Move 254:  More Rest and Recovery

Troll Caverns--Early, Day 17

After relocating to the pool room, Renn used his healing boons on his injured companions.  Olaf set a ward at the mouth of the cavern.  Everyone settled in for another day of staring at rock walls while waiting for their bodies to heal.  Each fight with the trolls left them feeling a little worse.  Their physical wounds were healed with divine power and time, but the stress of being repeatedly injured, often nearly fatally, and the constant anxiousness of waiting for trolls to attack them or to attack trolls themselves was taking a toll.

Time passed slowly, but as always, it did pass.  Arachne's invisibility spell wore off at some point.  Everyone got plenty of sleep since nothing came in to disturb them.  Through the care of the priests and Arachne, almost everyone was feeling much better by the time they had rested enough for the casters to regain their spells.

Aloysius gathered up his equipment after studying his spell book.  "Let's end this," he said anxiously.  "Stargazer can take little more of this place."

He glanced around nervously as he spoke.

Echo nodded.  She asked Arachne, "Do you want to be invisible again?
I've got a spell for you and one for me," she grinned.

Arachne's eyes opened in surprise.  "Oh, I'm --?"  She looked down at herself, then smoothed her dress automatically.  "With your eyes closed, you really don't know if you can be seen or not," she admitted.  "It somehow doesn't seem quite so important, either," she grinned.  "Neither does where you are, exactly," she mused.  "Anyway -- yes.  I manage to get beaten up much less if I show up for these troll fights invisible.  I mean, _I_ like it that way, and if no-one else begrudges me the spell, then I'd just as soon continue.  Uh, how about if I clean up some more abused tissues and then you go ahead?  I could work on you and then you could work on me."

Jana spent the day and a goodly part of the night brooding.  Brooding even worse than she usually did.  Come morning, she smiled at Arachne and said, "Thanks, I feel, well, I feel like shit, but I don't think I'm hurt anymore."  When everyone looked ready to go she said, "Okay.  I'm about sick of these droolly-ass trolls.  Let's go see if there're any left and get this over with.  Damn, I hate this place."

Rennirolas spent part of the "evening" before his watch with his surcoat in hand in an attempt to repair what tears he could, and remove what stains of blood, dirt and wear were possible.  "This shall require more effort than seems appropriate, seeing as on the morrow it's condition will deteriorate once more," he grinned and chuckled.  As the so called dinner was eaten, Renn retrieved his flute from it's case in his backpack and softly played a few songs.

As fidgety as he had been lately, Daelen quickly relaxed at the sound of the music and soon added his snoring to the sound of the flute.

When he rose from his reverie and performed his daily prayers, he seemed more pensive than usual.  "Yes, yes," Renn said with a nod as Jana voiced her displeasure, "let us be done with them."

With a wide yawn, Daelen started pulling on his armor. "There can't be all that many left, it should be fairly cut-and-dry from now on

"Now, let's not get too overconfident or we'll be the ones getting CUT and our DRY skeletons will join the others in that hole." Blacky laughed "But, I agree let's go finish them off."

Aloysius looked at Blacky blankly, but said nothing.

"Wow," a gnome's small voice murmured.  "Our feelings about this work are running the whole gamut from jaded to bleak...

"I think it might help to remember who-all this project is helping.
There's that clan of grim gnomes and that mob of stinking troglodytes and ...  um ...

"All right, maybe we have to imagine that there's other more deserving residents of this space who've also been preyed upon by the trolls."  Arachne's voice sighed in the gloom.  "Granted, that's a pretty hard-working imagination."

Azrun looked to Aloysius, "Aloysius, perhaps since we're going into a known hostile situation, it would be best to arm myself with hostile magics and web spells? What do you think?"

The mage had been staring off into the darkness of the tunnel.  "Aye," he said vacantly.  Refocusing on Azrun, he added, "'tis what Stargazer hat done as well.  I've some magic missiles and a fire spell, a web, a mirror image, and a couple of others that will likely not work at all."

He shrugged meekly.  "Hopefully we shall be done with this today."

Olaf said, "I am somewhat concerned. I am still having trouble conecting with my god." Olaf looked concerned, "Normally, I would chalk this up to some failure on my part. The connection occurs, it is just slower then usual, as if Tyr were angry with me. But I have searched my soul and I am confident I have had no recent transgressions. I fear there is something about these caverns which inhibits my prayers, that spreads a malaise of some sort."

Olaf turned to Renn, "Are you have trouble connecting to Correlon?"

Rennirolas looked surprised before a worried smile crept across his face.  "Indeed Olaf," the pale moon elf nodded, "I was thinking on that problem throughout our preparations this morning.  While my faith is strong, this blasted ever dark has made me lose complete sense of time," Renn sighed. "My lord's power is symbolized by the crecent moon, the one evening of the month I *must* celebrate Corellon's might.  Perhaps I have missed the moon, missed the opportunity to sing the praises of my lord.

"But, as you sense a distance to Tyr as I do to Corellon, perhaps I have not missed my holy day.  While a relief, that also begs the question as to why we both have angered our gods," Renn said with an elvish shrug.

"You need to know the phase the moon's at?" Arachne's voice sounded surprised.  "I can tell you that.  It's ... um ..."

There was a pause, before the gnome's voice said, very softly, "Oops."
There was another pause.  "Um," the gnome then whispered, "just how thin a crescent are we talking about?"

