Peaking in through the door, Theo looks around the room.
"Is it safe to come in now?"
Kane gives the dead darkmantle a shove with his spear before he moves past it into the room. "So far so good, but keep your eyes open."
"Heh. He-oughhh!" Bac starts to laugh as the dust settles, but ends up coughing instead, sending out little sparks of lightning. Once the coughing fit clears, he answers Theo with "Its all right boy. No more headsuckers that I can spy."
"But we're no closer to finding our mushrooms. Where'd that trail go?" He looks around for any further sign of the strange footprints the group had been tracking.
Ascian lets out several ragged coughs, and leans against the wall, rubbing at her neck. "Horrible creatures."
The group tends to their wounds, picks through the broken wreckage of the shrine, and prods the corpses to make sure they're dead. Upon the altar is a small slot, where an anvil may once have been placed, and five small multifaceted depression in the stone, as though once fitted for gemstones. Sadly, all the fittings are now empty, and the darkmantles do not appear to have collected any other treasure during they're stay here.
Bac's hunt for the trail he had previously followed proves fruitful--moreso than he had perhaps expected! Stepping out into the hallway, Bac spots a pair of muddy little prints and follows them with his gaze to a side room--and locks gazes with a kobold, mouth agape and eyes wide with sudden fear! With a squeak they attempt to slam the door shut, but the old human easily pushes it open again. The kobold's hand twitches towards its sword, but it thinks better of the move and instead prostrates itself on the dirty ground, throwing itself at Bac's feet.
"Oh please, don't eat me!" it wails in a thin, reedy voice and broken Common.
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"AH HAH HAH! I WAS GETTING HUNGRY!" Bac picks the kobold up and puts it right in his mouth! Or at least an arm or something, whatever fits. He doesn't bite down. He just presses enough to put the fear of Xiayeng into the little thief!
"Nauf, wear ish the mushroomph!?"
Kane tends to his comrades wounds, taking the time necessary to prevent any mistakes.
Ascian, frustrated at her body's rejection of Kane's natural remedies, pushes herself to her feet and follows after Bac. "Let's just get moving," she grumbles.
The kobold wails pitifully has Bac opens his mouth wide. It tastes terrible--pebbly reptile scales with notes of mud and algae-slime and...salt and pepper?
"NOOOO!" the kobold kicks his feet helplessly. "Gurtlekep stringy! Tough! Unseasoned! No good for eating--have mushrooms instead, mmmm!" Rubbing his stomach to make his point, the kobold frantically points to a small dented iron pot in the corner of the room, with a bubbling brown sludge in it. "Tasty mushroom soup, yes? YES?!"
Theo's eyes widen as Bac pretends to bite into the kobold.
"Ewwww...Bac! I would not put that anywhere near your mouth...you have no idea where it has been!!"
Bac spits the kobold out into his hand. "WHAT? You think that little soup will satisfy ME? I'll need far far more mushrooms. And FRESH. Only FRESH mushrooms will do. Lead me to them and you may go free yet." Bac scowls at the pot of soup.
Grattfaulk stands by stoicly while suppressing uproarious laughter at the goings on.
Desperate to avoid the grisly fate of being devoured by Bac, Gurtlekep pants wide-eyed, trying to think as it stares at the gunslinger's teeth.
"No more mushrooms!" The kobold whines, "All the safe ones are cooked up! Only ones left in the anvil place, lots of rust! But the dwarfies won't let anyone come in, they even attack Greypelt!" Sniffling as though about the cry, the kobold gives Bac the most pitiable look he's ever seen. "That's the true, promise!"
Kane approaches the kobold in Bac's clutches, "You mean to say that there are still dwarfs in those mines? I thought that they were all abandoned."
Following Kane's question, Bac adds "Or is the anvil place somewhere outside the mine?" He frowns "We're not scared of any dwarves. Even Graypelt ran from us! You take us to wherever this anvil place is, got it, ye little snack?"
Gurtlekep screws up his face in concentration, counting on his fingers as he answers each question. "Yes dwarfies here, crumbly and stinky and mean. Anvil-place here, in mine, yes yes. Greypelt run? That good. And Gurtlekep lead you to anvil-place," the kobold straightens and tries to give Bac a bold stare but doesn't quite pull it off. "but only if promise no eat Gurtlekep! Still very stringy."
Bac looms over the kobold after putting him back on the ground. "I'll swear to not eat any kobolds today. But if Gurtlekep thinks he'll lead us into a trap or trick, he's going right back onto the menu. I'll swear that too." He reloads his flintlock pistol and keeps it at the ready in one hand, with the other ready to grab at the kobold if they start acting up.
"Now, lead the way."
