Some Beings Just Want to Watch the Wurms Burn - RPLOG
Participants
Date
18/1/480
Log
Amar Widestripe is lounging on a large canvas chair that is really more like a hammock. There is a large umbrella set up beside him, shielding him from the morning sun, and his man, Gavin is waiting on him while the pair of them along with a caprine cart driver sit on the edge of the Steel Blade Hills waiting for Freeswords to arrive at the appointed time.
The wind picks up near the three beings waiting around. It seems to be localized in a single area close to Amar. It grows faster and faster, the dirt and dust being kicked up shows a funnle going up and bending in what would assume to be the general direction of the city. In the distance there's a thing moving at ludicrous towards the group, but as it grows closer to the end, it gets slower. Finally, whatever it is gets deposited at the end and all the wind dies down and all is silent. That is until the small figure chimes up "Hello, Amar!" Calls a voice the big cat knows all too well. "I came as quickly as I could!" He says, setting down a bag next to the seat of the large cat. It makes contact with the ground in a heavy thump. "What sort of trouble are we getting into this time?" He says, removing his hood so he can get a look at the big cat in earnest.
Galve arrives shortly after Kastovin, his arrival announced with the droning of iridescent wings. He lands next to them, flicking his wings back behind him as he did and walking up to the tubby tiger alongside Kastovin. "Present and accounted for, Mr. Widestripe." He says, nodding politely as he did so. Since Kastovin had already asked, he waited for Amar's answer.
A Coyote saunters onto the scene, whistling a tune as he makes his way up to the group. "Sorry I'm late," he says with a grin, "Had to walk." Mal looks to Kastovin and Galve, nodding to both before looking to Amar, waiting for instructions.
"Ah yes, Ah yes," Amar says, looking up, a bit irritably from the drink in his hand, now with dust and grass blown in by Kastovin's windy entrance, "Mister Kastovin, Mister Galve. Glad to have you." His ursine assisstant quickly replaces the sullied drink and the fat tiger perks up almost instantly. "Yes, yes, well. You might say that you will be getting into," he pauses dramatically, "DEEP trouble!" The tiger chuckles at his own pun, waving a fat hand toward a large and dark tunnel in the side of one of the nearby, stony hills, waiting only a moment for the newly arrived coyote to catch up. "I have a buyer interested in the unusual properties of Hill Wurm silk and eggs," he explains, "I myself lack the fortitude and adventurous proclivities to hunt them down myself, and so I have called upon you intrepid explorers to fetch them for me."
Kastovin looks up at the big cat and says "It is good to see you too!" When Amar gestures to over where the cave is, the far smaller cat says "Well..." He says, reaches into his bag to find some items, stuffing them into his robe. Sever flasks, a few glass vials filled with inexplicable fluids and powders. "Best be prepared..." He says standing back up. "Do you have any torches or means of light? I can glow pretty bright, but that needs me to be out of my robe." He says, looking back to the big cat in the chair.
Galve nods to Mal. He eyes the hole and then looks back to the others. He checks his gear for a moment, then looks back to the others. "I'm ready when you are." He says, a hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
Mal rubs his hands together. "Lovely. I'm sure this will be a breeze..." he says, glancing over at the tunnel before idly checking his weapons. "...Need to get ahold of one of those glowstones," he mumbles. "That Pegasus had one, seemed handy enough..." The Coyote looks back to Amar, ears flicking. "How much do you need us to get?"
"Torches?" Amar asks, "Don't you Freeswords come with equipment included?"
Gavin leans down and murmurs something to his employer, who sighs and waves his hand dismissively. "Very well, very well," he says, "We have some torches you may use."
The bear hurries to the cart and returns a moment later with four torches, which he passes out to the Freeswords.
"Satisfied?" Amar asks lazily, "Good, good. Now, I will need at least three eggs. Fresher is better. Can't have them hatching before I sell them, now can we? And as much webbing as you can carry. Do be careful," he says in longsuffering tones, "I understand that the webs can be flammable. Now, off you go."
