[Game Thread] Sul and Aurok-- Chapter 1 Tangent 1

[Surreal]

In reading their minds, Sul is surprised at the resilience the goblins are displaying despite facing significant odds. Even more compelling is their reason for fighting. This is their home after all, and these ragtag soldiers are fighting for more than just their lives; they are fighting for their families. The images of their children are foremost in their minds. Having been a draftee in the war who also left his family behind, it is a sentiment that Sul is all too familiar with.

Razr's roar of pain brings him back to the present. Sul/Maul tears through the wall (to the main tunnel), bringing down a slew of rock from the weak ceiling; not enough to stop the advancement of the goblins, but enough to momentarily slow them. "Aurok, hold her back!" he yells telepathically

"What?"

"No time to explain. Just follow my lead." With that, Sul sends a loud telepathic shout (speaking in the Goblin language) to all within range: "GIVE US THE WARFORGED."

Caught off guard by the disembodied voice and the partially collapsed ceiling, the settling of the dust brings an eerie silence to the tunnel, broken by the clanking of reinforcement at the back. Sul repeats: "GIVE US THE WARFORGED... WE CAN SMELL THEM... THEY WERE HERE.". Sul/Maul steps forward, eyes glowing brightly through the dust, his carapace having taken on a darker sheen. Still silence from the goblin troops, unsure what to do. Sul/Maul takes a deliberate loud sniff of the air. "WHERE ARE THEY?" and stares at the front line.

One of the goblins squeaks out: "nnn...nn..n-not here... ran through ab...about an hour ago" before he gets elbowed by one of the ranking officers, although the officer himself is too stunned to turn his gaze.

"WE ONLY WANT THE WARFORGED. GET OUT OF OUR WAY" as Sul/Maul takes a purposeful step forward towards the goblins. Spears spring into position. "STAND DOWN." He takes another heavy step, shaking the earth beneath his feet. The spears begin to waver, until the grunts and motions of the commander in the front line bring them back to formation.

"Who are you?" he demands.

Sul stares at him, ignoring the question but responding obliquely: "YOU. YOU HAVE TWO CHILDREN." He turns to the next goblin, "YOU. YOU ARE EXPECTING YOUR FIRST." This has them rattled. Addressing all of them: "WE ONLY WANT THE WARFORGED. MOVE ASIDE OR WE WILL MOVE THROUGH YOU."

The goblin ranks begin to murmur, and Sul can hear their thoughts turn to worry. Their spears remain at the ready, but they are confused. Razr grunts loudly, protesting the large hammer that is blocking her way, but she still feels the sting from those spears and remains cautious... for the next few seconds anyways. Aurok grows impatient as well ((ooc: does he speak Goblin?)), not sure how much longer he can hold Razr back.

[Surreal]

((I forgot to include rolls for my above post. Not entirely sure which rolls would be required for my little speech... bluff and intimidate? rolls - not including circumstance modifiers))
bluff = 27
intimidate = 41

[Silent Wayfarer]

Whatever Sul's doing, it seems to work. The goblins aren't charging them any more, although Razr's still dying to munch on one of them. From the side, a young goblin sees - or thinks he sees - an opportunity, while Aurok's trying to rein the female bullete in. He charges, a hopeless attempt even had Aurok really been distracted, and suddenly finds a hammer whose head is easily as large as he is crashing down into the ground in front of him. Not coincidentally, the goblin's spear is also reduced to its elemental particles.

"YOU," Aurok bellows, glaring at the goblin. Long Arm vanishes into his glove and he holds up a finger, waving it from side to side.

"Don't do that."

The goblin blinks for a moment, then nods.

"We clear?"

Nod.

"Good. Now go."

[Fil kearney]

As Aurok restrains the massive beast Razr with one hand, the land shark gnaws angrily at his arm, causing sparks to fall from his tesselated armour, poorly concealed by his disguise dwoemers.

After a few moments, the goblins part way for a small procession moving up towards the invading droaamite terrors. A old, gnarled goblin with one arm and a shirt made of platinum coins emerges from the ranks.
In goblin tongue he states matter- of- factly that three warforged came through a while ago. walked right through the wall towards the surface of the city.
"Please don't tear down any more walls. It has been difficult enough surviving here without you collapsing our warrens."

although he stands calmly, many of the tribe are very nervous. Sul quickly assesses they have had a history of cave- ins, and the recent earthquakes have placed the tribe in a very high level of stress.

