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(Cydra) The Final City
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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 7476231" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>The elevator begins to descend, but slowly, oh so slowly. Our heroes crouch to try to see what's in the chamber below as it comes into view.</p><p></p><p>Orcs! Orcs are in the chamber below!</p><p></p><p>The orcs are craning their necks to look at the elevator as it descends. As soon as they see that it is carrying what look like adventurers, they roar and begin hurling javelins upward at it. Some bounce off the bottom of the elevator and fall back to the floor. Flint yelps and ducks as another almost spears him in the head. </p><p></p><p>The ceiling is 20' high, and the elevator is very slow. Too slow; Drolc jumps off the side, plummeting to the floor, where he lands with a painful grunt and then swings his sword. An orc staggers back, blood spraying. </p><p></p><p>“Yeah!” roars Mad Max, and he leaps after his half-orc friend. Sarec, meanwhile, takes advantage of the reach of his halberd, and thrusts the spike down into one of the orcs's head.</p><p></p><p>The orcs are tough- significantly tougher than the kobolds that the party dispatched so easily above. Most of the orcs take more than a single glancing blow to defeat. But soon enough, the party does manage to take them down, though they suffer a series of wounds, with Benthum being almost decapitated by a stroke from an orcish greataxe. Prompt medical attention keeps him alive, but after Hungus heals him and he comes to, his morale is clearly very, very low.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Flint loots the bodies of the orcs. He finds a surprising amount of money on them- nearly thrity gold in assorted coins.</p><p></p><p>Dzedz eyes the guineas and marks in the mix with distaste.</p><p></p><p>There are two stone doors leading out of the chamber, plus the elevator itself. Hungus gestures at the lever. “We could go further down.”</p><p></p><p>“Yeah, but what's down there?” Dzedz shakes his head. “Whatever we find is probably going to be even more dangerous. We should wait until our power grows.”</p><p></p><p>The others agree to investigate one of the doors instead. It leads to a twisting hallway that shortly ends in another room, this one holding two orcs seated a table, arguing, attended by a handful of kobolds who are obviously slaves. </p><p></p><p>There is a sudden explosion of violence. Weapons clash. The kobolds do themselves credit by fighting for their masters, but they fall quickly. The orcs do better, delivering several terrific wounds before falling, but fall they do. </p><p></p><p>After the battle, neither Flint nor Hungus have any healing left. It's time to fall back. The party retreats to the elevator and ascends, then backtracks through the giant dark bazaar. </p><p></p><p>This time, as they are leaving, they are attacked. A giant spider the size of a young goat descends on them from above, undetected until it strikes. Benthum shrieks in terror. Great hairy fangs sink into Dzedz's shoulder, and he gasps, but fortunately, his dwarven heritage keeps him from feeling the worst of the venom. </p><p></p><p><em>Smack!</em> Hungus' maul smashes into the spider. It rolls away, regains its feet, scuttles toward them again. </p><p></p><p>“I don't think so.” <em>Fwoosh!</em> Dzedz's <em>flame bolt</em> strikes true, consuming the spider. </p><p></p><p>The party takes this attack to be a sign that retreating was, indeed, the right move. They continue to backtrack until they reach the breach into the dwarf-works, then pass through. The wan light of the lanterns in the garbage room ahead provides a strange sense of relief: they have made it!</p><p></p><p>“How'd it go?” asks one of the dwarves guarding the area. </p><p></p><p>“Not bad,” Dzedz answers. </p><p></p><p>The party starts to move through the chamber, but the dwarf snaps, “Hold it! Before you move any further out of the dungeon, you need to pay the fee. A gold per head.” Grumbling, the party pays up. Flint tries to give the dwarves a mark instead, but they laugh. “We don't take that city bullcrap. Real money only.” With a sniff, the halfling complies. </p><p></p><p>The party returns to the city, reaching the gates not long before dark. “Nice timing,” one of the soldiers stationed at the gatehouse remarks. “Another half hour, and you'd be stuck outside until morning.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Their next trip, rather than taking the elevator down, they explore the upper level of the dungeon. This leads them almost immediately into several encounters with stirges, which Dzedz is distressingly familiar with. “They're a common underground hazard,” he tells the others, his voice grim. “Think of them as like a cross between a mosquito and a bat, only they're the size of a cat. They're bloodsuckers and disease-carriers.”