Nyxra pauses at the edge of the hole.
"...wait a minute, is that flute music?"
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Vantine laughs briefly and nervously at Rexus's comment.
"Here's to the afterparty. May we make it back to have one."
"Oh! I hear it too! It's a flute, no doubt."
Rexus grins, though it is a tight expression. "Have faith, my friend, and prepare yourself. That's all we can do, for now."
He pauses, listening intently. "Hm, that's odd. I hear it too... I hope there aren't more fey down there. That could be... unpleasant."
Jessibel brings her glowing rapier to the edge of the opening at Rexus's command. The smell is enough to make her take an immediate step back, though. Her eyes narrow and her mouth twitches into a skeptical smirk, and you can almost read her mind: All I can hear is a bunch of Chatty Cathys!
The stench is enought to drive Aisling back with her eyes watering, but she sternly reminds herself that valour comes in many forms. Gritting her teeth, she leads the way down. Although she does throw Vantine a weak smile when she talks about an afterparty. "That sounds - nice?"
Aisling hasn't had a lot of opportunities for fun. Part of the Iomedaean creed is that you were not put on this plane of existence to enjoy yourself.
As Aisling descends into the partially lit room, the stench she had smelled earlier grows stronger - an intense stench that nearly overwhelms her senses. When she lifts her own light once more, the magical illumination casts shadows over nests made of chewed crates and barrels that line the walls. Rusty knives and hooks cover heavily dusted and gnawed tables.
Before she can do much more than look around, she hears a screech, and two scrapes against her thigh armor as two mouths close down on them. A third, savage maw leaps for her face, but she manages to get an arm up in time to prevent it from sinking its incisors into that bared flesh. It stings unpleasantly, but she swiftly throws the body that it's attached to aside.
Finally, she gets a chance to see what exactly have attacked her - a group of foul, dog-sized rats. Their coarse fur is filthy, and their eyes glint with a sort of mad hunger.
Aisling gives a yell of surprise and a certain amount of fear, which she will deny if anyone ever tries to make an issue of it.
"Ah! Get them off me!"
She swings with her sword. It's not very elegant, and the move she uses isn't in the manual. There's something about being ambushed by large rats that makes her act on instinct. She achieves nothing beyond looking foolish.
Aisling gives a yell of surprise and a certain amount of fear, which she will deny if anyone ever tries to make an issue of it.
"Ah! Get them off me!"
She swings with her sword. It's not very elegant, and the move she uses isn't in the manual. There's something about being ambushed by large rats that makes her act on instinct. She achieves nothing beyond looking foolish.
Vantine puts her faith in the Raven to do something helpful. She chants viisautta rohkeutta and places her hand on him to deliver assistance.
Jessibel regains her courage quickly when she hears the panic in Aisling's voice. She scrambles partways down the ladder before swinging and dropping into an open area.
Vantine reacts quickly to the feral scream below, granting the vigilante the guidance of her patron with a quick incantation and a touch. The Raven feels a sense of acuity settle in on him.
With swift grace, Jessibel swings elegantly from the ladder, landing delicately next to Aisling, before deftly slipping out of her immediate sword reach - and, perhaps just as importantly, out of the range of the maws of the hungry rats.
Just in time, too, for Aisling’s helpless flailing does little more than startle the rats with the swift movement of her illuminated sword, and might have actually landed a blow on Jessibel had she not moved so swiftly aside.
One of the rats skitters to the side, keeping close to Aisling but approaching Jessibel in turn. It leaps at her, fangs flashing lethally towards her. With a swift flick of her buckler, she smacks the dog-sized rat across the face, stunning it momentarily and preventing it from landing a blow.
The other two rats once again launch themselves at Aisling. The first one slams its head firmly against her shield, which she lifts in a gesture from panic as much as training. The second gets closer, its fangs lashing at her ankle, but her boots deflect the fangs enough that they do not touch her flesh - this time.
Nyxra considers firing on the rats from her vantage point, but opts to put her bow away and switch to her sword instead. Once she's done so, she steps up to the edge of the hole.
The Raven grabs on to the ladder and starts making his way down, unable to do anything else to help.
Vantine watches the Raven descend the ladder after a moment of dithering. She frowns slightly in disappointment.
It's nice to see some face, and what's visible isn't bad at all. He really does lack a bit as a hero though...
Nyxra approaches the (foul-smelling) trapdoor, preparing to descend. Any of the remaining flute music has been overtaken by the sounds of combat below - if it is indeed still playing.
