Sasha calls Pheliks to her and roughly scratches the large cat around the neck as it continues to growl in the direction of the monsters. Moments later the pair have caught up with the others, even pushing towards the elevator with some urgency. "Let's go - that's enough monsters in this little tunnel for us!" she exclaims, urging the others forward.
"Oh! I didn't think you would, though asking you to carry a sword almost twice as tall as you are probably isn't the fairest thing I could have asked for," Kiley says to Rutilux as she starts to hurry to the elevator herself. "And I'm with Sasha. That's more than enough tunnel monsters for me!"
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"1 pipe out of five in Volo's tour guide, would NOT Recommend" the far traveling hin mutters as they move
A brief smile plays on Ari’s lips and she mutters something to herself, the only audible word of which is “overcompensating”.
”Let’s get to this elevator then. And let’s hope that we’re not just going to plunge to our doom.”
On arrival she begins to check out the mechanism, not really understanding how it works but looking for anything that doesn’t feel right or might be rigged.
The passage continues for another minute of brisk walking before expanding into a large obviously hand-carved The massive copper door stands in front of you blocking the way into what is presumably the elevator that will take you the second half of your delve below the surface, encompassing the entire second day of the two day journey.
On either side of the door are two small stone engraved pedestals, each with a lever pushed forward all the way. A quick examination reveals they are nearly completely covered in rust, clearly not having seen use in far too long.
Before you can look too closely, however, one of the most disgusting slimy sliding sounds echoes throughout the small chamber. Looking back the way you came, you see two more of the gricks making their way down the side of the cavern wall towards the ground (and you). Seems as if Kiley was right, there was at least one more grick hanging around up there. These two don't seem as big though, so perhaps they are the offspring of the one you drove off earlier.
Init
Round 1
23- Shaggar
19- Rutilux
18- Sasha
15- Ari
5- Kiley
3- Gricks
The gnoll turns around and stalks toward the cave entrance, preparing to intercept the gricks. He readies his axe to hew into the first grick that comes toward him.
Bullets (20): x
Arisen 3HP (1):
Effects:
Arisen - Die at -18 HP
Diehard
Kiley bites back a groan of frustration as she rushes up and readies her bow. She It might not do much, but she might be able to at least hurt one of them before it has the chance to lay into Shaggar.
Rutilux rushes forward and casts hastily "Two of them?"
He is running low of spells, at least ones of power but death never helped anyone so he casts mage armor on himself. No need to be an EASY target.
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From what she understands of the tough hides of these creatures, Ari isn't convinced that she can even hurt them with her bow. Still, worth a go, she supposes, sidling up to Kiley and mirroring the other tiefling's action with her own shortbow. As it turns out, her aim is bang on and she plant an arrow right into the grick's face.
Sasha directs Pheliks to a position in front of the bow-women, directing him to, "Guard!" as she bows her head in prayer. "Selûne, bless us!"
Kiley and Ari both hit their target, and it roars in anger as the two arrows find weakspots in the gricks' thick hide.
Shaggar's prepared strike isn't strong enough to pierce that same armor as they move up towards the gnoll, however, and his axe clangs against them quite loudly. One of them strikes out with its large beak and the other one leans its head back and repeats the same roar the first one you encountered used.
The grick is thrown off by its descent to the ground, and misses wildly.
Init
Round 2
23- Shaggar
19- Rutilux
18- Sasha
15- Ari
5- Kiley
3- Gricks
Kiley hesitates as the roar echoes throughout the cavern. For a brief moment she's back in her parent's manor as the undead tear apart people she'd known for years. She shakes her head, clearing mind of terrible memories, but she can feel the fear starting to take hold as she nocks another arrow and studies the grick's movements.
The gnoll brings his axe around like a headsman, trying to decapitate the wounded monster.
