Din in he Deeps
The Season of Still Stone
Just like that first time you had called the shadows to ward you it only takes a thought, though you still need to snap your fingers for good fortune and shake it off in flecks of golden light only you can see, they seem to cling more closely to you than to anything else you have tried to give it to. Perhaps your magic is selfish... The thought feels almost giddy that it bubbles on your lips in words of ancient stock, though you know not their meaning, a crown of gentle warding light upon you.
The air is filled with the padding of many feet, the clink of stones herald to an ambush to any but an unweened babe. Alas that your foes are nothing of the sort.
"Yoth Kavir!" they call. "Yoth Droskar!" they cry out, a battle cry known and feared through all the tunnels of NarVoth and below. 'For death, for Droskar.' It is not their own death they are calling on and many a time has Droskar reaped the souls of their foes.
Not today, you vow.
All five of the guards, moving like the gears in soma vast machine, turn their crossbows on Vex, but you give the bastard credit even before the first dark-stone is thrown. He knows when to dodge and when to trust his armor with the hit, and then the dark grows deeper, almost a living thing embracing her children and spurning her foes. Emboldened by the sight of Vex weathering the blows the Whisper Foots throw themselves onto the great beetle at the heart of the caravan, climbing after him with innate grace and ruthless knifework.
Copper pots and jars of glass, spikes and spindles, chains and collars all fall within the din and clatter on the ground, more wealth than you have ever seen in your life.
The part of you that isn't trying to keep your stomach in check at your first sight of real battle feels faint pity at the beast's shriek of agony for it, unlike its masters, had not chosen to be here. As though sensing the direction of your thoughts it manages to shake off two of the Whisper Foots, casting them in the flood of the tunnel with a painful thud, even as above them the caravan leader flails against the foes suddenly beside him, filled more with zeal than skill.
Looking around, as much to distract yourself from the sudden violence, more vicious than any you had ever partaken in, as for any love of treasure you spy a dagger in the midst of the caravan's ruin. It has a heavy crossguard and blade that will not dull in a dozen seasons. Without thinking you dive for it and before you realized what you had done your hand was already around the hilt, just in time for three maddened slavers to bear down on you, warhammers raised high.
Gained Masterwork Dagger
Each time the wards, the darkness, holds as from above you hear a storm of dwarf curses mixed in with cries of pain, and a moment later you had already stepped back between the stumbling dwarfs, your footsteps muffled to near silence. Alas, not all of the Whisper Foots had been so lucky with one dwarf by good fortune or the will of their dread god managing to crush the hand of one who had failed in climbing the great beast.
What do you do next?
[] Try to free the slaves, that is sure to make what is already a tough fight for the enemy into an unwinnable one (Perception DC 15)
[] Heal one of your injured allies and pull them away from danger (at 8 and 14 HP respectively)
[] See what else had fallen off the beetle, you doubt your allies will allow you a fair portion of the spoils so you might as well get ahead of them (Perception DC 12/16/20/24)
[] Write in
OOC: Uff, I'd forgotten how many rolls a Pathfinder encounter with this many moving pieces required. Fun to run one again though. Just to be clear you made the roll against the dwarfs, which heard you pick up the dagger, so you are now once again hidden by a combination of the Deeper Darkness and your native stealth.
