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Scarred Lands: None Dare Call Them Heroes (updated 12/07/03)
- Thread starter jonrog1
- Start date
Elph
First Post
Welverin said:
Ah! I see you've played "insides on the outsides." Not a fun game, to be sure. Bit more difficult to use that two handed sword when one arm is elbow deep in your own guts.
Without looking up, Indigo shouts to Alec who has won a place with her by chronicling her life story. "Get out your pen and paper, little man. It just.... got.... interesting."
Welverin
First Post
Elph said:
Luckily I can say no I have not. I was thinking of someone else who was in a similar situation, minus the two handed sword however, which as you pointed out, rather complicates matters.
ForceflowX
First Post
Live, story hour, live!
*Bump-kick*
*Bump-kick*
CH. 9: "In which our heroes discover the inmates are not only running the asylum, they got their hands on a tactical nuke."
Indigo tried to rise, but her knee kept going out from under her. Her intestines would not ... go ... in ... The room spun, fell away into grey --
Like all battlefield deaths the moment was small, almost lost the raging chaos. Argent ducked, an Charduni axe SMASHING stone chips from a pillar. Taggart and Kirby were locked in a deadly dance with four Charduni soldiers,alternately dodging and flanking them. Alec ignored a javelin whizzing by his ear, let loose his bow. Across the fog-filled temple cavern one of the onyx dwarves fell from the shaft.
The Charduni Captain took his time. He crossed, spinning his longsword loosely in his hand. His pitted teeth flashed. Muscles bunching, he lifted three feet of sharpened steel over his head and swung for Indigo's skull.
KLANK. The Charduni stumbled. Where the hell --
The human woman was somehow moving. It was impossible. No one could stay conscious through that pain.
Alec caught Indigo stagger-stepping past. "Song-boy, I need some help!"
Alec calmly spun away as another two javelins smashed against the spot where he'd been a blink earlier. He calmly under-handed a healing potion through the air to Indigo, drew another arrow and released it, still moving. Indigo spotted the Captain closing on her. Leaning on her sword, she thumbed the top from the potion, drunk it -- and SCREAMED. Hot needles ripped through her torso as flesh melted, reformed. Every nerve was on fire. She almost spun out from nausea as arcane strings pulled her guts back into place.
She got her sword up just in time, BLOCKING the Captain's blow. Sparks flew. Indigo stumbled backward. She tried to bring her sword back up. The potion had saved her life, but she was just too slow ---
As if she were onstage and her play were ending, two curtains of fabric swung in front of her. Leather and velvet. Taggart extended one arm out with his punchblade. Kirby raised his rapier to a polite en guarde. Taggart looked over his shoulder, grinned. "Seeing as you're inconvenienced, mind dealing with the ranged weapon fellows?"
Indigo spun on the suddenly exposed, suddenly panicked javelin throwers. She decided they'd be an excellent way to take out her frustration. As bits of Charduni flew, the Captain whirled between Taggart and Kirby. "I am NOT going to die at the hands of human fops! I am -- URKKK."
He looked down. Taggart had distracted him. An expertly placed rapier passed through his spine and clean out his chest. The last thing the Charduni heard before rushing to meet his savage god was Kirby, sighing. "I'm not a fop. I'm a dandy."
******************************
Indigo sat slumped against one of the pillars. The fog filling the room still burned, but that really was the least of her problems. Argent, eyes closed, lay his hands over her ragged wounds. The scars disappeared, at least. Her color went from blue to sickly grey. "I'll do some more with my herbs."
"Fine, fine," Indigo waved at him. "Three years of war, not a scratch. One week of helping people, I nearly die. If I believed in signs, this would be one."
Across the room Kirby and Alec studied three doors on the back wall. Kirby sniffed. "The center one, Blood back there. Taggart --" He turned. Taggart was busy sawing off the Charduni Captain's head. Then, once the head was severed, he ... violated it. Kirby gave a minute head shake to Alec's raised eyebrow. "We were slaves in Termana for a few years. Taggart holds a grudge."
Finished with kicking the Charduni Captain's head around, Taggart strolled up. "Middle door?" They opened it. Immediately, they stepped back. The ozone stench of blood was incredible. This was a supply closet the Charduni had turned into an ad hoc torture chamber. Several executed porters were sprawled on the floor. One corpse, flayed of all skin, hung from chains. The expression on what was left of the poor devil's face made it plain that he'd been alive for most of it. Taggart reached into a puddle of blood in the floor. He raised a silver signet ring. "One of the Hucrele boys."
