Chapter 2 - The Second Day of Pelor's Rest

[matt_s]

Good shove. commented Celeg as the carcass went over the edge. He hastily wiped some of the rancid gore from his sword and stowed it in the scabbard. Celeg began to head back towards the entrance and remarked in a hurried voice masking and masking poorly no small stress, Did I ever tell you how I once rode with Orchibank the Old? I once asked him how he managed to live through all of his splendid adventures. He told me that they weren't so splendid and he had survived by doing what I also proposing now - running away. Ladies and gentlemen, shall we?

[Caystodd]

"Yep! Warp stone can wait! The Academy can send a team!"

Gert pulled herself together, shouldered her bag, and started running back up the path with the others.

"Careful!" she yelped as she traversed the narrow path in the dark.

[SirLoganofGilead]

Aron watched as they shoved the death rabbit over the edge of the cliff, his eyes going wide. "Why would you do that?! We should have grabbed its horns or something! Do you know what kind of story that would have made? " He did not, however, have any objection to the thought of running away.

[Butchern]

With Gert in the lead, the caravaners began the long trek out of the mine. They moved as quickly as they could in the dark, confident that as long as they were going up, they were going in the right direction.

They could hear noises behind them, deeper in the mine, and they knew the creatures were in pursuit, but it was difficult to know how close they were.

Out of breath and tired, the caravaners climbed the last set of steps to reach the top level. By the light from above, they could see the exit platform, a wooden frame that had been built on top of a raised stone floor, surrounded all around by mining debris. It was much colder here up near the surface.

[matt_s]

Celeg rushed through the corridors of stone worked in some segments and in others clearly natural passages delved by unseen ancient hand of magic or mundane he knew not. More likely old geologic fissures expanded by groundwater, he figured. Gert was the expert on that kind of thing. He should ask her.

After they escaped the horrific portmanteau of rabbit, deer, and undeath.

Celeg ran up to the platform and looked behind him. He was breathing hard but not too hard. Conditioning mattered on campaign and on the battlefield. Even the swiftest hand could not well swing a sword if there was no breath left to the man who held it. The cold began to bite through his armor now streaked with the sweat of exertion and even Celeg would admit to himself perhaps not to others a touch of terror.

Got everyone? It's up and over, then the ride up and home free.

[Blue Firebird]

Seresse brings up the rearguard, fighting the urge to turn and face—join?—face the things behind them. She stops at the platform and turns, drawing her sword again. "I am sorry about the horns, Aron. Perhaps I can get you some...." But her voice is distant, her will not entirely her own. With a hiss of effort, the Elf pivots and joins them in heading for the exit platform.

"It seems Orchibank the Old was onto something."

[Butchern]

Gert and Seresse made it up to the platform first with Aron and Celeg hot on their heals. Just not quite hot enough.

Out of the darkness of the mine, two giant undead rabbits barreled down onto the escaping caravaners. Their mold covered antlers, as hard as bone, gleamed in the failing sunlight. The creatures crashed headlong into Aron and Celeg as the pair of sturdy warriors prepared to hold off the creatures while Gert and Seresse got the platform up in the air and out of reach. Disengaging from combat would be difficult with those giant antlers at their throats, but getting up on the platform as it ascended would be easy for the athletic pair.

[Caystodd]

Gert leaped onto the platform and looked over her shoulder at the fight that was breaking out behind her.

Hurry!

She extended the crank handle, and rotated the lock cowling to the right, so she could begin cranking them up. With a grunt, she hauled on the crank and the platform began to lift.

"We're ready to go!" she called. "More hands will make this go faster!"

[Blue Firebird]

Seresse wavers, torn between valor and pragmatism. She looks at Gert with pleading eyes, her decision made. While her own safety means nothing, seeing the others in danger is a wound that pierces more deeply than any blade or arrow. The sword hilt creaks in her fingers as she tightens her grip.

Melisara's eyes widen, deep and blue and lit with terror, as spectral energies coil about her hands.

