World of Warcraft - Interbellum (IC Thread)

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis

Marion takes several big steps backwards, moving with surprising gusto to place as much distance between herself and the violent plant-creature.

Once a sufficient "safe" distance had been reached, Marion turned back around, focused on the corrupted element and uttered another word of dark power.

Vargheist, meanwhile, moved up behind the thing and struck at it while the others struggled.

ooc:

Marion is Moving her max movement distance in a single move action.

Second Shadow and Fire Roll to Hit from Homing: (1D20+4)[22], oh nice. That's DC 21 toughness save, because her Shadow and Fire also has Multiattack for +2 damage with a degree of success, and if she beat the Elementals Toughness by 5 or more, that's DC 24.

Casting: Corruption - Take a DC 19 Toughness Check.

Vargheist is moving to the elemental and then Attacking it: (1D20+4)[14]

[MrAbdiel]

The bolt of black flame circles around and slams into Verdan's back with a resounding blast; but the strange magical air of this place has depleted the bolt. Perhaps some of its fel construction has been warped into raw arcane, in its flight; but whatever the reason, the detonation does not seem to shake the elemental, though the corruption taking hold and blackening more of the fibre of the depleted arm does. As Marrion retreats, Verdan takes a couple of loping, pursuing steps and snaps out with its right arm. The viney mass of thorns and briars distends and seems almost to grow at a speed accomodating a projectilization of its natural threat, and soon the coils are trying to snake around the limbs of the warlock to shred her body and arrest her flight.

Varghast, unable to fulfill its primary function where it is grabbed and held in Verdan's other grip, writhes and emits a furious, psychically pained squeal; the punishing magics of its bindings demanding it force itself harder to protect its summoner. In this growing distress, it squirms and thrashes, tearing out chunks of ligneous bicep. In response, the plant creature hoists the voidwalker up in the air and slams it back to the ground, its vines spidering out on the earth below and morphing into roots to grow and pin the voidwalker to the tainted moss, and stone.

Spoiler: Damage Report!

Show

Marion's Shadow and Flame hits, but Verdan rolls great and soaks the DC24 hit. Not so great for Varghast's attack or the corruption, though - the left arm is now at -4, and is considerably easier to damage.

Verdan attacks. His left arm attacks Varghast with a power-attack - little buddy needs to make a Toughness check against a crunchy DC 22. Since he's already damaged, He's at a +7 toughness roll these days I believe, and a DC 15 Strength check against the grab upgrading to a comprehensive pin.

Likewise, Verdan lashes out and attacks Marion. He has a great deal of reach on his attack, so her backpedalling won't save her just now. Also, I guess I hallucinated that this edition had something like Attacks of Opportunity in it. It doesn't, but we'll keep the effects that the players earned with those attacks!

Anyway, Verdan hits Marion with his attack. So she's looking at a DC20 save against the Damage of the attack, and a DC 15 Dodge or Strength check to avoid being grabbed and choked!



With that, it's the player's go again. Marion might be imperilled by the right grip; but the left grip is substantially weakened and with any luck will perish with another couple of good hits. Emilia, for her part, is frustrated by the toughness of the creature - she's looking to coordinate blows with anyone and everyone who is willing to try!

[Feathersnow]

Mor and Lag are torn. They should free the Warlock! But simply pulling on her would not be safe. And the other hand is nearly crippled.
Lag shouts "Altruist, on the signal!"
Mor continues "we smash the free hand!"

The Twins read to stun the other hand for a follow-up from the paladin. Hopefully their leader will forgive her crisis being ignored.

(1d20+6)[25]

[WindStruck]

Isaera is not sure what to do (well, fire bolt, obviously!) but either way it boiled down to a 50/50 choice. Right "hand" or left "hand"?

On one hand, it might be prudent to attack the cluster of vines that was currently smashing into and attempting to strangle Marion. But on the other hand, after the whole debacle with the centaurs, the paranoia, and pointing fingers, it was oddly satisfying to see her comeuppance. But really, Isaera rationalized, the other limb was just as much of a threat and currently weakened. And Marion would most likely be fine. Probably.

So, much like before, Isaera begins to channel some of the readily-available mana, sculpting it into flames, and launches her fire bolt at the weakened arm.

Spoiler: ooc

Show

pew!: (1d20+1)[17]

DC 21

Not sure if I'm still debilitated, or if the +2 bonus to all magic still applies...

Also, isn't this elemental comprised of vines and stuff vulnerable to fire?

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis

Come down into the dank, dark cave, they said. It'll be no sweat, it'll be easy, they said.

We'll gather all around the enemy so that you can't hit him with your most devastating spells, they said.

Right now they could be on the open plains, not being molested and attacked by corrupted fel-plant creatures.

