After another 10 minutes of waiting Vel eventually emerges from the cave to see you all waiting on her.
Drask absentmindedly picks at his peeling skin. "Damn, deep scouting. Find anything?"
She looks frustrated. ”No. The tunnel goes on for a long way. I could have ventured further, I wasn’t in any danger at all during that run. But the prudent move was to return and make certain things were tended to here before we moved out.”
She nods at Sapher, noting the dwarf is up and moving again. ”Are we ready to move out? I would like to try and find a way into the ruin without even dealing with these tribes if we can help it. But Sapher’s idea is a good one. Bring a head with us. That will possibly cause any of them who wish to contest us to second guess the idea.”
Sapher waves a 'thanks for not leaving her as a corpse' to Vels, since she was out of earshot for the first. She looks to giant Drask, "You want to do the honors? My hammer just makes things into a paste, not as recognizable."
Drask's focus seems clouded, but he nods and moves over to the pyrohydra, grimly removing a head and attaching it to his belt.
"Wait, we should wrap it, I think." Sapher suggests, moving over and pulling out something to wrap it "In case it might have the opposite effect we want for some. Bring it out at the right moment." she helps, and is ready to move on.
Just in case, Caroliss makes extra sure the hydra is extra dead. No need to allow the thing to come back to life.
If she's confident it's finished, she will gladly ready herself to move on.
"Why, Ez?" Sapher asks curiously. The dwarf understood the gleam of coins lured them here, but why would they need to go deeper, she wonders.
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Mokhasi agrees, "it is an interesting thing to explore. It seems possible that this cave, as it is heading towards the statue, may serve as an entrance into the spire. Perhaps we will bypass other enemies that were frightened of the hydra?" He shrugs, nodding at Esrisi.
He shoves the treasure into the bag of holding after itemizing everything quickly in his journal.
Veltariel holds a hand up towards Mokhasi, gesturing to him as if he were a piece of evidence in an Abadaran court. ”Precisely. Our ultimate destination is underground. This tunnel leads further in. If it can perhaps get us inside the ruins without further risk to ourselves or our resources, we at least need to check. If it can’t and is a dead end, so be it, we will turn around and try the next approach. But if we can slip inside without the tribes being the wiser, then all the better for us.”
On that note, Veltariel heads on further down the tunnel once again, assuming the others will follow suit.
"The weird thing is that there are only boggard and animal bones here, not troglodyte bones. Could hydra somehow have been friendly to the troglodytes?"
Caroliss casts Message on the party and follows along.
Vel leads the way deeper into the cave system as the rest follow, letting her scout ahead. With her slower pace, being quite and cautious she walks through the caves for nearly an hour before the tunnel opens up into a larger chamber. Here the intersection of four tunnels forms a sizable cave. The domed ceiling rises to a height of twenty feet, while near the center of this cave stands a monument made of polished black basalt, seven-sided with the same great rune carved on each face. The top portion of the monument has broken away, revealing what appears to be a hollow space within in the shape of a shapely female figure. An astounding number of strange albino insectoid creatures, each the size of a man’s finger, scuttle and scurry along the walls at the sight of Vel's torch.
"Okay, I'll be the first dwarf to admit it, I was wrong." Sapher says as she lets up a very low whistle, but her questioning Why they needed to head this way.
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Esrisi follows the dwarf "It's good you can admit that you are wrong, Sapher. It shows you are both humble and wise. And human. Except.. You're a dwarf. Well, nevermind then. Forget that part. I'm wrong all of the time, so I'm used to it. You know, uhm, human and all."
She studies the hollow and says "Uhm. I'm pretty sure that this once beautiful winged human woman, was a uhm, a succubus." She glances at Veltariel for no apparent reason.
Since the group is moving up to their scout, Sapher will join them. She'll look around as she chats with Ez "Accepting my own faults has never been... um... a fault of mine." she gives a slight smile at the oddity of her own statement, as well as Ez's human one.
”Do they speak? Can we tell them we want no trouble, or should I start shooting?”
Mokashi knows they do not speak.
Once informed of this, Veltariel says ”Well then...” before she studies the paths from here.
She points at the tunnel headed west. ”That one leads to the Ruins. I’m sure of it. We should form up and deal with the adults and then we should be clear to proceed.”
"Where are they?" Mok points them out "I would have never seen them, amazing eyes." she complilments "Okay, we'll be the wall, you lot shoot them before they ever get here."
Veltariel prepares her own magic, and as the rest of the pathfinders bolster her abilities, she unleashes the initial volley on the nearest one!
