Drakevarg
2010-01-29, 11:13 PM
SESSION 1
"So, Pointy-Ears..." Vorin finally let out with a sigh, breaking the hours-long silence. The group had been traveling the mountain pass for nearly a week now, but since almost all of them were mutal strangers conversation was kept to a minimum. Vorin was nearly to the point of snapping, and if he didn't get something to do he was going to start picking fights.
"My name's Thorin." Muttered the elf. Lean fellow, carried a bow. Probably the most respectable one of his companions, in the sense that he knew which end of a sword to hold and wasn't about to hit Vorin upside the head with a sermon.
"Whatever, Pointy-Ears." Replied the gnoll, staring down the trail as they walked. "You're a bounty hunter, right?"
"Yes, why?"
"Worst job you ever pulled." Vorin asked. It didn't sound like a question, though. More like a command.
"Huh. Well, I'd have to say it'd be a dwarf, down south." Thorin answered after a moments thought. "I chased him into a cave, then lost his trail. After a few days of searching it turned out he'd managed to dig himself a new exit somehow."
"And?" Came a voice from behind them. It was Vinius, an aasimar sorcerer. From what Vorin knew he and his brother, a cleric, were apparently in the region to test themselves. A fair enough idea. Vorin's tribe moved in for exactly the same reason. Move to the worst place in the world, and the ones who survive will be stronger by default. "Did you get him?"
"Of course I got him." Thorin replied, sounding somewhat offended over the idea of losing a target. The elf then turned to Vorin. "Your turn. Worst hit."
"That's easy. With the possible exception of one deadly and unpredictible midget, this job is the worst I've ever pulled. The walk's boring, the food's scarce, it's somehow colder than normal, and I haven't had a decent fight in days."
"A midget?" Thorin replied skeptically. "You mean a halfling, a dwarf...?"
"No, I mean a midget. A human midget. Annoying little guy burned down a trade caravan. Wizard. Who's idea was it that giving people the ability to conjure fire was a good idea?" Vorin grumbled as he pushed himself through the knee-deep snow.
"How about your easiest hit?"
"One time I got a target who'd been renting a room at the local inn... right next door to mine." Vorin replied with a fanged grin.
"Lemme guess. You just smashed through the wall and grabbed him." Vinius remarked, glancing at Vorin's heavily muscled arms, which were nearly as thick as the aasimar's head.
"Pfff. Hardly. I used the door." Vorin replied, as if he found the idea ludicrous. "Then I tackled him through the window." he finished, immeadiately subverting the idea of him finding anything ludicrous.
"Wha... why?" Thorin sputtered in confusion.
"Wouldn't be fun otherwise." Grinned the gnoll. "Unfortunately he wound up breaking my axe's fall. Good thing we got a decent healer in town."
"Hold!" Came a voice from up ahead. It was the guide, Listav. Not that Vorin called him Listav. Immeadiately after meeting the grizzled old man, he'd decided his name was Clint, and wouldn't call him anything else. Clint didn't seem to care.
Vorin looked up at the sound of guide's voice, only to notice that it was accompanied by a loud roar. A familiar one. An avalanche was occuring further up the trail, not an uncommon occurance in the ******** of the world. Deciding to wait out the storm, the group moved under an overhand, granting relative comfort from the constant winds outside. It hadn't stopped snowing since they'd left town, and so hard that anything further than sixty feet away was obscured by a sheet of white.
Taking a seat along the cliff wall, Vorin unclipped a small sack from his belt, pulling out a half-finished wood carving. Drawing his dagger, he began to whittle it down. Whittling was probably Vorin's only passion that didn't involve doing something insanely lethal. This particular statue was intended to be Thorin. Since the trip began he'd managed to finish a statuette of the drow sorceress that had been traveling with them, and both the aasimar brothers.
The avalance persisted for several minutes before the guide called the all-clear. Vorin pocketed his statuette and returned to the group. "I'm bored. Wanna have a knife fight?" He asked Thorin nonchalantly, twirling his dagger.
