Ary and Markus hold their ground, wishing to protect the wounded.
Anevia moves forward, drawing her shortsword as she does so. Her attack is controlled and precise, cutting out a deep wound from the creature. Afterwards, she pauses, staring at Li'an strangely. "Woah. Li'an, is that you? Didn't know you could do that!" she exclaims.
While Anevia is paying attention to Li'an the snake slowly sidewinds towards her, and strikes! Its actions are sluggish though, and Anevia is able to slap it away with her crutch.
Valaria is up.
Valaria continues her attack against the first serpent.
Valaria swings, ever so barely missing as the lithe creature stays just one step ahead of her.
Hrut takes a double swing at his foe, slicing high with his axe and pounding low with his shield.
"This seems to be working out better, I am glad these snakes do not fly!"
Attack#2 Axe: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 5 = 11
Attack#2 Shield: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17
Damage Axe: 1d8 + 4 + 2 + 1d6 ⇒ (3) + 4 + 2 + (5) = 14
Damage Shield: 1d4 + 5 + 2 + 1d6 ⇒ (2) + 5 + 2 + (2) = 11
Hrut misses the snake with his axe, but his massive, glowing shield connects, transferring all of his weight into his target, staggering it.
Round 2
Ehren is up!
Ehren fires another dart of acid out of his finger.
Ehren's bolt of acid hits the snake in its open mouth! The creature flails and thrashes as angry red blisters coat the inside of its throat, until finally it passes out from its accumulated wounds.
The remaining snake stays focused on Valaria. Hrut warns of its oncoming attack, and Valaria holds off the snake's open mouth with both of her starknives at the last moment.
Li'an takes advantage of the opening created by Valaria managing to stop the snake's attack. Stepping forward quickly, she plants one foot on the over-extended snake and attempts to plunge Lleuad into its back.
Lleuad plunges deeply into the snake's body, critically wounded.
Horgus keeps his back against the wall, peering down both ends of the tunnel anxiously.
Aravashnial finally finishes his incantation, beads of sweat appearing along the the edges of his bandages from the effort, until a small portal shimmers momentarily in the tunnel's mouth. A small creature, like a living bonfire, grows from its opening before it snaps shut. It moves with a single purpose: towards the snake. It lunges at it, searing its flesh.
Aravashnial then moves forward, guided by Markus.
Elemental slam: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (12) + 4 = 16
Elemental damage: 1d4 ⇒ 3
Viper reflex save vs dc11: 1d20 + 3 -3 ⇒ (11) + 3 -3 = 11
Markus is up.
Markus and Ary hang back to protect the groups' rear.
Anevia leans back, wincing at her leg. "Hmmmmm, this is going to hurt when your spell wears off, elfy."
Valaria is up.
"I don't suppose anyone knows any healing magic," Valaria comments off hand before launching another attack.
Valaria grins savagely as both blades sink into the serpent.
Valaria's counterattack cuts the snake down.
Combat ends
The little fire elemental drifts to Aravashnial's side. The elf feels its familiar heat, and sighs. "Canrau, mellon tinnodruir," he murmurs softly.
"You know your summons personally?" she asks, sounding a little surprised. She had never considered that summoned creatures would have a relationship with their callers. She feels a sudden sympathy as she realizes that losing access to his spellbook also cuts Aravashnial off from any of his summoned allies.
She forces the bleak thoughts back, not wanting to let the pity show on her face. "Is anyone hurt? I could feel the poison when that thing bit me and we need to get that treated fast if anyone else got bit."
"I don't think I saw anyone else get bit," Ehren remarks, lowering his finger. He steps over toward the serpent that he slew, nudging it with the end of his club.
"Unfortunately I've already used the only healing spell I had. I won't be able to prepare another until tomorrow."
Li'an was relieved that both the snakes had been dispatched. Even though they weren't safe by any means, she was glad they seemed to be encountering creatures unrelated to the invasion up above. "Poison?" she said aloud, thinking for a moment. Li'an closed her solid white eyes and brought her hand up, touching the eyelids gently as she uttered an incantation. She scanned the group, looking to see if anyone had been poisoned by the snakes.
"Hrut or Ehren, do you think the snakes might be edible?" said the grey-skinned elf. "We should consider making use of them if they are."
"Lle rangwa aeron?" Li'an said after a bit, realizing Valaria had understood Aravashnial.
"You understand Elvish?"
"I don't see why not," Ehren replies, kneeling down by the snake once he is satisfied that it is dead. "They just need to be cleaned, gutted, and cooked thoroughly. I can't promise anything about the flavor, though."
