"Let me have a look at that..."
Tariq carefully patches Haleen's wounds, then tends Antarah's. Both seem like they've just won a guillotine contest.
Yasmeena rushes to Haleen's side, topping her off with charges from her wand before following Tariq to Antarah as well.
"Thank you, that's much better."
"Shall we be worried that those statues spit out more of those things?"
While the healing is ongoing, Aithaloessa starts moving again.
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Antarah thanks Tariq and Yasmeena and promises them an entire night worth of drinks. Since no one addressed his questions of being equipped to move forward, he pretends he isn't worried at all and takes a quick look around the garden before stepping up to the corridor to the east and squeezing through.
Seeing Antarah move on Haleen asks "Are we just moving on? I thought this was only to evade the fight above."
"Eventually..." Haleen replies. "But just a moment ago you were worried we're running out of resources. And we still have no way to retreat if it comes to the worst, as that ugly vermin is still in our way."
The narrow - for Antarah - corridor leads to stairs further down, that end in front of a double door that would be large enough for Antarah to pass through.
"If you want to destroy the statues, be my guest. I have no hammer to do so."
Haleen falls over laughing.
With a lurch, Aith’s weapon arm swings up until she gets it back under control, since she’s spent the last few heartbeats trying to convince her body to move. Lowering her pistol again, but keeping it close for any other surprises or hints from the mold that came with the sidearm, she advances into the garden, which she finds quite charming now that there are no obvious clawed monstrosities around, and considers the statues.
She assesses the carving for likely stress points and the quality of the stone.
"Well, they are sandstone. They'd weather well, but wouldn't put up much resistance to the chisel, so ... if they weren't shaped so compactly, we might have more luck tipping them over in the right direction and letting gravity do the work. And there must be a channel for those pyrotechnics, so perhaps - here?"
She gives her best estimate of where to heave the sculptures over without getting hit by a blast of fire and smoke redirected from their mouths. "And then maybe we could set up our tent in an unobtrusive corner?"
The engineering look shows clearly that there is no opening where the fire and smoke would have come out. Much less the bugs.
“Or, rather,” Aith adds, taking a closer look, “there should have been a pipe or something, but. Perhaps just a conjuration after all? That would be a relief on one level, but on another, we would be back to more robustly blocky statues.”
Calling upon her cantrips, she scans the area, and the statues especially, for any lingering magic, while the stronger knights of Kelmarane decide if they want to try to heave the statues over.
The statues radiate indeed conjuration magic. And transmutaion magic.
"Mmm," Aith muses, concentrating on the statues, "I would definitely wager these were the focus for summoning those things, but there's also something else - a hint of transmutation? That might account for the fire and smoke..."
"We should put some gold together for Antarah to make an adamantine pickaxe or something. There is a lot of stuff that needs to be turned into rubble." Nevertheless does she wait for Antarah to take care of those stone enemies.
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Antarah comments "Well, if it is magical, there is a chance that just hitting it won't destroy it. Also, I won't use my mother's sword to bash at these statues. I agree that the conjuration summons the creatures, but... Transmutation? Fire and smoke usually come from either conjuration or evocation. Maybe the statues were transmuted into shape? Maybe they are actual creatures turned to stone?" He quickly gets tired of the scholarly discussion and tries to find something to try to break the statues down, such as gnoll weapons they've been carrying around in their magical bag.
"They aren't that big. Maybe take one to smash another?" Haleen suggests measuring the statues against Antarah's stature.
Antarah manages to loosen the statue from the ground and also to lift it up, by putting his arms around it and lifting it with his legs. But they are too heavy to lift over the head and smash them.
Yasmeena watches curiously. "I have often wished I had some durable adamantine arrows for circumstances like this," she says quietly to Haleen.
Also she notices, that the almonds on the trees are goodberries.
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Antarah lifts all of the statues slightly to make sure they are detached from the ground and then shoves them all so that they are all facing the ground. Afterwards he says "Hopefully, if any creatures come out of these statues again, they'll faceplant before giving us any trouble." Thinking himself clever, he decides to rest his arms for a bit.
