"I've got you." Fifteen responds, sheathing one sword and offering Molly her hand. "Don't worry. Would you like me to carry your musket?"
Hyrsek lets out a low whistle. "Wow. They always this efficient?" he asks.
"Indeed. Take a lesson from it that you could meet the same fate should you betray us," Fireday replies, glowering at Hyrsek.
When they arrive at the grisly scene of woven bones, his glower becomes a grimace.
"Disgusting. I may know little about the world outside Numeria, but not even the League would desecrate the dead in this way."
He nods at Viv's suggestion.
"Good idea."
Holg cursory inspects how this people have perished.
Observing the water with disgust and the ledge ahead, the Kellid casts air walk and starts walking in the air of the cave, avoiding to touch the murky water.
"Ok Viv, I will secure the tunnels while you lift everyone over the ledge" Holg walks forward in the air, using the continual flame on his sword to bring light ahead.
After a quick check on the eastern tunnel, particularly listening to any noise, Holg moves west and examines the area. He avoids venturing deeper until all the group has been lifted.
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As promised, Viv remains floating in the air while she reaches out and telekinetically lfifts her teammates one by one to the ledge.
"As you can see, it's a tight fit. All of us will need to crawl to slide into there."
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Molly hands off her musket to Fifteen before being magically flown to the ledge, her eyes closed tightly the entire distance.
"As you can see, it's a tight fit. All of us will need to crawl to slide into there."
The halfling shrugs her shoulders and ducks down just slightly before walking though the opening.
Unfortunately, with only fragmentary ribcages remaining, it is impossible for Holg to tell what killed these people
Heading to the east, Holg sees the tunnel splits again, one path leading north while the other continues southeast. He doesn't hear anything unusual. To the west, the tunnel widens and the ceiling climbs to twenty feet. . A few bones, red with traces of gore, are scattered on the lichen-encrusted floor. Holg hears faint scrabbling noises coming from a few ledges ahead.
"I do not like having to make decisions. Let's take the west tunnel" Holg advances making sure not to touch the ground, a few feet over the lichen and bones, walking in the air as much as the ceiling allows.
"Be ready, there are scrabbling noises ahead. They probably already spotted our light" squeezing through the cramped tunnels, the gorumite advances irremediably towards the next cavern opening.
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As Holg leads the way through the corridor, a loud buzzing noise fills the air, the drone of many wings. Six creatures surge forward from the ledges as they move to attack you! These unnaturally graceful creatures have bulbous fungoid lumps for heads, spiny insectoid wings, and tangles of spiky, clawed legs.
Once past the water and through the low passage, Molly takes her precious musket back from Fifteen. "Thanks, Love," she says before giving in to instinct and checking the weapon over.
When the insect-like creatures rush forward, she doesn't hesitate, raising her musket to her shoulder and firing.
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As Kaska begins her raging song, Molly opens fire at one of the fungal monsters. Each shot pierces its body, and the final one explodes its head in a spray of spores and plant matter! As it falls, the other five dive down to attack. Two claw at Holg, while one each goes after Fifteen, Fireday, and Molly. Holg takes two hits but fights off their attempts to grab him. Molly, though, is grappled by the monster that attacked her, its many claws painfully performing impromptu surgery on her!
"Faigh do lámha fecking as dom!" Molly shrieks out as the creature's claws carve into her flesh.
With nowhere to retreat to, the halfing takes the risky move of continuing to fire at the creature.
Holg is catch too surprised looking back at Molly's shots and trying to figure up what is going on. He is fortunate to have reinforced bones partially protecting him from the attacks.
"Ah! Treacherous critters!" the Kellid willingly accepts Kaska's raging song and performs a movement to enter accurate stance.
Stepping in the air to offer Fifteen a flank, he swings at the orange critter with a focused vital strike.
Viv flicks one of her metal shards into her fingers and launches at one of the fungi from Yuggoth that's boxing in Molly, in hopes of giving the poor gunsilnger a ilttle room.
Fifteen meanwhile starts slicing.
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"IOMEDAE! I CALL UPON YOUR DIVINE POWER TO SMITE THESE ABOMINATIONS!" Fireday calls, his form beginning to shine.
