<u>Lorath</u>

It took a bit of careful searching and a stubbed toe, when he finally found it it was because of him almost tripping over it, not because of actually seeing it, but Lorath managed to locate his shield.

Once back on course, nothing seemed to care to burst out and assault him, occasionally something would brush against his leg or disturb the water as it swum past him, but those creatures all seemed to either be perfectly ordinary fish, or not hungry at the moment.

In the room where he'd fallen, he managed to find the object that he'd seen floating on the water before. All it looked like, though, was a shard of thick, curved crystal or glass. It didn't seem to have much use, though it was curved enough that if someone was to smooth the edges, it might make a serviceable bowl.

The wooden door, half-submerged as it was, proved to be difficult to open. It was swollen into it's frame, and the handle was as rotten as the rest of it, coming off as soon as he grabbed it and pulled. However, Lorath was able to pry it open by bracing his legs against the wall on one side of the door, under the water, and digging his fingers into the soft, crumbling wood near the frame. There were a tense few seconds where he wondered if the wood or his arms would give first, but then the door creaked and almost half of it tore away with a squelch. The sewage-like odor of rotting plant matter filled the air as the innards of the barrier were exposed, almost making Lorath gag, but at least now he could continue.

Beyond the doorway was a room even darker than the one he'd come from, it was hard to make out anything at all, but a bit of searching around the walls with his hands confirmed that large parts of it had collapsed, leaving not much of it except for a narrow, twisting passage across it and a few small hollows along it.

At the other end of the passage was another doorway, though this one didn't have a door in it, which lead to a room about the size of a broom closet. A bit of searching around with his feet told Lorath that the room contained stairs leading down, but investigating them would involve diving into pitch blackness.

As the elf backed out of the small room, he felt something brush against his head softly, further investigation revealed it to be a rotting arm protruding from one of the walls. It's dimensions felt human, it was buried up to the shoulder, it wasn't moving and it looked like it had been buried when whatever collapsed the room had happened.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Trudging ahead like a sleepy zombie, Evon boldly stepped through the doorway. Ulik could hear him splashing around for a bit in ankle-deep water, then he let out a low moan that could have been a badly mangled: "Duuuuuuuude." It was answered by another moan, and Evon began to shamble back towards the doorway, followed by the sounds of the previous shambler.

First Ulik's raft stepped out, then his new "friend." It had apparently once been a human woman, and still looked like one, partially. Her red leather armor was nothing but tattered rags and her short, blonde hair was matted with filth, her eyes were sunken and her paleness would make a vampire ask her to go sunbathe for a while. She looked like she hadn't slept for months, and judging by the way her clothes hung loosely on her gaunt frame, she hadn't eaten in that long, either.

Three eyes, each a different colour, appeared to have sprouted from her forehead in some haphazard sheme, and small, multi-coloured horns poked out through her hair, also apparently without any pattern to their placement. Parts of her skin had become thick, dark and leathery, almost like inch-thick calluses. Under her skin, wide black veins seemed to run along her muscles, contracting and relaxing as she moved.

She looked at Ulik, made a hungry sound and started ambling towards him, shoving Evon out of the way as she did so, the unresisting man stumbling into the wall. Bone-like blades of varying lengths and widths began sprouting from her body as she approached, some sticking out at meaningless angles and positions, others from her arms, as though she'd strapped a sword to them. Their sources seemed to be small parasites, like the one that had attacked Ulik in the abandoned house. None looked bigger than the blade of a short-sword, but they all looked plenty sharp.


<u>Balth, Gan, Bas, Tamora, Anne</u>

(OOC: Since CD has expressed his dislike for the game, I'm going to assume that his character is an NPC for the time being, then dispose of him eventually unless he changes his mind.)

"It was rather a gamble, coming here," Balth told Tamora, as he handed her back her equipment, "For all we knew, you could have been stuck somewhere inside the cliff, in a cave or some such. Glad to see that the gamble paid off, though if it hadn't been for the druid, we would all likely have been dead."

As the ranger clenched her fists, she found that nothing seemed to not be working as it should, though her joints felt a bit strange, it was as though they had all gained a few extra degrees of movement.

The ground where Tamora and Gan had burst forth looked normal, though the earth had been churned up some by it. It felt as densely packed as any of the other land in the clearing. As Bas passed near it, he briefly felt a presence probing him, examining him, and then retreating. It was accompanied by forest smells, rotting things, growing things and the damp smell under the thick jungle vegetation, though they left with it.

[ 02-23-2007, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Lorath took the crystal object and placed it in his pack. It might not be worth anything, but he would have to discern that on his own. At the least, it could be used as a bowl or cup of some sort. While he was putting it into his pack, he spent a few seconds freeing his new trouser snake so that it could be swung at an enemy who got too close.

Once inside the room, he immediately covered his face wit his hand. The smell... oh God, the smell! He considered leaving, but what might have been in the room ushered him onward. When the arm brushed against him he ducked down, trying to get away from it. He would have to return to this room later, it seemed, and possibly investigate the staircase. For now though, he went back out and through the other open doorway. If only he had listened to his instructor when he was talking about the Light spell instead of doodling various scenes involving his classmates, he might have been able to do more with the staircase at the moment.

[ 02-23-2007, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Man Who Fights Like Woman ]

Ulik circled around the undead creature so that it was between him and the waterfall while the wounds on his wrist reopened and began to bleed once more. He spun his hands in progressively larger circles, his blood hovering in the air instead of spattering in random directions, until a small red cyclone appeared in front of him, distorting the air with heat waves.

Just when his circlular motions could get no wider and the growing cyclone threatened to consume him, Ulik made a shoving motion and sent the burning winds toward the creature. If he didn't destroy it outright, he hoped to at least knock it over the edge and be rid of it.

[ 02-24-2007, 05:07 AM: Message edited by: Caleb808 ]

Bas crouched and ran his fingers through the grass at his feet.

