Inva continues to back up, trying to escape the rat and cursing, now not so quietly. The rat's death doesn't slow her retreat down, she's had quite enough of the whole thing.
With one rat left, Eser lets loose a short chirp and steps forward, swinging her weapon over the top of Grasz as she goes, and bringing it down onto the skittering animal, and then again.
AC 16
Hp 14/21 Temp Hp: 4;
clumsy 1;
+6 weapon damage
Phai moves over to the Barrel opposite the one containing the Rat, not wishing to remain near the large-mouthed predator even if it seems focused on the rodent, for now.
Extending her finger, then pointing it at the Rat, she invokes one of her simplest spells with the Sylvan syllable:"Pew, pew", sending a magical projectile that stutters in and out of physical reality on it's way towards the rat.
Eser's furious assault against the cowering rat doesn't actually strike its intended target, but does a rather impressive job of staving in the side of the barrel entirely, revealing the barrel's interior in a shower of splintered wood. The now-exposed rat shrieks in fear and scrabbles at the fish in an effort to escape, but its efforts are for naught, for a single spell from the sprite takes it in its open mouth and blows the back of its neck out in a spatter of gore. The rat drops like a marionette with its strings cut and spills out of the barrel on a layer of befouled fish.
Combat has ended, all characters receive 80XP. Eser and Inva are currently infected with stage 1 of filth fever. Both will have to make Fortitude checks (DC 14) to avoid stage 2, Eser in 4 hours and Inva in 3 hours.
Hellewen gathered some more air and lingered in her combat stance for a moment. But it seemed all the rats were well and truly dead. "Well then." she relaxed and the elemental energy dissipated. "Let's hope they haven't defiled all of this. Or any of us. Are you okay?"
"Get out the doctors kits, clean the wounds. Those things carried disease, Gin said. Every moment counts when things are being left to fester." Surla is of the opinion of immediately looking after those who got bit.
"I am strong and hale!" Eser breathes, despite the evidence to the contrary; the tengu sits atop a barrel, obviously fatigued from the fight, chest heaving with every breath. "But I can make you feel better, if you need it!"
"Well I'm a mess. It's obvious the rats were the problem, so now the problem's solved and we can get out of here."
"I am good. But thank you for your offer mighty one." Hellewen gives the Tengu a small nod. While the wounded were tended to, she peered into the large hole in the wall. "Obviously you are right about the rats. But there may be more."
Pfil approaches the rats she helped bring down, retrieving a diminutive knife from her pocket.
She starts to work on trying to cut a tooth lose, before turning to one of her larger allies:"Could one of you help me with that? One tooth from each of the two. Now that I'm a successful hunter, I'd like a trophy necklace, I think, but this is harder than it seems."
When there is mention of returning, or checking more, she weighs in as well:"True that. If that was all of them, we simply make sure there's none left. If it was not all of them, jobs not done. Either way, we at least have to go take a look."
"Could be more. If you want to go looking, I wish you luck. I'm done. I'm not getting myself killed over some missing fish."
Pfil nods sagely:"Yes. Tamily told us not to get ourselves killed. So that seems very sensible."
She then shrugs and points at Eser and Riktik:"You could also try and let them stand in front and just run if they are killed. It's what I plan on doing."
Hellewen turns back and gives the pixie a long look. With a grimace slowly comes over. "Those are *very* filthy. But if you really want to..." She stomps down on the jaw of the rat. With a sickening crunch she hopefully frees the tooth. Disgusting. "...Clean them properly."
The pixies second idea though was sound. Hellewen waits to see how the meat-shields feel about it before piping up though. And to find somewhere to scrape the rat from her boot.
Eser leans in close to Pfil, one eye searching the sprite up and down. A whirring grunt, followed by a lilting, appraising chuckle. "You are as wise as you are small, tiny warrior! Yes, stand behind me! I shall die first!"
Another whirr, and the tengu cocks her head towards the smashed rat. "They are filthy! Do you think if we ate them that they would make us stronger? Perhaps we would become the disease carriers, and leave the ones that kill us with a nasty surprise?"
Resisting the urge to peck at the splatter, Eser straightens and sighs, remembering that most of her peers probably didn't eat dead rats without cooking them, and this seemed hardly the place to start a fire. Plus, you are supposed to be quiet, Eser reminds herself, and sits back on her barrel, drawing a small bundle from her backpack.
