Chapter Fourteen: Girl

We have to be at the cave in a week, and it took us 3 days last time to get there. We have a few days in Tyr:

·       Tenneth tries to improve his arcane knowledge

·       Kriv sells 100lbs of beast parts for 100cp

·       Kriv offers to craft weapons/armour for us

·       Aruna

·       Xa'oc

·       Vex asks around about Ramas and can't find anyone she could trust

Vex tries to get a read on Rivlin as a start to finding allies. He's super friendly but Vex can't get a good read on him.

We're being followed around town, and even outside of town, by some kid. Xa'oc grabs the kid and jumps onto a roof.

"I'm sorry! I was paid by a man to follow you." The man doesn't match Ramas's description. Kriv offers to pay her double (2cp) to show us the man who hired her. Xa'oc lets her go. We make a plan to ambush the man who hired the kid. The kid leads us to a worse part of town.

After a few hours a guy who looks nothing like Ramas talks to her for a minute, and the kid indicates it's him. He's wearing decent clothing and is armed. He gives the kids some coins. We follow the guy. The guy notices Tenneth and continues walking. Vex bumps into him to prove that it isn't Ramas in disguise. He's a total jerk about it. He discovers that Vex is, in fact, under disguise self.

Vex casts dissonant whispers on him, and he knocks into a fried lizard cart. Everyone else chases him. Xa'oc leaps over his head and grapples him from in front, while Aruna pins him from the back. They drag him into a convenient alleyway. Kriv asks him why he's following us.

"Do you really want to do this again, Kriv." He polymorphs into Ramas.

Tennth: "We can't focus on finding the book if we're worrying about people following us."

Xa'oc: "For all we know it was Nibenay keeping tabs on us."

Ramas: "After our last meeting you can't really expect me to trust you. Of course I was going to keep an eye on you. You didn't leave me many options.”  Vex: "Why don't you get the same kid to just keep tabs on us?"  We reluctantly let him go.

We decide to bring the kid with us to the Gray to prevent Ramas from murdering her. We have a couple more days until we need to leave. Vex tries to see if she can recharge Risi's wand. The crystal in it burned out. Xa'oc tries to speak with Navarro in the sword.

"’Sup?"

Xa'oc: "Master, we ran into Ramas again, we're not strong enough, I need to be stronger. Can you train me like you used to?"

"That would be difficult, but maybe not impossible. I can sense through you but I can't see what you're doing. But we can try."

"How do you want me to start?"

"It might be easier if you had the sword. But I don't know what will happen."

Xa'oc asks everyone if he can hold Mistsong, but he wants everyone to prevent him from getting possessed again.

We go outside town, Kriv mostly buries Xa'oc, and hands him Mistsong.

Vex casts detect thoughts on Xa'oc.

The kid is following us curiously. Kriv sets up the tembo head to intimidate her. She takes a few steps back.

Xa'oc doesn't feel anything when he holds the sword. He tries to speak with Navarro.

Navarro: "I feel a stronger connection. I think I can train you."

Xa'oc is able to let go of the sword.

Vex doesn't detect any hesitation on Xa'oc's part. Vex is able to hear Navarro.

Navarro: "Bug, remember how we got out of the Gray? I think that if we did something like that again it could give us some extra power."

Kriv: "I think I'm good, now."

We let Xa'oc out and Xa'oc picks up Mistong again.

Kriv asks the girl if there's good hunting around here.

"I don't go out there, it's dangerous."

"But the places you don't know are usually more dangerous than the places you do."

Vex tries to befriend her. "What's your name?"

“Xyrra. Why do you care about me?"

Vex: "You remind me of myself when I was small." Vex explains that we think it's going to be dangerous to stay in the city, and we're offering to take her with us into the mountains. She agrees to come with us.

Kriv and Xa'oc go hunting and do poorly. Xyrra tries to look confident, and says, "I'm coming with you."

Kriv purchases five crodlu for the journey. We purchase food and water for the journey. We travel by night and fight some monsters. Vex teaches Xyrra how to hide from fights. Vex tries to bond with Xyrra. Tenneth thinks he's building a relationship with her. Aruna teaches her how to punch real hard. Kriv will only protect Xyrra if it's convenient. Xa'oc happens to protect her by killing a creature, but this isn't sufficient training for Navarro.

Navarro: "You have to train against something with a soul."

We arrive at the camp. Gava is surprised to see us. We explain that we need to grab things from the Gray. We leave Xyrra and the crodlus at the camp. Kriv: "It's weird, isn't it? All this." We long rest at the camp.

That night, we leave for the pit. We reach the pond. We notice suspicious movement in the water. Xa'oc says we need to feed the monster something. We feed it some meat and proceed into the cave. We all jump into the pit. We land in a weird foggy place.