Mountains of Madness, Part 2

[Graybeard]

"I understand your skepticism," Soc was saying as Layla's head spun. "However, there can be no doubt of your capabilities. I have arranged a small demonstration in Plato's lab. Please come with me; this will only take a few minutes."

The promised few minutes later, Layla found herself in a room surrounded by exotic-looking artifacts and instruments: Plato's lab, and Plato himself stood off to the side, watching. A box about two feet square stood on a table, with black gasket-like fittings on one face. "Put your hands through those," Soc directed, and Layla, after a quick glance at her mother and a reassuring nod in return, complied.

"You should be able to feel two objects in there," the man said. "They are coffee mugs, and they both have cracks in them so that they can't hold liquids. Choose one and hold it in your hands. Feel its texture. Imagine what it might look like if you could see it."

Puzzled, Layla did as she was told. "I can feel the crack," she said. Soc nodded. "Good. Now concentrate on imagining that the crack isn't there ... and as you concentrate, work the clay of the mug so that the crack goes away. You should find it soft to your touch, soft enough that you can smooth the clay over and repair the crack."

Again, Layla did as she was told, but it wasn't as easy as all that. Yes, she could imagine what the intact tankard might be like, and she knew how to repair it, even though she couldn't see her hands; she'd always had exceptionally good "proprioception," to use the term she'd read somewhere. But Soc had overestimated how malleable the clay was. She could feel it just barely yield to her touch. "Concentrate!" the man said, and she complied, grunting with the effort to mold the clay -- an effort that seemed strangely mental, rather than tied to muscle fatigue in her hands.

Finally, she had the clay rearranged into a form she liked. "Done," she panted, and at the man's direction, removed her hands from the box, expecting to find them covered with earthen material. No, they were clean.

"Not expecting that, were you?" Soc smiled. "Let me show you your handiwork." He popped open the lid on the box, revealing two mugs inside. One had a prominent crack running down one side, while the other had finger marks where the crack had been. It wasn't pretty, but this mug could now hold water ...

... And both mugs were made of hard, immovable pewter, not of clay.

"Congratulations," Soc said, as Layla continued to breathe hard, and she and Faye both goggled at the clumsily repaired mug. "You have just cast your first Mending spell."

[Sareth]

Ignoring Marcus' ramblings about blowing something up, I turned to Lucas. "Further in," I answered his question. "We need to get a good defensive position. We should have enough fire power to hold them off for a time if we have to. Preferably, we may be able to find a way out that doesn't entail shooting our way through them."

I supposed shooting our way out was a possibility if necessary. But I was guessing it would take an awful large number of bullets.

[Graybeard]

Still not quite believing what she had done, Layla made arrangements to talk to the mysterious "Soc" again, then she and Faye headed for home; there was a baby to be fed, after all.

They hadn't gone very far when, to Layla's considerable pleasure (and, Faye had to admit, her own too), Ace fell in beside them. "I know it hurts, but it's good to have that over with, isn't it?" Smiles were exchanged, then Ace said, "Now life can start getting back to normal again." And I hope you'll let me be part of that "normality."

Layla gave him a fey look, then smiled again. "You don't know the half of it..." And Faye suddenly decided that she had some errands to do in a store along the way, leaving Layla and the pilot to walk and talk.

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"They went that way," the priest-in-training said in a stage whisper, only to be shushed by Brother Ohmad. "Pitch your voice down, not up, and mumble," he said. "The sound won't carry as far and it'll sound like background noise. The underground is noisier than most people realize." Mad or not, he'd done enough gigs like this in his old life to remember the routine.

Abashed, the man tried again. "The Pathfinding spell is telling me that the nearest dirty diaper like this is down that hall. It may still be attached to Nera; it may not. But it is there." He pointed to an intersection and a hallway leading down into the catacombs.

Ohmad nodded. "Brother Zafir, you go get more firepower. We're going to need it." And we want to make sure there is blood, he thought as the second priest-to-be headed back to the surface.

