In The Pass

[Kyle Aarons]

The pass is silent save for some sounds comming through holes in the rocks. YOu have two of the boys with you. Barret and Vorador took the others though the pass under the cover of a magical fog cloud and are no where to be seen. Dead litter the ground and the fighting has chased off all wildlif, so you are in the pass at dark. The next moves are all yours!

[Zergrinch]

The battle is over, and the boys and Elan'fal, together with Zemzelett's support, manage to take the figure down in one volley.  

 

The half-elf sighs with relief as all the stress drains out of his system.  He realizes that he has been holding it in for a while now, and decides to finally let it go.  Excusing himself, he strides off and pees down one of the small holes in the rock.  

 

As he unzips his trousers and looses his stream, an unmistakeable waft of something foul being cooked reached his nostrils from the hole.  But it was too late to do anything.  The Half-Elf sings contentedly as he empties his bladder into the hole.

 

Pee into hole.  

Heal using all available hit die.

Song of Rest for the Entire Party: Everyone regains an extra 1d6 hit points.

Requesting for Zemzelett's current and total HP count

[D'Narenth]

"Abram," D'Narenth sighs, "If this is your bounty, I hope it was dead or alive. If not, then we are nowhere near the answer as to who she is, or what she was doing here."

 

D'Narenth looks around, as the sounds of fighting have ceased. "Whatever... there was was a chest of some sort, back by the Kolbalds that first attacked me. I think I will go and see what it contained. Perhaps it will have something useful." He gives the dead elf-girl a final look before he turns around and heads back to the shallow cave. After only a couple of steps, D'Narenth calls back to Abram, "Will you come with me, or is this your bounty to plunder?"

[Jeikor]

Innil finds Eghas and Quelton with a trussed up gnoll and not in need of help. Further he sees the dragonborn and human standing over a prone figure and decides to join them. Innil motions for Elan'fal to join him. When he reaches the prone figure Innil gasps as he looks down on a dead female elf ranger that seems familiar. Has he seen her before or was it from a description?

"Elan'fal, come look! Do you recognize her?" Innil asks in a pained voice.

[Guest]

Abram looks over his shoulder at D'narenth. "This is not my bounty I am looking for a Male. But Dragonborn I am extremely curious as to why a female Elf Ranger was shooting at us. This doesnt make any sense". Abram stands up and looks around and trys to recount the battle in his head. As he thinks about it he stops. "D'narenth did anyone see the Elf actually fire at us? I dont remember seeing  anything shoot from this direction. Shit this is bad."

 

Abram looks up at  the elves in the group.They are not going to be happy about this.

[Eghas]

Eghas stands up, looks at the dead Gnoll with the crossbow bolt sticking out of his back.  then to the dead elf still clutching a long bow... then looks back to the dead Gnoll, then back to the dead elf.  then looks around.  "You realize that you guys killed the wrong creature.... right?"

 

He pauses for a second, before he grabs his own bow, and knocks an arrow.  "Which means there is still some fucker out there with a heavy crossbow..."

[Rilbur]

Quelten reviews the gathered group and then frowns.

 

"Where is Barret and Vorador?  Where are the kids we are supposed to be protecting?" he demands angrily.

[Guest]

Abram begins searching the corpse for clues as to what is going on here. "Dragonborn, I am Abram, I don't know anything about your friends but can you find a way to keep them back while I investigate this"

[Eghas]

"Everyone spread out, make sure that fucker ain't still around!  one hit form the crossbow could drop any of us!"

[Kyle Aarons]

Innil and Elan'fal, you take a close look at the elf who died looking at the arrow sticking outo fo her chest by the looks of things. She has some resmebelances to a wood elf you were told about, but this one is too young... you are guessing she can't be more then a few years into her adult years, However... you see a patch over the left brest which is the same as the patch of Zem's acting troupe... as a matter of fact this young wood elf woman has many of the features of Zem right down to the nose and eye color...

