“A jobs a job, beats being eaten by cultists that get off on being dehydrated.” His eyes take in his compatriots again in a new light.
“Okay, Sleeping Beauty, and Miss So-Obviously-A-Cop-It’s-Painful, this is a dirty job that bug for brains is suggesting. Slave Ring Special Task Force’s main purpose is pretty obvious when you say it out loud, you’re gonna end up doing things that will keep you up at night, things that will chew on your insides, make it hard to look at yourself in the mirror.” At some point, the orcs eyes became unfocused, and his words stopped being pointed at the two of you. At the end, he shakes his head and concentrated on the self proclaimed Samurai.
”Princess, these people have big swords, tiny egos and absolutely no reason not to eat you when you envitably piss them off. For the foreseeable future, either treat them with the same respect you would a client, or shut up.”
"Got eem....!" Cora whispers to herself, smiling, holding back a giggle. She shifted again in her cage, waiting to see what the others would do.
Cora looked over the Orc again, he knew a lot. How? What concerned Cora more was that she had no memories of anything before awaking in a this cage. Nothing at all. Why did she have a tattoo on her arm? With a number? And who were these other people. Clearly they were different than our captors. And it was hot. But, it didn't bother her. It should have. Why was she so calm?
And now she was hearing voices in her head. So far, not a very good first day on the..job?
“No I don’t think you understand. This whole operation is huge. Our possible future boss, his boss, and that bosses bosses boss all have three or more people eagerly waiting to replace them.This isn’t something you can walk away from. There’s two cities, a shit ton of sand, and not much else in this godsforsaken plane. If you run, they find and kill you. If you “die” they kill anyone remotely resembling you for a lot longer then you think they’d remember. It’s going to take a miracle for you three to survive to see your gray hairs at this point.” The orc says, with eyes that genuinely convey an considerable amount of pity and sadness at the fate he laid out for you girls.
Cora looked over her body with genuine interest, and noticed she was mostly covered with wounds and scars. Some of them fresh, and wet. Certain ones she poked still hurt, and she was definitely sore.
"I dunno," She said, in wonder. "It looks like to me i've been through a lot. I..just wish I could remember.." She trailed off. After a moment's curiosity, she said, "So what do we do now? Wait?"
The orc’s previous rant left him panting in anger. Both at the naitivity of these obvious out of towners who would probably find them selves dead three ways to tommarow if he left them unsupervised, and at himself for various reasons. He pinches his brow with comedically large and calloused fingers, and looks to the amnesiac with tired eyes that have too many conflicted emotions behind them.
“I guess we wait for someone to show up, sweet talk them a bit, impress them enough to consider us better muscles then food or slave labor, and see where fate takes us from there. I’ve dealt with criminal types in the past, if you feel uncomfortable, I can shoulder the conversations.” He states, trying to give the girl a thumbs up and a reassuring smile, which probably looks a bit weird with his razor sharp teeth.
A moment of painful silence follows these heavy words. You realise this won't be handed to you on a platter.
"... I can't ensure your survival. Not from where I am located. You'll be taken." It repeats. "If you survive, you'll be put to work. It is there the infiltration will take place. Survive. Make yourselves known--"
The voice barely finishes before a loud BANG and a rusty screeeeee is heard from the iron doors. Three large figures, one towering over the other two approach. Bugbears. Chains wrapped around their forearms, fashioned as crude gauntlets. The large one wears a torn half-cape bearing an insignia of a clenched gauntlet and a crude looking whip at it's hip.
Cora. Your brain jolts with pain when you see the insignia. Pain. Sadness and regret wash over you for a split second. You have no idea why, but it hurts.
A blank slate. Eternal sadness. Nothing, yet everything all at once. Yasei is strangely serene, as she watches the brutes enter the room. That impudent slave, how dare he address her in such a manner. But still, she ponders, he's right. These new guards, if that's what they call themselves, are dangerous. And who knows what evil plots of men lay behind these knuckle draggers. Perhaps this opportunity is a means to an end, a tool to be wielded so expertly, surely her father would recognize her skill and talent, and give her back her name? Yes, she decides. Yes, this will do. So she takes the impudent one's advice, and doesn't say a word. She just bides her time, waiting for the right moment to spring into action and prove her worth to the world.
