As things seem to be going quite well for him Paval lashes out with his blade once more. His blade connects once more, though the cut isn't very deep.
Ahto's shot and Paval's strike both connect with their targets, but the attacks fail to pierce their fey hides.
Hexa's claws do not find their marks.
Wonky's coin shot leaves a small, bleeding cut on the larger mite riding atop the giant insect.
As the tick begins to drink from Sams' blood, the brawler feels a little faint.
Sounds echo from the chasm below. Something is moving closer.
Mikmek slithers up behind Wonky and uses his handaxe to split open the skull of the unconscious mite.
He brays loudly, boasting how he slayed a dangerous foe.
Aris's beetle makes its way across the chasm, following along behind Same. Once there, it chomps its jaws dutifully into the bigger bug!
Up top, Aris realizes she's in the wrong place, but it's too late to do much about it. Frustrated, she taps Hexa on the shoulder. "Nevidený!" The lizard man's scales grow translucent, then fully invisible in the semidark tunnel.
Sams's first attack just grazes the giant vermin, but the second swing of his fist pummels the tick's oblong head.
Meanwhile, the glowing beetle's bite sinks into one of the tick's thick, furry legs.
The gang of mites below chucks a bevy of sticks, stones, and other crude missiles that strike the tunnel walls, fall into the chasm, or thud harmlessly against the giant tick's back.
The mite chieftain howls incomprehensible encouragement to his mount, and the giant tick's mandibles bite painfully, deeply into Sams' flanks.
Up above, the orange mite's face contorts horrifically as he scowls and hisses at Paval, his bulging eyes invoking a curse upon the swordsman.
Foul, fey magic creeps into Paval's bones and leaves him shaken.
The other mites gang up on the cursed man, trying to pummel him with their clubs, but only one of the small brutes makes contact.
Sprocket bites the arm of the yellow mite, but the creature's hide shrugs off all but some scratches from the dog's teeth.
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As Ahto moves forward towards Sams, Wonky calls out, "Take the vine to the left, Ahto! And beware the giant cave tick! Its bite can carry disease - I fear that Sams may already be affected by it!"
The gnome glances down to see if she can spot the creature moving up from below, before taking careful aim with her last Coin Shot ammunition at the lead mite riding the tick. She then moves back to avoid being attacked.
As he hears the Aoi'Si's words he turns, though he is shocked when his own scales fade from his eyes. This was a gift he wished he could use more effectively, but in these caves all he could do was brawl with the ugly monsters that called it home.
He takes only a moment to decide his actions as the blue mites swarmed Paval. Focusing he called on the feral strength of the earth again, calling on the bovine strength of bulls to increase his strength.
The Mite Nearest to him never saw it coming. Hexa swung his claws viciously at the little blue demon. Intent on one thing and one thing alone. As he became visible his new form was too, his muscle were larger, swollen with the power of nature. His muzzle wider and his teeth flatter, his bull like appearance might have been intimidating if he had tried. But he was solely focusing on fighting the mtes with what time he had in his new form. Which it was short.
Swiftly he swung out again, tearing down the same Mite or a different one depending on his skills today. He would defeat as many as he could, no matter what it cost him.
Paval was visibly shaken by whatever one of the mites had done and he returned the stare as best he could before trying to lash out at the mite.
But whatever the might had done had worked and Paval missed his mark by a mile.
Hexa's claws rend through even the mite's fey skin, leaving two more bleeding on the cave floor.
Ahto crosses the knotted vines, heeding Wonky's warning.
Paval's strike is foiled by his failing nerves.
Wonky's keen shot lands a telling blow on the mite chieftain, who tumbles unconscious from his verminous mount.
Peering below as she lowers her stonebow, Wonky identifies another subterranean specimen of vermin emerging from the narrow crevices of the chasm: a Giant Whiptail Centipede.
The creature is massive, and the air is sharply cut as it thrashes the long, whip-like tendrils at the end of its tail.
It skitters along the chasm walls and lashes at Ahto with its tail as he crosses, but the attack just bounces off his armor.
Mikmek screeches in fright as the giant centipede crawls into view. He drops his handaxe and backs away from the chasm's edge.
"We should probably help them." Aris looks at Hexa, then drops down the hole. As she hits the ground, she thinks up another spell, one that might be handy here.
""Slabost'!" A sickly-green ray of light zips toward the giant centipede, catching it square in the chest.
Aris's fire beetle stolidly continues to try to munch on the much bigger tick.
Sams flails his fists against the giant tick, but he doesn't seem to harm its thick, hairy hide.
