OOC - Author's Notes:
This story follows directly from the preceding tale "A Marketplace Mystery", as the fellowship is roused the next morning in a flurry of commotion by the market...
The story continues in the chronicle: "Where Webs Whisper"...
“The Well’s Awakening”
Characters Involved
- Tivlyn Locksley – A brave-hearted woman of the Company, quick to defend her companions and quicker to defy unjust suspicion.
- Meltharian – The keen-eyed elf whose wisdom and calm presence uncover secrets hidden in stone and rune alike.
- Wittkun Gnarlybeard – Gruff and grounded, this dwarf speaks in riddles and parables, often with more truth than comfort.
- Tayschren – Quiet, analytical, ever watchful… a steady voice of reason and an ever watchful guardian.
- Feay Goldflamme – A cheerful chaos-bringer and mushroom-bearer, whose bond with her rabbit hints at something deeper and stranger.
- Hopwe – A rabbit of mysterious nature, unexpectedly sensitive to the arcane.
- [NPC] Captain Rolan – The weary yet fair leader of the Ost Guruth militia, trying to keep order as the world shifts under his boots.
- [NPC] Sergeant Garren – Suspicious and sharp-tongued, Garren trusts no one and believes force solves what diplomacy delays.
- [NPC] Old Man – An elder of the settlement, custodian of half-forgotten lore and shadowed memories of what lies beneath.
- [NPC] Bree Merchant – A troublemaker with a mouth faster than his sense, keen to turn misfortune into gossip.
- [NPCs] Various townsfolk – Wary, watchful, and increasingly afraid of what wakes in their midst.
Major Plot Points (Spoilers – JUMP to narrative instead to avoid)
- Alarm sounds in Ost Guruth, breaking the morning calm; militia rush to the market square amid growing tension.
- Dead Eglain patrolman discovered near the old well, surrounded by strange, silk-like threads; suspicion falls on the fellowship as outsiders.
- Tensions rise as militia captain and sergeant debate trust and suspicion toward the Company members.
- Bree merchant stirs distrust, accusing the Company of bringing trouble.
- Party members defend themselves, emphasizing respect shown and call attention to Vratni’s absence.
- Satchel marked ‘T’ found near the dead patrolman, Tivlyn is accused… but confirmed by merchant and leathersmith as having been recently sold and engraved for Tivlyn by Vratni.
- Discussion of old, sealed tunnels beneath Ost Guruth, with runes marking hidden entrances, as Mel speaks with a town elder.
- Mel and Tay examine parchments from the satchel, identifying elven runes similar to those at Amon Ros, spelling “HARLOEG” with added coded scratches.
- Feay and Hopwe’s joining the search of the marketplace triggers a magical shift, revealing glowing arcane threads connecting runes throughout the market to the well. But how to open the way into the tunnel?
- Militia orders crowd to disperse, clearing space for the party to investigate. Surprise and fear spreading throughout the people of the Eglain and the militia. The militia sends word to contact the Rangers… and orders all away from the well…
- Taking matters into her own hands, given the chance to act now or never, Feay does the unthinkable and tosses in a ‘boomschroom’; a fiery explosive mushroom.
- A sudden eruption from the well: a force of fire and stone, intertwined with the searing arcane web, erupts upwards, scorching the air and cracking the earth around the market.
- Chaos and panic among the townsfolk and militia as the ground trembles and an abyss opens near the well.
- Party narrowly avoids falling into the abyss, saved by a magical shield emanating from a special protection mushroom (now known) that Feay discovered in the depths of Amon Ros.
- The party falls into darkness, as Ost Guruth burns behind them, the last of the arcane threads burning brightly out, while the settlement is engulfed in flames.
Morning rose over Ost Guruth in uneasy stillness, the Lone-lands cloaked in a grim, pale mist. But the quiet did not last. Alarm bells rang out across the crumbling walls of the ruined fortress, the commotion drawing both settlers and strangers to the marketplace in haste. The Company of the East Road, visitors, protectors, and sometimes unwelcome meddlers, found themselves roused from sleep to the sight of Eglain militia gathering in force, steel glinting and voices sharp with tension.
A patrolman was dead… found slumped by the old well in the centre of the square. Though the body was marked with terrible wounds, there were no signs of struggle… only strange threads of silk clinging to the stone and whispering of unnatural causes. The air grew thick with fear and accusation.
Captain Rolan, weathered and steady, leader of the militia, tried to hold order. But Sergeant Garren was less forgiving. He saw only one truth: that the outsiders had likely brought trouble to Ost Guruth, and now someone had to pay for it.
Suspicion fell quickly on the Company. The Company pushed back. Tivlyn Locksley, bold and fierce, reminded the guards they had been watched constantly since their arrival. A sentiment echoes by both elves Tayschren and Meltharian too. Her name was soon drawn into suspicion when a satchel marked with the letter 'T' was discovered at the scene of the death.
