DM Tensions between Kriv and Chandan cool to a nice simmer by the time that the quintet start organizing for their departure. Jaliera did her best to keep the tensions from escallating, and had some success, but knew that the flames could reignite at any moment if the drunk monk did something that would set off Kriv.
Davroar's messenger had probably arrived at it's destination and delivered a message by now. At the very least Reidoth, the druid of Thundertree, would be expecting them and if so inclined, might have information for them when they get there. And Kalista was content to watch the group dynamics. It seemed like theater to the pretty tiefling. It didn't always make sense, but until it derailed them from the objective, she did not take sides.
They set out east on the Triboar Trail early in the day. They were rested and were eager to make good time. It would take them more than two full days to arrive at their destination. They would be sleeping outdoors for two nights. If they made good time they would arrive early on the third day. It was understood that the Triboar Trail was the safest path to their destination but safe is a relative term. Encounters with hungry beasts, greedy bandits and vicious monsters were common occurances. They needed to set up a night watch to keep a look out for danger and an outdoor marching order to insure that they were not vulnerable.
As far as the Dragonborn was concerned, the situation had not changed one iota, save for Jaliera getting the vagrant to concede asking first the next time he felt like murdering surrendered prisoners. As before, he wanted Chandan taken to task for that, but as before, that was entirely secondary to securing Gundren Rockseeker. His personal desires and inclinations in that regard remained on hold until that objective was met or no longer possible.
This did not mean that relations between the noble scion and the mendicant monk were going to be anything other than icy, at least as far as the law-adhering Dragonborn went.
"I suggest for our marching order two abreast, with myself and Jaliera in the van to make best use of her keen eyes and my defensive capabilities, a second rank of Despair and Davroar, with Chandan acting as rearguard.
I recommend three watches: Jaliera's owl and Kallista would be best in the darkness, so watches same as the marching order, myself and Jaliera from twilight, Kallista and Davroar over the dark of the night, and Chandan as the sky brightens. Any objections?"
She listens and nods, a wry half-smile crossing her face. While it is clear Kriv still professes distaste for Chandan, it would seem, perhaps unconsciously, he trusts the Monk enough to let him watch over him while he sleeps.
"Seems fine to me, though it might be good to have Jaliera's new friend take a wider view during the dark of night? Perhaps flying out and above to give warning?"
She looks at Jaliera. "If she can wake you while you sleep it'd give us another pair of eyes in the darkness."
Davroar thinks that as long as each rank in the marching order keeps the other in sight then they shouldn't run into any issues with communication if they need to be quiet.
Listening to Kallista's suggestion he nods in agreement and adds, "If a barn owl can hear a mouse moving through grass, I'd think anything larger will be quite easily detected by Whisper."
Breathing deeply of the smells of morning, he's glad to be away from the town. Ever since he left his mountain Chandan has been a wanderer, and before that a hermit. Neither of which has suited him for town-life.
With the reassuring weight of his new and full wineskin slung across his shoulders, he is in a fine mood and hums quietly to himself as he brings up the rear.
"A good plan!" Agrees Chandan, listening to Kriv and also nods approvingly at Kallista and Davroar's opinions.
"I had already thought to have her keep a watch-over during the dark hours as she will sleep during the day I think. I will try to communicate those ideas."
All this is very new to her and she still has a lot to explore with Whisper. She is very keen though to have her familiar contribute and be accepted by the group.
As to marching order and watches, she hears the plan with mixed feelings. She would much rather be with Davroar but then maybe he might be a distraction? Kriv is at least a strong fighter and likely to be good protection. It could be worse she supposes.
He nodded as the party came into full accord, and took up his position.
"Then we are all agreed. Let us continue."
When he had the opportunity, he quietly spake to Jaliera, making sure not to be audible beyond her,
"Jaliera, there is something which occurred to me last night, which I feel beholden to share with you in strict confidence. You know full well my personal inclination towards Chandan, and I am grateful for you taking up a position as a neutral arbiter to ensure that we collectively stay on-mission. I am aware of my own biases, and I wish to take them out of the equation in this matter, as it may well have an impact on the mission if I am right, and upon group cohesion if I am wrong and falsely accuse. So, I put this matter before you to judge."
