Rosa stops dead as the Gnomes warring, she looks back with a grin.
"Right every one walk back slowly, I'm getting the imprecation where more here to clear the way than clear out the Grems"
she walks backwards to where she was before.
"Best thing to do with a trip when you know its there is trip it and see who comes running, any one have a grappling hook and rope or twine?"
With her back to the wall she looks down the cave to the trap.
"O and keep your backs to a wall, they like to come at you from behind"
As you wait for an ambush, a gremlin pokes his head around the corner and glances at you. When it notices that you see him, he runs away.
A few minutes pass and nothing happens.
low voice, "blast no idea where they are, right lets get on with this."
She calls out
"AAYY!! gremlins get your backsides here I want a word NOW!!"
Rosa says down the tunnel,
The gremlin looks back around the corner and makes a rude gesture at Rosa, along with sticking out its tongue. Then, it turns around showing its rear end, and with its tiny hand, starts spanking himself.
Its orange eyes watch you carefully.
"I'll be right back, Tetsuda come on!"
Pulling out her dagger and a few other thieves tools she dashes to the wire and begins to work.
Rosa looks at it a moment then pulls her water tight bag, and some food
"You want this, yummy, then go get someone we can talk to you little bu**er or you get nothing"
"It may like food but I know what it likes more."
Digging into her pack the gnome pulls out one of her silverdisks (3 charges) and holds it up watching it's eyes hoping that the creature goes for the disk. If it does Tetsuda will get in it's way with his hard shell and snapping mandibles.
The gremlin watches as Linpul pokes at the metal wire.
Linpul cuts the wire in the place of least resistance. A foot long metal spike slides out of the wall slowly and falls to the ground. A small spring pokes out from where the spike came from.
The gremlin shakes its head at Rosa's promise of food. Its orange eyes focus on the silverdisk and it moves towards Linpul until it is 10 ft away. It holds out a tiny claw and tilts its head slightly.
Dr Lendaro groans. "I think I'd prefer if they were to attack us outright.
I find this entire situation distasteful, and expect to find little comfort in improving the skulks' quality of life."
He tries to rationalize into a mindset - preparing himself to cull the creatures.
Rosa looks round at him,
"Not much of a traction are your doctor, think about it for a moment, if the Skinnys back there could get rid of the gremlins they would have, no need to risk using us. Which means they can't get rid of them, so right now we have the upper hand, but that wee feller wanted us to walk into a fortification trap, that takes more than a few pests, that takes a tribe, they had to get the stuff to build it and set it up, that takes time and resources, again not the thing you think of when you think of pest. So now we have two tribes, the Skinnys and the Gremlins down here, both at logger heads, both unable to get rid of the other, and we in the middle tipping the balance. The smart tactical move is to play one off the other and mop up what's left."
she winks at him,
"Ill I want to see is if I am right and they are a tribe come clan."
The gremlin moves closer to Linpul, its hand nearly touching the gnome.
Tetsuda leaps in and strikes with his mandibles.
The gremlin jumps back, snarls for a second, then draws his short sword.
Phase 1
Everyone
Phase 2
Gremlin
Rakdon calls out to the gremlin and fires a ball of acid from his hand. It flies above the gremlin who cranes his head to watch it go by.
The gremlin snickers and makes noises.
Taking a step back Linpul places both her hands on her hammer (sorry I forgot to adjust my AC I would be one handing the lucerne hammer just to carry it.) and thrusts the spiked end towards the creature. She also moves a little bit around the creature to help Tetsuda get into flanking position.
"I've stopped your trap and now I will take you down!"
It hops away from Linpul's hammer then starts slapping its rear end with its free hand.
"Trap, trap, trap!" It mimics Linpul's words.
Dr. Lendaro shakes his head... levels his pistol, and fires.
Rosa steps back ready but dos not attack,
Lendaro fires and misses the gremlin. His shot ricochets along the cavern walls and embeds itself at the end of the passageway.
Tarphesh moves into the gremlin's area and swings his greatsword.
"Fast little bugger," the half orc grunts.
The gremlin being surrounded by so many larger creatures than itself, squeaks and tries to run off.
