Harbug casts again and looks around the room. "I bet there's nothing good to eat in here... at least the tower girls had some real food..." he mumbles. "Shabbezz--do you know what this bracer is? We should at least identify it before we decide whether to give it back to the half-pint 'king'."
The room appears to be empty, and devoid of magic items or triggers. In fact, it appears as nothing more than a kitchen that has been abandoned for centuries, if not millenia. Of course, every kitchen has a problem with vermin, and this was no exception. As Harbug stuck his head into the southern over to look up its chimney, he heard a rustling sound. Looking down, the orc found the ground and walls of the oven writhing with thousands of pale yellow centipedes. And the mass was getting larger by the second!
Angelica
Harbug
Krass
Shabezz
Tialara
swarm
It's a centipede swarm (don't be fooled by the single icon, I couldn't find a swarm one I liked)!
Initiatives:
group
swarm
"We best run!!", Krass shouts.
"Oil, oil, oil! We need oil!" Harbug calls out as he runs past the rest of the group out into the hallway.
It woudn't, other than make them wet. Swarms are immune to effects that target one creature.
The hobgoblin hauls his ass out of the room. He does throw a look over his shoulder to make sure no one is left behind.
Seeing the two big guys made a mad dash, Angelica follows suit, deciding to head straight up through the room with the spider webs. It may slow her down, but there's no way all those little centipedes can unstick themselves from any of that webbing. Hopefully it will hold them all in place.
The Catfolk Druid stood there a moment before deciding that it'd be best to follow suit. As fast as possible, she followed the Rogue.
You all make a dash for the spider room, with the hungry centipede swarm close behind. The webbing slows the swarm down initially, with its leading elements getting caught in the sticky traceries on the floor that your larger mass simply tears through or ignores. Still, the swarm came on, traversing the captured forms of the leading elements, thousands of pale yellow wriggling forms in pursuit. What finally stopped them was the ready access to fresh meat in the form of the spiders you killed here earlier. Your former foes turn into your saviors as the centipedes fall on their corpses. A single centipede feasting doesn't make enough noise to be heard by most humanoids. A thousand thousand, however, sounds like a near-continuous crackle of static electricity. It is a sound that strikes disgust into your very core.
While huffing and puffing near the top of the stairs, Harbug looks a little sickened. He glances back and says "Why do I get the feeling that the shard we're looking for is past that mess?" A few more huffs pass and he stands up and removes the bracer from his head. In a quieter tone he says "Let's deal with this thing then? Figure out what it is and then decide what we're going to do with or about it?"
"Or .. we go up, hand those blue bastards back their crown, get our reward and head back to town to sell everything we've found."
"Please, let's do what Krass has suggested," Shabbezz pants, leaning her hands on her knees for support. "I hate to complain, but this gear we have to sell is weighing me down, I'm out of useful spells until I rest, and we still need to return that crown to the mite king anyway before we can go."
While they're waiting, Shabbezz takes the opportunity to examine the beaver that Harbug asked about before.
"I agree, we're in pretty ragged shape. Let's head back, I doubt the shard is going anywhere soon." Tialara piped in.
While they're waiting, Shabbezz takes the opportunity to examine the beaver that Harbug asked about before.
While they're waiting, Shabbezz takes the opportunity to examine the beaver that Harbug asked about before.
Shabbezz holds out the "crown" for the others to see.
"This is curious. The trinket is just one half of a set of magical protective bracers. It won't function without its twin, however. As it is, it's basically useless."
"Well, useless now, but that sounds like a pretty nifty pair... Problem would be how to get the other one from the 'king.' Do you guys think it'd be worth trying to negotiate or something? Maybe we could get him something in the town?" Harbug asks the others after he finally catches his breath.
Angelica smirks at the notion of 'negotiating' with the little blue runt. "Tell you what. give me an idea of what those things are worth, and when we see the diamond I can compare what's in our best interests. If it's nowhere close, we can try to bargain for more. Maybe we can get the little buggers to go feed all those centipedes to their spiders or something."
Figuring that Angelica's proposition has merit, Shabbezz attempts to approximate the value of the set just by examining the one bracer.
"We best add a lie to it all as well .. that there are more spiders deep down in this complex and that we're planning on going there on our return. Something like that."
Krass really didn't feel like being jumped by a horde of tiny little blue men.
"I dunno what the things are worth, but magic is power..." Harbug looks at the bracer for a while with a somewhat entranced look.
"Meh, they're probably not as good as the diamond." He tosses the bracer to Angelica.
Angelica looks both amused and sympathetic, "Oh, sweethearts, you are all so cute. I don't need you to tell me the money value of the thing as jewelry or armor, I'm sure I'm the best of us to determine that. I was wondering what the applied or magic value would be. Like how much would these cost on the whole magic object market. If the pair is worth more than the diamond, even more since they only work in pairs, he NEEDS the other for it to even work."
As for Krass' suggestion, she looks confused "So, we're offering them the spiders, or offering to kill them? They like the crawlies, remember. They had a few in their common spaces."
"Didn't we just kill something that resembled a spider in many ways for them? Well, we can always say Clicky-Legs has family deeper down if we must." Krass looked a little confused. Nature wasn't his forte - what mattered to him was whether you could eat it or not.
