Butchern

For the April book club, we are reading a small book of poetry by a local author (who is coming to the book club). For May, we are either going to read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke or A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry. Still deciding.

The dire beast turned on Celeg with antlers, claws, and teeth.

Who is the Dire Rabbit going to attack: (1) Celeg or (2) Seresse?

The beast hauled itself onto the ledge and towered up on its hind legs several feet taller than Seresse and Celeg. The grotesque fusion of a gargantuan rabbit and a skeletal deer was adorned with twisted antlers that gleamed with an eerie, spectral light. Patchwork fur, matted and stained with the ichor of its cursed existence, covered its decaying flesh. The eyes that burned in the darkness were hollow and soulless, and its ragged maw dripped with its foul essence.

On 3/12/2024 at 9:46 AM, Raistlinmc said:

I don't normally struggle with books but The Sound and the Fury through me for a loop the first time I read it. The second time, though, I genuinely loved it. That first read-through was rough though.

We have an English professor who is an expert on Faulkner coming to our book club meeting on Saturday. In our group chat, we asked him for some tips for reading Faulkner, and he said, "Not sure what to say other than 'Read him, read him, and keep reading him until you love it!'"

Almost sounded like a threat. 😁

Day 2 - The Hopping Death

Scene Aspects:
Scene Aspects can always be invoked with a Fate Point by anyone.

Deep Darkness, Narrow Ledges

Situation Aspects:
Situation Aspects are created by players or the GM and stick around as long as they have a fictional justification to do so. Anyone can invoke a Situation Aspect by spending a Fate Point. Situation Aspects with free invokes on them can only be invoked by their creator or with their creator's permission.

Snow Blindness (on Gert) [ ]
A Good Hiding Place (Aron, Seresse) [ ]
Sized up a Foe (Celeg) [X]
 

Escape the Mine:

[X] [X] [X] [X]

Dire Undead Rabbits

Physical Stress:
[X] [X] [X] [X]

(2) Open Wounds [X]
(4) Lost an Ear [ ]
(6) Flaming Wound [X]

GM Fate Points:

The creature reached the top of the ledge, and two massive paws slapped against the stone. The caravaners watched from their hiding places as the massive set of antlers rose above the edge of the stone walkway as the creature pulled itself up and its ears and head came into view. A smell came with it, no longer concealed by the downdrafts in the shaft. The caravaners still couldn't see the creature very well in the darkness, but if the smell was any indication, this was, indeed, a reanimated corpse.

Gert's vomit narrowly missed the giant shape that was scrambling up the wall of the shaft to reach the caravaners. It was broad and ensconced in shadows, but Gert could clearly make out the shadowy form of two massive antlers and two long floppy ears. This creature dwarfed the head that was mounted on the tavern wall.

Olive dropped whatever that was pretending to be a little girl on the ground, probably harder than she should have.

"Don't fall behind or we'll leave you here. Then you'll see what good that knife will do you."

Olive took off with the others. She brought up the rear, pushing the "girl" to keep up as needed

As she hoofed it to the exit Olive said to no one in particular, "So, either the group in the cell were cutthroats hired to snatch the girl and bring her down here, pretending to be sent by her father, and who got caught. Or, she really was in danger. They really were sent by her father, and we are the cutthroats sent to kidnap . . . what's her name? What's your name girl?" Olive poked her in the back.

Olive waited to see what the "girl" said her name was. She then asked, "We were hired by an elderly elf to come get you. He gave us these cards. Do you know of whom I speak? What's his name?"

I'm thinking about upgrading our gaming laptop to something in the "under $1,000 but still much better than what we have now" range. It's for my daughter. I promise. 😁 I too am not a fan of Windows 11 . . . or change. Not sure when I'll bite on that.

I also need a better light for my camera. I can usually borrow the one from work when I travel, but there are better lights out there than the one we have. Arrowhead makes a "SANE LITE" that is pretty standard and well-reviewed. I'm going to wait until the next job comes along to pull the trigger on that.

On 3/2/2024 at 3:55 PM, SirLoganofGilead said:

Do you think these stones activated because it was you? Do you think if I touch it will respond the same?"

