The Gnoll Mine 2

The Budgie Smugglers (Tylin [Ian], Sorrow [Jeff], Lammy [Kevin], El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], and Moonlight [Chris]) had just arrived back at the Billet Copse after fleeing out of the gnoll mines.

Argile [Richard] and Huilam [Jamie] were there, slung over the pack horses drooling marmalade. 

Jacinta Whiteface
[Joff pic]

Huilam gave a little cough, slipped off the horse, staggered to his feet, and wiped the marmalade off his mouth with the back of his hand. Moonlight suddenly sagged to his knees with a silent cry, and collapsed drooling marmalade himself. El Cid gave a mighty marmalade belch then sagged too. Huilam slung them both over the pack horses to join Argile who hadn't stirred.

The group had four new arrivals, rescued from the mine: Jacinta Whiteface the paladin, Samuel Chad the fighter, Morgan Leaf the half-elf minstrel, and John Red-shirt the farmer. They were all dressed in tattered rags (except for John whose tight red shirt was always pristine).

Already, the surrounding hills echoed with gnoll barks and hyena cackles - the gnolls use hyenas as their hunting dogs. But the group had unquestioning and uncritical faith in Burrito's track-covering skills to avoid any gnoll detection or pursuit. 

Jacinta, not one to mince words, was appalled at the disgusting IMAG taint of Sorrow and El Cid, "You are worse than the gnolls!" she said. "At least their evil is mild."

"Well, why don't you go back to them?" Sorrow sneeringly replied.

She was lawful good and not lawful stupid, so she had to suck it in and tolerate the IMAG presence over the need to rescue her companions.

Lammy gave Jacinta some paper and crayons, and she, Sam and Morgan drew a map of the tunnels that they knew, then summarized the state of play inside the mine. They had no idea as to how many gnolls: "between 20 and 100, maybe". They added that the gnolls had a bunch of hyenas too, which they used outside for hunting and tracking.

They did know that there were now eleven slaves inside: Khartoum and Betsy (the last two of their team), and five men, three half-elves (one male) and one elf. And there was one dwarf (poor Bertha) but gnolls hate dwarfs, so she was tortured and killed. As slaves, they were fed okay, but forced to work two shifts a day at the mine face, mining quartz, under the lash. The gnolls also punished their own kind by making them work on the face too as a punishment for mistakes.

 

Stamping mill

The mined quartz was taken from the face to a stamping mill in ore carts.  The mill was powered by slaves using a big treadmill wheel (this mill was seen by the group when they fled this morning). The crushed quartz was not smelted here. There was a dilapidated furnace outside among the old mining remnants, probably used in human times, but it wasn't used now. So, the crushed quartz was taken outside in slave-pulled ore carts and loaded onto piles next to the tailings. 

The three didn't know what happened to the quartz then, but the outside piles never got any bigger. So, there must be someone or some group who took it away: in wagons? Maybe to the Siren river?

While the three were briefing the party, John Red-shirt quietly slipped away to the pack horses. Here, he delicately licked the drooling marmalade off Argile, Moonlight and El Cid's lips, faces and necks with his feather-light tongue, like a little hummingbird laps at nectar in a honeysuckle trumpet flower.

Marmalade

John was working on El Cid, his long tongue buried deep in Cid's mouth, when El Cid suddenly jerked awake [Shane had arrived late]. There was the brief awkward moment when their eyes met, then John withdrew his tongue, and staggered back in alarm.

"Sorry, sir!" squeaked John. "I thought ... the marmalade ... I was just cleaning you. Sir!"

El Cid was about to sink his black IMAG fist into John's face, but he tasted the inside of his own mouth. Instead of the normal bitter grapefruit, sour lemons and pectin (drooled marmalade is known for its lack of sugar), he only tasted roses and butterscotch. It wasn't bad at all.

"Well," snapped El Cid. "Stay away."