[Sareth]

My head came up as we walked. We hadn't been traveling more than five minutes, but something had...

"Did you hear..."

Mother gave me a bit of a look as she bobbled Nera, walking and playing all at the same time.

"Nah, never mind. Thought I heard a voice, but I must have been hearing things."

Still, I fondled the hilt of a pistol thoughtfully.

[AdamZero]

My life sensing ability wasn't back enough for me to sense everything around us, but I was still paranoid enough to take Jamie's twitch for genuine evidence. I'd choke it up to women's intuition if I was pressed.

"They know we're down here. Pick up the pace." That was a laugh, me using my staff and Boris to move me along for the most part, I was near the back of the group Aiyee's rear bringing up the tail of our group, casting her blue head of her shoulder seeing more then any of us could, I imagine.

We came to another wide open spot, one with the scent of herbal growth.... a very special kind of herb... cannabis.

"Holy mother of Gods...." I looked around at the room, one of the walls had caved in, letting an underground stream cut through a slanted ledge of fertile country dirt. The ceiling was lined with glowing gems giving off the warmth of the sun, to similuate day light. They were starting to dim, and turning orange... I could guess they were turned to shift for a night setting. Or maybe they were just dying...

The rest of the room seemed to have been designed for growing food, but let to its own devices, straight ahead was another large door, but to the right was a mass of vines, with various fruits and vegetables in plucking distance.

"Mo-ther LOAD!" I said. "We seal up the passage good and tight and well be eating like kings while high as kites!!" I couldn't choose to go for the food or the weed... so hard to choose.

(4/20 day looms in the horizon, ^.^ it'd be a shame NOT to have our PC's smoke a bowl.... though with the baby around....)

[Sareth]

"I have a better idea," I replied. I walked to the far end of the chamber and moistened my finger, then held it up in the tunnel mouth. "There's a very slight breeze blowing through here. If we light this shit on fire" (I heard my mother tut at my language. Hypocrit.) "and get the breeze blowing a lot harder..."

"It's green," mother objected. "It'll be hard to get going very fast."

"That's fine. That means it'll smoke more. And that's the idea." I smiled at my own ingenuity. I had no idea if it was actually all that ingenious, but I smiled at it. "We get the breeze going a lot stronger through here and it'll do several things. First, it'll blow the smoke right down our pursuers throats. They'll be starved for oxygen and high as kites. Second, it'll fan the flames, so that they have to go through a firestorm to get to us, or take a longer side passage to get to us. And third, for there to be any breeze at all, there has to be a way out down there." I pointed down the passage I was next to. "If we strengthen that breeze, then any time we reach a fork, we just walk into the wind."

Mother nodded. "I hate to say it, but you may have a point."

"Gee, thanks mom." I shot her a look I hoped I was still capable of after a year away from home. "The question is, how do we get that breeze going?"

[Graybeard]

The pursuers came to a complex intersection. "I've lost them," the proto-priest muttered, to Brother Ohmad's disappointment; he really wanted some blood out of this adventure. However, he wasn't having any more luck in tracking the demons' footsteps than the priest was with his magical tracking. These demons obviously knew something about moving carefully. That would make locating them more difficult.

Of course, it would also make it more satisfying when they were cornered and their blood was shed.

"Let me try something," the priest muttered, and began casting a quiet spell. Instantly, a breeze developed from the multiple pathways where they stood and started to funnel down the hall they'd just emerged from. "There," the man said. "That will help bring Nera's spoor to us, so that we can choose the right path. Just give it a minute."

[OOC: That idea of Jamie's is so delicious that we might as well help it along... /OOC:]
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I'm in troll country, Wilbur Hamael thought as he surveyed the village from the broad summit of the peak he'd just hiked up. How could things get any worse? Wait, don't answer that.

