Slowly Healing

Continued from Slowly Healing.

The DM: It is still July 4th; the sky is covered by puffy clouds, there is no rain and the temperature remains cool and comfortable.

Lexent: "Vafrandir, would you be willing to assist me? I can't carry all that much by myself."

Vafrandir: I'm with you! Off we go.

Vafrandir: To be clear, we intend to move camp closer.

Lexent: Indeed.

The DM: Splitting the party, I roll and no ill-happenstance results from it. Marcule is able to get Pandred down the mountain, and might even be able to signal somehow with a spell or something (no idea) to let you know they’re coming. Together, without needing to say so, you make an agreement about some place you saw that morning, so you know just where to meet with each other. However, none of you are a ranger, so I will need a wisdom check from every person in the party.

Vafrandir: I roll a 1.

Lexent: 14

The DM: You both find your way back to the camp, and to the agreed-upon meeting place.

Marcule: I will do my best to take care of Pandred.

The DM: That place ... do you want it to have any special characteristics, commensurate with the area? It's alpine tundra, so there are no trees. Here are some suggestions of what an alpine range offers. Note the "Features" section.

Rolling dice, I do indicate the presence of a single hot spring, so that's probably going to win the choices. No "chalets" obviously.

Vafrandir: Yes, a hot spring gets my vote. Preferably against a rock face to help shield from wind as well.

Lexent: Your first sentence is almost word for word what I was writing. Hot spring, please.

The DM: That’s a safe bet, Vafrandir. The hot spring is little more than a trickle; it makes a pool only one foot in diameter before tricking about fifty yards downhill through an inch-wide crack in the rock surface, where it apparently returns to the subsurface. The pool is about 4 yards from the rock face, which is 18 feet high and forms an angle, 20 feet north-south and 10 ft. east west, with the hypotenuse towards the southwest. Stretching south and west is a small plain of glacial debris, with stones ranging from fist size to gnome-sized.

The DM: “small plain” = 500 yards across, tailing out where the slope breaks into 10 foot wide gulleys and ponds on the southwest edge.

Lexent: The perfect size for resting an ankle.

The DM: the temperature of the hot spring would be 65-70 degrees C; though of course no measurement of that kind would be comprehensible to the characters.

The DM: Let’s see; you can’t get the cart onto the glacial plain. The best you can do is park it 250 yards from the hot spring. The terrain is too rough for the wheels otherwise.

The DM: Marcule and Pandred, I need those wisdom checks. We’ll pick this up Friday, as agreed. Out (but I’ll check back in half an hour).

Lexent: That seems a manageable distance. How much farther from the abrasion zone of the cirque are we now than at the previous camp?

Pandred: 13 on my check. Missed it by 1.

The DM: In. I need that wisdom check from Marcule, so I'll have to roll it.

Lexent: In.

The DM: Marcule rolls a 12, missing his wisdom by 1. With both players missing, you get lost ... for an hour. But that will push you over the top of exhaustion, so its a 2% malady check for each of you. And you're fine. The pair stagger into the newly made camp, very tired, with Marcule's shoulders aching from supporting Pandred, who is just in steady pain.

Vafrandir: In for about an hour then back in the afternoon.

Vafrandir: "We were starting to get worried! Sit down, rest."

Lexent: "This has been a long day. I'll take the first watch while you all start getting some sleep."

Pandred: In. I do rest. You guys can continue scouting without me if you need. I can rest here and handle myself if need be.

Lexent: I am content to move to the 5th. I only need four hours of sleep and am willing to take extra watch shifts.

Vafrandir: I'm not saying we need fear the plateau - at least, any more than any other part of this extremely dangerous wilderness - but we might want to consider a better strategy if we go that way again. On the other hand, we should probably go back to the tarn and examine the area around the inside.

The DM: Rest starting at 8 pm, so benefits won't be felt until tomorrow evening.

July 5

The DM: Cool weather, clear skies, gentle wind blowing.

Lexent: I recommend that we all rest for at least today. Depending on HP we might send a scouting party up to within the cirque tomorrow, but today we should rest.

Lexent: I use the staff to heal Pandred for 3+1+2=6.

Lexent: I cast cure light wounds for 3+4=7 and apply that all to Pandred.

Marcule: OOC: sorry guys i wont be able to play today. next week should be all good see you then.

