Jie is pretty sure that was a monitor lizard. She's not sure what abilities or defenses it had, other than it was a rather large and generally ill-tempered species of lizard.
Benedict peers into the next chamber. Stone shelves have been cut into the walls of this room, and each shelf is heaped with dried mushrooms, baskets of herbs, root vegetables, and other fragrant foodstuffs. Empty baskets and cloth sacks lie in a pile in one corner.
It appears that ten more provision points of food is stored in this chamber, but primarily plants rather than meat.
Benedict looks at the food with some interest. Not only are we going to drive these creatures from their home, we are going to take their food as well. Survival is a battle, and we have to win. They burned something in that firepit, a man or an elf I think. Not friendly.
"Amkarang, do you still need healing? We have several potions. Drink one, or two if you need to."
Benedict follows the path back to the area with the sacrificial fire-pit. We already examined this room, I think but he'll take a look down whatever tunnels go off to the south.
Jie goes with Benedict, looking down the tunnels to the south.
The Shrine cavern has two more unexplored passages leading south. Each passage slopes sharply downward. The air in the passage to the southwest is close and full of the troglodyte musk. There is a faint, otherworldly glow coming from the passage to the southeast, the light dancing and swaying in a strange hypnotic pattern.
Benedict heads down the steep, sloping passage in the darkness that stinks heavily of troglodyte musk. Before he takes too many steps, he notices the faint flicker of the red light of a cookfire coming from deeper down the corridor.
Another step and he hears a click and a twang.
A contraption sends a spear thrusting into Benedict's shoulder and simultaneously sounding a loud gong that echoes throughout the caves.
The tunnel descends into an irregularly shaped chamber with many alcoves and nooks along the uneven walls. Directly opposite the tunnel mouth, a carving on the wall shows a creature hatching from an enormous egg. A low fire flickers in a wide, shallow pit about halfway between the tunnel and the carving. Large stones are piled around the edge of the firepit, their sides blackened. More stones sit within the nooks around the perimeter of the cavern, near piles of dried grasses and animal pelts. The entire chamber stinks of troglodyte and sulfur.
Two troglodytes and a monitor lizard ready to defend their nest.
Benedict curses himself for triggering the trap, and is surprised at the troglodytes' skill in crafting such a device.
He then sees the troglodytes and lizard.
Gagging and wounded, he falls back to get out of the archers' way.
They have traps! Jie thinks as Benedict stumbles back wounded. Cursing silently to herself for not having her bow still out she rushes one of the troglodytes to the side, Leaving the middle open for the 'guys' to charge and Amélie to shoot.
"Well, zey know we're here now," Amélie says drolly once the echoing of the gong subsides. She drops her torch and immediately sends two arrows down the corridor toward the lower half of one of the trogs she can see.
Her second shot manages to strike the troglodyte in its leg, sinking deep into the flesh.
Grum bellows a challenge and charges down the slope, falchion ready to swing.
The trog was so busy messing with the arrow in its thigh that it failed to defend effectively against the charging orc. Its head is cleaved from its shoulders in a fountain of blood.
Amkarang's approach is less reckless, moving down the steps and stopping within reach of his meteor hammer.
Unfortunately, his strike glances off the troglodyte's tough scales.
The monitor lizard seems to be enraged at the intrusion to its lair, so it steps over the corpse of the troglodyte and tries to bite Grum.
It comes nowhere close to biting him.
The surviving troglodyte wants nothing to do with the one that beheaded its companion, so attacks the one in front of it, which happens to be Jie.
Clearly unnerved by the grisly death of its friend, it fails to even touch the Tian roughrider.
Benedict re-enters the fight, moving up and attacks the monitor lizard.
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Jie continues to attack the trog in front of her.
The Andoran archer moves up to get a better shot, even though she has to take account for her companions in her way. She sees the wounds on the troglodyte and takes aim at it, hoping to finish it off.
Her well-placed shot ends the troglodyte's threat.
Amkarang switches targets to the lizard, swinging his mighty meteor hammer down at the hissing creature.
Not able to get a good angle with all the other bodies in the way, his swing is off-target.
Wounded, the monitor lizard hisses and bites at the one that hurt it last -- Benedict.
Benedict pays for his excellent strike on the lizard by receiving a nasty bite. It manages to clamp down on the warrior's leg and not let go.
Benedict is in rough shape here, further wounded and now grappled.
He tries to break free, to no avail.
"Grum, finish it!"
Jie moves around to the other side of the lizard, warily avoiding its snapping maw and tries to swing while its distracted by Grum
Jie lets out a little shout of triumph when her blow lands, causing a small gash on the lizards back. When Grum follows her blow with a devastating strike, she can't feel but envious for her companion's strength.
Jie's strike distracts the lizard, causing it to hiss even as it's worrying at Benedict's leg. Grum steps in and nearly chops it in two, cutting through bone and flesh almost all the way through.
It goes slack and the cavern grows quiet.
"Well Struck" Jie exclaims. She does a quick look around the cave for hidden foes before asking Benedict. "That looks like a nasty bite. Do you want to use a potion or should we try the wand?"
