The Gossip Board

[Anastasia]

It's an old, slightly rusty greataxe. Yet the edge looks sharp and heavy. It has a few bits of something hard and colorful along the edge - metallic shades and red, white, green and that manner of color.

[Carthrat]

Knight will try whacking the wall with it a few times!

[Anastasia]

The wall is whacked! It cuts into the ice and stone well enough, having a good solid weight to it. It swings well in your hand.

[Dracos]

On Hp:
Gate's math was off last night by 1.  Also sleep restores some hp for all of us.

Kamvakua=103/121

Dunno for the others.

On Leaving:

At this point I don't mind us heading off.  I do want to take a second and note why I was annoyed last night at it.  The sudden argument was 'we should leave because this place isn't important'.  Not 'we should leave because this place is so dangerous it isn't worth proceeding and we should cut (our already excessive) losses'.  We got there by taking a route that we thought would (inevitably) lead us toward the surface eventually with less exposure to the elements than being up top.  It didn't, but at the end we found somewhere interesting and unexpected: An iced over magical doorway leading to a magical apparatus that could open a portal to the plane of fire.  At that point we could've turned back immediately, but if we took that angle on finding unexpected places, we wouldn't be on this 'important' quest, because we would've never met the ice queen.  In D&D time, it takes a lot longer to go travel back and forth down mining corridors than it does to check out this wizardry den that we found in the middle of nowhere.  I can hear the argument 'focus on goals' and not mind it when the story is 'well, there's some other treasure out there in the middle of nowhere, do you guys want to travel for days to get there or go do the quest you signed up for', but we opened the door and checked it out because we were already there.  In D&D time we took a handful of minutes to explore it, basically walking through 5 rooms, only one of which had an enemy in it (a nasty horrible one).  Yes in our time it takes a lot longer to do that then to travel, but that is also usually because 'things are happening'.

From an IC standpoint: if we're there, and it's interesting, why not take a few minutes to go check it out as it inevitably takes longer to travel to and fro.
From an OOC standpoint: If dune drops a dungeon or something in front of us, most the time it is more fun to at least poke one's head in and look.

That's why any argument that starts with 'why are we here at all' bugs me.  We're traveling adventurers and sometimes we're going to check out things because they are there.  We're going to go into the strange and unexpected protected area in the middle of the ice storm.  We're going to step into the fairy's circle that happens to be sitting in the middle of this clearing we're just passing on our way to somewhere important.  We're going to check out this gravestone with the ghost who really is annoyed that we woke her up.  We're going to open the frozen door that shouldn't be sitting at the back of a tunnel and wonder 'why is this here?  Let's find out'.

On loot:
Yay money, kam will probably need some of that.

And he'll check out his book!

[Carthrat]

The place wasn't important, but danger factored into my thoughts as well, what with all the DEADLY TRAPS. Pretty sure I was hyperventilating over them IC, too!

I don't think the ice queen comparison is apt, since we stopped there to rest in the first place so it wasn't exactly a random diversion, and we have good reason for hunting her down and killing her right now, too.

We didn't, really, for exploring some random place in the middle of nowhere because we happened to be there. I'll admit that since I wasn't there when it happened, I couldn't lodge my protest to the excursion in a timely fashion, nor present a method of easy escape from it. So I guess if it felt like our only way out was forward, I will concede that what we were doing was what we should've done.

That it happened to lead to good things strikes me as coincidental and incredibly lucky. If I encountered a similar situation, I would once again advise to retreat.

[Dracos]

The place wasn't important, but danger factored into my thoughts as well, what with all the DEADLY TRAPS. Pretty sure I was hyperventilating over them IC, too!

I don't think the ice queen comparison is apt, since we stopped there to rest in the first place so it wasn't exactly a random diversion, and we have good reason for hunting her down and killing her right now, too.

We didn't, really, for exploring some random place in the middle of nowhere because we happened to be there. I'll admit that since I wasn't there when it happened, I couldn't lodge my protest to the excursion in a timely fashion, nor present a method of easy escape from it. So I guess if it felt like our only way out was forward, I will concede that what we were doing was what we should've done.

That it happened to lead to good things strikes me as coincidental and incredibly lucky. If I encountered a similar situation, I would once again advise to retreat.

IC you were totally doing so.  I'll admit.  I was irritated on the OOC discussion on it before the IC even started.  Moreso when it continued while I was waiting for help with the door.

Kam could've flown us all out, but yeah, I was assuming that taking an underground road would be safer and less hazardous.  Which it really was until we encountered Wish.  Though we probably should've been more curious at the phenomenon going on and how unreal it was.

[Zephyrus]

Nikkolai settles down in the bed provided in the warm room and reads the book!

He also takes a few moments to study the Xorn statue to see if he can discern its magical properties!

[Anastasia]

I'm not going to get into an inter-party debate about what they should do, but you guys DO have all week to discuss things like this. If you want to chat, do so here before it turns into a mid-session distraction?

[Anastasia]

Kamvakua checks out his book! It looks to be lessons in self reflection, force of will and charismatic speech. It's quite interesting but it looks like it will take some time to sit down and study.

[Anastasia]

Nikkolai settles down in the bed provided in the warm room and reads the book!

He also takes a few moments to study the Xorn statue to see if he can discern its magical properties!

Nikkolai reads his book! It looks to be sorcererous will and personal allure, lots of good lessons but ones that will take time to study and master.

Make spellcraft on the statue, Nikkolai?

[Zephyrus]

12:56   Zeph   roll 1d20+19 SC for Xornie~
12:56   Serith   Zeph roll for Serith < 39 > [d20=20]
12:57   Zeph   Oh. The dice gods are kind.

[Anastasia]

It is a statue of an elder Xorn. You think that if properly used it could come alive and serve the party for a brief time each week.

[Dracos]

Got what I had to say off my chest.  :)

If folks want to leave, we can go.  If folks want to check out the remaining 3 rooms and then leave, I'm also fine.  If they even exist~.  Dune, at a quick glance, do the other doors even still exist post Balance/wish departing?

Anyhow on departing, we have 2 choices (in general):

A)Continue the hunt.  After a day of rest, and healing, we can be at 100 percent hp, and mostly drained healing wise.  Kam wants some Make Whole usage for his shoes (and if extra, his armor and then shield for ordering).

Issues:
1)Kam was carrying pretty much the whole food supply.  We need to hunt and hunt soon.  We'd probably have to anyway on our way back, but it's reasonable to survive (yet be hungry) taking the one day trip back to city, and less reasonable wandering in the wilderness.  Kam has survival skills.  So does Serith.  We could likely go get food.

2)Kam's saving throws just took a large hit and the enemy throws a lot of AoE saving throws type damage in the past.  Knight has the same problem really since it was all reflex.

3)If she's under a day away, we'll be encountering her with low healing reserves.

B)Call a delay.  Head back, re-equip, head out for blood.

Issues:
1)It's the long route and involves turning back which we hate to do.
2)We may have promised a horrible dragon that would be bringing treasure, not defeat.  Said dragon may decide to eat us.
3) It's a three day trip!

So, in interest of having a clear decision early for Ko:

Votes?  

I vote A.

[Anastasia]

There is a cunning flaw in your plan, Drac. You're not one day away from Shivra.  It's a three day trip from the portal to Shivra; will comment more later when I'm not running to work.

[Dracos]

*whistles and silently adds that to the problem*

Guess we're hunting either way.  Food I suppose is our next real priority.