Mothman's Age of Worms Redux

Game Master Mothman

Adoven eyes Ellantera's waist, looks a little awkward, then shrugs. He takes a rope and moves towards Ellantera....

"Do you mind, if I, ahh..." he shakes his head, and stead pulls on the rope that is now tied to the chain, to attach himself similarly to the Bloodranger, rather than directly to her. He also braces himself.

"We have other areas to explore. If this is a death trap, as we suspect... Perhaps we would be better to look at other areas first and return here later if necessary."

Adoven is favored with a smirk and a raised eyebrow when she realizes the cause of his discomfort. She offers no resistance, but you never know with those rangers...

Hearing the wisdom in Dohrlok’s words, she calls out to the rogue, ”Verrick! Hold!”

Verrik stops, "Alright alright. Fair enough. We can come back to it." The rogue turns back to join the group.

Tyvall breathes a sigh of relief and prepares to descend.

"OK. Now that we are up here, it should be possible to rig a safer way to descend an return, don't you think?"

I'm thinking we might be able to use a massive chain link to run a rope through and have someone at the base hoist someone or at least aid them up the shaft next time. Leave the rope or ropes here for now idea. How much rope we we have?

Ok, there’s a few things to catch up on, given my absence gave you guys a chance to go ahead a little without GM feedback. I’ll try to put everything into an ordered set of responses with some sort of narrative sense …

Verrik shrugs at Tyvall’s question about whether or not the theoretical trap is likely to reset. “Can’t say till I know more about what we’re up against here,” he says.

Meanwhile, Stanley has begun edging carefully past the others, casting his magic detecting divination again once he stands in front of Dohrlok. This time the end of the passage is within the range of his cantrip … and he detects a magical aura from the face. After concentrating for a few moments more, he realises that this aura is powerful – one of the strongest magical auras he has encountered – not quite overwhelming to his senses but close to it. It seems to him that the face is one big, fixed magical item, although the complexities and specifics of the magic involved in it are beyond him.

There will be more to come …

Verrik begins moving slowly and carefully down the corridor, while various other members of the group begin lying themselves down flat on the hard stone blocks of the floor, or tie off ropes.

Verrik looks carefully about, lightly tapping the walls and floor as he goes … but he keeps glancing up nervously at the angry carved face as he approaches it, and seems to completely forget about the suspicious looking stone block in the floor towards the end of the corridor that Ellantera and Dohrlok had spotted earlier …

“Verrik, stop!” the bloodrager calls, looking up just before Verrik puts his foot down on the block.

Yes, in fact Ellantera (with an assist from Dohrlok already detected what may well be the trigger for a trap in the form of a stone block with overly wide gaps around it, a short distance in front of the face. Fair enough that it was missed or forgotten in the months since you last had GM input …

“Uh … right, thanks,” says Verrik, looking down.

Now, it seems the decision has been pretty much made to retreat and explore elsewhere. You now also have information that the Face radiates very powerful magic. Let me know if you still want Verrik to have a go at disarming the trap before you leave, or if everyone’s just going to climb back down?

It is a DC 5 climb check to climb back down with the knotted rope you used on the way up.

My vote is try and press on. I think we floundered and wussed out without GM input.

Hmm, very powerful magic trap probably = dead 1st level rogue who tries to disarm it. But hey, he might get lucky...

Stanley scowls at Verrick at his agreement with Dohrlok, "Why is it when I suggest we avoid a trapped hallway with no visible way forward, you brush me off, but when Dohrlok does it you acquiesce?" He waves off any answer, his question merely rhetorical. "We would be better served following a path that has a greater chance of proving fruitful to our endeavors. I say, we've had a look, addressed each hallway, and should in fact return to the one that appears to have a working lift in it."

Dohrlok nods his assent to Stanley's plan.

"I shall follow your lead Stanley as you know much more about this sort of thing than I do as yet."

Looks like I'm outvoted ;)

So everyone climbs back down? I think you can probably all make it by Taking 10.

Ellantera follows her sensei's lead. She slaps the rogue on the back after he returns, almost knocking him down. Grinning, "We'll just have to find a different death-defying feat for you today!"

She will let others go first unless she thinks she can be of more assistance to go along with someone.

Everyone shimmies safely back down the rope, and soon are all standing in the alcove leading away from the main chamber with the rotatable sarcophagus.

Tyvall drops down landing a little harder than he intended, but glad to be out of the death trap regardless. When Stanley complains about not being listened to he laughs, "Well if you said about ten words a day you'd probably find people taking them seriously too. But he's the monk and you're a guy with a lot of opinions aren't you?" The dwarf winks at Stanley and looks around, "Well you've got our ears now. So what's your favorite color? Let's try again."

Stanley seems dumbfounded by the response, "Wha.. how..?" He regains his composure, before continuing, "I don't think it is rational to consider the number of ones words to be a valid measurement for the quality of their message."

"More so, the choice of passage is not based on anything as flippant as a color preference. My suggestion is based off the evidence we have seen thus far. I suggest we take the one path that has shown the potential for moving forward. That one" He points at the one color where the lift popped up.

It was yellow, right? Where the tube-like elevator came up?

Dohrlok just raises an eyebrow.

Ellantera smirks at the discussion, but says nothing, waiting for the next stop to be decided.