Caroliss hurries to the sound of combat to see that Sapher is fighting some sort of strange ooze. "Vel--whatever it is, go shoot it!"
And gives Vel the blessing of Calistria's luck!
”Thanks Es,” Veltariel says with a smile. When Caroliss gives her an order, the elf turns and sneers at her. ”Don’t tell me what to do...” before she steps up and lets a pair of arrows fly at the ooze.
Sapher yells all she knows about oozes as she withdraws from the thing.
"It's a grey ooze. They'd come up from the plumbing at times back home. Coated in acid so they'll eat through your weapons and armor. Their only real goal is to eat you, so it will try and grab you and digest you on the spot. Horrible way to die. Oh, it is immune to cold and fire." she's talking a bit fast as the slimy gunk made her heart stop there for a moment.
Stepping back she'll launch her own acid splash at the creature.
Drask is slow to react, distracted by the bickering of the others. But when the ooze strikes and he is given information, he steps over. "Sapher, shield." He takes her shield, raising it defensively and standing next to the ooze.
Sapher steps back from the ooze as s he tells the others about it. She conjures some acid and flings it at the creature. Surprisingly, even though the creature is essentially made out of acid the acid seems to melt it a bit. Es remains safely in the back as she calls down a blessing on her allies to assist them in the fight. Mok conjures some acid melting more of the creature away. Caroliss blesses Vel to further aid her in attacking the ooze, which does indeed help. She lands two arrows into the thing punting its gooey body causing acid to spill out on the ground and dissolving the arrows in the process. Drask moves up, grabbing Saphers shield and trying to place himself between the creature and the others to draw its attacks.
Not intelligent enough to know what is going on it simply attacks the closest source of food it can find. It shudders a moment as it bulges a bit growing larger seeming to draw more ooze out from the pool of water, then trys to slam into Drask.
It misses once again as Drask manages to step out of the way.
"Good thinking, Drask. We'll distract the creature, everyone else kill it from afar!"
Following Drask's lead, Caroliss draws her whip while she approaches and tries to just distract the thing so it will have a harder time hitting Drask.
.
Veltariel lets two more arrows fly.
"Good Plan" Sapher pulls off her shield and tosses it to Drask. Then concentrates and another acid blast. For some reason her red blob of caustic acid smells like roses.
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Seeing the ooze, Esrisi feels emboldened by Veltariel's excellent archery skills. Add to that, Sapher's shot was terribly but she can still hit the creature! With a deep breath she decides she's going to try her hand at the crossbow again. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this she tells herself, trying to gain confidence.
As she looses the bolt, her curse floods the instrument and the wood begins to creak and the bolt flies nearly sideways and firms embeds itself into the haft of Sapher's warhammer, about an inch away from her hand.
Oh Gods.
Groaning, she lowers her head and drops the crossbow, kicking it across the room out of frustration.
Sapher and Mok lob more acid, both melting some of the creature away. Es thinking she can finally hit something with her crossbow, seeing how easy it is for everyone else launches a bolt but her curse has other plans as if causes the bolt to nearly strike Sapher instead. Vel unleashes more arrows that find their mark in this slow moving, easy to hit target while Caroliss moves up to try and distract the thing to help Drask from getting hit. Drask maintains his defensive stance as he stands in front of the ooze.
The blob of acid attempts to slam into Drask again but he easily avoids it once again. After another round of attacks from the group the ooze has taken enough and oozes out onto the floor unmoving.
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Esrisi's face flushes red at her failed use of the crossbow once again. She places her fingertips on her forehead and groans. Why are you so terrible at everything? What were you thinking of shooting a projectile into all those people over there when you can't even think straight!?
She knows she has to say something before Sapher does, so she quickly rushes up to the dwarf and pulls the bolt free of her warhamer, tossing it down on the ground. "Sorry, that was an accident. My finger, uhm, slipped. At least no one got hurt this time. You know I wasn't aiming for you, right?"
Her hammer, dangling from the cord around her wrist as she concentrates on spells, jarred up and then smacking her. All cause a crossbow bolt slammed into it.
Shock instead of rage faces the blond woman, blossoming into a smile, remembering the warehouse battle, an accepting Of Course you didn't, maybe a How Did you manage to hit the shaft...
Then another remembrance darkens those eyes, flickering over to Vels.
The dwarf walks over to the discarded crossbow and smashes it in a quick clean blow.
"Are we ready to move on?" she asks mostly everyone, as she recovers her shield from Drask.
"Oof." The noise slips out of Caroliss's mouth as Sapher smashes the crossbow. She stares at the broken weapon, then at Esrisi, then back at the weapon.
She decides to change the subject. "Sapher, has anyone told you your magic smells like roses? It's really quite charming."
Caroliss does take a quick glance around as she chats.
Veltariel kneels down beside the dead ooze, carefully plucking one of her now ruined arrows from the thing and looking it over with frustration. ”Damnit.”
Then Sapher breaks Esrisi’s crossbow, and Veltariel stands and says ”What is your problem, Sapher!?!? Wasting resources like that’s is stupid!” as she storms over and gets in the dwarfs face. ”One would think a dwarf would be more practical, but I forgot your kind are known for making rash, stupid decisions too!”
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Esrisi cringes when the warhammer crunches her crossbow. She reaches up and scratches her head, not expecting to have the weapon actually shattered to a million pieces. I guess I'm buying a new one when we get back.