"We've arrived at our destination, it would seem. Once you two recover sufficiently we should do some exploring. I'd also like to try and determine what was controlling the animals that attacked us, although we will need to tread carefully while we do so. Does anyone else have suggestions?"

Tamora

“I don’t think I’d like to travel too far tonight,” Tamora said in response to Bas’ last question. “Does this seem like a reasonable place to camp?” She rose to her feet and examined herself as best she could as yet unable to decide what to think about her slightly altered appearance and threw a resigned if confused look at Anne hoping to avoid her question about what happened in the cliffs. She stretched gingerly discovering a wider range of movement that she would have to be careful to keep control over. She would rest tonight and then run through some fighting drills in the morning to make sure.

“I’m happy to explore this area further and to investigate the strange behaviour of the animals that attacked you. I wonder if it's significant that both of the attacks we have experienced have been during storms.” She looked up at the cliffs behind her and turned to Anne. “Could you climb these do you think?” she asked.

[ 02-25-2007, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

<u>Lorath</u>

The passage opposite the doorway that Lorath had forced open led into a twisting corridor full of right-angled turns. The floor was pitted and full of debris that had fallen when roots had forced their way through the ceiling. He often had to duck completely underwater to get past them, and once he almost got stuck, pinned for a few seconds between roots and rock until he managed to wriggle free and continue.

There were many side-corridors and doorways, but those that hadn't been blocked off by collapses, which only served to provide more for him to maneuver around, were sealed by featureless stone doors with no apparent way to open them.

Eventually, after about half an hour of wading, getting progressively colder and more soaked, he saw light up ahead. The corridor ended as it joined a larger, more natural-looking, cave, that extended far out of sight to both the left and the right. It was a long, wide thing that was entirely filled with a rushing river, the river moved towards something noisy far away on his right, it sounded like a waterfall.

A few feet of pathway extended out over the river from where the corridor ended before it abruptly stopped short, apparently having collapsed. Crossing the river from the end of the pathway to the other side, Lorath could see the occasional tip of a stone pillar, suggesting that they had once supported the rest of the path.

On the far other side, the elf could see another doorway. Above him, water was constantly dripping from the ceiling, and an impressive collection of stout stalagtites had formed, many of them covered in patches of fainly luminescent fungus which threw enough light for him to see by.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Ulik's magical blast of superheated air caught the woman dead-on. For a half-second her matted hair billowed backwards and her soaked clothes dried, then they began to instanteously combust. First, the multi-coloured eyes on her forehead went, they shrivelled up and fell off, revealing themseves to only have been stuck on the surface. Next, blisters began to form on her skin as her hair began to smolder. Then, one by one, the various inhuman parts began to drop off of her. First the blade-beetles let out their piercing shrieks and dropped off, black smoke billowing from their carapaces as their insides burned. Then the heavy calluses began to wilt and turn to dust. Last to go were the brightly coloured horns, the little nubs seemed to first swell, then pop and deflate, revealing themselves to have been something else entirely.

As the last of them was destroyed, a change happened in the woman's ordinary eyes. Thus far, she had soldiered on bravely against the wind, oblivious to the pain, but now it was clearly marked on her face. She staggered backwards against the gale force, screamed in pain and began flailing at her burning hair and clothes as the wind overwhelmed her, pushing her over the edge of the waterfall. Her scream continued as she dropped, then was suddenly cut off, probably by an impact with something hard or with the water's surface, but considering the length of the drop, it was probably a minor point which of the two she hit.

Evon gave Ulik a tentative thumbs up, then sat down and tried to make a bong from one of the beetles after knocking the ash out of the chitin.


<u>Balth, Gan, Anne, Bas, Tamora</u>

"I don't have a particular preference as to where we go," said Balth, in reply to Bas' question, "But if you all intend to head much further south or eastwards, I'll have to leave you. My tribe will begin to wonder where I am, if they aren't already, I was only supposed to be gone for a week while I scouted out the jungle for any trading partners. I'll stay with you as long as you remain near the cliffs, though, that won't make my trip back any worse. The only suggestion I can come up with is to let mysteries remain mysteries and get out of here before the animals return, your magic might not work next time."

The cliffs looked climbable to Anne as she studied them, very smooth, but full of hollows and handholds. It was a few hundred feet to the top, however, the main question was whether her strength, and her luck, would hold out all the way.

Gan remained quietly in the background, running his fingers over his elongated limbs and testing his joints. Tamora's bird had folded itself up and appeared to be resting on top of one of the stone slabs in the clearing.

[ 02-25-2007, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Lorath walked out onto the broken path, and stopped before it ended. Looking out on the sets of pillars he had to cross and the distance between them, he quickly devised a plan. First he reached into his bag, and pulled out his length of rope. After he tied it into a lasso of sorts with a loop which could be tightened or loosened as he pulled on the longer length of rope, he cast Strength on himself. Then he cast Enlarge on himself, to make it more likely that he could reach each pillar.

His process for crossing the river was surprisingly simple. First he would throw his rope to grasp around one of the pillars ten yards away, and when it finally wrapped around he would pull it tight while it was still above the water. When the rope was secured to the pillar he would wrap it around himself as well, and pull himself across by way of the rope. Then he would pull himself up onto the pillar and repeat, until he was on the other side.

Ulik assists Evon with the creation of his beetle bong. When it's complete, Ulik takes a hit of Evon's stash and rests to recover from his wounds.

Anne

In the slowly fading sunlight Anne examined the crevices, hand and footholds the first couple dozen feet of the cliff offered.

"If the cliff is as easy to climb all the way as the lower parts of it, then it is definitely doable. I still would prefer doing it in full daylight and after resting though. Today has tired me out and I fear I might make a mistake if attempting the full climb now."

She paused for a moment, judging how much time was left until sunset, then throwing another glance at the lower areas of the cliffs, plotting a course.

