Ema's dolphin, a new grindylow to kill, the creature slammed it's head into the one who tried to attack it but the grindylow was just a bit too quick for the dolphin to hit. Ema, meanwhile, conjured another globule of acid which she threw at one of the creatures.
Kip clambers up the wall and blasts the nearest grindylow, knocking it unconscious with a torrent of water. Victrix drives her spear into the next one, scoring another fatal blow.
Simon tries to strike the last grindylow, but he misses, along with Ema's dolphin. Ema manages to hit it with an acid splash, and if screeches in pain.
The creature tries to swim past the dolphin to escape, but it rams it as it moves past, dropping it.
With the fight over, Kip swims down to search the cave. He discovers a few leathery pouches made out of a large fish’s swim bladder. Inside the pouches, you find 13 pieces of polished red coral worth 10 gp each. In addition, a waterlogged backpack contains a magic bottle, an everburning torch, a rotted coil of rope, an empty flask bearing the initials “E. M.,” a hammer, six pitons, and a dented flute.
Victrix pops the berries Kip offered her into her mouth for strength.
"Alroight--those lil' buggers 'ave more bite and stabbiness in 'em than I gave 'em credit for."
To the north, the cave floor slopes down, making the water 10 feet deep. The cave has an exit in the west, which seems to connect to the northern passageway. You can either traverse the deep water or return and wade through the shallow water in the passage.
With the defeat of the grindylow Emalliandra felt awash of relief, at least until she realized they weren't done yet. While the others healed up Ema focused on her magic and her eyes glowed in a flash for a moment as she consumed a spell for other purposes. She looked at their paths to advance and said, "Much as I dislike it I think we need to take the deep water path ahead. It seems to me that the creatures would trap the path that is the easiest for us to follow."
Kip fished out some more blueberries and his wand before offering them to Victrix. "We gotta keep you nice and strong!"
Victrix greedily gobbles them all down.
As you approach the deeper water, Ema's summoned dolphin begins to click and chatter in alarm. It swims down to the floor of the cave, and Kip can see it swatting at the silt with its tail. Disturbed by its antics, two barrel-shaped octopi emerge from their hiding spots, waving their tentacles angrily.
They try to bite and grab the dolphin! The first one misses, but the second one wraps its tentacles around the cetacean and squeezes it tightly!
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"Well, this isn't good. This cave complex seems to be quite well defended.
Makes you wonder what these creatures typically get attacked by."
Simon attempts to swim out and help the dolphin.
With dagger in hand, he attempts to stab the octopus.
(is this the one that is grappling?)
Do I know anything about their abilities?
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Kip followed closely behind Simon and thrust at the octopus with his rapier.
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Victrix, weighed down by her breastplate, starts trying to make her way over to the octopus tussling with Emi's summoned dolphin.
Victrix struggles to swim over to the dolphin, her armor hampering her progress.
Kip has no such issues, stabbing out with his rapier but failing to hit the squirming octopus.
Simon joins the grippli, driving his dagger into the octopus' head.
The dolphin struggles in the octopus' grasp, but is unable to land a good hit. Ema fires an acid splash into the melee, but it splashes harmlessly into the water.
The free octopus swims over to Kip and tries to grab him, but the shaman dodges its tentacles. The other one maintains its grip on the dolphin, biting it again.
Her dolphin was struggling in the grip of the octopus and Ema wasn't please. How dare that creature treat her dolphin so. She knew, intellectually, that the dolphin wouldn't truly die if the eight tentacled freak killed it but she would still be upset. These creatures were her friends and it hurt when they were treated so.
While Ema cast and set out another splash of acid at the octopus that seemed like it would miss the dolphin valiantly fought off the poison and tried to smack the octopus again.
The dolphin managed to squirm at just the right time and headbutted the octopus right in it's beaky mouth.
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Simon continues attacking.
If the first one is already dead and I need to swim over:
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Kip stabbed again at the tentacled beast, this time failing to even distract the thing as it writhed about on the dolphin.
Victrix still struggles to swim effectively in her heavy armor. Kip struggles as well, unable to land a good hit with his rapier. Simon fares better, slicing the octopus with his blade again.
Ema misses with her acid splash, but the dolphin manages to wriggle enough to ram the octopus with its nose. The mollusk releases its grip as it sinks to the bottom of the cave.
The other octopus reaches for Kip again. It bites the grippli, but he avoids its grasping tentacles.