He paused, gathering himself, and continued,
"So much of my perspective was outraged at Chandan murdering the surrendered, that to my discredit, I forgot one very salient point which throws the whole matter into a different light: That wasn't the first surrender Chandan was involved in."
He gave her a slightly chagrined expression at acknowledging his fault, and carried on,
"You remember in the goblin caves, when we'd just gone up the chimney to do battle with the bugbear in charge? Chandan ran off, and when next we saw him, he was naked amongst the goblins. He later claimed that he had surrendered to them. He trusted the vermin to let him live when he did so, forsaking not just his weapons but his raiment. He knows full well what it means to surrender, yet despite that knowledge, he still did what he did. This is what I am struggling to reconcile: Does that seem like a discrepancy to you, or are my personal biases seeing suspicious activity where there is a natural, normal explanation?"
She is totally taken aback when Kriv speaks to her suggesting that he fully values her opinion. She has never been in that position before. Her family upbringing, shortened as it was with the death of her parents, had been happy and non confrontational. Her enforced time with the guild had not been a happy one and it was clear that her opinion had no value whatsoever. Her mentor, who had also been her rescuer, treated her well but as a child or at best a junior underling. Has she changed that much?
She thinks things through before giving her opinion, wanted to give Kriv her full consideration and to show fairness and truth in her opinion.
"Each of us has bias, likes, dislikes and patterns of behaviour based on our own life experiences. We cannot help that. It is what makes us how we are. From what I have observed Chandan has not been used to people and society. Consequently he cannot make the right life choices easily. However when he surrendered, I believe his intentions were to provide a distraction and to make it safer for us. He is unconventional but not bad, I think. He probably needs experience and guidance to help him to a better understanding."
She looks at Kriv with a smile, hoping that he might see that kindly guiding Chandan might be a good option.
He gave every appearance of weighing up and mulling over her words, before, with all due solemnity, shaking his head.
"Experience and guidance, two of the finest paths to education, yet there is a flaw in that line of thinking. With age comes surety, solidity, the ossification of ideas, the consolidation of habit. Chandan's maturity in years has locked in his immaturity of spirit: He is no willing child or callow youth for whom learning remains second nature. We could no more help him to a better understanding than we could convince him to abstain from drinking, and for much the same reason. Do you see the logic in this?"
"I accept the logic but I don't think it fully applies in Chandan's case. He may be mature in years but he is a child in experience of the world."
She almost adds 'a bit like me'.
"He has already changed his behaviour by leaving his solitary existence, proving that he can adapt, and forming a team with us, again a change, but he doesn't yet fully understand what that means. I believe he is trying and we need to encourage that."
He mulled over her words, but as yet seemed unconvinced.
"It seems to me, and do not take this as a personal slight, that something of your own bias shows when you think of him in such terms. How much of that 'willingness to change' is what you dearly hope is true, rather than what we have seen to be real?"
He allowed a moment of consideration before continuing,
"The actual evidence provides a continuous pattern, from the moment we first met him through to last night's attempted intervention. He hears, but he does not listen. He sees, but he does not observe. When in the goblin's cave we were flooded out once, we tried again, and narrowly avoided being flooded out again. His response was to do the exact same thing a third time, and after the rest of the group had committed to going a different route, he ran off that way by himself, necessitating his surrender and denying his assets to the group at our moment of greatest need. Davroar and Kallista repeated and affirmed the need for everyone to stick together, and still he ran off.
"If you ask Chandan to do something, he will do whatever the hells he wants. He defaults to aggression, to running blindly forward, to lashing out at those he sees as enemies. He has divided our forces, repeatedly bitten off more than he can chew and needed rescuing, betrayed promises we have given as a group. He interfered with gathering information in the Tavern, and defaults to drinking where drink is available, even when being called on his excessive drinking. He just does not care what others say or do or think, consistently and constantly, time and again. There is very little evidence to the contrary, 'tagging along' doesn't quite cut it as a counterargument. Do you agree that this is the behavior he has exhibited repeatedly? Is this characterization inaccurate?"