"I'll climb to a height above the canopy of the trees and try to see whether I can spot where we are on the map we found earlier."

She reached inside of her pocket and placed her coins - 5 gold and 12 silver - on the ground, before placing her flute and dagger next to them. Anne then reached again to her pocket and a puzzled look appeared on her face.

Slowly, she withdrew a small, about two inches wide silver cup from the depths of her pocket. Her puzzlement only grew as she saw what the object was...she did not remember how and when it had entered her possession, but from the engravings at the circular base of the cup, she could tell that it was elven-made, though she did not understand the writing, it being made in an ancient form of elven.

"I don't remember having this cup..." she softly whispered.

Placing it down on the ground next to the rest she checked that her pockets were now fully empty. She did not want anything falling from them while climbing.

She walked to the base of the cliff, and tentatively tested the strength of the rock with one hand before starting to climb to an approximative height of fifty feet in order to see over the trees.

Bas took a seat close to the cliff with a good view of Anne's ascent, his staff resting horizontally across his legs.

"Let's rest here then. My only suggestion is that we keep away from the center of the clearing."

Bas looked up and marked Anne's progress. While he did not expect anything to happen, he wanted to be ready in case she fell or the cliff somehow attacked her. Given the events of the past couple of days, he didn't know which was more likely.

<u>Lorath</u>

The large cavern filled with the eerie echoes of Lorath's chanting as he cast his spells, but nothing came swarming to cut off the noise and he was left in peace to make his lasso. Even with his magically boosted skills, it took him a few tries before he managed to wrap it around the nearest pillar.

His rope creaked alarmingly as the current grabbed him, but he managed to make his way to the first pillar. And so it went, as he made his way across, by the end of it, he had hitting the next pillar with his lasso down to a science, but his arms were also aching. Slow-moving as the river was, dragging himself along with only his skinny arms was a challenge. He also was also finding himself getting winded abnormally easily, it didn't help that he was soaked and freezing, either.

On the opposite side of the river, the corridor much resembled the one he'd come from, same width, same construction, same lack of decoration. The only noticeable difference was that a bit of the luminescent fungi grew there, which made it easier for him to find his way, but also ruined his night sight, meaning that anything that he might have seen a glint of at a distance, he wasn't going to see now.

Advancing slowly, he found that the corridor rose gently, which meant that he was finding himself a good bit lower in the water just a few tens of yards in. Now only submerged to the waist, he found the going a bit easier. Something worrying was going on, though. Intermittently he would catch faint splashes behind him, well behind him, they would always stop when he stopped to listen to them, and they seemed to keep their distance, but they didn't leave him.

Whenever he looked behind him, the glare of the fungus prevented him from seeing anything beyond a few yards behind.

Before he could get too worried, though, a passage opened up on his right, while the main corridor continued on forwards. The passage lead to a spherical room, the bottom being arranged into steps, rather than smooth, the floor of which was covered in shards of crystal. The shards seemed similar to the curved piece Lorath had found earlier. The only decoration aside from the shards was a large pillar in the center, which reached a foot or so above the water.

On the other side of the chamber, a doorway opened into another corridor, also going left to right, same as the one the elf was currently in, though it looked like the path to the right was curving, away from the chamber, in the direction down-river.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Ulik was lulled to sleep by Evon's rhythmic puffing and the faint echoes of arcane syllables coming to him from up-river.


<u>Bas, Balth, Anne, Tamora</u>

Anne got about ten feet up the cliff before her first mishap. The rocks turned out to be smoother than she imagined, though this side of the cliff had been somewhat sheltered from the brief storm they'd weathered earlier, there was still a bit of water which hadn't dried up yet. Her hand slipped, her feet scrabbled for purchase and she fell. Thankfully it was a short fall and the soft ground meant she wasn't hurt, though she did have the wind knocked from her as she landed on her back.

Uninjured and having learned to be a bit more careful, Anne thought it seemed possible to give the climb another try, as she spotted a path of handholds and outcroppings that lead around the wet part.

This time her ascent was more agile and swift, she went up like a spider, her hands instantly finding places to hold where it seemed like there weren't possibly any. She got well above the tree-tops, and managed to scout out the landscape for a while. Assuming that the general line of the mountains was correct, even if they weren't entirely to scale, the group was still somewhere southwest of the route marked on the map, and even the foothills of the mountains were still several days away. If the scale wasn't completely insane, it would probably take them a half-week to get to the trail, and a week to reach the mountains.

As she was about to get down, though, her luck failed her again. She was about fifty feet off the ground when a loose rock slipped under her feet, she tried to grab a hold of something before she fell, but it was too late. Tumbling head over heels she fell towards the ground, only just managing to right herself from a fall on her head a half-second before impact.

She hit the ground feet-first with a sickening crunch and a popping sound, falling to her knees as her legs crumbled under her. It felt as though her shinbones had been slammed up into her kneecaps, and something had definitely broken in the right one. Sharp points of splintered bone were pressing against the skin of her lower leg, clearly visible from the outside, and very tangible to Anne. Almost as soon as she landed, her leg was a mix of red and purple bruise colours.

Balth didn't quite seem to know what to do as she hit the ground, either that or he was waiting for the others to take action first.

Gan had disappeared while the others had been watching Anne climb, somewhere in the distance, carried to them by the wind, they could hear the cry of an eagle.

(Anne loses 16 out of 30 HP, she has 14 Health remaining.)

[ 02-26-2007, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Tamora

Tamora was shaken out of her rest by the sound of Anne’s fall from the cliff and turned only in time to see her companion badly injured and clearly in pain. She cursed her current weakness and the idle question about climbing the cliffs that she now recalled asking Anne out of curiosity more than anything. She went over to Anne and knelt beside her finding Bas already there. The grimace on Anne’s face clearly spoke of the agony she was feeling and recalled to Tamora all to clearly her recent experience in the cliffs. An idea seemed to occur to her and she looked up and caught Bas’ eye. “Can you heal this?” she asked, “maybe we can draw on the power of this place. The spirit of the clearing healed Gan and I. Maybe we could call on it to heal Anne now.” She thought briefly of attempting to put Anne through the cliffs as she had been but shook her head to herself – she could not willingly subject another to that.

