Against the Cult: Entering Orlane (1.7)

Spider-Theran crawls under the door from the bedroom back into the parlor, then, halfway across the floor to the door, he hears voices approaching. "I'm going to check on Bertram." Spider-Theran scurries for the closest wall and just reaches it as the door open and a man wearing a sword enters, his giant boots stomping through the place where Theran had just been. Theran sees that the armed man has a long, vertical scar on the right side of his face, which has twisted both the shape of his brow and the curve of his mouth, giving him a perpetually squinting, sneering expression. The scarred man does not see Theran, however. The spider makes his way up the wall, across the ceiling, and down again to the door, crawling down and across the lintel and then up again on the other side in the common room. The scarred man re-emerges from the parlor and closes the door behind him. As he continues his crawl across the ceiling of the common room, Theran listens to their conversation.

At this point, Spider-Theran reaches the other doorway and slips between the lintel and the door. He can still feel the buzz of conversation, but can no longer make out the words. This next room is obviously the kitchen.

It has now been about a quarter of an hour since Theran transformed. What do you do now?

Myrtha keeps her feet flat on the floor as she sits on the rickety stool. "Jonbon seemed determined to take his captives to the Temple, though..." she muses, considering the exchange between Aanbo and Ramne about the Temple of Merikka. "Have you noticed any difference in the worship of Merikka at the Temple? A change in the character of the worshippers, or something different about the rituals?"

Ramne shakes his head and shrugs. "I haven't gone to the temple in a while. I barely get out at all. Most of what I need is here, and I don't think it's safe to go wandering the streets alone." Whiskers chitters. "Yes, well, not alone alone, just without others to help get me out of trouble if it came to that." Whiskers chitters again, and Ramne glares at her.

Chase adds: "Sounds like the temple has been infiltrated by something else. Just one or two undetected can turn many in time." Ramne responds, "I don't know, but that is my fear. If you don't realize that your friends are changing, would you be able to identify it in time to protect against betrayal or indoctrination? I wouldn't even say I have friends here, just acquaintances. Nobody ever wants to talk to the 'crazy old man.' It's better to stay out of it. I'm somewhat protected here, but to make any change, somebody has to investigate. I can't do that on my own. I would offer to join you..." His smile falters. "But then I don't know if you can be trusted. I think you can - you're from outside town, and you're adventurers who are at least familiar with Diana and Cecily. But none of those things definitely mean that you aren't in league with the monsters."

"It should be hot enough now..." Old man Ramne gets up and pours tea into hand-carved wooden cups that he sets on a rickety table. "Please, help yourself." He takes a cup himself and takes a conspicuous sip from it, intentionally showing that it's either not drugged, or he's imbibing the drug, too. He holds the mug in his hands and glances at Joseph. "I'm not concerned about your reporting me to your masters; if you're allied with Them, you'd be making me disappear now." He grins his gap-toothed smile. "...or you'd be trying, anyhow." He takes another sip. "It's no secret; They know where I am. And they know that I'll resist 'em. I'd be doing somethin' about Them now, except I haven't been able to figure out a way to tell the good ones from the bad ones, so I'm all by myself."

"...with Whiskers!" he adds before the weasel can object. "But that's still not enough for me to investigate a suspicious place like the Golden Grain Inn, or go to the Temple which might be safe, or it might be overrun. I hope that we can work together, but I've been thinking about it, and the only way I think I could be convinced that I could trust you is if you fight and defeat some of those green monsters first. That'll be enough to show me that you aren't on their side. If you can do that, then I can work with you."

The men that Reptile saw leave the Inn cross the bridge and look for evidence of the party's route. They seem to have found something across the bridge, but the barbarian is too far to get a sense of whose tracks they've found. They do not seem to have seen him, or even suspect that he is there, hiding in the barn, yet.

"No, not the temple, though we have seen some heading in that direction." Ramne replies. "Mostly we see them at night, skulking around the Inn or moving in the streets. I think they are abducting people."

Spider-Theran inches past over the cook's head, approaching the door. Then he slips down to the lintel and squeezes between it and the top of the door; the air coming through the crack is cool and dry compared to the steam in the kitchen.

Spider-Theran crawls out onto the ceiling of a basement so large east-west that he has to crawl around a bit until he can see its borders. Spare furniture and parts of broken furniture are stacked against the southern wall. Behind him, on either side of the staircase that descends into the middle of the room, are two solid doors. The north wall bears several unlit torches in sconces.

Spider-Theran chooses the door on the left first; crawling through, he finds himself in the wine cellar. A few high shelves sport bottles, but most of the room is dominated by large casks of different kinds of beverage or oil. A smaller staircase leads up to a barred door: another exit to the outside!

Leaving that room, Theran crawls around to the other door and slips around it. The room beyond is another cellar, which has clearly been used to store dry goods: beans, flour, oats, sugar, salt, pepper, assorted other spices...all the things that go into food preparation at the Inn.

Ramne nods, warily. He's clearly concerned that the party is trying to figure out if he "knows too much." Still, he's already committed himself on the hope that the party is in opposition to the evil forces. He replies: "The few times I've seen them, they've always come from the east side of town."
"I've never seen more than three at a time. Are they the same three?" He shakes his head. "We've never gone close enough to tell."

Theran in the form of a spider crawls back into the main basement room, up the stairs, around the door at the top of the stairs, through the kitchen, around the door leading back to the common room, across the ceiling of the common room, and up the stairwell to the second floor, a journey which takes a couple of minutes because no one is paying attention to the movement on the ceiling.

Between 35 and 40 minutes have passed; Theran moves on, slipping under that door and across the floor to squeeze under the door on the other, north, side of the passage.

A minute later, the spider-shaped Theran re-emerges from that room and continues along the corridor, turning north.

Ramne agrees, slowly caressing his scraggly beard. "Yes, I will stay here. When you can show me that you have successfully opposed the evil monsters, then I can probably trust you." He gets up, leaning on his staff, and walks the four heroes out.Those who are going proceed back down the path through the grove of trees.