Yasmeena whirls in place, firing arrow after arrow at the creature.
With an combined effort the health of the monster is reduced, but not enough. While Aithaloessa is stuck in the jelly, the thing keeps biting at her. Meanwhile the tentacles lash out at the ones standing around and grabs them.
"Sarenrae, look down upon us!" Yasmeena cries, as she draws and fires desperately.
For what little it’s worth, Aith panics completely as she’s slathered in acidic jelly and then savagely bitten, as if she were some elf confit.
Through the caustic glup that surrounds her, she reaches wildly for her dagger.
Tariq feels death's caress very, very close. He craftily awaits for the right moment, though, this moment where the (hopefully) stupid beast doesn't expect his prey to rebel. Only then he asks for the Lady's gift.
Obviously, they're too deep underground for the Sun goddess to reach her follower, so he'll have to rely on his good ol' tricks.
Yasmeena still has a hard time to make the arrows stick. Aithaloessa can't even cut the thing from the inside when her life depends on it. But pulling Tariq closer wasn't a good idea. He cuts the thing deep and it stops moving. It spreads out the tentacle and topples over.
Haleen tries a cesarean section to get the elf out of that jelly. She doesn't have any medical experience in that area, but as the 'mother' doesn't need to survive and one can see where the one to deliver is through the translucent jelly, she takes a shot at it.
Haleen does a deep cut into the jelly, and Aithaloessa falls out of the dented and split sphere.
From where she sprawls onto the cave floor, Aith sputters and gasps for breath when Haleen cuts her free. Wheezing, she sits up, then rises shakily to her feet, all bruises and bites and caustic burns under a layer of jelly where larger globs haven’t yet slid off. She desperately rubs the stuff off as best she can with a curse, too distraught to remember that not everyone speaks Elven, <“New rule! Can we just say no more f&%#ing tentacles!?”>
It’s a good effort, but Aith’s lip wobbles and she bites down hard on it as her eyes go glassy and she takes another deep breath: she’s obviously putting her all into not breaking down just yet. It takes another few moments before she’s collected herself enough to switch to a shared language, and she offers, quietly and unsteadily, “Thank you. All of you. I thought I was done for.”
She casts around, disoriented, before pointing further into the cave. “Am I mad, or is there more light coming in from somewhere off down there? I … I’m not doing too well at the moment, but if we want to press on, if we take it carefully, if that is another way through, I can try to speed us all up again just before we reach the next room.”
“Does anyone else need to catch their breath?” Aith asks euphemistically from where she wobbles, before acknowledging the gravity of the situation by abandoning pretense. “Shall we break out the wands and bandages? If that door’s a hint we’re getting close, I should probably save some energy for a shield spell, but I might be able to manage a ward or two against evil intent as well.”
The battered and drippy mage inhales deeply, holds it for a second, and then lets it go deliberately slowly. “Right. Let’s see if our Jackal is nearby?”
“I mean to tell him that I'm very cross,” she adds tartly.
"Almost dead and still talking like a waterfall." Haleen comments. "Interested to find out if it stops if we push a little further? Only for scientific purposes of course." Haleen teases the mage.
"I could use some magical treatment too."
Tariq asks once again for divine help, laying his hands on Aith and releasing some positive energy.
"Almost dead and still talking like a waterfall." Haleen comments. "Interested to find out if it stops if we push a little further? Only for scientific purposes of course." Haleen teases the mage.
"I could use some magical treatment too."
“I’m the canary in the mine,” Aith grins wearily as Tariq calls upon his magic. “If I’m not singing during daylight hours, something terrible is about to happen.”
She finds and hands over the wand they pass around so that the rest of her bruises can be dealt with.
The layer of muck from whatever the jellyfish-thing was, that's slowly crystallizing, will have to wait until later. For now, once everyone's wounds have been soothed, with a shimmering burst that fades out of sight in a moment, Aith calls up her shielding spell.
"If you like the role of the one who is held prisoner to die as a warning for all others..." Haleen replies smugly and takes some taps with the wand from someone who can actually handle that thing.
