Like Vantine, Jessibel shrieks and reflexively backs away from the frightful alligator. Seeing that Aisling is already unconscious, Jessi weighs the worth of trying to heal the woman while she's still in the croc's mouth. It seems futile.
But if its teeth clamp down on her again, she's gone! Keep her alive and trust in the others to deal with the beast quickly!
Jessibel sings a curing spellsong and touches Aisling's dangling arm before releasing the energy.
Nyxra draws her bow and tries to shoot the gator.
There's a state bewtwen alive and dead where all you know is agony. Aisling coughs up blood as Jessibel's spell revivies her, and feebly sturggles against the jaws of the gator. All she manages to do is push the thing's teeth deeper into her wounds, and she screams in pain.
Spurred by the young ladies’ screams, the Raven wheels about, charging the large reptile and landing a mighty peck upon its noggin before he has a chance to see what he is actually fighting. Mighty might be an exaggeration. I fight people, not heavily armored apex predators!
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Jessibel steps away from the alligator, whose tail lashes reflexively out to strike at her - fortunately, she is cautious enough in her flight to avoid the blow easily. Invoking her healing song, she manages to seal several of Aisling’s wounds, and restore her to consciousness.
Aisling returns from her brink of death, awakening to find herself still within the jaws of a ferocious albino alligator (or is it a crocodile?). Fighting with all her strength, she attempts to force the beast’s mouth open to allow herself to escape from it, yet she cannot manage to slip free of the reptilian predator’s jaws. Indeed, her struggles only reward her with more pain.
Nyxra fires a shot at the gator, but despite its bulk and its current occupation with chomping down on the Iomedaean priestess, the elf cannot quite find a good shot to take. This is in no small part due to Nyxra’s hesitation to shoot where she might hit Aisling - a rather daunting possibility, given how she is currently in its jaws, at least partially.
The Raven launches himself forwards, swinging his spiked gauntlet with expert precision, and manages to land a sharp blow on the beast, despite its thrashing tail. He draws blood with his blow, which splatters up his sleeves, but does not find much purchase in his blow. The alligator definitely looks more ticked off than injured, that’s for sure.
In the confusion Vantine finds herself beside Nyxra so she helps the elf out the only way she can.
The crocodile (or is it an alligator?) releases Aisling with a growl that sends deeply instinctive shivers up the spines of all the humanoids. It snaps viciously at the vigilante, who easily dodges out of the way of the frankly terrifying jaws. Its tail lashes out at him as well, but he ducks beneath the heavy scaled appendage and comes back up without issue.
Dodging the swinging tail causes the Raven’s next attack to miss, but at least the lizard let Aisling go.
Jessibel gawks briefly as the alligator releases Aisling. Then she breaks into a rousing battle song (not THIS SONG (Warning: One f-bomb and lots of goofy graphic violence!)) and takes the long route around to help the Raven distract the beast so Aisling might slip away.
Nyxra aims and fires again!
And misses again!
Aisling gives another small ccry of pain as the jaws let go of her, she presses one hand to her side and moves away as fast as she can. "Let's just get out of here!"
Jessibel begins to sing her rousing song, filling the Ravens with hope and skill.
Aisling pulls away from the beast that nearly tore her in two, urging the others to follow suit.
The Raven attempts to strike at the alligator once more, but the tail’s continued lashing keeps him on the back foot, and focused on avoiding its blows.
Nyxra looses another arrow in the general direction of the reptile, but due to her own inaccuracy and the continued presence of the Raven and Aisling in the way, even with Vantine’s blessing and Jessibel’s song, she is unable to land her arrow.
Vantine snaps off her dazing cantrip at the big reptile before retreating away to higher ground. As much as she would like to go after Aisling to help her, she doesn't like the direction the cleric took at all. It's a dead end that invites the creature to place itself between them and the passage out. Calls for the rest to allow her lead.
"Get back from it! Don't let it get between us and the door!"
The spell seems at first to daze the reptile, but something in its primitive mind rejects the influence of Vantine's enchantment magic, and it lunges at the Raven once more, its toothy maw opened wide to bite down on him. This time, he slips just out if the range of its fangs, swatting the side of its mouth to make sure it snaps shut just inches from him. Its tail blurs at him once more, a scaly whip intent on crushing bones, but again, he twitches his shoulders just so, such that it doesn't even leave a bruise when it whooshes by his torso.
