Rikkan is going to hold his action as he doesn't want to splash anyone with a ranged attack.
Drancis opens his tunic exposing his bandolier of knives. With and ease borne of long hours of practice he sends one of the knives flying at the shredskin.
Whilst Rikkan busies himself with a bomb, delaying lighting the fuse until he has a clear shot, Drancis attempts to fling a dagger at the ragged creature... but, his telekinetic grip is uncharacteristically weak and he misses wildly...
Locke moves in to stand behind Illonna, flag planted at his feat. He offers support in the form of the first stanza of a battle poem.
Not able to join the melee in the confines of the alcove, Zoreck curses under his breath and reloads his pistol. He then moves a bit closer to the action.
'
Already moving away from the creature, Illonna swings wildly at it... Missing by mere inches...
Rikkan pulls another bomb and sparks it up, tossing it at the monster.
RTA
Damage
Astraea grimaces as the creature fails to die. She draws her fancy new masterwork dagger and, after a second's consideration, tries to slash at the monster. Hopefully, her rather amateurish efforts will not be in vain...
Astraea, unused to the new dagger... or indeed to any such weapon... slashes wildly before Rikkan sets off another bomb. Rikkan's bomb spins from his hand and, taking an awkward deflection from a jutting piece of masonry, burst in a shower of violet sparks to the south of the creature... the sparks tear further holes in the skin of his foe - yet, somehow, it continues to attack...
Biting and flailing at the paladin, the creature grabs Illonna and, with no body beneath it's skin shroud, starts to 'flow' over her... covering part of her torso with long-dead, leather dry skin...
Locke's chanting drops off and an eerie calm falls over him as he strikes at the creature with near supernatural precision. Get off of her beast!
...and with a furious attack, Locke skewers the thing attacking Illonna... with a sudden expulsion of stale air, the hollow thing deflates and, almost comically, falls to the floor... nothing more than a leathery heap of dead skin.
Sheathing his blade, Locke places a tenative hand on Illonna's shoulder, "Are you all right? It looked as though that thing was trying to assimilate you."
Zoreck lowers and holsters his pistol after Rikkan's bomb put an end to the animated hide. "Well, that was disturbing. Illonna, you okay? I think we've still got a healing potion left..."
"Ugh, I don't like that nasty creature, click. Illeona alright? Locke's right...seemed like it tried to eat you."
Drancis takes out his last healing potion and hands it to Illonna. "Here, this should get you up and running again Illonna."
As Illonna drinks down the potion he moves over to the body examining it further to see if this is indeed the remains of the Sheriff.
Astraea, though happy to see that the creature is defeated and everyone seems to be in one piece, stares glumly down at her dagger. Useless, she thinks. All these years on the move and I've never really learned how to fight. But there is no point in dwelling miserably on her inability to contribute to the battle; she can only promise herself to take some time with Zoreck or Illonna and ask them to teach her a few things.
"What do you think, Drancis?" she asks, leaning over his shoulder as he examines the creature's remains. Please don't be the Sheriff. It is too cruel a fate to contemplate.
Illonna, still shaken, takes a few steps away from the Drancis and the rest, unwilling to approach the alcove a second time.
Illonna's condition is worrying. Astraea slowly makes her way over toward her. "You seem, um, shaken. Are you all right?"
"I saw something Astraea. Something terrifying. It was...it couldn't have been real; but I was there!"
- the 'corpse' that the shredskin was made from is very old... long dead, leathery skin... the animated thing hasn't been alive for at least a hundred years...
With the danger momentarily passed, Locke goes to take a much closer look at the statue, walking around it and inspecting it for anything irregular.
Locke spends a bit of time with the statue, unnatural and strange as it is, it appears to be nothing more than a depiction of a particularly alien figure... the arcane aura surrounding the statue does no more than illuminate it - and, despite his best efforts, Locke doesn't find any secret compartments or articulated joints...
...with time to consider the figure, Locke tries to determine what... or who... it is supposed to represent... but it remains a mystery...
...so, having reached what seems like a dead end, the friends move back into the flooded catacombs - wading through the filth, they move towards the junction in the tunnel. To the south, the tunnel heads into the darkness before turning to the west once more... whilst, to the north west the tunnel appears to lead to a chamber...
As Drancis follows along behind the others, he keeps his eyes and ears open for any threats in the water or sneaking behind the group.
"Uhhh guys, I think there is something else in the water here..."
Rikkan notices where the human points. "Ugh, not again," the rat folk grumbles, hoping beyond hope that there's no more nasty swarms awaiting them.
