Fetzen

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

"Rest ?" While it had been a hard job, An-Hasst found himself hardly out of breath. However the fraction of his body signaling him that treatment was required had increased with very uncomforting significance. "Are you sure ?" His eyes virtually tried to nail the dwarf they all had bascially put their full trust in. The left tunnel would not have the Skayleigh's own decision given the fact that the drow, if they actually did dwell here, suspectedly were coming from the right. Heading into the same direction as one's enemy with only a more or less large gap separting them never felt particularly good, especially if that gap by now was doomed to become smaller. On the other hand An-Hasst had to admit that he'd have to stop at some point for his own sake or he'd just break down.

"I know it might sound a tad surprising, but I'd be very grateful if someone could take a look at by back. It... doesn't feel well down there." Having said this, An-Hasst picked the nearest stone of sufficient size to sit down and pulled off his humongously large, wood-clad cloak. The material was sturdy enough that it would survive lying on the ground for a while perfectly and its owner had no reason to suspect that any member of their party would take offence at the sight of his upper body being naked.

There indeed was a rather large gash reaching from slightly above his left hip to close proximity of his spine. Its walls already seemed to stick to each other again and there was only very little active bleeding left, but around the wound was a large mess of it -- dried, crusty and last but not least possibly rather ugly. Both somewhat impatiently and somewhat apprehensively An-Hasst focused in on the small hall with the dwarven statues they had come from. At least they'd have a little bit of an advance warning, even if they had good bows...

@BCTheEntity@Gardevoiran@POOHEAD189@The Fated Fallen

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Descent into chaos

Ferthyr glanced over towards his bulky friend, compiling what he had proposed. Still the first thing he could come up with was another humble begging for... well... not mercy, but reconsideration. With his usual chesty, but low voice tunneling through the air between them the words "Are you sure you want to pull this off ?" were raised. It dawned upon Ferthyr that the answer could only be much more affirmative than he honestly, though in silence, was hoping for.

"It's damn risky... I think that the element of surprise is our only chance. You're better at taking people out silently than me I guess, so I think you'll have to go ahead." Ferthyr raised his head, looking at the line of trees that was separating them from their moving target. "If I start off from a greater height I could move much faster for the initial phase of the fight by gliding from tree to tree. Also I'd be safe from any melee attackers and have many leaves to obstruct the vision of those that aren't using swords on my side. If they spot me up in the treetops they'll have less eyes for the ground and given my appearance they probably won't suspect that there's a human around and on their attacker's side."

Ferthyr didn't stand while waiting for Bardeck's answer, but got moving right away and approached one of the massive trunks. "I hope they don't hear this..." and his one hand that was riddled with claws was slammed into the tree's bark. It wasn't exactly elegant how Ferthyr was climbing, but at least it appeared that he could defeat gravity. "It won't take long until I'll hit the ground again. If you have any better suggestions I'd be happy to hear them now." Last but not least the men were still on the move. If they'd wait to long this tree would be too far away to be of any use.

"Say... can you fight from horseback on tight corners ? If I am to attack first you don't need to go in slowly I'd guess, but do it with speed and power. Those steeds can barely carry me but I guess you are considerably lighter ?"

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@POOHEAD189 I've exchanged the third paragraph of my post for this one:

Hider

A stairway. Given that they had travelled over a somewhat dilapidated looking bridge that could very well have offered all of them a quick death by gravity-induced high-speed impact and had just witnessed the glory of a dwarven smithy surrounded by angry lava this almost human-made looking commodity was nothing the Skayleigh would have had expected. The question was... where did it go ? In an act of selfish curiosity, An-Hasst didn't hesitate to try and find out how well the stairs could handle his giant feet and got going, not delivering any explicit callout to his comrades about what he was doing.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@POOHEAD189Uh... well... it seems I've screwed up again. Sorry :/ An-Hasst was intended to go down the tunnel the stones were removed from. However if I remove those wrong parts there will hardly be anything left of my post because there's no information about that other tunnel.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Well I guess I should apologize for the delay :/ @POOHEAD189

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

An-Hasst had performed nothing less than a backwards sumersault through the air in order to escape the little mishap. Had it been him who had relocated that last, wrongly situated rock ? The Skayleigh wasn't sure, but right now his thoughts were more focused on physical pain anyway. While his sudden and instictively executed maneuver had probably an astonishing demonstration of how quickly he could move his giant bulk around in full armor, it had also certainly had a disruptive effect on his healing.

