The Usher admonishes: Strap in, this chapter will be different from the first and you should find it moving more quickly!

The companions lay in a heap of bruised bodies, scattered weapons, stones, grit, mud and groans of discomfort. Their descent had come unexpectedly as the earth gave way beneath them at the Cursing of the small village of Gilgamar.

OOC: Each of you take 1d4 damage from the fall. Please roll it out. You were mostly sliding amidst the mud and debris, and the larger stones have lodged somewhere above you in the natural rock chute you seemed to have come down.

It is completely dark to those unable to see in the dark. To those who can see, it appears as if you are in a natural cavern at the bottom of a natural chimney going up. There are two passageways that exit the area you are in, one heads north, the other south. The body of the Rider lies mangled and half buried on one side of the cave.  You are cold, wet and very, very sore and tired.

It took a few moments for the dwarf's eyes to focus into the darkness, especially since the hammering of anvil and tongs inside his head was creating showers of bright sparks dancing around in his vision. He managed to roll upright and make an inventory of body parts. After he determined that most of everything was still attached where it was customarily found, he undertook getting to his feet. His eyes first fell on the body of the Rider, and then he scanned for the others. "Maksim!? Ye breathin' ya little weasel? Missy? How'bout you Princess?"

OOC:
Bodric Battlebelly rolled 3 using 1d4 ((3)).

Somewhere above, there came another tremor and then another. It seemed the confrontation far above them was not over yet. Bits of rubble and more dust and grit fell upon them. Bodric noticed then the limp form of his old friend, the gnome Maksim. On second glance he seemed to be moaning and coming around.  A swatch of gray in the dwarf's darkvision stood out from the rest of the rocks and dirt. It was Agelia's cloak!

"Maksim! Get up, get up. Ye've had worse tumbles than this gettin' out of that treehouse ye live in. Why can't ye live in a hole in the ground like respectable folks anyways? Come! There be Miss Redstart! Help me dig'er out!" Bodric scrambled across the cave-in to where he'd seen the bit of cloth. He began working to unearth the rest of the young lady. Rocks above continued to creak and moan, and the dwarf instinctively knew they didn't have much time before another cave-in might happen. "Ye al'right Missy? Can ye hear me?"

Maksim heard a gruff voice try to rouse him, why is he grumpy… falling out of a tree… just like with Bodric that time…Bodric! The gnomes eyes shot open, or at least he thought they did. It was just as dark as before. Maksim pushed himself upright and allowed his eyes to adjust to the new dark. He saw his broad friend clamor over to the far side of the cavern. With only minor aches as he moves Makism hurries across to help Bodric move rocks off of the female cleric.

Looking over his old friend and his wounds Maksim had to chuckle. "I don't think you can say living in a hole is proof against falling anymore! Give me my tree any day, Old Friend. The landings are much softer."

---

OOC:
09:20, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 1 using 1d4 with rolls of 1. fall damage.

Agelia groaned.  That fall took a lot out of her.  A lot.  There were so many different sounds...running water, familiar voices, settling Earth...oh, ye gods.

Agelia shook herself, attempting to break loose of the Earth as best she could.  'I think I'm alive...' she found herself thinking.  'Well, I know I am.  I think?  Ugh, I have to try to do something, this isn't doing me any good.'

03:52, Wed 04 Dec 2013: Agelia Redstart rolled 3 using 1d4 ((3)).

"Aye, but we weren't livin' in this thing were we?" Bodric grumped as he and Maksim continued to work quickly. They soon had Agelia freed from the debris and rubble and she didn't look too good. Bodric looked to Maksim and shrugged, trying to decide whether to pat her cheeks or kick her in the ribs to wake her up. Luckily, just as he was warming up the wooden soles of his dwarf-boots, Agelia moaned and her eyes fluttered. She just stared around blankly as if she were blind.

It was then that Bodric realized she could not see in the dark like himself and his Gnome friend. "Ye got any torches left?" he asked, looking doubtfully at the smashed up pack Maksim had recovered from under a very large stone. He gently supported Agelia's neck and offered her a drink from his waterskin. His gruffness tempered by sympathy, "Ye all right Lass? Are ye hurt bad?"

After doing what he could for the young cleric, Bodric began to systematically crawl around the rubble, looking for any sign of their other companions, Durgon and the half-orc Korak.  He saw no sign of them at all, only the broken body of the dead rider.  Bodric walked to the solid stone wall of the cave and, closing his eyes, rested a hand upon the rock. The unique blessings granted by heritage to the Dwarven race belonged also to this broad-bellied dwarf and were possibly even enhanced by his girth. After a few quiet moments he lowered his hand and opened his eyes. "This be a maze down here. Echoes everywhere. Those two could be on the other side of this rubble in another passageway. No way to tell, and they couldn't be hearin' us if we tried. They're on their own."

"What do we do with him?" Bodric asked, pointing to the body of the dead rider.

Above them the world was still not at rest as whatever forces that had chosen the tiny village as a battleground were still at it.  Bodric, Agelia and the small gnome ranger, Maksim Munzuk supported each other as the cavern walls rolled in waves from the ongoing tremors and quakes.  Bodric tried to keep the concern off of his face so as not to alarm the lass, but Maksim could see it right away. This was not the place to be during a big shake.

OOC: I'm assuming Maksim lit a torch for Agelia, unless she has other means whereby she might see in the dark (perhaps put that on your wishlist? :-). The passage to the north looks to be the larger of the two, arching overhead and going relatively flat. The south passage is a bit more cramped and heads slightly downward.

BTW, I found my notes that I'd misplaced during the move. I now realize I left out an entire sequence of my narrative plan. [facepalm]

Bodric looked upward as the walls of the cavern shook. "We better get deeper if we can," he said. "Or else outa here, but I don't see no maps layin' around nor any signposts..." He closed his eyes for a moment and focused inward on that innate ability of his race to find direction underground. "That-a-way's North," he said pointing. His glance rested one last time on the body of the rider. "Shouldn't we at least cover him up? You got any preachy words Missy?" The cavern trembled again. "Best be makin'em short though!"

Maksim came to the same conclusion about Agelia's eye sight, "Here, just a second." Maksim pulled an intact torch from his pack and quickly set it alight.

Feeling the ground rumble the gnome looked to his old friend, "Deeper?! That wouldn't be my first choice, but given what had chased us up there I'd have to agree! Lead on, Bodric, we're in your world now."

With a deep resonating rumbling sound the walls of the cavern shook again. Bodric was nodding his head now and helping Miss Redstart across the boulders and debris to the smoother floor of the southern passage. "Aye Maksim, be watchin' our backs as we be goin'."

Bodric felt badly for not having done something for the fallen rider, for if he'd not warned them of the coming of the aberrations, they likely would be, even now, digesting in the bellies of those horrible beasts. There was also a nagging feeling he was overlooking something as they left the cave-in area, but in his state he could not guess what it might be. With a typical dwarven grunt he trudged forward, belly leading the way.

The three worked their way down the south passage which quickly became narrower and very steep. It took both hands to steady themselves on the loose boulder floor. After a time they began to smell a rather unpleasant aroma, which Bodric quickly identified as bat guano, only it was somehow more pungent than he could recall. Finally, there was a slight breeze on their faces and they entered into a wider cavern, the ceiling of which was lost overhead in the gloom. The breeze seemed to be wafting downward into the cave from above.  The floor was covered in guano and would have been almost waist deep on the dwarf. They would have to go around the edges to skirt the tremendous pile. The stench was incredible!

You've just entered a wider cavern with a very tall ceiling that goes up into the darkness. There is an exit to your left, heading downward to the east and another leading straight ahead continuing southward. (See the map, X marks the party's location.)

Agelia could not reply, as much as groan and chirp awkwardly.  When water came into the equation, she began to sputter.  "Wraugh!  I'm... Nothing preachy.  Not unless you'd like to hear..." she coughed, "Something about mages and divinations being handy." She sniffed.  "The one funeral I officiated, they loved me.  'Bout as much as tight-lipped monk in a temple raid, at any rate."

Maksim gives a grunt of acknowledgment to Bodric as they start their way south keeping a look over his shoulder as they slid as much as climbed down the passage. At Angelia's explanation he tried to sooth, "Don't worry yourself about it, Little One. He is resting and I'm sure the others are somewhere else in these tunnels… Just got separated is all." People where never one of Maksim's strengths.

As the trio came to the bottom of the tunnel the wall of stench that hit the gnome's generous nose was nearly overwhelming. "OY!! My Gods what is that stench! Bodric, you've led us into Gilgamar's sewer? Theres a joke here I know it but I can't think of it through the stench! Lets get out of here."

Maksim's exclamation seemed to echo around the chamber and up, up, up into the darkness. After a moment it tapered off to nothing, but then there was a faint noise from far above sounding as of the flapping of large leathery wings. It did not take long for Maksim and Bodric to both see into the gloom, a large, entirely too large, bat-like thing flying down toward them! Suddenly there came not a sound, but a... pressure inside their heads. It became painful and moreso the longer it went as the creature descended from the darkness


OOC: Please make a Save vs. Deathray as the giant Bat has awoken and is using a radar blast to try to hinder your escape!

The flapping noise sent a chill up the dwarf's short spine. "A bat?" he muttered as his overly-large ears probed the darkness above... and then it started to come into view. It was tremendous!  Right then Bodric realized the reason for the horrible smell of the guano... more horrible than normal. It was likely because this creature of the darkness was a carnivore, a large carnivore that liked to munch on large-ish meats! The three of them probably qualified in that category...

"Run! This way!" Bodric yelled, pulling Agelia behind him and moving towards the east door on his stubby legs.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 14 using 1d20+4 ((10)). Save vs Deathray, Target 12

Maksim figured out the sound of bat wings just as Bodric muttered it to himself. Unlike the dwarf though Maksim could not get the reverberation out of his head. The gnome looked about, not seeing his companions or much of anything for that matter.

---

OOC: 10:10, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 8 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 4. save vs deathray, 12.

When Bodric reached the passageway east, he risked a look over his shoulder, expecting to see Maksim right on his heels... but he was not! Bodric released Agelia and turned to see Maksim, seemingly transfixed by the descending monster! With a shout, Bodric drew his handaxe and threw it with all his might. "Get movin' ye runt! rrraaaawwwwWWWW!"

The axe sailed end over end through the air...

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 14,2 using d20+1,d6+1 ((13,1)).

The bat sensed the incoming missile and moved to dodge out of its way, but the flying axe managed to strike a glancing blow.
This message was last updated by the player at 00:44, Mon 23 Dec 2013.

The giant bat whipped its bulk to the side, trying to dodge Bodric's thrown hand axe. The confines where too tight and the weapon hit the soft membrane of its wing. The creature shrieked in pain and surprise, but had quickly regained control of itself and with a tremendous flapping of wings (which caused the stench within the cavern to multiply) it came around to attack Maksim.

The pain within Maksim's head seemed to suddenly decrease, although it did not entirely disappear. Thoughts began to swim again inside his head as if a dam were suddenly released, that had been holding back. He blinked his eyes, suddenly seeing the huge mammalian above him!

OOC:
Maksim you may attack if you choose, or attempt to flee to the safety of the easterly cave. If you attack, do so normally, if you try to get out of there, I'll need a Dex check. (1d20, roll under Dex+mod)
Agelia and Bodric, you may attack or use another action this turn. The Bat will attack next round.

Agelia felt so many things at once: Nausea, pain, terror, and other things that she hoped were not blood loss or nervous system damage.  'Oh, gods, my brain feels like grey and red paste...' was all she could think for a second or two.  With a yowl, she swung her mace at the bat, taking every defensive measure that she could not to end up even bloodied than she already was.

Of course, fighting a giant bat or a giant boar with paste for insides and what she could only guess was something perforated, was quite different from practicing aginst other acolytes.  Any legs that she could sweep at were quite high above ground or very firmly planted there, and trying to shove either off balance was out of the question.

21:44, Sun 22 Dec 2013: Agelia Redstart rolled 15,6 using 1d20,1d8 ((15,6)).

With the throbbing out of Maksim's head he finally caught sight of the giant bat hovering over him. He drew an arrow back and fired but in his haste the shot went wide.

---

OOC: 21:29, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 6,1 using 1d20+3,1d6 with rolls of 3,1. bow and arrow, bat.

The giant bat's wings swept in a wide arc as it tried to stop its downward momentum. It was not as agile as its much smaller normal-sized cousins. Agelia, despite her sore muscles and bleeding abrasions, was able to give an impressive smashing blow with her mace. Maksim heard her yowl and the continuing stream of insults from his dwarven friend. He tried to loose an arrow, but missed and heard it clatter against the stones in the darkness above.

The bat suddenly realized its prey was tougher than anticipated, however it was driven by a hunger much stronger and more powerful than its limited reason could control, so instead of winging its way back up into the darkness above, it swooped again at the noisy one... which happened to be Bodric, just arriving at Maksim's side to pull him toward the exit.

The bat's breath reeked of death and undeath as it's sharp fangs snapped at the dwarf.

The Usher rolled 19 using 1d20+2 ((17)). Bat attack vs Bodric
The Usher rolled 3 using 1d4+2 ((1)). Damage

Bodric found his boots bogged down by the deep guano on the floor of the cave as he tried to make his way to help his old friend. As the bat came closer, Bodric realized his dilemma and tried to turn his body defensively. He grunted in pain as the powerful jaws clamped down, driving the dagger-like fangs through his armor and into the flesh beneath. The creature's wings wrapped around the dwarf, pinning his arms to the sides as its jaws clamped tighter and tighter. He could feel the creature's mouth sucking at his blood through undershirt and armor. With a panicked roar, he shrugged out of the monster's clench and swung his battle-axe in an upward motion, hampered by the nearness of the bat's bulk and large wings.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 14,7 using d20+1,d8+1 ((13,6)). Attack Bat, Damage.

Even in cramped quarters, Bodric's broad and sharp blade sliced true. The giant bat screamed in pain... the sound was almost humanoid, but not quite. It fell backward and wrapped its wings protectively around itself as foul, black blood dribbled in clumps from the wound Bodric opened. A strong stench, more foul than the waist-deep guano sprang up from the bloodied bat and the companions had to cover their faces to keep from vomiting.

Bodric slipped his battered backpack and fished around a little for his waterskin and a handkerchief. He doused the area of the creature's bite on his shoulder with the water and then wiped and dressed it as best as he was able with the not-so-clean cloth. Finally, muttering grumpily to himself, he approached Maksim the gnome. "Ye all right old friend? Let's be gettin' out o'this place before another'n comes!  I ain't an expert, but this here looks like a vampire bat! We gotta find a quiet and clean place to hole up and get some rest. I don't know if'n I be poisoned or not! Likely this place smells so bad 'cause that thing's been a'drinkin' blood from the critters it kills. C'mon Munzuk... keep up!" They turned to leave the chamber when suddenly Bodric stopped and turned back around.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 12 using 1d20+4 ((8)). Save vs Vampire Bat Poison

"Me axe!" He exclaimed. He began to trudge his way around the outside of the cavern where the guano was more shallow until finally he found the weapon where it had clattered against the wall after striking the bat's wing. He wiped the filth off as best he could and then returned it to the leather loop on his belt. The dwarf then turned back toward the eastern branch.

Agelia let out a ragged breath, and exerted herself one last time before continuing on, to swing her mace at the bat's neck.  "And stay dead!"

The Usher nods: Clever girl...

The bones of the bat's short neck gave way with a dull crunch as Agelia delivered her final blow. It quivered a bit and then started to smoke! Its fur began to smolder and curl as if by heat. Bodric quickly started shoving the others toward the eastern exit.

"This be not good!" he shouted as they started stumbling and sliding down the steep narrow passageway. Just then there was a terrific 'Whooomph!' and the air from below blew past their faces as the gases from the guano in the chamber above them ignited from the decaying bat! The force knocked the three of them to the rocky floor and their ears popped from the sudden change in pressure.

Rather than get back to their feet, they slid further down the tunnel, working their jaws and trying to get their ears to regulate again. Finally they came to another small cavern opening, the floor of which was mostly flat. There they sat for a few minutes, trying to catch their breath and nursing their scrapes and bruises. Bodric's shoulder ached where he'd been bitten, but his only complaint was the ongoing mumbled mutterings that seemed to be the norm with him.

OOC: This cavern is beautifully illuminated by the combination of glowing fungi and thousands of quartz crystals growing in the walls. The effect is wonderful and unique and you all just sit for a moment and stare in wonder. Some of the crystals are very large and clear, others have impurities that show up in the faint light of the fungi. There are two openings besides the one you just slid down which goes steeply upward to the west.  The larger of the two continues downward to the east and another narrow opening, perhaps following a natural crack, heads approximately flat in elevation towards the south. I've updated the Group 2 map to your current location 'X'.

Bodric was the first to rise, his aching shoulder momentarily forgotten. He slowly made his way around the cavern, his dwarven appreciation for the beauty to be found underground showing through in his wide eyes and nodding head. He reached up and touched a particularly large crystal and then wiggled it free from its cousins. He held it aloft in his hand and it continued to glow with a greenish tinge, not as brightly, but seemingly under its own energy as he moved it away from the glowing fungi and moss.

"Don't that be a beauty?" he asked as he showed it to Maksim and Agelia. Then he went and found two more large ones for them, and several handfuls of smaller glowing crystals. "Somethin' musta gotten into them for 'em to glow on their own like that." He mused. He wrapped them all in a cloth sack and shoved them into his dirty backpack.

"Well I be thinkin' we're headed the right way. Gilgamar ain't far from the coast, in fact if ye coulda stood on them rocks we be hiding under up there, ye coulda seen it to the southeast. If we keep headin' downward we'll either run into water or a beach! This coastline be riddled with forgotten caves as every storm that comes be for buryin' or uncoverin' a cave somewheres. Another thing... When that bat exploded, the air be rushing past us, up the tunnel... that means there be a way for air to get in down here, and that's how we'll get out! I say we be findin' us a place to hole up. The two of ye can watch if I start to grow me fangs..." Bodric made a grimacing face, but it was obvious he was somewhat concerned about turning into a vampire, the aching of the wounds had returned.

"If you get as pale as I am, I'll be the first to let you know," Agelia said.  "Can't have competition.  Let's hope one of these caves you've mentioned is where some pirates forgot their treasure.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Not nearly as nice as a dragon's hoard, I'd imagine..." Agelia is trying, in her own way, to keep Bodric optimistic.  She looks at the crystal.

Agelia held the crystals in her hand and thrilled in the pale green glow. On a whim she grasped her amulet and murmured a prayer of insight. She felt the warm rush of holy magic within as she reached out to the stones, attempting to identify any magic they may contain.

She was intrigued by the outcome.

They were not magical in the sense of being enchanted. but rather held a deeper, much older, even ancient type of power. She had heard of such things in her studies, but had never touched something like this. Her hand tingled slightly and the crystal pulsed once dully.

Bodric wiped a fine sheen of sweat from his forehead... "where had that come from?" He tried a smile, but it was swallowed by his beard and the cavern's dull green glow.

"Aye Lassie, but dragon's don't normally be partin' from their hordes, and I don't know if the three of us be up to takin' on a dragon just now..." the dwarf mused.

"Hah!  I'd only ever come close to a dragon's hoard if I were sure that the dragon was quite dead." Agelia laughs.

Agelia licks at the corner of her mouth, and puts her crystal into her bag.  'You bear some looking-at, my little friend...!'

Maksim just sat there on the floor of the cavern staring at the crystal Bodric put in his hands. What a day its been already... His village destroyed, chased by unnatural beast and beings, stunned by a burning bat, and landed in a glowing cave by it's exploding waste. In a low undertone the gnome muttered once again, "Why did we come back today?"

At Bodric's plan to find the beach through the tunnels Maksim snapped out of his daze and got to his feet. Following the dwarf's example he wrapped the crystal and put it in his pack. "The old caves? I would sure like to see those again, old friend. Your plan makes sense, I'll keep a watch if you think this is a good place to stop. I'd like to get the ringing out of my head before I try and rest!"

Bodric considered the chamber they were in and thought it may well be a good place to rest. There was something comforting about the pale green light. He felt his near empty waterskin however and thought it might be best to keep moving. He thought he smelled water, and that's one thing they would need a lot of if they were to heal. None of them knew how long they'd be down here before they found a way out.

"It be a good spot Maksim and if we need to, we can always be turnin' back here. I think we might go on a bit further and see if we can't be findin' some water." his nose twitched a little.

Bodric continued downward to the east passage once everyone was ready. Like the long dropping cave they'd already come down, this one was filled with loose boulders and was steep. The last bit dropped almost straight down into another small cavern and the dwarf, with his wide bulk, barely made it through.

Inside the cavern was more of the glowing moss and fungi but it grew in small clumps and there wasn't nearly as much as the chamber where they'd found the crystals. Bodric's nose had been right though. On the far side was a seep of cold water and a basin-sized pool. The floor was relatively clear of boulders. They all noticed that this cavern was much cooler than those above.

A narrow opening low on the east wall was the only other exit. There were some old bones piled below where they'd climbed down that were covered with strange moss and so decayed that it was difficult to tell what animal or humanoid they may have once belonged to.

OOC: I'll have to update the map tomorrow, sorry.

Bodric made his way around the new cavern, giving it his attention as only a dwarf could. As he did so, the thought came to him that he was sorry he'd wasted time as a lad and later as an adult. He had missed out on much of the art and skill of stonecraft, forgecraft, and craft in general.  He hoped that somewhere his children were learning their lessons he himself should have been teaching them...

The pathway leading down another corridor to the east was smooth and sandy. Bodric hoped that they were getting closer to the costal caves, and possibly their escape. Looking at his old friend Maksim, he saw that the gnome was tired but not beaten up like himself and the human lass.

"Let's try to rest here, Maksim," he said softly. "There be water and less passages to defend.  The lass and I'll be taking rest iffn' ye can take first watch!"

Maksim gave a slight nod to Bodric. Even after all these years Bodric could read Maksim better than the gnome hoped he let on. Quite a bit of empathy for a dwarf… "Get some rest, I'll keep an eye out."

Looking around the cavern Maksim made his was to the seep and sniffed the water.

Bodric and Maksim assisted Agelia in getting comfortable before the torch was extinguished. Their eyes adjusted quickly to see a broader spectrum and they did not need torches to see underground.  Bodric settled against what remained of his battered gear and closed his eyes. He began to snore almost immediately. Maksim kicked him in the back as he made his way over to the small pool of water, and the dwarf rolled over and the snoring halved in volume.

The seep of water came out of the rocks in what Bodric had indicate was the northeastern direction. It had not been running a long long time like some of the other cave water had been. There were no mineral deposits built up anywhere. The water seeped and accumulated at the floor and then pooled in a shallow pool.  Maksim bent to sniff it... it smelled of spring rains and summer storms.  This was surface water that had made it all the way down here somehow. It was very clear and cool to the touch.

As he sat as his portion of the watch, Maksim could continue to feel the earth shudder and groan. A deep and disconcerting feeling in a dark cave for sure.

OOC: You may roll a Wis or Int (whichever is higher) TN >= 17

Maksim sat in the dark, his back against the wall between the seep and the door they did not come through. An uneasy feeling had been growing in him, but he couldn't place it. The underground surroundings too strange and unknown for this gnome of the woods.

---

OOC:11:24, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 5 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 4. wis check, tn 17.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:54, Wed 08 Jan 2014.

Bodric woke on his own a while later. Down here, there was no way to gauge the passing of time. Sure, they could have burned a torch and guessed the time based on how long it took the torch to burn out, but they only had a few between Bodric and Maksim and they dared not waste them needlessly. The dwarf felt revived and well-rested, he hated to think how long poor Maksim had been sitting at his watch, but now it was the dwarf's turn.

He walked softly over and put a hand on Maksim's shoulder. "Get ye some rest friend. I feel much better now, thank ye."

Maksim was still ill-at-ease, perhaps even more so than he had been before. He laid down on the sandy soil next to Agelia but sleep seemed to elude him. He tossed, turned, moved rocks, wiggled, snorted and even cursed (quietly and in Old Gnomish, which sounds a lot like snorting) until finally he basically willed himself to sleep. The heavy feeling stayed with him and he dreamed terrible dreams of ancient demon-pets and dead villagers seeking revenge. He seemed to have barely closed his eyes when Bodric awakened him and suggested they eat some supper and get moving.

Supper underground was a different experience for Agelia. She'd awoken finally at the gentle nudge of Bodric's wooden-soled dwarf boot in a slightly better mood than Maksim, but not much. She nibbled at the bits of rations shared by dwarf and gnome without really tasting them, for she felt the weight of hundreds of thousands of tons of earth pressing around her. The earthquakes had finally stopped during Maksim's watch, but she still felt very small and vulnerable under all this stone.

Bodric suggested they top off their waterskins at the seep, which he did by taking them all and submersing them into the pool. Maksim finished up his preparations and worked a few minutes at his battered backpack, fixing strained seams and adjusting leather straps. When he was ready, he gave the signal to Bodric and they moved out.

OOC: Agelia - Maksim and Bodric let you sleep without taking your turn at watch, resulting in the recovery of 2 HP (now 5/6). Maksim, you regain 1 HP (should be back to max). Bodric regains 1 HP plus 1 HP due to his Con bonus (now 5/9).

[Private to Agelia Redstart: You are having a difficult time negotiating all the large boulders and rocks, and your short escorts take turns with holding the torch for you. Perhaps it is a bit of a trick of the caves or maybe lingering artifacts of the fear from earlier, but you could swear you hear something moving coming from the tunnel ahead...]
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:56, Wed 08 Jan 2014.

Bodric led the way east, and it was not long before they were once again in the steep rocky pathway they'd seen prior. This was some slow going, as the larger boulders might shift suddenly, causing a bit of panic each time from the three. After they'd gone a long ways, Bodric stopped them, extinguished their torch and then whispered into each of their ears... "There be somethin' or someone ahead, I ain't sure, but I've been hearin' it for a bit. Thought my ears was playin' tricks on me, but now I be sure! Maksim, yer the sneakiest of us, why don't ye go scout it out a bit?"

"You're not the only one who's been hearing things..." Agelia assured Bodric.

Maksim looked up at Bodric and in a hushed tone, "Well if not wearing wooden shoes make me sneaky I guess I'm your gnome." Getting the general sense of where Bodric thinks the noise is coming from Maksim makes his way over the rocks as quietly as he can.

---

OOC:13:17, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 20 using 1d100 with rolls of 20. move silently tn 27.

"Well o'course yer the gnome! How many other...?" Bodric began to whisper hoarsely before biting his tongue.

Maksim was indeed the gnome for the job. He crept almost soundlessly in his soft boots. The cave they were in suddenly leveled off and the rocky and boulder covered floor changed to sand. He moved slowly toward a wider opening ahead. He paused to listen and heard a moaning sound. Someone or something around the corner was hurt!  He poked his head around the corner and saw a large cavern and couldn't quite make out what was on the far end, moaning in the dark.

~~~~

The collapse had been sudden, and with the ringing in his ears from the massive blow he'd taken to the head, the Lector of... of... hmmm... somewhere. was struggling to regain his wits. He had fallen a long ways down a narrow, rocky shaft, and ultimately attempted to slow his forward progression with his head. A large boulder had kindly helped out with that. Sepulos could feel the warm sticky sensation of blood on his hand. He tried to cough or catch his breath that had been beaten from his body by the buffetings, but nothing came out. Finally he emitted a moan of pain, about the best he could manage, and it freed up enough airspace in his lungs to allow him a breath.

~~~~

The Usher applauds : Storyline mergification complete!

Hearing the obvious sound of pain from the far side of the next cavern Makism thought about slipping back to Bodric and Anelia first. Then the image of Bodric's heavy wood-shod boots grinding their way up the passage… Best have a look first.

Making his way around the edge of the cavern Makism saw the fallen form of a round man. At first he thought he was seeing Bodric but decided it was to tall. Compassion getting the better of him, the gnome walked over to the man and placing his left hand on his shoulder, "Friend, you alright?", his right hand on his dagger.

