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Seeing half his company examining the writings, Yorrick strolls up to see what is so interesting. He sees the halfling hopping up and down to see better. He taps the bard on his shoulder, and points to his own as an offfer for a lift. It occurs to him immediately after that this may have been a performer's bit, and he has colored himself as a rube. To sweep the situation under the rug, he focuses on the writings. People don't usually spend the hours necessary to carve into stone for idle ramblings. Yorrick wondered if this might not be something relgious.
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After the pit, so Yorrick figures, everybody will be watching the ground to make sure they didn't stumble into anything new. This, of course, while they're also watching ahead of them for obvious danger, and maybe keeping a sharp eye out for the likes of that fancy cloak Gailen had pulled up from the pit. In short, a group (not necessarily this one, but not necessarily not) will have everywhere to look, and forget to look behind them.
In a dark, tight place like this (even better if there were twists and corners) how easy it would be to find a hiding place and come up behind a group. Yorrick glances up at the halfling. Small fellow like that, and a caster, too. Sure, he can take care of himself, but he'd have to do it quickly. His skills make him a target, and his short legs make him a favorite target. If he replaced these caves with some of the tighter alleys in the city, it wouldn't be too much a stretch of the imagination to see some tough making his way up, grabbing a caster, pinning his arms back to keep him from getting off any spells. That's when the rest of a gang would come in and clean up the others. Yorrick knew this trick, because this had been his job. He wasn't sneaky, and he sure wasn't fast. But he was steady. They would take swings at him, fire shots at him, but even if their attacks found purchase, he shrugged them off and plowed ahead. He remembered the magic student—Dav had taught him to pick those out from their noses in the air, the overconfidence. Yorrick got up on him and held him. The apprentice wizard convulsed in the dwarf's arms but couldn't get his hands free. Yorrick might as well have been a set of tight iron hoops wrapped around him. When the rest of the gang started slaughtering the wizard's (outnumbered) companions, the apprentice started chanting. "Mind that mouth, Shrub," Dav said. And then, with a quick twist, the dwarf's ham of a hand was covering the young face. Catastrophe averted. "Hold 'em steady!" Dav admonished while the others surrounded the last survivor. The student thrashed harder and screamed through Yorrick's unmoving paw. When the others were down, Dav sauntered up to him in his usual way. "That's some good work there, Shrub." Yorrick smiled and blushed through his beard at the recognition. Then Dav slashed the caster's undefended throat, and he slowly stopped squirming. Glancing ahead at the halfling again, Yorrick sniffs, puffs his chest protectively, and thinks [i[Not this one.[/i] Looking behind him again, Yorrick retrieves a shuriken from its pouch on his belt and turns it over in his hand, as if a large coin. Comforted, he slips the weapon back into its pouch—keeping his fingers on it and the others like before. "Heh," he chuckles quietly—the one interruption in his silence. "Pathfinders."
Yorrick strides forward, over the plank, along with the party. His short legs make him slower than most of the party, so he hangs in the back and keeps his eyes open for an ambush. His muttering takes on that near-musical, praying quality for a moment, and suddenly stops. Yorrick is quiet. He has a kama in one hand, and the thumb of the other hand is hitched into his belt, his stubby fingers halfway in one pocket. He is watching.
Even as the others push past him, Yorrick pauses. It feels wrong to leave Janira to the minotaur, but when she gave the order to forge ahead, there was a determination in her voice he had learned to respect. It was the same tone his superiors at the Order had. It was a tone, he had learned, which could save a life—but seldom that of the one who spoke in it. Reluctantly, he follows the others, but before he breaks away, he whispers "Janira," as if she, too, may soon be only a memory. Catching up with the others he enters the damp cave. Drawing both kamas, he keeps an eye open for whatever may be hiding around a corner, or whatever the cave itself may be attempting to conceal.
Yorrick nodded as the cave mouth came into view. As they slipped into cool darkness, the dwarf intermittently reached a hand out to touch the cave walls. He had not been so completely surrounded by stone since he came to the city, nearly half a century before. But each touch of the cold stone beneath his heavy fingers stirred dusty recollections of life in the keep. He remembered playing among the passageways, and how the older boys knew of hidden doors and alcoves. This was a different kind of stone, having not been hewed by tools, but Yorrick wondered if it might not have such similarly hidden surprises. As they traveled deeper into the cave and the color faded from his vision, the dwarf decided to keep an eye out for anything of the sort. All the while, he muttered to himself under his breath. Anybody standing near enough to hear, or otherwise bothering to try, would hear that it was not a prayer or even a deranged self-conversation. In a mixture of Dwarven and Common, he was memorizing their travels. Although he did pause for a moment to chuckle when the Halfling's joke hit him.
