No sounds emanate from below the trapdoor, so when Thaven opens it, he discovers that the trapdoor drops into a fairly large cave room. A ladder leads down into this room, directly on the face of a wall. Caked into the mud and dirt walls of the room are hundreds of bones comprising dozens of skeletons. Most of the skeletons appear to be humans, but several sets of smaller bones may have been those of halflings or perhaps children.
The roof is supported by two carved stone pillars, and to either side of the room are huge pits containing hundreds or thousands more bones.
On the opposite side of the room from the ladder is what appears to be a natural cave entrance.
The room is largely dark
Thaven peers in the cave, then shrugs. "Piles of bones. Dark caves. What could possibly go wrong?" He drops into the cavern, his bow drawn and arrow nocked.
Raijinn looks over Thaven Jack's shoulder and sees the trap that's set. He reaches out to stop him, but the man's already jumped.
"There are undead here. Skeletons among the bones." He growls to Fredo, Burahl, and Trinia, as a ways of telling them to be careful and quiet. Then he, too, drops through the hole into the cavern.
Landing with surprising grace, he points out a few of the undead skeletons to Thaven Jack, as he draws his sword.
Burahl looks in as Thaven jumps in at first sight, shaking his slowly.
"You could have waited on people with keener senses."
Burahl slides into the traphole as well, albeit not as graceful as Raijinn.
His eyes get used to the darkness quite quickly and can see the sekeltons among the bones.
As Burahl, Thaven, and Raijinn drop into the hole, the skeletons rise from their skeletal beds with errie silence. Their eyeholes burn a hole through the darkness.
On one side, twelve red eyes blaze from a half-dozen human skeletons, each armed with a scimitar and taking tentative bony steps forward.
From the other, a hulking form moves slowly out of the darkness, large eyes burning as it plants bony wingtips on the ground. An owlbear skeleton, hunched but lurching forward, emerges from the other side.
The owlbear skeleton leads the attack, charging forward at Raijinn, the only one down in the cave armed with a melee weapon. It runs forward, its bony feet clicking on the stony floor, and lunges at him with a bony beak. It must have underestimated the distance to him, however, because its beak thrust is premature and fails to injure Raijinn.
Trinia, seeing the danger that everyone is in, leaps down rather gracefully, landing in a roll behind Raijinn. She touches him on the thigh, sending arcane power into his body. "Just a little bit faster does the trick, Raijinn!"
Initiative:
Skeletons - 26
Trinia - 16
Thaven - 14
Raijinn - 11
Goffred - 8
Burahl - 5
Power surges through Raijinn and he throws Trinia a grin before lunging at the Owlbear Skeleton.
"Huh." Thaven mutters, then sends two arrows at the owlbear skeleton.
for damage!
for damage!
Burahl grabs within his coat for his chemicals.
"Finally." he says softly.
He concocts a bomb and hurls it at a cluster of skeletons within range, he carefully aims so as to not hit his companions.
Hearing the sounds of combat begin almost as soon as the others jump down, Fredo hangs back and cautiously peers through the trapdoor. His friends are grouped close together just below the trapdoor, and seemingly surrounded by the eerie glowing eyes of animated skeletons. Determining that he won't be able to fit unless some of the skeletons are destroyed, Fredo targets the largest, highest pair of eyes, the one nearest Raijinn, with a blast of necromantic energy, then drops down into the middle of the group, hoping there'll be enough space for him.
Thaven pulls back on his strings in quick succession, firing two arrows that embed themselves in the bones of the creature but do little to damage it in a more core way. It groans, but not in vocal way. Rather, the groaning comes from its bones creaking.
Raijinn follows up on Thaven's hits with a strike of his own, dragging his blade along several bones and even severing a few ribs.
Finally, Goffred, standing up above, fires a blast of light energy into the cave. The owlbear skeleton only has a moment to look up before the blast strikes it in the face, sending it sprawling back, falling into pieces.
Burahl winds up a throw, tossing a vial of explosives towards the central humanoid skeleton. The resulting explosive blast throws the pieces of the skeleton everywhere, and additionally sends three more of the adjacent skeletons to the ground in bits.
The remaining two skeletons, however, advance on Burahl, scimitars in hand. Both swing at him, and both are foiled by an invisible wall of force that protects him.
Trinia runs through the group, leaping when she reaches Burahl and vaulting over not only his head, but the unsuspecting heads of the skeletons as well. Reaching the other side unscathed, she draws her dagger. "Get em, guys!" she yells.
Initiative:
Skeletons - 26
Trinia - 16
Thaven - 14
Raijinn - 11
Goffred - 8
Burahl - 5
success!
failure.
success!
failure.
failure.
Burahl draws his quarterstaff and smashes into the skeletons at the height of their waist using all his might.
