drnuncheon's Online Story Hour (now playing: Of Sound Mind)

[drnuncheon]

True night has fallen by the time the three of you have gathered once again at the Bell and Clapper, and with the dying of the light the bitter cold only increases. Even inside the inn's common room, the fire seems to do little to dispel the cold and the darkness that hangs over the town like a shroud.

Few of the town's citizens remain in the room: they have learned that even a drunken stupor cannot shield them from that which haunts them in the night. Behind the bar, Tokket wipes the mugs clean and carefully stacks them for the next day's trade.

Ahoke sits down at a table by the fire, making room for her companions. She puts an ale in front of her, and sighs. "Well, who wants to talk first?"

Harvester sits at a table now, a final mug or three of ale at hand while he awaits. He nods to Sen-Jyu, "You went first with the drinkin earlier. Let's let Sen go first this time."

Joining Ahoke with a pleasant smile of thanks to Tokken for providing him with a healthy dose of wine, Sen-Jyu looks at both faces, his expression one of concentration or consternation. "I'd rather... speak later," he replies to the Harvester's suggestion.

Harvester shrugs and settles himself into his seat, feet extended towards the fire as he slouches. "Arright. i'll go first, unless you want to, Kay?" He gestures at her with his mug before drinking from it.

Ahoke shakes her head. "Nah, I don't care. Go ahead." She sips at her ale, waiting quietly.

Sen-Jyu smiles softly as the focus is taken from him, settling his feet close to the fire and listening to the tale that the Harvester brings to tell.

Harvester nods and sets his mug down, and laces his fingers together over his chest as he scrunches down - almost reclining in the chair. "Alllll-righty then. Well, as you know, I went to visit the neighborhood psychotic, Cobble, in his lavish suite at the Iron-Bar Hotel..." A shuffle, "I think i found out a thing or three. You remember how he collapsed the first time we met him? When I mentioned Copperdeath?" An eye opens to regard his companions. "Well, he had a similar reaction tonight. Buuuuuut, I get ahead of myself." Another shift as he continues, lazily. "Seems ol' Cobble thinks this guy, whoever he is, is the one took the kids. Down to the mines, maybe. A place Cobble DEFINITELY don't want to go back to, by the way...." He pauses, to whet his whistle.

Ahoke frowns, and holds her hand up. "Wait. What guy? You mean Copperdeath? The dragon?"

Harvester burps quietly, resting the mug on his chest now, the table being just TOO far a stretch to make. He shrugs at Ahoke. "Be damned if I know, dearie. That's my working theory, anyway... Except he may not be calling himself Copperdeath right now. But I'll get to that in a sec..."

Sen-Jyu listens while he holds his glass up to the firelight, reddish hues faintly molten just as he takes a sip.

Ahoke nods, slowly, and waits for Harvester to continue. She takes another loud swallow of ale, staring at the liquid in her tankard as if it might hold answers.

Harvester laughs, both eyes opening. "Actually, I'll get to it now. When I said the name 'Copperdeath', Cobble got a little... crazed. Beat the crap outta himself on the bars, and kept screaming 'CHOTH! CHOTH!', whoever that is. Maybe the dragon, maybe something else. "Anyhoo.... Supposedly whoever it is has met m'Lord, once already." He takes another sip, then frowns unhappily, finding nothing inside. He clomps the mug onto the table carelessly. "And that's about it.... I think?"

Ahoke frowns, confused. "Who is m'Lord?"

Harvester lifts the chain that holds his holy symbol, and bobbles it once or twice. "Why, He Who Is To Come, of course.... My Lord...."

Sen-Jyu grins a little. "Oh... -him-. Of course."

Ahoke ahs, nodding. "/That/ lord. Copperdeath has met him, then? That's strange." She shrugs, taking another swallow of ale. "I went out of the village, to try to talk to the witch."

Harvester laces his fingers across his chest again and listens. "She have a wart on her nose? Witches are supposed to have warts on their noses...."

Ahoke sighs. "Well, when I got out there, she didn't answer her door so I went inside. The place was a mess, like she'd packed some stuff in a rush and then left. Her tea was still steaming, and there were hot embers in the fireplace. I figured that if the tea was still hot, she wasn't too far away, so I went out to look." She pauses, looking at Harvester. "Er, no. She had no wart."

Harvester peeks at Ahoke, "Strange," he mutters. About the tea or Utrish's sudden departure, it's uncertain.

Sen-Jyu turns his head upon Ahoke, half-liddedly watching her like a contented cat. "So you found her... I hope it wasn't under duress."

Ahoke mmphs, noncommitally. "I went outside. It was starting to get dark, so things were a bit hard to see, but I saw movement out in the woods. I knew it'd be her, it was too big to be one of her damned cats that kept getting in my way. So I ran at her."

Harvester takes his mug in hand and lifts it to wave at Tokket. "You catch her? I expect she was a bit scared of you...."

Ahoke nods. "She threatened to put a curse on me." The dwarf's shrug expresses that she had not been impressed with the threat. "But, she did stop trying to run when she saw that it wouldn't get her far. I /did/ tell her that I didn't plan on hurting her. Anyway... she was terrified. She doesn't seem to know why the headaches are going to stop in a week, but she's getting out of town. She's convinced that if she's still here at the end of the week, that she'll die."

Harvester nods, "Uh huh... Like I tried to tell Waterman. That just 'cause the headaches stop, doesn't mean it's for good reason. Headaches can stop when you're dead, too..."

Sniffing at the air, Sen-Jyu interrupts, "... strange. The Mayor took quite a deal of comfort from the witch's words."

"Which is what I reminded the Mayor of," says Sen-Jyu to the Harvester.
Ahoke nods. "I thought that too." Who she's agreeing with, Sen or Harv, she doesn't state. "Anyway... there's more, and this is the part that bothers me the most. She made a prophecy about us."

Harvester blinks once. Twice. Thrice, and sits up, his full attention on Ahoke. "Oh? What'd the witch have to say, hmm?"

Ahoke scowls, putting down her ale to give the recitation her full attention. "This might not be word for word," she prefaces, "But it's close. I don't think I can ever forget it. She said: "From the North, across the shoulders of Samrahn, with one who serves those who are gone, and one who does not know who he serves. You won't find what you're looking for here in Bellhold, Chieftain's daughter, or in the Steeple. You should turn east, to Blasingdell."

Harvester hrmphs. "Yeah, that sounds like us, alright.... Wonder what you'll find in Blasingdell..."

Ahoke shrugs. "I don't know. What I'm looking for is lost dwarven secrets," she says quietly. "But I don't know if she was talking about that, or about..." She gestures around at the tavern. "These people."

Turning away and looking back into the fire, Sen-Jyu says (with a hint of petulance in his voice), "I don't like prophecies." Twirling the glass' single leg between thumb and forefinger, he adds disdainfully, "They're all about predestination. I don't like them."

Harvester shrugs a shoulder at Sen-Jyu, "Sounds less like a prophecy to me, than what's goin on right now..."

Ahoke nods. "She seemed like she really wanted me to go to Blasingdell, but I'm not sure that I trust her anyway. I at least want to stay around here until we can find out what is going on."

Harvester nods to Ahoke, "Yah... Seems to me she was speaking to you on a more personal level, than what's troublin these folks..."

"Agreed," Sen-Jyu says to Ahoke, facing her once again as his feet, quite toasty by now, rest on the floor again. "There remains good to be done for this village, in this village."

Ahoke nods. "She acted like she thought I was going to club her into paste right there on the spot, too. Strange people." She frowns, and waves over at the bar tender. "Hey, Tokket! Can I get some more ale over here?"

The half-elf nods, and brings over another mug of ale. "There y'go." He hesitates by the table for a moment. "Jes' wanted t'say 'thank you' for offerin' t'help, too. Hob's a good man, but he's too much of an optimist."

Ahoke looks up at the half-elf, sighing. "I gathered that much. He seems to be a good enough man, though," she admits. "Right?"

Sensing that it's his turn, Sen-Jyu admits, "I found... nothing. Truly." He lifts his shoulders with a reluctant, self-admonishing weight to them before dropping them heavily again. "I spoke with the Mayor for some time after you both departed. I sense that... he is a good man, given a trial that he feels is beyond him."

A nod as Tokket's statement agrees with his own assessment. "Waterman let me into the tower. I inspected it, head to toe, and discovered nothing unusual. The stairway to the tower was enclosed all the way from top to bottom, with a single door some distance up to prevent any from wandering up. The bell is a great, copper beast, with a relief that mirrors what the surrounding town must have appeared like in the time of Copperdeath. I made wax earplugs," he reaches into a pocket, showing two small pellets of wax rolling about his palm, "in case something happened while we were up there. Nothing did." He looks back to his wine, and then to Tokket. "He draws his waning strength from what he feels he can. He neglects his deeper reserves. His own people."