Lexent: I spend the day aiding Pandred's rest along with anyone else who is willing to stay and be tended.

Pandred: Plus bottle for 2. 9 so far.

Vafrandir: I agree. Let's rest.

Pandred: Bad math, missed the heal. 15 so far. Halfway is good.

The DM: Pandred can get 6 more from rest then. That's 21 total. Ankle is feeling a lot better.

Lexent: Ready to proceed to the 6th.

July 6

The DM: The next day, there is a steady drizzle, but it’s very nearly a mist and not much to be concerned about. Still cool, still a gentle breeze blowing out of the northwest. How does the day start?

Lexent: Not amazingly. I heal Pandred with the staff for 1+2+1=4

Pandred: 3 from the bottle says I'll be better by tomorrow. 28 as of right now.

Lexent: If we'd like I could finish the process off with cure light wounds and we could all head up today, albeit with our healing depleted.

Pandred: I think I'd rather sit tight and save it in case of random encounter. As far as I know we're still okay for food for a while here.

Lexent: Fine by me. Would you like Vafrandir and myself to do some light scouting around the tarn while you finish resting?

The DM: Pandred wasn’t hit, so technically he is the same as 2 h.p. below full. I can make a concession and allow 8 hours more rest to heal the last two points of injury, so you can begin moving about freely at 5 pm.

Pandred: How long to sundown? I don't think any of us wants to twist an ankle scrambling in the dark.

Vafrandir: Out. I'll help scout when I return.

Lexent: I think then that the best course of action is to all just rest for the remainder of the 6th and start out on the 7th.

Lexent: Prior to turning in for the evening I cast cure light wounds for 2+4 and apply 3 to myself. I don't think anyone else needs it but if so, I apply the rest to them.

The DM: Remember, sundown is very late at night. Sundown is 10:47 pm, and it’s not really possible to be in the dark, remember? Full night doesn’t occur until the 28th of July and lasts 29 minutes.

Pandred: I think we'll wait for now. Lex is turning in, I don't want to risk anything. Let's just ding up a new day.

The DM: Actually, not even then. Those 29 minutes are ‘astronomical twilight’, so there is still light in the sky. Fun starts when the seasons change and it is dark all the time.

July 7

The DM: the day starts with light rain, fading into drizzle about 9 o’clock am, when you’re finished sorting and feeding yourselves. The temperature turns brisk. These rest days need 2 lbs. food each; with an additional 4 lb. per person who fought with the goat.

The DM: I’m not consistently keeping track of the food; trusting you to do it. But I think the last day I actually asked for food to be scratched off (without looking) was the 4th, which means these three days are unaccounted for.

Lexent: So that would be 66 lbs. total, I believe (including Oddsdraken, but not Valda). My understanding is that Vafrandir is keeping track of that. The Cargo spreadsheet shows we have sufficient for that, but we might be starting to get just a little bit light.

Lexent: "Shall we head up, Pandred? and maybe bring Oddsdraken with us?"

The DM: You have to feed Valda also. It’s Nadia who can feed herself.

Lexent: They are both back in Treborg though, right? Our supplies there are quite sufficient, from what I can tell.

Pandred: They are. Odds can't fight, he's there to reload my crossbow and keep my fighting weight manageable. Since I dropped the Plate I haven't brought him around, but I keep meaning to change that.

The DM: You might consider hiring other men-at-arms. Between Pandred and Vafrandir, they can jointly count themselves above 10 in most leadership points, even though they have no actual abilities. You’ve led men before; so long as you keep the number small, 1-4, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Lexent: I leave behind my shield and the shattered remains of my Godentag and start up towards the cirque. "Do you think we should try to find how those wolves got out, or plunge straight back in?"

The DM: A trip back to Stavanger would be needed for that; but you could get Lexent’s staff identified and let Nadia’s wage earn it’s value.

Pandred: Joining Lex here. I'm okay to do another day of scouting, and regroup when we have Marcule on monday.

The DM: You make the climb to the cirque; presume that Vafrandir and Marcule are with you, but lagging slightly behind, so they can catch up when they’re able. For the moment, the two of you are semi-alone in your actions.

Lexent: Where is the herd(? flock?) of rothe?

The DM: Drifting to the east side of the plateau. As you reach the top, the rain has ceased and there’s an overcast sky.

