Boldhome Plus One

Session Season 7, Boldhome 1

1629, Storm Season, Still early

Dramatis Personae

Events

Venlar heads to the temple of Humakt, with Dormal and Finarvi in train, to let Eril know there are assassins after Dormal. The temple looks a little understaffed – there’s a layperson guarding the door who peers suspiciously at the two foreigners. Does recognise Venlar, who is a living ringer for the High Sword. He leaves the gate unguarded to go and see if the High Sword is free to see them.

The mistress of apprentices intervenes. The high sword is understandably busy, so she takes us to a private side-chapel carved massively in a huge truth rune. Dormal explains Lunar assassins may be in the area, having followed him from Esrolia, for he thwarted a major operation. He mentioned they were using Fertility and infinity runes, as they are from Rhigos.

Venlar asks about hiring bodyguards, but they are in short supply. We head to the market for warmer clothing – we obtain wool cloth, cloak and some extras to outfit Dormal. Venlar inquires after Irillo. He was there at the end of Earth season into early Dark Season, left just as it was getting Dark to head to Blue Tree. He had some exotic southern goods that could have been sold for more but he seemed to be in a hurry. Venlar continues talking and buying so the merchant forgets that particular conversation. It seems he can’t help himself and has to be just slightly manipulative. We arrange to meet Dormal at Dangerford in two days. 

Dormal drops by the Duck village to find out conditions in Quackford, and rides out. Venlar and Finarvi head to Wilmskirk. On the road, Finarvi sees a small cloud of dust with banners, glint of armour, heading to Boldhome from the north. Argrath’s army? They part from Sid and gallop back to the city to warm Mellia. They pass Dormal on the road but don’t acknowledge him, and Dormal, looking round, spots the army and carries on. Hides in the bushes as the army passes by, Argrath and Venna in the lead. 

Back in Boldhome, Venlar heads to inform lord Ebron, who is already emerging from the temple of Yelmalio in his armour.

The pair ride briskly back to Varanis’ house, but going round a corner Venlar fails to notice uncle Eril in the street. A broadsword to the foreleg leaves Venlar and his horse in the mud. Eril is sarcastic about Vernlar not mentioning the army, and marches off downhill. Venlar heals his horse and the household packs up quickly and heads out of the North gate.

Dormal is still in sight when the army reaches the gate. Argrath dismounts and bangs on the gate. He calls the army ‘some bodyguards’ and says they will behave. Venna turns round in her saddle and snaps something in Praxian, a short instruction to the army ¹“or else”

The gates open, and Argrath walks through the gates alone. The army starts pitching tents.  Dormal moves on. 

Venlar throws money at a local peasant to lead us through the back roads. Then Salid tells us the bad news – he’s been hearing Darktongue for the past ten minutes. We stop, Venlar disappears Darkwalking, and Salid sets out four posts and sets up his pike. A dark troll and ten trollkin walk past Venlar, not seeing him. He follows quietly behind.

Salid barks something in Dark Tongue, the dark troll replies, and Salid appears to be being reasonable while the dark troll shouts a lot and the trollkin seem to be trying to vanish. Finarvi picks up that Salid is appealing to the trollkin under the dark troll’s nose, and then throws a heavy pouch down at the lead trollkin’s lead. The troll threatens Salid, stomps off, and one of the trollkin picks up Salid’s pouch and scampers off after the others. Salid relaxes, says he was a bandit, not sure in a fight whose side the trollkin would fight on, after Salid offered to pay them them. 

Dormal is on the King’s road, not enjoying the rain, spies a tavern ahead where he can spend the night. We all manage to get decent amounts of sleep and are not eaten in our sleep. We all manage to reach Dangerford the following day. Venlar’s party are incredibly muddy. Dormal’s been there long enough to dry out. 

The innkeeper objects to Salid, who amiably agrees to sleep in the stable despite Venlar insisting otherwise. Salid carves Darktongue into an upright – “here Salid showed patience” and Venlar signs it too. 

Mellia and the children remain at Dangerford for a few days, taking care of other matters while the rest of us carry on to Blue Tree.

We leave via East gate, with Venlar doing a tourist guide and Dormal inveigling himself into the party. This time Venlar notices and pretends he is a Sartarite peasant with a bad Sartarite accent. “I was pissing by your door…” Venlar sings to entertain us on our road, for it’s a long day with the heavy weather.  