Harvester spins his empty mug on the table and looks at tokket, 'Yeah, seems to care, Waterman does, but is in a hole he can't climb out of. Any word on the kiddles, or the heroes?"

Sen-Jyu murmurs, "I promised him I'd start looking for the children at dawn. See what can be found on the week-old trail."

Tokket opens his mouth to try to reply - but finally lapses into silence and just lets the adventurers talk.

Harvester muses, "I think we should have a look in the mines..."

Ahoke shrugs. "Well, let's look for the children first, starting from where they vanished. As I understand it, they disappeared quite a distance away from the mines. Right?" She looks up at Tokket for confirmation.

Tokket nods quickly before anyone can interrupt him.

"In good time. I think the first thing on many of the minds of the people here is the safety of their children," says Sen-Jyu softly. "Even if the mines have more potential for a solution, the townsfolk would be put more at ease if we searched the woods."

Ahoke muses, darkly. "I wonder if they children went wherever those horses did when they were missing that week and some."

Harvester happened to be glancing over, and caught Tokket's nod. "Alright... I won't argue that. But I'll bet we end up at the mine anyway. Hopefully before the week's up..."

Ahoke nods. "Yeah... I think you might be right. A gut feeling. Since that's where Coppertop is from."

Sen-Jyu nods a little. "I believe you're right." Though, to this point, he'd only taken perhaps a centimeter off of his glass of wine, he now finishes the rest in a few swallows, wiping his eyes from the brief tears that erupt from the stinging alcohol. "... I'm going to go sleep, that I'll be ready for the dawn."

Harvester grins. Coppertop. "Yah. And where Cobble seems so afraid to go... He keeps speaking of 'him' swallowing us all up. Well, what better place than deep within the earth, hmm?

Harvester shrugs, almost sliding out of the chair. He sits up and stands. "Yeah, might be a good idea..." He stretches, yawning widely. "Plenty of blankets in the room, eh Tokket?" He hardly waits for an answer before heading towards the stairs. "Let's lock it up tight tonight, hmm?" he says, to his companions.

Tokket starts to reply, then sighs, and just simply nods.

Ahoke gets up, moving with her companions. She pauses to pay Tokket for her drinks first, though.

Harvester stops then, and looks back, "Hey, what time do you drop the eggs, Tokket?"

"Thank you, Tokket," Sen-Jyu says as he rises and moves toward the stairwell. "Let us know if anything happens that you might need us for?" He leaves two silver coins on the table to compensate for Tokket's troubles, but does wait for an answer from the barkeep.

Tokket looks glumly at the Harvester and his companions, shaking his head slowly as if they just do not understand. "You won't sleep in," he informs you.

 

[drnuncheon]

The room is small - barely big enough for the three straw mattresses that inhabit it - but clean and neat. The beds are hardly the height of comfort, but compared to the cold, hard ground of the past weeks of travel - or the slightly softer dirt of Othic's home - they are luxurious indeed. Thick blankets are piled on top of the bed, almost as good as dogs at warding off the winter chill.

Entering the room, Sen-Jyu takes the bed, reclining in its feathery softness. Piece by piece, he removes his armor, finishing with the scabbards at his sides.

Ahoke, too, removes her bone armor. "It's been a long day," she says wearily. "I wonder if it's going to be a long night, too?" She shrugs, stretching out on one of the straw mattresses, stone axe on the floor beside the bed, great club in bed beside her.

Keeping one sword on either side of his mattress, Sen-Jyu lies back, swaddling himself in blankets as he prepares for sleep.
Ahoke promptly starts snoring, something that her travelling companions have probably grown accustomed to.

Harvester takes the final bed and lays down to rest, after divesting himself of uncomfortable equipment. He tosses and turns, just as Tokket predicted. His eyes fly open, finally, with a sigh, and he rises, shortly before midnight and dresses. He moves to the door, sliding the bolt back, and exits, closing it as silently as is possible. He locks it from the outside and descends the stairs to the empty tavern.

There he remains in supplication, in the center of the floor, for an hour or so before rising, and returning to bed.

Ahoke sits up in her bed, rubbing at her neck. "Makes me wonder why these dreams hate my neck so much," she grumbles, looking over at her companions to see if they are asleep.

The white of Sen-Jyu's wide eyes is enough to inform the dwarf that he is not. He looks, in a word, terrified, though he has not so much as made a peep.

Ahoke strokes the side of her great club. "You too, Sen? I don't think that my heart is going to stop racing for a week."

Harvester rises with the dawn, appearing tired, having slept but fitfully. Despite the hard night, he smiles, as if he possesses a secret. His clothes are donned as his stomach rumbles. He looks at his companions thoughtfully. "Eh...? Your neck? What's with your ne...." A closer look at Sen-Jyu, "Sen? What's wrong? Look like you've seen a ghost..."

"... I had hoped," Sen-Jyu says, his voice cracked and parched, "... that Tokket was wrong, would be wrong." He doesn't close his eyes, his tone flat and bereft of the vitality that is always woven into it. He draws a careful breath, as if in such a movement, whatever remains seared into his eyes from the dream would come alive.

Ahoke draws a deep breath, and then says, "Did the nightmare take place in the mines?"

Harvester sits back on the edge of his mattress, elbows on knees so that his hands dangle. "My, my.... It looks to've been quite fearsome, your dreams have..." He doesn't appear to have been so terribly afflicted with nightmares, though there's no disguising his own weariness.

"Not in the mines, no. Home," Sen-Jyu says, and starts to peel off the sweat-saturated blankets like layers from an onion. "How close to dawn is it?" His eyes have not yet relaxed from their dinner-plate sized staring.

The window reveals a dim red line to the east, where the sun lurks somewhere below the horizon.

"Okay," says the dwarf. "I say that we start where the kid disappeared, just like we said we would. The kids disappeared from there, and so did the local heroes, so it seems like we'll probably disappear from the same area." She shrugs. "Let's get it done as soon as we can. I don't like this place."

Harvester peers at Sen-Jyu for a long moment before commenting, "Close to dawn, looks like.... Remember, Sen," a glance encompasses Ahoke as well, "that these nightmares are probably designed to frighten you, as they have... to weaken your resolve... That's my guess..." He appears almost perky as he hops up - at least, compared to his friends.

In resignation, Sen-Jyu stands, moving to the door and disappearing out of it, returning some few minutes later with a shallow basin of water.

Ahoke scowls at Harvester. "Did you not have a dream, then?" She starts putting on her armor, slowly and methodically.

Sen-Jyu sniffs at his clothing, wrinkling his nose. "I wish I hadn't inherited the human odor," he mutters to himself.

Harvester gives a secretive little smile, "Oh, i dreamed... I dreamed of _Him_...." He fondles his holy symbol absently.

Ahoke wrinkles her nose, and then finger combs out her hair. She starts attaching weapons to herself, and then looks at the others. "I'm ready when you are."

The spirit-blood taps the pane of ice on the basin a few times until it fractures, allowing him to pluck thin shards of it from the surface of the water. Once that's done, he splashes the water across his face, savoring the coolness as it runs down his chin and neck. A handful is poured directly onto his scalp and massaged into his hair, a couple more applied under his arms and along his sides. Gooseflesh rises at the chilly touch of the water, but he enjoys it, rejuvenating himself in the memory of life and living.

Harvester stamps his foot more firmly into his boot. "I'll go on down, see if breakfast's ready..."

Breakfast warm in your stomachs, the three of you head to the forest where the children vanished. White plumes hang in front of your faces as you breathe, and the icy air stabs at your brains when you inhale - doing nothing for the throbbing sensation in your temples. The sun has crept a fingersbreadth over the horizon, and your early morning shadows precede you like an escort of giants.

Harvester follows his companions through the town, towards the river. His scythe dangles carelessly over a shoulder. "Hope you know what you're doin in these woods, 'cause I sure don't..."

Ahoke tramps through the forest, seeming quite at home in the natural setting and, truth be told, seeming to be unfazed by the bitter cold.

Sen-Jyu is likewise content with the environment, and the further from town the group is, the more he seems to enjoy it. His eyes are kept low toward the ground, looking for evidence of tracks, especially ones made by little people.

The cold snap was recent - that much is clear. Even as short a time as a few days ago, the ground by the river was much softer - as evidenced by the wide variety of tracks that now exist, preserved in frost-rimed earth, along its banks. Deer, rabbits, foxes...the signs of all of their passage are here to see.

Ahoke hmms, frowning. "I see lots of tracks," she says, as she walks along the river. "Animal tracks."

Sen-Jyu slows down, taking to all fours as he peers close to the ground. Some portions he runs his fingers across as he squats over them, tracing shapes in intricate whorls. "... not these," he says, his voice not quite lost upon the wind.

