As Atterleigh waves the women and child into silence, you and the remaining members of Roland's posse ascend the stairs to the northern wall, allowing you to see out into the forest beyond...
Which stares back at you with piggish, unblinking eyes.
There are maybe forty of them, forty five at a push. The same swoop-eared creatures as the dead one stuck in your walls. They stand there, staring at you in the half-light, weapons drawn but not raised. Nyriskus - out in the open, in front of you.
After a few moments, one of them steps forward and raises a skinny arm towards you, palm open and upward-facing.
'Ne jemi këtu për të zhvilloj bisedime ... për sigurinë tonë,' it says loudly.
The River Gate, if you speak goblin:
'We are here to parley... for our safety.'
High Krandon:
The dwarf looks you over, and now you can see him more clearly you can tell he's in rough shape - obviously very tired, and incredibly nervous. When he speaks it's in a whisper, so low you can barely hear him.
[b]'I... there aren't many of us left, and the Высший совет will be able to tell you better than I can. Just, stay quiet, okay? I'm risking enough here as it is. Come on, follow me.'
He walks you over to a stairwell and begins to ascend, beckoning for you to follow.
I chastise you and disappear for a week - I'm a terrible person. :(
Bah... sorry for the brief periods of sporadic posting and long silences, work / real life has been busy. I still love you all though, and will try to be less terrible / more regular in the near future.
To give you a long term insight, I'll be a hell of a lot more free after the 21st of August - until then I'll try to be better, but I really can't promise too much. The sad realities of working as a teacher and having to communicate in a second language have been getting to me a bit, I'm afraid.
Bah... sorry for the brief periods of sporadic posting and long silences, work / real life has been busy. I still love you all though, and will try to be less terrible / more regular in the near future.
To give you a long term insight, I'll be a hell of a lot more free after the 21st of August - until then I'll try to be better, but I really can't promise too much. The sad realities of working as a teacher and having to communicate in a second language have been getting to me a bit, I'm afraid.
Bah... sorry for the brief periods of sporadic posting and long silences, work / real life has been busy. I still love you all though, and will try to be less terrible / more regular in the near future.
To give you a long term insight, I'll be a hell of a lot more free after the 21st of August - until then I'll try to be better, but I really can't promise too much. The sad realities of working as a teacher and having to communicate in a second language have been getting to me a bit, I'm afraid.
Bah... sorry for the brief periods of sporadic posting and long silences, work / real life has been busy. I still love you all though, and will try to be less terrible / more regular in the near future.
To give you a long term insight, I'll be a hell of a lot more free after the 21st of August - until then I'll try to be better, but I really can't promise too much. The sad realities of working as a teacher and having to communicate in a second language have been getting to me a bit, I'm afraid.
This new John tells his story, as best he can, and you can find no differences save for two - he had no clear memory of the thug that assaulted your John the previous night, and when in the schultenbrak he watched the rest of you die.
There is a shout from outside your tent, from the direction of the mud-walks, and an answering shout from somewhere in the main camp. You've become used to the sound over the last few days - it heralds the safe return of one of the locals, usually from some kind of foraging or fishing expedition.
I am quite happy to have it that you are pricking his back with your dagger as a warning that you'll happily run him through - does that meet with you approval, Geralt?
The last man, realising that he is, in fact, the last man, allows his blades of light to blink out of existence and steps slowly away from the group of terrified alchemists.
... but you do manage to crush one of the two remaining invaders between the edge of the fountain and the edge of your blade, chipping the stone but dealing far more grievous damage to his head.
Mal, your dagger strikes one of the attackers in the back as they continue to butcher the unprepared alchemists, with enough force to stumble him slightly but not enough to kill... until Geralt moves forward beside you, finishing off the humanoid before he can even turn to defend himself. +1 bonuses can be useful, you know... :)
As Joza hacks away at the paralysed insect and Zirul tries gamely to take down more of the invaders the remaining insect wheels around and begins to retreat - but not before its belly scissors open to drop yet another of the centipede-holding sacs, which bounces along the top of what remains of the dome for a few moments before coming to rest above your heads on a pane of unbroken glass. It shudders and bulges, obviously ready to release its cargo.
The remaining amniote in the fountain hunches for a few moments, light pulsing across its segmented body, before leaping - it cuts a path into the crowd, towards another of the stunned heliochemical creations - the results of this second attack are much the same as the first, as another source of living warmth is snuffed out.
From what you can see the 'crowd' has now thinned out, leaving only the dead and the wounded to clog up the area under the broken dome.
