"We should meet the teams that are left. What are the chances that they're as nuts as Pitch Blade?"
"Hang on--" Carina finally speaks up, after having been quiet for a while. "--if we're going to investigate the understructure, I might have a little something that'll help." She smiles and produces a flask of clear fluid.
"I was planning on using this myself in the arena, but now that we've made it to the next round, I was wondering if one of you guys would like to make use of it--it's an invisibility extract."
"Scouting sounds fun, but I wouldn't count on simple invisibility to shield us from the eyes of Raknian's guards," Rodrigo says. "That being said, I can also make myself or some others invisible."
"How are we going to slip away? With a group our size someone's bound to spot us making an exit."
Spiny's Six notes that there are only about half of the original number of wardens in the Coenoby, and they're all pretty drained. Quite a few of them are already heading for comfortable parts of the cave to get a bit of sleep.
"Well if we wait a bit this place will be more or less dead. I guess now's the best time."
"Give me a minute to call Sombra first," Rodrigo suggests. Then he completes the ritual to summon the eidolon.
The Boulders, a group of highly muscular dwarves, have burrowed into their single chamber to make a concave bowl. They're all fast asleep now, piled up upon each other with no particular regard for personal space. Their fight, having taken place right after Spiny's Six's, was apparently quite long and brutal, and they've been asleep almost the whole day.
Final Phoenix, a group comprised of half-elf and human fire-focused mages, sits by the stream. They chat amongst each other in hushed tones, apparently suggesting techniques for the upcoming battles. They had the first match of the day, and they seem to be winding down now to get ready for bed.
Varmint Patrol, a group of human and halfling rangers, is starting to file back to their chambers now. They've been the most social of the groups still around, but their manner is dour now. Probably because one of their number didn't make it back from the match.
Pitch Blade, the trio of dwarf brothers Carina and Tanith chatted up before, has been extremely reclusive. In fact, aside from today's battle, they haven't left their chambers since their arrival.
And Auric's Warband is still in the chamber eating their supper. Auric is enthusiastically relating to Khellek details of today's battle. Khellek is nodding calmly, occasionally vainly trying to remind Auric that he knows all this because he was there. Three hulking creatures sit beside them—hideous monstrosities crafted from humanoid body parts, stitched together with thick string, wire, and metal staples.
"No offense, guys, but most of you aren't exactly good at making yourselves unseen. Or unheard. Or unsmelled, probably, but I can't be sure."
"Maybe let Rodrigo's pet or me scout around first, and then if the way's clear the rest can follow."
"Yeah, definitely have Sombra scout ahead. She can make sure we're not about to run into a patrol or something. We follow a hundred feet back or so. I think Astraden and I should disguise ourselves as guards, so just in case we do get caught, the two of us can try and convince whoever that Raknian specifically ordered before him or something." Eben starts rummaging through his things for his disguise kit. "Astraden, do you have your disguise spell prepared today? Also, before we head out, I personally could use a little healing. Did nobody else get hit during the fight? Rennida's crew know their way around a bow, I'll give them that much."
"I got hit by Carina's bomb thingy, but otherwise I'm uninjured."
"Would have looked good to go through the whole first round untouched."
"Well... at least that doesn't make you look bad..." Eben says. Turning back to Ekaym, he hands the man a small shopping list with two items.
1. scroll of slow.
2. shortbow. doesn't need to be magic or fancy, just a back-up.
"By the by, apparently Pitch Blade likes to use adamantine weapons to break their opponents weapons and make them cry. So I'm getting a second bow, just in case I get stuck next to one of them. If anyone doesn't have a backup weapon of their own, might want to think about..." Eben looks over Tanith and his fists, Carina and her bombs, Farrukh and his shield/sword combo, Astraden and her crossbow, rapier, and multitude of daggers, and Rodrigo... huh. Does Rodrigo even carry weapons? "...yeah, nevermind. So just the bow for me, Ekaym."
"I will send Sombra out invisibly. Which direction should she go?"
Eben spends a few minutes with a mirror and his disguise kit giving himself a makeover. He patterns his new look on one of the guards he had already seen end his shift for the day and head off to sleep. 10 minutes later, a scruffy-looking guard with permastubble and dirty blonde hair walks up beside Spiny's... Five.
Astraden assents and releases a healing burst to repair Farrukh's burns and Eben's arrow wounds. After Eben's completed his transformation, she ducks behind Tanith and presses a hand to her face, muttering, "LiniJa ne e pronaJdena." In just a few seconds her features rearrange into those of one of the guards she saw before. The woman that steps out of Tanith's shadow has longer, darker hair and a more pronounced jawline, and wears studded leather armor instead of chainmail.
"Alright, let's see what we can find," she says, stepping over the invisible boundary of the Coenoby.
This huge cave resembles the Coenoby, but is in a state of century-old abandonment. It looks like a surface structure once stood here, a cluster of stone houses that were buried under a million tons of rubble a long time ago. In the labyrinth of ceiling-high sections of ruined walls, the only remarkable feature is the idol that gives this cave its name, the ten-foot-high, alabaster statue of a powerful giant armed with a mattock. Now the silent guardian of the Titan’s House, the statue stands in an almost completely enclosed space in the northeast part of the cave.
As she scouts through the cavern, she hears something moving in one of the southwest chambers . Whatever it is, it's big. She's pretty sure it isn't aware of her presence, however.
"Can she figure out what that big thing is?" Tanith asks after the report. "If it's trouble we should go in prepared."
"Could you send her up the stream? If it's wide enough, we might be able to circumvent the creature entirely."
"Yeah, the idea is not to get caught, at least not tonight. I mean, I don't know about you guys but I'm a little drained from the match. We've got a couple days to get this done, so I think tonight we should just get the lay of the land."
She notices now, lying under the water, a large stone plug (about five feet in radius) placed into the wall.
Carina patiently waits for Sombra to finish scouting, nervously fiddling with her invisibility extract.
After reporting on the plug underwater, Sombra returns back to the big chmaber and scouts the chamber where she heard something big moving. She flies along the ceiling in an increased attempt at stealth.
Sombra draws around the corner and sees the source of the noise.
A hulking brute dwells within the darkness, sitting in an almost-meditative posititon. Its shoulders sag over a round, warty head. It has a long beaklike nose that goes below its chin and dull greenish skin. A dull brass pull ring hangs from its nose, like that a bull might wear. There is a rune-covered longsword strapped to its back, clearly of very fine make.
Its beady red eyes narrow in the gloom as it sniffs the air. It sniffs again, head tilting to one side as if trying to triangulate the scent.
Finally, it snorts. It speaks in Common, with a low, guttural accent, as it stares blankly into the darkness. "I know you are up there. I smell your stink—I do not know it, but I smell it. I have few spears and little hunger for whatever you are, so why do we not speak face-to-face?"
"Who are you, ssssstrong one?" Sombra's voice slithers from the shadows.
"Humans call me...Trulent." The troll smiles proudly, showing a disturbingly large maw full of disturbingly large teeth. "Slayer of elves, bane of humans. I am a hunter. One of only so few."
"Will you fight in the gamesss?" Sombra asks.
The troll chuckles. "I have no stomach for games. I am only here for the humans called Auric and Khellek. Tell me: How went their fight today?"
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"What do I know of sssuch thingsss?" Sombra says. With that, she slithers off down the tunnel and back to the others.
Rodrigo reports everything that she discovered.