"My eyes may be playing tricks but I think something is moving under the water. Heads up, everyone."
Yep, I keep forgetting to say out. Round 3...begin!
Yep, I keep forgetting to say out. Round 3...begin!
There is still a slime mold to fight. It's the big oval everybody else is standing around. It's been hit a bunch, very hard to tell how hurt it is. The triangles are the things a few people noticed earlier. The have not yet been investigated. Jibril, Khaddar and Elia are also hurt. Any other questions?
Duncan moved closer to the half-elf as he saw him struggle free from the living carpet of... gunk. "Jibril, move away. Don't try and grapple with it."
He then loaded and shot another bolt while instructing the fire elemental to burn the filthy thing.
"Another hit, yeah baby! And they laughed at me when I cut my finger on the crossbow string. Look at me now!"
The blonde looked for the spy eye, "That was my shot. Me, Duncan Clayton the Third, the filthy carpet slayer!"
--------------
to hit is -4 if firing into melee
if hit then must reflex save DC 12 or catch fire for 1d4
please move the fire dude
HP 27/27
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
Conditions: n/a
Melee: dagger +2, 1d4, 19-20, x2, 10’, P/S
Ranged: MW light crossbow +5, 1d8, 19-20, x2, 80’, P
Deadly aim -1 to hit / +2 damage
Spells: 4/4 1st level and 2/2 2nd level; 6/8 Summon monster
Quinn couldn't tell how hurt the fungal rug was but it was still trying to hurt them to she reciprocated. As she sliced another piece off of it, she glanced again at the water to see if anything had changed.
"Celebrate later! After ye clean up! Then ye won't be so filthy!" Khaddar dances along the side of the sloppy glob of mildew and claps his hands loudly, springing back into a defensive stance as he tries to draw its attention and simultaneously stay on his toes and out of its grasp. Any more contact with a slime mold is likely to turn one into a slime mold! And poor Jibril got the worst of it.
Jibril takes a deep breath, peels himself off the stalagmite he had propped himself against, and launches an arrow into the mold.
"My eyes may be playing tricks but I think something is moving under the water. Heads up, everyone."
"Yes, it makes sense. Five tiles with one guardian per tile. We may have to fight the Grue yet!"
FAIL
Those of Team Orra who wielded weapons used them to great effect on the slime mold. The stinking carpet of mold didn't bleed, but it did finally stop moving. As Jibril's arrow, Duncan's bolt, and Quinn's knife stabbed it a final time, the heavy pile of sludge slumped down, curled up at the edges, and stopped moving.
Sighing in relief, their respite was short lived. A long, groping tentacle groped its way out of the water, wriggling and grasping across the floor. It flinched away from the heat of the fire elemental, then slapped the floor not far from Khaddar. It was as if it were searching for something...
Duncan's happiness was very short lived; he looked angrily at the spyeye, "Aw, c'mon now, how many obstacles do we need to overcome for a g@+-d+%n token?"
"Khaddar is that real? It looks too big to fit in the cavern? How did it get here anyway? Make sure it's not illusion. I hate to waste my good aim on an illusion."
Nonetheless, he put another bolt in his crossbow and shot at the tentacle.
The fire elemental continued to burn everything within his grasp.
-------------
to hit is -4 if firing into melee
if hit then must reflex save DC 12 or catch fire for 1d4
HP 27/27
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
Conditions: n/a
Melee: dagger +2, 1d4, 19-20, x2, 10’, P/S
Ranged: MW light crossbow +5, 1d8, 19-20, x2, 80’, P
Deadly aim -1 to hit / +2 damage
Spells: 4/4 1st level and 2/2 2nd level; 6/8 Summon monster
The tentacle looked like it was trying to find something. Maybe if it found something sharp, it would think twice about coming out of the water.
Quinn moved forward quickly but quietly and stabbed deeply into the groping tentacle, almost pinning it to the ground.
"Noo idea! Keep it at range! There's a great many things what live beneath the earth, Lad, this one's news tae me!" And immune to his maneuvers, too! Skidding forward, Khaddar kicks down sharply, stamping one of those viscious cleats down on the tentacle over and over again...
Always another, Duncan. Just assume it's always another obstacle. A fresh furor lending her speed, Elia ducks around a pillar and disregards Khaddar's probably-sage advice, going after the tentacle with tooth and claw.
Jibril, looking beaten and exhausted, tries to leap over the tentacle and slip past Khaddar but he comes up short as the groping appendage lifts at the last minute. He drops his bow and slips out his gandasa - a task the weapon was built for. It is not a short sword on the end of a stick but a cruel hook shaped axe.
