Chapter I: Damring Fortress, Part 2

[Keehnelf]

I'm going to say town phase will be 3 days absolute minimum. Once you're back in civilization there's always one more piddly thing that holds you up, plus the inertia of not quite being ready to immediately throw yourself into a situation where you could be eaten by a grue.

[sulldawga]

Is there a place nearby where we could be reasonably safe for a Camp phase? Need I remind everyone - "If you’re camping in crumbling, undead-infested ruins, that’s dangerous."

[Keehnelf]

There's a forest all around the fortress. Hard to say from your limited exposure whether it would be dangerous or not, but your hike through it was uneventful.

[Simon]

What about the crumbling outhouse we saw when we were entering the compound? I seem to remember that being covered, with only one entrance? Assuming we aren't harrassed by anything how long would it take to get there? Also, there' these ghost to worry about. It might be worth it to check back in with Chorko, see how his banishment is going? But if we're going to do that we're probably going to want the amulet...

[Keehnelf]

I didn't mention the outbuilding because since you haven't done any exploration of it, it's still a big question mark.

If conditions elsewhere in the keep haven't changed, and your rope is still in place at the entrance, it would take about ten minutes to get back there from your current location.

[Starbeard]

The PDF I've been provided must be a draft or something, because my text is different (my funding comes in mid-October, so I'm a piddling and destitute postgraduate student until then and won't be buying whatever the official copy is until a couple of weeks from now). In mine it specifically says under the Lifestyle heading of the Time chapter, 'Recovering from exhausted, injured and sick is a matter of a few weeks. …If you're ever in doubt about exactly how much time should pass, affairs in town always take longer than you'd expect.' I suppose the idea behind that would be that recovering from conditions in camp gives a cinematic 'do or die' feel to the narrative, whilst recovering in town doesn't require any adventuring gumption, so character's wouldn't feel the need to rush their recovery. I don't think it makes much sense either, though, and it seems like it's been scrapped in the end anyway. Anyway:

Raizenbrayne offers his two pence. 'Well, if Harlan can scatter off the crows as easily as he did the first time, we might be able to get a search done for the amulet without much trouble, check in on Chorko and pay our rent for the night, so to speak, then either camp in the icon room, or go check out the front barracks and camp there under a nice sturdy roof.' He spits up a little and stops talking, waiting for the nausea to subside again.

[Keehnelf]

Is the group agreed that the immediate next step is the crow room, regardless of what happens after? Let me know how you plan to proceed if so.

[sulldawga]

Agrom

Let's search the crow room now and worry about camping later. If I'm going to puke my guts out all night, maybe the thought of some gold trinkets will make it worthwhile.

[Starbeard]

Raizenbrayne
'Agreed.'

[Keehnelf]

The door to that room is narrow and made of extremely stout wood. It opens out into the room you are currently in and stands ajar enough that Harlan or raise beaten could squeeze through the door as-is, while agrom would need to open the door wider or remove his backpack to enter.

Metal parts of all shapes and sizes spill out onto the floor around and under the door-bits of tarnished chainmail, polished steel dinnerware, candle holders, buckles free from their original homes, and so forth. It just covers the ground in this room near the doorway, but peering beyond the door it looks like the floor is up to two or three feet deep with this debris in places.

As you approach the door, you hear regular clinking of metal, as though someone or something is regularly moving on or through this pile in the dimness beyond.

[sulldawga]

Agrom

Harlan, sneak up to the door and take a quick peek inside.

[Keehnelf]

Since I know there's no inherent risk involved with this specific action I'm just going to assume it's taking place and narrate.

---


Harlan approaches the doorway and peeps through, taking care to keep his candle flame hidden from view but ready in case it's needed. Beyond, he sees the "treasure" of the crow room piled high, mounding up somewhat toward the center of the room beyond, which appears to be about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep. The doorway in which he stands is the only obvious exit from the chamber.

He sees a number of small shapes skittering around on the top of the loot pile, metallic objects glinting slightly in the indirect sunlight filtering through the mist. After a moment for his eyes to adjust, he recognizes the forms of a number of crows atop the metal heap, picking up small objects in their beaks from the middle of the room and hopping across the surface toward the edges of the room to deposit them. The birds move methodically and in a coordinated fashion, returning to the center of the room again and again to move small and medium-sized items one by one from there to the outskirts of the chamber. If they have taken notice of Harlan, it is not apparent.

