Out of the Skillet into the Flame
Season of Rushing Waters
"We may have to use the living flame," you whisper urgently to Gorok. Your scaled companion nods, having considered the weapon and its uses right alongside you. There wasn't much else to do around the camp but speak of the past or plan for the future and the former often as the stain of soot upon one's mind. The four of you are not doing here for the too having been too
content in your lives.
"We will bring it if it is not destroyed in the fighting," Gorok hisses, weapon still at the ready.
Alas the orc shaman does not share his alacrity. "Do not lie to me scaled one! I know you'd keep it for a trophy and bring it to your tribe, offer it up to your cold and lazy gods!"
As a general rule of life when gods start getting a tongue lashing from the other side blood is soon to fly. Such words of power that you can conjure are already upon your tongue, the dwarf-made crossbow ready to jump to chest height and let fly. Then Mina speaks: "Do we look like an Iruxi raiding party to you? We are here each for our own reasons and none of us wish to die, here or in the troglodyte caves. Fights are hard to predict even by the most wise especially when magic and flame flies. The best we can promise is that we will try to do as you wish, not that we will succeed." There is a threat nestled in the half-apologetic words. The part of your mind that is not concerned with how heavy those stone-tipped javelins look wonders if the orcs will understand it.
Gorok Diplomacy: 1d20 -1 = 8 (Failure?)
Mina Aid Another: 1d20 +1 = 10 (Success)
Final Roll Result: 8 +2 (Aid Another) = 10 (Success)
"Fine!" the shaman spits. "No use asking a welp for to carry more than their back can bear, then you would be burdened with their corpse."
The trio retreats around the corner, leaving the six of you breathing a cautious sigh of relief, other than Warty at least who, judging by the timber of his croaks, would have really loved to sink his tusks into orc-flesh .
"Right... right... talking with orcs, that is a normal thing people do," you hear Mina murmur under her breath before the words become a prayer to her Desna
While the rest of you are more inclined to take the grudging send off of the shaman at face value no one wants to linger in the territory of the orcs anymore than they have to, down and through you pass though caves of limestone carved by water, polished by living hands, painted in red and in black with the mark of the three again and again until finally you make it to a drainage tunnel... one that reeks to bad you almost balk at the notion of going down there.
"Smell is rot, much rot, it is think and catch sliding body," Gorok says. Then reasonably he adds: "The smell will help protect us from the nose-tongue, sniff-taste of the Xulgath."
"I think you just mean nose and sniff there," Mina says, coming from behind to lean against the wall of the cave.
"Smell, taste, different for you, they are the same for us," he explains, leaving you more confused than before
"But you have a nose..."
Alas you never get to finish the question as a mass of brown glossy flesh comes barreling out of the tunnel feelers extended before it, jaws ripping themselves out of the front of its blind grasping mass.
Death Worm... it's a bloody
Death Worm.
Gorok Survival: 1d20 +7 = 8 (Critical Failure)
That is when you discover you really are quite brave all things considered since the next words out of your mouth are not gibbering in terror but a warning to watch out. Cob, closest to the entrance, looks in your direction wide-eyed, but it is not quite enough for him to get out of the way in time. Instead he is send flying by the mass of the thing into one of the stalactites shattering it. It's smaller than the stories make it out to be, only about nine feet from horrid head to the rattling tail if frees from the rock wall, rather than twelve. A
juvenile maybe?
Cob Takes 9 Damage -> now at 9/18
Amid the rasp of weapons being drawn in desperate defense, groans of pain and hisses of surprise Mina starts to sing, a low and eerie melody, a lullaby that skips one note for every three, the beast turns towards her, jaws snapping, then it starts to sway in tine with it and with aching slowness lay its head down on the floor of the cave
Young Death Worm Will Save: 1d20 +2 = 16 (Failure)
What do you do?
[] Try to coup de grace the thing
[] Get away, use your alchemical supplies to hopefully confuse its scent, find another way down to the Xulgath tunnels.
[] Write in
OOC: That was... something, you could only really get this encounter if Gorok rolled a natural one on his Survival or if you rolled a `1-5 on the encounter table. Still, no one is dead so that's good. The sleep hex lasts 2 turns so you do not have long to set things up here. 