The caravaners ran some careful tests to see, but it appeared that whatever energies had been accumulating in the crystals had been discharged when Seresse touched them. The crystals barely felt warm to the touch now, and nothing the caravaners could think of caused them to react. Perhaps over time they would recharge, or perhaps the energy came from some source no gone. It was impossible to tell.

With that settled, the group continued their long spiraling descent down into the mine. Each level looked similar to those above. A wide ledge that ran around a wide open cavern that descended into the darkness. Carved stone stairs look them down to the next level. They saw no more tunnels boarded up on their way, but they were not carefully exploring each level.

When their stomachs reminded them that it was long past lunch, the caravaners were in complete darkness save for the lights they brought with them. They had paused to grab a bite to eat when they heard a scraping noise from the darkness below. It was the sound or rocks and dirt falling, faint at first, and then more clearly, it resolved into the sound of something scrambling over stone. The sound was loud—whatever was making it was big . . . or there were a lot of them. It was still far down in the mine, but it was getting louder.

Something was climbing up the wall of the mine, heading right toward them.

Wow. Beautiful!

Aron searched quickly but didn't find anything that might answer his immediate questions. He did, however, find the pick marks that told him how the dwarves collapsed the walls and brought the roof down in the cavern. He also found evidence that the dwarves tried to collapse the tunnel closer to the entrance, but there the ceiling was solid stone. They couldn't bring it down, not quickly. So, apparently, they collapsed the tunnel where they could in a pinch and then sealed up the entrance.

The room grew hotter and then the crystals started to flicker. A gust of wind formed in the blocked off tunnel, rushed down the passage, and howled its way through the boards. The wind took the hot air with it, and when the blowing was done, the crystals went dark, and the air cooled again.

In the stillness that followed, the caravaners could hear the howling of the wind from deeper in the mine. Or maybe it was something else howling.

As soon as Seresse's undead flesh touched one of the warp stones, all the stones lit up red and the light the crystals emitted shone red in the tunnel. The air began to grow steadily hotter while she touched the crystals. The brighter the crystals shone, the hotter it became in the tunnel.

On 2/24/2024 at 10:55 PM, matt_s said:

If we have to backtrack we have to backtrack but given enough time I reckon we can work a way to clear this and keep moving. Unless we wish to see another way down?

The strip of mine they had diverted down to find these crystals was off the main, spiraling trail that led deeper into the mine. There wouldn't need to be much backtracking to get back out to the main shaft and continue their descent. Without a faster way down, however, it could take hours to reach the bottom.

It was impossible to know how much debris there was blocking the tunnel, but it looked like it would be faster to walk to the bottom of the mine than it would be to clear that tunnel with only four sets of hands.

The tunnel was wide enough for Celeg and Seresse to walk side-by-side, but the elf kept a few paces ahead, using her elf eyes to see in the dark. The rough-cut rock walls remained relatively uniform as the tunnel stretched straight back into the earth.

The caravaners reached the turn in the tunnel and peered around. The passage ended about twenty paces after the turn in a pile of rocks that blocked the tunnel entirely. It looked as though the tunnel had collapsed—or had been collapsed.

Sticking up out of the debris and occasionally embedded in the walls at the back of the tunnel were red crystalline structures, each about the size of a man's fist. They looked more like natural crystals or crystalline rocks than they did like precious stones, but they were the source of the soft glow. The crystals did not glow red; they gave off a pale white light. The regular rocks of the tunnel that were touching the crystals, in the debris of the tunnel collapse or in the walls of the tunnel, looked like they had been melted around the crystals at the point of contact and then allowed to cool. The air in the tunnel was warmer than it was outside in the cavern, but it wasn't hot—certainly not hot enough to melt stone.

Though the sizeable separation of the boards, Celeg could see nothing that would be the cause of immediate danger. The air smelled stale and damp, not unlike the rest of the mine. But the air beyond the wall was warm, much warmer than the air out in the mine. The change in temperature made the boards damp. Celeg could see his breath. He heard nothing.

When the caravaners pressed their eyes to the gap, the could see a long tunnel that was mostly ensconced in darkness, but there was a faint glow illuminating the end of the tunnel where it turned to the right out of sight.

It didn't take the caravaners long to pry loose two of the boards, just enough to squeeze easily through and into the tunnel.