"Yeah," agrees Harvester. "But none of the two-legged var...." He falls silent and approaches Sen-Jyu, to see what he's found.

Ahoke breathes out. "Oh, good. I was hoping that one of us would see something..."

Ahoke leans over to look at the tracks. She hisses suddenly, a vicious sound indeed coming from a dwarf. "Those are not the tracks of children. We're going to have to hunt them down and kill them. All of them. They might even have the children. Little cannibalistic bastards."

Harvester blinks at Ahoke, "Eh? What is it? Who is it?"

Sen-Jyu blinks, "I'm... not sure," he replies to the Harvester, though he's clearly deferring to the dwarf, lest her rage find outlet on him.

Ahoke snarls in wordless rage, then takes in a couple of deep breaths, her fingers clenching and unclenching. "Thanork. I hate thanork. Many of my people have devoted their entire lives to destroying them. And it's a life well spent, one spent removing that menace. They stand about up to here," she says, holding a hand at chest level. Big pointy ears. Nothing is beneath them. They'll stoop to any evil."

Harvester pulls back as Ahoke explodes, "Er.... Who, or what is ' thanork'??"

Ahoke shakes her head rapidly. "They're a type of... creature. I guess you could say that they're sentient. We're constantly at war with them. They eat children. I wouldn't doubt that these dreams are their fault, somehow, if they're in the area."

Sen-Jyu looks up at Harvester, "... she just said," he mentions, though quietly. "I'll trust her opinion of them."

Harvester nods to Sen-Jyu, "As will I..." A look to Ahoke, "How fresh are these tracks? And can you follow them?"

Ahoke sighs, sounding disgusted. "I can't tell... they go that way and fade away, and these others go into the forest and fade away... I've never been good at following this sort of thing."

"I can follow them," Sen-Jyu says confidently. "This is something that I've done for quite a few... well, for a while." He smiles at his companions, "Now, just to determine which way."

Ahoke hmms. "Well, we can try to follow these on the river first, and then backtrack and follow the other set into the woods..."

Sen-Jyu nods in agreement. Losing no time, he returns to his crouch, eyeing the tracks that run with the river, carefully avoiding stepping upon them lest he mar some sort of evidence.

Harvester shrugs, leaving the woodsy decisions to those who know such things. While his companions study and trail the tracks, he looks off into the surrounding forest.

It's not long before the trail ends abruptly over a patch of rocks and stones. Sen-Jyu pauses, looking about the vicinity, but soon tosses his shoulders. "Crafty little thanork, aren't they," he mutters.

Harvester murmurs, "Try the other way, then?"

Ahoke mutters something about thanork and deviousness, and then sighs. "Well, let's try the track into the woods." She nods in agreement to Harvester.

Sen-Jyu returns to the place where the tracks were originally discovered, seeking to follow the trail into the forest.

Sen-Jyu sighs, after having gone not too far. "... these creatures must have anticipated being tracked..." he says, no small amount of frustration heard under the tranquility.

"Wait a minute," says Ahoke, who has long since given up looking at tracks and has been looking straight ahead. "Right up ahead is a clearing. The tracks seem to end right before it... let's just go in and take a look around."

Looking up rather than down, Sen-Jyu shrugs. With a clearer goal in sight, he attempts to fade into the treeline, approaching with due caution and stealth.

Harvester just shakes his head, muttering, "Don't see how you guys can see the forest for all these trees... I don't see nothin..." A gesture, "Lead on, Kay...."

Ahoke walks into the clearing, brandishing her axe, just in case.

The clearing has obviously been the site of a struggle - even the Harvester's untutored eyes can see that. The leaves have been kicked up and disturbed, and in the once-soft ground underneath are yet more of the footprints of the crafty thanork.

Harvester holds up a hand to his friends, "Uh.... hang on a sec, guys... Look at that...." He points to a pile of red dirt that seems to be curiously shaped like the Steeple - the mountain overshadowing Bellhold.

Ahoke nods, grimly. "I was right. The little bastards have the children. Or had them, anyway." She walks to a spot in the clearing. "You can tell, here." She looks around, growling in frustration. She glances over at Harvester, and then to the mountain. "What..?"

Harvester walks towards the spire-shaped pile of dirt and goes to one knee beside it. His had traces its contours without quite touching. "See... here... and here... and here..." He points off towards the mountain in comparison.

Sen-Jyu nods at both of the points noticed by his companions, unsurprised, but frowning as he thinks about their implications. "So these thanork have the children. Then we must follow them to their lair, and see what we can do to save the survivors, or avenge their deaths. Or both."

Ahoke nods to Sen-Jyu in agreement, and then crosses over to the mountain. "Do you think that one of the children made this, to try to show us where they were being taken? Or is that too wild of a guess?"

Harvester raises a hand in a gesture of 'I don't know'. "Beats hell outa me... Seems certain SOMEONE made it though.... And seems like alot of fight here for a few kids..."

"Perhaps the previous heroes made it this far..." Sen-Jyu breathes. "But no way to tell for certain."

Harvester gestures around the clearing, "Can you see any tracks leading from here?"

Sen-Jyu nods. "Yes. I believe I can follow the trail from here."

"Their trail begins..." Sen-Jyu follows, from the spot that Ahoke found to the edge of the clearing, "here. I'll begin on it; this may take a while if I'm to be absolutely certain."

The sun crawls across the sky as Sen-Jyu makes his painstaking way along the path. Nothing is left unexamined - the slightest disturbance of fallen leaf, the tiniest bend in a blade of grass, the slight looseness of a displaced pebble - all are noted and analyzed.

The hours crawl along as the strange warrior moves along the path at a snail's pace. Have you really only come a hundred yards? It seems like forever.

Gradually, though, one thing becomes apparent - as another set of tracks join the ones you follow (possibly the same ones you lost at the river?), it is clear that their destination lies somewhere on the Steeple.

It is late afternoon by the time you come to the Old Mine Road. Somewhere ahead, the old abandoned mine dives into the roots of the mountain - but the tracks merely cross the road, and continue on. An hour or so later, you stand at the foot of the mountain itself, where the footprints peter out on the rocks. The light is beginning to fail, and the mountainside ahead seems to lack a ready means of ascent.

Ahoke looks up the side of the mountain. "They... climbed it here? I don't see where one could climb this thing, especially with children."

"That's what it seems, though," says Sen-Jyu, and he stands resolute in the judgment he has made.

Ahoke steps closer to the mountain, reaching her hand out to touch the stone. "I'm good at climbing, and I don't think it's possible to scale this, even with the right equipment. If not impossible, close to it. I wonder... if there's a secret passage into the mountain somewhere?"
Harvester nods slowly, thoughtfully. "It appears as we suspected... the mines." He looks to Ahoke and Sen-Jyu, "Or perhaps we merely do not see the path they climbed, hidden among these rocks? Or perhaps there is an ascent within the mines..."

"I'm not much as far as it comes to mountains," admits Sen-Jyu, "so I believe you. Maybe we should spend the last hours of daylight seeking out a possible passage?" Hot on the trail, he doesn't want it to die quite so sudden a death at the hands of an insurmountable rock wall.

Harvester takes a seat on a handy boulder and sets his scythe at his feet. Elbows rest on knees, and fingers tent into a steeple. Softly he speaks, a frown creasing his forehead, "There is something... that I cannot quite recall...."

Ahoke ers, looking at Harvester. "Something about the mountain?" She starts poking around the rock at the base of the mountain, not inconvenienced by the fading light in the least.

Sen-Jyu also gets to work, exploring the base of the mountain in the whereabouts of the ending of the tracks.

Harvester's glares at the mountain thoughtfully and nods to Ahoke, "Yes... I think so... Have we learned anything regarding passages within the mines? Perhaps where the dragon resided?" He rises, and begins looking across the landscape.

Ahoke shudders. "I know that I chose the wrong passage in my dream last night. Something ate my leg and tried to twist my head off."

Harvester blinks and stops, to look at Ahoke. "Ate your leg and tried to twist your head off? Errr... that sounds rather unpleasant..."

Ahoke nods. "You're telling me. It makes one wonder why I'm poking around the very mountain that I had such an awful dream about."

Sen-Jyu looks at Ahoke in the same manner that Harvester does: abruptly and quizzically, borderline surprised. He whispers something to himself before he continues searching.

Harvester's voice trails off as his eyes center on something, and he points, hand drawing down to the base, "There.... is that..." He walks some yards away, "Yes... a trail. Sort of.... it will still prove difficult, I think..."

Ahoke walks over, peering at the trail.

Sen-Jyu pauses in his searching, moving to examine what it is that Harvester has found. One hand rests on the hilt of Ichido-sama, finding reassurance in its presence.

