"If those insects come up here, we may be best served by all jumping down there."
As Morgan and Jerieth swim for the passage the stirges keep following them, waiting for a chance to feast on some blood. They make it to the tunnel where the water is knee height at most. A rock wounds one and a crossbow bolt rips apart another's wing causing them both to fly back to the safety of their nests.
Vs touch AC
fire damage
Sejanus is just not having a good day today with his aim.
"Should we swim for it? It seems we need to? as the stirges don't seem to be running out. If so we should buddy up." says Jord to the gaggle at the top
"A good swimmer with a poor one? I agree," Genade says, "and I'm the latter."
"Bah." he mutters as his latest rock catches only water.
"It could work go. I jump last."
Vs touch AC
fire damage.
Sejanus tries and fails again.
Jord dumps his packs and just keep his weapons, he slings his shield on his back
Then Jord will jump and swim towards the cave
Noting the insect's dislike of the water, Morgan waits until the water is shallow enough that he can properly get his legs under him and stand up quickly. Brandishing his cutlass, he waits for one to come into range, but they are just too fast for him.
No one is able to take out any more of the stirges this time. There are still three of them following Morgan and as he stands up out of the water they finally get their chance. Jerieth is right by his side and stabs one right through its head. It goes limp on the end of her blade and she flicks it away to sink into the swirling water. There are still 2 left and while Morgan is fending one off the other goes for Jerieth. Both of them manage to attach themselves onto their target and begin sucking their blood!
Jord jumps in feat first and starts swimming towards Morgan and Jerieth.
"Besmara damned bugs!"
Morgan feels the bug suck at his stamina and redoubles his efforts to squash it. Now the bug is fixed in place, Morgan is able to chop at it.
Sejanus throws another ball of fire at the stirge on Morgan.
Vs touch AC
fire damage
Genade circles around the sinkhole until he's as near as possible to where Morgan and Jerieth are standing. "All right, here goes nothing. Look out below!" he says, and steps off the edge.
Reinald stowes his crossbow and leaps into the water.
Jord will attempt to swim to the place where he can stand a cave entrance if I am correct
Reinald jumps in with a graceful leap but struggles under the surface of the water.
Jord makes it to Morgan and Jerieth and can stand.
Morgan frees himself from the stirge with a swing of his cutlass, decapitating it. Its head and proboscis are still attached to him.
Sejanus saves Jerieth from the bloodsucker with a ball of fire to incinerate the stirge. The water sizzles where it falls.
Genade finds the spot where he is almost on top of the others and jumps in. His dive is bad and his impact with the water is painful.
All the stirges have been killed or scared away so Jerieth goes to help the others swim in.
The water is a bit shallower than he thought, and the doctor hits the bottom painfully. He recovers quickly however, and makes it to the others. "Blast it all, that hurt." he swears, "but I don't think I broke anything."
Sejanus jumps in!
With obvious signs of disgust, Morgan pulls the remaining spike out of his flesh. "Aargh, those things are foul."
The spike free, he reaches an arm down to Dr Genade. "Come on you, out you come."
Reinald returns to the surface with suppressing a sputter for air. He makes his way to the others. "Well lets move before giant fleas make a showing."
Genade is able to swim over and Morgan gives him a hand onto solid ground. Reinald soon joins you and Jerieth swims back out to help Sejanus. As Morgan noticed before the water is flowing out of the passage you are in, indicating it is almost low tide. Luckily. You can see the water markings on the walls which show that at high tide there are few pockets of air. If your shipmates are in here, hopefully there is a cave above the water level. So far there is no sign of the squid-goblin creatures.
The floor of the passage is jagged and uneven, covered in moss and seaweed . The tunnel curves around and after about 75ft. splits into two, each direction opening into a larger room, one to the north, one to the south.
"Too many choices." Reinald looks to either path before him.
"I don't supposed anyone is a tide pool cave expert?"
"Nope. South?"
"Let's look for the one that takes us up the most.." he says trying to gauge the angles on incline/decline in the floor
Jord will have his mace and shield out now
Taking a small coin from his pocket, Morgan comments "I figure this knows as much as any of us." and tosses it. "Starboard is my vote then. Now me have a little look ahead." Drawing his bow and replacing the string with a dry one, Morgan waits a moment for confirmation of route from Reinald before heading forward, eyes peeled and doing his best to remain quiet.
However the sloshing water makes it difficult to remain quiet.
There is no change in elevation. The larger rooms are also deeper, meaning you will have to swim across them. The seaweed is dense, making it easy for something to hide in them. Morgan's sharp eyes confirm this fear. He sees movement in the seaweed, tentacles. Likely they are waiting for you to venture into the deeper water. There is also another small passage the goes off to the right but it leads down, becoming completely submerged after 10ft.
"It gets deeper." Reinhold begins moving along the wall south for some support.
"'old on Reinald. There be summat with tentacles waiting in the deep water. Bein' on a de'dline 'ere, would it make sense to check the other passage first. If they is down there, then it don't make no sense to fight this thing."
Reinald backs up at Morgan's words, draws his cutlass for good measure.
Jord starts walking forward towards the other passage
"Then lets get to it, we've taken enough time as is and we need to try and catch em off guard before they get ready for us."
"Yes, I vote for not antagonizing tentacles, as well." The doctor will ready his dagger.
"Hmm, yes, not-tentacles is a fine idea." Sejanus follows along.
Backtracking to go down the other passage leads to a similar larger room, this time about 35ft. across with swimming to cross necessary. Directly on your left is a small tunnel entrance that quickly goes underwater. There is another one further along the left wall. Directly across the room from you is a normal sized passage where the floor is closer to water level like where you are now.
You don't notice anything hiding in the seaweed here.
Map
"It gets deep. Do we have anything that lets us breath in the water. . . we are definitely out of our element here save for Jerieth."
Reinald thinks there might be something hiding in the seaweed after all, noticing the seaweed is moving a little unnaturally in spots.
"I have a dose of something that will help me swim, but only for a few minutes." the doctor says, patting his coat over where he keeps his vials. "I was saving it for when things get really wet."
Jord says "I'm not too bad off underwater, I just can't breathe, we northern types tend to practise our swimming and ship to ship maneuvering."
"Can't we just throw a rock or something?"
Morgan, struggling to use his bow in the deeper water, unstrings his bow, placing the cord in a watertight roll of skins and readies a dagger and his cutlass.
"There is something in the 'www-och'." He resurfaces coughing. "Weeds. Something in the weeds. They are not moving with the flow right."
The doctor ponders on the information, trying to recall anything from his studies.
Reinald continues to study the area to see if it appears to be something alive. He moves to the left wall going deeper into the cave but keeps his cutlass before him. "We must keep pressing keep your guard ready."
Not too loudly Jords says to the others "Aye...As the CAp'n says lets keep going but keep yer eyes open."
He follows the Captain weapon at the ready.
Sejanus follows just behind the big man Jord, ready to burn anything slightly threatening.
As you make your way into the larger room you still can't see anything hiding in the seaweed. Everyone follows Reinald with Jerieth swimming alongside. Suddenly spears poke out at you, held by the small goblin looking creatures with tentacles where their legs should be. One spear hits Jord, another hits Jerieth, another hits Morgan and one hits Genade.
Reinald moves to the nearest squid and attacks.
Sejanus is taken aback to see these little creature suddenly surround them. "Ah! Kill them! Kill them all!" He tries to lob a ball of fire at the closest target.
vs touch AC, fire damage