Shades 003: Enter the Softshells

An outsider would think that spendin' some time in a quaint boghole town within shittin' distance o' the most notorious o' adventurer-munchin' dungeons would have its excitement. Believe you me an outsider would be the deadest kind o' wrong. Ain't much to do but some target practice here and there, but even then you get beaky townfolk askin' a bird what the blazes he's doin' and why does it have to be so fuckin' loud.

Freydann watched my face curl when handin' over Bristleback his coin for a second night here in the Inn, and offered me a place to stay in her home temporarily. I know it's a kindness motivated by the gold she smells on the Great Downward's name. But it's a kindness I'll gladly take until I've reclaimed the old Calaelen rock- which might just happen first light tomorrow. It took a whole week, but finally a gaggle o' aspirin' adventurers heeded the Great Downward Engineering Company's gilded call.

And what a gaggle they are. I know I ain't have no right to judge, havin' not left the cold stone walls o' the monastery for that long myself, but my gizzard is screechin' the soft shell alarm. At least if they're fresh they won't be expectin' too high a pay for their work.

At first glance the most strikin' o' the bunch is Amerasu, on the account o' her bein' a bipedal cat person-thing. Call 'em catfolk in the common tongue I'd wager, the creative language that it is. She says she's hunter o' sorts- swift, sharp and stealthy. Good bow arm on her by the looks o' it too. Amerasu didn't quite specify whether she preferred stalkin' the four-legged beasts o' the wild or the two-legged beasts o' the urban sprawl, but in this line o' work either will have their uses.

Next in line is a tall tusked gent callin' himself Agamemnon. Long fancy name for what, believe it or don't, appears to have hatched from the unsightly union of orc and elf. I weren't even aware that the uglies from either species were compatible, but there you go. If a shoe fits, I guess some horny critter out there'll find a way to fuck it. Agamemnon says he's a cleric, but didn't care to mention the deity he serves. He doesn't wear the usual gaudy ecclesiastical fare neither, but he's certainly totin' a cleric's decorated sense o' self-importance. Unlike most he's also got the muscle to back up all his hot air- so as long as the pointy end o' his spear is facin' the monsters the guy's welcome in my employ.

The real brawn o' the party is a solid dwarven man with most bizarre name for a dwarf I ever did hear- Shnookums. His parents must have been drinkin' deeply o' that dwarven ale when they named him 'cause I ain't able to even begin decodin' what the hell kind o' language that name is in. In contrast to his name, Shnookums seems to be the dry serious type, a paladin sworn to the service o' Dwerfater. I'll gladly pay for him to swing that hammer o' his in a profitable direction- but I hope he knows that Dwerfater's law don't cover all the quandaries a bird might encounter in the adventurin' business. Wouldn't want a scuffle with the guy.

Then there's the sorcerors. Well I never I am literally up to my gods-forsaken beak in sorcerors. There's Kruin, a human woman who's all lightning and rage. Stormy eyes and a body as hard as thunder. She has to be the meanest lookin' spellcaster I ever did see. I swear I can hear her fishin' with lightning outside. Suirlang is the other human woman sorceror, and couldn't be more different to Kruin even if she tried. Specializes in throwin' fire and force around, and likely has enough crazy bottled up in there to make it work for her. Those kobolds and gnolls are up for a right flamin' shock, that's for sure.

We also got ourselves a changeling adept with illusions- but I ain't botherin' with its name or gender because those changed at least three times during the meet up tonight. I know how changelings are.

Last and least physically interestin' is a human man by the name o' Jax. He says he's good with traps and subterfuge, the kind o' specialty that'll save a bird's life a hundredfold in a dungeon like Rappun. Quick, smart, and loaded up to the ears with adventurin' gadgets. The man suspiciously fits the description o' the river bandits I've been told run rampant here, but if a man wants to point his daggers at things for pay, rather than have things cough their gold up for him to stop pointin' his daggers at 'em, then who am I to judge?

For better or worse we set out to Castle Calaelen first light tomorrow- if I don't write again it means one of these fresh hatchwits done fucked up good.

Expedition 0: Questionable Alliance (Agamemnon)

I talked to Ulman again.  That man is out of his gourd ... but I don't dislike him.  I think he is a man who has been driven to extremes by being powerless in a dangerous world.  Thanks to my orcish heritage I am strong and fearsome, while my human side grants me intelligence and a powerful presence.  Ulman has none of these benefits.  But he does have the will to survive, and the balls to risk his life in the pursuit of that survival.  That has to be respected.

Now we just need to ensure he does not become so obsessed with power that he turns to the pursuit of evil.  Keeping him this side of that chasm is a worthy endeavour.

I hope one day he will tell me what actually happened to his wife, if he ever had one.  I suspect knowing that will reveal why he is who and what he is today.

In any case, I have struck a deal with the mad necromancer on behalf of the Great Downward Engineering Company.  I realised that money for Ulman is a means to an end, a way to acquire the deeper knowledge he seeks.  Our party is a much quicker means to a much more interesting end, and so he readily agreed to this proposition: We will gift to him any necromantic items we recover from Rappan Athuk, and consider that the establishment of a line of credit for his services.  Henceforth we will pay only one-third the price of his services, most notably his resurrections which now attract the far more economical pricetag of one thousand gold pieces - much more within our meagre reach.  Most usefully it also grants us immediate access to his restorative powers, even before we have furnished him with any items of interest.

