Post by Dead Greyhawk on Nov 18, 2007 16:50:46 GMT -5
Winthrop, Perrin, and Otto find the Company recovering from their battle with the giant goblins and holding a heated, quick discussion. While normally the Company would be spending this time searching through the pockets of their defeated foes, they well know that these bugbears are likely to be only the first of many enemies that they will face. The Great Tree seems to be somewhat hollow, with tunnels and fortifications inside of it, and occupied by creatures inimical to the forest. When Otto and the others arrive, they quickly conclude that they need to find where these opponents came from, use that entry to further force combat, and destroy their opponents in a single battle rather than a series of engagements inside cramped quarters. "You mean we should run forward until we get swarmed by the enemy and then kill them all," quips Otto. Raven frowns.
Otto leads the others in a jog around the Great Tree until two sets of wooden double doors, carved with scenes of forest animals and growing bushes, come into view at ground level, mounted in the living wood of the Great Tree. Both sets are closed. "Antonus, open the left doors," orders Otto, as he leads the others up to the right doorway. Antonus begins pounding on the wooden double doors with the end of his staff, the doors flexing and creaking under the blows. Otto slams his shoulder against the door, his magically augmented strength still in place even after the long day. The doors splinter, and Otto throws them open, revealing a rectangular room beyond.
Otto leads the others into the room as Antonus batters down the other door, the end of his staff protruding into the room. Directly before Otto is an open passageway that leads further into the tree, while to the left, beyond Antonus's staff, is another door. Antonus's staff extends most of the way across the room, almost touching another set of double doors in the far wall. To the right is an alcove with a five foot diameter hole in the floor. An atrocious stench rises up from the hole, smelling of rotting flesh. Stacked along the walls of this large chamber are various sacks and crates, piled in disorderly heaps.
From the open passageway comes a stream of giant goblins who run quickly at the Company. "Winthrop!" starts Otto before he is engulfed in hairy bodies. He hacks among the giant goblins, striking them down, but they seem to be forcing him, by weight of numbers, into the alcove with the large hole. Raven and Diego attempt to provide supporting fire, but the other set of double doors, clear now that Antonus has withdrawn his glowing staff, burst open. The Company is beset from two sides, first by the giant goblins and now by more than a dozen hulking, white-furred creatures, similar to, but smaller than, the yeti faced in the frost giants' glacial rift. Raven and Diego switch to their bastardswords and begin laying about them, striking the strange white-furred creatures down.
Diego and Raven are quickly separated from one another by the press of the white-furred creatures, who strike repeatedly at the warriors. Raven weathers the attacks well, his armor turning many of the blows aside. Diego is less fortunate. He has worn the shining armor from the glacial rift for months now, and it has served him well. Apparently, it has a fatal flaw. One of the white-furred creatures strikes Diego's breastplate a massive blow, and the shining armor splits in two falling to pieces around Diego. Diego stands unarmored, entangled in the remains of his armor, and surrounded by dangerous foes.
Winthrop does not know what plan Otto had for him, but he has plans of his own. Pulling forth the wand of steam, he points it into the open corridor and demands it belch forth its scalding vapor. The giant goblins still in the corridor scream in agony as the boiling moisture sloughs the skin from their bodies. The goblins fall to the ground, writhing, and screams come from beyond the bend in the corridor, where presumably the giant goblins' compatriots have unwittingly run into the vapor cloud.
Alouicious quickly sees that the weight of numbers in this enclosed space is against them. Without sudden aid, Diego is sure to be slain, and Otto possibly lost into the pit. Alouicous digs into his backpack and pulls forth the iron horn he carries with him. Sounding it provides a long mournful tone, like a dirge for the dead. Ghostly figures form around Alouicious, slowly hardening and taking shape. Warriors of the Horn solidify, figures wearing furs and hides and carrying spears and crude shields. Their long hair drawn into fat-slicked braids, they shout in a strange tongue and leap into the fray beside Alouicious.
