Chronicle: Session 10

Day breaks, and the party's still sleeping off the night before! It's even late morning by the time Faeleth wakes - by elven standards, it's a serious lie-in. She lays around for the next couple of hours awkwardly, as one does when one stays over at someone else's place for the first time. She uses the time to ruminate on the events of the past few days...especially what happened with the goblins. She went too far there, and she knows it. It's disconcerting to realise how easy it comes to her now, the killing, turning off the part of her that registers that the people at the end of her sword (...or her torch held over a slick of oil...) are people. They were innocent. She can't do that again.

Eventually Tsalta and Nothing stir into groggy wakefulness. Faeleth feigns having just woken too, again, as you do, stretching with perhaps a little exaggeration - "Mooorning."

Tsalta's feeling a little rough after the night's drinking, and wanders outside in search of some dew to rub her face in before even saying a word to her companions. It being summer, and practically noon, what little grass is available is dry, much to her disgruntlement! However, there's the distinctive clank of cowbells as her position face-down in the grass attracts the attention of some curious highland cows and calves, and that lightens her mood considerably as they set to munching beside her. She fusses over them and braids their hair until a bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed Nuth emerges from the house to ask where she can find some water. "Y'got anything to drink?"

Apparently there's a bucket over that-a-way, and so Nuth seeks it out and downs the contents, for which she feels much improved! (Blessedly, it is a bucket of Totally Regular Water. No piss-buckets here!) When Faeleth goes to take her fill, Nuth's...kind of drained the whole thing, so they go out to ask if there's a well nearby. Tsalta nods, "Right in the middle of town, straight down that road." She points the way. Faeleth offers to take the bucket, and Nuth hands it over, and away the elf goes.

Tsalta pops back indoors to nudge Spindle awake. "Five more minutes..." He's got a banging headache, and he grumbles with discontent as he gets to his feet...

Meanwhile, Tsalta knocks on her father's door, to no response. She opens the door and peers in...from her thirty-year absence clouding her memory, she remembers only at the last moment that her father had a proclivity to sleep in the nude. Blessedly, he's not there, his bed made up - oh yeah, he's probably gone to work by now!

Spindle, still far from properly awake, finds himself scooped up and placed into Tsalta's hair in the time it takes to say "Have you got any water?"

"The girls are going to get some. ...You've had far too much to drink, pal." And with that, she sets off! Spindle spots a stein still half full on the floor, but no, Tsalta's right. He's not feeling it. They collect Nothing, who had been outside, a little endeared to these funny shaggy cows, and who had been feeding them tufts of grass and getting her hand slobbered all over for her efforts. (It was gross, but still they're pretty cute.)

And so the party reconvenes in the middle of the horseshoe formation of houses that creates the 'center of town'. And there is, indeed, the well, where Faeleth is in the process of bringing up the bucket.

Tsalta leans on the wellside with a little grin. "Soooo. How's everyone's heads?"

"Not too bad," Nuth shrugs, and Faeleth agrees. Tsalta laughs. "Spindle's *bad*, man!"

Nothing snorts, and addresses the shuffling lump in Tsalta's braided locks - "Just be glad you didn't end up trapped in a barrel this time, kid."

Faeleth gets her drink, and Tsalta proceeds to chug the entireity of the remaining water. Big gal, big post-drink thirst! She plunges the bucket back into the well and hoiks it up again...it's high time Spindle woke up, and how better to snap him out of his grogginess than a brisk cold shock!

Spindle gets the rude awakening of his cosy surroundings being immediately drenched, and flails his way to indignant consciousness, scrambling to an undignified landing on the floor. (There is a plus-side - the moisture draws forth a very pleasant wave of lavender scent from Tsalta's immaculate braids. Lovely!) He asks for more water! Tsalta draws another bucket, which she pops on the floor for the gnome to drink from. He dunks his whole head in it.

The strange-looking new folk in town are definitely getting some looks at this point, between the auburn-haired giant, the little grey boy with his face in a bucket who just struggled clear of her hair, and the scarlet girl with horns and a tail...it's quite the scene! Some children giggle at Spindle's plight, and Tsalta gives them a wave, as does Nothing, enjoying the attention. Tsalta's gleeful exclamation and huge waving arms, unfortunately, do spook a few of them, who run away from this HUGE GESTICULATING GIANT LADY. Aww.

It's odd, actually, talking of ladies. There seem to be no menfolk in town - the people roaming the noonday streets are all women and children.

From the mountain, distantly, sounds the deep chime of some large bell. The party look up, unsure of the source of the sound, but Faeleth....vaguely...knows where it came from. She points in a wide sweep of her arm when Tsalta asks if anyone could tell of its origin - "It came from over.....that...general...area."

Something about that sound makes Tsalta uneasy - the mountains contain the mines, is something amiss? - and she suggests we make our way there. Just to see what's going on. And as the party approach, it becomes more and more apparent that there's some kind of scene - people are moving towards the direction of the bell, some walking, some at speed, some dwarven women handing children over to others so they can drop what they're doing and run towards the mountainside.

Some of the people rushing to the mines are carrying picks, some shovels, and Tsalta reaches out to one of their shoulders - "What's going on?"

"Been a cave-in." It's matter-of-fact. The dwarf hurries on. The source of Tsalta's immediate unease from that resolves itself with pinpoint clarity: that bell signals a cave-in at the mines, a sign for the townsfolk to come and lend aid. Her panic rises - her da!

As Tsalta rushes forth (sped only further by Spindle magically aiding her stride), the others make chase, following her huge form towards the mines. As they crest the hill, they can see there's a buzz of activity around the opening to the mine, and here the male dwarves are, many of them organising others and handing out picks. Tsalta rushes up to one - "Do you have a spare pickaxe?"

