Wilds - Into the Darkness (again)

Usually I trim down and polish up the turns from this game. Today I decided to just cut and paste the message that went out to my players (minus the contacts section with email addresses and such). The main difference is the addendum that outlines standard marching orders and watches.


Start Date: August 29, Year of the Badger, dawn
Start Status: To the Maze!
Start Location: Base Camp

The Turn

As the party prepares to head out in the morning, Raúguey grabs his studded leather and spare long sword and walks up to Tesso. "If you are who you say then you won't mind proving yourself side by side with me. Put this on, and I assume you can swing a long blade with no problem? You're coming back inside with us - end of discussion."

Tesso, now wearing some spare garb donated by various group members, feet wrapped in crude deer hide moccasins, gives Raúguey an appraising look. "You don't trust me. I guess I can see why." He takes the armor and pulls it on with practiced ease. "I swore an oath by my brother's blood." He takes the sword and straps it to his waist, dropping the scavenged, rusty blade from The Pit next to his meager blankets. "Let's go."

After another circuitous walk through the woods and swampy thickets along the lake, with a quick pause to cut a few saplings and fashion a couple improvised spears, the party reaches the ruin. Advancing cautiously they scout the area around the fallen walls. "Something here," calls Rawon from the area near the NW stair [recall this leads to the flooded portion of the entry level]. When the others draw close he points out the drag marks. "Something big came through here. Really big. Either that or it was dragging something behind it. Looks like it came up the stairs, then out toward the lake, then back again. It or they, hard to say."

"Good thing we're not going that way then," says Durego. "Remember our first night here, we heard something in the lake? Wonder if it was the same thing."

"Let's not stick around to find out," says Locky, heading for the other stairs. The others fall and the group heads down to the Pillar Room, through the Crypts, and down to the floor below.

"Nothing came through here, or they were really lucky," says Ingvild, examining the thread he placed across the bottom step. "Be careful when you cross here."

Moving slowly and carefully the party heads through the Summoning Room, Statue Room, then west into the hall. "There's another thread across the north end of this hall," says Ingvild as the party turns NW up the slant hall, walking past the closed doors there.

"Did we close all these?" asks Maro.

"I don't know, we didn't go this way after we dragged off all the corpses," says Raúguey.

Ingvild trots ahead and then stoops by the three-way intersection at the Grate Room. "Well someone's been here. This was broken. Wait here, I'll check the others.

The thief crosses into the Grate Room, while the others peer along the hall outside the Lever Room and the West Hall. "Someone come here." Mordikarr points south along the West Hall. "Door open. We close all when we put goat thing in lizard place."

Ingvild returns. "In there too. Whoever it was tossed the grate that Raúguey broke out into the pool too."

"Can you tell what or how many?" asks Ohwatoo.

Ingvild shakes his head. "I can't. The ten of us have been all over this place, and we've dragged bodies through here too. Too much disturbance."

"Well then, let's drop these spears off and continue with our plan. The longer we're standing around, the better the odds someone or something is going to stumble across us," says Maro. The party does exactly that, then heads to Cross Hall via West Hall, noting that all the doors along the way are open, including those leading to Cross Hall, the Well Room, Chamber of Pits, The Pit [poor name choice there], but not the Reptile House. The door at the east end of Cross Hall is still closed too.

"East or west stairs?" says Dagmarten.

"East," says Raúguey, already five feet down the ten-foot wide staircase. The dusty stairs are steep but well made. They head straight north for a good sixty feet. As you descend dust turns to gritty muck, and the air turns chilly and damp.

"Room ahead," whispers Ingvild from the front. "Small, doors to the west. Hold here. Let me check things out." The thief moves ahead, skirting the wall and pausing at the double doors to the west, then completing his clockwise circuit. "Looks clear. Doors open in. Didn't hear anything."

Raúguey, Mordikarr, and Durego take position at the rust-covered iron doors, Tesso and the rest of the second rank file in, leaving Dagmarten, Locky, and Rawon on the bottom steps. With a nod Durego and Mordikarr pull the rusty rings, then gather their strength and really give them a yank. With a loud grinding squeal the rust gives way and the doors swing open, revealing fifteen feet of corridor west, with short flight of stairs down in the middle. The corridor comes to a sudden, uneven end at the edge of a pool. From where you stand it appears the pool marks the beginning of a natural cave, leading away into the darkness.

The forward trio moves through the door to the edge of the pool, which extends as far as glowing stone light reaches. Raúguey probes the clear water with his blade. "Deeper than it looks," he mutters, watching the silty muck settle back to the bottom.

OOC

Raúguey's quick check shows the bottom is two to three feet down, but a trick of refraction makes the pool look inches deep. The water is completely still (when not being probed by impatient fighters).

End Date: August 29, Year of the Badger, mid-moring
End Status: Water, water everywhere...
End Location: Blackpool Maze

Standing Orders

Marching Order (servants march with their leader)

Outdoor
Front: Rawon, Mordikarr, Maro
Middle: Locky, Ohwatoo (Jonquil), Ingvild, Dagmarten
Rear: Durego (Gorvil), Raúguey (Saurabh), Tesso

Indoor (Gorvil, Saurabh, Jonquil - guard duty)
Front: Mordikarr, Ingvild, Durego, Raúguey
Middle: Maro, Ohwatoo, Dagmarten, Tesso
Rear: Rawon, Locky

Watches
1 - Ingvild, Raúguey (Saurabah), Rawon
2 - Maro, Locky, Durego (Gorvil)
3 - Ohwatoo (Jonquil), Dagmarten, Mordikarr

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