Session Start: Sat Jun 06 18:17:13 2009 Session Ident: #castlevania * Logging for #castlevania started [The intrepid party breaks camp well before dawn and prepares to continue on their journey.] * Nyyx packs up her stuff quickly and efficiently. "So. Anyone figured out how to ride this thing yet?" She pats the drake on the back. It can't be that hard... right? No way. I've got rope, and a winter blanket. I can't think of much else I've got on me that would even be remotely helpful, though. * Olivia walks over to it and pets it lightly, saying softly, "You wanna say something?" * Olivia hrms, then says, "Okay... we would really like to travel to some ruins in the east. You wanna help us out with that?" [The great creature bows its head solemnly.] [That seems to mean yes.] You're such a good giant worm thing. * Nyyx smiles. * Adam scritches it under the chin. * Olivia smiles and rubs it as she looks to the others. "No problem, when you're riding Olivia and Drake..." she turns back to the drake. "You don't have a name, do you?" Adam named him Salvatore. * Olivia looks to Nyyx and smiles a bit more. "I was asking it." * Nyyx looks over at Olivia questioningly. "Does it talk?" * Olivia shakes her head and replies, "Not with a language, no." She then licks her lips and says, "Well, I should start," and tries to clamber up onto it. Hey Olivia! Will this help? * Adam tosses O a coil of rope with a grappling hook on each end. * Nyyx holds up her folded winter blanket. "This might pad the spines a bit, if you need it." Ooh. Good thinking. * Olivia looks down from just having barely started, taking the grappling hook and saying, "Well, yeah." She smiles faintly and says, "Wanted to see if my freeclimbing was still up to par." She takes the grapplehook and launches it over to try and find purchase. Then she'll take Nyyx's blanket and wrap it around herself like a toga before she tries to climb up for real. Good luck! * Nyyx gives the drake another pat. "Thanks for your help." * Olivia gets up top and then lowers the rope down for them as she tries to find a place to lay out the blanket for them to be comfortabley. * Nyyx grabs the rope and climbs up. [With some work, the pair can set the blanket down and anchor it reasonably well with the grappling hooks without hurting the creature.] * Adam grabs on and wallwalks up after Nyyx. * Charlotte climbs up and finds a spot to hang on! * Olivia , once everyone's up top, moves to the front and pets it before saying loudly, "Alright, eastward, Salvatore!" * Skip is unsure of the whole situation, but is glad to have such a powerful and fast mode of transport. "Well, nothing to do but hold on tight." [The beast lurches forward and once it builds up momentum through a combination of flexing its boney plates on its underbelly and undulating like a serpent, the creature falls into a steady rhythm as it passes over the sand. It naturally makes course corrections to avoid large dunes or steep dropoff and keeps good speed.] This is awesome. * Nyyx smiles silently and makes mental note of the experience for her journal later. [The party makes excellent time through the sand and the creature doesn't even stop due to the midday heat thanks to the magical gear the party brought along. At one point, the creature does stop at a rocky outcropping and eats what closer inspection revealed to be a quantity of rock salt. The rest of the day passed without incident.] [The party passes another uneventfull two days like this and finally reaches a curve of high dunes that trails off toward a set of large rocky outcroppings to the southeast. The remains of large stonework can be seen among the outcroppings.] * Olivia peers that way and says, "Oi! Looks like ruins that way." She also points. * Skip is now known as SkipYUM Think this is our stop? Sure, why not? It's not like we've found any OTHER ruins! * Olivia nods and says, "That's what I'm thinking," and she puts her hand to Salvatore. "Over nearer there, yes?" [The creature pushes forward and works itself to within one hundred feet of the ruins, keeping to the high ground in the process.] * Adam poses dramatically atop the creature, pointing towards the ruins! [The granite of the ruins and the outcroppings cast weak shadows in the midday sun and nothing appears to move among the stones.] * Olivia glances to Adam, then back to the ruins, saying, "We might want to consider camping outside, hitting