April 5, 2025
As told by a wandering bard at the Inn of the Desert Winds, Tephu…
There is a particular kind of morning that adventurers know well. It is the morning after the morning where everything went wrong. The wounds have mostly closed. The spells are back. The gold has been counted. And the only remaining evidence of the previous day’s disasters is visible on Lishka’s completely hairless ears and Blade’s face, which has, overnight, developed what can only be described as wings.
Not metaphorical wings. Not a trick of the light. Wings. Growing from the sides of his head where his ears used to be, membranous and slightly damp, in the manner of the very Vargouille that kissed him.
I can’t lose my hair, said Blade, which was already, technically, lost.
Your ears look like Vargouille wings, said the proprietor of the Tooth and Hookah, with the candor of a man who has seen many strange things come through his door and has stopped pretending otherwise.
We need to find some healers, said Shavrak Asha.
And unload some of this treasure, said Blade.
This, the bard notes, is the correct order of priorities for an adventuring party on a Tuesday in Wati. First healers, then treasure. Or possibly first treasure, then healers, depending on how pressing the wing situation is.
The party descended on the Sunburst Market with heavily burdened satchels and the collective air of people who have been through something and are not quite ready to talk about it. Xander Zeltz negotiated with the vendors, his familiar perched on his shoulder like a small ambassador of commerce, and somehow managed an eighteen percent improvement on the going rate for twenty small gold ingots, a silver anklet set, six silver goblets, an ornate vase, and assorted odds and ends from the House of Penthru.
That familiar, said Iverson, watching a vendor hand over considerably more gold than he had initially offered, is doing more work than most of the party.
The wedding ring — the gold band inscribed To Acar, from Panhat, love eternal, found on the headless body in the upstairs closet — was quietly pulled from the sale pile. Someone who lost a husband deserved better than fifty percent of market value. The Widow Panhat, it was noted, lived in the poor part of town down by the river. That was a conversation for another day.
The magical faucet, which Iverson had identified as producing hot and cold water when mounted to a solid surface, was also kept. Xander Zeltz pointed out that this was extremely useful for a party that spent most of its time in ancient tombs with no plumbing. Nobody disagreed.
The Grand Mausoleum received them next, where Xander Zeltz’s girlfriend — whose name no one had managed to retain, a situation that had become something of a running embarrassment — spotted Blade and Lishka from across the courtyard and went very still.
I think I’ve got the mange, Lishka explained, flipping her bald ears sadly.
The acolyte who came to receive them was professional about it. The senior cleric who performed the Remove Disease was professional about it. It was 140 gold pieces for the two of them, discounted slightly because they had been exploring the Penthru estate on behalf of the city’s lottery assignment and had not, technically, been entirely frivolous about getting kissed by flying heads.
Xander Zeltz’s dexterity, meanwhile, was still four. Eleven points of centipede venom damage, accumulated across two rounds of being the party’s most enthusiastic frontline wizard, had left him moving like a man trying to walk through wet sand. Iverson reviewed the options. Lesser Restoration would require several castings at 150 gold each. A full Restoration would cost 380 gold but would handle everything at once.
He’s down eleven points, Iverson said. We’d be paying for at least three lesser restorations and probably more.
Just do the Restoration, said Xander Zeltz, who had been watching himself fumble basic tasks for two days and had strong feelings about it.
380 gold, a seventh-level cleric, and one diamond later, Xander Zeltz stood up straight for the first time since the courtyard and looked at his hands as though reacquainting himself with them.
How do you feel? asked Blade.
Coordinated, said Xander Zeltz.
Then Xander Zeltz went to find someone who knew about Doru’s Div.
The scholar he located in the Hall of Blessed Rebirth did not need much prompting. He was the kind of man who loved an audience, and the subject of extraplanar div proved irresistible. He talked for quite a long time.
The Doru’s Div, it emerged, were creatures of secrets. They collected information the way other beings collected wealth, hoarding it, trading in it, using it as leverage. They could turn invisible at will. They could charm people, create minor illusions convincing enough to lure adventurers down staircases and into courtyards full of giant centipedes. They had telepathy. They were resistant to nearly everything — fire, acid, poison, electricity, good luck getting through that.
What does work on them? Xander Zeltz asked.
Cold iron, said the scholar. Or something good. Something aligned with good, that will pierce the resistance.
How fast can they fly?
Forty feet per six seconds.
Xander Zeltz paid him something for his time, which seemed fair, and went to find the others.
The arms shopping took most of the afternoon.
Blade acquired a cold iron masterwork greatsword, 400 gold pieces, which he immediately referred to as the answer to his problems.
Iverson acquired a cold iron morningstar, because he had been hitting things with his regular morningstar for several sessions and had decided that if he was going to keep missing, he might as well miss with the correct material.
Rochelle Martham, whose leather armor had somehow disappeared entirely during the previous day’s chaos — she had, in the words of the party ledger, gotten naked at some point — acquired a mithral chain shirt of remarkable quality and a cold iron masterwork longsword, negotiated down to a price she could afford after Xander Zeltz charmed the merchant so thoroughly that the man seemed genuinely delighted to be losing money.
Xander Zeltz himself purchased three scrolls of Magic Weapon, because getting cold iron on everything was expensive, and sometimes you needed a spell to bridge the gap.