OOC: BTW, Sepulos please note 2hp of damage from your fall... If there's blood there's gotta be a gnarly laceration right? ;-)

The scholar lay there moaning for several minutes until he got his wits about him enough to stop. What creature in this dark cavern might hear the dinner bell and come to eat him? The last thing he could remember was running down the strange stairs in the forest, tripping somewhere along the way and falling into some sort of trap. The rest was a nightmare of crashes, smashes, falls and tumbles.

OOC: Consider it hand-waved, I keep falling asleep. I'll continue another time _zzzzzzzz

Bodric waited as patiently as he could with Agelia. He held their torch for her as they waited for Maksim to return. They both strained their ears to hear what was going on and finally the dwarf decided Maksim must need some help, he'd been gone long enough!

"Come on lass," he whispered, nudging the cleric with his elbow. He held her delicate left hand in his gnarly right and they began creep forward. Maksim had often teased him about his wooden soled boots, however, here underground descending rubble and boulders, the grains of the wood grabbed and gripped the sharp, cracked stone like a spider on a wall. Not only that, wood soles cost much less than descent leather and could be replaced just about anywhere!

Bodric halted just as the cavern began to open up again to the east. "Munzuk! Ye leaf-eater! Ye alright?" he whisper-shouted.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:58, Sun 12 Jan 2014.

"You know," Agelia said, reaching into her backpack.  Oh, gods, how embarassing.  "Once we're out of here, I might like to buy you a meal.  Or two."

She withdrew a torch, and...lit it with Bodric's.  "Because while you two were busy coddling me, I had torches all along!  Damn fall must've addled me." she grumbled, thoroughly embarassed, but at least owning up to her short-sightedness.

She stopped when Bodric stopped.

"Hhrumph! I'll hold ye to that lass, I could use a good meal and the leaf-eater probably could too!" he murmured back. He was growing nervous and was questioning his judgment in sending his friend forward, after all, the underground was Bodric's domain, not that of a tree-climbing twig flicker like Maksim. "Come on!" he growled at Agelia and rounded into the cavern.

Maksim's quick hearing and soft heart led him rapidly through the cavern to its far end where he saw the scholar laying in a pile of rubble on the ground moaning. He knelt and tried to communicate, but so far had only been answered with more moaning. He heard Bodric hissing about something at the far end of the cavern. Maksim supposed he should have known his old friend wouldn't have waited long before coming to 'save' him...

The torchlight flickered off the walls and finally rounded the corner and entered the cavern proper. At the far end, (Northeast if Bodric was to be consulted on the subject) knelt the Gnome beside a pile of what Agelia determined to be a human male, but that's not really what she was looking at. The cavern itself was impressive and not at all like what they had been traveling through so far. The ceiling was much higher and it had the look of being more... worn. The sand on the floor was a lighter color than the stone of the walls, suggesting that they were not the same material. The few rocks that were strewn about the edges of the cavern looked to have been cleared away and stacked with some sort of purpose in mind, and they were rounded and smooth, not sharp, broken and craggy like the stones in the rest of the cavern had been. The air also felt more humid and fresh and... salty.

In the center of the cavern were a few stacks of empty crates that had been lashed together in an arrangement to make them as shelving. There were some broken casks and barrels about as well. This had been a storage area some time ago. Perhaps it had previously some access to the sea and was used by pirates or brigands. Now however with the recent storm and shaking of the ground, any access to the north or east was either caved in or filled with sand.

To the southeast was another narrow opening than they mostly ignored as Agelia and Bodric came to Maksim's aid with the scrambled scholar. Bodric looked at Maksim who sort of wiggled his ears inquisitively and shrugged. Bodric unstopped his waterskin and splashed some of the cold water he'd filled from the seep onto the scholar's bloody face. He wiped away some of the blood with the sleeve of his shirt so they could see the man's wound. It was a typical head wound with lots of blood but no chunks of bones protruding.

That's when Agelia's sharp ears picked up the sound of something approaching from the southeast tunnel. She nudged Bodric and pointed.


The Usher sighs: Finally, complete mergification! Now we can see the story progress as one!

Sepulos wondered vaguely if he might be dead and beginning to suffer the purgation of the afterlife. A grim thought, indeed, although even while it flashed across his mind he knew quite well that he was alive and had fallen into the very caves he had been seeking--those known to lie underground in the area of Gilgamar and whispered to be the site of a long-vanished elven city. These and other thoughts, images and strange waking dreams came and went through the ringing corridors of his mind as he lay motionless for what seemed like several hours after regaining consciousness. He knew he had suffered some sort of head wound, and he also knew that because of that wound he was not at all in his right mind. If he had been, he realized, he would probably have been more upset by what had happened--and its possibly dire consequences for himself--than he was. As things stood, however, he was aware that he did not really feel afraid or worried about his situation; there was just . . . a sense of bittersweet regret for having failed to appreciate the many wonderful aspects of his life which he knew he had taken for granted. He thought of his mysterious and fey mother, and of his good-humored "normal" father the judge. A more unlikely pair could hardly have been imagined, yet somehow they had gotten along just fine. He missed them, and suddenly he was aware of a desolate grief over their deaths, a grief which he had not permitted himself to feel previously.

He was conscious that he was moaning, and at some point during this inarticulate recitative, he became aware of a shadowy figure shaking him gently and mumbling something that sounded like like, "Do you want some lobster eggs, friend?" Then, other shapes appeared with torches, and he saw faces in a blur. The faces were connected to bodies and spoke to each other with words he was too exhausted to understand. He was aware of an awful headache and a furious thirst. "Is this the afterlife, or just a cave?" he finally managed to say with a weak voice.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:52, Mon 13 Jan 2014.

"Just a cave..." Agelia shook her head.  "If it is the afterlife, I'd like to have a word with my power-that-be about the state of things, and false advertising."

The tallest of the figures hovering over Sepulos is a pale-skinned human woman with long dark hair and eyes that might be brown or red.  If it weren't for the muck and grime and - was that the beginning of a scowl? - she might be pretty.  She wears armor consisting of overlapping leather scales; a symbol hanging from her neck suggests that she is a priestess of some sort.

"Are you alright?"

"Hello?  Is anyone there?  Friend or foe let me know now so I can decide how to introduce you to he-who-makes-resolution.  I am called Zeeny-Deedle, a humble monk and I mean you no harm."

Zeeny-Deedle had waited until he was within a few steps of the opening into the light before he called out.  As he did, he stood on-guard, staff raised diagonally and ready to deflect any nasty surprises.

As annoyed as Maksim was for Bodic following him-- after sending him ahead-- he was glad that the man was finally responding. Looking up at Agelia, "Better since your here. That was more than I was able to get out of him. I think he likes you." With a chuckle Maksim stands and backs away from the fallen scholar.

As he turns to give Bodric a piece of his mind the call comes from the southeast passage. Drawing his bow the gnome lines up the shot but looks to Bodric, "Would you call that figure back in Gilgamar a 'humble monk?'"

The dwarf smiled broadly at his old friend's teasing of the scowling young woman. They'd lighten her up if they ever got out of here. He figured they probably would, after all, just a day or two ago he'd been trapped in the cellar of the Golden Toad for two days and they'd gotten out of that hadn't they? Well that was due to the powerful Korak and his sturdy ancestral battle-axe. The barbarian wasn't here now, and finding this man lying here gave him a bit of hope that they'd see Korak and Durgon again.

He glanced over at Maksim, the smile at Agelia's expense still playing about his lips when he noticed the gnome wasn't smiling but glaring at him in the torchlight. "Ye gotta prob..." he started to growl, as he had so many times over the years, when the agile gnome snapped his bow upward toward the southeast. Forgetting whatever was about to be said between them, Bodric dance-stepped away from Maksim and readied his axe, prepared to defend his old friend... as he had so many times over the years.



"Bah!" came Bodric's reply. "He weren't a monk, maybe some sorta lich-priest or somethin', but with them pets of his, he weren't no monk."

Bodric advanced a few steps to give himself room to defend the others and boldly spoke back down the tunnel, "Mayhap friend, mayhap foe, we be not knowin' ye! Come on around and let's have a look at ye... keep yer hands were we can see'em an' I'll make a resolution not to kill ye!" Bodric surmised that perhaps this... monk, might have been the one that waylaid the fat scholar, after all, why would he have just left the man bleeding here in the dark and wandered off if he was a friend?

Bodric turned his head just a little and drawled to his friend, "Maksim, if he even twitches wrong, you stick'im!"

Agelia hefts and puts a bullet in her sling.  But, she says nothing, instead relying on the dwarf's warning to whoever was out there to keep them at bay.

Sepulos was still too frazzled to wonder at the appearance of these people who were gathered around him in a small semi-circle. "You kobolds are much nicer that they usually give you credit for!" was all he was able to say, even though as he said it he realized that they certainly weren't kobolds or anything of the sort. The torchlight flickered on their faces which, begrimed as they all were, seemed kind and genuinely concerned for his welfare. There were two little men and a young lady, who offered him a much-appreciated drink from her water skin. His head was beginning to feel slightly better, and he slowly started to realize that his earlier surmises about his still being alive were correct. He had merely had a great fall--he just remembered starting down those steps and then . . . that was all. Either way, he was better off than he might have been; he was unhurt except for the head wound, though he was still not at all ready to get up. While he was thinking this, he heard another voice coming from somewhere else in the cave; the others looked alert and ready to fight, and the scholar--realizing that he wasn't at the moment disposed to join them--decided that he might just take a little nap. And he did.

The gruff man made no effort to avoid being heard with the last and Zeeny was suddenly very concerned he had found a less than respectable band of thugs.  If that were true, the best thing he could do was give them a penance suitable for his God.

"Easy there.  I am sure we can come to an agreement regardless of the circumstances."  Zeeny-Deedle came around the corner in a smooth movement keeping his eye on the archer.  Out of the corner of his eye, he took in the surroundings.  A man lying prone and passed out.  Obviously the bunch had been in the process of beating the man.  There were a bunch of them and they were a very tough looking lot.

"What did my friend here do to you to deserve the beating you are giving him?"  As Zeeny-Deedle said the last, he continued to move around the perimeter of the group attempting to get closer to the down man intending to try to defend the man when the brutality resumed.

"That be far enough. We weren't beatin'im, ol' Maksim here found'im like this, after you left'im here in the dark! Friend huh? How about it Tubby? Ye know this Zanybeetle?" Bodric asked the moaning scholar, unconvinced.

Zeeny's life had been very sheltered.  He had gone from a jar almost directly to the monastery.  Having a short fat man call him "Tubby" was so astounding he was struck speechless for a moment.

After a gasp and a snort, "Tubby?  Me?  Zany...beetle?  Are you OK?"

Shaking his head, Zeeny continued having the glimmer of hope that this would not involve him fighting some really ugly looking folks. "My name is Zeeny-Deedle.  Zeeny when you address me directly, monk to the order of Zoran, God of Penance.  In truth, I have never met this man but I am thinking if he has met you before he is now regretting it.  I will not stand idly by while you beat this poor man.  It looks like he has served his penance.  For myself, I had an unfortunate incident in the river above which resulted in my current predicament of being stuck in this cave.  Now, there are a lot of you and only one of me.  If you intend to fight me over this poor man, could I suggest you and I face off and the winner walks away with our passed out friend there?  No fatalities required.  After-all, Zoran needs live subjects to serve penance..."

"Nah, you ain't tubby, that's fer certain. I was talkin' to him!" Bodric pointed his axe toward the prone man. These monk-types were all addled and gibbering. Bodric reassessed the monk who was huge and seemed very well put together, and he had little doubt he could use the strange double-weighted staff he carried. But... he kept rambling on about Gods and repentance and Bodric figured he'd done quite a bit of that in the last few years.

"Bah! His brain be mush Maksim... ye may as well stick'im."

In reply to Bodric Battlebelly (msg # 62):

  OOC:  FYI, Sepulos' post has him unconscious.
As much as I appreciate my char being called well put together, in all actuality, he looks like a patchwork quilt.  He doesn't realize quite how creepy he looks.  His skin has tattoos on it that are mismatched and cut apart and have stitch scars across them.  Physically, he is well built but the outside looks like a creepy quilt.
Usher:  It is sounding like we need a detailed map of positions?


"You are set on evil then?  Zoran shall judge you and set out your penance."

Zeeny-Deedle crouched turning sideways to the little archer as he had been taught and slowly moved the staff in front of him side-to-side non-aggressively but with a very specific rhythm.  He gradually added imperfections to the rhythm as he had been taught trying to keep the archer from loosing the arrow for as long as possible wearing out his arm and subtly confusing his mind.

"Friend!"  He raised his voice and directed the sound toward the unconscious man.  When there was no response, he tried again.  "FRIEND.  It is time to go if you want to live."  Still no response, frustrated, he tried one last time as he could see the little archer and the rotund axe carrying man had started to shift aggressively.  "HEY FAT PASSED OUT GUY!!  GET BEHIND ME.  RUN!!

Agelia lowered her sling and, slightly embarassed, put her bullet and launcher away.  She watched the conscious stranger make his even stranger motions, and then dip down to help the unconscious stranger.

"I don't think anything on him is broken, Zeeny-Deedle," she commented, "But since we weren't responsible for his state, I can't know for sure.  If you'd like to sling one arm around your shoulder and I get the other arm, we can cart him out of here until he wakes up, and check on him a little more thoroughly.  We've all had a pretty bumpy ride these past few days."

She then added, "Oh.  I am Agelia of Taiiemnian, Keeper of Mysteries, by the way."

The wounded scholar passes in and out of consciousness, hearing the voices of the shadowy people sounding with different pitches and inflections around him. He's pretty sure they are living people and not the shades of ancient elves, but he's too incapacitated at the moment to fully commit himself to consciousness and find out what's going on. At times, the voices seem angry and combative, though he has no idea what they are fighting about. He doesn't know how many there are, although he knows there is a woman and two short persons, one with a massive, filthy beard and a gap in his upper teeth. There also seems to be some sort of wild man or savage covered with tattoos and gesticulating madly with a staff, although the sight is so strange that he cannot be certain of its reality. At any event, the smell of these people, or of some of them, is decidedly offensive to the scholar's aesthetically sheltered nostrils. Such scents do not normally reach up to him in his ivory tower!

OOC: I'd sure like to help you guys out in your dispute and let Zeeny-Deedle know that I'm OK and that the others aren't to blame, but I realize that it's pretty unlikely that Sepulos could have much of a grasp of what's going on at the moment. You folks'll have to duke it our amongst yourselves for now!

 

Looking uncertainly at the assorted fighters in front of him, Zeeny was uncertain what to do.  The snaggly toothed ball shaped man still had the look of trouble and the little archer was still tracking him (that was one heck of an arm for such a little man).  Glancing back and forth a couple of times, Zeeny decided that, most likely, this woman must be the leader the way she didn't even look at the others before dropping her weapon.  Betting the others would not act without her blessing, Zeeny re-positioned his staff and, still keeping a close eye on the rotund man and the little archer, took up the other half of the unconscious man with Agelia.

"Well met lady Agelia.  You may call me Zeeny.  I understand then, that you know how to get out of here?"

With unsettling calm, Agelia shook her head.  "Not in the slightest." beat "I was just planning on following my nose and eyes as best I could, until we either see enough light that I no longer need to rely on these blasted torches, or until we all smell something 'outdoorsy'."

Glancing down to Maksim, Agelia motioned for him to lower his weapon, pursing her lips and rolling her eyes.

"There's strength in numbers, though, and four - later five when this fellow finishes counting sheep - is much better than three and two, or three and one and one."

Bodric didn't know whether to laugh or reprimand he was so surprised. Instead of either, it sort of came out as both in the form of a typical - and loud - dwarven snort, which could mean about anything. Evidently this monster of a man must be telling the truth, he'd obviously dropped a long way on his head as well. And he was big... Bodric barely rose up past the man's belt in height and that was with his thick wooden-soled dwarf boots and his helmet on!

Then... Agelia. Did females of every race act so...? He didn't even know a word to describe it. Bodric made a mental note to begin collecting some data on that question. It was immediately mentally scratched out and replaced with a note that said, "Don't bother, just sharpen yer axe!"



"Of course ye are..." Bodric grumbled, and lowered his axe a bit, shaking his vast beard which swished across his even vaster belly. "This be just great, a crazy monk and a youngling cleric... who be fallin' from the surface next? A dark-elf with a good heart? Bah!" He found himself missing Durgon, he was a cleric and wasn't nuts, although he'd only known him for two days and that had been trapped in a dark cellar...

Bodric sighed heavily, they'd all gotten bumps on the head lately, perhaps he was the one acting irrationally... "Bah!"

Slowly lowering his bow Maksim kept his eyes on this Zeeny. With the immediate tension gone Maksim turned his attention back to the first man he found in the cave. Looking him over in the torchlight, "Cut, scrapes, the starts of some spectacular bruises… very much looks like a fall. You there, Weeny was it? Did your monkly training include the healing arts?"

Looking at the little man, Zeeny tried to decide if he had honestly not heard his name or was making fun of him.  He had heard of ...banter... before, but never actually experienced it.  He decided to take the middle ground, "My deaf little friend, that is Weeny with a Z, and no, I am afraid my kind of healing would not be well received by Sleepy here.

"All right, ye don't need to be shoutin'! Ol' Maksim here can hear just fine... So can everything else down here!" Bodric said to the eccentric monk. He would need to teach these people the dangers of sound vibration and echoes underground. Just as he formed that thought he cocked his head as if listening, and then spun around with his axe in hand, facing the opposite side of the cavern!

The loud noises in the chamber caused one of its denizens to awaken from a post-meal slumber. It had been very content until earlier when the ground began to rumble. That all passed away, but now, noise! The denizen of the cavern wiggled its antennae in the direction the noise had come from and began to crawl out of its nappy place, across the cavern sand toward the direction of the loud sounds, after all, there was always room for dessert!

I'm going to try an experiment with Initiative... I'm going to roll for you and the enemy. I will post the results below. You may accept or reject. If you reject, you may roll again and post it at the beginning of your next post, but must take your roll, even if it is worse!

The reason I want to try this, is that I think it will speed up the game just a bit. The drawback is that I don't get to say, "Everyone roll Initiative!" We'll see how it goes... I like the latter, but if some of us only post once/day or less frequent, a couple of days can go by before we even begin the battle! You may post in any order, I will simply compile your actions based on the rolls.  Here goes:

Initiative!                                   
Agelia:       0 using 1d6-1 ((1)).
Bodric:       4 using 1d6+1 ((3)).
Maksim:       3 using 1d6+2 ((1)).
Sepulos:      5 using 1d6   ((5)).
Z-D:          1 using 1d6   ((1)).

Centipede:    3 using 1d6+1 ((2)).


From beneath a pile of fallen crates wriggled the current tenant of the storage cavern... a gigantic and very quick, giant black centipede which had been napping peacefully until the tremors and noise awakened it from its slumber!
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:22, Thu 16 Jan 2014.

Sepulos became aware of a sudden dropping off of the voices; then a scent arose that reminded him of sawdust mixed with something . . . hideous. Suddenly, the scholar found himself sitting up, aching all over, and looking around with the air of someone who had been struck by lightening and was still quite stunned, but conscious. He saw the owners of the voices he had heard standing tensely in the half-shadows made by the flickering torchlight. The gap-toothed, filthy one he had noticed earlier was definitely a dwarf carrying a ferocious battle-axe in his hand; there was another, slimmer fellow of about the same size, also bearded but on the whole rather more presentable, beside him with a bow and quick, intelligent eyes; near them stood the woman, a cleric of some kind judging by her vestments and the necklace she wore. Finally, there was the wild man of his visions, still looking mad as ever and covered with tattoos which in this light seemed to give him a truly demonic air. They were in some sort of open space underground, and the others were looking away from him with alert anxiety upon their faces. The Lector followed their eyes into the darkness beyond the torchlight, from whence issued a dry rustling . . . slithering . . . sound. Then, just as he was about to ask what was going on, a creature emerged before them that was like a nightmare out of the ancient bestiaries the scholar loved to so well to peruse at Beymarth. He knew his face must mirror the horror which he felt. "It's a glelth!" he shouted, his vast knowledge of monster lore unconsciously coming to the surface, despite the inappropriate timing for academic points. "In layman's terms, a 'giant centipede'. We're done for!"
This message was last edited by the player at 09:44, Thu 16 Jan 2014.

In the thrill of this strange meeting Maksim hadn't noticed the volume rising as the accusations flew. In the woods you want to stay quiet but the soft foliage helps deaden some incidental noises. Not here. This hard world was amplifying every bump and scratch.

As the vermin writhed its way out of pile of crates the smell of decay hit the gnome's sizable nose. Turning to the smell Makism raised his bow and loosed the arrow strait into the centipede.

---

OOC:08:53, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 22,4 using d20+3,d6+2 with rolls of 19,2. bow and arrow, centipede.

OOC:  Well, thanks for making my decision to re-roll easy...
08:41, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 1 using 1d6 with rolls of 1. initiative.
And for even more great laughs.  Apparently I was meant to have a 1.

BTW, awesome centipede and map.


Zeeny was mentally engrossed in the exchange with the rotund little dwarf and the little man and it took him a moment to realize they had another newcomer and, probably like everyone else, was hungry.  The Deedle's stomach rolled and gurgled just then.

Surprisingly, the unconscious man chose this moment to come back to the world and blurt out a string of complete nonsense.  Other than the done for bit anyhow.  Zeeny decided, looking at the lay of things that they probably wouldn't fare well running especially if he still had to carry half the recently wakened man.  He lowered the man to the ground just shy of unceremoniously dumping him and turned to face the glee</> though he didn't understand how anyone could look at something like the thing approaching them and think happy thoughts.  ZD charged the <i>glee leading with the spiked end of the weighted staff.

OOC:I'm reading the rules and I don't think I have enough info, so.... inferring and, Usher, modify my numbers as necessary....
08:55, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 12,8 using 1d20+1,1d8+2 with rolls of 11,6. whack-the-pede...eventually.
And, I forgot the +2 for the charge, so that is actually a 14,8
 

The Usher: The way I understand charging is that it needs to be done with a 'charging' style of weapon, such as a lance or spike-halberd or something... impaling. However, I think your unique staff is probably long enough and heavy enough to do some damage, but obviously won't impale the centipede. Add that to your size and bulk and I think it's entirely within the rules to say you may successfully charge the Centipede.  I think maybe reducing the damage of your weapon by the +2 you added to hit would be fair considering it's blunt So 14 on the attack and 6 for damage... Very nice! Also, help me remember that you will have a -2 to your AC for the next round when the Centipede gets a chance to attack! Muahahaha!
_{And what's with the goofy markup? Was that an oops? ;-)}
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:05, Thu 16 Jan 2014.

"Both terms are pretty terrifying," Agelia argued.  She readied her mace, looking for an opening in the centipede's movements.  The priestess moved in front of Sepulos.

She readied her weapon in anticipation of an attack, but did not rush headlong into things...

02:54, Thu 16 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 1 using 1d6-1 ((2)).

10:10, Thu 16 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 12,6 using 1d20,1d8 ((12,6)).
This is only if Agelia is attacked, or there gets to be a tile of space between them for this round.

As chance, or fate, or perhaps even the influence of the Divine - as Agelia and Zeeny might have pointed out - would have it, Bodric had tuned in to the prickles of warning the caverns gave him just prior to the attack of the Centipede. It was an ugly thing and huge! The dwarf was the first in line to become an after-supper snack. The thing had jaws and claws and pincers and all sorts of other dangerous looking appendages. Perhaps even more disconcerting was the dripping saliva as it raced toward them in anticipation.

"Look out!" Bodric brought his axe down hard on the centipede's armored head!

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 12,4 using d20+3,d8+1 ((9,3)). Attack, damage vs Centipede!

Bodric's strong blow of the axe landed squarely, with a satisfying crunch of the exoskeleton. The centipede's strongest armor was in that spot though and the axe blade turned, slicing across until it hit one of the long antennae. Severed, it fell to the ground, flopping and writhing. The centipede rared in anger and pain and likely, a bit of confusion, but then it snapped with a dizzying speed at Bodric who was in the open without cover.

The Usher, for the NPC Centipede, rolled 17,2 using d20+1,d6+1 ((16,1)).

The dwarf felt his armor dent as the enormous head smashed against him, knocking him backward a step, and almost right into Maksim's lined up shot. The gnome was spry and quick and nimble and was able to keep his balance, aim and fire... His arrow whistled by Bodric and landed with a crunchy sound as it impaled the soft underside of the monster, a few segments down from the head.

Agelia stood her ground near Sepulos. She let her mace swing a few times as if warming up in case the beast got through.

Zeeny-Deedle took quite a different tactic by rushing the centipede, holding his staff like a lance. It crashed into the centipede with another of those dull crunching noises. Several segments writhed in pain. The centipede rolled and twisted, which in some ways was more dangerous in the confines of the cave, for there was little room to get out of its way. It coiled up defensively, its hundred legs scratching at the stone around it.

Then it rared back and hissed violently at the group, spraying spittle at them!


OOC:
Everyone please make a save vs Poison and post it at the beginning of your next post. If you fail your save, then take a -3 (soreness in your muscles) to your attack roll during that round! You may add your Dex bonus if you try to move out of the way.

If you are moving on your turn, please note the direction and number of hexes you wish to go, and I'll update.
This message was last updated by the GM at 18:35, Fri 17 Jan 2014.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 12 vs TN 12 using 1d20+5 with rolls of 7. Dodge spittle attack.

Bodric saw the creature raise up and instinctively stepped away, trying to draw its attention and dodge the stream of spittle at the same time.  He then pivoted and tried to chop his way through the armored segments of the monster with his axe, but unfortunately it bounced off harmlessly...

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 5,6 using d20+3,d8+1 ((2,5)).

08:16, Fri 17 Jan 2014: Sepulos rolled 14 using 1d20 ((14)).

OOC: I think I made it, right?

Sepulos was genuinely touched when the woman stepped in front of him to defend him. Despite being out of shape, he was not necessarily one to back out of a fight, and he had even trained in the martial arts as a young man. Sadly, in this situation he found himself without a weapon (what a fool he had been to go off looking for a cave in the woods without even a knife!) and moreover, due to his injury he found himself still barely able to stand. He tried to find his balance in this storm of battle, and instinctively looked around for anything that might enable him to contribute to this vermin's speedy extermination.

OOC:  Probably no dodge since I am charging so....
07:13, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 8 using 1d20 with rolls of 8. TN 12 Save vs Poison.
07:18, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 14,8 using 1d20+1,1d8+1 with rolls of 13,7.

No map update, so I will assume that ZD is beside the head of the centipede opposite Bodric or Bodric would not have had to dodge.

HP=9-3=6



The spittle sprayed over the Deedle and Zeeny could feel a dull ache develop in the Deedle's muscles.  Realizing there was probably poison at work, Zeeny assumed his time was limited and decided he better use it well.

All his momentum from the charge had been spent on the centipede which now lay thrashing on the floor between him and the pumpkin shaped dwarf whose name he still did not know.  The good thing was that the centipede was now off it's feet.... or at least off some of them and thrashing madly as it tried to rear back up.  Zeeny slightly shifted his grip on he staff to use it as a very long club and made a full spin using the weighted end of the staff to smash upward into the base of the centipede's mouth.

09:17, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 14 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 10. save vs poison, tn12.

Maksim saw the centipede rear-up and knew no good could come of it. Continuing around the cavern Maksim loosed another arrow at the overgrown insect.

---

OOC:09:23, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 13,8 using d20+3,d6+2 with rolls of 10,6. bow and arrow, centipede.
Maksim moves 2 hexes to the left edge of the map.

'Ow.' What Agelia felt when the spittle connected with her was not pleasant.  Gritting her teeth, the priestess strode up to the centipede and gave it a sound thrashing with her mace, swinging the weapon downward.

She'd feel something from her exertion when she woke up, but at least the centipede would be dead.

03:03, Fri 17 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 1 using 1d20-1 ((2)).

10:06, Fri 17 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 16,5 using 1d20-3,1d8 ((19,5)).

