"Even if you go close I wouldn't touch it or try opening it - usually when people make traps they like to try and lure you in with pretty shiny gemstones and the like."

Ford keeps his distance, his hand on his sheath.

"Though maybe it is a little bit too obvious..."

As you advance towards the box the effect 'dampen magic' Lurel has sensed in the atmosphere causes Lisette's flame spell to fail. Midge's spoon glows brightly. It gives you enough light to see the crossroads itself is empty of anything but the box. The continuation passage in front of you is too dimly lit to see into. You cannot see what is in the crossing passage at all.

Perhaps you hear the sound of running footsteps but, if it is not a trick of your ears, they are running away from you.

The whispering sounds are ever present.

Lisette concentrated hard but the flame could not be re-ignited and the dampening effect of the walls countered her efforts. She peered into the gloom at the golden box and unsheathed her dagger. Unable to decide what it would be more effective as, she left it as a dagger and walked slowly towards the box holding the flame out infront of her to try and dispel the darkness around.

She stopped and glanced at the Midge's brightly glowing spoon. She was about halfway up the passageway and was equidistant from the rest of the party and the box. She looked to Lurel and called over, "So? Do I touch the box?"

"Wait!" Lurel calls out. "There is danger here - it may well be the box itself. Watch out, I'm going to try something - move back a few steps!"

He rummages in his pack looking for a missile, and finds a boiled egg, which he proceeds to throw at the box. If the box is trapped, he reasons, the impact might well trigger the trap before any of them are close enough to be harmed."

The boiled egg hits the box and rolls into one of the side passages. The box is undamaged and the impact does not discharge a trap. Where the egg has rolled their are sounds that could be a scuffle.

The footsteps that might have been running away can be heard again getting louder. This time the sound is coming from behind you.

OOC: Tell me if i'm not allowed weapons that aren't in MW

IC:

Lisette tensed up at the noises and looked speculatively at the others. She closed her eyes and the dagger in her hand slowly transformed into a viciously jagged long-toothed dagger. She held it ready for something, anything to leap from the walls themselves.

"Sounds like those passages are looping," Lurel murmurs as he draws his dagger. The darkness in the side tunnels, and their inability to see into them, only heightens his sense of being in a trap.

"Don't be alarmed," he says. "I'm going to try to do a partial werewolf transformation - just enough to heighten my senses, not enough to turn into a wolf. Perhaps that way I can find out a bit more about what's going on in this gloom."

He commences the partial transformation.

There is movement in the passage facing you, there are at least two in the side tunnels and at least one running from behind you. Whatever is running at you is making no attempt to be quiet. The shadow seems huge and blots out most of the remaining light. It is hard to see where your friends are.

OOC> I assume you wouldn't leave Midge or the Princess to bring up the rear so the order must be Lisette, Lurel, Midge, Siffli, Ford with Ford most at risk from the one running - correct me if I am wrong.

"Oh man."

Ford turns to face whatever's coming at them, sword held out in front of him.

"Now would be a good time to find a light..."

He steps back slowly, trying not to trip in the darkness.

*OOC - I'm assuming the partial transformation leaves Lurel human, with heightened vision, hearing and smell*

"Lisette!" Lurel yells. "Behind us!!"

He tries to cast a light spell, but isn't sure whether it will work in this place.

Lurel can sense five separate individuals. There is one behind them and now the others are moving, One moves from the left hand branch of the cross tunnel into the right hand branch. One is in front, across the junction and one remains in the left hand branch. The fifth turns into your tunnel and is running towards you in a half crouch.

Lurel's light flares briefly. The figure is Avelyssian but the eyes stare insanely.

Lisette will not have time to worry about what is behind.

Any weapons the attackers have are moved telekinetically and cannot be seen. Ford hears a whisper of air as something comes flying towards his head. A heavy club whacks Lisette's legs. Neither of the attackers is close enough to be reached hand-to-hand.

"There are at least 5!" Lurel yells. Since he cannot think of a way to attack the creatures he tries to use his earth magic, to raise a wall of earth between Lisette and her nearest attacker, hoping that this will leave them free to concentrate on the one behind Ford.

"Ack!!"

Ford ducks quickly down into a crouch, then gets up again once the missile passes.

"That was close... stop hiding in the darkness and start fighting like men! Or... monsters, or... w-whatever you are."

He takes up a defensive stance and squints, failing to see in the darkness.

Lurel snaps his fingers.

"Footsteps! he exclaims. "We heard footsteps, and those bird-people don't have feet!"

The object misses Ford and hits Lurel. It is the hard-boiled egg. It hurts a bit but does little damage.

