Garland and Luna kept pressing their attack!
Ilistra charges up and flings a ball of fire at the one still shooting arrows.
"OW!!" Cica gasps as her assailant gets its claw perilously close to her eye.
She retaliates with her greatsword, swinging as hard as she can.
Then, she steps back 5', around the corner, and draws one of their precious healing potions.
Luna drops the wounded Kech, rising with bloodied jaws.
Ilistra's fireball goes wide.
The remaining ape men take shots at Ilistra and Luna before retreating into their structure.
================================
With their enemies on the ropes, Garland and Luna rushed after their fleeing foes!
Ilistra barely registers the scratch as the arrow grazes her. She moves ahead behind the others towards the structure.
As the potion permeates her body, Cica feels her wounds start to knead shut. An arrowhead lodged in her thigh pops out onto the ground.
Feeling emboldened, she hustles after the fleeing foes. As she does, she draws her bow and does her best to hinder the nearer foe.
Cica sinks an arrow into the Kech.
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The keches in the building turn once they are cornered and charge at Garland.
With Luna by his side, Garland took a swing at the foe who had just struck him, landing a mighty strike in the process!
Ilistra maneuvers to try to get a shot on one of the keches.
Cica attempts to tumble past Garland and Luna, weaving her way into position to take down their foes. As she does, she tosses her bow into her magic quiver and pulls out her greatsword.
She makes a mighty swing at one and then spins around in an attempt to slash the others as well.
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Garland and Luna drop one of the foes, a blast of flame whooshes past them to incinerate another, and then Cica tumbles into the building and cuts the last kech down.
Gathered in the building are the keches’ spoils: a potion of protection from arrows, salve of slipperiness, a wand of charm animal (45 charges), a bronze armband (worth 50 gp), a crystal decanter (worth 150 gp), a black jade idol of a bloated frog demon (worth 500 gp), a silver medallion
depicting a discus thrower (worth 200 gp), and 105 GP in mixed ancient coinage.
With the keches neutralized, Garland took the opportunity to search the complex for anything of interest.
"Should we survive this adventure, it will certainly prove lucrative. Alas, I think only the arrows will be of use to us in the immediate future," Garland observed once all the treasures were collected and categorized. "Still, it is good that we neutralized these foes now. Given how hostile they were to us, they would have been a threat to our comrades."
If there was nothing else of note in the building, Garland began looking for another place that he and his allies could investigate.
"Rich, indeed!" Cica says with wide eyes. "The demon idol is a bit creepy, but I'm sure some collector would pay good gold for that too."
There are two notable locations nearby:
A pentagonal building protrudes from the water here, its upper floors reaching thirty feet above the lake that has swallowed its lower stories. Strangely, no plants at all grow upon the building’s roof or walls—walls that seem strangely muted in color compared to other buildings in the area.
This one-hundred-foot-high ziggurat is capped by a hundred-foot-tall spire of stone. The sides of the ziggurat’s tiers are carved with images of mounds of treasure and merchants trading wares.
"I think we should explore both. The building with no plants would not be a good place, I think. Something bad must be there, that would keep the plants away. The one with treasures on the outside will make people curious. When the others get here, that one will be where they will want to explore first," Ilistra surmises.
Cica nods. "We could do worse than a ziggurat carved with images of treasure...plus a spire we might be able to get new views from."
The southwest corner of this ziggurat has not weathered the passage of time as well, in part due to this district’s slow subsidence back into the lake. A sizable sinkhole here runs along the side of the ziggurat, providing access to a cavern below the ziggurat. The smell of some kind of manure is strong as the explorers approach the hole. Splatters of aerial droppings of immense size coat the rim of the hole.
Cica stealthily tiptoes to the edge, and looks in.
Ilistra concentrates and calls forth Polyphemous. "What do you see? Do you need Poly to scout?"
Cica sees a 40-foot-diameter cavern below the ziggurat. A five foot deep swampy pool fills the bottom of this cave—this pool is tainted with guano from the denizen’s inhabitant, an immense creature. A night bat of gargantuan size hangs in the cave. Its wingspan must be close to sixty feet across. For the moment it did not appear to hear or see Cica sneaking up.