Then he turns to the mi-go before him and his battlestaff becomes a dizzying swirl of cuts, thrusts and slams!
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Trusting that Molly and Viv will have no trouble shooting down the flying insect monster, Kaska hurries to help Holg, who is nearly surrounded. As she comes up beside Fifteen she slashes at the one buzzing around to Holg's immediate right.
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Fifteen takes down one of the mi-go and wounds another. Fireday focuses on that injured one, scoring two hits. Hyrsek steps up beside the warpriest and stabs that mi-go twice with his rapier, finishing it off!
Isuma opens fire, but quickly realizes her zero rifle is ineffective against these creatures. Holg and Kaska both slice into another enemy while Viv blasts the monster grappling Molly.
Molly gets her gun up and dodges the mi-go's claws as she opens fire. Her first two shots take it down, fungal matter blasting back over the halfling. She shifts her aim to the one the Kellids are attacking, finishing it off with two more shots.
The last mi-go withdraws from combat, buzzing away down the corridor and ahead and out of your sight.
Molly raises her weapon to try to pick off the escaping one, but it's out of sight before she can gain a bead on it.
"Ain't that just a fine bucket o' scrap," she declares in annoyance, looking down at the state of her clothes. She daintily removes a large chuck of ... something ... from her shoulder and shudders. A grimace of pain follows as the specific injuries the creature caused make themselves known.
"I wonder if it will be bad for us that one got away."
Kaska watches it go with an uneasy look on her face.
"I will wait for it." Fifteen offers, approaching the bend and taking position just behind it while the rest of the group sorts themselves out.
"Anyone knows what are those, a-mi-go?" Holg pushes one of the critters with his foot releasing his sword from the corpse "Never seen an animal like that in Numeria"
Turning around he asks "Where has it gone?"
Holg follows Fifteen down the tunnel using the light on his sword to see in the darkness and casting guidance.
The hall opens into a circular chamber, with exits to the north and south. It's unclear which way the creature fled.
Kaska shrugs at Holg's question. "Smart bugs I guess.
"I don't know anything about bugs, but those have a smell like bread gone bad," Molly comments, still brushing pieces of one off her clothes. She moves to follow the others to the next chamber.
"Hummmm..." Holg extends his hand and says a little prayer casting detect magic and inspecting the area "Well... it seems our bug found a hole after all..."
Unless there is a magic aura or a track, the Kellid performs a small ritual destroying a nearby stone cutting it by half with his adamantine blade "Gorum guide us!" Holg will inspect what piece of the stone is larger, if the one near the north of the chamber, or the southern resulting piece and follows that way "Gorum has spoken"
Holg avoids to touch the ground, walking instead in the air 5 feet over the cavern floor.
The stone corridor opens into a long, dank cavern, the ceiling rising twenty feet overhead. The sound of dripping moisture echoes off mold-covered walls.
A group of six more mi-go cling to the walls of this cave, but they rouse from their repose as soon as you enter, wings buzzing as they move to attack!
"Ugh. More of them."
Kaska begins her raging song and readies her flax for incoming.
"Are these just bat-things or are they thinking beings?" Viv wonders aloud as she moves into battle position once more. Whether or not these fungus-bats are fully denizens of the material realm, her aetheric constructs seem quite effective against them.
"How many more o' these things are there?" Molly questions as she aims and fires.
Deadly Aim
Getting out of the cramped tunnel, Holg let's Kaska music come into him, and raging moves forward to deliver a focused vital strike at the first creature "It's a plague!"
Fifteen winces as her acute hearing is assaulted by Kaska's 'music' and puts space between them as she stabs at another of the irritating insects.
"Thank you," Fireday says when Hyrsek finishes off the mi-go he was attacking. He makes no comment as they move to pursue the last one and the battle with the new ones is joined. Iomedae's divine power continues to flow through him! He attacks the one Fifteen is fighting.
As Kaska begins her song again, Fifteen and Fireday rush in together. The two androids team up and take a mi-go down! Isuma keeps her gun raised but doesn't fire, knowing her cold blasts are ineffective against the fungal creatures.
