The armored dinosaurs groan and back away from the fearsome orc. ”Okay! We don’t want no trouble,” one grunts in a language only Ashlion understands.
The nests here are for various dinosaurs; one nest has two deinonychus eggs in it. These cream-colored eggs are the size of a small vase and weigh 3 pounds each. Deinonychus eggs have significant value in the right markets. If the you keep the eggs warm and take them to Escadar or another large city, you could sell the eggs for 80 gp (40 gp each). You might instead keep one or both of the eggs and try to raise the dinosaurs instead.
The large tent contains a few trophies, including an urn with nearly a hundred dinosaur teeth. Among these teeth is a shark tooth charm.
"We're going to steal babies and sell them for gold? Why?" Ruinë asks. "Are we so poor as to stoop this low?"
Ruinë turns to Tasha with a pleading look.
"Sora, what are markets for? Besides, there are druids and rangers who would tend to and care for the beasts. If they didn't come from here, they aren't going to survive on their own. Better to give them masters who'll care for them."
Tom puts his hand on Ruine's shoulder. "Is there a difference between this beast or another?"
"They're not that different from chickens. They're good as food or food producers. If someone wants to make a pet out of one, I've got no issues with that," Tasha says.
When Ruinë turns her eyes on her, Tasha closes her own. "Don't look at me like that, Milaya," she implores back. "Everyone has to eat. Roots and vegetables are fine for some, but some of us need meat. This is not the place for this conversation. We can take them and sell them, or leave them here and they'll die for lack of food. I don't know what else you want me to do."
Ruinë's shoulders slump and she says "Fine. Take them then, at least they will have a few moments longer to live. I shall say a prayer for them before we sell them to be slaughtered though."
After taking the eggs, Grelda takes the lead. Her skills at moving stealthily are superb, and as you follow her, she nudges fate to ensure you can get the drop on the next group of enemies.
The three xulgaths and two velociraptors are completely caught off-guard!
Ready for trouble, the cleric is quick to launch a ray of fire towards a xulgath.
Tom quietly {A}smears a knife with poison before his assault against the xulgath.
"I'd like to think you'll reconsider cult affiliation BEFORE my knives kiss you to many times..."
Tasha raises her shield again and dashes forward to strike at one of the xulgath.
Shield raised, Tasha dashes forward to attack, but her blade scrapes against the xulgath's tough hide. Tom's first knife goes wide, but the second stabs into the xulgath's chest. Ruine scorches the same enemy with a fiery ray, then Grelda takes it down with a hurled projectile.
Ashlion rushes in and takes down a second xulgath with two heavy blows!
The third xulgath turns and runs, calling out as it passes behind some curtains and out of sight. The velociraptors leap on Tasha and Ashlion, attacking them! Tasha takes one hit, while Ashlion is bitten and and slashed with a talon.
Deciding that the injuries weren't dire just yet, she presses the attack and tries to scorch another foe with the fire ray again.
Tasha raises her shield to absorb some of the damage.
Tasha tumbles past the raptor to put her back to the wall.
She then raises her shield and stabs at the thing of teeth and claws.
Though Ruine misses with her fire ray, Tom and Tasha kill one velociraptor while Ashlion smashes the other one to pulp. Grelda nudges fate in Ashlion’s favor.
The xulgath that fled comes scampering back, trailed by two more of its kin. One is a yellow-skinned female with a great axe, while the other is a brute wielding a war pick. Both wear breastplates. The leaders converge on Ashlion, while the first xulgath slips around to flank with its dagger.
Taking a break from blasting out her frustration of the egg situation for a moment, she pivots to administer some battle medicine to Ashlion. "Hold still!" she shouts, slapping some some cloth on his bleeding back.
Tasha makes her way back over to assist Ashlion, readying her shield in the process. She stabs at the one flanking him, flanking the flanker.
Grelda hurls another rock!
"More of you? Fine then."
Ashlion and Tom miss, but Tasha and Grelda take down the flanker with a pair of critical strikes! The remaining xulgaths assault, one slicing him with its axe in a weakening strike.
"Another one down, how many more until you run?"
Tasha moves around one of the columns and then attempts to tumble past the xulgaths to gain another flanking position.
However, she loses traction with all the debris on the floor and settles for just stabbing at one of the humanoids.
She then raises her shield.
The weakening strike means Ashlion only lands one blow on the enemy. Tom misses with his attacks, but Tasha stabs the wounded xulgath and Grelda takes him down with a trio of magic missiles!
The last foe attacks Ashlion again, slicing him twice with her axe.
Tom makes one last barrage of attacks against the Xulgath, sure that he'll go down to SOMEONE.
Ruinë shoots a fire ray that is rather poorly aimed and tries to follow it up with a marginally better divine lance spell.
Tom lands one hit with his dagger, then Ashlion brings his maul down in two crushing blows that lays the final xulgath low!
