With their combined strength, Rex and Isamu move the mattress into position beneath the struggling Yeldrid. Yeldrid fights frantically, but the birds are persistent, and impossible to shake off.
Seeing Yeldrid's predicament, Lily climbs closer, trying to help her ally by fending the darting singers off with her dagger:
"No one is here to help you!" screech the birds, and they attempt to drop Yeldrid from his perch.
The shining singers manage to tear Yeldrid away from the wall. Once they're confident he's beyond the ability to catch himself, they let him fall.
Yeldrid bounces painfully on the mattress, which is now especially springy but still considerably softer than stone. The birds look enraged, and begin swirling in a furious spiral. "Cheat! Cheat! Cheat! You cheating lot!"
Yeldrid straightens with a crack and a yowl, before whimpering "T-thanks lads, y-ya rea-*ow*"
He rolls off the mattress, pulls out his gun and loads it.
Isamu takes a ready stance with his blade, giving Yeldrid a short nod, too focused on the foe for more.
Seeing Yeldrid's plight, Lily makes a final swipe at the singers
Before scuttling down towards safety.
Rex draws his blade and swings it a few times through some precise arcs. When the blade stops he calls out in Common, "In the name of the light of Danaan I challenge you." He points at the birds and the blade glows with holy light. Then he waits to strike.
Lily swipes at the swarm, but the birds flit out of the way, giving mocking chirps and whistles.
The damaged swarm descends, screeching and screaming all the way, and tries to harry Lily. The birds zoom around her, grasping at her clothing, but perhaps Lily's expertly-crafted garments are a bit too fine for the birds to get firm grips. She is able to force them off.
"Rex! Get up on my shoulders! I'm going to lift ya towards the birds!"
Isamu shakes his head slightly. "You have a weapon that works at a range. Let me do the lifting--I don't have any way to strike at them myself."
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Yeldrid looks at his gun. "Yeah, fair point. Face the might of the Rolling Thunder, birdies!"
The air is filled with a strange smell, unlike the normal smell of the gun powder. Everyone on the ground is showered in a fine red dust and small ball bearings as his gun misfires. The strange box contraption attached to the firearm peels off with a horrific screech, spinning away into the trees. The barrel has also mostly melted into slag.
Yeldrid stares at his weapon in shock.
"I really need to move my spice bag..."
Rez's focus could not be broken. Not by friend or foe. He watched the colorful (at least by his estimation since they were all shades of grey) birds swarm with predatory intensity. He widened his field of vision to focus on even his periphery. He was a sentinal. A guardian.
Are those birds getting closer?
Rex found himself ascending towards the ceiling. However that was happening he hoped they kept going. He wanted something to swing at.
Lily finishes climbing down the tower, preparing to help rex swing at the annoying birds.
aaack, no, don't pull there! Lily struggles as the birds proceed to rip and tear at her garments.
Rex is raised up into the air by Isamu, and before he's even fully registered how he got there, he has slashed brutally into the swarm. His blade is covered in blood as birds rain down around him.
The swarm is badly injured, but it still retains enough cohesion and fury to descend downwards, toward Rex and Isamu. "Kill you!" the birds screech. Their voices are far from beautiful now. "Kill you! We will peck out your eyes, feast on your cheating tongues!"
The kitsune and corgyn both find themselves entangled amid the shrill flock. Talons claw and knot into Rex's fur, latch onto and yank Isamu's hair. The birds begin to drag the pair upwards.
So, you can still move around—you're not rooted to anything. That said, you will still retain the Entangled condition after doing so, as enough birds will cling on for the rest of the swarm to "catch up" on their turn. They'll still be able to try to pick you up, too.
A DC Acrobatics check (opposing their Fly check) is sufficient to escape their grasp as a standard action.
Yeldrid, his gun having exploded partially and probably too dangerous to operate at this point, resigns to utilizing his backup weapon.
The weird dagger made of weird metal.
He's not very good at this stabbing business. Not at all.
