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Watch For Falling Meteors [4E KotS] Updated Weekdays!
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<blockquote data-quote="Xorn" data-source="post: 4406836" data-attributes="member: 61231"><p>Kind of a double-dose today, had some free time before lunch...</p><p></p><p>---------------</p><p></p><p>Daichot’s vision was tunneled and dizzy as he slammed into the corner of the room. The narrow fletching of the crossbow bolt protruding from his ribs caught the lower frame of his vision, and he felt the stone behind him scraping against the scale plates of his armor. He could see the two goblins that had ambushed him as he entered the chamber both leveling their crossbows at him again from across the room.</p><p></p><p>Somehow the goblin he had chased this direction has managed to turn so abruptly that Daichot had been unable to match his turn and overshot him. While the sheen of blood on the metal of his greataxe reminded that he had caught the beast as he careened past, the two goblins hunkered down behind the beds in this sleeping chamber were about to make sure it didn’t do anymore damage.</p><p></p><p>A fog was muffling his thoughts from obeying his instincts, which were to roll, put his arms up, anything to avoid the incoming attack, but instead he just felt his eyes getting heavy. An impossible distance away, he could see a small figure—not a goblin, but the same height—running towards him. That goblin he had been chasing was in the way, but the little figure somersaulted past the green-skinned warrior as it fell over for no apparent reason. A realization that the cloaked figure was Percy was one of the last things he remembered as the halfling ran into the room and the sound of crossbow strings cut the air as the weight of his eyelids was just too much to bear.</p><p></p><p>“Yipe!” hollered Percy as he slipped in a puddle of blood that was trailing away from the goblin he had just hamstrung. A pair of goblins, hiding behind wooden cots littered with mud and straw opened fire on him with crossbows. Through sheer luck, both of the bolts whistled past his chest as his lost footing actually caused him to duck out of the way.</p><p></p><p>The halfling slid the last few paces to Daichot’s stunned mass, crashing into the warlord heavily and grabbing hold of the tiefling’s armor to regain his footing. Both of the sharpshooters were reloading frantically as a blast of fire exploded into the room from the north, and the screams of the crippled goblin dying intermingled with a furious dragon screech from the wizard that walked past him, oblivious to the flames.</p><p></p><p>Percy smacked the warlord across the face as hard as he could muster, and fired his hand crossbow across the room, the quarrel lodging into the firing lever of the crossbow one of them was holding. “Wow, lucky shot!” he exclaimed and yanked back on the chestplate of the tiefling, jostling him roughly. “Wake up, dammit!”</p><p></p><p>Daichot groggily opened his eyes, and Percy backhanded him again, “You’re not down yet! Get in there and fight!”</p><p></p><p>The fog began to retreat from his vision as his heartbeat quickened, and Daichot started take in the room. The chamber was about the same size as the entry to the north, but littered with debris and clutter. In the northeast corner there were two beds, which were currently obscuring his view of two goblins, one aiming his crossbow at them, and the other frantically trying to load the weapon. On the west end of the room there was a large set of double doors set back from the chamber by a short hallway, and on his immediate right was a small wooden door, which Percy’s cloak was pinned to by two crossbow quarrels.</p><p></p><p>The rogue noticed his cloak was caught at the same moment that the tielfling did, as the gap beneath the door darkened with the shadow of legs standing on the other side.</p><p></p><p>“Oh… balls.” Percy muttered with a resigned sigh.</p><p></p><p>The door swept open, away from them into the other room, and Percy was yanked off of his feet again as one of the goblin’s behind the bed fired his crossbow, the bolt passing through the space Percy had just been standing and skittering off the wall harmlessly. The goblin standing in the doorway hoisted his spear back, ready to thrust it into the helpless rogue, as Daichot quickly rose to his feet and caught the shaft of the weapon as it thrust downward.</p><p></p><p>The goblin gritted his teeth as he tried to free the weapon from Daichot’s iron grip and realized too late that he should have been running. Realizing his axe was still lying on the ground behind him, with a roar of unchallenged anger the warlord forcefully ripped the arrow protruding from his ribs out, and jammed the bloody implement into the goblin’s shoulder. The hapless beast squealed in horrified pain as it let go of the spear and scrambled backward into the storeroom the door opened into.