Then the door banged loudly, and I turned to see who was approaching. Bugbears, it looked like. One of them was wearing a cape..with..an insignia? A gauntlet. Right at the moment I think it might look familiar..
"ACHHH!"My brain exploded. It felt like it was on fire. Sharp stabbing electrical pain, my vision whitens, I can't see again. The pain is horrible, each nerve ending screaming. I curl up into a ball holding my head, gritting my teeth. Suddenly, i'm overcome by intense waves sadness and regret. Just pure raw emotion. But why? The feeling is overwhelming, it changes me for a moment, makes me become someone i'm not? But..how? How could it do that? How could it change me into something when I don't even know who I am? My brain, overloaded by pain, pushed the questions aside, preoccupied with pain. I lay there, trying to understand and wrap my head around what just happened.
A bugbear near Cora's cage throws her a foul look and growls deeply at the noise. These muscular beings open your cages and slap manacles on each of you. Any resistance is overpowered by these creatures. Their hands easily wrap around your forearms, pulling you to your feet. The large bugbear simply stands in the doorway, arms crossed while you're all lined up and instructed, non verbally aside from grunts, to walk.
The clanging of oversized pistons grows louder and the heat surrounding you all increases as you walk through an intricate maze of natural rock combined with rusted metal. Pipes lead all around, vents hiss scolding steam as you make your way, single file with two guards at the back and the large one at the front.
You're eventually walked into a room which opens up. Iron girder cat walks above you look like a web of steel. Clanging echoes all around. You can see this room leads to a wall, unlike many others you've seen and a metallic dome roof begins it's incline up the side. It would be safe to conclude you must be at a perimeter wall of The Furnace.
The two bugbears unshackle you and point towards a large pile of iron handles. Thick bars, around 2inches in diameter with a slight S bend.
There is a hardy male Dwarf stationed beside a large cog, (of which another 5 remain in this room, unoccupied) and you can see he has inserted his bar to the middle of this large cog and is turning it much like a row boat.
The tall bugbear turns and simply says "Row." He gives a nod to an orcish guard, positioned on a catwalk above, holding a bunch of javelins.
Yasei looks over to her fellow prisoners, giving them a ‘you gotta be kidding me?!’ look. She then settles on the tall weird prisoner, letting him take the lead in determining how to respond to the bugbears request. She’s not afraid of working, per say, but is confused about how they should be acting in order to get out of here.
Cora takes a moment to look at the machine and observes for a moment. She looks at the bar, then to the cog. She quickly stretches out any leftover kinks in her upper body, and takes a look at the others for a quick moment to see what they'd do. Physical labor couldn't hurt, it was better than being eaten. Deciding that today would not be a good day to die, picks up a bar and gets to work. She finds a pattern to her workout, and soon it's evident her body appreciates the physical labor, and she begins to get used to it.
As you perform this rather monotonous task you all take a look around the room you're currently held in. Two iron doors once again, slightly larger than the last room are closed from the enterance. An Orc guard stands atop an iron catwalk aboove the door and the large cogs are attached to large metallic pistons.
As you scan the area the ground is dirt, but you can see a few small lose shards of metal laying around, embedded into the ground. A few extra turn handles are cast off to the side also.
"Ready yourselves. Survive." Chittering. In your brains.
A loud scraping, like metal on metal scratching and banging can be heard from high up on the roof. The Orcish guard stops, looks up, grabbing a javelin. A loud SCREEEEEE echoes over the rest of the noise and metal is being torn off the roof. Bright, natural light spills in from outside, blinding the Orc guard as it assaults his eyes! His first Javelin goes wide. Another loud metallic scraping sound and suddenly the sound of feathers and loud, vile squawking. Yasei recognises this immediatley- the desert cockratice which almost devoured her during her travels here!
Two large cockratice jump through the hole pried open in the roof and one jumps right onto the Orc guard. The other, flutters down right in the middle of you all! Lets out a loud trilling noise as it's head darts in verious directions, it's large, hungry beady eyes looking at all of you.