He looks around for a bit, then thinks this would be an excellent place to hide something, so he takes a while walking around, searching the place for hiding spots.
The most suspicious part is an that empty room to the west, that has a tall ceiling, rising up thirty feet to a dome thick with cobwebs. But despite the thorough check nothing is found there. The garden hides nothing, but delicious looking almonds in the trees.
"I think those almonds are what the nature folk call 'good-berries.' The stone speakers are animated by magic once a day when triggered. Perhaps further investigation will tell us what their trigger is? I would like to know if we set them off, or if our invisible friend preceded us down the stairs."
Tariq doesn't feel useful at all, and once they've spent all that time he believes the invisble gnoll could be up to a whole different continent. He offers his help to whoever is doing some creative work.
Haleen tries an almond too. "Mhhh, not bad." feeling how the 'meal' fills her stomach and sates her she adds "But they are no fun. I'm full after one of them."
She offers one to Tariq. "Want to try one too?"
Tariq shrugs as he accepts the almond from Haleen. "It can't do any harm, I guess." He carefully cracks the shell and chews the small fruit inside.
"Mmmhh... reminds me of my monastery... Brother Ali could make delicious almond cakes..." He smiles evily for a second. "Luckily I managed to get his recipe. I should add this to the Dawnflower's menu."
"No." Haleen replies. "But it is also not safe to leave or to move on."
"Do you think you could prepare magic to defeat that vermin upstairs after a rest? Or doesn't it make a difference?"
Antarah comments "Well, if it is magical, there is a chance that just hitting it won't destroy it. Also, I won't use my mother's sword to bash at these statues. I agree that the conjuration summons the creatures, but... Transmutation? Fire and smoke usually come from either conjuration or evocation. Maybe the statues were transmuted into shape? Maybe they are actual creatures turned to stone?" He quickly gets tired of the scholarly discussion and tries to find something to try to break the statues down, such as gnoll weapons they've been carrying around in their magical bag.
Aith’s eyebrows lift up and her ears twitch in that way they do when she gets excited, “You’d be surprised – I know I was! – but there are some very interesting things you can do with transmutations. It turns out that one of the basic spells to manipulate fires is one, and can make fireworks much more exciting…”
Seeing Antarah and Tariq’s looks, she breaks off before she gets too deep into the spellcraft behind the pyrotechnics spell, and returns to the question of where to pitch the group’s tent, if anywhere. “As much as I don’t like the looks of those webs, I think either just inside that room or behind that bench would be safest. Which is not very, but it’s what we have to work with.”
"Do you think you could prepare magic to defeat that vermin upstairs after a rest? Or doesn't it make a difference?"
“And on that note,” the mage continues, her eyes flickering down to her weapon, as if its mold might suddenly shift to give her other ideas, “I don’t think I’ve learned any spells that are particularly useful for dealing with singular overgrown vermin. If it is just a monstrously large, stupid bug, I might be able to blind it with some glitterdust, and it might be clumsy enough for my little thunderburst, especially if I can enhance it with some evoked rain…”
“It might work for your electric magic too, Antarah!” And there are the wiggly brows and ears again, as a thought occurs to her and she launches into an energetic explanation.
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Antarah goes ahead and tries to add to the conversation about the worm. "Well, I don't know much about giant worms." then takes out his spellbook, flips some pages in the middle, then states "Glitterdust is also in my book, but I imagine yours will be more effective if the creature forgets to close its eyes and... assuming it cannot sense us without eyesight. I can make Tariq large like myself, and also Haleen if she wants. Other than that, I can only try to take advantage of Aithaloessa's magic rain and brute force. I can make myself stronger as well."
"How much is that worth, if the beast can take your strength as quick as we see with Aithaloessa. I don't like the idea of fighting that thing toe to toe. Have you seen its sharp spines? We would impale ourselves on that when trying."
"And even if we succeed, we're not in Kelmarane. We might as well stumble into the next hazard after that hard fight and a gnoll with a wet towel finishes us off." Haleem muses.
