Three rounds to get to the camp. Aukan is over at the pond. Baahir and Aramyros collect their gear before following. Sasha, Nima and Pharos are not seen. One round to talk, then 2 rounds back to the dining room to find Blaze shooting at it and backing up only shooting tentacles.
The fat man following after them adds in.
"It dislikes fire a lot."
Blaze was quite the opposite, she delighted in bringing forth her flames. "Then we will keep the heat on." She set herself up about 30' from the elevator to gather power until the vine creature showed itself again. Then she would resume blasting and moving back.
Both of Blaze's rays miss the tentacles. Then the elevator gets torn to pieces.
Round 12, the plants bulk gets pulled up into dungeon level 1.
Round 13, it moves forward stretching its tentacles towards you but as you keep moving back it is still out of reach.
Andrei keeps tapping Blaze's shoulder, casting guidance as much as possible.
Round 12
She bursts from the kitchen with dagger in hand, flame encompases it, as he does her best to yell in common, "What is this!"
Pharos and Nima are at her heels.
Seeing the monstrous mound of vines and Blaze's attacks they in turn do the same! A flame appears in each of their off hand, then they hurl it at the mound of vines.
Round 13
They will do the same and then retreat into the kitchen.
Initially stunned by the thought of running, Lilianne didn't think she could do anything without a bow. Then, the inspiration of her goddess reminds her of the occultic powers within her and she will painful stare at the beast.
As the beast approaches the stairs upward to the surface, she will make sure people who are not immediately fighting the beast are up the ladder ahead of time so as to not slow down others.
Blaze does her best to explain in Ignan, "We thought we were clearing brush below, but woke some kind of plant monster. Do not let it get hold of you!"
No longer able to gather power as she needs to keep moving, she begins to burn from within as she stretches herself to throw as much fire as she can. Wisps of black smoke begin to rise from the nimbus of her flaming aura as she grits her teeth against the pain.
Yes Round 8, you shot a blast.
Round 12
On fire!
Round 13-16
Taking the damage and double move... It continues after you. Which ever route you take be it around the kitchen or out and up to the surface it follows. Thrashing all the way. As you are climbing up the ladder you see that it is burning in a pile of ash. The vines look very still. The three women continue to hit is from range of at least 40 feet with fire.
Overjoyed, Andrei gives Blaze a shoulder hug and a pat on the back that would have been another guidance!
"Whew! Cordination, teamwork, and badass ranged vixens hurling fire!" she cheers, "I bet that thing didn't know what it was getting into when it got that rude awakening this morning. Gross...Let this be a lesson that speed is crucial, or having a ranged weapon. I think if that thing hit us, we'd be gone from this plane of existence."
From inside, fire is still being flung at the dead body long after it has passed. She will want to call down, but they don't understand her anyway. She will get one of those capable of speaking Ignan to translate and tell them the body has been long since dead and is now ash.
Seeing the creature now still, Thorn heads forward to investigate it.
"I'm going to investigate this creature and see if I can tell what it was..and then see what kind of damage it did as it chased us up..."
The caydenite gently touches Lilianne on the shoulder and casts cure serious wounds.
It was a plant!!!
Looking back you don't see much damage until you get to the elevator. It has been torn to pieces, good thing there is another one.
Sasha seems to have picked up on Common from the group and is nearly speaking Fluently, as the other two are now speaking Common as a Novice.
"Alright...that is dealt with. Do we happen to have rope? We are going to need a couple of bundles of it to get back down there...unless a mending spell can restore these elevators?" she asks, looking to Andrei as she knows he can cast a form of one by the blessing of his god.
The varisian cleric looks over the elevator. "Dă mendîng șpell wăș never meănț țo be an ’end-âll’ fîx-îţ șpell, or elșe crăftșmen would be șubplănț by prîeșțș of Brîgh. Âye căn begîn work on ăny şuperfîşâl dâmâge on dă elevator, buț îf dă măîn mechănîșm îz broken; ît would țăke ă more powerful clerîc or mâșţer ţînker țo fîx. Regărdleșș, ăye hăve ă 50fț. rope we căn ușe îf need be."
Andrei begins casting the mending spell focusing on the rips and tears in the metal.
"Alright, we can use that," she replies about the rope.
As the healing energies finish coursing through her body, she will hold out her hands to him to show that she is fully herself once more. Callie will give him a quick kiss on the cheek before he starts to cast.
"Thank you for the healing. You're my hero," she will mention to him in a cute way.
With the girls speaking common and picking it up, she is a bit more wary, as they either are quite intelligent or knew it all along. People don't learn languages so fast, normally.
Thorn has yet another memory flash. This one of them celebrating over the body of a newly beast though for an unfathomable reason he cannot remember why. That particular memory feels distant as if it was fading away. This was likely another timeline not connected to this one.
He did come away with an ability and so he tries it out.
