Seeign everyone below her moving in Iolaire starts foward, moving swiftly across the ceiling and around the corner, hoping to strike from above while the mongels focus on Bitey below.
The party moves forward, some stealthily, some less so. The mongrels seem genuinely confused at the sight of a goblin and a human NOT trying to kill each other, but don't seem to be backing down any time soon. then Iolaire drops from the ceiling and stabs one in the back! He cries out in pain and the other literally yips like a dog and jumps away from the surprise assailant!
Vance comes out of nowhere and impacts the same mongrel that Iolaire struck. The man falls in a lump at their feet!
With everyone charging forward, Balthasar joins the rush forward. Seeing the difficulty in charging the fortified position, he opts to move forward to support the others as needed.
Serena moved forward, behind the warriors. As she did so, she kept a flicker of glowing magic around her hands. If a group of foes appeared, she had every intention of trying to stun them with a cascade of colors and let the others get to work chopping them up.
Thrall follows Vance, as predicted... from the distance. "Damned obstacules..."
|
Seeing the situation quickly begin to fall apart, Arianna rushed forward abandoning her attempts to stealth as she tried to quickly push over the wall but didnt quite manage to put enough into the initial jump and simply fell back on the same side settling for just tossing her knife at the remaining mongrelman's side.
With her companions charging, the ruse was definitely over. With a flash, she draws her bow and lets loose an arrow.
Running for her friends, Zora takes her starknife and goes at the last standing enemy.
Iolaire, stabilised by her vines, strike again at the dog-like cultist still standing.
The party does it's best, but this second cultist is proving very hard to hit. He takes one look at the odds and high-tails it into the halls he was guarding.
Serena was not dumb enough to pursue a creature if nobody else was - for the moment, she waited on the front line's decision.
Balthasar says, "Advance with caution - there are likely more enemies inside. We can't rush in without taking care." Balthasar closes the distance to the doors leading in and listens at them.
"Oh, my..." Thrall advances with sword in high guard, expecting to be overwhelmed by the reinforcements the one who just fled will call.
Aria moves up with the rest of the group. If she still has line of sight to the guard, she lets loose an arrow hoping to bring him down before he can alert anyone.
Iolaire presses forward, hoping to close enough to use her longer weapon, but the cultist is too fast for her.
The party advances carefully though the base. The deeper you go, the more likely it seems that the cultists are gathering for a full strength defensive effort. You find sleeping quarters, a kitchen, a secondary guard chamber, and even a secretive cavern without resistance.
In the secret chamber is a chest. It doesn't look like it's been touched in years.
"Huh." Serena said, moving to the middle of the group so as to not get pounced from behind by a bunch of warriors. That would be... bad... even considering her affinity for knocking people out with a burst of light.
"I'll get it." Iolaire offers, walking across the wall supported by her vines. Once past the pit trap she reaches down to try and open the chest.
Ariana approaches the trap carefully and tries to remove the cover, but slips!
Feel free to describe any unpleasant noises that result. :)
The chest is unlocked and contains is a +1 light wooden shield, a ring of climbing, a scroll of identify, a scroll of magic fang, two potions of darkvision, and 250 gp
She fails to stabilise.
When you look down the pit you find that the bottom was lined with dangerous spikes! Four have impaled Arianna and she looks dangerously close to death!
Zora leaps forward when she sees Aria fall. "Arianna! No!" Seeing her friend below and impaled Zora lets out a whimper. "Someone do something! Quick! She needs help!" Zora shouts, growing desperate as she realizes she can't do anything in this situation.
Bitey dives head first in to the pit and pours his boo boo drink down Arianna's throat.
"Bitey save sneaking girl from her own stupidity. Bitey da bestest healer. Sneaky girl wake up now..." Perched as he is precariously trying not to become impaled himself, Bitey pats the half-eld on the cheek. "WAKE UP SNEAKY!"
Bitey rolls down into the pit, and promptly cuts himself on the spikes in his haste to help. Ok the bright side, Arianna has stopped bleeding. Mostly.
Serena looked in at the two injured figures. "Um... do you need us to lower some more potions down there?" she asked, looking worriedly at Arianna.
"Quickly, a rope." Thrall quickly thinks of another idea. "Or someone who can use his scale to levitate, go down there. We'll give you more pots and you'll deliver them and help them climb up." If someone appears with a rope, he adds "Even better, whoever's going down, bring the end of the rope and tie Arianna with it. We'll pull from here."
