Gnome's OOTA Story Thread [CLOSED]

When Horkas sees the beholder die, he immediately tears off across the bridge to where he last saw Lulu, searching frantically for his giant friend. "Lulu!! Where are you? Are you OK?" he calls out as he feels his way along the bridge, hoping beyond hope that she was lying invisible on the bridge and hadn't fallen to her certain death!

Katryl also flies out, joining with Horkas in his search. "Lunaria! Where are you!" she shouts, sounding a bit distraught. 

A disembodied voice responds, "Here. I'm here, loves." The cleric reappears flying over the beholder and grabs a handful of eye stalks to keep it from descending further. Quick with her longsword, she cuts off its central stalk then releases the tyrant to the darkness of the chasm. 

She says no prayers for this creature.

Returning to the edge, Lulu stumbles slightly as she lands, but gives everyone a cheeky thumbs up as she holds the eye stalk aloft. She's looking incredibly worse for wear, but grateful not to be the Vast Oblivium's newest firbolg statue. "Cross it off the shopping list," she breathily laughs. Seeing the others' frantic worry, she approaches with a mustered smile, "Now, now. Ye didn't think I'd be worm food that easy, did ye?" though her downturned ears betray her own worry as she looks them both over for injury.

Katryl's glow brightens as she hears and then finally sees Lulu. "What were you doing!?" she demands. "Why... how... you... you somehow purposefully almost killed yourself to save that...  that... Traydark.  When you disappeared, I thought... well..."  The genasi is clearly exasperated and clearly had been worried and now upset at the firbolg. "You joke!? What would we do if you died? How would we be able to continue?"  She shakes her head and as she'd been talking the glow from her entire body had only been growing and growing.  

Turning away, she starts to look at the rest of the scene where the battle had taken place. "Alright, let's just focus on what we need to do now!" she shouts out. "Where'd that human go? We've got to take care of him! What other followers of that floating eye do you suppose are about? And then of course there are the prisoners? Hostages?  Whoever those people were."  Still very upset, she focuses on looking about, trying to catch any sign of where that man might have gone.  Though her efforts are only half-hearted as her mind is still on what had happened with Lunaria.  

Lulu's eyes widen as Katryl's glow grows, taken aback by both her degree of worry and her beautiful embers. As she turns away, Lulu's cheeks fluff and she smiles sadly, a ruefulness to her expression for having scared her.

It's a moment later that a pair of gentle, vambrace-clad arms envelop Katryl from behind, loose at first to give her a chance to pull away, but tightening into a hug if she allows it. If so, the half-giant curls over her, the hug all-encompassing as she sets her cheek atop those glowing locks. Lunaria quietly embraces her, a reminder of both breath and heartbeat, and whispers an apology and reassurance into her hair before pulling away, Katryl's point being an important one.

"Aye, we should let them ken the tyrant's reign is over. And ye've a point he could have other followers. Cannae drop our guards just yet," she says, tucking the eye stalk away.

Knowing intimately well the pain he just experience, she then approaches Traydark and doffs a gauntlet. The cleric presses her large hand over his heart and sends a soothing pulse of divine energy through him, encouraging his body to recover.  


((Cure Wounds at 2nd level: 18 hp recovered. Does anyone else need healing? Besides Lulu, but she'll get to it pfftt))

Katryl's very first reaction is indeed to flinch away when Lulu comes up from behind. "We don't have time..." she begins gruffly, the streaks in her hair flaring. But she doesn't really move away as she's encompassed by the firbolg's arms. In those moments that bright orange glowing fades dramatically - though it's not disappeared. Finally, Katryl whispers, "I'd thought you had died Lunaria. And I..."  She doesn't seem to be able to find the words to continue as she hides her face. The glowing streaks fade even more as a more diffuse glow seems to radiate evenly from within her body. She says no more, staying in place as the firbolg moves on to help heal others. 

