"What? No...No. No one is doing that. Ever."
Lana charges the ogre, spitting on her blade in secret.
The Ogre roars and stands up.
Gaedren sees the creature is still very alive and gives his allies a boon. " Aim for the areas Lana and Hazel struck, they are exposed "
Gaedren then goes around to give a person flanking with his own spear.
Hazel's strike puts the Ogre down.
Gaedren watches as the team seems to sync appropriately and put down the Ogre with a wonderful display a wide grin upon his face.
" I guess this woman was too weak for you Lug... Great job everyone, teamwork is the key to victory it seems... something that Vampire must not have known anything about for sure. Clean your blades, we still have the stairs and what I assume to be the final floor to deal with "
Gaedren retrieves his bow once more, " Lily if you have anymore Silvered arrows could you distribute a few to everyone who can use a bow? They were not kidding when they said this place made whatever it felt like.. this time it seems to be monstrous fiends mixed with Crocs. Anyone hurt? "
Lily assesses everyone, "We all seem fine."
Lily hands out some more arrows to Vartigan and then gives one more to everyone else, "You can use it like a dagger in a pinch."
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Gaedren nods and once again leads the group towards where he presumes the stiars will be once again...He tries to be particularly careful looking at the stairs, wall AND ceiling.
Gaedren finds the loose stair mentioned by Razzem'Jan.
The party arriving at the bottom of the stairs finds a lone man standing in this room, the crystal floating behind him.
As you all begin to file into the room, he transforms into a crocodile like creature. After finishing he gives a display with his long glaive, slamming it against the ground and making loud cracking sounds.
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Gaedren speaks to the man, " I am not sure if you are fully aware or not but we have defeated the men above and have reason to get past you to the next area. If you are reasonable we do not have to fight but if you are not... I must respect that you are strong. I cannot take chances. "
He looks to the party " He uses a glaive.. do not close with him he likely is more dextrous than he looks take him down from range or let him come to us. He's scarred.. aim for those areas. "
Gaedren looses an arrow if the man is Quiet or clearly threatening.
Lily takes a shot as well.
"Lug still angry!"
Lana readies.
Asteria braces.
The crocodile man says nothing to Gaedren but instead charges Asteria, taking her spear in return.
Asteria side steps the attack in time, "Phew! Watch out, he's got some serious power!"
Lana's ready action goes off and she five foot steps to attack the man.
Hazel delays.
Vartigan takes a shot.
Avarice throws a dagger.
Gaedren sees the might of the man as the strike collides with the ground and splits a good part of it on a miss. " Surround him and take him quickly! Don't ignore his reach. Advance carefully! Whatever you have left this is the time to use it! Dont give him room to position! "
Gaedren drops his bow drawing his spear moves up, around and stabs with his spear to give the strikers a better chance with a flank.
Lily drops her bow and moves in on the man with a spear.
Lana slashes at the man again.
However, this time her blade ignites into holy fire.
Lug charges the man.
However, lug gets caught by the man's glaive and falls before he can attack.
Asteria attacks once more.
The man attacks Lana.
But she sidesteps it.
Avarice and Vartigan take shots.
Gaedren 5ft steps up past the man's reach and tries to slam his silver cestus into the back of the man's head.
After substantial damage, the man finally falls.
Gaedren is utterly surprised when his blo floors the Crocodile man and breathes heavily. His body persperating quite a great amount. The danger was not over yet. He moved to Lug and tried his best for the man. " Someone with healing administer it.. He took a great blow! "
"Move over."
Lug stirs after the potion is administered to him.
"Why you wake Lug? He die great death to lizard man. Oh well."
Lug hoists himself up and looks around.
"We put up a good fight this day. Many men died. I feel good. LUG SMASH HIM NOW!" says Lug as he begins to pulverize the crocodile man's body.
"Take the glaive with us, it's magic."
Gaedren is alarmed but at this point is well aware of how Avarice is. He lets her do what she is best at. Once Varigan speaks he smiles again, having calmed down. Though Lug's mindset was a refreshing change of pace.
