Anauroch - The Great Desert

[Brainpiercing]

[ooc:]

nice, forgot about that one.

There was a problem. Devanar was too fat. He simply would not fit in the shaft. With a profuse display of shame he offered to "stand guard" at the top.

Meanwhile Cat was running circles at the bottom. He could no longer see Agnak, neither naturally nor on his other sight, and he was actually too timid to advance down the tunnel alone.

Snizor?

[Surreal]

OOC

Whoa... so Agnak fit down the hole but Devanar can't? Are you sure he isn't a large sized human?

[Snizor]

Fiesty little feline, Daelric thought to himself as he heard Cat snarl.

“I suppose I should retrieve Cat, preferably before he goes and gets himself killed”, Daelric said as he moved forward towards Mag, slightly wary after observing the goblin’s 'sense of humor' (for lack of a better word).

[Brainpiercing]

OOC

Whoa... so Agnak fit down the hole but Devanar can't? Are you sure he isn't a large sized human?

Well... he might just be intentionally clumsy, too you know, stick out elbows where none are necessary, etc.

[Omen of Peace]

Mael accepts the magical help with little grace - it's not hard to see the bad mood behind the polished mask. It is dwindling, but slowly.

He lowers himself down the tune after Mag, and with a levitating dog in tow.

[Brainpiercing]

After some time Cat saw the first person descend through the tube on the edge of his mindsight. He quit circling and waited at the bottom of the tube.
When everyone (except Devanar) was down, he said in their heads,
There's no sign of the big guy, but he left big fat footprints everywhere, so it shouldn't be hard to follow.

Indeed Agnak's footprints meandered off in one direction down the tunnel. (Which was, at this point, about 40' wide and 30' high).

[Surreal]

As Maglu'glath's feet touched down, he knelt down on all three with a murmur of "blessed earth" in his native tongue. Down there in the dark, you could almost see the old goblin smiling. Almost. Taking a deep breath of the musty air, he rose back to his feet and turned to the ragtag band. "It feels good to get out of that dreadful sunlight. Let's go see where the big fella has wandered off to."

[Omen of Peace]

Mael is sitting atop his faithful dog again - less dirtying of his shoes and a higher speed form a winning combination in his opinion.

He seems focused inward.

As they venture into the dark, he casts a cantrip [Light] onto his dog's collar, creating a pale light. Mag hisses in frustration as the natural darkness recedes.

[OOC]

Mael is so gonna die in BP's superpowered Underdark.

[Brainpiercing]

[ooc]

Who knows....

As they ventured forward there was a loud crash in the darkness in front of them. A good distance away, but the tunnel carried the sound very well. It sounded like someone - or something - breaking down a wall.

[Omen of Peace]

"Single-minded, your companion is" Mael remarks in a low voice.

He wonders if they're still tracking someone. If his companions have noticed something and not told him. Telepaths make him paranoid. And for a good reason - he's one of them.

He casts frequent glances at the cat and the goblin but other than that his inner turmoil is not apparent. He keeps riding down the corridor after them.

[Surreal]

"*snort* look at is this way, if there were any traps, he'd inevitably have set them off by now..."

[Brainpiercing]

Without a meaningful way of navigating other than what I tell you, and without a map (it's not so important), I am going to conclude this sub-scene and move to the next. You may stop me retroactively to act on any cues I may give. Take the following merely as a description of the surroundings. If you choose to examine anything in greater detail, we can back up and I can slow everything down.
Cursory examination can be done without too much delay. Just make whatever checks you like, and I will tell you the results.

The group followed Agnak's footsteps for a while. The tunnel still ran straight for several hundred yards. Throughout the tunnel, ancient rubble was strewn about. Strange mechanical parts, broken, humanlike war machines apparently, interspersed with bones of vaguely humanoid creatures - bipedal, but winged and with long, snout-like heads, mouths filled with many sharp teeth. Occasionally odd piles of crumbled material indicated a destroyed golem or undead. Sometimes large blocks of rock had been erected as barricades and choke points, and the bodies were piled there, especially. However, while the bodies lay randomly, there were no weapons nor items of readily apparent value present - apparently the scene had been cursorily cleared, without picking up the bodies.

