Essel drops her hands from their casting positions, "Seriously? Half a dozen hobgoblins, scared away by a big rat?"
Mydravos hooks his mace to his belt, Well that was lucky. If not for that we would have been a lot worse off. he dusts his robes off and looks to the others I assume a rest is much needed?
Sven wiped the blood off of his shield and examined the blade for any damage. ”It must amuse the gods. That, and we should be wary. There are likely some truly dire rats in the vicinity.”
Ashok watches in disbelief as the three remaining hobgoblins and their axe beaks run away from the bemused summoned dire rat, who vanishes after six seconds back to wherever he was summoned from...
Haha! Well, we shall have to catch some rats to keep as pets to ward off the cowardly hobgoblins of this land...
Rubbing his wounded shoulder tenderly, he looks at the unconscious changeling.
She looks so peaceful right now... I never imagined she could look so serene... Can any of you heal her?
Twitching occasionally, and moaning softly intermittently, Rowena briefly grins and chuckles, delirious... Wazzat, Morriganna? I ain't taken me fair share of heads yet?... I know... bloody hobgobs cut me down... kinna help it...
Grinning through a bushy red beard, the god of thunder teases Kali: Looks like your mortal is off to a rough start! Heheheh... Thunder echoes the god's mirth...
Pouting seductively at the brawny Aesir, the goddess of birth and death murmurs: Don't count her out yet, Odinsson... She is merely being tempered for the coming storm...
My pawn was sorely challenged, but he has survived! Haha! Just as I, myself, was sorely challenged by that great dragon of chaos, Tiamat, but won victory over her in the end! Let us drink a toast of soma to our tough little soldiers, aye?
With a wave of his bronze hand, Marduk summons a round of six chalices filled with soma, or ambrosia, the divine drink of gods. Thor transmogrifies his soma into Asgardian mead, and the six deities raise their chalices in a toast to their mortal pawns, drinking to their good fortune!
Sven tapped his shield and looked at it with an unhappy look on his face. ”Not yet I can’t. Runes aren’t fully powered yet. Hope it fills up soon. Get the feeling some healing will be needed here.”
The Harbinger of Hades doesn’t give life but takes it. Can anyone heal her? he ambles over her to see how she is doing and sees just how bad the damage is, and if she can heal naturally.
The Harbinger of Hades doesn’t give life but takes it. Can anyone heal her? he ambles over her to see how she is doing and sees just how bad the damage is, and if she can heal naturally.
[dice=heal check] 1d20+5
Wincing in pain, Ashok says: Although most generals would advise against dividing forces, it would seem that, with out divine healing magic, we have little choice. I will need a few days to recover from this wound... And who knows how long she will be out... he adds, nodding at the unconscious Rowena.
Ashok lifts Rowena over his shoulder and carries her back to her palace, giving her over to the care of her clockwork servants.
He then returns to his own palace to nurse his own wound.
Mydravos watches him bring the woman back and that was very unfortunate, hopefully all our battles don’t end this way
"Few days?" Sven scoffed. "Ye all think that there was a band of hobgoblins just riding about? This entire area has been made by the gods for their enjoyment. They were created and sent at us. Or summoned as we were. I doubt that we'll be allowed to sit around licking our wounds. Not that I blame anyone here. Just speaking reason. Let's make our way to this city. Perhaps we can find something there to see to these wounds. But like I said, very much doubt we'll be allowed to sit still."
"Few days?" Sven scoffed. "Ye all think that there was a band of hobgoblins just riding about? This entire area has been made by the gods for their enjoyment. They were created and sent at us. Or summoned as we were. I doubt that we'll be allowed to sit around licking our wounds. Not that I blame anyone here. Just speaking reason. Let's make our way to this city. Perhaps we can find something there to see to these wounds. But like I said, very much doubt we'll be allowed to sit still."
Pausing to hear Sven out, Ashok reconsiders. Perhaps you are correct, sir. There may be a healing temple somewhere in the Urban Domain where we can have our wounds tended...
Ashok gently lays the unconscious Rowena down on the cobbles. Looking at Ealsealf's clockworks (Jingle and Jangle), he says: Can you have your automatons carry her gently, please, Ealsealf Greenleaves?
He stretches and slowly rotates his wounded shoulder through its range of motion, wincing painfully...
A low rumble of thunder booms from a patch of dark clouds rolling in low overhead from the north. A few drops of rain can be felt as the mortals continue their journey out from the center of the Courtyard toward the vast gray wall that can be seen hazily on the far horizon...
The yellow sun, which seems familiar and somehow alien at the same time, slowly dips below the western wall of the Courtyard, casting long shadows of the mortal travelers eastward across the cobbles.
By nightfall on the first day, the mortals reach the cyclopean wall that borders the southwest edge of the hexagonal Courtyard. Their first view of it is of flickering torchfires glittering like jewels on a dark gray band stretching as far to each hand as the eye can see.
