Reflex:
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The tunnel shudders while the creature explodes and showers you with acid. Part of the ceiling where the slimy creature waited in ambush tears down and blocks the way in front of you, at the same time opening a passage above you. The scent of sugar changes to that of burning meet. The floor under your feet also changes. You feel like you walk on flesh.
"Are ye all alright?" Al asks, steadying himself on his cane and looking around.
"That was .....odd. I get the feeling that this tunnel is a part of a living thing. A disturbing thought."
Zissaren attempts to remove his spears from the gelatinous mess the creature has become and clean them off on the wall of the tunnel, removing as much of the acidic slime as possible.
"I am uninjured, my sscaless sseem to be unaffected by thiss burning sslime. Arathalia, I am beginning to believe that the entire ssewer ssystem is one colossal creature."
Zissaren backs away from the now open tunnel in the ceiling and makes a running jump to grab the edge and pull himself up.
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With one strong leap, lizardman jumps and takes hold of a meaty edge of the wound on the ceiling. climbing through the whole, Zissaren finds himself in a circular chamber, roughly 30 feet across. Alongside the walls there are large meaty, leathery sacks, interconnected by a network of delicate thin veins. Some of the sacks are dried up and seemingly empty, but some are bulging with content. From the top of each sack thick slimy cord, like an intestine, leads to a cluster of such cords, centered around something that looks like a huge hairy mold, green and yellow in color.
Luff propels himself up through the opening, following the lizardman and looking around at their surroundings.
"What is this?" he asks, his voice coming from near Zissaren's shoulder, "a hatchery perhaps?"
The old man crouches down to whisper to Rodrigo briefly, then rights himself and hauls the badger up onto his shoulders.
"Give us a hand up would ye, laddie?" he calls to the hulking lizardman.
"Though, perhaps these are stomachs..." the pixie muses, "although I have no idea what might pass for food to this creature"
Floating over to one of the full sacks, he observes it passively while waiting for the others to ascend into the chamber.
Zissaren lies belly down on the floor of the chamber and reaches down to hoist Al through the hole.
Once Al and Rodrigo are safely into the chamber Zissaren stands and walks over to the same sac Luff is examining.
"If thesse are sstomachss I hope they are not digessting the misssing children."
He gives one of the sacs an experimental jab with a clawed finger.
The Cat looks disdainfully at the hole, then leaps up into it.
"Thank ye, lad." Al says gratefully to Zissaren as he pushes himself to his feet.
"Well now, what have we here then?" he mutters as he walks over to the sack the others are congregate around. At the urgent sound of the voice from within, the old man hurries forward and fastens a leather pouch on his belt. Pulling out a small scalpel, he begins to make a careful incision into the 'stomach'.
"mmmfphffmmm heflph phme!" Muffled sounds come from another sack ten feet away as it begins to wiggle slightly.
Zissaren moves quickly over to the other sac, slitting the fleshy material with a claw to free the creature trapped inside, careful to not cut too deeply to avoid slicing whoever it is.
"Mffmmmffrrrr..." As if in response to the other cries, you hear sounds coming from a nearby sac, as it starts to tremble more.
Trutik rolls from the freshly cut sack hitting the floor and coughing to clear his lungs. After a minute on his hands and knees the creature stands up face to chest with the large lizardman revealing a odd mixture of heritage. The elongated limbs and nose would hint toward some kind of Troll, but the overall stature can only be attributed to one of the wild Half-Orcs of the neighboring forests.
Not used to seeing many creatures taller than him, Trutik raises his head to meet the lizardman's eyes. "Thank you lizardman. I am indebted to you and your friends for saving my life, for surely I would have been dead if you hadn't came along. I wish to accompany you, as I do not know where I am. I am Trutik, may I ask your names as well?"
Seeing a glimpse of light from without her prison, Meera wiggles and struggles against her bonds.
"It seems like whatever this thing is, was hungry. There are multiple 'snacks' in here." Trutik makes his way over to the wiggling sack and carefully slices it open with his kukri.
As the membrane holding her parts depositing Meera into a wet,sticky pool of slime onto the floor. All she can do for a time is cough and gag, trying to clear the stuff from her face and lungs.
Rolling over she continues to retch for a moment, the better to asses the new situation,
"Oh, gods and monsters! Where am I?" She moans as she straightens up to sitting. A good looking woman wearing a now tattered and stained shirt and equally tattered and worn leather pants. Across her chest and midriff is a bandoleer type of sash with many small pockets and a larger bag riding upon one hip. She flicks still damp dark hair from her eyes and peers around in the gloom.
"Hey? What's that over there?" She points in the direction of Lureene Ourson's still wiggling prison.
Zissaren moves over to the fourth full sac and slits it open, replying to Trutik's questions as he does so.
"My name iss Zissaren and you find yoursself ssomewhere in the ssewerss of the ccity of Kaledun. We are ssearching for a losst child, posssibly taken by the same being which wass attempting to digesst you."
