"Gah! Tess gasps, relieved to have the beast off her.
She holds a hand to the wounds on her face, hoping the blessing of the waves can offer relieve.
The waves respond favorably.
"Thanks, Jader, I owe you one! Kar, heads up!"
Then, she moves over to Kar and attempts to take down the creature with one swipe of her trident.
Tessamine wisely heals her wounds, wincing at her blood soaked locks. Her swipe, though well aimed, is done so with vision blurred by dripping blood, and it flies. wide.
'I should get in there and help...but Kar said to hold...'
Torn between a sense of duty and wise council, Posh calls out "You need help in there? Or you doing ok?"
Kal steels himself and rushes through the darkness, helping to come to the aid of his companions. Whether brave or foolish, he makes it through, though he very nearly crashes into Tessamine as he does. He frantically moves aside at the last second as he nearly crashes into the wall.
Kar would say loudly. Do not worry Grandfather. There is only one left and 4 of us.
Posh nods, though Kar can't see the movement through the darkness. He stays where he is, prepared to share a delightful anecdote if called upon.
The creature skitters forward, once again attacking Kar with its weird bludgeoning tentacles. Kar is able to easily avoid the thing as it scurries close.
Tess wipes the blood off her face, takes a deep breath, and thrusts with her trident one last time into the creature.
Jader and Tess work together to fell the beast
Kar moves in to stab at the creature from the other side of Gur, his rapier leading. He pokes it through, putting yet another hole into it.
Kar will once again attempt to bring low his foe. This time with an elbow drop meaning to force it onto his upcoming knee.
Kar moves in lithely, stalking this hideous little creature. As it opens up to lunge in again with its barbs, Kar move in over it, getting a hold of its squishy head between his elbow and knee. The head quite literally explodes, coating Kar in a fine sticky sheen of gruesome flying cave cephalopod blood.
Kar seems satisfied at first, but after getting coated with ichor, he appears much less pleased with his accomplishment.
Does anyone have the ability to create water? I fear the smell could give away our location.
"So, uh...how's it going in there? Everything still good?" calls out the old gnome. "I feel like I should be doing more to help here..."
Jader sighs as he sees the mess all over Kar. I suppose I’m reduced to chamber maid service now huh. Very well just don’t touch anyone with anything
"We're good, Grandfather. Whatever assaulted us, it's dead now. Seems like taking the right way has proven the wrong choice. My apologies, everyone."
Tess sighs.
Jader, you act as though giving service to your fellows is a burden to you. And Tessa, do not be ashamed. If this is not the correct path, it will not be because of these creatures. I suggest we investigate the area.
Painstakingly, Posh creeps along the wall through the darkness to the otherside.
"Oh, there's no other way out of here it seems." remarks the older man. "Well, may as well see if they've got 'em any magical goodies hiding about."
Alas, after all that work, there's nothing of note in this cavern - no magical auras or anything else of worth.
"Well, at least we won't need to worry about those things crawling up and causing trouble around town, I guess. Shall we move on?"
Without hearing any argument, Tessamine moves back towards the entrance and takes the other fork. She proceeds with the others at her back, the light from Kar's torch illuminating the area beyond.
Heading to the north, the cramped tunnels open up into a larger cavern. Its irregular walls open to dark spaces. A suspicious looking pile of bones sits in the center of the floor, while the faint scent of blood and viscera has almost - but not quite - faded away.
"Well isn't this pleasant." remarks Posh. "You know, I have a cousin...his house looks and smells like this after a meal."
"Anyone see anything? OH, right. Should prolly be quiet."
Jader quietly jokes with Kar about the chamber maid comment before the party makes its way to the other tunnel I have no problems serving my fellow companions Kar. It’s just that I’d rather do it with these sharp metal pokey things stabbing nasty creatures instead of cleaning up the goo on my fellow companions! Ha, ha, ha!
The half orc gives a growlish laugh
Upon reaching the other tunnel he is all business again looking this way and that with his superior darkvision. He motions to even take the lead so as not to draw attention to the others with their light source shining in the darkness.
Jader moves ahead and creeps forward carefully, his natural abilities letting him see into the chamber. A couple of large boulders occupy this room and a number of small, dead-end caves extend from this room.
As he nears, he hears the occasional clattering stone and the odd noises of a strange race. Ahead, four of the odd creatures from the farmhouse throw a small rock into a natural hole in the cavern's wall. They seem to be making a simple game of it - one throws it, then the rest make odd noises and another goes to pick it up. Then, that one throws and so on.
Caught up in their game, these creatures don't notice you as you creep in behind a boulder.
Jader quietly mutters the incantation for his message spell. He then points at Kar and Tess as the targets of the spell.
He then whispers what he sees to them
"More of them... This changes things. Perhaps our drunk friend wasn't the culprit after all. It could've been any of these like it."
Tess whispers back.
The possibility should not be over looked. I suggest see if we can communicate with them. One of then may be able to speak our language.
"Hmm...So I was reading the 'Complete Encyclopedia of Strange Cave Dwellers' a few years back and I'm fairly certain these things are babies of those we already encountered. They like to choke intruders...but language options are a bit limited. The riveting book stated undercommon was their native tongue."
I don’t speak undercommon does anyone else?
I do not.
"I was hoping to learn the language from the other choker, so me neither, sadly..."
Any ideas then?
Tess thinks for a little while.
