The World's Largest Dungen Redux - The Hunt for Longtail

[Bayar]

WANTED !

The were-rat fiend known as Longtail has been terrorising the countryside long enough. Whomsoever presents his head to Commander Fulcrum shall receive a reward of 10000 gold peices and his choice of weapon from the royal armory.

Longtail was last seen leading a ragtag group of orcs and reptilian humanoids towards Great Iezer mountain.

The High-Priest King Gustav the third offers his blessing in bringing this scoundrel to justice and an additional reward in the form of a tower overlooking the Eastern Borderlands.

You are being reminded of the wanted poster you've seen in Kumpana, the last town your party passed on the way to your destination. The sun hung high as you were hiking Mount Iezer, following the numerous tracks of Longtail's force. It was an unnerving journey as there were no birds singing. Indeed, there were no animal noises to be heard for some reason.

As the climb levels off, you glimpse the entrance to a cave obscured behind the corpse of a gigantic humanoid the size of a longboat. Despite the obvious decomposition of the corpse, there appears to have been no struggle. Pages upon pages of notes are scattered about the area, being blown away by the wind from the corpse's pants pockets. Obvious that Longtail's posse have searched him for anything valuable, but not even they could find a use for the man's gargantuan halberd and chain shirt.

The cave mouth leads into the mountain, into darkness.

[Eloel]

The bulky Warforged with the shield almost as big as himself and definitely bigger than several of his companions, commands "Wall will walk in first. Stay behind him." to the meat-men around him as he starts walking towards the entrance in a disciplined march.


Piss-poor charisma means he refers to himself in third person as his understanding of "self" is pretty limited. The poor wisdom means he's probably weak in common sense, so may skip things that come intuitive to you guys. He's not dumb though, so he has that going for him.

[Fearan]

A young blonde in red have approached the battlescene. He leaned against his quarterstaff and took a good look on the corps and surroundings, while scratching the back of his neck. And then. he noticed the notes. It was somewhat funny to watch the man suddenly loosing his calm and running around, chasing pieces of parchment, completely disregarding a possibility of danger.

[heretic]

Mórke crests the hill, leaning on his staff and gripping the edge of his travel-worn cloak to hold it away from the road.

Upon seeing the corpse, he slides his staff under one of his leather backpack straps and produces his crossbow, bringing it to a half-****. As he does so, he moves behind The Wall, continuing to crank the crossbow winch.

"That's it Wall, nice and easy," he murmurs.

As Almond rushes by, Mórke smirks and brushes a black braid away from his eyes. He continues on, keeping a watchful eye on the man.

[Ragnarok'n'Roll]

Tharrick


The Platinum scaled dragonborn watched the plodding 'Wall' move forward. "While that's very brave of you, I wonder if someone should look for traps before we charge in" he suggests to no one in particular. Tharrick scratched his chin and fell in behind Wall either way.

[Sgt. Suitable]

Gonzo's inquisitive eyes scan the scene looking for danger. He notes the lack of struggle.
"Wonder what got this big fellow, don't seem like much of a fight happened here." He remarks with his raspy voice.

When Tharrick suggest keeping an eye out for traps he replies. "Exactly my thinking."

Gonzo moves forward and if there's place at Walls side he will stay next to him and keep an eye out for traps. He scans the entrance extra carefully before going in.

"Maybe we should take it slow, and let blondie catch up.. he's chasing paper." He says to Wall.


[roll0]

[Deremir]

"I second that, those papers could contain valuable information, and I'd prefer to know it before pressing forward" says Sarvin, a lightly armored elf with little besides his own swords, as he surveys the area, looking for anything else out of the ordinary.
"If this is indeed where Longtail is hold up then I wonder why he hasn't posted a guard out front..."

[Bayar]

OOC: I'd appreciate if everyone would post their character name in bold whenever posting in the IC thread, would make it easier on determining to whom I'm responding.

@The Wall, Mórke, Tharrick and Gonzo:
The cave has a low roof and seems to have been dug out using little more than claws and crude tools. There isn't any source of illumination and the tunnel slopes slightly down into the earth. Which doesn't particularly bother Mórke and Gonzo, nor would it bother the rest if The Wall retrieves his torch. Searching around, Gonzo determines that there are no traps on the pathway, presumably Longtail's troops were busier with going forward with no consideration for whosoever would follow them (conveniently explaining the absence of sentinels at the cave opening too :wink: )

@Almond:
Grabbing a handfull of notes, Almond quickly determines they are written in an obscure language bearing little resemblance to any scripture he's ever known. The letters kinda resemble dwarven runes, but they look much more archaic. Though by the page layout, he does determine that these might have been the humanoid's journal, a diary perhaps ?

