"A chaos beast..." Lara murmurs quietly.
"That sounds terribly dangerous... let's let the others know..." Lolito will try to retreat and look for the other's help.
If he succeeds, and unless Trick can make this known to Alyn at a distance, he explains the others "Lara says the monster there is a Chaos Beast. I suggest we deal with it so we can explore the caves."
Alyn gets a feeling of fear and remaining cautious from Trick but not enough to move one.
"Ok any idea how best to fight it or do we charge in and hit it with sticks?"
"And fists" Lolito raises his hand that shines with mystic ki energy "The plan sounds good to me"
Derym draws Antipatharian, then asks, "Any special precautions that we should take?"
Lara recalls what she knows of Chaos beasts
A Chaos Beast is a horrid mass of barbed tentacles, glaring eyes, and gnashing teeth, twisting upon itself and reshaping into new forms.
It is not resistant or weak to particular types of damage, but is resistant to spells
it attacks with claws that can bestow the chaotic nature of the beast on to its victim. A creature cursed with an amorphous body becomes a spongy, shapeless mass. Unless the victim manages to control the effect, its shape constantly melts, flows, writhes, and boils. By concentrating a person can hold their form for a limited time, but over time madness sets in and makes it harder to maintain any semblance of a form.
the others don't have any additional knowledge to share but are ready to charge in and smack the thing
Kragg ponders the situation briefly before grimacing. I don’t like the sound of such a creature. It goes against the laws of nature and we should end the threat if the thing. I don’t want us to risk encountering it in its lair though. Could you tell if it had wings or could fly? If not then I suggest I bestow Abadar’s miracle of flight on Lara or Alyn and let one of them take it out with ranged attacks or Amun’s reach weapons.
Retreating to rejoin the others, Lara says, "From what I remember of chaos beasts, they're not really weak to anything. It's a bit resistant to spells though. And their claws can curse someone to suffer the same sort of thing they do--the writhing, melting, reforming body and so on. I hear you can control the curse to a limit, but over time you're driven mad by it."
Answering Kragg, she adds, "They can shapeshift, so I wouldn't put it past the thing to be able to fly."
"I can fly so don't worry about me. If we are going to fight it I can make some preparations a mutagen, cast a spell from a wand and stand firm on the front line. Though depending on how the day goes I might day some time to whip up a replacement mutagen later."
Lolito opens his eyes wide as Lara describes the Chaos Beast "That sounds very much as one of Dahak's creatures. We have to deal with it."
Kragg's proposed tactics seems like a good one, as much as Lara's alleged doubts. It seamed the planing was going to take quite a bit, and so, the man sits with crossed legs and starts meditating.
Of course, if combat breaks, he will dart into the fight if someone is in danger.
Derym nods, "Resistant to spells, but not the blade. Fair enough."
Just my kind of enemy...
Thought you might like that.
But be careful. I'd hate for you to get all melted and no longer have hands.
Me too, actually.
So what is the plan then? Do we try the option of attacking from range in hope that it can not fly or do we just try to rush it and end it quickly? And more importantly was this creature a chaos beast itself or just under the affliction of one of its tentacles? If the latter then we might have 2 creatures to worry about.
Legs crossed and hands up, Lolito meditates while Kragg and Lara come to an agreement "Ooooommmmm...."
"I'm for rushing it and killing it quickly."
The group moves in, ready to fight the rat. from the entrance of the cave you don't see any other creatures, but that doesn't mean they arent' there!
the party can act
you will have one full round to move in and do something before the rat will go, it is not paying attention to you at this time.
Once the team is all in position Alyn will double move up. Far enough away that he can get an AOO when the creature gets near. Trick will fly high up toward the ceiling so he can flank next round.
Lara takes a position near the mouth of the cave. Kneeling to steady her shot, she waits until the party is in position, then launches an arrow at the chaos beast.
Lolito advances and prepares his fists "Can those chaos beasts transform into anything? Like a dinosaur or something?"
Lara shoots the chaos-touched Dire Rat and kills it with one clean shot!
nothing else moves that you can see
At the death of the rat to a single arrow Kragg looks around quickly looking for the true chaos beast. He casts light on a rock and throws it deeper into the cavern to elicit a response from the true threat.
perception
"Aye, the forces of light won over the terrible designs of Dahak once more" Lolito sentences vehemently, then approaches the pool of water and looks at the rat, also to see if there is anything in there.
Lara blinks in surprise as the chaos beast collapses from a single arrow. Her eyes narrow suspiciously, and she incants a detect magic cantrip before looking around the room.
Derym blinks, as the voice in his head says, Well, that was anticlimactic...
I agree. There's probably another one somewhere.
Kragg tosses a rock into the cave, lighting it up. Trick and Lolito spot the true danger. two writhing masses of tentacles rise from the water
the chaos beasts advance on Lolito. one is too far to do anything, but the other lashes out
the party may act
"Oh--" Lara says, nocking another arrow and sending it into the beast that lashed-out at Lolito.
Lolito is fast to react to the sudden appearance of the real chaos beasts "They are here!" with a movement below the tentacles, the man spins around himself, his foot igniting with a freezing blue flame as he delivers a kick to the core of the beast.
Lolito follows up with a fist that also ignites in cold flames but he is unbalanced and fails, and follows up with a normal attack.
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Not wanting any of his companions to suffer the same fate as the rat Kragg calls upon Abadar's most powerful blessing that he can. Mighty Abadar bless us all with a portion of your wisdom and guidance as each needs it!
Trick flies into position and readies for Alyn's attack. Alyn rushes up and attacks with chemically enhanced muscles.
