"Hrrngh...", the garbled mash of sound from Tasha's mouth as she pulls the gnome upwards reminds her of the way too similar sound from mere seconds ago, as her stomach was being liberated from its contents. "Hold on! We'll get you out!", she shouts meekly.
Bazzle feels himself slipping over the edge. With the help he dangles precariously.
Bazzle doesn't fall over, but neither does he manage to haul the unconscious Aster into the shaft. Meanwhile, the mermaid Rillia swims over to Tarnagius and for some reason tries to bite him! Her lack of strength makes her bite very pathetic, not even enough to draw blood, but that doesn't stop Tarnagius for kicking her away and calling up "What's wrong with her?"
That's when a humanoid-looking creature with a giant dorsal fin swims into the hallway and looks at the group. Its eyes glow red for just a moment.
Rexandi hauls again with a sudden surge of strength. "C'mon c'mon c'mon!"
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Tasha's grunts continue, as she pulls the gnome upwards with all the strength she has to muster. Don't say anything, don't say anything..., she thinks as a comment about the heft of the weight lingers on her lips.
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With Tasha and Rexandi's help, Bazzle grabs hold of Aster and hangs on tight while the two women heave Aster into the vent. The only ones left are Tarnagius and the Mermaid, but the vent is getting very crowded and inconvenient. Rillia screams and tries to bite Tarnagius again, but the armour he's wearing protects him from her teeth. He yells "She's still attacking me. What're we supposed to do about it? We should leave her here. No point bringing a mermaid out of the wa.. Ow!!" Just then, the dorsalfin humanoid swims over to Tarnagius and slices into his arm with its razor sharp claws!
Rexandi scrambles up and out as fast as she can!
"Just pass her to me, we can't just leave her here!", Tasha shouts as the tiefling woman scrambles past her. Leaning over the edge next to Bazzle, she nods, extending a hand downwards. "Or you, for that matter!", she adds, as she sees the mermaid slapping around the water in panicked confusion. A retch burrows itself out of her throat as she coughs, her hand shaking over the precarious edgee of the vent.
Tarnagius groans and heaves the flailing mermaid into the air, relying on his armour to protect him.
Rillia snaps out of her confusion, at least for the moment, to grab hold of Tasha's hand and be hauled completely out of the water. She immediately casts a spell on herself, and she gasps for air.
Bazzle reaches over to help but his hand slips back the back of his palm slapping him in the eye. "Ow."
Both of the claw attacks from the dorsal fin skum scratch against Tarnagius' armour, but don't find the gaps to hurt him. As the skum continues to flail ineffectively, Tarnagius tries to dive under the water, then jump up to reach and grab the edge of the vent. Unfortunately he completely misjudges where it is, and surfaces in the wrong direction. He yells back "Get yourselves out of there. I'll go back the way I came. This thing can't get through my armour." To help prove his point, he draws his longsword and stabs the skum in the neck, killing it slowly.
"What?", Tasha blurts out as she pulls Rillia up, and unceremoniously helps pushing her down the vent. "Does he do that? Tell me that's a thing he does?", she glances at Bazzle with a raised eyebrow. Extending her hand downwards once more, she shouts, "Come on, let's not die in here if we can help it!"
"I like the new girl. She has priorities. New goal. NOT DYING."
Rexandi keeps hauling ass out, trying to clear enough space for people to get out of the killbox.
Aster lets out a choking snore that sounds almost like she's agreeing whole heartedly with Bazzle and Tasha. That or phlegm.
Tarnagius groans and sheathes his longsword. Just as two more skum start swimming into view, he leaps up and grabs Tasha's hand. With all her might, Tasha hauls him into the vent. On the other side, Rexandi gets out and starts swimming to the rope when she spots creatures swimming towards her. It looks like they're trying to cut off the group. Two of the skum look mangled and mutated horribly, while the 3rd one looks more like a shark than a man.
"Hrng-hhh!", Tasha grunts out as she hauls the man out of the water and into the pipe. "Is it just me, or is it crowded in here?", she mutters, starting to make her way down the shaft, gently squeezing past the others, dagger in hand.
Tasha slinks over to the shaft and slides down without issue. Tarnagius looks over at his two passed out companions and the crazed mermaid and says "Okay... how're we going to do this?"
"I have no idea," says Rexandi.
Okay, so here's what's going on. Those grey rectangles represent an air vent that lets you travel above water without having to bust open doors. Each opening of the vent is normally secured with a grate. Bazzle took off the grate for the opening in that giant room. There's another grate in the smaller room with that cart-looking thing, which hasn't been opened. Then there's the grate in the 'prison hallway'. That grate faces straight down, and Aster got it open by bodyslamming it while in dire rat form. That 'hole' in the ceiling is how you've been pulling people out of the water and into the vent.
