Revka initially forgets that they're trying to approach without avoiding notice, and happily chatters with Warbal. However, after a quick nudge by the others she catches on. "Ooks, sorry."
Aronida and Gethric lead the party around the northern end of the citadel. The ground here is clearly damp and swampy; Gellius would guess that an underground spring has slowly weakened the foundation until the wall collapsed. In the middle of a puddle, a corpse in tarnished armor lies on some sort of muddy lump, perhaps a pile of rubble from the wall.
Aronida holds out her arm, stopping anyone from advancing. "Wait a second. Something's wrong." Her eyes narrow as she studies the corpse. "Something moved it. It was closer to the middle of the puddle before."
She glances back at the others. "Should we go in anyway or try a different path?"
Revka wrings her hands. "Going around again is just going to take a long while. We should do something." She looks uncertain. "Weren't you going to throw rocks at it?"
"Cover me!" Darla whispers. Loaded sling in hand, the bard stalks forward , twirls her weapon a bit, and tries to fire a stone at the muddy lump beneath the corpse.
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Darla's slingstone ricochets off the thing beneath the corpse with a distinct ping, rather than sinking in with a quiet slurp as one would expect of a bullet hitting a mound of wet mud.
“It doesn’t appear to be undead, anyway,” Gellius opines. “Perhaps there’s some wild animal living within that’s moved the body? I say we press forward.”
“Let me know if you’d like me to go first” he says to Aronida. “I don’t have your knowledge of the wild, but I’m relatively quick on my feet and have had some training in fighting in close quarters.”
Personally Aronida would prefer to check another entrance, even if it took longer. For that matter, her preference would have been to observe the entire citadel for hours before actually approaching. Patiently lying in wait for her prey is much more her style than rushing into possible danger.
However, she's self-aware enough to realize that sometimes, such as when you're trying to rescue a tribe of goblins from a presumed taztlwyrm, patience isn't actually a virtue.
"If you don't mind going forward, I'm better with a bow." She pulls it off her back and checks the tension on the string before nodding. "I'll cover you. Be careful."
Checking that Gethric, as the other scout, has no objections. Gellius nods to Aronida and stows his bow before drawing his swords and creeping forward.
When deferred to for opinion Gethric can only offer a confused shrug, before adding "If it's moved then it's something in there with the body right?" but doesn't stop Gellius approaching... finding the mystery softly twanging on his curiosity. He does retrieve one of the long tined serving forks from its position of rest and wields it in a more positive pointy-bit forward perspective where it could be brought to bear if needed.
Darla switches to her rapier. "Maybe we can come at it from different directions," she suggests to Gellius.
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Revka hazards a guess. "Maybe the longshanks fell on top of a tortoise when he died, and the tortoise is lugging his body around?" It sounds far-fetched, but it could be true. Just to be on the safe side, she draws her starknife.
"Please watch out, Darla," Revka offers a piece of obvious advice. She moves up alongside her new friend, making a wide arc around the corpse.
Darla nods and moves to the very edge of the pool and then tries to poke twice at the mudbear or whatever's lurking in the water.
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Revka moves forward, her sharp eyes peering into the muddy water.
Revka jumps from surprise. "So, the good news is that the corpse is probably not an undead. But I might have been right about the tortoise-thing. Somewhat. I can see two things in the water. There, Darla, straight in front of you." She points the nearest 'thing' out to Darla. "Oh, and I think they're quite big..."
Darla squints and scans the area Revka's pointing at excitedly but sees nothing out of the ordinary...so she tries to spot the menace herself.
Try as she might, Darla can't see the creatures Revka does.
The next moment, however, a hoarse voice emerges from the hole in the wall. "Lies! Is just a floaty corpse with lots of shinies."
Recognizing the likely ambush, Gellius figures he is still likely to do the most good keeping any combatants away from the other members of the party. Moving forward to the edge of the lake, he shifts his main gauche to a defensive stance as he scans the water for a better look at the hidden creatures.
"We know you're there, show yourselves!" he calls. "We are representatives of the Breachill Town Council, here on official business."
Two-tined stabbing implement held at the ready Gethric narrows eyes and pauses with bated breath.
Gellius approaches the puddle but is unable to locate the enemy.
Gethric stays alert and bides his time.
Aronida almost laughs. Almost. Floaty corpse with lots of shinies?
Well, at least that put to rest any doubts that they were just being paranoid. A voice meant an intelligent creature waiting to ambush them. Although not too intelligent, or it would have realized that speaking gave it away.
For now she simply holds her bow, arrow at the ready, and waits to see how the creature responds to Gellius' approach.
"Ok, so no tortoise-thing," Revka mutters to herself when the voice beyond the wall reacts to her words. "Wait. You can talk?" This opens up new possibilities. "We're not interested in shinies," she replies to the voice. "We just want to help the Bumblebrasher goblins who've been trapped in the castle." (She is interested in shinies, but getting to the Bumblebrashers takes precedence.)
Seeing as how the rest of the new friends hold off for now, Revka does likewise. She leans forward to peer into the water, squinting and trying her hardest to figure out what they could be dealing with.
Revka looks puzzled. "So folks... I may have been wrong about the tortoise-thing after all..." She doesn't sound too sure, but she can't argue with what she sees and hears. "My tribe told stories of graveshells who would ambush and rob you if you got greedy. I thought it was just a boogieman to keep us scared, but I guess it was true. Oh, and they can talk...?"
Since the things are intelligent enough to speak and haven't launched an attack yet, Darla decides to try to negotiate with them.
"We don't want a fight," she says nicely to the...whatevers. "We've come here to kill a dragon or similar creature that's causing trouble. Gosh, I hope that's not you! Assuming it's not, we'd be willing to let you fine...um, things...eat its remains if you agree to let us pass in peace."
