"I guess they were all killed. We'll have to take the fight to the Lords of Rust without them then," Poshment comments, a little put out by the lack of survivors. "We can take them anyways, we didn't need the Thralls! Just would have been nice to have is all. To the Manticore then?"
'Were they supposed to have tentacles?' Alldur says, taken aback.
"AAAAAAAHHHH-" Poshment screams as the tentacles from above wrap around his neck. Distressed, he points rapidly and excessively at the coils.
________
Alldur draws a bit of leaf an a small animals organ. He thumbs the leaf inside the organ and flings it towards the creature attacking Poshment. Upon leaving his hand it transforms into a dart of acid.
Vivianne rushes forward to attack the creature that attacked Poshment, since she can't see anything else at the moment.
Zimdoz quickly loads up his paper cartridge and readies to fire a toxic tanglefoot ordnance at any creatures that attack.
"Thanks for the back up, but I was about to pin that thing!" Poshment boasts. "The whole gun thing didn't work out, but maybe being a wrestler will!" While he rambles, the Gnome manages to pull a scroll from his bag and shower the party in Milani's good will.
________
Rushing over Zimdoz side, she swung upwards at the creature with a scowl.
Alldur takes a step backwards, drawing his wand and whirling to aim at the creature attacking Grezzag.
Zimdoz quickly loads a paper cartridge imbued with tangling, fire, and poison, then fires at the last choker
A small sigh escaped her as the last one died and she glanced around. "I guess we know what happened to the Thralls of Hellion... But where are the bodies?"
'Maybe these things... ate them?' Alldur wonders aloud, nudging one of the creatures with a foot.
Poshment stands over one of the chokers and pries it's mouth open to inspect the teeth. "Definitely possible, Alldur!" he concludes after looking the teeth over from several angles.
"Now that they are on the floor instead of the ceiling, I say we look for any signs of them! If they were eaten, maybe they brought something of note back to their nest! Then we would at least know for sure," he suggests.
_______
Giving Poshment a small nod, she started inspecting the ceiling. Hopefully an entire group of people weren't murdered... by three monsters they dealt with relatively easily. "...Am I the only one who finds the idea of those three managing to take out an entire group of people strange?"
"Hmm, is there any sign that we can track them? Let's have a look around - everyone, try not to wander everywhere, let me see if I can find any humanoid tracks." Zimdoz muses while nudging the dead choker and cleaning out his pistol.
Zimdoz then attempts to track down any sign of the thralls.
Alldur crouches over a choker while the others look about, learning what he can without dissecting the corpse.
Vivianne scratches her head as she glances around. "...Wonder where they got off to. I mean, if I had no reason to be here, I'd leave as well... Would leave Numeria entirely, to be honest."
Numeria definitely is a rough place to live. "East, Zimdoz? Well let's take a look thataway and see if we can pick up any clues! If not... Well I guess we move on to the next lead we have!"
________
"Huh. Well s&##. That answers that," Poshment says while peering at the mangled remains. "Soooo... Where is the Manticore? I doubt it is something we want getting the jump on us like those Chokers did, eh?"
"Alldur, do you know anything about Manticores? Vivianne, Grezzag, have either of you fought one before? They're big, right? Like a dragon-lion hybrid thing? No offense Zimdoz, but I figure if either of us had seen one before we'd probably run for cover, haha!"
________
She shook her head and glanced up at the sky, clicking her tongue a bit. "Never fought one before, I only know that they're very dangerous beasts... Hopefully it doesn't get the drop on us."
"Oh boy. Anybody else see that big thing flying straight towards us?" Poshment asks, pointing to a large and quickly growing speck in the sky. "I've got a feeling we should prepare for battle," he says as he places himself behind the party about ten feet.
Vivianne drew her sword and turned around to look at the speck in the distance, squinting. "...Yes, we really should prepare for battle."
Zimdoz peers at the creature, and tries to identify it.
"Ahh, an actual manticore. Okay - if it gets too close, we shoot it out of the sky?"
Zimdoz loads his dragon pistol with a paper cartridge, and readies an action to attack.
Alldur squints at the creature flying towards them. 'Nope, never heard of 'em.'
Alldur reaches into a pouch at his waist and retrieves a small bit of fragrant root and a small knife. He raises it to chest height and watches the creature approach, trying to get his timing right. 'Gather 'round'