With the help of Alouicious and his barbaric warriors, the giant goblins are pulled from Otto, and his slide towards the pit stops. Diego and Raven's battle against the white-furred creatures goes less smoothly. The creatures are not particularly strong, but many of them have come from the wide passageway. Jasper joins them, punching with his fists into the tender points of a body. Jasper's punches are extremely effective at immobilizing the creatures, but the death blows that Diego and Raven deal are not that. The creatures fall to the ground, fatally wounded, but then regain their feet. While not as frightening as when done by unlife, it is disconcerting nonetheless. The horde of white-furred bodies seems to not thin, and their fangs and claws remain sharp. Worse, they seem equally able to use their weight of numbers against the less heavily armored. They keep Raven occupied while they focus their attacks on Jasper and Diego. Jasper's training and agility serve him well, but Diego, reliant on his now destroyed armor, suffers grievous wounds. Diego collapses to the ground, bludgeoned and bleeding in unconsciousness.
Jasper looks at the mass of white fur surrounding him and takes two steps backwards, standing over Diego's corpse. He kicks and punches with all his might, trying to keep the creatures from falling on and consuming Diego. On the far side of those he fights, Jasper can see the tide is turning, but, as a clawed hand creases his skull, he fears it will turn too late for him.
Seeing that Otto has regained his stability, Alouicious turns his attack away from the giant goblins and towards the white-furred creatures. His barbaric brethren join suit, and the six of them drive into the white-furred mass. Many of the white-furred creatures fight with their fatal wounds, and they are slain again, this time permanently. Others do not, and they combine to drag down one of the Warriors of the Horn. The warrior's loss is felt by his brothers, but it does not dissuade them. Instead, it drives them on to new heights of daring ferocity.
Antonus, seeing only white-furred bodies before him in the room, smashes again through the double doors with his glowing staff. The white-furred creatures are taken by surprise, and a number of them are pulped by the tree-trunk sized staff that smashes into their sides. The opening created when Antonus withdraws his staff is broad enough that two of the giant goblins, clearly dismayed at the destruction of his compatriots, take the opportunity to run to the door and fling it open. Before anyone can stop them, they dart through the door, up a ramp that is visible beyond it, drawing the door closed behind them.
"You finish these off, then follow after me," cries Alouicious to the others.
"Aaarrrggggh! Rraaarrghhh! Arrggahh! Garrhhh!" exhort his remaining, wounded Warriors of the Horn. Alouicious charges towards the door, throwing it open, and passes through it, his Warriors of the Horn following after him.
The space cleared by the departure of the warriors allows the Company more space to fight. Otto repays the favor by joining Raven who is carving his way towards Jasper and Diego. Otto's skill at fighting these creatures is uncanny, as if he had been specifically trained to fight against them. They quickly fight their way through the white-furred creatures, over to the unconscious Jasper and Diego. Many of the white-furred creatures have already taken wounds that would normally kill a creature, and they fall easily beneath Raven and Otto's blades. In a matter of mere minutes, the last of the Company's foes are destroyed.
"What are these things?" pants Raven, winded from the battle.
"Quaggoth," says Otto. "Foul subterranean beasts. See how they are all albinos? They suffer no pigmentation because they do not normally see sunlight."
The Company has taken some grievous wounds in the battle, and they take the time to bind their wounds before chasing after Alouicious and the Warriors of the Horn. Pfiffwin sidles up to the alcove with the foul-smelling pit in it and drops a lightstone down it. The lightstone falls a decent distance, perhaps thirty feet, before being swallowed by an inky liquid that blots out the stone's light. The liquid looked reflective as the lightstone dropped toward it, but that could easily be the effects of the light impinging on it.
Winthrop stares into the double doors that the white-furred creatures came through. A ramp leads up into the darkness, and a stench similar to that coming from the hole in the alcove filters its way down to Winthrop. No light or obvious opponents are in sight, so Winthrop closes the doors and heads outside to confer with Antonus. "We're heading up inside the tree," he says to Antonus. "We won't be able to help if you get yourself in trouble, so stay away from anything that will, understand?" Antonus appears petulant, but he does not disagree.
Diego sheds his armor while receiving ministrations from Perrin, Herbert, and Hugh. He begs Winthrop to recover his chest, so that any armor stored inside can be worn and his accursed armor stowed. Winthrop accedes to his request, but the only armor in the chest is a somewhat-small suit of studded leather armor taken from the slaver Markessa. "Better that than nothing," replies Diego, as he squeezes into the armor.
