Thurlow's Tales - 1x07 Voices Lost and Found

I have a some small ability with magic, as some of you know. One of these simple magics enables me to see whether there's magic in an item. I put it to work on our spoils. The bag of bones we'd taken off one of the creatures below was necromantic in origins. The armour was also magical. And the three little vials of blue glass I had found, held nothing less than three potions: one swallow, and a body might walk the riverbed and never drown.

It was here we met Cap, a Tabaxi druid we'd found dozing in a bunk room. You know, magic can be cold comfort to you at times, especially when you open a door and discover six souls chained to the walls. Every one of them was alive, and every one of had had their tongue removed. Cap, when revived, set at once to tending those silent victims. Then Horton herded the poor ex-prisoners with all the chaotic gentleness of a great friendly dog who's found some sheep to love. I worry what this world will do to that boy.

Next we found a heap of the recent dead laid on the floor and one of them would not do us the courtesy of staying laid on the ground. A restless spirit, a zombie, hauled upright again and again by stubborn spite the risen dead have for the living. Cap laid into it with the morning star, and Horton (bless the size of him) sprinted the length of the dungeon to end the thing in three great blows. Beyond this grisly sight ran a wall, or so it seemed, until Horton kicked it in temper and his foot seemed to go through the stone. A permanent illusion, nothing more. Similar to the tricks I do during my storytelling. The far side of this false wall was the mouth of an open cave, trees, and a sky full of night. It was here we took our rest at last, and led the six freed prisoners out into the clean dark air.

We took to the road and Cap led us to a farm in the full green flush of summer, even though autumn had turned the world to a deep russet brown. Cap explained that two old adventurers lived there, long retired: Mewan, round and beaming and a delight to know, and Klemm , stern and weary and looking for all the world like a man who'd known this day was coming and hadn't relished it. Cap called them family. They had found her in the woods as a child, years past, and raised her as their own. Klemm , to our surprise, spoke to Horton in Smotion (the tongue of his own far home). And soon they provided us with flatbread and hot tea.