Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Jaali will walk just in front of Yuan-Cheng, in case the person in the room in waiting with a crossbow.

So he'll get shot?

Jaali enters the room (3a) and sees a terrified skull warrior (with a spear, lowered), who surrenders as soon as he sees the monk and starts blabbering in Island tongue. Kanya can translate when she enters with Apinya.

Don't kill me! Please! I just want to get back to my village! This is madness!

Anyhoo, the room looks like an old library with lots of wooden shelves on the far wall containing a bunch of old mouldering scrolls and bits of old twine, etc. A quick search reveals that the scrolls all collapse into dusty fragments as soon as you touch them, and there is nothing of any value here.

Next.

Maju brushes himself off as he gets to his feet and takes stock of his fresh wounds. After binding them hastily, he reaches out his hand to Teruk and says, "Thank you friend. You have shown yourself to be truly honorable and brave. You are a credit to your people." Maju looks at the other villagers, battered, bruised, tired. He adds, "We should get you all home now."

Now, there is really nothing to stop Maju going with Teruk, his rescued family and the warriors, back to the village. So that is definitely happening.

Maju has made numerous very good reaction rolls with the villagers, so he is right in the fold there.

The rest of you are still in room 3 / 3a, looking at a terrified skull warrior, and a bunch of useless old scrolls. Room 4 still unexplored. Jaali still in gaseous form.

"Where's his village?"

If he's one of Teruk's men, Kanya will let him go with curt nod at the door. He'd better move fast before she changes her mind.

If he's not one of Teruk's men, she'll want to know more about the village though -- location, number of armed guards, allegiances, that sort of thing.

Meanwhile, Yuan-Cheng will march the two captives into room 4. YC will stay about 10 feet behind them.

The skull warrior you just rescued replies he is from Yondara, a village in the south, but was drawn into the Skull Cult by promises of adventure, and was sent up here. His village is not allied with the Skull Village, and was heading towards war with the Skull Cult when he left. So he's a traitor, basically.

His village has 1000 people in it, and maybe 300 fit men, with only about 50 of those being particularly good fighters. He says Skull Village is much larger, maybe three times the size. His village has no special defenses. Dinosaurs do not go down that far.

Meanwhile, the monk marches the other two captives over to the open secret door and looks down the tunnel. There's an old spear sticking out of a cavity in the wall, in the first 10 of the passage, on the western side. There's also a dried bloodstain on the floor. The thief Jaali can easily detect a series of 9 pressure plates in the floor, which take up almost the whole corridor. One of these has been activated.

The captives tell you (through Apinya) that a skull warrior was sent down to investigate, and a spear shot out of the wall and nearly killed him as soon as he entered the tunnel. That was when the group first arrived. It's pretty obvious there are more traps, so no one has been down there again.

Down the corridor you can see another library room with more wooden pigeon holes for scrolls set into the walls. The ones you can see are empty but you can't see the corners of the room.

What now?

Jaali, talking to the captive, with an intimidating tone :

"Take up that spear and poke every tile in that hallway. We may let you live if you do this for us."

"But...I'll die!"

(He is covered in burns, has only has 3hp left, and wasn't very clever to begin with.)

"Not while you're standing on them, you idiot!" says Apinya. "Poke them from in front, with the length of the spear."

OOC - Jaali is that what you intended?

(Yeah, exactly what I wanted. Seems safe enough, but just in case something bad happens, I prefer that the captive does it)