Searching around the chamber, you discover a lesser healing potion hidden in a small ball of smelly mud. The adjoining chamber is strewn with grasses and several pine boughs. A wide variety of leather straps, sharpened bits of obsidian, and woven vines are piled in the southwest corner. A battered leather pouch is concealed among these materials, containing four tiny emeralds worth 15 gp each and a dose of cytillesh oil.
Ruinë pulls Ashlion aside and says "Come. Sit for a moment. Let me tend to your wounds."
Tom holds the vial of oil up to inspect it, and says: "I'm going to poison their leader with this. I'm sorry, but I'm taking it."
Tom looks at Tasha, "Sef, I'm going to scout ahead. I'll signal if there is trouble."
Tom then leaps the barricade blocking the way and slinks down the corridor.
He checks the following things in order: G7, The secret room, G8, then G9. But reports back before going up the stairs.
Tom's only gone a moment when he comes running back, and tries to summersault the barricade.
"IT'S REAL! The cube thing is REAL! It's chasing me right now!"
Tom returns to the near side of the barricade just ahead of a quivering block of nearly transparent protoplasm! Luckily, the gelatinous cube is unable to squeeze past the barricade, and after a few moments, it glides back down the corridor.
”You are lucky you didn’t walk right into it,” Grelda tells Tom. ”It would have engulfed, paralyzed, and digested you without us being the wiser. Gelatinous cubes detect motion, so perhaps there is a way to distract it...”
The witch’s eyes light upon her familiar. The flying snake hisses indignantly. ”Oh, no! I will not be used as bait.”
”You are fast, and you can fly. You are a valuable member of the team, Basil. Think of it as a contribution to our mutual success,” Grelda says.
Basil sighs. ”Fine, but you owe me big time for this one.”
The cleric leaps to her feet when Tom starts running towards them yelling, but relaxes when she sees it cant' pass through the barricade. She asks "What do we know about it? Does fire hurt it?"
”Fire works fine, but acid and electricity is ineffective. With luck, we won’t need to fight the ooze,” Grelda says.
Basil darts through the air of the corridor, drawing the gelatinous cube’s attention and luring it away, allowing Tom to scout the remaining rooms without trouble.
G7. Pushing the secret door sideways and down releases it, causing it to slide into the ground. The door slides back up and into place 30 seconds later. At one time this might have been a treasure vault, but it is now a bare stone chamber devoid even of decoration apart from four alcoves to the west, each bearing the image of another tower only slightly different from the Erran Tower in shape and size.
G8. The floor has partially collapsed here, creating a large chasm. Two exits overlook this chasm: a large room to the west and a short hall to the east. The floor of the chasm, as well as the ground within 5 feet of the chasm ledge, is covered with bat guano accumulated over the last several centuries by generations of bats. The demarcation of guano is a surprisingly even line. Most of the guano is dried into lumpy gray mounds; walking on it or touching it causes it to collapse into powder. Tom spots a guano-encrusted heap the size of an armored human at the bottom of the chasm.
G9. This room has a sloped ceiling at the eastern end, which accommodates a staircase ascending steeply upward from the middle of the room. Round alcoves to the north and south each bear stone daises with the booted feet of a statue, but both statues are broken off at the shins.
The cleric nods "Not fighting would be best. I like not having to patch you all up every twenty minutes."
She Tom spots the guano-man, Ruinë suggests "Tom. Perhaps you should to dig through that to see if there is someone stuck in there?"
"Once we finish digging through bat-s#!~, we should head upstairs," Tasha says, gesturing upwards.
As Tom leads the way to the edge of the chasm, the rock crumbles beneath his weight, threatening to drop him to the ground 40 feet below! Perhaps worse, as he tries to catch himself, the bat guano dissolves into powder, filling his lungs with fungal spores.
Hundreds of bats erupt from their roosts on the ceiling, shrieking and swarming, but Ashlion shrieks back at them to scare them off. Once that drama has resolved, you can climb down carefully to uncover the skeletal remains in the mound of guano. It wears a suit of +1 full plate that is filthy but serviceable. A nearby falchion is shattered, but a fear gem remains affixed to its broken hilt.
Ruinë smiles at Ashlion's nicknames for the others all revolving around little or small. "Sure, maybe you should dig Ashlion. you are the largest afterall."
Tom blushes when Ashlion says that and isn't paying attention to how close to the edge he is!
Tom grabs on to Ashlion's arm to steady himself and blushes again.
With the lower level explored, you head to the central staircase. The steep staircase has steps worn nearly smooth by the comings and goings of the gelatinous cube, and it is now more of a steep ramp than a staircase. You carefully make your way to the top, where chambers extend to the north and south. You can hear noises coming from both directions.
The temperature inside the tower suddenly fluctuates, surging to over 100 degrees. You find yourselves sweating profusely as the severe heat starts to take a toll.
"Tom," Tasha says quietly as she wipes the sweat from her brow. "Care to scout to the north?"
"It is so incredibly hot in here!" Ruinë notes, stating the obvious. "I feel like I may need to restore us from these temperatures. Is everyone else doing okay?"