Act I, Chapter One: A Rumor in the Dark

BEFORE ULFR AND BRAN'S CRYPTIC WORDS EXCHANGED:

"Seelah is our rock," Petra says after the guardian's commitment to the quest is also made clear.

What she means is not just her dependableness, but that when trouble breaks out or seems it might, it is Seelah's steadying presence the dwarrow looks to first. To borrow for herself some of that steely resolve (perhaps tinged with resignation or anticipation or a faith in an even greater 'rock' whose presence anchors Seelah herself, Petra has never asked).


And her smile beams her pleasure when Serah accepts her galangal and shares her rhyme. A rhyme which Petra immediately commits to memory, repeating the verse as a chant in her mind. The more people who hear and remember ties to life in Aryth before it was Izrador's stifling domain, the harder it is for the Shadow to steal them and swallow them forever.


AFTER ULFR AND BRAN'S CRYPTIC WORDS EXCHANGED:

Petra's face hardens in resignation at the new understanding she thinks she has reached. She's suddenly glad Thorn already folded his map up, saves her the trouble of trying to hide it if those boots they heard upstairs earlier get restless.Azote's raised hood is an obvious warning too, but Petra turns to their (or at least her) rock, to watch what Seelah will say or do. Unless she is mistaken, Seelah looks more ready for violence than her usual caution. The dwarrow's sling and stones hang heavier now in her pocket, woefully inadequate but better than exposing her magic gift too early.

A healer by nature is loath to harm, but if she must it won't be the first time.

GREYBARROW | THE THIRSTY LANTERN – CELLAR | RAIN-SWEPT NIGHT

Thunder growls beyond the foundation stones. Three pairs of careful boots drift above, hemming the stair from two sides; the halfling contact remains a small, motionless knot near the door. Below, lantern-light quivers on steel.

Bran lowers his gauntlet from the lantern rim. Visor tilts first to Úlfr, then to the baffled gnome.

"Sorry, Wex—the fire wasn't an accident, and it took more than my good looks..."

The words hang, acrid as smoke. Wexley blanches, mouth gaping as he searches the helmed face for an ally who is no longer there.

Bran’s helm tilts, feeling the hushed tread overhead before drifting across the room: Azote shrinking beneath Úlfr’s shadow, Petra’s stone rolling between small fingers, Seelah statue-still, Serah clutching her shawl.

"There’s still a sliver of hope to drag Elise back from the Shadow’s cages." His voice cracks ever so slightly, almost imperceptible. "That’s how it runs in traitorous circles, Old Friend. Lines are crossed, debts are paid, lives are weighed. You ought to know the pattern."

He shifts, boots grinding grit, sealing himself between rebels and stair. Rainwater drips—a slow, fatal metronome.

"So, what’ll it be? Come up meekly and beg the Shadow’s mercy… or raise steel and seal your fates right here?"

One last droplet pings the bucket, the final calm heartbeat before choices harden into consequence.

"My heart aches for all you have clearly suffered and for her captivity and your fears for her. But it must be said, all the Shadow's promises are empty and designed to manipulate you into thinking you are weaker than you are and have no other options but to kneel. Surely you know that pattern?

"Whereas we might be able to come up with a plan to help this woman if you told us more, and we are neither liars nor manipulators of proxies to take our risks in our stead."

After her firm and earnest counterpoint and counteroffer, Petra casts a quick look around at her friends, hoping an offer merely to entertain strategies of rescue of an innocent victim in need of it did not cross a line. She is not in command, nor is she trying to claim that authority.

Yes. You know my friend speaks truth. We have no agenda of our own, other than to uncover artifacts that may well turn the tide in our favor. Please, let us settle matters well, and steadily. There is no need for aggression here. We all know, there is plenty of that already.

Let us be about finding that which we seek, and we’ll all be well for it.

GREYBARROW | THE THIRSTY LANTERN | RAIN-SWEPT NIGHT


The storm claws at Greybarrow, but darker claws clutch the lantern-lit silence within.

