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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 1814844" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #288] It Takes a Thief[/PLAIN]Staring down into the fiery pit, Vade wondered again how he had allowed himself to be coerced into this scouting mission. At the time, it had made sense..."I say we go down the tunnel two by two," Karak had advised as he leaned on his axe haft and pointed to people as he spoke. "Me and Grisham in the fore. Ixin and Vade in the middle. Ledare and Feln in the rear.""What about me?" Morier asked from the back of the group. The dwarf harrumphed."Oi! I forgot ye, did I?" he said, waving his hand indifferently. "Jus' fit yerself into the marchin' order wherever ye can. Let us either find Tarawyn or his tracks, search the cavern, and then look to the evil device which we may find down the hole.""What about this golem that Grisham saw?" Ixin asked, reminding Karak of the rather obvious obstacle that lay in the way of his proposed plan."Yes," Feln nodded. "I know little about these things. A statue that comes to life? How powerful could this be?""It depends on the nature of the thing," Ixin told him. "If it's a true golem, we could be in real trouble. It'll be immune to most spells and we'll need magic weapons to harm it. If it's a simple animated object, it won't be like swatting kobolds, but it'll be easier to damage. I can't know which it is without carefully examining it.""An' if'n it be what we're thinkin' it be, it'll be swingin' at us 'fore ye can do any examinin'!" the dwarf grumbled, appraising his companions' battle prowess with a glance. He paused on Feln and scowled. "Where be your explodin' fist of late, orcblood? All I be seeing of ye is jumpin in an' out o' the shadows.""You worry about your axe, dwarf and I'll worry about my fists," Feln replied defensively. "I think our best bet is to try and sneak by this statue but be ready to react. Do we have any thing to blind it to our presence?"Everyone turned to look at Vade and the halfling almost activated the Ring of Invisibility right there and then. "I don't know... I like Karak's idea: go in swords swinging!""I think we should at least attempt to sneak by it," Feln countered. "Vade, if we are all on the ready you could attempt it and we could follow. If it awakens then we could react quickly""Maybe it won't wake up if it can't see me," the rogue speculated, his voice full of hope. He took a cleansing breath to bolster his courage and added, "If I can see, I will scout it out.""Tha' be the spirit, wee one!" Karak roared, clasping a heavy hand on Vade's shoulder."It's dim down there," Grisham told them. "But there's light enough to see by.""Great," Vade whispered without much enthusiasm. "Alright. I'll go. But you had better have my back, orcblood... or I will tell everyone you let a halfing beat you into battle... and we are even." the halfling shook a mock-accusatory finger at Feln."I thought the spider made us even," the half-orc grinned."Nae! Nae!" Karak protested. "Winging a wee pebble at a large spider does nae count as killing it.""That's not fair!" Vade argued and Karak held up a silencing hand."The last grain of sand will be the one to tip o'er the hourglass, though.," the dwarf conceded. "I will count you in for the assist."Vade planted his tiny fists on his slim hips and scowled at the dwarf. "You just don't want me to play in your and Feln's little game!" he groused. "Back in Thumble, there was this girl named-""By the by, that elf dress look good on ya!" Karak said loudly, cutting off the story before it could gain too much momentum. "Let's see if it can handle an axe blade." Karak pulled a throwing axe from his belt, and drew back as if to toss it at Vade. A loud bark of laughter followed as the halfling tumbled nimbly aside to avoid the feigned attack."You big... meanie!" Vade cursed Karak which brought further laughter from the dwarf. Feln just shook his head disapprovingly and turned to the Janissary."Ledare, I think it may be best to ask the Treant if he knows of this tunnel and where it leads," the half-orc suggested. "We could possibly bypass all of the traps and meet this ghostly form possessing Tarawyn at the butt hole... sorry, bolt hole!"The half-elf nodded, a smirk on her lips. "You sound like Windstryder," she mused. "But it's a good idea. Ixin? Would you care to add your voice to this discussion?""I'm way ahead of you," the mage replied, arranging her cloak so that it revealed her bikini to good effect."Grisham, while they're doing that, why don't you gather some of that foul weed you're chewing and bring it with us?" Feln suggested and the barbarian nodded. He ducked outside after the two women, leaving the men inside."I don't like the idea of being alone with a golem,"Vade admitted once Grisham was out of earshot."You'll have the Ring, Vade," Feln reminded. "The golem will never even know that you're there."And that was true as far as it went."Finding Tarawyn, you are?" the treant asked, its branches rustling with nervous energy as Ledare and Ixin approached."Not quite," the drakeling told him. "We did find