Eventually, they arrived at what looked like a wall of large bricks. A whole had been punched through it, large enough for Agnak to squeeze through, and his footsteps passed it. Behind the wall were the remains of series of gates: A chasm that was crossed by a slab of rock, underneath which the remains of what might have been the original bridge were still visible.  A portcullis, molten and bent, and finally a large steel gate, crumpled and smashed within its hinges. Agnak's footprints wavered here and there, but overall they moved forward, through the gate.

Behind the gate there lay an area that looked like the outlying defensive ring of a castle:  The cave formed a large ring, 40ft wide and 50ft high, with a diameter of at least several hundred feet. The outermost wall was dotted with small caves on different heights, and wooden stairways (now merely charred remains) must have led upwards towards them. The inner wall (facing the gate) was smooth and vertical, but dotted with crenels and larger firing ports in the shape of dragons' mouths. The floor was covered with criss-crossing channels that ended in spouts in the inner wall - possibly the defenders had let burning oil gush through them. Also, what appeared to have been rocks and javellins that were dropped from the ceiling were strewn about. More bones and broken machines were lying around here, too, as well as the crumbled piles of broken golems or undead.

Agnak's footprints stopped here, abruptly.

As the others approached, they heard a roar from inside the fortress, somewhere. It was Agnak, and he was not happy.

By following the tunnel through a quarter circle counter-clockwise (or the longer way clockwise) one could reach the inner gate. There were again intermittent barricades throughout this stretch of tunnel. The inner gate was a huge double doorway made of rusty steel. It stood half open, bent and burnt as it was.  The large beam that had kept the gate shut was sundered in half, and hanging loosely behind it. Behind the gate the inside of the fortress was visible - again rooms or caves in the ring wall, and a large pile of rubble in the center, which had probably once been a detached building - a tower of sorts in the center of the high cave. The entire room was lit by magical lanterns hanging along the ring wall, and some of the rooms or alcoves were illuminated, too.


[This is what happened, but your characters won't know it, because you arrive just a split second too late...]

Agnak was circling the pile of rubble in the air, just glancing into the openings in the wall.  He set down on top of the rubble, and began poking it with his Guisarme. There was a sudden noise from one of the bottom alcoves in the wall, one that was pitch dark. A crunch of stone on stone. Agnak perked and stared in the direction, but before he could see anything there was a series of three sharp pops, in very quick succession. Something hit Agnak - just three small bullets, but they hit like a sledgehammer wielded by a giant. Agnak reeled. He hadn't been hurt so badly for years. [Enemies Init: 30, Agnak: 15]

Before he could react something rolled on stone rollers from the blackness of the alcove: A creature made all of stone, with a humanlike upper body clad in jet-black armour on a boxy base. Four movable box-like appliances sat on its shoulders and beneath its arms, each with a small nozzle. All four were pointed at Agnak. In its arms it carried a twenty foot-long glaive. The creature grunted through a stone mouth.
'Now what're ye?' it said with a rumbling, grinding voice. 'Ya look like all them dead ones here, that I killed already, but yer colour is all wrong.'
Agnak roared, enraged, and.... scared. This was a powerful enemy. [Enemy's Aura: 15, Agnak's Aura: 14] Again the three sharp pops could be heard, and three more stones sped at Agnak from one of the box-like appliances, but missed.
Like a copper coloured flash Agnak leaped off the rubble and charged straight at the enemy. His Battle-leader's Charge had not come to him, he just charged, normally. Habitually, he put weight into his attacks, not much, but a bit, in order to be able to punt his enemy - and the first blow glanced off the jet-black armour, and the second missed, entirely. His stony foe was surprisingly dexterous. And that was not all, as Agnak closed to deliver his attacks - even with his fifteen foot reach - the other's glaive jerked upwards, and almost slashed him across the legs.

'Now now', the stony creature said. 'So much aggression... ya should just be dead like yer friends.'
And then it rolled back five feet, and unloaded all four stone spitters at Agnak from point-blank range. A staccato of sharp pops rang through the cavernous fortress - and this time the stones sang in the air with supercharged speed. Agnak's weapon snapped sideways defensively and deflected one of the bullets - but only one. He was hit by three more, all of which hit like sledgehammers. Agnak gasped, his breath gurgling with blood filling his throat. Anger and fear were driving him crazy. He was also running out of options - straight fighting did not work, but he would not be able to outrun this strange shooter either. As a last-ditch effort he opened his mouth and spat a line of hissing acid at his foe. The acid bit deeply into the stony body - but such damage could not kill it. Agnak realized too late that this was the wrong last-ditch effort. He jumped backwards and tried to bring some distance between him and the enemy - but doing so only gave the other an opening. The 20 foot glaive dropped on the desparate half-dragon like an executioner's sword.