!?

"It hit someone!? Is everyone alright? What was it?"

Ford looks around in the darkness but still can't see anyone.

(OOC: It's Ford, not Switch ^^)

(OOC Edit by Malchik: Aagh! It's the end of the week, it's 'orribly 'ot with no aircon and I'm still at work - sorry!!)

"What the...?!?" Lurel exclaims as the boiled egg bursts on impact. He brushes bits of boiled egg and shell off his shoulder, but is rather relieved that the object wasn't something more lethal.

"I want to know what those creatures are," he announces. "If they're Avelyssians the footsteps were an illusion - if the footsteps were real, then they're not Avelyssians."

He takes a few steps in the direction the boiled egg came from.

Lurel's attempts to move earth are not successful. It has to be something to do with the materials because the lycanthropy worked.

A wiry form grabs Ford round the throat and tries to strangle him. It has hands and feet and feels human. The frame is emaciated and wearing a tattered robe to judge from what can be felt. Wherever it's strength is coming from it is the strength of desperation and insanity combined.

The creature nearing Lisette has to be Avelyssian. Another blow to her shins drops her to the floor. Her drawn dagger catches on the attacker who screams and floats back. The three in the other passages hiss and move into the centre of the crossroads.

OOC> going home to melt quietly in a corner before I call you all archibald and bryony. Back on Monday, I hope!

"Explain about me to the Princess, so that she doesn't panic!" Lurel calls to Midge, and completes the werewolf transformation.

With a growl he leaps at Ford's attacker, and sinks his teeth into one of the arms strangling Ford.

If this loosens the creature's stranglehold, Lurel then runs back to Lisette, and growls a warning at the figures at the crossroads. If not, Lurel bites the creature's leg as well to get it off Ford.

He doesn't want to kill the creatures before he knows what they are, and what the reason for their hostility is.

Midge quickle explains the groups' contradistinctive qualities. Mdige is kneeling on the floor, hearing the projectiles whistle above his head. The spoon, being very shiny, is bright enough to illuminate the ground around him.

"Agh!!"

As soon as the attacker's grip is loosened Ford elbows him/her/it/whatever as hard as he can and turns around.

"Thanks Lurel."

He says with a gravelly tone, coughing as he recovers from the attempted strangling.

Ford manages to twist away from the creature. Lurel's bite into the emaciated body snaps bone. It screams in pain but goes back to trying to throttle Ford one-handed.

The light from Midge's spoon reveals it to be human or humanoid, so thin as to be a walking skeleton. The eye's like those of the Avelyssian attacking Lisette are of someone long insane.

With the battle not going well the three who had been waiting push towards Lisette.

Lurel's attempt to dislodge Lisette's attacker are less successful. The Avelyssian floats out of reach and uses telekinesis to bring the stick down hard on the wolf's nose. But at least the distraction gives Lisette the chance to reconsider her weapon.

"YA!!"

Ford swings his sword up with all his strength in an attempt to lob the arm off the creature that's attacking him.

"Th-these must be those undead they were talking about!"

Lurel yelps with pain and drops back a little, hoping that his diversion will have given Lisette time to prepare an attack. He keeps an eye on the figures at the crossroads.

Siffli looks on in horror at the battle taking place around her. This was REAL! This wasn't at all what she imagined it as. She had seen battles before, but only the tourney kind of play-battles where the idea was the sport. This, however, was an entirely different thing. Here, people she recruited to help her were fighting for their own survival. How could I have put them in this situation? she thinks to herself as she stood paralyzed. Well, if I am ever to win the trust of these beings, I am going to have to do something other than follow along meekly. I know I know nothing useful in here, and this is not a situation that I am good at, but, here goes.

Siffli launches herself at the Avellyssian, wings fully spread and a menacing look on her face, at the same time trying to gain control of the stick to have it whap HIM in the face. Either through the shock of seeing the Princess coming at him or the stick should free up the others to try to get to him without being set upon by his magic.

Whoever the attackers are Siffli can see as she nears them that they are insane.

Their matted clothes and pinched features suggest they entered the maze and have never found a way out.

Their murderous intentions make no sense except as meaningless revenge.

With her greater power, the stick smashes into the face of Lurel's attacker knocking him into the path of the three approaching.

Ford, wrenching at his assailant snaps the man's arm. Yet still he tries to claw at Ford's eyes.

It would appear this is a battle to the death.

Lurel watches the Princess, completely taken by surprise by her action.

'I'd never have thought it - is she acting because her own life is in danger, or because she does not want to see us getting hurt? Still, if she is willing to help, then things are already looking up!'