"We could fall back for a while. Seal off the well so the beasts can't get out, or at least set up a watch so they don't secretly slash at people in their sleep again, maybe leave food to send the message that we don't mean to harm. Then, once we've got someone who can translate Undercommon, we head back and see if we can work something out together."
That would probably be best. If the parent didn't speak Common, it is unlikely that the children do. I agree.
"I wouldn't recommend walling this place off...I suspect that would cause the youn'ins to slowly starve to death...regardless of the sins of their parents that seems a bit harsh to me." adds Posh.
Jader sneaks away from the creatures and joins the party again
He whispers Lets continue this conversation elsewhere. Those long tentacles I don’t fancy being around my neck
Tess nods. "For now, we could just set up a watch, perhaps put a grate over the well. Shall we head back up?"
If there are no more tunnels, we should. Keep in mind, the parent will probably become aggressive if it thinks we are threatening it's young.
Frowning, Posh nods slowly. "If we grate the well, we'll have to remember to send food down at regular intervals for them."
You head back up, using the rope and with Kar having to push on Posh's backside more than once. When you get up and out into the sun once again, Ramona rushes over. Ah, I heard you tracked the creature here, did you...oh my...what happened to you?!
She exclaims the last, gesturing at the dried blood covering Tessamine's head.
"Me? What do-... Oh, right." Tess responds, the bloodied wound having slippes her mind after she healed it up. "Nothing a good bath won't fix. There were some... Things there, but we took care of them. We found more of the beasts that attacked last night, but the situation is a little awkward; there's more of them, including children. We'd like to try to come to an understanding with them first before resorting to killing them all, but we don't speak their tongue, Undercommon. We'd like to suggest sealing off the well with some sort of grate, or maybe post a watchman here. If they can't come up the well they'll likely be harmless to us."
I will take first watch on the well, until a solution is devised. We should ask if anyone amongst the settlers speaks the language.
Kar takes a seat cross-legged, watching the well.
"Wise choice Kar."
"Hmmm...." rubbing his chin, the gnome eyes the opening. "With the right equipment and time, I might be able to fashion a lid of sorts for that."
After hearing what the creatures are, Ramona's eyes widen. From what I understand, those creatures are inherently evil, right? Why would we want to have them living underneath our settlement. Are you sure their cavern ends and doesn't have another exit?
Her brows furrowed, she narrows her eyes at the well. I think I'd rather get rid of the problem and not risk another of their topside excursions.
We were able to communicate with one of them earlier. While it may be true that their kind is "inherently evil" on the main land, these creatures may have a different society than the ones we are familiar with. Perhaps on the morrow, one of our number may pray to their patron for the ability to detect the presence of evil, so we may know for sure. Until we do know for sure, I will not kill children. Even if they look different than us.
Kar goes from calm and collected at the beginning of his speech, slightly increasing in volume, until he is clearly angry by the end of it.
Ramona crosses her arms, her stance firm and expression dark. She relents though, and throws up her hands. Fine. But this is your problem now. I'd expect that to be sealed and guarded until we can assemble a team to be escorted to make such divinations. If that doesn't work, then I will send another team down there.
Sighing, she changes the subject. Have you thought any more about the sea caves? I fear now that the grindylows may be planning something...it's just a feeling, but those creatures find our land-dwelling kind rather tasty, from what I'm told.
Trying to ease Ramona's worries further, Tess further explains. "For what it's worth, they were living underneath the last colony too, but only seemed interested in emerging once the colonists had vanished. I don't think they're exactly eager to hang around us. I'll take a watch as well."
"As for the sea caves... By the sound of it, that might be a good next priority, though I feel we shouldn't dally with finding the goblin tribe. Busy times..."
Jader gives his comments to Ramona While there was something of an amount of communication with the larger of these creatures earlier in our exploration. I would hardly call it an intelligent conversation with give and take, compromising and the like. The creature looked confused and scampered off. It was drunk to be sure but I truly doubt that it wanted to reason with us. Very likely it was intimidated by our weapons and our numbers. Jader hesitates before telling Ramona the following Huh... we also found a large pile of bones in a nearby cavern adjacent to where we found those creatures down the well. I’d just as rather dispose of these creatures than face another attack when they think we least expect it. However my companions would rather exercise a heightened state of morality with any creature they encounter. Against my better judgment I’ll let them make the call on this. However I’m not taking watch next to the well allowing one of those creatures to strangle me as I dose off. I’ll protect my companions to the best of my ability but I won’t deliberately put myself in harms way for what I believe to be folly
Glaring at the woman a moment, Posh shuffles a bit on his cane and frowns. "It's the right thing to do. Would you prefer something randomly decide you are bad and dispose of you? Or should it try to find out first?"
Without awaiting an answer, the old man shuffles off to find some wood.
As Tess listens to Jader's report, her eyes widen in disbelief. When he's finished, she snaps a little. "I don't suppose you'd like to mention the monsters that ambushed us and tried to eat my face in that same room?" She gestures at the wound. "The ones we killed? Don't you think those are the more likely culprits for producing that pile of bones?"
She then catches herself, and takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry, that was unbecoming of me. I'm not saying we should spare the chokers at all costs. All I think is that a bit of careful consideration is in place, before we proceed to kill children, monstrous as they may look."
"As I said before, I'll take a watch as well. If anything happens to any colonist because of the chokers, I will take full responsibility."