Holg and Hyrsek move forward to attack another mi-go, wounding it. Molly takes it down with two bullets before shifting her aim to another one. Viv finishes it off with a blast!
Within seconds, half of their number have been eliminated, but the remaining mi-go swoop down to attack anyway! Their efforts prove fruitless, though, their claws scraping feebly against your armor.
Holg sets himself in accurate stance and steps within the mi-go setting a flank for Fireday "Your alien forces will never take Numeria!"
Delivering a vital strike on green, he tries to take out this creature with the help of the tiefling.
"They either brave or very foolish," Molly says as she fires.
Her last shot a misfire, muttered curses are heard from the diminutive woman
Fifteen nods to Holg as the two of them have begun to develop their teamwork better, before slicing the mi-go into sushi.
[b"I think they are not rational beings as we understand the term,"[/b] notes Viv in response to Molly's comment.
"Who cares, they're attacking us so we must defend ourselves?!" Fireday replies as he continues attacking.
Fifteen's falcata flashes as she takes down a mi-go by herself. Fireday and Holg team up to slice another one into ribbons, then Viv blasts the final fungus before Molly blasts it apart with her musket!
The tunnel continues to the northeast ahead, but you also spy a 5-foot-diameter hole, partially hidden by grotesque strands of dangling, slimy fungus, opens in the ceiling to the southwest of this cave. Sunlight shining through seems to indicate that it opens up to the surface somewhere above.
"Viv?" Fifteen asks, pointing skyward with one of her blades.
She then turns to her fiance. "Are you well Molly?" She asks, sizing up the halfling for injuries.
"What do you think Isuma? Are these creatures related at all with the aliens?" Holg investigates the remains of the mi-go.
While the others find out about the hole, Holg advances to the northeast tunnel and listens while using detect magic forward.
"These creatures are not associated with the Dominion of the Black," Isuma says. "I do not know enough about this world to say if they are natives of it or not."
Holg does not hear any noises coming from the dark tunnel beyond, nor does he sense any magic auras.
"Viv?" Fifteen asks, pointing skyward with one of her blades.
She then turns to her fiance. "Are you well Molly?" She asks, sizing up the halfling for injuries.
"Well enough, Love," she replies as she clears her musket and reloads. "Had a bit of a tumble, but nothing a good night's sleep won't cure."
Viv nods to Fifteen and then floats up for a slightly closer examination of the aperture, taking care to avoid the fungal ribbons. She moves slowly and with extra caution to avoid contact with the draping substance.
"I must admit to some surprise that the fungus is growing like this in direct sunlight," she says. [b]"The influence of the mi-go and their biosystem here is quite pervasive."[b]
"Given I've never heard of these 'mee-goh' as Viv describes them, I suspect they're not native to Golarion either. So there's the Dominion, these things, the League," Fireday says to Isuma, counting on his fingers, and shooting another dirty look at Hyrsek, "those technology-hating android pilgrims, you and now us...there's a number of different people and things vying for this valley."
The hole opens up into a tunnel, the end of which contains another fungus-shrouded hole that leads to an even higher chamber. This chamber is open to the sky above, the chamber's walls climbing 80 feet to a hidden vent allowing access to the surrounding cliffs. Just 30 feet up, though, is another tunnel.
This narrow tunnel opens up into a foul-smelling muck-filled chamber, the ceiling ten feet overhead decorated by a tangle of mucus-like dangling filaments that form an unnerving canopy. Some mass of plant matter floats in the ooze at the cave’s northern corner.
Viv spots four strange creatures wallowing in the muck. These brightly colored, long-necked amphibians have six legs, fanged snouts, and numerous finlets running down their spines. Luckily, they don't seem to have spotted the kineticist yet.
Seeing his tunnel quiet, Holg turns to see Viv floating to the ceiling to see what's through the hole.
The man climbs up walking in the air until he reaches the android's back. He slowly puts a hand on her waist while he looks over her shoulder to see what's beyond in the cavern "What's there Voltine?"
Spotting the creatures himself, he makes a sign with his hand showing five fingers, then closes the hand and shows one more finger.
Viv glances down at Holg and quietly holds up four fingers as she drifts down slightly to avoid being spotted.
Fireday watches and waits for Viv to rejoin them.