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Holly gives her target a solid one-two, leaving it wobbling like it can barely maintain consciousness!
Crax retreats!
Cedany continues to pump energy into her target!
Narnel finishes off Cedany's target with his staff, then sidesteps and finishes Holly's opponent with a kick!
Corson moves like he is going to hit the uninjured one that is on him, but reverses his swing at the last second hitting the one that bit Crax!
EDIT: Then steeling himself, Corson pushes himself to make another attack!
Corson gives a baloth a solid blow!
Pavel will again try and convince one of the beasts that it really should run away, it is hurting too much.
He'll try on C2
One of the injured baloths backs carefully away from the melee, then turns to flee!
The other two continue to attack Corson!
,
,
Corson blocks one, but takes a heavy hit from the other!
Holly rushes to Corson's side, twirling her nunchaku as she moves. "Great work, Pavel! Think you can scare off these two as well?" The halfling delivers a quick strike against the injured beast.
With her first attack missing the mark, Holly then spins into a roundhouse kick.
Her exuberance has caused Holly to misjudge that maneuver as well, yet she is undeterred in her optimism. "C'mon everyone, let's give these two what for!"
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"Wow. I'm surprised that worked. Better to give this one a clean death, it will die in the wild anyway. I'll try and scare the other one off too"
He then yells as loud as he can, waves his arms, and fake charges the uninjured one.
Narnel moves in and attacks the uninjured beast with his staff and foot by swinging the staff in an arc parallell to the ground and continuing the spin through as he brings his leg up with a high kick to the face.
Maybe you should just attack the enemy, Pavel?
Holly fails to land a blow, and Pavel's shooing is ineffective.
Narnel, however, gives his target a pair of solid whacks.
One of the injured baloths backs carefully away from the melee, then turns to flee!
The other two continue to attack Corson!
Corson blocks one, but takes a heavy hit from the other!
Corson parries the incoming attack!
EDIT: Corson fumbling the parry, swings his hammer at the more injured one again!
Cedany breaths deeply as the creature she struck died. She would rather have tried to avoid this fight.
Still, Corson needs some assistance.
Corson clobbers the more heavily injured baloth on the noggin, and it collapses!
Cedany launches a bolt of ice, hitting the remaining creature squarely in the face.
Its four packmates fallen, the remaining wounded baloth flees!
Corson watches the Baloth flee, not bothering to take a swipe as it runs. He mutters to no one in particular, "They'll likely not be back any time soon. Vengeance is the domain of men."
EDIT: He turns to everyone else, "Is everyone okay? What do you think, take a rest? I am sure we have traveled a decent amount today."
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Crossing his arms, Crax will breath a sigh of relief and begin bandaging his arm where the Baloth bit him. "No wonder they tell the kids not to play in these woods,"
Well done, all.
"Anyone know if those things are at least edible? I hate to see lives go to a complete waste."
Cedany looks around, "We should probably take a short rest here, tend our wounds, but we may want to keep moving"
EDIT: Corson begins binding his wounds as well.
"We can take a rest, while the rest of you pick out the trees." the ex-squire says with a grin, "Stay within shouting distance and we will come a'runnin'!"
Grunting, "I don't think we've made it deep enough in to the find the trees we need," looking around at the group and back to his bandaged arm, "I think we should press on, its too early to rest anyways,"
I agree. We need to press on.
"If any of you are hurt I can help a little."
Pavel offers to use his Healing Kit on people who are significantly wounded. Each person I heal gets back 1d6+4+Their hit dice points. Can only be used between short rests on any one person.
Corson accepts Pavel's offer of aid and watches as the druid applies his poultice to the warrior's wounds. "Thank you, Pavel. You work wonders! I'll need to learn your secret recipe someday!"
"Thank you Pavel, your skills are appreciated."
"Oh, Pavel, your offer of medical care is quite welcome! Thank you my friend!" Holly smiles warmly at the Druid.
Holly collaborates with Cedany and Pavel on where they should continue their search for the sought after trees, using their collected notes. "I think we might have some luck over there," the halfling points. "The slope and aspect are close to what we were told to look for, and aren't those the kind of bushes that he said we would see when we were getting near? I'm not really sure. Cedany? Pavel?"
Narnel watches with arms folded as the other ramble about searching for a certain type of tree
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After a bit of expert first aid , you continue on your quest.
You follow the notes and instructions as best you can, but after half an hour you realize that you had misidentified some bushes earlier and gone the opposite direction you should have, requiring that you backtrack toward where you fought the baloths.
Your backtracking is uneventful, and soon you're once again headed in the right direction. The features which indicate proximity to your goal grow more frequent; you're definitely getting close.
Another 40-50 minutes pass, and soon you find your first specimens of suitable trees! Surely a grove of them must be nearby:
You see a couple of good trees in one direction and head off that way, expecting to find the grove. Unfortunately, you eventually realize they were just outliers and you're getting further from your goal.
You turn around and head back, losing another half hour in the process. You try another direction, this time choosing a bit more carefully. After several more minutes, you start seeing a noticeable increase in the number of harvestable trees. However, you notice something else as well. The woods are eerily quiet, and even the leaves don't rustle in the wind as much as you would expect.
