[DH] Unnatural law – 14 May 2019 – Taffeta
May 15, 2019 20:59:33 GMT
andycd, Tugark (Retired), and 4 more like this
Post by Malri 'Taffeta' Thistletop on May 15, 2019 20:59:33 GMT
1496 DR, 12 Mirtul
Taffeta strides through the darkening streets of Daring Heights to the building where a slightly weathered wooden sign hangs, painted with the image of a steaming pie. As she pushes the door open, the bell above it tinkles and the proprietor glances up.
‘Hello, my starling! That didn’t take long, then. All well?’
‘Yup! Are you about finished for the day?’
Nerry thinks a moment. ‘Could be, if you like.’
‘Perfect. Want to come to the Ettin? Daisy and some of the others are there, I said I’d go back and join them.’
‘Why not? Let me just lock up.’
A few minutes later, the two halflings are making their way toward the town’s most storied inn.
‘I didn’t think it’d be so chilly!’ remarks Nerry as they walk. ‘Fine and sunny this morning, it was.’
‘This time of year, nice clear days make for cool nights.’
‘Whatever you say, my woodland chaffinch.’
‘Now, not too much joking about nature or animals or what have you – at least not once we get there. Daisy’s feeling a bit fragile. Oh, and definitely no talk about eyes.’
‘Eyes?’
‘You remember – Good evening, Reki!’ she says to the passing dragonborn.
‘Evening, Taffeta; evening, Nerry. Going to the Ettin? Soup’s good tonight.’
‘Thanks for the tip!’ replies Nerry over his shoulder as they walk on.
‘You remember,’ continues Taffeta, ‘when Daisy came with me and Idari to deal with that vampire, and she turned herself into a big old scorpion and… and blinded herself so the vampire couldn’t bewitch her. Since then she finds eyes upsetting sometimes, and today we, er… met some eyes.’
‘You met some eyes?’
‘In Mechanus. Funny metal eyeballs on little legs. They weren’t friendly.’
‘So those numbers really did get you to Mechanus, then?’ asks Nerry, swerving to avoid a pair of stray cats chasing each other across Eastgate Street. ‘The ones Daisy got from… what was it, “Jack”?’
‘Right. We showed that piece of paper to Aurelia and she said the numbers meant a place in Mechanus near something she called Primus’ Forge. Turned out to be a broom cupboard in a bank! Oh, look, they’re rethatching Galadin’s place,’ says Taffeta, pointing to a low, heavy-set building ahead.
‘I wonder who’s doing the work,’ replies Nerry. ‘Anton’s boys?’
‘Probably.’
‘So this fellow Jack sent you all to a bank? I thought Daisy’s grandma was in prison?’
‘“First Bank of Primus” is what the eye fellows called it, but I don’t really know what it was. Big fancy place, what we saw of it: all polished stone, columns, big windows. And some of the corridors had parts that kept shifting, like a chunk of it would just drop away, floor and walls and ceiling all together, and another section would slot in. Like the whole building was one of those wooden puzzles. And those eye things up on the walls, looking around, and when they saw us they’d hop down and try to stop us.’
‘But where were you going?’
‘Tugark figured out the drawing on Jack’s piece of paper was a map of the corridors, so we followed that. Had a few scrapes with the shifting hallways and the eye creatures but we got to a big door with tricksy locks on it. Apparently the paper said how to open those locks too, except for the last one.’
‘So how’d you get past?’
‘I stepped into the fuzzy place and walked through.’
‘The fuzzy place?’
‘Oriloki says it’s called the ethre– the eth-ee-ree-al plane.’
Nerry nods and then shakes his head. ‘No, sorry, I’m none the wiser.’
‘It’s like here, I mean everywhere, but it’s sort of soft and smoky. Like when you’re in a thick fog, but everything’s actually made of fog. So you’d be able to just about see a fuzzy wall here –’ (she gestures at a nearby building, which happens to be Kora’s bookshop) ‘– but you could kind of push yourself through it.’
