The mysterious cave 2 - Scorpanid troubles - RPLOG
Participants
Date
14/10/479
Log
Reinhard had picked those who signed up for the job up at the guild and has lead them to the sewers and down to the entrance of the tunnels at a casual stroll. His bulky white and gold armor and the huge hammer on his back did not seem to slow or hinder him in any way. Neither did entertaining the small group with stories of his various exploits the whole time. Now that they finally reached their destination though, he is much more serious. "Alright. Should be a fairly standard job. We go in there, check out whats making the noise and probably make it dead." He shrugs. "Any questions?"
Lucasiel might not have been fond of making the trek down to the undertunnels in her armour, but she wasn't about to leave it behind, and a job was a job. Money aside, it was a good way to stay in shape and was far more exciting than work-outs, she couldn't deny. "No questions from me, at least. Sounds fairly routine."
Kastovin was itching to do something because he has been doing nothing but read for the past few days. When it came up that there was some open positions in this expedition into the tunnles, he jumped on it to just break the monotony of life. Looking around, he thinks he may be the least prepared of the group, but this does not stop him! He hears Reinhard talk and he responds "Do we have any idea what the noises are?"
Fenris saunters along behind the rhino, listening amiably to the stories he has heard a hundred times before. The tiger is dressed a little different today. He still has on his long, heavy, leather coat, but the Creator style suit underneath has been swapped for one made in matte black and lined with silvery plates of some sort of metal. A little silvery golem shaped like an otter with glittering eyes scampers along at his feet. "From down here?" he addresses Kastovin, "Could be anything from plumbers to Lost to magical spirits. Best to be ready for anything."
Zuri nodded at the rhino's words as he spoke, smirking. The small salamander was wearing his old adventuring garb, for once, a stylish overcoat sporting dozens of stitches, patches and mends, courtesy of many a narrow brush with mortal danger. "Make it dead. I like that one.. yea, we can do that, right guys?" He looks around at the mercenaries, and smiles at Lucasial. "And miss!" He looks back at the rhino as Kastovin asks his question, and nods. "Yea. Are we talking like.. growly, hissy, roary noises or.. slithery, snappy, creepy noises or... 'please don't mind me moving this heavy crate of contraband noisily' noises?"
The rhino squints down at Zuri. "Some sort of scratching and clicking is what it was described it by most accounts. I just hope we don't have to go knock down a wall or two to get to the source. Would be a shame. As for what they are, the Tiger is right, could be just about anything." He draws his hammer and rests it on his shoulder, carrying his torch with the free hand and taking the lead down the dark of the tunnels.
"Wonder if it's the work of some of those servitors. I hope not. Their metal tends to blunt my edges," Lucasiel says with mild distate. "Though I'd rather that than the Lost Ones, I suppose. I image we'll find out when we get there," she adds, nodding a greeting to Zuri in return.
Kastovin is wearing a pitch-black robe with gold stitchings at the seams. His head is obscured by the hood that he is wearing, but the faint glow of light can be seein in his darkness. "Whatever it is..." He says, looking back to Zuri "...I hope we can avoid conflict and persuade them to leave. But, if not, I will fight." He digs into his robe from the flap on his chest, throws something into his mouth, and lightly chews. A smile creeps across his semi-covered face and he says "Whatever it is, I am sure it would be a good story to tell later on."
"Light, Kawa," Fenris says, walking along with the others, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his heavy, protective overcoat. At his command, some of the close fit, overlapping panels on the little otter golem slide aside to let a cool, green-tinted glow fill the tunnel. He looks around with interest.
Zuri follows along as the group starts walking. He's clearly armed for a conflict. The hilts of two blades are clearly seen poking out the top of their respective scabbards, tucked to his left hip and ready to be drawn. He opts to arm himself with his bow however, looking over at Kastovin with a smile. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Chances are we're going to have to get our hands dirty here. Not literally dirty, ew, but you know.. stab things. Or shoot things." His tail lightly drags on the ground as he walks, keeping an eye on their surroundings while letting the others track a path ahead.
The paths leads on for quite a bit until the group reaches a hole in the wall. Stones have been stacked all the way up to block access to it, but it would be easy to get them out of the way. Reinhard stops the group. "Well. Would you look at that. A hole in the wall in an area said to have noises coming from the walls. Might as well investigate, yes?" He does not wait for an answer and is quick to remove the stone blocking the entrance, his armor whirring lightly as he does.