First into battle and last to leave it, my foot. Ary mutters, under her breath, somewhat annoyed.
"Venomous, not poisonous. You can eat venom. It's only dangerous if injected." Ary offered, offhand. "Dunno about these, specifically."
"I don't hear any cockroaches anymore. But good call on moving int the middle of the group. I can cover flanks a lot better if I'm near more people. So don't be afraid to move out. Also, if you don't want to fight, prioritize escape routes. Being caught between a rock and a hard place is significantly worse than being caught in the open. We can bring down stuff that hits you in the open. Though... don't overextended, either." she offered to Horgus.
Horgus puffs up, as he is an easily flattered sort of person. "Of course. I have no experience with any of this unpleasantness, but I assure you, I am a highly educated man and I have read many books."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"I think I previously stated but I can heal in the midst of combat but not after, have you worn through the spell Aravashnial cast on you thought his wand?"
Looking both directions,
"Should we continue on this direction, or at least check to see we won't have something come up on us from behind?"
"Too bad," Valaria says as she looks over at Ehren. "I guess we'll have to be careful until you can rest and recharge then." She leans against the wall of the cavern and tries to relax, feeling a little on edge with the repeated animal attacks.
She looks at Li'an and grins. "An, O fun Aeron. O'fo Kyonin forgonath nahero ev sio findan."
Yes, I speak Elvish. I've been to Kyonin before in my travels.
Ehren nods at Valaria's words, slightly frustrated by his limitation. Speaking of which...
"Someone else will have to carry these," he remarks flatly, picking up one of the snakes by the neck before letting it drop with a light thud. "I'm laden as is, unfortunately."
"We can just strap them to my pack. I'll drop the pack if we fight, and nothing lost for the extra weight. We should drain them first, though. Leaving a trail of blood will draw hungry things to us." Ary responded, still just standing in the halls until someone needs her for something.
"How's that combat healing work? Cause we do have a few wounded that could use it, whenever you can give it."
Li'an turns to Anevia, not having had a chance to respond during the battle. "Apparently the scale that Terendelev left behind lets me change form. I thought I might be able to make use of it to see in the dark, and it seems I was right!" she exclaimed, taking pride in having put together her knowledge of magic and other races to pull off the trick.
Li'an smiles at Valaria's response in elvish, making a mental note to definitely get more stories out of her.
"Well, if we dress them now we can divide up the weight between us all. Obviously it would be more convenient of we could dress them when we make camp, but we'd be carrying a lot more snake until then. Of course I'm not exactly the strongest either, and I don't have any experience dressing a kill, so I'll leave the decision to those who can," she responded to Ehren.
"Once we've decided that, I say we continue forward, no sense second guessing ourselves on direction now."
Ehren nods. "We should cover more ground while we still can," he says, leaving the snakes to Ary. "Something is just as likely to come at us from the front, if not more so."
Anevia grins at Li'an, "Ooooooh now that's some super infiltrator stuff you've got going on there! I'm jealous! We'll need to let your superior officer know you can do that once we get to the surface, the crusades can use something like that."
Anevia limps over to Li'an, digging out some small vials from her bandolier. "Here," she hands her two vials of alchemical fire, and two smoke sticks. "Maybe you can use these? The sticks are great for covering a retreat if you need it, especially in the tight quarters down here."
Aravashnial's little fire elemental flickers out of existence.
The group proceeds forward, with Li'an and Valaria in front, and Ary covering the rear. The winding tunnel continues for 1,900 feet. Anevia cannot move very fast, with her leg broken as it is, so it takes 25 minutes to continue.
On the way, Anevia addresses Ary's previous question:
"How Irabeth and I met? Oh it's quite a tale, and not one for children! You see, I grew up on a farm in the River Kingdoms, and Irabeth was the local stable girl. I used to love bossing her around, and she'd only reply, 'As you wish.'. As you wish! At first I thought she was just being cold to me, then I realized the big girl was in love with me! A couple rolls around in the hay later and Irabeth decides to become a pirate, just to win my fair hand in marriage. I thought she had died, so I ended up engaged with some jerk, and on the eve of my wedding I was kidnapped by three sczarni outlaws..."
She goes on like this for some time, detailing an extravagant tale involving a conspiracy to kill Anevia to start a war in the River Kingdoms, Anevia ultimately being rescued by Irabeth in the disguise of a swashbuckler, culiminating into a great battle against a six-fingered man...
"And then Irabeth and me tongue kissed on a beach for twenty minutes straight while the birds sang overhead and we got married before the church of Iomedae and everything. I wanted her to go back to being a pirate, but she said that the honorable thing to do would be to go sign up for the Crusades, so we did and I've followed her ever since! ...But that's enough about me. Aravashnial! What ever happened to Lylina?"
