"We could try moving downward," said Alea, "May.....be Silwen survived the fall, and is down there alone and hurt."

She looks to the others. "She is the reason we were going this way, to get the artifact. She was the only one to have the pointer and the magics to deal with the thing. I would like finding her would be the most inportant thing we sould do."

So it seems it is time for a quick decision. As the group is now gathered in the cavern behind the falls that is all except for Riddle who ran after the creature and is now on the other side of the collapse, and
Silwen who had fallen over the cliff. They are far enough away to speak and be heard. The cavern they are in seems to have two exits.

Thor at once speaks and says they should move out at once in quest for the object they came to find, however Alea has a valid response. "We could try moving downward," said Alea, "May.....be Silwen survived the fall, and is down there alone and hurt."She is the reason we were going this way, to get the artifact. She was the only one to have the pointer and the magics to deal with the thing. I would like finding her would be the most inportant thing we sould do."


This stops Thor at once when he realizes she is correct, Silwen was the only one who could track and possibly handle the artifact they where after. You may have a valid point Alea , however do we have the luxury of enough time to mount a search before we must be at the artifact and try to destroy it. Turning to the dwarf leader Thon what is our timetable with the battle presumable raging above us can we take the time to look for Silwen, or do you think we have no choice and without her we are doomed to fail. The choices we make here and now could impact this world for many millennia to come.
Not really knowing himself which is the right answer he does think in his heart that they are running out of time and finding the artifact and trying to destroy it is their prime concern. Looking at each member in turn he waits for their answer as what to do next.

I will throw in my last two cents on the matter, we know we can't go back as we also know Silwen has fallen deeper into the cave complex, so if neighter of the two exits lead down our choice is probably made for us so as we contemplate this let us move to and explore the two exits for our choice may be already made for us. and with this Thor moves to the exit that is on the right of where they stand and using his best dwarven knowledge tries to discern if the passage is moving up or down into the cavern.

Location: Under the Grey Mountains
Date/Time: Day Nine – Afternoon
Meanwhile, Riddle followed the creature that had ran and found that he didn’t have to track it really since the way was along a single passage. He ran rapidly and soon came out of the passage and into a small cavern with only one other entrance, there he came to a sudden halt as he saw the object of his chase.

Across the cavern by the other entrance was a group of about a dozen of those creatures, one gesturing wildly and pointed towards the passage he had just exited. The creatures turned and seeing Riddle they all roared loudly and began to run towards him.

Riddle qiuickly looks around for anything he could do to give hinmself more time. After searching he decides to run. Realizing running back the way he came would only cause more problems. Riddle looks for another way out.
Riddle didnt see anything that would give him more time to think with the dozen creatures bearing down upon him, so he ran; not the way he had come but he saw another passage near the one he entered this cavern from and down it he ran.

He could hear the cries of the creatures as they raced after him, the passage he fled down was sloping downward at an angle that even the Ranger could easily tell. He ran for several minutes until he came to a branch in the passage; without thinking he took the right passage and continued to run. After a couple minutes he could hear the noise of pursuit behind him was lessening; he stopped and listened and heard the yelling of the creatures fading away. Apparently they had went down the wrong passage. He didnt know how long he had till they might realized their mistake and came back to his passage.

He had little choice and so he continued his way down this passage into what he didnt know; luckily the glowing moss was still present and dimly lighting his way.

_____________________________

So with their party at the moment reduced to just Billy, Alea, and Thor along with two of the dwarfs sent to show them the way Thon and his friend. Thor turns to the party.
“Well friends looks like things are getting rather sticky, with Siliwen. Gone over the cliff and now Riddle separated from us by the gap in the path it is up to us to continue on. Thon, do you know the rest of the way we need to go to reach our original goal?”
“I have an idea where we should be going,” Thon replied, “though I am not positive. Without the lass’s strange ring pointing the way, we might not find the object we seek.

"We could try moving downward," said Alea, "May.....be Silwen survived the fall, and is down there alone and hurt."She is the reason we were going this way, to get the artifact. She was the only one to have the pointer and the magics to deal with the thing. I would like finding her would be the most inportant thing we sould do."

