Amalie moves in to where her friends are. Are any of you hurt? she says, trying to suss out if she should release a flood of Sarenrae's holy power.
"A couple of bites, but nothing serious," Lubella replied to Amalie. "Arcos may have got bitten by that leaping rat."
"I did unfortunately get bit. I'd certainly appreciate a bit of your healing."
"I'm ok, just a little queasy from this damn stench. I say when we find what we came for, we burn the place. For the sanitation of the neighborhood."
Rexus shoves the possum creature away from him. "Can someone get this thing off of me first?!?" He scrambled away from the creature, conjured a small ball of acid, and threw it at the creature.
Rexus shoves the possum creature away from him. "Can someone get this thing off of me first?!?" He scrambled away from the creature, conjured a small ball of acid, and threw it at the creature.
The acid splashes harmlessly on the ground before the creature, which hisses its disapproval at the nobleman.
The possum creatures pick up rocks, and hurl them at you, one towards Lubella, the other towards Rexus.
Lubella easily sidesteps the telegraphed throw, but Rexus catches it square in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
"Oh, give it a rest!", Lubella exclaimed. "Why don't you just let us look around for a bit? Then I wouldn't have to beat you senseless!" She stepped forward carefully and struck at her tiny assailant again.
Lubella's swing strikes true, and again, it feels like she's striking a thick oak with the flat of her blade - her hand tingles from the reverberations of the unexpected resistance. However, it howls in pain, so her blow must have caused it some pain.
Felicia steps up once again, lunging at the closest critter!
"Take a bath creepo!"
Felicia's blade cuts deep, and while the creature's flesh is reluctant to slice, it yields at last, sending the possumfolk to the ground.
Amalie walks up behind her friends and pulses out a blast of healing, mentally selecting out those creatures not friendly to her.
"Thanks Amalie! That smells quite a bit better!" Felicia gives a relieved gasp for a moment as the warm, summery scent of Amalie's channel hits her.
"My feet feel a lot better now, Amalie," Lubella declared. "Thanks!"
Arcos lines up a clear shot at the remaining possum creature, summons another blast of lightning, and hurls it at the beast.
He ends up misjudging the creature's nimbleness, and it leaps away from the bolt, leaving only a blackened spot upon the basement's stone.
The creature hisses at the people invading its lair, but scampers away into one of the holes in the wall.
"Thank you!", Lubella called out after the retreating creature. "We'll just have a look around and be on our way."
Satisfied that the possumfolk were likely responsible for the debris in the depression, she started sorting through it. It seemed unlikely that it would yield anything related through their quest, but you never knew.
"What are those creatures?", Lubella asked the others. "I've never heard of them."
"I've no idea," Rexus said, sheathing his sword cane. "But they were definitely angry and unpleasant." His nose wrinkles as he sees the sprays of putrid vomit still stinking up the room.
The pillows and blankets are all gnawed and smell of wild animal, but the coinage mixed throughout makes the annoyance of these possumfolk somewhat bearable.
"Hospitality certainly isn't their strong suit, I'll give you that.", Lubella replied. She walked around the room, looking for other items, as well as for passages leading to other chambers. "I wish I knew what we're looking for," she said.
Lubella finds little else of interest in the large chamber, but a stone staircase descends in the southeastern corner of the room. A rusted, half-destroyed iron grating blocks access to the stairs. A door is set into the grating with an obvious lock upon it.
"Arcos, let's see if that key you found will open this lock," Lubella said.
The key indeed fits in the lock, though it takes several moments of fighting over a century of neglect to make it turn. Nevertheless, it does unlock, and theiron door groans on rusted hinges as it opens. Lubella's light reveals a closed door at the bottom of the stairs.
"That hasn't been opened in a long time!", Lubella said. She walked down the stairs and examined the door, checking it for any mechanical traps.
Lubella descends the stairs and examines the door for additional security, finding none. Apparently, the former occupants felt that the iron grating was security enough, and this door lacks even a proper lock. The door opens, and another foul smell assaults her nostrils, this time of rancid sewage.