Otto shoulders his way through the door that Alouicious charged up and leads the Company up a twisting ramp. The walls of the ramp are made of wood, rough wood, as if the Company was traveling in a passageway extruded between the living walls of the tree. The ramp curves out of sight, but then it ends at a wooden door. The door shows signs of being battered open, but it is now closed again. Otto, after checking the readiness of the rest of the Company, opens it.
An irregularly shaped room, like a cyst within the wood of the Great Tree, lies behind the door. The left wall of this room is littered with large holes, each about six inches in diameter, at a variety of heights. The holes shed no light, and no creature peeks forth. To the right is another door. This door has also been forced, its locking mechanism broken and dangling from the door jamb. Sap slowly leaks out from the door jamb, congealing. Alouicious must have gone through this door. Otto spies small splashes of blood along the right wall but can not easily see if it comes from new or existing wounds aggravated during the charge up the ramp.
The Company heads for the other door when an ominous buzzing sound, similar to that of a very large, very angry bee, begins to emanate from the holes in the wall. Diego and Raven take up position across from the holes, where they can shoot down anything that might emerge. The others cross the room and pass through the door. Strange bug-like birds, with long proboscises and leathery wings, begin to emerge from the holes, only to be met by Diego and Raven's shafts. The bugbirds do not clear the tunnels before Raven and Diego are able to exit through the door, closing it firmly behind them.
The door opens again onto an ascending passage through the tree. Here though are signs of battle. One of the Warriors of the Horn lies dead in the passage and just beyond him is the corpse of the giant goblin that fled the battle below. The passage begins to curve away from the Company at that point, precluding a better view down the corridor, but the Company fears the worst. They hike up and over the fallen to enter into the arc the corridor describes. Doors lead off of this curving corridor, three to the right and two to the left, but all are closed.
In the corridor itself is a scene of slaughter. Two more of the Warriors of the Horn lie dead, but they are not the only bodies in the passage. Five strange, scaled, green figures, lacking clothes and with a strangely mottled complexion, lie dead in the corridor as well. None of the Company recognize the strange creatures. Otto carefully prods one with the tip of his sword before bending down to take a closer look at it. The scales seem remarkably tough, yet flexible, easily as strong as boiled leather. The feet and hands have long, curved claws at the end of flexible fingers and an opposable thumb. The creatures seem likely to be arboreal in nature, though he has never seen nor heard of the like. Finally, Otto pulls back the creature's jaw and finds long sharp teeth in it. "Don't let them get close to you," he advises the others. Hugh, who has been checking the bodies of the Warriors of the Horn, says that they likely died from claw and fang wounds, victims of these green creatures.
The Company retreats slightly, trying to decide what to do next. Alouicious could be behind one of these doors, or he could be far ahead chasing down more foes and expecting the Company to be close on his heels. Otto and Hugh search the doorways and find that while tracks lead to all five of the doors, as well as up and down the passage, creatures have entered and exited the right-hand doors recently. With that knowledge, Otto shoulders in the first of the right-hand doors.
The door splinters and opens, revealing a small room with a door on the left wall, likely leading to the room behind the next door in the corridor. Six living areas, each containing a cot covered in rotting leaves and a closed wooden chest, line the room. While Otto and Raven secure the next door, Diego watches down the corridor, and the rest of the Company quickly searches under the cots for hidden enemies. The room appears empty of enemies.
Otto, receiving the necessary assurances from his comrades, shoulders open the next door. It, like the room he currently stands in, is small, but, unlike the current room, appears to be a dining room, not a barracks. Two large tables and a total of twelve chairs are in the room, as is the corpse of one of the green creatures. The room is filthy and covered in dirt and debris. Another door is in the wall on the far side of the room. It, based on Otto's vision of the corridor, must connect to the area behind the next, and last, door on the right side of the passage.
Crossing the room, Otto walks up to the door and kicks it open. Another room, this with a door on the left wall, arrayed as a barracks is before him. Unlike the previous room, this one has large curtains, once a linen color but now stained with grime and blood, dividing the room into sections. Two more green creatures lie dead, tangled among the curtains. Otto and Raven carefully walk forward, pushing the curtains and the bodies aside. Near the door on the left wall is the other giant goblin that Alouicious was chasing. He has been cleaved nearly in two by a great blow. Quietly standing in the corner, near one of the remaining curtained areas, is the last Warrior of the Horn, his face covered with stripes of blood, apparently in mourning.
