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Porky snorts, while he does have a strong sense of smell, his tracking skills are not directly tied to his abilities. He stops to look among the fallen.
"Porky see Devils. Porky may have to fight Devils. Anyone see clues before porky keep tracking?
Porky looks among the Devils weapons and the guards for the strongest looking weapon on the feild. He doesn't know if Devils are poisonous but he has been told you might need a special weapon to cut them.
Maynard looks over the scene and sighs.
You fought well brave warriors, now onto your final rest. Let's press forward to see if we can find any still alive, but return swiftly so that we can return their gear to the town at least. If we have time I'd like to bring their remains back to town for a proper ceremony, but I doubt we have time to carry them all so far. It seems unlikely a devil would try to ambush in the daytime by hiding amongst the dead, but we may as well be thorough.
Maynard will run each devil through to be sure of their deadness, slowly at first on a side limb to make sure there are no illusions affecting it, then thoroughly. [unless there's some risk from stabbing dead devils, which I have enough Kn(planes) of to know if there's at least a potential risk]
[what're the funeral customs here? burial? pyre? various? ]
Bryanthe purses her lips in frustration. And worry. And disgust, try as she might to fight it back. This part of her vocation will never get less disturbing. Just… Give me a moment, please? she asks the others, fluttering nervously from body to body, drawing sacred symbols into the air with a shaky finger, looking for a sign, any sign of enduring life and studying the wounds. Poking the odd one, even.
Spoiler: OOC
Spot: [roll0] and
Heal: [roll1] to look for survivors and double-check causes of death.
Ja was shocked by the violence of the scene. She had never seen something like this... the carnage, the bodies... her mind rushed into adrenaline tugging the primal nature of the Skarn, driving her mad... she corralled those feelings by going ferally focused on the hunt at hand, shifting her essentia into her Girallon arms, she started climbing towards the trail. Axe in hand, ready to pounce. She wanted to reach the rock outcropping.
Spoiler: OoCSwft action to move two essentia to Girallon's arms, Ja now has +12 total to climb and will jump and climb her way to a higher position from where she can see where the trail leads.
Due to your through actions you can tell that all the devils here are in fact very dead. Sadly, the same applies to the guards laying on the cold stone ground. Your knowledge that you have acquired over your various years of life tell you the proper burial is a pyre in the village next to the totem of town. As to preserve their spirts and further strengthened the town from harm.
Due to Maynards knowledge they know that the guards weapons are silver made effective towards undead and that they are also carrying Demons bane. Where it makes death guaranteed to devils coating the wounds in a white film.
Bryanthe notices the wounds mainly made of claws chain laceration wounds. No signs of poison or anything indicating more than physical injuries.
Due to Porky's quick search, he was able to find a total of 5 silver longswords. 6 Silver daggers, 2 silver great swords and 5 silver tipped javelins. Throughout the field there are some broken blades, but some weapons look to be missing. Perhaps the other guards claimed them to help future combat.
Ja scouting ahead notices some bodies of the devils with white film leading deeper into the rocky terrain towards a cliff face. The way their bodies are position looks to be as they were trying to flee from the pursuit of the guards. Roughly another twenty devils were killed from what you could see. No more guards bodies though. Indicating the larger battle was behind you. Should you proceed further you would see an opening in the cliff face. About 15 feet wide roughly 7 feet tall. A dark bloody trail leading in showing injured devils fled into it. The stone to dense to see where the guards and the captain went through, but you have a strong sense telling you they probably followed them inside.
Standing a distance away, Ekkehardt glances at Maynard. ”These are kyton, or what are commonly referred to as chain devils. They require silvered or holy weaponry to meaningful harm. Although taking into consideration they’re covered in demonsbane and thus are likely dead, if you wish to take extra precautions, the guards’ weapons are silver.”
As he finished speaking, he looked over the bodies of the guards in hopes of potentially finding something he could use, such as bows or unused demonsbane.
Porky reached down and grabbed a scabbard and silver greatsword. He slung them over his back and picked up the 5 silver javelin.
"Porky track now."
Porky sees the obvious trail of blood but looks for any clues that the captain and guards could have gone a different direction.
[roll0] survival
If there is no other tracks to be concerned about Porky takes off following the blood trail.
(Porky notices that the captains tracks/scent goes more to the north east, while as the guards and demons lead into the cave ahead of them.)
Porky stops, no longer heading toward the cave.
"Captain no go into cave, he go this way"
Porky heads after the captain.
