Verilich will continue to defend himself and flurry on the mites, trying to make a pathway to the spider.
Khalid escapes from the web.
He will take a five foot step forward.
Gundar will step behind Khalid and give him a touch of resistence.
Verilich drops a mite, as Khalid frees himself of the web, and Gundar casts.
Round 8
Verilich
Caius <== Up!
Ghaernan <== Up!
Gundar
Khalid
Mites
Spiders
Caius will study the blue dot mite inf front of him and strike at the creature with his greatsword.
19-20/x2 S
Caius lays the mite low!
Ghaernan descends the stairs another 10 feet, able again to target the second spider now on the wall, and hurls another sling bullet at the beast, given his companions' success against the mites...
Ghaernan's stone strikes the spider.
The mites close in around the group, several of them gaining flanking positions against Caius.
Two attack Verilich
And one on Khalid
The spider moves into a flanking position against Verilich.
Crit confirm...
Caius and Khalid are both missed by all attacks, but one of the mites strikes Verilich, as does the spider, who gets into Verilich's vitals.
[spoiler=DC 14 Fort Save for Verilich]Or take 1d2 STR damage[/dice]
Round 9
Verilich<== Up!
Caius <== Up!
Ghaernan <== Up!
Gundar <== Up!
Khalid <== Up!
Mites
Spiders
DC 14
Flurry attack the real threat of the spider.
Khalid’s eyes narrow on the bunch of mites and the hopefully last chittering spider. He digs into a belt pouch and pulls out a squat glass vial, the liquid within swirling like molten copper. Without hesitation, he pops the cork and downs it in one gulp.
Muscles seize and knot across his arms and shoulders. His spine curves slightly forward, and his new third arm clenches involuntarily as the change ripples through him. His jaw tightens, teeth grinding before they lengthen into sharp, predatory points. The nails on his hands darken and thicken into claw-like tips. For a brief moment, his silhouette is more beast than man — a glimpse of what he is becoming.
“Not horsechopper work,” he mutters, flexing his hands and baring new teeth. “This is for claws and teeth.”
He glances to his companions, voice rougher now but still clear.
“Try not to kill them all if you can help it. They only fought when cornered and haven’t shown real malice. Any we leave alive might have information we need.”
With that, Khalid hunches slightly into a ready stance, claws out and eyes fixed on the nearest target.
Verilich hits the spider, which looks to be in bad shape!
Round 9
Verilich
Caius <== Up!
Ghaernan <== Up!
Gundar <== Up!
Khalid
Mites
Spiders
Gundar will rush to Verilich with a healing spell on his fingertips.
Caius will shift his focus and also attack the spider.
19-20/x2 S
Caius misses.
Likewise, from his position upon the stairs, Ghaernan again targets the remaining spider, and hurls another sling bullet at the beast...
Again Ghaernan's stone strikes the spider, striking away some fraction of its life-force.
The mites close in again around the party...
Three attack Verilich
Crit Confirm:
And two on Khalid
The spider makes another flank attack against Verilich.
Round 10
Verilich <== Up!
Caius <== Up!
Ghaernan <== Up!
Gundar <== Up!
Khalid <== Up!
Mites
Spider
Khalid will drop his horsechopper and go feral on some Mites, starting with orange.
Verilich will start with the spider and then move on to the adjacent mite if the spider falls.
Khalid strikes down all three mites, and Verilich finishes the spider with his second attack.
I think Verilich took 1.
Ghaernan descends the stairs again a few feet, to stand beside Gundar, and loosens the coil of his whip from his weapons harness. Mindful of Khalid's earlier council regarding the value of at least one left alive, the Bard lashes out at the mite in full view once in position, attempting to trip the nasty little fey...
Caius will ignore the tripped mite for the moment; he will study and attack the north-most purple dot mite.
19-20/x2 S
Ghaernan trips one. [ooc]I turned the tripped one upside down.
Caius kills the next mite.
The tripped mite goes to stand (provoking from Caius and Verilich.
The last two mites attack Verilich
Crit Confirm:
Round 11
Verilich <== Up!