"A spare pickaxe? Of course, take your pick!" And not heeding the unintentional pun one bit (though the players themselves are another story), Tsalta grabs one and heads forward, into what seems to be the center of this relief operation. There are dwarves hefting rocks out of the cave along a sort of human (sorry, dwarven) conveyor - it seems the cave-in must be further down, and the efforts are mainly getting the blockage clear of the tunnel itself. Must be big.

Spindle clambers out of Tsalta's hair and scampers into the cave. She raises a hand, "Spindle, wait! You'll get lost, you don't know your way around!" He lends her no heed, and so she enters behind him, Nuth trailing behind, unsure what to do to help, and Faeleth following after.

Nuth is given a way to help! They've barely entered the tunnel, but Tsalta stoops to her and says, "I don't want to go in here, but I have to...can you be a source of light, please?" Eager to help, she whips out a torch and lights it. Tsalta turns back momentarily to address Faeleth, too. "I know this could be dangerous, you don't have to come with me."

No, no, they want to help.

"Then bring as much light as ye can!"

A cry rings out from further in - "Wait! Somebody stop him!" Spindle's clearly barged past someone down there.

Tsalta calls out, "Sorry, he's a little shit, we'll get him, sorry!" and the dwarf recognises the hulking figure rushing down-tunnel. ("Tsalta! You've got this, aye?" "Aye!")

The half-goliath may have 'got this', but this is the first time she's voluntarily entered such a dark, confined space, and her composure slips more by the step. Under her breath she mutters a litany of pleas and curses, "Ohfuckohfuck, ohhhh shit oh holy Dunatis," but she marches on, occasionally entreating Spindle to *please* slow down.

Spindle, as he passes a tunnel offshoot, catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye that he could have sworn was...canine in shape. He pauses. Could be a trick of the shadows. He takes a few steps back and passes by again, but it doesn't repeat itself, so he pays it no mind and carries on deeper into the main tunnel.

Slightly less deep into the tunnel, Tsalta's scared shitless, her big hands trembling as she forces herself ever onwards because damn it, Spindle. Faeleth lays a hand reassuringly on her arm, though it does little to calm her. Nuth does her best to help provide more light, the torch flaring into whiter, brighter flames with a little arcane assistance. "Is that better?"

It's brighter, but brighter light casts deeper shadows and Tsalta is so rattled and jumpy that with every flare of the light she shies away from even her own shadow if she catches sight of it, perpetually in fear of some creature of the dark ready to assail her. The party passes more dwarves, none of them with torches - who needs them with darkvision, and a torch would fill a hand that could otherwise contain a pick or a sack or that could be used to heft a boulder.

Spindle himself is getting harder to see, breaking further from the party and even with everyone's keen vision, he almost blends with the stone itself at times before he shifts back into view. Blessedly, his hair is so very distinctive. Tsalta and the others see him stop and stare at that one branch in the tunnel before he carries on, and that puts Tsalta very ill at ease indeed. She peers into the darkness, borrowing Nothing's torch to try to see whatever the gnome was staring at...but no, there doesn't seem to be anything.

Wait.

Just as Tsalta moves to turn away, the light catches the reflective flash of....what looks like animal eyes, deep into the tunnel. Nuth leans around her - "What're you lookin' at?"

Tsalta doesn't know. Tsalta doesn't know what lives in here, and she says so, and the tiefling leans in further - "There's something in there?" She grabs the torch and thrusts it ahead of her, stepping into the tunnel as Tsalta whimpers a complaint and shuffles after, trying to cling close to the tiny bubble of security the firelight provides her.

Spindle, looking over his shoulder, turns back with a huff of frustration as the others disappear into this corridor.

As Nuth forges on, Tsalta carries on her declarations of distress, "Can you not go so fast with the light, please? Look, I just want to find my da...I don't really give a shit about a pair of eyes!!" Nothing turns back at that - no, she has a point, this is Tsalta's thing. Much as she's suspicious and curious about eyes in the dark, there are priorities.

Spindle bounds back into the tunnel, confused as to why everyone's looking down here! There's a jumble of explanations, everyone asking one another what they saw.... "Is this really a priority?" asks Faeleth, and it's a fair point. Nuth agrees: probably just badgers or some shit. (Nuth does not know where badgers live other than 'underground'.)

And then Spindle sees the dog. A big, shaggy dog, its silhouette so very familiar in nature, and he gives chase. "It's a dog!" he cries, repeatedly, as he rushes forward, and his shouts turn to feline snarls as he transforms.

The moment Nuth hears 'dog', she's following at great speed, the concept of 'better priorities' left behind with the dust at her heels - one of those fuckers is here and she's going to get him. Nowhere's safe with those things around!

Tsalta and Faeleth, the half of the party with common sense, are less hasty. Tsalta's convinced this must be a trap, she's still trying to keep up with the light (oh sweet Dunatis, that light gets further away by the moment and the dark threatens to swallow her) but she's scanning the roof for loose rock and the floor for pressure plates, paranoia and panic battling for dominance over her thought processes. She trembles more now and a few tears start to run down her cheeks. It's so dark. It's so dark. Faeleth stays close to her.

As Spindle continues to hurtle down the tunnel, Nuth hesitates, caught between the urge to pursue and *no this isn't right, turn back, it's a trap, what about Tsalta*. She rushes back to Tsalta (who's quietly crying now, whispering, "I don't like it, I don't like it,") and shoves the torch into her hand. They need to turn back.

If only it were that simple.

There's a cackle of laughter, hyena-like, from the depths of the tunnel. Then there's a spark and hiss, a sharp fizzing sound as a flash of light races from the far end of the tunnel back over everyone's heads, and a drop in the pit of everyone's stomachs as....BOOMF, BOOMF, BOOMF.

The tunnel behind them caves in.

It's a good thing Faeleth's reflexes are so sharp. The moment she hears the hiss she darts forward just in time to throw herself clear of the rocks that crash down behind her - she's covered in dust and little chips of stone, but otherwise unharmed.

