DM themed play-by-post D&D game : STORY THREAD

[beowuuf]

It's ok, right now the occasional excuse not to post is cool I don't want to make a habit of it, but it's guilt free if one of you guys is busy too! :p


The grak-grak turns around, seeing the excitement of the party once more. However, once Ameena announces the reason, the grak-grak acts in an unexpected manner. It stops, finds the closest wall, crosses its arms, and leans against the stone. There is slow, lazy slime and a head tilt as 'Helm' seems to take a relaxed position to enjoy the show. Theatrically, he even takes a further step backwards as if to separate himself from the mad dance of the four members of the group.


Deephold did not have much time to notice the grak-grak's actions, for he was focused on helping - or 'helping' - the rest of the group. His voice raised in an audible prayer, petitioning Larethian to act against the foulness of Lilith and Lolth. "Do not mention it, we can fight him. We have proved our strength time and again. I feared you were affected, I rejoice Larethian's strength and your own are a match for the task!"

Deephold is shocked by the accusations of Petal as the pixie flies around. His mace flies out, branished. Was it to bring the holy symbol of Larethian to bear though, or because he was prepared to strike the peturbed champion?

"There is no voicves in my head, noble pixie. It is the voice of D...of the priest! Fight it! It is not your friend. It is some secret fear being manifest. We have faced this foe, and beaten him. He seeks to claim you through our knowledge of you. And then defeat us through his mastery of you." Deephold looks worried and serious, and then begins a new prayer.

"Larethian? Larethian? That upstart!" says the petulant voice in Petal's head. "That High Lord can't do much here! It won't help! You need me! He's going to ruin it!" There is almost a foot stomping. "I command it! Seize him! Don't let him take me away! You promised." A pause. "I'll tell him your name, and all about you. I'll show you! I'll show you that you need me, that your precious 'Larethian' and the others won't help, won't do any good. Another pause. "You need me! he said mopre plaintifly again. "Don't let him push me down again, I can't stop him if you do!"

Deephold is even more concerned when Petal races over to Haynuus, pulling the half-orc away. And more concerned still when Haynuus responds with a whisper.

"Move away, noble pixe..." says Deephold with a flat, calm voice the others have not really heard before. There is a note of steel in the dwarf's voice.

Ameena sees the groups forming two sides. She doens't notice her shadow looking different anymore. However, she does feel as if the two hallucinations earlier are just on the edge of her vision, vying for her attention. It is very subtle, but in her heightened state Ameena can still feel that odd tug of war on her focus. More importantly though, she sees the grak-grak shift against the wall. It's arms, that were crossed tightly, are looser. And it is now not leaning against the wall, but resting its weight on a leg. As if ready to spring to action at a moment's notice.


"Move away..." repeats the dwarf, raising his mace again towards Petal.

"Don't listen to them all!" comes the voice in Petal's head, "they're all going to be in danger if you listen to them!"


And as I wonder why people think I'm evil, then realise that there is a very real possibility you guys don't know for sure who is under a bad influence and who is trying to save you... I'll leave the update here

I will happily answer any metagame questions in the OOC thread if there's any true confusion. But I htink for now I won't clarify anything off my own back.

[ian_scho]

Haynuus sheaths his sword with a sigh. "But what, Mister Deephold, are you going to do? Can you cast off the evil that surrounds us?" He thinks for a moment, that the Grak-grak may get a shock as well. He was more concerned however that Petal was going to be on the receiving end of the mace, and we're not talking in the symbolic sense either. But the hard metal sense. He wasn't sure how to calm the situation down but was getting concerned that the pixie and the dwarf would start a brawl that neither would win.

At times like these attempting diplomacy was always a last resort, but nonetheless he had to try to placate the dwarf a little (1d20-2=-1)... It was then he realised that he was actually standing directly between the dwarf and petal distracting and annoying the diminutive cleric.