‘And you… pushed yourself through the door?’
‘Yeah. It was easy to open from the inside. Of course there was a huge metal guard inside too…’
‘You really are Charmalaine’s twin, aren’t you! I do worry, you know.’
‘Oh, love, it was fine. The big fellow was very slow, I had the door open before it could do anything, and in a few moments the others had given it a few knocks before Dorian just vanished it away. Nothing to worry yourself about.’
‘If you say so, love. So, what was it guarding?’
‘An odd little room with lots of drawers in all the walls. There was another metal fellow there too, more of a human size. Tugark tried to talk nicely to it but it started throwing fire at us so we took it apart. Then Paw did some clever things with some wheels and gears on a desk in the room, and two of the drawers opened. First one had a little stone inside with a tiny person inside – like, you remember after we first moved here I went to help rescue Ka’sam’s sister, and she’d been shrunk down and trapped in a crystal?’
‘Was it Daisy’s grandma?’
‘No, this was someone else. Turns out, in exchange for the map, Daisy promised Jack she’d free another person from the same place her grandma was being held.’
The Ettin is in sight now, with Ursule – or is it Mavunda? – occasionally silhouetted in the windows, going around lighting the lamps as dusk deepends. But Nerry has slowed down.
‘She didn’t mention that before,’ he says soberly.
‘No,’ his wife replies in the same tone. ‘No, she didn’t.’ She puts a hand on his arm. ‘Listen… Daisy’s been through a lot. Remember her grandmother means a lot to her, and she was only a girl when the old woman was kidnapped. She’s been searching her almost all her life, and she even fell out with the rest of her family over it. I don’t think she feels good about the deal she did with Jack. She didn’t even want to tell the others where she’d got the map at first. But he offered her a way find her grandma at last. I can’t blame her for taking it without asking too many questions.’
‘No, I guess not.’ Nerry pats Taffeta’s hand and they start walking toward the inn again.
‘So did you find grandma Onyxdepth?’
‘She was in another stone, in the second drawer. Paw figured out how to let her out. Turned out she was in the shape of a giant eagle, though, so when she suddenly appeared, the room got pretty crowded! She wasn’t too calm, either – well, I guess I wouldn’t be if I’d been stuck in a gem in a drawer in a bank in Mechanus for forty years! She didn’t know what was happening at first, and did a lot of flapping and clawing. Nearly did Daisy a nasty injury before she recognized her.’
‘What did they say to each other?’
‘I don’t know – they were talking in eagle talk! Maybe Daisy’ll tell us. If she’s feeling like it.’
‘Yes, you said she isn’t feeling too cheerful at the moment? Even though she got her grandma back?’
‘Well, like I say, I don’t know what they said to each other but then grandma brought the roof down and flew off, smashing everything on her way out. Daisy said we should go, so Dorian popped us back here. She says Khazifa – that’s grandma’s name – said she’ll come and find Daisy soon. But I think she’s struggling to believe it. Finding her after all these years and then she vanishes again… it’s hard. You know? It’s got to be hard.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Which is why we’re going to the Ettin?’
‘You’re a wise man, Nerry Shortcrust.’
‘I'd be a fool to argue with that. And what about the other stone, did you… open it?’
‘No, we brought it back as it was. But when we got to the Ettin a bouncing goblin fellow turned up and took it for Jack. Called it “the champion”.’
‘That doesn’t sound great.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Anyway,’ says Taffeta, laying a hand on the door of the Three-Headed Ettin, ‘Khazifa’s free, and we’re home and safe. Let’s have a drink. Oh,’ she adds as she pushes the door open, ‘and I’ve got a surprise for you…’
And Nerry, stepping into the inn, sees a table where sits the slightly scorched party: a weary-looking dwarf, a perpetually unruffled red tiefling, a heavily armed half-orc, a lean tabaxi leafing through a jumble of papers, and… a petite purple-skinned figure with horns on her head and a familiar twinkle in her eye.