Razr has found a knot of jonted plates near Aurok's elbow, and has gotten locked to it. He begins clawing ineffectivel at Aurok's flank, attempting to break free. The giant's brow furrows in anoyance. any "dramatic tension" that may exist in the moment continues to decline as Razr begins to whine at the possessed Maul in fear as Aurok's arm is wedged half-way down her throat.

[Surreal]

Not wanting to cause further incident, the trio back out of the main tunnel and head around the edge of the warrens to where the goblin elder indicated the warforged had passed through. The space was far too narrow for any of them to pass through, but digging around the warrens seemed acceptable, rather than going through it.

The goblin horde kept its guard up the entire time, especially with the elder out in front. Though the situation had seemingly reached a temporary solution, several goblins were still dead and blood can never be repaid. There was also the matter of Razr, still affixed to Aurok's armour and starting to lash about in a mild panic.

"If she gnaws it off, it'll grow back right?" Sul jokes. Not amused, Aurok gives a sudden twist of his arm and wrenches it free, probably doing more damage to his arm than the bulette's giant vice of a jaw.

"Hmph, so what in the shards just happened back there?"

"They have a racial fear of big hammers... now hurry up, the trail leads this way..."

While the scents are strong, the spirit trail through the stone is growing blurry as the spirits slowly flow back into place. The trail seems to go up, but is obscured. Nothing else to do now except dig.

[Fil kearney]

Burrowing into the rock, the Sul-driven Maul burrows into the stone a comfortable distance from the goblin community. It takes a minute just burrowing blindly to find the scent again... they passed through the wall of the goblin tribe about halfway in... probably knocked over a few dozen goblis along the way and started heading up.
After a nother few minutes of digging, it is aparent they are heading straight up for the lower wards of the city....

then water starts to pour down on the three..

Neither Sul nor Maul knows sharn very well.. and when charging through earth at such fast speeds.. it's hard to be precise. and both Aurok and Sul have been driving these critters hard.
Sul feels the water soaking the beast's head, dumping past Maul onto Aurok then onto Razr, who Bails again in protest as the water level starts to rise. The earth is far from packed tight enough to stop here... Razr's footing is already becmoning unstable as the rock sifts unevenly beneath her feat.

Razr Bails again out of concern for her dcondition... the crack Maul created starts to grow, and more water starts to pour in......

[Surreal]

The cool water is refreshing, but the moment is short lived as the water flow increases and the tunnel starts to break down. Sul/Maul presses his body into the crack to try and stifle the flow, but this proves to be ineffective. Razr begins to lose her footing in the mud, and Aurok isn't faring much better. As the water begins to soak down his back, Sul feels his body involuntarily shudder. These beasts obviously did not like getting wet; no surprise really, being landsharks and all. They'd probably swim about as well as rocks.

Since going up is no longer an option, Sul digs sideways and the others clamber in as the water continues to gush downwards, but at least away from them now. Taking a moment to sense his surroundings, he can tell there is a small body of water above them, but not how large it is. With the noise of the water behind him, it is also difficult to tell whether the water above is still or flowing. Regarding the scent ((and spiritual "hole" in the earth)) of their quarry though, it moves unerringly up straight into the water.

"Curses, their trail ends here. They went straight through and right into the water... Any ideas?"

There is a brief moment as the two contemplate their next move. Razr however seems to have other ideas. Perhaps not wishing to follow anymore, and wanting to move as far away from the water as possible, she begins to dig off in a tangent. Sul feels his host wanting to follow.

((I was thinking of letting them go free soon, but then I realized Aurok has no way to get around unless we backtrack all the way out))

[Silent Wayfarer]

"None that don't involve growing gills at the moment. I could hold my breath, but there's no telling how deep this particular rabbit hole goes. Why don't we let the two of them try to find another way up? We could probably try to reacquire them once we get out of this particular burrow."