</p><p></p><p>As Daichot turned to check on the halfling, he had already shed his cloak and was leaping over the nearest bed, a dagger flashing in each hand as he passed another torch sputtering in the aftermath of Vrax unleashing a missile of force into the other hiding goblin. Hearing the clank of Omar’s armor quickly coming down the hall, Daichot twirled his newly acquired spear in his grip and gave chase into the storeroom.</p><p></p><p>The goblin that he had thrust the bolt into had rounded the corner and was fleeing back to the north, towards a still swaying curtain that blocked off the view of the passage beyond. Not willing to risk losing sight of the beast, Daichot hurled the weapon at the short form with all of his might. The tip of the spear passed through the center of the goblins back with barely an interruption to its momentum, bursting out of the creature’s chest and into the heavy canvas of the curtain. Tangled and pinned to the heavy curtain, the goblin’s slumping body arced into the air before twirling about lazily at the top of the swing, then crashed back down into the wall. As blood poured from the terrible hole in its body, the goblin’s lifeless body hung limply from the curtain.</p><p></p><p>Percy tackled the goblin whose crossbow was disabled and the two of them disappeared on the far side of the stinking cot. A guttural and horrified scream was abruptly cut short with a slick and wet slicing sound, and the halfling rose from behind the bed, wiping a splatter of dark blood from his cheek and looking for the last goblin.</p><p></p><p>Vrax, unable to keep up with the fleeing creature, gave up and extended his right arm out towards the thing, his hand curled into a contortion of significant meaning in the arcane circles. A slithering whisper escaped his lips, in a language unknown to those untrained in the power words of the world, and even to another wizard, mostly gibberish intended to conceal the true sounds of power that would invoke and control the elemental tempest that lurked within this world. One word was very clear to any that studied arcane though, one word that Vrax was most familiar with. Fire.</p><p></p><p>The corner of the room before the stone doors exploded in a cataclysm of flame. No inch was left untouched by the hungry wizardfire which was unleashed, and as the goblin screamed with throat-tearing agony, it only gave the flames a new surface to burn, hungrily devouring its lungs. Then the fire was gone as quickly as it had been summoned, as the wizard reigned in the power he was tapping, lest it break free, and continue to feed. Patches of natural fire had sprang from the arcane source, and left that corner of the room covered with scorched stone and sizzling fragments of wood or smoldering parchment.</p><p></p><p>As the goblin fell to the floor, it’s flesh crisped and black, popping and blistering in the stillness of the chamber, Omar finally got past the wizard, who was quietly admiring the death throes of his victim. Raising his hammer quickly, he dashed the thing’s brains across the floor, and looked back to see Daichot retrieving his axe as Percy wiped his blades free of gore on the corpse of a goblin.</p><p></p><p>“Did any get away?”</p><p></p><p>***************</p><p></p><p>“You’ve uh… got a… you have a… thing…”</p><p></p><p>Omar watched Percy half-indicating there was something on his back as he kept trying to look over his right shoulder to see what the halfling was trying to point out. He half suspected this was some kind of prank, and his annoyance was growing.</p><p></p><p>“Blasted halfling! Jus’ get it, then!”</p><p></p><p>Percy made an ugly face as he reached out and gingerly plucked at a rat tail protruding from the shoulder joint of the dwarf’s armor. Pulling on it like a prissy little girl picking up a worm, the tail popped free with a wet slurp and oozing pus. Percy felt his lunch offer to vacate his stomach and choked down the urge as he stamped his feet at the grotesque image.</p><p></p><p>“Oh gods! It came off! No way man, I am not touching that!”</p><p></p><p>“What in blazes is on me back, ye daft fool!?” Omar flexed his arm about producing crunching and dribbling sounds from the joint as the corpse of the tiny vermin crackled and compressed in its final resting place.</p><p></p><p>“It’s a big, nasty rat!” exclaimed Percy. “Oh quit moving, it’s just getting sloppier!” The halfling finally worked up the nerve to grab hold of the back half of the bloody lump and pull it free, quickly dropping the body to the floor as it thumped with a splatter of blood and breaking, hairy pustules. “By Avandra’s grace, that’s just gross.”</p><p></p><p>Vrax chuckled at the scene as he and the halfling resumed checking the bodies and inspecting the chambers they had been fighting in. Daichot was looking through the supplies in the storeroom when Omar entered the chamber to check on him.</p><p></p><p>“Are ye alright, lad? I thought ye was in worse shape a’fore I see ya now.”