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Copperheads: Betrayal and Strange Runes and Burning Dead, oh my (short update 02/12)
- Thread starter arwink
- Start date
arwink
Clockwork Golem
Geoffrey's statement proves to be mildly prophetic, as another two burning skeletons ambush the Copperheads within a few minutes of moving out. The first of the creatures disintegrates under the divine light of Geoffrey's holy symbol, the second proves a little tougher. Blades start to smoulder and warp as they are plunged into the burning form, but a combination of Blarth's sword, Yip's hastily readied club, and Geoffrey's mace makes short work of it. The only wounds suffered by the group are minor burns, all on their hands and arms where they have come to close to the burning creatures.
They delver further into the maze of tunnels and chambers, following footsteps in the soot-covered stone. Halgo carefully notes that wherever they go, the stone retains its melted-wax texture. Whatever burned through these tunnels was powerful, and did more damage than anything he can master.
From his scouting position on the rooftop, Yip suddenly stiffens and drops low.
"Voices," he hisses, and starts to slink forward.
The next chamber is filled with statues. None of them bear the snake-motif of the Sulrathi, so Yip quickly concludes that these likely make up the core of the mercenaries hired by the priest. He can still here the murmur of voices, coming from the far side of the chamber. He makes his way over quietly, making out a thin crevice in the wall. To thin for the basilisk, certainly, but probably large enough for a desperate human to squeeze through.
He perches on the shoulders of one of the statues, standing ready as the rest of the Copperheads bring up the rear. Geoffrey gives the kobold a questioning glance, then nods quietly when Yip touches an ear and points to the gap in the stone.
"This is Geoffrey Cromwell, Justicar of the Saint. Lay down your arms and you will be treated fairly."
The murmur on the far side of the stone ceases for a moment. Yip makes out the sound of weapons being pulled from sheaths.
"I am Sellanthiir, warrior of the Sulrathi people," an accented voice calls back. "We refuse to surrender to..."
Another voice cuts in, this one speaking with a broad Thiltian drawl.
"Is the beast dead?"
"You dare interrupt me?" the Sulrathi voice demands.
"It's dead." Halgo shouts.
"You will pay for this insolence," Sellanthiir hisses. "I will suffer no insolence. I will flay the very flesh..."
There is a series of sharp clinks, like a chain suddenly straitening. Sellanthiir's threat ends in a gurgle.
"Bring the body when you emerge," Geoffrey says. "It'll save you another trip back through."
Two mercenaries struggle through the crevice, doing their best to keep the body of a Sulrathi soldier moving. The body has a large gash where his through should be, and one of the mercenaries carries a metallic whip over one shoulder. As he pushes his way into the chamber, he shrugs the body to the ground.
"Sulrathi, never were good at knowing when to lay down a die," he says. the man is short, with the swarthy skin and dark hair of all Thiltians. He scratches at a silver hoop driven through his nose, and for a brief moment Amarin and Blarth both find themselves on a mental battleground shapes like a roiling ocean.
"Teppic," the Thiltian says. "This is Nashir. Pleasure to be your prisoner, and sorry about the mess I made of his nibs."
"You're taking this rather well," Amarin says.
Teppic shrugs.
"The choices are surrender to you and get out of here, or lie down and day in these caves," he explains. "Not much of a choice, really. Besides, the beastie took down a team of eleven men in the space of a few minutes, you took down the beastie. I know when I'm outclassed."
"Good," Halgo says. "You won’t mind doing what you're told then. Grab a chisel and start digging these statues free. We need them all placed by the door, ready to be moved out when the doors eventually open. And start with that one..."
Halgo points, and everyone’s eyes follow. In the corner of the cavern, Blarth is standing next to a statue. Every now and then he prods at its facial features, a disturbing likeness of his own.
"Hey," he says. "Does this look like Blarth?"
Everyone nods in mute agreement.
They delver further into the maze of tunnels and chambers, following footsteps in the soot-covered stone. Halgo carefully notes that wherever they go, the stone retains its melted-wax texture. Whatever burned through these tunnels was powerful, and did more damage than anything he can master.
