"Trash," Thrakk responds. "This was the chief's trash hole. And no ..." He pauses while looking at Erric. The bard is starting to feel a little weird about the silence when the orc finally continues, "I don't think any 'former friends' are at the bottom of the hole. But I guess we won't know until we're closer to the bottom, will we?"
"Well, I have plenty of rope, and pitons, though I am leaning towards syncing my mind with Sagitta's and asking him to go explore down the whole. For this to work, I need Jambiya to illuminate the shaft as well and as far as she can. Of course, if Tyrax already knows what is down there, we may not need to scout ahead." Maldorn looks at the orc waiting for a response.
(OOC: If the answer is tae same, we could say Maldorn asked this before Thrakk's response above, right?)
OOC: Maldorn, I'll let you decide if you still want to do that after this description:
As everyone gathers around the hole, Jambiya strings her lights down the hole. She wants to push them as far as she can, so a couple wink out, and she has to bring them back before she judges the correct distances without pushing them too far from each other. Finally, almost the whole shaft is illuminated enough for everyone to see. To reach the bottom, Jambiya has the first orb about 30 feet down, but then the four lights together illuminate the rest of the hole all the way down. From this distance, while Thrakk said the bottom was trash, it's hard to discern any details. What the party can see is that the sides of the hole contain numerous handholds that could be used to climb down or up. However, many are coating in filth they'd rather not touch.
OOC: the implication here being that Jambiya’s lights are able to illuminate the entire hole so there is no need to send Sagitta down? If so, then no, Maldorn does not cast the spell.
"These handholds will certainly make the climb easier. That said, our party is not known for the upper-body strength of its members, so we might still need all the help we can get. Both on the way down and on the way back up, assuming there is no other exit. I have a grappling hook, 100 feet of rope, 10 pitons, and a hammer. If we need to climb fast, possibly on the way back up, one of us can also make use of the potion of climbing I have been carrying around. What do you all say?"
Erric nods at Maldorn’s wise counsel, and volunteers to go first. He sends Jack down 10 feet ahead of him, to just hold the rope steady. How far down can he see to? Is it all tunnel the whole way, or does there seem to be a chamber of some kind, from what the lights show?
Also just to be clear OOC, Thrakk said he lived here, went exploring in the underdark, got his mind taken over by something scary, joined up with the grimlocks who may or may not have been brainwashed, came back to this cave, attacked and slaughtered his former tribe, he regained his mind, and then at some point after that he ended up at the campfire outside where he met us. Also after that, the ogre showed up, and the grimlocks went somewhere?
"Well, I don't think we'll need the pitons with all of these handholds available, and unless you guys carry more rope with you, my length won't be enough to reach the bottom of the hole. Perhaps we should just give climbing down a try?"
Maldorm ties his two lengths of rope together, and then one end around Erric's waist. He gives the other end to Anafrey and Ebokk: "Hold on tight to it. If he fails during the first 100 or so feet, you'll be able to hold on to our dear volunteer here. Unless, of course, anyone has more rope... If we have enough of it to reach the bottom, we can all climb down more safely one by one."
"Is there any rope in the camp outside? Or any climbing equipment that would help us here? How did you get down there to explore the Underdark, Thrakk?" Erric will try to remember what he saw in the camp as they walked through meeting and then joining Thrakk. Also, the orc said that the grimlocks were quiet -- has Erric seen any sign that they've just been hiding all around? Are there any clues that they have crawled up and down this tunnel by hand or some other way?
(OOC: also, do we have a sense of how long ago all this happened? You said the bodies outside were skeletal, meaning a long time ago. But the cookpot inside still had bits of bone and gristle floating in it, meaning not too long ago. Unless the ogre also cooked? My assumption it was the orc cook's thing.)
OOC: the implication here being that Jambiya’s lights are able to illuminate the entire hole so there is no need to send Sagitta down? If so, then no, Maldorn does not cast the spell.
Erric nods at Maldorn’s wise counsel, and volunteers to go first. He sends Jack down 10 feet ahead of him, to just hold the rope steady. How far down can he see to? Is it all tunnel the whole way, or does there seem to be a chamber of some kind, from what the lights show?
Also just to be clear OOC, Thrakk said he lived here, went exploring in the underdark, got his mind taken over by something scary, joined up with the grimlocks who may or may not have been brainwashed, came back to this cave, attacked and slaughtered his former tribe, he regained his mind, and then at some point after that he ended up at the campfire outside where he met us. Also after that, the ogre showed up, and the grimlocks went somewhere?
Upper cave. Tunnel. Lower cave as far as you can tell.
