Xenos - No danger room I'm afraid, a dangerous room bristling with spike traps is a bit hard to rationalize as something a group hiding would do.
ISGC - Interestingly, 'Os' means 'death' in goblin. So Reg worships a god which goblins call death. It's almost like the game wants him to be anti-goblin.
Fisher-Risen - On the contrary, feel free to use genesis materials, it won't be that ingame obviously, but it adds to the story, making the world a richer place.
OK, the final roster for the expedition is;
Derm
Fori
Muenster
Rion
Delta
Steve
Xenos
Bax
Tarran
Sandra
15th Hematite 676 - DawnThe expedition met at dawn. A new bridge had been built allowing the rest of the Fiery Cistern to be accessed without having to tear down and then later rebuild the wall that blocked off the forges from the wildlife roaming the caves.
Furthermore, Delta and Spartan had carved a straight staircase down to the third level, right besides Hellbore. That was where they met, all ten of them.
"OK, is everyone here? Fori? Tarran? Muenster?" Derm asked, rattling off the name of everyone on the expedition. Bax rolled his eyes,
"Ten of us signed up to this, and there are ten of us here. Yes. We are all here."
Derm shrugged,
"We don't know what's down there, best to be careful."
"There's a difference between being careful and nannying."
"Well-" Derm began, before being cut off by Delta,
"Oh for heaven's sake, let's go!" he said, exasperated. The group carefully made their way down the rough-hewn stone stairway that led down to the lower levels which before had only been glimpsed from the lip of Hellbore.
"What is this..?" Fori wondered, running her eyes over a large tree with blood-red bark.
"Never seen one before." Tarran said, running a hand over the trunk, he sharply drew his hand back, "Ow! Thorns!" he exclaimed, showing where the thorns had scratched his skin, glistening drops of blood already forming.
"Blood thorns." Muenster said suddenly, reverence in his voice, "These are blood thorns."
"What?" Rion asked, brows furrowed.
"Don't you know the story? They say that one day, Iklist Tunnelveil the Perplexing Mirror made a bet with the King o' Hell, betting that the demon couldn't make a better tree than him. The King o' Hell took a Dwarf and pulped her flesh and with it made a tree. The soul o' the Dwarf, seeing what had happened to her body, wept, an' the tree became saturated with her tears, mixing in with her blood, making it heavy. The King o' Hell delighted at this, an' took her teeth, sharpening them an' placing them as thorns on the tree, an' cursing them to prick her soul, so that she could never reunite with her body. The Perplexing Mirror on the other hand, took a blizzard man an'-" he stopped, peering into the darkness, "-yes! There." he pointed out a tree further on, dark indigo in hue, and with frost on it, "Nether caps, trees as cold as the blizzard."
"Amazing..." Fori said awe-inspired, "Such amazing trees."
"When Id saw the results of the bet, he took both trees an' threw them down into the depths of the earth, declaring that neither side should win a bet that had caused the death an' eternal suffering of a Dwarf." Muenster finished, "I mean, I just thought it was a story, but ta see both trees down here, it's unbelievable." Sandra nodded at this,
"If I remember, it was said Ngostong, the God-Law-Giver of the Humble Nations had a throne of 'blood wood from the underworld', it must have been blood thorn." she said, remembering her brief visit to the capital of that vast empire.
The group moved on, cautiously moving through the darkness. There was no sound at all, no cry from any creatures, it was quiet, almost too quiet. The soon arrived at a lake, and so followed it's shore down. After more than an hour's walking it emerged that there was no way to continue onwards without crossing the lake. They looked for an easy crossing point, finding one where there was a nearby spit of land, but they'd need to build a bridge to get to it.
With Delta there, this was little trouble, the miner soon had an ample supply of schist dug out and within an hour, the Dwarves, Elf, Goblin and Kobold had put up a make-shift bridge across the gulf.
"It's gotta be about lunchtime now, no?" Tarran asked. There were murmurs of assent, and the backpack containing the food was opened up, the plump helmet biscuits made the day before shared out. A simple meal, but a satisfying one, the group rested as the gourd of Dwarven beer was passed around. Xenos meanwhile had gotten up, and was looking around. While he was no typical Kobold, he still had the curiosity that was inherent in all members of his species. Right besides where they had just had lunch stood a great wall of some midnight-black rock. The Kobold put a hand on it, and then withdrew it immediately, letting a slight surprised call out. This brought the rest of the expedition coming.
"What is it?" Muenster asked. Xenos struggled to find the words,
"Stone...stone-" he tried to mime something but no one seemed to understand. Giving up his attempt to communicate verbally, the Kobold simply pointed at the wall.
"Wait...that's obsidian!" Tarran suddenly exclaimed. He put a hand to it, before withdrawing it like Xenos did, "Yeah, the stone is hot! This must definitely be one of the magma pools behind here."
"If that's one of the magma pools, the other must be nearby." Derm said, excitedly "If we find it, that'll give us a rough estimate of where we are."
"Ok, here's what I suggest," Steve said, "We'll split up into two groups of three and one of four and each go separate ways. We'll meet back here in about...one hour? Make sure to mark which way you go."
"That way will be faster for finding the other magma pool." Sandra agreed. Derm nodded,
"Ok, me, Fori, and Muenster will go this way. Rion; you, Delta and Steve go that way. And Xenos, Bax, Tarran and Sandra can go that way. Are we agreed?" Everyone nodded as one, and each group went their way.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Derm, Fori and Muenster made their way slowly through the passages. They had had the misfortune of ending up with a steep climb upwards, and there were no obsidian walls that told of magma pools in sight. Finally the three arrived at the crest of the underground hill, falling down on the rocks and breathing hard.
As they lay there, Derm was suddenly aware of what sounded like footfalls, he grabbed his axe,
"I think I can hear something." he whispered. Fori grabbed her sword and Muenster his mace. The noise stopped soon after, and silence returned.
"We're gonna have to be more careful, there must be some kind of wildlife in here." Fori said, also whispering. Muenster nodded,
"There's stories 'bout the kings o' old who visited the depths o' the world, they met all sorts of monsters. We haven't seen anything yet...it's almost unsettling." he agreed.
"Let's get moving, and let's keep an eye out." Derm assented, getting up. He stopped a brief second, "Actually, keep both eyes out, it's safer."
He started down the slope, Fori following him and Muenster bringing up the rear. As he and Fori reached the bottom of the hill, he heard a sudden crack, like rock breaking. His eyes immediately went upwards, his Dwarven instincts kicking in as he heard the sound of rock...
The sound of rock breaking off and falling.
"Cave-in!" he cried, as he and Fori were buried by the rocks, leaving Muenster standing there, mace in hand, backpack on his back, eyes wide open with shock at what he had just seen.
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Topic: [Community] Nomekast - At War with Nothing (Read 180224 times)