"We know you're there, show yourselves!" he calls. "We are representatives of the Breachill Town Council, here on official business."
"Fishing business: yes, good fishing here!" the voice encourages Gellius to enter the puddle.
"We just want to help the Bumblebrasher goblins who've been trapped in the castle."
"We don't want a fight," she says nicely to the...whatevers. "We've come here to kill a dragon or similar creature that's causing trouble. Gosh, I hope that's not you! Assuming it's not, we'd be willing to let you fine...um, things...eat its remains if you agree to let us pass in peace."
"What if dragon kills you?" the voice demands suspiciously.
Gellius frowns at the transparent attempt to dupe them.
"Look. We're not interested in your games!" he says testily, continuing to scan the area for their would-be ambushers. "Come out where we can see you and let us pass. This is important."
He remains on guard at the edge of the puddle with his main gauche ready, his eyes sweeping the immediate area.
Seek.
Gethric keeps wary, but doesn't make any overt aggressive moves yet. He approaches close enough to narrow eyes and try and make out the creature of which his companions are speaking...
Aronida studies the puddle, hoping to pick out the creature that Revka identified. Her bow remains at the ready in case they turn hostile. Hopefully Gellius and Darla can talk them down. Whatever they are.
Gellius and Aronida are still unable to see what Revka has, but they remain watchful.
"Right," Revka chimes in on Darla's words. "We're not really interested in fighting you." She has an idea. "Besides, if you're just hungry we could spare you some food. My tomatoes are gone, but I still have some salted beef and a few carrots."
"You has food?" the graveshell responds with a sudden eagerness. "We will eat it -- and you!" The Large turtle-like creature emerges from the rubble and snaps at the goblin, swinging at her with an algae-caked claw when she avoids its jaws.
As soon as it attacks Revka, Aronida looses an arrow, but in her care to avoid Gellius, it fails to strike its target.
Darla jumps when the monster emerges from the water and rubble.
How did I miss seeing something so BIG?, she finds herself wondering. The young woman also wonders why she isn't running away from the threat. Guess I'm truly an Uskwold, she decides.
"Heed the call! Be a hero!" she shouts to the others, magically inspiring them. Then she takes a cautious step toward the monster and flicks out with the tip of her rapier, aiming for its black heart.
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The point of Darla's rapier misses the graveshell's heart but pierces its front leg.
The next moment, the corpse in the puddle lurches upward as the muddy lump it is lying on resolves itself into a second creature's shell. The dead man's extremities flop loosely as the second graveshell demands with exasperation, "What's going on up here? Are you talking to the food again?" Its reptilian beak snatches painfully at Darla, but a follow-up attack with its claw fails to connect before it withdraws beneath the shelter of its shell.
Springing from his position of alertness into tangible action, Gethric stalks forwards... fork held high as though he were planning to overhead stab it downwards. However in the last few strides he lurches to his right and drops the angle of his weapon, instead attempting to drive the tines of it upwards and into the underbelly of the creature...
Aronida moves to the side, eyes fixed on the creatures as she looks for a good angle. Don't want to risk hitting Darla, need to find a place where they're not in cover...here's good.
She's patient. Always has been. And she continues to be patient as she carefully lines up her shot. Her sharp eyes try to look for weaknesses in the creatures defenses.
In his attempt to flat-foot the tortoise, Gethric slips in the mud at the edge of the puddle. He manages to keep his feet but is momentarily off-balance himself; worse, his fork skitters off the turtle's hard shell without penetrating it.
Aronida swings out to one side in search of a clean shot and takes it, firing off two quick arrows, but both fail to strike home in their target.
"Eep!" Revka exclaims as she watches the graveshell approach and attack her. "We would have just given you the food, you know..." She sounds disappointed rather than dismayed. The goblin has her starknife in hand, but using it isn't her first instinct. Rather, she puts a hand on the holy symbol on her necklace and starts a small prayer. "Desna, we really tried to reason with them. But they're too thick-headed for that. Could you knock some sense into them? Oh, and please protect me as well. I don't want to end up as turtle-food..."
--
Revka's invocation of the divine has only a limited effect on the graveshell, but the goblin interposes her goddess's protection between herself and the enemy.
Giving a nod of acknowledgement to Darla, Gellius strikes at the one she hit, his two weapons combining in a well coordinated, intricate and deadly pattern of thrusts and slashes.
We have the advantage of numbers, he muses to himself. We should press that advantage early and put them down as fast as possible..
Eschewing his earlier, more defensive stance, he follows up with a further series of thrusts from his rapier.
Gellius unleashes a series of stabbing attacks against the graveshell, which leave it oozing blood from multiple perforations.
"Oh! Ow!" it cries, its piggish yellow eyes welling up with tears. "Why you so mean? You can go past for all I care." It backs into the citadel and turtles defensively inside its shell.
Darla steps away from the monster and casts a soothe spell on herself to (hopefully) cure the damage taken from the monster's jaws (plus some lingering damage from smoke inhalation back in the village).
Darla steps back and magically salves her wounds.
The dead body on the other graveshell's back suddenly lurches upward and forward toward Gellius; it's a split-second before it becomes clear that the tortoise-like creature has extended the spikes on which the corpse is impaled in a vain attempt to snare the Chelaxian as well. It opens its shell long enough to swipe a mossy claw at him which opens a deep gash; encouraged, it swings the other claw and wounds the fighter once again.
After seeing Gellius cruelled by the turtle-like monstrosity, a welling of doubt and responsibility beings in Gethric's gut... feeling that his recommending this access point may have led to current events. With a quavering voice, he barks "Oi, stupid... why are you trying for man-flesh... don't you know that halflings are much more tender and tasty?" feigning to back away from the beast before spinning and driving forth with his fork prodding and poking...