Expedition - Lug/Exploration - May 20, 1 VC

[Keehnelf]

I checked the Town Business thread and it looks like Lug did buy 8 days of rations before leaving Vaul.

[Zhym]

Thanks. IIRC, Lug also had enough food left over at the end of the previous expedition to be giving it to others. I think I bumped Lug up to two weeks of rations. I'm going to assume that I dropped a 1 from the start of his ration supply and he should have 11 days, not 1, if that's okay.

[Keehnelf]

That's fine with me.

[KingOfCowards]

Bertram looks glumly at the new landscape. Its quite disconcerting to learn that Adrienne's last know whereabouts are crushed and buried beneath so much rock.
He considers trying to dig to find some clues, but without the proper tools he knows this would be nearly impossible.

He continues on with the group, keeping his eyes open for signs of life or humanoid travel.
1 day ration deducted

[Zhym]

As they trudge toward the mountain, Lug makes conversation. "Who were you wanting to see hanged?" he asks Bertram.

[hedgeknight]

Krysta shakes her head at the devastation and takes a sip of water as the group decides what to do. "Are we sure all of the lava rock is cool enough to walk on? Maybe there's a pool of lava close by and we don't have to venture all the way to the mountain."

[Zhym]

"The mountain's our best guess for where Adrienne is," says Lug. "That's why we're going there."

"The lava thing...well, until we figure out a way to drop the sword into lava without anyone getting hurt, that's not really something I'm planning on yet."

[KingOfCowards]

As they trudge toward the mountain, Lug makes conversation. "Who were you wanting to see hanged?" he asks Bertram.

Bertram snaps to attention, surprised by the question, his mind clearly focused on something else.
He quizzically at Lug, until realizing this had been brought up on their first day out of town. "Oh that? Your friend Varas, if I had my way." He states this matter of factly, if there is any tinge of regret that this may offend, he does not show it. "Killing in cold blood is a cowardly business. I cannot say I understand magic, and I cannot say I understand this cursed sword. But by all accounts Numen never so much as lifted the sword in self defense, before he was murdered. And if Numen, himself, was charmed by the sword before he charmed you...what then? We live in a civilized world, or at least we claim to. I had ventured with Numen, he at least deserved a trial before his sentence."

[Zhym]

"Numen didn't have to lift the sword," answers Lug. "He just put the mojo on me and Wendall. That's like an attack but it's worse. I can Reason with someone who tries to use a sword on me!" Lug grins wide.

"You weren't there," he says, serious again. "There wasn't no Law and Numen was as much a bad guy as any orc or goblin I ever met. Varas just did what he thought he had to. I probably owe him my life."

"So wouldja lay off of him? Please?"

[Keehnelf]

May 25, 1 VC - 3:50pm

The party trudges warily across the broken stone field, impressed as they go by the heat emanating from the ground. It may be that far below some of that rocky landscape still boiled, or that the heat carried by the stone was having difficulty dissipating for some reason, but despite the cool air everyone finds themselves sticky and sweaty by the time they cross to the other side a mile distant.

On the far side, they find the terrain more difficult, once again surrounded by the blackened hulks of mighty fallen trees, with a lone straggler that somehow weathered the flames still standing, or a trunk shattered thirty feet up, standing sentinel over the devastation. The group picks their way slowly and implacably across the miles between themselves and the hovering bulk of the mountain, until finally the next afternoon they stand before it. The entire western base of the mountain has become a black and blistered scar, the lava that had pooled there after the eruption cooling to form a tarry scab on the landscape. What little vegetation had once grown there has been incinerated or withered from the noxious fumes released, and the face of the mountain itself, honeycombed from within once upon a time by skilled dwarven hands, has fallen loose in a slope of jagged stones the size of houses, revealing a number of irregular openings far up a new-formed cliff-face.

A crow, sitting on a nearby cluster of new-minted volcanic stones near the party, seems to inspect them as they inspect the wreckage of the mountain. Unsatisfied, it caws once before flapping away to the north in the afternoon sun.

Please deduct one day's rations each.

[Zhym]

"At least we don't have to worry about finding an entrance," says Lug.

-1 day of rations

[Zorroroaster]

Orrin bristles at the suggestion.

"Do I look like a mountaineer to you?"

He continues to grumble to himself as they approach the mountain.

1 days ration deducted.

[Zhym]

"Beats me," says Lug. "I didn't even know mountains had ears!"

[Spartakos]

"At least we don't have to worry about finding an entrance," says Lug.

"Aye," speaks Galen, "but we may have difficulty finding one that leads anywhere, and won't collapse upon our heads. I recommend caution, my friends."

2 days rations deducted, 1 for now and 1 for last time.

[hedgeknight]

Krysta Kane

Krysta realizes those weeks in town didn't do her any favors to get in shape for hiking in the wilds. Breathing hard and flushed from sweat, she pours a trickle of water down the back of her neck before taking a couple of gulps. Looking at the side of the mountain, she dreads climbing up there. But she will do it because she promised Lug.
"Should we just...(huff)...start climbing and...(puff)...hope to find an entrance? (cough) Or could there be one...(wheeze)...around on the other side?"

[Zorroroaster]

"Ears? What are you...oh. Ha. Funny guy."

Orrin looks up at the exposed rock face.

"Well, let's get 'er done. This mountain ain't getting any shorter and I sure as hell ain't getting any taller."

[Marullus]

Niles and his wolfhound troop along with the others, the dog's tongue panting excessively. Niles gives him cold water as often as they can stop, his own frail body drenched in sweat. He offers no complaint, however, a hardened and grim will driving him through the harsh physical conditions, much in contrast to his first outings.

He looks to the rock face and then to Orrin. "How do you propose we do it?"

(-1 ration for him, -1 ration for two days of Ferris)

[Keehnelf]

Inspecting the broken mountain face further as they approach, the party can see that the bottom forty feet of so are a sheer drop, but above that there are plenty of abrupt ledges and breaks that form a rough stair that could allow them to ascend much of the remaining height, past numerous openings in varying conditions. The lowest opening appears to be roughly thirty feet up that stair, or seventy feet above the field of broken stone that makes up the ground below.

[Zhym]

Lug looks down at Orrin, confused. "Did I say something funny?" he asks.

Looking back up at the cliff blocking access to the mountain, he frowns. "Anyone bring a rope and grappling hook?"

[Zorroroaster]

Responding to Niles, Orrin laughs.

"Damned if I know. I suppose we get closer and see if any of those are reachable by something other than a mountain goat. Otherwise we're down to hammering in spikes and praying. Or we skirt around like Krysta suggests, see if there's another way in."