[Game Thread] V. The Darkening Dawn

[mountainbound]

The lynx goes left, but Silas seems to have a bad feeling about that way, and opts to lead the party in the opposite direction. Holding the group's lone torch, Dan seems torn, since Fahd was heading in one direction, and his old friend in the other. Rip doesn't have any many qualms. "I heard water from that way," he jerks his thumb at the left archway where the lynx is disappearing into the darkness. "I'm with Silas here."

DM's Note Mal: Let me know if you're going to keep going, or call the lynx back and keep with the group.

[Mal Radagast]

Fahd sighs...though nobody hears him but Lynx, as he's already partway down the tunnel. If they'd perhaps made their decision before she did...ah well. They will come or they will not - he should be able to find them later, at any rate. These stories have a way of coming together, Aisha used to say. He shrugs, not certain whether he believes it. If he ever sees that gleeman again...

[HenryLockwood]

Karla looks one way then the other, conflicted, but decides to take the left path. Fahd is... strange, to be sure, but he's less threatening than Rip. The older man's association with Olaf still worries Karla.

In the falling dark, closing in after Fahd's light, Karla hurries after the shaman. She stumbles, once, but rights herself quickly and scuttles on in the darkness.

[Krimchee]

"Feck," Silas swore with fierce, yet quiet vehemence. "What the eff does Fahd think he's doing?" The truth is that Silas doesn't really know which way is the best, but the fact that Fahd just overrode him and wandered off nearly causes him to fly off the handle and start screaming. Silas looks at Dan,"Can you believe this guy? AFter all we just flaming went through, he wanders off? And Karla too...." Silas let off a stream of mumbled curses. He was seriously ticked. Even with Rip, it was madness to just split up for no reason. Madness.

Part of Silas wanted to just let the damn fool go and be done with him. It'd serve him right if some gargantuan crawler popped out of nowhere and swallowed his stupid arse whole. The flaming thing would probably die from horrible indigestion after eating him too.

"It's crazy to go down there by ourselves," Silas says to Dan and Rip, exasperated. "We might as well follow along. We should stick together. Gods only know what's down here."

Reluctant and highly annoyed, Silas turns around and heads in the direction they'd last seen Fahd and Karla.

[mountainbound]

It doesn't take long before Karla and Fahd notice the glow of a torch behind them. Stopping, they wait as Dan, Silas and Rip catch up. Seeing Silas still livid, Dan grumbles, "Why would you split up? It's just... crazy! Down here... in the middle of an Ichvaali labyrinth? Crazy!" He looks to Silas or Rip to say something, but while Silas was angry, Rip looked oddly frustrated, or annoyed.

"Anyway, I guess the fecking cat is our leader," he motions to the Lynx, who is licking her paw and paying the humans no mind at all, "so by all fecking means, lead on!" He roots about in his bag and finds his bottle, taking a swig. It wasn't a typical Dan-sized swig, but the liquor seems to take the bite out of his temper.

In a moment, the group is moving again, following the Lynx deeper and deeper down. A river flows to one side of the passage for some time, before disappearing down another shaft. On the far side it appears the might have been a dock of some kind, but all ropes have rotted away, and the boat is long gone.

You continue on for hours and hours, wondering where you're headed, and trying to recall why. Olaf. The above world was his domain, and it was better to risk the neither regions of the Dark to throw off his trail than chance running into him again.

At times you come across wide expanses of crumbling structures. The ceilings sometimes disappear into the darkness above in these regions, where every footstep echoes on unfathomable hollows. The dark recesses of the abandoned structures, spanning off in every direction for as far as you can imagine, offer constant reminders of an ancient civilization. It's in these places that Rip takes the lead, hastening forward. "Best not to linger here," he mutters at one point as you cross a particularly dense area. To each side the stone houses, a bit smaller than those a human might inhabit, crowd in along the winding stone avenue, their windows dark holes looking out at you.
In minutes the avenue winds out of the abandoned underground city and you're back in another now all-too-familiar Ichvaal tunnel. But where as for the past day or so you haven't noticed much life, here you begin to see small mushrooms dotting the mortared cracks of the passage. Soon water drips from fungal blooms overhead, and squishes underfoot as the tunnel becomes increasingly covered in the stuff.

Then you reach a wide area, a circular room maybe 40 feet in diameter. Three grand arches 15' high, including the one you just exited from, dominate the walls. Stalactites drip from overhead, as though this room pre-existed the careful stone-masonry of the Ichvaal, and was wisely left as-is by the ancient builders. In the middle of the room a crystal stalagmite rises, unchisled, an alien monument to the unknown. The sight of the thing gives you the shivers.

The wide arch ahead looks relatively free of fungus and debris, and seems to lead upward -- the first significant passage up you've seen so far. To the left, the arch is choked with mushrooms and bizarre plant formations, practically quivering with life. Whether it leads up, down, or on level, you can't be sure.

