Post by Dead Greyhawk on Mar 3, 2008 23:23:39 GMT -5
"Come on, come on, show me a sign," mutters Dell under his breath as he stares at the castle through his spyglass. Hours have passed and no sign of the Company's success or failure in taking the castle has appeared. Instead, the sun has risen, and the inhabitants of the castle have begun their daily activities. Through his spyglass, he can see a troll wandering around the exterior wall of the castle and several large furry humanoids, bugbears or hobgoblins, lean over the curtain wall, cheering, jeering, and gesticulating at something happening out of sight below.
"It'll be ok," reassures Adrienne. "They'll show a sign for us."
"You don't think that means anything, do you?" asks Dell, gesturing over his shoulder. Adrienne turns to see the defoliated branch of elven alliance lying on the ground, its leaves withered and fallen. She shakes her head. Pfiffwin picks at the leaves, sniffing at them and tasting their dust. Grimacing, he spits it back out.
The sound of laughing draws their attention back to the castle, where the bugbears are cackling uproariously atop their perch. The humanoids point and laugh as screams of agony echo into the trees. Adrienne grinds her teeth at the sound.
"Ah, there's something!" cries Dell, his eye focused on the top of the keep. A bugbear on the roof of the keep staggers and drops to the ground, while others turn and face inwards, towards the middle of the roof. "Here we go!" Dell stows his telescope and recites the words he has held ready in his mind for hours now. Adrienne rises up off the ground, and Adrienne lowers a hand for Dell to grab hold of. Pfiffwin gathers close, preparing for Dell's magics. With a final set of arcane words, they all disappear from sight. "Meet you at the gates," laughs Dell, as he arrows off towards the castle.
"Good flying," yells Pfiffwin, as the others lift upwards. "I'll see you there."
The Company is making their mark on the top of the keep, and the guards clearly respond to it. The bugbears leave their entertainment and disappear from sight, presumably taking up their defensive positions. The trolls, two of them, gather before the earthen ramp that leads up the hill on which the castle perches. Adrienne and Dell, and hopefully Pfiffwin, speed towards the ramp, which ends at the castle's gate and tower.
Adrienne flies Dell over the gates of the castle. The trolls, their senses alert from the noises of combat now coming from within the castle, turn and charge up the ramp, but they fail to spot him. Dell casts his eyes about, searching for signs of the Company. Dell looks to the left, to where he saw the bugbears reveling and sees a corral of sorts holding three large, ostrich-like birds. Their axe-like beaks peck at three fresh, elven corpses, small sticks still clutched in their hands. Dell's eyes go cold.
"Top of the keep!" echoes Adrienne's voice, as a bugbear sails through the air, an arrow protruding from one brow. They sail upwards towards the rooftop, following her direction.
"Get out of my castle! This is now Castle Hildago!" shouts Diego gleefully, as a bolt of lightning shoots from the tower towards the roof. "Kelanen's bloody blade," curses Diego, as he and the others duck for cover. Five bugbears lie dead, pin-cushioned with arrows. A trapdoor leads down into the keep, but few of the rest of the Company are present.
The bolt of lightning has startled Adrienne, and, as Dell crests the top of the castle, he suddenly feels his weight slipping out of her grasp. In a single stomach-wrenching moment, he and Adrienne lose their grip. "Aiiighhh!" screams Dell as he stretches himself forward, scrabbling at the crenellations. The impact is enough to restore his image, and he appears, clinging by one hand to the side of the keep. He feels his grip begin to slide, but his fall is arrested by a large hand grabbing onto his arm and pulling. Raven smiles at him as he drags himself up over the wall and onto the roof.
"Took you long enough," gibes Raven. "I didn't know you could trip while flying."
"At least we're here!" shouts Dell at the surprised Company. "Trolls, bugbears, and whatnot are outside the gates, but I don't see anything in the courtyard. How are things here?"
"We're doing ok," begins Raven. "We ran into some flying undead and lost Rhiannon. Jasper and Antonus took the brunt of that. Then we wiped out a temple to the Dead God and slew some of his unlife. Some trapped doors led us to a rakshasa who did a job on us. Otto's a beast, have I mentioned that? In any case, once Otto crushed the thing, it got interesting. Let me bring you up to date."