"What?" the elf balked, before regaining his composure. "Uh... sure." He answered uneasily. "But, I don't have a knife."
"Here, use mine." Chimed in Vinius, handing his to Thorin. "I wanna see this." Thorin took the knife hesitantly, and no sooner had he locked eyes with Vorin was the gnoll upon him.
With a yelp, Thorin slashed at Vorin's midsection as Vinius lept out of the way, tearing through his jacket and letting loose a stream of blood. Vorin's own dagger left a mark identical to his own on Thorin, and the two regained their balance. Thorin followed the group down the trail, holding his blade at the ready. Vorin lunged again, teeth bared more in glee than in rage. The ranger met the grin blade-first, slicing Vorin's cheek to the jawbone. The gnoll responded by planting his dagger in the elf's lung, and Thorin collapsed, gasping for air. He was unconcious in seconds.
"Medic!" Vinius called to the group with a wide smile on his face. His brother, whose name Vorin couldn't remember off the top of his head, came over to the brawlers. "We've gone and made a mess, we have." The cleric rolled his eyes and planted his hand on Thorin's chest, muttered something under his breath, and the ranger's chest heaved like he'd just been struck by lightning. He sat up abruptly, wheezing hard, as the cleric returned to the rest of the group. Vorin followed him and Thorin, after handing the dagger back to Vinius, followed suit.
---Days Pass---
"Pointy-Ears." Vinius blurted out for what must have been the dozenth time that day.
"Shut up." Thorin replied through gritted teeth. Vinius had gotten bored and had been harassing the elf for hours simply to have something to do.
"What's wrong, Pointy-Ears? Is it something I said?" The sorcerer asked with a wide grin.
"Shut your trap, Candlestick." Vorin growled, not looking back at the two arguers.
"I'm just trying to ask Pointy-Ears a question, Fluffy." Vinius quipped, stiffling a giggle.
"You don't want to go down this road with me, angel-boy." The gnoll replied, glaring back at the aasimar with a snarl.
"Got a problem with it, Fluffy?"
"Last chance."
"...Fluffy." No sooner had the word left Vinius' mouth than a hand nearly the size of his head closed around his neck. Lifting the sorcerer like a doll, he walked over the the cliff's edge and held Vinius over it at arms length.
"NOW will you shut up?" Vorin asked calmly. Not an emotionless calm. The kind that came right before an explosion.
"Hrk... my... raven... will... avenge me!" Vinius managed to gasp out.
"I'll have the bird for lunch." Vorin replied, letting go of the aasimar. Desperately reaching out, Vinius grabbed the gnoll's arm and threw himself between Vorin's legs, the momentum sending the gnoll toppling over the edge.
Plummeting to his doom, Vorin lashed out at the cliff wall. Punching through the ice shelf, his impromptu handholds stopped his fall and flipped him so that his feet were now facing the abyss. By some miracle his arms weren't broken. Wiggling his left arm free, he spun his entire torso so as to face his chest towards the cliff, punching a new handhold to do so. He winced as his right arm twisted further, and he pulled that one free and spun it so it wound face the right way and returned it to the handhold.
At the top, Thorin watched Vorin's progress. "...We really should get him some rope." He said to Vinius calmly.
"Bah. Let him rot!" Vinius responded, heading to join the group.
"Okay, I'll tell him you said that when he gets up here."
"...We really should get him some rope." Vinius replied after a moment, looking for a rocky outcropping to tie one to.
Below them, Vorin pulled his right arm free of the ice, then threw himself upwards so his head was a good two feet above his left hand and only anchor point. Punching another handhold in the ice with his right hand, he tore free his left hand and brought it up to join the right, making a new handhold. Repeating the process, he placed his feet in the bottom holes and breathed a sigh of relief. Things would be much easier from here on out.
Above, Thorin managed to find a suitable rocky outcropping. After a shoddy attempt to tie a knot was made by Vinius, Thorin promptly ignored it and tied his own, bringing the rope over to the edge to drop to Vorin.