I needed to clear this matter with Shades first, as it is his company for which we work.  The selling point for him was the restoration of Karina's husband to life: as a tengu he feels a great sympathy for those people condemned by circumstance to lead a criminal life, and as a lord - lord of a shithole, sure, but lord nonetheless - he feels responsible for his charges.  I proposed this ideas mostly for pragmatic, or perhaps selfish reasons: Ulman's power is not divine, and so I do not understand it, and cannot trust it until I see its effects with my own eyes.  This experiment, if it works, will not just slake my curiosity, it will also reassure my compatriots of the safety net we have woven when we face mortal danger in Rappan Athuk.  Timidity will win us no battles; the confidence to forge ahead into the darkness is an invaluable boon to us.  So I pray to the Elven Bastard Ulman can pull this off.

Of secondary concern are the three ... recently-retired bandits currently in residence in Castle Calaelen.  As I have previously noted, we underestimate Karina's grief.  Her grief has a perfectly justified outlet in hatred directed towards us, and though she seems to possess herself now, we cannot trust that she will remain so cowed if an opportunity for revenge on those who took her love away from her presents itself.  Winning her good will ensures that we remain safe, that we are not forced to kill her, and also gives us a chance to turn her and her colleagues to good.  Once again, this is a worthy endeavour.  Snook agrees - which is fortunate, because I would not proceed with this plan without having him on board.  The dwarf has a much more refined sense of good and evil than I do; he is an arch pragmatist - the very best kind of paladin - so if he tells me he considers a course of action to be too great an ethical compromise, I will bow to his superior moral compass.  I am fated to walk the grey line between right and wrong; I need people like him with me to ensure I do not fall.

Which reminds me: Shnookums and I need to have a conversation, and soon.

The paladin also informed me that he would be keeping a very close eye on both our friendly neighbourhood necromancer and the newly-returned ex-bandit, in case they slide too far to the black end of the spectrum, or bring something evil back into this world alongside the man's immortal soul.  I expected nothing less from my stalwart companion.

In one surprising but very welcome twist, however, Ulman had one additional requirement before he would agree to our partnership: that I ensure he is returned to life if, during the course of his enquiries, he dies.

I agreed immediately, and have made this my personal responsibility, and not just because I like the man and his ... family.  Ulman knows the danger inherent in what he is doing, and he forges ahead regardless, but not without due caution and contingencies.  Something in his mind is clearly broken, but he yet retains his reason.  This bodes well for him, but also means he can be brought to good, or at least influenced to steer clear of the worst excesses of the necromantic arts.  The man can be saved, and, I fancy, he wants to be saved.  I can respect that.

Expedition 0: On the Nature of Dice (Agamemnon)

It has been ... challenging to write this journal entry.  It is not readily apparent which of the details of this past week are most salient.

Two adventurers have arrived in Zelkor's seeking to join the Great Downward Engineering Company.  Mortimer is a quiet but fearsome orc.  I feel an immediate kinship to him because his demeanor and his behaviour are not giving us a bad name.  He wields a simple peasant weapon, a scythe, reinforced for war.  Fizban is a human alchemist.  I've never associated with an alchemist before.  I once knew a halfling with a penchant for firecrackers, but that ... ended poorly.  Fizban is much further up the power curve.

I suppose the three most significant events other than our newest compatriots are the bird, the bandits and the goblins.

The bird's name is Afrit.  He is a fiendish crow of great size who lives atop one of the towers of Castle Calaelen.  I talked to him.  He mistook me for a follower of Orcus because this mace we picked up apparently bears his markings - good to know.  Being an orc probably contributed to his assumptions.  We had a conversation in infernal and arrived at an agreement: we would try to avoid getting in each others' way.  We are marking all our animals with a mark to let Afrit know they are off limits to his predations, and otherwise leaving him alone; to his benefit is knowing that no adventurers will be storming the castle to de-roost him.  Yet.

The goblins ... I did not enjoy that encounter.  They were very challenging, as goblins always are if they catch you unawares.  They were a patrol of about twelve who severely weakened us with a vicious volley of crossbow bolts as their first action and attempted to force our surrender as their second.  Orcs do not surrender to goblins.  Shades was none too keen in the idea either.  Jax did not want to lose his acquisitions.  Mortimer, the heavily wounded Snook (they were wise to target him first; dwarves and goblins do not mix well) and I agreed that their first volley was by far the worst they could do, and so since we were still standing (except Snook who was more leaning on a horse) we might as well have at it.

