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Hi folks. You might have noticed I've been absent for a while. My apologies. I'm dealing with a bunch of overlapping life changes that have left me wiped out during my small amount of free time. I can't reliably post right now, and I'm not sure when that will change, so I'm reluctantly dropping out of this game. I've really enjoyed the character interactions. If I can sort out real life I'll come back and beg to rejoin.
"As is your diligence. Both are needed to temper each other. Compassion can be naive. Diligence can be callous. Each alone is brittle, but together they make an impressive alloy," Akula smiled.
Akula sighed as she watched Toraim leave. With a sympathetic glance over her shoulder at the other two women, she followed the dwarf. She didn't say anything, she just waited nearby for Toraim to finish thinking.
"Ysildae is right, Toraim. We can't just do nothing because there's a chance she might be evil. That wouldn't be right," Akula said, putting her hand on her dwarven friend's shoulder. "We can take her measure after we help her." She watched the nimble elf vault off the wall and over Toraim's head and smiled slightly.
Akula moves into position with her shoulder to the door, ready to open it but block it from swinging all the way so that whatever is inside can only approach Toraim. She puts a hand on the bar to lift it, but doesn't move yet, looking to the others to wait until they are ready.
I'm traveling until the 27th. Probably won't have time to post much.
"That's a good idea," Akula nodded. "Maybe we could build a barricade from the debris in the jail?" She eyed Toraim's door-shield. "We could use that as a start?"
Akula pulled a bit of chalk out of one of her pouches. Normally she used them for trail marking, but they'd work just as well down here. She backtracked into the rooms they'd passed through, leaving large, obvious markings and quick notes for anyone who might come after them. "Alright, let's go."
"This seems like the sort of thing we should report before exploring it," Akula said, concerned.
Akula curled her lip in distaste. "Who wants to wager there's angry undead in that thing?"
Thinking of the dog in the other room, Akula dumped out the rancid water, turning her face away from the smell. Then she rejoined Toraim at the front of the group, ready to continue forth.
"Aren't watertight barrels hard to come by these days?" Akula asked.
"I wonder what that tattoo means," Akula mused.
Akula picked up a nearby piece of detritus and tossed it hard into the refuse pile.
"Clear," she said quietly.
"Let me do a quick scan for auras," Akula said quietly. Her eyes took on the warm red-gold glow of her goddess' light.
Akula slid the bowl on the floor past Toraim's shield and then prayed quietly. The bowl filled with water.
"Just malnourished from the look of it," Akula explained.
Orcish trail rations were mostly just dried meat and flour rolled into preserving leaves. Akula opened two of them up and tossed the meaty middle in front of the dog. Then she said "Anyone have a bowl?"
Akula looked heartbroken. She immediately started digging a pouch of orcish trail rations out of her pack.
"I don't know, something about it just doesn't seem right," Akula shrugged, struggling to put her feelings into words. "Lets just deal with it later."
"That sounds... worse," Akula said, her face furrowing in concern. One quick cut to bisect a corpse was somehow more reasonable to her than carving away rotting flesh like a deranged butcher. "We won't be able to figure out what it is until we leave here anyway. Toraim's right. It isn't necessary right now."
Akula couldn't find any reason not to wait. The magic belt didn't open, so it wasn't really a help to them anyway. "Alright." She shouldered up with Toraim and let him move them forward.
I edited my last post, just to make sure it's discussed first.
"Good idea," Akula agreed. "I love that we aren't getting blown up and showered with gore anymore." "Is there any good reason not to just... cut this body in half to remove the belt?" she asked. The orc in her was prone to brutally pragmatic solutions, but she'd learned humans often frowned on such things. She'd learned to ask first.
I don't think we should bother carrying the body. We should just bisect it with a great sword. This. It's a skeleton, right?
Agreed. GM, if you want to do batch-rolls for things like perception, initiative, and saves to speed us forward, I say go for it.
Akula moved into formation, ready to push on.
Delusions of adequacy.
This party really cracks me up. It's a good thing we're all pretty good at taking hits, because so far we are kinda bad at just about everything else. I'm enjoying the struggle. It's a fun change of pace from other games. Every time we manage to pull something off it feels like a major victory.
"The belt is magic. The pouch too," Akula said.
"What is that?" Akula asked Maria, nodding at the belt.
"How about doors?" Akula asked. "With a few nails and a salvaged handle, we could make a makeshift tower shield pretty easily."
So we want to give an amateur shield wall a shot.
Maria has Reach?
Here's what I'm thinking- Tower Shields have a big fat Armor Check Penalty that applies to attack rolls when used by people who aren't proficient, but that doesn't mean they can't be used. It just means it's best to use them with Full Defense. Tower Shields also grant Total Cover, so we could completely block them off from us. It would take some coordination, but it would work like this- Any 5' or 10' wide doorway or hallway: Front row: Readies Action to set shield for Total Cover after Back Row attacks.
Rinse repeat. When the zombies die, the people with the shields would either be unaffected, or get a bonus to reflex saves. It would be a slower way to do things, but a lot safer.
"This is disgusting," Akula sighed looking down at herself and wincing sympathetically as Maria vomited. She passed over a waterskin. 'Here. Use as much as you need." "Honestly, going back for spears and tower shields is a pretty good idea."
With one enemy dead, Akula tried to ignore the disgusting ichor she was now showered with and turned to the last foe within reach.
Akula took another wide swing to ward off the enemies.
Akula stepped forward and swung at the zombie in front of Maria.
Akula smiled, glad the lessons from their last mission had been remembered. She too drank down her alchemical concoction, making a face at the taste. "Ugh. Next time I'm mixing that with something."
Ooooh, clever.
Well clearly my understanding of pretty much everything is warped. Ugh. Ignore me.
"The refugees I was talking about are the people of Haemil. They are coming here. I'm... basically their Herald. There are a lot of them, and many are infirm, so the trip is going to be slow. As for the orcs- oh I see what you meant! Sorry. They are both my people, so I sometimes use them interchangeably. I can see how it would be confusing," Akula said. "I don't know what happened to the Orc tribes. I was in Haemil during the shaping. The only word I have is a missive my grandfather sent my mother. I know he survived, but that's about it. I'm hoping that even if he can't rally the other tribes to follow him, that the Steelbloods at least will come here."
Ysildaë looks around as a silence grows between the two women.
"My mother is the daughter of an orcish chieftain, and my father a human prince. It's all very star-crossed lover fairy tale stuff. I think there have even been a few plays and penny dreadful written about the whole affair. My grandfather is still the Chief of the Steelblood clan as far as I know. I have not heard if he survived the Shaping. My father abdicated to marry my mother, so my uncle rules in Hamill now. They should be making their way here eventually." "The whole business of their affair and the scandal of their marriage made childhood complicated, but in the end it bought years of peace between Haemil and the Tribelands. Because of that, I think the area fared better than most during the shaping and were more ready and willing to come together to survive afterward." "That's why I'm here ahead of the rest of my family. Once we have taken the town back, my mission is to retake my family's holding so the refugees from Haemil have a safe place to come to."
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