"Wow, this was once a fine building." Dakath says to Ullar, moving to the draperies and checking behind them for secret passages, as he walks past Ullar he adds slyly "Watch out for spiders."
However, it is Dakath that must be cautious, as the drapery he approaches moves aside easily. Within the alcove behind the drape is a formerly sleeping giant white wolf!
Dakath leaps backward from the growling beast as it jumps forward, knocking it's concealing drape away and rushing toward him.
Dakath staggers back trying to draw his long sword "Ullar!!"
Tolik has no desire to get involved in another fight, so he ducks behind the other side of the fountain to watch without being in the way.
Ullar, with a truly impressive stroke, smashes into the beast with his greatsword, crashing through it's spine and surely slaying it. As it falls to the ground, it breathes a frosty blast at Ullar, but it appears to have been too much damaged by the titanic blow, and Ullar feels only a slight freeze, which he quickly shakes off.
In agony, the monster snaps at Ullar weakly, and then Ullar finishes it off with a quick thrust. Rarely have you seen such a magnificent display of combat from the big man.
Arkady rushes towards the wolf with a yell but he stops short as he sees Ullar crush it. "Great shot, Ullar!!"
Dakath grins, nervously, "Well I just knew there was a reason for me bringing you into this room with me. I could of met with an untimely end then."
Taking this as a well meant compliment, which certainly clears the air between both party members, Ullar gives a brief smile, still astonished from his successful strokes against the wolf.
Ullar looks wondered at his hands and Forte's great sword. With a brief shake of the head, he refocuses his eyes on the dead body of the wolf. Then, accompanied with a 'complete' innocent expression, he turns to Forte: "Are you sure you want this sword back?" he asks, joking his fellow warrior. "It sure feels happy in my hands..."
Asif watches with great appreciation the swordplay of Ullar. Still suffering the ill effects of his wounds he limps over to Ullar and pats him on the shoulder.
"A fine display Efendi. One would think you where once again in the ring before a crowd of thousands. But now such a blow is now more worthy of you. While once it sated the macabre tastes of Romans, today it now saved your friends from harm. May I be the first to thank you efendi. (Asif moves closer to whisper) With this wound of mine in the guts, I can hardly wield my blades and by Aten I feel useless to you all. Most of all to my wife to be."
Feeling some blushes appear on his face, Ullar thanks Asif for the compliment.
When his friend leans over to whisper something to him, Ullar pats him reassuringly on the shoulder. Softly he whispers back: "Don't worry my friend. A good night rest and some healing will get you ready for action once more. And regarding your future-wife, your presence alone is inspiring to her, so no worries there!"
Asif smiles warmly in response, and whispers back. "For one trained in swords rather than words you say many great things efendi. Such words do bring some comfort."
Being more careful this time, Dakath looks behind the curtained alcove, which appears to run all the way around the corner of the building. The door between the two curtains leads to the same alcove, which at it's point has a spiral staircase heading upward. The alcove also contains two heaps of straw, one of which was the resting place of the dead wolf. On the other side of the staircase, there is a large plain bed, which smells pretty bad.
"Wow, I'm truly impressed," says Tolik, with awe in his voice at Ullar's show.
"Thanks Tolik. Mind checking out this foul smelling bed with me? The last time we encountered such a wolf, Vlack was with him. Vlack is that large Goblinoid we fought when we first encountered you. I'm afraid that once he finds out about this, he will be really, really pissed." Ullar says.
Tolik follows behind Ullar, staying well behind the big man, until he sees there is no danger. Then he goes back to what he was doing.
The bed is of such a size that Vlack could sleep in it, and you imagine that his scent would most likely be this foul. However, there is nothing of interest in or about the bed.
Once Dakath has done his preliminary inspection of the draperies he then moves cautiously towards the statues, examining them and their plinths for concealed compartments.
The statues are very plain, the same as the ones that he saw before in the Tombs what seems so long ago. These are worn stone, valueless, and there do not appear to be any secret compartments.
Again once satisfied with his investigation he then moves towards the fountain, searching for anything useful through the rubbish,
"Well what do you guys want to do? We could stay here and hope that there are no more spiders and build that barricade of books and or we could try rest in the room upstairs." Rhune asks as she looks around.
