Part 16 - Well, Well, Well

Below us, now lies the true city of Rehm. It appears as if it’s been abandoned. Araja, without saying a word to the group, makes a B-line for the city. Rekka takes us down. Araja crash lands, knocking herself senseless.

Rekka: “I think people are coming.”

Isaac: “Where? How far?” Rekka points in the appropriate direction, “Let’s find some cover in one of those buildings. I’ll send my familiar to investigate.”

Gideon carried Araja to the nearest building. As the door opens a waft of dust billows out. Whoever lived inside, must have packed up and left. Feint voices can be heard coming our way. Then I hear a girl shouting, “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” and a chorus of others, “Get her! Burn her!”

Gideon and I peak out the door way, but I trip and fall. Araja wakes up screaming and sobbing. Isaac tries to silence her, but the mob doesn’t seem to notice. The girl sees us and asks Gideon for help. It’s too late for the girl. The mob swarms her and they all fall into the well. The other half of the mob remains behind.

When they notice us, they eye us suspiciously. They form a defensive line, pitch forks and gardening tools raised threateningly. “What is your business here?” they demand.

Cortanna: “What are we doing here?” I scoff, after writing myself, “A moment ago this whole town wasn’t here!”

An elder steps forward, confused. The mob goes silent, “It’s not Tuesday,” he says ominously, “Also, it was morning and now its evening.” The towns fold murmur amongst themselves as if the elder had gone mad. “Friday! The elder concludes, “Never did like Fridays…” He points to Gideon, “Who do you worship?”

Gideon: “St. Cuthbert.”

The elder asks why we’re here again. Gideon sums up the previous events. Gideon asks about the girl.

Elder: “That girl! She’s been fouling our lands and praying upon our weak and elderly.”

Shortly after we learn that these people follow Hyronious. Rekka bursts at the seams with laughter, and the mob is disturbed, “Blasphemy!” they shout, closing in a bit further.

Araja suddenly runs outside, “Whoa!” she says trying to calm the mob, but they’re not appeased.

Isaac steps forward and with a wave of his hand, collapses a section of road before us. Half of the mob scatters and the others cower in fear.

Cortanna: “Look, we’re only here to help. Do you mind if we save the people that just fell down the well?”

Elder: “You are a strange bunch.”

Gideon: “It wasn’t our fault-”

Elder: “Silence!” he shouted, and then quickly looked back at Isaac, “No offense…” Suddenly the elder gets a look at Araja. His face turns to shock, almost as if he recognized her, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed dead.

When the rest of the mob sees Araja they bow down to her murmuring thanks. Gideon offers to help again. The mob looks at him and a man pipes up, “Well, if she’s okay with it, I guess we are,” he points to Araja, “If the general came here to save the people that fell down the well, then, okay…”

Isaacs eyes roll so hard with disbelief, they roll out of his head, bump into Rekka, and roll back again. Isaac looks down the well. He can hear people calling out for help.

Araja asks the towns people what had been going on before we showed up. A lot of the town’s people had left because of the goings on. Chairs and other inanimate objects were coming to life and tormenting them.

While Isaac and Rekka go down the well, the remaining mob takes their dead elder to bury him. Their not sure how far down the well goes, and it ends in darkness. Bar Wench jumps down the well too. Suddenly, Gideon, Araja and I hear screams as Bar Wench, Rekka, Isaac, and the villagers fall further down the well. Moments later their screams are followed by a series of splashes.

I pull up Rekka’s rope and knot it together with mine so it’ll be long enough for everyone to climb back out. I can hear a lot of splashing down there…

Cortanna: “Grab the rope!” I shout as I throw the longer rope back down the well. Suddenly the rope goes taught. Gideon and I grab hold, but it’s impossible for the both of us to reel it in. The grappling hook that was securing the rope to the side of the well begins to bend and give against the unforeseen weight. Was everyone trying to climb the rope at the same time?

Rekka and Araja make it out just as the grappling hook pulls some of the masonry into the well. It clangs down to the bottom. Rekka has me tie another rope to her lantern. She says it was very dark down there. She lowers the lantern down. Araja and I grab the rope and hold on while another person tries to climb up. Suddenly the rope wraps around us and pulls us all in. We splash into the water and its very bitter tasting.