Thrakk wasn't involved in the attack on his tribe. Everything else is what he said.
"Is there any rope in the camp outside? Or any climbing equipment that would help us here? How did you get down there to explore the Underdark, Thrakk?" Erric will try to remember what he saw in the camp as they walked through meeting and then joining Thrakk. Also, the orc said that the grimlocks were quiet -- has Erric seen any sign that they've just been hiding all around? Are there any clues that they have crawled up and down this tunnel by hand or some other way?
(OOC: also, do we have a sense of how long ago all this happened? You said the bodies outside were skeletal, meaning a long time ago. But the cookpot inside still had bits of bone and gristle floating in it, meaning not too long ago. Unless the ogre also cooked? My assumption it was the orc cook's thing.)
Thrakk rummages through his own pack, producing rope. "I have rope," he says. "But you already have a rope."
Erric, you haven't seen any signs of any creatures except the ogre. As for time and skeletons and the cook pot ... You're asking a lot of questions I'm not willing to just answer. You need to tell me how you're going to find some answers to your questions
Are you all climbing down? In what order? By what process?
I was laying out that last to clarify for myself the facts of what we've seen over a longer pbp adventure -- orcs being killed recently enough to have been cooking sludge that's still there. I think Erric's picked up on something being weird with the story and narrative presented to them thus far. That's why he's checked other rooms and keeps asking all these questions of his new friend Thrakk who will assuredly never betray them like they always do in the epic stories he's been steeped on his whole life.
Anyhow, he won't go and try to get evidence from the cookpot or back with the skeletons... this is naive Erric we're talking about and he's ready to move along with things. But he's almost genre-savvy enough to understand how stories like this often transpire so his radar's up.
And he asked about rope because Maldorn said we needed more rope, and Erric's headed down first.
To that end, he leaves the new rope in Maldorn's capable hands, and waits for an answer from Thrakk on how the orc returned from the underdark, hoping for some tips on how to traverse the gross trash tunnel without dying in a pit of garbage. He's ready to go, hoping that it won't be too bad.
"150 feet of rope makes for a safer descent than 100 feet of it, don't you agree, Thamb?" Maldorn asks rhetorically. He attaches the orc's rope to his own, giving Erric more than enough rope to be lowered down safely in case he slips from the handholds. The idea is for the group to climb down one-by-one, using primarily the holes on the wall. The rope is a safety alternative in case of slippages. Once the person reaches the bottom, they undo the rope allowing for those in the upper level to reel it back up, tie it around another person, and repeat the process. In addition to holding on to the rope, those waiting uptairs will also tie the other end around the dead ogre's body, to serve as an additional counterweight.
The strongest person should be last. They can climb down like the others, except the only "person" hanging on to the safety rope in their case would be the dead ogre. The 150-foot length of rope can the be left in place for us to eventually climb back up again.
OOC: I suggest the following order: Erric, Jambiya, Maldorn, Anafrey, Ebokk (the strongest, I believe). Our companion Thrakk can fit anywhere in that list, but preferably neither last or first. Unless, he is visually much stronger than Ebokk, in which case Maldorn could be convinced to let him go last.
"I suppose I am as ready to decend into a garbage dump as I'll ever be..." Anafrey would say as she wrinkles her nose and backs away from the edge of the stinking hole. "Just let me know when I need to go..."
Jambiya watches Erric go down, ready as she ever will be to go down next. If nothing bad happens to Erric, she will let herself be tied to the rope, and she will give climbing down a game try. She will keep her lights steady as they illuminate the shaft, regenerating them as she needs to (Concentration, duration 1 minute)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
she/her Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands.
"I am Thrakk," the orc says at one point to Maldorn, correcting the old man.
Erric takes his time and, with the help of Jambiya's lights, has no problem finding ample ledges for hands and feet. Occasionally, his foot slips a little or he grabs onto something he wished he hadn't, but overall, while taking forever (20 minutes), the halfling is able to climb all the way to the bottom. Halfway down, Erric begins to smell the aforementioned trash. It's no more unpleasant than a regular heap of trash. The "ogre's nest" was more offensive to his olfactory senses. He keeps his ears open, and hears nothing as he continues down, finally resting his feet on top of (and a bit within) the pile of refuse at the bottom of the garbage chute that fills the small, roughly 10x15 space. The surrounding cave is largely featureless, but a narrow passage offers a clear path north.
While Thrakk is an imposing figure (clearly stronger than Ebokk), he seems eager to descend, and follows Erric down second. The orc is able to descend twice as fast as Erric.
