(081) Journeymen Returned

[sully]

Dorgan pulls the Marrowstone from his sack and concentrates on it, looking for the closest source of precious metals. Once he is done, he uses the Marrowstone's power to enhance his darkvision to make sure he's missed nothing in the cave.

Ways, do you have the Marrowstone's powers handy? I've forgotten exactly how it works.

[mushgnome]

Invisible Highbough speaks: "Let us flood the boulder with water. Come winter, the ice will expand, creating tiny cracks. Over the years and decades that follow, the boulder will gradually work itself free from the surrounding rock. We won't even have to lift a finger!" Meanwhile, he is using his keen racial senses to search the ogre lair for secret doors, panels, hidey-holes, etc.

[waysoftheearth]

Dorgan unwraps the Marrowstone delicately, the living Heart of a Mountain. The stone lightens to his touch; become almost translucent, with veins of blue and golden light running through it silently like electricity. It is the most enchanting thing, and Dorgan feels a certain kinship for this rock. He is aware of its ancientness and its grave saddness that something is irrevocably wrong. But all that is a distant undercurrent. He asks the stone, in his mind, of the whereabouts of gold, and soon he is convinced the stone has told him there is gold about 200ft away, in a mostly north of north-west direction. Beyond the heavy boulder and the back wall of the cave.

Meanwhile, Invisible Highbough's disembodied voice continues to rasp something about the ice ages, but his inscrutable meditations do not reveal to him any other means of egress from this place. It appears that the boulder will have to be bested.

Ways, do you have the Marrowstone's powers handy? I've forgotten exactly how it works.

From ancient memory it was a matter of holding it and communicating telepathically with it in the Oldest Dwarfish dialect Dorgan knows... it could sense gold and silver... and knew the insides of a particular mountain intimately... and, perhaps, something other...

[sully]

Dorgan says Well, we're here. And I'd be willing ta guess there's another way inta this cave. And I know there's some gold or silver inside there. Why don't we look for another entrance? If we can get some treasure, we can mebbe buy some food from the elves.

I don't suppose, in the year that Dorgan was doing nothing other than chilling out in the Abbey, that he figured out what else the Marrowstone does?

Also, does Dorgan remember seeing any picks or shovels or mining tools back at the Abbey?

[waysoftheearth]

WEN [ AC 9, Mv: 12", HD 4, HP ? not rolled after level, AL L] No Armor + Helm + Bow

Okay, here come some hp rolls for all three players for this new adventure:

Dorgan (5th level fighter) 5 HD: 6, 2, 5, 6, 2
Wen (Hero/Spellbinder) 4 HD: 4, 3, 1, 3
Highbough (5th level Warlock) 4 HD: 5, 2, 1, 4

You should also apply any Con adjustment per die (minimum 1 hp per die).

p.s. Dorgan's stat line should be: Fighter 5, AC 3/5 (mail is AC 6, shield +2 front only, helm +1), HD 5

[mushgnome]

Mining treasure from a cave? In this--and this one thing alone!--Invisible Highbough yields to the dwarf's expertise. "I'll keep watch!" the disembodied voice calls helpfully. The old Elf takes a deep breath of fresh air and approaches the rope bridge, scanning the ravine for any sign of food, water, or danger.

[waysoftheearth]

Dorgan closes his eye a moment, and frowns deeply as he presses his memory for clues. Yes, he remembers there are a bunch of gardening tools back at the abbey; not mining tools, mind, but things that would pass for shovels and trowels at a need... that the Marrowstone is a living thing he is certain; however its deeper mysteries are beyond his reckoning; unearthing those would would perhaps need the mighty Lore of a Longbeard or a Forgepriest. Dwarfs of that vintage are few and far...

Highbough's stat line:
* AC should be 6/6 (leather is 7, helm is -1).
* You need not include the -4 hp adj (due to Con) against his HD, since a HD adjustment affects fighting capability vs normal types (e.g., explicit veteran and troll examples in 3LBBs). And we don't believe Highbough's con penalises him in combat vs normals.... or do we?? There is a question that could be asked of the OD&D High Priests...

[sully]

Dorgan leaves the cave and begins the search for another entrance to the tunnels underneath.

[waysoftheearth]

Dorgan exits the cave, squinting a moment even in the overcast daylight outside, as he considers the terrain.

It's a rocky, and hilly, with no shortage of ravines about. Genuinely bad going once yer off the beaten track. Ogres ain't no light foots either, Dorgan figures, so if they're getting about in these parts they'd probably have made a few signs. He conducts a sweep around the cave entrance, out to about 20 yards or so, but he doesn't spot anything that might be an ogre-print, or damage, or litter. Seems that they ain't been coming this way in a while.

So where are they at? What he needs is a higher vantage to get a better look around...

The ref decides to use a regular search roll for Dorgan; 1d6=?

[sully]

Dorgan says, seemingly to no one in particular, I need ta get ta higher ground. Better view.

Then he looks for a better vantage point to observe the terrain.