the ruins fresh ourselves." Huh? I'm plenty fresh. * Olivia glances over. "Yeah, but the sun looks tired." ...so? * Adam is confused. * Olivia sighs and replies, "Just saying we might not want to go into the ruins at night." It'll be pretty tough to see, I guess. And any lantern'd give us away. * Adam sighs dejectedly. "Fine, fine." So what do we do til night? * Adam starts telling a bawdy story. * Adam accompanies with music, because everything is better with music. * Adam is clearly not putting the right amount of humor into his voice. * Olivia watches with some sort of amusement, but it's not clear it's at Adam's _story_. * Charlotte smiles. A little awkwardly, but she's glad to relax. * SkipYUM is now known as Skip * Nyyx listens to Adam with a sort of half-smile. Well, the sun's not really -that- close to setting yet, it seems like. Shall we? It's nice to take a little breather. Guess I'm good to go! Let's dungeon! [The party dismounts and advances slowly on the ruins. The silent stones loom in the distance.] * Nyyx walks in without hesitation. * Charlotte advances cautiously. * Olivia glances to Adam, then rubs her head and smiles weakly, before following Nyyx in and saying, "This'll be interesting, at least..." Relax, it's no big deal. * Adam reaches down and unsnaps his deck box. [The party picks their way between the nearest stones and comes up to the first of the clear ruins. A section of cut stone brickwork coming up to about three feet in height at the top sits away from the nearest outcroppings. More stonework appears further in between the larger outcroppings.] * Olivia glances at the stonework, if there's anything to identify. [There is only brickwork here.] * Nyyx studies the brickwork briefly, but she keeps going. * Charlotte treads lightly. [The party continues between the stones and reaches a shadowy section. This appears to have been a cellar at one point. The brickwork sets out a square chamber surrounded by stone. A set of stairs at one end of the "room" leads up into the rocks.] * Nyyx hmms and tests the stairs for stability. * Olivia looks around a little for anything left in the cellar area as Nyyx tests the way forward. * Charlotte motions at the stairs. "Only way out?" * Olivia kneels down near some sand in the corner, brushing it away to find some weathered wood. She hrms at it for a moment. * Olivia then tries to get a grip on it, saying, "I think I've got a hatch here... sub-cellar, maybe..." Ooh * Nyyx goes to see what Olivia's poking at. "Hm. Probably worth a look?" Yeah! * Olivia pulls out her own grappling hook, because for some reason she lacks a crowbar, and tries to hook it in and pull it up. * Olivia tries that a moment, then stands up and says, "Right. Time to break it." * Olivia half-smiles as she looks over at Nyyx. "You've got some smash in you, mmm?" * Nyyx shrugs. "Sure, I'll give it a shot." * Nyyx takes out her sword and gives the hatch door a decisive whack. * Charlotte watches [The hatch shatters into splinters. A stairway leads into the darkness below.] Sweet. * Adam hops down the stairs, pulling out a small lantern and hanging it in the air above his shoulder as he goes. * Charlotte steps down there * Nyyx sticks close in case of trouble. Careful. * Olivia peers after the boy and then lets them all progress down before following. Could be tight. I'm always careful! Besides, what could possibly go wrong? There's no way anything is still alivve down here. [Adam lands a dozen or so feet down after skipping down the stairs. The weak light of the lamp reveals a small sub-basement made of crudely cut stone with a passage of to the right.] They don't need to be alive to be an issue. See? Nothing. Well, except for this passage. * Adam walks over to have a look. * Nyyx nods and stays by Adam, making sure he doesn't run off alone. * Olivia follows down, with everyone down, and trails after the light. [The passage is even more crudely cut but is about five feet wide. It's a little short for most of the party but workable. It leads into the darkness beyond the lamp's reach. The air is stale but clean and even a bit chilly down here.] * Nyyx switches to darkvision and looks out beyond the lamplight for any danger. [Nothing but more stone is revealed.] [The corridor extends out and appears to split some fifty feet down.] * Nyyx switches back to normal vision. "I don't see anything much past the lamplight. Just stone. The