Marion thought this as the grasping vines of the elemental squeezed against her lithe frame, eliciting a grimace from the warlock as blood was drawn from the various places across her frame, while Vargheist copped another nasty blow.

She didn't mind so much for him. Sure he could feel pain. But if he 'died' he'd just go back to where he came from and she'd summon him back again, good as new, right as rain. The same couldn't be said for her.

Thankfully for Marion, however, the Demon Armor was already stitching back together the tears on her skin...

[Plaids]

Jakk'ari
Jakk'ari observes Verdan swat away the void elemental and then envelope Marion. This expedition seemed to be one cruel joke after another. An opportunity to leave the humid port city was now being spent fighting to avoid drowning and asphyxiation. A chance for the young cadre of companions to learn something about wilderness survival was pushing them to their limits. The once in a lifetime opportunity for achieving spiritual enlightenment was now being spent obliterating its herald. This couldn't become any worse.

Jakk'ari grabs a stalactite dislodged during the conflict and strikes alongside Emelia targeting the arm burying Marion. No one would be departing before their time today.

Spoiler: Actions

Show

Rolling for a team attack to help Emelia attack the arm grabbing Marion.
(1d20+1)[21] Didn't expect the nat 20. Hopefully Emelia rolls well too.

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: OOC Rolls

Show

Just a reminder that the thread I'm using for rolls personally for this game (and some others sometimes) is here. I felt like restating that because I rolled total insanity here; a nat 20 for Emilia's assist with Mor'Lag which pumped up the arm's toughness save DC to a monumental DC 29. And then I rolled a nat 20 on that save, so he soaked it. And then he rolled a nat 20 on the save vs corruption's ongoing effect. But he DID roll a 2 for the other arm's save which, comboing Emilia's assist on Jakk'ari's crit, and penalizing Verdan's toughness by 2 for being on fire due to Isaera's relentless application of it, caused the HEALTHY arm to fail that save by 4 degrees. Madness.

Emilia doesn't like being called altruist, particularly. It feels like a minimization of the Light's philosophy. But what she likes less than that is the weeny little dink, dink noise her sword has been making on this monstrosity; and so when the ogress calls the ball, Emilia is there to aid. Mor's fist hammers into the tormented left arm as its vines crush and press Varghast; the blow impacts the ligneous limb, forces its structure taut, and with a howl of desperate effort, Emilia drives her sword through the taut arm and into the earth below.

And Verdan reacts with casually mounting displeasure. Vines bunch like the fibres of muscles to strain against the pinning sword, and would likely have succeeded in pulling free; but an elegantly corkscrewing blast of fire weaves between human and ogress, slaps into Verdan's shoulder, and ignites him with a splash of flame so fat and mana-drunk it seems almost to drape over the elemental like a liquid blaze. It wheezes in pain (or something like it), fire flashing through hollows in its eyes where the burn is searing through the structure of it; and the initiate paladin is forced to release her weapon where it stands and stagger back to avoid the heat. From her periphery she catches Jakk'ari's approach with the stalactite, and a flash of communication and insight between shaman and paladin permits an instinctive manoeuvre. She crouches and laces her fingers together, catches one of the Farraki's big two-toed feet in the cradle of her grip, and heaves him upward. The launch gives the troll an impressive burst of altitude to complement the swing, and Verdan's mad, pained, desperate gaze is drawn upward to the shape; backlit by the mana-fused blue phosphorescence of the cavern, grading rapidly to orange as he nears the firelight crawling over the elemental's shoulders.

Spoiler: Jakk'ari

Show

You feel the key shudder briefly in your pocket.

Inexplicably, as he strikes, the bulky stone spike is transformed. The majority of its weight is suddenly shattered into particles of sand that blow back over his shoulder, while the minority that is left forms the clear form of a sword too narrow and sharp to ever be born of hammer and chisel. With the force of the drop-cut into the shoulder where the flames have now crawled, the stone-blade shears clear through the mass of roots and vines and elemental composite, follows through, and smashes when its edge touches the mossy ground, leaving the shaman with a handful of sand.

The severed matter convulses once, but then slackens and releases the stricken warlock. The remaining arm strives to hold on to Varghast, but the demon has outlasted its opponent and pulls simply free of the weakening brambles as the whole battered, rotted, burned, cloven and impaled elemental form crashes to its knees, and sags forward; fire and rot slowly claiming it as its strength and will give out; smoke rising up and pooling amidst the ceiling's stony teeth.

It can offer no more resistance, now; it remains where the sword pins it, laid low, waiting in agony for release.

Spoiler: Damage Report!

