Hello, Everyone!
I’m so busy these days that I don’t have time to think of an intro. But this was kind of an intro anyways, so… I guess I did it after all 😅
Last time in Mary Windfiddle’s story, our heroes were making plans to sneak into the duergar city of Gracklstugh in order to get to Bruno’s brother and the other prisoners. But meanwhile, by some lucky happenstance, the stone giant Agrax sent the people in question off in a prison cart to be gifted to someone in Menzoberranzan (the underground city of the drow). So, Mary and her friends might have the opportunity to save them there and then.
Let’s see if they’ll succeed :)
The cart was moving really slowly, pulled by two duergar. There were three more guards – another dark dwarf at the front, and a drow and a goblin at the back. The prisoners were in the cage but Mary couldn’t see them well, even through the connection with her familiars. Peter and Paolo couldn’t get too close or they’d risk being discovered. Mary sent them to follow the cart from a distance and told the others about the situation.
“Five opponents?” Aurum said. “We can totally take ‘em!”
He was sharing a smoke with Paulina. They looked so bold and confident!
Mary furrowed her brows. She didn’t feel very confident in her own stuff right now. The recent lack of sleep had made her feel so dull! She needed something to help keep her in check.
“Aurum, can I, um, talk to Paulina?”
Aurum looked at her, looked at the dwarf girl and made a huge grin.
“Oh, yeeeah, no problem! I was just going to try out my disguise kit on Bruno. Make him look like one of the dark dwarves, you know? It might come in handy.”
Mary was left alone with Paulina.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” the dwarf girl smirked.
“I was, um, wondering…”
“Yeah?”
“Um…”
“Spill it!”
Mary tried to concentrate. This was important. She started talking fast so she wouldn’t loose her train of thoughts.
“Look. I can see that Aurum’s been more… let’s say concentrated ever since he started, um, smoking the thing you gave him. I want to know, I, um… What’s in it? Or, more precisely, um, what’s the, what’s the exact, um, effect, maybe?” her voice trailed off because Paulina was starting to snicker a little.
“What exactly do you need?” the dwarf girl asked.
“I need,” Mary pinched the base of her nose and went on talking almost to herself. “I need something to keep me sharp because, let’s be honest, I didn’t really sleep last night and I feel a bit wonky, and I was wondering if what you and Aurum are smoking could help me, I mean, enhance my brain or something, and, I mean, just tell me what’s the effect. Please.”
Paulina’s lips parted in a big yawn and she stretched long and hard.
“It makes you caalm,” she said with her usual aloofness, elongating the vowels of every other phrase, “and it makes you haappy. It releases all the teension and, honestly” she leaned forward, “it can help you sleep like a baby. You sure look like you need it.”
Mary gave out a dissatisfied grunt.
“I need exactly the opposite!”
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
She went back to the others.
By that time Aurum had already done his magic on Bruno and the dwarf looked exactly like one of the duergar. The only thing that gave him away was the armor but they couldn’t do much about that. They covered it with dust and grime, so it wouldn’t be shiny, and headed after the prisoners.
The duergar pulling the cart didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to arrive in the dark elves’ city, so the procession was still creaking slowly down the tunnel. Mary sent Peter up the ceiling to check and see if the way ahead was clear. They didn’t want to start a fight and then get ambushed or swarmed by more drow coming from that direction.
Approaching carefully after the cart, they hadn’t been noticed yet. Paulina’s Pass Without A Trace was still hiding them well. They had the advantage and were going to surprise the enemy. Aurum was going to cast Sleep on the guards, Mary had her hands crackling with a prepared Eldritch Blast, and the three dwarves were ready to charge as well.
Then, Mary had a sudden idea. Wouldn’t it be good to have the prisoners in on the plan as well? That way they could help, or at least be prepared to run when they attacked.
She didn’t tell her friends about her thoughts but, when they were close enough, she sent a Message to Saami.
“Saami, we’re here to save you,” it said. “Paulina and Bruno are with me. We’ll attack the guards. Make a distraction if you can.”
When she received the reply, Mary froze in her place. Her face went pale with horror. She waved frantically at her friends and ushered them to fall back.
“What’s the matter?” Bruno protested. “We were just about to attack!”
She furiously shook her head.
“I Messaged Saami," she murmured, still in shock. "Thank Ioun, I Messaged Saami!”
She buried her head in her hands, still trying to make sense of what she’d heard back.
“He told me that it was a trap. They were the ones outside. The elves were inside the cart. We were going to attack the prisoners!”
Silence fell on the group, everyone contemplating what that meant and what could have happened if they hadn’t found out.
After a while, Aurum cleared his throat.
“Ok then. Change of plans?”
Aurum was invisible. He was scouting the cart and what they now knew to be the prisoners and not their guards. He was constantly Messaging back and forth with Mary so the others knew everything he was seeing.
The prisoners had a disguise similar to what he’d put on Bruno earlier (although much worse, as he informed Mary with the professional pride of an artist). The elven woman and her child walked after the cart but their legs were tied together with a foot-long rope as to not try and run away. The little girl had a gag in her mouth. The two dwarves pulling the cart were chained to the bar in front of them and Saami was in the lead, with his hands in shackles but otherwise not attached to the vehicle.
There were some figures in the cage, as if the captives were there, but they were dummies crudely made of straw. The dark elves, two of them in total, were hiding in a false bottom underneath. They were both blindfolded and had two scimitars each, crossed on their chest.
Mary Messaged the prisoners one by one telling them to be ready for the coming attack. She saved the elf woman for last. After hearing her warning she whispered only one thing back: “Protect my daughter!”
Mary Messaged the little girl.
“Hello. We’re friends. We are coming to help. Don’t be afraid.”
She didn’t get an audible answer and remembered that the girl had her mouth gagged. She continued, nonetheless.
“Look, it’s going to become a bit scary after a second. You’ll have to be very brave. We’ll make sure to protect you and your mother. Ok?”
“Mh…kh” she received as a reply, as the girl was trying to whisper in spite of her restraint.
And then, they were free to attack.
Oh, my goodness! Can you imagine what would have happened without the Message spell??? We would have killed the prisoners! We would have started with the goblin!!! A.k.a. the little elven girl!
Our DM says he can still remember the face I made when he took me aside to give me Saami’s answer. He says it makes him happy to know he almost tricked us!
Almost.
Now, let’s see each other in the next part, to see what we were going to do now we knew the reality of the situation. Or, if you want to see a short comic I made of Mary’s Patron’s reaction to what she said about the Message spell, you can follow this link.
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide and the Glossary for the series. You're welcome!)