Team Orra attacked the slimy, groping tentacle with fury - more fury, in fact, that accuracy. Bolts, cleats, daggers, and teeth - all went wide. The tentacle continued to grope, stretching past Quinn and Khaddar, bumping against Jibril, but it neither attacked, nor grappled, until it found what it was looking for.
The end of the tentacle probed the body of the fallen slurk, then wrapped around it with speedy precision. In seconds, it was dragging the corpse back towards the water, past most of Team Orra.
Though his ear rang slightly, though he staggered a bit with uneven balance, Jibril was solid when he swung his claw axe - none of it was a factor in his accuracy but it just wasn't his day. As he watched the tentacle grasp the heavy Slurk he began to fear whatever maw was waiting beneath the water ... but a game tile lay there, so there he will have to go!
Pausing as the beast changes tactics, Khaddar tries to adapt. He hunkers down and starts slinking around the periphery, hoping that the obscured line of sight will help to keep him hidden as he moves into the shadows nearer the pond to try and sneak up on the talisman while the tentacular beasty is satisfied with sticky stinky slurky.
Of course this means we're going to have to unplug the hole and go after the -grue- next...
Too late, Elia realizes that, whatever the mysterious tentacle was, it only meant to take advantage of a free meal - but by the time the thought breaks through the haze of battle, it's too late. The creature is more than safe, though, as Elia's hand completely misses the beast and slams into a stone pillar with enough force that she yelps in pain.
Quinn watched the tentacle find its target and then drag it back to the water. Considering it had slithered past all of them without attacking, Quinn let it go. She briefly considered attacking it with her dagger as it retreated but decided it was best not to anger it, just in case.
Not seeing any immediate threats, Quinn moves towards where the spider exploded to take a closer look at what it may have been guarding.
It's not attacking us ... is it guarding a tile? One tile behing the web, surely one in the 'grue' warren. One in the Slurk's hole in the ceiling? If one sits under the mold then perhaps the hole in the ground, the one by the water, contains the fifth. If not ... it's down there. Jibril stares quizzically at the water's surface.
"Please, Dun Can, keep using your conjured fire to burn away the mold. We must find out if there is a tile under it! I'm going to see if I can catch a ride."
Jibril rushes toward the end of the tentacle makes a competent leap in an attempt to hold on to the tentacle's prize but slides off of the slurk's slimy carcass. Perhaps if he weren't trying to maintain a hold on his gandasa.
I'd say a grapple of 10 will get you on the corpse. It's not fighting back, after all. You can ride it into the water, if that's what you want. Or you could just wade in.
I'd say a grapple of 10 will get you on the corpse. It's not fighting back, after all. You can ride it into the water, if that's what you want. Or you could just wade in.
Jibril makes a mighty leap and lands on the slimy corpse that is being dragged back into the water. The tentacle seems not to notice that its picked up a passenger. The mighty tentacle drags its meal into the water - the first several feet are shallow, and Team Orra see their friend slowly getting deeper. Then, the slurk and the half-elf disappear entirely from view, and after a few seconds of bubbles, the water becomes still once again.
Meanwhile, Quinn makes her way back to the burned-out spiders lair, and is able to see that it had been guarding a tile much like the ones they'd seen before. However, the force of the explosion had broken this one into several pieces, and soot covered the image it contained.
Duncan's fire angel continued valiantly to try and burn the dead slime mold, but the damp, decaying carpet of fungi stubbornly refused to burn.
Duncan was alarmed again as the half-elf jumped on the dead slurk, "Jibril, what the hell are you doing? Come back here!"
He neared Khaddar and pushed towards the water, "Go get him. You can't let him sink. Go do something!"
Khaddar's cleats scrape as he slinks across the ground there, maneuvering himself closer and closer to the point on the wall where the depression likely holds their prize. They don't have to swim down and kill the beasty if the tile can be taken by guile! The fire elemental sheds light like a bonfire, but hopefully dancing shadows and the water's edge are enough to keep him under cover from the tentacled beasty. And hopefully Jibril comes back up, because he slooped right into that pond like a fish... and octopi eat fish.
Jibril tucks himself against the slurk. Stay calm, stay steady
"Jibril, what the hell are you doing? Come back here!"
Jibril looks back at Duncan, already waist deep in water "Don't worry, I'm relatively certain that this will turn out for the best." He takes a deep breath as his head disappears into the stagnant water - the tail of his cloak floats for a second longer before getting sucked in.