corridor splits in another fifty feet or so, though." Okay. We'll go left, then. * Adam heads off down the passage. * Charlotte walks along, trying to stay ahead of Adam * Olivia lets Adam run forward, because hey, every kid's gotta let their feet get blown off sometime. * Nyyx heads left, too. [The party continues down the hall and turns left at the fork. That section of the corridor leads to a long passage that slopes downward. In several places, the corridor splits again and leads to caved-in sections and a few small cellars. The main corridor continues into the darkness.] Left again? * Olivia replies, "We should at least check the cellars." * Nyyx nods. "We should, since we're down here anyway." We find big old racks of wine, they're all sour. Left is always right. * Nyyx heads for the first cellar entrance from a left branch. [The first accessible cellar is a small chamber of old stone. No stairwell remains to lead above.] * Nyyx stoops by the opening and looks around in there, with darkvision if necessary. * Olivia picks around by lamplight, herself. * Charlotte looks around [The chamber has nothing substantive to reveal.] I don't see anything in there. * Olivia nods and says, walking down the hallway to the next, "I agree. Next?" Yeah. [The next chamber that can be reached without digging is similarly deserted. Of all of the chambers in this section, only one has any contents. A skeleton in the corner of one of the chambers still wears mottled rags.] * Nyyx checks out the skeleton for anything interesting or unusual. [The skeleton is in a crouched defensive position. The extremities are covered in small nicks and cuts from edged weapons.] Geez * Nyyx frowns a bit. What's wrong with the bones? They look... twisted. Hm? The injuries? It looks like the bones got a little cut up. What else do you see? * Olivia mms and moves in to look, too, but doesn't offer anything. Not just hte injuries They don't look right. Just the shape, the alignment... A deformity? Or something else? * Olivia says, after a moment of her own peering, "Remember the plaques? Indications of outsiders?" No... * Adam gets a glassy look in his eyes and says in a flat voice, "This skeleton shows signs of being of descent from extraplanar creatures. That shouldn't be possible." * Olivia glances to Charlotte, sighs, then stands and starts to say something, only to be beaten to it by Adam. * Olivia gives Adam a very funny look, before saying, "... yes, that is the case. Rare to impossible to be outsider-touched." Huh? What's the case? * Nyyx scratches her head. "An outsider? How did it get here?" Weird Oh, so that's what one looks like. * Olivia looks at Adam even MORE oddly. "... that this shows signs of..." she trails off again. * Skip leans in close to the strange remains, "Well, I guess that means we're probably in the right place. Could this thing be related to Gregor's demi-plane?" Could be. How old do you think this skeleton is? If it's from around Hassad's time, it'd definitely seem more suspicious. * Olivia shakes her head. "Don't know. No flesh, but that is no real help." * Nyyx sighs. "And we don't have Roland here to speak to the dead this time." This is going to be tricky. * Olivia glances to Nyyx, and then half-smiles, "I can, but I would prefer we continue looking elsewhere... before a conversation with this." We can just take the skull with us Right/ * Nyyx nods. "Right. I doubt it'll miss it." * Nyyx glances over at Olivia. "Should I take it with us, or should we come back for it later if necessary?" * Olivia shakes her head and says, "We can come back. It'll be... happier that way." * Nyyx nods. "Right, then. I guess we'll keep searching for now." She moves on to the next cellar. [The remaining cellars in this section have nothing of interest in them. The corridor continues with a few twists and turns and descends deeper into the ground where it terminates in a cave in.] Hm. That's odd. What did you find? * Olivia glances to Charlotte as she brushes her hair back. "Mmm?" * Skip buckles his knees in a bit, as a strange urge to pee has come over him. "Does anyone else feel that cool draft?" I do * Olivia nods slightly and crouches, looking around at that level. "Yes. Mmm." * Skip also crouches down and searches for the source of the faint, yet obvious breeze. [The breeze is coming from a section of the caved-in corridor.] [END OF SESSION] Session Close: Sat Jun 06 22:41:36 2009