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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Raffy
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The sound seemed to be drifting up from the tunnel on the left – the one which headed downward. Raffy’s thrown bowl triggered no reaction, no ingenious booby trap triggering to entomb the unfortunate crockery. Heading cautiously into it, Raffy held the light out ahead of him, examining each support as he approached it – they were slung together in an oddly haphazard fashion, and looked as if they had been mouldering down here for some time, but there were no signs of deliberate sabotage.
The tunnel went deep – corkscrewing irregularly down into the depths of the earth. There was no end in sight: to follow it down would be to rapidly lose contact with the world above...
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Lothar peered into the well, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "Uh. Well. This's my idea, so I'll go. Just let me wrap the gun up so damp won't get in the 'powder..."
Down the Tunnel
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"Hey, Raff!" Lothar called out, sliding into the tunnel behind Raffy. "Is this wise? This thing looks like it spirals int' the centre o' the earth..."
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Raffy teh Sparroze
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Raffy hears a noise behind him and spins quickly, bluss at the ready. Seeing Lothar rather than Illiya, he frowns.
"Now we have two idiots stuck in a hole," he complains.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothar
Hey, Raff! Is this wise? This thing looks like it spirals int' the centre o' the earth..."
"I'm in front, so I'll bite it first. Well, after whatever gets the 'buss." He shrugs.
"Come on. Let's be quiet if we can."
Although the boy's words seem cynical, he seems to mean them sincerely. With his body blocking the narrow passage it's unlikely that anything can reach Lothar unless Raffy's dead. It's also unlikely that Lothar can do anything to aid Raffy in a fight...
Raffy pushes on at a snail's pace, still checking each set of supports as he reaches them, and keeping an eye out for movement or light ahead.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
And here I stand, useless.
Pieter had no desire to wade in a stinking tunnel, but he hated to stand idle without knowing what was going on. He was well aware that he was no fighter, that his skills lay in other areas, but still...
He smiled at Illiiya: "The buzzard was just kidding, girl. I'm sure they'll both be back soon. No one will have to go after them."
Then he leaned over the well and yelled: "If any of you is hurt, just call me."
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Illiiya Jaelrae
Illiiya still looked decidedly nervous.
Are you sure? I don't want anything to happen to-
Don't pretend you care. You don't. You just know that your life is worth far, far more than some wretch human's.
That's not true!
However you say, coward. They're going to die down there either way.
You're lying to me! Who ARE you?
What you should be asking, is "Who am I?".
Illiiya looked disjointed down the tunnel for a few moments, before she shuddered.
T-there's... there's something bad down there. She said with a nervous shiver, Very bad. We need to get them out.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
"We know there's something bad down there," said Pieter gravely. "And we're here to deal with it."
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Illiiya Jaelrae
Illiiya closed her eyes and lowered her head... her hands clasped tightly together as she muttered softly to herself.
Please be ok. Please be ok. Please be ok. Please be ok...
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
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C'mon LCP, give us an update! I haven't burned a Fate point to save my life yet today!!
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Above ground
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'It's ok, you'll be fine, if you don't want to remember then don't, but it might hurt you more to keep getting flashes.' he shrugs at Pieter, 'Looks like we are here to pull what is left of them up. Although I would feel better being down there with them though.'
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Below Ground
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Descending warily down the winding tunnel, Raffy led the way, the lantern casting long shadows from every strut, every irregularity in the wall. More than one, it lit up the reflective eyes of rats staring at the newcomers from the darkness ahead, the rodents turning and scuttling away at the Sparrowhawk’s approach.
The passage went down deeper than Raffy would have thought feasible: the earth of the tunnel walls was damp, but there were no signs of flooding. The steady beat of the noise in the distance had not grown any louder – it seemed to permeate the walls, like something very loud rumbling through the earth from a very long way away.
At last, they came to the bottom: ahead of them, the tunnel came to an abrupt halt, a wall of earth and timber blocking the way. On the right, a smaller tunnel led back at about forty-five degrees to the way they had come: if anything even lower and narrower than the tunnel they had descended, it was angled upwards, heading back towards the surface in a different direction.
In the middle of where the tunnel ended, a strange, triangular door was set into the ramshackle planking. It looked too primitive to have a lock - there was no sound coming from the other side, either, barring the distant thumping.
[hr]
Above Ground
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Nothing was forthcoming from below ground. Whatever Raffy and Lothar had found, it must have run deep.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Don't You Open That TRAPDOOR
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Lothar frowned, glaring around the tunnel, pulling a face at the much coating his boots. "A door, eh? Probably with a ratty ol' monk on the other side. Feels like ol' times, Raffy. Should we wait for Ith or someone, or just go fer it?"