Isamu struggles to set Rex down and draw his sword against the resistance of the bird-like creatures. As he does, he twists and weaves, trying to break free of them.
Had his world not devolved into a flurry of feathers and talons, Rex might have commented on how silly he felt to not realize Isamu had been holding him up. As it was, he was a little busy to notice at the moment. He spun the blade close to his body to carve at the ones trying to pull him into the air.
Isamu manages to twist free of the birds' clawing grips, but this forces him to release Rex. The corgyn begins to rise into the air, borne aloft by a flock of screeching avians—
And then he swings his sword, imbued with power against those of evil intent and nature, and cleaves through the swarm. He feels countless little bodies twitch and go still as his blade severs their lives. With this final strike, it is as though a bottle has been unstoppered. With a low hiss, the swarm explodes. The birds fly every which way, confused, frightened, all cohesion lost. They disperse out the window, through the door, up into the treetops, up into the sky.
"CuRsE yOU!" they scream, in voices now disjointed and discordant. "makE YOU pAY! PaY, PAy! A cuRSe On HOuNDS, CaTs anD SkITTErErs! A cURsE ON YOUUUUUUuuuu!"
Their screams fade into the distance as the swarm disperses, as the birds fly out of sight. And then the Lost Tower is silent.
Trin stares out the window, after the departing shadows. "They were kinda odd."
Isamu frowns as he watches the birds fly away, his blade still in hand. He shakes himself slightly when Trin speaks.
"I just hope we've seen the last of them," he says, forcing a bit of a grin. "Good thing they didn't figure out I'm not exactly a 'hound', right? Now, then, maybe we should think about camping. If we cleaned this spot out, it might not be bad..."
"Mmphs mph mu phft!" says Yeldrid through an entire bird already stuffed into his mouth. Feathers fly out of his mouth as he tries to mouth the words. He starts picking up the slain birds and proffers one to Lily.
Yeldrid gestures with a limp bird corpse at the inner part of the tower. With a crunch and swallow, he finally articulates "Right, well, I need a bit of time to fix this gun, so I'm happy to watch for about an hour or so if people are okay with a little bit of hammering and drilling. We might want to stick to the lower floor. And rotate watches. Maybe two hours each? Also, what's in the trap door over there?"
Rex lands as most of his kind do from a fall. Right on his back and with a terribly loud pop. The air in his lungs left in a rush leaving not enough to even groan in pain. Instead, he stayed very still until his lungs decided to work. His first word was, "Ooooow." He mental examined the pains and thankfully found to be non-life-threatening. Still hurt though.
He takes a while to roll over and get back to his feet. "I night's rest would be nice." Then he looks over to the trapdoor they ignored at first when they got here. "But securing the place we rest is a wise also move." He trundles over to the trapdoor on all four and sniffing the whole way. He peers through the cracks in the ancient wood before opening it for a peek.
Rex can't see anything through the hole in the trapdoor, but he does detect a sharp, spicy scent from down there. It makes him sneeze.
The trapdoor appears to be either locked, barred or blocked from the other side. It will need to be picked or forced in some way.
"Hold my bird. I've got this." Yeldrid shuffles forward, places his kunai's rather thick point into a crevice and attempts to leverage the door open.
"I think we should clean it up a bit, too," Isamu comments, eying the dead birds.
When Yeldrid starts prying at the trapdoor, Isamu stands not far away with his rapier drawn... just in case.
Sneezing Corgi. Rex jumps back after the first sneeze surprises him. He proceeds to freeze every few seconds to let out another sneeze. It takes a minute to settle and even still he close an eye every few min as if another sneeze was almost there. "Yeldrid...Wait...Smell...Bad."
With a single easy crack, the trapdoor pops open.
Down below is a dark, dank root cellar of sorts. It's not exactly large—just 15'x15'—and most of the shelves have completely crumbled away with the years.
