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The Earth, It Cares Not!
Brother Jasyn and the Lizardmen
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1,681 words
The trio finds themselves motionless in the shadows under a black spruce an hour later, as a hunting party of lizardmen one dozen strong draws closer.
TABLE 1
Our heroes grin at one another. A dozen lizardmen versus the three of them, with the element of surprise? It is a short fight, taking well under a full minute. Both heroes and their guide are injured but not in mortal danger as they mop up.
Before they go about the methodical task of looting the lizardmen corpses, Aury uses a Risk Die to perform a Healing Surge. Brother Jasyn and Mattie each regain 1 point, bringing them to 23/28 and 16/16 HP, respectively. Aury is fully healed. Aury still has 3 Heroic Deed uses remaining today.
Treasure collected from a dozen lizardmen corpses: 26 GP, 75 SP, 80 CP (75 shiny & 5 red).
Total experience points from the fight: 1,235, divided among a total of ten character levels (Brother Jasyn's six overall levels, and the Seekers' two apiece). Brother Jasyn receives 60% of the experience — 741 XP; each Seeker receives 20% — 247 XP.
Noting Brother Jasyn's pronounced limp, Aury sloshes across the uneven, swampy terrain, stepping over a floating lizardman corpse to reach the dungeoneer. The cleric bows his head for a moment and then looks up and smiles at the relieved expression on their guide's face.
"Well," Mattie says with cheerfulness that is perhaps ironic given the slaughter in which he has just participated, "it looks like we collected enough chroma that we can already pay you for your injuries and fighting."
"Just hold onto it for now," Brother Jasyn replies. "I'd rather not be weighted down with additional coinage if I need to move swiftly later today. Better for me if the monsters catch one of you two slower blokes," he quips. Mattie glances at Aury and grins.
TABLE 2
The trio proceeds west. Brother Jasyn at least acts like he knows where he's going, and so the Seekers trust that he does. "Tell us about this barrow's maze that we've heard so much about from the gob—"
Matthias interrupts Aury with a warning squeeze on the bigger man's shoulder, and the cleric adroitly adapts what he was about to say, midsentence: "—from the gobs of adventurers that were always coming and going from Helix when Mattie and I were kids."
"Barrowmaze, not barrow's maze," Brother Jasyn corrects. "Ages ago, an unknown people settled near a great moor. They built a village and, following their custom, constructed burial mounds and underground tombs to lay their dead to rest. Some were buried in simple alcoves, while others were entombed behind sealed doors and guarded by deadly traps.
"Time passed and the settlement grew — and the underground passages became maze-like in their complexity," Brother Jasyn continues. "This went on a long time, and eventually that civilization fell. And now we have these ancient remains, the Barrowmaze. That about sums it up." He pokes at a hump of vegetation, and a water mocassin darts away, winding through the water to the south.
"No, no. We want all the details you can muster. Please, continue..." voices Matthias, his scholar's mind now entranced despite himself.
"Well, all right," Brother Jasyn says, affecting a mild disinterest. "This continued for centuries," explains Brother Jasyn, "until the cult of Nergal, God of the Underworld, appeared. Nergal received a vision. He knew his sons, Orcus and Set, desired his throne and wanted to depose him as Lord of the Underworld. Nergal commanded his evil cultists to drive the villagers off and occupy the labyrinth. He further commanded them to take his most powerful unholy relic, The Tablet of Chaos, and entomb it behind many wards and traps." After a few seconds, Brother Jasyn adds. "That's probably enough for now."
A good ten heart beats pass and then Matthias reluctantly says, "Please, continue. You could be killed and then we'd never get the rest of the story from you."
Brother Jasyn stops and turns theatrically in the knee-deep marsh water, hands on hips and a scowl on his face. "Thanks so much for the vote of confidence!"
But in short order he resumes both his forward progress and his story. "In time, the vision of Nergal came to pass and his sons overthrew him. The cult of Nergal, now leaderless, fragmented and abandoned the burial maze. Knowledge of The Tablet was lost."
"What then became of Nergal's two sons, and of the Tablet?" asks Matthias.
Brother Jasyn turns with a perplexed look. "I just told you, knowledge of the Tablet was lost." But seeing the mage's crestfallen expression, he resumes his guiding and storytelling. "Well," Brother Jasyn continues, "once they deposed their father, Orcus and Set turned on each other and a civil war for control of the Underworld began." He lets the silence linger for ten more sluggish yards through the marsh, then twenty.