Kastovin nods to Mal and Galve. "Well, I think we are set! You guys are ready, yeah?" He says, pulling out his staff from his bag, letting it tap on the ground. He makes his way over to the mouth of the cave, waving to Amar. He waits for it to be quiet before he tries listening in the cave before stepping into it. "I wonder..." He whispers to Galve and Mal, "Just how deep these wurms are."
Galve takes the torch from Gavin and nods. "Alright Mr Widestripe, I think we get the picture. Ready to go, you two?" He asks, producing a means to light his torch from a belt pouch as he followed the others over to the cave. "Well, someone has to go first."
"...Torches and flammable webbing. Sounds like a perfect combination," he says, accepting one of the torches. "Three eggs, as fresh as possible, and as much webbing as we can get. We'll see what we can do," he says, trudging along after the other two. The Coyote raises an eyebrow at Kastovin. "Whatcha mean, how deep?" he asks, stepping into the tunnel. "Like, big? Or wide? Or how far down they live?" he continues, lighting his own torch and hold it aloft.
The tunnel is wide and the sides and floor are surprisingly smooth, though the whole place gleams in the light of the torches with an unpleasant dampness. The tunnel is also strangely humid, especially this close to Drytongue. There are no particularly distinguishing features of the low cavern, aside from its lack of distinguishing features. The noontime sunlight outside filters pretty deep here.
Kastovin makes his way into the cave, still saying in a hushed tone "How far in the cave these wurms are, Mal. We don't want to be surpised by some angry wurms. We are in their home now, so step lightly..." He says, stepping on a stray twig. His own light grows brighter and brighter, to the level of a small lantern because all that's showing are the marking on his head.
Galve holds his own torch, looking around as the group traveled into the tunnels. He kept his other hand on the pommel of his sword. He was running through a checklist of his personal equipment, making sure he knew where everything was and where to get it. Helped with the sense of mild claustrophobia he was starting to feel. Not terrible, but when you're used to more open spaces it happens.
"Oh, yeah. That too," the Coyote replies, scratching at his chin as he looks around. "If we're lucky, they're out at the moment," he adds, grinning as he continues down the tunnel. "Wouldn't that be swell? Just in and out, easy money..."
Everything is quiet, aside from the occasional vague dripping sound, even as the cavern becomes darker outside the glow of the torches and Kastovin's bioluminescence. It is not long before the trio comes to a branch from the main, wide tunnel. It is a bit smaller, just high enough for the average being to walk without stooping. This tunnel slopes steeply downward and the walls are slick with some sort of ichor.
Kastovin stops and looks at the branching path. "I wonder..." He says, steping over to the tunnle. He looks down it, trying to see anything that's down there. "This could be the enterance to their place, if you ask me..." He says pulling out a vial of liquid. He shakes it vigorisly, and it starts to produce a dim light. Uncorking it, he pours the liquid down the steep downwarn path, to see where it would flow to.
Galve eyes the tunnel. "Looks like our stop. How slick do you think that is?" He asks the others, watching Kastovin's experiment curiously.
The Coyote peers down the slope with a hrm, ears flicking at the dripping noises. "All this dripping's gonna make me need to go," he says. "Drip, drip. Drip drip drip," Mal murmurs as he makes his way down the path, careful not to step onto...whatever that liquid is. "Come on, those eggs aren't getting any fresher," he says to his companions, smirking.
The diminuative feline's alchemical glow juice flows quickly down the steep slope of the tunnel, quickly dimming as the chemicals are dispersed in the rocky soil.
Mal, taking the lead, finds the footing treacherous, but not impassible, slipping a little here and there. As the group moves carefully along, strands of silk start to hang from the path ahead, creating a sparse coating along the walls that is quickly growing thicker. From time to time, small tunnels branch off from the main one, though most are too small for a full sized being to crawl through and thus, probably not made by the hill wurms.
Kastovin has a bit of white chalk that he has been using to mark the tunnles, and before sliding down with Mal, he'd mark this one with an O to show they've been here, but not come back up. Once he has marked it, he sides on down with him. "Oh, man! Look at all of these!" He goes to the biggest hole he can find. "This may take a while.." Looking back to Mal and Galve, he takes a step into the hole, keeping an eye out for any webbing or eggs.