Hamael was just as scared of being eaten by trolls as most of his countrymen, but his army years had given him a degree of skill at moving quietly and without a trace, and he reckoned his chances of survival were still reasonably good -- if he could simply figure out where he was. The problem was, he was still completely disoriented, and he didn't want to chance consulting the crystal ball. The discovery of the trolls helped, though. To his knowledge, the trolls in Veracia were confined to the high country of the northeast, which at least told him which direction he had to go. Of course, there was always the possibility that he'd been teleported into the Northern Confederacy, where trolls were reputed to be plentiful. In that case he'd still have to go south, but then what? And what if they'd managed to re-establish themselves somewhere in Farrel, or even Tsuiraku? No, on second thought, knowing there were trolls around really didn't help him at all.

As he crept back from the edge of the forest so the trolls wouldn't see him, he saw the improbable balloon in the distance, apparently heading north ... and it gave him an idea.

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"I can't believe we're doing this," Grope told his nephew. Truthfully, he was enjoying the ride, now that the initial vertigo had worn off, but it still seemed a preposterous thing for a troll to do. "How do you steer? Won't this thing just go where the wind takes us? That's the way the Small Ones' toy balloons work, anyway."

"I don't know for sure," Scrobian answered. "I just found out by trial and error that this tiller thing works. The dwarves found some way to make it steer, and they were smarter than we are, so I don't ask questions."

Trial and error ... what a remarkably un-troll-like concept, Grope marveled as they headed for a valley where a cave bear had been reported. What is this world coming to...

[AdamZero]

A wind suddenly appeared from nowhere, being drawn toward someplace back down our path. "That was magic...." I stated the obvious, as Boris still harvested a fair amount of green for later sale. The breeze was of decent strength, a clever formula... but low life. "We need to move fast." I flicked my fingers and a blast of flame ignited the weed at the top of the dirt hill. I'd stuffed some fruits and veggies into my cloak pockets, and set out for the second archway.

"Expeditious Retreat!" I declared, not too loud, using Boris and my staff to futilely try and wedge the door open. Aiyee reached over us, giving me a rather close up look at her mam-wait a tick are those-?

THOOM.

She drew her arm back and the giant stone door was considerably more open than before.

"Right... let's go!" I shook off whatever was clogging the through process of GET THE #(@! OUT OF HERE, and headed down the tunnel wind in my face.

[Graybeard]

"Oh, wow ... I think we're on the right track, man..." Brother Ohmad, a big smile on his face, said to the priest-to-be as the smoke reached them. Or was it the other way around? It really didn't matter, of course. In fact, for a while, nothing mattered at all, although the two men were getting a case of the munchies.

[Sareth]

"This way, I think."

Whatever it was that had caused the wind I so desired had done just what I'd hoped for, though to somewhat of a greater effect than I had expected. At the fork we'd come to, *both* passages had air flowing out of them. The one I was indicating felt like the breeze was stronger, so I assumed it was the right way to go.

The breeze had also had another side effect. It was drying out my eyes.

Well, you can't have everything.

Mother walked up next to me, bobbling Nera. I had this nasty suspicion she was growing so attached I wouldn't dare ever drop the girl off at an orphanage or sell her to half-elf gypsies or something.

"Are you sure about that boy? Pot heads aren't very good providers."

"Moooooom!" While my mother's voice had been very soft, meant only for me, I was less hushed, until she shot me a dirty look that clearly spoke of manners needing to be observed. I quieted down. "Look, I'll admit I've thought about a dalliance or two with him. He looks healthy enough. But really, mom..."

"What? Not interested in letting a young man make you honest?" My mother seemed obsessed with the whole honesty thing. To me, I *was* honest. Honest in wanting no strings attached good times and admitting it.

"Mom, he has a bad habit of dying on a routine basis."

Mom turned and looked back over her shoulder, contemplating the man. Which, of course, was very embarrassing, as there was no way he could possibly miss that we were talking about him now. "Mom!" I hissed.

"He looks quite lively to me. Well, a bit tired, but I'd assumed he had a rough night."

"MOM!" I exclaimed. "No... nothing like... Mom... he's a..."