"I don't know. Even shallow water might protect us." Kascio splashes in the pool, clearly unnerved by things that don't die properly when stabbed.
"I agree with Faedrin. Running might be best for now."
Tanjvats yelled "Run!" to Dareon and Kascio, pointing up the hallway after Esme. He hoped the strange Penance somehow understood.
Seeing Fade in the middle of the pool, he called out. "Come to me, I'll try to provide us with cover."
Dareon and Esmeralda, with Penance following, makes for the stairs and the hallway leading away from the pool.
Faedrin and Kascio both make for the shallow waters of the stagnant pool, but first Faedrin draws and launches a smokestick toward the origins of the sounds.
The noise and bluster of the bats grows as the immense numbers of them flow out of the hallway. They swirl, flap, and screech, flying every direction chaotically. The smoke from the smokestick gives them minor pause, but only from what seems a little confusion, before they flow out, over, and around Faedrin. The teeth of the critters nipping and biting him repeatedly, their bodies cling to him, and encircle so that he can barely think of anything but getting them off of him.
Tanjvats grimaced at the familiar smell of guano and dust, wafted on the thrumming wings of the bats.
"Kascio! Faedrin! This way! I'll try to confuse them!"
With that command out of the way, he pulled a scroll out of his pouch and read it in quick, measured tones, trying to keep his voice from rushing along with the pace of his heartbeat. When he was done, he touched the tip of the bolt loaded on his crossbow with a slightly glowing finger
Sickened by the overwhelming presence of the bats, Faedrin barely has time to do anything but collapse to the floor and hope the water will save him.
HP: 6/12
AC: 19 (15 T / 14 FF)
CMD: 17
F/R/W: +3/+4/+4 (+2 vs enchantment, immune sleep)
Arcane Pool used: 0/5
Harrow Points remaining: 2
Spells Prepared:
Cantrips (4) - dancing lights, daze, ghost sound, read magic
Level 1 (2+1) - jump [ ], obscuring mist [ ], silent image [ ]
Ongoing Effects
bleed 1
Kascio, seeing Fade covered, grabs him and pulls him under the water, making sure his nose and mouth are above water!
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The creatures swarm all over Faedrin, chirping and squeeking. Tanjvats, drawing a scroll from his person, easily manages to finalize the incantation. Suddenly, the world goes silent. There is no chirping, no lapping of the disturbed waters, no unintended calls of pain from an enveloped Faedrin. There is nothing. As disturbing as absolute silence is to the party within the effect, it is even worse to a large swarm of bats. Suddenly, their primary means of hunting has vanished. They devolve into total disarray, flying more chaotically, some smacking into others, into the nearby stair railings, the water itself, and even sometimes into Fade. They are too disoriented, and try to move somewhere, anywhere away from here. They fly north toward the wall abutting the pool, and disappear into the wall, though some still smack the wall itself. Before much time has even passed, the collective swarm has fled to the best of its ability.
Kascio waits until the confused bats have fled, then pops out of the water, shaking himself off silently. He begins to talk, then realizes he can't hear himself and mimes a bat flying through a wall, then confusion.
Tanjvats opened his mouth in a silent shout of joy as the bats began to disperse. But he turned his attention almost immediately towards Fade and Kascio in the water. He trudged down to help them out of the pool, knowing the silence would only last a few more seconds.
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In a deep, rumbling baritone, Penance audibly says "M'Lady, they've fled." at which point Esmeralda ceases her running, and begins to walk back, eventually coming to the pool to watch the people come out of the water. "Thank you penance." is all she says as she walks by the Eidolon, and it begins to follow her again.
"Seems we wiggled our way out of this one, didn't we? As far as assault magics are concerned, I have none, and I'm dreadfully sorry for that." she explains.
After the silence wore off, Tanjvats suggested, "Let's go explore where the bats came from...while they're away."
He reset his crossbow and moved slowly to the east, peeking around the corner with his darkvision.
Faedrin sits up after the bats pass overhead, coughing and sputtering violently between the nausea and, despite Kascio's help keeping his mouth and nose above water, the brackish water he'd inadvertantly swallowed. As he rises from the water, he winces as blood still flows freely from a number of nasty bite wounds near his neck and shoulders.
