Toke lobbed a bomb to finish off the walking skeleton. He was sure to keep his back to the rest of the fighting; it sounded positively terrifying. Did Vaddis just ask the undead to surrender? I have to get whatever he's having.

Today: Toke rolled 19 using 1d20+7. Bomb to hit.
Toke rolled 11 using 2d4+7. Bomb damage (8 splash).
Bombs: 5/8

Vaddis stares into the abyss that is the little blue guy. Is the blue guy evil? If evil were the sky, he'd be the sun. If evil were a tray of pastries, he'd be the single prune danish at the bottom of the stack. If evil were a vegetable garden, he'd be okra. He's. That. Evil.

He puckers his lips and whistles. The air around you Vaddis erupts in a cacophony of noise. It sounds like elephants being hurled by catapult through a glassworks. You wince as your eardrums threaten to leap out of your skull 3 pts dam Vaddis

The bear steps back to swing and stumbles as Tarrov's
whip curls about it's leg. Then Selvin and Friend smash down, bursting it's rib cage apart and pushing down on it's spine. It shatters into the 206... or however many in an owlbear...individual bones that make it up as it hits the floor.

The last human skeleton doesn't come apart in so nice a display. But it sags as Toke's last bomb smshes against it's skull.

Outside of the little blue guy, you seem to be out of playmates.

Vaddis...you're up
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:11, Wed 21 May 2014.

Vaddis winces in pain and brings a mighty swing down on the little blue freak!


23:21, Today: Vaddis Sonaden rolled 16 using 1d20+10. smite evil.
23:22, Today: Vaddis Sonaden rolled 7 using 1d8+6. damage, if outsider, add +3. Sadly, I think I might have missed!!

In reply to Vaddis Sonaden (msg # 23):

You didn't

The blue man comes apart. Even his blood smells evil...

"Anyone know what that blue thing was? I never saw or heard of anything like it before."

---

---

Tarrov speculatively nudged Vaddis' former opponent with the toe of his boot.  "I don't know.  I'm guessing he was evil?"  He raised an eyebrow at the holy warrior.  "I heard about a group of guys whose descriptions were similar to this one," he pointed at the blue man on the ground, "performing down near the gambling establishments, but I doubt our friend here was one of them."  Tarrov racked his brain to think of where else he might have heard about such a creature.

The bard looked around, dusting debris off his tunic.  "Well, that was quite the welcome.  Good work, gentlemen."  He grinned.  "Selvin, that was some amazing fighting.  And Toke, what is IN those bombs of yours?"  He gestured around the room.  "They seem to have done quite a number on our skeletal opponents."

"Shall we move on?  It looks like we can move south, east, or west."  Tarrov pointed to each cardinal direction as he spoke its name.  "Any preference?"

OOC:

Knowledge checks to see if Tarrov knows anything about the blue man.  Feel free to make a different knowledge check for me if that would be more appropriate.

12:38, Today: Tarrov Garrick rolled 26 using 1d20+6. Knowledge (Religion) Check.
12:38, Today: Tarrov Garrick rolled 12 using 1d20+7. Knowledge (Arcana) Check.
12:37, Today: Tarrov Garrick rolled 12 using 1d20+7. Knowledge (Nature) Check.

---

---

This message was last edited by the player at 19:40, Wed 21 May 2014.

"He was very evil, his aura almost stunned me!"

Selvin nodded to the praise. "Thank you. I need a moment, however. I must heal my friend." He cast a spell, murmuring words of power. Some of the 'tears' in the alien cat-like 'skin' that Selvin was wearing healed up but there was still some damage.

OOC: Cast Rejuvenate Eidolon Lesser.
17:44, Today: Selvin Larst rolled 8 using 1d10+3. Rejuvenate Eidolon Lesser.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:45, Wed 21 May 2014.

Toke waited until his breath caught up with him before turning and addressing his group. They seemed like they handled their situation fairly well.

At the mention of evil Toke suppressed a cringe. He was reminded that he was indeed accompanied by one of those "holier than thou" folks. He reminded himself to make sure to have his personal fun away from the paladin's prying eyes.

Upon being the object of the Bard's attention, Toke stuttered out an answer as his eyes looked at a particularly fascinating rock on the floor. "I, uh, m-mentioned it earlier, uh, in the, uh, Gaming House. T-trinitrotoluene and, uh, high grade Nitroglycerin." He shrugged, as he believed that all of the party members were rather extraordinary in their own way. Hell even Vaddis left Toke in awe with his smooth talking, though why a Wizard would ever choose to sing so much was beyond him. He would think that all that singing and movement would throw off the caster's concentration, but hey, he flunked out of the Academy.

Toke also wondered what the blue man could have been, but he wasn't too sure his experiences encompassed this sort of thing.


21:51, Today: Toke rolled 17 using 1d20+13. Knowledge Local.

21:51, Today: Toke rolled 24 using 1d20+16. Knowledge Arcana.

"Let's search the blue ones remains, perhaps it will reveal a clue."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:53, Thu 22 May 2014.

---

---

Tarrov bent down and rifled through the blue creature's corpse, looking for anything it might have possessed or any clue to its purpose.  He then assisted the rest of the group with methodically searching the large room for anything that might give them a clue to the location of the dead Cinderlander's remains.

When the task was complete, he pointed west.  "I say we start out that way.  Assuming it doesn't loop around somehow, we can come back and head down the south passage, then the eastern one."  He paused.  "Any objections?"

---

---

This message was lightly edited by the player at 01:22, Fri 23 May 2014.

"None from me. One way is as good as another, they all need explored."