Astraea is unsure of what to tell Illonna, but she feels for her. "Um... I don't know if we have the time right now, but if you need to talk to somebody about what you, uh, saw... I'd be happy to do that. Are you all right to go on?"
- - - -
Back in the tunnel, just as Astraea is about to once again lament the murky water is doing to her poor boots, she hears Drancis' warning. "What is it? I can't see anything. If it's more amoebas, we probably shouldn't try to fight- it's too much drain on our resources." After all, they might need to save Rikkan's bombs for Vuelib, and she has a feeling that it is probably more dangerous than anything else in these catacombs.
"Yeah, I see it!"
Zoreck's pistol is now in hand, pointing at the disturbance in the water.
"It's safe to assume it's hostile, whatever it is. It would not be wise to go into the water to fight it."
Zoreck and Drancis both see it; movement… strange eddies and whirlpools that seem unusual given the near stagnant state of the water… and then, no sooner has Zoreck got his pistol in hand, bow waves start to form in the tunnels to the south and to the north-east… something semi-submerged, translucent and near-formless, swimming towards the friends…
Rikkan takes a movement backwards, not wanting to get caught and overwhelmed again. After he sees what the creature can do, he could decide on a proper way to attack it.
Drancis frantically waves everyone back. "Get back! We don't want to get surrounded!" After he falls back he readies to send a wave of water at the first amoeba to round the corner.
"What the...?"
As the two masses move towards the friends, it seems that these are similar... if not the same... as the amoeba swarm that previously attempted to digest Rikkan...
"Back up!" shouts Illonna as she scrambles to put space between the ameoba and herself
Zoreck ignores Illonna's recommendation of caution, and steps into the southern passage. Realizing that the thing to the south is a single creature, he smiles grimly and fires at at. The pistol's report echoes through the catacombs.
Perception
Rikkan notices the strange creature moving in the water. "If we bring them to us, whrrrr, we might be able to fight only one at a time!"
Seeing Zoreck rush around the corner Locke follows the man, hoping he has a better handle of the situation than Locke himself. He readies his blade, await the creature's assault.
"I like Rikkan's idea!"
Astraea casts guidance on Rikkan, then backs away from the oncoming creatures.
With an amoebic pincer movement bearing down upon them, confusion reigns... Zoreck and Locke move to tackle the threat approaching from the south whilst the others, readying attacks wade back the way they came...
Another loud explosion ringing around the tunnel heralds Zoreck's pistol shot... But when the smoke clears and the ringing in his ears stops, Locke sees that the amoeba is leaking plasma - but still swimming towards them... One slash of his sword is all it takes to rend the ooze in two... rags of thick, silver-sheened skin coat his blade as the amoeba dissolves into the water...
...there is little time to celebrate the victory as, moving deceptively quickly given its size, the swarm of ravenous cells crashes against Locke and Zoreck like an acidic tidal wave - Drancis, vigilant for movement, blasts a front of mucky water at the swarm but to little avail...
Locke finds a sharp queasiness overtake him as the swarm launchs itself at them. He attemps to distangle himself from swarm, surprisingly nimble despite the overpowering nausea. He moves back toward his other allies, hoping Zoreck will follow.
Drancis sighs in relief as the others are able to dispatch one of the amoeba swarms but grimaces as the other one engulfs Locke and Zoreck.
"Get back so I can blast it!" He yells to the others.
Rikkan will ready an action to toss a bomb when the rest of the squad gets behind him and safely away from the swarm.
RTA with Guidance
Damage
As Zoreck and Locke pull themselves clear of the digestive juices of the swarm, they are forced to duck - a fizzing bomb flung by the ratfolk narrowly misses the burly Kellid before being caught and swallowed by an unknowing amoeba...
...a dull thud precedes the explosive spreading of ectoplasm across a large section of the tunnel...
The only sound and movement within the tunnel is the gentle dripping of goo from the roof of the tunnel... to the north-east, there appears to be a partially flood room whilst to the south, a faint green colour coming from the west, around the corner, illuminates the tunnel...
...saves
"Ow! And this is DISGUSTING!!!"
Zoreck moves back out of the swarm of ooze in the foul water to get out of the way of Rikkan's bomb.
"I can't say I appreciate these creatures. They are very much a nuisance." Locke wipes ooze from his face with a look of disgust. "It makes it difficult to scout a path when one of these slimes may be waiting under the ripples."
He looks closely down the two paths, hoping to spot something about one of them that will lead them in the right direction.
- other than the glow in the tunnel towards the south - and the fact that there appears to be a chamber to the north-east, there is little to distinguish either direction from the other...
"Hmmm... That glow makes me a little nervous. Maybe we should head northeast and see what's up there first."