</p><p></p><p>Daichot nodded, wrinkling his nose as his eyes watered from the smell of a cask he had unstopped. “I’m fine. Just dazed for a moment.”</p><p></p><p>“Ahm not sayin’ I dinnae believe ya, Daichot, but ‘ats yer blood on yer armor. A lot of it.” Omar pointed to the sheen of gleaming red that stained the left side of his ribs, where he had violently pulled the bolt free.</p><p></p><p>“I can’t explain it, Omar. I thought I was finished, but the skin is barely broken. I don’t know if I just got the wind knocked out of me, or if the gods have blessed me, but I’m fine now.” Daichot was not moving like someone that had just had a quarrel jammed into his chest.</p><p></p><p>“I think ‘at’s truer than you know, lad. Ye’ve got the gift o’ healin’ in ye. Dinnae know how ye come to do it, but we’ve all been walkin’ away from injury we shouldnae have.” Omar patted his leg, where a week ago he thought a drake had nearly bit his leg in two. “I think ye’re the reason, lad.”</p><p></p><p>Daichot thought about what the dwarf had suggested, and couldn’t find fault in his conclusions. “I don’t disagree with you, Omar. Perhaps it’s the will of the First Dragon.”</p><p></p><p>Omar smiled and coughed as he realized how bad the room smelled. “Oof. Lad, ifn’ there’s treasure here, they can damn well keep it.”</p><p></p><p>“Hey, hey,” interrupted Percy, “let’s not be hasty. There’s no treasure that can’t benefit from a little tender love and care.”</p><p></p><p>Daichot lobbed a hunk of moldy, rotten cheese at the rogue, who ducked out of the way as it splattered across the wall. Percy couldn’t pinch his nose quickly enough to escape the terrible smell.</p><p></p><p>“Okay, except maybe the treasure in this room. Gods that smells bad!” All of them retreated out of the room back into the smoldering, scorched bedchamber.</p><p></p><p>“So which way now?” asked Omar. “The passage west out of tha entryway looks ta be the most used. Percy found muddy footprints down tha east hall—“</p><p></p><p>“Goblin footprints, by my guess.” Percy added.</p><p></p><p>“Right. And ‘en we have these doors.” They were all looking at the heavy stone double doors, still warm from the wizard’s fireblast. “Can’t tell how much ‘ey used ‘em from all the debris,” the dwarf faced the wizard, “not that I’m complainin’, mind ya.”</p><p></p><p>“Can you sense the portal still?” asked Daichot.</p><p></p><p>Vrax shook his head. “No. Rather, I can feel the presence of the portal, but I can’t sense a direction.”</p><p></p><p>“Well, was the portal here before the keep was?”</p><p></p><p>“Yes, it was discovered long before the keep was built.”</p><p></p><p>Daichot thought about the options for a moment. “Well, if there’s muddy footprints, maybe their trying to dig it up. Earthquake might have blocked off the portal.”</p><p></p><p>Omar nodded. “Seems like a good chance.”</p><p></p><p>“East we go then…” added Vrax.</p><p></p><p>****************</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xorn, post: 4406836, member: 61231"] Kind of a double-dose today, had some free time before lunch... --------------- Daichot’s vision was tunneled and dizzy as he slammed into the corner of the room. The narrow fletching of the crossbow bolt protruding from his ribs caught the lower frame of his vision, and he felt the stone behind him scraping against the scale plates of his armor. He could see the two goblins that had ambushed him as he entered the chamber both leveling their crossbows at him again from across the room. Somehow the goblin he had chased this direction has managed to turn so abruptly that Daichot had been unable to match his turn and overshot him. While the sheen of blood on the metal of his greataxe reminded that he had caught the beast as he careened past, the two goblins hunkered down behind the beds in this sleeping chamber were about to make sure it didn’t do anymore damage. A fog was muffling his thoughts from obeying his instincts, which were to roll, put his arms up, anything to avoid the incoming attack, but instead he just felt his eyes getting heavy. An impossible distance away, he could see a small figure—not a goblin, but the same height—running towards him. That goblin he had been chasing was in the way, but the little figure somersaulted past the green-skinned warrior as it fell over for no apparent reason. A realization that the cloaked figure was Percy was one of the last things he remembered as the halfling ran into the room and the sound of crossbow strings cut the air as the weight of his eyelids was just too much to bear. “Yipe!” hollered Percy as he slipped in a puddle of blood that was trailing away from the goblin he had just hamstrung. A pair of goblins, hiding behind wooden cots littered with mud and straw opened fire on him with crossbows. Through sheer luck, both of the bolts whistled past his chest as his lost footing actually caused him to duck out of the way. The halfling slid the last few paces to Daichot’s stunned mass, crashing into the warlord heavily and grabbing hold of the tiefling’s armor