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"What? It's not like I was going to taste it. I might have slipped some into Diego's waterskin, which I won't do now, but I would not have tasted it. Probably." Alistair says mulling it over before turning his attention back to the door to the south, "Shall we see what lies beyond this?"
"Indeed, cautiously." Orin responds, moving to the door.
With everyone ready, Diego opens the door.
The huge room beyond looks like an immense underground cathedral. Stone doors stand to either side of the main entrance, but beyond this, the walls are carved with strange, spiky runes.
In the center of the room is a large pool, with a ring of polished human skulls balanced on stone spikes arranged in a circle around the deeper midsection .
At the far end of the room, a pair of stone stairways leads up to a pulpit on which sits a second pool, this one triangular and filled with churning, bubbling, orange water that looks almost like translucent lava. Yet while wisps of what look like heat and steam rise from the strange orange liquid, the room itself is deathly cold from the moment the door is opened.
On the pulpit, near the bubbling pool, you see a tiny flying creature that seems vaguely demonic in nature.
The creature holds a tiny glowing dagger, and she shrieks in rage as you enter the room. "You dare intrude upon the Mother's sanctum!?!" She slashes her own wrist with the dagger, blood dripping into the bubbling orange pool. The pool's light dims somewhat, and two of those sin monsters crawl out of it, one to either side. "Kill the blasphemers!"
Combat Blocks:
Block 1: Nico, Orin, Alistair
Block 2: Both sin monsters
Block 3: Lief and Diego
Block 4: Quasit
Taking aim at the flying beast, Orin looses an arrow.
Nico notes how the monsters are made. It's the first thing that's happened to answer, rather than add, questions since they've been in the caverns. She moves outward to her left to clear her line of sight, and looses a bolt at the closer of the two creatures.
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”That’s a quasit,” Lief inform his comrades while it perform its ritual, “it’s a minor demon, if any demons are really minor, but it’ll resist damage from any weapons that aren’t made of cold-iron and from elemental attacks…”
what the f*ck have I gotten myself into… a week ago the most eventful thing that happened at work was if a brawl broke out in the Hagfish, and now there’s a demon summoning sin monsters under the city…
Orin takes aim at the tiny quasit, but she is a small and agile target, and darts aside, his blow missing her.
Nico adopts a different strategy, trying to take out one of the minions. She takes careful aim, waiting until the thing opens its disturbing, unhinged mouth parts, and fires an arrow right down its throat. If the thing was a normal, natural, living being, it would be dead. As it was, the monster remained on its feet, though it seemed to be struggling mightily with the projectile lodged in its face.
The sin monsters sprang into action. The room was large enough that it took them some time to cross it , giving Lief, Diego, and Alistair an opportunity to head them off.
Combat Blocks:
Block 1: Nico, Orin
Block 2: Both sin monsters
Block 3: Lief, Diego and Alistair
Block 4: Quasit
Alistair moves up beside Diego and Nico, "Have at thee, foul creature!" He says as he stabs at the wounded beast.
Lief follows Alistair forward and tries to slam the same sin-monster with his shield.
Diego brings his sword up in front of himself as the creatures move in. Once they square off with the group, he brings his blade into a heavy downward swing.
Alistair skewers the sinspawn that Nico shot, and it collapses to the ground, dead.
Lief goes to slam his shield into the other, but it's too fast and he misses.
Diego chops downward at the shoulder of the other monster, his falchion cutting into it deeply, though it still stands.
The quasit flies forward, hovering over the edge of the raised dais. Having witness the arrow nearly destory her creation, she targets Nico with a spell, incanting the words in a tiny voice that would have been cute, if she was not a demonic creature responsible for creating horrific monsters from her blood.
Combat Blocks:
Block 1: Nico, Orin
Block 2: Both sin monsters
Block 3: Lief, Diego and Alistair
Block 4: Quasit
Nico fights off the the feeling that her body is locking up. It also definitely brings the little flying beastie to her attention. She reloads her crossbow and shoots at it.
Orin shakes off his lack of success so far and lets another arrow fly at the small flying imp.
Nico's arrow hits the little demonic creature, , and by all rights should have hurt her, but all it does is spin her about a few times as she laughs wickedly in her disturbingly cute little voice. Recalling Lief's words about the thing resisting damage, Nico realizes she'll need to get a more solid hit to overcome the creature's nature.
Orin's shot might have landed, had the force from Nico's not moved the creature just as he released the bowstring.
"Foolish mortals! You may have slain one of my minions, but there are more where that came from!"
The remaining minion does it's dutiful best to gnaw and claw Diego's face off.
Combat Blocks:
Block 1: Nico, Orin
Block 2: Both sin monsters
Block 3: Lief, Diego and Alistair
Block 4: Quasit
Once again Diego fights off the nauseating feeling distributed by the creator's bite. After shaking off the substantial rake and bite of the creature, he brings his sword into a forward slash.
Alistair turns on the creature attacking Diego and shifts his position to work behind it (5’ step), ”Hang in there Diego, we’ll send this thing back to the pit from which it crawled!”