The waters about him are instantly dark with the cave wall showing little detail. Half of that gets swallowed up by large particulates and pieces of 'things' he imagines to be rotting slurk flesh from past kills. Deep below, the hole that the tentacle occupies seems to go forever. As the pressure builds up in his ears he espies a stoney outcropping ... with something on it. A tile!He kicks off of the slurk, grabs onto the ledge, and watches the tentacle go impossibly deep. Yes, it is a tile ... but covered in algae. Before risking dropping the tile Jibril tries to get an idea of what it looks and feels like. He squints and runs his hands over it. He can barely feel the light grooves cut into it's surface - no text - an image but not an exact image.
He then tries to pick it up with both arms, cradling it, and kick his way back to the surface.
The water's surface stays eerily quiet ... several seconds go by ... something like a giant drown rat emerges and it moves towards the ponds edge. It's not a rat but Jibril's cloak. The cloak drapes close and wet over the form of Jibril as he draws himself to the shallows. In both hands he cradles a tile masked with slime. Both he and the tile smell a bit like a fen though not so floral. He looks back at the water hoping the beast from beneath is still eating.
"Dun Can, your fire please. I would like to dry myself as quickly as possible, far from this aquifer."
"Not worry! You follow a dead slurk being dragged by a tentacled monster and you tell me not to worry!?!"
Duncan was beyond believing what these people were doing to win this game; this stuff was dangerous!
He indicated the angelic fire being to follow Jibril and burn away what it could of the wet moss-like carpet.
"Jibril, get back here now!"
Taking the tile from Jibril with one hand, Elia conjures a stream of clean water over it with the other, trying to clean away the worst of the slime covering it. Damn foolish of you to try that, Jibril, she mutters, raising her hand to direct another clean water stream over the half-elf's head. But I'll admit...you do have style.
Khaddar inches his way along the edge of the cavern towards the strange depression lies, next to the flooded area. Up close, it looks more like a deep mudd puddle. The depression measures almost a meter across, and looks about as deep, though the dark, thick mud inside is impossible to see through.
*crickets chirp*
*crickets chirp*
Quinn wasn't happy to see the shattered tile. She collected the pieces and made her way back to the group. As she was moving there, she caught sight of something above where the slurk had been. She managed to collect it recognizing it as another tile.
"More tiles that look like pieces of a bigger picture. Do any of these look like they match up with the previous tile we have? What about this one that's broken? Can anyone mend it?"
"Do we think there are more tiles to be found? What about a way out? Did anyone see anything resembling a door?" Quinn begins to take a closer look at the walls of the cavern trying to find a way out other than the way they came in.
Pushing his hand through dark and sticky mud, Khaddar slowly reaches into the gap to see if there's a tile here as well. Fairly certain he's already got Athlete's Beard from the slime mold before, he can't get much more into disease debt than he is, right? It'll take some tending from a skilled healer, and he'll see if anyone on the team fits that bill. Meanwhile, dark-vision is neatly foiled by the sludge, and it's down to dark-fingers instead.
I certainly hope what I find in here is a tile, and not a bear trap in the mud...
Looking around the room, Elia searches for sign of anything else the party's keen collective eyes may have missed. Seems odd to put...that... She gestures to where the grue sits blocked off. ...in here for no reason. We ought to take care of it and make sure it isn't guarding something important.
"Not worry! You follow a dead slurk being dragged by a tentacled monster and you tell me not to worry!?!"
Damn foolish of you to try that, Jibril...
Jibril looks confused as he places the tile on the cave floor "I'm sorry. I thought it would be our only opening. The creature would be, and I hope still is, eating. One must pray while the sun rises, or so my people s... the water bomb like splash of fresh water hits him and light turns on behind his eyes. He looks back and forth from Elia to Duncan You were really worried." He smiles as he combs his wet bangs down over his forehead.
He collects his things and unpacks the mind stone tile from his pack and places it on the floor next to the other tiles. "Look at this." He places the mind stone tile next to one of the collected tiles "They seem to line up. In the Mind room we looked for the tile that best exemplified the room. Do we do that here or do we take the one that matches the mind tile? Surely, taking tiles that aren't meant for us will show we don't know what we are doing and result in negative points. On the other hand, if opposing teams have tiles belonging to us we could trade ... or ransom". Jibril has some insight but he clearly gets it from overthinking. "I think we must wait to see if Khaddar's unpleasant task yeilds a tile ... and I think we must face the worm." He stands up and shakes himself off like a wet dog ... apologizes to the little fire elemental for any spray and readies himself for taking on the worm. "Darkness and whatnot! I forgot to try to reclaim my arrow from the slurk! I'll never see arrow again!"
