Kat regains her balance. More carefully this time, she moves to peer down the well, using her sunrod for light. Did the orcs go down there? She glances around for a repelling rope that she might have missed.
You notice a large web stretching across the well about 20 feet below you. One side of the web has been dislodged. It looks like the stone along the wall is chipped in places, possibly some handholds for climbing, but you are not sure.
Webs, great. Where there are webs, there are spiders. And knowing my luck, they are very large spiders.
Kat takes a moment to look around to see if there's anything she could tie her rope to. If there were, then she could probably toss down a few more rocks to destroy the web. If there weren't, then, well, she might want to keep it as a safety net. Not that landing in a spider's web is particularly "safe".
She also takes the opportunity to see what else is in the room.
You don't find anything else particularly interesting in the room. There are some torch sconce's on each wall that might serve as an anchor for a rope if you want to lower yourself into the opening.
Seeing that she at least stands a chance of using rope to catch her fall, Kat pulls out her bow and arrows and tries to toss down a few of the medium sized rock debris lying around in to the web. Maybe if I can make it seem like they caught something in their webs, the spiders might come out to investigate.
If no spiders make an appearance, she tosses down a few more rocks, this time aiming to break up the web more, again waiting to see if any eight legged monstrosities dare to show themselves.
If that still doesn't lure any spiders out, she puts up her weapons and attempts to tie one end of her rope to the sconce and the other around her waist, hoping to use it as more of a safeguard than for actually climbing down. The spare rope she loops around one arm, trying to slowly let it out as she goes down rather than hoping that the well is at least 50 feet deep to catch her. She then carefully tries to use what appear to be handholds to climb down.
The rope chafes around your waist and arm as you slowly lower yourself to where you can grab one of the handholds. You start your decent, slowly feeling for new foothold and handholds. Spiderwebs tickle your neck and back as you pass through the opening in thick web.
Suddenly, your foot slips and your hands aren't strong enough to hold. Thankful for the rope, you feel you stomach lurch as you begin to free fall toward the bottom.
The rope goes taut and wrenches your body, but you are unharmed and hang limply in the air. Thankful that your rope wasn't longer than the well was deep, you try and see your surroundings, but in the darkness you can only make out shadows at best.
Kat pulls her sunrod out of her belt and uses that to look around.
Still hanging from the rope, your sunrod casts light around you. You are about two feet from a stone floor. The opening from the well is above you, about five feet up. In one direction, you can see a tunnel leading off and around a bend. In the other, there is a pile of rocky rubble. Standing atop the rubble, you see a large spider spinning a web around the body of one of the guards that walked past you. The spider looks toward you menacingly. Dark blood trickles from a wound in the spider's side.
Yup, just as I thought. Giant spider. Hopefully it's full of orc and doesn't want a small little morsel like me. Just in case though...
Kat carefully draws her sword, trying not to startle the spider into attacking. She lets a moment of readiness pass before slowly using her sword hand to hold on to the rope. Placing her sunrod between her teeth, she uses her now free other hand to start untying the rope around her waist before letting herself drop to the floor, sword at the ready. She retrieves her sunrod with her free hand. Making sure to place a nice solid wall at her back, she slowly begins edging her way towards the tunnel. She only takes her eyes off the spider long enough to glance down the hallway and make sure there isn't another spider (or the orcs) waiting for her down it.
Round 1
Initiative Order
1. Spider
2. Kat
The spider leaves the half webbed body in front of itself and rears back. As it falls forward, a mass of sticky webbing flies from underneath its mouth and toward the ground surrounding you.
Sticky webs fill the tunnel and catch you by the legs and the arms. You try to jump out of the way, but it's no use. You are now caught, and the spider starts to creep forward, a hungry look in its eyes.
Kat gives the spider a dirty look. She manages to wrangle herself free, saying a few things in Elvish that would make many members of the dainty race blush. She moves backwards down the hallway, glancing back as it turns.
You scurry backwards, away from the spider, rounding the small bend in the tunnel without seeing anything specific around you. You watch in horror as the spider runs forward with surprising speed. So far, you are managing to stay just out of reach.
As you make your way around the first bend, trying to stay away from the spider, you catch sight of a faint light emanating around another bend that is about 30 feet behind where you are now.
Crap, knowing my luck, that's probably those orcs I saw earlier.
