Shakes his head and shoulders his pack along with a good share of the camp equipment. "Baa, we drop it and something gets lost or broken. Just have to suck it up and climb down." follows his own advice and starts carefully down the trail. Over his should he calls back to the group "Just think when we do get to the bottom we can always take a break to enjoy the surf."
Sasha nods to Carys. "I don't think any normal horse is going to be able to make it down there. My vote is for lowering the packs down with a rope. Or perhaps letting one person climb down and lowering them between us somehow." She glances at the dwarf already trying to climb down and shakes her head. "Better to break a tent pole than our necks, Kabur. You might be a skilled climber, with strength to spare, but I doubt the same can be said for all of us."
Pauses in his climb and glances around at the faces looking over the edge at him. "Sorry about that, wasn't thinking about some of the less athletic of our group. How about finish I the climb down, someone drop a line and I can steady things from below as everyone climbs down." grins in what might charitably be considered a cheerful grin and continues with his careful steady climb down.
Kabur manages to make it to the bottom with little trouble. However, no one else seems eager to try the free climb behind him.
Majest smiles at the joke of riding on the camp stuff down to the bottom. However, as she peeks over the edge, her smile soon fades away.
"Well he is a dwarf after all, trust him to know his way around rocks." Sasha gives a smile to the others. "So how do you want to go about this?"
Looks around the base of the trail, up and down the beach and then out into the waves before yelling back up to his companions. "Lower the supplies on down by rope and I'll take them off, then you all can follow."
Kabur spies nothing out of the ordinary along the rocky cliff or along the sandy beach.
Hearing the dwarf's call, Aerys takes a length of rope from the camp stores and splices it together with another to make a length long enough to traverse the distance. She then tosses one end down to the dwarf and makes to tie the other end off on a tree at the top.
Sasha begins gathering packs, organizing them for their trip down. Seeing Ilarian just standing around she hollers out. "Oy! Ilarian. Put those arms to some use and give me a hand with these packs." She flashes a wide grin, "Not gonna let all the women do the work are you?" She glances down to the dwarf meaningfully, obviously including him as part of the jest.
Majest is visibly nervous. She's obviously trying to avoid looking over the edge by distracting herself with pebbles and sticks on the ground. At one point she's drawing with a stick, and at another she's pushing pebbles with a stick to make certain patterns. The most noticeable thing is she's quiet.
Seeing that the big people have the actual work well in hand, Gelik strolls over to kneel next to Majest. "Chin up, my friend. It'll take more than some bad dreams and steep climbs to conquer two of the worlds most well traveled gnomes, eh? Why did I ever tell you about the time I climbed the cliffs of Kaer Maga? Hundreds of feet strait up, and of course filled with all manner of troublesome creatures. We were on our way north to..." And he launches into yet another of his fantastic and probably highly exaggerated tales. Yet it is this very obvious exaggeration that makes the story funny. As he speaks, at first just to Majest, he gradually lifts his voice to include more people, bringing them all into the tale with the talent of a master showman.
He ends the tale just as the packs are ready to make their decent with a hilarious juxtaposition and a punch line that makes the entire story well worth it. Yet you also feel there may have been some kind of moral there as well. Something about persistence in the face of overwhelming adversity.
After hearing bits and pieces of Gelik's story yells up to the rest "Can we stop playing and get back to business and lower down those packs?"
grunts as he catches hold of the packs guiding them to the ground and untying the rope. "Ok the packs are off just tie the rope at the top and come down one at a time. With the rope to steady yourself it should be no problem" he yells to the top and after a moments pause yells again "O ya either the last person needs to free climb or someone needs to magic the rope so it unties after we are done."
Carys nods in what could be approval at Gelik's tale and hopes it calms the other gnome down a bit. She then goes about checking the ropes one more time since falling to her death is not how she plans on leaving this world.
Majest's eyes grow with fascination at the grand tales. Once the stories are done, she goes over with Carys to help with the ropes with a bounce in her step. She's appears to be in a much better mood.
With the combined efforts of those at the top of the cliff, the packs all make it down to the bottom, arranged in a neat pile by Kabur.