Rain scours the quay in restless sheets, lashing the dreary port-town with cold rain that bites to the bone; each gust hurls salt and chimney-soot against crooked façades, and in every hiss of water against wood you can almost hear the town’s collective breath—held tight, waiting to see whether this night will drown in tempest or in blood.

---

What feels like hours past the appointed time, your feet feel heavier with every sodden step. The map etched in your memory promised sanctuary: The Thirsty Lantern, a haven whispered about in hushed tones and desperate moments. Yet the inn before you is too quiet. No sentry at the door. No voice to echo the second half of your passphrase.

The door stands open, ajar, not welcoming. A crooked sliver of yellow light leaks out like a wound in the night.

You press your hand to the swollen wood. It resists. Something on the other side pushes back, not strength, but weight. Slowly, reluctantly, the door yields.

What you first mistook for a bundle of cloth is a body. A halfling, broken and barely clinging to life, crumples against the threshold. His skin is pale with shock and cold, slick with rain and blood. One arm is gone below the elbow, hacked, not torn, the work of blade or fang. His open eyes plead not with hope, but with the raw desire to stop feeling anything. Each tear tracks through grime and pain, a wordless cry unanswered by any god.

Inside, the room holds its breath.

Two men stand stiffly across the hall, clad in leather hardened by time and stained with the road. They guard a trapdoor in the floor—drawn blades, alert stances, the terror in their eyes a mirror of your own. They do not seem like soldiers, collaborators, perhaps.

And then you see him.

An Orc stands between you and them, the lamp's firelight casting his shadow long across the blood-slick boards. His shoulders are broad, his frame brutish, but it's the grin that freezes you. Gore still glistens on his neck and tusks, and on the battered table beside him lie the hollow remains of a halfling’s hand: pale bones stripped clean.

After the disgust instinctually hits you, you find it odd, deeply so. An orc like this, alone? Unheard of. The Shadow's beasts do not roam without orders, without packs, without purpose. Yet no warband howls behind him. No banner or black-cloaked handler barks commands. Just him. Smiling gruesomely, at you.

The orc grunts low, a sound halfway between amusement and hunger. He licks his lips and lets his axe casually drop to his side, as if this moment belongs to him already.

And in that awful silence, the outside storm pounds its war-drum above you, the question forms with brutal simplicity.

What do you do?

---

Cloaked Azote chirps in, "We do what we must do against the evil shadow." (Which wasn't any aid. LOL.)

GREYBARROW | THE THIRSTY LANTERN — CELLAR | RAIN-SWEPT NIGHT
Thunder rolls overhead like distant war-drums while lantern-flame flickers over wet stone. Bran’s blade still bars the stairs, yet its tip has sunk, a hairbreadth above the muck.

Across the gloom Serah’s shawl shifts; she steps forward, knuckles white around the wool but voice steady.

"Bran, the only promise here comes from the Shadow itself, and you know how it pays its debts. We do not bargain with that darkness, we can stand together against it, as we've always done."

A tremor passes through Bran’s shoulders; the point of his sword drops another inch.

"You know there is no true pact with that void…" His voice cracks, softer now, almost incredulous. "… perhaps Elise still has a road home, but not through that dark path." Wexley slips in beside him, palms outward.

The point of Bran's steel finds purchase on the grimy cobblestone.

"Aye, that’s the spirit. Let these folk stand with us, Bran. We’re stronger linked than lashing out."

For a breath the rain is the only sound. Then, with a weary rasp, Bran sheathes his sword.

"You speak true. I won’t bar your way. But my contingencies are already in motion. Betray me, and I’ll pay any price to free Elise."

The warning lands cold but measured; the venom has drained, leaving only hard-edged resolve.

Above, all movement ceases. You're unsure why.