We reach Blue Tree and its new stonework walls and stone watch towers. The overworked stone reminds Finarvi of the tunnel that took the road under a hill. It looks like the same stonework, and similar to Dwarf Mine. Varanis is the reason Blue Tree has such protection, and a new well. The White Lady temple is also rebuild, and new stone houses are here. Yehna has a new stone house that is the talk of the village.

The gate opens and we enter, noticing the underlying rock cut ditch on the switchback there is a perfectly round hole carved into the stone that looks horribly familiar. A fitting for a cannon. We’re greeted by people as we arrive. Venlar heads to his house and Finarvi finds Irillo’s two mules in his stable. Venlar enters the house to find it warm and two Esrolians drinking his cider. One is Irillo, and the other jumps to his feet, hand hovering over sword hilt. Kesten Hulta. Venlar welcomes him. Irillo has not got up. 

Dormal relays Grandmother’s message. Irillo says Yehna and the children are missing. Irillo thinks we know where they are. Missing since Starbrow’s death, just after. Thinks they’ve been taken as a precaution. Kesten Hulta is helping Irillo because he has certain skills. Dormal warns Kesten about the assassins. Irillo gives Dormal a clack, tells him to give it to Kesten. Kesten has now been paid to protect Dormal. 

We head over to Yehna’s house. Food and clothes packed and taken. Kesten shows them a hollow ringing flagstone, an escape tunnel we think the dwarfs put in when building the defences. We look for the tunnel entrance. Finarvi tries to adjust a sconce for better light and it clicks as it moves. And an opening in the wall swings open, dwarf-height. Distant sound of sluicing water.

Finarvi notices Dormal has a “fucking tunnels again” reaction of resigned disgust to the sight. There’s past history there.

Venlar tries to lead but Dormal steps in and says he did this during the war and goes first. The tunnel is smooth and descends rapidly to a ladder cut into the rock. 20 ft drop. He descends, pokes the floor for traps, steps down. Here the tunnel is not flat floored, and is tall enough to stand in. Two grooves run down the tunnel, like cart ruts. Tunnel heads due West for 20 yards, where a side turning leads to another ladder up. Dormal climbs up, finds a long chamber with rings and ropework in it, but nothing attached. At the end of the long chamber is a round door. Venlar figures this is the wall, the fortifications, and the cannon door covering the switchback. We return to following the ruts. They lead to a wall with  semicircular groove in the floor before the wall. A pair of eyes encased in metal gaze back at us. A dwarf. Dormal greets it. It says “State your mission.” We are looking for missing relatives. We are told this is the holding of the dwarf of dwarf mine, and anyone allowed to be here will be safe. A request for consultation can be made to the manager of the mine. Dormal requests the consultation. 10 hours and a day – next report is in 10 hours, and reply will take a day. Venlar agrees hastily, the undergroundness is getting to him.

We return a day and a half later. We’re followed by a smaller version of the cannon. We step back on the dwarf’s order, the wall turns 90 degrees and the trackways line up again, and a cart is there with a couple of nonmetallic dwarfs. We are told to step onto the cart. We sit down to fit, and the two standing dwarfs began working a metal bar up and down, and we accelerate to the speed of a cantering horse. And then it goes faster.  They keep this up for half a day.

Eventually they stop pumping and one pulls a bar. There’s a shower of orange sparks and the smell of hot iron. We slow down for 20 minutes, then gently coast to a halt to an ordinary looking tunnel, another dwarf who gestures into the new tunnel. Looks like a dead end. We step in, and dwarf closes a wicker gate on us, pulls a lever, and we ascend to another tunnel. The metal dwarf removes the wickerwork screen, ushers us out, and another dwarf users us to a waiting area with refreshments and necessarium. The plain-dressed dwarf then leads us to an audience chamber, sits on the rather plain throne, and asks what we want. Dormal asks to see family. The dwarf agrees they will probably want to see us. Dwarf leads us onwards but wants us to swear secrecy of their location – he’s done a favour but doesn’t want it bringing more trouble than it’s worth. 

We’re led through another metal door to an audience chamber with huge skylight and magic moving mosaic on the walls, and there are Yehna and the children. There’s an archery target chalked on the wall, hopscotch and other Sartarite games chalked on the floor, and a number of apparent toys scattered about, but they are all made of stone or fired clay or metal. And Yehna with a stone rolling pin, attempting to make fruit tarts with purple dwarvish food paste as the filling. Venlar gives her a hug.

