Menace at the Hotsprings pt2

April 22nd 2007

Players: Tikk, Aipoc, Trysta, Siriel, Arvilli The narrow fissure in the stone that allows the river to flow outwards deepens back into the wall and expands outward revealing a cavern hidden within. Moss coats the ceiling, casting a yellowish photoluminescence gloom about this womb of rock. Illuminating the very source of the river, a large pool deepens downward to blackness and the unknown. This cavern, though hard to attain, has been found before. The moss that glows above casts shadows downward that reveal the walls of this chamber to have been carved in exquisite relief. Mythic shapes blend together, one archetype to the next in a stone tapestry that seems to flow out of the black basin like the waters itself. You know from description from others had had been this far fighting the Kobolds that at the far end of the cavern there is a new entry way that leads deeper into the caverns. From the entrance you can only faintly see a darker patch that may be that entry way.

With the return of the first group of adventurers from the Hot springs saying that there was a deeper section of the Cavern that they had not seen before but did not wish to continue farther due to the foes they had fought already and needing to recuperate from them. The adventurers guild has posted a request for Hardy adventurers to come forward to fight this growing menace.

Jumpy Jumpy Jumpy. Pause, Jumpy jumpy jumpy. Pause. "oh A bit of moss!" How this figure of Magical minds ever ever became anything of a sorceress its unknown. Jumpy Jumpy Jumpy. Tikk stops and pokes at another bit of moss and frowns. "Oh Dear." she states with an exaggerated sigh. "This moss is all icky, Icky icky." Two chocolate stained lips remark as she licks the bits of her food craving away from them. The evidence of her little plate raid disappears with a swipe of the tongue as she looks around.

The large half-orc's eyes glow as he peers about once more inside the fissure. His face is set in his perpetual glower, and he unlimbers his heavy flail as he glances with cool disdain at the jumpy Gnome. His voice is a quiet rumble as he says, "At least two of the beasts escaped us, fleeing further into the labyrinthine fissure while we dealt with a mimic." he glances once at the others then turns his eyes back front. Setting his shield, with its moon emblem center-most, in front of his body as he waits for the others to ready themselves to move forwards, Aipoc keeps scanning the darkness ahead of the group.

Siriel looks about in the cavern where the adventurers battled last time and uses her elven senses to see if there are any signs of creatures being about "there is some slight clinking sounds coming from that way" she says as she points towards the entranceway farther into the cavern.

Arvilli is looking around, and using the quarterstaff as a brace against slipping down into the gorge by the quickest route. Of course, bouncing down the rocks could be a bit hard on his rather fragile body. He just looks at the gnome for a moment and gently shakes his head. He then laughs out at her remark. "I am sure that the moss really appreciates your suggestion. Moss, when used properly, helps constrict the blood flow, and allows wounds to heal. But only a certain kind. It can give light too." He then looks to Siriel. "So, who goes first?"

Trysta is currently looking at some of the glowing moss but certainly not touching it. Upon hearing all the sounds she turns to see the others, mumbles something to herself and then goes to wander closer to the rest of the party.

Aipoc's fist tightens around his flail and says in a near-silent whisper, "Death approaches us, and it is armored. Prepare thy selves for battle." he moves through the darkness towards the sounds he hears, a low rumble of a guttural growl in his throat.

"OOoh OOH mee mee!" Tikk says and raises her hand. The wiggle of five fingers against the air shows the excitement. And then....she stops and quiets down. Its strange to hear silence from this little creature. Probably stranger yet, she presses her fingers to her lips and says, "Shhh.." to the group. Tikklen Oean Baer Little cloak Gaerfen Glittergild Turen has never been one to remain serious through out an entire adventure. In fact, rumor has it, she is the one most likely to run up to a giant slap him in the arse and tell him to ride that pony for all its worth before hiding her gnomish arse before it gets stomped on. But no..Oh no. This time, at this moment, Tikk is not speaking a word as she glances around. She holds up Four fingers, then motions to herself as if to say Figures. She points to the darkness as if to tell the group they are hiding, and she puts her fingers to her lips again for them all to remain quiet. A soft muttering of words under her breathe floods from the gnome then, and she points at one of the figures before two balls of blue energy fly from her finger tips. It hits. and a grunt is echoed for her efforts. Tikk seems, disappointed as it doesn't make a big boom. "I gotta learn fireball." she is heard to say under her breathe.

