Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Approaching the Entrance

Morning, Tuesday, May 10, 1650. Weather, cool, still. There is a light breeze from the east, full of fragrance. The sky is clear. The moon is a half moon, two days after the first quarter.

Since it is impractical to take the mules and cart in, I will assume with Embla's plan that these are being left with Widda.  This leaves the party comprising the four members, Fjall, Valda and Oddsdrakken.

As you move down towards the Barrow, in armor and decked with weapons, you receive greetings and respectful nods.  A man in livery is giving orders; as he sees you, he gives a wave as though he knows who you are, then swings his hand to urge you to come forward.  At the actual entrance, you'll find that more stones have been removed, and that there is a strong and easy thick-runged ladder that has been added to the dig.

You step up, as everything seems encouraging and supportive; the boss is being addressed by a scribe, a slight man, balding, but no more than thirty, with a quill and a board for writing on.  "The druid wants another day.  He says he's not sure of the statue and that it seems to have something to do with the weather.  He doesn't want to move it until he's sure what it is."

"Tell him he has a week if he wants it.  I'll never get this lot moved by then anyway."  The boss lifts his head.  "Ah, Gentlemen ..." he says to the party.  "I asked for soldiers ~ didn't expect you until tomorrow.  But glad to have you here this morning.  We've accidentally opened up a tunnel down on the ..."

He stops, then.  "Wait a moment.  You're the group that was celebrated just days ago, yes?"

48 comments:

Embla Strand said...

Yes, we are. What have you found?

Alexis Smolensk said...

"Some sort of crypt," the Boss says. "Worried us a bit; none want to go in there without a priest. But with you lot handling it, I guess it'll be fine now." He grins widely. "I saw that dog-headed thing they say you killed when it all came down. Dragged it out yesterday. Took seven of my men and we had a devil of a time taking it down to the river. I'm proud to call you lot my fellow countrymen!"

Pandred said...

"Couldn't have done it without the rest of you. Stavanger's always had the best fighting men!"

I will wait for someone else in the party to let him know we're not here on official business. I understand that jeopardizes our claim to the treasure, but I'm willing to trust that the Prince might be generous once more.

I want to see what's down there.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Allow me to stress again, the Boss' WELCOMING attitude. I know the party tends to overthink every possible detail that might go against them, but the 17th century really is a more catch-as-catch-can kind of time, without red tape or tremendous bundles of oversight.

You would know that the chances would be that if a group of soldiers turned up right now, to find you were willing to go down instead of them, they'd be damned glad to let you go.

People other then crazy nut-job adventurers don't see "treasure" at the end of something like this. They see misery, unpleasantness and probably death at the end of such an exploration.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Lothar, I finished your Forester Sage Abilities today. I'll work on Beachcomber another time. Remind me if I haven't done it in a month. I'll go work on someone else's abilities.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Sorry, meant to leave a link:

http://tao-of-dnd.wikispaces.com/Forester

Engelhart Askjellson said...

Very well, good fellow, here is your priest. Lead us to this "crypt" you say you've found.

The Lord being willing, I don't think anyone here'd care for a reprise of our brush with that thrice-damned beast you've had to drag down. We've already lost some of our company to this hole we're standing on. Good people, too.

We're not half the heroes you'd make us out to be, but we're sure to recognize danger as it comes biting down... *sign of the cross*

Alexis Smolensk said...

"I have faith in you, Father. I'd show you down myself, but I can't be spared. I'll send you down with Hamish. He's our Scot engineer; he knows most of the burrows now, he can get you as far as the crypt. Beyond that, I can't spare him, either."

Hamish will be called; in the meantime, you're invited to begin down the ladder into the room where you twice fought the fire beetles.

The matting is in the process of being torn up; it's about three feet deep, so you find yourself climbing down into a trench, with the mat on either side. It's a thick fibrous material; it will likely be used as insulation someplace.

You find a step, formerly covered, leads you up to the door that opened when the frog lamp was lit. The doors are gone; they've been removed, taken somewhere. The stairs are right enough, however ... and they take you down to the well room.

The old windlass has been stripped from the well, along with most of the stone. There's a proper windlass now, and plenty of water being drawn to fill a trough, which makes an aqueduct down the passage that you know leads the cage and the drop. The water is for use among the working men, to whet their thirst. Here you meet Hamish; he explains that the well has the only clean water in the place.

Hamish is about six-foot-five; he's massive, powerfully strong; he'd give Pandred a run for her money (Pandred is more wiry than massive). He's friendly, however, and clearly educated. He speaks kindly to the party and fatherly to the men working around him.

The four wooden creatures you fought, the golems ~ and Hamish tells you that's what they are ~ are still there. They seem to have turned as hard as iron, defying an axe. "We haven't figured out how to get them free of the stone; they seem grown into it," Hamish says. "Perhaps we'll bury them in here when we collapse the place."

Lothar Svensson said...

[I've looked through the Forester skills, Alexis - very exciting! Guys, maybe we should get into the logging business, a cord of firewood sells for 118 gp, we could knock that out in a day!]

How many rooms have they uncovered so far?