[Surreal]

"You may want to step back then. When I relinquish control of the beast, it will be... disoriented." Sul/Maul follows a few paces into the new tunnel behind Razr and releases his mental control. Maul is silent for a few moments, shifting about lazily in a surprisingly calm demeanour. He hears Razr further down the tunnel and trudges off after her, Aurok following closely behind. As Sul rides along passively in the beast, he scans about hoping to find any additional trails in the earth, but no luck. They are however slowly sloping back up. Hopefully they will be able to pick up the trail again if/when they reach the lower wards of the city.

[Fil kearney]

After a little while, it becomes apparent to Aurok what is happening. His innate senses for direction are shwoing a wide arc towards the north then northwest... where they came from before this mission began.

"They're heading back to Droaam. They were raised in Khyber beneath Droaam land. Looks like without their master, they are going where insticts would take them... On their own, I'm not sure how helpful they will be."

Flipping through his memory of Khorvaire cartography, Aurok chances,
"I think we're beneath the dagger sea... bay... whatever. probably a good thirty miles of digging beneath pure salt water to get back to where we came from. This is getting us further from the city. Whatever control you have over these beasts, I suggest you continue exerting it."

[Silent Wayfarer]

"Not that I blame them, of course. But we still have a job to do. In any case, what are you, anyway? Some kind of spirit, god or demon?"

[Surreal]

((ooc: in our initial encounter, I was trying to create the impression that I was a mage-type with the whole mirror thing, then later with control of the bulettes and telepathy, etc.))

"That is not important. For the moment, I... am a bulette" as Sul regains control of Maul. "You seem to have a knack for direction. Which way to the city?"

Aurok estimates the direction, and Sul/Maul begins to dig. With a loud grunt he calls to Razr, who is very displeased and does not wish to continue. With some not so gentle prodding by Aurok, Razr follows second into the tunnel while Aurok tails at the end. Much uneventful digging later, the group finally breaks through into the lower dregs of the city. The air, though dirty and foul, is a welcome change from tunneling. All of them are quite strained from the journey and take a moment to catch their collective breaths.

No time to rest though; time to find that trail... if there was anything left to find.

[Silent Wayfarer]

(OOC: Survival roll time !)

Aurok takes a deep breath and almost regrets it as the smells of the city fill his nose. Effluent, scum, and other dregs of civilization flood into his nose, but he endures, searching for the scent which might lead him after his partner's killers.

A hint of a familiar odor hits his nose. The half-minotaur swivels, trying to get the exact direction.

"I think they went... that way."'

[Fil kearney]

familiar cries of terror meet the entourage of massive beasts as Aurok and Sul lead the bulettes through the bowels of the city. Aurok's keen nose has rouble keeping track though... walkig down some passageways, going right through walls in others.. the only way to keep pace is to burrow.

After risig three levels from the forgotten goblin hovels, The floor Maul crashes through leads them to an active sewer tunnel that promptly pours the waste of the sharn citizens upon the pursuing Droaamites.

The sewage tunnel is only 10 foot in diameter, and the scents split.. leading NE and SW down the tunnels respectively.

After clearing his nose with a large sneeze, Aurok pops his head through the hole that is drawing semi-liquid waste down onto the irritated Bullettes. He looks both ways down the pipe, tryin to assess the proper course of action..
"Crap"

[Surreal]

((ooc: assume I performed Aid Another for Aurok's survival check as we were searching about))

Razr grunts disheartedly and slumps down in the corner. Sul too feels the exhaustion in his host's body. He forgets sometimes that corporeal beings cannot march forever. Aurok appears to be fine, but then he hasn't been digging for the past several hours. Sul/Maul moves over to Razr and lies down, the beast falling asleep nearly as soon as he leaves the body (moving into the Earth so Aurok can't see). He speaks telepathically to Aurok (or maybe the "voice" should come from the shard of mirror that I had Aurok pick up):

"The beasts are exhausted. They've been digging for hours and we can't push them any further. I think it would be best to let them rest. Besides, they won't fit in there (the sewer tunnels)... and neither will you for that matter."

((Fil, approximately which direction have we been traveling along so far?))

((options: we could let the bulettes rest for a second then plow alongside the sewers (I'm assuming they're made of metal or something non-dig-able) or find some other way to get through the sewers))