Caius <== Up!
Ghaernan <== Up!
Gundar <== Up!
Khalid <== Up!
Mites
Verilich takes the AOO as the mite stands.
Then he attacks the last 2 mites, hoping to end this carnage.
Caius strikes at the rising mite.
19-20/x2 S
He then steps forward to strike at one of the remaining two mites.
19-20/x2 S
Verilich and Caius both strike the rising mite, which falls to the ground in pieces.
Verilich then takes out one of the remaining mites, while Caius handles the other.
Combat over.
Ghaernan surveys the chamber below him, the carnage and the companions below him its midst. He shakes his head in resignation with the momentary silence, and jogs back up the stairs to retrieve his backpack. The Bard returns in short order, and begins searching the chamber, for both his hurled sling bullets and any other matters of interest.
"Well...that was perhaps not the ending we sought by pursuing the lone mite above. I hope no irrecoverable knowledge has died with them. At least their passing was swift, and I had no cause to expend my arcane energies in this outcome."
"Did we perchance miss other passages or chambers, in the hunt for these poor wretches?"
With the last mite slain and the two spiders lying in curled heaps of twitching legs, **silence** settled over the chamber once more—broken only by the quiet sound of breathing and the slow drip of ichor from crushed carapaces.
The party took a moment to take in their surroundings.
Thick sheets of spiderwebs clung to the walls and ceiling, dangling in long, sticky strands that stirred faintly with every motion. The floor was a mess—littered with rubble, discarded bones, and foul-smelling trash, the remnants of whatever strange life the mites had carved out for themselves here.
In several places, the refuse had been deliberately shaped—mounds of debris piled into crude approximations of furniture: beds, tables, and chairs, all scaled to the mites’ diminutive size. Broken planks had been lashed together with webbing to form crude frames, while rags and padding made nests atop them.
It was a nest. A hive. A home of sorts.
But there was little to show for it. The only items of value—if they could be called such—were the small-sized daggers the mites had wielded in desperation. Rusty, poorly balanced, and likely scavenged, they lay scattered across the floor like fallen teeth.
Whatever this place had been, it was now just another bloodied ruin, claimed by the adventurers’ steel.
"Well I tried to parley and then the buggers jumped me. So once they drew blood, I couldn't have them running off to get bigger reinforcements or warning other parts of the labyrinth."
Verilich will search the room to see if there are items of interest and then will focus on the shard's pull as to which direction it is.
"Looks like there isn't much here. I'm going to delve deeper into the dark."
Verilich moves down the hallway before him, because obviously there wasn't much behind him since the mites passed it up.
Verilich moves down the hall, and discovers a spiral stairwell that descends, even further into the depths.
Verilich will come back to the group and suggest we back track on this level using the RHR to explore.
"That way descends further down. We should probably clear this level before proceeding lower."
As Verilich led the group retracing steps, the party confirmed the long hallway connected with the dirt mound room and then proceeded to a potential dead end to look for secret doors.
The corridor ahead opened into a long, narrow hall, dimly lit by the adventurers' own light sources. Along the center of the chamber, a row of stone pillars stretched from one end to the other, evenly spaced like the vertebrae of some ancient spine. The air here was thick with dust, though the floor bore the scuffed prints of tiny feet moving in and out.
At each end of the chamber stood a raised alcove at chest height, like twin shrines. The eastern alcove cradled a gleaming silver statuette, roughly the shape of an abstract insect with outstretched wings. In the western alcove, a far less dignified relic sat: an ogre’s skull, grimy and upside-down, its jagged teeth glaring at the room like a broken goblet of bone.
Between the pillars, pacing atop a mound of rags, trash, and spiderwebs woven into a crude throne, stood a particularly large mite. He was still tiny by any other measure—perhaps three feet tall—but carried himself with the exaggerated bearing of a monarch. A crown, rested lopsided across the top of his head.
As the party entered, he turned with sudden glee and spread his arms wide.
He clapped his hands together excitedly, tiny claws clicking.
He paused, blinking rapidly. Then, with absolute seriousness, he added:
The room fell silent, save for the occasional drip of water from somewhere above.