"Thank you. To be false with you would be to hand the Shadow a victory in our hearts, we refuse to do that. Now will you tell us more of Elise to see if we might help her?

"Or when you said you would not bar our way, did you mean the best way forward without bringing you more danger and grief would be if we depart?"

Petra's thanks had been meant for all of them. She assumes the Dorn's friends' words carried the most weight.

The relief in her soft voice shades into sorrow as it dawns on her Bran may not feel he could take her up on an offer of trying to make a plan to free Elise, at least not an immediately carried out one.

Before stepping into The Thirsty Lantern, Varin crouches beside the bloodied halfling slumped near the door. The wounds are brutal—deep gashes across the chest, one arm ripped clean off, and barely any breath left in him. The halfling's eyes lock with Varin’s, full of pain and silent pleading. Varin exhales sharply through his nose, shakes his head, and stands.

Pushing through the door, he calls out in a gravelly voice, loud enough for the room to hear:
"Someone's bleeding out by the door. Halfling. Looks bad—real bad. Arm’s gone. If anyone knows him or can help, you better move fast. I ain't got the hands for this."

"Halfling is hurt, helping hands must heed the call." Úlfr actually picks up the barrel they had been using for a table and starts making his way up the stairs, assuming no one blocks his way. Ironically, this means the first thing rising out of the trapdoor would be the barrel.

Time to go, quips our ebony guardian. Clutching Bladeguard in gauntleted grip, Seelah accompanies Úlfr upstairs.

Sour torch-smoke coils around sagging rafters, turning each breath into the taste of used iron. Bran lingers at the foot of the stairs. True to his word—he edges just far enough aside to let the pair lumber past.

"Mind your necks, friends," he murmurs, voice a low rasp that nonetheless carries. "My acquaintances above favor quiet work, steel across the throat, no warning given. Move smartly, or the first cut will teach you caution."

Half-shadows reveal the slight dwarrow girl, stone bones tempered with gnome stature. He angles his helm a fraction, predator’s gaze pinning her as dust swirls in the draught.

"You fancy yourself a match for the Dark God's legions? Cute, lass. I meant what I said, the way out is clear. But if word of my courtesy reaches unfriendly ears, I'll see you manacled and marched to the pits by nightfall. Flee Greybarrow while its streets are still yours."

Lantern-light flickers over ranks of cracked statues, carving iron-black hollows where their eyes should be. Somewhere distant, a bell tolls once, then falls mute. Bran’s helm pivots, sweeping the gloom until his stare settles on the others clustered near the stairwell mouth.

"The warning stands for the rest of you - yes - even you two, Wex, Serah. Greybarrow's streets have grown teeth. Best quit them before they bite."

A breath later, the bell tolls again. Bran lets the echo hang, one mailed thumb tapping a silent count against the hilt of his sheathed steel, weighing lives and footfalls in equal measure.

Sometimes it's impossible to make a decent entrance.

Jasir sees the elfling slide into the Tavern ahead of him and doesn't really register that the door had been only pushed open a short ways. After all, why bother opening the door fully when one only needs a little?

So of course his hand thumps against the wooden portal and shoves to jostle the halfling that Varin is treating while the Elfling is working to treat the wounded. The cloaked and hooded Sarcosan starts slightly, his eyes widening visibly and his hand sliding backwards towards the cedeku that is hidden at the small of his back. Jasir is largely sporting a Sarcosan-sheik style. A navy blue turban-like headdress, with a mask passing over his nose. A long cloak, billowing pants the legs of which are bloused over calf-length boots.

He spends several long seconds contemplating the scene, the dark eyes turning upwards as he visibly spends several long seconds considering the lone orc, the halfling victim-of-violence... The collaborators by the trap door.

"Aha. I believe I see," he mutters in the local dialect, though he doesn't express just what insight those few moments have imparted but his hand slips away from the weapon at his back and straightens his cloak around his shoulders. In this neutral moment he simply takes a step back and watches how the present situation plays out.

