(29 days total, 16 days until the New Moon)
Jeda Uninterrupted
Finally free of chaperons and the morally sound, Jeda, with Adej tightly wound around her forearm, snooped through camp a bit and eventually slipped off into the city. And what a big place it was, filled with far more people than she was accustomed to. All Nors, it was a thrilling experience to remain hidden, yet she played the role of human well beneath her robes, where her red skin could not see day. Had she looked in anyone's eyes, though, well, they'd have known she was something more sinister than man.
Using her recollection of the map, and some good old fashioned wandering, she walked the main Ring Road which wound around Provia, through lesser districts, guild blocks, even passed the church and graveyard. She'd only one destination, though, which made itself known by the grizzly mummified hands dangling from the gutters, the pale stone pillars, the sunset stained glass windows as The Mummy's Hand.
The Mummy's Hand
Opening the door, she was struck in the face by a plume of smoke, a mix of tobacco, weed and opium. Dazed a moment, she entered and shut the portal behind her. In a small coatroom, yet unable to see much more than five feet in front of her, she shuffled ahead for what low murmurs and coughs marked the common room. Yet before she'd taken three steps, a hulking man with indistinct features besides rippled muscles, a bald head, and dark wells for eyes, blocked her way. She did not belong to the Hand, and thus was not welcome, though when Jeda mentioned DeWitt the large one allowed her entry.
Entering the cloud bank that was the common room, it was difficult to discern much of anything about it. Orange coals from hookahs burned like a few dozen stars, lighting the vagueness of so many more orbiting faces. There were couches, cushions and chairs, even a fireplace or two, but the bar was unseen. She wasn't even sure how big the room was or if there was another exit.
Counter Culture
With some wandering, Jeda managed to find the bar, a small, darkwood counter but with a vast set of racks behind it which held all manner of drink, herb and drug, as well as the glasses, hookahs, papers and pipes for such indulgences. A beetle-like woman hunched on a stool, all together darkly dressed with dark, slightly-silver-streaked hair, reading a book.
Jeda attempted to order, but the woman didn't respond, infuriating the tiefling until which point the barkeep took pity and explained that in the Hand there was a certain language of ordering that wasn't Common. She helped Jeda through the steps to buying a hookah, enough hashish to fill it and a room for the night.
The Artists from Tolsted
At that point Jeda, feeling confident in the smoky room which masked most everyone's features, looked for a companion for the night. She passed by a few tables curiously, no one biting, and eventually came to an odd pair, two Umbalans with ebon skin out of the jungle colony of Umbala. She tried making small talk, but the two were either very stoned or very cruel as they could only laugh at Jeda's attempts to address them. The tiefling quickly grew angry and moved off, even as the two laughed so hard they were warned by the management.
Jeda tried another table, one with a blond, athletic Norswoman, a tall, handsome Norsman, and a twenty-something, balding Norsman. Her attempts to enter their conversation proved fruitful and the three were introduced as Heidi, Dieter and Paul. They were artists out of Tolsted, the creative capital of the empire, and regarded Provia as backwater and hardly much more than a town. They were only passing through on their way back home, but Dieter insisted on seeing DeWitt's circus tomorrow night. Jeda revealed she was performing in said act, prompting a demonstration of her "shadow puppets" with the help of Adej. It was a small shadow beetle, but enough to impress Paul and freak Heidi.
Dieter, taking a liking to the mysterious Jeda, offered to grab a bottle of Green Fairy. Jeda learned it was an alcohol called Absinthe which, if drunk in large enough quanities, caused the drinker to hallucinate. Of course, Paul added, it helped to already be fucked up. They shared hookahs, Heidi's a nice sky blue and Jeda's red dragon, until Dieter returned with a large bottle.
Green Fairy Aftereffects
The night melted then as the four of them shared drink after smoke after story, the lot getting entirely FUBAR. At that point Heidi rose and suggested an orgy, which Jeda was invited to. They shuffled to the bookcase which was cleverly designed as the door to the upstairs rooms. They entered a room larger than Jeda's and leaped on the bed, experiencing a night of sensation, experimentation, illusion and fun the likes of which Jeda had not had prior.
She passed out soundly, as did they all. Jeda was woken that morning to the sounds of screaming and the impact of a pillow on her head. She was naked and they were awake, realizing they'd copulated with a tiefling...
