Move 214: Goo
Tunnel--Late, Day 5Jana searched through an extremely large amount of disgusting slime to find nothing more that a few coins. Renn prayed for healing for the more injured of the two deep gnomes.
The goo that was covering Daelen, Jana, and both deep gnomes was not really that hard to get off, if you had something to wipe it off with. There was, however, a lot of it on the four of them, and it seemed to ooze its way into armor quite nicely. It also seemed like it might dry out quickly wherever it was, into a form that resembled gobs of dried mucus.
Once Jana was finished going through the slime pile, the deep gnomes led onward. It was a little while before they found a place they were willing to stop, another wide point in the tunnels. Pruc and Ciekor immediately took off their armor and started trying to clean it as best they could.
Aloysius removed his pack and placed it next to the wall. "My apologies for such a sad effort against the slime creature," he said, "but until I can rest fully, I'm afraid that I shall be of even littler use than usual."
He unrolled his blanket, curled up inside it, and tried to go to sleep.
Olaf normally marched quietly, with only the occasional prayer or conversation with his neighbors in the line of march. During this day, however, Olaf constantly recited prayers to himself, softly, so that they did not reveal the presence of the group to enemies, but loudly enough to be obvious to those beside him.
When asked, Olaf said, "Today is the Blinding, a High Holy Day in my church which honors Tyr's loss of sight, so that all shall come equally before justice. Normally, it would be celebrated with great ceremony, pomp and circumstance. It would be unjust to insist upon that down here, and thus endanger you, my companions. So I pray to let Tyr know I recall my duties, though circumstances prevent me performing them."
Olaf smiled, "We know each other by now, Tyr and I. He knows my faults well enough, and won't begrudge me this small lapse in the cause of Justice."
Jana shrugged out of her armor and followed the gnomes' example. She cleaned the coins off and handed them to Echo. "Wouldja mind holding these?" she asked. "Or someone, 'til we open that magical hut thingie, anyway." When the now clean and doubtless quite shiny coins were taken care of, Jana began the laborious and rather disgusting task of cleaning her armor, clothing and gear.
Echo accepted the coins. She took out the spellbook she had been copying from with a sigh. "Oh," she said, brightening a little, "Jana, if you give me your torn armor, I'll see if I can fix it." She put the spellbook aside and took a sewing kit out of her pack.
Jana smiled. "Oh, yeah, thanks!" She dug the studded leather armor out of her pack. "It's here," she said, pointing at the blood-stained gash on the thigh. "Wouldn't you know, first time I wear it and it's already ripped." She watched Echo work while she cleaned her gooed-up chain. "Your mom teach you to sew?"
Echo nodded. "I used to help her with the sewing she took in, before I left home to learn magic. When she got busy," she added. She examined the rip in the armor to see if she could repair it.
While others slew the glob, Arachne leaned against Blacky's knee, panting.
At camp, Arachne resumed trying to recover her strength. Then she set
about trying to recover for Blacky the use of his arm."I can watch." Blacky said between gasps as he tried to get out of his armor. "At least I'll have my armor on if any nasties come this time, besides I can bellow loud enough to wake the dead if I hit myself in the arm." He said trying to smile.
"Are you sure that's safe?" Jana asked Olaf. "I mean, I'd hate to have Tyr pissed at me. No offense," she added, "but your god gives me the willies. I mean, he just stands there, not saying anything, 'cept maybe that was him saying 'You've been warned;' I'm not really sure. 'Course, I don't know for sure it was Tyr," Jana said sheepishly. "It was a big guy with one hand missing, and I never really saw him clearly." She shook her head, shuddering slightly. "Anyways, whoever it was, he seemed kinda scary."
Olaf looked at Jana closely, "You had a vision of a one handed man who gave you a warning? Could you describe it more fully?"
"Uhm, yeah, well," Jana said, moving Olaf away from Echo then speaking in a low voice, "the first time was back before you met us. We were at the keep, and Ranchfus had taken Echo prisoner. We were looking for her. There was a ransom note, you see. So anyway, I had this, uhm, dream one night, except it was really, really clear. I saw Gr-- I saw Echo, and they were... They hurt her," Jana said bleakly. "Bad. Then I saw her at the Gleaming Glade, like in the ransom note. I saw us all try to get to her, only to be torn apart by something invisible. In every scene, I saw a huge warrior-type guy, missing a hand. Never clearly, he was always in silhouette. Then I heard this deep, booming voice saying, 'You've been warned.' And then when we got to the Glade, there was some invisible thing there. It killed a guy who followed Tyr and a gypsy girl. If not for Jyothki, I'm not sure we coulda gotten to her. Jyothki's a dryad, you see. She pulled Echo out through the trees. Whatever in hells that thing was," Jana added, "it was strong. Really strong. It hit me on the back. I was covering Echo. And it felt like it nearly broke my back. We ran like hell, of course. Didn't lose anyone else, but we shouldn't've lost anyone." Her gaze flickered briefly to Daelen.