With a squeak of delight the celestial dolphin saw it's opponent go down and went on to the next octopus, head butting it fiercely as it fought with Kip and taking advantage of it's distraction. Meanwhile Ema tried to send another globule of acid at the remaining octopus and, despite having to avoid hitting her allies, it seemed like the globule would actually hit this time.
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Simon dies his best to swim over to the next octopus, hoping that he can get out of the way before Victrix manages to swim over.
He tries to stab this new enemy.
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Kip struggled against the attacks of the octopus and his attempts at thrusts and parries began to weaken. Still, he kept his focus, shifted over a bit and stabbed again, but unfortunately the poison was taking its toll.
Victrix finally manages to swim through the water, reaching the octopus. She drives her spear deep into its body. As the mollusk twitches on the end of the weapon, Ema blasts it with acid and the dolphin slams it for good measure, making sure it is quite dead.
The dolphin chitters in victory and dances on its tail for a few moments before vanishing back to the Upper Planes.
Fortunately, as the others delivered the final blows to the octopus, Kip recovered a bit from the ravages of the poisonous bite. He popped a few of the magic blueberries from earlier into his mouth and began to feel much better.
Victrix coughs up a bit of water. "Bloody 'ell! Next toime, I'm leavin' this 'eavy kit on the boat!"
"I"m sure your admirers wouldn't mind that one bit," Kip remarked with a wide grin. Hoisting up the octopi he asked, "Might as well not let them go to waste. Want to hold onto these for dinner Vicki?"
Gerald swam around Victrix a few times, before floating up to the surface, inflating and splashing around awkwardly for a few moments. Finally, the pufferfish deflated and found his customary place tucked away in Kip's hat.
You take a few moments to recover from the fight before swimming across the cave and back into shallow waters. After a sharp switchback in the tunnel, a gradual upward slope leads out of the water and into this roughly round chamber with a dome-like ceiling. The floor is covered in a mixture of sand and coarse stones. Rising from the ground near the center of the room is a massive statue of a hand, carved from a smooth, pearlescent, sea-green marble. The hand is bent back at the wrist and posed as if to catch something or to cradle something in its palm. If anything more exists of the statue, it is buried beneath the earth.
A giant grindylow the size of a human reclines in the hand as if it were a throne. Upon seeing you, she slides down off the hand, rises to her full height and bellows, the sound echoing off the chamber's walls!
"I'm sure your admirers wouldn't mind that one bit."
"Well, of COURSE they would. Yeh saw the looks they were givin' me, roight?"
It takes a moment before Victrix realizes Kip as making a joke.
"Might as well not let them go to waste. Want to hold onto these for dinner Vicki?"
"Eh... well, I've never 'ad octopus for a meal before. Might be worth tryin'."
-----------------When the crew finally reach the throne room of the seawater cave, Victrix takes a moment to size up the grindylow rising from its marble hand-throne.
She then grins and echoes the grindylow's bellow with an elated cry of her own. "YEEESSS!"
Then she runs forward to greet it in her usual violent manner.
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"Mmmm... Octopus... That is a delicacy, I've not had in some time.
Can't say as I've ever actually seen it prepared, but we should be able to figure something out."
Simon is bouyed by the recent success the group is having, and is in fine spirits as they begin to move onto dryer ground for a moment.
However, the sight of such a large grindylow does make him quite nervous. He thinks about recommending a retreat to reconsider, but Victrix has already waded into battle by then.
Sighing, he pulls his new longsword and moves into battle next to Victrix.
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Realizing that they had found the one in charge of the grindylow due to the throne like chair of the statue's hand. She focused and opened a portal above summoning an eagle in to attack it. The bird popped out right above and behind the creature and then laid into it with it's talons and beak.
Kip hopped forward, attempting to overwhelm the grindylow with sheer numbers.
Simon moves up and slashes the grindylow with his longsword, the Azlanti blade slicing deep into her side. Victrix comes up alongside the half-orc and drives her spear into the creature's belly! Kip hops up to the aasimar's other side and stabs, but his rapier doesn't pierce the grindylow's hide.
Ema conjures a golden eagle that smites the grindylow, hitting with its beak and one talon.
Surrounded and badly wounded, the grindylow nonetheless roars her defiance. She stabs Simon with her spear and then quickly whirls to try to hit Victrix, but the barbarian parries the follow-up strike. The creature's tentacles reach out to trip Victrix, then the creature shuffles a few feet to the south as the aasimar hits the ground.
Kip revised his plan and conjured a quick blast of water, hoping to knock the nasty squidblin away to give Victrix some room to get back on her feet.
