[KAUAI]The Rod of Seven Parts: Of Hexes and Gems

Brakkus glances around for the dart. If he's able to see it, he'll pick it up. Either way, he says with a smile, "You know, you should really use a weapon doesn't force you to drop it."

SlagMortar said:

Brakkus glances around for the dart. If he's able to see it, he'll pick it up. Either way, he says with a smile, "You know, you should really use a weapon doesn't force you to drop it."

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"My arms aren't that long." Voadam quips back with a smile as he takes his dart back and replaces it in the small quiver. "Thanks. They're a better weapon than you'd think. Hefty enough that you can get some real force behind them. By the way, don't be afraid to use your throwing knife down here. You can have mine if yours goes missing in the tunnels. I've got plenty of darts and I'll be using the sword before a knife on anything that comes up close enough."

Maelicent doesn't deign to look back to Chev as the giant-kin offers his opinion about the goblin. "Odd? Heh... Tha from a doubling conjured up by a demon-stick." A dry laugh follows before the Gudwulf warrior quiets down to answer Voadam's query. "Tha rot be commin from tha moss; it aint just growin off a bare rock. Them cave teeth prolly got somethin afore the dwarf here. What's left prolly rottin away ta feed tha moss. Prolly more patches of it where they fell on other critters in there; damn good fer nothin things."

Brakkus locates and picks up Voadam's dart. Handing it to the bearded Voadam, Brakkus and the others begin the ascent up the original tunnel down which they'd earlier walked. The ceiling of the first half of the walk back up is littered with stalactites. Maelicent and the others tread carefully but when after 40 minutes of hiking no cave teeth drop from the ceiling and Brakkus finds nothing untoward with his guisarme, the stalactites thin out then stop completely. Only one hour on the descent, the way back to the cave takes longer by twenty minutes due to the incline, twisting passageway, and rocky floor.

Scouting up ahead into the cave with the now-widened crack, Maelicent finds things precisely as they were left before the foray down below. A caution-filled look around the terraced cave reveals the odd lump of mineral formation hanging from the ceiling, but all these check out as natural rock formations.

Please set a watch order.

"Chev, you and Gamad have both expended spells, so you should bookend the watch so you can get the uninterrupted rest necessary to recover magic. I haven't used any today so I'll be in the middle watches after Brakkus and Maelicent. Sound good?"

By the way, don't be afraid to use your throwing knife down here.

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"I'll keep that in mind, but I prefer to get up where I can see what I'm hitting. Less chance of a mishap."

As the party settles down to camp, Brakkus sets his pack down, pulls out the lantern. "This will burn through most the night on one flask of oil, I think. You can douse the torch for now. Did anyone else grab some oil?"

OOC: Brakkus grabbed two flasks of oil. I believe those two flasks and the two torches are the group's only light sources.

Seeing the others settling in for the night, the goblin pulls the coil of stolen rope off of his mid section and begins unspooling and tying it securely to a solid protrusion of stone near the cave mouth. "I don't carry no light; extra weight fer nothin. I'll be back soon with tha ugly one-horned-rabbit meat and some deadfall fer a fire."

With only a nod of his helmeted head, the goblin heads out the widened entrance into the cool night air. Quickly surveying the landscape below, Maelicent tosses the end of his rope off the side and repels down the rock face to the forest floor. With the crag at his back as his first static landmark the goblin sets out. Keeping to the darkest shadows and stepping softly on the clear ground, Maelicent first makes for the nearest curtain wall. Once he has it within sight he sets his course to double back along its length to the site of the day's first battle. (Hide & Move Silently +12, Spot, Listen and Survival +7)

Gamad

I got several candles in my backpack.
Reply the dwarf to the human warrior.
We can light one or two until the crazy goblin will return from his journey in the cursed woods.
he turns to the others
Put your ears to the deep of the cave, one eye to the cave's ceiling and your other eye to cracked cliff, who knows what is lurking outside and what is crawling in the earth tunnels

Using the same large boulder that, at dusk, Brakkus had used to secure his grappling hook, Maelicent loops a bit of rope at the base of the rock, then in a few short pushes with his feet, drops to the forest floor below. The moon has risen and, filtered through the dust rising to the nighttime air from the steaming city's red brick paving stones beyond the keep's grounds, hangs low in the sky like an overripe orange plum.

Having marked a course for the curtain wall, Maelicent sets out and is soon engulfed by the deepening wood of the forest. At night, and with a full moon, the trees are alive and readily part ways for the goblin. A smooth path, devoid of roots and rock, but never forging more than 30 feet ahead into the distance, appears in front of Maelicent as he heads south, away from the cave containing his comrades. The walk an easy ten minutes, Maelicent slows his pace when the trees thin a bit, signifying that the glade where the horned rabbits had earlier been fought off lies just ahead. Recognizing the hoary old oak at the edge of the glade, Maelicent stops when he hears growling and the sound of flesh being torn in strips.

40 feet to his right, Maelicent spies a gore-streaked animal that seems a cross between an overlarge rat and a wolf. Spikes on the animal's rear haunches tip upward in a menacing spire at the nighttime sky. The animal growls at its meal and, hunched over one of the rabbit carcasses, turns sideways a moment, the better to grasp at the rabbit's fetlock. When the animal does so, Maelicent gets a clear view of bones of the creature's ribcage protruding between what looks to be a hide that hangs in loose narrow strips that barely cover the creature. The creature moves with decidedly unnatural motions. Giving the rabbit's fetlock a mighty tug, the creature pulls the entire leg away with one raucus rip and immediately sets upon the prize to feast with eager snarls.

Spying out the terrain, Maelicent spots fresh drag marks where undoubtedly the skeletal rat has drug the rabbit carcass to its current location. The two other dead horned rabbits lay close by, as yet untouched.

Spying the undead animal, the Gudwulf warrior immediately ducks down and quickly surveys the area for signs of other creatures he might have initially missed (Spot +7). The goblin carefully steps behind a small sapling for added cover from the nightmarish beast (5-ft. step to E19, Hide & Move Silently +12 taking 10 +3 for distance, Spotter distracted -5).