Glancing upward toward the boughs, you see the reason that they're not swaying very much: the branches are all linked together by criss-crossing strands of pale silk that network throughout the canopy of the area.
Webs of this size would have to be the work of giant spiders, but... It's all wrong. Spiders usually don't inhabit this type of area, preferring to stick with smaller trees and undergrowth where they can more easily put webs across a walking path. Why would they be here?
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"But, Cedany, how was I to know that those were the wrong bushes? They looked just like the pictures in our notes...well, except for the color of the berries..."
"Look, Cedany! There are the trees right there! See? We found them. Let's go inspect them for suitable wood, shall we?"
"Careful everyone," Holly warns the group. "Even though those webs look like they were crafted by gigantic spiders, something is very wrong here. Why are they way up in the trees? Keep a sharp eye out for both monstrous spiders and huge flying things!"
Looks like spiders have been at work above, but an odd place to have cast their webbing for giant spiders.
"Never have I seen anything its like, other than that of enormous spiders that dwell deep in the wode. Even then, ne'er so high up, as if to snatch the birds from the air," Corson's speech seems to change, as if the speech of the knighthood comes unbidden, but then sinks back to the contraction of the commonfolk.
Cedany finds time while wandering lost in the forest to speak to Corson "You have my thanks back there, without you holding the line I fear we would have come out much worse. I fear I reacted as if I were alone and did not think to protecting the group."
...
"Perhaps something has tamed the spiders, or otherwise commands them?"
Cedany peers around, expecting another ambush.
Looking up to admire the boughs above and their web infestation, his hand lights with fire, ”I can take care of those webs real easy, if ya want,”
"We really shouldn't burn the webs before knowing more. Although I agree that they weren't made by normal spiders, whoever or whatever made them won't appreciate there being destroyed. Lets see if perhaps we can see anything else of interest. Maybe the tracks of whoever or whatever made the web, or some other sign
Cedany finds time while wandering lost in the forest to speak to Corson "You have my thanks back there, without you holding the line I fear we would have come out much worse. I fear I reacted as if I were alone and did not think to protecting the group."
Corson blushes, "'Twas merely what I am good at, m'lady. I trained under Sir Golfax, with the Green Order, and he always drilled into me that you protect your allies. I was never good at tactics, or even the best at combat, but I could do one thing and it was draw attacks."
--
The warrior remains wary for attacks.
I can climb up and investigate?
"Be wary if you do, we may not be able to reach you easily if you get... caught up in that" Cedany waves at the webs.
Narnel cautiously scales a tree to get a closer look at the webbing in the canopy. He gets about 15ft up and looks around.
You can see a few stationary shapes scattered through the canopy, looking as though they're hanging in place. Your guess would be either egg sacs or wrapped-up victims. None are within your immediate reach; you'd have to do some up-and-down among various trees (or go clambering through the webbed branches) to get closer to them.
Without warning, a swarm of motion erupts from hiding spaces within the webbed canopy! Spiders bigger than dogs show up everywhere, some of them coming at Narnel and others dropping down on silk lines toward the rest of you!
Three spiders ambush Narnel, biting at him with their poisonous fangs!
,
,
,
One spider drops down from above Cedany, a line of webbing secured to its abdomen and a net of webbing spread between its legs, to try and capture its prey!
The spider puts the webbing over Cedany like a blanket and starts wrapping her up!
Another spider comes after Holly in the same way!
She too is caught!
Three more come after Crax!
With three spiders working together, Crax is quickly bundled up and hauled upward!
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"Damnation!" Corson steps up and bats the spider on Cedany off her and looks up at a way to help Narnel.
Narnel disengages and moves back down to ground levely...climbingnlike a ring-tailed lemur.
"Ooh! Gross! Ick!" Holly makes a face, yet still seems to be smiling also somehow.
The halfling draws her scimitar and begins cutting at the webs, trying to disentangle herself.
She then casts shield of faith on herself.
"We gotta do something about Crax! Can you hear us in there, buddy?" she calls out at the blob of web hanging above her.
"So much for the peaceful approach :-(. Hey, You!! Do NOT take my friends!!!!"
With that, as a bonus action Pavel transforms into a Giant Spider and advances on the spiders holding Crax, chittering madly at the spiders as he goes in an attempt to get them to back off.
He'll easily climb the web up to where Crax is.
to hit the webbing for
Cedany fades out of of view reappearing a little further out of harms way. and then tries to clear the webbing off herself.
Corson springs into action, splattering in a single strike the spider that had caught Cedany!
Narnel carefully retreats down the tree away from his arachnid assailants!
The nimble monk shimmies down the tree and lands lightly on his feet.
Holly quickly pulls her way out of the webbing that's been pulled over her!
Pavel transforms into a spider himself, though he's visibly beefier and more published-looking than the spiders you're being attacked by. Spider-pavel then scurries over to where Crax is being reeled in and rips open the sac, dumping the dragonborn unceremoniously on the ground.
Cedany then pops right out of her web-trap in true wizard fashion, leaving an empty bundle of webs to fall limp over the spider that Corson smashed.
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though he's visibly beefier and more published-looking than the spiders you're being attacked by.