Underfed (part 5)
WHen last we left our heroes, they had elected to dig in. Using rocks and digging to your advantage, you've quickly done your level best to create a makeshift barricade to protec yourselves from the fire. As you already hve a natural cave, it is in your hopes that the dragon will simply scorch by you.
So far, that seems like it might have been a good bet. The dragon is indeed looming closer, scorching chasm by chasm, until its finally near enough to your own.
The group is not out of the woods until the dragon is gone, and well Seldan knows it. Pressed flat to the cave floor as far away from its entrance as he can get, he waits in silence, a prayer on his lips. If he is wrong, they are all dead.
Victor briefly considers if another flurry of Endure Elements spells will help the adventurers in a situation like this. He quickly concludes that it will not.
As much as she'd love to go on and on and on and ramble and chat and such, Alaryn does her best to keep quiet. To even breathe quietly. Sure, she has an active Endure Elements spell in place, but that'll just keep her comfy if it's hot.. not keep her from burning to death in Draconic Burnination. She looks to her pouches of prepared effects and mentally curses herself for choosing the augmented curative magic rather than energy resistance. But she lays there, Thunderbelcher ready ... hah! Cuz that'll be useful against a dragon. About as useful as a screen door on a submersible.
Toha continues to do her best impression of a rug, cheek to the stone with her back anchored weapons detached and laying next to her. Nothing to see here, these aren't the adventurer's you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along!
Echo, after all the running around, is certainly a lot more sand covered than he originally was. Now he was using his traveller's cloak, which fortunately was the right color, to allow himself to blend in with the barricade and stay hunkered down for the moment. His cloak was the main thing keeping anyone from seeing the glowing freaking crystals his body is covered in, which is probably a good thing!
GAME: Alaryn rolls stealth: (17)+1: 18
GAME: Seldan rolls STEALTH: (4)+2: 6
GAME: Echo rolls Dex: (12)+Dex: 12
GAME: Echo rolls Stealth: (18)+2: 20
GAME: Victor rolls stealth: (4)+3: 7
GAME: Toha rolls stealth: (13)+-2: 11
GAME: Seldan rolls stealth: (4)+2: 6
GAME: Victor rolls stealth: (19)+3: 22
...so there;s good news.
The good news is that the barricade you erected does what its supposed to do. As you bury yourselves against the earth, making yourselves as small as possible, the dragon wings overhead and you can FEEL the heat, FEEL the flames... but they don't QUITE touch you. This lasts a good thirty seconds or so before you hear the leathery beat of its wings awayh.
And then a CRASH. Like it just landed somewhere nearby. Did it see you...?
Seldan tries to keep his very breathing as quiet as possible, barely moving a muscle, although the *crash* of landing makes the whole cave twitch and a few small pebbles tumble from the top of the barricade. He's not as quiet as he'd like to be, though.
Well, Endure Elements means Alaryn doesn't really worry about that -heat- in the cave. But the sound makes her go deathly still. She opens her mouth to make a snide comment and then snaps her mouth shut again. Nope. Speaking now would not be a good idea. She turns her head oh-so-slowly to peer at the others.
K'nap keeps their head buried in the earth, trying not even to breathe.
Victor has the adventage of not needing to breathe. He also keeps himself preternaturally still, having positioned himself so that he can see most of the party, and more importantly the barricade at the entrance, without even shifting his eyes.
Toha enjoys her lasting non-conbustiveness, though the situation is dearly straining her nerves. Now she knows how her billots feel. Then, the crash happens, and, while Toha needn't worry about holding her breath. She does inwardly cringe as some of the falling pebbles plink off her shell.
Frowning as he hears the crash, Echo... considers actually looking. He even raises his head a bit. The crash is what has him worried. But, well... looking might be a bad thing, right? He looks to the others, then motions that he wants to go check by pointing at himself, then upwards.
Everything goes quiet.
There is a very loud... was that a sigh?
Don't move. Don't move. Don'tmovedon'tmove. Seldan's muscles are starting to ache from this position against cold, hard stone, but movement is sure death.
