The godlike Fíriel waves her arms and causes slivers of stone to split from the walls and fly directly toward the southern demon!
Prickles, meanwhile, grabs a wand between his teeth and scurries over to sit upon Randall's shoulder, then squeaks a loud command and begins to lick all of the halfling's ammunition!
Njord retrieves one of his rarely used explosive gourds and hurls it at the trapped gug.
The rune's guardians suffer the missile attacks from Njord, Xiddik, and Firiel without reply. The babau cursed by Asht becomes sluggish as its limbs suddenly turn leaden.
The field of rubbery tentacles continues to hold the demons fast.
Randall draws a wand and attempts to use it on the ammunition in his quiver.
He hands the wand to the powerful hedgehog. "Here, Prickles. Someone may need this on their weapon, too."
Asht'el raises his hands before him, holding them a foot or so apart. Sparks of electricity begin to crackle between them but, as he flings them forward at the entangled foes, they become fat sparks of flame that coalesce into a writhing bolt of fire that strikes the gug, then leaps to each of the demons in turn!
Xiddik keeps filling her target with arrows.
Prickles preens proudly for a moment before accepting the wand and scurrying toward Xiddik, grinning through his skull mask at the immense trust being placed in him.
Fíriel, meanwhile, considers her next move.
Xiddik eyes the pricklebeast warily, and extends the tiniest tip of her shortbow towards Firiel's extremely sharp and probably poisonous animal companion.
Xiddik's arrows and Asht's torrent of lightning brings the partially calcified babau down. The lightning leaves the other demon and the gug burned by still alive.
Asht’el pouts a little at not getting the chance to see the calcifying effects of his spell, then shrugs, muttering, ”I guess I’m partly to blame for the thing being dead...“
Fíriel flings more bits of wall.
Njord tosses another gourd at the rune's trapped guardians with more explosive results.
The gug warbles in pain as it's blasted by Njord's explosive and Firiel's stony missiles.
The ifrit's spell proves inescapable.
Randall takes his crossbow loaded with twice-enchanted ammunition and heads for the door . He appears to be leaving.
Asht'el repeats his previous exercise, sending burning arcs of fire at the two creatures still trapped in the writhing tentacles!
As Asht'el's spell at least partially fizzles, Xiddik rolls her eyes. "Demons." She nocks two more arrows and looses. "Do not like demons."
Prickles hurries forward and bites the end of Xiddik's bow as he taps it with Randall's wand, imbuing it with even more magic.
Fíriel, meanwhile, pauses to assess the situation.
Njord hucks another explosive gourd.
Randall disappears around the corner in a very convincing manner from the perspective of the trapped demons.
Asht's new spell fizzles ineffectively against the babau's fiendish resistance but Njord and Xiddik each land telling blows. The arrows from Xiddik's hedgehog-blessed blow seem particularly effective as they set the demon howling in pain.
The gug and the remaining babau continue to struggle against the tentacles.
Asht'el continues to try to hold the creatures in his spell's wriggling tentacles, while targeting the babau with a series of arcane blasts!
The unlucky gug suffers the full grunt of the chained lightning before it fizzles against the babau's slimy form.
The unluck finally runs out as the tentacles lose their grip and the hideous aberration slips free.
Hoping to take the creatures by surprise, Randall pops back into view and lets fly with his crossbow at the babau.
Xiddik shifts uneasily, continuing to fire upon the demon. "Gug's loose!" the kobold shrieks.
Prickles charges forward, bravely making a scary face at the gug. Fíriel, meanwhile, gives a loud shout at the gug, attempting to rupture its eardrums.
Njord keeps tossin'!
The gug and the remaining babau succumb to the party's ranged assault.
Once the glowing sigil's guardians have fallen, the room is left unguarded save the recent addition of grabby tentacles.
As Randall is returning the bolt to his quiver and stowing the crossbow, he nods at the tentacles, "How long will those things stay?"
Asht'el snaps his fingers and the writhing black tentacles vanish. With a smile at Randall, he says, "Not long." He stands back and waits for the others to investigate the glowing sigil.
"Hey, that's handy!"
Carefully moving past the bodies of the guardians and inspecting the floor where the erstwhile tentacles had been on his way by, Randall moves toward the sigil. Before getting too close, he starts investigating, well aware that the sigil's magic could make it very capable of protecting itself.
