Niyut touches Tacal. Over her hand two ethereal hands fade into being, they are aged and painted with sacred symbols of healing, and unlike Niyut's they are visible.
Garidan drawing the creature's ire could make his spilled blood a useful sacrifice; the momentary distraction was enough for the hobgoblin to jet his lashes around to the Ursikka's flank, probing for vulnerability.
Truk'tosh keeps up the offensive pressure. He pauses mid toss of his axe to tap into the ruthless instinct imbued in its blades before sending it spinning at the deadly insect again.
Niyut revives the injured Racal while Gruskorb flails at the Ursikka with little effect. Truk'tosh, however, has been fortunes against the huge beast. Feinting with his axe, the half-orc manages to catch the Ursikka off balance, and one of his blows lands a sneaky attack.
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Cursing vigorously in a confusing blend of four languages, the swashbuckler uses his rapier to slap aside the mandibles as their owner tries to close them around his body. He then gasps in pain as one swiping claw rakes his body where the armor doesn't cover, only to adroitly (but very narrowly) avoid the follow-up from the second with a scrambling step back. As a brighly-colored feline appears behind the beast and savagely mauls it, Garidan shifts his posture to a more defensive one, for the beast is far too dangerous to risk taking any more hits from, then uses a shard from his rapier to surround it with a cage of bone once the summoned great cat is clear. Even if their beastly foe manages to burst free from the ossified bars with no more effort than the giant Garidan last used this trick on, it'll still keep it occupied for a precious moment.
With another short step back, the young man swiftly pulls a flask from his bandolier and prepares to unleash it at the most opportune time. Hopefully this oversized horror will choke, literally, on the noisome contents of the flask.
A blue and white cheetah erupts out of the ether, flanking with Garidan to tear at the creature. As it does Malz chants a new spell, seeming to bend time itself around his allies.
Meanwhile his Psueodragon swoops in for a sting from above.
As Malthazir alters the flow of time, a giant cat emerges from the ether attacking the Ursikka. The summoned creature bites the magical beast and claws it once.
Garidaan produces a bone cage about the Ursikka, but the creatures mandibles tear the cage apart an instant later. It's claws lash out at the leopard, snatching the cat and ripping it apart. The two halves of its bloodied body flung in opposite directions before returning to their natural plane.
Malthazir and Niyut feel their invisibility fade.
Niyut pats the injured battle cattle comfortingly; she hopes Tacal will stay down until the battle ends.
With a brief thought her form begins to blur. Once she is well protected by the shadows of her robe she begins to weave the shadows cast by Garidan's stone to trap the beast.
As the creature tears through the cage, and then the unfortunate summon immediately thereafter, Garidan waits and watches patiently, his defensive posture still held. At just the right moment, he hurls the flask toward the gaping mandibles, where it shatters and envelopes the beast's head in a cloud of noxious, stomach-turning dust. After, his ioun torch flickers briefly, then hits the creature's watering eyes with an intense burst of light to further disorient it. At that point, Garidan cautiously slides a bit close to the creature, an anticipatory expression on his face.
The Ursikka shrugs off Niyut's shadows as the oracle blurs her image. Garidan launches a flask of ghast retch at the Ursikka that hits the creature squarely in the head. Yet, the beast doesn't become nauseated as he had hoped. Still, it is sickened by the noxious smell. A brilliant light bursts from Ruza, and while the Ursikka is dazzled by the display it's vision is unaffected.
Once Garidan is out of reach of the creature's mandibles, Truk'tosh resumes tossing his spinning axe.
Malz begins another summoning spell as his little dragon takes its attacks from a flanking position above the creature.
Truk'tosh hurls the waraxe of Morgrym at the Ursikka several times in rapid succession. The first two slice its thorax causing the beats to rise upon its hind legs. The sudden movement causes the druid aim to be thrown off. With a loud battlecry, the Firebird warrior unleashes a final heave of the axe which strikes the beast in the underbelly. A gush of deep crimson blood stains the floor as the Ursikka shrieks in pain.
Obviously, set upon by nerves as it sees the Ursikka writhe in pain, the pseudo-dragon flails about the air above the beast causing little more than a distraction.
Giving the nightmarish creature one more cross slash, the rogue took a step back after. Truk's good with his blades and doesn't scare from a fight. He can probably finish it off.
Though he heard a deep incision, he didn't have his eyes double-check his handiwork before his footing. Now was not the time to be prideful - not when one bite from the Ursikka could end him.
Yet, the distraction is enough to cause the beast to fail to take notice of Gruskorb as he unleashes his scorpion whip. The sharp razor-like talon snaps out and slices a deep gash across the Ursikka's right claw. It turns sharply to attack the hobgoblin but stops short when it once again becomes overwhelmed by its senses.
