The Adventurer's Guild

[bluesfella]

Sledge tries to peer into the water above the hole where the rats came from. He sees nothing but darkness, but bravely holds his breath and dips into the water, disappearing beneath the surface.[sblock=Sledge]You surface in a much smaller cave area, littered with small bones and filth. (There is no light, but I'm assuming you crack open a sunrod or something.) This area is basically a literal rat's nest. It's disgusting and smells awful. The only exit is back the way you came. In the corner of the cave, there lies the skeleton of a small humanoid creature. On closer examination, it looks to be a gnome. There are only a few scraps remaining of his clothes and backpack, but searching through them carefully you find three small vials of a dark, smokey liquid.

There appears to be nothing else of value in the nest.[/sblock]

 

[Goel]

I grab the vials and head back to my comrades

"Any of you know arcana well enough to identify these?"

 

[bluesfella]

GM: An 18 Arcana check is your goal to identify the vials.

 

[bennage]

Brocc takes the vials from Sledge and examines them carefully.

 

[bluesfella]

The three vials of smokey liquid are easily identified by Brocc as Ghoststrike Oil.[sblock=Vials](These are level 8 items)

[/sblock]With nothing left to explore, you head out of the cave and continue your climb.

About four hours later, you pull yourselves up over the final ridge. The climb was exhausting, but you have finally made it. As you stow the climbing gear and take a short rest, you can see why this mountain appeared to have no peak from the ground. Where the peak would normally be is a large hollowed-out valley in the shape of a bowl. It's about a half-mile in diameter, and about 600 feet deep. The valley walls are steep near the rim, but quickly become less severe.

The remarkable thing about this valley, though, is that it is littered with massive pieces of sundered marble and stonework overgrown with bushes, moss and trees. The debris is not merely scattered along the ground, but much of it is actually suspended in mid-air throughout the valley, as if frozen in place and weathered over the millennia. Not even the passage of time can disguise the catastrophic event that must have taken place here. Pieces of elaborate architecture, both embedded in the ground and hovering over it, radiate outward from the lowest point in the center of the valley. In that center depression is the largest pile of rubble.

The largest piece of floating debris is a nearly-undamaged tower (4-5 stories high) floating near the middle of the valley but well above it's surface.

To get a picture of it in your head, look at the following image, minus all the birds, and with valley walls that aren't quite so big:

What would you like to do now?

 

[Nicodemous]

OOC: Sorry...I've just remembered to check this and haven't gotten messages since before we rested. STUPID PROGRAM! Vance, how am I doing? Since I missed my first saving throw, I cannot save from this? Is that the way it works? I have to be healed? I saw something about an endurance check, but that is just to determine stage, correct? Not heal?

Wearily and flush with fever, I lean on my closest comrade for support. Breathing heavily, I sit down, falling the last few inches. "Beautiful valley, though my insides feel much like the buildings we see out there. No matter, I can go on. Let us explore this valley and head to the floating tower."

 

[bluesfella]

OOC: Sorry...I've just remembered to check this and haven't gotten messages since before we rested. STUPID PROGRAM! Vance, how am I doing? Since I missed my first saving throw, I cannot save from this? Is that the way it works? I have to be healed? I saw something about an endurance check, but that is just to determine stage, correct? Not heal?

GM: The initial saving throw was to see if you contracted the disease. You failed the throw, so you now have filth fever. After every Extended Rest, you roll an Endurance check (or allow an ally to roll a Heal check for you) to see what stage of the disease you are in. That stage remains until the next Extended Rest. The only way to shake off the disease is by either making good Endurance checks, or the Cure Disease ritual, which is something only a trained healer would have.

 

[Goel]

OOC: I have a +8 heal if that is better than you endurance check I can roll for you

 

[Nicodemous]

OOC: It is. I have a 7 Endurance.

 

[bluesfella]

GM: So, what would you fine young adventurers like to do now?