Wednesday, November 21, 652 AU, continued

They move further into the facility and discover the two missing zombies. They manage to catch the zombies by surprise… but the oozes lurking in the water catch them by surprise. Thankfully, these slimes are weak, and the party is able to take them out without too much difficulty.

At the far side of the room, they see the remains of an iron grate blocking the entrance to a rough-hewn tunnel, snaking off into the darkness. Tainted water flows out of this tunnel, and it appears to be the source for the whole facility. Some investigation reveals that the grate was bent inwards, as if something in the tunnel broke it and entered the facility long ago.

Rather than explore the tunnel, they decide to return to the village and recuperate. They return to the shaft leading up to the shrine, check for any sign of the hydra, and quickly make their way back down the trail to the village.

Back at The Healing Hand they talk to Saphielle, who says the guards have cleared the snow from the road west, and that she and Trurdig will leave the next morning. Since she’s already late for her delivery in Crystalport, and she does feel bad for the village’s plight, she decides to let the party take possession of the wine barrels.

Apparently, they don’t contain wine—they contain a highly explosive oil! She suggests they could be used to fight the hydra, but no one is sure how—they decide to leave the barrels at the inn with Avilia.

Thursday, November 22, 652 AU

The next morning, Saphielle, Trurdig, and Harmony leave west for Crystalport. Aurelia asks Avilia if she knows anyone in the village who could remember anything about the corruption of the Pool of Tears, and Avilia suggests she talk with an elderly woman named Jessica who lives just a few houses down.

Aurelia heads to Jessica’s house, knocks on the door, and is invited inside. Jessica offers Aurelia some tea, which she says was grown in Greyonne. “It’s a small town, but they produce some of the best tea in the kingdom!”. After tasting it, Aurelia is inclined to agree with that assessment.

“Do you remember what happened at the Pool of Tears?” asks Aurelia.

“Oh, I was too young,” replies Jessica, “but my father told me all about it. He worked in the Temple of Kyasha here in town, so he was close to everyone involved. The healing waters became less potent over the course of only a few weeks, and then one day a woman—Margaret de Lane, the reeve’s grandmother—died after drinking from the Pool. The pool dried up soon after that, and the priests shut everything down.”

The reeve’s grandmother? thinks Aurelia. That’s interesting…

“Then, a few days later, the priests declared they were leaving Kyasha’s Vale for the foreseeable future. My father says the higher-ups seemed very distraught, as if something terrible had happened, but no one would tell him what it was. They packed up most of the important items—vials of holy water, sacred scriptures, and the like—and left behind everything else. The reeve wanted to sell the furniture in the temple, but the rest of the town wanted to leave everything as it was, for when the priests returned.”

Jessica chuckles. “Well, it’s been almost a century, and they’ve never come back. Never explained why they left, or why the pool dried up, either.”

“That is quite a mystery,” says Aurelia.

“A lot of mysterious things happened in those days,” says Jessica. “The loss of the pool was quite a shock, but the destruction of Silverdale was the biggest mystery of the time.”

“The destruction of Silverdale?”

“A few years before the pool dried up, all the inhabitants of Silverdale were… turned undead. It happened overnight. No survivors, no witnesses. Just one day they were there, and the next day visitors to the town run back screaming that the whole place was filled with the walking dead and the stench of decay. The Crystalport guard was called to investigate and put down the undead. They never could figure it out. They put many of the undead to rest, which took years, I’m told, but couldn’t get all of them. They say the place is an overgrown forest now, and that worse things than undead have moved in.”

“That’s horrible!” says Aurelia. “Does anyone have an idea of what caused it?”

“Not as far as I’ve heard,” says Jessica, “but I think it’s punishment by the gods. Someone there must have done something to offend them. Something horrible enough that the gods felt the need to intervene. But all those innocents…” She trails off.

Aurelia thanks Jessica for the conversation and for the tea, and returns to The Healing Hand.

⁂

Meanwhile, Valya has been talking with Klabrog, the captain of the town guard, asking about any famous sword-smiths in the area.

“Sword-smiths? Well, the best in Whitestone Valley would be the Kildare family. They’ve been sword-smiths for as long as anyone can remember. Most of them died in the destruction of Silverdale, though. The ones who weren’t there at the time relocated to Rimehollow.”

“The destruction of Silverdale?”

Klabrog gives Valya much the same story as Jessica gave to Aurelia.

