====== 2021.10.12 The Docent ======

++++ Down in the Valley |
We emerge from the forest into a valley.  Looking around, we see ruins of several buildings (not walled) about 2 miles away.  There is also a cave nearby (no sign of active mining; natural?).  We make our way to the ruins.

We begin to explore them.  TheMarshall kicks down a wall--that was already collapsed.  In the first room, we are confronted by 2 blink dogs.  DoctorCharles attempts to bribe them with dried horse meat.  2 more show up.  We leave and search another building first.

We go to the larger building.  Ruins seems to have been looted in haste. We don't find much.  We decide to check out the cave.
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++++ The Cave |
There is a door, ajar.  There is evidence of traffic through the door.  We enter the cave.  We see Kobolds.  Conversation with a Kobold.
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++++ Negotiations |
We negotiate with their leader for permission to search the warren.   A Gnoll leads us to the chief.  The chief is the head of a warforged.  Seems to be able to control other warforged (holds TheMarshall in place with just a few words).

DoctorCharles negotiates.  Offers to give him limbs.  He stands, and has a small body, like a chihuahua.  "I was one of the early experiments"  He will let us have the docent.  He warns us that many people will want to use it to create another slave race.  If the dragon creates more slaves, the warforged rebels (led by the LordOfBlades) will grow stronger and attack.
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++++ The Docent |
The Chief leads us deeper into the warrens.  He takes us to "the room where the warforged were first created"  There is a strange female voice he talks with.  She seems to be the creator?  She prefers to call us the soulforged.  She is an elf, cursed with a wasting disease.  She transferred her soul into an object.  Her apprentices (dragonmarked) locked her into this place and body.

This docent is dangerous because soulforged are created by transferring the soul of a dying creature.  The soul energy more than the soul itself (the personality is different--the original is gone).  Not impossible to transfer a soul, but they so often go insane, the practice of erasing the original was adopted.

She speculates that the dragon wishes to save a friend or colleague.

She offers us the docent (in fact a whole drawer of docents).  She tells us to take the diamond one.

I load the docent.

The LordOfBlades is a soulforged who was the original warforged to break free of the strictures and become a true soulforged.
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