The large mite awaited the heroes' reply.
Anyone know what he is saying? My kin Cordwin would be knowin' for sure, but he ain't here.
"Gibberish to me."
Ghaernan strides up beside Verelich to consider the large mite's antics and unintelligible words...
Khalid will drink an elixir.
Ghaernan squinted slightly as the high-pitched, nasally speech echoed down the hall. He took a half-step forward, head tilted, brow furrowed in concentration as the bizarre little monarch babbled on in what he recognized—barely—as a thick dialect of Undercommon.
The cadence was strange… the consonants clipped in all the wrong places… but some of the roots—some of the melodic rhythm—reminded him of Elvish, albeit the kind spoken by a drunken noble with a mouthful of moss.
He caught fragments—maybe one word in five, perhaps less. Enough to sketch a rough outline, if not fill in the picture.
“Arrival... champions... glory... Zuuga?” he murmured under his breath.
Then, a little later—
“Summons... pet? Lost... brave... help return...”
Ghaernan’s brows lifted. He leaned slightly toward the others and spoke in a low voice:
“I cannot claim full fluency in gibbering insanity, but it sounds like he thinks we’re heroes he summoned—something about glory, and a missing pet. Possibly named... Clickylegs?”
He gave a half-shrug, then added with dry amusement:
“He may also think he is a god. Or a vegetable. Difficult to tell.”
Hopefully Clickylegs wasn't one of the spiders we slew. Gundar whispers.
Khalid snorts softly at Gundar’s whisper, eyes flicking once toward the “throne” of rags before settling back on the mite monarch. His grip tightens on the haft of his weapon, but he doesn’t raise it.
“Forget Clickylegs. We already killed all his followers.” His tone is flat, edged with disgust, but not cruel. Just stating fact.
He glances sideways at Verilich, one brow arched.
“Do you feel the shard?”
If this fool thinks we’re champions, better to let him keep thinking it. But if the shard’s close, that matters more than playing along with mites and their pets.
"It's nearby but I cannot pinpoint its location. Ghaernan, do you want to try to dialogue or shall I just go grapple him and pin him to the ground." Verilich will put away his weapon and show the goblin his hands are free in an attempt to woo him into non-threatening.
Ghaernan reflects upon the gibbering of the large mite, in some devolved remnant of eloquent words once spoken by elves, and shakes his head as he considers their probable meaning in the context of present circumstances.
After awaiting Verelich's thoughts to Khalid's question on the shard, he offers his thoughts...
"This monarch among the mites, perhaps referring to himself as 'Zuuga', perceives we've answered a summons to seek out his lost 'Clickylegs'. As Khalid notes, however, I doubt that also entailed the slaughter of all his followers we've come across thus far. Once he's discovered that, I also doubt that we want him plotting revenge behind us."
"I'm not certain what a dialog might accomplish at this point, given the language barrier, but one option might be for me to cast a Charm upon him, retaining him as our 'friend' until such time as he can be questioned, perhaps even accompanying us on our travels in the interim. Thoughts, adventurers?"
Khalid snorts, the sound sharp in the silence.
“Worth a try, I suppose, if you have it. Not sure it’ll help much with the language barrier.”
His eyes cut back to the mite on the throne, grip tightening on the horsechopper.
“Whatever we do, let’s do it quickly. I’m buffed and ready to fight—him, or this ‘Clickylegs.’”
Better to strike while the strength’s in me than waste time on speeches the mite won’t understand.
How are we to be sure he won't be running away when we ain't looking? Gundar asks.
Ghaernan looks for a moment to Caius and Verelich for their thoughts; with their silence, he nods at Gundar's and Khalid's responses.
"Good question, Gundar; my spell will only last for a few hours, and after that...we can't be sure, unless we've dealt with him decisively by then."
"To Khalid's point, beyond the language barrier I'm also not sure there's great value in 'Zuuga's' information; both his intelligence and sanity are questionable. I'll not yet raise my own hand against him, however, as the delusional wretch has thus far presented no threat..."