Frustrated at the sin monster's evasiveness, Lief shifts to flank it and swings his shield at it again and then follows up with a thrust of his shortsword.
The monstrosity manages to avoid Diego and Alistair, but Lief steps up and bashes the thing's skull in with his shield, and it falls onto the ground dead.
Frustrated that Nico resisted her spell, the quasit targets Lief as he finishes off her last minion. "Run away, like that cowardly vermin you are!" she screamed in her tiny voice.
Alistair moves toward the little beast and then flips a dagger at it.
Following Alistair's lead, Diego also moves up and tosses a dagger at it.
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Lief suddenly remembers that he left the fire beneath the coffee pot burning in the Garrison and makes haste toward the dungeon’s entrance to check on it.
Slowing his breathing and taking his time, Orin lines up another shot against the tiny pest.
for
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A hail of daggers and arrows fly at the tiny creature, who dodges, ducks, dips, dives, and dodges each and every one, darting through the air like a hummingbird. The rest of you watch as Lief turns tail and runs away.
The quasit cackled maniacally.
"I'll slay you all for your insolence!" she screeches. She takes the itty bitty glowing dagger she holds and throws it at Alistair.
The tiny dagger planted itself into Alistair's shoulder, half the blade stabbing into him...but as the dagger was all of two inches long, it did very little damage.
How high in the air is she?
More than a little irritated by the fact the creature is remaining out of reach, Diego heads over to the mule and retrieves the ranseur from its pack. "Why is there always complications?" He asks indirectly.
How high in the air is she?
Alistair runs up on the dais and stabs at the annoying creature. "What are you going to slay you little rat?" Alistair calls as his rapier hits true.
Nico keeps shooting at the damn squirrelly little thing.
Lief suddenly realizes that the quasit is a more pressing concern, as someone else in the Garrison surely must have started another pot of coffee by now. So, with a sigh, he turns and hustles back to his coworkers.
As Diego moves to find a weapon easier to reach the blasted thing with, Alistair rushes up onto the dais and stabs forward with the precision of a well-trained fencer. He managed to hit the quasit, but frowned as the blow that should have skewered it only managed to nick the thing. She seemed to resist the damage.
Nico lined up a fairly decent shot, but the quasit juked at the last moment, and it flew wide in spite of her accuracy.
Lief slowed to a stop, shook his head, and started running back to the fight.
Orin fired an arrow of his own at the annoying creature.
The arrow smacked into her, sending her a few inches backward, but did noting to penetrate her hide.
The tiny glowing dagger in Alistair's shoulder pulled free of his flesh and flew back to the quasit's hand, seemingly of its own accord. She hovered back five feet, just out of Alistair's reach, and chucked the little blade at him again.
The dagger sticks into into him again. Death by papercuts, it seemed, was the plan. As difficult as she was proving to hit, it just might happen.
With a growl, Alistair drops the rapier and leaps for the quasit.
After swapping weapons, Diego moves back over to the quasit and thrusts the ranseur in her general direction.
Unfamiliar with the polearm, Diego seems a bit clumsy with it at first.
Nico keeps reloading and shooting.
Having arrived back where he started, Lief frowns at the realization that his coworkers have not yet finished off the little fiend. With less enthusiasm than a child on their way to have a tooth pulled, he moves up to the dais, into a flanking position, and tries to swat it with his shield.
As unlikely as it is to work, Orin sees no better course of action than to keep up their assault. Drawing back his bow, he fires again.
for
After a series of attempts to hit the blasted little thing fail, Alistair takes a different route and leaps for it -- and snags the little fiend in one fist.
"Unhand me THIS INSTANT, mortal scum!" she screeches. She tries to bite him, but the way Alistair has hold of her she can't quite reach.
If we drop to the water then Alistair pins it under the water.
If we are flying, I pin her wings so we drop.
If i pulled her to me, I will drop off the ledge with her in tow.
+5 circumstance bonus to maintain grapple
With the creature firmly in Alistair's grasp, Diego attempts another thrust with the ranseur.
Alistair holds onto the blasted thing and pins her against the ground so Diego can stab at her. With her kept still like this, he hits, though he finds it difficult to pierce her flesh with the weapon, and it doesn't injure her as badly as it should.
My apprentice and I shall kill you all, and burn your foolish town to the ground!"
With the creature well in hand, and the mention of an apprentice, Orin make a point of looking around for other threats.
Lief nods approvingly as Alistair grabs the quasit and heads for the water. He sheathes his shortsword and picks up the other guard’s rapier for him so that he can use two hands to hold the struggling demon. Then he follows him to the water to offer backup should the creature escape or it’s apprentice arrive.
Nico reloads and otherwise stays out of the way!
Alistair carries the quasit to the water and forces it under. ”Are we killing this thing or questioning it? If questioning we need a way to hold it.”
The quasit shrieks underwater, burbles of the sound causing the water to churn all around Alistair's hands while she flails frantically.
”Its a demon,” Lief answers, “we couldn’t trust anything it said anyways. Just kill it.”
"Agreed. Simply drowned her and be done with it." Diego states while placing the Ransuer back on the donkey and then retrieving his Falchion.