Show

Isaera hits the injured arm. It fails by two degrees, crippling it further. Even with the +2 ranks for arcane magic in the mana-miasma and a +1 rank I gave it for being fire, the arm manages not to die.
Emilia crits on her combo with Mor'Lag. Mor'Lag hits with enough degrees to contribute +5 ranks to the effective damage roll of the attack, with +5 ranks for being a crit, making the DC 29. Verdan somehow rolls a natural 20 and just soaks it up; but I rewarded the combo with some flavor-success.

Similarly, I was moved by Windstruck's suggestion that fire might be super-effective here; and given that verdan has copped a lot of Firebolts and Shadow-And-Flame's, I figure he's dry enough that he's catching, and taking a -2 toughness penalty to all his portions as the flame spreads.

Emilia (I decided) uses her VP to extra-effort and combo-attacks with Jakk'ari, this time on the healthy arm that is mauling Marion. Jakk'ari crits. I decide the improvised mace is a +2 damage rank weapon; so with +2 from the weapon, +2 from the assist, and +5 from the crit, Jakk'ari nails the arm for a DC 24 hit. Verdan rolls a 2; which with his penalized flambe toughness of 6, means he gets an 8, failing the check by a total of 4 degrees and 'dying'; and so I flavoured the attack accordingly.

Strictly speaking, Verdan is still alive; but he's so badly mangled now that the fight is over. You can let him burn, or someone could offer a mercy-blow. Or a spite-blow, if they are so inclined. A fine victory!

[WindStruck]

Isaera sighs with some relief. The monstrosity- no.. not the right word.. the former guardian (?) had fallen, rotting, burning, crumpling a part.

"I'll take care of it," Isaera says, looking down at Verdan with just a little pity. The elfess conjures up a steady stream of flames, not with quite the initial burst force and flash heat of a fire bolt, but as the flames constantly wreath over the elemental, they quickly smolder and eventually combust.

[Plaids]

Jakk'ari

Quick, help me dig her out!

Jakk'ari jumps onto the felled arm of Verdan to frantically peel away the vines encasing Marion. The scratches and cuts on her face and clothes cause Jakk'ari to paw at a muddy patch of ground and unfasten his pouch of herbs but he pauses. The cuts on Marion's face recede and fade leaving only dollops of crimson blood blemishing her face. The girl was more resilient than her etiquette would suggest. Jakk'ari compliments Marion and the rest of the party in a wavering voice hoping their spirits hadn't been diminished while trying to control his own.


You look no worse for wear Marion. All you need now is some tusks and you could pass yourself as a bona fide troll. Your magic saved us all a lot of trouble.

You all did well and fought bravely. Please give me some time to finish this.


Jakk'ari begins assessing the knotted masses of Verdan wondering how to end the guardian's misery quickly and most reverently. Any less would belittle the guardian's effort to safeguard the land.

We have to end the guardian's suffering quickly. But a fire will choke us with smoke and a knife would be extended agony. Do any of you know a merciful release?

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis


Marion emerged from the tangle of thorns and vines looking...fine. Unusually. Some scarlet droplets remained on her skin, so the barrier had been punctured at some point, but her Demon Armor had mended any wounds she might have endured and restored her to normal.

Standing, the vines falling about her unblemished form, Marion looked like some daughter born from a void-touched chrysalis.

"Thank you, Jakk'ari," Marion responded to the trolls compliment.

"But sadly I know of no 'merciful' magics..."

[MrAbdiel]

Jakk'ari speculates with haste about the most honorable way to end Verdan's suffering; something that recognizes the nobility of the guardian who has while expunging the calamity of what is. Marion's magics, as she admits, are not gentle. They twist and break, at a biological level or a spiritual one. Emilia glances to Mor'Lag - both, at their cores, martial creatures for whom a swift physical execution is achievable, and preferable to protracted suffering.

It is Isaera, interestingly enough, who possesses the right mastery for the task. Verdan's elemental soul craves return to the elements, and through them, into the warmth of life, of Life, which is mother to it. The arcane infection within it has other directing forces; pulsing with a cosmic impetus towards complication and design which can be so easily mistaken for intelligence, it wants to complete Verdan's transformation into a new, different, fundamentally arcane and therefore non-natural thing.

The flame, coaxed into life by the subtle arcane gestures of the elf's left hand, ripple and grow over Verdan's slouching form. The dry, corrupted plant-flesh burns up first and quickly; but the rest of the body of vine, and thorn, and oaken bone goes up too - elements of the guardian's corpus withering away into mundane ash, and scintillating purple smoke. The ash pools on the scorched mossy ground; some day, to be reclaimed by the life here and integrated into latter generations of teeming plant life. But the smoke, rioting and oscillating with trapped arcane energy, is drawn in a contracting spiral towards entirely different conjuration gestures in Isaera's right hand. There, they collapse into a point on her palm; the arcane taint invisibly rushing to replenish the burned reservoir of power inherent in elvish souls.

