"Looks like a worrum..." Khaddar murmers softly, looking up to the stony surface of the ceiling. He gestures up at the ceiling "Hammer one of these loose, lad..." nodding quickly to Jibril "Goin tae plug that hole. And ye should ready yer bow fer the spider."
"Maybe not in the water ... I bet the sun's next rising that the token is somewhere on the other side of that web. Jibril comes out of a little revery hearing Khaddar's voice.
"Hammer one of these loose, lad...Goin tae plug that hole."
"Yes, I think you're right ..." Jibril goes to get his hammer from his bag ... but he seems distracted. "One momment."
And what was that just in front of the hole? Something...shiny...coated on the ground? Or perhaps just wet.
Jibril gets a sudden twinge of panic and fully intending to do as Khaddar suggested moves instead within a few steps of the shiny object, though still paranoid of the hole. He was worried the glistening thing might be sizeable enough to be a person - as Khadar said - paralyzed but still alive? Bow drawn, ashtoe arrow noched, Jibril goes in for a better look.
Quinn moves back until she's standing near the tunnel entrance. "I'm positive that what we need is being protected by the spider. Maybe even covered by the web. But I'm not going anywhere near it. That's not going to happen, not ever."
As Jibril got a bit closer, he saw that there was nothing in front of the hole, other than a glistening trail of some kind. Perhaps the ground was wet, or perhaps there was something else there. But it seemed to be a liquid of some kind, nothing bulky like a body.
Satisfied that the little pool of lime sediment? natural oil? monster spittle? is not a cocooned body Jibril retrieves his pack, straps on his equipment (quiver, Ashtoe arrows, hammer hanger, etc) and goes to work on an appropriate stalagmite as Khaddar suggested. With Khaddar's aid the two adventures plug the hole in an attempt to take some control of the room.
"Why don't we burn the spiderwebs to see if there's something behind them?"
He looked at Khaddar and Jibril, "Surely you have a torch in those packs of yours. I like to travel light so I don't have one. My back sort of hurts after a while if I lug around a backpack for more than a few minutes."
Jibril hammers away at one of the stalagmites, the sound echoing through the cavern. On the third hit, the base of the stone formation shatters, leaving Jibril with a big stone in one hand. As he and Khaddar go to plug the hole, they see movement within. Before they're able to plug the hole, a large, slimy worm-like creature begins to emerge. It's roughly the size of Quinn, but where a head would be, there's a strange and disgusting tangle of tentacles and hooked jaws. The mouth parts thrust out towards Jibril, clearly meaning to grab and possibly devour him.
Jibril sees motion more than anything and he immediately pushes backward dropping the stone He left his bow at the base of the stalagmite. He grabs it and launches one of the Ashtoe arrows at the creature!
Jibril doesn't check to see where the arrow flew as he quickly glances over to the hole by the still water of other invading worm. "Orra, Beware the oncoming filth!"
Pointy-end first, Khaddar sweeps the stone and rams it directly into the hole, as planned. Just because the aberration is wiggling tentacles at them is no reason for him not to follow through with a perfectly reasonable plan!
Jibril's arrow is swept aside mid-flight by one of the waving tentacles, and clatters to the ground inside the tunnel. Khaddar slams the stone into the hole, and hears a squick sound as the creature gets a jaw-ful of stone. For a few seconds the stone rattles against the walls of the burrow, and then everything becomes quiet. The dwarf only got a glimpse at the creature before blocking his home, but he's pretty sure the creature is what's known as a Grick.
Quinn couldn't really see much from where she was hovering but she could hear what was happening. "Burn the spider web, definitely burn the web!"
Ifanna...Ifanna, shh, shh... Setting a hand on her companion's shoulder, Elia creeps forward into the room, scanning ahead as she goes with her keen eyes magnifying the light from the torch Khaddar had carried. I'll burn it away, she replies to Quinn, coaxing a series of sparks from the palms of her hands as she inches toward the spiderwebs. Ifanna, though she doesn't look pleased about the proposition, nevertheless sticks close to Elia's side.
I will never win the Fletchers Ashtoe any renown if I can't hit the target Jibril picks up the deflected arrow and checks it for damage. Then moves to see where the stray sparks are coming from - perhaps he can find a spot where he can watch both the spider and the second burrow.
"Aye, I've got ne'er spare cloth nae alchemical fire tae help ye with, lad. Ye'll need tae find a thing tae light the spider yerself." While Quinn frets and Jibril regroups, Khaddar holds the stone in place, giving it a few solid thwacks to push tighter into the hole. "Yon grabby beasty is what ye call a Grue. "Miner's Bane". Ye cannot harm em with pick or hammer without significant force behind. Gluttonous, devious monstrosities, they are. Wholly unpleasant. Can Duncan no call up a thing a fire tae help us burn out these beasties?"
