Chapter Four: Enlightenment and the Daughters of Summertime

[Captain Hesperus]

Otiorin nodded and smiled, "As long as Luna can bear being separated from you for so long, I wouldn't mind the company. But I can't make any promises regarding lackadaisical behaviour. Sometimes, one must go with the flow."


With that, he gently sheathed Moonlit Edge and prepared himself for his mission.

 

[Purr]

"What do you mean, you-"


Sparkle's snout wrinkled in distaste. Lackadaisical behavior on a rescue mission? When innocent lives were at stake? How could he even consider---





Then it hit her. Young ladies were the target here. Sparkle felt that when it came to rescuing beautiful damsels in distress, Otiorin would be anything but lazy when it came to that. Oh, the chance to experience the welcome rewards of warm, willing girls was perchance more valuable than magic for a tavern-hopper such as he. Of course, since he was noble one moment and an absolute couch cushion the next, anything was possible. She would simply have to trust him on the matter, and if that didn't work, well, she had means of contacting Luna if things went sideways.


"All right then," the older dragon-blooded creature gracefully glided her way onto his shoulder, "we will do it your way. You are the rogue after all... just refrain from taking any sudden naps in the middle of this, if you please? I daresay you more often represent the hobbit way of life moreso than dragon!" And with that, the little dame merged her colors in with his own and vanished from sight.

 

[Sherwood]

Luna hides her smile behind her hand. With a serious expression, she tries to sound serious. "Well, now that we know not to take any naps inside the cave, let us go forth and rescue the girls and save this magic place from corruption." She reloads her crossbow and carries it in a ready position. "Lead off, Otiorin, and we'll be on your heels. Sparkle, you have my permission to nip him in the ear if he tries to fall asleep."

 

[killfire]

Bronze listens intently to all the wise spiffyness. Wondering when there will be time to even experiment. Looks around for Kitrin, because he suddenly got a great idea. Armor, clothes, and some other things might be hard to come by for the smaller folk, maybe some advice and call it a future trade plan. Not to mention that silly prison wagon really looks ugly with all the evil looking steel bars.

 

[Purr]

Otiorin hears Sparkle lick her lips at Luna's statement. Then he feels the scaly lady twist into a comfortable position where that reptilian head of hers can watch front or back with but a quiet twist of her neck. She is ready for whatever may come.


As Otiorin steps toward the cave, he hears Bria quietly call to him. "Be balanced!" If Otiorin turns to see her, he will notice her friendly and confident smile which which does not say, Oh do be careful as he has heard from enough lasses, but instead a heartfelt, I have faith in you. She is not alone. Powerpaw is there beside her giving Otiorin a furry thumbs-up and a grin that is as encouraging as it is toothy.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Otiorin glanced back to see his allies, his friends, silently cheering him on. It felt good to be depended upon, even if certain members of his group had their doubts as to his commitment. Ah, if only Sparkle knew of that night in Summerset, a week or so before they came together, when he had infiltrated the house of a rich but corrupt nobleman and brought to light his dealings with followers of Erythnul. He'd not napped on the job then and he'd certainly done it with anonymity, lest his revelations earn him severe repercussions. Certainly with the hindsight of Skaagenrackner's information about certain of his rare kind, being discreet had probably been a boon. He shook his head to clear the thoughts away and, crouching low into an almost animal-like four-point stance, he set off into the depths of the cave.


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[Purr]

With the hopes of his friends with him, Otiorin moves like a ghost into the yawning cave mouth. Once inside, the beautiful rays of sunshine fall away bathing the mossy cavern walls in dimness. Further still, as his hands and feet roam over the stones, dimness becomes darkness until finally even his low light vision fails. All light fades until even purple shapes are gone.


Then there is the faintest, yet clearest of whispers in his pointed ear. "Turn slightly to your right and count ten steps. At twelve, a ledge falls." Sparkle's eyes succeed in telling the tale of the cave. From time to time, there is broken, jagged rock everywhere along the floor making for precarious stepping. Sound and touch become stronger as Otiorin trusts his ears and fingers in ways only rogues know. The floor is slick. What moss there is here is unmistakably flattened. Otiorin carefully, yet blindly, takes the ledge down about three feet then onward.

Spoiler

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"You know, I would not be surprised to learn that someday you develop darkvision, or even better, dragonsight, as a result of your birthright..."


Once every so often, Otiorin sees (or thinks he sees) the faintest of lights. Upon close inspection, the light turns out to be a flower in the moss, its bulb recently crushed. Apparently there were sources of light in this cavern. Now there are none. Otiorin counts many such smashed bulbs until they number into the dozens. Somewhere water drips and drips...


