Carli closes on the nearest hovering creep and stabs at it with gusto!
for
The tiny creature Carli attacks ducks back into the hole avoiding the rapier. It runs screaming farther back into the tunnels that seem to honeycomb the walls of this room.
Three of the other tiny creatures poking their heads out of the holes in the wall begin twitching their noses and making strange, high-pitched yelping noises, somehow causing the putrid liquid on the floor to become incredibly slippery around Carli, Lyra, Charlize, and Dante and then all the remaining creatures retreat into the walls.
Charlize stands still, gains her balance, then moves out of the grease, closer to where the holes are. She then gets ready to whack-a-mole with her sledge, still in her Shikigami style.
Carli maintains her balance, stepping out of the swatch of slippery slime. Readying an attack on the first critter to pop its head out of a hole within her reach, Carli calls out, "Maybe we should just steal what we can from this pile and escape, eh?"
for
The bile struck Lyra full across the chest and face. She gagged violently, one hand clamping over her mouth as her torch dipped toward the floor. Her stomach twisted again when the foul liquid beneath her boots suddenly turned slick.
Oh gods—
Too nauseated to shape a spell—or even a suitably cutting remark—Lyra took one careful step out of the grease, fighting to keep both her footing and her breakfast.
"This is going to be annoying." Draco moves over to where he last saw the creatures and waits with his scimitar.
Readying a strike, here's the roll
Dante gingerly steps out of the grease careful not to fall. Once on solid footing he heads to the rat's warren where the green creature appeared. He waits for the creature to pop it's head out once again. Should it appear he strikes at it with his silvered short sword.
As you stand ready to bash anything that comes into view, you begin to hear what can only be described as high-pitched conversation coming from inside the tunnels in the walls. Judging by its inflection, it is very aggressive, but none of you understand a single word of what is being said .
Rexus clears his throat. "Um, I may be able to help with this," he says, pulling two small sachets from his breast pocket and sticking them into his ears.
He listens intently to the staccato conversation coming from the walls, occasionally nodding and then takes one of the sachets from out of his right ear. "It's mostly cursing, honestly, some of the foulest I have ever heard in my life that makes me slightly queasy even thinking about the anatomical impossibilities they are suggesting. They are also telling us that this is their home and they want us gone in no uncertain terms. They say that we can have their "treasures" if we leave, and if we don't that they will call their "boss". They don't describe who that is, however."
Lyra swallowed hard against another surge of nausea and wiped her mouth with the back of one glove. She raised her empty hand toward the holes, keeping her movements slow. “I don’t know whether you understand me,” she called, pausing to fight down another gag, “but we don’t want your home. We aren’t here for your treasures.”
She gestured toward the old chambers around them. “We’re looking for something left here long ago. Words. Records. Something that might help us understand the past.” Lyra hesitated, then added the only phrase that might mean something to them. “The Silver Ravens.”
She glanced toward Rexus. “Listen,” she murmured. “See if they understand any of that.” Then she looked back toward the tunnels.
“Help us find it, and we’ll leave you in peace.”
The creatures in the walls are laughing until one of them controls itself enough to speak. "Where did youze learn to chat Darktongue? Youze sounds like a Mawaatslinga! Ahahahahha!"
After several more peals of laughter, the creature gets control of itself and speaks again. "We dunno no silver birds or words or book. Boss lets us live here, eat the rats, and scare stuupid huuuumans like you! Just eat our puke and f*@ck off all the way back home, Big Uglies!
Then the high-pitched squeak-laughter continues.
Lyra’s eyes narrowed as the shrill laughter ricocheted through the walls. She was still slick with vomit, her stomach twisting hard enough to make speech an effort, and now they were mocking her accent.
Charming.
She answered in Undercommon, each word clipped and deliberate. “I learned it from books,” she snapped. “Books being those things with words in them. I understand you may not be familiar.” Another wave of nausea forced her to stop and breathe through her nose. “You said your boss lets you live here,” she continued in Undercommon, glaring toward the nearest hole. “Who is your boss?”
