Tarak stalks a round the room as the group talks, unable to participate and content to follow where the group leads.
Gnasher heads back to the previous room to ask the slaves a question, but, unfortunately, they do not know anything about the escape route the slaves took other than the unchosen was set loose in the direction of the battle, so they must be out there somewhere.
Malgrim will follow Gnasher back up and rub at his bloated shoulders as the strain of the day wears on him.
You are all back with the 6 slaves in the warrens. Other than hearing about escaped slaves and that the chosen brute was unleashed on them, they know nothing. Hearing the howling stop and seeing all of you return, naturally they ask,
"Well? Did you have to fight the chosen? What happened? Did you run into any of the escapees?"
These questions are rattled off in various forms by various members of the slave group.
At the questions, Tarak huffs and sits, idly shaking blood of his claws for a moment, then walks toward the exit.
"We killed the chosen. We did not find anyone to save." Malgrim says simply and motions them to start heading up.
Nodding, Gnasher follows Malgrim back the way they came. When they make their way to the exit, he turns to the slaves, pointing to the stairs. "Stairs trapped, Watch Firestarter, step every other one."
As they exit the building, he points toward where they killed the snake. "Plenty of snake meat in building over there." He then turns to where the other slaves were hiding, "Other slaves over there."
At the mention of 'other slaves', the current group of 6 get quite excited and talk amongst themselves as they head up with their rescuers.
Their leader asks, [b]"Do you think you could guard us while we harvest some food before we join the others?"[b]
Eventually the new slaves join the old slaves and there is much excitement. The new leader quickly assumes control over the group and organizes a snake barbecue, and the group gets even more excited. Slave rations are something to be desired, as you can imagine.
The lot of you eventually return to the troglodyte camp and share your news. The trogs respond by offering you new equipment, perhaps from adventurers that met a grizzly end at the hands of the trogs? The place stinks, and so does your new equipment, but it is is safe - well, relatively safe.
Urah finds the group of slaves remarkably dim.
Did they not notice the silence when they entered? The blood on Tarak's form and Gnasher Weapon?
He shrugs as his companions answers.
With instructions from Gnasher to guide the slaves through the trapped stairs he does so and when they wish to loot for food, he agrees with the condition they get a share too.
Why pass the chance for free food?
New equipment from the trogs never mind the smell was good. incredibly so.
Nodding to the slaves, Gnasher leads them over to the southwest building where they killed the snake. Pointing at the places where he obviously damaged the great beast, he recommended, "Cut steaks from here and here." While the slaves cut meat from the great beast, Gnasher looked at the eggs, wondering aloud. "Cook eggs too?"
Once everyone had as much meat as they could carry, Gnasher led the slaves over to the group hiding on the stairway. Asking one of the original escapees, "Do stairs go down to where tribe killed unchosen?"
After making sure the slaves were settled Gnasher, keeping some of the snake meat for the tribe and the slave girl, headed to the troglodyte lair. Asking, "Who want's to cook snake?"
Seeing the available gear at the troglymart Gnasher selects a couple of wands, knowing that his dark magic will only improve.
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After discussing their relative experiences, where the first group gets the skivvy on the battle with the unchosen, and the old group finding out where they escaped from, the nod yes to Gnasher's question.
"Eventually, yes. If you go down and explore a bit you should run into the scene of the battle."
With relish the slaves stick some skewers through snake meat, light a fire, and have a barbecue. One of the eggs go right into the fire, and though it cracks and much of the egg is lost to the fire, the shell makes a nice bowl and serves up delicious snake egg. One of them does complain about lack of seasoning, but is quickly smacked into silence by the new leader who gives your group a worried look.
The atmosphere is quite festive.
Nodding at the revelation of the tunnels underground, Gnasher tells the slaves, "After tribe kill Carrion King, tribe return to Kelmarane. Humans may go with tribe if humans desire." He gestures towards the troglodyte compound. "Probably not safe after tribe leave."
Eventually Gnasher takes his leave of the festivities, and returns to troglodyte lair. Making sure the mute slave girl got some of the cooked snake meat. Once the group finished rummaging through the lizards dubious wares, he hints. "Tribe should still keep watch." Again claiming the watch after Tarak, Gnasher heads to his corner, placing out his bedroll, changing his armor and laying the bardiche near where he'd sleep.