I do have an endgame in mind, but how you get there is largely up to you. You know that someone claiming to be from Hawcroft did some shady business dealings in the in-between plane, and you still have an island to survey. I was just wondering what your group plan is once the schultenbracke is dead (if you manage to kill it)...
Sorry for the break - stupidly busy end-of-the week. I'll get a post up as soon as possible...
BUT
In the meantime, it might be worth using the discussion board here to hash out your options out of character. What threads of story do you particularly want to follow right now (other than the overarching goal of 'kill the SCH')?
Zirul, your shot does indeed miss - but if there's any other direct speech / movement you wish to engage in, it's your turn now that insect 1 has been downed.
Jack, your shot flies straight and true towards one of the hovering creatures...
Carrier Fortitude Save DC 18:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
... which shudders once and then drops out of the air, turning as it does so. From the riders upon its back you hear a chorus of shocked screams which are abruptly cut off as the huge insect smashes upside down into one of the wagons, crushing its own crew and sending up a wave of splinters and broken glass. Your arms are trembling as you lower the rifle (probably with a decent deal of astonishment) - whatever was in that bullet seems to have paralysed the huge creature almost instantly, and the arcane backwash is running through your body making your stomach churn.
Geralt:
As Jack fires you feel a disturbance in the air and your headache, already pushed to the back of your mind by the combat, disappears gloriously and completely.
Ravboom, the three remaining attackers that rappelled down from the first insect to appear see what you managed to do to their worm-like ally and have no intention of engaging you - instead they turn to the alchemists that are frantically trying to pack away their equipment despite the chaos. Blades of light grow from their palms as they run...
Gah! Sorry guys, unexpectedly busy end of the week. I'll get an update up as soon as I can - the to groups should be back together reasonably soon as well, and then you'll have to decide what your plan of action is.
Ravboom, your first attack is enough to gravely wound the creature - your second, however, as you charge through the dissipating dust off the dead construct? That's enough to tear it in half.
Ravboom, you see Joza moving towards her comrades in the crowd but your concerns lie more with the writhing creature in front of you, and as another drops from one of the hovering insects and lands in the fountain you realize that the first is most definitely not dead.
The worm-creature by the wagons rears up and, with a high-pitched keening noise and a violent shudder, it reaches its full potential. Scythe-like blades of light sprout along both sides of its body like legs, and a particularly large pair hang like scissors at either end of the thing. The second one writhes within the fountain, still covered by the skin-like sheathe, but you have no doubt that a similar change is imminent.
The newly-mobile amniote whips upright in the style of a hunting centipede and dives unexpectedly - not at any of you, but instead at one of the glowing figures standing on the edge of the crowd provoking an attack of opportunity from you, Ravboom.
It takes little more than a fraction of a second for the creature to snap into position around the bemused alchemical creation and then, with a flicker of muscles, each of the blade-like appendages spasms closed.
Mind-Blade Damage:2d6 + 4 ⇒ (2, 6) + 4 = 12
Without her smile fading the glowing figure is torn to ribbons, disintegrating as she falls.
I'll do it in the next post, which will be sometime today - it's my only busy day this week though, so it may be the afternoon. But yes, were just about to start round 2. :)
The other flying insects hover at the same height, refusing to disgorge their payload of figures. Instead you hear several loud retorts from above - pistolfire from the insect-riders, aimed at the section of crowd in which the triumphant Jack stands.
There are renewed screams around you, Geralt, as people are struck by the errant shots and fall - and then you feel the impact of lead into your armour, and warm blood on your face.
Pistolfire Damage on Geralt:1d6 ⇒ 1 Pistolfire Damage on Jack:1d6 ⇒ 1
The blood, however, is not yours - you see Jack's rifle jerk in his arms as a shot nicks the back of his trigger-hand, an echo of the one that passes almost harmlessly between two sections of your armour, slicing the skin but passing clean and free of anything serious, you lucky pair!
The worm-like thing writhes in front of Ravboom, flopping uselessly around. Just waiting for Joza to post an action now, and then the amniote, and then round 2!
Just so the numbers make sense that's a + 2 for their natural accuracy, a -4 for firing into a crowd (counted as melee) and a -2 for firing from the back of an uncommonly bulky, hovering mount. ;)
'We made camp twice, and slept. Roger found you as we were making camp for a third time. Our times may not be accurate... but our stay could not be counted easily in seconds.' Tarun steps back after delivering this piece of information, sitting again on the large plush couch that creaked under his weight.
The latest addition to the room clears his throat.
This new John, the bandaged one, speaks in much the same voice as the man you've been traveling with. Much the same, but not exactly so - the firmness, the stoicism that is present in John's tone is absent from this newcomer. He still resolutely refuses to meet your eyes.
