The Way of the Manticore

[ewancummins]

Kat deftly secures the golden necklace for later examination, then grins at Raen.

"It could be worse. Maybe some of us are enjoying the view!"

As the outrider approaches she steps forward.

"We are adventurers, good sir, on an errand to the Governor. We have just slain a... land shark which damaged the road indeed, but you may wish to be wary going forward. there may be more about."

The outrider strokes his mount's mane and murmurs ''easy, easy, girl.''

He straightens up. ''You mean a bulette! I was never quite sure if I believed they existed. No wonder my mare's skittish, sniffing the breeze. Those monsters love horseflesh, if stories I've heard are true. Thanks for the news, the warning, and your bravery in facing the creature. I look forward to seeing its carcass. That'll be something out of the ordinary!''

[ewancummins]

Dorn says,
“We’ve got orders, a pass.”

The Outrider examines the papers.
“Looks fine to me. Roll on, friends. But when the repair team passes, maybe you won’t mind keeping as close to the left as you can manage? Our wagon’s big, wide, and heavy. And good luck the rest of the way to Monksblade. You haven’t far to go.”


A little later, the repair wagon comes by. The laborers riding in the back on top of planks and blocks turn to look at the party as they pass, smiling and waving.

Dorn drives on, and after ten minutes or so, the rooftops of Monksblade appear over the horizon. The overgrown, uneven fields on either side of the highway give place to fenced pastures and stubbly wheat fields crisscrossed by shallow irrigation ditches.
Here and there, shepherds sit under the dwarf oaks scattered across the plain, watching over sheep grazing.
A yellow-brown dog runs alongside the cart for a little way, barking, then peels off and races through a gap in a low roadside fence of fieldstone topped with dead ivy.

Nearing the town, the party sees that a cluster of slate-roofed structures rises in the middle of what appears to be a town of moderate size. A little smoke from chimneys lifts in the easterly breeze.

The party’s wagon rolls into the shade under the broad archway where a pair of guards with spears and crossbows stand watch.
Dorn presents the papers.

While one of the men examines the pass and orders, the party has time to survey a large part of the town from their elevated seats in the rear of the supply wagon.
Some pedestrians, a couple of riders, and a mule-drawn dung cart (the smell gives it away) pass down the dusty lanes from several directions, but the level of activity doesn’t rise to what could be called bustling. A cat suns itself on the lip of a stone well. Housewives and servant girls hang or take down laundry strung between upper windows of facing houses.

Though there’s no curtain wall about the whole of the town, it looks as if several high, large structures within the town were conjoined by masons at some later date, to form an enclosed neighborhood or compound. The smaller homes and shops also show recycled masonry, some with weathered gargoyles and bas reliefs.
The guard returns the papers to Dorn and Benn.
“Well met, friends. And welcome to Monksblade. The soldier boy knows the rules--”, the man flashes a grin at Dorn before going on,
“—but in cause he’s forgotten them: if you’ve had too much to drink, instead of wandering the streets getting into squabbles or blocking traffic, just sleep it off in the pub or the inn. Don’t bother the goodwives. We’ve got a couple of harlots. Don’t bother them, neither, unless you can pay. Don’t leave horses unattended and untied. Keep your weapons sheathed unless there’s good cause. No duels in town. No destructive magic. You can use Sembian coins or the old kingdom money in the shops, but if you’ve got anything else in your pockets and you plan on staying long, you’ll want to go to the moneychanger and have him swap it out or draw you up a letter of credit. As to your official business, to see the Governor, present your orders at the Green Door in the North Abbey. That’s about it. Questions?”

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Whispering a small apology to the Lawgiver, Klokulf interrupts his prayers to address the guard, "Does this abbey contain theological works I might be allowed to examine?"

[ewancummins]

Whispering a small apology to the Lawgiver, Klokulf interrupts his prayers to address the guard, "Does this abbey contain theological works I might be allowed to examine?"

''God books? Well, must be some, because there's a library. But's it's not been a proper abbey in...I dunno...generations. Monksblade was built with the ruins of four old monk-houses and shrines."