GAME: Seldan rolls perception: (11)+2: 13
GAME: Alaryn rolls perception: (11)+9: 20
Victor strains to listen. A sigh would imply -- well, he's not quite certain what that would imply. Surely the dragon isn't getting...bored?
GAME: Victor rolls perception: (8)+6: 14
GAME: Echo rolls Perception: (19)+9: 28
The dragon is close. You can hear its breathing -- but then, its very large, right? -- begin to... slow.
Even out...
About an hour later, it's very even.
The large red wyrm that scorched your canyonside is..
.. its asleep?
Victor tilts his head to one side as he listens. Then he ever slowly turns his head until he's facing the other party members. He points at the entrance, then puts his hands together and holds them up to the side of his head, which is still tilted. The classic 'sleeping' pose. The he gestures again, hands held out in an equally well-known 'what now' shrug.
Echo's optics dim then brighten. He looks to the others, then hums. He looks around, then starts to look to see if the cave /might/ have a way out. If not... he waves his hand to get everyone's attention, then makes a tip toeing motion with his hand and points out.
The fact is, Dragons are smart. Dragons are sneaky. Dragons might pretend to be asleep to make their prey come out of cover. Alaryn sighs silently and looks to the others... she is trying to silently urge someone... anyone else to make a decision here.
Slowly, slowly, as the breathing becomes even, Seldan dares move, looking up ever so slowly. He nods silently to Echo and to Victor, then moves slowly to get to his feet. His eyes scan the others questioningly, and he tilts his desert-clad head at the entrance.
Toha's cheek lifts from the floor at Echo's antics, then, very carefully, she tries to get to her feet and gather her weapons. She knows she can partially mitigate the fire breath if things go south, but she decides to start moving as it seems others are making the same decision.
Unfortunately, unless you wanna dig, there's no other way out but the way you came in. K'nap nods to Seldan. Someone ought to look.
Seeing others getting up, Alaryn sighs. She slowly gets to her knees and turns to lift her thunderbelcher up and over before she stands while simultaneously slinging the leather strap over her shoulder. Fortunately for her, her Mithral infused scale armor is a lot less bulky than the older iron version was. So she gestures to the exit and mimes moving on tiptoes before lifting eyebrows to indicate it's a question.
Seldan takes a very slow, very deep breath, lips mouthing some sort of words. He looks up at the cave entrance, then circles around heel-to-toe, until he is at one side of the cave entrance and can peek ever-so-carefully out of it.
There is a dragon. It is sitting on the chasm across from your cave. Its side is to you. Wings folded. It's wrapped in a ball, tail-tip to nose.
Yes, he is apparently taking a ... dragon...nap?
Scorching canyons takes a lot of work.
I'll huff, and I'll puff and I'll TAAAAAAAAKE A NAP!
There's a moment as the feminine golem watches Seldan's aproach to the cave mouth like a hawk, then afterward, Toha's movements are slow and considered, to minimize the slap of her free swinging chains against her body as she tries to get hip to the Big Sneaky.
Echo readies himself just in case, hand on the symbol of Eluna he keeps as a necklace. That really needs to be put some place else, but hey! At least he can try to heal Seldan if he gets fried! Right!?
Nodding her head, Alaryn lifts her light coif over her head and unslings her weapon as she starts moving slowly towards the exit. She uses the long barrel of her thunderbelcher to point to the left, then the right, as if asking which way.
Carefully, like grass growing, Seldan peers out of the cave mouth, then looks back at the others with quick but still silent motions, nods once, then jerks his head towards the exit in what is intended to be a clear _let's go_. He waits to see that the others are preparing to follow before stepping with exaggerated care over the low barricade and outside.
You begin picking your way away from the snoozing dragon, walking on charred and ashen earth. There's dust kicked up with every step.
Echo nods, then makes his way, stopping to make sure others can get over the barricade just fine as well. No one is getting left behind with Echo around it seems!
Once others start to move, Alaryn does as the others do. She moves slowly, carefully.. but she -does- have her weapon pointed -generally- in the direction of the big leezard.
Victor moves with deliberate care after the others. He glances repeatedly at the dragon as they emerge. Then he looks back at their alleged guide, inquisitively. Which way now?
