Damian does his best to... not believe in the shadowy reptile, but that is a little difficult to do when one has relied their entire life mostly on sight to learn about the world around them. Still not understanding very well how their weapons can hurt a shadow creature, he nevertheless takes aim diligently.
Sort of there and sort of not?
Coral knows little of the Shadow Plane, but she tries to disbelieve the illusionary part of the crocodile.
Then she strikes at it with her rapier.
Lola stops performing, the benefit of her inspire courage still lingering for those who chose to take advantage of it.
Lola’s timely identification meant that her new allies were better able to disbelieve the illusion. ”Even as an illusion, un cocodrilo can grab you and pin you, so be careful!”
She swings at the illusory beast, hoping a timely strike would put it down.
The party continues to prove that it is especially willful and with Lola's words each of the party member is able to see that this illusion, while still dangerous, is less than the threat that it actually represents.
After each party connects their strike against the reptile, Lola's spear connects with the crocodile's head, causing it to dissolve back into wisps of shadowstuff and disappear!
After freeing Marya, the party continues north through the gardens, following a path north that winds from the web-shrouded pergola through this garden. The path weaves around several large topiary animals--an elephant, a lion, an ape, an ostrich, and an ox. The heads of all these topiary creatures are entirely covered with webs.
As you come around a corner, you see the nightmarish ettercap you encountered earlier lying unmoving in the path ahead. His neck is bent at a fatal angle and his limbs are violently twisted. He appears to be rather dead...
"Is this another trick? It has to be."
Coral throws a small rock at the ettercap's seemingly dead body.
She watches closely to see if it is another illusion.
Lola focuses on the scene, detecting magic where she can, "even if it is not an illusion, the ettercap's spirit may still be here. Stranger things, yes?"
Coral's rock bounces off the ettercap's body and falls to the ground beside it.
Lola detects no magic at play on the ettercap, but does does pick up an aura coming from the three tail feathers of the topiary ostrich.
"Espera, Vlad. There's magic on the tail feathers of that ostrich. It could be a trap - like the trapped webs from a moment ago. Please let Coral investigate." She tries to stop him gently with her hand.
"Es peligroso for us, too, not just you. Please." She smiles at him from behind her mask.
Coral moves up and takes a look at the topiaries.
The sudden onslaught of the spiders had left Feena shaken but fortunately they went down fairly easily. Then there came the web shrouded figure that was a trap. The sight of what seemed to be a person, enwrapped in webs, drew even more fear through the normally stable Feena and left her unthinking as events proceeded. The very thought of being webbed up like that was driving Feena into a deep place in her mind and it was all she could do to keep following her companions.
She was oblivious for the entire crocodile affair and it wasn't until she saw the apparently dead ettercap that Feena felt anything. Feena gave a low moan of fear at the sight of the thing and while she was glad that it was dead she couldn't stand to look at it, or even go near it, she just wanted out of this nightmare. Despite her revulsion at the thing, her desire to not look, she couldn't help but stare straight at it and heard little about any kind of traps.
Coral moves up and checks the feathers that detect as magic and finds no traps. When the group moves in and inspects the feathers closer, their magical-inclined folks identify them as three feather tokens.
While the party was distracted with the feather, the creature than had been feigning death so perfectly suddenly animates. While Feena is staring the creature on the ground, she blinks her eyes and the next moment it's standing in front of her and snapping its horrific mouth of sharp, jagged teeth onto her forearm, injecting a poison into her body.
"I knew it was a trick!"
Coral moves up and stabs at the monster.
She prepares to defend Vlad, Feena, or other adjacent allies against its attacks.
Both Vlad and Coral try to attack the ettercap, but fail to land a hi!
Coral moves up and distracts the creature when it tries to bite Feena again, but it ignores her and rakes the sorceress with its two claws.
"Feena!"
Coral gives up on protecting Vlad and decides to go for all-out offense, moving into flanking position to do more damage.
She readies to strike once Vlad is in flanking position.
Lola smirks at the creature "bruta, you should have tried to kill me!" She cackles, and begins to sing and jape at the foolish creature.
Wichi wichi araña
tejió su telaraña.
Vino la lluvia,
y se la llevó.
Salió el sol,
se secó la lluvia.
Y wichi, wichi araña,
otra vez trepó.
Trepó, trepó, trepó.
She keeps her spear ready to attack when able.
Marya raises her sword high as she looks to Lola. ”You sing, I’ll dance.”