Spewing blood from a gash across his head, Agnak dropped backwards into the rubble. His lifeblood was dripping out, his consciousness fading fast.
'Who are you?' he rasped.
The other grunted, towering over the stricken half-dragon. 'Me? I'm Jaslach.'

As the others arrived, a towering stony creature was standing above the body of Agnak, who's eyelids were fluttering as life drained from him. His body had multiple small wounds, and a large gash on his face and head. The enemy's stone body and jet-black armour were dripping acid, but it showed no signs of pain. It merely jerked its head - and its four box-like stone spitters - at any sign of movement outside.
[Enemy's Init: 30; You are allowed to roll before you actually see him, because you noticed the signs of battle, so you are not flat-footed, even if you get to act after him.]

And as the acid dripped through the rubble in the center of the fortress, SOMETHING else awoke underneath it.

[Omen of Peace]

[OOC]

It will take a while to digest the post, but I'll start with a K: Arcana check for Mael: 13  (if it's something else... tell me). I won't get much info with that, but mostly he's interested in its Type (construct? elemental? ...).

[Brainpiercing]

[for Mael]

It seems to be a construct.

[Omen of Peace]

[OOC: here were Mael's original actions... superseded by a post ~10 posts down]

Mael progressively filled with dread as they advanced down the tunnel. This was not the world he knew, of humanoids and their petty self-delusions. A massive war had been waged here, its outcome hard to decipher.
Mael had never had much use for history, but at this moment he regretted it: not knowing the past made the present scarier.

Don was trotting at an even pace, having just whined twice at the strange smells permeating the place. But then Mael had chosen him and bred him for steadfastness and indifference to the world at large.

As they heard the thunder of the clash nearby, Mael decided that he better forearm himself. A few mutterings and a pass of his hand help him put Lady Luck on his side. [OOC: cast Improvisation (SC) - 8 rounds, 16pts]

But what they discovered was beyond his worst nightmare... at once Mael turned Don around to flee the way they had come.

[OOC]

Init 15 (using 4 luck points, 12 left)
I assumed they had a round of actions before meeting the golem-thing since the fight with Agnak would have been noisy and lasted 2 rounds AFAICT. It's not a big deal if he can't cast Improvisation.
Actions will have to wait his turn, but flight is the most likely course of action!

[Brainpiercing]

[ooc:]

Yes, you can roll init at the start of the fight, when Agnak roars, within round one. You then act in that round and in the next round, but you only get there in - effectively - round three, unless you have a way to pass through the wall.

On another note, are all of Mael's abilities mind-affecting?

[Omen of Peace]

[OOC for BP only]

Most of them are mind-affecting, the others are necromantic... no luck against a construct.
Well, he still has Grease and Minor Image, but he wouldn't bet his life on those spells against a giant cannonball-spewing golem.

As for passing through walls... as you well know, someone can do that. With 2 rounds worth of action he can even come into play.

[IC]
Azur mistrusted where his vessel was going, but he was curious enough about their traveling companions to leave him free rein.
Combat was a different matter altogether, though.

He let Mael continue down the tunnel at first, expecting the half-dragon to crush whatever he was facing. But as the sounds of battle amplified, he decided to go have a look himself.

After warning the halfling he detached himself and went to scout.

[OOC: 1st round he does nothing, 2nd round he comes out into the Ethereal and crosses the wall, staying with just his eyes above the floor-in-the-Material. Feel free to intervene here if he gets noticed...]


"Don't enter the cavern" the tiny devil began to think repeatedly at Mael as soon as he saw the monstrosity.

[OOC: Don't recall if Telepathy needs line of sight. Depending on what happens Mael's actions will have to change retroactively... sorry.]

[Brainpiercing]

[ooc PRIVATE for Mael]

I don't know if Telepathy needs line of anything. By default ruling it does need LoE, I think, but I tend to think it spoils the purpose. What would you change retroactively? Have Mael not even take a peek?

[Omen of Peace]

[OOC]

Yes, pretty much. Having him stay as completely as possible out of harm's reach seems like the thing to do.

[Brainpiercing]

[ooc PRIVATE for Mael]

Alright, let's say you don't need LoE for telepathy - but you have to know the person you are adressing is actually there - which you automatically know if you already have a conversation "running".