Spindle's sensitive feline ears ring and he reels from the sheer volume of the blast. Tsalta shrieks, all her worst fears come true in this moment, and Nuth rushes to her. "Shit! Shit, sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

Even Spindle's stirred enough by the distress of his huge friend to turn back and join everyone instead of haring after the creature that sprung the trap.

Tsalta has curled into herself, sobbing, "I just want to see my da! I don't care about the fuckin' dog," and Nuth is wracked with guilt and panic and tries to apologise and reassure her all at the same time. Faeleth interjects.

"Guys. We need to calm down."

Tsalta turns to the elf, quieted but still tearful, and Nuth's stream of nervous chatter comes to a halt. The tiefling nods, and puts a hand on Tsalta's arm - "Can you...move those rocks?"

She shakes her head. Even if she could, she explains, the integrity of this tunnel is probably shot by the explosions, and the last thing she wants is to bring the roof down on all our heads. Faeleth goes to examine the rockfall, Nuth trailing behind, hoping to discover some way to pass back the way they came.

No dice. This is a lot of rocks. The only silver lining is in fact not silver at all - some of the chunks of rubble are veined with gold. This tunnel must have been excavated for this exact reason. Faeleth pockets a piece or two, figuring it's worth making the most of a bad situation.

Nuth goes back to Tsalta. "Look, it's a mine, right? This tunnel's gotta have more than one end. We carry on, we can probably loop back around or somethin'."

Tsalta really doesn't want to have to go deeper, but it is looking like the only viable choice. Spindle gives the big gal's hand a little head-nudge before turning down the tunnel, sniffing for a trail. It's not hard to find one - the musty, unwashed smell of those dog-men is pungent and familiar ahead of him. He gives a low growl and pads forth.

As the others follow, Nothing close on the cat's tail, the tunnel starts to narrow, lowering to the point where Tsalta's forced to fully stoop just to keep her head from knocking against the roof. For context, she's been a touch hunched over this whole time. Even Faeleth's getting to the point where her ears threaten to brush the ceiling. Faeleth takes Tsalta's hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze, and they remain hand-in-hand.

The tunnel continues for a while, starting out straight but as it carries on beginning to weave in slow curves, presumably the result of the miners chasing this rich vein of ore. Spindle's nose leads the party to place where the tunnel widens (though it gets no taller) and before them is a three-way fork in the path. Nuth crouches down to ask the big cat if he can sniff out fresh air, anything that smells like a way out? He obliges, and gets to sniffin'.

The leftmost tunnel smells...damp. His sharp ears pick up the sound of running water within.

He moves to sniff into the middle one, and almost retches. The smell would be unpleasant even to the humanoid members of the party should they get nearer, but for Spindleshanks the stench of rotting meat is close to intolerable - it's so rank even he wouldn't consider trying to eat whatever is festering inside.

The rightmost tunnel takes a sharp bend almost immediately past the entrance, and the trail of the jackalwere passes into it. It seems the thing's not alone, though. The familiar doggy odor is mixed with a confusing jumble of animalistic smells, musky and dark like the smell of something's nest, but...the layers of scent are bafflingly complex. Whatever strange animal is here, Spindle's never smelled one before.

He transforms back into gnomish form, all the better to relay what he's smelled.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I do not want to go down the one smelling of carcasses," Faeleth says. The rest nod. Screw that.

Nuth wonders if the way the water is would lead to a way out - water goes to places, from places, it might provide a path to follow out of this tunnel system! If something's living down those other tunnels, they're probably dead ends, right?

Spindle disagrees - the smell of water doesn't necessarily mean anything. If the trail goes down that rightmost tunnel, at least that probably leads somewhere for sure. Tsalta's sense of direction, here in her home land, suggests it's likely to be true - that sharp bend looks as though it will double back and bring us out closer to the main tunnel and the entrance. And while Nuth's proposition could be true, Tsalta only knows of two large sources of running water under this mountain.

"I mean, we could check it out," Tsalta ventures, "Because it might help lead us out, but running water in caves isn't the best, especially with little shits playing tricks."

One, true, would lead out: the miners use it to ferry ore from deeper parts of the mine to outside the mountain. The other leads to a gigantic waterfall. It's fifty-fifty, and that rightmost tunnel is sounding more reliable, ominous as its smells may be, and if the dog is in there, then we can kill two birds with one stone.

Before the discussion fully concludes, voices echo up the right-hand tunnel - shouts, and a cry of pain. The language is incomprehensible to most of the party with its deep harsh syllables, but Tsalta recognises the voice, though it's grown deeper since she last heard it. It's the voice of the friend she never saw, up in the mountains in her youth, the one who taught her this strange language so they could better converse.

"How dare you!" it booms, "I will not stand for this!" Nothing, of course, understands, but she's never heard this language before.

There's a burst of that same cackling, hyena-like laughter in response to the stranger's outrage, and a new voice rings out alongside it, more laughter. But unlike the raucous mirth of the jackalwere, this laugh sounds...*wrong*, garbled and warped and like many voices all at once, some cutting off mid-sound and starting up again erratically.

This same disjointed, multi-tonal voice then crows, "*We take what we want!*"

"I recognise...one of those voices..." Tsalta says, "It's been a long time, but-" She takes a few steps forward into the tunnel. Nuth, unsure, follows.

"They a friend of yours?"

"Never seen them, but...yes! They're nice, Faeleth, come on!" And with that, she waves the elf forward, and they creep ever closer to the source of the sound, following the winding, narrowing tunnel, the angry voice continuing to echo down to them until BOOMF, BOOMF, BOOMF...there's the sound of crashing rock, and the deep, booming voice that only Tsalta and Nuth understand falls silent.