Aris plummets down the shaft, but she is unable to control her fail and lands painfully on the yielding, earthen cave floor.
Her leg is twisted agonizingly and she falls to her hands and knees.
Despite the pain, she manages to maintain her focus and successfully casts her spell, weakening the giant vermin rising from the chasm.
Her beetle, though, is unable to bite the thrashing tick's limbs.
The morale of the mites, both above and below, seems to falter as they watch many of their kin and even their chief fall to the invaders.
They withdraw further into their warrens to regroup, leaving their pet insects to contend with their enemies.
The giant tick, finding Ahto threatening its largest meal ever, grips tighter onto Sams and drags him backwards - edging away in hopes of draining more blood in peace.
As it moves, the beetle makes an opportunistic lunge, but catches only air.
Sprocket growls threateningly at the retreating mites.
Hexa calls to Tal but after her responding call realizes she wasn't coming into the warrens. So instead he decides to follow the Aoi'Si down and aid those below. Especially now that the Mites were fleeing.
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Wonky drops back from the centipede to Aris' side while scolding her kobold ally in Draconic.
In the meantime, she loads a simple sling bullet into her stone bow and fires on the centipede.
Paval steps up to the edge of the tunnel above, guarding the narrow, sloping passage with his readied sword.
Hexa begins scrambling back down the shaft.
Wonky judges that Aris' leg is likely sprained, but there may be a minor fracture.
Her quick shot strikes the monstrous centipede, but it is only a glancing blow.
Ahto's attack is foiled as he has to divert his lunge at the last moment to avoid hitting Sams as the giant tick twists aside with the brawler in its maw.
The centipede rears up and lunges for the comparatively tiny beetle, but the summoned creature deftly evades the potentially devastating bite.
Spurred to heroism by Wonky, Mikmek howls a shrill battle cry and runs to the edge of the chasm.
With a two-handed, overhead swing, he hurls his borrowed handaxe at the centipede.
His aim goes wide, though, and the axe head buries into the chasm's root-lined earthen wall.
Sams' first volley of blows leaves some nasty wounds on the giant tick's thorax, but the vermin still has him in its grasp.
As the tears roll down her face, Aris makes a mental note not to jump off anything anymore. She grits her teeth and hobbles down the tunnel, stopping near the edge. She pulls her crossbow off her back and gives the trigger a squeeze.
days
Aris' crossbow bolt sticks into the earthen chasm wall beside the centipede, slipping between its many limbs.
The giant tick, distracted by the new attacker, drops Sams from its mandibles and turns its attention to Ahto.
The vermin's bite pierces through his armor. Although the pain is sharp, he manages to keep free from its prolonged grasp.
Adding salt to the wound, though, a number of the mites return from around the corner an hurl a volley of darts at the inquisitor.
Up above, Paval hears the remainder of the upper mite gang fleeing deeper into the caves.
Sprocket barks triumphantly at the unseen, retreating enemies.
"Sprocket, you wait here. Keep on guard." Paval then slowly clambers over the edge, hoping to avoid detection of any mites that might be there. Only when up there does he fully remember he can't see anything anyway.
Just when he is about to turn around and head back his right hand lights up for a mere second before a glowing, humanoid figure appears, looking like the ghost of his grandfather. As it lights up the room it motions in the direction the mites went.
Hearing Wonky's cry Hexa decides on a hard choice, he leans out and looks down through the maze of roots, his claws digging in before he exhaled and deliberately falls. Basing his attempt of luck and natural skill.
He takes the blows to hiss thickest scales and muscle before balling up and rolling with his shoulder on the dirt floor below. Rolling and...
Despite hitting hard Hexa rolls and draws his bow as he comes to a half standing, half kneeling stop. He takes aim and looks to clear Ahto's foes more then what was closer to him.
As the arrow flies into the dark he gives a shout of challenge. Letting the mites know he was coming for them.
Hexa comes to a rolling stop and takes hold of his symbol of Mazludeh. And invokes her might into adding weight to his bow. He didn't consider if he would be too late for Ahto, only on what he could do...
A lifetime of experience in the wilds blesses Hexa with the reflexes to control his fall, and as soon as he rolls out of his breakfall, he looses a shot on instinct.
The arrow whizzes past Mikmek's scaly cheek, and Aris can feel the rush of air brush against her aching leg, then the arrow buries itself deeply in the giant centipede's segmented back.
Wonky's own shot quickly follows, and owing to the monstrous vermin's size and the distance it keeps from her friends, she is able to line up and land a clean shot on the centipede.
Mikmek snatches up one of the mites' discarded sharp sticks. He hurls it like a javelin at the giant centipede, but his limp-wristed throw only lands the projectile in the bottom of the chasm.