Argent stepped into the room. He threw a look to Taggart. With a guilty sigh, his brother helped him unchain the body. Argent lay it on the floor. He closed his eyes, began praying.
"Dammit. No happy endings in the Scarred Lands." Kirby slung open the far right door. This circular chamber had plainly been a priest's chamber, converted to the Captain's war room. A the back of the room was a boarded-up set of stairs leading deeper into the red rock crypts.
Alec looked up. Sunlight shone in from a natural skylight high above. The room glowed with weird red light. He crossed to a travelling desk. Reams of paper hacked with the thick hash marks of dwarven writing lay scattered across maps. "Give me some time with these. Battle orders. These lads were hot off the Blood War, looks like ..." the bard scanned one of the documents, " ... they were a strike team. I believe we killed them all."
Taggart and Kirby left Alec to study the Charduni documents. When they crossed to the last door, some BANGING inside put them on edge. Kirby chuckled grimly. "This'll be the cult's 'dragon.' Any bets?"
"The one they say men in black robes gave them?" Indigo limped up. "I say its a kobold, partnered with Meepo."
Taggart tossed a gold coin to Kirby. "A baby one of those false dragons the Lageni stormtroopers ride."
"I'm sticking with polymorphed dog." Kirby slid open the door. Within the small room was a series of chains padlocked to rings drivin into the rock. The chains all led to a single black figure HOWLING and SQUAWKING, yanking on the chains for all it was worth. It glared at them with jeweled eyes. Its small black reflective wings lifted it, struggling against the weight. The adventurers stared at it in silence for a full minute.
Alec strolled up, his nose buried in the dwarven papers. "They traded the paladin and the other Hucrele boy to the Old Man who lives beyond the catacombs. Got some magic and healing out of it. Oh, and how many soldiers did we kill?"
Without taking his eyes of the creature in the room, Taggart whispered "Fourteen."
"Okay, so that's a squad, right?"
"Right."
"How many soldiers in a company?"
"A hundred."
"Ah. See, this is the word for 'company'. This advance squad was meant to find a strongpoint, to establish a new Charduni base in the Blood Steppes. Taking advantage of the chaos of the war. We've got a hundred Charduni riding down on us and the village of Oakhurst." Alec looked from Kirby to Taggart to Indigo. "Hey. HEY. A hundred battle-hardened --" He finally looked in the room, where they were all staring. He dropped the papers.
"Who the hell gave those morons a real dragon?"
**************************************************
They alternated between screams and giggles. The baby black dragon was plainly not happy to be back in the clutches of the cult, and showered them with weak spurts of acid. Rather than being warned off, the humans would run into the mist, SCREAM as the acid bubbled away some of their skin, then GIGGLE in religious ecstasy. From her throne newly restored in a corner of the main room, Yusadryl glared at the party. She was genuinely pleased her people were once again in the presence of their god's avatar, but it was because of --
"Meepo make nice with strangers! Strangers serve Meepo, rescue dragon!" Meepo puffed up his tiny chest as cultists cheered.
Argent leaned over to Taggart. "I'd really prefer he couldn't take advantage of this."
"They have free will, brother. Can't go converting every lost soul." Taggart looked into the priest's room. Indigo pried the last board away from the staircase down. "Meepo, come here."
Meepo skipped over. "How can Meepo help favorite slaves?"
Kirby was about to retort, let it slide. Alec tossed a torch into the blackness of the doorway. It bounced down a set of stone spiral stairs, then disappeared. "Your brothers in the black robes gave you the dragon as a sign of respect, so they could pass down here?"
"Yes, all humans pay obeis ... obey ... do what Meepo say." Meepo frowned, eyelids lowering over his golden irises. "Black robes come out with books. Down there, study and tomb of priest of dragon worship from many times ago."
"How long ago?"
"Before Meepo." Meepo nodded thougfully, as if this were the calendar system the entire planet used. "Past that, is opening to little canyon. No other way in or out, unless you fly, and canyon walls very high. Old Man live there."
