We'll get started on 1 October, for now feel free to RP and get to know eachother.
|
Stumbling down an alleyway where the rain storm recently hit, the Galt Half-Elf had a bottle of wine in one hand and his staff holding him up in the other. "Oh-ho-ho! Those dancers at ze Lucky Maiden are always such fun!" He then lets out a loud hiccup.
Looking around, he realizes some people may possibly see him as a target for theft. "Of course zey would. Rather than indulge in merriment, zey would seek to rob me because I like to have fun!" He looks to the rooftops and a smirk grows on his face.
"Let's see zem rob me from up there." He then with a great skill and even magical apptitude jumps high. Catching on a window sill, he then turns and leaps to another, and then another. In short time he leaps and bounds until he is on a roof top with an empty balcony with a set of glass doors leading inside.
He looks through the glaas doors, and sees the room within is competely barren. The smile on his face stretches further, as he turns around and shrugs. "Well, if no one lives here, zen it is as good as an inn!" He opens his sack and pulls out a hammock. After a few minutes of set up, he kicks his feet up and enjoys the starry night from his newfound perch. "Zis is ze life for me."
|
Ichio jumps from rooftop to rooftop, the night is his friend complicate while trying to locate his prey today without being detected, suddenly something catches his attention a strange guy has appeared in his game land so he decides to follow him. He sees him riding a hammock in a house that is not his and he mutters "Go somewhere to have a drunken night, rest stranger today you're not my prey" and move away from the place. The night still has many surprises .....
The noonday sun shines brightly in a cloudless sky, but the rugged landscape diffuses the light as if through a stained glass window composed entirely of crimson panes. Deep red metal walls, broken but mostly untouched by rust even a millennium, form an obstacle course through the landscape.
Clearly, when the Red Redoubt of Karamoss was named, it was not done ironically. The marked path through the siege castle’s ruins leads to a large central chamber open to the sky above. Aside from the metallic flooring, walls, and rubble, nothing remains of the so-called “machine mage” Karamoss or his lost armies.
Refuse, old campfire rings, and other signs of life attest to the place being a haven for scavengers and vagabonds. The chamber is filled with a large, circular shaft in the metal floor, with smoothly rolled edges that demonstrate superbly uniform craftsmanship. A rope ladder descends into the pit, anchored by pitons hammered into the floor panels.
|
|
Roushe is clearly not alright with the letter sent to him as he wakes up from a night of partying. Did he not just save some poor child thought dead for years on end? Now to wake up to that drill sergeant Valsin telling him he needs training after already being at a social event! The very idea! He begrudgingly packs up his hammock and heads to the Red Redoubt.
"Greetings to you one and all. I am Roushe Decou'lette! Galt Revolutionary extraordinaire!"
Checking out the rope ladder leading into the pit, he lets out a bit of a groan. "Valsin can't let a hero have a break. I just battled a horde of undead in an abandoned school yard!" He shakes his head before extracting a bottle of SeaLord Wine from his bag. "So what exactly is zis place?" Then begins to take a pull from the bottle.
|
|
Rorrim arrives at the Redoubt abit before the others having camped out on the outskirts of Absolom the night before, when the others arrive as he is inspecting the chamber.
Rorrim is a tall half-elven man with light messy hair. His body is mostly concealed by loose fitting earth stained robes and fresh skintight wrappings concealing scar tissue on his face, neck, and arms.
Rorrim is accompanied by a light gray timber wolf.
" Well hello friends, you are here for the training as well? I was just pondering how I was going to get my fair Justus down this rope ladder,"
The entrance shaft opens into the center of a red steel chamber. The floor beneath the shaft is canted at a slight angle; it seems to have originally been a circular platform that fit flush with the rest of the room but at some point unevenly sank a foot or so. The floors around the room’s perimeter are solid and even, with a textured surface to give better footing on the smooth metal. The walls are riveted metal plates, fallen or torn off in places to reveal solid rock behind. Recessed slabs of metal with adjacent panels, presumably exits, are centered on each wall. The northern panel glows dimly, illuminating scorch marks and glistening red stains around it.
The entrance chamber is 50 feet square. Five doors exit the chamber, but all but the northern door are marked with large DO NOT ENTER glyphs.
After 5 minutes of walking Mythryndyr comes up to an intersection. Before going too close to it however he spots a tripwire across the path.
The corridor ahead branches in four directions. North and west, the tunnels continue unobstructed, but the eastern branch is blocked with a stout metal grating marked with three crimson circles within a triangle. A large, white “X” is scrawled in chalk on the floor in the center of the intersection.