The colossal gate to the Urban Domain looms like a titanic fortress before the travelers, glimmering with fires of guttering torches in sconces or great braziers in niches in the gray mortar. The edifice seems ancient and impossibly grand of scale, and calls to mind images of cyclopses and titans raising the mighty stone blocks that form the wall and gate.
The gateway itself is a great yawning arch under a massive gatehouse, some forty paces wide and soaring a hundred feet at the apex, forming a great passageway some hundred feet long through the border wall. The far side opens onto the Urban Domain, a sprawling, Byzantine labyrinth of streets and allies crisscrossing some ten square leagues of residences, shops, stores, temples, palaces, inns, taverns, brothels, and guild houses.
As the mortals approach the gate, they hear the music of bards entertaining camps of travelers seeking entrance into the Urban Domain, Which the residents have named The Free Citystate of Pandora.
There are several such camps of caravans pitched about the Courtyard before the gate. Bands of armed guards wearing livery that identifies them as members of the Pandoran Guild of Guards and Watchers patrol the area to keep peace and inspect caravans seeking admittance into Pandora.
Sven strode up with confidence.
”In the name of Thor Oddinson, I have come! I am Sven the Shieldbearer, devotee of the God of Thunder. These are my companions. We seek admittance and directions to the nearest place of healing. The road here is not safe, and as ye can see my companions were injured when repelling raiders”
Mydravos speaks up after Sven speaks, yes please, if you have any healing we could sorely use it. Our friend was gravely injured and others in our group are injured. Even something small could help greatly.
Sven strode up with confidence.
[dice=Diplomacy]1d20+5
”In the name of Thor Oddinson, I have come! I am Sven the Shieldbearer, devotee of the God of Thunder. These are my companions. We seek admittance and directions to the nearest place of healing. The road here is not safe, and as ye can see my companions were injured when repelling raiders”
Well, then... A devotee of the thunder god, eh? You and your companions are welcomed to the Free Citystate of Pandora, so long as you mind your manners and obey our laws and respect our mores. There is, of course, an admittance toll of one shilling per head...
Mydravos speaks up after Sven speaks, yes please, if you have any healing we could sorely use it. Our friend was gravely injured and others in our group are injured. Even something small could help greatly.
[dice=diplomacy aid another] 1d20+7
Noting the clockwork servants bearing an unconscious Rowena, the guardsman replies: Aye. It looks like you've had a run in with raiders on your way here. The Towers of Trial are evil places, lair to all manner of rapacious monsters and outlaws! From these six bases, they ride out to raid travelers and homesteaders outside the protection of Pandora's walls, and wage endless war on each other... There is a spa temple some four blocks in on your left off the Promenade. Good luck!
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"Few days?" Sven scoffed. "Ye all think that there was a band of hobgoblins just riding about? This entire area has been made by the gods for their enjoyment. They were created and sent at us. Or summoned as we were. I doubt that we'll be allowed to sit around licking our wounds. Not that I blame anyone here. Just speaking reason. Let's make our way to this city. Perhaps we can find something there to see to these wounds. But like I said, very much doubt we'll be allowed to sit still."Pausing to hear Sven out, Ashok reconsiders. Perhaps you are correct, sir. There may be a healing temple somewhere in the Urban Domain where we can have our wounds tended...
Ashok gently lays the unconscious Rowena down on the cobbles. Looking at
Ealsealf's clockworks (Jingle and Jangle), he says: Can you have your automatons carry her gently, please, Ealsealf Greenleaves?He stretches and slowly rotates his wounded shoulder through its range of motion, wincing painfully...
"Why of course!"
|
|
Noting the clockwork servants bearing an unconscious Rowena, the guardsman replies: Aye. It looks like you've had a run in with raiders on your way here. The Towers of Trial are evil places, lair to all manner of rapacious monsters and outlaws! From these six bases, they ride out to raid travelers and homesteaders outside the protection of Pandora's walls, and wage endless war on each other... There is a spa temple some four blocks in on your left off the Promenade. Good luck!Mydravos speaks up after Sven speaks, yes please, if you have any healing we could sorely use it. Our friend was gravely injured and others in our group are injured. Even something small could help greatly.
[dice=diplomacy aid another] 1d20+7
"Why thank you my good sir!"
After the guards have collected a shilling from each of the mortal champions, they are admitted through the great passageway under the gatehouse to the teeming metropolis beyond, the Free Citystate of Pandora.
The Urban Domain is teeming with life. Populated by some ten thousand souls, mostly humans, with smaller populations of goblinoids, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and other humanoids, the Citystate is governed by the Council of Burgomeisters, thirteen leaders elected to their posts for five-year terms by the House of Electors. These thirteen are generally guild masters, high priests, heads of noble houses, military officers, and powerful spellcasters.
The plaza just within the gate is a marketplace called the Gate Bazaar. Here, a microcosm of the diverse city can be sampled by the new visitor.
Musicians provide an interesting symphony of bells, guitars, bagpipes, horns, trumpets, harps, cymbals and drums that mixes with the cacophony of hagglers, vendors, beggars, snake charmers, bellydancers, jugglers, and con artists.
