Jan CON: 14

Marrin con: 17

You struggle against what you suddenly realize is an unnatural fatigue. While you all do your best to fight off the effects of whatever was slipped into your drinks it’s no use. Ula nearly manages to overcome the drug with her strong dwarven constitution but even she succumbs in the end.

You all collapse into a sleep-like stupor, your bodies feeling like they’re being held down by heavy chains. Eventually you all fall unconscious.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you awaken, you discover something has been placed over your heads; sack-cloth hoods of some sort. Flickering brownish light prevents you from being in complete darkness though you still can’t see anything. But you can still feel and hear. From the movement of air, sound of the waves and the feel of wood creaking under you, your best guess is that you sit against the rails on the open main deck of the Rose Marie.

You can hear what sounds like wood sliding against wood, then rough hands pull you to your feet, which is when you discover your hands and ankles are shackled.

“You’ve earned a bonus for this,” the voice of Godrick Hargrove says, not far away.

“This is wrong captain,” another voice, Quartermaster Bigge, says. “They saved us out there. We can’t just sell them to the Hargroves.”

“You’ll do as your told,” the voice of the captain barks, all his previous pleasantness from the night before gone.

The sounds of a scuffle can just be made out. Steel clashes against steel. Whatever the skirmish was it was brief.

“Lock him up,” the captain says, then, after a pause, adds “And get them off my ship.”

The hands holding you starting pushing your forward.

Ula, you bump into another body who lets out a dwarven oath. "You wait till I get these off," the voice of Hammerdasher growls.

You shuffle forward, doing your best to keep your balance, and then suddenly you’re walking downhill. Down the gangplank? You step onto a flat wooden surface and can now make out other sounds and voices. Everything that reaches you has a strange echoing quality.

You can hear other voices of what sound like sailors unloading crates; orders being bellowed; laughter; water lapping against something; talk of betting and odds, men’s and women’s voices.

It’s all too much to make sense of, your minds still clouded by the drug.

You’re lead along what you surmise is a dock, onto stones, where you hear more voices, smell food cooking, shouts and laughter. Different harder, rougher hands grab your arms and push you forward now. You’re eventually led down a hallway, stairs, through a doorway, then another, then more stairs. The sounds of several footsteps, boots on stone, move away from you before you're pushed through possibly another doorway.

Finally the sack-cloths are removed from your heads.

“Take them!” barks a large hobgoblin, gesturing to a table laden with weapons and other equipment.

You’ve been drugged, shackled, and kept in the dark for who knows how long, unsure of what is to come but now when you can see again the first thing your captors invite you to do is to take up arms?

You’re in a small, dank chamber. The only furniture is a battered old table on which rests a selection of gear. There are two exits. Guards block one that leads into darkness. Another exit leads out, via a short tunnel, to sunlight.

The only people here are the five of you and ten burly, scarred, stern, heavily armed and armoured hobgoblins between you and the dark exit.

While his comrade level sharp pikes, swords, and bows at you, another stern looking hobgoblin steps forward and unlocks your shackles and leaves them lying on the floor.
“Take!” the first hobgoblin shouts again. Then he points to the short tunnel leading to sunlight. “Then go.”

On the table are several well-used but serviceable weapons: 2 daggers, 2 maces, 1 net, 2 shields, 2 shortswords, 2 spears, 2 scimitars and 1 whip.

In a jumbled pile at one end of the table Ula can also see an amulet with the familiar breaking wave emblem on it, Jan recognizes a familiar signet ring, and Ethel sees a familiar book sticking out. Leaning against the leg of the table, Marrin sees her lute.

Whatever’s going on, someone has made sure you will still be able to use magic.

There is no sign of the rest of your gear, your own weapons, or armour.

((While your night was a drug induced coma, you still all benefited from a long rest. And for those who can change their spells after a long rest, you only have those you had the day before - there has been no opportunity for prayer or study)).

The hobgoblins are intent on you selecting weapons and going out into the light.

Jan sighs and takes up her ring, slipping it over her right middle finger.

Speaking in elvish, she asks,

 She will take one or both of the daggers if no one else claims them.

