The Slave and Her Sovereign

[darkbard]

The pilgrims spend some time in discussion about the best route. Xin Mae recites a long allegory drawn from the folklore of Kifu Chanyee, featuring three frogs, a heron, lily pads in the formation of constellations, and a wise dragonfly that foretells the future to the satisfaction of all. Qamra giggles, somewhat inappropriately. After a brief pause, Arunny offers, "The Goddess has given me no foreknowledge of what lies ahead...."

After a time, Ibhea, no longer the stirring orator under full daylight, reverts to his more usual restraint. "The path east bares too much of Her Radiant Majesty's unrelenting gaze. That way criminals are cast out to die of thirst and exposure, a punishment more cruel than the headsman's axe. I say we head west, despite the danger of marauders or sinkholes. After all, such would mean a less cruel death, should it come to that."

The others exchange troubled glances at the whisky priest's words but, nevertheless, the path is decided. West they head, across the starkly pocked surface, sticking to the shadows as much as possible and limiting conversation to only the most necessary of whispers.

But such precautions are not enough. As they wind their way through a particularly narrow and uneven stretch, Arunny gives a shout of pain, clutching her head as the agony is punctuated by flashes of doom.

---

Group Stealth Primary Skill Check vs 13 Easy DC (stepped down for group check): A, r(5) +2 = 7. Fail. I, r(3) +12 = 15. Success. Q, r(1) +7 = 8. Fail. 1/3 Checks Succeed. Group check Fails.

 

[Manbearcat]

0 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available

Complication here is that I'm stepping up this next DC to Hard. If this obstacle fails, we're going to a Level +4 combat against The Canyon Worm (Purple Worm Solo Skirmisher + 4 Minion Broodlings + 1 Hazards and Hazardous Terrain) and whomever makes the move and fails will be in a tough spot positionally at the start of combat.

---

There is a stirring in the earth.

Then a rumble.

Something detects your presence...

The canyon walls above crumble. Minor rocks are prelude to larger ones falling.

A maw-like outline in the earth the size of a small house begins to formulate beneath Xin Mae as the poor scrivener got caught up in his thoughts or merely struggled to navigate the difficult terrain in your quiet transit through the territory. As the very ground threatens to swallow him whole, he freezes and reflexively makes a praying gesture to the sun for deliverance!

---

Who delivers Xin Mae from his grisly fate and how do you do it?!

HARD DC

 

[Nephis]

Through the ache in her head and the chagrin at making such an untimely noise, ARUNNY is still - somehow - able to perceive the earth's movement beneath Xin Mae and anticipate his imminent danger. Now she must remember what kind of threat this might be and how best to help him.

In her haste to aid their besieged scrivener, the priestess quickly searches her interior library of natural phenomena, but the books tumble off their shelves and against each other, threatening to make her migraine worse than it already is. She attempts to swat unnecessary pieces of information to the side, but phrases such as "scavenger birds are particularly ravenous at dawn" and "this herb should never be mixed with ..." jockey for position in her conscious mind, crowding out the actual pertinent information she is seeking.

Then her instinct kicks in and shunts aside her intellectual pursuit. She sees the jagged teeth of the maw rising up and closing in on Xin Mae, but also sees and seizes her moment. Murmuring to her Goddess, Her Son, and His Consort for help in seeing her way through the dust now beginning to form, the Seer suddenly reaches out her hand, clasping air, and pulling it to her body.

The terrified scrivener sees her actions and is momentarily confused and more frightened: <what does that woman think she is doing, some kind of martial arts exercise? Is this what my last sight will be?> Then he feels a giant hand clasping around his waist, lifting him slightly, and pulling him to safety, just past Omphala's Searing Voice, who stands ready for any threat.

---

Arunny uses a Secondary Skill Nature check: r(4) + 7 = 11 vs. 13 Easy DC to gain a -1 "bonus" and Divine Call (Enc.) to gain a + 2 Circumstance Bonus to

her Primary Skill Perception check: r(18) + 15 - 1 SS + 2 CB = 34 vs. 27 Hard DC. Success.

 

[Manbearcat]

1 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/0 Secondary Skills Available

---

Pulled to safety by divine invocation, Xin Mae throws his back against the canyon wall, his chest heaving with the adrenaline of the moment.

The massive desert worm bursts forth from the ground. A collection of mandibles array around a huge orifice, spiral inward to another layer, then another, and finally the vacuum of tiny teeth and maw. No sign of eyes, the creature is clearly blind save for some manner of powerful sensory organs that allow it to detect prey in contact with the ground.

