As the group moves onto land, sudden bright small crawling insects start to move out of the cracks in the wall and make a beeline for the front party.
There are three in total, and they get a surprise round.
Basil's new toughened exterior fends off the beetle's bite, and Keldor swats it that sends it rocking back. But Silvester wasn't quite quick enough and the fire beetle latches onto his arm with a painful bite.
Initiative Order: Rasellia, Silvester, Gauntlet, Ember, Hali, Basil, Fire Beetles
Raising a massive metallic fist, Keldor attempts to hit the beetle attacking him.
Missing completely and hitting the floor in the process!
Silvester spins his rapier in one hand, stabs down at the fire beetle, and effortlessly skewers it. Placing his foot on the carapace and pulling his weapon out with a grunt, he deftly sidesteps to place himself behind the others.
Ember is careful to keep Keldor between her and the firebeetle as she lobs a small bolt of fire at the big bug.
Rasellia considers keeping her powers hidden, but seeing Silvester take a bite, and remembering how serious this situation is, she reaches out to the negative energy plane and pulls forth a crushing power. She holds the power in both hands, before projecting it forward, willing the intense sphere of gravitational pull forward in a zone of crushingly high pressure. She holds in an apology as she does so.
She exhales a deep breath after throwing out the blast, she has never really gotten used to the sensation.
Hali's hand readjusts her grip on her longspear and lunges forward. Perhaps it's the sudden gravitational pull projected in her vicinity, or (more likely) just the fact she's always been cannier with her aim than in strength, but the attempt goes wide, missing entirely.
Basil deftly sidesteps, then pulls the trigger, even as Silvester steps into her line of fire and the beetle next to her attempts, again, to bite her. Altering the way she hold the blunderbuss ever so slightly, she manages to avoid hitting him, but some shrapnel flies awfully close by his face.
Silvester is quick to dispatch the insect that chomped down on him, and while the party does its best to kill the other two volatile insects quickly, it is Basil who steps forward and quite literally blows the two other insects away in a cacophonous blast of sound powder.
You notice that after the fire beetles are killed, their bodies still glow softly, providing light in a 10 ft radius.
Basil looks at the Beetles, then nods:"Hostiles neutralized. The inmediate area seems clear. Progress forward?"
While waiting for a reply, her hands retrieve powder and pellets and work swiftly on reloading her weapon:"Silvester, do you wish for me to repeat the explanation about my earlier request regarding not stepping into my field of fire?" - considering it an actually non-relevant question asked for politeness sake, she almost inmediately follows up with her previous statement: "The explosive force propelling these forward will cause their trajec..."
Looking respectfully at Basil's weapon, Keldor gives her a 'thumbs-up' sign and moves ahead.
"If that fight is a sign of what's ahead...we should be absolutely fine!"
"Eh, those we just a bunch of bugs, vermin of the area. I'm more concerned with the possibilities of rogue mechanical constructs and unknown humanoid creatures."
Ember continues along with the group resuming her place behind Keldor, still considering him to be a most excellent shield wall and not minding the view.
"You shot me?" Silvester asks in blank surprise, picking shards of shrapnel out of his chain shirt. He rubs a few between his fingers, drawing blood, and stares across the cavern at Basil with an expression of faint horror.
"You would weigh my life against the risk and find it lacking?" He shakes his head slowly, dusting the shrapnel from his hands and clothes. "I was expecting a shattering crossbow bolt, not... whatever that was!" Wiping his rapier slowly on the hem of his tabard, he turns from Basil and towards the tunnel. "You would do well to remember that Rasellia and myself are not from this place. We are from a more superstitious land, where things are more simple and natural. Perhaps I can stand to be shot, but if you bring harm to my ward, there will be more than myself to answer to."
Standing behind Keldor, he sighs, "I have the light. Shall I go first?"
Basil cocks her head, thinking:"I saw a chance to end the threat these creatures posed. Since I previously explained about the nature of my weapon, I assumed that you took a calculated risk by stepping forward. I did my best to angle the blast in a way that left you safe. And Ember is an excellent Healer. Furthermore, she seems to enjoy touching people."
