Round 1
With a bit of a start Narkû exclaims "Spawn of a nine teated gnoll, what in the abyss is this crap?!"
Grabbing the falchion from his back, Narkû begins to hack and slash at the entwining tendrils.
"You will not feast on me Sarlacc.
---------------------------------------------
Current Effects: Entangled;
Surprise Round
Tempest already drawn, Thurrios slashes at one of the creature's tentacles. Its erratic movements however allow it to avoid the attack, more an accident than intended evasive movement.
From the center of the sinkhole emerges the dust digger's large body, its maw a circle of razor-sharp fangs. As a whole, the creature resembles a tremendous brown starfish. Letting out a gurgling growl, the aberration swings one of its long tentacles at Thurrios.
The inquisitor is able to duck his head just in time, the long appendage sweeping over him harmlessly.
Having narrowly avoided the beast's tentacle, Thurrios hacks away!
|
Julius, startled, looks down at the vine-like tentacles currently sliding around his ankles and calves. "This was unexpected," he says strangely without alarm.
As Thurrios roars into action against their mutual foe, Julius cackles excitedly.
"Behold! The Tale of Mighty Thurrios the Magnificent Redeemer begins with saving his comrades from desert flora!"
As the creature's maw surfaces and it flails angrily against the ifrit for the damage he is causing, Julius glances at Sarala. "Okay...so it's fauna. Maybe? Eh, whatever, it's ugly. Let's kill it."
Julius will move approximately 15 ft any direction away from the strange aberration and then draw his wand of mage armor.
Round One (Pt. 1)
Thurrios takes another swing at the dust digger, but one of its tentacles simply slaps his magical blade out of the way.
Sarala has some luck with her first kick, landing a solid hit against the base of one of its tendrils. But the creature's resulting jerk of pain throws off her second kick, causing it to hit nothing.
As Julius moves to escape the sandpit to draw his wand, another tentacle reaches out to grab him, but merely brushes against his back as he makes it out.
|
|
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, F (a piece of cured leather)
Range touch
Target creature touched
Duration 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance no
An invisible but tangible field of force surrounds the subject of a mage armor spell, providing a +4 armor bonus to AC.Unlike mundane armor, mage armor entails no armor check penalty, arcane spell failure chance, or speed reduction. Since mage armor is made of force, incorporeal creatures can't bypass it the way they do normal armor.
Then replacing the wand in its place on his belt, Julius tries to circle around so he can be in a flanking position to someone in the party.
Marossa screams as she stumbles around the shifting sand, her feet skittering across the new tentacled surface. Scrambling away from the monster as quickly as she can, Marossa's linen wrapped feet stamp down in a rhythm similar to one of her dance performances as she avoids the monsters appendages.
Round One (Pt. 2)
Marossa scrambles out of the dust digger's trap, the creature having fortunately been too focused on Julius to retaliate. Out of the monster's reach, she starts a rhythmic dance that bolsters her allies' courage.
Angered by the vanaran monk's attack, the dust digger begins to spasm as it aggressively lashes out at everyone within its reach.
The monster's abrupt movements take everyone surprise, allowing it land a direct hit on Narku and Sarala. As a tentacle strikes the former it attempts to curl around his body, but the half-orc is able to shrug out of it without much effort.
Another of its tentacles is swung at Thurrios, but his scaled armor catches the brunt of the blow.
In retaliation for the attack, Narku looses a mighty swing at the dust digger with his falchion. Its sharp blade cuts deeply into the base of one of its tentacles, drawing blood.
End of Round One
Thurrios yells at Julius, "You make sure that story of yours accurately states that I haven't hurt this thing at all yet, right?"
I will start a judgement of destruction to add +0/+1
He'll swing yet again!
"Yep, still missing."
Round 2
Narkû leans in a bit and shouts at the dust digger expecting it to understand, Then continues to hack with his massive falchion, laughing while the creature's ichor sprays everywhere.
Narkû glances over to the others and says, "Narkû making small pieces, make sure that is in glorious story of 'Narkû and the dead creature that used to live under the sand, until it got upity and attacked Narkû'. Damn that a good name for a story."
---------------------------------------------
Current Effects: Entangled; Inspired Courage (Marossa);
Round Two (Pt. 1)
Thurrios calls upon a divine judgment to aid in the dust digger's destruction, but his attack flounders regardless, repelled again by a flailing tentacle.
Similarly, on account of the creature's erratic movements, both of Sarala's punches miss entirely.
From afar, Julius bestows himself with his arcane protection, before circling around to prepare a flank.
Keeping up her dancing steps to stay out of the tentacles, Marossa presses her hand forward in the air, a small spark of light spearing from her stretched palm as she intones, "N'Hal Dhhul!"
Anapa finally steps in, having had trouble keeping up in the muck and getting through the difficult area now, swinging his weapon
Round Two (Pt. 2)
As she maintains her bardic performance, Marossa casts a spell on the dust digger. However, the cantrip does not seem to have any effect on the monster, which continues to move its tentacles about purposefully. Perhaps enraged by its wounds, the aberration begins to flail about, its limbs thrashing out in a wild frenzy.
The dust digger's spiked maw stretches forward in an attempt to bite onto Narku, but its teeth merely rattle off his armor's overlapping metal bands.
