Ta.
Bedu pats Erick's arm as the skin knits in health. He then listens out to hear if more such creatures are coming.
"I can do this only once more. My magic is poor alas. We may all carry wounds worse than this before we see the light of the sun again."
Erick looks at the burn, and shrugs. "I've had worse for longer. Save the healing for those that need it." He turns to Kutsya. "You're our long range eyes in here, which way?"
Kutsya looks on as Bedu tends to Erick and heals Tessa, and scowls. "Don't like it. Dead should stay dead." She pats Tessa on her good arm with one braid as she passes her on the way to the doors the corpses had shambled through. "Dodge better next time," she grumbles. "Be quick or be dead."
From her vantage at the doorway, Kutsya peers ahead, so that she might see what awaits them in the dark.
Gavin continues talking as the last zombie falls. "સ્લેશ કે શસ્ત્રો વાપરો અને ઘણો પ્રયાસ કર્યો કે જેના બદલે, લાંબા કાપી and cut deep! Er, weapons that slash, rather than puncture." Looking at the now fallen zombie, the young man points. "On the dead ones. Slashing weapons, like a scimitar or axe. For the future. So we all know."
As Bedu tends to Tessa's wounds, Gavin whispers a blessing to Cayden Cailean, and fills his mug with ale, at first to dab on Tessa's wound, as Erick suggests, but as the wound closes under the strength of the Katapeshi's magic, Gavin instead raises the mug to his lips and drinks the ale in long, hungry gulps. Wiping his mouth with his hand, he looks to his companions. "If anyone is hurt, I can cure wounds too. Bedu, save your magic going forward unless it is a dire circumstance."
"I'll follow in the middle, in case I'm needed at the front or the back."
Tessa screams when bitten, slapping her blade against the creature without effect. When finally taken down by her companions she falls to one knee and places her hand over her wound, pulling it away to look at the blood. She turns her head and grimaces and grunts in pain, letting her head fall back down.She grits her teeth tries to speak, "I-m--fine. Just-ah"
Bedu's spell and healing efforts stops the bleeding and dull the pain to the point she doesn't notice it any more.
She takes a deep breath and stands up, placing a hand on the little mans shoulder. "Thank you, friend. That is most definately better."
She rolls her neck around, as if trying to work out a kink.
"Dodge better next time,"
Tessa blanches at Kutsya and just shakes her head in frustration.
First you can't hit it. Then you hit it and nothing happens. Then you can't dodge out of the way of something that's already half dead?!
You're losing it Tessa.
Tessa nods to Gavin's statement about the weapons. "Right, got it. I've only a dagger and my rapier, I suppose next time I'll look into adding additional supplies. Can't say I expected to be needin' an axe on this trip."
She blows out and exasperated breath, "Thanks everyone."
Turning to Gavin she winks, "Timely. I owe ya one."
She rubs her wound gently without looking it and says, "Now, let's get the hell out of here."
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The dwarven banshee gets closer to the door to peak at the other room.
Four great wooden pillars rise up to support the ceiling, which sags dangerously in places and is thick with hanging strands of fungus. Several doors line the walls, one to the west (from which comes a muffled sloshing sound), two on the north (the western of which is badly damaged and hangs askew on its one remaining hinge), and two to the east.
To the south, the ceiling has collapsed, leaving the southern part of the room chocked in debris. A ripping pool of water reaches halfway into the room from this wall of stone and rubble. It seems that a wooden pier once extended into this pool, but all that remains now are several rotting wooden pilings protruding from the water.
A man's body floats face down among them.
A few dark brown kelp crabs have taken residence in this area.
They are nearly two feet in diameter, with pincers the size of daggers.
They look at you nervously as if you are about to invade their territory while opening and closing their pincers in a rhythmical way.
On the other side the room is pretty barren.
Two wooden pillars supports the ceiling and a double door is wide open, rotting and barely hanging on the hinges.
Another door on the northern portion of the eastern wall is closed and visibly bloated.
Possibly it will require a little force to be opened.
Erick picks up some pebbles and stones from the floor. "Ok, tired of this guessing on stuff. Gavin, you can only have one of those light things lit at a time right? If you cast another, the previous goes out?" He holds out the handful of pebbles and stones he picks up from the floor. "Cast your light on one, throw it as far as you can into the corners, light up the area, let us see it in detail, then light another one and throw it somewhere else dark. Let's see the entire area in detail section by section. From Kutsya's description, we should check the corpse. Maybe she can get her friend the crab to talk to the other crabs for us so we don't have to kill them right now." Better to save them for future food if we can, in case we spend more than a day down here.
