Zelvin shrugs. "I'm used to getting by without seeing, actually," he says with exaggerated calm. "But we've got a lot of sand left in our hourglass. Lemme see if I can help you with that."
Zelvin sighs. "Pah, I'm not much help. Sorry about that."
"Yes, the blindness should last approximately one hour.
I believe that tending wounds is a suitable use of our time.
I will attempt to assist your efforts."
"Ow, knock it off!" Xaerai growls, slapping Zelvin's hands away. She grumbles and grimaces as Shesik and Hekau bind the injury as best they can. "Wish I'd thought to bring a healer's kit, rookie mistake to forget one."
When the ministrations were complete, the dwarf carefully tests to see if the leg will hold her weight. She doesn't look happy, but she gives a firm nod after a moment. "My thanks to you both. Now let's move before we use up all that magic we were given, I don't want to get trapped down here!"
Tyn turns to Shesik,
" I know a lot more than I am proficiently capable of at this point, but let me assist you..."
He moves to help her tend to Xaeri, but as his companions crowd around, he abstains.
as the Dwarf is tended to, Tyn inspects the immediate area to see if anything around will reveal something yet unseen. He also tries to track the creatures origins in case this was not it's lair.
Finding nothing really of any import, Tyn focuses his attention back on the mending going on.
"Now that's a fine bit of medical attention, I must say! This brand on the frog-beast is in Undercommon. I am loathe to use my open extract slot for a simple interpretation given the frequency of hostiles encountered thus far. No doubt if branded, someone considered it their property...a slave I'm sure."
He points to the Northwest,
"Do we investigate this little nook area up past the water, or continue South?"
Zelvin blinks as his eyesight begins to return. "Undercommon, you say?" He rubs his fingernails on his chest casually. "Might be I speak a bit of Undercommon. I always thought it'd come in handy if'n I ever met anyone from the Darklands, though I can tell you the clerics didn't exactly approve." He grins. "Mister Khonnir was impressed, at least."
He takes a quick gander at the corpse while they discuss their next move. "I'm for the nook, if no one has any objections."
"Huh," says Zelvin after looking at the writing. "It just says 'Pet'. Wonder if that means that’s what they called it as well as what it was."
Hekau does not read Undercommon.
"I will follow your suggestion, Zelvin. Let us examine that nook.
I wonder how long this creature has been here. Tyn, did you find any evidence of Khonnir Baine's presence? If there are no remains or possessions, then it is possible he bypassed this creature entirely. By using a Sleep spell, for example."
"A collar and a--name? Label?--is a clear sign of sapient inhabitants down here too. That might explain why the other teams went missing..." Xaerai checks her pistol again and sighs when the nook is suggested.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't, but that damned disgusting sludge looks like it's go up to my neck. I could stand guard here?"
Tyn nods to Hekau,
"A most plausible hypothesis, as all I've found here are the remains of small animals scattered about-no humanoids. And you were correct also about my question, quite rhetorical. I am only hoping the universe does not see fit to answer it too often!"
He shakes his head a bit.
"I would hate to traverse in there with out you're grit. You've shown yourself quite full of moxie thus far. Perhaps we will get lucky and find the area the abandoned den of our deceased pet here.
What does everyone else think?"
Shesik straightens her pack on her shoulders. "Lets take a quick look downstream, It probably connects to where we first landed, but we don't want anything lurking in there to sneak up behind us."
Sticking a toe back into the water, she continues. "Tyn, you wanted to go first, I'll be right behind you." And here I thought I was gonna be dry for a while. "Xaerai, thanks for watching our backs. Hopefully, there's nothin' in there that needs you to go swimming. Don't want those bandages getting too wet."
"Alright, it's settled then!"
Tyn moves to lead the party through the water to the unexplored area to the Northwest, sickle in hand. He gives a slight anxious look back to the dwarf, confident she can handle herself in a good number of situations, but still not liking leaving someone behind.
Frowning at the tiefling, Xaerai waggles her pistol in the direction of the nook in a shooing gesture. "I'll be fine, ya galoot. I'm much scarier'n any toothy glow-frog."