"We can stop here, it's safe. Might as well rest," Rips grunts. Truly, it must be midnight -- after spending 18 hours walking down steps and hastening through underground ghost-cities, it felt good to slump down for a rest.

DM's Note Perception check, DC 15.

[HenryLockwood]

"Safe? What about that damn pillar? It's bloody glowing at me!"

Karla stares at the stalagmite, half-mesmerised, but not so much that she misses everything.

Dice Perception:

1d20+10

(6)+10

Total = 16

Something catches her eye, just the corner...

[Mal Radagast]

Fahd pauses for Karla to catch up, offering a quick warm smile over his shoulder before wandering onward...by the time the others come stomping and railing after him, the young spiritchaser appears largely lost to thought and memory. Or perhaps to observations...attempting to understand these pieces of an ancient world, to drink them in, inhale them, make them a part of himself...

"...by all fecking means, lead on!" Fahd looks up, sees Lynx gazing quizzically round at the group, and gives her a trusting nod. The sarcasm is completely lost on him, as letting Lynx lead on is to his mind more sensible than allowing Rip to bring them where he will.

Padding along behind the lynx, he seems to feel significantly more comfortable than Rip does, or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps irrationally so - but then, reason would lead him to trust the settings of the Ichvaal more than the territory of Olaf. Olaf... Fahd frowns. How could a man learn so much, grow so well, and then...just that little bit of wrong is enough to do so much damage. He sighs.

Was that a flutter of wings in the corner of his eye, or a shadow? Or both?

More than once, as they tramp along down old lost ways, Fahd considers the bearmoss in his pouch (freshly liberated from Olaf's stores). Such eventful days - how long has it been since he's had a proper moment to just sit and smoke? It's good for a soul to sit and think and puff at that point of flame... Perhaps over tonight's campfire...smoke and fire complement so well...though this notion is waylaid when they do stop.

"It's bloody glowing at me!"

Fahd pauses. "It's what?"

[HenryLockwood]

"Glowing. Was I too quiet for you? That damn pillar..."

The glow is not from within the stalagmite, as far as Karla can tell, but it's brighter than it seems anything has a right to be, here in the caves and tunnels of the mountain. Here, where the sun hasn't shone in millennia, if ever; here, where the darkness lies close and comforting; here, where the darkness hides things that prowl at the edge of the mind. Glowing.

[Krimchee]

Silas let his pack down with a soft thump on the ground. He stretched, arching his back. He did not put down his weapons. This whole place gives me the creeps. The truth was, he wanted out of this place, but he couldn't deny that they needed rest.

Silas raised an eyebrow at Karla's claim of the bloody thing glowing. Muttering, "I've heard weirder flaming..." Silas moves to check out the pillar, his senses on high alert. He would have sworn he heard something earlier...but since no one else had heard it decided not to mention it. Maybe it was nothing. Hell, he hoped it was nothing.

Silas moved closer to the pillar. He was pretty sure that Karla wasn't mad. We're all flippin' mad, he thought irritably. Why else would we be here?

Perception check perception check Dice Roll: 1d20+11 (9)+11 Total = 20

[mountainbound]

Indeed, the stalagmite did glow with a pale light, enough to see the huge green and brown fungal growths along the left passage glisten. Upon closer inspection, you find the central crystal is not glowing per se, but pulsating at a tempo almost too fast to notice. The occasional flicker reminds you that the luminescence is not like anything else you've seen before in nature... artificial almost.

The passage on the other side of the circular room is wide open and leads upward into the darkness. But the passage to the left is choked with rubbery, knee-high mushrooms, with slimy growths hanging down from the ceiling of the tunnel and protruding from the walls.

Rip unrolls his pack and unbuckles his sword in the light of the stalagmite. Seeing Dan peering past some gigantic shrooms into the dark tunnel on the left, the old ranger grunts. "Ichvaali high holy ground down there. I'll wager 20 crowns on it. There's always a ring of something nasty surrounding them. Do I want to know for sure? No-bloody-thank you."

The wizard squints, trying to see through the thick vegetation, but says nothing in response. The white wolf pads back and forth between the three tunnels, sniffing each and not seeming satisfied.

When it appears that Rip has fallen asleep, Dan speaks to Silas in a voice that's loud enough for Karla and Fahd to hear, but not loud enough to disturb Rip. "I think he's right. Do you remember when we met Isaiah on top of the mountain? The day we... uh, fell asleep? That was a holy place too, and it was surrounded by vines that attacked us. It was protecting something..." He considers his lightning staff, carved as it was with the strange runes of the Ichvaal. When he moves it near to the fugus tunnel, the runes begin to glow blue, but when he moves it just a foot backward, they fade again. Over and over Dan makes it flare to life and then fade. "What do you think is down there that's making it do that?"

DM's Note You can rest, or decide what direction you'll walk in.