Raven explains how, once Perrin and Antonus had the opportunity to pray and memorize, finding the way out of the cave became possible. While Perrin found no trapped objects, Antonus was able to find a magical dweomer within the pool of water. The pool itself was not enchanted, but rather part of its floor contained an enchantment. A circular part of the floor was inscribed with some sort of circle of power. No one could find a way to activate the circle, but finally Antonus hit on the solution. "Perhaps its a door itself," he questioned. Summoning his powers, he prevailed upon it to open, and lo it did. Silently, the floor of the pool rose up out of the water and a hatch, well above the surface of the water, revealed itself, unscrewing and opening.
"Let's go," said Raven, and the Company did. Down through the shaft they climbed, finding themselves in a rather short tunnel that wended its way through the stone. The tunnel was smooth and oddly striated, not appearing like a crafted tunnel, but rather one that arose from some living creature's burrowing. Four of them were forced to crawl through the tunnel, it being only three feet tall, but Al led the way, comfortably holding his axe.
The tunnel eventually came to a dead end. Its ceiling was suspiciously flat, as if another circular door hid there, but no amount of searching was successful in finding it out. In the end, Antonus was called up to the front to use his magics to open this tunnel as well. "What?" said Antonus, looking confused.
"Open the hidden hatch, like before," prompted Raven, amazed that Antonus cannot think of these simple things himself.
Antonus looked at him with a quizzical gaze. "What do you think I am? A wizard or a sorceror?" he replied. "I'm an apprentice. I'll need hours of rest and memorization to be able to do that again. It's a miracle I was able to get Dell to explain the details of that magic to me in the first place. You guys need to be sharing your magical knowledge more freely." Raven glowered at Antonus in the tunnel, and Antonus paused to think that perhaps now isn't the best time to push for more access to the Company's books of spells. The six of them sat down for a long wait.
Winthrop, Hugh, Grizela, and Diego grew increasingly agitated while waiting. Winthrop, never good at impulse control, kept walking up to the door, only to be stopped by Grizela. She would remind him of his duty as tasked by Raven. Winthrop seemed oddly respectful of her authority and merely returned to pacing back and forth, back and forth. After several hours, Hugh stood up. "If they are nearby, I can find them. I have prayed to Trithereon," he pronounced.
Such a sentiment was more than enough for their frayed nerves. Their assent was given, and Hugh began a long ritual that ended with a large glowing rune appearing before him. The greenish pursuit rune distorted and stretched before Hugh, leading him onwards back the way they had entered. The others followed Hugh back into the octagonal room and over to one of the doors on the left side of the room. The rune hovered before the door, and Diego and Grizela wasted no time in turning it to splintered bits.
Hugh and the others pushed on down a large corridor carved of fitted stone like the passageways by the horrible temple, and after several turns, the rune stopped, pulsing over a nondescript section of the floor. "Nice work," scoffed Diego. "Now we'll stand in another empty place waiting for them to suddenly appear."
"Down here," eked out a very small voice. "We're down here. It's a hidden door." Diego turned a bright red color, and he and Grizela searched the floor for seams and hinges. Grizela's half-elven eye picked out the circular pattern of cracks in the floor and then banged on it, solidly. Thumps came back, and they all smiled. "Have Winthrop touch it," eked out the very small voice. "It's enchanted shut, but we think he's strong enough to break the ward."
Winthrop trundled over and placed his hand in the middle of the disk, and, much to his amazement, the disk slowly, stutteringly rotated. A few minutes of effort later, Otto and Al crawled out of the partially opened trapdoor, sweating from the efforts of unscrewing it by hand. "Thanks," gasped Raven.
As the others carefully raised themselves from the circular shaft and into the corridor, Otto looking around for tracks on the ground. The floor, unlike earlier, is unswept, and large and small footprints crisscross the passage. "Bugbears, bugbears, and some sort of giant, a very large one," told Otto, reading the signs before him. Once the Company was returned to form, they backtracked on Hugh's prints to the demolished door. They had successfully returned to the octagonal room.
Finding the door that led to the set of teleporting exits was easy enough for a tracker of Otto's skill. "Here's Diego's bowlegged gait," pointed out Otto, "and here's Winthrop's. He moves his legs a lot to keep his girth going."
They moved quickly through the hallways, having passed this way before, and were greeted with joy, pleasure, and only a single arrow from Diego! Once that wound was bound, the Company was whole and in good spirits.
"I don't see the point in looking in these doors anymore," said Perrin. "With the doors behind us bashed open, it is plain to see that intruders are about. Plus, someone will search for the priests eventually."