She is beginning to suspect that maybe Kriv has an ulterior motive here and is trying to get her endorsement in some way, maybe towards something he has planned?
"I accept I may well have a bias but is that not true of yourself too? All the incidents you have named are the ones to support your viewpoint and are interpreted in the worst light. I accept that he can be haphazard but I don't think he is as much of a liability as you think. He has fought with us, taken risks, assisted in our efforts. AS to whether he can change surely remains to be seen."
"I would much rather come to a consensus: I see very little merit in him and his actions from my perspective, but Gundren did, and that to me is crucial. What I'm looking for, what I want to see, is that which I am not seeing: How those incidents can be interpreted in a better light. How running off when asked repeatedly not to, how murdering surrendered prisoners, how drinking himself into a stupor aids our cause. I accept I see him in the worst light, I ask you to show me the best light."
"We do need, as you have steadfastly highlighted, to work together. I can hold back my disgust, restrain myself from responding to his tomfoolery and drunken camaraderie, stay my hand from seeking immediate justice. But barely tolerating him, committing effort to merely coexisting at best, is not conducive to effective team performance. So, show me. Tell me. Not in vague generalities like 'He joined the group' or 'He fought against those hostile to us', especially since wandering off to do his own thing, killing those no longer hostile and surrendering are part of the problem."
"You have the courage of your convictions, the intelligence to give them voice and a strong commitment to party unity. Please, use those gifts, and be his advocate."
Phandelin lies in the area of the north called "the Triboar Trail", "Triboar Cutoff" or "the Cony Gap". It's a stretch of foothills and rolling, sparsely wooded plains that extends between the Sword Mountains to the south and Neverwinter Wood to the north.
Davroar gets excited over the few days when he is able to identify several rare shrubs species along the trail but otherwise the journey is uneventful until the final night before they reach their destination.
During Kalista and Davroar's watch, Jaliera jumps awake suddenly. Whisper, her owl, noticed something dangerous lurking nearby.
I'll need initiative rolls. It's dark. If you cannot see in the dark? Consider what you are doing for light. Without it you are effectively blind.
While occasionally poking at the small campfire with a short piece of wood, he finds it difficult to make small talk with Kallista and instead is content to watch the constellations slowly move across the sky while enjoying natures tranquility at night. He does have a unlit torch close to hand if needed, so when Jaliera suddenly sits up from her sleep, he reaches for it and quietly asks, "Something wrong, Jaliera?"
He'd spent most of his life alone on a mountain, performing the sky burial rites in the province and learning the Way of the Five Elemental Fists from giants and the elements themselves.
Chandan had dealt with the dead every day, dealt with mourners, he knew their stories and their stories of their homes, their villages dating back generations.
But he had never visited them. Wearing his saffron monk's scarf and a loincloth, Chandan picked his way into the desolate ruin of the village at sat on the northern slope of his mountain.
Tendrils of smoke drifted from the broken doorways of crude dwellings, where cooking pots had burned out unattended. Silence hung over the place like a pall.
The dead littered the streets in familial clusters, bloodied and staining the dirt beneath them. They'd been slain where they stood, speared or put to the sword. The entire village.
Chandan raised his gaze, eying the vultures circling overhead as if they sought the monk's blessing to feed. Perhaps it was just habit.
"Funerals are for the living. There are none here." He said to them, "You need not wait on ceremony, they are yours now."
The monk worked quickly, checking each body for life signs. He was struck by how the attackers had spared no-one, not the toothless crones older than Chandan, not the youngest children, who had died still holding their toys.
As Chandan searched, he realised village had not been razed or pillaged. The attackers hadn't paraded around or wasted time, they hadn't lingered after the massacre. It was pure, bloody murder, not behaviour like any raiders Chandan had ever heard of.
He crouched next to a pile of horse dung, very distinctive compared to other animals. Chandan knew that none of these humble villagers owned anything as expensive as a horse, yet the droppings were everywhere. Riders. Which meant they'd taken the road, in and out.