On Blaze.
"This ok? It sounds good? Burn more and all?"
She and Pharos stop shooting the creature so Thorn can investigate it. They go back to the kitchen. Sasha had backed up before them.
Unless you plan to venture down to Dungeon level 3 again today, you may state your actions for the rest of the day. Then waking up you are ready for a new day.
He stays by himself enjoying the spring for several more hours.
Later he would go through a regiment of exercises, grab a bite to eat, and then go to bed early, unless someone interrupts his plans.
In the bedroom he quickly puts up his hands and says, "No, no that is not needed. Plus if you still wanted that I would like to get you better first."
---
He puts his hands down so he doesn't grab her breasts. As she begins to kiss him he relents. Kissing back with the passion that he was repressing. He soon found himself sitting on the bed and Sasha in his lap. She could feel his rising member. She straddling him and kissing him. His hands began to roam over her body. It wasn't long before both of their clothes were off. He took his time with her as his member was likely bigger than she was used to but soon found out it fit perfectly.
After a few hours of hot steamy sex found them cuddling each other and falling asleep.
He would go with her to see the level below saying on the way, "Wow you are doing great in speaking Common, tell me. You knew some before didn't you?"
All of the debris from the kitchen and dining room of dungeon level 1 has been removed. The chairs and small personal tables are shining and look practically brand new. They would have asked Andrei to mend them.
The bed in the shelf room is gone.
Baahir, Aramyros, and the automaton are hard at work making a fence around the clearing. They get about a 1/3 done.
---
She stops at Aukan's reaction. Then adds, "But I want this, I want you. I want pleasure." She steps forward and kisses Aukan. If not already sitting she pushes him back so he is and straddles him.
---
After Aukan had a bite to eat, Sasha approached him, then she said in broken Taldane/Common, "Come and see. I show you work done."
She would nod at his question, adding, "Yes, but listening has helped a lot."
Andrei casts several spells of mending on the elevator, working on the superficial damage first, for about 30 minutes. Then the cleric tries to focus on the elevator mechanism .
Later, once the varisian passes the newly-cleaned kitchen, Nima asks if the caydenite can use his mending spells to fix a few things she found while cleaning. Andrei agrees and likely spends another half hour of castings to fix what is broken, and is willing to cast more if needed.
After the kitchen, Andrei searches for Lilianne and helps if he can. Eventually, both human and half-elf go to greet Desna in their tent.
Climbing down the rope, Andrei finds the elevator in shambles. After a half hour of mending it is still in pieces. Nope this is beyond you.
Lilianne will climb down to inspect the damage done as well, but after it cannot be repaired, she determines that they need another rope to progress down the next elevator to the third level.
"Does anyone have a bundle of rope? I came fresh off the boat to the meeting. I didn't even have time to pick up any gear before we were off."
The fat man hands over coiled rope. Thorn does have his pack and he tends not to leave without it since....who knows when he might just step into a portal. Best to be prepared and have items even when they don't seem to be needed.
It appears some of you want to go back down to the third dungeon level. It will just be the three or four of you, Thorn, Blaze, Andrei, and Lilianne. Finding your slow way down by climbing you find nearly all of the vegetation is gone. Even the steel leaves have fallen flat from the heat making the floor difficult terrain. Without metal shod boots you soon feel the slicing leaves. Each move action you take 1d4 piercing damage without cleaning the ground first.
Whatever furniture that was in the main room burned away only leaving misshapen debris behind. The doors were also obviously wooden as they had burned away as well.
Entering into a side room you find where the large plant creature must have resided. As there is a large hole in the ground. This room is very cold.
Another room you find stone pillars but the items that must have resided on them burnt. Only leaving behind more lumps of burnt debris.
Of course, you have not entered the rooms these are just descriptions of what you see from the hallways.
The other two rooms are near identical, bathing rooms for men and women.
Lilianne will utilize the 6ft length of her blade to act as a sort of scraping broom to move the material out of the way. She has taken her chances with it whole, she doesn't trust it now burnt. Walking carefully, she is sure there are some leaves that will have avoided her blade, but all in all, she hopes to get through the area without a scratch.
At the end of the path, she will look around at the room.
"Damn, I just expected that one room to be earth and leaves, not to catch this whole dang place and everything in it on fire. It looks like it spread throughout the whole of this place. That seems silly, to bring so much wood down into a third teir basement. I bet it was rotten from age and damp. That's probably why it went up to hot?"
She will look around at what she can see as they patrol the area. The large hole where the beast laid disturbs her as it likely buried itself there at some point. The pillars are burnt and whatever was on them and some bathing rooms.
Thorn uses his magic to search for traces of magic and aids in clearing the room..
He does sweep the leaves into a pile to the side, intending to make use off them later. They could be useful. To do that he exits the dungeon first and goes outside to find a useable branch with leaves on it to use as a makeshift broom.
