Vulūne 5-6, 653 DR: The group arrives at a small mining town nestled within the Falen Æsyr. Rooms are secured at the inn. Fyrgol discovers a secret in the village well. Grym is displeased with the stew. The innkeeper’s secret. The children of the Worms converge. Holdout at the inn. The evil from beneath and the hole that was once a floor.

Continued from Strangers in the Land of the Dead.

Wōdìndor, 5 Vulūne 653

The hills grew dark around them as they traveled down the old road. The setting sun that had been blinding when they turned off the main road, had now sunk beneath the hills and night was pooling all around. Some overgrown and ruined buildings stood on the hillsides above where they passed. All was quiet. Soon, the Village of Nolmanæ emerged from the shadows before them. Above the dark outlines of the surrounding hills, a beautiful orange sunset slashed across the sky. The horses drew the wagon between the small wooden buildings without pulling the reins or stopping in indecision at forks in the road. They had been here before, and knew where the stables lay. The horses paused in front of an old inn. Hælgnar hopped from the wagon bench and took the bridles in his hands. The group looked silently about the town square at the ghost town around them. The hillsides above were riddled with old mine entrances, some boarded, others gaping. The inn door swung open and an older woman stepped into the twilight. Introducing herself as Karæjya, she welcomed the group into the inn.

Gældor exchanged some pleasantries with the woman. Fyrgol stepped forward as well, but Karæjya grew uneasy at the sight of the smiling Feyri. The Spiritrider assured her that everything would be fine, but the woman’s composure had been rattled. She smiled nervously as each visitor entered. Gældor arranged for rooms and a meal. The innkeeper busied herself making stew in a rear room while the travelers set a fire in the fireplace and rested in the empty common room. The place had been popular at one point, for there were a number of tables and the walls were covered in hunting trophies and plaques scribed in the local tongue.

While the others waited for supper, Fyrgol wandered out into the square to examine the only water well they’d seen while winding through the mining village. The well did not appear to have been used in quite a while. Tying a rope to a tethering hitch he fed the other end over the stone lip and climbed inside. As he got closer to the bottom he noticed something moving beneath him. Dipping his toe in the dark water at the bottom, he was alarmed to find something under the water’s surface recoil and turn. Climbing back up as quickly as he could, a tentacle snaked upward along the walls of the well, grabbing wetly at his ankles as he tried to escape. As he reached the well’s top, Fyrgol called out.

Inside, the woman returned with a large pot of steaming stew. She ladled out the supper and invited everyone to eat. As everyone sat down, Gældor gave a bowl to Grymgrykalya who only sniffed the bowl and growled. Jak smelled his stew and grew confused; this was not a meat he was familiar with and pushing his bowl away suggested the others do the same. Dammon was looking more closely at his stew when a familiar voice came to him, “the village is surrounded”. Standing from the table, the magician moved toward the stairs and disappeared into the upstairs. At that time, they heard Fyrgol’s voice calling from the square outside; something was amiss. As Gældor went to find the innkeeper, Jak grabbed his spear and ran into the square where a tentacle had emerged from the well and was flailing about, looking for the Feyri who stood nearby with his gleaming cutlass. Together the two hacked at the blind tentacle until Jakstabbed the appendage through, causing the end to fall limply to the ground before being retracted into the well.

Dammon entered the common sleeping room on the first floor and swung the shuttered window open to see the village from a higher vantage. Other than his companions below, he could see nothing else moving in the village. Looking up to the surrounding hillsides however, he saw dozens of glowing eyes emerging from the mines. He couldn’t be sure who or what they were, but they appeared to be armed. When the tentacle retreated into the well, the magician called down for Fyrgol and Jak to return to the inn. As the two closed the door behind them, Tressta drew her cloak around her and faded from view on the staircase, but found another place to hide after hearing something moving through the walls. After hearing Jak’s account of the tentacle outside, Zildara raced throughout the inn closing and locking shutters. Zêla ran upstairs to join Dammon at the front window. Gældor emerged from the kitchen explaining that the innkeeper and others were gone; Dammon relayed this message to his Conscience who set out looking for them. Tressta soon found the innkeeper hiding beneath a table and other debris in the kitchen. Gældor confronted her but woman grew hysterical. The Spiritrider slapped the old woman to calm her down and get her to focus. He translated as best he could as she explained what she knew. “She said she was forced to do this”, he explained as the woman rattled on breathlessly, “and that the things outside are ‘Of the Worm'”. He slapped her a few more times as she dissolved into further hysterics. Finally he managed to get from her that the things had her husband, and that she stayed and helped them in the hopes that she might one day get him back. The stew she explained was Worm-meat, and eating it usually changed visitors into Zru. When asked about the tentacle she explained that the “Worm” is not in the inn and that she’d never seen the tentacle.

As everyone gathered around to learn what they could from the terrified innkeeper, Zêla yelled downstairs that Dammon had seen the figures drawing closer and that they were carrying mining tools and other weapons. As Gældor tried to learn more, Tressta searched through the kitchen. After a few minutes she uncovered a concealed hatch on the kitchen floor. Putting her ear to the trap door she was alarmed to hear strange footsteps somewhere below. Gældor asked the woman about the basement, but she claimed that she didn’t know there was one. Next, Zêla reported to those below that she thought the outside creatures were Zrū goat-men, servants of Chaos. From his vantage above, Dammon watched as the Zrū vanguard moved between the old buildings of the mining village, sniffing at the air. At one point a creature threw open the door of a nearby building only moments before a second came up behind him and drove a mining pick through the back of its skull. As the Zrū collapsed bloodily in the doorway, Dammon and others heard knocking at the kitchen door. They had circled around to the back of the inn.

