Dacknar's arrow shatters upon the trollkin's stone armor as it twists to slip away from Beordt's heavy blow. The bearkin's jaws snap nothing but air as the scimitar sparks off the thick armor doing no harm at all.
But that is where the guard's luck ends. Toki's magic coils itself around the trollkin's primitive mind like a boa constrictor. It squeezes thought and tissue into submission leaving the guard open to both Rilkus and Gaius. Both paladin and artificer use the opportunity to pummel the trollkin's suddenly blank, drooling face. Within moments the creature falls to the ground dead, its face an unrecognizable mass of broken bone and blood.
As quickly as the violence erupted, it ends. While you take a moment to gather yourselves and catch your breath a thin, weak voice calls from one of the nearby cells.
"Hello...is...is...someone there? Please gods...is someone there?"
Beordt takes time to focus, listening for the sounds of rushing feet or calls in the distance. Hoping their efforts went unnoticed.
His focus causes a moment of dizziness and he leans against the wall. He pants a moment, "Someone in ah . . . the cell."
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Toki smiles as he rushes toward the voice, We are here to rescue you all.
Dacknar moves to the cell door and takes a peek in to see who is inside.
"Check to see if the keys are on them. Or I will have to deal with the lock myself."
Talking to the one in the cell. "Who are you? What's your name?"
Beordt goes to stand willing to rip the door off the hinges but leans back against the wall. He nods at the idea of keys.
Gaius searches the trollkin and does find a set of rusty iron keys tied to the first guard's belt. There is little else of interest or value.
After a few tries, Toki and Dacknar manage to find the correct key and the lock clanks open. A foul scent of sickly, unwashed and dead bodies wafts from the tiny room. A group of three scrawny, dark skinned human and two minotaurs peer out of the dark gloom, shading their eyes from the glimmer of your torches. Three more bodies lie dead in the farthest corner of the room where they've been carefully stacked by their cellmates.
It takes a few moments but Gaius and Telos finally recognize their once companion, Nantel. The minotaur is a frail shade of his former self. Ragged, filthy scraps of clothing hang from an emaciated frame and his once strong, steady hands shake as they reach out to take a canteen of water offered by Telos. It is hard to imagine this being the same hardy minotaur who was only a few weeks ago sturdily hacking his way through the jungle and digging out lost metals from the depths of the ruined city.
Too weak to really smile, his haunted eyes look upon his former companions and he nods in both greeting and thanks.
"I....I thought I would never see you both again. Nantel says. His voice raw, wispy and ragged.
"Be still. Take another drink." Telos says, tipping his head toward the canteen. His eyes cannot hide the concern and shock at seeing Nantel in such a state. Nor can he disguise the concern about how any of these folk will be able to escape back to the river and the waiting boat.
While Telos helps Nantel. The other captives extend frail, starved hands toward Dacknar and Toki. The man, two woman, and other minotaur, a female, each stumble forward into the dim light and slightly cleaner air of the corridor.
A further search of the other cells reveals much more of the same. By the end, Toki counts up a dozen former prisoners and double that number of dead. Of the twelve survivors, nearly half are barely able to walk for lack of food and water.
Toki takes a look amongst the survivors, We need a place to hide out, so that some of these folk can recover enough for us to sneak them out. I have a handful of leftover rations, but not nearly enough to feed these folk.
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"Nantel! Confound, man, it is good to see you! You haven't seen--" Gauis pauses, looking over the rest of the prisoners, and even glimpsing towards the corpses. "You haven't seen Sabitha, have you? No, no do not think so. Here, my friends," an an orderly way Gauis breaks out his own iron rations and distributes them amongst the former prisoners, along with as much water as they can stomach.
"Oh a thousand curses on the heads of all trollkin for doing this to you good, fine people. They, all of them, shall pay a thousand-fold for the evil they have done."
Upon hearing Toki, he turns to him, "Hide out? Confound man we do not even know where we are, not properly. The trollkin that call this place home know every nook and cranny, and we can not possibly hope to hide nigh'on 30 people from them. And we canst not stay here, for we know not when the change of guard might be called and raise the alarm in general!
Nay, my friend, nay, we have only gotten this far because the trollkin wretches are, as a whole, combating the blaze we set alight. We know not how long such a distraction might hold, but the fire holds our only window of opportunity.
Please, I know we must needs ask more than these people can give, but with an hour's travel we can be away from here, with none the wiser. Then we might make a defensible camp and give these people the rest they so sorely need and have so richly earned."