From his scouting position on the rooftop, Yip suddenly stiffens and drops low.
"Voices," he hisses, and starts to slink forward.
The next chamber is filled with statues. None of them bear the snake-motif of the Sulrathi, so Yip quickly concludes that these likely make up the core of the mercenaries hired by the priest. He can still here the murmur of voices, coming from the far side of the chamber. He makes his way over quietly, making out a thin crevice in the wall. To thin for the basilisk, certainly, but probably large enough for a desperate human to squeeze through.
He perches on the shoulders of one of the statues, standing ready as the rest of the Copperheads bring up the rear. Geoffrey gives the kobold a questioning glance, then nods quietly when Yip touches an ear and points to the gap in the stone.
"This is Geoffrey Cromwell, Justicar of the Saint. Lay down your arms and you will be treated fairly."
The murmur on the far side of the stone ceases for a moment. Yip makes out the sound of weapons being pulled from sheaths.
"I am Sellanthiir, warrior of the Sulrathi people," an accented voice calls back. "We refuse to surrender to..."
Another voice cuts in, this one speaking with a broad Thiltian drawl.
"Is the beast dead?"
"You dare interrupt me?" the Sulrathi voice demands.
"It's dead." Halgo shouts.
"You will pay for this insolence," Sellanthiir hisses. "I will suffer no insolence. I will flay the very flesh..."
There is a series of sharp clinks, like a chain suddenly straitening. Sellanthiir's threat ends in a gurgle.
"Bring the body when you emerge," Geoffrey says. "It'll save you another trip back through."
Two mercenaries struggle through the crevice, doing their best to keep the body of a Sulrathi soldier moving. The body has a large gash where his through should be, and one of the mercenaries carries a metallic whip over one shoulder. As he pushes his way into the chamber, he shrugs the body to the ground.
"Sulrathi, never were good at knowing when to lay down a die," he says. the man is short, with the swarthy skin and dark hair of all Thiltians. He scratches at a silver hoop driven through his nose, and for a brief moment Amarin and Blarth both find themselves on a mental battleground shapes like a roiling ocean.
"Teppic," the Thiltian says. "This is Nashir. Pleasure to be your prisoner, and sorry about the mess I made of his nibs."
"You're taking this rather well," Amarin says.
Teppic shrugs.
"The choices are surrender to you and get out of here, or lie down and day in these caves," he explains. "Not much of a choice, really. Besides, the beastie took down a team of eleven men in the space of a few minutes, you took down the beastie. I know when I'm outclassed."
"Good," Halgo says. "You won’t mind doing what you're told then. Grab a chisel and start digging these statues free. We need them all placed by the door, ready to be moved out when the doors eventually open. And start with that one..."
Halgo points, and everyone’s eyes follow. In the corner of the cavern, Blarth is standing next to a statue. Every now and then he prods at its facial features, a disturbing likeness of his own.
"Hey," he says. "Does this look like Blarth?"
Everyone nods in mute agreement.
Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
Woo Hoo, we need PirateCat to come post here more often. 
It was followed by an update shortly thereafter.
GW
It was followed by an update shortly thereafter.GW
Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
arwink said:Actually, you just need people to keep bumping the storyhour out of obscurity right about the time my net connection gets repaired (after nearly five weeks of spotty access so far). Then the guilt of not-updating just gets to me
Gotcha, bump more often.
GW
arwink
Clockwork Golem
"It's uncanny," Geoffrey says. He taps the statue on the tip of its pug nose, as though expecting it to break. "It looks almost exactly like you."
The other Copperheads murmer their agreement, Halgo and Amarin quickly scanning the petrified mercenary for signs of magic or psionics. Apart from the obvious, there are none.
"'His name was Garuth," Teppic offers. "Not to bright, but very handy with that axe."
"Resemblence just got more scary," Yip mutters, shaking his head. Blarth cocks his head to one side, staring at the facial features.
"Do you have a brother?" Halgo asks. "Or cousins?"
