Previously:
Welcome to Episode 21 of the Queen of Shadows Podcast on Roll, Ponder, and Play! I'm Jared Hess, your friendly neighborhood game master, solo-player, author, and narrator. In our previous episode, as night falls in the settlement of Redcrag, Seith allows Eilwen to keep the baby wyvern, Scratch, in his shed prior to Eilwen, Aron, and Seith leaving to confront Mattox, a ne'er-do-well and local to Rockriver in the employ of Uzak and the Wolf Fang Clan.
Once the beast is settled with some meat inside the shed, they leave it to seek out their foe. They proceed to the inn and hear screaming and in the flickering light of lamp of fireplace, through an open second story window, they see young Erwin being tortured by Mattox. After some debate and planning, they agree to try and rescue the young man and at the same time question Mattox. Aron and Seith will steal the guards horses while Eilwen confronts Mattox. Eilwen calls upon the shadows to aid her and while they do come they only come for a moment to whisper unsettling words that someone had killed them before they rebound to their normal shapes under eves, trees, and rocks. Eilwen, somewhat shaken, proceeds to stealth across the inn's roof top hoping to swing in the through the window and surprise Mattox. But the man detects her as she lands inside. Mattox, far from being surprised, attacks her with the very implement of torture he used in Erwin, the glowing fire poker. After she is hit in the side, and a brief exchange ensues, she manages to disarm Mattox and subdue him, leaving him coughing and groaning on the floor bruised and hurt, but not seriously. The noise of her attack is somewhat masked by a commotion and the stables and the subsequent cacophony that ensures in the ground floor of the inn while the soldiers go to investigate. Eilwen frees Erwin, and he flees out the second story window. After questioning Mattox about Uzak and finding out that the Wolf Fang Clan's war plans are on a map on the table, Eilwen takes the map and clubs Mattox unconscious. After doing so, a dutiful guard knocks on the door to ask if all is well. Eilwen emulates the sniveling voice of Mattox and sends the guard away. Again, alone with Mattox she decides to send a message to Uzak by handing out justice to this torturer, Mattox. While still unconscious she cuts out his tongue, puts out his eyes, ruins his hands and leaves him a bleeding broken mess on the floor -- a queens justice. She flees the inn and returns to their rendezvous point near Seith's home, hoping that Aron and Seith are alright.
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Attributions:
- 'The Long Dark' and 'Emergent' and 'The Old Ones' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) - released under CC-BY 4.0.
- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.
- Sound Effects and some music from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).
