Why does the dungeon always collapse

lightofcania

He'd meant to quit this whole 'adventuring' business, hadn't he. Messy, confusing, dirty business, filled with far too many bad smells and far too little comfortable places to sleep. If he'd ever had any fantasies for the profession, they have long since been burned away. He wants peace, damn it, is that so hard? It shouldn't be. Why doesn't the world respect his decisions? Veron Chandler, completely ordinary citizen of Neverwinter, no reason at all for anyone to look twice at him; that was precisely what the plan had been.

The last time he'd tried this, the plan had been to be 'Veron Chandler, completely ordinary citizen of Waterdeep,' and look how that went. Conned into going after some idiots that didn't understand the concept of 'waiting,' conscripted to join a war in a place so foreign he didn't feel safe to drink at the local tavern, condemned to the eighth level of Hell itself as someone else's patsy. Hadn't that been fun. He had thought he'd learned his lesson about doing nice things for nice people; sure, everyone thanks you, but no one's there for you when you later have reoccurring nightmares of dracoliches. It's safe to say that he's done his time in the world saving business, he can let the world handle itself for a little while.

Except here he is again, investigating weird shit because a nice person asked him to. Did he say, 'Go ask someone else'? Or perhaps, 'Sorry, I can't help you,' or even, 'Why don't you just move somewhere safer instead of parking near the haunted catacombs of your ancestors'? He did not. He did not say any of those things. Instead he said, 'I'll give it a look,' and now here he is, tromping his way to some haunted catacombs, like he has any business poking at the dead. Ugh. His bleeding heart is going to be the death of him, one day. Possibly today. It could always be today.

"If I meet another kid," he mutters to himself as he stomps through the underbrush, swatting at a mosquito on his neck, "that looks up at me with big earnest eyes and says, 'I want to be an adventurer like you when I grow up!' I am going to tell him the story about the mindflayers." This is a lie. He would never tell any child any stories about mindflayers. He doesn't want to give kids nightmares. But saying this sort of thing makes him feel better, and there's no one here to hear him, so he doesn't feel bad about it.

Stomp, stomp, stomp - oh look, weird magic bullshit, he's so surprised. Guarded by skeletons, how novel. He neither is surprised, nor finds it novel. He decides that he doesn't want to deal with these reanimated cadavers any longer than he has to. He should just start off by shadowstepping to the far skeleton archer, then tripping up the warrior as it runs... but what if someone actually has a legitimate reason to have these corpses animated? He doesn't know the local culture, it could be a thing. Use the ethically sourced dead to work in the fields for the living, or something. There is nothing stopping a necromancer from being good, in theory. Not that he's met one.

Oh blessed Tymora he's going to reveal himself and attempt to communicate out of principle, isn't he. Damn it. That's going to get him killed, too.

"Excuse me!" he calls. "Is there a spellcaster or restless ghost that maybe wants to explain what's going on?"

"Ah!" says an echoing voice through the trees. "An intruder! More materials for my experiments! Slay him, my minions!"

Veron indulges in a sigh. Yeah, that was what he was afraid it would be. This is what happens when you give people the benefit of the doubt. People trying to kill you.

The skeletons are a breeze, the later zombies a cakewalk, and the horrific sewn together monstrosity, ten feet tall and no doubt a treasured favorite of the necromancer, a brief distraction. Very brief.

"So is it the standard 'the fools cast me out and I'll show them all' backstory, or...?" says Veron, when he has the necromancer cornered.

"You think you've won! But I'll show you, you won't be so smart then, will you, think you can kill me -"

"Listen, mate. I don't want to kill you. I wanted to say hello. What's your story, what got you to run off to the woods to play with dead things -"

"Insufferable fool! I'll show you -" the necromancer raises his hand to point a finger at Veron.

The world turns a familiar grey as Veron slides into the in-between of Toril and the Plane of Shadow. The necromancer freezes, his hand nearly extended. Time's not actually frozen, per se, Veron's just moving and perceiving the world fast enough that everything looks still. He can't keep this up forever, not if he wants to avoid getting shunted unpleasantly to the Plane of Shadow, but he can keep it up long enough to slip behind the necromancer before his perception of time rights itself and the world's color returns.

