Sienna checks briefly to see if the guard is dead, and finding that he is, she moves up behind Rilkus and with another gentle touch provides him with a moment of guidance.
Badr strikes at the guard if he still stands after Bug's attack, or moves to attack the nearest guard.
Badr: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (14) + 4 = 18
Bug: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22
Darzus: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8
Rilkus: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9
Sienna: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 = 12
Guards: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
Bug was relentless! All four of its claws fairly sung through the air as it whirled in place, slashing across the guard's chest at least twice. His chitin breastplate shatters from a devastating strike from one such strike, leaving him perfectly exposed for a followup strike that nearly disembowels him. The guard drops his weapon and tries to back away, frantically pushing his vitals back inside his exposed belly. But, his doom is set. The Wastes suffer no weakness or mercy. Bug rears back on its legs, mandibles wide, and snaps forward like an adder. It pulls back a bleeding gobbet of flesh, and the guard's head falls to the ground, his neck severed.
Then, Bug coldly turns to the other guards and calmly steps forward, ready to strike again
As the guard falls, Badr swings around from the side and forces his way into the whirling mass of debris. The sands, stones, and detritus of the sands clutch and grasp at his ankles, slowing his movements. Stil, he gets close enough to strike a wicked blow into the guard's side. Blood flows freely from his wound, and the guard struggles to keep his footing, despite his fading life.
Beside the caravan, Sienna checks briefly to see if the guard is dead, and finding that he is, she moves up behind Rilkus and with another gentle touch provides him with a moment of guidance. The air cools about Rilkus' shoulders, as though a sponge has been worked against his skin, wiping away his doubt and confusion. He feels sure about his course, his strikes WILL hit! He sees the opening and punches with all of his strength. The blow lands in the guard's neck, and he feels the satisfying crunch as the man's windpipe shatters! The guard reels back, clutching at his neck, gasping for air. He falls to the ground, life slowly fading from him.
The guards continue to struggle in the thriving mess, as Darzus keeps the whole area in his mind at once. A guard breaks his hand free, and the elf activates a separate nearby vine to simply entrap it again. He continues this endless sequence to frustrate the three guards.
Darzus takes a step closer to bug and Sienna while continuing to concentrate on entangling the guards.
DC 20 str to break free
Guards 1,2,5: dead
Guards 3, 4: entangled: (-4 to dex,-2 to attack)
Darzus: concentrating on entangling Debris
Rilkus: AC 21, Ref +7 for.. awhile
With three guards dead and two entangled, Rilkus stood at the edge of the entangling debris and called out as loud as he could
”Drop your weapons and surrender! You have attacked us unprovoked and three of your comrades are now dead. We swore to defend this caravan, and as such have no wish to fight you. End this pointless killing now, before you end up like them.” He punctuated this by walking over to the severed head and picking it up for all to see.
Sienna shouts after Rilkus, "Why die for nothing? You already know we have nothing of value to you. So why get yourselves killed fighting for nothing? Half your team is already down. There's no reason to risk the rest of your lives."
Bug snatched up the fallen guard's sword as she stepped away. Her other hands pulled darts from their loops on her harness and tossed them in rapid succession.
Then the sword followed, spinning end over end.
Badr readies an attack if the guards approach. "Drop your weapons or the desert will take your souls tonight!"
Badr: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (14) + 4 = 18
Bug: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22
Darzus: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8
Rilkus: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9
Sienna: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 = 12
Guards: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
Bug snatched up the fallen guard's sword as she stepped away. Her other hands pulled darts from their loops on her harness and tossed them in rapid succession.
Then the sword followed, spinning end over end. It plants square in the guard's chest. Its haft shakes in the air from the force of the blow. The guard clutches it in shock, then collapses to the ground, dead.
Rilkus seizes the moment to, once more, convince the remaining guard to give up. ”Drop your weapons and surrender! You have attacked us unprovoked and three of your comrades are now dead. We swore to defend this caravan, and as such have no wish to fight you. End this pointless killing now, before you end up like them.” He punctuated this by walking over to the severed head and picking it up for all to see.
Sienna shouts after Rilkus, "Why die for nothing? You already know we have nothing of value to you. So why get yourselves killed fighting for nothing? Half your team is already down. There's no reason to risk the rest of your lives."