In this way, Verdan dies with a final crackling, bonfire wheeze. The elemental's corpus collapses into powdery ash. Its spirit is loosed to fly, in a space and direction only Jakk'ari can witness, out and beyond this twisted place. And the arcane energy, parasitically corrupting both, is stripped out in the process of immolation and neutralized within the elf herself. Once it's over, all that remains of the sparking smoke is an inert black sphere of charcoal within the mage's palm.


The guardian defeated, and committed to rest in the most dignified fashion available under the circumstances. At the far end of the room's verdant run, a lopsided natural archway of stone beckons the seekers onward, with a hazy indigo glow beyond.

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis

It only took a minute or so until Marion was ready to go again, like an evil energiser bunny.

The warlock looked up to her pet, the demon drawing in the thick shadows of the subterranean cave around them to replenish his form.

"Thank you for your service, Vargheist," Marion spoke gently, as if addressing a valued servant.

[MrAbdiel]

The Voidwalker grumbles ambiguously. Slaved to the binding, the void-creature has no alternative but to serve his mistress's interests with all his might. But he does have the power to grumble instead of graciously accept thanks, and this he exercises now.

A short walk to the end of the verdant canyon leads to another bending passage hooking around to the left and descending a little more... and there, finally, they reach the terminus of this arm of the Wailing Caverns; and within, the source of much of its woes.

Remnants of plant life, and the mana-blasted, blue-crystal bones of deep earth vermin are scattered about on the floor amidst dust that strobes blue with arcane investiture. Capitally, the centre of the chamber features a geological oddity: a great, eight meter long split in the stone floor, cracked in a jagged line and then pushed up by some escaping force like the gasping stone lips of Azeroth herself. The stone, where it pushes up, first angles from the floor like a normal tectonic rupture, but at the edges of the crack the stone takes on a blue glassing aspect and a smoother, backward curl. And out of the crack, having blasted up the stone itself and twisted the buckling slab in its escape, comes a flashing, convulsing jet of raw mana; blazing out wildly like the cutting flame of a tinker's torch, licking and spasming at the air for a meter around. That fiery aspect is superficial; it does not burn, not emit heat; but merely dances in that infernal semblance as magical energy bleeds from the crevice and permeates the chamber. The walls; the stone floor; the buzzing air; the blue-hazed light; presumably also, the strangely altered life forms and the mana-tainted waters, too.

Shamans, warlocks, and magi skilled and freshly minted are able to understand immediately what they are looking at. This is a leyline, a subterranean, semi-physical conduit of magical power that runs beneath the surface of Azeroth as veins under the skin of a mortal. Magic safely permeates out of the leylines into the world, replenishing that which is burned away in the use of magic users and creatures. Its nearness to the surface lends power to certain places in the world; and intersections of leylines are useful for powerful workings of magic. They are the unseen magical pathways that make portal magic possible; and the maintenance of which has become the duty of the Kirin Tor, whose uses most often stress them.

But this should not be happening. Something - some mystical driver - has forced this leyline up, both up directionally from the deep places of the world and up conceptually from the unformed places where mana comes from; and the result is this arcane rupture and its poisoning effect on the caverns. There are no druids here; no sign that they made it past Verdan, who must have personally absorbed a tremendous amount of this radiating magical energy. Just the breach in the world, and the ongoing torrent of its power.

"What is it?" Emilia asks, slightly awestruck, deeply suspicious. "It's like it's... bleeding. Did the druids do this? Did they... mean to?"

[Plaids]

Jakk'ari

That must be the source of the disruption to this place. With the guardian gone and the flow no longer stymied the mutations will only escalate.

[Feathersnow]

Mor and Lag look on, but it is clear their minor degree of education and pitiful beginning on learning the secrets of the Arcane aren't going to help here.

[WindStruck]

"Everyone, you need to get back. This radiation is dangerous."

Isaera performs an incantation, granting her immunity to all this arcane radiation.

"I can temporarily seal this.. fissure - this gash in the leyline. But it will take some time. You all need to go back the other way, see what you can do to help those druids and what you can learn from them. This is a serious problem, one that only the Kirin Tor can resolve."

[Plaids]

Jakk'ari

Jakk'ari twitches indecisively swiveling his head between Isaera and the rift and the rest of the party. Like a bird eying an approaching snake and having to choose between the safe choice and the virtuous choice.

Arcane magic is fickle, volatile, and faithless. The force permeated what it wished while possessing no representatives and nobody tangible. Those representatives made shamanism and druidism the foremost in cultivating wisdom and providing solutions. Elementals and treants could be talked to and bargained with and even the most deceitful ones could be trusted to act in their best interests. But the arcane had no representatives or doctrines and creeds. There were only its wielders and practitioners.