"Good idea, Erick." Gavin takes a pebble an in turn casts light and then tosses the pebble into the far corners of each room, repeating as necessary to give a good idea of what both the east and west rooms hold.
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Gavin starts to enchant and throw around little pieces or debris to scout the area a little.
After a few minutes, you get a pretty nice Idea of your surroundings.
Some of the crabs doesn't seem particularly happy when you throw luminous rocks in their pond, but they don't seem to become more aggressive than they are already.
When you throw a rock on the pond, and you illuminate the corpse, from a first glance you can tell it has not been here for years like the zombies that attacked you seemed to be.
Possibly, the sea salt managed to preserve the body even further, but even then you don't believe this corpse can be older than a month.
looks like he has a tattoo on his shoulder, but you should get closer to examine that.
While Gavin is tossing pebbles, Erick unlimbers his pack, and pulls a torch out of it, before lighting it and handing it to Bedu. "Here you go, hold onto that while Gavin lights up our surroundings."
Erick hands another to Tessa, and another to Gavin Kutsya. "In case we get split up somehow." Then he puts his pack back on his back. "I think we need to deal with the corpse first, might have something useful on it, or at least give us some clues. Kutsya, can your crab friend get those other crabs to back off?"
Tessa takes the torch and points in the direction of the corpse. "Hey guys, when Gavin threw that light over there by the body, I saw something in the pool towards the bottom. It reflected some light, I'm not sure if it was some of his gear or something is under the water over there. Either way, I suppose we'll check it out."
She glances at the grabs and then over to Kutsya, "That is, as soon as our white haired friend can convince them to scatter off."
Bedu keeps his shield and scimitar raised now that the crabs are so large. One is even up to his waist!
The bard concurs with Tessa and aims his divination spell at the body and what lies beneath.
Tessa looks over at Bedu, "What do you see Bedu?"
"No magic close. None under the body."
Kutsya walks gingerly into the room, removing her familiar from his customary perch on her back.
"Up to you, Master Kratzenklau. If you think you can convince those other crabs to let us look at the body and explore the pool, then please do. If not..." Kutsya shrugs. "But don't put yourself in danger."
If her crab advances she will trail behind, staying close enough to charge in and protect him if need be.
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The king crab advances towards the pond with a little hesitation.
But as soon as he tries to come closer the brown crabs react badly.
Master Kratzenklau retreats a bit seeing such hostility.
He shyly tries to move a step towards them again but the hostile reaction is immediate. as the other crabs lines together and move their pincers in a threatening way.
Master Kratzenklau retreats back at Kutsya's feet, if anything he managed to make the crabs disposition worse.
Erick shrugs. "Then we do this the hard way." He looks at the layout. "I suggest two of us form a wall at the doorway, then we kill the crabs with ranged attacks. If they close with us, we withdraw a short way into the hallway, and force them to come at us two at a time. Then we harvest the meat afterward, we might need it." He pulls his pistol out, one hand with a sword, the other with a pistol. "I doubt the swords are going to go well against armor plate. I usually use a hammer to crack open my crab shells on the ship."
Tessa grins, "Ah! The hardway is usually the most entertaining, is it not? You know, I had been craving some seafood anyway..."
She shoots a sideways glance at Master Kratzenklau, "No offense of course."
Tessa withdraws her light crossbow, loads a bolt and takes aim at a crab. "Who's hungry?"
She focuses on the crab and says without breaking her gaze, "Let me know when you're ready with your noisemaker Bonestihl."
Gavin draws a javelin and extends his left arm out, still holding his flail, as a counterweight, with javelin cocked behind him, aimed for the nearest crab. "Yes, just say the word..."
Bedu loads his crossbow and fires at the most angry and threatening crab. The one that has its eye on him.
Plink!
The sound of a javelin and crossbow shooting causes Tessa's concentration to falter.
Weren't only some of us supposed to shoot them?
She shrugs and pulls out another bolt and prepares to fire again.
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Gavin throws a Javelin at one of the crabs.
The Javelin hits the mark and send one of the pincers flying.
As soon as the crab tries to turn back towards the aggressors, Bedu's bolt hits him squarely between the eyes.
Erick Points his pistol at the crab right in front of him. the blast pierces the carapace and severely wound the crab, but does not kill.