Waiting for Bas’ answer she looked around the clearing still feeling like she was thinking at half speed. With a start she realised that Gan was missing – where was he? She recalled that he hadn’t spoken since emerging from the cliffs and she had been too concerned with herself to find out how he had been affected. “Balth”, she said, “did you see that happened to Gan?” She would have to hope that the ranger could look after himself for a little while – she could hardly leave Anne now.

Anne

There was barely time to scream. Barely time to adjust her fall. To minimise the damage. After the initial few painful seconds, it only got worse. The agony grew and every look she shot to her leg showed her what she had gotten herself into. She cursed her foolishness for attempting the climb now and not in the morning.

She swallowed, trying to memorise what she had seen above all the pain the nerves in her leg were sending her. The time to tell it to the others was not now, but she did not want to forget what she had seen. That would make the fall a vain sacrifice of her own health.

She managed a weak smile at Tamora, but did not try speaking. The only sound, which could have come out would have been a groan...

Bas raced to Anne's side and inspected her wounds. He glanced at Tamora as the ranger voiced her questions.

"I can cast a healing spell, although I doubt it will heal this completely. As for the power of this clearing, I would rather leave it untouched for now. If my spells aren't enough, perhaps then we can investigate that option."

Bas reached his hands towards Anne's damaged legs and began casting a cure light wounds spell, with a second ready to follow the first.

Lorath wasn't surprised that his plan had worked. It was, after all, a great plan, as all of the ones he came up with were. Now that he was on the other side though, he was very tired. At least he was getting to an area where the water level was lower.

The corridor off to his right intrigued him. He ducked into there, and went for the pillar in the center. If he could, he'd stand on the pillar and look around the room, especially behind him, hoping to see who or what had been following him since he came to this side.

<u>Lorath</u>

The flat top of the pillar was easy for Lorath to pull himself up on to, and from his new vantage point he had a good view of the room and the corridor behind him. Lurking back in the corridor that he had turned right from was a dark shadow under the water, it seemed to sense him watching and withdrew out of sight, but after a few seconds, what looked like a yellow pair of eyes on narrow, red stalks snuck their way around the corner to watch him.

There was no way for the elf to tell what the vague shadow was, though it looked to have been about as large as Ulik, and maybe then some.

The room he was in was rather unremarkable, the floor was covered in a large amount of crystal shards, and that was about the only decoration. The shards looked like they might have come from crystal globes, judging by their curved shapes, and like they had been broken recently, since the water hadn't dulled the edges yet. There were enough of them for the layer to be around a foot thick, anyone who tried to walk across it would probably find their feet sliced apart by the sharp crystal.

As Lorath looked around, though, he spotted something on the floor, half-buried under the crystal. It looked like a slightly curved, point-less shortsword. It was nearest the entryway he hadn't come in through.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Ulik slept on, having odd, nonsensical dreams wherein it seemed perfectly sensible to spend half an hour arguing with someone about whether proper apples were red or green.


<u>Bas, Anne, Tamora, Balth</u>

Balth took a few seconds to answer, seeming to look around the clearing before he did so, "No, I've no clue," he told Tamora, as he joined the others around the fallen Anne, sprinting there despite the short distance, he watched intently as Bas worked his healing magic, "But at the moment I'd say we've got more important things to worry about, don't you?"

Though Anne's pain was already intense, the healing spells almost seemed to make it worse. She could feel the bone splinters re-arranging themselves back into their original shape, knitting themselves together. The pain began to subside after a few seconds, as the initial flurry of activity came to an end, and then it was actually less than it had been at first.

Her leg was still badly bruised, to be exact almost the entirety of it was a deep purple flecked with red, but no longer were there any jagged shards of bone almost puncturing the skin and it didn't seem like anything had ruptured on the inside. It would probably make her pass out if she tried to walk on the leg right then and there, but if she sucked up the pain, it could be done.

"Impressive..." her and Tamora heard Balth mutter under his breath, as the magic worked it's... Magic, on the rogue's leg, Bas was too busy actually casting the spell to hear the elf.

"Do you think you can walk again?" Balth asked of Anne, as the spellcasting ended, helping her into a sitting position if she did not resist, "That fall you took could easily have killed you if you had landed wrong."

(Anne regains 8 HP, 22 HP remain.)

[ 02-27-2007, 11:45 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Lorath, satisfied that the creature was apparently bashful about asking him to the temple dance, hopped off the pillar and started heading towards the other entrance. He moved carefully to avoid stopping on any of the shards, and walked over to the half-buried object. After clearing the shards away with his feet he bent down and picked it up, then put it in his pack for later examination. While he was down there he picked up a couple of the broken shards to possibly sell later, maybe after shaping them into something worth money, and continued on through the next door.

[ 02-27-2007, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: Man Who Fights Like Woman ]

Tamora

Tamora mentally rolled her eyes at Balth’s question. Gan’s absence could quickly become very important if they were attacked while Anne was unable to walk let alone run. She agreed with the underlying logic of their new friend’s argument though and didn’t want to upset Anne unnecessarily so kept quiet. Instead she watched Bas’ healing – impressed as always with the power that the Learned could channel – so she found herself nodding along with Balth’s muttered comment.