Cyndred gazes over the battlefield and is...conflicted. It is, undeniably a tragedy; beyond the personal tragedies of the dead, the loss of so many guards could be devastating for the town. And yet, Cyndred is uncomfortably excited at the thought that he is so close to a fight with the monsters that have torn apart so many lives, his own among them. For the first time he's going to have a chance to extract some measure of revenge, to indulge int he fury that wracks him without fear of consequence, and he is secretly, guiltily thrilled.
When Porky moves to follow the Captain's tracks Cyndred speaks. Wait. Are we really going to abandon whatever of the guards might still be alive in the caves above? Are the Captain and his daughter really so much more important?"
Unless anyone shows interest in taking any, Ekkehardt pockets all the unused vials he found, keeping a demonsbane in hand, but makes no attempt to obtain a silvered weapon. When he's done, he heads in the direction of where the captain supposedly was while keeping a distance.
Ja signals what she sees and inspects the bodies. Picking up a silver greatsword, not her favorite weapon, silver is bland an heavy. Much heavier than her axe. She keeps thinking of this nuance to avoid the dread of the scene hit her. She hears Porky. And though she doesn’t want to leave the guards to their fate, she is here to find the girl. And she moves away with Porky on the captain trail
Porky snorts out a response.
Captain and girl first. Save guards on way back, if any left.
He continues after the captain.
"Fair Enough," Cyndred agreed and followed after the tracking man. Either way, he knew that he'd have a chance to indulge his fury soon enough.
Seeing the others arming themselves from the fallen, Cyndred grabed a couple of silvered daggers and slipped them into his belt.
Eria jogged after Porky, leaving the battlefield and remains alone. She had little use for weapons, after all. "If you notice something other than the captain nearby, or smell more blood, let me know, okay?" She asked him. "I can scout ahead and ensure we don't run into a horde of live demons like that."
Not a one alive. Bryanthe sits down sideways for a moment, pressing a cool hand against her own nape. She does her best not to puke, if for no other reason, then to make sure that when the others start to suddenly move away at breaknecks speed, she'll notice. Her free hand falls on the hit of a nearby silvered dagger. She looks down, frowns slightly, but grabs hold of it. It's not really her thing, stabbing people. But it's light enough, can be of use with cleaning wounds if it comes to that and someone else might need it lat… Oh, well. The ever less merry chase continues and she didn't notice quite fast enough. That'll be more running for her. I'm coming! she informs the backs of the others, on the odd chance any are even listening, while trying to keep musings on whether the dead really bore claw marks when their slain foes didn't seem to have claws to when she'll have someone to tell that much.
Maynard will take one silvered longsword, planning to deal with retrieval of anything not taken for immediate use later, after they'd investigated the other locations. He will then follow Porky's tracking.
Porky picking up the captain's trail. A short time later you come across two sets of footprints again. A small set with a large man following behind rapidly. Leading into a dark pit in the ground. If you approach it you feel a strong chill radiating from inside of it. Faint frost covers the area surrounding the hole.
It's clear that the captain followed his daughter inside. Due to the smell around the pit. You don't smell any devils. Telling you that the devils from before might not have been related to the captain's daughter.
(The pit is about 30 ft deep before leading into a tunnel going further underground. You would be able to traverse down it by walking if you're careful. At the bottom is solid ground. It looks as if the captain jumped straight in without hesitating. Rapidly following her trail showing a great deal of tracking experience.)
[What do you all do?]
Ja looks at the descent and strapping her axe to her back, she looks at the others.
I'll climb down to see what's down there
Then she started to climb down with her additional Girallon arms.
Maynard will carefully scrutinize the pit from the outside to see what he can tell. [using detect evil]
Entering a mysterious pit radiating magic of some sort seems risky. But I suppose its worth a modest exploration to see what we can tell, I'd be hesitant to go far into it though without a better understanding of it. I'll think if I can recall anything about it.
Porky waves for the others to follow. He climbs down carefully into the pit.
"why little girl come down here.... very suspicious"
Once he reaches the bottom of the pit he looks around
As Maynard focuses on the pit using detect evil you feel a cold chill creep throughout your body. After a few seconds of focusing your head starts feeling dizzy and an overwhelming presence. If you continue to focus you know you might faint due to whatever lies ahead. Due to the power, you are briefly stunned. (6 sec stun if you push yourself for more info faint for [roll0]x10 minutes[/roll])
For a few moments, Ekkehardt blankly stares down the pit. It didn't seem like a particularly good idea to go down without consideration for quickly getting back up if necessary, so he opened up his bag, replacing the demonbane in hand with a piton and rope, using them to make it easier to reliably go up or down without concern.