Raijinn advances on one of the remaining skeletons, swinging his black blade through the air.
Thaven sends two more arrows at the more hale of the remaining skeletons.
for damage!
for damage!
Sure that the warren is only going to get darker the further away they get from the paltry shaft of light admitted by the trapdoor, Fredo takes a torch from his pack and lights it. "Come on," he calls, and Cat hops down. "We should hurry," he says. "That was probably enough noise to let the derro know we're here."
Raijinn and Thaven crush the remaining two skeletons in short order, Raijinn separating the head of one from its body while Thaven puts two arrows through key joints - they both fall apart.
Goffred's torch more than adequately lights the place for himself, Thaven, and Trinia, who jumps in the air after sheathing her dagger, shouting "Yes!" but immediately shrinks and immediately seems to shrink at Goffred's mention of noise. "Oh...whoops, sorry...I'll be quieter."
Burahl will walk next to Raijinn, reasonably at the front, as they can see into the darkness.
"I think we are already past the making muh noise anyway. Bombs tend to be noisy."
Burahl says without looking back, fixing his eyes on the dark before him.
He looks to go to the deeper part of this hole.
Raijinn looks around the room for anything significant. "I don't like this place." he whispers to Burahl.
"Me neither." Burahl whispers back.
"The dead should be remembered not resurrected."
The ratfolk looks around as well to see anything moving or glistening in the dark.
Away and to your left, in the ossuary that the owlbear skeleton came from, what first appeared to be a boulder on the wall - interrupting the skeleton decoration - now appears to be movable and quite false.
There is also the natural stone tunnel just up ahead, and after just a few feet this tunnel branches just once, with one tunnel leading to the right and the other leading to the left.
Curiosity getting the better of him, Raijinn approaches the boulder and attempts to move it aside.
The boulder moves aside easily enough, being on some sort of track system, and when it is aside, it reveals a thin tunnel. The tunnel extends for about fifteen to twenty feet before branching three ways.
"Good find, Raijinn," says Fredo, "but I don't think I trust a tunnel that narrow."
"Agreed on that Fredo, however they would not hastily use such a movable boulder if the didn't have anything to hide in there. How many of you would like to search this?"
Burahl raises his hand if anyone notices.
"Perhaps Burahl and I could just a peek?" Raijinn asks. "Might loop around, give us back the element of surprise."
Burahl is more focused on the discovered hallway, so he doesn't pick up the sound.
"Can't fire a bow in a tunnel that small. Don't like it." Thaven stares at it for a moment, before turning away to keep a lookout on the other exits.
"Be quick about it," says Fredo. "Thaven, Trinia, and I will remain here."
At Fredo's approval, Raijinn moves past the boulder into the tunnel. Moving up as far as the split, he peers down each path.
Burahl accompanies Raijinn into the the dark tunnel and tries to spot anything that might be of interest.
"You see anything Raijinn?" Burahl says from down by Raijinn's side as he sniffs the air and points his eyes and ears to each path.
In the thin caves, the leftmost path curves away to the left after about fifteen feet.
The center path continues along a largely straight route to what's nearly obviously a door (that is to say that it is a door, and that's it's NEARLY obvious that it is so).
The right path dips down, and then back up again, and then opens up into a very dimly-lit (lit only by glowing fungi) room. Rank with the stink of sweat and mud, this cavern contains four filthy straw pallets and a low table covered with dice and a miniature maze of carved clay.
To Goffred, Trinia, and Thaven, the slapping of feet becomes more evident for just a moment before two small, bald, blue, white-eyed creatures amble into view from the "main" tunnel.
Their wide, wide eyes open even wider upon seeing the interlopers, and then they shriek.
Initiative:
Raijinn - 22
Trinia - 20
Burahl - 19
Derro - 15
Thaven - 11
Goffred - 7
Burahl stiffens his ears and whispers to Raijinn.
"We've got company, we have to move back!"
Burahl moves the bit back out of the tunnel and chucks a bomb at the two Derro, hoping to catch both of them with the splash, calculating to miss any of his compatriots in the blast.
Strong as his desire is to investigate the tunnel further, Raijinn doesn't want to leave his friends in any danger, and rushes back immediately to the previous room, seeing the two blue creatures advancing on the others.
Thaven snaps off two shots at the nearest smurf!
for damage!
for damage!
Hearing the shick of weapons being drawn and the muttering of unfamiliar voices, Raijinn rushes back to the main room to see a pair of derro menacing his friends.
Seeing the little blue creatures, Trinia can't help but crack a smile and chuckle a bit. "You know, I wasn't sure I'd see something uglier than Togomor. Lucky for him I did, I guess, huh?"