The soldier twisted his neck, shifted his shoulders; joints creaked. "This creepy-crawling stuff is giving me a crick in the neck. On the count of three?
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Sparrowhawk On the Clock
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"Three it is," Raffy says softly.
One...
Two...
(Goin' through!)
Quietly, if possible.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Below Ground
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The door opened outwards with a faint creak of its hinges – there was no sound or sign of movement from the other side, Raffy stepping tentatively over the threshold with the lantern held high.
On the other side, the tunnel widened out significantly, although the height of the ceiling barely rose: this didn’t look like the work of some mad hermit. To excavate tunnels this extensive would have taken manpower. Off to the left, a side-passage split off from the main passageway, taking a crooked jink and vanishing into darkness: ahead, the tunnel continued, the floor trampled and muddy with what looked like the signs of frequent use. The regular noise was still faint, but audibly louder here – coming from somewhere far ahead along the main branch.
There were no lights, no other noises – but as he looked around, Raffy caught sight of something in the tunnel mud at his feet.
It was a footprint, or more accurately a pawprint. Preserved by chance in the waterlogged, trampled earth, it looked a little like it had been made by a large dog – but to Raffy’s tracker’s eyes, it was clearly more elongated than the print of any canine, almost the length of a human foot. Five narrow marks clearly showed that each ‘toe’ ended in a claw...
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Raffy
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Raffy notes the signs not only off this one distinct mutant, but of regular usage by large numbers of mutants. He gives Lothat a meaningful look.
Then he nods his head back toward the door they came in through. Unless Lothar objects, he will back up to the door and exits the larger tunnel.
Once they are beyond the door Raffy gently closes it and speaks in a low voice.
"There's that switchback tunnel here, and the other branch we didn't check up at the top near the well. Take a peek in those before we go?"
OOC: Is
this a fairly accurate schematic of the tunnels? Light blue has been explored and dark blue has not.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Illiiya Jaelrae
You can... um... you can go, Ith. Illiiya said nervously. We can hold the rope, probably. Just be careful.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
"I'm not sure it's a good idea," objected Pieter. "If they need medical attention quickly, we'll need two people up here to lower me to the bottom."
He did not voice the actual reason for his reluctance to let Ithelus go: if Illiiya panicked again, who would soothe her?
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Underground
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((Based on Lothar's OOC post...))
The two take the tunnel that cuts off 45 degrees from the one they came down.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Below Ground
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Stepping back through the door, the pair closed it carefully behind them - turning around, they headed back up the second tunnel that branched backwards. It would have been a squeeze for Illiiya - for Lothar and Raffy, it was positively agonising, almost bent double as they followed the line of the passageway away from the ominous door.
Running roughly straight with the occasional jink, the tunnel had a noticeable upward slope: it seemed to go on forever without a break, no side-tunnels or wider caverns presenting themselves. After what seemed an age in the back-breaking dark, they came to what looked like a dead end: more of the same ramshackle planking barred their way, with no apparent door.
They must have climbed a significant height back up from the bottom of the tunnel beneath the well, but there was no way of knowing where they were...
Above Ground
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Another ten minutes passed, and then another fifteen. There was still not a whisper from the bottom of the well.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Pieter watched the shadows grow as the sun sank toward the horizon. This should not be taking so long.
"Is everything okay?" he yelled down the pit.
(Assuming there's no answer:)
"That's it," said Pieter firmly. "I'm going. Either something happened to them, or the place is much bigger than it looks."
He went to the nearest vendor to buy two torches. To be on the safe side, he decided to also invest in a length of rope, a few matches, two healing poultices and a bit of chalk.
OOC: I'll wait for LCP's approval before I proceed.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Underground Team 1
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Raffy looks at the ground by lantern light to see if it also looks well-traveled like the area with the footprint, or if this passage is more neglected.
Perception: [roll0] v.30
If it looks not-well-traveled, or if he can't really tell, he hands his 'buss to Lothar and takes the pry bar from his belt.
Then he begins to pry off planks from the wall that blocks their way.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Raffy & Lothar
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The tunnel did not look dusty or disused - but neither was its floor a trampled mire.
Setting to work with his crowbar, Raffy had only levered one plank out of place when the second one he set to slid back, taking an entire section of the planking with it - a concealed hatch. On the other side, the lantern-light revealed mouldering brickwork, and a strong smell of ordure - they were looking into Delberz's long-neglected sewers.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Underground Team 1
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Pleased, Raffy takes the plank he pried off and taps it back into place - probably a bit loose and crooked, but better than nothing - and goes through the door into the sewers, motioning for Lothar to follow.