The guard looks around, and tosses his sword to the ground. "No mul is worth this!" He raises his hands and kneels. {b]"I'm done!"[/b]
Sienna gives Rilkus a +2 to his intimidate. That puts him at 20, DC was 14. That gives 2 rounds for being shaken.
Rilkus sighed. Even in defeat they talked of him as if though he were property.
”Sienna, could you please find their dwarven employer while we watch them? And Badr, get the leash. We don’t want bug eating them.”
Then, he said
”Click click clickity clack.”
”Don’t eat the chicken dance.” His language skills are improving!
Bug didn't stop.
She charged into the entangling debris field straight toward the last guard.
Sienna rushes to grab Bug's harness and keep her from getting stuck in the debris and says, "Someone tell her to stop!"
She glances about at the guards, but her attention is clearly focused for the moment on trying to get Bug down.
Badr will attempt to gently restrain Bug. "The fight is over, my friend. Save your energy - there will be plenty more killing where we're going."
As soon as Sienna grabbed Bug's harness she went still, her arms dropping to her sides. She crouched and chittered like nothing had happened.
Rilkus breathed a sigh of relief. Bug was fearsome. He told himself that he would need to try harder to learn her language
"If any weren't killed outright, I can save them" says Sienna. "They've learned a hard lesson. But someone will need to take Bug's, ah, leash."
The lone, unarmed guard left standing hastily backs away from Sienna. "Keep your hands off of me! He turns and rushes off into the wastes, testing his luck there over the mercies of a group he tried to kill.
Akiya glowers at the slain guards, and shoots the retreating one a murderous glare. "Fools!" He hops off his cart and rubs his hands brusquely. "Well.. they got what they deserve, traitorous dogs. We should dispose of them and then move. We will not want to deal with anythign interested in them."
Sienna makes one last check to see if any of the guards can be stabilized. Then she turns to Akiya and shrugs. "I guess you don't have to worry about paying them."
Looking at the guard flee, Rilkus thought to himself Smart.
Badr searches the bodies of the dead guards for anything of value.
The five guards who were smart enough to NOT take on Ninshabur's servants quickly set the crodlus in order and get the caravan ready to move. Then, they start stacking the corpses to make a bonfire. As they do, Badr spots a scroll poking out of one of the guards' pouches.
Slay Ninshebur's agents. A hundred pieces, each, if you they do not make it to their destination.
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Badr snatches the scroll from the body before it hits the fire. He unfurls the scroll, shrugs, and then hands it to Sienna. "Can you make anything out of that?"
Sienna accepts the scroll and unrolls it. She furrows her brow, then says, "These are written instructions. Which means these men were secretly in the employ of a merchant house, a templar, or someone who was illegally literate, like myself."
Her mouth forms words silently as she struggles to catch the meaning. "Orders... to kill us, obviously... for money. This particular dialect is from Raam. So either someone from Raam infiltrated this operation, or someone wrote this in a Raam-style script to allay suspicion."
She carefully rolls the scroll back up. "This is very dangerous to have. Akiya is probably the only one of us allowed to even own written material, and then probably just for sums and inventories."
"Someone wanted us dead, and they used the marking for Ninshabur and servant-of, so it's someone who knows that we were tasked with a job by that particular patron."
Badr can only shrug at Sienna's dire warnings. "We knew the job was going to be dangerous. There will be much more killing before this is done. We'll be lucky if this is the worst of it. I suggest we clean up this mess and get on the move again."
He cleans his dagger and then helps with disposal of the traitorous guards.
Rilkus rubbed his knuckles. ”If a job is worth paying for, it’s probably worth someone else to pay to stop it. I just hope that more wont follow.”
Akiya spits on the burning pile of guards and then barks at the survivors to get things moving. Soon, the dwarf has retreated back into his covered wagon, and thwe caravan begins wending its way through the wastes. Two more days, the caravan travels,although the hardships and slaughter that earlier beset the group does not seem to plague them in these latter days. Soon, on the dawn of the third day, they spy the gates of the city!
"You've made it! Our contract's complete." Akiya grunts and hands a small sack of ceramic to Darzus. "I always make good my debts. May you always find shade and water." He barks to the guars, and they lead the caravan through the gate, leaving Nishabur's servants alone.
Over the remaining days, Sienna makes sure to tends the wounds of her companions, so that they're in top form.
Once Akiya leaves them to their business in the trading post, she huddles the group around and says, "Does anyone know who runs this town? Most outposts like this are overseen by a trading house, but with greater or lesser degrees of 'input' by templars from a nearby city. This is close enough to Urik that maybe the city-state has control, sort of like Tyr's iron mines - I'm not sure. I certainly don't want to become a slave in the obsidian mines."