"She left."
"Oh, yes, obviously. But why? Dish! Was it a religious difference? Y'know that's why Harder and Anithriel broke up recently, such a shame, cute couple..."
"It didn't work out."
"Business troubles?" "Business is...was... good."
Anevia pokes and prods at the elf for awhile as the group travels, but fails to get anything out of him except short, curt statements.
After working to get the snakes 'packed', as it were, using some torn canvas to make a makeshift package for them, Ary looks over to Aravashnial. "We'll find a fix for you, Avi. There's always a solution, we just have to find it." she hefted her bag back onto her shoulders and looked over the group, ready to press forward once more.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
She dug out the scale again and looked at it for a moment. "Such a terrible price, but I can't let Terendelev's last gift go to waste..." Finally she responded, "It will certainly come in quite useful. And as always, all of my skills are at the crusade's disposal."
"Thank you for the items, hopefully we'll not be in a situation where we need to cover an escape, but it's good to be prepared!"
As Anevia dumped items on her, Li'an tried to figure out how to carry them without interfering with her movement. Finally she took off the fine silk rope she kept lashed to her pack. "Would you mind carrying this Anevia? I can adjust it so it can be worn along with your bandolier if you like. That'll allow me to keep the alchemical items in the small pockets on the sides of my pack."
"How's your leg feeling anyway? Is the pain manageable for now?" Li'an asked in a concerned tone.
As the group worked its way down the hall, she overheard Anevia telling the story of how she met Irabeth to Ary. She couldn't get all of it due to having to keep her attention focused ahead, but it sounded spectacularly outlandish, perhaps even inconceivable! In fact if they'd seen her up front, it's very likely they would've asked why it was she was smiling.
Valaria picks herself up and gets back to the head of the group, rather enjoying Anevia's wild story as they make their way through the next tunnel. "I'll have to have her give me some lessons sometime," she thinks with a chuckle. "I'm getting rusty with my tall tales if she's managing to out-do me with this wild yarn." But despite herself, she finds the story lightening her step and bringing a smile to her face. Even if it's wildly improbably, it brings some much needed levity to the dark underground.
She frowns at Aravashnial's evasiveness, wondering if the loss is still raw for him.
She grimaces, feeling that Anevia's being entirely too nosey into something that clearly pains the elf, but she bites her tongue, not wanting to start an argument over what is likely an honest, if insensitive, question.
A hauting end to one of Anevia's questions catches Valaria's ear, and a nagging sensation at the back of her head makes her feel nervous. "That's definitely not a River Kingdoms accent," she realizes. "It sounds more like... no can't be." She shakes herself, trying to focus on looking ahead so they don't get ambushed by another pack of cave creatures.
Ehren smiles faintly as he listens to Anevia's tale, more or less oblivious to its fantastical nature. Or rather, it did not matter much to him whether it was true or not. He had always enjoyed listening to the stories woven by his kin. It was always a shame that he himself was not so great a storyteller.
Earlier.... Anevia gladly carries Li'an's rope for her. "Oh my leg twinges a bit, but thanks to this necromantical elvish magic it's not so bad!"
---
A few thinly veiled attempts to get Aravashnial to open up later and he snaps, "Look, if you really want to know what happened to Lylina, ask Irabeth. If she's even still alive."
Anevia pales. "What are you talking about? Of course she's still alive."
"Don't be ridiculous. Everyone's thinking it. That was the Storm King, and no one was prepared for him to strike today. There's a good chance that if we don't merely end up lost and dead in the Darklands, we'll emerge into the smoldering ruins of a city. There's a chance that we're the only survivors," he says, in the same impartial, calculated tone of voice he always has.
Anevia fumes. "No! Irabeth's fine. She's fine. She's just up there, waiting for me, saving all kinds of lives in the meantime. Also, druid kid here says the wardstone is fine, therefore, Kenabres is fine, therefore, you're just being a downer for the sake of being a downer."
"I'm a scientist," Aravashnial responds cooly. "The facts heavily weigh in one direction, and just because you don't want to face it, doesn't mean it is not true."
Anevia doesn't have a response to that.
Earlier: "I..." she paused for a moment. Well, accents could change. But the rest of it seemed -very- far-fetched. "That seems... very far-fetched. Not that I'm calling you a liar... but the River Kingdoms aren't really pirate territory. Why would she run off to join pirates to win your hand?"
