Game Session 2B - Chemical Hill

[Dray]

This is a continuation of Game Session 2A

[Dray]

The monstrous insect, with half of its body wrapped around the large tree root hanging from the ceiling, reared its snake-like head in ready for snapping at Xavier. Meanwhile, Jared and River were still a few paces away from striking range of the centipede’s massive mandibles.
Despite this, Jared backed up a step, his eyes wide in fear as he had obviously never seen a centipede that large before.  As the thing lashed out at Xavier, its head snapping at him with amazing quickness, River put a hand on Jared’s shoulder.

“Let’s see how Xavier handles this one okay,” River commanded the younger boy.

“But River its…”

“Not a worry Jared, we will step in if he needs us, and I do have some healing talents,” River stated without question. “Now just be ready in case he does need us.”

Xavier ducked and parried the creatures amazing quick strikes, swinging his sword at first a bit awkwardly and hitting the root instead of the beast. But as Xavier became familiar with the insects tactics he began to slowly bite his sword into the centipede’s strange carapace. Green blood started to ooze from various parts of it, but the hungry thing fought on with ferocity.

As Xavier ducked under a root to get a better vantage point on the upside-down beast, it found an opening and struck at his shoulder with a sickening crunch. The mandibles crunched down on Xaviers collar bone with an amazing quick strike, releasing almost immediately. The damage had been done however, as Xavier’s shoulder had been torn almost completely wide open.

In response, River made to step in, but before he could make a move the angered Xavier deftly cut deep into the insect’s “neck”. Then, with a well-timed feign, Xavier fooled the centipede in over-committing with a bite, he summarily cut off the enemy’s head.

As Xavier sat on the floor next to the green pool of blood and insect guts on the floor, River and Jared hurried over to him.

“Perhaps you could indeed handle a Karh’Thul on your own,” said River, although his eyes didn’t have as much conviction as they surveyed the wound.

Jared and Xavier watched in fascination as River cast a healing spell and completely mended the wound. There was nothing he could do for the torn uniform, but the shoulder was as good as new.

“To think that you aren’t allowed to use that kind of power in our Kingdom…it’s a travesty,” said Jared.

“It’s matin idiotic,” responded Xavier.

River just smiled and got them to advance to the next door of the underground complex.

[Dray]

Xavier asked them to hold up, he then picked up the mangled head of the centipede, cleaned it a little with a rag torn from his destroyed shirt and put it in his backpack.

“Cold,” stated Jared.

“Yeah, perhaps I will scare Leslie with it.” Xavier replied with a wicked grin. River laughed, Jared didn’t.

Beyond the door and a short twenty pace corridor rough cut through the earth under the hill-top, another room almost completely similar to the one with the centipede was found. A twenty by fifteen foot room with a pot-bellied cast-iron stove, there was an unusual small cave behind it in the southwest corner.  Other than the door at the center of the left-hand wall, the room was otherwise non-descript and bare, and unlike the last room, there wasn’t roots hanging from the ceiling above.

Before they could decide what to do about whatever lived in the small cave, it rushed out of the darkness of it and charged them. The large black spider, almost as big as a dog, was on them so quickly, they barely had time to draw their longswords.

Xavier ducked and rolled as the spider leapt through the air at his head, passing over him. River swept his longsword in a high arc as Jared, acting instinctively, stabbed at its center with his own. Both boys hit it and it came to the floor in a jittering rage as it attacked its own wounds. Xavier recovered from his dodge and made a move to finish it off but was interrupted by River who got their first with a stab to it’s abdomen. The spider shook for a few moments and then perished.

The boys stood over the dead spider for a few moments while they caught their breath, their pounding hearts slowing down after the surprise attack.

“Nice move Jared,” River complemented. Jared smiled ear-to-ear, despite having looked like he was surprised to even have the sword in his hand just a moment ago.

[Dray]

(Moving along beyond the next door and rough hewn corridor. Scan of map forthcoming for post at end of thread.)

As the three boys entered the next room, they were once again in a room with the same description, twenty feet long b y fifteen feet wide with a cast-iron, pot-bellied stove in the corner that had a steel flue rising up from it and into the ceiling.

At the center of this room however, was a morbid scene that none of the boys expected. A dried-up corpse hung from a steel wire about its neck from the ceiling. There was no trace of stench from the corpse within the room and they discerned it must have been hanging there for a good deal of time.

As they stepped in to get a little closer to it, the skeleton reached up and disengaged itself from the noose with a dexterous flick of the knot. It landed on the floor on two bones feet and walked over to them, claws ready to strike.

As both Jared and Xavier let out a bit of a yelp at the horror of what was approaching them, River said, “this could be bad,” and charged it.

In three steps River was on the skeleton and had the longsword coming down on it with a power sweep down into its chest. The creature crumbled from the massive blow to its chest.

“Or not,” he said.

“What the hell was that?” Jared exclaimed, still very much shaken by his first encounter with an undead. Xavier also stared at River, awaiting the answer. In his eyes however, there was a mixture of fear and glee, for now he had yet another monster to add to the list of things cold to fight.

“That my friends was an undead. They are corpses brought back to life by dark magic to defend or attack the living,” he said as he sheathed his sword. “Apparently this was a very weak one,” he finished.

“Ever fight one before?” Xavier asked, as he inspected the bones .

“Nope, first time. Not a lot of dark-magic users in the Kingdom,” responded the Clergy student.

“So who left it here?”

“Good question. My guess is whoever once used this hidden complex. They were apparently gifted, or at least one of them was,” River said as he pointed at the bones.

