First, with this thing not being a succubus, I feel more confident now. If we want expertise, we can go to the Fey city. At least the have Pech to remove the stone curse.
But, now that this thing here is not something deadly, I am not so confident about going to a good-aligned temple right now on the surface.
That's a clue for sure, just not one that we can do much with just yet.
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken
[X] [PATH] Investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
[X] [PATH] Investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
This is kinda anticlimactic for whatever DP think should be the arc's ending, so @DragonParadox , can we include this without voting for it? It is only sensible that we check everything before departing.
I mean, the idea of the vote is "should we explore the surface" or "should we return to the Darklands". Not omething so trivial.
For myself, I think that carrying the statue is mostly a burden. if we solve the riddle, we can come back for it (and so I want it to be in one piece). For now, I think that our quest leads us to the surface world. Also, I wanna see Kori meeting and hating the Sun.
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken [X] [PATH] Up into the Burnlands, it is the only place whoever was in the temple before you could have taken
Also, we have a fuckton of plot hooks to grab and I feel like DP would like us to finally choose one. I would have loved the Dark Folk intrigue in the Darklands, but I was mostly alone in this.
This is kinda anticlimactic for whatever DP think should be the arc's ending, so @DragonParadox , can we include this without voting for it? It is only sensible that we check everything before departing.
I mean, the idea of the vote is "should we explore the surface" or "should we return to the Darklands". Not omething so trivial.
For myself, I think that carrying the statue is mostly a burden. if we solve the riddle, we can come back for it (and so I want it to be in one piece). For now, I think that our quest leads us to the surface world. Also, I wanna see Kori meeting and hating the Sun.
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken [X] [PATH] Up into the Burnlands, it is the only place whoever was in the temple before you could have taken
Also, we have a fuckton of plot hooks to grab and I feel like DP would like us to finally choose one. I would have loved the Dark Folk intrigue in the Darklands, but I was mostly alone in this.
The biggest plot in the Darklands was the Dark Folk conspiracy with the troll. There is Gorok's personal quest too. If we don't follow those two, then following this path will lead us to the surface. If we turn back, we are kinda going back and forth.
It feels odd to go into this place just to leave most of these things as they are and come back to Cauldron. DP wants us to pick a quest to follow.
My first pick is the Dark Folk conspiracy. But, right now, I just wanna follow a plot and get into the interesting story parts. If everyone agrees that we can get further involved into the Dark Folk questline, I will vote to get back to Cauldron. And also do Gorok a favour, as we can also do his personal quest.
I understand that this feels like stalling, but I do not want to go into Burnlands.
@DragonParadox , is @Goldfish variant "Investigate the nearby ruins" valid, or is it too anticlimatic and will be parformed automtically during returning to Cauldron?
I understand that this feels like stalling, but I do not want to go into Burnlands.
@DragonParadox , is @Goldfish variant "Investigate the nearby ruins" valid, or is it too anticlimatic and will be parformed automtically during returning to Cauldron?
That would work, but there is no guarantee you will find anything. After all there have been goblins around, they tend to be quite though looting things, this is the first sealed room you found around here (formerly sealed, at least the ghoul and probably more got in here before you).
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken
[X] [PATH] Back to Cauldron, hopefully the matter of the troll and the poisoning has cleared up
-[X] Before returning to Cauldron, investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken
[X] [PATH] Back to Cauldron, hopefully the matter of the troll and the poisoning has cleared up
-[X] Before returning to Cauldron, investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken
[X] [PATH] Back to Cauldron, hopefully the matter of the troll and the poisoning has cleared up
-[X] Before returning to Cauldron, investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
Okay, I just hope we follow some of the plots we already have there
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken [X] [PATH] Up into the Burnlands, it is the only place whoever was in the temple before you could have taken
Going back, I don't know what happened with the poisoned Dancer, and I can't quite let it go. I mean, I do not find a poison that has 2d3 Con damage, unless it is a custom poison. For comparison, black lotus extract has 1d6, and that is already a lot.
