Welcome to the end! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Little Lord, you knew it would end this way...
The Trolins had always seemed a barbaric, chaotic people from tales and even from afar. However, their discipline when focused on war was terrifying. It was no wonder Lord Chaos tolerated and courted them. If takles were true, he even captured their King and copied the Trolin's form to create more of the creatures formed of nothing but magic. A small army was forming, at speed that was unbelieveable.
Four figures led by an invisible one were on a crash coure to meet a flank of this army. However, for the moment they walked and flew with their minds on something else, unaware. Pulled back along brick tunnels and rocky passageways to an underground marvel. And awaiting them, an unnatural horror.
It was five other figures, human and humanoid, who observed the Trolin army take shape from the inside. The Trolins had been stirred, and their movement once the inertia of distrust and self-interested had been eroded was spectacular. The King's Guard formed up with extra weapons magically. The King wished to appear strong, and so settled for only four of the twelve guards that appeared, taking armour and weapon from the rest as if without care.
Two more groups of Trolins magically formed, a group of eight earth-covered Trolins of lesser appearance, led by a small, thin Trolin. This leader was Karda, and he and his Trolins were only one of two tribes who dared to go to the edges of the Trolin lands, with the threats of grak-graks, and explore the dangerous underground cavern of the elementals. These trolins possessed powerful natural bows, and long bladed weapons and polearms. They moved with a grace and deceptive power. They were the ones that moved frowards first, after checking in.
Westian and Aurek had already dealt with part of the second group. Uumack - an honourable Trolin who defended the honour of Haynuus by slaying his group leader - had led Westian and Aurek to meet the Tronlin King. Uumack's ultimate tribal leader, Pullack. A solid dark blue Trolin, he embodied the tribe he had gathered to him. He and his trolins were armed with powerful clubs, good armour, and many wore small crossbows on their wrists. They looked as if they would happily fight, but also happy to be on this scouting mission. Despite being surrounded by powerful Trolins, for the moment Westian could feel secure. TIme and again, to various factions, the half-elf priest especially had proven the power of his oration and the power of his convictions. Whilst this route originally supposed to be a distraction for a rescue, thigns had changed. Westian had done much - some quetsionable, to those with the luxury and hintsight and distance - in order to now ensure the dark elf priest Dolo Smitre would be defeated. And then, so to his masters.
One of the King's guards gave Falkor, the halfling mage, strange looks. The halfling had kept demonstrating his powers - some of knowledge, some of magic, some of speech, and some fro mthe cloak he wore - multipel times aswell. Runour surrounded the exact nature and limit of those powers, but he was given many shows of respect despite the difference in height and girth of his frame to thiers. He carried himself differently from how some of his companiuons might remember. There were less questionable thigns, in recent memory, he had done that provided a purity of purpose.
The last two figures were the knight Sir Farl, and his squire Ardur. The tow had been reunited, however they could not seem to pull free of the party they once more travelled with, nor of the dungeon itself. Betrayed by the gnome mage Soorec who in turn claimed a betrayal, Sir Farel seemed to be torn between duty to his charge, and duty to the world. Westian had been most persuasive - if vague - about how serious the matter at hand was.
Unlike the counterparts of the main army that moved through Trolin lands to atart the assault on the bordering realm claimed by the blackskull soldiers, these three groups of Trolisn and one group of heroes moved onwards in as much silence as they could.
For Falkor, Farel and Ardur they were about to approach an ear they had not seen before. Tunnels widened to rocky corridors, and sudden'y there was a feel of hugeness, of airiness. All of a sudden. the group found themselves on a ledge, looking down upon a cavern hundreds of feet wide, and hundred of feet long. At the bottom of it was an expansive lake of dark water. All around was the impression of greenery clinging to the walls, and movement in the air and on the rocky ledges above, at the sides and below that hinted of varieties of life. On the ledge they were on, tiny screamers seemed to hover over patches of discolour.
Karda and his trolins were a vague shape on a ledge bside the lake below and to the left. It was Pullack and the champions who stood looking from on High. The King came forwards, his guards spreading out as they could.
"Who knew this place existed," said Sir Farel, looking around with awe.
Of course, Westian and Aurek knew, for they had been here before. Losing the grak-grak 'guides' of Soorec, and taking the matters of Dolo's defeat in to their own hands. They had left this place hoping to re-unite with Haynuus and Ameena once the pair had freed the dwarf Deephold. A chance discovery of the elementals that existed in the this place - discovered by Aurek - had allowed them to find the short cut beyond the waterfall, a secret way in to Dolo's lair.
The cavern had changed since the last time Aurek and Westian had been here. There was no sign of the two friends beside the waterfall. For there was no sign of the waterfall on the left hand side of the cavern. That would have been strange enough.
The wtaerfall, three stories high, had caught the light from the surface directed down a long chimney. Without the waterfall, no light should have been available to light this place.
Instead, the place was lit even brighter. On the wall almost directly across from the group, hundreds of feet away, was a bright slrip of light. The entire cavern wall appeared cracked, and from it poured unnatural radiance.
Huh, just realised how Doctr Who that all sounds. Anyway, welcome back ot the cavern. For the tow of you who haven't been here before, feel free to ask OOC questions. Westian, feel free to ask questions too, like 'what the heck is that?'
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