Cora had worked up a good sweat and feeling proud of herself, her muscles thanking her chemically as she took a quick break to wipe her brow. She felt great. She enjoyed the feeling, the rush, the pump, and she could tell her body liked it, too. Exercise was clearly a huge factor in her mystery life, she discovered. It made sense, for her physique clearly was forged by years of such activity.
But her thoughts were interrupted by the Cockatrice attack. She looked up at the commotion, and one of them came crashing down upon them.
Something inside Cora's head clicked at that moment. It's like her emotions turned off and her instinct turned on. Something switched. Her eyes darted to the floor, and she grabbed a turn handle. (Not sure what the damage is on those). She felt a nagging urgent mental pull in her brain, like it was trying to tell her something. The weight of holding just one felt off - she grabbed it with two hands and held it like a club. No. It didn't "feel" right. Again, her brain nudged at her and she didn't think that would be enough to hurt the creature..
So she grabbed another turn handle, and held one in each hand. This felt much better, but she was still filled with questions and uncertainty. She waited for the others to see what they'd do. (Passing my turn to go after someone. Plus I don't know what the damage is.)
Danica saw the cockatrice and scowled. She let go of the handle she had been pulling and darted forth with a flying crescent kick and a roundhouse elbow strike.
“A jobs a job, beats being eaten by cultists that get off on being dehydrated.” His eyes take in his compatriots again in a new light.
“Okay, Sleeping Beauty, and Miss So-Obviously-A-Cop-It’s-Painful, this is a dirty job that bug for brains is suggesting. Slave Ring Special Task Force’s main purpose is pretty obvious when you say it out loud, you’re gonna end up doing things that will keep you up at night, things that will chew on your insides, make it hard to look at yourself in the mirror.” At some point, the orcs eyes became unfocused, and his words stopped being pointed at the two of you. At the end, he shakes his head and concentrated on the self proclaimed Samurai.
”Princess, these people have big swords, tiny egos and absolutely no reason not to eat you when you envitably piss them off. For the foreseeable future, either treat them with the same respect you would a client, or shut up.”
"Got eem....!" Cora whispers to herself, smiling, holding back a giggle. She shifted again in her cage, waiting to see what the others would do.
Cora looked over the Orc again, he knew a lot. How? What concerned Cora more was that she had no memories of anything before awaking in a this cage. Nothing at all. Why did she have a tattoo on her arm? With a number? And who were these other people. Clearly they were different than our captors. And it was hot. But, it didn't bother her. It should have. Why was she so calm?
And now she was hearing voices in her head. So far, not a very good first day on the..job?
Danica raised an eyebrow. "Give them just enough rope with which to hang themselves. Understood."
“No I don’t think you understand. This whole operation is huge. Our possible future boss, his boss, and that bosses bosses boss all have three or more people eagerly waiting to replace them.This isn’t something you can walk away from. There’s two cities, a shit ton of sand, and not much else in this godsforsaken plane. If you run, they find and kill you. If you “die” they kill anyone remotely resembling you for a lot longer then you think they’d remember. It’s going to take a miracle for you three to survive to see your gray hairs at this point.” The orc says, with eyes that genuinely convey an considerable amount of pity and sadness at the fate he laid out for you girls.
Cora looked over her body with genuine interest, and noticed she was mostly covered with wounds and scars. Some of them fresh, and wet. Certain ones she poked still hurt, and she was definitely sore.
"I dunno," She said, in wonder. "It looks like to me i've been through a lot. I..just wish I could remember.." She trailed off. After a moment's curiosity, she said, "So what do we do now? Wait?"
The orc’s previous rant left him panting in anger. Both at the naitivity of these obvious out of towners who would probably find them selves dead three ways to tommarow if he left them unsupervised, and at himself for various reasons. He pinches his brow with comedically large and calloused fingers, and looks to the amnesiac with tired eyes that have too many conflicted emotions behind them.