The bundle contains healing supplies; swamp herbs, bandages, one surprisingly clean knife. "If I am to die first, I should make myself die better." She then sets about treating the wounds she received in the rat battle.
When she is finished, Eser turns to Inva. "Next?"
Inspecting the hole in the false wall, Hellewen can easily see that the wall is nothing but a panel set into a frame in the actual wall. Handholds--which were probably concealed from easy view at one time--at roughly shoulder height allow the panel to be lifted out of the frame and moved aside to expose the passage. Of the passage itself, she can make out rough stone steps that stretch down to the east and nothing more. Her elemental affinity allows her feel a faint brush of air across her exposed skin that any other wouldn't even notice, cool and bearing the particular smell of air long trapped underground with little movement.
Inva takes the healing, but nothing done or said changes her mind.
"Nope, I'm not interested in a walking shield. I'm heading back up above ground. Again, if the rest of you are going to look around down here some more, best of luck."
"Oh, thank you for your help. Yes, I will definitely clean those before making them into a necklace. ", Pfil responds to Hellewen, then turns to Eser: "Well, I'd prefer you not dying, of course. I just figure if you do, I'll go survive and find someone to avenge you. Your brother, or son, or clutchmate from the same spawning or something."
When Inva insists on going back up, Pfil cocks her head:"You know, if we stir up more rats in there, they may decide to flee. That means they'd follow you up there. And possibly kill everybody above ground. A veritable vermintide, so to say. It may be a lot safer down here, with the hungry croc they'll run from."
Inva frowns at Pfil as if she thinks the sprite is a fool, do what you want down here. I'm out.", and exits.
"Take care!", Pfil answers, absent-mindedly, while cleaning some left-over rat from the second tooth.
"Anyway..." Hellewen turns back to the passage. She stares at the wall a bit before grabbing onto the hand holds, attempting to fully pull the panel off the wall. "...Can't just be rats. Maybe they're squatting, but someone else made this. Stale air though, probably been a while."
The panel comes out of the frame quite easily, revealing that the handholds have been positioned with great care to balance the false wall's significant weight perfectly for a single person to manage just long enough to move as needed. The passage, now fully exposed, is uncut stone with a low ceiling--not dangerously so, unless one is unusually tall--and slopes downward gently. The changeling can see that while the passage is narrow to start, just a bit more than shoulder-width, it quickly widens as it descends.
Pulling the panel out also reveals its backside, showing that the false wall segment is made of hand-thick pressed wood sheets () to which the padding and stone veneer have been attached, and a frame of wood beams to hold everything together. Bolted into the frame, at the same height as the handholds that Hellewen used, are pair of iron loops, covered with a light coat of rust. They pretty clearly allow someone on the panel's passage side to move the panel as needed.
Examining the panel's backside more closely reveals a number of scratches on the underside of the crossbeams that make up the frame holding it together. A bit of inspection and comparison shows that these scratches would be exactly the sort left by something (or someone) with clawed fingers digging those claws into the wood while moving the panel from the passage side. Those scratches were definitely not made by the recently-killed rats.
Curiously, however, all of the scratches are on the lower crossbeams, just above the point where the rats chewed through the panel, suggesting that whatever made them was shorter than a human.
Additionally, the iron loops higher up show spots where the rust coating them has been worn away, revealing clean metal. A bit of rust-stained fabric caught on a splintered section of wood near one loop suggests that the rust might have been removed by regular contact with rope.
Despite being very frustrated at his inability to kill the rats himself, Grasz helps himself to a few snacks.
"Ratsss ssstrangely agresssive," hisses Rik'tik. As they examine the strange panel, the Iruxi takes a closer look. "Sssecret door. With russsty iron loops. Could be old. Why is thissss here?"
Rik'tik starts pointing out some details of the door panel. "Ssscratches from claws," he remarks, pointing with his own clawed hand. It was perhaps easier for him than most to notice. "Ssshort creature clawing here," he notes, pointing toward the bottom portion of the panel. "Rope tied here," he adds, pointing toward the iron loops on the top, where the rope has rubbed away the rope. "Maybe person and animal together?" he speculates, comparing the situation to his own.
Inva is eventually tempted enough to take a look at the discovered space. She's in a mood however, and only gives it a couple of cursory glances.
"Ah, so you found signs of something or someone other than the rats?" Surla asks Rik'tik.