The trail is...well...not much. The difficulty which you had in finding it is proof of that. It winds its way up the steep side of the mountain, a narrow space barely wide enough for a single foot, a space that is not so much flat as only slightly less steep than the rest of the mountainside.

Harvester looks back to where he was sitting moments ago and sighs. He walks back, towards the scythe laying on the ground.

Ahoke considers for a moment. "Did either of you bring torches? Lanterns of some kind? I can see in pitch black, and am not worried about myself... but you guys might have trouble."

Sen-Jyu says, "Actually," Sen-Jyu says, brightening a bit, then frowns. "No."

Harvester removes his pack and sets it upon the rock. "I have both... I think I'll use a torch for now, though... or I'll drop the lamp on one of your heads and set you afire." He removes a torch from within, and reaches into his pouch for flint and steel. He sets to lighting the wood.

Ahoke nods, waiting for Harvester to prepare.

Harvester hears Sen-Jyu's words, and once he has the first torch lit, draws another and sets it alight before handing it to the spirit-kin. The pack is slung and scythe taken up to be placed across his back.

Sen-Jyu shakes his head, deterring the offer of the torch. "It'd be better to have two weapons and one light than two lights and one weapon, yes?"

Harvester shrugs, "Alright. Then douse it and keep it. Never know when we might be spearated and you left in the dark." He smiles.

Ahoke smiles grimly. "You could always hit one with your torch. It's fun to set them on fire."

Sen-Jyu accepts the torch, lowering it to the ground and snuffing it with his foot. "I lack flint -- somehow I doubt that the comfort of a torch in my hands would be of any help." The torch is handed back.

Harvester shakes his head and takes the snuffed torch. After a few moments of letting it cool, it is stowed in his pack. "We need to get you some basic supplies, Sen..." He grins.

"I live off the land. I don't often find myself under it." Sen-Jyu grins back at the Harvester, then turns his focus back to the bleak stone pinnacle rising before them. "Any thoughts on whether there's a passage here or not?"

Harvester looks up at the arduous climb ahead. "Should we climb with ropes tied to each other, or...?" He looks to Ahoke, the most experienced climber for guidance.

Ahoke grimaces. "I don't know, guys. I don't think that you can make it up in the dark, carrying a torch... we /might/ be able to do it in the morning light, but even then, it's going to be an interesting climb."

Harvester grunts. "Back to town, then? I'm not to sure about sleeping out here, with your friends lurking about..."

Ahoke sighs, looking back to the general direction of the village. "Seems like such a long walk...granted we came the long way around. We could do that, if you want. We could also sleep here, and have one of us watching at all times throughout the night."

Harvester heaves a large sigh, "Arright, well.. least I still have my blankets... No fire, I'm betting... or can we?" He looks hopeful.

Ahoke makes a face. "Well... I suppose it might draw them out into the open, if we lit a fire. We might get the opportunity to kill some of them."

Harvester frowns after a moment and removes his pack again. He holds the lit torch out to the others, "Someone... hold this a moment please?" He extracts his journal with one hand.

Ahoke holds the torch aloft so that the human has light to look at the little scribbles by.

Harvester begins to sift through his journal - an odd collection of notes and passable pictures. Towards the end he slows, glancing at each page. "Ahh...." he murmurs. "Here... I made a note of something from Thrommel's diary... It seems he was contemplating confrontation of Copperdeath either through the mines, or up the mountainside..."

Ahoke hmms. "Did he say anything else?"

Harvester shakes his head at Ahoke, "Merely that the mountain seemed more dangerous and open... It was his last entry."

"There was more," states Sen-Jyu flatly, looking up to meet the priest's eyes. "Something else. May I?" One hand extends toward the journal.

Harvester looks at Sen-Jyu for a long moment, then at his journal. He hands it over thoughtfully. Perhaps nearly reluctantly. A nod.

Ahoke looks from Harvester to Sen-Jyu and back, shrugging a bit, waiting for them to reach some sort of consensus.

Sen-Jyu glances over the pages, then shakes his head. "I need to see the actual journal again," he says while handing Harvester's back.

Ahoke thinks a moment. "Do you think it important enough for us to walk back to the village tonight, and look at it? Because we can... it'll just mean more walking."

Harvester accepts the journal, then hikes his thumb over his shoulder, towards town. "Then we'll need to see Tokket again..."

Ahoke nods, once. "Let's go back to the village then... actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that I don't want to sleep out here with those murderous little bastards crawling around the mountain."

Harvester nods, apparently a little pleased with the prospect of not sleeping out here. "Very well. Maybe we shouldn't tell anyone what we've found, little that it is... In case someone's not exactly on our side..." He glances at his companions as he stows the journal and wears the pack. "How old're these tracks, anyway?"

"It wouldn't be right not to tell them," Sen-Jyu says gently. "These people have given us their hopes. They are waiting for us to bring them results."

Ahoke hesitates for a moment. "I don't know, Sen," she says. "Maybe we can tell them that we think we're on to something, but that we want to be sure before telling them. Telling these people that their children have fallen into the hands of monsters might be the last thing they need to hear right now...

Harvester shakes his head as he blows out a plume of white air. "Fine. Then let's just tell Tokket. He can tell the others if we disappear. I don't trust everyone to have our best interests at heart."

Sen-Jyu murmurs to Ahoke, "We don't know one way or another about the fate of the children. I'm not suggesting that we tell them that there's no hope. I would rather be honest and forthright to their questions than evasive -- it is easy to sense when someone is avoiding the truth."

Ahoke shrugs. "Alright, do what you want. Since it's late, and we'll probably be leaving right after we wake up from our nightmares, we might not see any of them anyway. Shall we?" She gestures towards the village.
Harvester says, "Then don't lie, Sen. Just say we don't want to say just yet." He laughs softly. "Or say nothing and let us.... I won't lie, but won't jeopardize our pursuit, either."

Ahoke says, "Let's discuss it as we walk."

Harvester nods to Ahoke and begins walking. "Good idea. Besides... i'm HUNGRY..."

Ahoke nods, rapidly. "And thirsty..." she mutters.

Sen-Jyu frowns, looking back up the slope of the Steeple. Already, his hands have started to fidget with a tear in his clothing from the long trip over the mountains. "If I am asked a question, I will answer it in my own way. Please do not ask me to do otherwise."

The walk back to the village takes far less time than the tracking did - it is perhaps half an hour before you see the outskirts, and ten minutes more before you are safely ensconced in the Bell and Clapper. As before, the streets are all but deserted after dark, as is the inn. A yawning Tokket - perhaps a bit surprised to see you - turns the diary over into to Sen-Jyu's possession for the evening, and taps a small keg of beer which he leaves for you to use as you wish, as he staggers off to attempt to sleep. The days of restlessness are taking their toll on him.

 

[drnuncheon]

Ahoke sits up in her bed, drawing her knees up to her chest. "/Who?/" she demands of the air. "Who should speak for me?" She snarls then, and swivels, her feet hitting the floor with twin thumps.

Harvester bolts upright in his bed with a low gasp, "NO....!!!" His eyes are wide, the tears streaming down his face...

Underneath his cocoon of blankets, Sen-Jyu shifts about, soundless but undoubtedly disturbed by whatever visions have visited him in the night. With the sounds about him, he snaps to a wide-eyed alertness, but says not a word.

Ahoke starts attaching her bone armor to her body. "I'm ready to go when you two are," she informs them, "Although we should probably stop and get some food to take with us, along with some kind of light source for you. Oh, and we should get Tokket to lend us the journal again."

With almost as much horror as he'd experienced in the dream, Sen-Jyu twists about to look at Ahoke, as if she's gone mad. "... what?" he asks, in a gentle whisper.

Harvester whispers softly, over and over for several moments, not really hearing the others as his tearing eyes stare into the distance. They slowly dry, filling with wearied resolve. "The children will be spared, that His plans may come to fruition... I shall not betray His faith in me..."

Ahoke turns to look at Sen-Jyu, and then to Harvester, clearing her throat gruffly. "I want to get all of this stuff done so that we can leave the village. Save the children, stop the headaches and all that. I can't take much more of this."

Harvester's head swivels to look, without sight, upon Ahoke. His vision clears as he rises and dresses. He nods slowly, a new mantra softly crossing his lips, "For the children... For the Rebirth... For He Who Is To Come..."

Ahoke looks oddly at Harvester, picking up her club and putting it over her shoulder. "I thought..." She stops, shuffling her feet a bit. "Oh, never mind." She straps her stone ax to her hip then, and looks over at Sen-Jyu to see how he's holding up.

"You're tired of waiting," says Sen-Jyu, but with unusually quirky inflection, directed more inwardly than outwardly. It takes him a while to gather enough impetus to pull himself from the blankets that have imprisoned him during his restless sleep, but in time, he begins to follow suit, though he's unusually quiet all the while.