Going to move one tile down, or as many as it takes, if it brings me close to the Tremors monster, and give it a whack...

Maksim proved himself calm and focused. His arrow sped to strike once again in the softer underside of the massive insect, burying itself all the way to the fletching.

The monk followed up as the centipede rared back again, likely for another blast of spray and connected with it, but his sore muscles seemed to fail in delivering any sort of follow through and so the blow lacked any real power... (You suffered a -3 to your attack roll from the spittle)

Sepulos frantically searched for something he could use as a weapon. He started to pick up a piece of a broken cask to throw, but Bodric had tossed a handaxe at his feet. The scholar snatched it up and made ready.

Agelia saw her opening, and rushed forward with her mace, a terrific weapon for smashing bugs, and connected a powerful blow. Her body was intensely tired and weak and her muscles seemed to be cramping up. The attack seemed to make her feel the blow as much as the centipede, only it was the exoskeleton of the monster that cracked... this time. (You suffered a -3 to your attack roll from the spittle, but still hit.)

The centipede writhed from the attacks and turned even more defensive, gathering it's many legged segments into a ball. It rared up again, hissing and began to move backwards out of the cave to the northeast. The brave party had wounded it enough to think better of having some, or all, of them for a snack.

Map updated.

Zeeny was sure the Deedle had been poisoned now.  He backed away nodding to the Agelia as he did.  She did not appear to be incredibly strong but the retreating bug seemed to think otherwise.  Seeing the threat retreating he let it go and used his training to slow his body down.  Hopefully he could fight off the poison.  While he used a piece of broken barrel to wipe the remaining bug juice off everywhere he could reach.

provided I have that much time...
Let's try that meditation roll? (
18:16, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 20 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 19. Slow bodily functions.  Reduce effect of the poison.

Sepulos almost fainted as he bent to pick up the hand axe; as he rose, head spinning, and prepared to hurl it with what little strength he had at the hissing nightmare in their midst, he realized that the battle was mostly over. The centipede was wounded from the blows of his companions, and retreated towards the direction whence it came. The woman and the wild tattooed . . . person . . . seemed particularly exhausted, looking--like himself--barely able to stand and seeming in the flickering torchlight, to the scholar's mind like primordial archetypes of poor bewildered humanity, oppressed and beleaguered by the "darkness visible" of the hostile unknown.

"Do you think it's gone for good?" the scholar said in a weak voice, leaning against a crate. "Were any of you affected by the creature's poison?" he asked, looking around. He knew, as a sage whose secondary specialization was in monstrous lore, that the glelth could project a spittle that caused soreness in the muscles. He was sure that the woman, at least, was showing symptoms. . . .
This message was last edited by the player at 20:39, Mon 20 Jan 2014.

Maksim sank another arrow into the centipede as he reflected on these new comers and how they approached a battle. The rounder one would just let the vermin walk out of the chamber, to come back when it wanted. The larger one gave it a good whack or two but decided to sit and hum.

---

OOC: 17:05, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 22,3 using d20+3,d6+2 with rolls of 19,1. bow and arrow, centipede.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 4,7 using d20+3,d8+1 ((1,6)). Doh! A '1'!

Seeing the monster trying to retreat, Bodric pressed on, knowing like his old gnomish friend that these critters had a tendency to circle back around and attack when one wasn't looking. Just as he was about to swing Maksim's arrow flew over his head and hit precisely between the segments of the centipede's head and the rest of the body. Bodric's feeble swing, bounced wildly as he tried to step to the side. He shouldn't have attempted both!

The little gnome could not let the creature get away, and so his arrow flew true. It pierced the centipede and severed a nerve bundle, killing it. The carcass of the giant centipede came down, hard, on top of Bodric, pinning him beneath. His axe lay just out of reach, but it wouldn't really have mattered because the weight of the dead insect-zilla was crushing the life out of the dwarf. He was not able to inhale! Various mandibles and legs twitched as the nerves drained out the remaining life-force before the thing went limp. Bodric's face and bald head were turning red, then purple, and finally a very pretty shade of blue...

"I'll live," Agelia groaned in response to Sepulos' question.  But, she thought, Bodric might not if that over-sized pest had anything to say about it.  Exertion followed by a loss of circulation was bad.

The scholar-priestess ambled over to the dwarf's prone form, and set her mace down.  She attempted to shove - or perhaps lift? - the offending part of the centipede.  If anything, she just hoped to lighten the burden on the dwarf!

That did not work out as well as she'd hoped.  "Son of a..." She howled.  Exertion exacerbated by foreign substances followed by more exertion was also bad.

00:58, Tue 21 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled -2 using 1d20-3 ((1)).
This message was last edited by the player at 09:00, Tue 21 Jan 2014.

Seeing the calamity happen just in front of him, Zeeny roused his body for another effort.  The soreness was still eating away at him but it was a bit more distant now that he was focused.  Stepping up beside the dwarf's legs, he shoved his staff under the centipede at the dwarf's armpit and levered the staff prying the centipede backwards over the dwarf's head.

  I'll assume there are probably two rolls there, a mental and a strength?
13:10, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 2 using 1d20-1 with rolls of 3. vs. Strength.  I took my +1 and added -2 for poison?

13:10, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 6 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 5. Call for Adrenaline.
Quick, somebody roll.  The next roll almost has to be awesome.  I am sure Agelia, Bodric, and I have used up all the sucky luck.


Zeeny couldn't quite wake up.  The soreness started coming back too.  He pried and not much happened.  "Could I get some help here?"

OOC: I'm not really sure what I  need to role. I'll roleplay the action, and if the Usher sees fit he can role for me.

Sepulos dropped Bodric's hand axe and staggered unsteadily towards the dead centipede whose carcass the others were trying to push or roll away from the poor dwarf who lay pinned beneath it. The woman and the savage-looking fellow weren't having much success, and they appeared to be themselves weakened from the effects of the monster's poison spittle. The scholar, who realized with an untimely grin that he had literally "fallen" into this strange adventure, said: "Perhaps if the three of us attempted to roll this stinking thing over together, at the same time, our efforts will be better rewarded."

Maksim's relief at dropping the centipede was short lived as the vermin dropped onto his friend. It was comical at first but when the dwarf's face turned blue he started to worry. Stowing his bow Maksim rushed over to throw his weight into freeing Bodric.

---

OOC:15:26, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 2 using 1d20 with rolls of 2. str check, centipede roll.
Thats one heavy bug!

The Usher chuckles: So suddenly this turned into a comedy? What are those frantic chopping actions the dwarf character is making? Uh oh, he seems to have passed out... I suppose we'll never know.

The unlikely companions tried to shake off their lethargy and soreness from the poison. Just moving seemed like work, just thinking of moving seemed like work. Agelia and Zeeny-Deedle had the worst of it and much to their frustration the centipede still lay atop the dwarf.

Bodric stopped trying to reach for his axe, it was no use, he couldn't budge his enormous paunch enough. The air had gone out of him and whatever the last thing he ate was trying to come behind it. He could see his companions standing above giving some half-hearted attempts at helping him, but the tattooed fellow looked to be half-asleep and the scholar seemed to be already organizing the funeral arrangements! Even Maksim, his old friend wasn't putting his back into it!

His face started to tingle and his vision blurred until he was only seeing out of a tunnel. It was just like the time he and Maksim had tried to build a raft together as youth and had nearly drowned. Bodric still couldn't believe he'd let the gnome talk him into that. He couldn't recall having gotten in a boat since!

Unable to reach his axe, the dwarf tried to use his remaining strength to show a chopping motion with his hand. Maybe one of those lame-brained mold sniffers would get the clue. Bodric's body went all numb as he tried to think which he'd rather have at the moment, air to breath or air to shout at those dunderheads to put some effort into it! But thinking was suddenly too hard... too hard... tingles and then... no more tingles.

Bodric's eyes rolled back into his head and his struggling stopped.

The others looked at each other and the circus ensued with bumping into each other and names being called and fingers pointed.



OOC: Ahh this made for a great scene!  I almost hate to clarify a few things just because... well dice are the spice of any rpg experience as Z-D can attest to at least as far as he and I go back. Murphy was in rare form today! or was he...?

You may recall that there are two types of Ability checks in this ruleset. At least that's the way I've always played and run things. BFRPG is based on 1e and its many variants. Today, with 3.x, Pathfinder, etc. there are rules that cover dang near any possibility that comes up. The reason I like Old School rules is that they are much more wide open.

So the two types are unopposed and opposed ability checks, or in other words, checks based on natural ability vs checks based on skills. Since 1e and its variants, including BFRPG don't have 'skills' those checks are based on ability rolls.

When a raw roll is required, ie lifting a centipede off a fallen comrade, the check is rolled at or below your ability score plus modifiers, such as -3 for centipede poison. So low rolls are better in this case, which I believe is the only kind of situation where lower is better. The -3 goes against your ability score. So let's say Hector the Huge has a strength score of 16 but has been swimming in centipede spit (-3) He would need to roll 13 or less to succeed in his check. If he had on cleated boots (+1) and had chugged a strength potion  (+2) then he would need to roll a 16 or less to be successful (16-3+3). This system rewards higher ability scores.

When a roll testing a 'skill' based on an ability is needed, then that's when the target number chart is used and modifiers are added to the roll. Level 1 chars need to meet or exceed a 17 to be successful in this kind of roll. So Hector the Huge wants to design a simple lever-powered lifting device. His Int is 10 so he's got a +0 attribute bonus. He does have a goblin engineering reference manual he found a while back, so he gets a +2 to his roll. So he would need to meet or beat a 17 with his roll +0 +2.  This system takes into consideration raw ability (in the form of +/- ability modifier) and experience (TN goes down as level increases).

So back to our current situation... You all easily met the low roll requirements to move the centipede off of Bodric! ;-)

Raw Rolls (which are amazing btw!)
Agelia  --> 1
Z-D     --> 3
Maksim  --> 2
Sepulos --> 1

Those 1's are considered critical successes due to the nature of the roll (lower is better).

This confusion is one of the things that has been fixed in more modern d20 systems with the introduction of Skills, Feats, etc. Now there is no trying to remember if it's a high roll or a low roll you're after in a given situation.

Personally, I still like the old style and the confusion. Look at what was created! Now you'll all have to figure out a way to resuscitate a passed-out dwarf!
_{Just don't take all day huh? ;-)}

This message was deleted by the player at 13:28, Wed 22 Jan 2014.

In reply to The Usher (msg # 94):

Zeeny-Deedle pried and finally levered the carapace off the blue dwarf.  The dwarf's breathing had shallowed to indistinguishable a moment ago but Zeeny wasn't particularly perturbed by that considering his own past.  After getting the giant bug over the dwarf's head, he fell to his knees beside the dwarf and gave him a hard whack across the face, pulling hard, rolled him onto his side where the dwarf proceeded to cough and choke.

  It's up to someone else if he actually wakes up or not.

Agelia drops to her knees and begins performing various procedures she has used to resucitate the unconscious before.

17:53, Wed 22 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 10 using 1d20-4 ((14)).

Not sure if that poison applies to Saves, as well, but just to be on the safe side...

Would you like me to edit this with a roll?  If so, what ability score?

The unlikely team finally got things situated enough to work together and heave the dead centipede off of the dying dwarf. With grunts and groans their efforts freed Bodric from the tremendous pressure the giant insect had been putting on the dwarf's similarly oversized paunch. Agelia quickly stepped forward though every movement was agony. She felt as if her muscles were cramping to the point of tearing themselves apart. The grumpy dwarf had helped protect her from the bat earlier and so she felt obligated to help out.

When none of her 'normal' trained techniques worked for her to get Bodric breathing again, she resorted to a few methods her instructors had joked about as 'ditch medicine' and 'old-wives' remedies'.  Hastily looking around she found a slim sliver of a broken crate, about the length of her finger and perhaps a third the diameter. This she unflinchingly shoved up Bodric's nostril and began to wiggle back and forth.

Bodric didn't respond.

Somewhat surprised that this trick didn't work, Agelia sat back exhaustedly and shrugged her shoulders in defeat - which really hurt to do. Just then Maksim stepped in and applied a little gnomish ranger-medicine of his own. He smacked Bodric across the face and then again with the other hand. He applied the same treatment a few more times for good measure.

Bodric responded.

Like a giant bellows his lungs expanded as he gasped precious air. It came out in a snarl of rage as he took a swing at his old friend - who had once again pulled him back from the brink of death - with a meaty dwarf-paw. There wasn't enough oxygen in his blood to finish the punch and it ended up as sort of a lame swipe.

Bodric coughed and gasped and finally the normal color returned to his face and he was able, with the help of Sepulos and the patchwork monk, to rest up against the cavern wall as his blood got back to business. He had a powerful headache now and his limbs felt like noodles left in a pan overnight... rubbery and unusable.

What a sorry bunch they were, sore and tired and dirty and yet somehow, alive and drawing breath... mostly. As they sat on the sandy floor of the cave trying to recover from the battle and their harried introduction, they reflected on the events of the last few days. Each took a turn sharing his or her experience. They were too tired to do much of anything else besides tend to some wounds and allow the poison to run its course. They passed Bodric's waterskin around and refreshed themselves while stories were shared.

Agelia and Bodric shared about being stuck in a wine cellar for two days after the destruction of the Golden Toad which they'd found out meant the destruction of the entire village of Gilgamar. They told of their escape and how Bodric had teased the half-orc Korak into a berserker rage which had ended up in a shattered cellar door. Of how Bodric had saved Korak from being subsequently smashed by a beam and how with the help of the priest of Lady Autumn, Durgon, they had pulled themselves out.

Maksim told of his experiences of the days leading up to the destruction of Gilgamar. How he had returned to find it wiped out with Bodric and a couple of others being the only survivors. He talked about the Rider who tried to warn them of the arrival of awful aberrations, the likes of which none of them had ever seen nor experienced. Finally he talked of the Huntsman, his terrible flaming sword and the self-sacrifice of young Tuar. He added the details of the collapse of the earth, their encounter with a vampire bat and finding of crystals.

Sepulos, the Lector of Beymarth, spoke little of the reason behind his endeavors and the lead up to the last few days. He debated whether to share of the Forest Guardian and the lost civilization of elves. He did describe what he could remember of his fall and the agony of laying in the dark cave for Gods-knew how long until the others had arrived. He listened intently to the goings on in Gilgamar for he'd just passed through the village and it was as peaceful and laid back as a rural community could be!

Zeeny-deedle listened as well, soaking in the news and experiences of others. He learned things differently than other people and he had an awful lot of catching up to do. He finally shared about his defense of the river-boatman and his trek through the caverns. He shuddered when he spoke of the terrible place he found himself in when the shaking began. Of his own fall and the piercing terror of finding himself alone in the darkness.

The camaraderie seemed infectious and within a short time of the stories being told, Bodric seemed his normal grumbly self and the others felt the effects of the centipede poison begin to diminish. They helped each other to their feet and decided to begin discussing plans. The better they felt, the more their senses sharpened and the more Bodric's intuition about other underground oddities which might have felt the tremors or smelled their spore warned him they needed to get back on the move.

OOC: So in the interest of time and plot development, consider this scene a hand-wave. It sure beats all meeting at an Inn (or the cellar of one), but not by much.  At any rate, there are a few things to take care of house-keeping wise.

Each of you have earned another experience point! At this rate, you should all level or be a point or so away by the end of this Chapter... I'm hoping in a couple of weeks Realtime to have you out of the caverns. Some of that will depend on you and how much you choose to explore.

Sepulos, this area of the caverns was once open to the sea. It has been sealed off by sand and storm in recent times, not real recent, but probably within your lifetime. You recognize, as do the others, that it was used as a storage and a cache of supplies sailors - or pirates! - might need. Go ahead and assume that you've found your load-outs for gear here.

You may all Search the room, please roll vs Wisdom + modifier, TN17 (higher better) if you choose for anything that's not obvious.

With the Centipede vanquished, you may consider this a 'safe-room' for the time being as the Centipede had a pretty good thing going here and kept intruders out. If you choose to do so, there are sufficient supplies that with a trip or two back up to the room with the seep, you could easily hole up here for a couple of days to rest and replenish HP.

If there is any other dialog any of you wish to have, now would be the time, or otherwise narrate your actions up until the point of preparing to move out.

[Private to Sepulos: In the southwest corner of the room you make a discovery. You were poking around looking for gear when you realized the rubble on the ground was from the wall. Upon closer inspection, you realize it is an ancient cave-in and that there must have been another tunnel leading off at this juncture. When you consult Bodric, he grunts in the affirmative. You also notice an ochre glyph on the undisturbed cave wall near the collapsed entrance. It is faded and difficult to read, and only preserved by the cavern conditions.

If you would like, you may make an IQ check TN13 (You study this stuff after all, and no poison penalty anymore) to see if you recognize what significance it might have.]

Agelia looks about the various barrels, crates, and other things halfheartedly.  In particular, she searched for things that could be used as (makeshift) healing supplies.

00:41, Thu 23 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 13 using 1d20+2 ((11)).

OOC: Great work wrapping that scene up, Usher! And thanks for the very usefull lesson on the ability checks.

Question: Do you want us to roleplay the results of our roles, or do you want to narrate to us our findings?

Wisdom:
04:34, Thu 23 Jan 2014: Sepulos rolled 18 using 1d20 ((18)).

IQ:
04:34, Thu 23 Jan 2014: Sepulos rolled 18 using 1d20 ((18)).

I don't know how that happened, but--yes indeed--identical rolls!

After having rested for a few hours and enjoyed the company of the others, Sepulos was feeling noticeably better--almost back to normal. The wound hadn't been half so bad as they'd all feared. The cleric lady--Agelia--had helped him bandage his wound, and he had found some useful supplies in the old crates, including a coat of rusty but still serviceable chain mail (that fit only uncomfortably due to his weight), a round, medium-sized shield bearing the strange device of a rampant rabbit upon a pumpkin, and a dull, rusty old longsword, seemingly unused but merely old--who could tell how long these things had lain here, or where they had come from? It didn't seem that any of these crates had been deposited recently, and since the centipede had seen fit to take up residence here he assumed that the smugglers or pirates had long since changed their safe house or--more likely--gone down to a cold and lonely grave somewhere in the world's ancient seas. After the utterly inexplicable tidings he'd heard of the fate of Gilgamar (were they really telling the truth?) and his recent mishaps, he figured that it would only be wise to take these things. It wasn't as if he'd never touched a sword before--he'd learned to fence from one of the Blade Lectors of Beymarth as a young man, with other youths of his social class, and he cherished the memory of those days learning from the sardonic old man. He laughed to think of what Master Grash would say if he could see him now! Probably, he heave a sigh of bitter disappointment at the poor figure he cut and the weapons he chose to equip himself with. Sepulos had to admit that he was hardly the type to make an intimidating opponent, though in the old days he was by no means the worst of his class at swordplay. He pulled the weapon from its sheath at his belt and thought if was probably of very little use, after all. Still, a rusty sword was better than nothing. Maybe one of these nice people had a whetstone and some oil. . . .


[Private to The Usher: In response to Usher msg. #98:
[Private to Sepulos: In the southwest corner of the room you make a discovery. You were poking around looking for gear when you realized the rubble on the ground was from the wall. Upon closer inspection, you realize it is an ancient cave-in and that there must have been another tunnel leading off at this juncture. When you consult Bodric, he grunts in the affirmative. You also notice an ochre glyph on the undisturbed cave wall near the collapsed entrance. It is faded and difficult to read, and only preserved by the cavern conditions.

Sepulos investigated the glyph carefully, trying hard to make sense of the faded pattern in the flickering torchlight. . . .]
This message was last edited by the player at 10:08, Thu 23 Jan 2014.

16:32, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 18 using 1d20 with rolls of 18. vs Wisdom for non-obvious things  TN17.

I assume that means I can select something... non-obvious?
 

Zeeny-Deedle joined the others in the searching through the plunder of some long lost vagabonds.  There was actually a lot of stuff in the chamber.  Zeeny-Deedle saw things that he recognized and things he didn't.  Many were obvious.  The silver candlestick holders for example.  Others were truly weird.  One device he found was about the size of a ham hock and had a handle on it that turned with some resistance and two wires connected to metal disks that were wound around the device.  Having some experience with the toys of alchemists, Zeeny recognized the device as having some use in alchemy though he did not know its actual use.  That recognition drove him to look harder at the trunk the device came from.  He was quite excited to find several tightly sealed jars and, after opening them, recognized the smell from his old master's lab.  He didn't know the use of them specifically, but stuff just like that had been used when the Deedle was put together and Zeeny still remembered how to use them.  Zeeny took the jars, the mysterious cranking thing, and some other basics, a needle and thread made from sterilized cat intestine and another roll of thread made from cotton.

After finding his first few treasures, Zeeny-Deedle started looking a little more seriously and soon found a pack with solid tie-downs that would allow the pack to be strapped firmly so it didn't flop on the wearer's back.  He found quite a few articles of clothing but just didn't feel right when he tried them on though he did keep the skull-cap he found that had some kind of metallic thread woven into it on the outside layer of leather.  The only other article of clothing he found that he took was a voluminous tunic that he thought might be useful if he needed to hide more of his skin which he had been informed by the others was rather strange looking.

He found some leather bracers he liked that were rather long covering from his wrists to his elbows.  When he put them on with his new hat, it hid most of his weird skin.  He found some metal boots that he tried on but found that when he tried an experimental leg-sweep he fell on his butt bouncing his head hard on the floor to the enjoyment of all watching.  After that experiment, he stayed away from the solid metal pieces.  He found a couple knives that he could use for cooking and eating or more practical uses.  He tried throwing one and had to duck the helmet Bodric threw at him after the knife bounced off the crate he had aimed at and nearly impaled Bodric's foot.  He kept a set of throwing knives and the two hand knives but decided he better get someone to show him how to throw a knife.  As he was fastening the sheaths of the knives on his leather armor he stepped in another box and became wrapped up in some leather cords with weights on the ends.  Extracting himself from the box he dumped it on the floor and found a leather device with three rocks wrapped into pouches on the ends.  He picked it up and looked at it carefully.  When he tossed it into the air above him it fanned out and when he caught it again, the stones he didn't catch whacked him in the head after wrapping around his arm.  He smiled and stashed the strange weapon in his pack.  The other device in the box was a cylindrical hand carved piece of wood with a groove around the center.  Wrapped into the center was a strong cord.  Grasping the cord he pulled and the cord held fast.  Dropping the wood cylinder, it spun and unwound clear to the ground and then started to come back up toward his hand before it ran out of energy and finally settled all the way unwound.  Recognizing the toy, Zeeny stashed it in his pack as well.  finding a whetstone he smiled as he tossed it to Bodric saying, "Bodric!  I found you a whetstone.  Maybe you should sharpen that axe of your so it doesn't bounce off things quite so easily."

There were other practical things as well.  After the first uncomfortable sleep he had in the cave, he was very proud to find a unique blanket someone had made that was a cross between a raincoat and a blanket.  The outside was oiled cotton and it was lined with wool.  The top was like a cape with a hood and the bottom had a portion that could be unrolled and would cover the legs.  The whole thing rolled into a tight roll.  He found leather case with paper in it but sadly the paper was moldy and starting to fall apart.  He did find a lantern with four independently coverable lenses obviously designed to withstand the hard life of living in a traveler's backpack that he took as well as a couple flasks of lamp oil a flint and steel, and an unused wick.  There was some fine silk rope which he took laughing as he thought how useful it would have been when he first fell into this cavern.  He took a couple water skins and filled the rest of his pack with some dried food that looked questionable but he also took a small pot he thought he could boil the food in to make it edible.


Usher:  Delete what you want to veto, here is my summary:
Item         Weight
Backpack     *
Tunic        1    (I don't think it should even weigh as much as the backpack but....
Bolas        *    (similar to a sling and bullets?)
Yoyo         *
3 throwing
knives       3    (I'd argue this weighs less)
2 utility
knives       2
Bivy         10   (one man tent)
Silk Rope    4    (100')
Lantern      2
Oil          2     (2 flasks)
water        4     (2 skins)
flint        1
Rations      14    (1 week)
Bracers      ??    (I already have leather armor)
Skullcap     ??    (I already have leather armor)
JarsOGoop    *     (I guessed at the weight)
Defibrilator *
thread/needl *
---------------------
             43#

The dwarf snatched the whetstone out of the air and then tossed it back with a snort. He plucked one long hair from his beard and held it aloft by one end. Then, without breaking eye-contact with the monk, proceeded to shred it in the air with his axe using deft flicks of the wrist. The tiny pieced drifted to the floor of the cavern before he turned away muttering, "...bounce me gauntlet off'n yer ugly head..."

Agelia raised an eyebrow as she sat upon an empty keg, ripping cloth into bandages. She'd been working on a relief-kit composed of various things she'd gathered from the supplies, and all held together in a leather satchel. Bodric's nose twitched at the smell of rum from a small bottle she'd discovered and was using to sanitize her bandages. He turned away however and tried to ignore it. He'd made a promise to never touch alcohol again, and he meant to keep it. He'd lost too much already.

As the others were scrounging around through the pirate's supplies, Bodric gave the cavern a good once-around, followed by a twice-around before hitting pay dirt. He'd spent time in the pits with pirates and smugglers and had heard enough of their stories to know that they never trusted each other and never left the 'good stuff' out for the finding.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 17 using 1d20+1 ((16)). Searching for hidden stuffies. Also a tip of the helm to Agelia for the formatting idea of putting the result in gray. How long have you been doing that? I just noticed. Nice.

Sepulos and Zeeny had reached a similar conclusion in their searching by both noticing a bent iron torch holder along the north wall, not far from where Sepulos had fallen through the floor of the world. They all three stood for a moment, Zeeny scratching at a healing stitch, Sepulos chewing absently on a fingernail, and Bodric stroking the sand out of his beard. They almost butted heads as they all three knelt to dig at the same time. Bodric's was a fake-out though, he just bobbed down and back up again and let the other two dig the loose sand. He stood grinning and supervising the excavation.

Not far into the sand they hit something hard. It was to no one's surprise that Zeeny-Deedle lifted out a small iron bound chest, a heavy one. The clasp was rusted and it only took Bodric a moment to bust the welds and get it open. Inside was a small pouch containing a few sparkling gems and the rest of the space was filled with silver and gold jewelry and coins.

You find about 200gp worth of treasure in the chest.

Bodric was really grinning now as was Sepulos, but likely for different reasons. Bodric's was the gold-lust of his race, the Lector of Beymarth's was the identity of interesting minting. The monk however had caught treasure-fever and continued to dig up the sand. Bodric chuckled to himself and was about to turn away when Zeeny found something else hidden deeper!

With much enthusiasm he withdrew and uncovered a heavily oiled canvas bundle.

Inside was a hodge-podge of various objects, of obvious good workmanship and quality, and fairly well preserved with little sign of moisture damage. The monk stretched forth his hand to eagerly rifle through the treasures when Sepulos and Agelia exclaimed simultaneously, "I WOULDN'T DO THAT!"

Here's a list of what's in the bundle:
An old wooden cup carved exquisitely and made from a dense green wood.
A shortsword with a uniquely patterned, gently curving blade a plain wooden handle and steel crosspiece and pommel.
A single dragon scale about the size of a buckler and with handles on the back for that purpose.
A bundle of arrows with acorns as arrowheads.
A bundle of green arrows with bright yellow fletching.
A wicked-looking mace spiked with what appear to be dulled teeth.
An oval, palm-sized gemstone that is clear and devoid of imperfections.
A pair of copper bracers intricately engraved with the heads of lions, having small emeralds for eyes.
A gray, silk, bandana-like mask with eyeholes cut and embroidered magical symbols.
A silver amulet set with a stone that seems to swirl inside like lazy smoke.

As Agelia makes her "bandages", she gives the rum the occasional sniff, each time letting out a happy, shuddering sigh, much like would come from a puppy's throat as it is given a treat.  But, for different reasons, she does not drink any of the substance.  Who knew how old it was?  It could be so toxic by now it could kill a troll!  But, it smelled good, and it made Agelia the happiest she'd been since things went South.
Rations are also eaten, consisting of preserved vegetables and strips of pork.  Using one of the smaller, less "workable" strips of bandage she'd made, Agelia pulls her hair back and ties it.