The fumes from the stream are still strong enough to make your eyes water, but nothing more serious than that. The bend is short enough that everyone but Tyn can still see Xaerai waiting until they step into the cavern.
Here, the stream shallows considerably as it runs through the middle of this cavern, while to the south a stony bank rises up from the water. Thick carpets of green and gray mold and fungus grow on the bank, particularly around a trio of three-foot-high, foul-smelling mounds.
Zelvin casts his eyes over the blanket of fungus and mold, looking for familiar traits.
As Zelvin steps into the cavern to examine the molds, it suddenly lurches forward, trying to engulf his leg in its disgusting mass. Fortunately, it fails to catch him completely off guard, and he easily evades the attack. Across the cavern, the other two piles of mold begin to shift and move toward him as well.
Zelvin
Molds
Hekau
Xaerai
Tyn Foyle
Shesik
Zelvin cries out to the others, "Slime molds, they are aggressive and aware, and resistant to fire!" He backs away carefully from the lead ooze, withdrawing back down the tunnel.
The molds surge forward after Zelvin as he retreats, throwing themselves at Shesik and Tyn. Shesik fends one off admirably, but the other slams into Tyn, leaving him what's sure to be one hell of a bruise.
Hekau
Xaerai
Tyn Foyle
Shesik
Zelvin
Eying the press of bodies in that narrow, waterlogged tunnel with a considerable skepticism, Xaerai checks over her shoulder to make sure nothing is sneaking up on her before shouting.
"Lure them back this way! You're all bunched up in a line right now!" The dwarf thumbs back the hammer on her pistol, waiting tensely.
”Pull back to the beach, we don’t have space to fight here.” Shesik takes a swipe at the slime that attacked her and backs her way through the tunnel.
Both slime molds lunge at Shesik's arm, forcing her to pull back, but she manages to escape with no injury.
Hekau will cast Acid Splash at one and fall back.
Though the scene disintegrates quickly into a sudden bit of chaos, Tyn revels in the subsequent whiffs from the animate fungi on his allies.
"Ha...ha...Yee-ouch!"
Though taking a good pop from one of the molds.
A series of options swim through his head-every one seemingly ending incurring a couple of reactive attacks-until Shesik's stick and move tactics absorb them without consequence.
"Ha..ha!"
He moves back to stand with his allies.
The exterior of the slime mold bubbles and sizzles furiously as Hekau covers it with a spray of conjured acid, covering Tyn's escape back up the stream.
Zelvin fires down the narrow tunnel, hoping to draw the oozes closer.
Then he moves back behind the others.
Zelvin's parting shot tears through his target, causing the pile of mold and fungus to slump and sink beneath the surface of the water. Heedless of the danger, the other two pursue their prey, one slamming its body into Shesik and knocking the wind from her for a bit. Xaerai's shot is just a hair too high, and her bullet only knocks off a particularly tall mushroom.
Hekau
Xaerai
Tyn Foyle
Shesik
Zelvin
Tyn grumbles something to himself about angles and strategy...
Tyn's grip on the bomb slips at just the last instant, sending it wobbling off target. Fortunately, it explodes against the rock directly adjacent to the slime mold, and with a whumpf of displaced air, the molds are both blown apart, their component mushrooms scattered amongst the flowing water.
"Well done, Tyn. Your alchemical methods are impressive in their effectiveness."
"Yer aim could use some work though," Xaerai chuckles as she finishes reloading her pistol. "Well, you're already wet and stinkin' again, might as well go see if those weird mold-things were sittin' on anything worth having. I'll keep guarding here."
Zelvin returns down the tunnel to check out the mounds of mold-- carefully, with his face in his sleeve, well aware that there could be spores or other hazards.
Tyn watches as his bomb goes slightly errant, but still crushes the molds...
"Ahh, well, I meant to do that!"
...while suspiciously rubbing his wrist as if it cramped and raising his eyes upward-mouthing "thank you."
He gives a quick glance back at the the mouth of the cavernous alley and starts grumbling again about angles and strategy. Giving himself a small knock on his head, the tiefling mumbles,
"You're lucky she only got grazed you meathead! Be better!"
