Alorea's projectile dents the thing's rubbery skull, before Siobhan's blade cuts it into two. The pieces flop down from the wall, shuddering like jelly when they land on the floor.
|
"We really need to find somewhere safe to rest up." Von says, looking warily around as though she expects something else to jump them from the darkness. "Are you ok Vy?"
This despite Von herself being absolutely covered in blood, along with a massive bruise forming across her face and her left knee wobbling threateningly beneath her. Priorities.
Almost before she knows what's happening, it's all over. As the shiny points of light fade from her vision, Vyana reaches up to rub at her throat.
She attempts to respond to Siobhan's question, but all that comes out is a rasping squawk. Rolling her eyes, she coughs to clear her throat.
"I'm okay," she finally manages, though her voice is still rough and ragged. "No choruses of Her Beautiful Moon any time soon, but that might be a blessing to all of us."
Finding her bow where she dropped it, she looks her friend over more critically. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, too," Alorea says, wincing as she holds her bruised side. "Rest sounds good. A great feast and copious amounts of alcohol sounds even better, though I don't think those are in the cards."
|
|
"I'm fine." Von replies, brushing off her own injuries. "Give me half an hour to rest and I'll be right as rain. Are you sure you're ok? That thing looked nasty."
She reaches up to brush away a mark on Vy's throat and freezes just as her fingers touch the bruised flesh. They hang there for a few moments and then Von pulls her hand away.
"So... let's find somewhere near a wall with nothing nasty above us!" She suggests.
As Von moves to pull her hand away, Vyana reaches up and clasps it in her own. "Thank you," she says in a soft, but raspy voice. "I don't say that enough, and I ..." She stops and shakes her head, clearing her throat again. "I just mean ... thank you." She gives Siobhan's hand a squeeze and then releases it.
Turning to Alorea, she grins. "Well, once we make it back to town the first three rounds are on me."
Once you are ready to move forward again, the cramped passageways eventually open out to a large cavern filled with rocky overhangs and jutting boulders. A gaggle of hapless kobolds are toiling with picks and shovels, evidently trying to extract something of value from the stone; they are overseen by a short, brutal-looking kobold with spindly legs
that contrast bizarrely with his tremendously muscled upper body. His face is squashed and mean. He has a stunted snout, as if pushed in by a shovel.
When the light from your torches breaks over the scene, there's a momentary hesitation before the overseer gestures furiously at you, ordering his underlings into the fight!
Alorea ineffectually hurls a rock at the overseer.
Drawing an arrow, Vyana takes aim at the overseer as well and looses an arrow that shimmers with green energy.
Alorea's psychic power fails her in this instance, but it is no matter as Vyana has magic enough for the both of you: her acidically-charged arrow punches through the kobold overseer, dissolving him into a scaly goo! His agonised screaming devolves into a choked series of gurgles as he breathes his last.
Faced with that display of power, and not really wanting to fight anyway, the remaining kobolds drop their picks and scramble away into the darkness, well beyond the light of your torches.
As you move beyond the chamber and back into the narrow, mazelike-passageways, you again seem to lose all sense of time. Eventually however, the passageway opens out once more into a cavern coated with green-grey goo. The squelching sound that you heard as you approached it is immediately explained by the slug-like toad creature (similar to the one you encountered before, although this one is red). It has a kobold stuck to its back and seems to be joyously leaping through the goo and up into the low ceiling, as it transforms the luckless kobold into mush.
Another kobold (either insufficiently brave or sufficiently sensible not to be trying to ride the creature) is grabbing onto the slurk's harness, trying to calm it down. Between the noise and the commotion, they haven't noticed you.
Vyana's bow is readied in her hands, but she refrains from taking a shot."We should just sit here and watch - let the giant toad do our work for us, eh?" she says with grin.
"Let's move on before they spot us," Alorea says. She tries to sneak around the cavern.
Even if you weren't carrying a very obvious light source, Alorea isn't nearly as stealthy as she had hoped to be - doubtless not helped by the thick coating of greasy slime underfoot. The kobold and the slurk both notice you and charge into the attack! The kobold takes Alorea as his target, taking the option of picking on something his own size for a change; while the slurk rushes into Siobhan, goring her with its tusks.
Knowing (hoping?) that Siobhan can hold out for a moment or two, Vyana directs her arrow-borne aggression towards the kobold attacking Alorea.
Alorea cries out in pain! Color swirl around her as she first manifests a shield, then conjures a glowing starknife to attack the kobold!