There's more malevolent gleeful cackling, the dog-man and his companion revelling in whatever victory their rockfall has won them. Spindle and Nuth make to start running ahead - a friend of Tsalta's might be hurt - but Tsalta urges them to be cautious. There could be more traps.

"I can hear you...." The jackalwere's voice carries low and still laced through with laughter. Tsalta bristles, anger and indignation helping bolster her against her fear, steading her resolve. She was hungover but happy this morning, and now she has to go through this?

She declares into the darkness, "I fuckin' hate both of you!"

Another low chortle. "Come and play, ehehehe..."

"Sure. You want to play, we'll play." She takes another step forward, and Spindle slips through between her legs to hare off ahead towards the source of the voice that continues with its sing-song taunting. He hears a stone click beneath his feet but carries on regardless, running too fast to stop himself and in truth he barely even registers it.

Search as she might for traps in the stone as she walks on, the darkness of the tunnel sets Tsalta too ill at ease to properly focus. Luckily, it doesn't take a lot of focus to notice the rugs.

There's a trio of rugs, out of place and painfully conspicuous, laid out in relatively even intervals along the floor. Spindle has already passed them, but Spindle's had a knack (while a gnome, at least) for managing to not trigger traps, so...

"Spindle, STOP." Tsalta demands, the force of her frustration so apparent in her voice that he...actually does, abruptly halting in his tracks. That's probably a first. "You'll *stay* with the *group*."

Spindle turns to the rest of the party, "No, you guys keep up!"

"No, you stay right there."

He obliges, plonking into an almost canine crouch-sitting position on the floor just beyond the final rug. The relief from the rest of the party is palpable! For once, the boy sits still!

Given that her huge body is blocking the ridiculous view from the others, Tsalta relays back what she's seeing. "There's some rugs here, it looks stupid. They're obviously to cover something."

"Can we just take a look at them first?" Faeleth asks, and Tsalta agrees that's probably a good shout. Spindle, in an attempt to be helpful, calls back to everyone that he felt a click.

"Oh WAS there, Spindle?" Nuth snaps back, wholly unsurprised. This bloody gnome kid, he's so reckless, it's a miracle he's not got himself killed with his determination to rush into obvious danger. "Spindle, where was the click?"

It was under his feet as he was running straight ahead! He doesn't remember whether the rug was under him or not at the time, he'd...not even noticed them. Everyone sighs. This kid.

"What kinda trap *is* this?" Nuth groans - rugs? Trap plates under rugs? Tsalta matches her exasperation.

"They're dumbasses." She cups a hand to her mouth and shouts down the tunnel. "You're DUMBASSES!"

The giggling from the darkness strikes up again. "Oh, you found our toys!" Spindle turns in place - what toys? Can he play? As the others assure him that's there's no kind of toy he wants here, Tsalta catches a smell that's very much out of place, and as she inhales she feels lightheaded and woozy...

"Guys," she says in the universal tone of 'not trying to alarm, but'... "I feel funny, I don't like it. I smell almonds."

Spindle doesn't remember exactly why, but he knows the smell of almonds where almonds aren't is bad. "Get away from there!" Tsalta heeds his words and quickly steps over and beyond the first carpet, then the second, and the burnt-almond scent growing stronger for a moment before she gets beyond its source and her head clears. Nuth follows, edging around the rug, as the jackalwere's echoing voice continues to laugh and mock.

Then another voice speaks - it utters a single word. Only Nothing understands...the language is one her patron speaks to her in, sometimes. The simplest translation would be, "Arise," or otherwise to 'raise up'.

"What the fuck was that?" Tsalta asks, anxious, and Nuth when translates - "It means, uh, rise?" - Spindle jumps to his feet, and the tiefling shakes her head..."I don't think they're talking to us!"

It becomes immediately clear who - or what - is being addressed, as the rug Tsalta just stepped over rears up and lunges to try to wrap around her. However, it's clear immediately that it's not made for doing this to someone of her size! She gains a rectangle of fabric wrapped...vaguely around her lower back. It's quite fetching.

Someone of the exact right size, though, is Nothing, who finds herself wholly engulfed by the carpet behind her before she even has a chance to react! She struggles and thrashes, but her arms have been pinned to her sides and the thick fabric is close over her face, threatening to smother her, constricting tight enough to really hurt.

Spindle, likewise, is ensnared, but just as the carpet closes over his tiny body it's almost pushed off of him, straining at the seams, by the sudden expansion of the gnome into a snarling mass of dark fur - how about it tries grappling a *bear*. But oh how it tries! Spindle finds himself muzzled, head wrapped tight by a very determined carpet, until Tsalta reaches forward and pulls it clear with a single hand like she’s whipping a tablecloth from a table.

Spindle rears up, and tears a huge hole in the flapping rug held in Tsalta's hand with a swing of his mighty paw. He rather startles Tsalta as he lunges forward to bite at it, his head passing through the gap his claws opened up, huge ursine jaws snapping closed on empty air awfully close to her hand!

Faeleth sees the struggling tiefling and draws her scimitar, and attempts to cut Nothing free. She rends a sizeable slash in the material, but as she does Nuth yelps, and the edges of the cut darken with blood. Still, it's a gap big enough for Nothing to stick an arm through, reaching over her head to rip herself free, panting. The carpet throws itself immediately upon Faeleth, but she quickly wrenches herself out of its grasp.

All the while, the jackalwere laughs and mocks in the distance. "Do you like your playfriends~?"

Tsalta takes advantage of her carpet's convenient location, backing up against the wall - the trap becomes the trapped! With it pinned and wriggling behind her, she smashes her warhammer against it until the threads start to fray and split. Spindle, meanwhile, reaches out with a huge paw and with the satisfying sound of tearing fabric, rips huge claw-marks into the ineffectually grasping rug that's now attempting to latch onto Tsalta's legs.

