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

[Siveon]

OOC

It wouldn't take much to be older than me, though, so don't sweat it.

Marcán gulps. "Oh, so they are. " He follows the beggar north to regroup with everyone else.

 

[Grimgravy]

OOC

I've seriously never heard of the expression 'get the hell out of dodge' until just now. Threw me for a loop there.

So yeah, rope and hostage. Could work, won't have to worry about the guards nabbing us whilst we're climbing down. Who's in?

OOC

No shit!? Jesus I must be fucking old

OOC

I'd say that points to him not being American. Idioms hearkening to the old west probably don't get much play elsewhere

In Keltic "Let's move!" Rhenmyr quickly follows Nightingale, coiling her rope, and helps her move more quickly if she needs it.

 

[Siveon]

OOC

I'd say that points to him not being American. Idioms hearkening to the old west probably don't get much play elsewhere

OOC

No, I'm definitely American. I guess around here (not all of America, just where I'm at) westerns weren't as popular and the idiom didn't catch on.

 

[nikolokolus]

In the cramped and narrow streets you move hurriedly but also cautiously northward. About 100 yards on, the two groups meet in a small square with a fountain. The sounds of shouting and whistle blowing echo off the sandstone walls of the houses and tenements throughout the craftsmen's district. From here Nightingale leads you down more side streets and darkened alleys. Several times you all freeze in your tracks and hide yourself behind piles of broken pottery and refuse as running guards sprint past along the main avenues. After an hour of playing cat and mouse, the sounds of the guards roaming the streets abates and you are left with nothing but the silence of the night. Nightingale leads you down one last alley before you step on to a broad avenue behind a large three storey building of stone and wood from which raucous laughter and music filters out on to the street through open windows.

Nightingale points to an iron grate about 2' square set into the cobbles, "There. That's how I . . . er . . . we get down to lowtown." She wrinkles her nose and makes a face at the smells of shit and offal wafting up. "It's part of the old city, where the Hyperboreans kept their dwarf slaves before the great revolt. Now? It's just a place for rats, garbage and dumping out the middens, but there's a shaft down to Lowtown that somebody in the guild showed me when I were just an apprentice. We pay the cook here to keep it locked so nobody goes nosing around." She groans, "Ugh! I really didn't want to have to buy new clothes after this, but I guess there's no help for it now." She kneels down and fishes into her belt for something, a second later she produces a small iron key that she works into a keyhole and seconds later you all hear an audible *click*. "Can I get a hand with this? It's heavy."

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Borric kneels to help the girl with the opening.
"Is this route used often, Thieving one?"

 

[nikolokolus]

"Eh . . . no, not really. We usually just payoff the guards and come and go as we please."

 

[nikolokolus]

Nightingale continues, "Now don't get me wrong. If the guards catch you doing something outside of the craftsmen's district in Hightown or the Merchant Quarter then you're done. they throw you in Stonehell donjon and that's the last anyone ever hears from you."

 

[Grimgravy]

OOC

No, I'm definitely American. I guess around here (not all of America, just where I'm at) westerns weren't as popular and the idiom didn't catch on.

OOC

Huh, I grew up by the great lakes and never really watched westerns and I can't remember not know what Get out of Dodge meant.

"So we could have just bought those three off?" Rhenmyr glares at the pantomime drunks. "I hope what's in that bag from can pay for cleaning. Ugh. Best get moving."

 

[nikolokolus]

Nightingale shrugs and coughs sounding a little embarrassed, then turns to Borric and Marcán. "Well, I really didn't know what you two were up to . . . but you seemed like you had a plan. They must have really hated your singing? But I thought it was lovely . . ." *ahem*

 

[Helly]

"I feel like we're jumping from the frying pan into the fire but hey, it's not like we have much choice now. Marcan, you'll owe me a full course in the next bathhouse you darn caterwauler!"

 

[Siveon]

"Deal, just so long you don't explain to the folks how I botched another one of my famous lofty tunes. Damn guards, no wits, and no taste. At least one person enjoyed my singing."

Marcán chuckles. "Guess you didn't know this 'sheep herder' had a penchant for the musical arts, eh Nighty?"

 

[nikolokolus]

She snarks, "I'll bet you say that to all the sheep."