"So back the way we came in?"
Hmm, what I wouldn't give for some of those pack animals right about now... Gaius, we cannot carry these six that are infirm. My people would have left them to die, but I am not about to do that...
”I can carry as many as can fit in my arms or who can hold onto me.” Rilkus said. ”We must move them as soon as we can, for I too worry about the trollkin returning in numbers.”
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Gauis nods as the others voice their concerns. "Yes, yes of course. I, too, can carry my share. And, wasted away as they are, surely those that need to be carried can not account themselves for much weight.
With two each for the powerful Rilkus and Beordt, and two in my own science-empowered arms, I hope we should be able to manage."
Beordt pushes off the wall and nods.
Nantel shakes his head slightly at Gaius' query. "I'm sorry my friend. I have not seen her. But given my recent experiences, that is likely much to her benefit."
As soon as you can gather everyone up, you set off with your ragtag band of escapees. Everyone either carries or offers a shoulder or two for the weakest to lean on.
One of the prisoners is a frogkin, who you notice gazing upon Toki, Rilkus, Beordt, and Dacknar with awe and wonder clear in his sunken eyes. Although he says little, he does all that is asked of him and even, when able, assists with the other prisoners despite his own obviously weak state.
It takes twice, three times as long to retrace your steps back to the amphitheater. The large chamber still reeks of blood and death. Two strong, alluring scents that have brought a newcomer into area. A massive, bloated worm standing upon dozens of stubby, fat legs is busy devouring the corpses of the dead trollkin. Even as you arrive the leg of the shaman disappears down the sickly gray creature's multi-jawed maw.
Death worm... It's been drawn by the death and the trollscum. Let us give it wide berth, Toki says, pointing out a path to avoid the disgusting creature.
The Northman grabs a corpse off the floor and stands sentinel between the worm and the party, ready to thrust the dead trollkin at the creature, should it charge.
"Wide berth indeed." Beordt moves keeping his eyes split on where they are goin and the death worm.
Dacknar tries to help as many past the worm as he can by getting in-between the prisoners and the worm.
He tries to push a dead body toward the worm, hoping that it will eat that over the living.
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"You have the right of it, Toki. Odd creatures, these, voracious and omnivorous. Rarely have I seen one of this size, though. O would that I could take this specimen back with me to The Order! I could publish a dozen papers studying its apatite alone.
Ah well, there's nothing for it. Here, Dacknar, you have a good idea. I'll put my charges down and aid you there. Perhaps if we toss this body closer to it, it will decide that an un-struggling meal is of greater worth than one that is still kicking and moving away from it! HaHA!"
Gaius, Toki and Dacknar shove the last corpse closer toward the feeding worm and then rejoin the survivors to carefully circle around the feeding creature. Passing the previously unexplored passage Beordt, now in the lead, holds of a hand of caution as he moves toward the next passage leading back the way you originally entered. The bearkin catches the brief scent of woodsmoke from the tunnel, but it isn't this that has his hackles on edge. It is the click and skitter that sounds suspiciously like those coming from the creature feeding in the center of the room.
Sure enough moments later, another big worm comes sliding from the way opening. It's eyeless head pivots back and forth ponderously picking up the scent of a potential meal nearby. Sliding forward a bit further it starts to veer toward Beordt, Rilkus and the nervous, bedraggled prisoners.
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"Hold a moment, Toki. I think I may be able to assist us in getting it to look elsewhere for its dinner."
Gauis digs into a belt sack and comes out with a handful of wooden cubes. He grips one in a free hand and concentrates on it. Suddenly the hall is filled with a dreadful aroma of rotting flesh. The artificer then tosses it, and as the block goes away from the group, so too does the wretched stench. It lands some feet from the worm, but leading in the Southernly direction.
He takes up one more block, again he concentrates upon it, and again the hall is filled with the smell of carrion. This too he throws, but this is moreso toward the South tunnel.
A third follows, this one almost to the tunnel itself, and then a forth, down the tunnel's mouth.
"Let us see how hungry it is," he mutters.
Toki, using himself and a bit of old meat from a ration pack as bait starts to entice the big worm toward the corridor to the south. As first the creature shows little interest in the bard even as he waves the dried meat enticingly toward the beat. Then Gaius steps up and starts tossing his enchanted wooden cubes just beyond Toki.
