Entry to Santhur
Lady Alondra the Bard, entered the city of [[Santhur]] through the grand and ornate [[Fistfury]] gates. Evidence of the masterful stonework of the Dwimmer [[Dwarves]], who once crafted the gate long ago in the past, while barely visible, was the only sign that the gates themselves weren’t just carved from a single giant block of stone. The great gates were named for the royal family of the city, who now lie dead and buried, murdered by the Mad Wizard [[Nagrazzar]].
As she entered the city, [[Alondra]] found herself in a large square, trafficked with only a small members of the public and the odd wagon or carriage. To her left, a two-story building was a-blaze, and the cries of a female child of around 4-5 could be heard coming from the upstairs window. 30-50 people were gathered watching the spectacle, including a tall man clearly bearing armor beneath his cloak, who Alondra had seen noting her entrance into the city.
Fully aware of the limited time, and her species resistance to light fire, Alondra snuck off around to find a way into the house to help the child. A quick glance around the area showed the more opportune entrance to be the alley to the back of the house, and trying that. Ducking into the flickering shadows given off by the fire, she dashed down the alleyway, avoiding the gaze of all but the most astute witnesses to the blaze.
Bursting through the door, her scales on her brow flaring gold in response to the heat, she looked around for an access to the upper floor. Her heat vision bloomed from the fire, and was no use in locating the child, on serving to make her see stars. Blinking rapidly to recover some vision, she could finally make out a set of stairs to her right, and dashed up them two at a time.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she could see the child, cowering the opposite corner of one of the bedrooms directly opposite the stairs. Calling out to the human child served to only make it cry it harder, so shrugging she eased over to the child, reaching over the bed to touch it’s shoulder in comfort. Only, as her hard encountered the child, it vanished in a puff of blue illusionary smoke and paired with a devilish chuckle from the air behind her.
“You idiot ” -Devilish speech- ” Half-Dragon fuck! Who falls for that?!” the voice hissed at her, as it moved around behind her.
Recognizing the tell-tale signs of an imp, and feeling a little foolish for falling for such a simple trick, Alondra tried something a little out of the box, and cast her favorite cantrip in the direction of the Imp’s voice. A small thunderclap smashed the room, throwing the fat little, leathery winged devil against the wall behind it. The damage caused it to lose it’s concentration and drop it’s spell of invisibility. Snarling in devilish, the Imp flew into the fire of the next room, disappearing to lick to it’s wounds.
Grinning to herself, happy with the result of the encounter, Alondra assessed her situation. The stairs, now a-blaze, were not an option. Turning, she judged the distance down and decided it would ”probably” be okay, jumped.
Later That Evening
Walking along Main Way, Alondra was feeling more and more helpless and depressed, seeing the ruins of the city around her. However people are still living in this place astounded her. Everything north of Main Way was a fire scorched mess of ruins and half-collapsed buildings. Work had not commenced to rebuild the city since the siege six months past, and now she had spent some time in the city, the reason why was becoming clear. The city seemed to lack and central source of organization at all.
The Seneschal, regent of the city, was holed up in his tower leaving all bar the castle to fend for itself.
The Nestorian garrison was too small to even try leading the city to prosperity, barely large enough to defend even their own interests in the city.
The Thieves guild was in a bitter, 3-way civil war, that had boiled out into the streets multiple times in the past few weeks already.
Traders were avoiding the city now, traveling past in effort to avoid being robbed or made to pay many ”official” road tolls.
Food was scarce, and bandits ruled the wilds outside the city, preventing reclamation of local farmland.
There was much to be done.
She started to hear some chattering in something that she never expected to hear here in Santhur: Draconic. Listening for a moment, Alondra recognized the tones of kobolds whispering in the distance before one of them called out in her direction “Gold mistress, we seek a word with you.”
Shrugging in curiosity, she wandered over to hear the kobolds request. Having heard of her efforts at the entrance to the city, the matron Great Wyrm of the kobolds tribe would like to seek a boon from the Gold Mistress, if she were willing to hear her out. She pondered the offer for a few moments, before considering that she had little to lose in following the kobolds, knowing that she could probably scare them off just with a single breath of her gold ancestry, she nodded and accepted their offer, motioning for them to lead the way.
As they led her through the ruins in the northern quarter of the city, Alondra noticed that these kobolds had a strange tinge to them, almost as if they were bronze aspected, but that was unheard of! Kobolds are a chaotic race, what gain would the find worshiping a metallic dragon over a chaotic one that would happily return their patronage with boons of power. Before long, they led her to a hole that they dropped into, onto a pile of soft refuse, and found herself in the sewer.