Galve keeps his torch away from the webbing as he descends, careful to keep his wings from being crushed as he slides down after them. He eyes the holes as he does so, then looks at Kastovin's diminutive form. He then shakes his head. Not a great idea.
Mal eghs, holding out a hand to brace himself as he goes while keeping the torch up, lighting the way. "...This was a mistake," he mutters as he almost loses his footing. The Coyote looks at Kastovin and shakes his head at Cat's enthusiasm. "Let's just grab what we need and get out. I'd prefer not to run into a Hill Wurm," he says. "...They aren't pleasant." As if it needs mentioning...
The tunnel grows larger and wider as the group descends, and the sticky webbing on the walls grows thicker. The floor starts to level out even as it grows increasingly slick with ichor. Then the tunnel ends.
The relatively small tunnel suddenly yawns into a massive cavern, the ceiling out of reach of the feeble light of the party's torches. Huge masses hump and heave themselves around in the distant darkness and the walls are thick with sticky silk webbing.
Kastovin dims his light slighty, smiling back to Mal and Galve. He whispers "I think we found what we were looking for!" He reaches inside of his robe and pulls out three neatly folded cloth sacks, handing one to Mal and Galve. He undoes his and, using his crooked cane, starts pulling down as much webbing as he can reach and stuffing it into his bag.
Galve eyes the masses. "Those must be the wurms...." He mutters quietly to himself, before getting to gathering masses of silk to stick into the bag provided.
Mal stops at the edge of the tunnel, staring down into the cavern. "...Looks cozy," he says after a moment, taking one of the sacks and pulling on a pair of gloves, before beginning to fill his own bag, glancing over at those massive masses in the shadows from time to time. The last thing they need is to be caught unaware by Wurms...
The webs are sticky and strong, but not so much that the careful adventurers can't get what they came for. Unfortunately, all the tugging and pulling on the network of webs draws some unwanted attention.
A pair of elephant sized hill wurms, probably named for their size rather than their habitat, starts to heave themselves over toward the party from amidst the writhing traffic of the main part of the cavern! Their forms at the edge of the torchlight are terrible, shining with mucus, muscles bunching and heaving under their translucent skin. Their bodies have no necks, ending in an insictile lump tipped in fierce mandibles and alien eyelessness.
Kastovin hears the movement! He quickly turns his head from stuffing his bag with the webbing, wiping the excess on his robe. "Hmm..." He says, standing up. "They must be like spiders, sensing when the something comes tapping on the web..." He grabs his staff with both hands. "Let's deal with them before they get too close!" His staff starts to glow ever so slightly.... The light grows quickly as arcs of static jumps off, licking everything within range of it. This not being the main spell, he says behind him "If this does not work, I don't know what will!" He says, releasing it to deal with the wurms
Galve eyes the monstrous wurms slowly lurching their way. His wings flit nervously.... "Can we even hurt those things?" He asks as he watches Kastovin prepare a spell. "I don't think that's a great idea...." He says, worried. His wings buzz a little more with his anxiety, ready to lift him off at a moments notice...
"That's one ugly..." Mal starts, trailing off as he realizes that, oh hey, they're coming for them. "...Right." The Coyote stuffs his sack a little more before tossing it to the side, flicking his wrist and grasping a knife in his hand. "How do we want to-" The Coyote blinks. "...Yeah, sure. That works," he mutters, glancing at Galve. "Oh, yeah. You ever stabbed them? They're kinda squishy, you know how it goes. Squish, squash," the Fressword continues, twirling the knife in his hand now, waiting to see how much damage Kastovin managed before he goes losing more knives.
The lightning crashes into the first of the two wurms, charring its soft, pale flesh and crackling along its hill sized body as it curls and contorts and lets out an incongruously high pitched, whistling squeal! The lightning flash also lights up the cave for a few, brief seconds, revealing the enormity of the cavern along with several large tunnels leading off of it in all directions. And a horrifying number of fleshy, grub-like hill wurms. Dozens of them, scattered around the cavern, humping their way through the tunnels. And in the center of it all, at the central tangle of the web is a rounded rock formation where pale, translucent eggs protrude from the webbing over the stone.
