Vigny squats down to look over her two sick companions, but she can't really help them. The best she can do is offer to relieve Flori of one of her chores.
"You don't need to keep the lights going. I can take care of it."
To anyone who feels like voicing an opinion, she looks around and asks "how long should we wait here?"
"Are we in a hurry? Maybe their... troubles will pass soon?" Cailyn knows little to nothing about medical conditions. A momentary worry furrows her brows wondering if they are currently rotting from the inside or if parasites are burrowing deeper and deeper toward their hearts.
She is smart enough to not voice those concerns out loud. "I am sure it will pass soon..." she lies.
"Thanks Vigny." Flori replies, as the two little lights dancing around flitter out and her shoulders slightly loosen with relief.
Shaking her head and summoning the strength to straighten up just a little, Flori looks towards her sister and tries to patiently explains the issue. "None of us can understand you Orchid, you need to use human words."
Very much hoping that Cailyn is right about getting better, Flori grimaces. "It better pass soon, I feel terrible. Just sick to my stomach, never seen anything like it round here, anyone good at plants? If not, we might just have to grin and bear it for now. Shunsen, you think you can keep going?"
As the group discusses their options and the interpretation of Orchid's wolfish words, some of what she was trying to convey is clarified as a spider that has no business whatsoever being as large as Orchid emerges from the side tunnel. Covered in colorful hairs and possessing quite intimidating fangs, it rears up threateningly.
Combat Begins!
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Round 1
The spider attempts to sink those same fangs into Shunsen, who manages to flatten herself against the cave wall and avoid the poison dripping weapons.
Flori's question must go unanswered as Shunsen narrowly avoids the spider's sudden attack!
Giving her head a shake, then regretting it as a wave of nausea sweeps through her mind, Shunsen nonetheless steels herself and attacks.
"DAYUMN!"
The sudden spider is quite the shocker. Vigny springs up and turns to face it. She gets her buckler up between herself and the big arachnid and shoves her seax at its body.
"oh" Cailyn's wide eyes take in the mammoth archnid. "that is quite large... um, well, at least it makes it easy to hit..." she hoped as she shoots and reloads her crossbow.
"Sss-er!" Orchid growls emphatically, but she's too busy being right to actually hit the creature with her spear.
Flori sticks to the wall, without turning her back to the spider, and tries to get away without it noticing her.
Shunsen's weapon manages to just miss the huge arachnid, while Vigny's short blade opens up a big slash on the creature's abdomen, spraying her with fluids. This is compounded when Cailyn's released bolt slams into the spider's body as well, causing it to stumble and slam into the warpriest, smearing her with more ichor.
Orchid misses with her spear and Flori takes the opportunity to fall back out of reach of the critically injured beast.
The spider turns and attempts to impale Vigny with its fangs, but the woman manages to step back just in time.
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Round 2
When the spider's ichor spills out onto the ground....and Vigny, she almost loses her lunch again. Gagging, she steps forward and strikes!
Vigny doesn't have a sense of humor about the mess she's now wearing. She silently and grimy stabs again.
With two more applications of razor-sharp steel, the giant spider collapses to the stone floor of the cavern, with only one leg still twitching to indicate that life once resided within it. Various fluids run down small valleys in the rock and out into the heat of the marsh.
Combat Ends!
The spider's last twiches and fluid dispersal sets Shunsen on another round of retching. After a moment she recovers, but is still unsteady, "Let's get this over with....Orchid, what was down the other way?" she says, before letting a long burp loose.
"Ah-er." Orchid says, trying to make the sounds as slow as possible. "-g ah-er." At the blank looks she receives she growls angrily and stalks off down the smaller passage that the spider came from, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that the rest of the group are following.
"An ear? A gathering... ear gathering?" Cailyn tries, then sighs "No, I have no idea. Should we follow? Yes, I guess we should." after pulling the last bolt out of the leaking corpse and reloading, Cailyn follows Orchid.
Once Shunsen has won the current battle with her stomach, the group follows after Orchid down the narrow, twisting side tunnel.
The tunnel turns and bends for 25 or 30 feet before opening up into a small cavern with a low ceiling, approximately 30 feet by 15 feet. There's a similarly narrow passage exiting on the opposite side and the walls are coated by a thin layer of webbing which is festooned with remnants of past meals - bones, horns, tattered bits of fur. Towards one side is the very fresh remains of a giant gecko. It appears that the spider was in the middle of a meal when it became aware of your presence.
Searching through the scattered bits of flotsam results in nothing of interest or value - unless, of course, you're a collector of bones and sundry.
Cailyn collects some bones and sundry "Stories are always improved with props." she says simply, with a gleam in her eyes. She is disappointed that there were no gathered ears. It would have been lovely to have gotten the cryptic mutterings of Orchid right.
Orchid continues on. That was the reason she came this way!
Shunsen follows Orchid closely, in case her friend's nose finds more trouble. The intensity of the strange location and watching for danger is a welcome distraction from the waves of nausea washing over her.
