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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 1583419" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #272] The Lost City[/PLAIN]Vade worked his dagger through the last of the heavy strands and the body fell to the ground with a brittle clatter."Oops!" the halfling called from the branches above. "Sorry! I was just trying to get a look at this other guy - Eeeeww!""Are you alright?" Morier yelled up."Yeah! It's just another dead goblin. It's just so gross!" Vade answered. "Why am I the one doing this, anyway? This is yucky.""Because you're the only one with magical slippers that let's you walk straight up the side of a tree and a ring that let's you move through the webs without getting stuck to them," Ixin shouted."Oh yeah!" Vade answered."And ye're the one what wanted to look for treasure!" Karak added rubbing his head with his hand."Oh yeah," Vade said again, with somewhat less enthusiasm.There was silence for a time as Vade picked his way through desiccated bodies above. Ledare continued to stare with obvious revulsion at the dead spider lying crumpled on the trail so that Morier, who understood her fears was obliged to push it down into the pit with his foot. Only after it crunched to the pit floor did the Janissary look at Morier."Thank you," she said seriously and the eldritch warrior nodded."Think nothing of it, Ledare," he replied with a wave of his hand. Karak started to duck away from the elf at sight of the gesture."You best watch where ye be pointin' those faerie fingers, eh, elf!" Karak grumbled, glaring at Morier. "Or maybe I might just lose me grip on me axe next time I be swingin' it.""I am sorry, Karak," Morier said with an embarrassed grimace. "It was an accident and-" The dwarf cut him off with a wave of his own hand. "I now've a 'eadache the pain o' which I've nae endured since the mornin' after the squash-goblin tournament last Auraunangazan time," he explained, and, although none of the others had even seen a squash-goblin match let alone an entire tournament, and not a single one had ever attended the 'Night of Silver Beer' festival, they all got his meaning."If you need a healing potion, I have one for you," the albino told him, quickly popping one of the vials out of his potion belt but again Karak waved him off again."Save it for when it's needed. I've a bit more life left in me yet," the dwarf told him and examined the puncture wounds in his forearm. "But I must be admittin' these bites do be stingin' a mite." "Perhaps you should use Vade's wand?" Ixin suggested and Karak snorted."Oh, aye!" the dwarf scoffed. "Ye'd like to see ol' Karak a wackin' himself in the head with that there magic stick now wouldn't ye?""I could use a good laugh," Feln muttered and Karak fixed the half-orc with a withering eye."By my count, orcblood, I have two spiders to your man-spider, an' I be down in a pit fighting from a lower position." the dwarf challenged. "So I be ahead. Ah haaaa!""You're a dwarf," Feln deadpanned. "You always fight from a lower position.""Oh, so it's ta be short jokes now, is it?" Karak bellowed, starting towards the martial artist. Ledare stepped between them."I won't stand for in-fighting," the Janissary commanded, her voice strained with emotion. "We've got enough problems without the two of you at each other's throats. Understood?"Karak glowered up at her for a moment before turning away. "I need to tend to me wounds, anyway," he said and Ledare turned to look at Feln."I was just getting ready to head up one of those big trees to get our bearings," the martial artist said, getting to his feet with a slight groan. Tapping into his inner energy always left him fatigued when the extra reserves ran out. "I'd also like to know if there are more of those spiders lurking about.""Good idea," Ledare said with a nod. "But let's be ready to move on as soon as Vade finishes his search."Karak stripped off his gauntlets and the vambrace on his right arm as well as his left greave in order to attend to his injuries. He cleaned the bites with some more of his brother's holy water and grumbled aloud the whole time."Now what would me chalak be saying at a time like this?" he asked himself as he worked. "Probably be mutterin' to his supposed Queen. But then where was she when he needed her?" He snorted and took a swig from Malak's flask before raising it in a toast to the heavens. "Well, Queen if you'n be listenin' I could use ye now to be takin' the sting out o' these bites, the aches out o' me bones, an' bit o' help with this 'ere 'eadache I be livin' with."There was no response from the sky, and it wasn't until he was putting away the flask of holy water that the dwarf noticed his headache was gone. He got a puzzled look on his face and stroked his beard. "Hmm. That do be odd," he remarked. "I do feel better."While Karak attended to his wounds, Morier and Ixin examined the cocooned goblin corpse that Vade had dropped out of the tree. Ixin's claws made short work of the webbing, but even freed of the confines, the dried body remained curled in on itself, like a mummified fetus. Its gear was largely intact but of such poor quality as to be entirely worthless. It wore tattered hide armor and futilely clutched a crude bone-handled axe  in one shrivelled fist. Its face was twisted into a rictus with dried lips pulled away from cracked teeth and eye sockets that gaped wide around the dried raisins of its eyes. The whole conveyed the last expression of a creature that had died a slow and painful death... and been awake and aware the entire time."Horrible," Ixin said, turning away from the body."This goblin isn't equipped nearly as well as those we encountered two nights ago," Ledare remarked, looking over