Cotton pulls up her belt, squares her shoulders and marches after Vera. "I'll back you up!" she squeaks.
Round 2 Recap
Vera moves forward and can see the frogs trying to hide themselves in the water. Cotton swims after her friend as everyone else watches wearily. The frogs continue to hide away keeping their distance.
Round 3 Order: Sa'sori, Cotton, Vera, Moria, Dyrm, Frogs.
Dyrm frowns, unsure what to do, "If you need me to do something, but ask."
Vera will move 10ft more which should get her close enough to take a swing at one of the frogs.
Sa'sori watches waiting to see what response the toads will have... but she draws her elven curve blade to have it ready should combat start anew!
Vera quickly closes the distance and cuts another frog open. Slaying the beast. The only remaining frog flees behind the crypt hiding as deeply in the water as it can.
"That one seems scared, we may be able just ignore it, but if we do it could try and blind side us. Thoughts?"
"On one hand it may continue to feast on and defile the dead, on the other, it's just a creature trying to survive. I'd say spare the poor beast unless it attacks."
"Works for me. Then let's carry on so we can get somewhere dry."
"Frogs don't have teeth anyway," Cotton says. "How's it going to eat dried-up bones? It only went for me because I'm fresh and juicy!" she adds, proudly.
"Just look for a switch or something. We have to get that gate open." Moira outs away her bow and draws a sword in case the frog returns.
Searching the room turns up nothing that could be used to open the gate. You guys proceed to the far door, which opens into a long flooded hallway. The passage midway through seems to be linked to the room you guys avoided. The passageway south seems to lead to a new area.
"I vote we ignore the room we've already passed and go further in. The mechanism for the gate is bound to be further in."
"Okay, let's go, let's go," Cotton chirrups.
Dyrm nods in quiet agreement
Sa'sori shrugs, "Yeah... I think that passage way hooks up with this one anyways."
She follows along.. elven curve blade in hand.
You proceed into the next room finding the wheel on the far side. The wheel is heavy and takes several hard turns to open. Once the wheel is turned and locked into place the party sets out back through the maze of corridors returning to the now open gate. You can still see the bats in the next room quietly resting at the top of the next room.
"Dyrm, think you can keep them calm while we move through? Fighting a swarm of bats isn't exactly on my bucket list" Vera waits in the door way.
"mmm....let me think."
"I'll need to know them for a moment...let's see." Then he takes the lead unless stopped and moves closer.
Unless they're known to be harmful and agressive to the point where he might as well not try, he'll try to keep them calm while his allies go through, even if it means drawing their attention to him while the others go on
This breed of bat is nocturnal and fairly aggressive. They should be and appear to be sleeping now. If disturbed from their sleep they are likely to attack. If everyone remains quiet they will likely remain asleep and allow you to pass.
** spoiler omitted **
Dyrm no sooner recognizes the bats, than he backs up to the group again and whispers, "Sorry, these bats are not the sort to be mollified lightly. Good news, they're sleeping and if we all move fairly quietly they should allow us to pass. Bad news? If we make too much noise we're going to get swarmed."
"Right. Quietly." Miora looks skeptically at the heavily armored Vera. "Any other options? Maybe we could hide somewhere and I could scare them with an arrow. Then we wait until they leave.""[/b]
"Smoke might flush them out, but out where? Could be we'd just drive them right to our faces."
"Wasn't there a crack in the ceiling near the gate?"
Sa'sori rolls her eyes... 'This' is exactly what she had pointed out before about the swarm being dangerous... but she figured she should let them realize that for themselves since her warning was disregarded...
But the petulant half-elf sorceress was more pondering the room they by-passed clearly from the light reflections they passed a hallway that was not a hallway but opened up into a clearly larger room.
Not wanting to argue with the group... only to be ignored 'again' she decides to go back and peek into the room perhaps some other resource will be discovered? Reasoning...
Also.. most of the group ignored her anyways... they probably would not miss her brief absence...
Sa'sori slips away in the discussion to look into room {15?} and casts .. she does not enter but wants to make sure she knows the full layout of the Crypt leaving nothing behind for surprises.
Sa'sori, a strange blue fungus covers the walls, ceilings, and pillars of this waterlogged chamber. Its wispy strands stretch out from the wall like roots dangling in the air, twitching and swaying in an unseen breeze. Floating in the water are four decaying corpses. Three large rats and one giant frog, all have strange burn marks all over their bodies.
Nothing in the room detects as magical.
Sa'sori ponders the room... and the ominous looking blue moss...
"Not something... I want to mess with if the corpses are any clue. And.. nothing magical that could be of use."
{Shrug}... her curiosity satisfied... Sa'sori returns quietly to the party.
...returning to the party, Sa'sori speaks up from the rear, "..Well the swarm of bats must have a food source correct? And on our travel through here there were closed doors... and no bat droppings on the floor right? So the swarm is getting out some way that is not back the way we came."
"I have a flask of alchemists fire, and we found two smoke sticks."
"The smoke stick produce a cloud of dense smoke cloud about 10'ft in radius... .. is we toss in my flask of fire right after you lite one of the smoke sticks where your standing at in that 5'ft choke point... I very much doubt the Bat Swarm with flee the fire into more smoke but will flee some other direction... and thus.. no longer be an obstacle."
"Certainly sounds reasonable enough. I'm willing to give it a go."
"Or we can just be quiet," Cotton suggests as she stares, wide-eyed at the bats. "I like bats," she explains. "I'd hate to upset them without a real need. If they wake up, we can still set off the smoke-thingy, can't we?"
"Willing to do that to, but sneaking is truly not my thing. So, be ready to run."
There is no visible lever. Your low light vision does reveal a fissure in the roof of the next room which is likely where the bats are coming from. The bats seem to be ignoring you so long as you do not disturb them.
"If we use smoke then we'll be the only ones blinded. I remember there was a fissure. If we scare them they should fly out."
Dyrm frowns, "I wonder if there's a way to scare them and block them off from us at the same time?"
"Let's do this, you guys get through first. Then I'll go and if I piss them off I'll just run like hell and we'll close the first door we come to. Good enough?"
"Let's go, then," Cotton says. As quietly as she can, she starts to creep into the room...
The dwarf follows the good gnome's lead
Sa'sori shrugs, figured her idea would be dismissed... before anyone would ask her for the details of what she was proposing...
Sa'sori casts maintaining the spell. She readies a tindertwig and a smoke stick in hand... following the rest... a resigned sour expression on her face.
You pass through the second catacomb without incident and proceed through a door into the next room. The vaulted ceiling of this vast chamber shows significant signs of damage, with numerous cracks along its surface. In the center of the room, a 10-foot-wide bridge crosses a deep chasm. On the other side, a pair of stone statues watch over the end of the bridge in front of a set of grand brass double doors. The statues depict villagers holding shields and spears.
Looking into the room, everyone, except Cotton, spots a pressure plate 10 feet into the bridge that will likely trigger a trap.
sa'sori
moria
dyrm
Vera
Cotton
"Should we just try and jump over the plate or do we want to try triggering it from here?"
"What's wrong with it?" Cotton asks, puzzled.
"Oh, sorry. From the looks of it there's another pressure plate part way onto the bridge. Unsure if just jumping over it is the best course of action." Vera points to the plate.
Sa'sori sighs.. and shrugs. Gesturing ... her pack opens up seemingly of its own volition and her grappling hook with the attached hemp rope snakes out and soars across the room to wrap itself securely around both of the statues. Clearly to... Cotton, at least.. Sa'sori is using her spell
Without comment she moves to secure the other end of the rope...
She casts ... and the spell hammers an iron spike into the wall opposite the statues to secure the other end of her rope to it.
She moves to climb across the bridge on her rope her only comment, "It's my idea.. so I'll go first... I didn't want to 'committee' to ignore me again..."