1.2.7 - Gods have mercy

Through a hole in the wall you heard who Brelka really answers to, and his voice was worse than hers.

You tore through a rough breach in the stone, two hours of work, and from the far side came voices. A man and Brelka, mid-argument. She was wild with grief, screaming that her friends were dead, that he had wanted them dead, that all of this was what he wanted. Tarod. His reply came slow and cutting: how disappointing she was, when he had thought she might rise above her weakness and find a place in their order, and how fitting that this ruined temple should suit her failure. Prove yourself, he told her. If you survive, perhaps you will be worth my time. Then he split the air with a crack of power and was gone into black fog.

Beyond the wall lay Loki's temple. You found Brelka's journal, the early pages full of raids run with Varka, the later ones decaying into mad scribble. You freed Sigurd, locked up for refusing to become a wererat, and sent him back toward the Black Tide. He told you of two temples down here, one to Heimdall and one to Loki the trickster, where Brelka had been spending most of her time of late. And in cages you found rats that were wrong, bulging and stretched and manic, Grettir's handiwork, primed to burst.

Remember For Next Time

• Tarod: the cold voice behind Brelka, of some "order," who wanted the Hand's people dead and discards Brelka like a spent tool. Remember the name.
• Sigurd freed: imprisoned for refusing the curse, now headed back to the Black Tide.
• Two temples below: one to Heimdall, one to Loki the trickster, where Brelka lingers. And caged explosive rats, courtesy of Grettir.

Where We Are

At the threshold of Loki's temple in the Undercroft, Brelka cornered somewhere ahead and her master's name fresh in your ears.