Next comes the more challenging part of getting all of the people down.
Gelik is the first to seize the rope and begin the climb down. Using the rocks of the cliff for leverage he is able to make the decent with little difficulty, though he does let out a curse or two as he suffers a few scrapes. It is just as Ilarian is starting down that the first sign of trouble rears, though it is Kabur who feels it.
A crab, enormous for its kin, seems to have taken an interest in all the bustle and crept out of it's lair somewhere among the rocks. The first sign anyone has is the large pincer snapping at the dwarf's leg. Though Kabur stumbles a bit, he manages to maintain his footing, avoiding the deadly grip.
The missile crackles as it scorches the crab's plates, but it doesn't seem to deter it.
"Don't complain, Ilarian. That could be dinner!" Jask grabs the rope and starts to haul himself down as quickly as he can to give the others aid.
It isn't pretty but he manages the decent, dropping down next to the dwarf while managing to avoid a swipe of claw from the crab.
Majest reaches for her sling in her back pants pocket, along with a bullet, then takes aim.
Hoping Majest's shot distracts the crab, Carys starts to head down the rope.
Majest's stone strikes hard against the crab, lodging between two of it's chitinous plates. Meanwhile, Cary's uses the chance to climb quickly down the rope, landing easily on her feet near her companions.
He hollers out in pain then finds solid footing for a good fighting stance. "I got dibs on that claw!" he exclaims as jask slides down the rope.
With a holler he jumps between the crabs claws bringing an elbow strike down between the eye stalks and followed by an uppercut to the jaw area as he jumps back from between the flailing claws.
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Kabur's first blow is misplaced and just bounces off of the plates to the side of its face, but the uppercut connects squarely, cracking chitin and letting a small stream of clear liquid ooze out.
The crab seems startled for a second, but comes back at Kabur with both claws snapping. Meanwhile, another crab with more drab coloring comes out from the rocks, aiming for Cary's.
The crab attacking Kabur snaps both claws onto the dwarf, a very uncomfortable cracking sounding from the dwarf as he is lifted up and into the air, gripped tightly in one of them.
Cary's also finds herself on the defensive right after landing, with a claw sweeping in to snap at her legs, drawing blood across her right thigh. Yet she still manages to slip away, avoiding the fate of the dwarf.
Meanwhile, Aerys and Sasha both hurry down the rope to aid their comrades, the first heading to help Kabur, while Sasha drops next to Cary's. The crabs make a quick snap at both of them, but only Aerys takes suffers any harm as the crab's free claw scrapes along her side.
Shadak quickly makes his way down the rope behind the two woman an almost feral grin on his toothy face.
Sarai slips down the rope behind the half-orc, making the decent look easy as she lands lightly on her feet.
Gelik takes a few steps back from the fray as he sees the dwarf so injured, launching into a series of scathing epithets on the crabs that are clearly meant more to demean them in the eyes of his allies than cause them any harm. [/ooc]Inspire Courage: Allies in 30' get +1 to hit and damage.[/ooc]
Your the damned sea food I am not on the menu! he screams as blood streams from his multiple wounds. He brings his Knee up into the joint of the claw while bringing his fist down from the top striking with all his strength just before passing out.
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Kabur's blow of vengeance to the crab obviously lacks any real strength behind it and the effort seems to be too much for the monk as his eyes roll back into his head soon after.
Another bolt from Ilarian batters the crab causing it to scrabble back a few feet to put some distance between it and the sudden swarm of attackers.
Jask, glancing around at the many wounded, pulls out the two faced symbol of Nethys. Holding it up before him he speaks a word and an intangible wave of energy washes over everyone on the beach.
She first hesitates to climb down as she watches her poor friends from the cliff. Majest gathers up as much courage as she can and takes the plunge down.
Majest does fine down the rope at first, but towards the middle her grip slips. She tries to recover but the rope gets away from her and she tumbles down the remainder of the slope.
A sharp yelp and some unsavory words escape Carys' lips as the crab slashes her leg. She quickly pulls the scythe from her belt and takes a desperate swipe at the creature.