He gestures toward the stone burg in the town center, then to some of the oldest-looking stone houses.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

"I see," says Klokulf. "Very well. Thank you."

He returns to his prayers.

[alhoon]

''You mean a bulette! I was never quite sure if I believed they existed. No wonder my mare's skittish, sniffing the breeze. Those monsters love horseflesh, if stories I've heard are true. Thanks for the news, the warning, and your bravery in facing the creature. I look forward to seeing its carcass. That'll be something out of the ordinary!''

"Pray tell my good man... is perhaps a reward offered for killing one of those Bulettes? We have a soldier that witnessed the kill and soon the workers will see for themselves."

Questions?

Raen takes a break from looking around the rustic town center. It didn't seem much different from some of the towns he's been before he went to Richemulot but each town had a different character. After briefly wondering how the place could be defended if those Bulettes, that locals weren't even sure they existed, jumped out in the surrounding farms and grazing land or worse, inside the town itself. The gate keeper's question brought him to the world.
Well, he could tell the governor about them in the meeting. Perhaps this land-shark as Kat has named it wandering as far as the road was a rare occurrence. But from place they encountered the creature to the town it wasn't that far.

"I would like to exchange some coins and I would like to inquire about an inn that could offer baths or, in the absence of that, directions to a nice but not too expensive inn and a bath house"

[ewancummins]

EARLIER


THE OUTRIDER says “Reward? I don’t know if there’s any reward. Ask officials when you get to town.”



LATER, IN MONKSBLADE

"I would like to exchange some coins and I would like to inquire about an inn that could offer baths or, in the absence of that, directions to a nice but not too expensive inn and a bath house"

“The Firedagger Inn is a very nice place. It’s in the burg.”
The guard eyes Raen’s torn, bloodied, dusty garments, where the borrowed cloak doesn’t cover these.
“It is not the cheapest.”
He shrugs.
“There’s a warehouse that’s been converted to a stable with sleeping cribs in the loft, at the west end of town. That is cheap. And a widow keeps a boarding house near that.”
He gestures toward the burg of mid-town.
“When you’re in there, ask about the Moneychanger. All right, if you people could roll along now, I’d appreciate that. I see more traffic coming down the highway.”

If anyone looks back, he will indeed see a horse-drawn cart rolling toward town along the Way of the Manticore.
With business at the archway concluded, Dorn drives the party into town.
The place smells of horse-dung, stale urine, and dust, but that's nothing compared with the vile airs of some of the sewers and dungeons and slums several of the party have traversed in the last year--and a world away.

A short trip through the streets of the outer town—so narrow in places that the wagon wheels and side boards bump and scrape against buildings to either side, brings the party round to the shaded west face of the large, high-roofed northern section of the inner masonry burg. The green Door probes easy to find: a massive, green-painted wooden double door fitted with bronze hardware and a wicket built into the left panel.
Dorn dismounts the driver’s seat and leads the two horses round the North Abbey Corner to a small courtyard. He unharnesses both beasts, hitches each to an iron ring fixed to the stone wall and gives them more water and food.
With the party out of the wagon and the horses, Dorn goes around to the wicket-gate in the Green Door.

Your party hasn’t long to wait after Dorn knocks before a viewing grill opens in the wicket. Dorn whispers a password and thrusts his orders and Benn’s pass (from the Provost) through the grill.

After a couple of minutes, the wicket sings open and a man inside the Green Door waves for the party to enter.

In the entry hall, which is lighted by sunbeams falling through several small, iron barred windows set high in the walls, the doorman tells the adventurers,
“You must leave all weapons at the first guard station. Come on with me, then.”
The drably-clad serving-man leads the party down the hall to an interior guardroom where several armed guards wait.
Raen explains the situation in sketchy detail and shows the orders and the pass again.
The initial business about the supply wagon takes only a few minutes. A guard dispatches a messenger to see it’s loaded, and a guard officer tells Raen to return to where’d he’d left the wagon in an hour, and then dismisses him.
The guards check the travelers’ weapons--not Dorn's--, locking those in a big heavy chest on wooden wheels, and rolling that into another room. They don’t strip-search the party, but they do a pat-down (with murmured apologies to Katrin). Disarmed, the party is released from the guard room.
Walking through another hall, past some storerooms where men are inspecting supplies and a scriptorium where clerks work high chairs under a skylight, the party soon enters the inner wards of the burg.