[Ameena]

Ameena notices the change in stance of the grak-grak, and "accidentally" moves so that she's now standing (still upright) between it and her friends, though the latter are her main focus.
"Stop!" she cries, with great distress. "Look! It's trying to make you fight! Maybe he's in both of your heads!"
She looks to the dwarf.
"Deephold - is your voice telling you that Petal is some kind of bad creature?" she asks. "Is it teling you that there's something wrong with her or that she wants to hurt you?"
Without waiting for an answer, she turns to Petal.
"Petal - is your voice telling you the same kind of thing? That you shouldn't listen to us? If I tell you the name of the person who does this mind-entering...thing...then he'll probably get back inside my head too. But please...just...think about it. Think of good things. If it's trying to change one of your memories, or something, remember how things really happened. Think of good things - it helps, it really does. It makes the false thoughts go away, or at least lets you see that they're not real and that they're trying to trick you."
She wants to reach out to both pixie and dwarf, but restrains herself because she knows that if they are under some kind of hostile mental influence, it might make them see her as some kind of aggressor and convince them to attack her.

OOC - In case a Diplomacy roll will help (at least for Deephold, being as he's an NPC), I score...26 (17+9).

[raixel]

As a player, Im not 100% sure, but Im playing that Petal is.

The pixie looks confused at her friends. "No, telling me to hurt you it is not." she says as she sidles slowly away from the angry dwarf, holding her hands out in a placating guesture. "Believe I do that the voice in my head, a part of me it is. Me, and Someone Else. The being saying it is, that it is trying to stop him. Know I not who this him is, but perhaps the evil thing you speak of, it is."

She turns to face Ameena, trying to show her that she is in full command of her mental faculties.

To the being in her head she says, "No. I will not let anyone take you away. I promised you this. . And to throw up a mental bulwark against the presumed evil entity, she thinks of a good feeling of showing a being who has never known a kindness, of never having a friend, who lives in an insane constantly shifting mental state. Of teaching a sliver of that being what it means to care. And of choosing to save a life, instead of save herself. She closes her eyes and throws up a mental shield around her and the Presence in her head, knowing that if in fact, the voice in her head is what she thinks it is and not an outside influence, she knows they will be safe.

[Ameena]

OOC - Lol personally I haven't got a clue - I think I'm on about the same level as Ameena herself on this one, but that's the way I like it 'cause it means I can't accidentally metagame .

[beowuuf]

Deephold took a step back, turning to ensure both Petal and Haynuus were in his line of sight. "I thought I had already cast off the evil," he said with growing alarm, "until you talked to her again..." Deephold raised his mace once more. "Do you not see, she is our vulnerability. We shared too much information between each other, but she has not confronted the priest and was a way in for his evil!" Deephold renews his slow sltep forward, clutching his mace and started to speak more prayers to Larethian.

Ameena's voice, raised with unaccustomed force, stops the confrontation dead for a moment. Deeophold stops in shock. "There has been no voice in my head," says Deephold to Ameena over his shoulder. "I felt something trying to convince me that you all were undead, twisted creatures like our guide. Distract me from my memories of what we had done."

Deephold seems to listen to Ameena, and allow her to question Petal. Deephold nods. "I feared it the work of the priest and focused on the noble sacrific of Umgold, and the fact that his memory lives on in the half-orc who bears his armour and behaves unlike any I have met. Such self-sacrifice of ones life and one's nature are thoughts I know the elf priest could not understand. His mistress would not let him foster such feelings for long, even were he to possess them!"

Deephold does not stand down, but does not walk forward to confront Petal as she continues her comments. He looks confused at her question, and concerned at her speech. However, before he can question Petal further, the pixie turns her thoughts inwards. Deephold clutches his chest for a moment, and stares at the pixie in shock, as if he can sense her thoughts.

In Petals head, she feels some strange pressure that she hadn't been aware of leave. However, she can still feel the presence of the voice just on the edge of her thoughts. "You didn't leave me!" said the little voice in wonder at the rememberance, and with a catch as if there was a little lump in its throat.

At the edge of hearing, all four can hear a snarling voicve. Three could recognise the voice as Dolo's. Petal could only recognise it as a harsh elven tone. The voice was quiet yet angry, as if coming from far away, and then it faded.

"I am tired," said the little voice in Petal's head, also sounding soft and a little surprised. And then Petal felt the presence of the voice leave her mind. Was it a temporary reprieve, or had the voice now gone forever as quickly as it had come?

