Temmer follows Riverside, weapon at the ready.
Lexi readies her crossbow and follows near the party's rear.
Davor leads the way down the steps to where they heard the noise. As he gets down far enough just to see in the room, several objects fly at him from the hands of more little blue fey.
The multiple darts are all poorly aimed and don't even come close to hitting Davor, but now you know what has been waiting in the room below.
Remembering the last time a group of stupid longshanks tried to hit them with stuff, Gurk moves down the stairs while pulling out a ramshackle bow. Taking aim, he fires at one of the blueshanks.
Verris moves farther down the stairs and tries to provide a distraction for the others moving to attack by firing on the creatures attacking them.
HP 28/28
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15, CMD 18
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1 (+2 vs. emotion spells, effects)
Tactician (5 rounds): 0/2
Studied Target (+1 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks; weapon attack rolls and weapon damage rolls):
Effects:
Temmer moves forward, pulling the bowstring back and firing an arrow at the first mite he sees.
Bixby and his illusion make their way up to join the fight, the illusion getting further being controlled by Bixby and not actually moving on its own. Adistan moves forward as well, drawing his bow and taking aim at one of the mites trying to hide behind the pillar. Even with the pillar partial obstructing his view he hits the mite. Oddly, the arrow only barely seems to scratch the creatures skin, leaving only a minor wound. Gurk moves down to join Adistan and takes aim. It is well place but the arrow just slides across the creatures skin doing no damage. Davor charges into the room toward the nearest mite.
As he rounds the corner, he sees that on either side of the hall two mites, riding on large spiders are hanging out near the ceiling trying to hide. Davor's charge is succesful though as he pierces the mites skin and skewers him with his trident.
The mounted mites spur their spiders down to attack, one on Davor and the other on Bixby's illusion.
The mite attacking Davor, nearly stabs him with a tiny dagger, but only leaves a small wound while the spider luckily misses. On the other side the mite and spider both hit the illusion.
And the mite is confused for a moment when he doesn't actually injure it but then quickly realizes what is going on and calls out to the others in a strange tongue.
The two other mites pull out daggers and advance on Davor to attack.
Neither is able to connect though. Verris looses a arrow at the mite flanking Davor, after getting down the stairs, dropping the mite with a single shot.
Lexi's slow to react to the ambush. Eventually, she scoots partially down the stairs and starts shouting encouragement to her allies, reminding them that the things have damage reduction against all weapons not made of cold iron. Then she adds to aim for the mites' heads, as they're both the small fey's biggest body part and most vulnerable.
HP 28/28
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15, CMD 18
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1 (+2 vs. emotion spells, effects)
Tactician (5 rounds): 0/2
Studied Target (+1 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks; weapon attack rolls and weapon damage rolls):
Effects: naturalist (mite}
Not wanting to risk hitting Riverside, Temmer drops his bow and moves to guard the half-orc's back, pulling the mithral blade as he closes in.
Stepping over the one mite's corpse, he jabs at another of the creatures, slamming the sword home.
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"Fear, fire, foes!" Bixby exclaims.
"Fums!" Lexi squeaks reflexively at Bixby's words
Gurk moves on down the steps as he draws his dogslicer. "Stab the blueshanks!" Gurk shouts as he leaps behind the blueshank to shank it blue.
Verris will try to take out another of the enemies with her bow, aiming for one of the mounted ones to try remove them from the fight.
Lexi begins telling her companions everything there is to know about mites and how to fight them. Bixby casts a spell sending missiles of force toward the injured one near Davor, killing it. Adistan moves up to assist Davor killing the mite that is riding the large spider nearby. Gurk rushes up to join the fight as well, tumbling behind the spider and stabbing it in the back of the head, causing it to crumple to the ground dead. Davor, with no targets left moves over to attack the other mite riding the other spider. He misses with his trident but bites into the mites neck with a sickening crunch and snaps its neck.
The remaining spider fights for its life, attacking Davor.
It tries to bite him and misses. Verris lines up a shot putting an arrow straight through the spiders heart killing it with a single shot.
With no more movement in the room you look around. Thick sheets of spiderwebs hang from the walls and ceiling of this filthy rubble- and trash-strewn room. In places, the rubble and garbage have been heaped up into mounds and shapes that almost look like undersized furniture—beds and tables and chairs sized for small humanoids. There is a hall that leads to the west.
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"I guess that solves that problem" Temmers says. "Commendations, all. That was well-handled."
He looks around with a slight grimace of distaste at the mess, figuring Gurk will better investigate before they head west.
Lexi nods and then backs up Temmer and Davor's assessment. "Yeah, you guys are getting really good at combat!" To Davor she adds, "You've got a little mite blood around here," wiping the right corner of her mouth.
Lexi casts detect magic and scans the dump for goodies.
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Bixby's eyes go wide and stay that way for some time after Davor bites and kills one of the blue mites.