As the witch takes the stairs down too at a time and comes to a stop, her unnatural sight pierces the gloom easily, and her eyes fall on a hulking figure, lurking in what would otherwise be shadows. The size of a large human man, the creature has a head resembling that of a raven or a crow, and is covered in dark feathers. Five claws extend from the ends of its long, muscular arms, and its beak is slightly open in anticipation as it stares up the stairs at the battle.
It looks at Vantine as she comes down the stairs, lowering its head in what she suspects is some sort of aggression - an impression only enhanced by the flexing of its clawed fingers.
Maintaining her inspirational song, jessibel withdraws from the fight, hooking around to follow the others back toward the secret door.
Nyxra growls at the alligator. "Just--f#+%ing--DIE!"
Then she fires again...
The Raven steps away from the angry reptile, ducking under its swinging tail, staying close enough to Nyxra to protect her with his large shield. ”After you, my dear lady.”
Jessibel continues to sing, but flees from the fight against the alligator, leaving the Raven and Nyxra on their own to fight against it.
Aisling remains outside the door, torn between getting aid and her unwillingness to abandon comrades. Ultimately, the latter wins out, and she steps up in front of Vantine, willing to protect her over herself.
The Raven pulls back from the alligator as well, though he keeps close to Nyxra in an attempt to prevent any dangers from coming at her - at least for now.
Nyxra, meanwhile, fires her bow, and for the first time in two days, the arrow lands home, striking the alligator in its side and sinking deeply into the flesh. Blood oozes from the wound, leaving the alligator in a hissing fury.
From down and within the rooms below, a harsh voice screeches out. ”No! You no run! Fight, fight!” From the shadows below, an enormous humanoid corvid blurs towards the Raven. It lands next to him, lashing out with vicious claws. Though he is taken by surprise, he manages to catch several blows on his shield... and suddenly feels a burning pain in his stomach - one of the bird-thing's strikes cut deeply into his stomach, which is now bleeding quite nastily.
Dire corbies are infamous for their terrifying screeches, songs of doom that unnerve even the most experienced explorer, as well as for their ability to leap great distances to rend and tear their foes.
Where there is one dire corby, there is almost always more, often many more - they aren’t solitary creatures at all, despite their tendencies to control their own population.
Even in the Darklands, they’re not common, as they are notorious cannibals amongst their own kind - they tend to attack and devour each other’s eggs if the eggs aren’t protected. What could’ve brought one up to Kintargo, and more specifically, Laria’s basement hideout?
The sudden and violent appearance of a second, more raven-like raven. Shocks Vantine. The first thing that comes to her mind is to stop it in its tracks.
She steps around from behind Aisling and lashes out at it with her trusty cantrip.
The corvid creature looks for a moment as though it will pause its frenzied assault, but shakes its head violently, casting off her cantrip.
Meanwhile, the alligator slithers back towards its pool, apparently disinterested in continuing the fight. It does watch Nyxra, the Raven, and the raven monster closely as it crawls back into its home, however.
"That's a dire corby!" Jessi sings, maintaining her inspiring song while trying to work information into her lyrics. "It can leap a distance powerfully! Their screeches cause fear, and...they live underground!" Her rhymes fail her but not her courage, as the bard returns to battle the new threat.
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”What’s this? A fan dressed as me?” The Raven quips, dancing to one side of the creature so as not to block Nyxra’s line of sight on it. ”You’ve got the beak shape all wrong!”
Nyxra takes another shot, this time at the dire corby.
Jessibel rushes towards the dire corby as she sings her educational song.
”Inheritor, aid us!” Aisling moves forwards as well, maintaining her distance, but grips her holy symbol once more and unleashes a burst of holy energy. Iomedae’s favor washes over the group in with a soothing glow. Unfortunately, it does little more than seal the group's most basic wounds.
The Raven, perhaps distracted by his quips, doesn’t manage to land a blow on the dire corby, who blocks his spiked gauntlet easily with its claws, though he does clear the way for Nyxra to attack.
Nyxra, for her part, fires an arrow, but is forced to divert her aim at the last second to avoid accidentally hitting the Raven.
”No, you pretend!” The dire corby shrieks at the Raven, before raking at him once more with its claws. Once more, he deflects a few blows with his gauntlet and shield both, but despite his defensive stance, he still gets slashed by its four-clawed hands.