Anne’s condition and Gan’s absence both served to shake Tamora out of her feeling of tiredness. They were in a difficult situation here and this world was not one that tolerated weakness. She nodded to Bas in acknowledgement of his healing talent and smiled at Anne. “How are you feeling now?” she asked. “If you two are ok to rest I still think we should camp here tonight. Balth and I can watch.” She looked up at Balth as she said this waiting for an acknowledgement from the Sun Runner. Owing to her heritage Tamora did not need to sleep, only rest and meditate, so could watch for the whole group if necessary and with luck Balth would have the same ability. Balth and Bas seemed to be making Anne comfortable so Tamora went and spent some time with the erdlu before they settled down.

Ulik argued with a thunder god for what seemed like hours about what the best apple was. They had agreed that green ones were the best for eating by themselves, but couldn't come to terms on whether red or yellow were the best for cooking. Inevitably, it came to blows, with Ulik waking up after receiving the death blow from the deity's warhammer.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...likvs_Thor.jpg

Feeling refreshed from sleep, he decided to check out the door that the symbiote infested woman had come from. Of course, he sends Evon in first.

Bas nodded at Tamora's suggestion of rest. "Thank you for offering to take watch. If you need me to take a shift, I can do so, just give me some time to commune with nature and regain my spells."

The druid turned to look at Anne. "Anne, is there anything else you need before I settle down to rest?"

Bas waited to see if he could help Anne to a more comfortable position before finding a spot of his own to meditate and regain his lost spells. He hoped to gain a sense of the land while meditating, unsure of what to expect.

<u>Lorath</u>

The shadow kept a respectful distance as before, staying below the water and well behind Lorath as he left the room. Beyond the door, the corridor stretched, as he had observed earlier, off to his left and right. Left, it dipped again, heading downwards until the water was as deep as most of the rest of the complex. There was none of the glowing fungus in that direction.

To the right, however, it sloped upwards rather sharply and was soon completely clear of the water. He had no way of telling where it lead, though, since it also curved left after a short distance in.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Evon obeyed, as usual, and since there had neither been screams nor the grisly sound of snapping bones after half a minute, it seemed like the coast was clear. Ulik managed to follow his companion into the small room beyond without getting murdered.

Though the floor was dry, the room beyond the doorway seemed as damaged as any of the others. A few piles of foul-smelling mulch were the only remains of furniture, and some of the ceiling stones had given way to tree roots. The only exit was a corridor directly on the opposite side of the room, which curved down and left after a few feet. From far down the corridor, he could hear the sound of splashing water, as though someone was wading through it.

Aside from that, the only object of interest was a backpack which had been stashed into a niche in one corner. It didn't look to have sustained any damage.


<u>Bas, Tamora, Anne, Balth</u>

Balth agreed to help keep watch over the camp, then followed Tamora as she left the scene of the accident, leaving Bas alone with Anne and catching up with the ranger as she reached her pet, sitting down on the warm stone next to the animal.

"So, Tamora," he said, giving her a charming smile, "Would you like to spar? I haven't fought anything since that Thri-Kreen, and I'd hate to be rusty if something comes for us after nightfall."

[ 03-01-2007, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Anne

She smiled her thanks at Bas for the healing spell, and then added.

"You have already done much to help me. Rest. You need it."

She closed her own eyes, hoping that the remaining bruises and blackening on her leg wasn't too serious, and that sleep would come.

Tamora

Despite her uncertainty over her condition Tamora grinned at Balth’s invitation. It seemed a long time since she had sparred with anyone. She carried on scratching the back of Ernie’s* head and he craned it back against her letting out a long low cluck of satisfaction. She looked at the creature affectionately then stepped away from it earning herself a reproachful squawk.

“Wait a moment”, she said to Balth. Tentatively circling her head around and then slowly stretching and twisting the rest of her body she assessed her condition. This extra flexibility was strange but otherwise she felt surprisingly well and she’d have to learn to work with it sooner rather than later.

She straightened up, hooked a toe under her spear, and flicked it up into her hand. “Right,” she said and bowed to the taller elf and then in elvish. “I accept your gracious invitation”. She stepped forward into a guard position and caught Balth’s eye. “No contact though – I do not want to get unnecessarily injured here”.

OOC: *I’ve named the erdlu

[ 03-01-2007, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: Armen ]

Seeing the choices laid out in front of him, Lorath decided it would be best to go to the left. Whatever was following him it didn't seem too dangerous, and if he wanted to wait for it to move along he would probably be there for a long time. Besides, even if he went after it, the shy thing would probably back away from him. It was probably some magical creature created to keep watch on people in this temple anyways, and trying to fight it would be a totally vain and useless action.

So, yeah. He went to the left, looking for anything interesting from the water level down.

Ulik inspects the contents of the backpack.

<u>Lorath</u>

The water level rose again as Lorath splashed down the corridor, and soon it was almost up to his neck. Whatever was following him kept pace, never getting too close, but never getting out of sight either, occasionally one of it's yellow eyes on stalks would slip above the surface of the water to watch him, but it was never for long.

His general surroundings were unremarkable, looking much like the rest of the tunnels he'd spent the day walking through, but the elf did note that he seemed to be headed for a more intact section. There were less collapses, the floor was more even and it was rare that any roots forced him to duck or crawl to continue.

Ten minutes after making the turn, he eached the end of the corridor, which opened up into a large, rectangular chamber. The floor was decorated with raised stone slabs, each reaching about to Lorath's waist and all submerged. All of the slabs were perfectly uniform, about five feet long and two feet wide. They had grooves and canals in the edges which lead to gutters around their bases, rather as if their designer had expected them to regularly get very wet.

Badly rusted metal cylinders, two at each end, were also attached to the slabs. They looked as though they could, back when they were freshly made, be opened and closed. They were roughly large enough that most people could fit their wrist or ankle in them.

Lorath's entrance was in the center of one of the short sides, to his left, a few yards along one of the long sides, was another door that lead to a very similar-looking corridor. Placed centrally along the long wall on his right was another exit, though this one was different. It was blocked by a large, wooden door which seemed to have been made of interwoven roots. Unlike all of the other wood Lorath had encountered in the place so far, this wasn't rotten, in fact it almost looked like it was still alive. The roots were covered in bark, and unless his eyes deceived him, they occasionally moved very slightly.

