Post by Andy D on Aug 27, 2024 21:30:01 GMT
“So there are connecting tunnels to the Underdark not too far from the city,” the dwarf said to his human friend.
“That’s fascinating,” came the reply from Archie, “anything we need to worry about?”
“I don’t know… maybe?” Mendal shrugged unsure. “There were these masked and hooded, robe-wearing, cultist types, The Silent Claw, they called themselves.”
…
Mendal recounted his adventure to his two friends, Archie and Kavel, how it started with an adventurer named Murk, a deep gnome, who had been displaced from where he hails, cut off from tunnels that would have connected him back to his home by the disturbance of Something Buried not long ago. Murk had heard about the House of Creation’s recent stone surveying activity that had led a group of mason’s to the location of a potential quarry. When the masons were done surveying, they concluded that the stone discovered was not suitable for their construction purposes. However, something interesting was discovered; a wide and long split in the ground that led deep underground. Breaks in the ground like the one discovered excited the adventurer Murk, and gave him hope that he might discover a way home..
Murk gathered a party of adventurers to explore what could be an underground tunnel that could lead him back to the Underdark. The group included the adventures; Cort (the tabaxi monk warrior), Kem (the human bard), Sparks (the aarakocra sorcerer), and Mendal himself (the dwarf cleric).
The adventurers descended the cliff into the depths of the ground, traversing narrow passages and multiple forked tunnels before they came across a very clearly humanoid-made construction. An old and rusted platform for carrying heavy loads up and down a vertical tunnel was discovered. Where the platform led is not known. The platform’s mechanism needs repair. But during the exploration underground, it was clear that the adventurers had found a network that connects to the Underdark, as evidenced by the platform, the underground flora and fauna, and also the dead remains of battle between duergar and drow, and the encounter with a male sect of drow referring to themselves as, The Silent Claw.
The adventurers had avoided an underground tunnel of water to reach the platform, as well as avoided a confrontation with a choker, if not several chokers. They did not wish to engage The Silent Claw drow and their giant rat, who were tracking them. The adventurers had reason to believe they would be engaging with poisoned weapons if they did battle, and on such unfamiliar ground, they chose to bluff their way out of a confrontation by pretending to be followers of an above ground sect of the same religious order as The Silent Claw, for Kem had knowledge of the writings these drow had marked into the walls, and with the aid of Sparks’s magic, Kem also had the confidence to blag his way through a deception.
…
“Seeming is a very powerful illusion spell,” Archie observed complementing the caster in Mendal’s story, Sparks, for knowing it. “And Sparks’s use of Tongues with twinned sorcery magic was a great enhancement to the ruse, so that both he and Kem could speak elvish.”
“Yeah it was pretty good,” Mendal agreed, albeit reluctantly. “But while Kem and Sparks who could understand elvish with the Tongues spell and appeared as if they were drow, Murk and I were made to appear as giant rats! We had to be on our hands and knees the whole time!”
“Oh dear,” Archie said sympathetically, whilst also chuckling a little at the thought of Mendal, no doubt indignantly, playing his role.
“Ha,” was Kavel’s more straightforward response to the account of the Seeming spell. But, he also had a question, “Mendal, show us how you pretended to be a giant rat, I want to know.”
“Fuck off!” Mendal said to his amused Goliath friend, with no intention to perform. “My knees are bloody sore from crawling around for fucking hours yesterday, and even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t repeat that farce for either of you. Not even for adamantine!”
“How long were The Silent Claw with your group?” Archie asked with a grin adorning his face.
“All the bloody way from the platform, through the winding tunnels, and back up to where I fabricated a stone ladder to climb down from the surface! Fuckers decided to chaperone us back to safety, and so I had to crawl all the way back to the beginning!”
Goliath and human erupted with laughter. The dwarf grunted, and drank his drink.
When the laughter died down, Kavel asked, “did you put a maker's mark on your stone ladder, Mendal?”
“Yeah, every rung, MVCC (Mendal Vultan Clan Crafter).”
“Why did you let Cort tie together two lengths of hempen rope and climb down with Sparks's before cast-crafting a safer ladder?” Archie asked, curiously.
Mendal shrugged. “I didn’t think up the solution until Sparks was three quarters of the way down, lost his grip and splashed into the water. Cort also insisted on using the rope he’d put some effort into securing - good knots, but slippery fucking rope. I think Sparks made me magically seem like a giant rat later on as revenge. I could also swear he pissed in the water while I was busy cast-crafting the ladder. When I climbed to the bottom, the water was disturbingly warm!”
“You informed the Council about the underground tunnels and The Silent Claw, didn’t you?” Archie asked, diverted the conversation away from its current heading. .
“Of course. Did it when we came back. More concerning for the moment though is that Kem. When I first met him, his surname was related to all the trouble with the re-awoken monsters. Now he has a cursed nine tailed rat tattoo on his palm. It was knowledge of this nine tailed rat thing that made it possible for him to bluff we were friends to The Silent Claw. What next when I see him? Herald of Malignus?”
Archie chuckled a little.
“Your turn next with the herald malarkey,” Mendal pointed out to his wizard friend.
“Oh it’s not that,” Archie responded while turning to Kavel, “imagine if it turned out that the Silent Claw you met were not a group of four drow and a giant rat, and we're actually just people who also had cast the Seeming spell on themselves? Imagine if it were the case that two groups of people had both pretended to be part of a cult they had learned about, when they realised they weren’t alone underground? And they had both made some in their party appear to be giant rats. And both groups had to then make their giant-rat pretenders crawl around for hours to keep up the ruse, for what in retrospect was not necessary?!”
Kavel and Archie enjoyed a good, hearty laugh at the thought. Mendal grunted and drank his drink.