where he might have gone, though.""Where?" the plant man asked, and the single word was a drawn out breathy sigh that lasted until the pair of women had reached the base of his trunk."We have found a hidden tunnel; what do you know of it?" Ledare asked and the treant shook its crown."Nothing," it said, it's voice guarded."Is it possible that this tunnel leads to another location in your wood?" she pressed."Possible, it is," the plant man replied. "Many secrets are being held by the valley. But the answer is unknown to me.""Would you know of any information that could help us find it's emergence?" the Janissary asked and saw the tree's woody face scrunch up in confusion. She quickly offered clarification: "For example, is there another place where you remember seeing Tarawyn frequently?""One with the Green, Tarawyn is being," the treant answered. "Many places, he is. No place, he is not." Now it was Ixin and Ledare's turn to look confused."Do you have a name?" the mage asked and the treant nodded."I am called Great Root," it answered, offering them a woody smile."Well, Great Root, when you say that Tarawyn is 'one with the Green' do you mean that he is attuned to nature or literally that he is everywhere around here?" Ixin tried and the treant responded with a rustling sound that might have passed as laughter."Where the Green is, there is Tarawyn," Great Root told her earnestly, offering absolutely no clarification. Ledare switched tactics."Is there any other location that attracts the interest of outsiders?" she asked."No!" the treant stated adamantly. "None allowed be here!""Right," the Janissary sighed. Talking to Great Root was slightly less frustrating than talking to a rock."We met recently with another representative of nature," Ixin said after a pause. "The Great Oak."Great Root let out an impressed gasp. "Known is the Great Oak to me," the treant told her. "A great power of the Green it is. Fortunate are you being to meet such a power. Fortunate indeed.""Is there any way that you can send a message to him?" the sorcerer asked. "To let him know what's happened here?"Great Root assumed a thoughtful pose and then nodded its canopy. "I can," it said.Using the Ring of Invisibility Vade'd been able to easily bypass the statue, but there was little other than conjecture to suggest that it was anything more than a simple statue in the first place. Without Ixin's magical knowledge, there was little he could discern about its true nature without the risk of triggering it.Invisibly, he'd snuck up close and personal with the thing, and was impressed with its massive size, but the workmanship left much to be desired. It looked like whoever had made the statue had gotten tired of the project about three-quarters of the way through and abandoned it. The statue was generally humanoid, but what features it possessed were very rough-hewn, lacking anything but the broadest strokes to suggest that it was the sculpture of a man. There didn't even appear to be any seams between its feet and the floor.Its purpose was puzzling, but not so much so that Vade was tempted to remove his ring and test Grisham's guardian golem theory. Instead, he stole quietly away from the statue to check out the only other noteworthy feature in the vaulted room: the raised well. It rose from the floor behind the statue, in the exact center of the room standing a good foot taller than the halfling. The air above the opening wavered with the heat rising from below and a scent like a forest fire hung in the air.Vade gripped the hot lip of the well and hauled himself up so that he could peer over the edge. He looked down as if through a window into hell. A circular shaft like the one he'd come down to reach the statue room descended another forty feet into the earth. At the opposite end a circular plane of fire glowed like a hearth, and the heat rising up from below made Vade squint his eyes. It was difficult to breathe the hot, sooty air; his lungs protested with each inhalation. He had the strangely disorienting sensation of looking down from a vast height, thought he could see towers of shimmering brass at the heart of the fire, and almost toppled over the side.As he was hauling himself away from the edge, his head swimming, he spotted the rusty hand prints trailing down the inside of the shaft. Evidently, the man they'd been trailing (who, Ixin's spell had revealed, was really two men) had climbed down the sheer surface of the shaft like a bug. Vade crouched beside the well, mentally adding Spider Climbing to the growing list of their opponent's abilities as he swallowed down the acrid taste of smoke. He unconsciously cleared his throat and the statue in front of him thundered to life.It moved as swift as an avalanche, whirling toward the sound. It took a step, its foot coming free of the floor with a tremendous crunch before slamming down again so hard that it sent shockwaves through the floor. A fist of stone the size of an anvil parted the air a foot or two above Vade's head, trailing a dusting of pebbles and debris in its wake."Eeep," Vade squeaked.</blockquote>

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