Cautiously moving forward a few paces more, Garidan smiles slightly as the creature's state suggests vulnerability; he knows exactly how to take advantage of that. Abandoning his previous posture of defense, the swashbuckler unleashes a flurry of shards into the vast, exposed side facing him. And the magic bestowed upon him earlier by Malthazir even allows Garidan to send a third shard plunging into the distracted beast, this one biting especially deep. The resulting scream that typically accompanies such injuries is somewhat muffled by the heaving bulk of flesh enveloping the shard.
Niyut is going to wait to see if their warriors slay the beast, if their attacks are insufficient, she will try to Shadow Trap it again.
Calling on Mylesar's power, arcs of lightning drift from Truk'tosh forms as he tosses his weapon again and again.
Another cheetah arrives to replace the first one and the two creatures tear into their opponent.
In a burst of shards, Garidan relentlessly attacks the Ursikka. The final barrage penetrating deep into the creatures hardened exterior. Riling in pain, the creatures exposes its underside which Truk'tosh exploits with a flash of his orcish axe. As the Ursikka falls motionless to the ground, the pseudo dragon sweeps down upon the foul creature, goring its body until no doubt is left.
Six glowing orbs of ethereal essence rise up from the creature's corpse.
With the creature finally and quite firmly dead, Garidan relaxes just a bit and turns to take a quick look back outside, worried that the noise of the fight might have drawn attention they don't need right now. "Well, that was all manner of fun we didn't need," he says over his shoulder in a shakey voice as the stone hovering above his head dims its light down to a mere spark when Garidan nears the breach. Already, it's occupant is directing the magic at her disposal to cleaning the fight's residue from himself and the others. "Niyut, that damned thing is nearly as large as some houses I've seen, how did you miss it when you came in?" Though his tone of voice is more tired than accusatory, it's clear that the swashbuckler is a bit disgruntled at being ambushed by something that shouldn't have been able to hide like that.
One of the six essences zips towards Niyut and blends into the shadows of her robe.
Niyut looks a bit chagrined as Garidan questions her. "It was not in my dream nor did my footfalls disturb it. I think it burrows."
"Malthazir, can you use your bad magic stone to heal the wounded, so that I may conserve my energy?"
She reaches into her sleeve and pulls out a tome. She peruses Collecting of Parts, Living and Dead for any mention of such a beast.
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Reading through the tome, Niyut discovers that the Ursikka's saliva is a major alchemical component to liquid ice, a substance that affects several different cold based spells. Working quickly, the oracle is able to harvest enough of the saliva in the empty glass vials in Tacal's packs to give Garidan enough to attempt to make 3 doses of the liquid ice.
Garidan, meanwhile, looks out from the tower to see if the group has alerted any of the giants. He hears nothing but the howling wind. An examination of the area, reveals to him and Truk'tosh that the creature had nested in a small cave on the cliff just above the broken tower. Tracks leading to the tower from the cave, indicate that the ursikka had likely heard Tacal as they approached and came down the cliff and over the top of the tower, attacking the group through the hole in the vaulted roof.
Looking down the spiral stairwell, a cold breeze can be felt. No noise is heard nor anything else revealed by a thorough search.
Garidan mulls over Niyut's explanation with a slightly sour grimace. "Oh, that's a nice prospect, things popping up out of the ground to try and eat us." As the swashbuckler speaks, he keeps casting wary looks at the ground outside and the floor beneath his boots. That continues until he and Truk'tosh locate where the creature had come from. Examining the dead beast's apparent burrow, as well as the cliff face leading up to it,with a speculative expression, Garidan calls back to the others.
"You know, that thing wouldn't have made its nest there if there wasn't a steady supply of food to be had, but I'm not seeing bones or remains around here. Might be they're all up inside there," he adds while indicating the entrance above. "And I'm wondering if maybe some folks not as capable as ourselves might have encountered that thing. If so, and if it did indeed drag the remains home for consumption in peace and quiet, we might find something worthwhile if we investigate." Turning to face the rest of the party, he points over his right shoulder, back toward the burrow. "Think we can spare a bit of time for a closer look?"
Truk'tosh finds no joy in victory. The Ursikka's death meant safe passage for the party but at the cost of another life on a world where the dead were already overwhelming the living. The cataclysm changes nothing. The strong have always consumed the weak he rationalizes, though the thought gives him little comfort. Truk'tosh wipes the edges of his blades clean while Malthazir's magic mends the wounded and then prepares to move on exploring the ruined tower.
Hearing Garidan's theory, Truk looks for signs of recent passage.
"By all means, let's explore the cave."
