Despite Elisen's worries, the eager halfling leads the party into the natural caverns in the marching order previously mentioned. Gossamer cobwebs hang from the ceiling of this rough tunnel and the misty spray from the Hopespring's waterfall outside glimmers faintly on strands of spider silk. Chunks of rubble lie scattered on the floor amid piles of dirt. The tunnel burrows south beneath Bloodmarch Hill. It is dark and lit only by Falric's continuously cast dancing lights.
You follow the tunnel for about 150 feet, wary of dangers, as the cramped tunnel opens up. The air in this cavern is humid but cool, and a thin sheen of condensation coats its rocky walls. A narrow passage exits the cavern to the west. To the south the floor drops away into darkness, while a bridge of stone leads to another cavern to the east. The sound of trickling water echoes through the cavern.
Ahead of you, Falric and Morti's keen sight picks up what were signs of combat and what appears like a dead orc lying face first on the floor about 30' from the party, his weapon lying about 15' from his corpse.
"Oh, c'mon Elly, we'll be fine. When have I ever led you astray? Like Morti said, they're probably gone by now. Totally safe, let's go!"
Falric sends his dancing lights around to light up as much of the area relying on his low-light to see into the dim areas. "Body up ahead...I'll go take a look. Morti, cover me with your crossbow."
Confident that with his mutagen in effect, he can protect himself, Falric motions the party to wait for him as he goes up to investigate the corpse.
Ugun carefully nears the corpse to try and determine the cause and time of death.
"Watch over me too dwarf friend while I inspect the cursed one closely."
However, he is too tired and too apprehensive to be of much use. Frustrated, he kicks the body, "He's already dead. We should move on."
-----------
As Falric and Ugun inspect and turn the corpse over in the light, you see the orc is indeed quite dead, with its throat ripped out! As Ugun kicks the corpse, suddenly something clambers over the side of the caverns and whips at Ugun slashing at his throat and then wrapping its tentacle like arms expertly around his neck, inflicting more damage and preventing the witch from speaking! When you look to the ground, you see an expertly camouflaged hunched-over gray wretch who has long, pliable arms like tentacles 10' long capped with five wide, spiny claws. You can only watch in horror as Ugun helplessly writhes around in the grip of this alien-like creature who has a maniacal look of glee on its face!
Ugun's hands go to his neck to try and pull the thing off of him. His eyes seem about to pop out.
-----------
"What the hell is that?!" Seeing the half-orc in trouble, Falric springs into action, scimitar in hand! He moves over and slashes at the creature.
The small creature is amazingly fast, but the halfling is faster and despite its shiftiness, lands a solid blow, cutting the beast! The creature moans in pain and gets angry!
Round 1:
The creature releases the witch momentarily and proceeds to lash out with its two tentacles, one at Falric and one at Ugun. Even Falric is surprised at the creature's quickness and he gets a lash across his shoulder! Ugun, momentarily freed, gets hit by the tentacle again, which constricts him around the throat and he collapses, going limp in the creature's grasp!
Eli casts Acid Splash at the tentacled horro, hoping to startle it enough for the boys to finish it.
RTA
Damage
With the creature wrapped around Ugun and giving Morti no clear shot, he drops his crossbow and moves in with his axe, throwing a sidelong glance to Elisen on the way -- "Shoulda listent t' ye!"
Barundar swings his dorn dergar more carefully, in a horizonal sweep, trying not to hit Ugun as he attacks.
Elisen’s acid ball goes astray as do both of the dwarves’ attacks as its speed and agility are really amazing, yet you pin the aberration against the side of the crevasse. The dwarves see a pool of water 20’ down.
Falric strikes at it again!
All of the party's blades miss, so the creature strikes back, slamming its claws twice into Barundar's throat area, but not grappling, in order to stay as defensive minded as possible! It stands on Ugun's unconscious body, not wanting to release its meal.