Cortanna: “Help!” I cry as I feel the weight of my armor tug me under water. I struggle with the straps to free myself. It’s so dark, besides the strange glow beneath the water! Some one swims down and tries to help unbuckle my armor. In my panic, I can’t tell who it is. My lungs will my body to take a breath, my chest aching. Deeper we sink. I struggle with the last couple straps, the breath escaping my lips. Suddenly my helper swims away, back toward the surface.

Cortanna: “Nooo!” I scream, but the word is nothing more then a column of bubbles. Darkness ebbs at the sides of my vision. My fingers refuse to work, and then I remember no more…

I wake coughing and sputtering. Each breath I take is like someone stabbing a knife down my throat. My skin tingles. How can I be breathing? I’m under water. My armor! My hands fly to where the last strap would have been, but its not there, nor is my armor. In fact, I’m floating above the water, on top of the Luggage! I can faintly make out the rest of the group around me. Seeing that I was awake, Isaac commands the Luggage to dive down and collect our gear. I wish he hadn’t because I feel so weak.

We swim toward a large conduit. A tactically beast was dragging the villagers under the water, including the Bar Wench! They saw it head in that direction. We swim against the current down a large tunnel, when Isaac and Rekka hear feint voices, and sounds of metal clinking. An orange light shines ahead. Gruff voices can be heard, but I can’t make out what their saying. They seem to be speaking a strange language. The closer we get we can see that the orange light is coming from a fire on an elevation of land. The voices seem to be coming from that direction.

Rekka goes to investigate. She motions to us to silently move toward her. We get out of the water, but my lungs hurt so bad I start coughing uncontrollably. Rekka points to a couple trolls ahead. Once I’ve recovered I pull out my bow. For some reason my weapon handle, and none of our other magic items, save the Luggage, will work in this place. When I see the trolls, they spot me, and grumble, pointing at a large pile of stuff to the right, and then to a cage, full of unconscious villagers to the left!

Rekka: “They want us to give up our stuff and surrender!”

I don’t need any further prompting to deal with the ugly, green skinned creatures. I let fly one of my alchemist’s arrows and it sinks deeply into the troll nearest me. A gout of flame bursts in the troll’s face. The troll roars in fear and retreats. The other troll, grunts as if startled. He holds his hands up and doesn’t seem to want to fight back. I ready my hand on another arrow, not certain of his intentions. Rekka checks out the pile of stuff while Isaac and Araja check the cage.

After rummaging through the stuff, Rekka returns to the remaining troll and tries to converse with him. She seems successful. I say hello in goblin, but the troll growls at me! Rekka calms him and resumes their conversation.

Rekka: “Isaac what’s the under dark?” she suddenly says. Isaac says it’s a level of the material plane, under the material plane.

Araja announces the unconscious people are fine and just need time to recover.

Isaac solemnly carries a body from the cell. It’s the Bar Wench…she’s dead…

Rekka tells us the trolls have a kitchen on the other side of the door. They live here in the under dark and we washed up on their front steps. She also asks If many people like us come to them this way. They say no, but mostly 4 legged creatures fall down and the sea octopus eats them.

Isaac finds the girl the villagers were initially chasing. She has sharp teeth like a vampire, but her skin is warm and she’s clearly breathing. When the other village people awake, the trolls bring us food. My stomach wrenches when I see the mysterious green meat they’re carrying. I don’t think anyone dared to eat, even if they were hungry.

Our skin begins to itch and the trolls warn us that if we don’t cleanse ourselves soon our skin will fall off! Rekka asks the troll if they have any good water to wash in, but the troll only sneers and wonder’s why we’d even consider such a thing.

Araja and Gideon fly back to the surface to see if they can bring water down. It feels like they’ve been gone forever. The villagers itch like mangy dogs and some of them are shedding large patches of skin. I cough some more and sit on my hands, trying to distract myself from itching. By the time Araja and Gideon return a few of the villagers have already died, and on top of that, Araja and Gideon only have enough water to cleanse one or two people. Then some flying buckets appear and Isaac directs them to douse the villagers.

Meanwhile, Rekka seems to be making friends with the girl…I ask her what she could have done to cause half the villagers to fall down the well after her. She replies that she was only eating breakfast and refused to admit having enchanted the inanimate objects.

The trolls wish to go to bed, but before hand tell us their having some guests over tomorrow. Some of the guests wouldn’t mind eating us for breakfast and advise we should leave soon. A while later, the troll I shot comes out, forgives me for shooting him, and proceeds to tell us of a way we might be able to get to the surface.