Its head thrashes on the ground, trying to consume or detect a meal.

Its stinger-adorned tail thrashes the air, likely a predatory strategy evolved to terrify terrestrial creatures into foolishly running away which in turn allows the creature to pinpoint and pursue.

The walls of the choking canyon would be wide if not for the gargantuan creature and its frenetic display. The high central butte that bisects the canyon, creating two channels is showing signs of small imminent landslide.

The sun's radiant cast is just reaching over the high butte, bathing the mighty beast in light.

As far as the eye can see, the outer wall of the canyon is covered in razorvine and its field of "death nettles" that it sheds below forms a vast ossuary as animals are drawn to the sweet fragrance and then killed in mass. The circling birds above that use the death nettle-field as a buffet typically go some time without a proper snack, but now the carrion flock circles lower and lower overhead, expecting to feast on the remnants of the apex predator's "work."

---

MEDIUM DC

What do you do to get out of this place?

Failure that is related to fleeing/pursuit and we'll go to a nested, battlemap challenge with the Desert Worm, but not a full-combat. Win Con will be getting the 2 PCs, Companion Character, and a 2-Hit Minion (Xin Mae) safely from starting squares to final squares which will = successful evasion. Unless you opt into a combat (in which case, let me know)!

Failure on some other kind of alternative action declaration and we'll have to revisit consequences.

 

[darkbard]

The whisky priest freezes. He had blithely claimed to have preferred facing the Dread Canyon Worm to an excruciating death under the burning sun, but now when faced with the beast in its immense totality, he knows what a fool he had been. Its bulk defies rational comprehension, a raw force of nature, like a sandstorm or volcano, more than a single creature.

"Nobody move!" IBHEA hisses, as loudly as he dare. "It can sense our movements through contact with the earth."

And so he softly, ever so softly, bends at the knees and waist, one hand on the hilt of his dagger, the other reaching out carefully, ever so carefully, for a rock about the size of a qinset ball from the warren games of his youth. His fingers close around the rock. He lifts it, retracts his clutching palm behind one ear. Heaves the stone towards a cluster of bones entangled in razorvine at the base of the outer canyon wall.

"Run! We must clear the butte before it collapses!" he shouts.

---

Ibhea makes a Primary Skill Bluff check to draw the Worm's attention to his distraction and away from Our Heroes so that they can make a break for it, r(18) +13 = 31 vs 19 Moderate DC. Success.

 

[Manbearcat]

2 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/0 Secondary Skills Available

---

The fellowship of Omthalan pilgrims and their scrivener leave behind the landslides, sinkholes, razorvine, death nettle, and the colossal Canyon Worm. The escape was narrow, but width of escape only matters upon much later reflection. Now, we move on.

Speaking of narrow, the choking canyon empties out into a large belly. A dried-out lake basin, high walls on all sides, once held life and a thriving biome. No more. Climate change and a geological calamity later and the place is now a spiderweb where narrow filaments of stoney path precariously navigate a gaping abyss, deep into the bowels of the earth, like some kind of relief-carving or negative-featured labyrinth (1).

This will spill you into the brief subterranean component of the canyon which leads straight to The Pit.

The other course through this place is a switchback trail upon the eastern wall; an ascending highway pocked by caves…no doubt the dens of feral raider clans… (2).

This will spill you out into the vast badlands above where you’ll have to navigate your own way to The Pit in the unmarked landscape.

---

MEDIUM DC

 

[darkbard]

IBHEA traces the ascending eastern pathway, like a predator feline eyeing some serpentine catch. But, no! That path is more the fanged viper: too potent a threat should one false movement or failure to discern a threat go awry.

"How is your balance, scrivener?" he asks.

The scholar straightens. "In my younger days, I traveled to the Flowering Monastery. A most fascinating temple from which all Kifu Chanyee's bureaucratic scribes are drawn. Inferior hacks, most of them, but the temple grounds are most impressive, and the monastery chef is renowned for his preparation of spring bamboo shoots.

"But I digress.

"The road to the Flowering Monastery is atop Mount Summerglory and accessible only by foot. It cuts across several knife-edge ridges, enough to keep defense of the temple grounds to a minimum of sohei, for natural positioning does the rest. In any event, I'm proud to say that though two--or was it three? No, I think it was two--of my traveling train fell to their doom during that harrowing ascent, I live to tell the tale. I told those fools to refrain from rice spirits the night before!