"did you...did you succeed in fighting the voice off?" asked Deephold, perhaps understanding something had happened, but obviously not knowing what.


And there we go. One really terrible roll from Haynuus mitigated and countered by a good roll from Ameena and good RP from Ameena/Raixel.

Anyway, you guys have a beat to talk amongst yourselves. You managed to sneak pretty well. Especially when it all looked like it would end badly yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised (yesterday) but we seemed to have weathered it today (awwww).

[Ameena]

Ameena hears the faint voice of...him...and feels somewhat relieved, at least in that she was right about the identity of the person who was trying to get inside their heads. She is a little worried, however, that she was apparently able to actually hear his voice - is he really close enough for that to be possible, or was it simply a mental sort of after-effect as his efforts are thwarted? Or maybe he's still in that cell and he's got a really loud voice.
"That was him..." she says, mainly to Petal. "That was the one trying to get inside our heads, that person who made that noise just now. Are you alright?"
This last question is asked with great concern as she looks up at Petal - what if...that person...is just pretending to have stopped trying for now? Maybe he's just waiting for everyone to lower their defences so he can try to get back in again. Well, as she knows now how to fend him off, just to be sure she briefly concentrates on the feeling of meeting a group of murafu after a long day's travel through perilous lands of open fields and angry humans who send dogs after her.
Something about this thought sparks an idea, and she speaks again to Petal.
"You said you thought it was another voice." she says. "I mean, that there was someone else there. I don't know if that's true - I mean, I don't know whether the voice you know was really there, or whether it was...him...pretending so taht you'd let him speak to you and learn about you. But if you do really have a friend who speaks to you like that...well, it doesn't matter how they speak to you. Next time, if he tries to get in your head again, just think really hard about the person you want it to be and how it feels to be with them, and all the good things you've done with them. Because that other person...the bad one...he doesn't understand things like friendship and...and people being kind to each other. I don't really understand how it's possible to be that way, but...well, I'm a murafu, and being close to people is part of what I am. If he pretended to be your friend and you thought of nice things, then he might run away because he doesn't like it. Well, maybe..."
As she finishes speaking, Ameena casts a glance around at the grak-grak, in case it's doing anything she should probably know about.

[ian_scho]

"He's gone." He turns to Petal, and adds to Ameenas observations "You've never met him, but he's truly evil."

He then announces to everyone. "We should be vigilant, and announce to others as soon as we start hearing voices that tell us to smack our friends." He nods to himself in agreement with his simplification of the situation. And pats the dwarf once more on his shoulder. "Thanks for your prayers" he says in a lower tone of voice. He was grateful for those with the powers of good around them... But what if Dolo had succeeded with controlling Deephold?

He thinks for a few moments, and prepares himself to start moving once more. The evil now lays in infront of them in form of the grak-grak. He moves over and announces "Your evil elf friend still possess a little power over us. Not physical, but through his magicks. We must be vigilant." It was then he realised that maybe they could trick this grak-grak using a collective insanity act. It amused him that they could all be clutching their heads screaming and maybe escape from it by pretending to be under his control.

[raixel]

Petal looks around at her friends as the evil presence, an odd voice she recognizes as Elven, leave. Or at least fade for a time being. Then, she feels her friend's voice and presence fade as well, and smiles softly at the thought of the little being. He saved her. As she saved him once, from his true self. That thought brings tears to her eyes, and two tears slide down her cheeks, glimmering colors like an oil-slick on water.

"He'shali mi sevra..." Translation:

Spoiler

Lit. My male friend me protected

she says quietly in a wondering voice to herself, then shak4es her head, her thick black hair whipping across her face and scattering the teardrops clinging to her cheeks.

She smiles at the murafu, who is so very obviously trying to slow her words down and make herself easy to understand. Petal smiles to herself as she doesnt have the heart to tell the earnest murafu that she is still speaking very fast, with odd pauses at places most people dont use. But, Petal can at least understand the concern in her rat-like friend's voice.

"Yes, understand I now. The evil one did I feel, as well. But, in my head, the voice that I did hear was different. Protected me from the evil he did. A good friend he is, to me. A choice once I made, to svae him or myself. Him was what I chose. So with me he is still. Worry not, for I am not by this evil thing controlled." she tells her concerned companions.

