The Evil of Ravenholm - Chapter 2: The Ashen Mountains

[NayrVentess]

((Without a nature check, then Pelloth wouldn't know, no. But I agree that he would probably be sneaky anyway, so its fine with me biggrin ))

Hars and Grashuk blitz off down the tight corridor, killing many baby Kruthiks as they go, drawing an ear-splitting shriek from the Hive Lord as she/he picks up the pace itself. Cain decides to take a different tact, impossibly managing to avoid every single little bug as he dances off after the Bugbear and Changeling. The baby Kruthik in his hand is squirming a bit, but the Kenku's grip, firm but careful, manages to keep the creature close without harming it. Just in front of Gerash, Pelloth merges into the plentiful shadows, more now that he 'brought his own'. With his cover, the drow stalks off, losing a bit of ground on Cain, but becoming the only one not targeted by the swarming Kruthiks. Gerash is the one furthest back, and thus closest to becoming the Hive Lords meal, and so he decides that keeping a good eye, or two, or dozens on his surroundings will be very benificial. And it proves true, as he manages to avoid stumbling into the sneaky Pelloth, which would have proved disastrous for them both.

A few minutes pass, and the group is sort of split up. Grashuk and Hars are far out in front, sprinting for all their worth, and have almost run out of Kruthiks to stomp underfoot. Cain is in the middle, happily bounding between Kruthiks as his new pet squeals. And at the back, still being slowed down slightly by many Kruthiks around their feet, are Pelloth and Gerash, the Hive Lord still hot on their heels, displacing chunks of rock as it gives a frenzied pursuit.

But then Grashuk and Hars notice that the passage opens up into three, one directly in front, and two to the sides. Seeing no difference in any of them, they continue running down the center. But, as then begin in their new tunnel, large chunks of rock fall down behind them, as another large Kruthik bursts down from the ceiling, landing behind them with a *SSCCCRRREEEEE!!!* Needless to say, they keep sprinting, literally for their lives. Cain comes to the same choice a few seconds after the front two, having just seen a large Kruthik appear bringing rocks with him that now blocks the center path for him. Deciding quick, the Kenku takes the left path and keeps going. And after Cain, come the hidden Pelloth and the ever perceptive Gerash. Pelloth notices that the right path is darker than the left and thus goes that way. And quick thinking Gerash decides that the Hive Lord may follow the Kenku, since he is carrying one of the baby's, and so follows Pelloth.

Now, Grashuk and Hars have no swarm to contend with, except for few stragglers, but they have what appears to be another Hive Lord behind them, and it is very pissed off. Cain is on his own, except for the baby Kruthik! Like he cares anyway, and his path seems to open up slightly, giving him more width to run in. And Gerash and Pelloth are in a darker corridor, that feels as if it is descending slightly.

The Swarm splits off roughly evenly, right and left, although a handful decide to burrow through the rubble and follow Grashuk and Hars. And the Hive Lord, hearing the crying of one her/his young, follows the lone Kenku, bringing a bit of peace of mind to Gerash and Pelloth.

5 Successes, 0 Failures

Next Round!  

[SporkMaster5000]

((Where's Daelos in all this? also, 8 dungeoneering >_0))

As Gerash follows Pelloth, figuring the drow was a safer bet to tag along with than the kenku, he curses mentally. Now they were being pursued and were split up. His mind racing, he tried to find any sign of where they were going, in hopes of getting the group back together before they all fell victim to gods knew what. As he contemplated the groups current state of affairs (and assuming Daelos isn't with us) he realizes he's fallen into a unique opportunity. Using ghost sound to save himself the need to shout, he spoke to the drow, "I realize this isn't the best time, but I have a proposition for you, should we actually rid ourselves of these pests. There's clearly no love lost between you an Daelos. I want to know what it is he's so intent to have no one but himself see. Once we find it, I think we should do away with the elf. I get to see what I want, and you can be the one to bring it back to your precious church, triumphant where a bloodstone stalker failed. Think it over."  

[Vorastrix]

Pelloth smiled to himself at the wizard's ranting, for he had just revealed his hand. He was relieved that the wizard wouldn't be to broken up about the elves demise, but found it amusing he was wrong about the drow's motivation. Pelloth had grown up in the underdark were deception and betrayal were not only common place, but expected. He didn't want to kill the elf to please his god, he would do it becuase once the had finished the mission, the elf would have no more use, and simply be an annoyance.

Tired of running, Pelloth would stop and whisper to Gerash "hold for a moment, and keep to the shadows." that said, he would issue a telepathic command to Dindle. The imp would then fly off, and encounter the swarm, making them follow the Imp instead of the pair. Once he had lead them sufficiently away, he would become invisible, and head back to his master.

Quote:

Bluff: 18

I'm hoping they came to another fork, and the imp could lead them the other way...if not, he would have to lead them backwards.