The injured wurm shrieks defiance, then curls up in singed self defense. Its cohort hesitates briefly, then emits a piercing shriek! Alerting the colony before crashing toward the Freeswords!
Galve shields his eyes from the blinding flash of the lightning bolt, before looking back and blinking away the afterimages. Eyeing the eggs in the center, he takes to the air with a buzz of his iridescent wings, flying high over the wurms and heading towards the eggs. Two birds, one stone.
Kastovin sees the bounding worm, he lets out a pethetic mewl, as he did not expect it to be so fast. He calls to Galve and Mal "Move, move, move!" With this, he slams his staff into the ground, his colors go from a warm cyan to a burning crimson. His color bleeds into the ground, and over the charging wurm it shaves more and more.... The cat is focused on whatever he is doing, buring the cook into whatever soft earth he can get it into. "I need you two to move, fast!" He calls, his voice growing more, one could say raspy when the staff does the final push and a beam firey orange light shines upwards like a beacon.
"This is what I was afraid of!" The Coyote yells, rolling out of the way and further into the cavern. No need to be quiet now, the whole damn colony knows they're there. "Grab the webbing, grab the eggs, and let's move," he calls out, blinking as Kastovin lets loose with another spell. "...I need to get me some of that power..." he mutters, before running in the opposite direction. Fire and webbing...not a good combo. Which gives him and idea for this torch...
The wasp and the coyote manage to fling themselves out of the path of the rampaging wurm, Galve into the air and Mal tumbling away from the tunnel they entered by and into the silk strewn field of the cavern.
Kastovin is not so lucky. While his magic is powerful, it is too slow to stop the huge creature's charge. Flames spew from the ground, igniting the wurm even as it crashes into the little feline, sending him sprawling, to skid across the stone floor. The monster writhes in agony as the flames spread across its body. . . and ignite the thick webbing upon the walls and floor.
Though Galve managed to escape the charging wurm, he was not fast enough to escape the upward blast of Kastovin's spell and the impact sends him spiraling out of control!
Kastovin goes sprawling, rolling and hitting the wall behind him with a sickening thud. He cries out in pain, but he does not stop. He looks and sees his staff is still buried in the ground, but he does not really need it right now. In his hand he forms a ball of fire and throws it at the wurm! After it's free from his hand, he looks around, seeing Galve is caught in his blast and Mal is nowhere to be seen from where he is.
Galve tries to regain control midair, wings flailing as he fought to regain his balance, wings buzzing loudly as he strained with effort.
"...I'm getting too old for this shit," Mal mutters as he watches the webbing ignite. Not a moment later, he's charging for the eggs, using anything possible as leverage to get himself to the prize faster. "I really hope the pay is good, I really hope the pay is good..." he mutters, like a mantra, as he makes his way towards the clutch of crown waiting to happen.
Things are really starting to get hairy now. Galve manages to right himself, but that does not keep him from tumbling into a mass of webs and sticking there! Kastovin's fire starts to spread from the mouth of the tunnel, starting to burn higher and hotter as it moves outward. Mal manages to stay ahead of the fire, keeping himself free of the webs with some fancy footwork and soon finds himself at the base of the egg studded pillars, each egg rooted gently to the stone and roughly the size of a being's head.
The wurms, sensing the heat and the danger have already started to abandon the chamber.
Kastovin looks around for the three bags of silk, quickly grabbing them all if they were left behind. He looks and sees the fire is getting out of control. He reaches into his robe, pulling out a sizleable bottle of powder. He undoes the lid and dumps it out. He pulls out a second bottle of q liquid, dumping it out as well on top of it. It quickly rises into a foamy paste, light but fireproof. He uses this and some wind to try to stop the fire from spreading too far around the cave as best as he can. He turns and sees Mal and he calls out "Grab whatever seems new! We don't have much time!"