Harvester concludes the gathering of clothing and equipment, and turns his gaze back to Ahoke. His deep voice spills from the hood with a plume of white air, "You thought what, Kay?"

Ahoke shakes her head. "I thought that your god wanted us all to die. Not all at once, I guess, though." She furrows her brow. "But what you said about saving the children, it sounds like he wants them alive."

Sen-Jyu prepares his armor, attaching it with some haste, while the others converse. With what time remains to him, he takes his whetstone to his blades, cleaning and oiling them as he whispers prayers to them in the tongue of his mother's people.

Sen-Jyu looks up, once he is prepared. "I will ask Tokket to look at the journal," he murmurs, unwilling to disturb the conversation at hand. He slips out the door, fully garbed but looking rather weighted down by the evening's lack of respite.

Harvester lowers his cowl, and smiles softly. A hand lifts the wooden holy symbol that dangles on a fine chain and it slowly begins to rotate. The grinning skull gives way to a massive, ancient tree whose boughs appear laden with fruit. Low words come now, intoned with a joy rarely heard. "My Lord is charged with preparing the Way... All souls are but ripening fruits, traveling down roads, eventually to be welcomed by His embrace... He is the gardener, plucking the weeds, preparing the land... I am but His tool, His servant... It is my privilege to serve Him in preparing the soil of Sh'Kilat for the future... the seeds of the Tree of Life that shall be our future..."

Ahoke hmms, and then nods, starting to follow Sen-Jyu. She says, to Harvester, "I see. Well, let's hope that he doesn't decide that I am a weed." She turns and bares her teeth at him in her usual manner of grinning.

Harvester takes up his scythe, looking at it for a long silent moment before following the others. "There are few, I believe, that are irredeemable, Kay..." he answers, in all seriousness, "and those few who are 'lacking' will be reborn to try again... So shall we all, as that is but a facet of the cycle of life..." He looks down at the dwarf as they emerge from the stairway, "Once we have progressed sufficiently, we shall move on to the next stage, reborn, our chrysalis transforming us into something new, greater, until we have learned what is required of us to learn..."

Downstairs, a bleary Tokket looks over at you with sunken eyes. "I would ask how you slept," he begins, "but it would not be a pleasantry. Breakfast will be ready soon." With that, he returns to the kitchen. The journal rests in its place of honor near the bar, open to the last page you perused.

Ahoke sits down on a barstool, peering over at Harv, seeming to agree with that facet of his philosophy anyway. She watches Tokket go back to the kitchen then, sighing. "I don't know how much longer these villagers are going to be able to withstand this. They've been suffering it longer than we have."

Sen-Jyu sits near the journal, reading over the two pages that were once Thrommel's diary. "Let me ask this," he says to his companions, "why is it that most people describe Copperdeath as having been a blue dragon, while this journal seems to describe it as being copper?" His words are somewhat slurred from his slow rise to wakefulness.

Harvester plops himself into a chair without ceremony, then grunts after a moment. He rises and moves to the bar and grabs a pair of tankards, then fills them with the warm ale. He sets one before Ahoke, then sits on an adjacent barstool. "You don't want one, do you, Sen?" He blinks, "The journal says he's copper?"

Harvester laughs softly at Ahoke. "How much longer can they withstand it? About five or six days, at most..."

Ahoke sips at the ale, nodding to the Harvester in silent thanks. She smirks a bit at his response, and then looks blankly over at the journal. "Maybe the dragon changed colors sometimes? Like a lizard?"

Sen-Jyu gestures to the top paragraph on the second page with a waggling finger. "Here... but this is prior to Thrommel's having met the dragon. Still, it seems a bit odd. Oh, and... I remember that Othic had mentioned the rumor of a secret entrance to the dragon's lair in the mines, and this journal seems to confirm that -- in the statue of the dragon."

Harvester peers over Sen-Jyu's shoulder, sipping at the ale. "What? Where it says copper dragons are good?"

"So... rather than make that atrocious climb," Sen-Jyu says, "why not go through the mines, assuming that the secret entrance is still in existence? It would save us the trouble of getting climbing equipment."
He clears his throat, peering at the page. "Good -riddlers-, it says."

Ahoke stares blankly at Sen-Jyu and Harvester, starting to look a little frustrated.

Harvester shrugs a shoulder at Ahoke. "Maybe. To fool people, maybe, into thinking it was good while it worked its wiles?" A look to Sen-Jyu comes next as he seats himself again, "Yeah... that's the one I was thinking of last night. You might be right, unless..."

Sen-Jyu, oblivious, looks back at Harvester. "I'm half inclined to think that perhaps Copperdeath truly died as the journal states, and someone else is attempting to revive an old terror, using the legend of Copperdeath as a facade."

Tokket returns with an enormous platter covered with a wide selection of fried pig parts, along with a tall stack of potato-and-onion pancakes. He sets it in front of the three, along with some trenchers, and wipes off his hands. "No luck yesterday, hmm," he says - not really a question. "Not that I'm surprised."

Sen-Jyu smiles wanly up at Tokket. "Actually, I think we've had quite good luck, though it took most of the day to make good on what we'd found."

Ahoke takes her plate and starts eating ferociously. Apparently her dream hasn't affected her appetite any.

Harvester shakes his head, "I don't know... could be." He sets the mug down and begins to eat with gusto. His sleep may be affected, but his appetite is not. He mumbles around a mouthful of food, then swallows and tries again. "'s good, Tokket. Sen, y'might be right, but if something's down there like we suspect, then it may be in the tunnel too..."

Tokket pauses, as the conversation runs on, and then prompts: "So you found something, then?"

Sen-Jyu nods, "Once we're done with breakfast, we're going to go to the mines," he reports with a grin. "We've followed some suspicious tracks that far. It's too early to say about the fate of the children, unfortunately." Sen-Jyu lifts a fork, severing small chunks from the edge of the pancakes and eating them slowly.

"The mines?" Tokket seems confused. "But they'd have been found if they were in Krekkit's..." Then it seems to dawn on his sleep-deprived mind that there is another possibility. "The /old/ mines?" It seems this is even more improbable than the last. "They're unsafe - they've been sealed off. I can't believe anybody could have gotten in."

Harvester nods once, "Up on the Steeple, we think...

Ahoke nods, looking worried. "I'm afraid that's exactly what happened, though," she admits. "But... I'm reluctant to worry people with the news, since we still /might/ be wrong."

Sen-Jyu looks at Ahoke. "I -know- the tracks went there. There's no other way that they could have gone." He grins, looking away as he mumbles, "Just because someone loses the tracks -once-..."

Ahoke smirks at Sen-Jyu. "Yeah. I'm not doubting you, just concerned that not everything is as it seems."

Sen-Jyu nods in agreement, then pauses as a thought infiltrates upon his good mood. "Tokket... Copperdeath's old lair -was- in the Steeple, correct?"

Harvester belches quietly, fist to his chest, then pushes the empty plate aside. "I didn't realize there was more than one set of mines... You know anything about the old mines? Is that where Copperdeath was?" He nods as Sen-Jyu asks the question.

Ahoke, who was not in a good mood to start with, positively glowers now. "I don't like Copperdeath."

The muscular half-elf nods. "That's right...about a quarter mile up, although there's not really a path anymore. Copperdeath near tore off half the mountainside to make it harder to get up there from the outside - unless y'can fly, that is."

"Dwarves can't fly," Ahoke informs the half-elf, in case he didn't already know this. "And you said that the normal entrance was sealed up?"

"Then it's far more likely that Alissa and the others went through the mines when they sought to slay Copperdeath." He taps one finger against his lips while he returns to reading the journal.

Tokket nods again. "Blocked it off with slabs of copper after it was declared unsafe - and you're right, that's exactly what they did."
Ahoke hmms. "And there's absolutely no way in through that entrance? No cracks or crevices?"

Sen-Jyu wonders aloud, though his eyes focus on Tokket, "How long ago were the mines sealed off?"

Tokket gives the matter some thought. "I suppose if you were patient enough you could dig around...or maybe heat up the edge and bend it back...it's mostly to stop people from getting in there by accident, really." Then he answers Sen-Jyu: "Not long after the dragon was slain."

Sen-Jyu smiles at the half-elf and nods. "Thank you."

Ahoke nods. "I see..." she glances at her friends. "We'll need to look into that." She looks back at Tokket. "Is it okay if we take some food with us? We're going to need sustenance while we're down there getting caved in on."

After finishing half of his plate of pancakes, Sen-Jyu tilts his head at the trencher, hefting it and asking, "Might you have a small sack or something that I could carry this in? For the road."

Ahoke grins at Tokket. "We'd pay you for both, of course."

Harvester finishes off his ale and sets the mug down.