Damian looks in confusion as Lola and Marya start capering around instead of fighting the creature. Was it not that dangerous? But it had hurt Feena! Still, if they were that confident, perhaps it was not such a threat, as repugnant as it looked. Maybe that is why it had been playing dead...
Feeling his resolve strengthen, Damian takes careful aim.
Ena cried out in fear and pain as the ettercap suddenly was before her. Its buggy mouth parts opening wide as it bit deeply into her flesh and injected it's poison.
Her body felt sluggish as the poison took hold in her body and then the thing raked her with it's claws. It tore through her clothes and the flesh beneath practically ripping the garment from her body in it's furious assault and Feena fell to the ground with her life's blood quickly spilling from her wounds.
As Feena drops, Lola suddenly recalls what this creature is! Damian's arrow strikes the creature, his arrow burying into its chest. Coral follows it up with her own attack, inflicting even more damage on the creature. Despite both of their hits however, it seems hardly damage at all.
Lola adds, ”it is very evil - if you have good spells or weapons - those can penetrate its regeneration! Silver also works!” She draws her spare silver morningstar, offering it to anyone who wants it.
As Vlad misses, the ettercap laughs loudly, finding something hilarious as a feeling of fear runs down your spine.
About half of the damage inflicted by the party on the creature suddenly heals, the wounds on the ettercap closing and mending on their own. It steps north away from the bulk of the party and sets its sights on Coral, hoping to down her like it did Feena. It's poisonous bite attack misses, but it hits her with both of its claws.
7
Lola laughs at the creature as she stops her mocking dance, then steps back slightly and spins her shining silver longspear at the nightmare. ”Can’t scare us when you look so ridiculous, pendejo!”
A vicious silvery blur stabs towards the creature, well-aimed.
The fire in Feena managed to do it's work and cauterized the wound from the inside the poison continued ravaging her weakened body.
Despite her wounds, Coral is not intimidated by the creature.
She steps into a flank with Lola and tries to bring down the beast, though she pays more attention to her defense.
The halfling calls upon her flawed but sincere faith and uses her Lay on Hands ability.
Dismayed at the meager wound that his arrow had inflicted on the creature, and at the ease with which it had swatted Feena to the ground, Damian rushes to the sorceress's side to help her.
Marya scoffs at the creature’s attempt at intimidation. She pauses Iomedae’s Inspiring Sword to channel the Inheritor’s healing, selecting out the monstrosity.
Lola's silver spear jabs into the creature, preventing its healing ability from kicking it in addition to damaging it for a fair amount. Vlad's attack misses again as does Coral, and the halfling pays the price of being the focus of the ettercap's attention as it ravages her body. First biting her upper arm, then slashing her face then her chest, shredding her flesh again and again.
Marya calls down a blessing on her allies, then begins circling around to get closer to Coral in the event she drops.
Coral goes down (at -1 HP)
Now at -2 HP.
Just as he revives one comrade, another one falls! Coral was out of his reach, so he must trust Marya to take care of the halfling. The best thing he could do right now was to help take down the creature. Thinking a quick prayer to the Everlight, Damian sends an arrow sailing towards their foe.
Feena gasped as she came to from the healing Damian provided and managed to, barely, say, "Thank you Damian."
She started to stand up, her moves sluggish, but she was capable of movement at least, and glared at the terrifying ettercap thing. She chanted, gestured, and sent a jolt of electricity lashing out at it.
Lola takes another stab at the problem.
”Looks like you’re finally getting the point.”
Lola, Damian and Vlad all come together to land their strikes against the ettercap, putting it down on the ground for real this time. The Vlad's final strike is enough to finish the battle and allow the group to pay attention to their wounded.
Feena felt the pain of the poison abate as the phoenix fire in her blood dealt with the toxin and sighed in relief. This whole thing could have been much worse for her and she knew that she had gotten very lucky to have survived.
As she looked around feen realized that Coral was in bad shape and quickly aimed to get her frineds in the area of her flames while keeping the disgusting monster out, just in case it was still alive somehow, and let loose with a torrent of flames.
"There, that should help a little," Feena said, "Is everyone alright?"
Lola headed over to Coral and muttered something, touching her softly on her wounds to close them, ”the cycle is not complete Coral; come back to us.” She smiles at Coral from behind her skull mask, and helps her up.
Coral returns to the brink of consciousness with Feena's healing flames, then regains the strength to stand from Lola's magic.
"Another close call. I need to be smarter and faster."
Marya gets to work trying to heal her allies back up, but her magic is less effective than she would like.
Damian helps Marya with the healing.