Lun moves forward to stand apart from Bart seeking to avoid the icy footing and flanking the spider.
Fist Attack #1
Fist Damage
Cedric looks behind him has sixteen approaches with the syringe. "Whoa you want to do what with that?"
Sixteen stabs Fuzzy with the needle, and the latter feel a rush of competence course through his veins.
Bart gingerly skirts his way around the ice, eyes fixed on their spidery foe. He spares a glance at Fuzzy and the modron. "Jes' don't stick me with that thing."
The eidolon squirms a bit from the injection but settles back down. "Well lets see what that did." Cedric says as he moves toward the creature.
Lun Tsu close in on the spider, which is still perched atop a pile of rubble, googling its eyes around. The eidolon and Bart move in as well, and from up close they can finally see the full form of the huge spider outlined - black-upon-black - in the dark cave. What little light there is draws long shadows from the equally long stilts of the creeper. A single eye flares a bright orange, and a ray of heat shoots toward Fuzzy
Sixteen runs after Fuzzy, docking the needle again, and has a hard time keeping up.
---
Cedric
Lun
Bart
---
Big Hairy Magical Spider Abomination
Sixteen
---
Acrobatics
Lun moves in closer to the spider.
Acrobatics
If I can attack I will.
"CHAAARGE! CHARGE LIKE YEW'VE A HOST OF MEN AT YER HEELS!"
Bart clambers up the rubble, and draws a sweep from the spidery horror's leg as he closes in, then sinks his sword in the soft underbelly of the clicking horror. All eight of its eyes light up in a purple flash as the sword hits.
Lun rushes in to punch the spider, his fist loaded with caustic energy. He watches as his punch leaves an acidic smear that slowly dissolves the armor of the spider.
---
Cedric
Lun
Bart
---
Big Hairy Magical Spider Abomination (20)
Sixteen
---
Cedric moves up to the spider to get into melee range.
Cedric closes the gap, the adventurers now forming a phalanx against the spider. The dark creature hisses as it skitters backward. Another eye lights up, and throws out two balls of force, each slamming into Lun.
Sixteen moves quickly to get closer.
---
Cedric
Lun
Bart
---
Big Hairy Magical Spider Abomination (20)
Sixteen
---
Cedric steps up and attacks with his living suits metal jaws and claws.
The living suit claws at the spider with great fervour, and rips at the soft underbelly of the glowy-eyed creature.
---
Cedric
Lun
Bart
---
Big Hairy Magical Spider Abomination (42)
Sixteen
---
Lun grunts as the force strikes him in the chest.
Wary of the spider's defenses ad the slippery floor just passed, the Monk attacks with a single strike
Fist Attack #1
Fist Damage
Lun Tsu lands a powerful blow on the spider, and all eyes glow simultaneously as the air is knocked out of the creature, and it falls prone.
In the back of the cave is a pile of coins and gemstones, as well as a dirty, unconscious dwarf with a tattoo on his forehead and two large bite marks on his arm.
"Ha! That'll learn 'im!" Bart cheers, moving his way over to the unconcious dwarf, nudging him with a steel-capped toe. "This our Garmundi?"
Lun inspects the spider, "A fearsome opponent. The dwarf is lucky we arrived when we did else he may have been this creature's next meal".
Cedric looks at the dwarf then back around the room. "Could be more of them....there are always more of them," he mumbles to himself.
Cedric looks around the room, but sees no more glowing spiders. Still plenty of noise in this chamber, though, rumbling and droning, which makes it hard to hear incoming monsters.
The dwarf is still unconscious.
"No? Well then." Bart frowns, crosses the Dwarf's arms and prepares him for what seems to be a Heironean warrior's burial. Drawing a long thin rod, he lets a sliver of healing magic loose from the wand, stows it, and gives the prophet another jab with his boot.
"Perhaps the poison renders him unable to awake?" Lun conjectures.
The dwarf opens his eyes after a tap of the wand. He lets out a cough and a groan, then looks at Lun, Fuzzy, Sixteen and Bart. He holds a moment of silence and then says Famine, Pestilence, War, Death? Is that who you are?
"No, we are Lun, Bart, Cedric and Sixteen. You must have been struck on the head rather hard... What happened to you after you entered this place?"
"I hope he wasn't down here looking for those things, that would be really bad. I think we should get moving as we don't know what else is out there."
After I escaped the mob... I found myself in this dark cave. I talked to the strange being, and he told me something about his brother. It is as I told! The time of four doors is at hand. Yet, the secret may be both darker and brighter than was imagined. I ventured on, but I was beset by undead from all sides. Some I could fend off, but soon they overwhelmed me, and I had to flee, deeper into the cave. The last things I remember was seeing an orchestra of colors...
In my dreams, I heard a dragon, speak to me. A loud booming voice, coming from all sides. The dragon... seems to be the lord of these caves, but he does not control them. He says he is trapped, but he spoke in riddles. He said he was trapped outside of this cave.