@Sarvin:
Not really anything else of notice, though if going into the tunnel, Sarvin would feel like there's a draft coming from further down.

[Eloel]

The Wall

Upon hearing the elf, The Wall stops, letting everybody else catch up. He is adamant about staying in the front, but would allow others to walk next to him. He currently holds his shield in one hand, and his everburning torch in the other.


I found out that the Elf has the highest charisma, so The Wall will listen to him above anyone else for now.

Edit: Ninja'd

[Ragnarok'n'Roll]

Tharrick

Tharrick looks off into the darkness and shivers slightly. "Bad time to mention I hate closed in spaces?" he asks. "Did you want me to carry that torch for you. So you can carry something more, well, violent ?" Tharrick asks Wall.

[Fearan]

Almond gathered the scattared notes as thoughtfully as he could and returned to the group.
- That's probably the journal of the big dead guy. - he explained. - The runes look dwarven, but it's probably the language of giants. Or giant dwarfs, I dunno - he passed the notes to the wizard, who was the only visible dwarf in the group. - Do you understand it?

[heretic]

Mórke

Mórke accepts the papers from Almond, examining them carefully.

"Well, I haven't seen something like this in quite a while..."

OOC: Mórke speaks Dwarven, Orcish, Goblin, and Giant in addition to Common.

[Deremir]

Sarvin

Sarvin moves up to the cave entrance with the others, positioning himself slightly behind the group to guard the rear while eagerly awaiting Mórke's analysis of the papers.
Almost absent minded he mentions "Hmm... there seems to be a draft coming from within the cave..."

[Bayar]

The pages seem to be written in a dialect of giant, indeed. Though the dialect is unfamiliar to Mórke, he can divine some meaning from extrapolation. Apparently, the pages are structured much in the same way, with dates and what appear to be weather reports. Much of the rest of the page might be the thoughts of the 'giant'.

It becomes clear the 'giant' was guarding this part of the mountain for a long time, and that he died before Longtail ever came this way. The tunnel having been dug recently wouldn't explain the guardian though. Most unusual.


If the party continues to descent:
The narrow cave gradually starts opening up into a tunnel that seems to have been constructed previously (5ft wide and 6 ft tall, comfortable enough for a medium creature). Following this tunnel, the group arrives at what seems to be a large square room, hewn completely from stone. The tunnel continues to the left a bit before is ends.

The walls seem to have been painted with religious motifs a long time ago. Though the paint is flaking, you can still tell that there are a number of celestial beings (balls of light, angels and the like) fighting with obvious demons. Scenes of demons being imprisoned or made to fight each other or even other kinds of evil creatures (undead, aberrations) are also present.

It appears the room used to be a chapel, but for whom it's not certain. There's graffiti of orcish profanities painted in bright red occasionally, sharply contrasting to the murals. On the opposite corner of the room, there's a pedestral on which a large stone doorframe sits. The iron door is smashed open but seems to be still suspended in place. Taking a closer look, you can see the door shards are stuck in a black portal.



####################
###..........^^^^.##
###.....,....^DD^.##
###..........^^DD.##
###..........^^^^.##
###...,...........##
###...............##
###...........,...##
###...............##
.##........,......##
...,..............##
.............,....##
#......,..........##
##................##
###...............##
###...............##
######.WGT.#########
#######.SMA#########
########...#########
##########..########
###########.########


Legend:
W - The Wall
A - Almond
G - Gonzo
T - Tharrick
M - Mórke
S - Sarvin

# - Actual walls / mountain
. - dirt / ground
, - debris / trash
^ - pedestral
D - large iron door smashed open

[heretic]

Mórke

Mórke strokes his beard, tucking some errant braids back into place.

"Well, these appear to be pages of our large, dead friend's diary. He was a guardian of this mountain, probably for a long time."

Mórke shuffles a new page to the front of the papers in his hands.

"He recorded the weather every day, then wrote down some of his thoughts. I don't see any mention of this cave though. Maybe it's new."

The dwarf steps closer to the mouth of the cave, examining the earthenwork and brushing the stone with his hand.



Search check to notice unusual stonework: [roll0]

Knowledge (architecture and engineering), if relevant: [roll1]

[Ragnarok'n'Roll]

Tharrick

Tharrick was visibly relieved when the hallway opened up into a larger room. He took an interest in the mural but really wasn't able to make out anything special. He almost wished he had payed more attention to his schooling - almost.

"Bad time to mention I hate portals" he asked quietly as a joke.




know:religion - [roll0]

[Sgt. Suitable]

Gonzo

"Seems like the perfect time to mention such things, I would say." Gonzo answers and smiles at Tharrick. His beady eyes don't rest for a moment and are scanning the room constantly looking for danger.