On the ground floor, Tressta and the others retreated into the main room as the innkeeper scrambled back into her hiding place. The sound of splintering wood on the first floor sent the fighters rushing up the stairs to find Dammon and Zêla facing a second tentacle, havng erupted from the floor of the common sleeping area. Gældor and Fyrgol fired arrows at the thing as the magician Wove a number of lightning bolts which burned through the air. Jak finally rushed forward and stabbed the thing a number of times, causing it to retract into the splintered hole it had emerged from. Looking down, the spear-man found that the hole turned sideways, burrowing through the floor and walls.

As the group collected itself at the top of the staircase, the kitchen door burst inward and cloven footsteps walked tentatively through the downstairs. Fyrgol and Gældor knocked their bows as the others arrayed themselves around the top of the stairs. Somewhere outside they could hear the creatures barking between themselves. Below, the Zrū intruder spotted Ērēus at the top of the stairs and charged up the creaking steps. Jak stabbed down through the monster’s shoulder and torso as the Heartguard jumped down and ran his sword into its chest. The thing gave out a strangled cry and collapsed onto the stairs. The first was soon followed by another, butJak was able to skewer the second as well. Black ichor poured from their wounds, filling the inn with a wretched smell. At a nearby window, Dammon Wove arcs of lightning, targeting those Zrū that were moving between the surrounding houses and buildings. One of the struck creatures howled and charged the inn, hacking at the barricaded front door with a mining pick. After a few moments, the door collapsed inward and the goat-creature pushed his way inside. Climbing over the bodies of its fellow Zru, the third creature was cut down by Jak and Ērēus’ blades.

Fyrgol peeked out through the shutters of a side window and found that the horses were missing from the stables. The pile of unmoving wood that the others referred to as Graiç however, remained in the abandoned wagon. Dammon waited for the things to appear, but the village had grown quiet. Jak explored the ground floor again, stopping to extinguish the fireplace burning in the main room. Others moved around, blocking doors and windows with chairs, tables, and cabinets. The innkeeper was dragged from her hiding place and taken upstairs. While the others were busy, Dammon changed himself into a falcon and flew up and over the village. From his lofty circles he spied that the Zrū had gathered behind the outermost buildings, and seemed to be waiting for something, instruction perhaps? Farther out, he found the twitching body of the wagoner laying on a hillside; his familiar had found one of them. Having seen enough, the magician wheeled back around to his open window and returned to Yrūn form.

Back at the inn, a tentacle emerged from the floor of the main room and was grabbing their barricades and throwing them about the room. As Jak moved onto the staircase, he could see the tentacle flailing around in the room below. Ērēus, Zildara, and Jak ran downstairs to stop it. Jak charged the flailing thing in the main room but Ērēus cut the thing down. Wounded, the appendage slipped quickly back into its hole. As Ērēus and Zêla tried to rebuild the barricades, Jak gathered some wood from the fireplace for making torches. He listened for a moment at the hole where the tentacle had emerged and could hear the strange footsteps in the darkness below. Returning upstairs, the group busied themselves fashioning torches.

While they waited, Fyrgol tried asking the innkeeper questions, but she would not respond to the diminutive Feyri. Seeing this, Gældor came forward and repeated the same questions. She explained that she and her husband were originally from a southern village, not far away. They had been traveling to Cwæyl when they stopped for the night. Her husband had eaten the stew and was transformed into one of the Zru. She wasn’t sure which one was him, but was hopeful that he wasn’t one of the creatures laying on the stairs.Gældor asked if she would leave with them when the time came, but she shook her head adamantly. She had been here for five years, she explained, and would stay here until she found a way to get her husband back.

Iyldor, 6 Vulūne 653

It was after Nightsdeep when the pounding started. The heavy sound reverberated throughout the building, shaking the walls and floors. It was unclear how much punishment the old building could take, but it was holding. The group gathered their things and assembled again at the top of the stairs. It was dark in the room below; the fire was gone and the doors and shutters were closed.Dammon and Fyrgol peered into the shadows below, relating what they saw. In the main room below, the remaining tables and chairs bounced noisily across the floor. Finally, a giant splinter of floor boards burst upward and the tip of a tentacle snaked into sight before darting back into the darkness beneath. More splintering followed as something began tugging and ripping the floorboards into the basement. Dammon walked down the stairs and waited for the thing to reappear. When he saw the tentacle once more, he Wove aLāllan’s Lightning across the room, striking the thing. It recoiled and seemed “confused” for a moment. Jak took the opportunity to race down into the darkness and strike at the thing. As it fell limp and began to retract into the ragged hole in the floor, Jak reached down and cut the tip off. Returning up the gore splattered staircase, the others gathered to see what he’d collected. After some cutting they found that the tentacle contained no organs, bones, or vasculature. In fact, as they examined the appendage, the thing quickly became dried and wrinkled.

Hearing nothing more below, the group tried to get some rest. Dammon had not seen any activity in the surrounding village for a few watches, but none believed that the night’s events were over. Jak stood at the top of the stairs, peering down into the darkness. Somewhere below he could hear more footsteps.

Continued in Children of the Worms, Part 2.

Characters

• Dammon Shroudson = 3 CPs (215)
• Fyrgol = 3+1 CPs (132)
• Jak of Cænden = 3 CPs (212)
• Tressta Drynsval = 3 CPs (205)
• Ērēus of Amra = 1 CPs (302)
• Familiar = Unkn.
• Gældor of Nyn = 2+1 CPs (159)
• Graiç of Mazzam = 0 CPs
• Grymgrykalya = 1 CPs (77)
• Hælgnar (Wagon Owner)
• Jæreg (Thug)
• Karæjya (Innkeeper)
• Zêla ma Ler = 2 CPs (165)
• Zildara of Zalan = 0+1 CPs (193)

Played: 25 Aug 2007