Phil moves up close to the board Rik-Tik inspects, then focuses for a moment before flaring up in a strangely arcane light that seemed to aid in seeing contrasts, but ever so slightly.
"You think this is the work of smuggling zombie-pirates? It must be - Who else would still use these tunnels? Cursed to repeat their deeds for all eternity, they still want to smuggle, stirring up the rats, but since their ship has long since rotted away, they are trapped here. It's all so clear now.", the Sprite muses, her voice not making it entirely clear if she is serious, joking, or asking.
Rik'tik was slowly getting to answering Surla, but stops short as Pfil fills the silence. "Not ratsss. Clawsss a little like mine," he notes, holding them up in the light. "But not Iruxi."
The lizardfolk decides it might be time to carry a torch, so he puts away his weapons for a moment, lights the torch, and then draws his trident once more. "Grasz and I go first. But will try NOT to get hit," he adds, with a glance at Eser.
"I'll follow you." Hellewen volunteers to be third.
Inva finds herself a place solidly in the middle, making her well protected front and back by other bodies. She's done taking risks.
With Rik'tik leading the way, torch in one hand and trident in the other, you all descend the short flight of stone steps to find yourselves in a small cavern, on a ledge overlooking a short drop to a lower section of the cavern and another flight of steps extending further downward to the north. The ledge itself has several stalagmites of varying sizes rising upward, and almost directly opposite is a second, much smaller ledge with a patch of fungus visible in the torch's light.
The floor below the ledge isn't too far, but a careful examination by torchlight of the ledge's lip and the wall beneath it shows few good handholds. Getting down could pose a bit of a challenge for the party, and Grasz will have to be carried in any case.
The lip of the ledge has a number of pale scrapes marring the stone, and close inspection shows they're not only fairly recent, but that many of them are of the same sort made on the frame of the panel that previously concealed the passage between the basement and this cavern.
The fungus is edible and nutritious, albeit on the bitter side if eaten raw. There is a market for it, however, and if harvested the party can acquire enough to make up three human-sized portions, each worth 4 weights .
"Fresh claw marks," notes Rik'tik, following the obvious trail. Finding a place to lean his torch safely, the lizardman pulls out some rope and starts to tie it around a sturdy-looking stalagmite.
Grasz looks down at the cliff and seems to growl a complaint. Rik'tik replies with some hisses and clicks, assuring Grasz that he will be helped down.
"Keep watch as we climb," he notes, as he secures Grasz around himself with a practiced movement and they try to make their way down.
.
Aaaand, they fall.
Even with the help of a sturdy rope, the descent proves to be a problem for the first to attempt it. As Rik'tik carefully puts his full weight on a tiny shelf of rock so he can free one hand from the rope to adjust the makeshift harness holding his companion, the shelf gives way and the lizardfolk can't get his grip re-established quickly enough on the rope to compensate. A startled Iruxi oath and an unhappy grunt mark the pair's sudden drop to the floor, followed by the hard *thump* of impact.
Eser is taken by the fungus on the opposite ledge, so intent on examining it that she doesn't notice Rik'Tik preparing to descend the ledge. "That fungus, across the way. It is edible and appealingly bitter. It is also valuable. We scrounge the swamp grottos and sell it in town. Twelve weights worth is over there, I'd wager."
It is only the hard thump of Rik'Tik and Grasz's falls that shake loose Eser's attention. Muttering a soft curse, the flings herself over the edge, dropping to the ground below unharmed, a mass of shifting feathers and twisting limbs blunting her fall
"Are you dead?" Eser hisses, peering into the shadows as she looks for threats, one hand pulling her weapon loose.
"Fascinating. We always seems to make it *down*." Hopefully the rope would be enough to get them up afterwards. But - let's see if there isn't an easier way to deal with this. Reacting to the somewhat humorous falling lizards Hellewen conjures an updraft to slow their fall. "There."
Grabbing a secure hold of her things the elf leaps over the edge, slowly drifting down. Once on terra firma again she turns and motions for her non-dinosaur companions to follow. "One at a time please. Else it might make a mess..."
Rik'tik's reptilian heart skips a beat as he slips, but all of a sudden, he feels a cushion of air slowing his descent.
"Did you do that, Hellewen? Thank you."
He gets his guard back up at this lower level.