[HenryLockwood]

Karla watches Dan's staff, glowing then fading, glowing then fading. The rhythm is steady, almost hypnotic, and there's something compelling about it. No sunlight, no true night, just darkness, and the shadows, and the glow. She speaks quietly, in time with the pulsing glow, her words adding to the rhythm.

"Fahd, your cloak's shifting too. And my statue. Everything's tied to that tunnel. Yes, Dan. That one."

As if sleepwalking, Karla takes a step, then another, towards the fungus-covered tunnel. She glances over her shoulder at the stalagmite, with Rip sleeping at its base, but turns back to the tunnel.

"I don't know why, but we need to go that way."

Karla's voice has lost its usual hesitancy, its diffidence and fear of being cornered. They have been replaced by a calm best described as eerie.

[mountainbound]

Well, if nobody else is going to answer... "I agree!" Dan says, as he straps his pack back on. "Mushrooms be damned! Let's see what's down there... Ah, are you going to lead, Karla?" In truth, the fungus-tunnel did look a bit icky for a non-warrior type.

Lifting his torch, Dan follows the lady-barbarian to the fungus-shrouded entrance. The runes on his staff intensify with every step he takes toward the tunnel. With an effort Karla hacks at a few fungal stumps as wide as a man's arm, and then takes a squishing step forward. Though still choked with huge mushrooms and bizarre fungus appendages, the way becomes somewhat easier a few steps in.

With the strange growths dripping all around you, you walk perhaps 40' down the tunnel until you come to what appears to be a solid, squishy myconoid wall blocking access to wherever the tunnel might lead. Karla takes a swing at it, hoping to chop through it like a thick portabella, but her sword bounces off the slimy wall to no avail.

DM's Note Fungus Wall: AC 12, Undamaged. Normal weapons seem to have no effect upon it. Fahd, Silas: I will assume you are sleeping along with Rip unless you post an action IC.

[HenryLockwood]

Karla glares at the strange, slimy wall. It's obvious that simply hacking at it won't help, even with the strange sword that Olaf once owned, the sword that throbs and resonates with Karla's own fury. Fury, burning like fire. Fire.

"Dan, burn it. Burn that wall."

Karla doesn't stop to think that she's giving orders, only that she must see what's the other side.

[Krimchee]

Just as Silas is starting to figure out that his bow was pulsing with the same mysterious rhythm, Dan speaks and starts walking off. He notices Dan's runes as he starts moving into the tunnel and swears. Quickly he shoulders his bag, stopping to nudge Rip none to gently with his boot. "Come on, the children have run off without us." Waiting only long enough to see Rip look up at him with questioning, bleary eyes, Silas follows.

As he finally catches up, Silas sees Karla's sword bounce off the fungus and had to keep down a smirk of amusement. Some part of him scolded him that it probably was a really bad sign and that he'd probably wish he'd had nothing to do with myconoid bloody walls before too long. But he can't help himself. He turns to Dan, his annoyance at him for blundering down here fading. "Why don't you give it a go with your staff? Look, it's all glowy." Silas fights down a grin. This ought to be good. Silas takes a step back out of Dan's way.

[mountainbound]

Dan scratches his head. He could count on his right hand the number of times Karla had actually spoken to him (though they DID spend half a night spooning). It was like fireworks just exploded in his head! "Wha... what? Burn it?" It takes a moment for his brain to make sense of her words. "Burn it. Yes! I can do that, powerful wizard that I am!" He hands Karla the torch and then puffs out his chest, suddenly un-skeeved by the dripping purple fungus just inches away from his head. "Get back, I don't want you to get hurt," he says with the utmost chivalry.

He looks to the glowing blue runes on his staff, but the powerful Ichvaal item seemed to have a life of its own, and kind of scares him. Instead, he draws upon his own limited magical knowledge, summoning up the words of a little incantation he once glimpsed in his mother's Hymnal.

With a pinch of bat guano and some sulphur, he speaks a word and suddenly his hands burst into flame. "Holy Shite! It worked!" he says. Without wasting another moment, he points his fingers toward the rubbery green wall and lets fly a gout of bright orange flame. A fireball it was not, but the magical attack has enough Oomph in it to make the fungus blacken and sizzle. The young wizard concentrates the force of his fire in the very center, and in another moment the jets of flame flying from his hands are streaking completely through the wall and into some unseen chamber.

"I did it! Silas, Fahd! You guys see that? I bloody did--!" His words are cut off as the wall explodes from the other side and a creature of darkness launches through like a seven hundred pound arrow. Claws extended, it bursts through the hole Dan made and tackles the wizard head on, ripping and tearing at his flesh.

From the light of the torch in Karla's hand, the beast looks and moves like a tiger, but is covered in hard, shiny scales. And, was that a harness it's wearing?

Combat Notes Karla: you hold the only light source. You can set it down as a move action, keep holding it in one hand, or drop it as a free action. If you drop it, you run the risk of it getting snuffed out. Party Status Dan: 14hp damage from the Tiger-Lizard. OUCH! Enemy Status Tiger-Lizard: AC 15, Undamaged