First Adventure: Search for the Children

"We seek only shelter for the night. Our business will see us gone soon after first light."

When Davros sees the mouth begin to speak, he slowly reaches down to the handle of one the weapons on his hips, readying himself in case of any danger while Yi'gga speaks to the painting.

The mouth reanimates.

"If that is your only desire, you may walk in and head dow the hallway on the right. It is, essentially, a tunnel. At the end of that tunnel you will find a good, safe place to rest. Just don’t do anything to invite the Hounds to this place, and you will be fine."

With that, the blurryness of the walls fades, and the images on the walls are visible.

A pathway is lit with torches that poof on upon the completion of the magic mouth’s words. You walk along, and there are some really amazing and impactful images all around you. You go to a place that has hay along the stone walls of the this cave, and when you all enter therein, the space you reside in becomes opaque, and it seems you are in some magical hut of protection.

On the wall here, the magic mouth appears and says, "You may rest in this location, which is magically guarded against predators. Please note that the Hounds have been known to penetrate these barriers before.

"If you have any inquiries, simply tap the mouth image and speak your question."

"So many questions..." Yi'gga whispers to herself. She looks around for a minute then tentatively touches the mouth again. "You mentioned a Ta-Vur earlier. Who is that? What is this place exactly?"

The Starling only grew more unsettled as they followed the Mouth-painting's directions deeper into the cavern. Before, he had always slept within the mouth of a cave, the stars still visible. But now it was only stone over his head and all around.

It was little relief to him when they found the place of supposed safety. And as Yi'gga questioned the mouth-painting, Oie-ao tried to distract himself by inspecting the other paintings upon the walls.

"Ta-Vur is an ancient, powerful, noble spellskin. He seeks to undo the hold that the Blind Heaven has over our world.

"The purpose of this sanctum is arcane experimentation. Ta-Vur goes to retrieve secrets and clues from any sages and chanters that he can, synthesizes those concepts into theories, and then experiments on those theories in places such as this. He also creates special pocket dimensions to experiment in. He truly is magnificent and brilliant."

Arcane experimentation? Blind Heaven? These words made no sense to Davros as he sat on a pile of hay. He looked at all the images surrounding the party, same as Oie-ao, and directed his attention to the Mouth.

"If your mighty Ta-Vur truly is so brilliant and has any idea on whether or not he has seen a pack of scavengers carrying stolen children then that would be beneficial to us," he huffed.

"Ta-Vur has not entered this sanctum in many months. Scavengers Vow does not typically operate this far into the wild, though.

"There is a cabal of saurian spellskins who operate out of an old Dwarven keep not for from here. Could they have been mistaken for scavengers, perhaps?"

The words the mouth used were...big...and a little confusing for Yi'gga. "What is Scavengers Vow? And why would the spellskin cabal want Dwarven children?"

She wants to circle back to that comment about "breaking the hold" of the Blind Heavens bit, but that isn't the party's current goal. Perhaps later she can come back and consult with this Tar-Vur.

Seyala listens intently, keeping his face blank. None of this makes sense to him.

"Scavengers Vow is a institution, a den of thieves, led by The Rat King. Like I mentioned before, they do not operate in this region of the wilds, as far as this magical projection knows.

"This group must be using children for experimentation."

The mouth pauses for a few moments, and then says, "If my calculations are correct, this would be a good finding to share with the master. When he returns, I will be relaying the information to him. If you all wouldn't mind, if you could please report back your findings in that area, I would be very appreciative. Master rewards those who relay good information and intelligence as to the experiments of others, and I am sure he would be interested in knowing about what their experiment was, why it was done, and what the results were."

"Experimentation? Then we must head to the Dwarven keep as soon as dawn breaks. Those children are at the mercy of thieves and cannot defend themselves. That is dishonorable - the Scavengers Vow and the Rat King must be dealt with and disposed of once the children are back in the safety of their homes."

Davros' tone was one filled with anger and frustration. He was a hunter. His life was guided by a code of honor, and those children did not have the strength nor the skill to protect each other from the thieves. What angered him further was the fact that those children had their entire lives ahead of them. They did not deserve to be experimented on and potentially be crippled to the point where they cannot go on.

"And what would your master be doing with this information? I think whatever is happening in the keep should never be spoken of again. There is no use in letting those experimentations be released into the world. Corruption is surely to follow it..."

Seyala says nothing to the mouth. He does touch Davros on the arm: "I am going outside for a moment."

"I will accompany you. Better to stay together in these strange places. And one more breath of night air will help settle my nerves befire sleep." Yi'gga says and prepares to follow the other warrior.

The Mouth had a great deal to say, and none of it made any sense to Oie-ao. Though none of this made sense to Oie-ao. And as much as he would have liked to followed Yi'gga and Seyala out into the fresh air -- he hated these walls all around him -- he was far more curious as to what the mouth had to share.

The man stepped up alongside Davros and pressed a hand to the wall. "You mentioned the Blind Heaven," he started, eyes slipping past the mouth and once again over the paintings over the wall. The Heavens were what he fell from, after all, though he spoke only his question, and not the protests forming in his mind. "What is it you mean by the 'Blind Heaven' and their hold?"

Seyala steps out of the cave and turns to Yi'gga.

"I do not trust this place," he says with an urgent gesture into the cave. "That strange moving painting of a mouth says many things I do not understand. It says the place is somehow protected against predators. The only protection I know against predators is to be the bigger beast. I think it is not a safe place to be. Do you understand me?"

As the Mouth explained that its master would prevent such experimentation from happening again - Davros still couldn't trust its words. It was a speaking mouth, after all, that they just came across by a sudden chance.

When Seyala and Yi'gga left, Davros listened to Oie-ao's question and waited for the Mouth to respond. He certainly had nothing better to do and did not wish to leave the others regardless of their capabilities of defending themselves.

"I do understand. There is far more to this place than we can see right now. But I know a little of magic. It is possible that we were told the truth, but I don't fully trust this Ta-Vur character."

"Let us maybe stay inside the opening of the cave, but not so far into there as the moving mouth painting lured us. It feels uncomfortably like the brightly-colored gullet of a snake in there."