Ascian's nose wrinkles at the kobold's description of the "dwarfies." "Undead?" she offers, unsure.
With a plan being formulated, Kane spends some time gathering some ingredients before working on patching up Ascian's wounds.
Theodorus has been picking at the remains of the dead creatures.
"Fascinating! They seem to move like a squid in water, and the darkness is like an octopuses ink defence."
He comes out of his reverie when the subject of dwarves is brought up.
"Dwarves...still here? I would be very surprised to see any such people still living in this ruin. But perhaps Ascian is right and they are some sort of undead...now wouldn't that be interesting..."
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"Undead?"
Gurtlekep, feeling braver now that he's decided you won't eat him after all, makes a derisive noise. "That dumb! UN mean not and these dwarfies are not not dead! Dummy."
Ascian's tail slams through a piece of decaying furniture, smashing it to bits. "Call me that again," she hisses.
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Bac picks the kobold back up. "Oh, yes, I don't think we're going to need you walking. How about we just tie a string around you and dangle you in front to point in the right direction." He grins "Then you can check just how not dead those dwarves are first hand. Eh? Good idea? Heh heh!"
Having already run out of materials, Kane makes his way back into the trees to gather more, so that he can continue to treat Ascian.
Kane doesn't really think that toying with the poor creature is very nice, but doesn't chastise his companions, knowing that they need the mushrooms to save the town. Instead he just casually says, "Bac, you shouldn't play with your food."
"Hmmm... not not dead would mean dead little one. Hows about you explain what you mean by 'crumbly'? Grattfaulk says looking between Gurtlekep and Ascian.
Ascian's tail slams through a piece of decaying furniture, smashing it to bits. "Call me that again," she hisses.
"Eep!" Gurtlekep squeaks, suddenly in fear for his life again. "Please no smash! Gurtlekep stringy, tough, unseasoned, and also very very sorry!" He falls to the ground and grovels shamelessly at Bac and Ascian alike.
Grattfaulk's question prompts him to pause the performance, the kobold peeking up at him through his fingers. "'Course they dead, that why the mushrooms still there!" He thinks hard again about how to answer better. "The dwarfies is...'crumbly' like bad rock, or bones after cooking. All cracky and broken. No meat on 'em at all! Not that Gurtlekep would eat dwarf, blech! Armor not look so good either--dwarfies should be very embarrassed by their icky rusty armor!"
Suddenly Gurtlekep bolts upright, nostrils flaring. "Soup done!" he declares, then suddenly slumps dejectedly. "Scary big people can have it..."
"Well, fighting crumbling dwarves for their mushrooms wasn't how I thought this was going to go. But if they think they're going to stop us, they haven't seen this old man in action. Heh."
"Thank you, Kane," Ascian says, once the medicine finally kicks in. "Let's go get these damn mushrooms, then."
"Hmmmm....crumbling Dwarves...that sounds interesting. Let's go and check them out!"
Kane nods in agreement with the others. "We have goals to achieve. Let's get them done."
Gurtlekep gulps audibly but gives a reluctant nod. Pausing only to retrieve his bubbling kettle of mushroom soup, the kobold pads along the hallway--sticking so close to Bac that he's practically standing out the human's boots.
"That way to wolfies, and Greypelt. He threaten to eat me a lot," the kobold says, indicating the door at the northern end of the tunnel. The kobold points at the door to the east, around the corner. "Stinky dwarfies through there! Lots of mushrooms too but not safe!" He gives Bac a desperate, frightened look. "PLEASE don't make Gurtlekep go in there!"
Bac keeps a hand on Gurtlekep's shoulder as a 'reassuring presence' as he opens the door to the dwarf corner. "Let's have a look at them then." He gets ready to push the kobold to safety should anything jump out and attack.
Kane follows behind Bac, spear ready, as they move to enter the 'dwarfies' lair.
Theo crowds behind Kane trying to look past Bac and the kobold to see what is in the room.
"What do you see? Are there actually crumbly dwarves in there? Do you need more light?"
With this last question, he mutters a few short syllables and taps a small stone he had picked up. A dright glow shines from the rock and throws the group into a sharp silhouette against the opening.
Jisara joins Bac in the room, rapier held out at the ready while the beginnings of a spell dance across her offhand.
The glow of Theo's spell casts dozens of long shadows about the room you are peering into--once an armory or barracks, it seems. Ancient racks of weapons have rotted through and collapsed, spilling their contents about. The weapons and armor themselves have rusted and fused into reddish heaps of slag, thickly covered in dust and other detritus, an armored figure, flesh and hair long since rotted away, lies slumped against the wall with a pair of neat holes punched through its rusted breastplate. Three more skeletal bodies lie nearby--one with its skull cracked in half, the others' final injuries less clear.
