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Ramenhotep looks at his crossbow, surprised to have hit with the dusty old weapon-something strange must have inhabited him momentarily to make such a shot. By Nethys! I must have been guided by the Black and White's hand, for sure! Reloading his crossbow, he fires it again at the spider.
"Gods damn it! Nethys, have you left me? Send back your fair spirit to guide my aim!"
Now that the spiders draw close, the bloodspeaker steps up and swings her might axe at the northmost creature
Hralyk's rage overtakes him once more as he swings again at the spider.
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As Ramenhotep curses and rambles abot how his god has abandoned him, Telka swings her axe and kills the wounded spider. Hralyk's swing is deadly too, but the spider simply refuses to die that easily, threatening the half-orc with her mandibles!
Initiative - round 2 - bold may act!
1. Hralyk, Jordan, Telka, Zeltyieli, Ramenhotep
2. Giant water spider
Zeltyieli, unable to reach the spider otherwise, waits and watches for a gap where he can fire an arrow into the beast before it sinks its mandibles into Hralyk.
Jordan urges his dog into the fray.
The dog stands aloof, licking a damp spot on his fur.
Jordan urges his dog into action, and the dog closes to bite the spider.
Hralyk swings again at the spider. However, when he doesn't connect, he steps back to allow someone else to attempt it.
Telka steps in and swings again, hoping to strike the killing blow
...but her blow proves as ill placed as the others.
Jordan watches the old man fire.
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Ramenhotep immediately ceases to curse Nethys for his own ill luck as his bolt penetrates the water spider's chitin, causing the vermin to writhe in agony, then stop moving.
There is little to be found here, yet a perceptive eye can discern tiny footsteps coming here from the same way you did, and coming out of the water. Moreover, studying the spiders proves very enlightening, as you notice that the hair on their bodies cover their abdomen with hundreds of little bubbles allowing them to breathe underwater. Quite a specimen!
The only way out appears to be the narrow passage where you came from.
Jordan points to the spiders.
"May wan't to cut them open. They could have swallowed treasure."
Zeltyieli nods, "Not a bad idea -- as long as we know to avoid the venom sacs."
Hralyk snorts, "If you want to cut them open, feel free. I much prefer to find the object of our mission."
Zeltyieli says, "I don't think there's any harm to taking a moment.. It's a new experience, if nothing else, and the possible reward seems worth the mere moment it would take."
"Let us be quick about it then, and waste no more words."
To satisfy the groups interest in arachnid food habits, Telka will give a might chop into the creature.
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Telka dissects the soiders, and after a bit of trial-and-error, manages to carve out the venom sacs of the beasts.
Exploring further north, the party finds an empty room with alcoves to the northeast. Thick guano covers the floor of this room. Stalls divide the western wall, and a stone bench and fountain stand to the east.
Finding nothing else of interest, the party heads west. There, at the feet of the steps, a squat humanoid seems to be nearly all head—an unfortunate circumstance, considering how ugly its puffy blue face is. He springs to his feet and grasps his short spear threateningly, though he doesn't appear to be much of a threat to start with.
"અટકાવવાનું! રોકો અને તમારા વેપાર જણાવવાનું!"
"Does anyone speak the runts language? I have magic to translate if not."
Hralyk shakes his head.
Zeltyieli shakes his head, "I can only speak Varisian and Elven, and that wasn't them."
He chuckles and adds, "Well, Common, too, obviously."
"He wishes to know our business."
Jordan replies in Undercommon
Jordan offers the creature food.
Dealing with lessers was not a strongpoint.
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The creature grows angry, and attacks you! However, it isn't a match for your combined strength, and it falls almost just with a swat of the back of Hralyk's hand.
Mites, once closer to the strange realm of the fey, have grown larger and stockier after countless generations spent on the Material Plane. Yet still, their stature places them at the bottom of the pile in the dangerous caverns in which they live. Their traditional enemies are dwarves and gnomes, particularly the svirfneblin of the deep underground caves. The one thing that gives them a significant edge over an enemy in a fight is their natural ability to empathize with normally mindless vermin—mites are particularly fond of spiders, centipedes, and cave fishers, and a mite colony usually has a few of these far more dangerous monsters on hand to defend the group.
A flight of stairs winds down in the bowels of the earth...
Zeltyieli points, "Seems to be a hidden door over there. I could use my gift to look through it and see if it's worth opening. "
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Behind the secret door is a passage leading south, to a ledge that looks out over a long chamber filled with sea water ten feet below. The ledge winds along to the northeast, leading to a wooden plank that serves as a bridge to the top of a stone pillar. A bucket with a second board over it sits atop the pillar.
Small footsteps abound here, about the size of a humanoid that could very well be that of the tiny blue man you took care of.
Hralyk growls, "Well, I would have liked to avoid this, but apparently it didn't care for our mage's food." He gives Jordan a sidelong glance, then continues, "We must either go through the door and kill them all, or hide this one somehow, and hope that we are long gone when and if it discovered."
"Our purpose is the artifact. If they stand in our way, it's their problem."
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After choosing to end the mite's life, you descent into the bowels of the Crow, below sea level by your estimation. The passage opens into a wide catacomb chamber has rows of burial niches cut into the stone walls. These have all been stripped bare of any former occupants. Half a dozen ten-foot-high mounds of dirt and debris dominate the floor of the chamber, reaching nearly to the ceiling fifteen feet above.
Zeltyieli suggests, "I don't know much about earth, are those solid columns or would there be merit to searching through them?"
Jordan racks his brain and can't remember what the creature is. Trying to sound knowledgeable, he says: "Yes, that was a some small blue goblin mutant. Hope the others are nicer."
"I suggest we look carefully, this looks like ambush territory."
Jordan tries to get his dog to look.
"It was a mite, not a goblin; it was one of children of the first world. They are cowards, but they can come in numbers, and ride upon spiders. Of course there are more of them."
Zeltyieli says, "So we shouldn't hope that he was just a wanderer or an exile? All right then, let's be on our toes."
"Oh, I'm sure luck will be on our side and he will be alone." Telka replies to Zeltyieli's rhetorical question with mock seriousness.
Telka follows after the magus.
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Jordan rummages through the dirt mounds, but neither his dog nor himself are able to find anything in there.
Ramenhotep peeks down a very long hall that appears to end up in a room after a flight of descending stairs.
As the party goes down the hall, Ramenhotep and Telka suddenly stop halfway, discerning something strange with the western wall: there appears to be a secret door there, though it was definitely badly hidden. The mechanism to open that door is easily found now that you know the door is there.
Zeltyieli says excitedly, "More hidden doors! This whole place is like a giant puzzle to explore and solve! Shall I use my gift to look through it before we open it?"
Hralyk nods. "I see no reason to barge blindly through doors, if you're able to see behind."
Zeltyieli nods and approaches the door, placing his hand upon it and willing it into transparency.
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Zeltyieli's clerical powers reveals a dark passage behind the secret door, opening into a roughly octogonal room shrounded by thick sheets of tangled webbing. Several passages wind up north, west and south. There's not a living soul there.
Bold Ramenhotep decides to open the door and penetrate into the passage. His path is unimpeded until he reaches the crossroads, where a giant spider suddenly drops from the ceiling and attacks you!
Initiative - round 1 - bold may act!
1. Jordan, Ramenhotep, Telka, Zeltyieli
2. Giant Spider
3. Hralyk