Xavier picked up the human skull, tore off the remaining skin on it, which was dry and came off in a powdery mess, and placed it in his backpack.

[Dray]

(Beyond the door on the southern wall of the room in the last post).

The corridor facing south was quickly interrupted by a covered pit in the floor. Two five-foot long doors in the floor of the corridor that led into a large room (beyond) were slightly ajar, revealing the pit below. With some searching around, Jared found the hidden mechanism in the wall, and the doors with a loud mechanical effort swung closed. After some testing of their strength to hold them, each of the three boys walked across it without it opening, apparently it wasn’t working as a trap after so long of non-use.

The room beyond was actually different than the maze of rooms behind them, a twenty-five foot square room that lacked other exits and the familiar pot-bellied stove. It was however, filled with a great deal many other things. To the right and left were four rows of wooden and steel storage racks that stretched from floor to ceiling. On the shelves of these racks was an array of alchemy items like those in the first underground room they had entered (the one with the crazy candelabra of doom), only in much greater quantity.

Unfortunately for Jared, whose eyes lit up like it was Ascension Day present heaven, an earth creature, barely bipedal and only four feet tall, was birthed from the floor and proceeded to destroy everything in the room. (The place behind it in the floor showing no signs of its passage.)

Immediately upon entering the room it struck out at the closest shelf, bringing the entire thing down with a huge calamity of noise. As it proceeded to the next one, the three shocked boys across the room got a good look at the thing. It was if a small walking hill of earth decided to get up and walk around on two featureless legs of rock and dirt. It proceed to the next shelf and without hesitation swung one of its club-like arms of jagged granite at it, its featureless head “staring” blankly ahead while on its destructive rampage.

Jared, despite his fear of the creature, whimpered at the loss of the valuable equipment.
The boys left, triggering the mechanism to open the pit as they departed. (Not as if that would have helped, but hey, can’t blame the guys, they don't know what an earth elemental is).

[Dray]

(The three boys then retraced their steps to a previous room, chose door number two which led them two a t-intersection in a corridor. Left had led them to an empty room. Right had led them too…)

The boys stood at the steel door for only a moment when they suddenly heard something large charging it at the other side. All three of them had swords ready as whatever creature it was banged and clawed at the door from the other side. For many turns it continued its assault, the door holding fast against the barrage of hits.

None of the boys recognized what manner of beast was making the snarls and grunts on the other side, but it did indeed sound like some large mammal, most likely a bear.

“Whatever is in there, must have a passage to the outside, I bet if we go back, out and around we could draw it outside,” Xavier whispered, as if the beast my know what they were saying.

“Better idea I think than to try to fight it at this door,” River said in agreement.

[Dray]

And encounter it outside the three boys did, for they were through with their exploration of the tunnels within the hill anyway. Having determined that it was most likely a chemical laboratory used by individuals much like them a few hundred years ago, the boys climbed back up the shaft under the shower of the small hunter’s cabin above, and went outside.

As they tracked around the vegetation covered hill, which now looked a bit more “manufactured” to them, as if someone purposely made the hill to conceal the complex beneath and then it had become overgrown, thehuge badger from that room met them outside. It was all claws and teeth and charge the boys from the thicket of the woods.

River and Xavier fought long and hard with the beast while it fended them both off with claw and tooth, both melee combatants becoming a bit bloodied in the effort. Meanwhile, Jared with bold aims from his crossbow hit the belly of the beast with bolt after bolt. Finally, Jared caught it’s attention and the beast charge him, and with a rolling dodge accompanied by a clever toss Jared through alchemist fire at the beast and hit it squarely on the chest. The beast died as the flames burned its torso and neck while it choked on its own blood from the bolts punctured in its chest.

The boys fell to the ground, quite weakened from the battle with the massive beast. After resting, Xavier made to save what hide he could from the large beast. River went right to work, helping him skin the animal. As they worked in the fading light he said, “Good thing we had Jared around, or we would have been doomed.”

And he meant it. Even Xavier could only admittedly nod. The young engineer had proved his worth on the battle field.

At the campfire that night, about a mile away from the remains of the badger they couldn’t take with them, Jared stared at the flames while smiling in memory of the battle. The cooked meat was that much tastier.

[Dray]

The next morning the three boys once again ventured into the wilderness looking for Jared’s father Larry, who is had gone missing on a hunting trip. The Chemical complex within the Hill had become just an interesting footnote in their journey.

Searching for many miles, River and Xavier finally spotted some tracks left by a human. As they followed the trail, only a day or two old, he discovered that another set of human tracks came up behind the original and seemed to be tracking as they were now.

After a mile or so, the tracks became only one again, but now with something heavy being dragged behind them. They quickly ascertained that the original tracks were of a person who had been spotted, trailed and knocked out or perhaps even killed by the person who had made the secondary tracks. And that second person was now dragging the body over the terrain.

This news didn’t appear to bother Jared, who didn’t seem to care if he found his father dead or alive.

[Dray]

And find them they did. For Larry Lightwell had been dragged to a tree unconscious and tied to it…right next to the den of a bear. Luckily for him though, the bear hadn’t been around for the time he had been left there.

After seeing his dad lying there helpless, Jared relented to the good side of his nature and freed the man, asking River to heal him.

The journey home was at first filled with apology from the old man, as he spent the time trying to reconcile the damage that couldn’t be fixed with words.

Upon reaching Southaven, the unplussed Jared said goodbye to his father, and returned to the Inn with his two friends from the city.

Fin of Game Session 2.