"If Abigail is taking point, it should be her decision where we go next," Arma says. She takes one of the fireworks and one of the vials of defoliant.
Just past a small cave-in on the western wall, the tunnel opens into a rounded cavern with rough and irregular walls. Occasional piles of fallen rock litter the passage, but not to the degree that navigating it is impossible. A fair number of bones litter the cave floor here.
Tessa's sixth sense suddenly alerts her to danger as three shapes detach from the ceiling. The monsters look like hideous octopuses, their thin, hook-lined tentacles connected by a fleshy web.
Inky shadows spread out from the first one, snuffing out Tessa's magical lights and plunging the cave into darkness! Abigail feels the other two things reaching for her! One of them slams her with its tentacles, but fails to grab a hold.
Tessa quickly identifies the creatures, even before she got a good look at them, "Darkmantles! Careful! What is up with all of these creatures that like to choke their prey?" she mutters the second half to herself, then, considering her options, moves off to the side, out of range from the creatures.
As Tessa backs away down the corridor, the darkmantle continue to assault Abigail. One of them manages to grab a hold of the ranger, squeezing and taking her with its hooked tentacles.
"Well that makes things difficult." She moves to where she thinks she hears the attack, and stabs at the creature. She slips and almost impales Tessa. "Sorry!
Tessa makes a wild guess and fires a literal shot in the dark, aiming for the space in front of Abigail and hoping for a lucky hit.
Unfortunately, luck doesn't seem to be on her side today.
Arma draws a knife as she moves and blindly tries to attack the creature holding Abigail.
...and only slashes through empty air.
You slash, stab, and shoot in the darkness, but none of your attacks land home. The creature grappling Abigail continues to squeeze while the other two attack Arma and Relia. Both hit, and Relia ends up ensnared in a crushing grasp!
Relia casts light on her glove. "I hope this helps."
Abigail's panicked slashes fail to harm the darkmantle. Relia tries to cast another light spell, but the hooked tentacles squeezing her cause her to gasp and lose concentration on the spell!
Tessa closes her eyes, figuring it wouldn’t make much of a difference either way, and shoots for wherever the closest darkmantle sounds like it is.
Arma slashes away blindly.
Your efforts continue to prove futile as you fail to hit the darkmantles. It's very difficult to strike what you can't see.
The ones grappling Abigail and Relia continue to try to squeeze them, but their grips don't prove strong enough and both women miraculously are released! The other tries to hit Arma again, but misses!
Relia takes a step back and tries again to create a light.
Relia's light banishes the gloom, allowing you to see your monstrous assailants once more. Strike quickly and strike true!
As the light returns to the room, Tessa quickly identifies her target and shoots at the closest darkmantle.
Arma strikes at the darkmantle in front of her with both daggers, and slides around it as she does so.
Though Arma misses with her daggers, Tessa manages to shoot one of the darkmantles, allowing Abigail to finish it off with a two-handed machete chop.
The remaining two monsters try to grab the alchemist and the ranger. They come close, but neither one hits!
Tessa loads, aims, and fires again, but her shot goes wide, sticking into the already-dead darkmantle instead of doing anything useful.
Relia moves in and stabs at the darkmantle with her trident.
Arma moves into flanking and swings at the darkmantle, and whiffs it completely.
While Tessa and Arma miss, Abigail and Relia take down the other darkmantle. Relia scores a critical hit, impaling the monster on the tines of her trident!
The remaining creature tries to hit Arma, but it misses. The tide of battle has turned in your favor!
Tessa reloads and fires once more at the last abberation.
Arma attacks the monster with a frustrated shout.
Abigail's machete cleaves into the darkmantle, and as it reels in pain, Arma slips behind it and drives her dagger into its back. The monster falls to the floor, the grueling battle finally at an end!
When you get a chance to search the cave, you discover little more than the bones that litter teh floor. The bones are a minor curiosity, because most of them belong to bipedal creatures, but many are decidedly not humanoid, as evidenced by skull shape, finger bones, and other physiological differences. Proper identification is confounded because the skeletons are not intact; rather, their bones are separated and mixed together like a disassembled jigsaw puzzle. At least one skeleton is clearly human, though.
"What are these?" Tessa wonders aloud, bending down to study the skeletons covering the floor.
Some of the smaller skeletons seem to belong to chokers and monkey goblins. Others are ichthyic or avian in nature--Tessa remembers reading a few rare tomes on anatomy that depicted the bones of such exotic humanoids. She thinks they might belong to creatures known as skum and strix, respectively.
Relia uses two channel energy to heal the group.
Abigail leads the way back to the main cavern, and then to the northwest. A section of the northern wall in this spacious cavern has been hollowed out and veins of various crystals exposed, which refract any light cast upon their surface. Small piles of rock are heaped on the ground nearby, where the earth has been carefully chiseled away to expose the potentially precious stones. A tunnel leads to the north, faint light shining at its far end.
Azil begins to flit about excitedly. Tessa can feel through her empathic link that her familiar is warning her about creatures nearby, though none of you see any.
"They look like pretty rocks, but that's all I can tell." Relia pulls out her trident and waits to see if the creatures reveal themselves.
Tessa takes one look around the cavern, then puts her back to the wall, "This wasn't natural. Someone mined the walls for precious stones. And I think they may well still be here...."
Relia looks around, but doesn't see any signs of creatures nearby. Abigail holds her polearm at the ready, but nothing rushes out to attack.
Relia calls out, "Is anyone here? We won't attack you if you don't attack us."
There is no response to Relia's call.
"Let's move forward then, but be ready for anything." Relia takes he place in line ready to move on.
Arma takes a quick look around for any loose crystal fragments she can take as a sample. ”Maybe your pet is just seeing things.”
Tessa follows the others warily, "Stay close, Azil. I don't like this any more than you."