Quinn digs out a flask and holds it up. "I have some fire in a flask if someone wants to come get it to use."
Duncan thought for a moment, "Well Duncan can but is it really necessary?"
Without waiting for an answer he started his calling, "OK, OK, I guess I can but let's be careful. No one wants to play with fire."
He looked at Quinn, "No playing with fire, OK?"
A few gestures later and a small being of fire appeared, "Go burn the webs please..."
------------
Jibril moves to where he can keep an eye on the strange depression or hole near the flooded area. Unlike the one the Grue came from, which was a hole in the wall, this second one is in the floor. From where Jibril stands, he yet tell if it's a proper hole, or just a depression sunk in shadow.
What the half-elf does see is that the floor directly in front of him has strange, white mushrooms and toadstools growing on it. The albino fungi cover the bottom few inches of the nearest pillars, and seems to extend back towards the water.
Meanwhile Elia sneaks forward, sparks dancing in her hand. As she gets closer, she has to duck under the low ceiling, and the spider becomes clearer. It's massive body is black and shiny, and she can see a single wicked-looking claw on the end of each long leg. The huge arachnid doesn't move a muscle - its web doesn't so much as quiver. It will be a small matter to cast the spark in her hand onto the web and ignite it.
As Elia held out her hand, a small, flaming creature flowed up next to her, clearly intending to burn the webbing. Still the spider remains motionless, its eye-shine unblinking in the dark cavern.
Seeing Duncan's elemental appear, Elia elects to let the summoned creature do the work for her and backs up slightly, Ifanna only too happy to follow suit. Every muscle in her body stays taut as a rope as she waits to see the spider's response from a slight distance, prepared to lunge should the arachnid threaten to attack.
The little fire elemental flowed like a flaming snake, making its way under the overhang, towards the web. The spider did nothing as the living flame approached. Finally it made contact with the webbing, and the spidersilk went up in with a whoosh. In fact, it burned with such a fury that Ifanna and Elia were forced back a step.
Still the spider didn't move. A moment later, it began to emit a loud hissing/squealing sound. Before any of them could determine what that meant, the spider exploded in a huge fireball. The force of the blast knocked Jibril, Elia and Ifanna back nearly ten feet, and both Jibril and Elia ended up striking the stone pillars behind them. Both half-elf and witchwolf's clothes were burning, and the cavern filled with smoke and the smell of Ifanna's burning fur.
Perhaps as alarming was the loud shriek and thump as a strange creature was knocked from where it had been clinging to the ceiling above Jibril. Looking like the unholy offspring of the union between walrus and toad, the creature let out a loud croak of protest and looked around for somebody to blame for the disturbance to its slumber.
Sorry, DC is 15.
Seeing the spider web burn away, Quinn sighs in relief and takes a step forward just before the spider explodes in fire. Seeing her teammates smoldering, Quinn runs up and helps extinguish the flames by smothering them. "Roll on the ground!" She pulls her bedroll out and throws it over Ifanna.
Seeing the creature drop down beside Jibril, she raises her dagger and exclaims, "What the hells is that thing?"
Taken off guard, Elia is thrown from her feet and lands heavily against the nearest pillar, falling with a thud on her back at its base. Snarling, she kicks herself over to all fours and starts to panic for a moment, scratching at the flames and screaming - until Quinn's advice cuts through the anger and confusion. Heeding her words, Elia drops to the ground again, stopping at each point of searing pain to make sure the fire there is choked out. Tha-ank you! she calls out to Quinn, choking slightly on smoke and still trying to recover her breath.
Ifanna is, surprisingly, easy to deal with - the smoke and flame, instead of sending her into a panic like her master, seems to cow the young wolf, and she backs up against the pillar in terror. When Quinn throws the bedroll over her, though, she goes into a frenzy, bucking against the sudden weight and concealment and snapping at the fabric. After several moments, Elia (still half-burning herself) rises to her feet and reaches out to calm the panicked animal; under her master's soothing word, the wolf soon goes quiet.
Feeling like a ship at sea, and facing an enemy in every direction it seems, Jibril gets knocked backwards into a stalagmite and slides down it to his feet. His shoulder and right arm are still aflame when the bulbous toad thing lands directly in front of him. Loosing his elven cool he lets out a loud Whaaaaaa!, hops backwards, spins around, ducks behind the stalagmite he fell against - his back to the pillar. Once there he rushes to cover the flame with his cloak.
initiative 18
Duncan was more than alarmed; he tried to get his bearings and call his team to regroup, "Let's stay together. Not sure what's going on!"
----------------
Duncan loads his crossbow and waits for a shot amidst all the columns in the place.
He sent the fire elemental to continue to burn all the spiderwebs in the area.
---------------
Quinn hadn't spent much time around animals and so was surprised by Ifanna's response when she tried to help extinguish her burning fur. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare her," she mumbles to Elia.