Confident the immediate danger is gone from the nest, awaits the results of Zelvin's inspection. he sits down and starts meditating on the beach, stretching his right arm and going through various mixing to throwing motions.
"When Z and whoever else gets back from scouring the nest, I will scout down this South passage."
Hekau will accompany Zelvin and look around the tunnel where the slime molds had been.
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Shesik leans against the cavern wall, "Thanks Tyn, t'was a good shot. Good thinking with that bomb placement."
Glancing after Zelvin and Hekau she sighs. Hopefully the Baine boys find something in there to make that worth it.
Tyn pauses in his motions, looks up at Shesik, and with a toothy grin gives her an enthusiastic "thumbs up"-wondering if she saw through the subpar attempt at deception and is just being patronizing.
His eyes narrow a bit as he thinks to himself.
"So it's like that eh? I see the dwarf isn't the only one with a lil streak o' sass running straight through her! Abyssal, bet for you."
Convinced she is throwing shade his way. his smile widens a bit more as he feels surrounded by kindred spirits.
The Baine boys do, in fact, find some things worth the trouble. Each of the mold piles contains the corpse of a dead halfling, though oddly enough the bodies have been looted already. When they turn back in defeat, though, Zelvin literally trips over the body of a human that was submerged in the creek. Its clothing and armor are completely ruined by their long time in the noxious water, but inside of a watertight pouch on its belt, they find the following: 42 gp, a silver charm worth 25 gp, and two potions of cure light wounds.
Zelvin brings back the treasures and looks over the charm more carefully once he and Hekau are safely back with the others.
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"We should bring the bodies back for proper burial after we have found Khonnir Baine.
These healing potions will be useful given our lack of magical healing capability."
"This silver charm is a holy symbol of Zyphus, the god of accidental deaths. Their faith is not common. I wonder what this person believed, and if they felt their death was sufficiently accidental.
A strange faith. Much of what we term 'accidental' is more properly attributed to inadequate planning, preparation, training, or caution."
"Good work guys. Worship of this...Zyphus...sounds like a backwards faith to me. If you "prepare" for an accidental death-yours or someone else's for that matter-how accidental is it really? Philosophically speaking, that is. Anyway, you all should decide who is to carry a potion, I'm good on that end."
With the two crack investigators having returned, Tyn moves to the mouth of the south passage. From there, he tries to stealthily scout ahead.
Zelvin looks at Shesik. "You've been taking quite a few hits, Shesik. I reckon it might be wise for you to hold the potions in case you need one all of a sudden like?"
Shesik straightens and takes the proffered vials. Carefully slipping them into her belt pouch she speaks. ”Thank you. That makes some sense. Hopefully I’ll manage to avoid more hard knocks, still they’re nice to have ... just in case.”
She cautiously takes her place behind Tyn as they make their way down the new passage to the south.
"Good find, fellas!" Xaerai congratulates them before readying shield and pistol to move on. "Let's go rescue a wizard."
You make your way down the cramped tunnel, until it opens up into another damp cave, with two more exits to the southwest and southeast. A collection of crates, boxes, rubble, and scavenged metal lies heaped in the northwest section of this damp cave. Several strange chalk drawings of twisted, spiny plants, a strange three-legged creature, and emaciated four-armed humanoids mark the walls.
Tyn glares at the drawings, feeling a bit uneasy,
"Something about those figures depicted in the drawings...I dunno..."
He shakes his head, not being able to define what he's feeling.
"Never mind."
He turns his attention to the southwest passage.
Zelvin takes a curious look at the drawings. "Hmm," he murmurs. "These four-armed humans are unusual critters. Maybe something out of the Darklands? I've never heard of anyone on Golarion with four arms. I mean, I've heard the old expression 'To be forewarned is to be forearmed,' but I never woulda thought it meant that!"
Looking at the drawings Shesik shakes her head. ”You never know what shape someone builds a robot in. They don’t have to be human.”
She seems more interested in the pile of scraps than following Tyn for the moment and wanders down the northwest passage. Looks pretty picked through, but maybe there’s something left.