As Faeleth frees herself, Nothing has a bright idea. Fabric *burns*. She jabs her wand, point-blank, at the bloodied carpet and releases a Fire Bolt that scorches a hole straight through it and sets the whole thing aflame.

What she hadn't considered was how it might be disadvantageous to end up re-engulfed in a carpet that's now on fire.

It's a good thing she's a tiefling, really.

With a final, burning squeeze, it nearly wrenches her shoulder before the threads succumb and the whole thing burns away to ash, glowing embers sloughing off of Nothing's form as she pats at her faintly smoking hair, coughing. Spindle's carpet is just colourful shreds on the ground, savaged completely and utterly to tatters. The one still pinned by Tsalta squirms and writhes desperately to extricate itself, but between Faeleth slipping past Nuth to help slash at it, and Tsalta's continued assault with her hammer...there's a final ripping sound, and it falls still, torn fully in half.

Looks like that's over. Spindle shrinks back into gnomish form, and wastes no time in heading deeper into the tunnel, but Nuth, still brushing ash from her clothes and panting, holds up a hand. "Hey, uh, can I... I'm- not feeling...great?"

Tsalta motions her closer and gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze, which should have hurt from the wrenching but in fact...it feels so much better at her Healing Touch. Spindle, too, lends a quiet word laced with magic and between the two of them, she feels good as new, the cut from Faeleth's sword knitting back together as though it never happened. Nuth's never felt quite so thoroughly looked-after!

Onwards, then. It doesn't take long for the party to spot the dancing firelight illuminating the tunnel's end. Spindle and Tsalta peer out into the large, open cavern beyond - the source of the light reveals itself as a huge bonfire close to their tunnel's exit, smoke billowing upwards, the brightness and swimming heat around it so intense that it's hard to make out anything in the smoky dimness beyond it.

"Got past your fuckin' toys, what do you want?" Tsalta calls out. The jackalwere, still out of sight, chortles.

"Eheheheh...We're goi-"

A feminine voice rings out, silencing it with a single word.

"*Enough.*"

The speaker's tone, though commanding, is even and serene. It sounds, almost, as though there are several people speaking at once, that lone word uttered by an angelic harmony of voices. It speaks again, each word a song.

"*I have a proposition for you*."

Tsalta doesn't budge - beautiful as the voice or voices sound, something is clearly afoot. "I'd like to see you first."

"*Then step forward.*" Spindle, literal as ever, takes one singular step out into the cavern, closer to the fire, but Tsalta's still having absolutely none of it.

"How about you step forward!"

A different voice rings out, now, and this one's clearly the owner of the horrible discordant laughter from before, the voice layered but grating, a harsh snarl. "Come. Pass the fire!" No, Tsalta refuses - she insists they come forward first. Another snarl, and a silhouette comes into view just beyond the flames, huge and bristling, leonine, jagged. "We have matters to discuss!"

"I can hear you perfectly from here." Whether bolstered by the blazing firelight or simply done enough with the day's stressful events to have run out of fucks to give, Tsalta stands firm in the entranceway, her voice unwavering, the others shielded behind her.

"She wants to talk to you..."

"Yes, well, I can hear her fine as well!"

The shadow beyond the fire growls in frustration and turns away, and the party can hear the agitated pacing beyond the flames. The jackalwere giggles - "Ohhoho, oh no, we're not playing that game..." When Tsalta questions what 'game', she gets no response, and she moves aside to let the others pass her so they can see.

The jagged beast with the grating voice speaks up. "She does not bend to your will!" It steps forward into the light, revealing itself, and its visage is as unpleasant as its voice, a gigantic lionlike monstrosity with a face that could almost be human, were the mouth not so wide, and so very full of jagged fangs. Spines jut from its fur and trace its spine, batlike wings adorn its shoulders, and the whole thing is criss-crossed with stitching as though pieced together from segments of all kinds of horrific entities. A feline tail studded with wicked barbs at the tip lashes behind it.

Nuth has read of creatures cobbled together like this, held together with necromantic magic, but she's never heard of anything like this. No thing so monstrous.

"Now. You have two choices. You can hear what she has to say, or you can die."

Nothing steps forward towards the fire, into the wavering, radiating heat. "I'll talk."

The jackalwere moves out of its place half-obscured by the flames to meet her, gesturing beyond. "Come with me...she wants to see you..." Its voice is sing-song, but then it meets the tiefling's eyes with a grin, and darkly adds, "You especially."

She stops in her tracks, her blood running cold as realisation hits her like a spear of ice sinking into her spine.

"Why can't she come here?" Tsalta cries out, sounding less sturdy now, anxiety apparent in her voice through the frustration, "Where are you taking Nothing?"

Sharp canine teeth reveal themselves in a smile meant now for the half-goliath. "Because she's not here."

"Tsalta." Nothing says, flat, not turning around.

"Yeah?"

"Let's just...talk."

As the jackalwere steps back and indicates to his side, Nuth's gaze follows to a wood-carved baisin, raised up on a shallow platform of stone. She approaches it, hesitant, the room silent but for her footsteps and the crackling of the flames behind her.

"*Come closer, dear. I want you to see what you're dealing with.*"

Nothing draws close enough to look down into the water filling the baisin. The water is perfectly still, smooth as a mirror, but it's not her reflection she sees in its surface.

The face that looks back at her is breathtakingly beautiful, symmetrical and pale-skinned, angelic. Long, lustrous blond hair frames her face and tumbles down over the woman's bare chest. The body below is that of a lion, its fur gleaming white, reclining on an opulent chaise longue with languid, regal poise.

"*Welcome, my dear*."

"Are you her?" Nothing asks, almost devoid of uptick in tone, it's more of a statement than a question. The woman's head tilts just a little to the side in query, like she doesn't quite understand, a smile playing about the edges of her lips.

"Are you the Collector."