to regain his footing. Both of the sharpshooters were reloading frantically as a blast of fire exploded into the room from the north, and the screams of the crippled goblin dying intermingled with a furious dragon screech from the wizard that walked past him, oblivious to the flames. Percy smacked the warlord across the face as hard as he could muster, and fired his hand crossbow across the room, the quarrel lodging into the firing lever of the crossbow one of them was holding. “Wow, lucky shot!” he exclaimed and yanked back on the chestplate of the tiefling, jostling him roughly. “Wake up, dammit!” Daichot groggily opened his eyes, and Percy backhanded him again, “You’re not down yet! Get in there and fight!” The fog began to retreat from his vision as his heartbeat quickened, and Daichot started take in the room. The chamber was about the same size as the entry to the north, but littered with debris and clutter. In the northeast corner there were two beds, which were currently obscuring his view of two goblins, one aiming his crossbow at them, and the other frantically trying to load the weapon. On the west end of the room there was a large set of double doors set back from the chamber by a short hallway, and on his immediate right was a small wooden door, which Percy’s cloak was pinned to by two crossbow quarrels. The rogue noticed his cloak was caught at the same moment that the tielfling did, as the gap beneath the door darkened with the shadow of legs standing on the other side. “Oh… balls.” Percy muttered with a resigned sigh. The door swept open, away from them into the other room, and Percy was yanked off of his feet again as one of the goblin’s behind the bed fired his crossbow, the bolt passing through the space Percy had just been standing and skittering off the wall harmlessly. The goblin standing in the doorway hoisted his spear back, ready to thrust it into the helpless rogue, as Daichot quickly rose to his feet and caught the shaft of the weapon as it thrust downward. The goblin gritted his teeth as he tried to free the weapon from Daichot’s iron grip and realized too late that he should have been running. Realizing his axe was still lying on the ground behind him, with a roar of unchallenged anger the warlord forcefully ripped the arrow protruding from his ribs out, and jammed the bloody implement into the goblin’s shoulder. The hapless beast squealed in horrified pain as it let go of the spear and scrambled backward into the storeroom the door opened into. As Daichot turned to check on the halfling, he had already shed his cloak and was leaping over the nearest bed, a dagger flashing in each hand as he passed another torch sputtering in the aftermath of Vrax unleashing a missile of force into the other hiding goblin. Hearing the clank of Omar’s armor quickly coming down the hall, Daichot twirled his newly acquired spear in his grip and gave chase into the storeroom. The goblin that he had thrust the bolt into had rounded the corner and was fleeing back to the north, towards a still swaying curtain that blocked off the view of the passage beyond. Not willing to risk losing sight of the beast, Daichot hurled the weapon at the short form with all of his might. The tip of the spear passed through the center of the goblins back with barely an interruption to its momentum, bursting out of the creature’s chest and into the heavy canvas of the curtain. Tangled and pinned to the heavy curtain, the goblin’s slumping body arced into the air before twirling about lazily at the top of the swing, then crashed back down into the wall. As blood poured from the terrible hole in its body, the goblin’s lifeless body hung limply from the curtain. Percy tackled the goblin whose crossbow was disabled and the two of them disappeared on the far side of the stinking cot. A guttural and horrified scream was abruptly cut short with a slick and wet slicing sound, and the halfling rose from behind the bed, wiping a splatter of dark blood from his cheek and looking for the last goblin. Vrax, unable to keep up with the fleeing creature, gave up and extended his right arm out towards the thing, his hand curled into a contortion of significant meaning in the arcane circles. A slithering whisper escaped his lips, in a language unknown to those untrained in the power words of the world, and even to another wizard, mostly gibberish intended to conceal the true sounds of power that would invoke and control the elemental tempest that lurked within this world. One word was very clear to any that studied arcane though, one word that Vrax was most familiar with. Fire. The corner of the room before the stone doors exploded in a cataclysm of flame. No inch was left untouched by the hungry wizardfire which was unleashed, and as the goblin screamed with throat-tearing agony, it only gave the flames a new surface to burn, hungrily devouring its lungs. Then the fire was gone as quickly as it had been summoned, as the wizard reigned in the power he was