She begins to call to her companions to see if they need aid, but then, the treasure chest is unearthed!  "What..." is all that she can manage.  She looks at her holy symbol, and wets her tongue a bit, trying to recall if the magical energy within it is dormant, or not.  After her warning to Zeeny-Deedle, the priestess hops down from her "perch" - which she would miss once she left it - and approaches it.  "Careful.  There's no telling what enchantments could be on any of those."

For a while!  I like it when the results match the character.  It gives things a personal touch.  Now, to get it in Bell Gothic BT...
This message was last edited by the player at 08:34, Fri 24 Jan 2014.

Sepulos is thrilled by the mintage of the coins; they're clearly from across the World's Lake, from one of the mysterious Serpent Kingdoms of the Red Continent (this is clear from the letters, although Sepulos is personally unable to read the language common to these kingdoms, said to be derived from a long-lost dragon tongue.)

He looks with interest also at the findings in the bundle; although the items are certainly of fine quality, he is unable to tell anything of their provenance. He wonders vaguely how they will divide their spoils, although he has no particular desire for any of these things, except maybe one or two of the coins.

"Is there something in particular you would like to do before we sort through them?" said Zeeny-Deedle to Agelia and Sepulos.  "I would point out, that this is obviously a thief's stash and, as such, somebody who did not own this wrapped it up and put it in this box.  It seems logical, then, that this stuff should not cause dire effects unless triggered somehow and that is obviously not so likely that casual handling will make that happen.  It seems obvious that the arrows are triggered by shooting them for example."  With that last comment, Zeeny grabbed the arrows in one hand and handed them to Maksim.  "I assume, Maksim, that you are our only archer?"  When Maksim didn't take the arrows, Zeeny-Deedle shrugged and set them down carefully.

"Personally, I think these bracers should be a better choice than these." Zeeny-Deedle said, holding up one arm with a leather bracer on it.  Taking off the leather bracers, he set them aside and put the copper colored bracers on.  "See, not so bad.  Right?"  Zeeny-Deedle stood up and performed some hand blocks and strikes in the air to demonstrate.

  I'll leave it at that for the moment so the Usher can bring the seven hells down on poor ignorant Zeeny...
This message was last edited by the player at 20:05, Sat 25 Jan 2014.

After Bodric was free from the centipede-- and breathing-- Maksim sat himself down near the cavern opening and just stared off into the black. The gnome's mind wandered back through the passages and back up to the surface, back to Gilgamar. Not the ruins that lie smoldering but to the Gilgamar of his youth. It was a good time for Maksim. Playing with/ teasing Bodric had filled his days, and his nights… home with his parents. Are you out there?

Maksim paid the others no mind until Sepulos and Agelia both shouted. Jerked out of his maudlin daze, he joined his companions looking over the cache. Not taking the arrows held by Zeeny, "It would appear so, my large friend, but I also hear the two learned ones here warn against touching. So once things are given a once over I'll be sure to put those arrows to good use. Just let the others have a look."

Agelia clasped her holy symbol and her lips began to move as she uttered her prayer to Taiiemnian, the God of Mysteries. Her other hand passed over the items in the oiled sail-cloth. Nothing seemed to happen... Agelia's eyes closed in concentration.

OOC: I just realized the file I need that has what effects (if any) these items produce is on my other compu. I'll have to make an update tonite. Sorry for yet one more delay. My memory is bad enough that if I don't put down my ideas, I'll forget them. That also means if I don't have access to what I wrote down, then I can't remember!

PM Agelia:
[Private to Agelia Redstart: I will get you much more detailed information about what you find out with your spell, but for now I'll post this that hopefully will be helpful...

All of the items respond to the divination, revealing their magical power, but perhaps not their effects.  The majority of them glow with a neutral tone as your spiritual eyes would see it. The mace is unlike anything you've experienced before. It is a mixture of tones, mostly neutral but the 'teeth', or spikes are definitely evil feeling.  The smokey crystal amulet has a very tainted aura that you cannot particularly place, except for it has a similar sensation or appeal as when your cat had an accident in your clean laundry basket... ;-)

Your conclusions will vary from Sepulos's as yours are based on commune with your God and his are based on study and lore. There may be contridiction or overlap...

Again, more details to come later tonite. Sorry.

A shortsword - potentially powerful weapon

A single dragon scale - naturally occurring dragon magic

A bundle of arrows with acorns as arrowheads - some restrictive enchantment?

A bundle of green arrows with bright yellow fletching - reflexive, reflective, re-something... starts with an 'r'

A wicked-looking mace spiked with what appear to be dulled teeth. - see above

An oval, palm-sized gemstone that is clear and devoid of imperfections - more info with proper meditation

A pair of copper bracers intricately engraved with the heads of lions, having small emeralds for eyes - essence of the lion

A gray, silk, bandana-like mask with eyeholes cut and embroidered magical symbols - only those with something to hide wear masks... or those who wish to see unhindered

A silver amulet set with a stone that seems to swirl inside like lazy smoke - see above.]

Sepulos PM:
[Private to Sepulos: How embarrassing. I'll get more details to you tonite. Sorry. Your info is based on study and what a cursory inspection might reveal based on any runes or folk-lore you might know. Your discoveries are different than Agelia's but there may be some overlap.

An old wooden cup - healing potential

A shortsword - very old and very high quality... is there something more?

A bundle of arrows with acorns as arrowheads - gnomish or elven, possibly fey origin, druidic enchantments that restrict movement...

A wicked-looking mace spiked with what appear to be dulled teeth - the teeth are ghoul teeth. You used to have a few in a jar in your study. Not to be touched!

Copper lion bracers - the lion is an age-old symbol of courage and power

A gray, silk, bandana-like mask - some of the runes speak of 'seeing through obscurity']

Sepulos fingered the exotic coins and thought about his study at Beymarth. He pictured himself sitting there in his high backed, ten centuries old chair, with a dusty tome on his desk, studying the symbols and history of the Serpent Kingdoms. It seemed so far away, and the weight of millions of tons of stone seemed to push down on him a little more and a little more and a little more...



The moment of reflection brought a bit of melancholy and pain to Maksim. His life the past few days had had so many moments where he hardly had time to take the next breath, not knowing if there would even be a next breath, and times - like in the cellar of the Golden Toad - where moments lasted as long as weeks and dark thoughts rambled like children at play. He and Bodric had been great friends and it had been so very difficult to watch the dwarf drink his life away until his wife and children could no longer make further ultimatums and one day left Gilgamar. Bodric left soon after, when their other friends all decided to part ways. Now that they were back together, it seemed like they'd never missed a day.

The gnome was careful to notice that Bodric avoided the Spirits now completely... not once during their time trapped in the cellar did the dwarf imbibe. In fact, he'd gone to the opposite corner from the guzzling half-orc Korak who must have drank several kegs in the two days they were down there.  Maksim also noticed that Bodric turned away from Agelia and her rum, although his nose was twitching terrifically as he did so.  His old friend had changed a lot, more like the Bodric that Maksim remembered now of days long past, when their friendship was strong and adventures were frequent.



The voice was deeper and dominating. Zeeny-Deedle did not explode in a fiery display of snarling lion apparitions, although his appearance was suddenly disconcerting to the others as he displayed his moves. They got the very stong sense of the monk's fearlessness and courage and danger if provoked. He seemed bigger and intimidating with his scars and tattoos and muscles in the torchlight.  The feeling soon passed as he relaxed, but the glowing green of the emerald eyes seemed to glare menacingly and took several more moments to dim completely.

"Ha!" Bodric exclaimed. "We used to call him 'Gnat the Gnome'. He was always stingin' and never in a place to be gettin' smacked like the rest of us were! I once seen'im shoot a whisker off'n a she-troll at fifty paces... although it was a pretty big whisker, and he didn't really say which troll he was aimin' at... But Yep! He knows the bow like I know a bottl... erm... an axe!" He flushed a little at the end, but clapped Maksim proudly on the back, showing his affection that might not be apparent by the constant barking and jabs the dwarf usually directed his friend's way.

Agelia and Sepulos now have some ideas as to what these items might be or powers they may have. Once you sort out who would like what, we'll move ahead. I'll also send you each a PM with the exact details of the items you choose that you will know as players, but your characters will need to learn IC along the way.

[Private to Agelia Redstart: The oval gemstone radiates a strong response to your divination spell. It's enchantment has something to do with memories...]

[Private to Maksim Munzuk: You notice something written on the oiled cloth itself... upon further inspection you seem to think that it is some sort of map!]

Sepulos took a seat and scratched his still-sore head, looking fixedly as he did so at the small pile of items gathered from the bundle. Then, he got up, walked over to the things and examined them again, this time more carefully. As he did so, certain shapes, patterns and markings that had escaped his notice before suddenly triggered his memory. "I'm really surprised that I didn't notice these things before--I hope I didn't really damage my brain in that fall, as the provenance and use of these items is rather elementary! See here! The short sword, for instance, is at least three hundred years old--I'm no expert in weaponry, but you can tell from the runes on the blade that it belongs to the Third Dynasty of the Margamords, when they ruled the confederacy of coastal islands to the north. Very nice, indeed! It may even be magical, as such things were often rumored to be, although I have no way of knowing for sure.

"As for this cup, it comes--I'm sure of it--from the same general region and epoch; the runes and the designs on the brim could only have come from the culture of the Margamord men, now long since broken in their might and dispersed throughout the lands. The Margamordian wizards, who were also fine craftsmen, had a tradition of making such cups and imbuing them with a healing potency--don't ask me how or for what reason. Possibly as a way to fund their esoteric researches.

"Now these arrows are interesting indeed. Who ever saw arrows with acorns as arrowheads, and how on earth could such things be of use in a battle? Well, I'll tell you! They're magical--probably gnomish (have you ever seen such things, Maksim?)I've seen similar items at Beymarth, in the museum, and that's what they were. Of course, no gnomes that I am aware of today make such arrows anymore, so this is another indication that this is a rather old stash.

"This mace is studded with ghoul teeth. That's right, ghoul teeth! I used to have a few in a jar in my study. Not to be touched! At any rate, that's what the old sage told me who bequeathed them to me, and I never cared to gainsay him on that point or find out for myself why not. I'm assuming that they probably have a sort of power to infect whomever they cut with the magical ailment suffered by ghouls themselves, as does the bite of a werewolf, zombie or vampire. Anyone who was to wield such a weapon would need to be very careful not to hurt himself with it! I would suggest we wrap it up in a piece of clothe and keep it away for emergencies.

"The copper lion bracers are definitely of elven make, though again, their origin could only have been from one of the northern kingdoms. The lion, of course, is an age-old symbol of courage and power, and there may be some magic in them which adds to strength.

"Last but not least, this mask also bears runes which could only come from the Margamords. I'm not very adept in their language, though it is derived from Eastern Elvish and I can spell out the runes enough to be able to tell that they speak of 'seeing through obscurity.' As for what that means, practically speaking, I'm sure that we could all hazard a few guesses, but the definitive answer will have to await a trial. In these caves.

Now, the question remains: how shall we divide up our spoils?"

"I am a monk.  I will leave the division of spoils to you, though, I do like the bracers." said Zeeny-Deedle smiling as he raised a forearm.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:58, Mon 27 Jan 2014.

"No, your brain seems to be working just fine, to recall so much..."

After some examination of the auras around each item, Agelia finally speaks up.  "This one," she points to the stone, "The stone, I recognize the enchantment from when I studied magic as an acolyte.  Unless that centipede's poisoned my brain, it's an enchantment that involves memories.  Each one of these things is enchanted, and like Sepulos said, the mace is definitely not something you want to give a pet name, unless it's something like 'Scraper'... The weapon itself is like any other weapon, neither good nor evil, but those teeth carry some foul baggage with them." She looks at the green arrows.  "Something about those green arrows is on the tip of my tongue, and I can't even begin to remember it..."

"That amulet is also sort of dodgy, and it almost feels like it's trying to resist my prying, as it were.  Careful... But, as with all ensorcelled things, only experimentation and trial and error - as well as what we ay already know - will teach us."

22:41, Sun 26 Jan 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 19 using 1d20 ((19)).

To see if Agelia can recall anything about those greenish arrows...

[Private to The Usher: I'm going to hazard a guess...is that stone related to recalling spells?  Not that we'll know until it's been used!  Perhaps Alseta and Vanilla's stones have a relative on this Plane!]

As the two intellectuals huddled around the treasure, Bodric tried a little application of his own wisdom and experience in such matters. He lifted the shortsword and began to admire the fine workmanship and skill involved in its creation. It was obvious to him that the weapon was the work of a master blacksmith. The only thing that really bothered him was the plainness of the handle. Why would a master smith not finish this work of art with a fancy carved or wrapped handle made of some exotic material?  Then the answer came to the dwarf. "A smith wouldn't... but a wizard would!"

He began to pull and twist and try to find out why the handle had been replaced. Soon there was a faint 'click' and the handle rotated and opened up a small compartment. It was hollow inside, but that could be fixed. Bodric walked over to the dead centipede and plucked off one of the lesser antennae and broke it off just small enough to fit into the compartment created by the opened handle. He twisted it and pushed it shut until it went 'click'. Then he held the handle in his hand...

At first the blade did nothing, but then it turned the color of the centipede's black and almost deep purplish armored corpse. When Bodric gave it an experimental flick, thick fluid, just like that of the centipede's spittle, flew outward in an arc.

Bodric smiled and sheathed the weapon before handing it back to Sepulos. "That be a real gem there! Ye'll have to keep it in mind when we kill powerful foes!"

Agelia and Sepulos chatted for almost a quarter of an hour before they finally came to something of a consensus about what they thought the mystical payload of each of the items might be. Between the two of them, and with what little input Bodric and even Maksim had to contribute, they all felt fairly sure they knew what they were doing.

[Private to Agelia Redstart:

quote:

To see if Agelia can recall anything about those greenish arrows...

retracting, no, redacting, no, riccotonni, close... Ricocheting! Yes, that's it! They will ricochet when fired until the energy is spent. Good for mulitple targets or joking fun at elven tree-parties.

quote:

I'm going to hazard a guess...is that stone related to recalling spells?  Not that we'll know until it's been used!  Perhaps Alseta and Vanilla's stones have a relative on this Plane!

Nupe. The stone can capture, store, and replay memories. Think of it as an arcane GoPro... ;-)
]

They all stood around the bundle as Agelia and Sepulos explained what they though each item might do. Sepulos began by picking up the cup. He explained what he knew and Agelia added her insights she'd gotten through the divination of her amulet.  This went on for each item until they were finished.

So as not to drag this out too much, I'll give you the ooc stats which may help you decide. I'm doing this against my own best literary judgment hoping to speed things along. I would simply ask that you keep in mind that your characters do not know the exact functions of the items, but must learn them or seek a better I.D. service than Agelia and Sepulos. ;-)  Please narrate your characters' discoveries in the future.

Mace of the Ghoul +2: This foul mace is lined with small spikes, which are in truth extracted ghoul teeth. Most creatures struck with the mace must save at +2 or be paralyzed for 1d4 rounds. Elves, undead, and anyone immune to a ghouls paralysis are unaffected (but still take normal damage).

1d4 Acorn Arrows of Entwining: Grants a +2 to hit bonus, but deals no damage. Instead, the target must save vs spell or become wrapped in a mass of vines that sprout from the seed. The vines restrict movement to half, and make any actions requiring the arms impossible, however a successful Strength roll allows the target to break free (one attempt per round). Attacks made against the target are at +4 to hit. After 1d4+2 rounds the vines dry out and turn to dust.

1d4 Ricochet Arrow: This +2 arrow is enchanted to bounce from target to target. When fired, if an attack roll determines a miss, the arrow ricochets from the intended target towards the next closest creature. A new attack roll is made on the new target. The arrow with bounce 1d4+1 times, or until a hit is scored. Note that if an ally is the next closest creature, they will be targeted on a ricochet.

Dragon's Scale Buckler +2: This small 11 inch buckler is actually the scale of an ancient dragon, fitted with a grip. When used as in combat, it provides +2 AC vs a single attack each round (user must declare who they will use it to defend against before the attack is rolled). In addition, the shield grants the wielder +1 to all saves against fiery attacks.

Blade of Essence: This +2 sword contains a small hollow (0.5 inch diameter, 1.5 inches long) in the grip, hidden under a removable pommel, into which small items can be placed. While this can be used as a simple smuggling device, its true purpose is much more powerful. When a creature is slain, the sword is able to absorb some of the power of the creature. To do this, a small part of the slain creature must be placed into the hollow (scale, clip of hair, claw, etc). This must be done within a short time of the creature being slain. When this occurs, the item is instantly consumed, and part of the power of the slain creature is transferred to the blade. While an exhaustive list of powers would take pages, several examples follow, from which the DM can extrapolate.
• Clip of Hill Giant's Hair: Grants user 18 Strength (19 for stone,
20 for Frost, etc).
• Displacer Beasts Claw: Blur 2/day
• Orc's Blood: Infravision
• Ochre Jelly Dripping: +1d4 acid damage
• Ashes of a Fire Elemental: 50% fire resistance
• Dragon Scale: Beam-like elemental attack for 2d8 damage (2/day)
• Trolls Tooth: +2 Constitution
• Pixie Wing: Invisibility 1/day
The power will stay with the blade until a new item is placed into the hollow, at which
point the power will either permanently deactivate (if it is an inappropriate item) or be replaced by a new power. For example, if a rolled up piece of paper is placed in the
hollow, it will deactivate the power, but not give the blade a new power or be consumed
(since it is not an appropriate item). A living creature or part of a creature that has been dead for more than a short while will have the same result.

Cup of Healing: Once per day, a command word can be spoken, and any water inside the cup will be blessed with healing energy. If the entire cup of water is taken in a single drink, the imbiber will be healed 1d6+1 HP. If it is shared between two people, each heal 1d4 HP. If it is split more than two ways, each who take a sip (up to 10 individuals) will be healed 1 HP each. A second command word will purify any water placed into the cup, making it drinkable. Any non-magical diseases or poisons in the water will be removed. Holy and Unholy water are unaffected, as are acids and magical poisons and diseases. This power can be used unlimited times. When the command word is spoken by a cleric of level 5 or higher, healing values are doubled.

Burglar's Mask: This black eye mask grants the wearer the ability to see the dark up to 60' as if having the cultural talents of elves or dwarves. Magical darkness cannot be seen through.

Bracers of Courage: A pair of copper bands, the ends of which are engraved to appear as the heads of lions, with small emeralds for eyes. Any fighter (or fighter subclass) wearing these magical arm bands are imbued with great strength of will. The gain +4 on all saving throws against fear and charms. Additionally, their projected confidence may actually break the will of their foes, who suffer a -2 (-10%) penalty on any morale checks.

[Private to Agelia Redstart:
Gem of Capturing: This oval palm sized gem stone radiates moderate divination magic if detected for. When a specific command word is spoken, the gem will "capture" an image of everything within a 40' long, 60 degree cone. If the gem is looked through, the stored image can be seen clearly. Things in the image will appear as they actually are: darkness illuminated, invisible objects visible, polymorphed objects in their true form, and illusions pierced (cf. True Seeing). Solid objects will block the line of sight though; the gem cannot see through walls. The gem can only capture an image once per day, however the image will stay in the gem until a new image is captured. Typical command words include "cheese"]

After enough talking to make the dwarf want to drink again and the gnome and monk want to shake the offending vocalisers and scream in agony, Agelia stops.

"This amulet still eludes me." She picks it up, and looks at the smoke swirling within it.  "Does anybody have any objections to my putting this on?  If so, speak now, because it looks like we won't find out what happens until it happens...however long that'll take."

Truly not bluffing, the young priestess begins to undo the clasp or knot holding the ornament together.

Maksim sat with rapt attention as he listen to Agelia and Sepulos give insight into the items in the cache. Intrigued by the gnomish artifacts, "I grew up in Gilgamar. I don't have a lot of experience with my own people." Maksim gladly took the arrows and as he placed them in his quiver something caught his eye. Turning his head to the side he looked again at the oilcloth that had protected the bundle. Without thought to whatever was still resting on the cloth Maksim pulled it out and laid it flat on the sand of the cave floor. "Yes… Yes. I think this is a map! Look. If we were above ground I'd say these where rivers and lakes… Sepulos, you seem quite knowledgeable about what was wrapped in the cloth. Does this pattern mean anything to you? Bodric, you have rocks in that head of yours, could this be the caverns we've been through?"

"A map!  By Zoran!  Can I see?"  A little rest, company, and some light had restored Zeeny to the under-aged exuberance that had driven the monks to send him out for adventures with the instructions to "not come back until your soul is calm."

FYI, he acts a little ADD and young but doesn't look it.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:39, Tue 28 Jan 2014.

OCC: Very cool items, indeed!

Sepulos, as was usual whenever he had the opportunity to give a lecture, was feeling rather intoxicated by his own eloquence and erudition. The woman, Agelia, was a perfect complement to him in this regard and the two had a wonderful time rattling off details about the items, inserting historical anecdotes and bits of quotation from ancient lore, and fielding questions from the dwarf and gnome, who sat on the floor with the rather comical air of little wide-eyed children on a field trip. The strange monk also seemed quite jovial now. Treasure was certainly a mood-enhancer, even in the darkest of caverns and in the midst of such tragic events as had recently befallen Gilgamar. When Maksim showed him the map, Sepulos paused and took a good look. . . .

[Private to The Usher: Is this something that I know about? Can I tell anything from looking at it? Should I roll or something?]

After the caution seemed to have gone to the wind on the part of the others, Bodric had take up the dragon scale buckler and was trying it on when Maksim and Zeeny-Deedle became excited about something.  He leaned over to examine the oiled sailcloth that had some dubious looking marks on it. He didn't think it was much of anything, but didn't want to hurt their feelings or curb the monk's enthusiasm now that he was actually showing a little more life. Bodric knew that getting out of these caverns would probably be a very grueling task and he hoped this crew was up to it.

"Nah... That don't look like a cave map to me, or at least it wasn't drawn by a dwarf. Although that spot over there by that... ya, that... no, the seaweed stain, looks like it might be a... dunno. Bah! It's a rotten piece of tarp." Bodric was never very good at glazing over his true feelings.

Sepulos continued to examine the map despite Bodric's dismissal of it. Back at Beymarth, the scholar had several invaluable manuscripts in the vaults that actually were written upon rotten tarps!

[Private to Sepulos: In case you missed the PM...

Here's what you might know about the map... BTW, at this point I'm not planning on drawing one as it will be handled through narration most of the time anyway, and you and the others will be making up landmarks and such as much as I will. Should be fun.  The map has a letter 'M' with a wavy line above, below and on each side.  It seems to be near the coast to the Northeast of Gilgamar. You only recognize this because you've been pouring over old maps of the region for who knows how long...  There is an ink blot at the bottom where a legend or notes might customarily be placed. You cannot tell if it was just an accident or something was deliberately obscured.  Have fun!]

Agelia fiddled with the clasp of the amulet and then, taking a deep breath, put it on. Nothing seemed to happen, so the others breathed out their sighs of relief with hers.

[Private to Agelia Redstart: Oops. You should have taken your own counsel! ;-) This should be fun.

The amulet is potentially powerful and very useful, just not in the way you might think. It is enchanted with spells of stupor and agreeableness. The wearer will respond to suggestions, although like hypnotism won't do anything she wouldn't consciously object to. The effects last while the amulet is worn and have some or all of the following side effects: giddiness, hunger, blurred vision, oversensitivity to smells, slight paranoia, and itchiness. You may save vs Spells once every twelve hours to realize what's happening and remove the amulet, otherwise you're oblivious to its effects.]

Bodric adjusted the straps on the dragon scale buckler assuming ownership of it, then he began to get his gear rounded up so they could move out.  The spot that Sepulos had noticed which could be an old cave-in could take weeks of clearing to find if it were a possible exit. Even with the food and supplies they had found (a large portion of which had centipede spit and chew-marks), they wouldn't have enough to spend that much time down here. Best to find the paths of least resistance.

As the others finished sorting out their new trinkets, Bodric scratched a real map in the sand with a piece of broken crate. He showed where they had fallen into the caverns, where they'd encountered the bat, found the crystals and found fresh water leading here. He drew their current location, which was where Sepulos had been found. That left the monk...

"Hey Zinny, tell me about the place ye fell into. Was it deep water? Was there a current? Did ye notice any side branches on yer way here?" Bodric had noticed that as the monk's robes had dried they were stained with salt. That meant the water in the cave the big man had come through must have some outlet to the sea. It was the most probable way out. "Our other option be to climb back up the way we came. There were at least two branches to the south we passed by.  Zinny's robes tell me that we be close to the sea. That'd likely be our best bet to be gettin' out, but I be open to suggestions..."

Agelia dons the amulet, feeling something wash over her mind.  It fades within seconds, though, and she finds herself remembering what was going through her head beforehand: 'I need a shield.'

"Shields...not a bad idea."

She rummages through things until she manages to find a round wooden shield she noticed earlier.  With a nod, she turns it around in her hands.  It was definitely well-loved, but it would do.  Taking it back to her "perch", the young priestess scrawled the holy symbol of her deity on it with a sharp object, said device consisting of a scroll with an owl and raven feather.

She listens intently to the dwarf, nodding her head every so often when he says something that sounds like a good idea.

"Yes?", Zeeny-Deedle responded to his name or yet some other new version of it.  Looking one more time at the canvas map, Zeeny-Deedle bounced up and over to Bodric who was doing some strange stretching exercise involving putting his legs way apart and trying to touch his head to the ground.   Zeeny paused a moment to evaluate what Bodric was doing.  It must be a form of meditative stretching.  It was unlike what Zeeny was used to but he thought maybe he could help out.

Coming up just behind the overweight dwarf, Zeeny-Deedle said, "Here, when you do those stretches, you should squat lower and point your knees straight forward.  It'll help you strengthen your abdominal muscles too."  As he said it, Zeeny gave the dwarf who was in fact, not stretching at all, a light push downward into the squat and tapped his feet to face his knees forward and then quickly moved around in front of the dwarf into the same position himself where he steadied his breathing as the dwarf struggled to get out of the awkward position Zeeny-Deedle had put him in without scuffing his map or falling over backwards.

Zeeny glanced down at the sand and then recognized the scuffing as a map realizing his mistake as he did.  "Oh, I am sorry Bodric.  It looked like you were exercising and I just thought.... "  The look Bodric gave Zeeny made him think maybe the mistake had been more serious than it seemed. "...The water!  Yes!  The river was deep and really rough.  I was thrown off the raft on the first of three waterfalls and was knocked unconscious.  When I woke up the cave I was in had another waterfall running into it that was also really tall.  Way taller than me and I couldn't climb it.  There wasn't much light either.  In the cave, there was a little current but the stream disappeared pretty quick into the ground and it would come back every once in a while.  It wasn't until I had gone down a really long and steep crack that I came back into water but it was all still water.  That was just over there a ways."  Zeeny-Deedle motioned toward where he had come from.

Thinking maybe he better let the dwarf cool off a little, Zeeny stepped away from the dwarf and seeing Agelia drawing on her shield approached.   Glancing at her mace as he spoke, "Agelia, maybe you should use the mace.  It doesn't look like anyone else here would object unless yours is special?"  As he spoke, Zeeny-Deedle glanced over his shoulder at the dwarf nervously.   Remembering something Sepulos had said, Zeeny-Deedle went back to where Sepulos was still looking at the canvas.  Picking up the mask, Zeeny-Deedle said, "Sepulos, you said "this mask bears runes which speak of 'seeing through obscurity.' Holding the mask to his face, Zeeny-Deedle looked down on the canvas, "Maybe it will let me see through the obscurity of this map if it really is a map."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 14:56, Thu 30 Jan 2014.

"No emotional investment, here," Agelia says, taking her mace out of its harness and hefting it.  "It was something I bought after my staff met an unfortunate end on a gropey little man's forehead.  So, if nobody objects to my handling that mace, I'll do it."

