Ysme shakes her head slightly in response to Ensu's statements, as if expecting him to understand something better.
At Pirknok's direction, Ysme turns down the indicated side tunnel, her fists clenching & unclenching.
Eli readies his own crossbow, glancing at the others nervously.
What am I doing down here? This is madness. What could live down here all these years?
Pirknok reaches forward and catches hold of Ysme's elbow to hold her back, signaling her to wait.
Eli manages to find the goblin glass-chucker's supplies. Among them, he finds 2 flasks of low-grade alchemist fire and 3 flasks of deadly acid.
From the opening along the eastern wall lurches a hairless humanoid on back-bent, dog-like legs, its hideous mouth is flanked by tiny arms with three-fingered hands. It holds a sharp but archaic looking halberd in its spindly arms.
Doran's bolt catches the creature in the shoulder with deadly force but it continues to advance.
Pirknok holds his axe tightly, moves up, and looks grim.
Eli shocked at the creature's appearance, fumbles for a bomb, steps forward and hurls it at the creature.
"I hate being right sometimes." Ensu comments as he lets his bolt fly.
Eli's nervousness throws off his aim and the bomb explodes a couple feet short of his target.
But the blast still scorches the creature filling the cavern with the stink of burning unnatural flesh.
Ensu's 'rightness' does little to help his shot and the bolt from his crossbow clatters off of the creature's hide.
***
Neither Ensu nor Eli have any real idea what this creature is but they are both certain it's the result of the corrupting influence of very old and very evil magics.
Init
Monster
Eli
Ensu
Pirknok
Doran
Ventus
Ysmerelda
The monster lumbers forward with surprising speed and, after shrieking a piercing inhuman warcry, brings its halberd to bear against Pirknok.
Pirknok narrows his eyes as the creature approaches, judging the distance carefully. Just as it comes into range, he jerks his arm up and brings his axe into a curving swing.
From the opening along the eastern wall lurches a hairless humanoid on back-bent, dog-like legs, its hideous mouth is flanked by tiny arms with three-fingered hands. It holds a sharp but archaic looking halberd in its spindly arms.
Pirknok's axe catches the creature in the arm but it's willowy limbs prove to be harder and tougher than expected.
Pirknok's face hardens, and he roars defiantly at the deformed thing in front of him. Stepping back, he brings his axe to bear and slashes angrily at his foe.
Pirknok lands another solid blow but the creature's flesh is like dense mud and yields very little. It glares at him with cold soulless eyes while thick mucus drips from its wrongly-hinged jaw.
Eli tries to get a clear shot with his crossbow.
Doran reloads his weapon with practiced ease and a resounding chkk-chkk, once again aiming to put down the hideous creature.
Ventus steps back and swings hard at the creature with his sword.
Eyes narrowed, Ysme darts forward to slash at the creature with her claws.
Ensu will switch weapons and move up with his longspear in hand.
Due to the rapidly growing melee crowd, Eli's shot misses but Doran has a bit more luck and lands a bolt in the center of the creature's chest. Ventus steps forward and drives his blade into its gut and seems to his something vital as the creature finally shudders and falls to the ground.
A moment later the creature's skin seems to rupture and foul clear liquid oozes out onto the floor. The stink is something like fetid water crossed with sewage. When it's done, all that's left of the monster is deflated scraps of skin not unlike a squeezed out sausage casing and the weapon it once wielded.
Pirknok shudders at the thing's death, staying clear of the disgusting liquid remains. "Ennywun hev another uv them poshuns? Thet thing hurt!"
Doran wrinkles his nose at the beast as it effectively deflates. "I don' know 'at th' 'ell 'at 'ing was, bu' I'm glad i's dead," he grumbles. He moves to reload his weapon, trying to ready himself for any further danger.
"Certainly seemed intent on keeping us out of here. There will probably be more like it ahead, eyes peeled people," Ventus edges his way east, following the path the split-mouthed beasty came from.
"What about that odd weapon it was carrying? Eli asks, giving the corpse a wide berth.
The dwarf grimaces. "Et's sharp, ah kin tell ya that."
Ensu frowns as he converts another spell to a healing spell for the dwarf. "You really need to be more careful; I don't have a lot of these left."
Looking at the creature in more detail, Ensu just shakes his head, "I don't like this thing, whatever it is. As for the weapon, what it is strikes me as less notable than how old it appears to be. Polearms aren't exactly uncommon weapons in and of themselves." Ensu picks up the halberd and examines it for any clues as to it's precise age.
"Ah'm not tryin' ta get hurt..." grumbles the dwarf.
"No, you're trying-"
Ysme forcibly shuts her mouth on the words she was about to utter, inhaling & beginning again. "I do not object to dying down here,
."
"I do object to us dying down here because we were ."
"None of us are so well armored that we may blindly charge foes, particularly not foes we have seen or heard of before."
"At any rate, we need to be careful. There is probably more of those things about, and if the halberd is any indication, we are dealing with Thassillion ruins, which means they are probably just the beginning of the fun. But we should really get moving again; the ruin and the answers in it aren't going to come to us."
The cavern the creature came from proves to actually be a room from a greater complex. The chamber is made wholly of smooth worked stone. Not much decorates the room, the walls are unadorned, but a closed door lies within the northern wall.
The door, though it appears ancient, opens smoothly and quietly, and leads into a hallway that expands several feet further north before turning a corner. The walls of this hall are much like the ones forming the room the party entered through - old and plain.
The hallway exits into a large chamber dominated by a large statue at its center. The statue appears to be made of a red marble and depicts a strikingly beautiful but, at the same time, monstrously enraged human woman, her stony expression twisted in fury. The woman wears flowing robes, and her long hair is held back from her face by an intricate headdress of hooks and blades. In her left hand she carries a large book, the face of which is inscribed with a seven-pointed star. Her right hand holds a glittering metal-and-ivory ranseur.
There's a doorway on the north side and an unexplored hallway leading east.
"I don't see any sign the Goblins came through here."
Ysme sees no signs of goblins.
Eli eyes the statue uncomfortably, but makes no further investigation of it.
Pirknok motions toward the east exit and looks questioningly at Ensu.
Ensu gives the statue a once over, but finding little to keep his interest, turns his attention back to watching for more of the strange creatures without comment.
Eli does a double-take however, when he notices something.
"Hey, the statue is stone, but the weapon is real..." he observes. "Should we be leaving things like that and the... 'Thing's' weapon lying around for looters or Goblins to take?"
"I'm going to leave the creepy statue to the care of our resident miracle workers," Ventus said, "That is a nice ranseur, though. Come to think of it... Ysme! You want something with a little reach? You'll be able to drop it and switch to your claws if anything manages to close the distance with you."
"We rather lacking in 'keep 'em away' ability at the moment." Ysme considers for a moment. "Not sure I like the idea of defacing what may have been a God's icon however...
I'll go retrieve that...
thing's
weapon." As she heads back out to the passageway to do so.
The party continues eastward down the hall until it opens into another large room. At the room's center is a raised shallow stone pool (no more than a foot or two deep). Pristine clean water ripples quietly within it, the rim of which is lined with skulls.
Text is written on the southern wall of this room.
On the opposite side of the room, the hallway narrows again and continues further east.
Pirknok glances with disinterest at the wall and the pool. He starts toward the hallway's continuation, but pauses and looks back, waiting for the others.