Lucasiel pulls her shield around from her back, flexing her grip around the handle of the elongated kite shaped object. "Well, there's something back there, for sure." Her bearded axe comes next, into her free hand as she assumes a ready pose in the event something springs out as soon as the stone is moved away. "Make ready, just in case."
Kastovin lets a staff drop from his sleeve of his left arm, which might be way he has not been moving it this entire trip so far. He grips it in his paw and raises his right arm up and points it to where Reinhard is undoing the stone. Light starts to get brighter under his black hood, now it's clearly cyan in color. "I am ready." He says from the depths of his hood, looking at Lucasiel and the rock.
Fenris looks with interest at the tunnels. "You know," he says, looking around, "This place is familiar." He waits just long enough for Reinhard to open the way before directing his golem ahead and following close after.
Zuri wastes no time. Once the path is cleared he slinks through the opening, peering around into the newly opened passage before fading off to one side and scouting out the flank. He looks back at Fenris as he mentions how familiar the place feels, nodding. "Yea. Eerie feeling here.."
The hole leads to a tunnel that is quickly splitting into many different directions, but only two are large enough for an average being. The others would comfortably allow a dog to fit through them. Fenris and Zuri, heading into the new area first, end up with their faces full of spiderwebs and, moments later, feel something the size of a large hand drop onto each of their heads.
Lucasiel cants her head to the side, looking towards Kastovin for a moment before shrugging. "People are always eager to be moving on, it seems. I suppose we shouldn't let them get too far ahead," she says, before starting into the hole after Fenris and Zuri, shield first.
Kastovin follows Lucasiel, looking around to make sure they don't get caught in anything... His eyes go wide as he sees all the spider webs "Oh. Right. It just had to be spiders." He takes his staff and taps the head on the floor as sparks fly and the head catches on fire. He pokes at the spider webs with the flaming stuff tip "I really hope these are abandoned..." He is about to go on when he sees two large spiders flop down onto the faces of his companions "Gah!" He exclaims, taking a step backwards with his makeshift torch in hand.
"Yup!" Fenris shouts as he feels something fall on his exposed head, "Very, very familiar." The black and silber gauntlet on his right hand sparks and snaps and he whips it over his own scalp to bat the creature away, remembering all too well the scorpion stinger he had seen on the last of its kind he encountered!
Zuri lets out a rather unmanly screech as the thing falls on him. It's a scary thing and his face is full of cobwebs and Creators what the heck is going on?! The small salamander drops his bow and starts batting at the thing on top of him, trying to get it to go away. "Get offa me!"
The arachnid on Fenris' head is successfully knocked off and, quite quickly, squished by Reinhard's hammer. Zuri is not so lucky, the creature on his head sliding off onto his face as he bats at it and snapping at his snout with its pincers. From within the tunnels a sound of clicking and moving can be heard.
"Abandoned enough," Lucasiel says, raising her shield over her head to ward off anything that might be trying to drop in on her. She could hardly use her axe to fend off things that were already on others, so she largely just leaves them to their own devices. "I wonder if these are the targets, or if these are just something on the way."
Kastovin takes his staff and waves it in the air, snuffing out the fire before too much damage is done. He turns around to face Zuri. A paw reaches up and undoes the hood over his head so he can see better, but now his glow is bright enough that he may become a target again. Grabbing the stuff in both of his hands, he swings it to swat that spider off of Zuri, but no sooner had he started moving that a gust of wind comes from the mouth of the cave to aid him in swinging harder and faster.
"Hold still, Zuri," Fenris commands, whipping an odd device from within his coat and pointing it at the creature on Zuri. Before he does anything with the little, thumb-sized device, he sees Kastovin moving in to attack and waits, instead putting his hand on a small box on his belt and turning his attention to the approaching skittering.
Zuri bats a few more times at the thing on his face when suddenly - and with great percision - a well aimed staff swipe sends the evil critter flying off into the darkness. He takes a moment to regain his bearings. "What the heck was that thing?" He gives Kastovin a look of gratitude before he freezes, hearing the strange skittering. He hurriedly grabs his bow again and readies it, while walking to stand near Fenris for mutual protection.
