Goggeck takes a step back, and swings at the annoying scorpion. Less hard, but more accurately. And despite the tune being in some nonsense, non-dwarven language, it *was* catchy.
Glor advances and fires more earth.
I may be a one trick pony, but its a good trick.
Glor strikes the remaining scorpion down with another earthen blast, and then Goggeck splatters the dying creature all over the tunnel floor. A good dwarf sees the job done, through and through. The tunnel is now clear to pass.
Although both scorpions have been smashed with mighty dwarven warhammers, their stingers remain intact enough to maybe harvest some death juice. Other than that and a half-eaten giant rat corpse, there's not much left.
"A good day's work, by Trudd's arms!", Goggeck exclaims, wiping the worst of the gore from his hammer on the cleaner parts of the scorpion corpses.
"What? Dead already?" Urist asks, nudging a corpse with his boot. "Oi. You lads're somethin' ta be feared alright. Reminds me 'a Granite Squad back at tha ol' fort. Great lads, they were. Shame 'bout tha necromancer invasion."
The dwarf ticks his weapon away and gestures toward the bodies. "Alrigh' then, let's get this cleaned up. I want ev'ry useful scrap o' flesh an' chitin carved off and put away. Never know when we'll need it."
"Oh." he adds, looking around. "Any wounded?"
Toulbe stops his singing and looks around. He seems sad that he didn't get to finish the tale. he sits down and yawns loudly. "I shall go back to the wagons, make sure no one was spooked in the middle of our little bump in the road." he said nodding.
"Thanks fer th' song, Toulbe. Music makes any job easier." Boomer grinned, following the gnome back to the cart. The others could handle the cleanup this time. Boomer would keep watch over their supplies.
Goggeck nods.
"Aye, it were a catchy jingle. If only it had been in good Dwarven speech! But welcome nonetheless."
This is akin to a compliment for anything non-Dwarven, by Goggeck's standards.
Goggeck is being noticeably more obvious than he has been so far in the expedition. Newfound confidence perhaps.
You had enough warning from your pointman Gunnar to leave the wagons far enough behind. The horse and donkeys are fine if not a little impatient to get to the next stop and the promise of feed.
The expedition leaves the splattered scorpions behind and moves on.
Trudging forward, after a while, Gunnar notices some scattered bones along the path.
Moving forward, more bones are spotted here and there, almost as if something is leaving them behind as a trail.
Goggeck eyes the bones suspiciously.
"Be this beast...or dwarf?" , he mutters, his hands now on his Longhammer.
Goggeck is unable to discern any evidence of any sort of ritual. He can’t necessarily rule it out, either.
"Looks like somethin's suckin' 'em clean. Bugs 'll do that, given enough time. Hell, time 'll do that on it's own after a while. They're all from different critters. 'Cept those two big ones. Those look like they're from people."
Toulbe looks at the bones a bit and nods "Huh...well alright then. Not sure what to make of it. Best keep our eyes peeled then is what you're saying?" he said mostly confused.
Drawing and loading his crossbow, Hezekh proceeds cautiously, carefully watching the tunnel ahead.
Staring at the bones, Goggeck adds:
"Whatever - or whomever - did this is no dwarf friend. We find them? We smash them."
Slowing your roll a bit to err on the side of caution, the expedition continues along. More bones come across your path, randomly scattered, no complete skeleton, just a bat skull here, a giant rat vertebrae there, this one here a few yards down looks like a dwarven femur.
The wagons roll along, and after some time you start to come across other items along with the random bone. Here’s a gold piece, it looks shiny and new as if freshly minted. But the stamp on the coin is unlike anything you’re familiar with.
Looking about as you move along, you find such gold pieces. Other metal items come across your path, a brass helm, the business end of a pickaxe (missing its wooden handle), and an empty electrum scroll case. All of these items are completely devoid of tarnish. They look brand new.
Hezekh bends down to pick up the scroll case. ”Well made, this. Can’t say I ken the style, though.” He holds it up in front of his face and sniffs a bit. ”Electrum, just as I thought. It has a particular flavor, the way the gold and silver mingle together. Pleasant.”
I am thinking maybe we have a scavenger that cannot digest metal buy has some form of digestive acids that polish what it cannot eat.
Toulbe stares at the coin for half a minute and shakes his head. He turns his attention to the other items "Huh, well that's not common to today's smithies. Still though, definitely Dwarven in Aesthetic. It would've been before I was born I think...though I'm not that well versed in Dwarven Crafting I'll admit." he said with some certainty.
"That's a good guess, Glor. I've heard tales about things like that. Having trouble remembering the specifics though."
Goggeck stares at the coins with a look of distaste:
"Minted in the Droskar Theocracy, without a doubt. I do not recognise the make of the helm."
"And I believe you might be on to a solid vein of thought there, Glor."
Having a slight inclination as to what might be leaving such a trail, the group moves forward.
Urist is lost in revery, again. Likely, this situation reminds him of this one time, which reminds him of this other time, which reminds him of... and so on and so on.
Every one else, however, is super alert. Gunnar, again, is the first to notice a slick trail of slimy substance on the rough hewn rocky floor. What's ahead? a giant slug or snail?
