Hello, Everyone!
Welcome to another episode of Mary Windfiddle’s adventures!
Last time, we got to see the world through Mary’s familiars’ eyes. They went into the duergar city to do some reconnaissance and found the prison cells with Bruno’s brother Saami, two loggers and--surprise!--two light elves – a woman and a little girl. The duergar rised the alarms (because that’s what you do when an origami rabbit plunges its sharp horn into your body) and our heroes barely escaped being found in the alcove they were hiding.
Now it’s time to see what they’re up to.
Now that the whole of Gracklstugh was on high alert, Mary and her companions had only two options left. Either they waited for the whole hubbub to subside, chilling out in their little alcove for who knows how long; or they used the time to do the other thing on their list of tasks, i.e. go to the dragon’s lair, plant Mary’s seed and hopefully manage to save the dwarf prisoner there.
Bruno wasn’t very happy about the development and Paulina hated the thought of getting close to the dragon, but with a little help from Aurum, Mary managed to convince them.
A few minutes before losing the connection to her familiars, Mary peeked through Atti’s eyes. She was curious about the tunnel she’d sent her on. It was newly dug and going up, so it had to lead to the surface.
The familiars reached the end of the tunnel and Mary felt her heart skip a beat. The passage terminated in a metal grating, with a locked door in the middle. Just like the one she’d convinced a certain halfling bartender to build over a certain hole in the ground.
“Oh, my gods!” she whispered, horrified. “Rupert, you idiot!”
The path towards the fissure was going to be quite perilous. Not as much as the one towards the tower, if they’d decided to take it, but dangerous nonetheless. They had to leave the goats behind – they couldn’t take them in the deep. When set free, Messy and Bessy were sure to go back to the goblin village.
Before the group left, Paulina raised her index finger once more and turned to Aurum.
“Do you have your pipe with you?”
“Always,” he said.
“Gimmie.”
The dwarf girl took the pipe and shook off some of the ash on her palm. She clapped her hands, raising a grey cloud around the group. It picked up the nearby shadows, swirled them around and stuck them on everyone's clothes and shoes. Even the gaps in Bruno’s armour filled up with this substance, making it noticeably less clanky.
“This’ll help us move more quietly and hopefully not get killed right away,” she explained. “We’ll leave that part to the freaking dragon!"
Paulina's spell seemed to work pretty well. They stealthed their way to the fissure and ducked behind the rock formation hiding it from view from the city.
When looking down, it seemed like a looong climb, but, fortunately, there were some stone spikes protruding from its walls. They made the space even narrower than in Atti's reconnaissance but would present a much safer way to climb down. And Mary needed that: after going up the wall towards the goblin village she felt even less equipt to climb anything.
The four joined their ropes together and ended up with a pretty good combined length. Aurum tied a loose rock to the end and lowered it into the fissure. It went down for a while and when they pulled it back up, the rock and a few inches of the rope were wet.
So, there was some water at the bottom. But at least they had the means to get to it.
The four tied themselves to each other. Paulina was first, Mary went after her, then Aurum, with Bruno at the top. They used the spikes as support and climbed down without much trouble.
A few minutes later the group had to stop. A thick green fog of tiny particles filled the space under Paulina's feet, obscuring the rest of the way down.
"This looks like it might be bad news," Paulina said, looking up the rope to the others.
"I can try to burn it off with a Sacred Flame," Bruno said, "but I don't know how far down it spreads."
"I'll send Atti and Aingels to check it out," Mary said. "They're made of paper, so they don't need to breathe."
She leaned on the wall and folded up her familiars, giving Rudhol--who was the only flightless of the bunch--to Aurum who had taken a liking to the bunny-like creature.
Atti and Aingels flew down and through their eyes Mary saw a layer of mushrooms growing on the walls of the shaft. Periodically, they released a puff of spores in the air. That's what the green cloud was made out of.
Atti found a mushroom that had just emptied its cap, picked it in her claws and brought it up to show to the others. Bruno recognized it. It was a Funga Carba, a type which produced very poisonous spores.
The good news was that the layer of mushrooms wasn't too wide. With a combined effort from Mary's familiars picking off the mushrooms below them and Bruno's Sacred Flame burning up the gas, they were able to pass the obstacle.
But just a few feet afterwards, they had to stop again.
Water spread beneath them. It covered all the area, from one end to the other, with no visible tunnels or cracks above the surface.
Mary's heart sank at the sight. That was it, she thought. There was no way ahead, they were at a dead end. All the time and effort they'd wasted climbing down, had been in vain.
Her Patron had deceived her. This wasn't the right way.
She glanced at the rest of the party, ready to take the blame for her bad judgement and saw Aurum grin encouragingly and point at Rudhol.
"Do you think he can swim?" he asked.
Heey! There’s a nother chapter done! What do you think, will Mary and her friends find their way in this weird place? And what about the dragon? Do you think going to it is the best idea?
I hope you like reading our story!
See you in the next chapter!
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the chapter guide. You're welcome!)