The corpse stench of the cubes seems to do the trick. The beast twists away from the nervously retreating prisoners and instead skitters toward Toki and the cubes. Wicked looking mandibles clamp down on the cubes and pull them back into the big tooth-lined maw as catches up to each one.
It takes forty feet of creature before the tail end finally slides free of the tunnel, clearing the way for everyone to start moving past. By the time the big worm reaches Gaius' last cube, the first worm finishes off the remainder of the final corpse and begins to twist back and forth sniffing the air, already searching for its next meal.
Rilkus stood between the party and the worms, confident that there was little, if anything, about him that they would find appetizing.
Toki backs up and takes a running leap over the worms head as it chows down on the wooden cubes, scrambling along its body and out over hits tail!
Beordt moves toward the open tunnel. Carrying and directing prisoners.
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"Excellent!" Gauis emphatically whispers as the newly come worm calls for his cunning plan. "Now, Toki, for the other worm I think we can--" his words fall off as the bard indulges in an impressive display of acrobatics. A display which leaves him and their charges cut off from their tool against the worms.
Never one to dwell on what might have been, he sees the obstacle that Rilkus is forming of his own body and tries to build on his previous success.
"Let's see how well they can tell friend from foe."
Again Gauis starts tossing awful-smelling cubes, but these he tries to place between the two worms. He hopes that, given the definite evidence of food, the worms will start blinding biting. Each other. By the time they settle their differences and realize they've been duped the group should be well on their way.
Like a Barsellan cat burglar, Toki leaps up and over the worm and double times it across the worm's slimy back. Reaching the end, the bard leaps and drops back to the floor just as the creature is drawn away by the second round of lures produced by the artificer.
The prisoners shuffle and scuffle their way along the upper pathways of the amphitheater's bowl following Dacknar, Beordt, Telos and now Toki as they continue to carry or aide those too weak to make it on their own.
Correctly assuming that his metal body would make an unappetizing potential snack for either of the worms, Rilkus is a solid barrier against further investigation by the pair of worms who now busy themselves with fighting of the illusionary delicacies of Gaius' wooden blocks.
The first worm finally snatches at the nearest block. This draws a response from the second. Both lose substantial chucks of flesh and bone in the intense melee. The last anyone glimpses of the two worms is the creatures entwined with each other, jaws snapping, and dozens of tiny feet claw away at raw underbellies.
You travel back down the tunnel you recently passed not so very long ago. Coming eventually to the Y intersection where Gaius' keen ears led you toward the abomination in the amphitheater. This time your passage through the dank tunnels isn't joined by the rumble of stampeding dinosaurs overhead. Nor is dirt and grit constantly falling from the ceiling. Your previous footprints are clear in the soft sand and dirt of the passage.
In the lead as usual, it is Dacknar who suddenly throws up a hand in warning. A side passage branches off to the north while the tunnel continues west or back east the direction you've just come from.
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"What is it, Dacknar?" Gauis whispers while putting down the people he was carrying. Then he falls silent himself and listens to the silence. Suddenly his eyes go wide in alarm.
"Hsssst. It seems chance has thrown a party of those we hoped to avoid in our way.
It's no good, with the ex-slaves barely able to walk we can not outpace them, no matter which direction we went.
We'll have to fight.
It seems that this is the perfect spot to flank them in a pincer! Toki, Beordt, Rilkus. Can you three stay here in this tunnel and form a great wall of STEEL in front of the ex-slaves? The warband ahead of us will see you and charge to melee.
Dacknar, if it pleases you, the two of us will stand inside the Northern tunnel and wait for melee to be joined. Then we will crush their flank and roll them up!
Nay, nay, I do not think we need to be one with the shadows. Even if they detect us they can not get to their escaping charges without bringing on a general action. We do not need to ambush them so much as attack on a second front."
Seeing no more time for more action, Gauis stalks up the northern tunnel a few spans, flattens himself against the wall, and waits.
"All right Gauis, but we need to be quick about this or one of them worms might come up and start feeding on those left in the tunnel."
And he moves into the northern tunnel to get set for the ambush.
”Can I stand still and be a wall of steel?” Rilkus intoned. The gearforged stared at the artificer, even though he had no facial features or real eyes to speak of.
"He means for us to guard the retreat. We will follow and keep others off you but, we've less to bleed then when we started."
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"Ha! Yes, Rilkus! I daresay that if you cannot be a wall of STEEL then none that are kissed by the rays of the sun might achieve such a task either!