His knife, quite casually, is at the necromancer's throat.

"Pass. Listen, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but you're making it real hard."

The necromancer splutters, and his spell fizzles harmlessly. "W-what?! What, you - you -"

"Yeah. Me. Say one complete sentence that isn't evil, please, I'm begging you here."

"You'll get no simpering from me, fool!!"

Well. Lost cause, he's wasted more than enough effort on this waste of a person. It's obvious he's not going to change his mind, or stop sewing corpses together, and it's obvious he'll graduate to kidnapping people and experimenting on them soon. Can't just leave him alone, and it's not like he has some place to hold him. The Plane of Shadow, maybe, but he's not putting anyone there if he can at all help it. He has a brief debate over if he can get this guy to some place that'll try to reform him, decides that any place that could hold a wizard wouldn't make them very inclined to reform, and promptly slits the guy's throat.

"What a waste," he sighs, at the corpse.

And then, in typical adventurer tradition, he immediately begins raiding the necromancer's stuff.

Halfway through that, as he's sorting through the potion rack, there's a cracking sound from behind him. He whirls around just in time to see the final shards of a crystal ball fall to the ground. He swears just in time to properly express his dismay at the glowing and buildup to exploding that is happening around the enchanted glass shards. On instinct, he shifts to the in-between, planning to dash to the exit before he can get caught in whatever bizarre blast is no doubt about to occur.

Veron Chandler is very fast, but he shifted as the explosion began, not before. It is a very rapid explosion, once it gets going. He is not quite fast enough to escape it.

He starts going through his checklist before he even opens his eyes. Anything injured, if so, how bad? Does he have his pack, where are his weapons, is anyone immediately trying to kill him, does he have anyone else he needs to look out for, does he need to move right now or die.

Not injured, not unless it's bad enough that he doesn't feel it. Pack's there, so are his weapons.

He sits up with a groan, and opens his eyes to see about anyone trying to kill him.

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lightofcania

Oh.

They did a slightly neater job of it; maybe they were in less of a hurry. Used the tents for a sort of makeshift pyre.

lightofcania

Yes, because cleaning up after your massacres somehow makes it so much better.

... That was unfair. He doesn't mean that. Respect for the dead is better than nothing, but ultimately what matters is respect for the living. He's feeling upset and helpless and like he didn't do enough soon enough, like this is somehow his fault, for not jumping to the correct conclusions fast enough. For not immediately knowing the answer to what sounds like a twisted situation. For verifying before doing anything rash or pushing for one side over another.

He turns around and finds a place to sit, far away from the massacred camp. Clearly, he needs to collect his thoughts. This is perhaps not the only reason he keeps a journal, but it's certainly one of the reasons. It had been his teacher's idea to start one, as a way for Veron to regularly practice writing. Another reason to thank Drogan, he guesses. First for practically raising him, educating a petty thief on the street when it would have been easy to toss him to the guards. Then for sacrificing himself to save Veron's life. Now, for having given him at least one coping mechanism to deal with things no one should rightly have to deal with. He quietly worships Tymora, Lady Luck, for good reason. He was very lucky.

'Lucky' isn't what he feels right now. Angry, that he wasn't able to stop this. Horrified, that slaughter is conducted so casually. Sick, because he should feel more than he does, should scream or cry or swear vengeance upon the world. Is he broken? He might be broken. He wouldn't know where it happened. Cania, when he had to slaughter his way through the Blood Wars on the ghost of a chance that he'd be able to get out of Hell. The Underdark, where he helped lead an army against the Val'Sharess's forces, a merciless shadow war that he was driven to take part in by a geas forced upon him, and loyalty to a cause that was all his own. The Undermountain, where his dreams of being able to walk away from this kind of bloodshed were dashed by a fucking wizard. The Plane of Shadow, where he was scared and alone and unable to get home, trapped in a foreign plane that was changing him into something else and surrounded by shadows that wanted him dead. The list goes on. It could be any of them. It could be all of them.