Alexis Smolensk said...

About thirty to forty. It is a question of how you define a room. Past the entranceway below, there was a sort of watchdog, the ram-bear ... and beyond it, they fought more than two hundred froglings in various apartments, common rooms and storerooms. They fought their way to the three kitchens, then into a throne-room and some sort of sacrifice chamber.

Then the battle turned against the Norwegians, as the last of the froglings opened up a dozen lower tunnels. Beetles, ticks and centipedes welled up from below, killing scores before the cadre of wizards could start to destroy the mindless creatures in groups. They are still finding the occasional vermin in these tunnels ~ Hamish begins to call them mines ~ but they are almost safe now.

Pandred said...

Then let's get down there and see for ourselves!

Alexis Smolensk said...

Hamish leads you to the drop. They've removed the cage and installed several block-and-tackle ropes; you climb down on a rope mesh that's been hung over the rock surface, taken from the shipyards in Stavanger. There are a dozen workers climbing up and down on it as you descend.

You recognize the room with the statues, where you fought the four froglings. The huge door has been removed and beyond these, a huge room is covered in blood. "We've only just gotten the last of the beast out this morning," Hamish says. "Was a job cutting it in small enough pieces; place reeks like an abattoir." And he is quite right about that.

There is a hall beyond this; Hamish takes you through it to a large, common room. In the floor is a round hole, which he explains was covered by a round trap door. "It's the way into the mine tunnels below. Mind yourself."

The start of the tunnel is steep; those in armor have some trouble but you scurry down until the tunnel becomes a 30-degree slope. Hamish hops down after you, then pushes through the party and continues to show you the way. You descend about 40 yards, with the tunnel turning back on itself twice, once with a hairpin turn. "This was filled with bugs just a few days ago," Hamish explains. "You better watch yourself. There might be more of that down below."

At last, he shows you to your destination: a crumbling wall, with about a dozen stones pulled out of it. There is a black empty space beyond. "A party of dwarves uncovered this wall last night. The mud caking looked suspicious so they dug it out and found this wall. Took 'em some time to pull out these stones. If you look through, you can see a cavern."

Alexis Smolensk said...

Hamish lends you a torch and, yes, you can see that there is a natural cavern beyond the wall. It is only about ten feet high, about twenty-five feet across ... but there's no far wall that the torch reveals, suggesting it goes much farther than it looks.

Disturbingly, the floor is covered in bones. Human bones.

"We had an apprentice cast for malevolence and found none," says Hamish. "Doesn't say that there's no undead further on, but I see nothing's moved. We passed two magical alarms that would warn us of undead if any rose; they're still in place, I guess. No one wants in there, not the way it looks; so we sent for soldiers."

He takes out a pipe and starts to dig some tobacco into it. "A cleric was looking over the sacrificial chamber we found up above; lot of malevolence there, but there's an exorcism planned for this afternoon. Father Tabor says that likely, the froglings sacrificed norsemen they found a thousand years ago. According to him and others that know, this whole place was under some sort of curse until just a week ago; frozen animation, the Father said. Before that, they probably murdered all these people on the floor in there. Stole their souls, according to the Father. Beastly, that. I wouldn't be so anxious to go where you're going ~ no telling what you'll find. Want me to post a couple guards here, to wait for you when you come back?"

Engelhart Askjellson said...

By all means, master Hamish, do post a couple of runners, at the least. Lord knows that we may find something that might require the attention of the entire dig.

[It seems we're heading into a situation... once the guards or runners get here, I'll cast Bless on the entire ensemble.]

Does anyone care to light a lantern?

Embla Strand said...

I light mine and shine it into the hole. When we're ready, I'll go first.

Alexis Smolensk said...

He will leave you to it, and send the guards down.

While he's gone, you note that the wall is not opened enough to let you even crawl through. You'll have to do some manual labor to make a hole large enough for yourselves and your armor.

Embla Strand said...

Does one of our sappers have ready access to a pick? If not, I see if one of the workers in the area would lend us theirs?

Alexis Smolensk said...

The blocks aren't mortared. They can be pulled out by hand.

Engelhart Askjellson said...

Very well, I cast the spell and begin pulling these out.

I go in right after Embla, maul in my grip.

Why do I have a feeling I'm going to need to do some turning?

Pandred said...

I'll give my handaxe and shield to Oddsdrakken to carry for now while I help pull stones.

Fjall may keep ahold of my crossbow for the moment, unless Lothar would prefer him to use something else.

Alexis Smolensk said...

[Hello all,

[I'm deeply sorry for stepping away from the campaign. I don't know what came over me; things usually slow down for the weekend and pick up Monday; I would guess I simply became too overenthusiastic with my editing and the wiki. My apologies.

[I did not see notifications from either Engelhart nor Pandred on the 15th. And here it has been four days and I have not responded. Again, my apologies. I am happy, however, to pick up and get going]

There's reason to think that turning might be necessary, but Hamish did say there was no malevolence detected. That's good for at least sixty feet, at any rate.

It does not take long to remove the stones. You may all count on being blessed for the next hour.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Remove the stones = the hole is large enough for you to clamber into the bone-filled chamber.