Straightening up again, her weapon ready, she continues, somewhat monotonous:"It seems I misinterpreted your action. And you seem agitated by the risk there was. As such, I would like to attach a sincere apology for my reckless action to my request regarding not blocking my line of fire to avoid a repetition."
A moment later, adding:"If I have difficulty reading the intent behind your actions, feel free to make use of the suggestions "Basil, shoot." and "Basil, don't shoot." - I will try and consider them when weighing my options."
A collection of stalactites and stalagmites choke this low- ceilinged cavern, making it dif cult to squeeze between them. Matching stalactites close in from the five-foot-high ceiling, giving the impression of a maw of needlelike teeth bearing down on one another. A dead half-orc sprawls on the ground near the cave’s eastern entrance.
"It seems there's our first retrieval. After we took a closer look for potential clues, I would deliver his body outside. Hali, would you keep my Arms in my absence?", Basil comments as they recognize the lump form as a dead half-orc.
"Basil, hold up for a moment. Looking for potential clues is useful and something that we should definitely do, but taking his body outside is not. Just think for a moment, are you going to do that for every body we find as we go further and further in? The distance that you would be traveling alone to do that would keep increasing, raising risk to both yourself for being alone and for us for not having you and your weapon with us. Plus it wastes time we could better spend searching for possible survivors."
"My suggestion: Search and leave the body by the water exit. He might have something on him that tells us where he's been? Then we can take him out with us when we come back. IF we come back."
Rasellia runs up to Silvester through the smoke of Basil's impressive attack, Please be okay, please be okay she thinks frantically as she does. Reaching Silvester and finding him unharmed, she gives a deep sigh of relief. Looking around her she finds the beetles all dispatched by the same blast of thunder and metal. She is torn between concern for her friend, and awe at the mighty attack. She has of course heard of the firearms common both here in Numeria and elsewhere in Golarion, but she has never actually seen one in action before, never heard the furious retort of gunpowder.
Her train of thought is broken as Silvester and Basil begin to argue. She wants to intervene but can't muster the courage, so instead she simply stands still, looking at her feet and twirling a loose strand of her hair. She finds herself squeezing her eyes shut, she has never liked when people argue. Eventually she opens her eyes as Basil apologizes and both parties seem placated.
"Um, I am glad that you are okay" she says softly to Silvester as she brushes small shards of metal and large amounts of dust from his otherwise-fine jacket. She does not know what to say to Basil, but resolves to put this event behind her. I am sure Basil would not be so incautious as to actually wound Silvester she reassures herself, but finds herself appending, I hope. With that situation resolves she returns to her position in the party, feeling much calmer until she spots the dead half-orc.
She lets out an involuntary high-pitched shriek before clapping her hands over her mouth. After a moment she feels confident that she will not scream, removes her hands and says:
"Terribly sorry about that, I was just, um, I was - surprised, that is the word. Sorry I forgot the word I was looking for. Is that thing really dead? I mean, of course is that person really dead? would not be very correct of me to say 'thing'. How do you think they died, I hope it was those beetles, um, not that I hope they are dead at all, I just would not want there to be anything further in that could kill a person. They being the person, not the beetles, which are certainly dead, right? She pauses briefly before adding "Um, sorry."
"Stay calm, Lady Seraphaelis," Silvester says stiffly, approaching the corpse and lowering his torch towards it. "Hali, do you recognize this one?"
Hali—whose attention has largely been on trying to reason out a diplomatic way of telling everyone to stop getting their damned jimmies in a twist over a little shrapnel (and, more seriously, advising that shooting lead into allies is almost universally a bad move)—snaps to attention at the first call of her name and quickly scrambles over her gear, the unmistakable sound of a cracked sunrod resounding against her knee in the process.