(Search for traps)
[roll0]

[Fearan]

Almond stood quetly, behind Wall. awainting while Gonzo finishes his search for traps - he wasn't a big fan of those things. After the traps, or lack of them was confirmed, he said - - Let me take a closer look and then he quetly searches the enviroment.

Search take 10: 21
These two - to get insight about the portal, it's possible nature, etc
Knowledge: Arcane [roll0]
Knowledge: The Planes [roll1]

Knowledge: Dungeoneering [roll2] - for general stuff about nature of this dungeon

[Bayar]

@Mórke:
His search for anything unusual turns out nothing. He notes that the room is arranged in a perfect square, a structurally stable architecture.

@Tharrick:
Tharrick can indeed identify Lantern Archons, Imps, Astral Deva's, Dretch's and Quasits, various kinds of zombies and skeletons and a lot more things that kinda look like them but bigger and meaner.

@Gonzo @ Almond: Searching for traps, Gonzo locates none, so they both move towards the door. Poking and probing indicate that the door shards refuse to go out of the darkness but can effortlessly be pushed inside. When a piece is pushed inside completely, there is no sound of it falling on the floor on the other side. Almond can deduce that this might be a one-way portal into an inner part of the chapel, one that doesn't let even sound pass through. It's destination could be on the other side of the wall or somewhere on another plane, something that cannot be determined without specialized spells or through exploration.

[heretic]

Mórke

Having determined the room to be structurally sound, Mórke enters with the others. He waits patiently for the others to examine the portals and search for traps.

As they do so, he peers down what appears to be a hallway on the lefthand side of the room.

[Sgt. Suitable]

Gonzo

Gonzo looks at the portal. "Good chance that whatever's on the other side knows we're here.. Maybe Wall would like to go first?" He says unsure. "Is there a way we could test if there is in fact someone on the other side? With a minimal of risk taking that is.."

He ponders for a moment then shrugs. "We could throw some lamb chops in marinara sauce through the portal every day for a week. Then after seven days we throw some chops through there without sauce.. Whatever's in there will poke its head out wondering where the hell his sauce is. Then we pounce." He smiles slyly as he steps back to have more serious people throw in their two cents.

[Deremir]

Sarvin

"As great of an idea as that is Gonzo", Sarvin reply's chuckling as he steps up to examine the portal, "I'm not sure we have the time. Rather, I think, we should throw something through tied to a rope to make sure the environment is safe. Then, if no one has and objections, I think I would like to go through first, just in case there is someone on the other side I could get to talk."

[Sgt. Suitable]

Gonzo

Gonzo nods. "Sounds good, I got no objections." He says as he reaches for his shortbow and readies an arrow.

[Bayar]

Underground chapel

Although Sarvin doesn't have a rope, he does see an undescript stick on the floor with which he could try to prod the darkness.

The stick goes into the darkness easily enough, but no matter what you try, you can't pull it back through the darkness. Trying to would only lead to the stick breaking.

Mórke sees the hallway on the leftside to be a continuation of the tunnel they came from, that goes on for about 50 more feet and stops in a dead end. Seems like the diggers stopped digging after confirming they found what they were looking for.

[Eloel]

"No other route? Wall goes in first. Follow Wall." says Wall, jumping into the hole.

[Ragnarok'n'Roll]

Tharrick

Tharrick sputters "bu-bu-but wait." It was too late though Wall had stepped through. Tharrick shrugged his shoulders and followed.

[heretic]

Mórke

Mórke begins to raise an objection at Wall approaching the portal, but upon seeing two of his companions enter, he shrugs and falls in line behind Sarvin.

"After you."

[Sgt. Suitable]

Gonzo

Gonzo grins and pats Sarvin on the back. "Next dark hole is yours." He winks to indicate he's joking and steps through.

[Fearan]

Almond rushed towards the portal - he clearly didn't want to be left alone in the place, where something, that killed that giant might be still lurking

[Deremir]

Sarvin

Sarvin stares blankly for the briefest moment, mutters something about dying by climbing into a statues mouth, and follows the others through the portal.

[Bayar]

The dungeon proper

Going through the portal, you arrive in a pitch-black room. The architecture is similar to the chapel, only no paintings on the walls, with only two iron doors to break the monotony. One directly in front of you and one a bit towards the right. There is no portal behind you, or a doorframe for that manner. But the smashed door is at your feet, including pieces of it (Gonzo can identify a door piece that he prodded into the portal while searching for traps in the chapel). The chill and damp air clings to your body and by the fits of coughing coming from a bit off into the darkness, you are not alone.