Meanwhile, its five limbs all lash out at once in a series of blows. Sarala, Thurrios and Narku are all ready for the first wave, dodging or ducking out of their way as they coming swinging down. The next two blows however, catch them off-guard. One tentacle slaps against Sarala's arm in a glancing blow, before attempting to wrap around it; the vanaran is fortunately able to pull her arm away. A tentacle again smashes against Thurrios' armor, but this time with more force behind it, doubtlessly leaving a bruise.
Nark, finding an opening amid the monster's rampage, delivers another well-aimed slash with his falchion. This time his blade digs into its central body, eliciting another gargling roar.
End of Round Two
Round Three
Anapa, who had up till then been following the party from a distance as the rear guard, finally barrels onto the scene, nodachi in both hands. Entering the fray, he brings the blade down over the dust digger. His glorious Tian steel rips right through the dust digger's central body, leaving a gaping wound from which blood and several vital organs come rolling out of. With one last spasm, the dust digger's five limbs all fall limp as it lets out one last gurgling exhale.
Er... Combat Over
"Well, it's good that we found this, we wouldn't want some youngsters happening upon it once people have moved back into this area."
Anapa calmly sheaths his sword after wiping the remains of with a piece of cloth
he says with eyes closed
When Anapa finally finished his prayer, he looks up
"My apologies. I hope i did not hurt anyone with my attack? Part from the creature at our feet. My name is Anapa by the way. Pleasure to meet you all"
-Posted with Wayfinder
|
|
Upon Anapa's announcement, Julius nods his head. "Yes, you still are! But I suppose that was more for Thurrios and Marossa's benefit." He winks at the astoundingly diversely cultured young ifrit.
Looking at Thurrios, "I guess we'll just have to the fudge the story a bit for the Mighty Thurrios legend. We'll just say 'a powerful blow from the ifrit laid low the strange monster from the dirt'. People may then infer whatever they want from there. Since you're an ifrit, if they choose to believe it was you," Julius shrugs and looks innocent, "it won't be my fault."
Glancing at Sarala and winking, Julius chortles for a minute.
Afterwards, his face becomes more serious, and he crouches down next to the creature for a closer look. Finding a a piece of debris close by, he prods the ruptured organs and really examines the thing carefully.
"Any idea what this thing is, anyone? Do you think there's any chance it has eaten anything carrying a magical artifact or item?"
At the thought of finding lost magic, Julius' eyes gleam and a determined look appears on his face.
|
"No worries, Anapa, your attack prevented that tentacle from slapping me around anymore. You seem like you're pretty good at swinging that thing around," says Sarala, gesturing towards the weapon. "I am Sarala, I'm a monk hailing from..." She looks like she's trying to decide a direction to point to for a short while before she finishes, "Well, not from around here anyhow."
To Julius she says, "If you want to get elbow deep in invertebrate entrails, be my guest. It's probably eaten loads of stuff."
In fact:
"Hmmm, I've no idea about this. We can certainly search it and its lair though."
-Posted with Wayfinder
I'll detect magic on the creature and down the hole.
Narkû cleans his blade and hones the edge with his whetstone, as he glowers at the upstart new comer.
Under his breath you can here him mumble things like, "Pretty boy... kill stealer... glory hog... I'll beat him next time... "
Thurrios does not detect any magic around the dust digger's corpse.
It does not appear to have left anything in the way of a hole or tunnel behind, and there are no signs of anything it might have used as a lair. Having been an ambush predator, there is no telling how long it might have been waiting to trap someone.
Marossa shudders as she stops moving once the beast is laid low by the newcomer. Her face pale, and not just from facing the monster, Marossa steps closer to the dead monsters and looks it over. Her eyes widen as Julius mentions a dagger and gloves and apron. Her hands quickly shifting behind her back as she tries to hide the small dagger back in her skirt, not wanting anyone to she has a weapon she shouldn't have.
Dust diggers spend most of their lives burrowed underground, waiting for prey to stumble upon its ambush site. When it senses the vibrations caused by movement from above, it deflates its body, creating a sinkhole. They have known to be able to swallow their prey whole... an ability it thankfully did not demonstrate.
They rarely move more than a few hundred feet from where reach adulthood. In a patch of "desert" as small as the pesh fields, it is likely the only specimen of its kind.
Fortunately for Julius, most of the dirty work was done when Anapa split the creature open. Pushing a few eviscerated organs aside, he quickly finds that the dust digger had eaten rather recently. He finds the pulverized shambles of a man; it is impossible to tell whether he died from suffocation, being crushed by stomach muscle, or burnt to death by digestive acid. What is left of his clothing is in bleached tatters. His ruined cloak is pinned on by a golden brooch, in the shape of a lion's head.
|
|
"And what do you know! We aren't the first to pass this way, it seems."
Julius tosses some sand on the brooch to help absorb any stomach acid that might linger on it. Then he gingerly removes the object and begins to wipe it down with the edge of Sarala's pant leg hem since the monk's outfit was loose and flowing.
He examines the piece once it's mostly clean after fending off Sarala's indignant kicks once she noticed what he was doing.
Narkû comes out of his gloomy mood when the glint of gold is spotted in the innards of the creature.
With a grunt, he stands and steps over to inspect Julius' skills of locating loot from within critters. "Hmmm, that could be a useful talent later."
Craning his neck over Julius' shoulder, "What you got there? Think you can find anymore?"
---------------------------------------------
Current Effects: Whetstone edge on Falchion, +1 damage on next successful hit;