Malgrim nods in agreement and says, "I can take the first watch. Should I wake you for the second watch Gnasher?" He leans against a wall and prepares to keep an eye out.
Chewing on the snake meat he'd brought with him Gnasher nods at Magrim's question. "Gnasher take second watch." He give a very human like smile, "Then Gnasher wake Firestarter. Let Storm Blessed sleep." He looks at Tarak for a moment. "Maybe you be 'Tiger Man' now." His smile turns more wolfish, "Gnasher like Tiger."
I need Gnasher to make me a DC 21 Will save.
You all spend an uneventful night and wake refreshed and ready for the new day.
having slept well and feeling recharged, Gnasher awakens and prepares for the day. As the tribe gets around, he finishes eating the snake meat from the night before asking. "Tribe go back through main entrance or try stairs near slave pit?"
"Lets aim for the stairs. The main entrance is more likely to have a hardened defense set up." Malgrim says with a shrug as either way seemed about the same to him.
Waking up from a restful night and rummaging through some of the random equipment around the stinky den, Tarak crows a few times, finding a few treasures that will surely be helpful down the road, including a basic long spear that he had a sneaky idea on how to use.
After the group gets ready, he agrees with Malgrim. "Aye, lets try the stairs. They be expectin' us anyway, lets go at them crosswise."
The stairs are pretty wedged. It will take you a while to clear a path, though you have no idea how long since you cannot determine how far the blockage goes. While you discuss things, the laves pool their knowledge and give you a general layout of areas H10, 11, 12, and 14. The slaves escaped while they were outside and the trogs attacked the gnolls, and they fled here. They never tried to clear the rubble themselves, figuring it would make more trouble than it was likely to help. They would help you all clear a path though, something they have extensive experience with. .
Tarak looks over the stairs and the rubble, "This be a big job to clear. I can become one with the earth and look past the rubble, if need be. See what be beyond." he offers.
As Magrim and Tarak agree that the stairs would be a good idea, Gnasher nods gathering his gear and heads that way. As the slaves describe the general layout, Gnasher listens, looking from the humans to his tribe. Nodding in agreement with Tarak, "Storm Blessed right, big job. but second secret entrance good idea, gives tribe escape if fight goes south."
Turning towards Tarak, he gestures back towards the slaves. "Humans give good description of area, Gnasher think Storm Blessed should save energy for digging." Pointing towards the rubble, "Might take a while, but Tribe and humans have plenty of dead snake to eat."
He then moves towards the rocks and begins moving the larger of the stones, hoping to get through quicker than expected.
Tarak looks over the stairs and the rubble, "This be a big job to clear. I can become one with the earth and look past the rubble, if need be. See what be beyond." he offers.
"I think we should dig. Staying together seems like a better idea. If you could turn into something that could make a tunnel for all of us, that would be pretty nice though." Malgrim says as he looks over the rubble and his back already starts groaning.
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Tarak thinks as he listens to the group talk, "Aye, we can dig this out and I think I have something to help." still thinking and stroking his beard he mutters to himself, "I can embrace the earth, aye, but that is the opposite of the sky, feels wrong to do something like that. Be good to see what's beyond and help dig, aye. Or, I could take the form of on of those digging beasties, a big one. Still help but can't peek beyond.... hmm. Ach, if we are digging anyway we won't surprise anything anyway, just dig."
He focuses for a bit and mutters, "Ran into one of these once, wonder if I can't get it right. Strange thing, but it could dig... "
As usual the druid's form blurs around the edges and get gets both bigger and shorter, eventually resolving into a massive mound of tanned fur and large teeth, chubby cheeks and if one squints just right, they can see shades of a cuddly pet gone horribly giant.
Snorting and shuffling towards the rubble, the thing prepares to dig.
Noone comes to bother you all and the giant hamster is the perfect mixture of cuteness, horror, and tunneling majesty. The slaves, who have struggled for days to clear a blockage like this are suitably impressed and the halls right with words like "Blimey, look at that thing go." or "Them gnolls would sure love to capture him and put him to work." Tarak keeps the entire crew busy just carting away the rubble he removes. It still takes you a long time to dig the 20' but you manage to finish before the end of the day. As soon as you disappear down the tunnel to explore more of the warrens, the slaves have a blockade in place across the entrance. Just in case.
