The commander does her best to avoid direct contact with any of the migrants. Naturally, with Urist's friendly attitude and their 50 foot range reverse restraint order, this is quite difficult. She instead does her best to stand stoically and proud, answering questions with a few words a piece when absolutely necessary.
Adu tenses when she sees the door open and reveals four not-gnome-shaped silhouettes. Then Boomer speaks and she releases a sigh of relief.
They're all here. They all made it!
With one dwarf (I think I heard him introduce himself as Ulrist?) distracting the miners and the female leader looking decidedly uncomfortable, Adu sidles up to Boomer.
"Hi there! I'm Adu, Adu Hilnack. So, my brother Toulbe joined up with you guys, didn't he? Is he okay? It seems like you've been pretty busy! Lots of, uh, glorious battles and whatnot."
"Oh, aye, he's fine. 'E's been regaling us with cookin' recipes while we kill goblins an roaches. 'S been great fun," Boomer grinned. "C'mon in, I'll git ye to him."
Adu laughs. "That does sound like Toulbe. He's very good at taking inedible ingredients and somehow making them tasty. Uh, one second, I should probably let Girtul know where I'm going."
She runs over to Girtul, smiles winningly, and says "Don't mind me, I'm just going to go ahead and start chronicling the adventures of these brave dwarves." She ignores anything he might try to say and immediately returns to Boomer.
"So, what's been happening? We saw evidence of lots of battles, did anything else of interest occur?" While they're walking she pulls out her journal and starts taking notes.
"Well, there's a golem... ye probably want tae talk to him if'n yer writing a book," the dwarf grinned.
"C'mon, I'll introduce ye."
Can I be closin the back door yet? Glor bellows from the control room.
Toulbe makes his way into the Golem chambers looking dejected. First, he wasn't allowed to check on his potential new friends or to see if they liked his snackrifice and then...He's run out of rocks to kick to make the walking back to the front doors a funner experience. He sighs heavily and starts scratching at a spec on his MWk Frying Pan.
"Buck up, Touble!" Boomer boomed, entering the room from the other direction. "Look what I brung ye!"
The last bit of tension Adu had been carrying disappears as she sees Toulbe, looking...oddly dejected for some reason, but alive and unhurt.
"Toulbe! There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you!" Adu pauses for a second. "Well, not everywhere I guess, just all around Taggoret and the Old Quarry Road, but close enough! I wanted to catch up with you so I went to Taggoret, and people there told me you'd left on some sort of secret expedition to 'reclaim lost glories' or something like that. I thought you were starting a tavern! Not, not, fighting goblins! I was worr...uh, that is, I wanted to see what you were up to."
Torn between hugging him out of relief and smacking him for making her worry, Adu does neither. Instead she shifts a bit awkwardly from one foot to the other as she loses steam.
"So, uh, what have you been up to?"
Toulbe looks up, suddenly giddy when he thinks there is a nice surprise. AND IT IS. Though it starts off as a scolding!
Toulbe happily skips the rest of the way over and gives his cousin a hug. "It is good to see you, come now! We should get a good meal in you. I have my wagon and everything here. I can make up maybe something Gnomish with my supplies..." he said losing his train of thought and completely forgetting what she asked him or that he was being scolded.
Though something seemed to surprise him, perhaps being unused to having his own thoughts interrupting him. He looked at Adu wide eyed "COUSIN! We have wolves, they seemed nice. We have to check on them. I talked to them yesterday and they seemed a little scared but I left them a good meal. Yes! Let's check the wolves, maybe they have brought my something in friendship!" he said excited grabbing her hands and bouncing up and down in front of her and trying to drag her along.
Boomer puffed on his cigar. "Ain't Gnomes just precious?" he asked the towering Droskarian golem.
Hezekh goes to check out the new arrivals. One gnome is more than enough, but *two*? Torag help us.
Adu jumped at the change of topic. Somehow she’d been so focused on finding Toulbe that she hadn’t really considered what she’d do then. Other than ask him what he’d been doing, of course, a question which Toulbe was neatly and completely unintentionally sidestepping. Although...
Wolves?
Adu was usually uninterested in anything that wasn’t intelligent enough to talk. But Toulbe said he had talked to these animals. Had he learned how to speak with animals in general, or were these wolves special? Did they have their own language? Could she learn it? She didn’t have any stories in her collection that originated from wolves.
”Yes! Let’s go check on the wolves! How’d you meet them? How’d you talk to them?”
Allowing Toulbe to drag her along, Adu does free her hands long enough to flip through her journal to a very particular page. At the top was written Feeling of Impending Doom with two columns underneath, one labeled Prophecy and the other Paranoia. After a moment’s hesitation, she puts a tick mark in the Paranoia column.
Toulbe’s fine. He’s safe and happy. And he’d better stay that way!
Urist gives the whole set-up the once over. Sustainable food, a whole lot of booze, plenty of able bodies, and a trader who looks like he'd sooner die than part with his net worth? A damn fine setup, if he would say so himself.
In fact, he does. "Tha's a damn fine setup if I do say so myself." He nods. "An' I do, cause I jus' said it!"