Bullets (20): x
Arisen 3HP (1):
Effects:
Arisen - Die at -18 HP
Diehard
The beast roars in pain after Ari's surprisingly well-placed arrow but it doesn't knock her out of her stride. As the pair of gricks close in on Shaggar, Ari circles behind to follow up her bow shot with an equally well-aimed cut with her magical blade. With the worm preoccupied with the gnoll, she has plenty of opportunity and scores a line down it, cutting open the creature's flesh and exposing its innards.
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Rutilux remembers the first time his family carted exotic animals... the box was supposed to hold all the snakes, but the latch came loose. He remembers waking up that night , in the dark, to find out that they'd settled on him for warmth, a dozen snakes on a little boy's body, for he was so young then...he woke and began to scream, the snakes panicked...
The halfling fights the memories that the fear he's feeling now has stirred, he grits his teeth and screams once more. NO accuracy needed. His twitching hands don't matter.
Kiley's arrow does manage to do some damage to it, but Shaggar easily dispatches the first of the pair with a clean cut through what passes for its neck. The head falls to the floor still writhing and makes the second think twice about just how tasty these particular morsels may be compared to how much effort they require to take down. It decides to cut its losses, slipping surprisingly swiftly away from Shaggar and back up the wall it dropped down, tail between its metaphorical legs.
That leaves the heavy copper door and the two pedestals, each complete with their own heavily rusted lever.
"Ari, can you help me figure out how this is supposed to work," Kiley asks.
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Rutilux is cursing under his breath in halfling, still spooked by that roar and the memories it stirred.
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With Shaggar slicing up the grick into fish bait, and the other worm vanishing at speed, Ari saunters over to Kiley. She inspects the door contraption but she tends to work on these things more on instinct than figuring out exactly how they work. "You know, I'm not sure I can," she frowns.
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Rutilux mutters a few more curses in his people's tongue then walks over to cast detect magic on the heavy copper door , pedestals and levers.
Sasha watches the abomination flee before bowing her head to pray an orison of thanks to the goddess. When she turns back, the others have begun looking at the door and the levers. "They look badly rusted - is it possible they work just fine, if we can get them to move? One lever to open the door, the other to manage the elevator? Or is that too simple to be right...?" she asks, doubting that she knows anything useful about engineering, traps, or even dwarven devices.
"That would be lovely, but given how our luck's been so far, I'm not holding my breath," Kiley jokes with a strained smile.
It's not an elaborate trap, thankfully, and Sasha is closer to the truth than Kiley's fears. The levers look to open one door each, and both of them need to be pulled at the same time to open the gates to the elevator.
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Shaggar chuffs his disagreement. "Our luck is good. No one dead and few injuries." He takes a hold of one of the levers and motions the others to get to the other one. When they are ready, he cranks the lever open as the metal squeals in protest.
"I'd like to think that is because we are good," Kiley says with a shade of her usual humor.
At Shaggar's mention of injuries Sasha goes about and start checking on each of her allies, offering healing as they try to move the levers together.
Luckily Shaggar is able to pull the lever alongside Kiley and the giant copper doors slowly slide along hidden rails in the floor, revealing one of the most impressive mechanical sights you've ever seen: a massive gear-shaped copper elevator floor that has weathered far better than the levers and doors outside. A single larger metal lever sits in the center of the platform, the only obvious mechanism to lower the elevator.
Sprawled haphazardly across the floor (and surprisingly missing any sign of blood pools underneath) are three bodies of robed figures. You can't tell if they're men or women from the entrance, but a wave carrying the stench of moderately old death crashes over the group as the doors open.
The gnoll waves off Sasha’s offer of healing, remarking on his bloody wounds. ”No worse than a stabbing with a small knife.”
Shaggar points a claw at the putrifying corpses. ”This is what bad luck looks like.” He approaches and looks more closely at the robes.
Bullets (20): x
Arisen 3HP (1):
Effects:
Arisen - Die at -18 HP
Diehard
As a matter of fact, they do have those exact symbols on necklaces around their necks once you turn them over. Seems to be a common denominator around here.