Ethel struggles to find her tongue, the haze of the drug making it lazy and her speech sluggish.  She quickly runs through some speech exercises.

"Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather, red leather...".

Feeling more in control of her vocals she picks up her spell book off of the floor and turns toward the pushy hobgoblin.  She's read enough adventure stories and sat through one particularly uncomfortable night of 'entertainment' in Amn to think she knows what is happening.  

"What are we fighting out there?" she asks.

She whispers to Jan in Elvish:

Avaria looks around a little wide eyed at her new surroundings.  She rubs her wrists while she does, trying to comprehend what is happening to them.  A slight feeling of claustrophobia edges in on her and she tries to keep it at bay as she looks to the weapons, then to the hobgoblin, waiting for him to answer Ethel's question. 

Her gaze returns to the table and then to the tunnel the hobgoblins are obviously wanting them to go through.  She tries closing her eyes, and sniffing in that direction, seeing if she can recognize any smells that may be wafting down the tunnel.

Perception:  16

She finally resolves in picking up the two scimitars.  Whirling them around a bit, trying to get used to something totally different than her greataxe.

The 'talkative' hobgoblin just points to the light down the short tunnel.

"Go," the hobgoblin says, ignoring Ethel's question about what might be out there.

Avaria, as you train your senses down the short tunnel, you pick up hints of blood but that's about all you smell. However, you all can now hear the sounds of voices. Many voices. You can't quite make out distinct words, but you would say they're mostly speaking common with a few other languages sprinkled in.

Of note, as respects the equipment, there are no scabbards or belts. You'll have to carry whatever you select.

Ula, too, squints around the room as her hood and shackles are removed. She frowns, confused, when the party are told to arm themselves.

She glances at the table of weapons and sees her very own amulet. As she moves around the table to retrieve it, her eyes move to the guards, wondering how many she could take down on her own before she was overpowered…

She grabs her amulet and clips it around her neck. As she reaches up to do so, her arms flex and the party see her without armour for the first time.

((Visual reference of Ula’s build. She looks incredibly strong…))

Ula assesses the gear before them. She’d try out a mace and shield for size, swinging the mace a couple of times to test it for balance. ‘Not a patch on her fathers warhammer’, she thinks, ‘but it’s better than nothing’.

Armed, she looks back to stare at her captors silently, weighing them up, putting herself between them and the rest of the party for now.

Marrin looks around at the room, the table, her bunkmates, the hobgoblins and finally the light exit.

"For the love of all the gods! Seriously? SERIOUSLY?"

She stomps over to the table and grabs her lute, inspections it quickly and throws it over a shoulder before looking with distaste at the table of weapons. She scoops up a short sword. She is muttering the entire time, red faced with indignation.

Straightening she glares at each of the hobgoblins, giving each a long hard look while listens for the sounds outside.

Perception: 17

((Ignore the perception, should have refreshed!))

She spins on her heel and says to the others,

"Let's just get this over with."

And stomps outside.

Avaria smiles at Marrin's reaction while she stomps down the tunnel leading outside.  She quickly motions to the rest to follow and catches up to her friend.

Shifting as she does...

As Marrin and Avaria head down the tunnel towards the light, Ula gets no sense that she's intimidating the hobgoblin guards. They handle their weapons with ease, firm enough to keep control but not too tight to mishandle. They give every impression that they know what they're doing.

Watching the glare Ula was giving the hobgoblins, Ethel approaches her.  She places a hand on her shoulder... then, worried she was getting too familiar, withdraws it.  "Stay cool, kid."

Then, quieter and in Dwarvish:

When Ula hears the others heading out, she gives the guards a disappointed shake of the head, as if to say ‘you little shits… I hope your mothers are proud of you…’, then she turns and jogs after the others.

She gives her shield a bash with her mace, letting the sound ring down the corridor before her as she goes…

((Sorry crossed posts))

Before heading down the corridor, Ula looks Ethel dead in the eye. She can see the cleric’s eyes go from rage to relative calm in a couple of seconds…

She responds in dwarvish, “Thank you… We have each other”. She nods and trots off to their fate…

Jan stays in the middle of the pack, keeping her beefier companions between her and whatever is out there... and the hobgoblins back there. She wonders if she's going to get a chance to wipe the smirk off Godrick's face.

