Shadowthorn's Princes of the Apocalypse

(Uh--to be clear, there's no door that you can see.  There's an open corridor.  I figured Kethra just wanted to avoid possible traps.)

"Don't worry Rockman...uh Cobbler... I'll stay here with you. You go up before me so we can be sure the ropes hold. I'm sure the Light will guard me while I wait for you to ascend." Marros says holding his head a bit higher at the mention of 'the Light'.  "We can't have anyone stuck down here by themselves." 

Tyde and Kethra, you both manage to scale the wall quietly.  You see a straight corridor with a few branches beyond the other side of the gatehouse, but everything else is blocked by walls flush with the ceiling.

Quote from LordShadowthorn >>

Tyde and Kethra, you both manage to scale the wall quietly.  You see a straight corridor with a few branches beyond the other side of the gatehouse, but everything else is blocked by walls flush with the ceiling.

Kethra glances behind them feeling a bit relieved that they are not within eyesight of any immediate dangers. She opens her mouth to speak only to stop herself, smile, then tries again.

"Mr...Baker, can you hand me your rope? I was kinda hoping that those two would take off their armor and just climb up already, but--," she jerks a thumb at the two heavily armored characters trying to out gentleman themselves (and presumably flexing their muscles at the same time).

Quote from Mehmen >>

"Aight. Ya'll turn next. Not sure if that rope will hold me, but if ya'll can get the door open, then it'll probably not matter."

Quote from See_Ess >>

"Don't worry Rockman...uh Cobbler... I'll stay here with you. You go up before me so we can be sure the ropes hold. I'm sure the Light will guard me while I wait for you to ascend."

"--I think they're going to need a little help. I'll take your rope and let it down for extra support. Since there's an extra 50 feet on with mine and Miner's rope tied together, can you thread that rope around two of the crenelations so it makes a sturdy anchoring rope for them to hold onto? That way I can help pull up these two men while you help provide a stationary line for them to put their weight onto and also keep them from swaying around too much. Hopefully they'll get the hint and one of them starts climbing."

Trying to keep things quiet she stops herself from yelling so she just seethes through the last part of what she was saying, and it seems to cause a vein in her forehead to pop.

Rubin shrugs and starts to climb.  15

With Tyde, Xan only smirked at the last comment, but wouldn't dare confirm or deny the claim about two being enough. He just waved after the wizard and watched him ascend for a bit. As Rubin followed soon after and Marros makes his point, Xan crossed his arms over his chest. "Ya... Ya do realize that if I go up next... you might wind up stuck by yerself, right?" Xanranzan replied to Morros, giving him a raised brow look. "I mean, I know ya got, uh, this whole Light on yer side 'n all. Which, I don't know why ya just don't call him Pelor, as I'm pretty sure that's the god all about the light. Butbutbut! Be /that/ as it may, I just thought of a great idea." Xanranzan said in more excited whispering.

He quickly shoots a glance up the wall, and maybe only vaguely sees Kethra and Tyde initially at work with the ropes. So, he quickly looks back to back to Marros smiling from ear to ear. "Why don't we just go through corridor? But, ya know, belly crawl. That way, if there is somebody looking through the arrow slits, it'll be harder. And, we don't risk breaking the rope. Because let's face it. I'm a pretty dense guy, and neither of us are taking off our armor, so... why not right? We'll meet them on the otherside easy, and I still got my magic going, so ain't like anyone's gonna hear us anyway if we're careful enough, ya dig?" He only pauses long enough there for the words to register before motioning for Marros to follow him, blissfully ignorant or blithely ignoring the added rope lowered in favor of adding to Marros, "C'mon, C'mon. I'm tell'n ya, with your light and my magic, ain't nuthin' going wrong."

So at that, unless stopped in some way, Xanranzan heads through the rest of the corridor  past/through(?) the gatehouse on his belly, trusting Marros to follow.

Stealth: 18.
(If not stopped)

(If a party member chooses to go on their own, Kethra would respect their choice and will do the same with  Xanranzan's choice to crawl through the potential death trap. She won't drop everything to follow him, though.)

Quote from Mehmen >>

(To Konpk: Well Technicaaaaally, those very same rules say that the vary widely and range from 5 to well over 6 ft tall, thank you very much. ( u.u) And I vaguely recall Kethra being on the short side, so..definitely standing on some tiptoes, I reckon. ;) 

(I forgot to respond to this, but yeahh definitely on the tippy toes here.)