Horkas can't help but give the big furball a hug of his own, although it looks like a five-year old child hugging their mother's legs. "Glad you aren't dead yet, Lulu...We'd have had a devilishly hard time dragging yer corpse back up those rope ladders..." =D

He then moves off to see if he can spot the tattooed man that Khessa shoved into the chasm...

Even Khessa, now that she has expressed her relief at Traydark's survival, also compliments the others - who after all did not take much less risk: "Well done, Lulu!" she hugs the gentle firbolg "If I ever one day own a statue of you, I want it to be a copy... not the original!"

"And great job you all, too! Horkas, if you hadn't lit up Mr Big Ball like that, I doubt my bad4sses would have been able to hit him even the few times they did! Thora, Sylrien, Olaf, Elias, Tamryn... how in the nine hells is it possible that Katry managed to score more hits alone than all of you together?" the blonde arcane warrior winks "Katryl, one of these days can you do me the favor to give some shooting lessons to these hopeless draft soldiers? Ah, yes," she turns to the Gauntlet Infantry again "maybe Mr Tattoo Eyes distracted you, by trying to roast you all together... I admit that getting roasted by fire explosions can be detrimental to your aim".

Hearing Katryl wonder about the fate of Mr Tattoo Eyes and seeing Horkas leaning over to try to see what happened to him, the tall adventuress is amazed: "Hey, didn't you see, at the beginning of the battle? I signed up Mr Tattoo Eyes to a quick course in wingless flight... a crash curse, I'd say. What do you expect to have happened? He fell to pieces at the bottom of the chasm, for sure. Let's not worry about him and let's go freeing those poor slaves instead... Whether Mr Ball King had other servants or not, no one knows better than them!"

Lulu can't help a hearty laugh at Horkas' words. "Yer stuck with me a might longer yet, ye old gowl," she says, stooping to plant a noisy, friendly peck atop his head. 

The cleric returns Khessa's hug, their armor clanking together, and pats her back with a grin. "Well, I ken what to get ye fer Winter Solstice, then."

Her gaze is drawn back to Katryl after the brief merriment and she brushes the tuft of her tail against her arm, nodding in agreement with Khessa. "Aye, let's see to those poor souls."


((Lulu will cast a 1st level Cure Wounds on herself for 1+4 5 hp lolol
Perception just in case it's needed to to keep an eye out for more danger: 15+7 22)) 

"I was done for, if it were not for the firbolg." The noble drow says wearily to the human, sinking to the rope bridge floor, weakly hanging on to not fall down into the chasm, shaking his head in disbelief over what had transpired, feeling without any sense of control of his own destiny, like a dry leaf in a hurricane, just waiting helplessly to see where it would be taken. " I can't do this..." He says weakly to the ever optimistic human. "...I can't go on without the sense of control..."

The noble drow smiles weakly as the firbolg reappears, not overly surprised over the tricksy giantess having another trick up her sleeve.

The words of the fire genasi cuts deep. Truths always did cut the deepest. The drow looks down the chasm again but it would be ungrateful to not use the life he was given even if he did not deserve it. He could never repay the firbolg now, the debt weighing heavily on his shoulders, making the chasm look even more welcoming.

His brooding thoughts are cut short by the fibolg's warm touch, his face still twisting in pain, the burden of guilt weighing even heavier. "You shouldn't." He says darkly. "You heard the fire genasi, and she's right, I am a drow, you shouldn't waste your kindness on me. And if that wasn't a reason enough then remember I walked all of you into this death trap, we should all have been dead..." He says, his words trailing off as he keeps staring down into the chasm.

Horkas now claps Traydark on the shoulder and responds to his gloomy proclamations. "Drow, gnome, human, genasi...we are all of us different but all belong here together. Don't be so hard on yerself - Remember that we willingly came with you to see if we could negotiate with the beholder. Not your fault it was taken by the same demon-madness as almost every other light-forsaken creature we've encountered! So git up, rub some dirt in it, and let's move. You can rest when yer dead - and today ain't the day for dyin' it seems..."