The skittering and clicking comes rapidly closer and large eyes stare at the group from the smaller tunnels. The creatures jump from them, much larger than the little ones that got the jump on Fenris and Zuri, about the size of adult dogs. Four of the adventurers, all but Fenris, find themselves jumped by the creatured and Kastovin and Zuri are knocked over. Reinhard and Lucasiel are large and heavy, thanks to their armor and not so easily knocked over. Fenris dodges narrowly and the spider-scorpion-dragonfly creature snaps its pincers at the air between them.
Lucasiel snarls at the leaping creature and meets it head on with a swing of her axe, moving to use its own leaping momentum against it to try to drive the weapon extra deep. "Nevermind, these are what we were looking for," she remarks.
"Good," Fenris says, "A shiny new bunch of horrible things!" The tiger activates whatever it was that he was fingering at his belt and a shimmering bubble of blue light forms around him. "Kawauso!" he shouts, and the tiny golem stops its aimless (if endearing) frolicking and turns to face the oncoming monsters, opening its mouth wide and letting loose with a beam of Creator Fire!
Fenris is not idle either, raising that little device he held before and pointing it at the creature on Zuri. A thin ribbon of red flame lances out through the darkness!
Zuri acks as he is once again beset upon by one of these horrific things. This one is huge! And it's on top of him! The small being grapples with the creature, trying to gain enough leverage to reach for his scabbarded dagger and slice at its body with one swift motion.
Kastovin is not really able to do much under this spider besides giving it a good, hard punch as he needs space to swing his staff.
The mercenaries easily dispatch of the creatures and the skittering moving sounds from the tunnels seem to get quieter. With the creatures gone for now Reinhard puts his hammer back on his shoulder. "Well then. I think we found the source of the noise." He rubs his chin. "Two big tunnels. We should probably split up to see if we can find their nest."
Lucasiel wrenches her axe free from the creature and curls her lip. "Splitting up is usually a poor idea in such cases, lest we get overwhelmed. But I suppose we could do that, if the others are not opposed. I am not concerned, in any case, for my own safety here. But what of others?" She asks, looking around.
Kastovin is still laying on the ground, dazed that he had just punched a spider off of him. He sits up and looks at everyone else. With a new found confidence in his abilities he says "Splitting up does not sound so bad, as long as we all have a partner to go with." He stands up and dusts himself off, still kinda shaky from the adrenaline rush.
Fenris considers the tunnels ahead, and nods at the one to the left. "I've been down here," he says, "But I don't think we came this way. There were some old artifacts here before. I've been down that left hand tunnel. Might as well try the right." The tiger's bubble is still intact as he saunters toward his chosen egress, expecting the others to follow, his glowing golem scampering along at his feet.
Zuri looks at each in turn. "Splitting up sounds like a bad idea. I don't wanna be pinned under a dog-sized spider-scorpion without friends nearby to save me, and vicey-versey." He gives them all a knowing nod, then starts following Fenris. He sheathes his dagger and readies his bow again.
Reinhard nods. "The right tunnel it is, then. Tell me, you made it sound like you left the artifacts behind? Why would you do that? Or did you have to get out fast?" The trip down the tunnel is relatively uneventful, but quickly leads into a large, natural cave which is filled with webs and clustered eggs in corners all around the walls. The group stops shortly before the entrance. About two dozen dog sized arachnids and an uncountable amount of small ones, from the size of hands to that of a normal spider are skittering up and down, around a huge one. The creature that must be some sort of queen is in the middle of the cavern and stands taller than the tallest being and much, much longer. Its abandon is heavily swollen, to the point where it makes it immobile.
"There are always old artifacts to find down here," Lucasiel says with a grunt, adjusting her grip on the axe's haft. "Of all the places to explore, this is one of the more interesting ones. Not my favourite though," she comments, before falling quiet at the sight of all the opposition. "Looks like today will be a work out."
Kastovin would have put his hood on again as to not draw more attention to themselve along the tunnles. "I would not mind finding some useful artifacts." He chimes in, but that's all he says until they reach the hoard. "My goodness..." he whispers "...How are we going to deal with this?" He looks around at the others around him.
"It is a strange thing to find off the undertunnels," Fenris starts, "And it seemed like it had been used recently. We had to leave suddenly or else. . ." The tiger trails off at the sight of what had to be some kind of queen. "It's like the krick hives all over again," he says, adjusting the tool on his belt, making his shield glow a little brighter, then tossing another artifact on the floor. What seems to be a forearm length bar stops and floats gently about six inches above the ground and begins to spin, slowly at first, then at wild speeds in all directions until it seems to be a little blurry ball hovering an inch or so off the ground. "Let's do what we came to do," he says, then directs his golem and what must be a twirligig defender into the fray as he starts out by firing his Creator Scorcher at the gravid monster!
