Completed Play-by-Post: In Search of the Sorcerer

[Grimgravy]

"You'll know more of ancient Pictish burial custom than me! I hope this is the spear we came for and not some trap." Rhenmyr wraps the the rope around himself and lowers himself to the floor as gently as possible.

 

[nikolokolus]

There is a an empty torch bracket just inside the chamber level with the narrow aperture you just traversed and Rhenmyr's torch slides neatly into the sconce allowing both Marcán and Rhenmyr free use of their hands.

Rhenmyr descends to the floor of the musty chamber without incident. At your feet you notice a several large blocks of stone scattered around the room, one lays in the midst of a broken sleeping pallet the others have embedded into the floor atop cracked floor tiles.

The wan torchlight reflects off of the bronze gilt of the wooden sections of the pillar and fills the room with a soft golden glow. Looking up you observe that the pillar is nearly 40 feet tall or more; its terminal end barely visible in the dim recesses just beyond the light cast by the torch. Upon closer inspection the pillar is clearly made of alternating stone and wood sections, each engraved with a scene of wolf-killing. A stylized serpent is carved in relief, wrapped around the pillar's circumference in a helix. Twenty feet up a polished bronze targe and a short wolf-spear hang from leather thong around a stone peg. There appears to be ample hand-holds in the crevices and carved surface of the pillar -- a difficult and dangerous climb for sure, but not impossible.

 

[nikolokolus]

Spoiler

FYI. I'm not getting notifications (again), so apologies if there's a delay in my replies.

 

[Grimgravy]

"Marcán, Don't come down just yet. Let me see if there's something to use to give us a boost out first. What do you think of the pillar and weapons?" Rhenmyr cautiously examines contents of the chamber and speaks in Keltic. "Forgive the intrusion Ulfheonar, but the Blaidd Mawr has returned to plague Crannógmere and your arms are needed once more."

Question

The stone blocks damaging the floor came from the hole I just went through?

Alerts

Click watched threads at the top of the page. Anything listed in there won't post alerts until you click on them from there.

 

[Siveon]

"Alright then, I'll just examine it from here."

Lore

(Pillar) Lore Check: [1d20] = 1
(Weapons) Lore Check: [1d20] = 8

 

[nikolokolus]

Question

The stone blocks damaging the floor came from the hole I just went through?

Answer

The blocks are scattered around the room. Likely they fell from the ceiling

Lore

(Pillar) Lore Check: [1d20] = 1
(Weapons) Lore Check: [1d20] = 8

Marcán has never seen the pillar's like, never read about anything like it, and is completely at a loss as to its significance or nature. From your vantage in the crawlway, the shield and spear look well made, but don't provoke any memories or other insight.

 

[Siveon]

"Not a clue, Rhenmyr. I have to research more of the pictish in my spare time, assuming we make it out of all this mess."

 

[Grimgravy]

"Damn. Confirmation would have been nice. I guess we could boost each other up to the opening if you would like to help me search. Any ideas on how to get the spear and shield down without climbing?"

 

[Siveon]

"Well aside from the obvious - that is tackling the pillar so the weapons will fall like a beast does for fruit, perhaps we can try and latch a rope onto it. I could even fashion one of my camp spikes to act as a hook so to speak. Hm, no, I don't think we can throw that far."

Marcán says, getting down from the passage.

 

[nikolokolus]

Shitastic sideview of the chamber

For reference here is a quick and (very) dirty cross section of the room with the pillar. The crawlway is ten feet off the floor, the spear and shield are about twenty feet up.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9vA_bhiH0sda0p0NC1QNzhralE

 

[nikolokolus]

Hint

If you want to crawl back to the other chamber where the rest of your companions are located and confer with them, perhaps one of them might have input?

 

[Grimgravy]

Rhenmyr checks if the bronze cauldron is empty and then examines the the chairs and chariot. "We might be able to fashion a pole long enough to reach if we tie pieces together."