Sunlight falls on the courtyard beyond the North Abbey, but all around the paved square the walls of offices, workshops, and private homes rise, with narrow alleys running between some buildings and others jammed right up against one another. Folk walk about, or stand in corners and talk.
The party sees two burghers strolling with fancy-hilted short swords at their belts.

Dorn pats his poniard and says.
“Soldiers and townsmen have different rules, ‘course. Hope you aren’t offended. Come along with me, guys, I told the guards we could find the Governor on our own.”
He grins.
“Shall we stop someplace with a tub of water, first? You don’t want to meet a high official with dirt and blood all over you, right? And we need to fix up Raen’s clothes, yeah? Get a quick drink?”

[Adam]

"Lead on," Bennedict says, rapping his walking stick up and down impatiently.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Having been praying intermittently between the stages of inspection and making excuses to his deity regarding the unholiness of foreigners, Klokulf interrupts himself again at Dorn's words. "I could use some time to finish praying and switch into my formal attire," he says.

Looking to Raen, he continues, "Also, I can repair your clothing once I am done."

[ewancummins]

DORN leads the party to a laundress’s little shop tucked into a covered alleyway between the Firedagger tavern and a large storehouse. He steps inside to talk with the proprietress, then waves Raen in.
The laundress, a gray-haired woman with ruddy cheeks and wrinkled pink hands, clucks her tongue at Raen as examines his filthy, torn, bloody garments.
“Dorn says you are a powerful wizard. What’s a handsome, smart fellow like you doing letting some giant mole-dragon chew on his clothes and his tender rear-end? Get yourself an office in town, hire out doing magic for practical stuff like finding lost items and securing houses against burglary. Marry a burgher’s daughter and make little wizards.”
She’s already undressing Raen as she finishes her speech.
“I’ve got some stuff a customer abandoned weeks ago. Passing through town to someplace in the west and never came back for it. You can wear that till these are scrubbed and dried.”
The cramped shop smells of lye, faded flowers, and damp cloth. Buckets, tubs, and barrels fill the back of the shop, with a narrow path left open.
Peering past the suds and tubs, Raen and the others see a little vacant lot on the far side of the covered alley, where wet clothes hang on crisscrossed lines strung between blind walls. Sunlight shines through the dipping multicolored collection of linen and wool, creating layers of tinted light and dappled shadow on the dirt and weeds of the lot.

[alhoon]

DORN leads the party to a laundress’s little shop tucked into a covered alleyway between the Firedagger tavern and a large storehouse. He steps inside to talk with the proprietress, then waves Raen in.
The laundress, a gray-haired woman with ruddy cheeks and wrinkled pink hands, clucks her tongue at Raen as examines his filthy, torn, bloody garments.
“Dorn says you are a powerful wizard. What’s a handsome, smart fellow like you doing letting some giant mole-dragon chew on his clothes and his tender rear-end? Get yourself an office in town, hire out doing magic for practical stuff like finding lost items and securing houses against burglary. Marry a burgher’s daughter and make little wizards.”
She’s already undressing Raen as she finishes her speech.
“I’ve got some stuff a customer abandoned weeks ago. Passing through town to someplace in the west and never came back for it. You can wear that till these are scrubbed and dried.”

"I wouldn't call myself a 'powerful' wizard madame, but I can secure places against burglary and I can locate lost items. I would dare say that I am a bit more powerful than "entry-level" wizard stuff. I have some experience in that." Raen says to the woman good-naturedly.
" Now, why I always end up being in places where monsters bite my rear end... unfortunately I believe magic should be used to help people. I have been in considerable danger the past couple of days." Raen says remembering how Ash-transformed dogs have nearly killed him with Kat and how a mad wizard rained ice on his head nearly killing him again in the span of 2 days before he found himself being beaten by a mole-dragon,
"But still, one has to do what one has to do. Someone needs to zap dead those mole-dragons or landsharks my dear lady. I thank you very much for the clothes. May I ask your name?"