The cave entrance is 17' feet above the pathway that encircles the tower. With plenty of hand-holds, the group has little trouble scaling up the cliff face and into the entrance. The entry way has a low ceiling but is rather wide. Crouching down, you are able to easily enter. Ten feet into the cave, the ceiling goes sharply up and the cave expands. With a slight descent to the back of the cave, you see a mound of softer dirt and gravel in which the Ursikka made its bed. The back right of the cave descends further, yet the stench from the area is clearly where the beast had deposited a substantial amount of its feces.
Niyut notices a glimmer from the mound of waste. Something had reflected some of the light shed from Garidan's ioun torch. Focusing the light, she is able to make out the tip of a dagger or short sword half submerged in the grey, stinking mound.
An exit at the back of the cave can be found as if the mountain itself had split open. The passage is narrower, but a medium sized creature could squeeze through it.
Other than the Urskika's unmistakeable tracks, you find no signs of anything else in the cave or along the snow covered path outside.
Happy to be bypassing the mound of feces, Gruskorb looked curiously into the crevice that could be considered an exit. "Could be from the world getting tossed about. Size seems too good to be true though."
While he would have no problem getting through the opening, the suspicious rogue first took a look at the nature of the portal itself. Natural or man-made?
Niyut waves a hand and the minor spirits that congregate around her at all times unburies the gleaming metal thing. Her gazes shifts to the world of the spirits to see if there is any magic in the cave.
Gruskorb runs his hands over the rough, igneous rock that makes up the mountains. He instantly recognizes that the opening was made by a massive shift in the stone, likely an earthquake. However, the worn nature of the rock would suggest that the shifting took place a long time ago. The narrow passage leads southeast until it gently turns to the left obscuring his darkvision.
Niyut magically pulls the blade from the filth. Recognizing its length as a dagger, she again calls upon the ether to clean the feces from it and polish it to an illustrious shine. While not magical, it is quite exquisite with a steel grip forged in one piece with the blade. Remnants of the leather straps, which were wound about the pommel to increase the grip, still cling to the old dagger. Looking over her shoulder at the blade, the swashbuckler would estimate its age at over a hundred years old, based on the age of the leather.
Niyut will move down the narrow passage.
Feeling as safe as a cat in a cupboard, Gruksorb followed the spirit-talker into the cranny.
Following a short and pleasantly uneventful climb, Garidan prowls carefully into the nest, his ioun torch lit to full shine. The smell makes him gag a bit, though he quickly adapts to it; still, he's grateful that Niyut is the one to spot and retrieve the blade. "My, but that's a pretty bit of work, and old too," Garidan remarks after a quick examination of the weapon with the help of his sister's granted knowledge on the subject. "Won't take any time or time effort at all to rewrap the grip, and someone'll have a good blade to use."
After a questioning look at Niyut to ensure that she won't object, the swashbuckler tucks the blade into a convenient spot on his harness for the moment, then pads quietly after her and Gruskorb down the narrow cleft at the burrow's rear. A soft request has the light of his hovering stone dim back down to nearly nothing, in case that passage leads to somewhere that such a beacon would draw unfavorable notice.
As the three explorers exit the small passage way, they enter into an open cavern. Two passages open to the north and to the south. In a small nook on the eastern wall, a small, humanoid figure is lying on the ground. Lying on its side, the figure has it's back to you and remains still.
Niyut approaches the small figure with stealth and caution, taking in what there is to see.
With Niyut scouting what looks like a body, Garidan takes up position at the southern passage, peering curiously down its length as far as his dark-adapted eyes and the curvature of the walls will allow. He keeps his movements cautious and quiet the whole time, well aware that this section of the cave may have made a good home for anything small enough to negotiate the passage and willing to scavenge the kills of the larger beast lying dead in the ruined tower.
Niyut approaches the lying figure and realizes that it is a frozen, corpse that had died long ago. The skin is shriveled and taut without eye. The thin, stringy hair is matted and frozen to the hooded cloak that has significantly deteriorated. The ears give a clue to its elven origin yet, they are not as elegant as she had seen of the Clan of Chana. You would guess that the person was once half-elven. Nothing on the body that can be seen is magical. As she rummages through the corpses' belongings, Niyut finds a fine waterskin made of a thin metallic mesh. Still filled with a liquid, she can see that it is a large quantity of a magical potion that will allow a person to breath underwater.
Meanwhile, Garidan investigates the southern passage to find another cavern. The odor coming from the cavern is putrid and he gags a little but does not enter.
Gruskorb looks to the north and sees the passage open to a large area to the northwest, and a side passage turns to the east before the cavern. He also notices a cool, misty breeze coming from the passage.
Niyut says a prayer to send unquiet spirits to their rest as she pockets the potion. Then she stands and pads her way to the north eastern passage.
"This might be another exit," communicated the hobgoblin to his allies. The longears lying on the ground made him think of magical doings though, so he was not fully certain the breeze was mundane. Nonetheless, the hope of its authenticity burned bright within him.