This stops Thor at once when he realizes she is correct, Silwen was the only one who could track and possibly handle the artifact they where after. You may have a valid point Alea , however do we have the luxury of enough time to mount a search before we must be at the artifact and try to destroy it. Turning to the dwarf leader “Thon what is our timetable with the battle presumable raging above us can we take the time to look for Silwen, or do you think we have no choice and without her we are doomed to fail. The choices we make here and now could impact this world for many millennia to come.”
Thon shrugs, “Hard to say about how much time we have, but we do need the battle to happen if we are to draw away as much of these creatures as possible so we can reach our objective.”

Thor concludes, “I will throw in my last two cents on the matter, we know we can't go back as we also know Siliwen has fallen deeper into the cave complex, so if neighter of the two exits lead down our choice is probably made for us so as we contemplate this let us move to and explore the two exits for our choice may be already made for us. and with this Thor moves to the exit that is on the right of where they stand and using his best dwarven knowledge tries to discern if the passage is moving up or down into the cavern.
Any dwarf can easily tell that the passage on the left slopes downward while the one on the right heads upward it seems. With a seeming unanimous decision to go on without Sil and hope she meets up with them, the group now only has to decide which passage will lead them to their objective.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

(OOC: Ok, A short start but not much I can do at this point without a decision from the group. I havent heard from Syanide yet so I will run Riddle for now, or until his luck runs out. No rush on the posts, I probably wont get to post again this week, so lets say a new posting deadline of Every Monday Morning. Hope that works. So lets continue this as you are getting closer to the end now and if all goes well you will be ‘finished’ here in a month or so… oh.. did I say ‘finished’? I didn’t mean anything by that.. or did I? )

Billy scratched his head, trying hard to think. "She is gone and we don't know where she went or if she is alive. We do know that there is a battle we must fight. If we skip teh battle looking for her and find her it will be too late for her to do anything. If we fight and don't find her we may not be able to go on. But if we fight we have a chance of finding her and finishing our task. So I say we go and fight."

"We will find her with Corellon's help, I will pray for that."

She turns to the Dwarves, "Your prayers will also be of help."

Alea looks down the way they must go.

"Down and Forward."

Location: Under the Grey Mountains
Date/Time: Day Nine – Evening

Billy scratched his head, trying hard to think. "She is gone and we don't know where she went or if she is alive. We do know that there is a battle we must fight. If we skip teh battle looking for her and find her it will be too late for her to do anything. If we fight and don't find her we may not be able to go on. But if we fight we have a chance of finding her and finishing our task. So I say we go and fight."

"We will find her with Corellon's help, I will pray for that."

She turns to the Dwarves, "Your prayers will also be of help."

Alea looks down the way they must go.

"Down and Forward."
Thor simply grunted and nodded agreeing with the others that they had to press on, honor demanded it.

Thon nodded as well and gestured them to follow him to the passage that lead downward and hopefully towards their goal.

They moved stealthily down the passage hoping they wouldn’t run into any more Shelnaks as they seemed the worse of the opponents they had faced thus far. They moved on for hours, moving through several diverging corridors, following Thon’s instinct and knowledge of these old caverns in the hope that he could lead them to their objective. During the trek, he told them quietly of the old passages and how this all once belonged to the dwarves, before the arrival of the Dark One’s minions. He had a good idea where the enemy would set up a base of operations here in the deep ground based on his own thoughts on the matter.

They entered a cavern with a couple of passage exiting it; Thon looked about and thought this might be a good place to rest for an hour while he checked out the passages. He knew it was one of these passages but he wasn’t sure exactly which one at the moment. It had been many years since he had been down this deep and he didn’t want to lead them astray. So, the group rested as Thon and his last warrior went to each of the other passages, venturing down each one in turn to determine their destination.

The group sat for almost an hour, time to rest and eat a bit, when they heard the sounds of battle down one of the passages; they realized it was the one Thon and his fellow dwarf had went down last. Suddenly Thon appeared running, he was slightly out of breath and showed signs of battle, fresh blood covered the front of his jerkin; he was alone.

“Hurray….” He gasped as he ran up to them, “A large group of Shelnaks are… right behind me.”

As they started to move, about 20 Shelnaks entered the cavern, they howled at seeing the party and ran towards them. They were not yet standing tall, nor were they forming into their characteristic fighting wedge.