Wittkun, blunt as a forge hammer, spoke in riddles and parables, likening the militia to a dwarf searching for a lost coin only where the light shines. The real cause of the death, he warned, lay in the shadows.
But their other dwarf companion, Vratni, was nowhere to be seen. Witnesses, including a Bree-lander merchant and a tanner, confirmed the satchel had been purchased by a dwarf matching Vratni’s description however. Yet Tivlyn swore she’d never laid eyes on it before. Arguments rose; tensions flared.
Captain Rolan sought answers, but his gruff sergeant Garren demanded arrests. Tivlyn defended her friends fiercely, while Wittkun countered the Eglain’s rigid logic with a parable about lamp light and blindness.
It was Meltharian who brought calm. Quiet and deliberate, she turned to an old man among the townsfolk, asking about possible tunnels and hidden ways… Something in the way she asked perhaps was just enough to get the old man to be open…. he whispered of ancient tunnels beneath Ost Guruth indeed… long sealed and forgotten. He spoke of runes left by old builders, signs to guide or to warn, scattered still across the marketplace for those who knew how to see.
With this clue, the party examined parchments pulled from the satchel, rubbings of Elven runes from across the marketplace it turned out… twisted with defacement and other strange scratches. The elves could tell that the runes spelled a name: HARLOEG. But there was more than a name in the script… there was a path. A hidden code. A map encoded.
Meltharian, sharp and patient, saw it clearly. The marketplace itself held the entrance to one of these tunnels.
As the companions puzzled over the runes, Feay entered the square to assist in the search. Having stayed in the background at first to try and craft a rope, should the search inevitably delve deep into the old well occupying the centre of the marketplace.
Followed by Hopwe, her unassuming rabbit companion, Feay began to look closer at the runes on the ground and around the well.
But as Hopwe stepped onto one of the ancient stones, arcane threads revealed themselves. What had been hidden pulsed into visibility…. Great bright lines of shimmering light etched across the square, in the air and on the ground, linking rune to rune and converging, unmistakably, at the old well. The pattern unmistakable: as if it where a giant web.
Magic surged.
The townsfolk screamed. Some fled. Captain Rolan ordered the square cleared. Sergeant Garren readied his sword. The Eglain militia formed a ring around the Company as suspicion turned to fear. The order was given to evacuate the square. Time was running out for the party to solve the mystery. To find Vratni.
The runes shimmered, flickered, pulsing seemingly with proximity to the rabbit… and Feay, whether guided by instinct or the mischief of fate, pulled from her pack a fiery red and glowing mushroom….
She dropped it into the well.
The faintest of whisper on her lips, almost as if she said ‘Embrace the Chaos’…
A heartbeat passed.
Another…
Then the world broke open.
A blast of fire and stone erupted from the depths, not a mere explosion, but an arcane upheaval. The mushroom Feay had thrown, a fiery red specimen from her more volatile collection, had ignited something old and buried beneath the stones. Not just tinder and rubble, but wards and bindings... now torn apart.
The arcane web ignited, blazing into full, visible fury. Threads of magical energy lashed outward from the well like burning whips, searing the air, striking townsfolk and stone alike. Screams rang out as the very ground cracked wide, a massive detonation tearing through the heart of the marketplace. The structure of Ost Guruth, already worn and weary, could not stand against it.
Most of the Company, caught at the epicentre, stood no chance of escaping the blast. But even as flame and debris surged upward, a second light shimmered from Feay’s pack…. soft and strange, not like fire, but like misted moonlight.
The rare mushroom taken from the depths of Amon Ros, the one they had barely understood, now pulsed with strange, arcane warmth. A protective aura unfurled from it, enveloping the party in a flickering veil just as they were swept from their feet.
They were not swallowed by a tunnel or pulled into the abyss.
They were blasted into the air and cast down again, gently, softly… into the blackened earth as the world exploded around them.
And when the smoke began to clear…
When the fire hissed down to embers…
They found themselves not in a tunnel, but in the centre of a great crater, newly born in the heart of Ost Guruth.
The ancient stones of the market had been shattered, their hidden enchantments unleashed in a wave of ruin. Buildings lay broken, stalls reduced to ash, and the well, once a quiet relic, was now a ragged wound in the land. All around, Eglain militia struggled to rise, townsfolk screamed, and smoke coiled skyward into the lightening sky.
The devastation was immense.
A hidden path to Harloeg… had been forced open.
And the silence that should have followed… was instead filled with screams, shouts, and the crackle of fire.
The world above had not ended.
But it had changed.
And below the smoke, amid shattered stone and scorched earth, the Company began to rise.
Image created by AI
The story continues in the chronicle: "Where Webs Whisper"...