Taffeta strides through the darkening streets of Daring Heights to the building where a slightly weathered wooden sign hangs, painted with the image of a steaming pie. As she pushes the door open, the bell above it tinkles and the proprietor glances up.
‘Hello, my starling! That didn’t take long, then. All well?’
‘Yup! Are you about finished for the day?’
Nerry thinks a moment. ‘Could be, if you like.’
‘Perfect. Want to come to the Ettin? Daisy and some of the others are there, I said I’d go back and join them.’
‘Why not? Let me just lock up.’
A few minutes later, the two halflings are making their way toward the town’s most storied inn.
‘I didn’t think it’d be so chilly!’ remarks Nerry as they walk. ‘Fine and sunny this morning, it was.’
‘This time of year, nice clear days make for cool nights.’
‘Whatever you say, my woodland chaffinch.’
‘Now, not too much joking about nature or animals or what have you – at least not once we get there. Daisy’s feeling a bit fragile. Oh, and definitely no talk about eyes.’
‘Eyes?’
‘You remember – Good evening, Reki!’ she says to the passing dragonborn.
‘Evening, Taffeta; evening, Nerry. Going to the Ettin? Soup’s good tonight.’
‘Thanks for the tip!’ replies Nerry over his shoulder as they walk on.
‘You remember,’ continues Taffeta, ‘when Daisy came with me and Idari to deal with that vampire, and she turned herself into a big old scorpion and… and blinded herself so the vampire couldn’t bewitch her. Since then she finds eyes upsetting sometimes, and today we, er… met some eyes.’
‘You met some eyes?’
‘In Mechanus. Funny metal eyeballs on little legs. They weren’t friendly.’
‘So those numbers really did get you to Mechanus, then?’ asks Nerry, swerving to avoid a pair of stray cats chasing each other across Eastgate Street. ‘The ones Daisy got from… what was it, “Jack”?’
‘Right. We showed that piece of paper to Aurelia and she said the numbers meant a place in Mechanus near something she called Primus’ Forge. Turned out to be a broom cupboard in a bank! Oh, look, they’re rethatching Galadin’s place,’ says Taffeta, pointing to a low, heavy-set building ahead.
‘I wonder who’s doing the work,’ replies Nerry. ‘Anton’s boys?’
‘Probably.’
‘So this fellow Jack sent you all to a bank? I thought Daisy’s grandma was in prison?’
‘“First Bank of Primus” is what the eye fellows called it, but I don’t really know what it was. Big fancy place, what we saw of it: all polished stone, columns, big windows. And some of the corridors had parts that kept shifting, like a chunk of it would just drop away, floor and walls and ceiling all together, and another section would slot in. Like the whole building was one of those wooden puzzles. And those eye things up on the walls, looking around, and when they saw us they’d hop down and try to stop us.’
‘But where were you going?’
‘Tugark figured out the drawing on Jack’s piece of paper was a map of the corridors, so we followed that. Had a few scrapes with the shifting hallways and the eye creatures but we got to a big door with tricksy locks on it. Apparently the paper said how to open those locks too, except for the last one.’
‘So how’d you get past?’
‘I stepped into the fuzzy place and walked through.’
‘The fuzzy place?’
‘Oriloki says it’s called the ethre– the eth-ee-ree-al plane.’
Nerry nods and then shakes his head. ‘No, sorry, I’m none the wiser.’
‘It’s like here, I mean everywhere, but it’s sort of soft and smoky. Like when you’re in a thick fog, but everything’s actually made of fog. So you’d be able to just about see a fuzzy wall here –’ (she gestures at a nearby building, which happens to be Kora’s bookshop) ‘– but you could kind of push yourself through it.’
‘And you… pushed yourself through the door?’