Pandred: What does my little spyglass tell me? I know I can't see the dungeon itself in the gully, but let's scan the cirque for what we can see.

The DM: Nothing I haven’t already described. No evidence of other entrances, except that there are hundreds of rocks that could be concealing one, anywhere.

Pandred Yeah, that's fair. What do you think Lex, got any ideas?

Lexent: We should probably start by verifying that the gully is still as we left it, and then start working around the tarn seeing if we can spot an additional exit.

Lexent: I start toward the gulley, pausing to give the rothe time to adjust to our presence as necessary.

Pandred: Tagging along.

The DM: It’s been 9 days since you’ve been here, since June 29th. The scene is exactly as you left it.

Lexent: Good. We start working our way around the basin, looking for any evidence of another entrance/exit, or anything else of note.

The DM: I’ve been thinking about search rules vs. chances to find something. My thoughts are than the players should have to pre-identify how long they intend to search, specifically naming a “base length of time.” Consider: say, there is a second entrance here. If there is, then spending enough time will guarantee it’s discovery. But “enough time” could be days, even weeks, depending on how small the entrance is (goblin lair, the entrance could be 9 in. wide). You have no evidence the wolves came out of another hole; technically, they could have made their way up the shaft you went down, or they may have been helped, or they may have been teleported for all you know.

Lexent: Well, Pandred, what do you think? Do we spend the rest of the day searching for the possible other entrance or head back in? Maybe we could look for evidence that the wolves actually did find a way to make it out of that vertical shaft?

The DM: So, you tell me (a) a segment of time. Then (b) I’ll roll 3d4, multiplied against that time segment; then calculate the chance of finding the entrance against what I think the maximum amount of time it would take to find the lair FOR CERTAIN. This way, I don’t confirm there’s an entrance; and I’m able to establish that a certain amount of time has passed, without having to say, “Three hours later” when the party could say, “Hey, we’d stop long before three hours passed!” This way, we can establish within a general time frame ahead of time when you’d “stop.”

Lexent: You may also need a variable for either thoroughness or size of area searched in that time. If we search for three hours that could be meticulously going over every stone in a 1/4 acre or merely walking through trying to get eyes on the whole an area much larger.

The DM: I think the judgement, “If they looked continuously foot-by-foot over the size of landscape presented, ie., within a reasonable distance that an underground tunnel could naturally occur or be made, given the space, this being a plateau reaching 400 yards from the tarn to the mountainside, recognizing that a watertable would make an entrance impractical within a certain frame of reference, and given that they have no geology or prospecting skill, how long would it take?” is good enough.

Pandred I'm down. However long we have, let's give it a go. I refuse to believe a skeleton wolf climbed a vertical ladder until I see it with my own eyes.

Lexent: Let's try this then. We spend 2 hours searching for a way the wolves could have gotten out other than the shaft.

The DM: taken up with help and then animated on the surface.

The DM: Lexent, that doesn’t work for me. I want a search time that isn’t pre-fixed, but pre-supposed. “We search for two hours” suggests you’ve already searched the area and won’t feel compelled to investigate leads you haven’t yet seen. Sorry. No. I want a time segment, and then I’ll roll 3-12 x that segment to account for uncertainty. Feel free to offer a segment that gives the average you want.

Searching

Lexent: Sorry, I misunderstood. Time segment: 20 minutes.

Pandred Don't be a goof, they were alive before they were dead! They had to get down so they could get up! Am I to believe that these three Dire Wolves were carried down as pups, raised in cages, and then died unceremoniously and had their corpses carried out to be raised?! I disbelieve! I disbelieve good sir!

The DM: (I’m not a goof, I’m your conscience; heh heh; maybe they WERE born down there? Huh?)

In retrospect, we can make an agreement on the number of dice rolled: cursory search (1 die); general search (2); close search (3) and intensive search (4). Name your die number.

Lexent: I believe a general search will do for now. 2.

The DM: You give up after an hour and 40 minutes, having found nothing. Or, at least, you decide you’re hungry and you’d like to eat. That makes it 12:40 by Marcule's watch.

The DM: Incidentally, I am accounting for Vafrandir’s elven find concealed doors ability.

Lexent: We stop and eat. "I'm finding this searching discouraging, Pandred. What say we take another peek in that hole once we've finished eating? Maybe we'll find some more evidence as to what occurred there."

