November 1st – 4th, 973
GM NOTE — Session 13 (this Wednesday) will open by finishing the cave expedition we began a couple of weeks ago. Once that thread is resolved, we’ll move directly into the introduction below, followed by a long rest. The remainder of the session will explore the consequences of what you found underground.
Exit Strategies
The echoes of the party’s own movement followed them as they climbed, directed by the surveyors and followed by the soldiers, bootsteps and breathing rebounding softly from the stone. The tunnels were widening again, the ceiling lifting, the chalk marks growing more frequent and more confident. Somewhere ahead, they knew, lay daylight.
Cassyndra slowed.
It was not fear that stopped her—at least not the simple kind—but the familiar tightening behind her eyes that came when patterns refused to line up. Loyal soldiers. Honest testimony. Faces remembered in firelight and panic. Names passed upward through channels she could not see.
Underground, shadows were plentiful. Aboveground, they would not be.
She murmured a warning and caught the others’ attention with a small, urgent gesture. Once the soldiers returned to their units, descriptions would follow. Rough ones, perhaps, but enough. Enough for questions to be asked. Enough for a notice to be written.
Hunkle. Wolfgang.
The suspicions raised by The Royal Standard did not need certainty. They only needed a direction – and time.
Quietly, she shared the thought. Just enough words. Just enough urgency. The response was immediate and unspoken: Hunkle drifting to the rear where the light thinned, Wolfgang keeping to angles where stone still swallowed silhouettes. No arguments. No jokes. This was not the moment.
When they approached the surface, Merrythought lingered a moment at the threshold — the precise instant where torchlight failed and true sunlight began — whispered the words. Her features softened, shifted, became someone else’s — bones subtly rearranging, scars fading, the face and build settling into something different than her usual.
The soldiers were taken directly back to the prison and Merrythought went with them.
The Prison
The entrance to the prison was as she always imagined it: solid, functional, deliberately unwelcoming. Stone meant to last. Stone meant to discourage questions.
Major Edric Valmorne saw her and reported that Colonel Holt, commander of the detachment, was in a conference — an important one. The message wasn’t delivered in the off-handed manner of someone relaying a socially acceptable excuse. The Major believed the conference was important.
The major was spare and correct in his uniform. He thanked Merrythought warmly — genuinely — for the return of Crown personnel and assured her that such initiative did not go unnoticed.
“If you and your companions have a moment in the coming days,” he said, folding his hands neatly atop his desk, “I would be glad to thank them in person.”
Merrythought smiled, inclined her head, and said exactly what was expected of her.
While she was there, she watched.
She memorized the angles of the entry hall, the position of desks and doors, the rhythm of guards passing through their rotations. She noted where clerks paused to confer, where keys changed hands. And when a prisoner was brought in — hooded, shackled, silent — she observed the intake with careful interest. Names recorded. Effects cataloged. Resistance discouraged with routine efficiency.
The machine worked smoothly.
Which, she thought, was perhaps the most unsettling part.
Elsewhere
The rest of the party escorted the Plumbline Four back to the Adventurers’ Guild.
Payment was rendered without fuss. Gratitude was sincere, if complicated. The surveyors were tired, shaken, and already slipping back into the careful, precise speech of professionals who understood how dangerous truth could be when overheard.
Harlan Vetch listened to the account in silence, fingers steepled.
When it was done, he nodded once.
“Best not to make a celebration of this,” he said quietly. “Things that surface quietly tend to be examined less closely. Given the Crown’s… layered relationship with the Plumbline Four, attention would do no one favors.”
There was a pause.
Then Cassyndra, thinking about the party’s own rather layered relationship with the Crown, said, “We understand.”
They returned to their campsite that evening to a chaotic, joyful reunion — rum gremlins shrieking with delight, Merrythought arriving a bit later and attempting to maintain dignity while being climbed on, laughter breaking out in fits that surprised even themselves.
For a little while, it felt like safety.
Three Days Later
They had just finished resting when the rider arrived in the morning.
Dusty. Direct. No insignia beyond what was strictly necessary. He handed over a sealed message and waited only long enough to be dismissed. He did not offer context. He did not linger for questions.
Harlan Vetch wanted to see them again.
When they arrived, he looked apologetic before he looked serious.
“This isn’t a job,” he said, before anyone could ask. “At least, not one that pays.”
He explained that a senior sergeant from the prison detachment had reached out—quietly. Discreetly. No paperwork. No formal channel. The woman wanted a meeting. At night. Out of town.
“She asked for you specifically,” Vetch added. “Said she thought you’d help her do the right thing.”
That phrase lingered in the air, heavy with implication.
The proposed location was an oak tree just beyond the road — old, broad, standing alone amid open plains.
“In daylight,” Vetch said, “it’s a common meeting place. At night, in warm months…” He shrugged. “Lovers. Mostly.”
Ant raised an eyebrow. “Romantic.”
“Private,” Vetch corrected. “And not good terrain for a sudden ambush.”
“Which doesn’t mean it’s not a trap,” Merrythought said mildly.
“Of course not,” Vetch agreed. “Just that if it is one, it probably won’t be sprung there.”
Cassyndra folded her arms, thinking aloud. “If the Crown wanted us for another job, it would come with papers. Couriers. Seals.”
“Forms,” Ant said darkly.
“Forms,” Vetch confirmed. “This has none of that.”
Hunkle frowned. “So what does a sergeant want that she can’t say in daylight?”
Vetch didn’t hesitate. “Something she doesn’t want written down.”
There was a short silence as that settled.
Wolfgang spoke next, slowly. “That sounds like unofficial backup.”
“Or a witness,” Merrythought added.
“Or a way to make sure certain orders… come back phrased differently than how they were given,” Ant said.
Shamus leaned back slightly, arms crossed. “The soldiers we rescued will have reported what they saw.”
“The null magic field,” Laveleen said. “That would raise eyebrows.”
“And the kobolds,” Cassyndra added softly. “And the caretakers.”
Vetch nodded once. “All of which are the sort of problems that fall on people who don’t get to debate policy. Just execute it.”
Hunkle’s jaw tightened. “So she might be getting sent in to clean something up.”
“Or to study it,” Wolfgang said. “Or to remove it.”
“Or to pretend something unfortunate happened down there,” Merrythought finished.
Ant exhaled through her nose. “And she wants to know if we’re the kind of people who will help her do that—or stop it.”
Another pause followed. This one felt different. Heavier. More resigned.
Then Cassyndra gave a small, tired smile.
“Well,” she said, “we were never going to say no.”
No one disagreed.
They returned to their campsite as the sun dipped lower, already discussing what could be done with the daylight still remaining.
Seek out the Plumbline Four for advice?
Test the Major’s invitation, see what might be learned?
Prepare other contingencies?
Because whatever waited under that oak tree, one thing was already clear:
The days waiting for Laveleen’s familiar were not going to be empty ones—and whatever choices they made next would be difficult to unmake.