Round 3 (con’t)
Grizelda: Gregor focuses his fiery gaze on the first rat to come out of the nearest tunnel, setting another critter on fire!
>Tomid:<
Blue Rat:
Zinny:
Hugo:
Green Rat:
Yellow Rat:
Silas:
Done and done! Blue and Yellow left...unless Tomid gets the yellow one first!
Tomid, having found a rat to kill laughs and calls out More rats here. His feet begin to shuffle as he dances once again and brings his small scimitar across his body at the large rat.
Round 3 (con't)
Tomid: hits the rat across its shoulders, slicing deeply into the critter and killing it.
Blue Rat: Moves to attack Tomid just after he killed it's nest-mate, but can not connect with Tomid's dancing feet.
Zinny: Moved across the cavern to the east and killed the second rat emerging from the tunnel.
>Hugo:<
Silas:
With the nearby vicinity suddenly devoid of rats, or atleast living ones, Hugos anger deflated. Still hearing some squeaking mingled with the sound of Tomids riverdancing feet, he moved to assist his tiny friend.
Hugo: Double move to threaten the rat attacking Tomid.
>Silas:<
Round 3
"Pardon me, Hugo, m'boy," Silas says as he slides between the rat and Hugo, winding up on the opposite side of the rat from Tomid, in yet another flanking position.
Silas nimbly moves into position, avoiding any unwanted attention from the rat attacking Tomid, but is not able to land a clean blow to the last of these nasty critters.
Round 4
Grizelda:
Tomid:
Blue Rat:
Zinny:
Hugo:
Silas:
Zinny realizes there are no rats near her! So she wheels around to go join the others in their game of Whack-a-Mole. She might be too late to the party.
Seeing that most of the rats are down Tomid drops his dance and accepts the flank offered by Silas. He cuts deeply into the blue rat, exposing organs.
Well, if Grizelda and Gregor don't kill the rat, then Tomid certainly will!
You stand in a large natural cavern with several pillars formed from the meeting of stalagmites and stalactites over the centuries. There are four exits you could fit into...the rat tunnel back to the Dancing Whip; another rat tunnel to the southeast; and two natural passages about 6' wide and 7' to 10' tall to the northwest and southwest.
All indications in this cavern point to this being the main dire rat nest, and you have killed all of them. The bodies on the ground range from old, scarred rats to smaller, young rats, with most being adults. Zinny stops to clean her bite wound but is soon ready to move on.
Looking at all the possible exits, and having halfway forgotten which one they came through in the first place, Hugo asked to no one in particular "So uhm, where wes off to now?"
These is some tough rats. Big as me too? Why are they so big? Lets take the first passsage to our right as we came in. Tomid first asks and and then suggests.
While they discuss which rathole to go down, Silas makes a disgusted face and turns one of the dead rats over with his short sword, inspecting it.
These are not just ordinary rats grown extra large...these were Dire rats. Most common forest and city animals have a larger, and more vicious, cousin that adventurers have battled for ages and are labeled as 'Dire'. Rats, badgers, apes, bears, boars, hyenas...the list is almost endless!
Gregor fluffed out his feathers pridefully and gave a self-satisfied chirp as he surveyed the smoldering remains of his work. "Yes, that trick worked out quite well. Good job!" She smiled an indulgent, flat smile and scrubbed Gregor at the nape of the neck in congratulations.
"Oh, I nearly forgot. I've only had a chance to try it out with a letter opener thus far, but this scabbard has a rather interesting enchantment. It conforms to whatever blade you secure in it and then magically sharpens it. Tomid, would you mind testing it on your sword? I'm very interested to see it at work."
She hands him the scabbard of honing she received from their unknown benefactor.
You follow this narrow cut through the stone to a small cave, rising at least 30 feet above you. On the ground in the center of the cave are several piles of bones, and lengths of what looks like silk rope.
Zinny's too busy fretting about the scratch on her ankle to pay much attention where she's going.
"Is that... rope?" she asks bemusedly.