Burahl rushes back into the ossuary alongside Raijinn and lets a bomb fly. The little vial hits one of the derro square in the face, and the resulting sound and shockwave are just barely avoided by the other derro, who cavorts and bends to avoid most of the harm.
One of the derro, grinning with glee, pulls out a club. Hanging from the club is a line, on the end of which is a wicked hook. The derro swings the weapon around his head before launching it at Burahl. The point is deflected by Burahl's shield potion before it strikes his flesh, however.
The other derro advances on an unprepared Thaven, raising a short sword. The blade of the sword passes through one of his thighs in a lucky blow
Thaven takes a step back and unleashes an arrow volley at the derro that's just struck him, hitting home with one arrow.
Initative:
Goffred - 7
Raijinn - 22
Trinia - 20
Burahl - 19
Derro - 15
Thaven - 11
"Lucky indeed," deadpans Fredo, backpedaling towards the trapdoor and dropping the torch on the ground. Cat leaps protectively over the unlit end as Fredo's now-free hand goes to work. In an effort to keep the derro as far away from Thaven as possible, Fredo calls some of the fat languishing in All the World's Meat - yet another project to check on - to appear under the derro's feet.
Raijinn slices at the Derro again.
Burahl takes a step back, brews up and throws another bomb at the Derro that looks the most injured. "Catch!"
Fredo weaves an arcane spell and suddenly, a flood of grease and lard erupt from underneath the frontmost derro's feet. It slips up a bit, struggles to keep its feet, and then catches its balance and stays standing.
Raijinn moves up to support his comrade, Thaven, blackblade in hand. Nimbly skipping over the grease that Fredo's set, he swings the black blade at the little blue creature. The blade penetrates the derro's armor and tough skin, leaving a long red gash right across its chest.
Trinia, still grinning, draws a wand. Feigning surprise, she puts a hand over an open mouth. "Oh my! King Arabasti, is that you?" she says while flicking the wand at the club-wielding derro. The wand flashes, but the derro is unfazed.
Burahl, meanwhile, cocks a hand back and throws a bomb. The bomb sails right over the derro's head and strikes the ground to his left, resulting in a riotous explosion. The derro laughs madly while he's singed, and claps his hands.
The club-wielding derro's moment of brevity is quickly over, and his face switches over to rage in moments, as he swings the little club up and over, launching the enroped hook towards Burahl yet again. This time, however, like a fishing line thrown half-heartedly, the hook doesn't even reach him and the point drags along the cave floor as the derro drags it back towards himself. The other derro growls, turns to Raijinn, and thrusts at him with the short sword. The attack is one of the few that Raijinn hasn't been able to anticipate, due to its strange angle of attack and the haphazard style of the derro, and the blade pokes him in the chest, drawing blood
Initiative:
Thaven - 11
Goffred - 7
Raijinn - 22
Trinia - 20
Burahl - 19
Derro - 15
Thaven steps back again and launches two arrows at the blue dwarf that attacked him!
for damage!
for damage!
HP 20/27
Seeing the nearby derro fall to Thaven's barrage, Cat leaps up from her position astride the torch and lunges at the other derro, dodging around the lingering grease patch. Fredo points his wand at him and mutters the incantation to activate it.
Thaven points his bow and puts two arrows right through one derro's face, one each through his eyes. The little blue creature mutters for a moment and then falls.
Goffred and Cat tag-team the other derro with a well-placed clawing of the throat and an unerring dart of force, but the derro stubbornly remains standing, swinging its club-hook for the few moments between those attacks and when Raijinn approaches it and beheads it in a swift obsidian strike.
"Pfaah ugly little critters, and that's coming from a rat mind you. Now what can they tell us?"
With that Burahl moves over towards the dead Derro's and inspects them for anything useful, either clues or equipment.
Each of the derros is scantily equipped and carries little of value, but what they do have is rather curious.
The derro that had injured Thaven carries a short sword, wears smelly leather armor, and in a little pouch at his hip he carries three gold pieces and a top.
The other derro carries an aklys, which is a strange weapon that involves throwing a hook at an enemy before dragging it back towards yourself, wears similarly disgusting leather armor, and has a similar pouch. This pouch has two gold pieces and five silver pieces, and also contains a little doll. The derro also carries on his back a sling, from which hangs a repeating light crossbow. The bolts for this crossbow rest on his other hip in a wicker basket, and all are coated with a foul green and sticky substance.
Thaven turns his nose up at the foul smelling blue corpses, choosing instead to stand guard with arrows drawn over the corridor the little creatures came out of...
Raijinn turns to the others, describing what he and Burahl found behind the boulder. "The thin tunnels lead to other doors and rooms that seem to have been occupied at some point. I'd like to take another look."
"We shall follow you this time," decides Fredo. "Since apparently we are liable to get ambushed if we stay in the main tunnels."