We are reading Absalom, Absalom! for our next book club meeting. I've read it before, and I really like it. It is dense, but I like it.

I also grabbed The Sound and the Fury, and William Faulkner: A Life Through Novels by André Bleikasten at the library. I think I can get through all three by the book club meeting in March. That's the plan anyway.

Gert found a place in the wall of boards that had the largest gap between iron bands—which was still only about the width of a blade; the dwarves, even in a hurry, were fine craftsmen—and hammered in the blade end of the crowbar. This allowed them to push the boards apart enough to peer though, have a listen, and get a whiff of the air beyond.

It took several hours of carefully descending before the caravaners found anything other than more ledges, more dead ends, more stairwells, and more branch mines. The cavern grew wider and wider as they descended, though the paths did not grow commensurately wider. If anything they grew more narrow. But down they went with Seresse watching in the darkness, and Gert marking their trail as Celeg devised. Very quickly, the sloping roof of ledges above them completely blocked sight of the entrance to the mine and the faint daylight it provided, and they were in total darkness.

At about the two-hour mark, the caravaners found increased signs of activity near one of the branch mines just before they reached the next set of stone stairs. Several barrels were smashed and strewn about the ledge. The caravaners decided to poke around down the branch mine, just to be sure, and they found that the whole tunnel has been boarded up with hard, iron-banded boards about 100' down the branch.

The ledge followed the wall of the cavern. It curved around the center pit of the mine ever-so-slightly; it was a very large cavern. The path also began to gently slope downward. Periodically, meticulously carved arches appeared in the walls of the cavern. Long tunnels extended into the earth through these arches, presumably branch mines for whatever the dwarves were mining for.

Once the heroes had reached what they assumed must be the opposite side of the cavern from where they descended, a stone arch opened in the cavern wall, but beyond it wasn't a branch mine; it was a stone stairwell. The stairwell wound its way down to the level below. That ledge stretched out in both directions as the ledge above did. There were more branch mines in the cavern walls, and more stairwells going further down.

The barrels and crates were, indeed, empty of anything except debris and mold. They likely had been used to hold supplies used in the operation of the mine.

With their lights, the caravaners could see that the mine went far deeper into the earth. The paths to the south and to the east were little more than narrow ledges, about five feet wide (from what they could see), that followed the wall of the cavern. From the platform they could not see how large the cavern was.

Over the sides of the ledges, the paths fell off into the darkness of the deeper mine. The caravaners could see more ledges and wooden platforms below them. Presumably, if they followed the ledges they would find the means by which the dwarves descended deeper in the mine.

Celeg cranked the wench and the platform slowly descended out of the light and into the darkness.

The sides of the perfectly round entrance continued down for about fifty feet until it opened into a wider, natural cave. Celeg cranked the platform down about another hundred feet until it came to rest on a wooden frame that had been built on top of a raised stone floor. All around them, the darkness concealed the details of the cavern they had landed in, but it stretched out in both to the south and east of the platform.

Around the place where the platform landed, barrels and other evidence of a once-active mine remained. The cavern was quiet and dark and cold.

You have three free invokes right now (+6). We need posts from @Caystodd and @matt_s again. Let us know what you found in your post. Celeg found some lose bricks at the mine entrance that could make some solid handholds. Gert found some mine equipment that will make manually descending the mine, down to the torch, possible.

The hole in the center of the map is the entrance to the mine. It descends about 200 feet to the first level (where the torch landed). Let me know if you have any questions.

Here is where we stand now:
 

Day 2 - The Keep

Scene Aspects:
Scene Aspects can always be invoked with a Fate Point by anyone.

Northern Wilderness, Winter Blizzard

Situation Aspects:
Situation Aspects are created by players or the GM and stick around as long as they have a fictional justification to do so. Anyone can invoke a Situation Aspect by spending a Fate Point. Situation Aspects with free invokes on them can only be invoked by their creator or with their creator's permission.

A Bag Full of Imperial Coin (Gert) [ ]
Snow Blindness (on Gert) [ ]
A Horse Forged Path (Celeg) [X] [ ]
Fire Magic (Seresse) [ ]
A Tossed Torch (Aron)
Abandoned Equipment (Gert) [ ] [ ]
A Few Good Handholds (Celeg, Boost)

GM Fate Points: