Javi and Lyrian both snap their heads up and towards the sound, whipping weapons up into a readied position and signalling to their team.
"Chhh chh chhtt chh--" There's an odd noise, a whistling chirp that echoes in your bones, and then--
Where there was nothing, there are suddenly legs: long legs, too long, many-jointed, smooth-slick and chitinous and reflecting Heldar's light in odd ways. An enormous nightmare of segmented limbs and mandibles pours over the edge from the top of the doorway, seeming to materialize before your eyes. The horrible mandibles, shining wetly with viscous fluid, dive unerringly for Rosalia.
Lyrian releases an arrow almost reflexively.... it flies past Rosalia, and slams into a sleek limb with a crunch of chitin and a burst of electricity.
"Chhhhhhttttt!"
Two of the freakishly long, sharp-ended limbs slash out towards Javi.
Javi stares in horror at the creature. His reflexes serve him well enough against the first claw, but the second rips across his torso like a razor, opening a deep gash in his body. The legs withdraw, one of them dripping halfling blood.
The creature can only partly be seen, but it seems like a huge spider gone... terribly wrong. There's not really much in the way of a discernible body, even: just legs, legs, legs. And, of course, those mandibles currently sunk into and around Rosalia.
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NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE... Rosalia has absolutely no idea which hell spawned this terrifying obscenely long-legged spider thing, though her guess is the Elemental Plane of DO NOT WANT.
Gurgling some unknown and garbled eldritch screams, Rosalia tries and fails to flee from the horrible horrible THING that is now consuming her face.
"GetitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoffGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOOOOOFFFF...."
Familiar with battling giant sand scorpions, Shaggar leaps in to challenge the beast with far more legs than even he is used to. Nevertheless, the concept is simple - aim for the joints and dismember. The gnoll dives in with axe and teeth, attempting to tear the mandibles apart and free the hooked outland woman.
Hatyah stalks the corridor, agitated, waiting to see what happens to her packmate.
Since Rosalis is grappled, and I am not sure what the creature is going to try and do to her, my Misfortune will be 'firing' off against the first d20 roll against Rosalia - whether it is a bite, a claw, or a 'squeeze' :D Is that ok? (But see below)
Heldar's life link with his companions takes immediate effect, as their wounds begin to mend, while the oracle's skin darkens and bruises slightly.
His attention is split by whatever else may be inside the room, but the horror attacking them is an undeniable threat, so the half-elf does his best to focus on the immediate menace.
Drawing upon his powers, he targets Rosalia with a burst of life power, boosting her agility and maneuverability - "Try to wrestle free again Rosalia!" - he urges, as the spell takes effect.
Rosalia... is free! She squirms free aided by Heldar's magic, and stands there, breathing hard, eyes wide.
Much happens in the space of six approximate seconds....
Legs and mandibles erupt from around the top of the doorway, striking first at Rosalia and biting deep... and sending poison into the magus's bloodstream. Lyrian reacts instinctively, firing an arrow at the unknown creature which hits its mark. It barely seems to impede the monstrosity of limbs, as a half-second later, one of the too-long legs strikes out at Javi and draws blood.
Rosalia screams, struggling against both the weakness overcoming her body and the horror of the thing before her, but she is unable to free herself... at least, until Heldar springs to her aid, shouting quick words of encouragement charged with divine energies. Rosalia struggles once more-- and manages to just wrench her body out of the mandibles the length of her arm!
Shaggar, meanwhile, is not about to let this threat on his kind-of-pack go unanswered. Snarling, the gnoll steps forward and in one motion swings his greataxe up and into the juncture of limbs that is the closest approximation to a 'body' that this thing has. Ichor spews from the deep bite of his axe.
"Chhhhhhhhhhhhhhetttttt--"
One of the appendages quests in the air, something glistening at its end that might be an eyeball? Hard to say, really. The long limbs twitch with pain, the creature curling back reflexively. Heldar thrusts forward with his spear to give Shaggar just a bit more protection against the attacks that might come his way as retribution.
Unfortunately...
The poison coursing through Rosalia's system isn't done with her.
Though she manages to get free thanks to Heldar's assistance, the venom is burning in her blood. She raises a hand woozily to her forehead...
...and passes out.
"Chuuh chuuhhh chuuhhhhhhh..."
End Round 1
Round 2!
Javi and Lyrian, you're up! The creature looks..... hurt. It's spilling a lot of ichor onto the floor, anyway. But it still seems more than involved in this fight.
Lyrian steps forward and touches Shaggar's shoulder. "The luck of Elysium," he whispers.
Rosalia twitches in her comatose state, lips silently mouthing half-formed words. In her nightmares, she helplessly flees from enormous spidery beasts with spindly legs and poison-dripped fangs... thousands and millions of them... "Nnghhh," she groans.
Rook hisses angrily at the spider, unwilling to leave his mistress' side but likewise not suicidal enough to attempt retaliation.
GMPCing Javi...
"I don't know what that is, besides ugly as sin," Javi says in a blasé tone now that he's over his first shock. He eyes the monster a moment, thinking fast.