"But that orb... One of my fellow acolytes - Orbri Silverheart was her name!" Agelia seems uncharacteristically happy at the mention and memory of an old friend, especially one so devious as Orbri.  It is also odd for her to speak of anybody with fondness, at all, much less that of an impatient puppy.  "She mentioned one, once.  If I recall correctly, one could see things as they really were in a moment in time with one.  The problem is, finding the right word to use one.  No doubt a very useful thing for whoever stowed this to have in their possession..."

Bodric was just scratching in a few details when the monk plowed into him. He was already leaning forward and his vast stomach, once set in motion, was difficult to slow down. He stumbled and bumbled a few steps and finally caught his balance with his mapping stick. Red-faced when he came up, he came up swinging with the stick and stomping with his wooden-soled dwarf boots. "What are ye about ye patchwork-pocked, hulking, granite-gouger?!?!" he spluttered.

Then he noticed the monk was in some kind of trance and some of the thunder behind the angered dwarf got stuck in the clouds of his incredulity. "Crazy-brained monk to start with and now he's been scrambled by his fall! That's just what I be needin'. With any luck ya shamblin' shaman ye'll crack yer skull on a stalactite and we can just leave ye here!" Bodric continued his grumbling as he fixed his sand map.

Agelia found the idea of carrying the wicked-looking mace perfectly agreeable, in fact she seemed almost giddy at the prospect. She flung her old mace aside with a lofty fling, nearly hitting Sepulos in the process, which only brought on a fit of giggles. Her hand on the mace seemed to sober her up though a little as the teeth-like spikes pulsed a deep greenish-red color, but only did so once.

Sepulos took the sword and strapped the sheath around his waist. Then he helped Agelia load the rest of the trinkets minus the arrows, which Maksim had carefully put into his quiver, and place them into a slightly stiff leather rucksack that the scholar shouldered.

Maksim took the arrows and considered them as he placed them into his quiver, thinking about how they might be used. He had gotten his gear prepared and was ready to get out of the caves. He longed for fresh air and tall trees.

Zeeny-Deedle was trying to explain something about his arrival into the caverns, but Bodric could make little sense of any of it. There were waterfalls and rafts and deep water and shallow and finally Bodric held up a weary hand. "Aye, sure ye did lad, over there ye say. Fine, don't strain yer noggin' it's damaged enough already..." It was obvious the monk had no idea what he was talking about.

When Sepulos was finally ready, he and Bodric conversed a little more about the ochre glyph Sepulos had noticed on the wall near were they both suspected a cave-in had happened in the past. Discouraged by the dwarf's assessment of getting the passageway opened up again, he finally just sighed and fell in behind the dwarf and Zeeny-Deedle.

The party went forward then, headed southward, on their way toward a possible escape from the caverns, but leery about what they might find facing them if they might actually happen to get out alive! Bodric and Maksim led the way with Zeeny-Deedle behind them with Sepulos next and Agelia taking up the rear...

OOC: Ok, I think I tied all that up. Let's move out! Let me know if that marching order doesn't work for you. Also, please note who is carrying what on your character sheets and please copy the technical text there too so that if we look at it a month later, it will make sense. I'll update the map tomorrow with description of the tunnels. If you'd like to post in between, feel free. Thanks for being patient.

After stowing his new arrows Maksim turned again to the canvas. Something… Not wanting to be wrong about the map the gnome quickly folded it up and stuck it in his pack. Once everyone had readied themselves Maksim took up the rear position in line. He was still getting used to these caverns and felt he would be of better use protecting their collective backs.

Sepulos, who all this while had been so preoccupied with the map that he didn't even lift his head to notice the comical incident that occurred between Bodric and the monk, realized as he handed the map to Maksim that it might definitely be of value at some later time, even if only as an addition to the university's cartographical archives. That smudge or splotch which the dwarf had dismissed as a piece of "rotten canvas" was in fact a letter "M", in the archaic lingua franca style of this region, with a wavy line above, below, and on both sides of it. Although he had no idea what this letter indicated, further investigation and reflection might lead to greater knowledge. As it was, from having studied maps of this region for two decades in his search for the ancient elf kingdom, he was pretty sure that the map depicted a section of the coast not far to the northeast of Gilgamar. The "M" was placed not far inland. If the opportunity ever arose, it might be a fruitful adventure to investigate this region, perhaps even with his current comrades, who all seemed like thoroughly decent people. God knows he could have come across much less goodly folk, so he was well pleased on that account!

In addition to the M smudge there was a blot where--assuming this really was a map--a map legend might ordinarily have been. He wondered if someone had intentionally blotted the legend out. As the party is preparing to move off, Sepulos shares his insights with the group, and says to the gnome as he hands him the map, "Keep this well, friend Maksim!"

Finally, just prior to falling into line with the others, the scholar thinks that it would be wise at least to attempt to make a copy of the mysterious glyph. He is sad to have to leave it without further examination, but it may be possible to come back at a later time, especially if he is able to find through consultation with his books and colleagues that the glyph has significance for scholarship. He takes a scrap of paper and a pencil from his bag and makes a careful sketch while Maksim holds the torch close to the strange mark. Then they fall into line with the others and exit the cave-room. Sepulos, with the recently acquired magic sword at his waist, is beginning to feel rather like the boy of long ago who used to imagine himself as the hero of grand adventures in the park at Beymarth. He wonders if he'll ever have occasion to use it. . . .


 

The group made their way to the south, following the tunnel from which the enigmatic monk had emerged. It was not long before they encountered the water, and with no other option available to them, began wading into it. Their feet sunk into the sandy floor in the chilly water as they went with the water level rising past ankles, past knees and well past the waists of the shorter companions.

Maksim held his bow aloft to keep the string from getting wet and stretching, he also took care to keep the fletchings of his arrows dry. Bodric's vast belly displaced a significant amount of water and Sepulos found himself wondering if it weren't for the dwarf's heavy armor, pack and weapons if he might actually float!

Agelia did her best to stay modest until her robes became rather saturated. The water was cold and salty and smelled... stale. This bothered her and she found herself complaining about it. The water also seemed to make her itch as if she were having some sort of reaction to it.

Sepulos and Zeeny-Deedle had similar issues to the young cleric as their robes became saturated with the stagnant seawater. Bodric asked the monk several times as they went, what he recognized, but he was forced to admit he'd wandered much of the way in complete darkness.

At the first intersection, Bodric kept them to the right. His decision was based purely on gut instinct, which in his case was rather significant. Soon they came to another small division. After exploring the right passageway again, they found it to be a dead end pool filled with rocks from above. After some quiet discussion, Zeeny-Deedle and Bodric decided that this must be where the monk had fallen into the caverns. Unfortunately, as had been the case with Sepulos, the passage upward had been blocked off by massive chunks of stone. The cavern itself was calm and had an orange-ish cast in the torchlight. Bodric guessed it was from iron deposits running down from somewhere above.

They emerged and continued onward to the south until they came to another place where the cavern opened up and the air and water was very still. There were interesting pastel colored formations of stone and the air felt heavy. On the far side of the cave the sandy floor rose until it left the water completely just before another fork in the caves.

OOC: I realize I didn't give you much to react to here, but I've updated the map and my connection is not good tonite. Post if you like and I'll add something tomorrow night.

Sepulos was starting to feel rather . . . unhealthy, for lack of a better term . . .  in this frigid, stagnant water. He was very cold and his head was aching again. The ancient chain mail that he had on was too small for him and he felt decidedly uncomfortable in it, even entertaining the possibility of simply casting it off into the stream. His spirits had also taken a plunge, since he realized that--despite all the hearty "fun" that he and his companions had had back in the centipede room--they were really in a survival situation that could conceivably not end well. They might run out of food, or come across another monster, or simply get sick and die of fever down here.

His companions seemed similarly morose and distracted by their own thoughts. The scholar, always a great admirer in principle of mystical philosophy--"in principle" because he had rarely had occasion to test it in dire circumstances--tried to recall some of the teachings of Bar Shin, the great gnostic and sage of the Gosse Desert. These tended to focus on the illusory nature of pain, or rather of the individual self that experienced pain. Feeling slightly encouraged by this, he attempted to query his companions about the recent events above:

"I'm still rather perplexed about just what happened up there in Gilgamar. I'm almost unwilling to believe it. And the details mystify me. For instance, what or who exactly were this awful figure and his two beasts, and--more to the point--why did they want to destroy your town? And who was this fellow who sacrificed himself before you all went underground? I've never heard of anything like this in recent history. I'm sure that the army has been mobilized by now from the capital, and the entire region is most likely under martial law. But I can't imagine what the cause of any of this is. . . ."

As Agelia trudges through the water, she finds herself attempting to shift her armour about a little, as if to help with her itching.  That did little to relieve things, and with a grunt the priestess forges ahead, hoping to be able to scratch herself soon.  Ye gods, now she understood why animals liked to scratch themselves against trees, and why Bae's uncle's familiar, a "chubbledy kitty" by the name of "Clawson" liked to get his chin scratched.

She is also glad to be in the company of a dwarf at this time.  Very, very glad.

Bodric sat down on the sandy 'beach' and undid the myriad of stout laces that secured his wooden-soled dwarf boots. He dumped each one out - from which came a surprising amount of water - before he wrung out his woolens and cinched everything back up tight. He seemed thoughtful and spoke quietly to answer the scholar's inquiries.


"The last thing I remember be the hush that fell over the Toad when Ms. Redstart here wandered in. There be not an over-supply of pretty faces in Gilgamar and everyone needed to at least have one good look. She approached the bar where I were payin' for me lunch. I recall that the keep, well he pointed over his shoulder to the open door of the cellar, I didn't hear what for, and then... It was chaos, noise and death in an instant. Somethin' smashed into the walls of the Toad and that's when I seen the ridgepole break. I grabbed Ms. Redstart and lunged toward the cellar door! Somethin' enormous landed on top of us, turns out it was Princess Half-orc, and then Durgon forced the cellar door shut! The Inn be fallin' down around us, and over us and we was trapped for two days! Well I finally got Korak worked up enough that he busted down the door with that pancake turner he calls an axe and we all got out!

Some of Maksim and me's friends was supposed to meet us at the Inn, but they got there late. Found us in the cellar and helped us get out. Everybody kinda spread out to find more survivors. I could hear Tuar howlin' all the way from the other side of the village. That kid always was theatrical and tended to get over excited. Anyway, I barely recognized'im after he got back... skinny, dressed in black...

Ol'Maksim here showed up about then and we did some searchin'. When it came time to eat some lunch, we sat in what's left of the Toad and ate at some stale biscuits. That's when the rider came. I felt'im comin', ridin' hard for the village. He said we was in trouble! Maksim, he led us to the rocks as it was the only shelter from them... them critters. They tried to dig us outa our hidey-hole like we was ground squirrels. Me'n ol'Maksim, we bloodied'em up some and then that's when their demon-boss or whatever showed up. I've been scared a time or two, but nothin' like that. Things was lookin' pretty bad for us, weren't it Maksim?.

That's when Tuar came outa the rain and stopped the demon-boss. I never knew that boy had anythin' like that in'im! He made some blood curse that the demon-boss didn't like and his lil'tantrum caused an earthquake. The rocks we were hidin' in began to collapse and then the floor dropped out from under!  Next thing I know, Maksim, Ms. Redstart and meself be in these caverns. Trapped underground again, but this time we ain't got Her Highness nor Autumn's Healer...

Me guess is that yerself and Zimmy here fell 'bout the same time we did... I don't be knowin' what's goin' on up there now. The rocks are quiet so me guess is that it be over. The only way we're gonna know anythin' else is if we be findin' our way out!"

The party did their best to wring out their soaked clothing and gear at a natural 'Y' in the tunnel they were chasing. The sand here was almost dry and it felt good to be out of the water. Agelia continued to itch, but she seemed to be in an extremely agreeable mood regardless of her obvious discomfort.

After a few moments Bodric shrugged his shoulders and took them down the right passage. "If ye always keep right, ye can never go wrong!" he whispered to Zeeny-Deedle behind him. But he did go wrong, very wrong...

Not far down the branch they had chosen, there was another opening to the right. It led into another circular cavern with a high domed ceiling. The ceiling and walls were shiny black and there were countless legs and many antennae... They'd found the centipede nest! Bodric gasped in surprise and anger at having not been careful. Maksim tried counting just heads and lost track around twelve or fifteen. Everyone froze and tried to move past the opening as quietly as possible so as not to awaken the nest!

Alrighty then. You'll want to MAKE your Dex check here! A botch would be bad! Roll under your Dex. And be vewy, vewy quiet! Since I'm in a good mood, an exceptional narration will gain you a +2 -or- a check against a different Attribute should you seek it...

Agelia stifles every reaction her body wants to force out of her when she sees the centipede nest.  She attempts to step as lightly as possible, compressing herself as well as she can, and making sure that her armour does not make any unnecessary creaking noises; she also keeps her shield as "set" as she can -- effort goes into making sure that even the strap does not make too much noise.

01:09, Thu 06 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 9 using 1d20-1 ((10)).

We're humped!
This message was last edited by the player at 09:13, Thu 06 Feb 2014.

Sepulos was deep in thought. He was only barely paying attention to the company's progress through the tunnels, trying instead to digest and make sense of and analyze the story which the dwarf had told in his colorful way. Many of the details that would most have interested a scholar seemed to have completely escaped the dwarf. Of course, he couldn't be blamed for this, since he could not have been expected to know the backgrounds, characteristics and identities of the various malevolent spirits who existed in the universe.  But who was this "demon"? If he could acquire some more relevant details, he might be able to identify him via reference to his knowledge of ancient lore, even though demonology wasn't his specialty. Still, this whole situation was truly bizarre, coming apparently out of nowhere as it did. He figured that he would have to wait until he was able to reach the surface and make his own inquiries before coming to any real understanding of the situation. For now, the important thing was getting out of this place in one piece.

In the midst of these considerations, Sepulos became aware that his companions suddenly appeared very uneasy; it was almost as if they feared to breathe. The sage lifted his eyes to the right and immediately understood what was troubling them. . . .

09:41, Today: Sepulos rolled 14 using 1d20 with rolls of 14.

OOC: Oh no :-(

07:48, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 1 using 1d20. sneak-a-pede (with the right dice).
Needed that.  I believe that is == a crit?

You wanted a good argument to get a bonus/test on a different attribute...



Zeeny-Deedle wasn't the most naturally stealthy person but when he heard the rustling in particular coming from Agelia and Sepulos, he stopped her in her tracks and motioned for them to stop.

Very carefully opening his pack, he took out the tunic he had picked up from the last centipede encounter and carefully cut some strips from it that he used to muffle Agelia's feet and armor.

Hoping for a bonus -2 or so on her stealth.

Next he pulled out the silk cord.  The cavern had a steeply sloping bottom and the cave they had decided to leave the cavern by was actually considerably lower than the one they were entering by.  Fastening all his rope together, Zeeny looped the middle around a large outcropping that abutted the wall leaving a small hole where he could run the rope through.  Laying the two ends of the rope on the floor he turned to the others and motioned for what he had in mind.

Grasping the rope in his hands, he took one of his unused leather bracers and put it over the rope knitting his fingers over the top of the bracer and acted out the sliding down the rope motion.  Looking back questioningly he waited for nods re-enacting the motions as required.  Then he handed his two leather bracers to Agelia and Sepulos gesturing that Maksim and Bodric figure something out with their own clothing.

Taking a long slow breath, Zeeny-Deedle picked up the rope and started down the outcropping.  He concentrated on every movement.  For once, his robes and soft shoes were an advantage.  Carefully picking his footholds and handholds he made it to the bottom of the cavern where the centipedes were rolled into balls spread across the cavern floor like cast off marbles.  A couple times a centipede would shift and disturb others which probably worked to his advantage.  He kept the cord tight so it didn't touch the centipedes as he crept around them.  Finally he reached the other side of the large cavern with just enough cord.  Finding another outcropping he fastened the rope off as tight as he could make it then went back down the slope a little way to catch his companions as they slid across the cavern.


Want any rolls?

Bodric put on the skids, but he was not built for sudden stops on sandy cavern floors. He did manage to keep his feet under him somehow though and avoid falling over the ledge and into the nest. Zeeny-Deedle went to work right away with a plan and the dwarf had to give him, yet again, some grudging respect. As the Lector of Beymarth and the young priestess slid across, there was some movement from below and above and on the walls. Most of the adolescent giant insects were balled up down below, but there were a few above, almost as sentries, but half-asleep and unwary... at least for now.

Bodric allowed Maksim, his old friend, to cross the silken rope. The dwarf eyed it carefully. It was delicate and soft and he had his doubts about whether or not it might support his girth. Once Maksim was safely across, Bodric used a similar tactic. He placed the handle of his throwing axe over the rope, and blade-side up, grabbed the other side of the worn wood and began to zip across.

OOC: I'll wait for Maksim to roll and see how to procede....

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 5 using 1d20 ((5)). Dex Check...

OOC: @Usher--Do you want me to narrate some sort of blunder due to my dexterity roll, or are you giving me a pass on that one?
This message was last edited by the player at 18:06, Fri 07 Feb 2014.

Sure, unless you want to creatively apply that roll to one of your other attributes for which it may pass... See, there are many ways to skin a cat, and many ways to narrate yourself out of an oops... ;-) But oopses are so much more exciting to roleplay... Your call. ;-)

Besides the fact that I didn't narrate the 'room' very well, it was confusing, and then I changed the map to reflect Z-D's understanding of having to cross over the nest. So we're all tweaking reality here and taking literary leeway...  I'll try to do a better job in the future so you don't have to try and hit a moving target when trying to post a response.

Maksim may have gotten busy. If he doesn't check in tomorrow sometime, I'll move us forward.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:21, Sat 08 Feb 2014.

The scene was a tense one as one by one they slid across the thin silken rope. First was the monk who didn't seem to have any of the residual effects of the centipede poison still in him. The same could not be said for the scholar and the cleric. Their muscles still felt the soreness caused by the horrible spittle. Nerves also played a part as they did not space themselves far enough apart. The scholar's greater weight cause the rope to sag, slowing the cleric down who was in front of him. They smacked into each other and lost forward momentum, several feet shy of the landing spot where the monk awaited them anxiously.

There they hung, muscles burning and weakening prematurely and below... a mass of fifteen hundred legs and enough poison spittle to turn a cave troll into jelly. The dwarf saw the panic in the monk's eyes as below the dangling duo, the centipedes had begun to wake up! The gnome, always the quick thinker and gnimble as a gnat took off toward them with his little soft-soled, booted feet pointed forward. The dwarf recognized his old friend's idea immediately and hoped it would work.

The Usher, on behalf of Maksim Munzuk, rolled 20 using 1d20 ((20)). Dex check. Ouch! Sorry bro! Next time you should probably roll...

It did not work. In fact it went horribly wrong. The gnome's feet hit the scholar in the back, which caused the scholar to bump into the cleric, (which had been the general idea... so-far-so-good right? - nope.) which caused the cleric to lose her grip and fall. She frantically latched onto the scholar, but the shift in weight on the rope bounced the gnome loose. He also began to fall and did what any gnimble gnome would do in that situation... he latched onto the scholar! This was not good, for the scholar was not currently in the best of condition and had not been for at least two decades. His muscles, already straining and searing from the lingering poison began to quiver. In moments they would fail.

The monk was not close enough to reach them and could feel the strain on the silken rope. It was already stretching and should soon burst. Then the dwarf made a quick decision. He didn't come up with the idea, he was not that smart, but he was wise enough to recognize a good idea when he saw one! He realized the flaw of the gnome's plan... he simply didn't weigh enough. That was not a problem for the rotund dwarf!

The dwarf used his throwing axe (blade up, of course!) as his sliding device. One gnarly hand held each side with the taut - and straining - silk rope in the middle. He jumped outward toward the hanging trio in an effort to get just a little more velocity. Down he went, sailing along like an iron-helmed wrecking ball. The collision was grandiose.

The gnome chose the instant before the moment of impact to let his grip slip on the scholar. He slid down around the man's waist so that the dwarf's sizable paunch would not squish his tiny body in between. Sadly, his timing was off and he fell. The dwarf's momentum pushed the trio duo forward enough that the monk was able to snag them with his long arms and haul them in. The silk rope, which had valiantly performed at least four times beyond its design rating, gave out just then, sending the dwarf colliding into his companions like the 37 ball in a game of halfling billiards...

Down below, the gnome landed directly on the head of one of the centipedes. As luck would have it, or perhaps it was the prayer of Taiiemnian's cleric, the fall killed the centipede with a sickening crunching sound. Instantly the others began to writhe and awaken. The gnome was stuck in the middle of them. The rope, finally free of its duties and able to rest dropped downward and landed near the gnome. Up above the wreckage of dwarf, scholar, cleric and monk had managed to sort themselves out and were shouting down to the gnome to grab the rope! Just then one of the quicker to alert centipedes took a chomp at the gnome...

Ok, let's try Strength this time... Up above, only two of the four need to succeed. If three roll under their STR, then Maksim will get a +3 to his roll, if all four of you succeed it's a slam-dunk auto-success.  Maksim - You'll roll vs Dex to scamper across waking centipedes to the rope and hang on while they pull you up... you really need to succeed on this one! Everyone roll low!

Despite the "after-shocks" of the poison, Agelia still manages to put quite a bit of elbow-grease - or was that the slippery sweat that accompanied illness or poisoning - into her pull.  That the gloves of her armour were excellent aides in such helped matters, for her hands were indeed sweaty.

00:24, Sun 09 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 5 using 1d20 ((5)).

When Zeeny saw Sepulos slide onto the line before Agelia was off the line he jerked his right hand to his forehead, fingers touching thumb with the pinky straight up in an almost involuntary sign of the Idiot God, Polit (also the god of politicians).  Quickly apologizing to Zoran for having made note of another God, Zeeny-Deedle started stretching out to try and pull Agelia in where she had stalled.  Unfortunately, she was too far out.

When Maksim did the same thing, Zeeny saw things were about to go the way of the swine herd.  Reaching his full length, he tried to pull Sepulos in who now had both Maksim and Agelia hanging on him.  In a less stressful situation, the expression on Sepulos' face would have been comedic.  Unfortunately, Zeeny-Deedle just didn't have the strength with his adrenaline expiring from his trip across the centipede nest and the lingering effects of the poison he wasn't making any progress...

Reaching as he was, Zeeny couldn't see what happened next but when Bodric came sailing in Zeeny knew he was on the bottom and there was a large posterior on his anterior.  Realizing what had happened he had a moment of panic until he realized he still had some part of Sepulos in his grip.  Shoving and gouging, he just barely remembered to stay quiet in his panicked ascent from the bowels of the pile.

When he made it up, the entire nest of centipedes was moving and Maksim was at the bottom of the nest.  Shouting at the others, "Zoran's ass!!  Get up, Maksim's about to be bug food!!"  Grabbing the rope he yelled at Maksim, "Grab the rope!!"  By the time Maksim had the rope in his grasp, the others were lined up on the rope as well.


09:13, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 18 using 1d20 with rolls of 18. strength 14.


Once again feeling a rush of adrenaline to offset the poison and the day so far Zeeny-Deedle pulled.  As he pulled, he saw the nest of centipedes swarming like maggots on a corpse.  Realizing how this would go, he started looking around frantically hoping maybe there would be a way to cave the mouth of the tunnel in.

At 14, I have a +1.  How do I use that?  It doesn't seem like it would be a good thing to "add" 1.

This message was last edited by the player at 15:39, Mon 10 Feb 2014.

Oh what a sight he must be, Maksim thought. He thought his nimbleness would dislodge the humans. Two humans, one gnome… But as he fell into the centipede nest he was only grateful that he was dropping without having been crushed by Bodric first.

Landing with/in the sickening crunch of exoskeleton the gnome sprang to his feet just as the rope was thrown down by his companions. In a few graceful strides on the heads and backs of the waking centipedes Makism grasped the rope and made to get out of the pit.

OOC:
09:47, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 7 using 1d20 with rolls of 7. dex roll TN 16, low baby.

10:16, Today: Sepulos rolled 15 using 1d20 with rolls of 15.

OOC: Here's my strength roll :-( I'll give a narration later, or Usher can feel free to narrate my blunder if I don't get to it first.

Bodric plowed into the others with a loud "OOOPH!" as the air was pushed from his gargantuan gut. The resulting pileup would take gnomish engineers and goblin sappers some time to sort out, but they had no time for Bodric's friend had fallen into a hellish swarm! He rolled off the pile and scrambled toward the ledge, echoing Zeeny-Deedle's frantic shout, "Munzuk! The ROPE!"

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 14 using 1d20 ((14)).

Amazingly it was the lithe cleric who was able to first grasp the rope as it began to slither into the pit after breaking from the added weight of the dwarven burden placed upon it. She held tightly as the the rope went taut. Something was on the other end! She hoped it was Maksim, but feared it was a multi-legged monster. Then the rope began to slide through her grasp, burning her hands!

Sepulos made a swipe for the frayed end, but there was not enough room for two hands and it slipped away from him.  Zeeny-Deedle had lost his grip initially when the rope went slack after Bodric's blunder. He slid across the floor toward Agelia and grabbed her legs, keeping her from sliding over the ledge. Bodric dove for the rope then, landing on Zeeny-Deedle who's turn it became to "OOOPH!". He gripped the tail of the rope with one hand and the dwarven fingers on the other found purchase in the stone as only one of his heritage could. Together they began to pull.

Down below Maksim displayed the agility of a drip of cold water on a hot stove, hopping and skipping and finally grasping at the end of the broken silk rope. He felt it begin to go upward, pulling him from the jaws of death. But then one of those jaws clamped down on his leg, crunching hard against his high leather boot. The waking centipedes were thinking that their mother, tardy in her feeding, had brought them a nice treat. Something alive and quick they could play with a bit before devouring. All around the little gnome streams of muscle-numbing spittle sprayed. Maksim pulled himself into a little ball hoping to be as small of a target as possible. His leg seared in pain as the dangling adolescent centipede fell off, tearing a chunk of leather from Maksim's boot and leggings.

Finally, the ledge was just above him. The rope surged as the clatter of hundreds of legs on stone was heard below. The feeding frenzy had been ignited! The nest was awake! And the party of survivors were reunited on the ledge!

OOC: Maksim, you'll take 3 damage from the bite. The nest is now awake. The centipedes are beginning to crawl up the sides of the cavern toward the ledge you are on. The exit is to the south. They'll need to be discouraged from following you, which will not be easy. Their mother is late in bringing them food, for she had the misfortune of bumping into a group of adventurer's in another part of the cave system. I'll update the map later tonite.

Maksim had just crested the ledge when Zeeny decided he really wasn't helping much and stopped pulling to look over the ledge.  Seeing the churning nest of centipedes swarming up the slope behind Maksim he quickly estimated about forty of the centipedes.  Hoping they were like rattlesnakes which bite and release all their venom when they are young but learn to hold some back as adults, Zeeny hoped it was good they were a virtual spraying fountain of venomous spittle.

Cursing silently he ran back a few steps and knelt over his pack reaching in a gap at the top without undoing any straps digging furiously while yelling at the others, "You might have guessed, we have company.  Bodric, do you think you can cave this tunnel in?  Sepulos, take this lamp oil and a torch.  If we are lucky they won't like fire.", he said, tossing Sepulos one of his two bags of oil.  "Use it carefully.  Try squirting it out over the torch to light it.  I don't have much.  I will be on one side.  Agelia, can you guard his other side?  Maksim, how about some of those special arrows?  We have to slow them down so we can get away."

Quickly he put the pack on and turned ready to make his stand against the centipedes at the mouth of the cave.

The unnerving sound of chitin armored legs, hundreds of them, on the dense stone walls intensified. The party found themselves dodging spittle streams as they gathered themselves up and prepared to hastily retreat. Bodric stood his ground (not that he could have fit past anyone down the exit corridor anyways) and had his axe ready. The first of the young centipedes crested the ledge and the worn weapon arced toward it.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 8,10 using d20+3,d8+2 ((5,8)). Miss! Attack vs centipede nest. Axe specialty gives a +1 damage bonus against weak enemies.