Jakk'ari turns to address Isaera to offer hope.
I don't trust this arcane energy that surrounds us. But I trust you to what is right. Your skill and judgement are important here and are not in doubt. We will head towards the druids.

Spoiler: OOC Map request

Show

Is the rift in a dead end? I would like to know if the group can only go backtrack or go down a different path.

[MrAbdiel]

Isaera remains behind, arcane radiation sparking and crackling off a roughly globular field around her while she uses her heel to trace the beginnings of a ritual circle around the fissure. But lingering long enough to witness this began to yield bad outcomes. Marion, whose interest was most pronounced, begins to feature a rapidly intensifying redness of her exposed skin, as if exposed in that minute to a day's angry sunlight; and the thought of what many minutes exposed just so could do is enough to encourage full egress.

Spoiler: The Wizardless Party

Show

The map you discovered suggested the secondary exit from this fissure cavern folds back around to the main chamber. Staying dry and in control beats the hot and soggy alternative, so you chance the secondary tunnel. It pays off: it's narrower, sometimes single file and particularly uncomfortable for Mor'Lag; but after just an hour or so of walking compared to the two and a half of slogging upstream, you thread through an iris in the ceiling of the main cavern, across the dividing chasm and concealed in a patch of stalactites. Isaera's Featherfall would have been especially useful here; but you make do with ropes, and care, and slow work. But as you're packing up the ropes and preparing for the sloped climb down the jagged rocks into the water once more, predicting this time to follow the current west, your next obstacle makes itself known.

Down in the chasm, its kodo-wide bulk battered by the river but unmoved, the enormous deviate tortoise peers up at you with distrust. It seems in the time you spent going east and coming back, it has completed its journey up the river and now squats, implicitly contankerous, in the way you need to go if you are to proceed to where the Eye of Kilrogg showed the Night Elves to be gathered. It does not look especially fast; just big, and tough, and disagreeable; but you are forced to wonder if you get past it, it might just turn and pursue you, making havoc for you on your river descent. Or else it might, perhaps, pose trouble for Isaera when she inevitably makes her path back this way.

You will either need a solution to its ponderous hostility... or else, to be comfortable with the ongoing threat it suggests.

Spoiler: Unrelated Perception Check: DC 30

Show

It almost escapes your notice, but you're pretty sure there's something amiss here; different to the way you left it. It's a footprint - just one, or half of one, where some careful mover has permitted one edge of a boot to crease the dust here, while elsewhere carefully stepping only where they will leave no mark. This print has less condensation settling in it than the others - meaning they entered this chamber after you first departed it to head east to Verdan's chamber. But where are they now?

Spoiler: The Wizard

Show

Containing this magic, turning it back to seal itself, will require care and creativity, but mostly discipline; and you have all those things. You know a formalized traditional spell structure won't work - you're not drawing in the magic from elsewhere.
It's already just... sort of, here; which is the problem. But magic is potential; it is, as your father once said, the soul of a thing unspecified, for which a potent mage must provide specification.

Three steps, then. Contain. Harness. Specify.

First, containment. Now that your companions have left the room, you're free to experiment a little without fear of harming them. With a curl of your wrist, the slow forward thrust of you other palm, and the backwards incantation of the spell you used to ward yourself, you break the sphere of protection on yourself; splitting it at a point behind you, warping it forward into an expanding hemisphere; then a mild concave, before folding it over forward onto the breach in the ley-line. Immediately, the field that was sparking and glowing protecting you is an incandescently bright dome of straining blue power, on the fissure itself. You feel the violence enacted against your spell being translated into physical pain within your body; a mild throbbing sting in your arms, and a more significant one when you flow the support of the dome entirely to the gestures of one hand.

You have achieved containment. Now to harness enough of that contained energy into an obedient medium: to turn raw magic into what is strictly considered mana.

Spoiler: Expressive Action

Show

You crushed the roll, so Isaera isn't stumbling and accidentally summoning an arcane elemental she has to fight, or anything. But I'm interested as to what it might look like for Isaera to cast an arcane ritual. You can be as brief or as wordy as you want, but it'd be a good opportunity to decide/display what her magic looks like when she's not fighting for her life. Is most of her casting about the motions of her body, and those somatic elements? Does she loudly and carefully enunciate in Thalassian, in a booming, unnatural contralto?

As far as the scene goes, all I'm really asking is that you give me a description of how we get from 'dome full of chaotic blue light' to 'dome full of calm and responsive light'. But you can decide how phantasmagorical or coldly procedural the process is to get there.

[Plaids]

Perception Check(1d20+7)[13]

Jakk'ari nervously sizes up the worrisome turtle giving an ornery stare. It didn't look friendly and the caverns likely corrupted this beast to some extent
Ooh, looks like we can't reason with this one. This would be simpler if one of us had devoted themselves to the loa. But predator can't be allowed to travel upstream towards Isaera. Perhaps the abandoned cages can be repurposed to block its passage?