Maybe Tymora knows, but he doesn't. He writes his confused and contradictory feelings into his book. For a few minutes, he stares at the words on the page, until everything he feels seems almost far away. Self contained. Simple. Then, when he's quite done, he rips the pages out and sets them on fire. He watches them shrivel away to alchemist's fire, and wonders if he wishes his own feelings would shrivel away, too. No, he doesn't. They suck, but they're his.

"I'm sorry," he says to the ashes. "I'm doing my best."

That's really all he can say, to the dead. He stands, takes a deep breath, and then goes looking for another set of orcs to talk to.

He runs into three survivors after a few hours of searching. Kids. They're hiding, but not well, and when they see him they tentatively do not run away.

lightofcania

He sits, searching through his pack for something for them to eat.

"Hello," he says, in badly accented orcish-or-whatever-it's-called. He offers the food.

Oldest one comes cautiously out, takes it. "Did you -" unfamiliar word that might mean 'tell' or 'warn' or 'bring' - "the Elves?"

lightofcania

He shakes his head.

"Elves" long angry string of unfamiliar words.

lightofcania

"It seems like they are not solving things in the way they should be solved, yeah," he says, in Common. For lack of the proper vocabulary.

She starts crying.

lightofcania

Ah, Hells.

He opens his arms in an offer of a hug.

Hug. Cling.

The other kids creep out of the undergrowth and take some food also.

lightofcania

Hug.

There's enough food for three kids here. Maybe they're really tough problems to solve and under magical compulsion to do terrible things, but they should not therefore starve in the woods.

They hang out and periodically quietly cry and eat the food and then watch him for direction.

lightofcania

He has approximately no idea what to do with these children. Maybe he could find some orcs to drop them off with, but then they're just under the Elven chopping block again. Then they're potentially still being controlled by a god whose level of evil is still waiting on proper verification.

After some consideration, mostly done while they're crying, he asks in his broken orcish-or-whatever, "Why, live -" and then he points in the direction of their camp. "Elves," he adds, as explanation. Clearly they should not be near Elves.

The oldest girl giggles weakly, points in most directions. "Elves. Elves. Elves." And then, pausing thoughtfully, "Angband." And then, between Angband and them, "Elves."

lightofcania

He nods, thoughtfully. He - doesn't think he wants to go near the evil god just yet, that sounds like a bad plan, so taking them to Angband is a little bit difficult to do. And he's not going to point them in Angband's direction and send them on their way.

"I can't," he mimes walking with his fingers, "Angband. Can," he points at the children, repeats the mimed finger walking, "no-Elves."

"Even Elves can go to Angband if they want. They don't because they're horrible but they could, we'd let them in. We take them there if we capture any."

lightofcania

Yeah, he caught about a fourth of that. If he does his fractions very generously.

He points at the child, then holds up the finger he used for pointing to communicate location. He holds up his other hand's index finger. "Angband," he says, wiggling it demonstrably.

Then he moves his second hand to point at the space between them. "Elves."

He could certainly get past them all on his own, but with three children, the prospect is much more dicey. Not to mention, god that may or may not be evil. Not delivering children to him until that is more certain, thanks.

Kid nods. Yep, there are Elves between them and Angband.

lightofcania

"Elves," he points at his eyes, then points at the kids, then shakes his head. "Can't. Elves -" he motions camp-ward.

"They'll find us? Yes. And kill us. Because they're Elves and Elves are terrible."

lightofcania

... He's going to need to draw this in order to communicate it.

He gets his journal, and opens it to the page with the elf/orc/human drawings. He adds another - this one taller, the stick figure given a thinner head and colored completely black but for the eyes.

"Vassrith," he says, pointing at the drawing, which is of course the name the shadow monsters call themselves in Sssaktsth. Mercifully slightly more pronounceable than most of the rest of their language.

"Vassrith," they repeat.

lightofcania