"More like tendrily," Xiddik quips, eager to demonstrate to the others why she's a wind instruments bard and not a comedy bard. She walks over, tail twitching, and tries to lend her eyes to Randall's effort.
Fíriel giggles softly, but at a glare from Prickles she subsides and begins to look around as well. Prickles, meanwhile, trundles over to Randall and climbs back up to the halfling's shoulder, squeaking helpfully in his ear all the while.
Randall, with a few pointers from his friends, deduces that the glyph is trapped much like the previous two. Any attempt to disable it by force will trigger a dangerous explosion.
Fíriel and Prickles gather round, she commenting quietly and he squeaking and wiggling his quills helpfully.
After several tense seconds, there's an audible *gasp* from the enormous glyph as Randall trips some vital portion of the magic's workings. Rapidly, it dims and fades until it appears 'dead' and inert as the previous glyphs did.
As a side effect, the magic from the glyph seeps up into the heroes that disabled it causing the eyes of Randall and Prickles to glow with eerie light.
Randall steps back from the glyph with an audible sigh of relief before something catches his eye on the wall. He looks around the room, eyes wide, as he notices details that even his sensitive eyes had missed previously. "Everything seems... clearer now. Does the room look the same to you, Firiel? And what's going on with Prickles' eyes?"
Fíriel glances around, then shakes her head in a clear "I don't know" gesture. Turning back to Randall, she raises her eyebrows as she sees his eyes. "Your eyes are... glowing," she comments, before examining Prickles, who happens to be facing the other direction. The hedgehog gives a little squeak and widens his eyes at Randall behind his ubiquitous mask, seemingly exploring this new effect's affect on his fearsomeness.
Xiddik nonchalantly takes a step to the side away from Prickles.
"They are?" His brow furrows. "That's going to make hiding tricky, isn't it?"
"And your other halflings might not let you play their halfling games," Xiddik says with a knowing nod.
A mischievous gleam enters Prickles' eyes as he observes Xiddik's discomfort. While she's busy talking to Randall, he quietly circles around behind her and then, making his most ferocious face behind his carved mask, he brazenly taps her on the tail.
Prickles accidentally taps Xiddik's very sharp tail attachment, and is dolefully sucking his cut paw when Xiddik whirls to face him. Xiddik stares at the beast, her reptilian eyes appearing torn between anger, fear, and something else.
The kobold bursts out laughing—actually laughing, which is not a terribly common habit of hers. The sound is sort of reminiscent of a chick's peeping. She crouches down, giggling like mad as she stares at Prickles.
"I—your p-pricklebeast, Firiel—" She shakes her head, tail twitching behind her wildly as she cackles. "I—oh—oh, f~$~..."
The Darklands guide's laughter, like a squeaky wheel rolling down a cliffside, continues, long after what would be socially appropriate. It's almost like she can't stop.
Fíriel whirls at the sound of the kobold... squeaking? and stares at Xiddik for a few seconds trying to make sense of it before the kobold speaks. Tearing her eyes from Xiddik with difficulty, she raises a hand to her mouth and tries to suppress her astonishment (and amusement) as she takes in the rest of the scene.
Prickles, meanwhile, sits back on his haunches sucking his injury, looking for all the world like he's been viciously betrayed. After a few seconds, though, he tilts his head at Xiddik and gives the tiniest little snort, before launching into a sneezing fit that has all the signs of being a form of laughter.
"Ah... I hate this." Xiddik's laughter finally starts to ebb, and she shakes her head ruefully. "Everything is terrible, and we are all going to death. What a mess. What a mess." She glances at Randall. "So, what next?"
Brow still furrowed, Randall seems to be trying to see if his eye give off enough light to read by, holding one hand, then the other before his face to see if the light shines on them.
With a start, he realizes the comment was directed at him. ”I think there’s another sigil, right? Do we have enough magic today to go find it? Or do you think we should search around here to see if the inhabitants have found something important?” He shakes his head, ”I just want to go home and watch suckers loose the money on wagers they can’t win.”
"Let's head to the next sigil," Asht'el responds after an uncharacteristically long pause for thought. "Get you - and all of us - back home that much sooner."
"Yeah, let's."
Having moved past his moment of melancholy, the fellow with the light fingers looks around the room for anything of interest.