When she looked back to the others, her expression had settled into strained irritation. “They claim they know nothing about the Silver Ravens,” she translated. “Their ‘boss’ lets them live here, eat the rats, and frighten intruders.” Her gaze flicked toward the holes as the laughter continued. “The rest was largely anatomical speculation and an invitation to leave.”
She wiped ineffectually at the filth on her sleeve, jaw tightening. “I’m beginning to think diplomacy may have reached the limits of its usefulness.”
She answered in Undercommon, each word clipped and deliberate. “I learned it from books,” she snapped. “Books being those things with words in them. I understand you may not be familiar.” Another wave of nausea forced her to stop and breathe through her nose. “You said your boss lets you live here,” she continued in Undercommon, glaring toward the nearest hole. “Who is your boss?”
The creatures go quiet for a few moments after Lyra asks this question but then respond in the same obnoxious manner as before. "Boss is Boss! You no see him? He see you! Hahahahahahh!"
"I would assume you're correct, in which case the only thing we can do now is to dispatch these creatures. Which to be honest, wouldn't bother me much considering how disgusting they are."
"It seems we're dealing with an infested place here, and as I can't see any useful connection to the Silver Ravens, I say we cut our losses and leave it be here. While curious about who this boss of them may be, it feels like it's beyond our scope." - says the brawler, for a moment considering that setting a "controlled" fire to some buildings is how they got rid of rats on the "poorest" parts of the city she's from. Yet, she wouldn't want to kill anyone or anything needlessly.
The moment the nausea finally loosened its grip, Lyra drew in a careful breath and snapped her fingers. A ripple of minor magic passed over her clothes and gloves, lifting away the worst of the vomit and grime in an instant. She closed her eyes briefly as the smell faded. “Much better,” she murmured, though her expression remained decidedly sour.
She glanced toward the holes in the walls, then to Charlize. “I’m inclined to agree,” Lyra said. “Whatever their ‘boss’ is, they’re clearly more interested in driving us off than helping us.”
Her gaze settled on the corridor and the locked gate beyond. “If there’s another way forward, I’d rather take it than spend the morning arguing with creatures who vomit as punctuation.”
Rexus stares at Lyra for a mement, a quizzical expression on his face. "Oh, wait, I can do that too!" he mutters as he slaps his forehead. He pulls another playing card from his pocket and mimics brushing off the vomit from his clothes, which instantly disappears.
As he puts the card back into his pocket he addresses Lyra. "Where did you learn their language? I've never heard it before and don't think I've come across it in my studies. Sounds almost elfish, though ..."
Carli moves to the locked gate and pulls out her lockpicks. Then she starts working on the gate's locking mechanism.
"Not ... giving up ... that easily!"
Carli moves to the locked gate and pulls out her lockpicks. Then she starts working on the gate's locking mechanism.
Carlissa spends several minutes working with the rusted lock of the metal gate barring your progress and eventually is able to get it to open.
All of you can still hear the high-pitched conversations of the creatures in the walls, but they seem to know better than to come out again and leave you alone.
"So where to now?" Says Draco, as the group prepares to leave
After a few frustrating minutes, Carlissa finally solves the lock on the grate. She pulls it open and a loud screech sounds from the old and rusted portal. Wincing at the noise, Carli tells Draco and the others, "On through the grate to whatever awaits us ... a big boss or maybe some lost secrets."
"Very well. No time to lose." - says Charlize, sharing the head of the group with whomever wants to go with her, sledge in hands.
Moving out of the strange lair of the puking creatures, the group moves through the unlocked gate and down a set of stairs that ends in a closed double door. After taking a moment to check it for traps, you open them and move into a large circular room dominated by a fifty-foot-diameter pool of rancid, brown slurry at its center. Chunks of plaster have fallen away, leaving ragged patches behind in the walls and ceiling and
mounds of rubble on the floor. What wall space remains is decorated in crude drawings and symbols of sinister form. Greasy-looking chains run between four stout pillars rising from the muck and anchor to various points on the wall.
