Howdy,
The ogres were defeated and Fraud resisting one's last coughing out of the Purple Sonnet (by now you've recognized these ogres to be “The Strangers” who had been an elusive mystery around New Arv for some time). Bog slid down the cleft, eventually followed by Fraud. The cleft-slide led down 16m into a sizeable natural cavern, its floor thick with goopy, bubbling, salt-encrusted mud and its air heady with an earthy saline aroma. Pools of dirty water spot the surface of the mud, fed by dripping water from crystalline stalactites and faintly foaming in a few spots. A great purplish elongate thing poked its head out of mud as mud sloughws off, revealing many more wriggling pink forms atop its segmented body and spoke in Seshnegi: “Unfamiliar tastes flow into my home, causing my children to wriggle in discomfort. Of late the tastes were unwelcome. Yet this new taste is kinder. The waters are again as they were. What is it, children? It might be good to eat?”
Bog addressed it deferentially and learned that it was the Mud Eel (affinity with Water + Earth runes as per the fountain above), formally callled Sarvon: an amphibian “Good Earth” being and former river god. It got stuck here since its river drained in the Shattering; and has greatly weakened. Fraud learned of it and joined the conversation. “Sarvon is my name, the Mud Eel to some, but few know either now, save my masked allies from the City of Sog. I have gifted you with that knowledge in hopes that broader knowledge might return my river to the world above one day. Carry forth, too, to those ears that would do it justice, that I was born to Deep Mother of the Dripping Pool from union with Granno the hero, as a new river born into the Second Age but short-lived in its glory before the fall of my port city Sarvonessis and the doom of the Shattering. Mayhaps my brother the Long Toad you have seen hereabouts?” –Fraud inferred that maybe this being could be freed to return its river if the right heroquest were done.
Fraud introduced himself as the new Froalar and it responded “Froalar? Why yes I know of that ancient king, friend to my predecessors. We sought his power in the Age I swam the surface world, but never found it although we tasted it here in our land. All of us of the land and where the waters meet land would owe him obeisance if he could rise again.”
You had a nice chat with this strange creature, finding that there was little it wanted except for those deserving of trust to learn of its existence, and then you departed down the forked tunnel into the other hall, which Bog had seen before but didn't find interesting. You did find it interesting though! This hall mimicked the statuary hall: again a 7m high and 12m wide, and 24m long chamber, but lacking any statuary on the floors. Instead, the walls were decorated with elaborate bas-relief stone depictions of Waertagi history (more = https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Waertagi): pictures of the Great Pier at Brithos, the glory days of pre-Time when the Waertagi ruled the seas, then the terrors of the Ice Age wars with the Vadeli and others, and then the tumult and battles of the First Age, ending there with images of Dragonship fleets sailing off to battle. Three hulking stony statues of winged scaly beings presided over the artwork from nooks near the ceiling at intervals, to the left and right sides of the chamber. At the back of the chamber it narrowed into another tunnel heading straight ahead, where a yawning cavern rent by a chasm was visible, and Bog warned that a giant fish-skeleton stood guard.
Miguel saw life-essences inside the six statues atop the hall and, looking more carefully at them from a distance, you identified them as giant gargoyles (specifically “Scaled Gargoyles”; of a very reptilian and even draconic variety). Bog Mindspeeched with one and managed to strike up a friendly enough dialogue. Others inspected the artwork, seeing how the Waertagi fought the Vadeli with their adept water sorceries and beasts; but also seemed to have the most success when paired with their ancient allies, the powerful Brithini. The gargoyles didn't have a lot to say but were hungry, and liked hard food. Miguel and Bog managed to strike a bargain with them that they would fly you across the distant chasm in return for some of Miguel's magic image-crystals. And so they did, crunching loudly on those gems.
Looking down, you saw the chasm was where the ground had violently split in the Shattering. At the edge of the chasm was the huge skeleton (SIZ 50ish) of some robust thing that was like a walking fish, with stocky leg-fins-this Guardian Skeleton you later learned was a dead descendant of Deep Mother, now serving to defend the beings beyond. The chasm had a sheer, jagged, moss-encrusted wall straight ahead 40m across from it, but deep below it, perhaps 150m down, on the far side there was a long ledge overhanging a river. The air here was charged with furious magical intensity, and things didn't seem quite right-the water level of the river below seemed too low for where you were vs. other flooded levels of the sewers. The gargoyles deposited you atop a 5m wide ledge, which seemed to be a remnant of the far side from the top of the chasm that had sunk way down. It lay just 1m over a fast-moving saltwater stream that coursed into an underwater tunnel system. The gargoyles flapped away but would wait around here to return you, for another price, to the top. Readying yourselves, you plunged into the river.