Petra doesn't respond to the masked man's belittling or harsh retort of reiterated threats and offers of escape with their lives (for now, and in future only if they keep their mouths shut about him)...or his warning of cutthroats...with more than an "I hear you" nod.

Being dismissed by Bran could be taken as a blessing in disguise this night for her party and Thorn's mission, for them to proceed with utmost haste to the 'eel fishing' boat. The Dorn's lack of imagination or faith or hope in eventualities and what resourcefulness and favorable circumstances could mean for poor Elise notwithstanding...

It's not personal, Petra reminds herself, that most in Aryth can't or won't muster a mote of belief when faced with companions as green and lightly equipped as she and hers appear to be. What they uncover in Ishensa Basin may begin to change that? Or the attempt may kill them. That's the kind of uncertainty you learn to live with when you refuse to let despair be a lengthy visitor.


* * * * * *


The dwarrow healer follows her companions up the stairs. Her sling stones and sling still heavy in her pocket, her bandaged fingers now curling around them.

EDIT: Hearing Ulfr warn of the injured halfling causes Petra's stomach to clench, but she hopes she can see to his injuries, reach him in time without being prevented.


OOC:

I didn't notice the dialogue, and created this edit when I re-read the posts before mine later.

I will be asking the player to try using a font color and bold for dialogue henceforth but it's also MY responsibility that I didn't pay enough attention to the use of "quote" marks and "Erenlander" as clues I should respond to the dialogue.

GREYBARROW | THE THIRSTY LANTERN | RAIN-SWEPT NIGHT

With the door half-ajar, storm-wind snakes through the taproom, teasing guttering lantern-flames and carrying the coppery stink of the halfling’s blood. A heartbeat later—bang-bang-bang—the trapdoor in the floor snaps upward and a stout cider barrel begins ascending out of portal.

Below, the dim cellar-crew jolt as dust and cold dampness gusts from the ceiling. Above, Varin’s shout still hangs in the smoky air while Jasir’s dark eyes take the measure of every soul.

The lone orc looms near the table, iron axe held in his right hand. Candlelight slicks the creature’s tusks and the drying rain on its pauldrons. It points the blade at Varin, shoulders quake with a rumbling laugh, managing to bark between guffaws, "Kug-lat ish, snaga? Matûrz-lat krimp—glob-lat! Lât nar duh, gûsh-fûl!"

And then it bellows, alternating from amusement to rage seemingly instantaneously—each word raw and jagged in his rough, cruel language, "ZÛG-KRÛM! Dâg lat-ishi, hurz snaga. Lât nar gûl-ma! Ruchk-lat, agh bûb-ishi glob-lag!"

The two human collaborators flinch. One drops his rust-flecked short-sword with a clatter; the other stares bewildered at the barrel that replaced their intended reinforcements. From below the hatch, boots at pace and rational voices echo—whatever was meant to come through is now unknown in the dark.

A final hiss of rain extinguishes a lantern by the door, throwing half the room into rippling shadow. Somewhere behind the bar a rat scurries; outside the thunderous war-drums quicken their pace, the orc’s grin widens as the first heartbeat of open violence is set to begin.

With protective Úlfr movement and the feel that folly may be at hand, with a fast arcane word and motions elven Azote casts mage armor upon herself. She has situated herself for combat as it should be obvious to the others that know her. Her rapier is now drawn in her hands as she moves to follow Úlfr. Still rather cloaked is a moving shadow but is prepared now to cast light in order to fully view the situation better as her elven sight (Low light vision) is better than humans but still lacking. To be sure she follows Úlfr to give him needed aid. She isn't about to have something happen to him by some incident.

Raven Tork has crawled out of Azote's cloaking and mounted himself upon her shoulders and ready to leap in the air and fly. His vision is a match to Azote's. He well senses Azote's preparations for combat.

Azote has given the others a knowing glance as she turned to follow Úlfr and casted obvious protection.