In between all these grates, where that green arrow is, is a 10ft rise. That's where you guys had to climb up or down in order to keep moving through the vent. Normally it would be near impossible to climb, but since you have a wall to brace against, the DC decreases dramatically.
Now for where everyone is.
Rexandi is no longer in the vent. She's in the water in that giant room, behind a pillar. She's very close to the rope out of the well, which is what that large circle represents (it was originally a platform for the elevator the thieves had made, but it's been destroyed). She is currently in danger by three Skum who are on the other side of that giant room.
Aster, Ederion, and Rillia the mermaid have all been shoved into a corner near that 10ft drop in the vent (don't fall!). Rillia has a move speed of 5ft, so she's pretty screwed on her own. Aster and Ederion currently have a move speed of 0ft, which makes them even more screwed.
Tasha has just descended the 10ft drop. She's got about 20ft of crawling to do before she gets out completely. I'm not charging extra movement for crawling in this instance.
Bazzle not including what he posted a few hours ago, Bazzle is currently at the top of that 10ft drop. He will need to make a DC10 climb check or a DC15 acrobatics check to get down safely.
Tarnagius is the furthest back. He's got to move to that drop, then get down safely, then crawl his way out of the vent. He's concerned about how to get the unconscious/insane people down safely without just dropping them (thus dealing 1d6dmg).
Enemies. There are three at the end of the giant room where Rexandi is. There were also more in the prison hallway that Tarnagius has fled from.
I hope that clears things up. Feel free to ask me any more questions.
Ederion sleeps peacefully.
With a combined effort of gymnastic, grunts, and a couple of Infernal phrases even more ear-burning than usual, Tasha makes her way down the chute, falling into the water once more. "Abadar's precious jewelry, those are ugly!", she blurts out as the skum cross her sight. At least my stomach's already empty..., she thinks as she makes a break for the rope, dagger in hand.
We are it the vent, just unconscious.
Tarnagius starts climbing down the chute, while saying to Bazzle "I can carry someone on my way down. Here, pass me the mermaid. OUCH!" She bites him. He starts climbing down with a mermaid in his arm. The process is slow going, but Rillia is just too fragile to be tossed down like cargo. Meanwhile, Tasha swims nimbly to the rope. She can't quite see her enemies, due to not having darkvision, but she can definitely hear the creatures swimming towards her. One of the mangled ones, and the shark-looking one charge forward and tag-team Rexandi, and the effect is brutal. Rexandi is clawed through her side, and then is immediately bitten on her shoulder. A mangled one charges Tasha, and claws her across the stomach.
Failed, gave Rexandi Total Defense
"Gods damnit, how many of them are here!", Tasha shouts, as her dagger buries deep into the skum's shoulder, then rends it downwards with wicked force. "Get up the rope!"
Rexandi somehow manages to hang on to her last vestiges of consciousness and launches a web bolt in an attempt to snare the skum that savaged her.
Tasha plunges her dagger into Shark Skum's shoulder and rends it, but it does not relent.
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Rexandi tries to restrain the mangled Skum who nearly gutted her with its claw, but in an act that was more luck than skill, the Skum overcompensated its momentum and slides forward, thereby dodging Rexandi's spell.
Tarnagius continues climbing down, but slips and falls the rest of the way. The damage is minor for him, but the mermaid could fall unconscious with just a slight shove at this point. Once again she tries to bite him, but she doesn't get hold of anything other than armour. When he stands up, she nearly gets through. Tarnagius has had enough of this, and biffs her upside the head with a stern slap. She passes out faster than blowing out a candle. "I hate this job so much." He grumbles. "Hey... woman. I'll fight them off if you can carry the unconscious ones up the rope."
Bazzle looks up at the arrival of new enemies. "I think we are cursed. Not sure I can pull two big folk unconscious through a battle and up a rope."
Bazzle hauls the two unconscious people down the 10ft chute. The going is slow, and their combined weight is many times more than Bazzle's, but through his patience and expertise in climbing he manages to get everyone down safely. Now to just push them out the vent entirely, and into the water... and then up the rope.
Meanwhile, Rexandi and Tasha are getting wrecked. Claws and rows of sharp teeth are slicing them up and down. The shark one races around Tasha without a care of the harm on its body, if only to rend her apart. Both Tasha and Rexandi manage to hurt it, but still not quite enough to kill the beast. The water is starting to get thick with blood.