"Can you be quieter? I need my rest," says Alouicious from the last of the curtained areas. Alouicious lies on the cot, heedless of the dirt, the piles of leaves pushed onto the floor. His wounds are quite grievous, and he lies very still in the bed. Hugh is quickly summoned to bring a semblance of health to Alouicious, and Al is plied with berries, as many as his stomach can handle.
Otto leads the others in a jog around the Great Tree until two sets of wooden double doors, carved with scenes of forest animals and growing bushes, come into view at ground level, mounted in the living wood of the Great Tree. Both sets are closed. "Antonus, open the left doors," orders Otto, as he leads the others up to the right doorway. Antonus begins pounding on the wooden double doors with the end of his staff, the doors flexing and creaking under the blows. Otto slams his shoulder against the door, his magically augmented strength still in place even after the long day. The doors splinter, and Otto throws them open, revealing a rectangular room beyond.
Otto leads the others into the room as Antonus batters down the other door, the end of his staff protruding into the room. Directly before Otto is an open passageway that leads further into the tree, while to the left, beyond Antonus's staff, is another door. Antonus's staff extends most of the way across the room, almost touching another set of double doors in the far wall. To the right is an alcove with a five foot diameter hole in the floor. An atrocious stench rises up from the hole, smelling of rotting flesh. Stacked along the walls of this large chamber are various sacks and crates, piled in disorderly heaps.
From the open passageway comes a stream of giant goblins who run quickly at the Company. "Winthrop!" starts Otto before he is engulfed in hairy bodies. He hacks among the giant goblins, striking them down, but they seem to be forcing him, by weight of numbers, into the alcove with the large hole. Raven and Diego attempt to provide supporting fire, but the other set of double doors, clear now that Antonus has withdrawn his glowing staff, burst open. The Company is beset from two sides, first by the giant goblins and now by more than a dozen hulking, white-furred creatures, similar to, but smaller than, the yeti faced in the frost giants' glacial rift. Raven and Diego switch to their bastardswords and begin laying about them, striking the strange white-furred creatures down.
Diego and Raven are quickly separated from one another by the press of the white-furred creatures, who strike repeatedly at the warriors. Raven weathers the attacks well, his armor turning many of the blows aside. Diego is less fortunate. He has worn the shining armor from the glacial rift for months now, and it has served him well. Apparently, it has a fatal flaw. One of the white-furred creatures strikes Diego's breastplate a massive blow, and the shining armor splits in two falling to pieces around Diego. Diego stands unarmored, entangled in the remains of his armor, and surrounded by dangerous foes.
Winthrop does not know what plan Otto had for him, but he has plans of his own. Pulling forth the wand of steam, he points it into the open corridor and demands it belch forth its scalding vapor. The giant goblins still in the corridor scream in agony as the boiling moisture sloughs the skin from their bodies. The goblins fall to the ground, writhing, and screams come from beyond the bend in the corridor, where presumably the giant goblins' compatriots have unwittingly run into the vapor cloud.
Alouicious quickly sees that the weight of numbers in this enclosed space is against them. Without sudden aid, Diego is sure to be slain, and Otto possibly lost into the pit. Alouicous digs into his backpack and pulls forth the iron horn he carries with him. Sounding it provides a long mournful tone, like a dirge for the dead. Ghostly figures form around Alouicious, slowly hardening and taking shape. Warriors of the Horn solidify, figures wearing furs and hides and carrying spears and crude shields. Their long hair drawn into fat-slicked braids, they shout in a strange tongue and leap into the fray beside Alouicious.
With the help of Alouicious and his barbaric warriors, the giant goblins are pulled from Otto, and his slide towards the pit stops. Diego and Raven's battle against the white-furred creatures goes less smoothly. The creatures are not particularly strong, but many of them have come from the wide passageway. Jasper joins them, punching with his fists into the tender points of a body. Jasper's punches are extremely effective at immobilizing the creatures, but the death blows that Diego and Raven deal are not that. The creatures fall to the ground, fatally wounded, but then regain their feet. While not as frightening as when done by unlife, it is disconcerting nonetheless. The horde of white-furred bodies seems to not thin, and their fangs and claws remain sharp. Worse, they seem equally able to use their weight of numbers against the less heavily armored. They keep Raven occupied while they focus their attacks on Jasper and Diego. Jasper's training and agility serve him well, but Diego, reliant on his now destroyed armor, suffers grievous wounds. Diego collapses to the ground, bludgeoned and bleeding in unconsciousness.