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: The Mageless Party

Show

After some negotiation on the best way to overcome the the chelonian obstacle, the group settles in an initial approach of patience. The creature is big and agitated, but it's also a giant tortoise - not known for their radical sensory powers, and presently wading through the rush of a fast stream. Simply pulling back behind the lip of the cliff breaks line of sight to the beast. It continues offering challenging hiss-grunts, out of sight, for many minutes. Emilia is hardest hit - in an effort to offer no noise at all that might give the creature pause, she is forced to sit very still in her armor; an operation that is very much not in her nature. After some twenty minutes of feigning absence, the hissing and grunting stops; and plodding and splashing proceeds for another ten. Ten after that, and it's gone entirely; the grumpy reptile, presumably, making his way up the stream east, beyond the boundaries of sight and sound. With that, the party is free to descend and follow the river's flow upsteam to the west.

The climb is a little bumping; the cliff is inconsistent enough that a rope-descent isn't practical, but the hand-over-hand effort discovers loose rocks and slippery toeholds. Emilia takes a tumble with a scuffling bang onto her back at the end of the climb - peering skyward and inwardly reflecting how her armor has been less than helpful this adventure in general - but this is the second decent of this cliff the party has made, and the moves are generally well executed. Tripping downstream is certainly faster than tripping upstream; the effort is not sheltering against the push of the water, but preventing it from whisking the group along too fast and too far, into threatening stalactites and the stony walls. But having an anchoring bulk like Mor'Lag in the party remains valuable against such conditions. It's another hour of stop-starting, drifting in gentle runs and shuffling forward at Mor'Lag's careful, sure-stepping pace at worse corners and flumes. Finally, they come to the bank where the stream drains away into holes in the stone, none broad enough to threaten subduction, and the coalition of human, ogre, and troll can totter back onto solid ground.

Thanks to the Eye of Kilrogg's illicit existence and nifty spy capability, it is known that the tunnel exit from this room curls up and around to a room of natural stone pillars, a carpet of shaggy grey moss... and a writhing wealth of pale white snakes sluicing through it. Beyond that room is the chamber where the elves were seen - how to traverse the distance, then, becomes the next concern.

Spoiler: OOC: Next Obstacle!

Show

I tried to think of a reason "just waiting quietly and letting it go" wouldn't work against tortoise-bro, and I failed. You win this round, players-who-aren't-murder-hobos.

We did some obstacle rolls and not-getting-wrecked in the steam rolls previously that I had to scrub because I assumed we were going a different way; but now that the turtle's not going to jump you halfway, it's a little less important if you have a bruise or two going down the river. Serious injuries are within Jakk'ari's power to heal, too, now that the primary time pressure, the broken ley-line, is theoretically dealt with; so you may feel free to get as many scrapes or lungsful of water as you like proceeding to the present juncture.

You are a room full of snakes away from the room where the eye of Kilrogg saw the elves in their snooze-pile. The serpents seemed aggressive to the Eye's passage - it may be worth considering how to traverse this room, now that you have advanced warning.

Spoiler: The Partyless Mage

Show

As you continues to cage the restless forces pouring out of the ley-line...

Spoiler: Perception Check DC 13: Fail

Show

... You start, nearly dropping a stitch of the spell you're weaving as something moves behind you, near the entrance of the cavern. But after a moment's reflection, you're quite sure it's just the dance of shadow blowing off the magical operation you're performing. As someone who grew up in a big family, whose family only grew closer as it became smaller, being alone in such an alien place plays on the nerves.

That's probably it.

Spoiler: Perception Check DC 13: Success

Show

...You resist the impulse to flinch as a shadow moves behind in your peripheral vision - one you're quite sure hasn't been cast by your spell-flare against you or the protrustions of stone in the room. Someone, or something, dipped breifly into the room and out again; and either lingers in the threshold of the tunnel leading back to Verdan's demise, or has fled back that way after seeing you. You're positive.

[WindStruck]

Though Isaera is almost certain that she sees something in her periphery, she can't just stop now. Okay. Well. She actually could. But she really doesn't feel as though she should.

The best idea Isaera can come up with is orienting herself so that she faces the exit that was once behind her. That way, should anyone come around to enter the room or peek at her again, she should easily see it.

As for the ritual she weaves, it's rather unorthodox. Normally, a standard ritual involves setting up a magic circle. You have to slowly draw in power through that circle. The circle helps contain that power. And usually other glyphs you add to the circle help ensure the mana being drawn in can correctly be applied in the nuanced way it was intended.

However, the situation Isaera found herself in now felt quite the opposite. There was an overwhelming amount of energy already present and contained within what was effectively a circle already. So perhaps.. perhaps all Isaera needed to do was add in a glyph of her own, and then concentrate on that.