"I suppose I can make something up for you," Tokket admits, and moves off to do just that.

Ahoke harrumphs, clearing her throat, and slides down off of the barstool. "What are we going to need? You two are going to need a light source, something easy to carry and light. Food is taken care of. Rope?"

When Tokket returns, Sen-Jyu greets him with another question: "What race was Toren, may I ask? Human or demihuman?"

Harvester shrgs at Ahoke, and swivels on his stool. "I've got a lamp, some torches, and a minor bit of light my Lord shall grant me with, should I need it... I also possess a quantity of rope."

Ahoke peers at Sen-Jyu, sniffing loudly. "Demi my ass," she says, not without humor.

"Hmm? Toren? Toren was a human," Tokket says, bringing a sack. "I've put some bread and cheese in there, and a chunk of smoked ham, and some onions too. A sort of a ploughman's lunch."

Harvester nods to Tokket, "What's we owe you, Tokket?"

Harvester thinks about it a minute, "Actually, we might ought to take a couple days worth of food, just in case..."

"I'll get some more ham." The half-elf vanishes into the back.

Ahoke mmms, looking pleased all of a sudden. "We'll get to kill some Thanark today, if we're lucky."

Sen-Jyu smiles at Ahoke, "Then why are we worried about carrying so much food? I hear Thanark dry well."

Ahoke looks vaguely ill at the prospect. "But they've eaten dwarven children," she says. "So it's almost cannibalism."

Tokket returns with more food. "Call it...three gold for the lot. There's enough there to last you three days." Glancing at the carnage left over from breakfast, he amends: "Maybe two and a half."

Ahoke laughs, putting one gold out on the counter. "We'll have to eat more responsibly while we're down there."

Sen-Jyu proffers a single coin, his share for the cornucopia.

Harvester digs into a pouch that appears rather empty, and pulls out a yellow coin. He flips it into the air, and it lands atop the bar, spinning towards Tokket, "Thanks, bub. You're a prince."

Harvester shakes his head at Ahoke and Sen-Jyu, "Just what the hells is a Thanork, anyway? A goblin? Kobold? Flying purple people eater?

Tokket scoops up the gold, and sighs. "Good luck," he offers wearily. He looks at Harvester, and frowns. "Than...oh. /Thanork/. It's a dwarven word for goblin, although you've got a funny accent when you say it." He eyes Ahoke as he says it.

Harvester laughs at Tokket, and slides off the stool. "Course I've got a funny accent when I say it.... I ain't a dwarf."

Ahoke says, "Goblin? It sounds almost kind and gentle. Thanork is much better."

Harvester snorts. "Think of 'goblin' as, 'GOBbLe anythIN'...." He stresses certain syllables."

Ahoke chuckles, and then starts heading towards the door, saying, "I don't have rope, so if you could get yours, Harvester... and those light sources would probably be a good idea. I can see in the dark, but I don't want you guys stepping on my feet or over a cliff, all because you're blind."

Sen-Jyu waves one hand over his shoulder as he leaves the inn. "Thanks again, Tokket."

Tokket nods, and waves you on your way.

Harvester shoulders his pack and hefts his scythe, "Later, Tokket."

 

[Caliber]

Looks like some good 'ole fashioned Goblin-bashin is coming up soon. Excellent.

 

[drnuncheon]

The old trade road that led to the mine was once lined with crushed red stone, but now it is nearly invisible after fifty years without upkeep: weeds, grass, and in some cases even small trees have sprouted up through it, scattering and obscuring the rocks. As you crest the hill that the road leads up, you can look down and see its destination. No entrance is immediately obvious: instead, the rotting remains of winches and dwarven machinery squat in the valley below, surrounded by more piles of the red rock.

"Well, this looks like the place," says Ahoke grimly, looking down the hill at the scene below. "Where thanorks, dragons, and most likely rock slides and cave ins await us. And things that try to eat us in the dark, let's not forget that. Are you guys ready?"

Harvester marches down the road in relative silence, less the occasional bout of whistling. He grows quiet as they near the abandoned mine, however. "Nope. Let's go."

Bow in hand, Sen-Jyu follows the others into the valley, but has become somewhat more subdued again, eyes pecking about the terrain features, looking for crumbs of movement or evidence of Thanork infestation.

Ahoke marches down the hill, looking almost cheerful.

Harvester stops walking and stares at something in the distance. He speaks softly, "Seems we may not need a rope after all, friends..." He points. "I think I've found the mine. Looks like someone's beat us to it."

Ahoke looks in the direction that the Harvester is peering in. "Huh?"

Sen-Jyu glances in the direction that the Harvester indicates, but doesn't rest his eyes there for long. An arrow is tugged from his quiver with that knowledge, however.

Now that Harvester mentions it, the rest of you can see: a knotted rope tied around a boulder, trailing into the earth through an opening where the edge of a verdigrised copper plate has been pried or bent up to allow ingress into the mine.

Harvester moves towards the place he pointed to, slowly, his eyes scanning the area thoughtfully.

Ahoke squints, and then nods. "I'll bet that the heroes of the bell went up there. Which means that we're probably going into certain death, since they haven't returned." She sounds resigned, though, and changes direction. "I'm assuming that we'll want to go down that way, or do you think it's too risky?"

Harvester pauses to look back at Ahoke, "Or the rope belongs to someone else..." He shrugs. "We can go down, or up the mountainside. And I'm not overly impressed with my rock-climbing ability..."

Ahoke grins at Harvester. "I think going down sounds like a good idea to me. I was concerned about the rock climbing part, to be honest."

"I'm in agreement with the Harvester -- the thanorks likely have a very defensible position on the mountainside. At least, in these mines, we aren't at such a disadvantage." Sen-Jyu chuckles a little. "Sounds like we're all on the same page."

Ahoke starts heading towards the rope, then, grinning. "Or at least thinking alike, anyway," she says, "Since one of us doesn't read."

Harvester laughs softly, and begins to examine the rope before catiously peering into the hole.

Sen-Jyu blinks at Ahoke, "Harvester seems to read just f... oh. Oh."

Harvester peers at Sen-Jyu, "Uh huh... read between the lines, Sen..." He grins, holding up the first three fingers of a hand towards Sen-Jyu.

Ahoke grins at Sen-Jyu. "We don't communicate with scratchings on paper," she said, "though it's interesting to see you guys do it." She too peers down into the hole, eager to see what is waiting for them. Perhaps a dragon, maw open wide. Or hundreds of assembled thanorks.

The copper sheet is blackened along the crease - it appears as if a fire was built upon it to heat it to the point where it could be bent back to allow entry. The opening is large enough to fit even the Harvester...barely. Below, the shaft - ten feet across - descends into darkness. The rope dangles down next to the corroded remains of a metal ladder attached to the shaft's wall.

Sen-Jyu laughs a little. "Oh, right. I thought that the Harvester was simply a good actor. Of course."

Ahoke picks up the top part of the rope, tugging on the knot around the boulder, checking for sturdiness.

Harvester returns the laugh with a chuckle, then extracts a torch from his pack. He begins to light it as Ahoke tests the rope. "I'm gonna drop this in when I start going down, I think. Unless I can hold it in my teeth." He looks at the thickness of the torch. "Think I'll drop it..."

Sen-Jyu kicks a small stone into the aperture between rock and metal, to gauge the depth of the shaft.

Ahoke drops the rope, grunting in satisfaction. "It'll hold," she says. "If you drop it, don't get it so close to the rope that it will burn it. That would make the day be so much more exciting than it needs to be.

The stone falls for a second...not quite two, before a dim impact is heard. Not of rock on rock, but maybe wood.

Ahoke erks. "Don't drop the torch. If there's wood down there... it could be bad."

Sen-Jyu clears his throat before counseling Ahoke, "Don't fall."

Ahoke looks at Sen-Jyu through her bangs, which are starting to get shaggy. "Thanks for the advice," she says dryly. "Am I to go first, then?"

"Great!" says Sen-Jyu to Ahoke, smiling. "Thanks for volunteering."

Harvester thinks for a second, then nods to Ahoke. "Arright... Scratch Plan A... go to Plan 2." He instead begins to cast a spell. "May He Who Is To Come hear my words, and grant His servant light within this cavernous maw within the earth..." Before long the head of the torch begins to glow. "Want me to drop the torch first?" He nods. "You going first is great... can catch us if we fall."

Ahoke takes the rope in hand again, nodding. "Sure," she says. And then, after making sure that her weapons and equipment are securely fastened to her, drops over the side, gripping the rope with two tight fists.

Harvester nods again, "Good luck."

Ahoke hangs there for a moment, spinning. "Ack. Hold this thing steady so that I can get started."

Harvester says, "Want us to tie a rope around your waist, in case?"