Morier's shoulder at the desiccated body. "Those carried steel swords and wooden bows, not bone axes.""Why do you think the gobbo's who attacked us earlier were better equipped?" Feln asked as he sidled up to the other three. "Could they have been sent to attack us?""It's possible," Ledare remarked. "It is also interesting to note that that man-spider had only half as many limbs at a chagmat. Could it be possible that this, too, is some transmogrified creature hatched from Andamacles' transmogrification program? They're everywhere, it seems!""Nae, lass!" Karak remarked as he approached. "That' thing be an ettercap! They're found now an' again in the lower reaches o' some dwarven delves. Come up out o' the Dark Below, they do! If'n they was hatched by anybody, twas them spider-worshippin' drow!"Karak turned and spat distastefully over his left shoulder. Emotion flared across Morier's face like a sudden storm, but the elf soon regained control and retreated a few steps from the others. "Vade?" he called, his voice creaking with feeling. "How goes it up there?""Just about done!" Vade called after a moment's hesitation. "Sorry, though. I don't see anything... Oops!" A crudely made wooden box fell out of the branches above and shattered against the ground below sending an explosion of polished coins went everywhere."Well, what have we here?" Vade called sheepishly from above.It soon stopped raining, but it was another two hours and just nearing sundown before they reached the city proper.The place had toppled in the distant past and been almost entirely reclaimed by the woodland. The group passed many crumbling stone structures covered over by undergrowth with only the occasional glimpse of polished white stone behind the ever-present green to indicate that a building had once stood there at all. As they trudged onward, warily probing the ground ahead of them, the group found the overgrown ruins to become more and more numerous until walking down the remains of a cobbled street became almost like walking down a shallow, brush-covered valley. It was beautiful in a haunting, melancholy way that spoke of glories long past.A weighty silence hung over the ruins, but it was not like the sepulchral stillness of a tomb, but rather the respectful hush of a temple. Only the intermittent call of a bird, the droning hum of insects, or the drip-drip-drip of water broke the quiet, and even they seemed to come from a far way off, falling dead and muted on the ears of the VQS as they explored.The path through the woods deposited them at the bottom of a steep incline that they were obliged to scale before reaching the level of the central tree which continued to dominate the sky above with its achingly vibrant green leaves. It was their goal, and it drew them like lodestone draws iron filings.They passed a wide plaza of standing stones whose carvings of men and elves and wild things had long ago worn away to near illegibility before discovering a cobbled road - all overgrown with moss and vines - that led in the direction of the tree. They picked their way along it for a time while the shadows grew thick around them. It meandered up a subtle incline facing a row of mostly intact stone buildings on the right and a dense stand of trees and shrubberies on the left. It was through this tangle of plant life that they caught their first glimpse of the wall.It was utterly black and polished to such a finish that each of the group could see themselves reflected darkly within its glassy depths. It was rose straight up, at least a dozen feet above their heads, and as they approached it blocked the great tree from their sight. No tree grew close enough to extend its limbs out and over the wall, and likewise no clinging vine had crept up its surface."It be granite," Karak announced in an uncharacteristically hush voice. He ran his hands lovingly over its smooth surface. "An' not a single seam in it what I can see.""Perhaps there's a way around," Feln suggested and started to head off along the perimeter. He turned and motioned to Vade. "Coming?" he asked.The halfling grimaced, but gave a nod and went to follow."Oh aye," Karak called after them. "We'll just wait 'ere then."It was almost full dark by the time Feln and Vade returned, and the hushed silence that had predominated the ruins during the day had been replaced by a chorus of insects and frogs that nearly threatened to drown out conversations. The air came alive with the flitting glow of fireflies lending the ruins the quality of a fairy wonderland. Only Ixin - who had had unpleasant experiences in so-called fairy wonderlands - was disturbed by this.The half-orc trotted out of the shadows with Vade clinging to his broad back. He returned from the opposite direction in which he'd left and the expression on his face indicated that he'd not discovered good news."The wall goes all the way around," he told them. "It's square. Has to be a good 150 paces to a side. With only four ways in.""Well let's be off!" Karak suggested, shouldering his axe even as Vade dropped down from Feln's back."It's not that easy," the halfling explained. "The ways in are four metal gates, but they're rusted shut.""Well did ye-" the dwarf started and Vade cut him off."There's no lock to pick," he told him. "And no way to force them that we could see."Feln nodded. "They're covered with these protruding latticework bits. Anybody trying to shoulder them open'll get mangled long before they get the gates unstuck."A morose silence settled over the group for a moment. At last Ledare spoke up. "So we're at an impasse," she announced and Vade sighed."Unless anybody's got any bright ideas," he said looking around at the group.</blockquote>

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