His swing did not connect for just as he would have severed the most alert and athletic of the nest, a stream of spittle hit him in the side of the head from somewhere to the left, hissing on the tarnished metal of his helmet. Luckily the goo did not reach his skin or eyes.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 22 using 1d20+4 ((18)).

Poisonous spittle seemed to be raining down and around them now!

OOC: I get the feeling that Z-D thinks we should take them on, *eyeroll* so here's the initiative rolls. I made them on behalf of everyone to save time, if you'd like to contest, do so on your next post, but you're then stuck with that roll, even if it's worse.

Secondly, I'm going to treat the entire nest as one creature. AC is 11, due to space restrictions it only has two physical attacks and three spittle attacks per round, I will not be disclosing HP's. ;-) Bodric already missed, no thanks to his sweet init roll, so somebody's gonna have to step up somehow!


Initiative!                                   
Agelia:    2 using 1d6-1 ((3)).
Bodric:    7 using 1d6+1 ((6)).
Maksim:    5 using 1d6+2 ((3)).
Sepulos:   1 using 1d6   ((1)).
Z-D:       4 using 1d6   ((4)).

Centipede Nest: 1 using 1d6  ((1)).

Sepulos's head was truly spinning with all the terror and excitement of the last few minutes. He really was not quite sure what had happened on that zip-line--merely that one minute he was swishing along through the darkness over a nest of carnivorous monsters (what a mad idea!!) and the next he was in the midst of a pile of bodies being crushed into the stone floor by the dwarf's unbelievable weight. He was just getting up, shakily, and catching his breath when the monk suddenly threw him the torch and the two bags of oil (one of which he dropped), accompanied by a rapid stream of instructions. The scholar, usually so quick to register and process all sorts of information, was in such am overwrought mental and physical state that he realized he had no idea what this strange fellow had just told him to do. "What?" he stammered. "Wake up, professor--it's time for class!" cried Zeeny, looking to Sepulos like a mad shaman in the torchlight--"Squirt the oil through the torch flame and try to incinerate those things! Failure is not an option!" Sepulos caught the monk's drift, but felt himself rather indignant at being spoken to in this way.--Be that as it may, now was no time to indulge in nursing petty grievances. The emphatically unsettling sound of the baby centipedes rushing up the rocks towards the party was enough to drive a nervous man into panic. Fortunately, the scholar had never exactly been the panicky type, and could move fast enough when he knew what to do. Realizing very well that these creatures didn't like fire any more than ants, he perched upon a small boulder that stood near the ledge, and proceeded to squirt lamp oil through the torch flame and into the rustling darkness below.

OOC: (Apologies to Zeeny for "using" his character ;-)
@Usher: I'm assuming that I should roll?
This message was last edited by the player at 22:38, Tue 11 Feb 2014.

OOC: OK, I see I'm up first, so to save time, Usher can roll for me whenever he sees this. I'd do it myself, but since I'm using an unconventional "weapon," I'm not exactly sure how to roll.

Agelia steps to the side of her requested companion, mace in one hand, shield in the other.  She gives a couple of warning swings to the young centipedes, becoming increasingly enthusiastic with each arc of the sickening weapon.

If any of them should come too close to her or her companions, Agelia would not hesitate to attack!

20:20, Tue 11 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 18,10 using 1d20+2,1d8+2 ((16,8)).

@Sepulos -- Any time you need to, I am not overly sensitive.
21:38, Tue 11 Feb 2014: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 4,9 using 1d20+1,1d8+1 ((3,8)).
I give.  I can't remember if I want hi or lo.  I'm thinking lo.  I'm thinking this is good?


Zeeny-Deedle, seeing the centipedes within reach, used one end of the staff in an upper-cut trying to knock the centipede backwards off the ledge.  He hoped the creature would take some of the others with it.  Maybe they would even decide to eat one another instead of the harder prey he was trying to be.

Sorry for the confusion on rolls. In general, higher is better. The exception is for rolls against a raw attribute. This is not standard Rules as Written (RAW), or rather it is my interpretation of the RAW, for they are vague. You'll see when you level why I'm doing raw (not to be confused with RAW) attribute tests this way... At level up, you'll have an opportunity to modify your attribute(s) by increasing them or possibly having them decrease as a result of something like age...

So the nutshell version:
Roll high unless I say otherwise!

I'll finish this round out. Maksim, if you don't agree with anything, let me know. I'm just trying to keep combat moving.

Having not had a chance to try out the strange, acorn-tipped arrows, the gnome was reluctant to risk it just now. Instead he reached for a normal arrow and nocking it, fired. The quarters were somewhat cramped on the ledge and in order to avoid ear-holing Agelia, he had to aim a bit high. It was too high.

The Usher, on behalf of Sepulos Maksim, rolled 9,7 using d20+3,d6+2 ((6,5)). Attack, Damage. Sorry, I forgot to change the name on the dice roller.

Zeeny-Deedle attempted to clobber another of the hungry critters, but his swing was restricted which gave the thing a chance to latch onto the end of his staff!

Meanwhile, Agelia, the oddly cheerful and occasionally itchy cleric began to swing her wicked-looking mace almost playfully. A giddy giggle escaped her lips as the heavy weapon connected solidy with a centipede, smashing it back and off the ledge.

From over his shoulder, Bodric noticed a stream of flaming liquid. He was used to the gnome using him as a shield, but this scholarly gentleman was dangerous! Bodric had tried to step back from the centipede he'd missed and had bumped into Sepulos. Sepulos continued to try to unravel the mysteries of exactly what Zeeny-Deedle had tried to tell him with holding oil and torch.

The Usher, on behalf of Sepulos, rolled 16,4 using d20,d4 ((16,4)).

Suddenly it all seemed to come together. All those 'experiments' during laboratory training must have paid off. The oil squirted out of the small hole the monk had punched, arched through the torch, ignited and then rained down upon the centipedes.

Still, they came on. One chomped at Bodric's mailed leg. Another lashed toward Agelia. Both were able to evade their bites and push them back.

The Usher, for the NPC Centipede Nest, rolled 12 3,9 using 2d20 ((3,9)).

From below and on the walls on the sides of the cavern came streams of poison spittle. Zeeny-Deedle observed that they seemed to be less frequent and with less volume, still - and he could attest to this - it didn't take much for an effect.

The Usher, for the NPC Centipede Nest, rolled 11,10,19 using d20,d20,d20 ((11,10,19)).

Two squirts went wide of their marks, but the third splashed on the already rumpled gnome. He staggered at once, but grimly held his bow, showing brave determination.

The Usher rolled 3 using 1d5 ((3)). Random target, Alphabetical order A,B,M,S,Z 1-5. The toxin causes -2 to any further rolls.

---

End of Round 1

Maksim HP 5/8


Initiative!                                   
Agelia:    2 using 1d6-1 ((3)).
Bodric:    7 using 1d6+1 ((6)).
Maksim:    5 using 1d6+2 ((3)).
Sepulos:   1 using 1d6   ((1)).
Z-D:       4 using 1d6   ((4)).

Centipede Nest: 1 using 1d6  ((1)).

This message was last edited by the GM at 15:11, Wed 12 Feb 2014.

Agelia grunted angrily at the young centipede that lunged at her.  She was able to shove it away with her shield, and brought her mace down at it.

23:38, Tue 11 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 6,3 using 1d20+2,1d8+2 ((4,1)).

No save on that poisoning then? ;)
Oh, do natural 20s auto-crit or have the change of a critical hit?

Maksim grimaced. The gnome pushed the pain from the bite aside and nocked another arrow. This one he sent strait down the open mouth of the spitter that just sprayed him.

---

OOC: 09:47, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 23,4 using d20+3,d6+2 with rolls of 20,2. attack nest, damage.

Doh! I was so tired last night... yes, please make your Save and I apologize for forgetting. Your crit will not be affected regardless of the outcome. Crits are always auto. "Chance for Crit" is an invention of the video game industry... This is the real world baby! :-P

10:20, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 20 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 16. save vs poison, tn12.

Shook that off.



The Usher applauds: Such style! Such grace! Phenomenal performance, just phenomenal!
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:24, Wed 12 Feb 2014.

Seeing that the centipede had bitten down on his staff, Zeeny-Deedle used that to his advantage.  Bracing his feet, he swung the staff to the side giving it a vicious twist and shove to do additional damage to the biting centipede, but using that centipede's backside as a shield from the other spitting centipedes swarming the ledge.


So I am guessing you will probably want two rolls.  Use what you want to, skip what you want to, or roll more for me.
09:38, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 11,6 using 1d20+1,1d8+1 with rolls of 10,5. thrust and twist to biting centipede on end of staff.

09:38, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 13 using 1d20 with rolls of 13. vs strength, use centipede as a shield.

I have that as the first I wanted hi and the second, lo.

The scholar, genuinely chagrined at the thought of himself perched on a rock and shooting flaming oil at voracious centipede monsters, is rather disappointed what his first attempt seems to do no damage to the beasts. Then again, it is hard for him to see. Perhaps if he attempted a specific target. . . . Taking aim at one of the creatures that was just now scrambling the ledge upon which the party was standing, he tried again.

14:59, Wed 12 Feb 2014: Sepulos rolled 11,1 using d20,d4 ((11,1)).

A centipede had crawled down from the ceiling, dropping onto Bodric and wrapping itself around his waist. It couldn't quite make it, but saw something moving just beyond the horizon. Enraged the centipede began to chase the thing, which happened to be its own hind-end, around and around the vastness that was Bodric's midsection like a dog chasing its tail or a perhaps a planet circling a small star. The dwarf's axe swiped and swiped and came very close to cutting the suspending leathers that held up the lower portion of his armor. None of the companions wanted to be exposed to that particular disaster nor did they wish to be sliced by the spinning, cursing dwarfipede!

"Get off me! Get! No! Off! Off! Hold still so I can crush ye! Infernal, over-sized, clackity-legged, spit-slingin..." the tirade continued.

Finally Bodric was forced to abandon hope as another of the spawn lurched at him from below. It was covered in oil and slipping but still the mandibles clacked, seeking flesh. The heavy double headed axe switched directions in a gravity defying maneuver and cleaved the centipede cleanly all the way down the middle. An oily piece fell either way and slid off the ledge towards the writhing pit below.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 20,10 using d20+3,d8+2 ((17,8)) Attack vs centipede nest... Wowza!

Bodric's cloven centipede fell from the ledge. Some of the nest, now fully awake and insane with hunger and the energy of competing siblings, lunged toward the pieces in a flurry of legs and shiny black segments. They started ripping pieces off and consuming the soft insides. They were slipping and trying to find purchase on the oily stone.

Maksim's small bow stung deeply, killing the giant insect instantly. It froze in mid strike before Maksim's small boot forced it backward over the edge.

Zeeny-Deedle's odd staff squashed the centipede against the stone and then shifted back and forth as more spittle flew his direction. The dead critter was fairly useful for fending off the attacks. Finally, the exoskeleton relaxed and it fell away like the others over the ledge to the swarming nest below.

Agelia had to check her swing as it almost connected with the monk. It bounced harmlessly off the dead centipede he'd had up, so luckily the vile spikes did not touch. This seemed to send her into another strange fit of giggles. Then she yawned hugely...

Sepulos squeezed the oil pouch like an inflated sheep's bladder full of highland softmeats. The flaming spurt hit a centipede, catching it on fire! The creature writhed in the flame falling backwards into the pit. The Lector smiled only for a moment before all the oil he'd missed with took flame as well in a terrific WHOOOSH! He fell backward as the hundreds of legs shifted from attack posture into one of frenzied retreat!

An eerie sound arose with the stench of burnt centipede as the remainder of the creatures burned. It was a hissing sound as the boiling entrails burst their exoskeleton shells.

The last few centipedes retreated along the ceiling toward the back of the nesting area.

"Well, the mom be dead and that be takin' care of the kids... hope dad doesn't smell dinner burning and come home early!" Bodric quipped as the inferno began to die down.

The companions could feel the tiny splatters of the poison burning their exposed skin and knew they must get cleaned off... again. They made a hasty retreat away from the ledge and toward the south. Bodric found a side passage that took them back to where they'd left the brackish saltwater, allowing them to clean themselves and their gear of poisonous spittle. Bodric cringed at the thought of washing good steel in saltwater, but it couldn't be helped. They'd have some serious restoration work if they ever made it out... If.

---

End of Round 2 - Companions Victory! +1 XP!
That went much better than I'd thought. Funny we even bothered with the zipline at all! In fact, when you see the map update later tonite you'll find that the entire scene could have been avoided! Love this game.  ;-)

Finishing washing the bug juice off his robe, Zeeny-Deedle carried out an internal debate about how long they had been going since the first centipede.  Coming to a stalemate with himself, he decided to ask, "Anyone know how long we have been awake?"

Bodric cocked one bushy eyebrow at the question. "About three hours or so, I'd say. We rested back in the smuggler's cave. Do yerself a favor lad, don't think about it. Time down here ain't the same as up top. Some folks never understand that idea. There's no sun nor any moon, but after a while ye can just... feel it. Missy over there," Bodric pointed toward the cleric who was scrubbing her gear with a strange amused grin on her face, "she be actin' like she ain't slept for days, even though we both seen her sleep, and Maksim and me seen her sleep before that!  We all be tired, and worried and beat up some. Don't let the rock play tricks on yer mind." The dwarf finished with a quick wink.

"Bodric, you should have kept the centipede belt.  It was a good look for you.  Any idea how to get out of here or do we just keep wandering?"

As Agelia scrubs herself, she says, "I agree.  Maybe when the creepy-cralies cool down, you can have a fire-hardened one!  And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm always walking on Sunshine.  Don't know why I'm so pale..." Indeed, Agelia is even less tactful than usual...and sort of peppy.  Once finished with the scrubbing, she cleans off her mace.  Carefully.

[beat]

Then, she says, "Wait, you watch me sleep?" Her eyes widen, and she makes a face as if she's seen a very, very horrific painting that somebody wishes to flatter her with, but she makes no noise save a low stuttering.  'I need to sleep with one eye open.  Maybe with the mace.  Maybe alternate eyes -- left, right, left... One hour, one hour, one hour, blink as needed...repeat until eight hours have passed, nine if we're in an inn or somewhere nice and there's room to sleep longer.  I'll need to buy my own rooms.  No boys allowed.  Or girls.  Just me, my mace, and I.  Weapons, too, because the mace is a weapon.  So I guess if the Druids are right and trees have souls, I can make exceptions for wooden weapons...and my sling.  That's made out of things that likely had souls.  Or do Druids give things spirits, instead.  I'll have to ask one.  Maybe Maksim knows?'

She looks down the pit, trying her very best not to be too creeped out by recent revelations.  "Is anybody going to eat that?" Agelia points with her mace at the smoldering pile of centipedes.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:05, Thu 13 Feb 2014.

Maksim shook his head, "Help yourself." the gnome wiping his boots in the sand. "I've eaten plenty of insects in the open wilds… but not one that was trying to eat me. There you go, I don't eat giant centipedes or mosquitos. Lets push on. I want to see the sky and feel the wind on my face."

"I agree, this is not the most hospitable of places and one thing has been worrying me.  That was a very large nest of large bugs with an even larger bug earlier.  They didn't seem to be starving to death, so what are they eating?  For now, it seems like there is only the one choice.  Let's go before Agelia really cracks up down here."  Zeeny-Deedle said the last with a friendly smile for Agelia but he was genuinely concerned after he last speech.

Bodric stared at Agelia along with the others. The underground was definitely getting to her. By the dwarf's calculations she'd spent over four of the last five days trapped in a cellar and wandering caverns. She was so young, and had seen terrible things. Bodric empathized at her distress.



"Listen, I don't be needin' fashion tips from a walkin' patchwork quilt!" Bodric barked. The insect had unnerved him greatly, and in the final explosion of Sepulos's flame sprayer, the thing must have let go and gotten away. Bodric could not recall having killed it. That bothered him too...

"Of course I be knowin' how to get out of here!" he said, for Agelia's sake. Then he looked to see she was still muttering cheerily, washing her gear and scratching at her neck from time to time. He then leaned in to whisper grimly to the others, "We just keep wanderin'..."

They gathered up and began to move out. Bodric found Zeeny-Deedle a step behind, eager to explore and seemingly interested in what the dwarf had to teach.  "Down here, we be like rats. If ye take a rat and dump him in an alleyway, the first thing he'll do is nose around and find the boundaries. He'll learn'em. Then he'll begin to test them to find his way out. That's what we gotta do. So what I told ye earlier, still be true. If'n ye keep right, ye can never go wrong... Eventually, we'll come out or we'll dead-end and have to be backtrackin'. The trick be to learn the layout as ye go and keep it in yer head. Or ye could draw a map I s'pose..." His mouth worked as if he'd said something sour.

Bodric led them past a left fork in the tunnel and eventually into a snake-like passageway that doubled back and then doubled back again. The floor was sandy, the walls smoothed from having been in water at some point in the past. "We dwarves can keep the map in our heads! Saves us a lot of backtrackin' and needless wanderin'. The floor of this here part of the cave be sand. The same sand that be on the beaches to the South of Gilgamar. See the walls? They be marked by water... sea water. If the water can get in, me hope be that we can get out!"

Just then they entered another low and wide cavern. Along the walls were the shells of various snails, some alive and some dead and fallen to the floor. This cavern was devoid of the glowing mosses and fungi they'd seen in various other places so far, so they assumed the dinner-plate sized snails were eating it.

If nobody chooses to take any actions here, moving on...

The tunnel continued a short ways before there came another open area, this one taller than the last and strewn with stones where the ceiling was giving way.

If nobody chooses to take any actions here, moving on...

The tunnel turned again to the right after passing through this second cavern. The wall on the north side was lighter colored and streaked as if limestone had once run down it, and was chalky. They followed it for a time before it turned back toward the left and began to climb. Sweat was dripping from under Bodric's dented helmet and Sepulos and Agelia were looking a little tired. The going had been slow and Bodric finally determined they may as well catch their breath and eat and drink something.

I apologize for not getting to the map last night. That file is on another computer. I'll try tonite, if not it will be tomorrow. Sucks, I know...

"Now here," Bodric continued his lecture, "ye see that the ceilin' be fallen down. If we weren't so deep I might be thinkin' that tree roots or surface water be weakenin' it. But we be somewhat deep, and my guess be a bubble formed above somewhere when the rock were made... Or there be a vein of somethin'!" This last was said in a lusty way as Bodric inspected the stones that had fallen for minerals or...

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 5 using 1d20+1 ((4)). Wis check to determine ore or minerals... TN 17

The salty water had been bothering Zeeny for some time.  Something about it tickled the back of his mind as ....dangerous...  Finally when Bodric pointed to the mark on the wall he realized what was bothering him.

"Bodric, you said this is sea water we are standing in and that it can get in.  Didn't you estimate we had been on the move for three hours ...ohhh... about 3 hours ago?  Follow my logic here...  We have been wading in fairly shallow water.  Salt water.  From the sea.  It has been 6 hours and, during that time, the water has been low as you can see by the mark on the wall.  I was created by the sea and I remember it would rise and fall twice each day.  Twenty four hours in a day, half that is twelve, half that is six hours between high and low tide.  Shouldn't we be looking for high ground where that mark you just showed us is below our ankles?"



Seeing the chalk, Zeeny-Deedle picked some up and started marking passages in a rather complicated series of mathematical symbols.  As he made the marks he surreptitiously wiped a tear away from his face.

Bodric nodded at Zeeny-Deedle's question. The lad was a thinker, he had to hand him that. Wierd though, and unsettling to look upon, but there might be some hope for him yet...

"Aye, that be a keen observation lad, and yer stomach won't lie to ya neither! If ye'll notice, those water marks be faded at different levels. Those levels show where the tides be at different times of the year. Some tides be much higher and much lower, sometimes they be barely noticeable. I be not a sea-farin' dwarf, never met one that were, but the water marks here be tellin' us a tale. Now one thing that ye're missin' is that the water be old... stale, not the livin' water of the sea. So likely as not, these marks be not showin' us tides... but the levels where high water be higher than normal! Me guess be that these show us when storms have flooded these caves. Don't happen much, but when it does, it brings in sand and the water takes her own sweet time leavin'. The time of year and the direction of the current would determine where the surge comes in. That might be why the smuggler's cavern be sealed off with fresh sand, yet this area still be dry..." Bodric was thinking of the tremendous thunderstorm that had been going on with the arrival of the hellish aberrations in Gilgamar.

This conversation brought a frightening thought to Bodric's mind and he wondered whether or not to share it, but better off they knew what to be alert for, just in case...

"Them pools we came through, and any more we might wand... er... travel into, may have sea critters that couldn't get back out. I don't mean to scare ye, but that may be the case. Them centipedes could be down here feedin' on the rotten corpses when the water level be droppin'..."

Bodric motioned ahead to the monk. "There be yer higher ground lad, take a look if ye'd like, but I'll be finishin' me lunch before any climbin'..."


OOC: Just to clarify since I won't have the map file for a little while, the tunnel continues onward from here to the north and goes uphill at a gradually steepening angle, but in the torchlight you think it might level off again. It's difficult to tell.



OOC: Please make a Wis check vs TN15

Actually, Maksim you ought to make one too. Your TN is lower due to your class, let's say TN13... Anyone else may try at TN17, or if you inspect it closely you'll knock two off for TN15 like Z-D.

13:57, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 15 using 1d20 with rolls of 15. WIS vs TN15.
Push.

This message was last edited by the player at 04:29, Sat 15 Feb 2014.

Realizing the chalk was not actually chalk, but plaster, Zeeny looked closely at the wall where the white streaks were coming through.  "Hey, Bodric.  Give me a hand here, I think I found something."

Rashly not waiting for Bodric, Zeeny-Deedle used his staff as a blunt spear and stabbed the wall as hard as he could in the center of the spot where the white stuff was crumbly.


Strength?
13:04, Mon 17 Feb 2014: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 13 using 1d20 ((13)).
Well, that shouldn't cause a cave-in.

Maksim was looking at the line of soft "stone" realizing it was actually a plaster or something similar as Zeeny's staff banged into the wall, nearly jumping out of his skin at both the noise and sudden movement. "GODS BELOW! Warn a gnome before you go banging your stick against a wall!

"Do you know whats on the other side? I don't. Do you know caves? I don't, but what I do know is building. This plaster here," Maksim points at a prominent line, "it was pushed through from the other side."

Maksim waited to see if his point had made it through the young adept's thick head.

"Hmmmm?  I thought we wanted out of here?"  Then he reared back to whack the wall again.

Bodric looked up from the stale sea biscuit he'd been gnawing at just as the monk smashed his strange staff into and through the wall of the cave.  Bodric had noticed the spot as he'd passed by, but paid little heed as his mind was on the passageway ahead. He groaned at the noise and started to heave himself back to his feet.

Maksim jumped in with the reprimand, which was warranted, but a sign that the nature-loving gnome was just as fidgety as the rest of them, save Bodric himself. The gnome had lived in and around Gilgamar and was as unused to the underground as Bodric might be in the desert sands. The dwarf knew his old friend had confidence in his ability to find a way out, but that didn't make the weight of millions of tons of stone overhead any lighter to the tiny ranger.

"Easy there Munzuk... Let me be havin' a..."

Then Zeeny-Deedle hammered with his staff again, collapsing a section of the wall with a crash that echoed up and down the stone tunnel.

"GAAAH! What he said!" Bodric blustered. By then he'd gotten close enough to see what was happening and realize that Maksim's assessment was correct. Someone had tried to patch a hole in the cavern wall from the other side. "Well, howaboutthat???" Bodric mused, chipping away a piece of the limestone and plaster patch for himself.

"If somebody were tryin' to fix this wall, they musta had some other way out! Not bad Zeedie, not bad. Go ahead on, just... just do it quietly..." Bodric admonished.

After what seemed like an hour to the sweating monk, but more like ten minutes according to the dwarf who had an uncanny ability to keep track of time and direction this far underground, there was a hole large enough for them to crawl through.  When the torchlight was cast inside, they could see a similar cave system running almost parallel to the one they were in. The floor was really the only difference. It was made of crudely hacked stone and placed like cobbles in the sandy floor. Over the years, or decades, or centuries it had lain abandoned, stones had worked loose from the ceiling at various times and had fallen and shattered on the floor such that it was strewn with rocky debris in each direction.

One by one they stepped through. Bodric suggested that they just stop and listen for a short while in case Zeeny-Deedle's crude mining efforts had alerted other denizens of the dark caverns.

~~~~

Please roll another Wis check here, TN15 for Maksim and Bodric, and TN 17 for the others. Don't forget to add your Wis bonus (+/-) to your roll.

Agelia looks about herself with interest, and listens intently for things...

22:18, Mon 17 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 1 using 1d20 ((1)).

Agelia's strange smile slid from her face as she cocked her head to listen. Her eyes widened and her head snapped to the east.

[Private to Agelia Redstart:
You hear the sound of a lost friend, begging you for aid and to be rescued from this dark prison.

Please save vs Magic Wands (category chose totally at random ;-) )
]

Wisdome?  I gots plenty o wisedome
23:36, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 5 using 1d20 with rolls of 5. wis check, roll low.


Zeeny, stepping into the room wondered what he was supposed to be hearing or seeing.  It was dark and the rumble from Bodric's underfed spare beer cask was deafening.  Placing a hand on Bodric's paunch, he said, "Whoa there little guy.  Just a few more short months I hear and then you can start beating up on your brother Maks."

Grinning and quickly stepping out of reach, he suddenly realized why he was supposed to be paying attention.

dun... dun... duh......

Agelia shook her head.  Was that...Orbri?  She parsed things out in her head.  No.  Orbri was on the other side of the continent, by now.  She was definitely not so very close to Agelia that she could be heard calling out for her, and despair and panic was very much unlike Orbri.

23:38, Mon 17 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 13 using 1d20 ((13)).
This message was last edited by the player at 07:42, Tue 18 Feb 2014.

Before he'd gotten up to investigate Zeeny-Deele's find, he had been talking quietly with Sepulos. Something he'd said had sparked the scholar's interest, or rather his fear.

"Aye, once when I were a lad, even before Maksim were even a twinkle, I went with some foolish young dwarves to investigate a cave. We had little idea what we were gettin' into. Long story short, the cave was like a tide-pool. The tide came in when we be down there and with it came a shark!" The dwarf glanced over at his old gnomish friend who turned away to hide his grin. Bodric unlaced his sturdy dwarf-boot and revealed a wicked scar. It looked like jagged tooth marks. "That be where it got me..."  The scholar's eyes widened fearfully.

Bodric kept his mask of the solemn victim in place for a few moments before a hearty laugh broke loose. "Ha! Got ye there didn't I? Ha ha! That scar be from a giant swampcat." Grinning, he slapped Sepulos on the back, but just as the other smiled a bit, Bodric dropped the hammer again. "But don't think them critters couldn't swim in here. I be hearin' of it happenin'..."  Bodric squeezed the scholar's shoulder, nodding solemnly before turning away and shooting Maksim a wink.

~~~~

Once through the wall, Bodric took his own counsel and lifted his gnarly hands to cup his large fleshy ears. He heard nothing. He smoothed some of the thick beard hair away to clear the path and tried again. Shrugging he looked to the others to see if they'd fared any better.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 6 using 1d20+1 ((5)). Wis Check.

Then Agelia turned and strode forward down the tunnel to the east. She was calling out to someone called Orbri... before anyone could stop her, she'd wandered around a slight corner!

[Private to Agelia Redstart:
Orbri calls...  You are still under the influence of the smoky amulet which means suggestions sound great. The voice coming down the cave to the east asks for your help. Which you think is a great idea!

The tunnel opens up into another cavern room that looks like it might have been used as some sort of meeting area. There are pieces of long rotten furniture and moldering cloth, perhaps the remains of dark robes.