Heading down the narrow passage on the other side of the spider's lair, you find that it branches just past the cave. To the left it leads back to the main cavern, while to the right it continues on into darkness.
Choosing to head to the right, you find another branch after twenty feet or so. To the left the tunnel narrows even more and would require you to squeeze through sideways. To the right, after another thirty feet of curving passage, it dead-ends in a small cave about ten to fifteen feet across. The cave is filled with dark water. In the middle of the dark water is a small island covered with glittering crystals.
"Ominous." Cailyn whispers, putting her hand over her mouth since even the tiny sound seems to echo in the calm space. She lifts a rock, mimics throwing it in the water, then wiggles the fingers of both hands as they burst from the water, showing she thinks it will make some tentacle thing explode out.
After that her hand signals are indecipherable.
Vigny keeps the light on as they proceed, but otherwise she mostly sighs heavily while wiping at the mess on her herself occasionally.
Indicative of her now sour mood, Vigny gives the crystals only a glance.
"If anyone trying to get those crystals isn't killed doing it, they wouldn't be there anymore. Where are we supposed to be going?"
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As Vigny speaks, Cailyn looks around to see if anything wraps slimy thick rubber tentacles around the warpriestess's legs pulling her to a gapping maw.
"Oh, okay" she sighed when it didn't happen. "Something is probably in there, so maybe we transport the large spider's remains here and gently Push it in the water for an offered dinner for whatever finds this location habitable?" she makes her hand gestures for each of these actions "Then while it is mollified, we pop over, collect whatever is valuable and then pop right back over." she smiles wide, hoping it is a sound plan and doesn't cause laughter at the thought or death at the application.
Flori follows behind, more quietly than usual as she contends with her sickness, but after Cailyn's completely bizarre suggestion, she cannot help but speak up.
"What exactly do you think we will find in there that would want to eat that? We could just try something simpler?"
She reaches to the floor, picks up a stone and tosses it into the water, disturbing it for the first time in who knows how long.
"Oh, yes that does seem... simpler." Cailyn does try and hide the disappointment in her voice, but does seem eager to see if anything comes out to investigate.
Vigny is about to note that it looks like there might be something in the water, but Flori takes the initiative, tossing a stone to break the still surface of the water.
Flori's thrown rock hits the water with an echoing ploop!, sending rings outward to the edges of the pool. No tentacles appear to Cailyn's probable disappointment. As she's about to comment regarding such, the water explodes as an amorphous form leaps out of the water towards Orchid!
The creature is a giant amoeba. They have no mind and as such are immune to any magic that targets such. They're also immune to many other effects such as poison, sleep, paralysis, polymorph, and stun. They also have no vulnerable points, so no critical or precision damage. They can't be flanked.
Combat Begins!
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Round 1
Slicing things always works! So Orchid squares up to the... blob and does just that!
The blobby form poses no resistance to her blows!
Shunsen almost loses her lunch again as the disgusting creature lunges out of the water! But, seeing Orchid leap into battle, she follows suit...
Vigny rolls her eyes in wonder at how her companions can't manage to leave things of no consequence alone, and how the results are what she predicted they'd be.
She squeezes past Shunsen to help deal with it with a stab of her own, figuring this thing will also pop and coat her with even more goo.
"Oh ick, it's like the water just sneezed" the creature is gross, that is a given.
A crossbow bolt fires into its side, with a squishy thunk.
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Knowing that magic will not affect it, Flori picks up another rock and chucks it at the mindless entity with what effort she can muster. Which isn't much.
"Sorry!" She yells out at no-one in particular.
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It's hard to determine which was the telling blow, but the combination of claws, blades, crossbow bolt, and thrown rock is more than enough to vanquish the ooze-like creature in a fashion that fulfills Vigny's worst-case scenario as viscous liquid sprays across her, Shunsen, and Orchid.
Oh, and to add insult to injury, it smells like potato soup that's been left outside in the sun for a week.
Combat Ends!
With the creature defeated, it's relatively easy to navigate the cold water (five foot at its deepest) and recover the rock crystals from the small island.
When the amoeba explodes, Shunsen is drenched with it's internal fluids. She utters a grunt of surprise, but when picking long stream of ectoplasm from her armor and flinging them into the water, she's relatively unperturbed, musing aloud, "I think I'd be absolutely sick to my stomach after that....but I'm already sick to my stomach.".
She washes off a bit more in the water, and uses the opportunity to fetch to rock crystals to wash more off.
Vigny sighs and shakes her head. "A kraken egg."
She's not interested in finding out whether or not there might be more the the same in the pond. Instead she opts for water instead of ale this time and makes it rain on everyone for a while.
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Orchid collects the rocks, ducking under the water as she goes and when she emerges she ducks through Vigny's rain cloud and then shakes herself vigorously, much like a dog.
By the time she's done Orchid's head is back to normal, although her hair is all over the place and she works her jaw a few times until it becomes clear that her human face is on.
"This way." She says simply and leads the group to the large cave where she turned around last time.