Balthasar moves forward to the edge of the pit, handing Thrall his pack. "I'll get her out, but I can't carry both her and Bitey. There's a rope in there - lower it so he can climb up." He will then activate his scale and then carefully float himself down to avoid the spikes. Once he is down there, he will attempt to extricate her from the spikes as gently as possible, then float back up. "Thrall, Iolaire, has Shelyn gifted either of you with healing magic?"
Thrall looks for a rope in Balthasar's pack and unrolls it down the pit. "Bitey! Grab the rope and we'll pull you up, Balthasar is carrying Arianna!" While he waits for the gobbo to do as told (something uncommon, though he hopes it's happening), he hears Balthasar's request. "Bring her up, we've got some spare healing here!"
"At least I've got, but I hope it's not our only healing avaliable..." he thinks, though he is quite sure the others should have some potions handed by the underground people.
Aria rushes to the pit, a bit late to offer any real help. Seeing as the others largely have everything in hand, she readies her bow and keeps watch for anything that may want to prey on them while they were distracted.
"Don't worry about what is going on up here. I'll keep watch, just get them out of there."
For her part, Serena joined Aria in keeping an eye on the surroundings. If nothing else, a blast of Color Spray ought to hold some attackers down for awhile.
"Hang on!" Iolaire yells as Bitey and Balthasar seem intent on compounding the situation, although Balthasar at least has the sense to not get impaled.
Iolaire swarms down into the pit, standing lightly on the spike tips as her roots branch out to hold her steady against the sides of the pit. Reaching out she touches Arianna gently and a soft glow fills the pit.
"Bitey, do you need healing too?"
|
|
Arianna groaned as her eyes popped back open to see the paladin on the wall of the pit and Bitey down their with her bleeding from a couple punctures of his own. Again she groaned trying not to move until she could figure out a way to do so without pushing any of the spikes further in or aggravating the injuries too much more.
"I think I've had better falls."
The party VERY CAREFULLY lifts Arianna from the pit. Then Bitey. It's only doable because of so many hands and some support from levitation scales, but you manage it and nothing comes to molest you while you're at it. Lucky!
Bitey smiles broadly as he is dragged out of the pit, rope dangling from his mouth as he shakes it back and forth and tries to play rope tug with the rest of the group. As Arianna begins to wake from her treatments, Bitey comes padding over like a pup with a bone.
"Bitey save you, yup yup. You not owe Bitey nuffin, Bitey just happy to help. Bitey even get boo-boo from spikey points, but no worries, all goodness of Bitey's big big heart."
With Arianna safely out of the pit and no longer bleeding, Balthasar breathes a sigh of relief. "Let's grab the contents of this chest. Wherever the cultists are hiding, its going to be a dangerous and difficult fight."
Balthasar looks over at Bitey and says, "Bitey, that was very brave of you to leap into the pit to save Anna. Your courage and loyalty are appreciated. Well done." While he was unsurprised the goblin was willing to throw himself into danger without heed to the consequences, his kindness and loyalty both continually took Balthasar by surprise. He had apparently underestimated the little guy's personality - it served as a very good reminder that one's actions always spoke louder than one's heritage.
He will then attempt to pack his rope back up.
"Thank you, Bitey. That was very brave. And stupid, but very brave," Zora tells him rubbing his head.
I wonder just how much of a difference there is between those things... Serena mused. Heroes were often those who did the dumbest things, and had it all work out. ...And they couldn't be too pessimistic, lest they start believing the demons' lies. Awkward.
|
|
Arianna winced as she finally settled back up with the rest of the group and knelt down next to the goblin and reached to place her hands on his shoulders. "Thank you Bitey." She said before moving to rise back up to her feet wincing as she rose up. "Do we still have those potions from the chieftain?"
"Bitey use his Boo-Boo potion on sneaky elf lady. So, Bitey no longer have his. But, Others have theirs yes yes." Bitey begins sniffing about trying to find the other's potions.
Rope packed up, Balthasar looks at the contents of the chest, then uses his scale to retrieve them without falling down the pit.
"Vance, you seem to prefer using a shield as you main weapon. Do you want it?"
He considers the potions. "The potions we'll save for if we get enveloped in darkness again. Serena, I think you can use the scrolls best." He hands them to her. "Would anyone care for the ring? We can split the gold as evenly as possible."
"Someone keep it. Probably someone who can't levitate already. If we keep finding these kinds of items, we will have zero problems with pit traps in the future." He smiles slightly after this thought.
Balthasar nods. "Good thinking, Balthasar. Anna - or is it Arianna? I've heard Zoranda call you both. Since you seem to be our main scout, would you care to take it?"