Gurtlekep points, but you have already seen them: several clusters of small, thick-stemmed mushrooms of a mottled grey-and-red color. A thriving colony of ironbloom mushrooms lay before you.
The kobold's warning proves to be no lie, for the moment Theo's light strikes them the skeletal corpses stir. With no sound but the rattle of bone and rusted mail, these long-dead dwarves rise to their feet begin shuffling towards you. Three are a mess, so rusted and clumsy you doubt they would be much of a threat despite Gurtlekeps terrified, squeaky panting. The fourth however, appears less impacted by rust and decay--it brandishes a tarnished silver hammer that still manages to gleam in the mage-light.
-ROUND ONE-
Kane
Bac
Theo
Skeletal Guards
Gurtlekep
Grattfaulk
Ascian
Skeletal Champion
Moving forward to look into the room, Theo is decidedly disappointed at what he sees.
"Awww...they are only animated skeletons. I was hoping for something more...exotic! Oh well, I guess we will need to deal with them regardless to get those mushrooms."
Making a complex gesture with his hands and speaking some arcane words, a bolt of bright blue lightning streaks from his hand to strike the skeleton with the hammer. Once it had struck, the lightning arced and struck one of the other undead monsters.
Damage:
Kane makes his way into the room, and immediately reacts in a cat-like fashion by growing claws and hissing (yes... hissing) at the undead creatures.
◆ Stride
◆ Stride
◆ Wild Morph (Claws)
Bac grins in triumph upon spotting the ironbloom mushrooms, but his eagerness to step in and grab them is rewarded with skeletons. He raises his flintlock at one with the silver hammer. "Outta the way ya piles a bones." He fires at the boss-like skeleton!
Then, after drawing his warhammer, he strikes to smash the same skeleton to splinters.
Theo sends a crackling bolt of lightning flashing into the hammer-wielding skeleton to devastating effect! Bones crack and armor scales flake away as dozens of tiny arcs dance across its form! Kane presses in, his hiss nearly drowned out by the sudden bark of Bac's pistol! The bullet punches through the skeleton's chest. Bac's swings his hammer to finish it off, but the ancient dead parries the blow with its own hammer, empty sockets turning to stare at the gunslinger.
As the more ragged-looking skeletons rise they draw rusted axes and attack. One of them lashes out at Ascian with heavy swings, but the graceful tiefling manages to dodge the clumsy strikes.
With Kane and Bac focusing so much of their attention on the most dangerous-looking foe, they underestimate one of the lesser skeletons. A rising slash from its axe cuts a long deep furrow across Kane's torso and a second chop since the rusty axe into the meat of Bac's shoulder.
Unable to reach any of its prey in the press of combatants, the final skeleton stands impassively by the back wall.
"See?! SEE?! Doom and death, crumbly ones are bad bad bad!" Gurtlekep produces a crossbow and loads a bolt into it with shaky hands. Leaning through the doorway, the kobold's crossbow twangs and sends a bolt right between the ribs of the skeleton swinging at Ascian--to no discernable effect. "Gurtlekep going to die! All of us going to die!" he wails.
-ROUND ONE-
Kane (-14hp)
Bac (-7hp)
Theo
Skeletal Guard Green
Skeletal Guard Blue
Skeletal Guard Purple
Gurtlekep
Grattfaulk
Ascian
Skeletal Champion (-14hp)
Ascian grins as the clumsy skeleton lumbers up to her, and right into her trap. With her free hand, she traces out an invisible sigil, shouts a word that is half incantation and half battle cry, and twirls in place to send her tail crashing into the mindless abomination.
Grattfaulk moves to the right of Theo and chucks a javelin at the middle skeleton (Green).
As its fellows are destroyed all around it the skeleton with the gleaming hammer appears undeterred and unbothered. Its hammer swings are mechanical but deceptively fast and strong--the first blow catches Bac in the ribs and the backswing connects squarely with the older man's jaw, knocking the gunslinger back into the wall where he slumps to the ground!
-ROUND TWO-
Kane (-14hp)
Bac (Dying 1)
Theo
Skeletal Guard Green
Skeletal Guard Blue
Skeletal Guard Purple
Gurtlekep
Grattfaulk
Ascian
Skeletal Champion (-14hp)
Seeing the deadly skill of the dwarf skeleton with the silver hammer, Theo holds out his hand and fires 3 magical darts at the undead foe, each striking the creature unerringly.
Magic Missile (3):
Kane tears into the skeleton in a primal fashion; hand-to-hand.
Ascian flits around the room as she begins casting a spell, before delivering another powerful and magically enhanced blow from her tail.
Bac falls with a wheeze.
Bac, though in terrible shape, appears to somewhat stabilize while he lies on the ground.