Going back, I don't know what happened with the poisoned Dancer, and I can't quite let it go. I mean, I do not find a poison that has 2d3 Con damage, unless it is a custom poison. For comparison, black lotus extract has 1d6, and that is already a lot.
[X] [IDOL] Leave it be, you do not know what it is or how it might react to being broken
[X] [PATH] Back to Cauldron, hopefully the matter of the troll and the poisoning has cleared up
-[X] Before returning to Cauldron, investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
[X] [PATH] Back to Cauldron, hopefully the matter of the troll and the poisoning has cleared up -[X] Before returning to Cauldron, investigate the nearby ruins where we discovered the Black Tumor Bulbs might be growing. Perhaps we can harvest more of the strange growths before continuing with our journey
If someone had come to you a season past with the news that the greatest discovery you would one day make in far distant ruins would be through the skills of a goblin you would have called them mad, if that is you had bothered to call them anything at all, but Cob isn't going to let that stop him. After finding nothing more in the temple you decide to go down the stairs Gorok had taken up to the temple with a thought of then scaling down the walls of rubble, but all along the way Cob had taken to tapping the wall. Just a Cob thing to do, you thought, like the propensity for strange names and putting things in his mouth that do not belong there.
Then he found a room as large as the temple and not half so empty. Well alright, that is not entirely true. What he had found was a hollow sounding spot in the wall, which upon closer inspection was a little too smooth. Mina claims the stone had been shaped in place like wet clay, though she also cautions that any magician able to cast such a spell much have mastered the third circle of sorcery...
Pepper meows imperiously, which his mistress sheepishly translates as 'a master compared to any of you'.
"Well it would not be very masterful of him to lock himself in," you point out calmly, getting a giggle out of Cob, not that he's sparing with them.
"How thick is the stone?" Gorok asks, causing your stomach to plunge.
***
All four of you had taken turns to crack the stone-shaped wall, but it is on your turn, back and shoulders aching, throat stinging as you gasp the dusty air of the tunnel, that you finally break through to the other side. It takes more work still to widen the gap enough for Pepper to fit through, tied with a rope around the middle to pull him back through if needed. You had found your poison fruit garden, now all you had to do was dig an even bigger hole...
Digging Through the Stone (Strength rolls): 10+8+17+6+15 = 56/50 (Complete)
Eventually, after far more breaking rock than anything not a digger or a dwarf should have to do, you manage to make the hole large enough for all of you to fit through into a despoiled tomb.
Pepper had called it a garden and you suppose it is not a bad description. Here indeed grow the tainted fruit you had used against the moldfolk, or at least they had grown on beds of ash and dirt, but the boughs are bare and the great stone ovals three times a man's height can clearly been made for something other than a vegepygmy's use. Twelve in all, each of them had an inscription above them, one line bold and deep carved, and then a list.
Out of that list you make up a handful of almost-familiar characters, though not enough for this to have been laid down by the People. Still, the words you can half-read are all names, letting you guess what must be in these stone vessels; the remains of the dead, hundreds, thousands of them.
Sifting your fingers among through it you brush against something hard and small; a nugget of bone, then a tooth, all charred black, not just buried but burned, but if all this was ash... it would be more people than could be found in all of Cauldron five times over. Where had they all come from? Where had they all lived? Alas, that answer seems to have fallen into the maw of years, never to be found again. It is probably not worth trying to loot the ash itself. What would two sacks of it even be worth?
As though in answer to the question something moves in the shadows on the far side of the chamber, unseen to eyes that bear witness only to light, yet to your eyes horrifically clear. It might have been a woman once, or at least female from the contours of grey skin drawn taunt over bone, its surface is crisscrossed with stitch work, beneath tatters of red silk that flowed like blood, but it was its fate that arrested the eye and froze the mind in disgust. There are no eyes in among the concentric wrinkles and no jaw, but there is a mouth, circular like a leech's maw pulsing in the air.
The thing does not attack, it does not move or make as sound, but instead tips its head to the side in a gesture that oozes amused contempt. Then it points one skeletal finger at a pile of broken black vines, looking more closely you see that one of the vines is a withered limb encased in the same sort of silk jacket as the ghoul you had killed.