Thinking on the situation more, making a 'glyph' seemed to be the problem here. Isaera was, for lack of better terms, lacking in tools and possessions. Still, there were some rocks lying around in this cave. Picking up a fairly decent flat one, no bigger than her palm, she found another rock with a somewhat sharp point and began to etch a rune into it.

As Isaera understood it, like in a standard ritual circle, the glyphs help direct how the mana is used, how its effects are manifested. So, this rune... it would take that mana and turn it into a stone. But not just any stone: stone which also bore the same sigil. And so that stone would also take in mana and create more stone just like it. Theoretically, the cycle would continue indefinitely. For a brief moment Isaera was worried that it might produce catastrophic results, like create an ever-growing mountain, however, she reasoned that the worst this could do was take up space until it filled up all void in the physical realm. The stone could not, for instance, traverse into the realm of pure arcane energy.

After scratching and scratching her rudimentary glyph into stone with stone, and keeping an eye on the door, the only thing left for Isaera to do is drop the stone into the field of energy. It wasn't magical at all, so it passed right through the barrier. However, in addition to keeping the barrier up, Isaera then had to also attempt to concentrate on the glyph. The results were almost immediate.

With just a tiny amount of concentration, stone began to branch out in all directions, covered in that fractal-like pattern which Isaera had etched. She had to jump back or else risk getting impaled by all the sudden growth. The cave rumbled a bit, and loose pebbles fell from the ceiling, but eventually the situation settled down. Before Isaera was only a gnarl of bizarrely-shaped and patterned rock, without much evidence of a mana leak at all anymore. Just the lingering taste of it due to previous saturation.

And it seemed that, for the time being, due to all this rampant growth of stone, the only exit for Isaera now was the way in which her companions went: down the narrow path behind her.

[Feathersnow]

"These snakes aren't normal," Says Mor
"We don't know how they will react," adds Lag
"We can't work wonders to calm them or kill them from afar."
"It seems shameful and dangerous to slaughter them."
"But we have no better idea."

[Plaids]

Jak'arri
A carpet of snakes it sure would have been nice to have a beast master or druid amongst the party. But Aleana, Isaera's flighty counterpart, was regrettably elsewhere and the party didn't share Jak'arri's enthusiasm for the dwarven beast master. The pathfinders had just leapt into a crevice but left the rope at the exit.

Jak'arri ponders for a moment rubbing his smooth chin. Simple agents and problems were often best dealt with by simple solutions. Something which other leaders in Kalimdor seemed to have forgotten.


Perhaps a little deterent is all we need Mor'Lag. A little fire and smoke has served me well in Tanaris.
Jak'arri begins foraging for fallen foliage amongst the bountiful vegetation and fishes a small blade and match stone from a pouch.

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis


Marion's slender, right eyebrow rose as she perked her head around at the sound.

"Fire?" she asked, eyes alight.

"You need fire?" the warlock asked, drawing one hand up...

[Plaids]

Jak'arri
Jak'arri smiles. A youngster quick on the uptake and seizing the initiative is welcome to the old troll.
Fire should keep the serpents away. But I can't risk the safety of an elemental by bringing it here. Elementals reside even within Gadgetzan but not here.

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: The Mageless Party

Show

Gnarled old roots, a few feet long, are not hard to come by; and putting fire to them is simple enough, with Marion's magical talent. With a few moments work, all four (or five, given the ogre ambiguity quotient) of the travellers have torches in their grips. Swung low, and slow, the pale serpents in the room know by ancient instinct to keep away. Even some bolder specimens, arm-thick slitherers with flared, serated cobra hoods that hiss in challenge to approach, are cowed after a short challenge of wills; and the party is able (with some use of the tactical diamond formation) traverse the room in a protective boundary of ophidian hesitation. They do not give chance beyond their strange chamber, as the grey moss carpet grades back to loamy earth; perhaps they know, or fear, something further along.

Charred sticks set aside, there are no more obstacles; just another bend in a stony twist of passage, and the party is at the entrance to what the map called the Pit of Fangs. Beyond, you recall, is where the Eye of Killrogg saw the elves - the elves you initially came here to find. But how best to proceed, into their midst?

Spoiler: A reminder of the last information you had about this room, from a few hours ago.

Show

At the end of this cavern, at the end that is more clear of obstacles, you discover some - not quite all - of your missing druids. They are heaped together in what you, and the eye, first mistakes for a corpse pile; but darting closer to examine, the truth is not quite so grim. Two male, and two female Kaldorei, each dressed in the breeze purple-and-green druid fashions of their people, lay in an interlocked, snuggled sleep; arms and legs loosely embracing one another at soporific random. It does not strike you as a lascivious intimacy; but it is a remarkable comfort with one another - and with the dozens of snakes that slither over and around them, relishing their body heat, forming their own interwoven sets for rest nearby.