Undeterred as it is assailed by stones and arrows, the giant centipede lunges forth with shocking speed and gobbles up the summoned beetle.
Across the chasm, Ahto's counterattack is hampered as he contends with the ugly beast that has now turned its attention on him.
.....
Up above, Paval follows in the wake of the glowing figure and crests the tunnel that originally brought the party into these cramped warrens.
On the opposite end, he discovers a strange nest.
The wet-looking floor of this large cavern is crisscrossed by several shallow trenches, each containing trickles of putridlooking fluid.
Six foul mounds of compost and dung lie heaped about the room, each studded with small spherical eggs.
Paval spots another mite huddled in an alcove on the right. Seemingly unconcerned with the fighting tearing through the lair, this particularly wrinkled and unsightly mite has the unmistakable affect of a crone.
She craddles a centipede hatchling as though it were a pup or a child, cooing soft reassurances to the precious creature.
Aris curses under her breath as her beetle disappears in the giant centipede's maw, then concentrates for a moment on summoning a new one. As it materializes, she drops a new bolt into her crossbow and takes a step back, away from the edge.
The new beetle makes its way out to the edge of the chasm and begins to assail the giant centipede.
The newly summoned beetle pauses for a half moment before attacking its designated foe. Did it just look back at Aris? Can an insect glare?
The beetle's burning bite seizes the centipede, even if its teeth are tiny compared to its target.
Anger pumps a surge of adrenaline into Sams' bones and muscles. In addition to the blood-drinking bite the tick inflicted on him, being ignored by his foe only incenses him further.
His last barrage is fast and brutal, and his fists leave the giant tick twitching and dying on the blood-spackled cave floor.
The defeat of both their chieftain and now his monstrous mount breaks the morale of the mite tribe.
They throw down their spears, clubs, and stones.
Their screeching cries are incomprehensible, but it is easy to read the surrender in their faces as their wobbling knees fall to the ground.
Unfortunately, the monstrous centipede, rising from the chasm like a leviathan from the deep, does not share the mites' fear, and the giant creature clearly intends to fight until it can drag a meal into the recesses of its lair.
.....
Up above, Paval can hear Sprocket whimpering down the tunnel behind him. The dog seems unsure whether he should follow - or perhaps he is cowed by the smells coming from the nest ahead.
Hexa continues to advance, hoping to draw the insects attention and give both Aoi'Si and the others cover. His wooden armor creaks with strain as he sweeps forward a few feet before taking aim at the giant insect.
He didn't have time to enhance his strength or weight his shot. Because every breath was precious and the next shot could end this. He speaks quietly in his draconic tongue before unleashing another shot.
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Wonky startles at the arrow flying past her towards the giant centipede. She whips her head around.
"Oh! Hello, Hexa! Ahto and Sams are stuck on the other side of that chasm, battling another giant insect and some mites. We can't get to them until we take care of this centipede. Thanks for your help!" She then turns back and fires another stone bullet at the monstrous leggy thing.
Unsure on what his next course of action should be, Paval hesitates. When he hears Sprocket whining behind him and hears those screeches coming from below he decides to head back. He couldn't be sure of it but it almost sound like despair from the mites.
They'd figure out what to do about the crone later.
The close distance makes it easy for Hexa to land a shot on the centipede, the arrow sinking deeply into its serpentine body.
Though he fears the bleeding wounds he took will disturb his righteous aim, Ahto's dagger thrust is true.
He weaves past an opportunistic snapping of the vermin's mandibles and stabs his dagger into the creature's long belly.
Wonky's shot is keenly blessed, and the bullet buries itself into the centipede's head and puts out its eye - leaving the vermin squealing in pain.
Thrashing against the earthen walls and bleeding profusely, the centipede bites futilely for Ahto, whose shoulder armor simply shrugs off the attack.
Meanwhile, even the party's unlikely new ally, Mikmek, also finds fortune as he snatches up a knife dropped by a mite and hurls it at the centipede.
The kobold howls with glee as he watches the tiny thrown blade pierce the foe.
Aris notices that her summoned bug isn't exactly thrilled to be here, and makes a mental note to explore whether summoned creatures have recurring personalities even after 'death'. However, there are currently more important tasks to accomplish. She takes aim with her crossbow and looses another bolt.
Her beetle continues to try to fight, stolidly chomping away to try and find a weak spot in the centipede's defenses.
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The barrel passes over Ahto's head and shatters against the centipede, both bludgeoning it with the impact and pricking it with many wooded slivers.