As the group gathers thenselves and prepares to move, the pixie smirks to herself. She wonders what her new friends would think if they found out who her friend who saved them all actually was...

[beowuuf]

Deephold relaxes a little, still looking to the pixie. "As Ameena and Haynuus say, this priest can be defeated by the emotions and comraderie we share." He nods to Haynuus's comments, then turns back to Petal.

The dwarf pauses for a moment, and says in a lower voice. "The magics you command are powerful. Power is...dangerous though. You have the power to share your life energies to heal, and yet you still lifted a hand in violence to me through the same power. You have a friend bonded through a wonderful sacrifice, one powerful enough to push away the evil of the priest. And yet when I tried to invoke a High Lord of good to aid us, this friend of yours seemed to want me to stop, from your concerns over me. Please, for all our sakes, be careful."

With that, the dwarf turned around to face the grak-grak. The creature had listened intently to Haynuus's words, looks down briuefly at the murafu looking at him, and then looks across as the speaking dwarf and pixie.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The grak-grak begins breaking its - or rather Helm's - fingers one by one loudly to get the attention of the group. Once everyone quietens, it shakes its fingers back in to perfect working order, taps itself on the temple, and shakes a finger in a 'no' again. It then beckons once more, turns, and walks off.


Assuming you guys move off with it...


The corridor carries on for a while. There is a single branch off to the right that the grak-grak steadfastly ignores, and more importantly makes sure everyone else ignores it. There is a subtle lever close that the grak-grak finds. It presses the lever, and a pit drops open visibly. There is the sound of echoing running wayer from below. There is a strange grin on the face of the grak-grak, and then it turns and rushes to the pit, falling in to it without hesitation.


And so there we go. Update done. Will you follow your grak-grak? Considering it is possible he's just gone and started to drown Helm to get you guys to follow?

[Ameena]

Ameena gives Petal another concerned look, but lets the matter drop for now. After all, her friend seems alright, but Ameena wonders what she'll do if things start going strange again...
She winces as the grak-grak breaks its own fingers, and hopes that it's not harming Helm in the same way, though supposes that it is. But maybe, she thinks, if they can find him, they can heal him. She is starting to ache to be with her friend again, knowing what he must be going through, but is fully aware, to her misery, that there's nothing she can do about it at this time. Maybe there's some way to make a grak-grak change back to its normal shape again...
Somewhat reluctantly, she follows the grak-grak as it continues, after looking around to see that everyone else is too. When the creature walks straight past a junction she pauses at it, sniffing around and listening carefully in case there's anything down that route she might want to take note of. She has a really rather belated thought that perhaps there's some way they can lose this grak-grak, and then she can maybe follow its stinky undead scent trail back to Soorec's region, where it must have come from, and thus find Helm. Assuming Helm is there, of course. But what if he's not? Well, they need to go back there anyway, but...
Her attention is then taken up by the grak-grak pulling a nearby lever, which opens a pit, and then jumping down it.
Jumping down it?!
And into water, from the sound of it. She realises the grak-grak won't be hurt by the fall, but what about Helm? It's rather too late to do anything about it now, she realises, but supposes that the grak-grak wants them to follow it and clearly assumes that they will, for fear of whatever might happen to Helm. Unless it just wants to get them all killed and has already changed back to its natural form before hitting whatever's at the bottom of the pit. Or maybe it didn't and Helm is already...
Well, there's no way of telling. What now?
Ameena looks around at her friends, highly concerned.
"Do we...I mean...it's not really in my nature to just...jump off something like that." she says, gesturing toward the pit. "Do you think it wants us to jump off and die, or do you think it's really leading us somewhere and that it's safe to follow?"
She looks over at Petal.
"Maybe you could...fly down and look?" she suggests.
She then glances at the green petal-dancer.
"Perhaps you could too?" she asks politely.

OOC - Perception check for sniffing around that other route = 12 (1+11) .

[raixel]

The pixie nods to Deephold. "Yes, Surprised I am not, that my friend to call upon your High Lord did not want you to." She pauses for a second as she tries to puzzle out the best way to explain it to the priest. "See you, Magic of the High Lords a bit uncomfortable, it makes him. But worry over it not."