The four of you can clearly hear the sound of something splashing through liquid, though Rexus is too busy gagging on the putrid air wafting from beyond. "My, that's ripe," he says through watery eyes, fetching a handkerchief from his pocket to cover his nose and mouth.
The two of you can tell it sounds like two creatures are making the splashing noises. Felicia, while you can't tell exactly what they are due to the overpowering stench of waste, you can tell that they aren't human.
Lubella almost gagged at the stench. "Gaah! This must connect to the sewers!", she declared. "Be careful, it sounds like there's a couple of creatures moving in the sewage!" She moved cautiously into the room, trying to locate the source of the splashing, without getting too close. She tried her best to breathe through her mouth instead of her nose.
A fifty-foot diameter pool of rancid, brown slurry fills most of this circular chamber, and is the source of the foul stench emanating from the portal. Chunks of plaster have fallen away, leaving ragged patches behind in the walls and ceilings and mounds of rubble on the floor. What wall space remains is decorated in crude drawings and symbols of sinister form. Greasy-looking chains run between four stout pillars rising from the muck and anchor to various points on the wall.
Lubella's light reveals two man-sized forms wallowing in the muck - man-sized, but certainly not quite man-shaped. Two tumorous-faced masses of flesh with pudgy arms turn as they spy the light breaking the gloom, and begin to advance towards her, their roars echoing over the splashes of the pool's slimy contents.
"Oh, gross!", Lubella said, as she saw the disgusting creatures. "I'm going to stay on dry ground and wait for them to come to us. I'm not going in that filth!" She readied herself, preparing to step forward and strike the abominations as they emerged from the muck. She wasn't sure how fast they moved, so she held off using her magical dance for a few seconds.
Felicia, before the party moves down the stairs, is finally overcome by the smell in her relaxed state. She vomits heartily in the above room.
A little better, but still reluctant to breathe at all, she follows Lubella down the stairs. Seeing the halfling ready her sword, Felicia steps to and does likewise, ready to meet out vengeance for her stinging nose.
"Disgusting... Oi! Lumpy! You any kin to the pile I just left upstairs?" She says with a cheeky half smile.
"I feel sorry for you with your sensitive sense of smell, Felicia," Lubella said, as she waited for the creatures. "It's bad enough for me!"
Arcos follows Lubella and Felicia into the chamber, and grimaces at the masses of cancerous flesh lumbering towards them. "Ugh, those are worse than you made them out to be, Lubella!", he says, conjuring a bolt of lightning.
The creatures cease their wallowing in the filthy water, and clamber out of the pit to charge at the two women. Arcos hurls the bolt as they approach, scorching one of the creature's arms, but it doesn't lose a step as it continues to advance. They charge towards the two women, and their blades flash in response. Lubella's blade can't quite find purchase, sliding off the creature's blubbery hide, but Lubella's falcata cuts into the other one's flesh. However, while it slices through and draws blood, the wound is shallow and superficial, clearly resistant to her mortal weaponry. They swipe at the two warrior women, raking at them with blackened claws at the end of stubby arms.
The creatures find their way past both women's defenses, but only draw thin lines of blood with each strike.
Rexus moves in as well, pressing himself against the curving wall. "I need space for my color spell!", he shouts, conjuring a glob of acid and hurling it one of them.
His spell doesn't even come close, splashing against the wall and sizzling for a moment before disappearing from existence.
"How dare you scratch me!", Lubella cried in indignation. She began her battle dance and lashed out at the creature that clawed her. Although she had fought to subdue the possumfolk, Lubella did not hold back against these abominations. There was something just not right about them!
"Lubella, try the shiny knife! Mine won't cut deep!" Felicia motions for rexus to come around as she steps more out of his way.
Limping down the staircase, Amalie takes a moment, waiting to see if anyone needs healing.
