Chapter 3: Third time's the charm

[drpete]

Date: Skullmont 13, 9:50 am
Season: Early Fall
Light Sources: Brother Galen (Lantern, 3 hours, 20 minutes remaining), Climent (Lantern, 3 hours, 20 minutes remaining)
Time since rest: 40 minutes
Moon phase: Waxing Gibbous
Location: Orc Room

With the zombies gone, the group moves to the orc room door, and finds it unlocked. Going in, you see that things here are different... The room where you had taken refuge on your last visit seems to have new occupants. The first thing you notice is the smell of pipe weed.

The orc "nest" has been cleaned up. You see the remains of some of that bedding in the northwest corner. It seems that someone has piled a lot of "junk" there... you see one of the broken tables on its side there, covered with a tarp, as well.

In the south of the room, you see several bedrolls, and a pile of what looks like some adventuring gear... you see rope, some torches, and so on.

Flanking the doors, you see two large amphorae.

roman-amphora-ar2213.jpg (381.81 KiB) Viewed 597 times

There doesn't seem to be anyone here. At the moment...

[Zorroroaster]

"Huh." Torgyr looks unimpressed at the signs of other inhabitants. "Anyone want to refresh me on dungeon etiquette when it comes to shared spaces? Part of me feels a little bit of ownership here, having not only spilled blood but lost lives getting this far. That said, I also don't want to cause trouble with anyone who might be a potential ally. It's clear we'll find precious few of those down here. What do you think? At very least I don't think we should touch anything just yet. It may be that the denizens of Dwimmermount will solve our dilemma for us in their own manner."

[kalstone]

Solaine shrugs. "Judging from the orcs, skeletons and zombies, it looks like they stirred up the hornet's nest in here. If they're still alive, they'll need our help more than we'll need theirs. Let's bar the door and rest 10 minutes. We'll see if anything shows up." She wanders over to carefully look into the amphorae.

[Lamech]

"They cleaned up the place. Hopefully they did something about the bodies too. I can't be grudge them anything they scavanged though. I for one don't want well equipped undead orcs. The jars look fancy. Maybe there worth something?"

[drpete]

Curiously, though the group calls it the "orc room" Randolpho didn't see any orcs on their previous visit, or orc bodies. This room used to be a "nest" or bedroom of some orcs, and now seems to be a camp for some other people. The bodies of the orcs had been "cleaned up" before your previous visit.

The amphorae are big, but undecorated. This makes the pottery itself fairly valueless... they're kind of a pottery version of a barrel. Solaine finds that the south one is sealed with wax, but the north one seems to be open. And filled with... lamp oil!

[bobloblah]

"It would seem some other lot has beaten us to our goal of establishing a strongpoint..." Galen looks around the chamber and sniffs, "...at least they cleaned the place up!"

Looking to Solaine he continues, "I do not believe we need to rest here, as we just rested after ridding ourselves of those walking corpses."

Isn't a brief rest considered part of that 1 Turn for a combat?

[drpete]

Technically, no, the combat doesn't include a rest. You can "do stuff" like explore, search, or fight, for 5 turns, and then must rest for one, or get tired. The extra time that puffs the fight up to 10 minutes is kind of an abstraction that includes stuff like binding wounds and searching bodies, and generally getting yourselves back into order. Looking back at the history of it, turns used to be less strictly time-bound, I think, and the idea is that the combat would get you closer to needing a rest, rather than "really" taking 10 minutes on a real clock. There's definitely some time distortion going on when you think of it that way, though.

Here, we're sort of at the point where you can go one more turn's worth of activity, then you should take a rest. I'd count contemplation (the original goal in coming over to this room) as being "restful" if you wanted to do that, whether here or somewhere else.

Technically, the way your turns have played out:
1) Combat with orcs and skeletons
2-3) Moving through guard room, down to 4 way intersection (this could have been faster, but you were talking about going carefully, step by step after seeing the skeletons)
4) Combat with zombies (and entering the "orc room")
5) ?
6) Rest (by default)

So you can rest a turn early, then do other actions (move on to the chapel?), or you can do one more turn's worth of actions (going through their stuff, say, or whatever) then rest. You can also delay or skip the rest until you feel like you're in a more secure location, if you're worried about the room's occupants coming back.

[Lamech]

That's quite a bit of oil. I wonder what the other one has? Maybe we should grab them on the way out?

[drpete]

A container this size would definitely contain 5-6 gallons of oil, enough to light a lantern for a full week. It weighs about 6 stone, and would have a value of about 20 gp.

[bobloblah]

"I see little point in robbing them blind while they are still counted among the living. On the other hand," Galen continues with a wry smile, "should their luck run out, they will have no more need of oil."

[bobloblah]

~resting stuff~
snip

Okay, thanks.

[kalstone]

Solaine bars the east door. "Do we want to just rest a few minutes or allow Galen his period of contemplation? I would vote for the longer rest."

[Zorroroaster]

"I agree, let's rest up now while we have the chance and then strike out for the chapel."

[Dogma]

"Agreed. Might as well rest while we have a safe place, then off to the chapel."replies Ranulf, dropping his gear while looking for a soft bit of floor.

"As for the stuff the others left here, I say we leave it until we figure out what happened to them. We got enough to deal with in here without adding more people who want to kill us to the list," Ranulf finishes wryly.

[drpete]

So... are you doing the 1 hour rest for Galen's contemplation, or are you just resting 10 minutes and moving on to the chapel? I see people saying rest (and not go through or steal this stuff), but I'm not sure which length of rest they're advocating.

On the last outing, Torgyr was sort of the "caller" for these types of decisions. Did you like doing it that way, or would you rather vote/discuss more? If you want a caller, would you want to keep Torgyr, or rotate to someone else? If you "vote" I'd go with it once we reach a majority agreeing with one plan. If you have a caller, you can still discuss, but he'd "pull the trigger" when convinced.

[kalstone]

I'm fine with Torgyr as a caller if Zorroroaster is cool with it.

[Zorroroaster]

I'm more or less ok with steering the bus around, but as soon as we hit the ditch it becomes a full democracy!

[kalstone]

I'm more or less ok with steering the bus around, but as soon as we hit the ditch it becomes a full democracy!

Fair enough.

[bobloblah]

Ah, yes... success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan! I'm cool with him as caller.

[drpete]

Alright, so... it looks like the plan is to rest, leave everything here as you found it, and go to the chapel.

I need 3 "calls":

Do you give Galen his hour for contrmplation or just a short 10 minute rest?

Which route do you take, through the circular room or the T room?

Do you go slow and cautious, to be more alert for things hiding in the dark or faster, to get there before any more stuff shows up?