She goes about looking for items that might help in making some traps for the goblins......a pile of books balanced on the door frames.....some rubbish or books just this side of the door on the stairs...watching with sword drawn making sure no other hairy, eight-legged, venom-dripping arachnids decide to drop in for a snack..
Seeing that Dakath is taking care of the searching the room upstairs, Ullar waits until Rhune or Dakath are finished with their activities.
Then he speaks once more: "Are we going to stay here, or are we going to find some sort of bedroom in this building? It's all the same to me, just as long as we're staying in a room without large cobwebs..." he adds, smiling vaguely.
Dakath grins "A room with a bed in it? Your not too accustomed to this breaking and entering fiasco are you? The idea is to remain undetected." He looks over at the three doors, "You want to enter the door most used? The one that grants us the greatest chance of capture, I'm going through the North West Door, I'll be back shortly."
"KAK!!! What a room!!! Too bad it is in such disrepair. Check the other rooms Dak and find us a safe haven, if you please." Arkady keeps his eyes and ears alert for goblins, monkeys or other such dangers like spiders!!
Dakath grins "I'm already on my way, I'll find a place for you all to rest."
"Thanks Dakath. I would like a nice quiet place to rest for a change. One that is easily defensible, maybe even one night where we get a full night's rest." Rhune offers with a smile as she looks from him to Asif.
Puzzling why Dakath is moving on his own again, Ullar just stares at him. Then, to no one in particular, he speaks: "Breaking and entering fiasco?" "Remain undetected?"
The warrior slaps his forehead, shaking his head in disbelief. "Dakath, my friend, we've killed more than a dozen of these goblins and their monkey-pets and still you talk about being undetected? As long as they haven't found us we're undetected, but please tell me that you don't live in the assumption that once we found a good resting place the Goblins will just cease their attempts to find us and get some retaliation."
"I've never fought Goblins this 'brave' before.." continues Ullar, twisting the word brave a little so that it comes out rather funny, ".. and I doubt that they have the same low morale as their 'normal' comrades."
"Let's just be clear about it. I want a room where we can all rest without half of the party having to take watch at the same time. If you encounter any such room in your adventures within this building, please do inform us" says Ullar, with a smile which is even reflected in his eyes.
Dakath turns to Ullar, all humor gone from his face "If you want to know the truth I don't wish to travel through these buildings in a large party, I'd feel much safer acting alone. We're bungling along worse than a group of rank amateur footpads."
"You go find your room, I'll be sure to find you all later. If we do get lost then I'll meet you back at the horses." Without another word he checks the North West door for traps before trying to open it. Finding no traps and the door unlocked, he turns to Ullar and grins before disappearing from sight.
Rhune just shakes her head as the young man heads off...then looking up to the heavens offers a silent prayer for him.
"Dakath! I may not be the sneakiest but I will come with you if you want the help. Otherwise I will stay here." Arkady queries the thief.
Dakath nods once "Thank you for your offer of help but I need to be quiet, my life could depend on it, stay here. I will be back shortly."
With a shrug Ullar watches Dakath and follows him toward the north western room. "I'm not staying in a central room as this one. If we find a room which is suitable and has only two doors to defend it's fine with me. Anyone with other ideas?" he says, while eyeing Dakath's attempt to unlock the door with interest.
Crossing to one of the other doors, Rhune checks it out for traps and listens for sounds. Then she checks the third door as well. making note of any traps.
Neither door appears to be trapped, and she can hear no sound behind either as well. However, her chain mail does interfere with her ability to hear as much as it does all her other abilities, and she cannot be sure that there is nothing there.
"Perhaps," says Tolik slowly, "If we found a room on the edge of the collapse, we could use some of the rubble to bar the door. They would just assume that the room had filled with rubble and look elsewhere. Or maybe they'd destroy another floor and smash us good. I dunno."
Whilst checking the door Dakath says "Ullar I need to rely on stealth here, your going to need to stay about 10ft behind me, alright ?"
"Sure. I just want to know what is behind this door. This seems to me the most plausible place to find a quiet room, since the other building was located on the south side of this building. As far as I'm concerned you can check out the other rooms on your own; in your own stealthy way."