Siriel's bow is off her shoulder within a blink of an eye as she prepares herself upon seeing the shadowy figures and hearing the sound of the half orc growl at them.

Another mutter from Trysta--this one sounds agitated however. The woman goes to grab her great sword from its place and holds it at the ready while turning in the direction she heard the sound of armor being donned.

Arvilli blinks and then looks around in confusion as the spell goes off and everyone starts to prepare themselves to fight something. "What? What in the worlds is going on?" He looks confused and a bit disoriented.

There is a roaring sound as four lumbering shapes move out of the shadows around the entry way and charge at the party closing the gap between the two groups down to 30 feet.

Upon seeing the four creatures come running Trysta takes the initiative and attacks first. The human quickly closes the last thirty feet between herself and one of the monsters quickly and draws back. One hearty swing later the creature drops with a bloody spray. ".. That was too easy."

Arvilli frowns and then notices quickly he can't cast his fireball, so, with a switch, a few gestures, a few spoken words, and his palm pointed out, the spell finishes. A lightning bolt leaps from his hand to strike BB3 square through the chest, dropping in instantly. 4, however, was a bit quicker on its feet, and got out of the way enough to only be badly singed.

BB4 climbs back to his feet shaking his head lifting his Morning star he charges towards Arvilli getting just about to attack range.

As the fourth bb (bugbear? Busty Baboon? Brilliant Biped?) charges towards the group, Aipoc almost idly whips the head of his flail around in a hard, flat arc, slamming the head of the attacking creature between the heavy iron head and the hard granite wall. The sound it makes is not unlike that of a thick rind melon being crushed and split open under the shod hoof of a horse. Aipoc spits on the corpse as he passes by it, moving with no great haste towards the second creature. Laughter rumbles up from his chest, a wicked malevolent chuckle as he says, "Perhaps it is death who comes for /you/."

Flash of fingers, curse of words, flutter of foot steps and....A rather weak Magic Missile flies from Tikk's hands. She curses again as it doesn't bring her foe down and she frowns out a bit, "Dammit." The Gnome curses and stops her foot. "I wanted him to die!"

The last Bugbear (for that is what they are now that they are close enough to see clearly) roars out a massive yell Throwing a javelin at Aipoc that flies true to hit him but bounces off the Half-orc's armour without effect.

Siriel spying the carnage of the other creatures murmurs a few words in elven as she brings her bow up and pulls back on the taunt string aiming it at the bugbear's head takes a deep breath and slow exhales as she releases the arrow that shimmers as it flies throw the air and bursts into flames just as it pierces the creature thru the neck, the flames lighting the creatures fur on fire. A sneer crosses her lips as she listens to it scream and run about until it falls dead to the floor, filling the cavern with the putrid smell of burning hair and flesh.

Trysta goes to wipe her weapon clean of blood on the bug bear she downed and then puts the great sword back in place. She leans over, checking the corpse to see if there's anything valuable or otherwise of interest. After all, bug bears aren't very smart--they just /might/ have some incriminating evidence on them.

Searching, looking and piling the goods that she can find Tikk lets out a whews. "okay now." she offers and starts looking for the way deeper into the cave. "That was SO much fun!" she announces.

Siriel lowers her bow and sighs as she looks about, after a few moments she looks towards the entry way to deeper into the cavern.

This entry way and the passage beyond has jagged edges that also seem smooth, closer inspection shows that even though the are rough edges there is not any sharp edges and the the pathway downward is a smooth level surface, almost as if it were literally cut from the rock wall by magic.

