The Undying Dragons - Campaign Thread

Jisthelek shakes his head at the question.

"I'm always ready my friends. But that collection of dung-miners I share quarters with? They'll be a squealing, mewing distraction and diversion at best."

As you all leave the spider cavern and then cross quickly through the next cavern you hear the sounds of multiple orc voices quieting down, but the unmistakable growl of Haguur's voice taking over.

Cautiously, Jisthelek looks around the corner before entering the orc cavern. You may not have noticed it before, but he all but blends into the cave wall with his extreme stillness. You can't help but wonder with that skill, how often has the goblin had free rein over the various prisoner's caverns.

He turns and gives you all a thumbs up and walks quickly but very quietly out into the orc cavern.

As you move forward, trusting that this isn't some long game being played by Jisthelek to curry favor with the guards you take a look at what the commotion is in the orc cavern.

Haguur stands at the edge of the pool looking at one orc with blood pouring down his scalp, another orc in the water looking angry and his other orcs shuffling equipment away from the edge of the pool of water.

Avaria recognizes the one in the pool and the bleeding one as the two she saw in the dwarf mining camp.

Haguur barks an order and gives the bleeding orc a kick for emphasis before he turns back to the group.

"If we don't leave soon I'm adding these two to my list," Haguur says darkly. He then gestures at the gear. "They say this is all of it."

 At this point there is no light coming from the vents above. It's full night now.

((When have food tubs been arriving? Has that been on any consistent schedule?))

(not particularly - you've had them in the evening, lunch time, really not sure if it's the whims of your captors or whenever the guards remember)

Avaria smirks at Haguur, "You have a list?"

She then walks over to the pool and helps the last orc out of the water.  She looks down into the depths and back over to her friends, "Well?  Unless Ula wants to rest first or another reason we should wait... I'm ready to head into the water to see if we can find that escape tunnel."

Marrin walks over to see what gear the orcs brought up, pulling Ethel along.

She'll ask Haguur as she scans the assorted items.

"Did they say anything about any tunnels out of that cavern?"

She nods to Ava,

"Best to get that checked out before we decide on a final plan. I would love to make our move in the early morning tomorrow, I doubt many of those pirates will be up and about then. Easier to get where we need to and burn what needs to be burned."

Haguur looks at Avaria for a long moment. Then he finally nods, "Yes. A list. Everyone out there is on the list."

He then growls a question at the wet orcs and listens to what the say. He barks something that sounds quite negative at one of them.

Finally he turns back to the group.

"They said there were a couple of tunnels. One lead away from the campsite with all the dead dwarves. It sounds like the one they were working on. It ends at a rough rock wall with a couple of tools laying there. They said they smelled some foul odor there," Haguur says. "There was another one down off another passage but it was more natural and opened up into a maze of smaller tunnels. Finally they saw a large pool of water to the south but before they could investigate an angry ghost chased them off."

You don't have to be a master of reading people to see Haguur doesn't think highly of the two being chased away by a ghost. And Avaria, unless the orcs were turned around, that sounds like a third pool of water.

Taking a closer look at what the orcs have retrieved, Avaria would be pretty sure this was everything, except the decayed bedrolls and clothes.

They retrieved the following:

1 warhammer; 1 warpick; 2 hammers; 1 crowbar; 2 miner's picks, three flasks of oil (with good seals on them); 50' of wet hemp rope, 20 iron spikes, two tinderboxes, 7 waterskins, and a small pouch that looks like it may have been a herbalism kit but may now be ruined by being submerged in water for the swim back. 

Ethel thinks she can feel her toes again. It's not much, but it's progress in the right direction.

Jan nods. "Godrick was the only one on my list, but he has a lot more company now."

As Haguur answers her question on the list, she nods at him as she understands.  She wasn't one to carry grudges, but maybe she needed to start....

Listening to what Haguur said about the dwarven camp, she gets a bit disheartened.  "So the supposed escape tunnel the dwarfs were working on was never finished?  I guess that makes sense.  Though we have no idea what killed them, I wonder if they turned against each other?  I wonder what that smell is."

She pauses as she considers his words... "So it sounds like there might be a third pool of water down there?"  She turns to Ula and Marrrin, "I'd like to go check that out then since the tunnel is a dead end.  And you're right Marrin, the sooner we can knit together a plan, the better."

She walks over to the pile the orcs drug up and noses through it.  "This is everything that I saw when I was down there."  She picks up the warhammer and gives it a few swings.  "Now this is more like it.  Save this one for me."

She sets it back down, along with the rapier, and sits on the edge of the pool.  "Ula, you ready?  This tunnel is a lot easier than the one in the hobgoblin area."  And once Ula joins her, she dives in.

Marrin suggests to Ava

"Maybe you two should take a weapon with you, in case whatever got the dwarves is still down there."

Turning to Haguur, Jisthelek, Jan and propping up Ethel, who she looks to make sure is still awake, she begins,

"Let's talk back up plans if Ava isn't able to find another way out down there. Ethel, if you can, grunt if you have input."

She looks to see if Ethel can grunt or make some sign before continuing,

"We know they bring in the food irregularly, waiting for that isn't going to be our strongest option as they are on their guards. They might also come and pull us out for one of Hargreave's little matches before, and they normally come in force for that."

She'll raise a finger to forestall Haguur,

"I am confident we could take care of any normal group they send in, but it leaves us on the wrong side of the doors. How do we get onto the other side of those doors?"

She will look around for input

((Is Ava intentionally not commenting on the orcs getting chased off by an angry ghost?))

"I may have the means to get past a door, but it's a bit iffy.", Jan looks around at her companions, and figures she might as well lay things out on the table. 