tapping, lest it break free, and continue to feed. Patches of natural fire had sprang from the arcane source, and left that corner of the room covered with scorched stone and sizzling fragments of wood or smoldering parchment. As the goblin fell to the floor, it’s flesh crisped and black, popping and blistering in the stillness of the chamber, Omar finally got past the wizard, who was quietly admiring the death throes of his victim. Raising his hammer quickly, he dashed the thing’s brains across the floor, and looked back to see Daichot retrieving his axe as Percy wiped his blades free of gore on the corpse of a goblin. “Did any get away?” *************** “You’ve uh… got a… you have a… thing…” Omar watched Percy half-indicating there was something on his back as he kept trying to look over his right shoulder to see what the halfling was trying to point out. He half suspected this was some kind of prank, and his annoyance was growing. “Blasted halfling! Jus’ get it, then!” Percy made an ugly face as he reached out and gingerly plucked at a rat tail protruding from the shoulder joint of the dwarf’s armor. Pulling on it like a prissy little girl picking up a worm, the tail popped free with a wet slurp and oozing pus. Percy felt his lunch offer to vacate his stomach and choked down the urge as he stamped his feet at the grotesque image. “Oh gods! It came off! No way man, I am not touching that!” “What in blazes is on me back, ye daft fool!?” Omar flexed his arm about producing crunching and dribbling sounds from the joint as the corpse of the tiny vermin crackled and compressed in its final resting place. “It’s a big, nasty rat!” exclaimed Percy. “Oh quit moving, it’s just getting sloppier!” The halfling finally worked up the nerve to grab hold of the back half of the bloody lump and pull it free, quickly dropping the body to the floor as it thumped with a splatter of blood and breaking, hairy pustules. “By Avandra’s grace, that’s just gross.” Vrax chuckled at the scene as he and the halfling resumed checking the bodies and inspecting the chambers they had been fighting in. Daichot was looking through the supplies in the storeroom when Omar entered the chamber to check on him. “Are ye alright, lad? I thought ye was in worse shape a’fore I see ya now.” Daichot nodded, wrinkling his nose as his eyes watered from the smell of a cask he had unstopped. “I’m fine. Just dazed for a moment.” “Ahm not sayin’ I dinnae believe ya, Daichot, but ‘ats yer blood on yer armor. A lot of it.” Omar pointed to the sheen of gleaming red that stained the left side of his ribs, where he had violently pulled the bolt free. “I can’t explain it, Omar. I thought I was finished, but the skin is barely broken. I don’t know if I just got the wind knocked out of me, or if the gods have blessed me, but I’m fine now.” Daichot was not moving like someone that had just had a quarrel jammed into his chest. “I think ‘at’s truer than you know, lad. Ye’ve got the gift o’ healin’ in ye. Dinnae know how ye come to do it, but we’ve all been walkin’ away from injury we shouldnae have.” Omar patted his leg, where a week ago he thought a drake had nearly bit his leg in two. “I think ye’re the reason, lad.” Daichot thought about what the dwarf had suggested, and couldn’t find fault in his conclusions. “I don’t disagree with you, Omar. Perhaps it’s the will of the First Dragon.” Omar smiled and coughed as he realized how bad the room smelled. “Oof. Lad, ifn’ there’s treasure here, they can damn well keep it.” “Hey, hey,” interrupted Percy, “let’s not be hasty. There’s no treasure that can’t benefit from a little tender love and care.” Daichot lobbed a hunk of moldy, rotten cheese at the rogue, who ducked out of the way as it splattered across the wall. Percy couldn’t pinch his nose quickly enough to escape the terrible smell. “Okay, except maybe the treasure in this room. Gods that smells bad!” All of them retreated out of the room back into the smoldering, scorched bedchamber. “So which way now?” asked Omar. “The passage west out of tha entryway looks ta be the most used. Percy found muddy footprints down tha east hall—“ “Goblin footprints, by my guess.” Percy added. “Right. And ‘en we have these doors.” They were all looking at the heavy stone double doors, still warm from the wizard’s fireblast. “Can’t tell how much ‘ey used ‘em from all the debris,” the dwarf faced the wizard, “not that I’m complainin’, mind ya.” “Can you sense the portal still?” asked Daichot. Vrax shook his head. “No. Rather, I can feel the presence of the portal, but I can’t sense a direction.” “Well, was the portal here before the keep was?” “Yes, it was discovered long before the keep was built.” Daichot thought about the options for a moment. “Well, if there’s muddy footprints, maybe their trying to dig it up. Earthquake might have blocked off the portal.” Omar nodded. “Seems like a good chance.” “East we go then…” added Vrax. **************** [/QUOTE]
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