Trutik looks about the cavity, noting the other beings present. "If this is a creature we are in, it's size is bewildering." He states looking over at Zissaren.
"I am Herc, praise Torag that you are here," says the stony dwarf to his rescuers, banging his fist on his chest as he utters his god's name. "I am to bring the Forge God's fury to places of injustice and I do not believe it is by coincidence that we met. Please allow me to join your group."
"Now," mutters the stony dwarf, scratching the back of his head, "where's my stuff?"
As the sac opens around the body trapped inside, you see a pair of bat wings atatched to a young female humanoid, with long straggly blonde hair emerge from the opening.
After coughing up the disgusting fluids and shaking the stuff off her body, she looks around and, seeing the number and size of some of the members of the group, she shys away momentarily, but then after hearing the others replying, says:
"Thank you for freeing me from that prison. I do appreciate it." She steps back and watches all of your reaction.
"Hmph. I am a Cat, as any fool can plainly see." The Cat sits still, its tail twitching furiously. "And how did you come to be eaten by this tunnel?"
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"I am Herc, praise Torag that you are here," says the stony dwarf to his rescuers, banging his fist on his chest as he utters his god's name. "I am to bring the Forge God's fury to places of injustice and I do not believe it is by coincidence that we met. Please allow me to join your group."
"Now," mutters the stony dwarf, scratching the back of his head, "where's my stuff?"
"I remember nothing of being eaten cat." Trutick responds looking down at the odd talking cat.
Seeing the slimy cords detach and start flailing, Trutik pulls his scythe from his back and readies himself to strike.
Glancing at the talking cat, sh continues to secure her equipment and finishes cleaning herself off.
"I remember fleeing into the sewers to escape the gusrd, then I heard something pursue me...then noth-eeeeek"
She screams as the tentacles flail closer to her.
Initiative:
As the walls come more alive and the tendrils/tentacles flail Meera spares her rescuers a glance,
"So, this thing we're in isn't dead?!" She asks sardonically.
"I'm used to beating things into the ground from the outside!" So saying she starts to look for a way out.
"It seems whatever consumed you people would like to retain its meal." Arathalia says as she slowly shakes of her confusion and a glaive of shimmering silver light appears in her hands.
Init:
"Oh, there they are!" Herc points at his gear in his sack. He goes over, shoulders his pack, and lifts a large hammer with spikes out of the goo. "This is Tormer, short for 'Torag's Hammer'." The stony dwarf hefts the weapon with pride. You can tell Herc isn't very imaginative...
As the slimy cords uncurl and move toward the party, Herc faces them with a grim smile. "Time to warm Tormer up!"
Init:
As the cords unfurl and begin to swing menacingly at the group Zissaren pulls his battered flail from his belt and spins the heavy chain into a blurred disc of metal with no apparent effort.
"I am tiring of thiss creaturess attemptss to kill uss."
"Ye can be callin' me Al," the old man says gruffly, before being interrupted by the violent movement of the chamber. "But we might be needin' to put off the introductions," he continues with a long sigh, "I'm startin to feel like we're not welcome here."
Al's eyes sweep the chamber cautiously as he hefts his cane against the tendrils, his gaze eventually fixing on the mouldy tangle of intestines. "That seems to be where these things are originatin' from," he points his cane, "any of ye know what it might be?"
"I'll be further damned if I'll let this thing have a second go at eating me!" Meera snarls, "Now, is there a way to kill it or is getting out a better option?" She continues to look for the way her rescuers got in.
She also reaches out and grabs the cowering little bat winged girl,
"Come on!" She tries to pull the girl into the middle of the larger figures, the better to shield both herself and the other girl from the tendrils. "Let the people with the big chopping weapons do their thing!"
She stumbles slightly, being guided by Meera's firm embrace, but yields to the suggestion with out resistance.
(murmuring) "Maybe I can help out."
Seeing where Al points, the pixie darts to the centre of the room and hovers above the group. His dark eyes lock on the mass of fleshy tendrils and a similarly dark cloud forms around them.
Seeing the moldy mess, Herc shrugs to Al, "Whatever it is, we should probably pulp it!"
Before anything else in the room has a chance to move, the stony dwarf rushes the monster and swings his earth breaker.
Atk:
Dmg:
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Seeing the moldy mess, Herc shrugs to Al, "Whatever it is, we should probably pulp it!"
Before anything else in the room has a chance to move, the stony dwarf rushes the monster and swings his earth breaker.
Atk: 1d20 + 8
Dmg: 1d10 + 7
Not realizing that the cluster of mold is to high for anybody without wings to reach, the dwarf charges the monster. Instead of hitting the mold, earth breaker catches one of the intestine-like tendrils and bounces of it.
Lureene summons a creature from the First layer of Hell and it comes to serve her will in a cloud of sulphurous smoke.
Nightflier. as a point of order, the summon monster SLA has changed according to this update to be a full round action.