Move 249: Rest and Recovery
Topknot Caves--Afternoon, Day 14Olaf put a hand on one wall of the tunnel at its narrowest point and began a prayer to mold the stone. He moved the rock out into the tunnel in a sheet that spanned not quite half the opening and reached about a third of the way to the ceiling. Those who were able to do any heavy lifting relocated part of the cairn of stones in the back to the ten feet of tunnel still opened, and Renn placed a ward there. All in all, it was unlikely to keep a group of trolls out if they wanted to come in, but everyone should be provided with ample warning that they were coming.
Invisible Arachne went over to Jana and did some healing on her. While she was still far from full health, it did improve her condition noticeably. With most of the group in extreme pain from the earlier fight, watches were set and people rested. At some point during the night, Arachne performed her healing trick on Daelen as well.
Aloysius had watched with interest as Olaf had molded the rock to his will. The mage had done his best to help move rocks, but he was generally useless in that capacity.
After making sure everyone was resting comfortably, Azrun went and retrieved the coffer they had found that day. Sitting down with it, he sorted through the contents. When he would find something interesting he would set it aside in a little pile. Once he had the interesting things sorted out, he spent more time looking a them and trying to figure out what they were.
Topknot Caves–Early, Day 15
Thankfully, everyone was able to rest without being interrupted by drooling trolls. They got up nearly as painfully as they had gone to sleep, however. For whatever reason, no one seemed to be healing as well naturally from this fight as they had from others.
The next "morning", he arose and ate some beef jerky during his watch while he thumbed through his spell book. After everyone else was up and moving around, he moved over to Echo and Azrun.
"E'en if the two of thee decide not to permit me to direct thine castings, perhaps we should at least confer on which spells we shall be procuring for the day. I believe I have remedied my misunderstanding of the invisibility spell."
The mage shook his head. "Forgot did I that Tenser's tensor respecting spatial displacement applies only to solid matter and not light. And the fire spell, of that I am even more embarrassed. The formula obviously requires a slit matrix with the elemental plane of fire. The pinhole bubble I was trying to use as a bridge was simply inadequate to draw the flames into this plane."
He frowned. "Why any of thee trust my understanding of magic is beyond me. In any event, have either of thee thought about which spells you might employ this day?"
"Invisibility spells and fire spells," Echo replied. "That's the most useful things I've got against trolls."
Azrun stared blankly at Aloysius has he went on the explanation of why he hadn't learned the spells before. When the mage was done, Azrun spoke up, "I believe you just answered your own question, Aloysius. You have a greater grasp of the magic we wield, than I do. Formulas and matrices are not my thing. I just pick up stuff as I go along. Speaking of which, I believe I've aquired the ability to cast another spell on the level of that web spell. Perhaps I could memorize two of those and two magic missile spells. The other slot I could use to detect magic enchantment. Of course I guess it would be good to know what we're doing today. From the looks of the others, perhaps we'll just be resting again."
He looked over to Jana, "Jana, do you think we'll be staying here again today to let you and the others heal up? We need an idea of what we're doing so we can memorize our spells. Perhaps if we're going to rest we should open the hut to replenish our supplies also. How are we doing on food and oil?"
After praying, Olaf went to the opening and chanted and traced a prayer around it. "If a troll pass this threshold now, a flame will burst forth to great it."
Olaf went to Blacky, Daelen, Echo, Jana, & Renn each in turn and prayed over them for several healing spells.
Olaf then said, "I have exhausted all of my prayers for the day, save another prayer for fireworks such as I used before. I suggest we spend more time here resting."
Aloysius nodded. "And well have they served us as yet. No doubts have I that more trolls remain." He stopped and thought for a moment. "I shall reapply my armor spell and likely restock my supply of magic missile spells. I'll also maintain a web spell in case we have need of a rapid retreat, as well as an image multiplier in case I am confronted directly by a troll. Finally, I intend to prepare a spell for the disruption of magical fields in case we encounter a shaman."
He turned to Azrun. Aloysius still seemed uncomfortable in handing out directives to others. "Perhaps you could retain at least one spell for the detection of magic?" he said hopefully. "A second web spell and more magic missiles would be useful as well." He looked up and Azrun, still fidgeting uncomfortably.
"That is . . . if you think that is wise?"
After speaking with Azrun about spells, Aloysius moved off to study his spellbook. After finishing that, he cast a short spell on himself.
Azrun nodded, "Sounds good to me, Aloysius. Since it sounds like we may be staying here another day, I can use my detection spell could be used on the baubles in the coffer. I'm still searching through them."
Once Olaf finished his casting, Rennirolas did the same. He cast a number of spells, all told he took about ten minutes to finish his spellcasting. "I've but a few spells remaining now, my danger sensing boon, a prayer to dispel magics, and in addition a strengthing spell and a fae light. Not much," the elf said as he raised his shoulders in a shrug, "but I'll continue to work with the wounded to get us healed a bit more."
"Are we able to pass these wards that have been set or will we trip them as well?" Blacky asked as he washed up by the pool a bit. "I beleive we need to heal up fully before we head out troll hunting. We also all probably want a chance to get a bath at some point."
Olaf smiled, "They will only go off if a troll passes them."
After all who voiced an opinion wanted to wait another day, Jana reluctantly agreed. "We need to have double watches going," she said. "They know we're here, after all."
Echo cast a spell on Arachne. "Does anyone want the other spell I have now?" she asked.