El Cid joined the rest of the group in discussion.

John's eyes gleamed and he nodded "yes, sir", then returned to the marmalading Argile and Moonlight. He had spotted a lovely piece of sticky grapefruit lodged in the suprasternal notch of Argile's neck.

Day 11

Now that it was day, from the Billet copse on the side of the hill, they could look down into the surrounding valleys and hills. The occasional group of gnolls and hyenas could be seen wandering about, searching. 

50ft™ rope (10kg)

Burrito and Sorrow (good sneakers) left on a reconnaissance mission to the shaft on top of the mine hill. The remnants of an old lift overhead and hoist beam was here, so there were plenty of good anchor points. Sorrow affixed a rope, and climbed down into the darkness. Burrito stayed at the top and guarded. At the end of his 50ft™ rope, Sorrow could see, two storeys below him, a boxed side-tunnel off the lift shaft. So, he joined on another length of rope, climbed further down, and peered into the side-tunnel. It was a short passage that ended in a tee, with a candle in an inset at the end. He carried on deeper down the shaft, and there was another side-tunnel down another storey. This one was all dark. This was as far as Sorrow was brave enough to explore at this time.

While Burrito and Sorrow were away, El Cid, Lammy and Tylin needed to de-stress. This meant indulging their vices.

• El Cid again tried to find things to break, but he had yet more bad luck, and the rocks he selected were quite sound and unbreakable. [1 - the 3rd in a row]
• Tylin satiated his obligation to Sly Stone with a little prayer and some correspondence [4]. 
• Lammy, once again the master of Weird, found another wild beehive, and spend six glorious hours rolling about in the honey with his raw ginger and napkin rings [6].

When Burrito and Sorrow returned with their news, the group decided to do the rescue mission that night. The plan was for Sorrow, master of SNEAK, to do a quick scout alone, and then return to collect the entire group when he spotted a viable path.

Jacinta, Sam and Morgan were still in their tattered rags (even if very fetching and stylish rags; hauts lambeaux), so they needed some better gear if they were going to help with the rescue mission. The group had seen lots of equipment in Thorn's workshop the other day, so Tylin & Burrito suggested that they take the three on the four-hour round trip to see Thorn. 

While planning this trip, the three were surprised to hear that Thorn actually made the very staves that they were seeking; the Staves of the Phylactery. But when they heard that the main component was the skull of a virgin girl, they were horrified. 

"We shouldn't have taken that cursed job off Billet after all," muttered Jacinta to Sam. "He never said anything about evil, or virgin skulls."

Then she turned on the group, and said with bitter sarcasm "But why does this stop you lot from completing the damn mission? You all travel with, and condone, those two sickening REAL-cursed abominations, yet you let the mere murder and decapitation of a virgin girl get on your conscience?! Take a Perspective Pill." 

Two hours later, when they arrived at Thorn's place, he was outside tending his precious runner beans. 

Jacinta noticed immediately that he cast no shadow, and she whispered to Tylin "he is evil, but it's weird sort of; I get waves of it - on then off." Then she couldn't help herself "but, nothing compared to the two IMAG bum-boys in your group."

Thorn

Thorn surveyed the newcomers with interest.

"Ah, a paladin of REAL," he said. "Welcome! Welcome! Would you like some tea?"

He motioned everyone inside to his workshop-cum-kitchen-cum-lounge. 

Jacinta certainly noticed the six unfinished evil Staves of the Phylactery along the back wall, but said nothing; she was on best behaviour not to make any scathing or sarcastic comments in front of Thorn.

Thorn made his delicious tea for everyone. This time Tylin and Burrito took to it with great gusto [each dropped a stress]. Jacinta looked and sniffed her cup, as Samuel and Morgan watched on. Satisfied, she then nodded to them, and all three drank the delicious brew. [NPCs don't use the Stress game mechanic. They are protected by such literary elements as 'narrative function' and 'plot armour'.]

