Their is no communal lunch today!
Caboose:
Towercap arrives to escort the elves to the party. He is rather disappointed to find that you will be the only elf attending. You follow the base of the moutain range and eventually arrive at the Goblin's Knuckles.
After being lead through a serise of narrow hallways you eventualy arive at a large, torchlit, banquet hall. Over seventy Goblins are gathered around the dining tables; nearly the entirty of the Grandcheeses family Towercap informs you. Thrity minutes into the party Oka is dragged into the room by two of his concubines. The mute goblin signs furiously.
"He heard what you told me about the human lord Yellowsun and decided that he would much rather begin work on a second ballista than attend his own party." Towercap interprets "Old bastard never did like crowds."
"The human is that tough then?" Asks the Goblin Horace as he pushes you and Towercap to create an opening on the bench to sit at.
You shake your head. "Acording to the stories he could take on mage of my calibur and a soldier of yours simotaniously without either so much as bruising his flesh. We are puny!" You shout with a slight giggle.
Silence falls over the room. After several seconds it dawns on you that you accidentally mispronounced 'we' in the goblin tounge as 'you'. A horrified expression spreads across your face: You have just called the most powerful and renowned goblin in the room puny!
"I'M WHAT?!?!" Horace roars.
"Well compared to Charles..." You offer meekly
"I AM NOTHING OF THE SORT!" The large goblin yells. "I AM HORACE! Slayer of all men! Master of the mountains, and Champion of the goblins! And you call me puny? LEAVE THIS INSTANT! I swear to every god above and demon below that when Urist shows up I'm going to talk him out of letting your putrid kind exist in our fair valley! OUT!! NOW!!"
Suddenly your mussels lock up and your bones begin to rattle. You feel magical contamination spreading from deep within your soul to every inch of your body. You offer a quick prayer to whomever is listening begging that whatever is about to happen dosn't further complicate the situation.
Horace however takes your lack of movement towards the door as further disrespect. "I SAID LEAVE" the goblin roars as he pulls back his fist to slug you. His green hand passes right through your face without causing injury; Your well timed bout of magical release has rendered you temporary intangible!
As the goblins in the room stare on you take the opprotunity to bolt. Your body returns to its regular tangible state shortly before you reach the fortress.
Dhaekh:
You decide to work on cutting the star rubies you recently discovered. As you work on the first gem however a headache flairs up causing you to scrape you cutting tool against the surface of the stone.
-1 uncut star ruby
+1 ruined star ruby
Deciding that the remaining gems are too precious to risk destroying in a similar fashion you get to work on a Silver Headband. You fire up the forge and begin to work. You take your time, carefuly reforging any area in which your headache causes you to mess up. You eventually craft a headband of fine quality. You engrave upon it a poem to the earth, apologizing in your forgotten dialect for wasting a gem. You leave enough space between letters to enbed cut gems later.
-1 Silver bar
-3 hours furnace fuel
+1 silver headband
Karratan
You lie on your cell floor, difting uneasily into and out of the world of dreams. You find yourself in you old forge in fallen the Deep Elf capitol, shackled to the wall. Using all your skills you fire a key to your restraints. As you set yourself free a crowd roars from nowhere and you wake up on your cell floor. To your utter amazement Disaed is standing next to you.
"You owe me big time. Now rise! We have a show to watch."
You follow the hybrid and several of your other friends to a large arena built of slade; an unholy metal that no mortal could ever process. The arena floor is made out of a thick layer of clear glass. Below the glass the Slade walls extend downward twoards a slade floor crawling with undead. It dawns on you that the antmen have converted a vile curious structure of old into an arena!
Eventually you get over your excitement and fear as you settle into your seat to watch the show...
Dusk:
You spend several minutes counting and recounting the Orges, until you are reasonably sure that there are 8 of them. You then carefully climb down from your vantage point and bolt of madly in the direction of the fortress. You don't slow down until you are sure there is plenty distance between you and the monsters. Eventually you arrive at the safety of the fortress.
You plop down on the bed and begin to speak with Thraden. You inquire about poisoning the Ogres.
"Such beasts are indeed vulnerable to poison, however their bodies are built tough enough to outlast a slow acting toxin. You will have whip something up that will kill them quickly. May I suggest Giant Cave Spider vennom? I'm sure you can buy some of the goblins or harvest some yourself if you are feeling lucky."
Satisfied with the answer you begin to chop up some blood lichen into its component parts. Although you have no experience in the art of chemistry you complete the task quickly and flawlessly. You discard everything except the hallucinogenic Blood Lichen fungus.