“We could flee,” Thon said as he readied his axe, “but I think the way we need to go is that way.” He gestured to the passage the Shelnaks had exited. I asked about his comrade that had gone with him, he bowed his head slightly and said sadly, “He fell!”

(Thon will wait to see if the party will flee or fight, he will abide by any decision. The party can not run around the attackers without encountering and fighting them. I have not posted for Riddle because he is separate from the group and well… you wont know his fate for now. Siliwen has been PMed her post. I will update again next Monday. If you decide on combat, please be specific in your attempted actions and give me alternatives in case your first one becomes impossible. Any questions, PM me or use the Q&A thread. Thanks!)

Billy figured if the Shelnaks were coming out of the tunnel the group needed to take the decision was easy; fight. Of course for Billy deciding to fight was pretty easy in itself. His sword had worked last time and so he figured it should work again. Not wanting to receive a charge flat-footed he drew his sword and charged at the leading enemy. There would be no asking for quarters or any given; death was the only excuse for leaving the fight early and Billy intended to allow as many of the Shelnaks to depart as possible. His first swing was aimed at the base of the neck in an attempt to cleave and make a quick kill.

"Billy,.........NO!" but it seems it was unheard and Billy charged in the the fray. If they could keep the Shelnaks in a tunnel where only a couple of them could get at them at a time. She is almost in a state of panic, she was no fighter, she had a bless spell and that was it.

Her voice raises in the melodic prayer to Correlon to Bless them.

She swallows hard and then grabs her bow off her shoulder and starts to notch arrows readying to fire.

Billy charged at the Shelnaks as they emerged from the passage into the cavern and tried to form up into their fighting formation. He arrived and crashed into them swinging his great sword before they could complete their task. One Shelnak, the one trying to stand at the apex of the wedge, lost it’s head in a vicious swipe and this threw the wedge into instance chaos.

Billy felt something there, as the blade bit into the soft flesh of the Shelnak, he felt elation and joy and he realized that it wasn’t his emotions. Something else was flowing through him as he swung again with a speed he had not known he possessed. Another head rolled from another Shelnak that tried to take the other’s spot at the head and the others fell back before the terrible onslaught of this towering warrior. Billy felt more elation as the dark blood spurted from the stump of the Shelnak’s neck. The emotions poured over him, overwhelming him, driving him to slay ever last one of these vile creatures.

Thor yelled and charge shortly behind Billy, he attacked the side of the group trying to stay out of the reach of the giant’s greatsword. His axe bit deep into one opponent and he yelled his battle cry as he saw the ones on that side abandon any attempt to form up and draw short iron daggers to fend him off. A few of those manage to strike him but his armor held up and he suffered no damage though is armor got hotter where ever the creatures struck.

Alea yelled at Billy to stop but he and Thor were enthralled by the thrill of battle. She said a quick prayer to Corellon casting a blessing upon her group as she drew out her bow and tried to spot an easy target. She manage to get off one shot after casting the spell, and one of the Shelnak’s fell back with an arrow protruding from it’s chest. It seemed these creatures were weaker physically without their vaunted magic arts to protect them.

Thon, seeing the decision is to fight, cries out his battle cry, filled with the rage of his fallen comrades, he attacked the side opposite Thor and to the right of Billy staying well clear of the giant’s swing; good thing he is short. His attack on the side sends them into further turmoil and another Shelnak goes down beneath a dwarven axe.

(Ok, another post next week.. I delayed hoping on a post from Dragonmist but it seems he has disappeared. RL probably caught up to him as it usually does all of us at one time or another. )

Billy charged in to battle and his great sword swung in huge archs stopping only when it found purchased in Shelnack flesh; and it stopped often. This was Billy in his element. It was after the second foe fell to his blade that Billy became a bit confused. He was happy to be in battle again but it was differant than he ever felt before. It was almost as if someone or something else was happy along with him. For now there was killing to do and he would ponder the emotions thing later. That is if he remembered to think about it later.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Billy pressed his attack.