"Big water." She says simply, pointing to the large pools and then glaring at Cailyn.
Following the tunnel back to the main cavern is quick and while the main area is much larger, the sense of claustrophobia doesn't fade. While over a hundred feet long and over its curved length ranging from thirty to fifty feet wide, the ceiling never crests eight or nine feet. Half of that width is covered with a still pool of water that is periodically disturbed by water dripping from the low-hanging rock.
Two exits lie ahead of you; to the north and the northwest. Both of the exits are narrow passages, at most five foot wide.
Spread across the floor of the cavern are what look to be skeletal human remains - five of them in total - wearing the remains of tattered and damaged armor.
Vigny keeps her eye on the water until they come across the skeletons.
"Hm, we've seen this before, back at the ship..."
She takes the copper coin she has been lighting up as they explore and flips it over to land among the bones. Then, Vigny waits to see what happens as she puts away her seax and pulls The Last Word out of her belt.
Vigny's coin flies through the air sending wild shadows across the cave walls, landing with a clink on the damp stone floor, and ...
... nothing happens.
Vigny gives a curt nod. "Good news so far."
Rather than fetching the coin, she takes out a new one and transfers the light to it, causing the tossed coin to wink out.
"Which tunnel?" she asks nobody in particular.
Orchid picks a direction and marches towards it. Hesitation is not something she normally encourages.
Shunsen, once Vigny's done her coin test, sifts about in the armor and skeletons..."Hmm, these look Tianese....they must have come in here for shelter when they wrecked..."
The remains Shunsen searches have nothing of interest - including weapons. She also notes that there are at least two more skeletons submerged in the pool of water.
----
The tunnel on the right quickly narrows down even further, causing you to turn sideways to traverse it. After fifteen feet or so, it leads you back to the tunnel connected to the amoeba's pond.
Returning to the main cave, you move to the tunnel on the left. This one leads via a narrow passage to an irregularly shaped cavern. To the east, the space is filled with water. On the other side of the cave is the skeletal remains of a warrior, clad in what would have been elaborate armor. The figure is seated, slumped, upon a chest of jade and cherry wood.
Cailyn looks confused at Orchid's glare, she gives an uncertain smile back before "N ah-er, means Big Water" she still isn't certain but she tries to appear to be.
"Maybe we should see if any of these former Tian warriors are enchanted the way the ones on the ship were? I'd hate for them to attempt to..." she stops, feeling that she is probably being paranoid. "They would have tried to do that already, I think, if there were undead. Correct?" she brushes a cobweb off her pants. "If someone wants to remove the remains, I could try the lock."
Shunsen notices the skeletons in the water and thinks of investigating, but then notices her friends were passing out of the cavern. "I'll look a these later..." she says to herself, running to catch up.
She nods at Cailyn's request, and advances to stand before the Tian warrior's remains. She bows respectfully and speaks solemnly to the seated skeleton...
"Forgive the presumption, cousin. You've done your duty to your house by guarding this chest. Let us take up your mantle."
Then, she waits for a moment, whether for an answer or an undead attack, even she's not sure. If she recieved neither, she carefully lifts the dead warrior off of the chest and carefully places it sitting against the nearby wall.
Shunsen approaches and speaks to the skeleton. There's a creaking of old bones, metal, and leather as the skeleton shifts, rises ... and returns the half-orc's bow. With a ringing of steel, the figure draws its weapon - a wakizashi with a beautifully etched blade - and points the curved weapon at her.
"Yíngjiē wǒ de tiǎozhàn! the figure declares in a voice that echoes throughout the chamber.
In response to the skeleton's words, those still in the passage hear the sounds of bones and metal from behind them as the skeletons in the main chamber rise from their slumber. The skeletal warrior facing Shunsen assumes a fighting stance!
Combat Begins!
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Round 1
The sound of creaking and scraping in the other room could be a very industrious wind making it through the tunnels to rattle a skeleton.
Maybe... please?
Cailyn looks and sees hope is not a thing today. "Um, everyone, there are practically oodles of enemies behind us!" she has been designated rear guard, which has been a coveted spot UNTIL NOW.
Swallowing hard, she tells herself "I'll do my best"
Squeezing her fist in her old leather glove, she whispers "Cleo, come on old girl, we can do this." the glowing venerable bird bursts into existence before the nearest skeleton.
Cleo manages to catch the skeleton with her claw, but the sharp talon simply skitters off the undead's bones. The creature retaliates with vicious swipes of it's clawed hands and Cleo vanishes with a pop of magical energy and feathers.
One of the skeletons advances on Cailyn and manages to catch her with its sharp nails as well.
The remainder of the undead shuffle up in a horde of angry bones, teeth, and claws.
Orchid leaps onto the chest-sitter and lashes at him with tooth and claw.
Orchid misses the warrior with her teeth and her claws scrape ineffectively against his tattered armor. The regal figure ignores her attacks and swings clumsily at Shunsen with its blade, but fails to catch the half-orc.