Making their way through a few small obstacles, eventually Alondra found herself peering into a chamber filled with what she was informed was members of her companions Kobold’s enemies: another tribe of Kobold’s, this once worshiping a red dragon. These two tribes have been fighting over the sewers for months, with the reds slowly forcing the bronze kobolds back out of everything except their egg creche. Convincing her companions to trust her, she bound their hands and cast Disguise Self on herself, appearing as a red-tinged kobold, and took her ‘prisoners’ past the ambush. Her timing was lucky, for just as she moved out of the room, another 3 red kobolds came up from the same direction they just had, and started chatting to the other red ones present.
Moving on, her and her companions suffered no further encounters with the reds, and arrived at the bronze creche within another 15 minutes or so of sewer crawling. Alondra swore to herself to find a better way into the place if she needed to come back, as there was just not enough room for someone of her stature in these hallways. Entering the egg creche, what she saw was a scared tribe. One clearly on the decline. All of the children ran at the sight of the stranger entering the area, and the guards around the eggs started hissing softly as they watched her intently.
She was approached by a wise old Wyrm, clearly one of the greats, probably over 100 years of age, and the leader of the tribe. They spoke for some time, explaining the situation, and their desperation. Pushed from every area of worth in the slums by the reds, the goblins and the thieves. With little to no available food, the tribe was starving slowly, and make matters worse, the reds had stolen half of their eggs a few weeks back, removing the chance of any chance in power balances for the next 12 months.
The Great Wyrm begged Alondra to consider to help them, with finding a way to either reclaim a stable food source, or find another way to provide for her people. She also begged that she consider helping them stage some sort of rescue for their eggs, to return some hope to their tribe.
Alondra stayed for a little while with the tribe, before committing try to help them, and returned to the surface, this time facing no impediment through the tunnels.
On her solo journey through the ruins, she was started when someone spoke to her, from off to the right. Quickly reacting to defend herself, she instead found a small boy squatting on a roof above her. Probably a thief, she mused. They spoke for a while, he revealing his name as Baudus, a theif of one of the new theives guilds. His was the ”New Blood” guild, the younger members broken off, sick of following the rigid ways of old.
They faced the old Guild, an aging group of men committed to continuing the ways of old, and the Dock Gang, the thugs and bruisers of the Thieves Guild, tired of the old Guild crowed left to join the dock gangs. They were a brutal gang, and ran a protection racket that seemed to only protect the very few remaining businesses from the bruises themselves. Baudus offered Alondra a place in the guild if she were happy to try out, as a bard would be welcome in their ranks, and with a final farewell, ran off into the lengthening shadows of the dusk.
The Inn of Angry Dragons
A large, two story inn, stands on the south west corner of the Fistfury square, just outside of the shadow of the gate. The building shows some signs of scorch marks from previous conflicts, yet otherwise seemed to be in good condition and well up kept. Upon entering the establishment, Alondra saw within that there were two groups of people present within (excluding the inkeeper). One group was a man with his guards, who were chattering away in an unfamiliar tongue. The other was a couple, instantly recognized as married just due their actions and behavior towards one another. One, the man, had a large red beard and and huge mane of red hair, was smoking on a pipe and seemed to be half listening to the other, while she, dressed in robes, and scribbling on a scroll, seemed to open mindedly talk at him.
Walking over, Alondra sat at close to the fire as possible, listening to people around her and getting a feel for the room. Before long a stew and an ale arrived in front of her, and she lowered her hood, noting the reactions of the people around her to her racial features. The couple seemed interested, as thought they knew the race but never in person, the two guards seemed to size her up before returning to their chatting. The barkeep smiled and came over for a quick word, seeming quick comfortable with the Dragonborn race, probably having spent time with one in the past. She turned back to the stew in front of her, finding it to be…. interesting. The meat was…. well, it was meat. That was probably the only the attribute you would find that did not have a negative connotation. If nothing else, it felt like meat.
The Barkeep (who gave her name as Samantha Kestor) was a short, calm woman, with a short sword strapped to her right side. After long, realizing she had a Dragonborn bard under her roof, she asked if Alondra would be interested in a song for the common room. Feeling like a change, she pulled out the wooden flute and started up a song. Before long she felt the weave of the magic ensorcell her talent and start to channel through her fingers. Time seemed to slow and speed up at the same time, and physical sensations seemed to vanish.
She came back to reality at a touch from Samantha, asking if she might be done for the night, and handing her a small pouch full of 7gp 20cp that was ‘her cut for the night’. Realizing she had been playing for an hour, Alondra eased down and back to her table, to the light applause the small crowd that had gathered in the common room without her noticing. The Inn was now packed to rafters, her songs having brought in most traveling past, and bringing in patrons for the first time in months. Samantha, clearly happy with the result, offered Alondra free room and board as long as she was happy to continue performing semi regularly. Accepting the offer, Alondra headed off to bed, stew sitting uncomfortably within her. As she settled down the sleep, the last thing she remembered was committing to find a better source of food supply for the city, and soon.