‘Yeah. It was easy to open from the inside. Of course there was a huge metal guard inside too…’
‘You really are Charmalaine’s twin, aren’t you! I do worry, you know.’
‘Oh, love, it was fine. The big fellow was very slow, I had the door open before it could do anything, and in a few moments the others had given it a few knocks before Dorian just vanished it away. Nothing to worry yourself about.’
‘If you say so, love. So, what was it guarding?’
‘An odd little room with lots of drawers in all the walls. There was another metal fellow there too, more of a human size. Tugark tried to talk nicely to it but it started throwing fire at us so we took it apart. Then Paw did some clever things with some wheels and gears on a desk in the room, and two of the drawers opened. First one had a little stone inside with a tiny person inside – like, you remember after we first moved here I went to help rescue Ka’sam’s sister, and she’d been shrunk down and trapped in a crystal?’
‘Was it Daisy’s grandma?’
‘No, this was someone else. Turns out, in exchange for the map, Daisy promised Jack she’d free another person from the same place her grandma was being held.’
The Ettin is in sight now, with Ursule – or is it Mavunda? – occasionally silhouetted in the windows, going around lighting the lamps as dusk deepends. But Nerry has slowed down.
‘She didn’t mention that before,’ he says soberly.
‘No,’ his wife replies in the same tone. ‘No, she didn’t.’ She puts a hand on his arm. ‘Listen… Daisy’s been through a lot. Remember her grandmother means a lot to her, and she was only a girl when the old woman was kidnapped. She’s been searching her almost all her life, and she even fell out with the rest of her family over it. I don’t think she feels good about the deal she did with Jack. She didn’t even want to tell the others where she’d got the map at first. But he offered her a way find her grandma at last. I can’t blame her for taking it without asking too many questions.’
‘No, I guess not.’ Nerry pats Taffeta’s hand and they start walking toward the inn again.
‘So did you find grandma Onyxdepth?’
‘She was in another stone, in the second drawer. Paw figured out how to let her out. Turned out she was in the shape of a giant eagle, though, so when she suddenly appeared, the room got pretty crowded! She wasn’t too calm, either – well, I guess I wouldn’t be if I’d been stuck in a gem in a drawer in a bank in Mechanus for forty years! She didn’t know what was happening at first, and did a lot of flapping and clawing. Nearly did Daisy a nasty injury before she recognized her.’
‘What did they say to each other?’
‘I don’t know – they were talking in eagle talk! Maybe Daisy’ll tell us. If she’s feeling like it.’
‘Yes, you said she isn’t feeling too cheerful at the moment? Even though she got her grandma back?’
‘Well, like I say, I don’t know what they said to each other but then grandma brought the roof down and flew off, smashing everything on her way out. Daisy said we should go, so Dorian popped us back here. She says Khazifa – that’s grandma’s name – said she’ll come and find Daisy soon. But I think she’s struggling to believe it. Finding her after all these years and then she vanishes again… it’s hard. You know? It’s got to be hard.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Which is why we’re going to the Ettin?’
‘You’re a wise man, Nerry Shortcrust.’
‘I'd be a fool to argue with that. And what about the other stone, did you… open it?’
‘No, we brought it back as it was. But when we got to the Ettin a bouncing goblin fellow turned up and took it for Jack. Called it “the champion”.’
‘That doesn’t sound great.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Anyway,’ says Taffeta, laying a hand on the door of the Three-Headed Ettin, ‘Khazifa’s free, and we’re home and safe. Let’s have a drink. Oh,’ she adds as she pushes the door open, ‘and I’ve got a surprise for you…’
And Nerry, stepping into the inn, sees a table where sits the slightly scorched party: a weary-looking dwarf, a perpetually unruffled red tiefling, a heavily armed half-orc, a lean tabaxi leafing through a jumble of papers, and… a petite purple-skinned figure with horns on her head and a familiar twinkle in her eye.