"Not to sound demotivating, but I'd like to have something that works, and brings the beast down fast. I'm not good at that. And I don't believe our approach of lasting longer than the enemy and wearing them down will work on that one."
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Grateful for Haleen's wisdom, Antarah says "Good point. It seems to have the upper hand in straight up confrontations. We might want to play to our strengths. It seems the worm doesn't really leave its pit. We can likely assume that it isn't the smartest of creatures."
He thinks for a while then says "We could try to collapse the tunnels it lives in. Maybe trap it? That way we may not need to kill it or... we could trap it so that it can't fight back? Another thing I thought is... I don't know much about poison, but it seems to feed on the gnoll corpses we left up there. If we were to poison a body and leave it as a gift..." He lets the implication linger, mainly because he can't come up with a better idea.
“We do have that bit of wyvern venom that we were able to recover on our way here,” Aith considers. “I thought it would be a nice trifle for Undrella, but under the circumstances… And it depends on whether rasts are edible or if we can sneak back upstairs.”
“I can’t manage proper invisibility yet, but I could manage a bit of mist, after some rest. If we wanted to risk it, we could use that for a bit of cover, and then, whether or not we try poisoning anything, try to blind and then fry that bug if we can. Either that, or try to make sure there’s nothing else down here with us first.”
A quick check shows the rasts are gone, as summoned creatures tend to do.
"I also don't think a face to face fight is the wisest solution here" Tariq adds. "But, in any case, staying here also doesn't appear as a good option."
With three options, that all don't sound good the day passes with discussions, creating plans, discarding plans and finally as everyone is tired of that the tent is set up in the empty room.
The night shows, that the number of creatures willing to join in this room is zero. It is only the wind rustling in the almond trees, the dabble of the fountain, which is nice if one closes their eyes, but surreal if one thinks too much about it. After an hour everyone feels rested.
Aith settles in as best she can to try to catch her breath, let their friend upstairs’ poison work its way through her system, but she’s restless, and soon poring over her spellbook again, trying to think of new tactics and staring at the fragments of calculations for new spells that she’s still working on understanding for any inspiration.
The giant bug is a daunting obstacle if they have to retreat, but also a vicious thing to deal with from close in. And Rokova is still out there, somewhere – she wonders just how long she has before outraged probability sees her luck run out. Setting that unpleasant thought firmly to one side, she tries to think what her various mentors would recommend. She can almost hear her old captain’s gruff dwarven voice in her imagination, telling her to hold the line, trust her companions, and take her lumps as they come. So, not particularly helpful, then.
Thinking of the girl she left behind her, or that she hopes to follow one day, rather, is at once both worse and strangely heartening. She inspired Aith to seriously take up the study of magic in the first place, despite the delays and difficulties of doing so in Alkenstar. Work around it, Aith reminds herself. Take the time you need. The direct approach is often … less helpful.
She turns to the page in her spellbook dealing with conjuring mists. Even if the decision isn’t to fight the giant bug in the arena, if they need to try to sneak past, it might provide some useful cover.
Eventually, the restless mage stops flipping back and forth in her spellbook, and pacing, as she becomes aware of a familiar feeling that should be impossible.
“I can’t be the only one that’s noticed that, can I?” she asks, knowing she certainly isn’t the most observant of the knights of Kelmarane. Aith’s hands twist in front of her, symbolically, though there’s nothing in them: the sign of a spellcaster testing the flow of energy through her. Remarkable! I think - no, I'm sure - that the threads are untangled! She can feel her reserves brimming again, and she refreshes her plant-like armour spell before putting her leathers back on.
“I would love to spend some time to scout for ley lines nearby, or whatever’s channeling the magic so strongly through here, but ‘Rokova’ is still out and about, and while he’s probably long since fled, we might be able to find out where he’s gone, at least, or another way back up to the last floor without running into that … thing. Shall we?” she offers, gesturing to the eastern corridor.
She puts a brave face on, but it’s clear that whatever her mental energy, Aith’s body is still struggling to process the poison bite she’s suffered.