With a grimmace and a nod of thanks to Kascio, he tears a few strips of cloth from his sleeves and binds them around the wounds, staunching the flow of blood. "That- was utterly revolting. Ugh."
"I like things that are big enough to be properly stabbed. These swarms of tiny beasts? Not my favorite part of the job."
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"Area spells would have came in handy there, but, I'm not big on offensive spells, unfortunately. Penance is my offense, and, well, he can't kill tiny tiny things like that. We'd be wise to prepare for those sorts of things in the future..." she points out as she walks up to them. "Everyone alright?"
Kascio nods. "Lets see what the bats were hiding..." He moves into the formerly bat-filled room.
As the others collect together after the harrowing swarm was dissipated, for now, they work toward pushing on. Fade dresses his wounds, working to keep blood from flowing from so many tiny bites. Both Tanjvats and Kascio move to the chamber from where the creatures emerged. Thick guano covers the floor of this room. Stalls divide the
northern wall, and a stone bench and fountain stand along the southern wall to the east.
Tanjvats looked back from the guano-filled room to check on the others. He noticed Faedrin dressing his wounds and was shocked to see their extent.
He rushed over to the elf and helped with the bandages, apologizing profusely for not having reacted earlier.
When they were done, he called forth some healing magic, and directed it over the wounded flesh.
Tanjvats blushed as he finished his work in shame. Harsh voices began berating him inside his own head.
"Thought you were so smart chasing off those bats, didn't you?"
"And you left your companion to lay bleeding in the water. Worthless idiot!"
"Stop pretending you're a hero and instead try to keep people who deserve life from dying."
"Or just kill yourself and get out of the way."
...
His breathing became a bit shallow, but he managed to keep his hand from shaking. He realized he was staring, unfocused, at Faedrin's shoulder.
Faedrin glances at Esmeralda as he rolls his shoulder after Tanjvats' healing magics flow through his body. "I am now, yes. Can't say that's something I'd like to ever experience again though."
He then turns to Tanjvats and offers with genuine gratitude, AC"Thanks, Tanjvats. For both saves." Faedrin claps the troubled man on the shoulder, drawing his gaze up to his eyes. The elf smiles warmly then nods toward the chamber the bats emerged from. Before proceeding though, he then bends over and wrings as much water from his long, blonde hair as he can. His hair now as near to dry as he can get it, he takes one of the bandages he no longer needs and uses it to tie his hair back in a pony tail.
After a few sharp tugs to ensure it's bound tightly enough, he follows the others into the guano-filled room as he renews his cantrip. A moment later and the scintillating orbs begin to bob languidly through the air, illuminating the chamber.
Kascio begins to poke around the guano-covered room, looking for anything worth taking.
Dareon follows along silently, pushing himself to the fore of the group again as they forge into new territory. He draws his shortsword and shield again, reminding the party, "Be careful, everyone. We don't know what else there is here."
Looking through the room is, at a minimum, fairly disgusting. The floor is thick with, and slippery from, all the guano covering it. As you move through, the stuff begins to collect around the soles of your footwear, easily getting up over the toes. Finding much in here isn't easy without actively digging through the filth. That said, it doesn't look as if there would be too much to find. The room stalls makes it appear as if it were a dressing chamber, possibly for the pool next door. With a once over the room, there isn't much of note within, however Kascio notices a tarnished silver bracelet lying in the guano-filled fountain on the south wall.
Tanjvats felt his eyes drawn up to Faedrin's and he eventually recognized the elf's face and the gratitude he was expressing. With an effort he shrugged a "you're welcome" and followed the others back to the bat cave.
He helped search the room, and then led the way back across the lower landing to the west.
Once he reached the western corridor, he spun around a little, trying to get his bearings. Did the bats go this way? He wasn't sure, so he shook his head to clear it and peered west.
Faedrin washes the guano off his shoes in the shallow pool then looks at the wall he's sure the bats flew through. Walking up to it, he tests it with his hands at chest height, then wrinkles his brow in confusion. "I could have sworn I saw them fly through this wall."
