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Aesephna strikes the giant spider as it walks scurries of her reach.
Iribo shoots the spider while it clings to the ceiling, and it finally loses its strength and passes out. It lets go of its grip on the ceiling and comes crashing down with an earth-shaking thud.
Iribo does a celebratory fist-pump, then yells, "Quick, stabilize it! We want to train it as an attack beast!"
"Also, uh, well done!"
Everyone gets a Hero Point for a difficult battle!
Meanwhile, Lough is still stuck to the ceiling...
Kvit ignores the command from Iribo, partially because he couldn't, but mainly because he strongly was considering setting the unconscious spider on fire instead.
The animated statue stands in place and eventually loses that imperceptible sheen of animation and potential movement. Almost like Lough slowly becoming paralyzed...
"We should just kill it. It's too big and set in its ways. I'm sure there are some eggs or something you can find instead..."
"Can you cut him down? Or do I need to get up there. I'd rather not. I could levitate you Iribo."
"Hey, you're under my employment, not the other way around. I'm not doing anything until I have my spider. Though those eggs sound like a good idea. Much easier to mold them when they're young..."
Aesephna moves towards hanging Lough and slowly carries him towards the ground.
"It may take some time, I don't want to fall on the ground."
With hands and legs glued to the wall she keeps holding Lough descending slowly down.
Dorianna screems when the spider splashes on the ground near her...
Wiping the ichor from her face she says "Yuck!"
She looks at Aesephna and Lough dangling "Is he dead? In my mind adventuring was less stressful, and without death on the hero part..."
Chery pipes up before anyone starts climbing.
"I have Air Walk prepared. The person going up there just has to be strong enough to carry Lough."
Cherry does not volunteer that they know Stabilize, or that they could easily heal the spider in several different ways.
"Listen, if you wanted the spider alive, you should've said that about five minutes ago. Before we started slinging spells and arrows into it."
hours.
Iribo scowls. "Nyzuros's instructions were clear: 'get me that spider.' If you're too stupid to remember your orders, you should've said so. Anyway," she stows her weapons, rolls up her sleeves, and walks into a patch of giant mushrooms. After a minute, she returns, holding several spider eggs.
"You're right, that big lunk is way too dangerous. Training them when they're young and their venom isn't as potent is a much better idea. Also much lower risk of them biting your arm off."
"Listen, we need to get medical attention for our friend. We're going to withdraw for a bit and restock."
Aesephna puts Lough on the ground and pokes him with finger
"Yeah seems paralyzed ... We can either wait here, but we don't know how long or head back to the town and see if we need professional help."
Dorianna eyes Iribo, eggs and Lough but let's Aesephna speak ... for the most part
"Yeah we need to get back to health, with the eggs you should be fine, right? "
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"At the very worst Lough," Cherry says, laying a hand on the paralysed warrior. "Erastile will intercede and I will be able to heal you at dawn."
Kvit looks around at the party, down to Lough's paralyzed and very heavy form, and back up at the companions. A small elderly ratfolk, a small leshy, a literal human child, and a much more physically capable spirit.
He points the tip of his staff from Lough to Aesephena "Well? Better start hauling him. It certainly won't be any of the rest of us."
Iribo looks at how you got the worst of it from the fight with the spider and at the frozen Lough, then sighs.
"Look, I told you guys you were prisoners, but maybe I jumped the gun a little. You helped us out with the spider with only minimal bickering and you seem determined to go further down anyway. I think our alliance would be much better if it's out of mutual respect, rather than servitude. Go back up and rest, try to get stronger, and come back when you feel ready. I'll explain things to Nyzuros. But send a message every once in a while, so we know where you are, okay?"
Kvit raises a tufted eyebrow in surprise and suspicion. "Uh, yeah, sure. Absolutely."
Aesephna stands in a small opening in the forest, next to her stand this small girl.
"Ok, Dorianna let's work on your skills. The same way as you allowed me to climb you are able to make me grow, basically the same size as that spider was. Channel the magic and try to make me bigger. "
Aesephna waits and feels the magic filling her body, soon after ...
Wings grow from her back
"Hmm ... ok, that was unexpected. Those can be useful so remember how you did it" Aesephna flies up in the air and then lands fouple of feet from Dorianna.
"Ok, try again, this time focus on size and not flying..." says and as quickly as she ended saying that, she grows in size.
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Dorianna stands in a small opening in the forest, she is but excited and nervous, next to her stands tall phantom, her ancestor Aesephna
"Easier said than done" thanks Dorianna but she reaches for the magic, she did that enough time to feel comfortable. Then she reaches to Aesephna, the bond between them is so obvious like she would be able to touch it.
Dorianna begins to channel the magic, not sure exactly how to make Aesephna to grow, she focuses on her posture, thinking that by grabbing her arms and pulling up, that should do it...
