"But you heard the other creature, there's a troll down there! How can you protect the master if you remain here? If he gets killed, what will happen to us then? Even if we were to see that he is being attacked, you would never get there on time to help him..."
"So what would you have me do?" Hans replies a bit testily. "Master Torros is down there already. He'll need me here to pull him up quickly if there's trouble. If we go following him, we go into the danger as he is but without any protection from him."
Franz looks over the railing and points out, "How will we know if he's in trouble? He's disappeared and we haven't heard anything from him." The servant shakes his head, "I don't know what we should do, I'm just worried about the master... He might be in trouble already and we wouldn't know, would we?"
What does Torros perceive as he reaches the ground?
On the island, beside the fact that it is much larger that Torros expected -- over 200 paces long instead of its appearance from the bridge of about 5 paces -- the island is mostly rocky with sparse vegetation. The bridge's piling is a huge column of wood, perhaps 20 paces wide, rising from the center of the island. The ground is uneven and the sound of the river is quite loud.
Torros got a little turned around as he was lowered down, so he no longer sees what, from above, looked like the entrance to a small cave.
Torros looks upwards along the rope. Does he see Hans or Franz?
Anyway, he is has some work to do. So he loses the rope from his waist and carefully starts to inspect the Island.
The top of the bridge seems to be several hundreds of feet in the sky, almost lost in the clouds. Torros doesn't see any sign of Hans and Franz.
As he unties the rope from his waist, it starts to sway in the breeze, moving this way and that. (I'm assuming Torros will decide to secure it around a rock or something.)
As he moves off from his point of arrival, Torrow notices that what little there is in the way of vegetation is strange. He comes across a small stand of trees that arche away from each other, much like a fountain. The branches of each tree are long, extending on each side of the trunk, covered with wide leaves forming a curtain. Much like very big ferns...
Moving further off, some distance away Torros spots what looks like the entrance to a cave, with large rocks piled up to form a kind of porch. As he starts to move forward, Torros stumbles as his foot catches on something in the gravel. Looking down, he realizes that there are bones scattered around. Long curving ribs, leg bones, skulls. Not very many of them where he stands, but now that he knows to look for them, there are more and more the closer one gets to the cave's entrance.
Yes Torros secures the rope.
As he detects the bones he gets frightened and nervous. He casts a spont version of Wizards sidestep with duration Diameter. Then he heads forward to the entrance. Would the River be a possible escape route?
In case I should role for Torros
((Die = 3) +(Re=6) +(Im=4) + (Sta=1)+ (Light wound =-1))/2 = 6.5
coyotecode.net/roll/lookup.php?rollid=101783
The river looks like it has a fairly strong current and seem very wide at this point, well over a hundred paces. So he'd need to be a better swimmer than he feels confident at being to cross it easily. Not to say that he couldn't do it, but it would certainly be dangerous.
His Wizard's Sidestep goes off without trouble, although with only a Diameter duration it won't last very long.
Torros tries to use the time while sidestep is active to have a quick look inside the cave. As he reaches the entrance he stays close to the outside walls. In fact he is pressing his back to the wall. He takes some moments to gets his heartbeat at least a bit more down. And then risks a very short look inside the cave.
As he comes close to the entrance, he realizes that it is quite large. Perhaps three or four times higher than he is. And, just a little ways inside the entrance, it is closed by a massive wooden door. The door is fairly crude and appears to be made from driftwood. It doesn't fit perfectly into the entrance, but none of the crack are large enough for Torrow to slip through.
He will have a look through one of the cracks and also listen carefully.
He doesn't see much through the cracks. A bit of light further down the tunnel, probably coming from a lamp or some other flame. Some indistinct voice.
Then the sound a steps on the stone, coming his way from inside. Clump Clump Clump Much like hard hooves on stone, echoing loudly from the cavern.
(Note that by this time his Wizard's Sidestep has expired.)
Torros will continue to look trough the crack to see what creature is coming.
In case the creature is going to pass the entrance Torros will cast for a Muto Imaginem to change his Image (vision and smell) to be similar to the rocks at the entrance of the cave.
Looking through the cracks, he sees a figure outlined in the firelight behind it coming into the tunnel on the other side of the door, headed towards him. One of its arm seems to be in the shape of a large hammer, and the sound of its steps echoes strongly into the tunnel.
(OOC: Details of the spell please. Base, R/D/T, etc. as well as casting parameters.)
Torros will cast the spont spell spending fatigue and using Normal voice and gestures.
Range Per, Duration Conc, Target Ind
Base 2, Per+0, Conc +1, Ind +0 = 3
In case you want me to roll:
coyotecode.net/roll/lookup.php?rollid=102672 = 7
Casting total( 8 + 7)/2 = 7
As soon as Torros starts casting his spell, the footsteps stop and a voice asks something that he cannot quite make out. The question is repeated again, but he only catches the last part of it: "..out there?"
A few moments later, Torrow hears parts of a muffled discussion inside the tunnel. "Heard something... what? ...talking... ...check out..."
Then, after a few more moments of silnece, the door leading inside abruptly swings open and the troll steps out. For it is obviously what this is... a huge humanoid creature, close to 8 feet tall but bent over. Green-skinned and gamgly, with warts and lanky dark hair. In one hand it holds a large club, which has a shard of stone jammed through its end and tied there.
The creature looks out, its tiny eyes looking this was and that. Close as it is to Torros, its potent scent of old raw fish is almost overwhelming.