She sighs as she realizes he is still looking at her suspiciously. And she feels the murafu's eyes on her as well.These beings were hard to understand. Suddenly, she is overcome by a wave of homesickness that would have driven her to her knees had she been standing, but instead she drops a foot or so out of the air before she catches herself. To go home, in the village of her people. The village that no longer exists. She wants to be among her own again, speak her own language instead of this convoluted backwards speech. Have people understand who and what she is, instead of looking at her like she is a foam-sick ghartiil that would rip their throats out the second they let their guard down.

She sighs again, resignedly. As much as she wanted to leave, to fly up through the path she found at the waterfall to freedom, she made a pact with these people. And the word of a sorceress cannot be broken, as the of First Law of her people states. She hears her mentors voice in her head explaining to her the Laws of her people, when she first began training her power.

"Law number 1, the most important one." Alorthin says, the two of them sitting on a tree branch near the old pixie's magic-working place. "The word of a Singer is the word of the People. This means if a Singer gives their word, it is as binding as the threads of the Life tapestry. Now, young sorcen. Why do you think this is?"

The young pixie thinks for a moment, wings waving gently in the summer air. "Um. Because if we dont keep our words, people wont trust us?" she muses aloud.

The old sorcerer nods. "Partially true. Also because we have great Power. And if our word could not be trusted, with the power we have, we could do great harm to the Tapestry and all living things within. This means our word is binding to everyone. So speak not a promise you cannot keep. Lest you find yourself forced to."

Petal thinks on this a moment "So, we must keep our word, even to the land bounds and the outsiders? But they do not walk on the same Paths. How do we know that their words are as true?" she asks.

Alorthin looks out over the sun-dappled clearing, his eyes seeing the mana woven into the rocks and earth of his magic-place. "We dont. They might lie. But still, we must only speak truth, even to them. This is very important. As the mana is pure, so must we be. An impure soul will taint the mana you call to you, twist it. So, it is more than just a Law of our people. It is a Law of mana."

The sorceress rubs a tired hand across her eyes, banishing the memories. She realizes the murafu is speaking to her again and looks around. The grak-grak has jumped down a pit and is leering up at them.
"Go down the pit and look around, I will," she says, answering Ameena's question. "But, near that horrid creature I do not wish to be. Helped it cannot be, I suppose." She flies over the pit and peers down within. If it seems safe she will go down. Seeing nothing immediately dangerous, she slowly decends to looka round, keeping as far from the grak-grak as possible.

[ian_scho]

Haynuus smacks his hand over his face at hearing the grak-grak break his, or Helm's, fingers in front of them. It was worse than cruel. It would be almost a relief to see Helm as a zombie to know that he hadn't suffered at the hands of the gnome and his creation.

"Eh, coming!" he shouts down the pit. He looks nervously back up at the dwarf. "You... I... We are fucked." He pauses for a second, mind racing, grasping for possibilities. "Look, I have some rope and some wooden stakes and a small hammer. Mister Deephold, if we smack just one stake up here and I use it to lower you down with the rope... You could hammer a few stakes in on the way down while I carefully hold you. Then I'll climb down your stakes." It sounded easy if he didn't think about it too much. "I think I'll drop our armour off over the edge after you've got to the bottom though, tied to the other end of the rope."

All of this was a great plan assuming that the dwarf hadn't drowned when he reached the bottom. Dwarves had a capacity to drown in field ditches although it had to be noted that they were usually very drunk when they left the village inn in the first place.

[Ameena]

Ameena looks over at Haynuus.
"But should we go down?" she asks, reiterating her previous question. "We might die - Soorec might want that."

[ian_scho]

So over-awed with his plan, he assumed that the gnome and his grak-grak fiend would not just kill them out right... Well, maybe not that quickly.

"I think... We should go carefully." He peers over the edge and wraps the rope around his waist. "...But wait for Petal to call us back if it's okay first." He hated to admit to Ameena's logic but there have been more than one goblin tale of adventurers cutting their own heads off in order to be able to fit a magic helmet on their heads.

And besides, they'd be chucking the dwarf down first anways.