A little taller (and naturally more nimble) than Erric, Jambiya descends at the same rate as Thrakk. The two humans, despite Maldorn's age, scrabble down just as quickly. Ebokk, after attaching the rope to the ogre as suggested, climbs down at Erric's speed. Overall, it takes the party an hour and half to all get down one at a time, but everyone made it safely.
"That wasn't too difficult," Ebokk says with a tired smile.
Thrakk waits for the party further in the narrow passage.
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“What’s down the hole? Should I send Jack down with a torch? Where are these other former friends of yours likely to be?”
"Trash," Thrakk responds. "This was the chief's trash hole. And no ..." He pauses while looking at Erric. The bard is starting to feel a little weird about the silence when the orc finally continues, "I don't think any 'former friends' are at the bottom of the hole. But I guess we won't know until we're closer to the bottom, will we?"
"Well, I have plenty of rope, and pitons, though I am leaning towards syncing my mind with Sagitta's and asking him to go explore down the whole. For this to work, I need Jambiya to illuminate the shaft as well and as far as she can. Of course, if Tyrax already knows what is down there, we may not need to scout ahead." Maldorn looks at the orc waiting for a response.
(OOC: If the answer is tae same, we could say Maldorn asked this before Thrakk's response above, right?)
“Sure, my lights aren’t as bright as a torch, but they can reach farther than Jack can, I think.”
If Thrakk doesn’t object, Jambiya will call all four lights together and send them down the hole as far as she can, 120’.
she/her
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands.
Anafrey would stand near the edge of the hole and look down as the lights illuminate the shaft.
Maldorn casts Beast Bond on Sagitta and sends it exploring down the hole.
OOC: Maldorn, I'll let you decide if you still want to do that after this description:
As everyone gathers around the hole, Jambiya strings her lights down the hole. She wants to push them as far as she can, so a couple wink out, and she has to bring them back before she judges the correct distances without pushing them too far from each other. Finally, almost the whole shaft is illuminated enough for everyone to see. To reach the bottom, Jambiya has the first orb about 30 feet down, but then the four lights together illuminate the rest of the hole all the way down. From this distance, while Thrakk said the bottom was trash, it's hard to discern any details. What the party can see is that the sides of the hole contain numerous handholds that could be used to climb down or up. However, many are coating in filth they'd rather not touch.
OOC: the implication here being that Jambiya’s lights are able to illuminate the entire hole so there is no need to send Sagitta down? If so, then no, Maldorn does not cast the spell.
"These handholds will certainly make the climb easier. That said, our party is not known for the upper-body strength of its members, so we might still need all the help we can get. Both on the way down and on the way back up, assuming there is no other exit. I have a grappling hook, 100 feet of rope, 10 pitons, and a hammer. If we need to climb fast, possibly on the way back up, one of us can also make use of the potion of climbing I have been carrying around. What do you all say?"
Erric nods at Maldorn’s wise counsel, and volunteers to go first. He sends Jack down 10 feet ahead of him, to just hold the rope steady. How far down can he see to? Is it all tunnel the whole way, or does there seem to be a chamber of some kind, from what the lights show?
Also just to be clear OOC, Thrakk said he lived here, went exploring in the underdark, got his mind taken over by something scary, joined up with the grimlocks who may or may not have been brainwashed, came back to this cave, attacked and slaughtered his former tribe, he regained his mind, and then at some point after that he ended up at the campfire outside where he met us. Also after that, the ogre showed up, and the grimlocks went somewhere?
@DDP: The hole is deeper than 100 feet, right?
"Well, I don't think we'll need the pitons with all of these handholds available, and unless you guys carry more rope with you, my length won't be enough to reach the bottom of the hole. Perhaps we should just give climbing down a try?"
Maldorm ties his two lengths of rope together, and then one end around Erric's waist. He gives the other end to Anafrey and Ebokk: "Hold on tight to it. If he fails during the first 100 or so feet, you'll be able to hold on to our dear volunteer here. Unless, of course, anyone has more rope... If we have enough of it to reach the bottom, we can all climb down more safely one by one."
Jambiya shakes her head mutely. She carries no rope. She is clearly not a fan of the idea of climbing down so far.
she/her
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands.
"Is there any rope in the camp outside? Or any climbing equipment that would help us here? How did you get down there to explore the Underdark, Thrakk?" Erric will try to remember what he saw in the camp as they walked through meeting and then joining Thrakk. Also, the orc said that the grimlocks were quiet -- has Erric seen any sign that they've just been hiding all around? Are there any clues that they have crawled up and down this tunnel by hand or some other way?
(OOC: also, do we have a sense of how long ago all this happened? You said the bodies outside were skeletal, meaning a long time ago. But the cookpot inside still had bits of bone and gristle floating in it, meaning not too long ago. Unless the ogre also cooked? My assumption it was the orc cook's thing.)