Sapher moves in front of Vels, holding her shield ready to hold off the ugly bugs.
The group clumps up in the hallway with Sapher and Drask blocking the front so Vel can start shooting. The bugs were aware of the group, but were trying to hide until their prey entered the cave, even so the one Vel targets wasn't prepared for the brutal volley Vel sents its way, nearly killing the oversized spider outright.
+2 In dungeons
Even so, the large insects rush forward to attack, two of them close enough to move up and bite at Sapher.
Neither one even gets close to biting her though as she blocks their incoming attacks with her shield.
Veltariel continues shooting, and if she drops one she adjusts her aim to begin working on another.
"They. Are. Even. Uglier. Up. Close." Sapher grunts out each word as her shield gets hammered by their attacks.
Caroliss continues to favor Vel with luck!
Drask moves up to the bugs, taking a defensive stance.
Vel finishes the one creature off with her first shot and deals another solid blow tot he second with her next shot. Sapher and Drask continue to hold the line and Mok casts a spell lobbing some acid, but with the fighting going on he wants to avoid potentially hitting an ally and it causes him to toss the acid at the nearby wall instead of the giant spider.
Es rushes forward wanting to get in on the action but as she is about to throw a punch she notices she has hundreds of much smaller versions of the large bug crawling on her. They are essentially harmless but it is really disgusting and it distracts her so much she completely misses.
With a new target the two creatures turn their attention on Es to attack.
With the flurry of attacks Es manage to defend herself from all but one, as one the the things claws at her.
Veltariel sends two more arrows out, starting with the wounded one then moving to the uninjured one.
Es punches and kicks, but the spiders are too quick and she can't land a blow. Vel, with Caroliss's blessing though keeps pummeling them with arrows as she drops the next spider in the line.
With only the one left, it strikes out at Es again.
It manages to bite her doing a bit more damage this time, but that is the last thing it does as the group finishes it off. Now Es is just left to stand there with hundreds of gross bugs all over her.
Veltariel calmly walks forward and collects her arrows, and stands watching as Esrisi squirms uncomfortably under the robe of spiders she found herself wearing.
”So, exactly why would you break the line when we had things entirely under control?” she asks before heading on to the passage she determined led on to the ruin and continued onward.
"Ez.." Sapher shakes her head back and forth, still really not understanding the tall woman at times. "I think I still have some of that vermin repellant left." she offers the screamer. She remembers the complaint about the smell so doesn't just throw the stuff on her.
Then she follows behind Vels, well far enough that her clanking doesn't end up being a problem.
Vel continues scouting down the passage with the others eventually following behind. It takes about another hour before the passage starts to open up and ahead she sees something. The rough cave walls give way to a chamber of worked stone, with walls made of blue-veined white marble. The ceiling is supported by columns masterfully sculpted to depict voluptuous warrior women wielding two-headed guisarmes, with each column unique and strikingly detailed. At the center of the room, a ten-foot-square shaft leads down into the darkness below.
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Mokhasi frowns, ”perhaps I should withhold use of the wand of mage armor on this pathfinder in order to cut down on reckless behavior.” He looks at Veltariel for confirmation, ”please let me know if you think this would provide assistance and reduce the likelihood of their death.”
Mokhasi looks around for a sec too.
Veltariel continues creeping forward, studying the chamber and the hole...
Vel sneaks forward, the room is quiet and she can't really see much without getting closer to the shaft leading down.
Veltariel creeps up to the shaft edge, looking down for any sign of light or depth.
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"VEL! WHERE ARE YOU! OUCH! HELP ME! OUCH! NO! Oh not the smelly-ow! yes! Please! rub it on me!" she cries out.
Once all smelly, itchy, and burning from the bites. She asks Caroliss for some healing to help remedy the problems. Once healed, she stomops up tothe ledge and considers pushing Veltariel off it briefly.
"Why did you not help me!" she angry-whispers at the ranger.
As soon as Vel gets within 10 feet of the shaft something bizzare happens as the columns she passes come to life to attack her.
They lay into her with their sharp stony weapons dropping her to the ground.
+2 In dungeons
"Vels!" Sapher yells, stunned for a moment at the sheer brutality of the elf's takedown. Then the mages rush past her, which seems like a bad idea "Stop! Get behind me, you -!" Sapher bites her tongue, planting herself in front of the two less armored ones, and casts a bit of protection on herself. As she moves she listens to Mok's litany of horrible things about these creatures, so she drops her shield and pulls her big hammer out.