She also asks Yasmeena to tap her with the wand of protection from evil because "That looked definitely evil and who knows what lies ahead."
One man's thrash is another man's treassure. But in this scenario everything around falls into your trash category. Aithaloessa - if asked - might find even more descriptive words to describe what that thing left behind. Not at least all over her clothes and body. Not even Rayhan would let her in his bath without hosing her down first.
Without any options to fix that, the knights move on. The roughly hewn cave gows further for some hundred feet it turns sharp left and widens. This part is like a huge hole beaten into the wall of the temple ahead.
The ceiling of this enormous room rises thirty feet, and is supported by a dozen stone pillars. The chamber is empty, save for an immense stone dais to the west upon which stands a huge and horrifying statue carved of black stone. The statue resembles a spider and a scorpion, but is neither—it is something unaccountably more horrifying to look upon. Two dozen sparkling pearl eyes glare out of the monstrous statue’s face.
And there is that annoying halfling Tamir and a guy who looks like one of his parents was a jackal. "I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you. But my need for the scroll is more pressing than yours. I hope you can understand that." the jackal opens the conversation.
"If you like the role of the one who is held prisoner to die as a warning for all others..."
“Depend on it, if I didn’t think turning away would make everything much, much worse, I’d at least be tempted,” Aith confesses as they press on. “So definitely a prisoner of fate, or the like.”
“Though of course the sheer audacity rankles…” She enjoys the banter a bit too much, as she realizes the moment they’ve walked rather into the open and she hears the Jackal speak.
"I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you. But my need for the scroll is more pressing than yours. I hope you can understand that." the jackal opens the conversation.
She dives back into the cover of the arch of the mouth of the cave before answering back.
“Codswallop, if you’ll pardon the expression,” she calls, forcing impertinent cheeriness into her voice. “How on earth? And another Rovagug shrine?”
With the model of the previous ghastly sculpture in mind, she guesses she can make sense of all the spider-scorpion décor now. That doesn’t sound promising for meaningful negotiations, and besides, there’s the deal she and the others made with the powers that be of Katapesh. So Aith is happy to try to bait the Jackal into doing something rash: she’s pretty sure she can bandy words and spells and bullets more or less at once.
“If you nihilists had a god that could figure out so much as a proper adjectival form, I’d actually be worried that you might do some damage to a priceless bit of history! As it is, you’re wasting our time! Hand it over!”
She meets the other Kelmaranian knights’ eyes as she speaks, reaching for her spell component pouch and getting her hand ready for the gestures she’ll need to make. “Charge in, in a second?” she mouths. And then she starts casting the spell that will give them the speed they need to close.
Yasmeena nods to Aithaloessa, and begins her battle dance from hiding, ready to step out of cover and shoot when their elven leader gives the signal.
"You want to throw some flowers or such at them first before I charge in?" Haleen inquires from Aithaloessa.
"I don't give a damn how much you need it."
Tariq doesn't even have to look at the others.
"Protect in from evil, oh my Lady Sarenrae."
Protection from Evil, Communal
Then he closes the distance, all the time looking at the halfling.
"You want to throw some flowers or such at them first before I charge in?" Haleen inquires from Aithaloessa.
Aith shakes her head.
“I'll only do that if I run out of other spells and options. This time,” she volunteers, though her addendum does concede that she's not always that careful.
Tariq declares the talking over by charging in.
Yasmeena steps around the rock and begins shooting at the Jackal.
Her heart is already racing with nervous excitement and anger when Aith’s spell grabs onto it and pushes it to beat half as fast again.
Right. Don’t be afraid, and don’t be stupid, she tries to encourage herself. She steps out from cover and quickly estimates the range to where Tamir and the Jackal are standing, her eyes twitchy with magic. She knows they’re not likely to stick that close together for much longer, so she thinks she probably has one best option right now.
She reaches into her pockets for a bit of mica and her reservoir of spell power for energy, and conjures a burst of glitter that drops down over the burglars.