He closes the plank door behind them, making sure he'll be able to open it again if needed ((if it is not possible to open it from this side, then he doesn't close it all the way)).
Then he sets about looking for a way to access the street level from the sewers. Can they get out?
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Raffy & Lothar
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The inside of the sewer was dank and decrepit: Raffy remembered his mother had told him stories as a child about the beggars who lived down in the sewers, who would snatch naughty children away. A grand civic project in centuries gone past, the sewer-works had crumbled and choked from neglect and the sudden expansion of the city – now, only those below the Old Town and Manor Road were kept in anything like working order, the outer tendrils of the system a buried relic. When the rain came, all kinds of detritus would sometimes be flushed out into the river: many of the poor folk would gather to pick the muddy banks of anything valuable that had been mouldering out of sight.
By the looks of the things, they were on the boundary of those sewers that were still in use here: from this side, the planking hiding the tunnel appeared as makeshift repairs to the crumbling bricks, the sliding panel concealing its function as an entrance.
About twenty feet off to their left, a heavy wooden ladder – damp and furry with mould from years of neglect – led up to what looked like a manhole. There was no walkway to reach it, however – to traverse the sewer would mean wading through the thin layer of filth that ran through it.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Pieter, above ground
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"I'll be right back," Pieter assured the Elves as he lit a torch. "What's the worst that can happen?"
Some might accuse him of tempting fate, but he did not believe in fate. With a deep breath, he waited for the others to lower him to the bottom.
Pieter, below ground
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Gods, was this place dark. Pieter usually felt at ease in the shadows, where he could hide, but the tunnel that stretched ahead of him gave him the creeps. He advanced cautiously, teeth gritted. There were rats everywhere... No wonder this well was the source of a disease.
He stopped abruptly when he reached a fork, and took a while to consider which way the others had likely gone. He thought he could hear a steady thumping noise from the left branch, something that sounded like the strange machines built by the engineers of Nuln.
He used his bit of chalk to draw a white X on the wall next to the left branch and, swallowing, started down the tunnel. It went very deep, and the initiate wondered what purpose all this carving and digging could possibly have served. Eventually he reached a triangular door.
Do I want to know what's behind? He shook himself. More to the point, do I have a choice?
He turned the knob.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Pieter
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The door opened with a slight creak - when nothing leapt at him from the other side, Pieter steppped carefully over the threshold, lifting the torch to survey his surroundings.
On the other side of the door, the tunnel widened significantly - earthworks this large would have needed significant manpower to excavate, or else a lot of time. The height of the ceiling did not rise much, but the floor underfoot clearly saw heavy traffic, trodden into a muddy mess. The strange thudding was louder on this side - still faint, but louder.
Something caught Pieter's attention - surviving by chance amidst the waterlogged earth, there was a footprint. Picked out in sharp shadow by the flickering torchlight, it resembled nothing Pieter had ever seen - it was something like the print of a large dog, but elongated to nearly the length of a human foot. Whatever had made it, it had claws.
Ahead, there was another fork in the tunnel - one narrow, sharply dog-legged passage led away to the left, while the main tunnel continued roughly ahead. The footprint weighing heavily in his mind, Pieter could not help but wonder what waited in the darkness up ahead...
OOC: The map in this post now applies to you too.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Underground Team 1
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Tucking the pry bar in his belt, he took another deep whiff from the pommander and then reclaimed his 'buss from Lothar. Holding the scent of the cloves in his nose, he silently said a prayer to whichever god is bravest - and thus most likely to reward bravery. But he didn't ask for anything; he simply dedicated his next steps, and whatever courage he might be exhibiting, to That hallowed deity.
Then he moved through the thin stream of sewage at a quick walking pace, leaving the closed door (and Lothar, if he stalls) behind. He didn't run outright, to avoid splashing on himself or turning an ankle. But he moved quickly over the twenty feet of mire until he reached the ladder.
There he deposited the 'buss into its oversized holster on his hip and grasped the furry beam in his free hand. Pulling himself up onto the first rung, he looked back and held the lantern high to make sure Lothar could find his way over.
With difficulty (one hand full) me manages to make his way up the ladder. If the top has a grate he can see out he'll wait till there are few or no passersby. Otherwise he just throws his shoulder into whatever hatch is at the top.
Finally, he emerges into the street. He sets down the lantern and offers Lothar a hand.