Lubella drops any pretense of restraint, and whirls around, slashing the creature across its warty chest. The wound would be enough to drop a man, spilling his entrails across the floor, but the creature's hide refuses to slice deep. Black blood spills to the floor, though, and it howls in pain. Felicia is less fortunate - while her attack easily connects, her falcata simply slides across the creature's flesh without cutting.
Arcos summons up a crackling bolt of electrical energy and flings it at the creature.
"Take that, Smelly!", Lubella exclaimed as Arcos hit the disgusting, sewage loving creature with an arc of electricity.
Arcos spies his opening, hurling the bolt of lightning at the creature in a moment when Lubella gives him a window. It strikes the creature square in the chest, blackening its scabrous chest. However, while the creature teeters from the blast, it does not fall.
With single minded focus, the putrid sacks of flesh continue to slash their claws at Lubella and Felicia.
Their assault is clumsy, and Lubella easily sidesteps the creature's attacks. Felicia dodges away from one of them, and takes a moment to taunt the creature, sticking out her tongue at it. That's all the opening the creature needed, and while she rolls with the strike, its claws slice open a wound on her shoulder, slickening her armor with blood.
"Alright! This ought to even the odds!", Rexus shouts, saying an arcane phrase and blasting the two monstrosities with a kaleidoscopic assault upon their senses. It only lasts a moment, but when the colors disappear, it does not seem to have affected the creatures in the slightest.
"Um...that's not good," Rexus says with a twinge of fear in his voice.
Lubella continued her assault, trying to being the disturbing creature down.
What came forth from Felicia was not fit for the mouth of a lady nor for the pages of this esteemed record of the adventure.
Amalie looks around, and sees Felicia get hit. Hm, she may be ok for right now. No need to try getting to her just yet. she thinks as she hears Felicia's stream of curses as strong as any she's heard before.
Feeling the stone in her hand, she flings it at the creature.
Felicia, struck with the sudden realization, rips the dagger from its place behind her back, tucked into her corset. "I forgot that I had this!" letting her falcata dangle unused from her left hand, she lashes out with the silvered knife.
Amalie throws the stone at the creature, waiting for a moment where Lubella wasn't in the way. She spies her moment, but pulls her shot when she sees Felicia cartwheel into the room, causing the glowing stone to fly over the beast's head.
Lubella whirls, leaping into the air and slashing at the infernal beast. A nasty gash opens on its neck, and black blood spills upon the floor. The creature wobbles, as though it were too stubborn or stupid to know its death is near.
Felicia pulls the silver dagger from her corset, stabbing at the monster with its gleaming blade. Some dull recognition in the threat that the blade poses alarms the creature, and it catches her wrist, preventing it from connecting.
"Argh! Get Down!", Lubella cried in frustration, as she sliced at the creature's unnatural flesh. By all rights this thing should be dead by now!
"Why won't these things die?!?", Arcos cries, conjuring another lightning bolt and hurling it at the badly injured monster. The electricity arcs towards it, but he can't quite catch it in the blast.
The monster rears up at Felicia, swiping at her twice with blackened claws. Lubella's attempts to do so as well, summoning its remaining strength into a final strike before collapsing before her. The beasts attack with little change in their tactics, and Felicia is able to read her opponent, dodging easily away from its slashes.
Rexus pulls his blade from within his cane again, and stabs at the creature. To the untrained eye, his strikes are clumsy and amateurish, but Felicia sees his true goal - he's striking any time the creature prepares to strike at her, providing some cover.
"Finally, one down!", Lubella exclaimed. She switched her attention to the remaining horror, trying to end it's miserable existence. She danced to her right to give Arcos and Amalie a better shot.
Amalie takes a 5 foot step closer to the creature, placing it squarely between her and Felicia. Swinging her walking stick from overhead, she tries to give it a swift crack.
The smell is obviously bothering Felicia more than it seems. She just can't make a meaningful connection with the dagger.
Amalie raises her quarterstaff high above her head, sending it crashing down upon the head of the mass of flesh between her and Felicia. Its blubbery hide protects it from the blow, however, and it doesn't seem to even register the pain.