Jessibel continues to sing to inspire, but now there's a barely-perceptible tremble in her voice as she realizes that someone may die before this battle's over. Still, she shows unusual courage for a pampered noblewoman, standing her ground while jabbing at the bird-man with her rapier.
for
The straits may seem dire, but the Raven - a veteran duelist - does not balk at the raven’s remarkably accurate attacks. He stops hiding behind his shield (fortune favors the bold, after all) and swings a wild haymaker that does nothing more than nearly throw him off his own two feet.
Frustrated, Nyxra ditches her bow and moves to engage the corby with her sword.
Vantine steps forwards, chanting and laying a hand on Aisling’s shoulder.
Jessi lashes out, her strikes harmonizing with her song, and lands several devastating blows on the bird-person, puncturing its back and sides and freeing its blood to drool out of the wounds. It turns on her, shrieking its anger. ”No! You hurt Chough! You die!”
Aisling takes a deep breath and launches forwards to attack the dire corby, slashing with her blade, landing easily on the creature as it is distracted by Jessibel.
The Raven, weakened by his wounds and deciding to go all out on offense finds that his blows aren’t even accurate enough to warrant the dire corby to try avoiding them.
Nyxra, however, steps in then, dropping her bow to the (surprisingly clean) stones beneath their feet and drawing forth her blade from its sheath. With an elegant slash, she cuts deep into the dire corby’s flank. This time, the shriek that fills the Wasp’s Nest is one of agony, and the bird-thing collapses, leaving the Silver Ravens to catch their breaths and attempt to figure out their next steps.
Aisling is pale,partly from blod loss but aslo because she knows they wouldnd't be here if she hadn't pressed them to hurry. She raises her holy symbol to call on her godess' power.
Now looking a little better, she gives the others a quick glance. "S-sorry. My fault. We shold have waitied another day. It's not as if we were in time to save him." She sighs and picks up the body. "Let's go back to Laria and tell her about her friedn. We can come back and dela with the rest of this tomorrow."
"What about the dire corby?" Although the bard's question is directed toward Aisling, she looks to the others for guidance as well. "I mean, we should loot it at the minimum, but maybe we ought to drag it at least as far as Laria's cellar so she can look at it...and so the alligator doesn't devour it. Hell, maybe we can use the corpse as bait to draw the alligator out next time. We do have to destroy that big reptile eventually if this is to become our headquarters."
Jessi pauses a bit, perhaps knowing she'll be judged for what she says next, but the girl can't help herself. "Besides, that thing's skin would make a great pair of boots!"
”Alligators do not eat in winter, my dear.” The Raven says, leaning against the wall for support. Why do I know that? He stands straighter as the healing magic from Aisling washes over him. It was a familiar feeling, yet strange. He never got used to magical healing. Walking over to the birdperson, nudging it over onto its back with the toe of his boot. ”What is this? Some kind of tengu?”
"Are you quite certain?" Jessibel asks the Raven dubiously, "because something ate parts of Laria's friend Nan! And this isn't a tengu--it's a dire corby, up from the Darklands!" Lowering her voice, the bard adds, "Where there's one, there are usually others--they're generally not solitary creatures! Plus, they can be cannibalistic among their own kind, especially if eggs have been laid. I suppose it's possible they nibbled on Nan for a change of menu, but why would they throw his remains in the water?"
With no one else rushing forward to do the distasteful job of looting the corby, Jessi does so herself. Then, grabbing the corpse by the ankles, she starts dragging the body back toward the secret door and Laria's cellar (if she's able).
Nyxra retrieves her bow and glares at it with a disgusted expression on her face.
"...I can't believe how terrible my aim was. Why'd I even bring this damn thing?"
The dire corby wears three copper bracelets and a silver locket bearing an elven rune on it. Inside the locket are eggshell fragments unlike any the group has seen - dark in color.
”You scared the alligator away. That was the real threat.” The Raven consoles Nyxra. ”I haven’t had much luck hitting things, either.”
Once she gets the chance, Jessibel examines the new loot closely (and--Surprise!--accurately). She almost puts the locket into her belt pouch but remembers that other Ravens might be interested in claiming it as well. Uncertain if she's already claimed too much loot, 'the Magpie' refrains for now.
”Is the bird dead? I am afraid my medical expertise is limited more to euthanasia. Maybe it is related to the unfortunate fellow in the pool, and not a terrible night-stalking monster. Seems unusual to have an albino crocodile and a denizen of the darklands in such close proximity.” The Raven says, drawing one of his daggers. While the ladies look over the bird, the Raven sneaks off into the shadows and pokes his head into the room from which the angry bird came.