[raixel]

Btw, on a side note, Petal has like (i think) 20 feet of rope that she is wearing as a harness, and quite a few iron stakes and a small hammer. So climbing down shouldnt be an issue.

[ian_scho]

OOC - Wowzers. Have you ever carried rope? It is pretty HEAVY. I find it amuzing that Petal is carrying rope, actually.

[beowuuf]

Bah, fantasy rope has no weight. Especially not elven stuff. Plus she has a decent carrying capacity (I think) so in mechanical terms it won't slow her down.

Sorry, only got back from work relatively recently, getting food, and then back out to work (and then party) tomorrow. Will tryto update before Sunday, but since you've gone and concoted a decent plan and everything, I feel obliged to give you a decent update!

[raixel]

Yeah, I have. But Petal is extra strong magic pixie.

[Ameena]

OOC - Depending on the nature of the walls of whatever shaft they're gonna be climbing down, Ameena shouldn't have too much of a problem if she can grip the walls okay - her Climb skill by itself is about 14 or so, so even with a crap roll she'll do okay (plus she can take 10 any time as some kind of racial/class trait). I think letting Petal or the butterfly scout down first might be a good idea, as they're more likely to be able to quickly get out of the way if there's anything nasty waiting. Plus I'm interested to see why the grak-grak apparently didn't want anyone to explore that other passageway - I await the results of my Perception test to see whether it was of any significance .

[beowuuf]

I wonder why a curious gnome who sees a rattie who is equally curious would want to remind said rattie to focus and follow. Especially when said rattie sees her friend in danger by proxy and wanders off to check out the other way Yes, I should be in bed by now. Sue me, I'm waiting for an mp3 to download to sleep to :p

[beowuuf]

The green butterfly lifts off into the air quite quickly after Ameena speaks, diving down int othe pit. A moment later, it comes back into sight, doing a little dance in the air that seems to dive and whirl towards the pit. It then comes back over to where Ameena is, landing on her shoulder. Once again, it seems to be rubbing its from two legs together in a strange way.

Ameena, meanwhile, tried to scent anything else coming fro mthe other path. Nothing immediately registered, and the butterfly came back quite swiftly to distract her. The biggest distraction was the odd smell. Her butterfly had the very faint whiff of the undead grak-grak to it - a scent that, Ameena realised, was actually missing otherwise. Of course, the butterfly had sat ontop of a disintergrating grak-gra, and that's probably where it picked up the scent. Indeed, the butterfly was almost rubbing its legs infront of its face.

Was that relevant to her previous thoughts?


Meanwhile, Petal had descended upon the request of Ameena to see where their 'guide' had gone. The light carried by the party illuminated well enough - once Haynuus and Deephold came forward - to allow Petal to see there was nothing lurking on the edges of the pit. Petal realised her illuminated dagger's light had long since vanished, the temporary magic evaloprated back into the air and earth the natural mana flowed through.

The pit seemed to be a decent depoth, and them opened out into a wide space. Going down, and seeing the gloomy light expand around her form to sparkle below, she could roughly tell the lay-out of the floor below.

It seemed there was a channel of water, of unknown depth, flowing slowly in the opposite direction to how they had been travelling - no doubt back to the cavern they had left. To the left and right were narrow-ish walkways, formed from natural rock but flattened and smoothed unnaturally. Even if high water had worked the rock, some agency had worked on it afterwards. More likely, this was a construction of Chaos's making.

The channel carried onwards into darkness back and forward, reasoably paralell to their path just now. Then Petal saw movement, and spotted the 'Helm' grak-grak walking in the knee-high water, and moving towards the further band. It turned at the end and looked towards the pit roof. Seeing Petal, it appeared to grin. It slowly slid down, arresting its slide on the edge of the walkway. However, clearly if it wanted to it could keep sliding into the water, being engulfed.

Another unpleasant thought - the drop into knee-high water had possibly done some damage to the thing's legs - and therefore probably to Helm instead as seem with the finger breaking earlier. Apparently, this 'Soorec' was keen to keep using hurting the group's friend to keep them in line. Still, as long as neither Haynuus nor Deephold slipped in the water, nor were there any hidden deep areas, they could survive still being in their armour and decending. Swimming was not going to be a necessity.