[sulldawga]

Agrom

P'sst! Harlan! Are the things the birds moving to the edge of the room shiny? Or does it just look like they're moving everything and trying to uncover something buried in the center?

[Keehnelf]

Everything in the room is at least a little bit shiny, but it definitely looks as though they are attempting to uncover something, now that you mention it.

[Simon]

They look like they're organizing something? They're definitely clever little buggers. Let me see if I can get a closer look. Harlan gingerly stows his sling in his pouch and then removes his backpack and sets it at Agroms feet. He crouches low to the ground and will try to sneak closer to the crows, hiding behind larger piles of the metal junk and hugging the wall if he thinks it will keep him out of the crows line of sight.

I'm imagining they're digging for something? Perhaps we could drive them off and start digging where they are?

[Keehnelf]

I imagine Harlan is leaving his candle behind to be as inconspicuous as possible? Let me know if that assumption is wrong, but if not here goes:

---

Harlan is a quiet little fellow and he's able to get a third of the way across the room before the fact that he's crawling across a pile of metal objects gives him away. It's just a small thing--as he exerts some pressure with a foot to move his body forward, one of the objects underneath clinks slightly as it hits another--but it's enough to put all the crows in the room on alert. And there are a bunch of them, at least a dozen, scattered about at various points of carrying, pulling and dropping.

In unison, the birds turn their heads toward Harlan, their beady black eyes fixed on him unblinkingly, and then almost as one the group starts to flap their wings wildly and they lift off the metal pile in a chaotic swirl of feathers. Harlan, afraid as he is, is paralyzed for a moment until he realizes the birds are not attacking him, and when the noise dies down he pulls his sleeve away from his face to see that the birds, save one, are gone--they've returned to their perches atop the walls and look down on him like a silent jury. The last remaining bird stands quite close to the location the crows seemed to have been uncovering.

The crow hops slightly in place, as though to call attention to itself, then twists its head to look back over one shoulder toward the outline of something half-uncovered. It turns its head back to Harlan and utters one long, hoarse croaking caw that sounds unmistakably like the word, "Look." And then it falls over, dead.

[Simon]

It was not my intention to leave the candle behind, but to keep it covered. If that significantly changes the mechanics of what just happened I'm okay with having left it behind. Either way...

Umm...Ag, Raize? Did you hear that? Harlan stands dumbstruck, heart still racing, staring at the lifeless body of the crow. As the final reverberations of the birds death-cry fade to silence, the haunting command still echoes in his head. Harlan approaches the body of the dead bird as if in a trance, his fear and the strangeness of the moment lifting him out of his body. It is as if he is watching himself walk across the pile of silver and brass.

[Keehnelf]

Absolutely no problem--just they would have caught sight of the edges of light as they flickered here and there in the corners of the room a bit earlier and flew off. So no change--and you have the candle in hand as you approach the bird's corpse.

---

The bird lies on its side, eyes glassy and vacant. There is no sign of trauma, no blood, no disturbed feathers, the wings folded alongside it just as they had been the moment before it died. As Harlan approaches the body, he sees what the bird had indicated: a large, leather-bound book lies under the piles of metal, half-uncovered by the recent work of the crow-flock. It's wide and thick enough that it would take two hands to carry, and some work to pull free of the metal covering it as well. As Harlan takes note of the book, he hears a raucous chorus from the crows around him, cawing in broken common: "Look! No blood!"

As silence returns to the echoing chamber, there is the unpleasant sound of another of the birds falling free of its perch on the wall and landing with a soft metallic chink atop the piled goods.

[sulldawga]

Agrom

What in the Nine Hells is going on here? Harlan, what's the title of the book?

[Simon]

Harlan jumps and lets out a squeak of terror at the sound of the bird hitting the ground. He whirls around and looks for the spot at which the bird fell. If we're going to grab anything from here I thing we should be quick about it, he says with a notable quiver in his voice. He shakes himself in an attempt to keep his fear at bay and gets down on one knee to examine the area around the book, desperately searching for something that looks like an amulet or another location where the birds might have been digging.

I'd prefer Raize to take a look at the book before I grab it, but can Harlan discern any details about the book without touching it?