Meanwhile, the Raven descends the ladder somewhat more carefully than Jessibel had, stepping down just after the Iomedaean priestess has finished knocking aside one of the rats. He steps away from her, but the rats sense (erroneously) that his guard is down, and launch at him. The first he kicks away as he steps to the north, the second meets with a buckler to the face (unfortunate rat, given that this has happened twice to it in the span of a few seconds), and he catches the third's bite using his spiked gauntlet, preventing the beast from biting down on him.
Rexus steps forwards and touches Nyxra gently on the shoulder. "This should help." He says with a wry smile. "Perhaps the only thing I can do now." The Ekujae woman feels a sudden sense of destiny upon her, uplifting her and bringing her closer to victory.
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Jessibel again tries to inspire her allies. Her choice in songs is...interesting.
"Three big rats!
Three big rats!
See how they run!
See how they run!"
PHB p. 178
If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll to determine which one of them goes before the other.
Asiling goes from astonishment at seeing Jessibel's drop down the ladder to make a perfect landing, to a sigh of amused resignation as the bard starts up with a song. "Is this really the time? Besides, they're not running. They have me to chew on." A slight smile takes the harshness out of her words, maybe. But the distraction has worked, and she isn't panicking anymore. She's used to opponents about her own size, with arms and carrying weapons. But Iomedae is the Goddess of tactics. Adapt or die. She side-steps out the way of one of the swarming beasts, stepping on its tail to hold it in place before she beheads it with her sword.
She gives Jessi a more genuine smile as she feels the bard's song inspire her. "Whatever you're doing, don't stop! It's working."
Once the others are down (excepting Rexus unless he hurries) Vantine descends the ladder as well. Bracing herself against the eye-watering stink, she applies the same cantrip she had placed on the Raven to Jessibel.
Vantine casts her spell, drawing upon the guidance her patron has granted her, before slipping down the ladder and releasing the spell on Jessibel, who feels suddenly that she can accomplish something greater than ever before.
The Iomedaean priestess, having regained her calm, sidesteps an attack by one of the dire rats, stomping its tail and decapitating it with a single blow from her glowing blade. The beast doesn’t even have the chance to screech before blood spurts from its neck and it is slain.
Jessibel begins to sing, her odd ditty earning her a mild reprimand from Aisling, but the Silver Ravens feel their bodies and minds elevated by the song - strange though that is.
The two remaining rats seem oblivious to the fact that one of their number has been slain - unusual in animals - and one snaps its jaws viciously at the Raven. This time, the rat is lucky, as the vigilante's defense is compromised by chance - he slips over some foul substance, overextending a leg just enough to let the disgusting fangs sink into his thigh. Pain shoots up his leg as he wrenches it free from the rat's mouth, and blood stains his leggings darker than they already were.
Meanwhile, the other rat, smelling blood on Aisling, screeches and launches itself at the priestess once more, though to no avail as she sidesteps its lunge with practiced ease.
Nyxra jumps down the hole...
...and swings at the nearest rat when she lands!
"Rats! Ugh! No wonder it stinks so much."
Nyxra's sudden and shocking drop from above causes Vantine to flinch away in surprise. She jostles into The Raven, which is fortunate since she avoids most of the bloody spray from the rat pulped by the elf.
The Raven blindly bats at the rat that bit him, unable to connect.
Nyxra leaps down the hole, catching herself easily on the lip of the ceiling below to swing over Vantine’s head. Landing delicately on the balls of her feet, she brings her longsword down two-handed on the dire rat , bisecting it and causing a spray of its foul blood to erupt from its very-dead corpse. She does not even feel a slight tug of resistance as her blade slices neatly through the diseased creature.
Meanwhile, the Raven attempts to retaliate against the rat that attacked him - the sole rat remaining at this point - only to find the agile critter dodging his spiked punches one after the other.
Rexus approaches the ledge of the trapdoor, peering down helplessly for a moment. With a slight sigh, he clambers down the ladder, stepping off next to Vantine. His eyes widen as they fall on the rat engaged with the Raven, and he attempts to stagger away from it with a yelp of distress. Unfortunately, his panicked noises bring the rat's attention to him and cause it to snap at his leg with its fierce fangs. "Gaah!" He screams - his voice not quite painfully loud, but certainly loud enough to be heard upstairs. Indeed, the dogs start barking again in the distance. Swatting at it desperately, he finally manages to kick the thing off and scramble away from it.
His lips twist in anger, and he chants, gesturing at the rat with sharp, hard movements, and he tosses a splash of acid at it with a final curse. The acid sails over the rat's head as his anger and pain throw off his aim, and very nearly splashes into Nyxra. The young nobleman looks horrified. "Dammit, sorry!" His voice is genuinely anguished.
Aisling moves around to attack the last rat, but her armour isn't great for this sort of combat and she slips on some of teh filth that covers the room. She manages to stay on her feet and not drop her sword, but her attack goes wild, the blade juuuust missing Jessibel by inches.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Are you ok?" She gives a helpless look and a shrug. "This isn't really what I trained for."