"...even if I get in there we won't really be able to surround it effectively, with it up on the wall," he points out in disappointment, and settles for a simple-- but powerful-- stab in the creature's direction, using all the tricks of his halfling trade against big opponents.
Unfortunately, it is hard for a wee halfling to reach the creature above him.
The spider-thing seems to study the group for a flicker of a second, its 'eyes' (for lack of a better word) twitching in the air in Heldar's direction before it goes back to its original quarry. Two long limbs snap downward and scoop up Rosalia's limp form.
"Chut." Is that a contemptuous amused sound, directed at Rook? Who knows...
And then-- the legs withdraw, curling back behind the edge of the doorway and putting the creature briefly out of sight to everyone except Javi.
The thief points with his scimitar. "Ah, hells-- it's hunkering down up by the ceiling, in the corner back there above the skeletons with the swords! It's maybe fifteen feet up? I can just see Rosalia dangling in its grip!"
Shaggar is up, and feeling quite heroic due to Lyrian's spell!
The gnoll sets his ears back and snarls at the fleeing monster. He quickly pulls a potion from his bandolier and swallows the contents before moving into the guard room. As he observes the spider crouching in the corner of the ceiling, Shaggar searches his memory for any knowledge of such an aberrant beast. Even as his body grows to gigantic proportions, the ranger growls what he recalls of the abomination. "Foul and evil Spider-spawn of Leng! It will drain the girl's soul to power its magics! Its body resists spells but naught else and it is a web-spinner." Shaggar doesn't bother to mention the obvious - that its bite is treacherous and it climbs like a fiend.
Hatyah follows her packmate into the room, guarding his flank from possible attack by the mummified guards.
Heldar steps forward to the corner, so he can at least see the creature high up without entering the room. Calling upon his magical powers, he conjures a weapon made of pure force which promptly begins its attack on the multi-legged horror.
Round 2 Summary
Javi slashes savagely up at the aberrant creature, but his scimitar misses the twitching limbs. Lyrian calls upon the power of the better planes of existence to make Shaggar even more of a warrior.
In the face of its well-prepared enemies, the beast... flees, though not without taking a prize for itself. With Rosalia dangling between its overly-long limbs like a doll, the creature scuttles to a far corner of the room.
Shaggar snarls in answer, pursuing and hurriedly drinking a potion that will enable him to deal with the beast on his terms. Seconds later, the gnoll's furry hide stretches and bulges to accommodate his expanding muscles. Hatyah keeps pace to guard her alpha.
Heldar steps to a place from which he might see the battle, and calls a brilliant sword into being in midair. Sadly, the weapon misses its blow.
Round 3
"Son of a...!" exclaims Lyrian when the spider abducts Rosalia.
"I know I'm going to regret this," he says, dashing in past Shaggar and firing his bow.
Javi sees little alternative but to loose an arrow of his own, because he cannot attack in his preferred fashion of a shiv to the unguarded belly when the 'belly' is fifteen feet above ground.
His arrow strikes, where Lyrian's had ricocheted harmlessly off the chitinous limbs.
"...I could have hoped for a harder hit," Javi sighs.
Up in the corner, with ichor dripping still from the grievous wound Shaggar had inflicted on it, the creature is making noises.
"Cheh-eh, cheeh, chssssss...."
Its limbs weave in a bizarre dance, twisting and twitching in the air, rubbing against each other, and one leg stroking hungrily over Rosalia's slack face with a barbed tip. Little sparks of light drift from the human woman up that elongated limb.
Then, the limbs dart-- downward, several quick brushes against ancient skulls and mummified limbs, the gesture disturbingly like a man patting a dog atop its head.
Perhaps even more disturbing, several of the sword-bearing dead bodies suddenly quiver with motion, and the parody of life.
The heads of four of the dead soldiers look vacantly towards you. As one, their curved khopesh blades drop from their hands to clang on the marble floor, and then they move forward, bony fingers questing for life. Whatever tactical genius they might have possessed in life no longer lingers in their skulls, however-- two walk within the reach of Shaggar's now much larger axe-arm.
As the first walks within Shaggar's reach, the gnoll lashes out with his axe and hits it soundly, although he knows the axe is not the best weapon for beating up brittle bones. Still, he cracked off part of a scapula.
"Chsss," the spider-thing chirps in satisfaction, as it scurries along the wall away from the glowing sword, Rosalia bumping and dragging in its wake.
"Who's surprised?" quips Javi as the undead move towards them and as he deftly dodges their claws. "I'm surprised."
Rook chases after Hatyah, using the hyena's bulkier frame to protect himself. His fur stands on end as he hisses profusely at the spider, mrrrroooowwwll! ... but alas, he is probably not particularly scary to a strange, soul-sucking spiderish aberration.
Rosalia, meanwhile, seems to grow more pale than the quite white-skinned Northerner already was. A soundless whimper escapes her lips as the creature saps her magical reserve and the colour drains from her cheeks.