((Clarification... the pens have a door with no gap and a solid metal shutter that is closed except when they peep in before opening it. There's a long hallway with another locked door with also with a metal shutter, or does that one have a grate? The room beyond has a couple entries? Keys hanging up on the wall? Do they bring all of the keys with them when they come to provide food/get people for the arena, or does someone just open the far door and they bring the key for the one to the pens?))

((Nope!  That was not intentional, just forgot, thanks!))

Avaria turns back to Haguur as a quick afterthought before diving, "They ran into that old angry dwarf as well?  He was dead set on getting me to go back to digging that escape tunnel, that and that the Hargraves tricked him and his kin as well.  Got them to dig a bunch of tunnels before locking them up like all of us.  When I asked him about it, the anger was very apparent then.  He say anything more to your friends there?"

She then leans down and picks the rapier back up, giving Marrin a wink, "Good idea."

"See if you can convince him to go give Godrick bad dreams.", Jan quips, before recalling the bald bastard's knack with the undead. "Actually, better not, he might find a way to turn them on us."

"We also have our ability to look like guards that we should be able to leverage. Though that disguise is limited by our inability to speak the language."

"Right. If we wait for guards to come in, and we can quietly take them out, we might be able to use that to bluff past a door. Otherwise.... My ring is in the armory, but I can, with some time and focus, destroy it and create a new one. If I do, anyone in the armory will know something's up though. But with the ring, I may be able to get past the door. If we can get my ring past the door, I know it'll work, but if the door's sealed shut, I'm a bit less confident... should still work. I think. Even just a tiny gap will help. From there, I can put the new picks to work and get the door open, but then we'll be in the hallway and need to get past the far door. I have something for that too, but it would likely depend on there being no one in that room, as long as my recollection is correct, there are keys hanging in there that open the door to the hallway. I have the means to unlock that door for us."

"The underwater tunnels sounded promising, but the dwarves that were rumored to have escape didn't make it fully out, and I'm not sure we'd all be able to swim that way anyway."

"Can we put the ring in a food bin under some trash or sand? How much awareness do you have in there? That way they'll carry you out."

Jan considers, "As long as it wasn't too buried under trash or sand, I'd still be able to hear what was happening outside, but the issue is that it'll take me an hour to create a new ring, and as soon as I do, the armory will be housing everything that was in my old one as it gets destroyed. If we wait until after food is delivered, we'd have to hope they don't come for the tubs sooner than an  hour, or I won't have a ring to hide there in time. And if it's way longer than an hour, all my stuff will have shown up and they may delay in coming to pick up the tubs. Ideal timing is that I create a new one right before they come in to take the tubs, but even then, if I don't get a chance to pop out unnoticed... If I'm stuck in a ring in a tub somewhere..."

Regarding the doors, between the lot of you, you piece together your memories of what you’ve seen. Yes, the pens have a door with no gap and a solid metal shutter that is closed except when they peep in before opening it. Yes, there's a long hallway with another locked door with also with a metal shutter that is opened before the door is opened. Yes, the guard post has two other entries – one leading to the arena prep areas and the other leading up into the main part of the stronghold. Yes, you’ve seen keys on the walls but they all hang individually. When the guards come to collect you, they bring one key to open the door to the pen. The guard in the guard post opens that door for them when they come back.

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Haguur questions the two orcs who had been to the tunnels. They speak quickly and look at each other. One pushes the other and they look about to fight when Haguur barks at them again.

He turns back to the group.

“They’re useless and contradicting each other,” Haguur says. “I think they almost crapped themselves and are arguing over who was more scared.”

Jisthelek watches and listens for the most part but he does eventually chime in with something that he decides might be important.

“The hobbies might treat us like little runt kids, but there’s something they don’t like to admit. We have a lot in common,” Jisthelek says. “And that includes language. I speak the same language as the guards.”

At that moment, another goblin steps out of a dark crevice near the entrance to the north.

She speaks quickly and Jisthelek nods before turning back to the group.

“She’s a bit annoying, but she makes a great sentry,” the goblin leader says. Then he looks at the party specifically. “You’ve got visitors.”

Through all this Ethel can sense feeling returning to most of her body. She might not be able to run or doing anything requiring serious exertion for a little while longer but she’s pretty sure she can stand and walk again.

"Probably best we aren't seen all together. If it pops off, your swift assistance would be welcome."

Jan remarks to Haguur and Jisthelek, before turning and heading back towards their home cavern.

Ethel lurches to her feet. 

Stupid.  She took an absolutely unacceptable risk against those spiders.  Who is she to dive into the fray like that?  She isn't some armored saint.  It had just been something about seeing Ula trapped in the maw of that eight-legged horror.  She reacted impulsively... and look where it got her.  

She takes inventory of her muscles and senses, gingerly putting weight on each foot, retraining her eyes to blink in unison, touching her fingers to her thumb one-by-one to test manual dexterity.  Leaning against the cave wall, she silently curses again the bloody bastards who took away her walking stick - though she misses it now more as a support device than as a spellcasting focus.

She is about to hiss her own thoughts on this rushed and desperate escape plan, when the alarm goes up about visitors.  She purses her lips and remains silent until she can be sure who may be here and listening.

She also does a quick once over of everyone - if anyone is sporting a weapon or armor they 'shouldn't' have, she will suggest that drop it for now or wait here until the rest of us see what is going on.  Then she staggers out to see who these visitors are and what they want.

If Ethel is up on her feet, Jan will move to support her, she can do that much at least. "Can say we were walking off a seized muscle if they ask where we were."