Seeing his attacker knocked down, he snarls, and leaps. The wolf within him is taking over, and Lurel goes for the Avelyssian's throat. He is dimly aware of the other 3 approaching, but this Avelyssian hurt him - his nose is still smarting!

"Agh! Hey! Get off! Can't you take a hint!?"

Ford scrambles with the thing's arms as it tries to claw at him, then tries to break loose. If he succeeds, he brings his sword around and stabs hard into the undead's chest.

Ford's swordplay is hampered by the clinging arm. It misses the creature's chest but stabs the throat. The hands loosen. Blood and life pump out of the creature.

The Avelyssian is quickly dispatched by the enraged wolf, Lurel.

The other three Avelyssians, seeing Siffli's power, flee back into the tunnels.

The spoon's brilliance begins to fade but not before Ford can see that he was mistaken. The man was not undead, merely starving and now dying.

"Damn... so much for my undead theory..."

Ford turns white having never killed another person before.

"W-well... they... left us no choice right?"

He looks down at the blood on his sword.

Lurel lets go of the Avelyssian's throat, and snarls after the after three. He makes as if to leap after them, but then Lurel succeeds in reining in the bloodlust.

He looks at the Avelyssian, tastes the creature's blood in his mouth, and is sickened by what he has done.

'I was a wolf, in more than shape, for a moment, back there,' he reflects, somewhat worried. 'I lost control - I can't allow that to happen again. I am Lurel, a human and Rockbrother - I am not a wolf... yet for a moment I was. This time I regained control - but what about next time?'

He trots back to where his clothes and other belongings lie, and makes a whimpering noise....hoping that someone will remember that he needs a little privacy to change back...

In terms of damage to physical bodies, you have escaped lightly. Lurel finds he has a nose bleed but no broken bones. Ford has a bruise around his throat. Lisette more severe bruising on her shins. The others escaped injury.

There is nothing to be done with the two corpses.

Psychologically both Ford and Lurel are also bruised.

OOC> anyone with email can have a copy of the route you have taken so far, should you know how to post it here please do so!

Ford's eyes are still fixated on the blood on his sword, thinking about what he just did... he is taking no notice of Lurel.

(OOC: That would be useful, you could just post it as an attachment to your post though by clicking the "Browse" button under File Attachments and selecting the picture file from your hard drive. If you convert it to jpeg it should be small enough.)

OOC> Well, you learn something new every day!

Map attached

I'm off for the weekend now, back Monday morning.

Ciao

As the spoon returns to it's normal state and with no apparent danger, Midge crawls towards the box.

"The spoon, it no longer shines... perhaps the box is safe.. shal i try to open it?"

Lurel, who after getting back into his human shape (and clothes) has slumped dejectedly next to his pack, stirs when he hears Midge's question.

"What? Oh...yes, I guess we should see what's in that box.... let me try to open it. Midge - we need you to keep an eye on that spoon, and give us an early warning, in case those 3 that ran off come back with more of their kind."

'I won't let anything happen to the others... I must never lose control like that again,' he determines, and glances at the others in the party. Ford's distress is obvious to him even without using his empathy skill. Lisette's silence is worrying too - but Lurel needs to come to terms with his own experience before he can offer them any words of encouragement.

'Maybe I shouldn't be the leader,' he worries. 'Half the time I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing... I just act on instinct. And now I don't trust those instincts any more.'

He walks over to the box, and hesitates.

"Princess, can you open the box without touching it, without causing any harm to yourself in case it is trapped?"

It doesn't much matter who opens it. Midge's spoon indicates no danger so it is safe.

The box itself is cheap metal, not gold and the 'gemstones' paste. Inside is a piece of paper with a neatly written note.

"Davrind, when he was drunk he told us there were three clues - at the fountain, the whispering wall and the throne. He also said there was something to help us find the three clues if we miss them. But you'd better be careful, no one has ever got out of there alive before."

OOC: Sorry guys, I missed the battle! I'm back...for now but I'll probably be AWOL again in a few days.

IC:

Lisette sits on the ground, back resting against the tunnel walls, legs up infront of her. She puts down her daggers and touches her shin. "OW!" She startles everyone and they turn to look at her. She waves away their attention and sighs and mutters, "Oh bloody great...now my leg's buggered..."

She makes a mental note that next time the dagger'll be battleaxe.

Siffli looks down at the note. "I wonder if they had found any of the clues before?" She closes her eyes for a moment and probes, looking for any trace of the fleeing tomb-robbers. "It would be a shame if something happened to them and they had already found and destroyed a clue we needed."