'I do not know what you are, or where I am. All i know is that I failed. I watched you die. All of you. If this is my punishment, to be tormented by the faces of those I failed to protect... ah, perhaps it is a just one.'
A gust of wind catches the tent flap and it blows open, revealing a glimpse of the little encampment and those that dwell there. You see the swinging lanterns of the Dophe, the only establishment here that comes close to calling itself an inn, and the much brighter alchemical flares that mark the perimeter of the mud-walks, the dock-like structures that spear into the jungle for those wishing to travel on foot.
You yourselves have been promised luxury transport by your contractors, which was set to arrive a day ago. It, like so much else around here, has been delayed by the storms.
Hjeusander laughs without humour. 'What happened? Our horse turned a hoof on the path and one of the axles snapped. We'd traveled a few miles by then but we could still hear the fighting. It would be a miracle if any of them survived... and they were good people, no matter what you might think. We took what we could and left the cart up the river - it's probably still there, too. fat lot of good it did us. Thank you.' The last words were for Garradeer, who has returned with a far more serviceable bow.
'And we owe you our thanks, for taking us in. I don't know what's out there in the forests, but it's wrong. we were attacked, twice, by animals. Their faces were all... Well, they weren't natural, I know that much.'
She sighs and pulls a battered pouch of tobacco from the traveling bag at her hip, casting a look over her two companions to make sure that they're okay.
High Krandon:
The reply comes almost immediately, hissed from just beyond the gate, around to the side from somebody standing close by but out of sight.
'Тихо себя, дурак! Они тебя услышат, и тогда мы все будем прокляты вместе!'
High Krandon, if you can speak Dwarven:
'Quiet yourself, you fool! They'll hear you, and then we'll all be damned together!'
You throw theories around for a few minutes as Shawe continues to search for something through his many desks and shelves. One of the dogs tires of the fire and pads over to Miria, nuzzling her hand affectionately. After a short time a loud, deep voice cuts across your discussion.
'Brother John is correct. They could live,' Tarun rumbles, holding up a hand to ensure that he is listened to, 'But for how long? I remember the night I was taken - the almost orc, Roger, he and I were alone for days before you found us. And yet for you it was but a handful of moments. We have been away from them for more than a day. What guarantee do we have that they are any more than dust?'
Before anybody else can say anything Yvenor returns. There is a man walking behind him, hesitantly, a man that bears a striking resemblance to Judge John of the Wains. His clothing is a little more tattered and he has some bandages hiding what appear to be nasty wounds running along his arms, and he lacks the torc around his neck that your own Judge John received from the night market. Apart from these few differences in clothing, however, they look to be identical - down to the hairline, the old healed scars, even the grafted eyes.
This new John look around the room with obvious discomfort, refusing to meet your gaze. Shawe's mouth falls open in shock as he looks between the two men - he seems lost for words.
'Actually, he speaks the truth. There is a second John, still held aboard the Beguiling Wolf, at anchor in Koltsvin bay. I can fetch him if you wish.'
Shawe nods distractedly and the large man, slowly pulling his shirt and jacket over the welts and wounds that criss-crosas his torso, slips back out into the streets and out of sight.
'When I was there, the stomach was no city - it seems to have drawn part of itself from the ruins of Yatavas, an echo of the last time it feasted. And if it has reproduced the city with any kind of faith then... yes, it will burn. But you'd need fire hotter than any I've seen to act as you intend, to survive the draining influence of that dread place. If you could secure that... I am thinking, remembering. There was a plan that we had wished to try, but had lacked the materials for - and time was of the essence then, far more so than it is now. Give me a moment...' Shawe begins to rummage through a desk in the corner of the tower room, spilling scrolls and odd accoutrements onto the floor at his feet.
As he searches he answers you, Rickonni, although he is distracted.
'It is not something I care to remember too clearly but, if you are so determined... we sacrificed ourselves. Hundreds of ourselves, to let four escape.
He draws a slim leather-bound book from the recesses of the drawer and throws it to you, Jack, as he continues speaking.
'When the schultenbrak ingests you, you pass through a planar boundary - a carefully evolved planar boundary designed to split and refract an individual, creating tens, or even hundreds, of copies of them for the schultenbrak to digest at leisure. Most who enter are unaware of this - they believe the others that they see there to be phantoms, or illusions, but they are all quite real. Many of them are not perfect, although they don't often live long enough to find that out - their bodies altered slightly, their minds jumbled. There will always be one that is the most true - the master copy, if you will - and if that one escapes the others disappear, robbed of their template. The schultenbrak will not kill master copies until it has eliminated all of the lesser fragments - it would be killing the golden goose, so to speak.