The stream pushed you along quickly around a hairpin turn in an underwater tunnel, emptying into an oblong cavern dominated by a lake, surrounded by a raised stony shoreline. Totemic sculptures made out of many bleached old bones decorated the shores, rising high in strange forms ranging from the somewhat humanoid (but gigantic) to the serpentine and otherwise, but generally inhuman and somewhat monstrous. Ahappi entered first, under some control against the fierce currents as he surfaced, but surprised by the inhabitants of the cave-aggressive, four-armed amphibian-fish-snake-like things called “the Children of the Crassigyre”, of which twelve remained. One stabbed him in the chest with its spear, impaling him, and others tried to get Bog as he was helplessly swept into the cave. The Children hissed in Seshnegi, “Death to Chaos! Long life to the Long Toad!” Ahappi called out in protest.
Then the Crassigyre, the Long Toad (Life + Water rune affinities as per the statue in the hall near the entrance) revealed itself from the lake, looking much like the stone statue at the end of the statuary hall. It spoke Seshnegi in third person, “Its children were rightly outraged. Few of the children of Crassigyre the Long Toad remain. Much of the violence of Tanosh is in the children. The Crassigyre is the only one that loves them all. The violence of the Children has kept the evil away. But this here is not evil. What is it?” Ahappi explained your nature as the tension reduced, others swam in, and the Children released Ahappi and stopped attacking. Miguel tended to Ahappi's injuries; Bog was nudged to the surface by the Crassigyre's gentle snout and safely guided to the shore.
Fraud soon entered and addressed the creature, much as he had the Mud Eel. It responded, “Froalar is friend to the lineage of Crassigyre, back to Seshna and Magasta, forebears of the lines of Granno and Deep Mother. Froalar sleeps in Froalar's tomb. Life long departed that place, save what guards the dead. Xentusion the Lone Eel was last to see it, of the closer kin of Crassigyre.”
More discussion ensued. “It wonders what became of its half-sister, the ever-changing Quick Sister of the swamps and daughter of Red River Tanosh. It hopes that her enemy Umbrodriith did not find her in the end.” But it warned that “Death stalks Giraine, unleashed by Umbrodriith's child. It comes for those of the line of Seshna, Froalar and Crassigyre. Or they come for it.” It explained that its “Children” were adopted from Quick Sister, who in her fickle, ever-shifting ways had abandoned them, fleeing Umbrodriith's wrath back in the Second Age. And the “violence of Tanosh” is explained by Quick Sister's linkage to that hero.
What does it want? It explained that the Halls of the Waertagi- children of Jeleka, ancestress of Waertagi and Luathans alike- are holy and not to be trespassed. You should help ensure that. It also suggested that Quick Sister needed a “good man” (she had always had man troubles… some of you laughed while Fraud shifted uncomfortably!) to help make reparations between the Children of Crassigyre and Tanosh/Quick Sister. Otherwise, it was content being here as it long had been.
You wondered if it could help you. It had no special tie to the Sottogh or Tanosh and would not offer its power to them, at least not now. It might be able to share magics of Life/Fertility or Water with friends such as you.
Reflecting on these heroes/Old Gods Granno and Tanosh and their “parenthood” of various Giraine beings such as the Long Toad, Mud Eel and Quick Sister, it is likely that these beings already had existed since the Godtime and were “rebranded” or given stronger identities via heroquesting by these heroes/demigods/their followers once they came to Giraine in the Second Age.
As a thank-you, it urged you each to fill a container with water from its lake, which it blessed this once as you filled them: 1 litre of water from the Lair of the Long Eel (Crassigyre): if thrown on a Chaos-tainted being, acts as 1d6 strong acid once. (Athletics roll to hit).
You finished up your discussion with the Crassigyre and it offered to swim you back to the ledge, so you held onto its back-fin and it safely took you upriver, where you prepared to bargain with the gargoyles again. And then you hoped to learn more of these local Waertagi who were worshippers of the Crassigyre; and finally leave the Deeper Sewers, having now explored all you could find; then wrap up the year either by resting or maybe taking on the nasty sorceror's tower near New Arv (which rumour from Jett had linked with Umbrodriith!).
No games tonight-back next week! -John
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