Episode 2: A Miner Problem

Episode Summary
Continuing where the story left off the previous session: the party discovers both VIPs, emissary Makt Terah and ambassador Djemana have been abducted.

'No!' cries Kaman, and rushes into the stone building where they were last seen. Barra sees the fallen bodyguard, Ilan and tries to heal him. He whips out his lute and says 'this looks like a job for Bazza!' and sighs Ah~ as a healing word. A burst of light blooms from Ilan's injured shoulder but doesn't seem to do much.

  

Yrsa and Kie rush over into the room as well. The party immediately notice a large hole in the back wall of the stone building, it leads down a perfectly circular tunnel about 2.5m wide which looks like it was bored out. Looking down the tunnel, it is pitch black and goes straight down as far as they can see. They can't hear anything peculiar from the tunnel.

Barra shakes Ilan awake 'HEY! Look! What took them? Where's the hot emissary, where's she gone?'. Ilan struggles to speak and says that when he came in the room, he saw the giant hole and was attacked by the enemy but couldn't identify them. He seems to be in a lot of pain and surprise, but else, no further information is given.

Kaman suggests the party give chase down the tunnel. Yrsa commands Kie and Kaman to go first as they have dark vision and can see better. Barra says he can illuminate the way with his glowing chest, Yrsa acknowledges but suggests not to make the light too bright as it would draw unwanted attention.

The party head into the tunnel. Yrsa skillfully navigates through rocks, debris and uneven terrain with ease. She notices the tunnel is starting to curve a single direction. Barra notices the tunnel seems to have been formed a long time before the incident. Barra updates the Team quickly and continues running down the tunnel. Kaman was not able to notice anything peculiar about the tunnel unfortunately. Kie decides to move ahead of Barra 's light. She notices there's a flash of a small black gem on a silver torque lying on the ground. Barra remembers that the ambassador was wearing the torque as she was gesturing her insect arms about earlier. Barra immediately yells 'Dibs!' grabs the torque and wears it on his arm. Yrsa looks at him with concern and surprise. Kie looks at Barra disapprovingly citing questionable morals.

The party sprint for about 4-5 minutes but grow tired and choose to slow down. It also begs a question that the ambassador and emissary are not small people, how would someone abduct them both and sprint down the tunnel? Yrsa asks Kaman to check if there are any tracks on the ground. Kaman finds footprints from large booted feet like they were dragging something/ someone. And than the tracks stop. Barra decides to look up at the tunnel ceiling and spots a kind of cut-out that looks like it could be the beginning of a new tunnel.

Yrsa looks at Barra and Kaman and exclaims 'Boost me!' Kie says she can do a running jump. Barra says 'Well I'm helping Yrsa, you're on your own,  ' in which Kie shoots back 'I don't need you.' She monkey climbs without difficulty up to the top of the tunnel and pulls herself through the hole. Barra and Kaman do a kind of cheerleader pop and hoist Yrsa up through the hole like a rocket. She forgets however, to grab onto something and tumbles back down to the ground, falling directly on Barra and Kaman.

Yrsa apologizes for falling on the both of them and asks Kie to lower a rope from above. As Kie doesn't have any, Barra throws her a rope up from below. Kie assists in hoisting everyone up but realizes that everyone all can't fit in the space at the same time and have to go in 1 after the other. The tunnel is only max 2m wide. Barra will lead in the front, while everyone else follows behind. The party works their way through the twisting tunnel and reach the end which they find an underground river sloping below them.

Yrsa tells Kaman to check for tracks and traps, Kaman finds tracks at the water's edge but they disappear. Yrsa remarks 'Clearly they took some kind of boat here.' Kaman replies 'I..don't know if you guys would like to go for a swim...?' Yrsa looks at Kaman wearing full plate armour as if saying 'I'm not so sure about there' whereby Kaman casually says 'I breathe underwater...?' (Kaman being a Sea Elf) Everyone exclaims 'Ahhhhhh~'

Yrsa wonders if its a good idea if they tie rope around each other before they start swimming, Barra feels its a bad idea as they might get dragged under if something goes wrong. Kie suggests that Kaman go recce ahead first, for which Barra voices that it's bad idea to split the party. 'Whoa, you don't say very much, but when you do, you say stupid shit!' Yrsa comes to Kie's defense and dispels the argument saying they're all brainstorming so relax. It is decided that Kaman swim ahead first and the rest will follow behind him.

Kaman jumps into the water and discovers it is actually quite deep, about 2-3m down. He surfaces back up to inform the rest of the party. Yrsa decides to empty out her waterskin, takes out a spare pair of pants and makes a water float. 'It's just that I'm not entirely used to water. I come from the mountain'. She says cautiously. Barra decides to do the same seeing it's a good idea. Kaman surfaces to remark, 'Barra is a sailor, not a swimmer' and goes back down into the water. He decides to follow the flow of the river downstream and finds it turns slightly and goes downwards into a dark tunnel. Upstream sees too hard to swim up against and Kaman reasons the abductors couldn't have gone that way.