[ewancummins]

''I'm Estele.''
The old laundress frets over Raen a bit longer, removing the last of his torn and soiled clothing and replacing that--quickly--with some rather baggy but quite clean spare clothes.
She tells the wizard not to worry about payment until pickup later today, after he's seen the Moneychanger.

Dorn then leads the party into an adjacent building with a fiery knife on the signboard,a two-story pub built of archaic masonry and dark-stained timber.
Maybe two dozen people drink the the Firedagger's main barroom, leaving at least as many empty chairs.
Round windows stand open to admit sunlight, casting slanted cones of radiance through the dim atmosphere but leaving much of the interior space in cool shadows.
At first glance, the handsome furniture, floral-painted walls, pewter tableware, and sweep of the ornately-carved wooden bar suggest an opulence beyond what one would expect in an ordinary drinking hole in a highway town...
But a closer look, peering through shadows, reveals the moth-eaten upholstery on the high-backed chairs arranged before the cold hearth, peeling wall paint, and fire-damaged stairwell that ascends the back wall toward a charred upper level door.

Dorn digs into his purse and removes a short stack of coins, leaving the purse empty or nearly so, and hurries over to the bar.
He orders drinks for all his new friends.
''I'll get more money later'', he whispers to Raen,''I'd been saving up for something to impress a certain girl, but she ran off with a minstrel.''
He grins, scant almost-mustache twitching.
Then, louder, he says ''Wow, what a fight that was!'' and attempts to get the party to recount the tale of its battle on the Way of the Manticore...

[kintire]

Kat grins at him and nods.

"I certainly need a bath before meeting the governor. And a drink sounds good too. Lead on!"

Settling in her chair she relaxes for the first time in what seems like weeks, letting the tension flow out of her tired muscles. After a few quaffs of the tankard she is happily discussing the epic battle with the burrowing thing, which seems to grow with each description. there is much of Raen's mighty magic, her companion's flashing steel and of course her own prowess in actually killing the beast, but there may be slightly more than Dorn would ideally like about him falling out of the cart and landing on his butt right next to it...

[ewancummins]

Kat grins at him and nods.

"I certainly need a bath before meeting the governor. And a drink sounds good too. Lead on!"

Settling in her chair she relaxes for the first time in what seems like weeks, letting the tension flow out of her tired muscles. After a few quaffs of the tankard she is happily discussing the epic battle with the burrowing thing, which seems to grow with each description. there is much of Raen's mighty magic, her companion's flashing steel and of course her own prowess in actually killing the beast, but there may be slightly more than Dorn would ideally like about him falling out of the cart and landing on his butt right next to it...

As the tale commences, a few men look up from their drinks.
Interest grows as Katrin continues her narrative, and soon several men have flipped their chairs around or shifted the seats closer to Katrin's table.
She's got the attention of the staff as well.

The barman, a stout man with black mutton chops streaked with gray, slaps the counter after Katrin ends the story and takes a drink.
"I'm not sure how much of all that I really believe, but I know it's worth a round. This one's on the house."
He looks around the pub.
"Hells, girls, go to the taproom and pour one for everybody! "
A cheer rises and men hasten to thank Katrin on their way to the bar.
"Just one, now, just one per man who was here when I said that. Don't serve the whole burg'', the barman instructs the maids.

Anyone close and very attentive might hear him whisper

LISTEN DC 15

VIEW CONTENT:

"Save the good stuff for the adventurers and serve the rest that batch of small beer with short legs. Gotta use it up.''

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Klokulf, having stayed outside to complete his prayers under the light of the sun, enters shortly after the announcement of the round of drinks. He weaves his way through the crowd to sit with the others, wondering what all of the excitement is about as he does so.