In the northeast wall there is a tunnel leading in that direction. Chained to the north wall by a very worn silver manacle is the most emaciated figure you've ever seen. Basically a skeleton with skin and bits of hair covering mottled gray skin.  Think Gollum with severe anorexia.  The figure beckons weakly to you, imploring with eyes that seem almost ready to fall from their sockets. "Pleeeeeeaaaaase, help meeee... free meeee..." Orbri has always been skinny, but you've never seen her looking this badly.]

words words words

[Private to The Usher: Agelia raises a lip at...ye gods, was that Orbri?  She got really pale.  And what happened to her hair, and the definition on her cheek-bones, and... Wow.  "Orbri?  Are you alright, Orbri?  You look kind of rough.  Let me help you down, and get you something to eat."

Agelia approaches the figure, with all intention of shattering the chain acting as a bond.  "Well, wait, when was the last time you ate?  We might need to be a little more careful than usual... Remember what they taught us about feeding severely malnourished individuals."]

The party heard Agelia talking down the hallway, but they could not make out her words with the echoes.

[Private to Agelia Redstart:
The emaciated figure nodded at the cleric, beckoning with its free hand and pointing to the silver manacle. "Loooong has it been since I've fed... Release me! Pleeeeease... I am soooo huuuungry..."

You are really compelled to break the very thin silver band that holds the figure bound to the stone wall of the cavern. It would take little effort, it's been so worn down over time. You think you could probably do it with your bare hands...

STR check please, TN8
]


[Private to Sepulos:
You should make an INT check (1d20+mod), TN 15, if you choose to follow Bodric, who's following Agelia down the tunnel.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:23, Wed 19 Feb 2014.

Bodric had been busy digging at a glob of something in his ear with a stubby little finger and had not noticed Agelia wander off. Once the blockage had been cleared he heard her voice echoing from the tunnel ahead.

"Sparks'n Flames!" he cursed, drawing his axe and stomping down the tunnel in his wooden-soled dwarf boots. "Wait up lass! Yer gonna get yerself..." He skidded to a halt, surprised by what he saw.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:22, Wed 19 Feb 2014.

Agelia swings her mace at the chain...and it shatters.  "Now, come with..." The priestess turns her head to see Bodric.

"Bodric?"

02:59, Wed 19 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 2 using 1d20 ((2)).

Uh-oh.

16:10, Today: Sepulos rolled 16 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 15. Intelligence.

16:10, Today: Sepulos rolled 16 using 1d20 with rolls of 16. Wisdom.

Sepulos was rather annoyed at the dwarf for his little joke. At any rate, it wasn't sharks he was afraid of--they were "normal." It was . . . other things, such as sea-serpents and krakens, the mere thought of which could send shivers down his spine.

But there were other demands on the scholar's attention now. This half-mad fellow Zeeny-Diddle or whatever he called himself had found something that may very well have been an indication of the lost city Sepulos was seeking--plaster in the cave walls. Were there elf houses on the other side? The Lector got up and looked on with great interest, though keeping his hopes to himself, as Zeeny poked a hole through to the other side large enough for the companions to climb through. Sadly, there were no ruins on the other side, unless. . . . Was it not possible that these rounded stones in the passageway were cobblestones?

Sepulos was thrilled, all fear and anxiety momentarily vanished in the glow of near-discovery. "Here, give me that torch, friend!" he said to Maksim, taking the light and crouching down to examine the stones more carefully.

But what on earth was Agelia doing? She'd certainly been acting strange lately--Sepulos feared that she was starting to crack up under the strain of recent events, as well as being lost beneath the earth--and now she was wandering off, calling out for someone named "Orbri." "Hold on!" The scholar called out when he saw Bodric move to pursue her. With mounting (or "remounting") anxiety, Sepulos stood up and followed the dwarf.

Zeeny-Deedle first watched Agelia wander off in another one of her halucinagenic fits, followed by Bodric, then Sepulos.  He glanced over at Maksim in the fading light as the torch left.  "And you think I'm rash."  He quickly followed before the light faded.

"Pleeeeeeaaaaase, help meeee... free meeee..."

OOC:
The tunnel opens up into another cavern room that looks like it might have been used as some sort of meeting area. There are pieces of long rotten furniture and moldering cloth, perhaps the remains of dark robes.

In the northeast wall there is a tunnel leading in that direction. Chained to the north wall by a very worn silver manacle is the most emaciated figure you've ever seen. Basically a skeleton with skin and bits of hair covering mottled gray skin.  Think Gollum with severe anorexia.  The figure beckons weakly to you, imploring with eyes that seem almost ready to fall from their sockets.

Bodric and Sepulos arrived in the cavern just as the young cleric was preparing her swing. The pathetic creature's eyes twinkled in the light of Agerlia's discarded torch. She raised the mace over her head and brought it down on the thinned silver manacle. Zeeny-Deedle joined them then and all three in tandem yelled, "NOOOO!" For they were not under the enchantment of the strange amulet which Agelia had decided to wear, and they recognized the emaciated figure for what it was... a ghoulish fiend, kept alive without food for who knew how long, by necromantic spells and unspeakable acts of evil.

The mace easily smashed the silver manacle, worn very thin over the decades or even centuries the ghoul had been trapped down here. The sickly creature pulled its hand free and howled with glee, "Frreeeee, freeeee at laaaaaast!" Its eyes turned to Agelia then and it ambled forward before her.

"Thank your wonderful warmness for saving me! It has been loooooong, sooo loooong!  I am your servant, your slave, I will do anything you wish of me. Freeee! Freeeeeeee!"

Agelia's head snaps back when the creature begins to speak.  She smiles, but it is a sad one.  She sighs, helping it down.  "We really need to get some food in you, Orbri.  I don't know what's happened to you, but, well, maybe you could show us around this place, if you know anything of use, like a way out?  We're trying to get out, and the sooner we get out, the sooner we can get something in you.  Do you remember the beef sausages we used to get?  Maybe the next inn we reach will have beef sausages."

"That ought to put some meat back on your bones." Giving the...aberration that the priestess thought was her old friend a once-over, Agelia sighs, and makes an expression that looks like her face is caught transitioning between a grin and sobriety.  "Though it is nice to know I came out a little bit ahead of you.  No offense, Orbri."

"Agelia," Bodric said in his gentlest tones, "Why don't ye come on over here a moment. Sepulos be havin' somethin' to tell ye." The dwarf began to circle the chamber with his axe raising slightly with each step. He was trying not to spook the girl, who was obviously under some enchantment of the ghoul. He glanced to the side to see if ol'Munzuk was aiming from the depths of the east tunnel. Hopefully the little gnome had a good bead on the creature.

[Private to Sepulos:

quote:

Sepulos rolled 16 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 15. Intelligence.

You recognize the creature right away as being a ghoul. It is chained to the wall with a worn silver manacle, which renders it unable to escape. As the creature has atrophied over the years, it has lost much of its strength until now the worn manacle could be easily broken by hand, but the ghoul is too weakened to do so.

Ghoulish slaves such as this are often kept by necromancers or clerics of evil Gods for their sinister ceremonies. The ghouls, in theory, will live forever, and their living blood is much stronger when they are allowed to 'feed'.  You are getting a very bad feeling about the corridor and chamber that you've just stepped into and what might have been (or possibly still is...) the purpose.
]

Agelia took a step toward Bodric, just in the nick of time for the emaciated figure had reached out to take her hand...

"Wait! Don't leeeeeave me! I will help you. A way out? Of cooooourse, yes, right that way!" The ghoul pointed to the northeast passage. "Stay with me, help meeeee... feeeeeeed meeeeeee..."

~~~~

OOC:
The creature looks truly pathetic and miserable. You all consider that perhaps two or three centuries down here chained to a wall may have changed it. Maybe... maybe it's paid its dues, maybe it can be trusted after all...

Everyone but Maksim, please save vs Paralysis/Petrify, don't forget to add any bonus (check your sheet).

Bodric raised his axe even further as he continued to edge closer to the creature and around Agelia.

~~~~
Bodric Battlebelly rolled 18 using 1d20+4 ((14)). Success! Save vs Paralyze/Petrify

"Bodric, I'd like you to meet my old friend, Orbri Silverheart!  Orbri, this is Bodric!  What's tubby want, Boddy?"

"Orbri, there'll be sausages if you wait just a little bit!  I...here, I'll get you something from my..." Oh, ye gods, Agelia felt limp again.  There went grabbing some rations!

22:13, Wed 19 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 3 using 1d20 ((3)).

Zeeny, still trying to decide what was going on, stood frozen by indecision.

23:46, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 2 using 1d20 with rolls of 2. save vs. paralyze/petrify.
How do you get the roller to decide if it was success or failure?
Did I want to get over or under 14?  I'm guessing over.

Sorry, I should have said. The ghoul/ghast (doesn't matter) is using the power of suggestion. I'll fill you in. So far it doesn't know why Agelia is being so agreeable, it just thinks she's very weak minded and weak willed...  Normally for a ghoul/ghast to paralyze someone it needs to touch them, so there is obviously something else going on...

Agelia was delighted to see Zeeny-Deedle nodding his head in agreement with her and the creature. Letting it go free and allowing it to feed was a great idea!

Bodric shot Sepulos and Maksim a look of stern warning. Things were going downhill here...

[Private to Agelia Redstart: Good explanation. You're right on the mark. Nice rp'ing (or should I say non rp'ing) too!

You are more convinced than ever that the ghoul/ghast's suggestions are the best ideas you've ever heard...]

[Private to Zeeny-Deedle:
You are suddenly convinced that the ghoul/ghast's suggestions are the best ideas you've ever heard... who wouldn't want to be set free and allowed to eat when they are hungry?]

Feeling very sorry for the poor emaciated creature, Zeeny started toward him, "You must be very hungry.  How long have you been down here?  You don't look all that well.  Are you feeling ok?"

Suddenly remembering his rations, Zeeny stopped and excitedly took his pack off rummaging through it.  "How about a dry ration pack?  We have plenty and Bodric here could stand to skip a meal or two anyway.  We can just give you his rations."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:21, Thu 20 Feb 2014.

11:27, Thu 20 Feb 2014: Sepulos rolled 2 using 1d20 ((2)).

Sepulos was filled with dread at the sight of this apparition, for his long study of ancient lore enabled him to recognize immediately what it was: a ghoul. Such creatures, encountered in such circumstances, were not "every day" monsters, but rather were usually indications of something going on that was very dark indeed. "I don't think you should be doing that, friend", the Lector whispered to Zeeny as the latter was about to hand the creature some food. "The one thing that you most certainly don't want to do is feed that thing."

It was best to try and stay calm, so as not to startle the unpredictable Agelia--doing so could send her and the rest of them even farther into peril. Turning to Bodric, the scholar said in a low voice, "This is a bad place. We need to take the lady and get out of here immediately. I can't promise you that there is not some ancient evil still alive down here, of which this thing is merely a small token."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:44, Thu 20 Feb 2014.

The Usher covers his eyes and whispers: I can't bear to watch! Nudge me if any of them survive!

The emaciated creature rubbed at the wrist that had been manacled for over two hundred years. Its eyes darted from one to another of the adventurers, gaging the effect of its influence. It was weakened, but fortunately the minds of these mortal fools were weaker still... all but the dwarf. The ghoul recalled from its days as a mortal the stubbornness of dwarves and their stiff-neckedness! The large eyes narrowed a bit at the memory of a time when its heart had a beat, when it could feel the warmth of the sun... bitterness swelled and the brows darkened. One fat dwarf would not keep it from freedom, not with such ripe succulent flesh on the menu.

As the dwarf circled, the ghoul mirrored carefully to keep the young woman between them. It no longer had the use of its magic that it had enjoyed as a mortal, but it was now much wiser and much more cunning.

"Yeeeeeees, so hungry... Feeeeed meeeeeee..." it crooned to the tall monk. Zeeny-Deedle had fished out some of his ration and was breaking off a chunk to give to the starving creature. The other human male, who at first was wary, now fell under the dark powers of the ghoul.

"Well..." said Sepulos, "I suppose a little bit wouldn't hurt. Look how skinny it is... It's not like it's going to be able to overpower us or anything!" He smiled and motioned the monk to give it the food.

The dwarf now had his axe at the ready, and continued to circle to his right. The ghoul was matching him step for slow step. It could see the growing frustration on the dwarf's face. It smiled wickedly, rotten teeth showing, similar to the ones embedded in Agelia's new mace.

The monk's hand was now close, holding food and being food at the same time... The ghoul could not restrain itself. Two hundred years of starvation suddenly drove it to attack the hand that fed it!


The Usher rolled 21 using 1d20+2 ((19)).  Ghoul bite attack vs Zeeny-Deedle (AC13).
The Usher rolled 4 using 1d4+2 ((2)). Ghoul bite damage.

Z-D - Ouch! That was close to a crit!  As it is, you need to save vs Deathray to avoid your chance of catching Ghoul Fever... If you fail, I roll d100. If the result is 10 or less, you have the disease. That means the Deedle will die in 24 hours and rise undead the following midnight unless powerful healing is administered... Not very likely considering you haven't found a way out of the caverns, and your monastery (the only nearby place to find such healing) is quite a ways away. Everyone hold your breath!

"NOW MUNZUK! NAIL IT!" Bodric bellowed to his old friend in the darkened tunnel. He could see the flicker in the ghoul's eye as it was about to bite Zeedie! Bodric was out of position and the only way he could attack was to push Agelia out of the way. His axe would not get there in time! Maksim's arrow was the only hope...

"Beard a'flame!" cried the dwarf, daring to utter such a violent dwarven curse as the arrow never arrived. From the tunnel came the sound of snoring, amplified by a gnomish nose. Maksim was asleep on his feet! Bodric barreled right over the top of Agelia and brought the axe down hard on the scrawny undead villain.

Bodric Battlebelly rolled 15,8 using d20+3,d8+1 ((12,7)). Attack, Damage.

The ghoul could not resist the taste of flesh, and even seeing the enraged dwarf coming at it, refused to let go its bite. Death was worth the warm blood that it sucked from the mis-matched tattooed arm of the monk. It glared at Bodric as the axe came down, sundering it from neck to navel. It fell backward, smiling at the warmth it its belly before the monk's blood it had swallowed spilled to the floor.

Agelia landed hard on her hind-end as the dwarf had pushed her unexpectedly. She glared at him briefly before his axe came down on her friend!!!

Zeeny-Deedle staggered backward, now released from the astonishingly powerful grip of a creature that appeared to be so weak. The spot on his wrist where the ghoul had bitten him was bleeding badly, and... it burned...

Sepulos stood with a mused look on his face, wondering at the rash, murderous action of the obviously insane dwarf.

Maksim stood in the hallway and yawned, bow in hand, wondering why in creation he was pointing an arrow at his old friend. He shrugged and loosed anyway.

The Usher, on behalf of Maksim Munzuk, rolled 16,1 using d20+3,d6 ((13,1)). Ghoul induced attack vs Bodric, Damage.

Luckily the arrow was stopped by the secondhand chainmail armor worn by the dwarf without penetrating to damage his friend. It wasn't the first time he'd accidentally shot Bodric, and it likely wouldn't be the last...

To Bodric's horror, he saw the devastating wound begin to close and knit back together. He realized his axe could not kill whatever this creature was. He knew little about the undead, mostly considered them to be tales to frighten children. He was plenty frightened now!



Everyone may make another save vs Paralyze with the Ghoul so severely wounded. Now that it's fed, its powers return... If you are successful, you may attack or narrate another action as you wish, if not, then you're mine for another round at least... >:-D

Agelia's hand went limp, and she felt her mace roll out of her fingers... She was a little hungry, too!  Why did Bodric always have to instigate things?  All she wanted to do was take her friend to a market, and give her some beef sausages with garlic.  Now, she'd probably never be able to talk to her again, and...wow, Orbri sure was resillient!

01:46, Fri 21 Feb 2014: Agelia Redstart rolled 10 using 1d20 ((10)).

Mace!  Mace!

Agelia, this is why we can't have nice things!
This message was last edited by the player at 09:54, Fri 21 Feb 2014.

Yikes.  Why not put a dragon there dude?  You know how well the dice love me.
06:18, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 2 using 1d20 with rolls of 2. vs. Paralysis/Petrivy TN14, want hi.
06:17, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 1 using 1d20 with rolls of 1. vs. Deathray TN12, want hi.
Hmmm.  Yea.  Have fun with that one.

Who wants to go new car shopping?


The poor guy was so hungry he literally bit the hand that was feeding him Zeeny thought.  "Now just slow down buddy.  There is plenty of food.  I suppose, if you have to, you can eat the Deedle, but please don't be so grabby next time."

09:31, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 5 using 1d20 with rolls of 5. save vs paralysis, tn14.

Maksim looked over the room through his heavy eyes. Everyone was protecting that little fellow. Everyone but Bodric. Zeeny had blood flowing down his arm, Did Bodric attack him? Did I just shoot Bodric? So tired. Maksim leaned himself against the cavern wall.

The ghoul, though nearly cloven, looked somehow stronger than it had been moments ago. Freedom from the silver manacle was doing wonders for it! The blood from the Deedle was allowing powers which had slowly been drained over centuries to rapidly return. This creature was different than the ghouls told of in childrens' tales... it had once been a wizard and had retained bits of memories and the residue of magic.

The Usher, on behalf of Sepulos, rolled 20 using 1d20 ((20)). Save -vs- Ghould control (Paralysis/Petrify) Natural 20! That's where that thing was hiding! Whooo-hoo!

The Lector of Beymarth suddenly realized his mind had been miles away, going over lecture notes and preparing to teach on one of his favorite subjects. He felt heavy at first, then the realization came that he was under hundreds of millions of tons of rock! He looked around at those surrounding him and it all came quickly back to him. The ghoul, which lay on the ground not far away, glared at him as the spell over his mind was broken. Sepulos saw blood running down its chin... blood that belonged to Zeeny-Deedle!

The creature rose to its feet, and in horror Sepulos and Bodric watched as the slice melded back together. Then it sprang at Bodric!

Ghoul Attack -vs- Bodric (AC 16+2)
The Usher rolled 22,1,10,2 using d20+2,d4,d20+2,d4 ((20,1,8,2)). Claw Attack 1, Damage, Claw Attack 2, Damage.  Crit! Ouch! Max dam. (4) + 2 = 6...

The speed of the creature was dizzying. Bodric raised his dragon-skin buckler, but it was only in time for the second rake of the claws. The first slashed right through the chainmail of his chest, leaving bloody gashes beneath! The dwarf went down with the ghoul on top of him like an ant upon a rounded anthill. Bodric fought bravely, trying desperately to get away, thinking he was the only one not under some strange influence of the ghoul.

But Bodric was not the only one, for the Lector's mental distraction had just come to an end, and now he found himself in cold reality, watching the scrawny ghoul slash and tear and attempt to bite his new companion (and likely the only one who could lead them out of these tunnels!) Almost without thinking, his old instincts from training days kicked in and he drew his newly discovered shortsword from his waist and stabbed at the exposed back of the ghoul!

Sepulos Attack -vs- Ghoul (AC15)
I'll grant a +4 because the ghoul has its back turned and is preoccupied with Bodric...
Sepulos, rolled 21+4,7 using d20+2+4,d6+2 with rolls of 19,5. Attack vs Ghoul. Woowza!

The blade slid easily between the emaciated ribs and shoulderblades, right where a beating heart should be. The creature arched backward and screamed a terrible noise. It thrashed, trying to remove itself from the painful, magic-infused weapon. It could not, and Sepulos held a firm grip. Bodric bridged upward (an impressive feat for one of his girth) and rolled from beneath the impaled ghoul. Just in time too, for it died with a snap of it's teeth in Sepulos's direction and fell limp to the cobbled floor of the cave.

OOC:
The influence over you all is now passed, except for Agelia who is still under the power of her amulet. Bodric is bloody, as is Zeeny-Deedle's arm. The creature is dead.  You've survived another one! Whew! Oh, except for Zeeny-Deedle... I better make my roll...

Zeeny-Deedle's chance to contract Ghoul Fever - Odds are 1:10 (d100):

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
The Usher, on behalf of Sepulos, rolled X using 1d100 ((X)). (Secret Roll)

Ha ha! Ya, right! Zeeny-Deedle, nor the others would know if he's infected until 24 hours pass and the Deedle dies... I guess we'll just have to watch him for symptoms!

---

You all gain +2 XP for that one! That was a close call in a few instances, and still may be with Z-D...

That should but Agelia, Bodric, and Maksim over the threshold of gaining level 2! Nice! You may make your Hit dice rolls, or if you're too chicken to risk it, you may add 1/2 your Hit die without rolling. I'll update your char sheets with new Saving Throws, etc.

Agelia's fingers close around her mace again, and she rises to her feet and walks up to the form that was once a powerful sorcerer of some sort.  "Orbri?" Her voice is frantic, but then just as it begins to break, she calms down.  Well, is at least less "frantic" and more its regular and accusing tone. "Oh, Orbri, you shouldn't have provoked them!  Now you're all, well, dead and hungry, and before you were just hungry!"

She turns to face her companions, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Zeeny-Deedle is in extreme, if not mortal, pain and peril because of her antics.  "And what were you thinking, provoking her like that?  It's Lysette that's the nice one!  Well, Orbri's...was...nice, but only if you have...uhh, had something she wanted, or were a cute guy." She looks her companions over.  "No offense.  Wait." She looks alarmed, and then looks at the ghoul.  "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!" The priestess bursts into a fit of giggling.  "That's not Orbri!  It..." She points to the ghoul, and then makes several gestures implying the anatomical differences between men and women.  "That's...was.  Claisant!  You probably don't know them, but, well, Claisant was pretty hairy.  Now he's hairy and dead, but you get the point.  Claisant was the weapons instructor!"

Agelia giggles, shaking her head.  "Ooh, better these guys killed you than Orbri, Claisant, if she found out you were imitating her, she'd be furious!"



The Usher smiles: Bravo!
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:39, Sat 22 Feb 2014.

Maksim woke with a start as he slipped down the wall. Looking at the bow in his hand and the carnage in the chamber before him the gnome tried to remember what had happened…
Did she know that beast? It looked like it had been there far longer than young Agelia had been alive. Maksim started to realize that he hadn't know the human very long or very well. Then again these have not been normal days. He was about to dismiss this as over taxed nerves and give her a hand,
It was the laugh that stopped Maksim. Looking warily at Agelia he made his way to Bodric to help his friend right himself. Once the dwarf found his feet, "Has our priestess friend always been this… way. Or is this a new kind of… way?"

It took Zeeny a moment to put together what had been happening after the goul's effects faded.  Seeing the dirty and ragged bite marks on his hand and arm, Zeeny-Deedle dug in his pack for the ointments he had found.  One for sterilization and one for closing up wounds.  The first stung and his eyes watered as he put it on and in all the lacerations.  As he was working he caught bits and pieces of yet another insane conversation between Agelia and a figment of her imagination.  Again he wondered what was wrong with her.  Maybe it was normal for her though.

When he finished, he stood still feeling less than prime, but ready to be out of the caves.  "Which way?" he asked directing the question at anyone who would answer.

Bodric thanked Maksim for his help, such that it was, the little gnome weighed as much as one of the dwarf's legs...



"Well... I only be knowin'er fer about a week now, and it ain't been a normal week, that's for sure. She were quiet and kinda moody in the cellars. In fact, even down into the caverns below Gilgamar she acted like that. It ain't been but a while now she's been goofy. Likely it be the stone. Some folks just can't take the pressure of it weighin' down on 'em!"

As he spoke the dwarf pressed some bandaging material into the rent gashes in his chainmail. "That's gonna need some fixin'..." was all he said, and it wasn't clear if he spoke of the armor or his chest.



"That thing said off to the northeast, but I be doubtin' it... that's in the direction where we killed the giant centipede!" Bodric said, gesturing toward the dead ghoul with his bulbous nose. "Ye can check it out if ye like, just don't go far. Sep, why don't ye go with'im? Or ye Maksim?" Bodric asked wearily, sitting down for a rest. The ghoul's claws had taken a bit out of the resilient dwarf, but he would die before complaining.

OOC:
If anyone scouts the passage to the northeast, they will find that it goes for a fair ways and then gets too low to go on. The passage has long ago caved in. It seems that it may have once connected with the Smuggler's storeroom. Sepulos recognizes another of the ochre runes on this side. I'll update the map depending on where you decide to go...

The only other way out is back to the west, or through the plastered wall where everyone came into this cavern.

Maksim, Sepulos and Zeeny - You may all make a save vs magic wands to figure out it is the amulet that's got Agelia acting strangely. Sep, you may take a +2 bonus for Lore. (roll hi) If you miss your roll, you may not make another for half a day - 12 hours.

09:40, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 13 using 1d20 with rolls of 13. save vs. magic wand, TN13, roll hi.  Push.  Can't remember for sure if I win on a push.  I'll at least wait until everyone else rolls.  If someone else rolls over, take the discovery.


As he watched Agelia wander and talk to her imaginary friend, he started to wonder if maybe, like the goul, this was not really Agelia.  Wandering around the new area, he found nothing but some rubble in one caved in part of the area which seemed to be the only official way out.  Still, he poked and prodded the rubble to see if it was maybe not that deep.  A little more carefully than he had with the wall, he used his staff to tap on the ceiling, walls, and floor to see if it sounded hollow anywhere.

Looking up at Bodric, "You saying the change was after the cave with the big centipede? Why would the sea cave cause her to get-- like this? We killed the beast, found the cache… What did Agelia claim?"

---

12:04, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 18 using 1d20 with rolls of 18. save vs wand, tn12.

Overhearing this piece and realizing what it meant, Zeeny-Deedle jumped into the conversation, "She took that mace.  The one with the teeth.  Looking at our friend here, I bet they are goul teeth.  Get that mace away from her!"

Turning toward Agelia, he felt his hand throb again and decided to try and talk the mace out of her hand first. "Agelia, I am sorry about provoking ...Claysand?  I think it was your mace that made me do it.  Would you set it down and see what happens?"

"Oh, it's fine, Claisant was creepy.  I mean, he taught me a lot about using staves and maces, but he'd always tell us about how he cleared his sinuses..." Agelia sets her mace down.  "...and he'd always comment on what was in it."

And she goes off on one of many tangents of a lifetime.  "That reminds me of this really dirty tactic he taught me, that swordsmen like to use!  But I forgot it.  I'm sure it'll come back to mind later.  I'd have to say that what I like the most about maces is that it's harder to hurt yourself on the business end.  It's a shaft with a big head, a grip, and some space in between so you aren't at risk while making your blow.  I've heard some people refer to them as 'civilized clubs', which would imply that they were inferior to clubs, but you can inflict just as much damage with a club, as with a mace, if you know what you're doing." As she speaks, Agelia looks progressively more distressed, like a speaker who needs to relieve themselves.  "I just got really nauseous, all of a sudden.  Are there any bugs in here?  I think I might have swallowed a bug."

The tactic in question involves sweeping at ankles, and then pommel-bashes to the sinuses.  It would cause duelists to drown in sinus fluids.

As the party mulled around a little in the aftermath of the fight, Agelia continued to babble away at anyone who would listen. She also alternated between looking green and scratching phantom itches. Bodric sat against the wall sipping water from a skin and resting. The make-shift bandages he'd stuffed beneath his armor were already turning red in spots. He closed his eyes briefly.

Sepulos accompanied Zeeny-Deedle down the northeast (according to Bodric) corridor. It ended in a cave-in with little indication that it was only debris, but rather a full-on collapse. Sepulos did discover another of the ochre runes like he'd found in the smuggler's storeroom, but he still didn't have much of a handle on what it might mean... it could symbolize "cave-in" for all he knew just now.  His hunch about evil lurking down in this part of the underground continued to eat at him until he found himself wishing his torch would burn just a little brighter.

Maksim gathered up his arrow and poked around in the dilapidated furnishings. There were several items of rusted something-or-other, but it was impossible to guess what they might have been. Finally, he picked up the broken silver manacle, guessing it was still worth some value.

Zenny-Deedle found that the bite where the ghoul had found purchase between his new copper bracer and his hand, was swelling and burning. He did the best he could to clean it up and bind it, but it was very uncomfortable. A thin sheen of sweat adorned the Deedle's forehead, and his mouth felt dry despite having downed a half of a waterskin.