Since the stone is fairly securely smashed into the gap, Khaddar scampers away from the hole, giving his chest a few invigorating smacks as he heads wide around the slurk, darting from cover to cover, and putting himself into a position where he can offer his fellow melee-brother some much-needed flanking against this wily saber-toothed slime-bucket. "It's a slurk, Lad... watch oot fer it's slime spray.
Seeing that the had a chance to shoot between the stone pillars, Duncan carefully aimed at the 'slurk'.
With years of target practice and even some light hunting, the man was quite a good shot with his crossbow but he missed, badly.
Duncan quickly quieted down any potential doubts regarding his ability, "That was on purpose, by the way. Just a first shot to make the monster run away."
He yelled at the monser, "You better leave now or I will... I will shoot your ass so just go."
------------
HP 27/27
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
Conditions: n/a
Melee: dagger +2, 1d4, 19-20, x2, 10’, P/S
Ranged: MW light crossbow +5, 1d8, 19-20, x2, 80’, P
Deadly aim -1 to hit / +2 damage
Spells: 4/4 1st level and 2/2 2nd level; 6/8 Summon monster
With all the RP in this group I keep wanting to say more during my combat turns! Xp
Duncan's elemental continued to burn away the webs, but there were very little left after the explosion. It soon found itself without a job to do.
The slurk, finding itself under attack, bellowed and hopped towards Duncan in huge, ground-covering lurches. However, as it moved, it spotted something it hadn't seen in a long time, something that triggered a deep, instinctual hate. Dwarf.
Lunging closer, the slurk opened its mouth, preparing to bite. The long tusks looked like they would be better suited to knocking opponents around with, but the slurk's jaws opened unnaturally wide, its head nearly tipping straight back, with the tusks pointed straight at Khaddar's head.
However, one look at those tusks coming for him was all the motivation Khaddar needed to twist away at the last moment, and the jaws snapped shut on empty air, the sound so loud it hurt the dwarf's ears.
Now that the spider webs were burned away and Ifanna was no longer on fire, Quinn moved forward to help Khaddar. Her dagger already in hand, she snuck up behind the strange creature Khaddar called a slurk and jabbed her weapon into its hide. This wasn't very difficult to do considering it's attention was focused on the dwarf.
The small flame zipped around the pillars and slammed into the toad-walrus.
Duncan yelled out, "Be careful if the creature catches fire; it burns."
He then loaded another bolt and tried his luck again.
he was ecstatic, "I hit it Jibril; I hit it!"
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if hit then must reflex save DC 12 or catch fire for 1d4
Hooking an arm around the stalagmite, Khaddar swings in a wide arc and snaps one of the fat toad-critter's feet out from under it, but it's toady bulk is far too low to the ground to be more than an instant inconvenienced by the strike. He lands in a reverse stance, however, balanced on the rock-biting cleat of his back foot, and snaps out with both hands, bludgeoning his knuckles of his crooked hand just under the beasts eye with a squishy slurp and then snapping upward with the pointed fingers of his other hand to mash a point on its neck that actually draws a little bit of blood, and stiffens the muscle around it to make it harder for the beast to move. As he retreats back to his stance, weaving in a jerky manner, he provides a less square-on target, a narrow profile, that lets him easily tuck back behind the stalactite once the dwarf-hating critter lunges again.
"HAH! Should hae looked behind ye, Sticky!" He crows in triumph as Quinn slips into position with her sharp, sharp knife. No one should ever have the misfortune of being caught between the two of them.
Any other actions for round 2? Jibril, Elia?
Jibril is crouched under the low ceiling with his right arm smoking. He steels himself with some clumsy sarcasm speaking aloud more to himself than the others "Slime spray, that's great..." He circles around the cave pillar "...would that be poisonous slime spray or acid slime spry..." and loads an ashtoe arrow taking aim on this slurk, it's silhouette framed by the light of his magic torch "...we could remove the rock and ask the giant 'Grue' in the wall..." as he looses the arrow some final embers flick off his forearm ...
He stands there for a second, like things couldn't get anymore chaotic so he might as well finish his thought before drawing another arrow "...that is if the giant spider has stopped exploding!"
"I hit it Jibril; I hit it!"
Unenthusiastically "Good work, keep your eye on it." It was probably just sleeping here before we came crashing through ... into the sun oh animal spirit
The poor slurk never had a chance. Duncan's bolt and the fire elemental weakened it, Khaddar's blows stunned and stiffened it, Quinn sliced and diced it, and then it was hit with the Ashtoe arrow. Jibril still wasn't sure exactly what enchantment the Ashtoe sisters had put on it (perhaps he should have stayed a bit longer to ask them about it), but it was the final straw. The slurk, his sticky nodules un-squirted, slumped over in a heap at their feet.