”More would be assassins in town, most likely. If the caravan was infiltrated there could be more waiting for us. Plus, I too am not in a rush to be enslaved again. Let’s go straight to the ruins.”
Badr nods at Rilkus. ”Let’s get on with it.”
"Unless we find something unusual in the ruins, we'll have to visit the town later for more water," points out Sienna as she helps the group gather up their possessions from the wagon. "But we can worry about that later."
Bug was as placid and sanguin as ever. She went where her leash went, oblivious to the plot she found herself in, or even her destination. She was happy to belong and that was enough.
Ninshabur's servants trek another two days through the burning wastes east around the Smoking Crown. The sun rises ever higher as Makla grows ever smaller in the distance. Finally, on the second day, when the sun has just crested its zenith, Sienna calls a halt. Twin stone doors peak out from a wall half-buried in a dune.
This building must have been exposed by the last dust storm, after being covered by the sands for thousands of years.
[/spoiler[
[spoiler=DC 10 geography or history]
The carvings on the door are intricate, and ancient, hearkening back over five thousand years, as old as Urik itself.
The carvings are the type that shows somoen of great importance was buried here. This building is a tomb.
"This is it... a tomb. An old one. One for an important official, perhaps. Or someone buried with great wealth," says Sienna.
"It might have curses and traps..."
She takes another two fingers of water and flicks them over the door, watching the swirling patterns that they make as they trickle down the ruin.
Badr nods at Sienna. "No might about it."
He will search the doors for traps.
The stone doors are filled with a crude mortar. These were never meant to be opened again. Ancient symbols sprawl across their surface, spelling out the name Ahkentempi.
The doors are sealed shut, but with the might of a Mul, Ninshabur's servants are able to break the mortar and force the stone slabs open. The door swing in to either side a slight crack, barely enough for Bug to squeeze itself through to the dark chamber within. There are no handles on the insides of the door. If the doors are pulled shut, there will be no opening them again from the inside.
The small rectangular room is empty save for some worn engravings and fixtures upon the walls and an immense stone wheel against the far wall. The air is stale, and a layer of dust and sand covers the floor, lying in a thicker layer at the base of the stone wheel. All four walls bear sunk-relief engravings and hieroglyphs, while small stone faces are affixed to the walls at about shoulder height in each corner. The stone wheel has a large spiral carved into its face and is set stone tracks in the floor and ceiling.
if the hieroglyphs and engravings are writing, their words have been lost to the ages. However, their meaning is still quite clear. This tomb is well defended.
Sienna puzzles over the old markings for some time before giving up. "I can't make this out," she says, "but probably nothing good."
"So... let's see if there's anything dangerous buried in all this dust and sand."
She starts cautiously feeling her way through the sand and around the room.
Bug knew little of softskin construction. The hives of humans and their ilk were strange to her. She'd learned to appreciate aspects of their design, but frequently she still wondered why any creature would care about things like doors.
Perhaps it was the fact that the very idea of a tomb like the one they stood at the precipice of was so alien to her was why she realized the trap as soon as they'd crossed the threshold.
Bug stopped just inside the doors, refusing to be pulled along any further. She knew she was being willful, but the danger was too great not to take action.
She reached out and touched the inside of the doors, exactly opposite of where the handles were on the other side. She scratched a handle in the age-old dirt to illustrate her point, hoping that would be enough to make her companions see what she saw.
[dice=Linguistics]1d20+6
Sienna puzzles over the old markings for some time before giving up. "I can't make this out," she says, "but probably nothing good."
"So... let's see if there's anything dangerous buried in all this dust and sand."
She starts cautiously feeling her way through the sand and around the room.
[dice=Perception]1d20+8
As Bug freezes, refusing to move further into the antechamber, Sienna surveys the ruin for danger. She sees nothing of note, but she does see that some of the carvings on the wheel are raised upwards, as though to create handles, and the wheel seems to be nestled in stone tracks on the ceiling and floor.
Clearly, the wheel is some kind of rolling door. Like the stone doors outside, it'll be impossible to move the wheel from the other side. If everyone works together, perhaps they can budge it.
Badr looks for any signs of traps in the room and then studies the wheel. "How does this mechanism work?"
He will look for any secret doors in the room.