</p><p></p><p>They aren't the only vermin in the dungeon. More giant spiders- some with bodies almost as big as Dzedz's- roam the place, and our heroes have to deal with more than one of them. </p><p></p><p>And there are less physical dangers, too. After the group passes through a hall lined with broken mirrors, they find that they have fallen under a curse that gives them ill luck. Wineskins leak, ruining nice clothes. The heel of a boot snaps off. Armor straps come undone. Rivets somehow work themselves loose. A torch manages to singe Dzedz's beard. </p><p></p><p>None of them can do anything about it, but some time searching in town takes them to the Black Temple. </p><p></p><p>The Black Temple is an imposing structure near the center of the city, in the Bronze District, which was once strictly a business district, but has also become home to the city's upper crust since the Upper District was converted to rice fields during the Fall. Structurally, it is more like a small stronghold than a more typical temple. It is the center of the worship of Vandreu, the Townsaver, also called the Black Sword and Black Shield for his holy weapons. The Black Temple is also the home of one of the city's factions- the Black Avengers. Not all of them are followers of Vandreu, but most are. Many are even paladins.</p><p></p><p>There are a few priests at the temple. The lesser priests cluck their regrets, unable to help; but the high priest proves able to break the curse in return for three favors from the party.</p><p></p><p>The whole while, Benthum presses them to go after his wife. “Please,” he begs them. “She might not even still be alive! Please! Oh, Tabitha!”</p><p></p><p>“Sure, we'll get her,” Hungus reassures his semi-slave. “I heard a rumor she's in the megadungeon.”</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>The first favor that the party must do for the Black Avengers is to seek out and slay an owlbear that has been harassing the lumberers who have been going into the forest south and east of the city. It's dangerous work, especially given that it's fairly loud, but everyone knows that the city needs wood. Wood is easier and closer than building-quality stone, which is even more dangerous to try to quarry. But all that noise attracts predators. </p><p></p><p>“What's an owlbear?” asks Krud Johnson.</p><p></p><p>For this time, the party is not the same group that it was before. Indeed, Mad Max, Carl Hungus, Flint, and Dzedz are accompanied by a fellow named Krud Johnson, an acolyte of the temple. </p><p></p><p>Get used to this. This particular party of adventurers will establish some very unorthodox methods of group assembly before long. And this particular party will almost never actually be this particular party. </p><p>People will adventure with them, fall away, and return months or years later. The group will always remain unusually fluid.</p><p></p><p>“An owlbear,” says Dzedz, “is exactly what it sounds like. It's half owl and half bear.”</p><p></p><p>“They're very dangerous,” adds Hungus.</p><p></p><p>The group has another new member- Chewer, a foul-tempered mastiff that Mad Max selected for aggression. The warrior can barely restrain the dog on his chain.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>The party issues forth from the city's gates. The roadway descends to the plains in the south, while to their left, the river- now known as the Fandelose River- twists its way through thicker vegetation. The river is essentially the border between the plains and the forest to the east. </p><p></p><p>The party follows the road south for a time, then veers east to an old bridge. Though cracked in places, the bridge is still serviceable, and our heroes pass across it into the woods.</p><p></p><p>Before long they begin to see signs of the foresters' work: tree stumps, areas where logs have been de-barked and de-limbed, small firepits, and the like. Not long after that, they start to hear distant chopping and sawing sounds.</p><p></p><p>There are other noises, too- movement in the woods. This is just more foresters, but our heroes treat the sounds with the sort of enthusiastic recklessness that one might expect of fairly novice adventurers.</p><p></p><p>“Chewer!” Mad Max cries. “Kill!” And he releases his hound. </p><p></p><p>Chewer lunges through the foliage, barking wildly. An all-too-human scream sounds from the other side.