If this confirms *
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Derym spins the blade in his hand while chanting, suddenly splitting into 7 armed figures, then starts to move forward to support Lolito.
Lolito kicks at the beast a few times, missing once and almost falling. by the time he recovers fully he looks up and sees Alyn and Trick go completely berserk on the beast slashing and hacking it over and over until it is very very dead.
Lara redirects her attack to the second beast and hits it with an arrow.
the chaos beast advances on the group, lashing out at all three people in its reach
the beats misses most of its attacks but clips Lolito. Lolito feels the pull of his body turning towards chaos but fights it off with his sturdy constitution.
the party may act
Global Condition: |Derym HP: 47/47 - AC: 22/14/18 Status:
Lara: HP: 47/47 - AC: 17/12/15 Status:
Kragg HP:53/53 - AC: 20/10/20 Status:
Lolito HP: 55/60 - AC: 24/19/21 Status:
Alyn HP 57/58 - AC: 22/11/19 Status:
Trick HP 41/41 - AC 18/11/15 Status:NPCS:
Chaos beast 1 HP: - 231 | AC: 20 | very very dead
Chaos beast 2 HP: - 13 | AC: 20
Derym starts to tumble, trying to avoid the beast's tentacles, spinning when he gets opposite Lolito, and bringing Antipatharian up to strike.
for
Another arrow wings through the air, but bounces off a tentacle harmlessly.
Having bolstered himself and his friends already Kragg goes in the offensive by attacking the hideous creature in front of him with his morning star.
Morningstar attack for
Blessing if fervor attack for
Lolito takes the hit trying to put his best smiling face as an answer to the aggression "Not nice, but see this one now! Aaaaaooooh!" as he focuses the power of the dragon his foot ignites again with a cold hurting flame.
Although he loses balance once more, he follows up with an improvised punch that catches the beast unprepared "It seems I have to keep training that follow up fist after the spin"
Trick flies into position again once in position Alyn starts attacking. Hacking away using the extra speed granted from Kragg's god.
Derym tries something fancy that doesn't quite work out and the monster lashes out at him
luckily it misses completely.
the entire party gangs up on the beast, doing more than enough to end it.
the cave is silent except for the dripping of water.
the cave is mostly empty and full of filth and grime. you spot two items that stand out from the dull grime around them.
one of them is a ring. it is magical
the other one is an odd statue. It is a 1-foot-tall jade statue of a humanoid- serpent hybrid creature. Maybe it is valuable?
Derym says, "There's a small ring in the grime over there... and a jade statuette there." He casts detect magic, then nods, "And the ring is magical, though the statue isn't."
Kragg breathes much easier once the chaos beast is destroyed. That is a blessing from Abadar that none of us are infected by their taint. That could have been quite deadly. The other bonus is that this also might be a place we could fall back to if needed as there is one entrance that can be guarded.
At the mention of the ring and statue he tries to glean what he can from them.
Appraise
Prof merchant
Spellcraft ring
As the combat ends Lolito makes some movements with his arms and hands breathing deeply "And so Apsu triumphs again over the chaos of Dahak"
Lolito takes attention to the objects pointed by Derym. Without magical knowledge, he focuses the most on the statue, trying to guess any religious or historical significance.
"Yes, this is a good cave" the man approaches the water and gets a search inside the pool of water.
Lara takes a closer look at the statue, her curiosity getting the better of her. "I wonder what this is supposed to look like....?" she muses to herself.
"I wonder what the cave was used for before this. It does not seem like chaos beasts keep trinkets. These creatures don't belong here so were they summoned by the island's master?."
Derym nods, "Possible. Or they were herded here to be unleashed later."
the group moves around the cave to check things out. Derym finds two interesting items.
Kragg struggles to recall anything about this statue and is unable to ID the ring. He does believe that the statue is quite old and likely valuable to someone who is interested in artifacts from this region.
Lara is able to fill in some detail after Kragg looks at the statue. It appears to be a depiction of Ydersius, the patron deity of the serpentfolk, who were one of Azlant’s chief enemies.
Along with these items, the group finds plenty of evidence that the cave’s most recent inhabitants appear to have left in a hurry very recently, leaving behind all kinds of miscellaneous junk. With a thorough look around, Lolito can deduce that approximately a dozen faceless stalkers lived here until quite recently.
It appears that the chaos beasts were contained in a small chamber of the cave to the southeast, but the door to their enclosure is now left open.
you can follow a series of tracks that leave from the cave. the tracks head west towards the river but are lost at that point.
"Huh," Lara says, looking over the statue still. "I think that's Ydersius. The chief god of the serpentfolk. I wonder if this statue predates Earthfall?"
"Ydersius..." Lolito looks at the statuette with interest "It most probably comes from that time. The tales explain how one Azlant heroine was the one to decapitate the serpent-god during their wars."
Regretfully, Lolito is not very observant of whatever track was left here, but he notices other signs "The faceless stalkers have been living here... a dozen perhaps... they left on a hurry. It would seem we would do good to look for their lair somewhere else. But we can rest here if needed, here is that."
As it seems there is nothing else for the group in here, Lolito will propose to lead the team to the south, through the jungle.
Derym takes a turn with the ring and IDs it as a ring of the troglodyte.
the statue appears to be quite old, and would seem to support Lara's theory that it has been here since before Earthfall. that would make it quite valuable to a number of collectors.
does the group head out now, or take this opportunity to rest in this cave now that it has been cleared of enemies?
Badar still has blessed me with many miracles for the day. I am able to continue onward if the rest of you think we can. Kragg follows Lolito onward as they continue to scour the island for their fellow villagers.