There was no obvious way to open the door, but right in the center it had a round hole that looked suspiciously like a mouth.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Evon "kept watch" while Ulik examined his latest pieces of loot. Within the backpack he found a plethora of fascinating things:

Two small, ruby-coloured spheres, each about the size of a plum with a smaller sphere inside them, they looked extremely fragile, as though made from glass, and any movement at all caused the internal spheres to bounce about, resulting in a high-pitched noise.

Five wax-sealed scrolls, which looked to him like they were spell scrolls, he could understand the writing and use the scrolls, but the spells were unfamiliar to him and could do just about anything, the only things he could decipher were the names, though sitting down to spend a few hours studying them somewhere safe would probably teach him more.

A weird metal object made from something that looked like brass, it was hard to describe, but it was reminiscent of a birdcage that had been stomped flat, providing that the birdcage had originally been four-dimensional and covered in small, rounded protrusions. A few experimental pulls suggested that it could be unfolded, but that it might require several people working together to accomplish, seeing as how many of the parts were constantly trying to collapse back in on themselves again as soon as they were pulled out of their original positions. Folded, it was about the size of a buckler, there was no telling how big it would be unfolded.

The final object in the backpack was a small, leather-bound notebook, it looked water-damaged, but some of it was still readable.


<u>Balth, Tamora</u>

"No contact, of course," replied Balth, drawing his scimitar and flashing her a grin, "It would be like something out of a bad story if you were to survive your ordeal within the cliffs only to be accidentially slain by a friend immediately afterwards."

They started out mildly, both warming up and testing each other with simple blows and parries before launching into more complex attacks and feints. Tamora noted that Balth seemed a bit uncomfortable fighting with blade and shield, as though it was not usual for him, he also seemed to be restraining himself a lot. Several of the openings he left her with at the beginning were obviously intentional, almost as though he was testing her.

The period of amnesty did not continue for long, he soon began to unleash a more complex repetoire of moves, and she began to be hard pressed to hold him back. If he was testing her, though, examining the way she fought, he was not alone, she, too, was learning a good few things from the way he attacked. In the past, she had met several people, both as allies and opponents, who had wielded two weapons, and the way Balth fought was very reminiscent of that.

At the start of the fight, her opponent had been quite open and cheerful, joking and smiling even as she used holes in his defense to force him into a surrender. But as things heated up and it turned out she was quite an even match for him, he got more grim, almost angry, increasingly aggressive. Every time she managed to turn aside a serious attack or get through his defenses, he got worse.

Balth began to make attacks which, if she had not parried and dodged them, looked like they would most definitely have made contact. Not necessarily killing blows, but definitely ones that would have left her with bruises and gashes.

Before the fight could continue, however, a shrill cry rose up from the forest beyond the clearing, the sound of some animal meeting a grisly end. With some predator close by, both Balth and Tamora decided to stop their sparring session and resume standing guard. They had been fighting back and forth across the clearing for almost an hour, and their companions were both well asleep by that point.

In the end, nothing leapt out from the treeline to disembowel them, and as the morning came, their friends began to stir and awaken from their sleep.


<u>Bas</u>

It had been an exerting day for Bas, and the calmness brought on by his meditation left him in a half-dreaming, half-meditating state. The spirit of the area communed with him readily, lending him power to replenish his spells and half-speaking into his mind. The spirit, which was of the clearing and the area surrounding the cliffs, seemed more open to him than the spirits of any of the land they'd passed through so far. It seemed that it was not long since it had last been awakened, by another druid or some creature close to the forest. Though it was as ancient as the world itself there was little it could tell him, for most of what seemed important to mortals was over in the blink of an eye to it.

The only meaningful fact he managed to glean from the spirit was that there had once been a great exodus of druids from the jungles and forests, they had gathered and set off for the lands east of the mountains. With the spirit's immortal time-frame it was hard to judge how long ago it had been, but to Bas it felt like decades had passed since then. In the end, the spirit's whispers lulled him to sleep and he woke in the morning feeling as refreshed as his companions.


<u>Anne</u>

Even the sounds of Balth and Tamora's sparring could not prevent Anne easily drifting off to a deep, dreamless sleep only seconds after she laid down. The rogue woke once, in the middle of the night, because a worryingly large insect was trying to climb up her left nostril, but aside from that, she woke up to find her leg was still attached and looking slightly better. The only turn for the worse was that she had amassed an impressive collection of mosquito bites overnight.

(Anne regains 4 HP, 26 HP remaining.)

[ 03-02-2007, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

Tamora

Tamora walked over to Bas and squatted down next to him. She looked down stroking her hand over the mossy floor of the clearing. “Learned One,” she said eventually. “what do you wish to do? We have come to the cliffs and I feel learned all we are going to learn safely. Gan has disappeared and, “here she lowered her voice to a whisper, "I remain unsure about Balth. I wondered about returning to the village on the lake to seek word of the others to see if they have learned anything but I don’t know”.

She looked up at the druid and frowned, “I am sorry to burden you just as you wake but I have been thinking of this throughout the night without resolution. Perhaps if you shared what you are trying to achieve in this world . . .” Tamora trailed off becoming quiet as if she felt she had asked too much, returned to her examination of the ground and waited for Bas’ response.

Bas wiped sleep from his eyes and squinted at the rising sun, trying to imagine a large group of druids heading off in that direction. He nodded as Tamora finished voicing her questions and concerns.

"Balth is a mystery, but he has proven helpful so far. I'm not skilled in reading people, so it is difficult for me to make a judgment of his character. I will defer to your instincts on that matter."

The druid paused to stretch out his arms as he considered Tamora's request regarding his mission.

