About every 10 seconds, Sharrd whispers to Alara over the message. "Find anything yet?"
The first time Sharrd asks, she replies "Not yet."
The second time: "Not yet."
The third time, though: "Ugh... some sort of multi-legged creature. It doesn't look like it's noticed me yet. And Sharrd, don't worry. I'll tell you when I find something."
With that, she turns and leaves the room as quietly as she can, this time heading back down the main tunnel.
The leggy creature pays Alara no heed (of course, she's being super silent, as it turns out) as she retreats from confrontation and scouts out the other cave branch. This one is wider, though the ceiling is no higher than the narrower tunnel at about 7 feet or so. It is also much wetter. There is quite a bit of brackish, standing water in this direction, even spanning all the way across the tunnel at about the furthest distance Alara can see before the light from the cave mouth is finally too weak to support even her sharp eyes.
Alara heads back to the entrance of the cave.
"Okay, from what I've seen so far, the right tunnel leads to a cavern with some sort of hairy thing with too many legs. The tunnel that goes straight ahead goes through a dirty pool of water and keeps getting dark from there. I couldn't see much further down that way." She says, hands gesturing along with her words.
"So, which way do you want to go first?"
"I think we should deal with 'Legs' first. Otherwise it might overhear us and try sneaking up on us instead of the otherway around."
Piper nods at Sharrd's suggestion, bringing out his flute.
Masamune pulls out his sword and gets ready to face whatever this new creature might be.
Alara nods. "Right then. Leggy it is."
She turns and vanishes into the shadows, down the right tunnel.
Sharrd follows about 20' behind Alara, at least until it gets to dark to see.
He whispers to Alara over the message. "Let me know when you're ready and I'll make a noise to attract its attention."
Piper moves behind Sharrd, waiting for their enemy.
The caverns rapidly become pretty dark for the humans in the group. The chamber ahead appears quite dark to their eyes and even Alara's vision only penetrates it partially.
From Alara's location peering around the bend in the cavern, it seems the spider has still not noticed her.
Sharrd whispers to Alara and writes to Piper. I can't see a thing right now. How about I create a glowing figure over the water there just before I cast Ghost Sounds. If anything it will help trick it out there and it will provide light.
Alara sneaks into the cavern, pressing against the wall. She eyes the spider-thing with a mixture of disgust and anxiety.
'The noises won't be necessary, Sharrd. Masamune's in the cavern entrance behind me; maybe you could put some lights up by him so he can see better? I'm good and hidden, don't worry.' She whispers, the message spell still in effect.
Which is exactly what Sharrd does. He casts Dancing Lights floating ahead of his big brother as he follows Masamune into the cave.
Masamune will be in front and ready to fight if needed. He nods his thanks towards Sharrd for the light, but doesn't say anything to try and keep the noise down.
Though the spider has been oblivious to Alara's presence so far, once she skulks out into the room, its many eyes spy her.
Initiative
The spider reacts with a surprising alacrity, scuttling in and biting at Alara with its mandibles in a flurry of skin-crawly (and hairy) legs just as the dancing lights flicker into being (giving you all a nice view of its creepiness).
Its mandibles catch Alara, inflicting 6 points of hit point damage to the ninja. But it also inflicts a bit of lassitude on her. She takes 2 points of Strength damage from the venom of the bite (-1 to all Str based effects - skills, checks, damage with melee, etc).
Ash is going to let the rest move forward before he goes.
Alara shrieks as the spider bites her. She scrambles away as the venom starts to take effect, her ki making her run faster.
She runs past Masamune, bleeding, frightened and weakened.
"KILLITKILLITKILLITKILLIT!"
Msamune will charge the spider in the hopes of killing it quickly.
Piper begins his performance, giving the team more strength.
Sharrd moves after his brother, looking worridly after Alara as she charges past. He soon sees the beastie and warily circles around it so that it has to divide its attention between him and Masa. He gets ready to smack it with his mace next round.
Masamune and Alara pass each other, one on the way in, the other on the way out. Somewhat bewildered, the spider fails to react quickly enough to the samurai's attack and pays a small price.
The spider is not that badly hurt and remains undaunted by the prospect of being flanked (it is pretty dumb). Reacting to the pain of the sword blow, it tries to bite Masamune, but is foiled by the swordsman's superior defenses.
Alara is starting to feel the effects of the spider's venom, making her stagger a bit.
"Oh... I don't feel so good..." She stays behind Ash, not certain she can be of much help in this state.
Look at the size of him! Sharrd thinks as he tries to squoosh it with his mace.
He is secretly pleased when he hits it pretty hard, and crunches a leg.
Masamune quickly slices with his sword in the hopes of cutting off one of the legs of the spider.