Dakath smiles slightly "You know what curiosity did to the cat don't you ? Well find you a defensible room and then I'm going to check up on our pursuers."
"You be careful," admonishes Tolik from where he sits, now going through the things in the fountain. "The top of this was collapsed. We don't need the rest of it to follow, at least not while we are here."
Forte looks up at the ceiling, hoping Tolik's warning will prove unnecessary.
Dakath grins "I'm always careful....ask Rhune." he then goes off exploring.
Looking around for something non lethal to throw at Dakath. "Yes he is careful. I will grant him that." Rhune replies
Tolik manages to unearth seven gold ingots, about a pound and a half apiece, buried within the rubbish in the fountain!
Tolik takes one of the ingots and, after testing its weight in his hand, decides to keep it. He sets the others out so the others back under the rubbish, making himself a mental note to mention them to the others. With a quick glance towards the corpse of the wolf, he decides this is as good of time as any, so he starts to the stairs.
After the searching of the room by Dakath, Ullar watches the floor, looking if there are traces of a heavy-used track leading to one of the doors.
Looking around the room, "It seems to be much nicer than the spider room. I wouldn't mind staying in here tonight. We can use the books to make some traps or at least an early warning system in case the goblins decide to check out the room below." Rhune says
Ullar sees that the stone floor of the room does not appear to show any specific signs of hard travel. Interestingly, though, he sees some chips in the stone leading from the door in the southeast corner to the stairway into the library. Almost as if something hard had impacted that path hundreds of times.
"WATCH IT!" he calls over to Rhune, as she is about to inspect the door in the southeast corner of the beautiful room. Quickly he moves over to stand next to her and points at the chips in the stone floor.
"Seems to me that there is some sort of trap here.." he says, while closely examining the ceiling, without standing in front of the door.
While Dakath, Ullar, and Arkady explore the central room, Rhune and Pietro and the others stay in the library, examining the books or on the staircase, opening up communication between the group.
Looking around and if the others are heading upstairs to rest, "We can still use these books to our advantage." she then proceeds to try and make various traps out of them.....being very careful where she puts her hands, checking them out and using the point of her sword to tip them out of their spaces.
Pietro is still rummaging through all the books, trying a lot of them to see if there are any special books around. Without looking up from his work, he mentions a few offhand remarks, although these are not to loud. "I personally am against using books for a barricade, but we can use the shelfs. Isn't it possible for us to get the horses who are in the stable out there? That way we can take them to our own horses, and a few people will have a big problem with traveling."
"It certainly implies that there is an increased chance for exposure and I doubt that is what we want in our current condition. However, it is a good plan and might serve us well tomorrow" says Ullar, walking back down the staircase into the library and nodding his head while looking at Pietro.
"Oh, definitely, we should take the horses tomorrow," agrees Forte. "Or tonight, if we leave before nightfall," he adds with a glance at Pietro.
Tolik looks up with a raised eyebrow. "Take those horses? I thought Dakath said the stables were empty." He seems rather puzzled by the discrepancy. "Did you guys see horses or something? Maybe they took our horses. Isn't like we hid them or anything..."
Dakath chuckles, returning down the stairs to join the conversation for the moment, "The stables were empty, it appears we are the only observant ones in the group Tolik."
Ullar laughs out loud after this remark. "Sure Dakath.. like your keen eyes who didn't notice a heavily used track in the previous room..." adds Ullar rather cynical, feeling a bit annoyed after Dakath's remark.
"I noticed that as well, Dakath." Rhune replies with a smile. "I would like to get the horses, but they are not in the stable they are back up the side of cliff were we left them. Maybe Dakath will be able to bring them back." Rhune says.
Arkady grins over at Pietro. "I would rather rest before we travel again. Hopefully our horses are okay out there."
"Not only that, but would grabbing our horses and getting the heck out of here be counter productive. I mean, we were looking for this place. We'd hafta come back sooner or later." Tolik adds.
"Nevertheless, we can keep it in mind for our departure. At least I'm not planning to stay here forever!" says Ullar while grinning at Pietro.