“I guess we wait for someone to show up, sweet talk them a bit, impress them enough to consider us better muscles then food or slave labor, and see where fate takes us from there. I’ve dealt with criminal types in the past, if you feel uncomfortable, I can shoulder the conversations.” He states, trying to give the girl a thumbs up and a reassuring smile, which probably looks a bit weird with his razor sharp teeth.
"You'll be taken." The voice says.
A moment of painful silence follows these heavy words. You realise this won't be handed to you on a platter.
"... I can't ensure your survival. Not from where I am located. You'll be taken." It repeats. "If you survive, you'll be put to work. It is there the infiltration will take place. Survive. Make yourselves known--"
The voice barely finishes before a loud BANG and a rusty screeeeee is heard from the iron doors. Three large figures, one towering over the other two approach. Bugbears. Chains wrapped around their forearms, fashioned as crude gauntlets. The large one wears a torn half-cape bearing an insignia of a clenched gauntlet and a crude looking whip at it's hip.
Cora. Your brain jolts with pain when you see the insignia. Pain. Sadness and regret wash over you for a split second. You have no idea why, but it hurts.
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk
A blank slate. Eternal sadness. Nothing, yet everything all at once. Yasei is strangely serene, as she watches the brutes enter the room. That impudent slave, how dare he address her in such a manner. But still, she ponders, he's right. These new guards, if that's what they call themselves, are dangerous. And who knows what evil plots of men lay behind these knuckle draggers. Perhaps this opportunity is a means to an end, a tool to be wielded so expertly, surely her father would recognize her skill and talent, and give her back her name? Yes, she decides. Yes, this will do. So she takes the impudent one's advice, and doesn't say a word. She just bides her time, waiting for the right moment to spring into action and prove her worth to the world.
Last to know and first to be blamed...
As a free action, can I regret my life choices?
"Sweet talk, sounds g-" Cora said.
Then the door banged loudly, and I turned to see who was approaching. Bugbears, it looked like. One of them was wearing a cape..with..an insignia? A gauntlet. Right at the moment I think it might look familiar..
"ACHHH!" My brain exploded. It felt like it was on fire. Sharp stabbing electrical pain, my vision whitens, I can't see again. The pain is horrible, each nerve ending screaming. I curl up into a ball holding my head, gritting my teeth. Suddenly, i'm overcome by intense waves sadness and regret. Just pure raw emotion. But why? The feeling is overwhelming, it changes me for a moment, makes me become someone i'm not? But..how? How could it do that? How could it change me into something when I don't even know who I am? My brain, overloaded by pain, pushed the questions aside, preoccupied with pain. I lay there, trying to understand and wrap my head around what just happened.
Who am i?
"What the hell.." I whisper. "What the hell.."
A bugbear near Cora's cage throws her a foul look and growls deeply at the noise. These muscular beings open your cages and slap manacles on each of you. Any resistance is overpowered by these creatures. Their hands easily wrap around your forearms, pulling you to your feet. The large bugbear simply stands in the doorway, arms crossed while you're all lined up and instructed, non verbally aside from grunts, to walk.
The clanging of oversized pistons grows louder and the heat surrounding you all increases as you walk through an intricate maze of natural rock combined with rusted metal. Pipes lead all around, vents hiss scolding steam as you make your way, single file with two guards at the back and the large one at the front.
You're eventually walked into a room which opens up. Iron girder cat walks above you look like a web of steel. Clanging echoes all around. You can see this room leads to a wall, unlike many others you've seen and a metallic dome roof begins it's incline up the side. It would be safe to conclude you must be at a perimeter wall of The Furnace.
The two bugbears unshackle you and point towards a large pile of iron handles. Thick bars, around 2inches in diameter with a slight S bend.
There is a hardy male Dwarf stationed beside a large cog, (of which another 5 remain in this room, unoccupied) and you can see he has inserted his bar to the middle of this large cog and is turning it much like a row boat.
The tall bugbear turns and simply says "Row." He gives a nod to an orcish guard, positioned on a catwalk above, holding a bunch of javelins.