The smile widens just a touch as the woman leans back a little, thoughtfully, "*I have...a collection, yes. I go by many names. But I suppose 'The Collector' seems to be the one most use, recently.*"

Nuth tries to keep her voice steady. She hopes her voice is steady. "Why are you doing this?"

"*Now, that's a rather vague question. Doing what, my dear?*"

"Why are you taking people?" No, that's not quite it, that's certainly the big question but it's not the one burning in the back of her mind since that sweltering afternoon when she was handed Sally back gagged and in bonds. Her hands shake even as she tries to hold them still at her sides. "Why are you taking from me?"

"*You have nothing, my dear. What do you have that I could possibly want?*"

"That's what I want to know."

She hums softly. "*All in good time. Please, bring your companions.*"

Wide-eyed, Nothing casts an anxious glance over her shoulder at Tsalta and Faeleth and Spindle to see if they approach. Spindle doesn't, eyes fixed on the shadow beyond the fire, but Faeleth takes a few wary steps - not so close to the baisin as Nothing is, but close enough to keep an eye on both it and the room. Tsalta sees the tiefling trembling, and draws near to her, her stance protective.

"*Is that all of them? Does your gnome friend not care what I did to his farmer father?*" Her gentle voice lilts with the faintest and most sinister hint of amusement. "*Does your elf friend not want to see her mother again?*"

As Nuth almost recoils from the baisin with a horrified whisper of, "What *are* you?" Spindle rises at last, and he approaches.

"I know what you did to my father," he says, matter-of-fact, "and I don't care. He's gone now. There's nothing you can do."

She gives a light, airy laugh, "*Oh, dear child, there's lots I can do.*" The gnome does not reply, so the Collector continues. "*You see, I have my collection*."

Dragged into view before her, struggling and sobbing, is Sally. Little Sally, who had been saved, told to go somewhere safe, but there's a jackalwere gripping her so hard by the wrist it must be bruising and she cries out in umistakable terror - "No, no, no, no, please, don't do this, not me-"

Nothing lurches forward and seizes the edges of the baisin in panic. "Let her go! Let her go! What are you doing? Why are you doing this?"

"*Well*," the Collector says, crossing one paw over the other and stretching out her hindlegs as though there's not a screaming, terrified halfling child in the room and this is a perfectly regular conversation, "*I have seen your friends, and your adventures, and they have...intrigued me.*" Her voice somehow carries clear and crisp over the girl’s cries. "*And yet I have not had the pleasure of learning their names.*"

Spindle objects. "Don't tell her mine, I've got nothing to do with this." Tsalta's skeptical: if she's seen our adventures, shouldn't she surely know our names by now?

Faeleth nods, and replies under her breath, "She mentioned my mother. She must know who I am."

"*Knowing what others call you, and knowing what you call yourselves...well, they're two very different things. For example, I know you-*" she locks eyes with Nuth, "-*were birth-named Regina.*"

The words fall, bitter, from Nothing's mouth before she has the time to think about what she's done. "Yeah, well, rather be called Nothin' than that."

"*Ah, I see. There's lots of power in a name. Nothing, my dear..*." she smiles, angelic as ever, "*I shall give you one of two options. You offer up the name of your companions...or the life of this girl.*"

Knuckles pale on the edges of the bowl, eyes slammed shut, shoulders shaking, Nothing reels off her new friends' names in an awful, guilty rush. Her own, too. "I'm Nothing. I'm sorry." What choice did she have? Names, just names, against the life of a child she's watched over and sworn to keep safe.

"*My dear. You've made the right choice. She lives...*"

Nuth opens her eyes to see Sally pulled from view.

"Can I have her back now."

"*....for now.*"

Nuth's nails dig into the wood. She speaks again, and the desperation seeps through the cracks in her voice, "Can I *have her back now*??"

The Collector shakes her head with a smile that offers no hint of apology. "*She lives. That is enough.*"

"You know it's fucking not."

"*For the rest of you, I shall give you each...an offering*."

"Cheers," Tsalta mutters with open contempt. The Collector either doesn't notice, or doesn't care. She carries on.

"*An offer of employment. Join me, become one of my thralls*."

Being a thrall doesn't particularly appeal to anyone in the room. Faeleth says as much, and Nuth points out that she's already 'employed'. Spindle reckons he's too young for a job, and ever-curious even now, pipes up, "Just quickly, how are you talking to us?" She gives a low laugh, and encourages him forward - *come nearer and you'll see, my dear.*

He does so, finally putting the whole party in a position to view the scene within the bowl.

*"It is time for you to see what becomes of those who resist me."* It seems the Collector has quite the sense of showmanship, it’s almost as though she's been waiting all along for there to be a full audience for what is to happen next.

Dragged before her, bound in chains and gagged, is a halfling man. Dark-haired. Dark-skinned.

*"This one thought he could outwit me. Out-manoeuvre me,"* she all but purrs, *"but I have eyes everywhere."*

"That doesn't sound very handy." Oh, Spindle. Spindle, honey, no. Nobody makes a move to explain to him. The Collector's smile quirks in brief amusement, as any of the party might smile to themselves at the boy's innocent misunderstandings. In a single fluid motion she slinks from her seat, a small gemstone bead held up between finger and thumb for her audience to see.

*"Now, let's bring this more to life."*

She steps up behind Hand, deftly untying his gag. The moment his mouth is freed he cries out, "She does not know!" His words echo, loud, with crystal clarity in Tsalta's ear from the stone Hand gave her.

The Collector leans in behind the halfling, ever so close. And with an air of soft, straightforward finality, she says, *"My dear. I know everything."*

She must have taken such care to conceal the dagger in her other hand, because only now does anyone watching see it the vicious blade glint as she lifts it into view. Hand doesn't see it. Never does.