OK
Upper cave. Tunnel. Lower cave as far as you can tell.
Thrakk wasn't involved in the attack on his tribe. Everything else is what he said.
The hole is 100 feet deep according to Jambiya's lights.
Thrakk rummages through his own pack, producing rope. "I have rope," he says. "But you already have a rope."
Erric, you haven't seen any signs of any creatures except the ogre. As for time and skeletons and the cook pot ... You're asking a lot of questions I'm not willing to just answer. You need to tell me how you're going to find some answers to your questions
Are you all climbing down? In what order? By what process?
I was laying out that last to clarify for myself the facts of what we've seen over a longer pbp adventure -- orcs being killed recently enough to have been cooking sludge that's still there. I think Erric's picked up on something being weird with the story and narrative presented to them thus far. That's why he's checked other rooms and keeps asking all these questions of his new friend Thrakk who will assuredly never betray them like they always do in the epic stories he's been steeped on his whole life.
Anyhow, he won't go and try to get evidence from the cookpot or back with the skeletons... this is naive Erric we're talking about and he's ready to move along with things. But he's almost genre-savvy enough to understand how stories like this often transpire so his radar's up.
And he asked about rope because Maldorn said we needed more rope, and Erric's headed down first.
To that end, he leaves the new rope in Maldorn's capable hands, and waits for an answer from Thrakk on how the orc returned from the underdark, hoping for some tips on how to traverse the gross trash tunnel without dying in a pit of garbage. He's ready to go, hoping that it won't be too bad.
"150 feet of rope makes for a safer descent than 100 feet of it, don't you agree, Thamb?" Maldorn asks rhetorically. He attaches the orc's rope to his own, giving Erric more than enough rope to be lowered down safely in case he slips from the handholds. The idea is for the group to climb down one-by-one, using primarily the holes on the wall. The rope is a safety alternative in case of slippages. Once the person reaches the bottom, they undo the rope allowing for those in the upper level to reel it back up, tie it around another person, and repeat the process. In addition to holding on to the rope, those waiting uptairs will also tie the other end around the dead ogre's body, to serve as an additional counterweight.
The strongest person should be last. They can climb down like the others, except the only "person" hanging on to the safety rope in their case would be the dead ogre. The 150-foot length of rope can the be left in place for us to eventually climb back up again.
OOC: I suggest the following order: Erric, Jambiya, Maldorn, Anafrey, Ebokk (the strongest, I believe). Our companion Thrakk can fit anywhere in that list, but preferably neither last or first. Unless, he is visually much stronger than Ebokk, in which case Maldorn could be convinced to let him go last.
"I suppose I am as ready to decend into a garbage dump as I'll ever be..." Anafrey would say as she wrinkles her nose and backs away from the edge of the stinking hole. "Just let me know when I need to go..."
Jambiya watches Erric go down, ready as she ever will be to go down next. If nothing bad happens to Erric, she will let herself be tied to the rope, and she will give climbing down a game try. She will keep her lights steady as they illuminate the shaft, regenerating them as she needs to (Concentration, duration 1 minute)
she/her
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands.
"Sounds like we have general agreement, then. Let us descend."
"I am Thrakk," the orc says at one point to Maldorn, correcting the old man.
Erric takes his time and, with the help of Jambiya's lights, has no problem finding ample ledges for hands and feet. Occasionally, his foot slips a little or he grabs onto something he wished he hadn't, but overall, while taking forever (20 minutes), the halfling is able to climb all the way to the bottom. Halfway down, Erric begins to smell the aforementioned trash. It's no more unpleasant than a regular heap of trash. The "ogre's nest" was more offensive to his olfactory senses. He keeps his ears open, and hears nothing as he continues down, finally resting his feet on top of (and a bit within) the pile of refuse at the bottom of the garbage chute that fills the small, roughly 10x15 space. The surrounding cave is largely featureless, but a narrow passage offers a clear path north.
While Thrakk is an imposing figure (clearly stronger than Ebokk), he seems eager to descend, and follows Erric down second. The orc is able to descend twice as fast as Erric.
A little taller (and naturally more nimble) than Erric, Jambiya descends at the same rate as Thrakk. The two humans, despite Maldorn's age, scrabble down just as quickly. Ebokk, after attaching the rope to the ogre as suggested, climbs down at Erric's speed. Overall, it takes the party an hour and half to all get down one at a time, but everyone made it safely.
"That wasn't too difficult," Ebokk says with a tired smile.
Thrakk waits for the party further in the narrow passage.