Back on the surface, Deephold had rushed with Haynuus towards the edge of the pit. He looked down the pit with concern, and then back to Haynuus, wincing at the half-orc's language, even if he could not aruge with the conclusion. The dwarf looked at their matched armour for a moment. "If you can hold me in my armour, I will do as you suggest and at least explore and set up a path for descent. Perhaps our pixie friend will have good news, but we should not wait." Deephold listened to Ameena's worry. "The gnome has our friend hostage - and I am sure he could have arranged our deaths in a simpler manner than this." Deephold did not seem to be convinced of his words though, and temporarily halted from helping Hyanuus pull the necessary items.

The circlet - and Haynuus was convinced it was the circlet's voice - whispered its convidence in Deephold's original words. That Soorec surely could have led them better than to a watery death. Although it did caution that perhaps a watery culling of some of the party, especially the taller and more priest members of the group - was not outside the realm of possibility. Basically, Haynuus realised that a lack of intelligence was not the handicap one could argue it had been. Apparently, with intelligence was the inclination to over-think things for the sake of it, instead of engaging in goood old fashioned action.

And so, up on top, the party awaited the return of the return of the pixie.


Glad Petal has a cast iron reason not to leave...that chimney is a pretty big 'get out of the mountain free' for a flying characters. I mean, you guys can read what I had to do to Ameena to get her back to the main group

Anyway, Haynuus's/Ian's idea seems sound, if you want to try and set up some form of anchored descent. Of course, even with Petal's report (depending on what she will report...) you guys might decide to leg it away fro mthe grak-grak guide, as you have alreaddone once in the past. Ameena hasn't gathered much info, but at least her nose isn't screaming danger about the alternate path!

[raixel]

Petal looks around, feeling the grak-grak's eyes on her from deeper within the channel. She notices the creature moving through the water slowly, as if it could slide away if it let itself. This didnt worry her, but she pitied the smaller land bounds of the party who might be forced to walk along the slippery narrow path. But, who was she to judge. Not having walked much, she has no idea how strong a creature who spend all of its time on the ground's legs actually are. To her, walking that narrow and wet pathway, or choosing to walk in the, to her, chest high water would have been suicide.

But who knows what one who spent most of their life on the ground thought.

As she sits there examining the lay out of the area, the grak-grak grins at her, and appears to almost let itself go where it might be carried along by the current to drown. For a second she wonders if it was threatening her, as if it was telling her it could kill the human whose form it wore easily. What it didnt seem to realize was that it wasnt *her* friend that was being threatened. She liked her companions, and swore an oath to them, but what did she care of some land-bound she had never met? Especially a human. She had no oaths to him-who-was-named-after-a-hat, and really didnt give three brown leaves about him. Besides, there was enough humans to go around.

She shakes her head at the sadistic creature, as if to say 'bother someone else with your games' and turns around to fly back up the passage and explain to her friends what she has seen.

When she reaches the top, she sees Haynuus and Deephold peering down. She notices the dwarf still looks at her suspiciously, and ignores his glare for now.

"A watery path, I have seen. Knee high on the formstealer, it appears to be. A current it has, going back that way." she tells the group, while pointing in the direction the water flows.

"But on the sides each, a narrow path is there. Made by the water, it does not appear to be. By Chaos perhaps, but stop I did not to listen. The formstealer, great joy it appears to take in hurting the human of the form it is wearing. Acted like it was going to drown him, it did." She says this last without any sort of inflection that would announce a caring about said human. More just like she is stating the facts of what she saw.

"So, if go you want to that way, be it will hard perhaps for everyone but Haynuus and me. But, if that way go you do not, perhaps your friend, the formstealer will harm."