You hear sounds of conversation coming from behind you. The spider is still following you.
Kat grumbles to herself. If the spider wasn't going to leave her be, she'd just have to deal with it. Hoping to limit the likelihood of the other people hearing the battle, she moves forward to engage with the creature, drawing one of her potions of healing as she does so, just to be prepared.
Your rapier slices the head clean off the spider and it thuds to the floor. Thick blood flows down the tunnel toward where you came down the well.
Kat blinks in surprise as the spider topples over dead. She represses the urge to smirk. No time to get cocky now, Kat! She quickly shakes her head to clear it, nudging the body off to one side. She quickly stashes her light source, looking to make sure the other light and voices weren't coming any closer.
Now in darkness, Kat attempts to creep just close enough to listen in on what's being said.
You manage to pull the spider back to the pile of rocks without anyone seeing you, but as you complete your task, you are aware of voices and movement very close to you.
I really hope they're not following the blood trail. Kat makes a face :| as she looks around for some dark shadows or thick webs to hide behind.
You wiggle your way between some of the fallen stones; makning yourself as small as possible. From your hiding place, you watch as the guards walk toward you, and then stop at the spot where the ceiling opens up into the well.
"Wonder how this rope got here?" one of them asks.
"Be on alert. Grenz over there has already been killed by that damn spider; and after we were told it was dispatched. Damn. Where is Grenz's body, anyway?" The owner of the second voice squints and looks toward the pile of stone where you are hidden.
"What goes up, must come down," said the third guard. "I'm going to go have a look." That said, he starts climbing the rope that remains hanging down from above.
From her rather uncomfortable hiding place, Kat silently glares at the orcs. They better damn well not steal that rope...
You watch as one of the orcs walks toward the dead body that the spider had half wrapped in webbing. He leans over and starts pulling away the webbing and then looting the body.
Meanwhile, the other Orc asks, "What did ya find? Ye better share or I'll tell the boss that you ran like a sissy from the spider and that's why Grenz died."
You hear a feint voice, and then watch in horror as the orc that climbed the rope came crashing down to the floor with a cut piece of your rope dangling from his hand. "Look out below," he yelled on his way down. After he landed, he looked at his companions with a smile and said, "Well, whoever came down on this rope surely isn't going to go back up that way. Have you found anyone?"
You feel a slight pushing of air behind you, as though there was something behind you; behind the rocks.
Kat consoles herself about the rope. Hmm, well, good news is that he either didn't cut off very much, or he just took a lot of damage from jumping down. Although I'm not sure why he bothered in the first place given that there are hand and foot holds...
She then immediately freezes as she feels stuff behind her moving. Ugg, what now? Hoping that whatever it is is less dangerous than three orcs, she does her best impression of a dead (and therefore uninteresting) body. Or a rock. An oddly body-shaped rock.
Think rocky thoughts. Gravel. Weight. Crushing.
Nothing happens. You continue to stay hidden in the rocks. After the body of the dead orc guard had been thoroughly searched, the three orcs head back down the hallway in silence.
Once they're gone, Kat slowly pushes her way out from under the rock pile, conscious that there may be something behind her ready to attack. When she gets free, she distracts herself from her desire to go kill the annoying orcs (most likely a suicidal course of action given that she'd be outnumbered 3 to 1) by carefully moving aside the rocks to see what had been behind her. If it didn't attack me, maybe it's not a living thing, but rather a tunnel or something?
You find yourself on the other side of the rock pile, standing in an open cavern. Light trickles in through cracks in the ceiling and high in the walls, but it is dim, at best. You can make out the vague shapes of piles of ... things ... on the floor around the walls. It smells dank and musty and you get the feeling that no one has been on this area for a very long time.
Hmm, on the one hand, it's unlikely any of my goals are down here. On the other, maybe I'll find a passage to somewhere useful? It will also give me a chance to avoid those damnable orcs...
Kat takes a moment to try to arrange some of the rocks and spider corpse to hide the hole she made to the cavern. She makes it loose enough not to trap herself even though that likely meant it wouldn't hold up to a particularly close inspection.
Pulling out her sunrod and holding her rapier at the ready, she attempts to move just close enough to the closest odd pile to try to determine what it is. I really hope this isn't yet another thing that wants to eat me...
She also keeps a look out for any other exits from the cavern.