When he was done, he descended into the pit behind the others. Ekkehardt considered taking out a demonbane in case there were more devils, but he decided an empty hand would be better in the meantime, as whatever was down here could be something else.
As Ekkehardt travels down the pit only he hears
Turn back...
Flee...
Kill them all!!!
Revenge!!!
Finally we can have our vengence!
Blademaster Kill that beast!
Thanks for defeating me!
You fools coming in run! You cant stop it!
Poor little girl...
That man is strong!
All manor of different voices assault your ears. Your unsure how but young and old. Men and women. Some cheering on someone who inside. While others warning you of entry.
Young ones turn back! The powerful swordsmen defeated most of us but some still remain!
Even the 3 that are left might prove to much!
They're so young...
He is battling that demonic ghost!
Oh no its doing its tricky again!
He is outnumbered!
Voices continue assaulting Ekkehardt. You feel it might be related to your perk.
Maynard suddenly stops his intense gaze, and stand befuddled for a moment, staring blankly. When he recovers he speaks.
I'm sensing a very powerful evil presence coming from there, strong enough to numb my mind. While I'm not powerful, it still takes quite a presence to produce an aura strong enough to hurt my mind so. Whatever causes this foul aura is probably beyond our ability to defeat. I could try to probe further with my powers, but I'd faint for awhile, and given how precious time is at the moment, anything I might learn would be of less value given the costly delay. Still, it could just be that the area itself is under a dark dweomer, and that we could save some without having to deal with the source. Can anyone else tell anything about this?
Porky, reaching the bottom begins to journey further inward. He holds his silver javelins in hand, ready to throw at any dangers that show themselves.
Ekkehardt is shocked by the sudden shouting and stops momentarily, confused as to what was going on, although he had a guess. While it was a minor headache to not block out the voices, there was something more important than comfort right now. "....a demonic ghost? No, demonic ghosts—three specifically. To whoever mentioned the undead, do you have any further details on these monsters?"
As he spoke, he began searching for deathsbane, although he wasn't sure about it's effectiveness against incorporeal creatures.
Cyndred claps Maynard on the shoulder and says, Well, at least we know we're in the right place then."
The craggy man closes his eyes briefly and sighs, a weight quite literally leaving his shoulders as the flames wafting from his pate blow out in a rising breeze. The lines of ember light fade speed up, faint wisps swirling around his frame.
Cyndred opens his now unnaturally bright blue eyes and steps out over the pit, drifting down to to bottom to join Porky.
Just before hitting the ground he closes his eyes again, skin roughening and becoming craggier as he crashes to the ground, feet sinking slightly into the floor.
Obsidian eyes open and stare into the tunnels.
Spoiler: OOC - Cyndred AriangarCyndred Binds Air for the flight speed to get down into the pit before binding Earth at the bottom.
Listen: [roll0]
Eria looked down the pit, judging its depth. She could climb down the normal way, but..."Right, don't be afraid, please." she gave a quick warning to those remaining at the top of the pit, then allowed herself to change.
Her form flowed, her body changing and her limbs rearranging themselves and multiplying. Before long a large white spider stood where before a half-elf had been standing.
Eria quickly scuttled down the pit, the darkness swallowing her as her ring's magic kicked in. Once she reached the bottom she changed back. The spider form was good for a lot of things, but talking wasn't one of them. Unfortunately the change back was rather less graceful and took rather more effort. Eria hoped that the darkness and her ring kept herself hidden as she struggled to regain her human form.
She listened in to the others, then wondered why she'd even bothered changing back.
"I'll scout ahead. If you hear loud screeching, something scary found me before I found it." she announced to the group, the changed back to her spider form again. She then scuttled down the tunnel, quickly taking to the ceiling to reduce her odds of being easily spotted.
Spoiler: OOC
Tunnel was dark, so I'm invisible to anyone using darkvision to see.
Spot: [roll0]
Listen: [roll1]
Move silent: [roll2]
Hide: [roll3]
Eria moving forward sees slashes into the caves face. The sword lines piercing deep into the stone. (6 feet at least stretching over 10 feet at parts.) You see undead corpses torn asunder. You can tell these ones are powerful based from the muscles their bodies possess, but they were ruthlessly cut down. Mixing from all kinds of life it seems. You see only three creatures shuffling about. While the rest lay motionless.
One is missing an arm looking to be a farmer when he was alive. The other with a big sword slash wounding it. The last one is crawling on the ground with its legs severed. Clearly, they are heavily damaged.
(They are unable to currently detect you.)