But then there it is. On the edge of your dark vision, a quivering translucent block of living jelly, roughly ten feet cubed in size and mass. Almost perfectly clear, it is only made visible by the particulate floating within its gelatinous matrix. Most terrifying, perhaps, are the two goblins perfectly suspended and motionless within. They must be very recent victims, considering only the softest of bodily tissues, their eyes, seem to have been digested.
As you come upon the creature, it is slowly traversing the cavern ahead of you, inch by inch sliding on a thin film of its own acidic secretions. However, as soon as it comes into vision, it also seems to somehow sense your presence, as it begins to change direction and is now moving towards your caravan.
Gunnar must have been struck dumbfounded at what lies ahead as the rest of the dwarves, and Toulbe, spring readily into action.
Goggeck sees the monstrosity, grits his teeth, and draws his crossbow to begin showing it craftdwarfship...
Toulbe scratches his head as he stares at the thing "Who...who makes living pudding...." he says confused as he turns around in his seat and begins rummaging.
A few moments later, he pulls out a bag of bottles, and about another second later his hand dives in and retrieves a bottle of glowing blue liquid.
Hezekh snaps off a quick shot, but misses cleanly. Wasting no time, he loads another bolt.
Urist glares at the wobbling cube, but then he breaks into laughter. "Hahaha, think it's a bit too late ta rescue them poor souls stuck in, lads?" Urist then moves forward and to the side, keeping himself closest to the wall that's less obstructed to keep his options open. Steel glistens in his steady hand as the soldier prepares for combat.
I knew it. Glor says as he eyes the creature before he fires stone at it before backing up.
As the big block of clear jelly slowly slides toward the caravan, Hezekh, Goggeck, and Glor launch a round of volleys at the jiggly mass. Hezekh’s bolt flies stray, while Goggeck’s pierces clean through whatever sort of membrane is holding the thing together. A bit of jelly begins to ooze out of the bolt sized hole. Glor follows with a blast of earthen material, blasting a substantially larger hole in the creature’s facade. Now there is a crossbow bolt and a bunch of gravel bits floating in the gelatinous substrate.
Meanwhile, Toulbe digs through his stuff, producing something he thinks will help, while Urist gets into readied position.
save Fort DC 12; frequency 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1d2 Str; cure 1 save.
Boomer lobbed a bomb in the jiggling thing's direction.
Gunnar curses under his breath, firing off a crossbow bolt at the gelatinous creature.
Boomer and Gunnar add to the toll taken by the block of jelly as it slowly wobbles toward the group. The thing's front side looks as if it's having some trouble holding itself together. However, the two goblin corpses staring you down with empty eye sockets floating motionless within must certainly remind you of the danger this thing poses.
"Slay it swifter!", Goggeck calls as he continues shooting.
Toulbe hops off the cart and comes running up with his bag and alchemical weapon in hand.
Boomer tossed another bomb.
Ivar snaps off another shot at the blob of goo, then loads another round.
Gunnar snorts derisively, then loads another bolt and fires, but flinches at something as he squeezes the trigger, growling to his left.
Urist looks back at his allies, and then at the creature. He looks right into the empty eyes of one of the dead goblins, just as it gazes lifelessly at him. "Ah'm goin' in. Take it down while ah hold it!"
The dwarf's eyes roll back as he loses himself to thoughts not his own, an aura of magic surrounding his body. This odd display lasts for a few seconds before he snaps back into reality as if nothing happened, marching towards his foe.
Glor simply keeps up with the barrage on the ten foot cube of slime.
The thing looks like it's starting to lose cohesion. Urist bravely (stupidly?) steps forward to try and hold off it's approach. Mindlessly, the cube simply moves forward to engulf the dwarven soldier.
Urist tries to jump out of the way, and he almost makes it, but still the wobbling jelly catches him by the leg.
To your horror, you watch as Urist is immediately paralyzed and becomes engulfed within the cube. The thing then glides forward until it reaches your front line.
Boomer quickly follows with another bomb, the flames lick over the surface, further disrupting the cohesion holding the cube together (and your fearless leader inside!). Whatever was buzzing in Gunnar's ear disrupts his aim ever so slightly, and his bolt nearly misses. Too bad too!
”Hold on boss man!” Hezekh says, before dropping his crossbow and raking his clawed hand through the gelatinous mass, doing his best to further disrupt its integrity.
"Damn it, dwarf! The idea is *not* to get eaten!"
He swears as he reloads and fires.
Hezekh punches through the gelatinous mass with his metal arm and pulls Urist out just in time. The cube wobbles violently as its structure begins to loose, and then, in a sudden gush, it's innards become outards as it turns into a sizzling puddle across the cavern floor.
Urist remains paralyzed for a few moments longer before he regains feeling in his extremities. Before you know it, he's back on his feet again, probably laughing it off, although his beard is a bit singed at the edges.
Along with Urist, there are two goblin corpses also freed from the mucilaginous matrix.
"Nasty," Gunnar remarks flatly, stowing the crossbow and stepping forward to examine the remains. He glances around at the like-new items laying about.
"s'pose the jelly did this? Shame they're so brainless or they'd make good for polishin' things..."