I'm not sure how you want to measure vertical-diagonal distances - i.e. how far away does Shaggar have to be from the spider in terms of 'squares' to be within striking distance: 'beneath' the spider, in an adjacent square, or with a open 1 square buffer?
Mecha-Shaggar lumbers into the gap. His massive axe and teeth sweep towards the skeletons on both sides.
The hyena smells the small cat briefly - acknowledging the feline's hissing courage - then lunges through the gap in the line to chew on the mummified bones of a skeletal defender.
As for diagonals, they are stupid so I'm just going to pretend they are like normal squares for reach weapons. I.e., if there is one square buffer space between you and target and you have reach you can hit it.
Shaggar does some crunching! The first skeleton was still standing after he hit it on his way in, but it can't stand up to the brutal blow he follows up with. The skeleton crumbles into a mess of bones.
The axe crashes into another skeleton with a follow-up blow and smashes through the stick-thin arm. Whuunch!
Shaggar's bite, alas, misses.
With a gap freed up, Hatyah darts in, weaving around the skeleton nimbly...
...and snaps at it with her powerful jaws. She drags it to the ground, but the force of her bite is so strong that the bones, bound together by long-dried strips of leatherlike flesh, are separated from another in a clatter and rattle.
Heldar overcomes the creature's innate resistance to spells, but the beast shrugs off the attempt to seize control of its mind.
His connection with the life forces of the others continues to function...
Javi grins at seeing the opportunity for combat he can sink his scimitar into... his scimitar that's on the ground. Oops.
He drops his bow and snatches up his scimitar, daring the undead to hit him.
"--ow!" Javi cries, sounding offended more than anything else that he just got hit. Scimitar in hand, Javi swings at one of the two skeletons.
Unfortunately, his blade clangs off the well-made armor wrapping the undead's body.
"Guys, I think the pyramid's curse has affected me," Javi complains.
"At least you don't have to go far to look for a nice burial spot," quips Lyrian, who continues to fire at the spider.
"Hey, when I die, I refuse to share grave space with anyone else!" Javi protests, even as Lyrian's arrow flies true and hits a chitinous leg with another jolt of electricity.
Clinging to the wall, the spider-thing seems to register the quick destruction of two of its minions with disappointment, its antennae-like limbs waving in the air cautiously.
"Chfff chsss..."
The limbs twist and writhe in the air in a dance of arcane gestures, and then the spider-thing disappears from sight. eta Rosalia is still visible, however-- hanging in the air as if some weird poltergeist was puppeting her around the room. She bobs in the air towards the southern corner.
The skeletal guards mindlessly rake at Javi with their claws.
In the middle of Round 4 (not round 3 as I inaccurately said in a previous post)
"Hatyah! Vahkul mashente!" Shaggar ignores the skeletons and closes on the rag-doll magus and her invisible assailant. The gnoll is quite sure Rook will never forgive him for what he's about to do and he is relieved that Rosalia is unconscious at the moment. With a roar, he swings his axe with all his considerable might right past Rosalia in a dismembering downward slash, looking to shear the invisible limbs clutching the woman.
If that hits... we're talking 85 DAM. :D
Hatyah follows orders and lunges at the skeleton threatening Javi, trying to free the little man from threat.
Shaggar wades into the room like a furry titan, or something. One of the skeletons rakes its claws across his hind leg, but the gnoll barely cares or notices, his attention focused on Rosalia and where the unseen spider must be.
The axe swings. The axe swings hard.
Legs suddenly appear, visible-- severed cleanly from the body to drop to the floor with a rattle. A few seconds later, the rest of the spider-like creature shows up to, as it drops to the floor and lands atop several (unanimated) skeletons, knocking several to the ground in a clatter of bone as its limbs twitch and thrash. Rosalia thumps heavily to earth as well.
The creature thrashes in its death throes, but Shaggar is pretty sure it is not going to be doing anything else.
Hatyah races to nip at a skeleton, but her snapping jaws miss.
Javi is about to reach into his pack for some powder when Shaggar makes it a non-issue. ”Well,” he quips, turning back on the two skeletons still harassing him. ”easy-peesy, right?” His blade flicks out again.
Lyrian leaves the skeletons to his martial brethren and rushes to Rosalia's side, breathing a prayer in flowing Celestial that he learned from his azata grandmother.
Javi slashes powerfully at one of the two skeletons, hitting it soundly, although the scimitar seems a poor weapon against something that is mostly bone, alas.
Lyrian races over to the unconscious Rosalia and quickly heals the damage she took from her fall. The bruising disappears before it even had a chance to really start, but Rosalia does not wake up.
Heldar calls on the energy of life to wash over the skeletons, even as he himself loses more of his vitality to keep Javi strong and standing.
Light floods outward from the healer.
One skeleton seems to be blasted by the divine power; the other holds more firm against the onslaught. Both of them continue to mindlessly claw-- one at Javi, the other at Hatyah.
Their attacks are ineffectual, skittering off of barding and chain shirt alike.
Rosalia continues to lie slack and still.
Hatyah tries to munch on the skeleton's pelvis.