 

Elan'fal, you also notice she has a magical bracelett and her long sword is magical as well since you still have the spell up for another few seconds. She also has a satchel like pouch under her cloak with a book in it. finally, you also notice a bone scroll case tucked into the folds on the left side her cloak.

 

Reld moves down to help the two boys with you climb up so you can all eb more or less together. He alos offers a hand to Zem if he wants one. The very fact the boy seems to be having little to no problem climbing with heavy armor is a bit annoying to those who seem to be having problems climbing.

[Quelten]

"Sir," Quelten snaps out in response to Eghas' order, annoyed at the clearly skewed priority of it.  Yes, securing the perimeter was useful and important, but the kids were the damned mission.  Where were they?

[Kyle Aarons]

**** GM Note ****

Keep in mind the Common langages now have names:

 

Common of Old Port and surrounding lands: Sor'teth

Common of new lands: Antargeth

 

I will be saying what langauge others (NPCs) are speaking in since there is now a language barrier Vorador and Reld will pretty much stick to speaking Sor'teth unless Vorador is spaking to D'Narenth. The same goes for the rescued kids. They almost always speak Sor'teth, but all of them know other languages. But unelss I say otherwise, the kids will speak in Sor'teth.

 

**** End GM Note ****

Melirel gets up with very little help and looks around. "She has to be bad! She shot Elan'fal with a spell."

 

Reld shakes his head, "Not till he pegged her with a magic fire dart thing. She was just runnin' away!"

[D'Narenth]

Stopped in his tracks by what Abram says, he whirls around and says (in Draconic) to Elan'fal, "Abram here is an investigator. He would like to search the apparent victim for anything that might tells us what an Elf-girl Ranger is doing here. He can not do that, with all of us crowding him.

 

"It also appears that this is not the one shooting the crossbow. It... They must still be out there! I suggest we form a watch, while Abram works his skill"

[Zergrinch]

The battlefield is littered with the dead, most of whom were sent crashing down the rocks by the half-elf's more violent companions.  Feeling sorry for them, Zemzelett declines Reld's proferred hand, and busies himself dragging the dead and broken bodies that were strewn around the paths into a large pile.  Sure, they were hostile creatures, but the bard felt they deserved some kind of burial.

 

After the bodies are stripped for loot, of course.

 

There was another one that Luth, Melirel and Elan'fal helped to drop, but it looks like the human wanted to investigate the corpse first, so Zemzelett doesn't bother with that.

 

Gather the dead gnolls, kobalds, dogs, and goblings in a nice pile, and take inventory of the items (including any belonging to the bound and gagged spellcaster).

Dig a mass grave.

[A.B]

Elan'fal walks to the dead person and looks at her.

 

Then he looks at Innil... "Innil...oh by the divines...she looks a whole lot younger than she should be but I think it is Zem's mother....looks terribly much like him...but how can she look this young, from his very brief description she should look way older...." He tells Innil in their common tongue. He speaks in as a low voice as he can.

 

"What do we do? When are we? Are we in the past? So if we are in the past and she's dead...what does that mean for Zem? Does he stop existing? Should we tell him? If not what if he finds out later? He'll never trust any of us ever again, at least now we could not have POSSIBLY known that his mum would be here and not try to talk to any of us or recognise him or something...I mean why run? Why not talk to me at least? She could clearly see that I am an elf..."

 

Then he looks at her again and kneels down. He gathers the bracelet, sword and pouch and examines them closely using what's left of his detect magic spell as well as his elven perception.

 

Move: To Innil and dead elf woman.

Perception check: What are the bracelet, sword and in pouch?, any and all details that can be attained by detect magic and careful study of them.

[Guest]

Abram looks at the elf near the body and when he reaches out to start touching things Abram says in elvish. "Stop touch nothing. Let me finish my investigation please. All of you can do as you please after that."

[Jeikor]

"Peace, stranger! We are conducting our own investigation and this elf may be kin to one in our party." Innil answers in elvish. To Elan'fal, "I do not know what to do. I don't want to lie to Zemzelett but he is not going to take this well if are correct. As for this being the past, we were transported many miles so why not through time as well. This is really not good. What can we do?"