Some steps and directions later, about one hundred and fifty feet into the cave, Sparkle gasps. "What is- Hold a moment..."


She takes a few moments to gather and decipher what her eyes are telling her brain. Once she is certain, she whispers. "Footprints. Each the size of an adult dwarf." She takes a breath and ponders. "Otiorin, these are not a minotaur's cloven-hoofed prints but some more like your own... except far larger. And they seem to... Hmmm."


"There are two tunnels," Otiorin feels Sparkle craning her neck. "Keep to your left. I think that tunnel to the right looks a little small for my liking..."


Luna then hears a familiar voice in her mind. Pyri, we have taken the left tunnel. There are footprints here, far larger than a minotaur's, yet shaped like a human's.


After a short travel through the left-bound tunnel, the cavern widens, and though Otiorin cannot see it, his ears tell him of wide open spaces and dripping water. They also hear Sparkle's soft gasp of wonder.

(Image credit: en.wikipedia.org)


This, minus the people (who I'm glad are there for scale). Add soft carpets of moss virtually everywhere to this scene and you have what I'm seeing.


"Bahamut's tail! Just how big do these caverns get?"


It is then that Otiorin's feet freeze in their tracks. Sparkle clings motionless. Here in this cavern, the two of you detect great sounds that neither of you are able to make. It is like a horde of ogres breathing, but your ears tell you the true numbers of creatures is far less. Huge throats rumble, creating frightening noises that echo off of the rock walls, amplifying the groaning to fearful effect. Otiorin is reminded somehow that these are the kinds of elements lesser men flee from, for lying in the middle of the room, illuminated only by lantern-light, this thing sleeps:

(Image credit: www.pinterest.com)


Beside them, looking tiny on the mossy floor, the burning lantern leaves a lazy, black trail of smoke into the air. Its light reveals a creature some thirteen feet in height and weighing as much as many horses. Resting on its chest are two cruel-looking metal clubs crowned with rusty spikes. The creatures' faces seem even uglier than the lamp-light suggests, for they seem to have squashed, square-shaped noses with terrible scars reaching in every direction. Similar scars from abrasions, lacerations, and burns run all over their horrid features. This creature, sense tells you, is the veteran of much pain and conflict.


Yet farther still down the cavern, beyond this thing, Otiorin and Sparkle suddenly hear the dwindling voices of young women. Frightened young women.


"Leave us alone!"


"What are you going to do to us? We have done you no harm!"


"Let us out of here! Oh, please, someone help!"


Sparkle's only reaction to all of this is one very worried gulp.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Otiorin's voice is but a breath as he instinctively reaches up, finds Sparkle's draconic head and drew it to his lips.


"I cannot say that this beast shall be swiftly dispatched without a commotion, like the guards were. Inform the others that we are heading back to meet them, we need to discuss the next stage swiftly."


With that, he swiftly turned tail and ghosted back up the tunnel, keeping close in to the wall.

 

[Purr]

Pyri... Sparkle's tone contains a cautious edge in Luna's mind. We have found one big roadblock and are en route to you. Please halt movement and make no loud sounds lest we wake the roadblock...





"Done," Sparkle whispers to Otiorin.

 

[Sherwood]

I understand. We will wait for you here. "Everyone, Otiorin and Sparkle have come across a 'big roadblock' and are on their way back here to talk to us. Stay quiet so we don't wake it up, whatever it is."

 

[Purr]

After a very many stealthy steps back to his team, Otiorin finds himself back with the Wanderers. Sparkle looks to Otiorin with a look that says, "How about we have your version?"

 

[Wolf Rawrrr]

Wolf hadn't been spelunking in a long time, but now that he got the chance to plunge into subterranean darkness once again, he quickly learned he didn't miss it at all. Somehow it seemed darker than he'd remembered, so with Otiorin and Sparkle scouting ahead he made liberal use of his enchanted dagger to illuminate a few feet radius around himself.


"I don't care much for this darkness." he had complained to Luna when they lost sight of daylight. He envied Pecker who remained outside to 'look for trouble' as the falcon put it. Well the underground was certainly no place for any bird but bats, but the ranger felt almost equally out of place here.


He was relieved to see Otiorin and the pseudo-dragon make it back, especially given the roadblock mentioned. He laid his inquisitive eyes on the half elf and stood waiting for a report.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

"If you insist, Oh great and wise dragon.", Otiorin responded with a chuckle, "We've got a single opponent in the cave beyond, but he's big, really big. He's at least head and shoulders above the Minotaurs. Two heads, what looks like two big weapons too. Stinks like rotten food and body odor. I've met one previously, that one was dumber that a bag of Bronze's hammers. He's asleep at the moment and the cave is pretty roomy. There's a single lantern in there, not giving out too much light, but enough to see by. Beyond the beast is the remainder of the cavern, whence we heard the sound of the three captives at the mercy of at least one other unknown malefactor."


