10/03/2020 - Probing the Plumbing and Slippery Smallfolk

## **TL;DR**

* Elyan  and Azurial  went off to find Rocky  and fill in the Captain , while the others followed the tracks Bayul  saw
* They failed and made camp for the night in the forest, but Narko  and Ves  were robbed of their coin purses
* Re-picked up the tracks and found a pipe emerging from the walls -  Gimble  explored, finding one path led into the cathedral
* The others circled around into the town and met the dragon, which they found to be an illusion created by a pair of child gnomes called Gea and Traya.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg
* Discovered from the gnomes that the sky had recently changed colour from purple to blue, and that the crystal below the cathedral had turned from blue to red.

## **Camptime Criminality**

Despite the momentary panic in the ranks, Elyan  and Azuriel  once more proved themselves to be a pair of cool heads. They departed to search for Rocky  and keep the Captain  informed of developments while the others continued the investigation. Bayul  pointed out the tracks he’d spotted to Ves, and they pursued. However, in the dark and dank mire outside the walls they quickly lost sight of the minute footprints and instead decided to make camp back in the safety of the forest. Narko  scoped out a place with an appropriate tree to prop up his torso, and they rotated the watch.

Ves’s  watch passed by uneventfully, but a few minutes into Narko’s  he was alerted by the suspicious snap of a twig. His head snapped to the direction, whence he spotted a diminutive shadowy figure. Before he could take a step, his eyelids felt as if they were made of neutron star and they slammed shut. He awoke in a start what felt like a moment later and noticed the tracks, but refused to abandon his post as camp sentinel. Gimble  was able to learn more of the tracks, noting that they were certainly gnomish, though his and Bayul’s  watches both passed uneventfully too. In the morning, Narko  and Ves  realised they were both missing their coin purses and, for them, shit got real.

## **Searching the Sewers**

With new found fervour, they picked up the tracks from the previous night and followed them with ease to a pipe that sprung forth from the city walls. Only the slight form of Gimble  could fit into the pipe, and this he did at the end of an expertly tied (once Narko’s  back was turned) chain of the group’s ropes. Exploring the extent of the network, Gimble  found two of the city’s wells and a further exit into a cavernous space, which they assumed to be the cathedral. He returned to the group and relayed the information, and they decided to do the unthinkable and split the party for a cathedral flanking manoeuvre, with Gimble  entering the Cathedral from the tunnels whilst the others approached from outside.

## **Cathedral Chaos**

Upon getting remotely close to the saintly structure, they were once again face to face with a hulking dragon. Convinced that it was an illusion, they mainly ignored its sass and continued on their way. It attempted to frighten them with a burst of flame, but succeeded only in mildly singeing Ves  and elicited a foot long shaft from Narko’s  bow in retaliation. As the arrow soared into the dragon, where they may have expected a satisfying thunk, it passed straight through with only the most muffled whistle and Lilliputian wisp of vapour. Seeing this, all three charged directly through the illusion.

Inside the main hall of the cathedral, Gimble  popped his head up to see a gnome figure concentrating fiercely on the rump of the dragon. As he watched, the gnome’s eyes widened and he turned to flee. Gimble  leapt from his alcove as Bayul  rushed in and trumpeted an order to attack. Gimble  flung his axe but it clattered to the side of the retreating gnome, though he made it into the gnome’s vicinity with a leg-pumping charge shortly after. Just before Narko  and Ves  followed Bayul  through the broad double doors, the gnome murmured to itself and vanished from their sight.

As they attempted to bar all of the possible escape routes, 2 doors opened and closed again, revealing a possible second quarry in their hunt. Gimble  and Bayul  pursued one pathway up many spiral stairs to a walkway overlooking the entire central chamber, while Narko  and Ves  descended (with distinct lack of grace, in the centaur’s case) into a basement after the other. The two gnomes proved extremely slippery and cheeky; Bayul  and Gimble  became locked at the top as the hatch swung shut behind them, and the other two got turned around in the basement as the gnome scuttled free, narrowly evading Narko’s  attempt to gut him with his glaive. The gnome on the ground floor resisted Ves’s  attempt to hold him with arcane shackles, and even weathered a charge from an enraged Narko . Gimble , literally screaming in rage with veins popping out of his muscles, ripped the magically-reinforced hatch from its frame and began sprinting back down, as Bayul  tried to address the two castaways. “WE MEAN YOU NO HARM, STOP RUNNING! THE CENTAUR WON’T KILL YOU, I PROMISE”, he bellowed.

After a short exchange, the wide-eyed gnomes agreed to stay put and talk, but were extremely tentative; every step forward from Ves  and they stepped back nervously. They claimed to have been trying to fend the group off as they assumed them to be thieves. Narko  found this to be somewhat cheeky given the coin-purse situation and demanded that they return the pouches they’d stolen, plus the extra bit they kept for themselves even after he’d counted it. Becoming less jittery as time passed, the two (very young) gnomes revealed that their names were Gea and Traya, and that they’d come from a village on the other side of the island. They’d simply come to market and none of the people had been there! It turned out that the entire town was highly magical in nature, that the sky over the island was usually purple but had recently turned blue, and that all towns and villages on the island were built around the blue crystals they’d seen previously. The said that the City the group were in was called Faldor, that the Island was called Myriath and that the nearest Island was called Catria - they hadn't heard of Ilbidor , but had come across mention of the Iysgarth Empire . Most notably, the crystal under the cathedral had turned from its usual rich blue to a deep red. The group looked at one another, both intrigued by this new information and with a new light of understanding on their faces.