A weak, wailing cry. The building nearest. Chandan froze, then darted into action, leaping over a handcart in the street and through an open window into the room beyond.
It was dingy inside, hazy, he rushed over to a cradle by the heart. Empty. Again the cry, he looked down, confused. A baby lay on the heartstones, only weeks old. It bled from a terrible gash in its face and its little arm was broken. It had to be the yoghurt-makers baby.
The attackers had snatched it from its cradle and dashed it against the hearth. Knocked unconscious and gravely injured, the baby had nevertheless survived, but not for long if the old monk couldn't treat its wounds.
Chandan carefully swaddled the infant in his saffron scarf and gathered what herbs and spices he could from the yoghurt-maker's stocks.
A shadow fell across the doorway and the monk turned, ready to fight. But it was the mother, nine-tenths dead, she staggered forward to be caught by the monk in one arm, as he held her baby in the other.
The mother had been dealt a fatal blow, ran through by a thick blade. Yet somehow, upon hearing her child's cries she had dragged herself from the brink of death, from where she'd fallen in the street, back home.
She was pale, only a single strand of life left in her, her lips trembling, tears welling in her eyes in anguish. She was beyond pain, but unimaginable sadness gripped her as she watched her baby.
"S-soldiers..." she said shakily, fixing her gaze on Chandan, "Nadu's soldiers. S-said we had... offended his family name."
The greybearded monk sucked in a breath, suddenly understanding. Nadu was governor of the province, appointed by the suzerain. Nadu's nephew was a miscreant, employed as a census-taker. Last Spring, he and his thugs had raped the village baker when he'd refused give his daughter to them, but the villagers had reacted in outrage and mobbed the men. After much deliberation, the village elders decided to hand the captives over to government inspectors, showing the utmost discretion, and so it was that Nadu's nephew was taken away one night, never to be seen of again.
Yet it was a secret that the Governor would not allow to be left loose in the wild, it was obvious to Chandan now. The mother's eyelids fluttered and she sank in the monk's arms, whispering to him as she reached out to touch the infant's cheek.
"Save... p-please save, save my child---"
They were her last words on Toril. Chandan stayed still while her spirit passed, then laid her gently down. A chill wind blew in through the doorway. It was autumn and winter would soon settle on the lands.
He tended to the baby as best he could, using the healing lore he'd acquired in the monkhood. Then Chandan dressed himself in thick homespun robes taken from the washing line, and set out onto the road. The baby was snug, wrapped in a sling against his chest. Despite the wind, Chandan was warm. Something burned in his chest, next to where the orphaned infant slept. He felt it was anger.
And as always, when he feels it -- that sudden fire in the veins, like magma -- Chandan stirs from his dreams.
She'd attempted to engage Davroar in conversation, flirting with him overtly with little success. After a while, she sighs and stares out into the dark, making sure to keep her back to the fire to not ruin her Darkvision.
When Jaliera suddenly sits up, she stands and grips her Staff more tightly, staring out into the surrounding darkness and listening closely. She moves further from the fire.
Kallista Initiative Zeim rolled d20+2 and got 17 (Note - Kallista has Darkvision of 60')
She warns her companions quickly, grabbing her bow and nocking an arrow. As she readies her bow, she kicks Kriv in the side as he is yet to stir. All the while she is looking around for a target, alert for anything more Whisper can tell her.
His eyes snapped open and he looked sharply up at Jaliera, but then took in her weapon, and glanced around at the others even as he reached for his maul. Quietly, he asked,
While Kallista, even with her darkvision, cannot determine where and what the danger is, Jaliera can see through Whisper's eyes. She did not see what Whisper saw that woke her up, but she knows that the owl has fixed it's sights on the trail what you would call south west of where you are on the tactical map - which, btw, I used a random map generator to create - not bad!. The young woman cannot make out the form, which is trying to be stealthy, very well. Still, she can tell it's a four-legged animal. While the owl noticed one, there may be more than one animal sneaking up through the woods.
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