No flowers necessary so far, she thinks, as she thinks about her next move, depending on how her spell lands.
Yasmeena shoots two arrows into the jackal, the third one hits but falls off. Also the ones that stick don't do the usual damage. Tamir got glitter in his eye, but the Jackal seems unaffected. Besides the glitter sticking to his fur, which looks ridiculous.
Tariq shouts, more than prays, and a gleam in his eyes indicates he's blessed by Lady Sun. He charges, scimitar over his head, and launches a devastating blow against Tamir.
Haleen has a late start, but she is a bit faster than Tariq im his heavy armor and catches up with him. She goes with a stab at the Jackal.
Jackal doesn't care much for Tamir to be attacked, but as the woman comes at him, he activates his sleep gaze.
Tariq feels a bit dizzy, but quickly shakes off the strange feeling in his desire to take revenge on the halfling.
The halfling gets properly reminded what standing up to Tariq led to in the past. He doesn't look very healthy after the treatment wiht the blade.
The Jackal is also wounded, but it looks like he can take it.
Tamir steps back and tries a hold person on Tariq.
Yasmeena takes a step closer and continues firing at the Jackal, relying on quantity of arrows to pierce his tough hide.
Aith follows quickly behind Tariq and Haleen, but not quite so quickly: she angles around trying to maintain sight-lines and get close enough for her shortest-ranged spells, but not so close that it would tempt one of the villains to risk turning their backs to close with her.
Before she chooses her next spell, she tries to figure out what sort of being the Jackal is - hopeful not actually a gnoll, because that would really cramp her style today.
Not affected by Tamir's charm, Tariq slowly grins. He extends his thumb and moves it all around his neck, then discharges two blows on the halfling.
The Jackal is hard to hit. Only one arrow sticks. Tamir is cut down where he stands.
"Jackalwere," Aith breathes, a hint of a grim smile starting to tug at her lips as she starts getting a better measure of what they're up against. So, not silver then? Because they're not people that turn into animals, but animals that...
Her hands are kind of full anyway: while she closes, she calls forth a flight of magic missiles at the dog-headed creature.
Haleen falls asleep in front of the Jackal.
The Jackal steps back, reaches into a bag and throws some furry ball in direction of the women in the back.
It instantly grows into a brown bear that charges Aithaloessa.
Yasmeena steps closer and continues shooting desperately at the Jackal, hoping Aithaloessa can deal with the furry ball on her own.
Aithaloessa is almost grateful that she gets a bear in the face – at least it’s not some slimy thing with tentacles.
That’s a neat trick, she thinks, but so is this!
Her smile finally blooms, as she takes a first hasty step away from the bear’s claws – and into a fold of space that deposits her the better part of a bowshot away, from where she scoots around normally around Tariq.
From there, she tries to ruin the Jackal’s day as if she were one of those gremlins from when she first got caught up in all this.
The priest steps forward to close on with the Jackal and offers the same treatment he just did to Tamir.
The bear moves on to attack Yasmeena.
The Jackal attacks Tariq, but his luck has run out.
Aith winces a bit as she realizes she’s unloaded the bear onto Yaz. She mouths an apology across the room, but decides she might be of more use where she is at the moment.
With her spell speeding her movements, she levels her pistol and fires two shots at the Jackal.
Her gremlin curse might just have been a bit too strong, or maybe it's just ordinary bad luck, because her first shot misfires. The second makes up for it, though.
After Yasmeena and Tariq softened the Jackal up, Aithaloessa sends him tumbling with a bullet. Out of spite he swings his axe at the sleeping woman, before falling over.
Yasmeena curtseys to the bear and withdraws, relying on her enhanced speed to get her back to safety.
"Ow." Haleen voices when woken from her restless sleep with an axe. In reflex she holds up her arm to protect herself from the next blow, only to see the Jackal fall.
She quickly looks around and jumps up. It might be petty, but that Jackal needs to be stabbed.
The Jackal still hasn't reverted to human form, as one would expect from a dead were.
As Yasmeena checks for Haleen, Tariq moves to engage the bear.