Between the two of them, Sharrd and Masamune smash the spider like… well… like a bug. It collapses into mass on the floor with its legs tightly curling up (except the one that Masamune severed).
Alara may still be weakened a bit by the poison, but at least now she seems to be in no danger of getting worse. The spider's bite was painful, but the venom did comparatively little harm.
With the immediate excitement past, you are able to get a decent look about the cavern. It appears to be a semi-regular lair of some hunting creature (probably the spider in this case). There are no significant webs around, but then, this appears to be a hunting spider rather than a web-spinning one. The prostrate form it was fussing over before appears to be the corpse of a fairly large lizard - a giant gecko (and by giant, I mean about 3 feet long or so rather than the size of a more normal gecko).
The sight of the dead spider elicits a sigh of relief from Alara as she makes her way into the cavern and slumps against the wall.
"Oww..." She rubs the spot where the spider bit her with a trembling hand.
"It's OK, Alara. It's dead." And he hits it again with his mace just to make sure.
"I can see that." Alara says, smiling at the sight of Sharrd whacking the spider corpse.
"It bit me pretty bad... I think I'm having problems holding my nunchaku." She nods at her trembling arms.
Reaching over with the wand, he gently taps Alara and activates it.
Alara's injury closes up so well that not even a scar is left behind. She shakily rises to her feet.
"Thanks, Ash." She says with a smile on her face.
Piper stops his playing and inspects Alara. Checking her arms, the wound, placing his lips on her forehead to make sure she isn't poisoned, sickened, or the like. He signs: "Are you all right?"
He walks in to the chamber. He gives a swift kick to the spider's corpse. He looks around around the chamber.
He's very obviously distracted.
Alara smiles at Piper as he fusses over her. "I feel kinda weak... the spider's venom did that."
She's sweating a bit and her limbs are still wobbly.
"I don't suppose anyone has anything that can help?" She asks the party, leaning against the wall.
Sharrd shakes his head. "I bet Koya might have something. She tried to teach me some medicine, but it was soooo boooring. Ash always paid attention though." he says looking hopefully in his direction.
Ash slips the wands away and then begins to check Alara's wounds and attempts to remove any poison that he can, squeezing towards the wound as best he can to cut off the poison. "I will do what I can, but as of now, I do not believe I have a spell that can counteract the poison..."
Piper aids Ash in his healing as best as he can.
From the spider's lair, the dancing lights can shed enough light to illuminate the other passage deeper into the cliff cavern. It goes a little distance and then reaches a branching in the passageway. The air feels increasingly damp and the sound of dripping water is fairly constant deeper in.
Sharrd scratches his head. "I think sneaky is out. Alara's hurt and she'll need the light anyway." He walks up to Masa. "How about the two of us go up front, I'll keep the lights about 20' ahead of us, that should give us plenty of time to react to what we find."
Alara doesn't feel much better after Ash's & Piper's efforts.
Well, it was good for the soul.
"I'll be okay. I just need to..." She shrugs off her satchel. "...take this off." Her satchel lands in the dirt with a *WHUMP*.
"I can still sneak about & scout if you need me..."
"Scouting will be good, but next time let me and Sharrd face whatever is ahead."
Masamune cleans off his blade, and looks down the tunnel in case anything comes to investigate the noise of battle.
Sharrd picks up the satchel without complaint. "I'll carry this for you." he volunteers.
Piper sticks by Alara, flute at the ready and ready to aid her if need be.
Alara gives Sharrd a small grin as the sorcerer shoulders her bag.
"Thanks."
She leans on Piper a bit before standing up as straight as she can.
Sharrd moves over to the opening and sends his dancing lights about 20' down. "Well, let's get going and kick some necromancer butt."
The lights reveal a little more of the passages, but with the bends of the rough cavern, little more can be gleaned from your current location.
There are no signs of reaction from any creatures or other residents of the caverns to the dancing lights.
With the dancing lights in front of him, Sharrd starts to walk down the passageway until he reaches the junction, at which point he carefully looks and listens.
Alara stays toward the middle of the group, looking everywhere for danger.
Away to the right, the cavern seems to branch yet again while to the left a wider chamber appears to open up. The sound of dripping water seems to come more strongly from the right than from the left (although the whole cavern complex is damp and drippy in general).
Sharrd takes a moment to recast his dancing lights, this time froming it into a spectral golden glowing humanoid and then floats it down the left hand passage, hiding at the corner to see what happens.
he pretty much blows his stealth by whispering too loud to Alara and Piper what he sees.
Piper sticks close to Alara, giving her support, and Sharrd. He keeps his eyes out for danger.
At the branching paths, he signs, "Which way do we go?"