Galve groans loudly as he is stuck to the webs. He pulls against the sticky web, trying to reach his sword and cut himself free from the webbing.
Galve groans loudly as he is stuck to the webs. He pulls against the sticky web, trying to reach his sword and cut himself free from the webbing. Reaching his blade, he slices himself free and drops, buzzing his wings to regain altitude and head in Mal's direction to aid him in the recovery of the eggs now that the wurms seemed to be fleeing.
Mal grimaces and looks over the eggs, grabbing ahold of the freshest eggs, working to pry one free before running to the next, planning to grab as many as he easily can. "I'm working on it," he calls back to the cat. "If you'd picked something other than fire to throw around, this might not be as intense a situation!" Not that the Coyote minds; he's here for the thrills. "Grab that one, and that one, and maybe that one! The more we can grab, the more we might get paid!" The Coyote calls to Galve as he makes his way over, pointing to the ones he means.
The genie is out of the bottle and no amount of alchemy is going to force it back in. The flames rage across the room, moving quickly toward Mal, Galve and the eggs. By now, the large wurms have all vacated the premises, following instincts that only they understand.
The eggs are firmly attached to the rock with some kind of sticky ichor. With a little leverage and some old fashioned effort, they are not too difficult to pry loose. Mal manages to collect a pile of six of the head sized eggs. Now the trick will be getting them out past the wall of fire between them and the exit.
Kastovin sees that his alchemy is not going to work and thinks of something better! He runs and grabs his staff, pulling it out of the ground. "Enough!" He calls, he twirls his staff around his head, eliciting wind from the tunnles around them, hopefully the cool fresh air will help snuff out the flames. "HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!" He calls out!
Air blasts in from the tunnel the group entered through, following Kastovin's well meaning, but ill advised direction. The flames flare and bend forward, rushing even faster toward Mal and his collection of eggs!
Galve lands before the wind rushes in, but barely. "Are you crazy? This isn't a candle we're blowing out here, that's a wildfire!" Galve says, the heat starting to get a little oppressive. "We got get out of here!" He says, trying to figure out how to escape from being burned alive, and possibly with the loot.
"If you got some water spells tucked away somewhere, now would be a good time," Mal calls to the magic Cat as he looks around... eyes narrowing as he looks at the webbed walls. "...That would be grand..." he mutters, before blinking. The Coyote points to Kastovin. "No more fucking magic! I don't want to be sent home charred and crispy!" he yells, backing up before running as fast as he can, leaping at the wall, intent on using the webbing as leverage to get over the fire.
Mal stuffs what eggs Galve doesn't take into his satchel, tying it closed to keep the precious cargo safe. "Alright, let's move!"
The wall is a rather distant prospect for Mal, since he is in the middle of the room with a wall of flames coming from one side, but climbing the walls proves to be fruitless, as the flame is burning on both floor and walls. It is even starting to make its way across the ceiling. As things stand, Kastovin stands in a world of whispy grey ash on one side of the flames, while Mal and Galve find themselves with the last surviving Hill Wurm eggs, Galve on the ground and Mal fruitlessly trying to scale the sticky walls. It seems that the only options are either to brave the flames, or flee into the dark tunnels of the wurm hive after the fled hill wurms.
Kastovin sees his friends in great danger that he had caused, this spurs him into a math frenzy, quickly calculating a spell that would work. He wipes his hand down the air, clearing a path between him and the others. "Get over here! I can only do this for so long!" The two of them, if their eyesight was great enough, could see him trembling with the stress of keeping this impromptu spell going.
Galve grabs the remaining eggs and bolts for Kastovin, watching his footing so as to not get tangled in the smouldering remains of the webbing. "Come on, I've got the rest!" He calls to Mal as he runs, though he doesn't bother to take his eyes off of his path.
"I've totally got this, just...ergh...just gimme a second," Mal says, before looking over at the flames, his ears lowering. "...On second thought, maybe run," he says, sliding down the wall. He looks over at the path made by Kastovin and grimaces, looking between the flames, the path, and the Cat's concentration. The Coyote looks back to the tunnels the Wurms fled into, before gritting his teeth and charging towards the path, chanting his newest mantra under his breath. "The pay better be worth it, the pay better be worth it..."