A green glow surrounds the gremlin as Tetsuda bites it. The few creature doesn't seem phased by the beetle's mandibles. It hops up and gets caught in the feet by Linpul's hammer, and ducks its head as Tarphesh's greatsword cuts through air.
The gremlin hobbles away quickly, leaving a small trail of blood.
"Yes... terribly fast." Dr Lendaro reloads. "I would say they are well aware we are the enemy now.
They will be preparing for us. We should proceed with caution... keep an eye out for traps, and offer your back to no shadow."
He holsters his pistol, and readies his lantern and rapier.
|
Rakdon will be in the back in case there are traps, he is not your spotter for those, neither is he your front lined fighter. He also has his crossbow out like always, because hey that is his bonded object and yes it is always loaded so he can just cast or just fire as he does not need to pull the trigger to cast. anyway.
Linpul nods her head in agreement to the Dr.
"Something seems fishy about all this."
As you move through the passageways, you find no more traps. After a few more lengths, you find the passages open up into a large cavern.
Several different passageways converge on a narrow ledge overlooking a rubble-filled cavern. The far wall is made of a smooth, dark gray metal. A single circular door, tightly closed, sits on the metal wall just above the upper level of the rubble.
A greenish gremlin, slightly larger than the others, stands just past piles of rubble, sharpening a metal spike. He sees you as you approach but continues running a tiny short sword against the length of the metal.
Most of the rubble looks like broken machinery parts, or things taken from machinery. To the left of the boss gremlin are two regular gremlins, one of which is bleeding from his foot.
"What you want?"He says.
Dr Lendaro stifles a smirk as a thought comes to him. "I have a thought, Linpul. Mind if I share it with you?"
Dr Lendaro then clears his throat, and addresses the grinding gremlin. "I would like to know how you are getting along with the nearby skulks. You know the changey-skin people?..."
Tell gremlins truth? Provide Skulks false proof. Skulks come check...
Looking down the gnome shakes her head. No matter how much they weren't bugging people on the surface, the skulks are easier to deal with in general.
"We should wait to hear out the gremlins, we aren't here to deal with everyone's problems, we deal with them one at a time and this could be a problem."
"Well, this is what I think we should do. First-"
Her words cut off as a bright portal appears behind Rosa. On the other side of the ellipse is a scene of fire and lava. A skeletal hand grabs at her forearm and clutches on. Unintelligebly, a deep voice thunders out speaking strange words to the tiefling.
"I see. I understand. My destiny is elsewhere." She smiles at the rest of the group and pulls out the contracts with a deft hand. Bluish flame engulfs both, leaving only ashes on the ground.
"I'm afraid I can't complete this mission, though you know I would have. Good luck to you all. No rest for the wicked, etc."
She leaps through the portal and it winks out.
"Hmm... Likely for the best. It sounded as though she was about to disagree with us both. I just hope we were not each expected to have arranged for own spectacular balefire egress... "
"You know the grey people?" The boss gremlin says, no longer distracted by the infernal display. "You friends with them?"
The gremlin stabs his metal spike into the ground. His orange eyes seem to grow brighter as he stares at all of you.
"Be careful what you say next."Jazvit says.
He makes some noises to the other gremlins. Their chittering laughter echoes in the cavern.
Linpul shrugs her shoulders, she was never very good at talking with people.
"Well, they hired us to kill you, one of you already tried to kill us and we were wondering what your side of the story would be? It seems to be a very complex and twisted tale."
The boss gremlin snarls. His sharp toothed grin seems somehow sharper.
"You try to kill us? They hired you?" Common does not seem to be a language he is good at.
He brandishes his tiny short sword at Linpul. "You can try, but you can not. Jazvit is fast and nimble."
Phase 1
Tarphesh, Rakdon, Lendaro
Phase 2
Gremlins
Phase 3
Linpul, Tetsuda
"Are you fast and nimble on the end of a sword as well?" Tarphesh glowers at the gremlin, "Now sit tight and wait, we talk first. I do not trust the grey people and I don't trust you but we all have to deal with it. So sit down and talk!" Tarphesh holds his sword in his hand to add to the threat.
The boss gremlin makes a motion and the other gremlins stop.
