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

[CanadienneBacon]

A full two minutes tick by and Maelicent shows no sign of exiting the cave or calling for anyone standing outside. Listening carefully and slowly at the crack, the goblin can be heard every now and then padding very quietly around the cave, but discerning what he's doing, where he is inside, or even how big the cave is proves impossible to those standing on the ledge.

 

[Ambrus]

During his explorations Maelicent becomes more and more impressed with the cave. Although sizable it's entrance was concealed, tricky to access and difficult for larger folk to cross while the interior was unoccupied and even contained a ready source of water. The Gudwulf warrior wished he'd found it months ago; it would have served him well as a lair. All that remained was to secure the back tunnel to ensure no subterranean denizens wandered up to harass him. It seemed unfortunate that a horde of giant-kin and mongrels knew of its existence. If they went along with their plan, in short order they would soon ruin the small defensible entrance by attacking it with picks.

 

[SlagMortar]

After Mael has been gone for a few minutes, Brakkus calls back down to the gnomes, "Seems its pretty well hidden. Care to give us a hint?"

 

[Mista Collins]

Catching his breath from the climb, Chev rests up against the rock wall near the entrance. "I can't recall hearing much about a frog god during my services with Narn, but I would not doubt a small connection to Chaos if all your theories are correct Voadam."

Hearing a few scuffles from inside the cave, Chev turns to the others. "You think he alright in there. Maelicent doesn't seem the type to call for help if he needs it."

 

[Voadam]

I have a spell that can reduce ones size, we can crawl inside, the one who desire the spell effect, me and the goblin … The Luckmaiden knows where the mischievous figure is … can investigate the place, retrieve a pick and see if the noise would not attract someone or something.

"I've never been subject to a reduce spell before, so I'll volunteer for that. Any of the three of us humans will require lit torches inside, and it will be best to only light them from the inside so we don't give away our position out here to others in the forest, whether cult agents or forest predators. Dwarves are broader shouldered than gnomes and goblins and its a tight fit in there even for those small folk, take off your pack before trying to enter Gamad." Voadam will hand Brakkus his crowbar and hammer then draw out his flint and steel and a torch while he awaits the reduction spell.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[sblock=Chev]Chev gets an inkling of an idea that maybe Mazzel and Co. have it wrong with regard to the fishmen frog-god. Chev's heard of a race of creatures called kuo-toas who worship a lobster god called Blipdoolpoolp. Kuo-toas are fervently religious, evil, and their clerics can whip lightening. Feel free to access the MM for the full kuo-toa entry so that Chev can use that info in the game.[/sblock]

Maelicent makes a second cursory turn of the cave that takes another two minutes. Still searching for the mongrel's pro-claimed hidden cubby but not finding anything at all other than the already noticed pool and tunnel mouth at the back of the cave's terraces, Maelicent curses and continues his search.

Brakkus calls down to Mazzel for the whereabouts of the gear. Mazzel scratches his head a moment in apparent thought then shouts back up, "Think it's on the left wall, closer to the crack than the pool."

Inside the cave, Maelicent's keen ears prick at the sound of the mongrel shouting up the cubby location. Hot on it, Maelicent leaves off where he was searching by the pool in favor of traipsing back up toward the crack. Even aided by the tip, however, Maelicent still does not find the cubby.

With Voadam's consent, Gamad extracts a pinch of powdered iron from his spell component pouch. Sprinkling the ore on the rock at his feet and muttering in a low tone, Gamad casts reduce person on Voadam. Voadam is soon half his former height and width and 1/8th his former weight. Now fully small in size, Voadam notices several queer effects of the pygmy shrinking.

[sblock=Voadam]Beside the above, it'll be +2 to Dex, -2 to Str, +1 to attack and AC. All Voadam's gear shrank to scale and will deal less damage as a result. If a piece of gear leaves Voadam's grasp, it returns to its full former size (even if he later picks it up again). Duration 2 minutes, dispellable.[/sblock]

 

[Voadam]

Voadam now 3'1" maneuvers himself inside, then sets to work with flint and steel to get his torch to light.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Maelicent hears and sees Voadam, or at least a much smaller image of Voadam, enter the cave via the crack. The giant-kin pauses inside the cave just by the crack to light a torch using a bit of flint and steel. The cavern is soon illuminated by torchlight, albeit a smaller than normal torch that more closely resembles the torches sometimes used by Maelicent's former Gudwulf tribe when they wanted to burn something.

The small human skitters over toward Voadam and starts searching near where Maelicent stands. As the giant-kin works his fingers over the rock, Maelicent catches wind of the slight scent of blood or hot metal lingering about Voadam.

For his part, Voadam spends a quick few seconds and then points to an alcove about five feet up the cave's side wall that Maelicent hadn't seen.

 

[Voadam]

"Here, use my hands as a step." Voadam sets down the torch which instantly expands to its normal size. The wizard laces his hands together to give the now big seeming goblin a step to boost up to the ledge. "Hopefully there will be some picks or mattocks up there."

 

[Ambrus]

The Gudwulf warrior turns away from his search to watch the talkative human, now reduced to a proper size, scrambling through the cave entrance. Maelicent stands there silently for a few moments, unsure of how to react to this unexpected and seemingly casual display of wyrd magic. The goblin had never before seen anything quite like it, and so he slowly makes his way back towards the entrance as the normal-sized human goes about the business of lighting a torch.

Standing next to the human Maelicent watches as torch-light spreads through the cavern. A sudden sense of consternation and furious embarrassment overwhelms the goblin as his night-blind ally far-too-easily spots the Wolf's-maw-be-damned alcove right above where he'd searched twice already. Grinding his teeth together Maelicent tries to keep his murderous rage in check while tightly gripping an arrow in his iron-clad left hand. Luckily for him, the giant-kin says nothing to belittle or mock the goblin's for his inept failure. If he had, the Gudwulf warrior would have likely driven its point through the human's head; now that he could easily reach it.

Letting out a sigh, Maelicent returns the arrow to the quiver at his right hip before taking the few steps over to Voadam. The goblin places his boot heel into the proffered hand and climbs up to retrieve the contents of the now-obvious alcove. Through gritted teeth Maelicent spits a question: "So what manner o magic brought ya down ta size?"