[Ameena]

Ameena watches the petal-dancer with curiosity, wondering whether the rubbing together of its forelegs is some kind of signal, or whether the creature is simply grooming itself in the manner of its kind.
Then Petal emerges from the pit, having also descended to investigate, and Ameena listens with concern as the pixie describes the grak-grak's actions. It's hurting Helm more? Ameena feels saddened at the pain he must be in and a little ashamed at leaving him behind the way she did, though she knows she had little choice in the matter. She wishes she could see him again, though, to apologise - what if he thinks she deliberately ran away and left him behind? Humans can think such things, she knows, even of creatures they know and trust. She hopes that she'll be able to find him again before anything more unpleasant happens to him.
Meanwhile, she peers down into the pit, wondering whether she can climb down the walls of the shaft. She considers the depth of the water below as described by Petal - knee-deep on a grak-grak. Rather, knee-deep on a grak-grak disguised as Helm. So, almost up to her shoulders if she stands upright. She wonders how fast the water flows - she is easily an adept enough swimmer that she should be able to travel that way, if there's nothing to stop her from doing so, like a fast current or unpleasant things in the water.

OOC - In case I need a Perception for Ameena to decide (based on both sight and whiskertouch) whether she can climb down the walls of the pit, 29 (18+11). Not entirely expecting the roll to be needed (for example, if the walls are sheer I'm sure she'll notice that pretty quickly just by looking ), but in case it's sort-of rough to the extent that she might possibly be able to make it. Consider this an evaluation of the likelihood of her being able to scale the pit walls.

[beowuuf]

Just waiting to see if Ian wants to created a dwarven yo-yo, but I can update for Ameena's checking out of stuff incase Ameena gets back from club early compared to my next update!


Ameena doens't have the sight of her companions, nor is she as well positioned as Petal was. Nevertheless, climbing is something Ameena is good at, as is swimming. Even in the dwindling shifting light of the torch as Haynuus and Deephold bustle around unhelpfully, Amena can judge the sides and distance quite well. The sides are indeed sheer, but not something the murafu has not conquered on a good day. And better, the drop is in to water Ameena knows she should be ok to fall into and swim out of.

Still, if Haynuus and Deephold's plan was to put stakes in the side of the wall to aid descent, Ameena would be completely confident in getting in to a good position to drop in to the water. She is sure she can see the sparkle of it, and judges she could drop into it from the base of the pit with no ill effects.

One of the more interesting things is, of course, that the pit reveals no sign of the floor that had covered it not a moment before. Ameena can smell the faint traces of mana in the air. The uncovering of the floor seems to have been magical - and powerful magicm to make so much rock just disappear, perhaps?

[Ameena]

OOC - Lol, note the time I made that last post. Club's over for Christmas...of course, I have somehow managed not to mention that to the people at work and have still gone home early. Actually tonight that's probably a good thing, looking out the window

[beowuuf]

Ah, hadn't checked since lunch, so assumed you made it over the afternoon And yeah, is it snow, is it freezing - WHO KNOWS!

[ian_scho]

"We'll take a few of your iron spikes then!" he enthusiastically shouts across to the pixie upon her return. The first one would be anchored at the top to help bear the weight of the dwarf, his armour, and that beard of his. He hammered away and when he'd finished he offered to the dwarf if he'd like to assay his sweaty work. "I think I'll still take off my armour and drop it down on the end of the rope to you at the bottom." It was bad enough to carry proto-screamer slime in his backpack, which he really didn't want to lose. He'd be in a better position to climb down without all of that nice and shiny metal on him.

"So it looks fun down there?" he says to Petal. He'd never heard of The Goonies but he imagined sliding down water chutes and cascades to arrive at some old citadel populated with stuff that needs hitting. "It'll take us land dwellers a little time but I wreckon with a bit of dwarvern engineering we could climb down."

He tossed the hammer and what stakes he had to Deephold. "This is not a cleric's normal duty, but smacking metal on rock will be right at home for you."

[Ameena]

Ameena looks over at Haynuus and Deephold.
"Do you need any help?" she asks. "I think I can climb down here well enough, and if the water's that deep then I should be able to drop into it without hitting the bottom and hurting myself even more."
She winces slightly, glancing back at her grak-grak wound and hoping it won't slow her down too much. At least the drop into the water should clean it up a bit, though she anticipates it stinging almost as badly as when it was first clawed into her.

[ian_scho]

Our half orc starts to pick his nose to help him think. "I'm, hoping that you'll be able to follow our dwarf friend down when he has finished." He could imagine Ameena easily descending down the rope, head first, as he had seen rats do this off ginormous goblin hulks floating alongside ramshackle docks. "Maybe Deephold could use some help on the way down though?"