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Treader sighs and lowers his bow, looking a little sickly. "Fingers. . . more fingers. I'm going to need a therapist after this. And I think I'm going to be sick." The halfling scholar turns away and loses his lunch in the corner for a moment before rejoining the others.
"Well, add it to the collection. I'm done speculating how many we'll find and how many is appropriate." You later hear him whispering to himself, "Don't spiral, don't spiral, don't spiral."
Theo spends time translating the obsidian finger!
Current Status
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Ashleigh
Treader @ 14/16 HP
Solveig
Theo
Valamar @ 1/37 HP
Qwyn @ 9/20 HP - Wounded 2
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As the lull of after battle stretches into a longer amount of time, Qwyn walks gingerly over to Val and lightly puts his hand on the fellow gnome's shoulder. "Val, you're not looking too great. Worse then me at the moment and I think I just died twice!" Shaking his head, a thought crosses his mind and he lets out a chuckle. "Heh, that hand spanked me twice!"
Returning his attention to Val, he says, "No, seriously though, do you still have the healing elixir we each got from Kline?"
Deciding to help moves things forward and get out of this god's forsaken....wherever they are, he says. "Theo, how long would it take you to translate the book?"
Turning to Solveig he effects a bow, "Sol, my dear, I am eternally grateful for sacrificing your healing elixir to me." Coughing to cover his emotion, "I owe you one."
Looking around, he says, "Sol, Ash, Tread, how are all you doing, good? Any idea on next steps?"
Noting blood dripping down his arm from a reopened wound, "And does ANYONE have any ability to treat wounds and such? I am woefully inadequate for the job."
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No need to be thankful. That elixir was given by the Society, and I'm in full health, better to use that elixir on you than keeping it for nothing!
Says Solveig.
I'm sorry, but I have no ability to help you further to heal your wounds. My spells and consumable have all been used.
But I'm good for now.
As Theo the Runesmith carefully studies the final pages of the cyclops’s journal, the ancient runes gradually surrender their meaning. The script is crude in places, its strokes hurried and uneven, as though the writer’s patience had worn thin with every passing entry. Yet Theo’s skill carries him through the obscurities, and at last the scattered passages resolve into a disturbing revelation.
The dead cyclops had been searching for the various fingers, each apparently a key to reclaiming something referred to only as “it.” Whatever this mysterious thing might be, the journal makes one detail unmistakably clear: it had been locked away, and the cyclops was determined to recover it at any cost. The final entries grow increasingly urgent, betraying an obsession that seems to have consumed the writer entirely.
What “it” is remains a mystery—but the journal leaves little doubt that the fingers are more than mere relics. They are the means to reclaim something the cyclops believed must never remain lost.
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As Qwyn listens to Theo's translation, he head droops. Walking over to Val, Qwyn embraces the fellow gnome. "Well brother, if we don't make it out of this, perhaps we will meet again in the First World..."
Taking a deep, resigned breathe, he continues, pointing to the south. "It appears we still have some to explore, and I'd wager at least two more fingers to find." The latter part he says with a lowered voice and a sidelong glance at Treader hoping not to trigger the halfling.
"Nothing of it, but to plunge forward!" Qwyn says as he retrieves his weapon and checks the tightness of his buckler straps, then motions with it to the south.
"Shall we?"
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Listening to Qwynn, Solveig thinks and after careful consideration says
Maybe it will be better to take the time to heal those wounded?
I agree with Qwynn, there is certainly two more finger to find and how many more deadly dangers? So let's be prepared as it seems the things here have been long forgotten and time is not the essence here.
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Occasionally glancing at his party members, Qwyn begins pacing limply back and forth, a rivulet of blood steadily streaming down his forearm to drip from his pinkie finger, leaving blood spattered trails to mark his path.
As he becomes anxious to either complete this, his first mission...or die trying, an expression of almost ironic humor etches it's way onto his face as he takes his kukri and cuts a couple strips of cloth from his cape.
Cutting the strips to size, he wraps them around his various wounds, tightening down the knots one tag in his teeth, the other directed by his free hand....
Ashleigh, the ever vigilant, spends the next three hours healing and repairs the wounds on Valamar, Qwyn and Treader. It takes time, but everyone is able to get patched up as Theo deciphers the journal and the script on the finger.
The group, tired, but willing to press onward, looks to the alcove to the south as their next target. A short corridor branches into a hallway lined with alcoves. The alcoves contain bones of varying sizes. One wall of the larger room is covered in a faded painting of cyclopes holding burning bowls up to a sky filled with storm clouds. An alcove in the opposite wall contains a polished block of white stone etched with designs of flames. Atop the block rests a finger made of gray slate. Around the polished block of stone, bones have been laid in careful patterns.
The two sets of cyclopes skeletons have brown-green garnets embedded in their singular eye sockets and a slate finger rests on an altar.
Current Status
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Ashleigh
Treader @ 16/16 HP
Solveig
Theo
Valamar @ 37/37 HP
Qwyn @ 20/20 HP
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"If 'it' was locked up for some reason. . . why can't we just leave it there?" the scared halfling groans as the party pushes on.
At the sight of yet another finger being flanked by two skeletons, Treader sighs. "Another one. And maybe I'm getting the hang of this adventuring this because something tells me those skeletons are going to try to protect that finger if we just waltz up and grab at it."
Looking down at his arrows, he admits, "I don't know if I can do much against skeletons, either. The arrows will probably just fly right through. Who's brave enough to go grab that finger?"
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"If 'it' was locked up for some reason. . . why can't we just leave it there?" the scared halfling groans as the party pushes on.
At the sight of yet another finger being flanked by two skeletons, Treader sighs. "Another one. And maybe I'm getting the hang of this adventuring this because something tells me those skeletons are going to try to protect that finger if we just waltz up and grab at it."
Looking down at his arrows, he admits, "I don't know if I can do much against skeletons, either. The arrows will probably just fly right through. Who's brave enough to go grab that finger?"
”No sooner said!”, Valamar declares. ”Is everyone else ready?”
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”No sooner said!”, Valamar declares. ”Is everyone else ready?”"If 'it' was locked up for some reason. . . why can't we just leave it there?" the scared halfling groans as the party pushes on.
At the sight of yet another finger being flanked by two skeletons, Treader sighs. "Another one. And maybe I'm getting the hang of this adventuring this because something tells me those skeletons are going to try to protect that finger if we just waltz up and grab at it."
Looking down at his arrows, he admits, "I don't know if I can do much against skeletons, either. The arrows will probably just fly right through. Who's brave enough to go grab that finger?"
A anticipatory grin etches its way across Qwyn's features as he tightens his buckler straps and clasps Valamar on the shoulder. "Agreed! Right beside you brother!"
As he draws his kukri, he glances at Treader. "Aim for the head..."