"Oh great, now there is a dragon. We reeeeeeeally need to get out of here and fast." Cedric says as panic starts to seep into his voice.
Cedric starts looking for a way out.
"Unless freeing the Dragon is the way to get out of here. Where did the voice come from?"
The dragon's voice was everywhere. It came from without!
The persistent distant rumbling takes on a more rythmic form, a pounding drum that beats every second, when a loud directionless voice gives a demonstration of what the dwarf must have heard Lift the left, lift the right, the leg extends, the second key lights. I am Argathorn, the timeless. I have seen the past and lived the future, little dead ones.
"Yeah time to go."Cedric says as he picks up the dwarf and heads for the only place that seems like an exit at this point.
Lun pauses and speaks to, well to whatever it is that has spoken to him.
"Argathorn, the timeless eh? I fear I have never hear of you. A being Zarulaz was also trapped here he told us of four doors three of which it seems we have yet to find. Perhaps if you aid us we can aid you?"
The four doors. Yes, you will find them. They will come to you. Yet, you seek not the doors, you seek the item. Search the lair of the spider, my deepest fear, and you will find the cloak, the disembodied voice continues.
Zarulaz has faded. Such a pity. His brother is strong and radiant. Go now, go, save your present!
The northern cave contains fissures, through which small globs of red matter drip out. Red matter drips through cracks in the ceiling, on the rhythm of the outside pounding noise, forming circular globs that bounce around the cave. Wherever they hit, they draw bright flashes of light. The cave is filled with several skeleton, but rather than attack, they seem to be busy sequestering the red matter.
A larger fissure is broad enough for the creatures to pass through. What lies beyond is a large pipe, round like a sewer drain, but made of a slick, blackish stone. At the bottom, a shallow stream of red liquid flow, pulsing with the sound of the cavern.
Lun turns to the others, "Let's find that cloak!"
Perception
The spider had a small cache in its lair, which holds several potions, two scrolls and a threadbare cloak.
Scroll of haste
Scroll of blood biography
Potion of remove disease
Antitoxin
Lung locates the cache and hands the scrolls to Bart, "Can you read these my friend?"
"Dare we don this cloak?"
"I wouldn't trust anything here to be honest." Cedric says as he continues to look around him for anything that might pose a threat.
"Oh and I can read those scrolls if you like."
The dragon - wherever he is - remains silent. The only potential threat left in the cave are the undead, sequestering the red matter.
"Shall we challenge these dead or simply make our way they are not threatening us at the moment".
"I'd rather take them out then have them behind us,"Cedric says
Lun Tsu takes a risk and dons the cloak nodding to Cedric that he is ready to attack the dead.
He cautiously approaches them and when close lets out a flurry of blows.
Lun moves up to a skeleton and hammers it with his fists. The skeleton does not so much as react, all of its action are focused on the red matter that is dripping into the room. As the bones shatter, the skeleton loses hold of the red gunk, which scatters around the room in tiny red balls, causing flashes to appear whenever it hits the cave wall.
Some of the matter splashes onto Lun, though it doesn't seem to affect him.
Lun looks down at the cloak in wonder, he then proceeds to smash the next skeleton in line.
Cedric joins in on the skeleton smashing.
Neither Cedric not Lun is hampered in any way as they smash the skeletons to bits. Quickly thinning out their ranks, the cave becomes a mess of red balls, bouncing all over the place. Through the cracks more of the stuff trickles in, lighting up the cave in a near constant light of bright flashes, sparks and bright flashes appearing wherever the red matter strikes.
The dragon voice, suddenly becoming active again, lets out a low groan Argathorn, the timeless, I have seen... the future...
The speech of the dragon seems less controlled this time around I am the timeless, he says, slowly adding Step... leg... extend...
"Any ideas on what this red stuff is? Or if we should even stay here to find out?"
"If we continue we may well free this Argathorn, the timeless. Sixteen, Mimir, do either of you know anything of this being?" Lun asks them before he proceeds any further.
The red stuff looks like blood, only quicker to move, having more the consistency of mercury.
Sixteen answers Information insufficient. Location: pandemonium. Realm: unknown. Entrance: vertical portal descending from Sigil. Postulation: entrance represents one-way portal. Postulation: exit lies elsewhere. Postulation: cave part of greater complex.
The mimir also has something to say Argathorn is one of the legendary dragons. Legendary, in the sense that no reliable observations of him exist, and word of him survives only in stories. If this is truly him, then timeless - while perhaps an exaggeration - comes close to describing him. Even the greatest of wyrms would seem like a hatchling compared to him. It's hard to say how he would fit in this cave, though. Dragons don't stop growing, you know.
"What if we are in the dragon?" Cedric says looking at Mimir and Sixteen.
Lun pauses for a moment and stares at Cedric, "An unsettling thought. Perhaps it is simply time to go we need after all find more items. Are you ready to leave Dwarf?" Lun asks the disheveled prophet.