Looks like Torag has smiled upon thee mortals!
Your time here proved uneventful but fruitful! And you're right you haven't been down here very long but as I'm understanding it you're wanting to spend around 8 hours, the magical amount of time for recuperating yourself and getting refreshed. And, that's great. The dwarven god has reached out and protected you this evening forcing my dice not to bring any monsters your direction. On top of that you all have gained another boon from the god. For the next 24 hours you have received the effects of the spell BLESS.It takes on as a happy warm feeling and good dreams of fine stout, smacking rocks, and anything else you can think of that would best represent the god but in an abstract manner. He doesn't appear in your dreams but you can feel his attitude towards you.
As for those who want to know what time it is, you fell down this hole around noon. So far, you've spent about a half hour underground. Just add eight hours.
Arloric stretches as he rises and he smiles at the sight of the restored shrine.
He goes over to the hammer icon and kneels before it, murmuring a prayer to every spirit and god he knows to guide them in this dark time. When he opens his eyes and looks up, for a moment it appears that the hammer has shifted into a mask of oak leaves, looking down on him with approval in its eyes, before returning to its original form.
He stands and begins to rouse the others.
Aberus sat down in one of the pews of the freshly cleaned and restored temple. He looked up at Uriel and said, "You had a better grasp of this than I did. I am clearly out of my element down here." He shuddered briefly and said, "I've never liked being underground. Fortunately, Torag does not seem to be holding that against me." He smiled weakly.
As for those who want to know what time it is, you fell down this hole around noon. So far, you've spent about a half hour underground. Just add eight hours.
Ithilwen smiles as the shrine is restored to at least a modicum of its former glory – not being particularly versed in the divine arts, her jobs have been mostly menial tasks which quickly vexed her delicate constitution, but which she kept on performing to the best of her abilities nonetheless. Feeling a warm sensation rising through her limbs and towards her core just as Arloric, Aberus and Uriel finish their prayers, she just so slightly bows to the trio. "You did well, Warriors of the Light. I can feel the Forge-Father's satisfaction embracing me already."
"As can I," Arloric replies with a smile. "We've done a good thing here. In a time as trying as this, every small act of goodness is valuable."
After a rest filled with dreams of gravel, boulders, and rumbling avalanches, Uriel wakes feeling remarkably warm and refreshed. Truly, the Dwarf-Lard has rewarded us. Looking to the altar, he quietly says "Gratias tibi benedictiones, Patris Pumilionum."
Celestial
My Thanks for your blessing, Dwarf-Father.
Alexa yawns and rises, feeling oddly refreshed for a moment.
Only for a moment, however--her worries reassert themselves almost immediately.
Please, Miles... stay safe.
"We should go. Kenabres still needs us." She curtly says, brushing herself off and getting ready to go.
We have taken care of what was necessary down here, it seems, we should be off now that we have rested and can see to what lies above.
"Agreed," Aberus said. "Now. Who would like the honor of waking Mr. Gwerm?"
Arloric frowns at Alexa.
"Dorne, are you alright? Ye look a little pale."
"No, I'm not alright." Alexa snorts. "I have no idea where Miles is, I have no idea if my family's alright, and we're still stuck down here, not getting a move on."
"So if I look pale, it's out of sheer worry."
Arloric sighs.
"Aye, I know what you mean. I don't know if Uncle Crocris or Red-Branch are safe up there either."
He draws his sword.
"You're right. We need to get going. We can have rations while we march."
The elf will study her spellbook and get ready to leave.
"I need to finish my prayers to recover spells." He thought for a moment, then added. "Let's save waking Horgus until we are almost ready to go."
"I'm ready to go whenever the rest of you are. It's time to get back to the surface and see what we can do to help."
Arloric nods, walking over to Horgus, waiting for the signal to rouse him.
Assuming everyone is done praying, or studying, she will recommend that the group get started.
It' s a smooth eight hours, nothing happens and you're recharged, ready to move along. It feels strange having no way of telling time. Without the sun it feels stagnant and uninteresting as if you were just there and nothing more.