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Victrix falls on her back and waits for Kip to clear the grindylow off of her.
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Realizing that he needs to stay standing in order to help in this fight, Simon quaffs his elixir of Cure Light Wounds.
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Simon drinks a healing extract to stay in the fight. Kip blasts the grindylow with water, shoving her away from Victrix.
Seeing the creature weakened by the frenetic assault Ema's eagle gave a scream of victory as it back-winged and shifted over it's victim to attack it. Both talons and it's beak struck again but it had far less success this time than last.
Ema, meanwhile, moved up since the grindylow was occupied and then sent a globule of acid at it while her bird attacked. She was delighted to see the glob headed right for the thing's eyes while her eagle distracted it.
Victrix hauls herself back to her feet, advances on the tentacled beast, and stabs!
Victrix stands up and lunges at the creature, but it parries her strike.
Ema blasts the thing with acid as he eagle swoops in for the kill. Its beak and talons tear through the grindylow, and with a strangled cry, she collapses in a bloody heap on the ground!
With the death of the grindylow queen the eagle gave a scree of victory before diving back through a gate that Ema opened for it. She seemed relieved and moved towards the hand, looking for a spot clean of grindylow gunk, and took a seat upon the "throne". She crossed her legs at the knees and waited while the others examined the queen and then the chest when they found it and asked them, "Please bring any items to me and I'll try and identify them." She examined each item that was brought to her in turn in an effort to glean their uses.
Ema identifies the wand, but the rest of the items remain a mystery for now.
Ema didn't have much luck identifying most of the items as she realized that she was sitting in some grindylow goop and was revolted by the stuff. Trying to clean herself without a spell left her unfocused and it wasn't until the wand that she had her attention caught enough to identify it. "Oooooooh, I [i[like[/i] this." She smiled in delight, "I can even use this!" She cradled the wand delightedly, "When activated it will create a rolling ball of fire, there aren't a lot of charges left on it but it will be quite useful."
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While Ema is concentrating on the items, Simon will explore the rest of the chamber and the hand, searching for secret doors.
T20 = 30
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There don't appear to be any secret doors or other hidden things in this chamber. It seems you have finished your task and eliminated all the grindylows.
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With the respite, Simon will get out all of the items recovered so far and take a look at them.
He looks at the things Kip retrieved from the Grindylow ambush first.
"Ema, did you take a look at this magic bottle from the previous battle yet?
You might also want to hold onto this Everburning Torch."
Looking at the mundane items, he is less impressed.
"So, our friend Hendrake was either here or these grindylows raided his body. Being as these items were in a rotted backpack, I find the body part very likely, though I had been assuming he was the one killed by the ankheg."
Simon is much more impressed with the findings from the boss.
"Kip, this mithril shirt appear light enough for you to make good use of, but it looks a bit too big, unfortunately.
Victrix, would you like it as backup for times when we need to go swimming? We'll get it identified just as soon as we can."
"These coins that were found in the chest are at least 100 years old. It would seem that we are not the first society to find these islands. Perhaps the Chelaxian empire had found it and planned to plumb its depths before the fall of Aroden broke up their plans?
Hmmm... I wonder if the knowledge of this find has persisted within Cheliax. They might consider these islands to be Chelaxian territory. That is a possible reason for the formation of factions within the first group of settlers."
Shaking her head Ema cast her spell again as she slipped the wand into a place where her clothing, such as it was, would hold it tight, and took the bottle. She looked at it intently through her magically augmented vision in her attempt to identify it. As to the torch she said absently, "Just hold onto it for now, I'll put it in my pack when we reach the ship."
"Ema, that's fantastic. Between your friendly animals and great balls of fire, you'll be unstoppable!"
"Do you think we could get it altered down to my size? I don't know much about armor crafting, but surely one of the other settlers is knowledgeable about such things? But yes, even if not, it will at least be easier for Vicki to swim around in, though she seems to be getting the hang of it. I can even give you some pointers if you want later.
The secret is using your feet more!"
Ema identifies the bottle.
Her eyes twinkling in amusement Ema said, "Well now, this will be useful I imagine. It's a bottle of air. You open it up and it has a never ending supply of fresh, breathable air, perfect for spending time underwater or in a small extra dimensional space." She looked to Kip as he asked about resizing the armor and said, "Well, if it's magical armor, and I guess that it is even if I don't know what it does it should resize to fit you on it's own." She leaned forward intently, "Why don't you try it on and see?"