The passageway remains approximately 10 feet across as it gently slopes downward, you get the impression after a couple hundred steps that you have only descended by about 20 feet from the level above.

At this point the walls of the passage suddenly widen out to a cavern filled with boulders that is roughly a circular shape maybe 100 feet across. Covering the ceiling and the walls is the same phosphorescence from the cavern above giving the entire chamber to have a dull gloom to it. Across the chamber from you a dark patch in the wall suggests that there is another pathway going past this room.

Siriel stops and motions for the others to stop "theres a couple of creatures crouched down in the middle of the room on a couple of boulders" she says in a hushed whisper as she steps out from in front of the others to her left pulling her bow off her shoulder.

Aipoc eyes the elf for a moment, then nodding to her words with a small grimace, he moves up to stand with the others, preparing to move into battle with these creatures as well.

Tikk follows behind and falls into a step, before stopping and looking around. Tapping the leaders, she motions to a dark patch in the wall, "might be another door." she whispers to them both attempting to remain quiet as possible.

Trysta can't seem to spot anything in the darkness--such is the sadness of being a human. She takes out her bow however when Siriel does the same and puts an arrow into it.

Arvilli blinks at the sudden stop and then frowns a little. He then sets a sack down and begins to rummage through it quietly. "Anyone need a ranged item? I have one to spare." he says very quietly.

As Siriel and Aipoc walk into the room they are struck by a barrage of spikes, the spikes pierce through Siriel's armour but bounce off Aipoc's.

Siriel cries out in pain as the spikes pierce her armour and jab into her skin. Rising her bow she sneers in contempt for being hit and takes aim at the creature in the middle of the room, whispering in elven she draws back on her bow and lets loose an arrow, as it gets halfway there it becomes engulfed in flames and strikes the creature. Hearing the roar of pain from the momentarily illuminated winged creature sitting on the boulder, Siriel nods her head in satisfaction and continues to sneer towards the creatures.

Roaring in pain the first Manticore lashes it's tail forward sending a volley of spike flying with deadly accuracy across the room piercing Arvilli with 8 inch spikes.

The second manticore lashes out with it's tail sending another volley of spikes forward this group to impale Trysta

Tikk blinks as the one next to her is hit and screams out loudly. She moves to flick her wrist fast. Another set of Magic Missiles flick out suddenly, and after slamming into the monster. No real affect is seen and she swallows lightly.

The half-orc shrugs off the hits from the spikes and moves forward towards the creatures. He looks to be severely put out by their attack.

Trysta just grunts when hit by the flying spikes. She promptly takes aim at the manticore that Siriel hit with a flaming arrow, pulls back, and lets her own fly. It strikes and punches into the creature's hide as she pulls another arrow, fires it, and gets another 'thunk' as the strike lands.

Arvilli gets pelted with spikes out of the dark and then goes down with a bit of a scream. He lays there for a moment, breathing hard, feeling the spikes in his body. But he doesn't seem to be dying yet, so he tries to rise, and then stand up with the spikes still in him.

Siriel steps forward, in pain and still pissed about being hit by spikes. Pulling back on the taunt string, muttering what must be elven curses as she steps forward drawing back on the string, squinting her eyes at the already injured manticore, narrowing in on the pulse on it's neck. She sucks in a breath and as she lets it out in a hiss the arrow flames and hits its mark, almost decapitating the manticore from the sheer force. Blood sprays forth as the creature slides from its boulder and lands in a squishy lump on the floor of the cavern.

The final Manticore launches itself into the air with a roar descending upon Aipoc with tooth and claw, its claws rake forward one of which was just short of the mark and beak ravages the half orc. You can now see a long chain strewn out from the boulder it was on ending in a metal collar around the beast's back leg.