Duncan raised his eyebrows, "Yeah, I was worried. You are about my only par-tie partner. I mean, look at these others..."
He was to start listing the reasons why they were not good at parties but stopped himself.
"Nice catch on putting those two tiles together. So this is one big puzzle then."
Duncan then instructed the fire elemental to move the 'wet rug' to see if there was anything underneath it. Not wanting to touch it himself, he asked, "Can somebody help him here?"
Jibril smiles, not feeling like a par-tie-er, sidles next to Duncan while looking at the little fire elemental. Whispering "Dun Can, why did you not think to summon your fiery friend when we were through the cold door? How long can it be with us?"
With some trepidation, Khaddar gropes around in the surprisingly sticky mud. His fingers just touch the edge of something that might be a stone tile, when the mud suddenly seems to stiffen and cling to his arm. In fact, the mud oozes upwards, quickly covering his arm to the shoulder, and it tries to anchor him to the dirt floor!
Duncan grimaced in disgust as Khaddar searched around in that god-awful much.
His face turned to surprise and then to concern as the ooze tried to suck the dwarf in, "Somebody help Khaddar! Even he doesn't deserve this!"
Duncan then went to the dwarf and grabbed on to whatever part of his body was left and tear him away from the ooze, "C'mon Khaddar. A little help here."
-------------
Jibril smiles, not feeling like a par-tie-er, sidles next to Duncan while looking at the little fire elemental. Whispering "Dun Can, why did you not think to summon your fiery friend when we were through the cold door? How long can it be with us?"
Duncan was sad as he responded, "It's not that I didn't think of it but I knew it would be useless. Oh sure it would have helped some but the... angels, they don't stay very long."
He looked at his feet, "I try to make them stay. Well, no, what I mean is that I ask them to stay but they never do. I think it's because they see the ugliness of our world and just cannot stand it for too long."
He nodded towards the fire being, "I doubt he'll be with us much longer."
Quinn's eyes widen as the mud threatens to engulf Khaddar. How in the world am I supposed to fight something I can't stab?
She moves over to Duncan and grabs hold of him around his waist to help him pull out Khaddar.
"I try to make them stay. Well, no, what I mean is that I ask them to stay but they never do. I think it's because they see the ugliness of our world and just cannot stand it for too long."
"I am sorry. I did not mean to trouble you. I think I understand. Like the colour of a morning sky or the bloom of cherry blossoms ... beautiful things are fleeting - what! Khaddar?!" Jibril also rushes over and grabs Khaddar's other arm and pulls like the devil.
As the muck begins to grab at Khaddar, Elia springs to his side, grabbing under one shoulder and trying to yank him away. She wants to snarl, claw, bite...but at what?
As everybody ran to Khaddar's side, the room got suddenly darker as Duncan's angel vanished, taking away the main source of light at this end of the cavern. Ignoring the darkness and flickering shadows made by Quinn's ioun stone, they pulled on whatever part of Khaddar they could reach - arm, legs, clothes. The five of them working together managed to pull him free, and they tumbled over backwards as his arm broke free from the mud with a loud sucking sound. The mud itself oozed upwards into a large lump, then viciously slammed itself downward towards Quinn, whose leg happened to be closest. Yelping, the girl scrambled back out of the way, and the mud splattered on the ground before quickly starting to pull itself back together.
Quinn was so focused on trying to help Khaddar that she barely noticed that the mud was attacking. It was as if her body reacted on instinct and she just managed to keep her footing. She continued to scramble backwards as her brain tried to figure out how to fight this new foe.
Agh, one day I'll remember to mention it. Round one is over, the mud goes last, so this is the beginning of round two. Everybody up.
Relying on an instinct going an age past her own memories, Elia skips backward lightly as Khaddar pulls backward, ending up on her toes at his side. In the same movement, she lashes out at the...elemental?...hoping her claws are able to do something - anything, really - against it. For a moment, she debates...and then, throwing caution to the wind, she tries to bite down on the lump of mud as well. At least I can conjure as much water as it'll take to wash that clean...
Jibril slides backwards on his feet across the rough ground. His ears perk up and he suddenly stands stiff, looking over his shoulder. "I guess I'll finally have a chance to talk to that grue ... Here it comes!" He slides his bow off of his shoulder and arms it, rushing to a spot beside his dropped torch. "Dun Can! Watch your left! The rock plug is about to come free!"