Still feverish and half-dazed, Blitz panics at the sudden appearance of Mephisto. He jumps up and tries to strap on his scizore hastily. By the time he realizes whats going on, he's shaking his shoddily, half donned scizore which flaps and flops as he motions.
"Wha...whaaaa? Uhh...okay."
Akula watched the creature carefully, but with the explanation of what it was and it's purpose he simply gave the spirit a nod of greeting and went about making breakfast. When it was ready, he gave the eidolon a portion the same as anyone else.
|
Melaphisto nods to Julio's greeting, You as well, Fine sir... he says.
Sureliah sighs at the remark about clothes. He is as he is, he does not come with a shirt, so unless your willing to offer your own clothes I'm afraid you'll just have to deal with his nudity she remarks.
When Melaphisto is offered food he takes it, but hands it to Sureliah wordlessly. He gains sustenance on his own, no need to share food... she says kindly to the half orc. By the gods I swear you and Julio are taking his appearance quite well.. she says, But in battle he will take my place until I am healed, in which case I will stand by his side.
Julio chimes in, "With our new friend here I think we should have another go at that pit. We need to get to the bottom of what is going on. No pun intended."
The party is coming really coming together after another quiet night. The first appearance of Melaphisto seems to have brought new energy to the group.
"The forms of spirits are often strange. They are shaped by purpose instead of necessity like mortal things. This one serves you, so it is an ally. That is good enough." Akula said.
Savien rubs his eyes and points at the deformed creature. "Keep that thing away from me until it puts some clothes on. Seriously, how can you even look at it?"
The guardman yawns as he follows at the back of the group. "If you guys really want to continue on, I'll go, but I'd rather take a nap."
Vak is wary of Sureliah and Melaphisto, and continues his habit of keeping well enough away from them.
Noticing Savien's weariness, Vak declares, Blitz and Savien in no condition to travel in rat-pit. I am better, but not fully strong. Let Kazh, Akula, and Vak'rogh hunt again this sun, while others rest! Rat-pit tomorrow!
"I cannot see things going any worse than they did with that rat. When you give the word, I am ready to push on."
Savien stops rubbing his eyes for a moment to scoff at Sureliah. "Hey, just because you're attracted to that thing doesn't mean we should have to look at it naked. I'm wearing clothes, after all."
Savien shakes his head and looks pointedly away from the monster, mumbling something about the tastes of elves.
Blitz's eyes dart back and forth from Surliah and Savien as they exchange barbs. He digs into his pack and pulls out a gold piece-just in case someone starts collecting for admission to the show.
Akula tossed a furry bundle to Sureliah. It was a roughly sewn kilt made from the rabbit hides he'd been tanning and a length of rope for a belt. Akula didn't actually care. The spirit did not have anything visible between it's legs to protect or hide. He just didn't want to listen to the argument any longer.
The party beds down yet again, splitting into three watches of 2 again. What is really starting to become evident is just how remote this area is. There is plenty of game and wildlife around and civilization is in just about every direction from her...just not here.
Vak wakes up finally feeling the ill-effects of the rat bite. He looks at the location of the bite and notices the entire area around it is red and it oozes with puss.
Once again, at the end of the day before bedding down, Akula healed the wounded.
Savien wakes up from his nap in better spirits. He barely even scowls at the grotesque creature as he joins the others for dinner. The guardsman grins at Blitz, looking a bit ill.
"I know, it makes me sick to look at it too. I'd just look the other way."
Later, when the companions are bedding down for the night, Savien heads over to where Blitz is camped out and speaks quietly. "Look, you're going to be less than useless tomorrow if this thing gets worse. I don't know much about it, but I figure we should try to clean the wound or something, at least."
The guardsman had had to fake it in his line of work before. Sometimes you just don't have a healer.
Well rested and feeling good, Savien winces at Blitz's worsened state as he gathers his gear, including his heavier equipment this time.
Waking to feel a mild fever taking hold, and the associated dizziness impairing his movements, Vak determines to push through it as best he can today. He gathers his gear and begins waiting patiently for the rest of the group to prepare to move.
Julio takes a look at the wound to see if there is anything he can do to help.
He cleans and dresses the wound and hopes that it will get better.
Once Blitz was back on his feet and feeling as good as he was going to, Akula took point ranging ahead of the party a ways heading back to the hole.
Once they were all in place, Akula said "Quiet ones first." and started climbing down.
Julio follows Akula. When they arrive at the pit he looks down to see if the dead rats are there.
Savien and Julio spend some time fussing over Blitz's infected wound. It isn't until Julio pulls out his soap that they really make any progress at cleaning the wound.