Dorianna's eyes grow large when she sees and feels growing wings.
Dorianna looks as Aesephna flies into the sky. "I would like to fly" she says a bit dissapointed.
Dorianna knows what to do now, she channels magic to the inside, hoping that it will do the trick. And it did...
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Somewhere in Otari ...
Sneakers squeaks and grunts, though the sound is muffled a bit by the scroll parchment in his mouth. He drags the rolled scroll by the edge across the floor and tosses it onto the pile.
The pile appears to be an assortment of bottles, scrolls, tools, and anything else the rat could get its rodent teeth into and drag away. He sits back on his haunches and cleans his whiskers while admiring his work.
"Boss is gonna be so proud..."
...
Kvit stands in shock when he gets back
"Where in the nine hells did you get all this stuff? You know what- no. Nevermind, don't tell me. The town should be grateful for us saving them anyway. Contributing to the cause is the least they could do."
He takes part of a meat pie and puts it down on the floor. "Good work Sneakers."
Cherry sighs as they return from the druid grove.
"I'm not sure how much stronger we need to be. I hope this is enough."
While Sneakers is busy robbing the town, Kvit is putting all of his experience to paper and sending it off to the libraries in Absalom.
During the breaks from spellcasting Dorianna works at the library ... after it got on fire there was a lot to be done there
The first week Dorianna was able to stay focused but on the second week she got assigned to brooming duty, and even then she laid an egg.
|
Lough comes to eventually, and spends some time in the woods, returning to his secret spot. He returns with the following story for his friends, new and old:
Color
1 > Crimson
2 > Jet Black
3 > Putrid Green
4 > Yellow Pus
5 > Spotted (roll 2d4 check above)
6 > Dull Grey
Texture
1 > Slimy
2 > Sticky
3 > Burnt
4 > Ashen
5 > Scaly
6 > Porous
Body Part
1 > Nose
2 > Feet
3 > Pseudopod
4 > Tail
5 > Claws
6 > Antennae
"I dreamed of a beast, made of puss that stank of infected maltreament, who wrapped me in her tail. She stole the shine off my shield, but filled me with her slime - look!" Indeed, his slaggen claws, which used to glimmer with zeal and shine, now take the appearance of cold soggy pallor "But worry not: I have absorbed her anger into my body - she is with me when I think of her, and I have learned to steal her swiftness in return" Looking around as if his crazy words make sense.
1st level Exemplar Ikon Choice:
In: Hands of the Wildling
8th level Exemplar Feat
Out: Extra Ikon (Mirrored Aegis)
In: Flow of War
Throughout Otari, a familiar small rat familiar finds each of you.
"Boss wants you to meet up tomorrow. Well- my boss, not yours. Well- he is sort of being bossy, so may yours too. I dunno, it's above my pay grade. Anyway, meet up at the ruins tomorrow to go down. He'll teleport us all down."
You follow Sneakers' instructions and meet up again. At the top level, Kvit activates the portal and you all zip down several levels, skipping quite a journey through the now-familiar underground complex. Eventually, you meet back up with Iribo, who now has several juvenile spiders the size of small dogs skittering all around her. Clearly, the eggs she harvested have hatched, and they've imprinted on her. "Ah, finally, you're back," she beams with relief. "I'll get one of the guys to do babysitting duty while I give you the tour." She goes to the main building, the spiders all following in tow, and she eventually returns with an unhappy-looking guard. "Watch these darlings for me while I send our allies downstairs, okay? And watch out for Zikomo, she gets nibbly when she's hungry." She gives each spider a goodbye kiss and leads you downstairs.
Map HERE. You start at the spiraly thing in the lower third of the map.
Iribo remains chipper and asks how you have been the past two weeks, showing genuine interest in your lives. "To the east of here are our transport caravans. They lead further into the Darklands and we get our supplies from them." She leads you past a bored guard and shows you indeed a big cavern where drow are moving crates and barrels off and onto wagons, pulled by riding lizards. They greet you without much enthusiasm and continue their work.
"Back the other way, all the way south, is the exit to the level proper. There's a secret door, but it should be visible from here. But here's the entrance to our stronghold." She opens a few doors and you're greeted by four drow playing cards.
"Falxi, your friends are here. I told you they'd show up, didn't I? Anyway, friends, I leave you in Falxi's care, I must get back to my babies. I hope Zikomo hasn't eaten him yet." With a wave, she says goodbye and slips out of the room.
Falxi stands up with a smile and starts to greet you, but then looks confused. "When I heard Feathers had arrived in Yldaris, I was looking forward to thanking her for saving me, but she's not with you guys? What happened to her? She's had enough of adventuring?"
Upon seeing the spider hatchlings, Kvit does some mental calculations and then immediately hopes to find another portal lower down to avoid seeing them again if at all possible.