Aloysius looked up, rather intrigued. "Perhaps you should cast it upon yourself?" he suggested. "Then you could devote your arcane energies to other spells on the 'morrow."
Jana grinned and said, "As cool as that sounds, your spell'd be wasted on me. 'Hey, there's a big ol' blank space making' lotsa noise!'"
Azrun picked through the contents of the small chest methodically. Olaf added a ward to the tunnel entrance. Both priests performed as many healing prayers as they were capable of. Later, after she became visible again, Arachne attempted to perform healing on Olaf, who appeared to be the most severely injured at that point. Somehow she managed to hurt herself in the process, but Olaf did not come out any worse for it. Being the tough little gnome that she was, she tried the healing again with much more success.
Azrun looked discouraged after looking through the small coffer, "Well there doesn't seem to be anything special in here, that I can see. Some of it might fetch a good price but that's about it."
"Do you need me to look through it to see if I can tell how much it's worth?" Echo asked.
Azrun nodded, "Sure, it's not like we have a whole lot to do here anyway." He handed the small coffer over to Echo.
Echo went through the coffer slowly. She picked up each bauble and examined it carefully. When she finished, she told the others "All of this together is worth around 1000 gold pieces."
Inventory was taken of food and oil. They had enough food to last about nine more days. The oil supply stood at the equivalent of eight flasks, although several of those flasks had been consolidated into a single container that Azrun had.
The Slaverer trolls still failed to make an appearance as time passed. It was possible that the precautions the group had taken did their job. Of course, it was just as possible that the trolls were either smarter than anticipated and planning something devious or dumber than anticipated and just standing around somewhere else in the caves drooling.
Before going to sleep, Echo said, "Does anyone want the invisibility spells I have? I can cast two now and two more in the morning. They can last for a day, so that'd be four of us invisible."
"That's a lot to have unaccountable for (and maybe present)," Arachne grinned. (She'd reappeared sometime during the first rest day.) "I wouldn't mind having the spell on me again, though. I mean," she smiled at Jana, "if I'm going to be spooky, I might as well be _really_ spooky."
Echo laughed. "It also wouldn't last long for you since it'd be broken when you started fighting a troll. I thought maybe Olaf or Renn or Azrun or Aloysius, who might not get right into a fight, would want one of the spells. But me and Arachne can use the ones I have now."
"I'll use it on myself if no one else wants it," Echo said. "I don't have any other spells of that power level that'll be very useful against trolls though."
"Though invisibility would be a benefit, there are a number of spells I'll have to cast just before we leave," the elf smiled.
Topknot Caves--Early, Day 16
Arachne eventually did some healing on Renn. After a day both tedious and stressful watching for trolls, everyone decided they were tired, and the group slept in shifts, as usual. The watch order went off without a hitch, and everyone awoke feeling better, physically at least.
Aloysius had spent much of the previous day going through his spellbook. That activity seemed to brighten his demeanor considerably. He later tried to wash up a bit at the pool, although he did so without taking off all his clothes.
After everyone had risen, he began gathering his equipment. "Let us rid these caves of the trolls once and for all," he suggested. If we only have 9 days of food remaining, we need to make haste. It will take us at least half that time to reach the surface again."
He stood ready to head out.
"Is that counting what we have in the cottage?" Arachne asked him. "We should be able to get in there again in another 3 or 4 days," she explained. "Or so," she added uncertainly.
Echo thanked whoever healed her. She studied spells and got ready to leave the cave.
Olaf asked, "Does anyone have any way of searching evil? I have noticed that we have all recovered somewhat slower from our wounds down here then before, and I feel somewhat distanced from Tyr's Holy Justice. Do any of you other priests feel the same? There might be some insidious demonic influence at work here."
Azrun shrugged, "I don't have anything that will search for evil. I can search for anything that is magical. It'll last for a little bit. I could search the cave over and see if anything stands out. If you want me to that is?"
Arachne, sitting as usual with her eyes closed, said, "I might be evil
-- I mean, I'm always both impressed by and wary of people who can be rock-solid certain whether they are good or are evil. Me, about me, I don't know. Of course, I feel the same way -- impressed and wary -- about a spell that presumes to give you such a report. I doubt that I have anything to do with people's failure to feel better after the last rest, since I've been around all along." Her eyes opened. "And my own small miscue at healing ... I don't think that had a cosmic cause. I just don't -- but I wouldn't. I wonder what your spells will think of me?" Her eyes closed."I'm sure you aren't evil, Arachne. But the spell isn't to check any of us for evil, but I feel this cavern may have some sort of supernatural, diabolical influence." Olaf said with a smile.
"Unless one of us happens to be a supernatural, diabolical influence...
Still, we should probably wait untill we've finished off the trolls before we burn the foul gnome witch." Daelen said with a grin."I have heard tales of priests creating food and drink. Is that a boon granted by any of your gods? Just in case." Blacky asked the priestly members of the group.
"Indeed, Corellon would grant me such a request," Rennirolas nodded. "Though I have not prepared that particular prayer for today, when next I perform my ablutions I shall," Renn finished.
"No need to do that just yet Renn. I just wondered in case we looked about to run out of food. How much could you create and what would it be like?" Blacky asked curiously.
"Let's go kick some troll butt." Blacky said as they prepared to leave. "Are those wards still in effect? In case we need to retreat back here,they may slow our pursuers." Blacky asked.
Renn shook his head in the negative. "My warding only lasted approximately eight hours," he clarified.
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