Watching his fresh burns knit themselves closed, the dwarf bows slightly and thanks Janira for her assistance. Yorrick nods as he sees the swordsman clamber up the tree. He draws one of his kamas and calls up to Fidgit: "Tell me where ta cut!" While waiting for his compatriot to respond, he idly looks around and the forest floor around them, with its roots and brambles... and occasional rocks and stones cropping up through dead vegetation. He looks in the direction Janira had indicated. He thinks of how easy it would be to get lost in that dense roughness. He would need someone to tell him where to go, as he always did. And maybe, the users of this cave needed that, too. He didn't know anything about the forest, but old dwarven names for minerals stirred from his childhood. Yorrick gets down on his knees and crawls around on the ground.
Hey, gang: I just want to say thank you for being so understanding with me on my first PFS outing. Already, this campaign is using rules that were not features of my old campaigns (not a lot of swarms or splash damage for one), and I really appreciate your patience with me as I build up a framework here. Also, about my last in-game post, my apologies if it was a little much. Thinking over my moves and decisions is one thing that helps me get through the day. And the PbP format allows me to explore my character in ways I never could at a table. However, I promise such posts will not be common. I've no intention of hijacking the focus. And if it was a particularly egregious breach, I shall leave them off entirely. Just chalk it up to a newcomer's zeal.
The sound of Bulroar's fiddle draws the dwarf's attention in his direction. Amidst the mottled flesh, beneath the eyebrows that grow in sparse patches between scars, a pair of crystal blue eyes stare at the instrument with restrained covetousness and wonder. He thinks of the two times firmly in his memory in which he had held such an instrument in his hands. The last time was at the infirmary, where staff with ties to the Silver Crusade tended to him while he recuperated. "You're out of that scene now," they said. "You don't need to be that person anymore. You should learn a trade, or find a vocation." They brought several artisans. One, a composer of Angraddian hymns, brought with him a beat up old fiddle. The composer played a few selections for him, and asked the scarred and burned dwarf if this was something he would be interested in. It occurred to Yorrick how much he wanted to create. For years, for decades, he had only ever destroyed. And it was an easy thing to destroy. A brick through the glass, a hatchet in the middle of a carving. Strike a precious metal hard enough with something firm enough, and it will dent. And the destruction gave him power. But creation took power to perform, and thus meant power on the part of the performer. When he tried to articulate this, though, all the dwarf could say was "At'd be nice." In the infirmary, Yorrick took the composer's bow, and the feel of it in his hands stirred a memory only a few months old. A busker on their street, making musical caricatures of him and his gang. "You're being selfish," Dav said, snatching the fiddle from the musician. "You've got a fine instrument like this, and you never ask if any of us would like to play it? Why, our Shrub loves music, don't you Shrub? I'm sure he'd like to play." The fiddle was pushed into Yorrick's hands. He knew they were mocking him, but he knew the only way to keep it from getting worse was not to let on. Be Shrub, the version of him they accepted and welcomed. So he grinned (he still had all his teeth then), lifted the instrument as if about to play—the crushed it in his powerful, vice-like fists. And so calloused were his palms from displays like this, not a single splinter could find the slightest purchase in his flesh. He thought of this in the infirmary as the composer handed him the fiddle. And he held the instrument gingerly—dimly remembering how someone he knew had taught him to hold them. He scraped the bow across the strings, and was pleased it made a sound. The sound was unbearable, but he knew that it could become better with time. He seemed to recall that a little pressure on a string can change its pitch. So he brought one club of a finger down, carefully. Or as carefully as he could. With a sickening click, the neck of the fiddle cracked. He immediately dropped it onto the bed beside him and let the composer rescue it. It didn't break all the way through, and could be easily mended, but the lesson was clear: Yorrick did not have creation in his hands. As he listens to Bulroar play, he lifts his voice. Transfixed by the music, he does not produce the same gravelly, grovelling mutter to which he is accustomed. His voice is quiet, but almost has a musical quality. It does not take on the fiddle's melody, but forms a low, musical drone on the tonic beneath that melody: Dwarven: "Angradd, let your forge fire test me. Burn away my impurities, and what is left, shape into a form for your use and for your glory."