Kvit silently follows along with the tour, not interested other than tactical information in case the relationship turns sour. He seems suspicious of Iribo's personal questions and is slightly annoyed. "My entire focus right now is getting deeper into this ... Place."
Feathers? Oh, Kka. She's recovering, poisoned. Unfortunately will not be joining us for a while. She did mention you, it was near that bar? But I don't recall the details other than she let you out."
Dorianna looks at the spiders with mixture of excitment and fear but she follows along the others. She tries to play it cool as they delve deeper inside the drow territory, at times she is unsure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.
"I am Dorianna, I don't think that we've met. " she introduces herself to Falxi.
"Yes, I hope Kka recovers soon, but at the moment their recovery is in the hands of the gods."
"Alright, so pleasantries over. What's on this level we need to be concerned with? Or, better yet, just show us to the stairs." Kvit seems, while not eager very ready to leave these Drow and their "employment" behind.
"Are you sure you want to raise a giant spider that thinks you are food source?"
Shalinnis hops out of Lough’s mouth, and scuttles over to the baby spiders, lifting his front arms to pat the whipper-snappers on the head…
Shalinnis hops out of Lough’s mouth, and scuttles over to the baby spiders, lifting his front arms to pat the whipper-snappers on the head…
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!" yells Dorianna seeing spider leaving her allies mouth.
"What kind of creatures you have there?!?!?!" she says taking a step back
Falxi looks genuinely saddened to hear Kka is unwell. "Yes, it was quite a while back when we met. Some weirdos had captured me and were taking chunks of flesh out of my body to sell in that freaky tavern. I was pretty banged up, but Feathers snuck in and freed me. I think I saw some of you sitting in the tavern, but I don't blame you for not recognising me. As I said, I was in quite a state back then.
"As for what's on this level, I think I'd best introduce you to my cousin and leader of this stronghold, she knows more about what's going on than I do. I'm just a pretty face that goes on expeditions sometimes. We'll have to take your weapons though, can't risk a diplomatic incident. I assure you, we're peaceful as long as you are peaceful, and you'll get your weapons back afterwards."
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"Are you sure you want to raise a giant spider that thinks you are food source?"
Iribo laughs. "Don't worry, we know by now how to tame spiders. With some negative reinforcement we train them not to associate us with food."
She pokes Zikomo in one of her eyes as the spider starts nibbling on Iribo's finger. Zikimo makes an irritated noise and skitters off in a huff.
Kvit frowns, "I'm not very comfortable with that. But if you insist..." He unbuckles his sheathed dagger to hand over.
...
Sneakers pops up "Don't try anything mister, Boss can kill you with his mind." He points a paw at his eyes the back to Falxi.
Kvit leans on his staff to pass it off as a walking cane, but Falxi sees through it. He puts his hand in front of Kvit as he goes through the door. "I'm sorry mister, but orders are orders. If you're not willing to give up your weapons that's fine, but then we'll escort you back out and leave you on your own. The choice is yours."
Dorianna gives her staff and dagger. "I want to see them back, I marked them so don't try to swap them" says the girl trying to obscure her handwraps as regular gloves
Kvit grumbles something about disrespect and hands over the staff.
Cherry shrugs and leaves their weapons. "Hold on, I have a few things.
Cherry deposits their staff and two daggers. "I think I left the longbow on the surface, too tight quartered in here for it."
Cherry does not bring up the non-weapon magic items that give them offensive spells.
Falxi accepts Dorianna's staff and dagger without looking twice at her handwraps. Similarly, he takes Cherry Berry's daggers and staff, but does not mention anything else that might or might not obviously contain spells.
"Thank you for your cooperation. We'll just pick up the warden along the way. Follow me."
He carefully stores the confiscated items in an empty chest, then opens the door to the south. It opens to a very messy and untidy room, with empty bottles and piles of dirty plates scattered around the room.
"This is the mess hall for our hunters. They provide us with food and are out most of the time. Also, they're incredible slobs, as you can see. Barely do their dishes because they think they're too important for that. Through that door over there is their sleeping quarters, don't worry about going in there. It's equally filthy and even we don't bother them."
He then opens the door to the east and ushers you through.
"This room to the south is our target practice room. Don't step in suddenly or you'll be filled with darts. To the north are some sleeping quarters."
He walks further east through a tight corridor filled with doors.
"More personal sleeping quarters, including some spare rooms just in case. You can sleep in there, if you'd like. Dunno how far you have to travel to get back up, but this will do if you're not picky about personal space."
He opens a door to the south and you see a common space with several drow lazying about, reading, and playing card games. He points to a door to the east. "Over there's the kitchen. We're not professional chefs, so we'll make whatever we can. It's not luxurious, but it'll do."
