Ruuz stares at the dragonmarked heir struggling with the sword at a loss on what to do, "Uh yeah..... good luck Sari. Be strong."
Brick is frozen in place, half wanting to help Sari, the other half wanting to help the sword. A low moan escapes his lips.
Disappointed at my failed diplomacy, I stand there, watching Sari wrestle with the sword and wait to strike with my scimitar until a victor becomes apparent.
DM
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Sari continues to wrestle with the animated and anguished blade. As she strugles with it, she discovers that bending the blade results in the ornate carvings separating, revealing muscle and sinew beneath the surface. At the same time it releases a slow welling of blood as though flexing the blade was opening an old and scabbed wound.
The blade makes its grapple check, but rolls poorly, giving Sari the chance to get a better grip on it.
Beren, swords in hands ready to clash steel with the animated blade, watches Sari move first with a brilliant idea. If the sword will not go in its sheath, then put the sheath over the sword. Watching the female warrior struggling for control, Beren sheaths his swords and moves to aid her. “Sari, take the hilt. I’ll take the sheath.”
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Beren, swords in hands ready to clash steel with the animated blade, watches Sari move first with a brilliant idea. If the sword will not go in its sheath, then put the sheath over the sword. Watching the female warrior struggling for control, Beren sheaths his swords and moves to aid her. “Sari, take the hilt. I’ll take the sheath.”
If I could roll higher than a 4 in this grapple, I may be a happy camper...
With Beren's help, Sari manages to press the screaming and bleeding sword into its sheath.
As soon as the sword is stuffed away back in its sheath, Beren lets out a growling sigh and lets go. Looking at Sari and nodding, he says, "Good Job!" Then turning to regard the group. "This place is nuts," he snarls. Pointing down the hallway where the Dolgrims retreated Beren explains, "Those squashy guys are probably far away by now, but we still have their trail. I say we go get them." Then looking back at Sari and pointing a finger at the sheathed sword, "Do what you want with that thing. Just leave it in the sheath. So, shall we go?"
Sari continues to hold onto the sword with all of her might. " Hey anybody have any ideas here, If it's not to much to ask I could use a little help here to hang onto this damn thing! Brick can't you sit on it or something?" Sari continues the struggle with the sword as she waits to see if anyone has any ideas how to make it stop.
"Peace-bind it!" I shout and pull a length of rope from my pack and tieing it around the sheath and then the hilt of the sword, so that it is secured in the sheath, muttering all the while "Why can't I go somewhere normal? How come it never goes smooth? Maybe I should've listened to sis. Maybe I should'nt have come to this crazy place.
"Can anybody find me a straight stick or something? Then I can tie the sheath to it and it'll hold it still." I say after peace-binding the insane sword.
Brick frantically grabs the sword from Merreck, clutching it tightly.
"Stop hurting people!" he yells, holding the sword at eye level. The warforged pulls a belt out of his ridiculously small backpack, and attempts to bind the shuddering sword to his waist. Failing at that, he manages to strap the still wriggling sword to his forearm.
“No, no, no.” Valessa stands next to Brick, shaking her head, her face somewhat pale and her eyes wide. “We shouldn’t just bind it in there. We have to kill it – destroy it. Didn’t you see? Didn’t you hear? It’s alive … somehow. Eyes, blood, sinew…”
Her voice trails off.
"Am I the only one failing to emote here? Yeah, yeah, some guy's mind is bound into a sword, yadda yadda yadda. Fairly typical arcane phenomenon. Let's see if we can calm it down, stop it hitting people and find out if it knows anything and if we can help. But let's leave all the emotion at the door, it clouds the mind and prevents rational decision-making. And aren't we trying to save the world here, y'know, time keys or something? I'm with Beren - let's follow the spawn of the daelkyr and worry about the sword later." Rokko folds his arms and glares about at his companions.
"There's someone there. Pain. So much pain. Hatred. Fear..."
"Um, yes, but what are we going to do about it? If we can't interact with a talking sword without having a collective nervous breakdown, I don't really see how we can hope to get out of here alive, what with lethal rooms, strange missing assistants, spawn of the daelkyr and temporal anomalies all whirled into the mix. Come on people - focus, FOCUS!
"What is our next move? I suggest we try and follow our erstwhile assailants and see if they give us any insight."
His mind spinning through the possibilities with this sword, Ruuz looks up at Rokko, "I agree Rokko, the sword could be useful if we can calm it down but we have to keep it together."
Brick looks at Ruuz, then at the sword, then back at Ruuz.
"It stopped."
“Well I for one didn’t sign up to save the world, or face frakkin Daelkyr.” Valessa’s voice begins to raise to an angry level, before she takes a deep breath and calms down a little.
“But I suppose you’re right Rokko,” she continues grudgingly. “We should be after those things, before they alert the damn mind flayer or eye tyrant or whatever else Xoriat damned creature leads them. At least we can’t hear – or see – that sword anymore.”
She stalks over to stand near Beren, preparing to help him track the dolgrims.
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The path the Dolgrims took could not be more obvious if they had taken the time to get some of the custom illsuinary signs so popular in the lower districsts of Sharn. In fact, signs saying we went this way could only be positioned to obscure the way they went.
Listen Check, DC 25
The long present thumpong of the fleaing skeleton has faded beyond your hearing.
"I'm not hurting it! I'm just trying to stop it from hurting us. I agree with Rokko. We need to move on since it seems like our mission is critical."
