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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nail" data-source="post: 851850" data-attributes="member: 224">Session #4, continued: "The Pit of Death" (Session of RL April 6th, 2003)Riva could hear the voices.  High pitched, yapping, and dog-like.... whatever they were, they were all around him, speaking a language he couldn't understand.  There were many of them, and as he clawed his way up into consciousness, he could hear them moving in front of him.  Riva opened his eyes, just a crack.His eyes focused on the tip of a loaded crossbow.  The business end was pointed at his face by an armor-clad kobold.  Beside the one with the crossbow was another, armed with spear and tower shield.  As his eyes met theirs, the one with the shield yapped something loudly, but not for a moment did it take its eyes off of Riva.  A short distance away lay Rowan, similarly guarded, and across the 30’ wide room lay Garret and Thaile.  A kobold was leaning over Thaile...perhaps looting her body?  Riva couldn’t tell.What Riva could tell was that he was bound, hand and foot, gagged, and weaponless, ...and surrounded by vigilant enemies, their weapons at the ready.  This was a pit of death, filled with armed kobolds, and around the room’s circumference, 10 feet above the floor, were arrow slits, behind which Riva could see even more kobolds with crossbows.  Thinking quickly, he did what any captured dwarven berserker would do, given impossible circumstances and abundant foes: he raged.From across the room, Garret saw his companion enter his blood-lust.  Garret’s view was only partially blocked by the group of four kobolds that surrounded him: a crossbowman, a shieldman, a well-armed swordsman, and what seemed to be a kobold sorcerer.  Garret found himself weaponless, bound, and gagged.  Garret glared across at Riva for a moment....and Riva held himself in check.  Riva was filled with battle-need, and yet he remained still, even as the crossbow aimed at him shook with nervousness.The kobold sorcerer spared a glance or two at Riva, and barked an order.  The kobold swordsman approached Garret and removed his gag.  Then the apparent sorcerer spoke, his voice high-pitched and annoying:"My name is Mulakikyip, and I am the leader of those that captured you.  As you see, your necromancer cannot help you now.", the kobold jabbed a thumb in Thaile’s direction.  "You are quite within my power.  If you answer my questions truthfully, I promise your trial will be just and your execution merciful."From across the room, Rowan grimaced behind her gag.  I’d rather not be executed at all, she thought to herself.Mulakikyip continued.  "How many more of the walking dead are there?  How many more of the hungry dead?  Answer me!""I’m not sure," Garret responded.  "We’ve destroyed several of each…6 or 8 of the walking dead, 2 of the hungry dead....""Bah!  I did not ask you how many turned against you!  How many more are left!  Where is the necromancer that makes them?  How many more can he make?""I....I don’t know.  I killed those abominations.  We’re not necromancers -- we’re against who ever it is that’s causing this!""Enough!  I will have no more of your lies!", snapped Mulakikyip, and with a curt command the gag was placed back over Garret’s mouth.  The leader of the kobolds turned and strode across to room to where Rowan lay (while keeping a weary eye on the still raging dwarf).  Stripping off her gag he posed to her the same questions, and added a few more: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> "Who is your necromancer master?" "What does he seek?  What does he want from us?" "Why does he send the walking dead against us?" "Why are the undead attacking us now?  Why now?  How did he find us?"</li> </ul>Rowan, too, tried to convince Mulakikyip that she didn’t know the answers to these questions, and that the adventurers were actually trying to help rid the area of undead.  The kobold leader ordered her gagged again, and turned away, toward....(Nope.  Not toward Riva.  Are you crazy?!  Would you want to match wits with a raging dwarf?  ...Didn’t think so.)...toward Thaile.  She lay, unconscious and near death’s door at the far side of the room.  Mulakikyip leaned over her and began to cast a spell.  For an instant it looked as if Riva would leap up, bound and weaponless as he was, and try to prevent the kobold sorcerer from harming his companion...but he stayed himself again, and as he did so he could feel is white-hot rage reach its end.  Riva felt the weakness seep into his muscles as he relaxed.Mulakikyip finished his spell, and laid his hands on Thaile’s wounds.  In an instant, they closed.  Thaile opened her eyes, to see Mulakikyip and several armed kobolds standing over her."If you move or try to cast a spell, I will kill you," squeaked Mulakikyp in the common tongue.  "Do you understand me?"  Thaile nodded slowly, and Mulakikyip continued, "I have just healed you.  Now in return you will tell me everything you know about your master, he who has been sending the walking dead against us.""But....I’m not a necromancer, and neither is my teacher," said Thaile.   "I’m a cleric of Darmon....look....look at my holy symbol!  You’ll see that it’s true.  I want to destroy the restless dead, not create them!  Why do you think I’m a necromancer?"Mulakikyip barked an order to his apparent lieutenant, a larger kobold wearing well-kept armor and weilding a short sword.  Thaile found she could understand their speech: it was draconic, a language she had picked up in her religious studies.  Her companions clearly could not understand the kobold tongue.Mulukikyip said to his lieutenant, "Kytum-up, check her for a holy symbol.  Beware her tricks!"Kytum-up leaned over Thaile, and found her holy symbol of Darmon: a disk covered in gold leaf, with a picture of a young man laughing.  The kobold took it from around her neck, and gave it to Mulakikyip, who examined it carefully.In draconic, Mulakikyip continued, ".....a strange design, but recognizable enough....this must be some trick.  A cleric of Darmon would never stoop to necromancy.  We must test her further...but how....?"At this, Thaile responded, in human-accented draconic, "Why do you think I am a necromancer?"Startled, Mulakikyip looked down at Thaile. "You speak our tongue?  Humans are not as barbaric as I was taught.  .....I think you are a necromancer by your acts, witnessed by my scouts.  You were seen to make the walking dead bow down before you, as you did in the barn loft, those many days ago.  Do you deny that you did this?""I was channeling the holy power of Darmon the Wayfarer, and turning those skeletons!  They were cowering because we had them cornered, and they had no where else to flee!  And we did the same to the hungry dead trapped in the cellar.  ...Your scouts must not be, well, err...." Thaile let the thought hang, rather than finish it.Mulakikyip's eyes narrowed.  "There is a way of proving whether you are a cleric of Darmon, or an impostor.  His followers may change the spells they know into healing spells, while those that follow evil paths cannot.  You will cast a healing spell - on this kobold here, that you wounded - to prove your faith.  Should you try to harm us instead.......your death with be assured."  The kobold glowered menacingly."I understand."  Bringing herself up to a sitting position, she began to pray.  She could feel divine magic creep through her fingers as she brushed her hands over the kobold scout's wounds.  ...And the wounds vanished, as a far-off traveller might disappear over a rise in the road.  Thaile looked at Mulakikyip, who nodded and smiled as only a dog-faced lizard could.  "You are indeed a wayfarer of Darmon.  I have been mistaken.  Most of you surface dwellers are not to be trusted, especially you humans, but perhaps I have found one or two that can be.   .....Kytum-up, unbind her and her companions.  The rest of you," Mulakikyip gestured to the kobolds standing guard over the adventurers, "back up into the warren.  Be on your guard.  I am wary of these surfacelings yet.   .......But perhaps it is unwarranted."He turned again to Thaile, now unbound and towering over the 2-foot high kobold sorcerer. In surface common, Mulakikyip said, "It seems we have a lot to discuss.  Perhaps you can help me and my people......" Session #4: to be continued...</blockquote>

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