Chapter 2 - The Second Day of Pelor's Rest

[Blue Firebird]

On 3/2/2024 at 10:17 AM, matt_s said:

The breath of relief when the crystals went dark and the heat broke was soon replaced by the beating of Celeg's anxious heart as something howled down below.

Seresse, you doing all right? Nothing ill from the crystals at all? If you need a rest just say so, I'll more than understand.

Doubt that's the wind, he muttered. If there is anything down here that wasn't alerted by the descent or the breaking of the door they sure as nine hells are alerted now.

He again awkwardly lowered his hand from the amulet he wore around his neck and sighed. I think we ought to see what we woke up if indeed we woke it up. But be sure to know the way back by memory for we may need to take it in a hurry.

 

"I'm fine." Her voice betrays a hint of excitement for just a moment. The magical interaction provokes her curiosity, and with it, the most frightening monster of all: hope. If the powers once worked here governed the undead, perhaps they had some way to reverse that condition.

Foolishness, Seresse. Foolishness. You know better than this.

On 3/2/2024 at 12:55 PM, SirLoganofGilead said:

Aron looked at the marks on the wall. and sighed heavily as soon as he felt the relief of the stones going out. "Thank the heavens..."  He watched the expression on the other's faces as well. "What is it that dwarves would be so afraid of, that they would collapse their own tunnels? " Pointing to some of the evidence he has found he explains. "They tried closing it in closer to the entrance...this was just the quickest spot they could get it done. Is there a chance they closed themselves in?"

Despite the worry the stones gave him for a moment, the southerner takes a moment to enjoy not being cold for a few seconds, before wiping some sweat away and taking a closer look at the crystals themselves. "Seresse? Are you ok? Do you think these stones activated because it was you? Do you think if I touch it will respond the same?" He realized he was peppering her with questions before he knew if she was ok, but he couldn't stop himself.

"I think that they did. Perhaps due to my...mm, kinship with the things they apparently raised here. I am alright, thank you." She bows her head politely. "Perhaps our expert would know best. Gert?"

On 3/4/2024 at 5:58 PM, Caystodd said:

"The bartender certainly didn't think they closed themselves in, at least not all of them."

Gert's memory of the previous night was hazy, but she thought she remembered them talking about the dwarves "leaving town" and giving the mounted rabbit as a gift when they did. Could have been the snow blindness talking though.

Gert's excitement pushed past her headache and nausea and showed clearly on her face. "It's the chance of a lifetime. If we really have discovered an actual example of warp stones, we will be the talk of the Imperial College. I'll keep marking our trail so we won't get lost."

The Elf studies her for a long moment. She knows too well the price of curiosity unchecked. Seresse opens her mouth to ask if Gert has anyone to bear the burden of discovery for her, as Seresse once did for—

Forget it. Just don't let it happen.

"Be careful," is all she can muster.

On 3/5/2024 at 4:58 PM, matt_s said:

But he quaked in his armored boots and his breathing was unsteady. Celeg had never had to face the peril of battle be it a contest of a few or a few thousands. And he was scared. He fought to master his fear and hold fast.

In a whisper, he said,

Let us see if we can ambush whatever is coming up, be it with a few of our number or all of us. Steady now, and sharp action, and we'll get through it.

Seresse sweeps up her blade and meets Celeg's gaze. Hers lacks fear—not out of resolve, but simply a lack of care. Bodily harm means little as a threat to Seresse. She's already dead, after all. Yet, the thought of a similar fate for the others is what tightens the grip on her sword-hilt. Following his lead, she melts back into the shadows, becoming as inky and ethereal as they are. The soft blue glow of her irises remains for a time.

8 hours ago, matt_s said:

Celeg's resolve hardened. As the undead miscreation perhaps sculpted by some evil or reckless or in all likelihood both if there was not some evil in recklessness stepped closer he realized that they would have to fight it and better to fight it on their terms with two of their number lurking in the shadows than anywhere else.

He advanced forward and pressed the offensive but only a feigning attack for now - to gauge how it fought, how it defended itself if it bothered at all, how thick its hide was, all those things that made up the sum of its villainy. And truth be told he was scared to commit to the fight completely. This was the first time he had swung a blade with the intent to hurt something.

The Elf watches him draw out their hulking enemy, despite his obvious fear. She can only bear to watch for so long. Then she breaks from the shadows, an umbral figure gliding through the tunnel. Materializing at his side with her sword in hand, throws back her hood, spilling silvery-white locks. "Celeg, if it overmatches us, take my sword and get them out." Curious in a way that might make Gert proud, Seresse doesn't attack, but instead stands before the creature, wondering if it will see her as kindred...or competition.

[Butchern]

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.

[Butchern]

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

[Caystodd]

While the beast found its footing on the ledge, Gert shoved her hand into her pack and produced a small bag of powder. She pulled out an arrow, stuck the arrow head in the bag, and pulled it out again. The powder clung to the arrowhead like it was wet. (It wasn't.) While she was still kneeling beside the rock, she put the arrow to the string of her bow and fired just as the beast took a swing at Celeg. The arrow whizzed by its ear, narrowly missing its head.

Gert swore.

[Blue Firebird]

"Ai!" Seresse cries out as the monster turns its hideous appetite for warm flesh and blood on Celeg! Unwilling to watch it happen, she charges the beast with a war cry, her sword glinting with frosty light as she drives it into the beast's hide.