“Well I for one didn’t sign up to save the world, or face frakkin Daelkyr.” Valessa’s voice begins to raise to an angry level, before she takes a deep breath and calms down a little.
“But I suppose you’re right Rokko,” she continues grudgingly. “We should be after those things, before they alert the damn mind flayer or eye tyrant or whatever else Xoriat damned creature leads them. At least we can’t hear – or see – that sword anymore.”
Absentmindedly, Brick mumbles something to the effect of "But we still like you anyway," then begins staring intently at the wall.
Valessa starts following the rather obvious trail, he bow held ready and alert for ambushes.
Beren, bow in hand, nods to Valessa. Then looking towards the Goblin, "Rokko, you still have some of that magic? We might need it."
Then turning his head to view the corridor that the Dolgrims retreated down and taking a step, "So, we ready to send this filth back to the Plane of Madness?"
"Yes. I like that idea."
sotto voce "At last!"
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Following the outter ring of the complex, you continue seeing the windows mounted high on the inside wall. Presumably they allowed the giants to observe the labors of their slaves in the inner areas.
Along the outer most wall you continue to see giant sized doors. These openings lack slave entrances, and most are labeled in a similar fashion to the slave quarters you saw earlier. At one point you pass a much wider door, with a completely different label.
The diminutive beasts of chaos however followed the outer ring around until the next main corridor branches towards the inside. The dimensions and details are so exact, that you could swear you were simply following the same corridor back towards the center.
When you reach the area where the first corridor was trapped, you find two dead dolgrim, lying in slowly expanding puddles of their own blood. Three of the statues are similar in nature to what you saw in the first passage. Truely ancient lords of the giant empire. The final statue is dissimilar. I mammoth and muscular individual is using oddly shaped tongs and a spherical hammer, posed as though striking on an anvil that isn't part of the statue. This statues head is a perfect sphere, with faint engravings on it.
Survival: DC 18
Know: Geography DC 15
After a cursory scan of the area, Beren kneels down and inspects the bodies, “These guys are probably the two we injured. Either they bled out, or their companions ended their journey here so the rest could not be followed.” Beren then scans the bodies for additional wounds to prove his theory.
Then Beren stands and lifts his head to inspect the statue with the engravings. “Check that out. Those engravings on the head are Eberron as if it was some type of globe, but the sphere is flipped so North is South and vice-versa. This just creates several more questions. Are we supposed to turn the head to make it right? Did the Giants from 10,000 years ago misunderstand the geography of Eberron and make an error, or maybe 10,000 years ago, was the geography of Eberron like it is shown here? Valessa, what’s your take with that big university education?” Beren aks this last part displaying his patented toothy grin.
Beren pauses in his thoughts so his companions can digest his ideas. Turning away from the statues and returning to the mission at hand, he looks to pick up the Dolgrims' trail now that the bleeders are no more.
"Why does that guy have a round head?"
"His head is spherical because its a globe, a representation of the world." I absent-mindedly reply to Brick as I examine the statue and try to recall any pertinent information. "But why is it upside-down?" I murmur to myself.
"The world is round? How big is it? Why is it round?"
Brick seems to be having trouble grasping this concept, though he does seem to be interested.
“erm … Geography was never my strong suit,” mumbles Valessa. “You catch an airship where you’re going, you poke around, you come back…”
“At any rate,” she says, trying to muster more authority, “Yes Brick, the world is round. That was proved conclusively by the elf Pithalgios, with his experiment with the two wells, and again by the explorer Marchus Tanis, who flew an airship west from Khorvaire to reach Sarlona … Pithalgios accurately estimated how big the world is too, although the figure escapes me.”
She is thoughtful for a moment, trying to see if you she has heard anything in her studies regarding inversed poles.
"Also if the world wasn't round the ship I was on probably would've sailed off the edge on our way here." I say, trying to remember how big the world is.
Ruuz stares at the strange statues ignoring the geological debate going on. "Don't get too close, something killed these creatures and it might be the statues."
“At any rate,” she says, trying to muster more authority, “Yes Brick, the world is round. That was proved conclusively by the elf Pithalgios, with his experiment with the two wells, and again by the explorer Marchus Tanis, who flew an airship west from Khorvaire to reach Sarlona … Pithalgios accurately estimated how big the world is too, although the figure escapes me.”
When Valessa walks over to assist Beren with picking up the trail, the Shifter looks up from his crouch. With a smile and a glance he says, "Brains and looks. I guess I was on the right ship at the right time." Beren tries to maintain eye contact but feels the rush of blood enter his head. His smile falters and the awkwardness of the situation makes him look away. Then Ruuz saves him.
"Don't get too close, something killed these creatures and it might be the statues."
Hearing this and using it as an excuse to escape, Beren stands, puffs out his chest, and looks towards the Changling. "Did you find something?" Then he turns his head to reexamine the statues.
I look at Beren and ask "Which way did they go?"
“Yeah, lets keep moving,” says Valessa. “If these statues do something … well, hopefully the password will work here as well.” She starts forward into the intersection.
I look at Beren and ask "Which way did they go?"
Looking over at Merreck after a brief inspection of the statues, Beren points with his bow, "This way." Then noticing Valessa taking the initiative he continues, "Yeah, these statues are not going any where. Best we track down those 'Xoriat Goblins'." With bow in hand, Beren restarts the chase for the Dolgrims.