Chapter Three: The Last Dream of Mirza Horgul

OK, at this point, you've all fled from combat, leaving Everil and The Implacable to duke it out. Which means me and my polyhedral dice app are going to see how their situation resolves itself and how many rounds it takes. Stand by...Paul, can we get some dice-rolling music here?

[doo de doo de doo...dice rolling music...doo de da de doo...rollin' those dice...]

Alright then. Wow. What an interesting outcome their fight had! Too bad none of you were there to see it. Anyway...

Zora runs back to the round chamber with the three red-painted exits and heads for the east exit, the one that veers north on a decline. You follow her, Shamush bringing up the rear, slowed from his exhaustion.

This tunnel curves back around to the south over the course of about 500' before leveling off and forking into three tunnels. A long red stripe has been painted along the wall, stretching over all three exits. Zora stops at this juncture, catches her breath for a second. "Red leads to the Sett," she huffs, talking to no-one in particular, "so they're all good." She takes off down the southeast-pointing tunnel.

Another long stretch of tunnel leads to a natural cavern, so wide and sprawling you can't really tell its dimensions. Picking your way over uneven ground, through stalagmites, up sheer ledges, and down gravelly slopes, the party traverses some distance, breathlessly putting ground between themselves and whatever might be pursuing them, before Zora finally stops.

"I think maybe this wasn't the right way," she says. "But I don't think we should backtrack." She seems to take clear notice of Shamush and Zangua for the first time. Her brow furrows. "How did you find me here, anyway? Mordred? Why did you follow me all this way?"

[To be clear, it's Q&A With Zora time! Feel free to ask her any questions you might have about what in the Nine Hells is going on! We can assume you're all trying to make your way through the cavern while you're talking.]

Edit: Also, just to clear up levels of familiarity: Leth and Felor, you have met Zora a few times in recent years. Vad, you spent some time teaching Zora some of the basic elements of wild magic theory, but that was longer ago, when she was a child. Mordred, you've been good friends with Zora for a long time. Shamush and Zangua, you don't know her at all!

Zora sort of reflexively stiffens when Mordred mentions the Sphere, throwing another wary look at the two strangers before seeming to remember that Mordred just said they could be trusted. "No. I don't know what happened to the Sphere. Dad didn't tell me much of anything, really. Just what he wanted me to do. And that...thing...he didn't say anything about that. He said there would be people after me, but...honestly, when Everil told me about it, I thought he was just trying to scare me into staying put." She looks up. "So...what happened to Dad, anyway? Is he in prison? Who got murdered?"

Zora seems to have been warned that she would be hunted, but didn't know about the Implacable specifically, just to clarify her meaning.

When Mordred says the word executed Zora stops, puts her hand on a stalagmite to steady herself, and stares blankly ahead. She barely seems to hear the rest of what Mordred has to say.

But after a long moment in which it seems you may have to drag or carry her if you want to go any further, she shakes her head and looks down at the ground. "Of course they did. Of course. I don't know why I let myself hope otherwise." She locks eyes with Mordred. "He did steal the Sphere. He told me so straight out." She starts walking again. "He said some secret society he used to belong to made him do it. The 'Six-Pronged Crown.' Told me I had to get to Hazard before they found me, that they'd be coming after me, because they could make him steal the Sphere but they couldn't make him give it to them, so they'd come after me to try to find it." She stops again at the edge of a steep gravelly slope, pinches the bridge of her nose for a moment while she squeezes her eyes tightly shut, then sits down on the edge and pushes off to slide down.

At the bottom, she gets up and brushes herself off. "You didn't tell me, who got murdered?

Edit: TYPO FIXED.

The party fills Zora in on all of the adventures they've had escaping from Sthombo and tracking her down.

Her spirits lift a bit at the mention of the tile you recovered from her personal effects at Grine's Knot. "You got it back! Dad gave me that -- that's what I'm supposed to deliver to Hazard. I thought I was going to have to draw it from memory when I got there. Do any of you know what it means?"

You feel there's some gaps in Zora's story, but that that's more likely a result of the stress and confusion of the situation she's currently in than any intentional circumspectness.

For as well as Zora was able to metabolize the news of her father's death, the news of what happened at Five Stones after she left seems almost more than she can handle. The color drains from her face as she stumbles forward, almost rolling her ankle on the rough cavern floor as the dreadful information robs of her of her focus and concentration.

"I don't know why they want to find me so bad," she says quietly. "I don't even know what they think I can tell them. I didn't get much out of Dad, before he left. I could tell he was serious, that something was really wrong. I knew when he told me there would be people after me, and I had to stay ahead of them no matter what, he meant it. But he didn't tell me there'd be this -- thing -- following me, just killing everything that gets in its way." She looks up into the blackness of the cavern ceiling. "When I got out of Grine's Knot, I decided I'd just get into the Badgerways however I could and figure it out from there. Finding the King's Cradle wasn't hard, and I knew there were these underground roads they called 'the vines' that would lead into Hazard. I got lost, though. And Everil found me. Took me back to his castle, or whatever you'd call it. Told me it was too dangerous to leave because of that 'Implacable' thing. But he wasn't ever going to let me leave. Didn't take too long to figure that out." She thumps the butt of her bone javelin on the ground. "I talked him into letting me throw a few of these things to show off my arm. Put one right in the stream so I could grab it on my way out the next time he went on one of his patrols. And that's what I did."

Party, please make Perception rolls.

"So here's what I found out. The Badger Kings used to rule over twice as much of the Ways as they do now. They call the south half of it 'the Squalid Sett' and that extends all the way under Hazard. And they mark all the tunnels that lead there with red so the trolls don't wander in there by accident. So if we get there, we should be able to get into Hazard, deliver that tile, and maybe find out why so many people are dying for the sake of that stupid Sphere."