[SirLoganofGilead]

Aron had never once in his military or hunting career fought a giant horned rabbit. However, something he knew about most animals is that head wounds bled a lot. So, he gripped one of his knives and hurled it just above the creature's eyes, hoping the flood from the wound would create an advantage for the group. The knife found its mark. As he threw he called out to the others. "I thought we were going to talk to it first..."

[matt_s]

The rabbit - this was the part of the fight where the heroes in the stories would come up with a clever cutting name for their foe to demean it and to boost their own legend at the same moment but Celeg was not one of those heroes and he doubted any man or woman of flesh and blood was truly such a hero likewise - did not quail from the fight.

 

Celeg's probing attacks with the well honed steel, never committing to a true thrust that he figured would be needed to gouge serious wounds in this agglomeration of undead rotting flesh, were duly answer by an assault in return. He stepped back and the claw of his foe screeched and clinked across his fine mail coat now anointed with not only muck but with the foul secretions of undeath. The teeth then lunged for his sword arm aiming perhaps to shatter bones with raw force that did not even need to split the mail rings to do him injury but they snapped on air. And he lastly deflected the goring charge of the antlers with the steel of the sword. Not a scratch on him. Yet.

[Butchern]

Black ichor poured from the knife wound. The gore matted in the rotting fur and oozed into the creature's eyes. The beast shook it head and lumbered forward onto the ledge, putting itself between Celeg and Gert on the one side and Aron and Seresse on the other.

If Celeg and Gert decided to flee, they would have to go through the undead rabbit.

As if on cue, a horrible gasping howl echoed up from the pit. Something else was down there.

[matt_s]

Celeg quickly recovered his footing. He had his nerves squared away or at least he thought so. And by now the measure of the foe by careful observation probing blows and attacks nearly avoided had been thoroughly taken. Then he extended his sword arm and attempted to drive the blade home through tendon and sinew and into what miscreation he now fought.

Their luck had held, more or less, but he didn't figure it would hold for too long. They had to finish this quickly. And for emphasis, the howl reached his ears...

I think - hope - it's nearly finished. Keep at it and we'll be able to make a break for it!

[Caystodd]

On 3/17/2024 at 8:51 PM, SirLoganofGilead said:

"I thought we were going to talk to it first..."

"Me too! No talking to the undead though."

Gert put another powder-tipped arrow to the bow string and fired.

[Blue Firebird]

On 3/20/2024 at 5:33 PM, Caystodd said:

"Me too! No talking to the undead though."

Seresse glanced sidelong at Gert before raising her sword above her head. The blade shines with a silvery-blue light, like the ray of a star taken the form of a single leaf upon the branch held aloft. The pallor it casts upon her features makes the Elf seem ghostly, a memory given shape, or perhaps a shade of the past. But she is no memory, and the strength of her sword-arm is more than just a phantom.

Desperation drives her to hew the foul beast, hoping to separate its head from its neck. The sound of another menace fuels her desperation, and the others are now trapped. If swords won't work, she has only one other option.

The blade bites deep, cleaving undead sinew, bone, and tendon, leaving naught but scraps of flesh holding the skull to the neck.

"Hrmph." Seresse flicks her blade to clear of it of the thing's black blood.

[Butchern]

The beast was battered and gory when Seresse put the sword to it. Whatever dark energy that animated the rotten flesh fled from its wounds, and the once-living remains collapsed into a heap on the edge of the ledge.

In the science that immediately followed, the caravaners heard more scraping noises from the darkness below. It was the sound of more rocks and dirt falling, the sound of something scrambling over stone. More undead . . . somethings . . . were climbing the walls of the pit toward them.

[matt_s]

With what must have been a decisive blow from Seresse's sword a blow which he could not see because of the beast interposed between them had laid their foe low. A mercy maybe, freedom of whatever it had been from the maddening grasp of undeath. Celeg and the rest would live one more day - he thought of Seresse as living for she did walk and act and feel as anyone who would claim to live by conventional definition.

Everyone alright? Got a few swings at me, but I'm not hurt, and that's the truth of it, no bravado in that respect.

He began to wipe the sweat, in equal measure from stress as from exertion, from his brow and paused as the noises came from below, deep below. The smart thing would be to run, back to the surface along the path that Gert in her preparedness had anointed for them. But first, curiosity got the better of him. He took a torch and looked over the edge to see what roiled in the shadows below as he ran his fingers over the amulet of Pelor that was a comforting weight against his chest.

His faith, his skill, and his companions had kept him safe for so long, and Celeg hoped that his luck would endure...

[Blue Firebird]

Seresse nods, sheathing her blade. "Thanks to your bravery." She looks at the warrior for a long moment. "We are lucky it is so."

 

The sound of other things crawling up from the abyss draws her attention. "That luck may not hold long. Let's be hasty." But the Elf does not turn to flee. Instead, she runs to the dire rabbit's carcass and sets her shoulder against it, straining, her shoes scraping on the stone.

[Butchern]

The carcass of the rabbit stank and sloshed as Seresse sent it sagging over the edge into the darkness.

The scrabbling sounds of what was almost certainly more undead monstrosities climbing the walls grew louder.