And now to move on. Given the time you've had what would you like to do? Moving on you can leave the chapel with a renewed vigor and the strange sensation of the spell 'Bless' energizing your day. It's like a hum in your bellies and a static charge leaping across the hairs on your arms. You've done good and a god has rewarded you. It's no small thing.
For a half hour things continue looking fairly safe and boring. And that's good because excitement leads to bugs, guts and stinky throw up. Then ahead you see two lumps in the shadow. You notice them mainly because one of them raised something like an appendage; long with a tapered end and apparently no joints. It looked as if it were waving hello, if a bit sluggishly.
Shall we see what this is? she inquires of the group.
Uriel, near the front of the group, raises a hand to halt the others from approaching. "Just a moment, please." With that, he stares intently at the two lumps, one after another.
Arloric looks out at the lumps, taking off his eyepatch so his evil eye can see through the dark.
Aberus waited nervously as Uriel and Arloric peered into the darkness. "I doubt we have much choice", he said to Telerin quietly. "Thankfully, Uriel and Arloric can give us some clues without having to get too close."
These creatures are laying in a heap at least 60 feet away from you. They have conical shaped bodies and tentacles and it is clear they have no skeletal system. It would simple to mistake them for jellyfish or maybe an octopus or even a squid. That is, if you were near the ocean. And since you’re not these creatures are a mystery. No evil emanates from them but there is this feeling that something has laid its hand upon these strange creatures. That would explain why they look so feeble, but why would there be squids here in a cavern? Also, what makes things even more difficult is that they are in the path you’re on. There are no detours.
Arloric narrows his eyes at the creatures and tries to figure out what the creatures before them are.
A confounded look on his face, Uriel shakes his head a little. "I sense no evil in...whatever those are. But" he shrugs, [/b]"I don't know, they feel odd, somehow. As if they've been[/b] he stops, shaking his head again. "I don't know. Altered? Changed? Something strange happened here, I think."
With Uriel claiming to detect no evil emanating from the strange creatures, Ithilwen decides to try, for once, the diplomatic approach.
"Greetings. We are travellers, lost in the dark and trying to make our way to the surface. We mean you no harm and only wish to be on our way."
And let's hope it's not just more bugs.
She repeats her salutation in both Common and Undercommon.
"You sure those things can even understand you?" Arloric says to Ithilwen in a low voice.
"I am curious if they can even speak. Or hear at all."
"Well, we'll see soon enough, I guess."
Arloric tenses, waiting for the creatures to react.
The elf will reach into a spell component pouch.
Becoming impatient, Arloric shouts.
"OI!"
Alexa winces, having kept silent until Arloric suddenly shouted.
Aberus flinched at Arloric's outburst. Sending his impatience, Aberus spoke up quietly.
"I suppose we all expected that, some day, we might find ourselves facing off against the demons of the 'Wound in some fashion. Perhaps not like precisely like this, but nevertheless. However," he said, then paused for effect, "did you think when you woke up this morning that you'd spend the day underground, trying to communicate with subterranean tentacles?"
"There's a lot of things I thought when I woke up this morning, Aberus. Betentacled beasts who refuse to acknowledge us was not one of them."
He frowns.
"HELLO!" he hollers. "ARE YE GONNA FIGHT US OR LET US PASS?!"
Arloric shifts from one foot to the other, ready to fight or flight.
The squid-like creatures in the cavern do not reply - either they can't, or they won't - but they shuffle and start to move. One detaches from the roof, where they are hanging, and starts to glide toward you, with its squiddy mantle spreading outward to allow it to sweep across the air.
Alexa recoils from the strange squid-like creatures as she tries to determine what they are...
Alexa bites her lip and her cestus-hand clenches into a fist when she draws a blank.
"I have no idea what those things are."
Responding to Alexa, Aberus said, "Me, neither, but I do not like the way they are coming towards us." He drew his scimitar and moved forward, making space for the others to line up next to him.
Concentrating the wizard will use her Protective ward ability.
As a standard action, you can create a 10-foot-radius field of protective magic centered on you that lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Intelligence modifier. All allies in this area (including you) receive a +1 deflection bonus to their AC
"At least now we KNOW they're not friendly!" Arloric grips his sword with both hands as he follows Aberus.
We should be protected for 2 rounds this time.