Clover's Log
Prison cells aren’t terribly comfortable, but I’m making do. Monasteries aren’t exactly pinnacles of comfort, either. Before I can turn my nightly meditation into a much-needed rest ahead of our escape, I get a visitor. He says he’s a doctor and performs some kind of magical test on me to determine if I have something they are calling “rift sickness.” The short answer? Yes, I do. It’s making me glow a shockingly vivid pink color. And I’m not alone. Apparently Ronan has also contracted whatever this illness is. Sounds like Good Lady shenanigans to me. People who come back from the Rift mysteriously develop symptoms that can affect their magic or natural abilities in negative ways? If I had to guess, I’d say it’s been created as a deterrent to keep people from snooping around the Rift and learning all the things we have this past tenday. But I’m no doctor.
I don’t trust the doctor given my current circumstances, and I tell him so. I am, after all, supposed to be executed tomorrow for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can’t tell what his feelings are on this—he just looks exhausted. I don’t blame him. Mostly I want him to leave me alone so I can sleep, but he offers me a tincture he says will help keep the “rift sickness” symptoms at bay, and I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. I take it. So far, I feel no symptoms anyway, but better safe than sorry. I need to be able to protect my friends, and I need to be at full strength to do it.
Finally, I sleep. When I wake an hour before our planned escape time, I don’t expect to hear fighting, but that’s exactly what I do hear. We were to get out quietly, without killing anyone, and Nyx was going to come get me first so I could get everyone freed quickly. When I look out the bars in my door, I see my guard on the ground, quite dead. None of my friends did this. I need to get out now, key or no key. I focus my ki and hit the very sturdy cell door with all the lightning I can muster. It’s enough, barely. I bust through the door and make my way toward the sounds of battle as fast as I can, so I’m there in just a few seconds. Every single guard is down—dead—and something shadowy and decidedly sinister is attacking Nyx in her cell. I hit it back. Within seconds of my attack, I hear another door breaking open, and Keys is on me in no time…wielding his door as a weapon. He heaves it over his head in preparation for launching it at the shade. The fact that he’s wearing a burlap sack that barely covers his bulk would be comical, but there’s no time for laughter. I duck, with all possible haste.
Fortunately, I’m fast, and he does miss my head by a comfortable margin, but I know it won’t be the last time he hurls the hunk of wood and metal, and I need to make room for him to attack. I turn to get out of his way and hear a thunk against another of the cell doors, followed by a moan that I determine to be Ronan. He seems to be trying to break down his door and is failing miserably. Refocusing, I try to step back enough to give Keys room to swing, but my movement provokes an attack of opportunity from the shade, and that thing hits hard. Before I can manage even two steps, I’m bleeding out on the ground. Lights out.
It gets worse before it gets better, I’m told. It seems Ronan makes an utterly out-of-character attempt to stabilize me while the others work on killing the shade, but our wayward ranger is even less of a doctor than I am. His attempt does nothing to help. I might even be bleeding more. It’s the thought that counts, though, and I won’t forget it. Thank the Blooms for Brendel, ever my savior. He gets me on my feet, having used the key from the captain to free himself, Oman, and Ronan, and when the shade collapses in a pile of bones, we get ourselves to the bathroom, where there’s an entrance to the sewers through which we can finally escape. Just before heading down the ladder, Brendel spots a body filled with holes. We’ve seen this before, also in the sewers the last time we escaped from prison. We really need to not make a habit of getting arrested. Tough to do in a corrupt place.
Once in the sewers, Ronan is able to navigate us the right direction to get to Low City, where we intend to take refuge in Brendel’s forge, since it should be empty with the Breks, masters of the forge, missing. We come to a large cistern and are about to find an exit when an eyedrake—which looks remarkably like a large, flying poo—swoops into view. Two manglers have attached themselves to its back. They all look intent on killing each other, and I’m hoping we won’t have to get involved, but the drake takes a shot at Brendel and knocks him through a waterfall and out of sight, where he smashes into a loose grate (which we should have investigated—perhaps another time). Suddenly, I’m not feeling so neutral. We all jump into the fray. The fight is over pretty quickly, and we are more than ready to be out of the sewers, the severe stench of which has literally brought Nyx to tears.
We come out into Low City at last. When we are near the forge, Oman makes me invisible so I can scout the area and make sure it’s not being watched. In the clear, we settle in for a short break before Oman, Nyx, and I go shopping for potions. Can’t keep expecting our cleric to tap into his magic to heal us (me). While we’re gone, Brendel decides to get some forge work done since they have orders that are now very late. On our way back from shopping, I notice movement off in the distance. What I discover is the last thing any of us wants to see right now. We are being hunted by a large metal creature, the likes of which we’ve seen before. It works off our scent, which they surely had back at the prison. We buy a set of perfumes to throw the thing off. Time to pack up and find a new hideout. No rest for the wicked.