Vak gets a surprisingly restful night of sleep. While he's clearly not back in top health, he is starting to feel better.
Akula leads the group towards the roap down into the pit. He holds the others back and spends some time inspecting the ground. He finds more of the small size humanoid tracks but is unsure if they are new or the same ones he saw previously. While he does this, Julio looks down below...and does not see the rat bodies. From up above, you can see where the rats were killed - the rocks are tinted red - and you can see drag marks leading toward the doorway.
Blitz thanks Julio and Savien for their assistance. He goes to the edge of the cliff to watch as Akula descends the rope, wary of anything threatening him when he reaches the bottom.
Once Akula safely reaches the bottom, Savien cautiously climbs down in much the same way that he did before, taking it a bit slower in order to be as quiet as possible.
Julio heads down once Savien reaches the bottom.
Akula is joined by Savien and Julio at the bottom of the rope. There is no sound or movement at the bottom of the pit right now. Between where you stand and the entryway is a couple hundred feet of broken rubble and masonry. There are broken columns in several places that you previously noticed are marked with runes.
Savien readies his polearm and gestures for Akula to proceed, still maintaining quiet.
As Sureliah and Melaphisto finish their descent, Savien turns to give them a big grin at the eidolon's clothed form. He looks incredibly self-satisfied.
Once Blitz is satisfied that everyone reached the bottom safely, and wasn't attacked when they landed, he descends himself.
He then straps his scizore onto his right arm and readies the short sword in his left hand.
Once again using the short length of rope in his kit to fashion a harness for Kazh, Vak'rogh carefully lowers the wolf down near the knotted rope, and descends himself, keeping quiet.
Upon reaching the bottom, Vak scans the area before freeing Kazh from his harness.
The entire party is at the bottom of the pit now. Some of the group spread out a bit to investigate the area but other than the signs of rat bodies being dragged back to the building and the writing on the columns, nobody notices anything else of note.
After checking the condition of this clothing from the climb down, Julio checks on the blood trial to see where it goes.
Savien frowns at the trail of blood. Damn thing knew I was watching?
"Akula?" The guardsman gestures toward the trail of blood and the entrance to the mysterious building, clearly happy to let someone else take the risk of going first.
"Might as well get this over with. The anticipation is going to kill us all otherwise..."
It's not so much of a blood trail as it is bloody drag marks from the three rats. After a few steps, there is only occasional drips of blood or streaks. It all points down the rocky path that goes towards the door into the building.
Akula moved toward the entrance to the building, checking for hazards.
Akula makes his way up to the entrance of the building. The wall here is curved, as if the room inside is at least semi-circular. The door is a fairly plain, wooden interior door, clearly worn on this side from exposure to the elements. In fact there are places where there are holes in the door. Akula can tell the room on the other side is not lit, but can't see anything else from where he is.
Looking at the ground around him, Akula sees more evidence of small humanoid foot traffic heading in and out of the building. You find a single medium size humanoid bootprint. There are also drag marks here.
The rest of the group let Akula travel ahead. Julio recognizes that the runes scrawled on the broken pillars are Dwarven, but not the Dwarven language.
Once Akula indicates that there is no danger, Savien sets his pack down and pads softly up to the door. Without a word, he spends a moment examining the door for any danger.
Julio studies the rune, "These rune seem to be Dwarven but I can't make out what they say. Give me a minute to puzzle it out."
Vak'rogh keeps clear of the other party members, staying out of their way as they investigate. He glances at the runes that Julio points out, and tries to see if they match up with anything he knows of the Giant tongue, however unlikely that may be. He takes a few moments to ponder the puzzle more deeply, hearkening back to his study of languages.
His shoulder seemingly affixed to Vak's left leg, Kazh tests the air in the pit for any scents he might recognize . . . . Or especially ones he doesn't.
Julio sounds out the Dwarven runes. They come out guttural and nearly incomprehensible. From what he can tell, it is probably some kind of warning. The runes themselves are all written at Julio's waste level or below on the crumbling columns and are clearly not original to the stonework.
Akula goes to a knee, inspecting the some of the tracks. As he does, Savien comes up, cautiously moving towards the door. When he is only a few feet from the door, his foot comes down on a surprisingly soft spot as the ground gives way.
He twists his body like a top, ending up on his chest but not falling into the pit trap he uncovered. Within the pit 10 feet below is a hissing rat, clearly malnourished. There are also the remains of what appears to be 3 figures. You can't see them well enough however to tell anything about the remains. There is a walkway of perhaps 1 or 2 feet between the edge of the pit and the wall and door of the citadel so it is very possible to skirt around the edges.
Kazh catches a whiff of the critter and begins growling.