Tikk blinks and steps back a half step as the Manticore heads into the air. Her words come again, another gesture before, two more Magic Missiles shoot from her finger tips and strike the Manticore. She growls when he doesn't drop dead as of yet.

Aipoc roars in pain and rage as he whips his flail around, battering the manticore with it, hurting it, but leaving it standing. Strings of saliva fly from the half-orc's mouth as he screams in rage.

The human drops her bow for the time being and goes to get out her sword while moving towards the manticore. A mighty swing and the weapon connects, splashing blood onto the ground and itself alike. "Attack me you stupid thing, not the squishy," she tells it.

Arvilli frowns a little at the two in combat with it. "Hrm, can't risk hitting them." He then makes the same gestures that Tikk is making, and then casts the exact same spell as she does. But instead of two, four comes out from his fingers to slam into the last manticore. Its injured some more, but still alive.

Siriel takes another step towards the last manticore who seems to be lulling around in a daze from it's injuries, pulling back on her trusty bows string she lets loose another arrow, it flies straight at the manticore's head til it lulls suddenly to the left saving itself without even realizing it, as the arrow whizzes past it.

The Manticore turns with a roar to attack the aggravating human that is yelling at it, raking both claws across her and ravaging her with a vicious bite.

Tikk screams gain, She tosses out two more magic missiles, but the tax of magic upon her body is leaving her weak. Her missiles are getting weaker, and she is getting sloppier.

Aipoc slams the flail into the creature once more, his bellow resonating through the chamber. The creature still lives, and Aipoc staggers slightly on his feet as if greatly hurt, but he seems unwilling to back off until the manticore's corpse is cooling on the slab.

Upon getting bitten and scratched up Trysta winds back and swings, cutting into the creature's midsection with her weapon. Then she pulls back a second time and swings again, hitting the same spot, and causing the manticore to fall dead upon the ground with its stomach mostly an open wound.

Arvilli sighs softly and then begins to pull out the spines from his body. Then, he gets one of the potions from his bag. "Does everyone have poisons of healing?"

Siriel pulls a small vial out of the hide pack on her hip, and drinks the liquid down in one gulp.

Tikk looks around, "I have one potion of Light wounds." she states with a soft sigh. "Who ever needs it, is welcome to it."

Arvilli smiles and then shakes his head. "I got plenty. I have about...6 light and 3 medium or so. I just noticed that unless they are hiding, we don't have a cleric or a paladin."

Trysta goes to get her dropped bow and puts it back into place. Then she goes about cleaning her weapon off on one of the corpses while mumbling and grumbling in agitation. Upon finishing she puts the great sword away, too, and then digs into a pouch. A vial is produced and quickly opened; then upended. Hopefully it's not some sort of beer.

Siriel feels a little less like a pin cushion after drinking two of the small bottles of liquid, she walks over to the half orc who seemed to take the brunt of the attacks "I have another potion for healing if you're at all interested" she states politely.

Aipoc prays quietly for a moment, his hands glowing a tenebrous green as he clasps them around the haft of his flail. When he opens his eyes, most of his wounds have stopped bleeding, but he still looks battered and bruised.

Arvilli looks down at his body and sighs. "well, that was a weak potion. But at least the wounds have stopped bleeding." HE then wipes his face with a handkerchief. "Well, those were kept as pets and guardian beasts."

Trysta doesn't seem to be entirely enthused with all the more she healed due to the potion's effects. However, she leaves things as they are for now and idly tosses the empty vial into the pouch she got it out of. "And whatever owns them might well have heard the commotion."

With little searching you find the opening in the cavern directly across from the one which you entered

Aipoc glances at the others and says, "Then let us meet the owner of yon beasts in combat. 'Twill be its undoing, I wot." So saying he begins praying once more.

Tikk moves to offer her potion to the other magic user. "here...Do you need it." she asks and frowns lightly, "Sadly it doesn't bring back my spells." she admits, "or I would have drunk it by now." Tikk moves to the back of the group a bit, the young woman weakening as this goes on magic wise...