Blarth shrugs.
"Blarth not know," he says. "Blarth father dissappear when Blarth puny. Mother already dead."
To everyone apart from Blarth, this seems to come up as a yes. Without the spells or ability to revert the statue to flesh, they decide to worry about the implications of its discovery later. It's chipped from the floor along with all the others, and escorted back to the entryway. After giving the living some instructions, and informing them that they would not be released until Geoffrey was good and ready, the group takes stock of the situation.
"Only one person still unacounted for," Geoffrey says, looking over the mass of statues, dead boddies and huddled mercenaries. "This necrotheologist."
"Teppic says there's nothing left of him except skin and dust," Amarin says. "If that. Whatever he tapped into in here, it didn't leave much behind."
"You think that matters to Durkannan?" Halgo asks. "We said we'd get all the bodies, dead or alive. And from the sounds of it, he's not the kind of guy whose remains you want laying in your sacred caves."
And so they return to the caves once more. There are no more mercenaries, but there are still wandering skeletons covered in blue flames. Most are destroyed by Geoffrey's prayer, one by Halgo's magic, and the last is pushed into a pool of boiling magma when it confronts the group on a narrow walkway. As they watch the skeletal hands clawing at the surface of the boiling liquid, it occurs to Halgo to wonder if the creature could survive the heat.
"Magma probably goes somewhere," he points out. "If the skeleton isn't dead, it can just walk through the ooze and free himself."
They wait a few moments, just in case. The burning skeleton doesn't emerge. Halgo shrugs.
"Better safe than sorry."
The other Copperheads murmer their agreement, Halgo and Amarin quickly scanning the petrified mercenary for signs of magic or psionics. Apart from the obvious, there are none.
"'His name was Garuth," Teppic offers. "Not to bright, but very handy with that axe."
"Resemblence just got more scary," Yip mutters, shaking his head. Blarth cocks his head to one side, staring at the facial features.
"Do you have a brother?" Halgo asks. "Or cousins?"
Blarth shrugs.
"Blarth not know," he says. "Blarth father dissappear when Blarth puny. Mother already dead."
To everyone apart from Blarth, this seems to come up as a yes. Without the spells or ability to revert the statue to flesh, they decide to worry about the implications of its discovery later. It's chipped from the floor along with all the others, and escorted back to the entryway. After giving the living some instructions, and informing them that they would not be released until Geoffrey was good and ready, the group takes stock of the situation.
"Only one person still unacounted for," Geoffrey says, looking over the mass of statues, dead boddies and huddled mercenaries. "This necrotheologist."
"Teppic says there's nothing left of him except skin and dust," Amarin says. "If that. Whatever he tapped into in here, it didn't leave much behind."
"You think that matters to Durkannan?" Halgo asks. "We said we'd get all the bodies, dead or alive. And from the sounds of it, he's not the kind of guy whose remains you want laying in your sacred caves."
And so they return to the caves once more. There are no more mercenaries, but there are still wandering skeletons covered in blue flames. Most are destroyed by Geoffrey's prayer, one by Halgo's magic, and the last is pushed into a pool of boiling magma when it confronts the group on a narrow walkway. As they watch the skeletal hands clawing at the surface of the boiling liquid, it occurs to Halgo to wonder if the creature could survive the heat.
"Magma probably goes somewhere," he points out. "If the skeleton isn't dead, it can just walk through the ooze and free himself."
They wait a few moments, just in case. The burning skeleton doesn't emerge. Halgo shrugs.
"Better safe than sorry."
arwink
Clockwork Golem
Not an update, but a request. If you've posted in support of the storyhour up to this point, could you drop me an e-mail: arwink(little @ symbol)themadship.dhs.org before the end of January. Include your screen name.