Even with the help of a sturdy rope, the descent proves to be a problem for the first to attempt it. As Rik'tik carefully puts his full weight on a tiny shelf of rock so he can free one hand from the rope to adjust the makeshift harness holding his companion, the shelf gives way and the lizardfolk can't get his grip re-established quickly enough on the rope to compensate. A startled Iruxi oath and an unhappy grunt mark the pair's sudden drop to the floor, but the expected *thump* of impact doesn't follow, thanks to Hellewen's quick action.
When her turn comes, Inva takes the rope down. When she's finished, she takes a look around.
"Ah, that's a wondrous little trick indeed, Hellewen!" Surla smiles at the mystic skill on display.
"I'd say keep it ready for me, I'm not certain how well these old bones will fare, even if Gin won't have a problem." Surla waits until no one else is making their way across before attempting.
However, it seems she wasn't in any need of assistance, a bit more spry on her feet than might be expected, as she makes it to the fungus ledge.
"Well spotted, Eser. Not just a keen eye required to spot that." She'll then begin gathering them.
In the flaring light of the torch held aloft by the lizardman, neither Eser nor Inva see anything of note within the cavern. However, further down the stairs, beyond the furthest limit of the wavering flame, Inva can make out something unusual in the next cavern, though she can't quite discern what it is from here.
"There's something odd over there" Inva says, while gesturing in the direction she means. She makes no move to investigate however.
"Wonder is all around us. Unfortunately though, this one won't get us up again. Let's hope the rope is well secured." Hellewen nods and moves to chip in on the mushroom collection. Truth to be told, she was better at the wander then gathering part of her job. But let's make an effort.
---
"Odd? Unspecific yet tantalizing. Let's hope it is more wealth and not..." she shudders at the thought. "...Bigger rats."
Rik'tik accepts the torch that Hellewen has kindly brought down to him.
He and Grasz keep an eye out in the direction Inva indicates as fungus is collected. "Maybe the cause of the problemsss," suggests the Iruxi. Once more he and his trusty companion head forward.
The little sprite gracefully hops down, fluttering rapidly to try and break her descent, ultimately ending in a roll forward to disperse the kinetic energy.
Shaking her head a bit, she starts pointing at the mushrooms, but realizes Eser was already talking about them. "Yeah, you can prepare it so it's not too bitter. Very nutritious, too.", she adds while providing light to those harvesting, then follows Rik'tik once more when the task is completed.
Descending the stairs, you find that they open out into a second cavern, a good bit larger than the one behind you. Stalactites hang from the ceiling overhead, though none so low as to pose a risk to an unwary head, and small patches of luminescent fungus irregularly dot the ceiling as well, providing a dim bluish light that is sufficient for even eyes with low (or no) dark adaptation to see by. Between the torch and the fungus, it's enough to see the cavern's shape is that of a rough 'Y', with the upper left branch presumably leading further into the tunnels. It is the upper right branch that proves to be of concern, however, for the fungus and torch together also make plainly visible the oddity that Inva first noticed.
They're spiderwebs. Thick strands and sheets cross the cave at irregular intervals, and all originate from a mass of silk in that upper right section of the cavern. It's a sure bet that whatever made these webs is in that mass, somewhere, and the sheer quantity of webbing suggests either a disturbingly large number of small spiders, or a smaller number of disturbingly large spiders. Either way, entirely too much spider for comfort. Fortunately, the webbing offers a number of gaps. None large enough to pass entirely unchecked for most of the party, but a bit of careful movement should see one through without the contact that might alert whatever waits in that corner.
"Careful. This situation may get ... Sticky." Hellewen notes. That was indeed too many spiders. She had seen whole trees covered in webs before - but that was in thin almost ethereal strands. This looked way different. Less flytrap more fooltrap. With a secure hand on her hat she nods towards the silky mess in the far end of the cavernous room. "Perhaps it'd be better to disturb them from over here. See what pops out now rather then when we're tangled up?"
"Mmhmm..", Pfil nods sagely:"You guys are simply too large. That said, I'm not keen on finding out whats hiding over there. Perhaps we could illuminate it better from here? By throwing an Oil Lantern or something? I'm sure one could be fetched from upstairs-"
"Don't see any reason to go in there myself. Spiders aren't stealing fish, and it doesn't seem likely anything would be passing back and forth through all that webbing to steal fish regularly."
"I'm even more convinced now the rats were stealing the fish, and that's what I'm being paid for to worry about."
"Oh my, supposing there was swarms of spiders, so many they'd be dangerous, how would we deal with them, Gin?" Surla turns to her crow companion.