Jasper looks at the mass of white fur surrounding him and takes two steps backwards, standing over Diego's corpse. He kicks and punches with all his might, trying to keep the creatures from falling on and consuming Diego. On the far side of those he fights, Jasper can see the tide is turning, but, as a clawed hand creases his skull, he fears it will turn too late for him.
Seeing that Otto has regained his stability, Alouicious turns his attack away from the giant goblins and towards the white-furred creatures. His barbaric brethren join suit, and the six of them drive into the white-furred mass. Many of the white-furred creatures fight with their fatal wounds, and they are slain again, this time permanently. Others do not, and they combine to drag down one of the Warriors of the Horn. The warrior's loss is felt by his brothers, but it does not dissuade them. Instead, it drives them on to new heights of daring ferocity.
Antonus, seeing only white-furred bodies before him in the room, smashes again through the double doors with his glowing staff. The white-furred creatures are taken by surprise, and a number of them are pulped by the tree-trunk sized staff that smashes into their sides. The opening created when Antonus withdraws his staff is broad enough that two of the giant goblins, clearly dismayed at the destruction of his compatriots, take the opportunity to run to the door and fling it open. Before anyone can stop them, they dart through the door, up a ramp that is visible beyond it, drawing the door closed behind them.
"You finish these off, then follow after me," cries Alouicious to the others.
"Aaarrrggggh! Rraaarrghhh! Arrggahh! Garrhhh!" exhort his remaining, wounded Warriors of the Horn. Alouicious charges towards the door, throwing it open, and passes through it, his Warriors of the Horn following after him.
The space cleared by the departure of the warriors allows the Company more space to fight. Otto repays the favor by joining Raven who is carving his way towards Jasper and Diego. Otto's skill at fighting these creatures is uncanny, as if he had been specifically trained to fight against them. They quickly fight their way through the white-furred creatures, over to the unconscious Jasper and Diego. Many of the white-furred creatures have already taken wounds that would normally kill a creature, and they fall easily beneath Raven and Otto's blades. In a matter of mere minutes, the last of the Company's foes are destroyed.
"What are these things?" pants Raven, winded from the battle.
"Quaggoth," says Otto. "Foul subterranean beasts. See how they are all albinos? They suffer no pigmentation because they do not normally see sunlight."
The Company has taken some grievous wounds in the battle, and they take the time to bind their wounds before chasing after Alouicious and the Warriors of the Horn. Pfiffwin sidles up to the alcove with the foul-smelling pit in it and drops a lightstone down it. The lightstone falls a decent distance, perhaps thirty feet, before being swallowed by an inky liquid that blots out the stone's light. The liquid looked reflective as the lightstone dropped toward it, but that could easily be the effects of the light impinging on it.
Winthrop stares into the double doors that the white-furred creatures came through. A ramp leads up into the darkness, and a stench similar to that coming from the hole in the alcove filters its way down to Winthrop. No light or obvious opponents are in sight, so Winthrop closes the doors and heads outside to confer with Antonus. "We're heading up inside the tree," he says to Antonus. "We won't be able to help if you get yourself in trouble, so stay away from anything that will, understand?" Antonus appears petulant, but he does not disagree.
Diego sheds his armor while receiving ministrations from Perrin, Herbert, and Hugh. He begs Winthrop to recover his chest, so that any armor stored inside can be worn and his accursed armor stowed. Winthrop accedes to his request, but the only armor in the chest is a somewhat-small suit of studded leather armor taken from the slaver Markessa. "Better that than nothing," replies Diego, as he squeezes into the armor.
Otto shoulders his way through the door that Alouicious charged up and leads the Company up a twisting ramp. The walls of the ramp are made of wood, rough wood, as if the Company was traveling in a passageway extruded between the living walls of the tree. The ramp curves out of sight, but then it ends at a wooden door. The door shows signs of being battered open, but it is now closed again. Otto, after checking the readiness of the rest of the Company, opens it.