"Are you aware of the likelihood of acquiring one of scores of communicable diseases through your saliva?! Basidirond Spores, Blister Phage, Bluespit, Boot Soup, Cholera, Devil Chills, Dysentery, Firegut, Leprosy, Pulsing Puffs, Tetanus--good grief, friend! I've only just started on the list! I appreciate that you will go to any ends to help us succeed, but you will need to have yourself checked out when we finish here."
If you survive long enough.
Verris grunts in satisfaction at judging her shot correctly. She looks around at the others and asks, "Anyone hurt?"
She scrunches her face up in disgust as Bixby lists out diseases Davor could potentially get. He's gotta be making up some of those!
She then helps the others search the room for signs of the shard or other useful items.
Gurk looks around at all the stuff and nods. "Blueshanks have good hut here. Now we be looking at hidey door back up there?" Noticing Davor's choice, Gurk cuts off a blueshank ear, but doesn't find it quite as nice in taste.
Looking around the room, there is really noting of any value, these mites either live a simply life or store their valuables elsewhere. Lexi doesn't find any signs of magic either.
Getting bored without a new source of food to collect, Gurk moves back to the hidey door to see if any new food lies behind.
Gurk moves back to the secret door, not finding any traps he opens it up, it leads into a cramped tunnel, well cramped for any of the taller folks, just right for Gurk, that ends in another secret door. Checking this one as well he eventually opens it to find a small room. The ceiling of this roughly octagonal room is shrouded by thick sheets of tangled webbing. There is a staircase leading down to the south and another leading up to the north, though the northern one appears to be collapsed and blocked off by rubble.
Gurk reports back about the spidey stairs for the others to decide on.
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"Down then," Temmer decides.
He frowns at Riverside, wondering if he should lecture the man about inappropriate behaviors like eating our deaths, but if he wasn't going to listen to Copperpot, he suspected it wasn't worth the effort. Perhaps he could pull him aside later for a quiet word. Of course, it wasn't as if Riverside had actually tried to eat the mite, so perhaps it was just some uncouth boasting. Biting a foe certainly wasn't honorable, but when you have fangs like the half-orc's and it's close quarters, sometimes you have to do what you must.
He sighs. Life was easier on the ship.
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Bixby eventually regains his composure, though not his appetite. He follows after the others, continuing to rattle off potential side effects of biting someone.
He speaks to his illusory bodyguard, who nods appropriately.
"I didn't even mention Mindfire, Greenscale, Final Rest, Enteric Fever, Tuberculosis, Shakes, Red Ache, Typhoid Fever, or Zombie Rot! He'll tell me 'Big deal! I had half those things this morning!'"
Gurk slinks ahead quietly and starts down the stairs while the rest of the group starts to squeeze into the tunnel to follow behind him. Adistan follows behind Gurk quietly but as Davor is about to exit out the tunnel as he hits his head against the ceiling and lets out a curse. A giant black spider, with a red hourglass on its back slides down a web from the ceiling to attack after hearing the noise.
Verris sighs as the giant spider slowly lowers itself down from the ceiling. Then she pulls as an arrow from her quiver, draws it back to her ear and looses it at the spider.
HP 28/28
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15, CMD 18
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1 (+2 vs. emotion spells, effects)
Tactician (5 rounds): 0/2
Studied Target (+1 Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks; weapon attack rolls and weapon damage rolls): Natasha
Effects:
Temmer takes a moment to study the foe and then brings his quarterstaff to bear, slamming it down in a two-handed blow on the spider.
Gurk quickly moves up behind the spider to strike at its back. They be choosing spidey stairs.
Lexi opens her mouth to start spewing facts and strategies, but by the time she's formulated what she intends to say, her friends seem to have pretty much eliminated the threat.
"That was a giant black widow spider...I think.... Wowie...."
The group is quick to react and between Bixby, Verris, Gurk and Adistan manage to put the huge spider down before it has a chance to do any damage to the group.
From down the stairs and around the corner you hear a voice call out in a strange tongue.
You hear two other voices, talking is hushed tones, too low for you to make out.
Temmer looks confused and glances at Lady Dusk, assuming she'll know the language.
"Can you make sense of it, Lady Dusk?"
Lexi winces and shakes her head.
Verris looks to the others to see if anyone else can understand what the creature is saying.
With no one in the group seemingly able to understand the language.
It seems the group is at a disadvantage if they want to continue on not knowing what has been said.
Under Verris's gaze Lexi starts to fidget...badly. The skinny gal tiptoes over to her fellow aasimar and whispers something in her ear.
"Um...technically, I could cast a comprehend languages spell, but...."
"If you can, Lady Dusk, perhaps we can establish a peaceful dialogue," Temmer says.
Verris listens to what Lexi has to say and shrugs, "If nothin' else, we might learn somethin' important from hearin' what they're sayin'."
She looks to the group and says, "We could also try speakin' in any other languages we know. Might be that they understand other languages than what they're speakin' now. Lexi, any ideas for somethin' they might understand?"