Raven weighed this heavily in his mind and eventually agreed. "Up the stairs we go. I hate to leave enemies behind us, but it is better that we maintain surprise." Raven's unease was plain to see, but all followed his lead.
"It'll be ok," reassures Adrienne. "They'll show a sign for us."
"You don't think that means anything, do you?" asks Dell, gesturing over his shoulder. Adrienne turns to see the defoliated branch of elven alliance lying on the ground, its leaves withered and fallen. She shakes her head. Pfiffwin picks at the leaves, sniffing at them and tasting their dust. Grimacing, he spits it back out.
The sound of laughing draws their attention back to the castle, where the bugbears are cackling uproariously atop their perch. The humanoids point and laugh as screams of agony echo into the trees. Adrienne grinds her teeth at the sound.
"Ah, there's something!" cries Dell, his eye focused on the top of the keep. A bugbear on the roof of the keep staggers and drops to the ground, while others turn and face inwards, towards the middle of the roof. "Here we go!" Dell stows his telescope and recites the words he has held ready in his mind for hours now. Adrienne rises up off the ground, and Adrienne lowers a hand for Dell to grab hold of. Pfiffwin gathers close, preparing for Dell's magics. With a final set of arcane words, they all disappear from sight. "Meet you at the gates," laughs Dell, as he arrows off towards the castle.
"Good flying," yells Pfiffwin, as the others lift upwards. "I'll see you there."
The Company is making their mark on the top of the keep, and the guards clearly respond to it. The bugbears leave their entertainment and disappear from sight, presumably taking up their defensive positions. The trolls, two of them, gather before the earthen ramp that leads up the hill on which the castle perches. Adrienne and Dell, and hopefully Pfiffwin, speed towards the ramp, which ends at the castle's gate and tower.
Adrienne flies Dell over the gates of the castle. The trolls, their senses alert from the noises of combat now coming from within the castle, turn and charge up the ramp, but they fail to spot him. Dell casts his eyes about, searching for signs of the Company. Dell looks to the left, to where he saw the bugbears reveling and sees a corral of sorts holding three large, ostrich-like birds. Their axe-like beaks peck at three fresh, elven corpses, small sticks still clutched in their hands. Dell's eyes go cold.
"Top of the keep!" echoes Adrienne's voice, as a bugbear sails through the air, an arrow protruding from one brow. They sail upwards towards the rooftop, following her direction.
"Get out of my castle! This is now Castle Hildago!" shouts Diego gleefully, as a bolt of lightning shoots from the tower towards the roof. "Kelanen's bloody blade," curses Diego, as he and the others duck for cover. Five bugbears lie dead, pin-cushioned with arrows. A trapdoor leads down into the keep, but few of the rest of the Company are present.
The bolt of lightning has startled Adrienne, and, as Dell crests the top of the castle, he suddenly feels his weight slipping out of her grasp. In a single stomach-wrenching moment, he and Adrienne lose their grip. "Aiiighhh!" screams Dell as he stretches himself forward, scrabbling at the crenellations. The impact is enough to restore his image, and he appears, clinging by one hand to the side of the keep. He feels his grip begin to slide, but his fall is arrested by a large hand grabbing onto his arm and pulling. Raven smiles at him as he drags himself up over the wall and onto the roof.
"Took you long enough," gibes Raven. "I didn't know you could trip while flying."
"At least we're here!" shouts Dell at the surprised Company. "Trolls, bugbears, and whatnot are outside the gates, but I don't see anything in the courtyard. How are things here?"
"We're doing ok," begins Raven. "We ran into some flying undead and lost Rhiannon. Jasper and Antonus took the brunt of that. Then we wiped out a temple to the Dead God and slew some of his unlife. Some trapped doors led us to a rakshasa who did a job on us. Otto's a beast, have I mentioned that? In any case, once Otto crushed the thing, it got interesting. Let me bring you up to date."
Raven explains how, once Perrin and Antonus had the opportunity to pray and memorize, finding the way out of the cave became possible. While Perrin found no trapped objects, Antonus was able to find a magical dweomer within the pool of water. The pool itself was not enchanted, but rather part of its floor contained an enchantment. A circular part of the floor was inscribed with some sort of circle of power. No one could find a way to activate the circle, but finally Antonus hit on the solution. "Perhaps its a door itself," he questioned. Summoning his powers, he prevailed upon it to open, and lo it did. Silently, the floor of the pool rose up out of the water and a hatch, well above the surface of the water, revealed itself, unscrewing and opening.