He does pay attention to where the plant once resided. The cold might have being what kept it sleeping.
Andrei follows Lilianne and Thorn and takes a slight detour to find a unique sight.
"Hey! Âye thînk ăye found șome bâthîng roomş!"
The battle with the monstrous plant creature left Blaze feeling worn. Her breathing was labored as sooty sweat ran down her face from her hair. She was glad for her armor as Andrei was spared from being singed by her heated skin. Strange... she'd never anticipated receiving so many hugs before.
She gave a lopsided smile for her congratulations from her friends and Thorn's speaking Ignan as fluently as anyone. "Very good, we do seem to be learning new languages faster now. I wonder if it has something to do with this place."
As they went back down to the level where they first encountered the plant creature, Blaze hung her head sadly to see the widespread damage. "Sorry, my flames bend to my will only while I hold them. They take on a life of their own when they leave me." Looking around again in dismay, she added, "They must have been hungry..."
"They must have been," she responds the Blaze. "Very hungry."
"There are traps here," she will voice call out concerning the tentacled beast's room. "Evocation. I'd imagine they would heat the room and wake the beast if we failed to notice them. Scary."
She will chuckle as Andrei mentions the bathing rooms.
"Well, I'm not climbing down two ropes to get to these. If they want to repair the lifts up to the other levels, maybe...but I don't like being down here."
With her search of the floor not yielding anything else, she will shrug.
"Well, I guess that's that. Time to focus on bigger and better things? I'll sleep better knowing this is emptied all out of dangers and inhabitants."
"They put traps here but nothing and no one to trigger it? Must have being us though clearing out that monster is a good thing. If this room is empty then we should just leave it as it is and clear the other levels first. If we have need and time, then we can repair this place." Thorn offers his own suggestions.
Taking your time and sweeping the other rooms for magic and traps. Entering the bath rooms, you find that there is about 2 feet of water still in the baths. In the women's bath, you find a leshy hiding in one of the corners half submerged in the water. It appears a bit scorched.
The filtration system be it magical or other, seems to still be working well as the water is nigh transparent. Only the marble coloring makes it hard to see anything quickly in the water.
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Thorn approaches the leshy.. checking to see if it's alive or not.
Another set of elevators stand waiting on the other side of the complex. Though they are blocked by all the chairs and tables that have been set upon them as if too keep something back.
The leshy's body is made of masses of twisted vines and leaves. A large cluster of leaves forms a face with round eyes, a small mouth, and no visible nose. As you approach it, it pushes off and floats to the middle of the pool sobbing.
Thorn holds up his hands to indicate he wasn't here to hurt the leshy.
"Can you understand my words? If yes, I can heal your wounds and ask some questions." he begins.
Lilianne grits her teeth at the sign of the elevators on the other side being barricaded. It shows a level of intelligence, but also a sign of intent.
"That's strange to me. It's as though something even more dangerous than that tentacle thing is down below. With it barricaded like this, perhaps, for now, we should leave things be."
As they come to explore and Thorn checks on the Leshy, it seems it's alive. The crying also indicates emotion.
"Perhaps the leaves were established as a defense to the monsters above that we vanquished?"
She gets a guilty feeling in her gut.
"If we fireballed this whole area and killed this thing's family and they were innocents like the spider...ugh...that's not going to sit right with me. Please be an evil little plant. I'll feel less guilty for suggesting we burn the leaves. I just meant for that room to go up, not this whole level...I thought it was all stone beyond like the other floors! Arrrggg"
Outwardly, Lilianne is calm as a cucumber. Only Andrei would notice her tensed jaw. The same one she'd get after he would say something stupid and a fight was about to break out. Clearly to him, something is bothering her, but as of right now, she is silent.
The little plant creature looks up as if understanding but then continues to sob, bob, and float in the water.
Nonplused, Thorn reaches out and attempts to touch the leshy with soft light surrounding his hand.
"There. Just a little soothing here and it's alright. Are you alone here? If you want you can follow us, there's a whole lot of forest above us if you're interested."
The vine leshy lets you pick it up. In Sylvan it responds pitifully, "They are all gone. My whole family. Most of us escaped the flames, but then the flames released the great one. It finished the job. All is taken from me. Please kill me."
"Is it okay? Do you understand it?" she asks Thorn, clearly not understanding what it's saying. There is a vital insistence in her tone of voice.
Thorn nods to Lilianne's question but focus on the leshy first.
"The great one? It's being dealt with and is no more. Live for the sake of your family. Else let me bring them up and let their remains return to the forest." he attempts to soothe's the leshy's pain.
He knew very well the source of the flames but they were unaware that there were other creatures in here or how wide spread the devastation done by that plant monster would have being.
Andrei places his hand on Lilianne's shoulder, attempting to comfort his love's regret.