Pandred: I maintain the principle is sound, but the truth is an exit tunnel or tunnels could pop out fucking anywhere, and there's no reason to expect this part of the mountain to have one: in fact there's a decent case to be made that it would be silly to have a secret exit within eyesight of the place you're exiting secretly. We can look at the hole.

Lexent: Following our meal I head back down to the hole, pausing briefly to see if my untrained eyes can see any evidence that this is indeed where the wolves emerged.

The DM: I’m presuming without needing to be told that you take all precautions entering the hole, at least as far as the shaft and the entrance way to the outer corridor, before the hall with 12 doors. All appears safe, though the odour continues to be rank. There is no evidence whatsoever of the wolves having climbed up the shaft. No markings of bone scraped against the walls, no place where claws would have gouged out bits of stone, no marks on the iron rungs leading down the shaft.

Lexent: I move to door 'H'. Is it open or closed at this point? Also is the kennel open or closed?

The DM: suspending this movement; you're still in the outer corridor, looking into the hall.

The DM: It’s just as you left it. You can see into the hall with your infravision, but in the center of the hall, amidst the scattered bones, like a splotch, is an inky blackness defying your ability to see what it is. You usually identify this as a very cold spot.

Pandred, you’re wearing the infravision goggles Marcule has provided?

Lexent: When you say 'the center of the hall' are you referring to the great hall or the hall within door H?

The DM: Ah; for clarification: shaft leads to portal, portal leads to corridor, corridor leads to hall with 12 doors. You’re in the corridor; you see into the hall; description of black spot is in middle of the hall.

Lexent: I watch that spot for a couple of minutes. Does the splotch change in any way that I can detect? Is it flat on the floor or floating in the air? Do we feel a difference in temperature that would be consistent with what our eyes are conveying?

Pandred: Goggles on. I'll dip them down for a sec just to be sure mine eyes do not deceive me.

The DM: zero movement; appears to be on the floor, or at least attached to it. you can’t feel a temperature distance from here, it’s 25 feet away. Though the whole space feels brisk, edging towards chilled, which it did previously.

The DM: without the goggles, you’re completely blind Pandred.

Pandred: Goggles on again. I'll approach the mass, handaxe and shield out and ready. I don't leave the corridor yet though.

The DM: no new information from this vantage point, Pandred.

Lexent: Staff out, I move into the hall.

The DM: Two bright red eyes open in the upper part of the black mass, surrounded by negative light.

Grond

The DM: You hear a disembodied voice; it does not seem to come from the direction of the eyes, but from all around you. It’s deep and gravelly, and portending of woe.

Grond: “I thought you had left for good.”

Lexent: "A hope? or a fear? Are you Grond?"

Grond: "I am Grond. This place is mine. There is nothing for you here. Only death. Go."

Lexent: I glance at my companions.

Pandred: "What happened down here?" Ooh, I wanna get 'em so bad!

Grond: "This place was theirs. Now it is mine."

Lexent: "And what assurance do we have that your 'children' will not disturb those who live near here?"

Grond: "They are not my children, they are my things."

Lexent: "And they have been causing harm. This we cannot allow."

Grond: you are acting foolishly. things are approaching now, that will kill you. Go.

Lexent: Does that sound more like a threat, a concern for our wellbeing, or merely a statement of fact?

The DM: you get the sense he really means it.

Pandred: I'll pull Lex back and make my way out. Grond gonna get it, I can promise that!

The DM: Oh good, I don't have to kill you.

Lexent: I follow Pandred's guidance.

Vafrandir: In (on the tail end, I suppose). Food accounted for. I'm back at the camp, I suppose.

The DM: No, I said you were just tagging behind the others.

The DM: Any last moves for the day?

Lexent: Well, what do we want to do from here? Grond seemed mighty imposing. Do we just give this place up for a loss and head back to town? Try to take the rothe with us as recompense?

Vafrandir: Not for now. Let's take the weekend to consider how we're going to tackle this. Taking a few rothe isn't a bad idea, not sure we have the abilities to do so.

The DM: you have no skill at ranching.

Pandred We've got funds. We know there's at least one ghoul, probably several. I'm willing to head to Stavanger and get a real team of Ghoul-busters going.

The DM: Out.