The smell of roasting meats and vegetables mingles with less savory aromas of sweat, blood, sewage, and less definable scents. Colorful tents and carts form a maze in the cobbled plaza, surrounding a great central fountain of marble and quartz depicting a pod of narwhals bearing Dionysus over the waves of Ocean. A wooden stage or platform next to the fountain supports several gallows, a headsmans block, and some whipping posts and stocks, where criminals sentenced to corporal punishment are hung, beheaded, flogged, or pelted with rotten fruit, depending on the severity of their crime.
The exotic melody of a hornpipe played by a dusky young man sitting on a reed mat reaches the mortals' ears. From a basket rises a great emperor cobra, swaying hypnotically to the music...
Step right up! Try your luck, or speed of eye! Guess which shell holds the pebble, and win a shilling! Only one shilling to play!
A shell game guy is running his con nearby the snake charmer...
A slender, dark skinned half elf dances seductively to the music of a trio of minstrels, smiling alluringly at the male mortals...
”I like this place” Essel remarks, ”It feels like home”
"Does it? Then lead us to the nearest temple so we can get these two healed. And while ye are at it, what'd'ye suggest for us to do to complete this challenge? From where I stand, it seems to me that this all has been created as part of this game. There's got to be something we're supposed to do 'ere."
The distant shouts and clangor of a skirmish echoes over the Gate Bazaar, growing louder and closer as the fighting spreads into the marketplace! The clash of swords and twang of bowstrings sing a symphony of death and mayhem! The Tanners and Leatherworkers Guild battles the Muckrakers and Chimneysweepers Guild in the streets over rights to a profitable deal with the Guild of Apothecaries and Alchemists.
Some blood is spilt, but only fleshwounds, which the Spa Temple referred to by the gatehouse guards heal up for both sides at a steep fee (because their wounds were accrued via civil strife)...
At this Spa Temple, which is called Hamam by the Pandorans, magical divine hot and cold baths restore the wounded to full vigor for a donation of 50 gilders or more per bather.
With the loot we took off the raiders, we barely have enough gold for one of us to take a healing bath... sighs Ashok, Let Rowena have it. I'll manage...
Jingle and Jangle dump Rowena unceremoniously into the hot bath, and as she is unconscious, Ashok sits by the bathside and holds her head above the water until she suddenly comes to...
*GASP!!* Am I in Tir Na Nog? This feels niiiice...
*GASP!!* Am I in Tir Na Nog? This feels niiiice...
Ah, good, you're awake. You're not in paradise, my lady, but at the Hamam in the Urban Domain, Which they call the Free Citystate of Pandora...
*GASP!!* Am I in Tir Na Nog? This feels niiiice...Ah, good, you're awake. You're not in paradise, my lady, but at the Hamam in the Urban Domain, Which they call the Free Citystate of Pandora...
Oh. Damn. I figured those hobgobbos killed me and I was enjoying a nice hot soak in the afterlife, attended by bonny young bath boys... chuckles the changeling, obviously fully recovered from her wound.
Jump in, Goodie Two Shoes, the water is fine! says Rowena, splashing Ashok playfully.
*GASP!!* Am I in Tir Na Nog? This feels niiiice...Ah, good, you're awake. You're not in paradise, my lady, but at the Hamam in the Urban Domain, Which they call the Free Citystate of Pandora...Oh. Damn. I figured those hobgobbos killed me and I was enjoying a nice hot soak in the afterlife, attended by bonny young bath boys... chuckles the changeling, obviously fully recovered from her wound.
Jump in, Goodie Two Shoes, the water is fine! says Rowena, splashing Ashok playfully.
Wiping water off his face, Ashok grimaces... Uh, yeah... We only looted enough gold off those raiders for you to have a bath, my lady... I figured you needed it more than I...
B~@@~&!S!! Get in here, handsome! chuckles Rowena, and she grabs Ashok by his shoulder pauldrons and pulls him into the hot bath! Ye saved me life, boyo! Ye deserve a good hot bath 'n more, for that. She adds lustily...
B+%%$#+S!! Get in here, handsome! chuckles Rowena, and she grabs Ashok by his shoulder pauldrons and pulls him into the hot bath! Ye saved me life, boyo! Ye deserve a good hot bath 'n more, for that. She adds lustily...
*KER-SPLASHHH!!!* AHH! Okay... I'm still wearing my armor... Um... In my society, you would technically be in a caste specifically called the Untouchables... and I'm flattered and all, but, um...
"Save it, lovebirds." Essel says in a serious tone, "We have a job to do, and if you two want to have fun, share a room wherever we stay tonight." she pulls aside a nearby attendant, "Where's a good, affordable inn nearby?"
HE saved her life!
A few of the guildsmen wounded in the fray earlier glare at their enemies across the steamy waters of the bath. Here, all quarrels are apparently set aside. One of the sulking Leatherworkers mutters curses under his breath...