There appears to be a group of five orcs huddled together in the corner of the room, looking emaciated and pale-ashen faces, having deep bags over their scar marked faces. Noticing you, all they do is bear their teeth and growl a bit, before one of them erupts in a new coughing fit.



#[######[#################
#..................o,o,.o#
#......,..........,...oo.#
#............,.........,.#
#........,........,......#
#........................#
#....M.S..W....,.........#
#..,.%G%.................#
#..%A%T..................#
################.........#
........#
.....#


Legend:
W - The Wall
A - Almond
G - Gonzo
T - Tharrick
M - Mórke
S - Sarvin

# - walls
. - floor
, - debris
% - broken door
o - orc
[ - closed door

[Sgt. Suitable]

Gonzo calls out to the orcs in orcish. A stream of gutteral sounds leave his mouth.
"Hey boys! You don't look so hot, what's got you down?"

[Eloel]

The Wall walks towards the orcs, making a lot of clanking as he does so. He stops roughly 20ft away from the closest orc. He has a torch in one hand and his tower shield that is the same color as him in the other. He does not talk, but provides a barrier between the orcs and his allies so his allies can talk safely from behind him.

[heretic]

Mórke

Mórke, who speaks the Orcish as well, keeps his crossbow pointed downwards so as not to unduly frighten the orcs.

We'll see what we can learn here. Probably not much, or Longtail wouldn't have left them behind alive.

[Bayar]

In the dungeon - Orc corner

The orcs stare at the warforged that gets closer to theml but don't react aggressively, The Wall even thinks he saw them slightly shrink away. The biggest orc in the group steps up to answer Gonzo in orcish: "What's got us down ? Oh, you'll see." They all erupt in laughter, cut short by another fit of coughing.


#[######[#################
#..................o,o,.o#
#......,..........,...oo.#
#............,....W....,.#
#........,........,......#
#........................#
#....M.S.......,.........#
#..,.%G%.................#
#..%A%T..................#
#################........#
#........#
#........#
#........#
#........#

[heretic]

Mórke

The dwarf's shoulders fall as he sighs. Mórke reaches into a breast pocket and draws forth a gold coin, which he holds aloft, letting it catch the light of Wall's torch. He addresses the orcs in their native tongue.

"I dislike the feel of this piece in my pocket, clanking around, and would toss it away. But I have an even stronger dislike of riddles. When I hear them, my fist tightens"--Mórke closes his grasp around the coin--"and I fear I will never let go."

"Who among you orcs can speak the sweet, plain words of truth--the words that will loosen my grip?

[Ragnarok'n'Roll]

Tharrick

Tharrick guessed by the tone of the exchanging going on and the money being thrown to the floor, that things weren't going so well. He was tempted to say something but didn't want to make matters worse. He quietly moved up behind Wall to ensure he didn't get encircled if things got 'worse'.

[Bayar]

In the dungeon - Orc corner

The orcs are disinterested in Mórke's coin, or most other stimuli. It's almost like they have forsaken their hopes and dreams and are now waiting for the inevitable.

[Deremir]

Sarvin

"Hmmm, If gold is not to their interests perhaps we can try something more fundamental." Sarvin says, taking a meals rations out of his pack and holding it aloft. "Do any of you orcs by chance speak common?"

[Bayar]

The orcs glance towards Sarvin but don't say anything. But Sarvin could tell by one of them sighing and by their passiveness up until now that they have been demoralized them to the point of waiting for death to take them.

Hurrah for Sense Motive !

[heretic]

Mórke

Mórke pockets his coin.

His thoughts turn to his first encounters with orc brigands, years ago. He was not cut out to be a warrior and had survived only through chance and shadow-magic. Mórke had loosed his crossbow bolt, then run in a panic. One of the mountain orcs had caught him, and made a mortal thrust of his spear.

Mórke's illusory double had disappeared with a pop. His companions made quick work of that orc and the others, but Mórke had never forgotten the fear.

It could have been me...

"These orcs have nothing to offer. Let us press on."

[Sgt. Suitable]

"Agreed." Says Gonzo. "These fools have nothing to offer."

He glances around the corner to see if he can spot what's got the orcs so depressed.

He looks over to Wall. "Want to take point again bigg'n?"

Trapfinding:
[roll0]

[Deremir]

Sarvin

Sarvin stores the rations back in his pack, turning towards the corner clearly annoyed at the orc cooperativeness.

[heretic]

Mórke

Mórke turns away from the orcs and edges quietly up to the wall to the party's right, poking his head around the corner.

[roll0]