Two unknown, roughly human sized shapes can be seen moving below the surface of the muck in the disgusting pool.
The room contains two other exits, both on the opposite wall.
Carli takes in the strange scene but says nothing, apparently ignorant about what all the chains and scrawling might be. She moves forward a bit, rapier at the ready, in case whatever's in the pool decides to turn hostile.
With the creatures seemingly at bay with the warrens in the walls Dante will wander about the room, wondering to what purpose the former Silver Ravens might have put it to.
As Carli moves forward into the room, the shapes in the disgusting pool come to the surface, revealing themselves to be vaguely humanoid masses of quivering flesh. Their faces are a mass of boils and growths while their mouths are filled with blunted, gangrenous teeth. Their arms end not in hands, but in short, dirty claws. They bellow piteously at you and begin moving toward you through the pool that seems to be only two to three feet deep.
Initiative!
Rexus makes a gagging noise as he steps up behind Carli. "Why does every room in this place have to be more disgusting than the last!" he exclaims as he touches her lightly on the shoulder. "I don't know what those things are, but go get 'em, Tiger!"
Dante draws his blades and steps up beside Carli "I've got your back."
"Um ... anyone know what these things are?"
Lyra stopped at the threshold, torchlight catching the crude symbols on the walls and the slick shapes rising from the slurry. Her expression tightened. “I am starting to miss the vomiting wall-creatures,” she muttered, then immediately looked as if she regretted saying it.
At Carli’s question, Lyra studied the things in the pool—their misshapen bodies, their ruined mouths, the wrongness clinging to them—and shook her head once. “Not my field,” she admitted. “I know a little about magic. Not… whatever regrettable chapter of creation this is.”
She shifted the torch aside and lifted her free hand, choosing a simpler spell before wasting anything stronger on a thing she could not name.“Let’s start small.” A bead of hissing acid gathered at her fingertip, then streaked toward the nearest creature in the muck.
If Lyra can safely see/examine the wall markings from her current position or with a small move, she’ll also try Knowledge (arcana)
Carli decides that--whatever they actually are--the sludge-covered things are not friendly. She shuffles forward to the edge of the stinky pit and stands poised, ready to strike out with her rapier should anything get within range.
for
Charlize moves in the room, stops as close to the rubble as she can, and then adopts a defensive position. Used to the broken stones, the stonemason focus on her environment seeking options.
The creature closest to Dante and Lyra hauls its amorphous body out of the slimy pool and closes with the two, it's claws and teeth bared and stinking of the sewer.
As it approaches, Lyra's spell impacts it, hitting it full in the chest. Instead of the caustic burning she expects, however, the acid flows off the creature like water.
The second creature wades through the muck of the pool towards Carli and receives a stab in the neck in return just as it reaches her.
Rexus seems to lose his nerve a bit and begins to stammer. "What do I do? I was going to acid glob that creature as well! The only other spell useful in this situation I know is bedazzle! Can I bedazzle these m#@!!# f#+%+*s? Oh crap!"
Unsure of what to do next, Rexus draws a thin blade from the inside of his cane and throws the wooden sheathe aside. He then moves past Lyra with a high-pitched screech to flank the nearest creature with Dante, trying his best to keep away from the creature's claws. Unfortunately, the creature is quicker than Rexus and he receives a painful cut on his leg as he passes it.
"Uh-oh ... my rapier barely scratched the thing!" Carli shouts to the others.
Could this thing be some sort of devil underneath that coating of goop?! the girl wonders. Having little to lose, the young ranger drops her rapier , switches to her silver light mace, and takes another swing at the monster.
for
Carli swats at the stinking creature with her mace, but its natural blubber protects it from serious harm.
Dante stabs with his twin blades at the creature between him and Rexus.