Innil continues to watch Elan'fal but keeps his ears tuned to what is happening around them.

[D'Narenth]

While still keeping watch, D'Narenth looks briefly at the scene. "Abram, I don't know where these other folk are from. They appeared in the wicked park and have talked of coming from a place called, 'Old Port', well, at least that is where they want to get back to.

 

"From the way they are reacting, it would seem that they know this Elf-girl. Mysterious it is, since only they were in the park, and not this girl. I know this, because there were only their own tracks, and no others. So it is a mystery to me how they could be familiar with this dead being. That they are from some other land is rather obvious, as they do not speak common.

 

"Abram, you have told me that you seek a bounty. A male. Yet, here we are, in the midst of an intrigue. Are these a danger to our lands? Would you help me to find out?

 

"The elders of my clan, sent me to investigate the current goings on within the accursed park. While taking these strangers to the village of the Dwarves, we find that this passage seems to be a stronghold of the enemy. Judging by the numbers, it has been here for quite some time. So why do they attack wayfarers now? If they are that entrenched, this far south of Gest, it bodes ill for the entire region. Including yours."

 

D'Narenth then notices what the littlest elf is doing. His ridge-crest wrinkles a bit. "You there! Little Elf! I claim Battle Rights to those Kolbalds!" He yells at Zemzelett in draconic.

[Quelten]

Quelten ignores the squabbling as he focuses on the threat of the crossbowman.  "Eghas, I'm going to go examine where the shot came from," he informs his leader before climbing to the relevant area.

 

With the benefit of a light spell to improve his vision, he closely examines the area.

 

{{ Move to where the crossbow was fired from, cast light, and scour the area for anything of relevance -- tracks, discarded weapons, signs of escape routes either up or down, etc etc.  Re-cast light as needed to keep it going. }}

[Kyle Aarons]

Abram, you can't help but note the female elf is not wearing the greatest looking clothing and some of the gear she is waering was not made to fit her properly. Her dress is too short, here boots a bit too big for her feet, her cloak too big and looks like it was made for a male, not a female, and has a slash with dried blood on the back. The bone scroll case has blood on it but is not close to any of the injuries and happens to be very dried blood. The pouch is of crudly made leather of an unknown animal and has a book in it. The cover is marked with a tiger slashing its claws down a wierly shaped tree. On the other hand her weapons are most assuradly hers or at least adjusted for her. Her bow is elvish made and superiour quality and the hilt of the long sword has the head of an egale with the eyes of amber. The amber does give off a slight glow. The barcelet is engraved with a wolf holwing at a thin slice of a moon. The moon is made of Moonstone and the wolves eyes of sodalite.

 

Quelton, you move out to the area bathed in farie fire and find cut ropes lying on the ground and a pair of heavy corssbow bolts stck into the ground for easy retreival, but since you are not skilled in survival the few prints in the groud up here don't make enough sense to you to even think of trying to track.

 

as you al gatehr your wits about you after the figut you realize the sounds comming out of the carcks into the deeper cave has diminished to the point where you can no longer hear them at all. a coupel of the cracks in the rocks still give off the smells of wood smke and nasty smelling cooking meat.

[Kyle Aarons]

*** GM NOTES TO CHARACTERS ***

All of you know one or more of these years

 

and it doesn't matter what common you speak

 

these are the current years by race

 

Elvin year 2337 SRA (Succeeding Raren Aethel) - Years since the great temple to the spirit which created all Elves was destroyed by a Orakin army

Dwarven year 1654 FSFM (First Stone Faldir Mun) - years since the first stone was laid at the ancient Dwarven fortress Faldir Mun

Human year 845 IS  (Individual Sovereignty) - years since the first human controlled kingdom was established

Dragon Year 3879 PES (Post Earth Shatter) - Years since the dragon council was dissolved and civil wars broke out between the various dragon kin by scale color

 

You are also entering the cycle of the moon leading up to the Seeding Moon. The moon that normally is celebrated by followers of Veldora as a time to plant crops in the northern part of the world (which is where about 80% of the civilized world is in. The southern lands are widly known as the Lands of Drack- a twisted evil lands where the former gods fought and lost to the current gods in a final battle that left many twisted and horrible monsters.