Yrsa decides to anchor a pylon on the tunnel wall, tie a rope so that the party can grab on just in case anything goes wrong. They make their way down the steep decline of the river and reach a point where it flattens out. Barra emerges from the water and strikes a Hollywood hero pose. The other 3 party members come out soaked and not glamourous at all. The river water has now turned from swimming to wading and shallowed out, there is now a split in the path.

Kie decides to check the walls if there are any tracks or marks but is unable to find or see anything. Meanwhile, Barra backtracks to retrieve the rope tied earlier. Yrsa commands the party split on either side, if they see anything, shout. Kaman was about to give Kie some Intan to light her mining goggles but Barra injects that he has some and gives it to her. 'Say 'thank you! '' says Barra, Kie responds with a sarcastic 'thank you'. Kaman throws his hands up in resignation.

Yrsa tells the 2 taller party members to go down one tunnel while she and Kie go down the other tunnel. Barra and Kaman go left, Yrsa and Kie go right. Kie lights the intan and places it in her goggles which gives off a green glow, lighting her view like night vision goggles.

Kaman and Barra go down the left tunnel, Kaman notices an orange glow on the tunnel walls, the kind that he noticed earlier when they were at Samar Junction. He spots 2 humanoid figures walking about, occulding some of the light. Kaman and Barra discuss what to do: Kaman says they follow the light but first they need to run back and get Yrsa and Kie. He tells Barra to kill his chest light, in which he does.

Yrsa and Kie go down the right tunnel. They notice the tunnel bends towards the right and carries on going right and ascend slightly. The river water seems to end around this point. Kie decides to check for tracks but doesn't notice anything peculiar.

Back to Barra and '''Kaman. Barra suddenly makes a loud screeching noise, an attempt to sound like rats, to get Yrsa and Kie's''' attention. Yrsa thinks she heard 'bats'. The noise alerts the 2 humanoids in the distance. Kaman hears someone exclaim in Deep Speech 'what was that?' Kaman casts presdigitation to make a silent bat image while Barra makes bat fluttering sounds.

Yrsa reasons that something has gone wrong in 'ah-ha!' moment and decides to go investigate the left tunnel. She tells Kie 'there are some bats over there, we should check it out' in which Kie looks at her dumbfounded. 'Are people disturbing the bats or OUR people are the bats?' 'Why would our people be the bats? What kind of LUDICROUS WORLD would that be?!?' says Yrsa, confused. It then dawns on Yrsa that it could be Barra and Kaman. They both go back to the left tunnel, responding to the 'bat signal'.

The 2 humanoids look at each other and ask curiously, in Deep Speech 'Have you ever encountered bats before down here?' '....No? What do they eat down here..?' and stand down from their suspicion. The party reconvene at the fork, update each other and decide to head back down the left tunnel together. Yrsa and Kie will go ahead, Kaman and Barra will be behind. Yrsa and Kie weave in an out sneaking forward but bump into each other and make an audible gasp. The 2 humanoids perk up and grow suspicious of the sound. Barra and Kaman immediately do the bat signal trick.

Yrsa can make out the 2 humanoids. They seem to be 5ft tall, red skinned lizard creatures. These possibly are the Fire Newts as described earlier by the miners. The Fire Newts chat among themselves but Yrsa isn't able to make out what they're saying as she doesn't understand Deep Speech. It's garbled gibberish to her.

Barra mental messages Yrsa telling her to try replicate what the Fire Newts are saying so that he can tell Kaman, who can understand Deep Speech. The 'broken telephone' game doesn't work out and the message conveyed sounds something like 'his kitchen sink is broken' which makes no sense. At one point, the Fire Newts step out, armed with spears and spot Kie and Yrsa. They shout at them. Kaman shouts back in Deep Speech that they're representatives of the Namandan Union and have lost their way. One guard goes off to get his superior and tells the party to wait. Yrsa senses that the Fire Newts are on edge.

Yrsa marches up to the nearest Fire Newt guard and intimidates him about the missing emissary. Kaman jumps in to save the situation. The Fire Newt doesn't know what they're talking regarding the missing persons. Kaman tells Yrsa to calm down as it seems the Fire Newts don't look responsible. Yrsa growls and stands down. A squad of Fire Newts arrive led by a sergeant that looks a bit more important. They ask the party what they're doing in their domain, in Deep Speech. Yrsa yells over to Kaman 'Can you ask them if they have any tall people in their group, or are they all short fucks?' The sergeant replies that he can speak Common. Upon further inquiry, the sergeant seems to know where the missing persons are and asks the party to follow. He clarifies that they did not take their emissary. Barra says they should follow him anyway but Yrsa is apprehensive. Barra looks at the Fire Newts and notice they aren't wearing footwear so its obvious that the emissary was not taken by these people.

The Fire Newts take the party on a fairly long walk but all this time are not hostile. They arrive at a gem covered cavern with various ladders that lead to different ledges. There's even a pulley system to hoist goods. It turns out its a Fire Newt's village where Fire Newts are idling about, going about their business.