The room is self contained and looks to be the long lost remnant of some ancient storage chamber. Dust lays thick on everything and you find no sign of traps or other suspicious items. Some old chests lay about, along with casks which have long been empty and are nothing but husks of what they once were. The walks are thick with spider webs clinging to the hewn rock.
Well, I guess this is where fangy came from. No doubt there are more of the blighters lurking about.
Before checking out the oh-so-tempting chests, Kat carefully circles the room, looking for the spiders she has no doubt are hidden somewhere. She makes extra certain to keep a close eye on the ceiling. It's times like these that a torch would be useful...
You notice nothing more than you did at your first glance around the room.
Hmm, well, better safe than sorry.
Kat cautiously approaches the nearest chest. More out of habit than anything else, she checks it for traps and to see if it's locked or not.
Then, stepping behind the chest, she somewhat awkwardly pull the lid up, hoping that if she missed a trap, it will fire harmlessly into empty space. She does likewise with the other chests in the room, every once in a while looking around to make sure no creepy-crawly thing was sneaking up on her.
x100 /6 = 267
Between all the chests, you manage to find 267 silver pieces, an Azurite gem, and a malachite gem. There is nothing else of value in this room.
Hmm, not to bad of a bonus.
Done with this room, Kat moves back towards the entrance. Before unblocking it, she does her best to determine that the room on the other side is empty. When all appears clear, she makes her way carefully back into the bottom of the well, once again attempting to partially hide the opening. Then as quietly as she can, she starts moving once again down the passageway the orcs had gone down, keeping one ear out for signs that she was getting uncomfortably close to the men.
You make your way carefully down the long tunnel. As you round the bend, light from outside can be seen filtering through the mouth of an opening to the outside. A slight breeze makes its way down the tunnel and tickles your face.
The guards are stopped at the edge of the opening. The warm afternoon sun reflects off the helms of the three guards who are now speaking in hushed tones. They do not notice you.
From your vantage point, you see that this tunnel leads out into a cleft of some sort. A sheer rock faces dotted with crippled trees and underbrush dominates the southern side. You can't really see what lies to the north from your current position.
Kat crouches down, stows her sunrod, and waits a few minutes, just to see if it looked like the group was planning on moving any time soon. If it looks like they're planning on just hanging out, she'll try to creep just close enough to make out what they're talking about.
The guards continue to talk quietly amongst themselves. They do not notice as you approach.
You don't hear much and creep a bit closer.
You're just near enough to hear them, and they still haven't seen you. You can't make out everything, but you hear snippets of the conversation.
"The boss is gonna want to hear about this. There is definitely something wandering around down here."
"Whatever it is can't know we're here. We need ta kill it."
"That's up to the boss, not you."
"The boss will reward me for helping keep our secrecy. I am gonna kill it."
"The boss will kill you for killing it before it can find out what it knows!"
Well, that sounds...not great.
Deciding that they weren't going to say anything more interesting, Kat slowly starts creeping away.
Should I head back to the hidden room area I found? Or simply back to the open air? It would be best to know where they are, but this also doesn't actually help with my mission. Sure, I'd like to know what's on the other side of that cave exit, but it's clearly not another room in the castle. Maybe I can figure it out from some maps or by seeing if there isn't a tower I can get to the top of for a good eagle-eyed view.
As you turn away from the guards, you hear one of them mutter "Did I see something there?" Another mutters, "Did I hear something?"
"I'll go check - you guys wait here." You hear footsteps.
You make your way back to the opening of the well, cognizant of the fact that one of the guards is heading in your direction. Looking up, you are dismayed to see that the guard has cut your rope about six feet above the ceiling, and the ceiling is eight feet above you. No amount of jumping will allow you to go back up the well the way you came down.
The only way out is past the guards, one of which is about to head around the corner where he will surely see you.
It looks like the stone along the wall is chipped in places, possibly some handholds for climbing, but you are not sure.
Waiting until her pursuer is about to enter the bottom of the well, Kat jumps out and strikes.
The guard's eyes widen as he feels the first blow. In a flash, he crumples dead to the floor in a pool of his own blood.
Kat hurriedly drags the body out of sight of the hallway before quickly but quietly moving to the first bend of the tunnel, ready to likewise ambush someone coming around that bend. If they do suspect that something is up, hopefully they'll be expecting me near the well's bottom instead of next to this first bend.