NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1362396" data-attributes="member: 2292">“It’s moving, Boss,” Amarin hears in his head.  He wheezes as he sprints after Blarth, his lungs working furiously as he tries to reach the building opposite the smithy.  He dimly remembers his brother once showing him a trick with his own psi-crystal, teaching it to grow ectoplasmic legs and scamper around the room.  Amarin curses himself for not having mastered the knack of doing it with his own yet.“Wow, the half-orc guy is moving fast,” the crystal sends.  “He’s on the wall, crawling like a spider, on the roof.  The swords out – you know it’s empowered, don’t you boss?  And…hey, where’d the shadow go.”Amarin slumps against the wall of the smithy, watching Blarth as the half-orc prowls across the rooftop with sword drawn.  The building shakes a little as Blarth moves along, the wooden frame barely holding up to the weight of an armoured warrior.“Nothing here,” Blarth calls out.  “Crystal safe.”“There was something there,” Amarin insists.  He pictures the image sent him in his mind, trying to pick out new details.  “It almost looked like Yip.  About the same size, anyway.  I wonder if Geoffrey sent Yip as a second watch.”“Geoffrey didn’t.”Geoffrey’s voice echoes from a nearby alleyway.  He steps into the light with Yip at his side.  His scowl is far from pleased.“Why exactly is Blarth on the roof when we’re trying to discretely watch over the forge?” he asks.“There was something up there, watching the crystal,” Amarin says.  “Maybe the door, but the crystal definitely thought it was watching him.  I thought it was important to make sure the crystal was safe.”“And you’ve done it so discretely,” Geoffrey says with understated calmness.  “Didn’t occur to you that rushing in here with swords drawn would give a watcher plenty of time to run?”Amarin thinks about that for a few seconds.“Um, no, it didn’t.”Geoffrey rolls his eyes and looks down the street.  Already the townsfolk are starting to gather, watching the argument and waiting for Blarth to fall through the roof he’s walking on.  Stealth wasn’t much of an option anymore.“Blarth, get the crystal and get down here,” he orders.  “Yip and I picked up a few things about the Smith.  Seems its being run by Bjorn’s apprentice, and even then it’s barely opened.  The kids got the skills necessary, but he couldn’t do work like Bjorn’s so things are going bad.  One-eyes men had commissioned swords off Bjorn, but ended up with this kids work instead when it became apparent Bjorn wasn’t coming back.  From the sounds of it, the apprentice is in pretty bad shape – the mercenaries may not have been responsible for killing people outright, but they had no problems roughing up a kid because they weren’t pleased with the deal.”“So what do that mean?” Blarth asks.“It means we break in and look around,” Geoffrey orders.  “Yip, get the window and slip inside – quietly and without drawing attention to yourself.  Wait until the crowd gets bored, then let us in.  We may as well look around before anyone shows up – it’s not like they aren’t going to know where here.”Everyone nods in agreement, slowly getting off the main street and scouting the outside of the forge.  It’s a fairly sizable building as Bor goes, thick wood on three sides with a stone wall for the fireplace and forge.  Yip has no trouble lifting the latches on the window and quickly slips inside.  Everyone waits a few seconds before they hear the sound of something twisting in the door-lock, and a minute later it swings open.“In,” Yip announces from the doorway.  “Spread out, search the place,” Geoffrey orders.  “If there’s something in here, I want it found.”The room doesn’t have much by way of hiding places – several weapon racks with scattered blades cover most of the walls, while the anvil, forge and fireplace take up much of the remaining space.   Geoffrey watches as the group spreads through the room, poking and prodding in search of secret locations or hidden alcoves where secrets could be kept.  There doesn’t seem to be much success.“Nothing?” Geoffrey asks.  Everyone shakes their head.“Uh, Boss?” Amarin’s psi-crystal interjects, forcing its words into the psion's head.  “There’s something you might want to get the guy with the spiky armour to check.”“What?” Amarin asks.  Everyone turns towards him.“Down in the forge,” the Psi-crystal explains.  “There’s something weird about the ash.”“What about what?” Geoffrey asks, privy to only half the conversation.“The crystal says there’s something odd about the forge,” Amarin explains.  He walks over and looks into the huge stone fireplace, trying to spot what his crystal has already noticed.  It takes a few seconds, but eventually he sees it too – a slightly regular disturbance in the ash and soot that could represent a groove in the surface of the fireplace.  Amarin digs a rag out of his pack and quickly wipes at the soot, gradually revealing a strange symbol carved into the stone that makes the hearth of the forges fireplace.“I think this could be something,” Amarin announces.  Geoffrey looks over his shoulder.“It’s Gauntian,” he says simply.  “I don’t know which cult, but the design is close enough.”Yip and Blarth both crowd in to have a look, examining the twisting design.“Stone move,” Yip says suddenly.  He skips from foot to foot, suddenly excited.“What?”“Stone move,” Yip says, pointing at the edges.  “Not connected to walls.  Chimney have mortar holding together, bottom stone doesn’t.  Very heavy, but it move.”The kobold pulls a pair of tools from a nearby rack and holds them forth.  Both are thick, hooked rods of black steel.  Yip gestures to two holes near the edge of the stone.“Use this, lift stone.  Maybe something underneath,” he says simply.Geoffrey looks at the marked stone, covered by a thin layer of ash.  It’s easily three feet wide, lord knows how thick.  Probably beyond the ability of most people to move easily.  The kobold’s plan makes sense.“Blarth, it’s yours,” Geoffrey announces.  “Think you can lift it?”Blarth just gives a hideous grin and cracks his knuckles.  He slides the metal rods into place and starts to heave, trying to lift the stone upwards.  It’s heavy and tightly wedged into the stone, harder to move than the half-orc expected.  Blarth closes his eyes and strains against the stone, heaving with all his strength.  Breath seeps through gritted teeth in a heavy hiss, and he can hear his companions saying something but the strain of lifting drains everything else out.Then the sensation of being hit breaks Blarth’s concentration, and he opens his eyes to see a four-foot tall creature made of stone and steel where the stone was laying, an elemental shape with three-foot sword-blades where hands should be.  Blarth watches one of the hand-blades rearing back, ready to lash out.  He drops his shield into place, ready to deflect the incoming blow, and looks for the second hand.It’s then that he realises the creature has skewered him neatly through the stomach…</blockquote>

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