As they discussed Agelia, Sepulos found himself disagreeing with Maksim and the monk was sort of in the middle. Finally, Zeeny-Deedle had to concede to Maksim when the gnome suddenly remembered that Agelia had put on the smokey amulet! That was surely the source of her mood change and other physical anomalies...

Bodric finally rose with a snort, grabbed his axe and turned back the way they'd come. He decided to check out the passageway ahead to the west and so began trudging that direction with his wooden-soled dwarf boots clumping out his pace. After a moment he returned and gently reminded the others they needed to keep moving.

Sorry, I'll update maps tomorrow sometime if I can. If you look at the current map posted, you'll see that to the west of the place you broke through the plastered wall, is a corridor leading that direction which seems to open up again after a short distance.

"Gather up and let's go! We can jabber when we get to the surface!" grumbled Bodric.

"Amulet....  I suppose that could be it Maksim.  Agelia, why don't you take the amulet off?  We can still carry it with us."  Zeeny-Deedle asked Agelia as he held a hand out ready to take the amulet from her.

-----
"Bodric!  How hurt are you?  I have some ointment that might help if you want some."  Zeeny-Deedle had not seen how badly hurt Bodric was.  Pulling the two jars out of his pack, he held them out to Bodric.

Agelia attempts to undo the amulet...



Usher Edit: Nupe... the amulet doesn't cooperate...
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:10, Mon 24 Feb 2014.

"Bah! It be just a scratch lad, I'm more worried about me armor. I doubt yer salve can fix that! I be needin' a forge! And about a week..." He sighed. Bullish as the dwarf was though, he did reach out and accept a small container of salve. Later, when he thought no one was looking, he dabbed some on, grimacing at the sting.

After watching the others debate what was wrong with the addled girl, Bodric came up with an idea to get her focus off of the weight overhead and back to business.  "Hey Lassie, ye got a prayer that might take the edge off a bit? Munzuk here, he's complainin' and it be makin' me head hurt!"

Agelia's finger ends up lifting the chain and going down to the amulet.  She does not remove it, instead dropping her hand to her hip.  "Healing arts?" she barks,  "Not yet.  Well, nothing substantial.  Just something that should close a couple of capillaries, maybe push the skin together..."

With that, she begins to run her hand along Maksim's afflicted areas, muttering a healing prayer as she does.  Then, she turns her attention towards Bodric.

Cure minor wounds, on Maksim, and then Bodric.  From my understnding, Orisons are spontaneously cast?

OOC: Yes, but you can only use it level + Wis mod times per day. Better take one for yourself!

Bodric resisted a bit, but whatever was under the ghoul's claws was flaring up in his wounds and causing them to really burn, so he finally allowed Agelia to do her thing. As she finished up with dwarf and gnome, she realized that Zeeny-Deedle was also a little pale-looking and had a sheen of sweat across his forehead... Some type of fever?

Agelia runs her hand along Zeeny-Deedle's gash, uttering the same prayer as she did with her smaller companions.  "Claisant must have tried to turn his teeth into weapons!  And here I thought he preferred to use swords!  Everybody likes to use swords... You're the first big guy I've seen who hasn't carried a sword!"

So that's four...

Having watched Agelia fumble the necklace, Zeeny conceded to himself the problem might be the necklace.  As Agelia finished healing him and the trembles from the healing subsided, Zeeny casually reached up and attempted to undo the catch.  It was unnaturally slippery to get a firm hand on.  Zeeny-Deedle attempted several times in quick succession.


07:26, Today: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 4 using 1d20+1 with rolls of 3. WIL check, TN15 roll hi...I guess?  Other attribute checks are roll lo but this had a TN15 making me think it was a roll hi.  Usher, please help.


Usher: Always high unless I say otherwise. The clue is the TN. If I'm looking for a low roll, I won't include that. I also automagically adjust the TNs for each char...
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:45, Tue 25 Feb 2014.

When Agelia finished performing her healing on Maksim he thanked her as he rubbed his leg. The centipede bite still itched but the gnome knew it was just an echo of the bite. His attention was more on Agelia and her mannerisms. Maksim did not miss her failure to remove the amulet or her apparent anger over the suggestion. Although he did enjoy watching the chain slip and slide through the Deedle's hands.

Sure that the amulet was the cause of it all, Maksim made his way to Agelia's side, "Little One, come here. I think you should lighten your load." As he made to undo the clasp the chain moved. Maksim wasn't sure if Agelia had moved it or the chain had moved on its own...

---

10:32, Today: Maksim Munzuk rolled 9 using 1d20+2 with rolls of 7. wis check tn 15, Agelia's amulet.

Watching Maksim attempt the same feat with the same outcome Zeeny was suddenly alarmed.  "Did you see that?  It slipped on you just like it did no me!  Bodric!  Come here.  Maybe you can do your dwarf thing and get this chain undone or maybe we can just break the chain."

Agelia is a little fidgety as her companions reach up to her neck and attempt to undo the piece of jewelry she donned.

"You must all really hate this amulet.  I don't see what's wrong with it, I mean the swirling sort of reminds me of when Lysette's kitten threw up on my bed and I was playing with it, but..." Agelia begins to snicker.  "Ohh, I miss that cat.  Hey, do me a favour and let's not kill Lysette if we see her?  She's the nice one.  She likes cats."

Think of it more as thinly veiled nervousness.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:01, Wed 26 Feb 2014.

Sepulos, feeling miserable as ever but also relieved--considering the increasing discomfort of Bodric and Zeeny--at not having been wounded by the ghoul, has an idea. "Why are we all individually trying to do this? If we really want to get out of here (which I'd wager we do), let's just grab her arms and legs so she can't hurt us, and then take this thing off! That would seem to be the intuitive thing to do. . . ."

Bodric looked back over his shoulder at the crew who were now arguing over Agelia's jewelry... The two newcomers he might expected it of, but somehow they'd pulled the normally level-headed gnome into the circus. Although a dwarf and genetically accustomed to the rigors of living underground, he longed to feel the wind on his face once more.  His dwarf boots made echoing booms as he stomped his way over to the young woman and wrapped a thick, gnarly finger two or three times in the chain.  Then with the other hand he deftly popped the tricky mechanism and the amulet dropped from around her neck and into her cupped hand.

"There ye be lassie, if ye don't want to wear it, I suggest ye don't be puttin' it back on!" He glared at the rest of them as only a dwarf can and barked at his friend, "Munzuk sneak up ahead and take a look for us! I don't want any more gashes in me armor today. This may be the way out, or this may be a dead end, either way I don't be wantin' t'be ambushed!"

With the amulet removed, Agelia was no longer under it's sway. She was back to normal. Some of the party wondered if that was an improvement or not. Sepulos looked a little disappointed that they weren't going to dogpile on the cleric and tear the amulet from around her neck. He later would realize, after he'd gotten a hot meal and several hours of sleep, that they'd likely have torn her head off before the amulet 'let-go'...

Agelia - You're free now, there may be a few lingering effects for the next hour or so, but you feel like your old self again.

Maksim - I updated the map. You come to an intersection... one leading into a room to the north, the other to a larger hall to the west. In the room to the north you determine it must have been someone's private chambers. Someone very evil, for there are bones scattered around the floor. In one corner is an ancient cane bed. On the north wall are strings of clay beads hanging downward. On the east side are some decayed desks and wardrobes or at least what look like something might have been.

Agelia blinks a couple of times, and feels something wash over her.  She holds the amulet in her hand.  "Well, that's a relief." Her voice is no longer, well, peppy, but she still seems fairly enthusiastic.  "This might be useful in the future..." She stows it in her bags.

Sepulos is a bit annoyed at the dwarf for completely ignoring his very good suggestion. Oh well. . . .

After a few moments, Maksim came padding back to report his findings from up ahead.

OOC:
In the room to the north you determine it must have been someone's private chambers. Someone very evil, for there are bones scattered around the floor. In one corner is an ancient cane bed. On the north wall are strings of clay beads hanging downward. On the east side are some decayed desks and wardrobes or at least what look like something might have been.

He had not heard or seen any signs of life, which didn't necessarily mean there was not threat, especially after they'd just killed a ghoul. Who knew what other supernatural or undead might haunt these halls. The feeling of evil and dark rituals hung over this area like a chainmail blanket, weighing everyone down.

[Private to Sepulos:

Hey, sorry if I upset you. I didn't know if you were just roleplaying or sending me a little message. ;-) At any rate, let me know if there's something I can do to help out.

You are intrigued by the strings of clay beads hanging down on the north wall. Closer inspection reveals some of the same plaster that was used to conceal the entrance hole you all used to enter this portion of the caverns.]

"Let's get out of here."  Walking out of the chamber, Zeeny-Deedle looked both ways.  "How about right?"

[Private to The Usher: LOL Don't worry--I was jes' role playing ;-)]

"I emphatically agree," said the scholar. "We would most certainly do well to get out of here immediately. Bad things have happened here, and I fear the ghoul may merely have been the tip of the iceberg."

The dwarf used his axe to sort through the remains of the rotting wooden furniture. There was a stack of moldy parchments that when disturbed, ignited with a strange greenish flame and in a puff of smoke, disintegrated into ash. Bodric stepped back and watched the tiny conflagration with interest. The wood of the furniture had taken on too much moisture to burn, and the fire was out almost as quickly as it had started. The smell of... brimstone and rotten eggs hung in the air as the bit of smoke dissipated.

"Hrrmmph! Don't see that everyday. I wonder made 'em do that?" Bodric mused, poking around some more.

When Sepulos and the monk started to back out of the chamber wide-eyed, Bodric felt the hairs of his beard bristle briefly, but looking around didn't see what had spooked them. He shook his head and grumbled, as he continued to search the room.

The tendrils of smoke from the incinerated parchments drifted to the top of the cavern ceiling and then towards the north wall.

[Private to Maksim Munzuk:
You are intrigued by the strings of clay beads hanging down on the north wall. Closer inspection reveals some of the same plaster that was used to conceal the entrance hole you all used to enter this portion of the caverns. The years and moist air have caused the lime to leech a bit, giving it a chalky appearance.]

[Private to Agelia Redstart:
Though a cleric, the disciples of Taiiemnian know a little something about the arcane, at least enough to recognize it when you see it.  As the parchments Bodric disturbed burst into flame, your amulet warmed against your skin briefly, letting you know those were old scrolls he'd just caused to self-immolate. You realize he was very lucky that green flame and a puff of smoke were the only consequences to the release of magic held in them. Perhaps as they decayed, they'd weakened...?

You are especially attuned to the feeling of evil down here, and you feel it concentrated in two general locations, the strongest is out of the room and down the hall to the west where you've not yet been, the second location is toward the north wall, although it is weaker...
]

"Bodric, Maksim, Agelia!  Let's go!  It looks like Bodric stirred something nasty in those papers."  Zeeny-Deedle, still backing up with Sepulos waited at the opening to the cavern for his companions and impatiently motioned for them to hurry out of the room.  Looking both ways, he decided the left-hand cave looked more likely and, as his seemingly sleepy companions worked their way toward him and Sepulos, he turned partially toward the left passage motioning them to hurry again.

"Good idea!" Agelia nods to her companions.  "First, let's not touch anything that looks too suspicious, like those scrolls..."

"Foulness is thick in the air, here," The Cleric warns.  She points down the hall and to the West.  "It's like a high fever over there..." And then to the northern wall, "And a sniffle over there.  Who knows what powers the people that capured Claisant wielded!"

"Well, what are we waiting for?" said Sepulos, feeling extremely piqued at the foolish dwarf. His sarcasm arose with his annoyance: "What we saw back there wasn't any sort of good sign, it that's what you were wondering!"

Bodric pulled his battered helmet back down from where he'd been scratching his balding head while considering the magical incineration before him.

"What's got ye all so spooked?" he asked, but as he did so he realized that these folks had two things against them. First, they were young. Bodric was likely older than their grandparents or great-grandparents. To him they were still like children really and easily excited. Secondly, they were stuck under the rock above and he'd observed that humans were not very adapted to that scenario. Maksim seemed to do a little better, but his way of life, living in trees out in the forest was more like the lifestyles of the elven peoples than the gnomes he'd known to live in burrows under trees or in the ground.

The dwarf sighed and turned to walk toward the rest of them, pausing only a moment to note the direction of the smoke from the small combustion. "There must be a draft... I wonder..." he grumbled before shrugging his shoulders and continuing on with the others.



OOC:
I can't update the map until tonite.  Do you all want to leave the area and go back to the natural caverns? Even you Sep, knowing there might be something... icky in the water? ;-)

The Scholar, the monk and the cleric (no, this isn't the setup to a bad D&D joke...) made their way back through the poorly plastered wall into the natural cave. They cast the light of their torches back and forth, regaining their bearings. Zeeny-Deedle headed left and made his way around a corner that led in the same direction and began to slope steeply upwards. Behind him came Agelia, followed by Sepulos who helped her along as needed. They climbed for a short while until the passageway became very steep and littered with loose boulders, reminiscent of the cave-in near the smuggler's cache where Sepulos had been found deleterious.  Zeeny-Deedle turned around to ask Bodric's opinion on continuing upward when he realized that neither the dwarf nor the gnome were behind them!

~~~~

Bodric and Maksim were conversing quietly near the plaster hole when the others made their way back, the three of them wearing frustrated faces. The two demi-humans seemed to be unperturbed, although their pouches and rucksacks seemed to have grown a bit heavier. They both smiled as if they'd been waiting for old friends at the carriage stop.

"A'right then, let's be fer findin' our way outa here!" said Bodric cheerfully as he turned to the west and led them back the way they'd come. When they neared the den of the centipedes, he turned them south.

With the dwarf back in the lead, they pressed on into another cave that dead-ended straight ahead, but split to the east and west. The sand on the floor, which seemed to be lower and downhill from where they'd just been, was a bit moist, but did not have the same stale smell of the sand and water in the other part of they cave they'd been in.

Bodric, as was his rule of thumb, turned them to the right and led them down a narrow tunnel. The ceiling rose higher, or perhaps the floor dropped downward and the walls came in until they were forced to walk single file. Finally, they came to another small cavern junction.

One passage went back to the north, but was walled up with plaster, stones and mortar. This patch job looked much more substantial than the one they'd busted through earlier and when the monk brought up his staff, Bodric raised a hand and told him not to bother. Agelia felt the creepy feeling return, emanating from that direction, and was all too happy to turn with the others and head back south.  The south passage from the cavern room descended into water. Maksim bent and drew up a handful, sniffing it. Then he delicately touched the tip of his tongue to it. It was seawater.

~~~~

Sorry gang, I'll have to update the map tonite for you. This might be a good area to rest/meditate/eat/etc. before continuing to the south... and no, that's not foreshadowing! ;-)

The Lector had long since given up trying to figure out the method behind the dwarf's decisions in leading the party through the caverns. He sincerely hoped that there was a "method" here, and that the dwarf really did have some sort of idea what he was doing.

 In any case, Sepulos was feeling rather low as the party stopped to rest and eat, realizing that before them lay another long trek through icy water beneath which all manner of primeval horrors might well be lurking. Furthermore, this last adventure with the ghoul and the evil chambers behind the plastered wall did little to alleviate his bad mood and his fears. Perhaps if he had had a few hours to catch his breath and reflect on recent events, including the reported destruction of Gilgamar above, he would have entirely submitted to his constitutional melancholy and merely sat upon the ground in a long stupor of despondency, unable to move or make any positive action whatsoever. As things stood, however, there was no time for such luxuries, and Sepulos, who liked to consider himself (in his better hours) a spiritual person, sought comfort in the mystical doctrines of the ancient sages as best he could, repeating the mantra of the Northern Desert Masters silently as he watched Bodric noisily eat from his rations.

 Of all the party, only the dwarf seemed to maintain anything that resembled an air of cheerfulness. The gnome seemed to take in everything rather stoically. The others seemed sunk in gloom like himself, with Agelia exhibiting signs of immense fatigue and wearing the face of someone whose inner resources have been sapped by some crisis. Sepulos hoped that none of the party would fool around with unknown magical items in the near future, at least while he was with them.

Bodric stood before the south tunnel opening and closed his eyes as he nibbled on some of the food they'd found in the smuggler's stash. After a while, his shoulders heaved once with a huge sigh and he turned back to the others.

"Maksim, I be thinkin' we be comin' out to the south of Gilgamar, maybe near the Leapin' Cliffs... ye be knowin' the place where all the ships been lost? If that ends up to be true, then we'll need to scale the cliffs or grow gills to be gettin' back to solid dry ground.  If we time the tide, it be makin' it easier methinks. Look there," he pointed to the floor of the cavern where the water met the stone. "The water be risin'... tide be comin' in, or nearly high tide! If we wait a bit here, we can follow the tide out and the water will be lower!"

Maksim nodded his head as he listened, thinking to himself about the layout of the terrain and remembering what he knew of the cliffs.  Then he shrugged, finding nothing to argue with.

Bodric placed a gnarled hand on the gnomes shoulder. "Don't fret old friend. We be gettin' out soon... and then we'll figure out what be happenin' to Gilgamar."

Quietly eating his rations, Zeeny still felt something wrong with the Deedle.  After eating, he sat and focused on a healing meditation he had learned at the abbey.


22:58, Wed 05 Mar 2014: Zeeny-Deedle failed (no successes) using 1d20 with the Target Number system with a target of 15 ((5)).
I really think I should roll for Maksim.  Maybe he could have this roll?

Unable to sleep though exhausted to the core, Sepulos reflected over the last several days and the seemingly unceasing chain of events, far outside the norm of his comfortable lifestyle at Beymarth. Oh sure, he'd gone off spelunking and looking for his artifacts and clues lots of times, but all of that paled in comparison to what had happened recently. From the sounds of it, what he'd heard from the others indicated he might have even avoided more apocalyptic happenings!  He felt a bit dejected as he pondered how close he had come to his goals...

The Forest Guardian... had that even been real? Had he simply bumped his head on a tour of tombs somewhere and this, all of this, was his delirious dream?  He closed his eyes and hoped it was, but deep down he knew that not to be the case. His head had been bumped alright, and the rest of his aching body as well. He'd spent too much time behind a desk reading dusty scrolls and moldering tomes. Now it was all catching up to him.

He sat at watch as the others rested, waiting for the tide to go back out. He could hear the snoring of a gnome, only outdone by a dwarf as if the two of them were in competition. Bodric had looked pale and sweaty and Sepulos hoped he'd not been infected. They would know soon enough.  The strange monk lay in the sand not far away, twitching in his slumber as he fought unseen enemies in some spirit realm. He was the real concern for it was him the ghoul had actually bitten. He showed the same feverish signs as the dwarf and the scholar resolved to watch carefully for the death and turning that might shortly come.  Off to the other side, by herself and wrapped in a filthy cloak lay Taiiemnian's servant. She looked very young lying there, covered in the grime of her adventures. Seulos remembered that she'd been trapped in a tavern cellar for two days before falling down here into the dark belly of the world. He sighed again, thinking that he'd actually had it pretty good compared to the others.

Soon the water seemed to reach a low point much further down the tunnel than it had been when they'd arrived at least a half-dozen hours ago. The eeriness of having no frame of reference of time bothered him. Was that why Bodric didn't seem as depressed as the rest of them? He nudged the wooden-soled boot of the slumbering dwarf who snorted loudly and sat up with his axe in hand.

Sepulos calmed him down and told him the time had come to move out. Bodric glanced over at the staff of Zeeny-Deedle they'd used to mark the tideline. Sure enough, it seemed that low tide had finally arrived. Bodric rose and stretched gingerly, rubbing his chest and seemingly feeling better. His fever and sweating had subsided.

Zeeny-Deedle's had not. In fact he looked worse than he had before his nap. His eyes looked more hollow and his skin seemed pale. Igniting another torch helped it, but Sepulos still had his doubts as to the chances of living through such an attack. His throat constricted at the thought.

Agelia was the last to be ready. She'd kept to herself for a short while, offering her devotions to her God and finally with a gentle "Ahem..." from Bodric, got to her feet. She looked much rested and ready to move on.

Zeeny-Deedle retrieved his staff and Bodric led the way. The water was cold, but not as bad as it had been in the other part of the caves. It was also fresher, at least as salt-water went. In a few places, the two shorter folk had to seek assistance from the taller monk and scholar as they moved to the sides in order to keep from going under. They realized that this passage would have been almost impossible at any time other than low tide... which also meant they were on a timeline to get out before it came back in!

Sepulos tried his best not to think about what might be in the dark water they were walking in, but beads of sweat of his own lined his forehead, caused by tightly wound nerves.

Bodric led them to a four way junction. To their left or east, as indicated by Bodric, was a tunnel similar to the one they'd been in, about half full of water. Ahead of them, the sand rose up out of the water and a cavern headed up a slight incline. That tunnel had a look that Bodric surmised might have once been hewn to larger dimensions, but had been worn with the passage of time. To the right was another tunnel from which Maksim noticed fresh water was coming!  He indicated that they ought to refill their skins if they could, and since it was to the right, Bodric eagerly agreed.

Everyone may make a spot check (1d20 + Add highest modifier of INT or WIS vs TN 15).

The cave narrowed and the water again became colder, but was somehow more comforting to Sepulos because it was not salt water.  They went a ways before the tunnel split again. To the right they could hear the sounds of falling water. Straight ahead was another sandy slope upward. Several paces from where they stood was a crude torch lodged into a crack in the rock wall and opposite that a totem of sorts, crowned by a human skull. It had been damaged by high water during extreme tides over an inestimable number of years.

Sepulos and Agelia may make a INT check, TN 17.

Maksim then took the lead toward the sound of the falls. They finally emerged into a tall cavern which indeed had a spectacular underground waterfall. In the center of the cascade pool was a small gravel bar, and on the sides where level flat spots where water had worn the rock, allowing someone to walk along if they desired.  The water was cold and clean and tasted delicious. Everyone quickly filled their skins and then decided what to do.

~~~~

Everyone recovered 2HP if they were down.

Consider this a full night's sleep Agelia and that your spells are 'recharged' again as if it were a new day.

Zeeny-Deedle, you feel a bit dizzy and strange. The cool water feels good on your feverish skin.

I *think* I got the map updated, but it's not displaying correctly on my machine. Can anyone verify that for me?

You have approx. 5 more hours until the tide rises fully.

Spot check: 22:17, Thu 06 Mar 2014: Sepulos rolled 14 using 1d20+1 ((13)).

INT check: 22:19, Thu 06 Mar 2014: Sepulos rolled 7 using 1d20+1 ((6)).

Yikes. This is a sorry set of roles.

Sitting on the gravel bar, shivering, and gazing up at the waterfall, Sepulos mused aloud, directing the flow of his thoughts nominally towards Bodric, but in reality speaking more to himself than to the dwarf: "What do you plan to do once we get out of here--not just in terms of getting up the cliffs, but in general? I mean, do you plan to head back to Gilgamar, or what's left of it? Or what? This is all still rather bizarre to me--the town's being destroyed and all. It almost seems like the old prophecies of apocalypse, though on a local scale, and to be honest I can hardly believe it. Of course, I believe you're telling the truth and all, but you know what I mean." He sighed hopelessly.  "Well, I suppose my research expedition is postponed indefinitely now--not that I've found many encouraging clues since I've been down here anyway. There certainly seems to have been some sinister goings-on down here at some point, though it's unlikely that these have anything to do with the object of my researches. . . .

"Anyway, I wonder what's going on up there now? Do you think troops have been sent in from the capital? They must at least have sent out investigators, or official sages who are versed in these sorts of things. Still for the life of me, I just can't imagine what happened up there, why it happened, and what it all means. . . ."

22:49, Thu 06 Mar 2014: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 1 success using 1d20 with the Target Number system with a target of 14 ((14)).
Having succeeded on that, I will still write the following part, but this success could possibly void the second part depending on what it is Zeeny succeeded at.


When Zeeny arrived at the waterfall he was hot.  It was hard to focus on anything.  It was hard to keep his eyes from wandering or even keep them open.  He was so very hot that it became all he could think about.  For a moment he was confused why he was so uncomfortably hot then he remembered.  Penance.  It was penance.  He had not been devout.  The sounds in his ears were muffled and he could not make his eyes focus but Zoran did not require those senses.  "Zoran.  Zor..an... Z..or..a...n", Zeeny-Deedle's voice trailed off.

Zeeny-Deedle stumbled and lurched a meandering path to the wall of the cavern where he leaned his staff on the wall and stripped off first his pack, then robe, then the leather armor.  Finally, wearing nothing at all, he took the staff and, using it for balance, walked to the waterfall.  The cool mist soothed his skin and he sat in the falling water, legs woven and, with the water cascading over him he was immune to the dull sound of voices in the background and gave himself over to Zoran.


We'll try that meditation again... If at first you don't succeed, well, there is always the hundredth try.
23:16, Thu 06 Mar 2014: Zeeny-Deedle rolled 1 success using 1d20 with the Target Number system with a target of 15 ((16)).

Bodric sat on the rock not far from Sepulos, close enough to hear him over the rushing of the falls. "Aye, I don't be understandin' it neither. Much be happenin'. Afore I returned to Gilgamar, I heard stories, rumors and the like really, of strange things afoot. I be payin' them little heed on account of them that told'em to me bein' pirates, thieves and cutthroats... a superstitious lot. The return to me hometown took all that away. It was like I never left, the village bein' the same as it had always been."

The others drew in close to more easily hear the conversation. Bodric continued, "It were about noon when I came to the Golden Toad Inn an' I be hungry. I went in to get a bowl of stew and some bread. Folks on the street was headin' home fer their midday meals. The Inn had several customers, even a few folks I didn't know." Bodric looked up as he tried to remember the details of that day. "It be happenin' so fast, I can hardly remember it really. Shadows passed the windows and then the ground started shakin' and people started screamin'... The main beam of the Inn began to crack and a few of us ran toward the kitchen. That smelly half-orc, Korak dove into the cellar. Durgon grabbed the lass there," Bodric pointed to Agelia, "and shoved her in after. He be yellin' to me to get down and I did! Then the whole Inn came down on top of us and we was trapped!"

"Only thing worse than bein' trapped in a hole with an orc be doin' the same with a drunken half a one... Two days we be down there! Some of Maksim and me's old friends showed up and we got out.  That be about when that rider come along and them devil-beasts behind'im!"

"I don't be knowin' what to do Sepulos. I get the feelin' this was somethin' bigger than the soldiers from the capital could be dealin' with, but they be a week away from Gilgamar anyway... Chances be that they be arrivin' in Gilgamar as we speak. If we make the cliffs, and can be findin' a way to scale'em, we can be back in Gilgamar by dusk."

"There be one more thing though that I be tryin' not to think about... When that young fool Tuar confronted the demon-rider, he be utterin' a terrible curse. I seen and heard things... people, only they wasn't people anymore... then we be fallin' down into the earth." Bodric locked eyes with the scholar. "Methinks maybe Gilgamar might not be the place to be returnin' to..."

"I don't be knowin' of prophecies of apocalypse, that be yer strength, but I swear and Munzuk and the Lass here with us too... things be lookin' pretty blazin' apocalyptic to us!" Maksim, who had been staring at the falls as if not really seeing them, but something far away, nodded his agreement with his old friend, but said nothing. It was obvious to Sepulos that the little gnome felt much the same way he did, only perhaps more hardened by tragedy than the Lector himself was.

"Gettin' outa here ain't gonna bring us to the end of our troubles Sepulos... nay, it will be bringin' us to the beginnin'!"

~~~~

Bodric had been paying attention to the scholar and had lost track of Zeeny-Deedle. When he saw what was happening with the monk, he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Maksim, who only shrugged back. "By the Forge, he be losin' it!" the dwarf exclaimed as he looked away from the monk, bereft of armor and clothing sitting in the waterfall. It was not a pretty sight! The scars that criss-crossed his body and the mismatched tattoos were eerie and even grotesque. Bodric shook his head and muttered to Maksim, "maybe we be gettin' lucky and he'll drown..."