Shavrak Asha and Xander Zeltz each purchased cold iron crossbow bolts in bundles of ten. Lishka bought a scarf, because her ears were bald and the desert wind was unkind.
Iverson acquired a breastplate, trading in his chain shirt toward the cost, and looked considerably more like a cleric of Sun Wukong than he had that morning.
They spent the night at the Tooth and Hookah.
Xander Zeltz refilled his wineskins with something the proprietor described as pulque, fermented from the heart of agave, which he recommended for its character and which Xander Zeltz recommended for its price. Iverson, cleric of a god whose create water ability technically produced wine, had opinions about this. He shared them. Nobody listened.
Lishka wore her new scarf. Blade had considered using his ability to cast Alter Self and giving himself normal ears for the evening, but decided against it. He had earned the wings. He would wear them until they fell off.
The little crocodile in the well regarded them all with ancient patience as adventurers came in and peered down at it, which happened every time someone new arrived, which was the whole point of having a crocodile in a well.
They slept.
In the morning they went back.
On the road to the House of Penthru, they passed four adventurers arguing on a bench. A wizard was yelling about his books. Another party member was yelling about fire. A young woman was trying to sing over the argument. A fighter stood apart with his arms crossed, looking at no one, and when Xander Zeltz offered a friendly greeting he said, get on with your stuff, and turned away.
Rude, said Iverson.
If they’re not friendly, said Xander Zeltz, it saves us some time.
They kept walking.
The House of Penthru received them as it always did — gate ajar, air of ancient dust and recent violence, the front courtyard still bearing the memory of the Vargouilles. They had not finished the eastern yard. There was a door they had not opened. Shavrak Asha checked it for traps, found none, opened it.
The eastern compound spread before them. Stone outbuildings built into the outer walls. A well. A stone table and benches. Two sets of columned steps leading back into the house. And, in a small domed structure to the northwest, a large two-headed dog that turned both of its heads toward them simultaneously.
Does anybody want to make a wish? Blade asked, looking at the well.
The dog answered first.
Blade went in raging, cold iron greatsword swinging, and landed a hit that bloodied the creature in a single stroke — a critical blow that made the table fall silent for a moment before everyone started yelling.
The dog bit him twice. He felt something moving through his veins that wasn’t blood. He made his fortitude save. The dog tried to trip him. His combat maneuver defense held, barely, because he was raging and rage has opinions about gravity.
He went prone anyway on the second attempt, because the dog was persistent, and lay on the eastern courtyard flagstones looking up at the Osirian sky while Iverson stepped over him to get a better angle and missed completely.
Xander Zeltz, now fully coordinated and apparently emboldened by the restoration of his dexterity, cast Grease on the dog from across the courtyard, dropping the creature prone. A prone four-legged dog is a philosophical problem — it is unclear what prone even means for something with that many legs — but the game mechanics were unambiguous. The dog struggled.
Striaka Fandar finished it. Both heads, one strike, and they went limp together, which was the kind of efficiency that justified keeping a large monkey-shaped eidolon around.
Then the snakes came out from under the table.
There were two of them, asps, large enough to matter, and they had been waiting there the whole time with the patience of creatures that have no concept of being late to a fight.
Rochelle Martham shot at them with her new cold iron arrows, which was excellent in theory and resulted in her briefly targeting herself, which the party noted with the weary affection of people who have watched this happen before.
On the plus side, said Iverson, she missed herself once.
Blade sliced one in three pieces with a single stroke, announcing die beforehand as though the snake had earned the courtesy of a warning.
The second asp bit Smashy Smashy, who failed his fortitude save, felt his constitution drop, got tripped by the snake despite having four legs and theoretically superior stability, and responded to this indignity by standing up on his next turn and delivering a tail strike that dropped the creature to bloodied in one hit, which Lishka watched with the expression of someone who has stopped being surprised.
Rochelle Martham finished it. The asp’s tongue went ch-ch-ch as it died. She described this in some detail.
That’s all she wrote, said the GM.
Was that the last thing? asked Iverson.
No, said everyone else.
The House of Penthru still had rooms unexplored. The Doru’s Div were still somewhere in the upper floors, invisible and giggling, hoarding secrets in the dark. The Widow Panhat still lived down by the river without her husband’s ring. The hope chest with Araceti’s wedding gown still sat in the party’s possession, carefully closed, the gown inside preserved against the dry desert air.
There was more to do.
There was always more to do, in a city half-dead and half-alive, where the lottery assigned you a house and the house assigned you its ghosts and the ghosts assigned you their unfinished business, and the business was never finished, not really, not in Wati.
The bard refills her cup.
She says: Blade’s ears went back to normal eventually. It took a few weeks. He never mentioned it again.
She says: Lishka’s hair grew back. Slowly, unevenly, in patches that the other party members were too kind to comment on.
She says: the Widow Panhat got her ring. But that’s a story for another night.
Outside, somewhere in the necropolis, a two-headed dog that is no longer alive lies in the eastern courtyard of the House of Penthru, both of its faces pointed at the sky, finally at rest after two thousand years of guarding a yard full of asps and a well that nobody ever wished in.
The bard sets down her cup.