Kutsya blinks, surprised at Master Kratzenklau's failure. "He's the wisest, most persuasive creature I've ever met. I can't believe they didn't listen to him." She picks the crab up and puts him back on her shoulder. Then she prepares herself for the assault.
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The kelp crabs does not shy away from the violence you just brought to them and launches themselves towards you.
As the first one approaches, the one already wounded by Erick's bullet, Kutsya's hair react immediately.
But they are way off the target.
The crabs try to take Kutsya and Erick in their pincers but their attack is slow and sloppy, both missing.
Erick drops his gun behind him, for Bedu or Gavin or Tessa can take it up, so that he can use both hands on his blade. He blocks the others from the crabs, to keep them from being hurt.
Moving around Erick, Gavin swings his flail at the crab facing Kutsya.
Bedu steps back five feet and switches back to his shield and scimitar, dropping the crossbow on the gun.
I do not believe the crabs will fight me. Let us see what the warriors can do.
Tessa takes another shot at the crabs with her crossbow, but can't seem to get a good shot off.
"Bah! I can hardly seem the damn things, this is not an ideal formation!"
"No one threatens Master K, and gets away with it," Kutsya snarls. She swings her heavy pick at the crab in front of her, following up with a hair slap for good measure.
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Gavin rushes forward, secures his grip on the flail and swings it to the crab but yet again, it's not a lucky swing. The ball scratches the crab carapace at an odd angle and gets deflected without dealing any harm.
Kutsya on the other hand, swings her pick hard and pierces the crab shell, spilling crab juices all over the floor, but the crab seems to be still alive, in pain but still able to fight back. The hair of the witch prove to be too imprecise of a weapon to finish him off.
The crab reaches for Kutsya and pinches at her leg. The witch immediately take a step back at the sudden pain and the crab loses his grip on her.
Gavin raises his flail back once more when, from behind, one of the crab grab his side with his pincers. The pressure of the pincers becomes pretty powerful as the crab is trying to hold Cayden's living weapon but the crab couldn't grasp him very well. with the pressure he is applying the pincers bite deep into Gavin's side freeing him but at the same time leaving a deep wound behind. Another pincher wound appears on Gavin's leg, the other crab must have hit him as well, although The pain from the side wound made sure he didn't even noticed that.
Tessa watches the crabs sink their claws all over her teammates. Instead of talking smack to the crab who obviously wouldn't hear her, she focuses instead and takes careful aim before letting the bolt fly.
Tessa lights up with a smirk and lets out a loud exclamation of her hit. "Boom b!~+!es! Watch out now! Get your grubby claws off my boy over there."
Screaming in pain, Gavin stumbles backwards, clutching his side. The young man can almost hear Erick's voice in his head, Ya make a better punching bag, kid.
Placing his hand over his wound, the worried priest whispers, "મને Cayden મદદ! આ લડાઈમાં મને રાખો!" and grits his teeth as his wounds knit shut.
Bedu starts up a refrain, a reminder that Valanthus is up above laughing at them. Laughing at them for the way that these oversized entrees are fighting so hard. When the inspiration grows enough to see everyone looking just a little more steely-eyed, he moves along the line to find space to join the fight.
Kutsya winces at the wound, then smashes at the crab again with her pick and her hair, stepping back after she does so.
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Kutsya's pick manages to finish off the crab. Only one of them remains, wounded by Tessa's bolt, and he looks more angry than scared.
He runs towards the one who caused more deaths, Eric and lunges with his pincers.
And connects with both.
the crab pincers pierce trough the gap between the hexagonal plates and lightly wounds Erick's arm, then strikes heavily on his side drawing blood.
The crab, somehow, seems to be smiling for exacting vengeance on his companions.
"Begone, you foul creature!" Erik says, getting annoyed from being slashed at by claws.
When the fight is over, Erik picks up his gun, cleans it off, and calmly reloads it, returning it to it's holster. "Well, at least we have food." He kicks a carcass in annoyance.
Breathing heavily, Gavin offers a quick, silent prayer of thanks as the last crab ceases moving. Then, turning and glancing to his companions, the young Chel surveys their condition. "Anyone else in need of help? I suspect Cayden may offer me more help today, if I ask for it."
Moving warily towards the edge of the water, the young man casts light on a pebble and lobs it into the pool, hoping to illuminate any details on the corpse or any threats still hiding in the pool.