Seeing Thorek's action, Caladra decides to follow suit. She takes a few steps forward before readying herself for a potential attack from the fishers.
Bree steps up, bow in hand, and looses an arrow at the creature still attached to the ceiling.
Bree's arrow clatters off the other fisher's carapace as Thorek, Caladra, and Lily stand at the ready with their own weapons.
The fisher still clinging to the cave ceiling skitters forth. Emerging closer to the glow from Bree’s magic, you can see the creature more clearly.
As it approaches, Lily fires an arrow that pierces deeply between the creature's chitinous plates.
Undeterred, it extrudes a long cord of silk as it moves. With blinding speed, it fires this filament almost like a jet of water at Thorek.
The sticky silk wraps around the dwarf's arm and clings to his armor.
With surprising strength, the fisher pulls the filament and drags Thorek towards the pool, his armored feet gouging furrows in the earthen floor until they reach the water's edge.
Boudra lets out a stifled cry as she sees the filament wrap around Thorek. Choosing quickly, she decides to fire at the cave fisher that's pulling him in rather than the filament itself...
Boudra's bolt plunges into what can best be described as the creature's shoulder, a gap in its carapace where its limb connects to its torso.
The other fisher thrashes in the water, making a low, keening screech and pushing itself along to the cave wall. It desperately grips the rock face and climbs back along to the ceiling.
"Ha! Not a such a great swimmer, are ya you ugly basta--urk!" As the second fisher nabs his arm and drags him towards the edge of the pool Thorek grits his teeth and tries to dig in to no avail, boots scraping across the stone. Abandoning the dorn-dergar his hand slaps at his belt for his battleaxe. "Hey beastie, didn't anyone ever tell ya it's not polite to stick your tongue out at people?" the dwarf laughs madly as he brings the axe down.
Cedric doesn't quite have the reach to get to either of the cave fishers, so instead he moves to a position where he won't include either of the enemies and channels the benevolence of Erastil to replace his remaining prepared bless spell with a cure spell for Caladra.
Cyrioul pulls a different wand from his belt, a slender piece of oak, and speaks a command word to strike at the creature that is trying to reel in the dwarf...
Caladra flinches at Cedrics touch, more for thr feeling of the magic than from him. "thanks but you should have saved it incase someone else needed it more." she says and waits, getting more impatient with the fishers. When one grabs at Thorek with its sticky silk she goes to help before seeing the stubborn dwarf has it under control.
Thorek's axe slices through the silken filament, freeing himself from the fisher's pull.
Meanwhile, Cyrioul's bolt of magical energy strikes the upside-down critter and wracks its body with pain.
Bree moves to get a clear shot at the fisher on the ceiling, but it jerks back, leaving her arrow to whiz past him into the dark.
Lily happy that her compatriot is free decides to shoot the closest fisher.
More arrows fly at the creature, including one that lodges in its carapace without piercing the flesh beneath.
Undaunted, the fisher extrudes another bit of silk to snare Thorek. This time, the sticky cord wraps around his waist and shoulder, securing him tightly.
Thorek is jerked forward and lifted into the air, dangling above the water and within reach of the creature's claws.
"'Orek!" Boudra cries, distraught. She knows that if the creature drops him it's not going to be good, but she doesn't know what else to do...so she takes another shot at the cave fisher!
Unfortunately the bolt just clatters against the ceiling!
Perhaps drawn by the display of divine magic, the other fisher weaves its own length of silk to snare Cedric.
However, being drenched in water interferes with the composition, and the limp filament strikes only the ground next to him.
"Don't spray your snot at me," Cedric says, frowning. The thing may be on the ceiling, but the roof is relatively low and he has a reach weapon. Maneuvering himself to be more or less under it (even if that means getting his boots soaked) he tries to skewer the thing against the roof.
Fighting down a sense of panic, Thorek forces himself to grin at the monster as he's reeled in. "Heh, thank you, I was just wondering how to get close enough to give you a taste of this!" the dwarf cries as his battleaxe becomes wreathed in crackling golden flames.
Caladra laughs more out of shock than anything as Thorek gets pulled up by the other fisher. "Why didn't I think of that?" she said before reluctantly dripping her greatsword and drawing her composit longbow. It was obvious they weren't coming closer to her and she couldn't go to them. So she aimed at the fisher in the wayer before firing at it.
Raising his wand again at the cave fisher holding Thorek, the wizard hopes to weaken it just enough that the dwarf might finish it off and find a hold to not fall down into the water...
Lily just shots another shot at the fisher with a slightly panicked look in her eyes.
Bree worries about hitting Thorek by accident (assuming she would hit anything!), so shoots at the one near Cedric instead.
The fisher, dripping wet from its fall, twitches and convulses on the ceiling as Cedric's spear and arrows from Bree and Caladra pierce its carapace.
Likewise, the fisher drawing Thorek into the air clings both to the ceiling and to life as the magic from Cyrioul's wand wounds it.
The corona of flame erupting around Thorek's axe startles the creature.
Lily's arrow embeds itself in one of her target's chitinous plates but without reaching its actual body.
Panicked and dripping blood into the water, the fisher dangling Thorek like a fish on a line seems intent on a desperate final meal. It snaps at the airborne dwarf with its claws, but they only scratch against his armor.
Boudra hastily reloads her crossbow. Seeing Thorek prepare to unleash his flaming axe upon his foe, she assumes he has matters in hand and instead aims for the fisher Cedric has at the end of his spear.
Unfortunately, her bolt goes wide and snaps against the cave roof.
Her target scuttles carefully forward on the ceiling to retaliate against Cedric. It's claws snap on the cleric, bruising his muscles and drawing blood.