And have at it we did, so that within a few strikes the yellow bastards turned and fled.  Not fast enough though.  The cat, the orc and I managed to keep pace and eventually we ran them down, interrogated their leader, then killed them all.  One less goblin patrol but, more importantly, we have a lot more of an idea what's going on down in the Mouth of Doom.  I am now certain that this is the best entryway for us into Rappan Athuk.  We have taken one of their patrols, we know that not all the goblins from that stinking hole are this well trained or this motivated, that they are led by an Orcite zealot called Tribitz who wields power from a city called Greznek, where Morask is king.  There are opportunities here.  As my father used to say, weak goblins are second only to a falchion in terms of tools most useful to a powerful orc.  There are options we need to explore.  Mosswood seems like an unknown quantity at this point.  That makes it a poor option.  Especially given the banditry in this area.

That brings me to point three: the bandits.  The patrol from Tarrent's Junction let us know of the bounty on bandits.  Their information was a little lacking in specificity, it later turned out when, at Zelkor's, we found out that the bounty was actually on specific bandit leaders.

We did ambush a bandit encampment.  We determined through observation that they were primed to jump the Brawler, a barge carrying furs for sale up north.  In retrospect I judge them to be reasonable combatants, but our planning and the stealth of our rogue completely neutralised them.  With their night watch knifed and the rest of them asleep in their tents, several 'judiciously placed' fire bombs and two charging orcs led to four dead and three surrenders almost immediately.  We took their surrender and escorted them back to the shithole.

En route we learned that they really were the very least of the bandits in the area.  They were selfish, they were inconsiderate, but they were not, by and large, sadists.  They had turned to banditry rather than make an honest living, but their modus operandi was to storm river boats for their goods, not to murder everyone in sight.  In fact they told us quite freely that they had ceased associating with the bulk of the bandits in the area because these others were far too ferocious and villainous.  I do commend them for this.  There is such a thing as a lesser evil.

Not all the party feels comfortable with the slaughter we brought on these people.  I am.  I do not revel in death, or in killing, despite my ancestry.  I did not enjoy their deaths.  But they rolled the dice.  They chose this life path.  They chose to deprive others of their livelihoods.  How many children turn to thievery because their merchant parents lose their livelihoods to bandits?  How many of those children become hard, become evil?  I don't believe life is just, but if you roll the dice, you accept the consequences.  These people inflicted harm on others for personal gain, and then they rolled badly and fate harmed them in return.  It doesn't matter whether they deserved this; this is how the dice landed.

I do not feel bad, but I understand why others do.  The stalwart paladin, unsurprisingly, took no delight in what happened but recognised that those who breach the law to harm others will be brought to account by the law.  However he also recognised that the intent of the law is to do good, and so realised an opportunity in all this.  Shades is actually an entitled lord in this place, and so on his authority we took the three surviving bandits into his custody rather than see them executed.  The paladin, the bird and I returned the bounty on these three out of our own pockets, and they are now resident in the castle with us.

I am not certain how this will turn out.  Javier I think will take to whatever task he is given.  Barak is harder to read.  Karina though ... it was her husband who led the bandits, and he died at our hands.  I think we underestimate her grief.  If we want to turn these three to good, we may have some work to do.  Still, we rolled the dice.  Let's see how it goes.

I will leave it there.  I must return to Zelkor's Ferry.  I have another appointment with Uldman.  I have an idea.

Shades 002: A Shady Maybe-Elf of an Ambiguous Nature

Well, still in Zelkor's Ferry, unfortunately, waitin' for word of the work I'm offerin' to spread to nearby gold-hungry ears. There ain't a word in any of the tongues I speak to fully describe how lonesome this boil on the river's back is, and believe me I know some turns o' phrase that'll make an orc's mother blush. I've spent the bulk o' my daylight hours perched on some hill nearby, trancin' and drinkin' in the silence. I ain't heard a quiet so deep since the monastery after curfew, so it seemed only proper to do so. There's a mean tang in the air here. It sticks to a bird's feathers if you stay out too long. Maybe it's just the fumes waftin' off the cutsnake necromancer, or maybe it's the all death and bones on the very breath of ol' Rappun Athuk itself.

Most folks makin' their living here in Zelkor's Ferry live somewhere in the fields outside of town, leavin' about twelve folks left whilin' their nights away in Bristleback Inn. For the most part the locals keep their distance. I don't blame 'em. I've been told tengu all look alike to the untrained eye, so they see a bird who looks like the perp who robbed them, and often get all colours o' rage. Little do they know that the poor thievin' bastard likely got their snitchers lopped off for their petty crime. Speakin' o' petty crime, Bristleback certainly got himself a right rort here. In all my meanderin's I ain't seen a price like five gold a night for such an ordinary room, but where else in Zelkor's is a bird gonna roost? Nestled with the gnolls and kobolds?

Turns out the Great Downward Engineering Company's name still whispers a sweet somethin' for those listenin' for it. I was approached by the Inn's entertainer, Freydann, last night, when the buzz of the ale died and the stupors began. Slippery lass, that one. Or at least I think she's a lass. I thought I had a good eye for humanoids, but honest to whatever gods hold sway out here I can't tell if she's a human, high elf or wood elf or whatever the blazes kind of elf. Or some kind o' mongrel. Lass caught eye of my deed to Castle Calaelen and knew what it meant, Lords and all. She was quite bold in offerin' her services as a local to the Great Downward, notin' that business would likely gather more steam if its face didn't have a beak on it. I gotta admit Freydann has a point.