After tea, Thorn rummaged through his gear scattered through his rooms. He certainly had lots of odds and sods. Sure enough, he managed to scrape together enough to equip Jacinta and Samuel with last-season chainmail armour and weapons. And he found Morgan a fetish set of cuir bouilli (leather armour). He found some toy bows, too, for Morgan and Samuel.

Jacinta grudgingly gave thanks, and even a blessing of REAL. And then everyone went back to the Billet copse.

While the others were away with Thorn, Huilam and Lammy spent the day building one huge rope ladder (100ft) out of four 50ft™ ropes ready for the night mission. This basically used up all the party rope.

As it was now a couple of hours before dark, they began to get worried about the vampires again. Someone suggested moving to the owlbear cave. So, they headed for there. It was an hour's travel from the gnoll mine shaft.

It had been many days since they were last in the owlbear-spider cave system. The owlbear cave was on a side passage and had its own exit, but this cave was now strewn with spider webs. Obviously, the spiders had ventured down the owlbear tunnel (the one unblocked by the group). The party soon burned all the webs clear (they didn't see any spiders), and then re-blocked the connecting tunnel. 

Then night fell.

_________________________

It was time to put the cunning plan into action. Sorrow and El Cid went back to the shaft. El Cid stayed up the top to protect the lift head, and Sorrow went down on a double rope.

He explored below down the side tunnel (candle inset).  The candle was at a tee. One way lead to a room with a lot of chatting gnolls. The other way curved around, past several dark passages heading off, like spokes on a wheel. The tunnel width was generally two-people wide, and not as short as the spider tunnels. Nevertheless, gnolls would always have to stoop.

At one time a gnoll patrol of two ambled past. Sorrow hid in one of the spoke passages. 

Further down, the passage opened into a room where he could hear the clink of chains, the barks of  gnolls and the groans of prisoners. From the passage tunnel (not too close!) he could see one chained man sitting on the floor. Jacinta had said that there were always six gnoll guards. 

None of the spoke passages seemed travelled, from what he could see with his IMAG eyes, but at no time did Sorrow explore them in detail.

Unable to progress any further Sorrow went back to the shaft, and climbed down to the deeper level. "Level 2" he named it. He took a few paces down the passage here. It smelt musty and wet, but he didn't explore any more than that.

Down the shaft, he could see another side passage off the shaft "Level 3", but he didn't go down there at all. And beyond that, the shaft hit water.

Then Sorrow returned to the surface and to El Cid. So, having reconnoitered, the two took the on-hour walk back to the owlbear cave to collect the rest of the party. 

Morgan Leaf

Everyone traipsed back to the shaft. They carried the new rope ladder. They expected that Argile and Moonlight would wake up during this foray into the Gnoll mine, so they made a conscious decision to bring the (surprisingly clean) marmalading bodies along. With the extra carrying capacity of Jacinta, Samuel and Morgan, this was just feasible without needing a pack horse, even with the nonresponsive dead-weight of drooling bodies. So, the only one left in the owlbear cave was non-combatant John Red-shirt, and the two pack horses, and faithful guard Mister Clucky, the war capon.

It was almost midnight when they all got to the shaft. First, they dumped the two marmaladers up by the shaft.

"If they wake up, they can sodding well climb down themselves."

Next, with the double-length rope ladders, it was easy enough for everyone to climb all the way down to "Level Two", and to creep into the musty tunnel entrance, and wait. The plan was for Sorrow to recheck the tunnels above, to see if anything had changed in the last three hours.

Sorrow went up to "Level One", the gnoll level. He spotted that Khartoum and Betsy had annoyingly been split up. Khartoum was in the prisoner chamber, which meant Betsy must be at the mine face digging.

While Sorrow was out, a wave of musty air washed down the tunnel, past everyone patiently waiting there. No-one was brave enough to check it.

Then Sorrow returned and hissed "Time to strike!"