HDYour Place Or Mine ##TOP##
Pad grimaces. \u201CHard to say. The Delve\u2019s not a kind place \u2014 but if they came here, it\u2019s because wherever they came from wasn\u2019t all right either. But they\u2019ll be able to find their way without us, at least; All they need to do is follow the road.\u201D
HDYour Place or Mine
\u201CThe Delve sits in a valley between two great arms of the mountain. The main entrance \u2014 they call it Sorrow\u2019s Gate \u2014 bottles up the valley and makes the place virtually unassailable, from the outside. There are other ways in and out though, but we\u2019ll have to make it to the summit of the southern arm to reach them. If we push a bit harder, a bit longer, we should make it by dawn.\u201D
\u201CThe Huffel Peaks were the demesne of the Forge Lords, Makers who were masters of fire and metal,\u201D Vahid replies. \u201CIt is written that when the Stone Lords\u2019 slaves revolted, they withdrew to their mines and holds deep beneath the mountains and cut themselves off from the surface, caring only for their riches and their wondrous creations. No one knows what fate they found in the tunnels below.\u201D
From the windows of the tenements, folk call out in Lygosi, Marchsprech, and the Stonetongue. \u201CI need twenty hardy miners for a honest day's work! A cart full of ore gets you twenty copper bezants and a sack of millet! Present yourself below and be counted!\u201D one man bellows out, his voice carrying over the hubbub. The door below him is mobbed with folk calling out to be counted. Across the way, Anwen sees another tenement, it's windows hung with garlands of dried, yellowing-white blossoms. In the windows are fair-faced young women and men, calling down to the passing laborers and smiling wide, false smiles.
\u201CBest we seek aid before we search for Kirs \u2014 asking openly about nomads living in the Delve could be dangerous, especially with the Stormcrows fanning the flames out on the Flats. We'll have to spread some coin around -- pay a few 'finders fees' -- but there will certainly be someone in the marketplace who knows Kanter or Rheisart.\u201D
Pad pulls them aside, away from the crush of the crowd making its way through the Swap. \u201CBest you do the talking, Vahid. You know the most trade tongues, and you can deal well and fairly for us. But best you don\u2019t show your eyes \u2014 no need to draw more attention to us. Anwen, stay close \u2014 the Swap can be a rough-and-tumble place; it\u2019ll be easier for him to move freely with you at his back.
We\u2019ll pause here and leave the choice to you all. The journey, and Session 10, draws to a close here, and Session 11 will cover our time in Gordin\u2019s Delve. Swing your miner\u2019s pick at the button below to vote on this week\u2019s choice \u2014 but stay tuned after the jump for a bonus scene featuring the one who got away:
He has no sense of time or place when he is hauled from horseback and dragged away, to be thrown onto a smooth, cool stone floor. The hood is pulled from his face, and he is hauled to his knees. At first, the light is blinding \u2014 it streams in from a great crack in the ancient, domed ceiling above, high above their heads. Before him stands a tall, slender figure, hooded and draped with flowing white robes, looped over his body again and again but still trailing on the floor behind him. Around his neck is a likewise too-long string of fist-sized bronze prayer beads, inscribed with the runes of the Tehur-Archoi6. Beneath his robe, his tan chest is bare and crisscrossed with a multitude of pale, branching scars. 041b061a72