Yehna explains the dwarf came by, saying there was trouble in Sartar and little Berra would be safe with the Dwarf, and Yehna said she wouldn’t let any little mite go alone to be cared by dwarfs so she went with. Venlar fills her in on all that’s been going on through the medium of song. She had known about Starbrow’s death, not about the Wolf Pirates or Argrath coming to Boldhome. 

We return reassured, and arrange to send some actual food supplies down to Yehna before she tries to carve up a dwarf.

Venlar: “Who would break into the temple of Humakt?”
Dormal: “They leave the doors open on purpose.” 

“It’s a small side-Temple.” – GM
“Duck-sized?” – Dormal
“This particular Temple does not have anything duck-sized.” – GM

“Except one duck.” – Venlar
“He’s eight feet tall with an eye of fire.” – Dormal

“I couldn’t possibly say.” – Venlar
“That’s not quite the same as no, is it?” – Graria
“It takes longer to say.” – Venlar

“It’s fine.  They’ve been after me for a while.” – Dormal (of assassins)
“It’s not you I’m worried about.” – Venlar

“Listen to what I mean, not what I say.” – GM

“If saying Harrek’s name three times made him appear, there’d be a party of Eurmali heading for Glamour right now.” – Dormal

“You’ve already killed one red emperor.” – GM
“The first emperor, yes. What about second emperor?” – Dormal
“It was just one emperor, actually” – GM, misquoting Hot Fuzz.

“That’s uncanny.  I rolled 03 again.” – Finarvi
“Are you in fact rolling a D6?” – Venlar

“I’m just a Sartarite peasant.” – Dormal, peasanting

“… Venna, whom I think you’ve met.” – GM
“I’ve been threatened by her in fact.” – Dormal

“Look, if I wanted it to be cold and muddy, I wouldn’t have had to leave Prax.” – associated rhino, in Tradetalk
“Hmmm, try and memorise the sound of the rhino’s voice.  You never know when that sort of thing comes in handy.” – Dormal

“How is your Praxian, Dormal?” – GM
“Pretty non-existent.” – Dormal

“Not friendly Darktongue then?” – Finarvi
“Hhmmm. I hope.” – Salid

“Want bad news?” – Salid

“Does anyone speak Darktongue?” – GM
“Salid?” – Venlar
“Well, trolls? Trolls’ mums?” – Dormal

oblivious – Venlar

“So with spite keeping you warm…” – GM
“Yep.” – Dormal

“I believe that Mellia is better on watch than Venlar is.” – Venlar

“Not sure sea trolls can survive out of water.” – GM
“It’s storm season in Sartar. They aren’t out of water.”

“It’s the talk of the village sometimes. They have very little to do on the long evenings.” – Venlar

“You can’t help noticing, Venlar, that there are two other mules in your stables.” – GM
“What? I don’t go in through my stables!” – Venlar

“On a cliff, below a river.” – GM
*above a river – Venlar

“Can everyone except Venlar do a Scan roll?” – GM

“Oh!  My!  God!  They!  Paid!  For!  Dwarf!  Weapons!” – Dormal

“… which means… they’ll have defences against tunnel rats.” – Dormal

“Oh, I still have that light wand from the Heroquest! We have a light source that isn’t fire.” Dormal
“And isn’t your arse!”  – Venlar
“That one is strategically difficult to deploy.”  – Dormal

“I understand forward scouting. Usually it’s my sister. Mind you, she doesn’t usually report any problems.” – Venlar
“Yes, but his sister is known as a Patrol in Force.” – GM

points to ruts “Dwarf transportation.” – Dormal
“How do they get in there?” – Venlar

“You are in the holdings of the Dwarf of Dwarf Mine.  Anyone supposed to be here is safe.” – Dwarf

“So, I have a question.  It pertains to slowing down.  … How?” – Venlar

“Do you have any bodily needs before your audience with the dwarf?” – dwarf
“A few, yes.” – Venlar

“May I say what a pleasure it is to be back?” – Dormal
“Aye, y’may.” – Dwarf
“What a pleasure it is to be back!” – Dormal

“This is the first time in my life I’ve actually felt poor!” – Venlar

“You might want to be sitting down for this bit.” – Dormal
“Oh, what’s Berra done this time?” – Yehna

pro-level singing – Venlar
“Oh, here we go again.” – Dormal

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  “or else”