Smells fishy

Finished my last letter as we were leaving the Court of Aether before the mad Queen decided to put our heads on stakes.

We went in search of the ulat-kini, who worked for the mysterieuse sorcerer Narseigus, who attempted the theft of the Mad Queen's map and who was responsible for the earthquake that covered their escape. We spent a few days navigating through the disrupted tunnels in what we hoped was the direction of where the ulat-kini were supposed to live. It was a magnificent piece of navigation by my comrades, as it felt like no time at all before we reached the first fishy village.

Kolkar alerted us first. He found an alarm spell placed on a stalactite, showing that someone lived nearby. Minutes later, the tunnel we were in opened onto a large cavern with a number of huts. There were two guards on hand, but we didn't want to hurt them. Unfortunately, we couldn't subdue them nonlethally in time before one ran into the village to raise the alarm.

At this moment, I remembered a spell I had, but never used, for fascinating large crowds. I cast it, and I was magnificent, if I say so myself. I hardly remember what I talked about–the cave worm, our adventures–but I had the entire village transfixed! What a triumph!

I couldn't spare too much attention for my comrades, as I had to keep spinning my yarn or the whole spell would collapse. I knew they were talking to someone, who turned out to be the village shaman, Illeshi, who had the mental stamina to resist my charms. She agreed to try and make peace with the village. I finished my oration and we backed off, coming in again with our Dwarven members to the rear. There is not much love lost between the Dwarves and the Ulat-kini, mostly dating from their time as slaves of the abominable Algollthu. More on that later.

There was a lot of talking with the leader, Ulgat. He didn't seem either very friendly or at all trustworthy. He admitted to knowing Narseigus, but told us next to nothing about him. He only suggested that we go to the Hryngar city if we wanted to find him, and that we take Illeshi with us.

It turns out that Ulgat had been behaving very strangely for the past few months, and Illeshi was the main restraining influence on his increasingly erratic behavior. Ulgat had previously been an open and friendly fellow, and had founded this village to train people in the Ulat-kini martial arts. Interestingly, he had stopped practicing these arts around the time his personality changed. Could this be a case of possession?

Much of this we found out in a clandestine visit to the tent of Gizmir, leader of the village warriors. Gizmir remained loyal to Ulgat, but he agreed to a test that would determine if Ulgat were still Ulgat. N’drak came up with this one. We would challenge Gizmir to a fight. Gizmir would subtly throw the fight, and then Ulgat would be pressured to fight us. If Ulgat fought in the traditional style, all was good. If he did not use the martial arts of which he was a master, something was seriously wrong.

I think we put Antoine in as our champion, being the least likely to get hurt. Maybe it was Kolkar, I don’t remember. Whoever it was dealt with Gizmir very quickly. Gizmir exaggerated how beaten he was, but not by much. I lead the call for Ulgat to come fight us. He tried to sicc the whole village on us! Illeshi kept the civilians out of it, but we still had to fight the chief’s guard.

We managed to defeat them without killing anyone. Examining Ulgar’s unconscious body, we noticed something odd. His skin seemed strangely wet and somehow not firmly attached. We brought over a torch for a better look, and he started to leak slime! He was a slime puppeteer, the most noxious of the servants of the Algollthu! At some point this being, doubtlessly sent by its masters to subvert this community of their former slaves, killed poor Ulgar and took over his body.

Searching “Ulgar’s” body and tent, we found a letter from Narseigus with plans to attack another Dwarven hold.