-5 doses of blood lichen
+5 doses of blood lichen fungus
You have gained a level in the chemistry skill!
You snort some of the fungus down and quickly find yourself face to face with the dwarven spirit. When asked what he was trying to tell you before the drugs wore off he launches into a tirade of advice.
"I was just going to warn ya that the damn things are fast. You don't have much of a chance of hitting one with an arrow unless you can get it to hold still. You might want to use some meat or a friend as bait. Good luck, you'll need it!"
Still tripping you leave the spirit and help yourself to a late lunch of caveshark meat. You can hear and touch the flavor!
Disaed, Ochita, and Selande:
Your guide leads you out of the room and through a narrow and winding passage. Eventualy you are brought to another nearly identical small chamber with a table. You are each served a rock mug full of soup. Your guide explains that the cheif ingreediant is the bone marrow of the subterranean giant olm. Selande refuses to partake in the meal, fearing poison, so to avoid an incident Disaed hastily explains that she is suffering a digestive ailment and cannot eat.
After the meal you are lead into a wide chamber lit from above with bio-luminescent fungus. Antmen dash from booth to booth in what appears to be the underground equivalent of an open air market. The antman economy seems to be based around unfired native gold. They carve it into chips to use as currency, they use it to decorate their clothing and furniture, and of course they wear it as jewerly.
The market also sells various fungi and meat. One booth has three dead batmen laid out on a butchers slab.
The smaller worker Antmen seem almost completely unarmed. Their larger soldier counterparts however wield wooden spears to complement their massive mandibles.
Disaed quickly comes to the conclusion that the population of the mound must be rather large to support such a market. Selande begins to make mental notes of the layout should she ever have to return under less than friendly circumstances.
Eventualy the group is lead to the prision area to pick up Karratan before heading off to the arena. Ochita feels a wave of unholy energy as soon as he enters the large structure and share this finding with the group. Unphased Disaed asks the guide for seats as close to the arena floor as possible. The four elves sit down in the front row just as the fight gets underway...
Zrallin:
You wait in the chamber until an Antman arrives to prepare you for the upcoming battle. You are lead to a staging area where you are given a warm and filling drink and your sword is polished with a strange black substance. The antmen chatter all around you but you understand none of it. One of them attepts to lead you through a series of stretches and movement exercises. You follow along to the best of your ability.
When the time comes for battle you are lead into the arena. It is a strange room with gray walls and a glass floor. Their seems to be movement below your feet. Before you is your opponent; The ant queen Irthullothose. She stands about a head above you with mandibles the size of short blades. She wields an iron hammer.
You swallow the lump in your throat and charge! Your first blow strikes the humanoid insect in her uppermost left arm, cutting the limb open.
The queen responds by bringing her hammer around and smashing you hard in the torso. Your body is wracked with pain but you counter by lashing at the ant's uppermost right arm, leaving the limb hanging by a thread.
Irthullothose's next hammerswing sails high over your head, missing completely. You respond by leaping into the air and planting the edge of your blade into her forehead. For a brief second the crowd is silent and all is still. Then with a roar the queen dislodges the blade and throws you to the ground!
The queen swings her hammer high once more, missing again. You answer by leaping from the floor and delivering a flying kick to Irthullothose's already crippled uppermost right arm, detaching the limb and sending it flying into the crowd. Your foe stagger back stunned, giving you the opprotunity to strike again. You easily sever her other right arm with a quick swing of your blade, causing her hammer to drop to the ground.
The now crippled bug lets out a terrifying roar and swoops in, grabbing your head with her mandibles! Terrible pain sinks in as her jaws crush and slice your skull! Luckily for you the metal Ochita repaired you with holds under the strain, giving you time to bring your blade around one final time and decapitate your foe. Irthullothose's body falls to the ground before you. You dislodge her head from your face before passing out from the pain.
You have suffered a chipped skull, Again...
You have suffered some potential organ damage (Requires diagnosis)
Goreruby spends the turn cooking!
-14 servings of gator meat
-1 barrel of old rotten food (From the meat room)
+1 barrel of gator stew (14 servings)
It is now dusk. The next turn will cover 12 hours until dawn. The Ants offer an armed escort home to all elves visiting them, whenever they are ready to leave. They also promise to send Zrallins reward to the fortress once the new queen decides what it shall be. Don't forget to keep up with your sleep!
Also, because Dusk was the only Elf lucky enough to roll a skill increase this turn, and because nobody seems to have gotten any at all last turn, everybody may choose to raise a single skill that they used over the past two turns.
Author
Topic: Elfin Refugees - Rage Against the Dying of the Light (Read 30895 times)