'Welcome to Billston. This is our trading point' says the sergeant. He tells the party that he will take them to their leader Reeve as he doesn't have enough information and hopes he will help. Yrsa yells in annoyance that the Fire Newts have wasted their time and she wants them to bring them back to where they were originally. The sergeant says that 2 other visitors did come by but they would like to discuss this with Reeve. The party are confused if the Fire Newts have the emissary or not.

The sergeant explains patiently that he has to take the party to Reeve because if he talks openly and makes a mistake, it could spark off a chain of events that would put his community in peril. After much convincing, the party go to see Reeve.

Lord Reeve Hoggins, the Fire Newt leader, is not dressed in armor but in a tunic and a mini waist coat. He sits in a small office that is more illuminated and not completely dark like outside. Barra describes the 2 missing people while Kaman shows a silent image of them, however Reeve doesn't know about these 2 people but knows that 4 tall people had come by in the last hour or so. The group of people turned down the Fire Newts hospitality and moved towards the Southern tunnel. Barra asks if the people were hostile in which Reeve replies 'I think they said they'd take my tiny Newt tail and shove it up my tiny Newt ass'. Yrsa asks if they were carrying anything and Reeve said they were carrying maybe 3 big sacks. Barra and Kaman ask Reeve to direct the party to the Southern tunnels to try catch up with the visitors.

Reeve asks them not to hurry and perhaps have some tea but the party decline, Yrsa instead offers preserved plums. But Reeve says its a breach of hospitality if its a one-sided affair, however he relents eventually and asks the sergeant to come back to show the party to the Southern tunnel. Yrsa gives Reeve a pack of preserved plums anyway, 'for friendship'.

As the sergeant leads the party to the tunnels, he describes the 4 people as 'big fuckers', 2 of them seemed pre-occupied handling their stuff, but else, they are described as rude but not hostile. The sergeant takes them to the Southern tunnel and bids them farewell, glad and relieved that he'll not be seeing them again.

The party is back at tunnels once again, they notice there's a dip in the tunnel and goes downwards. Kaman notices that the heavy boot prints are back and calls the others to take a look. Barra illuminates his chest light. As he bends down to take a look, a crossbow bolt finds its way into his chest plate! 'Ow..my pecs!' groans Barra.

Kaman steps forward, makes an elaborate movement and forms a silent image of an iron dome. He mouths to Barra to turn off the light in which he does so immediately. The party is certain that the attacker is within 300 ft, telling from the range of the crossbow bolt. Enraged, Barra charges out of the dome image yelling 'ARG, FRICKEN HELL MY LEFT PEC!' and casts Vicious Mockery at whatever he can see. He calls out the attackers but there is no response. He decides to sing an inspiring song to Kie (a parody of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', 'And I need a Monk Tonight!')

Kie stealths ahead towards '''Barra. Yrsa,''' who understands Orcish, suddenly hears 'Uh! It's a fuckin loser, innit!?' and with that, another crossbow bolt zaps into Barra's chest. Another Orcish voice tells the party to stand down in the name of the Shadow Guard. Yrsa tells the party to stand down immediately. Kaman asks 'Who the hell are the Shadow Guard?' 'No fucking clue!' says '''Yrsa. Yrsa''' however sort of knows there's an area opposite the mountain known as the Shadow Grove but that's all she knows.

Yrsa moves up to Barra's position and pulls out her shield to protect him. She yells 'GIVE US OUR EMISSARY BACK!' all she can hear is the sound of reloading crossbows and some muttering. Yrsa moves up to the rocks that shot at Barra and discovers that the creatures are wearing rock like camo ghillie suits to disguise their position. Yrsa also finds that there are even more rock ghillie suit creatures further down, about 4 of them. Another Orcish voice warns the party again to stand down immediately and go back to where they came from or else there will be trouble. Yrsa asks once again for the emissary and demands they return her right now. In response, a crossbow bolt embeds itself in Yrsa's chest. The figures fall back.

Kaman drops the iron dome image and moves forward. He readies an Eldritch Blast at the nearest enemy, but is unable to target so misses. Barra runs up to the figure that was falling back and casts Vicious Mockery. The Orcish voice questions 'Why so vicious, it's nothing personal'.

Kie runs hummingbird style up to the nearest target and stab it with her short sword. It's a solid hit straight at him and she swings round and slaps him in the head. The attacker stands, pulls off his ghillie rock suit and its clear that he is a large Orc in full camo paint and dark leather armor. He pulls out a curved blade and stabs back at Kie. As the Orc pulls back, Kie attempts to jab him in the throat but he blocks with a firm arm. 'Good strike kid, but you're gonna need more practice'

Yrsa stabs the nearest Orc and yells once again to give back their emissary.

An Orcish voice calls out 'Come on you bastards, fall back!' and with that, the shadowy figures retreat. Yrsa swings her axe and trips the nearest Orc, who now looks badly beaten up. The shadowy figures flee, mutter in unison and cast a rock spell that summon jagged rock spikes that blocks off access to the rest of the tunnel.

The party are cut off and left to deal with the badly injured Orc. He scowls weakly 'Well now you've gone and done it, have ya.'

END OF SESSION

Next Episode 3: Oh Barry, I'm Not Your Daddy

Previous Episode 1: Majors & Miners - Welcome to Urtu!

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