The additional exit to this room is a door-sized arch overgrown with creepervines that startle the demon-eye as they rustle, and you are disoriented for a moment as the thing retreats back to a more discrete viewing distance. A third Kaldorei male pushes through the vines (which seem eager to accommodate), sets a wooden pail to one side, wanders to the pile, and gives one of the women a stirring jab with the tip of one sandaled foot. She stirs, expression pissy and displeased; and through the mute scene you get the impression that she is taking over some kind of watch. After a few minutes of stretching and tense exchanged conversation, she saunters through the vines, and the new arrival leans up against the wall near the elf-heap. Restless, the eye shuffles about, but it cannot find a way to proceed through the vines without certainly being spotted; and it elects to turn back.

Spoiler: The Partyless Mage

Show

Success. The snarl of stone that has spidered up in the wake of your shaping is fit for purpose - functional, but also, if you dare say so, pretty in a way; the play of natural forces driving at each other in an unnaturally arcane space has made the stone-scar as much like a bloomed rose as it is like a crush of random stone. And, perhaps fortunately, the surge of its reparative growth has mostly closed off the way from the previous cavern - the one where the ambiguous movement of shadow had been, so good riddance to that.

With the threat contained, you can feel the arcane ambience bleeding away; and in the wake of this victory of studied precision and will over the obstreperous forces of the universe, you begin making your way to the narrow exterior exit to the room. Your companions haven't doubled back - presumably, they have found success in their passing - and that remains the only way to proceed. But behind you, your tall and sharp ears catch the sound of shuffle, and slide of sand and stone. Something is carefully, quietly, making its way through an uncomfortably narrow space between the growth of stone and the wall of the cavern near the first entrance. Whatever is there seems to have decided it is safe to proceed, now that you have made it so; though its failure to announce itself, either as friend or foe, is disconcerting.

Spoiler: Perception DC 20

Show

...But faintly, amidst the stealthy shuffling, you catch the muted grumble of a Thalassian curse, in feminine sotto voce.

[WindStruck]

Someone was there, following her. She was sure of it! Isaera could hear whoever it was, apparently trying to scrape past the formation of rock. Not entirely impossible, she supposed, but probably not comfortable.

Well, that was it. Isaera wasn't going to have any of this nonsense. Had one of the others lingered behind despite her wishes? Fine, whatever. But all this secrecy and the stalking was getting ridiculous.

As Isaeara turned around to confront her shadow, she then heard the curse in Thalassian. What.. who was it then? Her best guess may have been, her sister? But how, and why? Then again, she could ask that of any other random person as well.

After she rounds the narrow bend again, Isaera is already beginning to say, <Thalassian> "Who goes there?" She hoped it was Aleeana, at least. Perhaps it was.. oh... did it have something to do with the centaurs?

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: The Partyless Mage

Show

"Aw."

The disappointment in Aleeana's voice is plain as her silent approach is scuttled. Now less concerned about making no noise, she squirms more vigorously through a claustrophobic cleft in the stone, plops out into the main chamber, and offers you a half-smirk that is both frustrated at her own failure, but pleased with your perceptiveness.

"Thought I was going to get right up to you, that time. I found your tracks in the big cavern near the entrance; looked like you'd gone up the river, and I was right." She jerks a thumb back over her shoulder as she trots up to you, dusting herself off with the other hand. "Did you see that thunder lizard? Massive. Never seen one that big. Anyway. We're going this way?"

You had parted ways with your sister where your targets diverged - she had gone up to the Crossroads, and you on to the Wailing Caverns. To catch up to you now, here, she must have arrived at the Crossroads, and barely had time to think about getting a room before she booked overland at a fairly impressive gait to the Caverns - making up two days of Kodo-back travel in one day, or less.

[WindStruck]

Isaera nods at the question of going the way they're going.

"I'm glad to see you. Though surprised, nonetheless. What are you doing here? I thought you had business in the crossroads," she says.

[Plaids]

Jak'arri

The apprentices are one chamber away and all threats were at a safe distance. Only the task of convincing the apprentices to vacate the area remained. Though the lax nature of students was unusual. Druids were at home in the wilds but feeling lax enough to quibble over chores and sleep schedule usually indicated a lack of fervor in a students studies.

Luckily the party could likely convince them through admiration rather than stern decree.
The apprentices should be just up ahead. Looks like they got a bit too comfortable down here and might need some convincing to get up and about. Emelia, Mor'Lag, I think you should take the lead. Isaera would be good here but you two are just as good. They will trust us more easily if fellow students greet them before the stately disciplinarians come around to lead them out of here.

Jakk'ari proposes attempting to add some levity with his commentary on Marion and himself.