He takes his bearings and makes sure he can find his way back to the hatch, then makes his way to Helmstrum's Ward, where he sneaks up on his friends with a grin on his face....
((My goal is to creep up on them, grab hold of the rope behind Ith/Pieter/Illiiya, and then say in an affected voice, "Looks like you could use a hand 'ere. Who's down under?" If a roll is needed I have Silent Moves and Shadowing both at 39.))
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Pieter
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I should go back and inform the Elves, Pieter's common sense said.
I should push on and find out who dug this place, Pieter's curiosity replied.
His curiosity, following the nasty habit it had picked up somewhere, won the contest. Pieter took only the time to draw another X on the ground before going forward, remaining in the main tunnel.
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Raffy & Lothar (assuming Lothar goes along)
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The iron cover was almost rusted in place - it took two sharp blows from Raffy's shoulder to force it open, the impact feeling as if it would leave a pretty bruise.
Poking his head up above the level of the ground, Raffy looked around - the manhole seemed to open into a noisome alley somewhere in the lower town. Over the rooftops, the sun was dipping towards the horizon, reddening as it did so - there were no bystanders to witness his emerging from the ground, in this alleyway at least.
Pulling himself up into the fresh air, he wandered to the end of the lane, where the alley joined a larger street - he recognised it as Serpent Street, leading off the Walden Road. The tunnel had taken them quite a way - this was near the Altmarket, a fair way from the Ward.
Helping Lothar out of the manhole, he set off with a confident stride in the direction of the well where their subterranean adventure had begun - and did his best to ignore the occasional glances and nose-wrinkling expressions the people on the streets cast towards his filth-caked boots...
[hr]
Not Pieter
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Ithelus and Illiiya stared down the well - Pieter had vanished into the mysterious tunnel some five minutes ago, and there had been no sound or sight of him since. It was as if the dark gullet of the earth was swallowing up their friends, one by one.
Mr Cat mewed at their feet - beginning to turn as she heard footsteps behind her, Illiiya saw the rope suddenly pull taut, someone taking hold of it from behind. Whirling round, she saw Raffy grinning back at her, Lothar behind him.
"Looks like you could use a hand 'ere. Who's down under?" said Raffy, in an affected voice. As he said the words, the elves became aware of a powerful odour of manure - and worse things - wafting up from his feet. Looking down, they could see that both of the humans' boots were caked in a layer of brown... something...
[hr]
Pieter
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Proceeding cautiously ahead, Pieter scanned the broad tunnel ahead of him for any sign of movement - the crackling torch made the shadows seem to dance. It wasn't helping.
He came to a widening of the passageway - the walls of the tunnel bulged out to make a roughly oval space, its centre if anything even more trampled and muddy than the section by the door. This seemed to be the nexus of a veritable spider's-web of tunnels: two led away to the right, sloping slightly upwards in different directions. They closely resembled the tunnel that had turned back before the door - just as low-ceilinged and cramped, and just as dark.
The main passage continued ahead, as before - in the darkness far ahead of him, he thought he could make out another shallow branch to the right. On his left, a fourth tunnel branched off - narrow but of a reasonable height, it curved round into darkness. Barely audible over the crackle of the torch, he thought he could make out faint noises coming from it - voices, hoarse and whispering, or perhaps just the rustle of someone's breath. The thudding in the walls was louder, and nearly drowned it out...
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Pieter
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Oh, Ranald, thought the initiate when he reached the room. This confirmed what he thought: people, probably many of them,
lived in this place. Now, where had the others gone? There were too many passages. He could not just pick one and follow it...
His heart leapt in his throat when he heard the voices.
Rafale and Lothar? he wondered. He thought about calling their names, but decided against it.
Slowly, he laid his noisy (and very visible) torch on the ground and stalked towards the voices, trying to listen.
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Silent Move at half Ag (target 18): [roll0]
Wow, Ranald is with me...
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Re: [WFRP] The Hour After Midnight
Pieter
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They were voices - cracked and hoarse, barely louder than a whisper, but voices nonetheless.
"You want... to stop dreaming, Gunther," a voice was saying. "If you saw... a light, it's them as brings it, and that's... no good for none of us."
"They don't use lights," replied another voice, sulkily - still hushed, but a little louder than the first. "It don't hurt to hope."
"That's... what people keep sayin' to me," wheezed the first voice. "Funny thing, how they keep dyin'... and I'm still here." There was a slight shuffling noise. "You don't want to be... wasting your breath... hoping for a pipe dream, lad. You need it for livin', and it'll hurt all the more... when it never comes. Now pipe down... they'll hear us."