-------
"Could we all keep a -little- bit on the calm side?" Ary asks, as things draw to a head. "We need to face the facts as a whole. We know -nothing- about what has occurred topside since we came down here. I'm not holding out much hope that the city is in any sort of state to be called a city, just now. But that doesn't mean people didn't get out. There's a good chance that -many- people escaped. If the Ward Stone is still going, simply fleeing away from the World Wound would be enough to allow a relatively easy escape."
She rolls her injured shoulder slightly, "I get that despair is easy right now, but we must honor our fellows," she said, emphasizing, Both in thought and deed. And we must have faith, Avi. Giving into despair is strictly the wrong course of action here."
Hearing tensions rising between Aravashial and Anevia, and Ary trying to calm them down, Li'an paused and asked Valaria to hold for a moment. Walking half way back to the group, she chimed in, offering her opinion.
"You both need to listen to Ary, we need to stay calm and focused on us for the moment," she said as she stood in front of the still advancing group. "Anevia, please respect Master Aravashnial's privacy on the matter of Lylina. You'd want the same courtesy if, Desna forbid, something ever happened between you and Irabeth. And Master Aravashnial, you might consider why you mentioned that Irabeth might be dead. Does it aid in our escape, or is it an easy way to retaliate for having your privacy invaded?" Li'an sighed as she finished and turned around, heading back towards Valaria.
"I'm of a similar mind." pipes in Markus, "It'll be easy to get defensive and separate yourself from us, bt we need to have trust and respect if we're going to escape this. Not only those things, but professionalism. Put aside your personal stressors for now. Until we reach the surface, they don't matter."
Earlier: "Oh, of course she wasn't a pirate in the river kingdoms, silly! You can't pirate in rivers! But she needed some way to impress me, with a face like I mine I can afford to be very high maintenance."
----
Anevia sighs. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry for pokin' my nose in your business, elfy."
Aravashnial doesn't acknowledge Anevia, but he does offer this: "I understand. Though I must reiterate: it isn't about emotions. It's about preparing for the worst."
-----
And with that, the group continues down the corridor in silence, with Li'an and Valaria up front. The scouts turn a bend and stumble upon a strange sight: the wall of the tunnel to their left has a rough, 5-foot opening apparently dug through it, leading into yet another tunnel filled with soft but nasty-looking dim green light. At the end of this creepy tunnel it opens up into yet another large cavern, though beyond that the pair cannot see.
As for the tunnel they're in, it continues ever onward, into the darkness.
Earlier: "I have some sacks to hold the snakes in if you wish, I can haul quite a bit with my size."
------
Not as much earlier: "Yes if we are a more effective team we can get through this more efficiently, being cordial to one another is enough until we get to the surface."
-------
"What do you girls make of the strange green light?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Errr, I hate to be the one to argue," Valaria cuts in. "Actually, no I don't. But there are pirates in the River Kingdoms. Water travel can be really dangerous around Deadbridge. I think they have a whole pirate organization set-up there, but I didn't stick around long enough to bother."
She looks at both Anevia and Aravashnial. "Well, I'm glad that's settled," she says. "And don't be too negative. Remember the old saying. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. We can be ready for the worst, but if we can't hope that things will be better, then there's no point."
She stops as they come to the split in the path and looks at the two paths. "Okay, creepy glowy green light is probably bad. Anyone else for not going that way?"
Li'an looked down the passage, trying to see if she could make out anything.
"As much as it may be creepy, I think I'd rather find out now what it is than have it catch up to us later," she answered.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Edit:
Valaria frowns and peers down the dark tunnel herself.
"Maybe, but we have a rear guard and walking right into something potentially dangerous isn't much better," she says.
Li'an was about to conceed when she noticed something."There's some sort of building down there..." she said, peering intently down the passage. "Are you sure we shouldn't take a look?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.
Valaria tilts her head. "A building? Underground? Huh, that's odd," she says. "I can't make out much from here, but if there's something strange... I suppose there's no reason not to check it out. Carefully of course."
"Rearguard works both ways. If we go in, I'll still be back here to handle what comes from where we were going." Ary said, as she stayed away from the green glow for now, keeping her own light away from the hole. "How difficult is it going to be to get down there? Can you figure out anything about the light with your Mage Sight?" Ary asked as she kept her eyes peeled behind them.
"If we're heading down toward this building that Li'an saw, whatever's making that glow might come after us from behind," she says. "But if it's far enough down that I can't see it, you'll still want to stay close, otherwise you'll be too far back for us to help you if something comes after us."
She examines the small passage a little closer. "I think we can make it through fine if we go single file, but it might be a little tight."