Beneath Blackdelve
After some debate, Kaylan and Portia tore open the trap door on the forest floor and plunged down root-choked stairs and into pitch blackness. It smells musty and moldy. They could feel slime and fungi on the walls and the floor held scum-skinned puddles which eventually grew into flood waters.
Trusting in their senses despite being blind and more or less defenseless, the pair (mostly led by Kaylan's persistent curiosity) made their way through the beginnings of a crumbling underground complex stretching beneath Blackdelve Asylum.
Slosh, Slosh, Slosh
In her blind exploration of the tunnels, alcoves and empty chambers beneath Blackdelve, the cleric generated a lot of noise. Enough, in fact, to spark torches in a distance chamber at the corridor's end. Portia slipped into shadow with the ease of her ancestors, Kaylan a little less gracefully wedging herself in a crumbling pocket of wall.
The two investigators turned out to be Norsmen with severe allergic reactions, hooded and robed in wool dyed forest green, cultists in the same vein as those in Angern. Torches held before them, one waited at the doorway of the chamber and the other began a slow, cautious trudge through the shin-deep waters for Kaylan and Portia's direction. He stopped almost right beside the hushed Kaylan, looking about for signs of intruders. Portia threw a stone against a section of particular wall decay, the brick bouncing off and splashing. The cultist jumped a little and moved to investigate, muttering finally, "This whole damned place is going to fall on us..."
Cult Gossip
Following the cultists back to their half-flooded chamber with a stealth akin to Portia, Kaylan quietly tried the door to her left whilst listening to cult gossip. They talked about all sorts of things in their uneventful vigil, though eventually moved onto some juicy information, talking about an unseen cult chapter leader by the name of Greentongue and the odd collection of fey assembled under him. One was called a vine horror that lurked the corridors which none of them seemed to comfortable being near and, in fact, mentioning they prefered the croc. Conversation slipped to the basement level itself, all flooded and deteriorated. Greentongue had been digging for over a month now, they said, suspecting partly why the upper levels were sagging so much, but another assured them it had been like that ever since some curious Blackdelve doctors thought to rennovate the space into more cells for their lunatics, only to trigger an ancient elven trap which flooded the place. Talk moved to their hatred for elves, which drew a bit of Kaylan's ire.
Of the chamber she explored, it was also flooded, truly flooded, as the sunken floor and cieling and the water level combined to create a room with no breathing clearance after five feet or so. A dark, dead end she reasoned. Having spotted another door on the far end of the room, she crept into chest-deep water to try it out.
Visejaw
As Kaylan slipped through the deepening waters, unseen around the grotto's perimeter, something quieter and more attentive still followed close behind. Nearly to the half-submerged door, something gigantic burst from the black water and caught her in a vice. The cultists nearly leaped out of their skins, and Portia too from her hidden vantage. The men ran with torches to the edge of the shore, lighting the grizzly scene of a giant gray-brown crocodile thrashing and chewing on the unarmored Kaylan. The pain was unbelievable as her stomach and back were sawed with every throw of the monster's head, by dozens of dull teeth.
Gripped with fear and despair, Portia fled back to camp.
Saved by Diplomacy
As the animal tore into the cleric, she tried to convince the cultists she was more valuable alive by playing to their fear and obedience to the mysterious Greentongue. At first she choked on her own blood, as the crocodile slammed her against the wall, but eventually she managed to croak the words which ultimately led to her salvation.
However the cultists were in no position to deny the hulking primeval thing and instead called to the ceiling. Vines as thick as forearms lashed down and entangled the crocodile, despite its frenzy, even prying open its mouth so as to release the half-elf. They drew it to the far wall and let it tantrum, as Kaylan was left to bleed out a bit and then finally dragged to shore.
They kept close watch as she bound her wounds, having been close to oblivion. One dove down through a sunken gate after a few tested breaths to inform those below of what they'd caught, returning a few minutes later and going on about fairy dragons with cute, razor wings. Unsure whether or not the little things had understood his report or not, despite one having flown off deeper into the complex, the three decided to wait and see.
Two of the three cultists revealed themselves to be elf-haters, no surprise if the cult drew members from the Kingdom. The bigots remarked bounty hunters would often trade in the ear tips of elves for coin, though they did it mostly for fun. One removed a knife and the other moved to hold Kaylan down, remarking even a halfie's ears could get them something. The third cultists quietly protested, but Kaylan protested a bit stronger with kicked to the groins which toppled the two.