I promise your e-mail address wont be sold to Spam merchants (well, apart from me, and I promise to only send you cool stuff)
I promise your e-mail address wont be sold to Spam merchants (well, apart from me, and I promise to only send you cool stuff
)
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arwink
Clockwork Golem
There are more tunnels, moor soot, endless hours of darkness. Even the occasional attacks by the burning skeletons starts to die off as the Copperheads venture deeper into the winding labyrinth. Halgo’s experiences with caves are enough to keep them from getting lost, but the caves are so uniform that Amarin’s crystal starts cataloging the state of each individual chain link in Geoffrey and Blarth’s armor.
“Hey boss, check out the runes,” the crystal says. Amarin is so used to ignoring it that he almost misses it.
“What did you say?”
“The runes, boss,” the crystal repeats. “Around that passageway.”
Amarin looks around. The group is standing in an intersection, a tangled knot where melted passages have met and separated once more. Halgo and Geoffrey debate directions, looking at the Sulrathi map of the caves. Amarin can hear Halgo saying something about one of the caverns ahead being the likely destination, but they aren’t entirely sure which tunnel will lead there. Yip and Blarth are simply standing in wait, both leaning a soot-stained arm against the wall and cocking a lazy ear towards the tunnels in case something is hunting them.
Following the crystals directions, Amarin heads over to one of the smaller passages. It leads to the east, or so Halgo says, and likely away from the cave they’re searching for. No-one has paid it any attention, except for the psi-crystal. Amarin scans the wall for a few seconds before he sees it too, a circle of glowing runes around the portal leading in.
“Umm, guys?” Amarin says. He pulls a small brush free from his belt and starts clearing the soot. The runes burn with a sudden radiance once freed, filling the room with a crimson light.
Everyone is around Amarin in a flash, weapons drawn.
“What did you do?” Halgo demands. Geoffrey has moved beyond that, glaring at the entry way with a mad gleam in his eye. The fingers on his heavy mace flex menacingly, and he’s obviously expecting trouble.
“Look,” Amarin says, oblivious to the sudden tension. “Runes. Apparently there’s something down here.”
“You can read that?” Geoffrey says, eyeing the ugly script cautiously.
Amarin shrugs.
“It’s close to the trade tongue my family uses with its allies,” he says. “But older. Much, much older.”
“What does it say?”
“Something about this being a resting place,” Amarin explains. His long, thin fingers trace the runes as he reads. “Or a prison for someone called the Betrayer. It warns against us freeing him.”
“All those runes say that?” Geoffrey asks. The burning rounds surround the tunnel, easily eight feet wide.
“It’s hard to say, a lot of them have been damaged,” Amarin says. “And it is very, very archaic.”
Geoffrey looks to Halgo.
“Do we check it out?” he asks. Halgo strokes his short beard a few times, eyeing the runes cautiously. It’s not draconic script, which cuts the chances of them being a warding spell by half. Whatever is in there either needs to be moved, knows something about the caves, or is already dead.
“It could be new,” he points out slowly. “Something the necrotheoligist kept here that isn’t recorded on our map. If it is, we can’t really leave it. I just don’t think we want to disturb it if we don’t have too.”
“The crystal could do it,” Amarin says cheerfully. “It’s feeling much better after its rest.”
Geoffrey blinks a few times.
“Much…better…after…” he mutters, and then the crystal grows its spindly legs once more and leaps from the tip of Amarin’s staff. It bounces back and forth a few times in front of Geoffrey, giving the impression of a small puppy waiting for someone to throw it a stick.
“Okay, let it go,” Geoffrey says. “But tell it to be careful.”
The crystal is gone before Geoffrey has finished speaking.
“Don’t worry about it,” Amarin says. “It’s small enough that no-one will notice it. Once I left it inside a bat’s nest for three days, trying to work out why the slept upside-dow…”
His head and arms snap backwards suddenly, eyes rolling back in his skull. Glowing runes suddenly appear around his head, circling back and forth like dancing fireflies. Amarin lets out a high-pitched scream, and fire roars out of his eyes and mouth.
“BAHATH-ETU-SHELBATH-MATHU-NIKLU-TARVATH…” Amarin chants, his voice gradually becoming a guttural roar.
“Damn,” Halgo thinks, eyeing the runes that float over Amarin’s head. “Those are draconic.”