A soft glow filled the room. Indigo opened a small sack and took out a half-dozen small WOODEN BALLS, no bigger than her thumb. Each flared with a cold flame. "Here, a trick from a dead man I knew once." She pushed the continual flame ball under a strap on her shoulder. Now she had light, and her hands were free. Each of the others took one, some placing them in their pockets, some wrapping them up. "Now, let's go get this apple to save Godwyn's life, and get out of here."
Argent probed the darkness with his spear -- as incredibly unsubtle as it was, he'd cast continual light on the end of his bladed end of his weapon. It was a loving tribute to Madriel. Out in the battlefield it hadn't been a problem. But as far as skulking through tunnels, well, it was not skulk-friendly. "And don't forget the adventurers from Oakhurst."
"I was going to say 'of course', but we both know that's a lie." Indigo hoisted her Oathblade. With Taggart scanning the stairs for traps, they spun down into the dark.
*****************************
The stairs led down a full sixty feet into the soild rock. Finally, they emerged in an arched room. It was small enough that their lights completly exposed the walls. It was a library. Bookshelves crammed with ancient volumes filled each wall. Taggart whistled. "Yes," Alec answered, "some impressive lore down here."
"No, I was thinking resale value." Taggart stopped by the far wall. "Um, think one of the black-robes had a little accident."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because there's half a naked guy here." The others came to his side. Indeed, the top half of a rather academic-looking young man was splayed against one wall. "They stripped him, removed the lower half of his jaw to keep us from necrocasting on the corpse. Nice. Thorough."
At a loss with what to do with this non-evidence, the group searched the room. Taggart found a narrow crack in the back wall, from which fresh air blew. It looked like an earthquake in ancient times had opened this sealed chamber to a fissure, and that fissure led outside. Alec noted that the bookshelves had been meticulously catalogued -- and so it was easy to spot certain categories of books had been recently removed. Indigo squinted at a rune-covered door. Yes, yes, she should wait for the sneaky one to check it, but ... impatient, she opened it.
WHAM.
It was a troll.
It was also undead.
It had hit her with a human leg.
It was amazing how much Indigo noticed, upside-down, in mid-air. The noticing stopped when she hit the wall.
Argent raised his spear. "Blessing of Madriel, light of her heart, drive back this unholy abomination, I COMMAND YOU YIELD!" Energy CRACKLED between Argent and the ten-foot high rubbery beast. A pale, vertical DISK of RUNES flared into visibility. Suddenly, the runes fluttered away, Argent's divine power dissolving beneath the wave of pure evil radiating off the creature. Next thing he knew, he too was tumbling across the stone floor.
Kirby and Alec stepped up. This was going to be --
WHUMPH. CRACKLE CRACKLE. AARAGRRAGAGAGARRGAGGG!
-- rather anticlimactic.
Taggart stepped up to watch the beast writhe and scream, burning on the floor. He put the rest of his oil and flint away. "Hmm. Rather like that. Notice I didn't have to come near it."
"I noticed, " Argent observed wryly, dusting himself off. He sneezed. Burning wight troll priests produced a distinctly unpleasant odor.
Taggart stepped past the smoking ruin and into the tiny chamber beyond. "I think the black robe boys made a mistake of opening this door. While one of them got shredded the rest resealed the tomb. Look, its coffin's in here." Taggart made an expert search of the area. He showed the others some sort of flattened silver disk. "Hmmm. Not a coin. Like a ring, got crushed in the fight."
Kirby produced his appraiser's lens. "There's a signet crest on it. Maybe the source of our black-robed friends." Kirby pocketed the ring out of habit.
***************************************
Having exhausted the last of the old temple, the party squeezed into the fissure at the back of the chamber. The passage was only shoulder width, incredibly claustrophobic. The odd breeze of fresh air blowing through made the trip bearable. Slowly, a comforting glow grew in front of them. Soon bright sunlight streamed in at them, making them squint as they advanced.
Indigo was the first from the crack in the canyon wall. She gazed around in wonder. This was indeed a box canyon, the sides easily a quarter-mile high. Bright blue sky was perfectly framed by the red rock walls. The ground here, unlike everywher ein the Blood Steppes, was covered by thick, springy green grass. Flowers of every sort flourished in little pockets. Indigo took a deep breath. "Amazing. That smells ... not dead. Opposite of dead."
The canyon was long enough to bend off and out of sight to the right. Alec paused under a graceful weeping willow. "Look, a bedroll, an herb pot. I do believe we're in the hdden grove of a druid. Only thing that could explain this."