"I suppose my purpose here is not something to hide, especially not to another servant of nature. I am investigating this world on orders from the druids of our own. Of highest importance is contacting whatever druidic hierarchy exists here. In regards to that, I communed with the spirit of this place last night and it sent me a memory of an exodus of druids from this place, heading east. I don't know when it took place, but it was at least many years ago."

Bas frowned for a moment. "I don't know what would be the best course of action. Obviously, heading east would make sense for my mission, but there is no telling if we would find anything. In addition, this information alone would interest my superiors. As far as meeting the others, it could not hurt to travel in a larger group, given the dangers we have faced so far."

Bas shrugged and offered a tight smile. "After all that, I don't really know what our next move should be. East? Or rejoin the others, and see if they have found anything?"

He stood, grasping his staff firmly in his right hand. "And Tamora, you can call me Bas from now on. If we are to travel together, we shouldn't hold to formalities."

Lorath approached the door with extreme caution. The room was apparently a prison room, with manacles for binding people while they were subjected to various tortures involving water. Looking behind him for the eye stalk that seemed to be following him, he tried to think of a plan. His materials were soaked, and he wouldn't be able to burn the door down. It looked like it would be impervious to his Reduce spell, and unfortunately the hole didn't go all the way through. With no plan and his curiosity building, he resolved to do what could very well be a terrible idea - something was going in the hole. Out of frustration, he decided it was his hand, and hoped that whatever gods were watching would be less obvious with their attempts to harm him.

Tamora

The young hunter smiled at Bas’ invitation to familiarity. “Then I think we should return to the village on the lake. After my experience in the cliffs I am less reluctant now to consult the Great Sage there and we may be able to put some more specific questions about the druid exodus. Also that way is home for Balth, he has already said he won’t travel further east.” She glanced over to Balth who seemed occupied with some camp related task or other. “We should aim to miss the canyon to the north as we did before and would be best to avoid . . . our point of arrival. We can skirt north of that and pick up the river and follow it to the lake.” She looked over to see Anne awake and listening. “How’s the leg?” she asked, “can you walk do you think? And do you think the idea of returning to the village is a good one?”

Ulik walks back to the door and throws one of the spheres against the rock blocking the draining of the cavern, hoping it does something to remove the barrier. As soon as the orb leaves his hand, he runs back to the room where he found the backpack and grabs on to the roots in the ceiling in case the area becomes flooded.

<u>Lorath</u>

As soon as Lorath's hand was inside the opening, it closed around it, fitting him like a glove and holding him still. For a few seconds nothing happened, then there was a stinging pain in his palm, and he had the distinct impression he was being tasted.

This impression was reinforced by the fact that almost immediately afterwards, he was spat loose, being sent stumbling backwards by the door's reaction to him. It didn't seem like he had convinced the thing to open, as it remained in place.

Before he could embark on another brilliant plan, however, he heard a clear ringing in the distance, as though someone had struck a glass gong.


<u>Ulik, Evon</u>

Ulik did not see the sphere impact the rock just under the surface of the water, but he heard it, a tone as pure as a crystal bell rang out, and then the shockwave hit him.


<u>Lorath, Ulik, Evon</u>

It was almost invisible, except as a rapidly expanding sphere of faint motion in the air, like a heat shimmer, which passed through everything, air, walls and living things, completely uninhibited. It was completely soundless except for the initial note.

As it blew through them, they felt invigorated like never before, as though they had just awakened from a restful slumber, inhaled a thousand pounds of stimulants and then been struck by lightning. Any minor nicks and scratches they had healed instantly, and even old scars disappeared.

And they weren't the only things affected by the wave.

Evon's burned and eviscerated beetle suddenly sprang back to life, as good as it had ever been, and swiftly scuttled into a crack in the rocks. Roots that had penetrated the walls and ceiling began to twist like tentacles as they grew frantically, adding several feet to their length in a matter of seconds, even the very stones of the walls seemed to twist for a few seconds as they were touched by the wave. For a few moments, the whole place looked as though it was prepared to collapse on their heads, as the walls twisted and the roots tore apart stone in their growth.

There was no telling how far the wave had gone, as it passed out of sight for all of them within a split-second. As it disappeared, so, too, did it's effects seem to leave. The roots calmed down, the rock was once again still and their sudden burst of energy began to leave them. The wounds and scars healed, however, remained healed.


<u>Bas, Tamora, Anne, Balth</u>

Balth did not seem to notice he was being spoken about, rather, his attention seemed focused on the forest away from the cliff. Whether he was thinking or listening to something extremely faint was hard to tell, but occasionally it looked as though he mumbled something inaudible to himself.

Above them the sky was clear, and the air was already starting to become chokingly warm. If not for a faint breeze that had suddenly sprung up from the west, it would probably already be hard to breathe.

Seeing as how his first idea hadn't worked, well, at all, he turned around and decided to try sticking his new symbiotic tail inside the hole. The wave of refreshing magic that had just hit him certainly made him feel better about having to live with these creatures on him, and it could only improve his opinion of his new friends if they opened the way for him.

Anne

She woke up, her leg as sore as last night, but the pain had lessened somewhat. She was just about to tentatively try to stand up, when Tamora came over, asking her about her leg. Anne pushed herself to a sitting position before replying.

"It still hurts and is a bit sore, but Bas' magic last night helped a lot. I think I'll try standing up."

She gently pushed herself first to her knees and then onto her good leg, before very carefully starting to place weight on her wounded leg. Pain flashed up from her leg, but it was nowhere as bad as what she had expected.

"I think I shall be able to walk. Of course not as fast and not as agile as before, but if the terrain isn't too rough, I should be able to manage."

She turned to Bas.

"You have my gratitude for helping me last night, Bas. I don't know what I'd have done without you around."

She scratched at a particularly nasty mosquito bite on her neck, then removed her hand when she realised that scratching would only make it worse.