Then Amarin falls to the ground, limp and bleeding from his noise. From down the corridor a deep voice chuckles.
“FREEEEEEEE!”
“Hey boss, check out the runes,” the crystal says. Amarin is so used to ignoring it that he almost misses it.
“What did you say?”
“The runes, boss,” the crystal repeats. “Around that passageway.”
Amarin looks around. The group is standing in an intersection, a tangled knot where melted passages have met and separated once more. Halgo and Geoffrey debate directions, looking at the Sulrathi map of the caves. Amarin can hear Halgo saying something about one of the caverns ahead being the likely destination, but they aren’t entirely sure which tunnel will lead there. Yip and Blarth are simply standing in wait, both leaning a soot-stained arm against the wall and cocking a lazy ear towards the tunnels in case something is hunting them.
Following the crystals directions, Amarin heads over to one of the smaller passages. It leads to the east, or so Halgo says, and likely away from the cave they’re searching for. No-one has paid it any attention, except for the psi-crystal. Amarin scans the wall for a few seconds before he sees it too, a circle of glowing runes around the portal leading in.
“Umm, guys?” Amarin says. He pulls a small brush free from his belt and starts clearing the soot. The runes burn with a sudden radiance once freed, filling the room with a crimson light.
Everyone is around Amarin in a flash, weapons drawn.
“What did you do?” Halgo demands. Geoffrey has moved beyond that, glaring at the entry way with a mad gleam in his eye. The fingers on his heavy mace flex menacingly, and he’s obviously expecting trouble.
“Look,” Amarin says, oblivious to the sudden tension. “Runes. Apparently there’s something down here.”
“You can read that?” Geoffrey says, eyeing the ugly script cautiously.
Amarin shrugs.
“It’s close to the trade tongue my family uses with its allies,” he says. “But older. Much, much older.”
“What does it say?”
“Something about this being a resting place,” Amarin explains. His long, thin fingers trace the runes as he reads. “Or a prison for someone called the Betrayer. It warns against us freeing him.”
“All those runes say that?” Geoffrey asks. The burning rounds surround the tunnel, easily eight feet wide.
“It’s hard to say, a lot of them have been damaged,” Amarin says. “And it is very, very archaic.”
Geoffrey looks to Halgo.
“Do we check it out?” he asks. Halgo strokes his short beard a few times, eyeing the runes cautiously. It’s not draconic script, which cuts the chances of them being a warding spell by half. Whatever is in there either needs to be moved, knows something about the caves, or is already dead.
“It could be new,” he points out slowly. “Something the necrotheoligist kept here that isn’t recorded on our map. If it is, we can’t really leave it. I just don’t think we want to disturb it if we don’t have too.”
“The crystal could do it,” Amarin says cheerfully. “It’s feeling much better after its rest.”
Geoffrey blinks a few times.
“Much…better…after…” he mutters, and then the crystal grows its spindly legs once more and leaps from the tip of Amarin’s staff. It bounces back and forth a few times in front of Geoffrey, giving the impression of a small puppy waiting for someone to throw it a stick.
“Okay, let it go,” Geoffrey says. “But tell it to be careful.”
The crystal is gone before Geoffrey has finished speaking.
“Don’t worry about it,” Amarin says. “It’s small enough that no-one will notice it. Once I left it inside a bat’s nest for three days, trying to work out why the slept upside-dow…”
His head and arms snap backwards suddenly, eyes rolling back in his skull. Glowing runes suddenly appear around his head, circling back and forth like dancing fireflies. Amarin lets out a high-pitched scream, and fire roars out of his eyes and mouth.
“BAHATH-ETU-SHELBATH-MATHU-NIKLU-TARVATH…” Amarin chants, his voice gradually becoming a guttural roar.
“Damn,” Halgo thinks, eyeing the runes that float over Amarin’s head. “Those are draconic.”
Then Amarin falls to the ground, limp and bleeding from his noise. From down the corridor a deep voice chuckles.
“FREEEEEEEE!”
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