 

Zem could tell you this with bardic knowledge, but most of you all heard tales of the Drack and the creatures that come from there. Parents use the Dracken (creatures that come from the Lands of Drack) to scare children into not doing bad things saying the Drack will want you if you keep behaving this way. Also calling someone a Dracken is about as big an insult as it gets and as a child is a sure fire way to get your backside well tanned and mouth washed with soap.

 

**** END GM NOTES TO CHARACTERS ****

[Quelten]

"Eghas!" Quelten bellows, "how certain are we that that woman was actually carrying her own gear?  I think she may have-"  Quelten finds his voice catching as the thought fills him with horror.  "There are some cut ropes up here, like a prisoner might have escaped.  Along with two heavy crossbow bolts, set out ready to fire.  I need someone who can read tracks up here, fast!  Oh, and make sure someone remembers to translate that little detail for our new 'friends', it's rather rude to forget not everyone shares a common tongue people!"

[Jeikor]

Innil suddenly jerks his eyes from watching Elan'fal and the dead elf. He can no longer hear the sounds from the holes in the rocks.

"Guys! There are no more sounds from the rocks. I heard those same sounds down one of the passages of the cave I went in. There are hobgoblins maybe more in there and there were sounds of anguish so probably captives. Now I can't hear them. They are either headed out or went to sleep. Should we check it out?" Innil announces in common.

[A.B]

"I am going to be sick...and I will flay whoever is behind this....ALIVE. That smell...they are...if I am correct they are cooking humans or Elves down there.... but I could be wrong, very wrong, it has been known to happen...every ce....so often. She has cuts and bruises like someone, a predator attacked her while restrained. And these magical items...they make little sense....as of yet." Elan'fal turns white from rage, his voice breaking up but not yet yelling.

 

"If there are captives alive down there we'd be doing them a favour if we kill them...fast. I vote we somehow close the vents and either smoke them out or choke them to death with their own fumes, but either way...they die!"

 

He says this to Elvish, dragontongue and their common.

 

He pockets the items to show them to everyone else later and grabs his short stuff with a look of murder.

[Quelten]

Quelten only catches part of the conversation, but it's enough to bring him charging back, giving Elan'fal a dirty look.  "We're tired, injured, and half our party has just up and vanished," he points out testily.  "The half, I'd like to point out, that is less combat capable and needs our protection.  We have no intelligence on what's hiding here, and only limited information on what is ahead of us.  We need to reunite our party, establish a base of operations, and gather intelligence before we start charging off to be heroes.  And the very last thing we need to do is convince an unknown number of enemies to come out and play, either by choking them up or charging in without thinking.  We can't rescue anyone if we're dead."

 

"Mission, men, me.  We have to keep an eye on the kids, who have -- I would like to remind you -- continued on without sufficient support.  I don't know what possessed Barrett to lead them off like that, but I can only suppose at the depths of stupidity or treachery it implies.  Everything else is secondary to that goal.  Our survival, however, is a pretty strong secondary, and it's in doubt if we don't get it together and think.  If you really insist on dealing with this situation first, at least take a small breather either before or while someone does some scouting."

 

"Innil," Quelten turns, his annoyance slightly spent, "you said you went into a cave.  Did you see or hear anything of use?  Any sign of their defenses, numbers, anything?"

 

Quelten catches himself.  "Wait, don't answer just yet.  First, translate my concerns to our allies, and ask them if they have any useful intelligence.  Including how much further away the dwarven village is.  If they're close enough, it might make sense to talk to them first.  They may know more than we do, or may support our mission out of self-preservation."