Alea continued to fire at any available target, Her bow sang its battle song, as she fired off arrow after arrow. She intoned a prayerful song to Corellon to grant her his skill. One day she hoped to be awarded a Moonbow, marking her as worthy of notice by Corellon, the Patron of Elven archers and archery. Today, for now, she had a bow and a quiver of common arrows. As they were told by the one who sommoned them, the fact that they were so low and only equipped with common weapons, did they have a chance to survive. A chance. Their chance now was in the hands of Billy, the two dwarves and herself.

They had to succeed, the future of so many was held by so few and she was one of them, though she had no special part to play, she knew that she was there to back up the others, she was important to the whole and that was enough.

Billy and the two dwarfs, Thor and Thon, were wrecking havoc among the disorganized Shelnak. Thon and Thor took down one each and continued to wade into the Shelnak striking left and right.

Alea’s bow sang again and again, each time her arrows found a target and at least one enemy went down never to rise again. She had to be careful though, on a couple of occasions she had to hold off shooting because Billy’s large bulk had suddenly leaped in front of her aim. She did not know this man before, but she had seen him in battle since they had embarked on this journey. What she saw now was strange and a little scary to her; Billy seemed a demon possessed as he waded into the Shelnak wielding his Giant Sword blood flying from it’s blade.

Billy was lost in a total battle rage, his huge sword cut swaths through the Shelnak, he cut down at least three more and stepped over their bodies to get at the others. A strange battle cry leaped from his lips; words in a language he didn’t even recognize.

What was happening here? The thought sprang to Billy’s mind. He was totally lost in this battle, an all consuming rage filled him and gave him a strength which seemed beyond his already massive muscles. For the moment he didn’t care, the enemies were falling like wheat before a scythe; he would kill them all before the day was done. He was unstoppable!

Suddenly the remaining Shelnak, who were not use to being so overwhelmed by so few a number, broke and ran in all directions. A couple more went down with strikes to their backs but a handful ran off down different passages fleeing for their lives.

Billy has the nearly overwhelming urge to chase down the Shelnak's and slay them all. (He made his roll to resist) He takes a couple of steps and then Thor and Thon's yelling at him to stop pull him up short and the fiery rage within him slowly starts to cool. As it does, Billy begins to wonder what has come over him; he had always loved battles but this was a strong bloodlust which was almost all consuming.


(Another post next week. I am not going to try and replace Dragonmist since this adventure is drawing to a close... one way or another! )

Billy's breath came in long measured rythm as he calmed himself. Looking at the scene before him and the sword in his hands he wondered exactly what had happened. It was almost like the sword itself wanted to fight. That thought shocked Billy and he dropped the giant sword. "Do you think the sword is magic or something? I am not gonna use a magic sword!" Billy was not a fan of magic as it was for the weak. He favored muscle and sweat.

"No, Billy, keep the sword. I would say it was magical and in a way that it turned certain defeat into a rousing victory. We are going to need everything we have and find, to take a near impossible mission and make it into a success."

"I would say the gods had something to do with, and I would not throw away such a "gift"."

"Do you think the sword is magic or something? I am not gonna use a magic sword!" Billy said as the great sword clattered to the stone.

"No, Billy, keep the sword.” Alea said, “I would say it was magical and in a way that it turned certain defeat into a rousing victory. We are going to need everything we have and find, to take a near impossible mission and make it into a success."

"I would say the gods had something to do with, and I would not throw away such a "gift"."
“Aye Lad,” Thor said as he heaved a sigh and stood regaining his breath after the battle, “Anything that gives ya such prowess in combat as I just witnessed cant be evil, and we need all the help we can get just now.”

Thon walked among the fallen Shelnak with his large knife in hand, he was making using the blade to reclaim Alea’s arrows and finish off any Shelnak who were still moving.

“Aye, listen to your friends,” Thon said and then said with a grin, “and if ya decide not to keep the blade, can I have it?”

Thor frowned and glared at the other dwarf and then he chuckled, “Seeing ya tryin to wield that Giant blade would be a sight.”

For the moment, the chamber was quiet as the party gathered itself and it’s things together. They had come through that battle relatively unscathed, but they knew it was not over with yet.

“That is the way we must go,” Thon pointed to the passage he had come running out of with the group of Shelnak in pursuit, “It leads further into the bowels of this forsaken place.”