The tunnel of fire holds just long enough for Mal and Galve to scramble through with their precious cargo. The fire continues to roar along on its web fueled path while the keening of Hill Wurms can be heard in the distant tunnels.
Kastovin goes and gathers up the bags of silk. "Let's get out of here!" He says, looking at the other two. He hurries his way into the cave they came from, it's safe from fire because it does not have as much webbing. "Last one to Amar is a rotten eye!" He playfully calls, in spite of the immense danger they are in.
Galve follows the diminutive cat up the tunnels, using his wings to aid his ascent.
Mal huffs, bent over and bracing his arms on his knees as he catches his breath. "You...are a damned madman," he pants at the crazy mage, smacking Kastovin upside the head, before standing straight and grabbing a bag of silk himself. "And you owe me, like, three bottles of vodka," the Coyote adds before following the path to the surface, slouching as he goes.
The trip to the surface is slippery, but uneventful and the trio finds Amar much as they left him, lounging in his canvas chair. In their absence, Gavin has set up a little table and it is piled high with sandwiches and several bottles of wine. It looks like Amar has already put a sizeable dent in both.
"Welcome back! Welcome back!" Amar calls, waving a sandwich at them in a fat paw. "Everything went well, then? No trouble?"
Kastovin does not say anything until he sets his heavy sack of silk down next to Amar. He sniffs the air, turning his head to notice that his hood has been alight the entire trip. He hisses, rolling on the ground to put it out. Once that is done, he gets up as if nothing happened. "Nothing much..." He says, looking over to Galve and Mal "But I don't think we'll be seeing any hill wurms in a long, long time." At the end of that, he looks back to Amar with a sheepish smile. "I hope your empolyer is going to breed those eggs if they want to see the survival of the wurms."
Galve remains quiet aside from breathing hard. He sets the eggs down and examines them, making sure that the ones he carried were undamaged. When he does speak he mutters "... little firebug almost got us all killed...."
"Just peachy," the Coyote says, raising an eyebrow at Amar's attitude. He drops his sack of webbing in front of the fat cat, then opens his satchel and pulls out the eggs he managed to grab. "We got three bags of webbing and six eggs," Mal says, adding, "Should be more than enough for whatever you want them for. Whatever you don't use could probably make for some exotic omelette." The Freesword's eyes narrow as he looks at Kastovin before he looks back to Amar. "And our payment? I went through hellfire to get ahold of these," he says, "I expect the payment will be worth it, for the extra materials?"
Amar claps his hands happily at the sight of the objects he requested. "Very nice, very nice!" he exclaims, "I am sure that I can find a use for the additional materials. Don't worry you will be compensated well for your time!" He does not seem to quite catch the hints about needing to breed hill wurms, but he waves his sandwich to Gavin. "See that the gentlemen are paid," he says, "And get these loaded in the cart. Mustn't dilly-dally!"
Kastovin coughs and looks Amar right in the eyes. "Amar, I must stress that we might have killed all of the wurms down in the caves. So... It may be a good idea to sell some of those eggs to some kind of breeder. But, that's up to you." He collects his payment. "I will catch you guys back at the inn! I owe you guys some drinks due to this mess I caused!" And with this, he collects his bag, putting the remaining stuff back. "Later!" And with this, a sudden gale force wind pushes him into the sky, sending him away.
Galve watches the cat fly off into the air as he collects his payment from Gavin. "I think I've done enough flying for one day.... care to join me, Mal?" He asks, waiting for the coyote.
Mal hands over the cargo, taking his payment before eyeing Kastovin. "I believe you owe me some drinks for all..." The Coyote trails off, "...the hellfire. Damn." He sighs and shakes his head before looking at the wasp, eyebrow raised. "...Sure, why not," he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trudging off down the path with Galve. "So, are you going to buy my bottles of vodka, then?" he asks as they turn the corner and out of sight.