He glanced around at the assembled adventurers.


"I see that we have two options, both of which are fraught with potential danger. The first is that we directly engage the beast. With it being asleep, we have some chance of catching it unawares, assuming it does not have supernatural means to warn it of impending harm. But in doing so, we risk the chance that the tumult shall warn the lasses' captor and he might do ill unto them before we are able to deal with his brute. The second is that we attempt to bypass the beast there within and continue pursuit of the maidens and their captor. If we employ a mobile rearguard to guard against the beast's awakening and advance at speed, we might overwhelm the captor before he can enact whatever evil he intends. Of course, this depends on whether he is alone or not. I, for one, am partial to the latter option. Our objective is to liberate and protect these innocent maidens. We should bend our every effort to that task, even at risk of our own lives. I do not feel that we could down that monster swiftly nor silently in time to prevent harm coming to them."

 

[Purr]

Otiorin's commentary produces several reactions starting with a pleased giggle from Sparkle. "Oh, dearest me! 'Wise', I can give you, but 'great'? You have mistaken me for another dragon entirely."


"Uh, wha's a ma-le-fac-tor-y?"


"Malefactor," Bria explains. "Bad guy."


"Okies. Tanks. Wait... you sez he got two heads? " Powerpaw ponders intensely for a moment. Then a thought strikes him and he turns to Otiorin with urgency. "Wha's he look like an' wha's he usin'?"

 

[Sherwood]

Luna idly chews on her thumbnail as she listens to the report from Otiorin. "There is no good option here. If we sneak past it, any fighting we do in the next chamber has the potential to wake it up, and then we are facing enemies from the front and the rear. If we attack the sleeping giant, we could do some serious damage to it before it can return fire, but it will probably alert whatever guards are in the next chamber that we are here, and they could do some harm to the ones we are trying to rescue." She looks troubled at the prospects of each plan. "If I were to put this to a vote, I would say we sneak past the sleeping giant-thing, risking having it come into the fight from behind, but before it could show up, we put all our energy into freeing the girls. Once we have cleared away the threats, we will have not only saved the hostages, but the magic of this place won't be corrupted into something dark." Luna nods to herself as she ponders the plan, trying to come up with an alternative plan. "I say we go for it. The innocents are the priority here. Hell, we may be able to get them out without waking the two headed giant. Not very likely, but its possible."

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Otiorin's eyebrow arched in confusion, "Well, he's like I said. Tall, smelly, unnecessarily ugly, horribly scarred, dressed in what appear to be any animal skin he could get his bloody great fingers on, tanned or not. He carries a pair of iron clubs, crude things with spikes on. They're currently sat on his chest."


He turned and listened to Luna's assessment and reply with a nod.


"'Let sleeping giants lie', is a good motto to live by, in my opinion."

 

[Sherwood]

Luna smiles at him. "If we can't sneak past, and Sleeping Ugly wakes up, at that point, we have mere moment to respond. Be ready for me to throw a Fireball at it, before it can get into melee range. I won't do that where an innocent will be hit, or a member of the party. Just listen for me to shout, and shield your eyes if you can."

 

[Purr]

"Spiked clubses?" Powerpaw snarls. "Metal or woods? An' his faces! Tell me about his faces!"

 

[Captain Hesperus]

"Metal, yes.", Otiorin replied, getting irked at Powerpaw's questions, "And his faces look like someone played tic-tac-toe on them and tried to scratch the games off after they'd finished."

 

[Purr]

"Uhhh," Powerpaw scratches his head. "Wha's tic-tac-toe? Say dat another way?"

 

[Kaerri]

Bren frowns in thought. "That sounds like an ettin to me. I've come across a couple myself. Likely he's being used as a guard, though Forest Mother only knows by whom. Did you happen to get any glimpse of what was beyond the ettin, Otiorin?"

 

[Sherwood]

Luna pauses to think about what she knows about Ettins, what they might be vulnerable to.


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[Captain Hesperus]

Otiorin had begun hopping from one foot to another as the cogs visibly turned in Powerpaw's head, "Ehlonna's Grace, Kitty-face! It looks like someone thought his faces looked wrong so they tried to tear them off and start again. Why is this even significant?"

 

[Sherwood]

"Eeew. It just sounds gross."

 

[Kaerri]

Bren looks to Luna. "Something else to keep in mind: even if we don't wake up the ettin, it's very possible that its employer will, when we move in on his-or-her captives."