The horn note had an immediate effect on the crowd around us. People cleared the street, and stood to the side. Many people in the crowd fell prostrate to the ground. We saw a column of orcs marching down the corridor. They were followed by kobolds, who wore the traditional kobold helmet--open-faced, with a big spike on the top. The procession stopped, and several orcs went through the crowd, and knocked over anybody who didn't have an obvious weapon, myself included. The kobolds then came around with scrolls, upon which they noted the names and weapons of those still standing. (Amusing exchange: The kobold approached Vrba, and asked what his weapon was. Vrba sneered at the creature, and did some prestidigitation. The kobold said, "I see. Your weapon is a bad attitude.") {NB: Kobolds talk with movie-Nazi accent. -pk}
After the kobolds recorded everybody's weapons, the procession continued down the road, and everybody stood up. We asked a passer-by what all that was about, and he said that the kobolds were record keepers for Malthus, and that weapons were forbidden to the general public (but since they were all evil, lots of people broke that rule). If the orcs didn't knock people down, Malthus would eat them. Many jokes about free-range p'orc were made at Vrba's expense. The guy also said that if we were offended by our treatment, we could go to Malthus and air our grievances. Malthus has periodic "open grienvance days," when the populace could go before them and ask for reparations for harm done against them. The next Grievance Day was tomorrow, and it is held in the antechamber at the end of the hallway we were currently in.
We decided that Grievance Day would be a good opportunity to observe Malthus in a public setting, without having to draw attention to ourselves. Thus, we decided to get a room in an inn, and go to the Grievance session the next day. There was an inn across the road from where we were standing, so we decided to go there. The innkeeper was rather disreputable-looking. We asked for lodging, he named a price. since we had no idea how much the black and white coins were worth, I gave him a black one (which we had determined to be more valuable), and got change. The amount of change seemed low, so I told him not to cheat us. He gave me some more change. During this discussion, he pissed somebody off (Erose?), and that person punched him in the jaw. His head flew off, and he complained about such ill-treatment. He went over and picked up his head and put it back on his shoulders. Then, we saw something very disgusting. A hoard of beetles crawled out of the neck of his shirt, and over the point where his neck had ripped. This was too disgusting. We took our money back, and went to find another inn.
There was another inn nearby, the Flaming Asshole. The innkeeper there was a woman who offerred us a dormitory-style room for the ten of us for 20 white coins. This was more expensive than the other place, but the innkeep guaranteed that there would be no insects in her inn. Our night was uneventful. We were served a filling breakfast of beans, and we went down the hall to the Grievance Airing.
While there were 20 people in line before the throne, there weren't many spectators; we were not likely to be able to watch without being noticed. We decided to stand in the line and air our grievance. When nothing else is likely to work, there's always the truth.
One woman complained that one of Malthus' soldiers had killed her baby. Malthus considered, and said "This is very grave. In recompense, you shall have the soldier!" A steaming platter of p'orc was brought out and presented to her. Another petitioner complained that the tax rate was too high. Malthus, looking puzzled, told him that there were no taxes. It was apparent that Malthus was a just, if macabre and cruel, ruler. Curiously, while we were waiting in line, Draco's guard, Lisbon, snuck off without a word to us. We haven't seen him since.
The petitioner who was four ahead of us complained that the kobolds and orcs had been interfering with his enterprise to sell slaves to the Drow. Malthus became enraged. "The Drow? I have outlawed trade with the Drow!" "But we're evil, so it's okay to break the rules now and then, isn't it?" said the slaver. Vrba was unable to restrain himself, and yelled out, "Kill him! Kill him!" "Good idea," said Malthus. Suddenly, Malthus became a huge black dragon, and ate the petitioner. I had forgotten that dragons could do that (take human form)! He regained human form, and said, "I HATE the Drow."
When we got to the front of the line, I told Malthus our grievance. I told him that we'd been staying at a friend's castle in Steinhall, and that we'd been conjured away to this place, with none of our posessions. Malthus said, "That sounds like the Drow. They do that sort of thing all the time." He told us that he could bring us back home, if we could wait a week. We didn't really have much of a choice, so we agreed. He asked where we were from, and we said River's End. He said his momma had told him about that town, and that he didn't think that people still lived there. Then, he caught a glimpse Keef's trousers, and freaked out. I was afraid he was going to slay Keef right then and there, but he calmed down, and just asked where Keef had got the trousers. (Apparently, Keef has a nice pair of dragonskin trousers. Kind of macabre, but very cool.) Malthus gave us a bag of the black coins and suggested that we stay on "third level" of the town,instead of the first, which is where we'd been staying. He also invited us to come talk with him during the week.
Erose and I went to talk to Malthus a few days after our arrival. He asked us to take a sealed letter to Lord Lara. It didn't hit me until a few days later that this was _very_ suspicious, since he'd said just a few days before that he didn't think anybody lived there. Must remember not to trust him.
His method of sealing letters was very cool, so I will describe it here. He took a pebble, placed it on the letter, and spat on it. The pebble melted, and he impressed his seal upon it. The old hot-knife trick won't work on THAT letter. I asked him if he could give me a sample of that sealing method, because it was so damn cool. He did.
We asked him how he came to rule this big underground town. He told us that his momma was killed just over a hundred years ago, by some lord person down in Steinhall. (Note: Draco/Old Draco.) He never knew what happenned to his da, he never knew him--Maybe mom ate him? Malthus was abandoned, and holed up in a cave and sulked for a while. One day, he heard a tapping noise. It continued for a while, and then a hole appeared in his cave. It was a goblin miner, which he promptly ate. More goblins came, and he eventually investigated, and found that whole town, which he took over.
In terms of running his little demesne, he said he wasn't really very fond of armies, he preferred to eat his enemies, up close and personal, and that he wasn't interested in conquest and the like. (This contradicts what the old geezer at the bookstore told us.) He's seen some of the outside world, for example, he's been to the swamps (?) in the south of Steinhall.
Interesting physical characteristics of dragon-boy: 1. long, serpentine tongue. 2. Blinks sideways.
Questions:
The guard, Lisbon, may have run off because he thought Malthus would recognise him. What happenned to him? Did he leave through the Goblin kingdom?
After our tea with Malthus, we went back to the inn and talked with the rest of our group. We were stuck with M. coming back to RE with us. We decided we should get him to land us outside of town, and have Sanjay run ahead to Throntax. We figured Throntax would be better able to cope with an untrustworthy, adolescent dragon than we were. Vrba was not at that meeting; I think he went to talk to Malthus at that time. He didn't discuss where he'd been when he came back.
{NB: Vrba was asking for romantic advice from the dragon! Malthus seemed to think that it was a bad idea for Vrba to pursue a human, and tried to convince Vrba to forget her. Quote: "If she doesn't like p'orc, I'm not sure she's worth going for." -pk}