Kascio will retrieve the bracelet, using a dagger blade to pick it up. He'll take it over to the pool and clean it off before looking at it more closely.
The bracelet does not produce an aura of magic. In fact, it looks rather old and beat up. Who knows how long it's been sitting in the guano. If it weren't for that, the thing could have been worth a decent sum, old Thassilonian jewelry and all.
As Faedrin prods the wall, he is able to pass his hand through a portion of it. Much like the illusory walls above, except this particular opening, is maybe one foot wide and twice as tall. No more than a small window.
"Ah- that's how the bats escaped. It looks like a part of this wall is illusory, like those false windows we've seen elsewhere in the complex. Those were all in exterior walls though, I wonder what this one's purpose was."
Curious, Faedrin calls one of the bobbing orbs over and directs it through the opening then, after a moment, pokes his head through to see what might lie beyond.
Lucky for his race's penchant for angular features, Faedrin is able to fit his head out of the small opening. He peers out into the open waters of the Magnimar Bay. As they are on the north side of the pillar, no sign of the city itself can be seen. The waters of the sea are only a few feet below the height of the window itself, so that Faedrin could reach out and touch them. This proximity is clearly why thei pool has not evaporated over the many long years in this empty column. High tides and stormy waters must splash in through the window to maintain the level of the pool, but not often enough to keep the water from becoming stagnant and muck-covered.
Faedrin pulls his head back inside, bringing the orb from the cantrip with him. He looks at the others, "Well, turns out this is an exterior wall, so at least these ancient Thassilonians were consistent." He shrugs and looks at the others, "Nothing of interest that way but the north side of the bay. Shall we press on again?"
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"One still has to wonder why they felt the need to drown such a place in Illusory walls... I mean. It's been ages, hasn't it? Wish there were some way to tell how long these spells had been here, because, from what you folks said some time ago there wasn't a caster among your first foray. Correct?" She asks as she strolls into the room with penance close behind her, after realizing the bracelet was worthless given present circumstances.
"Right... That aside, where to now?" Esmeralda asks as she looks around.
Kascio shrugs. "Too much magic, not enough sense? Rich people do odd things to make other rich people jealous." Kascio will go searching for any turns not taken.
Kascio will draw a dagger and squeeze into the crevice, moving slowly and deliberately.
Kascio grips his knife and begins to press himself into the rough tight crevice, clearly not an original design of the structure. The thing is most likely a crack formed between two or more of the areas within. It is dark, and with only the lights produced by Faedrin funneling in behind him, there is little to see in the spots of light not blocked by his body. He can feel a minor ebb and flow of air, but it is very faint. Most of what comes to him through the dark is the sounds. There is the sound of sloshing water, light like when a washbasin is roughly handled and the liquid slaps the sides. More disturbing is the unplaceable clicky-creaking noise. It takes a little to try and put a name to it, until he notices that floor and walls of the crevice are both sticky and stringy like... spiderwebs, thick spiderwebs.
Feeling the webs, Kascio freezes and moves slowly back out to the others. "Webs. Spiderwebs. Bring fire."
As Kascio pops back out warning of spiders, Faedrin sends one of the glowing orbs into the crevice as he skates back several feet. Exasperated, he asks no one in particular, "How many horrid things have made this ruin their home?"
"Perhaps your Thassilonians all changed into spiders?" Kascio jokes, then looks pensive. "They were quite wizardly, after all..."
Dareon pokes his head into the crack in the wall when he hears Kascio mention fire. "Kascio' don't set those on fire. Spiderwebs don't even burn - they'll just smoke and suffocate you."
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"Fantastic! Now we have to deal with more swarms of things that weapons don't work against... Hear that Penance?" she asks as she looks to the Eidolon, which looks at her and shakes it's head. "Yep. Useless again!" she says with a chuckle. "Well... if we don't want to deal with swarms, we could atleast check somewhere else in this damnable pillar of filth, no? It's not like this is the only path."
Tanjvats moved back up the stairs as the others argued about the webs and whether or not to continue through the opening.