The morning comes to the Teshford Arms, and the joined parties of Degar's Avengers and The Company of the Severed Head arise before dawn. Stago dubs them collectively The New Firm.
They eat in their rooms from their rations, not wanting to breakfast in the taproom for fear there are still angry mob members who would try to kill any wizards, dwarves, or strangers on sight.
4:14 am.
After sneaking out of the inn, the company is on the road. By dawn, they are at the riverside gate of Dagger Falls.
The guard shouts down, "State your business."
Routunious shouts up to him, "We are here to do a job for Constable Tren."
"We were told about the fat guy in the yellow hat, the elf, the gnome and the walking construct...but nobody said anything about no wizard, halfling and a dwarf. Especially the dwarf, they aren't very popular around here."
Elessaria joins the discussion, "Did Tren tell you that we were going to go into the temple ruin?"
"Yes," the guard agrees.
The elf continues, "Did he tell you we were going to go in after we collected our supplies?"
"Yes."
"Well then," Elessaria concludes, "The dwarf, the wizard, and the halfling are our supplies. Are you going to let us in or tell Tren you didn't want us to get started on the job he hired us to do?"
The gate swings open and the company is granted wary entry. As they enter, Elessaria notices the movement of what might be a hidden person spying on them from the other side of the road. She mentions it to Routunious, who discounts it as unimportant.
Routunious says to her, "We're not sneaking around, and everything we're doing is not only legal, but stamped with the approval of every known side in this dispute. Whoever might be spying on us is wasting their time."
Elessaria agrees, but is still uncomfortable. There may be more players than any of them are aware of.
The New Firm heads to the temple ruins. Waiting to meet them is Constable Tren and his two thugs and Marrakt.
"I've been told you're starting early," Tren says.
"Word travels fast here, doesn't it?" Routunious asks.
"Don't you forget it. Nothing happens inside these walls or within a hundred miles of them that I don't know about."
Elessaria matches his tone, "Except for where Randal Morn is or what is causing this Dream Fever."
"You got a mouth on you, elf."
"I'm just reminding you that you wouldn't hired us if you were as on top of everything as you pretend to be. We may as well be honest with each other."
"Have you got everything you need?" Tren asks, looking suspiciously at the new company members.
"No more and no less."
"Alright, elf, then let me get the hell out of your way," Tren says with considerably more profanity than would be appropriate to print. He laughs as he and his bodyguard depart.
The company stands at the entrance to the cellars of the temple. The rains of eight seasons have washed away the worst of the soot and ashes, but the temple is only a shell of what it once was. To the right is a cracked marble basin, streaked with soot and entirely empty. It looks as if water once poured from a fountain in the center of the basin, but it has long-since dried-up. At one time, the temple of Lathander was known for its pure bubbling fountain, used by families throughout the town for drinking and cooking. Now it stands empty.
They look down the stairs they are about to descend. At the base of the stairs is a small wine cellar, with oaken casks lining the walls on either side. Wooden beams are draped with spider webs and white nitre; a pale, flickering green light illuminates the room. A portcullis blocks the path to the left; beyond it they see crypts.
6:00 am
Once they are all in the wine cellar, they establish and form up in a battle order.
1. Elessaria and Degar
2. Stago
3. Duncan
4. Routunious and Tick-A-Tick
5. Fink
Stago is excited by the Nitre, he is convinced that under specific conditions and with the proper chemicals this substance could be explosive. Routuinious' curiosity as an engineer is piqued, but after a brief discussion they decide that there is no need to spend time collecting it now.
The passage to the crypt area is blocked by a closed porticullis.
Up the stairs to the guards, Routunious yells, "Do you have keys to this locked gate?"
The answer shouted back is as short as it is disappointing, "Nope."
The party hears a scurrying sound behind the barrels after the shouted exchange.
"Scurrying is always a bad sign," Fink mutters, looking from side to side.
Routunious, with other priorities, asks, "Any bottles of wine?"
They look, but there are only 400 lb casks of the fermented juice.
Elessaria asks, "What does wine have to do with the worship of Lathander? Does anyone know anything about religion?"
"Obviously," Routunious says, "but I don't know much about Lathander worship."
Duncan, who comes from an area not too far distant, says, "The priests of Lathander prized their wines, fermented from grapes grown in their vineyard outside town. But in the eight years since the temple burned, the vineyards have gone to seed. This wine is probably the last of the Morninglord wine that exists."
Again, they hear the scurrying of an animal. To determine what it is, Routunious and Degar start trying to move the casks aside. This causes the scurrying to become a hissing sound.
Degar says, "There's nothing here but wine, and if we not be fer drinkin' it, let's be fer leaving it behind! Let's go!"
No one is surprised when this outburst from the hot headed dwarf is followed by a huge furry creature leaping out from behind the casks directly at his throat. The creature looks like a rat, but inconcievably huge. Also, the creature has bony plates jutting painfully from its joints. Its teeth are thick and sharp like tusks. And it has a horn.Degar shouts, "Aaaagh!"