He laughs heartily as he makes his way to the soldiers, giving the nearest one a pat on the shoulder. "How goes, lads? Excited ta get yet feet dirty an'yer swords bloody? Cause ya should be!"
Urist regards the soldiers with a cheerful demeanor, only slightly undercut by the dimly glowing red phantom trailing a few feet behind him. "Why, when I was first trainin' back in tha Old Fort, recruits got put through a danger room! See, we'd put tha trapsmiths ta work, fillin' a closet sized cubby with all sortsa stabby contraptions. Wooden, o' course. Mostly wouldn't kill ya, but they splintered like 'ELL! Abou' three runs a day, an hour each or so, 'til they either learned ta dodge or their legs stopped workin' so good."
Urist looks at nothing in particular, reaching down to rub at his thigh while fondly reflecting.
Goggeck stomps in.
He sees dwarves.
He relaxes his grip on his hammer. Slightly.
"Welcome, migrants. Our companions are hale and hearty, but elsewhere. Enter, so we may instruct them to seal this gate behind ye. And while we have purged much, these ruins still hold many dangers. Keep your weapons close and your eyes open."
Glor doesn’t receive an answer, but he hears the echoes of friendly talk and jovial laughter from down the hall.
Adu and Toulbe prepare to check on the ‘wolves’ but Glor remains at the door levers awaiting instruction.
laughs Droskar’s Image in response to Boomer,
The rookie caravan guard gather round Urist, entranced one way or another by his old yarns.
Their fascination is broken as Goggeck walks up and motivates the caravan to move inside. Seeing in these warriors a superiority, the guardsmen begin distributing the order amongst the wagons.
“Ehem, are ye sure about that?” Girtul approaches Goggeck after peering into the halls and seeing the bone piles of defeated skeletal warriors, “We can set up camp out here and wait for you to, eh, finish up.”
"That may be best. But still be prepared to fight, just in case a stealthy or swift foe slips past us."
Seemingly forgotten, Glor maintains his lonely vigil at the door controls and somewhat regretting ever opening the back door.
Toulbe comes running past the door room "Open up the wolf door and join us!!!" he says yelling happily.
Boomer checked his gear and got ready to follow the rest of the group. Before he left he spoke to the caravan leader.
"Word to the wise, boyos. When we got here there wa a mess o' goblins tryin' tae get through the doors. There might be more o' them out there. If ye plan on setting up camp outside, make sure tae set a watch and set some torches a ways down the caves so ye c'n see what's coming. We'll try tae work fast. Stay on yer toes 'till we're done."
"If by 'out here' you meant the cleared tunnels, I still agree. If you mean 'outside', then I do not recommend waiting for goblins. You would be safer here, as we will be actively whittling down the nearest foes."
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Girtul decides to circle the wagons just outside the back door. He orders his guardsdwarves to rebuild the barricade the goblins had and to line the passage beyond with torches, as per Boomer’s recommendation. The back door is left open, for swift and clear communication with the operations commencing within the Vault.
Toulbe and Adu convince Glor to open the front doors, to check on the wolves. Against his better judgement, Glor complies with the gnomes. They’re just so cute!
Much to Glor’s relief, the doors open and reveal a dusty canyon floor, free of occupants. Much to Toulbe’s joy, his meat offering is missing. Something ate it. Meat just doesn’t go walking away on its own. I mean, sometimes it does.
All this time, Gunnar has been exhibiting strange behaviors. Strange for a dwarf even. Increasingly more and more, he had been talking to himself, or rather someone else no one else could hear. Increasingly, his speech became rambling, tangential, fractured and incoherent. Soon, he was simply mouthing off the ingredients for... something. Before anyone could calm him down, Gunnar runs off and claims one of the stations in the recently exercised workshop. The halls soon ring with the sound of his adamantine hammer striking hot iron against an anvil. Clang! Clang! Clang!
Droskar’s Image has never looked more pleased.
"If'n he draws us fighting roaches an' oozes on that..." Boomer mutters. Rolling his eyes he turned back to the job at hand.
"I say we finish up here before we check the stairs."
Aye, time ta finish up and secure this place for dwarven-kind. But I got a point o' business ta put forward, and its about these doors. I say its not safe just to be opening these here doors willy nilly. We need a consensus ta open them, says I, and that no one dwarf, or gnome has the right ta do so. What say the rest o' ya?
Adu looks sheepish. "Sorry, uh, Glor was it? I'm Adu, by the way, for those I haven't actually met yet. I think it might have been my fault. Toulbe was saying something about wolves and we got a bit carried away about checking on them. As for finishing securing this place, maybe I could help?"
The little voice of reason in her head immediately starts screaming. What are you doing you're a record-keeper not a fighter HAVE YOU GONE MAD?!
Being a gnome, Adu promptly ignores it.
"At the very least I could heal anyone who gets hurt. I know a few other tricks, but most of them aren't really meant for fighting."
"Having some agreement on opening the doors makes sense to me."
Yes, Glor I be. Welcome to our group little Adu. If you be a healer then you are blessed and I say welcome to come along. Just you be staying behind tough old Glor here. Folks claim they can break tools on my hide. Its part rock I rightly must be.