"I think he just means we should offer some reason for us to leave their 'kingdom' and then come back through it again later. It sounds like a good idea, but I haven't a clue as to what to say... What would be convincing to mites anyway? Harbug responds. "As for the value of the bracers as a completed magic item, it would let Shabbezz or myself have the equivalent of your leather armor without interfering with our spellcasting. That's... well, not really that big a deal. I guess enchanting this orange thing is about the same value." Harbug says pointing at his belly warmer. "Probably runs about 1000 gold to have the enchantment done; and if you didn't find the warmer [smaller]onsomesuckerwhohadbetterordersthanyou[smaller] then you'd have to pay a few gold for it too." Harbug mumbles something quickly in the middle of his explanation, possibly too quickly to understand well.
"I realize it may be unorthodox," Shabbezz interjects, "but what if we simply deliver the crown, take the diamond, and simply request safe passage on the return trip? They are fey, but surely they wouldn't find such a sensible suggestion unreasonable if we held up our end of the agreement to the letter?"
"Oh, Shabs, Shelyn bless your positive outlook. We are just bouncing around ideas, but I have found in my line of work, it's always easier to be prepared to be double-crossed than not. If the deal is sound, all is well. If we're getting cheated for our hard work, and we did ALL the hard work not them, then it doesn't hurt to know what the next step is." She smiles her crooked smile and winks at the grippli.
The Hobgoblin stares and blinks at the Grippli. A moment later he pulls up his shoulders and shrugs. "Sure, why not. Let's get going?"
"That's okay with me." Harbug answers.
The trip up the spiral stairs and back to the mite king's throne room was a short one, and as you approached the mite king on his ogre skull throne, he looked up sharply. In that bird-like voice of his he screeched in a strange language. What followed was a tumble of words and hisses, only one of which you can make out. "Assassins!" The king practically fell over the back of the throne trying to get away from you, and small forms poured into the room.
The hobgoblin yells as he draws his weapon. "Rovagug eat all of you!! "
"Whoa! HOLD ON!" Harbug yells, holding up the bracer. "You sent us for this crown!"
When the little buggers started pouring into the room, Tialara positioned herself at the best angle to blast the first one that comes close.
Angelica turns and winks to Shabbezz, "Looks like a classic double-cross. They get us to do the hard work and find what they want, then they turn on us while our chips are down from doing so." She stands ready.
The small blue creatures poured into the room around you, screeching in their bird-like voices and attacking with everything from broken furniture to rusty blades. However, for all their zeal, the two-foot high creatures weren't exactly a major threat. A few minutes later and it was all over. You stood around a room filled with the corpses of mites, shaking your heads in disgust and chagrin. The only sounds, other than your heavy breathing, are the sobs coming from the king mite cowering behind his throne.
Unless his companions take action, Krass will step forward and put the rotten blue bastard to the sword. Gorum tolerates no such shenanigans.
After the carnage subsides, the grippli stands around looking dumbfounded at the unprovoked attack. All the while she quietly mouths the words Angelica had said to her before the battle had begun:
"'...Classic double-cross...'"
Shabbezz looks pensive for a moment, then her eyebrows (or rather, the area where her eyebrows would functionally be) shoot upward in a moment of sudden realization.
"Ah! That's right! Now I remember why mites are so special amongst other fey. They are all irrevocably insane, every last one!"
She tugs on Krass' chainmail to get his attention.
"Taking that fact into account, perhaps we should confirm the king's reason for attacking us on sight before you skewer him. Maybe he has a better explanation, at least in his mind."
Krass flexes his fingers, stretching them outwards and then inwards, cracking his knucles as he does so. A thoughtful gaze at the Mite king seems to be considering whether or not cutting him to pieces is the way to go. In the end he budges and gives in to Shabbezz' demand. "Fine, so be it."
Shabbezz nods at the hobgoblins agreement, then turns to the changeling.
"Angelica, you tend to have a way with words. Can I ask you to interrogate the king on our behalf?"
"Dibs on 'bad' guard for good-guard, bad-guard." Harbug says with a very toothy smile as he brandishes his blade.
Angelica smirks, and raises her eyebrows in mischief, "Oh Shabs, dear, I do have a way with words it seems," she crosses her hands in front of her with prpoer lady-like poise, "but I find my words hold more sway when I can give them a little more allure." she then pushes her shoulders forward to accentuate her 'womanly charms' by letting them squeeze together a bit. "Wouldn't you say?" she runs a finger along Krass' jaw, before turning to the little blue runt, suddenly all business.
"Alright, look here, little guy. It's just you and us now, and we can talk nice and calm-like. We're just curious what you have planned, now that you tried to trick us into finding your other 'crown' before you turned on us? We had an agreement, so why did you try to go back on it?"
"Assassins go away! Leave Zuuga be! Kill all mites, no!"
Angelica looks shocked and confused, before her anger takes over, "Assassins? You have got to be kidding me? You hired us, you little freak. We got your other crown, now where's our diamond?"
"Maybe we should just go with it. We are great and mighty assassins! Give us your crown and your gems or we will carry out our mission!" Harbug yells at the king while pointing his sword towards the blue creature. His face betrays his intentions though, and he barely stifles a laugh at the end of it.