The trip wire has been deactivated. The trap looks to be two wicker walls that close in as a crushing trap. The wicker is covered in a pink dye.
|
Zenjaya waited outside the Red Redoubt, her arms crossed in impatience. Her dark brown skin catches the light of the sun and shines red -- surely just a trick of the light. Her hair is a thick mass of orangey-red curls that bounce and sway even as she stands still. There's something glossy and black that peeks through her hair now and then, but you can't tell what it is. Her eyes are ringed in bright red -- an eerie sight to most, and her lips are pursed in distaste. She wears a simple bright yellow cotton dress, with leaves on her shoulders like pauldrons and high slits up her legs. She goes barefoot, and has a lot of anklets around her ankles and bracelets around her wrists. White paint runs along her upper arms in a wavy design. She carries a longsword and a few vials on a belt around her wide hips, and has a brightly painted buckler strapped to one arm.
"Come on, let's get this started already! I'm not getting any younger."
She taps her foot as she waits for the others to arrive and the mission to begin.
When it does she sighs in relief and grins. Her eyes flare brighter.
---
Zenjaya had been unnaturally silent since entering the Red Redoubt. Something about this place set her on edge. It wasn't right. Perhaps because it was staged? She shook her head, causing her vibrant red curls to bounce around. Something black and glossy hidden under her hair is visible for a moment, before being covered up again.
Lock it up, Zenjaya! You've got a job to do. No time for cowardice.
She watches as Mythryndyr deactivates the trap. Then she grins and claps him on the back.
"Got it! Great! Let's go!" she exclaims the moment he's done.
Zenjaya approaches the intersection with the 'X' and looks around.
She glares at the door marked with the forbidden sign, crosses her arms and lets out a huff, as if being denied entry was highly offensive. She taps her foot impatiently and looks at the north and east corridors. "So, which way?"
The red footprints do continue north. The western corridor has no such footprints.
The southern entrance of this chamber might once have housed a sliding door, but it’s now just an empty archway. Three small chests sit before a small wooden table in the center of the room. All three chests are open; one contains seashells, the second holds bricks, and the third contains shards of flint. Some of these items are scattered haphazardly on the floor around the chests. A brass merchant’s scale stands on the table. One of the scale’s arms supports a conch shell and the other is empty, though the scale is perfectly balanced. A harlequin’s mask hangs on the north wall. An intact door exits to the west. A lock has been bolted over the opening panel next to the door, but the lock hangs open.
As you enter the room the mask springs to life “The shell holds the sea and yet is naught but air! Both key and blade are yours!”
|
Myth nods in shared frustration with Zenjaya; he frowns as he eyes the open lock. "Odd...obviously a puzzle, but it appears to have already been solved, perhaps...maybe by the folk whose tracks we've been following? Could be wrong, but I don't think these tracks, as well as those who made them, have anything to do with our 'exercise'..."
The rogue will check out the room to include the door to the west...
The room does not seem to contain anything of value. whoever preceded you to this room has left a mess around the chests, but otherwise the room is as it seems. The door to the west is unlocked, presumable with the key mentioned by the mask.
The western door leads to a corridor. 5 minutes of travel along the corridor you encounter a right angle turn going from easterly travel to northerly. Just around the bend a dead half-orc sprawls on the ground. Above the corpse, a wooden sledgehammer dangles from a rope beneath an open ceiling panel. Though the head of the mallet is padded, the trap was apparently still lethal to the unfortunate half-orc. A few feet up the corridor another chalk “X” is scratched on the floor.
An examination of the body reveals deep gashes across the half-orc’s torso in addition to the obvious head injury (and a face covered in lime-green marker dye).
Rorrim looks around carefully, but the only trap found is the one already tripped by the half-orc.
|
|
Zenjaya shoves some of the vials and bags into her pockets. Then she hands the rest of the gear to the others. "There's... a tanglefoot bag, a thunderstone, some leather armour, a fancy morningstar , fancy dagger , heavy crossbow, ten bolts, a sunrod, and masterwork thieve's tools. Any takers?"
Whatever the others don't claim she shoves into her backpack impatiently. "Too slow! It's mine now."
She stands up, adjusts her backpack and looks ahead for Mythryndyr. "Well? What did you see?"
After 5 minutes of careful progress through the hallway Mythryndyr comes upon the next room in the complex. The dungeon’s red hue is dramatically accented here with a fresh coating of blood. Three corpses lie scattered around the room, all hacked apart with great force. The arterial spray from the last moments of their lives spatters the walls and ceiling and pools on the floor. A dim crimson glow spills from a wide archway to the north, casting a garish light upon the faces of the dead. An open chest sits against the eastern wall, with broken links of chain scattered on the floor around it.
|
|
Justus, Rorrim's timber wolf companion lets out a low growl. He raises his hackles and stares at the strange thing in the middle of the room.
"Hmm?" Rorrim tears his eyes away from the bodies and notices a monstrous thing in the room. He draws his falchion.
---
Zenjaya draws her longsword. "How did we miss that? What is it? Looks like a metal demon or something."
After a moment she scoffs and takes a step closer. "Let's kill it before it paints the walls with our blood next."