Jana led Olaf back toward the others, still speaking. "The second one, well, that was a little different. We went to see this gypsy woman. The, uhm, father, he sent me a letter about the curse, and said she might be able to stop the curse in me by ending the pregnancy. So that's where me an' Echo went. Turns out the gypsy was that girl's granddaughter. We told her about the girl, but she'd already known. Seen it in the cards, she said. That she'd died, but not how. That Glade," Jana added, "really needs to be taken care of. It's... Well, it's evil."
"S'anyway," Jana continued, "she looked in her cards and asked me if I wanted to end the pregnancy or end the curse. I hadn't even thought about ending the whole curse. I mean, I was kinda caught up in that whole 'if you give birth you will die' thing, y'know? And she confirmed that yeah, I was in fact cursed. Arachne had done that spooky mind-magic stuff earlier and found out I was pregnant. So, I figured I was screwed, y'know? I had no choice but to stop the pregnancy. The gypsy, she said it would take a few days and it had to be done soon, if I was gonna do it. Then she told me there might be a way to find out if I could end the curse entirely. I figured, what the hell, even if I didn't die from it, other women would."
Jana brushed her hair back, grimacing at the slight stickiness. "Damned goo. Gods, but I wanna bath. Anyways, she made this really nasty-tasting pasty stuff. I ate it and concentrated on 'the source' of that first dream, which I figured was that guy. I got really dizzy, then it felt like I was falling, and I was at the feet of that same guy. Then I was at the Glade. There was a skull there, trying to get me, but it couldn't get out of the Glade. Then this long sword rose up from nearby and went after the skull. It had a set of scales engraved in the blade. The sword hit the skull, then it shattered. And then, I was somewhere else, not sure where, and there was a little girl, maybe two years old, standing next to me. I couldn't see her face, but she had black hair. She smiled, and then I got dizzy again and the vision ended and I had the worst headache I've ever had in my life."
Jana smiled slightly herself. "I'm sure that girl was my daughter. Her being there, that just means I can end the curse." Her expression became serious again. Her hand rested on her stomach. "No female child ever lives, according to the curse. There's no way for my daughter to survive unless I end the curse. If I don't end it, I'll die, and I may die trying, but I have to at least try." She looked down at her feet, a bit embarrassed. "I'd've tried anyway, but since I know I can end it before I give birth, I couldn't kill her myself. At least now I've as much to lose as she does." She glanced over at Echo. "If not for her," Jana said in a near-whisper, "I'm not sure what I would've done."
"Maybe the sword is hidden or buried near the glade, perhaps even in it. Do any of you spellcasters have a spell that could locate the sword if we were close enough to it?' Blacky asked.
"I have no idea," Jana offered. "I asked Tauster to look into it, so maybe he'll have some ideas."
"There be such a spell in one of the books we found," replied Aloysius. "Unfortunately, magic works not within the Glade. It is dead to the weave."
He looked around the chamber the party was in. "Would that we have the opportunity to one day address that problem."
Azrun sat quietly after the group had made camp. He hung on every word as Jana described her dreams to the group. After story time was over, he sat with his back against the wall, thinking. He sat upright at one point and pulled an arrow from his quiver and examined it. After a few minutes, he nodded ot himself and began casting a spell.
Olaf answered simply, "You made the brave choice." he paused for a moment, "I must give all that you have said some thought. Tyr is certainly involved somehow with this curse, and so I must aid you in ending it. But fear him not, it sounds as if he has only tried to aid you so far."
Jana shuddered slightly. "He just seems so... foreboding," she said to Olaf, her tone apologetic. "Oh, yeah, there was a shrine to Tyr in the keep that had been all defiled. We cleaned it up as best we could, but you might wanna do some, uhm, priestly stuff to it, later."
Olaf smiled, "Yes, many people are a bit intimadated by Tyr. We are all aware of how imperfect we are, and so we fear to be judged. We are convinced the judgement will expose our weaknesses to the world and show
everyone the frauds we believe ourselves to be."Olaf laughed, "When I was young I was convinced that I would never be worthy of Tyr, that I would always fall short. I was too stupid, too cowardly, too selfish. But wisdom comes, to some later then others. Try your best, and life will work itself out. Tyr is just, he judges us less harshly then we judge ourselves."
"Uhm, well," Jana replied sheepishly, "I, uhm, just meant that he was big and kinda scary-looking..."
Olaf replied with a smile, "He's that too."
Daelen picked absently at the crud on his armor while he waited, apparently unwilling to remove his protection it until they were in a safer position.
"I probably spoke too hastily earlier. The curse sounds like it's made to cause as much pain and grief as possible, not end the Parlfray bloodline, at least not directly..."
"I don't know much about dreams but is it possible that we're taking this... vision... too literally? After all, if you're supposed to find the sword, woudn't you have to find - and break - the skull too?"
Daelen glanced at the more mysticaly inclined among the group for their thoughts.
Jana nodded at Daelen's effort. "I dunno. The first vision was specific, in that it should what could happen. Or what would happen. Which is how we avoided it happening. The part at the Glade, I mean. Other parts were literal. And really, the Glade thing was literal too, it just ended better." She shrugged. "I don't know that I'm supposed to do anything, just that the skull will have to be destroyed by the sword for the curse to end."
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