[IC] Expedition into Cynosure

[JNAProductions]

Tahazu accepts the fruit and takes a bite. Her senses soon alerts her of a presence in the shadows as she spots the gnome. Once she swallows the first chunk, the shamaness walks toward the gnome.

"Little one, have you sent your message to your family?"

Nice eyes, Shanoa says as she reveals herself fully. Hopefully we won't be needing to be that keen in the tunnels, but I have a sneaking suspicion it won't be so easy.

[Kid Dynamo]

The sun slowly sets over the horizon and the city slowly washes in darkness. High in the sky above, Thresher's world arch shines reflected sunlight down onto the city streets brighter than any moon.

Coming off a side street into the square in front of the Merchant's Guild, a lanky man with a lazy gait approaches.

"All right, let's go" Bob says as he approaches the group.

Bob takes the group down an alley that leads toward one of the canyon walls. Hewed into the stone, a tunnel disappears into darkness. As you enter, even the relatively bright light of the world arch begins to fade away to darkness. The lighting is particularly bad in this area, with most of the lampposts here having been looted. Bob produces a small lamp that provides some illumination but not much. The unkempt structures around you seem almost deserted except for the occasional lighted window or murmur of voices. You pass few others on the quiet roads. The relatively large passages begin to close in, and soon the large, open caves turn to small, winding tunnels. The tunnels twist upward and double back on themselves. People are huddled into corners and alcoves, and some branches of the tunnels have been walled off as homes or other habitable buildings. The tunnels climb and twist until almost all sense of direction has been lost, and your legs begin to ache from the steady, upward slope.

The branches of the labyrinthian caves seem to become more complex. Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, left, left.

You finally come to a small home built into an alcove of the tunnel, little more than a door and some poorly laid masonry. Bob knocks, and without waiting for a response, he walks in.

The inside is small and cramped, the party has a hard time squeezing in. A frail old elfin woman stands near one corner with a small pot of soup steaming on an extinguished stove. The acrid smell of old food and grease hangs in the air. You quickly realize that there are no sources of light in this place. The woman was standing in complete darkness. She turns, and her eyes are illuminated by Bob's lamp.

Both eyes are almost completely white, with only faint circles that were once pupils. She stares almost toward you, but not quite, wide-eyed and unseeing.

"This is Ayla" Bob says. The woman is unmoving and silent. "She will be keeping an *eye* on you for me, let me know if you don't come back"

Bob moves toward the back of the room, and moves a small dresser from a wall. A small hole leads into the rock face that is the back wall of the room. The hole is a tight fit, and peering into it, it disappears around a corner after a few dozen feet.

"'Ere it is" Bob says.

[JNAProductions]

Shanoa gulps, getting a bit nervous. Well... Who's going in first? I could, um, try sneaking ahead, in the darkness.

[Toliudar]

Magiz

Magiz unships his axe.
"I need room to make things bleed
So I'm okay to take the lead."

As they head into the tunnel, Magiz pauses to layer on a simple protection against fire. Each time the group makes a turn in the labyrinth, Magiz uses the tip of his axe to scrape a small "x" high on the wall on the direction that they turn to.

When the group meets up with Ayla, Magiz grunts his greeting, then looks reproachfully at Bob for a truly horrible pun.

[Simba]

Bam

Bam waits until all others have entered the tunnel, then squeezes in after them.

[Yas392]

Tahazu positions herself in the middle of the group for the marching order in the original formation. She is miffed by Shanoa's fear.

"The dark will not stop our mark!!!"

After saying this, she rushes into the tunnel without fear, joining Magiz in the front, weapon in hand, quiver of normal arrows strapped to her back.

[JNAProductions]

Shanoa goes after the first two. She keeps a close eye on whatever might be lurking in the darkness.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Making some Listen and Spot checks, respectively.

(1d20+10)[17]
(1d20+10)[24]

[Kid Dynamo]

The tunnel is a tight fit for most of the group (although Shanoa is able to walk comfortably the entire time), as the group advances down the tight passage, Bob can be heard yelling down the tunnel.

"Oh, I almost forgot", Bob's voice echos. "Follow the breeze!"

After a few dozen feet of squeezing, the tunnel emerges a few feet off the floor of a roughly circular room. It is maybe 40 feet across, the walls are smooth, worked stone, but the ceiling, about 20 feet high is rough and uneven. The floor is covered in rubble. It appears that there was a cave-in here. A faint drip of water can be heard, but it is hard to determine the source. The air is musty and old. There is a layer of fetid water on the floor, although the rubble allows you to mostly avoid it.

Leading out of the room, two tunnels branch off the Eastern and Western sides of the room, both of them are angled slightly upward. They appear to be about 10 feet high, but rubble from this room spills into the tunnels for a few feet. Most of the party will have to duck to squeeze into them. The tunnels are straight and virtually identical as far as of of the party can see.