Yeldrid catches the same strong scents as Rex, and he, too, begins to sneeze despite himself. There is a curious glass jar heavily styled to resemble a turtle on one of the still-intact shelves, and it is from this jar that the smells originate. The jar appears to be full of some sort of exotic spice.
Isamu hangs back a bit, sniffing very cautiously at the air, trying to identify the scent.
Yeldrid is going to step closer to the jar, holding up a part of his poncho to block the smell. He's going to inspect the room and the jar.
Aside from some ancient tubers long-since past the sell-by date, Yeldrid doesn't find anything else of interest. The jar doesn't have any particularly striking markings, though more than Yeldrid's general examination would be required to learn more.
"Nothing else down there, Yeldrid?" Isamu asks. He looks at his companions. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about spices or glasswork. Might any of you have an idea about this jar?"
When the subject of camping comes up, he says, "I can take whichever watch. I can see fairly well in dim light, but I suspect many of you are better than I."
He pauses a moment. "We probably want a cold camp tonight. Best not to attract attention in case any gangles come looking around here. I've got food that can be eaten cold, so if you don't have any I can share--though I should add, I don't have a lot."
As Yeldrid comes out of the cellar with the spice Rex covers his nose. Despite that his eyes still water. "Ugh. Why are you keeping that? I can't smell anything else with that around."
Trin seems fascinated by the jar, and by Rex's and Yeldrid's reactions to it. They lean in and take a sniff. Their eyes widen. "Whoa! I know that smell! That smell's..." The aasimar pauses, looking unsure. "...from somewhere. I can't remember."
They kick their foot against their ankle sheepishly.
"I got the impression you spontaneously existed, Trin. I don't know if that's rude of me to say, but I'm surprised that this brings back memories. Whatever it might be."
Trin frowns. "I don't think so. No. That's not true." But they are unable to provide any further explanation.
That night, the group wisely rotates watches. It is close to midnight as Isamu sits by the tower entrance. The forest is still, save for a slight breeze, but it is by no means quiet. Those unused to nighttime woods may have to struggle to sleep beneath the constant patter of insects, night birds, and distant, stranger things—hoots and whistles, tinny clangs and what sound almost like human voices. It is chilly without a fire—almost chilly enough to make Isamu regret his suggestion for a 'cold camp'.
Then the Writhing Wood goes quiet. Isamu hears a high-pitched, whining moan slither and slime its way to his ears.
"Faces in the knotholes, grime in the gums. Sadie smells a yummy that is headed for her tums. Eyes in the ground, windpipes fulla mud. Humans in the forest gonna taste so good."
It takes him a moment, but he manages to make out a small, gangling shadow crawling about in the trees outside the tower. A pair of gleaming, sickly yellow eyes stare at him as the figure uses terrifyingly long arms to crawl from branch to branch.
Isamu's ears twitch with each sound, as he slowly paces around the Tower, keeping moving to try to stay a bit warmer. He's glad for his fur, though it's not thick enough to really make him comfortable.
Then he hears the voice, and goes stock-still, ears turned to the sound. Slowly he makes his way over to the nearest of his companions and lightly shakes them.
"Wake up," he whispers urgently.
Yeldrid stirs briefly to sleeply say to Isamu "Oh, is it breakfast already? I just finished dinner..."
He seems content to doze off again until he hears the urgency in Isamu's voice. He slips out of his bedroll, draws his gun, and starts looking around for the source of danger.
Yeldrid can see the creature watching them. It continues to move from branch to branch, almost oozing along. A foul smell, like burnt tar, reaches Yeldrid's nostrils.
"Ash in the throat, holes in the teeth. Sadie holds you tight 'til you just can't breathe. Not enough to see, and you're all outta air. Go ahead and scream. Sadie doesn't care."
Its neck seems to bend as it tilts its head perfectly sideways, still watching the catgirl. "It's a pretty night, the moon is bright, perfect time to dance. Come out and play with Sadie, kitty. Why not take a chance?"
Isamu, meanwhile, starts waking the others.