Poking about the books with her sword, Rhune manages to rouse another spider! It leaps forward at her from it's spot of concealment within a pile of webs. With phenomenal quickness it sinks it's fangs into her cheek!
"By Aten, you foul creature of darkness. Face my wrath!"
The elf maid swoons backward as her lover moves to protect her. However, he fares no better, as the creature dodges past his flashing blades and bites deeply into his thigh. He falls like a stone to the floor.
Screaming out as the fangs sink, Rhune falls backward. Then seeing Asif fall to the spider she growls low and strikes.
Tolik sees the spider leap out and so he runs up the stairs to tell Ullar and Arkady.
Remarkably, Rhune lunges back into the fray, her eyes flashing in anger at the blow struck her fiancée. She is bleeding badly from her face, and you can see that her cheek is swelling up from the poison, but it has not felled her like it did Asif, who Pietro leaps to attend and try to save his life.
Ratlin and Tolik have no spells, and do not anticipate engaging a beast with such nasty intent. Dakath is still searching about upstairs, and Ullar and Arkady are on the staircase. With Asif fallen, that leaves only Forte and Amibar.
Rhune stabs at the creatures abdomen as Forte moves in to assist, hoping against hope that the spider does not bite him as so many others have done. It is a good stroke, but the nasty creature shrugs it off and bites her once again in the stomach. This time she falls hard.
As Pietro has just managed to keep Asif from an untimely death and now dashes to do the same for Rhune, cutting at her wounds and attempting to suck out the poison.
Ullar and Arkady have charged down the staircase to help Forte, who gets a really bad feeling about this. He smashes down at the beast in a frenzy, and hits it, but this is one very tough spider. It seems stunned for a moment, long enough for the other warriors to come and help.
Tolik follows behind the fighters, and sees Asif and Rhune have fallen. He scurries down to help Pietro with taking care of them.
However, they are not needed, as Forte finishes the thing with a smash to the head. However, it was not as easy going as it's mate was. Asif and Rhune are alive, but only because of extremely quick action from Pietro, and from their condition, neither will be up and around for some time.
"F**k!" exclaims Ullar, seeing his comrades fall from the bites of the spider. He rushes over to help, but sees that Forte has finished the job already.
Arkady gasps at the scene before him. "Chornog!!!! We are not having luck today!"
"Damn it!" Forte exclaims, as he opens a book and wipes his mace clean on the pages, being very careful not to touch any of the arachnid's ichor. He then rushes over to Pietro, "Will they be all right?" He notices the blood on Pietro's lips. "What happened to you?" he asks, a puzzled look on his face. Without waiting for an answer, he adds with a worried tone in his voice, "Is there anything I can do to help?" Forte looks at Rhune and Asif with a helpless expression on his face, as he knows he can not provide any meaningful medical assistance.
Pietro finishes up with putting bandages around his two new friends. He is looking like a ghost, clearly not happy at the moment. "A sec Forte, just sucked poison." Pietro moves into a corner, and starts to a gag and spit, clearly trying to get rid of the poison. After a while he walks back to Forte. "Anybody have some strong alcoholic beverage for me to clean my mouth with? I think they will live, but I think they are going to have a pretty rough time in the next few hours. We might be forced to stay here, I am not sure they are going to act well to traveling at the moment."
Forte grimaces in disgust when Pietro mentions sucking out the poison, but says nothing. "Sorry, I don't have any wine you could use."
Pietro smiles his funny smile. "It does not matter, what is the worst thing that can happen? Die? I do not have any fear of dying, although I want to keep living for a lot of centuries before the Keeper is going to get me. I like this life, so why hurry."
"The Keeper?" inquires Ullar, who's interest in religions OTHER than Jerboha are already known to the original party members.
Interest is not hard to read from Pietro's face. "You are interested in gods? Maybe we can share information. The Gods are one of my favorite topics to study. I have been gathering information and facts about gods for a long time. Maybe we could have a chat someday? as you might know by know, I am a priest of Hermes, also known to be part of the Greek pantheon. You might know that Hermes is in fact the lightning fast messenger of the Gods, but that is only one of his duties. Among priests of Hermes, the keeper is also called Hades, who is the god of the underworld."