Seeing her chance to escape, she made a dash, leaping away from the standing cultist and starting a break down the long, dark hall. However these three were hardly the true guardians of the sunken gate, rather the vine horror, whose many arms lashed out with surgical precision and wrapped Kaylan from toe to nose and drew her to the ceiling.
They turn you upside down and something resembling a human face choked by vines and left to rot a year in this murk descends to study you with eyeless sockets. It reeks of festering fungi and fermented vegetation. Water bugs spill from its "mouth" as brackish gray water dribbles on your already soaked and bloody vestments.
It presses disgustingly close, so that its forehead rubs against the whole of your face, choking you in its putrescence. It seems to be reading you like a blind man would. The foul vine flesh is soft and gives far more than normal flesh.
It plunged into the waters of the sunken gate and passed through flooded chamber after flooded chamber, until Kaylan lost consciousness for lack of air.
Ghisidhran
Kaylan woke to the sounds of high-pitched giggling, her returning vision unable to focus on the tiny shapes flitting by her. When at last sight did come back, she found herself in a humid, fungal cave with high ceilings and a wide berth. Rising, she was met with a tall, pale mandarin with straight, black hair to his waist, coupled with black fingernails and dark eyes, dressed in the finest green semi-metallic robes which trailed behind him like a tail. In the blue faerie fire which traced dangling fungi and yet did not burn it, this imposing figure cast the large shadow of a dragon...
Kaylan need not look at the shadow to guess whom she was facing, the man confirming he was indeed Ghisidhran. He bowed slightly and addressed the raggedy cleric as princess, noting he'd been expecting her...
Experience: 200 (7,588, LEVEL UP 6!)
Magic: None
Loot: Red Dragon Hookah, Room 14 at The Mummy's Hand (Jeda)
Money: -30 gold (Jeda)
NPCs:
Abum, bouncer at The Mummy's Hand
Hand Barkeeper, beetle-like woman behind the counter
Umbalan Brothers (unnamed), pipe smoking gigglers of eastern jungle descent; ebon-skinned
Heidi, pretty, athletic, presumptuous Nors artist from Tolsted
Paul, balding, mild, twenty-something Nors artist from Tolsted
Dieter, strong, blond, handsome Nors artist from Tolsted
3 Green Cultists, seemingly not quite as fanatical as chatty
Ghisidhran, in the form of a tall, pale, black haired-and-nailed mandarin; cast a dragon's shadow on the wall (Large Dragon)
Monsters: visejaw crocodile, vine horror, fairydragons, human cultists (level 5)
Places: Flooded basement level of Blackdelve and Green Grottos of the Provian GG Cult (Kaylan and Portia), The Mummy's Hand (Jeda)
Organizations: Cult of the Green God
Kill Ghisidhran
And bring me back his tongue!
- Find the source of the Cult of the Green God and find the dragon
- During Nors mass, two suspicious twins of marked beauty sat in the green light
- The twins disappeared in a copse near Blackdelve Asylum
- Kaylan found a trap door in the copse floor leading to a flooded basement level of Blackdelve Asylum
- Green Cultists, a crocodile and a vine horror guarded a deep chamber
- Spoke of their mysterious leader Greentongue
- Portia escaped, Kaylan captured and dragged down...
- Fairydragons mentioned deeper down
- Portia: It is obvious the Cult of the Green God is located there
- Kaylan: You found Ghisidhran
Kaylan's Secret Origins
What is the real origin story on Kaylan?
- Princess Kaylan? At least that's what Ghisidhran is convinced of.
- The only thing you are certain of is that you are a half-Gloriandeline elf whose mother was and likely still is a slave somewhere in the Kingdom
- The Gloriandeline Empire of elves lorded Othyr and the Nors for over a thousand years
- Subsequently, elves were made low and into slaves once Nor came to power
The Mummy's Hand Connection
Just what is the connection DeWitt shares with the "inn"?
- The "inn" turned out to be an exclusive den of opium, weed, fine tobacco and green fairy
- A monolithic bouncer named Abum initially denied access under pretense you were not a member of the Hand
- Mentioning the circus owner allowed access
- Many private parties and even more stoned individuals
- 3 haughty Tolsted artists were among them, who looked at Provia as backwater
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