" That goes without saying Vartigan. I am glad you identified it as such. There will likely be creatures where such a weapon will be a necessity rather than a premium.. and e do not have much loot to waste not taking it. Take everything he has just like the Giants and Bugbears before them. "
He muses over their victory, " it seems we have cleared this floor... a good first run, but highly dangerous it seems. One false step or mistactic and a group could easily perish. Let's talk about another topic altogether now.... I'm sure at this point you all should know the Archmage is.. a vampire. This is concerning to say the least. "
Avarice becomes angry at once, "It's a damn cattle farm is what it is."
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" From the fact that people seem to be sent to 'the other side' when someone has 'committed a crime' I wasnt thinking any different either "
"We don't know that for sure Avarice. There's no doubt the man is evil, but we don't know enough about him to draw conclusions."
"Its a problem to be handled at some point. But making enemies with a powerful Archmage vampire if he isn't directly harming his citizens I'm hesitant to act recklessly."
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"I agree with Lana. Vampires are bad news for sure, but from what we know, only law breakers get sent to the dark side."
"I mean yeah we can all guess what happens to them then, right? But it's one form of execution the same as any other. I'm not saying it's pleasant, or right, but it's probably not something we want to try to get involved in right now."
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" I'm not saying we should even deem ourselves to be involved with it but more that we should be aware of his presence is all. I am not an unreasonable man. Nor am I overzealous as such a venture would all but place the group in danger. I would rather not any harm come to any ONE of you.. save Lug.. ad only when he wants it. "
Gaedren muses over a few ideas that had been bothering him slightly.
" The thing being Evil does not necessarily mean destructive or uncooperative and truthfully I found a few of my close friends to be of such a mindset. That did not necessarily make them terrible people. I doubt I will not meet another who is similar and befriend them as well. I just wanted to converse with the group first and suggest we use caution. "
Gaedren turns to the crystal and hefts the Glaive, " If no one has anything else to say on the current topic I put forth who would like to hold on to this weapon? It seems like most of you have some form of preferred fighting style but If you would benefit from such a weapon it would not be wrong to speak up. if one person is empowered, the group as a Whole is.. I would suggest someone with either agile reflexes or great might. "
Gaedren pointing at Asteria, Lily, Lug and Hazel. " Either of you, I can use it as well but I doubt I am as well equipped with such as weapon in comparison. I'm quite weak.. hehe.." Gaedren rubbing the back of his neck and eeking out a laugh.
" Other than that, I think it would be in our best interest to return to Nexus consolidate our spoils and rest to prepare for the next area. What say you all? I think we proved teamwork is key to survival here. "
"I'll take it."
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Everyone nods and agrees to return to Nexus.
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Gaedren nods and moves to hand it over to Lily. As he does so thier fingertips grace each other during the exchange and Gaedren can't help but think back to... the events of last night. He hs a vision of Lily's wholly naked form, of which he could fully see in the dark, sweating while holding him down. He outwardly blushed a bit for what seemed no reason.
With a cough he hakes his head, " To nexus then and rest? "
They all return and proceed to head to Quinn's inn, the time missing if anything happened while they were gone.
" Hello, we return.. alive .. 2B is cleared and 2A was cleaned up.. any news? "
"Hey there" says Quinn. "Nah nothing new today, some people went out but they haven't returned. That's nothing be alarmed at though. It sometimes can take people a few days to clear a floor."
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"So I think we should change up the sleeping arrangements." says Shaylee.
"I was thinking that maybe Lana could stay with Gaedren, then Lily could stay with Ava.... No wait. That won't work."
Shaylee turns to Vartigan, "Varty I'm sorry baby, can you room with Lily tonight? I'll make it up to you in the morning."
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Vartigan nods to Shaylee and kisses her forehead.
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"Thanks baby. Lily can I talk with you for a moment?"
The two move a short distance away from the group, leaving Gaedren the closest.
And I swear on Calistria's name that I'll carve you into a thousand tiny pieces and feed you to your #$&%ing Wolf, and once she's done eating you I'll beat her until I can contort her limp body into a crude Shrine of Erastil, and then I'll burn it to the ground. Do you understand me?"
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