"Yes, between the lizard and the spear trap I am in a great deal of pain. Let's try the wand first, and if we can't get it to work, a couple of potions."
A few seconds after the healing, Benedict still feels the burning of the lizard's saliva in his wound.
Amkarang mutters, ”Lao Shu Po’s whiskers, I can’t hit a damned thing.” He looks at the rest of the group and says, ”Well then. Deeper into the caves? Maybe fight something that doesn’t look like a lizard?”
"Thank you for the healing, Grum."
However, Benedict doesn't feel so well. He drinks an Antitoxin. This should help shake off the effects if it worsens.
Benedict feels his joints burn and ache, reducing his coordination. He drinks the antitoxin and hopes it will help him fight off the poison.
Amélie picks up the first wand that had stopped working for Grum and walks over to Amkarang. "Let me see if I can get zis thing working," she says, and fumbles with the device for a while.
"Aha!" she shouts triumphantly. She tries a few more times.
"Not too bad, no?" she says after she gets it to work a couple more times. She then puts the wand back in the group's pack.
"Unnnh, I don't feel great. But it should pass," says Benedict. "The other tunnel from the shrine?"
Amélie places a hand on Benedict's shoulder. "What do you mean? Let me take a look at that bite," she instructs.
She pulls away the cloth and studies the wound, then packs a few pungent ingredients in a bandage and wraps the wound with it.
She sits back on her haunches, shaking her head. "I think zhat lizard may have had venom in its bite. I will do what I can. Ze antitoxin you drank should help, and zis poultice. Anyway, zhat's ze best I can do."
Jie agrees. "Yes, let's try that tunnel."
The air is damp and moist in the next chamber, but it is a fresh, cool mist. A rough crystal globe hangs from the ceiling, candles burning within it. The light from the globe refracts off the mist in the room and the crystal growths on the walls, filling the room with rainbows. A bubbling fountain in the center creates a jet of clear water and that continually drains back into the ground. A troglodyte and two frogs with glistening, brightly-colored skin are here, alerted to your presence.
Amkarang storms into the room and lashes out with his meteor hammer at the troglodyte. ”My one request was no more lizards! That’s too much to ask I guess!”
Amélie moves in and, seeing the troglodyte drop beneath the heavy swings of Grum and Amkarang, draws back an arrow and aims it at one of the brightly-colored frogs.
Benedict moves in and slices at the other frog, in all likelihood splattering it.
The threats in this chamber are dealt with handily.
Benedict searches the room.
He inspects the crystal globe and the fountain.
The aasimar then looks warily at the south end of the room.
"Grum, should we send Sir Kingston to scout the next room? He's very stealthy, isn't he?"
Jie watches the hedgehog waddle off. "Are you sure you haven't had any ranger training?" she asks Grum, impressed by the level of control he has over his 'fellow warrior'.
A quick search of the fountain chamber discovers nothing of apparent value except for the glowing crystal orb. The lights within it are likely magical in nature, adding to the crystal's overall worth. It can be easily removed from its stone cradle.
Sir Kingston scrambles over the stone floor that give way to clay. He's fortunate, because he manages to catch sight of a muscular, blue-scaled troglodyte and dive behind a smooth rock just before its watchful eyes fall upon him. It is only then that Sir Kingston notices that the round, smooth rock is not stone at all, but bone! A skull, likely human, grins at the little hedgehog. He quickly sees that all around this chamber are bones of all sorts.
Peeking out from around the skull, he notices that two other troglodytes stand guard with the larger one.
Grum feels a sharp moment of shock, followed by a running current of nervousness and impending danger.
"How's he doing? Any danger? Should we call him back? And Amélie, can I borrow your glaive?"
Benedict would like to suggest a formation again: Amkarang, Grum, Benedict in a line. Ready to 5' step and attack should an enemy come within melee range - the 5' steps to flank if possible, or just to get to 10' reach for the meteor hammer and glaive if not. If they charge any of us, Amkarang and Benedict would get AOOs in addition to readied attacks.
Amélie and Jie to support from range. If there is danger in the next room, maybe better to lure them to us instead of charging in.
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Sir Kingston scurried back, into the eager arms of Grum. "Ranger? No. It is not me who found Sir Kingston, but Sir Kingston who found me!"
Once his fellow warrior had returned, Grum looked much happier. He gladly handed the glaive over before holding the hedgehog up to his ear. The large half-orc nodded, before whispering a question to Sir Kingston. A look of comprehension passed over his face.
"Sir Kingston saw a chamber of death, with skulls the size of giants, and three scaled warriors, each large enough to squash a hedgehog under foot. Given his size, I'd say that we have Trogs waiting for us. Now that we know what is there, I say we go with Benedict's Clever Plan."
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"My thanks, Sir Kingston. You did a brave and skillful deed! Now let us do ours."
Amkarang nods at Benedict before saying, "I underestimated Sir Kingston's bravery. Tell him that he is among the most resolute of fellows I have known." He then gets into formation, meteor hammer at ready in reach configuration.