Es is about to comment on Caroliss's roses comment, a smile on her face when Veltariel launches into verbal assault mode on Sapher. Esrisi's eyes go wide as she is caught off guard by the rage. She runs up to Veltariel and places a hand on her shoulder, "Whoa-whoa! No, no. It's okay. I never liked that one anyway, it's been broken and needing replacing anyway. It's fine. Everything is fine."
Tugging on Veltariel's forearm and pulling her away from the dwarf, she says "It's okay. Come on, let's move on."
Veltariel continues to glare at Sapher as Esrisi gently urges her away. She only walks away because of that, but her anger is still quite evident.
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As the two fickle ladies walk off, Mokhasi sighs and picks up the slightly broken crossbow, putting it in his bag. ”Broken things may be mended, of course.” He goes to Sapher, and whispers, ”a side effect of that enchantment magic may be that Veltariel becomes increasingly possessive of Esrisi, and hostile to the rest of us... and it appears the effect is growing stronger...”
”But breaking your weapon was stupid! Now what if you need to shoot something at a distance!?!? And...and she’d have regretted it if she had tried that...” Veltariel grumbles, her body trembling with anger.
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Esrisi realizes her hand is still on Vel's arm and she quickly pulls it away, embarrassed. Seeing the elf is still upset, she tries to soothe away the hostility with some smooth talking. She whispers "I think what I have come to realize is that if someone needs to be shot at a distance, you are the most skilled archer in our group. I should focus more on guiding and blessing your already superior abilities when ranged combat is required."
Veltariel leans in and whispers to Esrisi. ”I can teach you to shoot when we get out of this hellhole.”
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Esrisi considers that and sighs, shaking her head. ”While I appreciate the gesture, I think it may be beyond the realm of possibility. Everything I touch breaks Veltariel, I am cursed.”. She moves her hands down to waist level in front of her, flipping them palm up and sighs softly.
”As I’ve come to understand these last few days, my hands were meant to be weapons, not wield them. While I have been gifted with incredibly abilities, it would appear the Gods have seem fit to make a mockery of me at times.”
Caroliss approaches Sapher as they move on. "The crossbow kinda deserved it," she whispers, with a smirk.
Sapher takes Vel's rage without blinking and without comment. Shaking her head when the two go off on their own. "How much worse will it get?" she asks Mok in a mixed tone of anger and worry.
To Cars, she'll get a little embarrassed "Bolka allows me more warlike ways, but insists on... changing them..."
With the ooze dead, the group eventually moves on following the cave as it turns east again and opens back up to worked stone. The group continues down the hall coming to an intersection leading north and south. The north hall ends in a closed door while the south goes east then north again into darkness.
Veltariel leans in and whispers to Esrisi...
Opening the north door Es sees that it leads back to the hall they were in before entering the natural tunnel and cavern. There is still a closed door to the east and hallway to the east, out from this northern door, in addition to the southern passage.
Es continues on as she and Vel talk quietly to each other. She moves to the eastern door and opens it up to find a small room, a bronze plaque, green with corrosion and inscribed with spiky runes, hangs over a closed door to the southeast.
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Esrisi stops talking to translate the plaque. She detects magic and searches the room for other areas of interest. She reads aloud, ”Huh. It says that we should not leave cages open.”.
She looks around for cages and finding nine points behind the door. I think there might be cages in here. I would expect that would mean someone left them open and there is a nasty creature waiting to devour us on the other side.”[/b]
She turns to Sapher, ”Would you and your shield kindly lead the way? I promise not to shoot you again!”
To Cars, she'll get a little embarrassed "Bolka allows me more warlike ways, but insists on... changing them..."
"Nothing wrong with bringing some passion into your fighting," suggests the Calistrian. "Or taking revenge when needed."
She remains amused when Esrisi promises not to shoot the dwarf again.
Drask watches the ooze creature disintegrate, frowning down at it. A creature that dissolves the weapons that attack it. Nasty. I am fortunate to have help otherwise I may be unarmed now. He tosses the shield back to Sapher, nodding in thanks. "Should carry one of those, for situations like this." He muses.
As Sapher quietly breaks the crossbow and Vel starts to yell at her, Drask turns with a growl like an overworked father whose children are getting too rowdy. However his expression switches to surprise with Esrisi of all people defuses the situation. Huh. Maybe she learning.
Drask follows quietly along with the others, and when the next door is opened he nods to Sapher and takes up a position behind her, easily able to see over her short frame.
Whoever goes to open the door Es is waiting by finds it is locked.
Drask takes a few steps back, looking to Sapher. "Ready?"
"Or that."
Sapher eventually steps up to open the door once Vel manages to unlock it. Stone tables line the sides of this room. Atop them are battered iron cages of various sizes, many of which hold the skeletal remains of various occupants. A number of these have been forcibly wrenched open and lie in ruins. It becomes quickly obvious what had opened the other cages as a number of small creatures composed of half-formed body parts, standing on two monstrous legs rush forward, a mouth full of jagged teeth dominates the creature’s bulbous head. Its veins pulse just beneath transparent flesh. It's warped flesh reminds you of the sinspawn you encountered earlier.
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Mokhasi peers at the monster, trying to identify it.
”It is a fleshdreg, an incomplete sinspawn. They are practically immortal, require little food to sustain their unnatural physiology, and do not mature. But... they have a nasty bite that can have negative effects related to the sin associated with their creation.” He quickly rattles this off, then moves up and shoots a blob of acid.
Mok burns the one with acid and draws its attention they all start to rush out of the room past Sapher and the others in their delay while listening to Mok. They scurry about and move in to bite at various members of the group.
One each manages to bite Vel, mok and Drask. They feel the sting of acid in the creatures bite making the wound worse.