This time Vantine touches Nyxra. She seems to be on a hot streak and Vantine wants to back a winner to wrap this up. She then steps back out of everyone's way.
"Very persistent aren't they? Is that weird in rats?"
Jessibel ceases her inspirational song, retaining her power in case it's needed more later. Besides, the last rat is surrounded...and Vantine's spell makes her confident that even she can end this fight...NOW!
It's got absolutely nothing to do with me having trouble coming up with fresh and topical lyrics to make that old nursery rhyme sound inspirational....
Jessibel moves in for the kill and stabs!
for
Oh crap--it moved!
Vantine sidesteps out of the rat’s reach, avoiding drawing any attention to herself, and invokes the spell that is swiftly becoming the most commonly used spell she has in her repertoire. With a light touch from Vantine, Nyxra feels a similar sense of greatness to the one she’d felt from Rexus, although perhaps not quite so wide-ranging.
Aisling, meanwhile stays on the defensive, striking only when she’s sure it won’t risk an opening. Unfortunately, her defensive stance prevents her from landing any blows on the irritating vermin.
Jessibel steps forwards, encircling the rat with her comrades and pinning it against the walls - more or less, at any rate. Her rapier, however, fails to pin anything, as the dire rat refuses to remain still, hissing and spitting as it evades the (literally) shining steel.
The rat, seeing its escape routes cut off, seems to go berserk, launching itself at the bard who just attempted to skewer it. Jessi reacts far quicker than it anticipated, however, and slaps its attack aside as she desperately throws herself out of the way of the angry rat.
Nyxra whirls on the last rat and moves to hack it down!
Nyxra's blade blurs down and slices one of the rat's paws off, as well as cutting deep into its neck, and it collapses in a pool of its own blood and... whatever else is on the floor.
Rexus leans heavily on his cane, looking at his wounded leg, before grinning wryly. "Well, I've just demonstrated to myself why I shouldn't lead the Silver Ravens. And you all have demonstrated why we need you, at least on a martial level." He winks, though his face is somewhat pale.
Now that everything has calmed down, there's a chance to look around the room - which was likely a storage chamber, back when the Livery was active. It's... not much to look at, certainly. Stinking and visually disgusting, there's not much here other than a door to the west, and the ladder in the center of the room.
Of course, if one was so inclined, one could try to investigate the boxes and crates that the dire rats had been using as nests... disgusting though the prospect is.
Having finally found a practical use for the dagger she carries around, Vantine uses it to prod and poke open any of the boxes or crates susceptible to revealing their contents without being touched.
Vantine's search reveals the remains of a few of the rats' previous meals, a nest that looks like it hasn't been touched in over a month, and an unusually porous part of the wall - there are plenty of holes and revealed interiors to the wall - not enough to compromise its structural integrity much, but enough that something could crawl around in the walls.
She glances back at the dire rats. They couldn't fit in these holes, but normal rats might've been able to.
Much like Vantine, Jessibel wanders around the chamber, poking boxes and looking for anything shiny. Her attention wanders, though: She seems more invested in finishing her version of the nursery rhyme she'd used to inspire her new friends in the rat fight.
"You'd better watch out for the Silver Ravens!
....
...They'll swoop right in if you're misbehavin'!
....
Uh...And deal the death it seems you're cravin!
You three big rats!
Big. Dead. Rats!"
"Needs work...."
Jessibel does not find anything noteworthy. She does, however, find a small pile of feces. By almost stepping in it.
Moving to the northwest corner--dancing around the poop pile--Jessibel positions herself by the door.
When you're ready.... she mouths to the others, belatedly realizing this is a supposed to be a stealth mission. Her hand rests on the doorknob.
The Raven draws one of his daggers, ready to throw it at any surprise giant animals behind the door.
Unrelatedly, everyone who's trying to be quiet, make stealth rolls, please.
Rexus falls silent and begins moving slowly and quietly towards the door, though he stops some ten feet away. Even the other Silver Ravens have some trouble noticing him, so silently does he move.
Jessibel proves to be surprisingly stealthy...once she actually shuts her mouth, that is. She stands by the door ready to open it at a moment's notice.
Aisling isn't any good at stealth, especially in her armour. She's never needed to sneak around, and isnt' that keen on learning. It seems underhanded, somehow.
Before the door opens, she attends to her wound and Rexus, calling on her goddess to heal them.
The healing wave washes over the room, and Rexus looks somewhat better as his bite wound heals. "Thank you again, Sword Knight Talbot." He whispers.
Vantine creeps up closer to the door so she can see what's on the other side when it's opened.