Katryl seems to have recovered some semblance of calm when Lulu comes back over to her. Much of the bright glow has faded, as she nods. "Yes, let's see to the captives or whatever these folks are. I guess we just have to try to check each and every door?"  She stands near to the firbolg ready to see what they will find here.  Having picked up a bit of what Traydark had said, she very carefully avoids looking at him.  She had insinuated Lulu shouldn't have risked her life for him - a drow.  She had no more love for the drow people now than she had before any of this turmoil below the earth had begun.  But she knew he'd been a solid member of their group.  She regretted a bit what she'd said in her anger over thinking Lunaria had been lost. 

"Indeed, Traydark..." Khessa returns next to the noble drow, her face, illuminated by Dawn, sweetly worried more for the internal wounds that he is showing, than for the physical ones, which Lunaria is well capable of healing "It's as Horkas says... We all agreed to try to negotiate. And your words were perfect... You also knew how to strike the right chord: when Mr Ball King asked you about that strange thing, the 'Maze Engine', you demonstrated that you knew what he was talking about, you declared yourself available to help him..." she looks straight with her blue eyes into his purple ones, so that he can see that she firmly believes in what she is saying "But it was Mr Ball King that wasn't perfect, Traydark!"

“It had its mind already shattered by Demon Lord Madness!” the blonde arcane warrior exclaims "Don't you understand? Why in the nine hells, otherwise, he answered you that you didn't know anything? As you instinctively shouted in its face, you had just proven him otherwise!"

"And how else would you explain his behavior during the battle?" the tall adventuress insists "As soon as the fight begins, Mr Ball King almost kills two of us... And what does it find logical to do? It change tactics! For the rest of the fight, it hinders the powers of its magical eyes with its own antimagic field! It's Demon Lord Madness, Tarydark! It is the only plausible cause for both phenomena - its attacking us instead of accepting our help and its defeat, when it would have had a very good chance of winning by just keeping to do what it was started".

"Stop feeling guilty, you're not to blame for this" Khessa assures one last time. "If there is one lesson we can all draw from what happened, it is that Demon Lord Madness is more widespread and powerful than we can imagine, so we must be more ready, in the future, to take into account possible irrational behavior on the part of the creatures we encounter. But we'll get to the bottom of all this! After all, we just scored another point in our favor! Demon Lords will be banished! And their madness with them!".

Quote from MissAbyss >>

((Lulu will cast a 1st level Cure Wounds on herself for 1+4 5 hp lolol
Perception just in case it's needed to to keep an eye out for more danger: 15+7 22)) 

 Everything seems quiet and clear, although looking around, it does appear the chasm also goes up a ways, as well as down.

"Shall we start with the slaves we've already met?" Khessa proposes "At least we already know where they are... And they in turn might know where others are being held".

"Yes, but those were easy back up at the top," Katryl says. "I'd rather start here and work up." She looks at the bridges and ramps, trying to get an idea of where they go. "We don't have to all fly either."

"Alright, Katryl" Khessa begins to look around. "I see your point".

As soon as she can locate the path that leads most quickly to a possible door or cell, the blonde arcane warrior calls out to the Gauntlet Infantry again: "Come on bad4sses! Target practice is over! Now come back here with me and be ready in case we have hostile encounters".

"It's absolutely not what I expect..." the tall adventuress clarifies "but since I just recommended taking into account any crazy behavior - due to the rampant Demon Lord Madness - it's better to be ready for anything".

And with that, she leads the way...

Going back down the tunnel you came in from you can easily check a door closer to the bottom, where a pair of overly exhausted goblins huddle in the dark room.

Horkas holds his hands out in a non-threatening gesture and says, "Karazikar and his wizard friend are both dead. You are free, if you promise to let all others here walk away freely if they desire..."

The two goblins crawl forward toward Horkas, and you can see they have scars on their foreheads in the shape of an eye. They bow down though before Horkas, "Oh great ones, liberators from the mad one! We are your servants forever!"