 

[nikolokolus]

The cauldron is empty. When you look around for a pole, you notice that the two shafts that connect the chariot to the yoke are about six feet long. You surmise that it would be no great feat to detach them from the chariot and somehow lash them together - rope, a belt, what have you. This will probably leave you about 2-3 feet short of the stone peg while standing on the floor. However if manipulated from the edge of the tunnel, it might just reach.

 

[Grimgravy]

"How about we rope these two chariot pieces together. Then maybe you could dislodge them from the tunnel for me to catch. Or maybe move some blocks and stack some chairs. What do you think?" Rhenmyr works at detaching the poles.

 

[nikolokolus]

Marcán and Rhenmyr have been gone for about ten minutes. Urash is still carefully transcribing the runes and sigils from the stone "door." Cormac, Rashid, Borric & Ker idle their time either holding a slack end of the rope or aiding Urash's transcription.

Brule's voice can be heard echoing down the long central passage, "What goes friends? Is all well?"

 

[Siveon]

"I suppose you could try that," Marcán answers Rhenmyr, before hearing Brule call out to them. Marcán climbs up to the passage, "I'll see what the others have to say about this. I should only be just a moment." When Marcán gets back he attempts to describe the room as accurately as possible to the group, the design of the pillar, the contents atop of it, as well as the size of the pillar itself is included, to see if they have any ideas about getting the spear and shield down without climbing it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"Have we bow and arrow? We could perhaps tie rope to an arrow and shoot it towards the spear. Either that lets us climb up or we can use it to bring the spear down."

 

[Grimgravy]

"Yeah, maybe they're come up with something better." While Marcán is gone, Rhemyr piles furs up below the spear in shield to provide as soft a landing as possible.

 

[nikolokolus]

Rhenmyr does the best he can to pile up some of the moldy furs and other decayed grave goods into a pile. Maybe not enough to completely avoid a bad landing, but certainly better than the tile floor.

 

[Llywelyn ap Gruffydd]

Cormac assists Urash with his findings.

Spoiler

Damn! I missed a lot with no notifications!

 

[Grimgravy]

With the pole fashioned and a softer landing set up, Rhenmyr studies the carvings (hoping to gain some insight into putting wolves down) while waiting for Marcán to return.

 

[nikolokolus]

Llywelyn ap Gruffydd roll a "hard" (4d6) wisdom check.

Grimgravy roll a "normal" (3d6) intelligence check.

 

[Llywelyn ap Gruffydd]

[4d6] = 13 vs 16 Wisdom

 

[Grimgravy]

Intelligence (13): [3d6] = 9

 

[nikolokolus]

Cormac leans over Urash's shoulder and watches intently as he transcribes the runes and sigils from the portal to his grimoire. Quickly, you decide that this is a bad idea; watching the arcane script being penned makes your head ache and your skin crawl, for the eerie and alien characters writhe and almost undulate across the pages as he creates them.

However a sort of understanding begins to form in your mind about the portal's deeper meaning beyond its function. The symbols clearly predate Keltic script and betoken a civilization far older and more primal than you can fathom. It's quite a shock to look at these ancient Pictish hieroglyphs and recognize a very primitive iconography specific to Arawn and the Otherworld -- startling because for the entirety of your life you've been taught that the Picts are nothing more than sub-human, bloodthirsty, godless demon worshipers fit only for slaughter and enslavement. You never would have guessed in a million years that they would worship (or once worshipped) a Keltic god like Arawn.

---------------------------------------------------------

Rhenmyr spends several minutes staring at the intricate patterns of alternating stone and wood sections of the pillar looming overhead. As you ponder the significance of the carvings and search for handholds and think of ways that you might safely reach the spear and shield, something about the pillar starts to strike you as a bit "off." The carved scenes, stacked one atop the other in alternating wood and stone are clearly the handiwork of a master freemason and a woodcarver, but the way the pillar is assembled seems almost shoddy; everything just looks slightly misaligned from top to bottom and the joints are not fitted evenly -- gaps on one edge wide enough to place your hand inside of and thin enough you can barely slide a piece of parchment between the sections.