"It isn't a sense of time I have," Arachne's voice admitted.  "It's the physical manifestation of an obligation that I picked up.  Cethyran Silvermoon's moonstone -- do you remember her?  Sometime when I'm visible I'll show you the stone.  It has a small moonbow on it.  She was a follower of Selune.  If I live that long and get back to the surface I was going to seek out others of her creed and tell them that she was honorably dead and give them her amulet.  In the meantime, it tells me what phase the moon is at.  I've been using it to help me keep track of tendays down here.  Anyway, the new moon has come and gone a couple of days ago.  The moon is already a fattening crescent.  I'm sorry...  I didn't know you needed to know."

"It's a fairly small sliver on Selune's face," Rennirolas replied, as he pulled on the chain holding his holy symbol. The sillvered crecent moon symbol slipped out from under the inside collar of his tabard.  "The ceremonial songs and dances are always performed three days after Selune's disappearanc," he said as he held the silvered crecent moon symbol in the palm of his hand.

"That's a wonderful sense of time you have Arachne," Renn grinned, "if that is how you've managed to trace Selune's waxing and waning."

The mage listened to the conversation and after a moment's pondering added, "Stargazer believes the date would be the third of Marpenoth, given that phase of the moon, give or take a day."

Olaf then said, "I have prepared healing spells and the spells that let me call on a flame sword, and let me throw flame. I do have one other ability." Olaf looked uncomfortable, "It allows me to share the strength of one very strong person among a large group. It has a limitted duration, of course, but the strength of the strong person is not diluted, all would share the same strength. But... well, it will only work with people who are aligned with the cause of law and order. If anyone not so aligned is a part of the ritual, it fails for all. I am sure that you are not all so inclined, but I have to mention it, if the ritual is to provide any aid. Is anyone interested in such a ritual?"

"I would be ill-suited for that," said Aloysius.  "Could our depth underground have anything to do with the connection to your lord?"

"You know, your lord is a real froo--" Arachne's voice started to say, then broke off and muttered "Bad gnome.  Really ought to keep remarks like that to myself.  Anyway...  I'd better keep away from that ritual.  Should I leave the room while you initiate people into these holy mysteries -- perform your ritual, I mean."

Olaf looked at the gnome, "You know, Arachne, I did not imply there was anything _wrong_ with those of you who have not accepted law and order." Olaf shrugged, "I am an old man, and I fight for justice. I don't expect you all to follow my beliefs, that would go against the cosmic order. There are many facets of life, and many powers, and one must honor them all, save only those who seek to destroy, and hurt, and defile."

Olaf continued, "Afterall, if one is to be truely open minded and allow people their beliefs, one must accept that people can believe in strong, fair laws as the surest form of achieving justice."

"I didn't know that I'd been arguing that this task was a particularly _just_ one," Arachne said quietly.  Her voice sounded unhappy.  "And I'd rather not think about how tasty I might seem to a troll.  Bad enough that Azrun keeps talking about that..."

"I could argue that to be truly open minded one must accept that trolls might find gnomes to be a nice snack and that what is justice for the gnomes is slaughter for the trolls." Daelen commented with a smirk. "Not to mention that sneaking around in the dark like we've been doing might make us look just a bit like assassins to even the most open minded deitie... though whatever lets us kill more trolls is fine with me."

Jana shifted uncomfortably at Olaf's question.  Finally, she said, "I'm just a sell-sword.  I mighta seen your god in a dream, sorta maybe, but like I said, I'm a sell-sword.  I'm loyal to whoever's payin' me.  Usually, anyways.  So, uhm, I don't think your god'd really like me all that much, y'know?"

"Tyr likes all who obey laws, and do no hamr to their fellows. I think Tyr would like you indeed, Jana, for I find it hard to believe you simply take pay to kill. If that were true, you would be working for the Zhentarim or the Cult of the Dragon." Olaf smiled, "But I did not offer this to judge folks, but rather to see if any would wish to take advantage of the opportunity. It is not my place to judge your hearts, after all! Do not feel bad if you do not wish to do this!"

Jana frowned dubiously at Olaf.  "Well, I'm kinda strong, so I guess you can try, if you want.  Uhm, it won't, you know, hurt or anything if it turns out I'm not really the sort Tyr likes, will it?  I mean, just because I'm doin' this," she added, waving her hand at the caverns in general, "doesn't mean I'm some sorta do-gooder or anything.  I don't want to work for people like we're fighting, but still, fighting for pay's what I do."  She winced slightly, looking sheepish.  "But s'long as it won't hurt anything if it doesn't work, you can try if you want."

"If it fails," Olaf said, "We will simply be where we are now. But we must do it when we are closer to battle, or it will be wasted. It is something we can do to increase our chances in the next battle."

"How long does it take?" Arachne's voice asked.  "And how far away do I have to get to keep from mucking it up for the rest of you?"

Echo said, "That sounds like a good idea."  She waited for Arachne to finish what she needed to do before casting invisibility on her.

Echo shook her head when Olaf talked about his spell.  "That's not the kind of thing for me," she said quietly.

"The participents have to touch. It only takes a moment, and the strength will last for upto ten minutes." Olaf answered.

"I must exempt myself from your prayer Olaf," Renn smiled.  "While I can certainly understand and appreciate a desire for order, my lord's beliefs are based on individuality..and a sense...of. Phaugh, what is the word in commonspeak I look for," Renn frowned.  "Corellon's wishes, while for the good, sometimes must work outside the realm of law.  Not a good explanation, but the best translation of an elvish term I can think of," he laughed.

Arachne did some more healing before the group left the cavern with the pool.  She was able to restore Blacky and Daelen to full physical health.

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