"Bloody thing, stand still!" Barundar growls as he strikes out at the creature again.
Falric jumps into the fray, "Yeah, stand still and die!"
Eli keeps up her Acid Splash 'assault' at the tentacled horror.
RTA
Damage
Worried the fiend might attempt to escape with its meal -- with Ugun! -- Morti attempts to grab the unconscious half-orc and wrest him from underneath the hissing creature.
The choker dies under the combined blows of Barundar and Falric, as the halfling thrusts his scimitar through the creature's eye.
After I assume you heal, where to? You can head back home; bridge to the east; narrow passage exiting the cavern to the west; or down to the pool.
"Anyone have a spare potion we can give to Ugun? He's not got much time! Or Morti, could you t wand on him?"
Assuming the others help staunch the bleeding, Eli again tries to get the boy's to listen to reason, and take a pause before heading into the unknown again. "We can do this in the morning. We need to be sure the rest of the townsfolk are okay."
After Morti feeds Ugun a potion or uses his wand on him:
"We have spent no other resources other than healing and we have plenty of those. Ugun has learned a valuable lesson and should leave the scouting to us martial types and should stay in the back from now on, right Ugun? So I say we move on. It is obvious the creature here was a threat but he also killed one of the orcs, leaving the troll and a leader, perhaps, from what Morti told us about the tracks we found. Heck, we should check the dead orc and see if he has any healing potions. My point is the militia can scour the town for stragglers, we are needed here to take out the troll and the leader. At least that's my 2 cents."
Falric heals himself and then checks the orc corpse for supplies.
Ugun comes to with a sharp intake of breath. His hands go to his throat and he starts massaging and making sure there are no cuts left.
When his hand comes back dry, he takes the healing wand and uses it to heal the last of his wounds.
He glares at the halfling, "I was not scouting. I was checking for signs of the cursed one's death. You were supposed to watch my back!"
He then listens to the situation and the opinions being given, "I think we should rest. The town has survived the attack. It is time to rest, at least for a little while."
He then added, "We can set up a double watch to make sure no one comes out of the cave and then go back inside."
He continued, "If they come out before we are fully rested, then we'll meet them here in the open. And if they do not come out, we'll go fish them out in the morning."
He looked at the cave entrance, "However, I will not be left outside if you all decide to go in now."
He continued to massage his neck while he waited for a decision.
-------------
on Ugun now at 22/23
on Bar, now at 33/33
on Falric, now 21/23
I had already discounted the 5 charges last time so my only CLW wand now has 11 charges left.
Falric finds a potion of CLW on the dead corpse, as it seems he was abandoned when he was snatched by th choker, you imagine.
Regarding whether you go forth or go rest that is up to you, what I don't understand is what has changed between the decision to go forth and one battle later? As Falric stated, you have plenty of healing left. Potions are meant to be used. Just curious about that.
Morti frowns, "A rest sounds appealin', t'be sure. Though Falric's right -- 'ere oughtn't be 'ut two of 'em left...an' either 'ey're weak enough they fled this critter 'r else sompthin's got 'em in a big 'urry, an' maybe we ought be too?"
Morti frowns, "A rest sounds appealin', t'be sure. Though Falric's right -- 'ere oughtn't be 'ut two of 'em left...an' either 'ey're weak enough they fled this critter 'r else sompthin's got 'em in a big 'urry, an' maybe we ought be too?"
Ugun looked at Elisen, "Are you good to go or would you rather stay? No shame in staying behind if you need to."
The half-orc looked ready to go and continue killing orcs.
He looked at the dwarves, "I will stay behind and support you all."
--------
Elisen shakes her head and clucks disapprovingly. "No, I'm coming along. I certainly don't trust you reckless lot without me. No telling what chaos you'd get yourselves into. This needs at least one voice of reason."
...to balance out all the testosterone..