Marros watches as Xan crawls towards the corridor. Being new to the group and not fully understanding the hierarchy he follows the Cobbler thinking to himself - what a strange plan. But I can't let him go by himself. He assumes a similar pose and begins crawling himself.

Xan crawls through the corridor, closely followed by Marros.  They cut quite the fine sight, wriggling down the passageway at the pace of a snail.  As they continue, they realize that the screaming sound appears to be coming from in the gatehouse . . .

Quote from LordShadowthorn >>

Tyde and Kethra, you both manage to scale the wall quietly.  You see a straight corridor with a few branches beyond the other side of the gatehouse, but everything else is blocked by walls flush with the ceiling.

(Wait, this corridor you were talking about here^

Is it the same corridor that Marros and Xanranzan are crawling through? I thought it was something that was level with us right now...)

There's a corridor on the ground level of the complex, that's a continuation of the gatehouse corridor.  I was assuming Xan was going through the gatehouse one.

Seeing his companions crawling through the gatehouse, Rubin slides back down the rope and moves after them. He stays close to a wall, limiting the number of arrow slits that can see him, but does not crawl himself. He nods to his crawling companions as he passes them, and would peek in through one of the arrow slits once he realized the sounds were coming from behind them.

Xanranzan is practically grinning from ear to ear in spite of the low progress, as it appeared his plan was working so perfectly, that the back up wouldn't remotely be necessary. All the others had to do was continue on from the top, ahead of them, and if safe enough, meet them on the otherside. Maybe there was a way directly 'inside' the gatehouse there, or so he figured after pinpointing the direction of the wails. Absolute Geni--'Wait! Wasn't that  Rubin?!' He thought, eyes wide with panic. Xan then tried to wave him down, but by then his attention was elsewhere. At that point, he looks whispered back to Marros, "Aight, we gotta double time it!"

At that, he shuffle a bit more noisly trying to get within foot grabbing range of Rubin, and start trying to tug the man down to ground level able to catch up before they reach the other side. And if that didn't work, well, he'd hurriedly whisper, "What'cha doin'? Ya gotta go low if'n ya don't want anyone to see ya before ya all the way cross."

The Blacksmith watches the struggle below and stifles a laugh.

She looks up for a moment to the labyrinthine paths ahead that The Sailor and The Xanranzan have yet to crawl through, then she lets out a big sigh.

"Hey Mr. Baker, would you mind if we used a page from that book of yours? I'd like you to chart out a map, if that's ok. Sorry if I'm asking too much...we could use the back of my white robe if you want!"

(And to the DM: Can we have a map, like we used to? I can do managing tokens when we get to combat again if you like. This whole place reeks of maaaaaaze.)

"I'll take my chances." Rubin mutters, continuing to make his way along, and looking into the arrow slits on his side of the passage as he goes. If the sounds are coming from the opposite side, then he would change sides and look in those arrow slits instead.

"Aight, we gotta double time it!"

The order came from in front of him but had him confused. How do we double our crawling speed. Just then the shadowy figure of Rubin passes by. That must mean we can walk. Marros stands from his prone position and follows Rubin, leaving Xan the only one crawling in the dirt.

He follows close behind Rubin and watches up and down the corridor as his brooding companion looks in the arrow slits. "Psst. Do you see anything?" he whispers at one point.

Rubin, behind the arrow slits you see what appears to be a bird beaked humanoid.  It's holding a sling, and the noises of pain appear to be coming out of its mouth.  You see there seem to be at least 2 others in the gatehouse as well, and then one notices you.  He readies his sling, while the whole time the tortured noises keep escaping his beak.

Initiative please . . .

Quote from Brian_Avery >>

"I'll start mapping from the gatehouse and update it as we go. We should be able to find our way back here without getting lost."

Tyde uses a blank page in his spellbook to draw the map.

"Do you want to head towards the gatehouse from the other side of the wall, or from up here on top?"

"Thanks for taking care of that," Kethra nods, "I'll head after Rubin and...do you hear that?"

Kethra's Initiative 4

"Psst. What do you see?" Marros whispers, Tring to maintain their stealthy approach. Albeit, in vain.

Initiative 16

Xanranzan’s Initiative: 7.