He then looks at one drow and says, "Warden, we've got visitors. Better come with us to the captain, get them up to speed with the situation." The drow nods and joins you. You retrace your steps and enter the big central room through the double doors.
This massive chamber has a high, vaulted ceiling. At its center stands a small forge, anvil, and worktable with various tools. A few benches line the walls.
Several drow appear behind you and bring in chairs and a table, and gesture for you to sit. From the kitchens, food and fungus wine is brought in. Falxi knocks on the door to the south and then joins you and pours a drink for himself. After a few minutes, three figures enter. One drow woman with a scar across her face who must be the captain of this outpost, and two identical-looking drow wearing robes.
The robed drow remain in the back near the door where they came from, while Quara stands at the head of the table, looks you over, and starts speaking.
“You have the look of surface dwellers. I’ve never met any of your kind, but I’ve seen artwork. Strange, you are not nearly as ugly as our art makes you out to be. I am Quara Orshendiel, leader of this outpost. Let’s figure out whether or not we can help one another.”
She looks over to Falxi who is already draining his first cup of wine, and says, "I've heard you are the ones who rescued Falxi earlier. Thank you for getting him out of these scrapes he keeps getting himself into."
Without comment, Falxi raises his cup in thanks and refills it.
"Please tell me your story. Why are you here, and what is your goal? I've heard some stories from my guards, but I'd like to hear it from you personally. Maybe we can come to an agreement here."
Dorianna keeps her palms under the table uneasy what to do or say. She turns her head to the left Looking at Kvit and Cherry than to the right
looking at Lough
"Well, my name is Dorianna, I just lately joined them after they saved me from clutches of a real monster. It was Kka who rescued Falxi."
She does not speak to the purpose of the party, thinking that sharing less could be the advantageous at the moment
"We are here to stop Belcorra, as we believe that she has returned." says Aesephna not waiting with the news
"Can you be of aid in this endeavor?" she asks standing behind Dorianna's chair.
Quara looks at Dorianna as she notices the omission, but answers Aesephna.
"Well, before I start handing out favours, I like to be certain the people profiting from them won't betray me. So please, first your story, then I'll share mine."
You do notice a bit of hesitation at the mention of Belcorra's name.
Kvit sits slowly, only slightly exaggerating the motion due to his lack of staff. He picks at the food, fine with mushrooms and mushroom-derived foods. Sneakers sniffs around and picks something to chew on.
"I'm known as Kvit the ruin delver. I delve into ruins, looking for treasure and knowledge. Though it quickly turned out that the gauntlight is ruined, but not quite as unoccupied as I hoped. Then we got embroiled in a few inter-faction conflicts. And the primary issue now, is there have been a few undead attacks on the local town, Otari. You can all do whatever you like down here until it harms my home. You're obviously not undead, so I'll assume for now you lot didn't have anything to do with that."
Quara laughs at Kvit's comment that the lighthouse isn't as unoccupied as Kvit had hoped. "Oh yeah, we like to stick far below the surface, but Falxi indeed reported lots and lots of activity up above. I can only imagine it gets busier the higher up you go.
"You mention you have no issue with us being down here. You're not frightened by our reputation?" She leans in with genuine interest.
"We've heard similar horror stories of surface-dwellers breeding like flies and spreading around all over the place, killing anything in their way. We're not opposed to necessary violence, but the rate at which you expand is impressive. Are any of those stories true? And have you come here to expand that empire? You say you have no issue with us down here, but what about your peers, your superiors? Are you some stray adventurers, or the advance party to a much larger group?"
She looks at you like a scientist might at a sample under their microscope, not quite sure what to make of it. The twins in the back remain silent.
Kvit scoffs, "Just because every group down here appears to be ready to invade their neighbor, doesn't mean us "surface dwellers " are. The mitflits on the surface are about as bad as neighbors can get. We're not here as a forward invasion force either. Just trying to get down to the bottom to turn off the undead attacks. By force of necessary." He casts a specific glance and gesture towards Lough.
Sneakers appears to be devouring a grilled mushroom slice bigger than his body with no signs of slowing down.
Kvit looks back at Quara. "And we aren't part of any organized group, there are no superiors. Just townspeople asking for help."
"I am Cherry Berry, follower of Erastile, god of communities. For me, this is about protecting Otari from those same attacks."
Cherry frowns and leans back a little. "I suspect that Erastile would have just as many issues with Otari invading this place. If anything, we have enough surface issues to be concerned with anything happening down hear; other than this apparent imminent invasion that is."
"Ok, I am Dorianna Menhemes, I am the daughter of mayor of Otari, settlement above. I was a child when I was targeted by a powerful and horrible creature. Those adventurers helped me and saved me, now I decided to join them. My ancestor fought Belcorra when she was here, now I try to continue her battle" says the girl