An irregularly shaped room, like a cyst within the wood of the Great Tree, lies behind the door. The left wall of this room is littered with large holes, each about six inches in diameter, at a variety of heights. The holes shed no light, and no creature peeks forth. To the right is another door. This door has also been forced, its locking mechanism broken and dangling from the door jamb. Sap slowly leaks out from the door jamb, congealing. Alouicious must have gone through this door. Otto spies small splashes of blood along the right wall but can not easily see if it comes from new or existing wounds aggravated during the charge up the ramp.
The Company heads for the other door when an ominous buzzing sound, similar to that of a very large, very angry bee, begins to emanate from the holes in the wall. Diego and Raven take up position across from the holes, where they can shoot down anything that might emerge. The others cross the room and pass through the door. Strange bug-like birds, with long proboscises and leathery wings, begin to emerge from the holes, only to be met by Diego and Raven's shafts. The bugbirds do not clear the tunnels before Raven and Diego are able to exit through the door, closing it firmly behind them.
The door opens again onto an ascending passage through the tree. Here though are signs of battle. One of the Warriors of the Horn lies dead in the passage and just beyond him is the corpse of the giant goblin that fled the battle below. The passage begins to curve away from the Company at that point, precluding a better view down the corridor, but the Company fears the worst. They hike up and over the fallen to enter into the arc the corridor describes. Doors lead off of this curving corridor, three to the right and two to the left, but all are closed.
In the corridor itself is a scene of slaughter. Two more of the Warriors of the Horn lie dead, but they are not the only bodies in the passage. Five strange, scaled, green figures, lacking clothes and with a strangely mottled complexion, lie dead in the corridor as well. None of the Company recognize the strange creatures. Otto carefully prods one with the tip of his sword before bending down to take a closer look at it. The scales seem remarkably tough, yet flexible, easily as strong as boiled leather. The feet and hands have long, curved claws at the end of flexible fingers and an opposable thumb. The creatures seem likely to be arboreal in nature, though he has never seen nor heard of the like. Finally, Otto pulls back the creature's jaw and finds long sharp teeth in it. "Don't let them get close to you," he advises the others. Hugh, who has been checking the bodies of the Warriors of the Horn, says that they likely died from claw and fang wounds, victims of these green creatures.
The Company retreats slightly, trying to decide what to do next. Alouicious could be behind one of these doors, or he could be far ahead chasing down more foes and expecting the Company to be close on his heels. Otto and Hugh search the doorways and find that while tracks lead to all five of the doors, as well as up and down the passage, creatures have entered and exited the right-hand doors recently. With that knowledge, Otto shoulders in the first of the right-hand doors.
The door splinters and opens, revealing a small room with a door on the left wall, likely leading to the room behind the next door in the corridor. Six living areas, each containing a cot covered in rotting leaves and a closed wooden chest, line the room. While Otto and Raven secure the next door, Diego watches down the corridor, and the rest of the Company quickly searches under the cots for hidden enemies. The room appears empty of enemies.
Otto, receiving the necessary assurances from his comrades, shoulders open the next door. It, like the room he currently stands in, is small, but, unlike the current room, appears to be a dining room, not a barracks. Two large tables and a total of twelve chairs are in the room, as is the corpse of one of the green creatures. The room is filthy and covered in dirt and debris. Another door is in the wall on the far side of the room. It, based on Otto's vision of the corridor, must connect to the area behind the next, and last, door on the right side of the passage.
Crossing the room, Otto walks up to the door and kicks it open. Another room, this with a door on the left wall, arrayed as a barracks is before him. Unlike the previous room, this one has large curtains, once a linen color but now stained with grime and blood, dividing the room into sections. Two more green creatures lie dead, tangled among the curtains. Otto and Raven carefully walk forward, pushing the curtains and the bodies aside. Near the door on the left wall is the other giant goblin that Alouicious was chasing. He has been cleaved nearly in two by a great blow. Quietly standing in the corner, near one of the remaining curtained areas, is the last Warrior of the Horn, his face covered with stripes of blood, apparently in mourning.
"Can you be quieter? I need my rest," says Alouicious from the last of the curtained areas. Alouicious lies on the cot, heedless of the dirt, the piles of leaves pushed onto the floor. His wounds are quite grievous, and he lies very still in the bed. Hugh is quickly summoned to bring a semblance of health to Alouicious, and Al is plied with berries, as many as his stomach can handle.