Without even a shift in expression, she places the dagger to Hand's throat and pulls it oh-so-slowly back towards her. Try as he might to stifle any cry of pain, Tsalta hears the choked inhale and tiny desperate gasps of Hand's final moments as he is meticulously, methodically beheaded, as clearly as it if were happening just behind her back. The onlookers find themselves helpless to do anything but watch, mute with horror.

*"Now, my dears. Have I made my point? What do you say, Nothing?"*

Silence.

*"I could offer you great rewards."*

Tsalta looks back into the water with disgust. "Like what." Nuth echoes the sentiment - what can she possibly offer her?

*"Your family."*

Nothing shakes her head, spits her reply like it's poison. "Don't need one."

"The dead should stay dead. You're talking absolute shite." The Collector cocks her head at Tsalta's remark, and lifts a bloodied hand to gesture to the newest individual ushered roughly to her room. A tiefling woman, red-skinned, her skin tattooed and her scalp shaved bald. Faeleth recognises her in an instant as her contractor for the assassination of Nothing's noble family.

*"I believe you have spoken to our dear friend Sanity, yes?"*

The pieces fall into place for Nothing, but even so, her gaze into the pool is empty. This is the face of the woman truly responsible for her parents' murder, it registers, dully. "Have I."

*"So you wouldn't like to meet your dear auntie?"*

Her tone is flat as her gaze as she replies, "Never known any of them. I know what she did."

The Collector lets out a gentle disappointed sigh, waves a signal for the jackalwere to wrench Sanity away out of view. Her eyes flit to meet those of the rest of the party. *"So you're not going to take me up on my offer...any of you?"*

Spindle asks what she's got to offer him. She asks what someone like him would want, and he declares he doesn't need anything - "Unfortunate for you, isn't it?" She hums in amusement, *A clever one, this one. Why, you will be valuable*. He scoffs. "You wish."

With a tone of mild, unconcerned resignation in her voice, her lion's body settles down on its haunches and she says, *"But, fine. I see that none of you wish to join me-"*

("-Yeah, like fuck that we will-" Tsalta's converting more of her distress into cold fury by the second.)

*"-but as we speak, my informants are getting the information from your little bard friend...and we will have his ward."* It's Tsalta's turn to experience that sharp rush of cold dread. Her daughter. Her wee forgotten child.

She is left no time to respond. The wooden baisin splinters and cracks, the water's glow dissipating as it spills out over the stone floor, and they are left alone with the fire and the dog-man and the beast beyond the flames, which snarls when the room falls quiet.

"It seems you've made your choice!" There's malice apparent in every jagged syllable.

Spindleshanks retorts, seemingly unfazed, his tone mocking - can't it see its master has left? "So...How about you get to running."

The ear-splitting, disharmonious roar of anger it lets out in response suggests it has no such plans.

A lot of things happen at once.

Tsalta draws her warhammer and swings for the jackalwere, which ducks deftly aside with a shriek of laughter. The monstrous creature in the corner leaps to tower over Spindle and Faeleth, its dark eyes fixing on the gnome as it bares its wicked teeth. "I'll have you for starters!" It lunges and that awful maw snaps closed just as Spindle ducks away, a sizeable chunk of bright blue hair caught in its jaws as it pulls back to ready another strike...

Spindle, ready to really go toe-to-to with this beast, reaches within for the magic that would transform him, but there's just not enough. He’s all out of wild shapes. Quick-thinking as ever, he siphons it instead into spitting poison at the manticore's face like a cobra, the acrid spray hitting its flesh and raising sizzling welts where it spatters. Faeleth jabs her rapier deep into its shoulder, then darts away to aid Tsalta’s skirmish with the jackalwere. With a flick of its tail, a barb lodges itself in the elf's shoulder, but she carries on.

From a collapsed archway at the top of the room, a deep voice shouts out, in a language only Tsalta and Nuth can comprehend, furiously demanding to be set free. "I want to kill those fucks." It seems that the ranger's friend is awake, and just is as angry anyone else here with the situation...

"I'm coming, pal!" Tsalta calls back over her shoulder, in the same strange language. The jackalwere exclaims - *dragon whore!* - and its eyes glow an eerie green, staring into Tsalta's...whatever it's trying, however, has no effect. Oh dear, oh dear. It wasn't expecting that.

(At the insult, Tsalta's brow furrows in brief confusion - *dragon whore?*)

Pulling her scimitar from her belt, Nothing rushes the snarling dog-man, which is to her in that moment a stand-in for every single one of the damned things. Its jeering, complacent grin swifly fades as the blade stabbed into its flank hisses and foams, and it staggers back in immediate fear. It wasn't expecting that either. Nor the rapier blade that Faeleth plunges through its throat moments later, dark blood spilling to the stone as she pulls back, its body slumping to the ground.

Spindle, meanwhile, refuses to back down from the spine-covered monster before him even as it swats him back and forth like a cat with a trapped mouse. It’s nothing a potion can’t fix - the scratches, for the most part, close. He squares off against the creature with renewed confidence. Confidence that was, it transpires, misplaced. Its next bite takes a sizeable chunk out of his shoulder, and then it slams another huge paw into him, claws tearing across his chest and leaving ragged wounds in their wake.

For good measure, it unleashes another barb into the chest plate of Tsalta’s armour, who looses an arrow right back at it.

“Do you yield?” it growls, grinning down at the bleeding, panting gnome as he struggles to stand, “One chance...”

(“I know this is stupid,” Aaron disclaims, before this next move. So, um, the next events can decisively, definitively be considered #spindlesfault. Just in case anyone’s still feeling any guilt. You’re absolved.)

Spindle doesn’t yield. Spindle doesn’t turn and run. Spindle doesn’t, though he considers it, draw the boom-boom stick and fire it straight up into that huge ugly face.

No, Spindle whispers a Healing Word to himself, expending the last pitiful dregs of his magic to barely even begin to mitigate the wounds he’s been dealt. He hopes it’s enough.