 

[iDragow]

After he and Hars ran past the three-way split in the hallway, Grashuk noticed that the hall widened significantly. Something deep within him wanted to throw itself at this thing, and tear it to pieces. Why not here?

Suddenly slamming both of his heels into the ground, the Bugbear spun 180 degrees. His now backward momentum threatened to topple him, but instead he just dug in, even clawing at the ground with his hands. As the Kruthik bares down upon him, he inhaled through his nose as sharply and as much as he could.

Just as it was about to pounce, Grashuk let out an earth-splitting roar. The sound echoed down the halls in both directions as spittle flew from his large canine teeth. After about a full minute of the bellow, he finally ran out of breath. As the echoes continued to roll back to them, the Bugbear's face was contorted into a scowl as he stared the monstrous enemy down.

Quote:

Intimidate check: 24

 

[joe-dude667]

Cain wasn't really paying attention to much, he was too busy concentrating on avoiding hurting any of the little beasties. This only heightened his shock when he looked up to notice he was in a corridor, alone, with thousands of little beasties crawling over his feet, and a big beastie coming towards him.

There was only one explanation, the big beastie must have eaten all his allies!

Grashuk was much bigger than Cain, if the big beastie could eat him then Cain would go down in one bite! After a short hesitation, he ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction to the big beastie, squashing the little beasties as he went.

"Sorry little beasties!" Cain shouted as he ran, "I wouldn't have to if you weren't in my way!"

[[Athletics:15]]  

[Arc Vembris]

Seeing Grashuk's plan in action, Hars also stops and wheels on the massive beast, drawing her swords and setting the lantern to drift on the air. Her face then explodes in an unnatural display of eyes, mandibles, tentacles and horrific fangs.

((Intimidate @27))  

[NayrVentess]

((I was wondering if someone would mention Daelos ^^))

As he and Pelloth run, Gerash's mind briefly wonders to the elven Bloodstone Stalker that had accompanied them. He remembers Daelos being with him when the small Kruthik's began appearing, but once they all began running, Gerash (and indeed, no one else) can remember seeing the elf...curious. The corpse of a wizard then tries to detect any abnormalities in the design of the corridor that could help him in his fleeing of the hoard...he cannot. As Gerash curses his luck though, Pelloth stops him and sends off his devilish Imp, for the drow remembered a large hole in the wall somewhere behind them that Dindle could lead the Kruthik's through, and thus away from himself. His companion succeeded for the most part, arriving back a few minutes later with only a few small Kruthik's in tow and an impish smile on his impish face.

Deciding, reluctantly, that his life was more important than that of the baby Kruthik's, Cain began to run hell for leather down the corridor, killing some little beasties as he went, giving fuel to the fire that is the Hive Lord's fury.

Grashuk and Hars decide that running is only for cowards, and they certaintly aren't cowards. The Bugbear began trying to scare away the Kruthik by launching into a terrifying and ear-splitting roar, causing the very rocks around them to creak in protest at the noise. The large Kruthik at first put up a stiff countenance, slowly inching forward despite the fury in Grashuk's bellow. The Hive Lord gave a few roars of its own back, but despite its size, Grashuk's voice was the loader and more boisterous. At one point, the Warlord and Hive Lord were mere inches away from each other, Grashuk having to keep his cool as he felt the Kruthik's stale breath on his face. But soon, the Hive Lord knew he was beaten and slowly began to retreat. It was only when Hars accompanied his companions red face and thunderous roar with some terror of his own, that the Kruthik let out a squeel and burrowed directly down into the earth, fleeing as quickly as possible. After the stand-off, Hars and Grashuk noticed a patch of foul smelling liquid, near to the tunnel left by the beast, had the Kruthik wet itself?

Now that Pelloth and Gerash, Hars and Grashuk had lost the swarm, the only person who was still being chased by the Swarm was Cain. Well, until now that is.

Cain was running, as fast as his bird legs could carry him, but the Hive Lord was still catching up with him. It was only a few feet away when Cain saw a large gap at the end of his corridor, faint light edging its way into the passageway that Cain was traversing. Cain saw too late that the hole didn't lead directly into a room, but into thin air. The Kenku jumped out of the tunnel, just as the large Kruthik snapped at him, missing his flesh by inches. As he fell, Cain felt the cold air on his face, it was refreshing. Wait a minute, was he flying?!?! No, after a few seconds of freefall, the Kenku splashed with force into ice cold water. He hit the bottom, but not painfully and pushed himself back to the surface of the water. Looking up at where he had jumped from, he could see the large Kruthik staring down at him and making high pitched, almost barking noises as her young seemingly accidentally fell out of the tunnel and into the water. As the baby Kruthik's hit the water, they sank and didn't come back up, perhaps Kruthik's couldn't swim, bit of luck that. Looking down the length of his beak, Cain saw his baby Kruthik pet, just barely staying on top trying desperately to avoid falling into the water.