Grizelda peers around her companions at Zinny's querry. Her eyes goggle at the silk-like strands and she strains to see if her suspicions are correct. She gasps at the sight of the hulking creature and makes a flapping sort of beckoning gesture to encourage everyone to move away from the thing, hissing a whispered warning. "Good gracious! We've wandered into a cave fisher's den! Touch a dangling strand and that thing will reel you in like the catch of the day!" She raises her hand and points where the cave fisher hides to the others.
"I bet ya I can take it." Hugo said with bravado, looking at the ugly thing.
Oh Nice Grizelda. I sure will try it out. Thanks! Tomid puts the scabbard onto his belt and sheaths his blade in it.
As the group enters the new cave...
Seeing the creature he moves back our of its line of sight thinking I'm barley a bite for that thing.
The giant crab-like monster continues to watch your party from the relative safety of its ledge, waiting to see if his dinner is going to step into the cavern...
"Good heavens, Zinnia! That thing is enormous! What sort business does your mother conduct to make everything grow so big down here?" She blinks rapidly her lips pursed in thought, oblivious of the implication made. Finally she extends her finger again, "Perhaps we can snipe at the thing from relative safety, hmm?" and unleashes a dart of acid at the horrid thing.
What sort business does your mother conduct to make everything grow so big down here?"
Silas cocks his head to the side at Grizelda's observation. It takes all of his priestly resolve not to laugh, because the very heart of Madame Holbern's job is to make things grow bigger down below. Having nothing with which to snipe, Silas instead steps up near Hugo and readies an action to attack the Cave Fisher's lure if it swings in their direction.
Grizelda points at the creature, mumbles a few arcane words, and a dart of acid flies from her finger towards the cave fisher, hitting it squarely on the claw and hissing as the acid eats away at its carapace. This elicits a clacking from the creature as it backs away from the edge of the ledge it is on, out of sight from the group. Clearly, it was not expecting dinner to be able to fight back!
"KRAAAH," squawked the bird in irritation as he shot Gren what could only be construed as a glare before fluttering out the window.
"Sorry, Spinner," Gren managed to wheeze out amidst a fit of coughing. The young man ran his hand through the greasy mop of hair on his head, inadvertently leaving a soot mark on his forehead.
Hmmm... too much sulfur maybe? He fanned the air over the smoking cauldron and leaned over his book of scrawled notes to jot down a few scribbled additions.
Straightening back up with a long stretch Gren made his way to the window to look out at his friend wheeling in the sky. He took a deep breath and smiled. It sure is nice out today. I wonder if Brother Silas has returned yet.
"I... what?" Zinny squeaks, blushing furiously because her own thoughts are somewhat following Silas's. She manages to blurt out, "Hey! My momma din't have nothin' to do with this! This ain't OUR doin'!"
Seeing the creature back away, she leaves her bow lashed to her pack.
"What're we gonna do about it?" she ask nervously. "Climbin' up there's gonna be tricky... I got rope, but..."
"Be at peace, Zinnia," Silas urges with a smile, placing a firm yet calming hand upon her shoulder. "We know your mother had nothing to do with this. What I believe Miss Blau means is that she wonders what it is about the caverns beneath her basement that draw such large creatures. Those were dire rats back there, rats that hang around big city wharfs and eat small dogs, or live deep in the woods. You don't usually find them under houses in peaceful villages like our Daggermark."
Silas looks wary about the ledge where the giant Cave Fisher has been. It might still be lurking up there, just waiting for the first person to poke their head up, and then with its massive pincers it will just squeeze their head off like a grape.
"...well, it was a rat that came up and bit your mother, and I think we exterminated that rat's nest. I don't know if we should bother that thing any more. Maybe its a natural predator and eats the rats."
Tomid gets an idea from Silas' words. Fetching the closest dead dire rat, he tosses it (or gets Hugo if too heavy) onto the filament to see what happens. lets feed it. Maybe if its full we can just leave it up there. Aint hurtin much...