"I couldn't help but overhear the two of you talking about Balth earlier," she said, lowering her voice to almost a whisper. "I haven't talked much to him, but from what I've been able to observe, his personality seems to be a bit too forced, and it slightly falls apart whenever we enter a stressful situation, like back at that chasm."

"I'm not one to judge him though. I have no idea how I would act if three strangers from another world came to my world."

She paused, wondering about the number she just said.

"Where is Gan?" she asked, suddenly alarmed having missed his absence the night before, due to her own injury.

Tamora

Tamora’s relief and pleasure at Anne’s recovery was clear to the others. She nodded at Anne’s assessment of Balth and briefly explained her experiences sparring with the Sun Runner the night before. Her mood grew sombre at Anne’s final question. “We don’t know. I decided not to risk splitting us further in the dark last night what with one thing and another so just hoped he had enough woodcraft to survive.” She shook her head. “I am unsure but I fear he might have been changed in the cliffs. It was . . . painful in there and I caught a glimpse of Gan as he was when he first emerged” Tamora paused again and swallowed as if she was forcing down bitter medicine. “It wasn’t pretty.”

She read the expressions on the faces of her two companions and realised that unless she was prepared to share her experience in the mesa it was unfair to distress them by referring to it. She wasn’t sure she could relate in words what had happened to her in any case. She wasn’t even sure of her own memory of the events. Standing here in the warmth of the clearing it seemed so unlikely to have happened to her at all. But as she looked at her hand she stretched her fingers a little bit further than she would have expected them to go and frowned.

“Enough,” she said softly to herself and then more confidently to her companions “I looked at dawn and found Gan’s trail running north.” Gan’s trail had been very obvious – another mystery. Had he wanted to make sure she could track him? Or maybe he was in no mind to care. Well, speculation wouldn’t help them. “If we are to return to the village on the lake it’s on our way to follow . . .” She trailed off, waiting for Anne and Bas to respond.

[ 03-04-2007, 02:59 PM: Message edited by: Armen ]

Anne

Anne stayed silent for several moments, digesting what Tamora had just said.

"Gan travelled with us for several days, and was a faithful companion when it came to battle. In my opinion we should go and look for him. His experience in the cliffs might have changed him, as you say, but if it has, then we should try helping him as much as we can."

She stopped, just about to say something, which she bit back.

What does one life, one destiny mean in the greater scheme of things? How many lives have I interfered with in the past? How many did I unrighteously steal from, just to be able to help my brothers? Why do I suddenly care about one? One I only barely knew? Am I changing?

Her thoughts disquitened her. She had felt so unsure of herself in this new world. Ever since she stepped through that portal so many things had changed. She had changed...

[ 03-04-2007, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

Bas smiled at Anne's words.

"I'm glad you are feeling better."

The druid let his eyes search the forest as the two women talked. He wanted to pick a direction, any direction, and immerse himself in these surroundings. The calm of this clearing had refreshed him and he felt ready to confront anything. He refocused his attention on the women as they discussed Gan.

"If we can follow his trail and also head towards the village, then that seems like a good idea. Whenever you are ready, lead the way. And Anne," Bas held his staff out to the injured woman, "if you think it will help you walk, you may use my staff."

Tamora

Anne was right of course and Tamora wondered at her readiness to leave Gan to his own devices. It had been the right decision to stay in the camp last night but today she might have gone a different way entirely and left Gan to whatever fate was befalling him. She had no idea what had compelled her to act so out of character but whatever it as she was grateful to Anne for voicing what should have been her thoughts.

The simple nobility of Anne’s speech on Gan’s behalf had surprised her and was a reminder of how little she knew about the woman. But how open had she been with her companions despite the good reasons for her discretion? She sighed and nodded her acceptance of Anne’s words. “You are right of course, we should do all we can. Learned One, Bas, thank you also.”

She headed over to her gear and packed it away calling to their other companion, “Balth, we’re leaving and we’re going in your direction.” She picked up her spear, checked around for anything she might have left behind and moved off to the north to check Gan’s trail. She would move a few steps into the forest and then wait for the others.

[ 03-05-2007, 03:24 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

Anne

"Thank you for the offer Bas, but I think I'll manage with this spear the lizardmen gave me at the lake," she said motioning to the staff lying on the ground. "But I appreciate the thought."

She picked up her gear, which had remained on the ground last night, placing everything meticulously back in the pocket they had been in.

She walked after Tamora, stopping next to her, slightly leaning on the spear.

"My openness surprised you, I saw. I've never been very open about my true motivations, and in the past false motivations have been numerous for me. But you and Bas helped me last night, without even knowing me. I think you deserve to at least know some things about me."

She paused, shifting her weight from her injured leg to the good one.

"So...does my story interest you?"

Tamora

Tamora looked quizzically at Anne. “No, not surprised,” she replied quietly, “I admit your words disturbed me but more that I had not resolved myself to look for Gan”. She scanned the vegetation and paused for a moment to listen to the sounds of the jungle around them. Something about Anne’s choice of words disturbed her slightly and caused her to wonder what secrets the woman was concealing. And what would she expect in return? Tamora felt awkward in the face of such an invitation to intimacy and in any case this was hardly the time or the place to stand around conversing.

“I would be honoured to learn anything that you wish to tell me Anne but we have work to do here”. She indicated one of the more obvious of Gan’s marks with the butt of her spear then looked thoughtful for a moment as if wondering whether to say something but apparently thought better of it. She looked back to the clearing. ”What’s keeping the others?” she asked half to herself. Turning to Anne she said, “I need to scout ahead. You can see that the trail is clear and straight. If it weakens or diverges I will wait for you and in any case won’t get too far ahead. Stay here and follow on with the others. Stay close to Bas.”

She turned and moved away briskly. Free of the others for a moment, back in her element, and with Gan’s trail so easy to follow, she allowed herself to soak into the sounds and feel of the forest around her allowing its rhythms and currents to relax and absorb her.