A faint wind can be felt heading coming from the Western tunnel and heading down the Eastern tunnel.

[Toliudar]

Magiz

Working his way through a narrow patch, Magiz grins back at the others.

We orcs are born for caves. This is like home.
Although we are no builders like our friends the gnome
My clan, we liberated one gnome hall.
The ceilings were smooth, thank gods, if the middens small."

When they reached the circular room, Magiz takes a moment to stride in and stretch out for a moment. Dealing with constrained circumstances was one thing, but liking it quite another. He wet a finger for a moment, and followed it to the eastern passage. Roughly, Magiz hauls a couple of rocks away from the tunnel entrance and steps in. He glances back at the others to confirm that they were good to continue, and plows forward.

Spoiler: OOC

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Just so we're clear, our lead character has a spot modifier of -6. Don't expect a lot of advance notice of, well, anything!

[Yas392]

Tahazu curses as darkness shroud her sight. She chants and her club glows, illuminating the cave.

[JNAProductions]

Shanoa stays quiet, her eyes and ears peeled for anything that might come their way. She debates about telling Magiz to shut it, but figures they're not being stealthy no matter what.

[Simba]

Bam waits for the others to enter the tunnel, then follows, checking behind them every few seconds.

[Kid Dynamo]

The party heads down the Eastern tunnel. The faint breeze can be felt, almost pushing you deeper into the tunnels of Cynosure. The walls of the tunnel are extremely smooth, it would take a superb group of craftspersons to dig out a tunnel with the precision that this tunnel was dug with. The tunnel starts to slant slightly downward and curve to the right. It continues on for quite a while, and maybe 15 minutes of walking pass until the passage straightens out again. It has probably looped back and under itself by now, but with the gradual descent and turning, it is hard to tell for sure.

Up ahead on the right (or southern) side of the tunnel, a scar in the side of the rock wall can be seen. A passage has been carved perpendicular to the tunnel you are in. The passage is about the same height and width as this tunnel, but while this main tunnel is smooth, the branching passageway is roughly hewn, and tool marks are evident. It continues off for a foot or so, until a wall of debris blocks it. Neatly stacked rocks, wood, plaster, cloth, and other materials fills the passage to the ceiling.

It looks like someone tried to close up this passageway.

Near the floor there is a hole carved in the wall of debris, big enough for a small humanoid to fit through, but not for anyone larger to pass easily. Peering down the small tunnel in the wall of garbage, it is obvious that there is a large chamber on the other side, at least 15 feet across, although not much more can be gleaned without entering.

The smooth tunnel you are traveling in continues straight on into darkness up ahead.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Nothing out of the ordinary can be seen with your spot checks (if you didn't roll, I am assuming you just took 10).
Nothing out of the ordinary can be heard with your listen checks (same thing about taking 10).

15 minutes have passed since you entered the tunnels. I believe that means that 35 minutes remain on both the light spell that Tahazu cast and the Resist Energy that Magiz cast.

[Toliudar]

At the gap in the walled up entrance, Magiz again licks a finger and tests to see if the breeze they have been following goes into the small opening, or pushes forward down the tunnel.

[Kid Dynamo]

Magic feels the breeze flowing into the hole in the barricade.

[Yas392]

Tahazu turns to Bam.

"Giant, help us make a bigger hole."

[Simba]

Bam

Bam looks back at Tahazu, then at his hammer: "Quickly or quietly?"
Without waiting for a reply, he sets down his weapon and sets to making the hole just large enough for himself, without making the whole wall come down.

[Toliudar]

Magiz chuckles softly at Bam's description of the options, but doesn't comment further. Instead, he lends a hand at pulling away a sufficiently large chunk of the barrier in order to crawl through.

[Yas392]

Tahazu let the males do the heavy lifting and hammering. When the hole is big enough, she gets an obscuring scroll out which occupies her free hand. The next thing she does is direct the the hand holding the glowing club forward and lends her senses to the group to detect anything beyond the tunnel, moving to the front if needed.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Taking 10 on both spot/listen so the results for both checks are 20.

[JNAProductions]

So far so boring, Shanoa says. Let's hope it stays that way...

[Toliudar]

The orc's voice in response is uncharacteristically quiet, but no less cheerful.

"A day with Magiz never could be boring!
Now, on our knees and let us go exploring."

He offers to give up going first in honour of Tahazu, but if she hesitates, then Magiz will squeeze through the hole first in order to give cover to the others when he reaches the other side.

[Simba]

Bam

When the hole is big enough, Bam waits until all others are through, guarding their back, before slipping through after them.

