Further exploration

As you navigate the rubble-strewn alleys and foggy streets of Bannagh Macht, doubts begin to creep their way into your thoughts. You should never have come into the city. You got a warning out to the Starchaser tribe and you were already near the edge of their lands, once Brighid left you really were under no moral obligation to them. Yes, you would have failed the quest and they might have sent someone after you, but surely they wouldn’t chase you down too far outside of their territory? It’s not like you have any chance in here, despite the Council’s promises. They told you to your face that it was a task you could accomplish, and clearly it isn’t. You have no business here. It was only luck -- or Luck -- that let you take out that Manikin so easily, and that there had been only one of them. Had there been two you would be dead already. And moving around is the surest way to attract more attention; you should find one of these half-intact structures to hole up in.

Before you know it, you’re standing in front of a hole in the wall of another partially-intact building. You feel enervated, lost, and alone. You begin to squeeze into the building, unconsciously seeking somewhere dark and small where you can curl up and vanish from the world. Once you manage to work your way inside, the building really is perfect. It’s dark and gloomy with only the diffuse light from the hole you just came in from to light up the interior. There’s very little space, as the entire front half of the building collapsed inwards towards the back. You sweep some dirt and dust out of the way with a corner of your tunic and wedge yourself in with your back to the corner, hunched over with your thighs against your chest and your chin resting on your knees. Suddenly, you realize that you’re actually really hungry. You start to reach for one of the centaur trail rations you still have, but then you decide, No. If I’m going to die in some miserable misbegotten place, I want some real food in my belly when I go.

You pull out the box of holding then reach inside and summon a slider into your hand. It is still steaming hot, like it was just out of the frying pan, and for a brief moment you brighten a bit at the thought of such wonderful magic. Then you pop the miniature hamburger into your mouth and begin to chew. Greasy, savory, balanced with the salty sharp flavor of good cheddar cheese. Delicious. You swallow and close your eyes, basking in the temporary bliss.

Then your eyes snap open. What the fuck had you been thinking? You recognize the signs of depression but there was no reason for you to be depressed. You had been fine, frazzled but fine, one minute, then suddenly dark thoughts had assailed you from all the shadowy recesses of your mind. You remember the nightmares you and Brighid both had last night and realization dawns: you were just attacked for the second time, this time mentally and emotionally instead of physically. With that realization comes another: whatever it was, it wanted you to stop moving and to go to ground. It was searching for you, and if you were stationary it would eventually find you. You have to get moving, now!

Hurriedly you stuff the box of holding back into your backpack and push your way back through the hole in the wall. You look around quickly once you’re back outside, and see two dark shapes moving slowly towards you down the alley you had been heading down previously. Not that way then! You backtrack a little then move onto the broad avenue the alley empties out onto. The Boar Manikin had seemed to operate primarily by scent rather than sight, and the two shapes you saw just now didn’t seem to react to your movement, so being on the open street might actually give you an advantage by letting you find enemies before they find you. You can just barely hear the rasping sounds of dried vines against uneven cobblestones echoing through the fog, but you don’t see any manikins, so you just keep moving.

You spend at least two hours playing cat and mouse with the manikins hunting you. More than once a prompt opens in your mind but you mentally shove them to the side without looking at them; your focus is entirely on staying alive and moving closer to the city's center. You actually get rather good, if you do say so yourself, at evading patrols of the creatures, and you make steady progress down the avenue and towards your goal. That’s why it surprises you so much when the avenue vanishes into a giant archway leading inside of the hill you’d seen from outside the city. And, unfortunately, the archway is very much guarded.

You’re still too far away to make out the exact details, but there is an extremely large shape hunched at each side of the archway. Where the Boar Manikin had been about the size of a really fat pony, and the other shapes you’ve been dodging through the fog were within that same general size range, these things are at least as tall as Fionn, and you’re not entirely sure that they’re standing at full height. You edge closer and closer, trying to get a solid look at one of them through the mist, but you give it up as too risky before you can tell anything more than that they are roughly humanoid in shape, with extremely broad shoulders and long arms but no neck to speak of and comparatively short legs. They smell absolutely foul, but not rotten; these might be living creatures.

Clearly this tunnel leads to something important if it has dedicated, potentially living and able to think on their own, guards. You desperately want to get past them. The only question is, how to manage it?

As you begin to formulate your plan, you quickly look over the prompts you have been ignoring.

Congratulations! You have reached levels 1 through 3 in Stealth. You are now Unskilled in Stealth.

Know this: A quest you have accepted has been modified by the quest giver. The failure condition and consequences of failure for the quest “Earn Your Place” have been removed.