The expedition regroups at the bottom of the stairs, amongst the skeletal detritus left behind from the slain ooze. To their right is a storage room Toulbe discovered. In it are some intact stone and clay vessels.
Systematically opening each container one by one, Glor and Goggeck are able to identify a number of well preserved items:
1xEmbalming Fluid, 1xCasting Plaster, 1xDose of Unguent of Revivification, 1xDose of Healy Myrrh, 1xDose of Bodybalm, 1xThurible, 1xIncense, 1xAnointing Oil, 1xApplication of Alchemical Glue, 1xAlkali Flask, 1xDose of Prepared Black Amaranth, 1xDose of Prepared Night sage, 1xAlkali Flask, 1xVial of Mugwort Extract, 1xVial of Myrrh, 1xVial of Realgar, 1xVial of Salt, 1xVial of Saltpeter, 1xVial of Urea
After Toulbe and Adu thoroughly catalog these items and store them away, the unopened door across the hall beckons. Opening it reveals a room choked in ancient and wispy spider webs.
Urist gives Adu a nod. "Name's Urist. Urist McFatson. An' 'sides bein tha nominal leader o' this bunch, ah'm a bit of an everydwarf. Haulin' rocks, feedin' tha cat, whatevee needs be done."
"We don't have a cat." says the Commander as she looks over their small new friend. Her face, covered almos entirely with a steel mask, still seems to express the undercurrent of anger beneath her calm words.
"Then we should GET one!"
The commander sighs and raises a hand, urging Urist to be quiet. "Come. These halls aren't clean yet, so we've got a lot of monsters to kill. Is everyone ready to continue?"
Aye. Lets be getting this done. Glor says a dour expression on his face.
"Um, yes. Stay behind the heavily-armored dwarves, I can do that." Gulping, she glances into the next room. Spider webs? Ugh, I hate spiders. But...we're going into rooms no one's visited for ages. Anything could be down here. Anything.
Despite herself, she feels a little frisson of excitement.
...Is adventuring contagious? That would explain what Toulbe's doing here. I should ask him. Later. When we're not in danger of being eaten by giant spiders.
She carefully stays a step or two behind the dwarves, sticking close to Toulbe whenever possible.
Toulbe looks around one of the barrel chested dwarves into the new room. Spiders...always so annoying and difficult to cook. Too hairy to treat like crab legs and just boil them. You should roast the legs over an open flame first to get rid of all the hairs and seal in the flavor before boiling them.
He suddenly had an idea from his cooking thoughts. He started dancing excitedly. "Dwarven structures cant burn down right? Cause it's all stone except for a bit of wood here and there. So...what if we just use a torch to catch all the webs on fire and close the door! Then we open it in like an hour!" he said excitedly. He felt so smart at the moment.
Pausing for a moment Glor raises a small wall of stone in front of Adu and between her and the spiders. He shoots her a quick smile.
This is what happened:
Toulbe’s plan was executed.
There was a room full of bones. Dwarf bones.
The last door was opened, and the party was met with a billowing cloud of smoke and a swarm of spiders.
Adu, Helga, Glor, Toulbe, and Urist are choking on the smoke and unable to act this round.
Helga, Boomer, and Hezekh are caught up in the spider swarm.
Also, something else is moving inside the room.
"Consensus makes sense. At least until proper dwarven nobility is entrenched here."
Goggeck tightens his grip and prepares to fight!
Helga, Hezekh, and Boomer are covered in creepy crawly spiders. The spiders find their way through armor and clothing alike, biting into exposed flesh and ectoplasm.
They all three stave off both the venom and the felt need to hurl.
Hezekh, standing up front at the door, can see a pair of blue flamed eyes glowing in the smoke filled room. Then the sound of heavy armor clanging forward. Before him appears a skeletal dwarf, bones gilded in gold, heavily armed and armored. From the crest of its helm beams a green gem. He glimpses the undead guardian just as it swings its axe at him.
The lingering smoke must have gotten into the guardian’s eyes, as it misses completely.
As most everyone else chokes on the cloud of smoke, Hezekh has the chance to retaliate.
Hezekh attempts to strike back, but his blow is poorly aimed due to the smoke.
"Aye, great idea lad! We'll flush 'em out an' save ourselves a whole mess'a trouble!"
"Ack! Regret... regre-hrrk!"
Hezekh swings his iron fist, but the blow glances off the skeletal gaurdian’s heavy steel shield. The blue flames in its eye sockets burn brightly as it lifts its axe for another exchange.
Meanwhile, the thousands of spiders continue to swarm over the group in attempt to escape the smoke of their burning homes. Of course, they bite angrily at anything that stands in their way.
All three, Adu, Glor, and Toulbe, flex their histamine and fight off the venomous bites. However, the sensation of thousands of spiders crawling over their skin is enough to make Glor and Toulbe dry heave.
"Burn, ye wee bastards," Boomer said as he tossed a bomb into the swarm
Goggeck steps back, readying himself to strike soon.
"Clear the way!", he shouts to the others.