Gnasher's eyes widen as Tarak turns into a giant fluffy rock digging machine. Keeping himself busy helping carry out the rubble that Tarak moves, Gnasher nods when the slave comments about how effective the furry monster is. Giving a low growl when the gnolls are mentioned, Gnasher cocks his head, he didn't realize the gnolls had the slaves digging. Finally asking, "What do gnolls have slaves dig for?"
Gesturing towards the doors, "Tribe should make sure everything dead before we move on."
"This place is a mess. Probably excavating the ruins." Malgrim says as he looks around and follows after Gnasher.
The slaves shrug when asked why their masters told them to dig other than to note that the boss, Rokova, of their masters told them to do it.
After hours of work clearing the tunnel, the giant hamster eventually shimmers and fades back to human shape, leaving the grizzled druid standing in the rubble.
"Well, that be it for me shape shifting today." he grumbles as he straps his longspear to his backpack and draws club and buckler.
"But I got me magic, I'm good to go forward." he finishes as he quickly casts a spell at the group's affirmation of them moving on.
When you are all ready, I have your icons placed in your starting location on the map.
Malgrim looks around the new area to see if any new traps may have been set.
Urah stays far away as the work seems to get dirtier and when Tarak transformed into a fluffy cute digging machine, he decided that the day couldn't be any better.
He did notice the barricade and joined in as well, considering it a good idea.
With the new tunnel completed and their way now 'cleared'
He too looked around.
"Maybe some hidden treasure." his eyes gleams with possible more richness.
You both observe rubble and nothing else of interest. No buried treasure if that was what you were hoping for :)
Watching as Urah searches for treasure Gnasher slowly moves forward towards what looks to be a rubble strewn threshold on his right side. Pausing he points towards the opening, Bardiche in hand he leans around and looks into the opening.
A recently repaired hole in the wall of this otherwise empty room stands partially blocked by three bounders cemented together with dried clay.
Gnasher leans over the 2' high barrier and carefully looks around without touching anything. He notices a rather large and nasty iron gate hanging over the entrance on the inside of the wall. complete with sharpened spikes protruding from the business end.
Raising an eyebrow in a very human-like fashion, Gnasher turns towards the others and points towards the Iron Gate, then towards the door beyond. "If tribe going to door, maybe get rid of gate?"
Tarak looks around behind the gnoll, then points to the raised boulder. "That rock there looks like a trap, don't move it."
Then looking over the gate, "Aye, but how to remove it?"
Anyone have disable device as a skill?
Anyone have disable device as a skill?
Urah does not seem to have the skill.
So, there are rules for disarming if you have Disable Device, but I can't find anything for when you do not. Anyone know where they are or do I need to come up with house rules?
Assuming, of course, you try to disable it. Perhaps just avoiding it or prematurely setting it off makes more sense.
Malgrim will move up and see if he can jam some rocks into the gate to wedge it in place.
The trap is rather simple and Malgrim makes sure the pressure point is reinforced and no longer a problem. The group is able to enter the room safely.
As Tarak points towards the boulder Gnasher nods his head in agreement. Realizing breaking the boulder into a thousand pieces with his bardiche probably isn't the solution Gnasher looks from Tarak to Urah to Malgrim. Nodding approvingly as Malgrim places a small rock under larger one, Gnasher smiles a toothy smile. "Good Idea 'ghost'"
Moving into the room, carefully avoiding the braced rock Gnasher approaches the door. Gesturing towards it with his bardiche, "Must be important if need trap." He carefully examines the door, turning to the others. "Tribe think it's safe?"
"Hmm" Tarak muses as he looks at the door with Gnasher.
Eventually shrugging, "Yer guess be as good as mine." he replies as he hefts his club and prepares to move on.
Malgrim also enters the room and looks around. "It would be nice if it was valuable. So far this place is not screaming wealth." Malgrim says.
Other than the lethal trap the room and door are pretty boring. If the trap was protecting anything it must be on the other side of the door, which does not itself look to be trapped.