</p><p></p><p>“Uh-oh,” says Krud. </p><p></p><p>The party fights through the brush, but they're too late to save the hapless forester. What's left of his face looks like ground meat. Chewer is hungrily chomping on the man's cheek, ripping away hunks of flesh. Two more foresters look on in horror.</p><p></p><p>“Chewer!” cries Mad Max. “Bad boy! Down, boy!”</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Next Time:</strong></em> Oops! Will our 'heroes' have any better luck with their owlbear hunt than eating the faces of the people they're supposed to protect? I guess we will see....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 7476231, member: 1210"] The elevator begins to descend, but slowly, oh so slowly. Our heroes crouch to try to see what's in the chamber below as it comes into view. Orcs! Orcs are in the chamber below! The orcs are craning their necks to look at the elevator as it descends. As soon as they see that it is carrying what look like adventurers, they roar and begin hurling javelins upward at it. Some bounce off the bottom of the elevator and fall back to the floor. Flint yelps and ducks as another almost spears him in the head. The ceiling is 20' high, and the elevator is very slow. Too slow; Drolc jumps off the side, plummeting to the floor, where he lands with a painful grunt and then swings his sword. An orc staggers back, blood spraying. “Yeah!” roars Mad Max, and he leaps after his half-orc friend. Sarec, meanwhile, takes advantage of the reach of his halberd, and thrusts the spike down into one of the orcs's head. The orcs are tough- significantly tougher than the kobolds that the party dispatched so easily above. Most of the orcs take more than a single glancing blow to defeat. But soon enough, the party does manage to take them down, though they suffer a series of wounds, with Benthum being almost decapitated by a stroke from an orcish greataxe. Prompt medical attention keeps him alive, but after Hungus heals him and he comes to, his morale is clearly very, very low. Meanwhile, Flint loots the bodies of the orcs. He finds a surprising amount of money on them- nearly thrity gold in assorted coins. Dzedz eyes the guineas and marks in the mix with distaste. There are two stone doors leading out of the chamber, plus the elevator itself. Hungus gestures at the lever. “We could go further down.” “Yeah, but what's down there?” Dzedz shakes his head. “Whatever we find is probably going to be even more dangerous. We should wait until our power grows.” The others agree to investigate one of the doors instead. It leads to a twisting hallway that shortly ends in another room, this one holding two orcs seated a table, arguing, attended by a handful of kobolds who are obviously slaves. There is a sudden explosion of violence. Weapons clash. The kobolds do themselves credit by fighting for their masters, but they fall quickly. The orcs do better, delivering several terrific wounds before falling, but fall they do. After the battle, neither Flint nor Hungus have any healing left. It's time to fall back. The party retreats to the elevator and ascends, then backtracks through the giant dark bazaar. This time, as they are leaving, they are attacked. A giant spider the size of a young goat descends on them from above, undetected until it strikes. Benthum shrieks in terror. Great hairy fangs sink into Dzedz's shoulder, and he gasps, but fortunately, his dwarven heritage keeps him from feeling the worst of the venom. [i]Smack![/i] Hungus' maul smashes into the spider. It rolls away, regains its feet, scuttles toward them again. “I don't think so.” [i]Fwoosh![/i] Dzedz's [i]flame bolt[/i] strikes true, consuming the spider. The party takes this attack to be a sign that retreating was, indeed, the right move. They continue to backtrack until they reach the breach into the dwarf-works, then pass through. The wan light of the lanterns in the garbage room ahead provides a strange sense of relief: they have made it! “How'd it go?” asks one of the dwarves guarding the area. “Not bad,” Dzedz answers. The party starts to move through the chamber, but the dwarf snaps, “Hold it! Before you move any further out of the dungeon, you need to pay the fee. A gold per head.” Grumbling, the party pays up. Flint tries to give the dwarves a mark instead, but they laugh. “We don't take that city bullcrap. Real money only.” With a sniff, the halfling complies. The party returns to the city, reaching the gates not long before dark. “Nice timing,” one of the soldiers stationed at the gatehouse remarks. “Another half hour, and you'd be stuck outside until morning.” *** Their next trip, rather than taking the elevator down, they explore the upper level of the dungeon. This leads them almost immediately into several encounters with stirges, which Dzedz is distressingly familiar with. “They're a common underground hazard,” he tells the others, his voice