"I can't disagree," Kiley says, her voice somewhat muffled and stuffy courtesy of her hand pinching her nose close to ward off the smell. he has no more luck than Shaggar making heads or tails of what happened with the bodies.
"I should be okay" He says of the healing "Just need to rest for a few hours to be tip top." More worried by his dwindling arcane power than his health.
Shaggar considers the bodies while glancing up the shaft. "So, possibly a strange trap but more likely a creature of some sort... one that doesn't hide its kills."
The gnoll starts counting the needle holes on each body.
With a gulp at the dead bodies, Sasha looks around the new chamber, trying to spot any other signs of threats here. "I'd rather not ride down into the earth for a day with three corpses, but dumping them out to those monsters isn't respectful either. They're obviously cultists," she points out the unholy symbols, "so I feel little is owed to them, but...any good ideas on what to do with the bodies?"
"It depends, on whether they were killed by a trap down the shaft or monsters... likely also down the shaft."
Ari shrugs. ”If it keeps the gricks off our backs I’m happy to just leave them behind us. Feels respectful of the sanctity of our own bodies and they can meet their gods knowing they did a good deed from beyond the grave.”
"Truth, I leave it up to the rest of you...we could set fire to them I suppose? Is that a decent burial?"
Sasha sighs, as no good options come to her mind (or the words of her companions). "Let's drag them out of the elevator, at least - not as respectful as I'd like, but there aren't better choices available right now..." she says as she pushes Pheliks to help her get started with one of the desiccated bodies.
"C-couldn't they rise as undead, like what happened with Lucina," Kiley asks, a note of fear in her voice. Still, she helps with removing the desiccated corpses.
Shaggar withholds a comment and merely watches the bodies being moved and the hand-wringing over burial rites for the cultists. He notes their concern over dead human cultists but not one of them had given the werewolf cultists a moment's notice after killing them.
Is it simple racism or do they assume somehow these cultists are more innocent than the ones we killed earlier?
Once the elevator is cleared, Kiley looks to the others.
"How long is this supposed to take again? A day?"
"I doubt they will return as undead," reassures Sasha. "We're just not in civilized country with people around to help us dispose of the bodies another way. I don't want to feed predators like those behind us - that just encourages more ambushes - but we can't bury them in all this stone..."
"Then let's not worry about it overmuch," Ari says. "I doubt they'd be concerned about us in the same way if the positions were reversed. Personally I'm more concerned about what it was that did this to them - and is presumably still lurking somewhere."
"Fair enough, I was worried about undead but as you both point out, better to focus on the present."
"I hope you're right," Kiley says quietly as she follows the others into the elevator.
Rutilux and Ari are perceptive (and knowledgeable) enough to point out the needle thin wounds to the group before you drag them out of the elevator, and of course the "drained of most of their blood" sticks out a little bit as being quite odd.
Couple of questions:
With the bodies cleaned away and the party ready whichever of you wishes to pull the lever does so, and discovers that this one is much more protected from the moisture of the cavern outside and functions extremely well, surprisingly. As the lever is pulled, machinery above you loudly clanks into life drowning out any conversation you may have been having before. It continues for several minutes before finally the elevator begins to descend deeper into the earth...
As the elevator begins to descend, the gnoll says, "Be ready with magic or weapons that will hurt us all. Those cultists likely died here. We should expect that which killed them." He opens the pocket in his bandolier that holds a flask of alchemist's fire.
Kiley nods at Shaggar's warning.
"Don't worry about hurting me with that," she tells him. "Most of the time fire doesn't hurt me."
Finally Rutlilux catches onto those pinpricks, "Oh great googily moogilies... stirge wounds. Those flying skeeters are about the size of small dogs. Latch onto you hard and suck as much blood as they can. I've never seen one afore but I've seen injuries like this on a farmhold's cattle.. this many wounds indicates there might be a full hive somewhere."
"Is there anyway to repel them?"