The mysterious cave 2 - Scorpanid troubles - RPLOG

Participants

• Fenris
• Kastovin
• Lucasiel
• Shira
• Zuri

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!

Kastovin sees the creature in the glow of his fur. He acts quickly, reaching up to grab the air, pulling down and pushing up with stronger force. This would create a gust of wind between him and the spider creature. (If I roll good enough)

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.