"Well about time we caught a break, " Taggart muttered. "He'll listen to our sob story, give us the apple, and he's probably got that paladin and local brat all bandaged up and stoned on dandelion wine."
The group rounded the bend in the canyon. Yes, indeed, there was the druid. And the paladin and local sorcerer. And a tree, sporting a magical looking red apple.
None of this was good news.
Indigo tried to rise, but her knee kept going out from under her. Her intestines would not ... go ... in ... The room spun, fell away into grey --
Like all battlefield deaths the moment was small, almost lost the raging chaos. Argent ducked, an Charduni axe SMASHING stone chips from a pillar. Taggart and Kirby were locked in a deadly dance with four Charduni soldiers,alternately dodging and flanking them. Alec ignored a javelin whizzing by his ear, let loose his bow. Across the fog-filled temple cavern one of the onyx dwarves fell from the shaft.
The Charduni Captain took his time. He crossed, spinning his longsword loosely in his hand. His pitted teeth flashed. Muscles bunching, he lifted three feet of sharpened steel over his head and swung for Indigo's skull.
KLANK. The Charduni stumbled. Where the hell --
The human woman was somehow moving. It was impossible. No one could stay conscious through that pain.
Alec caught Indigo stagger-stepping past. "Song-boy, I need some help!"
Alec calmly spun away as another two javelins smashed against the spot where he'd been a blink earlier. He calmly under-handed a healing potion through the air to Indigo, drew another arrow and released it, still moving. Indigo spotted the Captain closing on her. Leaning on her sword, she thumbed the top from the potion, drunk it -- and SCREAMED. Hot needles ripped through her torso as flesh melted, reformed. Every nerve was on fire. She almost spun out from nausea as arcane strings pulled her guts back into place.
She got her sword up just in time, BLOCKING the Captain's blow. Sparks flew. Indigo stumbled backward. She tried to bring her sword back up. The potion had saved her life, but she was just too slow ---
As if she were onstage and her play were ending, two curtains of fabric swung in front of her. Leather and velvet. Taggart extended one arm out with his punchblade. Kirby raised his rapier to a polite en guarde. Taggart looked over his shoulder, grinned. "Seeing as you're inconvenienced, mind dealing with the ranged weapon fellows?"
Indigo spun on the suddenly exposed, suddenly panicked javelin throwers. She decided they'd be an excellent way to take out her frustration. As bits of Charduni flew, the Captain whirled between Taggart and Kirby. "I am NOT going to die at the hands of human fops! I am -- URKKK."
He looked down. Taggart had distracted him. An expertly placed rapier passed through his spine and clean out his chest. The last thing the Charduni heard before rushing to meet his savage god was Kirby, sighing. "I'm not a fop. I'm a dandy."
******************************
Indigo sat slumped against one of the pillars. The fog filling the room still burned, but that really was the least of her problems. Argent, eyes closed, lay his hands over her ragged wounds. The scars disappeared, at least. Her color went from blue to sickly grey. "I'll do some more with my herbs."
"Fine, fine," Indigo waved at him. "Three years of war, not a scratch. One week of helping people, I nearly die. If I believed in signs, this would be one."
Across the room Kirby and Alec studied three doors on the back wall. Kirby sniffed. "The center one, Blood back there. Taggart --" He turned. Taggart was busy sawing off the Charduni Captain's head. Then, once the head was severed, he ... violated it. Kirby gave a minute head shake to Alec's raised eyebrow. "We were slaves in Termana for a few years. Taggart holds a grudge."
Finished with kicking the Charduni Captain's head around, Taggart strolled up. "Middle door?" They opened it. Immediately, they stepped back. The ozone stench of blood was incredible. This was a supply closet the Charduni had turned into an ad hoc torture chamber. Several executed porters were sprawled on the floor. One corpse, flayed of all skin, hung from chains. The expression on what was left of the poor devil's face made it plain that he'd been alive for most of it. Taggart reached into a puddle of blood in the floor. He raised a silver signet ring. "One of the Hucrele boys."
Argent stepped into the room. He threw a look to Taggart. With a guilty sigh, his brother helped him unchain the body. Argent lay it on the floor. He closed his eyes, began praying.