[Yas392]

Tahazu takes the lead once she sees Magiz stops for a moment.

[Kid Dynamo]

The wall is not hard to disassemble. A few minor collapses occur, but the group effort is able to make a hole big enough for even the party's largest members to crawl through. Tahazu leads the way, emerging in a large room.

It is quickly evident that the "wall" only 15 feet past the opening is but a short, maybe 3 foot wall, in side a larger room. The room is shaped roughly like an "L". To the south, the ruins of low walls made of cut stones creates a sort of mini-maze. Rubble and refuse covers much of the floor.

There are 3 doorways cut into the western wall, with stone doors covering them. The closest door is slightly ajar, but not open enough to see through. On the southern wall, there are 3 doors equally spaced along it, made of stone as well and all closed. To the east, a large alcove contains a single door. The breeze is hard to feel in here, but clearly heads toward the eastern alcove. On the western wall, there is a large bas relief carved into the stone. Above you, the ceiling slopes upward in a large vault, reaching maybe 30 feet near the center of the room.

The walls of this room are clearly carved from the stone, not smooth and nearly perfect like the walls of the tunnel you have been traveling through for the last 15 minutes.

Along the walls of the room, spaced every 10 feet, iron holders for some sort of torches or lanterns are placed into the stone, although no lanterns or torches still reside in them.

Spoiler: OOC

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There is a map below. Your character is marked with the first letter of their first name and their color, let me know if it isn't clear. If you feel your character would have entered the room in a different way, let me know and I will adjust it.

Assume up = north, left = west, right = east, down = south.

The areas marked in red are filled with rubble and will impede movement.

The low walls are the lines in the middle of the room, they can provide cover.

Spoiler: Map

Show

[Yas392]

As the group is investigating the room, Tahazu assumes a combat position. The shamaness directs Magiz and Bam with her club hand to where she can see the moving living being.

"I sense a human shape struggling within the rubble. Go dig them out so we can see whether they are friend or foe."

[Toliudar]

Magiz grunts and follows Tahazu's point.

"I dunno. This seems very suspect.
There were no sounds of cave-ins from in here.
And where a man would come from, I don't know.
I'll dig, but Bam should stand by with his maul."

If Bam is willing to stand watch, Magiz will start using the butt of his glaive to lever the rubble off of whatever's beneath.

[Simba]

Bam walks over to where Tahazu pointed and stands guard while Magiz digs, ready to attack if whatever is hidden beneath the rubble turns out to be hostile.

Spoiler: Ready Action

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Bam is ready to use Mountain Hammer Strike

[JNAProductions]

Shanoa leans towards the figure, a short distance away, and asks Can you hear us? Are you alive?

[Kid Dynamo]

Magiz and Bam make their way to where Tahazu indicates. They must move over the rubble, and they are slowed.

Shanoa's voice echos in the room, but the figure does not reply.

When Magiz and Bam are about halfway to the thing in the rubble, a sound is heard. The door nearest to the entrance, the one that was ajar when the party entered, swings open. A humanoid figure stands in the doorway, clutching a long polearm with an ax head on one end. It is a grey-green color and nude. The skin is hanging off of the bones in places, and the party is immediately hit by a foul stench of rot and death. The creature is about 4 feet tall and somewhat stocky.

The figure lets out an ear-piercing screech. Suddenly, the figure that Magiz and Bam were approaching stands, and another, unseen figure, stands up, about 25 feet away. The two figures as equally as rotten looking as the one in the doorway. The figures are crouched in combat stances, and snarl menacingly.

Spoiler: OOC

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Surprise round, the figure in the doorway acted, opening the door and screeching. The other two figures had readied actions to stand from prone when they heard the screech, and have now acted.

The positions of the figures are marked with blue circles. The one with the poleaxe is in the 3 by 3 square room. The poleaxe appears to be a reach weapon. Each square is 5 feet.

The surprise round is now over.

Please roll initiative and let me know your first round actions.

Spoiler: Map

Show

[Toliudar]

When the shrieking starts, Magiz tucks into a combat crouch, his axe swirling up into diagonal ready position.

Stepping carefully over the rubble to protect his flank with one of the low walls, Magiz charged up his glaive and hacked at the creature that had emerged from the rubble.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Knowledge Check to figure out what these things are: (1d20)[8], +2 if Religion or The Planes is the relevant cheques, +4 if it's Dungeoneering, +6 if Arcana, Local or Religion. Also applies to creating Knowledge Devitoin so far.

Move action to step 5' east.
Standard action to channel Shocking Grasp through her glaive and into the SW opponent.
Attack: (1d20+12)[22]
Slashing damage: (1d10+10)[18]
Acid Damage: (1d6)[5]
Electricity Damage: (5d6)[18]