Falric smiles at Elisen's comment. Such a mother hen! After searching the orc, Falric beheads the choker, and then says, "If I were building a tomb, I'd bury the person at the bottom, so I say we go down." He then sends his dancing lights near the pool and kicks the choker corpse off the edge to see how deep is the water.
As you look down with your dancing lights, you realize it is not a pool, but the caverns are actually flooded, maybe 1-2 feet deep, which you realize, after the choker's corpse hits the ground. Dark water, thick mud, and silt cover the floor of this cavern, separated from the rest of the cave by steep cliffs and muddy escarpments. A trickle of water can be heard from the east.
The drop is 20' and the water will not soften the fall, in case anyone wanted to dive in. :)
We go south into darkness then, with the dancing lights guiding the way, and the dwarves' DV.
You follow the twisting passage south, which leads to a wide ramp sloping down to the floor at the western end of this cavern. Half a dozen huge humanoid skeletons, each ten feet tall or more, line the walls of the cavern, standing in silent vigil. It appears the corpses were entombed in crevices and crannies in the walls of this cavern.
"Those were hill giants in life, my friends. Guess they really buried a giant down here. Maybe these were his retinue in life. And by the way, this sloping platform screams trap to me, but I am the best suited to deal with any traps so stay put. That means you too Ugun, lest we forget what happened the last time." Falric tosses the half-orc a smile and plays the part of bait and heads down the slope, looking for traps/pressure plates/etc.
Falric traipses down the slope and finds no traps, so he signals the party to follow. He then starts to scout out the cavern with the actual giant skeletons (6 in total) covered in cobwebs. He sees nothing out of the ordinary until he discovers that while the cavern is not trapped does not mean it is unguarded! From the last nook, a skeletal 12' giant armed with a broken spear rises to unlife, pinpoints of red energy in the empty sockets of its eyes and steps out 15 feet in from of the halfling. Everyone else sees a small undead-looking rat leap from one of the ribcages of one the other skeletons and scurries toward Morti!
Too far from the giant to provide Falric any effective backup, Morti moves to dispatch the rat -- A mere nuisance, but no' somethin' I want chewin' the back o' me knees while ahm fightin'! -- drawing his axe and taking a swing at it.
Falric looks at his scimitar, "Barundar, I need you and your weapon up here! Attack his left side!" He then shrugs his shoulders and moves in to attack the flatfooted giant fighting defensively, aiming for his right most leg, so I can flank with Barundar in upcoming rounds.
Morti moves up and deals a vicious blow, which is just enough to destroy the sturdy undead rat who was caught unaware by the dwarf's reaction time and chose not to go insubstantial to infect disease on its victims! The mistake cost it its undead existence.
Falric takes a swipe at the skeletal giant wearing dusty but pristine chain mail and connects on its thigh, but the bone deflects some of the scimitar's momentum, though it does suffer 7 damage.
Eli moves to two squares left of Falric's current position and casts Grease on the spear being wielded by the giant.
As the skeletal giant towers over Falric thinking about bringing the point of the spear down on him, all of sudden the spear slips from its hands and falls harmlessly on the cavern floor, just as the charging dwarf comes in for the attack!
"On it!" Barundar says simply, moving to bring his dorn dergar to bear on the skeleton's left side!
The rushing dwarf smashes several ribs from the skeletal giant's ribcage with his powerful blow! Total damage: 18.
Round 1:
With no weapon in hand, the skeletal giant resorts to its claws and rips them across the smaller dwarf's head, causing massive gashes across his face and forehead as the dwarf feels and imagines the giant's might in life, as blood pours down Barundar's face! He is sure he cannot withstand 2 more blows like that!
Eli takes this round to load her light crossbow with another bolt.
Falric 5' steps with the dwarf and attacks!
Ugun was worried about the rat in the vicinity but clearly the giant skeleton was the biggest worry. By a long shot.
Knowing that he could not do anything from this far away, the witch got closer to the giant and then while within range of the undead rat, sent his black butterflies to hamper the rat's attention.
---------------