Sablemage
Demi-God
Ye Jian, Ruins Near Taian, Day 27
Ye Jian’s trip to the monastery had been uneventful, but had taken the best part of a day. He pitched camp in the courtyard of the ruins, intent on beginning his search at first light.
Song Rou had grumbled at being left behind, but they needed someone trustworthy to watch over their gear, and that category of person had only two members. It was also undeniably true that she and her crutch would slow him down.
He was right, she had admitted; they must regrow her leg or she must resign herself to waiting for him to return from each mission like the demure wife her parents had wanted her to be.
Ye Jian, Ruins Near Taian, Day 28
Ye Jian broke camp at dawn and concealed the tent and camping gear in a convenient clump of bushes before exploring the monastery ruins in better light. He had camped in the lee of a broken-down stone wall which he now saw was what remained of a meditation or prayer room of some kind; a fat, jolly statue spattered with bird droppings faced an open doorway across a wide area. The roof was long gone, the walls but broken stumps, but it was easy to imagine rows of robed monks kneeling before the statue. The statue looked valuable, jade perhaps, but also too heavy for him to carry any distance. Finding nothing else of interest, he moved a short way to the north-west, where the remains of another building, scarcely more than the foundations of the walls, stood. Judging by the layout, this had been a block of cells for monks.
Turning, he noticed a dais to the east, with a statue’s broken foot on it; clearly another statue had once been there, and from the clumsy chisel marks it seemed someone had made off with it, though they’d been unable to separate the right foot from the plinth. It seemed to be plain stone, though, so why take that rather than the jade one he’d found earlier? There was no clue as to the reason.
The sounds of quiet conversation in a language he didn’t know alerted him, and he took cover. Four figures with the graceful and ethereal carriage of elves emerged from a trapdoor he had failed to notice earlier; they seemed to be studying the ground nearby, and he realised their keen eyes had spotted the outline of another small building. They didn’t seem unusually competent, and they might have the tablet, so he decided to attack – with no language in common he would have to search them to find it, and they were unlikely to agree.
Three were in leather with shields and short swords; the fourth, whom Ye Jian took for their leader, was in chain and carried a shield and longsword. This last elf was festooned in jewellery; rings, toe rings, nose ring, anklets.
Taking advantage of their distraction, Ye Jian crept silently closer until he was within lunging distance, then leapt forward to thrust and slash; some unnaturally sharp sense alerted them, however, and a battle more in their favour erupted. For long seconds neither side could gain an advantage, but then Ye Jian began to thin out their numbers, and in less than a minute all four were down. Glancing about, Ye Jian saw no new dangers at hand, and devoted himself to searching the bodies for the stone tablet, and when he didn’t find it, to looting everything portable of value, a total of some 300 gold pieces he estimated, most of it jewellery. The arms and armour he left; too heavy to carry. He was tempted by the chain, but decided it would degrade his stealth too much.
Stuffing the loot into his pack, Ye Jian jumped a couple of times to make sure nothing made a noise as he moved; then he took a deep breath, wormed his way through the trapdoor, and headed downstairs.
GM Notes
This adventure is a solo dungeon crawl, so I turn to pages 125-129 in the Scarlet Heroes rulebook. Dungeons in SH can be any sort of ruin, lair, or even building; I already know our target is an isolated monastery so I pick that from the relevant table rather than rolling for it. I won’t go blow by blow here, as if you have the rulebook you can sing along with me, and if you don’t it won’t be much help; but the initial table rolls tell me the ruins have 20 locations of interest and the principal opposition will be elf zealots. Perhaps they are also looking for the stone tablet? Ye Jian wouldn’t know, so I’ll leave that for now. Anyway, the dice tell me the Threat Level is the same as the PC level, namely 2. One explores such places of mystery in ten minute turns, and each time one leaves a location, one rolls first to see the direction of travel, then the room type, then its contents – encounter, treasure, hazard, and feature – and finally on sub-tables to fill in the details of each.
A survey of the rulebook shows that Song Rou’s missing leg could be regrown using the 5th level clerical spell Revivification of the Mountain, which alas requires a 9th level cleric to cast it. Finding them and persuading them to help sounds like a worthy quest goal for our pair.
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