As Team Orra took a much-needed moment to breathe, they looked around to make sure no further dangers lurked in the flickering shadows. Elia noticed...something...in behind where the spider-bomb had been. Looking up to where the slurk had come from, Khaddar saw its burrow in the ceiling, with...something...just sticking out of it. Jibril looked down and noticed that the strange mushroomy patch he'd noticed before seemed to have moved a bit. In fact, it was definitely closer. Was it...jumping?
The strange carpet of slime, muck, fungus and mold lurched suddenly from the ground, a huge heavy carpet of filth, and it attempted to engulf the unlucky half-elf.
As the sheet of living fungus leaps out like a haunted rotting shroud Jibril lets out a single minuscule utterance "Spectacular." then twists to lunge left towards the as yet unexplored corner of the room!
..but he shouldn't have paused to speak as the homicidal moss grabs him to the waist and pulls him in. Before his face disappears he yells "Do whatever you have to! Just destroy it! And, whatever you do ... don't forget mmmm-mmmm-m"
Duncan happiness at having penetrated the thick hide of the walrus-toad was taken away too quickly as Jibril was engulfed by the... living carpet.
His instinctual disgust was followed by concern for his friend, the half-elf who wanted to par-tie.
He loaded again and shot another bolt even as he yelled for the fire dude to burn away the carpet.
----------
to hit is -4 if firing into melee
if hit then must reflex save DC 12 or catch fire for 1d4
please move the fire dude
HP 27/27
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
Conditions: n/a
Melee: dagger +2, 1d4, 19-20, x2, 10’, P/S
Ranged: MW light crossbow +5, 1d8, 19-20, x2, 80’, P
Deadly aim -1 to hit / +2 damage
Spells: 4/4 1st level and 2/2 2nd level; 6/8 Summon monster
Jibril seems to be thrashing about trying to escape ... or is this death carpet doing the thrashing?
Quinn watched in horror as Jibril was engulfed. "If we attack the fungus carpet, do we also hurt Jibril? Does anyone know what it is?" She moved to a part of the growth that she figured was away from Jibril and slashed it deeply with her dagger.
a) Yes, you can try to break free. You are currently pinned.
b) Yes, I forgot to roll damage. . Also make a Fort save DC16.
c) happily, no.
d) that was beautifully done, btw.
Lurching onto her feet, Elia bats at one stray tongue of flame on her tunic and bull-rushes her way through the room, nearly bruising a shoulder against a pillar as she strides to where the layer of living filth envelops her friend. Ifanna follows behind, still clearly not well pleased at the turn her life has taken; she pushes her head under her master's hand, seeking reassurance as she stares down the strange foe.
Team Orra jumps to Jibril's defence. Duncan's bolt sticks quivering into the slime mold's fungal "hide", and on the opposite side, his flaming angel delivers a solid blow. The damp and decaying nature of the ooze, however, stops the flame from catching or spreading.
Quinn's dagger bites deep, but finds no organs or sensitive areas to take advantage of. Khaddar gives the creature a stomp or two, careful not to touch it with his bare hands, and warns the others against doing so.
Inside, Jibril thrashes against the strong mat of living stench that has him ensnared. The half-elf uses his long limbs to his advantage, and manages to get one under himself and hook a foot out from under the carpet. Before he's half-way out Elia sees him start to emerge, and helps pull him the rest of the way out.
Denied its meal, the fungi-covered ooze changed its target. Turning slightly towards the fire elemental, it reared up again, shockingly quick for a...thing...of its bulk and shape. Rather than try to land on the dwarf, this time it settled for slamming half its body into his, nearly knocking him off his feet. Khaddar was left with a ringing headache and the need to make a quick fort save. (DC 16)
From her vantage point, Quinn was able to see the far end of the pool of water. It was very difficult to tell in the flickering shadows, but the flaming angel was throwing a little bit of light that way. Was the surface of the water starting to move?
Khaddar gives the creature a stomp or two, careful not to touch it with his bare hands, and warns the others against doing so. Sorry, not gonna attempt his brogue. Basically, don't touch it or you'll get sick.
Resolved to take some precautions later, if he survives this foul encounter, Khaddar gags and recoils from the heady blow... but his hand is jammed inside the ooze at this point, so he may as well pull his friend free! Shifting back on his rear foot, he pivots, twisting with all his might...
Relying on the strength of Elia and the leverage of Khaddar, Jibril emerges. His arm and shoulder sport an angry burn. He clutches sprained ribs and blood trickles from his mouth and nose. He uses Elia for stability. Looking her in the eyes he says in a deadpan voice "I don't think those mushrooms are edible. We're going to have to forage elsewhere." He tries to stand to his full height but only manages to appear like a crumpled paper drawing of himself, then rushes to get to a new vantage point trying not to drag his bow.