Toha's hands are full or she'd have an arrow nocked and her bow levelled as well. Instead, she focuses on being as quiet as she can and moooooooovin' on.
GAME: Seldan rolls stealth: (9)+2: 11
GAME: Alaryn rolls stealth: (17)+1: 18
GAME: Victor rolls stealth: (18)+3: 21
GAME: Echo rolls Stealth: (10)+2: 12
GAME: Toha rolls Stealth: (7)+-2: 5
GAME: Toha rolls stealth: (7)+-2: 5
GAME: Toha rolls stealth: (13)+-2: 11
WEll, that's a good thing. Of course, those of you with noses are having to sneeze. Terrifying dragon nearby is enough to keep it from happening.
Soon, you've looped around the corner and are out of sight, putting the dragon behind you.
Of course, this scorched canyons and such are now a bit different.
You're making your way forward, the dragon's attack on the canyon having lasted for hours and cost you a considerable amount of time. It is only when you're about thirty minutes past the dragon that K'nap lets out a sigh of relief.
"I do not believe we are alive," he hoarsely whispers. "But we have problem. The water hole I was taking us to is almost certainly gone now. Our supplies will have to last us until we reach the next. Rationing is our only option now."
Moreover, there's ash /everyhwere/ and its threatening to fill your lungs, if you have them. Masks are now essential to protect from this.
There's also the corpses the next canyon ever. Humanoids of *some* kind, their bodies reduced only to vcaguely ashen shapes as your's might have been.
Nodding, Echo looks to the others. "We should be careful but we should also make haste towards it. I do wish we had horses or something that could move about this easier now."
Victor nods in understanding to K'nap. He glances at Seldan and Alaryn, briefly, then turns continues on. He's careful not to step on the shapes that may have been bodies, but otherwise doesn't spend much time looking at them.
With the sun up there, Alaryn has found a secondary use for her Artificer's Goggles. They help with the glare. That plus her light coif protect her head. But she ends up reaching into her pack and tearing a strip of cloth off of one of her other tunics to wrap about her face while she moves along. She does glance back now towards where the dragon was. But she looks to the follower of Eluna and asks, "Do you have that spell... create water?"
Seldan had already been wearing a full mask and Veyshanti robes for this entire trip against the likelihood of sun poisoning for one so fair-skinned as he, so he isn't struggling too much with the dust. He does tuck the bottom edge of the face covering into the collar of the robe to avoid dust from that source. The water is a bigger concern, and here he looks over at Echo. "Seer?"
Toha reattaches her scabbards to her dorsal chain mounts, but keeps the bow in her hand, along with an arrow nocked, but, again, not putting the string under load. That makes noise, "Anyone needs some o'my wrappings, say so. I don't wanna give us away with a gleam, but folks need t'breathe."
Echo hums, then shakes his head, "We need a good place to rest, then I can pray for it from Eluna, I hope." He looks around, then to K'nap. "That would alleviate us of one worry, I suppose?"
"That woulkd. Your magics are already protecting us from the heat. Additional water would be of immense value," whispers K'nap.
They still don't want to speak loudly and who can blame them?
He kneels down by one of the ashen forms. "I am not sure what this was. Perhaps the mantis-men? It is hard to tell from the shapes. Not much is left." The eaglerin shivers.
Victor slows to a stop and turns to watch K'nap. "Did you know any of them?" he asks. "What would they have been doing here." He suddenly turns to look back the way they came. "I was under the impression that few intelligent creatures would be found on this route..."
"So, we need to find this... Agony thingamagoober. Would it be burned to ash also?" asks Alaryn as she starts searching around, slinging her rifle and drawing her telescoping staff to start prodding things with.
Attention now drawn away from water by the Seer's promise, Seldan turns to look at the bodies, and away from the bright sun. "There is little we can do for them now," he remarks quietly to K'nap, although he searches the ash piles with his eyes as if for anything that night have survived.
"No, this is not the caravan," says K'nap to Alaryn, shaking our head. "Were that we so forunate."
Considering, Echo shakes his head, "The dead should be left in peace. We need to go, unofortunately. We have to stop that caravan."
Toha actually stops. There is a shake of her head, "No. If nothing else, Eck, give them a quick word fer their journey."