"Dammit. No happy endings in the Scarred Lands." Kirby slung open the far right door. This circular chamber had plainly been a priest's chamber, converted to the Captain's war room. A the back of the room was a boarded-up set of stairs leading deeper into the red rock crypts.
Alec looked up. Sunlight shone in from a natural skylight high above. The room glowed with weird red light. He crossed to a travelling desk. Reams of paper hacked with the thick hash marks of dwarven writing lay scattered across maps. "Give me some time with these. Battle orders. These lads were hot off the Blood War, looks like ..." the bard scanned one of the documents, " ... they were a strike team. I believe we killed them all."
Taggart and Kirby left Alec to study the Charduni documents. When they crossed to the last door, some BANGING inside put them on edge. Kirby chuckled grimly. "This'll be the cult's 'dragon.' Any bets?"
"The one they say men in black robes gave them?" Indigo limped up. "I say its a kobold, partnered with Meepo."
Taggart tossed a gold coin to Kirby. "A baby one of those false dragons the Lageni stormtroopers ride."
"I'm sticking with polymorphed dog." Kirby slid open the door. Within the small room was a series of chains padlocked to rings drivin into the rock. The chains all led to a single black figure HOWLING and SQUAWKING, yanking on the chains for all it was worth. It glared at them with jeweled eyes. Its small black reflective wings lifted it, struggling against the weight. The adventurers stared at it in silence for a full minute.
Alec strolled up, his nose buried in the dwarven papers. "They traded the paladin and the other Hucrele boy to the Old Man who lives beyond the catacombs. Got some magic and healing out of it. Oh, and how many soldiers did we kill?"
Without taking his eyes of the creature in the room, Taggart whispered "Fourteen."
"Okay, so that's a squad, right?"
"Right."
"How many soldiers in a company?"
"A hundred."
"Ah. See, this is the word for 'company'. This advance squad was meant to find a strongpoint, to establish a new Charduni base in the Blood Steppes. Taking advantage of the chaos of the war. We've got a hundred Charduni riding down on us and the village of Oakhurst." Alec looked from Kirby to Taggart to Indigo. "Hey. HEY. A hundred battle-hardened --" He finally looked in the room, where they were all staring. He dropped the papers.
"Who the hell gave those morons a real dragon?"
**************************************************
They alternated between screams and giggles. The baby black dragon was plainly not happy to be back in the clutches of the cult, and showered them with weak spurts of acid. Rather than being warned off, the humans would run into the mist, SCREAM as the acid bubbled away some of their skin, then GIGGLE in religious ecstasy. From her throne newly restored in a corner of the main room, Yusadryl glared at the party. She was genuinely pleased her people were once again in the presence of their god's avatar, but it was because of --
"Meepo make nice with strangers! Strangers serve Meepo, rescue dragon!" Meepo puffed up his tiny chest as cultists cheered.
Argent leaned over to Taggart. "I'd really prefer he couldn't take advantage of this."
"They have free will, brother. Can't go converting every lost soul." Taggart looked into the priest's room. Indigo pried the last board away from the staircase down. "Meepo, come here."
Meepo skipped over. "How can Meepo help favorite slaves?"
Kirby was about to retort, let it slide. Alec tossed a torch into the blackness of the doorway. It bounced down a set of stone spiral stairs, then disappeared. "Your brothers in the black robes gave you the dragon as a sign of respect, so they could pass down here?"
"Yes, all humans pay obeis ... obey ... do what Meepo say." Meepo frowned, eyelids lowering over his golden irises. "Black robes come out with books. Down there, study and tomb of priest of dragon worship from many times ago."
"How long ago?"
"Before Meepo." Meepo nodded thougfully, as if this were the calendar system the entire planet used. "Past that, is opening to little canyon. No other way in or out, unless you fly, and canyon walls very high. Old Man live there."
A soft glow filled the room. Indigo opened a small sack and took out a half-dozen small WOODEN BALLS, no bigger than her thumb. Each flared with a cold flame. "Here, a trick from a dead man I knew once." She pushed the continual flame ball under a strap on her shoulder. Now she had light, and her hands were free. Each of the others took one, some placing them in their pockets, some wrapping them up. "Now, let's go get this apple to save Godwyn's life, and get out of here."