Zuri pauses in the same moment of awe as his companions do when they regard the room laden with these skittering creatures. The small salamander nods at Fenris' words. "Yea..." With his bow at the ready he centers an arrow on the monstrosity and lets it loose, aimed center-mass. He quickly readies another arrow as he runs for cover, letting his heavier-armored companions deal with the inevitable charge.
The Queen cries out in pain as creator fire and arrow strike her, this, of course, alarms the whole court of spiders which soon swarms towards the tunnel the mercenaries are in. Luckily Fenris' divine shield holds off the creatures for now, while his golem and little creator machine take out a few of them. Reinhard puts on his helmet and readies his hammer, positioning himself in the front, waiting for the shield to fail.
Lucasiel braces herself in a ready stance, axe raised and shield to the fore, waiting to clash against the skittering nasties as soon as Fenris' shield falls.
Kastovin stands and taps his staff onto the floor, faster and faster as hopefully the air inside the lower half of the chamber starts to swirl around everything. "Hold them off of me! I need to concentrate!" The cat braces himself.
Fenris leaves his two golems to their work, with the simple instruction to kill the horrible insects and keep them away. Meanwhile, he continues to contribute scorching creator fire to this buggy potluck. With any luck, that shield will hold a bit longer. The tiger clenches and unclenches the augmented gauntlet on his hand in preparation.
Zuri nimbly leaps and dashes out of the reach of the swarming creatures, gaining himself some distance with which to enact his plan. He centers himself as he looks at the swaming, skittering creatures and plants both feet firmly on the ground. With his hands palm-side-up he starts dipping into the broken, disjointed phrases of dark math, warping and tugging at the very essence of the critters in a rush of magical force.
The magic of Kastovin does a whole lot of nothing, but Zuri fares much better! Just as the arachnids break through the creator shield, his wave of magic, together with the creator fire from Fenirs, takes out a huge amount of creepy crawlies, enough, in fact, to allow Lucasiel and Reinhard to hold them off for now.
Lucasiel does more than just hold the line, keeping her shield raised while she strikes out beyond it with her axe in a swift, downward arc. "We will for as long as we can. If you have a plan, do it quickly."
Kastovin sees his magic is not working as he wanted it to "Come on!" He readies his staff and would try to hit anything that got near him or anyone else.
"Plan?" Fenris asks quizzically, "Plan. . . nope. Not a familiar phrase." The tiger reaches into his coat and produces a pair of arm length metallic rods. "But I am sure we will think of something," he grins before throwing himself into the fray. "Kawa!" he orders, "The Queen!" The little golem leaves off its current targets and turns, opening its little mouth wide to fire another beam of Creator fire at the gravid arachnid while the twirligig continues to fling itself around, defending Fenris and the others.
Zuri shivers after unleashing the wave of dark math. "Uurgh.. hate that. Always leaves a funny taste in my mouth." He works his tongue briefly before looking forward at his handiwork. "Not enough, it seems.." He watches Fenris and Kastovin for a moment before deciding on his next course of action. He traces a few symbols in the air, visualizing a phrase of air and water math that intertwines into a descending progression, a binding of ice and frost. He focuses his magic on Kastovin's staff, imbuing it with magical essence ready to be unleashed.
Reinhard and Lucasiel are overwhelmed by the onslaught of arachnids. The creatures break through and are soon all over the place, the mercenaries surrounded. Kastobin in particular is punned down by a couple of the bigger ones, which painfully close their pincers around his arms, drawing a little blood from the feline. The others manage to maintain their standing, keeping the beasts at their feet as suddenly a shriek, followed by a thud, pierces the air. It seems the queen has been slayin by the assault of Fenris' golems.
Shrieking, dying queens or not, Lucasiel doesn't let up on the assault of things that have pressed forward, her axe rising and falling with each new arrival, striking at every bug that comes within reach.
Kastovin screams in pain as he's bitten. There is very little the cat can do in this situation. He looks beyond what he's dealing with and sees the swarm of creatures making their way to them. With one of his fingers he points and yells "BE NOT!" at the encroaching spiders.
