"I think Ava has made her reservations clear enough.
I am ready to depart. No doubt, if we do end up in a monsters belly or worse, we might end up trusting one another after this, I think..."
As the group settled into a formation, he patted Ithy's gently on the shoulder.
"It seems your travels have lead you back home, my dear Ithys. Perhaps we will run into your extended family?" he said with a sarcastic air. He had enough stories of Drow to not be terribly interested in being filled full of poison arrows and carted off to serve some spider architecture crazed matriarchal Empire. It really wasn't as pleasant as it sounded.
Action: Knowledge Arcana checks on sahuagin, kua-toa, and aboleth
[14+5] You've heard some stories about hideous creatures resembling humanoid fish calling themselves Sahuagin before. They're supposed to be largely cave creatures, not fond of the light, but every so often they're supposed to rise up from the seas and storm coastal cities. Most have always regarded them as legends. They're fabled to train sharks, dolphins, and according to one particularly fantastical story, a whale. Even if that's true, you certainly won't come across a whale down here, though. [7+5] The Kuo-Toa are more frog like, and are often driven more by greed than the Sahuagin's bloodlust. They're irrational, but one may reason with them, the clerics especially. It does help to line their pockets first, though. There is no love lost between the Sahuagin and Kuo-Toa; even in the largely apocryphal stories regarding them, not one speaks of them interacting besides warring.
The Aboleth, on the other hand, [4+5] is entirely an unknown.
Also follow along, pondering as I do so: what are sahuagin, kua-toa, aboleths, and triangular lakes? Bardic Knowledge! Try to keep away from the front.
You've heard some tales over the years, enough at least to have pieced together what Osirio also knows about the Sahuagin and Kuo-Toa. The Aboleth is likewise something you've never heard of. Triangular lakes you've heard stories of, like the (in)famous Guardian Lakes encircling and serving to protect a small fortress in the west. None of those lakes have any relevance to the matter at hand, though.
The party sets out towards the destination, guided by Arias and lit by torch and lantern. The guards are careful to stay away, with Renais being stripped of his blade due to his apparent over-eagerness. A few times, a low rustling prompts Arias to douse the lights and tell everyone to remain silent, before continuing on. Upon prompting, he says "Not now--angering Them now would be suicide. Once we reach the village." Something about the way he says "Them" implants the capital T firmly in your mind. You walk for what feels like hours through the inky blackness, the breathing of the wind rushing in and out of the chasm behind you slowly fading until it seems like little more than an echo of your heartbeat. So gradually that you don't even notice it, you begin to hear a new sound at the very edge of perception. With a start you realize you've been listening to it for several minutes now, and identify it vaguely as the sound of cascading water. It's shortly thereafter that a tongue of light from the torch falls upon a bit of carved masonry. Arias throws up his lantern and takes a few steps forwards, confirming what he thought.
"We've reached our first landmark. Welcome to the Drow fortress. Named, as best as I can decipher from the faded scripts, Narasul. What, if anything, this means in the dark elves' tongue, I don't know. We're about two thirds away from our final destination, and the path to the village is about ten minutes from here, if memory serves. We can stop and rest there, and come back here if your lust for gold should get the better of you. You do seem like the adventurous types, after all, and Talor isn't exactly going anywhere!" the noble states with an air of excitement, before chuckling quietly at his own joke.
Author
Topic: City of Aretrian - IC Thread (Read 58768 times)