Vorin barely glanced at the rope as it trailed down to meet him. That'd just be too easy. Punching in his next handhold, he began to work his way up. Nearly reaching the top, he needed a way to leverage himself up to the surface. Releasing one hand to grab his axe, he unclipped it from his belt and drove it into the ice above him. Hairline fissures began to creep out from the impact site, and within seconds chunks began to fall out. Then, with a thundering crash, the entire ice shelf below Vorin gave way.
Left dangling from his arms again, Vorin tried to pull himself up with his axe. With the increased pressure the ice around the axe also gave way, and the axe began to plummet into the abyss. Throwing himself backwards, Vorin managed to catch the axe mid-fall, wincing again as his right arm held the entire dead weight of his body. Throwing himself up to plant the axe again, he pulled himself to the top and rolled onto his back, hyperventilating from the exertion.
Not wasting any time, Vinius walked directly up to Vorin and kicked him square in the face. Rolling further inland, Vorin got to his feet and lunged at the sorcerer with his axe. Before he would get a chance to dodge, Vorin planted his axe square in Vinius' chest, and the aasimar dropped like a stone. Grabbing his arm, Vorin began to drag Vinius to the cliff's edge.
"Wait, Vorin, we need him." Thorin called out, moving to stop the gnoll.
"Why?" Vorin asked flatly, moving around Thorin.
"He could be useful. Spells and whatnot."
Vorin paused to think about it. Not for long. "Not good enough." He answered as he continued to the edge. No sooner had he reached the point of no return did a pair of suprisingly strong arms pin the gnoll, stopping him in his tracks. Looking behind him, Vorin stared into the stern eyes of the trail guide.
"I've never lost a customer before, and I damn sure ain't gonna lose one to a pup like you." Clint growled. "Let 'em go."
Vorin looked down at Vinius for a moment before returning his gaze to the guide. "I could pay you." He stated hopefully.
"...How much?" Clint asked after a moment's hesitation.
"Hundred gold?"
"For a man's life? Not good enough."
"I've killed for less."
"That's because you're cheap."
"I give a discount if the fight's good."
"I don't care. Let him go." Clint said, a note of finality in his voice. Vorin let go of the sorcerer, and the guide concequently released Vorin.
"Jerk." Vorin pouted under his breath, glaring back at Clint. He had enough time to see Clint reach for his sword before the flat of its blade connected with the side of his head, and he went out like a candle in a strong wind.
"Heal him, cleric." Clint commanded, the cleric jumping at the command. As Vorin returned to his feet, they all heard a loud crash. It took a moment, but Vorin realized that it was the sound of the ice shelf hitting the ground. The ice shelf he'd broken loose nearly two minutes ago.
"Damn." He muttered, staring down the cliff for a moment. After a few seconds, the crash was replaced by a deep rumble. He knew that sound.
"Avalanche!" The guide shouted as the group looked back towards the two mountains they'd passed betwen several minutes earlier. Their tops were moving. In the group's direction. They did the only sensible thing. Run.
They ran for several minutes up a hill into the next mountain pass, the wall of white steadily growing closer. None of them really thought they would be able to outrun it, but it seemed better than just standing there. At last, inescapably, the avalance met them. Everyone blacked out for a moment.
Vorin opened his eyes with a groan. There was enough light to see about a foot in front of his own face, but he couldn't even tell which direction his body was facing. Concentrating a moment on his own bloodflow, he realized he was so numb he couldn't even tell where his blood was rushing. After a moment's thought, he spat. The loogie feel to the right. Letting out a sigh, he began to dig left. He was tired. The avalanche felt like a house landing on him. Chance are he overestimated what houses felt like when they hit you. Continuing to dig, his next scrape broke into light and air. Giving a breath of relief, he blacked out, only his hand extending beyond the snow.
Elsewhere, Thorin found himself in a similar predicament. Making use of his survival training, he mimicked Vorin's tactic, spitting then digging in the opposite direction. Reaching the surface, he found Clint walking along the snow, pulling out the travellers like carrots. After finishing with Vorin, he looked around, then pointed in what struck Thorin as an arbitrary direction. "That way." He said flatly, hefting the unconcious gnoll onto his shoulders and making his way down what Thorin assumed was the trail.