You proceed through the tunnel and into the sunlight, blinking at the sudden brightness compared to the darkness of the chambers you have come from. The roar of a crowd reaches your ears. This is a makeshift arena inside a deep natural shaft. The bottom, where you stand, is roughly circular and eighty feet in diameter. It is covered in fine white sand and littered with scraps of ruined armour and spatters of blood. The walls of the shaft are near-vertical. Some forty feet up a viewing area has been hewn from the rock; this is where the crowd of several dozen cheer from.

The crowd consists of a diverse mix: mostly humans, hobgoblins and goblins, but some orcs and bugbears too.

Over a hundred feet up, the cliff-like shaft walls give way to a clear blue sky.

Behind you, a heavy metal gate slams shut. It sounds like chains from a winch falling back into place, likely operated by a winch from the viewing area above.

On the other side of the arena another group of prisoners much like yourselves stumbles out into the sunlit arena floor. For the moment they’re hard to make out in the bright light.

A voice bellows from above. “Some new blood to the arena!”

Forty feet above you on a viewing platform of sorts, is a bald, human man with a thick black beard; tall and barrel-chested. His outfit combines the fine clothing of a nobleman with the colourful trimmings and polished breastplate of a buccaneer, including a cutlass at his waist. In much of his facial features he looks like an older version of Godrick Hargrove.

He seems to be presiding over this whole affair. He points at your group.

“This lot have newly arrived. They’ve not even had the time to unpack and settle into their lodgings!”

The crowd laughs.

“We want to give them every chance to see their new accommodation but then so does this other group of newcomers. I wonder, do you suppose any of them will make it to the upcoming battle royale?”

The man raises his open palm melodramatically, bowing to the crowd at the same time. “Entertain us and perhaps we can let you all get settled in” he says before suddenly shouting “Begin!”

The prisoners opposite you look nervous. They hesitate but step forward a little closer. Now that your vision has adjusted to the bright light you realize you know most of them.

Hammerdasher, also wielding a mace and shield, stands slightly ahead of the incredibly nervous Geffroi Desbiens. The diminutive gnome, Jaroo Durim holds a shortsword in his hands, cautiously taking in everything. The other two passengers from the Rose Marie, the merchant Adelysia Demai and the drow, Snowreign stand behind the others. Next to them are two other humans you don’t recognize.

You see recognition in Hammerdasher’s eyes at the same time.

One of the ones you don’t recognize breaks for the closest walls of the arena and starts trying to climb up to escape.

The crowd laughs as he slips and slides back down to the sand. But he tries again.

The bald man in charge raises a finger and then points it at the one trying to escape. One, two, three, arrows rain down from above, striking the man in the back. He falls to the sand, motionless. You’re not even sure where the arrows came from.

“First time jitters,” the bald and bearded man says,which is accompanied by more laughter from the crowd. “Now unless you want to all end up like that, begin.”

After sharing a few nods of grim determination the other group begin to walk towards you, weapons drawn.

Initiative rolls please.

Avaria's looks on in disbelief as she realizes who their opponents are.  Why?  Who would do such a thing?  She quickly looks to her crew and wonders aloud, "Can we use nonlethal damage and control?  With entertaining finesse possibly?  To help with the masses?" pointing above..  She is really out of her element here.

Avaria Initiative  9

Jan curses creatively, at length, in Elvish.

Initiative: 12

Once her eyes adjust to the light, and before the mayhem begins, Ethlehyn takes a long slow breath and observes the crowd.  Ignoring the goblinoids and focusing on the humans, she looks for faces, unique hairstyles, cheekbones, eyecolorations, strong or weak chins, anything that makes a person recognizable... and tries to commit a few of these faces to memory.  For later.

Then she sighs and picks up her walking stick.  Answering Avaria, "Think first about protecting yourself.  If you can spare them... just don't trade your life for theirs."

Initiative: 19