Now it's Aury who prods him. "You must know more, even if just rumors."
"A stalemate ensued with each side hoping to tip the balance of power in their favour. Orcus gathered his acolytes. He ordered them to enter the maze and find The Tablet of Chaos. Set countered by sending his powerful necromancers after the artifact. Both groups were commanded to find The Tablet of Chaos or else destroy the opposing faction.
"Nergal's masterstroke revealed itself in the time that followed. By hiding The Tablet in the maze, Nergal ensured that neither of his sons could completely take his place as Lord of Death and the Underworld. Moreover, The Tablet of Chaos, secreted in a vast labyrinthine burial site, has undoubtedly defiled the sanctity of the crypts over the millenia.
"The curious and foolhardy have plumbed the depths to find answers. Most of them never returned, predictably. It makes one wonder how foolish we three are being in this endeavor, does it not?" Aury and Mattie look at each other. The older man is picking and teasing, but no doubt there is wisdom in his question.
Midmorning finds our trio standing on a slight rise in the marsh and gazing south. "There you have it — the Barrow Moor. Dozens of acres of tombs, but not all are visible from the surface," remarks Brother Jasyn.
"What are 'acres'?" Aury asks.
"An ancient term," answers Matthias. "It is an area of land about the size of our village garden back in Helix." The three do a quick but thorough equipment check, and then again survey the nearest visible tombs through a mist that has thickened over the last several hundred yards and now limits visibility to about fifteen paces.
"Well, let's see what we can find, shall we?" Brother Jasyn suggests, and begins describing a grid pattern in his movements. Here, the marsh waters have receded, and the guide stops periodically and thwacks the ground hard with a boot heel.
"Don't get separated. This fog makes us vulnerable, so stay tight," he cautions. Aury and Mattie begin emulating their guide, trying to discern a spot where the ground gives little, where perhaps there is stone or other barrier not far beneath the surface.
The next few minutes are spent carefully making way through the thick mist. The silence of the marsh is punctuated intermittently by the thud of a booted foot testing the ground. That silence is soon broken by friction noise as something massive and moving quickly comes into our party's midst — Brother Jasyn, partially obscured by the intervening mist, cries out in pain, but his cry is cut off prematurely. "Fornost's five fingers!" Aury curses, as he trips over a stone while trying to close ranks with his fellows.
He lunges upright and forward and catches sight of Brother Jasyn just as Mattie's silhouette comes forth from the concealing mists and the mage exclaims in alarm, "Krike!"
A massive constrictor snake has looped itself thrice around Brother Jasyn, whose shirt is bloodied and torn where he's been bitten, and there is a loud snap of cracking ribs as the snake constricts him (18/28 HP).
Aury's eldritch bolt pulps snake flesh and the constrictor spasms, then it jerks again as two more such bolts strike in quick succession from Mattie on the opposite side of the giant constrictor.
With concentration, Aury directs yet another bolt (i.e., Fray Die). Four serious injuries in the space of a few seconds cause the constrictor to rethink it's dinner plan, and it uncoils from around Brother Jasyn and quickly undulates away into the marsh mists. Our two heroes couldn't keep pace with it even if visibility were perfect, and they have more a pressing concern: their guide!
"Belt... pouch..." Jasyn wheezes painfully, struggling to get the words out. "Healing ... potion." Shortly, six points of injury are healed as the Seekers feed Brother Jasyn one of his only two potions of cure serious wounds. (24/28 HP).
Aury gives Jasyn's shoulder a squeeze. "It's a good thing you told us to stay close together, or we might not have been able to intervene in time."
Brother Jasyn grins painfully. "Of course, just my typical, efficient expertise. Let's see if we can get into one of these crypts. I think," he directs a look at Aury, "that if you test the ground here you'll find something interesting."
Aury gives Brother Jasyn a perplexed look, but removes the sledgehammer from where it's tied across his pack. Raising it, he brings it down hard. His brow creases and he delivers another blow to the same spot, spattering dirt and ... some rock fragments. "Either I hit a rock, or we've found one of the stone crypt entry portals." A little digging by Aury and Mattie with shovels proves that the latter is the case.
"How'd you know?" Mattie asks their guide.
Brother Jasyn leverages himself to his feet, grimacing and holding his sides. "We're in the vicinity of a dungeon. When that happens, I have the benefit of what you might call ... a sixth sense about things."
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