SESSION 2
"So Vorin," Thorin asked to break the silence a few days later. They were all patched up from the avalanche and nothing overly interesting had happened in the last few days. The guide had said they should reach the fort by nightfall. "What're you gonna do when we get to the fort?"
"Buy some new weapons." The gnoll replied, glancing down at the sheer cliff beneath them. As usual, the whitecover cut off his vision about sixty feet down.
"What's wrong with the one's you've got?" The elf asked, glancing at the warhammer and battleaxe strapped to Vorin's back.
"Not big enough." Vorin replied, continuing to scan the area, turning his gaze to the cliff wall over Thorin's shoulder. They were on a narrow ledge, no more than ten feet wide, with abyss to one side and a sheer wall to the other.
"Compensating for something?" Thorin asked slyly, grinning. Vorin stopped dead in his tracks, focusing his gaze on the elf.
"You don't want to go down this road with me, little man." He growled, flexing his fingers like he was in a quick-draw competition.
"What's the matter... Fluffy?" Thorin replied, stopping and turning to face the gnoll. Ahead of him Lamia, a woman in armor carrying a scythe, also stopped. Judging from the look of bemusement on her face, she simply wanted to watch the fireworks.
"Oh, that is IT!" Vorin snarled, snatching the battleaxe from his back and charging at the elf. Thorin sidestepped the blow, drawing his bow and planting an arrow in the gnoll's back in one deft motion. As Vorin turned to face his opponent, earning himself an arrow in the chest for his troubles. He lunged at the elf again, who hopped backward and planted a second arrow in Vorin's chest. The gnoll staggered for a moment before slumping into the snow.
Thorin sighed as he stared at the unconcious Vorin, contemplating his options. Putting away his bow, he jogged down the path to catch up with the cleric. "Hey, I need you to heal this guy so we don't need to drag his ass." He said, tapping the aasimar on the shoulder and thumbing back towards the gnoll.
"You could drag the rest of him, too!" Lamia interjected helpfully. After stifling some laughter, the cleric moved over to Vorin and, after pulling out the arrows, placed his hand on the gnoll's back and muttered a brief prayer. Vorin's body shuddered as the divine energies coarsed through his body, and the gnoll regained conciousness. Getting to his feat, he picked up his battleaxe and continued down the path without saying a word. Thorin grinned wordlessly behind his back as they moved along the cliffside.
"Careful here; ice." Called back the guide as they approached a downward slope. Carefully making their way down, they made it about halfway without incident. At that point, Vorin lost his footing. Deperately trying to catch himself, it was in vain and he landed flat on his back. Instantly, everyone heard a loud cracking noise. Vorin rolled his eyes. Disaster was starting to become familiar. Getting to his feet, he saw the guide stabbing his blade into the ice. Reflexively, Vorin did the same with his axe, and the others followed suit.
Suddenly, everyone felt a sharp tug as the entire mountain seemed to shift. As they began to slide downhill, Vorin's first instict was that he had dislodged an ice shelf. But it quickly became apparent he'd managed much worse; part of the mountain had broken loose and was beginning to fall off. The distribution of weight made the entire section of mountain they were standing on begin to slowly bend downhill.
"There's a turn up ahead. If we time it right we can make it!" Clint called from the front. Everyone began to climb their way downhill. There were several mishaps, people losing their footing and tumbling into one another; not a convienient setup when everything was headed inexorably into the abyss. Vorin, losing his footing again, slid nearly all the way to the cliff's edge before reasserting himself. Now well in the lead of everyone else, he made his way around the corner.
Stopping to breathe, the gnoll noticed something that might have worried him a few weeks ago; now it was simply par for the course. The cliff's breaking point was still another fifty feet beyond. Making his way over there, he slipped again, slipping clear of the cliff before he managed to plant his axe into the ice. Pulling himself up, he made it the rest of the way to the breaking point. Due to the fact that they were falling, albiet rather slowly, said point of safety was now fifteen or twenty feet overhead. Jumping onto the cliff, the gnoll began to make his way up.