Pandred said...

Alright. I wait for Embla and Engelhart to enter and follow in, as mentioned above. I'll tell Oddsdrakken to bring up the rear with my goodies.

Embla Strand said...

I enter!

Alexis Smolensk said...

You feel the dry bones shift under your weight; you hear a crunch. Looking down, you see some powder that has rubbed from the bones and onto your boots. The bones have been here a long time.

Your torch reveals that the cavern begins to tilt away just forty feet off; the bones extend to the lip of this tilt.

Engelhart Askjellson said...

I plod along to the edge of the tilt. Anything that catches the eye?

Alexis Smolensk said...

The bones are very disconcerting to walk across; they seem to be about a foot deep, but there are small heaps all around that are twice that. A memory nags at you that the undead need a soul to be undead; that the soul is tortured, and that is much of the reason for the malevolence. No soul, these bones are just calcium.

Could you please describe your light source.

Pandred said...

Embla is holding a lantern, and Hamish gave us a torch that I believe nobody has technically claimed yet.

Oddsdrakken will have a hand free if he tucks my handaxe into his belt, so he'll take it.

Alexis Smolensk said...

If Engelhart does not claim the torch, all he can see in front of him is the big shadow that is made by his body, from the light source behind him.

Engelhart Askjellson said...

I claim it, sure enough.

I'm holding my maul, which I can do one-handed until otherwise.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Engelhart, you can see a long, dry stone slope, with a seven-foot ceiling, the cavern being about forty feet wide. It is like looking down a long slot in the earth, tilted at 40 degrees, steep enough that you'll have to be careful with your footing as you descend; but it isn't slippery in the least.

The end of it is hard to see; its still dark, though the torch shines bright 30 feet down ... at the dim edge of the light, you imagine there might be a wall of mortared stone ~ but it could be your eyes playing tricks on you.

Embla Strand said...

As the most surefooted of the group, I slowly descend the slope, lantern held high.

Alexis Smolensk said...

It is good, solid footing, none too difficult. As you descend, you can see that there is indeed an angled wall at the bottom, that turns you to the left, where there is a square darkness at the lantern's edge of illumination.

Embla is about 30 feet from the party, well down the slope; using the brightest setting on your lamp, the black exit you can see is about 45 feet away.

There isn't a sound that doesn't come from the party.

Embla Strand said...

I relay this to the group. I'd like someone to come up and hold the lantern here so that I can creep up to the exit and look through with my infravision.

Engelhart Askjellson said...

On I go, torchbearing like an olimpian.

I set down the maul and keep both ligths aloft. You go and do your thing, Miss Strand.

Embla Strand said...

Why thank you, Mr. Askjellson.

I approach the exit and look through the opening.

Alexis Smolensk said...

[I will need to create a map for what comes next soon. For the moment, I will dare suspend it]

As Embla makes the last bit of the route down, she has to prop herself between the wall and the natual rock surface, as the rock becomes a 60 degree grade (so, a 30-degree angle between the natural floor of the cave and the typically oriented wall). You are uncertain of exits; some dark places on the far wall could be tunnels.

She looks around the corner at the end of the wall; the natural light dims enough that she can see with her infravision ...

There is a stone room with an uneven floor (which seems to have various regularly shaped pits spaced around the chamber. The ceiling is 15 feet high; the room, forty feet square, perhaps a bit larger.

The details of the floor are hard to judge, because there are clusters of glowing red warmth spaced all around the chamber. After watching for a good 20 seconds, it is clear that this warmth is very gently pulsing, but not moving.

Embla has gained some skill at "heightened senses":

http://tao-dndwiki.blogspot.ca/2018/02/heightened-senses-sage-study.html"

Specifically, look at the ability, "Reveal Approach" ... Embla can't hear or see anything, but she is aware none the less that something is moving in the room, that can't be seen.

Engelhart Askjellson said...

How many beetles, this time...?

Alexis Smolensk said...

Fjall will answer with a shrug. "The ones we met at the beginning must have come from somewhere."

Engelhart Askjellson said...

Sighing, I load my sling.

I call out to Embla to give us an estimate. We know each burrow to usually contain, what, two to four of the things?

Embla Strand said...

How many of the red patches can I see?

Alexis Smolensk said...

Before I answer, I strongly encourage you not to make assumptions, not to assume every encounter is the same and not to overthink things.

You see more than 100 red patches.

Embla Strand said...

This should be fun! How far is the nearest red thing from the entrance?

Alexis Smolensk said...

Remember that it is red only because you are looking at it with infravision. With ordinary light, it might be any color.

The nearest glowing object is part of a cluster of five or six slightly enlongated orbs, about eight feet from you.

Embla Strand said...

All right. I tell everyone to prepare themselves, as I intend to take a closer look.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Be precise about your movements, Embla.

I will put up a map tomorrow morning.

Pandred said...

HROAGH!

Alexis Smolensk said...

[Wound up getting hung on the editing process ~ but I have the first podcast edited completely! Some double checking and quality assurance needed, but I should post the first episode on Monday]

The next post is up.