Cedric Grunts against the pain, but doesn't have a lot of time to think about it. This thing needs to be put down with haste. He steps farther away and tries to repeat the skewering he just did. "Why won't you just die already?" he implores it as he thrusts upward with his spear.
Cedric's thrust skewers the fisher like a hog, the spearhead piercing all the way through its carapace and scraping the ceiling beyond.
With a last, wracking convulsion, the creature plummets into the water, dousing Cedric with a splash of fetid water.
A little full of herself over her recent success with both melee and a single arrow shot, Caladra takes aim at the second fisher in an attempt to aid Thorek.
"Take that! Argh, dammit!" Thorek throws a mighty swing at the cave fisher, but misses and instead starts swinging wildly on the end of the sticky lash.
Lily just says,"Just die all ready.", as she lets an arrow fly.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lily's arrow plunges into the creature's head.
The fisher grows rigid, but its limbs clench tightly in death, maintaining its grasp on the cave ceiling and leaving Thorek swaying in midair, swinging his flaming axe.
The pool still ripples wildly from where the other fisher fell into the water.
"Thorek, if you think you can jump clear, I could just grease the fisher to make him fall. Try to save that sticky tendril there if you can," Bree hollers to him.
As the swinging lessens, the dwarf throws a wary look at the dead cave fisher still holding onto him, then starts looking around the room and pool once satisfied that it's dead.
"Looks like there's a few bodies in the pool," he calls, has he starts to swing himself more deliberately in the direction of the 'shore'. "Mayhap unwary trogs, or sacrificed captives? Might be worth poking around down there."
As the strand reaches it's maximum arc, Thorek carefully times the forward swing and cuts the line, hoping his momentum will carry him to safety. ...the awkwardness of cutting the strand and the weight of his armor prove too great a barrier, and the dwarf's leap sees him hit the water just shy of the shore, sending up a great spray of water.
A moment later the warpriest breaks the surface, sputtering and cranky and he hauls himself out.
Bree murmurs a few arcane words to cause the rocks that support the fisher to be coated in a slippery grease.
The fisher slips down and plops into the water behind Thorek, a small wave washing over the already drenched dwarf.
A small, pale fish wriggles about, caught between two plates in Thorek's armor.
The bodies of the fishers float lazily in the algae-painted water, as do their lengths of silk.
Cyrioul looks into the water, then backs away. "I'm certainly not the strongest swimmer, but if needs must, I can go in to look for more. Though perhaps it would be best to remember this for later retrieval?"
Bree murmurs a few arcane words to "help" the fishers drift toward shore. She also goes through the motions and words of a couple of extra spells just in case, to make sure they aren't missing anything important.
(Assuming she doesn't find anything) "Ah, yes, I guess there IS more cave to explore. I almost forgot. Shall we proceed east, then?"
Bree has trouble discerning anything through the muck and algae, but as she focuses on sensing magic auras, at least two sources radiate from the bottom of the pool.
"Whoops, hang on there a moment, Cyr. There seems to be something down there that looks magical." She continues to concentrate to see what it is and to get an exact location.
Thorek has just finished wringing out his beard when Bree mentions the magical auras. Sighing heavily, moves back to the edge of the pool. "Show me where, Bree, I'm already soaked," he mutters. Unspooling a length of wet rope, he hands it to Calara and ties the other end around his waist before hopping back into the water, letting his armor pull him to the murky bottom before he starts searching around.
" You would think they would check the pool more often if there are magic items down there ," Lily says while touching the pool with her fingertips.
Quickly standing up she makes a silent note that if we do move in we need to filter the water.
As Thorek wades into the pool, Boudra carefully approaches and examines the algae to see whether it could be of any medicinal use.
Trudging along the clay and mud lining the bottom of the pool, weighed down by his armor, Thorek finds four bodies: three of them appear to be troglodytes, but the fourth is much smaller. Heavily encrusted with lichens, it appears like a child or a halfling. The body's rigid fingers still clutch an iron box.
Knowledge (Nature): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23 I don't have K (Nature), but hopefully this'll do? :D
The algae is not familiar as any sort of remedy. In fact, Boudra is fairly certain that it is mildly toxic.
Keeping his eye - and wand - trained down the next passage, Cyrioul says, "Someone want to give that a good once over before popping it open? Wouldn't want you to be disabled by some ancient trap. Let me know when you've got it open and I'll come take a quick look at what we've found."
Bree kneels next to the box to check for traps.
Boudra steps back from the pond, carefully brushing her hands off. No one else should swim in this pool, she signs. The scum is poisonous--not bad, you'll be fine, she adds for Thorek's benefit. You're a dwarf.
Thorek nods in agreement with his being a dwarf, then goes back to wringing out his beard and checking out all his equipment to ensure nothing was ruined by the water.
Thorek pries the box from the corpse's fingers and brings it to the shore.
Clear of the murky water, the box is revealed to be a steel coffer that has thus far resisted rusting, though it remains covered in lichens and slime.
No surviving traps guard the coffer, although Bree's tinkering aids her in opening the stuck hinges.
Once the coffer is open, inside you find many dozens of gold coins that have spilled out of their rotted pouch, as well as a steel wand decorated with engravings of helms and breastplates.
Lily looks over at Boudra and signs,"Great even more reason to filter the water if we want to drink it. Not like the corpses in it were helping the matters."
Upon seeing the wands she says to all,"Well if we don't know what the other wand does I can always blindly activate it. I could use a bit more excitement in my life..."
With thorek back on land, caladra helped haul the dead cave fishers onto land to help harvest any parts of value from them, knowing from Bree their tendrils coukd be valuable in bartering with the witch.
"Is there anything glowing that I missed?" the dwarf inquires, his tone clearly implying that he hopes there isn't.