Argent probed the darkness with his spear -- as incredibly unsubtle as it was, he'd cast continual light on the end of his bladed end of his weapon. It was a loving tribute to Madriel. Out in the battlefield it hadn't been a problem. But as far as skulking through tunnels, well, it was not skulk-friendly. "And don't forget the adventurers from Oakhurst."
"I was going to say 'of course', but we both know that's a lie." Indigo hoisted her Oathblade. With Taggart scanning the stairs for traps, they spun down into the dark.
*****************************
The stairs led down a full sixty feet into the soild rock. Finally, they emerged in an arched room. It was small enough that their lights completly exposed the walls. It was a library. Bookshelves crammed with ancient volumes filled each wall. Taggart whistled. "Yes," Alec answered, "some impressive lore down here."
"No, I was thinking resale value." Taggart stopped by the far wall. "Um, think one of the black-robes had a little accident."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because there's half a naked guy here." The others came to his side. Indeed, the top half of a rather academic-looking young man was splayed against one wall. "They stripped him, removed the lower half of his jaw to keep us from necrocasting on the corpse. Nice. Thorough."
At a loss with what to do with this non-evidence, the group searched the room. Taggart found a narrow crack in the back wall, from which fresh air blew. It looked like an earthquake in ancient times had opened this sealed chamber to a fissure, and that fissure led outside. Alec noted that the bookshelves had been meticulously catalogued -- and so it was easy to spot certain categories of books had been recently removed. Indigo squinted at a rune-covered door. Yes, yes, she should wait for the sneaky one to check it, but ... impatient, she opened it.
WHAM.
It was a troll.
It was also undead.
It had hit her with a human leg.
It was amazing how much Indigo noticed, upside-down, in mid-air. The noticing stopped when she hit the wall.
Argent raised his spear. "Blessing of Madriel, light of her heart, drive back this unholy abomination, I COMMAND YOU YIELD!" Energy CRACKLED between Argent and the ten-foot high rubbery beast. A pale, vertical DISK of RUNES flared into visibility. Suddenly, the runes fluttered away, Argent's divine power dissolving beneath the wave of pure evil radiating off the creature. Next thing he knew, he too was tumbling across the stone floor.
Kirby and Alec stepped up. This was going to be --
WHUMPH. CRACKLE CRACKLE. AARAGRRAGAGAGARRGAGGG!
-- rather anticlimactic.
Taggart stepped up to watch the beast writhe and scream, burning on the floor. He put the rest of his oil and flint away. "Hmm. Rather like that. Notice I didn't have to come near it."
"I noticed, " Argent observed wryly, dusting himself off. He sneezed. Burning wight troll priests produced a distinctly unpleasant odor.
Taggart stepped past the smoking ruin and into the tiny chamber beyond. "I think the black robe boys made a mistake of opening this door. While one of them got shredded the rest resealed the tomb. Look, its coffin's in here." Taggart made an expert search of the area. He showed the others some sort of flattened silver disk. "Hmmm. Not a coin. Like a ring, got crushed in the fight."
Kirby produced his appraiser's lens. "There's a signet crest on it. Maybe the source of our black-robed friends." Kirby pocketed the ring out of habit.
***************************************
Having exhausted the last of the old temple, the party squeezed into the fissure at the back of the chamber. The passage was only shoulder width, incredibly claustrophobic. The odd breeze of fresh air blowing through made the trip bearable. Slowly, a comforting glow grew in front of them. Soon bright sunlight streamed in at them, making them squint as they advanced.
Indigo was the first from the crack in the canyon wall. She gazed around in wonder. This was indeed a box canyon, the sides easily a quarter-mile high. Bright blue sky was perfectly framed by the red rock walls. The ground here, unlike everywher ein the Blood Steppes, was covered by thick, springy green grass. Flowers of every sort flourished in little pockets. Indigo took a deep breath. "Amazing. That smells ... not dead. Opposite of dead."
The canyon was long enough to bend off and out of sight to the right. Alec paused under a graceful weeping willow. "Look, a bedroll, an herb pot. I do believe we're in the hdden grove of a druid. Only thing that could explain this."
"Well about time we caught a break, " Taggart muttered. "He'll listen to our sob story, give us the apple, and he's probably got that paladin and local brat all bandaged up and stoned on dandelion wine."
The group rounded the bend in the canyon. Yes, indeed, there was the druid. And the paladin and local sorcerer. And a tree, sporting a magical looking red apple.
None of this was good news.
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