Faeleth sees, beyond the fire, the bloodied and shaken Spindle. Her hand flies to her belt and she rips the cork from the phial of mountain gas, drawing in a deep lungful that fills her with a rush of energy she channels into rushing the manticore, rapier in hand.

She’s upon it before it has a chance to even see her, she’s so fast. The slim blade slips neatly between one of the rows of stitches lacing its shoulder and she slices up as far along as her reach allows, literally taking the beast apart at the seams. Inky, rotten-smelling blood oozes out of the gaping hole she’s ripped in the thing, organs that shouldn’t remotely be inside a shoulder spilling out.

(Congratulations, Faeleth, on 20 points of damage in a single hit.)

The voice from behind the collapsed wall mutters in frustration and there’s a shuddering crash as something huge throws itself against the broken stone. Nuth and Tsalta jump and look over their shoulder to see a glinting yellow eye surrounded by smooth green scales looking out between the rocks. The eye fixes on Tsalta. “Is that you, child?” She nods and waves a breathless hello, internally processing the...discovery...about her friend and how the late jackalwere’s insult suddenly makes a whole lot more sense. “Let me out of here. Let me kill it.”

Needing no further telling, she springs into action, dropping her bow to bring her pick down on one of the obstructing boulders, and Nuth does her best to help blast free the rubble. It’s not much, but hopefully it’ll be enough. The hole has definitely widened, and the being beyond really does look like a *dragon*. Spindle catches a glimpse of it, and is filled with renewed zest for the fight - with this on our side, how can we lose?

He looks back round just in time to see the gigantic paw swiping down towards him, and everything goes black. His tiny frame is sent skidding across the floor.

Faeleth and Nothing try to fend it off with blade and blast as Tsalta cries out and runs to the fallen Spindle. She gets a potion down his throat - one of the good ones - and he gasps back to life as between the two of them, the elf and the tiefling divest the monster of one of its wings. The dragon throws itself again against the rockfall and the room shakes once more, but it still doesn’t break through...

And the manticore doesn’t take kindly to seeing the gnome stir. “When I kill something, IT. STAYS. DEAD.” It rears up, slams its claws down on Spindle just as he staggers to his feet. “You’re not getting up this time!” He’s already ceased moving, consciousness deserting him, but it swipes at him again, shredding what little of his armour wasn’t already in tatters, blood speckling the stone in the wake of its claws.

The wall at last breaks open, rubble scattering across the ground as the dragon rams into the boulders and drags itself through the opening into the cavern, its gaze fixed on the creature for whose blood it’s been clamouring.

Tsalta kneels over Spindle, desperately emptying the second phial of potent healing potion between his slack lips, only for the manticore to claw him out from under her and slam him against the stone again and again and again. “What did I tell you?” Its claws come down on him again. “Now. You learn. Your lesson!” Again, onto a tiny battered body, already fallen limp.

The bruises and gashes the potion had barely started to knit back together falter half-healed, incomplete. Tsalta screams.

She turns to the dragon, face already streaked with tears. “Help us. Please!”

“With pleasure.”

Nobody feels much like rejoicing as the dragon thunders furiously across the room and savages the manticore, seconds - just seconds too late. Perhaps if the awful creature had even seemed afraid, or cried out, or something. Perhaps then it might have felt like retribution. But it regards its opponent with a kind of excitement and dark pride, even as it pants and limps and leaks out more thick, dark blood. Like now the battle is *worth it*.

It doesn’t feel worth it when Nothing kills it.

She barely registers it. From the moment Spindle hit the floor, she’d been raining down crimson light on the thing, determined to drive it back, to hurt it enough to get it away from him. She sort of...checked out, after Tsalta’s cry, really. She knew what it had to mean. The blasts keep coming. Nothing stares, wide-eyed, wand arm outstretched and she doesn’t stop firing on it, burning craters into its hide even as it falls to the ground, and at some point she must have felt the arcane rush as its fading life force siphoned into her but she just mustn’t have noticed because she still doesn’t stop. It falls almost to pieces and she doesn’t stop.

Eventually, shaking, her arm falls leaden to her side. Tsalta, sobbing, collects the tiny battered body from the floor and holds it close in her arms.

“My gratitude for your assistance.” The dragon lowers its head to Tsalta. She can’t meet its eyes. She asks if it can show us the quickest way to leave. The dragon obliges, and leads the party back through its lair. They walk in solemn silence. Despite all the strange and beautiful riches piled in the cave, Faeleth can’t bring herself to consider palming even a single thing. Spindle’s body is still warm, so so small in Tsalta’s hands.

There is a point where the dragon will go no further. “My friend,” it says to Tsalta, “I owe you a great debt. Should you ever need me...”

She nods, and just about manages to choke out the words, “Then I’ll call. Thanks.” She forces a smile its way.

It doesn’t take long to pass out of the cave, at last, into the open air of the mountainside. The walk back to the mine entrance is not a long one. The cave-in recovery seems to have been completed now. Excavated rocks are piled high outside the tunnel mouth. The rescued miners are sitting nearby, talking to one another, drinking deep from the water skins they’ve been handed to refresh them after their own ordeals.

Tsalta’s father is the only one not sitting among them - as the party draw near, they can see him walking from person to person, asking if they’ve seen his daughter, if they know what happened to her and her friends. When he sees Tsalta as the party emerge from the mountain ridge, Brataich all but lights up with relief to see her return unharmed, rushing at once to see her.

As he does, he catches sight of her eyes, red from crying, and the look of utter devastation she wears. His face falls, concern writ large on his sturdy dwarven features. And then the questions that were doubtless rising on his tongue are answered, as he sees the little grey bundle cradled in her arms.

AND THATS WHERE THE SESSION ENDS FELLAS!!!!!

pour one out for everyone’s favourite reckless feral nightmare child, lads

he died as he lived: doing something strongly inadvisable as the DM subtly suggests a more sensible course of action