grim. “Think of them as like a cross between a mosquito and a bat, only they're the size of a cat. They're bloodsuckers and disease-carriers.” They aren't the only vermin in the dungeon. More giant spiders- some with bodies almost as big as Dzedz's- roam the place, and our heroes have to deal with more than one of them. And there are less physical dangers, too. After the group passes through a hall lined with broken mirrors, they find that they have fallen under a curse that gives them ill luck. Wineskins leak, ruining nice clothes. The heel of a boot snaps off. Armor straps come undone. Rivets somehow work themselves loose. A torch manages to singe Dzedz's beard. None of them can do anything about it, but some time searching in town takes them to the Black Temple. The Black Temple is an imposing structure near the center of the city, in the Bronze District, which was once strictly a business district, but has also become home to the city's upper crust since the Upper District was converted to rice fields during the Fall. Structurally, it is more like a small stronghold than a more typical temple. It is the center of the worship of Vandreu, the Townsaver, also called the Black Sword and Black Shield for his holy weapons. The Black Temple is also the home of one of the city's factions- the Black Avengers. Not all of them are followers of Vandreu, but most are. Many are even paladins. There are a few priests at the temple. The lesser priests cluck their regrets, unable to help; but the high priest proves able to break the curse in return for three favors from the party. The whole while, Benthum presses them to go after his wife. “Please,” he begs them. “She might not even still be alive! Please! Oh, Tabitha!” “Sure, we'll get her,” Hungus reassures his semi-slave. “I heard a rumor she's in the megadungeon.” *** The first favor that the party must do for the Black Avengers is to seek out and slay an owlbear that has been harassing the lumberers who have been going into the forest south and east of the city. It's dangerous work, especially given that it's fairly loud, but everyone knows that the city needs wood. Wood is easier and closer than building-quality stone, which is even more dangerous to try to quarry. But all that noise attracts predators. “What's an owlbear?” asks Krud Johnson. For this time, the party is not the same group that it was before. Indeed, Mad Max, Carl Hungus, Flint, and Dzedz are accompanied by a fellow named Krud Johnson, an acolyte of the temple. Get used to this. This particular party of adventurers will establish some very unorthodox methods of group assembly before long. And this particular party will almost never actually be this particular party. People will adventure with them, fall away, and return months or years later. The group will always remain unusually fluid. “An owlbear,” says Dzedz, “is exactly what it sounds like. It's half owl and half bear.” “They're very dangerous,” adds Hungus. The group has another new member- Chewer, a foul-tempered mastiff that Mad Max selected for aggression. The warrior can barely restrain the dog on his chain. *** The party issues forth from the city's gates. The roadway descends to the plains in the south, while to their left, the river- now known as the Fandelose River- twists its way through thicker vegetation. The river is essentially the border between the plains and the forest to the east. The party follows the road south for a time, then veers east to an old bridge. Though cracked in places, the bridge is still serviceable, and our heroes pass across it into the woods. Before long they begin to see signs of the foresters' work: tree stumps, areas where logs have been de-barked and de-limbed, small firepits, and the like. Not long after that, they start to hear distant chopping and sawing sounds. There are other noises, too- movement in the woods. This is just more foresters, but our heroes treat the sounds with the sort of enthusiastic recklessness that one might expect of fairly novice adventurers. “Chewer!” Mad Max cries. “Kill!” And he releases his hound. Chewer lunges through the foliage, barking wildly. An all-too-human scream sounds from the other side. “Uh-oh,” says Krud. The party fights through the brush, but they're too late to save the hapless forester. What's left of his face looks like ground meat. Chewer is hungrily chomping on the man's cheek, ripping away hunks of flesh. Two more foresters look on in horror. “Chewer!” cries Mad Max. “Bad boy! Down, boy!” [i][b]Next Time:[/b][/i][b][/b] Oops! Will our 'heroes' have any better luck with their owlbear hunt than eating the faces of the people they're supposed to protect? I guess we will see.... [/QUOTE]
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