Back with the others, Not much progress had been made between frequent loss of footing, not overly suprising when said footing was on ice that was becoming steeper and steeper as time went on. The only person who'd made much progress was Clint, who was just turning the corner. Making his way to the breaking point without much trouble, he began to scale the cliff behind Vorin. Moving much quicker than the gnoll could, he scrambled right over the gnoll's back and pulled himself to safety. As Vorin pulled himself up after the ranger, he saw Clint plant his sword in the ground, unclip his coil of rope and, tying one end of the rope to his sword, threw the other end like a spear at the cleric.
By this point, the others had finally begun to turn the corner. As the cleric grabbed the rope, the others began to follow suit, using it as a support. Thorin, who was behind the cleric, could only grab the slack behind him. "Fat-aasimar." He grumbled, trying to work his way past the cleric to no avail.
Since the mountain wouldn't stand for anything being easy, this was the point that the mountain gave way. The abrupt change in direction caused everyone to slide down the rope, but by some miracle no one lost their grip. Giving a collective sigh of relief, the began to make their way up the rope. Lamia made it to the top first. Vinius took hold of a particularly slick spot on the rope, perhaps snow from Lamia's boots, and began to slide down, until the rope burn caused him to reflexively let go in pain. Tumbling past his brother, he seemed doomed to fall into the abyss before Thorin lashed out and grabbed the sorcerer's hand, just long enough to swing him back onto the rope directly below him. Vinius could do nothing but stare and hyperventilate.
Further progress was limited after that, everyone on the rope constantly slipping back downward. Growing tired to the wait, Vorin approached the cliff, grabbed the rope and began to pull. It took three tries to get started, what with the six hundred or so pounds of dead weight. As the gnoll began to drag the rope backwards, the entire setup began to be pulled up the cliff. The cleric got up first, at which point Vorin decided things weren't going fast enough. Telling Clint to hold the rope steady, he returned to the cliff and pulled straight up on the rope, hauling up Thorin first, followed by Vinius.
As the sorcerer attempted to jump to the safety of solid ground, he lost his footing and began to fall again, before Vorin caught him by the scruff of his neck. "Hrm... this is familiar..." He said, staring into the aasimar's eyes. Just as the terror began to sink in, Vorin smiled and, with a shrug, tossed the spellcaster onto the ledge. Dropping the rope, Vorin began to continue down the trail before noticing that everyone else was stopping for a breather. Sighing in irritation, he sat down and stared out into the whitecover.
The gnoll's ears perked a minute or two later as a faint sound met them. A low growl, maybe a groan, coming out of the whitecover. Getting to his feet, he walked over to Clint and whispered what he had heard into the guide's ear. Clapping a hand over Vorin's mouth, he motioned for everone to get against the wall. A few minutes passed without event, interspersed randomly with groans that grew steadily louder. Then, without adequate warning, the world turned black.
A thundering boom filled Vorin's ears as he realized that what had been casting that massive shadow seconds earlier was the massive hand now directly in front of him. Not that he recognized it as a hand at first. His first instinct was that a boulder had shook loose from the mountain above them and landed in front of them, but boulders don't have three-foot wide fingers. Or fifteen foot wide arms that are so long they disappear into the whitecover. No, this was a hand of something big. And they were in between its fingers.
As Lamia yelled something unintelligible, Vorin managed to make out what the arm was attached to. Not that it told him much more than he could have guessed. There appeared to be a roughly humanoid mountain in front of them. Vorin weighed his options, considering for a moment to scale the colossus and kill it, before deciding that horrible death was only worth it if you got to look really cool doing it, and being swatted like a fly would be more embarassing than anything. Climbing over the behemoth's fingers, he made it in the clear and immeadiately began running down the trail, followed by the rest.