Ahoke grimaces. "Just hold the rope steady," she insists. "I'll be fine if I can just get started."

Harvester takes the rope in both hands, though he seems uncertain. "Uh.... I might not be the best one to do this, but I'll try..."

Sen-Jyu keeps looking about the area around the mine, as a 'just in case we missed something or someone' activity while Ahoke rappels down the shaft.

Ahoke starts climbing down, finally getting herself straightened out. Once she gets started she does do well, true to her word. Soon, she climbs out of sight, down into the darkness. Not even a full minute later, she tugs on the rope, signalling that she's reached bottom and that nothing has eaten her.

Harvester waves the torch across the opening, then lets it drop. "You wanna go next, or shall I?"

Sen-Jyu waves one hand dismissively, "You... can go ahead. Really." He looks squeamishly over the lip of the shaft, then smiles comfortingly at the Harvester. "I'll stand guard up here."

The cold-glowing torch plummets toward the bottom of the shaft, its light eventually all but swallowed by the darkness. It narrowly misses Ahoke as she stands waiting for the others.

Harvester extracts his rope from his pack, and sets to tying the scythe to bag. These he lowers into the hole and quickly begins to lower.

Harvester takes the knotted rope in hand now and begins to walk backward to the edge of the shaft. He attempts to walk himself down without turning upside down. Or falling.

Ahoke gets her ax ready in preparation to kill her companions, now that she has lured them toward her underground lair.

Harvester shimmies down the rope quickly, hand over hand as his feet run along the wall, backwards. He reaches the ground in record time, grinning all the while. "Oh... that was exhilirating. I've never done that before!" He gives the rope a couple of yanks before moving far aside to gather his things.

Ahoke looks up the shaft. "Alright, one more to go."

Once it appears that Harvester has safely made it to the bottom intact, Sen-Jyu goes about securing his bow and other accoutrements and taking the knotted rope. With a final look about and a pained sigh, he lowers himself into the darkness and the stagnant air of the underground mines.

The rope flies past under Sen-Jyu's hands as he lowers himself. His companions wait below, all standing on a wooden platform that spans the shaft. The air is clammy and moist, and somewhere below, he can hear the thunderous roar of rushing water.

Soon he has descended the eighty feet to the platform below. As he places his weight on the floor, it creaks again...louder than before.

Harvester moves with alacrity, OFF the platform and into the tunnel.

Ahoke looks to the floor, worried. "I think we should get off of this platform," she says. "It doesn't sound like it's holding up under our weight." In fact, she backs her words up with actions, moving away.

Keeping the rope in hand, Sen-Jyu also moves to the tunnel, and looks for a place to secure the rope should they need to return this way again.

Relieved of the weight of the companions, the complaints of the platform subside. The rope is easily hooked around the corroded remains of the ladder for easy access should egress be needed.

 

[Caliber]

This

Ahoke starts climbing down, finally getting herself straightened out. Once she gets started she does do well, true to her word. Soon, she climbs out of sight, down into the darkness. Not even a full minute later, she tugs on the rope, signalling that she's reached bottom and that nothing has eaten her.

and this

Ahoke gets her ax ready in preparation to kill her companions, now that she has lured them toward her underground lair.

actually made me laugh out loud. Its lucky they figured out that the wooden platform was at the end of the hole. Burning that down could have created all kinds of problems.

 

[drnuncheon]

actually made me laugh out loud.

Whoops. Looks like the DM forgot and left an OOC comment in. (Not the first time...) I'll be putting another post of OOC banter up eventually with more from my weirdo players. Consider that a preview.

J

 

[Tear44]

been eagerly awaiting the next installment

 

[Harvester]

been eagerly awaiting the next installment

Me, too!!!

I want to see what happened to us next!!!

The Harvester

 

[drnuncheon]

Ahoke stands, just off off the wooden platform, glaring into the dark balefully. "Well, we're here," she says quietly. "Now what do we do?"

Harvester studies the tunnel, and the darkness beyond, raising his torch to spread the light farther. "I guess we start spelunking? Try to find our way up?"

"Mmmm," Sen-Jyu says, eyes narrowed in the same direction as Ahoke looks. He shrugs his shoulders and says helpfully, "Good question." Though, just to be on the safe side, Ichido-sama is relieved of the scabbard it has rested in, and is pointed forward as he starts to advance.

The corridor is short - about ten feet long - and then opens into a wider room, the other side of which is lost in shadow to all but Ahoke. The stone here is reddish, although bits of bluish-green slime drip from the moist ceiling to puddles on the floor. At the edge of the shadowy light you can just see piles of equipment - broken picks, rotted wheelbarrows and the like.

Ahoke shrugs, and starts walking towards the tunnel. "Well, we may as well get started." She begins to head down the corridor, treading carefully, and pulling her stone axe, just in case. "It's not natural," she mutters, very non-dwarven-like.

Harvester allows the other to precede him and he gives furtive glances behind him. He sighs softly, and berates himself nearly without sound. "Maps. Next time, get a map of where you're going. Dammit."

Sen-Jyu busies himself as the three advance with a tedious searching of the walls, floor and ceiling. At Ahoke's advance, Sen-Jyu whispers, "Do you think it's wise to just walk in? Could these creatures be capable of setting traps for us?"

Ahoke shrugs as she walks. "I would not put anything past them." She pauses, looking around for traps, but if none immediately present themselves, will continue walking, stopping before entering the larger room.

The dwarf walks past Sen-jyu, whose progress is slowed to a snail's pace as he inspects walls and ceiling. No trap snuffs out her life, or even attempts to do so.

Harvester turns to look behind for a moment, and the haft of his scythe cracks into a wall. He continues to follow his companions, "I do so hate dank and dark..."

Ahoke peers into the room, now that she's close enough to possibly see things that she missed from further back. "Yeah, me too," she says in agreement with the death cleric.

Sen-Jyu grins and shrugs as he falls in line five feet behind Ahoke. "If you're willing to stake your life on it, I'll follow you," he says with a dry tone.

The room at the end of the hall proves to be about fifty feet across, and about the same in widht - large enough that the Harvester's magic light cannot penetrate to its corners. A few beetles scuttle away from the unusual glow, their backs glistening emerald in the unaccustomed light.

Ahoke peers into the room. "Ah. There's a doorway that leads into a cave on the other side," she says, starting to stump through the room without seeming very concerned for life or limb. "Here thanork, come and get us..." She peers at the beetles, but then ignores them upon determining that they are not thanork.

Sen-Jyu glances back at the Harvester. "Would it be wiser to simply wait here and let her clear the mines?"

Harvester glances at Sen-Jyu as Ahoke boldly goes where no dwarf has gone since years before. "She's... certainly brave..." A laugh. "Well, I think we could follow at a distance..."

"I -hope- that it's bravery," Sen-Jyu adds with a whisper.

Ahoke grins over her shoulder at the other two. "If we die, we die in glory. And I'll be able to get some rest," she adds, in a mutter. Turning back around, she once again begins to approach the opening into the cavern.

Sen-Jyu sniffs. "I'm not sure that dying anywhere under the earth is very glorious," he opines, though mostly to himself.

Harvester shrugs and steps fully into the room, some short distance behind the dwarf. "I don't mind dying," he remarks back to Sen-Jyu, "so much as dying needlessly or foolishly." Another soft laugh. "I've done that before."

Harvester gives a low whistle, "Hold up a sec, guys...." He kneels, fingers tracing just about the dust.

Sen-Jyu pauses, mid-step. He stares at something just at his feet, then withdraws his foot so he can crouch close to the ground.

Ahoke, too, seems to have paused. "Looks like someone's been through here recently," she says, glancing at the other two for confirmation.

Harvester almost seems to croon softly, "Well, welll... What have we here... Yeah... two sets of somebodies, at that..." He points at some unobscured prints, "Lots of little people, and later.... maybe half a dozen people our size... no more than that, probably less." He rises. "I think we're on the right track..."

Ahoke nods. "Whether little people are thanork or children, we're on the right track." She looks vaguely disappointed, like she'd been hoping for something a little more innocent. "Well, right. Let's go then."

"Nnnnn," Sen-Jyu says softly. "Allow me, please, to check these. For a minute." He takes to his knees, so much the better to search about the floor. "The Harvester, may I ask you to bring that light a bit closer?"

Harvester nods, and moves closer to Sen-Jyu, holding the torch outwards.

Ahoke shrugs, and waits nearby, quietly, so as to not distrub Sen-Jyu's inspection.

Sen-Jyu says, "Hmmm."

Harvester says, "What hmmm?"

Sen-Jyu points at some of the tracks. "These are thanork. About ten, maybe as many as fifteen. However, they both enter... and leave." His finger jabs at another set of tracks accusingly. "The larger ones... they check in, but they don't check out."