Still sodden from their wade beneath the pond, she fixes the golden-tipped bolt to a sleeve and clambers up to inspect the unfortunate casualty. Perhaps she's not quite as short as their gnomish companion, but Hali doesn't much mind the claustrophobic conditions as she crouches over the body, checking for wounds and identification.
"'Fraid I'm wi' Firesong on this one, Bas. There's an...Order of Ops', aye? Be pragmatic. Yer lot are normally good at that. We'll get them to where they ought t' be. A few more hours won't bother the dead," she sighs, not particularly enthralled with the idea of leaving corpses where they lie, but with circumstances being what they are, Khonnir and her brothers demand a certain practicality. "An' o'course I'll watch yer gear, if needs be. Just...remind me not to set the powders wi' me switches this time, aye?"
"Oh, I was trying to be pragmatic. While we can still exit and enter swiftly, I would have delivered them outside as we come across them...Further in, I would have pooled any we find and do them in batches. My sense of urgency stems from the simple fact that most likely, Drovan, Khonnir or the Gearalt brothers would have acted the way you two suggest. Yet none of the other expedition members had been recovered. Not even by Khonnirs returning expedition. As such, I assumed that either the bodies move, are moved, or something powerful eliminated the groups leaving them no chance to flee, and so sudden that no bodies had been delivered outside before. If we end up unsuccessful and we all die, at least some of the bodies would be retrieved for a proper burial. Or so was my reasoning. Is it faulty?", Basil cocks her head again, following Hali towards the body, while facing Ember. When she finishes speaking, she turns her attention to the corpse of the half-orc, understanding that regardless of what they would do with the body, first, they would analyze it.
When done, she will turn her attention to her surroundings, being on the lookout for whatever could have caused the death.
"Yes, I do still find a fault in it. Any trip will still take time with the time increasing the further we get from the entrance. We have no way to recast the water breathing spell we used to get here, thus any extra time spent moving around bodies is an inefficient use of the duration of the spell. Speaking of which, do you actually need air like we do? Also, since there is undeniably something dangerous and deadly in these caverns, I do not like the idea of you going off on your own, carrying a dead body that might attract something hungry."
"I do breathe. And I assumed the duration of the water breathing spell would be sufficient regardless, but I will submit to your analysis of the situation. Furthermore, I do agree that none of us should go off on their own. Which invalidates my plan, anyway, since I can hardly go ahead and assume to be escorted with each body we find - at least not without requesting such first. Since you two already voiced your opposition, it is not an option worth pursuing. Thank you for the clarification!"
Keldor shakes his armored-looking head.
"You all argue like fishwives. Calm down. We are NOT splitting up Basil. We are in this together! Splitting up splits our forces, and drives any chance of us succeeding further down the proverbial drain. Basic tactics."
"I re-iterate. I had not planned on splitting up, except for the actual delivery of bodies through the underwater tunnel. It is a moot point, too, as I was overruled. Since the other groups seem to have acted in a similar manner before they were eliminated, I assume that the course of action suggested is socially acceptable. Please ignore that I mentioned anything to the contrary.", Basil calmly responds, addressing Keldor.
Keldor waves away Basil's explanation with a small gesture.
"No harm no foul Basil. I was merely pointing out my own personal perspective on the matter. Lets keep moving, shall we?"
Rasellia does not like the arguing, but once things have calmed down she simply adds.
"Um, yes, I think we should all stay together as well. I am glad that we got that sorted."
Before walking over to Silvester who is inspecting the corpse.
"Find anything, um, interesting?" she asks, keeping her dark-eyed gaze as far from the body as possible.
Ember looks a bit miffed. "We were having a discussion, not an argument and I look NOTHING like a fishwife."
"And does anyone recognize the dead guy? I'm really not sure who all were in the previous parties that came this way. And can anyone tell what killed him?"
Trying to head off more disagreements, Keldor moves ahead down the tunnel to check the passage.
Those whose Knowledge (local) rolls beat a DC 10, discover that this is the body of Parda. She was a popular brawler in town, Almost everyone called her a friend, and many felt that her falling in with the thugs was going to be her end—turns out, they were right.
