Gideon disarms the magical trap, and you open the trap door. A cylindrical shaft descends 20 feet from the trap door and opens into a smooth-walled chamber. Judging from the seamless walls, this chamber was excavated magically. No light illuminates this chamber, but a dim glow can be seen at the end of an adjoining corridor.
Arianda's sharp eyes pick out a trio of deep merfolk who are attempting to hide in the corridor, their semi-transparent bodies blending in with the water. Their ambush foiled, two of them swim forward, ranseurs at the ready! A third one brandishing a rapier hangs back. You recognize her as the deep merfolk in Talasantri Plaza responsible for warning of the impending plankta attack!
Gideon attempts to blind the polearm wielders to make it easier for Terana to close with them.
Tobar wastes no time in firing at one of the ranseur-wielders before it can react.
Arianda surges forward to intercept, initiating a vortex the moment she can catch multiple of the assassins within it’s turbulent waters!
Gideon's glitterdust blinds one of the merfolk warriors and negates both of their concealment. Gideon fires three crossbow bolts into the one that can still see, scoring one critcial hit! Arianda sweps over them in vortex form but they avoid getting swept up.
The two swim forward, the one that can see trying to disarm Terana while the other one stabs out blindly. He misses, but then recovers from his blindness.
The female in the hall begins a martial chant to inspire her companions before casting a spell of slow!
Terana growls, makes an axe appear in her hands and uses that to cut the merfolk down instead!
Tobar is numbed by the magic and can barely manage to get off a single shot with his crossbow, once again trying to fell the foe that he struck dead-on before. Unfortunately now they're in a straight line past Terana and he has to work to keep his aim careful to shoot past her.
Gideon swears under his breath as he feels the effect of the magic seep into his being, knowing that it's going to leave Terana vulnerable while he and Tobar are hindered.
The scholar focuses his energies on any enemy that still prevents Terana from closing with the spellcaster hanging back with a spell of paralysis, hoping to enable his ally to cut them down that much more quickly.
Terana hacks at the wounded merfolk, landing two hits. Tobar scores another hit, then the merfolk gets sucked into Arianda's vortex, the pain of being battered about enough to push him over the edge into unconsciousness. The other warrior seizes up as she succumbs to Gideon's spell of paralysis!
Snarling with rage, the merfolk spellcaster swims forward to attack Terana, still continuing her battle chant. She scores a critical hit, plunging her blade into the gillman's chest!
The other merfolk overcomes her paralysis.
Tobar shifts his attention to the spellcaster, now that she's rushed forward.
Terana ignores the blow as it begins to close in a burst of rose light and retaliates aggresively!
Arianda stops spinning and reached out with her long watery arms and tried to pummel the spellcaster.
Not wanting to use up any more of his spells than he already has, Gideon opts instead to move into the melee, drawing his rapier as he does to get his own piece of the action!
Terana lands three hits on the merfolk, but the rest of you miss. Now recovered from her paralysis, the ranseur-wielding warrior joins the skald as they both focus on Terana.
As her wounds continue to close Terana laughs derisively and keeps slashing at the spellcaster.
Tobar is all set to continue missing, but manages one dramatic hit.
Arianda continues trying to pummel the spellcaster with her watery fists.
Gideon tries to edge around in a way that will allow him to flank with one of his allies before stabbing again.
Between Arianda's, Tobar's, and Terana's attacks, the spellcaster goes down. Her song of battle ends, and the last deep merfolk takes stock of the situation before dropping her polearm and raising her hands. "I surrender," she says with a surly tone.
Terana claims the woman's polearm to avoid any heroics and then goes to retrieve her own.