Well, as I said, most who are swallowed don't know this. They act without co-ordination, with fear - but we knew. Those of us who stole in after the citizens we damned, we knew. And although we emerged scattered, freezing, guilty... we all knew what we had to do.
A thousand, maybe even more of us, charged towards the heart. Hundreds picked off as we ran, snared by creepers or those blasted winged antibodies. We ran, not knowing which of us would be the ones that it would not kill. And after we had torn away our little piece of heart, we retreated, stepping over or hounded by our own forms twisted and broken. It was a nightmare.
... and by the time that we had reached a place we could push back out of the stomach, the schultenbrak had worked out what we were doing - in some base. animal way, at least. Suddenly the attacks were focused, out of a crowd of hundred only eight targeted, and with a renewed ferocity, a sense of purpose. We knew then who would live and who would die - the heart was passed to me, a master copy, as scores of myself died to shield me. it was the same with the others - and four of them fell, with each of their deaths all of their copies dissolving like sand.'
Shawe has stopped rummaging now, and stands stooped, staring in front of him at the dresser.
'That, Mr Rickonni, is how I escaped - by watching a thousand living, thinking, breathing beings die, and hundreds of them with my very own face.
As I said... I do not recommend it.
Jack:
The book is a journal, written in orcish. You can read it later in full if you wish, but for now a quick skim lets you know that it is observations of the hunting patterns of the schultenbrak, and a list of the ways that the orcs of the forest had attempted to combat it. It was apparently penned by some sort of orcish elder.
Jack, despite the knocks on your arms and back from the turmoil of the crowd your aim is true, and your shot sends one of the descending figures spinning awkwardly off of his rappel-line and into the Hackendar fountain. He hits one of the standing red stones with a snap audible even over the screams, and drops limp into the pool of water below.
Ravboom's blade slices deep into the jelly sac surrounding the squirming bundle, and a high pitched keening sound fills the air. The cut he made tears wider and with a burst of fluid the worm-like create spills onto the glass-covered cobbles.
As Ravboom waits, sword drawn, the lowest of the insects disgorges its cargo - 4 of the masked figures that you fought from the train. They descend on ropes, hitting the ground amongst the wagons with practiced ease and nary a stumble amongst them. Alchemists scramble away from the intruders as baleful green blades of light spring from their open palms, the first landing group ready immediately to fight. Invaders 2 turn over
And with a sickening crunch from above, a fifth is released.
It drops from the now opened carapace of the insect, a dark chitinous thing covered in a thick layer of viscera. You can make out the suggestion of a segmented body as the thing squirms inside the sac it was dropped in, pushing and writhing half-hidden by the womb-like covering. Whatever it is it drives the crowd into even more of a frenzy.
Ravboom, this new dropped shape is closest to you, but the masked individuals seem a more immediate threat. Attack whomever you wish.
Jack, with the crowd jostling you it will be much harder to make a clean shot - you'll take a -4 penalty on ranged attacks until either they clear or you move into the wagons or fountain area. Zirul, the same applies to your bow, although...
Narrowly missing several panicked citizens your acid splashes across one of the masked ones, Zirul - you hear a muttered curse as the leather of his suit begins to char and he tears his smoking mask off in frustration, revealing the same odd features that you saw on his fellow from the locomotive.
The huge insects above you are descending, the riders you expect nothing more than shadows in the falling snow but the drone of their wings getting unmistakeably louder. The crowd are panicked but the broken glass has caused more than one serious injury, and the exits from the square are clogged with screaming citizens.
Ravboom, the Bespectacled gentleman turns to you in consternation and shouts over the panic, 'I know I'm going to regret this, but... I'll pay you if you keep them away from my work!' He then starts screaming for his creations to come to the wagons, without much effect.
Post your actions in order if possible, if not I'll sort the order out at the end of the round. Any questions, stick'em in the discussion thread - good luck!
There's no combat map for this skirmish until the crowd clears - instead there are 3 general 'areas': The wagons, the fountain and the crowd. Your move actions can be used either to change sections, to move into a flanking position if there is at least one other party member in the section, to make some kind of acrobatic movement in your own section (with an appropriate skill check if necessary) or to retreat and get lost in the crowd (also requires a DC15 strength mod or intimidation check to push yourself through the crush of people).
Ravboom starts in the wagons area, everybody else is in the crowd and will have to push forward to the wagons or fountain if they wish to attack.
There is a list of areas and inhabitants in the thread information, which I'll update at the end of each round, along with the initiative order.