“What do you think caused it?”

“Necromancers in Vargrath Keep,” Klabrog says, narrowing his eyes. “A castle up in the mountains overlooking the north part of the valley. Always been a creepy, haunted place. People say they see strange things there, and sometimes, from a distance, you can see eerie lights inside.”

⁂

Back at the inn, Aurelia and Valya relay the information they’ve discovered to the other party members. They briefly discuss the idea that the de Lane family destroyed the pool, but they’re not sure it adds up. No one is sure what to make of Silverdale. In any case, they’re still badly hurt from their encounters in the shrine, so they decide to rest for one more day.

Friday, November 23, 652 AU

They return to the pool. The hydra is nowhere in sight, thankfully, so they sneak into the underground facility and return to that tunnel they found.

They follow the tunnel, which snakes generally upwards, until they reach a fork. The left branch is more steeply inclined, and appears to be dug by some large clawed creature, not with pickaxes. The party can feel a slight breeze coming from that direction. They decide to follow the right branch, which continues in the same way as the rest of the tunnel, even though they can smell a fetid odor of decay. After a few hundred more feet, they find something astonishing.

There is a large cavern, and embedded in the side of this cavern is a large geode, perhaps twenty feet across, filled with blue crystals that faintly glow and shimmer. Water is continually seeping out of this geode and flowing down the channel carved in the floor that leads down the tunnel to the facility. However, there is poisonous gunk from the hydra everywhere, as well as the bones of various humanoids and animals, and it is tainting the water. There’s even some damage to the geode itself—presumably, the water is not flowing as much as it used to.

But what catches the party’s eyes most is the hydra, sleeping in the middle of the room. Thankfully, it hasn’t noticed them.

Qhask and Valya notice something. In the back of the room is a pile of humanoid bones, mixed in with armor and clothing and other personal affects. There’s something shiny in there. Could it be the amulet Aurelia saw in her vision? Qhask volunteers to sneak around the hydra and grab the amulet.

Qhask enters the room, deftly avoiding loose bones, staying perfectly silent. He picks up a hydra scale mixed in with the bones, in case they need evidence of the hydra’s existence. As he passes the geode, he notices the remains of a large eggshell with some carvings on it. He pockets the pieces, then continues toward the amulet.

It almost goes according to plan until, after picking up the amulet, Qhask steps on a rib bone. The cracking noise it makes as it gives way under his feet echoes around the silent cavern. All ten of the hydra’s eyes snap open, and Qhask finds himself mere feet from a very awake, very angry hydra.

Everyone runs back down the tunnel, but Qhask, bringing up the rear, is brought down by the hydra. Valya rushes back, picks up Qhask’s unconscious body, and misty steps to safety. With some luck, everyone manages to avoid getting taken out by the hydra’s attacks and make it back to the facility. Thankfully, the door is too small for the hydra to fit through. It snaps at them viciously, then retreats out of sight. Aurelia revives Qhask with some healing magic.

Then, everyone runs for the exit back up to the surface, but as they climb the rope they realize they can hear the hydra. It’s up there, waiting for them! They debate what to do, and decide to try the other tunnel they found. Presumably, that’s how the hydra gets to the surface. If it’s waiting for them at this entrance, maybe the other entrance is unguarded, and they can sneak off to safety through the woods!

⁂

They decide to take a short rest first, barricading themselves in one of the rooms. They inspect the items Qhask found in the geode room. Aurelia casts detect magic, which reveals that the eggshell has faint traces of evocation and transmutation magic, and the runes appear to be some sort of magical script. It’s not clear, but they think the runes have something to do with poison magic.

Then Aurelia notices something that disturbs her greatly. One of the symbols carved into the eggshell is a black circle with a white crescent, like a representation of a solar eclipse. It’s the symbol of one of the most radical sects of Neesha’s cult, who seek to permanently put out the sun. They’ve never succeeded, of course, but they’ve come up with all sorts of plots over the centuries that have caused immense damage and suffering.

The amulet emanates powerful divine magic, but it seems to be beyond Aurelia’s abilities to make use of it. It is almost certainly the same amulet she saw in her vision.

The scale is non-magical, but could presumably be used as proof of the hydra’s existence, if they need it.

⁂

After resting, they make their way back to the tunnel. Before they leave, they head down the tunnel back to the geode room. The hydra is not there, which gives them the opportunity to collect some untainted water in the geode in the magical vials they got from Rex. It also gives Aurelia the opportunity to collect Beatrice’s remains. It’s difficult to determine whose bones are whose, but she is at least able to get the skull and a few other large bones.