If he were alone, Fenris might handle this differently, or if he had a bit of a quiet moment to center himself. For now he contents himself with clearing his thoughts and keeping at the whirling, unpleasantly crunchy dance of death he is doing amid all of these Scorpanids. "Oh!" he calls out, as he continues to lay waste with his energized rods, "That's right! I have decided to call these things Scorpanids. Just in case you were wondering." The big tiger works his way toward the put upon Kastovin to apply his own rebuttal to this hands on discussion. His golem, initial command fullfilled, goes back to biting and crunching the arachnid creatures, looking in many ways like an actual otter in a fight while it's internal weapon slowly recharges.
Zuri finishes his imbuement spell and takes a moment to rest. Too much spellcasting makes Zuri a tired 'mander. He bites his lip as he sees his friends still being besieged by more of the creatures, swarming in seemingly endless fashion. He plants his feet again and starts to swirl with his hand, as if stirring a pot, weaving a phrase of the divine math. He agitates the air and condenses the humidity in the air into tiny pellets, small bits of hail, which begin to sweep, swirl and pelt at the Scorpanids.
The combined efforts of the mercenaries finish the last of the bigger Scorpanids, leaving the small ones to flee the battlefield and into the various small tunnels that seem to be everywhere. Reinhard extends a hand to Kastovin and pulls him up from the ground. "Hah. This was a good fight!" He looks around the cave. "The queen is dead, but we should take care of these eggs."
Lucasiel resets her stance once the skittering things are fended off, taking a moment to catch her breath. "I suppose we should. We wouldn't want them to make a come back, or risk another queen slipping out from one of them. I don't want to have to come down here again."
Kastovin looks over at Lucasiel and nods "I, too, don't want to come down here again..." He looks at all the eggs and sighs. He bends over slightly to pick up his staff, walks over to the eggs, and starts smashing them. "We..." squish "..Can't.." smack "...Afford..." thump "...To miss any!" He works to kill all the eggs that he can. "At least these things stay still so you cna hit them!"
"Just a moment," Fenris says, stowing his weapons and fiddling with something at his throat. He takes a few deep breaths and then walks over to where the dead queen and her multitude of eggs lie. "This should be exciting," he says and holds out his hands over the corpse, channeling carefully constructed fire mathemagic.
Zuri flops down on the damp floor, looking all tuckered out. "Ouf.. I'm gonna need a BIG meal when I get home. Like.. a big stew. A nice steak. A cake or fourty. Mmm.. fourty cakes.. " He blooks at his friends as they busy themselves with the whole stomping on eggs bit, and after a minute to recover his breath he stands back up and starts walking towards them. He pauses as he looks at Kastovin, and quirks an eyebrow. "Uh.. is that blood?" He asks, looking at the other being's clothes.
Reinhard is in his element, smashing clusters of eggs with his hammer, and together with the efforts of the others, the nest is quickly destroyed. There is no sign of the small ones that fled into the tunnels either. "I think we are done here."
Kastovin looks over at Zuri and says "Blood? What blood?" He looks down at himself and sees blood dripping off of his dark robe "Oh. Right." He moves a hand up to feel where the blood might be coming from and pokes at it. His eyes shoot open as the adrenaline had worked it's way out of his system and all the pain comes rushing back. With a cry of pain, he fells onto his back, writhing from it.
"Works for me!" Lucasiel says, carefully wiping her axe clean with a rag before sliding it back onto her belt, tail flicking. "I need a bath myself, I think. Always such an unpleasant place to go trotting around."
Fenris stretches and adjusts his coat, restoring everything to sleek order before turning a grin on the rest of the party. "Well," he says, "That wasn't so bad!" His grin flickers a bit when Kastovin cries out. "Come on kid," he says, "Let's get you patched up and out of here." The tiger produces another strange looking toy, this one a smooth, white box of some kind that he directs toward Kastovin's injuries. A blue light flickers over the injured cat's body and the pain dulls while the Sacred Doctor does its work.
Once Fenris has finished, he gently lifts the little feline in his huge arms. "Probably best to let you rest for a bit, hmm?" he says with a smile, then starts out of the cavern.
Zuri runs to Kastovin's side, kneeling down next to him to check out his wounds. He looks up at Fenris and nods. "Yea, let's get him to the Freeswords'. We can get him some medical treatment, some nice warm food and.. " He smiles as he sees the Sacred Doctor. "Yep, that also works!" He giggles and starts to get up. "Alright, let's get out of here before we find out there's a crocodile monster down here or something."