As they ran, Vorin heard Clint's voice call out behind them. Stopping to turn, he watched as the colossai's hand lifted abruptly from the trail and slammed down again, this time balled into a first. That entire section of mountain was now gone. Clint was nowhere to be seen. Deciding this wasn't the best place to be, Vorin continued to run, catching up with the group in short order.
The party ran full-tilt for over two miles, the angry mountain right behind them, across scenery that probably would've been quite lovely if they weren't too busy running for their lives to look at it. Making their way over a mountaintop and into a valley, they spotted a cave. Diving inside, they turned to see if the colossai was still on their trail. It seemed to had lost track of them, looking about before apparently deciding to throw a tantrum, smashing randomly at the mountainside. Having stopped running and in relative safety, Lamia decided this would be a good time to lose conciousness.
As she passed out, Thorin laid her against the cave wall, as Vorin made a fire out of his coil of rope. Unclipping his warhammer, he tore a strip of cloth free from his winter blanket and wrapped it around the head, then dipped it into the fire. While he was doing this Thorin offered him a proper torch, which was greeted by a middle finger. "I'm gonna take a look around." He grunted, taking his makeshift torch and continuing into the abyss.
Not far in, Vorin was met by a large hole, deep enough that Vorin couldn't see anything but black. Looking around, he spotted a small ledge on either side, maybe two inches wide. No chance of walking across it, and as a natural outcropping it wasn't reliably climbable. "Well, screw that." Vorin muttered, turning back to the cave entrance.
"Nothing down there." He declared to the group as he returned to the entrance. Noticing Thorin watching the colossai, he walked up beside him. The thing was still beating the tar out of the mountain, but it seemed to be mixing things up by beating itself up while it was at it. "Thorin, what do your elf-eyes see?" Vorin asked, trying to make out more detail.
"Don't patronize me." Thorin replied, staring that the thing's arm. "There's a little red glow on the thing's right arm. I think it might be Clint." Vorin's insistant nickname had spread to the other party members. Focusing on the arm, Vorin could indeed see a glow. Just then, the colossai's other arm, shaped roughly like a hammer and having more or less the same function, collided with the mountainside above them. The mountain's peak seemed to come loose, along with the familiar rumble of an avalanche.
"Let's get inside." Remarked Vorin heading back to the cave and sitting in front of the fire. Within a few minutes, the light from outside was obscured by several tons of snow bearing down over the entrance. When the rumbling stopped, Vorin set to work on digging them out, which only took a few minutes. As he was met with light once again, he noticed that the mountain's peak was now resting slightly below the trail behind them. The colossai was nowhere to be seen.
"Alright, lets keep moving." Vorin said after examining the scene for a few minutes. Continuing down the trail, after a few minutes they came to a plateu. It was almost perfectly flat, with only a light covering of snow. The whitecover kept them from seeing the other side. "Give me your sword, Thorin. And an arrow."
He said, after a moment's thought.
"Why?" The elf asked skeptically. The sword was his only melee weapon.
"If Clint's not dead, he'll need to know which way we went in order to catch up with us." Vorin replied. "Look, I'll buy you a new one when we get to the outpost." After a slight hesistation, Thorin handed over the sword and arrow. Stabbing the blade into the ground, he planted the arrow into the handle so that the feathers pointed directly ahead. "Alright, let's go."
The plateu only took about a minute to cross before they came to a crossroads, splitting the trail around a single mountain. With no reason to choose one over the other, Vorin took the left trail, stopping first to tie a strip of his blanket around the haft of his battleaxe and plant it into the cliff wall. Following the trail for a few minutes, they came across a steep incline. It looked walkable - barely. As they made their way down, both Vorin and Lamia lost their footing several times. About halfway down the incessent concussions caused Vorin to lose conciousness, but he was put back into operation in short order by the cleric.
"Alright, to hell with this." Vorin muttered upon regaining conciousness, and thereon in scooted down the incline until they reached the bottom. Unfortunately, the bottom was a sheer cliff, so after a round of irritated swearing the group climbed back up, which was actually much easier than walking down it. Making their way back to the crossroads, Vorin moved his battleaxe to the other cliff wall and headed down the right trail.
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