"I may be no mountain goat or manticore, but my balance is..."

"Can you make it across these fissures?" the whisky priest cuts him off.

Bristling slightly at being cut off unceremoniously, Xin Mae sniffs, "Yes. Yes, of course, I can."

And so the pilgrims proceed across the stoney web of filaments towards their goal, one false step promising calamity ... and the abyss below.

---

We're making a Group Acrobatics Primary Skill check to navigate the stoney labyrinth across the abyss, vs Easy DC 13 (stepped down for Group Check): A, r(17) +2 = 19. Success. I, r(14) +4 = 18. Success. Q, +12 = autosuccess. 3/3 individual checks in Group check succeed = Success.

 

[Manbearcat]

3 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/0 Secondary Skills Available

---

The ground cover above the subterranean cavern is thin as paper, relatively speaking. Qamra actually relies upon small motes of light peering through tiny fractures in the earth above them to guide the way.

“Its not far now…”

Her voice trails off as she stops abruptly, looking stumped when she reaches a drop into the deep dark some 25 feet across. A pair of crude, anchored upright fixtures with torn rope adorning all four tell the story. Qamra frowns.

“There used to be a makeshift bridge here suspended over the chasm. I wonder what happened?”

As if on cue, the unstable limestone ceiling above looses a not-so-small stalactite, sufficient to spear a humanoid or splinter a small bridge.

The sounds of the protest from the precarious ceiling and its abundance of similar structures fills the cavern.

---

MEDIUM DC

How do you get across the crumbling ceiling and yawning span?

Or do you turn back and attempt to find another way?

 

[Nephis]

ARUNNY stares listlessly down at the ground where the posts are and where the bridge apparently once was as she listens to Qamra's words. Omthala's Searing Voice is tired, and her head aches, and her soul feels weary, made heavier by the curse of the long-dead Justicar. She simply wants to be able to rest and feel better. The seer is still confused as to why her Lady has not aided her in her trouble: has she failed Her somehow? Silently, eyes closed, she pleads for mercy, addressing this entreaty to whomever will listen: her Lady? Her Son? The Maiden? <Please, help us!>

Opening her eyes, she stares once again at the ground. But now, she feels a tug at her focus, a new detail on the ground illuminated in a shaft of Moonlight. Someone stood here, recently and for a while. The footsteps look fresh but also blurred, as if their maker shifted a bit, also perturbed by the missing bridge. Arunny cannot tell which way they went from the signs she literally sees, but that tug on her focus draws her attention to small, chiseled steps, carved into the stone and heading downward, into the ravine. Another route.

---

Arunny uses Favor of the Gods (enc.) to gain a +2 Power Bonus to

her Primary Skill Perception check (training exhausted): r(7) + 10 + 2 = 19 vs. 19 Moderate DC. Success!

 

[Manbearcat]

The chiseled path into the bowels of the earth is ancient. It clearly predates modern times, perhaps being born in antiquity. A trick of perspective and light, it is hidden to all except for the most perfect vantage and illumination.

It becomes clear later that it must have been excavated by ancient worshippers of the burning primordial of destruction, earth, fire; Vezzuvu. The path empties out into a combination of temple, with fiery artifacts and offerings, and central operations where the planning, supplying, and excavation of The Pit took place. Long ago, this large chamber was fully open to The Pit below, perhaps halfway up, but a cave-in partially sealed the exterior wall overlook with rubble. Some of the rubble has fallen away; enough to worm a body through the recess to anchor a rope to the massive rocks, and abseild down via harness and belay (the gear of which is present here).

Xin Mae, proficient in many forms of ancient script, can read the planning and writings. The Cult of Vezzuvu were called here by their master to excavate a terrible purple rock that had plummeted to the earth long ago...and was "infecting" the rock. The journals read clearly that, as the workers got closer to the epicenter, strange happened to them and terrible things happened to them.

The project was hastily abandoned...

Centuries or millennia later, another ancient civilization must have (foolishly) taken up the massive column dug into the earth as a prison facility. They also must have abandoned the project...

---

XP & LOOT

* 600/2 = 300 xp apeice

* One mundane Vezzuvu artifact worth 500 coin.

---

You're at The Pit (the command center/temple of the Vezzuvu creators specifically). No move necessary to abseil down to the bottom. No signs of life anywhere. The place is barren. Birds avoid it so neither song nor call. Nothing grows on the walls or the floor. What is the goal/plan here?