It is only after the snakes have gone on their way that Yorrick seems to notice his own condition. Mechanically, he slaps his smoldering clothing where the fire had already petered out of its own accord. In this process, the trinket is shaken out from under his shirt. It is a wooden disk, on which is carved, ironically enough, the forge fire of Angradd. The dwarf looks at his injuries, disappointed but not surprised. "'Vgotta potion," the dwarf says in his usual husky slur. "N'I'll take it 'n'all. But it's m'only one. D'be grateful if y'd see fit... Even though..." He nods towards the smoking grass around Janira's feet, where his first missile had unfortunately landed.
With a quick mutter (perhaps a prayer?) of which the only decipherable words are "vindication" and "codswallop", the shabby dwarf takes the flask from Gailen. "My thanks," he says, then hurls the Alchemist's Fire.
He turns to Janira, and can't even look her in the eye. "Yer pritty banged up. If ya wunt me ta carry ya 'way frum tha snakes, juss say tha werd"
The dwarf, still muttering, pulls the flask of alchemist's fire out of his belt. "'Swas a gift frum m'Order..." he says morosely as he follows Fidgit's example and hurls the flask. He aims for a cluster of snakes in the thick grass.
"Balls!" the dwarf shouts. He then remembers himself, and hastily adds, "...of Angradden's righteous fire..."
The dwarf attempts to slap out any fire on Janira.
Looking forward to this adventure. Thanks, everybody, for the advice on setting up my info. I hope you don't mind, but I took a look at some of your character pages to help me format my own. Question: Is Improved Initiative +2 or +4? The book says +4, but one or two of you have it as a +2 bonus. I didn't know if this was an alteration particular to PFS or what.
An unassuming dwarf slouches up to the party. His clothing is mostly tatters, except for his backpack and pouch belt—much better maintained than fits such a grubby figure. Old scars and broken, puffy cartilage gives his face a grotesque topography—a gruesome aspect in no ways helped by his decision to cover none of it with hair. He moves with the same slow methodicalness of dwarves (and, given his beardlessness, this may be the only way some passers-by could identify him as such), but his movements lack that familiar dwarven waddle. Beneath his beaten flesh and tortured muscles, there is a body which has managed some form of grace. 'V got sum rations... Three days uvvem... flint'n'steel... silk rope... grapplin' 'ook (nevvr skimp on tools)... waterskin... mug... Oh yeah, 'n a cupple uv... He fiddles awkwardly amongst his pouches and pockets until he retrieves two delicate flasks. They say this'n burns... n' this'n heals... Mumbling, he carefully rests them in their proper niches in his pack. Finally, out of a sense of completeness, he begins to show those assembled a wooden trinket on a leather cord around his neck, then thinks better of it, and tucks it back under his filthy shirt.
Male Dwarven Monk 1 || HP:11/11 || AC 15 (T: 15 / FF: 13) {+4 vs giant} || F/R/W +4/+4/+5 {+2 racial vs. spells/poisons/SLU} || Acrobatics +6, {Appraise +1 for nonmag goods w/prec. metals/gems}, Kn (religion) +3, Perception +7 {+9 for "unusual stonework} ATTACKS: M +3, R +2 (+1 vs goblinoid) (Flurry = +2/+2) CMB: +3 || CMD: +18 {+2 for grapple} {+4 CMD vs trip/bull rush while standing on ground} INIT: +6
Thank you, I have read over the Organized Play materials. Also, I have played before—just not Pathfinder—so I'm not exactly a "new player," though I thank you for the head-up. Honestly, I'm on the fence about Core or Regular. I like Core, because I'm just getting started and don't have all the books, and I like the idea of simplified options so that I'm not getting left behind by a lot of munchkins. But there's a regular PFS game in my hometown. I think I'm going to wait on PbP until I know which flavor they tend to play, so I'm not investing a lot of time in a Core character I couldn't get any meatspace play out of. Or vice versa. I guess it depends on when the GM plans to start this session, and whether I'll be able to get over and meet the local crew before then. |