Siriel assumes that the half orc must just have not heard her or seen her standing in front of him for that matter and just shrugs walking away to check the manticores.

Arvilli smiles and then looks to the gnomish woman and then shakes his head. "No, and you seem to be spending a good amount yourself. You should conserve your strength. The worst is yet to come, no doubt."

Aipoc shakes his head to Siriel as she turns from him, "Please save it, someone else may need it. I have no more healing spells available to me today, so your potion may be needed by someone soon."

The next passageway seems to be a natural fissure in the rock that was augmented by magic widening it at some points and also keeping the pathway relatively level. After descending by at least 50 feet with a path that is several hundred feet long you come to another natural cavern. This one is enormous the ceiling must be 100 feet high and there are giant stalagmite and stalactites in the room some large enough to have grown together into pillars. There is the sound of steady drips of water from these gigantic tooth like obstruction.

The only light in this room is a bluish glow coming from an archway approximately 200 feet away across the cavern. This archway is too perfectly formed to have been formed naturally.

Aipoc stops for a minute, his eyes narrowing at something he sees, he mutters, "Get ready" to the rest of the group, then begins praying once more, a scintillating blue light spreading outwards from his flail to cover his body.

Tikk looks around for traps, and shaking her head to state she hasnt' found any traps. She frowns at Aipoc's words and pulls out her crossbow with a growing frown.

Once the blue light spreads out over the half-orc, he glances around at the others, coolly regarding the elf, though with a bit more respect now and steps into the cavern, flail at the ready.

Arvilli sighs, and then casts Protection from arrows, so that he doesn't get peppered with arrows again. using a shell of a tortoise as a focus.

Trysta can't see as usual--this is nothing new of course. The woman goes to get her sword out again though and mumbles something incoherent to herself. At this rate she might as well keep yonder weapon at easy reach.

Siriel moves behind the big oof of a half orc and as he enters the cavern she looks about bow drawn ready in case anything decides to jump out at them, or fling spiky things at them.

As the first steps into the room there is a giant explosion in the floor as the glyphs inscribed there explode damaging all around them with magical fire, Tikk and Aipoc are now unconscious and bleeding on the floor, Arvilli is standing but barely.

Tikk bleeds.

Aipoc slumps to the ground, a loud thump from the front of the party. The smell of singed half-orc hair and hide waft up into the air around him.

Arvilli grimaces. "I swear, the first thing I am going to do is to make a detect magic item as soon as I get to researching back at the house." He then pulls our a bottle and drink it all down. "Get them out and pour a healing poison down them. We need them back up."

Siriel still having been behind the large half orc was shielded from the blow, as she realizes what happens she immediately goes to the fallen half orc in front of her and tries to stabilize him, after stopping his bleeding she pulls another vial out of her pack and forces the liquid down his throat.

Trysta goes to lean over Tikk and stuff a potion into her mouth, holding it up until the vial drains. "I'm really thinking we need to kill whoever did this and then leave."

2 Arrows come flying out of the darkness shattering just before hitting Arvilli as they encounter his mage crafted shield.

Aipoc splutters and coughs as the elf pours the potion down his throat. He sits up and peers around weakly for a moment. His eyes narrow and he says, "You....you would heal one of Forstorelse's priests?" he cuts off quickly and scrambles to his feet as the arrows cut their way through the air.

Arvilli frowns and then looks up to the source of the arrows. "Driders." He snorts. He then casts another spell, and a little bead of light appears. It then jumps form his finger to land in the designated spot. There is a roar of flame on the edges as the fireball bursts. They are both caught in it, to where everyone can see them. However, it doesn't look like it hurt them much.

Dropping from the ceiling comes death with 8 legs and 2 arms, it lands in front of Aipoc swinging with first one short sword then the other after missing with both it bites at him still missing.