 

[Siveon]

"I believe that's Ker's job. After this run-in with a crazed horse I'm prone to believe that animals hate me.

Well, no time like the present. Ladies first?"

 

[nikolokolus]

The way down is cramped and tight, barely wide enough to accommodate some of the larger fellows amongst you. You remove packs and weapons and bundle them up into a cloak and tie them off with a rope. Nightingale descends first, gingerly placing her badly sprained foot on one of the rungs nailed into the stone walls of the shaft. "Bel's bollocks! That hurts." She says with a grimace. "I'll let you know when I get to the bottom and you can lower the bundle down. Here's the key. Don't lose it!"

After several minutes of shifting loads and shedding packs, each of you takes your turn descending into a chamber about 20 feet below the surface where Nightingale has lit a candle that sheds a meager light. The smell is abominable and piles of garbage and animal bones litter the ground as rivulets of effluvia trickle down the rounded passages hewn from the rough sandstone.


One heads west

and another slopes down to the east.

Nightingale points to the eastern corridor and says, "This way."

 

[Siveon]

"Lead the way, hopefully we won't be down here for too long."

 

[nikolokolus]

"It's not far" She says airily.

To your dismay you come to around a corner and the tunnel abruptly dead-ends about fifty feet on. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel taper down to hemispherical plug of stone about three feet high with a small iron grate set into its face. A nasty trickle of fluid oozes through it. "Alright, no peaking." Nightingale says with a wink. She leans down, grabs one of the bars of the grate and twists it counterclockwise and pulls. You hear a loud *Clunk* and the plug slowly rotates in on a badly oiled brass hinge. "I'll bet the guards would have a fit if they knew about this?"

Everybody eventually squeezes through the narrow opening one by one and continues along the downward sloping passage that winds through the naked stone. When you've gone on for about five minutes you come to small domed chamber with three exits leading out of it to the west, north and east. In the center of the chamber is a hole where a circular staircase descends. "Down we go." Nightingale says wearily. She takes a few steps into the stairwell when suddenly without warning, a bone melting, wailing echoes faintly from some unknown distance out of the western chamber. Nightingale pokes her head up with a shocked and confused look on her face, "What in the hells was that?"

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"Whatever it be, I suggest we do not wait to find out. Move! The Big one and I will stay at the rear, to hold off whatever comes."

 

[nikolokolus]

The group hustles into the stairwell and makes a long descent. One hundred? Two Hundred? Maybe three hundred feet down you go. Nightingale's candle gutters and flickers below you casting barely enough light to see, but the group manages without any mishaps. Eventually you all come to the bottom of the spiral staircase and exit into a small natural cave about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. Nightingale hobbles to one end of the room and begins groping along the ground feeling for something. "There's a lever here somewhere . . . I just can't remember where it is for the life of me."

The ghastly wailing and moaning sound erupts again, filtering down the spiral stairs, muted and diffuse.

 

[Grimgravy]

"I don't like that sound. If you need more light we can use a torch." Rhenmyr says in low tones.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Borric attempts to sense danger-

Roll

[1d20] = 13

 

[nikolokolus]

Borric peers intently up the stairwell and listens with his keen ears. He doesn't sense any apparent danger close by. You can't shake the feeling that you hear some faint scrabbling of something hard against the stone at some distance above, but it's indistinct and almost impossible to decipher what it might be.

Spoiler

In the future, whenever people are looking for the unknown - searching for secret doors, detecting traps, etc. I'll handle the roll in secret, this way, it doesn't reveal things by omission. That is to say, you won't immediately know if you failed to find something because it just isn't there or because you didn't roll high enough

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"Thieving One, if you were to tell us what you are looking for, perhaps we can help find it?

 

[nikolokolus]

"A small lever at the base of the wall, but it's obscured by sand . . . This room floods during King Tides. And yes, I'd love some help."

Borric begins groping in the sand floor next to the cave wall.

What is everyone else doing?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"Perhaps there is a way to blow the sand away? Might help us with our search."

 

[Helly]

Ker gets his lantern out and light it with Nightingale's candle. "This should help us finding your lever. Here is to hoping it doesn't help *something else* finding us."
Ker listen to the noise attentively, trying to identify it. "Hum, let's see, when is the next King Tide supposed to happen?