Harvester murmurs, nodding in agreement. "And the larger ones are the 'Heroes of Bellhold', no doubt..."

Ahoke studies the prints for a moment, over Sen-Jyu's shoulder, and then nods. "You're right..." her eyes narrow. "It sounds like the thanork won that little skirmish. Now, did they just kill them, or did they eat them too..."

"More importantly, where are the children?" asks Sen-Jyu of his two companions, though it's not really a rhetorical comment. "I don't think that they fought -- the thanork were here several weeks ago."

Sen-Jyu hazards, "They could have been carried, I suppose..."

Ahoke shrugs. "Let's go find out then," she says, beginning to walk towards the cavern again. "I'll bet that the answers lie somewhere down here."

Harvester points down the tunnel, "I suggest we'll find our answers in the beyond..."

Harvester gestures back the way they've come, "In any case, I thought the tracks with the children led up the mountain?"

Sen-Jyu frowns, drawing his legs under him until he sits akimbo, Ichido-sama placed across his lap. "Might we pause to assemble some of our thoughts, here?"

Ahoke stops, looking over her shoulder with a trace of impatience, but then sighs heavily, drawing her great club to prop herself up on. "Seems to me like the course of action is an obvious one. We take the only path through here, and kill anything that opposes us..."

"I believe that killing anything to oppose us may also relieve us of any possibility for the answers we need," Sen-Jyu says softly, looking at Ahoke in earnest. "Which is why we should consider what we know and what we -need- to know."

Harvester murmurs thoughtfully, "I also have concerns about this place's stability. The mines have been closed for half a century, have they not?"

Ahoke scowls. "I'm not going to sit down and have tea with the thanork, and ask them why they've taken the children."

Harvester laughs, "Not 'why', Kay, but '_where_'..."

Ahoke amends, "Alright, I'm not going to sit down here and have tea with the thanork asking them where they've taken the children. They're murderous little bastards, is why. They're barely sentient. Although I suppose I could beat the answer out of one of them..." She eyes her club speculatively.

Harvester shakes his head. "We won't stop you from killing them... we just think we should keep some alive long enough to...extract answers."

"If they were the sort to have tea, I might. That seems to be an option that their nature has removed from possibility." Sen-Jyu places two fingers at the indent of his lip, lost momentarily in thought. "The thanork went through these caves several weeks ago... why? Were they the ones to open up the copper seal? They also left the same way. The newer set of tracks implies the Heroes of Bellhold also came this way, after having likely found the same clues that we have to this point. The children, however, were lost in between the time of these two groups in this cave."

Harvester considers. "When did the headaches and nightmares begin?"

Ahoke frowns. "Are the human sized prints just as old as the thanork prints? They've been down here for several weeks?"

Sen-Jyu says, "... and the tracks that we -think- were of the thanork kidnappers led up the mountainside, presumably to the same area -- the old dragon aerie -- which we hope to discover a way into through these mines. Correct?" He shakes his head at Ahoke's question. "No, they are not. They are far more recent. I believe the beginnings of the troubles all coincided... and have worsened since."

Ahoke nods. "Yes, it would be ideal to find a way up in here. That path going up the mountain... would be insane for anything besides a thanork to try to climb."

Harvester nods slowly as he thumbs through his journal. "It is my wondering that these 'thanork' may have released something... something that began affecting the town..." He looks at the tracks, then Sen-Jyu. "How quickly did they leave?"

Sen-Jyu grins at Harvester. "I already thought of that -- they didn't appear to be in any rush to leave."

Ahoke sighs. "And here I was hoping that some of them had been eaten by demons." She grins quickly, to show that she was (mostly) joking. "We see thanork prints in here. We see thanork prints on top of the mountain. It makes sense that it'll all come together somehow."

Harvester grunts as he finds what he seeks in his journal, then snaps it shut and puts it away. "Yeah," says he, looking to Sen-Jyu. "The dreams and headaches started a few weeks ago too. I don't think it's coincidence. They released something here, I'm willing to wager."

"All right," says Sen-Jyu in mock-deference. "We'll keep moving." Slowly, like an aged man, he lifts himself to his feet. "I think we're going to find out what happened once we reach the aerie. If we reach the aerie."

Harvester laughs at Ahoke. "Eaten by demons? What, and rob you of your fun?" He snorts. "Well, I, for one, intend to live long enough.. or enough times... to complete my tasks for Him."

Ahoke grins. "Well, demons aren't known for being nice, so if they could rob me of my fun..." She looks at Sen-Jyu then. "We have to reach the aerie. I want to find out what's in that other town, so we have to survive all of this."

Sen-Jyu shrugs, "It might not even be a question of living long enough -- it might be a question of the shaft or shafts leading there still being intact."

Ahoke sighs. "True. Let's hope that it isn't that bad... because if it is, we're in trouble. It's not like I'm an Old One that has knowledge of this kind of place..." She moves towards the cavern again, putting her great club over her back and drawing her axe again.

Beyond the doorway, a huge, irregular cavern stretches out. The Harvester's light shines dimly into it, but is quickly swallowed up by the gloom, showing only wooden pillars bracing the rough-hewn rock of the ceiling. Even Ahoke's dwarven darkvision cannot see the far end. Beetles scuttle off into the darkness yet again as you approach.

Harvester laughs softly, "Y'know, my grandpappy always said, 'Don't borrow trouble.'... let's wait and see when we get there."

Ahoke whistles low. "This is a big cavern," she says. "There might be thanork just out of vision range, waiting to kill us," she says, moving forward eagerly.

Harvester whispers to Sen-Jyu, "She hopes..."

"Oh, lovely," says Sen-Jyu, his eagerness inclined in the opposite direction, but he persists in moving forward nevertheless. He slants his hat back still further on his head, allowing him greater peripheral vision.

The cavern broadens to the right, deeply enough that the light does not reach, and continues on in front of you.

Ahoke steps towards the right, and then stops. "No, that one's a dead end. We should go straight... looks like a shaft. Let's get it done."

"Get -what- done?" asks Sen-Jyu of Harvester, hoping that the priest might shed some light on this dwarf's death wi -- er, sudden enthusiasm.

Harvester says, "Er... Get the dyin' done?"

Sen-Jyu says, "... oh.""

The cavern narrows into a shaft about ten feet across, the floor bearing the marks of the many heavy wagonloads of ore that have been carried through it. The keystone of the door's arch has been carved with the head of a smiling, kindly dragon - although the effect is somewhat marred by an old chisel-mark across the dragon's nose.

Ahoke snorts. "Well, if that's what we're going to get accomplished, then yeah. But preferrably save the human children, kill whatever is causing the headaches, and then go on with life."

"Just the human children? Were there any others?" The Harvester asks, with a soft laugh. "Okay, save human children, no one else... Got it."

Ahoke freezes into place, staring up ahead into the darkness. 'Oh..." she says softly. "That doesn't look good at all." She proceeds, with a bit more caution. "Severed heads..."

Harvester's voice falls as well, "Of...?

Ahoke hmms. "Two thanork and an elf, looks like." She grips the axe tightly. "Which is a strange combination, come to think of it."

"Perhaps that's what the recipe called for -- two parts thanork body, one part elf body. The heads are just the leftovers." Sen-Jyu's quip rather dies on his lips as he advances with the others.

Ahoke gives Sen-Jyu a strange look, and then chuckles rather weakly. "Umm, right." She continues advancing, yet more slowly, finally showing some caution.

Harvester does laugh softly, with humor at Sen-Jyu's jest, and shoves the torch into his belt, freeing both hands to grip the scythe. "Well, if I've got to hold the target...er, torch, I'll do it up there."

As the other two approach with the light, they can see what Ahoke speaks of. About ten feet down the corridor, three severed heads - two thanork and a female elf - are stacked into a rough pyramid. The thanork heads have been severely gnawed by beetles - the elven one seems rather fresher. The ubiquitous beetles flee for the safety of the darkness as you approach.

Ahoke frowns as the group approaches. "Was one of the village's heroes an elf?"

"That would be my guess," Sen-Jyu answers. "I don't know if one can import elf heads."

Harvester nods, then shrugs. "I think so, yes."

Ahoke mms. "Well, she may have come here on her own... or been captured like the children. How were the heads severed?" She leans over to look.

Sen-Jyu looks a bit sick at seeing the woman's head, despite his joking.

Harvester approaches the heads and sits on his heels beside them. He examines the remains thoughtfully, poking and prodding as necessary.

You take a single step into the mineshaft.

Three pairs of sightless eyes snap open, and swivel to see who approaches. The lips part, as if drawing air into nonexistent lungs...and then the heads begin to scream.

It echoes down the corridors, raising the hackles on your necks - a shrill, unearthly keening that speaks of the terrors of the grave and what lies beyond.

Harvester says, "Well, sh-t."