Hugo goes along and hauls a rat carcass back to the cave, tossing it into the pile in the center. Before Tomid can finish the first verse of the bawdy limerick he's been working on, you see a blur as a thin filament, like the ones on the ground but stretching back to the ledge, whip down and stick to the dead rat! Then, like a man pulling on a fishing line, the filament drags the rat's corpse up the wall to the cave fisher, and a few moments later you hear the disturbing sounds of one nightmarish creature eating another...
Zinny winces at the shlurrrping and crunching noises of the creature munching down the rat carcass, standing there in an awkward silence.
"Erm," she says. "Miz Blau, how big're these things? Like... if we leave it here... can it get back to where we came in at an'... an' come in the buildin'?"
Because she really doesn't want to have to fight it, but on the other hand, the thought of going to sleep in her home knowing that there's a tunnel complex that leads straight from this thing's lair to her own cozy cellar is... discomfiting.
Grizelda frowns at the creature's retreat. "Well that was rather anticlimactic, was it not?" She scowls in confusion at Zinny's outburst and then Silas' apparent need to translate what she had said in plain speech, and still somehow managing to get it wrong. "I doubt it was anyone's doing Zinnia, but we do have an effect on the world around us. The energies of a place have a strong influence on what is attracted there. I'd wager some very potent, vigorous energies indeed must be at work here. Yes, I dare say your mother does have something to do with why she she has a gigantic crab in her caverns below." Grizelda smiles flatly, certain that she has cleared up any misunderstanding and soothed any ruffled feathers.
"They get to be about 7 feet long and 400 lbs. I've never heard of a cave fisher leaving the safety of it's underground lair, but I'd be hesitant to leave it here long. Though I've read the filament it spins is quite the valuable material and difficult to obtain."
"Just how valuable are we talking?"
Lets just feed it another big rat and leave it alone for now. Plenty to explore down here. We can come back for it later if we are all healthy enough. Tomid is ready to explore else where.
Zinny stands stock-still, her face getting redder and redder as Miz Blau speaks. "Um."
She hurriedly seizes on Tomid's suggestion rather than think too much about all of that. Gossamer is giggling very naughtily in her mind-- you hush up!! Zinny thinks back fiercely.
"Yeah, thass a good idea. Um... are there any other holes outta here?" Zinny asks, peering around. "Gossamer, can you take a careful look-see?"
With a whistle and a flap of her wings, Gossamer flies up.
Gossamer flies up but as far away from the creature as possible. There may be an exit from the ledge...she can see a tunnel leading away but it turns after a few feet and she doesn't want to get any closer to the creature.
Zinny quickly tells the others that the only exit Gossamer sees is-- gulp-- through the creature's lair.
"Thank you for lookin'," she whispers to the little dragon, and makes a mental note to give her some honey when they get back home. 'Specially since Momma won't be home to notice it missin'.
{ooc]Tomid has voted.[/ooc]
Grizelda looks to Zinny to make the decision. "Up to you, dear. I suppose it's rather unlikely that we'd all be killed before we could come back and take care of it and then whoever finally came down here looking for us ran into the cave fisher. We could probably afford to leave it for now." She smiles blandly, and turns to Silas, answering his question.
"I'm not exactly sure what the going rate is, I believe it's comparable to a silk rope once the sticky substance breaks down. But that thing's spinning gland is worth about 100 gold, it's used to make a substance called sovereign's glue, if I remember correctly."
"I wunder if wes could keep it fer makin' silk..." Hugo wondered out loud, already imagining himself wrestling with the thing, followed by feeding it in its pen.
Zinny blanches at Grizelda's words, then stares back up at the cavern hole.
What if the thing gets up through the caverns and into the house with the girls who can't defend themselves none? And what if she, Zinny, is gone when that happens?
Zinny swallows, then unslings her back and starts rummaging around in it until she digs out the length of stout rope.
"Okay," she says, much more confidently than she feels. "What... what we're gonna do is... um... we better kill it so-- so I think-- maybe if we tie a rope around me-- an' Hugo you hold th' other end-- I, uh, I go out as... b-bait an'... if it pulls me up we can-- we can pull back, with the rope..."
She looks around nervously, sort of hoping someone will talk her out of this plan.