Skill Challenge Over!

Everyone gains exactly enough experience to level up to level 5! Please do so on your Mythweavers accounts and I will check them. iDragow please PM me what you do so I can update the CB file I have for you.

What do all of you do now? Cain, you see you are in a small cave like room, the pool is deep but small, and you can easily swim over to the side of it and pull yourself out. There only appears to be one way out of this torch lit room, a dark corridor.

Hars and Grashuk are in their corridor, with the only immediate option of continuing down it, it appears to begin descending sharply as well.

Pelloth and Gerash are also in a descending corridor, that begins to wind to the left as well as it goes.  

[Vorastrix]

with his familiar returned to him, he would say to the wizard, "if you're going to use a light, I would rather you stay behind me." Normally he wouldn't want one to be behind him, but the wizard had no reason to harm Pelloth, and even if he did, Pelloth was sure enough that he could hold his own. Not waiting for a response, he went further along the tunnel where it was sloping downwards.  

[SporkMaster5000]

"I was just about to suggest you go first," Gerash replied to Pelloth, knowing the drow could see in the dark, which extended much farther than his light could. He waited until the warlock was just at the periphery of his orb's pale illumination before following. As they went, he kept trying to think of where they hell Daelos had gotten to in the commotion, he'd literally seen everything when they'd gotten split up, where had the elf gone?

((basically keep Pelloth's back in the light so he can duck out in an emergency, but not lose Gerash immediately if he gets any funny ideas))  

[Arc Vembris]

Hars slips back into her natural pale skin and featureless face. sheathing her swords again, she plucks the lantern from the air. "Looks like it's all downhill form here, Grashuk." the changeling quips. Heading forward she begins the descent.  

[iDragow]

Slowly uncurling his fists, Grashuk stares into the hole that the Kruthik had used to escape. Although he hadn't seen Hars display, he knew that the changeling had to have done something to make it suddenly flee like that. That same voice was shouting in his ear to leap down the hole, follow it to its home, and rip out its heart in front of its children.

After letting the adrenaline pump itself out, he finally was able to turn away, and turn a deaf ear to his own rage. Following Hars, the Bugbear stared at his boots as they descended the steep tunnel. After a few moments that felt like hours, Grashuk spoke up.

"I apologize. I try to do the rational action before the irrational, and I failed to do that a when the Kruthik came at us." Not expecting anything in response from the Changeling, Grashuk instead just focused on the task ahead, wondering where the tunnel was heading exactly.  

[Arc Vembris]

"Get over yourself, Grashuk, you scared its chitin off. If it hadn't worked we would've torn it limb from limb. Our only real concern is finding the others."  

[joe-dude667]

As Cain hit the water, he made sure to keep his new little friend above the surface. He didn't actually know if it breathed air or not, but in his experience most things died without breathing. After a short time idly treading the water as more baby Kruthiks showered on him from above, he managed to get his wind back, and swam over to the side of the pool.

Pulling himself out, he put his new friend on his shoulder and let it crawl around his neck. Meanwhile he walked over to one of the torches, taking it off it's bracket before heading down the dark corridor. His friends had been eaten, and Cain wasn't really sure why they were here anyway... Something about a tome, or maybe they said bone? Though why would they want a bone? None of it mattered to the little Kenku, now all he needed to do was find an exit and he could head back to Ravenholm.  

[NayrVentess]

Cain wandered down the corridor, the torch in his hand lighting his way. The baby Kruthik held on to his feathered neck, chit chit-in as the Kenku walked. Cain and his new friend walked down the corridor for a few minutes, as they went the corridor quickly changed from unhewn stone, to masonry. It seems as though whoever built this place got bored halfway through building and didn't finish the rest off. It wasn't long before Cain found himself in a room. It was about 30' by 30', with a solitary door to the left (so the north of the room). To the right though (the south of the room) is another dark corridor.

Grashuk and Hars walk on down their mildly descending corridor, mostly in silence. About 5 minutes later, the corridor abruptly changes from cave like walls, to masonry, and they notice that there are a few more torches in brackets on the walls. Another 5 or so minutes later though, the corridor ends, and Grashuk and Hars find themselves standing on a large wooden trapdoor.

Pelloth and Gerash slowly descend their winding corridor, as best as they can tell, over the next 10 minutes or so they do more than a 360 degree turn. The walls abruptly change from rough walls to masonry (as it has for everyone else). And soon after the change, the drow and wizard come across a wooden door. Upon a close listen, you can hear high pitched chattering coming from the other side of the door. Neither of you understand the language though.  

[SporkMaster5000]

Gerash puts his hand on the knob of the door after listening for a moment, then looks to Pelloth, "Doesn't sound like anyone we know. Should we just kill them, or do we care why they're here?" he asks, figuring that should another option arise, he could always fix murder.