Routunious exclaims, "By the gods, what kind of rat is that???"
Degar doesn't care what kind of rat it is, so long as it is soon a dead one. He lunges at the creature to smash it with his hammer. Routunious moves away from the rat and the hammer swinging dwarf as quickly as he can.
Degar smashes at the rat, but misses. The head of his hammer impacts one of the kegs of wine and it explodes all over the dwarf, filling the room with the heady vapor of the vintage. Wine flows everywhere. The Rat attacks Degar with its horn and misses.
Degar sings begins singing a battle song, but doesn't fall into a rage but begins twirling with his hammer preparing for another blow.
As Routunious steadies himself from the shock of seeing a giant rat with horns, he is startled to see another one appear on top of a keg of wine.Everyone but the dwarf is surprised by this development. Degar misses the first rat and destroys another keg of wine. When it ruptures everything and everyone is drenched in the wine. The fury of his swing carries the hammer through the keg and up again in an impossibly sharp arc...the wine causes his grip to slip at the worst possible moment and the hammer crashes into the dwarf's own head...knocking him unconcious. He falls to the floor and his labored breathing bubbles in the pooling red liquid from the cask.
The second rat scurries toward the unconcious dwarf and slashes him with its claws and bite attacks. The blood from the dwarf is flowing freely into the wine and it is clear to the party members on the stairs that if something isn't done immediately, the dwarf would die from his wounds.
Elessaria leaps at the rat chewing on the dwarf's head, and notices it has remarkably
intelligent looking eyes.
She shouts back at the rest of the party, "Are they were-rats?"
"I don't know what they are, but kill them! Kill them!" Routunious shouts.
Elessaria strikes at the rat in front of her with her longsword, inflicting enormous amounts of damage including losing a leg, but the rat doesn't die, it only looks more angry.
Routunious prepares to throw a dagger, then thinks better of attracting the rat's attention. He commands Tick-a-Tick to attack the rat fighting Elessaria on the dwarf's body.
Before the automaton can reach the rat, it turns on Elessaria, but lacking a front leg, it has fewer attacks and does only a small amount of damage to the elf. Elessaria strikes back, but misses again.
Routunious decides to throw a dagger, and misses badly. The dagger strikes the wall, snapping the blade in half when it does. He tries again, and also misses.
The rat hits Elessaria with its remaining claw, just missing her with a bite.
Tick-a-Tick, following his command, moves toward the rat. He is smashing all the casks of wine in his path, spewing the liquid all over the cellar floor.
Tick-a-Tick hits the rate with a bonecrunching thud. Elessaria severs its head.
Routunious rushes to the dwarf and tries to use his healing proficiency on Degar, but only manages to staunch bleeding. The priest then casts healing spell, bringing Degar barely back to conciousness.
Degar opens his pack and removes a bottle, then he drinks a draft of extra healing potion and is fully healed.
Elessaria also drinks a portion of a potion of extra healing potion to restore herself to full capacity.
Routunious examines the dead rat's head. He says, "This is a dire creature."
Duncan says, "What is a dire creature?"
The priest says, "Dire animals are animals that become deformed by proximity to intense evil. These are Dire Rats."
Elessaria agrees, "I've never seen one, but I have heard of them. The dire version of any animal is identical, save for its enormous size and the presence of jagged bony protrusions extending up and out of its flesh. Dire animals, are infused and transformed tremendous evil energies."
Stago asks, "How are they formed?"
"No one is certain how dire creatures come to be," the priest explains, "whether they emerge from some extra-planer existence, are created by some kind of conjuration or alteration magic...the prevailing theory is that they were once, in fact, normal creatures of their kind but were unusually susceptible to the emanations of evil because these types of creatures are almost always encountered in areas where evil rites and magic has been practiced for many years, although it is possible that these creatures are simply drawn to such evil and not created by it."
Elessaria says, "Regardless of how these creatures come to be, they are always a sign that not only is there evil in the area in which they are encountered, but that evil is deeply rooted and long-standing, of at least 5 years duration. The greater the number and variety of creatures in an area, correspondingly, the greater the power and scope of the evil."
"Oh." Stago says glumly.
"Ye thought this was going to be easy?" Degar laughs, twisting his tunic to drain the wine from it.
"Maybe not," Stago says, "but I didn't think it would so messy so soon."
The party hears more scurrying, and Elessaria goes to lift porticullis.
Stago cautions, "Shouldn't we kill other rat, first?"
Elessaria & Fink prep their bows in agreement. Tick-a-Tick continues smashing wine casks, revealing two large rat holes in walls, but no more rats can be found.
"I think we scared it off." Routunious says.
"I think you're scaring me off," Stago says.
Through porticullis, Elessaria can see a stone door with a lock. There are crypts on
the floor and the walls where generations of Lathanderite priests were buried.
Elessaria & Degar attempt to lift porticullis together. It slides up with little difficulty.
Stago gives Routunious some iron spikes to drive into the tracks of the porticullis to keep it open as they pass through it.
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