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk
Yasei looks over to her fellow prisoners, giving them a ‘you gotta be kidding me?!’ look. She then settles on the tall weird prisoner, letting him take the lead in determining how to respond to the bugbears request. She’s not afraid of working, per say, but is confused about how they should be acting in order to get out of here.
Last to know and first to be blamed...
As a free action, can I regret my life choices?
Danica, no stranger to physical labour, did as she had been told - mostly to see what would happen and watch for an opportunity.
Danica feels a slight resitence to begin with, but then becomes easier. It feels like a slight grinding sensation when you turn the lever.
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk
Cora takes a moment to look at the machine and observes for a moment. She looks at the bar, then to the cog. She quickly stretches out any leftover kinks in her upper body, and takes a look at the others for a quick moment to see what they'd do. Physical labor couldn't hurt, it was better than being eaten. Deciding that today would not be a good day to die, picks up a bar and gets to work. She finds a pattern to her workout, and soon it's evident her body appreciates the physical labor, and she begins to get used to it.
She even enjoyed it.
As you perform this rather monotonous task you all take a look around the room you're currently held in. Two iron doors once again, slightly larger than the last room are closed from the enterance. An Orc guard stands atop an iron catwalk aboove the door and the large cogs are attached to large metallic pistons.
As you scan the area the ground is dirt, but you can see a few small lose shards of metal laying around, embedded into the ground. A few extra turn handles are cast off to the side also.
"Ready yourselves. Survive." Chittering. In your brains.
A loud scraping, like metal on metal scratching and banging can be heard from high up on the roof. The Orcish guard stops, looks up, grabbing a javelin. A loud SCREEEEEE echoes over the rest of the noise and metal is being torn off the roof. Bright, natural light spills in from outside, blinding the Orc guard as it assaults his eyes! His first Javelin goes wide.
Another loud metallic scraping sound and suddenly the sound of feathers and loud, vile squawking. Yasei recognises this immediatley- the desert cockratice which almost devoured her during her travels here!
Two large cockratice jump through the hole pried open in the roof and one jumps right onto the Orc guard.
The other, flutters down right in the middle of you all! Lets out a loud trilling noise as it's head darts in verious directions, it's large, hungry beady eyes looking at all of you.
Initiative!
Cockratice: 7
Cora: 20
Danica: 18
Bobo: 13
Yasei: 11
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk
Initiative order: Cora, Danica, Bobo, Yasei, Cockratice.
(Once again, as the lot of you are before the enemy, feel free to take turns however you see fit)
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk
Cora had worked up a good sweat and feeling proud of herself, her muscles thanking her chemically as she took a quick break to wipe her brow. She felt great. She enjoyed the feeling, the rush, the pump, and she could tell her body liked it, too. Exercise was clearly a huge factor in her mystery life, she discovered. It made sense, for her physique clearly was forged by years of such activity.
But her thoughts were interrupted by the Cockatrice attack. She looked up at the commotion, and one of them came crashing down upon them.
Something inside Cora's head clicked at that moment. It's like her emotions turned off and her instinct turned on. Something switched. Her eyes darted to the floor, and she grabbed a turn handle. (Not sure what the damage is on those). She felt a nagging urgent mental pull in her brain, like it was trying to tell her something. The weight of holding just one felt off - she grabbed it with two hands and held it like a club. No. It didn't "feel" right. Again, her brain nudged at her and she didn't think that would be enough to hurt the creature..
So she grabbed another turn handle, and held one in each hand. This felt much better, but she was still filled with questions and uncertainty. She waited for the others to see what they'd do. (Passing my turn to go after someone. Plus I don't know what the damage is.)
OOC: You all look around the room.
Handles can be used as a versatile Club (Club stats 1d4b or 1d6b versatile)
Shards of rusted metal have the same properties as Daggers
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk
Danica saw the cockatrice and scowled. She let go of the handle she had been pulling and darted forth with a flying crescent kick and a roundhouse elbow strike.
Attack: 18 Damage: Unable to parse dice roll.
Attack: 20 Damage: 5
Wham! It lets out a shrill in pain. You see the other one on the catwalk overhead look down from its orcish meal for a split second.
"CoS" Rumble- Tabaxi Shadow Monk