The other tunnel—the one they have yet to explore—does prove to lead to the surface, and the hydra is nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, thanks to the twisty nature of the tunnel, no one is sure where they are when they finally reach the surface and daylight. They’re somewhere in the mountains, but where?

Qhask attempts to lead them back to Kyasha’s Vale, but after a few hours of heading downhill, they finally realize they are heading east toward Amyanthalas. Aurelia, having arrived to Kyasha’s Vale from this direction, sighs and says that if they head south, they should intersect the road that they can take west towards the Vale.

⁂

It’s sunset by the time they make it back into town. Before they head to bed, they talk to William and Lydia, and give Lydia one of the vials of water from the geode. Lydia looks better after drinking it, and says as much, which is promising. William thanks them profusely.

Saturday, November 24, 652 AU

The party sits around the common room to plan their next moves. They could take the scale to Klabrog, but what would the town guard do, even if they believed them?

“Maybe we should look for support in Crystalport,” suggests Aurelia. “They might have the resources to fight the hydra.”

“I’d like to go to Rimehollow, but Crystalport is on the way…” says Valya.

“Perhaps some other kobolds have made it to Crystalport… I also need to head west eventually,” says Qhask.

Fergus says he will accompany the party, but he has some business to finish up in Kyasha’s Vale. They plan to meet up in Tavin.

To Crystalport it is! They decide to go to the guardhouse and talk to Klabrog anyway. Klabrog has no way of knowing whether the hydra scale is genuine, but he does believe the party. Aurelia explains to him that the corruption of the Pool of Tears was likely intentional sabotage by the Cult of Neesha. Klabrog writes a letter to the captain of the guard in Crystalport, seals it, and tells the party that the letter will get them an audience with the captain. He wishes them luck.

Before they leave town, Aurelia brings Beatrice’s remains to the priest of Corentin in town. The old man is astonished that Beatrice’s body was here—the legends about her say she was lost in her party’s descent into the underdark to fight an ancient evil a long time ago. He doesn’t have much to offer in the way of advice, but he does give Aurelia some consecrated winding cloth to wrap Beatrice’s bones in, and suggests Aurelia bring the remains to the Temple of Soleil in the capital.

⁂

They head west out of Kyasha’s Vale, and as they descend into the foothills they leave the snow behind them. Down in Whitestone Valley, there is only a light dusting here and there. They pass through a landscape dotted with farmhouses and fields. A few hours later, they find themselves in Greyonne. It’s not a village so much as a place where the density of houses is higher than in the surrounding countryside, and where a stone temple towers over the nearby houses and a small cobblestone-paved village square.

As they pass through, an old woman stares at them from her porch. They find her gaze unnerving, and a passerby tells them to ignore her. “That’s just the town healer. She’s gone a little crazy in her old age, speaks in nonsense and riddles. I wouldn’t pay her any mind if I was you.” They decide to talk to her anyway.

The woman introduces herself as Victoria, and implies that she can see an aura of death and darkness around Aurelia. This, disturbs the party, as Aurelia did have a close encounter with death, and Aurelia is worried that she still has an aura of it around her.

Victoria asks if they are an adventuring party, and they say yes. She asks if they could find her son’s body in the ruins of Silverdale, and that if they do, she could reward them with various powerful potions. They respond that they have no way of identifying her son’s body, and that they’re not sure if they’ll ever go to Silverdale. “Oh, you will…” cackles Victoria.

Returning to the road, the party are puzzled about their encounter. How did Victoria know Aurelia had a brush with death? And what would her son be doing in Silverdale? Wasn’t it destroyed a century ago?

As they continue north, the farms become less and less frequent until they find themselves in an open stretch of uncultivated land. A few hours later, they’re suddenly ambushed by large dog-like creatures with tusks! The creatures’ tusks are dangerous, but they flee after sustaining damage from the party. The party manages to take the creatures out before they get out of range.

They finally make it to the walled town of Tavin around sunset. The guards ask them why they look beat up, and they tell them about their encounter with the creatures. The guards call the creatures moorbounders, and explain apologetically that they have become more numerous in the past few months. The party ask about inns, and the guards suggest The Pinnacle. They find the inn, pay for rooms, and go to bed. ❦