And nay, good, strong, Beordt. I mean for you to stand here. To make no retreat. To absorb the charge of the vile enemy and hold strong. Then Dacknar and I will crash upon them, making ourselves the thick of the fight.
I know you have suffered grievously. So though we have all seen how very devastating you can be close to hand in the shield wall, perhaps, just this once, it would be best to allow the mighty Rilkus and the wily Toki to take the front ranks the nonce. Then you can stay just behind them and pepper the enemy with iron javelins and whatever else might come to hand. I care not, for I have faith the strength of your arm can carry the day, whatever it calls for."
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Rilkus wanted to explain to Beordt that he was joking, but realized that without the ability to have a change of tone or facial expressions it would just fall flat again. So instead he nodded to Gauis and took up position.
Toki nods... surely, the gods will notice him after this...
Following Gaius' suggestion, you all slip into position. Telos stands at the rear of the group of prisoners, watching the way back for any sign of the giant, flesh eating worms.
A few more seconds slip past as the snuffling and sounds of movement grow closer and closer. Finally something moves around the bend in the tunnel and continue to snuffle its way toward your position. The creature appears to be a large boar, it's tusks swinging back and forth as it tracks your earlier trail. The bristles on its back start to rise as it approaches. Its ears twitch and flick even as it comes to a lurching stop upon spotting Rilkus and Toki standing shoulder to shoulder in the passage.
Rounding the same corner ten feet behind the boar are a pair of frogkin. They crouch and creep forward with small swords drawn and a nervous look in their big, blinking eyes. Both wear symbols of Schaprigrodaz
Seeing the newcomers, the frogkin prisoner shuffles forward and brushes Beordt on the arm. He pokes a finger toward his own chest and then toward the frogkin creeping down the tunnel.
"Friends of yours?" Beordt asks confused he motions forward if the frogkin wants to approach them.
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Gauis crouched warily in his waiting position. His great steel fists curled and jostled, tiny machinations of machine and magic moved weights of iron forward to maximize their lethality. He eagerly anticipated being in the van, at last repaying the trollkin scum for a small part of the agony they had inflicted upon him and those he had known.
It was with no confusion that his brain wrestled away from the battle-fog that had enveloped it, and processed the sound the stalked down the hall. Snuffling? The trollkin were animals, true, more akin to beasts of burden than any other thing walking on two legs, but even they did not snuffle.
Cautiously he poked his head around the corner and it was with a mixture of relief and disappointment that he saw the quarry that advanced was not a warband of trollkin, as he had all but guaranteed it would have been.
Seeing one their prisoners was akin to the newcomers, he nodded. "Aye, you have leave to treat with them. Let them know we mean no harm and are just trying to get away our selves. You can even go with them, if you wish it."
"Well this is a turn of events. We earned the trust of a frog clan a ways back. Hopefully helping them free one of their kin will gain some trust with these ones. If not they will just try and eat us."
Dacknar whispers to Gauis.
The oncoming frogkin lurch to a halt as the prisoner steps forward. A few words are exchanged in a slightly different dialect from those folk you freed from the ogres along the coast. Soon enough the conversation becomes more animated as the prisoner gestures back toward where you all stand watching the curious exchange while the boar begins to snuffle about the tunnel with bored curiosity.
The newcomers gaze down the tunnel, looking closely at Beordt, Rilkus and Toki. Soon enough they are nodding and gesturing among themselves along with rapid fire words and croaks and cricks shared. Most of you do recognize the words "Schaphrigroadaz" as well as "Grinda" and "Qwerbrac." Finally the three seem to come to some agreement and the former prisoner steps back down the hall. The other two look on with a mix of awe and amazement in their eyes.
He bows deeply toward Beordt, Toki and Rilkus who still stand guarding the hall while Gaius and Dacknar lurk in the side tunnel.
"I am Grick of *croak* the Baobric Bobogluup peoples." He says in a roughly accented Southern tongue. "These *crick* are two of my clankin *croak* Gnishap and Babmisha. It is the *croak* greatest of honors to *crick* know the Chosen of Schaphrigroadaz. My kin were searching for me and *groak* have a place of safety where we can all rest and avoid notice from the White Devils. *croak* If you would care to follow our humble selves, Gnishap will show the way."
Toki breathes a sigh of relief, for he has legends to create, fighting a hopeless battle is not one of them.
He silently salutes the frogkin that arrive...
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Beordt falls in line behind Toki, Toki's a total spaz rhymes with 'Chosen of Schaphrigroadaz. Just saying. For your songs of our exploits."