Session #14: Into the Pale Maw

Session #14: Into the Pale Maw

9 Memun, 530

The deputies awoke early, broke their fast, and helped Sheriff Walker with the morning chores around the ranch. As they worked, they gave the Sheriff an accounting of their deeds since last they met.

“Well, there’s no holding you back now, I suppose,” was Walker’s comment. When the chores were finished, he gathered the group and asked each one if they were truly serious about the life of a frontier lawman. When they swore they were, he presented each deputy with a new brass badge—engraved Deputy of Monroe on the front, and on the back, the name of one who had worn that badge before them. He told each a short story: of those Deputies who had fallen defending the law of Monroe, and those few who had lived long enough to retire.

Then he had them raise their right hands and swear to uphold the law. When the brief ceremony was done, he pronounced them lawfully charged as Deputies of the lost town of Monroe.

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10 Memun, 530

The Deputies celebrated only briefly before agreeing to ride out from Tèarmann Nàdair the next morning. Their goal was the Pale Maw cave, where reports spoke of strange pale ogres haunting the region. They gathered their gear, said their farewells, and rode forth.

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12 Memun, 530

Two days on the trail brought them near dusk to a stand of ancient trees where they sought a camp. But before they could dismount, they heard a voice—singing a sorrowful lament of haunting beauty. Investigating, they found a grove encircling a massive white oak. Beneath its spreading limbs stood a woman of striking beauty, her hair dark as bark and her eyes deep green with sorrow.

Though she bore the shape of a Galldar elf, there was something older beneath her skin, as if root and grain ran just beneath the flesh. Around her darted tiny, jewel-bright birds that never seemed to rest, their voices chiming in a tongue unknown to most of the Deputies.

The song overcame Twig, who fell to the grass weeping. Fourth-Knife and Cordoch, too, were moved to tears of loss and loneliness.

The singer was Illyrianthe the Dryad. She lamented the absence of Aryarae Larethiane, leader of the Five Riders of the Star—heroes who, thirty years ago, rode into Monroe to end the tyranny of Bludwan Nox and never returned.

Cordoch, mastering his sorrow, tried to explain to the near-immortal fey that Aryarae had long been lost to time. Illyrianthe’s understanding of mortal life and death proved limited, and so Cordoch was moved to take up a quiet quest: to find a memento of Aryarae, and bring it back to the grove, to help the Dryad understand why the elf she loved would not return.

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15 Memun, 530

Before dawn on the third day, the Deputies reached the area where the Pale Maw cave was said to lie. Kruk the Vengeful and Imaranger moved ahead to scout, slipping through the trees until they spied three ghost-faced goblins huddled around a dying fire. When they approached, the creatures scattered, fleeing into the darkness of a nearby cave.

Abandoning stealth, Cordoch raised his flaming adorned shield to light the way, and the Deputies advanced cautiously through the moonlit woods until they stood before the dark mouth of the Pale Maw.

They formed ranks two by two and entered. The tunnel was broad, stinking of goblins, ogres, and nameless meat. Soon they reached a chamber with a murky pool and passages leading east and south. Suspicious reeds rustled in the black water. Kruk tested the pool several times with his thorn whip, while ghost-faced figures slipped into the tunnels beyond.

The Deputies advanced southward, probing carefully. Just as they entered the next chamber, Fourth-Knife glimpsed a goblin peering from the southern passage—and fired his blunderbuss with a resounding crack.

The shot echoed through the caverns. From the pool behind the party rose three white ogres, and from the tunnels ahead came three more, rushing to trap the Deputies between them.

The Cave resounded with the clash of arms as the battle of the Pale Maw began.

Here ends Session #14.