Still there was no time. Even without thinking about lava spirit's and all that other fancy, 'extraordinary' stuff those dwarves were talking about so often, one couldn't deny that the molten minerals around them sounded rather... angry, to put it in a personalized sense. An-Hasst didn't look forward to be fried alive, so he got himself moving again through the opening which luckely had become large enough. It wasn't until he was on the other side and halfway stopped that he recognized the strange, particular and yet very intriguing picture in the next chamber.

A stairway. Given that they had travelled over a somewhat dilapidated looking bridge that could very well have offered all of them a quick death by gravity-induced high-speed impact and had just witnessed the glory of a dwarven smithy surrounded by angry lava this almost human-made looking commodity was nothing the Skayleigh would have had expected. The question was... where did it go ? In an act of selfish curiosity, An-Hasst didn't hesitate to try and find out how well the stairs could handle his giant feet and got going, not delivering any explicit callout to his comrades about what he was doing.

@BCTheEntity@The Fated Fallen@POOHEAD189[@Banana]

_{edited 12-03-2017 to fix errors}

Descent into chaos

Ferthyr was glad to see that his companion managed to control his rage -- with a little, frightening bit of dead time though. Luckily, there wasn't much to be collected from the hut they had passed the previous night in. If Bardeck was right with anything then it was that they needed to hurry. Frankly, had there been any day in the past weeks when they had not experienced the need to be fast ? He couldn't remember, so all that was left to do was to get back onto 'his' horse's back and pull at the reigns to get it going. Over the hills and away.

Over the course of the next hour, Ferthyr wasn't exactly sure if they should actually pursue the goal they were pursuing at the moment. He didn't feel much of an association with that region or its inhabitants, at least at the moment. But if they could help prevent some foul trick with little effort, why not ? What he really hoped for was that Bardeck wasn't after that cache of gold. First of all the thing would slow them down, and secondly they were in no position to go to any merchant and convert the noble metal into anything really useful. And there was fear that this could be a cleverly laid out trap that could bring their downfall after what right now appeared to be victory. Great care was to be taken, that was sure in his mind.

Luckily, once the encounter happened, a bunch of trees impeded the line of sight. Ferthyr immediately brought his mount to a halt and hopped to the ground. He patted Bardeck's muscular leg to silently tell him to do the same thing. With their profiles lower to the ground they'd be less visible and exposed. He tucked his wings tightly behind his broad back. "These are six men. Are you sure we should try that ?" Ferthyr squinted while whispering this, doubts blatantly visible in his facial expression. "We probably have the moment of surprise on our side, but I seriously doubt that a chest full of gold would be escorted by anyone but very, very experienced fighters. This could be a trap, laid out by the vanquished."

So far the men did not seem to have noticed their observers. Their backs were already halfway turned towards them as they were virtually encircling the treasure -- or whatever really was in that reinforced box. The path was well beaten, but that didn't stop them from making considerable progress.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

So at this point I'd like to express my gratefulness to you, folks. You've patiently waited for me to try and get something through the cloud of shit I'm currently in. It took me way too long to succeed I guess.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Dumping the rubble into the magma had been a very convenient and even somewhat funny way to dispose of it, however if a dwarf came to the conclusion that this could invoke the anger of those they were trying to escape from maybe it indeed was the better option to turn around for each and every rock and pile them up neatly along the way, leaving enough empty space for everyone to get along without tripping. Who else knew so much about stones, even though the theory was weird ?

The only problem was that there some wounds along An-Hasst's flank whose complete healing was still pending and which did respond to some of the moves required in the process with surges of pain. A good opportunity for everyone in the vicinity to learn something about the Skayleigh language, even though the vocabulary mainly revolved around curses and other things one could consider to be despicable expressions. It just was the half-elf, half-giant's way of compensation for unfortunate personal circumstances.

Then Ursaren dropped out. With a what's wrong with you ?-expression on his face, the Skayleigh turned arounds towards the man. If it hadn't been for the recent demonstration of his true capabilities An-Hasst would simply have suspected that this was a case of an old man having over-exerted himself, but that was somewhat out of the question. Unable to feel the same intensity the bear-man did, already having experienced the much more mild level of it and last but not least with the strict order to get this passageway open, the Skayleigh continued to work. By now it would already have been possible for the smaller members of their group to sneak through, but not for everyone.

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