Slowly Cica backs back over to her companions, and describes what she saw.
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As Cica begins to creep away from the monstrous beast's den, she steps on a twig. The sound is so minor that at first she thinks nothing of it. Then she glances over her shoulder, just to be sure. The bat's massive ears are pointed right at her, and its huge, globular, beady eyes focus in on her.
It unleashes a hypersonic barely audible shriek as it launches into the air!
(+2 in jungle)
Cica 22
Ilistra 19
Bat 5
Garland 4
"OH CRAP! Those are some friggin' ears!! We got trouble, gang."
As she hollers, Cica pulls out her bow and takes a shot at the massive bat that's now blotting out much of the sky.
Ilistra charges up her fire and readies a blast for whenever she sees it.
The dragon-sized bat is not hard to hit, but its hide must be as tough as boiled leather, because Cica's arrow skids right off it.
The massive aerial predator swoops down on Cica with lightning speed, attempting to snatch her off the ground in its massive jaws.
The bat's teeth slam down on Cica like a bear trap. She's yanked into the air leaking blood like a sieve as the bat pulls up, flapping hard to gain altitude.
Ilistra charges up her fire and blasts the bat with a gout of fire, searing it.
"Cica!!" Ilistra shouts as her friend is snatched up and carried aloft.
"Cica!" Garland likewise shouts in horror. He and Luna quickly begin hustling towards the bat. Once they get closer, Garland extends his palm and shoots a radiant burst of light at the bat, which he prays is evil.
Garland strikes the bat directly in the eyes, blinding it. The holy light does not appear to burn the animal.
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Afraid for Cica but not having any other option but to throw fire, Ilistra charges up and flings a blast of flame at the bat one more time, this time at a cost to herself.
Feeling the wave of fire rush past, it occurs to Cica that she might use cold to dissuade the gargantuan bat from swallowing her.
Cica stashes her bow, and realizes in a panic that nothing else she's been practicing with recently is useable when she's caught in a beast's mouth.
Well, I guess this will have to do...
She grabs her knife, but again fails to pierce it's tough hide.
Cica then shifts her heart-focus from the Tiger to elemental Cold itself, and feels a rime crawl over her armor and skin.
"Maybe freezing your jaw will make you spit me out, eh? If I'm lucky..."
Cica can't manage to get her knife into the creature with it biting down on her so hard.
However, being blinded seems to have thrown the titanic animal into confusion.
The bat tosses Cica like a rag doll, sending her flying something like fifty feet in an arc through the air before slamming down into the ruins.
Garland briefly considers trying to blind the bat again. However, after some thought, he decides that empowering his allies would be better. Honestly, the fact that his plan worked astonishes him.
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Ilistra flings another blast of fire at the bat to dissuade it from coming back around. She then runs toward the spot where Cica fell.
Cica lands with a loud thud, and an equally loud groan.
"Unnngh. My ribs!"
She stands up and shoots another arrow at it, but drawing her bow makes her ribs sear with pain arrow goes wide.
As the blinding effect clears, the flaming bat shrieks in fury. The bat blots out the sky as it turns on the tiny fire-ape who keeps burning it. It swoops down and snaps at her with its huge jaws.
Just like it did with Cica, the bat snatches Ilistra up, then begins flapping its wings as hard as it can, preparing to gain altitude.
Ilistra shrieks as she's snatched up into the air by the creature. Her body immediately becomes painfully hot to the touch, causing the jaws holding her to burn and blister!
"Ilistra!"
Having few other options, Garland once again throws another burst of holy light at the bat.
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Ilistra shrieks as she's snatched up into the air by the creature. Her body immediately becomes painfully hot to the touch, causing the jaws holding her to burn and blister!
Focus, girl! Ilistra's life is on the line here.
Cica steels herself against the pain in her ribs, aims for the beast's heart, and looses her arrow.
The shaft sinks into the bat's neck, wounding it further.
The bat drops the burning hot woman and instead tears into her, hoping to end the fiery threat.