Basil examines her wounds and confirms she was slain by multiple stab wounds from a short-bladed weapon like a dagger. She's been dead for a few days, most likely since she first entered the caves with her group.
"Well?" asks Rasellia, her fear at this morbid situation finally being overtaken by her curiosity "does anyone know her?"
She then looks around the dank cave. This is not really what I had in mind when I set out for a scholarly journey she thinks. She quickly appends no no, I must not think like that, this will be a fascinating learning experience and I will not get anything from it if all I do is sulk. Thinking this she takes out her notebook and begins cataloguing some of the fungus down here. As her study pulls her eyes to the cave ahead she says.
Um, I am not the most skilled at spelunking, what should out next move be?"
Turning back a bit at Rasellia's question, Keldor shrugs.
I'm sorry, but I don't know any half-orcs personally.
"Parda. A well-liked brawler from Torch. Liked to drink and engage in fisticuffs, but never in a nasty way. Seems that falling in with the thugs she most recently hung around with turned out bad for her. She was stabbed, multiple times, for example here, here, here. Short bladed Weapon, possibly a Dagger. She is dead for a while already, possibly murdered by the very thugs she accompanied over some disagreement. I'll place her body next to the way outside.", Basil explained, then took a hold of Parda's hand and started to drag her back to where the group exited the water.
"As for our next move, I believe going further inside would be the basic idea. I believe a common tactic to minimize backtracking is to stick to one wall and circle around the whole perimeter before checking out any locations missed."
Keldor Nods.
"Sounds like a good plan Basil. Shall we?"
Keldor slowly moves down the tunnel letting the others fall in behind him.
"Let's get going then. No sense wasting time here."
Ember holds up her light and is ready to move along.
Hali doesn't add much to Basil's explanation—busy as she is biting down on her lip, wondering how she's going to have to break the news of confirmed casualties to Torch proper—but the Kellid's neck nearly snaps at the news the injuries were man-made, and a clear flash of incredulous anger flows out from her face. As the android moves the body of the brawler out and away from the surroundings, Hali gets back to her feet and sharply trades her longspear for the crossbow slung at her side.
"Aye t' that," Hali concurs. A bolt snaps into the mechanism with a practiced ease, and the scavenger seems twice as determined for it. "At yer leisure, vanguards."
Silvester shrugs, keeps his rapier drawn, and heads down the tunnel.
A dark cavern opens up here, its twenty-foot-high ceiling thick with stalactites. A rocky shore overlooks a placid pool and stream, fed by a trickle of water leaking from a narrow fissure to the north. A small garden of toadstools and dark mold grows along the banks.
From the murky water, small ripples begin to form, and out of the muddy banks jumps a a grotesque frog-like creature
Initiative!
Order: Rasellia, Creature, Ember, Gauntlet, Silvester, Basil, Hali
Rasellia hurries to catch up with the rest of the party, realizing that she has fallen behind. Would not want to be alone down here. She thinks with a shiver as she looks over the mushrooms and damp walls.
The frog like creature shocks Rasellia from her daydreaming. With a shriek she shifts her gaze from the interesting flora that she had been looking at to the hideous creature. Part of her wants to observe the creature, perhaps study it's habits, the larger part recognizes it as hostile and wants it to go away.
The creature glances, blinking its large hazy colored eyes that seem to bulge out from it's own head. And then something strange happens. A blinding light suddenly emerges from those faded pupils and encompasses both Gauntlet and Silvester. Rasellia is fortunately just out of range and doesn't get hit with the blinding beam, continuously emitting from its eyes.
The creature cannot see. It takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –4 penalty on most Strength– and Dexterity-based skill checks and on opposed Perception skill checks. All checks and activities that rely on vision (such as reading and Perception checks based on sight) automatically fail. All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) against the blinded character. Blind creatures must make a DC 10 Acrobatics skill check to move faster than half speed. Creatures that fail this check fall prone. Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.
The creature will then scurry forward and attack the closest enemy, Gauntlet.
Player's up!