Tikk seems to be shaking, and If anyone checks, Is a little damp after the whole, almost death thing, So she raises her cross bow and fires off a shot with shaky hands..missing her target. And thankfully, others in her group.

The half-orc sees the monstrosity in front of him and roars his hatred out, "Foul aberration, get the off the skin of this world!" and slams his flail into the creature, muscles bulging as the head of his flail literally whistles through the air before impacting on the body of the creature. It is hurt, but left alive.

Siriel sees the drider going after Aipoc draws back and quickly fires an arrow at the thing, she's amazed at how the thing doesn't even seem to flinch from her arrow piercing it's body.

Trysta is rather unhappy at the moment--thankfully the drider was left for her to take aggressions out on. The human swings mightily and strikes it right in the side, opening up a nasty gash that spills bug blood about the ground. Another powerful swing opens the wound even larger which causes most of its yummy organs to flop out and kill it.

From above come the guttural sounds of chanting in Infernal, the air around Trysta seems to get thick then go back to normal. there is a curse from above.

Arvilli looks up at the stalactite with the Drider still clinging onto the side of it. "Find that funny? Try this on for size." He then reaches into the spell component pouch and pulls out some butter. He smears it on his hands, and starts gesturing and chanting. The butter vanishes when done and appears on the side of the pillar as magical grease. However, it manages to keep its grip on the stalactite. "Move now, scum."

Tikk growls and points her finger at the drider up above the group. As soon as Arvilli casts grease she frowns and thinks for a moment. Her finger comes up, and shouts out. "Freeze!" a Ray of frost comes from her fingers and shoots up at it. It really wasn't to hurt it, oh no, it was rather to try to get it to move down...which it doesn't.

Without pausing, the half-orc glances around the room and shifts his flail to his shield hand, bending over he scoops up a softball sized rock and swinging from the hips arcs it up through the air, slamming the drider in the chest, hurting it, but not dislodging the creature. A wicked smile crosses his lips and he says, "Thus we have the proverbial sitting duck."

Siriel watches the efforts of everyone else and shrugs taking aim at the drider still on the ceiling, she doesn't know if she startled it or knocked it off balance but her shot seems to make it fall from the ceiling landing with a thunk on the cavern room floor.

The woman pulls back as she's nearly landed on and promptly swings, hitting the Drider, and leaving its stomach gaping. Another swing and it opens completely but not before the monster manages to bite her.

Falling from the heights and landing hard the drider swings viciously at Trysta who happened to be in front of it missing both times, it then bites her hard enough to leave a mark injecting her with poison, which she resisted all this at the same time as being slaughtered like a fattened pig by her swords.

As the Last Drider dies the sound of a door slamming shut is heard and the glow coming from the archway disappears, there is no sign that the archway was ever there.

Arvilli blinks at that, and then scratches his head for a moment. "Well, I wonder where the door led..." He then tilts his head and frowns.

Aipoc slumps to the ground, exhaustion overtaking him. Glancing at the others he says, "I suggest we perhaps rest here before trying to find the archway or its source."

Tikk starts to search, right away, Looking and piling all loot into the center of the room. She moves to flop over after wards and lets out a tired sigh, "I think I could sleep for a few days." she remarks looking rather worse for wear.

"I think we should all go back and return when we're better prepared. And someone who can find traps is with," says Trysta.

Arvilli looks bruised and punctured himself, but able to stand, and able to ignore it for the most part. "Yes, the doorway is gone now. It vanished. It might return again, but not for a while."

Siriel walks quietly to where the large half orc has slumped over and rests her hand on his shoulder as she mutters under her breath as her fingertips glow green for a moment as she touches him.

Aipoc jerks upright when he feels the tingle of strange magics, and his arm draws back to swing his flail as the elf casts her spell. He realizes what she's doing at the last moment and just slumps back to the floor, wordless for the moment.

Siriel turns and walks away from the slumping half orc not expecting any thanks and walks towards the crevice to the tunnel.