"Well we passed a fountain on our way in... perhaps we should go back and look for clues or a clue there?" Midge say as he gets up off the floor.

Lurel looks up.

"Yes, I suppose we should."

He glances at the others - what are they thinking of him, now that they saw him carried away by bloodlust? And finally he notices Ford's distress, and Lisette's injury.

'I've led them into this. Now I need to help them, even if I can't do much.'

He walks over to Lisette.

"I'm not very good at treating wounds, but I'll do what I can," he says. "You know more about first aid than any of us - let me know what you need... bandages, water... and I'll get them for you."

He turns to Midge, and forces a grin. "I don't know what we'd do without you and that spoon - we'd have walked right into their trap."

To the princess, he says: "If it hadn't been for your attack that turned the tables on our attackers I don't know if we could have lasted much longer. I was not prepared for such an attack, and I should have been."

Last he turns to Ford.

"You didn't have a choice," he says sympathetically. "We tried to drive them off, but that one just kept attacking - he had every chance to flee." After a pause, he adds quietly: "That still doesn't make it any easier, does it?"

Lisette looks up and grins at Lurel. "Thanks" she says, "I could do with some water, the bruising isn't that severe, no bones broken" she forces another smile and gets up stiffly to her feet.

"So, where to?"

"N-no... not really... I just don't wanna become like-"

Ford cuts off and grabs a cloth from his backpack, wiping the blood off his sword.

"But yeah! You're probably right."

He puts his sword back in his sheath and leaves the cloth on the floor.

"So... which way?"

His sudden change of attitude seems almost forced.

Lurel hands Lisette a water bottle.

"We need to search this maze thoroughly, if we don't want to miss any clues," he says. "Let's retrace our steps to the last junction, and see where that light came from that we saw."


He scratches another mark into the floor - this time an arrow like this >- to indicate that this passage hasn't been fully explored yet.

As there is no apparent danger, Midge almost runs around the corner behind them to the light but stops as he gets there to wait for the others... he is eager to get out of these caverns

Lisette struggles to her feet and gulps down the water in the bottle. She looks at Lurel and quietly says, "I'm sorry...I don't feel that I should be at the head of the party anymore. You go first, I'll be behind"

After saying this, she shies away from Lurel and stares down at her feet. Her cheeks crimson in embarrassment. "Sorry..." she says again but she tails off. She turns her back to the party and wipes her embarrassed tears from her eyes.

OOC> Midge has taken the lead.

Midge's spoon is neutral as he approaches the light. There is danger in the maze but not specifically here. It is yet another crossroads. The whole pattern of the maze is rectilinear and it is possible to join up some of the lines.

The light comes from weird faces painted on the walls by the junction. The same design (see attached) is repeated on all eight walls. They seem to be staring at you but apart from being a little scary they do nothing. The path to the right is parallel to the one in which you were attacked. Midge can discern a path off it to the right that should take you back to the box. The path to the left leads to another crossroads. The path in front also leads to a crossroads. There is a box in the centre of this one. The box is exactly like the one you saw before.

As Midge stares down each passage in turn he thinks the spoon glows more brightly in the direction of the box. But it could be a trick of the reflection of the glowing faces.

Lisette looked suspiciously at the faces. She was not usually emotional at all and her small outpouring of fear and embarrassment had made her angry at herself for being weak enough to allow herself to do and say such things. She limped onwards and as Midge stopped to check his spoon, she walked up to a face and touched it.

Immediately she drew her hand back from it. Perhaps she saw the light in the eyes flare brighter for a moment as she touched the face or perhaps she was seeing things. She touched it again and this time kept her hands there. The eyes this time flared quite obviously brighter. She ignored it and felt the strange face. It was cold, wait, it was hot, but it was cold again, or hot, or both, or...Lisette stepped back and looked at her hand. It was completely normal and the strange confusion of her senses disappeared. She looked up at the face again, the eyes had returned to normal but perhaps, just maybe she could see a hint of an evil grin appear on the face.

OOC: This has been a nice diversionary three days but I'll be gone again for the next week or so. When I post again, it will most likely be from merry old England. On second thoughts, I shouldn't have posted as I have because I'll probably end up missing yet another battle but don't worry about it. That's what I've posted and there'll be plenty more battles for Lisette to fight in...probably.

Lurel is also puzzled by the faces.

"Who are you?" he asks, softly, gazing at one of the faces.


He does not expect an answer, but stops to study each face in turn. Perhaps it is his imagination, but he has a strong feeling of being watched.