Reeling from the mighty impact, Aris' bolt and the beetle's bite are the finishing blows.
The massive centipede, bleeding and screeching, loses its many-legged grip on the tunnel walls and tumbles back down into its chasm lair.
With both of the monstrous vermin slain and the mites all either unconscious or surrendering, the battle is won!
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Seeing the insectoid beast fall and hearing the mites wails Hexa takes aim with his bow. He had been intent on finishing this tribe for good but Wonky's spirited talk distracts him from continuing to attack the already defeated mites. He lowers his bow and nods at her 'thanks' something he still wasn't used to hearing.
Those with no use are driven from the tribe. A harsh expression that Scaleless seemed to not use. He shrugs it off as his head clears.
He puts the bow away when it becomes clear the fight is over, for now. The defeated mites no longer a threat in the face of their warband. However his movements had been sloppy, his response to Wonky is as it should be. Accepting his weakness. "Hexa wass sslow, ssome hurt now..." His tail swats the earthen floor in annoyance before exhaling heavily. The act brings focus and he turns to look at the injured Aoi'Si, Arisl.
He leans forward and inspects her for obvious injuries, she had fallen far after all. "No move." He muttered through his teeth as he touched his symbol of Mazludeh.
He intones it in his draconic tongue, his claws giving off a faint glow before he tries touching Arisl's leg.
I've always believed that a cure or healing spell gave off a sort of energy when adminstered.
For Hexa I imagine its like a warm pulse, something that rushes through the senses starting at the point of injury. Like stepping into a warm bath as the energy spreads to remove injuries. But as quickly as it's felt, it's gone.
Just my silly thought of the day, lol.
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The battle won, Wonky attempts to climb back up to her beloved Sprocket after sheathing her bow. "I'm coming, Sprocket! Don't cry!!"
She doesn't seem to notice Hexa's words as she rushes to try to climb back up the tunnel.
It takes her awhile to scrabble back up, but once there, she throws her arms around Sprocket in relief.
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As the fighting ceases and the remaining mites drop their weapons, Ahto catches his breath, steadies himself, and then calls upon Abadar to bind his wounds.
"Master of the First Vault, I entreat thee to bind your servants wounds."
"Can anyone speak a tongue they understand?" Ahto asks. "We need to discuss terms of surrender with them."
Paval stands at the edge of the hole, "How are you guys doing? Was that the mites surrendering?"
Seeing Wonky trying to climb up he stands ready to give her a hand and pull her up.
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Wonky takes Paval's hand gratefully as she surmounts the tangled root passage. She heads straight to Sprocket.
"Oh, my sweet boy! I was worried about you!" the gnome buries her face into the dog's bloody muzzle, receiving a few licks for good measure. She then looks up at Paval.
"We are fine, though Sams and Ahto got hurt by the large insects. I am not sure if they have surrendered - I do not speak Undercommon, the native tongue of these pests - but they have all thrown down their weapons and look particularly pitiful, so we might be able to make that assumption. Are you ok?" She has turned her attention half-way back to Sprocket, looking over his hide for wounds.
Mikmek looks across the chasm at the large human hollering at him and tilts his head in confusion.
The kobold turns to Hexa in reverence and speaks in his nasally, simple Draconic.
When the question arises if anyone could speak the tongue of the blue Mites he hisses. He couldn't believe that they were allowed such treatment as well and found that Ahto's tastes were stranger than a bullfrog in an insect swarm. He looks to Mikmek and nods in recognition. He speaks in a proud tone for the small scale before him, it was good to be among scaled folk once again. Regardless of size and more so that Mikmek fought and didn't run away.
At Sams question, Hexa calls back, roughly translating Mikmek's words. "Mikmek not sspeak der tongue but maybe der Sshaman TarTuck does." With that said, helpful or not, He looks over Mikmek next, searching for wounds to be healed once he knew the Aoi'Si Arisl was taken care of.
Though the latter part of his words made him pause, a bitter reminder of the tribe he left behind. Except instead of a supposed Ancestor spirit. It was a Shaman... That was forcing them to wage a bloody fight. A Shaman was troublesome.
He was picking at Mikmek's scales lightly as he spoke, looking for hidden injuries and keeping their talk as private as he could. Though Arisl was privy to it, she was an Aoi'Si they knew all regardless.
Seeing Mikmek is unharmed, Hexa turns his attention to searching the dead mites nearby for anything of value, separating the corpses from valuables and piling what he finds for the war party to sort through later. When he finishes he stops and sits down, the Mites and the dying tree roots forgotten as he asks Mikmek bluntly.
"Is Tartuk chieftain?"