"Fine, orc. You talk. Tell me why you and me no fight."
Despite the gremlin's tone, he continues to grin. The other gremlins are on edge, but follow Jazvit's commands.
"You don't like the grey men, do you? Do you want a chance to kill them? That's what we offer." Truth was Tarphesh wanted both of the groups dead but the gremlin chief probably had the same idea. "I know you don't trust us and you have no reason to. Except for the fact that we have a common enemy in the grey men that is."
Jazvit scratches his head. His orange eyes squint as they try to examine Tarphesh.
"You mean, you gonna kill grey men? Jazvit doesn't understand."
He starts to tap the side of the metal spike with his short sword.
Dr Lendaro keeps silent so as not to foul the intricacies of Tarphesh's plan.
He subtly nods for the half-orc to continue... waiting until he feels comfortable assisting.
"What I mean is you can kill the grey man, with a little help from us. I have no doubt you would prefer seeing them on the ends of your blades to someone else killing them.It's a bit harder but so much more satisfying." He grinned and showed his teeth at the last bit. "We can take them here under the pretense that we killed you and then you can strike. They won't know what hit them."
She knew Tarphesh liked to fight, but this could be cruel and would waste time. At least the gremlins tried to kill them, that was reason enough to fight back. Plus the water breathing spell would only last for so long.
"Tar, you know we can't dilly dally forever right?"
"Okay, you bring grey men here. We wait. "
Jazvit makes noises to his gremlin lackeys.
The boss gremlin picks up his metal spike and begins sharpening it again.
The two of you meet on the road to Torch. There is safety in numbers, and after talking about it, you find that you have many things in common, despite being so different in outward appearance and upbringing.
After a few days, the two of you reach the large town. Making gossip with the townsfolk, you’ve learned a few things about the place.
Councilman Khonnir is missing.
There is a secret cave beneath Black Hill via Weeping Pond.
The purple flame has gone out.
You’ve also learned that one such expedition to search for Khonnir and the disappearance of the torch has left about an hour ago to the underground caves beneath Weeping Pond.
"Thank you. There is one thing we need though, prove that you are dead. They need to believe us to come here." He looked at the chieftain, "Do you have any trademark item? Something we can show them. You'll obviously get it back once we're back."
When Lin spoke up he smiled and nodded. He knew but if all went well they would just have to clean up the last remnants of the battle that would occur. Tarphesh liked a fight but he was sane enough to know sparing your energy was a good thing.
Jazvit scratches at his ears, then pulls out a tuft of hair. He moves quickly and places it in Tarphesh's hand, then moves back.
Looking at the hair, it has a greenish tinge compared to the other gremlins' white hairs.
"Bring it back when you are done, orc."
We don't have time to go back, we need to move forward.
"Alright Tar, we'll do this but we have to find Mr. Baine first."
A strikingly good looking human, Solaria, approaches the caves with her new companion, Thera, discussing recent events. "It seems we were late, another day or two earlier and we'd made the expedition." Her fingers tighten around the shaft of her morningstar, a dark leather strapping, worn in parts seems to nestle in the palm of her hand. On her arm, she lifts her leather covered shield, the moon and stars design clearly visible, adding colour to the otherwise fur clothed woman. Her steely blue eyes look towards the entrance as she turns to her companion, "Onwards, may Desna make fate treat us kindly on this journey below ground. Those who have gone before, let us hope they are alive. The innkeeper didn't seem so sure they would be up to it, let's hope we find more than their remains."
Piecing together bits and fragments and rumors you manage to learn about the various groups that went into the underground cave.
There was a group of halflings, nonlocal worshippers of Brigh, thugs from around town, Khonnir's group and Khonnir's adopted children. There were rumors about a purple haired woman entering first under the cover of darkness with orcs and ratfolk. Khonnir's group came out once but returned and never came back.
Finally, the last group, was a mishmash of interesting characters, including an evil Tiefling cleric with a flamboyant nature, a gnome huntress and her giant beetle, a hamsterfolk wizard trying to stop a robot apocalypse, a middle aged man with a gun and psychic powers, and a half orc that nearly picked a fight with the tiefling on the first day of meeting.