"Let's go," said Raven, and the Company did. Down through the shaft they climbed, finding themselves in a rather short tunnel that wended its way through the stone. The tunnel was smooth and oddly striated, not appearing like a crafted tunnel, but rather one that arose from some living creature's burrowing. Four of them were forced to crawl through the tunnel, it being only three feet tall, but Al led the way, comfortably holding his axe.
The tunnel eventually came to a dead end. Its ceiling was suspiciously flat, as if another circular door hid there, but no amount of searching was successful in finding it out. In the end, Antonus was called up to the front to use his magics to open this tunnel as well. "What?" said Antonus, looking confused.
"Open the hidden hatch, like before," prompted Raven, amazed that Antonus cannot think of these simple things himself.
Antonus looked at him with a quizzical gaze. "What do you think I am? A wizard or a sorceror?" he replied. "I'm an apprentice. I'll need hours of rest and memorization to be able to do that again. It's a miracle I was able to get Dell to explain the details of that magic to me in the first place. You guys need to be sharing your magical knowledge more freely." Raven glowered at Antonus in the tunnel, and Antonus paused to think that perhaps now isn't the best time to push for more access to the Company's books of spells. The six of them sat down for a long wait.
Winthrop, Hugh, Grizela, and Diego grew increasingly agitated while waiting. Winthrop, never good at impulse control, kept walking up to the door, only to be stopped by Grizela. She would remind him of his duty as tasked by Raven. Winthrop seemed oddly respectful of her authority and merely returned to pacing back and forth, back and forth. After several hours, Hugh stood up. "If they are nearby, I can find them. I have prayed to Trithereon," he pronounced.
Such a sentiment was more than enough for their frayed nerves. Their assent was given, and Hugh began a long ritual that ended with a large glowing rune appearing before him. The greenish pursuit rune distorted and stretched before Hugh, leading him onwards back the way they had entered. The others followed Hugh back into the octagonal room and over to one of the doors on the left side of the room. The rune hovered before the door, and Diego and Grizela wasted no time in turning it to splintered bits.
Hugh and the others pushed on down a large corridor carved of fitted stone like the passageways by the horrible temple, and after several turns, the rune stopped, pulsing over a nondescript section of the floor. "Nice work," scoffed Diego. "Now we'll stand in another empty place waiting for them to suddenly appear."
"Down here," eked out a very small voice. "We're down here. It's a hidden door." Diego turned a bright red color, and he and Grizela searched the floor for seams and hinges. Grizela's half-elven eye picked out the circular pattern of cracks in the floor and then banged on it, solidly. Thumps came back, and they all smiled. "Have Winthrop touch it," eked out the very small voice. "It's enchanted shut, but we think he's strong enough to break the ward."
Winthrop trundled over and placed his hand in the middle of the disk, and, much to his amazement, the disk slowly, stutteringly rotated. A few minutes of effort later, Otto and Al crawled out of the partially opened trapdoor, sweating from the efforts of unscrewing it by hand. "Thanks," gasped Raven.
As the others carefully raised themselves from the circular shaft and into the corridor, Otto looking around for tracks on the ground. The floor, unlike earlier, is unswept, and large and small footprints crisscross the passage. "Bugbears, bugbears, and some sort of giant, a very large one," told Otto, reading the signs before him. Once the Company was returned to form, they backtracked on Hugh's prints to the demolished door. They had successfully returned to the octagonal room.
Finding the door that led to the set of teleporting exits was easy enough for a tracker of Otto's skill. "Here's Diego's bowlegged gait," pointed out Otto, "and here's Winthrop's. He moves his legs a lot to keep his girth going."
They moved quickly through the hallways, having passed this way before, and were greeted with joy, pleasure, and only a single arrow from Diego! Once that wound was bound, the Company was whole and in good spirits.
"I don't see the point in looking in these doors anymore," said Perrin. "With the doors behind us bashed open, it is plain to see that intruders are about. Plus, someone will search for the priests eventually."
Raven weighed this heavily in his mind and eventually agreed. "Up the stairs we go. I hate to leave enemies behind us, but it is better that we maintain surprise." Raven's unease was plain to see, but all followed his lead.
