnawed animal carcasses sitting at the corner of the room.

The goblins themselves swarm around you like vermin. Many sit near the broken sarcophagi, gnawing on bones, or crouching near the fires. They curse and snarl at you when you pass by, even spitting deliberately at your boots, but none of them is bold enough to attack you.

Yet.

What do you do?

Boudica finds that properly searching the room would take time, and would involve shooing the goblins away from their make-shift dens, and even then, there is no telling what and where they might have hidden something of importance (you can assume anything valuable is likely tucked away somewhere, out of your prying eyes). Spears (or rather, sharpened sticks), soon appear in the goblins hands, when Will starts waving his swords around, and Barns holds the hilt of his. The goblins become more and more belligerent, and there are more of them coming from every nook and cranny in the cavern.

What do you do?

The stench coming from the other side of the tomb is overwhelming. The entire far side of it has been reduced to a reeking cesspit, where generations upon generations of goblins relieved themselves without restraint. The floor isn't even stone anymore, but a swamp of dung. Your feet sink deeper with every step, making a sickening 'squelch' as you advance forward.

The faint slope of the ground suggests that if you dare to press farther, you would sink even deeper, perhaps up to your waist, or perhaps deeper still. The buzzing of the flies is so loud you have to raise your voices to hear each other; there are so many that soon they start swarming over you as well, and no amount of swatting would keep them from landing over your eyes, mouths, and bare skin.

But at least the goblins didn't follow you down the tunnel. They stopped in the intersection, spears held up high, blocking your way back.

What do you do?