Toke, you've heard some stories over the years of junkies claiming to hve been abducted by little blue men. Usually these addicts are fairly crazed. It's usually chalked up to the Venom or the Smoke. But some do whisper about the little blue men as if they were real. You've heard a name float around once or twice. Derro. Anyone who meets one is supposed to be up for a long, bad trip. The stories are usually the same. 'The Blues' as they are called drag the poor junkie down under the street and do things to them. Make them lick toads. Insert things that weren't meant to be inserted into places those things weren't meant to fit. All sorts of odd, terrible things that leave the junkie scabberheaded and less useful than they were to begin with. That is about the extent of your knowledge.

Tarrov, you know a trifle bit about the Derro. Well. You know what Hans Zerbach wrote. Zerbach was a playwright who claimed to have spent years in the world below this one. He supposedly survived his time in the endless caverns and wrote a series of awful operettas about it. Your mentor made you study his work so you would know how not to write a play. Anyway, in How Dark is My Love, a tawdry little dirge about a paladin who gets captured by some dark skinned elven woman who lives underground, the villain...or one of the villains. Zerbach's characters are all morally bankrupt...was a blue gnome who was said to come from this race. The character has a monolouge about going insane.

They're always in my head
The voices...
And they want to see everyone dead
The voices...
So drink up, drink up
Don't be shy
If I can knife my grandma
What do I care if you die?

Zerbach was nothing if not committed to bad verse.

Your search reveals the east and west bone pits to be small enclosed rooms. Vaddis  spies an odd patch of stone on one wall in the eastern pit. Pressing on it swings open a small concealed door. A small, tight passage runs behind it. A set of stairs leads downwards.

The southern passage forks after a few paces. One branch heads west and then south. You can make out a dim light in that direction and can hear the faint squeal of something, maybe a rat, in pain. The east branch also curves to the south. A stronger source of light bleeds out from around this bend. You can all smell something vaguely unsettling from that direction. Toke,
you recognize the smell. Stirges. Leather winged blood suckers that always seem to nest in the filthiest of alleys. There must be a nest of them in that direction.

Not much loot in the first room. The dead derro has a cheap crossbow, three bolts that look like a child put them together, and a small dull knife. There's nary a coin otherwise. Updating the map on group 0

"Tarrov...think you might use one o'the wand charges on my friend? He's still damaged an' I'd like t'be fresher since I think we got more combat comin'."

After seeing all the options, he frowned. Too many choices. "Stirges, rat or secret passage? I vote secret passage but then maybe we should clear out the other two ways so nothin' comes up behind us later."

"It doesn't matter what you clean out first, something can always come up behind you. Especially if you make a lot of noise, which we just did. I don't like stirges, can we burn them out somehow?"

---

---

Tarrov removed one of the healing wands from his pack and touched it to Selvin's . . . friend.  As he did, he looked contemplatively over at the secret passage.

"Can we close the passage's door behind us?  Or just leave it cracked?  Stirges don't have hands, so we won't have to worry about them following us if we can."  He paused.  "We really don't know what is anywhere down here.  So whatever way we go, some enemy might sneak up on us from behind.  So I think we should be prepared for that eventuality whatever we do."

OOC:

16:39, Today: Tarrov Garrick rolled 6 using 1d8+3. Use Wand of Cure Light Wounds.

---

---

It sounds like it's secret door time...

The false section of wall is not heavy. You find a skull in somewhat good condition that would make a good doorstop. A bit sacreligious perhaps. But then so is necromancy. Unless you're Chelish. In which case it's an art form.

The passage behind the door wends and winds. It's cramped going especially for the more robust members like Vaddis and Selvin and Friend. However no one gets stuck and the passages...at least what you explore...seem clear.

The passage branches into three paths. The far western one descends sharply. Standing at the top of the descent and looking down, you see a light and hear, once again, those sounds like a wounded rat. The middle passage ends in another concealed door, obvious from this side. Your best guess is it probably lets out near or at that stirge nest. The far eastern passage also ends in a door. You hear nothing beyond it.

I have assumed you have not opened either of the two doors. The information I provided is all you could glean from listening at them. Map in Group 0 is updated.

"Well gentlemen, shall we purge this place of foul stirges?"

Selvin was not too displeased by the enclosed environs, so long as he didn't get stuck...which he didn't thankfully. He felt like a cat going after mice. When they found the three 'exits' he glanced at each but didn't enter any of them.

When Vaddis spoke, he frowned but shrugged. He didn't really want to fight annoying bug things but he was up for it if that was the consensus.

Toke shook his head. "I thought we were hunting a necromancer, not going on a Stirge hunt. Wouldn't the stirges also attack the necromancer if he went through these ways? I think the signs of stirges indicate that the necromancer did not go this way."

To be honest, Toke had no idea if what he said was true, but he certainly wasn't in the mood to fight bloodthirsty flying freaks of nature. He was in the mood for getting in, getting the job done, and taking a well needed rest.

"Hmmm, you might have a point, maybe best to go where they aren't? Good thinking Toke."

So...the staircase to the west of mystery door #2 in the far east?

Where there is no sound or smell, yes, for now.

The only quiet area is the far eastern door. And so...

The concealed door opens easily. It makes a slight grating sound as you push it open but nothing stirs and no alarm is raised. So it must be safe.

Beyond the door is a long hallway. The walls are lined with skulls. The skulls are set in a row down each wall, with empty eyes and gaping mouths that open into holes in the wall.

There are two alcoves nearby. One to the eadt and one to the west. You can not see far into them from your current vantage. Down the hallway, it appears there is a tunnel that runs into the hall in the southwest. But again, it's hard to tell from here.

The skulls aren't talking. Everything in the hall is quiet. Deathly quiet.

Updating map in Group 0

Selvin looks down the hallway a moment. He keeps his voice very quiet when he speaks up. "well, this doesn't look ominous at all. i hope it's not trapped."

He steals down the hallway slowly, keeping out a watchful eye.