"I'm sorry, Gert!" Seresse springs from the platform and lands in a nimble crouch, cloak fluttering softly down behind her.

Ghostly hands reaching, clawing, leeching the warmth from her soft skin.

The Elf charges into the fray, sword ablaze, desperately crashing into the monsters' ranks. "Go!"

Seresse runs, screaming, tearing Melisara away from the cursed thing. "Hurry! Get out, Meli—!"

She points frantically back at Gert and the platform before her sword clashes with the beast's antlers. Metal on bone rings in a symphony of life-or-death battle!

"Get on the platform! Hurry!"

[matt_s]

Hopes of an easy escape were dashed by the sudden arrival of two large miscreations in the same vein as the one they had bested before. Gert and Seresse - get that platform moving if you can. I can hold these off and get some breathing r--- and then the crash of antler into Celeg's up-raised sword cut off the young knight's words.

The force overpowered the strength of his arm and drove his own sword against his mailshirt. The sword was driven upward towards his throat by the force but then it caught on the amulet his father had given years ago. A weight familiar and comforting. A reminder of home and faith and what he had set out to. And now it had stopped his own blade from slamming into his neck.

Celeg extracted himself from the foe and then attempted to drive his blade home into the rancid undead flesh, an abortive swing followed by hasty correction and a drive of cold steel that he prayed would go home.

[SirLoganofGilead]

Aron made his break for the platform, but as the two new creatures rounded the corner he knew he wasn't going to get there in time. He saw one of them lower its head, and direct its antlers in his direction. He turned towards the platform and lept as hard as he could. Aron had little hope that he would avoid the attack, all he hoped was that it might be mitigated a bit by his leap.

Aron turned out to be very wrong. The antlers crashed into him as he barely got off the ground, and sent him hurtling toward the platform at an incredible speed. He thunked against the edge of the platform, barely able to gab on, he managed to drag himself over the edge. His ribs felt like they had been, well, hit by a giant undead antlered creature he supposed. He couldn't tell if it was the actual hit, to the smashing into the platform that caused his pain, but it also didn't matter much at the time. He called out to Gert. "I'm here to help, I think."

 

[matt_s]

Celeg gritted his teeth to steel himself against the sharp pain of the rabbit's forceful charge. The anger if what animated the rabbit could be said to be anger behind it was as jarring as the physical impact of the beast. But he had a duty to do. Resetting his stance before the eerily cold antler could assail forth in another attempt to gut the young knight, Celeg adapted a sword strike designed for close quarters brawling more suited for the chaos of a tavern backalley than a honored duel and of course this was neither of those things but he reckoned it would do.

The steel was well honed which he had done himself this morning having risen with the dawn to do so and the writing on the blade saying that Dawn shall break! was in accordance with this. The keen edge easily sliced the hide and thews of the beast's upper leg and Celeg hoped that the uneasy stance of the rabbits would hamper their ability to defend themselves against the onslaught of his allies. The undead endurance of the creatures held by a thread and that thread was fraying but would it fray fast enough he did not know.

They look near spent, panted a man who was closer to spent than he himself would have liked, Either finish them or else raise the platform!

[Caystodd]

"Almost there!" Gert yelled. She had cranked on the wench until all the cables were taught, then she turned and began untying the counter weight. "When those weights fall, we'll rise fast. Be ready!"

[Blue Firebird]

Seresse spares a glance toward her companion. One jackalope lunges, intending to gore her, and she parries the blow with the clattering ring of metal against bone. Spinning gracefully with the momentum, the elf scores a cut along the beast's hide. She draws back and raises her blade, dark ichor sizzling upon the glowing metal.

"Celeg, I think we can handle them, but if the worst...take my sword and protect them. Agreed?"

Seresse springs lightly to his side, brandishing her sword, prepared to do whatever it takes. "Would you prefer the platform?"

[Butchern]

The caravaners were having some success against the undead rabbits, so Aron took the opportunity to leap onto the platform. He put his burly hands on top of Gert's and began to help her turn the handle of the wench. The platform lurched and swung freely from its mooring but began to rise quickly now.